I was on my way to Tennocon in Quebec, dressed as my personal Tenno from the game Warframe. I saw a costume shop with a perfect looking Amp, and stepped inside to buy it, and upon putting it on my arm found myself in Equestria.
I was on my way to Tennocon in Quebec, dressed as my personal Tenno from the game Warframe. I saw a costume shop with a perfect looking Amp, and stepped inside to buy it, and upon putting it on my arm found myself in Equestria. I was turned to stone by Celestia because of a misunderstanding about my powers, and now I do my own thing in Equestria, occasionally helping at Celestia's behest.
A Displaced story, will be doing crossovers if approached for them. However, I won't do a crossover if there is no reason to.
I was on my way to Tennocon in Quebec, cosplaying as my own operator from the game Warframe, wearing a Koppra operator outfit, with Manduka sleeves, with the main body black, with purple accents on the legs, gloves, and shoulders, along with gold metallics around the sleeves, hips, and mask, and I’d spent $400 on it, largely due to the metallics being coated in gold foil, and the sigil on the chest being plastic with small lights under the it, causing it to glow purple. The sigil was the Void Gate sigil, a reward for reaching 450 days played in-game.
I was walking from my hotel a couple of blocks away from the event center when I saw an amp that looked like the one that I normally used for my operator on window display inside a costume store named ‘The Merchant’s Guild’ and went inside, seeing no one manning the rather old-looking register. I walked over to the window display admiring the amp, and noting that there was no price mentioned for it. Suddenly, a gravelly voice rang out from behind me, saying, “That amp will be eighty dollars, if you want it, young Tenno.” I jumped, quickly turning around to see an older man dressed rather casually for a worker.
As if he had read my mind, he said, “I don’t work here, I’m the owner. So would you like to buy that amp?” I nodded my head, smiling happily, not realizing that I had my mask up already. I pulled my wallet out of a pocket hidden underneath the folds of cloth that went down to my knees, and looked through it, seeing that I didn’t have quite enough, realizing that I had spent it on food on the drive to Quebec.
I told him, “I only have seventy dollars, so would it be possible to open a store credit for the rest?” The man shook his head, and then thought for a second before snapping his fingers.
He walked back over to the register, and pulled out a card reader from a drawer next to the register and beckoned me over, saying, “We have this for those who don’t have cash for something in here, you can pay the difference with a card,” I forked over the cash and swiped my card, taking the amp and affixing it to my right arm, when I suddenly saw a bright flash of light and found myself standing in what could only be described as the throne room of a medieval castle, with two women with a single small horn coming out of their forehead, and wings sprouting out of their backs.
While they were fighting, I started making my way along the wall, wondering why they hadn’t noticed me yet, when I looked down at my hand, or rather through it, as I was largely invisible, with the only thing thing telling I was there was a soft purple glow. I yelped, surprisingly femininely for a guy, sliding backward down the wall behind me, and the shorter fighter, who had midnight blue skin, and had been losing ground while I was staring at my somewhat invisible hand, grinned while looking at my, now very visible, self, and dashed over away from the taller white skinned woman, with her screaming, “LUNA, NO!!” as the blue one was about to impact, I put my arms over my head, suddenly becoming invisible again, and she went straight through me, with the white sister suddenly starting to glow brightly, shooting a thin beam at the dark blue sister, which wrapped around and immobilized her, starting to turn an ominous shade of blue, while forcing her to start floating, when suddenly she disappeared from existence, with the last thing I saw before passing out being the snarl on her face.
I awoke in a surprisingly posh room, with what seemed to be Victorian style furniture in shades of blues and blacks all around, with the walls being gray stone. I sat up, rubbing my head in my hands, and wondered aloud, “Where the hell am I?”
The white sister from before was sitting in a chair off to the side, sobbing, but upon hearing my voice, which was a lot more feminine than before, looked up suddenly, with her tears gone in an instant, asking, “Art thou alright? Were ye harmed in our quarrel with our sister?” I shook my head, and realizing that I still had my mask on, I pressed a button on the back of my head, to make the mask fold down, similarly to how it does in game, and then started feeling my face, realizing that it was much more feminine.
“W-why are you talking like that?,” I stuttered upon hearing the sound of my voice, and the woman’s face adopted a quizzical look upon seeing the mask come down and hearing the question, not entirely comprehending what I had said. Suddenly it clicked, and I realized that she was speaking in Old English, with the royal connotations as well.
She thought for a second and asked, “Dost thou not know who we are?”
I shook my head, and then blurted out, “Royalty?” she nodded, with a sad smile on her face.
She then looked at me and, seemingly realized that we hadn’t been introduced, said, “We are Celestia, Princess of the Sun. What might thy name be?” I thought over it for a moment, realizing that as I was no longer a guy and in a seemingly different world, I would be able to choose any name that I wanted.
I introduced myself, stating, “I am Mirage, the one who is always within sight, yet still just out of reach.” I got out of the rather large bed, and stretched my arms over my head, accidentally grabbing on to the amp that was wrapped around my right hand. This caused it to fire a wave of purple energy at the ceiling, causing a small piece of it to cave in. Celestia, who had been sitting next to the bed, jumped up at the firing of the amp and tackled out of the way of some falling debris.
I looked down at my hand, specifically the amp that was attached to it, and thought, ‘Disappear’ surprised when it actually faded from existence. I suddenly became aware of a weight and voice above me, asking if I was alright. I nodded to indicate that I was fine and she got off of me, allowing me to sit up and observe the damage I had caused. There was a considerable chunk of rubble where I had been standing, and another, slightly smaller, chunk was on the bed. Celestia suddenly grabbed my right arm, which had previously had the amp on it, and was examining it with some sort of light coming from the horn on her head.
She looked at me in fear, and I, being a dunce, asked, “What’s wrong? Never seen a disappearing weapon?” She snapped her head to me in shock upon the realization that what she thought was an odd growth on a normal human’s body was a weapon on a Void being.
She stated to me, “The power we just sensed in your arm, it was the power of the Void, was it not?” The horn on her head started glowing, and I felt my legs being rooted to the ground. I looked down, and saw a creeping gray making its way up my body, wherever it reached becoming numb.
Celestia looked at me in pity, saying, “The only other being on this planet that had any contact with the Void was my sister, and it drove her insane,” by now the gray had reached my lower chest, so I reached up and hit the same button that I had used to lower the mask, so that it would raise it instead. My arm ended up getting petrified this way, causing it to look like I was rubbing the back of my head. I was still semi-conscious when the gray reached my head, and as soon as it encompassed me, I became fully conscious of how I couldn’t move. I saw Celestia apologizing to the statue that was now me, but couldn’t hear anything other than a dull ringing. I suddenly saw a mirror image of myself, except with solid black eyes, appear at Celestia’s elbow, smiling at me knowingly, before turning into a wisp of smoke.
I shut off most mental functions, not becoming conscious again until I felt myself being moved. I let myself see again, wondering all the while as to why I had not panicked yet. I opened my ‘eyes’ and saw that I was now in a courtyard in the middle of a row of hedges, and across from me was a rather odd looking man in a suit with different colored sleeves, pants with different colored legs, and mismatched wings on his back and horns on his head. I felt a kind of probing coming from the statue’s direction, and heard, or rather, felt, a voice in my head, saying, ‘Hmm, a creature of the Void that is not insane. Interesting…’
I mustered all of my not very considerable mental might and corrected him, saying, ‘I am a being, not a creature, and who exactly are you?’ The statue simply stood there, impassive and unresponsive. I shrugged my mental shoulders and began looking through my considerable repertoire of abilities, though none of them seemed cemented.
It seemed I had all of the Focus trees that I had in-game, but it could’ve just been what I was sent here with, as it was all unlocked and maxed out. The amp was gilded, so it was decent, and I was currently running Vazarin as my primary school, as that was the one I had unlocked first in game. I decided to try to reach my mind out with the Transference ability, and found multiple warframes, thousands of miles away, one in an endless desert, one in a grove in a forest, one in a city made of crystal spires, which responded to my prod and started heading towards me, and finally, one in a cave with a large group of what seemed to be infested sleeping around it.
I went back to sleep for what seemed eternity, only to be woken up again by a group of children and a red-skinned woman talking excitedly. They were all gathered around the statue across from me, with one of the children asking, “Who’s Discord?” the oldest woman, who I assume was their teacher, went off into a tale about the primordial being of chaos that reigned over the land for thousands of years before the two princesses defeated him with something called the ‘Elements of Harmony’ I decided to reach out my mind again to try to find how the warframe from the crystal city was doing on its way here, and was surprised to find that it was just outside the city.
A voice pulled me back from my mind’s wanderings, asking, “Who’s Mirage?” The teacher smiled and gathered the children around her as she told the story of how I had mysteriously appeared and given Celestia an opening to banish someone named ‘Nightmare Moon’ to the moon, when it clicked that it was the woman that she was fighting in the throne room when I originally arrived.
She didn’t continue after that, which meant that Celestia had given no reason as to why I was petrified. I suddenly realized that I could move my fingers, and when I moved them the stone encasing me turned to dust. However, as I inhaled much of the dust, with my mask not filtering out much of the dust, I started coughing explosively on the pedestal that I was standing on. The group screamed and ran, and a minute later, as I was still catching my breath, a couple of men in golden armor showed up, and shouted, “Stop, in the name of Celestia!” I looked up at them, and, having figured out how to use the Void abilities I had seemingly gotten from being sent here, Void dashed through both of them, knocking them into the hedge.
Though, since I only knew the theory of how to use my abilities, I overshot a bit and crashed through a stained glass window depicting Celestia banishing Nightmare Moon. I barely had a second to register that I was in what seemed to be a throne room before guards surrounded me. I used Transference to pull the warframe that was outside the city to me, and was surprised to find out that it was the Mirage Prime that I used in-game, with all of the weapons I had equipped, namely Tiberon Prime, Akbolto Prime, and Dakra Prime. Celestia gestured for her guards to stand down, and I used Transference again to step out of the warframe.
Celestia gasped when she realized who I was, and started charging the petrify spell that she had used to seal me initially, to which I responded by Void dashing through the guards between her and myself, stopping in front of her and grabbing her horn to stop her from casting the spell. She stopped the spell, and I once again deactivated the mask, allowing her to look into my glowing purple eyes. She realized that I was still completely sane, instead of being driven mad by the Void, and started crying, begging me to forgive her for being turned to stone, to which I nodded.
I let go of her horn when I felt a shocking sensation in my abdomen, and I looked down to see what seemed to be my hand, pulsing with electricity, sticking through my stomach. I collapsed into Celestia, and the hand disappeared, leaving the words, “Hey kiddo,” ringing through my ears as I lost consciousness.
I was sitting on my throne just as Day Court was ending, and was getting ready to go to the castle’s dining hall, when the stained glass window that depicted my defeat of Nightmare Moon imploded, with a purple streak landing on the floor. The guards that were just outside of the room rushed in and surrounded the being clothed in purple that was shaking its head while crouched on its hands and knees. It looked vaguely familiar, but I could not place where I had seen it before. It stood up, which prompted the guards to shout, “ Keep your hands were they can be seen, and don’t try to use any magic!”
The being became surrounded by a bright purple energy, and was suddenly replaced by an obviously female being, with what seemed to be a solid metal mask that had two glowing purple eye slits, and a glowing purple diamond shape in the center of its forehead. She was visibly armed, with four weapons visible on her body, one of them being an odd looking staff which she held like a crossbow in her hands, and two other, smaller weapons that looked like the grip and barrel of a crossbow, and were oddly spiky. The final weapon, which concerned her the most, was the sword on her hip that crackled with green lightning and sizzled with an orange flame.
Suddenly, the original being came out from the front of what she could now only assume was armor, and she realized why it had been familiar. It was the being that had showed up out of the blue at the end of her fight with Nightmare Moon, who was previously her sister, Luna, but had been corrupted by the Void. This being had also been corrupted by the Void, and she had turned her to stone for what might as well have been a thousand years. She started charging the same petrify spell that she had used then, but was surprised when the guards that were between Mirage and herself were blown into walls and she felt a hand on her forehead.
Mirage reached up behind her head and seemingly pressed something, causing the mask to fold down away from her face. She looked me in the eyes, and I saw nothing but consciousness and rationality in her eyes. I started crying, and grabbed her and pulled her to me in a tight hug, and managed to blubber out, “I-I’m so sorry, w-will you forgive me?”
She nodded against my chest, and I let go of her. When I looked up, I saw a perfect copy of her, except it had solid black eyes. It appeared from nowhere, and was standing just behind her right shoulder. I saw its right hand and arm move forward rapidly, and both Mirage and I looked down to see her copy’s hand sticking out of her abdomen, crackling with electricity. It pulled its hand out of her stomach, and she looked over her should just in time to see it disappear, leaving the words, “Hey kiddo,” ringing in everyone’s ears.
She fell forward into my arms, and the guards, too shocked to move, only snapped out of it when I shouted, “Get a stretcher and get her over to the medical wing, NOW!!”
The guards snapped to it with various phrases affirming that they had received their orders. I started casting a spell to stop the time in a small area around the wound, and was relieved when the bleeding stopped. The guards that had left to get the stretcher returned, and gently lifted her onto it. They rushed to the medical ward, and I paused for a moment to think on what I’d seen.
There were two of her, one with solid black eyes, and one with normal eyes, albeit glowing purple ones. The one with solid black eyes seemed to hate the real one, and wanted it out of the way. I realized that the guards were probably nearing the medical wing, and dispelled the time stop on Mirage’s abdomen.
I went over to examine the armor that was still standing in the center of the room, and noticed that it wasn’t completely immobile, but rather moving ever so slightly on its own. I tried to pull the sword off of its hip, and was surprised to find that I couldn’t. I tried the same with the other weapons it had on, but to no avail, only achieving the same result as the first attempt. I snapped out of the trance that I was in, remembering Mirage’s condition, and teleported into the infirmary, surprising an invigorated Mirage, who was slapping away the doctor and nurses, noticing that the wound on her stomach was gone, along with the hole in her suit.
*Mirage’s P.O.V.*
I regained consciousness after what I assume was a few minutes after being stabbed through the stomach by the Void demon that took my shape. I noted that I was on a stretcher carried by two of the guards that had been in the throne room. Realizing that my passive healing wouldn’t be enough, I merged with the Void, allowing it to wash over me and heal my wounds. I noticed kind of icon in the top right of my vision, displaying 228 in red and a red bar, both of which were rapidly filling up. By the time the guards arrived at the infirmary, I was at 960 health, and I unmerged with the Void, and the guards deposited me onto a bed, with what looked to be a doctor running in from a door on the other side of the room.
The doctor, seeing that I was awake, took a syringe off of a tray that a nurse just behind and to the left of him was holding. He approached me with the syringe, talking to me like I was a scared child, and went to inject me in the arm. I slapped the syringe out of his hand, and he looked disappointed. He turned to a nurse, and said, “Hold her down while I sedate her, she won’t survive the operation conscious.” The nurse nodded once and grabbed my left arm, while the doctor went for my right. Apparently, being a denizen of the Void gives you incredible strength, and I easily got the nurse off of my left arm and continued fending off the doctor with my right.
In the meantime, while I hadn’t been paying attention, my health bar had filled the rest of the way to 1125. Celestia suddenly appeared in the center of the room with a soft ‘pop’, and I paused in flailing at the doctor and nurses, and looked at her with a question on my mind, namely, ‘How the hell did she get there?’
The doctor took this opportunity to come back in with the syringe, and I grabbed his wrist and injected it into his thigh. He looked down at his thigh with a look that positively screamed ‘Fuck,’ and collapsed to the floor, out like a light. The other two nurses, after actually looking, saw that I was healed, and pulled the doctor off of the floor and into one of the other beds in the room. Celestia walked towards my bed as I stood up and made sure that the wound was gone.
Celestia came to a stop in front of me, and asked, “What happened to your injury? That thing punched straight through your stomach,”
I replied, summarizing it as much as possible, “That thing was a Void Demon that took on my visage, and the wound is healed, largely because of my ability to rapidly heal while merged with the Void.”
Celestia nodded at that, and said, “While you’re here, I would like to ask a few questions and perhaps run a few tests, since your situation is rather unique, being the only person not to go insane on contact with the Void.
“That’s fine, but I’ll want to ask you some questions also, so is that fine by you?” I asked.
Celestia nodded thoughtfully, and asked, “What is that weird suit of armor that you left in the throne room?”
I answered truthfully, stating, “That is a Warframe, a suit of armor that only I can use, as I am the only Tenno on this planet, as far as I know.” I then thought of a good question, and asked, “How did your sister come into contact with the Void, and where is she now?”
Celestia looked surprised at that question, and then realization dawned in her eyes. She led me over to the window, and pointed out towards the moon, and my gaze followed. There was a face etched into the moon, one that looked like it was extremely angry. She then answered the first part of the question balefully, saying, “She came into contact with an artifact that no one knew how to use, and while tinkering with it, was pulled into the Void. She came out changed, and a day later, she turned into an evil portrayal of herself, proclaiming that she would make it eternal night. The fight that you were there for the last portion of happened after a month of her terrorizing our subjects, so I challenged her to fight me in our Castle. She took me up on that, and you saw the rest.”
I looked at her, realizing this was a touchy subject, but asked anyway, “There is something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
She nodded, and said, “The spell that I used to banish her to the moon ends tomorrow night, and she will be returning. I’ll be sending my personal student, Twilight Sparkle, to try and stop her, but for that she’ll need the Elements of Harmony, but they need new bearers as they stopped working when Luna became corrupted. I feel she will target me, so I’ve put some books on the ways to stop her out in the open in the place she’ll be staying.”
I followed along, and thought to ask, “Would you like me to help delay her until your student can find these ‘Elements’ or whatever?” Celestia nodded gratefully, and I walked with her back to the throne room.
When we went inside, I prepared to use Transference to get back into Mirage Prime, but stopped when I heard Celestia ask, “One thing about your Warframe, how are you supposed to take the weapons off?” I reached over to its hip and just pulled the Dakra Prime off like it was nothing, and waved it around a bit before replacing it.
Celestia just looked stunned, and I said, “Probably prevents anyone other than me from removing its weapons as a safety measure,” I used Transference and said, in a rather mechanical voice asked, “Which direction to your old castle?” Celestia pointed to the east, at a large forest with a small town next to it, and I jumped out of the window I had previously broken, hearing her shout, “Good luck!” as I disappeared from sight. I reached the edge of the city, and jumped up the wall, and into a small field that led to a cliff. I leapt off, rolling just as I hit the ground to prevent myself from having to delay for any unnecessary amount of time, and started bullet jumping towards the forest.
I reached the forest after about thirty minutes of uneventful travel, and made my way into it, with the direction I was supposed to head in firmly memorized. After about ten minutes of walking through the trees, there was some growling as I entered a small clearing.
I looked around the clearing, counting eight pairs of glowing green eyes staring back at me. I switched the Tiberon Prime from three-round burst to full auto, and took aim at the first pair of eyes. I placed a single shot between its eyes, and thought I had missed when I heard the crunch of a bullet hitting wood. The other seven wolves, which were made out what looked like dead wood, made their way into the clearing, snarling. They surrounded me, and I tried to use any of Mirage’s abilities from in game, namely her first ability, Hall of Mirrors. Instead of making four clones, like I thought it would, it made six. I pulled out the Dakra, and charged at the largest wolf while slashing, with the six clones mimicking my actions. Four of the clones scored hits, killing another three of the wolves and separating the fourth wolf’s right front paw from its body. I hit the biggest wolf in the neck, severing its head from its body, along with setting it on fire.
The other four wolves, which were mostly behind me, did not take kindly to me killing their leader, and pounced. I turned around, slicing the first wolf, the one with a missing paw, in half, and then switched back over to the Tiberon, spraying down the remaining three wolves with bullets, killing them in seconds. I continued on my way through the forest, not getting attacked by any more creatures.
After around twenty minutes of walking, I arrived at a river with a giant purple, orange mustached sea serpent in the center of it. It was talking to itself, and I shouted up at it, “Do you know which way to the abandoned castle?”
The serpent turned and looked at me, and said, “If you can answer this riddle correctly, I will allow you to pass, along with tell you the way there.” He then said the following riddle.
‘You are at the gates of heaven, and there are two guards. One of the guards always tells the truth, and one of them
always lies. You are allowed to ask one question to either of the guards. If you can identify the guard who tells the
truth, he will allow you into heaven. If you don’t, then you will be sent to hell. What question do you ask?’
I pondered over it for a moment, before realizing the obvious answer. I whispered it into his ear, and he chuckled at my response. He brought most of his body above the water, allowing me to cross it like a bridge. As soon as I reached the other side of the river, he turned to me and said, while pointing with his tail, “That path there will lead you to a ravine with a rope bridge going across it. After you cross, you just need to keep following the path, and you will reach the castle.”
I nodded, and continued on my way, reaching the castle in a couple of minutes. I walked through the entrance, and sat behind the throne with the top depicting the moon, and prepared myself for a long wait until later in the day, as it was well past midnight, nearly dawn in fact. I spent about five minutes checking over my gear before taking up a meditation pose, floating just over two feet above the ground. I let my mind drift, thinking on my abilities.
I stood up after maybe a couple of hours meditating, deciding to explore the castle after stretching. I wandered down a hall that was on the left side of the throne room if you were facing the inside, and found myself in a library. I grabbed the first book off of a shelf, and examined the title, which was “The Unification of the Pony Races’. I quickly skimmed through it, finding out that originally the unicorns moved the sun and moon, the pegasi managed the weather, and the earth ponies tended to the land, providing the other races with food, in return for their services of keeping the weather and diurnal cycle in check. Eventually, the three races were unified by the alicorns Celestia and Luna, who took the roles as princesses in a diarchy. They managed the sun and moon respectively, instead of leaving it in the hands of the unicorn families, who then became noble families.
I placed it back on the shelf, and pulled another random book off of it, and was surprised to find that it was a compendium of all of the knowledge that the ponies had on the Void up until 30 a.u, which I took to mean after unification. I was more surprised that the author was Luna, the second princess who had been possessed by Nightmare Moon, if Celestia’s testimony was anything to go by. I looked through it, finding that most of the abilities given to the wielders of the Void in that time were very rough versions of my own, and the normal effects of the Void were all there, most having been observed on unicorns who had dabbled in the wrong magics.
One passage stood out, being that the tone of the book had been largely impartial up until that point, but this passage was written in an affectionate tone. It spoke of a unicorn named Starswirl the Bearded, the first unicorn to discover the Void, who had prior been Celestia and Luna’s magic teacher. He had gone insane after delving too deeply into the power, but was able to occasionally take back control, causing him to be banished somewhere called ‘The Great Library.’
I made note to ask about visiting that place, when I heard the clatter of hooves on stone, and a distinctly familiar voice muttering curses in Old English. I walked out of the library, with my Akbolto Prime at the ready, when I saw Nightmare Moon walking into the throne room. I walked toward her quietly, and said, “Remember me?,” as soon as I was right behind her.
She jumped up, and quickly recovering, snarling a response back at me, “For that, thou shall die by my hand,” Her horn glowed, and, expecting a spell, I prepared to shoot her. Instead, I was surprised to find her swinging a crescent moon shaped halberd down at me, causing me to block with my Akboltos crossed over my head.
I shoved her back a little, and switched to my Dakra in the brief amount of time that I had to breathe. Just as she was about to strike me, I made nearly a dozen clones of myself, and said, “There is a reason that I am known as Mirage, the one who is always just within sight, but never within reach.” Nightmare Moon simply started swing her halberd around, with me blocking the odd strike from it with one of the clones, so as to trick her into thinking it was the real one.
She quickly got frustrated playing a guessing game with the clones, and started charging a powerful spell with her horn. She yelled, “If I hit all of you, I don’t need to find the real one!” I quickly cast Eclipse, an ability that either grants the caster bonus damage in the light, or damage resistance in the dark, and stepped into the shadows. All of the clones, along with myself, turned a misty, shadowy gray, and Nightmare Moon, thinking I was trying to flee into the shadows, unleashed her spell.
I blocked with my Dakra as the spell hit, and was surprised to see that it was a void beam, and a reasonably powerful one at that. I had a distinct feeling that I wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t used Eclipse, or blocked with my Dakra. I smiled on the inside, using Transference to step out of my warframe. As I did this, Hall of Mirrors and Eclipse deactivated, allowing Nightmare Moon to see me clearly. She looked a bit surprised to see a child like me there, but I was grinning psychotically, and when she noticed the look on my face she seemed a bit frightened, but concealed it well.
She charged forward with her halberd at the ready, and swung it in a horizontal arc. I jumped up, simply landing on the blade as it went by, saying, “You really need to practice with this thing more, like, seriously.” She screamed in anger at not being able to kill a mere ‘child’, and flung me at the ceiling. I casually did a backflip as I reached the top of the arc, taking a showman’s bow as I landed. Nightmare Moon started to charge at me again, but this time I Void dashed right in front of her, punching her in the stomach with a Void strengthened fist. She went flying, before catching herself just before hitting a wall.
She looked past me as I saw six ponies, with half of them dressed in semi-formal attire, with the others dressed in what seemed to be everyday wear. The purple unicorn in the center went into a spiel about friendship and some other B.S., and I didn’t pay attention, instead keeping my eyes on Nightmare Moon, who was walking forward menacingly with her halberd clutched tightly in her hands, ready to kill these new people. I placed myself between them and her, shouting over my shoulder, “Cut the theatrics, if you’re going to do something, do it, otherwise, leave.”
The white unicorn looked taken aback, but then all six of them started glowing, with some sort of talismans floating to each one, with the purple unicorn taking center stage.
I looked at them, curious to what was happening, when Nightmare Moon swung the halberd to decapitate me. I blocked it unconsciously with the amp that was now on my arm, and shot her in the face with a powerful blast from the primary fire on it, which knocked her into the twin thrones in the back of the room. While she didn’t look too worse for wear, it placed her outside of my general vicinity, and in the sights of the six who were now floating. A beam fired from the purple unicorn, with all the energy from the others coalescing on her as the beam continued. When the beam stopped, Celestia, who I hadn’t realized was missing, due to being out all day, returned, and started talking to the purple unicorn and her friends.
I went over to where Nightmare Moon had been, only to find a woman that looked to be in maybe her mid-teens lying on the floor, crying. I turned to Celestia, and said, “So, she isn’t dead? I would’ve expected that to kill her.”
The other ponies gasped, and Celestia rushed over, giving her a hug. She turned to me, and asked, “Why would you think she was dead? Didn’t I explain what the elements would do?”
I shrugged, and said, “You didn’t really explain what they did, you just said to delay her for a bit until the new element bearers, led by your student, arrived.” I turned to the pink woman, who was dressed in a pink sweater with blue and yellow balloons stitched over the left breast, and blue jeans, who was positively bouncing up and down at seeing me. I nodded for her to go ahead, and she said, “I’mhappytomeetyouI’mPinkiePieandIhopethatyou’llcometomypartyformeetingnewpeopleandIknowthatyou’refromadifferentworld,butIwon’ttellanyone.”
The only things that I got out of that long string of words was that her name was Pinkie Pie, and that she knew I was not native to this world. I shrugged, meaning to bring it up with her later, in private, and noticed the purple unicorn, no longer occupied by speaking with Celestia, was messing with my warframe. I stalked over to her, and said, “Do you mind leaving my Mirage Prime be? I’d prefer it to stay fine, as I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”
She turned to me quizzically, and said, “I thought you were Mirage? And I will leave it alone, I was just curious,” She finished with a bit of a pout. The orange woman with the Stetson on and farm clothes, and the cyan mare in athletic clothes were the next to approach.
They opened their mouths at the same time, both asking, “How did you fight Nightmare Moon like that?”
They glared at each other for interrupting them, and I responded by telling them, “I use Void abilities, though I also have physical augmentations from them, namely superhuman strength and infinite stamina.”
The two were nodding along until they realized something that I had said, and both, once again, asked, “What’s a human?”
I facepalmed, and then gestured to myself, and said, “To tell the truth, a Tenno would be a more fitting title than ‘human’, as I lost my humanity when I gained these powers,” The two, seemingly satisfied by that answer, wandered over to Twilight and Pinkie, and started talking to them.
The white unicorn, who had, up to this point, been staring at the two princesses embracing each other and crying on each other’s shoulders, took notice of me and started walking towards me purposefully. She stopped in front of me, and looked my Koppra operator outfit over, and began salivating over it. I pointedly said to her, “You’re drooling,”
She snapped out of it, and introduced herself, “I’m Rarity, the proprietor of the Carousel Boutique, and I apologize for my uncouth behavior. It’s simply that that is one of the most perfect outfits that I have seen in a while, with its color combinations matching you perfectly, and its worksponyship flawless,”
I nodded to her, and smiled, saying, “It’s great to find another who appreciates aesthetics as I do. However, I never caught the names of the purple unicorn, orange woman, and cyan pegasus,”
The butter yellow pegasus who I hadn’t noticed chose that moment to pipe up, saying, “The orange one was Applejack, the purple one was Twilight, and the cyan one was Rainbow Dash. Oh, and I-I’m Fluttershy, by the way,”
I smiled at her reassuringly, and was about to thank her for the names that she had given me, but was called over by Celestia. I went over, and she hugged me, pulling me into her rather large breasts in a tight hug. Sadly, as I was no longer a guy, I didn’t really get anything out of it, but it was a nice hug nonetheless. Luna, at least I think that was her name, said from behind me, “We thank you for stopping us from doing something we would regret. Also, if you are coming back to the castle, we hope you’ll teach us about your abilities.” I nodded, and was surprised to find us teleported to the castle, in an empty guest room.
Celestia left the room, and I noticed that my warframe was just standing in a corner of the room. I grinned at the idea it gave me, and turned to Luna, asking, “Do you still have your Void abilities?” She nodded meekly, and I grinned further, continuing, “You see that suit of armor over there, the one that looks female?” she nodded again, and I finished my train of thought, saying, “I want you to use your Void power, and reach out with your mind and take control of it.”
She focused, not saying anything, and I turned to the warframe. Suddenly, it moved, and Luna fell back on the bed, out cold. I appraised her aptitude for Void abilities to be at about the end of the Second Dream, just after you gain them, but cannot use Transference, just a high powered Void beam and partial control of the warframe. Luna was laying passed out on the bed where she had landed after the teleport.
I meditated on ways that I could teach her of the wonders of the void, and concluded that I would probably have to take her monster hunting in order to level up her Focus skills. I wanted to find out as soon as possible if she would have the schools all lumped together, or separate as I did. Thinking on that made me realize that, since I had all of the individual nodes of every focus tree unlocked, I may be able to merge them all into one school. I tried merging Vazarin, Madurai, and Zenurik together, as they seemed most compatible, and was surprised to find it worked, giving me a rush of energy.
I was restless, but I would have to wait until Luna was fully recovered to begin her Focus training in earnest. I looked over at Luna, finally taking note of her clothing. She was wearing a dark blue dress, made with some sort of light fabric, with a simplistic crescent moon design surrounded by an inky black that I supposed was the night sky. She looked to be about the same age as me, at least physically, that being maybe fifteen or sixteen. She looked a lot like Celestia, except dark blue fur, which I had recently noticed the ponies having, giving them their colors, with her hair being a light blue color. I took up my meditation pose again, and floated just over the floor, waiting for her to wake up to begin her training.
I heard a grunt from where Luna was lying on the bed and continued meditating, believing that she was simply asleep. I felt a mind prodding mine, and I let it in, creating a room of solid white with a purple table and chairs, along with a pot of coffee, in order to entertain my guest. I saw Luna walking in, and gestured for her to sit down. She turned to me, and asked, “What is this place?”
I responded simply, saying, “It’s a room to entertain guests in my mind, made from scratch” Luna seemed surprised that I had made such a thing, and I continued, “So, I guess you wished to speak with me while continuing your rest?”
She nodded, and asked, “Yes, about your powers, why are they so much more developed than mine, and why did you seem surprised to find another using the same?”
I pondered a plausible response, and said, “Why they are more developed is probably because I already knew most of the abilities you could have from this type of power, and possibly some innate talent with it,” I paused, thinking of a good way to continue, “I was surprised to find someone using the same type of power largely due to the fact that I thought this was a unique power, but you people had a very similar power available, however weaker,”
Luna nodded at this, and opened her mouth to say something, possibly another question, but I cut her off, saying, “When you are actually awake, we should go down to the guards’ training grounds and see if you are up to snuff in combat. We will be doing this because Void abilities, seemingly unlike magic as I understand, puts tremendous strain on the body.” Luna nodded again in understanding, and then something dawned on her. She blurted, “Are you not also asleep? What we did to get here was dreamwalk, yet you act as though you are not asleep,”
I smiled, taking a sip of my scalding hot coffee. I said calmly, “What I’m doing is not sleeping or dreaming, but rather focusing my consciousness into the area of my mind that produces dreams, and simply creating a lucid image to toy with. It’s really simple, as long as you don’t actually need sleep,”
Luna seemed surprised that I didn’t need sleep, but her form began rapidly flickering, and she suddenly disappeared from my ‘welcome room’. I opened my eyes, and stood up from the meditating position, only to find that it was somewhat early in the morning, with Luna slowly sitting up and stretching on the bed. Her stomach growled, and she said to me, “I don’t suppose we can drop by the dining hall before training?” I nodded, and she opened the door, nearly walking into the maid that was about to knock.
The maid looked startled for a second, then said, “Celestia sent me to act as both of your guides for the day. My name is Swift Duster.” Luna and I nodded, and I followed the two of them to the dining hall. We walked into the dining hall, and I noticed a decadent spread on the table, but realized I wasn’t hungry. I sat down in the center of the table on the side opposite the door, with Celestia sitting at the head of the table and Luna sitting at the right of her, two seats down from me. They started chatting, and I gestured for Swift to come over to me.
She walked over quickly, and leaned her head closer in order to hear me. I said into her ear, “Can you make a request of the resident blacksmith that makes the guard’s gear that I would like two swords and a long dagger made?” She nodded, and made to leave, but I stopped her, saying, “And can you let him know to make them look like this?” she nodded again, and I gave her a quick sketch of two long, thin swords, along with a dagger that looked like a shorter version of the swords. She went off, and I realized Luna and Celestia were gaping at me.
I looked at the two of them and shrugged my shoulders questioningly, and they laughed. Later, Celestia told me that she was surprised that I had deduced that there was a blacksmith at the castle, and that I was willing to commission work from him so soon. Luna was surprised that I was having three swords made, and I explained that I planned to channel Void energy through the blades.
Celestia looked surprised that this was possible, and I explained how the energy could be imbued into anything in contact with you. I stood up, and picked up a butter knife to use as an example, and channeled Madurai through it, creating a flame that encased the blade but didn’t damage it. I went to leave the room, only to find Swift Duster standing in front of the door, poised to enter.
I turned to Luna, and asked, “You done eating?” she nodded, with a mouth full of waffle, that she proceeded to force down, before downing a large glass of milk, gasping after she finished.
She burped slightly, and in a small voice, said, “Excuse us,”
I gestured for her to follow, and asked Swift to lead us to the blacksmith. We took the long route, through many twisting hallways, and eventually ended up outside, near what seemed to be a hybrid athletics field and arena. She led us along the left side to a door set in the wall, and popped it open, leading us inside. We went down a short hallway, arriving at another door, which she opened, leading us inside to see a browned male earth pony with graying black hair.
He quenched the blade that he was working on, and turned to us, asking, “Are you the one that commissioned three blades?” his voice was deep and gravelly, yet comforting. I nodded, and he pointed at the wall. I glanced over, and saw the blades, already sheathed and on belts.I grabbed the longest of them and handed it to Luna, and picked up the long dagger and sword, wrapping the belt around my waist and pulling it tight. I focused, and the colors changed to purple leather and gold metal, with the sheathes for the blades taking on similar tones. I drew the blades, and focused again, changing the color of the blade to gold, with the cross-guard silver and the pommel/handle purple.
Everyone in the room seemed surprised at the changing of the colors, and the blacksmith grabbed the long sword out of my hand and checked to see if I had changed the materials somehow. He saw that the materials were the same, just recolored, and he handed it back, saying, “Never seen a trick like that before, not even from a unicorn or the Princess. By the way, the name is Iron Hammer,”
I nodded, and said in return, “To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure it would work, and my name is Mirage,” He nodded and Luna introduced herself as well.
We were about to leave, when Iron Hammer stopped me and asked, “You look rather young to know how to use that,” I shrugged, and as we were walking out the door, I called over my shoulder, “You’re free to come and watch if you want to, though I can’t promise anything great from Luna,”
He shrugged and followed us back out onto the field, were the guards were getting ready for combat training. We walked over and talked to the apparent commanding officer, who called over two recruits, a unicorn named Shining Armor, and a pegasus named Gleaming Sword. The two looked nigh identical, and I took Shining Armor as my fight partner, and Luna took Gleaming Sword.
The C.O. pulled the two stallions aside, thinking that he would only be heard by them, said, “The one in purple doesn’t really seem to know what she’s doing, but is arrogant, so Shining, take her down a few notches,” Shining nodded, and the C.O. turned to Gleaming, saying, “You might have a lot more trouble, that mare that you’re paired up with is Celestia’s sister, or so they say. She’s been missing for a thousand years, so her skills may be rusty, but she was the hero of many battlefields in her day with her sword and halberd skills. Be careful,” Gleaming nodded, the enthusiasm in his eyes clear to see.
The C.O. turned to Luna and I, and explained, “The rules are simple, don’t kill your opponent, and don’t use immobilizing magic. Anything else goes, as this is combat, so use all that is available to you,” Luna and I both nodded, and Luna squared up with Gleaming as the first match.
They raised their swords to their respective face, and began fighting in a kind of duelist fashion, with a one-handed grip on their weapon with the other arm behind their back Luna was slowly gaining ground on the pegasus, who took flight to try to create more breathing room. This was a severe mistake, as Luna kicked off the ground with much more strength, surprising him with her speed, which got her above him, enabling her to cut down and knocking him to the ground, dazing him. Luna dived, landing with a foot on his chest and her sword at his neck, at which the C.O., who was also refereeing, called, “Victory goes to Luna!”
Luna walked over to me, and I congratulated her, before taking a position opposite Shining Armor, who asked, “Are you sure you want to do this? I won’t be holding back, just so you know,”
I grinned viciously, replying, “I wouldn’t have it any other day, though I hope I don’t hospitalize you for too long after I’m done with you.”
Shining grinned in response to this, likely thinking it would be an easy win, and then we began. I didn’t draw either weapon as Shining approached cautiously. Unlike me, he was carrying a sword and shield, and was wearing full armor. He reached striking distance after about three seconds of approaching, and slashed downwards at my right shoulder. I dodged to his left, and put all of my strength into hitting his shield, sending him flying back and crippling his left arm.
The surrounding spectators gasped at this, and the shield hung limply at his side, surface splintered, and he winced whenever his left arm moved whatsoever. I thought that attack may have finished it, but he finally cast an odd, bubble-shaped shield, and began shooting bolts of magic out of it at me.
I dodged the bolts, and punched the bubble-shield, only for it to make a noise like a gong and dissipate all the energy in the punch. I backed off when he fired a blast at point-blank range. He tauntingly said, “That little trick isn’t going to work a second time, so you might as well use your weapons,”
I made to draw my swords, before turning to him and asking, “Are you sure you want me to use these?” He nodded, and I shrugged, drawing the two blades. I decided to christen them Ignis and Fulgur, and ignited the longer blade by channeling Madurai through it, and charged the shorter blade with electricity from Zenurik. Everyone in the arena seemed surprised that the blades were now glowing with fire and lightning, except for Luna, who had seen it in the dining hall. I Void dashed towards his shield, and made an x-shaped cut down the center of the shield, surprising Shining with the speed that I approached at, and my blades minced through the shield like nothing, allowing me to get at Shining. I kicked his right knee, causing it to buckle in, and put the still flaming sword to his throat. The C.O, managing to get past his shock, called out, “Victory goes to Mirage!,”
Most of the other guards were too dumbstruck to move, and Luna and Iron Hammer, walked over, saying, “That was surprising,” I helped Shining to his feet, the other guards rushing him to the infirmary, and I started heading there as well.
When we arrived, Celestia was already waiting there for us, and asked, “So, you shattered his shield and arm with a single, bare-handed hit?” I nodded, and she remembered something, saying, “We still need you to take the tests that I was telling you about the other day, so if you don’t mind…,” I nodded, and some tests were run, and the doctors also took some blood for study.
I started heading back to the room we were originally teleported into from the old castle after the purification of Nightmare Moon, and I realized that either Luna didn’t have a room, or I didn’t. I turned to Swift, asking, “So, do I have a room, am I sharing one with Luna, or what?”
Swift blushed at the implication of what I had said, and instead led me further down the hall to another, slightly smaller, room.
I thanked her, placed my two new swords onto the dresser, and floated over the bed, meditating. I thought over the day’s events, and chuckled at Shining Armor’s confidence. It was well founded, but I was the wrong person for him to fight, if he were to win. I let my consciousness drift, and ended up in the white room I spoke with Luna in early that morning. I sipped at the coffee, and decided to fuse the rest of the focus schools together, giving me many abilities at once.
I slowly floated down to the floor after meditating most of the previous night, having discovered, in this world at least, there was a sixth focus school that was nowhere to be seen in the game. I had examined all of the abilities in the school, and they were interesting, to say the least. They largely focused on three things, those being sleep, shadows, and dreams. The first, main ability in the cluster was something called “Nightwalker” which, according to the vague description I had of it, was the ability to enter a realm that would allow you to enter the dreams of all who were asleep at the time.
I was thinking of what I should call this school when I was interrupted by knocking on the door. I opened it to find a guard with his hand raised to knock again, but he quickly put it down when he saw that the door was open. He bowed his head slightly, saying, “Princess Luna is ready for your expedition to the Everfree Forest, but I must say I heavily advise against it, as there are many dangerous creatures in that forest,”
I shook my head, and told the stallion, “You have seen Luna and I on the training grounds, yes? Unless we run into something unexpected, we should have no problem doing what we want in that forest,” The guard shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘I tried’, and led me out to a gilded chariot, with two pegasi guards between the yokes, and Luna standing, tapping her hoof somewhat impatiently, off to the left side of the chariot. She saw the guard and me walk up, and the guard saluted Luna before heading back inside, to do guard stuff most likely.
Luna hopped on the back of the chariot, and impatiently said to me, “Get on already, I want to be there as fast as possible.”
I shrugged and hopped on next to her, and the guards took off, the chariot rising smoothly from the landing pad that we were on. The trip to Ponyville, the town closest to the Everfree Forest, was surprisingly short, lasting only ten minutes or so, and we disembarked at the edge of the Everfree.
Luna and I started walking toward the Everfree, when we heard a voice drawl, “Y’all do know that there is the Everfree Forest, right? Tha most dangerous forest in all ‘f Equestria?”
I turned slowly to look at her, who turned out to be one of the Element bearers that I had met a few weeks ago, I believe Applejack was her name, and said to her, “I believe that that was the point of us coming here, and so, if I may ask you, could you please leave?”
Applejack grumbled something under her breath and turned and started walking away. I turned to Luna who simply nodded, and we started walking into the deeper portion of the forest, not seeing that Applejack broke out running as soon as she was out of direct sight of us.
P.O.V. Applejack
What in tarnation were those two fillies thinking, intentionally going into the Everfree forest alone? Ah need to go get Twi and the other girls to go after them, and stop them from making any stupid mistakes. I was thinking to myself while running to the Golden Oaks Library, to get Twi to help me round up the rest of the girls so that we could go after those two. I slammed the door to the library open, shouting, “Twi, TWI, I need you for something!” Twi came rushing down the stairs, and skidded to a stop in front of me.
She opened her mouth to say something, but Ah cut her off, saying, “Two fillies, I don’t know whose, just went into the Everfree forest, and the younger one said that they knew that it was the most dangerous forest in Equestria. Ah need ya to go round up the girls, and we’ll search for them, and hopefully find them before they get to hurt.”
Twi nodded, and said, “I’ll go get Rarity and Pinkie, you go get Fluttershy and Rainbow. They should both be at Fluttershy’s house,” Ah nodded, and Twi’s horn lit up, flashing brightly and she was gone. Ah sprinted back out the door, breezing right by Spike as he was returning to the library, knocking him onto his behind. After a couple of minutes of running, Ah arrived at Fluttershy’s, and Ah saw Rainbow performing some of her tricks in the sky while Fluttershy was feeding the chickens.
“Hey, AJ, what’s up?” Rainbow yelled.
Ah gestured for her to come down and called to Fluttershy, “Hey, Flutters, mind coming over here for a minute?” Fluttershy put down the bag of feed, carefully sealing the top, and walked over.
Ah was about to say something to Fluttershy when Rainbow interrupted, saying, “So, what’s up?”
“A couple of fillies went into the Everfree forest alone, but I couldn’t tell who they were. The one that did all the talkin’ acted like she knew just how dangerous the Everfree was, and they went in anyway, so I’m having Twi go and get the other girls so we can go and rescue ‘em,”
Flutters looked surprised that two fillies would go into the Everfree on their own, and let out an ‘eep’ when she heard that Ah wanted to go after them. Rainbow, on the other hand, looked pumped to go into the Everfree and potentially show off to some scared children.
Us three headed back to Twi’s library, and found Twi readin’ a book that seemed to be about the wildlife in tha Everfree, and Rarity was standing there sorta disgusted looking. Pinkie was bein’ Pinkie, that is, she was hopping in place, excited to meet new people.
“Alright, le’s get goin’ then y’all,” Tha other five shrugged and followed as Ah led them to the area in which they had entered the forest at. Ah noticed that there was a trail of broken twigs leading deeper into the forest, and the rest of the girls huddled up behind me as we entered the forest.
We’d been walking for five minutes when we saw the first signs of a struggle, which ended with two manticores dead in a clearing, and the path of broken twigs and branches continued. Twi stopped ta look at what killed the manticores, and pulled out a single arrow that was buried deep in the chest wound of one of them critters. The arrow looked odd, as it was solid gold with a glowing blue tail. Twi stuck it in the backpack she had brought with her, and we continued following the trail. After another eight minutes or so, we reached a hydra that had a scorched body and more of those arrows in its eyes and neck. It was also dead.
“AJ, did you see what types of ponies came in here?” Twi asked me.
I nodded, and replied, “I believe it were an earth pony and a pegasus, they looked to be around fourteen and sixteen, if Ah had ta hazard a guess at their ages. Any reason why?”
Twi turned to me and said, “The only way these burns could have gotten here is if there was an experienced unicorn with them, and these arrows are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Ah raised an eyebrow at her, but we continued following the trail through the forest. Ah slowly noticed that there giant webs spanning the gaps between trees, and started hurrying. After another couple of minutes of walking, we heard a rapid clattering sound that disappeared as soon as we heard it, along with a thud. We entered a clearing and found a huge amount of carcasses surrounding a very large purple and gold object. It looked a lot like a tadpole, and it had weird legs sticking out of it, keeping it off the ground. We could hear the two fillies talking, but they were just behind the ship, and we couldn’t see them.
P.O.V. Mirage
After a few minutes of walking, Luna and I ran into a couple of manticores, which are basically lions with scorpion tails and bat wings. I was carrying my Akbolto Prime with me, so I made quick work of the one that pounced at me, shooting a couple of bolts into its chest, at which it collapsed to the ground. Luna had a slightly tougher time, as she wasn’t using a projectile weapon, but she dispatched her foe a couple seconds after I did, neatly stabbing it in the heart when it backed off slightly. We continued walking into the forest, breaking small twigs and branches so that we could easily find our way back out of the forest.
After walking another few minutes, we came to a bog that had giant stone pillars standing in it, and were in the middle of crossing it when a god damned HYDRA popped up out of the water. Luna started attacking its body with spells that seemed to burn it, judging from the large scorch marks it was leaving behind, and I was shooting the heads and necks, trying to bring it down. It only took one or two shots per head, and it went down quickly. We continued walking in the same direction, and I noted the giant spider webs that connected the trees. I also noted a set of eight glowing red eyes and shot in the center of them, killing it instantly.
I walked over and examined the corpse, and found a spider with a body that was about four feet long with legs that were each over six feet. I shrugged, figuring that it was on its own, and we continued walking. We reached a clearing that had a very familiarly shaped ship in it. My Liset Prime was just sitting in the center of the clearing, with some cobwebs covering it.
“What is that thing?” Luna asked, looking at my Liset. I was too busy walking up to it to answer, and noticed a spider leg twitching behind the leg of the landing gear. I walked around it, and found a very large spider twice the size of the previous one, and shot it. It let out a screech, and suddenly, from all directions, I heard clattering noises from all around, and saw a crap ton of the spiders surround the Liset. I pulled out my swords, channelling Madurai through both, and started hacking apart the many spiders that had surrounded us. Luna did the same, and also started using fire spells to burn many of the spiders that were trying to enter the clearing. After killing the spiders for a solid ten minutes, the rest fled, leaving about half the clearing filled with ash and the other half with spider carcasses. Luna sat down, and a large spider jumped from the edge of the forest with that familiar clacking, and I cut it down before it could reach Luna.
I plopped down next to her, and heard hushed voices talking as they made their way into the clearing. “Hey, Luna, who do you think that is?”
Luna looked at me with an annoyed look on her goo covered face, and was surprised to see that I didn’t have any gore on me at all, which she expressed promptly by saying, “How are you not covered with this stuff like I am?” I shrugged, knowing perfectly well that channeling dissolves corpses, and was about to tell her when Applejack peeked her head around the side of the leg we were sitting against. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked surprised to see us.
“‘Sup,” I eloquently said, too tired to deal with any shit. The rest of the Element bearers came around with Applejack, and started spouting questions that I didn’t care to answer. “Ordis, you there?” I said, over the questioning of the girls in front of me, blatantly ignoring them.
“Operator, I didn’t realize that you *BZZT* COULD DECIMATE THE ENEMY LIKE THAT *BZZT* sorry, Operator, I meant to say that I didn’t know you used melee outside the warframes.” A voice from the bottom of the ship said. A ramp to enter the ship came down, and Luna and the rest of the girls followed me onto the ship. The girls looked on in awe as they entered the technological marvel, and I was somewhat surprised how accurate the ship was to my own in game. The only difference I could find was a solid red hammer that looked like it came from Lord of the Rings sitting on the navigation console. I ignored it for the time being and said to Ordis, “Ordis, take us to Ponyville so that we can drop off these six newcomers first, and then take us to Canterlot.”
“Yes Operator, we’ll be there quickly.” The ship took off of the ground and hovered for a second, before flying off to the small town on the edge of the forest. I kicked out the six Element bearers, and Twilight looked sad to not be able to study the ship further. Luna was asleep on her feet, and I woke her up when we reached Canterlot after about thirty seconds of flight. She wandered off the ship to go to her room, ignoring the guards that surrounded the ship in favor of a shower and sleep.
I picked up the hammer that was sitting on the navigation console, and heard a voice say, “Thou speaketh to the lord of Dawn, lord and friend to the Olog and Uruk people! If thy wish is power, than thou hast found thy aim! If thou desire is domination of mine allies? Then may the gods have mercy on thy soul! Hold my Hammer aloft and strike it upon stone with intent twice, and thy call shalt be heard!”
I shrugged and went to put it down when I noticed a faint aura of Void energy surrounding it. I asked Ordis, “Could you trace the energy around this hammer back to its source?”
“Of course, but should you try to find something like that?” Ordis responded.
I shrugged, and simply said, “Might be interesting, so just do it. I’ll equip my Ivara loadout.”
“Of course Operator, may you *BZZT* RIP YOUR ENEMIES ASUNDER *BZZT* Sorry about that, Operator.” I shrugged again and began meditating while Ordis traced the energy signature back to its source.
“Operator, I have *BZZT* DISCOVERED THE DEMON *BZZT* found the person who’s energy signature matches the hammer you found,” Ordis’s voice rang out through the the ship.
I stopped meditating and stood up, stretching slightly to get the kinks out, and, with a few *pops* I was satisfied. “Ordis, can you take us to the person that made this hammer?”
Ordis’s voice rang out once again, “Of course I can, are you *SURE YOU WISH TO GO WHERE YOU MAY NOT RETURN?* Sorry Operator, I will need to look into these glitches sometime.”
“It’s fine Ordis, and yes, I am sure, but as a precaution I’m leaving my Mirage warframe here so that we can find our way back,” I said, though in truth, the constant personality shifts were beginning to get a bit annoying. “Let me know when we arrive in their atmosphere, I’m going to try to think of a name for this new Focus school that I’ve discovered.”
“Of course Operator.” Ordis said, the ship smoothly accelerating out of the planet’s atmosphere I watched somewhat in awe as the ship slipped into the Void, which, despite its name, was not black, but white, with pale blue energy swirling around aimlessly. I tore my eyes from the amazing view, and went back to thinking of the name. As we were in the Void, I thought of what had happened with Lua in game, and then what was revealed earlier this year, that I would sadly never see.
“Ordis, I’ve thought of a name for the new school.” I said proudly, thinking of how perfectly it fit with the school’s attributes, on top of being a nod to something that seemed would be great.
“Operator, *BZZT* WHAT DID YOU DECIDE TO NAME IT *BZZT*, sorry again, this seems to be getting worse,” Ordis said, with a seemingly sad tone to his voice. I let the HUD be enabled again at the end of his response, and what I saw surprised me. In game, Ordis is a glass cube that has a corner cracked, but here, there was a single long crack that went from the top of his casing to the bottom, skirting around the center by a hair’s breadth.
“I have decided to christen it ‘Umbra’, after the lost class of frames that are supposedly on par with the Primes,” I said, going back to meditating, and trying to come up with ways to use this new school to go with my assorted loadouts. Currently I was using Ivara, with the Daikyu as the primary weapon, the Spira Prime as the secondaries, and the Karyst dagger as the melee weapon.
I was thinking on what abilities to start unlocking in this focus tree, when Ordis’s voice snapped me back to reality, Ordis saying, “Operator, we have arrived, but there seems to be odd energy readings surrounding the planet, not unlike from Equus, where we just left.”
I shrugged, and said, “You might as well take us down, it shouldn’t be the same planet in any case as we wouldn’t have had to go through the Void to get here otherwise, though I will want you to keep the Liset cloaked and drop me with my Archwing.”
“Of course Operator, be *BZZT* TEAR ANY WHO ATTACK APART *BZZT* careful. Operator, this is odd, the frequency at which glitches are occurring is far higher than normal.” I nodded, and stepped to the back of the ship, where the drop point was, along with my Archwing. I got in to the human shaped opening, and it rolled, dumping me into the thin upper atmosphere of the planet.
My Itzal roared out from the ship and attached itself to my lower back, giving me full maneuverability both in and out of atmosphere. I aimed down at the planet’s surface, opening the throttle all the way, and was surprised to break the sound barrier on the way down to the planet’s surface. When I was about a hundred feet off the ground I pulled up, heading towards where I believed Ponyville would be.
I slowed to a stop at the outskirts of Ponyville, and dropped from the Archwing, and it flew back to the Liset, which was quite close behind me apparently. I walked up the dirt path into Ponyville. There didn’t seem to be anything too different in this world’s Ponyville, but something that I took note of was that most of the ‘ponies’ looked like humans with weird skin colors. I realized that this was an alternate world when I saw a woman that was the spitting image of Twilight from my world, except she looked particularly depressed.
I then sheard what sounded oddly like Discord, who was… trying to comfort her? I used Prowl to become invisible and get closer, to see what was going on. Only, what I saw looked nothing like what I was told looked like Discord, he was wearing a rusty red suit with a pink kerchief and had what looked like a metal arm made to resemble an eagles talon, but with five fingers. He had the telltale horns coming out of a greying red hair, but also had an odd cane and necklace that I could feel an odd power emanating from, as well as his tail, but ending in a stub, as if the end of his tail was cut off. “Twilight, you were not in the wrong, no matter how cruel Celestia was, you have only been kind, I can tell.”
She sobbed “But… why are you being so nice?! I was the student of the woman who tortured you, killed your people! Made over ninety percent of your family either leave Equus, or just plain stop existing! Why, Why would you be kind to me?!”
Discord smiled warmly “Because that was not you. You freed her sister from the curse that she put on her, saved the planet from dying, and had NOTHING to do with her cruelties.” he held her by the shoulders “Twilight, look at me. Everything the Magi did, both to me, and my people, hell, even to The Kin was taught behavior from Celestia, or magically implanted into them by Solaris.” He smiled at her and hugged her “Now, I think you need a new teacher, no? One who actually knows what friendship is. Why not me?”
He then turned straight towards me after Twilight nodded slowly, and he ushered her inside. “Why don’t you come out now, Void child. I promise, I mean you no harm.”
“The version of you on my world has different ideas than you, it seems,” I said, as I deactivated Prowl. I handed him twenty bits, and continued, “If you don’t mind, could you give these back to Twilight? The ability I was using kind of automatically steals from everyone in a set radius around me, and I didn’t know how to return them politely.”
He smiled kindly and nodded “I will let her know she dropped them. Her pocket will have a mysterious hole.”
“Thanks man, stealing when you don’t need it isn’t really my thing, but it wasn’t something I’ve figured out how to control with this warframe yet.” I said, smiling back, even though he could not see my face as I was in a warframe at the moment.
Discord pointed with his cane to my left, a door unfolding out of thin air into my path. “I have friends in the city through that door, just say that Discord sent you. They will let you in. Just… don’t judge them on appearances, okay? They have had a rough time.”
“It should be fine, as long as they don’t look like demons or some shit.” I said, cracking a grin, thinking about how unlikely it would be for them to be demons.
Discord laughed gently, “Actually, there is one who does look like one. He is their king, and a doctor.”
“Alright, thanks for warning me, though I don’t really do the best at respecting royalty, but at least I’ll know who this ‘Lord of Dawn’ is.” I said, surprised to hear that someone who looked like a demon was a king. I stepped up to the door and opened it, looking upon a city that looked like it came straight from Shadow of War, except it had a ton of technologically advanced areas, and the whole thing was blood red, but where the light hit it it shone incandescent white.
I walked up to the gatehouse and was surprised to see that it was manned by a few Uruk and an Olog, straight from Shadow of War, just with better armor and weapons.
They looked to me, then to the door behind me, and smiled in a friendly manner, “I assume Disord sent you?”
“Yeah, he said some friends of his might want to meet me? Something about a guy that looked like a demon, if I remember correctly.” I said, somewhat surprised at how well spoken the Uruk were, whereas in the game, only the Captains were consistently coherent.
They nodded and their armor glowed red as the gate started to open, them smiling at me “Any friend of Discords is a friend to Comraich. Just make sure to go to the town square, Simon is draining at the moment, I’m really excited to see what he comes up with next! Last time, he made the guard towers actually decent! Plus some barracks for us!”
The other guard nods “I hope he takes the time to make himself a home personally, doesn’t feel right, our king sleeping on the streets like a bum, just so we get homes sooner...”
“Your king sounds like an interesting person, I think I will go meet him. Also, do you guys have any problem with me flying there?” I asked, genuinely curious to meet this supposed demon king, who slept on the streets to provide homes for his people.
They looked to each other hesitantly, “I wouldn’t if I were you, ma’am, the people are still jumpy from the Magi attacks, they may have stopped, but… bad memories, y’know? They might think the magi are bombing us again…”
The other guard nodded, “You seem like a good person, so we don’t want your visit to be hectic.”
“Would parkour be any better, or would that just seem like I was running from something, and open a different can of worms?” I asked, thinking how long this may end up taking, with my fastest form of travel out of the way.
They shook their heads “Nah, go ahead! Orvok and Grimgor hold races all over the walls for the kids, helps keep up morale!”
“Ah, cool, well then, maybe I’ll see you again while I’m here, but, other than that, see ya!” I ran through the gate, bullet jumping onto the roof of a nearby building, and quickly running and jumping my way deeper into the city. Eventually I reached a large open area with stalls all around and an impressive garden of what looked to be healing herbs, as well as flowers used in medicine. The stalls were stocked with various goods, from something called “Golem pets” to what looked like watermelons, to armor and weapons, to a plain clothes stall. In the center, however, was what looked like a throne with three tubes feeding into hoses that fed into what was most likely an underground part of the city. The tubes had huge needles in them, they looked like they would hurt like a bitch going in, and coming out.
There was then a clearing of a throat as I turned to see what definitely looked like a demon, he smiled warmly to me, careful not to show his teeth. “I heard from Muz and Guz that a friend of Discords was coming! I hurried up the draining to make sure you didn’t have to see, luckily, I had enough SIVA to finish the market area, next up… hmmm… What do you think? I was thinking a theater, or maybe a better school building? Those are the only buildings left, aside from the castle…” He then stage whispered to me, “ I really don’t care about the castle, but they insist I build myself one, apparently they want me to live like some spoiled noble, heh!”
“Hmmm… I’d say maybe make the school and theater parts of the castle, maybe the center wing the main castle, the right wing a school, and the left wing your castle? That way you wouldn’t really be living like a spoiled noble, and you could teach the children about politics as well, have them come visit the main portion of the castle as a pseudo field trip.” I said, trying to think of a good way to make the buildings as convenient as possible, while still respecting his wishes and making the maximum conservation of space.
The kind king demon smiled “Yes! And I can convert the underground cellar to a theater, with some excavation! And then we can link the new Hive for Chryssi to the castle, with her favorite part of her culture connecting hers to the castle, also known as the hub of our culture! Perfect!”
He held out his hand to me “Names Simon, it’s a pleasure to meet you! How may I repay you! Since you are in a Warframe, maybe I could try making you one, or maybe repair the Ordis you were probably sent here with? I was always annoyed in the game by his glitches, myself.”
He then gasped “Oh! You should meet the rest of the ruling council!”
“Sounds nice to me, but on the note of Ordis’s glitches, my Ordis has them far worse than the one in the game did. The cracks that game Ordis has aren’t there, but instead there is a huge crack nearly bisecting him.” I stepped out of the warframe by using transference and shook his hand, introducing myself, “I’m Mirage by the way, and before you ask, I don’t remember what my real name is, since I was put in stone for a thousand years. Kinda makes the memory foggy, ya know?”
Simon nodded “I understand, makes sense,” he then thought a moment “Could you get your Cephalon to try to come over here? I’d like to try making him a new casing. That should fix the glitches, as well as make him more capable, and restore his memory, if you wish.”
“Sounds good, let me just step back in my warframe and send a transmission to him,” I said, using transference to get back into my Ivara. I sent a transmission to Ordis, saying, “I found someone who may be able to repair you, fly on down and land in the square, you should be able to eject your casing right?”
“Of course Operator, but *BZZT* WILL HE TRY TO DELETE US *BZZT* Oh dear, I really need this, this is becoming very annoying.” The Liset landed in the largest empty area in the square, uncloaking so that all could see it. The ramp at the tail end of the ship came down, and I led Simon up into it.
“Ordis’s casing is probably up by the navigation console, follow me, but after he’s fixed, feel free to look around the ship.” I said, nodding to Simon.
He nodded back and smiled as he walked in “Always wanted to stand in one of these babies…” he sighed “Anyway, let’s get to work!” he walked up to where Ordis was, seeming to have the ship interior memorized as he bowed to the Cephalon “From one AI to another, it is a pleasure to meet you, Ordis! Now, may you enter sleep mode? I’d rather not hurt you, if this is indeed painful. I will be honest, never made a cephalon shell before, shouldn’t be more complicated than making a lifeform that’s completely alive and semi organic, though.”
“Operator, permission to enter Sleep mode?” Ordis asked.
“Of course, though I’d say set it to wake up in twelve hours, that should be more than enough time, right Simon?” I said, directing the last bit at the demon standing next to me.
Simon shrugged “I will have it built and ready to interface in, like, two minutes, depends on if Ordis needs to have time to transfer shells. Never learned much about Cephalons…” He then seemed to have a thought “You know, I could make a sort of semi warframe for you, Ordis, let you take the companion slot for your operator.”
“That might be nice, then I could help *BZZT* TEAR THE OPERATOR’S ENEMIES TO PIECES *BZZT* Sorry for the interruption, but then I could properly help the Operator fight and protect them.” Ordis said, a sheepish tone entering his voice at the latest glitch.
Simon frowned “Oh, that can’t be comfy. Let me help ya, big guy.” he then had a glow enter his eyes as he scanned Ordis “Okay, that’s how the shell works… amplifies power, and protects information… ok. Got it…” he then began to let red mist flow from his hands, creating a red crystal version of Ordis’s shell, sans the damage, and then let some blue fire into it, turning it purple. “There, gave it my all to make Ordis’s new shell combat ready, tougher than steel and telluriums bastard kid, and given a regenerative ability… Now, Ordis, try going in it. I wanna see if there is anything that feels off. It shouldn’t, I made the protocols for this SIVA be to simply asist the AI in its core...as well as speed up foundry tasks, and give new weapons a serious buncha oomph.”
Ordis started transferring his data into the new shell, making the color lighten further as his blue light filled it. After a few seconds of transferring into it, his old shell was nothing but a hunk of crystal, and Ordis said, “It seems that the errors are fixed, and this shell is compatible, but I will need at the least a few hours of being unable to do anything as I run diagnostics on the performance levels and start resyncing to everything in the Liset.”
Simon hummed “A shame, I would of loved to let you experience the city with us in the body I was gonna make for you...oh! What if you used your new Shell to absorb the old one? Would that speed it up?”
“As long as the old shell retains the connections to the assorted parts of the ship, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.” A red tendril reached out of Ordis’s new shell and wrapped around the old one, rapidly breaking it down and absorbing it. Ordis flashed a couple of times, and then said, “Well, it seems that your idea worked, but I do still have to run diagnostics, but that will only take a few minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”
Simon smiled happily “No problem, it will give me time to give your operator her gift, a brand spanking new warframe!”
“Uh, not sure if that would work extremely well, since the warframes are made out of infested flesh, metal, and void energy, and I think you might have trouble re-creating Void energy.
Simon grinned “But you don’t, you can give it the void energy, And part of your ship is infested, remember Helminth? He’s a strain of infestation!” he then chuckled “And SIVA is metal and then some!”
“Eh, fuck it, might as well give it a shot.” I said, his optimism infectious. I started walking toward the door that Helminth was behind, then remembered something. “Wait, let me equip Nidus real quick,” I stepped up to the arsenal and switched the loadout from Ivara to Nidus, and walked down to the door Helminth was behind, with it immediately opening. I turned to Simon, and said, “Come on in, I’m sure Helminth wouldn’t mind sparing the pound of proverbial flesh.”
Simon nodded, before walking in, and smiling to Helminth “Hi there, I am trying to make a new warframe for your master, it would share the power of Nidus, as well as the power of my SIVA. Would you allow us to take some Infested tissue?”
An echoing voice rang out through the ship, both completely unintelligible and perfectly understood, “Of course, though it has been many years since I’ve seen the master, it’s nice to know that he’s fine.” Helminth reached out a tendril from the floor, and it took a square shape, “This will respond to any attempts to manipulate it, so let me see what you manage to create when you are finished.”
Simon nodded as he took the chunk of Helminth infestation. He then began fusing it with his SIVA into something amazing, it was somewhat Satyr like in the legs, with a large, strong pair of arms and thin, light frame, both working together like a piece of art as they complemented the noble, powerful looking body. The infested flesh seemed to be made into the inner part of the frame, with the outer parts, sort of forming a SIVA carapace, it had a strange diadem that looked like a purple crystal dodecahedron made of SIVA with an infested core floating in its left hand, and it had a powerful looking one handed mix of pickaxe and hammer in the right. Lastly, it had a familiar looking gun on its back, a Soma rifle that had a full circle clip, made entirely of SIVA., with gold finish, and red plating, as well as threads of Helminth flesh lining the Barrel,
Simon smiled “Meet Archimedes. This guy is the penultimate offence frame, his SIVA crystal diadem can fire lasers of pure wraith energy at foes, his weapon, which I call the Somava, can ressurect killed foes temporarily as allies, and the pickhammer will either bludgeon or pierce the enemies to high hell, then leave SIVA in their wounds to kill em over time.”
“Sounds pretty good, doesn’t seem to be bullshit, now let’s try to use transference on it,” I said. I gathered Void energy into my palm, and placed it into the chest of the warframe. It shuddered a little, and I used transference to enter it. It didn’t feel any different than any of my other frames, and I figured I’d just leave it be and experiment with it later. I used transference again, and stepped back out, “It works just fine, moves just fine, and it seems to be in perfect working order, so I guess that’s a new warframe made.”
Simon grinned “Whaddya think, Helminth? Is it a winner?” He then turned to me quickly “Oh! And before I forget, it has no shields, but regens health like Nidus.”
“It appears that you have made something I have never seen, it was worth the tissue to see this.” Helminth responded, a satisfied sounding growl coming from the room.
Simon grinned “Nice to meet you, Helminth, may you be complete someday.” He then walked with me to the main room of the ship “Okay, what kind of combat body do you think Ordis would like?”
“Maybe something like Zanuka, highly mobile, and very powerful.”I said thinking of how Ordis could help with a body like Zanuka’s.
Simon, instead of making it straight away, began pulling out some blank paper. “I only have enough spare SIVA left for you to make one body, I want to make sure you and Ordis like it before I make it.” he began drawing out blueprints as he mumbled, it was about twelve minutes later when he finished “Okay, with this body, he should be capable of piloting the orbiter and the new body at once, as well as have several weapon systems, along with increased mobility and durability over the Zanuka models, even factoring the inferior materials Zanuka was made with, I mean really, aside from the Warframe parts, thing was basically scrap metal, now, it has all the badassery of Zanuka, plus a grenade launcher, singularity gun, and hmmm… should I give him an arc gun, or a flame thrower…”
“I’d say arc gun if it works anything like the Amprex, less chance of collateral damage.” I said, thinking of the possibilities.
Simon thought a moment “Was thinking of making it more like exploding ball lightning, but yeah, that sounds better.”
“Cool, so how long do you think it will take you to make it?” I asked, thinking that since it only took a minute or so for the casing it would probably only take a few minutes for this.
Simon hummed “Well, once Ordis finishes his diagnostics, I need to get the dimensions of his shell, so I can make the insertion bay for it, and I need to run it by Ordis, as this will be something he will be fighting in… so I’d say, oh... ten minutes tops?”
“Alright, that sounds good, though there was something I wanted to ask you about.” I said, remembering the odd hammer with the voice recording that played when it was held. “You know that red hammer? What was it, and how did I get it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Simon smiled “It was my token, it basically is how you get your existence known by other Displaced, or people who have been sent through the void into another world.” He made another red hammer and smiled “They basically let you meet others in a similar situation, some good, some not so good, but they all are changed in some way.”
“I’m assuming you were human then, before all of this,” I gestured at his body, “happened to you?”
Simon nodded, chuckling “I was a doctor, had some serious love for Destiny, and Shadow of War, so I made a cosplay for it, and had a guy I met make the more… intricate parts. Turns out he was a primordial chaos god from another world. Who knew.”
“Ah, for me, I was heading to Tennocon and while walking there I saw a window display of an amp that looked exactly like the one that I had in-game, but when I bought it, I got sent to Equestria. Technically speaking, I’m a thousand and twenty something years old, if you include the time that I was a statue.” I said, reminiscing on the past.
Simon chuckled “And I’m technically incapable of staying dead. So if you count from my latest death… I’m only a few months old.” He chuckled “Goo-goo, I guess.”
“Eh, I’d just count the collective time, though that reminds me, I have no clue if I can actually die or not, because in-game, no matter what, you just ended up back on the Liset, so I don’t want to test that.” I thought aloud, curious about my so-called immortal friend.
He then wondered aloud to himself “I wonder… can I have kids? Because… I always wanted to be a dad, when I was human… but I dunno if Chryssi would even want to date, let alone… do that.” He sighed “Sorry, just thinking aloud. But yeah, I would not try it, dying is painful, trust me.” He then looked behind me. “Hey! You alright, Ordis?”
“Of course, the diagnostics are nearly complete, so I should be ready to go in another minute or so. Though, if I may ask, shouldn’t you already know the dimensions of my shell since you are the one who made it?” Ordis’s voice buzzed out of the loudspeakers.
Simon shook his head “No, The SIVA shell is bigger than the last one, I put in some extra to make sure your shell was well fortified. I need to make sure I get the size Perfect, else it will either risk falling out, or not fitting in right.”
“Operator, my diagnostics are complete, so we can now take the measurements for my new body.” Ordis popped the compartment that he was in open, allowing easy access to his shell. “We might as well do this now, Simon,”
Simon nodded and a red light came out of his eyes again, scanning the shell until he eventually handed Ordis to me and began making the body for Ordis “Now, Ordis, I am making it so that you can control both this body and the ship at once, the broadcasting device for your inputs may feel a little… disorienting at first. Just give yourself time to adjust, okay? No need to rush. This is going to be your first body in a long time, and you will get excited most likely, but again, you need to get used to the broadcast equipment, lest you ram this fine ship right through the city walls.”
“I’ll most likely choose to operate either one or the other, but I can definitely see the merits of being able to operate both. While I am curious to know how you knew that the Cephalons used to be living beings, I don’t remember much from that time, so this will largely be a new experience for me.” Ordis said, a slight note of impatience entering his voice.
Simon nodded as he finished the last fine details on Ordis’s body, namely some odd decals that looked like runes “These runes are a gift from the Kin, supposed to be good luck, who knows, might help.” he then held his hands out to me “Time to see if any calibrations are needed, I set it to instantly link up to whatever the first Cephalon was to link to it, but… we’ll see.”
I placed the shell containing Ordis into his hands. “You may have the honors, as you are the creator of this pseudo Zanuka,”
Simon nodded as he gently placed Ordis into the chassis, pushing him in with a satisfactory click before the protective shell enclosed him, it now looking like a far deadlier Zanuka, albeit somewhat sleeker in shape. He then scanned it for a moment and hummed “The entire body accepts Ordis as it’s primary governing AI. Now, Ordis, you should try to power on your body, should be easier than turning on the lights.”
Ordis was silent for a second, then a light whirring noise was heard, with two lights on the head of the body turning on. “It seems to work perfectly, though I will wait until later to test out the other functions, along with piloting both this and the ship at once. I believe earlier you were talking about showing us around the place, and meeting some of the ruling members of the area?”
Simon nodded and walked to the exit, waving excitedly for us to follow. “I tell ya, you’re going to love Az-Maloch, he’s the child of the two leaders of the Olog-hai.” He smiled “Little guy is so cute, he could give Ordis diabetes, I don’t even care if that’s impossible, it’s accurate.”
Ordis and I followed him out of the exit and back into the square. “As much as I doubt what you said is the case, I’ll have to take your word for it, Simon,” Ordis enunciated, a slight touch of doubt entering his voice.
“Well, let’s get going, daylight’s a’ burnin’, ya know?” I said, somewhat sarcastically, as it was only around three in the afternoon.
There were then two massive Ologs that came up to us, one in hefty SIVA armor, the other in a simple dress and looking surprisingly feminine. She smiled warmly to Simon as a still massive baby crawled behind her, it seeing me and cooing with delight, its body like a giant fluff ball, he crawled quickly over to me halfway, before standing up in a wobbly fashion and toddling over to me, it about up to my hip in height, but quite wide. It looked to Ordis curiously before saying, ”Oof, oof! Doggy!” He pointed to Ordis and looked to the feminine and fluffy Olog “It a Doggy momma!”
“Young one, I happen to be a highly advanced Cephalon A.I. tasked with protecting and supporting the Operator. I am NOT a ‘doggy’ as you so kindly put it,” Ordis said indignantly, with his voice taking on a kind of theatrical bravado.
The young Olog looked confused, “Cef...Cepha...Cephy-lon? You cephy-lon? Want pway? Know lots a games!” At this the young ologs face brightened as he bounced in place “Wanna be cephy-lon fwiend!”
Ordis sighed in defeat, which is odd since he doesn’t breathe, and he said, “Very well, I guess I will be your friend.”
The mother smiled as she picked up her son “Thank you, he has been rather excited to meet you, since we saw the ship, and Simon went in. He was certain that ‘new friends’ were in there, and wanted to go and say hi.”
I shrugged, “Kids will be kids I suppose,” I smirked at Simon, “So, how about we go meet this ‘Chryssi’ of yours, eh?”
Simon blushed, “U-ummm… ok…”
Maloch giggled, “Sy-mo like kwissi!”
Simon blushed even harder before he got walking, taking me by the hand as Ordis followed, and brought us to what looked like a massive Hive made of SIVA. “C-come on, you can meet Chryssi in her hive, she should be talking about farming plans with Orvok about now.”
We followed him into the hive, eventually reaching a large room with a sleek, pitch black woman with green undertones and teal hair speaking to an Uruk dressed in what looked like a cuirass made of SIVA, with various bone charms hanging off of him from SIVA cord and an odd looking staff tipped with green flame, and riddled with SIVA nodes. He had several pouches full of seeds on a table next to him, and was grinning joyfully as he turned to see Simon. “Brother! It is a great joy to see you! Chrysalis and I have finished the plans for our farms, no more potatoes, cabbage and roots for supper! We’ll be feasting like our people deserve!”
The sleek black woman smiled happily, “I am quite happy we managed to help! It has been hard to see your people have to eat so little, when you have supplied us with so much love, it… it felt unfair.”
Simon blushed and nodded, “Ummm… Chryssi, Th-these are Mirage and O-ordis, new visitors to this world…”
She looked to us and grinned, “I suppose you already made them feel welcome, and it’s my turn to show my hospitality? Come, friends, I shall give you gifts as well!”
“I’ll have to decline, as Simon has already given us plenty. Before his generosity, Ordis had a fractured personality and was confined to a ship, and now his personality issue is fixed and he can move around freely. I couldn’t accept further gifts from our hosts, though I must say, Simon speaks very highly of you, Lady Chrysalis,” I smirked slightly in Simon’s direction, trying to gauge his reaction to what I said.
Simon was so red, he made beets look blue. He couldn’t look at Chrysalis, who was also blushing, but green, he looked to her eventually and smiled shyly, “U-um… w-would you… like to have dinner, lady Chrysalis?”
Chrysalis nodded, before he finished, and she huffed, “Like you have any need to be so formal! You avenged my brother and saved my people! You are a hero, you can refer to me by name!” She then blushed even harder. “Th-that is… if you would care to.”
I then felt a hand on my shoulder as an Uruk in full body armor that looked highly advanced, and echoed with magic spun me around and shook my hand. He smiled, “Name’s Grimgor, lass! It’s a pleasure tae meet ye! Now, would ye mind giving them some privacy, and followin’ me? Ye kinda just took a bally sledge ‘ammer tae the awkward silence they had since they developed feelin’s fer each other.” He chuckled for a moment, “Cheers fer that, by the way.”
“Eh, I was going to clear out and maybe wander the city a bit before you got my attention, kinda not my place to intrude, though I felt I’d give them a ‘gentle’ helping hand through the awkward stage, since they didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere fast.” I said as I followed him out the door. I used transference to equip my Ivara again, and thought of something to do. “You got any training grounds that I could spar with someone at? Maybe one of them Olog-hai?”
Grimgor checked the time at the towns clocktower and grinned, “Yer in luck, kiddo. Az-Barko goes tae the arena every day round this time, he’s our best fighter. Really earns ‘is place as the leader of the Olog people.”
“Mind guiding me over there then, my friend? I have a feeling that this will be entertaining.” I said, thinking of potential strategies against an Olog. “Oh, will you have healers on standby? I’m assuming you will, or you use blunt weapons, but either way there’ll probably be a need for healers.”
Grimgor chuckled “Nary a need, the training grounds enchanted, no damage there is permanent, came up with tha’ spell when Simon told me a story bout a place called Valhalla. Most that’ll happen is ye get knocked out, and then a bucket of ice water fixes it.”
“Are ranged weapons good, or is it melee only?” I asked, because if ranged weapons are out I’m out two-thirds of my firepower.
Grimgor nodded, as he walked through the town square with me, heading east, “As long as it has ammunition, we nae supply ye any, if ye lose the arrows er the bullets, it’s yer loss.”
“Ah, good, I have a bow with a 450 pound draw that I’ve been needing to test for a while.” I chuckled. This was going to be interesting.
Grimgor smiled as we entered what looked like an arena that looked exactly like the one players found Bruz in. as we entered, we saw the same male Olog I saw with the mother and baby, now wearing full body armor, and armed with a SIVA mace that would make Sauron weep. Specifically because it was on fire, and seemed to be causing whatever he hit with it to blow up. He was fighting what looked like an Olog that had runes tattooed all over his body. The Ologs were pretty evenly matched, until Az-Barko pulled out what looked like the flamethrower some of them had, but a little… off. He shot not a gout of flame, but a massive ball of fire at his foe, before rushing him, as the fireball exploded, Az-Barko reached his now off balance enemy before ramming him into the fence and clouting him with his mace, the explosion, which should of beheaded or killed him, simply knocking him out, just like Grimgor said. Az-Barko raised his hands in triumph and the crowd cheered, “Az-Barko champion! Haha! Mead on Az-Barko, it special brew! Learned from home village!”
“AZ-BARKO! YOU ARE THE CHAMPION, BUT WILL YOU DEFEND YOUR TITLE AGAINST ME?? I CHALLENGE YOU TO A SPARRING MATCH, FIRST TO BE KNOCKED OUT LOSES! DO YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS?” I shouted as I stepped into the arena.
Az-Barko nodded, a grin on his face “Accept challenge! Any weapon, or no gun?”
“Any weapon, of course! Any less would be a dishonor to warriors, unless it was two who fought using the same style!” I responded theatrically, intent on putting on a show.
Az-Barko nodded again, before drawing his mace and taking out a pouch at his side, “Give all this fight, you no new recruit, can tell!” He then took out a large crystal from the pouch and inserted it into the mace head, the mace now glowing slightly. “Az-Barko leader for reason, strong, yes, but smart too! Good with mage craft, SIVA from master make even better!” He then pointed his mace at me in an equally theatrical manner. “Ready? FIGHT!” He then twirled in place before swinging in my direction, releasing a massive shockwave of magical energy straight for me!
I blocked the majority of the attack with my Karyst, taking two hundred damage to my shields, and counter-attacked by shooting him in the leg with my Daikyu. It was largely stopped by the SIVA armor he was wearing, but it definitely hurt, along with proccing Corrosive, which turned the outer quarter of his armor to dust.
Az-Barko chuckled, “Good, armor weigh down anyway!” He then charged me, uppercutting me into the air before slamming me down into the dirt with his mace, faster than I thought possible for an Olog, it was then that I remembered what I saw his mace do to his previous foe, and cursed as I was blasted by a SIVA burst. I quickly got to my feet and started laying out Dashwires, ziplines fired from Ivara’s Artemis Bow, and activated Prowl and hopped onto one of them. I fired on his back with my Spira Prime, drawing blood in a couple of places where the Spira dug through his armor.
Az-Barko grinned and began to rear back with his mace, before slamming it on the ground, creating a massive blast around him that caught me up in it and sent me fling, only for him to pull out his explosive gun like weapon and blast a fireball at where I landed. I quickly dodged out of the way, and seeing no alternative, conjured the Artemis Bow. I deactivated Prowl and fired a rapid volley of arrows at him, each shot firing seven arrows in a straight vertical line, all of them hitting him, with over half of them sinking deep into his flesh. More of his armor turned to dust, along with blood spurting profusely from the areas around the arrows.
Az-barko laughed happily “Good fighting! Not over yet! Want more!” He then ran at me again, this time stopping right at me and knocking me skyward with a golf swing from his mace, again the mace causing an explosion, but with me in mid air, I had nowhere to dodge as it went off, me being sent further skyward by the blast, only for his fireball launcher to hit me in center mass as the first blast cleared. I blocked a portion of blast from the launcher with my Karyst and quickly fired a sleep arrow right at Az-Barko’s head, hitting him directly. He began to swoon, and then collapsed onto his knees, out cold.
Grimgor whistled, “Yer the first tae win a match with ‘im, lass. He’ll be quite chuffed, means he still has somethin’ tae strive fer.”
He then beckoned a small Uruk boy over, who nodded and walked over to Azzy as his wounds and armor were restored nigh instantly, and promptly flung ice water into his face. To which he sputtered loudly before getting up, he looked to me and laughed heartily “Metal person strong! Happy to call better fighter! Will try to get stronger, so can fight again!”
“Perhaps, my Olog friend, though I will most likely try out different frames and tactics against you. This frame, while powerful, is rather weak in close combat and is more suited to infiltration and assassination types, not one-on-one close combat.” I said, stepping out of the warframe and bowing my head to him.
Azzy smiled, “No need bow, equals!” he then patted my back, careful not to hurt me, as his son and wife came over to me.
The wife smiled kindly, “Thank you, you gave my husband a goal, he had been growing bored, with the peace. He has needed something to get his blood flowing.”
“Of course, I also needed to test a couple of things with this particular frame, so it was no problem at all. I believe we could head back to where Simon is now, he should have had plenty of time to speak with Chrysalis about their relationship status.” I said, starting to head back out of the arena and into the streets. This day had been interesting, and I was looking forward to staying here a bit longer.
We left the arena to head back towards the castle, where Simon and Chrysalis should still be around. Considering the general mood when we left them to it, it might be getting a little ‘hot and heavy’ in there. I chuckled slightly at the thought, then turned to Az-Barko, asking him, “So, how much SIVA does Simon generate in a day? ‘Cause so far, all the stuff he’s done with it seems like it should’ve taken anywhere from months to years, but I get the impression that he hasn’t been on here for even a year yet.”
Az-Barko smiled, “Depends, if we can find metal, he can change to SIVA. But he naturally makes about enough to outfit ten soldiers a day. So I’d say… Two hundred pounds of SIVA?” He looked to Grimgor, and nudged him, “You better at math, me more military. What you say?”
Grimgor nodded, “He makes two hundred pounds a day naturally, if he eats well and is healthy. Not to mention he can make the SIVA replicate by absorbing inorganic matter, which he has done for most of the buildings here. Luckily, we are surrounded by viable mines and quarries, from which he can make more.”
I nodded at this, contemplating. “All right then, so he just absorbs the SIVA and then uses it to make the assorted buildings and such? That’s pretty interesting, though I have to say, wouldn’t it be more efficient to build the framework of a building, then have him fill it out with SIVA?” I questioned, trying to think of an explanation for the buildings to have been completed so rapidly.
Grimgor shook his head, “Nay, once he gets all the SIVA together, we just draw up the plans, and he builds it. Takes all the raw materials and absorbs them, then drops a SIVA core to regulate the building.”
“I guess that would work pretty well. Oh, the castle’s just ahead, hmm, I wonder what Chrysalis and Simon are getting up to?” I said, noticing that we were only a couple of streets down from the castle, and that there were less Ologs out and about now that it was approaching evening.
Az-Barko smiled and let loose a slight chuckle, “Simon will be happy… Chryssi like Simon lots, heard her talk about him at tavern, when Simon not with us.”
Grimgor snickered “Yeah, although I’ll miss teasing her about her crush on the bossman, I’m right happy fer the two of ‘em.”
As we were making our way to the castle, we saw a large object streak across the sky. It landed somewhere to the north of the city, with a resounding crash that shook the very ground beneath our feet. Az-Barko frowned as he seemingly listened to what I assumed to be orders from Simon. “We go see what happened. Simon going with Orvok and Chryssi. Meet up at crash site.” He then looked down at me and smiled, “Ready meet E.T?”
“See ya there.” I said, placing down an Archwing Launcher. Within seconds the aerospace apparatus landed, and I took off to the north on my Itzal. It was a sleek purple set of wings, and I was covering the ground at a rate of about ninety miles an hour. It was nowhere near as fast as it could go out of atmosphere, but really, that’s because friction is a bitch. I came up on the smoking crash site rapidly and deactivated the Archwing, sending it back to the landing craft. It appeared to have been a satellite, about the size of a four door car. It was around six miles away from the city, and the valley it had fallen in was now gray and dusty. The satellite itself was in a crater about thirty feet deep, which was still hot, but not hot enough to damage Ivara’s shields.
I drew my bow and kept an arrow at the ready as I made my way around it cautiously, keeping an eye out for loose rocks so I wouldn’t lose my footing. The satellite was covered in hexagonal plates, and there was a glass bulb just visible beyond them. It was remarkably undamaged from a drop from orbit, though that may have just been the materials it was made from. I headed back up to the edge of the crater and pulled out a scanner, scanning the satellite, before sitting down to wait for Simon and co.’s arrival.
Simon and co. reached me in a surprisingly short amount of time, and I was about to ask how they got here so fast, until I heard what sounded like a loud snuffling sound. I backflipped onto my feet to show off a little and turned around, finding a massive Graug covered in red crystal and what looked like crimson metal plates connected together with red cables. Simon smiled in response to my confusion, which was odd since my face couldn’t express emotion, given I was in a warframe. “Oh, meet Snuffles, the Stygian Graug, he is our… I guess you could say guard dog. We feed him cows. He also is quite partial to snuggling, if you want to pet him.” He then looked around and clicked his tongue in annoyance, “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”
“Why is it going to be fun, if I may ask?” I asked curiously. Really, the lack of expressions on a warframe makes the subtleties of communication just fall flat.
Simon gestured to the satellite in the crater, “Because that is a WARSAT from the Destiny universe. If the WARSAT’s are here, then so can so many, many other bad things.” he then looked at the WARSAT for a moment, his eyes glowing as he seemed to start looking for something. He then smiled, “Although, this WARSAT has a few goodies for us… Namely a copy of the Valkyrie protocol, and what looks like...no...no that’s not…” he leapt down onto the WARSAT, turning into a nanomachine mist and seeping between the cracks and through the plating.
He kicked the uppermost plate of the satellite out a few seconds later, jumping out with what looked like a humanoid robot wearing space age clothing in his arms and what seemed to be a core of some sort in his free hand. “Ladies and gentlemen… we have a Beta version of RASPUTIN.”
Grimgor frowned, “Tha’ name… it sounds bloody familiar…”
“Well, I have no idea who this RASPUTIN is, but given that this satellite is from Destiny, I’m assuming from there.” I said, nodding in thought. I Transferred out of the warframe since it didn’t seem like there was any immediate, pressing danger.
Orvok was silent as he stared at the WARSAT, but upon hearing the name RASPUTIN, he snapped out of his revery. “Th-that is the name of Zmatok before he fully ascended! He spoke of a land beyond our stars, but… we always thought he meant the world of the gods… If the god of Chaos was actually a being from another world… Then… we were all saved by a dimension hopper. That is a helluva lot to take in…”
Az-Barko nodded, “Not really care who save people, just happy people save-” The world around us suddenly halted, Az-Barko stopping mid-sentence. The entire world turned a shade of gray, almost as if light had stopped moving. I turned towards Simon, who was also able to move, and was looking around curiously.
“So… What’s this?” I asked him, gesturing at the now gray world.
“Why, I just figured we could have a little chat, just the three of us.” A masculine voice said from behind me, then I felt a tap on my left shoulder. “Yeah, you Tenno have weird powers… Gotta be strange, having all that void in you… anyway, I needed to talk to Simon, and I figured that I’d talk to you as well, as you are his guest.” I turned around to see a younger white gentleman in a red business suit and black shoes, with a fedora neatly placed on his head. He had his sleeves rolled up, and a chaos star tattooed on the back and front of each hand. A cane was in his hand, with runic markings running down it, etched into the wood, shining as if it was waxed recently.
Simon was staring at him incredulously. “Hank?! What the hell man, I thought-”
The man chuckled, “My name isn’t Hank, kiddo, not really. My name is Zmatok, and I am the reason your pal Secundus was able to come here and help you, as well as my son.” he smiled and leaned back in mid-air. “It’s a good thing I pulled a few strings, too. You were scheduled to die by your local death entity for the next day. Anyway, I’m here to give you both a few pointers, and maybe even a boon.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, looking him up and down suspiciously. Given that Simon already knew him, and it seemed as if he hadn’t held up his end of some type of deal, I was cautious about what he was saying. Granted, the time stopping was a factor in that as well, but anyhow.
Simon eyed Zmatok critically. “Start talking, why did you displace me and my sister?”
Zmatoks smile grew a little strained. “I wasn’t planning on your sister coming that day… I am truly sorry to put her in the danger you will be facing, but… I knew you were what the kin needed, bud. I needed someone who cared about others more than himself to lead them, to get my blessing. So… I kinda planted a few mental seeds of what you’d want to cosplay as, maybe talked with a few void dwellers and had them make some gear for you...then definitely gave you the set once the ball got rolling.” he sighed “Trust me kid, this whole mess is worse than you could even imagine. The Hive are trying to get here, as are the Vex. I can’t get a lock on them, even, and I’m supposed to know all possibilities. It’s frightening to think that my people, my children and grandchildren… that they are in such danger.” He looked to Simon, “If you had to anger and hurt people to save Roxies life, or maybe the life of her child, what would you do?”
“So… Why am I here exactly? So far this seems like Simon’s stuff, not mine.” I asked, looking at Zmatok, who was looking at Simon.
He smiled at me “I may have seen a few… threads of yours. And I may or may not have seen that you could use a hand in the future. So, I made a… what was it called… Umbra warframe?… pulled him out of a dead ‘verse, fully enhanced too… changed how his Formas work, so you can just edit your brains out.”
“Excalibur Umbra? Huh, nice.” I said nodding. The warframe he summoned looked exactly how I thought I would have changed the colors, namely purple and gray, with gold accents. I transferred into it, flexing my fingers. I drew the katana at my hip, the Skiajati I believed it was called, and examined the golden blade. Sheathing it, I turned to Zmatok, “Thanks, this’ll definitely be a large help.” I turned back towards where my Ivara was, and noted that it was gone. ‘Oh well.’ I thought to myself. ‘Can’t have multiple warframes out at once.’
Simon then looked to Zmatok, “What boon do you have for me? I doubt I need any new weapons.”
Zmatok grinned and walked over to Simon, tapping right at his center mass as the core from earlier was absorbed by the SIVA. “Well, bucko, I am giving you two, to try and make us even. I just upgraded your SIVA with the Valkyrie protocol, so those fancy Javelins from back home are yours to summon and use at will. As for gift number two...” He smiled “How about I make it so you have the same powers as my grandbaby Chryssi? You’ll be able to be anything, anyone, that you want.”
Simon frowned, then nodded. “Okay, deal.” Zmatok nodded and shook his hand before disappearing in a flash, the world slowly turning colorful again as time resumed.
“-d,” Az-Barko finished his statement, then blinked in surprise as he saw me in Excalibur Umbra, and Simon looking largely unchanged, other than standing in a different spot. Az-Barko looked around, before sighing in frustration. “Time magic?”
“Eh… More like a global time stop by a deity.” I said, looking at the now empty space where Zmatok had stood before he left.
Simon nodded, “Seems Zmatok knows what’s going on, and gave us a bit of a boost.” He then smiled at me warmly. “Well, I think it’s time we all head home, huh? Shouldn’t keep your worlds people in the lurch, eh?”
Chrysalis pouted, “Aww…. your heading home already? I was hoping for some girl talk…”
“Uhh… Yeah, totally a girl, not at all androgynous. BYE!!” I shouted before taking off with my Itzal once more. After a few minutes of flying south, and noting that the entire desert that the city was built on was barren, landed next to my landing craft. I entered it, telling Ordis to take off, and we slipped into the Void a few minutes later.
We came out of the Void over Canterlot just in time to find a pink shield shatter under the force of what seemed to be several thousand black insectoid ponies, who started to dive bomb the ground, green cones forming in front of them. The ponies on the street were panicking, and there were some of what I now recognized as Changelings change form from ponies into their natural forms. “Ordis… Prep my Atomos, Amprex, and Jat Kittag.” I grabbed my weapons from the arsenal and jumped out of the still moving ship, landing in the middle of a group of them.
