Brothers till the End Episode 1: The Dark Crusade

Brothers till the End

Episode 1: A New Beginning

By Jadan Stutes

Prologue: Conventional Nightmares

This year’s Convention was going to be awesome. Why you might ask? Because unlike the others times the Con has arrived, this year was the first time it was to be hosted on Halloween Night. Thousands of people would be competing for the best, scariest, or downright the coolest costume of the night. This was why both my brother and I had entered the competition dressed as our favorite video game characters.

My brother Jack had chosen to compete as Raiden from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He spent a crap-load of time making it just right, asking my help to finish some of the details, and to sculpt the HF blade from a piece of plywood. In the end he looked like the spitting image of the infamous cyborg ninja, complete with an eye band, and blood red contact lens.

As for me, my name is David by the way, I decided to go as my favorite anti-hero from Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2: Dracula/Gabriel Belmont. The most difficult part of the outfit was his iconic blood red cloak with golden details. It took nearly all my spare time, but it was worth it.  Everything else, like the Void Sword and the Chaos Claws, were relatively smooth to make. However, we didn't have enough time to make the “Vampire Killer,” the original Combat Cross from the first game.

With our costumes (somewhat) completed, we entered the Con.

The place was packed with all kinds of people either cos-playing, taking pictures, or just there to see the sights. We took various pictures of people with outfits that rivaled our own, occasionally posing for others who were impressed by our designs. Out of all the people we've seen, three of them really stood out from the others.

One decided to go as Ratonhnhaké:ton from Assassin’s Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington. Another went as Alucard, who managed to get all of the tiniest details for the costume perfect. I personally thought it was funny that we dressed as father and son from the same game. Finally the last person dressed as the 10th Doctor in his iconic brown suit with large trench coat.

We became fast friends, as we waited for the contest to start. Apparently, the dude dressed as the Doctor was a Brony ironically named John Smith. Adam, the man who went as Alucard, did not realize that anyone would dress as Dracula. It was a surprise to him that someone like me appreciated the hard work that went into the game and its characters.

Robert, the man dressed as AU Connor, was quiet the whole time, occasionally passing strange looks towards John. My eyes must have been deceiving me, because those looks seemed disgusted. Maybe he had a sore spot for Bronies; I meanwhile was relatively neutral about the whole fandom thing.

As the rest of the gang continued to mingle, I excused myself to see what was up for buying. Several booths caught my attention with mini statues, signed books, and prop replicas, the latter having...Something that I had to have.

I quickly made my way to the booth I spotted to find the perfectly sculpted Combat Cross for sale. A little while later and some well spent dollars, I had the finishing touch, and just in time to because the contest was about to begin.

My friends and I had our reservations for the competition to begin. We watched from the sidelines as all the competitors did their thing. Eventually it came time for us to go on stage. John went first and started quoting the 10th Doctor in front of everyone without missing a beat. Next went Robert, who started going into various poses that depicted him battling an invisible foe. Jack entered afterwards, quoted some of Raiden’s various lines from the game, and finished with flourishes of his sword.

Finally me and Adam went last with a “father/son” routine. He started out with quick slashes of his massive blade, and finished with a finisher quote from the Revelations DLC. I went next, with the weapon cases containing the Void Sword and Chaos Claws. I started out with Dracula’s famous quote, “What is a man? But a miserable pile of secrets!” I then released the Void Sword from its case, and started fighting an invisible monster with it. Next I unleashed the Chaos Claws, which made the audience scream in delight, and started throwing punches and slashes at imaginary demons.

For the finisher, I equipped my newly acquired Combat Cross, and was about to use the whip function, when suddenly I stopped. The cross started glowing an unnatural golden glow. My friends saw what was going on and came to the rescue. But just as they touched the cross, the glow became brighter than the sun, forcing us to look away. Wind started blowing around us at increasing speeds that just went faster, and faster, and faster. Then just as it started, it stopped. When everyone recovered from the blast, they realized that five particular humans had disappeared.

All that was left was a blast mark, shaped like a peculiar looking star, on the stage where the five friends once stood.

Elsewhere in the middle of the night, towards the battlefield that was once the glorious Crystal Empire, the leader of the Equestrian Reinforcements turned in her sleep. Ever since the Battle of the Crystal Empire started 2 years ago, Celestia kept on having the same dream every time she went to sleep.

It consisted of herself watching over the events of different futures. Sombra wining the war and plunging Equestria into eternal despair, to much later where Luna would go insane under a dark influence and go under the name Nightmare Moon. The latter was the most frequent dream the Princess of the Sun had. But every time the story would go in a different direction.

One such arrangement was that a tall warrior, both man and machine, against his will would spread his insanity to a broken hearted Luna. Together they would spread eternal night and death to the world, leaving its inhabitants with no hope.

But then two warriors, brought together by an unbreakable friendship would defeat the usurpers, banishing them to the moon for a thousand years. However one of the warriors called the metal man his brother, and will be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice, leaving his immortal soul to mourn for eternity.

Celestia, haven awoken from this dream for the umpteenth time, was worried that this would soon come to pass. She loved her sister with all her heart, but wondered if the dream was set in stone. Eventually she shook her head to clear her thoughts, and focused on how her little ponies were going to be victorious in the war. The future would have to wait for now, after all Celestia had been through she kept her head high and kept telling herself a saying from an old friend.

"Always in motion, is the future. And many possible futures, there are."