//------------------------------// // Twisted Perceptions // Story: Dying Embers // by MrSpartan //------------------------------// It seemed like an eternity of endless stairs. After his encounter with the other alicorn and her sickeningly devoted husband Illitheous had passed no less then fifteen more doors that all looked EXACTLY THE BLOODY SAME. Illitheous was contemplating that he had ascended up into the wrong tower and whether he should head back down when he finally reached the top. Illitheous now felt a sickeningly bright aura seeping through from the other side. This was Celestia’s room all right. He lifted a booted foot in the air and kicked open the heavy metal doors with ease. In the comfortably furnished but not lavishly-so space stood the elder co-ruler of Equestria. She was busy writing a letter and with her quill and parchment as if absolutely nothing was wrong. “Celestia.” The alicorn ceased writing but did not turn around. She did stiffen slightly however. “Illitheous, you’re here to kill me, yes?” “I’m here for justice.” Illitheous hissed. There was a pause. “Look at me when I’m talking! I am not some ant for you to ignore and look down upon when it suits you!” Celestia turned very slowly to reveal a face full of tears. “I have NEVER considered you or any living being ‘below’ me. Why can’t you see that?” Illitheous eyed her warily. ”Crocodile tears won’t save you Celestia. I won’t fall for any of your tricks.” He began to circle across the room to get closer to the princess. She did the same in order to keep the distance between them. They circled each other like sharks. “You can’t escape your legacy Celestia. I won’t let you take away my victory.” The undead human stated as he continued to circle the princess. “Your lust for vengeance has already done that.” Celestia said. Her expression was grim and the tears had not stopped. “I said don’t lecture me you harlot! I see through the lies of your kind. By days end I will have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire!” Illitheous shouted. “Illitheous, listen to yourself! Don’t you see what you’ve become?!” Celestia yelled back. “I will become whatever it takes to raise my people out of the grave. Even if I must sacrifice my own humanity.” Spoke the human as his aura of fire made itself more visible with its ever-increasing temperature. His feet started to melt the floor. “So, this is how it must be.” The alicorn’s horn began to glow bright yellow and her aura of white light materialized as her power rose to a level that matched Illitheous’ own. They both halted their movements. Each was an alternate vision of fire. “I will do what I must.” spoke Celestia. The human cracked his knuckles. You will try. he countered. Illitheous leaped, channeling all his power into his ringed fist at the same time that Celestia channeled much of her power into a magic blast of energy from her horn. Celestia’s beam attack made contact first and catapulted Illitheous out of the window in her room. In a beautiful display of shattered glass Illitheous plummeted to the distant ground. Illitheous would not be bested so easily though. He quickly positioned his limbs outward to catch more air and slow his decent. However that alone would not be enough to save him. He angled himself so he was close enough to the tower to grab it. Using his power of fire he clawed at the white stone. In a spray of melting masonry and torn out marble he slowed his decent to a crawl while simultaneously leaving a scorched scar in the formerly pristine white tower. Putting full power into his legs he leaped off the damaged tower to one of the nearby roofs of the palace. The undead figure landed with an excessively heavy thud on the roof of another part of the castle. He raised his skull to the tower Celestia was still in. She lived in a castle that served no purpose but to further her own illusion of importance. She and her whole family thought themselves better then the rest. It was because of her kind that humanity was weakened to state of near extinction and before she even had the nerve to say they had brought it on themselves! How he despised her. How he loathed her. How he hated her! In one swift move he flung a powerful ball of fire at the tower. It exploded in an eruption of destruction. To his dismay he spotted Celestia escaping the flames and diving towards him. He took some consolation from seeing he had badly burned one of her wings in the attack. As Celestia landed she immediately blasted Illitheous with a simple but easily cast force spell. The invisible but audible projectile cannoned into the human’s gut. He was hurled backward and bounced like a rag doll. Illitheous quickly rose to his feet just as Celestia fired another force ball spell. Illitheous was ready this time and braced himself. He grunted with effort to block the attack. Although he managed to stay on his feet he was pushed back. His sliding footwear left twin trails of dust in their wake. The currently not-so-beloved princess did what any combatant who didn’t have a death wish would do. She pressed the attack. Her horn glowed and the stone around Illitheous suddenly shifted and sparked with magic. Four masses of hoof-shaped marble floated out of the castle and came at Illitheous from all directions. He put up his hands to stop two of them but failed in stopping any of them. They pounded into him with devastating force. The human squirmed between the rocky hoofs before letting out a roar of anger. They all shattered as he flexed his arms free. It was the human’s turn now. He kneeled and placed both his skeletal limbs flat on the ground. Immediately, visible cracks like those seen on the side of a volcano made their way from his hands to the alicorn. She couldn’t fly away with her burnt wing. Instead she gave teleporting a chance. She thanked whichever god was watching over just then, teleporting out of the crack’s path just in time to watch them converge in the spot she had just been standing. A geyser of molten marble and brick exploded outward. Illitheous turned an angry skull her way. Celestia cast out a fast bolt of fire and kinetic magic. It hit her foe right in the face and down to the ground he went. Illitheous moved his spine and shifted his balance first to his back then to his lifting legs and jumped back to his feet without even using his arms. The skeleton mocked his reluctant adversary with maniacal laughter. “Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! You’ll have to do better then-UGH” His body, which already was heavy with infernal magic, suddenly felt like it had been burdened with countless iron weights. He was flattened to the floor with cracks forming in the bleached white stone. Then the weight seemed to leave as quickly as it came. He pushed himself back up less gracefully then before. Celestia’s horn was aglow with light. She jerked her head down and the man felt the weight return. The princess was using a gravity spell backed by the power of the sun. The dark robed skeleton didn’t waist any time pushing himself back up. His hands burned with hell fire but the ethereal maned ruler jerked her head down again before he could retaliate. Once more the cadaver was crushed onto the rocky ceiling. His bony limbs shook with effort as he picked himself up. “Stay down Illitheous.” Celestia said flatly. Cracks in his bones mended themselves as he gave her a quite answer. “No!” He was smacked down again. “Stay down Illitheous.” Celestia repeated more firmly. Illitheous was on his knees and hands. He trembled in waning effort to get back up this time. Celestia noticed with an inward cringe that he was in the bowing position he so loathed. “NO!” The millennia old mare closed her eyes and turned her head away as she hit him with another effective gravity spell. “Ugh!” She still had her eyes closed as she asked him again, hoping beyond hope he would listen. “Please stand down Illitheous” “N-nn…very well.” Celestia’s eyes shot open at that. She looked to see the poor man lying in the newly made indention in the roof with a hand raised. The flames around his body had gone out almost completely. “No more…you win.” He said those last two words as if he was admitting to destroying his own brother. The princess was struck speechless. Illitheous took the silence as her thinking about killing him anyway. It’s what he would do. “I surrender.” He uttered in a pitiable voice. Celestia experienced a hurricane of emotions. Among them were relief, happiness, exhaustion, and surprise but most of all she felt remorse. She slowly moved forward until she was arms length away. With a smile and a tear she extended a hoof to the human. “I’m sorry,” she spoke. The undead being slowly grabbed her hoof with a shaky skeletal hand. His look of defeat turned back to its usual mask of hatred. “You will be.” The princess barely had time to gasp before the lich’s ringed hand sent twisting coils of hellfire up her leg. She pulled away thanks to the humans weakened grasp but that hardly mattered to her just then. She fell on her backside and clutched the severely burned limb with the other screamed in unmatched pain. She retained just enough of her wits to surround the injury with a powerful healing field. That managed to stop the hellfire from spreading across her body and to her soul but it still felt like her foreleg was being dipped in acid. Ad that to her already burnt (but to a much lesser extent) wing and it was clear she needed the best healers if she ever wanted to recover. While the equine was occupied the lich had ceased the opportunity brought forth thanks to his trick. The unholy magic gifted to him so long ago worked to repair his ailing body. Now he was nearly completely healed. Illitheous got up and charged. He intended on finishing the soul burning while she was distracted. Just a single bit of solid would seal her fate and restore that of his people. However, Celestia would not let it be that easy. She teleported to the other side of the roof just before he could touch her. The monstrous man just rushed her once more, speaking under his breath “Run Celestia, run if you can. You can’t defeat a dead man.” He filled the air with unhinged laughter as his aura of flame was back in full. Princess Celestia had her injury under control for now and lowered herself to the ground like she was ready to pounce. She gathered all the magic she safely could without endangering her health. The unprecedented amount that was her power was channeled into her horn. The castle rock underneath her split open in fear. Bits of chipped brick actually floated around her. Her focused magic was creating its own mini gravity field. The undead human didn’t even notice, so consumed was he by battle fury and vigor. Although his aura of fire and dark magic was nothing to sneeze at, he wasn’t currently focusing it in any defensive way. All his focus was on the offensive, same as Celestia was right then. A quick lesson of magic and might should be remembered here. When two opposing forces of arcane power collide they will either negate entirely or become explosive. Yet if one of those forces has a range advantage on the other like, say, from a horn, the lesser ranged force will be soundly outmatched. The Princess of the sun let loose a hyper powerful beam of pure solar energy just as her two legged opponent was only a few feet away. The godly blast smashed into Illitheous in an explosion of light! He was caught as it slowly disintegrated his body as fast as his healing could keep up and cannoned him through the stone ceiling into the floor below but it didn’t stop there. Illitheous was blasted to the next floor then the next and the next and still the next! All the while he experienced death upon death from an attack no mortal could normally hope to survive and NO living creature should have to suffer through. His agony would put the greatest torturers of the nine hells to shame. The pain was unending. His screams of rage and suffering echoed throughout Canterlot, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Celestia, panting with effort, looked teleported down to the first floor of the castle where Illitheous had finally stopped. Beams of sunlight filtered down from the rough holes leading in from the ceiling far above. Dust swirled around her as the minor goddess shakily surveyed the carnage she had reluctantly wrought. Half covered by debris in one of the grand foyers that was damaged beyond recognition were the blackened, nearly obliterated remains of her undead assailant. His trench coat was a tattered rag that had miraculously remained somewhat intact. His bones were now brittle and charred with only one of his hands and skull unbroken. Celestia was numb as she starred at what she knew once must have been a good person. The nearest set of doors slammed open as several of her royal guards filed in. They fawned over their injured ruler and quickly set up a guard around her and the crater containing the human’s remains. Celestia nearly fainted but two of her guards caught her. “Are you all right your highness? Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?” The more compassionate of the two that caught her inquired. “…No, everything is not alright my faithful guard. None won this day. I need to get my sister. Broker a truce if I can. There has been enough death today.” Celestia. That same guardspony looked at her with sympathy. “They aren’t monsters are they? The humans I mean.” Celestia whispered back. “No, they never were. Please go get Captain Shining. I will need him.” That particular guard saluted and dashed out of the room. Only seconds later one of the guards by the crater noticed something. “Uh sergeant? Is that ring on its fist supposed to be glowing red like that?” Tia’s expression was the manifestation of fear itself. “Everypony run before it's too late!!!” She screamed. She was blinded by black light as a sphere of not red but BLACK fire expanded from the creator, obliterating everything around it including the guards into oblivion. Simultaneously the human started screaming again. His mind still trapped within the agony he had previously endured. Celestia barely survived and was hurled out into a courtyard through the newest gaping hole in her castle. She lay on the ground in a heap. She opened her eyes. Before her was a raging inferno within the perfectly spherical wound inflicted to her home. She could just make out Illitheous’ reforming figure as he continued howling in rage and pain. Just as the alicorn could no longer see him in the fire he leaped an inhuman height out of the blaze and landed just beyond her. Tia’s blood froze in her veins. Illitheous was seemingly back in his right mind as he slowly made his way to the near helpless princess. He saw her tears and injuries and his steps faltered for just a moment. He held his skull like it hurt before shaking it off. His voice was eerily calm. “Don't cry dear Celestia. Your pain has only just begun.” The sound of crunching grass caused the infernal creature to look over his shoulder. “This destruction stops now Illitheous.” Twilight Sparkle said. The cavalry had arrived.