> The Will of the Elements > by Aguion12 - GotA > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue I - Magical Mishap > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Thank you for coming, Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Shining.” Twilight Sparkle smiled as she watched her fellow alicorns and brother step into her spell lab while she guided Spike through the last few details needed for her experiment. “Hello Twilight, I hope you have been well?” Princess Celestia smiled at her former student alongside her sister, niece and said niece’s husband. “Yes, everything’s been surprisingly calm these past few weeks.” The purple alicorn nodded, handing her tome to her assistant, who accepted it without even looking at the mare, before turning to the other guests. She smiled and ran towards them, stopping first in front of her old babysitter, ready to do their little song and dance. While that happened, Luna quietly left the group and walked to see what the younger mare was working on, curiosity getting to her. Ignoring the chatter from a few feet away she knelt down, happy that she had opted out of wearing formal clothes like the other four and instead wore her more casual blue t-shirt and jeans combo alongside her crown, and traced a hand near the large rune circle drawn on the floor as she examined the various glyphs written within it with interest, but no matter how much she studied them she couldn’t make sense of the spell. “You have no idea how much I hate rune casting.” She grumbled to Spike as he finished the last glyph. The eighteen years old teenager dragon, who was wearing clothes as casual as hers with a green tank top and black jeans, grinned. “Hey, another thing I’m better at than you! Aside from cooking. And playing video-games. And drawing. And any form of social interaction.” He teased with a chuckle even as Luna slugged him on the shoulder. “Shut up.” She growled, though both knew she wasn’t really angry. The drake and mare had become close friends over the five years they’ve known each other, way back when Luna had been released from Nightmare’s grip by the Elements of Harmony and their wielders. Spike had helped Luna learn about the recent world and how to interact with people informally, while the princess paid back by teaching him how to play the various instruments she had, as well as how to draw and enough how to fight. To her surprise, Spike was already very good at drawing – hence why he was the one who drew the rune circle – and was slightly competent when it came to hand-to-hand combat. The lessons from both sides had the side-effect of one getting to know the other on a personal level – really personal if Rainbow Dash is to be believed, while Spike just snorts in amusement when she refers to this – and become very close, to the point where they felt more tranquil sharing their thoughts and secrets with each other than with their own family, not that both families minded much. Heck, they actually encouraged it. Aside from that, it also happened that their personalities influenced the other's, with Luna becoming more relaxed and tomboyish when inside a circle of trusted friends and Spike becoming more confident in himself and his abilities. “So, what’s this?" She nodded towards the magical matrix on the floor while standing up, Spike following her gesture. “It’s a space-time gateway!" Twilight squealed as she skipped to the side of the runes. “And you distracted her from properly greeting you. Again.” Spike smirked. Luna shrugged, she had said hi, that was enough for her. “A space-time gateway?” Cadance asked skeptically, giving the experiment wide berth – she knew how often Twilight’s experiments exploded or similar, and to her it was many times too much – as she examined it like Luna had done a minute before. “Yes!” The younger mare nodded excitedly. “I’ve been studying the books from Starswirl’s personal library–” Luna shot a disbelieving stare at Celestia, mouthing ‘You let her?’ while the older mare nodded quietly, “–and I found an old tome describing how he made the runes he used to create the mirror that opens the portal to the human world!” She squealed. “So, naturally I was very interested in learning the process, and after many months of rigorous studying, I’ve come up with this!” She waved her arms at the circle in the center of the room. “And since it’s called a gateway, it’s safe to assume that’s going to open a portal to another world?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “It depends on how much magic we put into it and the coordinates the caster has in mind when activating it.” Twilight corrected with a grin. “But yes, it can open a portal to anywhere both in this world and in others!” “Interesting…” Celestia mumbled. “Are you sure it’s safe?” Shining Armor asked worriedly, also having knowledge of his sister’s tendency to explode her experiments once or twice before getting it right. “Should be, I haven’t been able to activate it, but I think I know why.” She shrugged. “I need more energy to fuel the spell.” “You couldn’t activate it with alicorn levels of energy.” The stallion frowned. “Sorry Twi, but no matter how useful this spell is it loses all practicality when you need at least two of the strongest beings on the planet.” “I put recording runes around the main rune circle to observe how it works, and so I’ll know what parts I need to alter to make it more viable.” His sister countered, pointing at four small glyphs forming a square around the main one. “Trust me, Shining, I’ve thought this through, nothing will go wrong.” Spike and Luna traded wary looks. “So the reason why you called us is that you need help with testing your rune.” Celestia summarized. “Yes, that’s right.” Her smile diminished slightly. “I would be grateful if you helped me with this.” The five ponies looked at each other for a few seconds before slowly nodding. “If you’re sure it will work, then we will gladly help you.” Celestia smiled. Minutes later, the four alicorns stood around the rune circle from a safe distance, with Celestia across from Twilight and Luna from Cadance, with Shining Armor standing besides his wife protectively and Spike besides Luna. “So, how does this work?” Luna asked, looking down at the matrix. “It’s actually very straight forward.” Twilight pointed to some specific parts of the circle, starting with the circle of glyphs that made the outer part of the drawing, “The rune circle are the instructions for the spell,” then the star-shaped mark that looked like an X from their point of view, “-that is what spreads the magic through the whole circle," and finally to the circles directly in front of each princess, “-and finally those are the batteries that stores the magic for the spell to work.” “That’s where you’ll be aiming you magic at.” Spike noted as he looked at the batteries. The three older princesses nodded in unison and looked at Twilight for her signal. Twilight took a deep breath to steel her nerves and lit up her horn with magic, a gesture followed by the other three while Shining inched closer to Cadance. “Go.” She said and four beams of energy connected with the rune. Spike squinted his eyes as the writing started to glow bright, and at the same time he could feel the magic in it powering up the spell. The dragon gulped and wondered if the draconian magic classes he had with Ember were enough for him to put up a strong enough shield to protect himself and Luna, knowing that the blue alicorn wasn’t the quickest or strongest one when it came to defensive spells, and came to the conclusion that his own defensive spells would probably be too weak to hold an explosion, so he just prayed it wouldn’t and powered up his magic sense just in case. Multicolored lightning arced along the runes and the star as it cast the space-time bending spell, a small sphere glowing with a kaleidoscope of colors formed at the center of the circle and started to expand. Twilight grinned as she saw her spell bearing fruit and started to unconsciously put in more energy in her excitement. Spike felt the shift on the energy flow and turned to warn Twilight until the whole energy of the spell seemed to turn inside out, making him gasp in surprise and no small amount of fright. The lightning started to lash out wildly at the surroundings, forcing the princesses to cut off the energy and step back. The orb started to waver violently as the energy keeping it open descended into chaos and started to blast it outwards with small pulses of magic, until without warning, it exploded into a pulse much more powerful than the others before it, making all present cast a shield around themselves. Celestia, Shining and Twilight’s shields held up strong, but Luna and Spike’s were destroyed as soon as they were hit, throwing them clean off their feet. Eyes wide as they hit the far wall, they noticed that the orb was starting to waver again and was going to explode once more, and since this time they knew that their shields weren’t enough to stop it and attack the orb was a braindead idea, they did what they could and cast a teleportation spell each towards the inside of the shield of their respective siblings. Big mistake. As soon as the teleportation started to bend space to move the duo, the orb’s wavering turned even more erratic and it blew up instantly and even more violently that before, engulfing the whole room before the spell was fully cast. An earthquake rocked the room alongside the wild magic around them, and even the three strong shields started to falter, multiple cracks appearing along them while their casters did their best to hold them up. After five seconds that felt like five hours, the magic disappeared completely, and all casters let their shields fall just as their exhausted bodies hit the ground, Cadance being the only one standing up as she only put her magic to power up her husband’s spell when it began to break, and as such wasn’t completely drained. Spike and Luna were nowhere to be seen. Two months later… Celestia walked inside the castle of friendship silently, not even trying but still managing to feel the gloomy mood that seemed to engulf the whole structure and sighed. After the incident with the gateway and Spike and Luna’s disappearance, Twilight had become a nervous wreck, blaming herself and her “stupid rune” for their impromptu vanishing act. She couldn’t hold the dry chuckle that escaped her lips as she thought of checking the moon again and lightly cursed the fact that her sister's dark humor had rubbed off on her. Entering her former pupil’s personal library, she quickly spotted the purple mare and her own student Starlight Glimmer sitting at the central table, the pink mare looking at the other in worry, as Twilight had her head pressed against the wooden furniture while many books where scattered about in no order. Starlight turned her head to see the princess walk in and smiled slightly. “Princess.” Twilight lifted her head an inch to look at the white mare before setting it down again. “Starlight. Twilight.” Celestia smiled, quietly walking towards one of the vacant chairs besides the two mares. They sat in silence for a minute before Celestia sighed. “Twilight, look-” “How can you be so calm?” Twilight cut her off. “It’s been months, Celestia, and yet…” “Because I believe in them.” Celestia said calmly. “Worst things happened to Luna, a simple teleportation to an unknown location won’t bring her down, and I know she’ll be able to protect Spike, if he needs protection.” “There’s the chance of them being in another dimension altogether, princess…” Starlight murmured. “I know. But I know my sister better than you do, and I’m beginning to think I know Spike better as well.” Celestia frowned, making Twilight wince and lift herself from the table. “It’s still my fault… I shouldn’t have tried to make that rune in the first place.” Twilight whispereddepressingly. “Maybe.” Celestia conceded bluntly. This time she cursed Spike. They sat in silence again for a few more seconds before Twilight looked at the white mare with desperate hope. “Do you really think that they’ll still return?” Celestia was about to answer, but a twitch of her ear and two familiar magical signatures popping out of nowhere, along with her connection to the moon being severed to connect to someone else made her smile broaden as she shot a discreet glance to the forest surrounding the town. “… Yes. Yes, I do.” Starlight smiled and stood up. “Excuse me while I make some tea for us.” Within the dark forest of Everfree, a portal appeared with a crack of lightning that frightened the critters brave enough to live there, and two figures walked out of it in a relaxed pace. When the portal closed, the few animals that remained managed to spot the details of the beings. One was an adult dark blue equine with an azure mane and tail, and bat-like wings of a purple so dark it was almost black along with her cyan slitted eyes. She wore a royal blue wide neck with an eight-pointed star print over her DD-dup breasts – and she wasn’t even the biggest of their group of friends – that fell on her left arm, revealing a black top, along with black denim pants, a pair of azure armguards and hoof-shaped greaves. Two disks were hanging from either of her hips, but aside from the star mark on them it was hard to know what they were, unlike the pendant around her neck shaped like her cutie mark. “Oh hey, we’re not dead. That's nice.” Luna noted offhandedly as if talking about the weather, scanning her surroundings. Her companion was surprising however, an adult purple scaled dragon with emerald green spines sprouting from his head and long tail, the same color as his own slitted eyes. He wore a button-up shirt with ripped sleeves of the same shade of green and a tribal-styled print of a black dragon along with his black denim pants and black and silver armguard. On either hip he had a custom pistol and sticking to his back was an oversized sword, definitely the same height he was, that gleamed on the few sunrays that managed to pass through the dense foliage. “So it seems.” Spike chuckled. “Damn, it’s good to be back.” “I’ll say, you’re not the one who lost your immortality.” Luna groaned happily as she felt herself connect once again with her beloved moon. “It’s been so long…” “Yeah…” Spike sighed with a smile, starting to walk towards where he could feel multiple active magical signatures and assuming those were the unicorns in Ponyville. Luna frowned slightly and looked down to her left arm, fourteen marks appearing floating on the air around her wrist, all but one with faded colors glowing from her skin and appearing over her armguard. “I can’t feel them…” She muttered, the marks disappearing from her arm as she lifter her left hand to touch a fifteenth mark on her neck, a yin-yang symbol with black lightning arcing from it, but with its colors also faded, appearing in full display. Spike nodded as he lifted a hand to his own mark, a pink heart with three silver-fading-to-pink fox tails sprouting from the bottom and two pinkish chains around it, but it also had faded colors. “Volt and Quill said it was going to happen since the marks only allow us to feel them if they’re in the same plane as us. Remember the whole thing with Alpha?” “Oh yeah, forgot about that.” Luna admitted. A growl came from path ahead of them, a manticore slowly revealing itself from the bushes and stalking towards the duo, who didn’t even bother to look threatened as they continued to walk forwards. “Huh, déjà vu.” Spike mused with a grin. Luna burst out laughing at the coincidence. “Pffft- hahahah! It looks a lot like that day, doesn’t it?” She cut her laugh short with a shuddering sigh and lifted a closed hand. “Even.” “Odd.” Spike put his hand forwards with two fingers out against Luna’s three. “Suck it, five.” He chuckled at Luna’s pout as he reached for his sword with his right arm, effortlessly lifting it with just her arm the moment the manticore pounced at them. In a fraction of a second, Spike’s blade burst in green flames and he slashed with it before the manticore was even close to them. Finishing the slash, he put the blade back in its place. “Elder Dragon’s Flame: World Cleave.” He said with a grin. The manticore was abruptly cut in half in mid-air, the symmetric halves falling to each side of the pair, wound already cauterized and as such without the spray of blood from the cut. Spike and Luna didn’t even blink as they continued walking towards the city. “I was half expecting you blade to melt, then it would be a complete copy of then.” “Nah, Amaté was the one who did it, remember?” “Mhmm…” The walk was silent from then on, with both trying to organize their thoughts and emotions as they slowly approached the town: how to explain their absence, what happened, why they were older, their soon to arrive friends – especially the sadistic/idiotic/slutty ones – and their spike in power. Later than they wanted, and yet sooner than they hoped, they were walking through the streets of Ponyville, making a beeline to the crystal castle even as all the citizens of the city stared at them. Walking up the stairway to the doors of the magical crystal tree castle, they paused. “Hey, sis’ here too.” Luna grinned. “I feel her.” Spike nodded with his own smile. “So, how do we do this?” “Well, we could do the responsible thing and enter calmly, approach our siblings and hug their lives out.” Luna pointed out. “Or… we could be jackasses and invoke a dead meme just for the laughs, it’s what Fae would tell us to do anyways.” Spike didn’t spare half a second to think and pulled his left feet back, with Luna doing the same with her right one. Both grinned and prepared to flare their presence the moment they kicked the doors open, and practically punted them off their hinges. “SISTEEEER, HOLY FUCK!” They grinned at the sound of a pair of yelps and various objects breaking as they fell to the floor. They were home. > Prologue II - Reunions > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spike and Luna looked around, watching closely the reactions of all of their equestrian friends that were either already in the house or arrived minutes after them when Starlight teleported all over town to spread the news of the duo’s return. It had proven to be slightly amusing, if their barely contained snickers were any proof. Obviously, their biggest shock had been the now mature drake, compared with the little tyke he had been before their disappearance. Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie and Starlight didn’t even try hiding their stares as they ‘scanned’ him, Rainbow and Pinkie with small grins in their muzzles, Celestia just raised an eyebrow and nodded in greeting before turning to her sister, more worried on why she looked like a thestral instead of an alicorn, and Rarity and Fluttershy were passed out on Rarity’s Couch of Sudden Fainting ™. Twilight, however… Luna pointed at the purple alicorn. “Is she okay? She’s been pinching herself ever since she saw us, and that was over ten minutes ago.” She had a point. The smaller mare was just staring at them, mouth agape, while the used one hand to pinch her arm, which was starting to become a darker shade of purple from the amount of punishment it was receiving from the past few minutes. Spike opened his mouth, only to clamp it shut again as a laugh threatened to escape. “I-It’s okay, I have an idea.” He declared, and a pillar or fire erupted from beneath him, startling everyone except for Celestia, Luna and the still vegetative mare as he disappeared from sight for a second before he casually stepped out of the castle’s library, a random book in his hand. “You girls might want to step away from that.” Luna chuckled, already catching on what Spike wanted to do. Celestia immediately followed her to the other side of the room, also knowing what was about to happen while the others did so a moment later. Spike stood in front of Twilight and brought the book upwards, waving it teasingly in front of the mare’s face until her eyes started to follow it. When they did, he slowly lifted his other hand, making sure both the book and his claws were in full view before snapping his fingers. A small flame appeared on Spike’s hand. The reaction was instantaneous. The drake blinked in surprise as he was suddenly staring at the ceiling of the adjacent room, which was coincidently Twilight’s library, before lowering his eyes to look at the hole on the wall of crystals were his legs were dangling from, noting that some of the crystals were blackened and smoking slightly. ‘Huh, thought these crystals walls were a bit more resistant than that.’ He mused silently as he pulled his legs from the wall and stood, casually picking the shards that were stuck on his clothes. He suddenly became aware of Luna’s uproarious laughter from the other side of the hole, so he bent down to pick a hefty shard from the floor, inspecting it closely. “… eh, good enough.” He shrugged and threw the crystal at the mare as he stepped over the new entrance, smiling as the shard connected and brought her laughter to a sudden stop. “Shut up, I didn’t see you have a better idea.” “You suck.” She groaned, bringing hand to where the shard hit her forehead where her horn would be. The drake snorted and turned to the purple mare, who was now clutching the book tightly and growling at him with a demonic expression in her face, determined to keep her baby safe from the clutches of its attacker. “You alright now or do I need to get another?” He threatened good-naturedly, grinning as her eyes widened and she almost let the book fall. “S-Spike? I-Is it really y-you?” She stammered, stepping closer to him slowly, almost afraid that if she were to touch him, he would disappear again. He beat down the mischief he gained from Amaterasu, knowing that it wasn’t the right time for that. “Yeah, it’s me.” He said softly, stepping closer to her and embracing he into a hug, ignoring her gasp as she realized that no, it wasn’t a dream. “O-Oh Spike, I’m s-so, so s-sorry for what I did to you! I-I didn’t know it was going to explode a-and-” She broke down, her babbling turning into nothing more than sobs and strangled cries as she hugged him for dear life, while her let his head atop the now slightly smaller mare with a smile, finally letting his own tears fall. It wasn’t much longer until the other girls turned it into a group hug, while Celestia and Luna watched from a distance in their own embrace. Around half an hour later – and after many, many tears and apologies – they were calm enough to actually talk, and both Spike and Luna already knew what was about to come, sighing in tortured expectation. Now sitting in Twilight’s library, the barrage of questions came. “What happened?” “Where were you?” “Why do you look so older?” “Why are you carrying weapons?” “Were you safe?” “What happened to your clothes?” The group paused and turned to stare disbelievingly at Rarity, who blushed at the sudden attention. “What? You already made the important questions and I was wondering…” Spike shook his head with a grin. “Honestly, I saw it coming.” He clapped his hands, regaining their attention. “I can answer most of these questions, though it would be better if we waited for the others. Then we can just show you.” At their confused looks, Luna sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “We’re kinda famous over there.” Spike snorted, poking her arm teasingly. “Understatement of the year, Goddess of the Lunar Melody.” “I was trying not to shock them too much, God of the Emphatic Flames.” Luna rolled her eyes before making eye contact with him, now serious. ‘Do you really think that telling them that we have enough strength to possibly solo one of the equivalent of that dimension’s GODS would be a good idea?’ Spike paused and grimaced. ‘Fair enough.’ “Alright, yeah. We have some accomplishments under our collective belts and are part of a group of important people. Every few years the people of that dimension make an anime (of all things) about the people that recently joined said group, and we weren’t different.” Pinkie blinked. “They made a cartoon about you?” She asked incredulously. At their knowing smirks, she added. “In two months, I mean.” Spike and Luna looked at her for a moment. “… So that’s how long we’ve been gone from here, huh?” The mare muttered. “Luna?” Celestia asked worriedly. “… We’ve been there for fourteen years, Celestia.” Spike stated, to the shock of the group. “F-Fourteen years?!” Fluttershy whispered. “How’s that even possible?!” Rainbow shouted, taking flight in her surprise. “It’s going to be explained to us in the ‘cartoon’, so it’s better to just wait for our friends to arrive so we can watch.” Spike insisted. “For now, we have something a bit more urgent.” Luna calmly said, reclining on her chair with her eyes closed. The others looked at each other, trying to figure out what she meant. “‘nd that would be?” Aplejack raised an eyebrow. The thestral pointed behind her, to the massive hole in the wall to be exact. “Like fixing that, for example.” “GAH!” Twilight yelped, taking flight and rushing to search the shelves in a panic. “Where is it?! Where is it?! Where is it?!” Spike sighed and lifted a hand, a green aura erupting from it and turning into small crystal chards that circled the limb. “Crystalline Desire: Gem Rejuvenation.” He closed his claws in a fist, the green aura bursting into nothingness. Near the hole, all the shards scattered on the floor began to glow green and float, each dancing through the air before setting on the hole. All present watched in awe as the hole slowly began to close up, each shard floating to its exact spot before Spike smashed into it, and once the hole was fully closed the green energy erupted, revealing a pristine wall of crystals. “Tadaah.” He said boringly. “Did you have to restore it so slowly? I know for a fact that you can make it near instantaneous.” Luna said with a twitch of her eyebrow. “Felt like it.” He smirked. “Showboating little shit.” Luna muttered under her breath. “Like you weren’t a second away from using Restorative Rewind.” He shot back in a low voice. “Wow.” Rarity breathed as Applejack tapped the gemstone wall. “That’s a nice spell.” Applejack suddenly spun on her hoof and delivered a back kick on the wall, but the construct didn’t move an inch. “Tah say th’ least.” The farmer nodded approvingly. “The universe we were sent to have magic of a higher level than here, so we can use the magic from there here, but the magic here is useless there.” Luna explained. “It’s centered on elements, and Crystal is one of Spike’s, just like Moon is one of mine.” ‘Where in Tartarus is Crystal an element?’ passed through the heads of all spellcasters present. Before someone could voice the question in a less rude way, Spike chuckled. “Yeah, we thought it was weird when we found out the elements too.” He and Luna both shot discreet glances towards their pulses and Spike looked back at Twilight. “When will the others arrive anyways?” “I have called Cadance and Ember some time ago, and with how both of them were anxious for your return I’m sure it won’t be long for them to arrive, however Thorax fell sick days ago and probably won’t be able to make it.” Celestia informed him. “I sent a message for Sweetie Belle as well, she and the Crusaders will arrive soon enough.” Rarity added, raising her cellphone for emphasis. “Good.” Spike nodded. “I wanted to see Thorax, but honestly I think is for the best.” “Amaté has one hell of an entomophobia, she’d set him on fire on reflex.” Luna informed them. “Curiously enough she’s completely fine with spiders, scorpions and other arachnids.” “She barely bats an eye when a tarantula crawls up her leg, but if a butterfly lands on her muzzle she flips a bitch.” Spike snickered before turning a serious gaze towards Pinkie and Rainbow. “Please don’t drop anything on her, she has enough power to level Ponyville as a whole.” “She’s that-” “If the two of us fought, I’d advise you to bet on Amaterasu.” Luna immediately interrupted Rainbow. “I’m not saying she’s much more powerful than me, heck she's technically the weakest in our guild, but she doesn’t need brute power to deal with us and use her agility and tactics to fight. It’s annoying to say the least. Freaking Space manipulator and her freaking Semi-Planar Step…” Spike laughed as Luna slowly sunk on her seat, her voice slowly descending into grumbles while she pouted. She and the others perked up when the doorbell rung, bringing their attention to the entrance of the castle. “It’s probably them.” Twilight mused, standing up and walking out of the room. Spike and Luna leaned against their seats to wait, not even reacting when the front door flew open in the hastiness of the guests. They did react, however, to the full-body tackle they received from the CMC, Cadance and Ember. A few minutes of female consolation and slight explaining later… “Ah can’t believe you two actually went t’ another universe.” Apple Bloom commented, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s so cool!” Scootaloo gushed, hovering around the duo before pausing before Spike’s sword, inching closer to it. “Sounds like it was an adventure.” Shining chuckled alongside Ember as Spike slowly pushed Scoots away from his weapon. “It was.” Luna groaned. “Seriously, fourteen years in that place, between the fighting tournaments, hunts, raids and guard duties it could be a pain the ass.” “And dealing with our friends didn’t help matters.” Spike quickly agreed with a tired sigh. “Anyways, now that everyone’s here we can just start this thing, right?” “Are we going to wait for the friends on our side to appear?” Luna raised an eyebrow. Spike shot her a look. “Oh right, there will be at least one tracker with them. Let’s set everything up then.” “This is insane!” Twilight breathed, analyzing the digital clock Spike gave her to take apart after she spent ten minutes begging to have a look at the projector they were setting up. At first she was disappointed with only having something that simple to look, but it changed quickly the moment she actually opened the thing. No circuitry. Whatsoever. Just small runes made out of a special ink and crystals to channel magic to make the device work. “If you’re impressed by the clock I made then you should see the behemoths Quill makes. She’s the best Glyph manipulator in the country, and it damn shows. Like us her primary job is with her guild, but she works as a teacher when she’s not out on a mission, and sometimes she does freelancer work when helping a company create a device as a rune expert.” Spike mused as he selected what media he wanted to see on the menu of the projector. A few taps and- “Done!” He announced happily, a light emanating from the projector and projecting (duh) a black screen on the far wall. The group was now inside a guest room on the third floor of the castle, all the furniture teleported away by the alicorns and put away somewhere while teleporting in a multitude of beanbags, mats and sofas for the group to sit, as well as a table with an assortment of foods whipped up by Pinkie Pie in seconds for the group to enjoy. Taking a disk with a rune carved into it from the device, he walked over and slumped on a beanbag by Luna’s side. “Everyone ready?” He asked, receiving a chorus of “Yeah!” in response. He chuckled. “Good.” Looking downwards at the disk, he put a bit of magic into it, a circular screen appearing in the air in front of him. In a second he flew through the menus and ended up on a screen written ‘The Will of the Elements: Guardians of the Aura’ and pressed for Season 1. The group looked up just as the same title appeared on the screen. > S1E1 - New Arrivals > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The group settled down as the words ‘The Will of the Elements: Guardians of the Aura’ appeared on the screen, with a smaller ‘Season 1’ right below it. “How many seasons were made?” Shining Armor asked curiously. “It isn’t finished yet.” Luna answered, the screen showing all the involved with the creation of the series, including the thestral’s guild. “It’ll only end when me and Spike successfully returns to Equestria, which only happened today. We’ll send them a brief summary of what happened to them later so they can finish it.” “It already has a few, though.” Spike looked down on the controller. “It’s almost finished even, so you don’t need to preoccupy yourself with needing to wait for it. It’ll probably be over by the time we catch up.” Both he and Celestia nodded in understanding. (1) The screen changed, showing the episode’s title. New Arrivals Before anyone could chime in a comment, the voice of a girl spoke up. “Welcome to Era! I hope you left your sanity, dignity and maybe morals by the door! You won’t need them anymore.” As soon as the voice went silent the screen changed. “God damn it, Amate.” Spike and Luna sighed in unison. Then they blinked, turned to each other and laughed. “Damn, that actually brings back memories.” He grinned and she nodded. Both of them ignored their friend’s inquisitive stares as the show started. It was a beautiful day in Evergrow City, one of the two towns inside Evergrow Forest, but the only where the houses were actually built on the trees themselves, with many rope bridges connecting each platform, teleporters for the ground level where the commerce was situated. People walked to and fro, some using their wings for quick transportation or even teleporting about, birds flew through the trees, kids played around, a fox jumped out of a window, merchants shouted out their sales… Wait a second. The vixen twirled through the air, rightening herself as she fell so she hit the ground on her paws, putting a hand on the floor and bending a knee to absorb the impact while she maintained her other leg straight parallel to the ground. She maintained her head down for a second before looking up with a grin and shooting off forwards to the edge of the town, where the wards were located to protect the little town from the ferals that lived in the forest itself. She weaved around the crowd with grace in her movements, almost as if the obstacles weren’t even in her path and she just did the movements for the fun of it. Soon enough she jumped from the ground and kicked off one of the trees, going higher than she normally could and grabbing a low branch with her hands, using it to swing herself higher towards another branch. Jumping out of it to another, or using the trees as platforms to reach the ones she couldn’t normally, she quickly reached the top of one of the trees, where she stopped for a few seconds to locate the direction she wanted to go towards. “Let’s see, I’ve already explored North, Northeast, East, South, Southwest and West…” She mumbled. Pausing for a moment, the kitsune waved her five tails behind her in indecision before settling in a direction. “Northwest it is.” She grinned and jumped off her perch, falling towards the ground. At the last moment, she grabbed a branch and changed her trajectory so she would hit the ground at a non-lethal angle – which ended up being nearly parallel to it, she was falling that fast – and she prepared to make contact with it using both her paws, which were glowing a soft blue. “Winter Dance: Skate Slide!” The moment she impacted it the ground under her froze, giving her a nice slide to rocket through the streets. This time she actually had to put an effort in dodging people, since she wasn’t used to movement at that speed while matter surfing on her ice. Quickly finding a blockade of people she couldn’t move around, she cupped her hands in front of her mouth. “Give me a ramp, quick!” She shouted. In the crowd a lynx blinked in surprise before grinning, stomping at the ground under him. A block or earth higher than the crowd rose from the ground under him, lifting him upwards as he manipulated the earth towards the approaching fox to make a nice ramp for her. She grinned, raising a hand to slap against his when she used the lift to rocket towards the sky. “Thanks!” The lynx chuckled and rightened the earth while the others around him looked at him and the flying fox in amusement. The kitsune observed that she was already reaching the ward barrier around the city, so she nodded to herself and disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing at the floor and sliding again to the edge of town. She closed a fist and the air in front of her started to put more of a resistance than normal, slowly making her go slower and slower until she safely cancelled her Skate Slide to walk to the wilderness just as she crossed the ward barrier. She chuckled. “Nailed it.” The forest was normally peaceful, aside from the normal animal noises here and there and the occasional ferals fighting for territory. In that particularly day peace was thoroughly shattered by a space-time anomaly opening in the middle of it, growing and growing until it exploded, sending two bodies flying to opposite directions. The blue blur flew through the air and slammed back-first to a tree, making her gasp in pain and fall to the ground face down. Groaning, she pushed herself upwards to her hooves, where she looked around in confusion, wondering just what happened to her. Hearing a muffled groan of pain, she turned to the source. “Spike?” She asked, slowly walking towards it. Turns out she was right, as a purple dragon was also fallen on the floor, in a much more uncomfortable position, as he had hit the ground first and bounced/slid off on it until he impacted a tree face-first and just… kept in that position, face smashed and body completely locked up in pain. Tried as she did, Luna couldn’t stop the amused snort she released. “You alright, dragon boy?” She asked, walking up to him. “Just peachy.” He growled, the sound muffled by the fact he still had his face against the tree. Pushing himself off the wood and the floor, he stood up at almost the same height as Luna and looked around. “Where are we?” “No idea.” Luna sighed. “Do you remember the specifics of the spell?” She asked, joining him in scanning the surroundings. “I know about the same you do. Rune circle, dimensional gateway, the works.” Spike shook his head. “Looks like Twilight fucked up the spell. Again. Monumentally.” (2) He quipped before freezing, looking behind the mare. It seemed the wildlife finally got enough courage to investigate the anomaly, since a beast was stealthily getting near the duo. At Spike’s guarded stance and Luna quickly turning around to see the beast and also ready herself, it growled in anger at being spotted and rose to full height, revealing a manticore. Luna narrowed her eyes and prepared to scare it off with a show of power, but after a second of feeling nothing she did a sharp intake of breath. “Spike.” “I know.” He gritted his teeth, flexing one of his claws but no flames came forth. He beat his wings once, and while he felt the air resistance he couldn’t lift himself off the ground. Luna did the same, with the same results. “No magic.” The manticore seemed to figure that out as well, as it picked up its pace towards the duo. “Let’s run?” “Yeah.” Luna agreed reluctantly, taking a step back. The predator took that as a sign to advance, rushing the duo much faster than both expected and giving them barely a moment to avoid the pounce and get the hell out of dodge. Unfortunately for them, manticores are notorious predators, and with both of them magicless and in an unknown area it wasn’t hard for it to reach them again. Spike roared in pain as the manticore bull-rushed him through a tree, this one smaller than some of the behemoths in the forest, the wood snapping like a twig under the impact and knocking the dragon for a loop. “Spike!” Luna cried out at the sight of friend being attacked and ran towards the beast. Her cry alerted the beast, however, and it lashed out with its scorpion tail at her, but with Luna being an experience fighter she ducked under it and punched the beast on the side, sending it skidding about two meters away from the dragon. “Damn, so even my strength is gone, that should’ve sent it flying for at least ten meters…” Taking advantage of her frustration and the close distance, the manticore pounced on the alicorn and pinned her to the ground. It opened its maw and threw his head downwards to bite her neck, but Luna quickly put a hand in its nose and mandible and pushed it away while trying to force it to close, except that with her weakened strength she couldn’t hold it off forever. Spike fortunately chose that moment to regain his senses and jumped to his feet, sending his fist flying towards the occupied feline. “Get away from her!” It could only turn his eyes to him before the fist made contact, sending the manticore staggering backwards. Spike clasped Luna’s arm and pulled her up. “We need to get away, now.” Luna nodded in agreement and they both took off running again. The manticore, frustrated that its prey kept getting away from it, growled in anger. It lifted one of its paws higher than its head, coating the claws in a luminous energy before bringing it down with a roar, sending four blades of light flying through the air to the pair with the downwards swipe. Luna turned her head around, gasped and tackled Spike away from the spell just as it passed through the spot they were previously at, missing them by a hair. Now with its prey on the ground the manticore ran forwards and pounced them before they could even think of running away- “Denied!” -just to be hit in mid-air by a jump-kicking kitsune and being sent away from its path and into a tree, while the kitsune herself used his body to bounce to a nearby tree, which she used to quickly change directions towards the stunned duo, falling to the ground in a roll and grabbing both by their nearest body parts- “Luminescence: Party Blink!” –so she could teleport all three of them away. The trio reappeared on top of the high branches directly above the manticore. “Well, we should be safe for now.” The fox panted in exhaustion from the multi-teleport. “Just keep silent and he won’t notice us for a while.” Luna and Spike both adjusted themselves on their branches as to not fall and turned to their savior. “Thanks for that…” He trailed off, taking in the figure that saved them. “Well, it’s official. We’re not in Equestria anymore.” The fox had a fluffy white coat over all of her body, like the ones arctic foxes have, but instead of a single tail she had five waving behind her, making her a kitsune. Both her long-ish hair and tails were also white, but gradually changed colors until it ended in a shade of pink at the tips, which Spike thought it was around bubblegum pink, while her eyes were fuchsia. She was wearing a simple blue jeans and a pink blouse that stopped just below her C-cup bust. She raised an eyebrow. “Equestria, huh? Never heard of it.” She sat on her branch and swung her legs under it. “You guys probably fell through the multiverse somehow and ended up here. Not the first time that happened, but it’s certainly rare. Last time was… what, sixty years ago?” She furrowed her eyebrows for a second before shaking her head. “Later. Right now, let’s figure out how to fight that manticore.” Spike mouthed ‘Multiverse?’ while Luna frowned. “Wait a minute, uh… What’s your name?” The kitsune looked at her and grinned widely, pointing to herself with a thumb. “My name is Faerie Tail, but everyone calls me Amaterasu!” Straightening himself Spike smiled. “I’m Emerald Sparkle, but everyone calls me Spike.” “And I’m Lunarian Astros. Call me Luna.” The alicorn nodded. Amaterasu nodded before tilting her head. “You were saying?” “Oh, right.” She cleared her throat. “What do you mean by fight it? Why don’t we just flee?” “Four reasons. One, I can escape easily because of my experience with free running and my teleporting. You can’t. Especially because your magic is being suppressed by my world’s own magic field. I noticed how you haven’t tried to fly yet.” Both Spike and Luna grimaced but nodded. “Two, I can’t take you with me. Just teleporting you this small distance put a huge strain on me and I don’t think I can even manage this distance again at the moment. Three, I can’t keep the manticore occupied by myself so you can flee, I’m just not that strong yet, and if I distract him by let him chase me I’ll be too tired to lose him in the end. Four, manticores are Determinators by nature, he won’t give up on us that soon so we can’t just wait for him to get bored, especially since as soon as he whiff us he’ll give chase.” Spike raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you teleport us away so we could flee then? Wouldn’t that be easier?” “Manticores track by scent and noise.” She pointed out. “Scent spreads horizontally faster than upwards or downwards, so it would sniff us instantly if we were at ground level, not to mention that we running away would cause enough noise for him to zero on us. I could call my siblings, but both of them are busy and the other and most of the family are in another town altogether.” She shook her head, looking down on the beast. “No, in situations like this we need to either knock out or kill the predator, hurt him enough so he won’t chase us, or scare him off. When dealing with manticores the latter two are unlikely since, again, Panthera Awesome Determinator.” The trio was interrupted by a roar from below, and Spike and Luna followed Amaterasu in looking down to see the manticore glaring at them, spreading his wings. “Break’s over, buddies. Time to fight.” Amaterasu stated with a smirk, pulling a dagger from behind her, which had a fox-themed hilt with the head serving as a pommel and the tail as a guard, while the blade was a myriad of colors blue, green and purple, resembling an aurora borealis. The kitsune eye him as he prepared his claws for another flying slash. “Right now I’m the only one here who can cause him enough damage, so…” He roared as he attacked. “Distract him.” She gripped the dagger tightly and slashed with it as well, sending her own flying slash, an air one contrary to the light ones coming at them. The blades impacted each other, dispersing the air and the two middle light ones and alternating the trajectory for the remaining so it wouldn’t hit the tree they were standing on. The manticore looked up to try and spot his prey, but what he found was a ballistic fox falling directly on top of it paws first, and a gale of wind turned visible by aura following behind her. “Vulpine Tempest: Skyfall!” She hit like a meteor, and the gale like a comet, pressing his face roughly against the ground before jumping away, just in time as his tail lashed forwards to pierce her. “Not so fast, bud!” She spun on a paw and slid the other around her, and the moment she did a wave of snow burst forth from ground between her and the feline that covered his head entirely, making him step back with a startled roar. When his vision cleared, Amaterasu was nowhere to be found. Suddenly he felt a cold impact on the back of his head and whirled around to face the direction it came from, spotting the fox there grinning at him while playing with another snowball she had in her hands. “S’up?” She jumped to the side to avoid a set of flying slashes and sent her own gust of wind at him, but it didn’t do much besides make him flinch. The lack of effect made her frown, but at least gave her time to freeze the ground under her and put more distance between her and the now approaching beast. The moment he passed over the patch of ice Amaterasu threw her hands upwards and more ice sprouted from it and hit the beast from below, but it wasn’t enough to pierce through his defenses and only unbalanced him. The kitsune clicked her tongue. “And that’s why manticores are considered veteran level monsters, a unranked like me can’t even put a scratch on him.” She grumbled under her breath. She fell on her battle stance as it rose back to its paws, but he couldn’t walk three steps before two fists impacted his face one from each side. “Couldn’t you have helped us down first?” Spike asked in annoyance, shaking his hand as he and Luna jumped away from the dazed feline. She stuck her tongue out. “And be still for five seconds while there's a manticore waiting to take a bite out of my ass the unpleasant way? No, thank you.” They turned their attention to their opponent. “Your magic is impressive, but I don’t see it working.” Luna commented. “I’ve only had it for a few months, so while my control is ok, I lack the power.” Amaterasu sighed. “And the one I actually have power in, he’s resistant to. We’re both Light manipulators after all.” “So your light is useless, and your ice and… wind? I guess? Don’t have the impact to do actual damage.” Spike summarized. The manticore focused back on them and started to circle around the small clearing they were in, the trio following his movements. “I still have one more element to test, but I’m haven’t trained too much with it.” She said, summoning a golden flame that started to dance around her hand. “I’m focusing on controlling my Light for now, but I can train the others a bit while going around, like using my Ice to skate around and my Air to move things around, but I don’t have many opportunities to use my- Luminescence: Gleam Pulse!” The beast chose that moment to rush them, hoping that the sudden movement would catch them off-guard again, but the light blast from the vulpine destroyed that hope as he was thrown back. “Let’s go!” Reversing the previous situation, the trio rushed the manticore, Spike and Luna leading as both needed to be close up to do anything, while Amaterasu followed close behind to provide cover if necessary. Spike put more speed on his run and reached the feline first, slugging him across the face with a heavy punch and ducking under his returning swipe, lashing with his tail to strike under his chin, lifting the beast’s head up. Luna took that opening by rushing in and delivering a powerful uppercut, so powerful that it actually lifted the feline off the floor for a few seconds, long enough for Amaterasu to approach it and get a clear shot to the beast’s stomach. “Starfire!” She lit up her golden flames on each hand before putting them together and firing a wave of fire at the airborne animal, sending him hurtling through the air before it crashed on the ground. Luna stared at the flames. Now that Amaterasu was using enough of them, she could swear that it was… no, it couldn’t be. She was brought out of her mind by Spike’s voice. “Finally going all out?” He grinned. “Yeah, since I don’t have my earth pony strength anymore I don’t need to worry about exploding him to pieces with a punch.” She smirked. She turned to the fox in front of them, who had her full attention on the limping manticore. “And you, didn’t you say you were inexperienced with your fire?” She didn’t turn to face her, but still replied. “Pointing and firing isn’t exactly rocket science, and it looked more impressive than it actually was. Too spread, not hot enough and things like that.” She grinned. “Not that it matters anyways, since it’s his weakness.” Before they could inquire, she jumped back and lowered herself, clutching her dagger in a reverse grip on her right hand and having her left hand open facing the ground. “Give me a few seconds to prepare, I can finish this with a single hit now that I know what to do. Probably going to overshoot but whatever, desperate times call for desperate measures. Go for the head, keep him dazed!” They nodded and rushed at the harmed predator. Like before, Spike went first with a punch, but this time the manticore dodged it and lashed with his tail, which the drake dodged as well by ducking under it, but that left him in the position for a claw strike, had not been Luna jumping in and kick him away, following him and delivering a powerful downwards punch that made his head bounce off the floor, then took the chance to kick him upwards, lifting him to his rear paws for Spike to come and punch him in the gut to send him rolling. Amaterasu grinned as she concentrated more of her energy to the sphere under her left hand. Between the two of them, the manticore would be confused and wouldn’t know who to keep his eye on. They were lucky that the manticore was a young one, since it only had one elemental trick and couldn’t keep his attention in both of them at the same time successfully, and since neither of them had an aura yet they couldn’t be detected by an aura sensing ability, if the feline even had one. She grunted in exhaustion of having to concentrate her magic so much, but held on and shouted at them. “Give me an opening, I’ll be coming from above!” She looked down at the sphere by her hand and aimed it to an angle behind her and let a little bit of energy escape, causing an explosion that sent her flying upwards and forwards towards the manticore. Luna and Spike heard her and ran towards the already staggered beast. They sent each other a look and nodded, jumping to the air and falling into a slide, like in a baseball game. The moment they reached under the beast’s head, they slammed their feet down on the ground to go back into a crouching position and unleashed a powerful double uppercut. “Rising Star!” “Scale Breaker!” The predator’s head snapped up in a fraction of a second and his body soon followed, leaving the ground and flipping to fall on his back, so dazed that he wasn’t even able to rationalize that the world was currently upside down. By that time the explosion had already occurred and caught Spike and Luna’s attention, the pair turning to see the flying kitsune above them. In the air, Amaterasu aimed her orb and let it explode again just as she was about to pass over the predator, changing her course so that she was rocketing towards him. As she fell, she manipulated her blazes so that they traveled from her hand to her dagger, coating the blade in fire and extending by about ten centimeters. When she finished it, she was already very close to the manticore, so brought the blade above her head, ready for a wide slash. “Starfire…” She whispered while releasing the flames from her grip and letting it explode from the tip of her blade with a roar the she soon mimicked. “SUNBLAZE SEVER!” Using the rushing flames as propulsion, she swept her blade in an downwards arc and let fly an enormous blade of solar fire, of which reached the fallen feline in a second, cutting through it from head to tail along with the ground under it, but the only clue that that was what happened was the fissure under it, while the beast seemed unaffected. Amaterasu was still falling down on top of it, however, and used her momentum from the slash to flip forwards twice and bring down her paw right on top of the cut, the powerful strike finally breaking all the resistance the beast’s aura still had and separating both halves from each other, giving path for the fox to hit the ground while they were sent skidding to the sides, unleashing a torrent of blood that hit Amaterasu from both sides and left her drenched. Silence fell on the area, Amaterasu still kneeling as she had to absorb the impact of her fall as her dagger’s blade dripped on the floor along with the beast's blood, the fire too strong and wild for a novice blade to handle, while Spike and Luna stood to the sides staring at the carnage in disbelief. ‘T-That was…’ Spike gulped as he stared in awe. ‘Sun fire…’ Luna thought as her mouth open and closed uselessly. ‘B-But how?!’ Amaterasu finally stood up, stumbling for a moment as exhaustion started to kick in but rightened herself and turned to face the stranded duo. “Well, I guess this is a bit late but whatever.” She cleared her throat, receiving their attention, and grinned. “Welcome to Era! I hope you left your sanity, dignity and maybe morals by the door! You won’t need them anymore.” The other two looked at each other. ‘Damn it, Twilight, what did you get us into?!’ The screen faded to black for a moment before the credits started, and Spike and Luna smiled. “It’s weird seeing how we were back then, after everything that happened.” He commented while giving the group behind them time to process what the hell did they just watch. “Yeah.” Luna sighed. “Totally.” Amaterasu nodded from where she was sitting on Spike’s lap. “WHERE THE HECK DID YOU COME FROM?!” Rainbow, Pinkie, Scootaloo and Ember screamed at the kitsune. She took a bite from the cupcake Spike was about to eat, nonchalantly chewing on it before swallowing and turning to face them. “So there was this coyote and this kitsune who loved each other very much…” “NOT THAT!” Amaterasu snickered and licked the frosting on her lips. “Alright, long story short? I’m a very sneaky sneaky fox. The wards around here were child’s play to get around compared to my sister’s.” “She’s been here since the manticore first appeared, I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed her, especially when she appeared to save us and things calmed down a little.” Luna said in amusement. “Honestly, they were so enthralled by it that I wasn’t even the only one to sneak in.” Amate rolled her eyes and nodded to the food table, where a draconequus was forming a tower with one of each kind of food there were in there on top of a slice of bread before putting a second one on top of it all. The vulpine woman grinned widely. “So that’s Discord? Seeing him in person only makes me like him more.” “Keep your panties on for at least a few more hours? I want to get through at least the Displaced Pair arc today.” Spike said, poking her in the muzzle. She pouted. “You’re no fun. Speaking of my arrival, the others were called for a mission, so they might be occupied until tomorrow. Then again, it’s related to the Darkness Lord and their realm, so Alpha might take longer, Amethyst will probably go with him and maybe Umbral too. I managed to talk them into letting me come here as an ambassador-” “Oh, God no.” “Why would they do that?!” Amaterasu just nodded at the formerly displaced duo. “That was the general reaction, yes.” She shrugged. “Then again they might have forgotten about the whole series thing, so I’m here just to meet the people from here and make connections instead of trying for a good first impression, really.” “Yes, yes, nice to meet you, darling, but I’d like to ask why you hadn’t warned us this would be so… violent?” Rarity inquired with a hand over the trembling Sweetie Belle’s shoulder while her friends tried to calm her down. “I thought my sword was proof enough that that place is violent as hell?” was the drake’s honestly confused reply. “Seriously, if it was just for show I’d let Scootaloo play with it and that did not sound right.” He groaned. Amaterasu stared at the little girl for a moment and waved her hand, light emanating from it and coalescing into a single sphere that soon morphed into a small light fox. The little construct hurried to the unicorn’s lap, poking her stomach with its nose. Sweetie Belle looked at it for a second before embracing it, her trembling slowly diminishing. “That’s what I meant, the first impression was already shot to hell. Your dimension is very peaceful, isn’t it? That’s good and bad in my opinion.” She sighed, looking down. “Good because that means less people being hurt or dying, bad because people get alienated, and the moment something bad actually happens, they freeze up. My dimension is not a kind one, so to me that’s kind of… pathetic? Refreshing? I don’t know which one.” She shook her head and looked up at the trio. “How old are you three anyways?” “I’m sixteen, they’re seventeen.” Scootaloo answered, looking at the construct being crushed by her friend in curiosity. “Really? Wow, I wasn’t even a virgin at that age anymore.” She mused. “I believe that was too much information.” Cadance spoke up. The kitsune’s smile made her realize that the vulpine was very aware of that fact and very amused by it. “Ohoho, aren’t you a blunt one.” Discord remarked as his head appeared from her bust. He smirked when her only reaction was to snicker. “Hah, always wanted to do this, but the mares here either aren’t big enough or would take my head for it. Or both.” He suddenly blinked when he wasn’t manipulating reality anymore, and instead was standing a few feet from the group, with the kitsune hugging his arm between her breasts. Now that she was standing up they could see more of her body. She still had the same white and pink coloration she had on the show, but her clothes were very different. She was using a pair of grey jeans that were ripped on her knees, and what looked like a silver chain being used as a belt. She also wore a black denim short jacket, that ended just under her bust and the sleeves only barely got to her elbows, but the most curious part was that the entire front of the jacket was missing, only a strap connecting under her bust and around her neck. Holding her impressive DD bust was an X-shaped bikini top, black and pink straps of fabric that went around her body and connected on a silver heart-shaped clasp on her chest. She wore black fingerless gloves, and a black dog collar tightly secured around her neck, a green flame tag dangling from the ring. Unlike her friends, however, they couldn’t see any obvious signs of weapons. In short, she looked like a succubus went furry. (3) “Well, I’m blunt mostly when sexuality is involved.” She purred, running a finger down his arm. “In fact, I heard a lot about you and your-” Before she could go any further, a green translucent chain attached itself to the ring of her collar and yanked her away from the stunned draconequus and into a kneeling position besides Spike. Before she could protest she felt a sudden wave of fear wash over her, and held her tongue. “I. Said. Later.” He growled lowly enough that only she – and Luna, but that’s because she’s a thestral – could hear.­ “Now you’re going to shut up, sit down, and watch the show like a good girl, you hear me?” She hastily nodded, but Spike waited a bit so he could be sure that she was truthful before releasing the grips he currently had on her. Luna yawned and swiped the control from him before he could do so. “Everyone in favor of starting the second episode before they actually start fucking say ‘Aye’.” “AYE!” “Nay!” Crash! Luna just ignored the annoyed dragon and the kitsune who had her head currently inside a crater on the floor and pressed next on the controller.