Chapter 41 — Death of a Teuton
Chapter 41: Death of a Teuton
“When it rains, it pours.”
Cold.
Like someone has just spent an inordinate amount of time stuffing my throat and asshole full of ice. My hooves all feel like they’d been thrown into buckets of liquid nitrogen. I try to move. Nothing happens. Pressure on my ankles and wrists. Am I in the crucified position?
Shit, I can’t even see. It takes effort to open my eyes, and even then they hurt. Sore. No doubt red. Infection? Drugs? But the vision’s so hazy. A frigid, off-white surgical blankness. I think, trying to figure out where I am, how I got here. But the haze extends into my brain. Incorporeal. So quiet, too. You’d think I’d be able to hear my heartbeat, but no such luck.
Am I alive? Am I dead?
It takes minutes for my senses to acclimate themselves better. Maybe seconds. Not that I can really tell. My back is at least warm, against softness. A bed? I try to move again, but again I am restrained. Feels like leather pressure. Straps?
I think I’ve pissed myself at some point; my crotch is wet, but as icy as everything else.
I blink a lot. Every eyeball flicker results in pain. Only cure is to hold them still and stare blankly ahead. At the ceiling? Yes, ceiling. I am on my back, which would make sense, seeing as I believe I am on a bed. Don’t know of any vertical beds. Eyes still hurt.
Wait. Eyes. Plural. I have two eyes again! And they ache. Am I just acclimating to having regained my lost eye? I shift my neck. There’s a weight different on my forehead. Subtle. Something I’ve lived without for too long a time now. Horn.
Baby, Jericho’s a two-eyed unicorn once more.
Breathe deep. Lungs don’t want to comply. I make them. As I look around, I feel my vision cleaning up slightly. My arms are indeed strapped down. I try to think hard enough to telekinetically undo them.
I fail. I can’t focus hard enough; my horn sort of fizzles and sparks. And suddenly I feel exhausted. I give up trying. Sleep never comes, though I feel it should.
I lay there for seemingly all of eternity. My head isn’t right. I must be drugged. Dead? All the same. Why do I keep thinking in sentence fragments?
Don’t know. Won’t know
Don’t know. Won’t know.
Don’t know. Won’t know.
But… there, a spark! A mare in Cards’ body. Cards? Yes, she. I know her. Irrelevant, she. But the one in her flesh, Eosphora. She spoke to me. Told me things I can’t recall. Important. I need to write this stuff down. But I seem to have forgotten my pen. And my distant body, in frustration, pisses the bed again. Typical. At least the urine’s warm.
I stop trying to struggle, both in mind and in body. Can’t even control bladder. Unable to hold a solid thought. Just fragments. Known ideas without context. Like sunlit quadrupeds, gyroscopes, and the basic suffering that pervades all existence. Just things I know, but I can’t recall the message Eosphora gave me. If it even was a message. Don’t even have any proof that actually happened.
Why’s the room so dark? I know I can see now. More like a forgotten morgue than a… what is this? Hospital bed? Like the scene where I woke up as Altair Penrose? Looks like it a fair deal, yes.
I lie there for so long. Just listing things I know, but can’t contextualize. The urine eventually grows as cold as the rest of my surroundings. I allow my eyes to close and find myself in the limbo between wakefulness and sleep. Slowly, the mental clouds part.
|— ☩ —|
My name was, is, and will be Jericho Amadeus Faust. It was a name that suited me. At this very moment of time, I was strapped down to a bed. And in case you’ve never been in this situation, allow me to assure you that it pretty much sucks in every conceivable way. Though it still beat being cuffed to a radiator by the Cherrypillar.
A distant thought echoed the sentiment that I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since I finally axed that harpy. A lot had happened, and some of that was in a strange mirror where time behaved funny compared to the real world. Now, here I was, my long-winded quest over with, my flesh restored, and… what now?
My chest erupted with a sudden feeling of hollowness, the kind one gets after having just missed a life-changing opportunity. Or had just royally screwed up the rest of your life.
I needed to get out of this bed and resume getting neck-deep in the fray.
But… that could wait, if only for a moment. I banished the urge to commit reckless self-endangerment. Allowing my eyes to close and emptying my head, I simply lay there, enjoying the nothingness: the calm, the lack of a pressing urge to save the day or a call to action, the sense of nothing trying to kill me at this very moment. It was a rare feeling. Hard to recall the last time I was allowed such a moment
Somepony clicked her tongue. Just like that, reality reasserted itself. It was not my fate to relax.
I lifted my head up. There in the corner, sitting on some sort of table or desk along the wall, was the mare in black, my very own blue-eyed witch. The shadows bathed her, but I still recognized the phantasmal girl with the devious half-smirk on her face. She made a gesture as if dismissing me with an odd shake of the wrist
I just stared at her. With the harsh creak of a voice not used in ages, I said, “Tell me: are you real, or have I just gone batty?”
No reply.
“Right. I’ve gone mental,” I said with a sigh. “Lovely. Or… maybe I just don’t have voices in my head. Yet. I always knew I was going to catch dementia one of these days.”
She continued to sit there. Menacingly.
“Great. I’m talking to a figments of my imagination.”
Gritting my teeth, I came to the understanding that my wrists felt off. I was strapped there, and the flesh under felt raw. On a whim, I flexed my arm, pulling at the restraints. Something gave way. It wasn’t a quick snap, nor was it easy, but with enough force, the strap broke.
There came an air of stillness as I considered the implications. My eyes went to the blue-eyed mare, and I wondered if she had a name. I was sure she’d given me it, but I couldn’t recall. In any case, she remained still as ice.
I unbuckled my other wrist with my free hoof, then went for my legs. Halfway there, I recalled that I had my horn. Last I checked, horns had a bit of range. From here, that extended to my restraints.
Sticking my tongue out and biting it, I focused hard on my lower restraints. There was a slight light, a bit of a crackle, and then a fizzle of sparks like the world’s most uninspiring ejaculation.
A wave of hot pain surged through my head as I yelped. Ave Laurentia, what was that!? I found myself panting, suddenly tired. My stomach growled for the first time in, like, ever. I wasn’t even aware it even could do that.
Alright. So. Reality check. Horn’s on the fritz, I was near starving, smelled like piss, remained partially strapped down to a bed, and was now crazy with a capital “My pet chicken shall make a fine senator!”
The blue-eyed mare continued to sit there, so I up and shouted, “Don’t you mock me, you perfidious floozy! And no, my sudden rage is no indication of innately pugnacious characteristics!”
Unnessarily complex words made me feel like a sane and rational male. I got back up resumed undoing my straps manually. As providence would have it, the door opened. Oh, and I discovered the room had a door beyond the bed.
In walked a crystal stallion in a black suit and matching cape. He was a true king of fashion, provided he were an edgy teenager or undertaker. Our eyes met, and he looked extremely tired just then. With a sigh, he said, “I always knew it would come to this.”
He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a wooden stake.
I blinked. “Cry your pardon?”
“Unholy abomination of dead flesh given unto life, I smite thee!” the rather queer chap shouted, stake raised, as he charged.
“Everything about this sucks,” I moaned, tugging at my last restraints.
“From the depths of life, I strike at thee!” And so he did.
“No!” I yelped, awkwardly flinging myself to the end of the bed. With one leg still tied down, this had the incredibly undesirable result of literally flipping the bed end-over. It then collapsed on top of me.
Using my chin as sort sort of stubby leg in addition to my other limbs, I crawled forwards, the bed resting uncomfortably atop me. I was now a bed turtle. No one could stop me! Oh God, I think my head just brushed the wet space where I’d pissed myself. Ave Laurentia, the smell of urine—why?!
Mr. Murder at that point realized a turtle’s one weakness, and promptly flipped the bed over. My restrained leg went with it, and in moments I was hanging off the side, the straps painfully digging into my legs. Also, it should have dawned on me much earlier, but I was naked. Very much so naked.
I looked over to the blue-eyed mare aaaand of course the crazed figment of my imagination had ditched me. Because everyone, even the made-up ones, leaves me.
“Foul cretin of the underdark, I smite thee!” the guy yelled and I flailed around helplessly. He stabbed at my heart with the stake.
It sort of bruised the bone that protected the heart. He pretty much just stood there, staring at each other in a pose which could only be described as the least homoerotic male sex position ever possibly conceived. Despite all the action and doubtless spurts of adrenaline I must have received, my heart felt strangely, almost supernaturally calm.
“So, um,” he tried. “I never really thought this part through. Kinda just imagined you’d burst into a puff of ash or turn into a giant snake of some description at this point.”
We proceeded to just stare at each other, both of us pretty sure that something was supposed to happen that was not this, but neither of us really willing to take the initiative. But at length, I figured I had to go first, because why not.
“In other words, you just assumed touching my sternum with a really blunt stake would simply obliterate me?”
“More like never imagined an undead monster would have enough calcium in their diet to create a functionally strong sternum.”
I slapped the stake away. “Okay, one: you’re stupid. Two: who in the Nine Hells are you?”
“The mortician.” He looked around as if suddenly remembering he had an important thing to do at that place by the stuff. “You were dead, so I was tasked with mortician-y stuff. But then it turns out you were an undying abomination against all that is holy, as I knew I would one day encounter, and so—” he shrugged “—here we are.”
“I see…”
“Wait, hold on. Lemme try again!” And he rose the stake.
“No, no, don’t you dare—ow, goddamn you and everyone you love to the infernal rape pits in the deepest level on the secret tenth level of Hell, ahh!”
“Nope. Trying harder did not work,” he added slowly, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
I slapped the stake out of his hooves and kicked him off. The weirdo stood there, looking like he was about to be forced into an arranged marriage with a total bore of a wife. So I reached up and smacked that stupid look off his face, too.
“What is wrong with you?!” I barked. “Is nobody in this entire country even remotely sane or competent?”
I pulled myself up and finally finished unclasping myself from the last restraint. Then I promptly slid off onto the ground. Wasting no time, I bounced to my hooves, on high alert.
We locked eyes. “Don’t you dare so much as look at me, you little pencil-dicked, mouth breathing son of a syphilitic pissant whore!”
Mustering himself, all he could do was stare at me, slack-jawed. It was as though he’d never been insulted before in his life and my words had been enough to shatter his entire worldview, leaving him a broken shell of a pony about to be colonized by feral cats, pissing and shitting everywhere.
With a grunt, I looked over to where the blue-eyed mare had been moments ago. In her place were my bags. After a quick check to make sure the other bastard was still frozen in place, I went to my things and get clothed.
Next to the bag was a little bottle of cologne labeled “Eau de Jericho”. I didn’t care; I applied it. It got rid of the smell of urine, at least. The bottle came with a little note. But I tore it off and ate it. Like hell I was going to subject myself to the words of a being a little north of my understanding.
Perhaps I should have cared, but really, the only thing on my mind was the thought of a good sandwich and maybe a day at some ritzy spa. Because up to this moment, I’ve had to deal with more shite that any person should ever have to deal with. Maybe I had died, but now was some kind of zombie messiah figure. For all I cared, Celestia herself could have burst in here and declared her intent to fornicante me with her ever-growing clittorcock.
The blue-eyed mare and my guardian angel could go fuck themselves for a day.
As I finished adjusting my duster, the bandana from werekind Dust, and my hat was on correctly, I spoke aloud to the psycho pony in a cold, steely tone that could have given him frostbite. “You. Leave me be. Tell the others what happened here. And strongly imply I am in no goddam mood for their shit at this moment. Are we clear?”
He swallowed hard. “Crystal pony clear.”
My eye twitched. Slowly, I turned to face him. “On second thought, I’m going to kick your ass, and then you go do all those others things.”
|— ☩ —|
Sandwich, a hot bath, maybe a ponypedi for my newly restored hooves. Oh yeah, Snechta’s spell had fixed that, too. No more weird freaky skinwalker arm. There was probably something ominous about that, ike the idea that his arm had walked off and was now stalking me. That fit C’s modus operandi. But nothing was stopping me. No deep introspective thoughts, worldly musing, or revelations that the heavens had parted and my angel wanted me to go fetch him the newspaper so he could read the funnies.
Not even walking past my own eulogy.
I entered the main room of the mountain temple, the one with the little hot spring lake with the tree-holding island at its center. Absolutely packed with crystal ponies, all with their attention on Snechta, herself giving some sort of speech that referenced her title for me. Because nobody could be bothered to learn I had a name.
All one could do was shrug, and swagger with a tall, confident posture towards the exit. Choo choo, all aboard the train to NotGivingAShitville.
In a way, it was sort of amusing to watch the ripple effect from the first pony who recognized me spread to everyone else, even though I guarantee most of them couldn’t see me clear enough to make me out. Herd mentality at its most subtle.
Finally, it hit Snechta like a ton of undercooked meat and meat by-products. Needless to say, not a pretty sight. I slowed, innocently looked around, then made a “who, me?” gesture.
“Look away right now and resume your business,” I called out. “Or else I’ll burn down the entire crystal empire.”
Nothing.
“No, really. You think I’m exaggerating but I’m not. Have you seen what I’ve done so far? Because that’d be a walk in a bloody park and well subpar the course for me.”
Very quickly, the vast majority looked away from me, seeming to examine their extremely interesting hooves or their neighbor’s strange phallic-shaped cutie mark or whatever.
Between me and the exit stood the rest of the crowd. I just walked into it, following a straight line, and watched as people got out of my way. Now was not a time to give a damn about Snechta, Lady Erysa, or whatever the hell whacky “take over the Crystal Empire” scheme those two were doubtlessly trying to hatch up this week. Though I did wonder which of the two was the smart one, and which the idiot—as per cliché rules.
At the room’s exit, just before the staircase leading into the great antechamber, Snechta finally made it to me. I gave her a contemptuous, but overall exhausted look, and carried on.
She tried pleading. Demanded I stop. Resorting, in the end, to biting the tail of my duster and trying to pull me back. She even grabbed my leg.
I spun around quick. Before she could even stop biting my duster, I lowered myself and uppercut her straight in the ovaries. Probably hard enough to impregnate her with a hoof. She let go, and I swear to On High flew nearly head-over-tail onto the ground.
“Let me alone!” I growled.
Snechta remained silent there on the ground, tears welling in her eyes. She slowly and shakily rose to her hooves like a newborn fawn who’d just been kicked in the nuts.
Silently and with a cold lack of expression, I stepped over her and continued on my merry way
“You… you were dead,” she croaked out in a hoary whisper. “I saw you there, without pulse, without breath, without life. You were dead! A corpse!”
I offered a grunt. “Yeah, probably.” And I just jauntily strolled onwards.
|— ☩ —|
Everything edible in the Crystal Empire sucked. I mean, like, it was as if pure evil and pure blandness teamed up to create the ultimate dish, and then this food became the only edible thing available in the empire at all. And then they put that unholy abomination of food between two slices of poorly-made bread, garnished it with misery, and put a glove over a glove over your tongue when you ate it. A glove full of raw sewage.
Didn’t help that everypony was staring at me, turning a calm mid-morning into a game of how many people I had to stare down to eat the wretched sin they dared call a sandwich. I mean, where was the meat? No variety at all. Even those unreasonably sugary crystal berries would have been a better main ingredient to this sandwich.
I ended up hungrier than when I’d begun, and deeply, deeply homesick. Because the Reich knew how to prepare food. I put down at my table money for the food, and asked for the check, purely as a formality.
Then I got the check. Read it. This prompted a harsh swear followed by my plate flying across the room and shattering into a million pieces upon the wall.
Why? Well, I’ll give you a hint. The check didn’t have any numbers on it. There were words, in fact. And it ended with “P.S. Bring me the paper; I want to read the funnies”.
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This broke my lungs.
FIRST!!!
Always lovely to get more of best fan-made pony.
By gods, reading Snechta got kicked nevere seemed more satisfying before, and I daresay, it's probably more satisfying than slapping Cherrypillar and Cards in the same room.
He's back from the dead! Woohoo! And this is so not meaning you!
~Nightjar
Oddly enough I was thinking about this fic and as soon as i check my favorites it's updated. Weird
Great work as always!
Holy hell i thought you're a dead man! Here's me almost forgetting that this stupendous story existed when, surprise, there's an update!
As cliched as it may be, keep up the good work you glorious bastard. Cheers!
Jesus i had forgotten just how great this story was. Glad you're still kicking Crushric!
Ho-lee shit, it lives.
How goes the book?
The part where he was proclaimed dead and came back to life.
I fucking see what you did there you sneaky fuck.
You glorious bastard, it's great to have you back.
5517581 Where did you get your avatar? Chryssie looks amazing!
Aw yiss, always good to see that one of the best fics on this site isn't dead.
HUZZAH! Dear Crushric, We(the many readers of yours and totally not the voices in my head) have missed you! please give us more Jericho adventures!
5519522
I cannot be killed.
5518905
Of course I have to update. I require you lovely piggies to reinforce my borderline narcissism. Muhahaha! Worship me, piggies
5518761
Now, where have I see you before? :searches memory:
I think your icon is throwing me off.
5518082
Yeah, I see strange things. On that not, how would you feel about a Cards-centric sidestory called "Eaters of the Dead"?, about the time between the end of Act 2 and... secret secret
fix'd
5518022
Slowly.
5517408
I'm immortal, so... there's that. (Thanks ,denial of my own mortality!)
5517403
Welp, you heard it here first, folks. Snechta is new favorite punching bag. I'd offer hugs and highfives, but my triceps and pecs hurt too much to do anything else today.
5517215
Yes, yes, stroke that ego of mine. :evil grin:
5517118
Hey, I aim to please.
And technically this is a vague off-reference to... was it Emperor Nero who made his horse a Roman senator?
5516699
Your lungs stopped being intact the first time you read Jericho. Admit it.
Tiny motherfucker, though you could escape me? Mine eyes see all!
5521539
I think it was Claudius.
EDIT: Nope, it was Caligula. (That was actually my first guess, though...derp)
5521539
At least once a chapter, you magnificent bastard.
GUESS WHO'S BACK
BACK AGAIN
JERICHO IS BACK
TELL ALLLLLL THE FRIENDS
5522579 I'm curious...is this story likely to finish this year? I'd love to read it, but the update schedule is measured in glacial shift.
-Chessie
GUARDIAN ANGEL
STOP THAT
Also, good god Jericho has become Jesus hasn't he
At no point does Jericho stop to wonder what kind of morgue would put restraints on a corpse
Mortician is clearly worst pony
I have no idea what this is, only that it's bound to attract mares
The references in Jericho...
Let's just say they make a lovely sound as they whizz over my head.
Good to see you back in action, Crushric.
Welcome back Mr Crushric!
"Jericho Amadeus Faust is liked, but he is not well liked. I do not say he is a great pony. Jericho Faust never made any friends, just colleagues. His name was never spoken in love, just fear and respect. He's not the finest Confessor that ever lived. But he is a pony, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old manticore. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a pony. After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
Ummm...
Jericho should know by now that an axe to he face is certainly no guarantee of safety what with all the revenants, draugar, zombies, and various and sundry demon beasties from the Outer Darkness he met (and barbecued!) during his stint in the infantry.
Of all the morticians in the Crystal Empire, Jericho manages to bring a clumsy cosplayer through the portal with him.
A bit impulsive are we?
For all he knows that note may have said "DANGER! Bogtopi pheromones!", or "Warning! Side-effects include painfully prolonged pripiatism!"
Given Jericho's behaviour, I wonder if they declared a national holiday?
Does revenant Jericho's culinary tastes now lean towards the blood (and flesh) of the living or is he merely pining for some good 'ol fashioned demon foie gras home cooking?
5523802
Remember the "chest defibrillation" scene from The Thing? Yeah...
(Rather gory, probably cannot link to it here. Just search for the phrase "Chest Defibrillation - The Thing" on Youtube)
This is rather an astute plan by the crystal ponies, seeing how Herr Jericho had a head full of techno-horror Jane gubbins and a creepy-crawly sentient parasite arm courtesy of C. We would not want any of those extra bits to break off Jericho and run off and infect the populace now would we?
Figures that this would update right after I get hit by a car...
Forgotten memories resurface....... FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU *continues into infinity*
5583888
Worry not, sweet prince.
Although it takes a bit of a run-about to get things in order, I actually have a compulsion to tie up my loose ends before people get too bored of the things what need wrapping up.
All makes sense in the end. Or at least ends with some [poor] vestige of a joke
5180188 Looking back, I realize how Jericho reminds me of The Doctor from Doctor Who, just a tad. He needs others or he falls to bits, both mentally and Character-wise. I quite like that.
Hey Crushric. This story is awesome so keep it up. But I have brief question. What exactly does Tsaius mean? Does it mean something along the lines of friend or comrade? I mean interpreted it as something along the lines of Tsaius, союз, soyuz, union, union of friends, friends bound by fate, which would match C's character.
5613426
You're not inaccurate with your interpretation, mixed perhaps with the Japanese honorific "-san".
Kudos for the find and thought, entourian. Seriously. You're a clever sort. I take it you're Russian?
...Holy shit, I think you're nearing wordcount of the original FOE. Nice.
5621855
Before I scrapped the old version of Jericho, "Beta!Jericho", we got up to some 750K words. But they all sucked so I destroyed all of them and recreated Jericho as this.
Finally! Re-re-re(-re?)-read up to the spot.
Did not get the message at the end though.
Ah well.
5643926
fix'd
No errors here, especially not from a chapter written a year or so ago.
5624933 I wonder if there's still a copy of that somewhere. Sounds like a fun read, to delve into the inner workings of the Jericho.
5649152
There is.
It is currently sitting unpublished on this very story page.
And backed up on my hard drive in its old document form, sans chapter titles.
It was embarrassingly bad, though. Like, I mean, Jesus Christ was it terrible. Jericho wasn't even focus on humor. Just, Godawful.
Finally made it to the most recent chapter :D
So yeah. I like insanity. First time I've seen an author do insanity in a way that's amusing and still appears genuinely insane.
I also just like Jericho's general personality. His priorities and morals are clear. He is well aware of whenever he's being an asshole. And he has style. It's also always nice to see a protagonist that won't sacrifice himself.
Really?
Chapter citation is from Ben Caplan's song?
Legit.
Joke's on him. The note said "Eat this note."
JUST AS PLANNED.
Not only you're a good writer, but you, sir, have a great musical taste! It's a very mighty song, Rosetta stoned. It'd be nice to make a cover, like, Jericho stoned, but i fear i do not have enough tools for daring to make covers on something THAT good.
Thanks so much for writing this story, man. I'm a fan. Really.