Between Life and Death

“It’s burning down here, I feel like I’m in a sauna.” Key Scales stated as she whipped the sweat off her forehead.

“Well get used to it, since we’re going to be down here for a while.” Monochrome replied. After a minute he and the others stopped at a colossal steel gate. “Grate, where the hell is the gate keeper-?”

“Up here,” someone replied, Monochrome looked over his shoulder and saw a woman lounging on a rock. “And just to let you know, no one is allowed beyond …this…point…Twilight?”

“Rainbow?” Rainbow Dash smiled, she jumped off  the rock and raced over to her.

“Twilight, it’s so good to see you again!” she yelled as the two of them hugged.

“Rainbow!?” Applejack called out, Rainbow Dash looked behind Twilight and saw the other two.

“I can’t believe it, your all here!” she yelled as she hugged the other two. “How did you all get down here?! I thought the outer gates were sealed?!”

“Monochrome opened them.” Twilight answered.

“He did? Huh, never thought his magic was that strong-“

“Are you going to open the bucking gate or are you just going to stand there scratching your ass!?!?” Monochrome snapped at them.

“Alright fine! Sheesh, what’s his problem?”

“It’s a long story, we’ll probably explain it later.” Twilight replied. Rainbow Dash went over to the gate, she took a small black key out of her pocket, she walked up to the gate, she kneeled down and placed the key into a hoe on the ground, and when she turned it the get went up in flames, when the flames disappeared, the gate was gone.

“Ok, gate’s opened.” Rainbow Dash said as she got up. “Wish I could come with you guys, but if I leave my post…Ah who am I kidding, Pitch Black is going to kill me for just letting you guys in-“

“Wait what?” Twilight interrupted her. “Why do you care about Pitch Black?”

“Well, he rules this place, and when I got infected, I couldn’t really fight him so…I just sort of started doing what he said.”

“Smart, when you can’t beat someone, kiss up to them.” Monochrome stated with annoyance, he kept moving and the others quickly followed them, and once they exited out through the other side of the cave, they saw the most horrifying sight, and entire kingdom made of red stones and flames, they heard screams every few seconds from the souls that were being tortured, and there were strange beasts flying around, they didn’t look like them. “Welcome to hell.” He said, he started walking down the staircase that looked like it went on for miles, and along the way, they approached a pair of people who were struggling to push a steel cart, as they got closer to them their voices became more clear.

“Pinkie, hurry, if we get caught slacking they’ll kill us for sure-“

“I’m sorry Rarity, I can’t go on, my legs feel like jelly.”

“Yall need help with that?” Applejack asked, the two looked over the top of the mine cart and saw her holding on to it. “Applejack!” Pinkie Pie yelled with joy, she jumped over the cart and hugged her.

“I can’t believe it, how did you get here? Please don’t tell me you suffered like we did!”

“Nope, Monochrome took us here using…some, spell thing.”

“Yes, and as a sign of your appreciation, I’d like to keep moving-“Rarity screamed as she saw him in his altered state, she jumped away from the cart, Applejack struggled to hold on to so she let go, and before it could reach a higher speed Pinkie Pie jumped out of it and then it went speeding down the rusted rails.

“Well…if those beasts weren’t going to kill us before, their certainly going to do it now.”

“Was there something important in it?” Twilight asked.

“Yes actually there was, a rare gem here that is referred to as Hell Crystal, we were ordered to harvest it as punishment from disobeying a direct order from our king.”

“Did you just call that buck ass a king!?” Monochrome yelled at her and she moved back and hid behind one of the many rock formations growing from the ground.

“Hey, you two slackers are in big trouble for losing the cart!” a strange sounding man yelled from above, they looked up and saw his skin was a blood shade of red along with his eyes, his legs turned into spikes instead of hooves, he had no eyes, bat ears, and bat wings instead of arms.

“What the hell is that thing?” Clockwork whispered to himself.

“Intruders! Prepare your selves for immediate execution!” he lifted his legs up to his chest and grabbed a strange thing hanging of a string around his neck, he put it up to his mouth and started blowing on it, and as he did it created an earsplitting sound. As the sound spread across the sky, a black cloud starting forming above them.

“Not the bats again, I still have scars healing from last time.” Rarity whined. Monochrome opened up his wings and waited.

“Monochrome what are you doing, we need to run-!” Twilight shouted at him.

“I never run from a challenge.” Monochrome interrupted her, he continued standing there as the black cloud of bats grew bigger and louder, eventually the bat’s stopped appearing and the flying demon like man blew the whistle again and all the bats headed towards Monochrome, right as the got close to him, they all started turning into ash, as if the flames of the world there in finally got them.

“What! Alright, you want to play the hard way, we’ll play the hard way! Let’s see how you deal with the Red Water Leviathan!” he blew the whistle again and this time two holes opened up in the ground and both sides of Monochrome, and out of them came two massive snake likes monsters, tan scaly skin, no eyes just like their master, and teeth that look like torn up scraps of metal. They lunged at Monochrome and they both caught on fire, they started screeching then retreated back into the wells of blood. Monochrome growled then flew up to the guard, he grabbed him by his neck and tor the whistle off of him.

“If you value your life, you are to go to Pitch Black, and tell him, that Monochrome is coming to kill him, got it?”

“Y-yes sir.” Monochrome let go of the demon and he flew off towards the colossal castle on the other side of the area. Monochrome flew back down and landed next Twilight.

“Let’s go.” He said quietly, he led the others into the town, and after an hour they made it to the entrance, Monochrome kicked the door off its hinges and on the other side of it were more of the demons that patrolled the area, Monochrome pulled out his scythe, ready to attack, but they didn’t do anything, they just continued their patrol.

“Are they even a threat?” Clockwork asked.

“No not really.” Rarity replied.

“Yeah, those are the normal guards, their blind, deaf, have the brains of a rock, barely even talk, and that’s just the top of the list, it goes on for a while.” Rainbow Dash added.

“What makes them such a good choice for a guard?” Monochrome asked as he put his scythe away.

“They have the best noses of anything, if something has an out of place smell, they can find it, even if the smell is invisible to us.”

“In that case, I suggest all of you not do anything odor related, got it!?” they all agreed with him then followed him through the city, and along the way Clockwork bumped into one of the guards and knocked it over, he drew out his hammer ready to fight, but the guard just got up and kept walking.

“I know you said these things were stupid, but this…just wow.” Clockwork chuckled as he put his hammer onto his back.

“They make you look like a genius.” Red laughed.

“Yeah…I like it down here!” Clockwork shouted.

“Shut up and keep moving!” Monochrome snapped at them. Later on s they passed an ally way, they heard voices coming from it, Monochrome stopped everyone and drew outhis scythe as he listened to them.

“I’m telling you, it’s true-“

“Right, a group of freedom fighters attempting to free the sinners, funny-“

“Come on, just trust me-“

“Why should i? Last time I did I almost got caught by one of those maestro guards-“

“I told you it wasn’t my fault, they appeared earlier than I thought-“

“Didn’t I tell you that thinking was dangerous for my health?”

“Just shut up and trust me!”

“…Fine, one last time, if we get caught, I’m blaming you!”

“Fine whatever, let’s go-“

“Hold it!” Monochrome stopped them before they could leave the ally way. “I need information, and you two are going to give it to me, sound fair?”

“And why would we do that?” one of the two men replied. Monochrome smiled sinisterly, he raised his scythe and dropped it right on the person who refused to help him, splitting him right in half. “Are you going to help us or do you want to wind up like that guy?”

“…What do you need?” Monochrome smiled.

“I want to know who these “Freedom fighters” are.”

“They’re just some guys, I think there were four of them, but they aren’t important.”

“I asked who they were, not for this bullshit story, now, this time, you’re going to tell me, or, I can kill you on the spot, like what’s his face there, got it?”

“Ok, ok fine, I don’t know their names exactly but, I think one was…Arrow-something, I don’t know.” And just then Key Scales face lit up.

“Do you know what he looks like!?” Key Scales eagerly asked as she shoved Monochrome out of the way.

“I think he was…red…with a vest…he had these weird gloves gauntlet things, I can’t really remember, I’ve only really seen him once-“

“Where are they at now!?”

“They’re at the execution site…in front of the palace.” After that, Key Scales ran off leaving the others behind.

“You, stay here, if you follow us, I’ll turn you into a puddle of blood.”

“Yes sir.” The man replied, he sat down on a box and remain motionless. Half an hour later when they got to the other side of the city they arrived at a another gate, this time it was blackwood and black steel. Monochrome Walked up to it and kicked it down just like the first gate, on the other side was the same thing, multiple guards roaming around aimlessly, as he stepped in, one of the guards looked upwards and started sniffing the air, then it looked over at him and the others and started snarling.

“I think we spent too much time out in the fire areas.” Rainbow Dash stated.

“What makes you say that?” Monochrome asked.

“Well, since it was hot out in those areas, it caused us to sweat, and now, that thing can smell us.” Monochrome pulled out his scythe and walked over to it, it roared and rushed towards him. He pulled back his scythe and when it got close to him, he swung and cut off the upper half of its head. The smell must have been considered an out of place sent since all the other guards started sniffing the air. “I probably should’ve told you that, if a guard is killed, they release a smell that latches onto its killer.”

“So, I’m basically a walking demon magnet at the moment?”

You, me, and the rest of us.”

“Well, this ought to be interesting.” The demons started racing towards him and the others, and every time they got close, Monochrome would just swing his scythe and decapitate them. After a few minutes they reached a pole that shot out of the ground, and chained two it, were four people, and each one of them was blind folded.

“Arrowhead!” Key Scales yelled out as she started racing over to them.

“Scales, is that you!?” Arrowhead replied as he started blindly looking around. Key Scales slowed down as she approached him, she kneeled down and took his blind fold off. “Scales, it is you.” the two of them kissed, and then Key Scales hugged him tightly as she cried with joy.

“I thought I lost you.”

“Don’t worry, even if I am dead, I’ll always be with you.” Monochrome walked up to them, he raised his scythe and cut all the chains off of their hands and their necks, and as they stood up they removed their blindfolds.

“Shining Armor!”

“Twilight!” the two of them hugged each other. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you to Twily.”

“Gee, how heartwarming.” Monochrome stated with sarcasm, Shinning Armor looked over at him they moved Twilight behind him. “Calm down dumb ass, I killed you nonce, and honestly I don’t feel like doing it again.

“Tsk, tsk, Monochrome, I expected better from you.” Ankh taunted.

“Buck off you sandy assed son of a bitch!”

“Say it like it is brotha!” Clockwork laughed.

“I see your all as stupid as you normally were.” Dance Party added with annoyance.

“Yeah well it’s good to see you to-“

“All of you shut up and let’s go!”

“What the hell’s with him?”

“Long story, don’t feel like talking about it.” As the moved on the ran into one last guard, it rush over to Monochrome, he lifted his knee and hit it in its stomach, he then placed his hands on both sides of its head then started twisting it like it was a cap on a bottle, and a few seconds later, it’s head came completely off. He shoved the boy out of the way and went up to the gate, as he reached for the door, a hand grabbed him, he looked over and saw Blitz smiling at him.

“What do you want?” Monochrome asked with annoyance.

“An explanation as to why you’re in hell, and a “Hi Blitz how are you”.”

“I’m here for, none of your concern! And the second thing you’re not getting.” He smacked his hand off of him then opened the door into the main chamber of the palace.

“Someone die?” Blitz asked Clockwork as he passed by.

“Yup.” Clockwork replied then led the others inward. Once they were inside they started hearing some sort of coir coming from the upper floor. “Wow, must be the Brothers Choir.”

“The what?” Arrowhead asked.

“The Brothers Choir, a group of singers that work for the Brotherhood.”

“How can you tell it’s them?” Dance Party asked.

“They’re the only ones that can sound that heavenly.”

“And they’re the only ones allowed within the royal chamber.” Monochrome added, he flew up past the stair case and started walking down the corridor. At the end of it was a door way marked with large red symbols and skulls. He approached and as he placed his hand on it a voice sounded from behind him.

“That’s not a good idea you know.”

“Does it look like I give a shit Nepheus?” he turned around and saw a man, demon wings on his back, a black robe, red eyes, black skin and red scars covering his face.

“Why are you here? You know my father dislikes unannounced company.”

“Like I said, does it look like I give a shit?”

“No but you really should.” Another voice sounded, he turned over to him, shirtless, black pants, a mask covering his mouth, every time he speaks the mask lights up, messy hair, and red scars covering his body. “Uncle isn’t in a good mood at the moment, maybe you should wait until tomorrow to kill him.”

“He dies today, and no one is going to stop me.”

“Listen to us Monochrome, as a friend, I’m only trying to help-“

“I don’t need your help you demon son of bitch.”

“Monochrome, this isn’t wiae, attacking uncle during this day.”

“Why do you care Berserker, didn’t you once want me dead?”

“Yes, I once, wanted you dead, but we are allies now, and as such, i only want to help.”

“You want to help? Then stay out of my way-“

“Monochrome for the love of our kind can’t you just listen to them!?” Clockwork begged. Monochrome turned around and saw him and the others. He had no time to deal with any of them, he turned back to the door and placed his hands on it.

“We tried to warn you. But if you won’t listen then so be it.” Nepheus walked down the corridor Monochrome entered from.

“I’m with him, if you want to die then go ahead, but don’t expect to drag us down with you.” Berzerker turned into black smoke then eventually disappeared, when everything went quite, Monochrome opened the door the Royal Chamber and walked in.