Everfree, an ominous concoction of corrupt flora and fauna, the very branches themselves seeming to creak with every step forward. Filth and grim covered the swampy ground while darkened terror lay in the foliage of the leaves. Seemingly alive, stalking its prey until winded and lost. This place was a blight compared to the land of the shining sun, a striking place of sickness. Unmoving yet spreading in through the soil, through the air, this sickness grew in strength. He could feel it underneath him. This is a compelling analogy for his persona, the perfect place for Mordekaiser to be in Equestria.
He found this place… satisfactory.
Through his hollowed-out armor he could sense all the pains of this forest: predators hunting prey, the wounded seeking shelter, killing, maiming, and death. Suddenly he felt a movement in his senses; something was in great pain and nearby. Mordekaiser will take this kill for himself, steal it if necessary. His lust for bringing pain on this land will finally be sweetly sustained. His armor clunked heavily back and forth as he dashed towards the increasing throbs of pain he sensed.
A voice echoed through the forest, “P-please… I was only trying to h-h-help…” followed by a fierce series of growls. More than one?, Mordekaiser thought. If he had a face, he would be grinning right now.
He blasted through a tree with his mace and entered the area where the pain was coming from. From his vision he could see two small wolves made of sticks, along with a larger one, were circling a small defenseless yellow creature that looked similar in shape to that equine Mordekaiser had met before. They raised their ears and turned to where the noise of Mordekaiser smashing through the jungle had originated. Their eyes were hungry for blood and food, the small equine creature with a pink mane was covered in scratches and bite marks probably caused by these creatures. She whimpered in pain and went terrified to see this hulking monster of metal step towards them.
The wolves barred their fangs to this intruder, but the massive figure did not hesitate in his movements. Soon the wolves realized they wouldn’t be able to fear this being away, they turned their attention back to the scared pony. This was their kill and they weren’t going to have it robbed from them. In a sudden flash of movement the wolves howled and leapt towards the pony, who had given a cry for help.
Mordekaiser could have just sent his mace out flying and split into everything’s faces, but he knew there wouldn’t have been any time to secure the kill he wanted. He answered the cry of plea, this creature’s pain he can manipulate. He raised his hand just as the wolves were about to land on the pony and instantly a large shield of floating spikes and debris covered the terrified yellow creature. The shrapnel and shards of metal cut into the wolves’ birch skin and their howls of bloodlust turned into howls of pain. The pink-maned pony snuck a peek from one of her eyes and saw that she was still alive and the wolves were wounded.
“AH YES. Your pain is MINE!” the giant suit of hulking metal laughed in delight, becoming stronger and stronger the more shrapnel impacted in the wolves’ carapace. They had to back off from their prey and turned to face Mordekaiser with anger in their glowing eyes. The two smaller wolves leapt up at him. Mordekaiser swung his mace to smash one across the chest midair, this swinging motion turned his back and the wolf landed on it. It tried to take a bit and instead got a mouthful of impenetrable metal. Mordekaiser lifted his arm back and picked up the wolf. He swung him into the air before slamming his mace into the wolf and sent him flying through the air and hitting the larger wolf in the head before falling and going limp.
The larger wooden wolf saw this and shook its head in disappointment for its lesser subordinates. It tensed and a large glow of green light protruded from its body and gripped the dead wolves. It roared as a mysterious green essence floated into its body, followed soon by the floating bodies of the wolves disassembling and coming towards it.
”I SEE. Another creature that can also manipulate PAIN to his doing. WHO WILL BE THE BETTER? The answer is so SIMPLE, THAT I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO ANSWER!” Mordekaiser reveled in this sight of magical draining.
He raised his arm one more time and his shrapnel shield encircled the pile of twigs entering the growing timber wolf’s body. It ended its drain and was howling in pain as it fell down to its stomach. The metal shards were brushing and tearing apart the insides of the wolf, no doubt this was painful. Mordekaiser relished in every moment as he felt the power of his opponent’s pain surge through him.
“I AM FINALLY SUSTAINED, AND YOU WILL NOW DIE!”
The small pony watching all of this was horrified by what the creature had already done and said, but she was wounded and still bleeding. She couldn’t move and was forced to watch this.
Mordekaiser casually went over to the wailing Timber Wolf giant and kicked it to its backside. He grasped his mace in both hands as he went on top of the great beast’s head and raised his weapon past his back.
His mace came crashing down onto the wolf’s head; he raised it once more and brought it down in an earthquake of tremors. Finally he slammed his giant metallic boot into the wolf’s throat, supposedly finishing it off.
Mordekaiser stepped off the battered body of the wolf and raised his head up into the sky. His sinister laugh boomed for miles of the Everfree forest. The scared pony had to cover her ears from hearing the threatening laugh of violence; she had enough torment today and just wanted to go home. No more wolves, no more Everfree, no more giant metal beast swinging his incredibly large, incredibly spiked weapon all day.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t block out his sounds of victorious malice.
“AHAHAHA! HUE HUE HUE HUE! HAHAHA!” The beast shouted over and over again.
He looked over at his victim once more and a thought crossed his mind. From the small pony’s perspective she could see that he was searching around the fallen Timber Wolf for something.
“No gold? Every creature I’ve slayed drops a considerable amount of gold on their corpse!” Mordekaiser said with a growing annoyance. "Strange..."
He figured that since he couldn’t find it around the dead wolf, the spoils of his victory should be inside it. He lifted the wolf’s head and with his other arm, he plunged his metallic hand down the wolf’s wooden throat canal.
The pony wasn’t expecting that.
Mordekaiser kept going deeper into the wolf’s body but couldn’t feel anything that felt like gold, only twigs and leaves. The small metal curves on his suit of armor cut into the wolf’s trachea every time he went deeper. Suddenly, Mordekaiser felt something all too familiar to him.
Pain.
“IT SEEMS YOU ARE STILL ALIVE!”
The timber wolf made a small whimper as it tried to regenerate itself.
“HOW IRONICALLY PAINFUL!” he laughed with menace.
He yanked his arm out from the beast’s body, slicing up the many twigs of its insides. It weakly howled in pain. He grabbed his mace one more time with a single arm and slammed it into the creature’s head.
He continually kept slamming his weapon down across the creature, twigs were breaking but the wolf wasn’t dying.
“If you will not die, THEN I WILL FEAST ON YOUR PAIN FOR ETERNITY!” Mordekaiser shouted as he raised his mace up into the air with crackling electric power from the beast’s pain.
“STOP!” A voice had shouted from behind him.
Mordekaiser turned his neck a little; his arms still rose with his weapon and saw the small yellow pony shivering in both pain and fear. Mordekaiser nearly forgot about her, but she did have a point. He wasn't doing anything other than wasting time. He stored his mace on his back and knelt down towards the barely breathing beast.
“Your pain sustained me for enough. But you cannot seem to pass from this world physically.” Mordekaiser raised his hand towards the wolf; it shut its damaged eyes in fearful anxiety of what else this horrible creature will do to it. “YOU WILL NOT PASS AT ALL!”
A cloud of sickly grey smoke rose out from the wolf as its twigs decomposed and its body turned to dust, left in its place was a spectral apparition of the wolf. It looked at itself in surprise and in pain; the caster of this spell had latched onto his soul. A child of the grave, being held onto by the metallic menace of horror.
He was not free, not even after death.
Mordekaiser scoffed at his handiwork and turned to face the small creature who was desperately trying to get away by using her wings. She noticed his cold emotionless gaze and did a small but weak squee.
“Um… th-thanks for… saving… me. T-those wolves were just r-rude. But I do-don’t think—”
Mordekaiser got to eye-level with this strange pony, “Don’t what?”
“You- you’re so… violent.” The pony ended with a scared meep.
Mordekaiser was ready to claim this kill with his pet spectral hound, but before he could command it to strike down this yellow Hecarim-type creature, a blast of purple magic sizzled through the air and impacted a tree next to him.
“FLUTTERSHY!” a voice screamed through the forest foliage. A moment later, a small purple creature that looked similar to the one Mordekaiser was kneeling in front of had appeared.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy gave a weak cough of glee.
The purple pony quickly noticed Fluttershy’s wounds and then noticed the giant hulking suit of armor that stood up from next to her.
“You MONSTER! You hurt her!?” the pony shouted in rage as she charged up a beam of vivid purple light into her horn. She released it at Mordekaiser and a purple shield covered him from his metallic helmet to boot.
Mordekaiser didn’t take being ganked just now to be a compliment. He raised his arm and commanded his spectral pet to sick it’s fangs into this creature. The giant white ghost of the Alpha Timber Wolf did as its master ordered and charged for the purple pony. The pony shouted in fear and held a hoof up to protect herself.
The wolf leapt at her and as he did his body started to vaporize mid-air, his tail turned to dust and moved towards his fangs. He vaporized through the pony and only left dust behind. Mordekaiser face palmed himself on his lack of keeping time until his pet would’ve disappeared. I hate how my little pets only last for a few seconds...
With the threat passed, the purple pony quickly ran up to her friend and comforted her before turning back to the trapped metal being inside the shield. She trotted up to him in a victorious stance and looked at him through smugness about how her spell had easily trapped him.
“Wasn’t expecting that, are you?” the purple pony said smugly through the purple vision of the shield.
“Um… Twilight, I don’t think you should stand so close…”
“What? He’s completely harmless now. He’s trapped!" she raised her hoof to him. "There is absolutely no way he can escape this high-level defense spell!”
Mordekaiser’s shield of shrapnel and metal shards exploded around his body, it cost him his own health but he had no alternative. The force of the bouncing shards against the magic barrier was too much and the barrier smashed apart in pieces. A bit of the shrapnel cut across Twilight’s face with a minor scratch left behind. She recoiled in pain backwards and as soon as she recovered he was met with a massive ton of metal staring back at her, arms gripping heavily onto a mace of spikes.
The one who would strike first would have the advantage of not dying, it was a standoff. Twilight could feel the sickness through the air of how powerful this creature was and Mordekaiser could feel the amount of magic potential she possessed.
A pair of yellow-bruised hoofs went in between them and pushed them away. “ENOUGH!” Shouted the small yellow pony named as Fluttershy.
“Twilight, thank you for rescuing me, but he wasn’t the one who did… this,” she showed the cuts and bite marks to Twilight. Twilight reached to her and gave her a comforting hug who felt sympathy for her friend. “It was those Timber Wolves. I was out gathering herbs from Zecora when these beasts showed and attacked me. I tried to reason with them, I even offered them a cookie! But they attacked me, I don’t know why!” She practically broke down into tears as Twilight held her in comfort on her shoulder, giving a sneer to Mordekaiser who was watching all of this.
“But then before they could hurt me any more than they already did, that beast-- IT… showed up and stopped them.”
“How did he stop them?” Twilight asked with a concerned look, Fluttershy receded into relieving all those horrible things she witnessed just moments ago and shivered in fear. Mordekaiser swung his mace around so that it rested with its spiked head on the ground.
“Right… and then that strange timber wolf attacked me. After I trapped him in that spell…”
Mordekaiser couldn’t stand waiting here any longer about these two creatures talking about him.
“ENOUGH!” He slammed his mace into the ground and it made a tremor to get their attention. “I don’t care who you are, I don’t even care that I haven’t finished either of you off yet! Just tell me where I am, so I can go HOME. DO I HAVE TO MAKE YOU MY SPIRIT SLAVES TO COOPERATE?” His voice boomed as he raised his arm and a ghastly grey glow appeared around it.
“NO, NO!” They shouted in fear, “You just want to go home? Is that it?”
Finally some progress.
“Hmhm,” he chuckled quietly to himself. “Yes. I loathe this land of yours. You all look like Hecarims yet don’t act like him in any form. Tell me where I am, and how I can get out of this place and back to Summoner’s Rift.”
“I don’t know what any of that is, I don’t know what a Hecarim is bu- but…” Fluttershy nearly collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion. "W-Why can't I feel my... my..." and she passes out.
“Look, maybe we can all get some answers later, but right now we need to get Fluttershy home to heal and get some remedies to help her!” Twilight said with urgency as she lifted Fluttershy onto her back.
“I know a good remedy… DEATH.”
Twilight rolled her eyes as she made her way out from the forest with Mordekaiser reluctantly following in her hoofsteps. He grunted to himself trying to describe the situation he was currently in inside his head.
“Ooh, how I despise this place…”