The Mernalliam Empire was once such a beautiful sight to see. The sky was almost always a nice shade of blue, with a complimenting pink glow, quite reminiscent of bubblegum ice cream, the buildings were always kept neat and orderly apart from the abandoned homes, and the trees beamed among everything else in the skyline with their gleaming golden leaves, like a beautiful autumn sight that was almost always present excluding the winter time.
Emperor Regius was the empire's longest-sitting emperor, holding the throne for 200 years with his wife Empress Angelus. She was a beautiful mare and he the handsome stallion, and they were ultimately loved by the citizens of the empire because of their generosity, leniency and their good hearts. Together, they ruled over their citizens and made sure their spirits were always lifted from any emotional troubles they might have had. The Mernallian Empire was ruled as a democratic state, despite having only two government figures, they respected the freedom and rights the citizens had been granted when the empire was first established.
During the end of their reign, their son Slifer was crowned as the heir to the throne when their time comes and they move on to the spirit world. After being crowned as the heir, Regius had to step down from his reign due to his failing health. It was discovered that Regius had contracted a flesh-eating disease after cutting his left hoof on an exposed nail and the cut had become infected, slowly eating away at his hoof before ravaging his body, ultimately succumbing to the disease one month after. Angelus continued to rule over the empire to fufill her duties, even though the heartbreak of her husband's death was too much for her to handle, she had loved him for as long as they had been together, and to now continue to live on and rule the kingdom after his death was very difficult for her to deal with.
The empress stepped down a month after her husband's death, due to the grief. Now, with both of his parents out of the throne, this had meant that Slifer has become the new Emperor of the Mernallian Empire. A special ceremony was set up in the town square to officially crown Slifer as the sixth Emperor of Mernallia. The former empress approached the podium and began her speech.
"Hear ye hear ye, citizens of Mernallia!" Angelus shouted, cutting through the crowd din.
"We are gathered here to officially crown the sixth Emperor to the Mernallian Empire, my son Slifer. As part of the family bloodline, he has been chosen to fulfill the duties he has been given, and to now become the next Emperor to the throne. I have great faith that he will be a great, warm-hearted figure for you to love as much as you loved me and my late husband Regius"
Slifer approached his mother, who was waiting by a couple of the royal guards protecting the crown his father had worn. He kneeled down, awaiting the crown to be placed on his head.
"By the power once vested in me, I crown you Emperor Slifer of Mernallia, may your reign be long and prosperous" Angelus proclaimed, placing the crown atop his flowing mane, along with a guard placing his royal cape upon his shoulders.
The newly crowned Emperor approached the podium and began his inauguration speech.
"I, Emperor Slifer will not let you down, citizens of Mernallia. I promise you that I will fulfill the destiny I was born to do, and rule honorably quite like my father, this is for you dad" Slifer announced, wiping a single tear from his eye.
Emperor Slifer was quite the handsome stallion. He like his father shared a light brown coat with piercing blue eyes. His mane and tail a slick jet black, and his flank bearing a diamond cutie mark. Slifer's main talent was archaeology, he had a talent for finding valuable gemstones that would be used in the jewelry worn by Angelus and Regius on their person, most notably the very rare blood diamond used on the Mernallian crown worn by Regius, now worn by Slifer. His cutie mark was the very same blood red diamond he had found to be the centerpiece of the royal crown, from this point on Slifer was known for having jewelry made of only the finest and rarest diamonds made by the best jewelry makers in the land.
Since Slifer was a unicorn, he was always trying to learn as many spells as he possibly could, his favorite spell being his trusty gem-finding spell he learned when he was just a colt. He would find these gems, rubies and diamonds, gather them and bring them to the jewelers to make into extravagant necklaces and bracelets. He knew many more spells, such as basic teleportation spells, levitation spells, and even a spell to give him temporary wings, though he didn't use that spell very often.
Slifer was known for also being a mare magnet, due to his good looks, grooming and charm. He was the most charming stallion that a mare could ask for, always showing them respect and being understanding of their feelings. Though Slifer's relationships did not last very long, as he could not find the perfect mare to settle down with. He eventually discovered a beautiful young mare by the name of Grace, whom he had met when she had come to his throne room, looking for his assistance. She had a green coat, and a flowing brown mane that matched her eyes. Her cutie mark was a simple sunflower, as her special talent was gardening, something both her and Slifer had in common. She preferred sunflowers and roses, while Slifer preferred white lilies.
After a long time of being together, Slifer and Grace decided to tie the knot and get married. Their love for eachother was like nothing you had ever seen, as it was a natural, passionate love. During their time of marriage, Grace had become pregnant, which was great news for Slifer as he had wanted a child of his own for quite some time, someone to carry on the throne when it was his time to retire. Though Slifer tried to not think of the future, he did see a bright one ahead of him in terms of his rule, and the birth of their first child.
The time was here, and Grace was due to birth her child. Slifer was by her side the whole time, encouraging her.
"Grace, I love you. We are seeing the birth of our first-born child, and this will be the next step in a brighter future. This may be painful to go through, but this will all be worth it in the end" Slifer told Grace, kissing her gently on the forehead.
After a lengthy amount of time, Grace had delivered the child.
"Congratulations honey, it's a colt" Slifer said.
Then, it seems she had given birth once again, though something was wrong with this foal, as it was not breathing at all, cold and stiff.
"Oh no..." Slifer whispered, a devastated look on his face.
"What is it, honey? What's the matter with the baby?" Grace questioned.
"This foal...is dead...." Slifer responded, placing the lifeless foal onto a towel.
Grace was devastated, tearing up and now starting to cry. To believe she gave birth to twins, and one of the twins died during conception was just too much for her to handle. Slifer walked over to his heartbroken wife and comforted her in her time of need. Slifer started to cry as well.
"It...it was a filly....." Slifer whispered under his breath, trying to sound strong but to no avail.
After the events of Grace giving birth to twins, Slifer's luck had pretty much run out and his life turned into a living Hell very rapidly. The first tragedy struck two weeks after Grace delivered birth to their new foal, who they had named "Morior", as she had passed away in her sleep, due to complications from the birthing process. Slifer's life was slowly turning bad, first he lost one of his two children, and now his wife who he loved deeply.
Slifer had decided to head to the Crystal Empire to attempt to sign a peace treaty with the ruthless tyrant leader, King Sombra. Little was known to anyone outside of the royal Mernallian family about the conflict they have had with the Crystal Empire, but during Regius and Angelus' reign, they did not approve of the horrible way that King Sombra was treating his people, pretty much enslaving them to do his bidding. Slifer had set up an appointment to meet with Sombra on this day, and once Slifer arrived to the castle, he was greeted by King Sombra himself.
"Ah yes, Emperor Slifer, come in" King Sombra greeted, his eyes glowing a vibrant shade of green.
"Thank you for allowing me to speak with you, King Sombra" Slifer complimented, much to the appeal of the king.
"Now, you want me to sign some kind of "peace treaty", is this correct?" Sombra asked.
"Yes, King Sombra. As you know, my family has been in sort of a conflict with you over how you're treating your subjects, and I think this is all just a waste of our time. Now, all I request of you is to sign this treaty, ensuring we would have no further problems, and that you allow your people to have a voice and not to be treated like equine garbage" Slifer requested from the dark king.
Sombra simply laughed at Slifer's request, rolled up the treaty and burned it with his magic.
"Never will I free my slaves, and never shall we have peace. Now get out of my castle before I have you thrown out" Sombra demanded, now wearing a serious expression.
Slifer complied, and proceeded to leave Sombra's castle. Then, he simply turned around and fired a magical blast towards Sombra, who saw it coming and jumped out of the way in time. The blast managed to destroy a bust of the king, and left Sombra unharmed.
"You simple-minded fool" Sombra growled.
Slifer decided to try to gore the crystal king, which did not work out for him at all, as Sombra simply moved out of the way and impaled Slifer in the right eye. Slifer immediately fell to the ground, screaming in pain after having Sombra drive his horn into it at full force, which had caused Slifer to be blind permanently in that eye.
"Get out of my sight!" Sombra shouted.
Slifer then proceeded to leave for real this time, knowing he had been beaten and having no reason to stay at his castle any longer. He boarded the train west and went back to Mernallia, hoping to get back home and rest, as well as have his injury tended to by a doctor. Once the train had stopped back at Mernallia, he got off and walked back to his castle. Before he went back, he decided to pay his mother a visit, since he hadn't visited her in months. While walking to her home, he had seen suspicious fragments of wood and glass across the ground, even finding a stained brick around the corner. Once he got within viewing distance of Angelus' home, he was crushed at what he had seen, as the windows of her home were all smashed, the large front door kicked open, and part of the left side of the home had been severely damaged .
"Oh no, mother!" Slifer shouted, now running full force towards the wreckage.
Slifer entered the house, and was shocked at what he saw. There were broken vases, desecrated family portraits, and much to his horror: Their family pet dog found decapitated, with the head floating in the dog's water dish which was coated in blood. He ran upstairs to check on the upstairs, and it was just as badly damaged, but his mother was nowhere to be seen in any of the rooms. He rushed down to the basement, and that was when the gruesome sight hit him, his mother was lying in a pool of her own blood, her throat had been slashed but she was gasping for air. He was at a loss for words, as it was clear someone, or a group of ponies, had broken in, destroyed her home, and assassinated the former empress. By the time he got over to his mother's side, it was too late.
She was gone...
Slifer was furious, as he viciously destroyed the guard rail on the staircase with a simple energy blast. He had no one left in his life to love, no one besides his only son. His breathing started to become slower and heavier, trying to calm himself down, and he simply walked upstairs and left the house. He proceeded to go back to the castle, his hooves stained with blood. He refused to acknowledge the guards as he entered his palace, and headed over to the palace library.
The palace library was quite large, full of ancient books on magic spells, history, and stories written by other ponies. Slifer was eyeballing a few books in particular in the spells section, until he found the book he was looking for: The Bible of Dark Magic. This book contained any possible dark magic spell that was ever conjured at the time, such as aging spells, elemental spells that could turn you into a mysterious element, and most importantly: a necromancy column. After the death of his wife and mother, he decided to study the book for every spell in this book, especially the necromancy spells. Slifer had tested his learning amongst himself, as he experimented with turning himself into a mysterious elemental force. His ability was to turn into a blinding cloud of orange mist. And he had also learned a spell on how to turn a living pony into a glass figurine, which he thought was a pretty neat spell, though it would serve no use to him. He had also decided to not use the necromancy spells, as he had better plans in his mind.
The next morning, Emperor Slifer came out to address the Mernallian Empire, his physical appearance was much different, as he now sported an eyepatch across his right eye, his crown a solid gold instead of the old silver, and dawning a black cape with white fur trim.
"Hear ye hear ye, citizens of Mernallia!" Slifer shouted, in a serious tone.
The crowd got silent, and awaited Slifer to speak again.
"As of today, I hereby repackage myself as King Slifer, but that's not the big news" Slifer announced.
"The rules of the empire have been changed for the benefit of me, King Slifer, and it's now survival of the fittest. No longer shall I cater you greedy peasants with nourishment, now you must grow your own food, that is if you can" Slifer continued.
The crowd started to boo loudly, and some had started to throw objects towards the newly-repackaged King Slifer, even trying to fire magical blasts towards him. Suddenly, his newly-formed royal guard marched out to his aid, donned in black body armor, with three emeralds embedded in the front of the helmets. They conjured dark magic they had been taught, and turned some of the rioting ponies into glass figures of their former self, to which the guards proceeded to walk over to the glass ponies and shatter them to pieces with a simple magical blast, killing them. Seeing this caused the crowd to stop and stare in horror as they watched these large stallion guards just lay waste to ponies that were turned to glass, simply shattering them as if they were common dining glasses.
"Now, if you don't settle down and accept me as your new overlord, the very same can happen to you like what happened to the poor individuals throwing objects at me: Turned to glass and shattered" Slifer roared.
The crowd continued to look and stare in awe, not believing what they just saw, until the royal guard ordered the citizens to leave the town square and to go to their homes, which they complied to. King Slifer walked over to the bodies of one of the ponies turned to glass, and picked up a piece of his hoof.
"I didn't know how cool this spell was" Slifer chortled, throwing the glass hoof to the ground and smashing it.
King Slifer's new reign would truly be one to remember, but his rule of the empire was overlooking one thing in his life that he truly loved: His son Morior. Morior was a young stallion at the time, his coat a pale yellow with a jet black mane like his father, bearing fangs and wearing his mane in a ponytail. His horn was not like other unicorns, as it was much larger and curved ever so slightly. He wore forest green eyes and a blood drop cutie mark. Morior was always interested in medical science, which eventually got him a job in the empire as a doctor. His ability to not draw blood during his procedures earned him that cutie mark, which was an unusual talent but among the medical team this was excellent.
Slifer, not having seen his son in two years because of his career, asked to see him the next possible chance he could. They finally met three days later at the town square.
"Morior, my son, how have you been?" Slifer asked his only son.
"I've been good, father" Morior responded, his voice now noticeably deeper and raspy.
"Hey son, what's the matter with your voice?" Slifer asked again.
"Well, I sort of needed some work done on my vocal cords, and they seemed to have botched my surgery a tiny bit, so now my voice is lower in pitch and...kind of gross sounding" Morior explained.
"I'm sorry to hear that, but I believe your voice sounds just fine, my son" Slifer complimented.
"You're just saying that, father" Morior replied insecurely.
"I'm serious son, it gives you a very ominous sound and I think that sounds good" Slifer commented.
"Well, thanks father" Morior thanked his father.
Slifer laughed a little, and both father and son started to walk down the boardwalk, noticing a decay in quality in terms of visual scenery. Houses were looking run-down, trees starting to decay, and the once vibrant blue-pink sky turning somewhat of a red hue. Morior became curious as to why the scenery was changing, and why the people feared him wherever he went.
"Father, what's going on? Everything, including your appearace, is just so different?" Morior questioned his father.
Slifer took a deep breath and began.
"You must not have been around recently, the empire has been changed for the better, well, at least for the better of the royal family" Slifer explained.
"So that's why everything besides the palace is looking like Hell?" Morior asked.
"Yes, that and I've decided to not spend my budget on tedious things such as paying repair workers to keep the city looking good, but to pretty much have it all to myself!" Slifer shouted.
"Why the change of heart?" Morior began to grow angry at his father, who once ruled just like Regius.
"After recent events, I've grown to be a depressed man. This is my only true release from that sadness" he explained.
"What recent events?" Morior asked, being very curious.
"Well, the first being that when my wife, your mother Grace, was pregnant with you, it turned out you were to have a twin sister, but she had died during conception. Grace ended up dying two weeks after you were born, from birthing complications, and then someone, or some ponies broke into your grandmother's house and assassinated her" Slifer told to his son.
"So that's why I never met my mother..." Morior whispered, turning away from his father.
"Hey hey, it's all right Morior. I know you never got to meet your mother, but I think I can make that happen" Slifer comforted,
"What are you saying? There's no way to bring her back, she's dead. D-E-A-D" Morior yelled, tears starting to stream down his face.
Slifer buried Morior's face into his chest and comforted him, obviously Morior was not emotionally stable.
"When your grandmother was assassinated, I was not right at all, so I turned to learning dark magic to see if I could find any way of seeing her once again, and I stumbled across a necromancy section of the book" Slifer said, before being cut off by Morior.
"Necromancy? Oh hell no, you can't be serious" Morior roared.
"Son, come with me" Slifer added, petting his son on the head.
Slifer and Morior made their way to the Mernallian cemetery. The amount of graves was big, as to be expected in a cemetery that had existed since the first Emperor and Empress of Mernallia were in power. They wandered around trying to locate Grace's headstone, until after 10 minutes of searching Slifer had found it.
"Son, come here, I've found it!" Slifer shouted to his son.
Morior dashed towards Slifer, and saw the headstone. The stone was in top condition, had a picture of Morior's beautiful mother embedded on the front, along with her life span and a wonderful little message, which read:
"Loving wife, mother, and a treasure to the empire"
After looking around to make sure no one was around, Slifer used his magic and teleported a shovel to his hooves. Morior looked at his father with disgust with what he was about to do, but did not say a word. Slifer started to dig up her grave, when suddenly a passerby came to inspect what was going on.
"Hey, what's going on h--" the citizen shouted, before being blasted with a big cloud of grey smoke, which when it cleared, revealed the citizen. He was turned to a glass figure, and since Morior did not know anything about dark magic, he was mortified.
"F..father, did you just turn that pony into a statue?!" he shouted in disgust.
"Of course, but technically he's a glass figurine, not a statue" Slifer replied.
"Break him"
"What?!" Morior roared.
"You heard me, break him. It's fun"
Morior looked over at the glass figure and touched it with his hoof. It felt like a glass figure to him, and his rebel side got the best of him. He used a spell that his father had never seen before, as he focused his magical aura on the glass figure's head and strained, causing the glass figure's head to suddenly explode into a hundred pieces. Shards flew towards Slifer, one striking his cheek, but he was fine apart from that.
"Woah, son where did you learn to do that spell?" Slifer asked, obviously interested in what he had just seen.
"From an ancient book I found in the catacombs of the castle. I know you told me to not go down there, but curiosity got to the best of me, and I discovered this book that had many kinds of dark spells. I thought the head exploding spell was very interesting, so I--" Morior explained, before being silenced by Slifer's hoof.
"Son, when we finish with this, I want you to teach me that spell" Slifer requested.
"Alright father"
Slifer hit the coffin after a while of digging. It was a solid brown coffin, the same color as his coat. Slifer pushed the coffin up onto the surface, got out of the hole and started to fill in the hole with his magic. Morior examined the coffin, and the tombstone, which was decorated with sunflowers and roses, the kind of flowers Grace loved the most. Slifer conjured a teleportation spell which brought him and Morior to a secret area of the Mernallian palace, which was an underground throne room with a circular floor infront of the throne, surrounded by lava.
"Woah, what is this place?" Morior asked.
"This is my secret underground lair, it's here in case for some odd reason another kingdom comes to attack us" Slifer replied.
Slifer placed the coffin onto the hard stone floor which was toasty warm due to the bubbling lava, and proceeded to open the coffin. What was inside was nothing more than her skeleton, which was all that was needed for this spell. Slifer lifted the skeleton onto the hard stone floor and prepared to do his magic.
"Morior, step back" Slifer warned.
He steadied his mind, and began to encase the skeleton in a green aura. He strained long and hard, trying to remember the spell exactly as the order said, as even one mistake would be disastrous. Suddenly, organs started to regenerate, including a heart, lugs, intestines and such, then came the muscles, including the throat muscles required for speech and breathing, veins and arteries came next, then started to form the skin to conceal these exposed muscles and organs, and finally came her coat, mane and tail. Slifer knew his spell was finished, and just allowed himself to fall backwards onto the hard floor, exhausted at this huge feat of magic he just had to perform, since necromancy is extremely difficult and exhausting.
Morior was amazed that his father was able to return Grace to her former glory, but the ultimate test was to prove if she would be alive, or just a re-animated corpse. Morior simply touched the body, to feel it was warm, but was not sure if it was because of the warm floor, so he had believed the spell didn't work.
"See father? I told you it wouldn't...." Morior told his father, before hearing a moaning.
Both Morior and Slifer were speechless, as they saw this pony who had been dead for years start to move around, opening her eyes and even managing to stand up, despite feeling a little weak in the legs. She looked just as beautiful as she did the day she first met Slifer. Suddenly, she began to look around and coughed.
"Where...where am I?" Grace wondered.
"Grace!" Slifer screamed out in utter joy.
Slifer ran over and hugged her, but she was still very confused as to why she woke up in an underground throne room on the hard stone floor.
"What happened? I remember going to sleep in my bed, and now I'm here?" Grace questioned.
"Well honey, I don't know how to tell you this, but..." Slifer commented, before trailing off.
"But what?" Grace demanded to know.
"Well, two weeks after giving birth, you died in your sleep, and you've been dead for fifteen years" he explained.
Grace suddenly just shook her head in disbelief. She was dead for 15 years? It couldn't be. But then she spotted the coffin, and knew that her thoughts were all wrong: She really was dead.
She turned around and hugged him, now starting to tear up. Slifer loved her enough to let her live once again? Of course there was a fifteen year span of her death, but he gave her a second chance at life. She was happy to hear this news. Then, across Slifer's shoulder she spotted Morior, notable for the pale yellow coat and his curved horn. She ran over to Morior and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Oh Morior, you're all grown up!" Grace shouted in joy.
"I sure have" Morior replied, hugging his mother back.
The next morning, Grace burst into Slifer's bedroom while he was putting on his robe. She was furious at what she had seen.
"Slifer, what happened out here? Everything has turned to Hell!" she said, quite angry.
"I guess I should have told you that I'm running things my way now, and I've pretty much left them to fend for themselves" he explained.
"What happened to you? You used to be so nice and loving of all things, and now you're no better than King Sombra!" she shouted.
That one comment was the spark that lit the fuse. He walked towards Grace and just slapped her across the face. She hit the floor and crawled away from Slifer, in utter disbelief that he just laid a hand on her.
"Don't you EVER compare me to King Sombra, you bitch" Slifer growled.
She looked up at him, tears now streaming down her face as she ran out of his bedroom. Obviously her feelings were hurt after being slapped and insulted. He oddly showed no emotion towards her running out of his bedroom in tears, which was the beginning of a bad sign. King Slifer was truly turning into the abusive King Sombra. For the next one hundred years, Slifer ruled over the empire, imprisioning more than 500 of his own citizens in the dungeons, killing them in barbaric ways for fun or for execution purposes, and not once giving a thought on how the citizens might feel.
Slifer had approached his son, who was working in the empire full-time. He pulled him aside one day to give him some good news.
"Morior, I have some fantastic news for you, my boy" Slifer said joyfully.
"What is it, father?" Morior asked.
"The time has come, I am making you heir to the Mernallian throne!" Slifer announced.
"Awesome, but why me?" Morior questioned.
"As is tradition, the next in the bloodline will be the next to rule the throne. Even if I have completely thrown away the rule of your grandmother and grandfather, the bloodline honor shall remain, and our next born shall rule once the previous ruler retires, it's simple" Slifer told.
Tonight was truly a night that would live on forever in Mernallia's history. Three imprisoned ponies, nicknamed Bones, Scar and Rumble managed a plan to escape from the prison, their plan was to starve themselves until they were small enough to slip through the bars. It took them about a good week or two, but their goal had been achieved that night, as one by one Bones, Scar and Rumble all slipped through the bars of their cell, and approached the two guards keeping watch.
"Scar, you take the guard on the left, and I'll get the guard on the right. Rumble, you make sure to hide their bodies once they're dead, got it?" Bones ordered.
"Got it, boss" both ponies replied.
Bones and Scar started to creep up onto the sleepy guards, when Rumble sneezed ever so slightly. This got the attention of the guards, who turned around to see two starved ponies sneaking out of the prison area.
"Halt, step no further!" the unicorn guard shouted.
"All right, we'll go back..." Bones replied.
Bones and Scar turned around to notice the guards following close behind. Once they were back in the cell, the guards started to close the door, when suddenly Scar leaped into action and pounced on the guard closing the door. He began to lay heavy blows onto him before the second guard came and restrained Scar, causing the other two to act fast and jump the other guard, knocking him to the floor and restraining him. Scar reached into the beaten guard's pocket and noticed the key that could free him and his friends of their inhibitor rings, since the ones Slifer used were key-operated for extra protection. He unlocked the ring on his horn, causing a magical blast to fire out immediately and breaking the cell bars to pieces, picking up a jagged piece of the steel bar and stabbing the beaten pegasus guard directly in the heart with it, killing him instantly.
"One down, here" Scar shouted.
He approached the unicorn guard with another piece of the steel bars, and had the most sinister of looks upon his face, as if this was bringing him pleasure.
"Lift his head" Scar ordered.
They proceeded to lift up his head. He stared for a moment at the guard, who was completely immobilized, and violently stabbed him in the stomach, causing him to scream out in pain. He then aimed the sharp piece of steel at the guard's throat and simply slashed his throat from ear to ear. The mixture of blood gushing from the massive wound, and the sound of the guard attempting to breath with a severed windpipe brought out a sadistic fit of laughter in Scar, as he watched this pony bleed out and die within minutes.
Once both guards were dead, they proceeded to head upstairs, directly for King Slifer's bedroom. After sneaking past at least twelve guards, the three prisoners found themselves outside of Slifer's bedroom, and there was no turning back at this point. They slowly opened the door, and closed it ever so quietly as to not alert anyone, as even one alerted pony could set off a chain reaction and alert everypony else.
"Go, restrain him" Scar whispered.
Bones and Rumble forcefully grabbed Slifer and restrained him, Rumble even gagging Slifer's mouth with a bandana. Scar walked over to Slifer, who was now unable to move, and even scream. Scar ever so suddenly cut deep into Slifer's throat with this jagged piece of steel, while Bones and Rumble released him. His elegant white sheets were becoming stained with the blood gushing from the severed arteries, and he tried to scream which was to no avail due to his severed trachea. Morior heard a disturbance from the next room over, and proceeded to run into his father's bedroom to find the horrible sight that Slifer once encountered: His father gagged, with a slashed throat grasping for life as the thick blood oozed out of the arteries in his neck. Morior's heart was racing, and as he turned his eye to the right of the room, he saw three ponies waiting to pounce on him as well as most likely kill him. Morior was fast to act and fired off his spell which embraced the ponies' heads, and began to cause immense pressure on their heads, until an audible burst was heard, Morior simply turned his head to see the three prisoner's heads had all been exploded with his magic. Morior went towards his father and held him in his arms.
"Father, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" Morior whispered, tears beginning to form in his eyes.
And within a minute, Slifer was gone, death from bleeding out was never a good way to go, but the three prisoners thought the best way to end tyranny that would torture their citizens with a painful execution, was to assassinate the king in a painful manner.
"I need help in the royal bedroom!" Morior shouted, alerting the guards.
The royal guards immediately ran into the bedroom to find Morior holding his now deceased father in his arms, bedsheets soaked in blood accompanied by three bodies that were completely headless.
"My father is dead..." Morior said, visibly heartbroken with tears streaming down his pale yellow coat.
"I just...need to be alone" Morior also added, running out of his father's room and back into his room.
He then cried himself to sleep, just shaken at the act that had just occured, awaiting tomorrow and hoping this was just a dream.
The next morning, Morior walked out onto the castle balcony. He had requested the town meet by the castle for an important announcement.
"Citizens of Mernallia, it is with great sorrow to inform you that King Slifer...is dead" he announced.
This news brought groans and gasps among the crowd.
"Late last night, three prisoners had escaped their cells, killed two guards and then assassinated the King, this is a difficult day for the empire. But before he died, he had made me, his only son, heir to the Mernallian throne, so the crowning ceremony will be tomorrow night at six o' clock sharp" Morior alerted.
He proceeded to leave the balcony, and prepare for his day. Even though Morior was the heir to the throne, he still had one last day left at the hospital. His last procedure was with a pony who had damaged their wing during a flight, he had tried to perform a double corkscrew but got disoriented and crashed into a tree.
"Just stay off that wing for at least a week and a half and it should be back to one hundred percent before you know it" Morior told his patient.
"I shall, thank you my liege" the pegasus complimented.
Morior felt a sense of joy being called royalty, but it was a kind of sadistic pleasure. He wasn't known to have been a hateful pony, but with the events of last night being quite traumatic, that drastically changed. After his shift was done at the hospital, he went back home to the castle that was actually now HIS home to sleep. It was late in the night, and Morior had worked for hours on end to satisfy the citizens one last time before becoming King. Tomorrow was surely going to be a great day.
The time had come, Morior was going to be crowned the second King of Mernallia. Morior had slept in longer than he normally did, so he would not be half-asleep for his crowning ceremony. He went down to get some breakfast that had been cooked by Mernallia's greatest cook, Sweet Spice. She was truly a great cook, she knew how Slifer liked to have his breakfast served to him exactly as he asked, the same with Morior though she liked Morior more than Slifer for obvious reasons. He liked to have a simple sandwich with some water, with an orange on the side for his daily dose of vitamin C, and it was his perfectly balanced breakfast. Hours have now passed by, and Morior was just roaming around the castle, checking the dungeons and working on something he had not told anyone, not even his mother.
He was learning how to use dark magic. His father had learned dark magic after his grandmother Angelus was murdered by unknown assailants, and this was both Slifer's and Morior's releases from the stress of life. Others had their own addictions, but the royalty of Mernallia had dark magic to rely on as it was a kind of forbidden magic. He had found the book his father had used to learn dark magic, as it was always sitting in his bookshelf on the top shelf, all alone, and this was his guide to becoming just as powerful, or even more powerful than his father was.
The clock was ticking down for the crowning ceremony to begin, but before he left he wanted to surprise the citizens by doing something big: Changing his appearance. He proceeded to the upstairs restroom with face paint, eye liner and a shaver. He started by tying his mane into a ponytail, and starting to paint crescent shapes underneath his eyes for an evil effect. He then proceeded to put on the eye liner for the extra effect on his eyes, as he was known to have stand-out eyes among the rest of the ponies you could ever meet. And now he proceeded to turn on the shaver, and began to shave his scalp of the once full and luscious mane he had, leaving only the ponytail he had tied earlier and little stubbles where the hair on his scalp used to be, leaving a circular black spot on his head.
Before he left, he threw on a black vest from his father's closet, and he was ready to shock the crowd, and his guards, with his new appearance. As he stepped out of the restroom, his guards were in awe over what Morior now had looked like.
"Woah, your majesty what happened to you?" his bodyguard called out.
"This is how I look, is there a problem with that, Mr....Regal Will?" Morior replied, trying to remember his bodyguard's name.
"No your majesty, it's just different is all" Regal Will added.
"You haven't seen everything yet, just wait and see" Morior commented, laughing maniacally.
Morior and Regal Will arrived in the town square. Morior was sporting a black robe that concealed his face so he could surprise the audience, not wanting them to see his new appearance until the ceremony was coming to the crowning portion. As the night was drawing later, the crowning ceremony was to begin.
"And now, citizens of Mernallia, allow me to introduce to you the next King of Mernallia: King Morior!" the announcer shouted.
Morior took to the stage, dawned in a black robe. This brought confusion among the crowd, until they saw his eyes starting to glow forest green as his hood came off. His eyes continued to glow green until an aura appeared around his horn, watching his horn turn to the same shade as his eyes. They stopped glowing, revealing Morior's full new appearance with tribal facepaint, eye liner, his shaved head and green horn, while wearing a black vest. The crowd simply gasped at Morior's devilish new look as he walked over to be crowned. He got down on his knees and prepared for the crown to be placed on his head.
"By the power vested in me, in the words of the late King Slifer, I crown you King Morior of Mernallia!" the judge of the Mernallian court said.
The judge placed the gold-plated crown with the diamond in the middle ontop of Morior's head, and that was the crown jewel of it all, as he was now officially King Morior. Among the crowd watching the event was one noteworthy pony: Morior's mother Grace. After King Morior spotted his mother in the crowd, he decided to go and talk to her.
"Regal, I'm going to have a chat with my mother, stay here" the newly crowned King ordered.
"As you wish, your majesty" he obeyed.
Morior walked over to his mother's side, and began to chat with her.
"Well mother, I am now the King" he told her, obvious that she knew.
"I see that honey, but why must you follow in your father's footsteps and run these innocent ponies into the ground like pieces of meat? she asked the King.
"You would never understand, you're the embodiment of everything my grandmother used to be: Kind, loving and generous. I'm the embodiment of my father, who seemed innocent on the outside but with a heart as black as night on the inside" he explained.
She looked at him for a brief moment, and just walked away without saying goodbye. He knew that her feelings were in a mess and her happiness was fading away. He felt a little bad, but he went on to continue enjoying his festivities. Now that the crowning was over, he walked back over to Regal Will, and followed him to the cafeteria. King Morior had set up a special ceremonial banquet in his honor after the ceremony for the staff that worked at the castle, they served the biggest meal that had been served all year long, that it required 6 cooks, along with chef Sweet Spice overseeing the food to make sure it was a meal fit for a king and his staff.
After the ceremony was over, Morior went back home escorted by Regal Will to go wash up and go to bed after eating such a plentiful meal. He proceeded upstairs to the restroom where he wanted to take a bath, because after a long day of walking everywhere and stuffing himself with food, he just wanted to relax and clean himself off. As Morior opened the door, a horrible sight was found in his bathtub: his mother, dead.
After seeing him become king, along with his new appearance and look on life, she had come back to the castle and decided to end it right there, since she had nothing left to live for now that her husband was dead and her only son was there to take his place in the reign of torturing the citizens, so she got in the tub she had filled up, and slashed her wrists, bleeding out and dying slowly. He let out a ear-piercing guttural scream, which caused Regal Will to run into the restroom to see that Grace was dead, with Morior lying by the bathtub with his head down.
"It's like she wanted me to be a monster!" Morior shouted.
Morior, in a fit of rage, punched the side of the bathtub, causing it to cave in and a mixture of blood and water to leak out of the hole. His attention was caught by a note that was sitting upon the left side edge of the tub, written obviously by Grace. He picked up the note and examined it, and the note just shattered his perspective of his mother forever.
"I cannot live in a world where everything and everyone I loved dearly has betrayed me for the benefit of only themselves. To my son Morior, if you're reading this then I am now dead. You and your father have broken my heart for the last time, and I have decided to end my life so it would benefit you greatly... You're truly a failure and a disappointment, my child..."
"Au revoir, Grace" read the note, stained with blood.
"So that's it then..." he sighed.
He crumpled up the suicide note, placed it down onto his sink and burned it with his magic, never wanting to see that note again. On one hand, Morior was broken due to his mother's death, but on the other hand she had outright called him a failure and a disappointment. He slammed his hooves down onto the tile floor, slicing his right front leg open, this caused him to fall over in pain and slice his left hind leg, roaring out as he ripped the pieces of sharp material out of his legs. This was the start of another drastic change in Morior's life, as this would be how he developed a flesh-eating disease which would eat away at the King's body for the rest of time.
"Regal Will, a minute please?" Morior requested.
"Yes, your highness?" he replied.
"I can sense the start of a very beautiful friendship between us, just stay by my side and we can truly keep the empire under our watchful eyes!" the king loudly proclaimed.
Morior began to conjure a spell he had learned while he was studying that book on dark magic that his father had studied, and had surrounded Grace's limp corpse in a forest green aura mixed with the dark purple of the dark spell, and the aura began to dissolve of her body into a fine grey powder, it was much like cremation but it did not require an inferno to do so. He put the remains into a small glass jar and rested it on top of a shelf in his bathroom.
"Come on Regal Will, let's go" Morior ordered.
"But your highness, what about your legs? Won't they get infected?" Regal added.
"I don't care if that happens, let's just go"
"Alright your highness" Regal said, beginning to leave the bathroom.
And so it was, King Morior proceeded to rule for three hundred years longer, longer than his father's reign as Emperor/King. He had imprisoned many of his own citizens for reasons beyond cruel, witnessed many executions, and watched as the flesh on his legs begin to decay and die, which required him to wear prosthetic legs on his left front leg and right hind leg full-time, as they were too weak to be used without support, and the rest of his limbs started to decay as well.
Morior thought his reign would be unnoticed by any other government figure in Equestria forever, but little did he know that there was a spy among the crowd at King Morior's most recent speech regarding the empire, and it's budget. The spy had noticed how bad the empire looked, and how malnourished the citizens looked, wearing ragged clothes and having filthy manes, while the King wore a look that just screamed "pure evil", but this was just all speculation on his part, until he brought up a citizen from the crowd, belittled him by calling him vulgar names, and literally kicked him off of his stage.
"Oh my stars, this has to be known..." the spy mumbled to himself.
The spy boarded his carriage and set for the long trip back to Canterlot to deliver the news of King Morior's evil tyranny, which had somehow gone unnoticed until now, but then again not many people know that the Mernallian Empire even exists. This spy's name was Buxom Shine, who was also Celestia's servant. As he arrived back at Canterlot, he proceeded to the kitchen since he arrived back early in the morning.
He had cooked Princess Celestia her breakfast just the way she liked it, and proceeded to her bedroom to give her news that would surely be the start of a great adventure...
