//------------------------------// // Chapter III - Never anger the night. // Story: The Adventures of Damon Lipton // by Mr101 //------------------------------//                     The Adventures of Damon Lipton                 Chapter III - Never anger the night. Twilight was sitting at her desk in her home reading a large book about advanced teleportation spells, she had been in Ponyville for a month or so now after moving there from Canterlot in order to study friendship for Princess Celestia. Life was fairly basic in Ponyville, aside from the Nightmare Moon incident, and Twilight had started to become used to it and everything was going perfectly for her. There was a knock on the door and she looked over her shoulder, closing the book with her magic. “It’s open!” “Hey Twilight, this scroll just came for you from the Princess,” Twilight smiled as Spike entered the room, carrying a scroll in his hand and a emerald cupcake in the other. “Thank you Spike...” she said, raising her eyebrow at the cupcake. “I uh... thought I could have it as a treat for cleaning up the main part of the library?” Spike sheepishly grinned. “And did you?” Twilight asked. There was a brief pause before Spike dropped the scroll and ran back out of the room, slamming the door shut and leaving Twilight to giggle to herself as she levitated the scroll up and began to read. “Dear Twilight Sparkle...” “LOOK, I’M SORRY IF THE WHOLE HORSE THING OFFENDED YOU!” Damon shouted out. “IF YOU ARE INDEED SORRY, THEN TAKE YOUR PUNISHMENT LIKE A STALLION!” Luna shouted back. Damon shuddered as a horrifying image entered his mind as he was chased down a street with Luna in hot pursuit, ponies had since gathered outside to see what the whole ruckus was about and were terrified when an enraged Luna appeared, trying to blast what appeared to be a walking skeletal creature that was screaming in fear itself. “HOLD STILL!” “ARE YOU CRAZY!?” They watched as a beam of magic blasted past the skeleton and into a building, blowing up the side of the building revealing the shocked residents inside. As Luna continued to chase Damon through the streets, the guards who had been trying to keep up with them arrived on the scene and winced at the destruction Luna had caused. “Sir, this is getting out of hand, we need Princess Celestia to help us now! Princess Luna’s gone crazy!” a guard said to the lieutenant. “Agreed, Steel Horn, Red Wing, go back to the palace and request Princess Celestia’s assistance at once!” The lieutenant barked. The two guards in question saluted before flying off back to the palace, the lieutenant turned round biting his lip. “I just hope that none of the citizens say-” “EVERYPONY RUN! NIGHTMARE MOON’S RETURNED!” A mare screamed. All around the guards, ponies screamed and ran as far away as they could as Luna continued to give chase to the skeleton, blasting more buildings in her rage induced state. “Perfect...” he muttered. ‘I need to get out of here! That crazy mare is going to kill me!’ Damon panted a she dove into a large wooden box that was in an alley way and held onto his breath, still trying to work out why he was actually breathing but decided to focus on that later, right now he had more important matters to deal with. “YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME FOREVER!” He heard Luna below as she suddenly flew over his hiding spot. Holding his breath as he waited until the sounds of wings flapping faded, he let out a sigh of relief as he poked his head out from his hiding spot and saw Luna flying away in the distance. Slinking his way out of the barrel he began to run in the opposite direction, determined to get out of the city and far away as possible from her. He came to the end of the alleyway and peered around the corner, he could see ponies running about in fear, unsure as to why Luna was randomly blasting buildings and wondering just what it was she had been chasing. Damon waited for the right moment before quickly running out into the open, hoping to make it to another alleyway. Sadly though, luck wasn’t on his side. Damon fell to the ground with a loud grunt as he ran straight into someone, he shook his head and looked up and saw that he had run into a green coloured pony with a dark green mane and what appeared to be a pipe on his flank. The two stared at each other for a moment before the stallion opened his mouth, Damon quickly pushed his hand to the stallion’s mouth and shushed him. “Look, I’m not here to hurt anyone, please trust me!” Damon begged. The stallion looked at him confused for a moment, until a loud boom came from behind them. Damon looked behind him to see Luna flying back towards them, he didn’t know if she had spotted him yet and turned round back to the stallion. “HIDE ME!” He cried, jumping onto the back of the stallon. “Get off me!” The stallion cried, bucking Damon off him. “Please, you have to help me!” Damon pleaded as he crawled back to the stallion, “she’s crazy!” The stallion was about to say something, when he froze and his eyes went wide and his pupils shrank to the size of a pin. “She’s behind me... isn’t she?” Damon whispered. The stallion turned and fled, screaming that Nightmare Moon was trying to get him as Damon slowly turned around, coming once again face to face with the enraged twitchy eyed Luna. “Gotcha!” Luna cackled. Damon screamed as Luna blasted him point blank with her magic, sending him flying backwards and into a building wall levelling it. Luna smirked at her work and with a nod, she turned around to leave, only to find a very angry looking Celestia glaring at her. “Tia?” She asked. “Luna... care to explain all of this?” Celestia pointed with her wing to the ruined buildings around them, Luna followed the direction she was pointing at and winced as she saw the carnage she had caused before sheepishly smiling at Celestia. “Furthermore, you have only been back a month and already caused the citizens to scream that Nightmare Moon has returned!” Luna winced again as she realised full on what she did, she tried to find the words but she whimpered and pointed to the smoldering rubble. “But... that thing started it!” Celestia sighed as she walked over and nuzzled her little sister softly. “Lulu... I’m to blame as well, I didn’t think you would take this as far as it escalated to, for that I’m sorry. But things have changed now, you can’t just go around blasting everypony you see who insults you,” “I’m sorry Tia...” Luna began before gasping, “oh no... the creature!” Both princesses ran over to the rubble only to find no trace of the creature, Luna bit her lip in worry as Celestia looked around her, trying to use her magic to track it down. “Lieutenant, we need to find Damon as quickly as we can. He may cause alarm to my little ponies without meaning to and I fear for their, and his, safety.” The lieutenant saluted her before he and the other guards began to search the surrounding area. “I must go and inform Twilight about these events, just in case Damon turns up, you stay here Luna and help fix what you’ve done.” Celestia said before taking off for the palace. Luna nodded and began to help put out some of the small fires that had sprung up from her attacks. “Thank Xerillion I’m free...” Damon sighed in relief. During the time Celestia had been talking to Luna, he had slipped out of the ruble and made a dash for a city gate, thanking the gods he had been able to slip out of the city undetected and proceeded to make his way towards the forest at the base of the mountain. As he had walked, keeping to the sides in order to be able to try and hide somewhat better if anyone came up or down along the path, he had spotted a small looking town at the base of the mountain on the border of the forest and decided that he could ‘borrow’ some supplies, if he was sneaky enough, and then figure out just exactly what it was he was going to do. But first he needed to find a nice place to sit down and pray to Dorian, hopefully to get some answers from the god. After walking for what seemed like a good couple of hours, Damon managed to slip off the road without meeting anyone along the way. He was now walking through the forest and was humming softly to himself after managing to calm himself down from the events earlier that day, finding a nice apple tree at the start of what appeared to be a large orchard, he sat down by it and leant against it, closing his eyes and began to pray to Dorian.   He opened his eyes to see he was in the void, albeit his form was ghostly in appearance. Damon looked around trying to find Dorian and stopped, slowly turning on the spot knowing that Dorian was probably behind him. He was surprised to see he wasn’t and turned around before screaming as he came face to face with the grinning features of Dorian. “Haha... never gets old that!” Dorian chuckled. “L-look, just tell me why you did what you did to me!” Damon demanded. “Easy, little follower, no need to get your long johns in a twist.” “There’s every reason!” Damon snapped, “you turned me into a fucking lich! And for the last time, I’m not your follower!” “Ah... that, well it’s like I said my boy. I find being human is overrated, so I decided you’d have more fun as a lich!” Dorian grinned. “HOW IS IT MORE FUN?! I GOT CHASED AND NEARLY KILLED BY A BLUE HORSE THING!” Damon shouted. Dorian burst out laughing as he slapped his knee, buckling over as Damon looked at him with gritted teeth and clearly not finding the funny side of it. “I saw! Classic response on your half I think, great show!” “Wait, you saw all of that!?” “Of course, who do you think threw you into dear old Lulu’s bed?” Damon stared at Dorian speechless, trying and failing to say something to the cackling man. He eventually gave up and sighed. “Ok... I think my curiosity is full for one day, can I go back to Cyrium now?” “No, no you can’t. We had a deal, Damon, you get my chum Discord free, and then I’ll tell you how to get back.” “But... but...” “No buts! Now off you go!” “Wait, before I go, why a lich? Why that in particular?” “Why not? I already told you, sending a little old human to a new world with several new species on a job for me seemed to overdone, so I decided that turning you into something else would be more fun!” Damon just stared at him, trying to get his head around what Dorian was trying to explain to him. “Ok... but why am I still alive? I got hit twice by a powerful magic blast!” “Fair point, I don’t know why that happened. Maybe the magic just thought you were a swell guy and decided not to kill you,” Dorian sighed, “reminds me of my first honeymoon, ah memories...” Damon was about to speak when Dorian shushed him and began to walk away from him, twirling his cane as he did. “Now, I’m sure you have many other questions, but all in good time my dear, not so loyal, but not has no choice follower. But I have a few things I need to attend to, so pray to me later on and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible, ok?” As Damon felt himself blacking out, Dorina spun round on the spot. “Oh! And one more thing, don’t forget to have fun! That’s the main thing!” The last thing Damon heard was the loud cackling of Dorian as he blacked out and disappeared from the void. Damon opened his eyes to find himself back under the apple tree and sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, before realising he was actually rubbing his skull. “Well... remember what Kalanar would always say, ‘Make best of any situation your in.’” Damon leant back back against the tree and stared at the red apples hanging above him, he stared at them with a strange sense of lust and curiosity before standing up and pointing his finger at one of them. With a quick mutter, he shot an arrow of magic at the stem, cutting the apple from the tree and caught it in one of his hands. “Ok... experiment number one, can I eat?” He said aloud. Bringing the apple to his mouth, he opened it and took a large bite with a loud crunch before chewing. He stopped as he went wide eyed and stared at the apple, feeling tears form in his eyes and ignoring the questioning of it from his mind he cried out. “THIS IS THE BEST APPLE I’VE EVER TASTED!” Sobbing softly as he took bite after bite and began to laugh madly as he went from tree to tree, taking the most succulent looking apples and eating them he suddenly stopped on his twentieth apple and blinked, then spat everything that was in his mouth out in disgust and looked at the apple seeing a half a worm sticking out of it. “And... now I hate apples...” he muttered, tossing the apple aside. He contemplated cleaning the mess that were the apples he had devoured but decided to leave it for nature to deal with, and began to make his way through the orchard. Twilight paced back and forth in the library nervously, biting her lip as Spike sat on the sofa and watched her, casually munching on an emerald. “Calm down, Twilight, you’re doing that pacing thing again.” Twilight looked over at Spike then to the floor, seeing that she had started to make a groove into the floor from her pacing and sighed. “I’m sorry, Spike, but this is important! You read the scroll!” Spike rolled his eyes, the scroll had said that a strange skeletal creature had appeared in the middle of the capital and was intelligent but had managed to escape, Celestia had insisted in the scroll that the creature was not a threat at that current time due to the events that had happened earlier that day, which she had included in the scroll. Celestia went on to mention that she only wanted to capture the creature just to talk to it, and see if she could help it in anyway. Spike had read it as ‘we only need to talk to him, to make sure he is alright and that he isn’t a threat’, but Twilight had panicked, seeing as the Nightmare Moon incident was still fresh in everypony’s mind, and read it as ‘a new species that must be captured and questioned for the good of Equestria and her curiosity’. The door to the library opened and Twilight spun her head around to see her friends walk in, minus Fluttershy. “Thank you for coming at such short notice girls,” Twilight said, embracing them in a group hug, “where’s Fluttershy?” “I’m sure she will be here in a moment, my dear. Now what’s all the fuss about?” Rarity asked. Twilight levitated the scroll Celestia had sent her over to the group and they scanned it carefully before coming to mixed conclusions. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were a bit wary of the creature despite Spike trying to suggest that Celestia only wanted to find him to make sure he was safe, and that he wasn’t a threat. Rarity had made comments about a ‘disgusting beast’ as her mind played images of a savage monster that could terrorize everypony and Pinkie, Pinkie had declared that the creature should get its own party. “So what ya reckon we should do, Twi’?” Applejack asked. “I’m not sure... Princess Celestia said there might be the possibility of the creature coming here, and although she said it wasn’t a threat, we should at least be prepared for anything.” Twilight replied. “So beat it up, tie it up and drag it back to town? No problem!” Rainbow grinned. “No, no attacking it!” Twilight snapped, “we shouldn’t provoke it.” “He,” corrected Spike. “He,” Twilight said, “we shouldn’t provoke him.” “Well... I still feel odd ‘bout this Twi’, given the whole Nightmare Moon thing the other month.” “I know, which is why I said we should be careful about how we proceed, we should wait for Fluttershy then search the area around Ponyville before he is seen by anypony else, last thing we need is the town running in fear again...” Damon came to he end of the forest and suddenly stopped, he looked to his left then to his right and scratched his chin. He had decided that he was going to try and find some way of finding out where he was exactly and had decided to ‘borrow’ a map from someone's home in the town he had spotted when he was fleeing Luna earlier, but this lead to his problem of deciding whether or not it would work. After a little bit of debating with himself, he had decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. After walking around the edge of the forest near the town, trying to find a suitable house he had managed to find himself looking at a secluded cottage that was separate from the town itself. Hiding behind a tree and watching it carefully, he couldn’t see any signs of life coming from it other then the animals that were outside the small cottage in various pens. Making a quick dash for it, he exited the treeline and briskly walked over to the front of the cottage, his finger glowing white as he prepared a lock picking spell when the door opened and he froze on the spot as a female, yellow pegasus with a pink mane stared up at him, her eyes widening and pupils shrinking slowly. The two stared at one another for what seemed like a lifetime until Damon broke the silence and canceled his spell. “Hello?” He said, offering a smile and a wave. What Damon didn’t realise is that, as a skeleton, a friendly smile didn’t look all that friendly to the one he was giving it to. The pegasus whimpered and opened her mouth. ‘Oh by the ancestor, not again!’ “Please don’t scream!” He pleaded. Damon braced himself for a scream but only heard a slight squeal escaped her lips before her eyes rolled upwards and she fell to the ground unconscious. He looked at the body of her for a moment, tilting his head as he processed what had just happened. “Well... that was anti-climatic...”