Immortality's Endby Orion CaelumChaptersChapter One: To Open A DoorChapter Two: Conversations With An Elder GodInterlude 1: The First Attempt (Flashback)Chapter Three: Down The Rabbit Ho- MountainChapter Four: Crash LandingChapter One: To Open A Door Once, on top of the darkest mountain, a fell slope of jet-black obsidian, there was a door. A door, chained down, a circular door with silvered edges and a mirrored finish, its bottom corroded in rust and something else yet unidentifiable. In front of this door, as the winds swept across the mountain and through its valleys and clefts, a single unicorn kneeled, his coat palest gray, his mane and tail a shock of white. He paid no mind to the keening of the wind at his lofty altitude, nor the sheet of flame that flickered behind him, for he had set the funeral pyre himself, as was his father's wish and the tradition in the family. The unicorn remained kneeling there throughout the next cycle of sun, moon, and stars, as the sky turned around him. During this time, he went over the rites again and again, steeling himself for what was to come. Then, when he could think no more, he lowered the iron barriers around his mind, expanding his consciousness to see every life around him, touching each minuscule mind and recording it in memory for later. The funeral pyre burnt itself to ash, simmering and then cooling, broken, charred wood and charcoal lying scattered across the black plain, ash wafting in the wind. The unicorn still kneeled before the chained door, under a sky that hung not much unlike a steel plate would overhead; foreboding and grey. One more day and night passed, and yet he kneeled, this time not cataloging the life around him, but merely moving objects around restlessly, using his telekinesis to build a pyramid of stone and then knock it down, repeated again and again with minute variations. He breathed deeply and, and his eyes followed the moon as it went down, its light silhouetting the unicorn against the crags. He smiled then, for as the moon went down, a new day began; for the unicorn, Day 3650 since the last time a pony had tried to become Keeper of the door; in the day of his father. Though trepidation filled him, also present was a religious kind of fervor, calmly contained and stored. He had learned not to waver in his concentration, among other things; how to steel the soul against pain or desperation; how to fight with a saber; how to use magic; all this for twenty years, with his father alone on the summit of Fell Nängoroth. Now, it was just him. When the sun rose again, and the world began to brighten in reds and pinks and lavender, the unicorn stood on his four legs again, and made his way to the door. He raised a single foreleg in front of the circular object. With an impersonal air, he picked up a knife made of the mountain's jet-black material with his telekinesis, catching the handle on the silvered platter that bore it. The platter screeched across the underlying stone pedestal with a high-pitched yowl of protest. The unicorn did not mind. He was deaf to such noises; his mind was open wider than it had ever been, wider, even, than his sire may have said was wise, as anypony could have invaded his mind and taken control of his thoughts. But to his sire, he felt nothing but a sense of responsibility and duty, and an even fainter sense of regret. The ponies of his order -his lineage- had been bred over many centuries to have a lack of those feelings; it went with the namelessness of each member, as that which is personal was seen to interfere with the purpose of each Keeper. The unicorn began to chant; a gutteral, hard, angular-sounding series of syllables, words that presented themselves to the mind in strange block letters that could not be identified as letters. The chant was notable not so much for the words used, but for the fact that they were almost-words, words that were notable only because they were not. As the unicorn finished his chant, he bowed to the door- another item notable because of the way it was unfamiliar in this world, of blasted peaks and black altars- and cut his proffered foreleg. The obsidian knife slid smoothly through the skin, with a coldness and a impersonal sort of pain. At this moment, the unicorn drew on every life he found, plant, animal, or other, and took part of their life force from them, distilling it within him. None died; he was too well-trained to take too much of the soul. The unicorn held the leg over the door, and waited. After a few moments, a single, shimmering, oddly iridescent, drop of blood fell down, hitting the burnished surface, splitting over and around a thick iron chain, and finally merging with the unidentifiable substances that marred the bottom of the door. Then, there was utter silence on the peak of Fell Nängoroth. The wind slowed until it was the merest of breezes, and the proud hawks that rose the thermals below the summit stopped their fierce cries and waited. The universe seemed to hold its breath. A presence stirred in the void, roused from its slumber. A single crystal set into the face of the door, one of three, shed its tarnish and shone as if newly minted. Then, the unicorn felt a vast, alien consciousness- if it could be named such- press against his mind, and as he fought the urge to reflexively close the barriers around his self, he waited once more. His lineage had spent centuries waiting for this moment, so the unicorn knew he could spare a hoofful of moments for what would decide the fate of his bloodline; the fate of his order. If the door- nay, what was behind the door in the strange aeons beyond- did not accept him as Keeper and Opener, then it would mean the death of the order that lasted for nearly two millennia. The presence slowly went through his mind, examining his memories and his training, and trailing behind it was a strange sort of magic; to a unicorn, and especially the unicorn, it seemed as music, a otherworldly strain of violin and cello and viola. Gradually the presence extracted itself from the unicorn's mind, leaving a faint impression of its consciousness behind. There was the space of three heartbeats, though they seemed a eternity. Then, after one thousand, seven hundred years since it had spoken last, the presence spoke, in a voice as mellifluous, smooth, and honeyed as any bard in Equestria- perhaps deliberately so. "Dàfraic Kuaeipe. Welcome, Keeper. You may call me..." It paused for a moment, as if thinking, or perhaps sharing a private joke with itself. "Avelli." For one thousand, seven hundred years, Celestia had been raising the sun. For a thousand years, she had raised the sun and moon both until her sister, Luna, resumed her diarchal duties. She had ruled for a very long time, and she had always performed this ritual since she was only a mere hundred years old; it was her way of meditation, of connection with the harmony that underlay Equestria. On this day, she woke at the exact same time she always woke- the only exceptions being the Nightmare Moon incident, Tirek, and the day of Twilight's ascension- 4:17 and three seconds past in the morning. She fumbled for the light at the edge of the bed, tugging on the cord to activate the illumination rune inside, and blearily blinked, once, then twice. She stood from the bed, temporarily off-balance, and she reached a hoof out to her nightstand to steady herself. Celestia breathed deeply, holding it in for exactly five seconds, and exhaled. On her way to the balcony above Canterlot where she stood every dawn, she took the ceramic cup of coffee from its constant place, causing the muted clink of ceramic against the metal of the tray. To her balcony she went, hooves moving along well-worn trails in the carpet, and she set her coffee cup down on the railing. After a thousand years, one values order, Celestia thought to herself. Her horn flared with cosmic light, golden-yellow with a orange core, and she spread her wings wide, the pure white feathers almost touching the edges of the wide doorway. Putting her full concentration into the spell, as she must, the sun slowly rose from under the horizon, bathing all of Equestria in its rays of light. The gray sky began to lighten, and the moon crossed below the horizon as on the opposite side of the castle, Luna did her part in the ancient ritual as well. Celestia remained on the balcony for the few scant moments she had before she had to resume her duties, and a beatific smile graced her face as she watched her little ponies begin to bustle around the streets of Canterlot, bakeries and other shops wafting their delightful smells up into the air as they cooked today's goods. From outside, there came a tentative knock on her door, sending Celestia abruptly back into reality. "Princess Celestia? You have the audience with the Griffonian ambassadors in a hour; they refuse to wait any longer. Please, we'll need to get you ready and... I'll just wait." A wistful edge tainted the formerly gentle smile, and Celestia spared a brief glance back at the streets of Canterlot, gleaming in the early morn, before she turned towards the doorway, already projecting the royal presence that was expected of her. She had picked up the coffee cup in her telekinetic aura when she was suddenly seized with a burst of pain in her mind, as all the alarms she had placed on the Cursed Door tripped at once. Her aura guttered and shut off, and the cup crashed to the floor, shattering into fine shards, the brown liquid inside soaking into the carpet. The support of her rear legs suddenly abandoned her, and she sunk to the floor on her haunches. "It awakens." Her voice did not tremble; it was iron. No other words needed to be said. Chapter Two: Conversations With An Elder GodThe unicorn raised his head, slightly confused at the name the entity behind the door had chosen, but choosing not to comment on it. Slowly raising the rest of his body to a standing position, the unicorn said "I expect greetings are in order, Master Avelli." Moving into a sweeping bow, the unicorn said "Welcome back to Equestria." Straightening again, the unicorn said "Furthermore, I would assume you have some sort of charge for me?" The unicorn raised an eyebrow the faintest amount in expectation. A brief feeling that would possibly indicate a smile was conveyed over their mental link, and then Avelli responded. With a tone of utter seriousness, the Elder God behind the door said something which had not been said for a very long time, and even if it was said, the speaker would have been locked away in a mental asylum. The entity said, slowly and with great feeling, "Your charge... is to kill Princess Celestia." The unicorn, stunned, opened his mouth to say something, but Avelli cut him off before he could speak. "I do not care how long you take, nor what methods you wish to use. Just know full well that this is the one task you will ever have, and I expect you to complete it. I have waited nearly two thousand years for this moment, to find one acceptable for this purpose, and I will not be dissuaded by cries of 'That's impossible!'". The unicorn opened his mouth to speak again, and then shut it in favor of thinking the situation over carefully. His father had always prepared him for this task, though he was not aware that this practical impossibility would be what the ritual would entail. However, he had to admit that the allure of the rewards behind the door, not simply of material things, but the spiritual rewards as well. The unicorn shifted his weight uncomfortably, causing the silver sword on his back to clash against the steel blade next to it. He still did not feel entirely settled within the idea, but he considered what he had been brought up to believe, and what the his father had told him of the tyrant across the Islandi Strait, the cruel white-coated alicorn who ruled with an iron hoof upon her poor subjects. Liberation was an admirable goal, the unicorn believed, and thus, he made his decision. Unfortunately, it was without any other knowledge than that of his forefathers. This time, it was the god whom waited. Then, the unicorn finally spoke. "...I will complete thy task to the best of my abilities, Master." The entity's voice in his head seemed to chuckle, and then the prevailing mood on the mountain suddenly got far darker. "Not to the best of your abilities. You are, quite simply, the last one of your specific order and family, and arguably the best. Therefore, while your first ancestor, Indigo, came all the way to the Royal Castle and fell to no less than Princess Luna herself when she was fighting in Celestia's defense, then I expect you to go even farther. You are not one to say 'best I can do', you are one to say 'This is a certainty'. I believe you are fully aware of the responsibilities placed on you by your position, and know what the consequences will be if you let the tyrant Celestia live even a moment longer than you could have ended her." The unicorn went thin-lipped, but curtly nodded in agreement. "It is assured, Master." Avelli would have smiled if his only presence in this particular dimension wasn't inside the head of the Keeper, but instead said "Excellent. Now, I believe at this point, the Keeper is named, symbolizing their connection to divinity, correct? Actually, I know it's correct; I gave your great-great-great-great-seventeen times-grandfather those exact words in writing. Therefore... Kneel." The unicorn dutifully kneeled before the door on the hard black stone, bowing his head to the earth. "Perhaps..." The Elder God thought for a long moment, considering the possibilities. Of course, for it to be a real, magically binding Name, it had to be said in the Ancient Language by the binder. Which was the entire purpose behind the ritual; as no pony knew but him (and Avelli didn't exactly count as a pony), the naming ritual was meant to give the entity a powerful hold over the actions of the one named. Therefore, to make absolutely sure that this especially recalcitrant Keeper obeyed him to the letter, especially in the unfortunately moralistic Equestrian society he would soon be exposed to, Avelli would name him and thereby bind the unicorn to him forevermore, or at least until the unicorn voluntarily rejected him, with the help of an immense source of magic- something definitively impossible. However, for the spell to work, the name had to have some connection to the named. Avelli thought for a moment more, as the unicorn shifted on the rocks, and then finally pronounced the name. "I name thee... Argentum Gladio. Now, go forth, Silver Sword, and redden thy blade." Avelli had to admit that that last part was melodramatic, but in the interest of the classic villain feeling, he simply had to. It wasn't a compulsion, it was just a necessity. As for the newly named Silver Sword, he merely smiled, slowly and with a bit of a predatorial edge to it. Thanks to some tiny tinkering by Avelli using Silver's new true name, the unicorn knew his purpose. Thus, Silver was about to do the impossible. He was about to fight the foremost deity in the land, and, through sheer determination, win. Calmly, the unicorn walked over to the house where so many of his line had spent their days, including him, and picked over a cupboard. Loading his saddlebags with food, a carefully plotted map of the land from the small, mountainous island that the Door was kept in isolation to the mainland of Equestria, and from there, Canterlot. Examining this map one last time, Silver stored it in his saddlebags, rolled around a whetstone for his swords. Into his bags also went a small crossbow, several bolts rolled in a linen kerchief, and his tools for picking locks, each pick carefully placed in its carrying loop. Strapped to his steel sword's hilt with twine was a small bag of bits, carefully weighed and measured, and placed in his bags was two books, one on Zebraic alchemy and the other, the compendium of all the works of his bloodline- a living document, edited over the years for the final Keeper's possession. Silver placed this softly in his bag, careful not to disturb the brittle paper or loosely bonded cover. They had to work with what they had, and what they had was a geologist's playground, but not so much the dream of a bookmaker. Taking out his map once more as he stepped out of the cottage, he held it levitated in his blue-green aura while he looked it over. Briskly rolling it up into a tight cylinder and putting it back away, Silver knew exactly where he had to go. Out loud, he said "First to Lindise, then from there...." To the airship docks at Illirea. Silver's mouth curved up at the edges as he imagined commandeering a military aeronaval vessel, but it would draw far too much attention, and in any case, he had many days' travel ahead of him, too many to already begin planning what he would do at Illirea. Suppressing a small sigh, Silver looked down the side of the mountain, turned to see his house and what was left of his father's funeral pyre, and briefly considered a moment of silence before- something- told him he shouldn't waste any time, especially with Celestia more than likely aware that he had already begun his quest. With a faint shrug, Silver turned down the mountain slopes, aiming for the thatched roofs of the village far below. Soon, the methodical clopping of hooves against stone faded into the air, and once again the only noises on the peak of the Black Mountain were the cry of hunting hawks, the whipping whistle of the wind, and, at the very edge of one's hearing- or was it even your hearing, or just your mind?- could be heard the sound of a stallion laughing, as if everything just fell into place as he expected. Which it had. Interlude 1: The First Attempt (Flashback)As I write this, I am sure that historians will debate my actions for hundreds of years. However, I will not stop, stalled by the objections of a future generation I will likely never live to see. I am untouchable from reprisal but from that more powerful than me while I am alive, and there are few whom can hold claim to that title. Even the mere mention of my name, after these last few crimson-soaked months, has the virtue of sending a shudder down the spines of the most hardened Royal Guards. The blood freezes in the hearts of every pony I pass at the sight of the silver sword I bear. By right of the blades I hold, nothing is beyond my reach. Power is an interesting thing, as Avelli has told me many times. I am glad to be one of those who wield it. *-From The Recovered Writings Of Ouroboros Indigo, First Keeper*** There was silence on the battlefield outside the castle. An awkwardly-splayed ring of four dead ponies surrounded a single cerulean-blue unicorn, some of them still holding their cards from the game they were playing before their deaths. There were two guards left, but as they turned to run towards the castle gates, the unicorn teleported forward in front of them, his expression mocking. "Now, colts, no running to mommy. Stay and fight like big colts." With this, the unicorn attacked, cutting one guard down before he could react and engaging in a heated swordfight with the other remaining guard. The sound of metal against metal filled the still air, and the participants focused entirely on the fight at hand. At one particularly powerful blow from the unicorn, the guard grunted and fell back slightly. The unicorn pressed his advantage further, and with a sweep of his foreleg, knocked the guard's hooves out from under him. As the unicorn approached, the guard began to inch backwards, fear in his eyes as he glanced at the bodies of the soldiers he once commanded around him. "Indigo, please! You don't have to do this! Celestia will be just to you, I swear! Please, free yourself from the influence of this demon; it only seeks to hurt you. Don't you remember?" Indigo tapped a hoof on his chin, pretending to think. "Let me see... No." The unicorn raised his sword for the killing blow, and brought it down with a muted grunt. The guard went still around sword sticking out of his barrel, and a pool of blood began to seep from the wound after the unicorn had removed his blade from the corpse. "Hm. Pity, that." Indigo muttered as he turned to face the door to the guard tower, inset to the walls of marble which surrounded Canterlot Castle. "The guards sent to apprehend me before they knew whom I even was were better than this... And they whined less." Indigo sighed and, with a thought, he cast a spell, spinning up a spiral of magic from his horn which struck the port, ripping a hole through the gold and wood as if a pickaxe through particularly annoying stone. Beads of sweat had appeared on Indigo's forehead from the magical exertion involved from cracking the door like this, but he wiped it off, more slowly and more lethargically than before. Killing the guards and breaking the door had taken their toll. The guards inside were ready and waiting for him, and as soon as he had walked in, stepped out of the shadows to surround him. The lead guard raised his sword to point at Indigo, a self-satisfied smile on his face. "Lay down your weapon, and no harm shall come to you until you have been convicted to death by jury. Otherwise, we will be forced to destroy you. Look around you; do you truly believe you could win?" The guard made a sweeping gesture with his hoof, indicating the five guards which now surrounded Indigo. A slow smile spread over the unicorn mage's face. "Of course not, sir. Why would I dream of such a horrific thing?" At this, he dropped his sword to the side, the metal bouncing slightly before falling still. The guards edged closer in the sudden silence, and it was then that Indigo attacked. He twisted to the side, shifting along the flank of an earth pony guard, and ducked just in time for the sword thrust that was meant for him to bite into the guard's throat. Horrified, the offender stared dumbstruck at her friend, and Indigo took advantage of this to swing her head around - accompanied with a sickening crack of bone - to be used as a makeshift shield. Casually, Indigo threw the now-dead guard to the side and picked up his sword from where it lay just in time to parry a strike from another Royal Guard with a resounding clash of bronze against silver. Indigo twisted to the side barely in time to avoid another sword stroke from one of the three remaining guards, and swung the sword around to cut through the first guard's foreleg. While that guard was incapacitated, Indigo flipped the sword in his aura, batted the other guard's sword away with the edge of his blade -receiving a scratch on the collarbone in the process - and sank his sword to the hilt into the guard's chest. The guard he had amputated before had risen shakily to prop himself up against the wall of the tower, and attacked now before Indigo had time to turn fully. The blade whispered by the top of Indigo's head, severing several strands of dark grey mane, which seemed to hang in the light for the briefest instant before the moment was shattered by the sound of breaking bone as Indigo bucked the guard full force in the chest with both hind legs. The guard collapsed, wheezing for breath, and Indigo turned to stand above him, by some virtue of the light appearing to tower over the dying guard. Indigo briefly considered something witty to say, but decided against it, opting to simply and brutally separate the Royal Guard's head from his neck. The head fell to the floor with a muted thump, followed by the body a moment later, and Indigo turned to look for his final target- which, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Inside Indigo's mind, Avelli cursed. Get after him. If he rings the alarm, so much for at least some element of surprise! Indigo growled a terse Fine in response, and galloped up the stairs, bulling by the left-open door, which smashed into the stone wall. As he reached the top of the tower, he was only just in time to see the guard commander haul back on the bellpull rope, sending the bell clanging with what was likely a magically-enhanced din. The other towers' bells joined in the general alarum, and both the Elder God and Indigo inwardly facehoofed. The guard turned, and his sigh of relief was abruptly cut off as he viewed the blood-spattered unicorn standing in front of him, and his eyes widened in horror. "Oh Celestia, no...." The commander turned and ran, just in time for Indigo's sword -thrown with telekinetic power- to implant itself in the back of the Royal Guard's neck, snapping his head forward with bone-breaking force. There was an abrupt and sharp snap, and then the support of the guard's hooves left him as he tripped forward, only to fall awkwardly into the bell. It sounded a mournful peal as the corpse hit it, and inside Indigo's head, Avelli smiled at the sheer irony of the sound. Outside, there was a distinct rise of activity as the alarms sounded, and ponies began to scurry around below the towers. Indigo sighed deeply. See, Ouroboros? This is what happens when you don’t pay attention, Avelli admonished. Indigo’s lips thinned, and he went quiet, though some element of his irritation was evident over the mental link. After an awkward moment, he said tersely Don’t we have a deity to assassinate? and swung himself over the guard tower’s railings to the castle battlements, slipping quietly down a flight of stairs. A patrol of guards went by, their armor shining in the lamplight and their hooves pounding on the stone in measured lockstep. Indigo froze against the stairwell, hoping nopony would notice him; his wish was granted. The guards were too focused on whatever their goal was to pay attention to what seemed like just another stairwell, but from that point on, Indigo stuck to the shadows almost religiously. A few minutes later, he came upon the door to the courtyard, and stepped through it. Outside, all activity stopped to stare at the interloper. With feigned calmness, Indigo took a cloth from within his cloak and began to clean his blade, the iridescent red droplets turning the pristine white cloth a mottled pink. As he trotted into the middle of the courtyard, his hooves clicking on cobblestone, the sound of over twenty ponies galloping at full speed could be heard, along with shouts of orders and the clanking of armor against weaponry. Indigo sighed slightly, rolling his violet eyes, and assumed a defensive stance; the sword that he had used on the prior guards outside and in the tower was now sheathed, and his hooves were empty. Damnit, he said, of course they were expecting me. Inwardly, he cursed at his own arrogance. However, his horn shimmered with a corona of indigo light, and a shape began to take form in the air around his hooves as the guards poured into the courtyard, swords and spears already drawn and at the ready. As the first few of them charged, golden armor shimmering in the sun, the shape took full form and became a long-bladed amethyst sword, shimmering with Indigo's aura. His magic held the fiber-wrapped hilt tightly, and he experimentally swung it around as if getting used to the feel. Meanwhile, his enemies rushed ever closer, and Indigo still stood, as implacable as a mountain. The guards sped up further, intending to impale him with their blades, and it was at that critical moment that he struck. Flipping into the air over the first soldier as he went by, Indigo used his peculiar blade to strike downwards at the top point of the parabola, stabbing the soldier through the top of the skull. As the blade contacted the golden armor, a shower of golden and purple magical sparks was released, and the sword's tip seemed to hang in midair, repelled by a ward enchantment, before it finally sunk in. The unicorn landed behind the newly dead Royal Guard, holding the now-bloody crystal blade behind him. The three other guards who had charged turned, their faces in nigh-identical expressions of surprise, as Indigo turned to face them again, sword held high. Around the group of four, the rest of the guards hung back, as if waiting for somepony. The unicorn, facing the remaining three guards, spit on the cobbles contemptuously. "Come on! What are you waiting for, me to serve you tea on little lace doilies?" The guards turned to each other and then nodded, as if making an important decision. This time, instead of charging him, they went to flank him on either side, one with a spear and the two others with a sword, carefully edging around Indigo, who watched them with an amused expression. He raised a single eyebrow as he considered the situation, and then abruptly made his choice. Swinging out the blade in his aura, he cut the shaft of the first guard's spear in half, then spun it and stabbed it backwards to impale the soldier through the throat, where his armor didn't protect him. Withdrawing the sword, Indigo brought it back just in time to parry a strike from the second guard. The unicorn gave ground before the guard, inciting the latter to perform more and more aggressive strikes, all of which were parried or dodged with feigned slowness. Finally, as the guard raised his sword high for a cleaving strike, the unicorn simply bucked him in the chest with his forelegs and then decapitated the guard while he reeled. The third and final guard had hung back, unwilling to strike while the possibility for hitting his friend was so high, but now he attacked, a cry of "For Equestria!" tearing itself from his throat. Indigo watched, his mouth curling into a contemptuous smirk, and let the guard's own momentum and anger work against him. As the soldier charged, Indigo smoothly sidestepped and stabbed him in the flank as the guard ran by, unable to stop himself in time. There was a sudden silence, broken only by the clatter of armor clashing against stone as the guard's body fell, and then, after a few tense moments in which the waiting guards looked ready to step forward and finish Indigo themselves, the flap of massive wings and the clack of hooves alighting on stone could be heard behind the unicorn. He turned to face the direction of the sound, and while his expression had once been calm readiness, it was now almost disgusted as he faced the blue alicorn which had appeared, and whom the guards had now-obviously been waiting for. Tauntingly, he said "So, Luna, your sister sends you to die in her place? How appropriate; nopony needs the night anyway. You know she thinks th-" The princess cut him off before he could continue. "'Tis not that Our sister hast sent me in her place, but that she dost not deem thine skills worthy of her presence, Keeper Ouroboros. Our sister reserveth her power for true villains, not two-bit assassins like you." Indigo raised an eyebrow, beginning to be more amused than annoyed. He held his sword in a offensive position, point forward and tracing a spiral pattern in the air. "Now, Luna, surely you wouldn't harm silly old me? After all, I'm just one of your poor little subjects, and certainly couldn't challenge one as powerful as you." The sarcasm practically dripped from his voice, and Luna flushed slightly. "I... We hast..." The princess paused for a moment and continued. "Nothing to say to thee but to wish thee a fine trip to Tartarus. If We wished to converseth with thee, We wouldst have sent Our herald, nor would We have wished to speaketh with a traitor to Equestria like you." With this, the princess performed the same spell as Indigo had before, except that her blade was a beam of moonlight made solid, the edges wavering with black energy instead of Indigo's amythyst crystal. He whistled, impressed, and Luna adjusted her stance to hold the blade in the same offensive position as his. With some degree of self-satisfaction, Luna said "Not many ponies are able to see the Moonlight's Radiance, assassin. You should be pleased that a longsword so storied shall be the blade to end you." The field was eerily reminiscent of a fencing match - but with real blades, real magic, and real death for whoever lost. The guards shuffled in their surrounding circle, anxious for the battle to start. However, Indigo seemed content to take his time, slowly making his way towards Luna, but edging to the left as well. Luna noticed this, and her eyes narrowed, her aura gripping her blade tighter in preparation. They struck at the same moment. Chapter Three: Down The Rabbit Ho- MountainAs Silver walked down the slopes of the Black Mountain, on hoofpaths carved from stone by his order over the last millennium, he could hear the ice and snow shifting around him in a rather unnerving manner. As a creak of ice turned into a sharp crack and a shower of snow dropped onto Silver's back, his hoof went to his sword out of instinct, but as he full well knew, a blade would have no effect against an avalanche. As Silver made his way further down the mountain- skirting a barren, bleached tree forcing itself out of the peak- Avelli suddenly spoke up inside Silver's head. Do you feel that? A disturbance in the air, a faint sound of... Silver finished Avelli's sentence. Sounds like thunder. If I'm caught up here during a storm, the rain'll wash me off the mountain. I expect you know how bad it is; I do. As if to accentuate his point, Silver's hoof slipped in a patch of ice, and for a brief, horrible moment, Silver teetered on the edge of the sheer cliff before he threw himself backward onto the relative safety of the path. As he lay on his side on the path, Silver took the opportunity to stare up at where the rumblings of thunder seemed to come from. "Strange," Silver mused, "there doesn't appear to be storm clouds..." Indeed, it was a remarkably clear day for the Black Summit, and the sky had brightened from dawn's fuzzy dimness, though thick white clouds still hung in the sky. He stood and shaded his eyes from the sun, which glared off the snow in needles of light, and peered in the direction the rumbling appeared to come from. The noise grew steadily louder, and- barely- Silver could see a bladelike shadow in the clouds above him. Then, the rear end of the shadow flared with teal light, illuminating the inside of the cloud, and a sharp, wooden prow poked out of the cloud, looming over Silver below. Steadily, the entire ship flew out of the clouds, and Silver froze with shock, only thinking at the last minute to throw himself behind a nearby rock formation. The ship was massive, larger than anything Silver had seen in his lifetime on the barren mountain peak (other than other mountains). Silver gazed at it for a moment, keeping a running train of thoughts going in his head. It appears to be designed for speed and firepower, considering its massive deck armament, materials used in construction, and daggerlike shape. If I recall the Anthologis correctly, it's called an... Avelli supplied the answer. An aerodynamic shape. That's what makes these things fly so well; though I don't believe any of the Keepers had much interest in aeronaval craft except one, and he surely wouldn't know about this... monstrosity. The ship held a sharp profile, melding smoothly from the scooped, bladelike prow, to the massive twin engine pods, to the semielliptic sailcloth rudder. Silver didn't know what the guns did or how the engines worked, at least not precisely- the Keeper's Anthologis was hardly a up-to-date encyclopedia, more of a list of interesting and useful items- but he knew enough that whatever they did was bad, and slunk further into the rocks' shadows as the airship roared overhead, bound for the summit. Its engines, themselves many times the size of a pony, left trails of blue flame through the air, the energy residue spreading like paint in a pond in the airship's wake. From what Silver could feel in his very bones, being a unicorn, was the intense flow of magic coursing around the airship and inside it. If I had to guess, I would say the engines burn some sort of form of magic fuel, and the ship uses military-grade levitation spells to keep itself aloft. Perhaps they not only adjust the engines to fly, but the spells as well? Silver noted that down for later; information was always an advantage. Inside Silver's head, even Avelli was speechless for a brief moment by how much Equestria had advanced during his exile. However, he quickly regained his composure, and with little more than a twinge of irritated wonderment left in his tone, spoke. Silver, move. When that ship disgorges the Royal Guards it doubtlessly is carrying, we should be far away from here. Let them investigate the Door; you are not there, and they cannot damage it by virtue of their own enchantments. Silver responded with a brusque affirmative, still tracking the airship as it disappeared from view. Almost unconsciously, Silver committed the ship's name- written on the side in golden letters- to mind: Royal Equestrian Airship Empire, EC-001. He turned now, and ducked and wove between jagged outcroppings of rock and dangerous, degraded paths. He finally arrived at the original hoofpath after a good half-hour of evasive tactics to prevent himself from being seen by any patrols. I expect we'll be seeing them again. Silver started at Avelli's sudden words in the silence, even though the Elder God's only presence in this dimension was technically in his head. Wryly, Silver said out loud "I certainly hope not. Even at top shape- which I'm not in, having just gone down half a bloody mountain-, I wouldn't be able to fight off all the Guards that ship could carry. Did you see the size of that thing?" He held the polished silver edge of his sword to the light and then sheathed it, satisfied. The other sword, the iron training blade Silver had used for most of his life, Silver planned to sell or barter at Lindise or perhaps Illirea, if his money held out. Coming out along a blind turn in the path, he ran straight into a golden-armored, white-furred backside. The Royal Guard he had slammed into turned to regard him puzzledly, and then jumped back from Silver, immediately unsheathing his sword and segueing into a dueling pose. Behind him, Silver saw a Skyskipper air-carriage, doubtlessly taken down from the Empire, and let out a small string of expletives. Duel on the side of a cliff, with certain death for whoever falls off, where the Guard's standing between me and my ride to Lindise. Oh, no, this'll be perfect. Before Silver even had time to complete his train of thought, the Guard was already upon him. Silver raised his sword just in time to block the guard's blow and then whirled, aiming a strike at the back of the guard's neck. The guard ducked down and raised his sword, the two blades clashing with a sound of metal on metal, which echoed off the stone. However, Silver was standing and had more leverage, so the guard's sword wavered closer and closer to dropping. If it did, all it would take is one strike and a life would end. Knowing this, the guard aimed a kick with one of his hind legs at Silver, who danced out of the way. However, this momentary distraction allowed the guard to push Silver's sword away, and now Silver was on the defensive instead of the guard. The soldier pressed his assault with fast slashes, sword whistling through the air only to find itself against a shimmering web of silversteel as Silver blocked every attack the Guard made, sometimes barely scraping it away and requiring a careful dodge to avoid the strike. The battle held steady, the two ponies on equal areas of the cliff, but Silver was slowly pushing the guard back, as one had trained for a lifetime to kill, and the other for years. Silver watched the guard's defense carefully. He was skillful, Silver had to give him that, but he was tiring. Soon enough, the guard's rear hooves nearly touching the edge of the cliff, Silver found an opening in the guard's defense. Barely a second, but that was all it took; the silvered sword slipped in between the guard's ribs to slice through his heart, and the guard seemed to look at Silver with wonderment and some sort of betrayal before his life finally slipped away beyond this earthly plane, along with the blood seeping out onto the black stone. Silver withdrew his sword from the body with a sickening sound and a quickening in the well of blood, the sound a smooth shknnnnnnnk, but far more horrible because of the fact that it was a sword withdrawing from what used to be a sapient being. As the adrenaline steadily faded, Silver looked down at the body with some degree of horror. I didn't even know his name, Silver thought. You had to do what you had to do, Silver. Would you rather it was your body in his place? You have an age-old mission, something no pony has been trusted with for millenia and never will be trusted with again if you fail. You are the fittest for this duty, and you will not let me down, Avelli replied. Somewhere in a different dimension, the rest of Avelli's power and consciousness had a bit of a chuckle, and then added I trust you. With some degree of lingering feeling, Silver glanced back at the body once more before boarding the Skyskipper. Glancing down at the controls, he found them surprisingly simple and well-labeled; a stick to control flight direction, and a... lever thing... which presumably controlled the engine. Taking a deep breath, Silver gripped the stick in his magic, holding the lever with one hoof. "Here we go." Silver yanked up the stick, and the engine roared to life behind him, propeller spinning faster and faster until it was but a blur. Mane blowing back in the wind and eyes narrowed, Silver pulled back the stick- and launched into the air, bound for the woods near the village far below. Tears streamed from Silver's eyes at the speed of the descent, and too late, Silver remembered that the dead Guard was wearing pegasi flight goggles, despite being an Earth Pony. The water obscured his vision, and with a muttered curse, he lifted a hoof off the controls for just a second to wipe the tears from his eyes. At that moment, the ship abruptly tilted to the side, and Silver's eyes opened wide. "Damn! Damn, damn..." His voice was abruptly cut off as his yanking on the stick snapped the ship in the opposite direction, throwing him into the other side of the open cockpit. Gritting his teeth against the wind, he flared his horn, wrapped his magic around the left wing, and pulled. The ship righted itself, and Silver had just enough time to smile before the wing snapped off its bracers - and hit him side-on. Chapter Four: Crash LandingSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Chapter One: To Open A Door Once, on top of the darkest mountain, a fell slope of jet-black obsidian, there was a door. A door, chained down, a circular door with silvered edges and a mirrored finish, its bottom corroded in rust and something else yet unidentifiable. In front of this door, as the winds swept across the mountain and through its valleys and clefts, a single unicorn kneeled, his coat palest gray, his mane and tail a shock of white. He paid no mind to the keening of the wind at his lofty altitude, nor the sheet of flame that flickered behind him, for he had set the funeral pyre himself, as was his father's wish and the tradition in the family. The unicorn remained kneeling there throughout the next cycle of sun, moon, and stars, as the sky turned around him. During this time, he went over the rites again and again, steeling himself for what was to come. Then, when he could think no more, he lowered the iron barriers around his mind, expanding his consciousness to see every life around him, touching each minuscule mind and recording it in memory for later. The funeral pyre burnt itself to ash, simmering and then cooling, broken, charred wood and charcoal lying scattered across the black plain, ash wafting in the wind. The unicorn still kneeled before the chained door, under a sky that hung not much unlike a steel plate would overhead; foreboding and grey. One more day and night passed, and yet he kneeled, this time not cataloging the life around him, but merely moving objects around restlessly, using his telekinesis to build a pyramid of stone and then knock it down, repeated again and again with minute variations. He breathed deeply and, and his eyes followed the moon as it went down, its light silhouetting the unicorn against the crags. He smiled then, for as the moon went down, a new day began; for the unicorn, Day 3650 since the last time a pony had tried to become Keeper of the door; in the day of his father. Though trepidation filled him, also present was a religious kind of fervor, calmly contained and stored. He had learned not to waver in his concentration, among other things; how to steel the soul against pain or desperation; how to fight with a saber; how to use magic; all this for twenty years, with his father alone on the summit of Fell Nängoroth. Now, it was just him. When the sun rose again, and the world began to brighten in reds and pinks and lavender, the unicorn stood on his four legs again, and made his way to the door. He raised a single foreleg in front of the circular object. With an impersonal air, he picked up a knife made of the mountain's jet-black material with his telekinesis, catching the handle on the silvered platter that bore it. The platter screeched across the underlying stone pedestal with a high-pitched yowl of protest. The unicorn did not mind. He was deaf to such noises; his mind was open wider than it had ever been, wider, even, than his sire may have said was wise, as anypony could have invaded his mind and taken control of his thoughts. But to his sire, he felt nothing but a sense of responsibility and duty, and an even fainter sense of regret. The ponies of his order -his lineage- had been bred over many centuries to have a lack of those feelings; it went with the namelessness of each member, as that which is personal was seen to interfere with the purpose of each Keeper. The unicorn began to chant; a gutteral, hard, angular-sounding series of syllables, words that presented themselves to the mind in strange block letters that could not be identified as letters. The chant was notable not so much for the words used, but for the fact that they were almost-words, words that were notable only because they were not. As the unicorn finished his chant, he bowed to the door- another item notable because of the way it was unfamiliar in this world, of blasted peaks and black altars- and cut his proffered foreleg. The obsidian knife slid smoothly through the skin, with a coldness and a impersonal sort of pain. At this moment, the unicorn drew on every life he found, plant, animal, or other, and took part of their life force from them, distilling it within him. None died; he was too well-trained to take too much of the soul. The unicorn held the leg over the door, and waited. After a few moments, a single, shimmering, oddly iridescent, drop of blood fell down, hitting the burnished surface, splitting over and around a thick iron chain, and finally merging with the unidentifiable substances that marred the bottom of the door. Then, there was utter silence on the peak of Fell Nängoroth. The wind slowed until it was the merest of breezes, and the proud hawks that rose the thermals below the summit stopped their fierce cries and waited. The universe seemed to hold its breath. A presence stirred in the void, roused from its slumber. A single crystal set into the face of the door, one of three, shed its tarnish and shone as if newly minted. Then, the unicorn felt a vast, alien consciousness- if it could be named such- press against his mind, and as he fought the urge to reflexively close the barriers around his self, he waited once more. His lineage had spent centuries waiting for this moment, so the unicorn knew he could spare a hoofful of moments for what would decide the fate of his bloodline; the fate of his order. If the door- nay, what was behind the door in the strange aeons beyond- did not accept him as Keeper and Opener, then it would mean the death of the order that lasted for nearly two millennia. The presence slowly went through his mind, examining his memories and his training, and trailing behind it was a strange sort of magic; to a unicorn, and especially the unicorn, it seemed as music, a otherworldly strain of violin and cello and viola. Gradually the presence extracted itself from the unicorn's mind, leaving a faint impression of its consciousness behind. There was the space of three heartbeats, though they seemed a eternity. Then, after one thousand, seven hundred years since it had spoken last, the presence spoke, in a voice as mellifluous, smooth, and honeyed as any bard in Equestria- perhaps deliberately so. "Dàfraic Kuaeipe. Welcome, Keeper. You may call me..." It paused for a moment, as if thinking, or perhaps sharing a private joke with itself. "Avelli." For one thousand, seven hundred years, Celestia had been raising the sun. For a thousand years, she had raised the sun and moon both until her sister, Luna, resumed her diarchal duties. She had ruled for a very long time, and she had always performed this ritual since she was only a mere hundred years old; it was her way of meditation, of connection with the harmony that underlay Equestria. On this day, she woke at the exact same time she always woke- the only exceptions being the Nightmare Moon incident, Tirek, and the day of Twilight's ascension- 4:17 and three seconds past in the morning. She fumbled for the light at the edge of the bed, tugging on the cord to activate the illumination rune inside, and blearily blinked, once, then twice. She stood from the bed, temporarily off-balance, and she reached a hoof out to her nightstand to steady herself. Celestia breathed deeply, holding it in for exactly five seconds, and exhaled. On her way to the balcony above Canterlot where she stood every dawn, she took the ceramic cup of coffee from its constant place, causing the muted clink of ceramic against the metal of the tray. To her balcony she went, hooves moving along well-worn trails in the carpet, and she set her coffee cup down on the railing. After a thousand years, one values order, Celestia thought to herself. Her horn flared with cosmic light, golden-yellow with a orange core, and she spread her wings wide, the pure white feathers almost touching the edges of the wide doorway. Putting her full concentration into the spell, as she must, the sun slowly rose from under the horizon, bathing all of Equestria in its rays of light. The gray sky began to lighten, and the moon crossed below the horizon as on the opposite side of the castle, Luna did her part in the ancient ritual as well. Celestia remained on the balcony for the few scant moments she had before she had to resume her duties, and a beatific smile graced her face as she watched her little ponies begin to bustle around the streets of Canterlot, bakeries and other shops wafting their delightful smells up into the air as they cooked today's goods. From outside, there came a tentative knock on her door, sending Celestia abruptly back into reality. "Princess Celestia? You have the audience with the Griffonian ambassadors in a hour; they refuse to wait any longer. Please, we'll need to get you ready and... I'll just wait." A wistful edge tainted the formerly gentle smile, and Celestia spared a brief glance back at the streets of Canterlot, gleaming in the early morn, before she turned towards the doorway, already projecting the royal presence that was expected of her. She had picked up the coffee cup in her telekinetic aura when she was suddenly seized with a burst of pain in her mind, as all the alarms she had placed on the Cursed Door tripped at once. Her aura guttered and shut off, and the cup crashed to the floor, shattering into fine shards, the brown liquid inside soaking into the carpet. The support of her rear legs suddenly abandoned her, and she sunk to the floor on her haunches. "It awakens." Her voice did not tremble; it was iron. No other words needed to be said.
Chapter Two: Conversations With An Elder GodThe unicorn raised his head, slightly confused at the name the entity behind the door had chosen, but choosing not to comment on it. Slowly raising the rest of his body to a standing position, the unicorn said "I expect greetings are in order, Master Avelli." Moving into a sweeping bow, the unicorn said "Welcome back to Equestria." Straightening again, the unicorn said "Furthermore, I would assume you have some sort of charge for me?" The unicorn raised an eyebrow the faintest amount in expectation. A brief feeling that would possibly indicate a smile was conveyed over their mental link, and then Avelli responded. With a tone of utter seriousness, the Elder God behind the door said something which had not been said for a very long time, and even if it was said, the speaker would have been locked away in a mental asylum. The entity said, slowly and with great feeling, "Your charge... is to kill Princess Celestia." The unicorn, stunned, opened his mouth to say something, but Avelli cut him off before he could speak. "I do not care how long you take, nor what methods you wish to use. Just know full well that this is the one task you will ever have, and I expect you to complete it. I have waited nearly two thousand years for this moment, to find one acceptable for this purpose, and I will not be dissuaded by cries of 'That's impossible!'". The unicorn opened his mouth to speak again, and then shut it in favor of thinking the situation over carefully. His father had always prepared him for this task, though he was not aware that this practical impossibility would be what the ritual would entail. However, he had to admit that the allure of the rewards behind the door, not simply of material things, but the spiritual rewards as well. The unicorn shifted his weight uncomfortably, causing the silver sword on his back to clash against the steel blade next to it. He still did not feel entirely settled within the idea, but he considered what he had been brought up to believe, and what the his father had told him of the tyrant across the Islandi Strait, the cruel white-coated alicorn who ruled with an iron hoof upon her poor subjects. Liberation was an admirable goal, the unicorn believed, and thus, he made his decision. Unfortunately, it was without any other knowledge than that of his forefathers. This time, it was the god whom waited. Then, the unicorn finally spoke. "...I will complete thy task to the best of my abilities, Master." The entity's voice in his head seemed to chuckle, and then the prevailing mood on the mountain suddenly got far darker. "Not to the best of your abilities. You are, quite simply, the last one of your specific order and family, and arguably the best. Therefore, while your first ancestor, Indigo, came all the way to the Royal Castle and fell to no less than Princess Luna herself when she was fighting in Celestia's defense, then I expect you to go even farther. You are not one to say 'best I can do', you are one to say 'This is a certainty'. I believe you are fully aware of the responsibilities placed on you by your position, and know what the consequences will be if you let the tyrant Celestia live even a moment longer than you could have ended her." The unicorn went thin-lipped, but curtly nodded in agreement. "It is assured, Master." Avelli would have smiled if his only presence in this particular dimension wasn't inside the head of the Keeper, but instead said "Excellent. Now, I believe at this point, the Keeper is named, symbolizing their connection to divinity, correct? Actually, I know it's correct; I gave your great-great-great-great-seventeen times-grandfather those exact words in writing. Therefore... Kneel." The unicorn dutifully kneeled before the door on the hard black stone, bowing his head to the earth. "Perhaps..." The Elder God thought for a long moment, considering the possibilities. Of course, for it to be a real, magically binding Name, it had to be said in the Ancient Language by the binder. Which was the entire purpose behind the ritual; as no pony knew but him (and Avelli didn't exactly count as a pony), the naming ritual was meant to give the entity a powerful hold over the actions of the one named. Therefore, to make absolutely sure that this especially recalcitrant Keeper obeyed him to the letter, especially in the unfortunately moralistic Equestrian society he would soon be exposed to, Avelli would name him and thereby bind the unicorn to him forevermore, or at least until the unicorn voluntarily rejected him, with the help of an immense source of magic- something definitively impossible. However, for the spell to work, the name had to have some connection to the named. Avelli thought for a moment more, as the unicorn shifted on the rocks, and then finally pronounced the name. "I name thee... Argentum Gladio. Now, go forth, Silver Sword, and redden thy blade." Avelli had to admit that that last part was melodramatic, but in the interest of the classic villain feeling, he simply had to. It wasn't a compulsion, it was just a necessity. As for the newly named Silver Sword, he merely smiled, slowly and with a bit of a predatorial edge to it. Thanks to some tiny tinkering by Avelli using Silver's new true name, the unicorn knew his purpose. Thus, Silver was about to do the impossible. He was about to fight the foremost deity in the land, and, through sheer determination, win. Calmly, the unicorn walked over to the house where so many of his line had spent their days, including him, and picked over a cupboard. Loading his saddlebags with food, a carefully plotted map of the land from the small, mountainous island that the Door was kept in isolation to the mainland of Equestria, and from there, Canterlot. Examining this map one last time, Silver stored it in his saddlebags, rolled around a whetstone for his swords. Into his bags also went a small crossbow, several bolts rolled in a linen kerchief, and his tools for picking locks, each pick carefully placed in its carrying loop. Strapped to his steel sword's hilt with twine was a small bag of bits, carefully weighed and measured, and placed in his bags was two books, one on Zebraic alchemy and the other, the compendium of all the works of his bloodline- a living document, edited over the years for the final Keeper's possession. Silver placed this softly in his bag, careful not to disturb the brittle paper or loosely bonded cover. They had to work with what they had, and what they had was a geologist's playground, but not so much the dream of a bookmaker. Taking out his map once more as he stepped out of the cottage, he held it levitated in his blue-green aura while he looked it over. Briskly rolling it up into a tight cylinder and putting it back away, Silver knew exactly where he had to go. Out loud, he said "First to Lindise, then from there...." To the airship docks at Illirea. Silver's mouth curved up at the edges as he imagined commandeering a military aeronaval vessel, but it would draw far too much attention, and in any case, he had many days' travel ahead of him, too many to already begin planning what he would do at Illirea. Suppressing a small sigh, Silver looked down the side of the mountain, turned to see his house and what was left of his father's funeral pyre, and briefly considered a moment of silence before- something- told him he shouldn't waste any time, especially with Celestia more than likely aware that he had already begun his quest. With a faint shrug, Silver turned down the mountain slopes, aiming for the thatched roofs of the village far below. Soon, the methodical clopping of hooves against stone faded into the air, and once again the only noises on the peak of the Black Mountain were the cry of hunting hawks, the whipping whistle of the wind, and, at the very edge of one's hearing- or was it even your hearing, or just your mind?- could be heard the sound of a stallion laughing, as if everything just fell into place as he expected. Which it had.
Interlude 1: The First Attempt (Flashback)As I write this, I am sure that historians will debate my actions for hundreds of years. However, I will not stop, stalled by the objections of a future generation I will likely never live to see. I am untouchable from reprisal but from that more powerful than me while I am alive, and there are few whom can hold claim to that title. Even the mere mention of my name, after these last few crimson-soaked months, has the virtue of sending a shudder down the spines of the most hardened Royal Guards. The blood freezes in the hearts of every pony I pass at the sight of the silver sword I bear. By right of the blades I hold, nothing is beyond my reach. Power is an interesting thing, as Avelli has told me many times. I am glad to be one of those who wield it. *-From The Recovered Writings Of Ouroboros Indigo, First Keeper*** There was silence on the battlefield outside the castle. An awkwardly-splayed ring of four dead ponies surrounded a single cerulean-blue unicorn, some of them still holding their cards from the game they were playing before their deaths. There were two guards left, but as they turned to run towards the castle gates, the unicorn teleported forward in front of them, his expression mocking. "Now, colts, no running to mommy. Stay and fight like big colts." With this, the unicorn attacked, cutting one guard down before he could react and engaging in a heated swordfight with the other remaining guard. The sound of metal against metal filled the still air, and the participants focused entirely on the fight at hand. At one particularly powerful blow from the unicorn, the guard grunted and fell back slightly. The unicorn pressed his advantage further, and with a sweep of his foreleg, knocked the guard's hooves out from under him. As the unicorn approached, the guard began to inch backwards, fear in his eyes as he glanced at the bodies of the soldiers he once commanded around him. "Indigo, please! You don't have to do this! Celestia will be just to you, I swear! Please, free yourself from the influence of this demon; it only seeks to hurt you. Don't you remember?" Indigo tapped a hoof on his chin, pretending to think. "Let me see... No." The unicorn raised his sword for the killing blow, and brought it down with a muted grunt. The guard went still around sword sticking out of his barrel, and a pool of blood began to seep from the wound after the unicorn had removed his blade from the corpse. "Hm. Pity, that." Indigo muttered as he turned to face the door to the guard tower, inset to the walls of marble which surrounded Canterlot Castle. "The guards sent to apprehend me before they knew whom I even was were better than this... And they whined less." Indigo sighed and, with a thought, he cast a spell, spinning up a spiral of magic from his horn which struck the port, ripping a hole through the gold and wood as if a pickaxe through particularly annoying stone. Beads of sweat had appeared on Indigo's forehead from the magical exertion involved from cracking the door like this, but he wiped it off, more slowly and more lethargically than before. Killing the guards and breaking the door had taken their toll. The guards inside were ready and waiting for him, and as soon as he had walked in, stepped out of the shadows to surround him. The lead guard raised his sword to point at Indigo, a self-satisfied smile on his face. "Lay down your weapon, and no harm shall come to you until you have been convicted to death by jury. Otherwise, we will be forced to destroy you. Look around you; do you truly believe you could win?" The guard made a sweeping gesture with his hoof, indicating the five guards which now surrounded Indigo. A slow smile spread over the unicorn mage's face. "Of course not, sir. Why would I dream of such a horrific thing?" At this, he dropped his sword to the side, the metal bouncing slightly before falling still. The guards edged closer in the sudden silence, and it was then that Indigo attacked. He twisted to the side, shifting along the flank of an earth pony guard, and ducked just in time for the sword thrust that was meant for him to bite into the guard's throat. Horrified, the offender stared dumbstruck at her friend, and Indigo took advantage of this to swing her head around - accompanied with a sickening crack of bone - to be used as a makeshift shield. Casually, Indigo threw the now-dead guard to the side and picked up his sword from where it lay just in time to parry a strike from another Royal Guard with a resounding clash of bronze against silver. Indigo twisted to the side barely in time to avoid another sword stroke from one of the three remaining guards, and swung the sword around to cut through the first guard's foreleg. While that guard was incapacitated, Indigo flipped the sword in his aura, batted the other guard's sword away with the edge of his blade -receiving a scratch on the collarbone in the process - and sank his sword to the hilt into the guard's chest. The guard he had amputated before had risen shakily to prop himself up against the wall of the tower, and attacked now before Indigo had time to turn fully. The blade whispered by the top of Indigo's head, severing several strands of dark grey mane, which seemed to hang in the light for the briefest instant before the moment was shattered by the sound of breaking bone as Indigo bucked the guard full force in the chest with both hind legs. The guard collapsed, wheezing for breath, and Indigo turned to stand above him, by some virtue of the light appearing to tower over the dying guard. Indigo briefly considered something witty to say, but decided against it, opting to simply and brutally separate the Royal Guard's head from his neck. The head fell to the floor with a muted thump, followed by the body a moment later, and Indigo turned to look for his final target- which, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Inside Indigo's mind, Avelli cursed. Get after him. If he rings the alarm, so much for at least some element of surprise! Indigo growled a terse Fine in response, and galloped up the stairs, bulling by the left-open door, which smashed into the stone wall. As he reached the top of the tower, he was only just in time to see the guard commander haul back on the bellpull rope, sending the bell clanging with what was likely a magically-enhanced din. The other towers' bells joined in the general alarum, and both the Elder God and Indigo inwardly facehoofed. The guard turned, and his sigh of relief was abruptly cut off as he viewed the blood-spattered unicorn standing in front of him, and his eyes widened in horror. "Oh Celestia, no...." The commander turned and ran, just in time for Indigo's sword -thrown with telekinetic power- to implant itself in the back of the Royal Guard's neck, snapping his head forward with bone-breaking force. There was an abrupt and sharp snap, and then the support of the guard's hooves left him as he tripped forward, only to fall awkwardly into the bell. It sounded a mournful peal as the corpse hit it, and inside Indigo's head, Avelli smiled at the sheer irony of the sound. Outside, there was a distinct rise of activity as the alarms sounded, and ponies began to scurry around below the towers. Indigo sighed deeply. See, Ouroboros? This is what happens when you don’t pay attention, Avelli admonished. Indigo’s lips thinned, and he went quiet, though some element of his irritation was evident over the mental link. After an awkward moment, he said tersely Don’t we have a deity to assassinate? and swung himself over the guard tower’s railings to the castle battlements, slipping quietly down a flight of stairs. A patrol of guards went by, their armor shining in the lamplight and their hooves pounding on the stone in measured lockstep. Indigo froze against the stairwell, hoping nopony would notice him; his wish was granted. The guards were too focused on whatever their goal was to pay attention to what seemed like just another stairwell, but from that point on, Indigo stuck to the shadows almost religiously. A few minutes later, he came upon the door to the courtyard, and stepped through it. Outside, all activity stopped to stare at the interloper. With feigned calmness, Indigo took a cloth from within his cloak and began to clean his blade, the iridescent red droplets turning the pristine white cloth a mottled pink. As he trotted into the middle of the courtyard, his hooves clicking on cobblestone, the sound of over twenty ponies galloping at full speed could be heard, along with shouts of orders and the clanking of armor against weaponry. Indigo sighed slightly, rolling his violet eyes, and assumed a defensive stance; the sword that he had used on the prior guards outside and in the tower was now sheathed, and his hooves were empty. Damnit, he said, of course they were expecting me. Inwardly, he cursed at his own arrogance. However, his horn shimmered with a corona of indigo light, and a shape began to take form in the air around his hooves as the guards poured into the courtyard, swords and spears already drawn and at the ready. As the first few of them charged, golden armor shimmering in the sun, the shape took full form and became a long-bladed amethyst sword, shimmering with Indigo's aura. His magic held the fiber-wrapped hilt tightly, and he experimentally swung it around as if getting used to the feel. Meanwhile, his enemies rushed ever closer, and Indigo still stood, as implacable as a mountain. The guards sped up further, intending to impale him with their blades, and it was at that critical moment that he struck. Flipping into the air over the first soldier as he went by, Indigo used his peculiar blade to strike downwards at the top point of the parabola, stabbing the soldier through the top of the skull. As the blade contacted the golden armor, a shower of golden and purple magical sparks was released, and the sword's tip seemed to hang in midair, repelled by a ward enchantment, before it finally sunk in. The unicorn landed behind the newly dead Royal Guard, holding the now-bloody crystal blade behind him. The three other guards who had charged turned, their faces in nigh-identical expressions of surprise, as Indigo turned to face them again, sword held high. Around the group of four, the rest of the guards hung back, as if waiting for somepony. The unicorn, facing the remaining three guards, spit on the cobbles contemptuously. "Come on! What are you waiting for, me to serve you tea on little lace doilies?" The guards turned to each other and then nodded, as if making an important decision. This time, instead of charging him, they went to flank him on either side, one with a spear and the two others with a sword, carefully edging around Indigo, who watched them with an amused expression. He raised a single eyebrow as he considered the situation, and then abruptly made his choice. Swinging out the blade in his aura, he cut the shaft of the first guard's spear in half, then spun it and stabbed it backwards to impale the soldier through the throat, where his armor didn't protect him. Withdrawing the sword, Indigo brought it back just in time to parry a strike from the second guard. The unicorn gave ground before the guard, inciting the latter to perform more and more aggressive strikes, all of which were parried or dodged with feigned slowness. Finally, as the guard raised his sword high for a cleaving strike, the unicorn simply bucked him in the chest with his forelegs and then decapitated the guard while he reeled. The third and final guard had hung back, unwilling to strike while the possibility for hitting his friend was so high, but now he attacked, a cry of "For Equestria!" tearing itself from his throat. Indigo watched, his mouth curling into a contemptuous smirk, and let the guard's own momentum and anger work against him. As the soldier charged, Indigo smoothly sidestepped and stabbed him in the flank as the guard ran by, unable to stop himself in time. There was a sudden silence, broken only by the clatter of armor clashing against stone as the guard's body fell, and then, after a few tense moments in which the waiting guards looked ready to step forward and finish Indigo themselves, the flap of massive wings and the clack of hooves alighting on stone could be heard behind the unicorn. He turned to face the direction of the sound, and while his expression had once been calm readiness, it was now almost disgusted as he faced the blue alicorn which had appeared, and whom the guards had now-obviously been waiting for. Tauntingly, he said "So, Luna, your sister sends you to die in her place? How appropriate; nopony needs the night anyway. You know she thinks th-" The princess cut him off before he could continue. "'Tis not that Our sister hast sent me in her place, but that she dost not deem thine skills worthy of her presence, Keeper Ouroboros. Our sister reserveth her power for true villains, not two-bit assassins like you." Indigo raised an eyebrow, beginning to be more amused than annoyed. He held his sword in a offensive position, point forward and tracing a spiral pattern in the air. "Now, Luna, surely you wouldn't harm silly old me? After all, I'm just one of your poor little subjects, and certainly couldn't challenge one as powerful as you." The sarcasm practically dripped from his voice, and Luna flushed slightly. "I... We hast..." The princess paused for a moment and continued. "Nothing to say to thee but to wish thee a fine trip to Tartarus. If We wished to converseth with thee, We wouldst have sent Our herald, nor would We have wished to speaketh with a traitor to Equestria like you." With this, the princess performed the same spell as Indigo had before, except that her blade was a beam of moonlight made solid, the edges wavering with black energy instead of Indigo's amythyst crystal. He whistled, impressed, and Luna adjusted her stance to hold the blade in the same offensive position as his. With some degree of self-satisfaction, Luna said "Not many ponies are able to see the Moonlight's Radiance, assassin. You should be pleased that a longsword so storied shall be the blade to end you." The field was eerily reminiscent of a fencing match - but with real blades, real magic, and real death for whoever lost. The guards shuffled in their surrounding circle, anxious for the battle to start. However, Indigo seemed content to take his time, slowly making his way towards Luna, but edging to the left as well. Luna noticed this, and her eyes narrowed, her aura gripping her blade tighter in preparation. They struck at the same moment.
Chapter Three: Down The Rabbit Ho- MountainAs Silver walked down the slopes of the Black Mountain, on hoofpaths carved from stone by his order over the last millennium, he could hear the ice and snow shifting around him in a rather unnerving manner. As a creak of ice turned into a sharp crack and a shower of snow dropped onto Silver's back, his hoof went to his sword out of instinct, but as he full well knew, a blade would have no effect against an avalanche. As Silver made his way further down the mountain- skirting a barren, bleached tree forcing itself out of the peak- Avelli suddenly spoke up inside Silver's head. Do you feel that? A disturbance in the air, a faint sound of... Silver finished Avelli's sentence. Sounds like thunder. If I'm caught up here during a storm, the rain'll wash me off the mountain. I expect you know how bad it is; I do. As if to accentuate his point, Silver's hoof slipped in a patch of ice, and for a brief, horrible moment, Silver teetered on the edge of the sheer cliff before he threw himself backward onto the relative safety of the path. As he lay on his side on the path, Silver took the opportunity to stare up at where the rumblings of thunder seemed to come from. "Strange," Silver mused, "there doesn't appear to be storm clouds..." Indeed, it was a remarkably clear day for the Black Summit, and the sky had brightened from dawn's fuzzy dimness, though thick white clouds still hung in the sky. He stood and shaded his eyes from the sun, which glared off the snow in needles of light, and peered in the direction the rumbling appeared to come from. The noise grew steadily louder, and- barely- Silver could see a bladelike shadow in the clouds above him. Then, the rear end of the shadow flared with teal light, illuminating the inside of the cloud, and a sharp, wooden prow poked out of the cloud, looming over Silver below. Steadily, the entire ship flew out of the clouds, and Silver froze with shock, only thinking at the last minute to throw himself behind a nearby rock formation. The ship was massive, larger than anything Silver had seen in his lifetime on the barren mountain peak (other than other mountains). Silver gazed at it for a moment, keeping a running train of thoughts going in his head. It appears to be designed for speed and firepower, considering its massive deck armament, materials used in construction, and daggerlike shape. If I recall the Anthologis correctly, it's called an... Avelli supplied the answer. An aerodynamic shape. That's what makes these things fly so well; though I don't believe any of the Keepers had much interest in aeronaval craft except one, and he surely wouldn't know about this... monstrosity. The ship held a sharp profile, melding smoothly from the scooped, bladelike prow, to the massive twin engine pods, to the semielliptic sailcloth rudder. Silver didn't know what the guns did or how the engines worked, at least not precisely- the Keeper's Anthologis was hardly a up-to-date encyclopedia, more of a list of interesting and useful items- but he knew enough that whatever they did was bad, and slunk further into the rocks' shadows as the airship roared overhead, bound for the summit. Its engines, themselves many times the size of a pony, left trails of blue flame through the air, the energy residue spreading like paint in a pond in the airship's wake. From what Silver could feel in his very bones, being a unicorn, was the intense flow of magic coursing around the airship and inside it. If I had to guess, I would say the engines burn some sort of form of magic fuel, and the ship uses military-grade levitation spells to keep itself aloft. Perhaps they not only adjust the engines to fly, but the spells as well? Silver noted that down for later; information was always an advantage. Inside Silver's head, even Avelli was speechless for a brief moment by how much Equestria had advanced during his exile. However, he quickly regained his composure, and with little more than a twinge of irritated wonderment left in his tone, spoke. Silver, move. When that ship disgorges the Royal Guards it doubtlessly is carrying, we should be far away from here. Let them investigate the Door; you are not there, and they cannot damage it by virtue of their own enchantments. Silver responded with a brusque affirmative, still tracking the airship as it disappeared from view. Almost unconsciously, Silver committed the ship's name- written on the side in golden letters- to mind: Royal Equestrian Airship Empire, EC-001. He turned now, and ducked and wove between jagged outcroppings of rock and dangerous, degraded paths. He finally arrived at the original hoofpath after a good half-hour of evasive tactics to prevent himself from being seen by any patrols. I expect we'll be seeing them again. Silver started at Avelli's sudden words in the silence, even though the Elder God's only presence in this dimension was technically in his head. Wryly, Silver said out loud "I certainly hope not. Even at top shape- which I'm not in, having just gone down half a bloody mountain-, I wouldn't be able to fight off all the Guards that ship could carry. Did you see the size of that thing?" He held the polished silver edge of his sword to the light and then sheathed it, satisfied. The other sword, the iron training blade Silver had used for most of his life, Silver planned to sell or barter at Lindise or perhaps Illirea, if his money held out. Coming out along a blind turn in the path, he ran straight into a golden-armored, white-furred backside. The Royal Guard he had slammed into turned to regard him puzzledly, and then jumped back from Silver, immediately unsheathing his sword and segueing into a dueling pose. Behind him, Silver saw a Skyskipper air-carriage, doubtlessly taken down from the Empire, and let out a small string of expletives. Duel on the side of a cliff, with certain death for whoever falls off, where the Guard's standing between me and my ride to Lindise. Oh, no, this'll be perfect. Before Silver even had time to complete his train of thought, the Guard was already upon him. Silver raised his sword just in time to block the guard's blow and then whirled, aiming a strike at the back of the guard's neck. The guard ducked down and raised his sword, the two blades clashing with a sound of metal on metal, which echoed off the stone. However, Silver was standing and had more leverage, so the guard's sword wavered closer and closer to dropping. If it did, all it would take is one strike and a life would end. Knowing this, the guard aimed a kick with one of his hind legs at Silver, who danced out of the way. However, this momentary distraction allowed the guard to push Silver's sword away, and now Silver was on the defensive instead of the guard. The soldier pressed his assault with fast slashes, sword whistling through the air only to find itself against a shimmering web of silversteel as Silver blocked every attack the Guard made, sometimes barely scraping it away and requiring a careful dodge to avoid the strike. The battle held steady, the two ponies on equal areas of the cliff, but Silver was slowly pushing the guard back, as one had trained for a lifetime to kill, and the other for years. Silver watched the guard's defense carefully. He was skillful, Silver had to give him that, but he was tiring. Soon enough, the guard's rear hooves nearly touching the edge of the cliff, Silver found an opening in the guard's defense. Barely a second, but that was all it took; the silvered sword slipped in between the guard's ribs to slice through his heart, and the guard seemed to look at Silver with wonderment and some sort of betrayal before his life finally slipped away beyond this earthly plane, along with the blood seeping out onto the black stone. Silver withdrew his sword from the body with a sickening sound and a quickening in the well of blood, the sound a smooth shknnnnnnnk, but far more horrible because of the fact that it was a sword withdrawing from what used to be a sapient being. As the adrenaline steadily faded, Silver looked down at the body with some degree of horror. I didn't even know his name, Silver thought. You had to do what you had to do, Silver. Would you rather it was your body in his place? You have an age-old mission, something no pony has been trusted with for millenia and never will be trusted with again if you fail. You are the fittest for this duty, and you will not let me down, Avelli replied. Somewhere in a different dimension, the rest of Avelli's power and consciousness had a bit of a chuckle, and then added I trust you. With some degree of lingering feeling, Silver glanced back at the body once more before boarding the Skyskipper. Glancing down at the controls, he found them surprisingly simple and well-labeled; a stick to control flight direction, and a... lever thing... which presumably controlled the engine. Taking a deep breath, Silver gripped the stick in his magic, holding the lever with one hoof. "Here we go." Silver yanked up the stick, and the engine roared to life behind him, propeller spinning faster and faster until it was but a blur. Mane blowing back in the wind and eyes narrowed, Silver pulled back the stick- and launched into the air, bound for the woods near the village far below. Tears streamed from Silver's eyes at the speed of the descent, and too late, Silver remembered that the dead Guard was wearing pegasi flight goggles, despite being an Earth Pony. The water obscured his vision, and with a muttered curse, he lifted a hoof off the controls for just a second to wipe the tears from his eyes. At that moment, the ship abruptly tilted to the side, and Silver's eyes opened wide. "Damn! Damn, damn..." His voice was abruptly cut off as his yanking on the stick snapped the ship in the opposite direction, throwing him into the other side of the open cockpit. Gritting his teeth against the wind, he flared his horn, wrapped his magic around the left wing, and pulled. The ship righted itself, and Silver had just enough time to smile before the wing snapped off its bracers - and hit him side-on.
Chapter Four: Crash LandingSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
