//------------------------------// // Chapter 40: Necessary Evil // Story: Chaotic Harmony // by shirotora //------------------------------// June 20, 1005, Applebloom ran as fast as her little legs could go. She had to find help. Applejack was usually in the north field this early. Applebloom's memory proved right when she collided with the older Apple sister. “Hold yer horses, Sugarcube. What's a'matter?” said Applejack. “SomestrangercameouttanowhereandtriedtotakeMidnightbuthesaidnosohetriedtakillmebutMidnightstoppedhimyagottasave'em” “Slow down, Applebloom, and where's Midnight?” AJ asked. “Some strange pony took him!” Applebloom finally said. AJ's eyes widened. She ran into the house and came back with her crossbow. Ah shouldn't have left him alone like that. she thought, If Ah don't save 'em Jynx is gonna kill me. AJ searched the place that Applebloom said they were, but found no trace. Applebloom told her it was a unicorn so it must have teleported away. “Shit.” said the cowpony, “Ah gotta tell Jynx. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- “WHAT?!” Jynx shouted, “What do you mean somepony took him?!” you were suppose to be watching him! I trusted you!” To say Jynx was mad would be like saying the sun is warm. She was struggling to keep from hitting the orange mare. “Ah'm sorry, Jynx” Applejack said unable to look at her friend, “Ah didn't think anypony would look for him in the orchard, an Ah had work to do.” Jynx just lost one battle as her will broke and she threw her right hoof at AJ's face. The apple bucker hit the floor, blood dripping from her nose. “Ponies are trying to KILL him and you assumed? Would you leave Autumn in the orchard if she was being hunted?” Jynx screamed before she collapsed in a quivering heap, crying, “He's just a little colt. He just got a family. What if... What if...” she broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. AJ got to her hooves and sat beside the worried mother, “It'll be OK, sugarcube. Shiro's already on his way there.” she pulled her friend up in a strong hug, “An not even hell bustin' open is gonna stop him when he finds out. Ah jus hope they use some kinda sleep spell on Midnight, cause Ah don't want the guy to have ta see what Shiro's gonna do to them.” --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- I touched down about a mile away from my destination. I was going to have to hoof it the rest of the way... get it “hoof it” cause I’m in a world of ponies... ah forget it no one asked you anyway. As I was saying I made my way to the temple on foot, my suit conforming to the brown of the trees. I noticed it took a couple seconds to change colors which meant I wouldn't be able to move and stay hidden. The entrance to the temple was in sight. There were four ponies guarding it a unicorn, a pegasus and two earth ponies. I pulled out two of my knives and threw them striking the unicorn and pegasus in their necks. Before the earth ponies could respond a light tether shot from both of my gloves, latching to them. With a quick flick of my wrists the tethers retracted bringing them to my waiting claws. I placed their bodies in a bush and quickly dragged the others beside them, retrieving my knives. I looked down at the four ponies I had just killed in cold blood. The briefing said that the last thing a pony must do to join The Heralds of the Shadow was to kill someone close to them. That meant that every single pony in here was a murderer. The knowledge didn't help. These four didn't attack me. They were just standing there. They didn't even know I was there for fuck's sake. It was screwing with my emotions so I did the one thing I could. I blocked them out, completely severed them. It's something I learned to do years before coming to Equestria, but I don't like doing it. It makes me feel... inhuman. Now a cold, calculating, emotionless machine, I went to the entrance and slowly opened the door. A long dark staircase greeted me. It took a good five minutes to get down. A faint light was emitting from the bottom, faint hoofsteps could be heard. I paused at the bottom crouching low, letting my camouflage do it's job. A pair of earth ponies walked past only to receive a pair of crystal magic swords in the lungs, preventing them from making noise. I dragged to bodies into the stairwell hoping they won't be discovered. The hall I found myself in was tall, about twenty five feet. The reasons for such a high ceiling was beyond me, but I didn't stop to try to figure it out. It gave me a means to avoid detection and that's all that mattered. I made a right and went off at a quick pace, but not so fast as to miss potential threats. The outer section must be the least populated. I only saw two more guards which I dispatched with a pair of knives to the throat. As I arrived at the door to the next section I saw a door open. I quickly launched my tether to the ceiling pulling myself up. I hung there as another pair of guards came out. Jest when they were directly underneath me I released. My claws extended, I landed in between them, my natural weapons sinking into their spines. They died instantly, never knowing what happened. I crept to the door they left from and peeked in. luckily they didn't fully shut the door. There were six cultists inside. One earth pony in armor two unicorns and three pegasi without. I had just noticed something unusual about these cultists. They all had the same ash gray coats and lacked a mane and tail. Even their cutie makes were gone. A direct confrontation would lead to one of them sounding the alarm. I needed to separate them. Not a problem. With a bit of my own magic I made a little crash sound down the hall. “What in Tartarus was that.” said one of the voices from the room, “You three go check it out.” Same as earlier, I hung from the ceiling. The earth pony, a unicorn, and a pegasus walked out toward the sound. Hanging with my left paw I pulled my crossbow with my right. I lined up a shot with the back of the earth ponies armored neck and fired. The high power weapon made short work of the steel armor and knives dispatched the others. After retrieving my knives, bolt, and a small ax the earth pony had, I peeked into the room again and waited. After a bit the leader of the group spoke up. “Where are those three? It can't take that long to check out a noise.” he said making his toward where I was hiding. The moment he opened the door he kissed the blade of an ax. I moved quickly, jumping over his body and hitting the two remaining cultists with my tethers yanking them into the walls behind me with a sickening crunch. With the first section cleared I moved on to the next. The next three sections went by with more of the same. I’d kill those who were in groups of four or less with a combo of knives to two necks and tethering the other two to claw reach. It was only in groups of six or more that I had to change up tactics. By this time I was wondering why I even had the short sword on my back. It wasn't until the fifth section that things got interesting. Most of the area was the same the only difference was in the fact that the entrance to the center area was on the other side of a heavily guarded room. There was no door to the room, just a doorway. Inside was, as far as I could make out, five earth ponies four unicorns, and six pegasi. It wasn't going to be easy, but I had a plan. I pulled out a piece of chalk that shined with a faint blue glow. One of perks of having access to the royal archives is finding forms of magic that others know nothing about. One of those magics is Glyphs. Symbols written with a special type of chalk, much like the piece I was holding, that when are approached by another have certain effects. I began scribbling a series of symbols on the floor about twenty feet from the doorway. Then I went around the corner and scribbled another set. This one I sat in the center of and set a belt of red stones in front of me before creating a small noise. “Did anypony else hear that?” a voice said, “I bet Winter tripped again, gods he's a clumsy good for nothin. I’ll check on him.” I closed my eyes and focused on the other glyph. Not twenty seconds later I felt the the magic activate. I opened my eyes... or rather the eyes of the cultist. I did a quick check to make sure I had full control. I quickly rounded the corner and checked my body over. It looked as if I were just sitting there with my eyes closed. I took the belt and set it across my neck. I then took the chalk in my mouth and headed back to the guard room. As I walked back in one of the cultists asked, “Did the idiot hurt himself?” I answered around the chalk, “Yeah, the duffus sprained his ankle. He was suppose to write something on the door. Now I gotta do it.” “He's always making more work for us. I'll get him, you do what you're doing.” he said and made his way out the door way. Shit gotta work fast. there was a body in the hall way of one of the other guards. I went to the door and wrote a glyph. Just in time the guard ran in and glared at me screaming, “He killed Lime.” The others jumped up, grabbing weapons. I just grinned and gave the trigger word, a word that would never come up in a normal conversation. I yelled “Monkey slut!” and the red stones glowed and bloomed into a fiery wave of death. The silence glyph on the door kept their screams from finding there way to the center area. Of course once the possessed cultist burned I returned to my body. I stood up, stretched and walked into the burned out room. I sighed. That chalk wasn't easy to make, but it served its purpose. The only cultists left alive were in this room. In here I didn't have to worry about stealth. I checked the watch Celestia gave me. It was 11:58 pm. I downed the potion Applebloom made me, took a breath and kicked the door in. the occupants of the room turned to face me, startled. The room was large and circular, with a large dais and alter at one end, with a statue of a dragon holding a spear behind it. At the alter was the only pony here with a mane, a dark gray mane. But what really grabbed my attention was the small blue figure laying on the alter... Midnight. How he was here I didn't know. The one thing I knew was the dagger held by the maned unicorn was meant to kill my son. The emotions I was holding back broke free. These were no longer ponies. They were monsters, creatures that deserved a cruel, painful death. Darkness spread from my eyes, covering most of my face. I ran towards the alter, light swords drawn. They tried to stop me, to slow me down, but nothing was going to keep me from Midnight. I slashed and clawed my way through the ranks of cultists. The unicorn raised the dagger... Another four died be my paw... The dagger began it's downward journey... To hell with Tartarus being opened up. I cared only about my son. I leaped towards the alter... June 21, 1005, Pain... Pain lanced through my back as the dagger pierced my flesh. “You fool!” I heard from the head cultist, “You'll pay for what you've done.” I was on the floor behind the alter, Midnight under me unharmed but asleep. “You haven't stopped us.” he said, “We'll bide our time until next year and sacrifice the child then. You've only delayed the inevitable.” “In that case,” I said as I started picking myself up, “I'll just have to kill every last one of you.” “You don't have a chance. Let us have the child and we'll let you live.” he said. I reached up to grab part of the dragon statue to pull myself up. A sharp pain hit my hand as I cut it on the spear it was holding. I pulled myself up to my full height and grabbed the shaft of the weapon and pulled to from the statues stony grasp. It was a good weapon, four feet in length with a foot long blade. I held it ready, blocking out the pain of the dagger still lodged in my back. I placed myself between the cultists and my son. "You'll have to kill me first!" The first wave of cultists charged weapons in magic and mouth. They didn't last long. The edges of the bladed spear made quick work of them. Several daggers flew at me, only to bounce harmlessly off the light shield from my left glove. That is to say most. One of them found its mark in my left thigh. I saw the cult leader trying to make his getaway. I shot the tether out connecting to his flank. I gave a strong pull. “GET OVER HERE!” I yelled and raised my spear to meet him. The death of there leader riled them into a frenzy. They charged without regard to there safety. There were still several dozen of them and felt fatigue starting to tale its tole. The potion was helping but it could only do so much. I yelled in pain as two more daggers found there way to my hide. One buried itself in my left shoulder, and the other in my right lung. Still I fought on. There was still at least a two dozen of them. An earth pony drew his sword across my knees bringing me down. Fatigue and blood loss threatened to end me. My strength was failing, and that allowed five more daggers to pierce me. I swung my spear in vain at any who approached. I'm sorry, Midnight, Jynx, I failed both of you. I thought as my vision started to blur. The sound of crumbling rock came from behind me. What ever it was, it had the cultists attention. I risked a look behind me. All I saw was the dragon statue snarling at the cultists... wait statues don't snarl. The dragon that sat where the statue once stood spread it's wings and sprang over me. It pounced on the ponies tearing them limb from limb. “What the fu...” was all I could mutter before the darkness claimed me.