Xero walked through the forest, limping, aching, EMPed, plucked feathers, and worst of all...
Unarmed.
Trudging along the path, he came across a broken down car, a few handfuls of feathers scattered around it.
They were his feathers.
He found a page, a hastily scrawled 'NO ESCAPE' was written on it, with scribbles that resembled trees and a stickpony.
It dissolved into dust, a UI came up into his vision, 1/10, it said.
He could hear a tribal drum beat now, it almost scared the shit out of him at first, but after a little while, it only kept him on edge.
His velvet tread had been reduced to clattering boulders, the metal from the soles of his boots clacked with each step on the gravel/dirt path.
He kept walking, he stopped, he could have sworn a breeze was blowing, warm, calming.
Then he realized it was the middle of autumn.
He spun around, coming face to face with....
.....white.
His vision staticked, the close proximity to magic had reset his cybernetic parts, they only lacked a charge.
He did a 'typical french assault'
Simple, 2 steps:
1; turn around 180 degrees
2; charge forward
His foot was feeling better, he was able to run with some modicum of quickness.
He collapsed from pain after a minute or 2, blacking out from a worsening state.
<<blacking out transition>>
Waking up with a small amount of energy, enough to power his clock and bio-scanner, the ninja was still featherless and aching, but his broken foot was surprisingly healed.
An hour had passed, and his other functions were still shut down.
Standing again, he found a page pinned to a large, thick tree, it read.
'HE PLAYS WITH HIS FOOD, HE LOVES THE HUNT' along with a set of images, a stickpony, a stickpony with a knife and a flashlight, and a dead stickpony, with actual blood splattered onto the paper.
This was new.
2/10
He set off away from the tree, he needed to find another page, and fast.
Coming up into a jog, trying to keep his flashlight steady, he found a tanker truck, rusted, and broken, the parts in the hood had been ground up into dust.
The page nailed to the side read:
'NO EYES, ALWAYS WATCHING' with a tall stickpony.
3/10
A piano started playing, bringing Xero's attention back to the ambience, drums, and a piano, every time the piano stopped, the drum beat, making an almost terrifying symphony.
He ran now, his only desire was to get more pages.
Looking around, trying to not find the white demon, he didn't see where he was going.
He ran right into a brick wall.
He fell back, as Isaac Newpon's Laws of Motion dictated that the wall pushed him back.
He opened his eyes, coming face to face with the white blank horror.
He turned over, face down, hiding the view from sight, reciting the Lady's Prayer with intense speed.
"Our mother, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven, forgive us for our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us, deliver us from evil, disperse the kingdom, for the power, and the glory, and ensure that we wake in the 'morrow." the brit hastily spoke, having memorized the prayer after Luna had blessed him with the Lunar Zanbato, as well as being her personal guard.
He turned over again, refilled with hope, and found the sky, no face or anything.
Getting to his feet, he found another page on a wall perpendicular to the one he ran into.
It read:
'CAN'T RUN, HE ALWAYS CATCHES YOU' along with a set of motion lines made of streaks of blood.
4/10
He turned to walk away, he got a few steps before tripping over something.
He shined his light on his offender.
It was a large, sharp knife.
A weapon.
Something to defend himself with.
He reached out to grab it.
He stopped when the memory of one of the pages came back.
'HE PLAYS WITH HIS FOOD, HE LOVES THE HUNT' it had said, with a picture of a pony.
A pony with a... knife.
And a... dead... pony.
His decelerated mind processed the thoughts.
He was a centimeter from grabbing it.
He stood up again, getting away from the small blade.
After a minute, he heard a loud explosion.
The knife had blown up.
He thought about that.
What if he had taken it?
Then his hunter would be licking his remains off of the ground.
The piano and drums were now accompanied by a violin, creating an ominous, resolve diminishing symphony.
He ran, he needed to get away from here.
His kinetic reactor powered up his healing mechanisms, his staggering rush gradually became a smooth sprint.
He skidded to a halt at a boulder, another page tacked to it.
'DON'T SLEEP, OR ELSE HE WINS' with a picture of a smiling sun and a corpse with sleeping 'Z's coming out of it.
5/10
He smelled something.
Blood.
He ran in the direction he was facing, keeping ahold of his sanity enough to not turn around to look for the source.
The frazzled cyborg found the tanker again.
A hissing noise overpowered the ambience of violin, piano, and drum.
He searched the tank itself, and found a hole, right where the page used to be.
He remembered that a nail held the page to the tank, and now it was leaking.
Filling the forest with...
with....
Taking a sample, Xero found it to be a complex chemical that had the basic result of sleeping gas.
He had to get away, he couldn't fall asleep, he couldn't fight.
He could only find the pages.
<<404 transition not found>>
A concrete tube, forming a tunnel.
A page at one end.
The white pony at the other.
Luckily, the scared soldier was on the page end.
He got a better look at the white pony before it disappeared, it was wearing a suit, black, with a white shirt, and blood red tie.
No face, literally, no eyes, no mouth, no nose, not even holes where these things SHOULD be.
He turned away when his vision started getting really staticky.
Grabbing the page, the frightened black-clad human read it;
'NO EARS, ALWAYS LISTENING' with the pony again, only with his ears being the focus of the image.
"Well then, FUCK YOU BLOODY WANKING CUNTBAG I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON A COCK AND DIE!" the shouting helped relieve a large amount of stress.
The oppressing darkness pierced through even his now functioning high-power-nightvision mode on his visor.
6/10
The smell of blood mingled with the sleeping gas, which relentlessly attempted to drown the lone black-with-white-highlights haired man in fatigue.
He jogged for a few minutes, finding a ridiculously tall concrete fence, insurmountable as well, he walked along it for a few minutes, hoping to find a page or at least something to guide him.
An arrow, pointing in a specific direction.
He followed it, hoping for a page so he could end this nightmare.
He found a small, run-down store resting on a wide space of concrete.
The brit flinched at the clacking sound of the metal soles of his boots hitting the pavement.
Walking with his velvet tread again, he entered the store through the blown out glass door.
Several tiny aisles, many old posters.
He stopped on 1 of them.
'UNLIMITED TIME OFFER, SUBMIT YOUR LIFE TO WIN A FREE DEATH/PAGE' the poster read.
1 of the pages was in here.
Walking down the aisles, he looked to the fridge section and immediately lucked out and regretted it.
Inside was a mangled pony body.....
... and a page.
Opening the door, the smell of death and rot assaulted his olfactory senses, he reached for the page when he saw it.
The dirty, bloody fur was cyan.
Looking all over the body, he found the mane and tail were rainbow colored.
Whatever the contents of his stomach, they were held back by one last question.
Yep, cloud with a tri-colored lightning bolt for a cutie mark.
*vomiting sounds*
This couldn't be real, it just couldn't.
Hastily grabbing the page and slamming the door shut, he read it.
'YOUR WEAKNESS IS HIS STRENGTH, FEAR YOUR LOVED ONES' it had a broken, bloody heart on it.
He ran to the door again, he saw the white pony, tall and unwavering in the recently started rain.
It tapped its hoof
7/10
Xero ran in one direction, away from it.
He heard a sickening crack, and the sound of a healing spell.
The afraid man dared a look back.
He immediately regretted his decision.
Through the rain and the darkness, he saw it.
He hauled every kind of ass in all sizes AWAY FROM THAT FUCKING THING.
LUNA-DAMNIT THAT'S SCARY!
To make matters worse, the rain made no sound, only made it harder to see.
To completely send the matters up the shit creek without no paddle and cut up hands, the ambient music had completely changed.
Every note threatened to send Xero into an adrenaline-fueled heart attack.
Running for dear life from his undead lover, the alabaster hunter, the oppressing darkness, the rising level of chemically inflicted exhaustion, and a crazed attempt to escape the music itself, he desperately hoped for more electricity.
Throwing caution to the wind and blasting its head off, he cranked up the power on his nightvision, he saw a page glowing in the distance.
It was attached to a pole, he plucked it and read it off;
'ABANDON FEAR ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE' was written on it, with the trees more skillfully drawn, the words lying amongst the penciled in trunks.
The page dissolved, and Xero could here the tapping of a hoof on the dirt.
8/10
"Shit, he's nearby." the hopeless cyborg cursed his luck, looking around to find his hunter and sprinting in the opposite direction.
He ran on, praying to find the next page before he died.
<<transitionwithoutaspacekeybecauseI'mtoolazytohititbutnotlazyenoughtotypeallofthisout>>
Coming up to a building, the storm still raging on, but nothing he couldn't handle, the droplets of water, rather than making him wet, instead stopped EXISTING when they hit him.
A few cautious sharp turns later, finding his marble pursuer once, he turned into a side room and found a chair with no canvas and a page.
'DON'T TURN AROUND, HE IS ONLY WHERE HE CAN GET YOU' the words were written on the face of his oppressor, the page was actually bleeding.
The tapping of the hoof from far away, in the grass, hit his ears.
He turned around, only to find the undead Rainbow Dash staring at him.
Leaping towards the ninja, bad move on her part, Xero rolled out of the way and ran out of the building, coming into a field of gas tanks.
Walking slowly, he realized something, right as he saw the last page.
The music was so loud, that he could not hear hoofsteps.
His bleached predator could be walking up right behind him, and he wouldn't hear it.
The almost crazed soldier came barreling towards the page.
It read;
'NONE CAN ESCAPE, HE NEVER LOSES' this one was carved into a pony corpse, Xero threw up from the overload of adrenaline, the act actually calming him somewhat.
10/10
Doing a quick motion, like the cross gesture, but with the moon, Xero calmed down, the music did not stop, only hitched for a short time, as a loud, randomly pitched static filled the air.
*BZZZZZZZTT*
*BZZZBZZZZZZTZZTZZZZTTT
10/11
Xero flipped off the entirety of the area around him.
He cursed his luck.
He rushed out of there, running as fast as he could away.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
He ran far.
The brit crashed into a statue.
3 others were with it.
1 statue of Nightmare Moon
1 of Discord.
1 of Xero's oppressor.
And 1 of Xero himself.
He found the page tacked to his own statue
'NO HOPE, NO ONE CAN COLLECT ALL 11 PAGE AND LIVES' was written on it.
The page began bleeding.
It dissolved.
*TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP*
11/11
The ninja was tackled.
He landed face up, the undead horror version of RD pinned him, her jagged mouth roaring in his face.
He closed his eyes and waited for death.
And waited....
...and waited.....
...and waited.....
......
.......................
........................................................................
Light filtered through his eyelids, he opened them to find that it was now daytime.
His wings were still featherless, but his mechanical functions were powered up again.
The zombie Rainbow Dash had been turned into pure black crystal.
Scanning it, he found it to be pure, solidified magic.
It was just an illusion...
...but by what?
*TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP
He slowly turned to see the horror that awaited him.
His white hunter, with his black tux, white shirt, and red tie
Slendermane, there was no doubting it now.
Xero summoned the Wolverines.
Slendermane powered up
Xero brought out the Sephiroth, the Blood Blasters, the upgraded crossbow version of the Light Arrow, and added in the Satan's Executor mask for more power.
Slendy grabbed its face, and ripped open the skin covering the eye sockets and mouth.
Horrible black scleras, no iris, and white pupils, and a jagged lipped mouth that opened a bottomless pit of darkness.
Xero wielded the Sword of Weakness to Swords in his mouth, and used his wings to hold the Steven and the Muramasa.
Slendermane gulped, the single line of long, oily black hairs that made up its actual mane stood on end.
Xero stopped being afraid, his multiple close encounters with death left him a bit scarred, the extremities of gore not being one of his broader learnings.
He stared death in its ugly face now.
A last attempt at breaking him, a horrible sound to pierce his mind and drive him to suicide to stop it.
He stood strong, he had heard the sound many times before.
A few slashes were really all it took.
The horror that plagued the forest, the keeper of the Apocalypse Power of Death itself, was a 'Squishy Wizard'
An eldritch abomination amongst men, a god amongst mage, and all he could take was a few slashes of a sword.
Just a few, it was pathetic.
The soul of Slendermane was ripped from its body, dissolved into nothing, leaving only pure power of Death.
Xero claimed it.
*ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: LORD OF THE APOCALYPSE*
He spread his wings, which had lightened in color, but the feathers had magically regrown, he flew high into the sky.
Landing safely on a large platform, it was the Wonderbolts training camp.
He was back.
Better than before.
So much power inside him....
.... but he couldn't use it.
He was more of a speedster anyways, but still.
Rainbow Dash was immediately at his side, the rest of the Mane 6 and Spitfire, dressed up in her drill sergeant uniform, looked at the pair.
"XERO, I was so worried." the spectral maned mare said, holding the man close.
"Heh heh, did I miss anything?" he jokingly remarked.
That earned him a slap upside the head.
He took it without wince or even pain, The power over War, Death, Strife, and Fury granted him a few bonuses to compensate for lack of direct utility.
He just fell onto his cyan mare's back, letting her carry him.
He needed to regain his strength to face whatever would come for him in the future.