Empty Chairs
The wind whispered across the empty city blocks, carrying trash and leaves with it. But it carried no voices. No voices of those who should be enjoying their life, or the grumbles of those who would have been concerned about the gray clouds overhead. But the voices of the ponies, and in turn the city, was silent, leaving barely any sound for the wind to carry.
Yet, the wind did carry a sound amongst the concrete skyscrapers and desolate streets. The wind carried the sound of a single pony's hooves striking the pavement as he walked alone--alone and very much concerned. The straw hat on his head constantly tried to escape and fly freely on the breeze, yet the combined efforts of the strong string that wrapped it to the samurai's neck and the samurai himself kept it in place.
But the hat was furthest from the samurai's thoughts, which were instead consumed with both wonder and worry as to why such a large city would be so silent. For the third time since arriving in the city, he glanced down at his map, certain that he had made some sort of error in where he was supposed to go. Yet once again, he found that the directions (along with the little Discord face saying "You are here") were too precise. He was where Discord wanted him to go.
"But why send me to an empty city?" Jack asked into the emptiness, his ears perking up slightly when he heard his own voice echo through the skyscrapers. Yet as he glanced around into the vacancy that surrounded him, his eyes narrowed on objects and occurrences that made him uneasy.
A cart with apples in it lay off to the side, almost as if it had been dumped there and forgotten. Magazines blew in the wind, yet when the samurai glanced at a newsstand where the papers originated he discovered that the date was hardly more than two days ago. And as he passed a carriage that was left in the center of a large road, he saw that suitcases had been left lying there while some remained within.
"Yet there is no fire, no signs of struggle," Jack mused aloud, slightly shivering at how he could hear his own voice echo in so large a city. "That means that either the ponies that were once here either all left at the same time...or there is something more menacing going on..."
Deciding that he should try to find anypony that might have stayed or have been left behind, Jack walked to one of the buildings and pushed open the front doors.
"Hello?! Is there anyone in here?!" he called, yet once again the only answer came from his own echo. The samurai narrowed his eyes as he left to try another building, deciding on a small one so that any left behind would be able to hear his voice. Yet once again, when he called into the building only the silence answered him.
"This is not natural," he whispered to himself as he wrapped his kimono tight and forced himself to walk further into the city. The emptiness and silence continued for hours while the samurai walked past deserted buildings and locations, his eyes and ears alert the entire time he walked. But his biggest shock came when he walked into a large intersection...to see that an overturned trash can was moving. Jack narrowed his eyes before walking to the can, rolling it to the side with is hoof to see.
"A dog?" Jack asked himself, his voice causing the tiny poodle to look up at him with surprised eyes. The two stared at each other for a moment before the dog let out a happy bark and licked Jack in the face. A smile crossed his lips as he placed a hoof on the dog's head and petted it gently, causing it to sit while it closed its eyes. "I am glad to see that I am not the only one here. But where are the ponies? Do you know?"
The dog let out a fearful whimper before it yipped and raced off into the streets, leaving a frowning Jack to watch it go before he turned his gaze skyward. Now that he knew that there was life within the city, he began to notice the birds that rested on poles and ate food that was left either on tables or the ground. Rats and mice scurried past Jack whenever he walked past alleyways, and more than once he spotted cats sitting lazily on windowsills.
"Yet not a single pony in this large city," Jack observed when he walked into a back alley, chasing after a cat that had a fish in its mouth. He walked past a number of boxes with narrowed eyes as the area around him seemed to get darker and darker. He prepared to draw his blade at any moment before the idea was struck from his mind by a ghastly image. Jack had walked around a corner to see a pony lying against one of the back alley walls, motionless.
"Are you alright?!" Jack cried out while he raced to the pony and placed a hoof on his chest, but his hoof shot back from the cold of the pony as if he had touched ice. Using what little light he had Jack gazed over the pony, immediately drawn to his face. The bearded pony looked to be a worker, but Jack took in little about his mouth or nose since he was far too distracted by his eyes.
"This...is not right," he whispered as he stared into the pony's eyes, which were missing their pupils and completely devoid of life. Jack reached out and placed his hoof on the pony once again, ignoring the pony's frigid skin as he felt an even eerier sensation wash up his arm. "This...feels like evil. Evil that I have not faced in so long." Jack's eyes then flashed over to the pony's flank to discover that the pony had no mark like the others.
Jack bowed his head in a silent prayer for the pony before closing his eyes. Once that was done, the samurai stood up with a fire blazing in his eyes, now knowing that there was a great evil at work in the city. Jack followed the alleyway until it broke back out into a large street, forcing the samurai to think as if he was a being that had just killed. He spotted another alleyway across the road from him, one that wasn't as dark as the previous one but would suffice.
"And here is another," Jack whispered with horror in every word once he had crossed into the other alley, discovering a second body that had been buried beneath some trash in an attempt to hide it. Jack examined the body like he did the other to find that her eyes were blank and so was her flank. Jack's eyes narrowed in rage as he rose up and continued on. Yet, the small trail that he was following came to a dead end when he discovered that the alley led to a brick wall with no way over.
"This cannot be right. I must have missed something," Jack muttered to himself when he turned from the wall and began to look around, his eyes eventually resting on a manhole cover that was slightly moved to the side. His eyes narrowed while he continued down the trail, pushing the cover out of his way before sliding down into the sewers below.
He gagged only once as the smell overpowered him, but with his incredible will he managed to ignore the stench as he forced himself to glance around. The area behind him was solid brick and the way forward was the only way he could go. He pushed on into the smell, trying to avoid looking into the water as best he could, and instead kept his eyes on the concrete in front of him that provided a walkway...only to find something even sicker than the water.
"No..." he whispered when his eyes saw a body lying off to the side in the darkness, a pony body that was far smaller than the other ones that he had come across so far. He raced to its side to find the his suspicions were right, and with tears beginning to sting his eyes the samurai rolled the body over to find himself looking into the blank face of a foal.
Just like the others, the child was missing his cutie mark and both of his eyes were pure white. And as Jack held the foal in his arms with his head hung low, he could feel the icy coldness of the pony seeping through his kimono. For a few minutes, Jack held the foal with tears streaking down his face, before his eyes snapped open with a fury that had led to the destruction of armies.
"I swear that I will find the monster that did this to you. And I swear it shall fall to my blade." After promising the foal, Jack laid him back down and closed the child's eyes, praying for him one last time before standing up with flames burning in his eyes as he marched on. He passed by numerous manholes while he marched through the sewers, but none of them looked as if they had been moved in some time. But there was another reason that Jack continued to march on, one that he was just beginning to notice himself.
'It feels as if there is something...calling to me,' Jack reflected while he walked even further into the sewers, vaguely aware of a strange magic that seemed to be calling out for him, leading him in a certain direction. Jack narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but he knew that if he followed the magic then he would find the source of who was doing this.
So as the samurai glanced up at the manhole cover that rested above him, he felt the call becoming more of a demand, as if he was being forced to go towards the magic. He then gripped the ladder tightly and pulled himself back up into the streets, gently moving the metal circle to the side before peeking out. His eyes immediately locked onto a large opera house that rested near the ocean, with all of its lights burning against the dark clouds. Jack then noticed that a single pony was hobbling towards the opera house on a pair of crutches.
"Wait!" he called out to them as he raced out of the sewers and quickly reached its side. Yet his words fell on deaf ears as the pony continued to move on, not stopping until Jack held a hoof to the pony's chest. "I am sorry to stop you, but I must know what..." Jack stopped talking as he gazed into the pony's eyes, finding no thought or reason but only obedience. He moved to the side and the pony continued walking, not even acknowledging that the samurai existed. Jack frowned before following after the pony into the opera house, able to feel in his soul that he had found the lair of whoever was killing the ponies.
He followed the crippled pony into a large reception area where crystal lights hung from the ceiling, casting an array of colors across the room that made it feel as if he was inside of a rainbow. Yet the illusion was quickly shattered when Jack glanced at the ticket booth to see two ponies slumped over, not needing to look into their eyes to know what had become of them.
Yet the biggest shock of all came when the pony he was following pushed open a pair of doors and walked into a large room...where Jack was stunned to see thousands of ponies all standing in rows perfectly next to each other. They were all squeezed into the large room, standing shoulder to shoulder with the same obedient look on their faces that the pony that he was following had on theirs. The pony fell into an empty spot in the line, staring up at the stage with the rest of the crowd.
"It is as if they are all under a spell," Jack whispered to himself while he began to carefully slink through the crowds of ponies, using whatever openings in the rows he could find so he wouldn't disturb them. Yet even when he bumped into a few of them, none of them even blinked, much less noticed the samurai.
But when Jack moved through the crowd he could feel something that constantly beat against his mind, something that was demanding that he too stand in line and await whatever was causing this to show itself. But with his unbreakable will Jack continued to move on, ignoring the constant demand that assaulted his thoughts. A distraction then came in the form of a brown hat that he spotted in the crowd, a hat that he knew all too well.
"Applejack?" he whispered with confusion before forcing his way past the static ponies and towards the one with the brown hat, bursting past a large stallion to see an orange mare with apples on her flank staring up at the stage. "Applejack, it is me. Jack. Can you hear me?" Jack whispered to the pony as he waved a hoof in front of her face, but just like the other ponies she continued to stare up at the stage with no indicator that she had even heard him.
Jack was debating whether he should pick her up and race out of the place or snap her out of it right there, before the lights in the room all went dark, forcing Jack to divert his attention while the ground began to shake beneath him. His eyes were drawn to the stage as a large curtain that had covered the entire platform slowly parted...to reveal a monstrous creature that walked into a single light that flickered back on.
It took all of Jack's self-control to not gasp at the monstrous black and red being that towered over him, not sure whether he should stare at the four black legs that were each taller than he was or instead gawk at the monstrous, nearly humanoid upper half that was ripped with muscles. Eventually Jack decided to stare at the creature's head, where a smirk was plastered onto a head that had two large horns sticking out of the top.
But even as the creature glanced out at all of the ponies that were lined up, Jack felt himself reaching for his blade, knowing that this was who was responsible for the senseless death that he had seen. But with no idea what the creature was nor what could it do, he decided he would wait.
But only until he decided to strike it down.
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Oh snap!
Jack is going up against Tirek!
This sounds like a re shell of a simmer episode I love IT!
Tirek!!!
ooooooOOOOOoOoooO.
Where is my popcorn?!
Oh wait. Found it.
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/896/186/180.jpg
Kill him until he dies from it, Jack!
6586466 Kill him to death!
Damn, this chapter was intense. I hope Jack lays an epic smackdown to the bad guy in the next chapter.
Oooooh Tirek, you've pissed jack of something good, you are so in for it now.
Draining ponies until they died.. Tierk you bastard, though i think jack is going to send him back to Tartarus, in pieces.
is this before season 4 or something?
S**t is about to go down!!!!
Well this should be a pretty decent fight for Jack, after all Tirek is just Aku light. This will be a truly epic beat down that will soon be commencing!
Long ago in the magical land of Equestria...
I, Tirek, the everliving master of magic unleashed an unspeakable evil!
I'm not gonna lie: I figured it would've been the Sirens at first, but then I realized such a thing was impossible.
This is going to be epic.
Whooooley shizzle in my dizzle.
Who ever this creature is (And which i have a strong feeling that I DO know who) going to get one HELL of a beat down. Much more than what a certain somepony did.
All I can is this fight going down like the rave episode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-893hKSzI
Jack VS Tirek FIGHT! How did Tirek escape this time around. Don't tell me the guard dog wondered off again.
why is it that i now want to smash things hulk style?
RIP Tirek. As in REST IN PIECES!
Ha-ha-ha, Tirek, pick the wrong day and wrong time to break out of Tartarus and he should have stay there. Because unlike last time, he's not going to come back, when Jack gets done with him. And since his magical katana is on the same magic power level as the Elements of Harmony, he's going to make short work of that centaur.
*shivers* Jeez....this whole chapter was like a suspense horror flick, building up and up until the final reveal. Applejack's sudden appearance surprised the hell out of me. That hint earlier with the Apple cart was so subtle that I disregarded the obvious. Clever.
6587061 BUT
a FOOLISH earth pony not of this world, wielding a unique sword
Stepped forth to oppose me.
6587364 Just like he did with Tirek right?
6587486 before the final blow was struck i tore open a portal in time and flung him to the future where my evil is law now the fool seeks to return to undo the future that is Tirek
DAMN WHAT A TWIST!!!!!
Very good work, can't wait for the next chapter!
Wait.....it couldn't be......
6593429 It is. Tirek. . .
Those poor.. err.. those unfortunate ponies.
6587787 I'll be back, back to the past, Earthpony Jack. [Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack]
Plot twist: Samurai Jack was defeated, and "Earthpony Jack" is actually Applejack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5lxc5zXLLU
Was reminded of this, turns out it was Tirek.
Well time to repay Applejack ey?
Wonder whose that enemy and how Discord knows about him. Did Discord do this to mess around without Celly and Luna knowing?
Tirek? Meh. My least favourite bad guy.
Sombra is my line of guy.