//------------------------------// // Chapter Thirteen // Story: WOLVERINES! // by The Producer //------------------------------// Reaper woke up to two Moonwatch guardsponies trying to exact revenge in the crack of the morning. They were trying to use a cockamamie plan involving a dead parrot, and about one thousand volts from a magical sigil. He feigned sleep as he allowed the two blunderers to try and make two and two equal four. Unfortunately, they made it equal forty-two. They had involved a wet towel, a pot of petunias, and tried to enchant a book to talk about what it had written inside of it. All they managed to do was to get it to screech out "DON'T PANIC!" In a very panicking manner. Reaper took this opportunity to launch himself out of the bed, twirling with effect, and landing with both of the unfortunate guardspony's necks within each hand, respectively. Reaper shook the two, slightly stunning them, and said with a voice like he was about to go on a Sunday stroll, "Alright, alright. What is with the parrot, the towel, and the screeching book? Were you just trying to get me angry at you so I would decorate my walls with your entrails? Haven't your mommies told you not to wake the hibernating bear?" Reaper felt a gulp escape between his fingers on both hands as the two started to cobble together what would surely be a weak answer. Reaper let the two ponies slump out of his hands as he stood up, a hand on the hip, and another on the brow. He really must talk to Luna about deciding who would be on her half of the guard. They seemed even more daft than the little walking tin cans of meat. As the two groveling ponies finally came to their senses, they said, "The captain told us to wake you up to have an early meeting with the celestial princesses, sir!" Reaper scoffed silently; they always called him sir. He had made his subordinates all drop that and call him whatever the hell they liked, but he liked his comrades, these were bumbling idiots that should learn a bit more discipline. He motioned them to lead on to the room, and he plotted in his head to make it up to the captain of the Moonwatch. --- --- --- They entered the throne room, and at the signal from the two princesses, all of the guards left the room. Celestia had a scroll that she was staring at intently, and Luna's jagged shear from the void that served as her hair was giving Luna a bit of a hard time. Reaper decided to seize the conversation by saying, "I was wondering if I could teach the troops a bit about discipline around here, the two bozos who tried to wake me up had lightning. I mean, a simple walk into the room, salute, shout, and remaining locked in that position wouldn't be too hard, now would it?" Celestia put the scroll down, and started to contemplate the question, as Luna's brush snapped into about one-hundred different pieces at the same time. Luna sighed, and said, "Yes, little one, I have seen the behavior of my personal guard, and I must say that it is very...loose about it." Celestia piped in, "While my own guard does portray a good example of discipline, I only post the ones that have been specially trained to have it. I would like to have more of an understandable guard that wouldn't abandon post after the doe eyes of some other pony." Reaper clapped his hands together, and prepared to leave, when Celstia stopped him. As she spoke, she levitated a burlap sack towards him "I believe that this is yours, and I have found a way for you to stay in contact with your friends; Any scroll that they send me with a wax seal of a scythe to bind it closed will be sent via magical lay-lines to you. To send a response, simply think about the pony in question, or just spike, and set it on fire within your inner mind." Reaper accepted the bag, and bowed, saying, "Thank you, Princess." Reaper headed outside of the chamber, and was meet by a large crowd of mulling ponies. Reaper checked a quick peek inside of the burlap sack, and saw that it was the LMG and all of it's ammo, its bipod, and various cleaning equipment that he left inside of the treehouse. Reaper closed the bag, and addressed the crowd that had gathered about. "Come on! Princess's orders, I am to teach you all a bit of discipline in the ranks! GET TO THE TRAINING GROUNDS!" Reaper threw up his arms, and made as if to rush the entire group. They scattered like little ants. Oh, how fun it will be to train them! --- --- --- All of the guardsponies that either weren't already trained, or on guard duty, were lined in one long row, all standing at attention, slightly slumped. Reaper went up the line, bag in hand, and would shake his head constantly, especially at the Moonwatch guards. As he got to the end of the line, he turned crisply, and walked back to the center. There was a meat can to his direct front. As a test to see how long any of them can go without shuffling, making a noise, or moving a body part, reaper pulled out his bag, and took out the LMG. He started to take it apart, and when he finally disassembled the gun, the pony to Reaper's direct front turned his head to look more closely at the contraption, and Reaper summoned his best drill sergeant voice, and shouted so loud that it reverberated off the walls of the pavilion that they were standing in. "EYES FRONT MAGGOT! YOU ARE NOT TO MOVE UNTIL I SAY SO, YOU ARE STANDING AT ATTENTION!" A quick jostle and frantic hoof-scrabbling had every guard snap to attention, all staring off into space. Reaper expertly cleaned the various parts, and put them back into place than when he first took them off. He started to yell, lecturing the entirety of the guard that were lined up. "LISTEN UP, AND LISTEN UP GOOD!" Reaper walked back to a weapon rack, picking up a suitable sword, a greatsword, "BEING AT ATTENTION MEANS THAT YOU ARE TO LEAVE YOUR MIND BLANK AND BODY IMMOBILE." Reaper slowly rose the blade to come to rest just inches from the forehead of the previously offending guard, and stood there. After a few minutes of almost no movement between the guards and Reaper, the tip of the blade dropped to Reaper's side. Reaper said, "Good," a few high-ranking ponies walked in. Reaper recognized the captain from the day before. He said, "Yes, what do you want?" The small group took a place beside Reaper, and they observed the line of focused guardsponies. One of them whistled. One of the most decorated ponies within the bunch, armor almost falling off due to the weight of the amount of medals spoke up, saying, "Boy, how in the hay did you get all of those milk-drinking bozos to stand perfectly still in a straight line?" Reaper embedded the greatsword in his hand into the ground a hairsbreadth away from the guard that he was yelling at. He leaned on it, and said, "I can be quite...Potent when I need to. Talk to the captain over there if you really don't know." All there was as a response was a brief shuffle of hooves as the captain in question shifted his weight. Reaper continued on teaching everypony the basics, marching, saluting, saying sir before and after, various things usually taught within the first days of boot camp. After about two hours, Reaper dismissed the guard. He went into a training vault, filled with practice dummies, and honed his abilities. He was going to need an alternative to just shooting everything he saw, or by filling it with magical energies. After about thirty minuets of honing, Reaper had the tip of the greatsword flashing, and following an intricate pattern that was designed to help the person gain an affinity with the blade that they were using. After a few dummies were set up, the blade flicked and slashed with deadly speeds. *** *** *** When Reaper first arrived, he had learned that it was the day after the summer sun celebration. It was now spring, and he had learned many things about the pony people, even gaining a few handful of friends that hadn't automatically ran away in fear. Reaper was training in the same room he always trained in, flicking the sword with ever more mastery. He got challenged regularly by both leaders and soldiers alike, sometimes in groups, ambushes, or solo battles. Reaper had barely noticed when a small group of guards had come in his room. As one snuck up behind him, Reaper spun around, and clobbered him over the head with the handle of the sword. the Pegasus went down like a sack of potatoes. Reaper swung his head from side to side, noting that there were four others, all the same from the group that did this yesterday. He called out, "Aren't you sick of having your sorry asses handed to you on a daily basis?" The unicorn leader of the group, to the direct right of Reaper, chuckled evilly, saying, "You stupid ass, we are going to kill you for sure now, I came up with a new move that will kill you!" Reaper took his blade in one hand, tracing up the length of it, remembering some training from the celestial sisters about magic, he pumped the feeling of cold through his fingers. When he got to the tip, the blade gently glowed with a white aura. He raised the blade in a two-handed downward-stroke fashion, while saying, "I think I've learnt something cool as well." The blade struck the ground, and great juts of ice enveloped the four, rendering them immobile, and defenseless. Reaper cringed inwardly at the lame pun he just uttered, and left the room, heading to the banquet hall, where he and the Princesses would eat their meals. The two were already there when he opened the door, he just sat down with a thump on a chair that was especially crafted for his stature. It was spring salad with various fruits thrown in. Reaper sighed, wishing for a twenty-ounce steak to flop down on the vegetables. He had to repurpose his nanobots to produce enough protein to allow him to still function. As Reaper munched down on the leafy greens, a scroll popped up near Celestia's face. That made Reaper think back to when he'd get them. His first one made a new recruit get hit upside the head with a telekinetic ball of force. Reaper and his five friends kept in relatively good touch. As Celestia read the scroll, her face went to one of benevolence, to shock and horror. Reaper was concerned, the couple of months that he had been around her, he noticed that she was very hard to upset visually, it was more of an aura. He asked, "Celestia, what's wrong?" Luna turned to see what her sister was reading, and got the same expression on her face. Celestia found her voice, and said, "Trixie came back to Ponyville, and she has been calling herself the new nightmare moon. It's time." Reaper threw the chair away, and tore down the hallway to his room. When he got there, he put his suit on at blazing speeds, and put the will of bahamut into a back container. As he burst down the hallways to go to the takeoff point, he noticed that the guards down the way all stood at attention and did sharp salutes. When he arrived at the takeoff point, he summoned his wings, and blasted off into the sky. All of the time training had been for this moment, he would destroy Nightmare Moon's last fragments that was attached to the world. --- --- --- Reaper made it into the town in a little less than forty minuets. He made a few sweeps around the town until he found the azure unicorn. The mane six were already trying to deal with her. The six shot off a streamer of rainbow-colored light. Reaper made a nose-dive straight at the ground between the six and Trixie, creating a massive explosion. As the dust cleared, it revealed Trixie and Reaper fighting over a beam of magic not quite different then the harmony's, but black and white. The six couldn't do much, because the elements sucked a large amount of energy into firing it, but they all noticed something different about reaper, until Pinkie noted, "Hay, Reaper's got PEGASUS WINGS! Look RAINBOW! HE's GOT WINGS!" Reaper heard this, and his wings flapped once out of annoyance. He was obviously in a fight with the same thing that DEFLECTED AN ELEMENT BLAST. It became a contest of power, Trixie's dark energies against Reaper's borderline grey power. Reaper got a hand up when Trixie's attention got taken by the ecstatic pink pony bouncing about in the background. This allowed Reaper to dissipate the beam, and charge in for melee attacks, as he forgot his gun at the palace. As he swung his blade at the possessed unicorn's head, the blade glanced off an unseen ward about her body, and broke the gratsword in half. Disposing of the useless half, Reaper dashed to the left side of the unicorn, and fired pinprick points of energy that would hopefully shatter whatever protection that Trixie had, but to no avail. Trixie gloated with, "You dare think you could deal with the mighty Trixie, the NEW NIGHTMARE MOON! I bet you are wondering WHY I am here, YOU thought that you had Killed me, but the will of NIGHTMARE MOON is too strong for the likes of you!" Reaper was close enough to see that her eyes were small slits, dragon eyes. They signified that she was under the thrall of Nightmare Moon. Reaper whirled in a half circle, and blasted the shield with all of his strength, but made no impression on the shield. Totally exhausted, Reaper slumped to the floor, and couldn't get up. Trixie decided to take this as an incentive to attack. She hit him with an explosion, sending Reaper multiple hundreds of yards across the small clearing that they were fighting in. Trixie teleported over, and started to beat on his body, making Reaper fly a few yards every strike. Another flash of rainbow struck the possessed unicorn, drawing her attention. A whirring sound resounded out, ending with a massive *THUNK* Near Reaper's arm. Opening his eyes, and turning his head, he saw a large sword embedded in the ground next to him. It had three skulls up the middle, and a ridiculous cutting edge that ended with a gap in the tip, making the tip two. He gripped the handle to help himself up, and a deep, dry voice resounded through his head, CHAOSEATER As he got to his feet, time seemed to slow, Trixie was preparing to blast the six while they were still down from the elements. With a mighty heave, Reaper unearthed the massive blade, expecting a massive weight, but getting a lightweight, almost dagger-like weight. It had a handle for two hands, but he could hold it with one. He managed to jump over Trixie, and absorb the lazer. The attack didn't kill him, but was absorbed by the topmost skull on the blade, it had a gaping maw that sucked the lazer in. As he felt power surging in his body, the voice spoke again, RELEASE ITS POWER For some reason, Reaper felt compelled to follow the voice. He mentally reached into the blade, and tapped into the power. He went into full-on Alicorn mode. The eye-sockets on the blade started to glow bright red, along with Reaper's own eyes. He was floating as Trixie summoned a few black tendrils that acted like flexible swords. Reaper dodged around in the air, slashing at the black tendrils, eventually decapitating all of them. He landed, and launched a large, hammering swing with the sword at Trixie, it broke through the shield, and all Trixie could get out was a strangled, "Noooo!" Before meeting her end by the blade cleaving her in two. Reaper dropped the sword, and slumped a bit on his feet, the horn and wings vanishing. He saw a black cloud float out of the remains of Trixie, and speed off towards Twilight Sparkle, who had just woken up. The wings erupt again, propelling him towards the nebulous cloud. Twilight had just gotten back up from the second harmony discharge to see Trixie being cut in half by a strange sword that Reaper had with him. Then she saw the cloud rise from Trixie's body, and felt it's dark machinations. Reaper was then on a collision course with it, and ended up on his knees facing away from the ponies, absorbing the cloud. He slowly took off his helmet, and put his hands on his eyelids. The mane six didn't see, but he took off his hands and snapped open an eye. I was a dragon eye.