Rise of the Swarm Lord

(AN: Sorry for the long wait between the last post and this one folks, between work, life, an auto accident I was in last year in October, and other things, I simply haven't had the energy to put any work into this story, but tonight I finally felt some inspiration, and sat down to finish off this chapter. No matter how long chapters might take however, I want you all to know that unless I specifically say otherwise, this story will NOT be canceled, so please don't think it is, and also please forgive me for the wait, thank you."

As Custos turned down from the moon and looked at Twilight again, he grimaced and proceeded to shake his head, "Look......Twilight...Sprinkle? Was it? You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you", he said with a chuckle as he shook his head a few times, before looking around.

Twilight, a weird look on her face as she eyed him warily, "Weeeelllllll....if you say so, but don't think I'm not keeping an eye on you mister", she said, suddenly lifting him up with magic and walking along, him floating behind her.

"H-HEY! WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA YOU PURPLE......PURPLE THING?!", Custos said, immediately hostile and angry, especially considering the day he's had so far.

"Me and my friends are the ones that defeat Nightmare Moon, remember? We ALL heard her scream your name, whatever your relationship to her, you're too dangerous to be left alone in the open like this. I'm not even sure how you got out, but I'm bringing you right back to the guards, so they can haul you back to Canterlot and the Princessess", Twilight said as she passed a group of ponies all laughing, as one with a rainbow colored tail snuck up on them from above.

"RAINBOW DASH DON'T YOU DARE!", suddenly shouted an orange colored pony, as she high-jump kicked the rainbow tailed pony out from the cloud they were flying out, knocking them to the ground as Twilight walked up.

The azure mare, getting up as the group she was previously sneaking up on turned to look at her before walking way, slowly rubbed her head as she pouted and looked up at the orange colored pony, "OH COMMON AJ! That was prime scaring material that was!", she said, standing up to the orange mare, despite being more then 2 heads shorter then her.

"AH AIN'T HAVING NONE OF THAT, YA HEAR?!", AJ shouted right back, intimidating Rainbow Dash into backing down as Twilight suddenly cleared her throat and got both of their attention.

"Oh, Hey Twilaight!", the orange colored mare said, in what could only be described as an Amazonian outfit. "Whatcha gawt thar?" she said, gesturing to Custos behind her

"Oh, this is the fellow we found in the castle after defeating Nightmare.....I'm turning him into the guards because he's a dangerous fellow", Twilight said, matter of factly, as she shot a glare back at Custos.

"Well shucks....what did he do?", Applejack said, scratching her head as her other head held a firm grip on Rainbow Dash, not letting her run off and cause more mischief.

"W-well.....um, nothing......YET. But I bet he's up to something wicked right this second!", Twilight said, suddenly lost for words.

"THE HELL I AM YOU PURPLE PONY BIMBO!", Custos said, raging against the magical constraints holding him in place. "I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING AND YOU JUST DECIDED TO KIDNAP ME!"

"Twilaight.....is that true now?", Applejack said, fixing her stern gaze on Twilight.

"I....er......not exactly....I mean, he COULD'VE been about to do something bad....I mean LOOK at him, he's so dastardly looking.....just like....eeeuuuggghh, quesadillas", Twilight said, shuddering in both horror and disgust.

"Twilaight....now I may be just an apple pony, darn-tootin' I'm proud of that, I'm also your friend; And it seems to me that you must be having apple sauce in them ears of yours, I say let him down and leave him be, he ain't done nothin' wrong."

"B-b-but......FINE!", Twilight said, releasing Custos, who immediately fell into an apple-dunking bucket, while she stormed off in a huff in her costume

"TWILAIGHT!.........*sigh* What's with her t'day?", Applejack said as she turned around to pick up Custos, setting him back on his feet and handing him a towel from a nearby stall stand. "You alraight there pardner?"

"..........Would you be alright if some purple pony BITCH decided you were a bad guy just from how you looked and then in a fit of temper tantrum, decided to give you an impromptu bath?!" Custos said, his cheeks red with rage and embarassment

"Now hold it raight there mister, I may be not knowin' you better then this side of zap apple jam, but Twilaights mah friend, and you don't get to talk about her like that", AJ said, leaning over Custos, her height being used to try and intimidate him, her bust actually pushing against his cheek.

"OH I'M SORRY!", Custos said, grabbing at her boobs so he could push them down to look her properly in the face, "I didn't ASK to be here ya know, I'd rather be home....not here with you freaking ponies that are builts like goddesses!", he said angrily, releasing her boob, which promptly jiggled before coming to a rest again.

"Ya think I'm a goddess?.......I MEAN THAT'S NOT THA POINT!", AJ said, picking up Custos and setting him down in a chair,

"Now you sit here mistah while I go grab the girls. Twilaight may have over-reacted, but I think we still need ta figure out how ya got here.....and why you were at the Princesses old castle home as well", she finished, before walking off.

"Well.....that could've gone worse" Nightmare said, as her small body crawled out from under a nearby food stand, as she stood up, snickering at Custos.

"Oh come off it", he said, grabbed a towel that AJ had left from him, as he begins to wipe himself down. "First it's your giant form...then it's freakin succubus bug ponies.....now it's this shit!", he said, wringing water out of the towel before using it some more.

"Well....my point still stands, they could've very easily overpowered you and brought you back to the Princesses."

"Yeah...if it wasn't for the fact that Celestia already had said I had freedom to move around", Custos shot back, still somewhat angry at the whole ordeal

"True, but she probably didn't mean to have you leave the castle and/or Canterlot you know."

"I-......hmmm.....you're probably right, it's not like I look like any of you, so I bet having something like me around would be discomforting to see huh?" Custos said, looking at Nightmare

"Well....you're certainly not gonna get any complaints from me!", Nightmare said as she jumped into his lap.

"WHOA WHOA WHOA! We JUST escaped from the sex hungry bug ponies.....I do NOT need a child trying to jump my bones....so to speak", Custos said, lifting her up straight away and holding her up in his arms.

"Oh PLEASE Custos....you really need to start learning more about how our world works. I only look like this because I was able to shoot off this branch of my magical essence before the Elements of Harmony "cleansed" me", Nightmare said, as she shirked out of his arms, dropping to her feet. "If I try hard enough, I CAN change my size", she said, glowing for a moment, before suddenly changing into a much more statuesque form of Luna, complete with the Nightmare Moon armor and revealing skin.

"....I....whoa", Custos said, his eyes actually bugging a bit, right before he noticed himself starting to drool.

"Ehehehehehehe, looks like SOMEBODY likes what they see?", Nightmare said, as she leaned forward, revealing more cleavage.

"Look....just.....change back, I've had enough sexual antics for ONE night thank you very much....still got to get over the fact that I'm possibly a dad now...and I do NOT need a giant black pony trying to make a pass at me."

"I'm more of a Pinkie Pie color silly, but it's ok, I forgive you!", said Pinkie Pie, who suddenly glomped Custos from behind, resulting in his head being shoved between her MASSIVE breasts

"WHOA SHIT!", Custos said, before being engulfed in a seemingly endless world of pinkie plushiness, and caramel scented body lotion.

Nightmare Moon, having seemingly disappeared, chuckled quietly, having hidden herself again in Custos amulet, as she took in the unfolding situation.

"OH FOR FUCKS SAKE! GET OFF OF ME YOU WALKING PINK FETISH!" Custos roared, shoving his head out finally as he gulped in massive amounts of sweet, sweet air.

Pinkie Pie giggled as she rubbed the top of his head, "Okie Dokie Lokie Artichokie....but the fucking will have to wait sweetie, I'm off to the chicken races, BA-KAWK!", Pinkie Pie said, running off in her almost bimbo-like chicken outfit, disappearing as quickly as she appeared.

"What.....in the god damn gods name was that?", Custos said, collapsing AGAIN back into the chair.

"That....was Pinkie Pie, crazy gal, but prolly the best darn baker in all of town, including the Cakes", AJ said, walking up as she waved at Custos. "So anyways, Ah had a talk with Twilaight, and she's calmed down now. She said she's sorreh for the trouble, and just wanted ta make sure ya weren't gonna cause trouble."

"I!.....YOU!......Ugh, fine, whatever, tell her it's okay, just.....don't levitate me again, I get bad motion sickness when I'm in the air", Custos said, shuddering at the queasiness he felt from before.

"Heh...yeah, anyways, would ya like to join the celebration? We're celebrating Nightmare Night", AJ said as she helped

Custos stand up out of the chair, "By tha way, My names Apple Jack, but ponies round these parts sometimes call me AJ, she said, shaking Custos hand, causing his entire arm to wiggle like jelly.

Custos, rubbing his arm as he retrieved his hand from the orange amazonian ponies grip, shook his head and replied back, "Charmed......my names Custos, but you prolly already knew that, didn't ya?"

"Sure as sunshine did, Princess Celestia sent Twilaight a letter a while ago, explaining how ya were free to roam these here parts, to try and acclimate to pony society", she said, walking with him down the main lane of the festival.

As various ponies stood here and there, hawking their wares, a thunderous clap of sound, accompanied by lightning and gasping of several ponies stopped Custos before he could reply to Apple Jack.

As he and AJ looked to the sky, another roar of thunder, followed by a gust of wind, passed thru the area, as two almost demonic looking ponies flew down from the sky, pulling a carriage, as they both super-hero landed, the carriage however, falling much more gracefully, as a hooded figure stepped out, her height dwarfing even Apple Jack as she closed the carriage door behind her.

"Oh no......oh no nonononono", Nightmare Moon muttered in her amulet, "What in the name of the almight Faust is SHE doing here?", she said, worriedly as she dove deeper into Custos' amulet, to make sure that the figure couldn't detect her.

"GREETINGS CITIZENS OF PONYVILLE, IT IS WE, YOUR PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT, HERE TO JOIN YOU IN YOUR COMMON PONIES CELEBRATION OF NIGHTMARE NIGHT!", the figure shouted, her voice causing the ponies closest to her to shrink back in shock and slight fear.

"Is that....Nightmare Moon?!", Custos shouted, shrinking back in fear as he worriedly thought that if THAT was Nightmare Moon, then who the figure in his braclet that constantly sexually harassed him could be.

"Nah, that's....well, you're not wrong technically, but that there is Princess Luna. She used ta BE Nightmare Moon, but after me and the gals harmonized her, she became Luna again.....though I'm plum out of ideas as ta why she's here now."

As the figure continued to shout, Twilight could be seen walking up to the figure, her arms waving frantically as she hurriedly escorted Luna away to the other side of the carnival, in an attempt to regain SOME level of control over the festival.

"Well....THAT ended quickly", Custos muttered, as he turned to look at AJ, "Should you....ah, go follow her?", he said, unsure of the expression on AJ's face, which looked to be equal parts worry, and fear.

"Normally, I'd trust Twilaight to handle this kinda stuff....but ya right, maybe I SHOULD follow her. You can enjoy the carnival Custos, Happy Nightmare Night pardner", she said, before galloping off on her huge legs, to catch up to them.

"Yeah....yeah.....", Custos said, turning to walk away, before suddenly realizing, "Wait.....WHAT THE HECK EVEN IS NIGHTMARE NIGHT ANYWAYS?!"

"SURPRISE!", was the last word Custos heard, before being smothered in pink flesh again, his head so engulfed in breast flesh that he bounced backwards, stumbling out and falling to the ground, his head smashing against a wooden board as he fell unconcious.

"Uh.....oh, that's not good, oh no, I gotta get help, quickly", Pinkie Pie said, picking up Custos and carrying him off with her to Twilight's library.

*Somewhere.....in the void*

"Ugh...my head, how is someone whose THAT tall and has THAT much fat on them able to move so quietly?", Custos muttered, picking himself up off of the floor.

"Anyways....wait, where am I?", Custos said aloud, the entire field around him nothing but pitch black darkness, and a swirling purplish fog. "What the hell happened to the town?!"

"Cus-?....A....y.u.....a....ht?", Custos turned around in a circle, barely able to hear Nightmare Moons voice, trying to pinpoint where it came from.

"Moon?.....Is that you? I can barely hear you", he said, beginning to stumble in the direction he believed the sound was coming from.

"I......ca......h...r.......wh....r....y..?", the sound kept cutting off, as Custos began to stumble in the fog, his head dizzy, and legs feeling like he was walking against a strong water current.

As the pressure moving against him began to be too much, Custos stumbled, his body falling forward onto the ground, sinking in somewhat, like quick sand.

Struggling to get up, Custos gargled as the fluid rushed over his head, splashing him in the face and going down his throat and into his nose.

However, just as quickly as Custos began to panic, his pendant shot up off of his neck, glowing and spinning slowly, but speeding up, before it erupted into light, clearing away the darkness, as a patch of green grass formed under Custos body.

Coughing and trembling, Custos hacked up the remaining water that was in his throat, before falling back onto his butt, barely able to keep himself up, the pendant still signing in the sky as it slowly began to move closer to him.

Custos was, for one of the few times in his life, lost for words, speechlessly watching the light move closer as it slowly closed in on him.

The heat from the light however, began to oppress onto him, feeling way too hot, Custos began to try to scramble away, but found he could not leave the grassy circle that the light had formed, as the light closed even further.

Finding his voice, Custos blurted out, "Hey....d-don't come any closer, STAY BACK!", he said, trying to put his hands out to stop the light, as it effortlessly passed thru his arms, and entered his body thru his chest.

Pain had never been a big deal for Custos, he had gotten into a fair amount of fights in his young life, and had learned of his high tolerance for pain......but this....this pain was as if he had been lit on fire from the inside, and was being melted slowly.

A scream that no earthly creature should EVER make erupted from his mouth, his body bursting into flames and blood spewing from his everything, only to be reformed, and repeated again and again.

The pain, slowly building to a crescendo, seared a word into Custos mind, the voice booming it, repeating it over and over, "HARMONY! HARMONY! HARMONY!", as it burst his ear drums, blood shooting out from the burnt holes that were his ears once.

As the pain became too much for Custos, his mind blanked, his vision going blurry as he fell to the ground, the flames continuing to burn his body as his final thoughts went to his family, his life flashed before his eyes.

His life with his grandparents and mother, the fateful night he first met Nightmare Moon, the subsequent events after, the events with the changelings, heck, even the most recent stuff at Ponyville.

"Mmmmmoooooonnnn", Custos muttered, his burnt lips cracking as they fell off of his body, before going limp, his body burnt to ashes as all that was left was a pile of dust and cinders.

*Ponyvilly, Twilights Library*

"Twilight....is he gonna be okay?", Pinkie Pie asked, worriedly washing Custos face with a wet clothe as she looked up at her friend.

"I don't know Pinkie, he hit his head pretty hard when you hugged him, and since we've never seen "humans" before in Equestria, I'm not sure how similar their anatomy is to ours, hopefully the medicine and magic helped, but the bandages might've been a tad much", she said, looking at how her friends had practically mummified Custos body, the entire body being wrapped in bandages, minus the face.

"Oh, I...I'm sorry, I wasn't sure how hurt he'd be, they're soaked in a plant I learned helps numb pain", said a yellow pegasi, who fluttered over with a small bucket of warm water, handing it to Pinkie Pie.

"It's ok Fluttershy, we all know you meant well", said Twilight as she stared down at Custos, something in the back of her head not telling her to leave him alone still. "I still say we should call the guards though, we don't know if he's dangerous or not."

"Now hold on Twilaight", said AJ, as she spoke up from her chair across the room, "You said you'd leave that alone, Custos hasn't done a thang wrong, and you sure as heck can't punish him for nothin'."

"I know Apple Jack.....I know, but something just worries me", Twilight replied back, before using her magic to retrieve a book, skimming over the pages.

"Uurrrgghggghhhhhhh.....did anybody get the license plate number of that truck that hit me?", Custos muttered, his body slowly moving as he woke up.

"CUSTOS!", said all the girls, except Fluttershy, who squeaked and half hid behind a curtain, the fabric doing nothing to hide her immensely tall figure.

"I'M SO GL-AH-AH-D YOU'RE ALRIGHT!", Pinkie Pie cried, hugging him as she cried, engulfing him once again.
"PINKIE!" Twilight and AJ both shouted at once, "LET HIM GO!", AJ said, pulling Pinkie away as Twilight helped Custos lean him.

"Ughhhh....what happened?", Custos said, struggling to move as the bandages pulled taught against him.

"Pinkie happened", Twilight said, getting a pair of scissors to help free Custos from the over zealous usage of bandages.

"Oh right......the walking fetish", Custos muttered, his vision blurry and mind still woozy from the head injury.

Twlight, opening her mouth to retort, closed it again, choosing to let it go for once before laying him back down onto the couch he was on. "Let me go get you some water", she said, leaving the room quickly.

"Ugh.....my head", Custos said, reaching up to touch it, before noticing how ice cold and metallic his fingers were like.

Struggling to focus his vision, he saw what looked like a gauntlet of rainbow-ish metals covering his arm all the way up to the elbow. "Well.....that's not right", he said, weakly trying to take the gauntlet off, but unsuccessfully, as the gauntlet refused to budge even an inch, almost as if it was fused to him.

Sighing in frustration, he laid back down all the way, closing his eyes as he listened to the sounds of AJ hugging Pinkie, who was still crying, Fluttershy trying to comfort Pinkie, and Twilight, in the kitchen off in the distance, freaking out from somehow setting a glass of water on fire.

All this happening, Custos laughed, a genuine laugh as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

"Hey Custos....ya awake?", Nightmare Moons voice sounded, in his head.

"Moon?", Custos whispered, his voice still weak from the previous ordeal.

"In here silly, look at your arm", she said, as Custos turned his head slightly, seeing a symbol of a purplish-black crescent moon inside the orb on the back of his head.

"Seems I can inhabit this moon stone here and talk with you telepathically now as well", she said, the symbol disappearing, only to be replace with the same rainbow colors as the rest of the gauntlet.

"Ok, sounds cool bro, now let me sleep", Custos muttered, weakly turning onto his side as his mind once again drifted off slowly to sleep.

Before Custos could finally sleep in the land of unconciousness, a knock could be heard at the door briefly, before it was SLAMMED open, a voice erupting from outside, "GREETING TWILIGHT AND FRIENDS, WE HAVE COME TO ASSIST IN.....", Luna spoke, her voice being caught in her throat as Twilight, mid-pose of extinguishing a burning glass of water, AJ and Pinkie Pie mid-hug, and Fluttershy, all gave her simultaneous death glares, as they pointed to Custos in the corner. "Oh....We.....I mean I....apologize, I did not mean to disturb the humans rest."

As this happened however, Custos, his eyes closed, broke out into a cold sweat, as he could hear Nightmare Moon in his head, repeating the same words he himself was muttering to himself in his mind. They both continually repeating, "Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit."