//------------------------------// // Ch.1: First Contact // Story: The Pale Rider by Artemis // by Apollo and Artemis //------------------------------// Luna landed on her balcony and immediately broke out into a gallop for her sister's room. As she stormed through the halls of the castle, all the servants who were in the hall managed to get out of the princess' path before she trampled them under her hooves. She eventually reached a pair of grand doors that had the symbol of a sun on it. She began pounding her hooves on the door. "Sister! Sister, we must speak with thou!" Luna shouted as she banged her hooves on the door, leaving small cracks on its shimmering surface. Celestia was already fast asleep when Luna had assaulted her door with her hooves. She snapped awake as the loud banging reached her ears. She could also hear her sister shouting 'sister' from behind the door. She immediately began to worry. She only called her sister if it was something of grave importance. She quickly got up and opened the door. "Sister, what's wrong?" Celestia asked with a worried look and Luna simply panicked. She quickly motioned for Luna to sit on the bed. "What's wrong?" Celestia asked again and Luna responded. "Sister, do you remember when our parents told us of a powerful and bad energy? We have felt it just now..." The princess of the night said, looking through her memories for their parents' exact words on the subject. Celestia tried to remember what her parents had told her. She could remember that they were quite young when this energy was explained to them. Before even their first meeting with Discord. They told them that the energy was very bad and if it was allowed to roam Equestria, it would ravage Equestria and turn brother against brother, sister against sister, family against family and pony against pony in general. As she remembered this, she could feel beads of sweat beginning to form on her brow. She quickly wiped them away and looked to her sister. "Yes, I do remember. And if what you're saying is true, we have to act now. Where did you feel it?" Celestia asked. "In the sky above Canterlot. We could feel the wave coming from the Everfree." Her sister managed to say before motioning her sister to exit and follow her. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Death walked through the shadowy forest, growls and snarls all the while ripping from the throats of unseen predators. He knew they were simply terrified of him and they just wanted him to leave. He simply laughed at their attempts at scaring him. He continued walking and found yet another brave soul as he entered a clearing. A strange beast dropped from the trees. It had three heads and large draconic wings. A lion's head that was underneath the head of a goat. As the beast dropped down, drool falling from its lion's mouth, a snake's head slithered out behind it, which must have been its tail. The beast snarled as it circled Death and he let his hands hover over his scythes, ready to cleave the beast in two in a heartbeat. The creature charged at the Nephilim. He jumped backwards as its claw descended on him; a spectral version of his Reaper form slashing at it, removing one of the horns of the goat head. The beast roared in anger and breathed a stream of orange fire at Death from its lion head. Death jumped back as the fire scorched the grass and ground where he was standing only moments ago. The beast stopped spewing flames and charged at him. Before the beast hit him, Death threw his arms to the sky and three coffins burst out of the ground, hitting the beast squarely in the jaw, throwing it back as the coffins burst to reveal ghouls. These ghouls weren't like the ghouls he summoned before. While they retained their necrotic and burning nature, they were equine in body structure and were about three to four feet tall. This didn't hinder their effectiveness in the slightest. They all charged at the still recovering creature, growls and snarls escaping their throats as they did so. They beat their hooves on the beast and it roared. Its snake head lashed out at the ghouls, knocking them down and causing them to explode. The creature recoiled in pain as the flames of the explosions burned through its fur and seared its flesh. It opened its eyes and saw Death hovering above it with the Gorewood Maul in his hands. Death slammed the hammer into the goat head, breaking right through the skull and propelling him to the tail. He let the hammer vanish and be replaced by his twin scythes, The Harvester. He dropped onto its back and impaled the snake head as it approached him with his scythe. He jumped off the beast, who could barely stand let alone walk. It looked to Death, who was chuckling. "Is that the best you can do?" He taunted as he prepared his scythes. Death glowed a purplish light and he rushed forward in a purple and orange streak. A split-second later, he was on the other side of the beast. Neither of them moved for a second. Death slowly returned his scythes to their original position and as they attached to his hips, the beast exploded in a shower of gore and fire; blood and viscera coating the trees around him. Death simply turned away and walked deeper into the forest; in a direction he believed was the way out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna and Celestia flew out of the castle and headed for the Everfree. As they approached, they could feel the energy getting stronger. "Luna, is this what you felt?" Celestia asked as they slowed to a hover above the forest and Luna nodded. They looked below them and what they saw nearly made them throw up. There were guts and blood all over the trees in the clearing. They both landed in the clearing to see what had happened. "What in Equestria happened here?" Celestia despaired as Luna finally lost her composure. The smell of death wafted into her nose and assaulted her senses in waves. Eventually, she couldn't keep up with the smell and the sight. She expelled her dinner onto the forest floor as they approached one of the trees. "How could this happen?" Luna asked as she wiped her vomit away from her mouth. "I don't know." Celestia said as she felt another wave of the energy, this time to almost overpowering strengths. She clutched her head in agony and fell to the blood soaked forest floor. "Sister!" Luna exclaimed as she rushed to her sister's side and the pain took effect on her as well. "I-I don't know w-what this is, but we can't fight it alone. We have to go back." Celestia said as she got to her hooves and helped Luna to hers. Luna nodded and they took off into the sky, not wanting to be in the forest for any longer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Death walked out into another clearing and found a small construct in the middle of the forest. It looked like a small shack. He looked into a window and found nothing of interest. He moved on. He looked to the forest floor as he walked and saw a few rays of sunlight breaking through the thickness of the trees above. "It must be daytime." Death said as he called Dust, who sat on his shoulder. "Show me the way." He said and the crow took off deeper into the forest and he followed. Fluttershy had just woken up. She stretched her forelegs and yawned. She got out of bed and went down the stairs to see her animals. "Good morning." She said and she was responded by a chorus of chirps, grunts, squeaks and many other sounds. She giggled and she prepared all their food. She watched as they quickly devoured the food prepared for them and she ate her own. Before she could take the last bite of her salad, she felt a thump on her leg. She looked down to see an angry white rabbit, impatiently tapping its foot with its arms crossed. "Oh! I know what you want Angel." Fluttershy said, learning from all her past experiences that Angel usually got cranky when he wasn't fed what he wanted. She got up and moved for the cabinet. She opened it and pulled out a carrot, one she grew herself and thus, was of fine quality. "Is this what you wanted?" Fluttershy asked and Angel quickly grabbed the carrot. He hopped away and Fluttershy just gave an understanding smile. She walked out the door as she finished her salad and saw a strange sight. There was a crow perched on the roof of her cottage. She found this strange. She usually didn't see any crows around here. She called out to it, but it simply cawed back and flew off into the forest. She again found this strange. Before she could think any further, a figure emerged from the forest. It was tall. So tall that it towered over Celestia herself. It had what looked like bony claws on its hands, armored legs and a skirt of bone armor. It had a straight, long black mane and no mouth. She looked it over from a distance and saw strange..... things.... on its hips. She quickly dashed into her home when she saw it approach. She began breathing heavily as she peeked out the window to see the strange creature approach the house. She could barely breathe as the creature brushed its hand on the door. She waited for what seemed like hours as the creature just stood there with its hand on the door. Her breath was heavy and she was sweating bullets. What if that thing decided to just destroy the door and come for her? She looked out the window and saw that the creature had left. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief but stopped herself when she looked out the window again. It was headed for Ponyville. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Death couldn't care less that the house was empty. He simply went in the direction of the town. There were bound to be people there. He held his hand out to his side and a horse burst from the ground in a torrent of green fire. This horse wasn't a normal one, however. It looked like a corpse and it had green flames in place of a mane and tail. That same fire appeared on its hooves. He mounted the horse that he named Despair countless eons ago and rode into the town. He wasn't really paying attention to the town, but his attention shifted to it when he heard the slamming of doors. He banished Despair and continued on foot into the very recently vacated town square. It didn't bother him that the people of this world were afraid of him. After all, who wouldn't be afraid of Death? "What kind of people are these? Where is the security? I haven't seen a single law enforcer since I entered this place." Death asked, confused. Normally, every town he visited had some form of law enforcement patrolling the town. This one, however, did not. As soon as he asked the question, he heard the sound of paws hitting the dirt as something ran. He turned and saw multiple twin-headed dogs snarling at him. Orthos. At least a dozen of them. And they weren't normal Orthos. The twin-headed dogs had black slime on many parts of their bodies and some of the bigger ones had yellow-green crystals on them. They were corrupted. "Well, this is a surprise." Death said as the dogs circled him, drool and black slime falling to the cobblestone road from their growling mouths. Death had his hands on his scythes, ready to cut them to pieces, just as he did with those other monsters. Some of the monsters charged from all directions and he was prepared. He connected his scythes and swung it in a circle around him, his Reaper phantom mimicking the move and slashing through each Ortho. Death threw his scythe at an Ortho that lunged from behind him and dodged as it flew past him and hit another of the beasts. He quickly retrieved his weapon and replaced it with a pair of claws. These were strange claws. They had a trio of skull carvings behind a pair of massive insect mandibles each. The weapon's name was Achidna's Fangs. Death jammed the claw into one of the approaching beasts, draining it of life and turning it into a dried out husk. He quickly replaced the claws with his scythes as another one approached. He sliced the beast in half with a scissor motion of his scythes. He looked around and saw only one of them standing. He knew what this beast was. Its name was Dioskilos. The twin-headed beast was the leader of the Orthos. It was much larger and stronger than its lower counterparts. It had a blue armor-like hide that was covered with large crystals, forming heavy armor that didn't hinder its speed and fighting capability in the slightest. It roared in fury as it charged for Death. He simply rolled to the side and threw his hand out. As he completed this action, a murder of crows appeared from nowhere and began attacking the large beast, all the while having caws and shrieks rip from their throats. The birds pecked at the tough hide of the Dioskilos and it tried in vain to swat them away. With every strike that the crows landed, the beast began to slow, ice beginning to form on its rock-like hide. Eventually, the beast had enough. It reared itself on its hind legs and slammed its paws into the cobblestone road and an explosion of fire sounded around them. The flames disintegrated the crows and the beast stared Death down, flames still burning on its corruption-infested body as it growled an snarled. They circled each other, waiting for one of them to make a move. Moments later, the Dioskilos charged and Death let his scythes take on a purple glow and he charged as well. Twin scythes met gnashing teeth for the shortest of moments and passed each other the next. Another split second later, Death was in the same position he was in only a few hours ago: His back turned to a beast he was fighting and his scythes both raised in the wing formation that he often adopted after a Teleport Slash. They just stood there for a few seconds, waiting for the other to make a move. Eventually, he returned his scythes to his hips and the beast moaned in agony as its crystals shattered and it fell over, finally dead. Death turned and walked over to the body of the slain Ortho leader. "Hardly a challenge." He said as he loomed over the Dioskilos' corpse and found something interesting. Among the shattered crystals was a pair of gauntlets. Both gauntlets were shaped like the Dioskilos' heads and had the same color. The right gauntlet had two blood-red crystals in place of eyes and the left had ice-blue crystals in the same places. They had bronze colored horns that pointed forward and glowed the color of its crystals. He picked up the gauntlets that he knew were named Dioskilos and let them vanish. He caught something moving in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw a small, purple horse approaching him and then suddenly stopping when he looked at it. "What in the..." Death said quietly as the small horse got closer to him. It took slow, small steps, showing that it really didn't want to approach him, but it had to. He could tell that the small equine's brain was screaming at it to turn tail and run, but it stayed and kept advancing, slowly closing the distance between them. He was confused. If it was his assumption, the thing saw him just tear apart a dozen Orthos without any mercy or regret. Why would it want to come closer to him? His train of thought was broken when he saw the creature only feet away from him. He knelt down and they stared into each others eyes, waiting for one of them to move. Seconds seemed like hours as the two stared each other down. The equine was steadily losing ground in the mental battle against the Nephilim. The purple equine was sweating bullets as Death stared her down with a curious eye. Death thought that this thing would just turn tail and run. But it did something that he never would have thought it would do. "Hi..."