• Published 7th Oct 2013
  • 595 Views, 11 Comments

Belegrim Dipstick - Praeco Nigrum



A man is given a second chance after saving his brothers life, but he isn't the only one who gets to go, meet Shade, Emerald, and Goff as they join Harbinger in his journey into Equestria.

  • ...
4
 11
 595

The Journeys Making

Harbinger looked at the creature in front of him… it was smiling with its grotesque teeth jutting out at disturbing angles, making a shiver shoot down his spine… what was left of it anyway. He could feel that he was going to die, the air in his lungs was long gone, both of them being obliterated when it plunged its arm through his chest and out his back.

He could hear the death rattle of his last ‘breath’ escaping his lips… it was not an unpleasant feeling, but it left a sour taste in his mouth. As the creature pulled its arm out he could feel his weight shift back to his now crippled legs. They both buckled and he landed on the floor, knees hitting hard against the stone. He was stationary for a few second before he fell over and sprawled out on the floor.

His soul told him to get up, to get up and fight the nightmare that was now threatening his brother, but his body was like a heavy weight against his mind, clouding his thoughts and making it impossible to regain any kind of control of his body.

Then he heard the screams, they were gut wrenching, or well they would have been if he could still feel his gut and lower extremities. The screams emanated from behind him, and they were of a very animalistic nature… he enjoyed the sound because he knew whom they belonged to. The creature was going to die by his brothers hands… and he would still be alive to look upon its corpse and laugh!

Then all sound cut out… he was in thrust into a white room, there was a table with two chairs set before it. One was occupied by a large serpentine creature, it was white with draconic wings and scales covering its whole body.

“Fear not human… I am here to help you… if you would let me.” The strange dragon told him. Harbinger walked over to the table and took the seat opposite the white dragon. Upon closer inspection, the dragon had white scales on most of its body, but had a light gold under belly and deep blue eyes and sky blue spines on its back.

“Might I ask your name, Dragon?” He said as he leaned back in his chair, making himself comfortable.

“My name is Coelestis Gladius… and I am the last of my kind… the dragons of now have lost a great many millennium of stored knowledge… but that is a different story…” The Dragon, now known as Coelestis, replied.

“Very well then, Coelestis… What do you want with a dying man such as me?” Harbinger crossed his arms, he wasn’t happy that he had died only a day after getting to this new world… frankly he was quite pissed.

“I have the power to heal your dying body… but you must do something for me…” Coelestis waved his claw and made a chessboard appear on the table in front of them. “I require that you end the evil of this world… it has held the balance for too long…” Coelestis moved his knight to H3, and Harbinger moved a pawn to B6.

“Well… I can’t promise anything… you know this… but I will see what I can do…” Harbinger watched as Coelestis moved his pawn to G4.

“The game is now in motion… and it is now beyond me to see who you will play against… good luck Cornelius… you will need it.” The world then fell away… leaving a very confused Man floating in the abyss.

oooOO=OOooo

Shade dragged harbinger out of the keep, his body was cold and lifeless, but he was not going to let his only friend rot in such a dank and god-forsaken place, even he had forsaken it. After his fight with the demon spawn thing, which he found torn to shreds when he came to, he had gone unconscious the second Harbinger hit the floor… but he remembered the screams of the monster dying… and he loved them!

Once they had crossed the thresh hold they were beset by all of the guards that had come with them to check on the captain… It was tehn that they saw him… Harbinger, his lifeless body being dragged by Shade as he exited the large doors, the guards went over and helped pick him up and carry him to a large cleared area.

They laid his body down on the cleared dirt area and looked on in dismay at the sight of his grizzly wound. Many of the mares and some stallions turned their heads, some of them even went to bushes and vomited at the sight of their dead commander. They were dumb struck. None of them could understand what kind of creature the two humans had to have one of them turn out like this…

“Shade… are you ok?” Slick foot had trotted up to the group and saw Shade kneeling down on the ground. Goff and Emerald were not too far behind her.

“Shade… what happened in there man?” Goff said as he walked up to the group, but upon seeing his erstwhile friends corpse did he go pale and fall to his knees as well. The contents of his stomach decided to make a guest appearance right then and they spewed all over the earthen road.

“Goff, Slick…” Shade looked at them, he had the (in)famous thousand yard stare, “We faced hell… and paid the price… WE PAID THE FUCKING PRICE! HARBINGER FUCKING DIED IN THERE! HOW THE HELL DOES THIS HAPPEN!” Shade fell forward and started to beat the ground, putting all of his frustrations into each and every hit, scarring every guradspony around him.

Emerald stood next to the group of three and looked on at the dead body of their companion, he heard the whimpers of his guard friend, and he bent down and took her in his arms. She had started to cry after hearing what had transpired in the keep… about all of the dead guardsponies and the Tartarus spawned creatures inside.

Everyone began to turn away and comfort their friends and comrades, none seeing the faint golden glow that overtook Harbingers lifeless corpse. The cells began to stir, each one multiplying and reconnecting the dead tissues and pumping life back into them. Bone began to regrow and form, replacing the broken and missing bones that were caused by the demon spawn that had thrust its arm into him. Then his spinal column began to restore itself, first making the discs and then the vertebra began to regrow. Finally, the lungs and heart finished regrowing and started to beat, forcing air and blood into the body. Then there was a spark of electricity in his brain, jump starting his consciousness, and bringing him back from the land of the never-more…

An audible intake of air could be heard over the low whimpering’s of the gathered guardsponies and humans alike. Shade, being the paranoid bastard he is, jumped up and looked for the new noise. What he saw brought him back to his knees. His friend was sitting up and trying to clear his throat of built up mucus.

“Harbinger…” Shade whispered just loud enough to draw his companions, and their friend’s, attention.

“Hey guys… long time no see…” Harbinger said as he got up off the ground, he was standing there, looking at everyone , and they in turn stared at him. “Well, is anyone going to great the dead guy that just came back?” Harbinger was laughing at them, figuratively, he was smiling like a damned idiot as he walked over and helped shade to his feet.

Shade punched the man right in the gut and then drop kicked him onto a few bales of hay.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ALIVE YOU DAMN SON OF A BITCH!” Shade was damn pissed right then, not just at losing his one and only friend, but at said friend getting back up off the ground and playing it off as if nothing happened.

“I thought you would be happy to see me… guess not…” Harbinger rolled off the hay bales and landed on his hands and knees, he was laughing and coughing from the swift kick he received.

“Fuck you man…” Shade ran up and bare hugged the damned idiot, “Fuck you, you damned idiot…” they held each other for a few second until shade released him and harbinger grabbed on to shade by his shoulders.

“We need to get everyone the fuck out of this damnable forest man… it’s going to be the end of us all…” Harbinger stared right into his friends eyes, giving him a look that said ‘I mean fucking business bi-otch so don’t fuck with me’ and Shade nodded, knowing he was right.

“Everyone, we are going to abandon this outpost… we are compromised… I need all of the high ranking officers to meet up at the new barracks in ten minutes.” Harbinger and Shade walked over to Emerald, Goff and Slick and motioned them to follow.

“What is the plan ‘Sir’?” Goff said sarcastically, earning him a slap upside the head by shade and emerald.

“ we are leaving this god-forsaken place and finding a new place to set up shop…” Harbinger replied as they walked into the barracks Emerald and Goff had built earlier that day.

There was a large table set up in the middle of the room; there was a large map of Equestria on the table top. There was a red mark showing them where they were, and Harbinger’s original guess as to where they were. Mt. Whitney was about twenty miles west of the outpost and they would be heading east to get away from the dangers it represented. As everyone talked about where they would take their forces Harbinger, or as we now know him as Cornelius, learned that the area beyond the mountain ranges held many evils, from rouge dragons to pesky bandits.

“IF we aren’t going to the north or south… why not head to the salt lake… it’s a good place to get supplies and contact the princesses… they will need to know that Outpost Whitneigh has fallen… and soon.” Cartographer said to the humans and ponies gathered around the table. Cartographer was a golden brown pony with black hair red eyes and a cutie mark of a map with soldiers on it.

“How long do you think it will take us to get to Salt Lake City?” Goff asked, he was off to the side, sitting in a chair twirling the hair of a guardspony mare that happened to be next to him, she didn’t seem to mind.

“Roughly three days, if the weather is permitting… six if we hit anything… any longer if we get attacked….” Carter was looking over the ma pointing out several ways we could go… one was through a desert area and would only take us three days, ne was through the forest, it would take five, but it went next to a water source. The last one went close to the mountains and would take us around a week, but there was a town close to the path, we could stay for a night and resupply.
“We will take the desert rout… it may take us through the heat and some enemies, but we need to inform the ruling parties that this pace has been lost…” Cornelius said as he rubbed the stubble on his face.

“Harbinger… do you think we will be able to make it?” Slick foot was over by Emerald, he was gently rubbing behind her ears and giving her a slight massage as she sat there. Emerald was watching the proceedings with a half interested stare, his mind mostly on the fact that Harbinger was now alive… even though they had all seen the giant gaping hole in his chest… it begged the question… what in the hell happened in there?

“I think so… but I wouldn’t put it past those damned creatures to try and attack us the instance we leave… so we will need to arm ourselves to the teeth and make sure all those that can’t fight are well protected.” Cornelius was very sure of himself, somehow he knew they would make it out of there… but he didn’t know how many they would loose…

“Goff, you and Emerald, along with Slick foot and your friend there, are going to be in charge of the injured and ill. You will have twenty guards under your command; use them wisely. Shade, you and I will be in charge of the defenses, you will be in front and I will be in back. You will take around fifty of the guards with you and I’ll take twenty.” Cornelius was used to playing out things like this, his time playing scenarios like protect the king and kill the king made planning something like this easier then it normally would for most commanders.

“Do you think that is such a wise decision Sir?” The pony next to Goff, Starling Light, said as she blew a bit of her mane out of her face.

“Yes, I have been a part of around fifty or so protection groups, I have only failed a tenth of that… but with all of our men being at least more than above average when it comes to defense, we should be alright if we come under attack.” He was putting a lot of trust in the ponies, and seeing that some of his friends had taken a liking to one or two of them, he knew he should at least give them a better than average chance at impressing him.

“If you think we will succeed, than I have no quarrels sir!” she saluted, Goff, Emerald, and Slick Foot, following suit. Emerald and Goff looking at their pony companions with slight worry, they were hoping against hope that nothing would attack; they were all tired after the Manticor incident.

Cornelius walked over to the door and stopped Emerald and Goff, “I will personally make sure they are kept safe, you can count on me… and if I fail…. My life is yours…” Cornelius bowed his head and walked back to the table. The other two were quite taken aback by his show of compassion for them and their ‘friends’ and they wouldn’t hold it against him if he failed… they hoped.

Author's Note:

Hey guys and gals! How ya been? I know I haven’t been the best at keeping up with updates and crap, but hey, collage has a strangle hold on most of us any way so eh. XD

I hope you all like where this story is going, cuz it’s a ride even for me :D Have fun and please Review, like, and fave, I live off this stuff :D