Cost of the Crown (Heralds May Die)

Episode 5: Origin of the Nightbringers

Ha ha ha...I hope you don’t believe that I simply miscounted…

Numdust’s fortress was vaporized from the explosion and a tremendous noise echoed throughout the land as the entire palace was consumed by energy of both the light and the dark. Though Leo had managed to escape the explosion’s outer wave in his haste, he was still hit by the blast wave, causing him to fly through the air. Now that Numdust was dead, the dark wall that had barred the Jaegers’ army from progressing forward earlier vanished, leaving the small fissure in the ground open. Leo’s men were already stunned upon hearing the sound of the turbulent explosion, so one could only imagine how flabbergasted they were upon seeing their captain flying towards them at full speed and being stopped by landing in the fissure, stuck in the small space between the split areas of the shallow ground.

“Sir!” the soldiers shouted in concern as some of them came over to pull their commander out of the fissure. “Are you alright?”

Leo did not even look up at his men as they spoke to him and pulled him up to stand on the ground, overwhelmed with guilt and sadness.

“No…” he replied. “Gordon and Ricard have fallen…”

Leo’s men froze in shock and dismay.

“How...exactly did they go?” the crestfallen soldiers standing next to Leo asked. “Was it because they were caught in the explosion or...did Numdust kill them beforehand?”

The memory of stabbing Ricard in the head flashed through Leo’s mind and filled him with unease and shame.

“...It’s the latter.” Leo replied, unable to tell his men the full truth.

“Then this is the news we shall report to the princess.” one of the men next to Leo said solemnly as he and another herald began walking away.

“Captain…” another herald standing next to Leo said in a despondent tone of voice as he took off his helmet in respect. “You have the greatest of all our sympathies, losing two of your most trusted men and dearest friends this day. If it is alright with you, may we please take this moment to offer them a silent prayer?”

“Of course.” Leo replied.

Though the royal guard had called the prayer silent as he and all the heralds there bowed their heads, Leo was anything but silent in his mind as he knelt his head…

“How did this happen?” he thought. “I ask myself this, even as someone who has been trained to mentally prepare for every possibility, even the worst-case scenario. And yet...I never truly believed that a day like this would come. A day where I would not only lose my two closest comrades right after such a “glorious” victory on the battlefield...but would also murder one of them…”

“...If you can hear my voice Ricard...please know that I could never apologize to you enough for what I have done today…”

………….

“Don’t worry...I have already forgiven you...”

Ricard’s soul said those words, his ghost floating in the air alongside the ghost of Gordon.

“Who are you talking to?” Dante asked.

“He’s talking to his friend, Leo.” Trish told Dante. “Ghosts can feel the spiritual troubles of the ones responsible for their deaths.”

“How did you know?” Ricard asked. “Are you a ghost whisperer?”

“Yes,” replied Trish, “each of us Nightbringers possesses a unique supernatural sensory ability. Vergil’s is to read deep into the auras of others, mine is to communicate with ghosts on a higher level, and Dante’s…”

“Ah ha ha…” Dante laughed nervously. “Please Trish, I’d prefer that to not be discussed openly…”

Trish listened to Dante out of respect and didn’t continue, but Gordon and Ricard were left curious.

“Now that I think about it…” Gordon thought to himself. “I’ve never really questioned exactly where they got their powers from…”

Ricard had a similar thought, but his attention on said matter was quickly diverted by the familiar royal guard standing by the Nightbringers catching his eye.

“Vincent?!” Ricard exclaimed in surprise.

“Huh?” Gordon said, confused until he looked over at Vincent. “Vin...holy crap, it is him!”

Vincent winced, wearing a guilty look on his face.

“Hold on,” said Gordon, “now that Numdust is dead, are you no longer…”

“Hey, don’t worry.” Dante intervened. “He’s cool.”

“We fought with him earlier,” explained Vergil, “but that matters not now. What matters now is that he is our ally.”

“How did you guys meet?” Ricard asked.

“Akame introduced him to us as part of a scheme to test us, we can only assume.” Trish replied with disappointment on her face. “It brought us all displeasure to find that she had done to him the same thing she had done to us many years ago, while we were still children…”

With those words, the memory of seeing the glass portrait of Akame with the Nightbringers as children was brought back to Gordon and Ricard.

“What did she do to you three and him?” Gordon asked.

“She killed us…” Trish replied, wearing a dark scowl. “She then made us one with the eternal darkness to serve her forever…”

“WHAT?!” Gordon and Ricard both yelled.

“Like you two,” chimed in Vergil, “we’re “dead”. However, we’re not ghosts. We’re creatures of the shadows.”

“.....” Gordon and Ricard were both silent.

“Yeah…” Dante said, rubbing the back of his hair. “I think we need to explain it to you from the beginning. Otherwise, it’s just going to sound like we’re speaking Swahili.”

Meanwhile...

Above the Nightbringers in the sky, the chariot that had flown the Jaegers to the battlefield was heading back to Princess Celestia’s castle. Leo, the only one in the chariot, was staring down at the floor, looking as lonely and miserable as ever.

“If my heart wasn’t so cold, I’d be crying right now…” he told himself in thought. “What does it matter if there really wasn’t anything I could’ve done differently...it doesn’t change the fact that I’m never going to see them ever again…”

Ha ha ha...I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear then that you’re wrong. At least for a short while…

“What?!” Leo exclaimed in his mind. “That voice...Akame?!”

Don’t look out the window now, unless you want to spoil the surprise…

Ignoring Akame, Leo looked outside the window to his left and saw that below him, were the ghosts of Gordon and Ricard talking to the Nightbringers and Vincent. Slack-jawed, he fell back on his seat in literal disbelief.

“This...this has to be fake…” he said to himself in his mind. “I have to be hallucinating. I have to just be hearing voices and seeing things from the guilt that’s assaulting my mind…”

No, nada, and nope. This is no trick of your brain. Don’t believe me? Then how about a sneak peek of what’s going to happen to you tonight…

It was then that from behind Leo, a hoof belonging to Akame’s pony form came out from Leo’s shadow and covered his mouth. Leo was frightened as he felt another hoof reaching inside of him from the back. It was as if an energy of pure evil was entering him...

“MMPH!” Leo cried, his cry being muffled. “MMPH!”

It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Look…

The hoof that had muffled Leo’s cries then took its hold off Leo’s mouth as the hoof that had reached inside of him retracted. Leo then got up and sat in his seat normally, relieved.

“Phew…” he said to himself. “That scared the shit out of me…”

Before long, he returned to his regular musing.

“Hallucination or not…” he thought, growing calmer. “It’s becoming more difficult to doubt that there isn’t more to this than meets the eye. I wonder if-HRRP!”

Leo had suddenly been interrupted by a terrible feeling welling in his stomach, followed by an unfamiliar sensation climbing up his throat. Whatever was scaling his throat soon entered his mouth and eventually…

*thump*

Leo fell to the floor...the thing that had been in his mouth was now hovering in the air…

Just wanted to make up for the surprise that you spoiled. Now come with me...I think you need to hear what Dante’s about to say…

Dante had begun recounting what he, Trish, and Vergil had experienced ten years ago, when they were only children no older than seven. Somehow, Leo was able to actually witness what the Nightbringers had gone through in the past, it appearing to him in the form of a flashback…

Dante, Trish, and Vergil, as kids, were sitting in what looked like a nursery room. They all looked unnerved as they sat against the wall, watching a small crowd of other children playing. From the crowd, a purple-haired colt with a lavender mane noticed the Nightbringers sitting by themselves looking worried. Curious, he trotted over to them.

“What’s eating you guys?” the colt asked.

“Fear and despair.” Vergil replied bluntly.

The colt chuckled in response, not seeing how they could be so blue.

“You’re funny.” he told them. “This is the happiest I’ve been since my mommy and daddy passed away. I used to be really sad, thinking that was the end. But just knowing now that my favorite princess cares about me is enough to make me happy again!”

The Nightbringers froze, completely unsettled. They all looked more frightened than ever, especially Dante, who was convulsing from the mental torment he was struggling to cope with. Eventually, he could no longer bear it and let out a deafening scream…

“AAARRRAAAGGGHHH!”

The scream got the attention of all the kids, who were now staring at the Nightbringers, dumbfounded. It also alerted the attention of Princess Celestia and Akame, both of whom had been talking in the other room, which resembled a school classroom. Celestia had a look of great discomfort on her face, while Akame had one of great excitement.

“What’s eating you?” she asked Celestia sinisterly. “You should be as happy as I am right now. It’s their pain, your gain.”

Celestia turned her head away and shut her eyes, crying. She then cast a teleportation spell on herself to go straight back to her castle in Canterlot.

“You make this too easy…” Akame said to herself, closing her eyes and putting her hoof to her face as she shook her head and looked over at a surveillance camera that was hanging above.

Akame then exited the room and entered the nursery room. As soon as she saw the confused faces of all the children, she began to laugh.

“What’s all the screaming about?...” she asked them. “...is the question you think I’m going to ask. But I’m afraid not. I know exactly what all the screaming is about. One of the little ones I gave a sneak preview for what’s in store just couldn’t bottle it all up anymore.”

“W-what’s going on?” the purple-haired colt asked. “Where’s Princess Celestia?”

“Celestia didn’t like the heat, so she left the kitchen.” Akame replied as she walked through the room, the children stepping away to give her space. “And who can blame her…”

Akame had an evil sneer on her face when she reached the door that was the entrance to the building they were in.

“After all, we’re in the realm of the flames that burn eternal…” Akame said sinisterly as she opened the door with her magic. Looking outside, the children gasped in horror as they saw nothing but pure black darkness. Soon, the only light that came into view was a pair of glowing, green eyes resting in the head of a creature made of pure shadow that resembled King Sombra. As the creature peered its head into the nursery room ever so slowly, another light soon came into view as the creature opened its mouth. As the aghast children were now convulsing in terror, Akame finally finished her sentence…

“...hell.”

And with that, the creature breathed a breath of purple fire on all the children. Akame laughed a wicked guffaw, even as some of the fire got on her. Being a demon god, it did not phase her. But the children screamed and writhed in agony as they felt their flesh burn and melt and their blood turn to steam. Though all of them were mortified, the least shocked out of all of them were the Nightbringers and the most shocked was the purple-haired colt.

“We should’ve known better after we were abandoned…” the Nightbringers thought. “Who would ever care for us again?”

“I loved you…” the colt said, thinking of Celestia. “I would’ve loved you as if you were my own mother...but you left us here to burn to death...I HATE YOU!!!”

Soon, all of the children’s bodies were naught but ash. The blood of theirs that had turned to steam then began to gather together, floating in the air ominously, transforming into dark energy.

“As you come together,” said Akame, “all as one in the darkness, may you then be reborn by your own blood and walk this realm of eternal torture as the spawn of the Dark One.”

The dark energy then began to divide, each part of it descending to the ground and reforming all of the children. Looking at themselves, the children couldn’t believe their eyes.

“We’re alive?!” they shouted. “But we were…”

“Yes, you were indeed dead.” Akame explained. “In fact, all of you are still “dead” by the world’s definition…”

“What?!” the children apart from the purple-haired colt and the Nightbringers started shouting, not understanding what she meant. “You’re lying! If we’re dead, that means we should be in heaven!”

Akame and the Sombra-like creature then looked at each other and laughed.

“You’re not going to heaven…” Akame said evilly. “...not now, or ever…”

“WWWHHHAAATTT?!” the children shrieked.

“Both Celestia and I decided that this would be where you would go after you died…” Akame explained to them, looking upon them with her most unpleasant smirk. “Your souls belong to me, and I am going to torture them...”

“NO!” the children shouted. “YOU LIAR! PRINCESS CELESTIA WOULD NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN!”

“You seem awfully confident in your proclamation…” Akame responded. “Very well then. Ryu, would you please move aside?”

Ryu, the Sombra-like creature then moved aside to unblock the entrance, which showed that the outside was still pure black darkness.

“If this is all just some big joke,” said Akame, “surely Celestia must still be here somewhere. Whether it’s inside this building...or out there…”

The children were now shuddering just from gazing out at the pitch-black darkness and imagining what would happen if they were to get lost in there…

“Yeah, not feeling so sure about yourselves now, are you?” Akame taunted them. “I’ll tell you straight up that if just this is enough to scare you, you’re in for a fun ride. There’s no escaping me. Not even if you were to die, because death would only lead you straight back here. I’m going to torture you all, and that’s that...”

Some of the children were now beginning to fall to the floor, crying. The purple-haired colt was just staring dumbfoundedly at Akame and Ryu at this point, completely zoned out and destitute. The Nightbringers, by contrast, were shooting glares of fury at Akame, unable to tolerate any more of this.

“Then bring it, bitch!” Trish shouted, pointing a hoof at her. “You’re not scary or fun!”

“Thanks for telling us that there’s no escape…” Vergil said. “It will now be easier for us to grow accustomed to this place…”

“Do you honestly think we buy your bluff?” Dante told her. “What do we have to fear now that we know you’re all we have to fear? I thought we’d at least meet the devil in hell, but all we get is you, one of his small-time subordinates! Ha!”

In response, Akame and all the children just stared at the Nightbringers. Soon, Akame, still smiling, slowly put her front hooves together and started slowly clapping…

“You kids are so cute.” Akame said in a sickly sweet tone. “I’m not even mad. In fact, I’m quite happy…”

“Huh?” the Nightbringers went, confused.

“This time spent torturing you all would be too boring…” Akame replied in a tone that gave them great discomfort. “...without a trio of troublemakers.”

“...” the Nightbringers were still puzzled.

“It means I like you three.” Akame explained. “Getting children to obey you when you’re in a position like mine is child’s play. I’m fortunate to even be hearing any sass.”

“So...what’s the big picture?” Dante asked, still not understanding. “Does this mean we’ll be getting special treatment? If that’s the case, forget it. We wouldn’t want to be your pets after looking at that thing.”

Ryu growled as Dante gestured to him.

“Ha ha ha…” Akame laughed. “You misunderstand my idea of ‘special treatment’. The way I plan to pamper you three is by putting each of you through your own unique session of torture. An accelerated school program for gifted children of the dark.”

“Is that all?” Trish retorted.

Just then, a hole opened up beneath Trish and she fell through it.

“AAAIIIEEE!!!” she screamed as the hole closed up behind her.

“Yes.” Akame replied bluntly as everyone in the class was now terrified, with the exception of the purple-haired colt, who was still just staring at Akame blankly… “I hope the Pit of Lost Souls is scary and fun enough for you…”

Akame then levitated Vergil with her magic and brought him over to Ryu.

“Dinner time, Ryu…” she told her pet as he happily opened his mouth.

Looking at a quivering Vergil, she told him…

“I hope for my pet’s sake you get settled in quickly…”

She then tossed him inside Ryu’s mouth and the shadow monster promptly swallowed him. Finally, she turned to Dante, who was sweating and shaking.

“And then one remained…” she said in a foreboding manner as she trotted over to him. “I heard you were disappointed that you were stuck with me, not getting to meet the devil…”

Dante gulped as Akame leaned her head over his shoulder and in his ear, she whispered…

“How silly. After all, you’ve met him plenty of times already…”

Akame then lit up her horn and cast a spell that teleported her and Dante to…

“AAAGGGHHH!” Dante cried, trying to block out the memory as the flashback abruptly ended. “NO! THAT WASN’T REAL! THAT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN HIM!”

Ha ha, oops. I almost forgot that what I showed him then is better left unsaid. Not just the true identity of the devil, but some fun facts about this small world that we live in. Speaking of unsaid, let’s view the remainder of this story from what Dante has to say…

Trish, Vergil, and Vincent were trying to calm Dante down while Gordon and Ricard looked upon them with looks of sadness, feeling sickened.

“This is some of the most horrible shit I’ve ever heard.” Gordon said despondently. “And to think what I went through as a kid was bad…”

“What Akame did to you was unpardonable in every sense of the word…” Ricard remarked, feeling very disappointed in not just her, but Celestia. “But did Celestia really know about this and do nothing to stop it?”

“No…” Trish replied. “It wasn’t just that she was remiss.”

“She and Akame-” Vergil was about to explain before he was interrupted by Dante.

“Please guys…” Dante told them. “I survived going through what I did, I can easily survive talking about it. Better me than you have to bring this shit back up…”

“...” Trish and Vergil were silent as they looked upon their comrade sympathetically.

“Back to what I was saying…” Dante continued where he had left off. “As a year came to pass after Akame began torturing us, a special power was fully awakened inside each of us three. The time Trish spent with all of the lost souls gave her the opportunity to learn how to communicate with them on a grander level. Being inside of a devil taught Vergil how to concentrate even in the most hellish of environments, and through meditating and taking a devil’s shadow power into himself, his ability for sensing the auras of devils was heightened. As for me...let’s just say that I became far more powerful than I ever dreamed of being after being thrown off of Devil’s Peak again and again…”

An image of lightning striking flashed through Dante’s mind as he said that, causing him to shudder.

“So once our powers had been invoked, Akame summoned us back to the building she now called “Hell’s Orphanage”.” Dante said. “There, we met all of the children who had died with us that day. Like us, they had been put through terrible pain that had led them to discover greater strength. To our surprise, it was not with disdain that the children looked upon Akame now, but with admiration. We were mystified and disturbed as Akame called both us and the rest of the children into a classroom and started expressing pleasure with how well the class had “performed”...”

“Performed?” Ricard asked.

“In her words,” replied Dante, “not mine, the whole thing was a test that everyone in the class was required to pass. A test designed to transform children into unkillable super-soldiers for the Equestrian army.”

“But why children?” Gordon asked. “Why force someone to endure something that horrible as a kid especially?”

“The mentality behind it was that the younger they were when they put heated screws inside of them, locked them in burning iron maidens, and gave them lava baths the more resilient they’d be when we grew up.” Dante explained with a disgruntled frown. “According to Akame, it only took the class two months for their cries of agony to wane, and only three more months after that for them to not scream at all and purport that they were enjoying the torture. She started giving a shout-out to us, calling us her “honor students” for enduring the worst kind of torture, a year spent alone in darkness without her, while we were just sitting there thinking to ourselves, “What the fuck is going on?”. Even though most of the kids looked happy, the cheery atmosphere of the classroom soon faded when Akame began talking about the final exam, a test we actually could fail. And the punishment for failing it...would be that we wouldn’t get to see Princess Celestia.”

“So this is where Princess Celestia comes into all of this…” Ricard thought.

“Akame laughed as she saw so many of us frown upon hearing what she said,” said Dante, “even with the possibility that the reason Celestia suddenly disappeared and never came to visit us was because she had been forced into all of it. She addressed that she wanted to dispel any hope that this was the case by playing us a video taken from the classroom’s surveillance camera on the day Celestia vanished. In it, we saw that Celestia had not only willingly allowed Akame to do to us what she did, but was also told by Akame that she was allowed to come visit us whenever she wanted as part of their agreement.”

“WHAT?!” Gordon, Ricard, and Vincent all yelled.

“I’m just telling you what happened.” Dante said in response. “After that, was the final exam. Each and every one of us had to enter a pact with the Lord of Death and accept a demon inside of ourselves that we had to control. If we succeeded, we would be reborn with an immortal, part-devil, part-pony body. If we failed, we would transform into a full devil. Out of all of us, the only one who failed was…”

“...the purple-haired one.” Akame abruptly finished his sentence. “Or as we all know him now, Numdust.”

“Akame!” everyone yelled as they turned to see Akame behind them, smiling as always.

“Come now…” Akame said in a foreboding tone as her horn lit up, with her preparing to cast a teleportation spell. “Enough has been said. I want us to get back to the castle before he does…”

Soon, they all vanished as they were teleported inside of Celestia’s throne room.

I want to see the look on his face when he sees Vincent and his friends in person. He’ll be so shocked his soul might jump out of his body…

Inside of the Jaegers’ carriage, which eventually arrived at Celestia’s palace, Leo regained consciousness as he felt something return to him…

...again.