Darksiders: Equestria's Tree of Life.

The journey so far...

A winged unicorn, the last of the powerful All-Sworn race appeared before Death as he rode towards the Tree of Life.

"Oh my dear horseman," she cooed. "You're about to go on quite the wild ride."

Through a portal he was sent, only to find another of the mad mare's kind wasting away chained to the Tree. In her words he saw both her pain and usefulness and set her free from her chains to journey with him on his quest to save yet another realm from corruption.

Quest- Purify the Sealed Realm

They stepped out of the portal to find themselves under the cover of night near a small run down shrine with glowing runes sealing a round black platform that barely rose out of the ground inscribed with a large blue rune. Silvia approached the platform and with a touch of her horn, the seals shattered and the alicorn stepped back as a figure rose up from beneath it.

Blue and white mist curled up from an unseen place as a demon with large horns and skull like face hovered before them, the look of surprise on his face quickly vanished into one of polite calmness.

"Silvia, my my it has been quite a while hasn't it?" the demon said. "And in such interesting company too..."

"Greetings Vulgrim," Silvia replied respectfully. "I would like to indulge your curiosity but I'm afraid we're on a time limit."

She hesitated and took a deep breath to regain her composure as she turned her attention to Death. "In a matter of hours a demon possessed All-Sworn will descend from her prison on the moon in an attempt to destroy this world, Though we are near the weapon I crafted long ago, the forest is ripe with corruption and will hinder its power if we don't do something about it."

Vulgrim chuckled darkly. "There's more to the story than that, your majesty"

"I don't have the time to be the alicorn of exposition, merchant. I need weapons and armor, anything you can spare." Silvia stated curtly.

"Calm yourself friend, I have what you need. Though do you have the coin?" Vulgrim asked. "Surely five thousand years is not enough time to leave you senile just yet."

"I'll pay for what she buys, demon. Just hurry it up." Death spoke up.

"How generous of you," Vulgrim replied and returned his attention to the alicorn. "It seems you're in luck Silvia, I just so happened to recover some of your old belongings. I'll be more than happy to return them to you for a...modest fee."

"Still doing business with Lillia I take it?" Silvia asked as she dug through a bag of her things while Death handed over the gold. "It's the only way you could have gotten your claws on my things since she took them with her."

"I afraid that would break my customer confidentiality clause, but feel free to speculate," the merchant replied with a sly grin. "Until next time, your majesty."

New Objective
-Purify the Everfree Forest
-Defeat Nightmare Moon

The alicorn rolled her eyes as the demon disappeared back into the ether. She reached a wing into the bag and pulled out a marble white torc decorated with golden glowing runes and after some digging found a matching set of four boots to go with it. With practiced ease she slipped them on and checked the bag once more to find a pair of saddlebags covered in enchantments and a set of golden, glowing blades.

"What is it with angels and making everything glow?" Death muttered as Silvia's armor and weapons provided a new source of light.

"Most of them just think it looks pretty," Silvia replied. "In reality the 'glow' is needed to aid in conducting holy magic to make casting easier even for those that are masters of the craft, though most angels concern themselves with 'form over function' to the point of looking ridiculous"

"You are half angel, what does that say about you?" Death quipped.

Silvia snorted as she hefted the saddle bag onto her back and tucked the two swords under her wings. They lapsed into silence as they left the abandoned shrine with Silvia leading the way down a barely visible path. The forest was more of a jungle with thick vines strangling the life out of trees and the dense foliage blanketing the forest floor in shadow. As they walked Silvia flicked out a wing and the blade concealed beneath her feathers followed her movements to cut way the overgrown plant life that covered most of the path.

She continued her task in silence as Death followed behind her. When a cliff halted their progress she glided down and watched as Death simply jumped off and landed in front of her on his feet with a loud, crater creating boom. A series of howls pierced the silence of night as green glowing eyes blinked to life within the shadows. A pack of timber wolves descended upon them, growling and snarling.

Death was the first to act and pulled out his gun. his aim moved from one beast to the next s a single bullet between the eyes felled each and every beast. The gun ended its slaughter with the click of an empty chamber as the corruption driven beast rushed him in rage. Silvia watched as he swapped his gun for his scythes and charged into the fray, his movements to fast for the wolves to follow as he switched his focus from enemy to the next as they crumbled with only a few blows. A thunderous roar broke the flow of battle and the remaining wolves retreated as something rumbled in the distance.

"That would be the Alpha Timber Wolf," Silvia calmly noted. "She hasn't found us yet so hopefully we can reach our destination before she finds us."

"What if she does find us?" Death asked.

"We kill it, obviously." Silvia replied and continued down the path.

"So where exactly are we going?" Death asked as they paid no mind to the trees with twisted faces that lined the forest path. "You've been awfully tight lipped since we spoke to Vulgrim."

Silvia sighed tiredly. "We are headed towards the remains of this country's original capital, where an artifact that once housed the weapon needed to purify the demon possessed All-Sworn lies. I can tap into its power to purify the forest and create a safe path for those that seek the weapon."

"Why not use the weapon yourself?" Death asked.

"It wasn't designed to be used with just one person," she replied. "The weapon, known as the Elements of Harmony was crafted to utilize the energy present in the emotional bonds within its wielders to produce power that mimics that of an Oath Bound All-Sworn."

"Oath Bound?" Death asked. "So the stories of your people having the power to shape reality were true?"

"The simplest way to explain it is that my kind were aware of the power we could have at our disposal and became a society that exercised restraint and control to preserve both our sanity and the life we cherished as a species," Silvia calmly explained. "To that end, should one make an oath, vow or promise with the honest and sincere intent of fulfilling it, our very blood drives us to keep it and the power of our souls warps the world in subtle ways to make it happen."

"To break a vow is deny what it means to be an all-sworn," she continued sadly. "For my brother and friends, they regained their magic over centuries spent attending to this world and I... wasn't so lucky. Two vows I have broken to defend this world with such a crime my magic was taken and my soul forever scarred as penance."

"And now I must face the full weight of my sins..." Silvia said softly and turned her gaze to the moon. "The all-sworn we will soon face is one of my daughters, twisted by a demonic presence that will seek to destroy me and drown this world in endless darkness and bitter cold."

"We'd best keep moving..." Silvia stated.

Another obstacle soon blocked their path as a wide, raging river stretched before them. Death idly kicked astray branch into the rapids and the two of them watched as it was quickly swept into the fast moving current.

"The river might be calmer further down..." Silvia suggested. "I would carry you over but I'm not as strong as I once was."

She emphasized her statement with a wing to gesture at her starved form. Death seemed to ponder the problem s he walked towards the riverbank and observed his surroundings as if he was looking for something. He scoffed and walked back in search of a solution on the path behind them. With no success on either front he turned his attention back to Silvia and his glowing orange eyes widened slightly as he got an idea.

"Can you fly?" he asked.

"Yes but may I ask why?"

"Stand on the other side of the river," Death stated. " I'll join you shortly."

Silvia was thoroughly confused but she did as he asked and when her hooves touched the ground she turned back to face her travelling companion. Just as she was about to ask more questions Death bolted forward and jumped. In one fluid motion he stretched out his right arm and a purple glowing hand attached to his gauntlet shot out and held onto Silvia's horn which the horseman then used to yank himself over to the other side of the river.

"Problem solved." Death remarked smugly as Silvia stared at him in bewilderment.

"Never do that again without informing me first." The All-Sworn stated flatly.

Their conversation was cut short as they emerged out of the forest and onto a cliff that overlooked a ravine with a wooden bridge held up by ropes allowing passage to the ancient stone castle that stood on the other side. Another roar tore the night as a massive wooden wolfs head rose from the depths of the ravine, it ignored the bridge as it's sheer size forced the wooden planks up and snapped the rope connecting it to the cliff edge to leave it dangling against the rock on the other side.

Large green eyes narrowed in rage as the giant beast caught sight of Death. A paw as large as the horseman himself came crashing down, pinned him and dragged him into the ravine. Silvia stared down into the darkness as the creature retreated with its prize before glancing up just in time to see the Mare in the Moon disappear from the lunar surface.

Without a thought nor care of the consequences, she jumped down after him.

Death crashed down onto the stone hard ground with a grunt and pulled himself to his feet. The alpha wolf roared its challenge as he took hold of his scythes and kept his gaze trained on the building sized beast. The two circled one another, watching and waiting for an opening. The wolf lost its patience and charged towards the rider and raised a fore paw to swipe, only to miss as Death dashed forward and began to hack away at its hind leg.

In the middle of a swing, Death was knocked off his feet and sent flying as the wolf sprung around and lashed at him with its tail. He barely time to make a move when the beast rushed forward in a quick volley of sharp claws and snapping jaws. He took the first few blows with ease and flipped backwards out of harms way and smirked under his mask as an after image of his reaper form countered the creature's failed attack. The beast staggered from the blow and Death noticed a large crack in the paw it had tried to hit him with. When the wolf tried to regain its footing the damaged foot couldn't bear the weight and snapped into pieces which sent the alpha tumbling to the ground.

Death knew an opportunity when he saw one and put all his effort into striking at the wolf's head. After a few moments the pain snapped the beast to its senses, the wood of its broken paw was encased in the green glow of corruption and moved to rejoin with its owner. The wolf roared in fury and its body began to writhe and pulse as smaller timber wolves dropped from it form to target the reaper.

Death ignored the weaker foes and moved in to attack the alpha. he rolled forward to stand under the wolf just as the giant beast exhaled a cloud of poisonous green gas and he paid it no mind as he attacked the same hind leg he had targeted before. The smaller wolves proved only be a minor annoyance as he hacked away at the limb, the stupidity of the creatures was turned to his favor as they were caught in his strikes against the larger foe as they moved to attack him. This went on to benefit Death as with each strike of his weapon, regardless of what it hit would heal the admittedly insignificant wounds the mindless minions created at a faster rate than they could harm him.

With the strength of his enemies discovered, Death ignored any need to dodge or avoid attacks and focused only on dealing as much damage to the alpha as possible. the hind leg he was attacking shattered and once more the large wooden wolf crashed to become an easy target.

When the beast rose to its feet a second time it clearly last legs as it lunged towards Death. The horseman seized his chance and transformed to the purple robed, skeletal giant that was his reaper form and swung his massive scythe down onto the alphas head. with the blade firmly wedged into the creatures head Death pulled on the handle with enough force to rip the creatures head from its body. As the monster disintegrated alongside its spawn, Death returned to his normal form to find Silvia gliding down to meet him.

The alicorn looked around in mild amusement.

"Is it just me or do you seem far too used to this?" she asked.

"It's all part of the job." Death replied as a portal opened to return them to the surface.

They emerged standing before the entrance of the stone castle. Silvia pointed to path that led down to an area below the stone structure.

"We're almost there, once we reach the artifact I can activate it and ensure this place is free of corruption." Silvia explained and as she began to walk down the path, a bolt of blue magic blasted into her side and sent her skidding into some bushes and a black figure dove after her. Death made to follow but a shimmering blue barrier inscribed with demonic runes barred his way.

"Damn it." he cursed.

On the other side of the barrier Silvia winced as she poked her damaged side with a wing, she couldn't feel t lest a few cracked or broken ribs. Mad cackling forced her to look up and she flinched at what she saw. An alicorn as dark as night with a mane tail of stardust that moved under its own power. Sharp fangs glinted in the moonlight as the mad mare laughed madly and the dim light of the moon bounced off of the armor that covered her head, chest and hooves to the point where the light blue metal glittered like stars.

"Oh it has been so long mother," Silvia's attacker snarled. "In the one thousand years i have been imprisoned i have only gotten stronger, where as you are crippled, weak and once I have defeated you none shall stand against my rule!"

"Luna...?" Silvia asked in shocked horror.

"Luna?" The dark alicorn echoed. "i am Nightmare moon you old nag! and tonight you will breathe your last!"

Silvia couldn't move, her mind was paralyzed and not even the pain of another of Nightmare's attack hitting her square in the chest could shake her out of it. Deep down she knew what had become of Luna but it was thing to watch from afar and another to face her directly.

"I'm sorry" she choked out but it fell on deaf ears as twisted alicorn of the night rushed forward and tackled the elder mare to the ground and began to charge a powerful spell. Silvia had just enough presence of mind to lift a wing over her face to shield herself from the point blank blast. Pain ran rampart in her wing as the spell shattered feather, tore through skin and muscle and blasted through bone to strike her chest with deadly intent.

Silvia screwed her eyes shut as the hole in both her wing and her chest screamed with pain and Nightmare Moon laughed in victory. In the back of her mind the older alicorn knew something had to be done, that despite her injures Luna had to be saved. She reached deep within her soul, past the pain and the eternal scar of her failure to find the flames of her life forces, her will to live and pulled.

Her mind went white with pain as her body blazed with white flames. A primal scream tore its way out of her throat as she clung to consciousness with a single minded, determined goal of finding and destroying corruption. Nightmare Moon's surprised shriek and subsequent retreat barely registered as Silvia's mind followed the trail of her flames as they danced through the forest only burning away at green crystal growths and mutated beasts and nothing else. Six splotches of colour and life registered in mind for a brief moment but even that was swept aside by the task at hoof.

Someone was shouting at her to stop, but she couldn't, she wouldn't, not until the job was done. She could sense sources of corruption beyond her reach as she cleansed the forest and after what felt like centuries, Silvia let the flames die down and she blacked out.