The Black Knight of Equestria
In a plane outside of human comprehension, there exists a structure that serves as a meeting place for deities and individuals who are of singularly cruel and sadistic mindsets. It takes the appearance of a large gazebo-like structure, fifty feet across, with tall, Gothic pillars of white stone arching up to form Romanesque arches as they meet the ceiling dome, a hundred feet above the floor. Past the pillars, one can see just some of the infinite realities out there, with the view shown in each gap changing at the whim of those within. The floor is made of white marble, and the ceiling is emblazoned with images of suffering and cruelty: mementos of some of the favorite past acts of those monsters that frequent this place. This place is not the only one of its kind: the nature of the multiverse, an infinite set of infinite realities, both parallel and otherwise, means that for whatever place, event, object, or person you could think of, an infinite number of variations on it exist somewhere, scattered across other dimensions. This particular meeting place differed in that the air there was very relaxed, almost casual. One might even say that this refuge, that existed outside of even the boundaries of the infinite dimensions of the multiverse, was like a clubhouse for all the trolls and pranksters of the multiverse.
Sitting at a round, wooden table in the center of the Clubhouse right now were some of those individuals. There was a tall male human, or at least something wearing the shape of a human male, wearing a red uniform trimmed with black shoulders and trim. Clipped to the right side of his chest was a pin, with a gold oval on its side, and a silver crescent with its convex side pointed up.
Sitting next to him was a being with the body of a dragon, a goat’s head with antlers from a deer and an ibex, a lion’s front leg and a giant bird claw for arms, a reptilian leg, two bat wings that were different shades of blue, and a horse’s leg. His eyes were yellow with red pupils, and his fur went from light-grey to brown to dark red scales as it went down the length of his body to his tail.
Opposite him was a humanoid with bird-like talons for feet, huge crow wings on its back, and a bird’s head at the end of its long serpentine neck. It was covered head to toe in indigo feathers, although the color and texture seemed to flicker and change as one watched. It wore an off white tunic, and was adorned with many pieces of golden jewelry about its wrist, waist, and neck. Again, the jewelry’s exact shape seemed to change from moment to moment. In one hand, the creature held a long staff, which was topped with a golden symbol resembling a twisted flame.
The final one present at the table was another apparent human male: the only hint that he was something more were his unnaturally blood red eyes. His hair was silver and trimmed neatly to his head, the same as his beard. He wore a short black cloak over a black suit lined with white, and in his white-gloved hands he held a walking stick. His face was lined with age, but the unholy mischief and sadistic humor glinting in his eyes made him look slightly younger.
As might be expected of a gathering that consisted of a member of a sufficiently advanced alien race, a spirit of chaos, a god of sorcery and change, and an immortal wizard prankster, the conversation had turned to the suffering of other dimensions.
“No, I hold that the would-be sorcerer is more hilarious than the Skulltaker, did you say it was called?” The old man, commonly known as Zeltrech Schweinorg, Magician of the Second Magic, more commonly known as ‘that damn Zeltrech,’ argued with the personification of Chaos.
“Well, of course you would say that, Zel ol’ chum. You are somewhat biased towards spellcasters,” Discord replied easily as he sipped on a glass that he hadn’t had a moment earlier.
“Just as you are biased towards anything to do with Chaos, my serpentine friend,” quipped the humanoid sitting next to him. Strangely, his voice was virtually identical to Discord’s.
Across the table, Tzeentch contemptuously spat a drop of pure corruption to one side. “Please, don’t tell me you think that one of the Skull Lord’s ilk, even just a human bound into the form of one, is in any way a worthy representative of Chaos. Now, that Invention character on the other hand…”
Q laughed. “Just his backstory alone is fascinating, I’ll give him that.” A note of mocking crept into his smile and tone. “Although, should you really be making claims about who exactly is the best representative of chaos? In such a gathering as this, that could only end badly.”
Discord leaned in towards the table, grinning madly. “Especially since there’s only one chaos god at this table who’s been banished from their home dimension.”
The Architect of Fate growled in response. “At least my comeuppance was more dignified than a rainbow powered by diabetes-inducing sentiments.”
Pink clouds gathered around Discord, rumbling with rasberry-flavored lightning in response to his mood. “I fell in combat to an eldritch artifact of Harmony, powered by no less than six living incarnations of Harmony: living saints of harmony, one might even say. You lost a game of chess to a human with a nicotine habit and an outrageous coat.”
Tzeentch snarled as bolts of sorcery shot out from his eyes, turning Discord into a tiny garter snake with an indignant hiss. “For the last time, there was nothing normal about that human! I have looked back in time to that game a thousand times, and there is no way that pawn should have been able to get there! There is no logical way it could have gotten there, nor is there any sorcery that could have delivered it there! It was not possible, even if he had been a Chaos god himself, for him to have possibly gotten that damn pawn to that spot!”
Zeltrech’s grin widened as Q chuckled, and Discord grumpily turned back to normal. Well, what passed for normal for him. “So, you might say that it was just that he was a tactical gen-”
“Don’t. Test. My. Patience. Wizard Marshall.” The very air around Tzeentch was warping and roiling from the sheer rage the Eldritch Abomination was feeling. Q cleared his throat, as the others turned to see that he was somehow suddenly dressed as a Buddhist monk.
“Peace, my brethren, peace.” Snapping his fingers, Q was no once more clothed in his purloined Starfleet uniform, this time holding a cup of tea (Earl Grey, Hot) in one hand as he gestured with the other towards the dimensional windows around them. “Getting back to the conversation at hand, I believe that we were debating which human turned villain and set loose in Equestria was the most entertaining.”
“Ah, yes. Speaking of that, I have an idea.” Zeltrech smiled, and a million voices cried out in fear at what that portended. “I think it is time we set our hand to conducting one of these scenarios, don’t you?”
The magician’s smile spread to the other three members of the meeting. “Grant a human power beyond reason, and place them in Equestria? I am always up for a good bit of chaos, especially when it could cause a Celestia a headache, but isn't it somewhat overdone by this point?” The one native Equestrian among them asked.
“I am aware of that, which is why I’ve had this thought. Tell me, my dear draconequus, what is it that lunar princess of your’s always says?”
Discord chuckled. “You’ll have to be more specific. She says, or rather shouts, plenty of amusing things.” His eyes, and then his grin, widened as he caught Zeltrech’s meaning. “Perchance you are referring to her statement about ‘Doubling the Fun?’”
Q raised an eyebrow. “Sending two villains to Equestria? We want to have fun at their expense, not destroy them.”
“In any case, I have already found the first of our new emissaries.” Tzeentch pointed his staff at one of the dimensional windows, causing it to ripple as it changed to show a white human male, most likely English or American, slaving over a humungous suit of blue and gold replica armor.
Discord raised an eyebrow. “An amusing choice, although I suspect you’re just trying to avoid being shown up by the Skull Lord.”
“The possibilities are impressive, though. It seems to me that you are simply trying to gain a foothold in Equestria by sending one of your pseudo-followers there, but then that is where the second will come in,” Zeltrech mused as he swirled a glass of crimson liquid in one hand, eyeing it critically.
Q frowned. “How would sending another anti-brony to act as a villain make this scenario any different from the others that already exist? You must admit, even taking the infinity that is the multi-verse into account, there are a lot of ‘human villains in Equestria’ worlds out there.”
Zeltrech’s trademark smile reappeared on his face. “Who said the second would be another anti-brony?”
Discord munched on a candy cloud thoughtfully. “You’ll send a hero to help the poor, defenseless ponies, and save them from the villain?”
“I suppose it could be fun,” Tzeentch mused, already planning to give his future minion a significant power boost to help deal with whatever Zeltrech was planning.
He was interrupted momentarily from his plotting by Zeltrech’s cackle. “Why would I make things that easy on them? I’ll send them a hero, certainly, but that won’t be how they’ll see him: rather, he will be another monster, but one that fights the other monsters.” With that, the Old Man of the Jewels drew sword with a short blade made of crystal from his cloak. Gesturing to two of the windows behind him with the strange blade, which momentarily pulsed with all the colors of the rainbow as he channeled its strange sorceries, the two windows changed, displaying the object of Zeltrech’s plan to the others.
The first window showed a rather ordinary looking Caucasian human male, whistling happily as he pieced together a suit of armor out of black plastic, carefully cutting the pieces to match the reference pictures hanging just above his workplace. The armor, even half finished as it was, bore cruel looking spikes on the shoulders, elbows, and knees, as well as talon-like gauntlets.
The other window showed something much more ominous: a black mass of shadows, bound into a vaguely human form, in the depths of which could be seen the glimmer of steel plate armor and a single red slit for the eyes of the mad being within. The scenes flickered quickly, showing the beast of steel and shadows fighting with animalistic savagery, but undeniable skill. A golden king, a steely king with an invisible blade, an enthusiastic conqueror riding a chariot wreathed in lightning, a mad sorcerer, a knight with two spears, and a shadow that wore a hundred faces all fought against it with unearthly powers and ability, yet the mad beast took them all on with a defiant roar. The images paused on the black knight in the midst of his struggles, allowing the onlookers to see his armor clearly, and its resemblance to the replica suit being constructed in the other window.
Tzeentch shook his head and sighed. “A Berserker. Of course. Because should one of my followers ever be in a situation where there won’t be an overly muscled brute to kick their teeth in, the multiverse would surely collapse from shock.”
“Yet you don’t argue against it,” Q pointed out, “and you have already selected your champion. You have no say in who else we choose to send.”
Tzeentch smiled, showing a shocking amount of teeth for something that was currently holding the shape of an avian. “Yet how do you know that this isn’t the hero I would choose? It could be that I’ve been counting on Zeltrech making this suggestion all along, which would mean that this has gone just. As. Plan-”
Zeltrech cut in by handing the god of schemes and sorceries a red and white sphere with a single round button set in between the red and white hemispheres. Tzeentch only had the time to blink once before the sphere popped open along its equator and sucked him into it with an anguished scream and a flare of light. The sphere closed itself with a clack, and fell down into the recently vacated seat. The silence that followed was deafening.
“Denied,” chorused Discord and Zeltrech in the silence that followed. They reached out and bro-fisted across the table, as Q joined them in uproarious laughter. When they all stopped laughing, a solemn silence settled over the meeting. Iit wouldn’t do to be anything less than completely focused for what they were about to do: there was, after all, a certain art involved in trolling other dimensions, that demanded that they be nothing but serious for the duration of the endeavor. Well, at least until they were done setting it up. Then they would just laugh uproariously at the mayhem that would follow.
“Well then, gentlemen,” Discord enquired, “shall we?”
Cog Archival presents,
a MLP:FiM, Fate/Zero, and Warhammer 40k fanfiction,
EQUESTRIA’S BLACK KNIGHT
I looked into the mirror, and a mad beast gazed back at me, with a glowing crimson slit for eyes, set in the center of a medieval knight’s helm, with a single long purple plume attached to the back. Damn, I was good.
I reached up to the neck of my suit of armor with a bare hand, and flicked the hidden switch that controlled the small LED’s set into the eye slit. Instantly, the helm I was wearing started to look more like the plastic replica that it was rather than the badass armor that I wanted it to be. Who says dramatic lighting doesn’t do anything?
“Alright, so the eye lighting is a go. Now, I should probably check if I can work the switch for it with the gloves on.” With that, I turned to the workbench where I had left the two pieces of the suit that I wasn’t wearing.
“Yard by yard, stitching it together, assembling the gauntlets, hammering them together bit by bit…”
I continued my heavily improvised and horrendously off-key rendition of “Art of the Dress” as I finished fastening my gauntlets on. Turning towards the mirror, I was met with the angry visage of the Berserker from Fate/Zero.
My current project was the Berserker from the anime and visual novel Fate/Zero, the prequel to the anime and visual novel Fate/Stay Night. The basic plot was that seven modern day magi competed in an all out battle royale set in the Japanese city of Fuyuki, with the prize being the Holy Grail, an omnipotent wish granting device so powerful that it might as well be the actual, legitimate Grail of biblical lore. In order to accomplish this, each magus summoned a being known as a Servant, a copy of the spirit of a person who accomplished such deeds in life that they were immortalised through the songs and stories of their feats. Each Servant is powered by the magus who summoned them as well as by the weight and strength of their legends. They are also sorted into seven classes, to hide their identities and thus keep the war from being won right off the bat by any chucklehead with a decent knowledge of mythology and ready access to certain magical substances and a sniper rifle, for instance. The seven classes are Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Assassin, Caster, and Berserker, with each one representing what each hero was famous for in life.
The Servant Berserker who appeared in Fate/Zero was the spirit of Lancelot of the Lake, mightiest of the knights of the Round Table, who fell into madness and despair after his betrayal of Arthur led to Camelot’s ultimate fall. Insane and given to constant brooding he may have been, the guy had some crazy awesome abilities, and that pitch black armor of his was totally badass. I could only hope that I had captured something of that with my work on this replica suit.
Well, I guess I’ll find out when I bring this thing to the convention next week! Nodding at the decision that I had made, I reached up and flicked the switch to turn on the visor light, and a blood red glow immediately shone out from my helmet’s eye slit. Wow, I don’t remember that looking that impressive before. I especially don’t remember there being an almost physical feeling of hate and rage coming from the eye lights, either. It was then that I noticed a swirling, galaxy-like clump of spinning, multicolored lights behind me in the mirror. Yeah, I don’t remember that being there either.
I spun around quickly to face the thing, but just as I did so, it swept forward, widening as it did to form a black void that engulfed me before I even had the chance to swear at it. I turned my head to try to see back out of the empty space I found myself in, but was rewarded only with more nothingness. I like to think that, having apparently been eaten by the universe, I reacted pretty well.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK BULLSHIT IS THIS?!”
I’d like to think that I reacted well, and kept it together, and remained calm, cool, and in control of myself and the situation.
“NO! I REFUSE! THIS NONSENSICAL BULLSHIT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, AND I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SOMETHING SO LUDICROUS IS HAPPENING!”
Oh, who am I kidding, I flipped my shit. Well, I’d like to see you do any better.
“Oh, this is, this is just great, this is nice, right here. Where the hell am I, anyway? There’s still some unresolved issues here, God, or alien space bat, or Azathoth, or whoever’s in charge of this industrial grade fuck up. How do I get home? What am I supposed to eat? How am I supposed to breath? I’m inside this, like… big, black, ball. Is this all in my mind, or something? What was that vortex thing of despair and doom, anyway? Am I even real? Aw, hell, I hope I’m not some figment of my own imagination. Or someone else’s.”
In another dimension, a brony typing on a laptop suddenly sneezed, blew his nose, and went back to work.
“Are there any buses that run through here, or something? I mean, I’d like to go home now, but, uh… where’s home? Is this how you run the universe? Is this where we go from here? Okay, so maybe I’m… damnit. Just…. god damnit. The movie had better make up for this, because I am stuck. In fucking nowhere land. You ran out of ink too, didn’t you, you bastards.” I paused. “Yeah, you know you’ve hit a low point when you’re quoting Shinji Ikari.” Oh well. Since I seemed to be in a zero gravity zone, wherever the hell I was, I decided to do what I’d always wanted to do if I ever got into zero gravity: I tucked my legs and head into my chest, and did my best to spin myself into a barrel roll.
I was just realizing that this wouldn’t work unless I could find something to push off against, when suddenly a tiny bright light appeared in front of me. Figuring that I might as well head towards it, since it was something to do, I tired to do so. I promptly ran into the same problem of not having anything to push off against, and thus being unable to move through the void. Stupid laws of action and reaction. It’s a shame, too. That light seemed to be getting bigger, so clearly something interesting was happening over there.
It was about the time that I considered taking my helmet off and throwing it to move myself that I realized that the light wasn’t getting bigger: it was getting closer, and it was doing so at high speed!
“Somehow, I have this unshakable certainty that this is going to hurt like a bi-”
I just had time to utter that invective before the light was upon me. I just had time to take in the sight of a blue, sunny sky dotted with a couple of fluffy clouds before I realized that apparently that light had been some form of portal, like the sort that first brought me into the void. I reached this conclusion because I noticed that I was now somehow suspended in mid air.
“Can my life get any- OHHH SHI-”
You know those old Looney Tunes cartoons with Wile E. Coyote? Remember how whenever the roadrunner tricked him into stepping off a cliff, he would always stay suspended in midair for however long it took him to become horribly, painfully aware of just how much trouble he was in, and then he would fall? Yeah, it was exactly like that. Except nowhere near as hilarious.
“AAAAAAAAAAA-”
As I fell to the ground, I idly wondered if my life should be flashing before my eyes now. Or did that only happen at the actual moment where you died? Well, I’d probably have a good long while before I hit the ground to figure it-
CRASH
Or I could flop into a tree back first. That works too. I guess I wasn’t as high up as I thought, I only fell for a second or two. Thanks to my armor, though, I barely even noticed the initial impact when I hit the tree or the countless smaller ones as I slid through the branches, the smaller ones breaking from my weight while the thicker ones bent as they funneled me down my slow and inexorable way towards the ground. The cacophony of twigs breaking and wood scraping against steel faded away as I slipped out of the bottom of the tree’s canopy, and bellyflopped onto the ground. I lay there for a moment, and then started to pick myself up. I absently noted a couple of apples lying on the ground next to me as I rubbed my head in exhaustion.
“Okay, as certain as I am that it’s impossible to be eaten by the universe and then spat out again over a forest, I know that it is just as impossible to suffer a fall like that and not have at least a concussion and- wait. Steel armor.” Why was I thinking that my armor was steel? It was just sheet plastic molded, cut and formed into the shape of steel.
Except, I realized as I stared at my hands, that it wasn’t anymore. The gauntlet that I was now staring at as I kneeled before the tree was made of black steel with a faint indigo tint to it, with every single edge and ridge tapering to form talons and spikes along every single surface. Even more worrying than that, however, was the fine mist of shadows that was even now leaking out of the joints, slowly accumulating around my digits and along the planes of the armor plates. What was even more disturbing than seeing the shadows leaking out was that I could feel them leaking out, as if something deep within myself was being pulled out and molded into this… this… this could not be.
It was just an anime series! Just a fictional animation, this sort of stuff doesn’t happen in real life, it shouldn’t be able to happen in real life. But no matter how much I tried to deny it, the unmistakable truth was that as the shadows overlayed my armor, obscuring the details and making the steel appear darker than the pitch hue that it already was, a name, no, a concept, entered my mind, something that I instinctively recognised meant that the technique had finished activating.
For Someone’s Glory. One of Berserker’s Noble Phantasms, the abilities and weapons born out of Lancelot’s legend, it concealed his identity beneath a black fog that made it impossible to truly distinguish his physical outline. It was also impossible that I could be using it! I was not Lancelot, I wasn’t a heroic spirit, hell, I wasn’t even dead! Or at least I hoped that I wasn’t-
KILL
I screamed as a sudden surge of pain rippled through my body and RAGE ANGER KILL my thoughts were becoming painful it hurt to think why HURT MAIM HACK SLASH did it hurt to think? I couldn’t think, it was KILL becoming more PAINful, to piece together thoughts, my body was being racked with painful tremors, something was flapping in my face, what was it, I grabbed it with one CLAW hand REND and saw that it was the plume from my helmet, although now it looked more black than purple because of the mist and the pain was getting worse and then
SNAP
The plume split into five separate ribbons and I felt my mind SHATTER
Kill
KILL
MAIM HURT REND SLASH HACK TEAR RIP BURN
KILL!
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Meanwhile, in another part of Equestria, inside an entirely forest, inside a ruined castle, another portal opened up to disgorge another armored figure. Unlike the first one, however, this figure only dropped a foot or so, and the impact was easily absorbed by the armor it wore. The first thing that would strike anyone who saw the armor would be its sheer size: it was seven and a half feet from top to bottom, and almost six from one side to the other. It consisted of heavy plates of a ceramic-like material, completely enclosing its wearer head to toe, although there were many metallic pieces as well, such as the gold-plated helmet, that was decorated with four massive horns that extended out to the sides and up, framing the Greek hoplite style combined eye and nose slit on the face of the helmet. The shoulder guards were almost comically huge, even compared to the rest of the armor, where the hands and head where the only parts that were remotely close to normal human proportions. There were tanks that didn't incorporate as much armor as this single suit did. Over it all, the person wore deep red robes, with grimoires and charms hanging from a chain around his waist.
The predominant color was deep blue, with trim and arcane symbols picked out in gold. In one hand he held a long staff made of silver and bone, bound with gold, with a large arrowhead at one end and an eye symbol with two horns and an eight pointed star protruding from it at the other end. In the other hand he held a deceptively small pistol, lined with gold and set with a single red gem. In the eye slit of the helmet, two blue lights suddenly came into glowing life as the man within the armor opened his eyes.
Silence fell over the empty hall, broken only by the faint humming rumble of the mechanisms hidden within the suit of powered armor.
“What the… where am I?” The helmet swiveled, surveying the hall, before the armored behemoth strode forward with immense strides that shook the hall and left cracked footprints in the floor.
“I swear, if this is Jack’s doing, I’ll shove his head someplace that neither he nor the laws of man and nature want it to go.” He paused. “And why is my voice so much deeper? I actually sound like a space marine now, not that I’m complaining. The new helmet is also pretty nice, too,” the sorcerer mused as his gaze panned towards the shadowed wall, a barely perceptible whir coming from the helmet as optic sensors zoomed in, clarifying and magnifying the incoming images, allowing the sorcerer to clearly see the tapestry hanging on the wall. And what he saw made him stop dead, before he slowly stomped over towards the wall, the barest hint of rage visible in the way he carried himself.
He stopped in front of a tapestry depicting the two royal alicorn sisters of Equestria raising and lowering their respective celestial orbs. He slowly held up his staff to inspect it more closely, before looking down at himself as much as the armor would allow.
A moment passed. Then the figure slammed his staff hand into the wall as hard as he could, and watched with a sort of grim satisfaction as a sizeable hole was pounded into the stone. A couple trails of lightning crackled around the head of the staff as he did so, the very air seeming to growl in sympathy with the sorcerer’s emotions.
“Well, this is just frakking great.”
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Applejack sighed happily as she looked out over the expanse of trees that was Sweet Apple Acres. It was a good thing she had called in the rest of the Apple family to help with this applebuck season: if it had just been her, Big Mac, and Applebloom on the fields, they might not have been able to get everything harvested and prepared for tomorrow. With all the extra help on hoof, though, they’d definitely have everything ready to go, and as close to perfect as possible, which was important. It wasn’t everyday that Princess Celestia chose your hometown as the setting for the official Summer Sun Celebration, after all.
“Sis! Big Sis!” Applejack blinked as she was shaken out of her prideful musings by the panicked sound of her little sister shouting like all the monsters in Tartarus were on her tail. She looked to the right to see Applebloom and several members of her extended family running along one of the paths that led back to the barn, looking nervously over their shoulders as they ran.
“Applebloom? What in tarnation happened?” Applejack galloped over to her sister and grabbed her, worriedly checking her over for any signs of injury.
“Applejack… there’s… in tha’ orchard…” Applebloom and all of the other ponies who had come with her were panting with exhaustion from their sprint. Applebloom wasn’t even trying to shake off her sister, which set off even more alarm bells in the older mare’s mind: for something to have spooked her so bad that she wasn’t even trying to shake off her sister.
It was then that Caramel Apple got enough of her breath back to say the one word that was guaranteed to send chills down the spine of any sentient being that valued its continued existence, whether human or pony: “M- m- monster!”
Kra-thunk. Kra-thunk. Kra-thunk. Kra-thunk.
It was then that Applejack heard all of the other Apple family members in the clearing gasp in shock and fear. Turning to look back over her shoulder at what had them so scared, she saw that they were all staring with open mouths at something behind her, back on the path Applebloom and the others had come along. That was when she noticed the sound of steel footsteps on the orchard path, getting louder and louder with each step.
KRA-THUNK. KRA-THUNK. KRA-THUNK. KRA-THUNK.
Turning her head to where the sound was coming from, Applejack saw the monster. At least, she tried to see it: no matter how much she squinted, or focused her gaze on the… thing… in front of her, she couldn’t quite see it clearly. This was partly because of the hazy black cloud that seemed to wrap around the figure like a nightmarish cloak, but also because… she just couldn’t look at it. Every time she tried, her gaze would seem to slip off of it, as though her eyes were trying to tell her that what she was looking at was just to the side of the thing, even though she rationally knew that she had been staring right at it, and now she was just looking at an apple tree instead of the monster. It was just impossible to look right at it, or even to really distinguish its outline. From the glimpses that she managed to get, and from what she saw out of the corner of her eye, though, she got an impression of a diamond dog-like silhouette and black metal, shaped into armor that was like a horrible perversion of the armor she had seen a visiting member of the royal guard wearing: all jagged edges and spikes, with a horizontal slit in the helmet that glowed from within with an unholy red light which also appeared on the figures torso, almost hidden beneath the black fog that billowed and swept around the figure. Just the couple of glances Applejack had managed of that glow coming from within the armor had made her feel sick, as a something deep and primal within her started screaming at her to run, that this thing was here to kill her, her family, her friends, tear down everything that she had ever known and loved… and then go and do the exact same thing to somepony else, all for no reason other than that it wanted to make everything suffer. Dimly, she took note of the five streamers that flapped out from where they were attached at the back of the helmet.
Nothing and no one moved for a long moment. Applejack reached forward and pulled Applebloom behind her, the shivering filly complying without complaint or hesitation, and the moment of stillness was broken.
The monster crouched, hunching forward as it clenched its talons into the ground, before letting out a roar of pure hatred and agony as it leaped forward towards the crowd of stunned ponies, most of whom broke and ran as the thing came towards them with terrifying speed.
“RAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGH!”
Thus it was that Berserker, known as the Black Knight and the Mad Dog, came to Equestria, and changed its fate forever.
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BERSERKER’S STATS
BASIC PHYSICAL STATS
Class: Berserker
Identity: Lancelot of the Lake/UNKNOWN
Master: None
Alignment: Lawful Mad/Neutral Good
Strength: A (B base)
Agility: A+ (A base)
Luck: B
Endurance: A (B base)
Mana: E (C base)
Noble Phantasm: A
SKILLS
Mad Enhancement (C): Raises Strength, Agility, and Endurance one rank each, but at the cost of removing all capacity for rational thought or speech, as well as drastically increasing the rate of mana consumption. At this level, a Berserker becomes little more than a mad beast, capable only of flailing madly at anything that moves without any degree of skill, restraint, or mercy.
Eternal Arms Mastership (A+): Allows Berserker to use any weapon as though it were a favorite weapon that he has trained with his entire life, regardless of mental state.
Magic Resistance (E): Slightly reduces the effect of spells directed at Berserker. This skill stems from a magical ring Lancelot owned in life and its true rank is A. However, while under the effect of Mad Enhancement, this skill is lowered to E rank.
Independant Action (A+): Allows Berserker to remain in this world indefinitely without a Master to supply him with power and mana. Servants such as Berserker are beings of spiritual energy, and thus require a constant influx of energy to sustain their form, unless they have this skill. This is not normally a skill that Berserker would have, and it can only be assumed that this skill came from either the human who has assumed Berserker's skills and identity, or from the unusual origin of his existence in Equestria. Berserker can sustain his own existence in the world, but his maximum store of energy (Mana) is not as large as it could be if he were attached to a master, and prolonged use of his Noble Phantasms will consume what energy he has at a prodigious rate.
NOBLE PHANTASMS
Knight of Honor: A Knight Does Not Die With Empty Hands. Anti-unit type, rank A++. Berserker can flood any object he grasps with his hands with his prana (basically mana, or magical energy), turning said item into a D-ranked magical weapon. This ability does have limits: if it is physically impossible to wield something as even a makeshift weapon, then this ability will not work on it. Berserker must be able to recognize on some level how an object could be used as a weapon. Originates from the story of Lancelot defeating another knight with a tree branch after being disarmed.
For Another’s Honor: Not For One’s Own Glory. Anti-unit type, rank B. Conceals Berserker’s identity beneath a black fog that constantly shift, making his true outline impossible to distinguish. Also blocks any spellcraft that is intended to be used to identify Berserker. The true purpose of this Noble Phantasm is to assume the appearance of a different Heroic Spirit known for military accomplishments, but use of that function would require that Mad Enhancement not be activated. Originates from Lancelot’s habit of competing in and winning tournaments either anonymously, or disguised as another knight.
Arondight: The Unfading Light of the Lake. Anti-unit type, rank A++. A sword forged by the fairies, that can be hit by any attack and not take any damage whatsoever. Was once holy, but was corrupted into demonic status by Lancelot’s use of it to kill several other knights while rescuing Guinevere. Once drawn, For Another’s Honor and Knight of Honor are sealed and cannot be used for as long as Berserker wields Arondight. Once drawn, all of Berserker’s physical stats increase by one rank. According to legend, Lancelot once slew a dragon, and thus, Arondight deals extra damage against dragons and those with the attributes of a dragon.
Author's Note
Well, here it is, my take on the formula of "superpowered human acting like a villain in Equestria." I hope you like it.
Just a couple of quick notes that I'm going to put here, with the big one being Berserker's stats. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Fate series, the stats system is used to sum up the overall strengths, weaknesses, and abilities of a Servant. The basic physical stats are on a letter scale, with E (ten times the level of a normal human) at the bottom, and A+++ being the best. Skills are just that, they're pretty self explanatory. Noble Phantasms will be explained more in depth later in the story, but for now, its enough to know that a NP is basically a skill or item that has ascended into legend, and is powered by both the Servant's might and by the fame of the associated legend.
Those who are familiar with Fate/Zero will notice that I have replaced Berserker's "Protection of the Fairies" with "Independent Action." I wanted to try to stay faithful of the mechanics of Fate, so that meant I had to somehow deal with the problem of "how is Berserker surviving without a master?" This also nerfs Berserker enough that I can set him loose on Ponyville and the Apples, and not have to worry as much about him killing somepony, since while he now has a permanent existence, he doesn't have the boost to his luck/defense that "Protection of the Fairies" grants him.
Thanks for reading, leave a review if you want to, and I'll try to get back to you if you have any questions.
EDIT: fixed the description of the Fate franchise ranking system, and modified physical stats a little.
EDIT MARK 2: Added line breaks and music, also fixed the sorcerer's physical desciption. For some reason, I thought he wore terminator armor.
Berserker vs the World: Part 1
“Summer Sun Celebration official overseer's checklist. Number one, banquet preparations: Sweet Apple Acres,” the small purple and green dragon read from the list he was clutching in one claw. The pebbles on the dirt path rasped and crunched against the scales on his feet as he walked quickly along the path to keep up with the impatient pace that his sometimes boss, sometimes big sister figure was setting.
The aforementioned official overseer was a purple unicorn, with a mane that was a darker indigo, with a violet and magenta streak just over one of her eyes. The cutie mark on her flank, a pink and white eight-pointed star surrounded by several smaller white stars, showed that her talents lay with magic, while the faint look of exasperation and worry in her eyes showed that this was a mare with a lot on her mind. Indeed, Twilight Sparkle, personal student to Princess Celestia and would-be-preventer-of-the-apocalypse, had a lot on her mind at the moment. Namely, the prophecy she had discovered earlier that day. If the books she had consulted were correct, than today would be the last day of full sunlight that Equestria would ever see, as tomorrow was the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, and thus marked the end of Nightmare Moon’s millenium long exile on the moon. While Celestia may have dismissed her concerns as silly, Twilight knew deep within that she was right, and what’s more, that she was the only one who could hope to prevent Equestria from being plunged into unending night. In order to do that, she would have to find some proof of Nightmare Moon’s return, along with some way to stop her.
But first, she had to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. Twilight fought down the irrational urge to blame the universe for thwarting her efforts to save it. However, she did frown as she looked over the apple trees all around her, as well as the rapidly approaching farmhouse.
“Strange. You’d think that there would be ponies out preparing for tomorrow-”
Twilight’s musings were cut off short by a sudden, unearthly howl. Twilight found it difficult to describe it exactly, as she had never heard anything like it before. The closest comparison that she could think of was that it was like the sound of metal being twisted and torn until it simply tore apart like paper, that quickly rose into an almost lupine howl of insanity and rage: rage and pain and a desire to do nothing more than kill anything unfortunate to be close to whatever was making that Celestia-forsaken NOISE.
Twilight realized instinctively that she should be running. Whatever was capable of making a noise like that was not something that she ever close to, but Twilight was a smart mare. She knew that whatever was making that noise was not only already close enough to be a threat, but that it was extremely unlikely to be unrelated to tomorrow’s events. So, against her better judgement, Twilight ran towards the sound of the screams, and rounded the farmhouse to see a scene straight out of nightmares.
A group of some two dozen ponies were running about, screaming in terror and pain as a black beast rushed through them like a vengeful whirlwind. Twilight couldn’t make out much about the creature: it was covered in some kind of black armor and cloaked in shadows, and stood upright on two legs, that much she could tell. It was tall enough that the average pony’s head came up to the about the level of its waist. The head had numerous thin, striplike pennants protruding from the back, and a glowing-red horizontal slit in front, which was presumably where its eyes were. Absently, Twilight noted the cross shaped cutouts at the two ends of the eye slit.
Twilight had seen the Wonderbolts perform on a number of occasions, and more than that, she had seen the way Spike moved whenever he heard that the local jeweler was having a sale, whether or not it was true. She was no stranger to seeing things move at dazzlingly high speeds, but this, whatever it was, was right up there with the best of them, if not faster. It would slam an armored backhand or uppercut into whatever pony was unfortunate enough to be within its reach, sending them flying off to crash into the farmhouse of the orchard, before either leaping or charging towards the closest pony that was out of its reach, and the process would repeat.
The thing that struck her the most, Twilight thought absently with the part of her mind that wasn’t screaming mutely in shock, wasn’t the violence the thing was displaying, nor was it the terror that she felt just being in the thing’s presence: it was the sheer speed and power that it displayed.
A red stallion with a green mane was grabbed by the throat and thrown screaming right through a window of the farmhouse, and was followed shortly after by a mare with orange caramel fur and a slightly lighter green mane.
Each blow, for all its speed, seemed to bear all of the attention and malice of a pony waving away a fly distractedly: it was as though each individual pony only registered within the beast’s twisted mind long enough to swat it away, and then it immediately lost all interest in it.
A pale teal mare flew into one of the nearby apple trees, dislodging enough apples to fill up all of the baskets placed underneath it.
Yet for all that, its blows were still absurdly powerful: each pony it hit either flew almost twenty feet through the air, or skid along the ground for a good ten feet with a sickening crunching and scraping sound that Twilight just knew had to be the sound of bones breaking and scraping on one another.
It wasn’t until Twilight saw the beast punt an orange-yellow stallion wearing a brown vest and a ten gallon hat right through the wall of the farmhouse that she finally broke out the dispassioned state of shock that she had been in.
“Wha- You! Stop that, right now, you monster!” Twilight yelled as loudly as she could, over the sound of ponies screaming and crying in fear and pain- dear Celestia, how was that mare’s leg even bending like that? She channeled all of her fear, as well as her righteous indignation at the situation. These were hardworking farmponies, who more likely than not had never hurt anypony before, so why was this thing just destroying them like this? What gave it the right to do this?
A moment later, Twilight regretted her bravery, as the thing stopped dead in its tracks, right as it was about to slam a fist into the face of an enormous red stallion with orange hair, and a yoke around his neck. Slowly, ever so slowly, it turned to face her. Twilight felt her burst of bravado abandon her completely as she met the things crimson gaze, and her fear only deepened when the thing kept turning its head, until it was no longer looking right at her, but just to the right of her, to where a certain baby dragon was now trembling in abject fear. Suddenly, Twilight knew that the thing was looking right at Spike, and Spike alone.
*** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-**
HURT KILL STRIKE GREEN HORSE HIT YELLOW HORSE (don’t) KILL ALL OF THEM PUNCH STRIKE KILL KILL DEAD (shouldn’t) KILL ORANGE HORSE KILL RED- NOISE
PURPLE HORSE KILL THE PURPLE-
DRAGON
PURPLE DRAGON
SLAY THE DRAGON SLAY THE DRAGON SLAY THE DRAGON SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY SLAY
*** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-** *** - * * *-**
“GRRRAAAAAAUGH!”
Just as suddenly as it had stopped, the monster was moving again, charging towards Spike with both spiked claws outstretched. One second it was close to twenty feet away, and the next it was right in front of Spike as it jumped to tackle the baby dragon-
BUMF
Twilight frowned at the sound the beast made as it slammed face first into the force field that she had hastily erected. Instead of the reassuring ‘bonk’ that she would have expected, or even the not so reassuring smashing sound as it shattered the field like a sledge hammer hitting a snow globe, it had hit the field with an almost organic squishing sound that was like a hoof poking an inflated balloon. Then Twilight’s blood ran cold as she saw that the beast had not been stopped by her force field. Rather, it had simply been slowed down, as the thing had managed to get its head and shoulders part of the way through the field, before finally stopping. However, it did not seem at all deterred, as it merely growled, before pulling itself slightly back out of the field, raising its hands up and putting them together back to back, then thrusting them into the force field like two spearheads. Twilight growled with exertion as she channeled more power into the field, making it harder, but the black beast simply continued to force its hands forward, until its fingers were all the way through the field, at which point it started pushing its hands apart, tearing the magical field like it was thick taffy. Twilight planted her hooves and concentrated, but to no avail: the beast kept pushing its body through, and then the field, stressed beyond its limit, snapped and broke, the magical backlash hitting Twilight like a sucker punch to the forehead, causing her to jerk backwards before sitting down hard as she felt her horn vibrate painfully. She looked up through her bangs tearily as the black beast reached towards Spike, who was not moving an inch, save for the shaking of his shoulders as he hyperventilated.
Just then, a rope lasso settled over the black beasts upper arms and yanked tight, drawing its arms into its body instantly. The beast roared in confusion as it vainly tried to reach for Spike, who seemed to wake up enough to take a shaky step backwards.
“Get outta here, ya buzzard gutted, cloud headed yellow son of a fruit bat!” Twilight looked past the Beast to see a light orange mare with a blond mane in a ponytail and wearing a cowboy hat holding the other end of the lasso tightly in her teeth while steadily cussing out the monster. Her green eyes flashed with both rage and unshed tears, as she pulled harder on the lasso… and utterly failed to move the beast. It slowly turned its head down towards where the rope was wrapped around its upper arms, as if noticing it for the first time. Then it turned its head towards the rope-wielding mare, as she continued pulling on the rope with all of her might. The beast didn’t budge even as much as an inch, as it leaned its weight away to counteract the pull. Then its right hand blurred up and seized the rope that was restraining it. It seemed to finger the rope for a moment, like a musician considering the strings on an instrument, and then its grip on the rope slammed shut like a vice.
A black stain seemed to spread over the rope from where the beast was grabbing it, spreading out to cover the entirety of the lasso almost instantly. The startled farm mare dropped the rope the moment the blackness reached her mouth, spitting the taste out of her mouth as glowing red lines appeared up and down the length of the rope, almost looking like unholy molten veins showing through a demon’s skin. The color wasn’t the only thing to change: wherever stray threads poked out along the rope’s length, it grew barb like protrusions. Instantly, the things posture changed, crouching lower and reaching up to grasp the rope with both hands, while effortlessly freeing itself from the rope with a simple shrug. It twirled the lasso up over its head like an expert, before letting go of the rope with one hand and grabbing hold of the knotted portion of the rope. The beast then proceeded to crack the rope in the air as though it were a bullwhip.
The orange mare just had time to say “oh, hayfeathers” before the beast sent the makeshift whip slashing through the air towards her, tangling it around her neck and the one leg she tried to raise to ward of the cursed rope. With a violent yank, the beast pulled her right off her hooves, right into the air, and then released her from the rope’s grasp in midair with a flick of its wrist, slingshotting the poor mare straight into the branches of a nearby apple tree. Twilight barely had time to take in what had just happened the rope was shooting towards her, and wrapping around her neck.
Twilight let out a strangled gasp, but was just barely able to wrap the rope in her own telekinetic magic to try to prevent a repeat of the swinging pony incident. She breathed easily for a moment- and then the rope ran out of slack. For just the barest of seconds, the rope remained still while her magic warred with Berserker’s strength. A half second into the contest, Berserker upped the force of the pull, and Twilight’s telekinetic hold shattered instantly, as he pulled her choking form forward effortlessly, dragging her through the dirt as she desperately tried to get back on her hooves, to just get a foothold-
“Leave Twilight alone, you monster!” Spike stepped in between Twilight and the black beast, holding his arms up as if to shield Twilight from the thing’s presence. His voice trembled with fear as he continued, saying “I’ll have you know that just because I’m still a baby dragon, doesn’t make me any less of a dragon- urk!”
Spike was cut off by the beast dropping the lasso, which quickly turned back to normal, and leaping over to Spike, slamming a foot down onto Spike’s chest to hold him down. The beast seemed to look at him for a moment, helmet tilted inquisitively, before it started growling.
“Grrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaa….”
As it held up both hands in front of its chest, one held over the other, fingers curled as if holding on to some invisible object, the growling grew louder.
“Grrrrrraaaaaaaaaaauuugh…”
As Twilight watched dazedly, the shadows that had cloaked the thing constantly seemed to lighten, exposing the dark steel beneath. No, she realized, the shadows weren’t dispersing, they were moving, flowing up its legs, across its chest, down its arms, and into the space within its grip, coalescing into something. Twilight spared a glance downwards as she pawed at the rope still around her neck, though thankfully not as tight as before: the thing’s feet and lower legs were entirely visible, and Spike was breathing as quickly and deeply as he could with an armored foot pressing down on his chest, his wide eyes locked on the gathering mist in the thing’s hands. Twilight looked back up to see a purple glow forming within the mist, that started to lengthen and extend out from the beast’s hands like a blade of light, and panicked.
“NO!” With that cry of rage and determination, Twilight channeled all of the fear, worry, and rage she was feeling at that moment into a single blast of energy that slammed into the beast at point blank range. This was a blast that could shatter stone walls, and so while the blow was reduced by the thing’s armor and apparent disregard for magic, the entirety of such a destructive blast just couldn’t be blocked.
The beast went flying backwards, roaring as it went, its shadows spreading back out over its form as whatever it had been preparing was dispelled by the sudden break in its concentration. By chance, Twilight’s spell had knocked it towards the huge red stallion from before, who saw the beast flying towards him, and reflexively turned to face away from it, before bringing both his hind legs up into an apple bucking position. He waited a second for the beast to get within range, and then slammed both hooves straight into him, with all the force of an enraged elder brother.
KABLAM
Now the beast was flying through the air, but in the opposite direction. Twilight just had time to take in the fact that the red stallion had just collapsed, bellowing in agony, when the beast flew right over her head, still roaring in pain or rage, or whatever it was that motivated it. As it flew overhead, Twilight gathered her power once more, concentrating it into her horn, readying herself to protect her little brother Spike, the orange mare and red stallion, and all of the other ponies there. Twilight prepared herself to utterly blow this monster away so that it wouldn’t be able to hurt anypony ever again! She readied the power that she had stored up, concentrating it into a bolt of destructive power, opening her eyes once more to lock onto her target, who was just starting to drift closer to the ground…
And then she released the bolt.
BLAM
“GRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”
Twilight panted heavily as she watched the roaring black blur fade into the distance. She knew she’d put a lot of power into that strike, but still: even she was impressed that it had knocked the thing so far away.
A low whistle to her right caught Twilight’s attention. She turned to see the orange farm mare from before, standing on shaky legs as she stared off in the direction the monster had vanished.
“That was… that was…”
“A very unpleasant experience,” Twilight quipped. The other mare nodded in response.
“Ah’m Applejack. Ah’d show y’all around the place, but….” Applejack’s voice trailed off as she turned to look at her extended family. “We’ve kinda got some big problems now. An’ we were just about finished- Big Mac!” Applejack broke off her sentence with a panicked shout as she galloped over to the large red stallion, favoring her left front leg as she ran. As Applejack checked over her brother, Twilight turned to Spike, who had fallen into unconsciousness at some point. Twilight couldn’t find it in herself to blame him, the experience had been terrifying. Whatever the beast that they had just faced was, Twilight had no idea. Whatever it was, it wasn’t of this world, she felt: the thing had radiated a sense of power and otherness. The only thing Twilight could think of was that it was somehow like being in the presence of Princess Celestia.
Twilight gasped. The princess would not be happy with this! The beast had disrupted the food preparations, and if Twilight had just shown up a little earlier, it might not have happened, and the Princess would be mad, and might even send her back to-
“Miss! Miss, mah brotha needs help!”
Twilight was roused from her descent into shock by a small filly’s voice. Shaking her head, Twilight looked up to see an inordinately adorable filly with yellow fur and a light pink mane tied up with an enormous bow.
“Please miss, we think his legs are broken! He needs ta get to th’ hospital.” The filly blinked, and looked down at the ground.
“Him, an’ everypony else,” she added on.
Twilight breathed out,, trying to bring her old foal sitter’s lessons on calming breaths to her mind. “Alright, don’t worry, I’ll help. My name’s Twilight Sparkle. What’s yours?”
“Ah’m Applebloom. You’ve met my big sis already,” she gestured towards where Applejack was awaiting them, holding Big Mac’s hooves in her own as he breathed deeply, trying not to move, “an’ that’s mah brother Big Macintosh.”
Twilight nodded. “Pleasure to meet you. I don’t think I can levitate everypony to the hospital, so we’ll need to figure out who can’t walk on their own, and I’ll try to move them first. Uh…” Twilight frowned as she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Where is the hospital, anyway?”
Applejack pointed back down the road Twilight had come in on. “It’s that way, just on outside of Ponyville, opposite from Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Alright, thank you. We should also send someone to run to the hospital to send stretchers for everypony I can’t…” Twilight trailed off mid sentence as a horrifying realization struck her. “Applejack, did you say that Ponyville is that way?”
Applejack frowned. “Yeah, it is, same as its always been. I think we’ve got some mighty big concerns here though, so could you worry about where we are on the map later?”
Twilight just stared blankly at Applejack. “That’s the same direction that we just launched that monster.”
Inside the Apple family farmhouse, a decorative plate fell off the wall, producing a delicate shattering noise that was perfectly audible to all in the otherwise unmarred silence that followed Twilight’s epiphany. Then Applejack hung her head.
“Oh, hayfeathers.”
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At that very moment, deep within the Everfree forest, in the mostly-forgotten castle of the pony sisters, a certain sorcerer was trying his best not to panic himself.
“Alright, so we may be in a castle that looks like something from that stupid show. It may be that somehow, our replica armor is now real, and by the looks of it,” he cast a critical eye over the strands of lightning lazily crawling across the head of his staff, “so are the powers that go with it. That doesn’t mean, however, that we actually have been turned into Ahzek Ahriman and sent to Eques-iville, or whatever it’s called.”
The newly named Ahriman look alike stood there in silence for a moment, contemplating the conclusions that he had just reached. Then his shoulders seemed to sag, and he sat down heavily, the ground shaking slightly from the impact of close to 500 pounds of ceramite and genetically enhanced space marine. He breathed very deeply in and out for several long minutes, staring numbly ahead. Finally, his baritone voice rumbled out once more.
“Oh god, how did I get here? How am I supposed to… what’s going on back home? Am I… am I dead? Is this….” He trailed off once more, the pistol and staff both falling from numb fingers as he stared at his hands, before raising them up to cradle his head in gauntleted hands.
“What am I supposed to do? This can’t be real… but what if it is? What about my parents? Or my friends? I mean, we just lost Jack, and now I’m gone too… what if this is some trick by some demented serial killer, and he’s got me pumped up with drugs while doing who knows what and oh god, what are Mom and Dad thinking right now? They must be so…” A deep groaning noise came from the blue figure, as it seemed to rock back and forth a little, before it quietly whispered the words “This can’t be real.”
At that, Ahriman’s head popped back up. “Wait, what am I talking about? Of course this isn’t real! It must be some kind of dream, or lucid dream, or coma. All I have to do is find out how to wake up!” Ahriman clenched a fist resolutely as he glanced around the spacious hall, before seeming to slump again. “Then again, throwing myself off a cliff may not be the best idea right now. For one, if I’m actually a chaos marine now, that may not be enough to put me in enough danger to wake me up.” He folded his arms, and looked down over his seated form. “Then again, maybe that’s it! Ahriman is one of the greatest psykers in the entire Warhammer lexicon, if anyone can figure out how to get home, he would! And if I really do have his abilities, then using them will probably be the stimulus needed to wake up. I’m a genius!” Having thus proclaimed his course of action, Ahriman started rummaging about his person, before finding four thin scrolls attached to his belt by a hook at one end. He looked at them quizzically, then detached one of them and held it up for closer inspection.
“Weird, Ahriman doesn’t usually have these on his belt. I should know, I did a lot of research for my costume.” The sorcerer eyed the small flap that held the scroll shut, and the twisted flame that was the symbol of Tzeentch that was emblazoned on it. He cautiously reached up, and undid the flap, gingerly unrolling the scroll to reveal an expanse of vellum that was covered in strange black sigils and scripts. He huffed as he examined the unfamiliar language. “Well, this is not a good start.”
Suddenly, the markings on the page started to move, flowing and shifting in an almost organic way, centreing themselves in the center of the page, and turning blue before arranging themselves to spell out two sentences.
DOOMBOLT LEARNED. KEEP, OR TAKE PRIMARIS?
Underneath his helmet, Ahriman blinked. “Um, keep?”
On the scroll, the letters shifted, rearranging and multiplying.
DOOMBOLT LEARNED. LEARNING SECOND REQUIRED POWER. BREATH OF CHAOS LEARNED. KEEP, OR TAKE PRIMARIS?
Ahriman shrugged the best he could while still wearing full power armor. “I suppose I’ll keep it,” he mused, watching as the letters turned back to black, before spreading out over the scroll once again to form incomprehensible scribbles. “Not really sure what that’s all about, though, but- whoa!” The scroll in his hands seemed to jump, as it ripped itself out of his hands, curling itself up and refastening its buckle. “What is that? Some kind of possessed scroll? And what did it mean, ‘learned doom-’ wait a second.”
Ahriman looked at his empty hands for a second, turned to look at the staff that he had dropped earlier. Reaching out to gingerly pick it up, he hefted it comfortably as he stood up, the worn staff fitting in his armored hand as though it had been made for him. Which it actually had, in more ways than one. Standing, the would-be sorcerer turned to look down main hall, towards the tapestry that had so offended him earlier. Raising the Black Staff, he focused his mind on a single thought, and uttered a single word.
“Doombolt.”
Instantly, a solid sphere of blue plasma and orange fire appeared on the end of his staff. It spun momentarily, fiery streamers crackling outwards from it, before it shrank in on itself, condensing into a solid ball of purplish energy. It then exploded outwards as a stream of solid violet energy, crackling with lightning and howling with energy and- was that the screaming of damned souls? Nah, can’t be- slammed into the tapestry, and the attached wall.
The wall itself shattered explosively, a hole large enough for a grown man or mare instantly appearing in a cloud of brick dust, heat shimmers, and a few drifting trails of leftover lightning. The tapestry? You mean the one with the two alicorn princesses on it? Yeah, it is gone. It was reduced to nothing more than a cloud of ashes instantly. Granted, there were a few scraps left, but they were quickly being consumed by the fire spreading across them.
Ahriman looked at the scraps as they burned, seeing the flames quickly cover the teal colored eye on one of them as it drifted through the air. Pointing his staff directly at it, he muttered another incantation.
“Breath of Chaos.”
Instantly, he flinched as he felt a sudden heat well up within his throat, mouth, and lungs. It felt as though he were drawing in not just all of the heat around him, but also all of the emotions, the hate and anger and fear, still echoing in this forsaken place so many years after those who lived here fought each other. He drew all of those feeling into himself, feeling as though he held pure, concentrated fire with a hint of malice and corruption within himself. He then opened his mouth, and let it all out shoot straight out with a bubbling roar.
The shimmering phosphorescent fire that emerged from the breathing slits in his helmet was beautiful, in a terrible way. It flashed with impossible colors, flared with unheard of scents, flowed into improbable sounds. Writhing within the fire were faint shapes that could have come straight out of a Lovecraftian story, and over the sound of the rushing fire two sounds could be heard. One, the hissing sound as the fire met cold stone and warped it, corroding and burning away decades worth of wear in the space of only a few seconds.
The other was a slow chuckle, that gradually rose into something that some might call ‘maniacal laughter,’ but that most would describe as being like the laughter of a child who had just opened a present to find a new and truly wonderful toy within.
“The Force is strong with this one, indeed,” Ahriman mused as he bent over to pick up the Tzeentch scroll from the ground, before clipping it to his belt and removing the other three scrolls to examine them. “This could turn out to be a fun little hallucination after all.”
The faint glow from his helmet’s eye sockets and staff reflected off the buckles holding the scrolls closed, letting his enhanced eyes easily read the embossed label on each one: Biomancy, Telepathy, and Pyromancy. “Oh yes, very fun indeed.”
Arhiman’s stats:
Weapon Skill: 5 (Skill in close combat)
Ballistic Skill: 5 (Skill with ranged weapons)
Strength: 4
Toughness: 4
Attacks: 3 (How many attacks can be made during close combat)
Wounds: 3 (How much damage can be withstood before having to be removed as a casualty)
Initiative: 5 (Reaction speed in close combat and reflexes)
Leadership: 10 (ability to lead, to remain motivated, and to motivate others.)
Armor Save: 3+ (Attacks are either below strength 8 or have an armor piercing rating of 4 or higher are blocked on a roll of 3 or better on a six-sided die.)
Invulnerable Save: 4+ (Any attack can be blocked on a roll of 4 or better on a six sided die.)
Special Wargear: Black Staff of Arhiman (Allows simultaneous casting of 2 different powers); Bolt pistol with Inferno Bolts; Frag and Krak grenades;
Psyker mastery level 4: Can learn four different psychic powers per day, and can select them from the Biomancy, Pyromancy, Telepathy, and Tzeentch disciplines. Two of the four powers, however, must come from the Tzeentch psychic powers table.
Master of Deception: Up to three units under Ahriman’s command can be deployed behind enemy lines before the start of a battle, or can be sent around in a flanking maneuver after battle begins.
Master of the Rubric: Can command Rubric Marines with ease.
Fearless: Exactly what it says on the tin. In game terms, it’s slightly more complicated than that, but it can essentially be summed up as “Ahriman cannot be scared or intimidated.”
Champion of Chaos: If Ahriman kills a worthy foe in single combat, there is a chance that he will receive a random boon from the chaos gods. However, there are requirements for what constitutes a worthy foe, and the random boon isn’t always helpful.
Author's Note
So here it is, finally. Chapter two. This was originally going to be longer, but AP exams and other fun shenanigans are coming up, and I realized that if I didn't get this out soon, then I wouldn't have any time to do so for at least another two weeks. As it is, I'm sorry that this has taken so long, so as a peace offering, I present you with this.
I don't know the original source, but I found it on Spacebattles Epic Crossover Pic thread. Those of you who are familiar with the Fate series should get just how adorable this truly is instantly.
Till later!
