Note: It seems like Fluttershy and Sunset Shadow hold the winning place in cuteness! Anyways... Moving on...
Dimension: My Little Pony
Planet: Equestria Earth
Specific Location: A little bit east of Fluttershy's former cottage
Time: A month after the death of Miranda, 8 hours after the arrival of Doxia
"So, why am I here?" asked Night Shade as he stood a ways off from the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were hiding in a bush. He then glanced up at the sun which was slowly beginning to set.
"You're going to help us chronicle the secret life of Diamondbeaks for the Foal Free Press!" explained Scootaloo as she pulled out a pair of binoculars.
Night Shade just said, again, "Soooo… Why am I here?"
"If we keep doing really well as reporters, maybe we'll get our cutie marks in reporting!" exclaimed Apple Bloom excitedly.
Night Shade rolled his eyes. "I already have a cutie mark."
Scootaloo poked her head out of the bush and poked his cutie mark accusingly. "Yeah, but you cheated. You shape-shifted into this form and got a cutie mark for it. Do you know what your real talent is?"
Night Shade opened his mouth, and then closed it. He blinked. "Um… I have no idea." Scootaloo winked at him.
With that, Night Shade hopped into the bush with the CMC and grabbed his own pair of binoculars. "Right," he said, "What are we going to do first?"
Slowly Sweetie Bell crawled out of the bush and moved forward. She glanced over her shoulder at her friends and motioned quickly to them to follow her. Night Shade, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo slowly crept forward as they followed her. Suddenly the chirping of a Diamondbeak alerted the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Night Shade of its presence. They leapt into another bush and poked their heads out of it.
"Where is it?" exclaimed Apple Bloom in a whisper.
"Over there!" whispered Night Shade back, pointing with a hoof.
Everypony trained their binoculars on the area that Night Shade was pointing at. On a branch, in the distance, a Diamondbeak was perched, twittering away.
"Where's her nest?" whispered Sweetie Bell, "I can't see it!"
"It looks like the bird is gathering twigs. I think she is going to use them to repair her home. This means it must be somewhere else!" said Night Shade in hushed tones.
The Diamondbeak, when it had finished searching for and gathering up twigs, spread its wings and began to take to the air.
Scootaloo buzzed her tiny wings in excitement as she exclaimed, "Ooooh! The chase is on!"
Night Shade and the Cutie Mark Crusaders then galloped after the flying Diamondbeak as fast, and yet as quietly, as they could manage. The bird flew to the border of the Everfree forest and perched on a thick branch in one of the tallest trees.
"I can't see! Where did it go?!" whispered Apple Bloom.
Night Shade quickly scoped out a smaller tree that was slightly adjacent to the Diamondbeak's home tree.
"Here, let's climb this one. I'll help you guys up."
Using his enchanced strength, Night Shade hoisted up his sister and her friends into the lower branches. As they climb upward, he spread his wings and flapped lightly onto one of the top branches.
"You got the notepad?" said Apple Bloom to Scotaloo as they pulled out their binoculars once more.
Scotaloo nodded and pulled out a pen and notepad. The Cutie Mark Crusaders began to take notes on the behavioral attributes of their bird. Night Shade, on the other hoof, was scoping out something entierly different.
"Um, guys?" he said as he peered through his binoculars, "Did you three invite over company?"
"No way!" whispered Scootaloo back, "This is one of those totally covert operations! Black ops and stuff! Why do you ask?"
"Because Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are on their way here. And they brought some kind of net," explained Night Shade.
"What?" exclaimed Sweetie Bell. Night Shade slapped a hoof over her mouth.
"Quiet every pony!" he said in hushed tones. "I think I can hear what they're saying."
The group quieted down as Night Shade leaned through the branches and listened closely to what they were saying.
"So, why are we doing this?" asked Silver Spoon as she and Diamond Tiara trotted towards them.
"Oh, a Diamondbeak was spotted over here. If we can steal an egg from it and hatch it ourselves, I could have one of the rarest birds for a PET!" replied Diamond Tiara haughtily.
"You mean WE," corrected Silver Spoon.
"Well? Do you know which tree it is?" interjected Diamond Tiara.
"That tree right there," replied to Silver Spoon, pointing to the tree where the Cutie Mark Crusaders were inspecting not moments before, the home of the Diamondbeak.
"Excellent. Go fetch my butler with the ladder. We can scare off the mother and grab and egg before anypony knows what is happening!" declared Diamond Tiara.
Night Shade pulled himself back into the protection of the branches in the tree he was sitting in and turned to the CMC.
"This isn't good," he said to Scotaloo, Sweetie Bell, and Apple Bloom, "Those two plan to steal one of the Diamondbeaks eggs so they can raise it as a pet!"
"What?! They can't do that!" exclaimed Sweetie Bell indignantly, "This is a wildlife… um… safe place or something!"
"A wildlife reserve, you mean. However, technically it isn't. Nevertheless, we should protect the mother and her babies at all costs!" declared Night Shade.
Scootaloo looked at her big brother with Bambi eyes. Night Shade blinked at her, then realized what she was trying to imply. "No, Scootaloo," he said, "I'm NOT going to use my powers like that. They're annoying foals, not demons."
"They look like monsters if you squint your eyes though!" exclaimed Scootaloo, "Look!"
Night Shade rolled his eyes and said, "Nope. No. However, here is what I will do…"
Diamond Tiara tapped a hoof against the ground impatiently as she waited for Silver Spoon to return with her butler. She was about to comment to no pony in particular that this was taking too long when suddenly the trees she was guarding rustled. She blinked at them. Abruptly, a Diamondbeak burst forth, chirping loudly. It then commenced to attack Diamond Tiara with pecks to her head.
Squealing loudly, the little pony began to run in circles. She then dashed off in the direction of where Silver Spoon had trotted off. She soon caught up with her compatriot and yelled, "Rogue Diamondbeak! Run!"
The two foals, screaming loudly, began to run from the enraged Diamondbeak. They rounded a corner and dove into a bush. The Diamondbeak, however, veered off and flew away and disappeared into a grove of trees. A moment later, the bird shimmered, and shape shifted into a pony. It was Night Shade. Chuckling to himself, he trotted off to find the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
He found them with still sitting in the tree.
"Ironic that Diamondbeaks are considered peaceful creatures," chuckled Night Shade as he trotted up to the tree to help the CMC down, "I don't think Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon will be thinking about venturing this way for a while now."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Night Shade all laughed. The four trotted away as their laughter slowly dissolved into the dusky air as the sun's last rays dissipated into darkness.
Dimension: My Little Pony
Planet: Equestria Earth
Specific Location: The border of Ponyville
Time: A month after the death of Miranda, 8 hours after the arrival of Doxia
Samuel pressed his ears against his skull as he tentatively began to enter Ponyville. He hadn't actually been here himself before – he had hardly ever left his house in Fillydelphia – and everything in the town made him extremely nervous.
He stopped just as he was about to put a hoof into the town and began to reconsider his options.
"Archangel Michael hadn't SPECIFICALLY told me to go to Ponyville," he reasoned, "He just told me to go back to the My Little Pony dimension. Maybe I should just go home to Fillydelphia and stay in my cozy house. Perhaps I can just stay there for the rest of my absurdly long life."
Samuel groaned and sat down. He grimaced. That wasn't what he wanted either. All his house and Fillydelphia would do now would be to remind him of his friend Tiffany, who had been slaughtered. Too many bad memories. But then again… almost everything represented a bad memory now. A small street would remind him of his younger days, before the Paradox recruited him. The days in which he had spent alone on the streets of Chicago in the Earth Prime dimension. A setting sun would remind him of his days as a traveler, when he had been forced to destroy a star to kill an army of demons... It coincidentally killed a large amount of innocents too. Memories, the bane of his existence… they constantly plagued him, and he felt like he could never rub out his past, no matter what he did.
Samuel shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He then got up onto all fours and put a hoof into Ponyville. Immediately he was pounced upon by Pinkie Pie.
"Hey! A new pony! IknowthatbecauseIknoweveryponyinponyvilleandsinceIdon'tknowyouthatmustmeanyou'renew! Hello! I'm Pinkie Pie! Who are you?"
Samuel stumbled backwards as he gasped, "What the- How did you find me so fast?! I literally entered town in the most discreet way possible!"
Pinkie laughed, "Oh, nothing ever gets by me here. Soooooo… Are you moving here? Are staying? Huh? Huh? HUH?"
Samuel shook his head as he began to inch away. "Um… no. In fact… I was leaving… right… now…"
He quickly whirled straight around and was about to dash off in the opposite direction when he found Pinkie Pie blocking his path. He looked behind him in a flustered state. Had she teleported or something?
"Um," he stuttered, "Are you… Pinkie Pie?"
Pinkie Pie nodded vigorously as she hopped up and down. "Yes! I am! How did you know?"
"Well," replied Samuel, trying desperately to find a way around the crazy pink party pony, "You guys are the Harmony Bearers. You are famous from here to Fillydelphia and beyond."
"Oooooh! Are you from Fillydelphia?"
"I was. I really don't have a home now."
"What do you mean? Do you need a place to stay? You could stay with me! At Sugar Cube Corner!"
"Um… no. That's very kind. But I think it would be safer if I found some remote Chimera's den in the Everfree forest to stay in."
"Huh? What? Never mind! You can't go yet! We need to throw you a Welcome-to-Ponyville PARTY!"
Samuel blanched. This was the last thing he wanted. Couldn't she just leave him alone?
"Um… no. I don't think that would be a good idea!" he said, trying to get away.
"Why not silly! Let's go!" exclaimed Pinkie, grabbing his hoof.
Samuel wrenched his hoof free and yelled, "No! Don't touch me! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Pinkie Pie actually stopped bouncing. Her pink curly hair flattened with the sound of a deflating balloon. She blinked at him. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?!" yelled Samuel, "EVERYTHING is wrong! My whole life is wrong! I just want some place I can hide in peace!"
With that, he ran around Pinkie and galloped off into the Everfree forest. Samuel took a deep breath as he made sure the pink pony wasn't following him.
"Stupid Pinkie Pie," he grumbled as he sat down. This wasn't going to turn out well. Where was Michael? Was he going to be forced to stay here indefinitely? He hated this idea more and more. He sighed deeply and trotted slowly out of the forest and into a meadow, with his head bowed. He wanted nothing to do with this place. Nothing at all. Slowly he climbed his way to the top of a small hill, and he sat down. And there he sat, staring off into the distance as night descended on the land. Samuel sighed again and flopped his head down upon the grassy mound. A single tear rolled from his eyes and hit the ground. He hated himself more than anything… He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
His eyes snapped open, and he looked around. He was in a mist filled forest. At first Samuel had somehow been spirited away to a mysterious dimension, but then failing to release a massive hurricane of acid in retaliation, he realized something… he was dreaming. Samuel snorted with frustration and sat down in the damp grass. He looked around derisively as he surveyed his gloomy surroundings.
As he did so, he talked out loud to himself. "What an extraordinarily stupid dream," he said, "Literally. This is the most…"
Then he heard something. Pricking up his ears, Samuel cautiously approached the source of the noise. As he drew closer to location, he became aware that it was the sound of screaming. Breaking into a gallop, he drew closer and closer to the source of the sounds. He stopped just before the clearing where the noise was emanating from and peeked through the foliage. It was himself as a human, beating a demon to death with his fists. He was reliving the horrendous side of the death of Jahi in the realm of dreams.
Samuel pressed his ears to the side of his skull and turned around to run, but behind him was just another clearing that had suddenly appeared. This clearing contained a street and a couple of buildings, all buried in snow. He saw a small child dragging himself through the icy drifts, shivering. It was himself again, trying to survive as an orphan, just before he had been changed by the Paradox.
Samuel cowered to the ground and tried to cover his eyes and ears simultaneously to block out the terrible memories that constantly plagued him. When he thought that it was just about to get too great, and that his mind would surely break into pieces, a hoof lightly touched him on his shoulder.
Samuel shot up and whirled around with a snarl. It was a majestic alicorn pony, about the same size as him. Her coat was dark blue, and her mane was a glowing swirl of sapphire and ocean blue, and light azure. It was Luna. She looked at him curiously. Samuel just scowled in confusion and looked away, unsure of why she had appeared in his dreams.
"I have not seen you before, my friend," said Luna in an interested tone, "but your plagued dreams called to me in distress. What are your troubles?"
Suddenly he realized that he had forgotten to set up his mental defenses when he had drifted off to sleep. Every night he had previously spent in Equestria before he had tried to run away, he had blocked his mind from the outside world, keeping such mental intrusions at bay and rendering him invisible to ponies such as Luna. But now that he had forgotten…
"I am Princess Luna, ruler of the night. It is my duty to raise the moon every dusk, and comfort my subjects in the realm of their dreams. That is precisely why I am here, as I said," continued Luna
"I know who you are and what you are doing here. Well, you can go. I don't need any help," muttered Samuel, pointedly avoiding eye contact.
"Your dreams say otherwise."
"Go to hell."
Luna ignored his jab and looked through the clearings, watching with a saddened and distressed eye as she witnessed Samuel's tragic past of loneliness, suffering, and pain, as well as his descent into brutality. She blinked slowly as she began to comprehend what she was seeing. She turned back to Samuel, who was still looking at his hoofs, but had not yet attempted to leave.
"You are a dimensional traveler?" she asked, her tone gentle.
Samuel just nodded. "I am. I've been trying my entire life to escape what you just saw, and you're not making it any easier. Tell you what, go off and help someone else in their dreams, I don't need help. I just need to keep running. Eventually I'll leave everything in the dust," snapped Samuel, still looking hard at his hoofs.
"You can't run from your problems, you need to face them," said Luna kindly.
"Everyone seems to say that," snorted Samuel derisively, "I just don't know…"
He then looked up and looked Luna in the eyes and said again, "I just don't know…"
He sighed and closed his eyes.
Luna put a hoof and Samuel's shoulder and said, "I know where you are. Stay there. I'm coming to meet you."
Suddenly the dream began to fade, and Samuel yelled, "What? No! Don't! Don't come near me!"
But it was to no avail. The dream disappeared, and Samuel drifted into a deep slumber.
Dimension: Looking for Group
Planet: Earth
Specific Location: The forest of Nestorep
Time: A month after the death of Miranda, a year after Cale'Anon meets Richard.
To the average passerby, the small space that represented the "base" of the Brothers in Arms corps look remarkably unremarkable. Just a small space. But this was just an illusion. The area was surrounded by walls of photon reflecting sheets of retro-reflective material and energy. It also was encompassed by a special synthesized material that was perfectly soundproof. These security measures were so well placed that no one would have ever realized that a large portal was opening within it to reveal a dragon and a human. No one noticed… except for hooded being. It had been watching the area for some time, his eyes peering straight through the deception. Now, as he sensed the return of the Brothers in Arms corps, he slowly got up onto all fours and moved towards the cloaked hideout. Neither Daniel or Franklin took any notice.
"What is our first move?" said Franklin as he sat down on a tree stump.
Daniel, who had chosen not to change out of his dragon form, slowly lowered his hefty body to the ground. He wrapped his tail around his back legs as he replied, "We need to find Evan Funsch. He might know where Finnian Jones is; he usually know where everyone is."
"Isn't he dead?" said Franklin as he pulled up his traveler's database.
"Stop looking at that!" exclaimed Daniel, swiping one of his massive claws through the holographic database projection that had popped up in front of Franklin's face, "We ALL know that it has been tampered with by now. And no, I don't think Evan Funsch is dead. Remember how Funsch and Jared DeWhite were acting just before the era of Anarchy really picked up in intensity? Those two were going on and on about how there was a conspiracy with the Paradox, and how their databases had been altered. Of course, we didn't take any notice of them then, but they were pretty serious. All of us were fooled, but I am pretty sure they took necessary precautions to be ready for the outbreak of chaos that was coming."
"Funsch and DeWhite were always suspicious of everything," sighed Franklin, "Anyway, where would Funsch be now?"
Daniel sighed and said, "I have no idea."
"How about DeWhite?"
"I have no idea either. He's probably at his home dimension though. He always made a point that he had no intention of ever getting really involved with our calling."
"Do you think he would know where Funsch is?"
"Nope. Those two may have gotten along, but they never really trusted each other. I think they would have gone their separate ways when the era of Anarchy exploded in our ranks."
Franklin threw up his hand in disgust. "Great. So we're trying to find Finnian Jones, who is missing. To find him, we're going to find Evan Funsch, who is ALSO missing! This is absolutely stupid. I vote we pay DeWhite a visit, maybe he has an idea."
"I doubt it, but I suppose we could try. He MIGHT has the SLIGHTEST chance of knowing where he could POSSIBLY be," chuckled Daniel.
Then a voice came from behind them. "Or you could ask me. I might know where he is."
Franklin whipped out his sniper rifle faster than the eye could move as he and Daniel whirled to confront the speaker. It was the mysterious hooded creature.
"Who are you? How did you find us?" said Daniel warily.
The creature threw off his hood. It was a pony from the My Little Pony dimension. Dark grey hide, green mane, greenish flanks. His cutie mark was a picture of a paw print imprinted upon an infinity sign. It was a dimensional traveler.
Franklin immediately recognized the being he was looking at. However, instead of putting down the sniper rifle, he just pointed it straighter and put a finger on the trigger.
Daniel, too, recognized the being. "It's nice to see you again Wild. Or should I say… Feral," he said calmly.
"Call me Wild, please, the name Feral is something of a trigger word if you know what I mean," chuckled the pony in guttural tones.
"It's nice to know that you got control of your good side then, you schizophrenic freak," said Franklin warily.
"I'm not schizophrenic. I am Wild, and then I am Feral. However, we're not here to talk about me," replied the pony.
"Maybe we should," said Daniel, "Last time I recall we met, we had to save your team from you while you were battling the northern demons. Didn't you kill one of them in your frenzy?"
"Those demons had it coming to them," said Wild, "my 'friends' just got in the way."
"I vote that we stop talking about Wild," said Franklin loudly, "I say we hear what he has to say. Then he can go on his way, and we can go ours."
"Oh no, Franklin, that's not how it's going to work," chuckled Wild, "If I tell you, you're going to take me with you two."
"Well then, I think we'll take our chances with finding Jared DeWhite," replied Daniel curtly, "We know where he probably is, and I will take that over having to travel with you."
Franklin and Daniel were about to open a portal when Wild said loudly, "He doesn't know where Funsch is. He did know, but he's not there anymore. I was the last on to speak with him."
Franklin slowly turned around and said, "Well… how do we know that you're not lying? How do we know that you're not just going to lead us into a trap? We've had that happen to us before, you know."
Wild grinned a voracious grin as he replied, "You're just going to have to trust me."
Note: Aaannnddd say hello to the new Dimensional Traveler, Wild, people! Anyway, I was wondering... Would you guys like to see another Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Discord team-up? Or perhaps a different Ponyville team? Please let me know! And don't forget the feedback!