The room was silent, the ponies looking at the two horrific figures tensed. The suit of armor casually takes a few steps ahead from where he had torn a giant hole in the wall towards the ponies. He approaches the six small figures he had met before, along with a regal white pegasus-unicorn… unicorn-pegasus… pegacorn… well whatever the right name for it was, she was seemingly much larger in comparison to the other ponies and her mane flowed with a rainbow-hued translucence.
It wasn’t just her; there was another pony that was right next to the window the flying Cho’gath had left the palace from. Just like the giant white Pegasus-unicorn crossbreed, this one was midnight blue with a same coloured mane flowing with twinkling stars across a midnight sky.
Yes, he was finding more and more reasons why he doesn’t belong here.
All the ponies shifted curiously and in terror as he approached. Yet, it was Rainbow Dash who made the iron giant stop in his tracks.
“What gives you the right to break in here, and ruin everypony’s lives?!” she spat out in hate.
Suddenly he halts as he made it to the centre of the room.
“What gives you the right to speak, mortal!” Mordekaiser’s voice boomed. It was so loud that Fluttershy and a few others had to cover their ears. “Besides…” he said looking over to Celestia. She gave him an infuriated scowl. “… It’s proper manners to greet the pony that WILL make sure nothing else terrible happens within her kingdom, wouldn’t you say so, princess?”
Just by how smugly Mordekaiser had phrased that left a bad taste in Celestia’s mouth, mainly one of iron... strange. Mordekaiser straightened up and looked her in the eyes.
“Hello Celestia, it seems we weren’t properly introduced. I am Lord Mordekaiser, harbinger of affliction and commander of pain. And you—“ he said lifting his left arm towards her, “—will bend to me.”
His fingers curled into a fist with a menacing metal screech.
“I am not going to be the one bending over, Mordekaiser!” Celestia shouted back with confidence.
Without any eyebrows etched in his helmet, it was Sombra who had to make a look of surprise.
“You might have barged your way in here, but that will be your own undoing! What was this all for? Just to get a way back home? And from what I’ve heard, you’ve caused a massive scale of destruction just trying to reach here! You might be strong enough to steal souls back from the dead, and yet you will never be strong enough to learn anything more than living with pain and sickness!”
“That’s true!” Twilight shouted at him. “If you just stayed for a few hours at Fluttershy’s then none of this would’ve happened! You would be home right now if you didn’t act like a bully!”
“Ya, you big meanie-pants!” Pinkie yelled at him with anger.
“With friendship, anything was possible yet you had to go and ruin it!” Fluttershy cried out to him, having been the only pony Mordekaiser had legitimately ‘helped’ from his good side.
Satisfied with what they’ve said, they awaited to how Mordekaiser would respond to them.
“Your world is… pathetic.”
Everyone was taken aback and shocked by what he just said, even Celestia.
“You would know nothing of unexpectedly arriving in a world distorted by convoluted beliefs and colours. Ponies running around and rainbows drawn in the sky like it was some kind of children’s cartoon! There was no reason for me staying here and minute-by-minute my sanity of this place kept dropping. I had to take matters into my own hands. I was not about to let a chance of leaving this place fall from my grasp!”
“NOTHING WILL STAND IN MY WAY OF LEAVING THIS VILE PLACE!”
His gaze went over to the purple-mane alabaster unicorn, “And as I’ve promised to THAT one. Should my demands or goals be obstructed from me, then I will gladly turn this place into my own world of desolation. In other words, your world SICKENS me beyond my own AFFLICTION!”
Celestia stomped her hoof in irritation, she could tell this would only escalate to something worse, “I WILL NOT TOLERATE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE OR WILL DO, MORDEKAISER! But so help me, that if you hurt ONE hair on my subjects, you will wish you were DEAD when I’m through with you!”
“Too late for that,” he chuckled turning to the midnight-blue pony who wasn’t taken back by his announcement of being undead. “Ah, and who is this? Don’t tell me, another pony princess?” he laughed under his breath.
Luna, now seething with rage was unable to contain her anger, her voice broke out in an echoing typhoon of sound.
“HOW DARE YOU DECIDE THAT OUR WORLD IS PATHETIC! We have you know that as the Princess of the Night we will not succumb to your insults, beast!”
Mordekaiser was unavailable to say anything; he was too much in shock by that voice. That voice… it can’t be. It’s… too familiar, no...
“GOOD JOB!”
“MINIONS HAVE SPAWNED!"
"STAY BEHIND YOUR MINIONS!”
“PENTAKILL!
ACE!”
No no no no, this world can’t be tricking me. What mockery is this?! Mordekaiser shouted in his head. He snapped back to reality to see all the ponies in front of him looked confused.
“You! A question.” He pointed his menacing arm towards Princess Luna. “What would you say to someone if they walked through a castle, destroyed all the defenses and guards, crushed everyone’s moral by throwing a beast larger than yourself through a wall and backed the final defenders of the base into a rather large throne room?”
Luna’s eye twitched, “ART THOU MOCKING US!? YOU PETULENT WHELP! DO YOU THINK WE WON’T FIGHT!? THAT WE WON’T SUCCEED?” she kept shouting as she made a step closer to Mordekaiser with every retort she made.
“YOU WILL FACE OUR WRATH FOR WHAT THEE HAS DONE TODAY! ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, BUT WE WILL NOT SEND YOU BACK TO THINE WORLD! IF YOU ACT THERE LIKE HOW YOU ACT HERE, THEN IT WILL BE BETTER TO BANISH YOU FOR ALL ETERNITY! WE WILL MAKE YOUR ENDLESS PAIN, EVEN MORE ENDLESS!"
“SO WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY TO YOU IS, GOOD JOB!”
“… that’s all I wanted to hear,” Mordekaiser’s voice went into a sly pitch.
Suddenly, he grabs the Princess of the Night with his arms and with a loud yell he chucks her across the air.
“LUNA!” everypony shouted.
She went right through the window where Mordekaiser had originally thrown the Cho’gath. She flipped right-side up with the help of her wings and floated easily among the wind.
“HA! Huzzah! I can fly you, foal! Is that the best that you can do?”
Mordekaiser intimidatingly made his way over to the window, he shouted, “Will those be your final words, announcer!?”
Luna was confused by what he meant. She raised an eyebrow, trying to comprehend what he’s talking about.
“Don’t play dumb, equine! You host the League of Legends, always encouraging players when they take a minion camp or successfully clicked more than once in a tutorial! That creature I thrown out the same window was a champion like and unlike myself! As much as it pains me to see how annoying it is, you have a job to do and I have my own to attend to.”
“What is a League of Legends?” she asked, unsure of what else to say.
“Uninstall your game, please,” Mordekaiser poked her in the face with his mace quickly as she was distracted by pure confusion.
She let out an adorable squeak; “Ouch!” she clasped her hooves and wings on her nose. She didn’t realize that made her stop flying, and she immediately fell with a shocked scream.
Satisfied with what he had done, Mordekaiser turned his attention back to the cluster of ponies who had assumed a defensive position around the princess. The spectral Sombra slithered its way in a cloud of dark smoke to the side of his master.
“So you will not send me back to my home? My match which is in progress? I could be reported for being afk, a nuisance… but one that can be rectified should you comply with my most generous of simple offers,” he asked Celestia, the sneering underline of his voice made her skin crawl.
“Never! As Luna said, we cannot allow you to do any more harm on any living creature in any world or dimension! The only way back home for you will be over my dead body!” she gritted her teeth.
“That can be arranged.”
---------------------------------------------
The six small ponies lined up in a defensive stance in front of their princess, overshadowing them with her divine presence and protection. Mordekaiser swung his mace jestingly, cutting through the air with ease despite the heaviness from his weapon. All was quiet once everyone assumed their battle stances asides from a few ghastly snarls from Sombra. A gust from the broken window drafted through the room, chilling the air and making Mordekaiser’s cape flow from the breeze.
“You may have the first move, Celestia. After all… this is your base and so far I have failed to see any worthwhile resistance at all,” Mordekaiser’s words sparked more rage within the ponies.
“You might be surprised then,” Celestia herself chuckled under her breath.
He points to the six ponies surrounding the princess, “Don’t keep your minions waiting. After all I still have much left to farm in this castle.”
“Farm? What do you mean: agriculture?” Twilight asked him with a hoof on her chin.
“GOLD, YOU FOOLS!”
Pinkie quietly whispered to everyone, “He’s totally bonkers! Next he’ll be telling us there’s a pirate running around eating oranges all day!”
“Don’t worry Mordekaiser, you will soon see the power that has made Equestria stronger than any dark force that may attempt to ruin its balance of harmony!” Celestia shouted at him with a royal smirk. The ponies turned to her in confusion and noticed that she had levitated a small box towards them. It was a box familiar to them they had seen plenty of times in the past.
“Princess, we’re going to use them? The Elements?” Twilight asked. All went into awe when the box opened revealing six ancient artifacts, five of which were necklaces and the sixth was a crown.
“Yes. You must all harness the Elements of Harmony and their power in order to defeat Mordekaiser. I realize now that me and Luna were fools to thing this creature was nothing more than a nuisance or a troubled being. Now we can all see that it is much more sinister.”
“P-Perhaps…” Fluttershy this time tried to speak, but was trying hard to clear her dry throat. “M-maybe… the Elements can change him… like what happened to Discord.”
Their mouths hung open but Fluttershy still continued. “He must have been alive a time ago, a long time ago. Maybe he’s doing all of this, all of this pain… maybe he’s just trying to show us how he’s been suffering himself. Maybe that’s why no pony… or b-body in his case… would go out to reach for him and h-help.”
“His last connection to life must be through pain, and maybe that’s why he’s so angry.”
Fluttershy’s words have merit, and they made sense, the ponies were silent when they thought about the predicament from Mordekaiser’s point of view. A creature and manipulator of pain must have been affected by pain itself. But they couldn’t give sympathy, not at a time like this.
Fluttershy remembered just how he had saved her from certain death when he could have easily left her. Deep down, behind all those layers of armor, she felt kindness, compassion. She hopes that with the Elements… then maybe Mordekaiser would see that.
With everyone now wearing their respective element, they all turned back towards Mordekaiser who was standing there impatiently. Perhaps beating these ponies and in particular the Princess, will get him closer to his goal, as well as having some better entertainment.
“I tire of waiting. Or should I initiate first since you can’t seem to decide to do anything?” he scoffed.
The six ponies looked at each other and nodded their heads. In a flash of blinding light, they were lifted into the air, the powers of their elements hummed with energy. Suddenly, an explosion of rainbows erupted from the stored power and aimed directly at Mordekaiser.
Yes, a high-powered bright colourful rainbow that seems to be in the form of some kind of ‘laser’. There was much more rainbow color associated to it, but there was no denying the similarities it shared…
Mordekaiser quietly chuckled under his breath as the rainbow hit him square in the chest.
Parts of the rainbow reflected from his armor, but the damage was centering on his abdomen. His iron-clad boots dug into the ground as he was slowly being pushed backwards against its strength. His strength gave way and he fell to one of his knees trying to become an iron way for the blast. A few seconds later and the rainbow laser died out. Leaving a smoldering field of smoke to where Mordekaiser was supposedly behind.
“That was certainly a frightful experience, but there wouldn’t be any possible way a brute like him would be able to shrug that off!” She turned her heads towards her friends who were too focused on the cloud of rising smoke. Rarity asked. “Did we… did we win?”
As the smoke dissipated, a figure kneeled on the ground huffing in exhaustion. A burn mark was scorched upon its armor.
The ponies were astonished when the metallic lord got up from its knee and stood up straight. A vile laughter, accompanied by a series of hues left them all in shambles. He takes out his hand and looks at it.
“Irony…” He brushes his hand over the scorch mark; it turns out to be nothing but simple dust and ash leaving behind a brilliant shine of metal from where the rainbow hit. “You have no idea… just how ironic this is.”
Everypony was stumbled on words. “How… HOW! Why didn’t the elements do anything to you?” Celestia questioned him with a blinding confusion.
“You see my little ponies… Back in my world, and coincidently a short while before I landed in yours, there was this one champion who had done that exact same rainbow ultimate against me. Let’s just say… she didn’t live long after that.” He laughed under his breath, causing all the ponies to cringe.
“Y-You monster!” Twilight shouted at him in rage.
“Ah but what’s done is done… I believe you have made your first move…”
He looks at all of them silently for a second.
“Now, I will make mine.”
“HRAAAH!”
Without warning, Mordekaiser threw out his left arm to send a shower of blistering shrapnel towards the group of ponies. Instantly, Celestia brought up a bright-yellow translucent shield which absorbed the impact of the sharp metal harmlessly to make them bounce off and dissipate.
“Really? Is that the best you can—”
Celestia was interrupted to see that Mordekaiser was upon them in an instant with his mace towering above their shield.
His attack was only a ruse to get her distracted from his true intentions of coming into close-quarters. The mace came down on an instant and slammed into the magical shield, shattering it into glowing fragmented pieces. This caused Celestia to fall back away from the rest of the ponies from the force of the impact on her shield. Her horn hurt from the burst of force, and was staggered. This time Mordekaiser shot out his affliction towards her horn, the pale-grey glow of death covered onto her horn giving her a massive migraine.
“GO, SOMBRA! LET THESE EQUINES TASTE THE WRATH YOU’VE HELD ONTO SO LONG!” Mordekaiser shouted defiantly. His spectral servant growled in satisfaction as his body floated in between the ponies and the metallic giant.
“DAAAAARKNESSSSS!” Plumes of smoke and ash erupted from Sombra’s body, covering the entire room in a heavy and thick dark mist, and pushing the six ponies away from each other from the rough might of air.
“I… I can’t see anything!” Rainbow Dash shouted into the black mist.
“Don’t worry everypony! There’s no need to get paranoid! We’re all okie-dokie here!” Pinkie’s voice sounded through the fog, though slightly muffled.
No pony could see anything other than their own hoof in front of their face and it would be an understatement to say that they were just a little bit nervous of what may lurk in the shadows.
“Princess! Can you hear me!?” Twilight shouted, a few seconds later and she figured out that Celestia wouldn’t have been able to hear that. Not to mention the massive headache she must’ve got from having maintained that shield when that mace slammed into it. She has to find the rest of her friends before Mordekaiser does.
No wards and no vision, it looks like they were on their own until then.
Paranoia was literal, just like how Mordekaiser was metal.