Death Dealer

Unexpected Alliance

Night crept over Canterlot as Celestia retired her sun, and made way for her sister's beautiful night. As the lunar princess stood atop a balcony with her hands on the railing, she gazed over the land. Luna then stretched her midnight blue wings and ran a hand through her flowing blue hair that twinkled with celestial patterns. Though the breeze felt nice, she had night court to attend to now. As she turned back into her chambers and headed for the throne room, a shadow moved in the gardens below.

The shadow crept it's way past patrolling guards who held torches, keeping just out of the light's flickering reach. As the shadow came upon a statue, it let go of the magical weaves that had obscured its form. The tall figure of the lovely witch Chrysalis came into view. She was slender and wore a tattered black dress, her eyes glowed a malevolent shade of green in the night, and her insectile wings fluttered briefly in anticipation as she licked her fangs. Before her was the petrified form of the mad mage Discord. The mage was frozen with a look of utter disbelief on his face, his arms held before as he stared at his hands while they had turned to stone.

"hmmhmmhmm" Chrysalis chuckled at the mage's expression. As much as she loved seeing someone in such torment, she needed him. Lifting a hand to the statue's face, she procured a needle with the other. Uttering a few dark syllables she enchanted the needle with spell breaking qualities.

With one glance over her shoulder to make sure the guards were not yet onto her, Chrysalis plunged the enchanted needle into the chest of the statue. The needle slid in effortlessly, and the stone began to fracture. Cracks spread out from the needle, and chunks began to fall off, revealing a multi colored robe. As the cracks spread to the face of the statue, a deep laugh echoed through the garden.

The laugh turned into a cackle of pure insanity as the mage wrenched his arms free of the stone surrounding them. Chrysalis abruptly flung a hand over Discord's mouth to silence him. Discord only then seemed to take in the slender female before him, he quirked an eyebrow at her, wondering who in their right mind would have freed him.

"Shh! we need to get out of here, lest the guards find us and alert Celestia before you are back to full strength." Chrysalis hissed at Discord.

Taking the witch's hand from his mouth Discord smiled warmly and said, "Ooh, a fellow practitioner of the dark arts? We will have so much fun together!"

As Discord spoke his eyes darted about, changing colors at random as he took in the scenery around him.

"The gardens again? I swear, Celly never learns her lesson..." Discord chuckled brightly.

Chrysalis did not like how the mad mage was acting, but she needed his strength if she was going to oppose Celestia again without her army. Grasping Discord's shoulder to regain his attention Chrysalis met his aloof eyes with her own fierce green ones.

"We need to get out of here, can you manage that without alerting the entirety of Canterlot?" Chrysalis said, keeping her glare firm.

"Though I do not see any fun in that, I guess i can humor you as thanks for letting me out." Discord raised a hand and smiled. Snapping his fingers, the two figures disappeared in a puff of smoke, only leaving behind the shattered remnants of stone that was Discord's prison.

Twilight Sparkle was observing the ruins of her mentor's old castle. The young sorceress had read a story of her mentor Celestia's earlier pursuits. But she could not find anything that went very far in depth that dated before Nightmare Moon conflict. Twilight hoped to find some older tomes or artwork that would tell of some of the stories that the history books had forgotten. If she could find what to ask, Celestia would no doubt fill her in on the rest.

As she made her way inside, Twilight looked at the broken stained glass windows. These held depictions of Celestia and Luna both, but they were to damaged to make out much else. Twilight recognized one of the figures the sisters faced as Discord. She shuddered at the memory of when her friends wielded the elements against the mage.

Twilight looked around, and noticed a rusted iron door. Approaching it, she lifted a hand to the latch, and pulled with all of her strength. The latch would not budge. Grunting in frustration, Twilight raised a hand and channeled a telekinetic spell to grab hold of the door. Wrenching with her magical weaves, Twilight pulled the door off it's rusted hinges. She smiled, then yelped as she jumped back as the heavy door fell towards her.

"Phew, that was a close one." Twilight giggled at how close she had come to having the door dropped on her by her own carelessness.

Stepping inside the dark corridor that lay behind the doorway, Twilight lifted a hand and channeled her purple magefire into it, illuminating the hall. Towards the end of the stone hallway was a staircase that led underground. If anything had survived the millennia the castle had rotted unattended in the forest, it was down there. Mustering her courage, Twilight stepped down the stairs that seemed to spiral down for an eternity.

Though it only took her a minute of walking, Twilight felt like it had been an hour as she held her breath. She had been warned of dangers that lay in the forest, and there was no guarantee that nothing had made its way down here. Twilight looked around her as she reached the bottom of the stairwell, and beheld row upon row of thick iron barred cells. She had found the old dungeon. Something caught her attention however. At then end of the long rows of cells, was a book that sat upon a pedestal.

Twilight made her way over to the book, glancing to the sides through the bars as she went. She saw many bones of various things that had been chained inside their cells. Not all of them were humanoid, some looked like they might have belonged to demons.

"Strange, I didn't hear anything about a dungeon before. There are so many cells too..." Twilight said aloud in wonder.

As she came to the book, the magefire in her hand seemed to dwindle. Twilight looked again at the bars of the cell to her right and gasped, they were covered in runes that were slowly sapping the magic around them. Anything that was held in here would be kept without magic as the bars drained them over time. These were no ordinary cells, whatever they held had been truly dangerous. Turning back to the book Twilight smiled in triumph, this must be a list of the prisoners, and if she brought this to Celestia she was sure to get some history out of her. Twilight grabbed a torch off the wall and ignited it, lest her magic become drained and she find herself trapped without light down here.

As Twilight took the book and stuffed it in her pack, she noticed something else in the corner of her eye. The light from the torch gave more illumination than her magefire had, and she noticed something shining the the cell she had looked in previously. It looked like a helmet, perhaps whoever was in this cell was still in his armor when he was imprisoned. Twilight studied the cell, and noticed the cell was numbered, this one's number was ninety-nine. Looking back in the cell, she returned to studying the shining helmet.

A low growl broke Twilight out of her study of what was behind the bars. She turned her attention down the dark rows of cells, and beheld the forms of multiple timber wolves making their way down the stairwell. Twilight gasped in horror, with the magic draining cells this close, she would not be able to fend them off.

"Oh no, please... Not like this..." Twilight whimpered, and began to cry as the hungry looking wolves made their advance on her.

The sound of metal tearing dominated the room, causing the wolves to halt their advance, and Twilight to freeze where she stood. Twilight turned her head, and saw two muscular hands gripping the bars, behind the hands was the helmet that had gleamed in the torchlight it was dark gray color and covered the face completely, two horns of a stark white color stood out as they curled down from his temples and ended in front of his face. Twilight began to stutter in terror, this dungeon had been abandoned for a thousand years, nothing should be alive down here, least of all still have the strength to move after a millennia of starvation in the dank dungeon.

Two glowing red eyes sprang open within the helmet causing Twilight to jump back and scream. The man's muscles bunched as his powerful shoulders pulled on the bars, the timber wolves raised their hackles and growled at the being in the cell. The sound of iron groaning could be heard as the bars began to give way, and finally snapped off. The muscular hands then grabbed bent the next row of bars, widening then gap.

As the man stepped out of the cell, he turned towards the wolves. Twilight watched his chain mail clad back as he strode towards the wolves. One wolf lunged at him, but it's head was caught in his mighty grip, and he crushed it's skull with little effort. The crunching sound of wood and bone echoed, and caused the other wolves to stick their tails between their legs having seen their alpha fall.

As sap seeped into the ground, Twilight fainted at the sight of the carnage. The last image she saw as her eyes fluttered while she lay on the ground, was the wolves running, and the horned man turning to her, red eyes locking with hers as he approached.

Twilight awoke suddenly, sitting up abruptly and coming face to face with a familiar pink haired face. Twilight took on the face of her friend Fluttershy, then looked around herself and noticed she was at the edge of the Everfree Forest. She looked down at herself and took in the dirt covered lavender blouse, and the purple plaid skirt that was also dirty as if she had been lying on the ground.

"Fluttershy, I just had the weirdest dream that I was in the forest, looking for some old books in Celestia's old castle." Twilight said, rubbing her eyes.

"Oh, umm... Twilight, you did go into the forest, a while ago, I found you passed out at the treeline just a moment ago though." Fluttershy explained.

Twilight's eyes shot open at this as she grabbed her pack off her back and dug inside until she found the book. Her hands trembled as she vividly remembered the glowing red eyes that had advanced on her. Where was he now? Why had he not escaped before if he could do so at any time? Twilight needed to warn the princess as soon as possible, if she had locked someone in a dungeon, they must be very dangerous.

"Are you okay Twilight?" Fluttershy asked, a concerned look on her face.

Twilight ignored Fluttershy as she flipped open the book, sure enough it was full of names that were numbered off.

"What was that number..." Twilight mumbled to herself.

"What number?" Fluttershy asked, concern only growing for her friend.

'Ninety-nine! that was it' thought Twilight as she scanned the pages for the number. A few pages in was the number, and next to it held the name of the man that had broken free of his cell.

Gath of Baal