//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Darkness of the Mind // Story: The Fallen Kingdom Chronicles. // by Dawnforge //------------------------------// Darkness and blood. This is what assaulted my senses as I returned to consciousness. I dispelled the darkness easily by opening my eyes. The images I saw were fuzzy at first. The smell of the smell of fresh death assailed my senses. ‘Wh-where am I, that would smell of death?’ My memory was just as fuzzy as my vision. I blinked, shaking my head. Slowly after a few moments and a bit more blinking, my vision began to clear. ‘Odd, my vision shouldn’t be taking this long to come back... Its been at least a min-’ What I saw then stopped my thoughts dead, and made all resolve and strength seep from my very bones. ‘N-no... No. No!’ Before me laid the broken bodies of Faith, Cloudchaser and Thunderstrike. The two pegasi were tore open, with their blood spilling onto the floor. As much as my heart ached for my two comrades, it was the third body, that of Faith, that caused me to finally collapse with tears flooding my eyes. ‘N-no... No. I’ve failed. I’ve failed them, I failed her. I’ve failed her just like I failed Clover and the kids...’ My heart sank, nothing in my life mattered anymore. I knew if they were dead, the demon had killed them and survived. He would come for me soon. I didn’t care. I failed my comrades and I realized, and a pony I cared deeply for. ‘Again. I failed again. Why?! Why must I be this failure!’ “Why?! Celestia why?!” I howled in pain at no one in particular. The voice answered me. It dripped with the hiss of evil, and the mirth of a villain who has won over the story’s hero. Its words slow and drawn out. ‘Ssssooo... melodramatic... Paladin of the Fallen... Kingdom.’ “So, you come for me, demon?” I slowly rose to my hooves, my sword was nowhere to be seen. ‘Odd... I was sure it would still be here.’ The voice crackled in what could only loosely be called a laugh, though it sounded like bone being scraped against bone. ‘Yoooou... are so clueless my little pony... I already have you. You are nothing... compared... to my power...’ I chuckled and glanced around. “I will fight to my last breath. I may be a failure as a Protector, but as a Vindicator? I am the master. Come and face me! I will not fall pray to your evil this time!” I closed my eyes, letting the magic of my body flow through me. I whispered a prayer in Celestia’s name, and felt the connection of my magic with that of the sun’s divinity. I opened my eyes and blasted my magic out in a wave, striking the entirety of the room. Every shadow, and every speck of darkness was dispelled in a display of utter brilliance as I used a blinding spell magnified by the holy powers I could call upon. There was a shriek off in the distance and the faint explosion like a powerful barrier spell being shattered. Then the voice responded, it lashed out with a tentacle of pure darkness, a void in the light I brought into existence. It slammed into me, ending the spell and slamming me into the wall. ‘You.... Foalish Paladin. I tire of your constant ‘prayers’ and ‘faith’ and your heroic attitude. We both know what it is for. You need the faith of Celestia and her ‘divine’ sun. You need it to feel better about your failures. Your weakness, your pathetic little existence. You don’t even realise what has happened to you.’ With a demonic growl, the room vanished and I was floating in darkness the tentacle rushing my body in its grip. Before me stood the Devourer, its bone white skull void of anything and its black body draped in rotting flesh. ‘You are nothing and neither are the three who stand before me. One comes before me, to face me. Me. I am the devourer of the souls of life! There is -nothing- you little pathetic ponies can do to stop me, so give up!' I took the abuse, my struggling had ceased mere moments after the tentacle begun strangling my body. I could feel the life slowly draining from my flesh, but we dueled on another level. Pouring every ounce of my magic, body and soul into a passive spell I had invented long ago to fight his kind, fighting him for every ounce of power he drew from my body. Even when Faith was dead before me, I was fighting the spell he used on me. Then I suddenly broke my concentration long enough to see that there was only a void of nothingness and it hit me. ‘I’m in my own mind.’ I chuckled, at my own stupidity, or at least tried to. The tentacle was probably strangling my breathing in reality as well, and that made the laugh sound more like a choking cough in my mind. “You don’t get it. I live not for myself, but others. My failures are not living up to the hero everyone holds me to be. Clover and my children died because of my recklessness. And Faith is not dead yet. She will fight you, and fight you harder than I ever could. I’m broken, even as I fight I know my will is not strong enough.” 'No, you live for yourself, foal. And that is why you will die.' The demon retorted, it simply sat there, if it had eyes, I would think it was peering at me in amazement. “I am Zeal, I am the blind faith and revenge of the weak willed. She... she is Faith, not simply Faith in Celestia and her Divine source of power; but in others and each other and ourselves. She has the will to beat you. Our names are linked to who we are, our special talents, our cutie marks, and who we are.” 'Then die as a 'hero'.' The tentacle holding me reared me back and then hurled me down. Down, I fell for what seemed like days. Down into the bliss of death. Down into nothingness. Down into Darkness. It was over now. I could feel the demon’s spell leaching the last of my strength. Even trapped inside my own mind, with the feeling my body dying. ‘I wonder... If Clover and the kids will be waiting for me on the other side.’ My eyes shut completing the darkness of the void. I could feel the weightless wall. ‘I think, that will have to be my one regret... will not be completing my mission. If only, I had not been so foa-’ My thoughts were interrupted by a brilliant light that pierced even the darkness of my closed eyes. ‘No, I have done my best in life. I have done the best I can, and still failed. Can not the embrace the cold grave, take me and allow I to join those I failed and love still? Please, let me fa-’ This time a new voice spoke. It was full of grief and sadness, calling to me. ‘Zeal!’ I opened my eyes. The darkness was still there, but, in front of me was a bright light. The voice was coming from its direction. ‘Zeal! Come back to me! I love you... Please, please, please! Don’t leave me! I need you.... Faith needs Zeal, p-please.’ The voice stopped speaking, but I could hear the sobs of sorrow. ‘F-faith?’ I blinked and took a step towards the light. ‘Faith needs me. I failed one mare, I refuse to fail another.’ I took another step and another, and finally I stepped into the light.