Saphrim goes to Equestria

The light struggled to combat the dark amongst the in-between, the halfway point between Tartarus and Astra. It would pierce at the darkness’s defences like little lances of light from a torch or lantern. Ultimately the dark won, as not even the heavenly aura of Astra could shine light upon the in-between, it's dark emptiness blacker than even the very deepest of the inverted mountains of Tartarus. Nothing living could survive here, nothing living could survive without the light.

All but one.

He was a shadow, but not. He was made of a living smoke, held together in the form of a cruel mockery of an Alicorn with tendrils of burning magma and dark magic holding his form. The smoke that was he whipped about, trying to float away in a nonexistent breeze, only held back by the pure power that was he. The only parts of that were not made of smoke, the hooves of obsidian and horn of solidified death, remained still among the silence of the in-between. To an outside observer it would appear that he was unmoving, unchanging, dead.

That was not entirely untrue.

From his seated position on the corpse-throne he waited. He watched. He watched as the world burned, suffered and died. He watched as his loyal followers killed in his name. He watched as the ignorant Equestrians frolicked and abused themselves in a stupid and uncaring bliss.

He smiled.

Soon Astra would fail to protect them and his forces would end the barrier, dooming Equestria to painful suffering. He had been patient, he had waited. For he was ever so endlessly patient, and he could for as long as was necessary.

The Others had already fallen, after all, and there was very little chance for them to rise against him again. His victory was already assured, now he just had to wait for Astra to fall, for the last to fall.

His smile was tugged downwards momentarily. He thought he saw something unpleasant, but he was mistaken. His smile soon returned to his immaterial face.

His eyes snapped open suddenly in horror, his burning red eyes the only thing able to pierce the endless darkness of the in-between. He had seen him. There was no mistaking it, he needed to act now, before he failed again. The veins of magma along his for began to bubble and pulsate, getting faster as his anger and fear built to new levels. His fury so bright that even the fog like darkness of the in-between lifted and dispersed, as if itself feared the wrath of the angry god. His rage boiled at his insides like the magma that burnt his outsides, so powerful and great that it revealed the in-between, or what had become of it.

He screamed.

His shout of anger and pure rage echoed throughout the in-between, echoing back to him as if the world around him was mocking him. His scream cracked the already rundown structures of bone and metal, splintering into many thousands of shards that flew into the air like a swarm of angry bees, flying sporadically and embedding themselves into the surroundings. They didn't stop there. They continued to fly into the air, forming a blizzard of bone shards and metallic death that rained down around him and impaled him.

He paid them no attention as they dug into his not-flesh. He stopped screaming and all returned to silence, with only the sound of a light jingling sound piercing the quiet, as if someone had thrown thousands of needles into the air and were all colliding at a low speed.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing his glowing red pupils saw was something similar to that. Hundreds of thousands of fragments of bone and metal collided together in the micro-gravity of the in-between. Beyond that he saw the city he had destroyed beyond the steep mountain he resided upon, obliterated into shards and particles of dust that filled the air and yet already was the in-between beginning to repair itself after the assault of the angry god.

Millions of fragmented parts flew towards the destroyed structures, building it from the base upwards. He could not watch any longer for like the buildings themselves, the shadows returned. They came down upon the structures of the in-between like a tsunami, washing it away in a blanket of darkness before he as well was consumed.

He was panting.

It sounded like a landslide of heavy rocks crushing down upon a mountain of solid steel, the whine of metal on metal almost hidden behind the sheer volume of the god’s deep, rumbling wheezes. He turned around to try and see something but it was futile for the shadow had already enshrouded everything in its grasp of darkness. Now the only light was once again the few rays of light coming from his ungodly form, now a dull but harsh red instead of the near blinding white of the white hot magma that was now surging and bubbling across his smoky form.

He would need to contact his generals as soon as possible, for if he was right in his sight then he knew something was coming, what he did not know but it looked a lot like him. He needed to get to the surface-world immediately. Calling forth his ancient and terrible magic, he charged a spell only he himself alone knew how to use. His horn encased in a swirling plethora of smoky ash alight by burning flames of crimson light.

The ancient magic crawled its way over his near-immaterial form and soaked into the very core of his being, the very core of his dark soul. In a flash that temporarily destroyed the darkness that permeated the in-between, he vanished, but not all of him went, for a small part of him remained and maintained a careful watch over the in-between and the worlds apart and through.

For he is always watching.