//------------------------------// // Warpony // Story: FoE: Snippet Story // by Windrunner //------------------------------// ' Some select few continue to survive in these blasted lands nearly bereft of life, and find some further feeling of trepidation and dread falling upon them. Something is wrong in a way that gives to all a hesitancy to make any move, to take any chance as whatever this something is will affect the very future before them. All and every lingering life detects this malady upon existence, and looks furtively to the dim skies above. An all-consuming fear drapes itself across the remains of this. Something watching, waiting in the dark corners of the mind and spirit to reach out and smother those remnants of life. It is just ahead, biding its time. Somewhere in the ruins of the past it is stirring. From the darkest depths of the past he had come, like some ancient nightmare of old unleashed upon the unsuspecting denizens of the long dead and silent wastes, bringing a tsunami of pain and turmoil trailing along with him. To every life he touches a simmering boiling pain is brought. This pony of war and death incarnate strides across the face of the world uncaring, save for his singular goal. The destruction of all that is and was and will be. This is his sole destination. The end of all things. What sort of madness can drive this lunacy? No mere dream is he, but one made flesh and terror brought forth by the machinations of the past. A mere pony no more, but an actual force of his own blazing a deadly trail ahead. Brutality, torture and murder are all that he brings with him. An unknown wellspring of pain flowing from some unrealized depth. This pony knows of war, that which is truly brutal, of suffering and much worse things. This tremendous sort of pain is not meant to be embodied in the living. It is wrong. He is himself a blight upon all which may remain of good things. A spreading cancerous tumor on all that is real and right. Few stand in his way. Those that have, begin to learn this depth of outstanding extraordinary pain. This pony is a coldblooded killer of calibre unheard of. His hoofprints lead only to despair. Giving chase to this murderous enigma of life and reason is a dangerous choice. Wherever his deadly gaze falls, ruin matches his stride. None who have stepped up were able to meet such a challenge thus far. He bears with him incalculable power, the sort which brought this poor world to ruin. Yet even this is not enough to end him. Some ludicrous confluence of ignorance and greed has created this monster. A pony out of time and place. An unbelonging puzzle that has no business among the living, but he is here nonetheless. Intended to die hundreds of years past this powerhouse of madness still treads the sands of the world. He is that which must not be. Foals night terrors and backwards dreams given shape and form to terrorize the waking world, an imbalance of such distressing nature. He is thought to be little more than a legend, nothing but a dream. One of a scale of terror that simply cannot be. The path of death left behind this pony of the old world is miles upon miles of corpses and unreasoned retribution. The actions taken by this maddened pony are considered righteous and correct by him and his. Miserable ponies robbed of meaning and life follow him to their graves simply to feel like they serve some purpose, feeling as though any purpose is better than the nothingness surrounding them in the whole of the world. His reasoning is never explained to them. It does not matter. They have orders and follow them without question. Doing otherwise is unthinkable, and deadly. With hollow gaze and grim determination to usurp the purview of the heavens he summons that which is antithetical to life itself. Perhaps a true immortal left to suffer, he grants as much pain to others as can be given. Anger, hatred and pure driven rage rise within and push to meet his one stated goal at any cost. This cost may approach a sum total of epic proportions rivaling the end of the great war itself. The damage his intention is set to cause is no matter to him whatever. This one was a survivor, a fighter. The memories of the past are things he recalls all too vividly and feed this insanity more and more. Is he of clear mind in this effort? Could it be he is merely out of his mind? It may be, but perhaps not. His plans are always sound, his actions seeming unreasonable always result in ends and outcomes he wishes for. Is this truly madness? If he may succeed through such thorough planning and positioning can it still be counted as insanity? Each time he shows himself, darkness and horrors follow too closely. This sort of power always result in this kind of sorrow. There is no accounting for it. His shadow stands long over the wastes steeped in blood, though few know of him or his name. He has walked amid darkness so long the very light itself may not even be aware of his existence. He comes to rob life and limb from the good and the evil alike without compassion, empathy, sympathy or anything other than an empty hollow joy in it. The wastes themselves shudder at the passing of his shadow. It is an all-consuming darkness the likes of which has never been known. Not even in the old world was such a thing conceived of. A pony so unwelcome to existence it shuns his presence. He may have the means to put an end to even that. Erasing all of everything in one massive blow is no easy feat to consider, yet here he stands on the cusp of success. Everyone feels that quiver in the dark, aiming ahead for them. A queesy shiver inside. He surveys the land ahead with such dead eyes. "My name, is Boss." He whispers at the beginning of the end. --- The truest of all terrors is one convinced he is correct.