Celestia took a few steps away as the white clad figure walked over to her. He looked like Teth, but his power was on another plane of existence. She had simply been sitting in her room reading, when a bolt of godly thunder had gone off and the white clad Adam had appeared before her.
"There is no need for concern Celestia, it is only me," Supreme Adam said to her, but Celestia did not stop backing away until she was up against the wall of her room.
"What has happened to you?" Celestia asked dumbfounded when she felt the magical presence of Adam nearly consume her. "You were mighty before but...but you were never on this level." Supreme Adam looked down at himself for a moment before he placed the machine in his hands on her table, backing away from her before he muttered,
"Shazam." The lightning bolt descended upon him as Celestia covered her eyes, and when she could see through the smoke kicked up by the spell, she saw the dark clad Black Adam standing before her. "I have grown more powerful, Celestia. I am far stronger than when I left. For I now have the power of the wizard flowing through me as well. This shall allow me to better protect your nation as well as hunt down the silver one, no matter where she may hide."
"Wait a moment...you killed the wizard, Shazam?" Celestia asked Black Adam, fear beginning to fill up her eyes. "But you promised me that you would not kill again! That was the condition for you not being sent to--"
"You do not need to remind me, Celestia, I remember what I promised," Black Adam cut her off. "To use my powers to uphold the law, to protect the innocent, and to defend those who seek to harm them without the use of lethal force. And I have kept that promise. I have upheld the law, protected the innocent, and defended your nation from those who sought to harm you. The wizard was not apart of that oath, because he was neither a threat to your nation nor had he broken one of your laws. Therefore, I could full well use lethal force against him."
Celestia snarled in reply to his comment. "That was not the point of the oath! It was so that you could be a better man, so that you could learn to defeat foes without killing them!"
"And there I have you again, Celestia. Shazam died years ago to atone for his sins of bringing me into the world. When I absorbed his power, what I destroyed was a ghost, nothing more." Celestia looked at him in confusion, not sure what to think of his answer. "But I do know the value of mercy." To her surprise Black Adam smiled while he laid a hand on the machine that he had placed on the table.
"I have learned what it means to use no lethal force, Celestia, that is why I took this from my world," Black Adam said as he picked the device up. "This is called a Phantom Zone projector. What it does is cast whomever is trapped within its rays to the Phantom Zone, a prison in another reality where criminals cannot harm each other. Your prisons were not fit to hold some of the criminals that I have dealt with, and Tirek along with Sombra has shown me that those whom you have once sealed away may escape again. That is why I have brought this."
Celestia let her anger towards Black Adam slide for a moment as she gazed with interest at the machine. "Are you certain that's what it does? Couldn't the criminals within it kill each other if they so chose?"
"Celestia, I myself was once banished to this zone, I know what it is like," Black Adam muttered as he remembered. "It strips you of your powers while leaving you weakened and ethereal, so you cannot touch the other prisoners within. Unless you could find a way so that your body was no longer affected by its power, then escape is impossible, unless it is opened from the outside. Shall I demonstrate?"
Celestia hesitated for a moment before she nodded, Black Adam smiling as he pointed the device at her. A flash of red energy consumed her, and when she opened her eyes she found herself in a desolate, wasteland-like place with red skies and grayish ground, where a large number of aliens surrounded the area, with a swirling portal behind her. She braced herself because she expected them to attack, but a quick glance into their eyes told her that they had lost the will to fight ages ago. Only one, who looked similar to Adam, even bothered to get up.
"What do we have here?" it asked as it pulled out a knife. "New meat?" Another alien said something that Celestia could not understand, but the words did seem to get the other one angry. "Shut up! I'm sick of being in here! I need to fight!" It lunged at Celestia and went to drive its knife into her, yet she never moved, trusting Adam's word. Just as he said, both the knife and the alien passed right through her. "No dammit! Let me kill it! Let me--" A bolt of lightning shot through the portal behind Celestia and blasted the ground at the alien's feet, scaring it back away from the princess.
"Come Celestia," she heard Adam's voice say. "They are beyond hope. There is more we need to discuss." Celestia grimly looked back at the essentially lifeless criminals, but from what she had seen this place would make a suitable prison for the most dangerous of criminals. She exited through the portal that Adam had kept open and breathed with relief when she found herself back on the other side. Black Adam closed the portal before turning to her.
"See? In there, most do not even have the will to fight, let alone escape. It is perfect. Now come," Black Adam said to her as he took the machine and headed towards the exit. "There is a criminal that must be placed in here before he has a chance to escape again."
"Indeed, it seems to be perfect," Celestia agreed as she followed him through the castle. 'I admit, I did not like seeing the defeat in the alien's eyes, but it is better than killing them or trapping them within stone to some extent. At least in there they can move around.' Celestia did not ask where they were heading to because she knew who the criminal was. Just as she had expected, Black Adam came to a stop before the door that housed the stone form of Tirek. The guards saluted as the door swung back, allowing the two to enter. Adam immediately pointed the projector towards the beast, but Celestia held out a wing to stop him.
"Can you release him from his stone prison?" Celestia asked Black Adam, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow. He thought about it for a moment before he handed the projector to her and motioned for her to back away, saying the magic word once she had done, and returning to his supreme state. He snapped his fingers and the stone crumbled around Tirek, freeing him within moments.
"What...?" Tirek muttered as he looked around, before his eyes widened at Supreme Adam standing before him. His frail body moved away from the supreme as fast as it could, while absolute fear showed in Tirek's eyes. Adam took the projector from Celestia without a word and pressed the button, allowing Celestia to see the portal that appeared behind Tirek and the red beam of light that pushed him in. Adam closed the portal once again before looking down at Celestia, offering the projector to her.
"You shall be the one to hold onto this," Supreme Adam said. "You shall deem who goes into the zone and who is suitable for the prisons. It is your duty as a ruler." He turned and left the room once she had taken the projector, never seeing her watch him go with sad eyes.
'And he has grown even stronger. Has he truly taken on these powers like he claimed too? Or is he being consumed with the power, hungering for more?' Celestia silently asked herself as she looked down at the projector, planning on placing this within the vault. 'I pray that it is not the latter. I pray that my sister was not right about you.'
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"Where is this?" Tirek asked himself as he looked around at the red sky with the greyish landscape, a landscape that for miles only housed one living being. "What kind of hell has the Princess now trapped me within?" He ran forward as he said this to the only land mark he could see, those being hills in the distance. He raced up the slope to get a better view, but even his evil heart went cold at what he saw.
"This...is worse than Tararus," he whispered as he looked down on the field, the field filled with thousands of corpses.
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Late the following week, Black Adam once again found himself standing before the doorway to the workout room that the guards had within the palace, but unlike the last time he was there, the guards were not standing around making fun of Spike, they were marveling at what he was doing. From the doorway Black Adam found the dragon once again lifting weights, but this time he was tossing around hundreds of pounds worth of metal without even breaking a sweat. Spike saw Black Adam at the entrance and waved him in, Adam parted the sea of guards to do so.
"I see that you have grown stronger," Black Adam observed, amazed to see that the small dragon was now halfway as tall as him. Adam also observed that yellowish energy ran underneath of his scales, but Adam knew that was his magic at work. What he did not know was how Spike was growing so fast in such a short amount of time.
"I have been. With the boost you gave me, I've been growing stronger than I ever believed I could," Spike said in a slightly deeper voice as he flexed his muscles. "But I will grow even stronger still! I will keep obtaining power until I am strong enough to protect all of Equestria! Just as you have!" Black Adam smiled at the young dragon's desires, but he could not condemn him for them.
"And one day you will, but that day is not anytime soon," Black Adam said to calm him down. 'Celestia did mention something about dragons growing faster if they give into their desires or greed. But in Spike's case, his desire to grow stronger and protect is actually working with my magic. Interesting.' Black Adam was about to say something when a guard came bursting into the room, almost crying tears of joy when he found Black Adam there.
"Thank Faust that I've found you!" he exclaimed as he raced over to Adam. "You have to act quickly! The griffons have launched some weapons that are sailing towards Canterot! Celestia says that something is in them that messes with her magic, so there's nothing she can--" The guard never finished his sentence as Adam burst through the roof of the castle and flung himself into the sky, where he used his enhanced senses to hunt down the object.
"That looks like a missile," Black Adam muttered as his gaze fell upon the rocket-like object that sailed across the sky, noticing at least twenty more behind it. 'How did the griffons learn to make these?' He shoved that thought aside as he flung himself towards the rocket, but he stopped as he sensed what felt like anti-source metal in the tip of the warhead. 'Where could the griffons possibly lay their claws upon that?' he asked himself. 'No matter, it cannot stop me.' Knowing that if the missile exploded next to him, the anti-source metal in the blast might tear through his magical defenses, possibly wounding him.
But with a smirk he threw himself under the missile and grabbed the part that was simply regular metal, stopping the rocket in the air. He then chucked the missile into its brethren, where he fired a bolt of lightning from his fingertips into it. He watched from a safe distance as all of the missiles destroyed each other, pondering something to himself.
"And that is that. Still, I am amazed that the griffons would try something so bold after what I did to their army," Adam muttered as he looked off towards the Griffon Kingdom, narrowing his eyes as he did so. 'I have been meaning to pay them a visit for a while now. Perhaps it is time that I did.' He shot off towards the Griffon Kingdom in a flash, planning to make sure that the griffons never bothered the ponies again.
S=H=A=Z=A=M
"Will it work, Father?" a griffon asked the older one next to her, both of them on a balcony that stood out over the castle that rested below them. The older griffon with the crown on his head had one eye pressed against a telescope, watching the devices they had launched sail across the sky towards his most hated enemies.
"It is our only hope, Daughter. Those in the cloaks told me that this material can cancel out any magic it comes into contact with, even Black Adam's," said the old king, Garda. 'Hopefully he is arrogant enough that he will destroy the weapon with his bare hands, killing him in the--' The king never finished his thought as he watched a bolt of lightning descend off in the distance, followed by a large number of explosions. Then he saw the figure flying towards them. "Daughter, inside." The young adult never asked her father what was wrong, she simply obeyed. The two ran inside of the palace while the king yelled to the guards to take up battle positions.
"What is wrong, my dear?" the queen griffon asked him, running over to him from their thrones. The king opened his mouth to answer when the doors to the throne room were blasted off their hinges by a bolt of lightning, hurling them past the king, queen and princess and embedding both of them in the walls. All three of the griffons looked through the smoke that had been created by the lightning bolt to see a figure float into the throne room, only his golden eyes and crackling thunderbolt visible through the smoke.
The guards that had been beside the throne let out a scream as they charged the intruder, but the moment they struck him lightning coursed through their bodies and they all collapsed to the floor. Black Adam then turned his eyes to the king. Both he and the queen were standing behind the princess, who had a blade drawn.
"Stay back monster, I will not allow you to harm my father!" the princess spat as she charged at Black Adam with blade pointed at him. Black Adam swatted the sword out of the griffon's claw, the force of the blow tossing the griffon into the air, where she caught herself with her wings.
"How dare you enter my kingdom and do this to my family!" Garda yelled at Black Adam, but a clap of thunder silenced the king. Both he and his wife cowered before Black Adam as he glared down at them with the power of lightning itself in his eyes. The princess threw herself at Black Adam again, but faster than the brain could see Black Adam's arm shot out and grabbed her by the throat, suspending her in the air as the princess struggled to escape.
"Do you know how many lives your missiles could have ended?" Black Adam asked the king, who looked up at Adam with confusion on his face. "All of the innocents that could have lost their lives had I not intervened? Why do you continue to wage destruction against the ponies? What have they done to you?"
"They have done nothing!" the old griffon spat back. "I desire their land and I will have it, even if I have to go through Celestia's pet to have it! The griffons of old have always been held back by the princesses and their treaties, but I will not be any longer! Griffons are superior and should rule over all!"
"And how many griffons did you send to their deaths against me?" Black Adam asked him before letting go of the princess and allowing her to fall to the floor, where she began to gasp for air. "Did you truly believe that they could defeat me? And if not, why send them to invade? They stood no chance!" To his surprise the king began to laugh before glaring at Adam again.
"I care not how many have to die! The griffons obey me without question! As long as we rule over all in the end, then I will continue to send as many to their demise as needed!" Black Adam seethed at the griffon king's words, yet out of the corner of his eye he saw the princess looking at her father with the same look of disgust in her eyes. Black Adam reigned himself in a little before his hand shot out and grabbed the griffon king by the throat.
"You are a failure as a king," Black Adam whispered to him as he tightened his grip, the king gasping for air as he futilely clawed at Adam's hands. "A king's greatest duty is to his own people, but you care as little for them as I do for you. Your kingdom deserves better. Both kingdoms do. Both the ponies and the griffons deserve a world without war. But that world cannot exist with you in it. Either cease this wanton destruction and swear to never harm the ponies again, or face my wrath," he snarled, seeing the fear form in the king's eyes. Adam was still debating whether he should kill the king or send him to the Phantom Zone when the princess spoke up.
"I...I will agree to that!" Both Black Adam and the king turned their heads to the princess, who was back to her feet as she looked up at Black Adam. "When I become queen, I will agree to that and any other terms that you have! But all I ask in return is that you spare my father! Please! He may be scum, but he is family!" Black Adam looked at the princess for a moment before he looked back to the king, a thin smile spreading on his face.
"Very well, Child, I agree," Black Adam said before he lifted the griffon king over his head and slammed him back first onto his knee, hearing the griffon scream as his back shattered. Adam then tossed the griffon to the ground, looking to the princess as the king's wife ran over to him. "It seems that your father is no longer fit to be king. I congratulate you on your rise to the throne." Adam then turned to leave as the princess ran to her father's side, but then Black Adam stopped and looked back at the princess.
"Remember what you promised or I will return."
Adam waited until the princess nodded before he shot off into the sky, leaving a broken king of the past to glare at him and a new queen to watch him go.
"You are weak," Garda muttered to his daughter. "We deserve to rule over everything, yet you let that being intimidate you. You are a failure as my daughter."
"No, I am the griffon that saved your life," the now queen muttered as she reached down and took the crown from her father, placing it upon her head. "Even though you didn't deserve it. But I am no longer just your daughter, I am ruler now. I am Gilda, Queen of the Griffons."
S=H=A=Z=A=M
"So, you did not kill him?" Celestia asked Black Adam in surprise, once he had reported back to her about what had transpired within the griffon kingdom. Adam smiled at the shock on her face as he crossed his arms and looked out over the sunny landscape.
"He was a threat to your ponies, therefore I had to deal with him without resorting to lethal force," Black Adam replied with a smirk, getting Celestia to roll her eyes. But then she looked up at him with a smile as she gently nudged him with her wing. "I am glad to see that you are taking my words to heart. You may be the champion you wished to be yet."
"Maybe," Adam muttered as he looked down. "But now we finally have peace with the dragons and with the griffons. Maybe now your ponies will not be in such danger anymore." Celestia turned to leave the balcony they were standing on, but then she stopped as she turned back to Black Adam.
"Teth?" she hesitantly asked, snapping Black Adam out of his thoughts while he looked at her. "May I...share my thoughts?" Adam nodded and Celestia took in a deep breath while gathering her courage. "My sister once said to me that you were a power-hungry man who would one day turn against us when you believed the time to be right. I have never believed those words...until you returned to the human world, having killed the Wizard and stealing his powers," she began in a near whisper, Black Adam listening to every word.
"Sometimes when I look at you, I wonder what happened to the regular human that you used to be, the one who threw himself in front of a blast of magic to protect a filly despite the harm it caused him. When I look at you, now all I see is Black Adam. I no longer see Teth. I am afraid, Teth," she said quietly. "Afraid that one day you may turn into the being that my sister described, the being that only hungers for power and revenge."
"I assure you Celestia, that will not happen." Celestia looked back at Adam with a flicker of hope in her eyes, but that hope was surrounded by doubt.
"Then prove it to me," she whispered. "Speak the word. Return to Teth. Show me that you are not a god with power to strike down your foes, show me that you are still Teth, a good man who sacrificed himself to protect others. Prove to me that you can give up the power willingly." Black Adam looked at her for a long moment, torn between conflicting thoughts. He opened his mouth to answer her as a guard burst onto the balcony.
"Princess! There's...something in the throne room!" he yelled with blood trickling down the side of his face. Both Black Adam and Celestia raced past him and to the throne room, where they threw open the doors and walked inside. The guards that had been in the room all lay shredded on the floor, but while Celestia looked at them with horror, Black Adam's eyes were glued to the figure sitting upon the throne.
He wore black armor that was covered with both skulls and spikes, and the blood of the guards still running down his demonic gauntlets. His helmet was Spartan-like with twin horns protruding from the side of it, while a cape could be seen attached to his shoulder pads. But what drew Adam's eyes was the face, a dark face with piercing red eyes, eyes that hungered with the desire for both battle and blood. The moment the being saw Adam, he spoke.
"I had wondered for years where you had gone to," he said in an ancient voice that made Adam want to attack him then and there. "I had thought that you might have died, but to think that you were here...protecting these, beasts of burden? Where did your desire for blood go Adam? Where is the warrior that I saw potential in?"
"Teth, who is this?" Celestia asked Black Adam, who narrowed his eyes as he took up a fighting stance.
"That is Ares. God of War."