Lessons of the Past
From the peak of the castle, the undead king of the ghosts looked out across the decayed landscape. His army, his empire, sprawled out before him while the glow of the setting sun tried to create some semblance of beauty and hope in the Faust foresaken piece of Equestria he had claimed as his own. But the king knew better. He knew that this was a land only for the dead. Hundreds of thousands of spirits roamed the hills, the voices of the damned and anguished filled the air and there was a constant wave of fog that no amount of sunlight could clear. It brought a smile to his face.
"Spiral, are you sure you should be smiling like that?" Ahuizotl asked the king. Spiral felt his smile fall slightly as Aguizotl, the only living being within a hundred miles, brought him back to the task at hoof. "Our spies have reported that not only has the Black Beetle failed to kill Absol and the other two, but he has made contact with the Ambassadors and they are currently heading out to where you have hidden the one called Rarity's father. What should we do?"
"Well, what we should do is kill them, but that hasn't worked out for us so far, has it?" Spiral replied with a laugh.
"No, I meant should we send more guards, set some traps or maybe find another giant insect that can take a crack at putting that Pokemon in the grave?" Ahuizotl suggested. Spiral pondered over the options presented to him before he gave a shrug and went back to watching the ghosts shamble about. "This is why Absol is beating us. Not because we lack the forces or means of killing him, but because you are too lazy to actually put anything into motion. This is why you were defeated by King Solace."
"Oh, like you know anything that truly happened back then. It was long before you were brought into this world," Spiral playfully replied, his good mood annoying the hunter of fortune.
"I know plenty. I know that you battled with Prince Sol for weeks before you finally killed him, ridden the southern part of Equestria of light, allowing you to raise your army. I know that his brother, King Solace, is responsible for trapping you and your army of ghosts for however long you were trapped in that tomb. And I know that you and your army all hold a weakness within you. A weakness to the light of Harmony. That is what I know."
"Congratulations, you know about ten percent of the true story," Spiral replied with a smile, which grew only wider when Ahuizotl's face fell with confusion. "And also, you have left out a key factor. Absol. Until his arrival, the Ambassadors and their power of rainbows was all that posed a threat to me. But after that Pokemon's arrival, the ghosts and I now have a second threat running around. One that is far more competent and harder to blackmail into standing aside, since he does not love or cherish anything."
"Which brings me back to what I was saying, if you just did more than stand around-"
"His weaknesses interest me, did you know that?" Spiral asked Ahuizotl, clearly ignoring pretty much everything the living being was saying. "Fighting, Bug and...something else. Why are these what weaken him? Fighters can be a bother, but I fail to see how that bothers a being of the dark. Insects make no sense whatsover. The dark is home to many insects. And as for the final one...well, it's been a long time since any of those have been in these lands, so he does not need to worry about those."
"Weaknesses that we should be exploiting in bringing him down."
"Yes, yes, with this knowledge, it probably would take us less than a day to kill him and those around him, but then I would be left wondering about him," Spiral continued on. "That is where you and I differ, my dear servant. You see an obstacle and only care how to be rid of it. I see an obstacle and I wonder how it came to be, what events led it to standing before me and what makes it act the way it does. I want to understand, to learn. That's how I found the way to bring the dead back to the land of the living, after all."
"...I did not know that."
"Of course not. Like I said, you only comprehend maybe ten percent of what truly happened. So let me increase that percentage for you a little bit. A fun fact is that before I was King Spiral, lord of the specters, I was a scientist working under Prince Sol, the most beloved prince that had ever lived. I had been tasked with finding a way of returning the dead to the land of the living, mostly because Solace's sister had passed away when she was young and he had always felt guilty about not being able to save her."
"So I began to search, to learn, to...experiment," Spiral said before he slipped a stone mask onto his face and began to channel his magical power into the mask. "Of course, nopony in their right mind would volunteer to be killed and then try to find their way back, so i had to find those that wouldn't be missed if they were gone. At first, it was one dead end after another. They'd die and we couldn't figure anything out. No tracks, to traces. Nothing."
"But then one day we had a breakthrough," Spiral continued, his mask a glow with all sorts of colors that mixed around in it. "We found that those with some sort of strong, emotional connection to the land of the living could just faintly remain even after their body had perished. A connection of love, family or romantic, could cause a soul to linger in the real world. But in order to really test this theory, I had to find not only a soul that had a strong connection to the living, but a soul that was powerful and strong enough to do more than linger. I needed...an Alicorn."
"Sol..."
"Yup. That was when I finally unlocked the secrets to return the spirits to the dead to the land of the living. His soul was one of the most powerful and strongest souls that I had ever experimented on. In fact, the experiment was such a success that it transformed me into the being you see before you now. And once I had learned how to drag one soul back to the land of the living as a specter, I could do the same with a thousand."
"See, most souls are actually terribly vengeful of dying and want to come back to the land of the living, no matter what what they must do to get back here. I offered them the chance to return to the land of the living, so long as they helped me to overthrow the royals and allow me to claim the world as my own. They agreed, of course."
"And that is where Solace comes in."
"Correct. He found out what had happened to his brother and was on a warpath. If you've never seen the very planet around you burn because of a beings fury, let me tell you it is scary. He was a one pony hell on Equis, using the power of the Element's of Harmony to lay waste to all of my undead forces. Then he turned it upon me, encasing me within that tomb that you were so nice to open for me."
"I'm surprised that he didn't just kill you."
"Ah, but there in lies the problem with the Elements of Harmony. They are used to restore balance, to cease threats and to bring peace back to Equestria once more. They are not weapons of destruction. Sent Luna to the moon, trapped Discord in stone and sealed Sombra within the ice. Never once killed or destroyed them. I was no different. So that's why I wasn't too upset when I was sealed away. Because I knew no matter how many times the Element's stopped me, I would be back to try again."
"But now things are different," Ahuizotl pointed out, getting the king to nod in agreement. "Now there is a being out there that can permanently destroy a ghost once and for all. And that being is, as you said, skilled and dangerous. And yet you still refuse to take any real action against him. Why?"
"Because my issues aren't with him. Actually, i don't have any issues with any of the beings in this land," Spiral sighed. "If anything, I should be pissed at Solace. He was the one that told me to discover the secrets of the way to return the dead to life and then they got all angry when his brother uses his soul to help me with my research. Honestly, since he's dead, everything else is just an experiment. That's why I'm so find of giving it to you once we have it. Maybe I'll mae his descendants suffer a bit more, but I don't care who rules it."
"That's...nice of you," Ahuizotl replied, before the mask made a pinging sound and a smile spread beneath said mask. "What does that mean?"
"It means that I've finally found what I've been looking for," Spiral said with a laugh. "Here you've been saying that I've done nothing productive in the efforts to rid this land of Absol, but I've been working hard all this time on finding his greatest secret. Not his weaknesses nor what motivates him, but how he got here?"
"How he got...?"
"Come now, we both know that he is not from this world, meaning that he had to get here somehow," Spiral explained, being patient with the living organism. "It wasn't by magic, that's what I looked for first. So I started to search for a rift in space, a wormhole or something of the like. And I've finally found it after nearly two weeks of searching. I've found the point where he came to this world...and I've felt the raw power behind the being that brought him here."
"What does that mean for us?"
"It means that we're going to find this spot and see if we can't peek onto the other side for ourselves," Spiral said as he created a map with his magic and started to scan the landscapes for an exact spot. "Giant insects and incredible fighters might be a rarity in our world, but from what we saw inside of his dreams there are plenty of beings that Absol is weak to in his world that we can bring over to this one to fight him for us. And unlike him and his dark typing, these ones will not be immune to my power. Starting to understand?"
"Yes, I believe that I actually am," Ahuizotl said with a sinister smile.
"Excellent. Let him find the captive families of the Ambassadors of Harmony. Let them think that with Absol on their side that they have a chance to beat us. Because even if bringing these beings to our world doesn't work, I've got another plan up my sleeve. One that will break the spirits of Equestria and bring the princesses to their knees without me needing to raise a hoof. Oh, it will be glorious indeed if things go that far. I hope they do."
"I'm starting to see why the ponies of the world are so afraid of you. Just when I think I've finally seen the depths to which your evil can descend, there's just a complete other layer," Ahuizotl said in an impressed tone. Then he remembered that something the king of the ghosts had said to him earlier and how it didn't add up, prompting him to ask the king a question.
"You know, you never did tell me how you managed to rip the soul out of an alicorn, an immortal being, and use it in your experiments," Ahuizotl put forward, getting King Spiral to turn back to face Ahuizotl with a wicked smile on his face.
"That's the beauty of it. Sol volunteered."
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Gotta say, I'm really liking the villain in your story.
Why do I think allowing Pokémon over here was part of the plan and that King Spiral is going to piss off a Legendary Pokémon and get far more then they bargained for?
8999078
I’d LOVE to see the weather trio.
8999207
8999078
im thinking that Lord Giratina, patron of Ghost Types, will have something to say about Spiral poking his nose where it doesnt belong...
why would someone volunteer their soul?
This can’t be good.
8999231
idk, i feel Darkrai may also get pissed as well, since he likely would intrude upon the nightmares of pokemon to control them
Good question though. Why IS dark weak to bug? And yes, i know it's actually the evil type in japanese not dark but still..
either way, it doesn't make sense.
8999231
8999207
Personally I would love to see one of these; Mewtwo, Keldeo and the rest of the musketeer group, Lucario, and Mew. Because they are all more or less good aligned and among the last that this villain would want to be messing with, without going what could be considered gods among Pokémon kind.
good story i hope for more soon if that's possible.
8999336
Well, consider it like this: Things have weaknesses based on how they interact in reality. Psychic beats fighting because you can't punch when someone is controlling your movements. Dark is immune to psychic because how can one control and manipulate the shadows on the wall, the absence of light? Dark is weak to bug because of the fact that bugs live in the shadow. Use it to their advantage. It is their home territory. So if one were to attempt to intimidate, scare, hurt, etc. a bug by casting it into shadow, it doesn't work. That's my explanation.
9001499
Doesn't really make sense though. If bug is effective against dark because bug dwell in the dark, then why is dark effective against ghost? Shouldn't the same principal be applied there?
Also the reason dark is effective against psychic is, that it, along with bug and ghost, are the three universal fears that every person has, and fear disrupts concentration and since psychics are all about controlling things with their mind, they are weak against darkness.
Of course, all of that would only really be relevant, if it weren't for the fact that gamefreak, a japanese company, creates those type correlations and of course while doing so they'd probably consider the actual type which is evil and not its somewhat misleading translated name of darkness. so technically, the question we have to ask is not why bug is effective against darkness but why is bug effective against evil?
Edit: I was a bit curious after all of this, so i did a bit of digging around and i find this answer to be the most satisfying. just note that it is based on the original evil typing and not darkness, as that would have been the type gamefreak considered, while programming the games.
Ghost are weak to evil, because it corrupts them, turning them evil themselves.
Psychic is weak to evil, because, due to their greater mental awareness, they're more vulnerable to mind games and manipulation, something evil type specializes in (taunt, torment, nasty plot).
Fighting is strong against evil, because they are strong and honorable and able to deal with the underhanded tricks of evil types (sucker punch, night slash, foul play).
Fairy is strong against against evil, because they are pure beings and: good>evil.
Bug is strong against evil, because they work as groups in swarms as a collective and evil is defeated by comradery and teamwork.
9002688
Yeah, that's a much better way of explaining it. You are right though in that my explanation doesn't quite fit for ghosts. Thanks for sharing.
9002740
You know, I just had a realization. Do you think changelings, especially the new rainbow bug ones, count as fairies? because in folklore changelings are the babies of fairfolk that replace human babies to be raised by their human parents.
Because if they do count...
So King Spiral's origin is that he was asked by Solace to find a way to bring the dead back because his sister passed away, but Sol - Solace's brother - volunteered? Well ain't this all a bunch of misinterpretation, and assumptions... Well everyone loves a tragic villain with an assumed past
9003968
Chrysalis is a fairy queen. Oh the laughter that should bring.
9234304
Lets not forget the breezys...may they never return...