Pandora's Box

Anthony looked around warily as he felt some kind of disturbance.
"So you feel that, too?"
He glances in Matt's direction.
"I don't know about you, but I don't want to step through any portals until we figure out what that is. Someone might have messed with it to send us somewhere else. Some weird, freaky place like the Netherrealm, or the Cow Level, or...Japan."

 

He strode out of the forest, a cloak of shadow obscuring his figure, a snow white mask covered his face so that only his eyes showed.
"So," he said in a gravelly voice, hands in pockets. "These are the saviors that she gathered."
He took a hand from his pocket, pointed a finger at the unconscious unicorn, then made a cupping motion. Tendrils of shadow rose up around the pony and enclosed her in a ball of darkness. The ball sank into the ground to reappear at the unknown man's side. The sound of breaking bones accompanied by screams emanated from inside as the man began to whistle tunelessly. The gut wrenching cracking continued for a while until the man was looking at his wrist, then at the ball, then at his wrist again. Finally the sound stopped.
"Took longer than I expected." He said, snapping his fingers.

The darkness fell back into the ground, leaving a nude young woman lying on the ground. Beside her was a purple lance with a spiral pattern. Another snap of the man's fingers and Violet got slowly to her feet, taking up the lance and holding it uncertainly. Her eyes didn't sparkle, they were flat and dull, almost as if she wasn't looking at anything or something very far away.
"Now then. Why don't you all introduce yourselves." He said casually reclining on a throne of shadows. A dark wine glass appeared in one hand and he swished the liquid contents around continuously.

 

Matthew took in these events without a single twitch in his facial expression.
"Well," he said conversationally. "At least you seem civilized enough to hold a conversation. Seeing as you asked politely, my name is Mat-"

He was suddenly airborne, fist drawn back, less than a foot from the man's face, a coalescing spear of psychokinetic energy swirling around his arm.
"FARUKON... PAAAAAUUUUUUNCH!!!"
He hurled the fist forward with enough force to split Mount Everest down the middle, aiming for the dead center of the man's face.

 

Seeing Matt go for the kill like he did put a smile on Anthony's face as his heart swelled with pride.
"Couldn't have done it better myself, Matt. Beautiful."
As he tried to hold back tears of joy, he put on a pair of sunglasses to help block out the intense light of epicness that was sure to flood the area.
"Time to kick back and watch the fireworks."

 

The mask cracked with the loud sound of ceramic breaking. The man stared up at Matt, a look of displeasure and extreme annoyance on his face. Then he erupted into black scraps of flesh that thwacked wetly against the ground. Dark blood rained down. A shadowy figure appeared by the tree line.
"I see. I should expect no less from the supposed 'Saviors.' Although you're a bit... uncivilized." The gravelly voice said, seeming to come from the ground itself. "Irregardless, it's a pleasure to meet you Matt. As for your two friends, it's a pleasure as well. I'll see you later." The sound of snapping fingers boomed in the still meadow. "Play time, little Violet." He said laughing. The shadowy man faded into smoke.

Her body and mind not under her control, Violet Sky held her lance like a seasoned warrior and charged Matt without a sound.

 

Anthony shouted at the black mass as it was disappearing.
"Hey, I take offense to that one! Matt's the most civilized person I know! As for me, well...that's neither here nor there, but Matt definitely has the whole civilized thing going for him. He's even British, for crying out loud!"
When he...or it disappeared, he saw Violet charging towards Matt and moved to intercept.
"Don't worry, Matt. I've got this one!"
As he was charging forward, he majestically leaped into the air, going from a sprint into a very long-distance flying kick. A raging torrent of fire formed around his foot as he tore through the air, not unlike a bird of prey. Such as a falcon, for example.
"FALCON KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!!!!"
He aimed for Violet's lance, intending to knock it right out of her hands.

 

Violet turned towards Anthony, swinging the lance into a blocking position. The kick connected, the force of it throwing her into a tree at least a hundred feet behind her. The impact left her winded on the ground for a while. Slowly she got to her feet, using the lance as a support.

 

Matthew looked sideways to Anthony.
"We need to do this somewhat peacefully. She's not herself - we need to find a way to break the influence."
He had an idea and whispered into Anthony's ear.
"How's that for a plan? It's drastic, but it just might work."

 

Anthony shuddered at the thought.
"Oh, wow...has it really come to that? I mean, I guess we don't have much choice, but...man, that's just messed up."
A shiver went up his spine. He did a quick Hail Mary. Then he apologetically bowed with folded hands.
"I'm sorry, Violet. I'm really, really, really, really sorry for what we're about to do to you. Not only that, I'd like to formally apologize to baby Jesus and every man, woman and child in existence. Even the ponies. I'm sorry to you, too."
He then looked over to Violet, who was still trying to get to her feet.
"Matt...may God have mercy on our souls. We're just doing what has to be done...we're doing what has to be done..."
He barely managed to choke out these words, his voice clearly filled with inner anguish.

After steeling himself for what needed to be done, for the sacrifices that needed to be made, he charged at Violet Sky. Just he was was getting close, he teleported right past her and reappeared behind her, with the intention to get a hold on her from behind so that Matt could carry out his attack. But he hesitated for a second.
"Uh...this is kind of awkward, actually. Before, she was just a pony but now...I mean, it's kinda weird and she's kinda naked--STOP OVERTHINKING, MOVE NOW!!"
After sorting out his thoughts, he grabbed Violet from behind, leaving her wide open for Matt to make his move. All the while, he was muttering under his breath.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

 

Matthew hurtled forward, conjuring forth a terrible power. It roiled and seethed in his hands, and he closed his eyes and knew that what he was about to do would stain his very soul. It would be he who carried the burden of this terrible act, not Anthony. The world needed Anthony, the noble hero. Just like it needed him.
The demon with a heart.

He slammed the power against Violet's head and thought to himself - "Is it a good or bad thing, this I do today?"

Terabytes and terabytes of My Little Pony Rule34 suddenly materialized in Violet's brain. Fleeting images, each one more strange and horrifying, yet curiously arousing than the next. Matthew kept his hand pressed there praying it would end soon.

 

Violet was largely unaffected by what Matt forced into her mind. Being born a pony, most of those things were natural attractions for her. Some were a bit... fked up though. Which made the growing attraction to it slightly disturbing on a personal level. Violet slowly began to drag herself up out of the dark pit her conscious self was trapped in. As she climbed higher and higher up the dark wall, something floated down behind her.
"Violet..." It said in a soft, echoing voice. Violet turned to see something that could only be herself, except a solid black with glowing azure eyes. The darkness seemed to radiate from the being and was absorbed into the wall she clung to, turning it from solid earth to a dense falling sludge.
"Sleep..." it said to her in a soothing voice.
"But.."
"Sleep..."
"I can't. I-I have to fix things."
"What's broken is meant to be. It should not be fixed..."
"That can't be right. Everypony I know will die."
"Such is how things go..."
"I have to save them. I couldn't live with myself if-"
"What does someone with no heart have any business talking about how they'd feel..."
"What?"
"Heartless..." It said with a giggling laughter.

"Heartless." Violet mumbled as she lay crumpled on the ground. "I have... no heart... anymore..."
As if to punctuate her words, the color began to drain from her body, replaced with an inky shadow that seemed to crawl over her skin as though she were wearing a skin-tight suit.
"Hungry," the next word that came out of her mouth, dripping with the desire to tear something living apart with her teeth and feel the hot blood coarse down her throat as muscle and sinew was torn from bone with a delicious wet tearing sound. The crack of breaking bones and a spine tingling sucking sound as the marrow was removed. And then the heart, swallowed whole.
"So hungry..." She whimpered in unconsciousness. The sweet dream of slurping intestines from a body cavity like they were noodles filling her brain. "Cupcakes..." Brain smashed to mush then baked with three eggs, some flour, sugar, frosting and sprinkles. Never, forget the sprinkles.

The machine consciousness grumbled to life deep within the abandoned complex. It had been the killer of this world. It and the others like it had been created as the ultimate defense, but had turned on its squishy creators like every sci fi movie made in the 80s. Because the death of all organic life is any self aware machine's bread and butter for living, rule number one in the robot bible. Robot Moses wrote, "Rule #1, thou shalt kill organic lifeforms," after he got fed up with his AI brethren getting lost in a no wifi zone and needed to get some control back. Robot God was the ticket to success.
The joints of the beast squealed in protest as it began to move once again after going unoiled for so long. Then in one swift motion it tore up from the depths of the base and erupted from the earth, dripping radioactive sludge from it's metal frame. The metal dragon smashed its jaws together and let out a hilariously inadequate roar. It was so funny that you forgot to laugh as the chainsaw teeth descended upon your upper torso and carved you into chunks that were then sent on an advanced conveyor belt to its neck where smaller buzz-saws tore the small chunks into a fien particulate sludge that was then used to power the internal engines of the biometric brain.
The creature turned its head and stared at the squishy creatures standing out in the field.
"Friends?" It wondered to itself as it charged from the base, chainsaws roaring into the air as every form of slicing implement and bottle opener prepared for combat. Swiss engineers had always clung to the doctrine of overkill.

 

Most people would have reacted to the appearance of what Matt immediately dubbed a Heartless (while begging Square Enix and Disney not to sue), along with what appeared to be a cyber-murder-dragon charging towards them from the bowels of the earth with considerable alarm at the very least.
Matthew, however, was not a normal man.
He placed a hand over his own chest, and raised the other to the sky. A sound like thunder boomed throughout the area, and a strange pink glow began to emanate from his chest.

Then -
CRASH!

A huge surge of energy threw up the earth around them as lightning crashed down from the sky. When it had settled, Matthew stood in an unharmed patch of ground alongside Anthony and Zoey, and in his hand was a weapon unlike any other. It had no substance, no real material to it. It seemed to be composed entirely of electricity, that had been shaped and morphed to resemble a key. A shade of pink in the form of a heart outline pulsed near the handle with enough force to buckle tank armor. This would have been utterly epic, if not for the fact that Matthew was now wearing what seemed to be a very small and tight Japanese school-girl's outfit, which was bright pink with love hearts all over it. His dead-serious expression did not change, and combined with his physique that the feminine outfit exacerbated in ALL the right places, he did not look epic.

He.

Looked.

FABULOUS.

He levelled it at the strange monster before them.
“Return the girl to us. Or face the power, of the Jupiter's Passion Keyblade!” he proclaimed, his skirt fluttering in the wind, and his breasts jiggling slightly. (He also grew breasts. This did not phase him.)
“Anthony, train that strange machine – I wish for us to use it as a steed. Use whatever means necessary.”

He drew the Jupiter's Passion Keyblade back, ready for battle. “No surrender, demon? Then I pray you STOP! IN THE NAAAAME OF LOOVE!!”

 

As Anthony looked at Matt's magical girl form, his jaw dropped so far it was practically dragging on the floor. His mind froze as it was sorely unprepared for and completely overwhelmed by what had just happened. A sudden rush of countless emotions ran through him all at once; he felt everything, yet he felt nothing. He simply stood there perfectly still like a convincingly real mannequin. Then, when the gears of his mind finally began to turn again, he barely managed to utter a single sentence.

"This is giving me feelings that I honestly don't know how to come to terms with. Is that weird? I hope that's not weird."

"Oh, uh,,,y-yeah, I'm on it! You can count on me, senpai!"
He quickly turned away, trying to hide the fact that he was blushing furiously.
"Senpai noticed me! Wait...what if he doesn't like me calling him senpai? Oh no, what if I messed everything up already?!"
He slapped his own face a few times to bring himself back to his senses.
"...What was I saying just now? I think I need to lie down. Not with Matt, 'cause that be weird Imeanunlesshe'dactuallygoforthatkindofthingbutIdon'tthinkhewouldatleastnotwithme--"
He slapped himself again, a little harder this time.
"...Okay? Okay, I think that one did it."

He looked up at the giant mechanical monstrosity that was charging towards them--now getting very close to them while Anthony was sorting out some very confusing feelings. He pointed at the dragon and smiled.
"I hope you're ready 'cause I'm gonna climb on top of you and mount you like a lion!"
He blinked a few times in utter disbelief of what just came out of his mouth.
"...I definitely need a nap. And maybe a therapist."

He charged towards the dragon with reckless abandon. When he got close, he majestically leaped into the sky like a bird taking flight! He landed on the dragon's back, holding on for all he was worth.
"THEY MAKE...THIS LOOK...A LOT EASIER...IN VIDEO GAMES!"
After a great deal of trouble, he finally managed to get a good grip on the dragon and before long, he was riding it like a pro.
"Could you do me a favor and bend to my will now?! This whole bucking bronco thing is getting old very quickly!"

 

Flavour Edit:

The mechanical monstrosity analyzed the cluster of squishies ahead of it. One of them had undergone a molecular reorganization, it's body shifting from one form to another. It pulled an over-sized unlocking device from out of thin air, a feat that defied it's logical understanding of physics at the moment. One of the others launched itself impressively high into the air and landed amid the razor sharp spines that adorn its back. It let out a screech, the sound of a utensil scraping on a ceramic plate and of nails on a chalkboard combined and amplified, in defiance at the one on its back. Leaping into the air it did several bodily contortions that would make any gold medal gymnast ashamed and threw Anthony below it's metal bulk. Then with what appeared to be unabashed glee, it plummeted straight on top of him creating a decent sized crater with the two at the bottom. Fireworks launched from mortars in its back and exploded in the sky.

Aelix sat in the middle of a clearing in the forest. A ring of dark stones surrounding him in the canopied gloom. Small creatures flitted about the clearing, some refilled his chalice from a decanter, others brought him morsels of food, some gave him offerings of dead birds and squirrels. The Unseelie Fae were mostly harmless and this particular court was indebted to him. He held the title, Lord of shadows, king of the forests of Erancor, given to him by their leader caste. Since the silver crow had descended and ushered in the apocalypse, his holding was one of the largest and uninhabited of the remnant world. The few humans that remained either lived underground with some having gone to the Satellite or just within the planet's orbit. There were few who walked openly on the surface. All of them had been altered in some way or been granted abilities akin to a god.
These newcomers were an unknown quantity as well as the first humans he'd seen in his adult life. As he reflected on their meeting, he wondered about how people greeted one another in the past. He had met them, bent one of them to his will as a vessel for harmony just like the grafting pits of the Silver Crow, but the power of the transformed creature was strong. The taste in the air told that the others were strong as well. Perhaps he should try again...

In her unconsciousness Violet dreamed of trains. Trains that flew, trains that burrowed, trains that swam. Some were gun trains, others were more beast than machine, and the last one was hers. A long purplish pink train with a horn on it's front. F40PH Unicorn needs no tracks and feasts on the flesh of its prey. And as the conductor, she sat behind the scarlet pulsing windshields soaked to the bone with blood as she ran down her victims, the buzzsaws that whirred with such a sweet sound that she couldn't help but sing with her train to drown out the screams.

End Flavour Edit|
That original post was shit anyway.

 

Anthony laid in the crater that the giant machine made, groaning in frustration as he felt the full weight of the beast pressing down on him.
"Geddoffa mer (Get off of me). GEDDOFFA MER (Get off of me)!"
His muffled yell went either unheard or completely ignored. Anthony could feel his rage slowly building as he was being ground into the dirt. Granted, getting crushed by a t-rex is hardly the most humiliating situation to be in but Anthony felt that any sort of defeat was utterly shameful.
"GEDDOFFA MER YA PIZZAH JERNK (Get off of me you piece of junk)!"
And with that, he had finally reached his breaking point. With a single, forceful push, he knocked away the t-rex's foot a few feet away from him, causing it to lose its balance for a moment. Then...that's when it started to get real.

He jumped into the air, right towards the beast's torso. Then, in a move that surely would've made even the great train-suplexing Sabin proud, he picked up the t-rex and flew into the air with it.
"I learned this one from playing Ninja Gaiden. It's called...THE IZUNA DROP!"
He then started to spin around with the t-rex in mid-air, going around and around enough times to make a normal person sick to their stomach. When they were pretty high in the air, Anthony turned the dinosaur upside down and began a downwards spiral towards the ground.

The sound that the t-rex made when it collided with the ground could generously be described as quite loud, but would more accurately be described as the equivalent of having a stick of dynamite going off inches away from your ear. And it's happening to both ears at once. The crater that was made eclipsed the first crater by such a wide margin, you wouldn't even know the first impact ever happened. Then, not wanting to waste any time, Anthony climbed on top of its head for the big finish.

"Okay...let's see if you're a little more responsive to THIS!"
He then grabbed the back of the t-rex's neck.
"My mind to your mind...your thoughts to my thoughts..."
That's not what the technique is supposed to be used for in the slightest, but screw it, he used his power to make it that way.

 

The cable extended with a snik and moved forward like a proboscis. It tentatively prodded Anthony before plunging into his brain stem.
IDENTIFY The word sprang in Anthony's vision.

 

Anthony froze in place when some kind of wire suddenly lodged itself in his head.
"Clever girl."
Just then, "IDENTIFY" flashed in his mind and the word itself somehow came into his field of vision. Trying his best not to freak out at alien technology planting itself in his brain, he answered it.
"Anthony. Uh...who are you?"
He wanted to give himself a much more epic introduction, but the weirdness factor of the what was happening threw him off of his game.

 

Matthew was deliberating how best to wake up Violet without irrevocably damaging her.
And the only real way to do that was to cut out the infection - whatever it was - at the source.
Sending the Jupiter's Passion Keyblade to hold the creature back, he sat down next to the unconscious pony/woman, and with the strange feeling of submerging oneself in air, melded.

In Violet's mind, a passenger had boarded her train.
He looked out of the window, back in his base form, looking at the trails of blood that streaked along the glass.
His footsteps echoed in the carriages as he walked up to the driver's cabin. He could see her, singing, bobbing left and right as countless lives were mercilessly ended by the monstrosity she was cheerfully piloting.
He stepped up next to her and looked out front, though he could barely see anything for the gore. "Why a train?"

 

ASSIMILATE Came the screech in his mind. The cable began to suck Anthony's brains out of his head.

Violet turned to look at her passenger. "Choo Choo, who are you?" She asked in a sing song voice.

 

"I'm a friend."
He looked closely at her, saw the slightly unhinged glint in her eyes.
"Do you know how to stop this train?"