Prologue: A Red-Haired Man's War
It was such a wonderful day out in this lush fielded plain of grass. The bountiful sun kindly and warmly hugged the surface of the ground and washed over the grass which danced with the warm breeze.
All in all, it was a perfect day. Perfect to just lie in the sun and relax. Perfect for a child to play around with their friends or families. Perfect… simply perfect.
Though… it was simply just a sad and dying shame… a shame that these plains would be a witness… witness to what might be the darkest day Equestria had ever faced.
The forces of almost all the races on the planet called Equus, Ponies, Dragons, Minotaurs, Griffins, Diamond Dogs, and Zebras have all come together and united to fend against one of the planet’s strongest foes. All family in arms, all scared, all standing together with weapons, magic and armor in either hands, hooves, claws and all but it wouldn’t matter… they were prepared… they had to be prepared.
Over 200,000 soldiers, men and women, stallions and mares, drakes and dragonesses, griffins and griffonesses, all stood together. And in the front of them stood the leaders of all the species.
The Leader of the Griffins, Empress Aura Clover, with a large silver steel halberd in her right talon and wearing a silver colored lightweight iron armor which still allowed her to fly and be protected. Her feathers were almost all white with faded violet ends on every other feather with her main body being almost all brown just as many other Griffins’ feathers were, and her violet eyes brimmed with determination.
The Leader of the Zebras, Shamaness Zeema, held her strong traditional bo staff tightly in her grip as her warrior’s mask rested on her face only revealing her nervous yellow eyes. Her wardrobe consisted of light leather armor which covered most of her body except for parts of her legs and most of her arms which allowed everyone to see her many tribal tattoos and markings for her alchemic and magical achievements.
The Leader of the Minotaurs, King Iron Bull, only dressed in an iron helmet and wielding two large war axes, his bright green eyes shone through the morning as his black fur ruffled through the winds.
The Leader of the Diamond Dogs, Alpha Patch, was standing eagerly to face the one enemy which no other race could even lay a finger on. He wore his iron mail armor and wielded a strong iron sword and an iron shield and on his face wore an eagerly waiting grin.
Finally, the dual Leaders of the Pony races, Princesses Celestia and Luna. Princess Celestia wore her golden solar armor which still allowed her to fly and cast her magic, but also helped to defend her against some of the strongest attacks she’s ever endured as in her right hand she carried the golden steel solar spear known as Midas, and on her left arm rested the supposedly impenetrable shield known simply as Solaris after her father, as she glared at the opposite side of the plains with golden eyed determination and weak hope. To Celestia’s left was her beloved sister of the night and moon, Luna, who wore an armor similar to Celestia’s in all but color and instead of a spear and shield, she held a Lunar Steel Gladius which was called Polara after her mother, as she hesitantly looked to her sister with unsure blue eyes.
“Sister, doth thee know where Pharaoh is?” Luna asked her sister, not seeing the King of the Dragons.
“Heard he took what little remained of his people and fled to the volcanic mountains.” Iron Bull responded, never moving his gaze off the distance of the plains.
“Fuckin’ coward.” Aura Clover scoffed as she rolled her eyes.
“Perhaps it was the best move for him to make, least more of his people die at the stake.” Shamaness Zeema suggested through her native rhyming. “Their numbers are dwindling after all, it’d be foolish to have the demon called.” She remarked.
“Bah, let hairless ape come! We Diamond Dogs show him who true Alphas are!” Alpha Patch boasted.
“Thou are a fool to think that it would ever be so easy.” The Lunar Diarch told the Alpha harshly. “Thou knows what this creature is capable of, yet thou still let thy ego blind thee.”
“Quiet, all of thee!” Celestia suddenly yelled as her eyes stayed trained on the horizon. “He’s here.” She told them, causing them all to snap to attention as they looked directly out into the horizon to see a lone creature walking slowly towards them all, putting every soldier and leader on edge.
Walking out of the horizon was a lone being, standing at 6 feet 6 inches tall with dulled crimsonish colored hair which was long and was slightly slicked back, running down to his nape. You could tell he wasn’t any creature normally seen before as he had no fur, only tanned white skin which showed through his complexion, and on his face you could see a trademark three vertical scars going over his left eye which wasn’t blinded by the wound and instead you could still see his dulled rust crimson eyes which stilled burned with life and emotion, a gift which Princess Celestia was still shocked to see that a demon such as this one, could have emotions. Around his mouth he had what was the stubble and the beginnings of a circle beard and as for his mouth itself, he still wore that trademark and iconic carefree and relaxed grin which was reminiscent of a smile.
His outfit included a sweeping long, sleeveless black cape with a high collar which always covered the creature’s left arm and draped around near his ankles, and under it he wore a simple white shirt which was half-buttoned up and exposed the middle of his chest and upper abs. Additionally, The creature had always been seen wearing pants which were cut below the knee and collected halfway up the shins. Wrapped around the waist of the creature was a long red sash which tied his sword’s sheath to his waist and his footwear consisted of simple brown sandals, with their soles gray-studded, which showed that this creature was no normal being… at least to the people of Equus.
Standing before them all was the greatly feared Red-Haired Demon, also called the One-Armed Demon as he only had one single arm.
This, was Red-Haired Shanks
Placing his hand on the butt of his sword, Gryphon, the man called out to the soldiers and leaders. “I see you’ve come to see me with quite the welcome party, eh?” Shanks chuckled loudly at the waiting army. “C’mon, there’s no need to fight! Let’s forget about all this and go for some beer! Drinks will be on me, so what do you say?” He offered with a smile.
“Hold thy tongue Demon! You shall not leave this battle alive!” The Solar Diarch roared in anger, pointing her spear in Red-Hair’s direction.
Shanks let out a sigh before placing his hand on the hilt of his saber and drawing the abnormally long blade, holding it lazily by his side. “Welp… can’t say I didn’t try.” He muttered with disappointment.
Shanks then took not but a single step forward and suddenly without any type of warning signs nor giving any time to prepare, over half of the amassed army was suddenly rendered unconscious by some type of invisible force that overwhelmed even the most battle hardened of soldiers.
Red-Haired Shanks took twelve more steps towards the leaders without any signs of stopping.
“Our turn!” The Lunar Diarch yelled at Shanks as she and her Solar sister flew into the air and raised their weapons into the sky.
Then channeling all their magic into a large sphere of energy, the Celestial sisters released a combined warcry before shouting “CELESTIAL ECLIPSE” and sending the massive ball of magic towards the Red-Haired Demon.
Shanks stopped his approach, his smile never leaving as he raised his saber above his head and waited as the magical bomb closed the distance. Suddenly, Shanks swung his sword down to the ground… splitting the massive attack in half and destroying the sisters’ attempt to put an end to the Red-Hair’s era, as the man stood back up and once again held Gryphon lazily to his side, before continuing his slow advance and walking towards the rest of the army.
Celestia growled before releasing one final warcry and shouting. “ATTACK!!!!!” As she, Luna, and the rest of the army began to charge towards the slowly advancing and still smiling man.
This would be a final battle to mark both the beginning… and the end. The end of an old era… and beginning of a new one. For five years later… the demon known as Red-Haired Shanks was entombed in a stone prison, never to escape again… or, at least that’s what everyone hoped would be the case.
However…
10,000 Years Later…
Awakening Arc: The Red-Haired Man's Waking
10,000 Years Later…
~I’m… walkin’ on su-... sunshine… woah-oah-oah.~ I weakly sang in my thoughts as I blankly stared out at the Castle Gardens as a group of fillies, colts and their teacher trotted over to me. ~I’m walkin’ … sunshine, woah-oah-oah.~ I sang once more, trying to keep the feeling of overwhelming loneliness and grief at bay for just a few more seconds.
“And this everypony, is the statue commemorating what could very be, the most dangerous foe that all races on the planet have ever faced!” The teacher of the children announced as they approached my prison.
“Whoa!” The children said in awe.
“W-What is it? Is it a Minotaur or some kind of… hairless ape?” A pink furred filly wearing a tiara asked while looking at me with slight disgust.
~And don’t it… feel good.~ I thought to myself slowly, trying to both ignore the pink furred filly’s insult and also doing anything to preserve my sanity after being alone for ten thousand fucking years. The teacher of the children quickly turned around and glared at the filly with a rage unmatched by even him. And that’s saying something.
“Diamond Tiara, this hairless ape as you put it, is what’s known as a ‘human’. One of only two in recorded history and by far, this one might have been the most powerful.” The teacher scolded the filly, Diamond Tiara before continuing and looking up at me with a soft set of sympathetic and nostalgic eyes. “His name was Red-Haired Shanks, the Red-Haired and One-Armed Demon. From what little records of his era there were, it was said that he could defeat over 100,000 soldiers of all the combined races across the planet with just his presence and that he could block any attack with his bare skin and predict even the slightest movement.” She seemingly reminisced.
~… Those eyes.~ I thought to myself as I looked into the teacher’s eyes. They were a soft and warm light green and they reminded me so much of my brother in arms. ~I… I feel slightly less lonely now. Thank you.~ I thanked the teacher in my thoughts as she couldn’t hear me outright.
The teacher was an earth pony with a cerise colored coat and her mane was a lightish purple pink coloring. She wore a white undershirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, along with a tanned brown vest and a pink tie and she wore a pair of loosely fitting aqua colored jeans with a pair of sandals which were oddly similar to my own pair. As she looked at me, I could see that her eyes held more than just nostalgia or sympathy… they held a slight sorrow and admiration towards me, along with a faint happiness of seeing me. Odd.
Suddenly a slightly deep yet randomized and high pitched voice arose from it’s thought to be eternal slumber. “Oh yes, dear old Shanks. What a pity, he had so much potential to create a lot of chaos.” My internal eyes widened, as did the entire class as I used my Observation Haki and looked to my right.
One fortunate thing about my… predicament, was that I got extremely damn good at using both Observation and Conqueror Haki but that didn’t matter right now. As I looked, I saw that my once fellow cellmate, the Draconequus named Discord, was free. How he got out was unknown to me and I not only wanted to find out, but I wanted his multi-animal ass six feet under as his chaos caused the deaths of almost a thousand innocents while I could only watch in silent agony and grief. The teacher put herself between the chaos being and her students as the Draconequus laughed at my misfortune.
“Bwahahahaha! Oh, what a pity, what. A. Pity.” He finished his laughter before turning to the class and their teacher, his eyes sharpening with a deadly finish. “Now… let’s start some chaos.” He growled with an evil smirk as he raised his lion paw and snapped, summoning around a hundred swordfish, all with their sword noses replaced with actual rapier swords.
I wanted so badly to be able to move at this moment as I couldn’t let these ponies die right in front of me. Sadly, I was still trapped in my eternal tomb but that didn’t stop me from struggling to my damndest, when after a few milliseconds, I began to hear cracking. It was extremely faint… but it was definitely there. So, in response I continued and continued to struggle as the cracking and crumbling grew louder and louder, before Discord snapped his paw one more time which sent the literal swordfish darting towards the terrified class… when with one final struggle, my stone prison erupted around me.
I quickly leapt off the pedestal and placed my only hand on my sword, Gryphon’s hilt before quickly drawing it and stopping myself in front of the class and teacher as I proceeded to quickly dance around the limited space I had, deflecting the swordfish with slight difficulty as… well as I hadn’t used my body in ten thousand goddamned years. After deflecting all the swordfish to my sides, I used my Observation Haki and glanced back at the class and their teacher, seeing that aside from the shock I gave them and the scare Discord gave them they were okay, before returning my attention to the equally shocked Discord who I sneered at before lunging towards him. However he was quick to recollect himself as he vanished in a sprinkle of light before reappearing further away from me.
“Well, well, well! Would you look at that! Red-Haired Shanks is outta his prison! Welcome back to the land of the li- WHOA!” Discord tried to say before I cut him off by taking another swing at him with my saber. “Now that wasn’t very ni- HEY!” I cut him off once more as he dodged once more, knowing that his chaos magic wouldn’t do shit against my saber.
“F-Fu- … -cking le- … leave!” I ordered him as I exerted my Conqueror Haki over him, my voice extremely raspy as I hadn’t used it in so long.
“Alright, alright… jeez.” Discord grumbled in fear as he teleported away in a puff of light.
A few seconds after he disappeared I resheathed Gryphon before raising my hand to my throat and rubbing it gently, soothing it as I had to get used to talking again. At that point my Conqueror Haki had fallen back to its usual and safe level, so I turned around to see the shocked and surprised eyes of the teacher and the scared shitless eyes of all the children behind her. For what felt like hours, but was really only a few seconds, I gazed into the teacher’s eyes as she stared into mine before the corner of my mouth quirked upwards into a small smirk as I could see the happiness in her eyes raise higher and higher.
“T-Than… Thank y-you.” I thanked the teacher dryly as my voice started to get smoother and unagitated while I got used to it once more.
The teacher looked at me with slight surprise before asking. “You’re thanking me? For what?” She questioned.
“F-For… making me… f-feel le-less lonely.” I responded with a smirk before turning to my left and seeing the edge of the gardens and the end of the Castle as well as the waterfall. “Well… s-see ya!” I waved to the class as I sprinted towards the end of the gardens before jumping off the railing and plunging down the over six hundred feet drop.
I chuckled for the first time in so long as the wind blew through my hair and past my face as the sun truly began to warmly and welcomingly touch my skin, much kinder than anything its embodiment had ever done to or for me. As I rushed through the air, my cape wildly flapped like an overexcited dog’s tail, and before long I soon began my approach towards the water at the bottom of the falls, to which I aimed myself in the pencil dive position before using my Armament Haki and quickly coating my entire body as well as my clothes and saber in an invisible black armor as I impacted the water, feeling a slight thud against my body as if I were a normal person, I’d be dead on impact.
After the impact, I stopped using my Haki and swam up to the surface before going over to the shore of the falls and exiting the pool of water. Looking ahead of myself I saw that the Everfree forest was within a few miles, so I began to walk towards my planned destination at a fairly consistent pace, and if you’re wondering about what my destination is… well, it’s none other than the Everfree Castle! Yup, I’m going there and if you’re wondering why… well I don’t have any other place to go now do I? ~Castle of the Two Sisters, here I come!~ I thought with full force for one of the first times in an extremely long time as I made my trek to the ruined castle. Suddenly, my demeanor and smirk dropped into a pissed frown, my eyes blinding with anger.
“Sun-bitch, you better watch out… ‘cause if I see you. I’ll introduce your ass to my goddamned foot!” I roared out as my voice reached its peak and caused birds to fly out from within the forest’s trees.
~The Red-Haired Pirate is back everyone!~ I thought to myself.
