//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: A Revelating Return // Story: MLP: FIM: The Vengeance of Kul'as // by Hairy Konquerer //------------------------------// Ponyville was thankfully a lot peaceful with everyone getting ready for the return/celebration party for the group, however this mades things boring for Ember, as she was hopping to pummel these skeletons Spike mentioned had they not seemed to just up and vanish. She still wasn't a good conversationalist so talking to a pony was out of the question. She was about to go for a flight to clear her head when a portal opened up right in front of her, out of it came out the group of ponies and wirewolves, Rainbow Dash and Terry looking the most disappointed out of all of them. "Back already?" "Yeah. It was lame. We went to see Halloween Town, no Kul'as or whatever he calls himself in sight. Sure it was fun to meet new people but we didn't even get to fight anyone." Terry complained. "Chrysalis took it as a victory and decided to leave and declared vengeance on us. All though next time she comes around I'm going to club her over the head with a cinderblock. Maybe two." Joe replied. "I thought she was your friend?" Marty asked. "I simply found her starving in the woods and decided to help her, never said I was her friend, now I'm indifferent to her." "Ladies, gentlecolts!" A voice yelled prompting everyone to turn around and see Doctor Hooves running up to them. "A moment of your time?" "What is it?" Twilight asked. "You're castle just popped back in it's place, like nothing. We went inside and...well this is something you should see for yourself." The Mane Size, Princesses, and wirewolves ran in after him into the castle, finding the mirror portal on top of the map, glowing with some kind of dark magic that seemed to give it a ominous glow. "I take it it's that?" Rarity asked before Luna screamed falling to the ground. She was twisting and turning as something was seeming to try and jump out of her. She stood up in time to throw up some kind of black tinted plasma that swirled towards the portal, creating a set of phantom hands that reached into the mirror and pulled it apart like a curtain, revealing the swirling vortex towards the human world, something deep within was pulsating. It was a pitch black heart, it's veins rooted into the vortex seeming to siphon off it's magic before they seemed to crawl forward landing onto the hands falling into Equestria. The Castle then seemed to glow with light as some of it's magic sucked into the heart along with the plasma, causing a dark purple, almost pitch black blood to leak out. The excess pooled and crystallized becoming some rudimentary form of a skeleton, with four arms, struggling to stand up as more of the blood latched out becoming it's vital organs and nervous system, followed by the muscles, it's skills fully developed into a crocodile skull, before the rest of the blood covered it like skin, then hardening. The new being coughed and gagged as it began to use it's new lungs before facing the group. "Hell...ooo~." He coughed some more before speaking again. "Hello, Elements of Harmony." "You." Celestia growled. "Yes it is I, your greatest enemy, your mother killer, the Great and Powerful Kul'as!" He yelled, purple lightning striking for drama. "Hey that's my thing!" Trixie yelled from outside. "Is it?" Kul'as replied with skepticism. "Well I'm working out on getting the phrase copyrighted." Trixie confessed with a scowl. "Anyway, I have returned, I would have sooner but Tirek's comeback overshadowed mine so I had to delay by a year or so, especially with your lavender psycho's time travel incident." Kul'as looked around before turning back to them. "All though I'm a little out of the loop, revival in someone else's body tends to do a little train cabbage, where's your set of Bejeweled Maguffins?" "We had to put them back in the Tree of Harmony, we can't use them again." Applejack replied. "Oh well that's just peachy. Oh sorry I forget you prefer apples." "Why are you here?" Celestia asked. "Oh I came to gloat and resume my plans for world domination, maybe beyond." "Oh~ I sense the explaining of a master plan coming along." Marty lampshaded. "You see, after Faust caused my demise, my spirit remained, but lacked the power to move under it's own astral power. So I retreated to somewhere to properly heal and fell into a deep slumber, when Sneak, working for my ever so loyal friend Diablo came through and managed to summon me with a psychic. He told me of Tirek's betrayal so I began my plan for a bigger come back. We gathered magic both regular and dark from across the land. Time changed but didn't effect us, so while Sneak was trapped in the original present which is now, I ended up in those timelines. I killed the villains of those timelines to 1. take their magic to feed me and 2. Get revenge on all of them for trying to subliminally be better then me, all though Sombra was out of spite and I just mutilated Tirek. But digressing, the timeline returned to normal and I returned to my plan of consuming magic wherever I could, thankfully Chrysalis' throne was actually charged of a piece of my calcified remains so that merely revived me, but I lacked the one thing that would make me whole: my heart. As it turned out, it ended up latching and mooching off of the mirror portal, hindering the full flow of Equestrian Magic. But it turns out there was one actual final thing that was missing, a piece of my original dark magic that I used to corrupt Luna." "What?" Twilight asked shocked. "Well not corrupt, I simply pushed the thought of astronomers and other night lovers out of her mind, I would've done it to Celestia but she was too powerful at the time, and seeing Daybreaker I dodged a bullet on that one. But luckily it did it's job of informing me of Celestia's true colors, if you don't agree with her or submit to her, banishment, so simple, and even better she can't even stand up to a bug queen without getting her little meat shields to take care of it." "Get...out." Celestia growled barely containing her anger. "Oh~ I hit a raw nerve didn't I? Very well." Kul'as stepped down from the table when something clicked in his head. "Oh one more thing, I know about Uncle Fishy being back, I froze him myself, but I just wonder, does he know about your mother, by the way?" "Does he know what?" "That you let her die?" Kul'as said before vanishing in a purple glow leaving a silence in the air that a cake knife could pierce. "So~. That's new." Terry said breaking the silence before hearing Celestia growl. "I suggest we all run." Everyone began to back away slowly from Celestia as her horn began to glow blood red, along with her eyes as she began to float up into the air. Her eyes slowly darkened, her pupils becoming slits as hatred burned in her heart. Kul'as had caused all her families suffering: Luna's banishment, Her brother's entombment, Mother's death... 'He. will. pay.' Her thoughts chanted. "They will all pay..." She growled as the thoughts of how she'd let loose and make him suffer began to take root in her mind, the dark voice of the ideas of Daybreaker guiding her, had someone's claws not grabbed her by the foreleg. Her rage filled eyes stared scimitars down at Ricky whose calm eyes coin tuned to show the same message. 'I'm here for you Celestia, it's okay.' Daybreaker's eyes began to turn back to normal as tears filled them up, before she changed back, crying into Ricky's shoulder as her emotional turmoil finally broke through. "It's okay Celestia, I'm here for you." He said softly patting her back. Terry turned to the others. "Ok while they have their little hug out lets develop our plan of retaliation. Kul'as literally left nothing to trace him with but what better way to find a chaos factor with a chaos factor? Like Discord." A support beam supporting nothing next to the map bent out of shape turning into the master of Chaos himself stretching and yawning. "Boy a nap within Twilight's home sure does make me feel rejuvenated." "Discord. Where has you been?" Ricky asked as Fluttershy walked to give Discord a hug. "I came here to try and get in a early Nightmare Night scare so I hid as a pillar when the castle seemed to whoosh. I decided to wait a little to see what would happen when that whole drama bomb went off. It unearthed few memories and I'm a kid of Faust, I'm surprised he didn't sense me." "Well can you sense him?" "Not exactly but I might be able to cling onto his trail of dark magic. He leaks it like has a case of the Trots." Discord then focused and he saw a trail of black mist in the air moving into the Everfree Forest. "Follow me." Ricky turned to the others as Celestia and Luna followed their apparent brother. "Twilight and the girls come with me, you guys stay here incase of an ambush." Ricky and the Mane Six joined the trio following the trail before Discord stopped as they stood in front of the Castle of The Two Sisters. "What're we waiting for? That creep's probably hiding inside." "Far from it Rainbow Dash." Discord replied in a completely serious tone looking at the castle determined eyes, putting off the group save for Pinkie, Celestia, and Luna who had the same stare. "You see it too?" Luna asked. "Yep." "What?" Twilight asked before Discord snapped his fingers and they seemed to teleport...to the exact same spot they stood, only the sky was a dark red, the ground surrounding the castle looked like it was made out of a bone colored ivory, and now they could see a massive creature made out of a pure pitch black goo wrapped around the castle, some tentacles from it slithering down and wrapping around the Tree Of Harmony. "What. Is that?" Rarity asked in horror. "No idea, definitely from Kul'as, but whatever it is, it siphons magic. I can sense it." Discord said before they continued onward into the castle.