Garry's Mod Vs. Equestria 2: War in the North

What day was it? Did it matter? No, probably not. How long has it been...? How long have I been here? A week... maybe? Again, I doubt it matters. Where was I? Somewhere at home? No, I haven't been home in at least a week. Anyways, the exact location doesn't matter. But why was I awake so late at night? Was it night...? Oh, it was... Look at that... Well, it doesn't matter. Honestly, nothing really matters any more. Absolutely nothing.

...

But why doesn't it matter? Why was I sitting in a dark room that smelled of ale and stale bread in the middle of the night and not out there doing something? ... Doing... what, exactly...? Why was I here? Well, it doesn't really matter I suppose. Nothing really mattered any more. Nothing except... Wait, what was I going to say? I can't remember... Well, I doubt it mattered anyways; nothing really matters any more.

I lifted a pony sized tankard to my mouth, taking a long drink of the stale ale that it contained. Pony ale... what a joke. It tasted like sour apple cider and had about as much kick in it as a legless child would. I would've had to drink an entire cask to feel anything, and far more than that to actually get myself properly intoxicated. But as much as I'd like to, the ponies would bitch and complain if I did that, and that would make my pounding headache even worse... Oh well. At this point it felt as if a crowbar had been violently placed inside my head and my skull was being pried apart. On top of that I had been throwing up for hours before hiding myself in the storage of ale. On top of that, my insides felt like they were being put through a meat grinder.

I wasn't sure if the pain was from all the bullshit the ponies had been giving me, or from... another reason... The last time it happened after about a week. As of my time in the ale storage, I was fairly certain that I had been in Equestria for over a week. A week, a whole damned week. A whole damn week and not one bit of progress had been made with those idiots in the field. Emerald and Stone and the others were doing great (they even managed to best me a few times!), but those degenerates that made up the general populace of that damnable castle. Those filthy, no good, little plebeians! I'll show them what fear is! Real fear! Those dirty little horses! They don't even know what I've given them! They don't realize that I did it for their own good! That I... did what for their own good, exactly?

I scratched at the back of my head, both in confusion and to relieve a slight buzzing sensation that had been growing there. Why was I screaming at them in my head? I shrugged, saying to myself, "Stupid ponies. The idiots have me talking to myself." I snarled at the tankard in my hands. "I bet they aren't even taking this seriously... They think that because their world is made of sunshine and happiness and rainbow flavored farts that everything'll work out just dandy for 'em. Well," I said taking a deep breath, "I'll be the one laughing when they're all dead and gone. That way, it'll be just me and Celestia... And I can hurt her. Hurt her as much as she hurt me..." My hands clenched the tankard so hard it began to crack. "She did this to me. She made me go to that damn city; made me go through all of that. Then she made me-" I shook my head, scratching again at the buzzing that was getting worse by the second. "Why am I even talking about it?" I growled to myself. "That bitch'll get hers. Probably a giant pole, fresh out of the fire and red hot shoved up her pompous ass." I thought about that. I pictured what it would look like from a third person perspective. It was funny. It was funny enough to make me laugh loud and hard enough to hurt my throat and further my headache. But I didn't care, I was enjoying the picture, and by every pagan god I didn't believe in, I was going to have that moment.

"I'll tie her to the ceiling by her wings," I started to myself. "No no no, not the ceiling. I'll tie the pole to the floor and her wings to the wall. When she tries to get away from the poll, she be ripping her own wings off! Yes! And her hooves will be submerged in acid! Oh-ho-ho, yes... Acid'll do nicely. Nothing too strong though, I want her to feel it burning slow and painful. Then when she has no legs, I'll pry her rib cage open with a crowbar and pour gas in her guts. Then I'll lite her on fire, and she'll scream and scream and scream until her throat melts closed and her skin peels off and... and... an-..."

I put a hand to the back of my head, placing it over the almost-burning feeling at the base of my skull. As I touched the spot I felt calmer. I could feel a cooling wave go through my hand and work its way through my body. I kept my hand there, gently rubbing the spot as the soothing waves took away the pain I was feeling. Both physically and otherwise.

My head softly hit the wood of the table I was sitting at. I took in a shaky breath and sniffed in an attempt to fight the burning behind my eyes. "That bitch... That... ugly, stuck-up, self-righteous bitch..." I took in another shaking breath. "I don't care if I died. I would have died happy. I was finally... I was finally... I..." I saw myself, smiling next to her. "I was happy... Why did she have to take that away from me?"

I heard voices outside. They were saying something about something coming. One of them sounded familiar, but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything. Nothing except making Celestia suffer. Suffer and die. In that order. I felt a strong soothing wave pass through me as I thought that.

I smiled to myself a little ruefully. "It's fucked up that I only feel good when I'm thinking about really dark things, isn't it?" I asked aloud. Like I expected I received no answer.

The voices outside got louder and more seemed to join in the chorus of blind noise.

I lifted my tankard up once more only to find that it was empty. "Fuckin' stupid ponies," I sighed to nothing very specific and tossed the empty container to the floor with a clatter of wood on wood. With a grunt of effort I lifted myself from the undersized stool and walked a wobbly walk to the door and pushed it open. Pony alcohol may be weak, but when somebody drinks half a dozen kegs they tend to feel it, no matter the strength. The refreshing cold night air hit me as soon as the door was open, taking away the stale ale smell and replacing it with sharp smell, like that of a lake that isn't quite frozen yet. Not Lake Erie though; that smelled like dead bodies, sewage and rotting fish.

I looked around the castle courtyard and saw dozens, if not hundreds of ponies running around in a panic. Some of them were literally running in circles screaming while others crashed into each other or toppled over random objects that I didn't remember being there previously. Among the screaming, fleeing ponies stood one that wasn't running around like an idiot. Shining Armor stood near the central platform trying to calm everybody down--unsuccessfully I might add. "Everypony, you need to calm down! It'll be all right!" he was screaming at the crowd. "Remember your training!"

"They are," I mumbled at him, though I doubted he could hear me over the screaming and the distance between us. "Stupid fuckin' ponies," I swore, shaking my head and making my way across the field towards him.

Shining was in his armor, minus the boots. His sword was loosely attached to his side with a belt, though the scabbard for it was missing. "Everypony, please! Calm down for Celestia's sake! You need to get to your positions! To arms everypony! To arms!" He ignited his horn and lifted his sword up high, striking a heroic pose. Still, he was ignored in favor of panicked screaming and running in circles and tripping over inconveniently placed objects.

He blinked when he saw that nobody was listening to him. "Stupid freaking ponies..." he swore to himself.

I rolled my eyes at the sad attempt to rally the troops. "They'll never listen to you," I said to myself. "But I'll bet they'll listen to this."

I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs until they began to hurt from stretching too far. Then as loud as I could, I bellowed, "EVERYBODY SHUT UP!!!!"

They listened. Every pony on the field stopped running and screaming and panicking to turn their heads to looks at me.

With an angry scowl at all of them, "All of you, gear up!" I yelled over the silence. "I want you all center-field with weapons and armor! Right! Fucking! Now! Move your sorry asses or be the first to die!" In the time it takes to blink they were all up and sprinting to equip their gear.

With the situation under control I quickly made my way to where Shining was standing with a confused expression. "What's going on?" I asked quickly. "Are we under attack?" The look on his face told me everything before he even spoke however.

He nodded once. "Something's coming," he told me. "It looks like a huge black cloud."

At that moment Emerald came running up to us with Stone right behind her. "What's wrong?!" she shouted at us. "Are we under attack?!"

Shining looked at them. "Yes. A huge black cloud was spotted coming this way by a sentry. We're assuming it's Umbra."

The two of them gasped, Emerald stepping back and colliding with Stone. "W- what?!" she shrieked. "You can't be serious! You're not serious are you?!"

I scowled at them. "Is this how you act when you're faced with an enemy? You get scared and cry? I'm disappointed in you," I scolded her.

Shining cut in before she could respond. "Nopony is crying, and nopony has time to be scared! We need to get ready for an attack! We need to get ready for a fight!"

"To late for that," Sergeant Snow cut in as she walked up from behind us. "It's already here."

And so it was.

We heard a distant scream of "Look out!", then all Hell broke loose. Like a huge wave, a giant swarm of black smoke and long tendrils crashed against the Northern wall of the castle. It seemed to slither up the wall and pour into the courtyard, making a horrible screeching noise as it landed. Now that it was closer I could see something within the smoke: two large, disembodied floating green eyes with red irises and red snake-like pupils. Ghostly purple smoke seemed to trail behind the eyes as they moved around to observe everything.

The pony army showed up at that moment, fully geared up and ready to fight. Though they were ragtag and in a mob rather than formation, they still looked rather impressive. Perhaps too impressive for their own good...

One of the ponies at the front of the crowd raised her sword in the air and screamed, "Charge!" And with a mighty roar from the assembled ponies behind her, they all raised their swords in the air and surged forward. Right into their deaths.

I saw them running towards the thing and my eyes went wide. "HALT!!" I screamed at them. "FALL BACK!!! FALL BACK TO ME!!!!" But I was too late. Most of them heard me and stopped in their charge, but the ones leading the charge were already too close.

The huge entity saw them and let out a roar so loud that it caused everybody on the field to double up in pain and clutch at their ears to stop the sound. With the ponies so close, and also stunned, it raised up one mammoth tendril and swept it across the ranks of them. The sweeping tendril must have took at least twenty of them, sending them flying into the air.

The eyes within followed the path the bodies took and seemed to light up with sadistic joy as they thudded on the ground and blood pooled around each of them.

I watched this in shock. I had expected this thing to attack them, and even kill them. But to actually enjoy killing the ponies? "This thing needs to die. Now." I held out my hand and summoned a slim knife. "Hey! Big ugly thing!" I shouted at the cloud monster.

It turned to face me, the green eyes locking on to my own.

Drop that blade!

I blinked as I felt a chill run down my spine, but was refocused the next second. "Pick on somebody your own evil!" I yelled at it as I hurled the dagger directly at the eyes.

It dodged to the side, easily avoiding my knife.

I looked to Shining. "Take the squad and move into flanking positions. Give me some kind of signal when you're ready, then on my command order the troops to move in to attack."

He nodded and took off at a gallop with Stone and Snow right behind him.

Before Emerald could follow I grabbed her. "Find Twitchy. Once you do, get to a raised position and wait until I signal Shining." I looked at the monster and saw it was advancing on our position. "You have five minutes. Maximum!"

She gave me an odd look. "I thought you said you could distract it?!"

I scowled at the monster before looking at her. "Yes, but not forever! Now go!" I shouted, pushing her away from me and summoning another dagger to throw.

I turned to the monster and cupped my hands at my mouth. "Are you as stupid as you are ugly, you great heaping fucker?!" I taunted it. My ears were then assaulted by a noise I could only describe as "painful as fuck".

Fighting back the urge to cover my ears and puke blood, I pulled my arm back and send the dagger spinning at the monster. When I saw that it had fast enough reflexes to dodge my knives I let a smile creep across my face. "This is going to be fun."

I summoned dagger after dagger, sending them flying at the monster faster and faster. I wasn't actually trying to hit it, so much as test its reflexes. I was throwing them faster and faster until my arms were just blurs moving back and forth.

As fast as it was, it couldn't dodge every one of them as fast as I was throwing them. Every time it was hit it would let out an angry roar and a gout of smoke blood would spray from the point of impact. But even my dagger throwing couldn't halt its progress towards me, and as it got close it took a swing at me with one of its large tendrils.

I saw it coming and ducked under it, deleting all of the daggers I had thrown to free up power. "Fuck you homie!" I screamed at it. After my vulgar outburst I summoned my bumper sword and took a stance. Yes, my broadsword was nice and all. But nothing compared to the bumper sword. I charged at the thing, roaring almost as loud as it had roared at me. I ducked under an incoming tendril, coming in close to it. I was readying my sword for a swing, and almost made contact with it until a gout of smoke blasted me in the face hard enough to knock me back several feet.

Images and voices flashed through my head faster than I could recognized them. The pony world and the world inside my mind were flashing in and out of focus as I was unable to control which to focus on. Through it all I heard one voice, sharp as a blade.

Drop your blade and *submit*!

The word "submit" echoed inside my head in a dozen different voices and from every direction all at once. Some of them screaming, some growling and others asking sweetly or demanding or even pleading.

Do not make me end you!

I grabbed my head and screamed, "Get out!" at the voice. "Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth!" I pounded the sides of my head with both hands as hard as I could trying to make the images and the voices stop. "Get away from me! Leave me alone!"

Let me in! Submit!

I felt a horrible pain lancing through my head. It hurt like nothing I'd ever experienced before--including my time in Equestria before this. It was like having a molten hot barbed spike harshly driven through my skull, then being twisted.

I felt myself fall to my knees. "Stop! Stop it!" I screamed. "Make the pain stop! Just kill me! Kill me! Make it stop!"

You! Will! *SUBMIT!!!***

I heard myself screaming even louder than the voices screaming in my head. There were no words in any language to describe the torture. All I could do was scream. Scream the only word that could help me. "Mirage!" I shrieked. "Mirage! Mirage!" I screamed her name over and over. She said she would always protect me. She was my only hope. "Mirage! Mirage!" I sucked in a huge breath. "Mirage!"

"Yes, love? What is it?" her voice chirped from beside me.

I felt hot tears burning down my face. "Make it stop!" I screamed at her. "Please!"

I heard shuffling sounds, then felt her hooves pull me into a gentle hug. "Don't worry, love. Everything's going to be okay. Trust me." I was being rocked in her hooves while she hummed a song next to my head. It was so familiar, yet completely foreign to me. Everything was beginning to fade away. The pain, the voices, the screaming. Everything. Like a breeze that carried away the bad, everything was becoming calm.

"You need to wake up now, love," Mirage said, very close to my ear.

I looked up at her. "I... But I..." The tears came faster now. "I don't want to leave you. Not again... Never again..."

She leaned down and kissed me so softly I almost didn't feel it. "Don't worry, love. We'll see each other again." She then raised her hoof in the air and brought it down in a vicious slap across my face.

"Wake up! Wake up!" Sergeant Snow screamed in my confused face. "Wake the Tartarus up!"

I blinked up at her. "Where am I?"

Her eyes locked onto mine. "Move! Now!"

In the blink of an eye I had grabbed her and rolled several feet to the right. A half-second later a huge tendril came crashing down on the spot we had just been in. "Where the hell did you come from?!" I shouted at Snow as I jumped to my feet and summoned my bumper sword.

She jumped up next to me. "We heard the signal!"

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What signal?" I asked.

She blinked at me in confusion. "Was 'Mirage' not the signal?"

In a second my eyes widened. "No, she-" but I stopped myself. "Y- yeah, sure. That was the signal," I said quickly. Though the look Snow gave me... I don't think she bought the save.

I shook my head. "Forget it! We need to kill that thing!"

We jumped back to avoid being halved by another tendril. "How?!" she shouted. "That thing's too strong!"

I got an idea then. I looked around the top of buildings and on the ramparts of the castle walls. It took me a few seconds, but I eventually spotted two spots of color; one yellow and the other pink.

I ran forward, directly at the monster. Luckily, since the army was keeping it busy its back was to us. "Hey!" I screamed at it. "I want revenge, bitch!" I then threw my bumper sword as hard as I could at it and stuck it in its back.

It shrieked and turned to face me. With its floating green eyes fixed on me, hatred burning from them, it rushed right at me. Exactly like I wanted it to.

I summoned another bumper sword and took a heavy swing at an incoming tendril. The cruel edge of my blade went straight through it, and the monster was down one tendril. While it was recoiling and roaring in pain and anger I waved my arms at the spot where I saw the two specks of color. "Now! Emerald! Move now!"

I didn't have time to see if they had acknowledged me or not because I had to duck under a tendril to avoid decapitation. "Fuck you!" I screamed at the monster, running right at it and this time avoiding the spray of smoke. I raised my bumper sword over my head and cleaved an enormous gouge in the monster's smokey body. "Snow! Move in!"

"Already on it!" she called from somewhere to my left.

"Don't let up!" I yelled. "Push it back!" I swung my sword again, cutting another huge gouge in it and having to avoid the smoke blood. I hacked at it. One swing, two swings, three swings, a jab to throw it off and a twist of the blade while it was inside for good measure. My sword broke inside of the monster, the blade only being attached by a shoddy weld, so another sword replaced it and I kept hacking away at it.

It was on my seventh slash across it happened. The monster let out a shriek, not of pain or anger, but of panic. I looked up to see Emerald climbing up its back using the sword I had stuck in it for a starting point. Once she got up Twitchy was next. The two of them were plunging their swords into the top of it relentlessly, causing it to flinch with every stab.

My eyes lit up. "It's on the ropes men! One last push and we've done it!"

A thunderous roar came up from the throats of nearly three hundred ponies.

I redoubled my efforts. I summoned a second bumper sword and went akimbo bumper swords on the monster. I put every ounce of strength I had into every swing I took. I swung as hard as I could, cleaving away smoke-flesh and creating a giant gouge in its body.

I swung my left sword as hard as I could, but, again, the sword broke off in the creature. I then gripped my remaining sword as hard as I could and hacked away at the part where the blade had broken. If I could drive it deep enough I might hit something important I figured. I had swung three times, successfully clearing flesh and driving the broken blade deeper, but on my fourth swing I put too much of my weight into the swing.

With a swear I tumbled forward, right into the hole in the flesh. The smoke surrounded me, choking me and causing horrible pain. In an attempt to free myself I ripped my sword to the side. I was freed as the flesh was cut from in front of me, but I fell into the monster, not out of it.

I landed on a solid ground; cold and rough, like stone. The smoke was no longer trying to kill me and the pain was nothing more than an after affect. Dazedly I looked around me. I could see the ponies surrounding me, with swords drawn and hacking at seemingly nothing. "The fuck...?" Behind them was a temple of some kind. There was ice covering the ceiling and most of the walls, but the floor was completely clear. But more than that, there seemed to be ponies in it. Not the ponies hacking away at the monster I was in, but ponies in the temple. There were at least twenty of them, both mares and stallions. All of them had grey coats, black hair, dark eyes and red curved horns. And all of them were staring directly at me, all in shock.

I heard a yelp from above me and looked up. I saw a young mare, barely out of her teens by the looks of her, eyes shining bright green, and her curved horn ignited in a ghostly purple aura that seemed to roil around itself. She had yelled because either Twitchy or Emerald's sword had pierced her shoulder.

I scowled hatefully at the mare. "So you're the one that's in charge of this bullshit!" I yelled at her.

She gasped and looked down at me. "How are you in here?!" she gasped in shock and horror.

I pulled back my arm. "Fuck you, that's how!" Then I threw my bumper sword directly at her, it making deep whooshing sounds as it spun.

She tried to dodge, but she wasn't nearly as fast as her monster was. The sword missed its mark by inches, instead of cleaving her in half it lopped off her two right legs, as well as tearing her side to bloody shreds. With the amount of shock and pain, it was impossible for her to keep her magic flowing and her horn sputtered out. Her eyes went from bright green to a dark brown, almost black, and her coat and hair dimmed in hue. Once the magic was gone, the monster that was connected to it simply dissolved into nothing around us.

I watched as the mare fell, no longer supported by the magic monster, and thudded painfully on the ground. I distinctly heard multiple cracks coming from her body when she landed.

Everybody in the field froze when the monster simply dissolved in front of them, and they all gasped when the mare fell from the monster in front of me.

With the monster dead--kind of--I deleted the extra bumper swords laying everywhere to free up more power, using it to summon my broadsword into my right hand as I walked towards the mare on the ground before me. I saw her bleeding profusely from where her limbs used to be, but I felt nothing for her.

I stopped only a foot in front of her and gripped my broadsword tightly. "So, you're Umbra, huh? I figured you'd be harder to kill," I said in a joking manner, though my stony expression told her and everybody around me that I wasn't actually joking. "You've been causing problems. Problems for me. And I hate problems. I hate problems more than I hate stupid people."

She looked up at me with fear evident on her face. "W- what are you?" she asked in a trembling voice.

I let a lazy smile cross my face. A smile that I didn't feel. "I'm the one that's going to kill you Umbra."

She gasped at my threat, her eyes widening. "I- I'm not Umbra!" she yelled.

I raised an eyebrow. "Really now? Then who are you?"

She whimpered as the blood leaving her went from dark red to almost black. Her life blood. "I'm just a servant! I was only doing what Umbra ordered me to do! I swear! I never wanted to kill anypony! I swear!" She whimpered again and clutched at the stump of her front right leg. "Please... I'm dying! Please help me!"

I smiled a little wider. "Because of you lots of ponies are dead," I told her. "Why should I help you?"

She was turning paler. "I- I can help you! I can tell you about Umbra! I can tell you about the attack!"

I cocked my head to the side. "Oh, there's going to be an attack?" I asked.

She nodded and whimpered. "Yes!" she shouted, wincing in pain. "I- I was supposed to w- weaken you, then the main attack would begin," she said. "They'll be here soon! An hour at most!"

I nodded my head slowly. "Makes sense," I thought aloud. "Pretty bold, but then again Umbra is an evil, sadistic mass murderer Hell bent on killing us." I shrugged and leaned casually on my broadsword. "I suppose it fits the profile. But I guess she didn't count on me being here, did she?"

The mare was very pale at that point. "No..." she whimpered. She looked at me pleadingly. "Please... I don't want to die..." She sniffled as tears came streaking down her face. "Please help me..." she squeaked pitifully, sniffling again. "Please help me... Please...?"

I chuckled quietly to myself. "Help you?" I asked.

She nodded weakly.

I chuckled slightly louder and shook my head. "Why would I help you? You've already told me everything I wanted to know."

Her eyes went wide in horror. "No... No! No, please!" she begged. "Please, I don't want to die! Please help me! I told you what you wanted to know! I helped you!" Her breathing became shallow and ragged. "Don't let me die! Please, I'm begging you!"

I felt a presence come up beside me. "You can't do this," Shining said. "She may be the enemy, but... She's just a filly." He looked up at me with a pleading look in his eyes. "You need to help her."

She nodded as she swayed side to side. "Yes... Please... I- I'll do anything... Please... I'm sorry.... I'm sorry..."

I looked from Shining to the mare. "I suppose you're right," I sighed. "Fine, I'll help her."

The mare looked up at me hopefully. Her eyes filled with tears and were thankful beyond reason. "Thank you... Than-" She didn't finish the word. Her eyes squinted and a look of confusion came over her. She kept that expression as the light slowly went out in her eyes and her body fell on its left side. There was a thin red line on her throat that trickled blood down her neck. The cut from my sword was deep.

I shook my head as I looked at the corpse of the mare. It was a shame; she was pretty. But I put the thought out of my head as I wiped the blood from my sword and sheathed it. "Shining, you and the others get the rest of your gear and meet me at the platform." I turned and walked purposefully towards the front gates. "Snow, you come with me."