The Red Martyr

by Kris The Kris

Cutting the Red Ribbon

With all light, there is darkness.

With Virtue, there is Sin.

Those two opposites occur no matter what universe you go to.

However, the lines are easily blurred, like with the story of one man, forced to carry innumerable sins, but kept his heart facing the light.

And it all began with an convention, an altered fate, an explosion, and an idiot void dweller who couldn’t double check what the person was cosplaying as.

“WHY THE HELL AM I ALWAYS THE ONE CALLED IDIOT WHEN I MAKE MISTAKES!? I DON’T EVEN MAKE ALL THAT MANY!"

Shut up Aaron and get back to your story!

Anyway, the journey does start at the convention but the story starts with a weary Twilight Sparkle crawling into bed after an exciting day in the north, dealing with the Crystal Empire’s reappearance.

She had no idea how she had gotten so tired and she collapsed on her bed, trusting Spike to clean up. In her last moments of consciousness, she vowed to get him some ruby cupcakes for saving Equestria.

As the unicorn slipped into her dreams, black lines outlined with red started to snake over her body from her horn.

Her eyes shot open but instead of the brilliant violet, they were a dark mustard collar.

As ‘Twilight’ sat up, her mane and tail started fading into black.

She looked down at her front legs as her eyes widened. “No...” She crawled out of bed, heading to the mirror. “No no no, this can’t be happening…”

She carefully looked into the mirror and the spirit possessing Twilight Sparkle had only one reaction.

“Shit.”

---

Twilight groaned, hearing the birds singing in the morning light. At the moment, she hated them due to the headache she had. She felt around for a pillow to cover her face but felt nothing but dirt, twigs and leaves.

The unicorn’s head shot up and she looked around to see she was in Whitetail Woods. “How did I get here?” Twilight started to get up but faltered, feeling her body aching. “Maybe I sleep walked here…”

Despite the pains, she trotted right back to the library, ignoring the looks the other ponies gave her.

She entered the library, seeing Spike already cleaning.

Twilight didn’t exactly hear what he said as she walked past and started preparing the coffee machine, putting in three scoops of ground coffee beans.

“You know, I think two scoops would have been enough.”

“Spike, I don’t think I got a lot of sleep last night since I was sleepwalking, I need a lot of caffeine to get through the day.” Twilight responded automatically, pouring water into the machine.

“What? I didn’t say anything, Twilight.”

Twilight blinked in confusion. “Wait, if that wasn’t you then…” The unicorn started looking around her kitchen, starting to feel paranoid.

She closed her eyes and thought back to one of the detection spells, her horn glowing as she prepared it and let it flare.

Glancing around with her eyes still closed, she saw only three sparks of life in the library. She started to relax, knowing them well.

“I must have been hearing things.” She sighed, going back to her coffee.

The thing is, if she had looked in a mirror with that spell, she would have seen a second soul in her...

---

Twilight collapsed on her bed, her horn glowing as she pulled the covers over herself, expecting a nice night of sleep.

She went from falling asleep to standing in what looked like Canterlot Castle but she could tell that she wasn’t. For one, there were books everywhere. They were in neat but chaotic piles everywhere. With a glance outside, she could see all the banners had her cutie mark on it and the statue guardian had all its statues, including Discord, replaced with statues of her friends and family.

She smiled, seeing all this and came to a quick conclusion. “I must be having a lucid dream.”

Twilight looked to the large doors and walked toward them, the doors automatically opening.

She froze as she looked outside at the rest of Canterlot, which looked like it was completely on fire with shadowy wolf like demons prowling on the streets.

She could see something in the distance right slap dab in the middle of Canterlot. It was a huge tower made of something black that formed into tentacles with three prongs sticking out at the top holding up a ball of pure darkness. She could see that it seem hollow with something red glowing within.

Twilight shivered as she looked at her, thinking of all the villains she had met before she started walking into town, taking care to hide from the demons as she got closer to the tower.

As she got closer, she made note of several things. One, the buildings that were still standing were filled with fancy but huge libraries. Twilight didn’t even look in the books yet but she was very curious about how the libraries could be bigger on the inside.

Two, despite how bleak everything looked, with rubble littering the street and fire everywhere, the sky was still a clear bright blue with the sun shining down like it was any other day.

The third thing made her start thinking that maybe it wasn’t a dream after all.

The fire.

It didn’t give off heat but when she stuck her hoof in it, she got flashes of something else.

It was a large room filled with tables with weird monkey like beings wearing clothes holding books called The Lovely Bones.

“Mark Tyr, can you read the next part aloud for us.” The monkey being at the front of the room

Twilight felt her head nod before looking down to the book and she heard a male voice, the same one from the kitchen this morning, start speaking.

“That night my mother had what she considered a wonderful dream. She dreamed of the country of India, where she had never been. There were orange traffic cones and beautiful lapis lazuli insects with mandibles of gold. A young girl was being led through the streets. She was taken to a pyre where she was wound in a sheet and placed up on a platform built from sticks. The bright fire that consumed her brought my mother into that deep, light, dreamlike bliss. The girl was being burned alive, but, first, there had been her body, clean and whole.***”

Twilight shook her head as she was brought back to the ruined Canterlot. “That was weird…”

She started to walk again, coming close enough to the tower to see what it was made of.

Black mud. It seemed to surround the tower and gave off an ominous feeling.

The curious unicorn started to step closer, staring up at the tower and avoiding the mud.

That’s when she heard a cough.

She looked down and saw it. One of those monkey like creatures leaning against the tower, but he looked radically different.

His skin was dark and covered in dark and red lines and symbols. He eyes were a cold mustard color and his hair was a dark grey, almost black. He wore very little, only some red rags to cover his modesty, and black bandages on his arms and legs. Also a red headband.

He stepped away from the tower and spoke.

“Welcome to your mind, Twilight Sparkle. I’m pleased to meet you at last.”

Twilight gasped as she recognized the voice as the same one from the vision.

“I am Avenger.”

Author's Note:

***Excerpt from “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold.

Yup. An Avenger Displaced.

Next chapter has the reveal of how he got stuck in Twilight’s head.

Thanks to Jsyrin for Aaron’s little appearance and generally helping.

Comments

[ElementBrigade]

[Krazyfan1]

Avenger?
you mean the guy who was believed to be Angra Mainyu, was sacrificed and was utterly powerless even when summoned until he was absorbed into the Grail?
and the heck? i didnt think Shirou was Avenger...

[Kris The Kris]

6171919 Yes, THAT Avenger. As utterly powerless, not really. He can reflect damage he's taken back onto who he's fighting, meaning he can kill some of the strongest humans but heroic spirits? Yeah....

Also, yes and no. He just took Shirou's image... Here's a relevant image.

[Blaze Fury]

Cant wait for the next chapter.