Death Unbound

Celestia was in her dull room filling out her dull paperwork on a dull Sunday afternoon. Okay it was actually an especially extravagant room, filled with furnishings and comforts of every shape and size, and that afternoon was one of her best in ages, she had perfected the distance away from Equis she should place it so it would be not too hot and not too cold. This afternoon was perfect for just about anything, whether you wanted to play a game of hoofball, or just sit outside and drink some tea which was all Celestia wanted to do. Just take a break, she had been running on a combination of MREs and coffee, not the most nutritious or tastiest of combos but it had kept her alive for the past week straight, but now the coffee seemed to lose its effect, not matter how much she drank, she was still just as tired as ever. There seemed to be nothing she could do about it though until...

Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump

The noise, sounding like a metal forge, got closer to her doorway and as it did, the foul stench of rot and decay became more pungent. Just as suddenly as it came, the sound ceased, the stench however stayed. The nauseating odor caused the Princess' stomach to turn and her face to wrinkle in disgust. She got up to go investigate the source of the stench, secretly happy to be doing something other than paperwork.

She opened the door asking, "What is the cause of this stench? It smells like the plague!"

She did a double take as what she saw wasn't what she had expected for it was impossible. The entire hallway, was filled with a green haze so thick it was nearly impossible to see through. With a quick cast of a spell, she saw what she feared she would, all of her guards, every single one of them was on the ground, dead, skin rotting away faster than naturally possible.

"Speak of the devil, and he will appear." Said an obviously sick voice from behind her.

She was about to turn when suddenly something was in her face, looking quite a bit like a zombie from her favourite show, 'The Trotting Dead'. She backed away as fast as her hooves would let her, she wasn't disgusted by the sight no, the show had prevented that, but the smell was nearly unbearable, her stomach doing flips and all sorts of things an internal organ couldn't possibly do under normal circumstances.

"P-plague? I thought you were imprisoned, with your brothers!" She said, preparing a spell, though it wouldn't do her much good.

"Oh but I was, and we were. Now though, we are back in action thanks to these six fantastic mares here." He said, standing to the side presenting the Elements of Harmony, each hogtied with a gas mask covering their faces.

She couldn't tell if they were hurt or not due to the opaqueness of the surrounding fog. She began to feel a slight pain in her side, looking down she noticed a rather large black spot on the underside of her front right hoof. Her vision blurred and her head began to hurt, she was going to die. She knew this, so she decided, if she was going to die, she would try to take them with her.

She shot a bolt of magic at Plague, knocking him off balance. As he fell she continued with the barrage, slamming him into various walls and decorations in a wild attempt to destroy the Apocalypse Rider in his path. Her shots began to become weaker, separated by longer and longer periods of time until she finally collapsed in a heap on the floor. She looked at her ponies, the six most powerful ponies on Equis, tears in her eyes as she felt her strength fade further.

"Stop this now!" Yelled a voice from the pile.

Celestia jerked her head towards the pile, joy filling her heart as she saw her student squiggling in her restraints, desperately trying to console her teacher, "Stop this or I will break my mask off! Don't think I won't!" Twilight continued.

"Fine, she will die soon from what she is infected with." Said Plague, the green fog suddenly retracting back into his body.

Twilight scooched over to Celestia's dying body, tears evident through her mask, "I-I'm so sorry Princess. We didn't know...I didn't know. Please don't die on me! I need you, we need you, not only as a ruler, but as a mother to us all!" She sobbed, leaning into Celestia's shoulder as far as possible.

"I-Its okay Twilight," Said Celestia, choking on her own words as well, "just don't ever give up, use the friendships you have forged to its fullest capacity...they reach...beyond simple...borders...go...Griffin Kingdom...tell them...'the four have...returned' c-can you do that for me Twilight?" Celestia asked, nearly drawing her last breath.

"Y-yes...yes I can Princess." Twilights answer fell on deaf ears as rage filled her thoughts.

"Aww, such a heart filled moment...I'm so sorry to spoil it but I must take you all to your chambers now before He comes here to finish the job." Said Plague, gathering up the Elements in a sickly green magic aura.

Celestia watched from a distance as the creature known as Plague trotted away with her little ponies. She knew she should have felt anger, pain, sadness, anything but she didn't, she couldn't. She was just an eidolon, a shadow of her living self, she couldn't interact with the realm of the living anymore, all she could do was wait for His arrival.

Just as she began to doubt his coming, a black mist slowly emanated from seemingly out of nowhere as a pony with raven black hair and slightly green, grey skin walked through the mist. He was wearing his trademark suit of armor made of strange bones from species long lost and ponies alike, his eyes nearly pulsating with raw power tainted yellow with red irises. His face, blocked by a mask made of a skull with not even enough room for his muzzle to show, forced terror into the hearts of all. She remembered the pledge the two of them had made all those years ago as her ghostly form slowly drifted away from her cold body, it made no difference seeing as she had trapped him and his brothers in stone for all of five thousand years.

"Well, well, well, look at what we have here. Celestia finally getting what she deserves. Tell you what Tia, I won't send you to a place of peace and tranquility, oh no, I will leave you in this endless limbo, forever forced to watch as we slowly kill every single one of your ponies in every way we can think of." Death said, his mask shifting to adjust to his wide grin he was sporting across his hidden features.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're saying that the Princess herself was killed by a simple disease? I think you don't know what the word immortal means." Laughed Twilight, trying to ease the mood of everypony by the bonfire.

Needless to say it didn't work as everypony else within earshot was currently hugging themselves to keep from jumping out of their skin. Everypony except for Rainbow Dash and Applejack of course. The two of them had bet each other seeing who could tell the scariest story, so far, Rainbow was winning seeing as how the fillies had to leave the premises because of her story.

"Well yeah, it was a magic disease, a powerful one at that, oh and it was ancient, older than her so she couldn't protect herself against it." Rainbow said smugly.

"Well, in order to prevent this turning into an argument worthy of nine year olds, I say we pause this little game here and go to sleep. We are going to need our rest for when we go to Canterlot tomorrow." Concluded Twilight.\

After receiving nods of agreement as well as a couple mutterings from the two mares, Twilight made sure the two of them made it to their respective tents without fighting. Seeing as she prevented yet another argument, she herself, decided to get to bed too. The camping trip had been fun, but the three of them plus the already sleeping Pinkie Pie needed te meet up with Rarity and Fluttershy early so they could all get ready to go to the city, and they needed the rest.

As Twilight's head hit her pillow she thought to herself, Heh its just a stupid story, nothing to be afraid of...right?