Positive thoughts.
Stay... stay positive.
First of all, being a wolf wasn't bad.
All fours felt pretty comfortable. He was sitting on his haunch now, and it felt better than sitting cross-legged or even lying down on the ground as a human.
Maybe because he had no flesh to bruise or nerves to pinch?
Positive. Thoughts.
Alright, Adam couldn't assume he was in canon 'My Little Pony' universe. His 'Worm' realm was VERY alternate universe, this one could be as well.
He glanced at the now less cowering, more confused ponies. No fangs, so probably still not meat eaters. Wait, there was that one episode where vamponies existed? Maybe? Not likely though, they were not faded out colors but bright pastel shades. They were trying to talk to him, and clearly talking together... but it was gibberish to his ears.
It was being saved to his memories, 'Research' should help him learn to talk when he had time to go over it. Thank goodness for his prior experience at this.
From what memories he had of the show, these would be the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders', a gathering of three ponies whom had yet to gain their 'Cutie Marks', mystical symbols that would display on their bodies what ability they were most attuned to.
You COULD work against your mark, or learn talents unrelated to them. One of the main show characters, Rarity, was a unicorn who had the crest of gems. She could find valuable stones instantly, her magic refining them into cut and polished shapes with no effort.
She used that ability to make clothes.
So yeah, these marks didn't FORCE you into a job, but it was a major social event that indicated maturity and possibly puberty, and these three fillies had joined into a club out of social necessity, attempting all kinds of activities with hope to discover their own talents.
Uh. If this was canon. Cutie marks may not exist here. Probably did? Not many versions of the story even questioned the things. Better hold off until he saw an adult pony.
So, let's assume it is canon universe. What should he look out for?
All animals could communicate, even if not with all ponies or Griffons or whatever. 'Fluttershy', if she existed here, could not only talk with animals but subconsciously control them to an unusual extent. Not that she was confident enough in herself to do so often.
Thus, anywhere with animals was a place with witnesses.
Right, the Gods.
Ponies had three types of power distribution: Enhanced bodies, or Earth Ponies; Magic, via the horns on Unicorn Ponies; Weight Manipulation, or flight, by the winged Pegasus Ponies.
Each group individually was able to hold territory in the wilderness before the all powerful Alicorns, much larger ponies with all three magics, gathered them together to defend against various threats.
At one point, there had actually been wars and existential conflict across the land. Hard core fighting, against beasts, creatures tainted by corrupt spells or necro-magic, or aspects of reality.
Alicorns did not age, seemed to live off of and consist of magic, and had raw power of unimaginable levels. He could only remember three or four existing, and the two main gods, Luna and Celestia, their stories started at the beginning of recorded history... and their parents had died LONG before that.
How powerful were they? Originally, Celestia and Luna controlled the Sun and Moon. Not sure if they were the same size or distance to the planet here that they were on Earth Bet, but Luna could control star formation as well... which either implied that stars here were actually much smaller and closer or that she was altering the past of the entire universe so that when the light reached it would show up where she wanted it to.
Either way, raw power. And when Luna was exiled for a thousand years (Long story), Celestia was like 'Meh, I got this' and basically controlled all stars and such in the heavens alone. For hundreds of years. No breaks.
So yeah, gods.
And even with that power, there were stronger things. Creatures that could steal the power and abilities of anyone, the Princesses Luna and Celestia included. Worse, beings of conceptual power. Discord was a being of Chaos, a body made of animal parts called a Draconequus, and the ability to warp reality with a literal snap of his fingers.
He was thankfully tainted by this universe, which had some sort of cosmic force that reduced general grim-dark situations... so he tended to do pranks and chaos rather than random death and torture. Most of the time.
Adam frowned. Now that he thought about it, Luna not only controlled stars and the moon and such, but also domain over the dream realm. Which existed here. Preventing nightmares and likely detecting threats by spying over all sleeping creatures.
So... no naps. Not until Adam could determine the state of existence here.
He glanced at his paw. Blue flames were slowly trickling like thick syrup down his limbs, pooling on the soil.
Positive thoughts. Why was this happening? The flame thing, he would worry about being tossed into a kids show later.
Squishy poked him.
Ah.
He wasn't clear yet if there was some power above Entities or Alicorns or Gods, etc. But apparently around the Worm multiverses was a series of VERY powerful realms, probably preventing any shards from attempting to do the type of jump he did.
Not that, according to Squishy, any of the things in Worm could handle the Void. The Abyss was hungry, and this was the primary reason she had insisted on not creating his own travel ability.
This was the SAFEST reality close enough to get to, especially with his power levels.
Further, the refinement of his soul would stabilize his powers further, had healed some of the wounds that were allowing remote detection of him by precogs. Of some level.
But the main benefit was the new, 'magic' themed soul. Everything his shards did used advanced scientific methods, even if said methods were near impossible for someone on his level to understand. Even his amazing self modification abilities didn't just add some power with 'Spew fire now' attached, they required certain organs or dimensional connections to shard constructs.
So switching to the 'Equestria' soul would not just hide him, but make any analysis powers or predictive models actively throw out any gathered information on him as 'bad data' or 'flawed information'. Might even throw the abilities into self diagnostic loops if they didn't back off.
Not that he was strong enough for another Abyss journey right now. Nor that he wanted to do such a thing until he picked up some time manipulation tricks, which existed here.
Right, magic here was not hidden or whatever, but literally common. A third of the population not only used magic every day but the local book store and library had sections dedicated to the subject. For free, if his memory was right. The strongest stuff was in the castle, guarded by a literal Deity, but she was a laid back pony so if canon was even close to what this Realm followed he might be able to just ask permission. Other wise, just focus on the free stuff.
Uh. Free for ponies.
Not mutant timberwolves.
No, Focus. Positive thoughts.
A growl to his left showed a much more standard set of Timberwolves from this Realm. Branches and logs, a mouth that looked hand carved from a log with tiny wood triangle teeth, green glowing eyes.
About ten of them, whom looked split about whether they should consume the ponies or fight off Adam from their territory. More behind.
Adam casually stood on all fours, his thick vine-reinforced limbs tensing.
Oh. Even after compressing his mass and reinforcing his form... he was still nearly twice as tall as these creatures.
The pack growled at him.
Adam... moved!
Behind the far most wolf, his paw slammed on what would have been the spine, behind the head. Next he should act on the other two while this one was stunned, and he could... uh.
He felt zero resistance.
The creature wasn't knocked to chunks as per usual, the section attacked had turned into damn powder. His claw had then created a small crater under the slowly falling wolf corpse.
He... he hadn't even put effort into that. It was a surprise tactic to help separate the fighters a bit.
And the other wolves were only just now starting to turn.
Adam realized that he was... very fast right now.
He reached his paw out, focusing his fire covered claw to make a swift slice on the nearest wolf.
A green flame extended from his claws, slicing the three wolves behind his target into chunks as well.
He glanced at the other kindling waiting to be handled.
Positive thoughts indeed.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Apple Bloom huddled closer to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "Ah right, he uh... seems like a nice boy?"
Sweetie Belle sniffed. "Anything is nicer than trying to eat us."
Scootaloo was still holding her wound tightly. "I ain't going to pet him. And he is like... on fire."
Apple Bloom squinted. "No, not normal fire. It leaves the stuff on the ground alone now. That over there, that was part of my branch he stepped on. It isn't even singed."
Scootaloo gave a weak chuckle. "Guess we got a magical flaming wolf then. We could call him Burnie."
Sweetie Behind scoffed. "We are not taking in a wild fireball for a pet. Need I remind you how close we were to being eaten a minute ago!?"
She shrugged. "I figure being burned alive counts for being punished. And he seems nice enough now."
They fell silent when a low growl thrummed through the glade.
They felt fear when over forty timberwolves exposed themselves from the woods.
But before they could feel hopeless, a large pile of flaming fur seemed to suddenly begin to teleport, explosions of wood and soil reaching the sky as the pack of wild animals seemed to pop like popcorn in every direction.
And the woods were silent, the blue fire collapsing into the large dog's eyes. His fur seemed to now be layers of near black moss with bright green pine needles, his limbs dark bark and twisted wood.
If it wasn't for his goofball expression as he looked for more foes, it would have been very formidable.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
THAT WAS AWESOME!
Screw working in a lab all day, that was a rush! Everything felt fast and slow, each movement so easy and quick, each creature barely able to even notice his approach before... BAM!
Something in their bodies was being absorbed by 'Recovery' too, his construction was now far more stable and refined.
Not that it mattered really, these things wanted to eat those girls and probably himself, if he was more a wuss right now.
So 'pop' goes the wolf pack.
Half way through, he bit one creature in the spine. Out of curiosity more than anything, his paws were designed for traction not really combat.
Best. Idea. Ever!
They tasted amazing! Like salad with some bizarre dressing. Random sticks shouldn't taste this good, it was tempting to just ignore the rest of the group and chow down on Sir 'I am great with wine' here.
Not that Adam was willing to slack off, of course. It was never clear in the show if the wolves were beings, puppets controlled by souls, puppets controlled by the spirit of the forest, or just raw magic that existed in the unregulated wild forest here.
Best choice tactically (Deliciously) was to ensure no wolf could run off and report what was going on here. True, it would probably just be the same as a dinner delivery service, but there was already one wounded civilian here. No reason to tempt fate.
But yeah, bite first, claw never. Now this was not only thrilling but delicious! Would be icky to do this to most creatures, but the timberwolves didn't show a lot of higher level thinking in the show. And tasted delicious.
...Note to self, ensure he doesn't bite any humans or ponies in this form. No reason to have the mental conversation about 'how delicious humans taste' going on forever in the back of his brain.
Far too quick, the buffet was closed and he had to gnaw on the leftovers. Still tasty, but he was likely tasting living magic earlier. It clung to the body parts, but lacked that special zing that a living wolf had.
...Second note to self, 'Recovery' may have done TOO good a job converting brain to handle a wolf body.
Then again, this reality was mostly vegetarian. The Griffon society had a more meat based diet, which made the herbivore races a bit skittish, but here: Green is King. And these wolves are made of trees, so it should count as socially acceptable. Right? Probably right.
Oooo, this skull tasted minty!
Adam blinked. Right, he needed to heal that filly.
Glancing back at the group, he realized they were all staring at him. Well, at him consuming the skulls of his enemies.
His chewing slowed, out of dignified respect for the dearly departed.
He wouldn't stop though, this thing was fabulous!