> 8-Bit Pony
>  by Dawn Flower
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Y’know what we should do?” Fighter said to Black Mage as he walked away from the job request board.

“Oh, this’ll be good. What? What should we do?” Back Mage responded as he walked away towards the forest, to put as much distance between himself and the mud town that they were currently at (and possibly Fighter) as fast as possible.

Fighter answered while he caught up with Black Mage. “We never did find that Armor of Invincibility…”

Black Mage suddenly stopped in his tracks at the edge of the forest as Fighter finished speaking. For several seconds, Black Mage just stood there in silence, looking down at the ground. Fighter caught up with him soon and stopped just behind him.

“Oh Gods, not this again.” Black Mage facepalmed. After a beat, he turned around to face Fighter. “I thought we were long passed this stupid plot point.”

Black Mage then raised both arms into the air in a hammy tone. “Since when do we even have a sense of continuity anyway? Everyone knows that it’s entirely superfluous and serves no useful purpose.

“Besides, didn’t you already find the stupid Armor of Invincibility ages ago and subsequently forget about it.” Black Mage concluded, lowering his arms again.

“Silly, Black Mage,” Fighter responded in a tone of blissful ignorance. “That was the Armoire of Invincibility, not the Armor of Invincibility. Who would possibly be stupid enough to confuse two radically different things?”

*Beat*

“Besides, you can’t wear an Armoire.” Fighter spoke up again, tilting his head down as if in contemplation. “It’s way too big.” He looked up again. “And heavy. And there aren’t any sleeve or neck holds.”

Black Mage simply stared back at Fighter for several seconds, having been struck temporarily speechless by his stupidity.

“But that’s not… You didn’t…” Black Mage stuttered. He then brought his hand to his head to try and stop his brain from herniating itself.

A moment later, he turned to address Fighter again. "Y’know, that was my fault. I should know better than anyone at this point that trying to apply logic to you is like trying to walk by an orphanage without burning it to the ground with a fire spell and killing everyone inside.”

He then turned around, but continued speaking, placing his hands together as if he were casting a spell. “Watching the fire melt half of them, while the others are crushed to death by the weakened structural integrity of the building. ‘Why would the Gods be so cruel to us after we lost our parents?’ they’d say. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll see them again soon’ I’d tell them.”

“You done?” Fighter asked.

“For now.” Black Mage responded.
> 2.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, you were saying?” Black Mage spoke up.

“Right, so, we need to find the Armor of Invincibility.” Fighter responded.

“Oh Gods, he’s still on it,” Black Mage whispered to himself. “And just where do you imply we start looking?" He spoke louder. Black Mage then started brandishing his knives. “And I swear to all of my Evil Gods if you say the Cave of No Return…”

“No way, BM; that’s totally last story. I have a whole new method now.”

“Oh joy.” Black Mage responded sarcastically. “And tell me, just what does that involve?”

“Simple. We use this.” Fighter then produced a small, spherical-shaped object in the palm of his hand.

Black Mage simply stared at the strange object. “That… What is that?”

“It’s a multi-dimensional cube, duh,” Fighter answered.

“Multi-dimensional… cube?” Black Mage said slowly, keeping his eyes on said object. He then looked up at Fighter again. “Fighter, will you stop being stupid and ugly. That’s obviously a sphere.”

“Actually, it’s a cube,” Fighter corrected, now holding the cube(sphere?) close to his chest. “But we see it as a sphere because we lack the extra-dimensional senses to perceive its true shape in our 8-bit world.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Black Mage suddenly cut him off, brandishing his knives again. “Through the divine intervention of whatever Dark God I obviously won the favour of, I am now finally free of Red Mage and his accursed logic bombs. The last thing I need now is for you to start sounding like him. That’s more idiot than the average human body can take. So kindly cut it out before I stab your face off. As opposed to any other reason that I would need to stab you. Like your own usual idiotic behaviour. Or boredom. Or no reason at all.”

Black Mage put his knives away again and looked back to Fighter. “Sorry, that kind of got away from me after ‘stab your face off’.”

“Stick to what you know!” Fighter yelled, with both of his arms in the air. “Focus, man. Focus.”

“Yes, you’re right. How could I have been so stupid?” Black Mage asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, that’s my job.” Fighter answered, his hands back at his sides now.

Black Mage then fell on his face due to sheer stupidity.

“What?” Fighter deadpanned.
> 3.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you okay?” Fighter asked Black Mage as he picked himself up again.

“For now.” Black Mage answered, getting back to his feet. “Please continue with what you were saying before I quickly come to regret it.”

“Right, so, the multi-dimensional cube…” Fighter continued.

“Yes, the multi-dimensional cube.” Black Mage rubbed his head again as he felt another stupidity-induced migraine coming on. His big, bulgy, yellow eyes then suddenly snapped open in realization. “Wait a minute. Where did you even get that thing anyway?”

“Oh that’s easy. I traded an old man the thousand gold that we got from our last job for it.”

After a moment of complete silence between them, Black Mage spoke up again, in a straight tone of voice. “Are you by any chance referring to the job we took last week?”

“Yes.”

“The job that we took because we literally had no gold at the time and needed the money?”

“Yes.”

“The job that paid exactly one thousand gold?”

“Yes.”

“So now we once again have no money for basic necessities, i.e. food?”

“Yes.”

Black Mage then started brandishing his knives again. “And of course you are fully aware that you answering my questions is the only thing keeping you alive right now?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then please continue before you become all too familiar with stabbity death.”

“Sure thing, best buddy.” Fighter replied innocently.
> 4.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Like I was saying, this is a multi-dimensional cube.” Fighter said.

“Please stop saying that.” Black Mage said with an irritated look on his face.

Fighter just continued speaking, completely unaware of Black Mage’s hostile attitude. “According to the old man that I got it from, all you have to do is throw it, and then it will create a portal to anywhere in this dimension, or any other dimension, that leads to whatever you want most in the world.”

“Uh, huh,” Black Mage said. If you could see his face, then before being driven insane, you would see that he looked sceptical. “And… what? You just throw that cube…” He spoke the last word with an inflection to voice his disdain. “… and it will create a magic portal that will somehow lead us to the thing that we want more than anything in the world?" He then paused for a moment before continuing. “And that seems reasonable to you?”

Fighter suddenly raised his arms and his voice as he spoke. “Well what do you think is going to happen? We go through the portal and instead of leading us to the Armor of Invincibility, we instead end up in a completely different world, because deep down in my heart, what I really want more than anything, instead of the Armor of Invincibility, is the friendship between you and me, that I cherish and secretly know that you despise, and want you to learn the true meaning of friendship so that we can grow closer? That’s just absurd.”

“Well obviously.” Black Mage agreed. “Even a moron like you can see that. Now hurry up and throw the ball.”

“Multi-dimensional cube.” Fighter corrected.

“Right, multi-dimensional cube.” Black Mage said, rubbing the back of his head again.
> 5.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, let’s light this candle.” Black Mage said enthusiastically, with his arms in the air.

“Multi-dimensional cube.” Fighter corrected him.

“Right… that.” Black Mage said begrudgingly, his patience growing dangerously thin. “Just throw it.”

Fighter then reared back and threw the cube sphere whatever, as hard as he could. The whatever collided with the trees at the edge of the forest, and as soon as it made contact with the trees, a big, shimmering portal appeared in its place.

The portal was spherical in appearance. It was a bit wavy around the edges as it shimmered in place. The portal was white, with small waves of all the colours of the rainbow within it, and was about five trees wide. It appeared on the borders of the forest with a ‘Poit’ sound.

“Poit?” Black Mage questioned. “What kind of sound effect is that?”

“Well we are in a fanfiction now, as opposed to a sprite comic, so there are going to be a few noticeable differences.” Fighter commented.

Black Mage turned around and immediately started brandishing his knives threateningly at his teammate stabbing dummy. “Fighter, what have I told you about breaking the fourth wall?”

“Don’t do it?”

“Atta boy.” Black Mage said, lowering his knives again. “Now, let’s go through that portal.” He then turned back around again and started running towards the portal.

“You certainly seem more into it now.” Fighter said as he ran alongside him.

“Well it occurred to me that if this thing really sends you to what you want most, and another dimension, then there’s a chance that it will lead to a dimension of hot, sexy, naked White Mages, who all want to get it on with me for some hot mage-on-mage action.” Black Mage said as he ran. “Of course, knowing our luck and your stupidity, it could also send us to a dimension of rabid bloatflies that will slowly eat us alive, whilst we are fully aware and conscious the whole time, condemning us to suffer for all eternity in the most agonizing way possible. Either way, it’s better than what I have now, so shut up and hurry up.”

“Right behind you, buddy.”

“Shut up.”

The two of them then leapt into the portal. They disappeared into it immediately, and the portal closed behind them.
> 6.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another portal opened up inside of a forest somewhere, and Fighter and Black Mage were thrown out of it haphazardly and landed square on their faces. As soon as they were both out, the portal disappeared as instantaneously as it appeared, leaving the whole area silent.

Several minutes went by with the two of them just lying face down in the dirt. They were so still that there was no indication that they were even still alive or not. Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace. The entire forested area was completely silent.

“I taste mud.” Fighter finally spoke.

“Shut up,” Black Mage responded.
> 7.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright then,” Black Mage said, while standing back up and dusting off his mage robes. “First things first, we need to find out if that portal really took us to another dimension, and if so, then we need to figure out where we are.”

“Of course we came to another dimension, Black Mage!” Fighter shouted out, with his arms in the air. “It’s obvious.”

“Oh really,” Black Mage spoke, his words dripping with sarcasm. “And just how is it so obvious that a device that no one has ever heard of before, that you bought from a most-likely shifty old man, for all of the money we had has transported us out of the dimension in which we have lived our entire lives, and flung us into a world that we cannot even begin to comprehend because nothing like this has ever been attempted before?”

“Duh, Black Mage; we’re in a forest now.”

Fighter simply stared back at him after he had finished speaking. Black Mage simply stared back at Fighter as well, with unbridled fury in his eyes, though with a calm and reserved look on his face. “My hatred for you is surpassed only by your stupidity.” Black Mage spoke in a surprisingly calm tone for what he just said.

“What do you mean by that?” Fighter asked, completely oblivious to the insult and obvious declaration of how much he hates him.

Black Mage furrowed his eyebrows and threw his arms up into the air. “We were just on the outskirts of a forest! For all we know, the portal we jumped through was just a hologram and we literally jumped through it.” He then gestured to the line of trees to screen their left. “That stupid mud town with their SOLDIER’s and pilgrimages and Shadowlords are probably just on the other side of that group of foliage.”

“No way, BM. We’re totally in another dimension now.” Fighter responded, completely ignoring everything Black Mage just said.

Black Mage squinted his eyes as much as he possibly could and was literally shaking with rage. “Enlighten me.” He spoke slowly, through his teeth.

Fighter threw his arms up into the air again. “Because we jumped through a portal and now we’re in a forest! Geez, do I have to draw you a diagram?”

*Snap* (That was Black Mage’s patience.)

“That’s it. It’s murdering time.” Black Mage then took out his knife and moved closer to Fighter. He brought up his knife and was about to bring it down on Fighter’s meaty body, (and no doubt fail to get through his armor, just like every other time he tried to kill him) when suddenly they heard some rustling in the nearby bushes.

They both turned to look at what it was, and they saw…

A pony. Dun, dun, dunnnn.

It was a unicorn stallion, with a dark blue coat and a short black mane. His horn was sharp at the tip, instead of rounded, and his cutie mark was a multi-coloured cherry blossom.

After a moment of silence, and an awkward look from all three of them, the unicorn finally spoke. “Hey there.”
> 8.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What in the ten thousand Hells is that thing?” Black Mage retorted, staring at the unicorn stallion in front of him.

“Awww, little thing’s kinda cute.” Fighter followed up.

The unicorn stallion regarded them both strangely. It quickly looked between them, and looking them both up and down, while trying to figure out just what these strange things are. “So… what are you guys supposed to b…”

“It talks!” Fighter interrupted him, his arms spread high in the air. “That’s so awesome. Can I ride it?”

Black Mage turned back around to face Fighter. “No Fighter. You can’t ride it. You have no idea where it’s been.”

Fighter then looked down at his feet, dejected. “Awww, man. You don’t let me ride ponies, crimes against nature, or hobos or anything. You’re no fun.”

“Please be quiet while I try to figure this out.” Black Mage then turned back around to look at the unicorn in front of him. “Now then,” he started. “The logical explanation here is that we have been transported to another dimension; one in which ponies are the dominant species, but are different from the types of ponies that we have back in our dimension, and probably have access to forms of magic that we have never known before.”

When he was finished speaking, he then turned back around to face Fighter. “What do you think of that theory, Fighter?”

Fighter simply stared back at him for several seconds before responding. “How many times have you turned around now?”
> 9.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, now we need to take this slowly and analyse every step carefully if we’re going to do this right.” Black Mage said to Fighter.

“Wow, just look at him.” Fighter said with his arms up in the air, completely ignoring what Black Mage just said. “He’s so cleanly made. He must be at least a hundred bits.”

Black Mage immediately facepalmed and then looked back up to face him. “Fighter, stop being so stupid. We’ve already been over this. The Gods themselves are made up of sixteen bits, so there is nothing that can occupy any alleged higher realms than that.”

“But we can see him up close right now and he’s so clear. You can’t even see the bits that he’s no doubt made of.” Fighter countered.

Black Mage raised his finger to his mouth in thought. “Hmm, you might have a point despite being stupid.” He then looked up at Fighter again. “I believe that there is only one logical explanation to this.” He then turned back around and gestured toward the blue unicorn. “This almighty being, whatever it is, is clearly a God’s God’s God.”

“Well, actually…” The unicorn stallion tried to butt in.

Black Mage turned back towards Fighter… again. “He probably possesses powers the likes of which our feeble mortal minds cannot hope to comprehend…”

“If you’d just let me cut in here…” the unicorn tried again.

“The only reason that we continue to draw breathe is simply because he finds our existence humorous, and would like for us to provide him with entertainment to help fill up his eternal and probably boring life.”

“I really only need a few words…” the unicorn tried to interject.

“It will most likely involve humiliating and degrading acts performed by us, that will ultimately end with our souls being very painfully ripped from our bodies, forcing us into eternal servitude to this Dark God’s God’s God.”

The unicorn was about to say something, but then Fighter cut him off. “But why would he go through all of that work?” Fighter questioned. “Couldn’t he just enslave us right now?”

“Oh, Fighter. Oh poor, stupid, naïve, stupid Fighter. It is simply the way that these twisted beings work. They give you the illusion of a choice, thinking that you may one day win your freedom, or that they may be generous enough to grant you a speck of power in exchange for your time serving them, all so that they can crush your spirit in the end by revealing that they never planned to let you go at all, and that you spent your last moments willingly ended up losing your life, not in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense, and also in the literal sense.”

“Wow, that’s pretty messed up.” Fighter looked down as he spoke.

“Yes, I know.” BM then turned back around (Oh, God’s God’s God) again to face the unicorn stallion. “Well then, we should probably get started. No use in dragging this out.”

“Actually, like I tried to say before, I’m not a God. I’m a pony; a unicorn to be exact. Welcome to Equestria.”
> 10.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“BM, did you hear that?” Fighter exclaimed, with his arms up in the air. “He’s a pony. We found the Madpony that RM once told us about (in a filler comic). If we kill it, we can get experience.”

Black Mage turned around to address Fighter’s insane ramblings. “While I’m usually all for killing and taking any opportunity to indulge in my favourite hobby, we should take things slowly in case he really is a God, trying to bait us and rends the flesh from our bones as soon as we attempt an attack.”

“But of course this thing isn’t really a God, Black Mage,” Fighter countered. "It’s a pony. What kind of self-respecting grown man would worship a pony?”

*Cough*

“Enough of this! Let me think!” Black Mage shouted out. He then turned to face the unicorn, and then looked down in thought.

“Now let’s see, from what I know of God’s is that they are higher level, non-temporal beings, that exist on a plane of existence so much higher than us mortal folk, that our entire human history is but a blink of the eye to them, and possess so much power that they could end our pitiful existence with but a thought, and they generally aren’t affected at all by mass stabbings to the head.” He then looked up and drew his knife. “Therefore…”

Black Mage brought his knife down on the poor unicorn, stabbing him in the head, his knife going right into its brain. The next second, the unicorn fell over dead.

“Okay, he’s not a God.”
> 11.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay,” Black Mage started, facing Fighter, while gesturing to the dead unicorn corpse behind him. “We’ve got a dead body just lying around in the middle of the forest, and the authorities will no doubt send out search teams soon to find and apprehend the monsters responsible and sentence them to a karmic and justified death. I don’t know, or care about you, but I want to be as far away from here as possible when they get here, so let’s proceed to run away from here like scared little forest elves.”

“Y’goiven.”

The next moment, Black Mage suddenly found himself being lifted up, and when he opened his eyes, he was hanging from a nearby tree, in far more pain than it looked like.

As soon as he realized what had happened, Black Mage suddenly looked from side to side, and started thinking about what just happened. “Well let’s see now: I said the words ‘scared little forest elves’ and now I’m hanging by my underwear, from a low hanging tree branch, and…” He quickly patted the pockets of his robes. “Yep, my wallet’s gone too. Clearly there is only one explanation for what just happened. Fighter?”

“Yo.”

“Thief is somehow standing just behind me right now, isn’t he?” Black Mage predicted.

“No,” Fighter responded. “Actually there’s no one there at all.”

*Beat*

“Oh, he’s good.” Black Mage said. “He doesn’t even have to be in the same world as me to screw me over. Oh well; Captain Stupid?”

“Yo.” Fighter responded again.

“Come over here and cut me down.”

“Sure thing, buddy.” Fighter walked over to the tree, unsheathed his sword and cut BM down from the branch that was holding him.

“Thanks.” Black Mage said, picking himself up. He then turned to the left side of the screen, and then turned his head back to face Fighter. “Alright, now to pick up from where I left off; let’s start running away from here.”

“Like scared little forest elves!” Fighter suddenly blurted out, with his arms up in the air.

Suddenly Black Mage was tripped up and fell face first to the forest floor. “Oh now that’s just not fair.”
> 12.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fighter and Black Mage made their way through the forest, with Fighter out in front. After what felt like fourteen days since he had last spoken, Black Mage finally spoke up again. “We’re lost. You realise that, right?”

“No we’re not,” Fighter responded simply, not stopping or turning around to face him.

“We’ve been walking around this forest for hours, with no sign of life or any way out,” Black Mage said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t worry, BM. I know exactly where we’re going.”

“Oh joy,” Black Mage said sarcastically. “And just how do you know that exactly?”

“Well,” Fighter started, stopped walking and gestured towards the ground. “About an hour ago, I found these tracks left by a couple of other guys. So all we have to do is follow these until…”

“No.” Black Mage interrupted him.

“Excuse me?” Fighter uttered, turning around to face him.

“Nope, sorry, we’re not doing this. This is exactly how our last adventure started, and I will not, repeat, will not let you or anything else allow anything to happen that will cause something like that to happen again.”

“But didn’t you already agree for us to search for the Armor of Invincibility, which is exactly what started off our last adventure in the first place?” Fighter countered.

“Shut up,” Black Mage retorted. He then stepped out ahead of Fighter. “Now one side, idiot. I’m taking command of getting us out of this weird, creepy forest from here.”

“What are you going to do?” Fighter asked.

“Simple,” Black Mage answered, turning back around to face him. “I’m going to pick a direction at random, and then just keeping walking straight until we reach the edge of the forest.”

“Wouldn’t that be very risky and incredibly dangerous?” Fighter asked him again.

“Meh, maybe,” Black Mage told him, while turning back around and started walking away. “But we’ll still have a better chance than if you were leading us, that’s for sure.”

“Phooey.”
> 13.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fighter and Black Mage continued trekking through the thick foliage of the forest. “Are we there yet?” Fighter suddenly asked out of nowhere, as they continued moving along.

“Well, we’re still in the forest.” Black Mage started. “Do you happen to see a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel?”

Fighter stared at the back of Black Mage’s head as they continued walking, briefly looked down at the ground for a few seconds, and then looked back up to face him again. “Wait, is that a trick question?”

“Touché, I think.” Black Mage responded. “And to answer your first question, no, we’re not there yet.”

“Oh, okay,” Fighter responded. After another few seconds, he then looked down at the ground again for a moment as he walked, and then looked back up again. “Where are we going again?”

“Ugghh,” Black Mage sighed and raised his hand to his head before responding. “We came to this dimension to search for the Armor of Invincibility you’ve been looking for. You’d think even he would remember something like that.” He whispered under his breath. “So, we’ll search everywhere we can find, or at least in several places, and then hightail it back to our own world… through the…” He suddenly started to slow down towards the end, until he stopped completely.

BM then stopped walking and turned around to face Fighter. “That reminds me, where is that stupid, multi-dimensional cube that you used to get us here, anyway? Last thing I remember, it disappeared when it created the portal that sent us here, and I haven’t seen it since.”

“Well duh, Black Mage!” Fighter shouted out, with his arms in the air. “I had to use the multi-dimensional cube in order to make the portal.” He then lowered his arms again. “You know sometimes you’re not very smart.”

After a beat, Black Mage suddenly spoke up again. “Given the situation, I’m going to give you a free pass on that remark, if only so that I don’t go off on a tangent and then subsequently forget about that rather important piece of information.” He then looked down and cupped his hands together. “Of course, once this matter is cleared up, rest assured that I shall devote plenty of time to coming up with an agonizing torture for you as retribution for that little remark.”

BM then looked back towards Fighter again. “But getting back on topic, you’re saying that you don’t still have, or have another multi-dimensional cube?”

“Nope,” Fighter responded simply.

“Well then how do you propose that we get back to our own dimension?!” Black Mage shouted out, throwing his arms up in the air.

Fighter simply stared back at Black Mage, with a blank look on his face (even more so than usual) for several seconds, and then looked down and started scratching at the back of his head. “Oh, well, you see, the thing about that is…” He then looked back up again. “Oh look, there’s the exit up ahead.” Fighter then walked passed Black Mage and proceeded towards a bright light through a large opening just ahead of them.

“Hey, wait a minute, get back here. You never answered my question.” He then ran after Fighter. “This is actually important!”

The two of them stepped out of the canopy of trees and stood on the edge of the forest. Right in front of them was a dirt path that led into a small town in the distance. Just to their left there was a small cottage.

The two of them both stood on the edge of the forest, in silence, taking in their new surroundings. “Well, here we are, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal. We finally made it out of the forest.” Fighter spoke up.

“You do realise that you never answered my question?”

“Yeah, the world is full of mysteries like that.”

Black Mage just growled at him in response.

“So, where should we go from here?” Fighter asked his supposed best friend.

Black Mage raised his hand up to his mouth in thought. “Well, on the one hand, the town straight ahead of us most likely has a market, in which we can acquire another multi-dimensional cube, so that we can get back to our own dimension, instead of spending the rest of our lives in a foreign world we know nothing about.”

He then threw his arms up into the air, with an annoyed and angry look on his face. “However, on the other hand, it’s been entirely too long since I killed something, and cottages on the outskirts of town, right next to creepy and sinister forests are usually great places to kill people, where their deaths will never be discovered, so let’s go!”

The two of them then proceeded towards the cottage.
> 14.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fighter and Black Mage walked over towards the cottage, with Black Mage leading. When they reached the door, BM knocked three times.

About five seconds later, the door opened and a butter yellow pegasus, with a flowing, pink mane, and butterflies for a cutie mark appeared in the doorframe.

After Fluttershy had opened the door, she saw two strange creatures that she had never seen before, and she regarded them strangely. They were two bipedal creatures, one wearing a blue robe and a hat that obscured his face, and the other wore a set of armor.

They also looked kind of fuzzy around the edges, almost like they were badly rendered. She took one step closer and squinted her eyes to try and make them out more clearly. The two of them just stood there while she did that.

After she was done looking at them, she took a step backwards and finally spoke up. “Uhhmm, hello…” She said very quietly.

“BM, look, another pony!” Fighter shouted out, with his arms in the air, cutting her off. He then lowered his arms again. “And this one’s even cuter than the last one,” he added, with a small blush on his face.

Upon hearing this, Fluttershy suddenly snapped out of her shy state, and her cheeks became as red as the Sun as she blushed in embarrassment, and her wings suddenly snapped up at her sides. “Uhhmm… th-thank you,” she stuttered out, before hiding behind her mane.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Black Mage said, waving Fighter off, but not looking at him. “Look, I’m just gonna get straight to the point.” BM said to Fluttershy. “We’re lost, in desperate need of finding a way back home, and I’m in a really bad mood. So tell me exactly what I want to hear, and make it quick before you become all too familiar with stabbity death.” He then ended by raising one hand into the air, over his head.

Fluttershy was very confused at this person’s tone and his words. She then peaked out from behind her mane again and stared inquisitively at him. “Uhhmm, excuse me, but… uhhmm, is there a particular reason why you’re waving your empty hand at me?”

After hearing what this pony just said, Black Mage suddenly took a closer look at his hand, and he saw that it was indeed empty. He then turned back around and whispered to himself, “Dammit, I seem to have left my knife back with that pony in the forest.”

“Uhhmm, what was that?” Fluttershy spoke, having heard what he said. “You gave a knife to a pony in the forest?” She asked inquisitively.

Black Mage simply stood there for a moment in silence. He then turned back around to face her. “In the sense that hitting someone with a fireball gives them a spell, then yes, I gave a pony a knife.”

There was another awkward moment of silence before Fluttershy spoke up again. “I… I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

“Good, then let’s move on.”
> 15.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, look,” Black Mage started. “Long story short, my partner here is an idiot…”

“Yo.” Fighter chimed in.

“And because of his stupidity,” Black Mage continued on. “We’re now stranded in an alien world, with no way of getting back to our own dimension. Now, this goes against everything that I stand for, and the tragic loss of my stabbing knife makes this even worse, but… will you help us?”

“I see.” Fluttershy said, taking in everything that they had just said, with the same expression on her face that she gave Rarity when she needed her help ‘borrowing’ several tapestries from the Princesses old castle. She then raised her hoof to her mouth in thought. “Well, a friend of mine knows a lot about all sorts of different magic. Maybe she can help you find your way back home.” She said, lowering her hoof again.

“Well, at this point I’ll try anything,” Black Mage deadpanned. “Lead the way, butterfly butt.”

Fluttershy again blushed in embarrassment. “Uhhmm, it’s Fluttershy,” she said in an almost annoyed tone. Even she was having a hard time tolerating these two; or at least the one in the hat.

“Yeah, and once again, I don’t care!” Black Mage yelled, with his arms in the air. “Now start walking, sweet cheeks.” He ushered her out, his arms now back at his sides.

After rolling her eyes in a contemptuous manner, and sighing deeply, Fluttershy then stepped out of her cottage, closed the door behind her, walked past the two of them and started walking off towards Ponyville. Fighter and Black Mage then followed after her.

“Well… that seemed to go… surprisingly smoothly.” Fighter said while they were walking along.

“Yes. Yes it did.” Black Mage commented.

“I’m scared.” Fighter uttered.

“You should be, Fighter. You should be.”
> 16.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy walked through Ponyville, with Black Mage and Fighter following close behind her. Some of the local ponies gave them strange looks at first, but they didn’t focus on them for long, just assuming that they were some strange new creatures that the yellow pegasus was caring for.

While they were walking along, Black Mage looked around at the town; at the colourful ponies, buildings, and the little fillies and colts, running around, playing with each other.

“Man, this place is so girly and froufou-y. I am going to have to kill a lot of orphans to get my mojo back once this is all over.” BM muttered. Fortunately, Fluttershy wasn’t able to hear that comment.

As they continued walking through the town, Fluttershy saw a purple alicorn speaking with a cyan pegasus, a white unicorn, and a pink earth pony, just up ahead. She then smiled widely and called out to them, while waving in their direction. “Hey!” She then started galloping towards them.

The four ponies all turned towards her and smiled. “Hey there, Fluttershy.” The purple alicorn said, with a smile on her face. She then saw two strange creatures walk up behind her pegasus friend, and she shifted her attitude to a more curious one. “Who are these two, Fluttershy?” She asked inquisitively.

Fluttershy stopped inches away from her friends, with Fighter and Black Mage just behind her. All four of her friends were now focused on her and the two behind her. With a smile on her face, she started explaining herself. “I met these two over at my cottage.” She then stepped to the side to point at them. “They said that they’re from another world, and they need help getting back there.”

“Uh huh,” Twilight said, nodding her head towards the two of them. “And what are their names?” She asked, turning towards Fluttershy again.

Fluttershy suddenly dropped her smile. “Oh, I’m not sure.” She then turned towards the two of them again, but before she could say anything, Fighter then stepped forward.

“For-sooth, yon ponies of the colourful variety. Prithee are names be Fighter and Black Mage.”

“Fighter, you know I’m always creeped out when you start talking like that.” Black Mage said, turning to face him. When he was finished, he then turned back towards the ponies. “So, yeah, we’re Fighter and Black Mage. I trust it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s who?” He said, sarcastically.

Upon hearing this, Pinkie placed her hoof to her mouth and pursed her lips. “So are you Fighter?” She asked, pointing to Black Mage, with an innocent smile on her face.

Black Mage simply stared back at her for a moment. “Okay, maybe it does.”

While Rarity and Rainbow Dash were still confused about what was going on, Twilight stepped forward to talk to them directly. “So… Fighter and Black Mage? Those are some pretty strange names.” She said with a weak smile on her face.

“Oh, you ponies are one to talk,” Black Mage retorted. “What with this shy pony here with the butterfly tattoo, named ‘Fluffershy’.” Gesturing to Fluttershy with his hand, but not facing her.

“Uhhmm, it’s Fluttershy,” Fluttershy whispered back to him.

“I know what your name is!” Black Mage responded, still not facing her, lowering his arm again. Still facing Twilight, he then continued with what he was saying. “In fact, I bet I can take one look at you guys and correctly guess what your names are.”

“All right then. Go ahead.” Twilight challenged him.

“All right, I will.” BM accepted. He then turned to the side to face the pink earth pony with the poofy, pink mane, and stared at her intently. “Hmmm.” He said, with his finger to his lips. “Poofy Pink?” He guessed.

“Nope, it’s Pinkie Pie,” she responded in a cheerful tone, nodding her head gently, with a big smile on her face. She then started hopping up and down, on the spot.

Black Mage was already beginning to dislike this pony, (at least more so than the others) but he just couldn’t put his finger on the reason why, right now.

“Alright then, now that that’s over, can we move on now?” Twilight spoke up.

“No, wait, hold on. Give me another chance.” Black Mage asked of her.

Twilight let out a sort sigh. “Alright.”

Black Mage then focused on Twilight next, trying to figure out what her name might be. “Star Butt?”

“Okay, I’m not even going to say how insulting I find that, but can we please move on now. I wanna hear more about what exactly it is you want from us.”

“No, no, no. Look, just give me one more chance. I’m sure I can get it this time.” Black Mage begged.

Twilight rolled her eyes in frustration. It was amazing how quickly he was getting on her nerves. “Alright, one more chance.” She said sourly.

Black Mage then turned to face the cyan pegasus, with the rainbow coloured mane, and focused on her intently. After about two panels five seconds, he finally spoke up and made a guess. “Rainbow Dash?”
> 17.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright then, moving on… finally,” Twilight muttered that last word quietly to herself.

“Lucky guess.” Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath, just behind Black Mage.

“Anyway…” Twilight started again, sounding a bit annoyed. She had had just about enough of these silly interruptions. Here were two creatures that she had never seen or heard of before, right in front of her, even directly asking for her help, and she still wasn’t learning anything new about them. Placing a hoof to her forehead to steady her thoughts, she continued on. “You too came to this world from your own world, but don’t have any way of getting there on your own, is that right?”

“Yup, that’s about right,” Black Mage confirmed for her. “You can thank my friend’s idiocy for that.” He said, gesturing towards Fighter, behind him.

“I like swords.” Fighter suddenly said out of nowhere.

“I like cake.” Pinkie Pie also said out of nowhere, popping up beside Fighter.

Fighter then turned around to face Pinkie Pie upon hearing this.

"Y’know, one of the best things about swords, other than the fact that they’re shiny, is that there’s so many different kinds of them. There’s flamberges, cutlasses, rapiers, gladiuses, katanas, longswords, falchions, scimitars…”

“And there are so many different types of cake, like chocolate cake, vanilla cake, marble cake, red velvet cake, lemon cake, carrot cake, fruit cake, pound cake, pumpkin cake, cupcakes…” Pinkie went on, as she quickly hopped up and down on the spot as she spoke, like she was on a huge sugar high (which she most likely is).

Black Mage simply stared at the mind numbing conversation going on right next to him, along with everypony else, his eyes suddenly going wide. “Oh, dear, sweet, hopefully-merciful, evil Gods; there’s two of them.” The remaining ponies then all looked at him strangely when they heard him say that.

“Well, that’s it. I’m done.” He said as he threw both of his hands in the air. “I’m gonna choke on my endless, seething rage now.” He then turned around to face Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Rarity. “On the off chance that you creatures are even the slightest bit merciful, please do absolutely nothing to help me.

“Ghkk!”

Black Mage then collapsed on the ground.

Twilight blinked. “What just happened?” She then walked over to where BM fell.

“Kinda sounded like he said ‘Gak’.” Pinkie Pie suddenly said out of nowhere again. She then clenched her front hoof and looked serious. “He knows.”

Twilight, as usual, just ignored Pinkie’s randomness, and turned to address the others. “Again, what just happened?”

Looking over at Twilight briefly, Rainbow Dash then knelt down besides Black Mage to inspect his body. “I think his tongue just went down his throat.”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes.” Fighter chimed in.
> 18.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Black Mage opened his eyes again, he was standing up, with Pinkie Pie inches away from his face. If he still had his trusty stabbing knife, he would have resolved this breach of his personal space the same way he solves all his problems: by stabbing them repeatedly.

However, seeing as how he was sadly lacking his favourite stabbing implement, Stabby Jr. (named so because he acquired it by breaking Fighter’s sword, Stabby), he instead simply took a step back, away from the pink pony.

He then placed his hand up to his mouth in thought. “Well, let’s see. I’m standing up, breathing, and still surrounded by you idiots, which means there’s about an 80% chance that I’m still alive.”

“Yeppers, that’s right,” Pinkie answered him, with a happy smile on her face.

“I see.” BM said, looking up. He then pointed at Pinkie with both hands. “Didn’t I give you explicit instructions not to help me? Also, stop being happy.”

Pinkie scrunched up her face in response. “Well, actually you said that you didn’t want us to help you, and the way you said it implied that you wanted to die, so us helping you would mean that we’d help you die, but since you said you didn’t want us to help you, that means that you didn’t want us to help you die, which, by process of elimination, means that you wanted us to help you live, so I did.” She then started smiling widely again.

Black Mage simply stood there, speechless, pointing at her, then briefly turned his head around, looked down at the ground, placed both of his hands to his head to stop another migraine, and then faced her again.

“You know, I’d be more upset, but it’s really my own fault for not being specific enough. I should know by now that people like you and Captain McStupid, by which I mean Fighter, interpret everything in the stupidest way possible. Also, I told you to stop being happy.”

Pinkie just giggled and beamed in response. “Oh silly, asking me not to be happy is like asking you not to try and get back into Hell and try to take it over again.” She then closed her eyes and beamed brightly.

BM’s eyes suddenly shot open. “Wait a minute, how do you know about that?”

Pinkie just opened her eyes, lazily, and looked back at him, innocently. “Hmmm. What do you mean?”

Black Mage started trembling in anger, brought on by stupidity. He had become intimately familiar with the feeling throughout his life. “But you… that…” He stuttered. He then placed both of his hands against his head as he felt a terrible headache coming on. “I never thought I’d say this, but I want to talk to Fighter!”

“Hiya, best buddy.” Fighter appeared next to him, between BM and Pinkie Pie.

“I immediately regret my decision!” BM turned around towards Fighter, still holding his hands to his head.

Meanwhile, further to the side, Twilight huffed angrily. “If you’re all done, can we please move on already,” Twilight said, her left eye twitching, as her OCD was reaching critical levels.

“Please.” Black Mage begged, over the rambling that he was hearing from both sides.

Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy stood even further to the side. “We’re still here.” They all said together, to no one in particular.
> 19.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright then, moving on,” Twilight spoke up.

“Excuse me, Black Mage,” Rarity butted in.

“Oh for the love of Celestia!” Twilight shouted out.

Rarity, however, ignored Twilight’s outburst, and continued with what she was saying.

“You know, it’s awfully difficult to see your face with that hat on.” She gave him an inquisitive look, and then smiled brightly. “Why don’t you take it off?” She then reached with her hoof to take his hat off. “That way we can all see your….”

Black Mage immediately backed away from her, holding his hat down tightly against his head. “No, touch nothing, you fool! All my robes are booby trapped! You’ll kill us all!” BM shouted out.

“Really?” Fighter chimed in. “Because I could have sworn that that whole thing was all just about your low charisma.”

BM then turned around to face Fighter. “While that’s certainly one way to categorize it, I must defend my ego by saying that you’re wrong and also stupid. And also, shut up.”

Fighter then looked down at the ground, dejected, with a sad look on his face.

This act earned Black Mage hard glares from the surrounding ponies. “What?!” BM shouted out.

Twilight then stepped forward, staring down (yes, down) at Black Mage. “How can you treat your friend like that?” She asked in a condescending tone.

“Simple,” Black Mage replied back. “He says something stupid, and I tell him to shut up. That’s pretty much the Alpha and Omega of our dialogue trees.”

Twilight, however, just continued glaring down at him.

“Hey, he benefits from it too.” Black Mage continued, with his arms in the air. “The less he talks around me, the longer he’ll live.” There was then silence for a moment and he lowered his arms again, but then he put his hand to his mouth. “Wait a minute.”

“Still…” Twilight continued. “He is your friend. Don’t you believe in the magic of friendship?”

*Beat*

“Oh, I swear, if I hadn’t misplaced my stabbing knife, you’d be so stabbed right now.” BM said.

Everyone else in the group, except Fighter, who just stood there and didn’t move, all dropped their mouths in shock. Twilight, however, managed to keep a straight face.

“You are a horrible little creature and I pray for your swift and just end.” She commented.

“Thank you.” BM responded.
> 20.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight was now so angry, that her face was as red as Applejack’s cutie mark.

As much as Twilight didn’t want to associate with anyone as obviously and horrendously evil as Black Mage, right now, her urge to learn about everything and anything outweighed her common sense. Also, if she could get them back to their own world, then they wouldn’t have to deal with them here in this world. She was bound by the Laws of Harmony to do the right thing, even if it was for people like them.

Besides, Fighter at least didn’t seem so bad, if a bit stupid and random, but then again, no more than Pinkie; but still, two Pinkie Pie’s…

Twilight’s thoughts were driving her in circles, and she was starting to feel dizzy. She just shook her head to try and snap out of it.

Once she was ready to speak again, she stepped forward. “Now then…”

However, nobody was listening to her. Fighter and Pinkie were babbling about swords, cupcakes, and, trying to find a middle ground, how to weaponize cupcakes. Fighter also kept mentioning something called sword-chucks, but Twilight’s mind just couldn’t comprehend something so stupid.

Black Mage, meanwhile, was performing three duties: Trying to find some way to kill and Fighter and Pinkie Pie, without a knife and without blowing himself up at this range. Trying to push past Rainbow Dash, who was keeping him from doing just that, and at the same time, he was also trying to fight off Rarity’s advances when she tried to take off his hat, against his own warnings.

Twilight was, by this point, fuming in anger, and dangerously close to performing one of her infamous rage shifts.

“Enough!” Twilight shouted out, in an imitation of the Royal Canterlot Voice that would have made Princess Luna and the Dragonborn proud. Everyone else stopped what they were doing and turned to face her. “Can everyone please stop getting distracted by the most minor of things, and going off on tangents that lead nowhere, that take up all of our time, and ultimately accomplishes nothing?!”

“Welcome to my world,” Black Mage deadpanned.

With another glare from Twilight, BM and everyone else in the group fell completely silent. Someone coughed, but no one would dare own up to it.

A moment later, Twilight breathed deeply to try and calm herself, before continuing. “Now then,” Twilight spoke calmly and quietly. “Black Mage, Fluttershy said that you and Fighter came to this world and you have no way of getting back home to your own world, and you need our help. Is that right?”

“Well, if you just want to spell everything out simply…” Black Mage started.

This just got him another glare from the Princess of Friendship.

BM let out an annoyed sigh. “Yeah, that’s about it.” He said in a bored tone.

“Alright then,” Twilight said, with a much chipper attitude. She then brought her hoof to her mouth while she came up with a solution. “Well,” she started. “My new castle came stocked with a bunch of rare and powerful spells, that I haven’t had the chance to look through yet. Considering how advanced a dimension-hopping spell would be, there probably wouldn’t be a spell like just lying around, and since the castle came from the Tree of Harmony, there might be a spell there that can help. And if that doesn’t work, then we can always just ask Princess Celestia, and I’m sure that she would know what to do.” She then lowered her hoof again. “So, does that sound like a plan?”

The rest of the group just all looked between each other for a moment, and then just nodded back in affirmation, not wanting to get on her bad side.

Twilight beamed in response, and was glad that they were being so reasonable. “Okay then, let’s go.”

Once everything was settled, the seven of them set off, towards the Friendship Castle.

As they walked together, Black Mage spoke up. “See, things are just boring when we play them straight.”

“Shut up.” Twilight cut him off.
> 21.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The seven of them made their way through Ponyville, walking in complete silence… Correction: walking in an uncomfortable silence. One of them would occasionally look around, but they wouldn’t say anything, and then someone else would step up and take their place. No one wanted to say something and risk getting blasted by Twilight.

“So, Black Mage, you’re a mage, right?” Twilight was the first to speak up, since she was the one least likely to harm… well, her, for speaking out of turn. “Does that mean that you know magic and different kinds of spells?”

Black Mage now looked interested. “Oh yeah, I know tons of spells.” He said in an uncharacteristically cheerful tone.

Twilight smiled. “Oh, that’s good. So, what kind spells do you…”

But Black Mage continued before she could finish. “I know fire spells for killing, bolt spells for killing, meteor spells for killing. Oh, and the Hadoken. That’s a great spell… for killing.”

The other ponies all gave him strange looks, except for Pinkie, and Fighter didn’t seem to notice anything strange, and just kept walking forward, beside his new pink friend.

Twilight then decided to speak up again. “Do you know any spells that aren’t used for killing?”

*Beat*

“Well?” She asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.” Black Mage replied, seriously unable to comprehend what she just said.

Twilight huffed angrily. “I mean any magic at all that isn’t specifically designed to hurt someone.”

“Well what would be the point of that?!” Black Mage exclaimed, with his arms in the air. “How can you even call it magic if one party isn’t suffering?” Black Mage then lowered his arms again. “Gods, you’re as bad as White Mage about this stuff, and you don’t have the sexiness to keep me interested.”

Twilight simply grounded her teeth in response. She’d probably have to schedule an appointment with her dentist later she had been grinding her teeth so much lately.

Twilight just tried her best to swallow her annoyance and sighed loudly. “Y’know, maybe we should just walk in silence.”

“My original point.” Black Mage said smugly, while he continued walking along.

Twilight just groaned again. Looks like she failed to swallow her annoyance.
> 22.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes later, after walking in silence, the seven of them eventually reached the Friendship Castle. They were now just outside the front door.

“Well, here we are.” Twilight said, as she stepped out in front of the group and gestured to the castle in front of them. She then turned to face Fighter and Black Mage. “What do you think?”

“Hmmm.” Black Mage said as he stared at the castle in front of him. He then brought his hand to his mouth. “Well let’s see: it’s completely out of place with the rest of the town, it takes up way more space than necessary, proportionally it makes no sense, and it’s sparkly. So yes, I’d say it would make the perfect playset for a five year old girl.” Black Mage concluded.

“Awesome!” Fighter exclaimed, with his arms in the air. “Where can I buy one?”

Black Mage simply looked down at the ground for a second, and then he turned back around to face Fighter. “Fighter, do me a favour and just stand there silently for about thirty seconds.” He said in a straight tone.

Fighter then lowered his arms again. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try to try.”

“Good boy. You do that.” Black Mage replied. He then struck a strange pose, and everyone was silent for thirty seconds; except for Pinkie Pie, who had suddenly disappeared.

While they were being silent, Twilight grimaced to herself. “This better not be another tangent.” She thought to herself.

When the thirty seconds were up, Black Mage spoke again. “Okay, there we go. I just activated a low level fire spell in your lungs. It’s been entirely too long since I tried to kill you, and I needed my fix.”

Fighter simply stared back at him strangely. “What exactly are you talking abou…” He then collapsed on the ground.

Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy all gasped, Pinkie Pie still wasn’t there, and Twilight, oddly enough, didn’t react at all. She must be getting used to them. She then had the harsh realization.

“There,” Black Mage started, pointing to the rest of the ponies, in front of him, except for Twilight, who was behind him. “Let that be a lesson to all of you about not crossing me, or I make your body explode.”

Rainbow Dash then stomped forward. “Oh yeah?” She spoke confidently. “Well the rest of us aren’t exactly stupid enough to just stand there while you do it.” She said in a tough tone of voice. “Except maybe Pinkie Pie.” She whispered under her breath. She then glared back at Black Mage again.

“Oh, you think you can take me, you rainbow-loving…” He then wracked his brain for a second, trying to come up with the right word. “Fillyfooler!” Black Mage challenged her.

Rainbow’s right eye twitched slightly, and then she suddenly raised the volume of her voice. “NOBODY CALLS ME A FILLYFOOLER!” She shouted out.

Black Mage was unimpressed by her outburst and just continued aggravating her. “Oh, really? Well bring it ooooooo……”

Before he could finish, however, Rainbow Dash then immediately yanked him by the arm and pulled him away into a clichéd, comic book style beat down, that took the form of a big ball of dust in the middle of the group, and beat him to a pulp, in a completely one sided fight, due to her anger-enhanced strength.

And Black Mage’s complete lack of physical strength.

Once Rainbow had had enough, she then tossed BM to the side, and he collapsed on the ground.

A few seconds later, he spoke up again, still face down in the dirt. “Okay, I had that coming. Apparently, it’s also been entirely too long since someone tried to kill me.”

Pinkie Pie then suddenly returned, with a big, pink box in her hooves. “Hey Fighter, I’ve got your…” She stopped mid-sentence and looked down at his body on the ground. “Oh, never mind.”
> 23.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, now that that’s over with…” Black Mage started, getting back to his feet.

“Hiya!” Fighter shouted out, behind him, now back to normal, back on his feet, with his arms raised high in the air, and a smile on his face.

“Oh, Goddammit!” Black Mage shouted to the heavens, still facing away from the idiot.

Twilight was now seriously confused. She then walked up beside Fighter to speak to him. She eyed him up and down, inquisitively, for a few seconds, before finally blurting out, “How are you still alive?!”

Fighter just stared back at her, with a blank look on his face. After about five seconds, (or one panel if you prefer? No? Okay then, five seconds it is.) he spoke up again. He simply said. “What do you mean?”

Twilight’s left eye was starting to twitch again. “What do I mean?” She almost screamed at him, almost being made angry by his sheer stupidity. “He just burned your lungs.” She stated matter-of-factly. “We all saw it. You had smoke coming out of your mouth and everything.” She then stomped down on the ground, hard. “How are you even breathing right now? This makes no sense.”

Somewhere far away, Discord sneezed.

“Oh, that’s okay.” Fighter replied, with a carefree attitude. “My brain doesn’t need much oxygen.”

Twilight just clenched her teeth and sighed in annoyance. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Fighter then smiled even brighter. “Yup. I’m a Drownball Champion.”

This made Twilight do a double take, and she snapped her eyes to attention. “Wh-what?” She stuttered. “How does that even…?” She tried her hardest to contemplate what he just said, trying to find some way, any logical way, by any of the infinite dimension’s physics, that that made sense, but no matter how she came at it, she just couldn’t think of anything. “Who would just choose to drown like that?” She rambled. “And where does the ball come in?” She started questioning.

“Okay,” Black Mage spoke up. “We’re getting off topic, and believe me, you don’t want to get into this.” He stated flatly.

Twilight was about to respond, but she stopped herself at the last moment. Who would have thought that Black Mage, of all people, would stop her, of all ponies, from going off on a tangent? (Hey reader, I asked you a question.)

“Good call.” Twilight said. “From now on, I’m going to remember what I learned from Pinkie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’, and I’m not going to question any of the impossible things that you two do, and just go with it.”

“Atta girl.” Black Mage responded casually.

She then sighed and placed her hoof to her head and massaged her temple. Her head seriously hurt now.

“Just… just get inside the castle before I change my mind about helping you, or I may have to temporarily forget about my Element of Harmony.”

And with that, they started entering the castle.

Finally.
> 24.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While she was walking into the castle, Fluttershy turned to face Rainbow Dash, who walked next to her. “Uhhmm, have you noticed that Twilight has been acting a bit differently ever since these two showed up?” The shy pegasus asked her athletic friend, gesturing with her head towards Fighter and Black Mage, behind them.

Rainbow just waved her off as they walked. “Meh, maybe. I don’t care.” She then just walked out ahead of here.

Fluttershy now had a look of confusion on her face. As she slowed down and Rarity caught up with her, she then turned to face her. She then asked the fashionista, “Do Twilight and Rainbow seem a bit different since these two showed up?”

When Rarity caught up with Fluttershy, she gave her a quick glance, and then thrust her head away to the side in a condescending manner. “Oh, so now you want to talk to me?” She asked sarcastically, in a harsh tone. She then walked ahead of the shy pegasus, without turning back to face her.

Fluttershy then stopped in place for a second to think. “I may have made a horrible decision.” She deadpanned, with her eyelids falling down halfway.

A moment later, she just continued walking forward, into the castle.

…

FINALLY!
> 25.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As everyone was walking into the Friendship Castle, Black Mage was at the back of the line.

When everyone else had stepped inside, a pegasus mare with a pink coat and a long, lime green mane tied back in a ponytail, suddenly walked by the castle, looking worried. Her cutie mark was of a lightning bolt splitting a cloud in half. When she spotted Black Mage, she walked up to him. “Uhhmm, excuse sir, but could you help me with something?”

Black Mage stopped just outside the door, responding without turning around to face her. “Errr… sorry, I’d love to help you, but unfortunately I don’t speak English.”

The pegasus mare just looked back at him, confused. “Uhhmm, what’s English?”

Black Mage then raised his hands up to his side. “Well, I’d explain, but as I said, I don’t speak English.” He said again, without facing her.

“Uhhmm, okay?” She then just looked down at the ground, distraught, but she kept talking. “Well you see, I’m looking for my boyfriend.”

“Oh Gods, she’s still going.” BM whispered under his breath.

“He went off earlier this morning to check out a strange sound he heard in the Everfree Forest, and he hasn’t come back yet.” She then lifted her head up again. “If you see him, I would be most appreciative if you let me know. He’s a unicorn, with a blue coat and black mane, and his cutie mark is a multi-coloured cherry blossom.”

Hearing this, Black Mage immediately spun around to face her. “Hey, that sounds exactly like someone I’ve never met before.” He said in a nervous tone.

“Oh, I’m just so worried about him,” she said, while looking over shoulder, completely ignoring what he was saying.

Looking back briefly to see the others walk into the castle, he thought to himself for a second, and then turned back to face the pegasus mare again. “Hey listen, I changed my mind. I actually do know who you’re talking about and there’s nothing suspicious about that.”

The pegasus mare immediately piped up and her wings stood up at her sides in surprise. “You know where he is?!” She blurted out.

“Yes, and I can take you to him.” BM said flatly.

“Oh, thank Celestia.” She said with a big smile on her face.

“Yes, thank Celestia, or whatever.” Black Mage muttered. “But first, I need you to follow me into this dark alley.” He said as he gestured towards an alley behind him, between two buildings.

“Sounds reasonable enough.” She said with a smile, as she turned around and walked into the dark alley.

“Oh, good. This would be much more difficult if you resisted.” He said as he cupped his hands together. He then followed her into the alley, behind her.
> 26.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Five minutes later

Black Mage walked back out of the alley again, now alone, with his blue robes now covered in blood. “Y’know, I really should have bought that spell that blasts the blood stains out of your robes.” He said to himself, with a straight look on his face. “I mean, I like murder as much as the next sociopath, but the clean-up afterwards is always such a bitch.”

Twilight stood on the steps of her palace, just outside the front door, looking from side to side, trying to spot where Black Mage had disappeared off to. She had a bad feeling that something… well, bad would happen, and she was probably right.

When she spotted him, she breathed a sigh of relief and called out to him. However, she then immediately changed her expression once she got a better look at him. “Oh, Black Mage, there you… are.”

“Oh, hey, Twilight.” BM replied casually.

Twilight didn’t say anything else until Black Mage had walked over towards her. Up close, she now got a clear look at him. “You’re covered in blood!” She stated, fearing the worst. She was most likely right.

“Oh don’t worry, it’s not mine.” BM responded immediately.

Twilight just stared back at him for several seconds, with her mouth hanging open. “That’s… not exactly my point.”

“Yeah, life’s funny like that.” Black Mage laughed, with his hands out at his sides. “So, should we move things along and head inside?”

*Beat*

“I know I’m going to regret this,” Twilight finally spoke up again. “But fine, come inside.”

“That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all day.” Black Mage said as he walked past her, into the castle. Once he passed her, Twilight, letting out another sigh, closed the door behind her, just thankful that they had all finally reached the castle. Now they could finally move things along.

Once he was out of Twilight’s earshot, BM then whispered to himself, “Wow, I can’t believe I just got away with murder. And best of all, no loose ends.”

Meanwhile, at the same time, Pipsqueak was walking through the empty streets of Ponyville.

“Wow, this has been the best day of my life.” He said happily to himself. “I finally got my cutie mark, Apple Bloom agreed to go out with me, and I’m almost home to spread the wonderful news to my loving family. Surely nothing can go wrong.

“Yup, smooth sailing from here on out.” He continued. “Just gonna turn this corner up ahead and everything will be perfect. Nothing can go wrong. No, sir.”

Then, as he turned the corner, he saw an extremely mangled pony, all torn up, burned, and covered in blood, crawl slowly out of a back alley, and over towards him. “Help… me.” She spurted out. She lifted her bloody hoof to touch the colt’s cheek, before falling over dead.

After seeing the body hit the floor and staring down at the pony’s lifeless corpse for several seconds, with a blank look on his face, the earth pony colt then looked up again, with an obviously fake smile on his face. “Well, looks like today isn’t my lucky day after all. Hahahaha.” He then immediately turned sombre. “Yeah, I’m scarred for life."
> 27.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We re-join the group in the council chamber of the Friendship Castle (for real this time. I Pinkie promise). Twilight and Black Mage were the last to join them. The bloodstains on Black Mage’s robes were now completely gone. Looks like he doesn’t need that spell after all.

When the two of them entered the room, everyone else turned to face them.

“Finally.” Rainbow Dash drawled, sounding a bit irritated. “What took you so long?”

Twilight gave a quick glance at Black Mage before returning her attention to Rainbow Dash. She then smiled awkwardly. “You don’t wanna know.”

When Rainbow Dash saw Twilight glance at Black Mage, she then also looked at him quickly, before turning back to face Twilight. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She said, scratching the back of her head as he spoke.

Twilight beamed in response, thankful that she didn’t press the issue further. She then opened her eyes again to see everyone huddled around the centre of the room, between the seven thrones. “Finally, now we can move on.” She thought.

With everyone in place, she moved to address them. “Alright, now that we’re all here…”

“Twilight?” The purple alicorn suddenly heard a familiar voice from upstairs. She inwardly cursed.

“Oh, great. More interruptions. I thought we were past this and ready to move forward by now.” She briefly gave an annoyed look towards the screen, before she turned back towards the stairs. “We’re in her Spike.” She called out.

Everyone in the room then turned and looked over at the stairs at the far side of the room, and saw a small, purple dragon enter the room.

The purple dragon entered the council room, and immediately looked around to see who else was here. He smiled when he saw his friends, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and especially Rarity. His expression then changed to one of confusion when he saw the two new guys.

He then turned back to face Twilight. “Hey, Twilight. Who are they?” He asked, pointing at the two of them.

Twilight cleared her throat before she spoke. “This is Fighter and Black Mage.” She said, pointing to each one. “They ended up in our world and they need our help getting back.”

“And to search for the Armor of Invincibility!” Fighter suddenly shouted out, with his arms in the air.

Everyone else looked at them strangely after hearing this. “Armor of Invincibility?” Rainbow Dash asked in a confused tone.

“Don’t ask.” Black Mage replied simply. And they didn’t.

Twilight then put her hoof to her mouth in thought. “Hmmm. Well, now we at least know why they came here. I guess that’s a little progress. But why would they come to this world to search for something that they heard about in their world? And if they knew how to come here, then how come they don’t know how to get back?” Her eyes then widened a bit. “Wait, is this another tangent?!” She thought angrily to herself. She snapped out of it quickly, however. “Oh well. I’ll give them a pass on this one since I learned a little more about them.”

*Squee*
> Interlude Guest Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie Pie stood in a large field that looked like it stretched on forever, that was devoid of anything except the green grass beneath her hooves. The Sun was shining brightly overhead and there were no clouds in the sky to obstruct it.

Standing right in front of her, Fighter was to her left, Sora was to her right, and Maxx was directly across from her. All three of them had their arms up in the air and smiles on their faces, simply staring at each other in complete silence.

As Pinkie Pie’s gaze drifted over the three of them, from one to another, she then brought her hoof to her mouth and pursed her lips in thought. She then said, “You know, I’m starting to see a trend, here.”

After a moment, she lowered her hoof again, and then suddenly she also smiled and threw her hooves up in the air as well, and beamed brightly, just like the other three characters around her, with her eyes closed in glee.

While the four of them all stood around, absently, Pinkie then opened her eyes again and thought to herself, without lowering her smile or her hooves. “But I wonder why I’m here as well.”

Yup, definitely a trend.
> 28.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While Twilight seemed to be lost in her thoughts, Spike waddled his way over towards Fighter and Black Mage, standing just a few inches shorter than them, coming up to their chins.

“So,” the young drake began. “You guys are from some whole other world, huh? Guess it must be pretty weird to see a real dragon in front of you, right?”

“Don’t worry,” BM started. “I’ve seen plenty of dragons before. You’re just lucky that Thief isn’t here. He’s in such denial about dragons existing that he’d be able to use his words alone to logic you out of existence.” He then turned around, with his back facing Spike. “Whereas Red Mage would existence you out of logic.”

“Uhh… okay?” Spike said, confused.

Seemingly done with an inner monologue of some kind, Twilight perked up and returned her concentration to the group. “Alright then,” she spoke up again. “So, finally moving on,” she said, surprisingly not through gritted teeth this time. “You guys came here from your world looking for the ‘Armor of Invincibility’, but you don’t have any way of getting back to your world, is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s about it. You can thank my brain-dead partner for that.” Black Mage deadpanned.

“We’re best buddies!” Fighter shouted out from right behind him, with his arms up in the air.

“Oh, yes, we’re best buddies, alright,” Black Mage said with a pained look on his face, and with his hands pointed at his head. “We’re best buddies so hard it hurts. Literally.”

Twilight just ignored their little squabble, finding it to be the only way of dealing with these guys without losing her sanity, or going off on a tangent; her eye suddenly twitched. “Anyway,” she spoke up again. “Like I said earlier, when I first got this castle, it came fully stocked with a whole bunch of rare artefacts from the Tree of Harmony, including ancient spells, not found anywhere else. Considering that we’re dealing with something that came from the physical incarnation of a harmonious force from before time itself, there should be a spell included that deals with something as advanced as interdimensional travel.” She said, sounding like a raging fangirl over all of the ancient knowledge that came with her new castle.

“Well then, what are you waiting for, sweet cheeks?” Black Mage spoke up. “Get a move on.”

“Don’t call me that,” was all Twilight said in response. She then turned around and walked over towards the stairway leading down into the basement. “Now, you all stay here while I search for the spell.” She then disappeared downstairs.

As soon as she left, the room was plunged into complete silence. The seven of them left in the room simply stood around, not moving an inch, not even their eyes, and not saying a word. It was as if the same panel was just being re-used over and over again time had stopped.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

A few minutes later, Twilight walked back into the main chamber, with a big smile on her face, and a book floating beside her. “Good news. I think I may have found something useful.”

“Well that’s great,” Black Mage spoke up. “But y’know what? We’re kind of running long, so for fun, let’s save it for the next chapter.”

Hearing this, Twilight’s newfound happy expression suddenly shifted back to the expression that she wore for about 90% of the day since she met Fighter and Black Mage, and simply stared back at him in silence for a few seconds before responding.

“I have no idea what that means, and quite frankly it scares me.”

“I know what it means.” Pinkie chimed in.

“And that scares me even more.”
> 29.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, if I can move on now,” Twilight spoke up again.

“Of course you can, silly,” Pinkie responded, with a big smile on her face. “We’re in the next chapter now.”

“Not dignifying that,” Twilight deadpanned. “Now then, as I was saying,” she continued, as she brought the spell book back up in front of her face. “While I was searching through the magic tomes, given to me by the Tree of Harmony, I found a spell which I believe equates to an inter-dimensional travel spell. This may be similar, if not an Equestrian equivalent, to the method that you two used to get here. So if you allow me to test it out on you, I can possibly get you two back to your own world. Would that be alright with you?”

“Meh, alright, I’ll give it a shot,” Black Mage responded, with his arms out at his sides. “But if I end up in that void dimension again because of this, I’m so going to kill you.” He then turned around so that his back was to her, with his hand at his mouth, as if in thought. “If Fighter ends up in that void dimension, on the other hand…” He then turned back around again. “Well, I’ll still probably kill you. As much as I don’t like him, I also don’t like you, and after this long day, I would literally do anything to indulge myself and end your life.”

At this remark, Twilight lowered the book from her face and growled at him. “Can you at least try to be nice?” She snarkily asked.

“Can you at least try not to be such a know-it-all bitch?” BM retorted.

Twilight then angrily took a step towards him, getting up into his face. “Putrid pus ball of hate!” She screamed at him.

“Pathetic excuse for a mage!” Black Mage responded, pushing back against her.

“Stinky hat!”

“Little girl’s wet dream!”

“Just fuck already!” Fighter suddenly shouted out, with his arms in the air.

Twilight and Black Mage both instantly stopped what they were doing and turned to face Fighter, keeping their eyes on him.

“Can I kill Fighter, now?” Black Mage asked.

“I’ll think about it.” Twilight responded.
> 30.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I have an idea, Twilight,” Pinkie said, raising her hoof up into the air. When Twilight turned to face her, she lowered her hoof again and continued. “Why don’t we try the portal that you used to go to that other world where we’re all humans? Maybe that could send them back.”

At that suggestion, Twilight just gave Pinkie a really weird look. “What are you talking about, Pinkie?”

“Oh, you know the one, silly,” Pinkie replied, waving her hoof playfully in Twilight’s direction. “The portal that you used to go to the other world to get your crown back. You even adjusted it to open whenever you want, so we could probably adjust it further to lead wherever we want.”

While Pinkie’s expression stayed the same, Twilight just seemed to get more confused. “Pinkie, we have no time for your randomness. This is serious business.” She said, waving her off.

Pinkie now started to become as confused as Twilight. “What do you mean, Twilight? Remember, you went on that big adventure to take your crown back from Sunset Shimmer, and then you two became friends, and then you went on another adventure together after she called for your help.”

Twilight’s expression now started to slump, changing from confused to annoyed. “Pinkie, please stop with your random outbursts. We need to stay focused.” Twilight stomped her hoof on the ground. “Besides, I’ve never even met anypony named Sunset Shimmer. It’s also not a very imaginative name. It’s obviously just a synonym for ‘Twilight Sparkle’. If you’re going to make up a fake pony, at least try and be creative.”

“B-but it’s true.” Pinkie stuttered. “You two had a big adventure together and became friends. She even started writing to you in her journal, just like you wrote to Princess Celestia.” Her eyes then moved away from the purple alicorn and started scanning the shelves next to them. When she saw what she was looking for, she pointed her hoof at a large journal. “See, it’s right there.”

Turning her head to look at what Pinkie was pointing at, Twilight just grimaced and turned back to face the pink party pony again. “Pinkie, I assure you that I have no idea what you’re saying. I think that I would remember something like that happening.” She said, pridefully.

She then turned away from her again, with a smug smile on her face. A few seconds later, she suddenly started humming a familiar tune.

Pinkie was confused and a bit worried, but after a moment, she suddenly piped up in realisation. “Oh, I get it now. Those movies aren’t canon. That’s why she doesn’t remember. My bad.”

And with that, the fourth wall cracked a little more.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Black Mage suddenly shouted out. “This is supposed to be my story. I can stand if you ponies go one or several chapters without appearing, but not me. I want my screen time, dammit!”

And then the chip of the fourth wall fell down on Black Mage, crushing him.
> 31.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You okay?” Twilight asked Black Mage as he picked himself back up.

“Somehow,” Black Mage responded, getting back to his feet. Standing up straight again, BM suddenly raised both of his arms in the air, with an intense look on his face. “And furthermore, I…” He started, but then suddenly stopped again, looking a bit awkward. “I, uhhh…” He stuttered.

BM was now averting his gaze and looking down at the ground, scratching at the back of his head. Looking back up at the others again, who were simply staring back at him, he suddenly spoke up again. “I, uhhh… I can’t really think of anything else to say to go off on a tangent…” Twilight’s eye twitched. “… and continue this streak of randomness.” He then turned to face Twilight. “So, uhhh… why don’t you just continue with what you were saying about that spell that could get us out of here?”

Twilight blinked. “R-really?” She asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, no point in dragging this out, hopelessly,” BM responded, with both of his arms out at his sides.

Twilight beamed in response. “You really mean it? I can continue onwards without any more interruptions?” She said, with stars in her eyes.

“Yeeeeesss,” BM stretched out, now sounding less awkward and a bit annoyed.

Twilight clapped her hooves together in glee. “Oh, this is wonderful. Finally everyone is starting to see common sense. Now we can finally proceed along in a calm and orderly fashion. We’ll tackle our problems as they come and when they come, without a bunch of random situations getting in the way. We’ll be the very definition of efficiency. We’ll…”

“Get on with it!” Rainbow Dash shouted out.

“Yes, get on with it!” Rarity added.

The four others then started shouting behind them, rallying together.

Twilight just blinked in response. “But I…” She started, confusedly.

“Geez, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie interrupted her again. “Will you stop dragging this out for as long as possible, for no reason at all, and just move the story along, already?”

“Yeah!” The other six of them agreed, angrily.

Twilight simply stared back at them for about five long seconds, with her mouth hanging open, not believing how this was going. She was about to say something in response, but instead, she just sighed and facehooved. “Oh, you guys suck,” she said, levitating the book back in front of her face again.
> 32.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wow, it feels like we’ve been standing here for months.” Fighter said. “Eleven months to be exact.”

“Fighter, it’s been five minutes.” Pinkie corrected him.

While this exchange was going on, Twilight simply stood there, reading the spell from the book hovering in front of her face, between her and everyone else in the room, ignoring everything that the others were saying. She just knew that if she stopped to acknowledge anything they said, it would just lead off on a tangent (her eye twitched) and waste more time.

Having had enough of everyone’s weirdness, and not wanting to face more of everyone’s random outbursts and just move things along and get rid of these two, she decided not to speak up first and simply lowered the book from in front of her face, quickly charged up the spell in her horn and shot it straight at Black Mage.

The purple beam that shot out of her horn zoomed towards him at high speeds, striking him before he could react. As soon as the spell made contact, it suddenly produced a large purple cloud that completely enveloped him and blocked everything around him, including all of the others in the room from sight.

Five seconds later, the cloud faded, revealing Black Mage just standing there like he had been before the spell had hit him, not having moved an inch, as if nothing had happened at all.

After the cloud had completely faded, BM looked from side to side for a moment, wondering what just happened. “Well, it looks like Twilight’s little plan failed. I for one am shocked,” Black Mage said sarcastically.

“It didn’t work,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, next to him. She then turned to face Twilight. “How come it didn’t work?” She asked.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight responded, with a confused look on her face, and floating the book back up in front of her face again. “It says right here that this spell can be used to send somepony to another dimension. I executed it flawlessly, so why didn’t it work?”

Before they could think further on this, the door to the room opened up. Turning towards the door to see who it was, they saw an earth pony stallion, tugging a cart filled with books behind him. “Hey, there. I brought you some more books,” he said. “Where do you want’em?”

Turning away from the book again to face this stallion, and before anyone could say anything, Twilight simply lit up her horn again and shot the spell at this pony. This time, when the spell hit him, the pony was shocked into the air for a moment, like when cartoon characters get struck by lightning, and the next moment, there was a bright flash and both he and the cart of books were gone.

Staring back at the sight of what she had just done, Twilight brought her hoof to her mouth in thought. “Hmmm,” she said, assessing the situation. “From what it said in the book, and the results of our two experiments, it looks like the spell only works on ponies. Huh.” She stated matter-of-factly, before returning her attention to the book once again.

A moment later, her eyes suddenly snapped open, doing a double take, as she suddenly realised what just happened. With a horrified look on her face, she ran over to the spot where the stallion had disappeared, where there was now just a large scorch mark on the floor. “No!” She screamed out as loud as she could, the reality of what had just happened suddenly caught up with her. “My books!” She added.

Staring at Twilight, now curled up on the floor in the fetal position, sobbing softly, Fighter leaned over to whisper to Pinkie. “So is this more of her out-of-character behaviour that she’s apparently been showing more and more of ever since both me and Black Mage showed up?”

Turning her head to look at Fighter as he spoke, Pinkie then turned her attention back to Twilight, and brought a hoof to her mouth in thought, looking contemplative. A moment later, she lowered her hoof again and beamed brightly. “Actually, that’s pretty in character for her.”

Meanwhile, in a void universe.

The earth pony stallion from before suddenly appeared in a flash of light, now floating in a dark nothingness that seemed to stretch on forever.

Quickly looking from side to side, taking in his new surroundings, seeing the infinite nothingness around him, registering what just happened, his eyes then immediately fell down half way. “This so isn’t worth 7.50 an hour.” He deadpanned.
> 33.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, Twilight’s plan was a dud.” Black Mage spoke up. “Why am I not surprised?” He said in a teasing manner.

Slowly picking herself up off the ground, Twilight turned back to face the others. “Spike… just…” She stuttered, placing her hoof against her head to try and steady her thoughts. “Just send a letter to Princess Celestia. Let her try and figure this out.”

Spike then immediately produced a quill and a piece of paper from somewhere. “Okay, Twilight. What should I write to her?” He asked her.

“Just…” Twilight tried to say, still holding her hoof to her head, not in the mood for anything right now. “Just… write whatever you know about the situation and what she needs to know.” Her four hooves then simply gave out beneath her, and she collapsed, defeated.

With a quick worried glance at Twilight, Spike then scratched out a letter to Princess Celestia, with everything that he knew about the situation with these two guys so far. When he was finished, he rolled up the scroll, took in a deep breath and breathed out, causing the letter to disappear in a wisp of green flames, which took to the air and floated out an open window.

After the message had been sent, the entire room fell completely silent, looking as if the same panel was being used over and over again in a desperate attempt to fill up space.

“So…” Fighter spoke up, trying to break the silence. “Anyone know any good jokes?”

“Shut up, Fighter,” Black Mage spoke to him, without turning to face him. “Idiots aren’t allowed to talk right now. Trust me – no one wants to hear anything you have to say right now.”

“I do,” Pinkie said.

“You're on that list too, missy.” BM responded to what Pinkie said, also not facing her and not having moved an inch from when he spoke to Fighter.

“Oh,” Pinkie said, looking down, sounding dejected.

With how things seemed to be going right now, with them just standing around, not doing anything, waiting for a response from the princess, about what they should do next, Fluttershy let out an annoyed sigh. “Okay, I know how things usually go when we try to talk things out, but there has got to be a more efficient way of working things out.”

“Don’t make me add you to that list. I’ve got it around here somewhere.” BM replied, again not looking at her or moving an inch.

Fluttershy just rolled her eyes and sighed again.
> 34.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

About two minutes after sending the letter, a wisp of green flame floated in through the open window, and coalesced into the response letter. Hearing the letter arrive, Twilight removed her hooves from her head and turned to see it lying beside her. Getting back up slowly, she then levitated the letter up to her face and started reading.

As she continued reading, her slump started to fade and she brightened up a bit… just a bit. “It looks like Princess Celestia wants us to come to Canterlot right away. Let’s get going before someone says something and we get distracted by another…” She hesitated for a second before continuing, her left eye twitching slightly. “…something.”

With that said, Twilight quickly shuffled out of the castle before they could respond, with the others following behind her.

When they had all walked out of the castle, Black Mage, who was the last one out, suddenly spoke up. “Oh, one last thing before we go.”

He then turned back towards the castle, and held his two hands together at his side, as a small light then began forming in his palms. “HADOKEN!” He yelled as he threw his two hands out in front of him, as the ball of light grew even bigger and turned into a huge beam that shot out directly in front of him, destroying everything in its path.

The light from the beam was so bright that everyone gathered, minus Black Mage, had to shield their eyes. When the blast cleared, the Friendship Castle was gone, leaving only a giant crater in its wake.

“Haha.” Black Mage laughed, triumphantly. “Black Mage: 6. Castles: …4.”

When Twilight looked at the crater where her castle had once stood, she suddenly started to have flashbacks of her fight against Tirek, with her rage from then returning in full force. She then turned towards Black Mage with an angry look on her face, and her horn lit up, fully intending to kill, or at least seriously injure him. However, before she could take another step, there was suddenly a huge rumbling beneath their feet, and the next moment, another identical crystal castle suddenly popped up out of the ground, chiming like a cash register.

Twilight and Black Mage both looked back at this incredible sight and their jaws dropped.

“F-f-cheater.” Black Mage stuttered out.

Fighter then suddenly appeared behind Black Mage. “Black Mage: 6. Castles: 5.”

“Shut up.” Black Mage said to him, with only his eyes looking back to face him.
> 35.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay,” Twilight started, addressing Black Mage. “Right now, the only thing holding me back from completely annihilating you in a blind fury is my obsessiveness to learn about anything and everything magical, like that attack you just used to destroy my house. So, while I wait for my rage to simmer down, why don’t you tell me all about it?” She said in a tranquil fury.

“Oh, that’s the Hadoken.” BM responded casually, turning to face her. “It’s my most powerful/only Level 9 spell, but unfortunately I can only use it once a day.”

“Wow, that sounds amazing.” She said, with her eyes lighting up, calming down a little, now that she was actually learning something interesting from him. “How does it work?”

“Eh, well…” BM started, scratching at the back of his head, and then quickly looked from side to side before facing her again. “You promise not to tell anyone?”

“That was the most destructive spell I’ve ever seen in my life. Trust me, I’ll be wanting to keep that to myself.”

“Well, okay,” Black Mage relented. “The secret is…” He leaned in close to her. “Love.” He whispered.

Twilight just blinked in confusion, certainly not expecting that answer. “Wait, what?”

“Love,” Black Mage repeated, louder this time. “You see, love is the most powerful force in the Omniverse. The Hadoken takes the energy of love and twists it towards highly destructive means. So, every time I use the Hadoken, there’s less love in the universe.”

“Uhhmm…” Twilight drawled, not knowing how to respond to that.

“Oh, but don’t worry.” He said, turning back around again, with his back to her. “I’m sure it won’t have any negative repercussions for us.”

Meanwhile, at the Crystal Empire

Shining Armor suddenly poked his head out of one of the rooms, into a nearby hallway. “Uh, guards. Could you come here, please? Cadence just suddenly collapsed. And could you hurry, I’m not really sure what to do. I don’t really know what’s going on here.” He then looked back into the room, worriedly. “She doesn’t look so good.”

He then walked back inside the room again, with a sly grin appearing on his face. “Well, looks like Shining Armor is getting some tonight.” A moment later, he suddenly pulled an abrupt face and looked disgusted with himself.

“My God, what is wrong with me?”
> 35.5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pipsqueak slowly trotted through the streets of Ponyville, looking downtrodden. After being traumatised earlier today, he just wanted to get home, lie down, maybe have something to eat, and work through all of this with the help of his loving family.

Picking his head up out of his depression, he decided to stay confident in spite of everything that happened. Everything is going to be just fine. He thought to himself, choosing to have faith in the kindness of the Universe.

When he finally reached his house, he opened the door, with a big smile on his face. “Hello, Mum and Dad. I’m…”

…and then the house was crushed by a huge piece of crystal, killing everypony inside.

“…home.”
> 36.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group of seven had reached the train station when Twilight suddenly noticed something. “Huh, you know, we certainly got here from where we left off rather quickly. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Well, maybe something else happened somewhere else while that was going on, which was more important.” Pinkie chimed in.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I hope that keeps happening.” Twilight said, with a relieved smile.

After Twilight had walked ahead, Pinkie Pie then just beamed innocently. “Something tells me that it will.”

Stepping on to the platform after they all got their tickets, Black Mage finally spoke up. “So, you said that we’re going to see a ‘Princess Celestia’,” he said, addressing Twilight. “Who’s that, exactly? A Sarah rip-off, who ends up kidnapped every other week and needs heroes to rescue her because she couldn’t fight her way out of a random encounter?”

“Hardly,” Twilight scoffed. “She’s the ruler of Equestria and one of the most powerful entities in the entire world, who moves the Sun itself.”

“What, like Sarda?” BM asked.

“What’s a Sarda?” Twilight asked back.

“An Omnipotent Jackass who sent us out on dangerous missions, even though he could have done it all himself anytime he wanted, and sent you to the Moon if you talked back to him.” Black Mage replied. “…Wait?”

“Pssst,” Fighter leaned over to whisper to Pinkie. “He’s the Wizard That Did It.” Which caused the pink pony to giggle to herself.

“Hey, I just realised something.” BM spoke up again, suddenly raising his hands in the hair. “Now that Sarda’s gone, I can badmouth him all I want without any consequences.” With that, BM took in a big inhale of oxygen. “Sarda is a **** **** who liked to **** his **** with a **** and **** all the **** with a **** and a **** until he had to **** **** sideways. …****.”

A mare passing by had to cover her child’s ears as they were walking passed, due to the swears.

When he was finished, Black Mage beamed more than he ever had before. “Man that felt good – and no repercussions.”

“Unless he used his Omnipotence to look into the future and set this up ahead of time.” Fighter chimed in, stepping up beside Black Mage.

Black Mage was then suddenly struck by lightning out of nowhere. He remained standing upright and he still looked no worse for wear, other than the fact that he was blackened by soot. However, Sarda, being the Omnipotent Jackass that he is, designed the spell to be excruciating painful, despite how it looked from the outside.

“Just because this wasn’t your fault, doesn’t mean I’m not going to blame you.” Black Mage responded casually, despite the unimaginable pain.

Standing just off to the side, Pinkie Pie raised her hoof to her mouth, in thought. “What’s a ****?”

Rarity simply walked up behind her and placed her own hoof on her shoulder. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
> 37.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The five ponies and two humans boarded the train and it started moving towards its destination: Canterlot.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

“Finally!” Twilight shouted out, collapsing on to the seat, happy that things were moving along nice and quickly. The others all started giggling at her antics, but she just ignored them.
> 38.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While Twilight, Pinkie, Black Mage and Fighter hogged all the screen time to themselves, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy all sat together on the seats on the other side of the train car.

Rainbow then snapped to attention when she suddenly noticed something. “Hey, where’s Applejack?”

Meanwhile, at Sweet Apple Acres

Applejack raised her back hooves and planted them both firmly against the tree behind her, causing the apples within to fall into the buckets placed beneath it.

When she did that, she then suddenly brought her hoof to her mouth in thought. “Hmmm. I get the feeling that something important is going on and I’m missing it.” A moment later, she merely shrugged her shoulders and went back to bucking apples.

Meanwhile, back at the plot

“Well, if she’s not going to show up, then I want her resignation on my desk by next week.” Twilight said.

This caused Pinkie Pie to do a spit take with a glass of water, though no one knows where she got it. “You have a desk?!” She blurted out.

Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy all just facehooved at that, while Black Mage and even Fighter, facepalmed.

Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom

Lex Luthor sat at the head of the table, addressing the rest of the Legion. “Alright everyone, Black Mage and Fighter are finally on their way to Canterlot to meet with the Princesses. Now is our time to strike and…”

“Excuse me, Lex,” the Riddler interrupted. “But we’ve just detected the Saiyans arriving on the other side of the planet, and they are a more pressing threat to our plans at the moment.”

“What?!” Lex shouted out, bringing his palm to his face. “Oh, come on! And we finally started moving things forward.” Putting his hand back down, he let out a sigh before continuing. “Alright, we’ll keep an eye on these Saiyans before we focus on Black Mage and the others.”

This got him a round of affirmative nods from the rest of the Legion.

“Hey guys! We can use whaaaaaaaales!”

“Damn it, Aquaman,” Lex Luthor shouted across the room. “Get out of here. You’re not even in this group!”

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAALES!”
> 39.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While the train was moving along the tracks, on its way to Canterlot, Twilight sat by herself, thinking about what she was going to say to Princess Celestia about Fighter and Black Mage; more specifically, about how much she was going to tell her about the two of them.

Suddenly, she heard something slump against the floor of the train. Looking up, she saw that it was Rainbow Dash, who had been talking to Fighter. Getting up, she walked over to see what was happening. She didn’t suspect Fighter of actually doing something to her, since she thought that he was too stupid to be evil like Black Mage, but decided to investigate nonetheless.

“What’s going on with Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked, as she reached him.

“I don’t know.” Fighter responded to her. “I was just in the middle of explaining the finer points of sword chuckery, and the next thing I know, she fell down and she’s not moving.”

“I think she’s forgotten how to breathe.” Fluttershy said as she knelt down next to Rainbow Dash to inspect her.

He actually managed to make Rainbow Dash stupider just by being near him. Twilight thought. Clearly these two are more dangerous than I thought. We’re going to have to make sure that both of them are always under watch from now on in order to avoid any more problems like this.

While she was in the middle of her soliloquy, she was completely unaware that Black Mage had walked up behind her, on his own, unsupervised. When she finally noticed him there, she turned around to face him, with a slightly worried look on her face. “Uhhmm, where’s Rarity?” She asked him.

“Okay, I know what you’re thinking, seeing as how this situation directly involves me, but I swear I didn’t do it.” Black Mage spoke in a rushed tone, with his hands up in the air. He then lowered his hands again and turned back around. “Or at least not on purpose.”

“Didn’t do what?” Twilight asked inquisitively. She then turned back and faced the direction Black Mage was facing.

On the other side of the train cart…

“BOW DOWN BEFORE ME, PUNY MORTALS. FOR I AM, NIGHTMARE RARITY. MWA HA HA AH!!!!”

Twilight’s face went completely blank. “Oh, that.”
> 40.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While everyone else in the train car was frozen in place, Fluttershy casually walked up to Nightmare Rarity and slapped her in the face. “Snap out of it, Rarity!

The next moment, Rarity was back to normal, rubbing her cheek with her hoof. “‘kay.”

Black Mage simply stared ahead. “Well that was anti-climactic.”
> 40.5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a moment of hesitation, Pipsqueak stepped over the threshold of the Ponyville Orphanage, with a stoic expression on his face. Since his parents were dead and he didn’t have any other family members, he had nowhere else to go, so he would be living here now.

After he had been given a room, he walked passed a group of orphans, consisting of two pegasi and an earth pony.

“I can’t believe we have to share a room with Pony Tom Sawyer.” The blue earth pony, who looked eerily similar to Scootaloo said.

“Don’t fret, Archer,” Scootaloo said, standing next to her. “Though his mind is not for rent.”

“Don’t put him down as arrogant.” Featherweight joined in.

“His reserve, a quiet defence.”

“Riding out the day’s events.”

“The river.” Scootaloo announced.

…

“This chapter was all just to make a JJBATAS reference, wasn’t it?” Archer asked, with her eyes half closed.

“Oh, maliciously.” Scootaloo confirmed.
> 41.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the train reached Canterlot, it began to slow down as it pulled into the train station. When it finally came to a complete stop and the doors opened, Fighter was the first one to step out of the train and on to the platform. “Wow, it felt like we were riding that train for…”

“No.” Black Mage said, stabbing Fighter in the back of the head before he could finish talking. “We’re not doing that again.” He then continued walking passed him while Fighter fell to the ground. The five ponies followed behind him, also ignoring Fighter as they made their way along.

Three hours later…

Fighter woke up, still face down on the train platform. “Wow, it feels like I’ve been out for hours. Three hours to be exact.”
> 42.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group of seven, sans Fighter, continued their trek through the streets of Canterlot. The Canterlot nobles gave the group, specifically Black Mage, strange looks and upturned snouts as they passed, but no more so than if they were just non-Canterlot nobles.

“Okay,” Black Mage spoke up. “We’ve been walking around for over three hours now and I’ve yet to even see this supposed castle that we’re heading to. We’re lost, aren’t we?”

“Don’t worry, BM, I know exactly where we’re going.” Twilight reassured him.

“I doubt that.” Black Mage deadpanned. “I’m adheres to being stuck with groups of idiots that seem to do everything within their power to draw everything out unnecessarily, in spite of all logic, almost like the universe itself is trying to punish me as much as possible with the Hell – but not literal Hell – that is their presence. How do I know that you’re not just doing that now?”

At that, Twilight stopped where she was and turned around to face Black Mage. “Black Mage, from the moment I met you, you have been constant source of irritation, and teeth-grinding insanity. Seriously, I’m going to have to schedule an appointment with my dentist I’ve been grinding my teeth together so much since I’ve met you.” She stated thusly. “What reason would I possibly have for dragging this out for even a second longer than I had to?!”

At her prompting, Black Mage raised his finger to respond, but then stopped himself when his mind came up blank. “I don’t have a response to that.”

After simmering down a little, Twilight let out a sigh to try and calm herself. “Look, it’s just… with everything that’s been going on lately, my mind is a bit preoccupied thinking about exactly what I’m going to tell Princess Celestia about your situation so that she can properly help to get you back to your own world, while also thinking about what I’m not going to tell her so that she doesn’t incinerate you on the spot for your blatant, unapologetic evil, while also debating with myself if I shouldn’t just tell her all that anyway and if that’s not the best situation for everypony involved, while also trying to mentally map out the fastest way to the castle from here, and trying to concentrate on all of them means that I can’t really concentrate on any of them.”

Black Mage scratched at the back of his head in response to everything she said. “Yeah, okay, I guess I can understand that.”

At that, Twilight blinked in confusion and looked up. “Wait, did we just agree on something?”

“I know, it’s weird, right?” Black Mage responded, facing forward again and the group continued walking along.

After the two of them had finished their banter, Rainbow Dash flew up beside Twilight. “Uhhmm, what about Fighter?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be fine on his own for now.” Twilight reassured her.

Meanwhile…

“…and so you see, the most important part of the sword-chuck is the chain.” Fighter drolled on. “That’s what connects the swords together and gives it the chuck part.”

“What are you and why are you still talking?!” Unnamed OC #303 screamed at him.
> 43.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After trekking through Canterlot for another hour, the five ponies and Black Mage finally arrived at to the gates of Canterlot castle. Two identical-looking pegasus stallions with white coats and gold armor stood guard at either side of the entrance, each with a spear clutched at his side.

As they approached the gate, Twilight stepped out ahead of the group to address the guards. “Hello there, Heads of the Royal Guard ponies, Biggs and Wedge.”

“Wow, laying on the expositional dump pretty thick there, aren’t you?” Black Mage spoke up.

“Shut up,” Twilight responded without to look at him. Returning her full attention to Biggs and Wedge in front of her, she continued. “Anyway, we came here to speak with Princess Celestia, concerning the matter of this guy in the blue robes.” She said, gesturing to Black Mage behind her with her horn.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Biggs responded in his usual stoic tone that betrayed all emotion. “The Princess has already informed of us of your arrival as well as your guest, and she and Princess Luna are waiting for you in the throne room. Please go right ahead.”

“Thank you, sirs,” Twilight said in a courteous tone, and with a bow of respect. She then walked in between the two of them, into the castle, with the others following after her.

“Oh, by the way,” Twilight added as she kept walking, throwing her voice back to the guard ponies. “There’s another person with us to see the Princesses, but he’s fallen a bit behind. He should be along shor… eventually. He looks kind of like Black Mage, but with red hair and armor. You should recognise him when you see him.”

Biggs and Wedge silently nodded their heads in affirmation. Even though Twilight couldn’t see them, they still knew that she got the message.

The group of five ponies and one nexus of magical energy in human form continued walking along, through the corridors of Canterlot castle. “Look, I’m just saying, you already knew who they were, and I don’t need to know or care, so who exactly were you saying it for?” Black Mage said as they continued walking along.

“Shut up.” Twilight responded.


---


A couple of minutes later, Fighter finally managed to catch up and arrived at the castle gates. “Oh, hey there, talkative guard. What’s up? I like swords.”

“You must be the one that we were told about.” Biggs responded in his usual tone. “Princess Twilight and the others are inside and are expecting you. Please go on ahead.”

“I… but… you… that’s… not…” Fighter stuttered, looking down at his feet briefly before looking back up again. “I like swords.”

“Riiiiight,” Biggs stretched out awkwardly. “Well, like I said, you are clear to go on in.”

…

“…I like swords.”

“I’m confused, are we doing a bit?” Wedge asked his partner.
> 44.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group of six walked through the castle hallway. There was a long, red velvet carpet laid out in front of them, guiding them to the main chamber, wherein the Princesses awaited them. The floors, pillars and buttresses were all masterfully crafted in intricate patterns, out of a fine marble white stone. To their left was the wall, while to their right was open to the castle courtyard, visible through open spots between the columns.

“This is quite the castle your princess has here,” Black Mage spoke up.

“Please don’t blow it up.” Twilight immediately retorted.

“No promises.” BM responded just as quickly.

While they were walking, Fluttershy leaned in close to Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “So, uhhh… when was the last time any of us spoke up?”

Before either of them could respond, however, the group had reached the large door to the throne room, where Princess Celestia awaited them therein. As soon as they arrived, the door opened up, revealing a large room. The long carpet continued into the room, stretched out in front of them, leading up to a throne at the far side of the room, which housed a large alicorn, about twice the size of a normal pony, with a pure white coat, an image of a sun emblazoned on her flank, as well as a flowing ethereal mane in all the colours of the rainbow, which waved about in a non-existent breeze. Standing next to her was a slightly smaller alicorn, with a similar mane, that shone with the stars of the night sky. She had a dark blue coat and an image of a crescent moon on her flank.

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight began as she approached the throne and instinctively fell into a bow of respect towards the white alicorn.

“Princess Twilight,” Princess Celestia responded in the warm tone of a loving mother. “It is good to see you too. You said in your letter that you needed to speak to me about an important matter?” Her gaze then fell on the ones behind her, specifically, the one in the blue robes and hat that covered his (she guessed it was a ‘his’) face. “Is this individual connected to that?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Twilight answered, gesturing beside her. “This is Black Mage, who…”

“Yo, what up, Sunbutt?” Black Mage greeted.

“Aaaand that just about sets the standard for how this meeting will go.” The Princess of Friendship added, quickly changing her tone as she did, not even bothering to act flabbergasted at the way he addressed her former teacher.

“I see,” Celestia said, noticing her former student’s sudden change in attitude. She then shifted her gaze to Black Mage. “So then, Black Mage, Princess Twilight has informed us in her letter that you came here from a completely different world.” She then suddenly gave a brief side glance. “She also told me that there was another with you.”

“Oh, right,” Twilight spoke up. “That would be Fighter. He fell behind a bit earlier, but he should be along shortly. I informed the guards outside to tell us when he showed up. He looks kind of like Black Mage, but with red hair and armor.”

“I resent in any way being called similar to that idiot,” BM added as an aside.

Twilight didn’t even dignify that with a response.

“I shall go fetch him, Sister,” Luna said, speaking up. “As I don’t believe I am needed at this time,” she added, giving an aside glance of her own to Twilight. She then made her way down the steps of the throne, passed by the ponies and Black Mage (wherein Twilight gave her an embarrassed smile), and left the large throne room.

“Now then,” Celestia continued. “While we wait for Luna to return with your friend, Fighter, why don’t you bring me up to speed on everything?”

Twilight was about to open her mouth to respond, but Black Mage beat her to it. “What? Do you want me to list out every evil thing that I’ve ever done?” However, before Celestia could tell him that that wasn’t what she meant, he continued. “I mean, I can, but it’s gonna take a while. Luckily I have it all written down in my ‘Atrocity Journal’, he said, pulling a book out from under his robes. He then started reading from it. “Number 1: When I was born, I stabbed the doctor on my way out. To this day, nobody knows where I got the knife. Number 2: …”

Meanwhile, just outside the castle…

“Sir, as I have said eighteen times, you are clear to enter the castle.” Biggs repeated. “You can stop telling us that ‘(you) like swords’ now.”

“…I like swords.” Fighter repeated for the nineteenth time.

“Okay, it was funny the first couple of times, but now it’s just annoying,” Wedge spoke up, looking over at his partner as he did.
> 45.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“…and while the mime did survive, I’m afraid he’ll never walk again.” Black Mage continued reading off his list of atrocities.

“Black Mage!” Twilight exclaimed, getting him to stop reading aloud, look up and towards her. “I don’t believe that’s what Princess Celestia meant when she asked you to ‘bring her up to speed on everything’.”

Meanwhile, Princess Celestia simply sat on her throne, her mouth hanging open, apparently struck silent by BM’s open, unapologetic evil.

“How do you know that?” BM retorted.

The simple response made Twilight snarl and start shaking with rage. However, before she could lose it, she gave an exasperated sigh to try and calm herself down before continuing. “Look,” she began, trying hard to remain calm. “After what has felt like months of my life having to deal with your constant tangents (twitch), unspeakable acts of evil, sarcastic, nonsensical quips of response that have almost destroyed my ability to think rationally, and more distractions and delays that should exist by any universe’s logic, we have finally made it to the one pony in all of Equestria who might possibly be able help us, and are now potentially minutes, or even seconds away from sending you and Fighter back to your own world and finally being done with all this. So could you please just shut up for one moment in your life and focus on…”

*BOOM*

Suddenly, the doors of the throne room exploded outwards, in a spectacular explosion of marble stone, dust … and black smoke.

As everyone in the room naturally turned around to see what had just caused this, the smoke began to part, and the silhouette of a figure began to form, which stood out even through the cloud of dust and smoke. Everyone simply stood by with baited breath, for the cloud to part and reveal…

Fighter.

“Hey, guys!” The red haired warrior announced as he stepped into the room.

The momentary distraction cut off Twilight’s rant at Black Mage, but was only long enough for her rage to have abated a little. Now in a slightly better frame of mind, she placed her hoof to the side of her head to try and steady her thoughts further. “Fighter, you haven’t quite reached the levels of annoyance that Black Mage has yet, but…”

“By the way, I’m here two,” Nightmare Moon announced.

“Audible gasp!” Pinkie Pie yelled out. “Who could have possibly seen this coming except everyone because the author spoiled it in the character tags.”

Everybody else in the room immediately facepalmed/facehooved in response, despite the situation.
> 46.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A midnight black alicorn, who stood a bit taller than Princess Celestia, with a mane that resembled Princess Luna’s and a cutie mark that was identical to Princess Luna’s stood in the doorway, laughing maniacally at her return.

At seeing Nightmare Moon, here, somehow; Celestia instinctively stood up from her throne. “L-Luna?” She stuttered. “I don’t understand. How…”

While this was going on, and everyone else in the room was transfixed, Twilight quietly made her way over to Fighter. “Fighter, what did you do?” She asked, in the manner like she was talking down to a five year old who had scribbled on the wall and was trying to get them to confess.

“I don’t know,” he responded in a simple tone, seemingly ignorant of the gravity of the situation. “She said that it would be a bit of a walk to the throne room, so I decided to talk to her to pass the time.”

“Talk about what, exactly?” Twilight continued.

“The usual: sword chucks and drownball, things like that.”

“Wow,” BM spoke up from behind them. “He’s so stupid that his stupidity managed to completely destroy her rational mind and peel back the defeated, nihilistic tortured soul that had remained buried for years all in the span of a little over a minute. That’s a record even for him.”

When the other ponies just stared at him in response, BM then threw his arms up in the air. “What? Just because he’s the bane of my existence, and I spend literally every conscious thinking moment, sans my sexy mage-on-mage fantasies with White Mage, imagining how I’m going to torture him in the most evil and painful ways imaginable, and pondering the eternal mystery of how I can end his life permanently doesn’t mean I can’t be impressed by him? Please,” he scoffed.
> 47.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

While everypony was still reeling and trying to figure out how a villain that they had defeated years ago, redeemed, and not given a second thought to since then had suddenly – and unceremoniously – returned, Twilight was the first to recover, and already had an idea for how to deal with this.

“Wait, I know what to do,” the purple alicorn princess announced, with a confident smile on her face. She then trotted right up to Nightmare Moon and slapped her right in the face. “Snap out of it, Luna.”

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

Nightmare Moon suddenly reacted, telekinetically grabbing Twilight and pulling her towards her, creating a comical ball of dust, like those seen in a comic book to denote a fight scene.

Just off to the side, BM simply said, “Yeah, see there’s this thing called ‘Rule of Funny’. You should really learn it.”
> 48.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait, Luna sto…”

*Crack*

“Okay, I get the feeling that you’re…”

*Pow*

“No, no, no, that doesn’t go that way!”

*Smash*

Just to the left, the rest of them were watching this go on.

“She can certainly take a beating,” Black Mage spoke up.

“You have no idea,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned.

“Wait, wait wait…” Twilight pleaded.

*Ka-Blamo*

“Wow, Twilight can bend like that?” Pinkie Pie wondered in awe.

*Snap*

“Not anymore,” Black Mage deadpanned.
> 49.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We have to do something to help her,” Rainbow Dash spoke up.

“And how are we supposed to do that, exactly?” BM interjected. “Isn’t Nightmare Moon or whatever her name is basically a God in your world?”

“Well, we have to try something – she’s going to kill Twilight at this rate. Black Mage, can’t you use your Hadoken spell to stop this?”

“Unfortunately I can only use that spell once a day.” He responded, scratching at his head.

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” Rainbow Dash deadpanned.

“Oh yeah, well what about you ponies?” BM turned around so that he was facing her. “Don’t you have some sort of… I don’t know – magical rainbow blast or something that can instantly defeat her?”

“Yes,” Rainbow answered, awkwardly scratching at her head, “but we all have to be together to use it.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” BM parroted her response, in the same deadpan tone.

Rainbow just silently snarled back at him.

“Ooohh, oooohh, I know,” Fighter chimed in, behind Black Mage, with his arms in the air. “I could use my swords. That’s totally something that I could do right now.”

BM turned back around to face him. “In any other circumstance I’d say go right ahead, since you’re so reckless that you’d probably end up killing Twilight as well, and that’s one less headache for me to deal with, but since I’ll inevitably end up getting blamed for it, I’m instead gonna say, ‘no’.”

“Then what are we gonna do?” Fighter asked.

“Don’t worry, I have an idea. Fighter, give me your sword.”

“Sure thing, best buddy,” he responded, handing BM his sword.

*Snap*

“…you broke Slashy,” Fighter said, looking down.

“Well, I lost my knife all the way back in the forest and your sword is too big for me to use, so I need it to be knife-sized if I’m going to use it.”

“But wait, didn’t you have a knife earlier when you stabbed me in the back of the head?” Fighter asked, pointing out a plot hole.

“Shut up,” Black Mage said, immediately shutting him down… ironically. “Now one side, idiot,” he said, stepping past him. “I have a princess to sa…” However he stopped midway when he saw the sight in front of him: Twilight lying unconscious on the floor, and Nightmare Moon was nowhere to be seen – the fight apparently having ended a while ago. “I don’t know how this happened, but I have no problem taking credit for it.”

At the back of the room, Princess Celestia was legitimately confused and just absently looked between the others. “Soooo… has everypony just forgotten that I’m here?”

“Join the club.” Fluttershy and Rarity said in unison.
> 50.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Starbutt, you alright?” Black Mage asked, looking down at Twilight, who lay in a mess on the floor.

After regaining consciousness and looking up, for a short moment, Twilight just wordlessly stared back at Black Mage. A moment later, without changing her expression one bit, she telekinetically grabbed on to him, like how Nightmare moon had done to her, and started beating him mercilessly, like how Nightmare Moon had done to her.

“I’m being beaten to death by a magical pony princess! The only upside is that I have no dignity to lose!”
> Featured.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Featured.

27/09/2017
> 51.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a good few minutes of pummelling Black Mage, Twilight eventually finished up and walked away, back over towards her friends. After everything that she had been put through lately because of him, it was very therapeutic.

When Twilight was finished venting her feelings, Fighter walked over to Black Mage’s not-quite-yet-a-corpse. “You still alive, best buddy?”

“Somehow.” BM said, slowly getting back to his feet.

Wanting to get everything back on track again quickly, and now that she had sufficiently calmed down, Twilight took in a deep breath before addressing the room. “So, now that we’re back on track, does anypony…”

“Anybody.” Fighter corrected.

“Anybody.” Twilight slightly less begrudgingly corrected. “Have any ideas of what we can do next concerning Nightmare Moon and/or getting Fighter and Black Mage home, and please try to make it quick, without any unnecessary tan…” Eye twitch. “…distractions.”

While the room was silent for a moment, with everyone trying to come up with a plan, eventually, it was Fluttershy who spoke up. “Uhhmm, I think I might have an idea.”

“Well, let’s hear it then, Fluffershuffle.” Black Mage said.

“Uhhmm, it’s Fluttershy.”

“I know what your name is!” BM shouted out, with his arms in the air.

Taking a moment to let out a sigh first, Fluttershy then walked into the middle of the room where everyone could see her and simply said, “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.”

“KONAMI!” Discord shouted out, suddenly appearing in a flash of light. “Heh, heh, heh” he chuckled. “That was fun. I wish we could have used our magical alarm sooner. So, what’s the emergency?”

While the room was reeling from the new character’s sudden appearance, Twilight quickly dinged in realization. “Oh, I get it. Discord is the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, so he’ll be able to detect any magical imbalance and help us find Nightmare Moon. Good thinking, Fluttershy.”

This made Fluttershy blush.

Black Mage simply stared at the creature that had appeared, with a pony head, deer antler, goat horn, snake tongue, goat beard, lion paw, eagle claw, lizard leg, goat leg, bat wing, pegasus wing, serpentine body, and a snake tail floating right in front of him.

“Wait, this is the ultimate evil in your world? Hell, the damn thing would be cute if it wasn’t so hideous. The twelve thousand hells have things in their rubbish pile more intimidating than this thing.”

“I thought there were only ten thousand Hells.” Fighter chimed in.

“They had to add more recently due to the influx of souls in the afterlife. As it turns out, deep down, people really are bad on the inside, more prone to evil, and doomed to an afterlifetime of eternal torment. At least Hell doesn’t have ridiculously high standards to get into. Being evil is way easier.”

*Beat*

“Fun too.”
> 52.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, anyway,” Black Mage spoke up, stepping closer to Discord. “These ponies seem to think that you can help us track down Nightmare Moon, so why don’t we save ourselves time and possibly pain and just skip the not-so-pleasantries and you just do it?”

“Oh, and why exactly should I help you?” Discord asked, now for some reason dressed like Bob Ross.

“Okay, let me break this down for you,” Black Mage began, turning his back to Discord as he spoke. “There’s a psychotic alicorn princess on the loose…” He then turned back around to face him. “… and she’s gonna kill me if you don’t tell me where Nightmare Moon is.”

Looking to the side, at the at-first-glance-normal-appearance-but-witholding-the-tranquil-fury-underneath of Twilight Sparkle, Discord gulped but quickly regained himself. “Alright, tell you what,” he began, tapping his two index fingers together. “I’ll tell you exactly what you want to know if you do something or me.”

“Okay, I can see where this is going,” Black Mage immediately responded, with his arms in the air. “You are a Dark God after all. So, how big a sacrifice are we talking? Thirteen orphans? One hundred virgins? I can get you more depending on the time limit – even more if you can deal with the pesky law enforcement for me, so that I don’t get in trouble.” He then looked down in thought. “But then again, a deal like that, I’d be willing to do for nothing if it means I get to kill with impunity, without having to worry about those meddlesome guards.”

He then turned away from Discord whilst he continued speaking. “Why, just think of the kill count I could rack up in even an hour if I didn’t have to worry about the legal ramifications.”

He then turned back around again to face Discord. The Draconequus simply stared back at him silence for a few seconds before responding.

“Wow, and ponies think I’m evil.”
> 53.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright,” Discord began, slamming his mismatched hands together. “I’ve just used my vaguely defined powers and figured out where Nightmare Moon is: she’s at the Castle of the Two Sisters, where you all fought her the first time.”

“Ooooohhh,” Pinkie Pie ‘ooooohhh’. “This will be just like a ‘Book Ends’ where…”

“No.” Twilight backhoofed her without facing her. “Discord, just teleport us there now and save us time.” She immediately followed up with.

Discord seemed to slump. “Well if you just want to…”

“I do. I assure you that I do. No matter you’re going to say, I do. Now hurry up and teleport us.”

Discord actually slumped. “Alright then, Little Miss Let’s…”

“Rambling.” Twilight cut him off.

Without another snappy comeback, Discord snapped his finger, and Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Black Mage, and Fighter disappeared in a flash of light.
> 54.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a flash of light, the group of seven reappeared. They were now in a clearing, with the Everfree Forest behind them, and a rope bridge leading to a dilapidated castle in front of them.

“I taste mud,” Fighter spoke up.

“Fighter,” BM began. “One: We may have just teleported and appeared in a forest like last time, but this isn’t the same situation as before, and two: you’re standing up, with your face nowhere near the dirt, so even in this new context, that doesn’t work.”

“I taste mud,” Pinkie Pie spoke up, who was face down in the dirt after teleporting.

Black Mage just grumbled to himself in annoyance.

“If we can move this forward,” Twilight spoke up, getting everyone’s attention. “Now then, since we know that Nightmare Moon is inside the castle and Discord teleported us just outside the castle, we should take this time to prepare a strategy for how we’re going to deal with Nightmare Moon.”

“Well,” Rainbow Dash began. “We know that Nightmare Moon can be beaten by the Elements of Harmony – which could defeat her instantly – but we can’t use them anymore, and while we did trade those in for the Rainbow Power, which is even stronger, we still can’t use that since Applejack isn’t with us, and backtracking to get her would defeat the purpose of teleporting here to save time.”

“Okay, let’s see then,” BM began in. “We came here to defeat a literal God, and in doing so we left behind the immortal ruler of this country who can move the stars themselves, a chaos spirit who is apparently even stronger than said ruler, the one other pony who could make it so that we win instantly, magical MacGuffins that have been proven to be her kryptonite, all of mine and Fighter’s weapons, and clearly all common sense.”

“Wow, we really came here unprepared.” Pinkie Pie chimed in, now standing up.

“I don’t know. This is pretty standard for us, actually.” BM stated simply.

“Black Mage, I do not want to hear in any way that we are becoming anything like you. At this point, I would rather eat an entire warehouse of quesadillas.” Twilight announced.

“…I don’t get it.” Black Mage deadpanned.
> 55.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, everypony,” Twilight began.

“Everybody.” Fighter corrected.

“Can it, Fighter,” she quickly cut off. “It’s true that we’re insanely underprepared for the situation, but I still think that we should go in and deal with Nightmare Moon now.”

“Seriously?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously. “We’re just going to ‘wing it’ and go in there with no plan whatsoever and just hope that it all works out in the end?”

“I don’t know,” BM said. “That’s always worked for us in the past… somehow.” He then turned around. “Then again, it’s not smart to rely on the kindness of the universe; especially when I’m involved.”

Twilight took in a deep breath before continuing. “Look, it’s true that we’re really unprepared and lacking in a proper strategy right now, but we’ve always triumphed over villains in the past, even when things looked the most hopeless. Plus, the longer we take trying to get ready, the longer Nightmare Moon has to wreak havoc and corrupt the world around her, which seems to be the case for the recent Nightmare entities – being drawn out by proximity to Black Mage’s evil or Fighter’s stupidity – and that could all mean seriously bad news, not only for Princess Luna, but for all of Equestria.”

There were some uncertain looks between the group, but they (the ponies) knew there was a sense to what Twilight was saying, and she was seldom wrong.

“I still think this whole plan is stupid, but that’s never really stopped us in the past,” BM deadpanned.

“We’re gonna be heroes!” Fighter exclaimed, with his arms in the air.

“Then I get to throw another ‘Heroes Party’ when we’re done!” Pinkie Pie added.

Black Mage just placed his hands to his head to try and stop his brain from herniating itself.

Once all of them were ready – or resigned – the group made their way across the rope bridge, towards the castle.
> 56.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group made their way across the rickety rope bridge.

…

…

…

…

…

…

And made it to the other side.
> 57.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stepping inside the Castle of the Two Sisters, the group first entered a small opening area, which aside from cobwebs and cracks in the stone, there was nothing except for a structure in the centre of the room, which looked like it once held some things on its pedestals, but were now empty.

“Well, we’re here,” Rainbow Dash said, taking to the air so that she had a bird’s-eye view of the room. “Now what?”

“First things first,” Twilight said, stepping out ahead of the group. “The...”

However, while she was speaking, she stepped on to a hidden switch in the floor, which suddenly caused the statue that she was standing next to and the immediate area around it, including her, flipped around, causing both the statue and Twilight to disappear.

“Damn it, Twilight!” Black Mage shouted out.

With a popping sound, Twilight Sparkle was once again standing in front of the group. “No! We are not doing this all-getting-separated-one-by-one-and-wandering-around-the-castle-in-small-groups-wasting-more-time-until-we-all-meet-back-up-again schtik.” She then faced forward once again. “Now come on!”

She then lit up her horn and picked up the six of them and suspended them in a purple (and soundproof) bubble of magic, which she floated alongside her, as she walked deeper into the castle.
> 58.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After ten minutes of walking, Twilight made it to the chamber at the far end of the castle, where she and her friends first defeated Nightmare Moon years ago. Coming to a stop, she cut off her connection to the bubble carrying her friends (and Black Mage) and placed them back down again.

...and was immediately met with some of Pinkie Pie’s rambling.

“...and so then once I perfected my lemon strudel recipe, I was finally able to throw my fourth ‘You’re awesome ‘cause you’re named after a dessert, so here’s the dessert you were named after’ party for Lemon Struel, before then moving on to my fifth ‘You’re awesome ‘cause you’re named after a dessert, so here’s the dessert you were named after’ party for...”

“Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up,” Black Mage repeated, with fingers in both of his ears.

“So what happened then?” Fighter asked Pinkie.

“Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up,” Black Mage continued, now directed at Fighter. After a moment, he took his fingers out of his ears and turned towards Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “And how come you three aren’t just as annoyed at her inane/insane ramblings?”

“Oh, we are,” Fluttershy deadpanned.

“We just accept it and put up with it,” Rarity followed up.

“Well I will not,” Black Mage responded in a resolute tone. “To my dying breath and beyond, I will always stand firm in my stance against his idiocy. It shall never claim me. It shall have no sway over me. I will never see it as a charming quirk that introduces brief moments of comedy and brightness into my dark and dreary life, but as a constant, irritating knife, twitching into the skin of my soul that I can never truly escape; but regardless, I will never give in. I shall always meet his stupidity, which burns with the intensity of a Dark God’s butthole, with an equally intense rage that allows my soul no quarter, and...”

Twilight clonked him in the head with her hoof. “Moving on.”
> 59.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright,” Twilight started. “We need to come up with a way in which we can cover the most ground of the castle as possible to try and find Nightmare Moon quickly, while at the same time making sure that we all stay together so that you all don’t start your own little adventures that have nothing to do with why we’re here, that take up even more of our time that we can’t afford to waste.

“Now, I have several strategies in mind that we can start with, most of which involve…”

“Uhhmm, Twilight?” Fighter asked, raising his hand.

“Not now, Fighter. I’m trying to explain how we can find Nightmare Moon quickly.”

“Oh, okay. I was just going to ask about that pony standing behind you, who looks kind of like a larger and more evil version of Princess Luna, who formed out of a black mist that just came in through the window.”

After hearing what Fighter said, Twilight quickly turned on her hooves, and she did indeed see Nightmare Moon standing there, menacingly.

Princess Twilight tried her best to approach this situation calmly and hopefully without conflict. “Princess Luna, I…”

“Sorry, but Luna’s not here right now. You face Nightmare Moon.”

“Call yourself whatever you want, you crazy alicorn bastard!” Twilight snapped. “I have had enough of all the crazy, stupid, asinine, stupid, evil, stupid, unnecessary, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid things that have been going on ever since this whole little adventure started, despite my all but getting down on my knees and begging the world itself to stop be so stupid! Just tell us what your evil plan is so that we can stop you like we usually do, so that we can get back to getting these two back to their own world so that there isn’t even the slightest trace of them left in ours and we can all go back to some semblance of normality! Why did you leave Canterlot Castle when you showed up the first time?”

Nightmare Moon simply grinned smugly in response. “If you haven’t realised it yet, then that just means that my plan is working even better than I thought.”

“What do you mean by that? Explain yourself. Now.” Twilight demanded.

Nightmare Moon’s grin deepened. “You see, Fighter and Black Mage are special, in that they are so stupid and evil, respectively, that they alter the reality of the world around them, making other people stupider and more evil just by them being in the same world as them, and even more so in close proximity. The longer that they remain here, the stronger and more evil I will become, while all of you will start getting stupider and less effective at stopping me, and soon the contagious stupidity and evilness will spread across all of Equestria, infecting everypony, and thus ensuring my victory.

“TL;DR: The longer that you draw this out only makes me more powerful and yourselves more ineffective.”

“This is bad,” Black Mage spoke up. “She’s using our weakness against us, knowing that we’ll get distracted, so that we can’t beat her quickly.”

Thinking over the severity of the situation, Twilight then suddenly realised something and faced Nightmare Moon again. “Wait a minute. If you’re trying to drag this out for as long as possible, then why did you reveal yourself to us just now, when you could have remained hidden and dragged this out even longer?”

Nightmare Moon just sneered sinisterly. “Simple: because it changes nothing. Even though I have revealed myself to you, you have already been affected by these two so much that even though I have just informed you of how dire the situation is, you will still just spend all of your time focused on unimportant tripe instead.”

“Hey, I take offense to that.” BM interjected. “I don’t do that… let’s talk about it.”
> 60.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Black Mage!” Twilight spoke to him. “She has literally just spelled out for us that she will succeed if we stupidly continue to draw this out for as long as possible. So could you please – PLEASE – for once not go off on an eye twitch and just stay focused and actually do something useful?”

“Alright, alright. Hold your ponies,” Black Mage said, making a little circumstantial joke, which just made Twilight quietly growl at him. “I have an idea.” He then turned back to Fighter. “Fighter, go use your swords and stab the bad pony.”

“Yar!” Fighter yelled, jumping into the fray.

“There,” BM said, turning back towards the ponies again. “Fighter may be stupid by blind, mentally deficient monkey standards, but if there is one and only one thing that he’s good at, it’s swords. Just you wait; this will all be over in a moment.”

A moment later, Fighter came back, looking down. “I don’t have my swords anymore. You broke Stabby and Slashy to make knives for yourself.”

“Dammit”!” BM shouted out. “Why does continuity have to be a thing? Like I said earlier in the story, ‘Continuity sucks’.”

“Y’know those weren’t the actual words you said, right?” Fighter replied.

“Yes, I believe I once said something about that: Continuity sucks.”

“Well, I walked right into that one,” Fighter said, looking down.
> 61.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait, before I forget, there is still one thing that I can do.” Black Mage spoke up.

“What’s that?” Fighter asked.

Black Mage then took the knife – Slashy Jr. – that Fighter reminded him he still had and plunged it straight into his skull.

“That.”
> 62.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait, I’ve got it,” Pinkie Pie announced. “Fighter, implement Plan 9!”

“You got it, Pinkie!” Fighter replied immediately.

“What are talki…” Fighter then grabbed Black Mage before he could finish speaking, folded the wizard’s hands together and made him spray a fire spell at Nightmare Moon.

“How did he ju…” Pinkie then grabbed Twilight, stood next to Fighter, and pointed her at Nightmare Moon. She then started using her like a ‘Twilight Laser Gatling Gun’, firing rapid fire magical bullets from the alicorn’s horn, the two attacks bombarding Nightmare Moon.

Off to the side, the rest of the cast stood, observing the battle.

“So… we agree that this makes no sense, right?”

“Let me put it this way: If Discord was here, his head would explode from all the sense this doesn’t make.”
> 63.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Enough!” Nightmare Moon shouted out, releasing a wave of magical energy, knocking the others back.

“Okay,” Black Mage began, getting back to his feet. “Dumb and Dumber’s quote unquote plan failed horribly and our enemy hasn’t even a scratch on her. Anyone got any follow-up ideas?”

“…” Twilight wordlessly gurgled.

“Uhhmm, I think Twilight’s still out of it right now,” Pinkie Pie chimed in, waving her hoof in front of her friend’s face, trying to get a reply out of her.

“So Twilight’s no help – what else is new? – Does anyone else have any ideas they want to try before I inevitably try appeal to Demon Horse Lady and offer her my services in order to save my own skin and we both team up and destroy you in the name of evil?”

“Ooohh, ooohh, I have an idea!” Fighter spoke up enthusiastically, with his arms in the air.

“Fighter, I would say that my sanity is hanging from a thread right now if you hadn’t already obliterated what little of it I had left shortly after I met you all those years ago, but I’ll say it now anyway just to get the point across. Granted that even without your swords, you’re still quite durable, ipso facto my knife in your head right now, but without your swords, what can you possibly do right now that could be of help?”

“Simple, I’ll use these,” Fighter replied, pulling out a pair of long swords.

Looking at the swords that Fighter was holding, Black Mage suddenly thought that they looked familiar. “Wait a minute, those look like Drizz’l’s swords? Have you had those ever since you defeated him? Where have you been keeping them all this time?”

“You don’t want to know.” Fighter replied, looking down.

Black Mage just looked on in response.
> 64.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay, moving on quickly so that I don’t have to think too hard about what you just said,” Black Mage continued. “You have swords once again, which means you can continue with the original plan, and I can still claim credit for it and reap the rewards since it was my idea in the first place. Now go put those swords in the bad pony until she stops thinking conscious thoughts.”

“Yar!” Fighter yelled out, jumping once more unto the breach. As he approached Nightmare Moon, he struck out with his swords, forcing the midnight alicorn to angle herself so that the sword struck her armor instead of her, lessening the damage taken.

“… … … … Okay, I’m back,” Twilight spoke up, now lucid once again. “What did I miss?”

“Well, Fighter is currently engaging Nightmare Moon in combat, and even if he can’t defeat her, then it will at least provide enough of a distraction for the rest of us to run away. Either way, I get rid of at least one annoyance.” Black Mage explained to her.

Twilight blinked in confusion. “Wait, you’re telling me that Fighter is progressing the plot?”

“I know. It’s weird, right?” Black Mage retorted.

“Go Fighter!” Pinkie Pie cheered him on, wearing a foam finger. Behind her, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were eating popcorn.

Fighter struck at Nightmare Moon again, forcing the alicorn to angle her head back to avoid being cut, with Fighter’s attack only taking a few hairs from her ethereal mane. Seeing Fighter’s skills, Nightmare Moon couldn’t help but smirk. “You are clearly an expert fighter… err, Fighter. However, it’s all in vain. No attack you throw at me can hope to penetrate my Armor of Invincibility.”

Upon hearing that, Fighter remained frozen in place for a moment, completely silent, not budging an inch, until he dropped his sword on the ground suddenly, with a loud clang, as metal hit against stone. A moment later, he turned back around to face his friends, with a smile on his face and his arms up in the air. “Guys, did you hear that? I’ve finally found the Armor of Invincibility.”

“Nope, sorry, I’m not doing this. I refuse to accept it.” Black Mage ranted. “Alternate dimensions, magical talking ponies, I can accept, but I cannot believe in a reality where Fighter is right.”
> 64.5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wait, wait, wait!” Fighter shouted out, with his arms in the air. “The year is almost over so I need to say something to update before then.”

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

“Dickbutt.”
> 65.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, everyone,” Twilight spoke up. “The last plan of attack didn’t work, so we need to think of another one.”

“But she has the Armor of Invincibility!” Fighter countered, suddenly getting right up in Twilight’s face, with his arms in the air. “If you wear the Armor of Invincibility then you’re invincible, and you can’t be beaten if you’re invincible, and since it’s called the Armor of Invincibility, then it does make you invincible, since it wouldn’t be called that otherwise, which means that she is invincible, which means that we can’t beat her.”

Twilight just put her hoof to his face and gently pushed him to the side. She then turned towards Black Mage. “Could you please tell me exactly what this Armor of Invincibility is and how Fighter knows about it.”

“Please don’t ask,” Black Mage responded. “The less I know about the stupid armor of stupid invincibility, the easier it will be for me to deny that Fighter was in any way right about it.”

Twilight just let out a sigh at Black Mage not answering. “Well, anyway, we still need a plan of attack and we need one now, and it’s not like a solution is just going to appear out of thin air!”

*Poit*

The sudden interruption seemed to snap Twilight out of her angry rant, now just looking confused. Looking over in the direction in which she had heard the strange sound, she saw what looked like a strange shimmering portal. The portal was spherical in appearance. It was a bit wavy around the edges as it shimmered in place. The portal was white, with small waves of all the colours of the rainbow within it, and was about five trees wide.

“Poit? What kind of sound is that?” Twilight wondered aloud.

“I know what,” Black Mage answered. “And this is either going to be really good or really bad.”

“See, what did I tell you, White Mage? With just, a few basic necessities, a practical understanding of portal magic, and a complete disregard for the laws of dimensional and inter-dimensional physics, creating portals between realities is as easy as min/maxing your character sheet for maximum effectiveness, using a vigorous knowledge of animal husbandry.”

“Yes, Red Mage, you made that abundantly clear, in the sense that I couldn’t understand a single word of it.” White Mage answered as the two of them stepped out of the portal.

“Yup, called it exactly.” BM deadpanned.
> 66.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey…”

“No,” White Mage immediately deadpanned.

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say,” Black Mage defended.

“Yes, I did; hence the ‘no’.” She didn’t even slow down in her stride and simply walked passed him, making her way over towards Twilight.

“Well, that’s just not fair,” Black Mage said as he turned around to follow White Mage’s path.

“Hey...” Red Mage followed up in greeting.

“No,” Black Mage immediately responded with, not even bothering to turn and face him.

White Mage stopped in front of Twilight. “Hello, there, you must be a resident of this dimension. Am I to assume that Black Mage, and to a lesser extent, Fighter, have been causing trouble for you and your world whilst they have been here?”

“That’s right, and I take from the fact that you emerged out of a portal and that you are already intimately familiar with Black Mage, that you come from the same dimension as him and Fighter?”

The woman in white robes smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am White Mage of the Order of White Mages.”

“That’s incredibly redundant,” Twilight deadpanned. “And alongside everything else that I’ve been forced put up with from these two, you’re not doing a good job of convincing me that you’re any different and endearing me to your dimension.”

“Okay, I can immediately tell from your demeanour that you have spent more than two minutes in Black Mage’s company; from the looks of it, it’s a Class-2 Black Mage Reaction,” White Mage deduced. “For any inconveniencies that I know he has caused you, in the name of my home dimension, I apologise, I promise that I will fix your situation, and I know the recipe for a good, calming tea that’s sure to set your nerves on edge – it’s made using chamomile and herb extracts that add a certain ginger aftertaste, which I feel…”

“No tangents!” Twilight suddenly screamed at her, with her eye twitching like crazy.

“Oooooh, a Class-4 Black Mage Reaction,” White Mage followed up with immediately and without changing her tone in the slightest. “In that case, I should speed things up – a Class-5 Black Mage Reaction and things tend to get messy.”

“STOP USING ME AS A NOUN!” Black Mage shouted out from behind them. He then looked down and chuckled to himself. “Heh heh, ‘intimately familiar’.”

“Can I take this out now?” Fighter asked, referring to the knife still lodged in his head.
> 67.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So you see, while Fighter and Black Mage are more of a symptom, the more immediate problem at the moment would be that over there,” Twilight explained, ending her explanation by pointing her hoof towards the midnight black alicorn to the side.

“Hi, there,” the villain responded, with an affable wave of her hoof.

“Hmmm, I see,” White Mage said, as she followed Twilight’s direction, with her fingers to her lips in thought, taking in the situation. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said a moment later, walking over towards said alicorn. “Excuse me, Ms. Demon Horse Lady?”

“Oh, please. There is no need to be so formal. Call me, Nightmare Moon.”

“Very well, Nightmare Moon. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you please allow us a moment to talk freely and discuss a plan for how we may defeat you?”

“Well, since I have already explicitly stated that the longer and more drawn out this fight becomes, the less of a chance that you all have to defeat me, then sure, take as much time as you need.”

White Mage smiled. “Why, thank you, but I assure that I will only need a moment, as I already know exactly what to do and it’s simply a matter of explaining it to the others.”

Nightmare Moon seemed to pause and glance to the side for a moment as she heard that. “…I feel like that should be setting off red flags in my mind right now, but I still feel secure enough in my power that my ultimate victory is assured.” She then looked over her shoulder as she continued to pontificate. “I just hope that it’s not a bad omen that I, myself am also just as susceptible to the red one’s stupidity and the blue one’s evilness, even though it was exactly the blue one’s evilness that caused me to reawaken in the first…”

“So you’ll allow as much time as we want? Thank you,” White Mage interrupted, cutting her off before common sense reasserted itself in her mind.
> 68.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, White Mage, what’s this plan of yours?” Twilight asked, as the group consisting of herself, White Mage, Black Mage, Fighter, Red Mage, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Rarity all gathered together in a circle.

“Oh, it’s quite simple,” White Mage began. “But first, I’m going to need the rest of you all to turn around and look in the opposite direction of Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in confusion. “Huh, why do you need us to turn around?”

“Just trust me,” White Mage assured her. “Do that and I promise you that everything will be wrapped up quickly.”

Twilight was still unsure of what exactly White Mage was planning, but she seemed to be a reasonable person, in spite of sharing a dimension with Fighter and Black Mage, whose presence alone can make you unnecessarily evil and/or stupid. Also, she had promised to wrap everything up quickly, which Twilight could definitely appreciate, so Twilight decided to go along with whatever she had planned.

Everybody sans White Mage then all stepped to the side and turned around so that they were facing away from Nightmare Moon, whilst White Mage herself walked towards the midnight black alicorn. After a few moments of silence, there still wasn’t any sign that anything had happened.

“So, what do you think is going to happen?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Suddenly, there was an incredibly bright light from behind them.
> 69.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black Mage giggled immaturely.

“Oh, grow up,” Fighter scolded him.
> 70.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What was that?” Twilight wondered, still facing away from whatever had caused that flash of light.

“Looked kinda like an impossibly pure white light to me,” Red Mage uttered. He then suddenly looked down. “Why does this all feel so familiar?”

“Nice alliteration at the start there, buddy” Fighter noted.

“That’s not what alliteration is, Fighter, but points for trying, and of course, I’ll accept the praise regardless,” Red Mage responded, which made Fighter beam happily in response to his own praise, before RM faced forward again. “But seriously, what was that?”

“Oh, it’s quite simple,” White Mage began, walking over towards them, with a now de-evilised Princess Luna beside her. “I just zapped her with enough white magic to purify a corrupted being of pure nightmare energy. Which she was. So it worked out.”

“Wait a minute!” Fighter suddenly interrupted, with his arms in the air. “This is that exactly what you did against Chaos, in exactly the same way too, right down to the lines of dialogue!” Fighter questioned.

Black Mage placed his fingers to his mouth in thought. “Hey, you’re right.”

“Who cares?!” Twilight suddenly exploded. “I’m just glad that this whole thing is finally over! If it really bothers you that much, then go and complain about it to somebody else, somewhere else, but not me!”

*Cough*
> 71.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, if we’re done here, we should probably head back to Canterlot again.”

Suddenly, there was a flash of light. When it faded, there was an elderly stallion standing there, wearing a long, brown cloak.

“You all thought that Chrysalis or Tirek would show up as the next villain, but it is I, Pipsqueak… and I swear to Me if any of you makes a DIO reference…

“Yes, you heard me right. I am now basically a God. After a lifetime of being traumatised by Black Mage, I dedicated my life to learning everything I could about magic, so that I could exact my revenge in the most painful way possible. I then travelled back to the beginning of the Universe, in order to remake it in my own image, but unfortunately that didn’t work out for reasons that I’m going to gloss over. Now that I am here, I can finally…”

“What the Hell? We don’t have time for this.” BM interrupted.

Everyone then just turned around and walked out of the castle.

Now all alone in the castle’s main chamber, Pipsqueak just stared ahead for a moment and then his eyes drooped. “Well… fuck.”
> 72.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now back at Canterlot Castle, the group, consisting of Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Luna, joined now by Celestia and Discord were all gathered around a large, circular table in the Royal Dining Room, all of them enjoying a cup of White Mage’s special calming tea, whilst unwinding after their long and arduous adventure.

“You were right, White Mage, this tea is doing wonders for my anxiety,” Twilight spoke, taking another sip of her tea.

“I find that it really takes the edge off after spending sufficient time in these two’s company,” White Mage responded.

“I would take offense to that,” BM spoke up. “However, I’m simply far too engrossed in this tea as well, so I’ll let it slide.” He then took another drink.

“This tea gets a +1 to deliciousness,” Red Mage chimed in.

The rest of the group all gave affirmative nods in agreement.

Fluttershy simply gazed around the room, moving her eyes from one individual to the next, taking note of their uncharacteristically cheery and co-operative demeanour. She then took a drink of her own tea for the first time. “This is pot,” she deadpanned.

“Pots of what?” Pinkie asked from beside her.

“Pot,” Fluttershy repeated in the exact same tone. After a moment, she simply took another sip of her tea.
> 73.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Now,” Twilight began, levitating her cup back down on to the plate in front of her. “We should probably get back to…”

“Princess Luna!” Fighter suddenly exclaimed, with his arms in the air, suddenly appearing next to the Princess of the Night.

Twilight had to fight the urge to facehoof, but thanks to her calming tea, it’s a fight that she won this time.

“What is it, Fighter?” Princess Luna asked the brave no-longer-a knight standing before her.

“For sooth and anon, fair Princess. This humble subject merely asks for a moment of your time and to request a boon for services rendered,” Fighter began, speaking once again in his ye olde English.

“Is that so? Speaketh then, noble Fighter, and I shall hear and ponder this request of yours,” Princess Luna responded, in the same speech patterns.

“I admit that the true purpose of this excursion to your kingdom was in fact an epic journey, which has admittedly been fraught with danger and peril, has all been in search of the legendary Armor of Invincibility, which has been the subject of mine pursuit since I was but a squire, and now I have finally found it to be in your possession.”

“I see. So you wish for me to bequeath unto you my mythical suit of Armor of Invincibility, is that so?” Princess Luna pondered upon the fighter before her. “Sure, go ahead and take it,” she suddenly responded in a much more casual tone, levitating the armor into his grasp. “This armor, as invincible as it may be, has only negative memories associated with it for me, so I would be happy to part with it and to see it go beyond my reach, so that I may never use it again to harm innocent ponies.”

“Score!” Fighter exclaimed, finally claiming his long sought after prize.

Across the table, Black Mage observed their conversation. “Oh great, Fighter’s actually invincible now; as if I didn’t already have a hard enough time trying to kill him.” He then cupped his hands together and looked down. “Then again, I like a challenge, and if I can’t kill him instantly, then that just means that I can experiment with more painful and drawn out methods of ending his life, which always puts a smile on my face.”

Twilight then clonked BM on the head with her hoof. “We’re moving on.” She deadpanned.
> 74.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Now then,” Twilight began again after taking another sip of tea. “While it’s good to have Princess Luna back to normal, there is still the matter of Fighter and Black Mage literally poisoning our world with their stupidity and evilness, respectfully, so we’re pretty much back to where we were before the whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ incident happened, except worse off since now more time has passed, and we now also have Red Mage and White Mage here too, who will probably each have their own effects on our world if enough time should pass, so we really should get back to our original goal of getting them all back to their own world before that happens.”

She then turned towards White Mage and Red Mage specifically. “Am I to assume that you two have a way to do just that, since you two also arrived in our world via a portal, and White Mage at least seems reasonable enough not to cross dimensions without a way back.”

“Not to worry, Princess,” Red Mage responded. “I have proficiency in portal making, and I had it set specifically to hone in on Black Mage’s aura and stench…”

“Hey…”

“… no matter where in the multiverse it is. All I need is a d-20, a magical signature on the other side to lock on to, and…”

“Wait, you need to create a portal between dimensions?” Discord interrupted. He then smiled widely. “Well then, why didn’t you say so?” He then snapped his fingers, and with a ‘Poit’ sound, suddenly, there was a strange, white, wavy shimmering portal in the room with them.

Seeing the portal appear before her eyes, Twilight just blinked a few times before speaking up again. “Oh, yeah, Discord has the power to create portals between dimensions; I forgot about that,” she deadpanned. “That’s probably a sign that we should speed things up as much as equinely possible, by which I mean, if five minutes pass and they’re still not through, then we should just kick them through it and be done with this.”
> 75.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now with a portal back home, the four humans all got up from their seats and lined up to pass through it and return to their own dimension, as well to say their final goodbyes to the ponies.

“So, our latest adventure finally comes to an end,” Black Mage began. “And with us no richer or better off than when we started. So, you know; same old same old.”

“Speak for yourself,” Fighter responded, with the Armor of Invincibility in his arms.

“It is a shame that Thief isn’t here to share in this new adventure with us,” RM noted. “Have all the Light Warriors reunited once again.”

“Scared little forest elves!” Fighter suddenly shouted out.

Suddenly, Black Mage was lying prone on the floor, with what looked like another human standing on top of him, though this one had pointy ears, blue hair, and wore a brown, leather tunic.

“Thief!” Fighter and Red Mage exclaimed happily.

Twilight, however, blinked in confusion at this person’s sudden appearance, quickly glancing between him and the portal. “Wait, how did you get here? I didn’t even see you coming through the portal.”

“You can’t afford my secrets,” Thief responded offhand. “Speaking of which,” he continued, now facing Twilight fully. “As your world has had the privilege of being saved by the Light Warriors, I must inform you, as the leader of said Light Warriors, our services don’t come for free, so I am here to collect payment for services rendered.”

“Excuse me?” Twilight asked rhetorically. “One: the trouble that they helped save our world from was caused by them in the first place. Two: they barely even did anything to save us from said trouble. And three: these two have caused more trouble in their short time spent here than any villain we have faced in our country’s history, and myself personally so much mental trauma and tooth-grinding agony that if anything, I should be demanding payment from you, if for nothing else than to at least cover my dental bills.”

“Irrelevant,” Thief countered immediately. “Any and all counterclaims towards payment are clearly outlined in Section 4, Subsection E, as you’ll see here in these contracts,” he said, producing said contracts.

Twilight took a hold of the contracts and gave them a quick read, inwardly admitting that the legal language used was indeed impressive, and from what she gathered, completely airtight, before she lowered them and faced Thief once again. “Well, I don’t care what any of your contracts say; we are not paying you anything for all of the trouble that you and your friends have caused in our world.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that.”

Two minutes later…

“Thank you for your patronage, Princess. Proud to do business with you,” Thief finished, now with the entirety of the Canterlot Royal Treasury stuffed in sacks behind him.

Twilight, however, just stood there and blinked absently. “How did he do that?”

“I’m still down here,” BM spoke up, still lying prone beneath Thief.
> 76.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, Fighter, Black Mage,” Twilight began, now having recovered from her ‘Thief Experience’, looking each of them in the eye as she spoke. “I’m not going to say that it’s been fun, because it hasn’t, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience in the least, your time spent here.”

“Gee, Starbutt, you’re gonna make me tear up,” BM drolled sarcastically.

“I’m not going to miss this,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Well, I’m going to miss you, Fighter,” Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared beside Twilight, to also say her final goodbyes.

“And I you, Pinkie,” Fighter responded. “For I swear on the knightly code that I hold so dear, that I shall never forget my adventures had in this realm and the bonds that I have forged here this day.”

“Fighter, there is no knightly code; you just made it up,” BM interjected. “Also, you’re technically not a knight anymore.”

“For what force could be powerful enough to severe the ties of friendship formed between us?” Fighter continued. “Especially now that I have the Armor of Invincibility; did I mention that?” He added.

“Friendship is Magic!” Pink exclaimed.

“Okay, I’m being ignored. What else is new?” BM added.

“What did I say about speeding things up?!” Twilight suddenly found herself shouting again.
> 77.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, let’s light this candle!” Fighter suddenly shouted out, with both of his arms in the air, now wearing the Armor of Invincibility. Black Mage couldn’t help but chuckle a little at his choice of words, mirroring the beginning of this particular adventure.

The four humans – and Thief – then all walked through the portal, as the assembled ponies – and Discord – waved goodbye to them as they left. After all five had stepped through the portal, it closed behind them, once again keeping both worlds distinct and separate.

Once the portal had closed, Pinkie Pie suddenly spoke up. “Hey, Twilight. Since it was already established that Discord could open up portals between dimensions, and since Fluttershy knew this, had a way of calling him to her in an instant, and she was the first one that the two of them approached, and they explicitly told her that they were from another world and were trying to find a way back there, couldn’t we have sent them back this entire time and avoided all of this?”

Twilight suddenly frozen in place, with her hoof in the air, mid-wave, and a blank empty look on her face upon hearing Pinkie Pie’s words.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…
> 78.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…”


> 79.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



“…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…”


> 80.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



“…ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc…”


> 81.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



“…kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”


> 82.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The four humans and one elf stepped back into their own dimension, appearing in the forest bordering the mud town in which they had first began this latest adventure, with the portal closing behind them once again.

After the portal had closed, Black Mage then suddenly stopped where he was and looked back. “Hey, did you guys hear something?”