Chapters Adagium, Path of Salvation
Ardyn POV
So you're here because you found an interest in me? Well allow me to introduce myself, you may call me Ardyn Izunia, Ardyn Lucis Caelum, or Adagium, it makes no difference. You're here because you want to hear a tale from yours truly, not because you want to hear my many names and titles. Well over 1,000 years ago I was like you, a human who just wanted to have fun. Unfortunately I fell victim to a trap at a small store and after buying my hat for a rather cheap price I was no longer home. Instead I woke up in a land of sparkling happiness, sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns (not Whimsyshire and certainly not the Cow Level). And not long after that did I fuck up badly to no fault of my own, you see I noticed a number of changes to my form among other things and didn't expect the Starscourge to be within me.
I'm sure you can see where this is going, I was enjoying a nice walk at dusk down the road to a nearby castle and the plague spiked at the worst possible moment. I met a cautious but decent patrol group and accidentally daemonized 2 of them, the third flew away and minutes later after the damage was done did help arrive. I couldn't save either of those guards that day, one died instantly and the other began to change, I tried to take back in the darkness, but nothing happened. I had hoped to possess the gift, but if I do I can't use it. The still unnamed princesses attacked with what looked like a light show of rainbows of all things for the second and a half I saw it, after everything died down I was stoned in a very uncomfortable position and the remaining guard was cured. I was a little angry yes, but I'm sure any number of you can agree it was necessary, especially since the plague spread which only made things worse for me. On the plus side I had a millenia to figure out how to use the Royal Arms (in my mind) among other things so I'll be more than just VERY hard to kill/ keep dead, especially since there is no Ring of Lucii and Crystal here.
So now that you know my story it's time we get started isn't it?
Canterlot gardens
They tossed him in the ocean cause their hearts were made in Hell then came along a dolphin, he said "Jolly Mon hello! I've always loved your singin' climb on board, don't let go!"
(Jimmy Buffet, Jolly Mon Sing)
'Oh, did just hear what I thought I did?' I thought, not that I could do anything else.
I saw the statue not too far in front of me crumble to reveal a... Whatever the Hell I'm looking at begin to stretch, lucky bastard. It flew over to me and examined my statue.
"Demon of Darkness?" HE said to himself, also really? I could think of a dozen better names without being repetitive.
"So you were also oh so unfairly punished by sunbutt and moonbutt, but fear not for I am a generous Spirit of Chaos so I will free you later! Ta ta!" *poof* and he's gone, generous my ass! Also sunbutt and moonbutt? If they are who I think they are then I'll have to see for myself, but there's no way they could still be alive could they? It's been a thousand years at least. Questions for later I suppose, time to play the waiting game.
A few hours later
"Why hello! I'm back to cash that favor you owe me!" What favor Chaos?
"Now I'm sure you're wondering 'what favor' well I'll tell you. The favor you'll owe after releasing you! You see..." He snapped his fingers and began drinking what I'm assuming is soda as my statue started cracking.
"There are 6 annoying ponies trying to put an end to my WONDERFUL chaos and you are going to put on a show while stopping them. Maybe I'll let you rule Equestria by my side when this is over hmmmm?" I already have the power to bring eternal darkness to this world and the ability to create an army of daemons while I'm at it, if I wanted to I would have done so already. Just as I finished thinking that I was finally freed from my stone prison, after stretching and a lot of popping I was finally to speak again.
"Very well, then let the fireworks begin!" I said raising my arm just like in episode Ardyn after the car ride. "Oh right, Ifrit's dead. Well shall we get going?" I asked playing along. He looked confused for a moment then went back.
"Splendid! Let's go right now!" He said excited as he snapped his fingers and we appeared in another location and what the Hell happened here? When I heard 'chaos' I expected fewer floating houses, less checkered grass, fewer mutated animals and more violence.
"Isn't it wonderful?" He asked wrapping his arm around my neck as I just stared off trying to make sense of this.
"It's... New." What am I supposed to say after seeing every aspect of order get fucked in the ass then thrown out the window.
"Hey Discord!" A female voice shouted from behind us.
"Oh so that's your name." I said before turning around to be surprised again. A school girl, athlete, party girl, farmer, a lady, and a very scared lady. I internally shook my head at how ridiculous this is, a few civilians against a guy who can bend reality to his will and probably the closest thing this world has to a Daemon King.
"Hey Twi, who's the guy next to him?" The rainbow haired one asked. The purple one opened her mouth, but before she could answer I stepped in.
"Why hello, Imperial Chancellor Ardyn Izunia, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I said removing my hat in a flourish and pressing it to my chest.
"Well he is at least well mannered, his fashion sense isn't too bad either." The fashionista(?) said.
"I could say the same about you young lady." I said with as much of a charming smile I could while putting my hat back on.
"And a charmer as well it seems." She blushed.
"Alright enough! Get rid of them and up hold your end of the bargain, or would you like to be given back to the princesses?" Discord threatened.
"Technically I never agreed to anything, I just said 'let's go'." I corrected him. Just as he raised his arm to snap his finger I raised mine and called forth several Royal Arms, surrounding him with them. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, there is a short delay between when your fingers snap and the effect, I can throw these faster than the effect can happen." I warned summoning the Mutant Rakshasa Blade (Ardyn's version of the Blade of the Mystic). He paused as if he began to question whether or not releasing me was a good idea.
"Why you..." He growled.
"It was necessary for the princesses to turn me to stone for reasons I don't feel like getting into, I don't hold that against them at all so go ahead and give me over to them, this time they won't need to." I shrugged, I really don't have anything against them.
"Now girls, hit them both!" Twi shouted. We both looked to them as a rainbow beam was flying toward both of us.
"Meep meep!" I had to okay! I threw a Royal Arm high into the air and warped to it at the last second. I threw another back down to warp to after the lights died down. Warping back down I looked between the shocked girls and Discord's statue.
"Huh, so that's what they hit me with. And you!" I pointed to them scaring the yellow one enough that she fainted. "That was just plain rude, no gratitude whatsoever! I can see I'm not welcome here so I'm gonna go. Farewell for now, I have daemons to hunt and a mistake to fix." I turned away and not even 5 steps later did Twi call out to me, stopping me in my tracks.
"Who... What are you? What do you mean by mistake?" She asked.
"My dear what I am is many things, there is no one particular thing, my kind called me 'Adagium'. My mistake, your princesses should be able to tell you of why they gave me the name 'Demon of Darkness'. Learn from them first before you learn from me young child. Again, Farewell!" This time I chose to warp away.
Let's start with finding areas with plenty of daemons.
Adagium, Path of Salvation
Ardyn POV
Where to begin is the question. Not too many ponies ever went into the gardens and the ones who did either tended to the place or patrolled it. I suppose I could walk into a store or a library for anything I might need like a map, there's still plenty of time before nightfall and I doubt the princesses will be able to act so soon after Discord so that just makes my job easier. Deciding to make things a little easier for myself I climbed on to the rooftops to look for any place that might sell maps and maybe some snacks, I don't need the snacks or food in general so it's more for pleasure. Finally finding a place called Golden Oaks Library I made sure no one was watching before sneaking in through the window on the top floor, there were a few maps downstairs and I grabbed a history book while I was there.
Leaving the library I decided my first stop should be the Everfree forest, unnatural to these ponies, but like home to me, what I can remember anyway. It's also supposed to be the same general location I was stoned so what better place to start than ground zero? If I can't take the darkness into myself I should at least be able to purge it with the Royal Arms. Actually a thought comes to mind about my Royal Arms, the Rakshasa Blade and Blade of the Mystic were basically twins lore wise, so does that apply to the other 12? Were the other 12 also siblings like that? Doesn't matter I suppose, I don't have a way to find any answers for the foreseeable future.
Arriving at the forest I decided to take things slow for a few reasons. The first reason is because there were still a few hours until nightfall, the second reason is so I could read the history book and see how nature reacts to my seemingly unaware presence while doing so. I mostly just skim through what I read unless it's important or interesting so I quickly learned a summarized version of history. Hearths Warming, Discord, me, Changelings, Tirek, Sombra, and Nightmare Moon, surprisingly there wasn't much about me. All history has of me is that I created daemons, corrupted anything I touched, and was quickly stopped, and it goes into some details about the efforts against daemons. Thinking back to the Rise of Nightmare Moon I quickly realized I was to blame for that incident. Ponies feared the night and by extension her because of me, bad enough I'm responsible for killing and turning any number of ponies, but to learn one suffered a fate so similar to the real Ardyn quickly brought me to tears.
I dashed through the forest until I reached a bridge that looked just stable enough to cross leading to a ruined castle, but I dashed over that as well and wandered around for a while. Maybe two hours before nightfall did I find a throne room and help myself to the more comfortable looking one. Lifting one leg over the other, leaning on the side with my head resting on my hand, and lowering my hat to cover my eyes I quickly dozed off.
I have more to fix than I originally thought was the last thing to go through my mind before I drifted off to sleep.
Twilight POV
It's been hours since Discord was turned back to stone and "Ardyn" or "Adagium" escaped. So many questions were going through my mind and no answers were being found. What was that magic he was using? Imperial Chancellor? If he was evil then why was he helping us? Why didn't he at least try to slow us down?
"Learn from them before you learn from me young child." His words rung in my head.
"That's it!" I said a little louder than I meant to and startled Spike.
"What's it? Do you need something Twi?" Spike asked.
"Spike, I need you to write a letter to the princess real quick." He grabbed one of the quills and papers off the desk.
"Okay, I'm ready." He said.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I know I just sent you a friendship letter, but there's something that's been bothering me that I probably should have asked about earlier. Do the names "Ardyn" or "Adagium" mean anything to you? Even though he didn't look or act the part he said our kind calls him "Demon of Darkness"? Earlier in during our confrontation with Discord he had somepony else with him and he was supposed to "get rid of us" as part of their agreement, but he technically never agreed to anything and whether he meant to or not helped us. That's not the strangest thing though, he used magic to conjure multiple spectral weapons to surround Discord and even, I don't know what, he practically teleported to the weapon he threw into the air to avoid being hit by the Elements! He left shortly after landing, but when I tried to ask who and what he was and what mistake he made he directed me to you.
"Learn from them before you learn from me young child".
What mistake did he make? Should we go after him? What should we do?
Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.
"Okay, sending it!" Spike said and breathed fire on it.
"Now I guess we w-" I started before the sound and flash of a teleportation spell interrupted me.
"Where is he!!??" Princess Celestia shouted scaring the both of us.
"Pr-princess I don't understand, what's wrong?" I asked asked as calmly as I could which was not at all.
"Twilight I need you to gather the others again. I'm sorry but the Demon is significantly more of a threat than Discord even when he's angered, we need to deal with this now before he does it again!" She ordered.
"Who is he a-" I started.
"Now!" She interrupted, I left to gather the others immediately after. They were just as scared as I was I mean not even Nightmare Moon got a reaction even close to this, hay even Rainbow was a little concerned and I just told everypony 'princess Celestia wants to see us all right now'. It took a lot of running, but I got everypony to come back to the library where even princess Luna was now waiting for us.
"T'would appear thy student has't arrived with the rest of the Bearers." Princess Luna said to her sister.
"Luna we talked about your speech." Princess Celestia chided.
"We a- apologies." She responded.
"It's alright. Now that everypony is here we can discuss this other newly returned threat." Princess Celestia started.
"I'm sure we can take'em down in no time. So who is it this time?" Rainbow asked.
"This creature is nothing like Nightmare Moon or Discord. Not only is he significantly more dangerous the world is still feeling the effects of his actions." Princess Celestia warned causing Rainbow to back down nervously.
"This creature is believed to be the creator of the demon race. Our first and only encounter with this creature resulted in one of the guards present to die and another to be turned into a demon. It also resulted in a disease spreading around Equestria that turned ponies into demons. It took us years to gain enough control to keep the cities safe with villages and small towns becoming safe again not long after. Since demons only come out at night it also did nothing to help with the country's poor image of me, blaming me but never being able to do more than that." Princess Luna explained.
"In other words, this 'Ardyn' is responsible for everything we have suffered because of his demons and his indirect involvement with Nightmare Moon." Princess Celestia added.
We all just stood there trying to process everything we've just heard. What else could we do? We just learned we barely made it out of that fight alive, Discord too.
"Wait, then why? He said he wasn't angry at all about you imprisoning him and even said it was necessary! Why would he want to hunt demons and fix a mistake he made. He even said to ask you about him before asking him. What if his side is completely different?" I asked.
"I WILL MAKE HIM PAY FOR EVERYTHING WE'VE SUFFERED! THAT MONSTER SHOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED!" Princess Luna shouted with tears in her eyes as her sister comforted her.
"It's time to lower the sun, afterward we will search the most likely place he will be. Keep the Elements on you at all times, they'll drive away most if not all demons but him. We need to end this now before history repeats itself." Princess Celestia said as she walked outside to lower the sun and raise the moon for princess Luna because of her emotional state right now.
Can we even do this? Is it right?
Ardyn POV
I awoke a few minutes before the sun and moon switched places. I actually feel a little different right now, maybe it's the darkness in me or something. I don't know. I can tell you what I do know though, this night won't be long enough to rid the Everfree of the demons.
Adagium, Path of Salvation
Ardyn POV
The Everfree from the looks of it was the best place to start. After maybe ten-ish minutes I was attacked by a few goblins and flans. I was hoping for bigger and angrier, but progress is progress I suppose. On another note my Royal Arms are still pretty effective in killing these things. While I was walking around aimlessly I decided to do a close examination of my weapons, I never did see if there was any information on why there were only 13 Royal Arms when there were I think 114 kings and queens including Noctis. I know you can't just fit that many weapons in a game under those circumstances, but you would think there would be more, a scythe, an actual bow, or a glaive (the pole weapon kind) to name a few.
After a while I stopped examining my weapons as I began to grow a little impatient with the lack of daemons.
"All those years in stone and I never thought to see if I could form or enhance other senses with these powers. Just my luck I'm afraid." I said to myself as the weather changed to rain. I removed my hat and just stood there with my eyes closed for a bit taking in the feeling as a faint smile found it's way on my face.
"Oh how I've missed this." Just as I finished that sentence I heard daemons all around me.
An armored giant.
2 arachne
5 bombs (2 fire, 2 lightning, 1 ice)
And 3 reapers.
"Well you lot took your sweet ti-" I was interrupted by the reapers stabbing me with 1 going through my neck, but not decapitating me and the other 2 stabbing my chest and leg.
"*pained gurgling noises*" I slammed the head of the one stabbing my neck as hard as I could with the shield and pulled out the scythe. It hurt worse coming out. I did the same thing with the other 2 just a second before the giant could cleave me in two and dashed away from it. Deciding the small fry should die first I targeted the bombs. I threw the star at one and missed (I never was good at aiming with thrown projectiles) as I shot another with the crossbow. Unfortunately I missed that as well thanks to one of the other bombs blasting me into an arachne's electrified swing or whatever it was and I got thrown through a tree.
I may be immortal, but that still hurt like hell! Eeyup! Nothing like getting stabbed, choking on your own blood, getting blown up, and thrown right through a tree to make sure you're awake!
"Aaaaagghh I'm probably going to be feeling that in the morning." I got out before a bomb bit my arm. I stabbed it with the Wanderer's blades until it died. The giant decided to start swinging relentlessly as the rest were getting ready to shoot me. Wanting to see my own strength I used the shield to block the sword and dashed through the giant to shoot the arachne with the crossbow interrupting them, but not the bombs. I warped to the bombs to dodge their spells before killing them with the katana.
Now with all the small fry out of the way I can focus on the actual threats (or would be threats). I threw the trident at one arachne and did a 360° spin with the mace after warping to it. The giant tried to cleave me in two again, but I dashed away from that and warped to the other arachne with the Rakshasa Blade. It lived so I dashed to the side of it and struck it's legs with the Sword of the Father and Wise. It collapsed and died a second later. The giant tried swiping at me, but I warped over it and plunge attacked it with the axe. Rinse and repeat it was still standing until I shredded it with the Sword of the Tall. Finally with all of them dead did I just collapse against a tree.
"I am out of shape!" I said to myself. I just sat there staring into the night sky, I tried to remember a time I could see the stars back home, but I can only remember when Orion's Belt was the only visible constellation where I lived. The rain hit my face and I felt at peace for a moment as I closed my eyes, but then my little episode from earlier happened again and I was crying again. I can barely remember my home, I'm responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of a princess and the deaths of countless innocent people even during my imprisonment.
"A monster can do naught but destroy." I heard a voice in my head, a voice I recognized and opened my eyes to one of my least favorite royals.
"You've haunted the real Ardyn for long enough Somnus. Not like you have any room to talk, after all it's your fault he became a monster in the first place. I think it's ironic the man with literal daemons inside him still had a more pure heart than you until he decided the son must pay for the sins of the father. You killed countless innocent people who any number of them were free of the Starscourge, labeled your own brother who's only crime was saving lives a traitor, killed his fiancé and your future sister in law, stole the throne, sentenced him to a fate worse than death, and erased him from history." I responded glaring at the pretender in front of me as the world faded to black.
"You call me a monster but history would beg to differ boy. You can try to deny it, but you'll soon choose the same path as my dear brother." Somnus taunted.
"History and facts don't always line up. Fact of the matter is you are among the greatest traitors to walk Eos. It's hypocritical of you to believe a 'sinner can't be allowed to sit the throne' yet you've betrayed and killed so many people including family for your selfish desire for power or even for reasons as petty as jealousy. Ardyn was a hero, a man who willingly sacrificed everything even his humanity to save the world he loved, he would have accepted you being chosen and kept saving people, maybe even established his own kingdom eventually." I said standing up with the Rakshasa Blade in hand.
"Tell me, what did you sacrifice to sit the throne? What did you lose? Nothing that's what! All you did was take and take and you were called a hero for it, he did the opposite and was called a monster." I channelled Darkness into my other hand as I walked towards him.
"Embracing your true nature I see. So you're going to des- OOF" *schlick* he looked at me with what I can only describe as hatred after I punched him in the face and stabbed him.
"*cough* *cough* Monster!" he choked out as he faded away and with him so did the surrounding darkness, bringing the real world back into my vision. I looked down and tightly gripped Rakshasa.
"I can't destroy something that doesn't exist, Somnus. I can't embrace a nature I don't have. I have no desire for revenge nor do I have a desire for destruction. You paved Ardyn's path with blood and darkness, mine has neither within sight, I'll make sure of that, monster!" I said quietly to myself before continuing onward.
I kept Rakshasa in hand as I walked through the forest, there were a few daemons here and there, but they weren't anything a guy with literally any weapon shouldn't have been able to kill. After a while I felt a strange warmth that only grew as I progressed. Eventually I heard noises and shouting like a fight was going on and thought there were more daemons. Following the sounds there were a few giants and giant flans surrounding a bunch of ponies. Still being in a bad mood and wanting this done quickly I launched a barrage of weapons at them all until the daemons were no more. Upon killing them I got a better look at the shocked and exhausted ponies, the 6 from earlier and the princesses if I'm seeing who I think I am.
"You all know it's incredibly dangerous out here, especially at night right?" I asked. While a few of them seemed a little relieved to see me the rest had varying looks of fear and pure rage for the princesses.
"So you came to us then? Saves us the trouble of looking for you monster!" Luna said in a 'I finally get to kill you' tone.
"Please, I've been called a monster enough tonight by a hallucination so can we not do this?" I asked only to have a scythe again go through my torso.
"Sorry, but it's going to take a lot more than that to kill me, and why does everything want to stab me with a scythe all of a sudden?" I shouted through the pain a second before Celestia joined in on the stabbey fun time with her giant ass sword that's just a few feet short of a horse cleaver maybe 2 more feet in length and a few inches thicker would it count.
"You have no place in this world, now begone, and take your plague with you!" Celestia shouted twisting her sword getting a pained grunt out of me.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, and I forgive you." This only made them angier.
"You're sorry??!! Is 'sorry' supposed to bring back those who died? Is 'sorry' supposed to cure the afflicted? Is 'sorry' supposed to give back the thousand years I've lost??!!" Luna shouted digging the blade deeper into me. I phased back a little to make speaking easier as I summoned the rest of my arsenal to block everything they throw at me.
"As I said, I'm sorry. I can't change what happened, I can however do my part in ridding this world of daemons, and I can't do that if I'm imprisoned. I won't let the past repeat itself, I won't lose control again!" I said blocking every strike and spell they sent at me. This only angered them more as I wasn't even fighting back.
"Quit hiding behind your shield and fight!" Celestia said.
"I don't want to fight you. You have every right to hate me, to want to kill me, but if you do the Starscourge will never go away." I lowered my defense and caught her sword holding it in place. It burned more than it stung.
"I was once a savior you know. I was blessed by the Hexathion with the ability to cure the afflicted by taking the darkness into myself. I refused to abandon my people and held the darkness at bay even after curing so many." Her expression changed slightly as she kept trying to pull her sword free. Luna saw this as an opportunity to attack me from behind with a decapitation, but I used several Royal Arms to ensure it went straight through my chest and I held the end of it in place as well with my other hand.
"My younger brother and I were the heirs to an empty throne. He was charismatic and ambitious while I was a man of the people. He labeled me a traitor for my gift and hunted me down while he used unthinkable methods including scorched earth policy to deal with the daemon threat." The sisters' struggling increased as did the pain in my chest and hands.
"Get on with it!" Luna said impatiently.
"I was chosen by the Gods as the first king of Lucis. When the news reached my ears I accepted with the hope the throne would bring me that much closer to saving the world from daemons. My brother Somnus in his jealosy used the news against me to convince everyone it was false, that he was chosen and intended to lure the 'traitor' into a trap." Their struggling began to lessen, making 'my' history easier to tell.
"After a short fight he landed a good enough hit to leave me defenseless. In his attempt to finish me off the Oracle, my fiancé, his soon to be sister sacrificed herself to save me. In my grief I lost control and the darkness burst out of me. The Gods had changed their minds and chose him as the Founder King as he brought me down. He imprisoned me for over 2,000 years, renamed me 'Adagium', made himself out to be the hero who saved the world with the Oracle and erased me from history." I looked behind me to see a conflicted look on Luna's face, I turned to Celestia to see the same.
"After I was released by an enemy of Lucis 2,000 years later I swore revenge against my brother who had taken everything from me with a smile on his arrogant face, but since I couldn't kill him persae I chose to destroy everything he built. Before I could end his blood line I was stopped by the chief of the Hexathion and told they had chosen me to bring darkness to the world. I was to be a sacrificial lamb for the Chosen King who would end the long night and with it my suffering and the daemons. The world of Eos was free of daemons and I finally had my revenge, the justice I deserved for so long." I didn't even look at theirs or the faces of the 6 ponies still on standby. I phased through their weapons. They made no movements I could hear as I turned my back to them.
"I know your pain better than you do, and for twice as long for reasons as justified as yours." I said to Luna and walked away for a few seconds before stopping.
"When I came to this world I had hoped for a new beginning, and since I didn't feel the Starscourge I thought nothing would stop me. It's because of my own carelessness that we are even here, I'm sorry again."
No one tried to stop me as I took my leave.
