• Published 6th May 2015
  • 9,222 Views, 427 Comments

Never Broken - Torgaddon



A shattered and broken soul, Spike has spent the better part of the last two thousand years in never ending battle in the dead world of Ginun. Now, he must return to Equestria to protect what is most precious to him, but also face his shame again.

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Draconica Irae

"And who are you to think you will fare better than your comrades, boy?" asked Nerg'Cathal, the instinctive animal fear he had sensed before at the sight of the giant Draka, now growing with every passing moment and thrumming at every inch of his mind and body, screaming for him to run and hide.

The fifteen foot tall armor-clad Draka looked at him with the dead cold, green points of light that were his eyes and said in a deep rumbling voice.

"Rotten fruit, you do not deserve to know my name"

With that, he launched himself at the obese putrescent daemon with a speed that beguiled his enormous frame. In the blink of an eye he had covered the distance separating them and began a furious assault.

Nerg'Cathal found himself immediately on the defensive, his six rusted axes rising and falling, slashing and parrying at the curtain of slicing steel that the Draka had raised before him with his single enormous curving blade.

The Draka wielded his monstruos blade single-handed with a speed and strength unnatural for a weapon so large, launching blizzard after blizzard of slices and cuts, laving Nerg'Cathal with no other alternative other than to backpedal and defend.

With a roared chant, the unholy runes within his flesh blazed with unnatural power again and increased his speed tenfold. Howling with frustration, rage and fear he launched himself forward, his six empowered arms sending a torrent of ax-blows at the Draka.

The Draka met Nerg'Cathal's assault with the silence and immovable surety of a mountain. Without a single step backwards, he intercepted and deflected every attack, with such force that it sent Nerg'Cathal's arms snapping backwards, his own Odachi licking out like a viper's tongue to slice at the rotten daemon's flesh.

Such, the two warriors fought for a few seconds, the speed and force of their blistering assaults turning their bodies into blurs of motion, sparks flying everywhere as Nerg'Cathal's axes fell and sliced, only to be intercepted and smashed away by the Draka's ever present blade.

The assault stopped with the same brusqueness as it had began, Nerg'Cathal jumping away, his rotten body covered in multiple nicks and cuts, while the Draka stood there, his massive body unstained by the bite of any of Nerg'Cathal's axes.

Nerg'Cathal seethed with pain and fury. In those few seconds he must have slashed over a hundred times at the Draka, only to be met with blade. The sword had seemed to be everywhere at the same time, moving faster than the eye could see, even going so far as to slice him a few times while still defending.

What was worse, the enchanted axes Nerg'Cathal wielded had failed to completely rust the Draka's blade. Even as he watched, the blood staining the blade drained away, as if the sword itself was drinking it. Before his bloodshot eyes, the weapon repaired itself, gorging on Nerg'Cathal's blood and shedding away the little rust that had appeared around it.

"I see, a blood iron weapon" Nerg'Cathal spoke, trying and failing to cover the tremble in his voice. "I know of only one Legionnaire who has such a weapon, and, considering the strength you've shown, you must be the Darraor of the Legion, the one called Spike"

Spike said nothing, only started walking towards the obese daemon.

"Well, well mighty Spik..."

"Quiet".

The single word carried with it a clear and undeniable note of danger, forcing Nerg'Cathal's mouth to clamp shut instinctively. It had not been shouted, merely said, almost whispered, nonetheless it had carried clearly and without doubt of intent.

"Cowards do not deserve to say my name, be silent, kneel and die".

Nerg'Cathal recoiled. Spike's voice was a low, deep and measured sound that promised only doom, and the greater daemon could feel the cold hand of fear grabbing hold of his spine and refusing to let go.

"Kneel? KNEEL? YOU ASK ME TO KEEL, INSECT?" yellow froth bubbled between Nerg'Cathal's disease ridden lips, fear and anger warring for dominance over his mind.
"ENOUGH OF THIS. HIEROPHANT, NOW".


Miles away, leading the Pantheonic Mandala of the thousand cultists and powering the abhorrent strength of the Flesh Giver cannon, the Cult Hierophant heard his master's call again.

Once more he redirected the flow of magic drawn by his cultists and chanted the Object Displacement Conjuration.


Bound to one of the four mansion-sized bone wheels of the Flesh Giver canon, Celestia and Luna gaped at the battles being fought on the no-man's land between Canterlot Castle and the burning remnants of Canterlot itself.

"What do you think is happening, sister? Do you think our subjects have decided to attack?"

Celestia squinted her eyes and held her hand at her brow, trying and failing to make something out through the great dust clouds that had risen from the battle.

With a sigh, she gave up and looked to Luna.

"I have no idea Luna, but, whatever it is, we can only pray that it bears fruit. This might be our only chance to escape".

Luna continued to look in the distance and found herself slightly shivering, the sounds of screaming and dying daemons reverberating through the air. Whatever it was, she was not sure she wanted to meet something that could make even daemons scream with such despair.


Tendrils of misty yellow magic came to life around Spike and, with a blinding flash of light, the armor of his upper body, including his helmet and facial mask, disappeared.

Without a moment's hesitation, Spike mentally sought out the residual magic that had stolen his armor and, finding it concentrated at a point a few miles from where he stood, Spike added his own power into the magical flow.


The Cult Hierophant grinned as he saw the gigantic armor pieces appear at his feet, only for his smile to turn into an open mouthed shriek.

Through the flow of magic that had connected the Hierophant to Spike, came a surge of power. The Hierophant's eyes and ears bled as he felt the full weight of Spike's presence seep within the aethyr and crush his mind as powerfully as if his hand would have crushed his skull.

With a final yell, The Hierophant's eyes, nose and mouth burst with blood as the magical overflow shattered his brain to mulch. He fell in a puddle of his own blood, dead before he had hit the ground.

Celestia and Luna both flinched at the sight, for once thankful of the magic-binding chains they were manacled to.


"DECAY AND TURN TO DUST, INSECT" came the stammering, howled screech of Nerg'Cathal, any semblance of self control and daemonic dignity utterly gone, drowned beneath a mixture of animal terror and pure outrage.

"NERGUI MAKAH AKUI"

It would end now. Without the protection of his armor, Spike's flesh had become nothing more than a gigantic target for the encroaching cloud of rusted shards that had fallen from the daemon's axes. In a few moments, the shards would pierce his flesh and soul, and rot him from the inside.

Gigantic lungs expanded and enormous chest muscles bulged as Spike drew in a monumental breath. With a roar of flame and incandescent heat and a wave of force, Spike blew an enormous gout of white-hot and pale green flame at his own feet, the flame exploding outwards and upwards like a pillar towards the dark sky.

His flesh searing off in layers at the insane heat, Nerg'Cathal screamed in pain as he jumped backwards. Seventy feet away, the greater daemon looked in awe at the gigantic flaming pillar, even as he felt the cloud of shards of his axes be obliterated by the incandescent fire.

With a hiss like the death rattle of a Leviathan, the flaming pillar sputtered and consumed itself, finally going out.

In the middle of almost forty feet of scorched earth, billowing smoke and melted stone, stood Spike, his flesh smoldering, his purple scales glowing white-hot at the edges.

The momentary astonishment gripping Nerg'Cathal's mind, the utter insanity and lack of any self-preservation instinct from this Draka, deadened his nerves almost to the point where he did not notice Spike start to move again.

Like a shot from a cannon, Spike surged towards the greater daemon, covering the seventy feet separating them in mere seconds.

It was all Nerg'Cathal could do to raise all six of his axes in a block as, for the first time in their duel, Spike grabbed the haft of his Odachi with both hands and thrust his blade forward.

The strike hit Nerg'Cathal like the fist of a giant and, in a spray of broken shards that had once been his axes, sent the obese daemon flying, a gigantic hole in his chest, two of his six arms reduced to gobbets of useless meat, spraying the ground with old, coagulated blood.

Even as he rose, a backhand slice ripped through the daemon's throat, gushing with arterial blood. Spike had followed the daemon's flight with amazing speed and had sliced at him once more, allowing no chance for the daemon to regain his bearings. Nerg'Cathal howled in pain, as Spike's sword rose and fell and, in the space of a few heartbeats, cleaving through his body, faster than he could regenerate.

Ancient, coagulated blood flew and stained Spike's massive frame, adding another note of horror to the already monstrous sight of Spike carving through the obese daemon's flesh like a ravenous wolf through a downed sheep.

Gurgling shrieks of pain rattled through Nerg'Cathal's savaged throat as Spike's blade tore into his bulk, rending away his flesh, strip by bloodied strip. With a desperate conjuration he blazed power within his flesh-sown glyphs and runes and blinked out of existence.

The great Odachi "Karasuma" met with stone instead of flesh and carved a deep scar into the earth as Nerg'Cathal's shape blistered out of focus and, with a crack of power, disappeared. Without so much as a gasp of surprise, Spike extended his perception, blocking out all sound, only to focus on the shallow crack of energy, one mile afar to his right. The daemon's old, coagulated blood, staining his chest, arms and ringmail kilt, lit up in a scarlet blaze, as Spike made to charge the far-away daemon and end the battle. Invisible tendrils of magic ran from a chanting Nerg'Cathal, only to link themselves to the blood staining Spike's body and shackling him to the spot.

Nerg'Cathal howled chant after chant, empowering the magic inherent in his own daemonic blood, adding layer after layer of complex magical simulacra to the aethyric chains now binding Spike. Pressure and force of gravity grew until the weight of an entire castle both pushed and pulled at Spike in the same time.

Yet, with all that power, even bound by Nerg'Cathal's strongest sealing ritual, Spike still moved, step after tedious, slow step, his muscles bulging like steel slabs, his veins standing out like iron cables, refusing to allow even a whisper of pain escape his lipless mouth, concentrating every ounce of his unbreakable determination into reaching the daemon.

It was impossible, ludicrous in every shape and form. Nerg'Cathal stared in pure, unadulterated terror at this monstrosity that was powering through his strongest seal, seal he had used before to bind the Behemoth itself. No, no, he could risk it no longer. Even if he had to postpone the conquering Canterlot Castle, he had to use the "Flesh Giver" cannon on this insane Draka before he would be killed.

Sympathetic magic bloomed into existence as Nerg'Cathal linked his mind to the greater daemon trapped into the engine of the Flesh Giver cannon. He could feel the greater daemon's spirit howl in unending pain as magic tore at his soul to force the unholy engine into a perpetuum mobile. He could hear the wail of the two thousand five hundred lesser daemons that had been sacrificed to the cannon's insatiable appetite. The "Flesh Giver" was not at full force, but it was enough to decimate an army, it had to be enough to kill a lone Draka.

Urgency took the place of contemplation and risk assesment as Nerg'Cathal felt the binding seals he had set on Spike with his own blood begin to rend and tear, slowly breaking by nothing more than the mad Draka's unending stubbornness.

With creaks of bone and groans of steel, the "Flesh Giver" began turning, bound to the will of Nerg'Cathal, and changed it's target from the Castle to Spike. Unholy engines roared, grinding wailing spirits of sacrificed daemons and setting them aflame with abyssal fire.

His four remaining arms outstretched, his mind and magical prowess stretched to their limits, Nerg'Cathal added a final layer of protection between himself and the advancing Draka. A wall of solid granite, twenty feet thick and forty feet tall, as large as the great portcullis of Canterlot Castle, burst from the ground and shot upwards. Even if Spike was still almost a mile away, Nerg'Cathal knew enough of the destructive power of the "Flesh Giver", to want as much protection between himself and the resulting assault as he could.

With a final show of force he added the entirety of his remaining magical pool to the mystical bindings that restrained Spike, bringing the Draka to a complete halt for a few seconds.

Two thousand five hundred souls wailed in unison as they were consumed by the abyssal flame and were cast out from the cannon's belly as a great ball of flame, darker than oblivion itself.

The ball of elemental nothingness flew reducing all around it to dust, roaring like the damned and, with a crack like the world itself breaking in two, erupted in a mountainous cloud of dark flame and pure oblivion upon contact with Spike's body. Throughout it all, Spike had not uttered a single sound.


Upon the battlements Twilight screamed, overcome by pain, her magical emphatic link forcing her to feel the sheer absurdity and unnatural horror that the black flame contained within it. It was disgusting and enticing at the same time, her mortal mind unable to comprehend why this anathema of existence drew her so. It was as if it called to her, howling for her to give herself to non-existence, while in the same time pushing her away with promises of the untold horrors that lie waiting in the abyss.

She screamed again as the shockwave caused by the blast shattered the shield protecting the Castle and tore at it's ancient walls.

Even though the grand explosion had taken place miles away from Canterlot Castle, the shockwave had ripped cracks in it's enchanted walls and the soundwave had left everypony taking refuge within the castle reeling, hands clasping their ears, in a futile effort to somehow drown out the unholy wail that had accompanied it.

Upon the cold hard stone Fluttershy and the rest of the girls fell clutching at their ears, the ungodly wail of over two thousand burning souls tearing at their minds, when an arm hit her back. The trashing and convulsing form of Twilight fell hard against her, gripped in a magically-induced seizure.

Grinding her teeth against the fear, Fluttershy jumped on Twilight, grabbing her arms and pinning them down, refusing to allow her friend to hurt herself in her seizure.

"Help, girls, help" she yelled, her pitiful pleas drowned out by the wailing souls.

A pair of strong, orange furred hands clasped Twilight's jaw, forcing her mouth open and jamming the length of her forearm between her teeth. Applejack yelled in pain as Twilight bit hard.

"Don't let her bite her own tongue, Rarity grab her legs, NOW".

The wailing spirits all but forgotten, the five friends moved as one, completely imobilizing Twilight, keeping her safe from her own body while the seizure played itself out.


Shagga shouted as the stone under her feet cracked and shattered, the shockwave hitting her shield like a charging mastodon, sending her flying.

All around herself she saw flying Draka and daemons. The explosion had been of such a magnitude and force that it had stopped the battle in it's tracks, even though it had happened three miles from where the battle was taking place.

Hard stone shattered and splintered as her armored back hit the ground. Without a wasted moment, Shagga rolled, letting inertia do it's duty and recovered herself, her strong voice drowning out the odious wail coming from the two mile wide black flamestorm, as she called for the Legion to rise.

As one, the Legion of the Damned recovered, their monstrous constitution and unbendable discipline allowing them to relaunch their savage assault upon the still downed remnants of the daemonic army.

Shagga attacked with unrestrained ferocity, shattering daemonic armors and helmets, her mind consumed by only a single thought.

Was her Darraor still alive?


Nerg'Cathal pushed himself off the ground, coughing blood and pulpy rotten flesh, as he lifted slabs of granite off himself, the final remnants of what had before been his massive protective wall.

Setting himself on the ground, he could not help but break in a howling laughter, his two mouths shivering in the uncontrollable shake of one who had just barely escaped certain death.

Heavy footsteps from behind made him turn his head, as three hundred daemons ran or limped towards him. Between the daemons, more dragged than allowed to run, the Princesses were being pulled towards him. Both of them had their hands clasped around their ears and looked as if almost about to lose consciousness.

"My lord, my lord we must retreat" a lieutenant said, his rank too low to make his name worth remembering to the mind of Nerg'Cathal.

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU CRETIN?"

"My lord, we were already losing before you fired the cannon, now the remainder of the army is being slaughtered by the Legion as we speak, we have no more warriors".

Nerg'Cathal turned his head to regard the battle, his bloodshot eyes widening as he saw broken daemonic battalions being butchered by the advancing line of the Draka. Yes, retreat was a good plan now, he had no more strength left. Groveling in the dirt and requesting more warriors from Jalaman Hun, Wilhelmina and Kilmaiil the Half Born was a preferable fate to instant death. Yes, he had to retreat, the world could not afford to lose his great genius.

"Rally what you can of the troops" he belched out as he struggled to his feet and grabbed at the chain restraining the two Princesses "Form a rearguard and cover my retreat".

The daemon lieutenant blanched at the suicidal order. Nerg'Cathal intended to sacrifice them in order to escape.

"B...Bu...But...M...My lo..."

"JUST DO IT, OR YOU DIE BY MY HANDS" bellowed the furious greater daemon, his four arms pushing the shaking lieutenant out of his way. What were a few hundred more warrior's lives in exchange for his own? He HAD to escape, now.

"CHOOSE INSECT" he added, pulling on the chains binding the struggling Princesses "ROT RIGHT NOW BY YOUR DEFIANCE OR DO AS I ORDE..."

With the finality and inevitability of a burning world, it came, a whisper, clearly audible even over the din of battle, carrying with it the promise of a doom already set in stone.

"Are you quite finished?"

Nerg'Cathal dropped the chains, his entire body shivering like an infant's, and he turned towards the almost two mile wide crater of charred and corrupted earth that the Flesh Giver's attack had created. In the middle of it, blood spurting from a hundred deep wounds, many of his once purple scales now charred to deep charcoal black, his flesh, a ruin of holes and slices, his left eye, reduced to a charred, black and unseeing orb, stood Spike, his form standing tall and defiant, as he had ever been.

Spike ground his fangs against the weakness that would have made him give in to the pain and pushed the torments of his body deep within his mind, only to fuel his growing anger.

"Now, as I have said before, KNEEL".

For the first time since the battle had started, Nerg'Cathal heard the silent and reserved Darraor of the Legion of the Damned roar. It was like the howl of a battle-crazed god and carried with it the strength and horror of a collapsing mountain.

The "Word of Sovereignty" Spike had uttered carried with it the full might of Spike's determination and presence, bound and formed by the winds of magic, making it as palpable as a titan's fist.

Lesser daemons were smashed to the ground in small craters of their own bodies, armors shattering, bones breaking and flesh turned to mush. The two Princesses fell to their hands and knees, as the pressure of the "Word of Sovereignty" mounted upon their backs, threatening to grind them to gristle. Nerg'Cathal himself, shot to the ground, his kneecaps shattering, his shoulders slouching, as if the entire weight of a fortress had fallen upon him.

With the sound of burned flesh cracking open into fresh wounds and gushes of blood splattering the ground, Spike began moving towards Nerg'Cathal.

Nerg'Cathal could hear it, beyond the sound of Spike's boots, beyond the heavy breathing of the two Princesses as they struggled not to be crushed by Spike immovable will, beyond the sound of his own, violently shivering body. He could hear the mocking laughter of the Abyssal Gods as they turned their gaze from their, now broken, champion.

In Spike's approaching form, he saw his own demise.

With a final, thunderous crack, Spike iron-shod boot cracked the stone before Nerg'Cathal and he drew the “Tenchi Kaijin”, Heaven and Earth End in Ashes. The charms, fetishes and Draken Runes covering the sheath of his most dangerous sword blazed as the weapon was unsealed and the miasma of the Elder Broodfather of the Salamanders, coating the blade, billowed out in an almost visible red haze. Spike raised the blade for the final strike.

Nerg'Cathal, once lord of decay, once one of the Ten Masters of Ginun, once among the strongest greater daemons of the Abyss, now lie prostrate, his face stuck in a rictus of fear and despair, his two mouths open to scream and wail, his face covered by his own tears.

Without a word, Spike sliced down with the "Tenchi Kaijin". The strike had been of such strength and precision that the air friction had heated the steel blade enough to ignite the coating miasma.

With a final shriek, Nerg'Cathal disappeared in a blazing firestorm, it's blistering heat enough to turn the stone around the daemon to brittle dust. Flames roared and billowed out as the blade was returned and resealed within the enchanted sheath. The strike had lasted mere moments, but it had been enough to reduce Nerg'Cathal and the area ten feet around him to nothing more than ashes.

Spike tore his hand from the hilt of the blade, bits of purple scales and raw meat ripping off where the overbearing heat had burned through his own flesh. The seals were getting weaker, every time he used “Tenchi Kaijin”. He doubted the seals binding the flaming blade would last more than another use, two if he was lucky and the winds of magic would flow favorably.

His remaining good eye falling upon the two struggling Princesses, Spike broke the residual weight of his "Word of Sovereignty" and kneeled to them. His massive hands engulfed the shackles binding the two Princesses and, one by one, began shattering them.

Celestia and Luna rose slowly, only to find themselves facing a kneeling, horribly wounded giant. Even kneeling, the creature was a full head taller than the Princesses, his impossibly wide and muscular frame breathing heavily as blood poured from a myriad of wounds, many of them, grisly and deep enough that by any stretch of logic and reason should have killed him tens of times by now.

The scaled giant dropped his massive, lipless head in a short and superficially cordial salute to the two Princesses and said in a deep, rumbling voice.

"Princesses Celestia and Luna, I am Spike, your former student's assistant, Darraor of the Legion of the Damned. I am here to escort you and the other survivors of this attack to the Crystal Empire".

Luna and Celestia both stood there, dumbfounded by the knowledge, any question they would have had, cut short by this mind-stunning information.

The Spike they knew had left, had been a small, pudgy, weak little child. What had returned was something that terrified even them, his savage and merciless determination as obvious as his battle-ravaged body.

Author's Note:

Well, lads and lasses, here's the new chapter and more of the grimdark brutality I have promised you.

Stick around, there's a lot more coming, hopefully you'll enjoy reading as much as i enjoy writing it.

As always give a like if you want and a comment/input if you've got the time.

Appreciate all of you, feel free to ask me anything in the comments :twilightsmile: