A Rocky Path

Ateran crashed through the Window of Unavoidable Agony screaming, before plummeting the height of his tower and landing with a squishy crunch in the mud pooling outside. He lay there, clutching his groin and groaning.

“And next time, we're gonna cut it off!” he could hear Rainbow Dash yelling behind him. His darkish grey coat was matted mostly with his own blood, and one wing was contorted into a painful U. The other one flapped a bit, half-heartedly.

“That's what you get, Ateran. Learn your lesson, because we can do much worse,” Twilight smiled, standing over his broken body. She poked him in the ribs. He coughed up some blood.

“Oh, I'm really sorry about all this,” Fluttershy whispered softly to him, “but you were being pretty naughty and the Princess said we should deal with it...”

Ateran tried to say something like, “don't worry about it,” but ended up saying “erd w'ry but it...”

As they left, Rarity having finally yanked the all needles from his pentagram Cutie Mark (which Pinkie had carved a smiley face on with a spoon), he lay there in the congealing liquid. Then, he stood, despite his cracked neck's warnings.

Scattered morosely around him was the sorry contents of his saddlebags, brass and glass sticking out the mud, and in some cases, his head. Ateran glanced around briefly and spotted Book, its gilt ornate cover similarly coated in dirt. The title was now “Your Plot is Covered,” written by Applejack's Hoof Prints. Ateran didn't bother to check Book's blurb, in case it was something equally sardonic.

“Haha, yes, hilarious,” Ateran muttered. “However, I, the Dark Lord Ateran, am NOT so easily destroyed! This is merely a... minor setback!”

Their was a creaking noise as the Terminal Tower of Cruel and Unusual Tortures began to fall, its top half now ablaze. Twilight had evidently been anxious to test some new pyromancy she'd read about.

“Er... but, now is not the time to dwell on today's small defeat, Book! Now, we turn our minds to revenge, oh yes, revenge most awful! Those little ponies stand no chance against my rage-fuelled might!”

Whatever you say, champ, wrote Book.

He flourished his dark cloak across his shoulders in an effort to maintain his naturally wicked aura. His good wing snapped.

And so the bloody, battered, dirt-covered zig-zag-winged stallion limped with as much evil dignity as he could muster, the path ahead illuminated by the flaming tower behind him. He knew where he was headed, and his agenda was clear: Princess Twilight and those jumped-up moronic companions of hers needed to suffer a most long and painful death. And their fat, cake-addicted ruler too. And the gothic, pseudo-alluring other one, that did the moon, and who never replied to his love confessions. And that uppity builder that had charged him double for a black marble tower. And that shopkeeper who short-changed him when he bought a coffee yesterday. It was black coffee. It wasn't very nice, either.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Ateran had arrived in a small mining town that lay upon the soaring sides of Smokey Mountain. It was higher here, and had been a nightmare to climb up the path with only three working hooves. By now it was night, cold, snowing and the mud streaking Ateran's was utterly frozen. He was not in a good mood. Barging into one of the pubs there, he walked towards the bar. It was a largish place, with oak beams crossing the roof and a huge fire-pit in the middle over which some slabs of hay were roasting, mainly for effect. Chunks of metal and gemstones glittered in displays to the sides of the room; their was even a well-wrought iron chandelier dangling from the ceiling, swaying gently. Of course, the entire tavern did not suddenly go quiet upon his entrance, and the constant chatter of the burly mining ponies gathered round the fire continued as normal.

Somehow this annoyed him more than anything.

Instead he walked up to the counter and sat on one of the broken stools, eyeing the lines of bottles on the wooden shelves. Ateran wasn't naturally one for alcohol, but it was preferable to actually being able to feel the cold and the burning sensation of six mare's worth of beatings stacked on top of each other.

“Hey,” he said, trying to attract the barkeeper's attention. Then he remembered who he was.

“Inferior mortal!” he yelled. The barpony wondered over, looking tired.

“Wha' ya want, sir?” he asked.

“Er, I'll have your strongest spirits! Perhaps they might just be adequate for one as despicable as myself!”

At this, the bar really did go quiet. Everypony turned towards him, some with eyes wide in surprise, others narrowed in anger.

“We don' have non o' that... alcohol,” the barpony said, spitting the word like he could barely stand the taste.

“What?” Ateran said, slightly confused. “I thought it was common in the mountains. A hard drink for a hard working stallion, and all that.”

“Wha', so you a RACIST as well as an alc'olic?” said another pony. “'Cause we don't tolerate non o' that here.” He was big, and so were his friends. All... five of them. Ateran was suddenly overcome by déjà vu. He recovered impressively fast though.

“Hah, is that a threat? Do you know who I am?!”

“Somepony's little mare, by the looks of it, Goldy,” he quipped. Ateran glowered at the attack on his rather nice yet somehow entirely inoffensive blonde mane. “They ev'n left thei' name on yeh,” the stallion continued, gesturing, his clique snorting at every jibe. Ateran looked where he was pointing, at his chest, where the words RAINBOW DASH WAS HERE were branded into his skin. Evidently he'd been unconscious for that one.

However, now the fun was over, and the ponies began slowly advancing towards him, jeering, their collective brain cell egging them on. Ateran backed up.

“Now,” he said uncertainly, “your Lord of Nightmares commands you to halt this instant!”

The stallions didn't appear to register this basic command. Ateran backed up further, rump now pressed up against the wall.

“Oh, ho, we's gonna make you wish you was dead!” the leader grinned. Ateran's desperate escape plans reached a very dead end. He felt a pulling sensation in his mind, that was getting stronger. Book wanted to tell him something. He flipped it open to the first page, barely keeping a grip on it with fright.

Quick, Book wrote, you've got to-

Ateran's quivering forelegs could no longer hold on and he promptly dropped Book and dived down to read its oh-so-important message. As he did, another leg, well muscled from years of swinging a pickaxe, smashed into the space where his head was, thudding into the wall and snapping a hook keeping a chain held there. The links of metal, now freed, immediately snaked up to the ceiling, where the iron, spiked and extremely heavy chandelier was swinging. It fell.

There was a crunch, and Ateran's face was (for the first time in a while) splattered with blood that wasn't his own. He looked up at the mess in front of him, the chandelier's remains now repainted a fine, natural red. Silence flowed back, for a second, save for the squelchy dripping sounds six newly deceased ponies tend to make.

“Quicksilver, NO!” a mare across the room screamed and blindly threw a punch, then a bottle, both powered by the force of anger, loss and being drunk on apple juice. Nature took its course and a fight started.