In the Land of Mordor Where the Shadows Lie
“Feredir, how much further? My feet are killing me!”
The group of nine’s scout and only experienced outdoorsman momentarily pulled down his black hood so he could look over his shoulder at one of his group’s three female members, trailing his steps up the shuddering volcano. “Maybe… ten, fifteen minutes? We’re almost to the crater.”
“Well-named art thou, Sára! For thou art bitter, indeed,” sneered the man beside her. “Wouldst thou prefer to return to the foot of the mountain, and there await the mercy of Arien?”
She punched him in the arm. “Cut it out, Morion. You bitched about the cost of our plane tickets, for Eru’s sake! And stop talking like that! It’s cool at Comic-Con, but when you do it all the time, it’s just annoying.”
“Thou wouldst be well-advised to take this endeavor more seriously! And speak not the name of Eru. ’Tis the Dark Lord whom we serve, and whose favor we seek.”
“Aragûl! Be a dear and beat up my brother again, would you?”
The group’s leader pushed his way between them. “Shut up, both of you. Save your breath for the summoning. I doubt it’ll be easy to bring about Dagor Dagorath.”
“Umm, we aren’t actually attempting to do that,” piped up a squeaky voice from the back of the group. “We’re trying to bring forth Sauron, not Morgoth. Plus, we want the Dark Lord to actually win.”
“Do you realize how annoying you are, Tirinvó?” Aragûl shot back. “It’s called poetic license. The sun and moon being darkened, the Dark Lord’s return, a battle at the end of the world – other than those things you said, it all fits perfectly!”
“That’s not what poetic license is at all.”
A slap on the back from his hulking companion nearly knocked Tirinvó over. “You’re such a nerd, you know that?”
“Says the guy dressed as a Nazgûl.”
“We’re all dressed as Nazgûl.”
“Tulco… you just proved my point for me.”
“Oh. Well… You’re just jealous because you can’t date anyone as hot as Írimë!”
“What? That doesn’t even make any –! Oh, never mind. She didn’t even come up with an original name,” Tirinvó muttered.
Írimë chuckled, earning herself a glare from the last female member of the group. “How can any of you think about dating? It’s the end of the entire fucking world! I’m pretty sure we’re the last nine people alive!”
“Oh, Túrantë. You’re not fooling anyone. We all know you’ve been going down hard on Arnarmo.”
“What?! No, I haven’t!”
“Then why do you two spend so much time alone together?” Írimë taunted.
“Maybe,” the thin man spoke up, “it’s because we’re the only two people in this group who aren’t totally nuts.”
Aragûl laughed grimly. “Face it, Arnarmo. We’re the last human beings on Earth, and what are we doing with our precious final moments? Marching up the side of an active volcano to call on a fictional devil expy with a chant that isn’t even a summoning ritual while dressed in black cloaks and carrying swords. We’re all crazy.”
Arnarmo fixed him with a dead gaze. “Frankly, at this point, that actually sounds like one of the better ways we could go out.”
They fell silent for the rest of the hike, reminiscing about all the friends they’d lost, turned from gleefully murderous warriors of darkness to disgustingly nice servants of the light. At least, they were as silent as a bunch of exhausted, plate-armored university students clambering up a mountain could be. In other words, they were a clanking, swearing, panting mess.
Feredir took another step forwards, then another, and another. With his next footfall, he frowned. He was supposed to be going up, not down. He stood there, wondering for a few seconds how he had gotten turned around. Then it dawned on him, and he threw up his arms in triumph. “Ta-da! The mouth of Mount Doom!”
With perfect dramatic timing, the volcano erupted, silhouetting him against the lava’s fiery glow. He turned to Aragûl. “Come! Cast it into the fire!”
“Not yet, you dummy. We’ve got to say the poem first.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Ugh.”
The nine humans lined up on the rim of the volcano. Normally, being that close to an eruption would burn a person alive. But since this is a story, they just got sweaty and uncomfortable.
“Alright, everyone! Say the dark words with me and summon our master! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhta–”
What are you doing?! This is a Lord of the Rings crossover, not a Lovecraft Mythos one!
“Sorry. Let’s try that again. Ahem. Alright, everyone! Say the dark words with me and summon our master! Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!”
With that, Aragûl pulled a golden ring out from under his cloak and threw it into the cloud of ash that was rising from the crater. Immediately, a giant, black-armored right hand with a much larger ring upon it thrust out of the cloud, followed by the towering Dark Lord.
Aragûl scratched his head. “Huh. I didn’t actually expect that to work.”
“Well, of course it did,” Tirinvó deadpanned. “It’s the only Black Speech we know. If it didn’t work, then we wouldn’t have a plot!”
“Hehe. You said ‘plot.’”
“Oh, fuck off, grasshopper.”
“When’d this story get so disjointed and full of dumb references?”
“Probably when the author opened the third can of beer. I feel sorry for his liver.”
Nine fell beasts swooped out of the cloud, and the Nazgûl mounted up, ready to take the fight to Celestia.
Celestia looked out over her army, preparing to move in and ponify the last nine of the evil humans. They hadn’t even tried to pretend that they weren’t evil, what with their wearing black cloaks and talking about a Dark Lord. Still, she was infinitely merciful, and she was willing to give even those twisted monsters happy lives as perfect little ponies under her totalitarian, absolutely benevolent regime.
She smiled down at her faithful Mengele, Twilight Sparkle. It was Twilight who had developed the ponification serum three years ago, making the purification of humanity possible. The “potion,” as it was often called, was her greatest success. Regrettably, ten thousand humans had died during the testing phase, but that was a small price to pay for the sake of all of humanity’s billions.
The volcano’s sudden eruption shook her out of her reminiscing.
Whoops. Guess I should’ve given the order sooner. Not the best way to end things, but at least it’s over now. Humanity’s gone and the Earth’s been cleansed! Huzzah! Now I can go back to having totally consensual sex with everypony! Because that’s what good rulers do.
Suddenly, weird flying things came from the volcano, and on them – were those humans! It looked like they had survived, after all. Yay! Once they were converted, she would have more ponies to play with!
The pegasi took off and threw their potion bottles, covering the humans in their sticky, sweet-smelling fluid. But somehow, they stayed human, and their animals began eating ponies out of the sky.
That’s no fair! Only I’m allowed to eat out ponies in the sky!
No, not… ah, fuck it. I’ve only got myself to blame. I am the one writing you, after all. Probably doesn’t say good things about my mental state.
“This is inconceivable!” Twilight exclaimed. “The prophecy just says the Witch-King won’t be defeated by a man, but we aren’t humans and there are some mares out there! They should have been converted!”
The Lord of the Nazgûl landed his steed in front of her. “Actually, that prophecy was eventually fulfilled because Merry stabbed him with a barrow-blade, which was specifically designed to break the spell of immortality on the Nazgûl. It always pissed me off that that part was left out of the movie, and it got turned into some stupid girl-power thing instead. Sure, women deserve their chance to shine, but not at the cost of a good story.” And then his fell beast ate her.
The pony army was quickly driven back to the barrier and behind it. If they couldn’t defeat these humans, they’d just wait for the Barrier to take care of them. Then a tenth human arrived. Standing twenty feet tall, he was much bigger than any other human she had ever seen, was dressed in black armor covered in spikes and a black cape, and carried a huge mace in his hand. He paused before the Barrier, stared at it for a while…
… then walked straight through it. Inconceivable! No human should be able to get through my Barrier and taint my beautiful Equestria!
With a few swings of his mace, the giant human cleared a wide path through the ponies. Filled with righteous fury, Celestia charged this monster, peppering him with bolts of sun energy. Another swing of the mace sent her flying, and she landed flat on her back. Her head cleared just in time to see him reach down and pick her up. She squirmed in his grip. “No! You can’t do this! You’re just a human! And I… am a goddess!”
The human drew her closer to his helmet, and she saw red eyes beneath. For a few long moments, he just glared at her. And then the Dark Lord spoke.
“I ain’t no human, bitch! And you ain’t no fuckin’ Vala!”
With that, he tossed her back on the ground and stomped on her head, breaking it like Narsil.
Darkness now falls upon all of Equestria. Death and ruin are all that shall remain, for the Dark Lord’s cruelty will know no limits, and in the end all shall be destroyed. For now the darkness has covered all living things, and it has claimed us all.
