1: The Gates of Dark Death
The Greatest Possession
Chapter 1: The Gates of Dark Death
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“It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.” - Virgil
*~~~~~*
Michael was, in any sense of the term, a powerful man. He had killed hundreds of thousands of Hades’ residents, including some of the more exotic ones, such as cyclopes, queen harpies, blood minotaurs and even chaos mages. For most of his career, he had done so with two weapons; his trusty revolver and break-action shotgun. How, might you ask, could a mere mortal kill so many monsters with simply a revolver and a break-action shotgun?
Well sir, there’s a simple answer there. Michael was no mere mortal. He was a descendant of the Olympian gods, denied his true heritage after death, as he had not died in a ‘heroic’ enough manner. He’d found others in the same boat, though most gave up hope long ago.
Michael, however, had not. He fought tooth and nail, training for the day he would finally burst out of Hades, make his way across the world and beat his brother senseless for his needlessly silly death.
Michael did not have what could be called an honorable death, unless you were using sarcasm and happened to be a jackass. He had gotten utterly smashed with his friends one evening, bought a nice new bullet-proof vest, handed off his personal defense weapon, a shiny, relatively new Colt New Agent, to his brother and asked him to fire upon his person.
Unfortunately, his brother was even more drunk, knew less about guns than a dog and may or may not, depending on who you ask, be able to qualify for mental disability.
Nearly needless to say, his brother shot him in the head. Not a good way to go, but at least it was painless. Relatively, anyway, because it was so short.
Michael gripped his hand as the memory washed over him, and he carefully watched the river bank, oily black but with a sheen that was nearly alien in its intensity and patterns.
Michael had the luck, good or bad, to be accompanied by a Spirit Guide who occasionally chimed in, thought it was only rarely useful. “What are you even doing out here by the Styx?” he said, in his peculiar voice. “Charon won’t ferry you across, you know.”
Michael spoke, in a gruff voice, hoarse from years of shouting. “He won’t have to.” He left the words hanging ominously in the air, before a golden glow began to suffuse his body.
“Oh you’re really going to--” began the guide, before he was interrupted by Michael jumping into the River Styx headfirst and beginning to swim at a pace to put Olympic Gold-earners to shame. “Oh gods, he really just jumped in. Have fun with your permanent death!”
Michael, however, was not in the mood to let the Spirit Guide get him down. He had trained long and hard for this day. He would reactivate his connection to the gods, swim the Styx, fight past Cerberus and then back to his brother before shoving his rather large boot up his sibling’s posterior. Almost automatically, he nodded at Charon as he passed. Charon, who was ferrying a newcomer across, was not pleased. The newcomer looked greatly confused, and Charon just sighed and put his skull into his skeletal hand, as now he would have to explain the Olympians to the recently deceased.
Michael did not let that brief nod slow him down however, and swam the Styx at a lightning-fast pace. He knew that, if he made it to Cerberus, all would be well. He could feel his connection weakening as the gods set about the task of severing it, and though they were about halfway done he felt confident. He could barely see the shore on the horizon, but it was coming up fast and it would not be long before he reached it.
His only regret would be that he would have to face Cerberus without the connection there, though that did not make him helpless by any means. Some would even go so far as to say it just made him meaner.
Michael pulled ashore and shook himself off as the gold glow began to recede back into himself. “You actually swam the river Styx!?” bellowed the Spirit Guide. “Oh, I’m so delighted, I might get to see a non-hellish sun again!”
“And what makes you think I’ll take you with me?” said Michael, speaking quietly, but with steel lining his voice.
“Oh, you have no choice, don’t you see? I’m your Spirit Guide, I follow you wherever you go, even if that happens to be outside of Hades,” responded his Guide.
Michael grunted, padding along the shore to the great gates of Hades. They were fearsome things, wrought from metals whose names are long forgotten, designed to keep the most fearsome of beasts out and beasts well beyond fear in.
Fortunately for Michael, Olympians were never meant to be kept in.
He walked slowly up to the large gates and to the giant, midnight black three headed dog. “Stay, boy” may not have been the best choice of words as Michael quickly found out, feeling himself swatted very hard into the jagged cave walls. He peeled himself off the wall, then pulled out his shotgun.
“That hurt,” he began, “but not as bad as I bet this’ll hurt,” he said, emptying the four barrels at Cerberus, one at the side heads and two at the middle. Were this a normal shotgun, Cerberus would just shake off the pellets, charge him and bite him in two. However, this was a shotgun upgraded by a genuine Olympian in genuine hellfire with genuine forgotten materials, and so was the ammo. This gave it just the edge it needed to pierce Cerberus’ skin with its fletchette rounds, and Cerberus gave a howl, as it had been a long time indeed since he had been hurt through his hide.
Cerberus, however, was not one to toy with such a deadly opponent, and he snapped up Michael in his powerful jaws. Michael, however, was prepared for such an eventuality, and quick drawed his revolver before firing it into one of Cerberus’ huge eyes. If you were a dramatic sap, you would say that the howl could be heard all the way in France, but Hades’s walls and gate were thick, so it was only most of Hades itself.
In pain, Cerberus dropped Michael unceremoniously and backed up, whimpering from a fatal shot to one head that seemed to have not even winded the Olympian. “Cerberus, I have no wish to drag this out,” he began. “Let me through and I’ll let you live to keep the others in.”
Cerberus thought about this. One the one hand, this stranger had more than enough power to actually render Cerberus temporarily dead, and he was unjustly imprisoned solely because of his heritage. While Cerberus was recovering, many evil creatures could escape. However, on the other hand, Cerberus’ mission was to let no one through, regardless of anything else.
Cerberus weighed it over in his mind before relenting, slowly padding away with a growl. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to to realize that this was for everyone’s best interest. He would simply request help to bring him back into Hades later. Little did he know, however, that the Gods already had a plan.
Michael walked to the gates of hell and opened them into a bright and sunny meadow, with birdsong in the distance.
“Well,” said Michael. “I’m out, but where the hell am I? Greece?”
*~~~~~*
Twilight Sparkle’s day, in comparison to Michael’s, had been positively boring. She had woken up, picked up her morning checklist, taken a shower, combed herself, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth and manned the library with Spike, her pet/assistant the dragon. She’d had a slow day at the library, and talked with her friends occasionally, but all in all it had been drab and dull in comparison.
Until she got the letter from Princess Celestia telling her that a creature had broken out of Hades.
Author's Note
Whelp, there's the first chapter. One helluva way to kickstart the day, huh? I almost feel sorry for Twilight, and I *do* feel sorry for Rainbow Dash. Next chapter: Michael punches things.
The Greatest Possession
Chapter 2: Fault
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“To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.” - Plutarch
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Twilight Sparkle stood stock-still, eyes wide and mouth open. A creature from Hades, possibly even Tartarus had escaped! This meant several things.
One: It meant that Cerberus had failed. Whatever creature had escaped was strong enough, sneaky enough, tricky enough or smart enough to get past Cerberus, but alarm Celestia.
Two: Ponyville was directly in the rampage path. Getting the villagers out of the way was the number one priority, however that happened to manifest. She had to, single-hoofedly, organize the town, provide the news, evacuate the town in a timely manner and try to do something about it that would -- hopefully -- eliminate the problem.
That brought her nicely to three: She had to gather her friends and the Elements of Harmony to try to stop the escapee from Hades. She, and her friends, had to stop an escapee from Hades, in what was probably an elaborate test.
No big pressure, right? It was about now, however, that she noticed Spike waving at her and trying to get through her mental checklisting. She shook her head and looked at him expectantly.
“She also says she’s sending over the Elements, and that they should only be used if the occasion becomes necessary. She explicitly said to tell you that she does not want you tracking down the escapee.”
Twilight sighed in relief. That was one rather big item off the list. That did, however, bring up questions. Who had escaped from Hades? More importantly, how? And, perhaps most importantly, who actually was going to capture it again if not them?
It was all a confusing jumble to Twilight Sparkle, but there was still a clear objective: evacuate the town.
She grabbed Spike and put him on her back before trotting outside, looking carefully around for her friends.
*~~~~~*
“Hell opens up into a bright, sunny meadow? Wow, the gods sure do love irony, don’t they?” Michael said, looking around.
“Where else would it open, the ocean?” replied his Spirit Guide.
“Yes, actually, that would prevent escapees rather than reward them.”
“But I bet you nobody expects a gate to Hades in the middle of a sunny meadow,” the Guide countered.
“Point conceded,” said Michael as he finished his scan. It looked like he was in a temperate climate, and he could see a large, purple mountain, a rather large forest and a small town in the distance. Michael had to admit, Greece may have been a bad guess. He was relatively sure Greece did not have actually purple mountains. “As a quick question, though... Do you know where we are?”
“Actually, no,” said the Guide. “I’ve heard much about the Earth as a Guide, but I’ve never heard of a place like this.”
“Wow, a helpful Spirit Guide. Now I’ve seen everything.”
“I can be curious too!”
Michael, however, seemed to be done with talking, and set off towards the town. Maybe there he could figure out where he was.
*~~~~~*
It was pure chaos in Ponyville.
As Twilight was gathering her friends, Pinkie Pie screamed about the escapee and, for some reason, throwing a party, a couple ponies outside had overheard and started panicking, and that set everypony off.
“Calm down everypony!” shouted Applejack into the midst of the stampede of ponies.
The stampede continued unabated, and a dust cloud slowly began to form. It engulfed the ponies, rising up higher and obscuring vision, making everypony panic even more.
“Twilight, dear, can you clear this dust cloud?” said Rarity.
Twilight looked at the cloud and a look of comprehension dawned on her face. Her horn began to glow, and wind blew the dust towards the center and up into a pillar. The ponies followed the wind, and all ended up grouped tightly together in the town square, and slowly began to calm down with everypony around them.
“Everypony quiet down!” she began. “Now, the Royal Guard is on their way, but we need to get out of their way. They’ll keep the town safe from the monster and drive it back into Tartarus, and then everything will be just fine. Now” -- she pointed off towards Canterlot -- “all we have to do is move!”
By this time, everypony was calmed and began to trot or cruise over towards Canterlot. The panic, however, had wasted enough time that they had just started on the journey when Michael crested a hill to overlook the town.
“EVERYPONY RUN!” yelled somepony, and they all galloped or flew towards Canterlot. Fearing that the escapee may be fast enough to catch them, Twilight Sparkle and her friends donned the Elements before standing in formation to face him.
*~~~~~*
“What the hell kind of ranch is this?” asked Michael, seeing a horde of ponies galloping off into the distance and what looked almost like a small, rural town scaled down to 80% or so. It was a surreal and unsettling experience.
“The genetic engineering kind, I would assume,” replied the Spirit Guide.
“Probably a good guess. Hey, those bejeweled ones are looking at us.”
Indeed, there were 6 bejeweled ponies looking at him. He walked down towards them, looking around for who could possibly own such exotic and decorated creatures.
He heard a voice say “Stay back” and he looked over towards the group of ponies where it came from, only to realize some of them were pegasi or unicorns. He looked at them. Their heads came up to his collarbone, and he saw that they were not built like any equine he had seen before, but it was quite apparant that they were equines.
“Guide, are those actually unicorns and pegasi?” asked Michael, a look of confusion on his face.
They appeared surprised that he spoke to the air, but the pink one in particular looked even more surprised when the air responded. “Yes, I believe they are. Oh, it’s been so long since those were around! Of course, they never looked quite like this. How stupid, bringing back a dead species without even using the closest approximation. Look, they even made a new baseline!”
He looked and, indeed, not all were pegasi or unicorns. The purple one opened her muzzle, but the pink one popped in front of him and spoke with a determined look on her face. “Where did that voice come from? Did you summon him? Is he a dead companion!?”
Michael stepped back, momentarily taken by surprise. His hand reached for his revolver, but his instincts, honed in Tartarus through long hours of battle, told him this one neither wished him harm nor would be capable of causing him harm.
“Guide, I thought you said nobody else could hear you,” said Michael, a worried grimace appearing.
“Nobody else should be able to,” responded the ever-present spirit, “but maybe she’s spiritually attuned or something. Of course, it’s been so long since I’ve been out that I’m just throwing darts at the wall.”
As he spoke, the pink one swiveled her ears around to determine the source. Try as she might, however, it seemed as if she would not find him. The purple one pulled the pink one back by the tail, a look of frustration evident on her face.
“Pinkie, you don’t know if he might be dangerous!” she whispered quite loudly.
“But Twi, if he was an evil escapee he would have just attacked us!”
The purple one, ‘Twi’ as she was called, opened and closed her mouth for a couple moments before sighing and bringing a hoof to her head. Done with that, she turned her attention to the escapee. “Be that as it may, he still has to go back.”
“Oh no, I didn’t fight my way out of Tartarus just to go back in. Point me to the nearest international airport and I’ll be out of your way, however,” he responded.
A blue one with a rainbow mane poked her head out of the group at this. “International airport?”
“Oh, you know, LAX, Boston, Houston, Las Vegas...” he said. “Places where I can get on the first plane back to the States.”
“Do you mean Las Pegasus?” asked the purple one. “And which States?”
“Oh... Did the Olympians...?” said Michael, anger and dizziness beginning to overcome him.
“Yes... Yes they might have. They have doomed you to a world with bad puns, technicolor ‘ponies’ and what looks like an extreme lack of technology.”
“Those arrogant utter bastards.”
Author's Note
Remember when I said "next chapter, Michael punches things"? Well, sadly, I'm not sure how I can work that in without making it longer or just having him punch a pony. Instead, NEXT chapter he will punch things. And if he does not in the story, he will in the Author's Notes. Sorry about the slow update rate, I'll try to speed up.
