> The Usurper King of Equestria
>  by UsurperBronyZant
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> In Which It Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Earth*

It was supposed to be a great day. And I'm sure it would've been, if things hadn't gone horribly wrong. If I hadn't gone to that shady vendor. If I hadn't bought that stupid keychain.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

I was so hyped. Today was the day. I'm sure someone amongst you knows the feeling.

My first con.

I'd been waiting so long and it was finally here. It was a good one too--a huge gaming con up in Boston. I'd saved up for months just to afford the plane ticket and spent even more time working on my cosplay. I'd be going as my favorite villain ever (of all time), Usurper King Zant from The Legend of Zelda:  Twilight Princess. It was incredibly detailed--I wanted to be as accurate as possible. It wasn't perfect though. To save money, I'd used cheap fabric, so it was VERY itchy. I'd also made the helmet and shoulder pad (for want of a better word) thingy out of papier-mâché to prevent them from being ridiculously heavy, but as a result they were pretty flimsy.

But I didn't care. I was going to an awesome con, I had a badass cosplay, and today was going to be EPIC!

The first thing I noticed when I went in was the sheer size of the crowd.

So. Many. PEOPLE.

It was ridiculous! A massive sprawl of human bodies all pushing and shoving each other, fighting just to get from one end of the main hall to the other!

The second thing I noticed was a certain vendor. He was sort of off to one side, a bit in the dark. He was even dressed as the merchant from Resident Evil 4 (though I didn't know it at the time). Intrigued, I decided to see what he had for sale.

"Welcome! I got rare things for sale, stranger!" he said in an accent I couldn't place. After briefly examining his wares, something caught my eye:  a keychain with an excellent scaled-down replica of the symbol that appears behind Zant when he changes the scenery when you battle him in Twilight Princess. I held it up (not very easy to do with the absurdly long sleeves that are one of Zant's defining traits) and asked, "How much for this?"

He looked at the keychain, then at me, then at the keychain again. Looking back to me he said, "For you, I guess...fifteen bucks."

I thought it over for a moment. My job didn't pay that well, so every penny counted, but the thing was just so well made! In the end, I couldn't resist. "Deal," I said as I pulled my wallet out of a pocket hidden up my sleeve.

"Pleasure doing business with ya," he said as he put away the money I'd just given him.

I walked a short distance away and stopped by the wall. I held the symbol close to my face so I could see the detailing better when I saw something unusual about the little thing.

It was glowing a sinister red.

"The hell...?" I said under my breath.

The symbol started to vibrate in my hand. Panicked, I let go of it. I expected it to fall to the floor and maybe shatter, but it did neither of those things. Instead, it just STAYED there, floating in mid-air, and started to grow. Before long it was slightly taller than me, including the helmet of my costume. The symbol, or whatever it really was, flashed blood red a couple of times, and the next thing I knew, everything had gone black.


~~~


*Location:  Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, present day*

"Oh god, my head."

That was my first thought as I regained consciousness.

My second thought:  "Where the hell am I?"

The ground was cold and hard, like stone. There was almost no light whatsoever, and it was deathly quiet--a sharp contrast to the bustling convention center I'd just been in. It was then that I decided to take stock of myself and my personal belongings.

"Okay, so what do I have inventory-wise?" I thought to myself.

I checked up my sleeves to see the secret pockets I'd put there, only to find they were gone. Feeling the inside of my sleeve just to be sure the pockets hadn't vanished into thin air (they had), I noticed the fabric was a much higher quality than the crap I'd originally made the costume out of, almost like silk.

"That's weird," I thought. "Wait a second..."

Checking up my sleeve once more I noticed something even weirder:  my arm had turned a pale shade of blue.

"What the..." I said to myself, only to hear that my VOICE had changed as well!

"What in the heavens!" I said to myself, unintentionally channeling my inner PewDiePie. My voice had gotten somewhat lighter, but not by much as it wasn't that deep to begin with. It certainly sounded more menacing though, almost like Seto Kaiba's without all the drama and cockiness.

It was only then that I felt a strange weight on my head and shoulders. Feeling my helmet, I could've sworn it was oddly cold and smooth, like metal.

"Well that explains the weight," I said in a voice that wasn't my own but still came out of my mouth. "But I made those out of papier-mâché..."

I was starting to grow panicked, so I figured the only reasonable thing to do was to run to the faint light source I saw ahead. As I ran, I noticed that my shoes were also considerably heavier, which indicated that they were metal as well. When I reached the light source I saw a wood-and-rope bridge that looked to have been built (or at least restored) not very long ago, but also rather lightly used. Taking a moment to catch my breath, I also took time to look down at my attire.

It looked...authentic. That was the only word I could think of to describe it. It looked exactly like what Zant wore in Twilight Princess, from the gilded shoes to the blue patterns on the sleeves and chest.

"What on Earth is happening?" I wondered aloud.

"Wait, if you're from Earth, does that make you a human? 'Cuz if you are, then I have to throw you a 'congratulations on being the first human in Equestria' party!" said a perky female voice.
> In Which There Is First Contact
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, approximately 45 minutes ago*

Twilight Sparkle was exhausted.

She'd just finished an all-night research session and even SHE knew when to stop. She was about to go get ready for bed when suddenly her stomach filed a complaint in the form of a grumble that to the casual observer/conspiracy theorist/insane asylum resident could have come from a full-grown dragon.

"Need food..." thought Equestria's most recently crowned princess. Now normally, the thoughts of such a scholarly mare would be much more rational and refined, but please remember that this scholarly mare hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours and hadn't had a square meal in twelve.

Twilight also somewhat grudgingly acknowledged that she needed to go outside at some point, so she decided to kill two birds with one stone and go get take-out from Sugarcube Corner.

"Spike! I'm going to Sugarcube Corner to get breakfast! You want anything!?" she called, half-yawning as she did so.

"Just a couple of donuts would be fine, thanks!" replied the young dragon from somewhere within the massive crystalline castle.

"Okay, got it! Be back soon!" called the lavender mare, before muttering under her breath, "And after breakfast I can finally get some sleep..."

She was about halfway between her palace and Sugarcube Corner when she felt some sort of magical disturbance coming from the Everfree Forest. Now, all ponies know the Everfree is by no means normal, but when you can actually FEEL an abnormality coming from it, something is VERY wrong. Now quite alarmed and awake, Twilight looked in the direction of the forest and saw something that made her blood run cold:  an ominous pulse of blood-red energy had just been released from somewhere within the Everfree Forest, and it was big enough that she could see it from the middle of Ponyville.

The now-terrified alicorn mare watched on in horror as the pulse, which she was sure was dark magic, raced towards Ponyville. Luckily, it fizzled out just before it hit the town. It was almost as if the magic stopped when it reached the edge of the forest. There was little time to be relieved, however, as Twilight knew what had to be done in this kind of situation.

She ran back to her castle and called out, "SPIKE! COME HERE! AND BRING PAPER, A QUILL, AND SOME INK!" In a split second the young drake was there with everything she'd requested. She took the ink pot in her magical grasp and said, "Spike, take a letter. Something major just happened and Princesses Celestia and Luna need to know."



"Dear Princesses Celestia and Luna,
I'm not sure if you saw, but a massive pulse of dark magic just erupted from somewhere within the Everfree Forest. We're lucky it dissipated before anyone in Ponyville was injured. I have no idea what caused it, but it would be wise to check the Everfree and attempt to find the source of this anomaly. I plan to gather the other Elements of Harmony and investigate.
Sincerely, Princess Twilight Sparkle 



After briefly examining the letter, Spike sent it off to Canterlot via his magic fire breath. After he'd done so, Twilight turned to him and said, "We need to gather our friends! Quick, you get Rarity and Pinkie. I'll get Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Hurry! Go! Now! We need to investigate the source of that dark magic!"

They gathered the remaining heroines of Equestria in record time. Within five minutes, the seven of them (including Spike) were standing outside Twilight's palace.

"So what's so important you needed to interrupt my sleep THIS time, Twi?" asked Rainbow Dash, obviously a bit annoyed.

"I'm not sure if you saw, but there was a huge pulse of dark magic a few minutes ago! We were lucky it didn't hit Ponyville! It came from somewhere within the Everfree Forest! We need to see what caused it in case it sends out another, bigger pulse! Ponyville could be in danger!"  exclaimed Twilight, who by now was going into what her friends referred to as "crazy mode"--her mane and tail were starting to fray, and her left eye was twitching a bit.

The five mares shared a look between themselves, then four of them rested their gazes upon the fifth, deciding who would voice their decision. "Well dear, if you really think it's that important, I suppose we should," said Rarity, saying what they were all thinking.

"Great! Okay, we'll need our standard expedition gear. Saddlebags, rope, water..." Twilight would have continued listing off the supplies she thought they'd need for their trek into the Everfree, but she was cut off by the sudden appearance of two certain diarchs.

"Princess Celestia!? Princess Luna!?" Twilight was thoroughly stunned. "What are you doing here!? I mean, it's great to see you, it's just--" "Unexpected?" Princess Celestia cut off Twilight before she could go into full crazy mode via startled spluttering. "It's alright Twilight, it's just that when we got your letter, we felt it'd be best if we went along with you, just in case. And it's great to see you too. Now come along everypony, we'd better get going. And Twilight, don't bother with supplies, they'll just weigh us down."

Upon hearing this, everyone present other than Celestia and Luna was quite confused.

"Uh, sorry if Ah sound a bit rude fer sayin' this Princess, but whaddya mean, 'weigh us down?' Now that yall're here, can't ya just magic us to wherever this dark pulse whatchamacallit came from?" said Applejack. It was Princess Luna who answered her. "We would prefer this as well, but alas, we have no choice. My sister and I are both drained, as she has only recently awoken, and I am in desperate need of sleep. Factor in our recent teleport here from Canterlot, and you will realize why we cannot teleport all nine of us to the origin of the anomaly. Even if we WERE at full power, instantaneously transporting such a large group so far into the Everfree Forest is still a risk. Given its strange magicks, who knows what could happen? However, we were able to determine the anomaly's origin. The pulse came from the place where you six saved me," said the Lunar Princess.

"The Castle of the Two Sisters," said Twilight, more to herself than to the others.

"Exactly," said Celestia, before continuing, "and we'd better get going. If we're lucky it won't take us much more than half an hour to get there." Seeing no reason to stand around and talk, the gathered ponies (plus one dragon) decided to get the whole affair over with and head into the forest.


~Thirty-three Minutes Later~


*Location:  Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, approximately two minutes ago*

The trek through the Everfree had taken a fairly long time, but Rarity's near-constant whining made it seem like an eternity. No, scratch that, "complaining." They all knew the difference between Rarity "complaining" and flat-out whining. After all, they'd been there when that unfortunate pack of Diamond Dogs learned the difference the hard way.

"Alright everypony, we're here. Time to fan out and search for whatever caused that pulse! Remember, the sooner we find it, the sooner we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives!" said Twilight to everyone there. 

After about a minute of searching the clearing in front of the castle, they hadn't had much luck. "There's nothing out here," said Twilight, stating the obvious. "Let's start checking inside the castle."

They were about to cross the bridge to get to the entrance to the castle, when suddenly they heard what sounded like hoofsteps on stone. And they were getting closer.

"Quick! Hide in the bushes! Somepony's coming!" said Twilight, whisper-shouting so that only her intended audience could hear her.

"Ooh! Ooh! are we going to throw them a surprise party?!" asked the ever-eager Pinkie Pie.

"Yeah Pinkie, we'll throw 'em a surprise party...the main meal will be hoof sandwiches!" said Rainbow in reply, eager to lay down the smack on whatever threatened her hometown.

"Shh! Quiet, both of you! Quickly, hide!" said a somewhat fearful Twilight. The two mares, noticing the urgency in their friend's voice, decided they'd better listen.

*Now...*

As the eight ponies and one dragon lay hidden in shrubbery, they heard the hoofsteps grow louder and louder, until a figure unlike anything they'd ever seen emerged from the castle. Even Celestia and Luna, in their thousands of years of living, had never seen anything even slightly similar to the creature that had just emerged from their old home.

For starters, it was quite tall. It had to be at least seven hooves tall, counting its...helmet? The nine of them couldn't tell if the pointy, vaguely triangular bit at the top was really its head or just a helmet. Based on how it moved, it appeared to be wearing baggy clothing, with a rather slight frame underneath it all. They couldn't see anything of the creature's skin, but its clothing was, in a word, otherworldly. It was mostly black, with a crimson front that had some sort of silver design on it. The sleeves were absurdly long, fully covering the creature's arms, and had strange turquoise designs running all up and down them, and eight tassels hung from the cuff of each and ran all the way to the ground. The creature's shoes appeared to be gold, and were apparently designed to resemble heads of dragons or perhaps cragodiles. Its metallic helmet (they were now convinced it was a helmet) looked very much like some sort of exotic lizard, with eyes that bulged out so much it was certainly possible they were exaggerated, and a strange segmented tongue. Its shoulder guards were decorated with serpent-like designs.

The strange biped simply stood there, examining itself for a moment. It looked at the designs on its clothing, then lightly hit one side of its helmet, producing a hollow, metallic *bong*. It said something that they couldn't quite make out. Then, just loud enough for the onlookers to hear, it said, "What on Earth is happening?"

This greatly confused all who'd heard it. Earth? Did that make this thing a human? It was certainly dressed differently than the humans Twilight had seen when she went through the mirror. The ponies and dragon turned to look at each other, only to see that a certain pink party pony was poking her head out from her cover. She called to the creature, which was male according to its voice.

"Wait, if you're from Earth, does that make you a human? 'Cuz if you are, then I have to throw you a 'congratulations on being the first human in Equestria' party!" she said with her usual amount of perkiness.

The creature looked straight at her. After processing what he was seeing for a moment, he finally spoke. He said a single word:  "What."
> In Which There Are Shocking Revelations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, now...*

I immediately turned to face the source of the noise and was surprised to see a face that I recognized, and said the first thing that came to mind:  "What." It was the only thing that seemed appropriate at the time.

"Is that...Pinkie Pie??" I thought. The creature that had uttered the noise looked like her, but she couldn't be real, could she? Surely I was going insane. Or at least, that was what I was thinking  before I heard the frustrated sigh from the bushes, followed by the emergence of eight technicolor ponies (including Pinkie) and one small dragon.

"What!" I said as I instinctively took a half-step back, now thoroughly shocked.

Then the blue winged one with the prismatic mane got all up in my face.

"Who are you?!" she asked accusingly. She had a tomboyish air about her, with her tone of voice and the way she carried herself. "Are you a spy!? Why'd you try to destroy Ponyville with that dark magic thingy!?! TALK BEFORE I-" "Hold it there RD," said a twangy southern voice.  At the same time an orange hoof grabbed the apparent designated bad cop by the tail and yanked her back down to earth (she'd had to fly up a bit to get in my face as she did). "RD?" I thought. "Rainbow Dash? Am I maybe in Equestria??" I looked to the orange mare who'd been kind enough to get Rainbow Dash(?) out of my face. She had a blonde mane and, oddly enough, was wearing a stetson. "No need to go accusin' somepony of sumthin before we even introduce ourselves to em'." 

Then someone else, a lavender pony with wings and a horn and an indigo mane and tail with pink and violet stripes running through both "Twilight Sparkle?", said to the orange one, "You're absolutely right Applejack." Turning to me, she said, "Hi! I'm Twilight Sparkle, one of the princesses of Equestria!" 

"Ah'm Applejack," said my orange savior. 

"Iiiiiiii'm Pinkie Pie!" said the apparently hyperactive mare who'd spoken before, confirming my suspicions as she did. 

"I am Rarity, Ponyville's premiere fashionista!" said a pompous and, well, expensive-looking white unicorn mare. This one even had makeup and a posh accent! 

"Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!" said bad cop, confirming my suspicion about her. "Maybe I AM in Equestria..." I thought. 

"um...I'm Fluttershy..." whispered the evidently meek yet incredibly aw'dawwble yellow-coated pegasus who was doing a relatively good job of hiding behind her long, pink mane. I was also sure that she was the source of all moe in the universe. All of it, I say! Rarity spoke again, telling the adorable one, "Ehm, dear, I'm not sure he heard you..." "No, I heard her," I said. I really hadn't, but I didn't need to to know that it was Fluttershy.

"I'm Spike. I'm a dragon!" said the small reptile, seeming proud of the fact.

"Princess Celestia of Equestria, pleased to make your acquaintance," said the white regal-looking alicorn who was at least as tall as me.

"Hail and well-met, creature! We art Luna, diarch of Equestria, sister of Celestia, and princess of the night!" shouted the dark blue alicorn mare. She came up to about my shoulders, making her taller than all of the other ponies except, of course, her sister.

"So...who're you?" asked Pinkie Pie.

"Well...I'm not entirely sure at the moment," I replied. "I'm sorry, but could one of you give me a mirror?" I asked the assembled beings.

In a flash, Pinkie was gone, and then, in another flash, she was back, a hand-mirror clutched in one hoof. "Here ya go!" she said. Much to my surprise, no one else was shocked by what had just happened. "Wha...but how did you..." I stammered. Luckily, she knew what I meant, and said, "I store these all over the place in case of mirror emergencies!" said the physics-defying mare. "Thanks..." I said as I took the mirror from her. I looked into it and saw Zant's chameleon-like helmet staring back at me. 

"Hmm...now how to take this thing off..." I thought. I know it starts with the face guard, and that recesses, and then sorta telescopes up into the rest of the helmet..." The moment I completed the thought, it happened. The face guard of the helmet recessed slightly, and then telescoped upward into the rest of the helmet, segments apparently going into other segments, going 'kliklikliklik' as they did. Once the process was complete, I saw a pale-blue mouth and chin, the same shade as my arm, in the mirror. I opened my mouth, and the reflection did the same. This wasn't surprising--I'd made the face guard on the helmet removable and had painted the part of my face blue just because I could. What was surprising was the fact that my front teeth were now needle-sharp. I ran my tongue along them to confirm this, and it was true. Now beginning to go into panic mode, I figured I'd better find a way to remove the rest of my helmet.

"Okay...now let's see...if I remember correctly, the front and back sections separated, and then the whole thing went up, and back behind my head, maybe vanishing into a hammerspace or something..." As with the face guard, as I completed the thought, the action began. The front and back halves of the helmet separated with a metallic 'chnk', and the whole of the helmet rose up and went up and over my head, sort of fell backwards behind my head, and seemed to shrink and vanish as it did so. What I saw in the mirror after that left me speechless.

Sure, I'd painted the area around my mouth and chin pale blue, but not my whole face! And I certainly hadn't painted the Twilit Emblem on the bridge of my nose in turquoise! And I never even bought orange sclera lenses! Nor had I dyed my hair bright red or made/purchased a yellow balaclava! There was only one explanation. 

But I had to be sure.

"Um, again, sorry, not to be rude, but where am I? Like, specifically?"

"Well, we're outside the Castle of the Two Sisters..." started Twilight.

"I-in the Ev-verfree F-forest..." stammered Fluttershy (who shall henceforth be known as the aw'dawwble one).

"In Equestria..." continued Rarity.

"On the planet Equus!" finished Pinkie Pie.

"That's what I was afraid of," I thought. I looked in the mirror Pinkie Pie had given me once more to confirm my final suspicion.

"Thank you," I said to them, my voice trembling, "Now, to finally answer your question...I think I'm Zant...Usurper King Zant."
> In Which I (Somewhat) Successfully Teleport Several Living Beings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, now...*

As soon as I'd finished introducing myself I regretted using my full title. Everyone present tensed up at the Usurper King portion, making me think that perhaps I should've left that part out. "Don't worry," I told them in an effort to assuage their fears. "It's just a title. I'm not after anyone's throne or anything. I hardly deserve that title anyway. I never usurped anyone, nor was I a king. Probably a good thing too, I'd just make a mess of whatever I was in charge of," I continued. This seemed to calm them down somewhat, but they were still weary of me, which I could understand.

"Well, it's lovely to meet you, Zant," said Celestia. "Now, would you happen to know anything about a rather large dark magic pulse originating from this point?" she asked. I could tell from her tone of voice that she suspected me, when I really had no clue about it. Thinking quick, I figured the best bet was to tell the truth.

I regained my composure before speaking again. "Lovely to meet all of you as well. And I'm sorry Princess Celestia, but I don't know anything about a dark magic pulse or whatever. All I know is that I was at a convention wearing a costume like this, I bought a neat thing from a shady vendor, some crazy stuff happened, and then I woke up in that castle like this," I said, gesturing to myself as I finished. The natives exchanged some looks. Their gazes eventually settled on Applejack. "He ain't lyin'. If he was, I woulda said sumthin' before." Apparently this mare was their equivalent of a lie detector. Suddenly, Princess Luna's horn started to glow a soft azure. "Uh...what are you doing?" I asked her.

"Scanning you for dark magic," she replied briskly. "It would seem you have a large amount of it within you, and with what this scan is telling me of your physiology, you should be able to control it." I wasn't sure what to make of that. "Um...okay. Question:  exactly how much dark magic is in me? Like, on a scale of one to world-breaking," I asked her. "There is enough within you that if it was all released at once, it would destroy Equestria at least," she replied, to my eternal shock. "And yet you know nothing of the anomaly..."

"Crap, they still suspect me!" I thought. "Maybe it happened when I arrived?" I suggested lamely, silently praying that they'd buy it. "Perhaps," said Princess Luna. I was still somewhat fanboying on the inside over the fact that I was in the same area as her. I mean sure, just being in Equestria is pretty awesome, but Luna...Luna is best pony! (At least in my opinion.) "What do you think, Twilight Sparkle?" said best pony to the lavender alicorn.

"Well, Applejack said he isn't lying, and she's always right about that sort of thing, so considering that, I suppose it's possible," said Twilight. "However, there is one other thing we should consider," she continued. 

"Whatever could we have forgotten?" asked Rarity. "W-we're still in the middle of the Everfree F-forest!" said Fluttershy. The poor mare was so afraid, she'd gone into the fetal position and was trembling. "Yeah, maybe we oughtta do sumthin' 'bout that..." said Applejack, saying what we were all thinking. "Uuhhgh, we're gonna have to walk all the way back to Ponyville!" said Rainbow Dash, evidently annoyed by this prospect. "In all that icky muck!" added Rarity, predictably. "Ooh! Ooh! We won't have to walk back!" said Pinkie Pie. At this, we all looked at her with curiosity. She took this as her cue to continue, saying, "I could mod my party cannon and make it big and strong enough to launch us all the way back to Ponyville!" Upon hearing this, we all gave her a deadpan look. It was then that I realized something. 

"Wait, why would we walk when there are three alicorns here, any of which should be capable of teleporting a small group of beings a relatively short distance?" I asked the group. It was Princess Celestia who answered. "As much as we don't like it, none of us can teleport a group of this size from here to Ponyville. My sister is rather tired and still somewhat magically drained, Twilight hasn't slept in at least twenty-four hours, and I recently teleported Luna and myself to Ponyville to Canterlot, and even if we were fully rested, given the unusual nature of the Everfree and its strange magicks, combined with all the residual dark magic from that pulse, we still wouldn't want to tempt fate," she said. "Ah. I see," I said. It did make sense, but it sucked that I had to walk all that way. I wasn't the most athletic person back home. Sure, I got a bit of exercise every now and then, but I was a gamer by nature. I HATED having to walk that far, especially in a forest, ESPECIALLY in clothes like the ones I was wearing now.

"Well if the cannon won't work, why don't we have Zanty teleport us to Ponyville?" said Pinkie Pie. More looks were exchanged between the natives, or at least all of them except Pinkie Pie. Seriously though, what was up with them doing that so much? Were they telepathic or something? Or did they just know each other that well?

Finally, Twilight spoke up. "Could you do it?" she asked me. "To be honest, I'm not sure," I said. "I've never had magic before, but I think I used magic when I took off my helmet, and when I did that, I just thought about it, so if it's that easy, then I should be able to." Twilight clearly wasn't thrilled by my answer. However, when she looked at Rarity and Rainbow Dash, she could see they were both giving her looks of (fake) sadness. She gave a sigh of resignation before saying to me, "Zant, I'm sorry to ask this of you after everything you've been through, but...do you think you could teleport all of us to Ponyville?"

"Um...I could try," I responded. Upon hearing this, Rarity and Rainbow both let out huge sighs of relief. "One thing though," I said. The two mares both suddenly looked more downtrodden than they had before. "I've never teleported before," I said. "Anything I need to know?" I asked the assembled magic-wielders.

It was Twilight who answered me. "Oh! Well, before you begin the teleportation sequence, you need to picture the place you want to go in your mind," she said. "I'm not sure how the mechanics work with your sort of magic, so that's really all I can tell you," she continued. It wasn't much, but hopefully it'd be enough.

"Okay," I replied. "Um, I've never been to Ponyville before. Could someone give me a picture of it? A big, flat, wide-open space would probably be best," I said. "I'll do you one better," said Twilight. Then she briefly charged her horn before letting loose a bolt of magic.

The purple projectile struck the exact center of my forehead, yet strangely it didn't hurt. The natives, however, were shocked at what their friend had done. "Twi! What the hay did you do that for?!" asked Rainbow Dash, wholly confused. "Relax Rainbow, I didn't hurt him," said the young alicorn. "I just gave him a mental image of the meadow near Ponyville. Now he should be able to teleport us there!" she continued somewhat enthusiastically. "Oh," said the prismatic mare, ever eloquent. To be sure, I looked within my mind, and sure enough, I could conjure up a mental image of a meadow overlooking a small, rustic-looking town with a massive, vaguely tree-shaped, crystalline castle in the middle of it. "Well I'll be damned," I thought.

"Well, c'mon! You know where to go, now do it already!" Rainbow Dash was clearly growing impatient.

"Okay. Here goes," I said, trying not to let the nerves sneak into my voice. I imagined my helmet coming back over my head and shutting itself and the face guard coming back down. As expected, this came to pass. I then imagined myself rising into the air and staying there, levitating; my ridiculously long sleeves moving in a breeze that only they could feel, not unlike Celestia and Luna's manes. As before, it happened. As I rose into the air, I heard a strange noise that started low and got higher in pitch the higher I rose. *woooooooo...* When I was up about seven feet, I slowed my ascent, and the noise faded away. I then imagined myself and the beings before me being in that meadow instead of where we were now. It didn't happen right away, but I had a feeling of what I had to do. 

I pulled my arms to my chest, putting my right arm over my left, my right arm going to my left shoulder and my left arm going to my right shoulder. Then, I brought my left arm spreading and going up and around and back to where it was before, my right arm doing the same but going up first and then down. "Hnnnnnnngh..." Then, I thrust my arms straight out to either side, the stupid symbol from before appearing behind me. "HAAAAAAA!" Suddenly, the scenery shifted around the ten of us.

*Location:  Small meadow near Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

I looked around. I was still levitating, so I imagined myself falling to the ground and my gravity was restored, as I expected. It seemed that all I had to do to use magic was think of what I wanted to do with it, and then it would happen. I looked at the others. They were okay...except for the fact that they were upside-down...

And a few inches off the ground...

They all hit the ground at the same time, a chorus of "Oof!"s and "Ouch!"es resounding as they did so. The only one unscathed was Pinkie Pie, but then again she was wanted for the crime of murdering physics.

I magick'd off my helmet to reveal my embarrassed expression. "Sorry...this is all new to me..." I said. "Are you all okay?" I asked while silently praying I hadn't hurt anyone.

"We're fine, thanks," said Twilight. "And don't worry about it, for your first time teleporting, you did great, especially for such a large group. Next time, just make sure we land on the ground. And right-side-up," she continued.

I let out a sigh of relief at that. I was so worried I'd accidentally hurt someone I'd practically just met. 

Princesses Celestia and Luna picked themselves up and turned to the rest of us. "Well, I'm glad we were able to determine the source of the anomaly without serious injury," said Princess Celestia. "Twilight, will you be able to handle delivering the news to the townsponies?" she asked her former student. "Don't worry, it shouldn't be too much trouble," responded Twilight. "There is one issue though. Zant, do you have a place to stay?" she asked me. I hadn't even thought of that. "Well...no," I said, despondent. "Well, I guess you can stay with me and Spike for now. It'll be nice to have somepony else to share that giant castle with. We'll have to see what food you eat..." She said the last part more to herself than me. "Really?" I said to her, astonished. "I mean, thank you, I'm honored and all, but I wouldn't want to impose..." "Nonsense," said Twilight. "Until we can come up with a more permanent solution, you're more than welcome to stay with us," said the lavender alicorn with a tone of finality. "Well, thanks!" I said, shocked at how kind and generous she was to open her home to me so readily.

Suddenly, we turned our heads as we heard Princess Celestia clear her throat. "Well, as lovely as it's been to see you all, I'm afraid Luna and I need to get going," she said, gesturing to her sister as she did so. The lunar princess had actually fallen asleep and was leaning on her sister.

"Oh, no problem! I'm sure we all have things we need to do as well," said Twilight. "I need to get some, *yawn*, sleep myself," she continued. The other ponies simultaneously voiced their agreements, all saying where they had to be--Rarity had to get home and make sure her cat and her sister hadn't killed each other while she'd been gone, Applejack had chores to do, Pinkie had to help the cakes with their twins, Fluttershy had to check on her animals, Rainbow had weather patrol, and of course, Spike was with Twilight.

"Then we shan't keep you. Goodbye everypony! And good luck in Ponyville Zant!" said Celestia. She then walked a few steps away before using her magic to conjure a long, golden horn. She took a deep breath and then rather forcefully blew into the horn. The result was a long, smooth, rich, VERY LOUD note that I'm sure was heard across the continent, if not the world.

Apparently this was what Celestia used to call chariots to her, as not five seconds after she'd sounded her painfully loud call, a gilded chariot pulled by pegasi wearing what looked like gilded armor from the middle ages came down from on high and took the two senior alicorns away to who-knows-where.

After Celestia and Luna left, the eight of us--six ponies, one dragon, and myself--took a moment to recover our collective sense of hearing. Once we'd done so, we said our farewells and went our separate ways. Twilight, Spike, and I watched the other mares go. Once they had, Twilight turned to me and said, "Well, let's go and get you settled in!"
> In Which There Is an Unveiling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

I'd been staying with Princess Twilight Sparkle and her assisstant Spike for a few days now. They hadn't let me out of the castle for fear of what Ponyville's populace would say when they saw me, which was totally understandable. I'd been something of a closet brony before winding up in Equestria, so I knew how the locals could be. However, that's not to say the last few days had been totally unproductive. I'd figured out what Twili eat:  primarily meat. Not good for me, considering I am a Twili now and I'm in a world dominated by herbivores. Luckily I could at least digest some fruits. Kinda hard to chew though.

Twilight had also been helping me master my powers. She had what she called her "unbreakable room" where she practiced her more dangerous spells. It was basically the prep room from The Matrix--an endless white expanse of nothing. The only difference was you couldn't summon tons of guns at will. Still, it was great for practicing magic. Under Twilight's instruction, I'd mastered teleporting myself up to five miles (and even into mid-air), which was very useful for getting fish to eat from Fluttershy without going outside; and teleporting myself and an undetermined number of others a fair distance away (maybe about a mile or so). I'd also developed a sort of Radar technique. I'd send out a pulse of magic, and it'd tell me if there's any sentient beings within a quarter of a mile of my location, and where they were relative to my location. In addition, I'd figured out how to fire simple projectiles--spheres of dark magic about the size of a grapefruit. According to Twilight, they'd leave a pretty good burn mark on a piece of wood. Perhaps the coolest thing I'd learned was making things out of magic, which Twilight referred to as 'conjuring'. So far, all I could make was blades about as long as my arm (which is still pretty long) and totem poles (for some reason), but it was still awesome. Finally, I'd learned telekinesis and oddly enough telepathy. I didn't even know I could learn the latter, but apparently I could.

Anyway, the day had finally come. Today was the day I'd be introduced to Ponyville's populace.

Twilight had arranged for a stage to be set up right in front of the palace rather than the town's main square like it usually was. That way, when it was time for me to come onstage, I could simply teleport from the inside of the castle to the stage.

As I looked out from a one-way window in one of the castle's many towers, I could see as Twilight made her way to the middle of the stage and began to address the gathered ponies...

*Location:  Outside Twilight's castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

Twilight Sparkle mentally prepared herself. She was about to introduce someone entirely new to the citizens of Ponyville, someone who belonged to a species never before seen by ponykind.

She had a sinking feeling that told her it wouldn't end well.

She took a deep breath and began to speak. "Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here today," she said. "First of all, I'm sure some of you noticed the strange phenomenon a few days ago. For those of you who didn't, a pulse of red energy spread out over the treetops of the Everfree Forest, dissipating just before it reached Ponyville. It is unknown whether this pulse would have had any negative effects on Ponyville, as are its exact nature and origin," she continued. "But don't worry!" she said before the citizens began to panic. "We're working to make sure it won't happen again, and we're still trying to learn more about the anomaly," said Ponyville's resident princess, doing her best to assuage the fears of her subjects. 

"On a lighter note," she said, changing topics, "There's someone new living in Ponyville. Now I know what the usual reaction to new, unfamiliar ponies usually is, and I'm telling you it's not okay! I want you all to try and keep an open mind about our new friend! He's come a long way to get here, and he's been living with me the past few days, so I can vouch for him! Anyway, without further ado, I'm happy to introduce Ponyville's newest resident, Zant!"

*Location:  Inside Twilight's castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...* 

As Twilight was finishing her brief speech, she connected with me telepathically. I was watching her talk at the ponies when suddenly I heard her voice in my mind. "Zant!" she said. "Now! Teleport down here! Right next to me! Face the crowd!" Her "voice" was filled with urgency.

I imagined myself right next to her, facing the assembled citizens, as she'd asked. Immediately I dissolved into a small scattering of small, black, rectangular particles with turquoise edges. There was a small noise as I did so, no louder than a polite cough. *psoooom*...

*Location:  Outside Twilight's castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

*pssm!*

As soon as I appeared, I saw the ponies recoil in horror, which was no surprise. It was a good thing I wasn't wearing my helmet. Surely their reaction would've been worse if I'd been wearing it. As it was, however, I saw at least three mares faint, while the general populace had seemingly endless fear in their eyes. The bearers of the Elements of Harmony just looked disappointed. "Better try to calm them down before they riot," I thought to myself. Of course, this was easier said than done.

"Hello everypony!" I said to them, doing my best to sound friendly. Suddenly, they all stopped, apparently shocked by the fact that I could speak. "As Princess Twilight's told you, I'm Zant. Now, before you all panic, I'd just like to say that no, I will not harm you in any way," I continued. "If I wanted to do that , I already would have." This seemed to calm them down, at least somewhat. The three mares from before were somehow miraculously revived from their comas and they sprang back to their hooves, and the fear seemed to lessen at least a bit. "What sort of creature are you?!" asked a mint-green mare. "Well ma'am," I responded, "I am a Twili. My species makes its home in the Twilight Realm, which can be accessed via teleportation or the Mirror of Twilight. And no, it doesn't belong to the princess here," I said, referring of course to the alicorn beside me. "What about--" The stallion who was speaking was cut off by the sudden appearance of a certain draconequus directly in front of me.

"Well well well, what have we here?" said a smooth, almost deranged-sounding voice that for some reason reminded me of John de Lancie. "Discord!" said Twilight, apparently pissed. "What are you doing here?!" she said. "Why Twilight, you wound me!" said the incredibly strange individual, feigning injury. "You assume I'm up to no good, when all I want is to meet Ponyville's newest resident!" he continued before turning to me. "So you're this new guy I've heard Fluttershy talking about so much," he said, getting uncomfortably close to me. "She swore me to secrecy, you know. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep something like this under wraps? The temptation to reveal your existence to the world was staggering!" said Discord, trying (and succeeding to some degree) to look tragic. Suddenly he righted himself and looked around, incredibly alert, as though he were a meerkat.

"Well Zanty-boy, I'd love to stay and chat, but you're about to get a visitor." As if on cue, the air was filled with a terror-inducing cry that was about halfway between a guttural roar and an ear-splitting shriek. I recognized it for sure, but that thing couldn't possibly exist here! This was Equestria, not Hyrule! Why would he be HERE?! "Oh, and before anyone goes pointing any hooves, this isn't my fault. Bye!" And with that, Discord was gone.

My fears were confirmed as I heard what was undoubtedly the flapping of massive, leathery wings and the clanking of armor. Somehow, it was here. The creature was massive, covered in black metal armor with barely any of its scaly red hide showing. The claws on its two legs  looked like they could cut through a tree as though it were butter. At the tip of its tail was a strange gold attachment that appeared to be some sort of battering weapon. It was at least twenty feet long from the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail, and its massive wingspan seemed to block out the sun.

As it let out another heart-stopping roar its split, thin purple tongue waving about as it did so, my doubts vanished. It was impossible, but it was right here. It was real.

Twilit Dragon Argorok was in Equestria.

The citizens panicked of course. I couldn't blame them for this one. I mean, a GIANT FUCKING DRAGON had just appeared out of no where! If it was me, I'd panic too. Regardless, the ponies were panicking and it looked like Argorok was about to start snacking on them, and that was not okay. But one thing struck me as odd.

It hadn't attacked yet.

Argorok was just staying there, maintaining altitude above the square. I decided to try something different. See, usually this would be the part where the hero slays the dragon and saves the day, but video games had taught me that the dragon isn't always trying to simply cause mayhem. Because of this, I decided to try and communicate with Argorok via telepathy.

"Hello?" I asked it. "You there bro?"

"Master!" replied a deep, smooth baritone in my mind. "It is good to see that you have retained at least some of your magical prowess!" it continued.

"Master?" I thought to myself. I hadn't been aware that Zant commanded Argorok in the games, but it did make sense. "Uh, yeah, sure. Hey man, could ya maybe stop and land? You're kinda scaring the locals," I told the dragon, who was apparently male. "Of course my lord," came the reply. "Though I am not sure why we would want to gain the favor of such weak creatures." Surprisingly, Argorok did as I asked. He slowed his wings and descended to the ground with a massive *THUD*.

Unfortunately, the citizens were still panicking.

"Everypony!" I shouted to no avail. They couldn't hear me over the sounds of their own panicking. "Everyone!!" I tried again. No luck.

"My lord?" Argorok asked in my mind. The locals were starting to annoy me.

"FOR THE SAKE OF MY SANITY, WILL YOU PONIES PLEASE SHUT UP!?!"

At once, the ponies stopped and stared at the source of the outburst. In my rage, I'd apparently learned how to use the infamous Royal Canterlot Voice.

"Thank you," I said at a much more normal volume. "Now then, there's no need to panic--the dragon's with me," I continued, still somewhat pissed. "His name is Argorok. He serves me. Anything I ask of him, he'll do, and I've asked him not to bother you all, so you don't need to worry." "How do we know!?" asked a tan-coated stallion. "What do you want, a demonstration? Fine. Argorok, speak," I said.

"Greetings," said the dragon, to the amazement of everyone present, myself included. His actual voice sounded identical to the voice he used for telepathy.

Upon hearing him speak, the ponies simply stared at me and Argorok in shocked silence. Twilight, still next to me and looking quite done with it all, decided enough was enough. "Alright everypony, thank you for coming, but I think we've spent enough time here!" she said to the gathered crowd. "I'm sure we all have things we need to do, so please get back to whatever it is you need to do!" Her words seemed to have the desired effect, because as soon as she'd finished, the crowd dispersed. "Confound these ponies," she said under her breath. "They drive me to drink!"

She turned to me and Argorok, visibly frustrated. She sighed and said, "I'm so sorry about them. This always happens." "Don't worry about it," I said, trying to calm her at least somewhat. "To be honest, I expected it to be worse. My only concern is where we'll keep Argorok." It was true. Where does one store a massive dragon in  a small town? "Concern yourself not with my accommodations master," said the dragon. "I've been fine in the forest until now, and I will be fine there still," he said. "Well okay then! Great! Problem solved!" I said to Twilight. I really felt bad for her. She'd tried to run a perfectly normal event and it'd all gone and blown up in her face. "Hey, don't worry about it," I told her. "You tried your best, and that's all anyone asks of you. Sure it went a bit haywire, but what else did you expect in this town?" She looked around, then at me and Argorok. "Yeah, I guess," she said, still disappointed. "I just thought that after the same thing happening with Zecora AND Princess Luna things might be a little different! I guess I was wrong." Twilight was obviously distrought. I tried to think of something to say, but it was Argorok who spoke next. 

"Princess, if there is anything I've learned in all my years, it's that ponies are intensely afraid of what they are unfamiliar with. If it isn't exactly like them and what they're used to they will reject it, whether they respond with anger, disdain, or fear. It is no fault of your own, it is simply the way of the masses," said the dragon in his deep, rumbling baritone. Looking at the two of us, Twilight smiled. "Thank you, both of you," she said. "I'm so glad I can have such good friends to pick me up when I'm down. You two can go and meet the townsponies if you want. I'm sorry I can't give you a tour right now, I've got court to attend to," continued the mare. "I promise I'll give you a tour later. For now, go and try to make friends with some of the other ponies. Good luck!" And with that she turned and went back into the castle.

Argorok and I watched her go. After she'd gone, he turned to me. "Master, if there is nothing else you require of me, then I shall take my leave," said my dragonic companion. "Nah, go ahead. I think I'll go meet the locals," I said in reply. "Farewell then, my lord. Simply call should you have need of me!" He said as he took off. I watched as he departed, and with nothing else holding me back, I walked into town.
> In Which Friendships are Forged (1/2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, now…*

Two days had passed since Twilight had introduced me to the citizens of Ponyville. I’d managed to make nice with the locals and had gotten to know a few of them, and they’d adjusted to my presence pretty well. Argorok had kept mostly to himself. I checked on him every day just to see how he was doing. After a couple days I’d gotten bored and, with nothing else to do, I figured I might as well go back to the castle to see if I could find any clues about the nature of my arrival here in Equestria.

I was about to go inside when I noticed something strange up against the wall of the castle. It was a very strange black and green cylinder. It looked very high-tech and almost alien in origin. Quite curious, I picked it up and was shocked to hear a voice in my mind. It said, “I am the changer of shape, seeking to understand the many forms of life. Call for the man of many shapes during your hour of need and I will come, a one man army. Activate the cylinder and in a flash I’ll be ready to clash.” This was an interesting and thoroughly confusing development. “Dafuq?” I thought. “What even is this thing? Might as well activate it…” 

With no further delay, I pressed the dial on top of the strange object. Nothing happened, so I figured maybe it was establishing a telepathic link. Acting upon this thought, I focused intensely on the cylinder and thought, “Um, hey, if anyone is...I guess, receiving this transmission, then I found this weird cylinder thing and it said I could summon someone with it, so if you get this message, then come to me and we can hang out or whatever.” At first, nothing happened. Then, without warning, a hole in reality started to form before me.

Remembering what happened the last time something like that happened, I hastily backed away from the portal. Luckily, it wasn’t trying to suck me in. Rather, it was spitting someone else out. Specifically, it was a human of all things! 

“WHAT!” I cried out. I was thoroughly shocked at this point. It was only then that I noticed the other being. It was a young purple and lime-green colt. Strangely enough, he had two horns, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he was part changeling. “What- who- how- who are you?!” I spluttered.

The man stood up with a groan, rubbing his head, “It’s always at the worst times man, seriously...” he lookied at the colt, frowning. “You okay?”

“Yeah I’m o- my hoof! My hoof has been chipped!” the colt stared in horror at his hoof. 

“Oh for the love of...damn you Rarity...” the man said, facepalming a little at the colt’s freak out. He looked at me, his stare flat. “I swear to Yggdrasil Zant, if you summoned me here to screw Equestria over we will have problems.”

“Crap!” I thought to myself. “I don’t need this guy suspecting me of shenanigans too!” “Uh…” I said to him, eloquent as ever. “No...I just found this thing and it said something in my head and then I summoned you here…” “Nice going moron,” I thought, mentally berating myself.

A second later, I was pinned to the wall, a spear to my throat, “Don’t lie to me,” he said, his eyes turning red. “I’m not someone you want to lie to.”

“Whoa, whoa!” I said, my mood rapidly shifting from confusion to fear for my life. “Easy bro! I’m not trying to screw anyone over, hell I love the ponies! They’re even building me a house as payment for saving them from a dragon! Granted, all I did was tell it to chill because apparently it’s my dragon, but still, I wouldn’t screw them over!” Apparently I wasn’t very convincing, as he only seemed to get even more pissed. “FuckfuckFUCK!” I thought. “Dude, I haven’t even been here a week! How could I even have time to think of a way to screw Equestria over?!”

“You’d be surprised,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “I will warn you now,this may not be my Equestria, but I won’t let anyone defile any version of it if I can help it. Please don’t insult my intelligence, I can see it in your eyes idiot,” he said, releasing me, “But you can relax, I’m not going to attack you, I don’t need another paranoid jackass trying to go to war with me.”

I hit the ground hard. He’d managed to lift me a good couple of inches off it. After brushing myself off, I said to him, “Well, thanks for finally putting me down if nothing else. I suppose we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Zant.” Trying to maintain a cordial attitude while suppressing my fear of the bigger one, I continued, “Pleased to meet you. What’re your names?” I asked them.

“I’m Jason Hughes and this is my son Elusive,” he said, picking up the still panicking colt and shushing him. “And no, I know what you’re thinking, I’m not human.”

Any fear I’d had was immediately replaced with the same confusion as before. “Yeah, sorry, I don’t see the resemblance. Care to explain?” I asked.

“Of course, Omnitrix, Alias,” he said before vanishing in a bright green flash, now replaced by an orange coated unicorn with a blue mane. “As you can see,” he said, speaking with the voice of Bob Dylan, “I am a shapeshifter.”

“Sweet,” I said, thoroughly impressed. “I think I have some pretty good powers myself, I just don’t know how to use them yet. I came here to see if I could find out anything about how I got here, or maybe some great clue that will explain everything,” I said to Jason.

“Simple:  you’re Displaced.” he said, reverting to normal.

“Okay, sorry, I know the exact definition of the word, but not in this context,” I said to him, even more confused than before. “What do you mean exactly? And what did you mean before when you mentioned ‘your Equestria’?” I asked him.

“Simple, you went to a con, bought something from a shady guy and got sent here. Happens to about.... 99% of us. That makes you a Displaced.’

I stared at him in shock. I’d heard the stories, but I had no idea they were true! 

“And there are a lot of us, for example, Majin Buu, Gilgamesh, Kat Shifter, Nemesis, a few Overlords, that idiot Wade, and Team Rocket.” Jason said, patting his son’s head, with the frowning colt crossing his arms.

Still I stared. Even more? “So if there’s so many more people like us, where the hell are they?” I asked him. “Are they in other towns or something? Or is this what you meant by this being ‘my Equestria’?”

“Kid, how much do you know about the multiverse?” Jason asked, “‘Cause this will blow your mind.”

“I know it’s been theorized that there are infinite parallel universes that are identical except for a few differences,” I answered him.

“Infinite universes, infinite possibilities," he said. "My Equestria is part of Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology, that’s more than a small difference. As for the rest of the Displaced, most are in different Equestria’s though there are some Equestria’s with more than one Displaced.”

This was all a massive shock to me. There really were alternate universes? And there were apparently others in the same situation as me? As I tried to process it all, I looked away from Jason and Elusive for a moment. Looking in the general direction of the castle, I saw something unusual.

Just inside the entryway, one of the torches on the wall was hanging loose. Now, normally such a thing wouldn’t beg my attention as much as it did, but something just seemed off about this. Turning back to Jason, I said, “Hey, you see that?” as I pointed at the strange torch.

“Yes I see that,” Jason said, putting Elusive down, walking over to it.

I teleported next to him to get a better look at the torch. Surprisingly enough it didn’t phase him. “Sorry about that,” I said.

“For what?” he asked, not looking at me. “Teleporting isn’t that big of a deal. Any ideas what this is?”

“One way to find out,” I said as I pulled it. It gave no resistance. When I’d pulled it to the point where it was resting at about a forty-five-degree angle, a portion of the wall recessed and slid back to reveal a secret passage. I looked to Jason and said, “I do believe this begs investigation.” Gesturing to the passage, I asked him, “Shall we?”

“Come on Elusive,” Jason called, looking back at the colt. 

“But it’s dusty!” Elusive whined, slowly trotting over to them.

“Suck it up. Yggdrasil, you’re worse than your mother,” Jason said, stepping into the passage, conjuring up a fireball in his hand to light the way.

Before long, they’d come to a wider area that had two doors on either side of it, with a rather large door at the far end. This door was also sealed with an almost intimidating, and also very large lock. I looked back at Jason and asked, “So how do we wanna do this?”

“Flare,” Jason said simply, launching the fireball at the rock, the resulting explosion blowing it to pieces. “Any other questions?”

“Well, I was thinking maybe there might be a key or something that we could use to open that door, perhaps in one of the other rooms,” I said, somewhat surprised that his magic was that powerful. “This whole situation feels very familiar. We may want to have a look in the other rooms before going through that giant door down there,” I continued. “Maybe we split up or something?”

“I take it we’re in the old castle in the forest?” Jason asked, looking around the passage, his hand on his chin. 

“Yeah, but I don’t think anyone knew about this part,” I answered. “It doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while. Maybe there’s something in one of these rooms. How about I check in there,” I said as I pointed to the closest room on the left, “And you check in there?” I continued, pointing at the room directly across from it.

“I got ya,” he said opening the door I’d indicated, walking inside. Elusive followed after him, not happy about the little adventure.

“Okay, I’ll meet you back out here in a few minutes,” I called as I headed through the left door.

Once I was through it, I found something I’d never expected to find. They looked like normal bats, but I knew they were anything but, due to how they tried to sink their fangs into my face. 

“Gah, I hate Keese!” I shouted as I dodged one of them. They were annoying in Twilight Princess, and they were annoying now. Eventually I managed to dispatch them with a few well-aimed dark magic blasts. Afterward, I looked around the rest of the room. There wasn’t much--some torches on the wall, a desk with some papers on it, some jars. 

Figuring they might be important, I went over to the desk and examined the papers. It was order forms for something called Orichalcum. If I recalled correctly, it was supposed to be incredibly strong and light. 

There were also orders for crystals that were usually added to weapons and armor to allow for long-term enchantments. “Something’s not right about all this,” I thought.

Figuring they were indeed important, I teleported the papers back to my  room in Twilight’s castle and headed back out to wait for Jason.

~Meanwhile…~

Jason and Elusive went in the door closest to them on the right and were greeted with a strange sight. There were what looked like two bipedal lizards wearing leather vests and loincloths, just standing in the middle of the room. They were also wielding cruel shortswords and had shields on their left arms. They even had axe heads attached to their tails, which was a bit excessive.

“Sup?” Jason asked,  looking at them, “You guys live here I take it?”

In response, the lizard-men simply let out a high-pitched roar, and charged, swords held out in front of them.

Jason darted forward, grabbing the swords, freezing them solid. “You’re pissing me off. I’d rather not have to hurt you in front of my son, don’t make me,” he said menacingly.

The lizard-men, apparently not taking the hint, tried to yank their frozen swords away from him and, failing that, spun around in an effort to hit him with their tail-blades. He rolled his eyes, blasting them away with a burst of wind. He shifted into Big Chill, freezing them solid with his ice breath.

“I warned you,” he said reverting to normal.

“Can we go home yet?” Elusive asked rather boredly.

“I don’t know why I bother...” Jason said with a sigh, searching the room for anything useful.

Eventually, his gaze settled upon a desk with some papers on it. Intrigued, he went over and picked them up.

It was a journal entry. The date had faded away, and there was no indication of the author.

“Those blasted ponies!” it began. “They’ve ruined EVERYTHING! I had it all planned PERFECTLY! My Mistress would return, those miserable fools would be powerless against her, eternal night would come at last, and demonkind would rule the world once more! But no, that idiotic mare Sparkle just HAD to interfere! Well I’ll show her. I’ll show ALL of those miserable ponies! They will learn the true power of the Cult of Nightmare!”

“Welp, that’s something they should know about,” he said, placing the note inside of his cube, “Come on, Zant’s waiting,” he told Elusive, walking out of the room to find said Displaced waiting for them.

~Now…~

“Find anything interesting?” I asked Jason as I walked to meet him in the center of the chamber.

“Just a few notes, nothing important,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “And some lizard guys.”

“Wait, lizard guys?” I asked. “Were they covered in pointy things?” I was getting a strange sense of nostalgia from all this, in a very confusing good-but-also-bad way.

“Ah, almost forgot about that. You’ve become Zant, which means things from Zelda will be in your Equestria.” Jason said, brushing some hair out of his face.

“So that explains the Keese,” I said, half to him and half to myself. Looking at him, I said, “Those things you saw were Lizalfos. Mindless creatures. They don’t know much more than ‘attack whatever moves’.” I looked to the door next to the one I’d just come out of, then said to Jason, “We may not want to split up for these next doors, given what could be inside.”

“You should stay behind me,” Jason said as he moved up to the door. He pushed a bit, easily pushing the doors open. 

Once inside, we saw something that instantly filled me with rage from my experience playing Zelda. More specifically, five somethings.

Each was about three-foot-six, and had arms that hung all the way to the ground. What we could see of their skin was an unhealthy-looking shade of green. They were dressed identically in what had to be bandit gear, and they all had quivers full of arrows on their backs, despite the fact that only two of them had bows. The other three had clubs that looked like they could pack quite a punch. Their beady red eyes were the only part of their faces we could see--the rest was hidden by a mask.

Thoroughly pissed, I equipped my helmet and teleported behind them. Once I was behind them, I conjured up two scimitars, each as long as one of my arms, and proceeded to stab the archers through the back before they could even pull out an arrow I already knew would be on fire. As I’d expected, there was no blood--they simply dissolved into an ominous black mist.

Instantly, the other three creatures spun around to face me. They readied their clubs and started to bum-rush me, but in their haste they’d completely forgotten Jason.

“Idiots,” Jason said from behind them, a rather elegant sword in his hands. The creatures staggered forward before they dissolved. “Never turn your back on an opponent.”

“Fucking Bulblins,” I muttered under my breath as I dispelled my helmet. “Come on, let’s see if there’s anything noteworthy in here and move on,” I said to Jason.

The most obvious thing in the room was the rather large blue chest up against the wall. It was easily as tall as Elusive.

Jason and I looked at the chest, then to each other. “You wanna open it?” I asked him.

“Gladly,” Jason said, moving over to it. He knelt down, lifting the lid up, looking inside.

“That’s a lot of bits,” he said. “Mind if I take a look?” I asked.

“Keep it, I don’t really need it,” he said returning his sword to his pocket.

“Really?” I said to him, astounded by his generosity. “Thanks bro! Just gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.” In a flash, I’d teleported the chest and myself back to my room in Twilight’s castle. Satisfied with the chest’s position next to my bed, I teleported back to Jason and Elusive.

“Well, one room left before what I can only assume is the big guy in charge,” I said to Jason. “Let’s go have a look.”

“Lead the way,” he said, motioning toward the door.

We went back out to the main area and into the door directly across from us. As we emerged into the new area, a metal grate came down over the door behind us. Inside it was a sight that made my blood run cold.

“Shit,” I said under my breath. We’d come into a large circular chamber, perhaps about fifteen feet across. In the center was a massive figure clad in black armor. It had to be at least ten feet tall. It had its back turned to us, but I could picture its gigantic sword and shield. A strange plume-like metal attachment ran down the middle of its helmet.

“What is that thing?” Jason asked, “I didn’t play a lot of Zelda,”

Suddenly, the behemoth turned toward us.

“A Darknut!” I shouted in response, re-equipping my helmet as I did so. The behemoth turned to face us, each step producing a massive *KLANK*. It gave a couple of boasting swipes of its sword, then held the blade over its head, the business end pointed at the three of us, its shield in front of it. It was clearly a challenge, and not the friendly kind.

It took a swipe at us with its sword and just barely missed. “Move!” I shouted.

I teleported behind the thing and conjured up my scimitars again. I slashed at it in an attempt to do...I don’t know, something, to it, but to no avail.

Immediately, it turned back to me and brought its sword with it. I teleported away just as  the blade that was easily as long as its wielder cut into the air where I’d just been.

“Easy, you stay with Elusive,” Jason said, pulling out his sword again. “Omnitrix, Four Arms,” he commanded before shifting into a large red skinned four armed creature. 

I did as he said and hung back in the entryway, keeping myself between the colt and the armored hulk. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” I said to him. “One thing though--you can’t harm it directly just yet. It can block any and all attacks. You’ve gotta wait until just after it attacks to hit it,” I said, doing my best to help him beat this thing however he could.

“Heh, watch me,” Jason said as he rushed forward, slamming his fist into the Darknut’s shield, the sound of screeching metal filling the air as the shield buckled from the blow. Immediately, Jason moved around his opponent and slashed a wide arc with his sword. The Darknut let out a pained grunt as its shoulder pauldron and arm guard fell away. 

“Wait, the hell am I doing?” Jason asked, reverting to normal. “You’re not worth the effort.” Jason put two fingers to his forehead, energy starting to build up at his fingertips. “You may want to shield your eyes from this.”

Figuring this might get bad, I did as he asked. I covered my face with one hand and Elusive’s with the other and shielded his body with my own.

“Special Beam Cannon!” Jason shouted, extending his arm, a spiralling beam of energy firing out from his fingertips. It shot through the Darknut’s shield, piercing its armor and erupting out of its back. Jason cut the blast off panting a little, “Note to self...don’t use ki attacks outside of Niktu and Keel.”

As the dust settled, I uncovered myself and the young colt and looked around. The Darknut was no where to be seen, most likely having already dissolved into mist and dissipated, and Jason looked very much drained. I stood up and asked him, “You okay bro?”

“Yeah I’m fine, that stuff just takes a lot of energy. Works better in a DBZ universe,” he replied. 

It was clear the attack had taken a lot out of him. “You need a sec?” I asked him. “I was gonna look around in here anyway if you just wanna chill for a bit.”

“Nah, I got it,” he said as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a potion. He uncorked it, downing it. “Okay, I’m good,” he said, looking a lot better.

“Just in time,” I said to him from across the room. “Look what I found.”

“What?” he asked, walking over, tossing the empty container over his shoulder.

“Another one of these,” I said as I pulled the loose torch.
> In Which Friendships are Forged (2/2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Secret Area under Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, now...*

“Another one of these,” I said as I pulled the loose torch. As before, a portion of the wall slid back to reveal another secret passage. The metal grate over the door we’d come through before also receded, which meant we could go back to the main chamber if we wanted.

“After you good sir,” I said to Jason as I moved to allow him to enter.

“Better get it over with,” he said as he pushed the door open, peering inside.

I followed him through and we eventually came to a corridor that couldn’t have been more than eight feet across, which wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the fact that it was about twenty feet from one end to the other.

At the other end of the room I could see another door. There was something else odd about this area.

It was dominated by two suits of armor.

They were centered directly between the two side walls and lined up so that there was perfect symmetry between the suits and the walls. I turned to Jason and said, “Okay, now THIS I definitely remember.”

“Explain,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure there’s something in that room at the other end of this corridor,” I said to him, “Something important. But right as we’re about to go through the door, we’ll get locked in here with something very annoying and very deadly. At least, in a room like this,” I continued.

“Well what would you suggest we do?” he asked, looking the room other, stroking his beard.

I thought about it for a moment before speaking again. Finally, I looked at him and said, “One of us could distract it while the other goes behind it and attacks its weak spot.”

“Works for me,” he said, starting to move toward the armor, sword drawn.

Jason stood in front of it, but nothing happened. “Maybe it isn’t here after all,” I said, walking toward the other door. “Maybe we got lucky.”

“What are you mumbling about?” he asked, raising his eyebrow.

“Nothing, forget it,” I said to him. “I guess it isn’t here. Let’s keep going,” I continued.

Jason shrugged, continuing on into the next room, Elusive on his heels. We were about to go through the doorway when suddenly it was blocked by another metal grate. I didn’t need to turn around to see that the other doorway had one just like it.

At the same time, I started to hear a metallic *whoosh*. It kept on repeating, as though someone was swinging a chain around. Then, it stopped.

I tackled Jason and Elusive to get them out of the way, just as a massive, spiked, gleaming ball-and-chain smashed through the set of armor closest to us.

“This is why I dislike Zelda,” Jason sighed, looking rather annoyed.

“Yeah, I hate this guy too,” I said to him as I equipped my helmet. “Got any ideas?” I asked.

“We skip him completely.” Jason said, getting to his feet, “Omnitrix, Ghostfreak,” he said. Suddenly, he shifted into a one-eyed ghost creature. Then he turned to phase through the door.

When he got to it, however, he was repelled by a strange electricity that gave him a rather painful jolt.

“Okay, seriously hate this place now,” he said, glaring at the door hatefully.

“Well since we apparently can’t just skip it,” I said to him as I dodged the creature’s weapon, “do you want to be the distraction or should I?” I asked.

“I will,” he said sighing, floating over to the armor.

Taking this as my cue, I teleported to the other end of the room and began firing salvo after salvo of dark magic blasts at the creature’s one weak point--its distinctly reptilian tail, which stuck out from the armor. The pain stunned the beast, and after moment of keeping up the assault, it fell. The beast that had caused me so much trouble in Twilight Princess had fallen in a matter of minutes.

I looked across the room to Jason and said to him, “That...was a lot easier than I remember.”

“Lucky,” Jason said, as he looked at the body, watching as it, like its predecessors, dissolved into mist. “Let’s go, I need to get home at some point,” he said.

I teleported back to where he and Elusive were. The grate was gone, so we were able to get through unmolested.

This new room was apparently a dungeon, but it was odd in that it only had one cell. It was a circular room, divided in two by a malefic-looking wall of what looked like a heat haze with some odd yellow diamond patterns here and there. But that wasn’t the most interesting part.

On the other side of the strange barrier was a pony.

Judging by the appearance it was a mare. She had a dark grey coat and a short, light pink mane and tail. The bangs of her mane partially obscured her blood-red eyes. On her flank was a crimson outline of a hand. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She was just sitting there on the ground, her back to the door.

I looked to Jason, who had reverted to normal, hoping to get some idea as to what I should do. Figuring it would be a good idea to look as non-threatening as possible, I unequipped my helmet.

“Who are you?” Jason asked the mare, walking up to the cell. “Hmm? Why are you here?” he continued as I followed him over.

Suddenly, the mare looked up. She looked at the three of us, a despondent look on her face. She stared at a moment, then went back to looking at the floor. “Go away…” she said, almost inaudibly. “He...He’ll do terrible things to you if he finds you here…” she sounded as though she hadn’t spoken in a while--her voice was low and almost raspy.

“He can try,” Jason said, looking the cell over, tapping the transparent barrier.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. I teleported into the cell, laid a hand on her, and teleported back out, taking her with me. “He won’t bother you anymore, whoever he is,” I said, doing my best to sound reassuring.

“Who is he anyway?” Jason asked, looking the mare over.

“The worst kind of monster,” she said, contempt and rage working their way into her voice. It was only then that I noticed something unusual about her:  She had two triangular white horns emerging from her skull, each rather small. With how they were shaped and positioned, they almost looked like cat ears.

“Who exactly are you?” Jason asked.

Elusive looked up at her in awe. “You’re like me,” he said softly.

She looked at him, a mixture of sadness and some emotion I couldn’t place in her eyes. “Maybe once I was like you,” she said to the colt, “But not anymore.”

“That didn’t answer my question,” Jason said, raising his eyebrow.

She turned from Elusive to Jason, her expression returning to how it had been before. She stared at him for a moment before speaking again. “Lilium,” she said softly. “Before he took me, that’s what I was called,” she continued.

“Is he here now?” I asked Lilium.

“Yes,” she replied. “I can sense him. The dark one. He’s here,”  she said, a small hint of rage sneaking into her voice.
I turned to Jason and said, “He’s probably in the one room we haven’t checked. What say we see who this individual is, and what his insides look like?” I asked him.

“Let’s go,” Jason said, looking at Lilium. “You okay by yourself?” he asked her.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’d go with you, but as much as I’d love to rip him to pieces, I don’t have the energy right now,” she continued, sounding rather disappointed that she was missing such an opportunity.

“We’ll be back,” Jason said, moving out of the room, Elusive following him.

The three of us went back to the main chamber and continued through into the final chamber, the doors still somewhat scorched from Jason’s highly unorthodox method of lockpicking, if it could even be called that. Once inside, I saw the being that would eventually become my most hated enemy.

The being that Lilium apparently despised so was a unicorn. He was taller than usual, just slightly shorter than Princess Luna. His coat was light-grey, his mane and tail stark white. His horn was long and came to a vicious point. One of his brown eyes, highlighted by purple makeup, was hidden by his mane. The side of his face that wasn’t hidden had a black diamond mark on it. In his left ear he wore a rather large blue diamond earring. He also wore a crimson cloak that was yellow on the inside. It was secured around his neck by a gold chain. On his flank was a red diamond with a yellow outline.

“Hm? Visitors?” said the strange stallion in a voice that simply oozed condescension and insanity. “I do so rarely get visitors. Normally they’re all ripped to shreds by my...companions, shall we say. Now, who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“The name’s Zant,” I said as I equipped my helmet, my rage growing. “I’m the one who’s going to make you wish you’d never been born,” I continued, a lethal edge in my voice.

“Name's Jason,” Jason said simply, looking the unicorn over, “You look like some kinda rejected Final Fantasy villain.”

“Final Fantasy?” the stallion said. “I’m afraid I have no idea what that is. I am no reject, however, nor do I consider myself a villain. I am but the humble servant of my Mistress. Allow me to introduce myself,” he continued. “I am the Demon Lord of this land the foolish ponies so fear. You may call me Ghirahim.”

I sighed inwardly. “Not THIS idiot,” I thought.

“But in truth,” said the demonic stallion, “I prefer to be indulged with my full title:  Lord Ghirahim.”

“Hah! Fat chance, asshole. Not after what you did to Lilium! We won’t let you hurt her anymore!” I said.

“Hm? You actually managed to set that accursed mare free?” said Ghirahim, a wicked snarl forming on his face. “Do you have any idea how that makes me feel inside?!” The room actually grew darker as his rage built. “Furious! Outraged! Sick with anger!” As he finished this statement he teleported away, vanishing in a flurry of yellow diamonds.

“Your foolish actions have left me with a strong appetite for bloodshed,” said Ghirahim. We could hear him, but we couldn’t see him, which indicated he was still in the room.

I turned around to see him standing in front of the door. With a flash of his horn he summoned a wall of yellow diamonds made of energy in front of it, effectively locking Jason, Elusive, and myself inside. “Considering my position, it would be quite rude of me to take out my frustrations on you,” he said, sounding insane, cordial, and murderous all at once, “Which is why I promise up front not to kill you.” He teleported again, this time directly behind me. 

I could tell because he stood up on his rear hooves and brought Jason and me close to his face with his front hooves. “No, I’ll simply beat you within inches of your lives!” he said, sounding like he meant it. Then he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, which was rather long and serpentine. It was a move that would’ve made Gene Simmons jealous.

He teleported back in front of us and started to laugh. “Heheheheheheh…” Then he dispelled his cloak, making it dissolve into red diamonds. I was starting to sense a theme here…

He looked back up at us, a murderous look in his half-lidded eyes, and with that, the battle began.

Immediately I fired a barrage of dark magic at him. He blocked each and every projectile with his horn, which was glowing with a similar energy.

“You’re rather annoying,” Jason said from behind the unicorn. He looked down at him, holding his hand out, charging up a spell.

Before he could fire it, the so-called Demon Lord summoned five knives, glowing crimson with demonic energy, and sent them flying towards him.

Jason easily ducked, the blades missing him completely, throwing another spell into the ground as he did so, causing a minor earthquake and splitting the ground beneath them.

At the last second, the unicorn teleported away, winding up back on solid ground.

“Enough is enough!” I said, through with Ghirahim’s antics. I teleported from where I was into mid-air in the center of the chamber. I focused on where I wanted us to be, even though I wasn’t sure that location existed, and began the teleportation sequence. “Hnnnnnnnn...HAAAAAAAH!” 

The room around us faded to black, and when it returned to normal, we were in a large, roughly circular room that appeared to be made of tree roots. There was moss in between the roots, and there were holes in the roof here and there that allowed sunlight to seep through. In the center of the room were nine totem poles, eight of them making a circle around the other, and some parts of the floor had a light covering of dead leaves.

“Okay, I’m confused, what just happened?” Jason asked, looking around. “You know...I’m starting to regret not taking this seriously.” 

“Yeah, given who this is, you should,” I said. “And to answer your question, I gave us a terrain advantage.” I teleported on top of the center totem pole and looked for Ghirahim.

“A clever trick,” he said, revealing his location as he did so. He was at the far end of the chamber, his back to the wall. “But nothing more," he continued. “I see I underestimated your abilities. However, now the true battle shall begin!” With that, he summoned a blade that radiated evil. It was a metallic grey and had a razor-sharp edge.

From my vantage point, I let loose another volley of dark magic. Predictably, Ghirahim teleported out of the way before they struck him.

“He’s rather annoying isn’t he?” Jason asked, messing with the device on his arm, “Keep him busy for me will ya?”

“I’ll do my best!” I said as I tried to grab Ghirahim in my telekinetic hold. Unfortunately, he slipped out. Deciding to change tactics, I teleported myself into the air right in front of him and then used my magic to drastically increase my gravity and density, which allowed me to slam into the ground hard enough to create a shockwave but keep my legs intact. It had the desired effect, disorienting Ghirahim long enough for me to conjure up my scimitars and get a couple of hits in. Strangely, he didn’t bleed. Rather, small yellow diamonds flew from the point of impact, almost like sparks. 

There was a flash and a moment later Ghirahim was on slammed into one of the totem poles. Jason had shifted into a strange black-suited velociraptor-like creature. “I hate teleporters.” he spoke with a raspy voice. 

“Wait a sec...Dude, do you have the OMNITRIX!?” I asked, astounded that such a thing could exist. Maybe suspension of disbelief was that powerful.

“I turned into Ghostfreak and Four Arms earlier, where the hell were you?” Jason asked, before charging at the unicorn, laying blow after blow into him, creating a torrent of yellow diamonds.

“...True,” I said after a moment, mentally slapping myself for not realising it earlier. “Erm, anyway, I believe you were pulverizing him?” I continued, looking to Jason.

“In all honesty, ever since that thing with Odin, most of my power is dampened when out of my universe. It’s rather annoying,” Jason said, dragging Ghirahim along a wall, running as fast as he could. 

Suddenly the demonic unicorn seemed to regain his focus as he teleported behind Jason and brought his blade down right where he’d been mere seconds before.

“Miss me?” Jason asked from behind him before punching him in the horn. 

“Gah! Pesky mortals!” said our opponent. Apparently having had enough, he teleported away and used his own powers to revert the room back to normal. When he reappeared, we were in the center of the room we’d first found him in and he was halfway between the wall in and us, facing us, holding his blade, point almost touching the ground, in his magical grasp.

He used a hoof to wipe some debris too small for the naked eye to detect from his chin before saying, “Well...it appears you put up more of a fight than I expected of mere mortals,” he said, smug as ever. “But don’t congratulate yourselves just yet,” he continued. “We’re far from through. The next time I see you, there shall be no taunting or teasing or playing as there was today,” said the demon as he looked from us to his blade, which he raised a bit. “My work here is done, and so I depart. Farewell, mortals. For now you run and live another day of your pathetic lives.” He turned from us and said, “But get in my way again,” his voice deadlier and sharper than one of his conjured blades, “and you’re dead.” After he’d finished speaking he brought his blade around in a wide arc, bringing it up and around so that it was pointed toward the ceiling, and teleported away in a cloud of white diamonds.

“Great,” I muttered after a moment. “Now I’ve got HIM to deal with. Twilight won’t be happy when she hears about this.”

We made our way out of the room, back to Lilium, in silence. When we got there, she seemed shocked that we were all relatively unscathed. “You’re...alive?!” she asked in her quiet voice.

“Well I am a Jotun, it’d take a lot more than that guy to kill me,” Jason said, letting out a laugh.

“Yeah, don’t sound so surprised,” I said to her. “I may be new to this whole hero thing, but I’m not a total invalid,” I continued. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said to the others.

We led her out of Ghirahim’s secret lair and back outside without any further excitement (thank God). When we were back out in the open, Lilium’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates. She even shed a tear. “Daylight…” she said, her voice full of amazement.

I dispelled my helmet and looked around. We were back in the clearing where I'd first met Jason and Elusive. “Thanks for the help,” I said to Jason. “Without you, who knows what would’ve happened?”

“You're welcome,” Jason said nodding his head, “Sorry about the whole... threatening you thing,” he said, with a sheepish smile. 

“No prob,” I replied. Turning to Lilium, I asked, “You okay?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Much better thanks to you two. What did you say your names were?”

“I’m Zant,” I answered. “Pleased to meet ya.”

“I’m Jason,” he said, “and this is my son Elusive,” he continued as he motioned to the colt.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” said Lilium, “and thank you again for freeing me. But…” she stopped suddenly, looking all sad again.

“But what?” I asked, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” she paused for a moment. “I have nowhere to go…” she said at last.

I immediately knew what to do. “You can stay with me!” I said. “Granted, I’m staying with someone else at the moment, but it won’t be long before I have my own place! I’m sure it’ll work out!”

Lilium looked up at me, her mood obviously brightening. “Really?” she said. Before I knew it her forehooves were wrapped around me in one of the best hugs ever. “Thank you!” she said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “Remember, it’s not up to me at the moment. It’s up to the pony I’m staying with.” Her look became dark again. “But I’m sure she’ll say yes,” I added hastily, not wanting to burst her bubble.

“Well...I guess I’ll take that then,” she said, sounding satisfied.

“Sorry to ruin the moment,” said Jason, “but Elusive and I need to be going.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said as I turned to him. “How do we do that?” I asked.

“Simple,” he said. “Just hold the Unitrix in front of you and say ‘Jason, our contract is complete’.”

I did as he said, and without warning, the same portal that had deposited him here reappeared. He turned to me and said, “Well, it’s been fun, but we’ve gotta get going.” He picked up Elusive and turned to go into the portal. “Actually... give me a moment,” he said. He put two fingers to his forehead and suddenly vanished. “Okay…?” I said. This new development had me thoroughly confused.

*Location:  Inside Twilight's Castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

Jason reappeared next to Twilight, startling the poor mare rather fiercely. “I know you don’t know me but I wanted to make sure this got to you personally,” he said as he pulled out the journal, holding it out. “I think a Nightmare Moon cult is conspiring against you.” 

She stared at him in shock for a moment before finally saying, “Well...Thank you, I guess…” She took the papers in her magical grasp, and with that, Jason vanished again.

*Location:  Outside the Castle of the Two Sisters, Everfree Forest, Equestria, Equus, now...*

“Alright now that’s taken care of, I believe we were saying our goodbyes,” Jason said, moving over to me. “You mind if I grab a scan of you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I replied. He held up his Omnitrix arm, the device letting out a beep once he'd done so. “Uncatalogued DNA detected,” it chirped. Then it passed a strange yellow beam of light over me.

“Thank you kindly,” he said with a smile. “I believe it’s time we went home.” He walked over to the portal before pausing and looking back, “One last thing Zant.”

“What is it?” I asked him.

“I overreacted when I got here, it’s a long story, but I meant everything I said. If I catch wind of you trying to bring Equestria to ruin, I will kill you.” With that he picked up Elusive and stepped through the portal.

“Uh, yeah, see ya Jason,” I said. His closing remarks had left me mortified. I certainly didn’t want to get on his bad side. “He was...confusing,” I said to no one in particular.

With nothing else to do in the area, I turned to Lilium and said, “Well then, shall we be off? We still need to introduce you to Twilight after all.”
> In Which There Is a Party
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Inside Twilight's Castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

Lilium and I reappeared in the main hall of Twilight's castle in a small flurry of blue-edged, black rectangular particles.  Teleporting us there was the obvious decision--it was either that or walk back to Ponyville.

The first thing we saw was a rather surprised-looking Twilight. She looked like she'd already gotten quite the scare from something and now Lilium and I had appeared out of nowhere and almost given her a heart attack. "GAH!" Twilight recoiled and cried out in surprise and accidentally dropped the paper she'd been holding in her magical grasp.

"Whoa!" I said. "You okay there Twi?" I asked the obviously on-edge alicorn.

She took a minute to compose herself before speaking. "Yes, thank you Zant," she said. "And sorry I screamed like that. It's just that before you showed up a strange creature that looked like you but with different clothes and a tan-ish coat just phased in out of nowhere." Suddenly I knew where Jason had gone shortly before he left. I'd have to have words with him at some point. "Yeah, don't mind him, he's a good guy," I said to the lavender alicorn.

"He also gave me these," said Twilight as she held the papers she'd dropped before out to me. I took them from her and examined them. After skimming over the journal entry I returned the papers to her and said to the lavender princess, "Yeah, you'll want to look over those. Pretty important stuff there."

"Okay, I'll be sure to," she said. "Oh, who's your friend there Zant? I'm sorry I didn't greet you before, miss...?"

"Lilium," answered the dark-grey mare in her quiet voice. "I'm Lilium."

"Nice to meet you Lilium!" said Twilight cheerfully. "I must say, I'm very interested in your horns," continued the Princess of Friendship. "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of pony are you?"

Lilium shied away a bit, but then appeared to think for a moment. "I don't really know," she said. "I think I heard somepony say I was something called a Diclonius once." This seemed to confuse Twilight. She certainly looked puzzled. She looked back to me and asked, "Where'd you find her?"

"It's a long story," I said, not wanting to recount the entire episode with Jason and the secret lair at the moment. "Anyway, is it okay if she stays  here with you, me, and Spike?" I asked Twilight. "It won't be for long, as soon as my house is built she can move in with me, I swear."

"Actually, I wanted to tell you something about that," said Twilight. "What is it?" I asked, intrigued. A gleeful smile worked its way across Twilight's face. "It's done!" she said.

"Wait, my house?!" I asked, wondering if the ponies had really finished it THAT quickly.

"Yes!" said Twilight, almost full-on squee-ing. "Come on, let's go see it!" she said in the same giddy tone before rushing out the front door. Lilium looked at me, surprise filling her crimson eyes, her expression letting me know that she had no idea as to what was going on. "Apparently I have a house now," I said to her. "We'd better follow her," I said before going after Twilight, Lilium not far behind me.

*Location:  In front of My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

Twilight had led Lilium and I across town in what could almost but not quite be considered a merry chase. By the time we'd caught up with her we were, of course, a bit winded, but it was worth it to see what the lovely inhabitants of Ponyville had made for me.

Simply put, it was an awesome house.

It was noticeably taller than any of the other buildings in the area, most likely to have higher ceilings so I wouldn't have to duck just to keep my head from hitting them. It was also two stories and, unlike a good amount of the buildings in Ponyville, had a shingled roof rather than a thatched one. I couldn't wait to see what the inside looked like.

"Nice house," Lilium said, sounding genuinely impressed. "Wanna go in?" asked Twilight, holding a key on a ring in her magical grasp. I nodded dumbly and took the key. I unlocked the door and went inside...

*Location:  My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...* 

Surprisingly enough, all the lights were off. Twilight and Lilium followed me in. I could tell we were in a small hallway. We went on a bit and suddenly--

"SURPRISE!" shouted what had to be the entire population of Ponyville at once exactly as the (surprisingly electric) lights came on. After this, someone blew on one of those streamer-noisemaker-things and confetti rained down from somewhere. However, something else soon caught my attention...

Lilium was floating in mid-air, looking rather panicked. Her legs were simply dangling, and it looked like an invisible string was holding her up by the small of her back. A potted fern was being held in front of her in a way that resembled the way a unicorn would hold a weapon in front of themselves. The question was, how was she doing it?

Upon seeing Lilium, and realizing that she was floating in mid-air along with a potted fern, and both of them had been on the ground not a moment before, the other ponies, as well as myself and Twilight, drew in a sharp gasp. "How is she doing that?!" I thought. Then I got an idea. I remembered that in Ocarina of Time, the Lens of Truth was used to help "see the truth," meaning it let you see what really was or wasn't there. Maybe this was something like that...

I tapped into my magic and thought of the Lens of Truth. Then I concentrated on the area around me and how I saw it, then felt what was there and tried to make it visible.

Suddenly my vision changed. Everything was tinted blue-ish and there seemed to be a strange haze over everything. I looked to Lilium and was surprised to see four arms that ended in human hands of all things coming out of her back.

Even with my new "augmented" vision, they looked like they were transparent--it was like they were made out of heat haze. They seemed unreal, and they didn't have any established joints. Instead the movements of the strange appendages was almost serpentine in nature--they just twisted and writhed instead of moving like normal limbs. Two of the four arms were holding Lilium aloft, touching the ground. The other two held the potted fern, ready to use it to strike what ever got in her way. 

"Oh crap," I thought. I had to calm her down before she did something REALLY bad!

I looked to the still-levitating mare and said to her, "Hey, calm down, these are all nice ponies! They'd never hurt you!" Apparently it worked. Lilium slowly floated back down to the carpeted floor and put the fern, still in the grasp of her rather unusual appendages, back where it had been. Then she turned to me and said, her quiet voice quaking, "I don't like surprises."

"I'll be sure to remember that," I said to the grey mare beside me before turning to the crowd. Now that I'd calmed down Lilium, I had to deal with them. "Everyone," I began, "This is Lilium. I found her in the Everfree Forest, and she doesn't have a home," I continued, making sure not to say where in the Everfree I'd found her. "And because I found her, and you all made me this lovely house, I figure she can stay with me. Now, unless anyone has anything they'd like to say, I believe this was supposed to be a party?" 

This seemed to do the trick, as it got the ponies to seemingly unfreeze and resume the party. I turned to Lilium and said, "We'll talk later." She nodded at me nervously, and, satisfied with her response, I turned to go join the party.


~Several Hours Later...~


Aside from the initial hiccup, it was a great party. I got to meet some more residents of Ponyville and socialize a bit with the Main Six, as I referred to them. All in all, it was great. Lilium even managed to socialize with some of the other ponies! 

The party went on late into the night, and when everyone else had gone, the Main Six stayed behind with me and Lilium to help us clean up. These six mares truly were amazing, giving me so much of their time! Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew around up high to get the banners and streamers down while Lilium helped them with her...gifts, shall we say; Twilight and Rarity used their magic to get the spilled liquids out of the carpet; and Applejack and Pinkie got everything else. I helped out wherever I was needed. Between the eight of us, we managed to get the job done in virtually no time at all. 

By the time everyone had gone, Rarity had promised to make Lilium and me some new clothes free of charge, Pinkie had promised to throw Lilium a party as well (not a surprise party though), Rainbow Dash had used "twenty percent cooler" in her sentences no less than three times, Twilight had sent Spike home early to make sure he got his sleep, Applejack had promised to send me some apples free of charge along with some Apple Family recipes, and Fluttershy had put out what had to be more moe than could legally be put out in one evening. 

After the last of them left, Lilium turned to me and asked, "So what did you want to talk about?" I remembered her little stunt from before and that I'd wanted to talk to her about what I'd seen when I'd changed my vision. I still wanted to talk to her about it, but it had to be midnight by now. "Not right now," I said to my new housemate. "Let's just get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning." "Okay," she said.

Together we went upstairs and found the bedrooms. There were three of them up here. I looked at the first two. Each was a respectable size. One of them was predominantly pale blue, the other rather red and pink. Lilium took the latter and went to make herself comfortable and get ready for bed. While she did that, I went to have a look at the final bedroom.

I had a hunch it'd be the master bedroom, and I was right. It was also clearly designed to be MY bedroom. In the middle of it all was a MASSIVE semi-circular bed with turquoise sheets and a black blanket. The walls were black with some turquoise designs reminiscent of the ones on my clothes on them. There was a good-sized night stand to the right of the bed, and the head of the bed had a bookshelf built into it! The shelf was stocked with all sorts of books, fiction and non-fiction, biographies and books clearly meant for adult ponies who felt their lives were a bit dull and needed some excitement (the Ponysutra? Really?). There was also a smaller shelf mounted to the wall above the bed. On the wall opposite the door, there was a dresser that was empty but with Rarity's promise of free clothing that would change soon enough.

To my surprise the bedroom had an attached bathroom with running water. I suppose I wasn't familiar enough with the ponies' level of technological achievement to know what things from my world they did or didn't have. The bathroom had a sink with a mirror above it and a nice amount of counter space, and there was also a stand-up shower that was wide enough for a pony but tall enough for me. The generosity of these ponies never ceased to amaze me.

Feeling that I'd done enough gaping, I turned out the lights that still seemed out of place in a town like Ponyville and went to bed. "I could get used to this," I thought as I laid down on the amazingly comfy bed and fell asleep.
> Interlude:  In Which There Is a Meeting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Unknown, after Ghirahim flees his hideout...*

Ghirahim sighed in frustration. He should've been able to easily crush mortals like those fools! So why hadn't he? "I was far too arrogant," he thought. "The next time I see either of those pathetic wastes of life, I'll kill them instantly."

He made his way through the twisting halls of his new location until he finally got to the meeting room. The Council was already there. Seated before him around a circular table were the five individuals that could come anywhere close to harming him. He and the five others made up the High Council of the Cult of Nightmare. 

There was one empty seat at the table--his own. He made his way to the rest of the group and sat down to join them.

"Well well, look who's back at last," said one council member, a gryphoness with black fur and feathers on her body and wings that gave way to plumage that was so pale a shade of gold it could easily have been called blonde on her head. "What happened to you in that wretched hole, Ghirahim? Get into another spat with that little freak of yours, did you?" asked another gryphoness that had to be the identical twin of the other. They were sitting side by side and looked exactly alike in every way. They even had the same way of speaking, with their mocking tones and matching upper-class Trottingham accents. The only way to tell the two apart was by their weapons--one had vicious-looking blades on her wings, gleaming talon-covers, and a bandoleer full of daggers and knives of any and every variety, while the other had two razor-sharp katanas as well as two spears strapped to her back and two machetes hanging from her waist.

"Now now, I'm sure our Fearless Leader has an excellent explanation for all of this. Isn't that right, comrade?" said the voice of the most scientifically-minded of the group. His accent was all anyone needed to know he was from Stalliongrad. He was rather well-built and muscular but not overly so, and anyone with decent analytical skills could tell that he didn't get that way from working out. He wore a white lab coat and wire-framed glasses. He had an olive-green coat and had a short, tidily-kept mane and tail that had lost almost all of their once-pitch black color and had since faded to grey.

"Something obviously happened," said the largest member of the group. "He definitely looks pissed, and he only gets that look when something's gone wrong," continued the incredibly muscle-bound individual. He was a minotaur with a brown upper body and a much darker brown lower body. His horns curved up so that the points were perpendicular with the ground, as with most minotaurs, and they were wickedly sharp. His upper arms were as thick around as one of the Apple Family's oldest trees. His voice was as low and rough as the gravel in a mine.

"If you're all quite done," said the final council member, "I'm sure Ghirahim would love to get on with his explanation." This unicorn stallion simply reeked of wealth, yet at the same time managed to appear as some sort of high-ranking religious figure. He was elderly, his medium-length mane and tail somewhere between brown and grey, his coat long since having gone off-white. He wore flowing, ornate gold and white robes. A blue shawl went across his chest. He wore an ornate, crown-like headdress that had gold ornamentation rising up from the base it to further the crown-like appearance. The headdress also had a lavender veil that extended to cover his head. He was a bit taller than average, but not quite as tall as Ghirahim. His voice was low, smooth, rich, powerful--like that of an important political leader. One who knew how to solve problems as efficiently as possible, no matter the cost. In his magical grasp, he held a staff that was longer than he was tall. It was silver in color, and at the top were some gold and silver ornamentations that managed to serve as a perch for the strange owl-like bird sitting on it. Every now and then, the bird would look around, almost as though it was surveying the situation. If one had impeccable hearing, one could make out the almost inaudible mechanical whirring noise the bird made when it moved.

Ghirahim was swiftly growing impatient. First the impudent mortals had dared so much as raise a hoof against him, now he was getting attitude from the council! "Enough!" he said angrily to the assembled council members. They all looked at him in shock. "He speaks at last..." the lab-coat-wearing stallion said under his breath.

Ghirahim slowly looked at the faces of the council members, going from one to the other. After a moment, he addressed him all. "Three mortals found the entrance to the secret base under the castle in the Everfree," he said. "They managed to free the prisoner I had sealed there at the time and got away with incriminating documents."

"How incriminating?" the wealthy-looking stallion asked. Ghirahim looked the stallion in the eye and said, with a deadly edge to his voice, "They took some of our most recent supply order forms and one of my personal journal entries. Specifically the entry I wrote after that failure we had a little while back."

"So they have information that gives them the name of our organization and some of the supplies we order," said one of the gryphons. "So what?" said the other, finishing for her fellow blade enthusiast.

"The twins raise a point," said the scientific stallion. "They don't really have anything that they could use to significantly harm us. The most they could do is bring down one of our dozens of supply lines," he continued.

The bulky minotaur looked at Ghirahim for a brief moment before saying, "There's more, isn't there?"

Ghirahim took that as his cue to continue. "They were able to get into the chamber where I was," he said, not even bothering to hide the shame and rage in his voice. "When I learned that they'd freed my prized pony prisoner, I lost my temper and engaged them...I didn't take them seriously..."

"And you were defeated," said the noble-looking unicorn. The fact that Ghirahim wasn't looking at any of them told the council members that their wealthy ally was correct. "Our scientific ally is correct, at least somewhat so," the wealthy stallion said, breaking the silence left by Ghirahim. "They know who you are, and some of your lesser abilities, as well as the name of our organization and some of the supplies we order on occasion. This is no cause for concern. It may  be prudent to increase security at our facilities, but we shouldn't need much more than that," he continued.

"As much as I would love it if that were the case," said Ghirahim, "I fear that the foolish mortals will be suspicious nonetheless." "Well then Ghirahim, since you're so worried, what do you reccomend?" asked one of the gryphons.

"What I suggest, you impudent whelp," said Ghirahim in reply to the gryphoness, "is that we move our plans forward. If we strike sooner rather than later, our chances of being discovered will lessen." "Or they could increase due to sloppiness," pointed out the minotaur. 

"We'll put it to a vote," said the wealthy-looking stallion, trying to keep the peace while it could still be kept. He turned to face the seated council members and asked, "All in favor of moving our plans to revive our dark mistress forward, as Ghirahim has suggested?" "Aye," said four of the five council members (excluding Ghirahim of course), including the one who'd proposed the vote in the first place. "All opposed?" asked the elderly unicorn. "Neigh," said the minotaur. The  elderly unicorn looked to the lone dissenter and said, "Well I'm sorry captain, but I'm afraid you've been outvoted." Turning to Ghirahim, the wealthy stallion said, "Congratulations, Ghirahim. Despite your failure we still trust you. Let us hope you pull through." 

Ghirahim simply turned to face the entire council and smiled, looking incredibly sinister. "Oh, don't worry," he said. "I WILL make sure that we are successful. We WILL revive Nightmare Moon, we WILL succeed, and we WILL crush anyone who stands in our way."
> In Which There Is a Startling Occurence
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, day after party...*

I woke up the next morning with the sun shining right in my eyes.

"Celestia, why must you do this to me?" I thought. Reluctantly, I got out of bed. Then I smelled something nasty. Unfortunately, it was me.


~Twenty Minutes Later...~


After taking a quick shower and magicking the nastiness off of my clothes (because they were all I had until Rarity finished the ones she was making for me), I went downstairs for some breakfast. Lilium wasn't up yet, and I wasn't about to wake her--I knew what could happen when waking up females who thoroughly enjoyed sleeping, and given what I'd seen Lilium do at the party last night, it seemed like an even worse idea than usual.

I looked in the fridge to see what was available. I still had some fish from Fluttershy, but I REALLY didn't feel like cooking. Other than that, there was some milk and a bit of fruit. I made a mental note to go grocery shopping later.

With nothing much in the fridge, I turned my attention to the pantry and struck gold in the form of DONUTS! "Awww yeah," I thought. I grabbed the box of donuts and the milk from the fridge and went to the table to enjoy my feast.

I was working on the second donut when Lilium finally came down. "Morning," I said. "Good morning," she said in return, in her typical quiet voice. "Sleep well?" I asked her. 

"Yes," she replied. I went and got a couple of plates and glasses from the cabinet. I put the remains of my second donut on one and a fresh donut on the other, and filled both glasses with milk. I put my half-eaten donut and one glass of milk where I'd been at the table, and gave the other foodstuffs to Lilium. She took them in the grasp of her invisible arms and took a seat across from me, putting her meal in front of her. 

We ate in silence before I asked her, "So what's up with your powers there?"

She took a gulp from her drink before speaking. "When that terrible stallion was holding me captive," she began, "he'd test my powers. He and another one, a green one with a strange voice. They called them vectors. I can use them to cut through metal and lift really heavy stuff." It was clear that these so-called "vectors" were no joke. 

"I take it that explains the unusual image on your flank?" I asked her. She simply nodded in reply. "So what do you know about Diclonius ponies?" I asked her. 

"Well...I'm pretty sure they all have horns like mine, and vectors," she began. "I overheard the bad ponies say that they're all mares. And they all have red eyes. There might've been something else, but I couldn't hear exactly what the bad ponies were saying."

"Curiouser and curiouser," thought I. I filed all Lilium had told me away for later and finished my meal before saying, "Well, thank you for telling me all this. You truly are a brave mare, having endured all that." She blushed upon hearing that. "Anyway," I continued, "we can't survive on donuts and milk forever, and I'm sure there's something else we need, so howzabout we finish up here and go run some errands?" 

"Okay," replied Lilium. 

We finished our food and went upstairs to finish getting ready. The ponies had really though of everything, even toiletries! Fortunately Lilium hadn't been held by Ghirahim and co. so long that she forgot how to do simple things like brush her teeth. Once we were all set, we went out to run various and sundry errands to buy various and sundry goods.

*Location:  Ponyville Market, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, fifteen minutes later...*

Lilium and I had run our errands and gotten just about everything we needed. We'd gotten some fruits and vegetables, various cooking ingredients, and other foodstuffs (including some more taboo edibles from Fluttershy). Celestia had been kind enough to set us up with a royal gift card (valid at any and every Equestrian business!) after she'd heard about the whole thing with Argorok, so we were good money-wise for a good while.

We were about to head home when I saw something, or rather someone, unusual. I knew just about everyone in Ponyville, but I'd never seen this pony before.

She was a slightly-taller-than-average unicorn with a tan coat. Her long purple mane and tail were pulled into ponytails (irony at its finest). Her light-blue eyes were full of courage and kindness, and her golden jewelry, combined with the genie lamp on her flank, gave her a certain air, like she was mysterious and powerful. She also looked a bit lost, like she didn't know where she was or where to go.

I turned to Lilium and, pointing at the new mare, I said, "Hey, let's go help here out." My shy companion looked at the new mare, then at me, and nodded in response.

Lilium and I walked over to the new mare. "Hey there," I said. "You look a little lost. Need some help?" I asked.

She looked at me in surprise, then noticed Lilium, who shied away a bit. "Oh!" said the new mare "Yes, thank you! I'm trying to find Princess Twilight Sparkle, could you show me the way?"

"Of course!" I said. "I'm sorry, we weren't properly introduced. I'm Zant."

"Lilium," said my meek friend.

"I'm Desert Gem. Nice to meet you both!" said the new mare. "I'm afraid I've never seen anything like either of you. If you don't mind me asking, what type of creatures are you two?" she asked.

"Well Ms. Gem, how forward of you!" I said. "Asking such personal questions before the first date?!"

Desert Gem, looking thoroughly embarrassed, said, "Oh, well, um, I'm sorry if I offended you-!"

"Don't worry about it, I'm just messin' with ya," I said, cutting her off before she dug herself into a hole, metaphorically speaking. "And to answer your question, I'm a Twili."

"I'm a Diclonius pony," said Lilium.

"Wow, cool!" said Desert Gem. "I've seen some crazy stuff, but never anything like you two! Well, I suppose since you told me what you are, I should tell you what I am. I'm a half-genie."

"Really?" I said. "Now THAT is interesting!"

"I've heard of genies," said Lilium, "but never half-genies."

"Well, I'd love to tell you about my geneaology some other time, but I'm afraid I REALLY need to talk to the Princess, so if you'd take me to her, that'd be great," said Desert Gem.

"Okay, okay, I can see you're in a rush," I said, "so instead of walking, let's do something quicker." I placed a hand on each of the two mares who were with me, and teleported us to Twilight's castle.

*Location:  Inside Twilight's Castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

The three of us materialized inside Twilight's castle in the flurry of small rectangles characteristic of my teleportation. There was a sudden flash of magenta magic as Twilight teleported in front of us. "You do know there's such a thing as a door, right Zant?" she asked rhetorically.

"Well yes, but where's the fun in that?" I replied. "And besides, I have someone here to see you. Now if you'll excuse Lilium and me, we have to put away some groceries. Lovely to meet you Ms. Gem, bye now!" And with that, I teleported Lilium and myself home.

*Location:  My House, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, later...*

Lilium and I were putting away groceries when suddenly, we heard a scream from across town. "Did you hear that?" she asked me.

"Yes, and it sounded like Twilight!" I said. I dropped the produce I'd been putting away and went over to Lilium and whisked us away to Twilight's castle.

*Location:  Inside Twilight's Castle, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, now...*

We arrived in Twilight's throne room to see a shocking sight:  Desert Gem standing over Twilight, a wicked-looking dagger encased in a fiery green aura, just like her horn.

"Okay, yeah, I'm not sure what is going on here," I said, "but it is NOT OKAY!" I equipped my helmet and conjured my scimitars. Lilium seemed to share my feelings as she instantly looked ready to fuck shit up.

Desert Gem turned to look at the two of us, and hissed. It was a horrifying sound, but nowhere near as bad as what happened next. The green fire expanded to cover her whole body, and slowly, her coat was replaced by a black, chitinous endoskeleton. Her extremities were full of holes, and her eyes were solid blue. She had insectoid wings that were also full of holes, and her horn was sharp and jagged. 

"Well, now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll have to deal with you as well," said the being I'd thought was a pony. "Such a shame, I'd wanted there to be as little mess as possible. Oh well, just something else to charge that creep for."

"Yeah, not gonna happen," I said. I teleported behind her and took a swipe at her with my blades, but she dodged and flew away...

Right into Lilium's vectors. "DAMN, Lilium is FAST!" I thought. She'd gone the distance of at least half the throne room in the blink of an eye!

"Anything to say before I end your pathetic existence?" said Lilium to the insectoid pony, a deadly edge in her voice.

"NOOOO!" called a voice from across the room. It was...Twilight?? "Don't kill her! Please!" the alicorn mare continued.

"But...she tried to kill you!" I said. "We have every reason TO kill her!"

"Then how are you any better than her?!" said Twilight.

I had no reply to that, and neither did Lilium. Instead, I went over to Lilium and teleported her and the would-be murderer to the town hall to lock the insect in the dank town jail cell until the Guard could arrive to take her to a proper prison.
> In Which a Search Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Ponyville Town Hall, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, approximately 30 minutes after the assassination attempt...*

I was with Lilium in the Town Hall waiting area. We were waiting for Twilight to finish talking with the Mayor about what had happened at Twilight's castle. They'd been talking for a while, but neither of us had heard anything. I'd unequipped my helmet by that point and was anxiously pacing, Lilium was just sitting in one of the stiff chairs. Neither of us had said a word. I couldn't tell what was going through her mind, but she kept her gaze fixed on the bit of floor right in front of her chair. Before Twilight had gone in with the Mayor, she'd led us to the single small, cold jail cell under the Town Hall and we'd locked the changeling in and slipped a magic-inhibiting ring on its horn.

Waiting was always the hard part. We were obviously concerned, given the fact that someone had tried to KILL TWILIGHT, and given what we knew, they were most likely sent by Ghirahim and his pals in the Cult of Nightmare. And since we were just sitting here, waiting for something to happen, that meant we were wasting time while Ghirahim could be cooking up more plots and plans to kill Twilight, or maybe the other princesses!

Once I had calmed down and stopped pacing, I had decided to kill the time by brushing up on my offensive spells. I was just getting to the part about cryomancy when suddenly what appeared to be a deactivated Halo energy sword popped into existence just above my book, and fell onto it with a solid thunk. Curious, I picked it up, and felt the familiar sensation of a message playing in my head. "It's a sword not a fighter jet! No but in all seriousness, if you ever need someone to hack into technology or just talk or fight, summon me, Epsilon-Church."

Given that there was an assassin in the basement and we were most likely going to have to start a manhunt (or rather, marehunt) I figured now would be as good a time as any to summon some help. I focused my will on the energy sword and thought, “Hey Church, can ya give me a hand with a marehunt, and maybe an interrogation?”

A portal opened a few feet in front of me, giving off a similar feeling as the one that had brought me Jason and Elusive. Sure enough, it spat out a figure that looked like he was from Halo, but I couldn't be sure since I hadn't gotten too far in Halo 4 and this armor didn't look familiar.

After Lilium and I looked the armored man(?) over for a moment, I finally decided to speak.

“So you’re Church, then? Nice armor. Can’t say I recognize it though. What is it?”

A strained groan came from Church, “Ask questions later…” He took off his helmet, revealing fresh-looking third-degree burns. “Can't maintain AI form…”

Lilium and I cringed at the sight of his injuries. “That does NOT look good…” I said to myself. “Anything we can do to help?” I asked.

Church tried to get up but as soon as he applied pressure to his hands he screamed in pain. “Oh god…That splinter cannon isn't a joke…Yeah. I-I know what you can do…can you heal burns?”

I cursed inwardly. Healing was that one pesky aspect of magic I hadn’t gotten into yet. I sighed and said, “Unfortunately no, BUT I can teleport over to my place and grab some magic healing stuff. Not sure how well it works, but the locals say it’s great for life-threatening injuries.”

“Go ahead, I can't use the warp with these injuries…The whole lower half of my body is melted an entire layer down…”

Again I cringed. “Be right back then,” I said quickly. 

Church waved me away desperately, looking like his burns were starting to get infected. “Hurry!”

I imagined myself in my house, in the bathroom where the heavy-duty drugs were kept, and as usual, I teleported away with a *psoooom* followed by a flurry of particle effects.

*Location:  My house, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, Now…*

*pssm!*

I tore open the medicine cabinet and scrambled to find the stuff to cure Church. They had to be here somewhere…

After about half a minute I’d made a mess of the countertop and the medicine cabinet was almost empty. Finally my eyes settled on one of the few containers remaining in the cabinet. The liquid inside looked almost like maple syrup, and it faintly glowed. The label had only the word NECTAR printed on it in some of the neatest script I’d ever seen.

Knowing that this must’ve been it, I grabbed it and teleported back to Church and Lilium.

*psoooom…*

*Location:   Town Hall, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, Now…*

*pssm!*

I turned to Church to see him flickering for some reason. “Okay, that CAN’T be good,” I thought to myself.

“Here it is!” I said quickly as I handed him the bottle. 

He stared at me incredulously, then asked, “Is this honey? I mean, is it?”

My face, as well as Lilium’s, went deadpan. Then, with a tone matching my expression, I said, “Dude. This stuff is brown and has the consistency of water. Also, IT FUCKING GLOWS. Do any of those seem like traits of honey to you?”

“Yes,” He said as he opened the container and did something that would creep most out. He closed the container and ate it.

“...” I was at a loss for words. I’d overheard some of the ponies at my housewarming party mention how hard that stuff was to come by. Needless to say, Church’s actions brought several emotions to the forefront of my mind.

“...Do you have any idea how rare that shit is?” I asked him, the tension in my voice palpable.

“Hmm…Nope,” He said in a bubbly voice.

“THAT SHIT IS RESERVED FOR ALICORNS,” I said very loudly. It wasn’t quite shouting, more like talking very loudly with barely suppressed rage.

Suddenly Church started flickering faster than I could blink until a ghost-white spectral-looking projection came to life above his body right as the body became a corpse. “Whew. I forgot how good this feels,” He said in a more electronic-sounding voice.

I sighed, doing my best to calm myself. “At least you’re not dying anymore. And it only took a few DOZEN DOSES of the shit that alicorns use to bring themselves back from the brink of death!”

“Uh...about that. I am dead.” He pointed to the corpse in armor that obviously wasn't breathing.

“And THAT is why you don’t drink the booze of the gods!” I said rather loudly.

“Are you monotheistic? Because I don't want to have a religious conversation,” Church retorted.

“I was before I came here,” I said. “Not so sure now.” 

Church coughed awkwardly before looking at his armored corpse. He then walked into it and stood up in the armor again as he put on his helmet. I finally noticed the ONI symbol on the armor.

“ONI, huh?” I said. “Fancy. I guess if you can just use the armor like that it all works out. I WAS gonna offer to make you a new body, but I guess I don't have to now.”

“There is something you need to know then. I am NOT and never will be a person. I am just an AI. Sorry. I don't know why I said that…” Church sat down.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “And you don't have to be human to be a person. You just have to have a heart and soul.”

“Who do you want?” Church asked abruptly.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, surprised at the sudden change of topic.

A small portal opened next to Church and he pulled out a modified sniper rifle. “You know what I mean. Who is the HVT?”

Suddenly I remembered. “Oh yeah, the marehunt!” I exclaimed. “Well, long story short, a changeling assassin tried to kill Twilight, Lilium and I caught her in the act, and now we're trying to find the mare she was disguised as. We tried to contact her but were unable to do so.” I used my magic to conjure a hologram of the mare in question. The image looking exactly like her, save the blood-red outline. “Here name is Desert Gem. She's half unicorn, half genie. That's all we know, other than her appearance. I think I overheard someone say she lived near Saddle Arabia or something. I'm not sure. But yeah, that's the gist of it. Any questions?”

“Delta. Do you have a file?” A green hologram projected itself next to Church.

“Yes. But it is not enough to completely tell me what I need to know. Too bad.”

“Hey! Don't be an ass! This is all they know.” Delta’s projection faded as Church turned back to the duo. “Time to go ruffle some feathers.” He said in a thick British accent as he slid the rack back on his sniper rifle, eliciting a loud clank.

“In what way?” I asked, wondering what he meant.

“Oh. That was a Unit 13 reference. Just a PlayStation Vita game.” Church said with a shrug.

“Ah, gotcha,” I said. “Yeah, I never had one of those. Always stuck to a DS or 3DS myself.”

“Sucks for you. I had an Xbox One and everything. So, where are we going? And I'm not going to question your silence,” He said as he pointed to Lilium, “Story is never worth it.”

“thank you,” she said quietly.

“And before you answer my question, you don't even know who I am do you? That should make things interesting.”

“No, I know who you are,” I said. “I saw all of Red vs. Blue. You're Church, specifically Epsilon.”

“Do we really have time for this?” A voice that Church now found annoying, Tex.

“She had a point,” I said. “We should get going. I can use my magic to scan for her, but we need some way to triangulate or something, and I'm not that good yet. Do you have anything?”

“Is that a serious question?” He asked me.

“Well, considering I don't know what you can do with that armor, yes,” I replied, a hint of snark working its way into my voice. 

“Wait hold up, you think I'm only going to use my armor?” Church asked in confusion. “Nope. But that is for later.” He unholstered his magnum and held it out to me.

“Thanks but no thanks,” I said. “My magic is more than enough.”

“For infinite ammo and auto fire?” He asked incredulously.

“Actually yes,” I replied. “I have so much of it and I can pump out quite a few small, lethal projectiles in a small amount of time.”

“Where are we right now?”

“Ponyville Town Hall,” I replied. 

Church suddenly pulled the magnum away from me and fired once at the floor, creating a crater about a foot wide and a foot deep. “You sure?” He asked.

“Well, I was, considering we were waiting here for about half an hour for the Mayor and Twilight to finish talking, but given what you just said I'm not so sure anymore.”

Church groaned, “I never should have left my Quantum Pelican behind…”

“Well now that you've said that I'm sure we're still in the Town Hall,” I said. “ And I do have a mode of transportation. I'm just not sure if he can carry that armor of yours. The new body I had in mind for you was capable of extended sustained flight at high speeds if that helps.”

“Don't expect me to be friendly to the planet,” As he said that he sliced a hole in the air with his fists and started pulling out jetpacks from it, “No. Old Reach version. Nope. Nooo. Yes! Found it!” He ignored the pile on the ground as he fitted the pack on his back.

“Ooooooh, jetpack!” I said, intrigued. “But how long can it keep you up for?”

Church showed me his jetpack which had the meta symbol on it, “Forever. But not those ones.” He pointed to the jetpacks on the ground. “This is the jetpack from the Red Vs Blue Sarcophagus heist.”

“Ah, now I see,” I said. “Well, my offer to conjure you a new body still stands. I think it would be an upgrade, really.”

“I would explain why I don't need another one but that is a lengthy conversation. I still can't believe the pelican has that room… creepy.”

“Oooooooooookay, probably better if I don't ask about that,” I said. “But yeah, we should get going. My ride will meet us outside.”

“I mean, I could just force the memories into your mind but you would probably be hospitalized.” He said bluntly.

“Yeah no thanks. Anyway, shall we be off?” Right as I said that, Church's jetpack decided that now would be the perfect time to activate. All I saw was a blur as I heard a loud crash and a new hole formed in the ceiling.

“Shit,” I said under my breath as Lilium and I hurried out the door to see if Church was okay.

*Location:  Ponyville Town Square, Ponyville, Equestria, Equus, Now…*

What I saw will forever be engraved into my mind. Church was being flung through the air by his jetpack while he screamed curses and randomly shot his sniper rifle in the air.

“Having a bit of trouble, are we?” I shouted to him.

“I forgot to turn off the glitchmode!” 

“Why is that even a thing?!” I asked, dumbfounded.

After a moment, he finally turned off glitchmode and flew down to us. “Holy shit. If I was in a body I would probably have died from dizziness. Ergo, I am only annoyed.“ Church bemoaned.

“Well, now that the crisis is over, shall I summon my dragon friend?” I asked.

“Oh fuck. You didn't say dragon did you? Dragons from most of the multiverse hate me.”

“...do I wanna know?”

“I may have blown up the wrong planet. Yeah. That is my excuse and I'm sticking to it!”

“Be that as it may, he's my best option in terms of travel at the moment. So, I'm afraid you’ll have to get along.”

“If he scratches my armor…” He left that sentence hanging.

“Don't worry about it, I'll keep him under control. And even if he tried, don't you have energy shields?”

“Shut up.” Church retorted smartly.

“Im’a call him,” I said. I extended my telepathy outward and said, “Argorok, come. I require your assistance.”

Immediately the sky was filled with the sound of leathery wing beats and clanking armor. Argorok came in fast, but slowed on approach until he was just over the square. His wings slowed and he gently landed.

“How may I serve you, master?” He asked.

“Lilium and I need a ride,” I answered. “We have a missing mare to find.”

Not needing any words, Argorok knelt down so that Lilium and I could climb onto his back. Lilium used her vectors to get on, while I simply teleported onto the space just above him, landing in a sitting position.

Once we were all settled, Argorok asked, “Do you know where we must go, master?”

“Yeah, that would be good to know,” Church snarked. 

“Gimme a sec,” I said to them both. I called on a good portion of my power and readied my radar spell. I sent out a large pulse, not bothering to make it invisible so as to conserve magic. In a couple of seconds, it came back to me. 

I felt several sentient beings fairly close to me--most likely the inhabitants of Ponyville. A bit farther on, I felt a single mind, probably Zecora. After that, I got an even bigger cluster than Ponyville--Canterlot, most likely. Finally, at what would be the very edge of the pulse’s readings, about twenty miles out or so, I got a reading. It was a strange mind, containing some unicorn magic, but also a strange magic I’d never felt before. The mind was also faint somehow, almost as though it were comatose.

“Did you find Sarah Connor?” Church joked nonchalantly in a perfect Arny voice.

I chuckled a bit, and then said, “No, but I do believe I found our mare. She’s pretty far off. Twenty miles thataway,” I said, pointing in an arbitrary direction, “which would put her somewhere on the border of the Everfree Forest and the Badlands. Not a very nice place to be, regardless of whether you’re there of your own free will.”

“I knew it was a good idea to make my own version of the NSA!” Church exclaimed cheerfully until he saw my confused and slightly horrified expression. “What?” he asked.

I started to say something and then stopped myself, knowing it would be pointless to ask. “Let’s just go,” I said.

With that, Argorok roared fiercely, I equipped my helmet, and we took off in the direction I had indicated. But Church hadn't taken off yet. I thought he was waiting for something until suddenly his jetpack screamed loud enough to be heard for miles as he rocketed off in the direction we were heading.

By the time he’d taken off, Argorok had already reached a pretty good speed, but Church caught up to us and matched our speed easily. We slowly accelerated, and the entire time, Church kept pace with us. It only went to show the quality of the technology he had at his disposal. After some time, we made it to our destination.

“Detecting hostile lifeforms,” Delta said.

“Shut up, you’re just paranoid from that time we went to a planet full of Terminators,” Church retorted.

“We’ll see once we land.” We immediately saw a good clearing and decided to set down there. Lilium and I hopped off Argorok, and Church set down beside us. The time had come for the marehunt to begin.
> In Which Exploration Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Boundary Temple, Everfree/Badlands Border, Equus, Now…*

From the outside, the place seemed like the wreck of a once-great temple complex of some sort. The remains of ancient buildings made of what looked like sandstone were scattered about. What remained of the architecture revealed just how skilled whoever had originally designed the place had been.

Plants from the Everfree Forest sprouted through gaps in the sandstone, some little more than weeds, some massive trees that had to have been here for at least a century. Church, Lilium, and I took our surroundings in, suddenly realizing the scope of the task ahead of us. It suddenly seemed a lot harder. But we couldn’t give up. Someone needed our help.

Or maybe that was just the music playing from Church's helmet. No matter.

Realizing he was no longer needed, Argorok decided to take his leave and flew off.

It was then that I realized we needed a plan. “So how do we want to do this?” I asked Church. “I see two paths we can take from here,” I said. “One seems to go to another open area,” I said, pointing to what seemed to be some sort of ruined marketplace, “And a door that goes into some building. Which should we take?”

“One second,” Church said. “I'm just going to do what I always do in these situations. Delta, activate the cheat code.”

“It isn't a cheat code. It is classified as Promethean vision.”

“Just do it!” He said in exasperation.

“Done.” Church’s visor suddenly turned red as a beam went around the room. “Ugh. No bueno.”

“And?” I asked expectantly.

“Dude. We are in a temple. We obviously have to go the wrong way. So let's go right.” He said as he carelessly stomped off on the ‘right’ path.

“Okay, aboveground it is then,” I said as Lilium and I followed him.

As we walked on, I sent out a cloaked radar pulse to see if I could find out where we were relative to Desert Gem. If the pulse was anything to go by, she was still a good ways off, and a bit below the surface, which indicate we would have to go underground at some point. However, seeing as this didn’t tell me much else, I decided to keep this to myself and simply follow Church for now.

Suddenly, what appeared to be giant bugs popped out of the ground. Church reflexively activated his camouflage, severely confusing them. “Hell no. I have seen too many movies to know where this is going!”

“Wait a sec,” I said, remembering what the bugs were. “These aren’t from Zelda! They’re from Metroid! Why are there things from Metroid Prime here?!”

“My name is Michael J. Caboose and I hate bugs!!” The sound of repeated sniper rifle shots and H.E. rounds echoed throughout the temple. Within seconds, the Beetles were little more than grease stains.

Lilium and I just stared at Church in shock. After a moment I said to him, “Uh...you do know those were just mindless mooks you could’ve killed with a couple of well-aimed magnum shots, right?”

“I hate bugs,” Church said simply.

“Yeah, kinda figured that one out on my own,” I said sarcastically. “Anyway, continuity errors aside, shall we go on?”

“Sure. And you wouldn't blame me if you had played the Dead Space series,” He said as he trudged onward.

We continued on to the next room, which was the ruined marketplace.  As we came to a large, open, sandy part of the room, more Beetles popped out of the ground, which we swiftly dealt with, Lilium with her vectors, me with a few low-grade dark magic salvos, and Church with an unholy amount of high-explosive sniper rounds.

“Must you be so excessive? And loud?” I asked him, a bit exasperated. “You’ve most likely alerted every living thing in this temple of our presence by now.”

“And they will soon know to fear mine name! Leonard ‘Dimitri’ Church!” he exclaimed.

I just facepalmed. However, I looked up when I heard the buzzing, followed by the loud insect-like chittering.

“Oh goddammit,” I muttered before constructing a hard-magic shield around Lilium and myself. 

“It just HAD to be fucking War Wasps!” I shouted, very much annoyed.

Church removed something from his back that I hadn't seen before, it looked like a magneto stick at first until he clicked it, causing it to extend into a gravity hammer. “You're going to love me,” Church muttered.

“Kinky,” I said under my breath. I remained still under the barrier with Lilium, curious to see what would happen next, yet not that confident in Church’s chances of hitting these things with what was essentially a fancy mace.

“Delta, enable pack-a-punch,“ he said.

“That will use a lot of power to get from the warp. Are you sure?”

“Do it.” The gravity hammer was suddenly engulfed in a red forerunner-looking light until it was turned completely crimson. He picked it up from the air and aimed the top at a wasp just as it began to charge at him and a beam of forerunner energy completely incinerated the wasp. “Oops?” he lied. 

pressive,” I muttered. “That’s pretty neat,” I said to him, “but these things will keep coming until you destroy their hives. And you can’t break the hives without some of that high-yield explosive you seem so fond of.”

“Eh. I just wanted to upgrade this. That shit was expensive on my power levels.” He put the hammer back into its magneto stick form and stuck it to his back before putting his sniper rifle in his right hand and his magnum in his left.

As he drew his weapons, I lowered the barrier and started shooting the wasps down with my magic. I did my best to take one wasp down for every projectile I fired, and for the most part, it worked. Lilium tried to keep her fighting style completely balanced, using her vectors to cut down any wasp that got too close for comfort while also taking down any strays when she had the chance. 

Suddenly, the floor Church was standing on collapsed inward due to his weight. “I'm not fat!” He screamed as he barely held on.

I grabbed him with my telekinesis and tried to pull him up, but even with how much I’d practiced his armor was just too heavy. Suddenly I felt the strain on my telekinetic grip lighten considerably. I switched to my magic-augmented vision and saw Lilium lifting Church out of the hole with her vectors. In no time at all, he was back on solid ground. “I AM NOT FAT!” He yelled.

“No one said you were,” I said. “I think it’s just that your armor is heavy and the stonework in the ground here has seen better days. We should tread lightly. Either that or you should find a suit made of lighter material.”

“Hey I just remembered something. Are you two dating or something?” He asked shamelessly.

Lilium and I looked at him, shocked that he’d just gone and asked something like that. We looked at each other, our expressions remaining the same, then back at Church. “NO!” we both shouted.

“It is scientifically proven that denial isn't healthy.” Tex snarked.

“Dude!” I shouted. “We may live in the same house, but we are NOT a thing!” Lilium nodded vigorously, then said, “I-I’m not quite ready for a relationship yet, and I d-don’t think I will be for a little while…”

“Well at least you didn't add the ‘AND NEVER WILL BE!’ Part,” Church said with a chuckle.

“Dude, just...just no,” I said, exasperated.

I walked over to the hole Church had fallen through, being sure to watch my step. At the bottom of it was a rather unpleasant-looking, vile green liquid. “Ew,” I said, disgusted.

“What?” Church asked until he saw it. “Huh, guava.”

“I don’t think that’s any kind of fruit juice dude,” I said, still a bit grossed out by the liquid. “If anything, I think it’s heavily-polluted groundwater or something. I’m not sure; I’m getting a major Metroid Prime vibe from this place.”

“Come with me if you want to live,” Church said randomly. Same Arny voice.

“Sure,” I said. “Just try not to fall in a pit of deadly neurotoxic acid or whatever the hell that shit was.”

“Well it wouldn't really affect me. I don't know about you though.”

“Still, getting you out of it would be a pain,” I replied. “Which way now?” There were several doors in this area.

The sound of a loud facepalm echoed across the room, “Did I seriously forget I had a jetpack? Are you fucking serious?!” Church screamed.

“Oh yeah, and I can levitate,” I said as I suddenly remembered one of the most iconic parts of the Zant bossfight. “Fucking great job dumbass,” I said to myself mentally.

“Wait a minute. Hold position.” Church said as he held up a hand. “That is an order.” He walked over to one of the paths hesitantly, “Oh shit…I remember something like this. This is going to suck.”

That first bit annoyed me a little. Since when was he in charge? But what he said after made me curious. “You played Prime as well?” I asked him.

“Nope. Watched YouTube gameplays. Oh and I have bad news.”

“On a scale of one to boned, how bad?” I asked, somewhat dreading his answer.

“Admiral Ackbar. And we have already walked straight into it.”

“Boned, then,” I said, more to myself than to him. “What exactly is it?” I asked him.

“I am detecting thousands of lifeforms. Mostly hostile. A few passive,” Delta informed oh-so-helpfully.

“Well,” I said, “this is a temple. Regardless of the series, that’s to be expected.” Looking around a bit, I spotted a door across the plaza that was down a small flight of stairs and went into one of the slightly-less-ruined buildings. “Shall we try that one?” I asked, pointing at the door.

“Did I mention some of the hostile ones were intelligent? I don't know about sentient though. And I would advise either that or the one behind you. Your death wish is your choice after all.”

“Why is my logic such a fucking pessimist?”

“I think it’s his job,” I replied. “Anyway, if I remember Prime well enough, we have to go through the far door before we can progress anywhere else. Shall we, then?” I asked.

“Why are you asking me? I thought you didn't respect my authoritay,” He said in a racist impression.

“You’ve been at this longer than I have,” I said. “I just don’t like being bossed around.”

“Yeah, eleven years. But you know. And no, I was never stoned unlike those unlucky sons of bitches.”

“Dafuq?”

“Some displaced are imprisoned in stone for thousands of years by the princesses,” He said nonchalantly.

Not for the first time today, I cringed. Then I thanked whatever deity existed in this fucked-up universe that I didn’t end up like those unlucky displaced. “Guess we’re lucky then,” I said. “However, we do have a mission to complete. Onward, then?”

“You used the wrong line. Let's try that again,” He made it sound like he was clearing his throat. “Onward! To adventure!” He said in a British accent.

“Umm...I wasn’t really trying to quote anything…” I said a bit awkwardly. “Let’s just go…” I said, anxious to get out of the awkward situation.

“Okay fine, since you are so suicidal…” He cleared his throat again before doing something that would offend most, “ALALALALALA!” He screamed like a terrorist as he rushed down the path.

I just laughed. And I didn’t stop for about a minute or so. Once I finally got ahold of myself, I followed him, still giggling, Lilium not far behind.

Once we got to the door, we found Church waiting for us. “You really love terrorist humor eh?” He said in an Arabian accent.

“No, not quite,” I said, struggling to regain my composure. “You just reminded me of someone from back home. I knew a guy who’d do shit like that almost on a regular basis.”

“He sounds like my kind of guy,” He paused awkwardly before saying, “And now you think I am gay.”

“No, not really,” I said. “Okay, I’m good, let’s go,” I said as I went through the door.

“Hey Lilium? At least, that is what my HUD is displaying you as. Are you a Lilium or are you the Lilium? Heh, Pokémon. Are you a grass type Pokémon?”

She just looked at him in confusion. “P...Pokémon? W-What’s that?” she asked.

“I knew it! You are! That’s why you look adorable. That makes sense. Hmm…” Church hummed.

“She’s a diclonius,” I said to him. “Haven’t seen any sign of anything Pokémon-like. At least, not yet.”

“Hey, I just realized something. If she’s the only Pokémon of her kind does that mean she’s extinct?” I finally noticed Church sounded like Caboose.

I facepalmed, then used my telekinesis to slap Church across the helmet. Hard. He went flying through the walls. Literally. “That doesn't seem physically possible!” I shouted comically.

I got no response.

“Oh shit,” I said under my breath. I quickly teleported to where he’d landed and looked him over.

He was just repeating a sentence over and over, “I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.”

“Fuck!” I said to myself. Suddenly I remembered an odd spell I’d found stuck into the book I’d been reading earlier. It was on a loose scrap of paper, stuck in like a bookmark. It was a diagnostic spell. It would let me scan someone (or something) that wasn’t working right and let me find out what was wrong with them. Figuring this would be as good a time as any to test it, I used it on Church’s body. I immediately heard the iconic Windows XP error sound start up. And after it stopped I heard the Windows startup song before Church started getting up like nothing had happened.

“Dafuq just happened?” I mumbled. “You okay dude?” I asked Church.

“I think I just shit myself…” he said.

“Um, how?” I asked, thoroughly confused. “Isn’t that just power armor?” Suddenly new info filled my head. The diagnostic was complete. Apparently he had Ebola. I decided not to ask.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked.

“Oh nothing,” I said. “It’s just that apparently you have Ebola, which should be impossible, given the fact that the body in that suit kinda died due to severe burns and ingesting lethal amounts of nectar.”

“I knew I shouldn't have gone to that war convention in Poraq!”

Again I facepalmed. I turned to face Church and said, “Ya want that new body now? It’d be totally compatible with your AI matrices or whatever you wanna call ‘em, and more importantly, it’d be disease-free. Actually, it’d never get sick at all, at least not in this sense.”

“Something tells me there is a catch.” Church deadpanned. 

“Well, kinda,” I said. “It’d take a lot of time and concentration to make. You and Lilium would have to cover me while I made it in case any hostiles came at us while I was conjuring it. If my concentration was broken, it’d fizzle out.”

“That is not what I meant,” Church said in the same deadpan tone.

“Oh, you mean like a cost?” I asked. “Oh no, nothing major. Just fill me in on any key displaced info I’m missing out on.”

“No. What am I wearing right now?”

“Uh...armor with a rotting corpse inside it?” I asked, confused once again.

“Oh my god. Even though this doesn't apply to this in the same way, when girls said us guys were thick-skulled I didn't believe it. Apparently we are. Good job.”

“Well it doesn’t help when you’re being all cryptic and vague,” I retorted.

“Here, let me help. ME. NO. GO. WITHOUT. THIS. ARMOR,” He said in a mocking Jamaican accent.

“What, does it have sentimental value or something?” I asked snarkily.

“Dude. This is Agent Locke's armor from Halo 5: Guardians.”

I was starting to understand his reasoning. “So you want to look just like your favorite sci-fi hero then? How cute,” I said mockingly. “If it really means that much to you, why not just throw it in your magic storage portal thing?”

“...”

Church said nothing. It was then that I realized that I was perhaps a bit harsh. “Eh, perhaps that was a bit much,” I said, quite embarrassed. “But seriously though.”

“It isn't a storage portal,” Church said tersely. “It used to be the realm of the spirits of the dead. Now it’s a realm ruled by Daemons and all kinds of bad things as well as projecting more than just the angry emotions of the dead. You could torture someone eternally there. I'm not putting it there. That is where I steal from.”

It was then that I realized just how powerful Church was. If he could steal from a place like that, then he was on a level way above me. “Well, how was I to know that?!” I asked. “And if you don’t want to put it there, the new body would have storage for it. You’d just have to break it down into smaller components to store it neatly.”

Church fainted. From what, I didn’t know. He shot up again after a few seconds. “I'm sorry. Maybe I misheard you. One does not simply break this armor into smaller components,” he said in a tone that seemed too serious for the sentence.

“Well, I didn’t mean, like, break it down into atoms or something,” I said. “Just, like, take it apart like Master Chief’s armor at the end of Halo 4.”

“I don't have my… wait a minute. Why did I never think of that…that is so crazy it might work… Delta, activate MV drive and bring it here.”

“Done.” A loud thud sounded as something really heavy landed above us.

“I'm such a dumbass.” Church said sadly. “Let's just go before I start crying,” He said with a sniffle.

Now I was even more confused than before. Now mood swings, on top of all the other already-weird symptoms? What the actual fuck was going on??

“Ooooooooookay then…” I said, very confused. A quick glance at Lilium told me she felt much the same.

I heard sobbing start up from Church. “I could have done that a year ago!” he stuttered as he fired his sniper rifle at a dead end blocking the path, completely decimating it.

I was very much confused, and wanted answers. “Okay dude, what the actual fuck?” I asked in a no-nonsense tone.

“I forgot that I could just summon my pelican…”

“You forgot that you could just summon a fucking DROPSHIP at WILL?!” I asked, astounded. “How the FUCK do you forget something like that?!”

A loud, demonic roar sounded from the area Church shot up.

“Oh shit,” I said, startled by the noise. “Now you’ve done it. Great job Church. Ten outta ten mate.”

“Actually I think it is angry at you.” He pointed at the huge spider-like thing in the massive, dark room that used to be hidden behind a dead end. I instantly recognized it, and was quite surprised. I mean, sure it was an underwhelming boss, but it was a temple boss no less. Why was it in a miniboss area?!
> In Which There Is a Spider
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Twilit Arachnid
ARMOGOHMA
[mood music]


“SHIT!” I exclaimed, grabbing Church and Lilium and teleporting us all inside the miniboss chamber just as Armogohma fried the spot where we’d just been with what seemed to be some sort of plasma beam.

“Well. At least it wasn't a necromorph…on second thought that would kill every being on the planet.” 

“This is still not good!” I shouted, very much stressed.

“It just looks like a giant spider to me.” Church said with a shrug.

“This thing is like, spider-squared!” I said, as the gigantic thing climbed up the wall, making its way to the ceiling of the fifty-meter-cube chamber.

“Mommy…” Church said as he used Lilium as a meatshield. She only looked at him disdainfully, then used her vectors to place him alongside me and her.

“Fine. No meatshield. You don't have to throw a hissy fit.”

Lilium only rolled her eyes.

“Will you two stop bickering and help me SHOOT THIS THING?!” I asked, a bit annoyed and also stressed from the GIANT SPIDER THAT WAS TRYING TO GIVE US THE NOT-HEALTHY KIND OF PLASMA TRANSFUSION!

“Technically we aren't bickering. She hasn't said a word.” Lilium only facehoof’d, before using her vectors to pick up several good-sized rocks, ranging from pebbles to about the size of an orange, and sending them flying towards Armogohma at impossible speeds.

“Axios!” Church charged his jetpack and throttled towards the massive arachnid as he grabbed his twin energy swords from his hip and started swinging erratically yet still hitting before he dodged the thing’s plasma beam.

As he moved back to avoid the beam, he took some time to inspect his handiwork, and was not at all pleased with the results. To his great surprise, and great frustration, no damage had been done.

“OH! NOW YOU HAVE FUCKED UP YOU DIRTY CHEATER! YOU'RE EVEN CAMPING!” Church’s armor suddenly started changing until I saw the Meta. He just put away his energy swords and unslung his sniper rifle before firing at full-auto at Armogohma with explosive rounds.

To his frustration, and of no surprise to me, once again his attacks did nothing, aside from annoying Armogohma, as it decided to target him in particular.

“That. Is it. I'm going to get a fucking nuke. And then I am going to shove it up your ass and call it explosive diarrhea.” He said in Omega's voice.

“Or,” I said, interrupting his rage, “You could just shoot it in the giant orange eye the plasma beam comes from, which is kinda obviously its weak point,” I said somewhat condescendingly.

“That is a noob strategy.”

“Well, it works,” I said as I did just as I’d said. I fired five shots. Two missed and hit Armogohma’s tough carapace, but the other three found their mark--the large eye in the middle of the creature’s “back,” as it were.

With an ear-splitting hiss, Armogohma fell to the ground, cracking it slightly. It landed on its back and its legs curled inward, almost making it look dead. I, however, knew better.

“Now to burn that thing alive…” Church muttered as he threw a plasma grenade straight at its ‘belly’, sticking on contact. Then another and another and another.

“Yeah, sure, keep wasting your grenades,” I said. “They might not do damage, but they stun it, thereby prolonging this battle. And while you’re doing that, you could be going crazy with a gravity hammer and actually doing damage.”

“You are lucky I'm not using forerunner weapons. And thanks for the suggestion.” I facepalmed as he took his gravity hammer and started pounding the Armogohma faster than I could blink with it.

“Damn,” I muttered. After a few minutes of this, all that remained of the giant spider was black mist.

“What? Is this Minecraft?” Church asked in confusion. 

“No,” I answered. “Legend of Zelda. No blood, just weird black mist.” Suddenly the ground started to tremble beneath our feet.

“Okay. You two need to do something. Something you would never normally do. Okay?” Church asked seriously.

“Explain,” I said in a similar tone.

“GET TO DA CHOPPA!” He screamed as his pelican collapsed the roof and landed on the ground that hadn't crumbled yet. He took off in a sprint straight towards the open hatch.

Little did he know it was too late. Luckily I remembered my levitation, as well as my telekinesis, which I used to catch Lilium. We were a bit shaken, but fine. Church was already in the pelican and waving us in frantically.

I used my telekinesis to gently place Lilium in the rear of the craft next to Church, before teleporting to the both of them.

“Welcome back Director and guests.” An electronic voice said.

“Can you um, you know… Get us out of here?”

“Of course.” The hatch closed as we felt ourselves become near weightless.

I took a moment to examine the interior of the pelican, which was clearly more than just a dropship. I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me as I remembered how much I used to be into Doctor Who.

“It’s bigger on the inside!” I exclaimed.

“Well duh!” Church said in a spot-on impression of Pinkie Pie that was scarily good. 

As exciting as the ship was, I took a moment to look back out at the newly-formed hole in the floor we’d almost fallen through. At the bottom was something interesting. Whereas before there had been very desert-y decor, at the bottom of the hole it looked much more forest-y, and instead of the nasty green ooze that plagued the upper area, this new lower area had lots of purple streams and mist clouds that looked none too inviting.

“Hey, take a look at this,” I called to Church and Lilium.

Church looked at Lilium with a shrug before nodding towards me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Not sure,” I answered, “but if I had to guess, I’d say the forest part of this temple. And that purple shit? Yeah, that’s poisonous. And probably not too kind to metal either.”

“Look. I know you have a fetish for suicidal quests but the answer is no.”

“And why not?” I asked. “You’re much better equipped than me and I’m still willing to do it.”

“it's not that…You might want to look down a bit further. It gets much worse.”

I did as he instructed and saw more of the chamber below us. In addition to the poison rivers and fog, there was a large ravine that split the room in half at an angle. There were also some familiar-looking creatures down there--things that looked like the angsty cousins of Piranha Plants from Super Mario Bros., and what could only be Keese bats.

“And that isn't even the worst part. Look around. There is no suitable place to land for at least a few miles.”

I looked and saw that he was right. There was no level, clear ground as far as I could tell, and the sickly purple fog didn’t help. My eyes strayed to something else, however. 

At about the same elevation as us, there was a sort of alcove that hadn’t been there before. Curious and apropos of absolutely nothing, I teleported over to it, and was rewarded for my curiosity. Inside the alcove was a treasure chest, which I then proceeded to open.

From the treasure chest sprang a great green light. It took the form of a sphere and almost reminded me of fairies from the Zelda series. It fluttered around me for a bit, before going into me. My whole body felt a bit odd for a second, and then, suddenly I felt great power surging through me, my mind filled with new knowledge. It was then that I realized what had happened.

I’d been given new magic. And not just any magic, but wind magic, which was quite convenient.

I then realized what I’d done, and quickly teleported back to the pelican.

“Hello. You have been gone for 48.19422 seconds,” Church said sternly.

“Sorry,” I said apologetically. “I saw a thing in a wall and the gamer in me knew it was a secret, and it was right! Now I CAN AIRBEND!” I exclaimed as I conjured up a small ball of winds like from the Avatar series.

“Well, while you were gone Aang, I got a really stupid idea that Lilium has vehemently disagreed with.”

“How stupid?” I asked in a far too serious tone.

“Mac-cannon to the poisonous-looking stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty stupid, considering we don’t have any idea what’s down there,” I said. “For all we know, there could be some massively helpful thing down there, and the MAC shell could go straight through the ground and cause an earthquake or something.”

“Lilium here has volunteered herself to go first,” Church said in a way that I couldn't tell if he was lying or not. But from the way she was glaring at him...

“Yeah, I think I’ll just use my wind magic to clear the fog,” I said nonchalantly.

“Spoilsport. How old are you people anyway? You don't have my sense of humor at all.”

“I just don’t think it’s funny when lives are at stake,” I retorted. “Can’t speak for Lilium though.”

“Oh, don't act like you don't enjoy the adrenaline that rushes through your veins.”

“Not really, not when innocents are at risk,” I said, my voice raising and gaining a harsh edge.

“Umm… Yeah… I won't mention THAT story then…”

I just sighed, exasperated, and prepared to send out a cloaked radar pulse to determine our location relative to Desert Gem.

“Wait a second...why am I…” Church removed his helmet, “...hungry.”

“HOW can you be hungry?!” I asked, getting a bit frustrated. “That body is DEAD! How the FLYING FUCK can YOU, an ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in a DECEASED HUMAN BODY, BE HUNGRY?!”

“I learned to not question these sort of things.” Church said cryptically.

I was about to lose it, when I remembered an old anger management technique. I removed my helmet and took a very deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, all that shit, and calmed down.

“Well, while we are here. I'll just grab a new body from the...room,” Church shuddered as he teleported away.

“...I feel like I should be insulted,” I said to myself. “He never even asked what the one I made for him could do. Meh.”

Moments later Church returned, looking like...Wait is he the Arbiter?

“That’s new,” I remarked.

“What is?” Church's voice actually sounded like an elite.

“That body,” I replied. “Didn’t expect a sangheili.”

“You have no idea what kind of fucked-up shit I had to do to get this.”

“You’d be surprised,” I replied. “I’ve been told I have a very active imagination.”

“Just kidding. This was already here. This pelican's previous owner could probably rival the Elder Collector from Marvel.”

“Damn,” I said, thoroughly impressed. “Still, you weren’t the least bit curious about what I would’ve made for you?”

“You never told me. I figured it was a surprise.”

“Well, you never asked!” I replied. “If you had, I’d have told you. Hell, judging by what you said, it might even be here!”

“Um…Is there supposed to be an angry pair of pegasi and an alicorn flying towards us?”

“No,” I replied. “No there most certainly is not.”
> In Which a Princess is Upset
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hmm. I pissed off Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle all at once. That is a new record!”

“Who knows,” I mused. “Maybe I did.”

“No. You aren't the one polluting the atmosphere. Or secretly launching nukes at Iraq and blaming it on Russia.”

“Yeah, but Lilium and I were supposed to wait in Town Hall for Twilight and the Mayor to come out of their meeting.” Then I realized what Church had just said. “Wait, what?”

“Oh shit. You weren't supposed to know about that.”

“Meh, I’ll probably forget it soon enough anyway,” I said in a disregarding manner.

“ZANT!” Clearly the locals were unhappy.

“Ah shit,” I said under my breath. “Yes, dearest?” I asked satirically.

“Don't worry I'll cover for you,” Church said before he projected his voice outside the pelican. “You are currently in a UNSC warzone. Leave the area immediately unless you wish to join the conflict.” Clearly that wasn't the right thing to say judging by what Twilight screamed next.

“SHUT UP!” As she did this, her mane, tail, and coat seemed to start glowing white a bit, and even began to smoke. “I’ll deal with you later!” She yelled, pointing her hoof at Church.

“Oh shit,” I thought. “Is she going to evolve into Rapidash?” I equipped my helmet just in case.

“Yeah no. I like Twilight but I don't like her like that.” Church then realized he was still projecting his voice. An awkward silence ensued.

A random cough, seemingly from out of nowhere, was heard by all six of us.

After a few moments, I finally broke the silence. “So…” I said, “This is awkward…”

“SHUT UP!” A Spartan in armor yelled at me. I then realized he was just a member of the ship’s crew.

“...dafuq?” I mumbled to myself. “Who took a piss in his cereal this morning?”

“Oh. That is Albert. He's always angry,” Church explained.

“Fuck you Church!” Albert yelled.

“Ahem,” Church coughed.

“Err, I mean, Fuck you, Sir!”

“That is better.”

I looked back to Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. They all seemed to have calmed down a bit, but they all looked annoyed.

Twilight opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and said, “Know what? No. I’m done. Nope!”

“Stop. Get in the ship young lady! You need some fast food!” Twilight and her two friends were forcibly teleported in. “Do you hear me?! You need to sit down and calm down… While we serve you five star food!”

Twilight looked about ready to burst. Right when I thought she would evolve into Rapidash, she seemingly remembered her time-tested technique and brought her hoof to her chest, then thrust it outward, taking a deep breath as she did so.

“Chefs! Get this...lady some...What do you want? Free of course.”

Twilight gave a sigh of exasperation and said, “Just...just some cupcakes or something. Maybe some donuts. Comfort food.”

Church suddenly remembered he wasn't a chef and talked over the intercom. “Food staff, we have very important guests here. Get them everything sweet you can imagine!” I couldn't understand a word he was saying as he wasn't speaking English. Spanish, maybe? It sounded familiar but I still couldn’t understand a word he said.

Carrying a huge cart were a squad of six Spartans wearing the same armor as Lopez. They stopped in front of the mares and took the cover off the cart, displaying donuts, cupcakes, ice cream, even different kinds from other countries.

“Now THAT is a spread!” I said, thoroughly impressed.

“Thank you,” Twilight said before helping herself to some ice cream and a jelly donut.

“That will be negative two thousand dollars,” Church said.

Twilight didn’t hear him, as she was too busy stress-eating. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy just looked at each other and shrugged before helping themselves.

“Here! Complimentary!” A Lopez showered them in coins. “This is for the casino. That we don't actually have...I think.”

Twilight looked up from her food just long enough to mutter “thanks” before returning to her binge.

Church suddenly started laughing hard, “T-Those are American coins… Good luck using them!”

At this point, Twilight was beyond caring. There was just her and her sweets. As for the other two, they didn’t have any idea as to what Church was going on about, so they just ignored him.

“Guys. You learn something new every day. Twilight has a sweets problem. She has more in common with Celestia than I thought.”

“Nah,” I said. “I think that’s just the stress. I mean, not only do we have this hostage situation, but there’s a Nightmare Moon cult conspiring to kill her, as well as the other Elements.”

“Actually this isn't a hostage situation. A hostage situation would be me putting her in a cryochamber.”

“I was referring to Desert Gem,” I said. “You know, the one we came here to save?”

“Wait save?! YOU HIRED ME TO KILL HER NOT SAVE HER!”

I facepalmed. Hard. It hurt, even through my helmet. “Not THAT kind of marehunt, goddammit!” I said, incredibly frustrated.

“CAN ONE OF YOU JUST PROJECT AN IMAGE OF THE ONE WE ARE LOOKING FOR?! OR GIVE ME A PIECE OF DNA!”

“I already showed you a picture!” I yelled. “A changeling disguised as her tried to kill Twilight! We tried to contact the mare in question but never heard back. We assumed the worst, and here we are.”

“Songnam. Direct all priorities to finding subject with this file,” Church said to the ship. As he did, the computer screens around us showed an image of the mare I described and the geographic map of Equus with markers around it.

“Ooooh, fancy,” I snarked.

“Found two matches.” An electronic voice replied.

One came up in Ponyville. That was the changeling. The other was very close to us, in what must have been the heart of the temple. Or perhaps, temples, as there seemed to be two in one.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” Church screamed at the computer.

“I thought you would be more...appreciative, Director,” Songnam said in a sad tone.

“I am. It's just that STUPID. FUCKING. TEMPLE.” He started taking deep breaths until he calmed down.

“Well,” I said, “At least we have a map.” I went to the screen and examined the temple map. Most of the rooms were blue, while a few were orange.

“So, we’ve been in the orange ones, and the blue ones are places we’ve yet to explore,” I said, half to myself and half to the others. “That’s a lot of blue.”

“Oh and by the way. If you say we have to land the pelican on the poison I will throw all of you off the ship and into space,” Church said deadly serious.

“Well, we could do that,” I said sarcastically, “or I could just disperse the fog with my new airbending.”

“Okay Einstein. You do that. But first… Let's see… this is a complicated process…” I suddenly felt the air I was breathing become a lot cleaner. It was odd, to say the least. The sensation really defies description, yet it’s unmistakable. I pretty much had an invisible oxygen mask on that contained fresh air. But for how long, I did not know.

Knowing what I had to do, I teleported outside the ship, and used my levitation to lower myself to the ground. As I got closer, I activated my wind magic, using it to dispel the lethal fog. It just sort of dissipated into the rest of the room, some of it going out through holes Church’s weapons had made during the fight with Armogohma.

As I watched the poison fade, I noticed the pelican landing in a clearing a few feet away, perched precariously over a narrow stream of vile fluid. I saw the hatch open as Church ran away from very angry mares. “Fuck off!”

“NO! YOU TOOK AWAY THE FOOD!” They screamed.

“Oh GOD, WHAT HAS HE DONE?!” I thought, horrified. If there is one thing you never ever do EVER, it’s take away a stressed mare’s comfort food!

“Fuck this! Alalalala- *muffled*”

“Did…did he just jump into the poison...?” Rainbow Dash asked in shock.

Once again, I facepalmed. “Yes, Rainbow,” I said, exasperated. “Yes he did.”

Our jaws dropped when we saw Church get flung out of the water by a tentacle, “THAT WASN'T POISON! THAT WAS PISS!” He screamed as he was sent flying.

We all just looked at him, then the tentacle, then back at him, in horror.

Church landed in front of us sobbing. Well…I think he was- no wait he's coughing. The piss liquid was what he coughed out.

We let him have a moment. Then I asked, “Time for another body?”

“I'll just have this one washed in an industrial car wash…But yeah...”

~A few minutes later…~

Church had returned as a human again but was wearing armor from a game I hadn't played.

“What’s this then?” I asked.

“I'm Isaac Clarke. You know, from Dead Space…kind of. The color is off.”

“Oh yeah, that guy,” I said. “Never played the games. Closest I got was watching the Zero Punctuation reviews.”

“At least I can go in contaminated areas now.” 

“True,” I said.

“Why are you mares looking at me like that?” He asked. They were looking at his armor in confusion.

“I think it’s the whole body-swapping thing,” I said to him.

“Well. I am dead,” He said bluntly to the mares, who automatically assumed he was doing something evil.

Before they could say anything Church held up a hand and said, “No I am not a necromancer. Just your ordinary Artificial Intelligence.” After he said that he walked away until he was at the edge of the ravine. And then just…jumped.

Once again we all stared in shock. As soon as we got over the initial surprise, we ran over to the edge of the ravine, careful to to slip on the wet moss, only to hear an ominous *sploosh*. Church, it seemed, had fallen into the purple piss-river at the bottom of the ravine. He swam up to the surface and jumped out of the piss, somehow clean.

Lilium and I didn’t even bother facepalming/hoofing this time. The other three mares, however, still stared in shock.

“Hey! Get down here! It's safe!”

“I think you broke them!” I called down to him.

“Hey Twilight! And her friends! If you help us with this I'll give you back your food!”

Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy just fell over, each stiff as a board. Luckily they didn’t fall over the side of the ravine.

Church suddenly adopted Celestia’s voice. “TWILIGHT SPARKLE! YOU ARE TARDY!”

Suddenly Twilight shot straight up. “TARDY?!” She exclaimed. “I CAN’T BE TARDYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

“Okay, now you won't be tardy if you help your friends out of their shocked states and help Zant and the others with their mission.” Church was hidden so she couldn't tell it was him saying this.

“Yes ma’am!” Twilight replied quickly. She gave a painful zap to Rainbow and Fluttershy to wake them up, then teleported the three of them as well as Lilium and myself to the bottom of the ravine, hyperventilating all the while.

Church suddenly whispered so that only Lilium and I could hear. “You better not say anything.” His tone promised space ejection. I made a loop with my thumb and index finger, my other three fingers extended, giving him the universal sign for “okay.”

“So, any ideas where this elusive mare is?” Church asked the still-hyperventilating Twilight Sparkle.

“No ma’am!” Twilight replied stiffly. “The A.I.-undead-whatever had a map but I couldn’t understand it ma’am!” The more she spoke the more tense and worried she sounded.

“You seem disappointed. Mayhaps it was because of the format of the map?’

“No ma’am!” Twilight responded. “I couldn’t understand the language!”

Church spoke in his normal voice, and one could practically hear the smirk in his tone. “Be right back.” He teleported back after a few seconds holding a datapad. “Yours. It supports many languages but I currently have it in Equestrian. There’s a LOT of information on here. Over a yottabyte. Go crazy,” He said as he handed her the datapad.

Suddenly Twilight realized what had happened. She stopped hyperventilating. Her expression contorted to one full of rage. Then, she took a deep breath.

She used her magic to snatch the datapad out of Church’s hand, then proceeded to fire a high-intensity beam of magic at him, most likely some high-caliber offensive spell. His body glowed so bright, the rest of us had to look away.

And when the light finally became bearable…Church was still standing there with his arms crossed.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were nowhere to be seen.

> In Which an A.I. Gets Somewhat Emotional
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sent out a radar pulse that covered the approximate area of the temple and found them nowhere nearby. Most likely Twilight had teleported them back to Ponyville while Church was glowing.

“Oh hell no.” Church teleported away and a primal scream of rage could be heard from Ponyville before he teleported back holding the datapad.

“Ouch,” I said, cringing inwardly. “Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?”

“No. She hit me with a spell that could melt bedrock from Minecraft. So actually that was pretty fair.”

“Yeah, but you kinda made her break,” I replied.

“You get used to it.” I suddenly realized where he was going with this. Did he actually have the memories of being tortured…?

“I understand the whole Alpha fragmenting thing,” I said, “but that doesn’t give you the right to do that to other people. Especially when they’re already having a pretty shitty week.”

“...” Church completely disregarded what I said and entered a dark room.

Not knowing what else to do, Lilium and I followed.

We were greeted by more forest-y decor. Roots supporting the ceiling like pillars, moss all over the place, more streams of purple piss, et cetera.

“Et Not Undia,” Church said.

“Wha-?” I started, but then I thought better. “Forget it,” I finished.

“It means…Don't lose your reasons.”

“Oooookay then,” I said, not sure what else I could say in response to such a thing.

“That is what the glyph means anyway.”

“Um, sorry, which glyph would that be again?” I asked.

Church pointed to a glyph that was marked in the purple piss pool. Creepy.

“That’s not weird at all…” I said sarcastically to myself.

Church looked at me and for once there was no jokes or humor at all. I don't know if I like this more or less. “We need to keep going.” He said in a resigned tone.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

As we moved through this room, we found ourselves greeted by the local flora and fauna, in the form of Deku Babas and Keese.

“I made another displaced hate me. Fuck.” Church mumbled.

“Hey, whoa, whoa!” I shouted as I let loose salvos of dark magic at the beasts. “I never said I hated you!”

“Well she obviously does.” He said as he lazily fired a plasma cutter at anything hostile.

“Just give her some time,” I said as I used my airbending to disorient the Keese.

Church just walked up to a Keese and shot it point-blank. It was very effective, considering all that remained of the evil bat was black mist. He repeated this process until all the evil things in the room had been killed. Brutally. Not to mention lazily.

“Fucking Keese,” I muttered.

“Shit. I never told her goodbye,” Church muttered.

“Never told who goodbye?” I asked.

“My um...daughter.”

“Oh.” It was all I could think of to say. The shock of that kind of bombshell was more than a bit difficult to recover from.

“We're getting close. I'm detecting the one we came here for a few rooms away.”

“Maybe,” I said, “But given the nature of this temple thusfar, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“Of course you wouldn't…”

This room only had one other door in it, so we proceeded onward.

The next room was much more interesting. It was clearly some kind of crossroads, with four paths creating an intersection.

“Whoever built these places has some serious issues.”

“Either that or some kind of maze fetish,” I said sarcastically.

“Do you guys have any cheats?”

“Depends on your definition of cheat,” I replied.

“Get past this stupid maze unfairly instead of playing along and potentially walking into another trap.”

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “that's just the thing. I've only been here a little under a month, and Lilium doesn't have much besides her vectors, sooo…”

“...” Church facepalmed. “I meant do you see any way we can exploit this? Fly over it or something. That would involve a lot of cutting. Something.”

“Ah, now that, THAT is doable!” I exclaimed. “If I'm correct then one behind one of these doors is the path that takes us to our missing mare. The other two have some sort of collectible. Important documents or cash, perhaps. Shit we can come back to, usually. So in theory all we need to do is have a quick look inside each room.”

“Our mission is more important. We don't need money. Documents might be irrelevant. Not going to dismiss them entirely though.”

“Quick look it is then!” I said as we each chose a door. Church took the one directly across from where we’d entered, Lilium took the one to his right, and I went to the left.

I pushed open the heavy-duty wooden door and poked my head through. There wasn't much to see, just some Bulblins guarding some shit. I was about to disregard it, but my instincts got the better of me and I used my augmented vision to sneak a peek inside the chest they were guarding. I struck metaphorical gold.

I leaned back through the door and shouted, “Got a key in here! A big one!”

I heard gunshots coming from where Church went. After a minute, the gunshots stopped and Church stepped out of his chosen door covered in blood.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“If you say so,” I replied. “Find anything?

“...Previous victims. Let's just say I'm the last one.”

“The Cult of Nightmare’s work?”

“Uh no. There was a basilisk in there.”

“Shit,” I thought to myself. I didn't remember exactly what Basilisk did to you, but I knew it wasn’t good. “Deadly neurotoxin?”

“No. Petrification.”

“I thought that was a cockatrice…”

“It isn't their exclusive power.”

“Huh.” I then turned to Lilium. “You find anything?” I asked her.

“Um...I think we're supposed to go this way…” she said, pointing towards her door.

“After I discover what Zant…Wow those are some ugly guards.”

“Annoying too. Kill them quick,” I advised.

Church casually shot them in the head before they even knew what hit them. By the time he’d gotten to the center of the room, where the chest was, there was almost no sign of the Bulblin guards, save a bit of black mist.

“I hate to be morbid but…If you were killed would that black mist happen with you as well?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I answered. “Anyway…”

I went to the middle of the room and kicked the chest open. Inside was a large, metallic grey, vaguely demonic-looking key with accents the same shade of purple as the piss streams.

“Is this…Does this mean...I mean I know it seemed obvious but...this confirms that our mare isn't here of her own volition right?”

“Yeah pretty much,” I said. Lilium nodded.

“Wow. That is the first time you haven't glared at me or just plain ignored me.”

“Time is all it takes,” I said.

“That reminds me. Her name is Amor,” Church said as he picked up the key and tested its weight.

“Your daughter?” I asked.

“Yeah. She's an alicorn,” he said bluntly.

“Daaaaaamn dude,” I said, surprised. “How’d ya swing that?

“What?” he asked as he took the path Lilium mentioned.

As we followed him, I said, “Well, ya know, A.I. with an alicorn daughter, what happened? Did hell freeze over?”

“In a way, the reverse happened. ‘Tis a sad story.”

“Maybe later then,” I said, trying to focus on the task at hand.

“She isn't far away. One room away now. Albeit a large room. That room. You remember that large throne-room-shaped room?”

“A bit, yeah,” I answered l. “And who, Desert Gem?”

“Yes. Her.”

I sent out a pulse to confirm this, and sure enough, she was just next door to us. But I noticed something strange.

She was being moved. By two other sentient lifeforms.
> In Which We Make New Enemies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So. We go in and survey the area. And then we strike. Any ideas?”

“I have a spell that can conceal me and Lilium,” I said. “It will make us invisible and perfectly silent.”

“Luckily for you my active camouflage does the same and all I have to do is hold it or stick it to what I want invisible. “ Church pulled out a spherical-looking thing and tapped it, causing him to start blending in until he was invisible. He became visible again a few seconds later.

“Neat,” I said. “Shall we, then?”

“Yep.”

I activated the camouflage spell, and we all filed into the next room.

It was indeed a bit like a throne room, but in a rather sad state. What remained of it was little more than rubble, and plant life ran wild, including Deku Babas. I looked across the room, just in time to catch a glimpse of the unconscious Desert Gem being dragged into another room by what looked like a pair of gryphons.

“Kill them?” Church asked.

“Too late to get the gryphons now,” I said, precisely as the door they'd just gone through shut and a large purple-and-grey lock fell into place. “Ask for the carnivorous shrubbery? Go crazy,” I said.

“Don't make me blow up that door.” Church aimed his rifle at the door, “I'll turn the H.E. levels up if I have to.” He threatened.

“Don't waste your time,” I said as Lilium and I began to mow down Deku Babas. “We have the key, remember?”

To answer my question, he walked up to the door and tried inserting the key but it didn't fit. “This key is for something else.” Church said.

Once the Deku Babas had been taken care of, I went over to him and said, “Let me try.”

Church handed me the key, letting me attempt it. The key only went in halfway and stopped at a bump.

I focused my telekinesis on it and felt, rather than saw, a response. It was a sort of magical pull. I poured a small amount of dark magic into the key, and it immediately began to turn. We were in.

“And so this doesn't close behind us…” Church pulled out one of his energy swords and sliced the now inert lock off, causing the door to stop moving almost immediately.

We went into the new room, the door somehow closing behind us, even though none of us had done anything to make it happen.

“Fuck you door! I cut off your lock!” The door groaned almost as if in response. Luckily it didn't up and grow a new lock as there was still a gaping hole.

I immediately recognized this new room. I’d teleported Jason, Ghirahim and I here during our battle. More significantly, it was a miniboss chamber in Twilight Princess. And I had a bit of an idea as to who we’d be fighting.

The two gryphons in front of us were almost certainly twins. Both had feathers that could only be described as blonde covering their hawk-like heads, giving way to plumage and fur black as night on their bodies. Both were armed to the teeth with all kinds of pointy things. One had knives and daggers, the other long-range weaponry.


“Who do you verk for?” Church asked in an unknown accent. “Tell me or I'll send straight you to the nether.”

“My my, threats?” said one in a posh British accent.

“How rude,” said the other in a voice almost identical to her...twin sister, I'd guess.

“I am not a hero. I will torture your soul in hell if you didn't give us...well, me what I want.” I noticed that they were acting a more than a bit arrogant, like they were cats just waiting to pounce, and we were mice.

“Oh dear, I have no doubt you'll try,” said one.

“Succeeding, now that's much less likely,” said the other. “We will tell you one thing, though.”

“I’m Constance,” said the one with the spears, who’d spoken first.

“And I’m Verity,” said the other gryphoness, who had the daggers.

“And we’ll be your murderers today,” they both said at the same time.


CONSTANCE AND VERITY
[mood music]


With that, they both took to the air, Constance drawing her spears, Verity grabbing tons of pointy things with each claw.

“Good luck with that, I am already dead.” Church said as he faded away, revealing it was a hologram.

The assailants didn't reply, but rather attacked, Constance dive-bombing us, trying to impale either me or Lilium, Verity throwing daggers with deadly precision. I teleported out of the way before either of them got to me, and Lilium used her vectors to block Constance, and while she tried to grab Verity’s dagger out of the air, she found she couldn't get a grip on it, almost as though it were slippery, and so she wound up dodging at the last second.

The totem poles from before were still here, so I decided to take advantage of them, and reappeared atop the center one. I turned to see Constance going after Lilium again and Verity throwing daggers at Church’s holographic form.

“I've always wanted to do this.” Church jumped into Verity, possessing her.

“HURK!” Verity screamed in an unladylike way as she started twitching. She continued to seize for a minute or so, beginning to fall, until she was caught by Constance. A short while later, she began to cough violently. Lilium and I could only watch, transfixed. 

“Surprise.” She said in Church's voice as she put a dagger through Constance’s chest, missing the heart by a few inches. At least that is what would have happened if Church didn't suddenly get ejected.

“You serious? You're fucking weird.” Church said in disgust. He had looked into her mind only a moment prior.

Verity took a moment regain her balance, before leaping out of her sister’s claws and into the air, a look of pure unadulterated rage on her face. Constance looked at her briefly and immediately understood what was going on.

Playtime was over.

Constance put away her spears in favor of duel katanas. She pressed a switch on the hilt and the black blades were surrounded by an ominous purple aura.

Verity drew four ninja stars(?!) made of a strange, sickly-looking metal in each claw.

The twins sprang into action. Verity threw her dark stars, most of them aimed at Church, and Constance dove at me and Lilium.

Church ignored everything that was happening, in favor of just kicking away Verity, sending her flying away as he started wrecking havoc on the room with his Hydra MLRS.

Despite the homing projectiles, the twins were somehow unscathed. They then realized he wasn't actually aimed at them. He was aiming at everything else. Holes were starting to form in the walls and ceiling. He was trying to collapse the building. Entirely. With me and Lilium still inside!

However, in his frenzy, Church had forgotten about Verity’s attacks, which cut through his body like a hot knife through butter, and left wounds that had black smoke coming from them.

Surprisingly, even though he looked wounded, when the black smoke faded...It revealed metal. Was he...Was he a terminator?

“You shouldn't have done that.” Church said as he roundhouse kicked her away and left her a gift in the form of a rocket to the crotch. Surprisingly his attacks only phased through her, as Church’s physical body started to phase and become intangible. If it continued he would fall through the world!

“I swear if this sends me to the void again...I will kill everyone on this world. By glassing it.” Church said as he started falling.

“Shit!” I said. I had to act fast. I used my airbending to stun the twins, then flooded Church’s body with far-above-lethal amounts of dark magic to force him out of it.

A robotic scream that echoed through and beyond the temple shook the room like an earthquake as Church was ejected from his body. I put my hands to the sides of my helmet in a vain attempt to stop the noise.

The twins, apparently more vulnerable to noise, were still reeling and fell to the ground. While Lilium recovered, I took advantage of Constance and Verity’s injuries and took the time to fire a salvos of dark magic at them. 

After a few hits, they somehow recovered and got up, looking very much worse for wear. They said nothing, each only tearing a large red diamond from gold chains around their necks, neither of which I had noticed before. They crushed the diamonds in their claws and disappeared in a flurry of black and gold diamonds, reminiscent of Ghirahim’s teleportation.

> In Which I Conjure a Thing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I made sure Lilium was okay, which she was, albeit a bit shell shocked, and sent out a radar pulse. This time I sent it down as well as up and out. I didn't know for sure, but I had to make sure Church was still alive somehow. 

I received no response. I looked around and saw a chip that wasn't activated. Maybe it was Church?

I picked it up and put a miniscule amount of magic in it to power it.

“T-this u-u-ni-it has sus-sustained se-severe damage-damage.” It said.

I knew what I had to do. I called upon all the magic I had and concentrated on an image I remembered from home. A form suiting a warrior.

My levitation activated involuntarily, placing me about two feet in the air above the central totem pole. The chip hovered directly in front of me. The air around it grew blindingly bright. Lilium shielded her eyes, but I didn't notice. I was focused on the spell.

As the air grew brighter still, I concentrated on the chip. I felt Church’s presence in it, but it was faint. There were other presences that were stronger. I redoubled my efforts.

I thought of the body I had in mind. I knew what it had to be capable of. I thought of every single detail. 

I focused on Church and the other presences in the chip. 

The air around the chip got so bright it almost burned. The chip itself glowed dark red.

The entire chamber glowed like the sun, then everything went black.


~~~Some time later...~~~


I don't know how long I was out, but when I came to, I saw quite the opposite of what I expected. A white coated alicorn hologram that looked like Cadence but not was what I saw. “Hello, my name is Amor. Epsilon has currently locked himself out.”

I wasn't quite sure what to react, so I just picked myself up off the ground and said, “Uhhhh, hi there.” I looked over and saw Lilium unconscious near the chamber’s entrance. I figured she was fine for the moment, so I turned back to Amor and asked, “Is he okay?”

“You tell me. You're the one who did this to my Dad.” She said with a mare's stare.

“Well, that's the thing,” I said, exhausted and worried for Church. “I don't know what I did. I tried to save him, honest. That gryphoness, she would’ve condemned him to a fate worse than death. He would’ve been stuck in the planet's core forever. And I mean FOREVER. So I did the only thing that would remove him from his body:  I killed him. Of course, I figured since he was an A.I., he’d just come back. Guess I was wrong. I found the chip and tried to conjure a new body, but I don't know how well it came out. I very much hope he's okay; I've come to appreciate him as a friend.”

“...” Amor stared at me in silence for but a moment before trotting over to Lilium’s unconscious form. “Wake up sweetie.” She nudged the unconscious diclonius slightly.

Lilium stirred slightly, indicating that she was only asleep rather than in a coma. Amor nudged her again, and Lilium slowly but surely awoke.

“Are you alright?” Amor asked in concern. Lilium nodded in response. “We can wait as long as you need.” Maybe this was Church's daughter after all. Or at least, a memory.

I looked around the room, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. I must have been unconscious for a long time. Through the holes in the ceiling, I could see Luna’s night sky. Other than that, however, all I could see was Lilium, Amor, and myself. No one else.

I’d put so much magic and effort into that conjuration. Had nothing come of it?

Feeling dejected, I sat on the ground, unequipped my helmet, and leaned back against a totem pole. I just looked at the moon through a hole and felt like garbage. Blood was spattered where Church had been, engraved into the ground forever as a stain.

“Fuck me,” I thought to myself. “This is all my fault. Church is gone forever…”

“...And it's my fault,” I said to myself glumly.

“What about Desert Gem? She's still here.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I said, “but Church is...I don't even know! Is he dead? Is he whatever counts as alive for him? Is he in purgatory or that void thing? I don't know!”

“No. He is under my care now.” Amor said sternly.

“Thank GOD,” I  said, relieved. There was still one thing, though. “Did the body come out okay?” I asked Amor.

“All you did was give me the ability to make my form physical.”

“No, no,” I said as I got to my feet. “One does not simply cast a conjuration spell of that magnitude and have no outcome other than an A.I. being able to make its holographic form physical. There should be some sort of outcome, even if it’s just a pile of radioactive sludge.” 

Then it occurred to me. There was one place I hadn’t looked. Berating myself mentally once again, I looked up and saw the fruits of my labor.

It was amazing. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing, but I assumed it was about seven feet tall. The body was heavily armored, if not totally robotic. It gleamed in the moonlight. The four wings--two in between its shoulders, two at the small of its back--made it look even more menacing. Its head(?) had crown-like spikes that pointed straight up. Blood-red highlights glowed all across its body, painting lines all across its limbs. The lines all led to the core crystal in the center of its chest.

My first major conjuration had been a success.

I stared in shock. I hadn’t fully expected it to work, but there it was. In a stupor, still staring at the body, I stuttered, “Uh, h-hey, Amor?”

“Yes?” She asked impatiently. She was still making sure Lilium was okay as she fussed over her.

“I, uh, found the body…”

“Uh-huh.” Amor said as she looked over Lilium who continued to assure Amor she was fine. “Are you sure you aren't hurt in any way?”

Lilium nodded firmly, a hint of annoyance in her eyes.

“Good. And what is...that?” She asked me in confusion as she stared at what I had created.

“Number C101:  Silent Honor DARK,” I replied. “Otherwise known as Church’s new body. It’s hollow, and it should be compatible with his...well, with him, I guess.”

“He gets way too many gifts for his own good,” Amor said with a discontented frown.

“Be that as it may,”  I said, “I think his opponents will find this one much harder to remove him from.”

“If you say so. When he gets back I'm going to be having a very long talk with him.” I could hear her anger. And feel it.

“I’ll let you do that,” I replied. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“I can force him to come back,” Amor said with a smirk. I did not like where she was going with this.

“Uh, yeah, do that at your own discretion,” I said, getting a bit nervous. I knew what I’d put into that body, and if Church had that when he was pissed, whoever fought him, as well as possibly Lilium and me (at least at the moment), was in for a bad time.

“*static* I-I...I have returned. *static*” I heard Church's voice say as his hologram appeared next to Amor, “And you better NOT tell her about this!” He screamed at the memory of his daughter.

“Uh, hey buddy,” I said to Church awkwardly. “How ya feelin’?”

“Where is Desert Gem?” he asked bluntly.

I had a faint idea, but I wasn’t sure, so I sent out a radar pulse to check, and sure enough…

“There’s a set of stairs leading to a massive round chamber behind this door,” I said, motioning to a large, foreboding door opposite the one we’d just come in. A purple circular rune faintly glowed on its left half.

“There’s two other doors in that chamber. One leads to the surface. The other goes to a small room. Desert Gem is in that small room.”

“Let's go,” Amor said before giving Church a pointed glare. “And I will tell her whether you like it or not.” I knew she was referring to the real Amor. I had a feeling that Church was in for a bad time when he got home.

Church shook his head briefly, then said pretty loudly, “This. This is why I don't trust females.” Amor and Lilium had definitely heard that from their expressions.

To break the tension, I said to Church, “So, uh, you like the body?”

“I never played nor watched Yu-Gi-Oh! so I have no idea.” Church said bluntly.

“Well, give it a test run, or whatever you wanna call it,” I said.

Church just stared at me, not making a move. “I can't carry this.”

I facepalmed. “You’re supposed to get in it!” I said, frustrated.

Amor pushed Church towards it against his will until he was in front of the ‘suit’, nearly touching it.

“Well? What are you waiting for Dad? It's not like it was made in China.” Amor scoffed.

“Um, I don’t know about made in China, but I’m pretty sure it was conceptualized in Japan,” I said.

Church begrudgingly entered the shell. As soon as he entered, the thing’s eyes lit up a pale shade of green, and the glowing dark-red lines began to pulse, going to and from the core, almost like the core was a heart and the light was blood. “I still don't trust mares,” Church said bluntly, in a voice that was slightly more robotic than usual for him. “They either want to kill me, or love me. And I don't know which is worse.”

Amor sighed while Lilium just shook her head.

Anxious to change the subject, I turned to Church and asked, “So, how does it feel?”

“Getting killed? Well at first you see a bright light and then you-” He stopped at my blank expression.

“I meant the body,” I deadpanned.

“Oh, well as long as Amor doesn't g-” He froze when he realized she was right next to the shell. “No! You aren't getting in.” He jumped up and smashed through the ceiling effortlessly.

The ceiling rumbled, and seemed like it was about to cave in. Thinking quick, I grabbed Amor and Lilium and teleported us back to where we’d first arrived. The clearing where we’d first set down.

When we arrived, we saw Church hovering in the air some ways away, watching as a section of ground below him collapsed.

“Hell yeah! America!” He yelled as he started smashing through the floor, presumably to get to Desert Gem.

A moment later, he came back looking pissed, and very much empty-handed. 

“Having fun there?” I asked sarcastically.

“FUCK!” He yelled as he grabbed a pillar and threw it at the wall, impaling it into it at an angle.

“Whoa! Dude! WHOA!” I yelled to him. “CALM THE FUCK DOWN! If you break the wrong thing, we might never find her!”

“I WILL TEAR DOWN THIS… “ Church calmed down when Amor shook her head sadly, “...place.”

“You okay there buddy?” I asked him sincerely.

“Ask all the dead bodies down there.” He pointed to the hole.

What he said shocked me. “This place is still inhabited?!” I asked in disbelief.

“Those are the bodies of royal guards and civilians.”

“Equestrians?!” I asked him, now very much afraid.

“Dozens. All brutally murdered,” He said seriously.

“Do you know who or what did them in?” I asked in an equally serious tone.

“You tell me? Do you know any other criminal organizations that would slit a foal's throat so nonchalantly?”

“The Cult of Nightmare will BURN,” I said, my voice becoming murderous and slightly warped.

“Do you know what Desert Gem's significance is to the Cult of Nightmare?” Amor asked.

“Her unique magic might have something to do with it,” I answered, my voice returning to normal. “I know she’s half-genie, whatever that means in this fucked-up world.”

“I may not care if others die in war but KILLING A DEFENSELESS CHILD? THAT. That is fucked up.”

“The next time I see one of them?” I said, “No mercy.”

“Lilium,” Church said as he looked at her. She looked at him in response, her head tilted as a cue for him to continue. Church walked up to her, his stomps resonating throughout the temple until he leaned into her ear and whispered something only she could hear. His tone was pleading.

This deeply intrigued me. I arched an eyebrow, then looked to Amor and asked her, “Should I be concerned about all that over there?” as I pointed at Church and Lilium.

Amor giggled, “Yes. Yes you should be.”

By that point Lilium was looking Church in the eye and said, just loud enough for me to hear, and very, very seriously, “He won’t. Even if he tries, I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. I had no idea what to make of this, but it didn’t seem like a good thing. In fact, it seemed very, very bad.

“Thank you, Lilium. It is all I could ask.” Church said as he picked her up and gave her a gentle hug.

He set her down, then looked to me and Amor and said, “Wort wort wort.” He sounded exactly like a Sangheili.

Amor and I just facepalmed/hoof’d. Lilium looked confused. I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, despite everything.

“Um. I think our target is moving in our direction.” Church said in confusion.

I sent out a radar pulse. I found something very strange. I could no longer detect Desert Gem in the chamber she’d been in before. But I did detect her coming up behind us...

I quickly turned around to see Desert Gem with a murderous look on her face, a dagger in her magical grip.

Her green, fiery magical grip.
> In Which There Is a Farewell
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I instantly knew what was going on here. Somehow the changeling had gotten loose, and perhaps her use of Desert Gem’s form was suppressing the signature of the real Desert Gem.

“Déjà vú,” Church said.

“Tell me about it,” I said. I remembered a spell I’d learned not long ago. Twilight had used it on the changeling before, and I’d asked her how it worked for future reference. This was an excellent time to practice it.

I cast the remove-guise spell on ‘Desert Gem,’ and it did exactly what it was supposed to:  reveal, and paralyze, the changeling assassin that had been about to impale me. The same one that had been locked in the jail cell under Ponyville Town Hall a few hours ago.

“Hey, I have just the thing for you. They used to do this to Queens in hives I visited who were traitors. That is If you don't speak.” The bug’s eyes widened.

“Or,” I said, “you could grab her, stick her in the void for a second or so, pull her out, and absorb her. Or just leave her there.”

“I don't know. I have an alliance with Changelings. I quite like them. But you. You should have stayed in your cell.” 

“Truer words have never been spoken,” I said. I conjured up chains with heavy metal balls at one end and shackles at the other. Four of them, one for each of her hooves. I also conjured a magic-inhibitor ring, which went on her horn.

“So, say something. You obviously aren't a drone. Oh no, you are an infiltrator.” Church said as he stomped on the ground threateningly, a few feet from the infiltrator’s face.

“If you won’t talk willingly, we’ll make you,” I threatened. “It’s amazing what one can do with a large amount of liquid metal, a vast supply of dark magic, and psychic arms that can cut through most metals.” Lilium looked at the infiltrator murderously.

The infiltrator spoke in a language that I didn’t understand. Church apparently did though.

“She says fuck off,” Church relayed. The changeling looked horrified.

I equipped my helmet, then conjured a scimitar in one hand and readied a dark magic salvo in the other. I hefted the scimitar and pretended to examine the salvo before turning to the traitor and saying, “Wanna try that again?”

“Okay! Okay! You win!” Church looked at her in confusion.

“You realize I will be able to tell if you are lying by pupil dilation, body temperature, heart rate and your voice right?”

The infiltrator nodded rapidly.

“Tell them why you are here. And since I know your hive or group won't let you back after this...One of us is going to protect you.” 

I wasn’t sure what to make of that last bit, but I kept my weapons at the ready just in case. I looked around to scan for wildlife, but everything seemed to be giving us plenty of space. Even so, I could see some glowing eyes at the edge of the clearing. I fired off the salvo just short of them to keep them from doing anything annoying. The eyes disappeared after that. I looked at the changeling and said, “Talk.”

The infiltrator nodded, “Fine. But only will I go with one of you if the one that guards me understands changeling custom.”

“Sure, whatever. Just talk, before one of us gets bored and decides to do something we’ll regret,” I said impatiently.

I felt a pain in my chest suddenly, Church had just flicked me in the chest, “Show some respect. You have no idea what her hive will do. Anyway, you should explain your mission.”

“My hive,” she began, “We’d been starving for so long. The Queen, she said we didn’t have any food, no love, at least, not enough to keep us going. Our meals were strictly rationed. The Queen had full control of our food stores. I saw so many changelings get thinner and thinner. Some just...faded away until they were nothing more than an empty carapace. Some grew depressed and committed suicide. The children...it was the worst for them.” She stopped for a moment to suppress a tear.

“Who was your queen?” Church asked as softly as his robotic voice would allow.

“Queen Apocrita,” said the infiltrator, rage filling her voice.

“Wait a minute. I remember a Queen named that. Iron-hoof dictator right?”

“Precisely,” said the now-enraged bug. “I was the best infiltrator in the hive, and there was a reason for that. One day I followed some member of the castle staff into an area that was off-limits to the rest of the hive. Turns out there wasn’t a food shortage after all! The Queen had just been keeping it all to herself! When I saw this, I vowed that I would exact vengeance upon Queen Apocrita for all she’d done. I tried to kill her, but the guards threw me out of the hive before I could even start. Turns out I wasn’t as sneaky as I’d thought.”

“You could be the new Queen. You know that right? You just need the...resources.” Church gave a weird laugh, considering how staticy it was.

The infiltrator’s story put everything into perspective. I understood her story, and if Church was anything to go by, it seemed to be true. But there was still one thing that confused me. “So why exactly did you try to kill Twilight? And myself?” I asked.

The infiltrator sighed and said, “After I was kicked out, I just...wandered for a while. Eventually I made it to the old castle in the forest. I was so hungry. I met a creepy gray stallion, and he gave me concentrated love--some of the best food a changeling can have. He said if I killed you or that pony princess he’d give me more. When you intervened, I knew the princess would be too well-guarded, so I decided to try to catch you unawares.”

“Well, here is the thing. Never underestimate your opponent. To kill the unknown…wait for the right time, examine their vulnerabilities. And kill them using these vulnerabilities.” Church noticed the horrified stares coming from everyone, “What? It is common sense.”

There was just one more thing I needed to know. “What’s your name?” I asked the changeling. I couldn’t just keep calling her ‘the changeling’ or ‘the infiltrator’ or ‘the bug.’

“Not all changelings have names like we do Zant. And when they do, most of the time it is to blend in.” Church lectured.

“He’s right,” she said. “I was never given a name.”

“Well fuck that shit. Would you like one?” I asked her.

“Um...Zant. You have no idea how disrespectful that was to ask.” Church said as he crumpled to the floor laughing hard at her horrified expression.

I suddenly felt very much embarrassed. “No, Church, no I don’t. I know nothing about changeling culture. They’re very reclusive in this universe, so other than the whole wedding incident, they haven’t been seen very much.”

"If she had liked her queen... What you just did would be ten times more disrespectful. From what I know, it is an honor for a changeling to be given a name. And well… I think you see the problem here. We aren’t even changelings.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry,” I said, very much embarrassed. If my helmet hadn’t been hiding my face, I’m sure everyone present would have seen me blushing, even in the low light.

“N-no,” the changeling stuttered. “I-I’d like a name. I always wanted one, and I still do, even if it’s a bit unorthodox to get one from...whatever you are.”

“I was thinking of Nosferatu…” Church said with a shrug.

“How about we don’t name her after old movie monsters?” I asked sarcastically. “Perhaps...Rhyssa?”

Church started laughing so hard I swear the ground started shaking. The rest of us ignored him.

The changeling seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, “Y-yes. Rhyssa. I like that.”

“I'm sorry! It's just you said an obscure reference from a movie in the 2830s!” Church gave an unmanly giggle.

“I wasn’t trying to…” I said.

“I just realized something. We have a human, a changeling, a diclonius, the memory of my daughter and one badass over here!” Church yelled.

“I was human,” I corrected. “Now I’m a Twili.”

“That doesn't matter. At least you exist,” Church retorted.

“You exist,” I said. “You just haven’t become corporeal yet. But if you really learn how to use that body, you can.”

“Oh and I have news. The real Desert Gem? Showing no vitals. Either dead or in some kind of stasis.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. “We’d better get going. Rhyssa, you wanna come with?” I said to everyone.

“Stop looking at me like you expect me to have a problem with this.” Church said as he saw everyone looking at him inquisitively.

“I’m sorry Dad but we cannot stay for much longer. At this point I would expect a large response to your disappearance,” Amor said

“Wait, before you go, can you fill me in on any other details about displaced?” I asked him.

“Stay away from overly happy or overly eager sounding displaced. That is self-explanatory. This doesn't apply to me.” Church said bluntly. “They tend to find me.”

“Okay, got it,” I said. “Hey, how do I make a thing people can use to summon me?”

Church fell through the floor at that. He hovered back up and gave me what I assumed was an ‘are you fucking serious?’ look.

“What?” I asked him. “No one told me any of this!”

“Watch. And do as I do. Step one.” Church pulled out his energy sword, “Get something you want others to recognize as your token.” 

I conjured a hard-magic version of the rune that appeared behind me whenever I altered reality (as I did occasionally when I was bored). It looked almost exactly like the thing that had sent me to Equus.

“Step two. Take a vow of chastity.” At the bewildered expressions everyone was giving he laughed. “The real second step is to say what you want others to hear when they find your token.”

I channeled a bit of magic into the rune and said what came to mind. “If you seek to protect the weak and help those who need it, call on me in your time of need, and I, Usurper King Zant, shall answer.”

“Protect the weak? Are you calling Rhyssa weak?” Church asked in mock-shock.

“Weak is a subjective term,” I replied.

“She isn't weak. She is cute.” Church said as he...kissed her chitin before walking away.

Rhyssa went stiff and looked like she was about to fall over. Lilium and I weren't quite sure what to do. I just looked to Church and asked, “So, uh, what next?”

“I go. And take good care of Rhyssa. I like her already,” Church said bluntly.

“Oh,” I said, a bit sad he had to leave. “But what do I do with this?” I asked, my sadness clear in my voice.

Before I could even register what was happening, Church punched a hole in the air and tossed my token into it.

“So that's where they come from,” I muttered. “It’s been...interesting, Church,” I said sadly. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“No need. I can always come back. But first…” Church teleported away for a moment and came back carrying a large container with some kind of fluid in it. “This is a decade's worth...It was supposed to feed a revolution but that never happened. A gift from a Queen named Aragog,” Church said as he handed it to Rhyssa.

She looked at it in awe. “For...for me?!” She asked breathlessly.

“Indeed. Why, there is probably enough in there to ascend you but I wouldn't waste it.”

Rhyssa fainted this time. Apparently gift-giving was super effective on her.

“This won't be the last time you see me. Goodbye,” Church said as his form faded away.

I removed my helmet and waved as his pelican soared off, and it was just me, Lilium, and the still-unconscious Rhyssa.  An explosion was heard as a colossal portal opened in the sky before Church was finally gone.

I looked around the clearing. We were essentially back to square one. We had no Church. And Desert Gem was quite possibly worse off than she had been before.
> In Which a Deal is Made
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Location:  Boundary Temple, Everfree/Badlands Border, Equus, Now...

Okay. This...was bad.

There was a pony trapped in this temple somewhere, and her vitals weren't looking so great, which meant she would be harder to track. I had two companions, one of whom was an unconscious changeling. And this temple was full of all sorts of lovely creatures that most likely didn't mean well, to put it lightly. And I was in a body that wasn't my own, that was starting to run low on magic.

Yeah, bad? Massive understatement.

I tried to think of someplace to start, but I couldn't seem to focus on any one thing. Whenever I thought of one plan, some other variable popped into my mind that would render said plan moot. As I kept trying to think of plans, I started to feel...odd. I let out a frustrated growl as I continued to try to think of something, ANYTHING to do.

When she heard me, Lilium turned to see what was going on. She had been focusing on Rhyssa, trying to wake her up. The diclonius had a look of concern on her smoky-furred face. When she did so, I was reminded of the calming technique I'd taught myself:  deep breath, in, and out. I did so, and things came back into focus somewhat.

I closed my eyes for a moment to get my bearings, then opened them. "Okay," I said, trying to sound confidant. "Let's see here." I walked over to Rhyssa and used my diagnostic spell. Luckily, she wasn't seriously hurt, but she needed to wake up. We couldn't exactly haul her all over the temple. 

"What have you tried so far?" I asked Lilium. All I got in response was a shrug.

"Okay then," I muttered. "How to wake her up, then?" I wondered. I looked around for options. There really wasn't much other than the desert ruins around us...

My eyes fell upon the canister Church had left, which was apparently full of concentrated love. To me, it looked like a glass (or perhaps plexiglass or some such thing?) cylinder full of solid magenta...something. "Is that a gas or a liquid?" I asked myself under my breath. "Shit's so full ya can't even tell." Either way, I didn't want to risk it; if it was a gas then the moment I unsealed it, it could very likely be gone.

"Hmm, what else can I do..." Suddenly I got an idea. Cruel and childish, for sure, but if cartoons weren't lying then this would work. I raised my arm so that my sleeve fell, exposing my arm to the elements. I quietly walked over to Rhyssa and knelt down beside her. I briefly considered whether I really wanted to do this, but then thought, "Fuck it, I need her awake."

I stuck my finger in my mouth (probably not the most hygenic thing to do given the circumstances), quickly pulled it out, and proceeded to give Rhyssa a wet willy.

The immature act had the desired effect:  the changeling infiltrator's solid-blue eyes snapped open as she awoke with a jolt. She yelped as she sprang to her hooves. "What was that for?!" she yelled.

I chuckled a bit, doing my best to not break out into full-on laughter. "Sorry, but we need to get going," I said. "Pretty much everything in here wants to kill us, and we have a mare to save."

"I never agreed to anything," Rhyssa said, sounding understandably a bit irritated.

I'd had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy, but hey, a guy can hope, can't he?

I let out a disappointed sigh. "Okay," I said. My expression changed from jovial to serious. "Let me put it this way then. That guy that more or less hired you to kill me and the princess? You really think he'll honor the deal you made with him? Yeah, he's a legit demon. And the moment he's done with you, he'll toss you aside like a piece of trash. Because to him, you're just a pawn."

The changeling's eyes widened in shock at this. "No," she said, sounding breathless. "No. Not again..."

I had her now. "Yep. But how about I make you another offer," I said. "Help us find Desert Gem, and you can stay with us for a while. Get your strength back. We might need to ask you for help with a couple other things, but think of it as paying your dues."

"H-how do I know I can trust you?" Rhyssa asked, sounding as though she were still in shock.

This time it was Lilium who spoke up. "You don't..." she said softly.

Rhyssa's big, sky-blue, bug-like eyes looked from me to Lilium a few times. The fear was obvious in them. After a short while, she finally let out a sigh and looked to the ground. "Okay..." she said, sounding defeated.

I put on a friendly smile and patted her on the shoulder. "Thank you," I said, doing my best to sound comforting. "You won't regret this." Lilium came over and hugged Rhyssa. For a moment, I was sure the latter was going to break out into tears, though whether this was due to her anatomy or her emotions, I couldn't tell. I just didn't know anything about changelings. 

"Though you had best honor the deal that was made with the metal one," Rhyssa said when Lilium broke her embrace.

"Metal one?" I wondered. "Oh, you mean Church," I said. "Yeah, you'll have to help me out there. I mean, I might have some books on changeling culture? But I doubt it. Hate to break it to you, but changelings aren't exactly a common sight, so not a lot is known about them, let alone their culture, and I think it's safe to guess that a good portion of what's in the books is misinformation."

Rhyssa let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes (I think. It's hard to tell when she doesn't have pupils). "Fine," she said, in a tone that matched her expression. "Though I don't think now is the best time."

"Agreed," I said. "For now, we have a mare to find." I turned to look deeper into the temple. My memories of Metroid had faded a bit, but the area certainly looked familiar. And if I was correct, we'd have a fair bit of exploration to do...
> In Which the Search Continues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay. So. Recap.

Rhyssa, the rogue changeling infiltrator, was now awake and reluctantly helping. Lilium, my diclonius companion, and I were still doing pretty fine.

We were in a temple on the border of the Everfree and the Badlands, and were searching for a unicorn named Desert Gem, who was apparently either unconscious or in stasis or in some other bad way in the center of the temple. We had to get in there and get her out before who-knows-what happened to her. So what we had to do now was find the way there.

Our immediate surroundings reminded me of Metroid Prime somewhat, though it had been discovered that there were undertones of Twilight Princess here as well, so it was a bit tricky to know what we'd find where. I'd already picked up Wind magic, which I assumed was equivalent to the gale boomerang, but given that a lot of this area looked like the Chozo Ruins, I was fairly sure I'd need something more to get through it.

Then again, Samus needed so much firepower because she was alone; I wasn't. I had a changeling infiltrator and a pony that could probably cut through just about anything. So this would likely be a whole new adventure.

But, as for this moment, the question was...

"Which way do we go?"

It was Lilium who'd spoken up, in that soft voice of hers. And it was what we were all thinking.

We certainly seemed to be in some sort of large plaza. If I recalled correctly, there would be several doors leading to other parts of the temple, some of which would be sealed off. A few of those we probably wouldn't need to go through yet.

As I looked around the plaza, I spotted something familiar. A stairway leading to a crumpled bridge. A section of it had fallen to the walkway below. Time had certainly not been kind to this place. I just hoped the floor wouldn't give way under us. Again...

"This way," I said as I led my two companions to the stairs. Things were starting to seem more familiar, slowly but surely.

We climbed up the stairs and found ourselves atop a balcony that overlooked pretty much the whole plaza and showed us just how sorry a state it was all in. I was now even more surprised the place hadn't yet crumbled to dust. Whoever had built and designed the place must have known what they were doing.

When we got to the top of the stairs, we found ourselves greeted with a familiar pest:  War Wasps. We dealt with them quickly and efficiently by stunning them and then picking them off, and hurried into the nearest door, which was past their nests on a balcony across a crumbled bridge, before more of the oversized bees could come out of the hives. Getting stung by one of those could spell death, and we didn't want any of that.

We then found ourselves in a rather dark room that was illuminated only by what appeared to be a couple of fireflies on steroids. With the scant light that was available, I was able to make out that most of the room was filled with that nasty green water we'd seen a while back. We'd have to watch our step. To make things even better, opposite the room from us was what appeared to be the remains of a fountain. Somehow it was still operational; every few seconds or so it'd spew a jet of that gross green gunge to the ceiling. So that would be another thing to watch out for.

This just got better and better...

"Be careful," I said to my companions. "Don't want to take a dip in this particular pool. Doesn't look too refreshing to me." Lilium and Rhyssa gave quiet nods in return as they just looked at the sickly liquid with wide eyes.

We slowly and carefully made our way through the chamber, avoiding the water that looked (and likely was) rather toxic as well as the bugs that you could almost get burned by if you so much as looked at them, and soon found ourselves in a narrow pass. It was made of walls that appeared to be made of worn sandstone and had some withered vines hanging overhead. From the entrance to this hallway, I could swear I saw something strange hanging from one of the wires, but disregarded it.

As I took a step forward, I heard a rather loud, yet breif shriek, and before I knew it there was a green, for want of a better word, thing flying right at me, leaving an emerald streak in its wake. 

I reacted instantly, firing a barrage of dark magic, which took the beast out in a few hits, but unluckily for me, the abomination had friends. Unfortunately for it, so did I, and with Lilium and Rhyssa at my side, the remaining creatures (Shriekbats most likely) were quickly slain. With them taken care of, we continued through the hall, only to find the door blocked by a circular metal plate with three red lines equidistant from one another.

"Well, this is a problem," I said, half to myself and half to my companions. "Rhyssa," I said to the changeling in question. "You wouldn't happen to know a spell that fires an explosive projectile, would you? I haven't gotten to that bit yet."

"Luckily for you, I do," came the reply. "Stand back."

Lilium and I obeyed Rhyssa's commands and stood a few feet behind her. She began charging up her horn, which glowed with an intense green light. After a few seconds, she pointed her horn at the door and released the charge in the form of an emerald fireball, which exploded on impact with the metal plate, causing it to fragment spectacularly.

I gave a nod of approval and even a slight bit of applause; Lilium did the former. Rhyssa didn't even acknowledge our praise as we went through the door. Must've been a cultural thing. Or at least, that was my guess.

We left the hallway and emerged into what surely must have once been a spectacular sight. Even in this devastated shadow of its former self, it was still awe-inspiring in its own way.

The massive chamber was dominated by a massive tree that seemed to be mutated in some way. In some places, one could see vein-like patches on its bark, and the leaves all looked withered. In some places, the branches touched the walls of the chamber, some even running parallel to the ground. On these branches, rudimentary bridges had been constructed with fallen tree limbs and vines. On the tree itself, one could see what looked like entryways that had been almost naturally formed. All in all, it made for a very bizarre spectacle, especially with the likely lethal water below it. Only the occasional circular panel stuck up from it, making a harsh path at best.

Lilium and I were wide-eyed at the scene, of course, but Rhyssa was the most surprised. Her jaw was practically on the floor, and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. "You okay there?" I asked her.

"Th-this..." she began. "This is the ruins of a hive."
> In Which we Open a Door
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, this was certainly unexpected. I recognized the Chozo ruins, but I never expected this place would actually have some significance here! 

"Wait wait wait," I said as I held up my hands, signaling to Rhyssa to wait. "How can you tell?"

"The formations," she said, panic building in her voice. "The holes in the walls. Tunnels for changeling subordinates. This was a gathering area."

"Okay, that's a good sign," I said. "Anything else?"

"This tree," she said, using her front left hoof to point at some spots along the trunk of the massive, quite possibly dead specimen that dominated the chamber. "Look. The green, hardened sections. It's been reinforced with cocoon material. That's standard procedure for hive construction."

It seemed there wasn't much else I could do but take her word for it. And the green bits did seem reminiscent of the cocoons I'd seen. Perhaps she was right after all.

"Alright," I said. "Assuming this IS a hive. What does that mean for us?"

"It means we need to be careful," Rhyssa said. "Dangerous creatures could be hiding anywhere."

"Well, guess we just need to be even more cautious," I said as I eyed the holes along the walls of the chamber with suspicion. 

As I scanned the area, I happened to look up a bit farther, to the top of the chamber, and noticed something odd:  a large panel made of metal. What could it be? A door? Some manner of artifact? Regardless, it warranted investigation.

"Let's get up there," I said as I pointed to the odd object I'd noticed. "Get a closer look at whatever that is. Might help us on our way. We have someone waiting on us."

"Yes...of course..." Rhyssa said, sounding rather distracted, and understandably so. Lilium simply nodded in acknowledgment.

I inspected the lower portions of the chamber and looked for any path across the green gunge and saw a few circular wooden platforms that looked as though they could be jumped across, and a few more going up the tree trunk. Certainly not ideal and definitely risky, but they were better than nothing.

While Rhyssa was fortunate enough to have wings, Lilium and I were still more or less land-bound, and so were forced to make the risky jump from platform to platform, which was rather nerve-wracking. It took a bit of time and effort, and after a few rather irritating encounters with the local War Wasp population, we were finally at the object I'd spotted from below.

After investigating the door for some time, I came to a conclusion. "Well, I do believe this is some sort of door," I said to my companions.

"It would make sense," Rhyssa said in confirmation. "This would be a good location for the path to the throne room, and this door does appear rather sturdy. In this hive's prime, it would have been a very effective security method."

"I don't doubt it," I said. "But I think the locking mechanism is magic-based. If I can just..."

I trailed off as I used my magic to probe the lock. It took a bit of trial and error, but I was eventually able to form my magic into a key of sorts, allowing the door to open. 

"Well, that wasn't too hard," I said. "And that's what worries me."

"Wh...what do you mean?" Lilium asked.

"If this is the path to the throne room, it's going to be well-defended," I said. "Any decent mage could do what I just did. That was meant to keep out those who aren't as magically-inclined. There's going to be more challenges ahead."

As I looked to the dark pathway that laid beyond the doorway, I fought to suppress my building anxiety. Several words came to mind, foreboding and ominous prevalent among them. This would be an...adventure? Well, that was certainly a word. Ordeal was another. Trial, perhaps.

Call it whatever you like; it wouldn't be easy. I was sure of that much.