Chapters The three meter tall biomechanical body of the current head of the Union Aerospace Corporation and the man that had pulled me from hell itself, Samuel Hayden, walked forward out of the ashes.
"You've won - it's over. You stopped the invasion and closed the portal. But it's come at a price - Argent, VEGA. This entire operation. You see, I've watched you work - come to understand your motivation" he said in his mechanically deepened voice.
You ain't seen nothin yet, Sammy boy
"You think the only way is to kill them all - leave nothing behind - and you may be right. But we can't just shut it all down. Without Argent Energy it will be worse. I don't expect you to agree."
You are going to release the demons and they will only come back stronger
"But with this we can continue our work" Samuel exclaimed as he pulled the Crucible from my armor.
You are dooming humanity if you don't end it
"I am not the villain in this story. I do what I do because there is no choice."
You witnessed the demons and still want their power
"Re-routing tether coordinates... Complete."
You better drop me on the farthest shores of Hell because I will come back and I WILL end you
"Our time is up."
am warning you again, you are condemning your race to death
"I can't kill you - but i won't have you standing in our way."
I AM THE ONLY THING STANDING BETWEEN YOU AND HELL
"Until we see each other again."
The next time I see you, you're gonna eat lead.
With that final thought, the world around me glowed bright as the sun and the tether pulled me onwards to destiny.
Author's Note
¯\_(ツ)_/¯sevenofeleven
Dear Fimfic story approvers, the actual speech from Samuel Hayden in this story is lifted directly from the subtitles at the end of the game. If this isn't allowed, I will correct it, but this is the only time in this story that it will happen and I felt that it was required to describe why the Doom Slayer is in Equestria.
The first thing I felt was soft ground below me, good news and bad news. Good because the area would be simpler to navigate, bad because the ground would be treacherous and I would be much more likely to trip.
The second thing I felt was the heat on the back of my suit, almost like sunlight. Obviously that was impossible since Hell had no sun, all the light was provided by pillars of flaming flesh and Hell magic.
The third thing I felt was something cold and sharp poking into my shoulder. I smiled under my helmet, none of the larger demons would bother using tools to attempt holding me down and any smaller demons would be easy enough to deal with.
I slowly rose to my feet while keeping my arms at the ready and was delighted to see that the metal moved with me instead of running me through, probably because they were scared of me. No Hell spawned wretch would ever attempt to fight me in one on one combat. There had to be more around.
What was that chattering sound? Knowing Hell's general motif, probably some kind of poor human sacrifice that had had its face mutilated and its lips cut off or something. Doesn't matter, if they had succumbed to Hell, it would be a kindness to end them.
I opened my eyes ready to start the bloodbath again, nothing prepared me to see the tiny cartoonish horse holding a spear in its wing! Wait... its wing? Doesn't matter, it was still a danger to me and nothing would stop me from killing them all.
I evaluated the horse in front of me as I started to plan. The horse was snow white with a blue mane and tail, its wings were indeed feathered and looked as though they grew from its side as naturally as arms. The armor it was dressed in looked to be made of gold. Why would armor be made of gold? So weak. The only purpose for it would be for ceremonial purposes. Perfect, I had came back near some kind of important demon.
I listened closely to the creatures moving, it seemed that there could have been no more than four of them, counting the one holding its spear to my neck. I took a deep breath, in the next thirty seconds these four horse demons would be nothing more than carrion for their brothers.
Faster than the demons could react, I dove forward at the one ahead of me, kicked it in the face as I rolled to my feet, yanked the spear from its grasp and stomped on its wing. It wasn't dead yet but I could remedy that after I had dealt with the others.
The one that previously had its spear dug into my neck looked identical to the one lying on the ground at my feet, though the other two were different. They looked physically similar to the previous one except neither had wings and one of them had a horn protruding from its forehead.
The second one with wings looked too shocked at the moment to react so I ran the spear through its throat before yanking it as hard as I could. To my brief amusement, I ripped the demon’s head from its body. By this point, the other two were acting. The one with neither horn nor wings grasped the spear in its hoof and attempted to stab me with it.
The look on its face as its spear shattered on my armor was priceless. Never before have I seen a demon look so scared as that moment and only that moment, as I whipped the spear around and smashed the head impaled on it into the demon. Both heads exploded into nice and appreciable splatters of blood, bone and brain.
That left only the horned demon , I turned my gaze upon it and saw it's horn glowing. In other times and places, glowing is good, but anytime a Hellspawn glows its a bad thing because it almost always means they are going to throw fireballs at me or shoot plasma at me. With no other options obvious to me, I darted my hand out and grabbed its horn intending on ripping it from the creature.
Imagine my surprise when the tiny indicator on the hud of my suit indicated that my suit's Argent reserves were increasing. After less than a second, not only did my argent reserves pass the 100% marker but I heard the tiny tinny voice of VEGA in my ear.
POWER RESERVES AT FULL CHARGE. VEGA BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED. POWER RESERVES INSUFFICIENT FOR OPTIMUM PROCESSING POWER. VEGA PROCESSING ABILITIES SCALED BACK 99.98%
I was suddenly extremely glad that I had backed VEGA up before I blew him up. Having something else to watch my back would be beyond great and he could even provide help when I required or desired it, like right now.
I used the neural interface in my suit to ask him "VEGA, where in the hell am I and what the hell kind of demons are these little horse things"
"Analyzing..." several minutes passed with no sound from VEGA while I entertained myself by lifting the demon into the air and squeezing its horn and enjoying its whimpers. The horns on these ones seemed to be extremely weak as evidenced when I squeezed it a little hard and there was a small crack before the demon shrieked. "We are not located in Hell. Current data seems to suggest that the tether operation failed to send you to the target location with a lack of Argent Energy to power the triangulator and as such…”
Somewhere in between 'current' and 'data' I stopped listening as I stared at the demon hanging in front of me. I brought it closer to me to look at it before she - yes, definitely a she, that was definitely piss and a male wouldn't piss from there - started crying. Much as my bloodlust might want me to tear the horn from her head and use it to eviscerate her, I couldn't. I lowered her to the ground where she immediately rushed to her final comrade. Her horn started glowing lightly but it seemed that i had drawn most of her energy from her and she would be incapable of helping the other.
I stooped down to examine the still unconscious one. It looked like my demonic steel boots had shattered its muzzle like glass and the bones in the wing looked to be nothing but dust. I contemplated snapping its neck but i couldn't, I really couldn't. If we got it to a hospital somewhere, they might be able to fix it.
I attempted to scoop it up in my arms but the female flared her horn at me. I dipped my hand into a nearby puddle of blood and drew a red cross on my chest. To my surprise the female's horn sputtered out and she backed away from the fallen one.
Before she could change her mind, I scooped it up and gave a quick glance around. There, a few miles away, a small town. I set off at a rather fast pace towards the town and to my surprise, the female easily kept pace with me, though considering that they were little equines, I should have expected that.
Author's Note
Thank you to Aaron We again and I still think you are sevenofeleven
I hope that the start to my story isn't TOO bad.
An entire town. Thousands of them. Galloping and trotting. Doing horse things.
Innocent
The word echoed with a presence that could quite possibly be more forceful than the blast of a cannon, a small bit of irony given that I was greeted by a battalion of the little horses on the outskirts of the town wearing their gold armor and sporting what I assumed were grim expressions, though because of their somewhat comedic exterior the "ready for war" look was more akin to a "ready for naptime" look.
Perhaps it was luck that I stumbled upon these tiny horses or perhaps it was merely chance or perhaps something less substantial but my "passenger" was taken almost immediately by several of the horses ranging in color from dark blues to bright yellows, though the snow white ones seemed more interested in the female that had followed me.
One of the horses that came over seemed almost to exude authority, despite the fact that it chittered and chattered like the others. Strangely enough, it seemed to have a picture on it's flank of an old fashioned wall made of stones that almost blended in with its grey coat.
Without the ability to understand what they were discussing and no pressing moral dilemma involving a shotgun, a rocket launcher and anything to shoot, my attention drifted. The town seemed to be a thriving community - a small marketplace in the middle of town was bustling with horses of all the colors I could possibly imagine and then some that I could only describe as glassy, though one thing that all of them seemed to have in common was the presence of a picture in the same place as Old Stonewall seemed to have and they seemed to be matched only to a picture on the opposite flank.
My inclination towards exploration drew me to wander the town scrutinizing the horses and surveying the buildings, though the former was significantly harder as the horses tended to flee from me like my presence was indicative of the approach of some kind of apocalyptic plight and a several of the more battle ready ones seemed to be following me with the intention of babysi-err, foalsitting.
I entertained myself by taking note of how far back the horses were and everytime that I turned a corner, sprinting as far as I felt possible and slowing down to make it seem like I had teleported away from them. When that ceased to amuse me, I flipped around a corner and down the first alleyway that I saw. Imagine my surprise at seeing one of the minihorses being attacked by a tall creature wearing a hood. Imagine it's surprise at seeing me armored head to toe in a suit of battle armor.
I supposed that I could have alerted the armored horses, who at some point I had decided must be soldiers, but with a language barrier that would have needed a Rosetta Stone to bridge, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
A sprinting dropkick was how I began the conflict, as well as how I hoped to end it. Alas that the hooded beast anticipated my movement and dodged before launching a vicious slash that scratched the paint on the hell-forged steel of my suit as I attempted to free my boot from the segment of wall that had become dust, completely unrelated to any action of mine of course.
The creature jumped at me attempting to slice me open as I was recovering, and would likely have succeeded but for a chunk of stone that had miraculously escaped the sledgehammer blow of my boot and provided a decent alternative to a chunk of lead, and though it didn't do as much damage as I would have hoped, it did slow the creature for long enough that I was able to finally get to my feet.
Unsure of each other's abilities, I focused on blocking and dodging blows from the creature. Its weapon dug into my armor, but didn't manage to penetrate it in more than a few spots which completely repaired in seconds from the massive overload of Argent Energy stored wherever the armor stored it.
The creature moved in sharp jerking movements reminiscent of a hawk with massive strength behind each blow and it seemed extremely proficient at hand to hand combat. What it wasn't proficient in was how to deal with a sudden influx of golden armored horses wielding spears and neighing at it. The creature stalled for several seconds as the soldiers surrounded it while attempting to communicate with me in a series of chirps, squawks and caws before yanking something from its cloak and throwing it at the ground.
A cloud of smoke exploded from the object and the soldiers began coughing, gagging and in one case, vomiting profusely as the creature ripped its cloak off, revealing what could only be a griffon who proceeded to spread his wings and ascend in a few slightly undignified but nonetheless effective flaps that conveniently cleared out most of the smoke in a hurry and brought it above the roofline of the building across the street which I only now took time to read: "Tsing Shi Tao's Jade Jewlery," a pun not lost on me.
I yanked one of the soldier's spears from the wing holding it since it wasn't using it anyways and took several running steps forward before throwing the spear. I clipped the griffon with that spear and missed with the next, but the third was a bull's wing and the griffon tumbled out of the air before crashing into a building several streets away.
I attempted to sprint after the griffon, but somehow my feet seemed to be anchored to the ground which resulted in a mach 2 faceplant
What the hell? Why can't i move my feet
Ensnaring my boots like vines were tendrils of red crystal. After several seconds of pulling and pushing and even firing my Delta V boots, I had the bright idea to try breaking the crystals with a spear. As soon as the spear touched the crystal, the entire thing melted from point to aft all the way down the shaft. A sneaking suspicion of mine told me that if I weren't wearing boots forged from Hellsteel, my feet would be burnt to cinders and the rest of my body would be baked.
That particular dark thought was interrupted as a CRACK echoed throughout what was most likely the entire town and a unicorn wearing a black robe with a double lined cross appeared just a few feet away from me. Every one of the horses who had been standing hit the ground with their eyes shut tight, except for "Old Stony" who had somehow procured a lemon and was in the process of masticating it rind and all.
The black robed horse approached Stony while around a dozen horses appeared with their own cracks and proceeded to examine the soldiers. Something told me that I should be paying more attention to the first horse but I couldn't help but watch as the others traveled around to the soldiers. The strangest thing happened when their horns glowed: scars on their luminescent white coats would evaporate, massive blisters from their armor would vanish and in one case, an entire ear sprung back from a nasty gash.
Several of the dark horses approached the civilian who I had actually forgotten was there. The horse's brown coat was so stained with blood that it took several minutes before it occurred to me that it was brown and covered in blood rather than red and covered in dust. The poor thing was shaking like a leaf, likely in shock and fainted as the hooded ones approached it. Their horns glowed and the brown one's wounds healed followed by a flash of light, its disappearance and a roar of the air rushing into where it had previously been.
With nothing else for them to do, they surrounded me in a rough circle as the first one turned away from Stony who also averted his eyes, though he didn't bow down like the others had. I felt the tendrils of crystal travel farther up my armor until they reached my head.
An echoing voice rumbled through my head "The abomination will come with us"
It seemed to be boring into my eyes as I thought Stupid horse .
"And stop calling me a horse. I'm a pony."
Author's Note
from "mach 2 faceplant onwards had to be rewritten since my laptop decided a BSOD was in order. I'm a little salty because i was really liking how it was turning out and it killed my good mood.
I wasn't scared. Honest I have vanquished demons that stand miles high, stood against monsters born to kill me and stared Hell itself down until it collectively pissed it's pants, so why would I be scared of what one of the hooded ones called "Princess Celestia, Alicorn of the Solar Heavens?" Certainly not because her her mane was on fire or that the air around her shimmered with waves of heat or that the very stones of the castle below her melted into slag as she walked on them, and most of all not that she was neighing and nickering at me and I couldn't understand a single word she was saying.
The massive spire standing proudly atop her head would have been intimidating alone but the glow surrounding it only added to the sense of danger surrounding her. Her nickers and neighs continued before one of the hooded cleared it's throat and a small exchange went on between them. Her horn glowed brighter than the sun before I heard a disappointed motherly voice "Why would you slaughter my guards so barbarically?"
"Translation module detected. Integrating in 3, 2, 1. Integration complete: translation module Common Equestrian Tongue acquired." VEGA's voice buzzes in my ear while "Princess" Celestia stares at me clearly waiting for an answer.
~~~
Though the sun hasn't moved, it feels like it's been several hours that she's been staring at me. No sound emates from the throne room until one of the hooded clears his throat "Your Highness, I'm not trying to hurry your interrogation or anything, but myself and the rest of The Eclipsed have to get back out there. Redeemer has already searched the guard who was found with him for wrongdoing."
Celestia turned that raging glare upon the poor member of these "Eclipsed" who was speaking and seemed oblivious to the grave he was obviously digging for himself. "A mare who just watched two of her friends killed in front of her and one of them crippled to the day he dies and you force her to relive those moments... How many times?"
The stallion hung his head in shame for several moments before a soft "Six times Your Highness" was heard.
Celestia's eye twitched several times as the hem of the stallion's cloak started smoking... Wait a minute, everything was smoking. The waves of heat roiling off of her were burning away everything in the throne room. Clopping hooves sprinted across the floor as the female guard stood in front of her interrupting her glare and the inferno in the room.
Celsestia's glare returned to me "You stand accused of two counts of murder most foul against royal guards, one count of assault with deadly intentions, treason against the crown and several other crimes. Do you offer any defense against these charges? Silence will be taken as an invitation to search your mind for proof or innocence of this crime."
My silence echoed.
"Very well then. I will search your memory for any hint of these crimes. If I detect any of these crimes, I will banish you to Tartarus. Prepare yourself." With that. her horn glowed and she touched it to my helmet. Instantly flashes of Hell appeared in her eyes, bodies torn apart, flesh piled to the heavens, lakes of burning blood, demons tearing each other apart and eventually even the Icon of Sin itself.
She watched as the many-mile tall beast attacked me, it's bloated body unable to stand under it's own power as blood leaked from the monstrosity's mouth and into the pool of blood stretching to the horizons around it. Demons crawled from lake of blood and onto the stones barely rising above the pool. Fire and lightning and plasma flew past me as the lesser demons attempted to protect the Icon. For the longest time, I battled lesser hellspawn as I sought some way to bring down this abomination.
My chaingun coughed a steady stream of bullets into wall of muscle, bone and rage before tearing the baron in half. Several bullets ricocheted wildly inflicting more damage until a roar knocked me off my feet. I noticed the Icon was rubbing a hole on its head. My only chance was to hope that lead close enough that I could damage the brain with something.
What to use? bullets might bounce around in there, but they would be nothing but bee stings to it, my plasma rifle might hurt it, but it couldn't do collateral damage to the beast, my BFG would fry anything if i could line it up, but the hole was only about 2 meters wide and I couldn't force the beast to hold still for the shot. The last weapon in my arsenal was my rocket launcher. Oh yes this would be good.
My rockets flew with all of the hopes and dreams for the human race upon them straight into the creature's face. Rivers of blood ran down its face as my rockets blew small craters in its head. I dropped to one knee for added stability and pumped my last three rockets into the monster all together. A massive cloud of smoke and flame erupted from the hole as the beast screamed. Every single demon who had crawled from the blood fell together as one and melted into a soup of gore.
As the memory ended, Celestia pulled away, her snow white coat was tinged green and her eyes filled with tears. She stumbled up to her throne and curled like a ball at the foot of it. The Eclipsed mumbled between themselves but none approached the sobbing royal, until another voice was heard echoing "TIA, THE SUN RIDES HIGH WHEN MY MOON SHOULD BE..."
Another alicorn stood at the archway, her extremely dark blue coat stood in sharp contrast to Celestia's shining white coat and her black mane shot through with small pinpricks of light differentiated her from Celestia's variegated one. Her eyes seemed to rove the room taking in every single microscopic detail in seconds and then she was standing beside the fallen alicorn.
"Sister, please tell me what's wrong. I promise I will fix it."
"Lulu, there's nothing that any of us can do to fix it."
"I promise I will fix it, please tell me."
"That creature over there was brought before me for two counts of murder and he's guilty of it and so much more, and there's no way we can punish him for any of it."
The blue alicorn's eyes glared at me with unrestrained hatred. "Why can we not banish him to Tartarus or strike him down where he stands?"
Celestia's eyes locked onto mine through my visor "Because Allmother Harmony herself couldn't stop the hellish creatures that will follow him, and he'll walk through Tartarus with a smile to come back and take revenge if we banish him."
"Nonsense. I will punish him for his crimes" Her horn glowed with black light as Celestia shouted at her, but it was too late. A beam of black light burst from her horn and shot straight at me.
The beam struck me right in the chest. Electricity began sparking around me as VEGA's voice in my ear spoke
"Argent Energy charge approaching unsafe levels. Argent Energy charge at over 500% Argent Energy levels approaching lethal levels. Argent Energy levels at over 5000% charge. Argent Energy levels exceeding eighteen petawatts. Venting Argent Energy now. "
A massive roar shook the castle as vicious spires of lightning arced from me to every single piece of metal in the chamber. Luckily enough, the only creature wearing metal was the dark alicorn and her battle armor. Her armor melted and pooled beneath her on the floor, her horn charred black and her eyes rolled into her head.
I stretched my arms out as lightning exploded from my fingertips. Anywhere the lightning struck was instantly consumed in arcing halos of energy or melted down into slag.
When the HUD in my helmet finally read that my Argent reserves were empty, I was standing in an empty throne room. Every bit of metal in the room had liquefied, all of the stones in the room glowed and oozed downwards and anything else in the room was ash.
Around one of the servant's doors popped Princess Celestia's head and around the other popped Lulu's. Celestia was snickering while Lulu said "If you say 'I told you so,' I will ensure that the chefs make no cake for the next thousand years." That shut Celestia up fast.
Author's Note
Praetor Suit Ability Unlocked: Overload
You are now able to overcharge your armor past 200% At any point in time, if you have more than 200% armor, you can dump all of your armor to overload your suit and gain the ability to briefly direct lightning at your targets
~~~
STARTING POINT, WHY YOU SO HARD
I know that the sisters should speak in olde english but i'm a little too lazy to write like that, plus it would have added like a week onto this chapter, so no "royal we" are going to appear. also i have no idea if the previous sentence is grammatically correct in the slightest.
I can't fully comprehend how much energy that is, but i do comprehend that it's enough to power a small planet
I apologize for the fallout equestria style of perk, but it's the only way i could think to signify an ability or upgrade without intrusive vega dialog or meta dialog from the doom slayer.
EDIT: errors pointed out by this confused dude who wasn't too confused to point out problems. thank you
With the throne room reduced to a glowing puddle of molten metal and stone, both the Lunar and Solar courts were delayed until the Royal Sisters could get a few architects to rebuild it. Just as well, The dining hall was much nicer for a conversation between royalty and their most trusted advisers about "The Enigma" as they referred to me. It was also much easier for me to eavesdrop on them, a fact made much easier since Celestia seemed to think that her translator spell had worn off.
"How is he mortal if he can't die, sister?"
"The Grey Mare may take him, but Harmony won't take him and Tartarus can't hold him."
"If he has done even a thousandth of what you said he has, Tartarus would be a kindness to him."
"Luna, please don't make me explain this again. He can't be held by any shackles or prison we have. If he turns against us, there's nothing that can stop him."
"If we can't execute him and we can't imprison him, what can we possibly do to protect our little ponies from him?"
"He might agree to fight for us. Starswirl is getting old; he can't lead The Eclipsed for much longer and The Enigma would be a good leader for them."
My head turned from staring at the portrait on the wall of a massive shining city that looked almost as though it was made of glass to staring at the royals. Celestia's smirk indicated to me that she was well aware I had been listening and that I had been played like a fiddle.
"Ah, so he can understand us. Then you heard my opinion. You are too dangerous to allow you to walk freely and there's no way for us to imprison you or execute you. I have no other option than to draft you into the Equestrian military. The Royal Guards are the peacekeepers of the nation and are trained to protect the citizens, obviously something you are... overqualified for. My sister's Shadow Bolts are exclusively pegasi, which you are obviously not. That only leaves The Eclipsed, the point of Equestria's blade. If you agree to join them, you will be placed underneath only three ponies: myself, Princess Luna and Archmage Starswirl."
The Princess's offer certainly caught me off guard. VEGA, what do you think about her offer?
"My power levels are insufficient for quantum level processing. Standard processing inefficient for temporal querying. "
With no way to answer anything other than yes or no, I had to carefully weigh my options, which essentially boiled down to I could either agree to their offer and have friends in high places or turn them down and always have to watch my back. Definitely one of the hardest choices I had ever made.
~~~
The princesses lead me to a small chamber hidden in the dungeons of the castle. The route to it was impossible to follow and wasn't helped in the slightest that the doors which at one point opened onto either a chamberpot room or a small kitchen depending on whether I pulled the doorknob with my left or right hand, and the time I had pulled a door open with one of my boots, it opened up to reveal my backside standing there. I picked up a small piece of stone on the floor then loosed the projectile at the me standing behind me. I slammed the door shut when I felt a rock hit me square in the back of the head and decided that I wasn't leading anymore.
Princess Luna lead us down a series of hallways that passed over each other, and at one point ran backwards along the same corridor even though the walls were smooth stone with no offshoots. She stopped before a massive stone door that looked to be carved from a mountain before knocking on the door three times and uttering "Starswirl, Starswirl, Starswirl." On her third utterance, the stone literally folded into itself into a cube and continued folding itself into a cube again and again.
Standing underneath the door was the strangest looking pony I had ever seen. His grey fur seemed to blend right into the stones of the dungeon while his night blue cloak and hat, both decorated with stars, stood out so vividly from the stone that it would be easy to assume that he was nothing more than a rack holding clothes. His eyes shifted between all the colors of the rainbow before settling on a snow white, the same as the magnificent beard that was currently combing the dust from itself.
"My Highnesses, a pleasure to meet your company yet again." He swept his hat along the ground in what I assumed was supposed to be a respectful bow until I realized that the ground where his hat had swept past had decayed instantly to dust which his beard somehow produced a small dustpan and brush and began sweeping.
"My sister and I have brought a new recruit for you. We would like you to examine him and see if he is acceptable to you."
The old stallion's head rose until he was staring me straight in the eyes, a feat more impressive since he was only half my height and his hooves stayed planted firmly on the ground. "Let's see what we got here young whippersnapper," the stallion cackled like a madman as his horn glowed and shifted through several shades of grey.
After nearly a minute of the stallion staring, he turned to address the princesses, every hint of humor gone from his voice. "You two do realize that this creature is followed by a miasma of destruction and trailed by the spirits of countless damned souls reaching out to him from the blackest graves and tombs in this or any world and that his mere presence invites ruin upon all in his wake, correct?"
"Ummm, no?"
An absolutely massive crack of lightning flashed, bathing the world in light as Starswirl spoke "His presence signals the coming of an ancient beast and the dawn of true power. After this great beast rises, the world will be left twisted and broken and all who breathe will know the meaning of eternal slumber." His head fell back onto his body, "But enough about my day, how has your days been going my princesses?"
The princesses argued back and forth for several minutes, during which I distinctly heard it uttered several times to "Banish him to Tartarus and hope for the best." Starswirl motioned for me to follow him as he walked back into his lab. As soon as my feet passed the threshold of his door, the massive stone sprung apart and blocked the door.
The lab was strange to say the least. wires hung from the ceiling connected to nothing, glass tubes dripped liquid back into the beakers they connected to, several tesla coils sat around arching electricity into other things and in one spot sat a floating cauldron with a small fire burning underneath it, the fire seemed to be freely burning on stone with no fuel.
"I'm sorry child, you have been thrust into a world you don't understand. Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts, and only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on six fronts, but unfortunately that's exactly what the princesses have done. You are our only hope in the coming months. You are the most powerful piece and unpredictable piece on our side of the board: the knight. Unfortunately you are not the most powerful piece on the board." His horn glowed and a massive sequence of chessboards appeared. Nine boards floated in the air over a tenth board. each board had easily a hundred rows and columns and the pieces on the board moved back and forth on their own.
"The future is as clear as glass to me, young one. The princesses want me to train you as one of my Eclipsed, but I cannot do that. I don't need to test you to see if you are loyal to the throne, any half-blind old fool can see that you live only to defend the weak and protect the innocent. I need you to defend the citizens of Equestria from the war that lies upon our borders. Six kings will lie broken at your feet and the seventh shall stand and the world will quake before him. As such, I have three things to give you before you sail. The first is an old friend of yours."
Starswirl stepped to the side and sitting behind him on the pillar I swear wasn't there ten seconds ago was my pistol, it's micro nuclear reactor glowed and buzzed. My hand closed upon the handle like two lovers reunited. I drew a bead on the first object that I saw, the cauldron. The bolt of pure energy ripped through the cauldron as a pool of viscous purple ooze fell to the floor.
"Oh Celestia, damn him to Tartarus" Starswirl swore as the purple ooze pulled itself together into a small slime with slightly darker eyes and then no eyes as my pistol bolted out a fully charged shot and splattered the slime everywhere. Starswirl ran over and tried to grab something out of the middle of the goo, but wasn't fast enough and all the goo dissolved before he could reach it.
He gave a huff before turning back to me, "The second gift I have for you is your choice of Celestia's or Luna's honor."
A pair of swords sprung from the ground in front of him. One of them was a thin golden blade, barely more than a rapier. As it's handguard, it had a series of rotating metal rings carved with glyphs set with what looked like a small sun in the middle of them. The rings would stop moving briefly before rotating with enough force that I'm positive it would rip someone's hands apart if they grabbed it.
The second blade appeared to be completely opposite to the first. where the first looked to be almost ceremonial in nature, the second looked like it had been created for war. Shadows danced across the blade as it seemed to absorb the light around it, the air around it must have been freezing cold judging by the steady stream of frost that crept out from it. The blade itself was a massive slab of purple metal adorned with what looked to be a bat for a hilt and a ridge along the back that looked perfect to snap another blade if the wielder managed to catch it.
My hand hesitated between the two conflicting blades before I grasped both of them. "The lighter one is called Dawnbreaker and the darker one is called Night's Edge. Judging by how you are holding them, I assume that you want both." My nodding head must have made my desire clear to him as he pulled a pair of manequines to us. Dawnbreaker speared one of the manequines through the head as Night's Edge slashed the other from head to hip. The speared manequine burst into flames as the slashed one froze and shattered. Both of the swords disappeared from my hands. "When you have need of either of the blades, you have but to call their names and they will aid you with their might. Onto the third gift now."
Another hooded pony fell down from the roof and landed on her hoofs. Her expression reminded me of the mare from the guard squad, an impression matched by the instant stream of speech. "Princess Luna and Princess Celestia said that I had been offered a position in the secret guards because she needs someone to keep an eye on you and neither could think of anypony else that would work and because I had lost my squad, I would have been stripped of command even if I was just following orders and you were suspicious, but they say I can't go back to Fillydelphia because I am listed as-"
My hand clamped her mouth shut to cease the tide of endless noise. I was reminded of an old proverb Silence might be golden but duct tape is silver.
"Anyways, your first mission is to go to the far east and assassinate the leader of the griffins. Good luck and have fun" His horn glowed and then we were standing in the throne room amidst dozens of petitioners to the throne, several royal guards and two surprised alicorns.
The female took this time to speak. "My name's Lilac Blossom but my friends call me Lilly and I'm supposed to go by the codename Stalker while we are partners."
Author's Note
yes, i realize it should be luna, starswirl and i, but it's spoken and that's how i imagine celestia would speak in that circumstance.
Now you're thinking with portals!
the door is a tesseract
I'm so sorry for the description of starswirl and his lab and essentially every piece of dialogue he has, but see if you can find all of the references.
Next chapter i promise will be a lot less talk and plot setup for later. Hopefully everyone likes it, or at least doesnt hate it.
EDIT: error pointed out by Shadow of Doubt . correction appreciated.
Ch 5 - The Journey of a Million Miles
"Oh look, the Diamond Dog Ambassador has arrived. Unfortunately that means my sister and I will need to postpone court until tomorrow" Luna bluffed her way through my unexpected and alien appearance.
Several of the nobles began bitching about how long they had been waiting in line and very swiftly, the throne room was a roar of voices screaming over each other thinking their problems were the most important. The guards tried so hard to get the nobles out, but the daft things just ignored them.
After close to twenty minutes of hearing their hollering, a secret door hidden in the wall slammed open and Starswirl sprinted out of it as massive billows of smoke swirled and curled around those in attendance almost as though it was sentient.
"NOT AGAIN STARSWIRL" shouted the princesses in sync as a massive explosion rocked the castle to it's foundations.
Great. As if it's not bad enough that the world looked like a cartoon, I got teamed with a loony.
I picked Lilly up and threw her over my shoulder and headed up to the train station. She fidgeted like she didn't want to be held, but I wasn't going to let her warp me again!
One of the trains was set to leave to "Grypohina" "in two hundred and nintey seven seconds." Honestly...
It was easy to find the train bound for the gryphon kingdom as it had a pair of wings painted on it. I kicked the door open, plopped Lilly down on the nearest flat surface I saw and proceeded to find something to occupy my time.
I held my hand out and thought "Sword, to me!" After an indeterminate amount of time, I heard a soft voice.
"If you ask nicely, i'm sure that she would help you." I realized how stupid I must have looked holding my hand out, but i did as she suggested. Lo and behold, sunlight shimmered across my hand before coalescing into Dawnbreaker. I nodded my head towards Lilly in a somewhat grudging sign of thanks before playing with Dawnbreaker. Lilly disappeared almost instantly after that leaving me with my own thoughts, not something I particularly enjoyed.
"VEGA, play some music. "
After several several seconds of calm music, oddly reminiscent of a lost era, all hell broke loose before a guttural voice growled: ♪RIP AND TEAR♪ This train ride wouldn't be so bad after all.
~~~
Several hours of incredible boredom coupled with a discovery of several somewhat massive stacks of canvas and long braided steel wire lead to the creation of a crude parachute and harness. Lilly had stumbled upon me making rough measurements and had the misfortune of asking if she could help.
It took very little time to retrofit the harness for an equine, and even less to coax her to follow me to the back door of the train.
I promptly tied the steel wire to my wrist, tucked Lilly and the parachute under one arm and climbed the ladder right next to the door. I sat on the roof of the train, hooked my feet through the ladder, set Lilly down and then threw the parachute into the air.
I closed my eyes and began counting. About 15 seconds after I started counting, I heard a scream followed by a whoosh and a sharp yank on my wrist that nearly tore my arm out of the socket.
My eyes followed the cable up to my new favorite kite as she flew through the air, no doubt, absolutely terrified.
~~~
Several hours later, we were approaching a train station so I reeled in my kite. As soon as she touched to iron, she curled into a shivering ball of fur. I scooped her up and headed to the front of the train where a few griffons were pushing in to search the train, possibly for contraband, stowaways or maybe even armor clad humans...
Author's Note
A wild update appears...
sorry that this update took so long for so little. there was almost no way for me to make travel seem entertaining, but i wanted to write a travel chapter. next chapter will be much more fun.
Ch 6 -Welcome to Gryphonia
The griffons saw me staring at them and squawked something unintelligible at me while angling their spears towards me, so I cocked my head to the side and flipped the birds the bird. I doubt they understood the significance of the gesture, but the intention behind it was unmistakable, as evidenced by the charge from the closer one.
I calmly waited until the griffon and his spear were within striking distance, then darted my hand towards the spear like I would if i were trying to catch salmon from a river. The griffon kept running, but the spear stopped. He impaled himself through the right side of his chest and stood there for several seconds staring at me with not a single sound before i rammed the spear backwards through his chest, broke the head of the spear off and stabbed him through the right eye. He dropped without a sound.
The dull thunk of my boots on the floor contrasted with the remaining griffon, who was currently squawking as loud as he possibly could. I drew my pistol and began charging a shot, but before I could attain a full charge, a shadow roughly the size of my hand raced between my legs and up to the griffon. He jumped out of a window in an attempt to evade it.
The shadow tore open and writhing steel cables burst from it to snare the griffon faster than the eye could see. A puff of feathers exploded from the griffon as the cables pulled him back. His caws of fear became squeals of pain as the cables squeezed tighter.
His eyes met mine, and I swear even with his alien features, I read his beak "Kill me."
Before I could decide to oblige his request, the cables propelled him into the ceiling hard enough to jostle the train and then slammed him to the ground with the force to dent the steel floor. The spray of blood tinged my visor red, but nowhere near red enough to block out the cables tearing him to shreds and pulling the pieces into the shadow leaving nothing behind but red mist and small bits of viscera.
My brain temporarily shut down when Lilly pulled herself out of the shadow hole with nary a drop of blood on her.
"What? Wasn't that what I was supposed to do or were we going to interrogate him?"
I pointed out the window at around a dozen gryphons flapping around the train and watching us like hawks. A wizened old grey griffon stepped forward and hooted something that caused the others to settle to the ground and angle their spears towards the ground, a gesture I recognized as a symbol of submission or possibly respect.
The old griffon spoke "No harm intend. Ponee 'nd 'bom'nation will follow." He turned towards a squat fort made of stone just barely visible above the thatched roofs of the various wooden homes.
I considered slaughtering each one of them, and began putting a plan together before a squeal of pain made my mind up for me. one of the gryphons who wore little more than leather straps holding various knives had grabbed Lilly and was holding a wicked looking knife to her throat.
"If no follow, trophy for huntars."
I couldn't let my partner get hurt, and no way could I take them down fast enough, I followed the old rooster.
~~~
This isn't THAT bad. The chains are hung pretty high, but that just means they are good for working out, or they would be if they could support me.
The dungeon of the castle wasn't too bad. A small leak dripped down somewhere I couldn't see and a fat old feather-head sat whistling through his beak somehow watching me. The wall I had been chained to seemed like it was designed for a smaller creature than myself, due to the chains being somewhat loose.
I patiently waited until Paulie the Parrot left to take a latrine break before putting my boots to the wall and firing my Delta Vs. With a creak of metal and a grind of stone, I discovered something absolutely ridiculous.
The damn Dodos didn't bother using mortar on the dungeon walls. Chained to each wrist was a stone clocking in at around 20 pounds .
The bars were too strong to break, as evidenced by a quick yank and i didn't want to make a lot of noise and draw every single one to me, so I did the only sensible thing I could. I climbed up the bars, braced my back on the ceiling and my boots on the wall directly above the door and waited .
A soft ticking of claws was my first indication that he was back followed by a somewhat puzzled squawk and a jangling of keys.
As soon as Toucan Sam popped his head in to check on me, , I smashed his skull with my stones in a way reminiscent of a slaughtered soldier slain by sinful swine. Blood and powdered stone splattered in a perfect hemicircle along the ceiling, the floor and the far wall.
I dropped to the ground and searched the bird, on his hip was a small ring of keys. None of them fit the chains on my wrists, which were now lacking the chunks of wall but no less attached to my arms. My boots ground into the body of the griffin, wet squelching sounds emitted from the now putrefying, pleasantly pulverized corpse as I stepped on it to my freedom.
Author's Note
hemicircle isn't a word but it sounds right for the description
original title of this chapter was "Regicide" but then changed to "Welcome to Gryphonia - Honor of a King" as a way to mark an incredibly significant action to happen in what would be this chapter and changed just to "Welcome to Gryphonia" because i didn't want to change my title format.
I put together some rough ideas for how future chapters will play out, so hopefully they won't take anywhere near as long to get out. as well, i started reading Tallest Brony's Man of War. it's pretty decent and will provide something good to read while i try to get my shit together for a new chapter.