Betas: Igornerd, GwendolynStacy, Duesal Bladesinger, darkerdeepdown, To Mockingbird, Monster Cat Music Girl, LiteSadistofElements

A/N - Well... I'm a firm believer in being able to drop Itachi in just about any universe and end up with something awesome. And this is what happened. (It was either Lord of the Rings or My Little Pony, I may still write an MLP Itachi-insert later though.)

Warning:It's going to jump around a lot. This is the much condensed version of a far longer epic story that I have entirely too little time to even dream of writing. It's just a collection of scenes from a much longer story that my friends (see betas above) insisted I post for the world to enjoy.

So here you go, enjoy.

The first thing Itachi noticed as he opened his eyes was that he had no idea where he was. The foliage was nothing like the greenery back home, the air was cleaner, and he was fairly certain he had never even heard of that species of bird with the black wing tips in the branches overhead.

He sat up and took stock of his surroundings. A forest. Without a single flora or fauna he recognized. There were definite similarities, but that rabbit's ears were too long and the wrong shade of brown. Or that squirrel with entirely too many white stripes along its back.

It was like his world, but not. This was mildly unsettling.

He cast out his senses and was able to establish the most likely direction to have civilization. East. If the sun was still a reliable reference of navigation.

Itachi took to the trees, defaulting into stealth mode until he had a better idea of where he was. He found a road, and there was even a traveler on it, fortunately. A single black cloaked rider racing along on its... well... Itachi hesitated to call it a horse.

He decided to follow them. Perhaps they would take him to a place with other people. Whoever it was did seem to be in quite a hurry.

He noticed the four small children hiding along the roadside long before the black rider did, and when the equine-like creature skid to a halt as its master scanned the area carefully, Itachi's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The tenseness increased in the four hidden children, and it seemed they very much did not want to be found. It most likely had something to do with the dark aura the rider was giving off.

Well, he did technically need to ask for directions, and if he could time it to possibly save someone else, so be it. Besides, if the rider proved unhelpful, then the children might have better information.

With that thought, he shunshined out of his tree and directly in front of the black rider.

He must have startled them, as the horse reared up in surprised, and the man immediately reached for his sword, having it out and swinging toward Itachi before the shinobi could speak.

The Uchiha blocked it easily with a kunai, noting the ominous chakra emanating from the blade and resolving to be extra careful to never be cut by it.

"Excuse me," he began, but the rider didn't pause as he continued to strike. Itachi blocked the strike, and continued to block any following ones as he persisted in his efforts to communicate. "I appear to be lost. Could you point me in the direction of the nearest town or village?"

His only response was an inhuman wordless shriek and an intense wave of killing intent. He had already begun thinking that this 'person' was not a person at all. The malignant chakra and blood thirsty aura merely confirmed his suspicions that this was some evil entity masquerading as a man.

It was extremely unlikely Itachi was going to have his questions answered by such a creature, and the fact that it kept trying to kill him was just irritating.

He leapt back, fingers flashing quickly through hand seals as he inhaled deeply. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu," he spoke, releasing a stream of fire from his mouth that expanded quickly to envelope the dark creature. Horse and rider shrieked before turning around and running off.

Odd. That should have killed it. Not much survived Itachi's great fireball. He debated whether to follow and finish it off when he heard a gasp.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the small children duck back out of sight. Right. It was better to figure out his current situation than go around killing random creatures. Even if the creature was almost certainly evil and had attacked him first.

He walked over to where the group of four were huddled. He wasted no time in jumping down into the ditch with them, effectively cutting off their frantic whispered conversation. It was not surprising they were terrified of him, most people were afraid of shinobi, particularly after watching them fight.

What did surprise him was that these small children were not children at all. The facial structure and proportions were all wrong. They were more like tiny men than children.

He realized he was beginning to stare and forced himself to set his curiosity aside. "Excuse me, would you mind pointing me in the direction of the nearest village or town?"

His question only seemed to make them more fearful, not less. He kept his expression carefully neutral as he waited patiently for a reply.

Eventually one of them mustered up the courage to swallow and stutter out something incomprehensible. He tilted his head to the side in a silent request for them to repeat their statement and they did.

Not that it helped much, other than make it clear they weren't speaking the same language. Which explained why he hadn't managed to catch anything of their whispered conversation before. Well. That certainly put a limit on his options.

He considered the group in front of him carefully before deciding it was probably best to just follow them from a distance. Their clothing suggested they were from a larger community of sorts, and eventually they should lead him somewhere he could gather more information.

He shunshined away to a nearby tree and waited for them to continue their journey. It took several minutes, but eventually they felt confident enough to leave their hiding place. Itachi followed them discreetly.

Itachi circled back to the inn with the small men, discouraged by the minimal information he'd managed to gather about where he currently was located. He'd only managed to find small maps of the immediate surrounding area, and nothing had looked at all familiar. It didn't help any that he was completely unable to understand the language the maps were written in. He was fairly certain it was a phonetic instead of symbolic language, which increased the learning curve for him significantly.

He settled in to stake out the place from a roof across the street and watched curiously as the not-children he had been following seemed to have a good time. They were up on the table in the main room dancing and singing loudly with two large mugs presumably filled with alcohol. Well, two of them were. One of them was sitting and scowling at them. The shinobi frowned when he failed to locate the fourth one.

He circled around the building, and spotted the small man just as he was tossed roughly into one of the rooms upstairs by a dark stranger. They did not look like they were having a very civil conversation, considering the dark man's hostile gestures and the way the little one was nearly cowering in the corner.

Well. He had wanted to reveal himself eventually. Now was probably a good time.

The second story window was unlocked, and the shinobi had no issues slipping inside just as the man was reaching out to lay hands on his self-appointed charge. The next moment found the stranger pinned to the ground with a kunai to his throat. Itachi inclined one questioning eyebrow to the shorter man, placing the stranger's fate in his hands.

It took the little man a moment to understand, and in that time, the man Itachi had pinned barked out something. In response, Itachi tightened his hold painfully in warning. He lessened it again, however, when his charge hurried forward to ask their prisoner a question. Itachi couldn't understand what they were saying, but he did know the guy would need to breathe in order to give an answer.

Much to his bemusement, his little friend came forward to gesture at him. It.. looked as if he was asking to let the prisoner go? Yes. That was most definitely what he was asking.

The shinobi released the man hesitantly, allowing them both to climb to their feet. The next few moments left Itachi baffled as the two had a very serious sounding conversation, there were many uncertain glances tossed his way.

Eventually he just decided to disappear back out the way he came. The stranger no longer appeared hostile, for the moment, but Itachi would keep an eye on him just in case.

It took the shinobi longer than it should have to place the man in a tentative mentor sort of role. Like the jonin sensei of an academy graduate team. Being alone in this new place must have been messing with his head, it should have been obvious the man held no killing intent toward the small ones.

Their relocation to a different inn had him suspecting that their position had been compromised. This was proven correct a few hours later when four dark creatures entered their room, unsheathing the same evil-feeling blades from the entity he'd encountered earlier in the forest.

Well. These things were definitely something he probably ought to kill.

Across the street, four hobbits and a ranger peaked out their window at the grizzly scene across the street. Frodo felt ill at how close they'd been to death, he was certainly grateful that Strider had shown up to warn them.

He was roused from his thoughts by a startled oath; and when he glanced up he had to fight one back as well. "Oh, no."

"Is he mad?!" Strider hissed beside him.

Frodo shrugged, even though it was unlikely the ranger would turn to see it. "I'm beginning to wonder that myself."

In the other room, the strange man (spirit?) had appeared and was attempting to kill four ring wraiths on his own. It wasn't going well for him, not using normal weapons like he was, but it wasn't exactly going bad for him either.

"Look at him go! He's amazing!"

"Do you think he knows those knives won't work on them?"

"How would anyone tell him? He doesn't speak our language."

"That's true. I wonder why he hasn't set them on fire yet?"

"Don't be stupid. A great big fireball like that? Inside a wooden building?"

"Oh, yeah, that would be bad."

"Would you two be quiet?!" Sam whispered harshly, shooting a glare at Merry and Pippin. They both shot him affronted looks, but did remain silent.

All at once, the ducked out of sight as the stranger turned their way and leapt out of the window just across from them. The ringwraiths were not far behind, paying little heed to the hobbits' hiding place, enraged at the mortal that had dared attacked them and yet lived.

Frodo dared another glance to see the dark man only get part-way down the street before stopping to face his pursuers. Beside him, the others dared to look as well, each wondering why the foreigner was just standing there. He appeared to be doing something with his hands. Like before with the fireball. Except this time he didn't end with inhaling a deep breath, instead he just stood there, perfectly still, as the dark figures closed in on him.

Like the great gaping maw of a dragon, two walls of earth rose up on either side of the minions of mordor. They snapped closed on their prey, encasing them completely in a tomb of solid rock before sinking back into the earthen depths below. The stranger relaxed his stance and glanced up at their window making Frodo flinch involuntarily. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it the man's eyes almost appeared to glow red.

Abruptly, the figure in the street disappeared in an explosion of smoke. They glanced anxiously around for any sign of him, but the foreigner was gone. One by one they exchanged anxious glances.

Just what manner of creature did they have following them?

"Sam? Are you alright?"

Samwise looked over from where he had been staring out into the rain, startled by the sound of Frodo's voice.

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine, Mr. Frodo," he replied. "Just thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

Sam shrugged as his friend came to stand beside him. "I was just wondering about our shadow. If he's been following us this whole time, does that mean he's out there, right now, in the cold and rain all by himself?"

"I don't know, Sam," Frodo replied, frowning at that thought. "But that does sound likely."

They were silent for a moment while Sam grimaced. "Do you think he'd come join us if we invited him?"

"Invite him how? We haven't been able to find him outside of battle."

"That's not going to stop me from trying," Sam answered. His friend watched in bemusement as he stepped forward into the rain and began calling out. "Shadow? Mr. Shadow, sir? Can you come out please?"

"He won't know to answer to the name Shadow," Frodo sighed.

"No, but he'll know we're calling for someone, and who else would we call for?" Sam replied, then turned to shout again.

He didn't get the chance, as a dark figure melted out of the darkness beside him, startling both hobbits. "Shadow!" Sam cried out in relief and recognition.

Frodo stared at the man, for the first time seeing more detail than the tied back long black hair and red cloud colored cloak. He was young, assuming his human appearance was at all accurate. He had unusually narrow eyes, almost like he were squinting all the time, with nearly black irises and pale skin. It was surprising how human he looked after witnessing his earlier capabilities. He was soaked thoroughly from the rain, but he didn't appear to be bothered by it.

The shadow man regarded them evenly before tilting his head to the side in a silent question.

Sam wasted no time in ushering the foreigner toward the fire, reaching down to grab the man's hand and pull him along when he wasn't responding fast enough to gestures. Pippin and Merry perked up excitedly, while Strider shifted uneasily when Sam instructed the man to sit with them.

Hesitantly, the dark figure removed his wet cloak and took a seat. He was startled when a bowl of warm stew and spoon was shoved into his hands, and Sam stood by watching to make sure he ate. Itachi ran a discreet check for poisons before taking a bite. Pretty good for travel food, he nodded a thanks to the little man and the hobbit smiled back.

Frodo was looking over the whole scene with an aura of amusement when a loud thunk and a yelp of surprise made him jump. He shot a glare at Merry and Pippin, the source of the yelp. They were sitting suspiciously close to where Itachi's cloak lay, one of the odd foreign knives with their strange ringed handles was imbedded into the ground between them.

"We weren't doing anything!" Pippin protested.

"We were just going to... hang it up. To dry," Merry added

"Right, to dry."

Frodo sighed. This was going to be a long and eventful night.

"Itachi?" Elrond asked, raising an eyebrow at the halfling before him.

"He's the fire-breathing spirit-thing that comes out of nowhere whenever we need him," Merry spoke up cheerfully.

Pippin nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! He set fire to one of the black riders! Like a torch!"

"Is he some sort of wizard...?" one of the elves asked.

"We don't know," Sam answered. "He can't speak our language, but he'll come out if you call him."

"Really? Would he appear if you called him now?"

The hobbits looked uncertainly at one another before Frodo shrugged. "Maybe. We've never tried with so many people around."

"Itachi! Would you come here please?" Pippin called out louder, earning an exasperated look from the others. None of them had actually expected the foreigner to appear.

When Itachi appeared in a swirl of leaves with his customary head tilt and soft, "Hai?" the hobbits jumped in surprise.

It was nothing compared to the reactions of everyone else at the meeting. There was a loud scrape of chairs being pushed out and weapons being drawn. In less than a second, Itachi had every sharp pointy object in the room trained on his person.

If the dark haired man noticed, he gave no sign, only continued to wait expectantly for the hobbits to ask something of him.

Aragorn swore in Elven before standing and addressing them in common. "Do not provoke him! I have seen this man fight and he is no ordinary warrior. I almost agree with them about him being a spirit, he certainly moves like one. I have seen him dive into an group of enemies and flow through them like a gust of wind with blades, just as I have seen him summon a snake like creature of fire to decimate an army that was pursuing us. I have even seen him fell opponents merely by looking at them! He is not someone to be trifled with! So put down your arms, because if you convince him you are a threat, I doubt it will end well for you."

He sat back down and leveled Elrond with a firm gaze. There was a moment of silent communication between them before Elrond grimaced and gestured for his soldiers to be at ease. Aragorn gave him a nod of thanks.

The elven leader did not acknowledge it as he continued to regard this new mystery in their lands with unease. The stranger had still yet to move as he waited patiently to be informed why he'd been called, though the elder elf had a feeling he already knew. Just like he had a feeling that it was better to wait for the hobbits to answer before addressing the man himself.

"Uh," Pippin said at last, when it became apparent that no one else was going to take charge of the situation. He had been the one to summon him, and it was him the black-haired man was staring intently at. "Itachi, this... this is the king of elves, Elrond. He, uh, he wanted to meet you?"

He gestured weakly at the elf, relieved when Itachi's gaze finally left him to regard the king.

For a moment, the two regarded each other neutrally, neither one backing down from the other. Then, Itachi broke the stalemate by bowing respectfully and speaking something very formal sounding in his own language. He straightened and waited for their reactions.

Elrond nodded in acceptance and gestured toward an empty seat at the table. Inviting him to join them. The Uchiha took the offered seat and everyone settled back down to the discussion. More than a few of them were eyeing him warily, but Itachi gave them no indication he noticed.

The king cleared his throat to regain everyone's attention before pressing the meeting forward. Itachi couldn't understand what was being said, but he knew a war council when he saw one.

He activated his sharingan just long enough to memorize the map and placement of troops before sitting back to watch. He did not have enough information yet to be able to help strategize, but he could at least memorize last known enemy positions as well as know the layout of this mysterious world he'd been sent to. This map was by far the most comprehensive he'd come across since arriving in this new land.

He'd still yet to find any trace of the Elemental Nations.

His thoughts were interrupted as an unusually short and... hairy... man rose with a shout and brought his axe to bare. Curiously, the man's aim was not at Itachi, but at the small golden ring on the table. The same object he had come to recognize as their primary objective.

No one else seemed alarmed at the imminent destruction of it, in spite of all the trouble they'd gone through to bring it here; and not for the first time, he wondered about the true objective of their journey.

The axe came down and the shinobi's eyes watched his small friends carefully for any sign of them wanting to stop it, but it never came. As the blade struck, the ring pulsed with chakra and shattered the weapon that had sought to destroy it.

He blinked in surprise.

Some form of protective seal possibly? The was a form of writing on it that was not completely unlike fuuinjutsu runes. Only, linear instead of circular or arrayed. He'd only seen it once, when the dark haired one had dangled it in the fire for a few seconds to force the script to appear.

Quite fascinating, actually, the process had been alchemical in nature, not a genjutsu he could have pierced with his sharingan. He would have liked to study it further, but he doubted that would have gone over well with how jealously the ring was guarded.

He was brought out of his thoughts by sudden activity around him. People were standing and gravitating towards a group forming on the far end of the balcony. A group centered around his four charges.

Deciding it was about time for him to leave anyway, he allowed his clone to disperse into a flock of crows. He directed them to swarm briefly around the four small men, making it clear his intention to travel with them, then dive off the balcony and scatter in several directions.

He himself slunk stealthily around the shadows of the vaulted architecture. There were spies in their midst, tainted with the same dark chakra as the wraith creatures that had been hunting them. Their hosts had been most gracious in their accommodations for his charges. He would return the favor by dealing with this problem.

The sun was setting the following day, long after the fellowship had left, when three of Elrond's citizens burst into his court and gibbered in half-insane nonsense about their treachery and begging him to save them from nightmares with the shadow man.

Investigation would soon price their confessions true, leaving Elrond very relieved indeed that this 'Itachi' creature was not their enemy.

"Itachi!" Frodo cried out in relief as the orc fell dead.

The foreigner wasted no time as he reached down and pulled the hobbit to his feet. When Frodo threatened to pitch forward again, the man lifted him up and swung him up onto his back. "Where?"

Frodo lifted an arm toward the volcano. "We need to take the ring to the volcano, to the fire. We need to destroy it!"

Instead of moving, Itachi stilled. "Destroy? Ring? Fire?" he questioned.

A chill ran down Frodo's spine. Had the ring gotten to Itachi? He swallowed and pointed again, more urgently. "Yes, to the volcano, please! It must be destroyed!"

Itachi began lowering Frodo to the ground, and the hobbit cast frantically about for an escape. They were so close! The ring had to be destroyed!

The dark haired man deftly ignored Frodo's struggles as he plucked the ring's chain from around his neck. The hobbit made one last desperate lunge for the ring that Itachi easily dodged, back stepping to put more space between them. Before Frodo could make another attempt, the other man surprised him by throwing the chain up into the air.

"Amaterasu."

The word was spoken barely above a whisper, but it seemed to cut through the noise of the bubbling lava and harsh winds. Black fire engulfed the ring and chain, and right before Frodo's eyes, it was completely consumed, not even ash remaining to fall to the ground.

The consequences of the magical artifact's demise were instantaneous. A hideous shriek echoed across the land, originating from the distant tower. Frodo stared in amazement as the glowing eye seemed to writhe in agony before slowly imploding upon itself and disappearing in an explosion that sent a massive shock wave across the dark skies.

Orcs could be heard wailing in torment as their source of power was so suddenly stripped from them, and the stunned hobbit barely noticed when Itachi hoisted him onto his back again.

"Where?"

The soft spoken question snapped him out of his daze. Only for him to gasp at Itachi's face. Blood was dripping heavily from his eyes.

"You- You're bleeding!" the halfling exclaimed in horror.

Itachi acknowledged his comment with a calm nod. "I know. Where?"

It took Frodo a moment to respond, completely baffled by the other man's lack of concern. He hesitantly answered, "Away. From here. Back to the others if we can find them."

The foreigner took off. It was several minutes later before Frodo finally gave voice to the question that had been weighing heavily on his mind.

"... could you have done that the entire time?"

A/N: So... that's that. Thank you for reading my experimentation in trans-dimensional Uchiha-ness. I had a few other ideas for scenes, but this had been sitting around for probably about two or three years before I finally just buckled down and finished the scenes I had already started. If I ever get around to writing them I'll post them as another chapter to this, but I'm not sure how likely that is to happen.

As for my other stories, they are not dead, I promise. I just make really sluggish progress on them. M:TABD I was working on no too long ago. Fight scenes just make my writing motivation curl up and wail like a tantruming child.

Story Recs: (Crossovers)

Stardust by Arad – [XCOM: Enemy Uknown X My Little Pony] Warning: Not for little girls. "Isolated from her friends and taken prisoner in the middle of a war, Twilight must deal with the very real dangers of being perceived as an enemy as well as the nightmares of her arrival on 'Earth'." Not on FFnet, they're on another site called fimfiction. Just google 'Arad Stardust' it'll pop up.

I cannot stress enough how much I love this story. The sequels not so much, but this one, and the Celestia spin off, are amazing works of art. It is not necessary to actually know the worlds of XCOM or MLP in order to enjoy this story. Arad is amazing at drawing the world for you.

Ocean Stars Falling by Lang Noi (Author of Catch Your Breath) –[Naruto X One Piece] And by Naruto, I mean specifically the Naruto world as written in Catch Your Breath. "Once again, Kei's infamous luck spurs a brand new adventure. Only this time, there's no foreknowledge, a giant grumpy turtle monster not where he's supposed to be, and an ocean full of possibilities and danger in the same breath. She just knows she has to find some way to get home to Konoha. And what is all this business about pirates, anyway? (A Catch Your Breath side-story.)"

I would say give this one a shot even if you're not too familiar with One Piece or Catch Your Breath. It does start out a bit slow, but builds into awesome fairly quickly. I like the part where they used five tailed beast bombs at once. Because the bijuu really didn't like that place.

Thank you so much for all your guys' patience and support! I'm glad people still read my stories.

-Py