Tale of the Narcissistic Skeletonby Magna85ChaptersDark BeginningsScouting For HistoryThe King is BackDark BeginningsYo. My name is Larry Crawford. Or that was my name. My name now is Mortis Magister, or “death master” in Latin, give or take some grammatical stuff, maybe. You see, I was a normal human, just like you reading this. Or maybe you’re a pony who found this, in which case, drop this book now. Anyway, I was just wandering through the streets on a dark night during All Hallows Eve. Kinda stereotypical when you think about it. I saw this guy walking towards me. He was hunched over, about 5 feet tall, and might bruise in a stiff wind. But, and I kid you not, he was carrying a frigging seven foot tall scythe! Now, I was no slouch in the body department, what with my near six foot frame along with an over six foot armspan. I exercised semi-regularly, so I would say that I did have enough muscle to at least give a single low weight wrestler a work out. But I was also no slouch in the mind department either. If anyone had a weapon, I automatically thought that they could use it. So, I quickly moved into a nearby alley and placed my back on a nearby wall, hoping that my blindingly red hair hadn’t given away my position. It also helped that I saw that the man had a hood up, so I couldn’t really see his face, which means he probably couldn’t have seen me either. Holding my breath, I waited for the obviously unstable man to pass. I mean, who in their right mind would have a huge scythe right out in the open? I sure wouldn’t. Anyway, I saw the back of his brown hoodie as he shuffled his way past. However, as he reached the entrance, he turned towards me. The curved scythe blade glinted in the light of the moon. Except the moon wasn’t out. Remember when I said it was a dark night? Yeah, it was the night of a new moon. There was no way it could have shined in my face, but it did. And only now do I understand why. Had I taken a closer look at the blade, I would have seen galaxies and stars in the blade, spaced out by the utter absence of light. I could have only seen it because it was blacker than the night surrounding it. Fear raced through my body as the suddenly very threatening man crept up in front of me before he said in a raspy voice, “Hope you have a nice trip.” Just as I was about to ask what he meant, the nothingness of the scythe flew forward and stabbed straight into my heart. Instantly, blackness surrounded me. --POV: Unranked Self-- --2000 Years Later-- Leading a war against two goddesses was probably not the best idea in hindsight. Using what they saw as their own ponies as soldiers was most likely even worse. And that’s not including those that I assassinated by tearing their hearts from their chests. Being encased in stone was not what I had in mind for the rest of my now probably immortal life. But, I can feel a change in the air. A certain, fragility. For so long, all I could do was think, plot, and feel the emotions of everything in what felt like a twenty mile radius. But, after these long years I could finally feel the bonds that held this stone to my form breaking. Something must be causing a tremendous ruckus topside. The emotions felt like sheer glee from whatever it was doing. It reminded me of an old friend that I knew a dozen centuries ago. Grinning to myself, I forced my right arm to move, cracking the stone covering my body. I moved it again, feeling the shoulder break its hold. I bent my arm at the elbow while clenching my hand, freeing both from the stone. After repeating the process with my other arm, I twisted my head to the left, shifting the stone on my neck. Using both hands, I forced my head to the right, both cracking my neck and breaking the stone’s connection with my body. After that was done, I slammed both of my hands into the sides of my head, breaking the stone into tiny pieces. After I shook the rest of the stone out of my hair, I reached to my right for the scythe that I came to Equestria with. Or the First came with. It wasn't a true replica, but it would do. Grabbing the hilt, fond memories of the many creatures that had fallen to it came to me, causing my face to pull into a sadistic grin. The silver blade with a black edge glinted in the dim light of somehow-still-burning torches. As I looked into the blade, I saw that my skin had apparently grown back in my imprisonment. Perhaps the skin would camouflage my aura, perhaps not. Returning to the task at hand, I bashed the blunt end of my scythe against the stone covering my legs, breaking the now weak stone to pieces. I smashed my left hand to my chest, breaking the stone there as well. Now completely free of the stone, I stepped down off of the pedestal. Breathing in, I felt my chest expand in the stale air of the tomb. Hearing cracking to my right, I saw that a statue of myself was also climbing out, yet was me as a girl. With the hood down, she could have been called beautiful by men. Since I was a guy, being called beautiful and the mere fact that I was looking at a girl me would have freaked me out long ago, but I had gotten used to such thoughts. Shoulder length flaming red hair framed a slightly elfin face. Her face was pulled into a neutral expression as she stared at me with red eyes. The First’s eyes, also mine and hers, were originally green, but changed to red upon his arrival to Equestria. Due to our nature, we shared a small conversation with nothing but a look. All of my, or our, selves follow the same logic process that the First would go through. Thus, we both arrived at the conclusion to help the rest of our selves. We nodded together, and went to break the rest of myself out of their prisons. Sounds of cracking and smashing sounded out of the tomb as our scythes cracked millennia old stone from our brothers/sisters/selves. But no one heard it. No one had come to my tomb in the 2000 years that I had been here. After we had broken out the rest of us, the only objective in my mind was to set up a base where we could safely expand without being discovered. Just I started plotting, I saw fog rise from the ground as my forgotten misdirection power became active again. Grinning, as I’m sure the rest of my selves were doing, I let it do its work, twisting signs and roads away from my position, weaving brambles together to keep prying eyes away, and causing the fog to thicken into something that none but us could see through, but inside and outside my/our tomb. Thus satisfied with making sure nothing could find us, short of scrying our location and directly teleporting, I turned towards the door that kept me sealed off from the outside world. All twenty of my selves, as one, smashed into the door. Our scythes crashed and bashed, breaking the wood open quite easily. As I stepped out into the light, I smiled at the feeling of warmth that flooded my skin. The warmth of happiness flooded my mind as the rest of me did the same thing, momentarily blocking out the myriad of ambient emotions that usually held their place in my head. Two thousand years of nothing but listening to emotions had almost completely deadened my own, or our own, emotional capacity. Feeling such joy at nothing but the light of the sun, regardless of who controlled it, was now a rare pleasure. Looking around, I saw that I was in front of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, falling in on itself due to age. The two stupid Princesses had just left me under the crumbling building. Windows were shattered, the top floor looked completely exploded, and walls that hadn’t collapsed looked like they were about to. I was slightly angry that the princesses had simply thought I would roll over and die. Me, or, well, the First, Mortis Magister! I, who taught them the arts of war! Well, I had a plan to take them down. Or, we did. And it wasn't going to be pretty. After scouting around to see if any of the various creatures of the Everfree Forest were around the ruined castle from before my misdirection power did its job, I regrouped with the rest of me to discuss about who was going to do what. Suddenly, a very specific draconequus popped into existence beside me. No, he literally spawned a balloon next to me and it popped open with his smug mix and matched face staring at the castle. However, I sensed a smidge of confusion from him. Looking around in surprise, he said, "Well, I hadn't expected you to get out until I personally pumped some chaos into your statues, why did you have to go and ruin my fun?" He adopted a slightly humorous pose, crossing his mismatched arms and pouting comically. Sighing, I said, or, we said at once, "Discord. Why am I not surprised that you would instantly turn the world upside down once you got free?" A smirk made itself known on our lips as we watched Discord turn himself upside down and float that way with a huge grin on his face. His antics always seemed to bring a smile to my face, regardless of what mistake I had done. As such, Discord had gotten used to me speaking with one voice in the time we had been partners, whenever I had done it. "It's because you know me so well!" Discord said, tapping my nose with a lion claw. I brushed my nose off as he turned himself right side up. Friend though he may be, Discord still finds ways to get under my skin. Crossing my arms, I asked, "Discord, what has happened in the time we were imprisoned?" still speaking with my entire voice. Seeing all of me cross my arms in sync got a shiver out of him. Apparently the Order we exuded from a synchronized gesture still made him disgusted, but he quickly forgot and said, "Well, I could tell you, but where's the fun in that? Why don't you go do what you do best and grab some memories from a poor pony’s head?" Bringing my fingers to my forehead in the wake of a growing headache, I said, "You very well know that such a tactic would only work in the historian had no other contacts. Such a prodigious target would almost immediately be missed, especially if he or she was a professor." "But has that ever stopped you before? Come now Larry, you and I both know that you're just itching to get back at Celly and Luna. Don't worry too much about missing ponies, I'll be spreading so much wonderful chaos that they will hardly be missed!" Discord said, a huge smile planted on his mixed muzzle. Placing a hand to my chin in thought, I went over the possibilities. The collective knowledge of a dozen or so assimilated pony geniuses helped me in making a battle plan. It only took me a few seconds, but I reached the conclusion that Discord was actually right for once. If he wasn't speaking madness again, that is. Thus, I said, "Ok Discord, go spread around as much chaos as you like. Just tell me if the Elements of Harmony are still in the Princess' control." Adopting a semi-serious pose, complete with a bubble pipe, Discord said, "I can tell you, good sir, that dear old ‘Tia and Luna do not have control over them anymore. However, there are six new bearers, whom I have taken care of already." With that, the pipe popped and he said, "Well, it's been fun seeing you again, but I have so much to do and so little time to do it. Arrivederchi!" Then he snapped his claws and teleported somewhere. I sighed from his antics, slightly irritated by his lack of help. But I couldn't bring myself to be truly angry with him, since that’s just how Discord works. Or doesn't. You can never tell with him. Turning to my selves, we said, "We need to designate a Commander." We then replied, "Of course." Suddenly, all of my selves turned to me, probably because I was the first out of my prison. Nodding, I started designating other commanding positions such as Chief Assimilator, Recon Specialist, Osteo-Officer, and General of the Bones. This left 15 other of my selves noticeably upset due to not getting a higher position in the small force I had. This was mostly due to how I acted, because I would never want to be under the authority of someone else. However, once they realized that they would technically be taking orders from his/herself, their emotions and faces returned to a neutral expression. Because they hadn’t been chosen, the fifteen soldiers lined themselves up in front of us. Speaking up, I said, "Alright, we need to focus on recon and assimilation, so the CA and RS get more soldiers than the OO or GB. I hope we understand the logic of this. I will start off the counting by picking out one Bone Guard." I pointed to a female me closest to the left end of the line. They all nodded once and started taking turns picking out soldiers. I left the sub-commanders to choose their soldiers, not that it had much difference on who picked who. We were all clones of the First, who was in every one of us. We never die when our bodies are destroyed, we just get sucked back into the main consciousness of me. He had already died and been reborn as the first new assimilated taken once he had died several times over. Currently, he did not have a body to inhabit and was simply waiting for us to get a move on. Not that we could hear him, but we could sense his impatience from inside our heads. The girl self I picked out walked up beside me and seemed to be about to ask me a question, but came to a resolution before she could open her mouth. Most likely this was because I would have asked if I was better, to which I would have replied, "No, I just picked you out because you were the first from the left." Such patterns make me predictable, but when you have to fight with yourself over something, neither side will win due to equal amounts of intelligence or strength. So we take turns in getting what we want. It seems very childish now that I focus on it… Once all the new sub-commanders had their chosen soldiers, I said, "Now that you have your personnel, I will be giving specific instructions to each of you. RS, you are to scout out the town close by for any potential targets. Look for historians that no one will miss as a priority. You will report to the CA once you find a suitable target." She nodded and sprinted into the forest, her Shadow Eyes following in her wake. I turned to the CA and said, "While she is scouting out the area, you are to look for any candidates in the immediate forestry. The first will be the one to take over the historian, due to his experience. We must make a greater army before then, Celestia might have already detected our presence." He nodded and stalked his way over the rickety bridge, his Adepts close behind him. I faced the OO and said, "Use the knowledge of the doctors and herbalists we have assimilated, try to find healing medicine for those that need to have a healthy complexion." She nodded and walked over the bridge as her Scalpels trailed behind her. Finally, I looked towards the GB, saying, "Set up this place as our temporary or possibly permanent base of operations. Make it as secure as possible against those not of our specific body type." With that, the final sub-commander nodded and took his Scythe Masters into the castle, surveying just where to place the greatest traps. Finally done with giving orders, I thought "At long last, our plan is coming to fruition." Scouting For History--POV: Recon Specialist-- I flew through the forest, metaphorically. The skin on my back tingled with delight after being stuck so long in the stone tomb that I could barely keep myself from laughing. But I had a mission. One that would lead to the downfall of the Racist Tyrants. Every little thing chips away at her defenses, leading to a larger hole to take advantage of. That's why I had a job. Everything works towards the goal, no matter how small. We swiftly exited the forest and saw a small cottage with animals all over the place. Most likely it was the home of a pony. We could not see who lived there, but she was most likely a veterinarian, not a historian. Thus I sprinted past. My Shadow Eyes were silent as ever, right behind me. I looked towards the sun during my run, wishing more than ever to see the Solar Diarch's heart in my hand for the injustice of two thousand years of solitary confinement. Shaking my head to banish distracting thoughts, I took the long way to the town. Logic dictated that the Sun would find out about our escape soon enough. If she was half as smart as she was 2000 years ago, she would have already felt the bonds break. Then again, she could easily have been so arrogant as to believe that our skeletal bodies were unable to break the stone. The arrogance of youth. I also felt what was possibly a battle going on between some type of smugness and a determination that felt poisonous to my mind. The smugness vanished to be replaced by true fear, which coincided with a massive rainbow appearing in the village and shooting down onto, what was the most likely case, Discord. A sphere of magic blasted out from the town, causing me to question whether or not it was smart to approach the obvious Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Thankfully, I did not need to go further into town. I stopped as I noticed a small shop on the outskirts of said town. It had an old looking book as the sign, so I decided that would be the closest we could get to our target. Making sure not to be noticed, I went up to the front of the door, seeing what type of creature owned the shop. Apparently, an old pony was tending the shop. He must have been deaf and blind to not notice the chaos that had been roiling outside his door. The books should have been walking around at the very least. Oh well. The pony was looking away from the door, thankfully enough. His coat was a light beige and his mane was a dark brown with grey streaks. A magnifying glass along with an ancient looking letter was what marked his flank. Smiling to myself, I recognized that right now was the perfect opportunity for assimilation, and this chance might not present itself so willingly for the Adepts. So, I signaled my Shadow Eyes to infiltrate the building, using whatever windows or openings they could find. I almost opened the door before I looked up and noticed a small bell. It looked like it would make more than the normal amount of noise that a bell would make. I now knew that the old pony was deaf. The bell was probably enchanted to create a massive sound from even the tiniest of clangs. Thus, I easily reached up and grabbed the bell, pinching the clapper tightly. Bending the bell away from the door, it slowly creaked open. The codger's ears didn't even flick backwards. One of my Shadow Eyes signaled me from an open window that I apparently missed in my haste to scout this place. Scowling, I closed the door silently and gently let the bell back down. Thanking the fact that I had skin for now, the soft pads of my feet barely made a sound on the hardwood floor. My Shadow Eyes crept to the old pony as well, only disturbing dust with their footfalls. The pony wasn't even making me have to sweat. He was just muttering and staring into the pages of an old book, translating random words into a very flowing style. Taking notice of his species, I saw a dull brown glow from his horn holding the quill he was using to write with. Once all of my Shadow Eyes were in range in case he tried to run, I signaled that we would do a tri-assimilation. I and two of my Eyes would leap on his back and begin the seconds long process. Signaling another of my Eyes, I told her to count down for us, to get perfect sync. She held up three fingers. Then two. Then one. Then we pounced. My hand grabbed onto his mouth, preventing him from screaming, while plunging my other hand into his head, just beneath the horn. This interrupts the magic flow, making it a very effective tactic against unicorns. A red mass began flowing from the wound, covering his head in seconds. Where my two Eyes had hit him, red also flowed. He struggled feebly from the pain. Once he was completely covered, we dropped him. Or a soon to be me. Bones crunched and popped under the red mass, making sickening sounds. The shape of a humanoid could be seen forming under the red as the bones reconfigured themselves to a human skeleton. Once the red had fallen away, we gazed on the bones that the First would take hold of. Empty sockets lit up with red light and began smoking. Said smoke dissipated once a foot away from his face though. The First looked at me and extended his arm towards me. Pulling on him, he got up quickly enough. Thankfully a part of the assimilation process was that the extra skin from the assimilated was turned into the black robes we wore. Not that there was anything to see, yet. He had yet to allow skin to grow on his bones. He looked to me and said, "What rank are you?" I replied, "I am a Recon Specialist." Nodding, he seemed to growl, "Then you disobeyed orders." Normally, such a comment would have earned the henchmen a one way ticket to a bullet or blade in the head, but the First knew why I had disobeyed orders, as he would have done the same thing. Then he asked, "What is the exit strategy?" I looked to the Eye that had found the back window entrance. He nodded and our small troop went to the window and climbed out. Shadow Eyes went first, to secure the area, then I went, and finally the First climbed out. Then, we began to sprint. We passed the cottage again, looking to see if who or whatever lived in the house caught sight of us. Nothing seemed to have moved, even the animals were mindlessly picking their way through the back yard of the house. Then we entered the trees of the Everfree. The King is Back--POV: Mortis (The First)-- I sprinted through the forest, right behind the RS. It had been two millennia since I had walked, let alone sprinted, and it felt wonderful to have the wind caressing my bones again. Suddenly feeling an abnormal emotion in the forest, I whispered to my RS, "There is an unusual source of tranquility in the forest. Find it. Anything that can be tranquil in this forest is something to seek out." She nodded and relayed the command to the rest of her Eyes, and we tilted towards the source of tranquility. Still sprinting, we ran through the forest, dodging trees this way and that. I saw in my mind's eye that we were coming up on a source of emotion that felt more like something feral. The emotion it was emitting felt like a sense of satisfaction. It was between us and the tranquil one, so we would most likely have to get through it. If I had noticed it, that meant the rest of my selves had noticed it as well. Following the same path of logic I took, we would arrive at the same conclusion. We would have to destroy this obstacle, whatever it may be. Keeping my "eyes" forward, I heard what the obstacle was long before I saw it. Lying in a clearing was a huge lion-bat-scorpion thing, called a manticore. Its back was toward us and it seemed to be eating a fresh kill, possibly only minutes old due to how much of the corpse was left. The actual creature was unrecognizable since the manticore was bent over it, still facing away from us. We could probably assimilate it, but might suffer some bone damage from its powerful claws. Thus, I decided to use one of my most favorite, and, paradoxically, least favorite powers. I could grab the heart of any living creature, and call it to my hand, instantly killing the creature. Obviously, this would only possibly incapacitate those with more than one heart, and would not work at all on non-biological organisms. I liked the power because any threats deemed to dangerous for assimilation could be killed near instantly. I didn't like it because it gave me an alternative to assimilating, and I didn't like to waste good bones. Looking down, I spied a small branch. A plan quickly formed in my head, leading me to believe that my RS and her Eyes had also reached the same conclusion. Looking to her, I signaled that I would step on the branch, causing the manticore to face me. Then, with their help, we would all pull its heart out of its chest. I could do it from behind, but the back is much more resilient compared to the chest, with only a couple layers of muscle and bone to go through. Nodding, my RS and her Eyes extended their hands, ready to call the manticore's heart into the world. I placed my bony foot over the branch, looking back to my selves. With a nod, I put my full weight onto the branch. *SNAP!* The manticore instantly turned around, growling at where the branch was. However, I had already raised my hands and could feel the rhythmic pumps of the large organ. If I had skin on my face I would have grinned. I clenched the bones that made up my hand into a fist and pulled. Immediately, the manticore could feel something wrong. A red circle appeared on its chest as it fell over on its side. The circle burned through fur, skin, muscle, and bone, leaving the heart exposed as it floated into the center of equilibrium for all 7 of my selves. They released their hold and it shot to my waiting hand, beating erratically from residual electric currents. Gazing at it for a second, I tossed it to one of my RS's Shadow Eyes. It was time to start rebuilding my collection, and a manticore heart would make a great first start. Nodding, the Eye sprinted to where my new base supposedly was. This left us with six of me, two of which were leader level. However, one of the Eyes was walking towards the fresh corpse of the manticore, which means he had already thought about what I was thinking about. The fact that so much unused bone would go to waste. He looked to his RS, who then looked to me. I nodded, and two more Eyes left our group to carry back the corpse of the manticore. Thus having taken care of the situation, we started sprinting towards the source of tranquility. Again feeling wind and branches scraping over my bones under the black cloak I was spawned with cast me back to a long time ago... Before I turned into a necessary monster. --Two Thousand Years Ago-- Ugh. What happened, where am I, and who do I have to smack to get something for my throat? I thought as I placed my hand to my head. I opened my eyes but immediately shut them as light burned my retinas after apparently having my eyes closed for several hours. Cracking one eye open, I pointed my head towards the ground, thinking that the grass I felt would at least be less bright than the sun overhead. As I opened both eyes however, I was assaulted by the brightest pastel green I have ever seen. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I steadily got used to the brightness, allowing me to finally see just where in the world I was. I sincerely hope this is just a dream, I thought with wide eyes. What greeted my eyes was a world full of pastel colors, nearly blinding me with their garish brightness. The grass, to the trees, to the sky, to even the dirt road, it was all in ultra-bright colors! I wanted to puke rainbows. But I didn't. Quickly getting used to seeing blinding colors piercing my eyeballs, I lifted myself off the ground, feeling the extraordinarily soft blades of grass caressing my skeletal hands. Wait, what?! Looking at my hands, there was no skin on them at all. No muscle, or even cartilage. Just, bones. I would like to think I took it better than a normal person. Being slightly unhinged gives that ability. I still screamed my head off for all of two seconds, but I got over it quickly. Screaming wasn't going to help, and it only irritated my probably now non-existent throat. Now that I noticed it, I couldn't really feel any skin on the rest of my body either. Looking down, I also noticed what I wearing for the first time. I was covered in a long black cloak, with sleeves reaching down to just past my wrists. My feet, also not covered by skin or muscle, just barely peeked out from underneath the bottom hem of the cloak. I pulled the front of the piece of clothing away from my neck, and saw that my torso had not been spared the skinless treatment either. A sternum and ribs greeted my vision, which were actually what I was feeling my cloak with. I could only feel things that touched my bones. If I was any other person, I would still have been screaming, or lying on the ground as a sobbing mess. As it was, I was made of sterner stuff. I only imagined my face frowning, and began thinking about what had most recently happened. The last thing I remembered was walking down a street at night, and seeing a man holding something that absorbed the light… I’m dead! I thought. Panic started settling in my mind, before I shook my head, knowing that panic would not help either. Also, when I shook my head, my neck made these awful creaking sounds as the bones rubbed together. Let me tell you, it was not a nice sound to hear yourself make. Just as I did this, however, a, for lack of a better term, pony of questionable coloration walked in front of me. As in, it was less than a foot away, and was colored a neon orange. Its mane and tail were a two tone green, and it had the weirdest shape tattooed on its flank. It looked like an old fashioned record player you would find in a museum with a star as the plate. This pony just walked right by me, before turning around and widening its comically sized eyes. I swear, those eyes took up half of its face space. Its mouth opened and I jumped at the pony. I wanted to cover its mouth before it could scream, but I seemed to underestimated how quickly my new body could move. Being used to lugging around about 130 pounds of organs, muscles, and skin made me shoot towards the pony. My right hand was outstretched, reaching towards the muzzle of the pony. However, as my hand touched the pony, my now pointed fingers ripped into the mouth of the pony due to the accelerated speed I was traveling at. I also ended up tackling the pony, even with my now relatively light body weight. My eyes would have widened, if they could have, but the pony did it for me. My hand forced its mouth closed and tears sprang up in its eyes. I tried to pull my hand out of its face, but my arm wouldn’t budge. The pony thrashed, trying to get me off of it. Muffled screams came from its mouth, even as I tried to pull my hand free. Suddenly, the pony started struggling even more, as the screams reached a higher pitch. A red liquid seemed to be traveling from the wounds around the head of the pony, spreading itself all the way down its body. None of the liquid dripped off, it only encased the pony as I tried even harder to remove my hand from the now feebly struggling pony. As the red stuff reached the tip of the pony’s tail, I gave one last heave, to try and get help. I ended up flying off, landing on my back. I heard sickening cracks and snaps as I pushed myself off the ground with my elbows. The red mass was no longer recognizable as a pony, but seemed to be reshaping itself as a human. The red liquid receded back into the spot where the head wound would have been as I picked myself off the ground. However, once the red stuff had disappeared completely, my mind was assaulted with images that were most definitely not my memories. In the space of a second, I looked through the entirety of this pony’s life, from birth to “death.” I learned that its name was Star Record, and it was actually a she. She listened to music and magically, you heard that right, magically, transcribed the sounds onto a large disk of graphite. I shook my head to banish the images and slowly walked over to the now humanoid looking thing. As I observed closer, the body looked extremely close to mine. Almost exactly similar. The body was nearly six feet tall, with arms that reached down to mid-thigh. It was wearing a black cloak that looked the same as mine. What caught my attention was the now human skull that was above the neck hole of the cloak. My mouth opened in slight surprise, as red lights appeared in the sockets of the skull. They went out and came back, like a blink, before shutting off as the right arm of the body came up over its face. “Ugh…That was a weird dream,” the pony-turned-humanoid said. It sounded very feminine as it said this. It, she, brought her arm away from her face in what looked like surprise. Her eyelights appeared again as she quickly pushed herself off the ground, facing me. I got the distinct sensation that her eyebrows would be in its scalp as it studied me. She suddenly said, “Who are you and why do you look like me?” “I could ask you the same question and another one. You were a brightly colored pony/horse-thing just a couple seconds ago. Why do you now look like me?!” I said, gesturing towards my chest. Torso. Ribcage. You know what I mean. She flinched back and said, “No…the last thing I remember was accidentally clawing the mouth of a pony as I saw it try to scream. I had flown backwards as my hand was released from its face. I must have knocked myself out or something.” “No, I was the one who did that, idiot,” I said, already tired of arguing with the obviously unstable individual. “You take that back!” she said as she shot forward to grab my neck. “How about you get your hands off me?!” I said, aiming a punch to her sternum. If she had only a skull for a head, then she must have been like me as well. My fist landed and she shot backwards. Her feet dragged through the ground as she tried to stop her momentum. Instead of being winded, she got back up on her feet and said, surprise in her voice, “That didn’t hurt.” “Excuse me? Oh right, you’re just bones, like I am. You don’t have lungs to wind,” I said, facepalming. “Just like you? I would say you,” she said as she pointed a finger at me, “are just like me!” she finished, pointing her finger at herself. I would have arched an eyebrow at this, and simply said, “I just said that.” Crossing her arms, she said, “No you didn’t. You implied that you were better by saying I was like you.” Again bringing my hand to my face, I said, “You do know that this argument has no point, right?” I bet she would have been smirking so hard right now if she had skin. She said, and I could hear the smugness in her voice, “Then you give up?” As I brought my hand from my face, narrowed my eyes and said, “Who was standing up when you awoke? You? Or me?” Her eyelights seemed to brighten as she took in this piece of information. “Oh,” she said dumbly. “Have you realized that I most likely made you from the body of that pony yet?” I said, slightly irritated at this pointless argument. She seemed to deflate and said, “Fine. Whatever. But why do I have all of my, your, memories?” I tried to come up with a good answer, but simply said, “That. Is a very good question.” --Present-- Shaking my head to bring myself back to the present, I realized we were coming up on the source of tranquility. It was slightly tinged with frustration now. Two of my RS’s Shadow Eyes had gone ahead to scout it out, whatever the source was. Surprise registered in my mind’s eye where two normally neutral spots of emotion, the Eyes, should be. Now I was intrigued, if only by the slightest margin. As we reached the two Eyes, a male and female combo, they said, “The target is a zebra, but she is a very potent potion maker. We are worried that she might have some form of countermeasure for us.” “If what you say is true, I must not reveal myself. Apparently, from what I remember, my aura feels like a corrupting death. The bushes should hide it for now, but I will fall back. Five of you go, one of you appearing wounded. Call for help before you bang on the door, that should give her, if the gender diversity is still the same as before, enough time to not throw a sleeping potion in your face. Once you are in her house, assimilate her. I don’t know much about zebras, so expect anything,” I said, having taken into account any possible variable. The three Eyes that were sent to the base to bring back the kill had returned to us, providing us with some reinforcements. If she was aggressive, then we would just kill her instead. The five Eyes nodded and went to the bushes. One of them collapsed to the ground, which prompted two others to pick him up. The Eye’s hoods were up, so she would not see that their, my, faces were all the same. I pulled back and watched the emotions from a distance. Even if the zebra wasn’t a unicorn, she would be able to feel my slight aura of cloying death. Five spots of neutrality, three of whom were close together, approached the zebra’s house, hut, or whatever it was. I heard shouts for help, but their emotions never revealed themselves. There was a small amount of excitement, but nothing that would register to the conscious mind. However, my selves are great actors, like me. They should put on a convincing show. The source of tranquility, the zebra, suddenly changed to a mix of curiosity and urgency, probably after hearing the shouts and the banging on her door. It, she, moved a small amount, skirting around something before stopping. Apparently her house was either small or her work took place close to the front door. One of my selves had stopped as well, in front of the zebra, presumably with the door in between them. The zebra moved forward suddenly, passing the self at the supposed door. She approached the three clustered selves, who had moved forward a little. While she was doing that, however, the other two selves had approached from behind. The zebra moved towards the middle self, putting her in a great position for assimilation. At an unspoken signal, all five of the selves pounced. The zebra became incredibly surprised, before pure pain emanated from her. I stopped focusing on the emotions, that much pain could actually harm me. I never liked causing pain, but years of commanding an army has jaded me. As we waited for the Eyes to return with our new recruit, I looked at my RS. She had her hood up, but all of my selves could see through the shadows our hoods provided. Apparently two thousand years can cause skin to grow. I would have smirked. If I hadn’t taunted Celestia at the final moment, I probably could have survived and got stoned instead. Then I would be able to help my soldiers with the skin’s natural aura suppression. As I thought this, the Eyes walked back with the new recruit. Once I took notice of her, I looked through the acquired memories of the zebra. Potion making couldn’t even begin to describe the zebra’s, Zecora’s, craft. She knew so much about potions and brews that it almost seemed like she could perform alchemy if she wanted. Of course, she also needed incredibly rare reagents for the more interesting potions. After crushing the surprise in my head, I looked to my selves and said, “Alright, I need one of you to run ahead to get two Scalpels to catalogue the potions still in Zecora’s hut. And make sure you tell them to bring the ingredients, pot, or whatever else may be useful to us.” A single Eye nodded and started sprinting at a much faster pace than we would normally go at. I and the rest of my selves started sprinting a slower pace, to reserve our energy. As we ran, my thoughts were once more cast into the past. To a time when war was the furthest thing from my, our, mind… Boy I sure am nostalgic today.
Dark BeginningsYo. My name is Larry Crawford. Or that was my name. My name now is Mortis Magister, or “death master” in Latin, give or take some grammatical stuff, maybe. You see, I was a normal human, just like you reading this. Or maybe you’re a pony who found this, in which case, drop this book now. Anyway, I was just wandering through the streets on a dark night during All Hallows Eve. Kinda stereotypical when you think about it. I saw this guy walking towards me. He was hunched over, about 5 feet tall, and might bruise in a stiff wind. But, and I kid you not, he was carrying a frigging seven foot tall scythe! Now, I was no slouch in the body department, what with my near six foot frame along with an over six foot armspan. I exercised semi-regularly, so I would say that I did have enough muscle to at least give a single low weight wrestler a work out. But I was also no slouch in the mind department either. If anyone had a weapon, I automatically thought that they could use it. So, I quickly moved into a nearby alley and placed my back on a nearby wall, hoping that my blindingly red hair hadn’t given away my position. It also helped that I saw that the man had a hood up, so I couldn’t really see his face, which means he probably couldn’t have seen me either. Holding my breath, I waited for the obviously unstable man to pass. I mean, who in their right mind would have a huge scythe right out in the open? I sure wouldn’t. Anyway, I saw the back of his brown hoodie as he shuffled his way past. However, as he reached the entrance, he turned towards me. The curved scythe blade glinted in the light of the moon. Except the moon wasn’t out. Remember when I said it was a dark night? Yeah, it was the night of a new moon. There was no way it could have shined in my face, but it did. And only now do I understand why. Had I taken a closer look at the blade, I would have seen galaxies and stars in the blade, spaced out by the utter absence of light. I could have only seen it because it was blacker than the night surrounding it. Fear raced through my body as the suddenly very threatening man crept up in front of me before he said in a raspy voice, “Hope you have a nice trip.” Just as I was about to ask what he meant, the nothingness of the scythe flew forward and stabbed straight into my heart. Instantly, blackness surrounded me. --POV: Unranked Self-- --2000 Years Later-- Leading a war against two goddesses was probably not the best idea in hindsight. Using what they saw as their own ponies as soldiers was most likely even worse. And that’s not including those that I assassinated by tearing their hearts from their chests. Being encased in stone was not what I had in mind for the rest of my now probably immortal life. But, I can feel a change in the air. A certain, fragility. For so long, all I could do was think, plot, and feel the emotions of everything in what felt like a twenty mile radius. But, after these long years I could finally feel the bonds that held this stone to my form breaking. Something must be causing a tremendous ruckus topside. The emotions felt like sheer glee from whatever it was doing. It reminded me of an old friend that I knew a dozen centuries ago. Grinning to myself, I forced my right arm to move, cracking the stone covering my body. I moved it again, feeling the shoulder break its hold. I bent my arm at the elbow while clenching my hand, freeing both from the stone. After repeating the process with my other arm, I twisted my head to the left, shifting the stone on my neck. Using both hands, I forced my head to the right, both cracking my neck and breaking the stone’s connection with my body. After that was done, I slammed both of my hands into the sides of my head, breaking the stone into tiny pieces. After I shook the rest of the stone out of my hair, I reached to my right for the scythe that I came to Equestria with. Or the First came with. It wasn't a true replica, but it would do. Grabbing the hilt, fond memories of the many creatures that had fallen to it came to me, causing my face to pull into a sadistic grin. The silver blade with a black edge glinted in the dim light of somehow-still-burning torches. As I looked into the blade, I saw that my skin had apparently grown back in my imprisonment. Perhaps the skin would camouflage my aura, perhaps not. Returning to the task at hand, I bashed the blunt end of my scythe against the stone covering my legs, breaking the now weak stone to pieces. I smashed my left hand to my chest, breaking the stone there as well. Now completely free of the stone, I stepped down off of the pedestal. Breathing in, I felt my chest expand in the stale air of the tomb. Hearing cracking to my right, I saw that a statue of myself was also climbing out, yet was me as a girl. With the hood down, she could have been called beautiful by men. Since I was a guy, being called beautiful and the mere fact that I was looking at a girl me would have freaked me out long ago, but I had gotten used to such thoughts. Shoulder length flaming red hair framed a slightly elfin face. Her face was pulled into a neutral expression as she stared at me with red eyes. The First’s eyes, also mine and hers, were originally green, but changed to red upon his arrival to Equestria. Due to our nature, we shared a small conversation with nothing but a look. All of my, or our, selves follow the same logic process that the First would go through. Thus, we both arrived at the conclusion to help the rest of our selves. We nodded together, and went to break the rest of myself out of their prisons. Sounds of cracking and smashing sounded out of the tomb as our scythes cracked millennia old stone from our brothers/sisters/selves. But no one heard it. No one had come to my tomb in the 2000 years that I had been here. After we had broken out the rest of us, the only objective in my mind was to set up a base where we could safely expand without being discovered. Just I started plotting, I saw fog rise from the ground as my forgotten misdirection power became active again. Grinning, as I’m sure the rest of my selves were doing, I let it do its work, twisting signs and roads away from my position, weaving brambles together to keep prying eyes away, and causing the fog to thicken into something that none but us could see through, but inside and outside my/our tomb. Thus satisfied with making sure nothing could find us, short of scrying our location and directly teleporting, I turned towards the door that kept me sealed off from the outside world. All twenty of my selves, as one, smashed into the door. Our scythes crashed and bashed, breaking the wood open quite easily. As I stepped out into the light, I smiled at the feeling of warmth that flooded my skin. The warmth of happiness flooded my mind as the rest of me did the same thing, momentarily blocking out the myriad of ambient emotions that usually held their place in my head. Two thousand years of nothing but listening to emotions had almost completely deadened my own, or our own, emotional capacity. Feeling such joy at nothing but the light of the sun, regardless of who controlled it, was now a rare pleasure. Looking around, I saw that I was in front of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, falling in on itself due to age. The two stupid Princesses had just left me under the crumbling building. Windows were shattered, the top floor looked completely exploded, and walls that hadn’t collapsed looked like they were about to. I was slightly angry that the princesses had simply thought I would roll over and die. Me, or, well, the First, Mortis Magister! I, who taught them the arts of war! Well, I had a plan to take them down. Or, we did. And it wasn't going to be pretty. After scouting around to see if any of the various creatures of the Everfree Forest were around the ruined castle from before my misdirection power did its job, I regrouped with the rest of me to discuss about who was going to do what. Suddenly, a very specific draconequus popped into existence beside me. No, he literally spawned a balloon next to me and it popped open with his smug mix and matched face staring at the castle. However, I sensed a smidge of confusion from him. Looking around in surprise, he said, "Well, I hadn't expected you to get out until I personally pumped some chaos into your statues, why did you have to go and ruin my fun?" He adopted a slightly humorous pose, crossing his mismatched arms and pouting comically. Sighing, I said, or, we said at once, "Discord. Why am I not surprised that you would instantly turn the world upside down once you got free?" A smirk made itself known on our lips as we watched Discord turn himself upside down and float that way with a huge grin on his face. His antics always seemed to bring a smile to my face, regardless of what mistake I had done. As such, Discord had gotten used to me speaking with one voice in the time we had been partners, whenever I had done it. "It's because you know me so well!" Discord said, tapping my nose with a lion claw. I brushed my nose off as he turned himself right side up. Friend though he may be, Discord still finds ways to get under my skin. Crossing my arms, I asked, "Discord, what has happened in the time we were imprisoned?" still speaking with my entire voice. Seeing all of me cross my arms in sync got a shiver out of him. Apparently the Order we exuded from a synchronized gesture still made him disgusted, but he quickly forgot and said, "Well, I could tell you, but where's the fun in that? Why don't you go do what you do best and grab some memories from a poor pony’s head?" Bringing my fingers to my forehead in the wake of a growing headache, I said, "You very well know that such a tactic would only work in the historian had no other contacts. Such a prodigious target would almost immediately be missed, especially if he or she was a professor." "But has that ever stopped you before? Come now Larry, you and I both know that you're just itching to get back at Celly and Luna. Don't worry too much about missing ponies, I'll be spreading so much wonderful chaos that they will hardly be missed!" Discord said, a huge smile planted on his mixed muzzle. Placing a hand to my chin in thought, I went over the possibilities. The collective knowledge of a dozen or so assimilated pony geniuses helped me in making a battle plan. It only took me a few seconds, but I reached the conclusion that Discord was actually right for once. If he wasn't speaking madness again, that is. Thus, I said, "Ok Discord, go spread around as much chaos as you like. Just tell me if the Elements of Harmony are still in the Princess' control." Adopting a semi-serious pose, complete with a bubble pipe, Discord said, "I can tell you, good sir, that dear old ‘Tia and Luna do not have control over them anymore. However, there are six new bearers, whom I have taken care of already." With that, the pipe popped and he said, "Well, it's been fun seeing you again, but I have so much to do and so little time to do it. Arrivederchi!" Then he snapped his claws and teleported somewhere. I sighed from his antics, slightly irritated by his lack of help. But I couldn't bring myself to be truly angry with him, since that’s just how Discord works. Or doesn't. You can never tell with him. Turning to my selves, we said, "We need to designate a Commander." We then replied, "Of course." Suddenly, all of my selves turned to me, probably because I was the first out of my prison. Nodding, I started designating other commanding positions such as Chief Assimilator, Recon Specialist, Osteo-Officer, and General of the Bones. This left 15 other of my selves noticeably upset due to not getting a higher position in the small force I had. This was mostly due to how I acted, because I would never want to be under the authority of someone else. However, once they realized that they would technically be taking orders from his/herself, their emotions and faces returned to a neutral expression. Because they hadn’t been chosen, the fifteen soldiers lined themselves up in front of us. Speaking up, I said, "Alright, we need to focus on recon and assimilation, so the CA and RS get more soldiers than the OO or GB. I hope we understand the logic of this. I will start off the counting by picking out one Bone Guard." I pointed to a female me closest to the left end of the line. They all nodded once and started taking turns picking out soldiers. I left the sub-commanders to choose their soldiers, not that it had much difference on who picked who. We were all clones of the First, who was in every one of us. We never die when our bodies are destroyed, we just get sucked back into the main consciousness of me. He had already died and been reborn as the first new assimilated taken once he had died several times over. Currently, he did not have a body to inhabit and was simply waiting for us to get a move on. Not that we could hear him, but we could sense his impatience from inside our heads. The girl self I picked out walked up beside me and seemed to be about to ask me a question, but came to a resolution before she could open her mouth. Most likely this was because I would have asked if I was better, to which I would have replied, "No, I just picked you out because you were the first from the left." Such patterns make me predictable, but when you have to fight with yourself over something, neither side will win due to equal amounts of intelligence or strength. So we take turns in getting what we want. It seems very childish now that I focus on it… Once all the new sub-commanders had their chosen soldiers, I said, "Now that you have your personnel, I will be giving specific instructions to each of you. RS, you are to scout out the town close by for any potential targets. Look for historians that no one will miss as a priority. You will report to the CA once you find a suitable target." She nodded and sprinted into the forest, her Shadow Eyes following in her wake. I turned to the CA and said, "While she is scouting out the area, you are to look for any candidates in the immediate forestry. The first will be the one to take over the historian, due to his experience. We must make a greater army before then, Celestia might have already detected our presence." He nodded and stalked his way over the rickety bridge, his Adepts close behind him. I faced the OO and said, "Use the knowledge of the doctors and herbalists we have assimilated, try to find healing medicine for those that need to have a healthy complexion." She nodded and walked over the bridge as her Scalpels trailed behind her. Finally, I looked towards the GB, saying, "Set up this place as our temporary or possibly permanent base of operations. Make it as secure as possible against those not of our specific body type." With that, the final sub-commander nodded and took his Scythe Masters into the castle, surveying just where to place the greatest traps. Finally done with giving orders, I thought "At long last, our plan is coming to fruition."
Scouting For History--POV: Recon Specialist-- I flew through the forest, metaphorically. The skin on my back tingled with delight after being stuck so long in the stone tomb that I could barely keep myself from laughing. But I had a mission. One that would lead to the downfall of the Racist Tyrants. Every little thing chips away at her defenses, leading to a larger hole to take advantage of. That's why I had a job. Everything works towards the goal, no matter how small. We swiftly exited the forest and saw a small cottage with animals all over the place. Most likely it was the home of a pony. We could not see who lived there, but she was most likely a veterinarian, not a historian. Thus I sprinted past. My Shadow Eyes were silent as ever, right behind me. I looked towards the sun during my run, wishing more than ever to see the Solar Diarch's heart in my hand for the injustice of two thousand years of solitary confinement. Shaking my head to banish distracting thoughts, I took the long way to the town. Logic dictated that the Sun would find out about our escape soon enough. If she was half as smart as she was 2000 years ago, she would have already felt the bonds break. Then again, she could easily have been so arrogant as to believe that our skeletal bodies were unable to break the stone. The arrogance of youth. I also felt what was possibly a battle going on between some type of smugness and a determination that felt poisonous to my mind. The smugness vanished to be replaced by true fear, which coincided with a massive rainbow appearing in the village and shooting down onto, what was the most likely case, Discord. A sphere of magic blasted out from the town, causing me to question whether or not it was smart to approach the obvious Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Thankfully, I did not need to go further into town. I stopped as I noticed a small shop on the outskirts of said town. It had an old looking book as the sign, so I decided that would be the closest we could get to our target. Making sure not to be noticed, I went up to the front of the door, seeing what type of creature owned the shop. Apparently, an old pony was tending the shop. He must have been deaf and blind to not notice the chaos that had been roiling outside his door. The books should have been walking around at the very least. Oh well. The pony was looking away from the door, thankfully enough. His coat was a light beige and his mane was a dark brown with grey streaks. A magnifying glass along with an ancient looking letter was what marked his flank. Smiling to myself, I recognized that right now was the perfect opportunity for assimilation, and this chance might not present itself so willingly for the Adepts. So, I signaled my Shadow Eyes to infiltrate the building, using whatever windows or openings they could find. I almost opened the door before I looked up and noticed a small bell. It looked like it would make more than the normal amount of noise that a bell would make. I now knew that the old pony was deaf. The bell was probably enchanted to create a massive sound from even the tiniest of clangs. Thus, I easily reached up and grabbed the bell, pinching the clapper tightly. Bending the bell away from the door, it slowly creaked open. The codger's ears didn't even flick backwards. One of my Shadow Eyes signaled me from an open window that I apparently missed in my haste to scout this place. Scowling, I closed the door silently and gently let the bell back down. Thanking the fact that I had skin for now, the soft pads of my feet barely made a sound on the hardwood floor. My Shadow Eyes crept to the old pony as well, only disturbing dust with their footfalls. The pony wasn't even making me have to sweat. He was just muttering and staring into the pages of an old book, translating random words into a very flowing style. Taking notice of his species, I saw a dull brown glow from his horn holding the quill he was using to write with. Once all of my Shadow Eyes were in range in case he tried to run, I signaled that we would do a tri-assimilation. I and two of my Eyes would leap on his back and begin the seconds long process. Signaling another of my Eyes, I told her to count down for us, to get perfect sync. She held up three fingers. Then two. Then one. Then we pounced. My hand grabbed onto his mouth, preventing him from screaming, while plunging my other hand into his head, just beneath the horn. This interrupts the magic flow, making it a very effective tactic against unicorns. A red mass began flowing from the wound, covering his head in seconds. Where my two Eyes had hit him, red also flowed. He struggled feebly from the pain. Once he was completely covered, we dropped him. Or a soon to be me. Bones crunched and popped under the red mass, making sickening sounds. The shape of a humanoid could be seen forming under the red as the bones reconfigured themselves to a human skeleton. Once the red had fallen away, we gazed on the bones that the First would take hold of. Empty sockets lit up with red light and began smoking. Said smoke dissipated once a foot away from his face though. The First looked at me and extended his arm towards me. Pulling on him, he got up quickly enough. Thankfully a part of the assimilation process was that the extra skin from the assimilated was turned into the black robes we wore. Not that there was anything to see, yet. He had yet to allow skin to grow on his bones. He looked to me and said, "What rank are you?" I replied, "I am a Recon Specialist." Nodding, he seemed to growl, "Then you disobeyed orders." Normally, such a comment would have earned the henchmen a one way ticket to a bullet or blade in the head, but the First knew why I had disobeyed orders, as he would have done the same thing. Then he asked, "What is the exit strategy?" I looked to the Eye that had found the back window entrance. He nodded and our small troop went to the window and climbed out. Shadow Eyes went first, to secure the area, then I went, and finally the First climbed out. Then, we began to sprint. We passed the cottage again, looking to see if who or whatever lived in the house caught sight of us. Nothing seemed to have moved, even the animals were mindlessly picking their way through the back yard of the house. Then we entered the trees of the Everfree.
The King is Back--POV: Mortis (The First)-- I sprinted through the forest, right behind the RS. It had been two millennia since I had walked, let alone sprinted, and it felt wonderful to have the wind caressing my bones again. Suddenly feeling an abnormal emotion in the forest, I whispered to my RS, "There is an unusual source of tranquility in the forest. Find it. Anything that can be tranquil in this forest is something to seek out." She nodded and relayed the command to the rest of her Eyes, and we tilted towards the source of tranquility. Still sprinting, we ran through the forest, dodging trees this way and that. I saw in my mind's eye that we were coming up on a source of emotion that felt more like something feral. The emotion it was emitting felt like a sense of satisfaction. It was between us and the tranquil one, so we would most likely have to get through it. If I had noticed it, that meant the rest of my selves had noticed it as well. Following the same path of logic I took, we would arrive at the same conclusion. We would have to destroy this obstacle, whatever it may be. Keeping my "eyes" forward, I heard what the obstacle was long before I saw it. Lying in a clearing was a huge lion-bat-scorpion thing, called a manticore. Its back was toward us and it seemed to be eating a fresh kill, possibly only minutes old due to how much of the corpse was left. The actual creature was unrecognizable since the manticore was bent over it, still facing away from us. We could probably assimilate it, but might suffer some bone damage from its powerful claws. Thus, I decided to use one of my most favorite, and, paradoxically, least favorite powers. I could grab the heart of any living creature, and call it to my hand, instantly killing the creature. Obviously, this would only possibly incapacitate those with more than one heart, and would not work at all on non-biological organisms. I liked the power because any threats deemed to dangerous for assimilation could be killed near instantly. I didn't like it because it gave me an alternative to assimilating, and I didn't like to waste good bones. Looking down, I spied a small branch. A plan quickly formed in my head, leading me to believe that my RS and her Eyes had also reached the same conclusion. Looking to her, I signaled that I would step on the branch, causing the manticore to face me. Then, with their help, we would all pull its heart out of its chest. I could do it from behind, but the back is much more resilient compared to the chest, with only a couple layers of muscle and bone to go through. Nodding, my RS and her Eyes extended their hands, ready to call the manticore's heart into the world. I placed my bony foot over the branch, looking back to my selves. With a nod, I put my full weight onto the branch. *SNAP!* The manticore instantly turned around, growling at where the branch was. However, I had already raised my hands and could feel the rhythmic pumps of the large organ. If I had skin on my face I would have grinned. I clenched the bones that made up my hand into a fist and pulled. Immediately, the manticore could feel something wrong. A red circle appeared on its chest as it fell over on its side. The circle burned through fur, skin, muscle, and bone, leaving the heart exposed as it floated into the center of equilibrium for all 7 of my selves. They released their hold and it shot to my waiting hand, beating erratically from residual electric currents. Gazing at it for a second, I tossed it to one of my RS's Shadow Eyes. It was time to start rebuilding my collection, and a manticore heart would make a great first start. Nodding, the Eye sprinted to where my new base supposedly was. This left us with six of me, two of which were leader level. However, one of the Eyes was walking towards the fresh corpse of the manticore, which means he had already thought about what I was thinking about. The fact that so much unused bone would go to waste. He looked to his RS, who then looked to me. I nodded, and two more Eyes left our group to carry back the corpse of the manticore. Thus having taken care of the situation, we started sprinting towards the source of tranquility. Again feeling wind and branches scraping over my bones under the black cloak I was spawned with cast me back to a long time ago... Before I turned into a necessary monster. --Two Thousand Years Ago-- Ugh. What happened, where am I, and who do I have to smack to get something for my throat? I thought as I placed my hand to my head. I opened my eyes but immediately shut them as light burned my retinas after apparently having my eyes closed for several hours. Cracking one eye open, I pointed my head towards the ground, thinking that the grass I felt would at least be less bright than the sun overhead. As I opened both eyes however, I was assaulted by the brightest pastel green I have ever seen. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I steadily got used to the brightness, allowing me to finally see just where in the world I was. I sincerely hope this is just a dream, I thought with wide eyes. What greeted my eyes was a world full of pastel colors, nearly blinding me with their garish brightness. The grass, to the trees, to the sky, to even the dirt road, it was all in ultra-bright colors! I wanted to puke rainbows. But I didn't. Quickly getting used to seeing blinding colors piercing my eyeballs, I lifted myself off the ground, feeling the extraordinarily soft blades of grass caressing my skeletal hands. Wait, what?! Looking at my hands, there was no skin on them at all. No muscle, or even cartilage. Just, bones. I would like to think I took it better than a normal person. Being slightly unhinged gives that ability. I still screamed my head off for all of two seconds, but I got over it quickly. Screaming wasn't going to help, and it only irritated my probably now non-existent throat. Now that I noticed it, I couldn't really feel any skin on the rest of my body either. Looking down, I also noticed what I wearing for the first time. I was covered in a long black cloak, with sleeves reaching down to just past my wrists. My feet, also not covered by skin or muscle, just barely peeked out from underneath the bottom hem of the cloak. I pulled the front of the piece of clothing away from my neck, and saw that my torso had not been spared the skinless treatment either. A sternum and ribs greeted my vision, which were actually what I was feeling my cloak with. I could only feel things that touched my bones. If I was any other person, I would still have been screaming, or lying on the ground as a sobbing mess. As it was, I was made of sterner stuff. I only imagined my face frowning, and began thinking about what had most recently happened. The last thing I remembered was walking down a street at night, and seeing a man holding something that absorbed the light… I’m dead! I thought. Panic started settling in my mind, before I shook my head, knowing that panic would not help either. Also, when I shook my head, my neck made these awful creaking sounds as the bones rubbed together. Let me tell you, it was not a nice sound to hear yourself make. Just as I did this, however, a, for lack of a better term, pony of questionable coloration walked in front of me. As in, it was less than a foot away, and was colored a neon orange. Its mane and tail were a two tone green, and it had the weirdest shape tattooed on its flank. It looked like an old fashioned record player you would find in a museum with a star as the plate. This pony just walked right by me, before turning around and widening its comically sized eyes. I swear, those eyes took up half of its face space. Its mouth opened and I jumped at the pony. I wanted to cover its mouth before it could scream, but I seemed to underestimated how quickly my new body could move. Being used to lugging around about 130 pounds of organs, muscles, and skin made me shoot towards the pony. My right hand was outstretched, reaching towards the muzzle of the pony. However, as my hand touched the pony, my now pointed fingers ripped into the mouth of the pony due to the accelerated speed I was traveling at. I also ended up tackling the pony, even with my now relatively light body weight. My eyes would have widened, if they could have, but the pony did it for me. My hand forced its mouth closed and tears sprang up in its eyes. I tried to pull my hand out of its face, but my arm wouldn’t budge. The pony thrashed, trying to get me off of it. Muffled screams came from its mouth, even as I tried to pull my hand free. Suddenly, the pony started struggling even more, as the screams reached a higher pitch. A red liquid seemed to be traveling from the wounds around the head of the pony, spreading itself all the way down its body. None of the liquid dripped off, it only encased the pony as I tried even harder to remove my hand from the now feebly struggling pony. As the red stuff reached the tip of the pony’s tail, I gave one last heave, to try and get help. I ended up flying off, landing on my back. I heard sickening cracks and snaps as I pushed myself off the ground with my elbows. The red mass was no longer recognizable as a pony, but seemed to be reshaping itself as a human. The red liquid receded back into the spot where the head wound would have been as I picked myself off the ground. However, once the red stuff had disappeared completely, my mind was assaulted with images that were most definitely not my memories. In the space of a second, I looked through the entirety of this pony’s life, from birth to “death.” I learned that its name was Star Record, and it was actually a she. She listened to music and magically, you heard that right, magically, transcribed the sounds onto a large disk of graphite. I shook my head to banish the images and slowly walked over to the now humanoid looking thing. As I observed closer, the body looked extremely close to mine. Almost exactly similar. The body was nearly six feet tall, with arms that reached down to mid-thigh. It was wearing a black cloak that looked the same as mine. What caught my attention was the now human skull that was above the neck hole of the cloak. My mouth opened in slight surprise, as red lights appeared in the sockets of the skull. They went out and came back, like a blink, before shutting off as the right arm of the body came up over its face. “Ugh…That was a weird dream,” the pony-turned-humanoid said. It sounded very feminine as it said this. It, she, brought her arm away from her face in what looked like surprise. Her eyelights appeared again as she quickly pushed herself off the ground, facing me. I got the distinct sensation that her eyebrows would be in its scalp as it studied me. She suddenly said, “Who are you and why do you look like me?” “I could ask you the same question and another one. You were a brightly colored pony/horse-thing just a couple seconds ago. Why do you now look like me?!” I said, gesturing towards my chest. Torso. Ribcage. You know what I mean. She flinched back and said, “No…the last thing I remember was accidentally clawing the mouth of a pony as I saw it try to scream. I had flown backwards as my hand was released from its face. I must have knocked myself out or something.” “No, I was the one who did that, idiot,” I said, already tired of arguing with the obviously unstable individual. “You take that back!” she said as she shot forward to grab my neck. “How about you get your hands off me?!” I said, aiming a punch to her sternum. If she had only a skull for a head, then she must have been like me as well. My fist landed and she shot backwards. Her feet dragged through the ground as she tried to stop her momentum. Instead of being winded, she got back up on her feet and said, surprise in her voice, “That didn’t hurt.” “Excuse me? Oh right, you’re just bones, like I am. You don’t have lungs to wind,” I said, facepalming. “Just like you? I would say you,” she said as she pointed a finger at me, “are just like me!” she finished, pointing her finger at herself. I would have arched an eyebrow at this, and simply said, “I just said that.” Crossing her arms, she said, “No you didn’t. You implied that you were better by saying I was like you.” Again bringing my hand to my face, I said, “You do know that this argument has no point, right?” I bet she would have been smirking so hard right now if she had skin. She said, and I could hear the smugness in her voice, “Then you give up?” As I brought my hand from my face, narrowed my eyes and said, “Who was standing up when you awoke? You? Or me?” Her eyelights seemed to brighten as she took in this piece of information. “Oh,” she said dumbly. “Have you realized that I most likely made you from the body of that pony yet?” I said, slightly irritated at this pointless argument. She seemed to deflate and said, “Fine. Whatever. But why do I have all of my, your, memories?” I tried to come up with a good answer, but simply said, “That. Is a very good question.” --Present-- Shaking my head to bring myself back to the present, I realized we were coming up on the source of tranquility. It was slightly tinged with frustration now. Two of my RS’s Shadow Eyes had gone ahead to scout it out, whatever the source was. Surprise registered in my mind’s eye where two normally neutral spots of emotion, the Eyes, should be. Now I was intrigued, if only by the slightest margin. As we reached the two Eyes, a male and female combo, they said, “The target is a zebra, but she is a very potent potion maker. We are worried that she might have some form of countermeasure for us.” “If what you say is true, I must not reveal myself. Apparently, from what I remember, my aura feels like a corrupting death. The bushes should hide it for now, but I will fall back. Five of you go, one of you appearing wounded. Call for help before you bang on the door, that should give her, if the gender diversity is still the same as before, enough time to not throw a sleeping potion in your face. Once you are in her house, assimilate her. I don’t know much about zebras, so expect anything,” I said, having taken into account any possible variable. The three Eyes that were sent to the base to bring back the kill had returned to us, providing us with some reinforcements. If she was aggressive, then we would just kill her instead. The five Eyes nodded and went to the bushes. One of them collapsed to the ground, which prompted two others to pick him up. The Eye’s hoods were up, so she would not see that their, my, faces were all the same. I pulled back and watched the emotions from a distance. Even if the zebra wasn’t a unicorn, she would be able to feel my slight aura of cloying death. Five spots of neutrality, three of whom were close together, approached the zebra’s house, hut, or whatever it was. I heard shouts for help, but their emotions never revealed themselves. There was a small amount of excitement, but nothing that would register to the conscious mind. However, my selves are great actors, like me. They should put on a convincing show. The source of tranquility, the zebra, suddenly changed to a mix of curiosity and urgency, probably after hearing the shouts and the banging on her door. It, she, moved a small amount, skirting around something before stopping. Apparently her house was either small or her work took place close to the front door. One of my selves had stopped as well, in front of the zebra, presumably with the door in between them. The zebra moved forward suddenly, passing the self at the supposed door. She approached the three clustered selves, who had moved forward a little. While she was doing that, however, the other two selves had approached from behind. The zebra moved towards the middle self, putting her in a great position for assimilation. At an unspoken signal, all five of the selves pounced. The zebra became incredibly surprised, before pure pain emanated from her. I stopped focusing on the emotions, that much pain could actually harm me. I never liked causing pain, but years of commanding an army has jaded me. As we waited for the Eyes to return with our new recruit, I looked at my RS. She had her hood up, but all of my selves could see through the shadows our hoods provided. Apparently two thousand years can cause skin to grow. I would have smirked. If I hadn’t taunted Celestia at the final moment, I probably could have survived and got stoned instead. Then I would be able to help my soldiers with the skin’s natural aura suppression. As I thought this, the Eyes walked back with the new recruit. Once I took notice of her, I looked through the acquired memories of the zebra. Potion making couldn’t even begin to describe the zebra’s, Zecora’s, craft. She knew so much about potions and brews that it almost seemed like she could perform alchemy if she wanted. Of course, she also needed incredibly rare reagents for the more interesting potions. After crushing the surprise in my head, I looked to my selves and said, “Alright, I need one of you to run ahead to get two Scalpels to catalogue the potions still in Zecora’s hut. And make sure you tell them to bring the ingredients, pot, or whatever else may be useful to us.” A single Eye nodded and started sprinting at a much faster pace than we would normally go at. I and the rest of my selves started sprinting a slower pace, to reserve our energy. As we ran, my thoughts were once more cast into the past. To a time when war was the furthest thing from my, our, mind… Boy I sure am nostalgic today.
