//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: The hunt begins // Story: Equestria: Rise of Grimm // by Reaper of souls //------------------------------// "Why do I look like this?" I said, my voice no longer the same, only stern and calm yet somewhat soft and young, giving the impression that I had started some very harsh military career at a young age. "Your appearance now was mostly influenced by your likes and dislikes. When I entered you, via you eating the remnants of my essence left at the old castle, I saw some fragments of your life, your personality, etc." she stated. "Why though? Why change my appearance if it won't do anything?" I questioned her again. I looked at the stream in order to see my reflection. My mane became similar to that of Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil or Rainbow Dash when Sombra returned to power over the Crystal Empire. (I couldn't quite get why I liked that kind of hairstyle) My mane had grown large enough to allow a pony tail to be made with the rest of my mane. "Did you influence that part?" I looked at the entity, "Nightmare?" "No......Maybe," she avoided my gaze. (Seriously why do they do that when it makes it so obvious?) Either way I decided I liked it. The pony tail wasn't tied at the end like applejack's, and it was spiky. It reached a little past my neck. The hairstyle obscured my right eye, much like it would Leon or Rainbow Dash. I looked down towards my tail; it was fox/wolf-like, smooth, large and extremely long, heck long enough to make the tail reach my height and 'look' at me. Something felt weird though. I slowly started reaching forwards with my arm and touched it. The moment I made contact with my tail it grabbed my arm with lightning-fast reflexes. "A prehensile tail?" I started petting my own tail, "Damn, this thing is soft as hell," as I stated that my tail suddenly changed and resembled a cactus with very thin and long splinters, "Fuck!" I pulled my arm away the instant I noticed that. My tail changed back to it's normal form. "Okay, I'm going to go out on limb here and say you influenced that part, Nightmare," I said, looking back at nightmare. "What?! Why?!" she yelled in outrage. "Uh, Nightmare aren't you forgetting that you used that same exact mane of yours to threaten Rarity with?" "Oh," was all she said. "Why does the rest of me look like that?!" I yelled. To be honest I wanted to look 'normal'. I got on all fours and examined myself. My body looked similar to Big Mac except I had a slightly slimmer physique, I still had fur on my hooves, and I was a little bit taller than him--tall enough to be half a forehead taller than him. "Probably because me and Nightmare are both evil or dark entities," My evil sub-conscience said. He took on the form of a pony made out of black liquid with a few swirls of shining red and looked as if he was evaporating into the atmosphere as black misty and slow smoke trails. There was also red liquid dripping off him. "Or it could be the fact that your part demon, you guys almost always take on a form that is attractive. Anything else you two changed?" I said. (That guy seriously knows how to get on my nerves--Oh wait, right he's an evil version of me which is also annoying.) "Well we might have......" she started giggling. "Wait, no, don't tell him! I want to see his reaction," I decided to ignore them......for now. I stood back up on my two hind legs and stared at the reflection of my chest. There was an image of a spider symbol colored in red on my chest going to my back in a similar manner to Venom or Symbiote Spider Man. Before I could start yelling I noticed that the symbol looked tribal and like it was war paint or something. "This might be another thing influenced by your sub-conscience," "Spiders are one of my favorite animals, even though I have a fear for creepy crawlies," "Or it could mean something on a spiritual level, spiders do symbolize many things don't they?" "Yeah, they do," Next was my cutie marks. I had two cutie marks on each flank outlined in white oddly depicting Good and Evil. The Good cutie mark was on my right flank; it showed a pony with large feathered wings, both fore-hooves up holding a shining sphere. Below that rays from the sphere shown down and created plant life with ponies basking in the rays. A few of the ponies on the image raised a hoof towards the figure, possibly depicting the figure as a savior. The Evil cutie mark on my left flank was the complete opposite. It showed the ponies suffering, a few forming a circle and bowing down to the figure, the ground was made out of bones of all kinds, the sphere was now a misty flame making an image of a skull, the figure had skeletal bat-wings, and the rays shot at ponies and vaporized them. I still didn't know what they meant. Could they mean I'm an embodiment of both Good and Evil? Or something in between the two? Then it hit me. "Um, do you happen to know how to make clothes?" they both looked at each other, "Ughhh, let's get started then." "Might want to check what their doing first to see how much time we have before they're in the vacinity," my evil half suggested. "Fine...um--" "Lucifer," "One of the many names of the Devil? Are you fucking serious?" "Lucifer. Mmm, quite a fitting name," Nightmare said. "Oh god, you two better not project weird images in my head," Lucifer grew a pair of feathered wings and a horn similar to Sombra's. (Eh, guess the feathers do make sense, Lucifer or Satan was originally an angel, not a demon. "Alright, can we get back to what you mentioned," as soon as they heard that they started fumbling with their words. I found a hiding spot and began meditating. (Because sure as hell I wasn't going to try astro-projection and leave my soulless body unguarded.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Twilight, I'm pretty sure me and the royal guard can handle whatever is out here," "Shining Armor, as you are captain of the royal guard, I have no doubts about your abilities, but since my connection to the Elements of Harmony have been severed now that each one has found a bearer, it is better to come prepared in the case that what we'll be up against is beyond our, even me and Luna's, capabilities," Celestia explained the mane six's presence with them. Shining Armor still had his doubts. "She is more than a capable pony. After all she isn't my prized pupil for nothing," she reassured him. He sighed. "Your right, with or without me, she is more than capable of defending herself," Their attention was soon drawn towards celestia's sister. "Sister, thy soldiers have found something," she pronounced in her archaic vocabulary. The area they were entering was like a dead zone, everything was shriveled up, all that remained was husks from plants and animals, fossilized skeletons, ash, and solid stone-hard ground. "Starswirl the Bearded, it appears something sapped the life out of everything," she tapped the ground with her hoof, "It even sucked up all the nutrients and minerals in the dirt, this ground feels rock solid!" "What about the dirt twilight?" rainbow hovered next to her. "Well, whatever did this must have drained everything in this area," twilight stated. "Of what though?" she asked. "Life it seems. There's no noise here. No birds chirping, no bugs. Just complete dead silence," "Can we go now please? This place gives me the creeps!" rarity complained. "Yeah, this place is like blaugh!" pinkie pie chimed in. "Ah'm not admittin' ah'm scared an all but this place feels unnatural even for the Everfree Forest," applejack said. "Ugh, fine. But I'm coming back here to conduct more research," twilight declared. Things quieted down and they were finally re-entering the local flora. Fluttershy was hoping to spot some of the local animals to help her forget about the Dead Zone. "Pst twilight," rainbow whispered to her unicorn friend. "What?" she whispered back. "So what do you think caused that back there? You know, the Dead Zone?" she asked, eager to satisfy her curiosity. "Well, I'm not sure. I can only come up with theories but I think whatever caused that was parasitic, on the account of the area looking drained and dead, and it needs a lot of energy," "A lot of energy for what though?" "Probably uses huge amounts of it to travel around, like humming birds, or it's entire body needs that amount of nourishment. I can't be sure," "Well only one way to find out," she started making a bunch fighting moves in the air, pretending to fight a monster. "Consarnit, rainbow, you're goin' ta--," Before she could finish her sentence there was a loud shriek of horror. Celestia, Luna, Shining Armor and the rest of the guards rushed to the head of the group. Some of the guards and rarity vomited. On the other hand, fluttershy was whimpering and tearing up at the site. Dozens of manticores were slaughtered and dragged to the area. They were all moving carefully past the dead corpses. The Mane 6 huddled close to fluttershy in an attempt to comfort her. "Huh?" Shining Armor said as he felt a cold breeze pass by him. He drew his sword and started checking the surrounding area. He kept turning abruptly. Something was moving at the corner of his sight. ========================================================================================== ELSEWHERE I lost my focus on the meditation and attempted to scream in surprise but I couldn't. I was in some sort of cylinder tank full of weird glowing liquid. I looked around as much as I was able to and spotted Lucifer. Reacting to this, I would have yelled out in surprise but the breathing apparatus attached to my snout caused only bubbles to come out. He had gotten a lot of dramatic changes. His most noticeable change was his height, obviously surpassing Celestia's own height. I couldn't tell if his was melted or if he even had a mouth anymore, the black and red made it difficult to either one. His face was black now and his eyes looked the same as the symbiote carnage; his hand too looked the same as his but the feet now resemble talons similar to General Grevious. He gained an extra pair of wings and as for his wings they now look soft and fabric like. His horn looked like a sword resembling a lightning bolt. "So sorry to scare you," he said. His voice sounded demonic and a little bit like a robot. 'Where the hell am I and What's going on?' I questioned him mentally. ''Ah, that. Well you see we haven't much time before you're eventually found so I decided to take matters into my own hands," he stated ominously. He pressed a button and I instantly blacked out. He turned to the other individuals occupying the room. One was the exact opposite of him. His entire body glowed brightly a light shade of green. The wings were wavy and constantly flowed freely in a relaxed and calm manor. As for his eyes they were a bit darker but relatively the same shade. He was currently following around a random butterfly intent on cupping it in his hooves carefully. "Giver! Stop fooling around!" he yelled. Unfortunately, he persisted on trying to capture the butterfly. "Let him be Lucifer, because much like what he enjoys, it is nature itself for opposites to have conflict," This other entity was in a knight stance. Hooves laid on top of the pommel of his ginormous sword and eyes closed with a calm demeanor. He wore armor that appeared to be technologically advanced yet the design portrayed knights from the Medieval Eras. He also had wings appearing robotic with geometric feathers ranging from big to small while floating separately from their joints. The armor he wore was all a shiny black hue with yellow glowing lines and a glowing cross symbol in the center of the chest piece. Their glowing started to intensify as Lucifer surged towards him. He flinched as he got close to him. "This doesn't involve you Tyrael," Tyrael opened his eyes to stare back at lucifer. His red mane and yellow coat started emanating an aura causing lucifer to intensify his glare. "Hey! Can you guys knock it off! Don't you have more important things to do other than settle a grudge match? Lucifer and Tyrael glared at each other. They glared a little longer before Tyrael closed his eyes and went back to his stance. Lucifer growled in frustration, in truth it took more strength to back out of a fight then fight at all. It was like a drug. It gave you energy that begged to be used in a fight. Tyrael opened his eyes again and looked towards the one who defused the stare down. "Why did you interfere...Sonic?" he asked, 'It's never like him to act on something like this, he usually just minds his own business,' "I don't know, maybe it was just out of whim or something like that," sonic turned his head to the side in order to focus his attention on something else, "Hmm, what are you up to?" And then there was the odd one out. Unlike Lucifer who represented anger, hatred, and hostility, Tyrael who represented courage, strength, and confidence, Giver who represented love, compassion, and calmness, and Sonic who represented relaxation and enthusiasm. He, however, merely represented insanity, blood lust, and pure, unadulterated, violence. His overall appearance was a pony with a blue coat and red tail and mane, but the more disturbing thing was his eyes: black sclera, no irises, and glowing red pupils. Nightmare, who was standing next to Lucifer, turned her head to look at him. His attire was that of a suit, tie, and pants. His arms were more of human detail with gloved white hands floating away from the wrists and an omega symbol on the right hand. It is hard to tell but if you focus you can notice that he occasionally 'glitches'. She stopped staring at him, focusing on him for to long caused a huge discomfort. She focused now on a pencil, paper, and a strange device he was fiddling with, he's been fiddling with it ever since he appeared. He suddenly stopped fiddling. She jolted her head back, he started turning his head. Nightmare felt his eyes fall on the back of her head, she could feel them bore into her skull. Even though she was staring away, she could feel his mouth forming a toothy grin. He was reveling in this. Nightmare clenched her teeth as she was captivated by fear and anger. She clearly hated being in a position like this, in fear of another being. "Leave," Lucifer's voice rang out. The weight she felt lifted. All eyes were on Lucifer now. "I will need time for this little 'project' to take effect," he stated and once again said, "Leave," while lazily waving his clawed hand. Sonic simply sighed, rolled his eyes, and went. Tyrael narrowed his eyes and growled at him, showing his mistrust of him, before sheathing his wings and blade and started to walk away. Giver was blindly following them for he found an Emperor Scorpion and was battling it with a stick. The butterfly acted as a witness to this titanic battle. The scorpion had clenched the wooden weapon in his pedipalps but he knew just what t-- "Dude! You've been playing with that fucking thing for an hour now!" sonic had to yell in order to get his attention. "Oh...what were we doing out here again?" "We are supposed distract the search party," Tyrael replied. "Yeah, no shit but how? What? Does he expect us to come up with a plan instantly? This group is like the Reds and Blues," he stated, comparing the entire group to another team that is less than competent. "As much as I hate to admit but your right, this group could possibly be dysfunctional," he said with a meek attitude. "But it's what makes us awesome," Giver claimed. This appeared to have worked. Tyrael made small chuckle. "Yeah, we are pretty awesome. Come on, let's go and greet the locals," Giver gasped. "Look! A Huntsman Spider," ========================================================================================== "Hand me the lists," he said. Nightmare levitated the two pieces of paper off the table where the one wearing the suit continued his fiddling. "What is that?" he pointed at the paper he had. He showed Lucifer a drawing. "You're going to have him be a distraction?" He crossed his arms and gave him a face, indicating to nightmare that him and Lucifer got along better than expected. "Alright then, go," "Do you really trust him that much?" Nightmare questioned Lucifer's ties to him. "Relax Nightmare, he may look and act like a fool, but when comes to being the one to bring forth the apocalypse or Armageddon, let's just say he'll enjoy every single moment until the end," he turned back to look at my unconscious body, "But you. There's no telling what you will do,"