//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - Enter the Fruitlord // Story: A Fruity Adventure // by King Fruit II of Apland //------------------------------// The great oaken doors swung inwards and struck the walls with a resonating thud. Before the ponies lay a grand hallway, lined with portraits of pear aristocracy and patterned vases. On one wall was a sprawling fresco depicting rigid lines of apple soldiers being overcome and cut down by tumultuous waves of banana warriors, striped red and blue in war paint. A long arabic rug stretched down the hall to another set of large doors at the far end and pear servants wobbled around awkwardly this way and that, spilling whatever they were holding with the erratic gait. They came and left through various carved wooden doors branching off left and right all the way down to the main doors, which remained unopened. “Enough gawking,” Juicylips said, breaking the silence that had fallen since the group entered, “Let’s get on with business.” He set off wobbling away down the corridor and the ponies started to follow, looking around incredulously at the pears throwing food, drink and paperwork all around them while attempting to walk with no legs and carry things with no arms. Twilight began to wonder how these fruit functioned as a society when they were so horrendously inefficient at existing. Soon enough, the ponies were facing up to the second pair of needlessly huge and complex doors. Juicylips pushed his face onto the cool, shiny surface - looking extremely uncomfortable - until they creaked open an inch, at which point they were opened from the inside. Beyond the entryway was a large room, and one that Twilight felt familiar with. A red carpet crept along the stone floor and climbed a short set of stairs, forging a path to the centrepiece of the room - an enormous lavish throne, gold plated and inset with jewels of every shape and colour. On three of the four walls were tall windows, showing views of the city outside from just above roof level and casting rods of light into the room, dust particles suspended within. Four armoured pears, equipped with crossbows, stood guard at the base of the short, broad dais on which the throne was perched. On this seat, atop a frilly pink cushion, sat the 4th lord of Saint Peartersburg. He was nothing like Twilight had imagined him to be, in fact, she recoiled in horror slightly when she first looked up to see him. The lord wasn’t equine, but he wasn’t a fruit either, he was something completely alien. He slouched back in the chair, two long arms stretching down the edges and clasping onto the ends with a fleshy mishmash of joints and bony appendages. His legs were somewhat similar - long, thin and gangly with one bend in the middle. The Fruitlord’s skin was pasty white, almost translucent, and stretched across his form tightly, making him look almost malnourished. However, it was the face when things really got interesting. The entire visage was covered in throbbing, pustulating sores, his tiny eyes set deep inside the mountainous acne and his mouth small with tight, pale lips. A greasy mop of strikingly ginger hair sat simply on his unsettlingly broad head, falling limply down his forehead; the only hair on his face was a straggly beard consisting of 3 or so hairs on his chin, sprouting like grass and falling wispily down to chest level. “Hello.” Rarity said, uninterestedly. She didn’t seem phased at all by the situation, and resumed staring around vacantly. “Yes, erm, hello.” Twilight repeated, “We hear that you need some help with a beast… or something.” “Yes. Yes we do.” The Fruitlord replied in a hurried, nasal voice. He stood up from his throne and stepped forward to meet the party. He stood on two legs and reached just short of six feet in height, and as such towered over the ponies. As he stood, Twilight also noticed that he was wearing clothes - a pair of blue denim trousers and a badly stained white T-shirt with some sort of marking in the centre that Twilight couldn’t make out because of the staining. The lord knelt on one knee so he was on the ponies’ eye level before he addressed them. “Hello Twilight Sparkle. I know who you are but I don’t believe you have met me.” It was at this point that Twilight deciphered the shirt. It read “Twily is my waifu” encircling an image of her cutie mark. She backpedalled in horror and looked between the shirt and the Fruitlord’s face. Twilight didn’t know what the phrase meant, but she wasn’t comfortable with it. “Who are you?” Twilight asked in disgust. The lord chuckled. “I am the 4th lord of saint peartersburg, the fruitlord if you will. Please don’t be alarmed by the shirt, it’s the only one I have and these useless fruits can’t make clothes.” “Wait a second.” Rainbow Dash cut in, zipping up to the Fruitlord’s cratered face, “How do you know who we are? What does your shirt even mean.” “iwtcird” Was his only reply, leaving the ponies more confused than they were to start with. A few seconds later, the lord picked up the conversation again, “I take it my good friend Juicylips has taken you through the basics?” The pear in the corner nodded and the ponies quickly added their confirmation. “Good,” He said, “but there is some more that you need to know, and none of these fruits can hear it.” The Fruitlord took Twilight and her friends down a set of dimly lit stairs to a small basement area. A large image of three creatures like the lord, one of which was recognisable as him, was carved into one of the walls. The fruitlord began to speak. “Once, many years ago, the beast was my friend, as was the tyrant king. We were pulled into this world from another, just like you, and found it to be full of the most naive, malleable creatures I’ve ever encountered. My friends and I used this to our advantage, convincing these fruits that we were their gods come to rule over them in the corporeal world.” “Things started off well; we ruled together as the three kings of Apland and we organised the pears and apples into a peaceful alliance. The Banana tribes kept themselves to themselves and trade with the pineapple nations in the east was booming. Like all good things however, it wasn’t destined to last. The third king, the one you know as the beast, walked into the wilderness one day and when he came back he just wasn’t the same. Eventually he made the inevitable bid for total power and we were forced to strike him down, but when he fell he didn’t die. An old coconut, one of the last of a dying race, told us that he had left to another universe to grow stronger, and that his return would be heralded by the arrival of the only weapon capable of defeating him for good.” The Fruitlord turned to face the ponies, “We believe that weapon is you.”