//------------------------------// // The Tale of the First Hero // Story: A Tale of Four Heroes Who Almost Saved the World // by Ironskull //------------------------------// "Discord! Discord!" cried three voices. Discord didn't have to look to know who the voices belonged to. There were only three fillies in Equestria that ever greeted him with enthusiasm. He stopped in his tracks and rotated on the spot without moving his legs at all. "Well, well!" he declared. "My three favorite fillies! Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Do my ears deceive me, or were you per chance looking for moi?" "We just listened to your latest radio program," explained Scootaloo. "And I just wanted to tell you that we really enjoyed the story about Crom and the ponies who battle the evil undead!" "Why, thank you very much! From the bottom of my heart, I am touched, truly!" "But we were wondering, is there really an army of warrior ponies on another planet fighting against armies of undead for all eternity?" "Now now, I believe you may have missed the point," said Discord. "There really is an army of ponies fighting against armies of undead on another planet, but they are not trapped there forever. They are allowed to return when they finally obtain the elements of chivalry and defeat the evil liches. "It's a shame," he continued, grinning. "They got soooo close that one time too." As expected, this grabbed the Crusader's attentions. "They almost succeeded?" asked Sweetie Belle in surprise. "They did," answered Discord. "It was only a few years ago too..." "You've gotta tell us what happened!" insisted Scootaloo. "Well, I suppose I have enough time in my schedule to tell you about it," mused Discord. "Yay!" "Alright, I suppose I should begin with a recap," said Discord. "As I said in my radio program, every single planet has its own alicorn that guides it through space. However, most of these alicorns are banished for one reason or another, which is why most ponies don't know about them. One such alicorn is Crom, prince of war. He is currently trapped on the planet closest to our own, and, to be honest, he loves it. "For, many centuries ago, Princess Celestia banished several evil ponies who had turned themselves into liches and sent them to Crom. These liches have the power to create vast armies of undead. As the Prince of War, Crom loves nothing more than endless battle with an enemy that can never be truly defeated. "However, Crom also has subjects of his own. All of the most violent and conflict loving ponies from Equestria were sent to his side in order to aid him against the armies of the liches. For countless generations these ponies have battled the undead. In all that time, neither side has ever defeated the other. "The prince of war and his subjects may only redeem themselves and be allowed to return to Equestria if they can manage to successfully destroy the liches and all of the undead forever. And to do that, they require four artifacts of immense power: the elements of chivalry! And one fateful day, four heroes arose that were suited to wield them." "What are the elements of chivalry anyway?" asked Apple Bloom. "Be patient and listen," answered Discord, "and you will find out." "The first hero was a pegasus from the Order of Celestia. The Order of Celestia is a group of ponies who dedicate themselves to living good lives, in the hopes that one day Celestia will look upon them one day and deem them worthy to return to Equestria. The ponies of the Order are actually a minority, however. Most ponies don't really have an interest in returning to Equestria. They are perfectly content with their lives where they are. "That fact combined with the 'holier than thou' attitude that the Order has makes them somewhat unpopular. Fortunately, the vast majority of ponies live in fortified underground cities and most of the ponies in the Order live in temples on the surface of the planet, far away from other ponies, where they grow yellow things in Celestia's honor. Lemons, squash, bannannas, corn, even yellow peppers, they grow it all. "Of course, like all ponies who live on planet Crom, they are also very skilled warriors in their own right. They have the most rigorous muscle building exercises of all ponies anywhere. The very best warriors in the Order of Celestia tend to have giant, bulging muscles and wear very heavy plate armor that covers nearly every inch of their bodies. They also wear bucket shaped helmets with silly red feathers sticking out of the top. Every time any of them speak, their voice echos inside of their helmets. It's supposed to make them seem even more imposing, but honestly it just makes them hard to understand. "Anyway, these warriors are known as paladins. For some strange reason, they also refer to one another as 'brother so-and-so', or 'sister so-and-so'. They're not really siblings, at least most of them aren't, but they say it anyway. It's just a part of being a cult. They also carry big huge hammers that are way too heavy for a normal pony to hold, but any undead that gets hit by one isn't going to be getting up again. Broken bones don't make very good candidates for reanimation. "So, as I was saying, the first hero is a pegasus from the Order of Celestia. But not only was he a member of the Order, he was the head of the Order. For no other pony shouted Celestia's praises as loudly as he. "Brother Biceps!" SNOOOOORE "My brother, you must rouse yourself! The temple is under attack!" "ATTAAAAACK!" bellowed the paladin, bolting upright in his bed in an instant, his shouting echoing inside the helmet that he never took off, even when he slept. He stopped shouting and looked at the other pony. "We're under attack?" cried the paladin. "Why didn't you say so! To arms!" "Brother, the undead are swarming the temple in numbers I have never before even dreamed!" cried the other pony in despair. "Many of our fellow brothers have fallen before I could reach you! We shall surely perish!" "Then we shall perish in Celestia's glorious name!" bellowed the paladin. "But... I don't want to perish!" The paladin stopped to consider. "Oh, fine. I shall escort you off of the premises personally. No harm shall come to you while I yet live at your side! And then, once you are safe and on your way to Crom City, I shall return here with reinforcements!" "That is a much better plan, if you will permit me to say so." The paladin approached the door and threw it open. He quickly pushed it closed again and locked it. And then grabbed a chair and stuck it under the door handle. And then braced the chair with his body. "Great Celestia!" he screamed. "You were not kidding! Never have I laid eyes on such a hoard in all of my life! I don't know if the sanctuary can hold any more! I wish we had this many ponies on oration day!" "What are we going to do?" screamed the other pony. "There's no way out!" "We will have to brute force our way through!" cried the paladin as he abandoned the doorway and picked up his war hammer. "Stay close to me!" "There must be another way!" insisted the other pony. "We're out of time!" cried the Paladin. He kicked the chair out of the way and smashed his hammer through the doorway, which exploded into splinters and stunned several zombponies on the other side. He continued swinging the hammer relentlessly as he charged through the mob, which was too brain-dead to realize what was happening, or even attempt to get out of the way. Zombponies were thrown into the walls left and right as the paladin and his terrified accomplice barreled through. Unfortunately, the only exit was being blocked by a lich. Liches have magic. Very powerful, deadly, evil magic. Attempting to leave that way would be suicide. There was only one other option. "Are you going to-" cried the other pony. "YEAAAAAAAH!" roared the paladin in his echoy voice as he smashed through the temple's brick wall. "You mean they got through a hoard of zombponies without either of them getting hurt?" asked Apple Bloom. "That's absolutely correct!" said Discord. "The zombie ponies were too slow to catch up with them, and the lich was stuck in a middle of a hoard of zombponies, so he couldn't chase them either. And the paladin kept his word. When he had escorted his fellow pony to safety, he traveled to the nearest temple of the Order of Celestia and rounded up the paladins there and led them in a charge to take his home back. And his battle cry was as follows." "Come now, my brothers! thundered Paladin Biceps as he led the charge of heavily armored ponies. "Let us avenge our fallen brothers! After all, that is what our brothers would do!" "And this time, since the Order was not caught off guard, they crushed their enemy with ease. They destroyed the zombies in droves at a time, until only the lich leader remained." "Your Zombponies have lacerated our lemons!" screamed Paladin Biceps at the lich, who was trapped against a corner and had somehow a concusion preventing him from using his magical powers. "They have crushed our corn! They have pulverized our peppers! They have busted our bannannas! And worst of all, they have squashed our squash! Now you must pay for this crime!" "Your families wouldn't approve of me telling you what exactly happened to the lich, but let it suffice that they beat him up pretty bad. Of course, it didn't kill him permanently. As an undead lich, he gets a new body every time his old one is destroyed so long as he still has his phylactory. "The lich was also wearing an amulet, and the paladin saw it and took it. And when he did, the amulet transformed from being a black and nasty thing into a golden rod shaped thing instead. And carved into the rod was the word 'justice'. Everypony was quite surprised by that of course, but they were even more surprised when the amulet started giving off a white light. The light got brighter and brighter until nopony could see a thing, and then it vanished all at once. And Brother Biceps had vanished with it." "Was the amulet one of the elements of chivalry?" asked Scootaloo. "Just wait and see," answered Discord. "So, it turns out that the amulet teleported our hero into the middle of the lich tower, where all the liches on the planet gather and scheme about really evil stuff. And he wasn't alone. There were three other ponies with him, and he immediately noticed that they were all holding amulets very similar to his own." "So there's four amulets?" said Scootaloo. "Definitely the elements of chivalry then." "Okay, yes, they are the elements," said Discord in annoyance. "Don't you want to know what happened to the other three ponies?" "Yes please!" "Then let me finish the story!"