Etiamsi Omnes, Ego Non- The Avatars

“...It must now be clear to us that the main tendency of the principle is to use physical menace for the purpose of extorting an appearance of respect which is deemed too difficult or superfluous to acquire in reality; a proceeding which comes to much the same thing as if you were to prove the warmth of your room by holding your hand on the thermometer and so make it rise. {…} As not much reliance can be placed upon human integrity, the principle that it is more essential to arouse fear than to invite confidence would not, perhaps, be a false one, if we were living in a state of nature, where every man would have to protect himself and directly maintain his own rights. But in civilized life, where the state undertakes the protection of our person and property, the principle is no longer applicable; it stands, like the castles and watch-towers of the age when might was right, a useless and forlorn object, amidst well-tilled fields and frequented roads, or even railways.”

-Arthur Schopenhauer

The savage, fascist northmen who conquered Equestria imported their ugliness with their monstrous selves. Bright colors, comfortable furniture, artistic expression, complex foods, all anathema. They broke and destroyed everything they could, spreading terror and hate in their wake.

The ancient and beautiful city of Canterlot, symbol of beauty, peace and wonder for the whole of the land, suffered the wost at their bumbling, ignorant hands. The primitive and bigoted savages, barely smart or sapient enough to claim either designation, smashed their mailed fists through the colorful windows, burned classical paintings and furnishings and crushed all the works of art and musical instruments they could get their foolish hands on.

With the castle destroyed and defiled in the manner they required of their habitations they moved in their ugly god-king. He had a name, but right-thinking folks did not speak it. He was purely a monster. A beast. A horrible and wretched collection of disgusting habits and horrible thoughts.

He took up the throne room, and used it to prove his barbaric power. He did many horn removals and wing amputations, as well as dozens of Cutie mark burnings. His savage brutality knew no bounds. He had no conscience, only a carven lump of ice where his heart should have been.

Being such a brutal and primitive wretched wasteland of a creature he filled the throne room with trophies to show his bloody conquests. Severed heads of many species, and all of females, festered and rotted around the walls. Brutalized women were securely chained to the walls, face-first, and subjected to rape or whipping until they bled at a minor command from the Stag King. Treasures from the conquered nation flooded the place. But the most unassuming objects were the greatest spoils.

Six gray stone spheres, set on a table. Six gray stone spheres that represented the one potential source of true opposition to the Heartless Hind. The disempowered Elements of Harmony. The bearers could no longer claim them. Their bond was shattered when some became collaborators and others were scarred and beaten into a pitiful state. They were inert. Useless, so far as the average empty-minded northman was concerned. Their king knew better, because his craven quisling Shining Armor had told him of the magic that slumbered within.

They were the truest symbol of the Stag King's power and might, his iron-fisted control of a shattered nation. Even when he added the headless stone body of the Arch-Magus of Canterlot, and arranged the spheres on him, they were the focal point. He wanted them there, to be seen. He wanted all to tremble at him, for he was mighty, and it was how he got his respect.

He had 'ceremonial' guards in the throne room, whose purpose was genuine defense. He could not afford to appear weak, but he could not remain without cannon fodder to die in his defense. So he had elaborate armor made, incorporating the bones of murdered slaves, and filled the armor with elite bucks. They were called The Vidkun Order, after the savage monster who was beheaded by the Last Arch-Magus at the Battle of Paddock Fifty-One.

Pony servants and soldiers occasionally wandered in and out to give reports or stand a watch as ordered. They were irregular and imprecise, because sexual expression meant that making and keeping a schedule was hard work. It all pleased the Stag King, especially when the ponies stood in awe of the spheres.

The Stag King had but one single, overpowering worry, and it galled him. Not the demigoddesses of Equestria, his mysterious power had conquered them. Some of the population had resisted the control of his strange power. They stood against him, which was a great insult. They dared challenge him, a living god.

But worst of all was the heart of his worry. The mysterious perhaps-creature known as the Phantom. He refused to believe that it really was a single being. No single being could deliver such vexation to his grand army of savage barbarians. But some core creature in some sense represented that ghostly figure. That pony, that single being that mocked him with his continued life, was what worried and galled him so.

He had been told that the Phantom was within the grasp of a pony general by the name of Swagger Stick. His information had been followed. Then he defected, betrayed the new order and killed his detachment. His execution and replacement by General Iron Fist was to solve the problem. It had not. Iron Fist had been beheaded in Canterlot palace by the Phantom. He had escaped and likely would not return.

But he had returned to the domain of the conquerors. Or the rumors of him had. A captive rebel, with tales to tell. Tales of the Phantom, his many names, his many deeds, and his many hiding places. He spun the stories that the army needed in order to march on the great traitor. He threatened self-destruction to keep himself unmolested while he spun his web.

The web, like a spider's parlor, was trap. Detachments of guards, slaughtered, by rebels, by compliant drones, even by each other. His words had been poison, and those that suggested he be interrogated had earned their just punishment for the failure to break the prisoner. The rebel had left, to join others and continue the fight. A fight which cut uncomfortably close to the heart of the shattered land.

The Phantom had stricken in his territory. He had defiled the purity of the Hind's will, the savage assurances of power shown with severed heads and brutalized women. The Phantom would pay, if he ever came close enough. Though he wanted him dead, the stag King wanted to be the one to kill him. To change his gender and torture him to death over weeks. Months. Years! The Phantom would pay for the insolent mockery of a living god. He would learn the price.

The day began as it ever did. The Stag King was too dull-minded to know or confess it but there was a stultifying sameness to things. The same brutality, the same sitting and simply being powerful, the same mindlessness. Only rarely would any come in and disturb the stillness with petty concerns such as the needs of governance.

The Vidkun Order guards stood at their positions at the corners of the throne room, and beside the King's throne. The women struggled and occasionally whimpered in pain and fear. Each sound was punished with a brutal course of whipping, filling the room with screams, which brought a smile to all. It was the only break in the monotony.

The empty silence and relatively stillness of the throne room was broken by a soft clattering. It sounded like rocks falling onto the floor. The Vidkun Order guards tracked the sound and noticed some pebbled on the ground near the center of the room, including a few that were still dropping and bouncing.

Further investigation revealed nothing more than the empty ceiling.

“What a foolish, doeish thing to do,” one of them said to the others.

“Care must be taken. We are the elite who stand for our Pitiless Majesty, we must be prepared,” another replied.

“That comes close to blasphemy,” the first hissed. “He is invincible and infinitely strong. We are here to serve as ceremonial guard, not actual guards.”

“I take my position more seriously than you,” the second said sharply.

“Your position will become 'doe' if you choose to blaspheme,” the first countered.

“That is not your decision. I am faithful, strong and male. I have tortured many females. I am the ideal buck,” the second sniffed.

“Not if you imply his Pitiless Majesty needs our protection,” the first snapped.

“Then why are you here, fool?” the second spat.

“The free women! This is one of the easiest ways to beat and assault women, and it gives me status. My position as a master is increased and I have access to more and better women,” the second said with puffed-up pride.

“You are a decadent fool. I serve for honor and glory, the way of our kind,” the second said with equal pride. “And as a happy side effect, I can brutalize others and be regarded with greater status.”

“He has a good point,” a third said. “Honor the old ways and get more chances to abuse.”

“Bah, it's too much work to consider-” the first began, cut off when another pebble dropped. “In any event, it is nothing. The pony palace is merely shedding rubble from our mighty and masculine battery of its weak and female form.”

Another fall of stones came then, but they were more than mere pebbles. They looked to be gemstones of significant size, glowing with a greenish inner light. They hit the ground with a terrific pop, shooting quick shards of stony shrapnel then releasing a thick, choking cloud of green gas that swallowed the scene.

Another soft thump sounded from within the cloud, almost lost amid the gagging coughs of the surprised Vidkun Order guards. The coughs became less and less powerful as their number reduced. They seemed to end with a gasp or a pained grunt, followed by a soft thump on the ground.

The cloud cleared, before the Stag King could rise and demand anything be done about it, green smoke drifting out of the windows and dissipating into the corridors of the palace. The clearing of the cloud revealed a dark, hunched figure, in goggles and a bandana, writing on the chipped and cracked stone floor.

He traced his finger in the blood of the Vidkun Order, carefully crafting each letter like one creating an elaborately calligraphic, illuminated work. He did not even seem willing to acknowledge that the Stag King glared down with hot hate on him.

“Who dares defile the throne of the god-king of all the world?!” The King screamed, voice echoing around the walls and making the women whimper.

No response came at first from the figure. He worked quickly yet with a surprisingly delicate and careful touch, leaving the refrain that had haunted the eyes and ears of the new order for a good while. Etiamsi Omnes, Ego Non.

Only when the writing was done did the figure stood slowly, turning his goggled eyes on the lord of the fallen world. He was a tatterdemalion, clad in the ruins of a black suit with a white ruffled shirt and bedraggled lace in a bow at his throat. The bandana was a ragged square of folded-over cloth in an explosion of pastel colors, while the goggles were the sturdy metal and smoked glass used by Diamond Dog forge tenders and smelter workers.

“Who dares?” The Stag King asked again, his wings twitching at his back, teeth gritting firmly.

The figure moved with a preternatural quickness, dancing and tumbling his way over to the element orbs. He drew a knife from a hidden place, the blade of glowing silver, and marked with two symbols. A golden wheel, and the old insignia of the dancing Princesses. “I dare.”

A long, heavy moment of silence filled the throne room, the eyes of the Stag King betraying his surprise. The beast of legend, was real. The single monster that opposed his order actually existed. “You... you would come here?”

“I would,” the Black Knight said with an odd mirth, a smile seeming to be hidden behind his bandana. “I did before. But I never stopped in to greet you. I thought I would come, see how your Vidkun Order held up, then take some parting gifts and be off.” He grew suddenly serious. “I tried them. They were not sufficient.”

“They were only for appearance...” The Stag King said, slowly rising up. “I can take care of myself...”

“Yes, but can you deal with that?” The Black Knight said, pointing to the doorway to the throne room.

Through the door came a ragged pony servant, a red-bodied, yellow-maned earth pony mare who looked hollow-eyed and helpless, with barely the energy to trudge hopelessly along. She bore with her a rough and ugly wheeled cart, like those used to move food and sex toys through the palace.

A loud, raucous laugh rang out from the Stag King, cruel mirth written on his barbaric features. “You thought to trick me. But she is only a dead-eyed cunt, a worthless piece of flesh that walks and suffers but cannot think.”

“You think that about most females, I imagine. More's the pity...” With another explosive burst of speed and grace the Black Knight gathered up the six spheres and hurriedly threw them onto the cart.

The mare sprang into action, securing them with hidden straps and ensuring they were all locked down tight. Her face became determined, and her eyes flashed with a spark of strength. “Spheres secured, sir.”

“Use extraction plan Harmony-3. Modify if you've heard different,” the Black Knight shouted, standing protectively in front of the mare.

“Running the gauntlet now, sir. Rendezvous point set and ready!” The mare cried, running out of the throne room with the Elements.

“Traitorous bitch!” The Stag King screamed, gathering up magical force to fire at the retreating servant.

The Black Knight whipped the knife up and tossed it at the Stag King's crotch. The silver blade spun rapidly in the air, catching the eye of the Stag King and canceling his spell. The brutish beast stood, with an arrogant look as the point of the knife slammed into a magical barrier that looked to be formed of yellow-colored translucent hexagonal panels. The arrogant look faltered, and a twinge of fear came to his features as the knife blade, seemingly with residual momentum, dug into one magical panel, the point just barely penetrating.

The moment was broken, however, as the magical barrier finally succeeded in repulsing the knife, sending it flying back to clatter on the ground. The Black Knight held out a hand to call the knife back to his grip. “Fiat. I knew you would cheat, you Heartless Hind.”

“Cheating is what inferiors call the winning techniques of the master race,” The Stag King said, looking at the Black Knight warily. “You will never escape, Phantom. Your stunt failed.”

“Know why I went for the twig and berries, you arrogant beast?” The Black Knight asked, his look somewhere between mocking and hostile. “You murder, mutilate and maraud, without pity or thought for others, so I know you have no heart. You enact stupid policies and allow sex to be central, vitiating efficiency, so I know you have no brain. You claim superiority and mastery and prove how great you are by violently beating and chaining those over whom you are allegedly superior, so I know you have no guts. You focus exclusively on your genitals and babble on about them so much I know you have those. But with how much you need them promoted I can be sure that I was taking a gamble, trying to hit a target that small.” He winked. “I'm a grifter and a quacksalver. The easiest way to fix a bad product is yell about it louder. It doesn't actually fix anything but the razzle-dazzle means it takes longer for them to notice.”

The magic charged again, crackling through the Stag King's horns. “Insolent wretch! I will make you regret everything!”

“I regret nothing,” the Black Knight called, throwing a big handful of gems at the King. They crashed heavily against his magical field, splattering heavy tar across it as well as releasing more green gas.

Though protected from both, they combined to make it impossible to direct an attack. The Stag King roared with rage and fired his magic off haphazardly, hoping to strike something. As the green gas dissipated and the tar was dropped by the dropping of the shield, the King could see there was nothing to hit. His quarry had escaped. Again.

His voice boomed through the palace, shaking the walls and echoing down the demolished corridors. “Guards! The Phantom has invaded! Capture him! And if that is not possible, slaughter him as painfully as possible!”

The Black Knight twisted his way through the labyrinthine corridors of fallen Canterlot castle, his hooves seeming to know every twist and turn. His speed and knowledge soon had his caught up to the mare, who was running with all her might. “Any new patrol routes?”

“No, sir!” she answered. “They barely manage the schedule they have, no changes are going to happen that fast.”

“Good! We don't need interruptions. The idiot called them all into service. They'll be on our hocks in a minute.”

“My hocks, sir,” the mare said with a sudden sadness. “I haven't been the same since they got me. I used to be something, a real athlete. All the abuse and the broken legs took care of that. So take the cart.”

“What?!” The Black Knight shouted, taking hold of the cart handle when the mare released it.

“You're faster and know the place better. I'll slow them down. I have... the thing,” the mare said with a motion to her mouth.

“That's for emergencies!” The Black Knight shouted. “Not for sacrifices!”

“If I say it's an emergency then let me go on thinking it and acting like it!” The mare yelled sternly. “Just remember me to the rest of the comrades. Zayats Volk will be called across the steppes of home.”

“I have a lot of remembrances. You will occupy a privileged place,” the Black Knight said, pushing the cart along faster. “I know the shortcuts out, if you want to follow...”

“Apologies, sir, but after what happened...” Zayats shuddered. “In the old world there were doctors and hospitals for mental fragility. But now, we need action. Sacrifice. But I'll take plenty of them. I don't have the weapons with me, but I have ways.”

The Black Knight ran on, teeth grinding. Then he heard the clatter of armor and running hooves. “They're closing off the common passages but I know a roundabout way. Last chance to...”

“I'll be making noise as you go. Do svidanya, sir...” Zayats said, skidding to a halt and rushing towards the sound of armored marching. “For the Motherland, for Stalliongrad and for the Red Legion!”

“Fortuna favor you, Zayats,” the Black Knight said, turning into what looked like a small closet. Sliding a few stones and pushing on another slowly opened a panel in the back. “And may then next turn of the golden wheel give you what you have earned...”

Zayats ran fast and hard towards the sound of marching. She stopped short of running into an armored caribou leading a squad of ponies. “Equestria forever!” She cried.

“Stupid, impudent, insolent bitch!” The caribou shouted, slapping Zayats across the face with an armored hand.

Zayats hit the ground, blood seeping from her split lip and cut cheek. But despite that, she was smiling. “Glad you slapped that one...”

“The cunt knows her place. She must want to confess,” the caribou said.

“She'll still get tortured,” a stallion muttered to another.

“Over here! We captured an escapee!” The caribou yelled out.

Zayats' smile grew as more marching hooves came, surrounding her. “The other one is where I keep my emergency supply. The way to avoid the suffering I refuse to experience again.”

“The purpose of women is to suffer so men can come off on them and show how powerful and pitilessly masculine we are,” the caribou boomed.

“My purpose is to die, for my country,” Zayats grumbled. “And make you die for yours!” She sucked in a breath and bit down hard, a loud crunch ringing around. She blew out all the air from her lungs, sending out a sickly green cloud to wrap around the guards surrounding her. She dropped to the ground, a smile playing on her lips as she heard the males around her choking and screaming, and then falling.

“It was... not pleasant, your pitiless majesty,” the caribou standing before the Stag King said. His head was bowed low and he was suppressing his trembling. “Two detachments and the slave... dead.”

“How did a lowly pony slave kill so many guards? There were worthless ponies in here, meant to die, but our own soldiers, strong and masculine were among them,” the Stag King growled.

“It was some kind of poison,” the bowing caribou said. “There was a bloody froth around their nostrils and mouths. They were all twisted and screaming, except her, she was... smiling.”

“Her fate was to die. At least she embraced it. Go now,” the Stag King said, waving a hand. He watched the messenger run off with a contemptuous glare and then looked to the body of the Arch-Magus, where the elements had been. He could only smile. His foe thought he had succeeded. But nothing could have been further from the truth. He rose up from the throne and made his way out of the room and to the expansive basement space of the palace.

The northmen, being a primitive and ignorant lot, could not claim to work well with the abundant technology that the Equestrians had had. However, their brute-force mechanisms could be imposed over what had been in the Equestrian lands. So it was that the Stag King had one of the basement corridors turned into a hall of death traps, with swinging axes, jabbing spears, crossbow bolts and other such things, arranged in a manner only he knew.

The hall terminated in an unassuming storeroom, crowded with shelves, on which were useless objects. The important content was on a pillow-topped pedestal. The Elements of Harmony. The real ones. Fakes had been created when he took possession of them and were placed in the throne room. He was not as ignorant as he might have seemed, though still quite stupid about many matters. For all his arrogance, however, he recognized a genuine threat to his power.

Cowardice and haughty pride fought in the icy void that in another might have been a soul. He had to believe that none could defeat or defy him. But he also had to ensure there was no way for that to be possible. He displayed his spoils, but also hid them away to keep them from doing him harm. None knew of the true story; the ponies that had placed them there had been told they were the fakes, which had been 'captured' from deceptive ponies trying to confuse him. As the artisans had been murdered, there was none to dispute the report.

He occasionally supervised servants as they were cleaned and polished. None asked why fakes were maintained. To question the monster was to invite beheading. They did as told and were satisfied with it.

The Stag King entered the room and smiled as he looked in on the real Elements. There they sat, inert and away from any creature that could hope to activate them. They were his. And he would leave them locked in darkness forever.

He slowly circled them, looking hatefully on them. “Pathetic! Worthless!” He spat on one of the stones. “You would challenge my power? You would dare oppose abuse and slavery? Impossible! I am a god! I am invincible!”

He picked up one sphere and squeezed it tightly. “You are nothing! Your bearers were broken apart. Some are my willing slaves, and some are so beaten and ruined they will never bear you again!” He squeezed it tighter. “You will never rise again!” He threw the sphere down, as he had before. The magical thing would bounce off the floor and leave a divot.

The sphere hit the floor and shattered into pieces, the shards clattering and tumbling along the floor.

The Stag King stared in disbelief. A fake. It was a fake. He immediately grabbed another and threw it to the ground. It broke to pieces as well. All the rest were tested and found to be cheap fakes. The exteriors looked right, but they were just weak facsimiles. The weak facsimiles he had had made.

If the forgeries were down in the basement, the real ones had been...

He rushed out of the room and down the corridor to the first guard he had stationed in the lower levels. “You! Has any creature been here without my presence?”

“Uhh... well...” the pony stammered a bit. “I have been abusing my quota of females, using them as often as possible. I don't remember seeing any creature that was important to notice. A hunched figure came though, with some rags and a bucket. Like the cleaners that you bring...”

“Was he alone?” The Stag King demanded.

“Y-yes he was!” The guard replied. “He came through a few times, if I remember right. I was busy...”

“Stupid fool!” The Stag King yelled, stalking off in a huff.

Sex was good. Abuse was good. Abusing females was the right thing to do. But when the distraction came it hurt things. Important things. But it was right!

As he sat back in his throne he considered. The Elements were dead. His pet traitor had told him they were useless without bearers. The bearers were gone. And finding others would be impossible in the world he had made.

The stag King scoffed and returned to looking imperious. The Phantom could keep the useless hunks of magical rock. He would never activate them. The world was too corrupted and ruined for there to ever be harmony again. He was safe. He was invincible. He was truly a living god.

But still, he glanced around at the glory of ruination and considered. He might have to oppose the Phantom, just with the worthless stones as a symbol. But the thought was pushed out of his mind as a woman sagged in her chains. He had fun to have. And nothing mattered more than abusive fun.