"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
— Revelations 21:4
It was a bright and sunny afternoon on the plane of Terra (stereotypical world name, I know). In the middle of the plains of endless grass the natives deemed "The Wilds" stood a tall, mismatched tower. The castle was over 300 feet tall and was arranged like child stacked different colored and shaped building blocks on top of each other.
In this massive home, a small ten year old boy with lightly tanned skin, brown eyes, overalls, messy brown hair, and a dirty brown cap sat in the middle of a luxurious dining room. He was writing arcane runes in a leather tome with a quill while taking an occasional sip from a cup of cranberry juice. This boy is Trevor, the adopted son and apprentice of a very powerful swordmage I cannot reveal the name of just yet (unless you read the description of this fic, then you already know). He was humming a tune to himself while working on his magic when suddenly, the entrance way door was opened with extreme force.
A huge, arcane hand forcefully opened the door on the opposite side of its hinges, meaning the door broke off and splintered on the wall. With a resounding SMASH, the door opened and stood before it was a man who was a little bit shorter than your average person. Like Trevor, he had brown eyes but unlike him, he has messy hair which was black as the night sky and very white skin. He has a crimson robe that has stripes of gold, a long red scarf which seemed to move on its own with blackened runes on it was well, and dark red cape with a blue gem on the neckpiece. He wears simple brown sandals and has a belt fashioned from hemp rope. On his left hip, he has a sheeted sword while his right hip holds a blue and silver spellbook. This man is Malrick Roscuro, the father and master of Trevor. He is also a master swordmage and has extreme amounts of physical, magical, and supernatural power. After a tiring day of work, Malrick's face looked drained and empty, but the moment he saw Trevor, his face lit up and showed a bright smile.
"Hey Trevor! Working on your spells is great and all, but shouldn't you be outside playing with your friends on a day like this?"
"Dad, we live in the middle of nowhere and I have no friends." replied Trevor with an annoyed look on his face.
"I know, I know, I'd like to live in the city, but the cities these days are so dangerous with all of the cults and thieves guilds, plus I wouldn't get as much entertainment as I usually do with the mailman!"
"Speaking of which, the mailbox tried to eat the mailman again today."
"Oh, did Munchy go postal again? I swear one of these days he's going to catch and eat someone, maybe I should give him a digestive system..." Malrick said while pondering in thought.
Trevor rolled his eyes at Malrick while handing him a small, cardboard box, "He dropped off this package by the way, what did you even order?"
Malrick looked at the package with a wide smile, "This my boy, will be the solution to all our problems!" Malrick proudly exclaimed as he ripped open the box.
Trevor looked at Malrick with a confused expression, "'Solution to all our problems?', what exactly did you buy?"
Malrick reached into the now open box and pulled out a silver ticket with the symbol of the planes engraved on it, "This is something called a Planar ticket, this little thing took forever for me to get and it costs a fortune too. It allows the user to travel to a named place, even if the place isn't known by anyone! Meaning even if you say something like Vase-Clown-Monkey-Bench, you'll go to that location."
Trevor looked at Malrick with an even more confused expression, "'Vase-Clown-Monkey-Bench?' there is a place in the multiverse with that name?"
Malrick shrugged, "Eh, probably, there are infinite planes of existence Trevor, so there has to be a place that has that name. Since there are many different locations with that name, the ticket will transport us to a place that best aligns with our desires, so if I want to go to a place with purple skies and lemonade rains while saying 'Vase-Clown-Monkey-Bench', it'll take me to the location, be it city, planet, or plane with those attributes."
Trevor looked at the ticket with wide eyes and wonder but then quickly realized something important, "Wait, why did you buy that thing anyways?"
Malrick looked at Trevor with the expression of 'Did you live in a mayonnaise jar for the past 3 years?', "Trevor, you know that we are constantly being hunted down by multiple different wizardly, religious, and relic-hunting groups, but we get chased mostly by the Emerald Guard." Malrick said the word Emerald Guard with particular scorn, "Everytime we try to go somewhere else they always find and follow us, whether it was in a volcano, underwater, underground, the moon, outer space, or OTHER PLANES OF REALITY!" Malrick screamed in rage, Trevor jumped a bit and looked at Malrick with wide eyes from hearing Malrick scream out in fury. Malrick quickly calmed down and said in a quieter tone, "This ticket can transport us to places that even Gods don't know of, this could be our chance to go outside without worrying about someone trying to murder us, to talk to people without them shitting their pants at the sight of us, to... live...".
Trevor was thinking about this really hard. Going to a plane is one thing, going to a random one is another, but going to a random plane and LIVING there? That is the issue. Having a new life is very appealing to Trevor, he and Dad were always under the threat of death and enjoying life wasn't something he was able to do without any friends or family. Trevor realized there wasn't anything to lose by leaving since he had nothing here, so after some deep thought, Trevor looked at Malrick with a determined face and replied, "Alright, I'll go with you".
Malrick was initially surprised, but surprised quickly turned into happiness and relief, "Thanks Trevor, it means a lot to me that you would rather come with me to a random place instead of staying here, you're the best son/apprentice a father/master could ask for."
Trevor had a small smile, Malrick rarely said anything nice since he never had anything nice to say about anyone or anything, but the few times he did were special moments indeed.
Malrick then inhaled clapped his hands, "So, we just have to name a random place (preferably a plane) and hope that the natives don't want to kill us 24/7. We don't need to pack our stuff since the castle and its contents are linked to me, I can just dismiss it to a pocket plane and summon it back on whatever place we end up on. So as long as nothing comes and disturbs us, we should be ready for an extended vaca-"
Before Malrick could finish his sentence, a cannonball crashed through a window and almost hit Malrick and while Malrick didn't flinch at the cannonball smashing through his house, Trevor jumped out of the chair in a panic.
"THIS IS THE EMERALD GUARD! WE HAVE COME TO ARREST YOU MALRICK, COME OUT WITH YOUR ARMS UP!" a male voice screamed outside.
"GODAMMIT" Malrick yelled out in rage and annoyance, "Every fucking time I'm happy, those assholes have to show up and ruin it!"
Trevor changed his look of fear to a chastising one towards Malrick, "That's not neccessarily a bad thing, remember when you turned half the population into chickens?"
"Pff, it was hilarious."
"That ancient dragon begged to differ..."
---
Malrick and Trevor stood in front of a cave mouth on the side of a tall, reddish mountain, a rough and dark voice spoke with a hint of anger in it's tone, "What foolish mortals dare enter the cave of Karythos, the lord of cin-"
"HEY KARYTHOS, CATCH!" Malrick yelled into the hole as he fired a beam of orange energy from his finger into it. The bolt traveled down the cave and then flashed bright orange. A few seconds later, a small chicken emerged from the cave with a furious stare at Malrick which would've brought fear to even the most powerful of Gods... if it weren't for the fact he was a chicken.
---
"Worth." was all Malrick had to say about that situation.
Trevor sighed and looked outside through the broken window and then paled considerably. Instead of the usual hundred or so guards, there were thousands of soldiers or differing variety, wizards, clerics, griffon riders, cannons and other seige weaponry were outside all ready and armed. The people wore their signature silver armor and bore the symbol of the Emerald Guard and all of them had a look in their eyes like they were bent on taking down Malrick one and for all. Trevor looked at Malrick with terror in his eyes, "Malrick, they are now here with thousands of soldiers, hundreds spellcasters, and whole lot of artillery, what are we supposed to do now?"
"Don't worry Trevor, just like many other situations in life, I can bullshit my way out of this." Malrick replied calmly.
Malrick traced a sigil in the air and muttered some arcane words. He projected his voice outside and made it ten times louder, "Oh, hello Emerald Guard, it's nice to meet you all, but before anything else happens, can you tell me exactly why am I being arrested?"
The Captain of the Emerald Guard had a twitch in his eye as he screamed with a voice-amplifying spell, "'WHY AM I BEING ARRESTED?! AFTER ALL THIS TIME YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE BEING ARRESTED?!"
"Well... can you at least give me a recap on all of my crimes so I know I'm being arrested for an actual reason this time?"
The Captain growled and turned to a soldier on his left, "Bring me the book on all of Malrick's crimes." the soldier saluted and walked off and returned minutes later with a small book. He handed it over to the Captain to which he opened it up and turned some pages until he reached a certain section and amplified his voice yet again.
"Marlrick, you have been charged with 892 counts of first degree murder, 2,923 counts of second degree murder, 1,385 counts of third degree..."
---
"Heh heh, that'll buy us some time" Malrick said with pride in his voice.
Trevor looked at Malrick with an unhappy stare, "You do realize that if you didn't kill anyone who would enter your property we wouldn't have to travel to an unknown location in the multiverse, right?"
"Hey, they know who I am and how I deal with thieves who break into my home, take my stuff, kill my employees, and try to kill me or you. Technically, since most of the deaths are on my property and the most of the people I kill outside of it get resurrected by me, I shouldn't be charged with a majority of these crimes. Besides, it's not my fault that my job requires the murdering of certain individuals."
"... 3,324 counts of Vandalism..."
"That however, I am 100% guilty of."
Trevor looked a little bit baffled, "Ya know, with you being a mass murderer and having your own section in the Captain of the Emerald Guard's personal journal, I'm surprised I've never heard 'Tax Evasion' as one of your crimes."
Malrick's face showed a hint of fear, "Listen Trevor, even though I have powers that rival that of the Gods, not even I mess with the IRS..."
---
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE FORMS ARE EXPIRED?!" Malrick screamed at the top of his lungs.
The individual Marlick was screaming at was a large, red devil who was sitting behind a desk and wearing a black business suit. The devil looked at Malrick and calmly replied, "I mean that I cannot take the forms. If you had turned them in at 8:30 PM today I could've accepted them, but now I can't since they expired."
"IT'S 7:38 PM RIGHT NOW! THEY SHOULDN'T BE EXPIRED!"
"That document you want to turn in follows the time zone of Phelgethos, the third layer of Hell." The devil stopped talking and looked down at his wristwatch, "And right now it is currently... 11:47 PM over there."
Malrick heaved out a furious sigh, "Fine then, may I have another form so I can fill out my taxes?"
"We normally would give you one, but since you didn't write your middle initial on record three-two-one-C, we have to transfer you over to floor 22 in section four-A and have you wait for twenty minutes so the folks up there could give you folder nine-five-B so you could transfer that to the accounting department at floor 12 at section seven-C and wait around twenty minutes again so they could return file nine-eight-F which would allow you to fill in your middle initial in the previous document you didn't fill in properly (which was packet six-five-D I believe) then after filling that in, you return it to the records department at floor 28 in section-"
Malrick screamed out of desperation.
---
Malrick shuttered at the bad memory.
"We should probably go somewhere private to use that ticket." Trevor said, interrupting Malrick's flashback.
"What's not private about the room we are in right now?"
Trevor gave Malrick an "are you serious?" look as he pointed to the open doorway Malrick ripped the door from and then moved his finger to the now gaping hole in the window caused by the cannonball.
"Yeahhh... I can see your point."
Malrick and Trevor rushed into the living room (but not before Trevor finished his cranberry juice) as Malrick quickly scribes down the runes needed for a high-power conjuration circle on the floor.
It took about ten minutes in total to inscribe the circle (Malrick kindly asked the Captain to repeat some crimes and what they meant exactly a few times) before the runes lit up and glowed a faint yellow-orange.
"Alright Trevor, they circle's up and running, anything you wish to do before we leave?"
Trevor took one last look outside, taking in the beautiful landscape before him (minus the thousands of soldiers) and looked at the sun in the middle of a cloudless sky. Trevor took a deep breath and exhaled before saying goodbye to this plane and the time he spent here, it wasn't the best life, but it was still a life nonetheless, "Okay, I'm ready."
"Alright then, what should be our ideal destination? How about a new unknown plane that has magic, similar time systems, and similar language since you and I do NOT want to spend over 300 hours learning a new language."
Trevor could agree to those terms (especially the similar language part), but one question still remained: "Um, don't we need to have a name for our destination?"
"Hmmm..." Malrick pulled a dictionary out of his pocket (a literal "pocket" dimension) and flipped through the pages randomly, "Lithium... sail... abacus... equestrian, equestria, Equestria! That's a name I can use!"
Trevor was a little unnerved that Malrick chose the name of their next home for the foreseeable future by randomly flipping through a dictionary, but he will admit, "Equestria" does sound nice and has a ring to it.
"So, Equestria it is then!" Trevor happily (and somewhat nervously) exclaimed.
Getting the confirmation, Malrick and Trevor stepped inside the conjuration circle as Malrick held the ticket high in the air and muttered the spell under his breath. As he did, the runic circle on the floor began to light up and everything in the room began to float, including Trevor and Malrick himself, but before Malrick completed the spell, he had one last thought cross his mind.
"Hold on, I need to do something before I go too."
---
"... and 4 counts of littering, is there anything else you have to say?" The Emerald Guard Captain was surprised, usually when he listed off Malrick's crimes, he would rudely interrupt him, try to blast him, or teleport away, but this time, he actually listened and even asked a few times to go more into detail. This instilled the Captain with hope that Malrick will actually turn himself in.
Unfortunately, not all hopes and dreams come true, especially when the hopes and dreams involve Malrick Roscuro.
Malrick projected his voice again as he decided he should say a farewell to the Captain.
"Yeah, there's something I would like to say: I stopped listening to you like ten minutes ago. Thanks and have a good rest of the day you piece of shit!" Malrick said happily.
When the voice spell ended, the Captain looked at the mismatched tower for a few seconds, and then yelled out in fury.
---
Malrick sighed in contentment as he felt like he ended things with the Emerald Guard Captain on a good note.
Trevor heard what Malrick said to the Captain and can still hear the screams of the Captain outside. Needless to say, Trevor wasn't all too surprised that Malrick replied the way he did since he lived with him for so long.
Malrick completed the incantation by loudly yelling out "EQUESTRIA!" to finish the spell. As the ticket he still held into the air burst into blue flames, the runes on the conjuration circle glowed a blinding orange light as a portal opened on the floor.
"Alright then, here we goooOOOOOOOOO!" Malrick shouted in joy as he and Trevor were being sucked through the portal, but Trevor didn't show the same enthusiasm as Malrick as he was screaming the whole time.
While going through the portal, Malrick snapped his fingers to dismiss his tower into a seperate demiplane so he could transport his home, employees, and belongings with him.
---
The Captain was breathing heavily after screaming for so long. A lower-ranked guard next to him looked a little concerned and wanted to check if he was okay.
"Um... sir? Are you okay? Do you still want us to-"
"YES! ARREST HIM NOW! USE ANY MEANS NECESSARY!"
"Ummm... you heard the man! Arrest him!" The guard said as he turned back to his fellow comrades.
The army gave out rambunctious shout as they all charged towards Malrick's abode. However, as they gave their battle cries, the mansion was consumed in a bright white light. The army shielded their eyes from the light and when their eyes opened again, all that was left of the house was some dust and a small piece of paper which gracefully landed on the now bare, dirt floor.
Everyone was quiet and the army looked at each other in a mixture of surprise, confusion, and rage. Then, they all shifted their gaze towards the guard Captain who was silent the whole time, staring at the now empty plot of land where the tower once was.
Suddenly, everyone's brains kicked into "self-preservation mode" as they all decided to cover their ears.
If you were quiet and listened to the wind that day, you could hear the faint screaming of a man who was unfortunate enough to have encountered Malrick Roscuro.
---
Malrick and Trevor were flying through the multiverse, their minds not mentally prepared for the type of travel they were experiencing. Random colors, divine light, and the void of space surrounded them as their brains tried to comprehend the multiple universes that were passing by. Time was backwards, space was upside down, and matter and energy were being created, destroyed, and changed simultaneously. This would've been a mind-melting experience and would've required an epilepsy warning at the beginning of this chapter.
If it weren't for the fact that Malrick and Trevor were traveling at five miles an hour.
So instead of an experience reminiscent of Star Trek's warp drive, it was more like a really slow panorama.
"Um... Dad, is planar travel supposed to be this slow?"
"Well, the ticket I bought wasn't a 'fast travel' one since those were VERY expensive, so I took the so called 'economy seat' of planar travel if you will."
"So... how long will this take?"
"Taking account the time of departure, our exact position in relation to the mana ley lines, the properties of our plane, and air humidity, I estimate we will arrive at our destination in... approximately nine hours."
Trevor groaned in boredom as he realized he would be spending his Saturday afternoon floating through outer space at roughly the same speed of a lawnmower.
"..."
"..."
"... In the meantime, want to play 'Sorcery the Assembling?'" Malrick asked hopefully as he pulled out a few deck-boxes.
"... Heck yeah."