Chapter 1: The Return of the Reaver
When Raziel finally appeared in the new realm, what surprised him at first was that he didn't appeared in the middle of a forest, or in some ancient tomb or even a throne, he appeared in a library. Raziel couldn't ignore how convenient it was for him as he appeared exactly in the right place to gather the information needed to adapt to this new realm, probably another help from his benefactor. As Raziel was going to open one of the books, he heard the door opening, he was lucky of not being right in front of the door for this gave him enough time to use the Reaver to become invisible.
To his surprise, what entered the room was a tiny walking lizard, perhaps this were the dominant species of this realm? Regardless, Raziel would have to wait until he could find an opening to escape or until the lizard would finally leave and, sadly, it looked like either choice would take a while to be made since the youngling decided to pick something and pack it in a box, a gift perhaps? This would certainly show that this creatures were either of good nature or very naive. It was hard to determine when the lizard looked so young, but appearances were deceiving and Raziel was no fool.
During this waiting, Raziel decided to take his time to see around the library. As he moved around and noticed the bed, Raziel could see that this place looked more like a room rather than a library. He also wanted to see the books but that would make the lizard to take notice of his presence and Raziel knew that this wasn't the best moment for introductions, so all Raziel could do at the time was to take a look at other places in the room and see how much he could take for himself before leaving to the outside world.
After a long time of waiting, it looked like the lizard had finally finished to boxing the gift and he was going to leave when, suddenly, the door opened and slammed itself into the lizard's face, sending him backwards and damaging the gift. It was at that moment that Raziel saw one of the most interesting things in his new adventure, for the creature that entered into the room wasn't another lizard, but a purple unicorn pony with a saddlebag that held a book, it had a mark on it's flank and any potential notion that it wasn't sentient was drowned in the moment she, because that voice was certainly feminine, spoke while looking for someone:
"Spike!, spike!"
She looked down and saw the lizard on the floor -, "there you are", - she proceeded into the room, ignoring the possibility that she may have hurt her acquaintance, and going into the books -. "Quick, find me an old copy of predictions and prophecies", - she said in a hurry, in that moment she looked at the damaged box in the lizard's tail and with a questioning look she asked - "what's that for?" - The lizard Spike simply took the gift out of his tail while responding: - "well, it was a gift for moondancer but..." - In that moment the contents of the box dropped, showing that the gift was now impossible to give under those conditions but the pony simply shrugged it off.
"Oh Spike, you know we don't have time for that sort of thing" - Said the pony in a very dismissing tone, at this, Spike responded with a worried and questioning look - "But what about the play?" - The pony simply ignored his worries and, to Raziel's surprise, started to glow her horn, creating a sphere of light that, once it exploded, started to telepathically move the books in the library. The pony would look at each one and simply responded with a no before looking into another one, by the time she started to get frustrated for not finding the book, Spike had already found it.
The unicorn, in her haste, quickly picked up the book with her powers, pulling Spike with it, and, once she saw it was the book she was looking for, she dropped all of the other books being levitated. She then went to the table and sought for whatever piece of information was located in the book that could be helpful to her while Spike, with a defeated face, would pick each of the books on the floor left by Twilight and begun to order them.
While all of this was happening, Raziel stood there, watching the creatures to determine how truthful was the information given to him: so far, Spike was the only one fitting the part of "innocent and naive", but the unicorn (on the other hand) reminded him of the Dumahim and how they practically used others until they weren't useful any longer but, to be fair, at least the unicorn didn't looked like it would kill Spike in the near future.
The other reason why Raziel decided to stay was because if they were going to search for prophecies, then he may find something that could be useful for him.
"Aha!" - Said the Unicorn once she found the legend that was so important to her at this moment -, "Elements of Harmony, see Mare in the Moon?" - That piece of information, besides of almost useless, left a confused face on her at which Spike quickly responded - "Mare in the Moon? but that's just an old pony's tale" - before going back to reshuffle the books but that didn't stopped the unicorn, who proceeded in her search "Mare in the Moon... AHA!" And in that moment Raziel decided to listen closely with his vampiric hearing to the legend that may be his next confrontation.
"The Mare in the moon, a myth from olden pony times, a powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon, legend says that in the longest day of the 1000th year, the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal" - At that moment the unicorn, comprehensibly, got scared - "Spike, do you know what this means?" - Spike simply said no before falling of the stairs for the unbalance he was having on the stepladder but, before he could meet the floor, the purple pony stopped his fall, gave him a feather and a scrol, and told him to write to the princess:
"My dearest teacher, my continuous studies of pony magic has led me to discover that we are on the precipice of disaster -
Spike had a problem to write the word "precipice", for he didn't knew how to spell it, the unicorn told him different synonyms of the word but he couldn't write them, quite clearly he was too young for such an advanced language, and, in the end, they relented with -
-something really bad is about to happen, for you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon and she is about to return to Equestria, and bring up her eternal night, something must be done so this terrible prophecy does not come true, I await your quick response, your faithful student:
Twilight Sparkle
"Done!" - said Spike -, "great, now send it" - ordered a very energetic Twilight but, at this, Spike simply said unsure -, "now?" -, "of course" - said Twilight, but Spike wasn't very sure about this - "I don't know, Princess Celestia is a little busy getting ready for the Summer Sun celebration, and it's for the day after tomorrow" - in that moment Twilight got close to Spike's face, filled with determination, and told him - "that's it Spike, the day after tomorrow it's the 1000th year of the Summer Sun celebration, it's imperative that the princess is told right away" -, Spike looked at her wondering how to spell 'imperative' but Twilight quickly shouted "IMPORTANT!" so high that Spike got flung into the books. After that, he relented and decided to, for something reason, blow the scroll and, at this moment, Raziel got another surprise as from Spike's mouth came out emerald flames that burnt the scroll and the ashes started to travel across the windows. For all of this, and many other things that Raziel would see in his new journey, he would only think that's a nice trick.
"There, it's on its way, but I wouldn't hold your breath" - said Spike (which Raziel was now sure it was a Dragon), Twilight simply responded with an amount of confidence and smugness that reminded Raziel each time more of Dumah and his clan - "Oh don't worry Spike, the Princess trust me completely, in all the years she's been my mentor, she had never once doubted me" -, "scratch that" - thought Raziel, as she reminded him of himself, from before being betrayed by Kain, with all that trust to her mentor and confidence that neither she or her mentor could ever do no wrong.
Twilight hadn't even finished speaking when Spike belched and threw out of him a scroll, very probably containing the response from the princess. The smug unicorn simply responded - "see? I knew she wanted to take immediate action" -, when Spike reincorporated himself, he started to read the letter:
"My dearest most faithful student Twilight, you know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely, but you must certainly stop reading those dusty old books.
My dear Twilight, there is more to a young pony than studies, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations of the Summer Sun celebration in this distant location: Ponyville.
And I have a more important task for you to complete: make some friends.
Princess Celestia
Raziel did his best to not laugh at the face of Twilight when she heard the apparent dismissal of her beloved teacher, after that, it was a matter of wait until both creatures packed and leaved the room, giving Raziel time to gather some information of his own, starting with the book Twilight left:
"Now, finally able of moving freely around the place, I decided to search more about this Nightmare Moon in the books left here by the unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. From the looks of it, Nightmare Moon used to be the rightful ruler of this land along her sister, Princess Celestia, but greed took control of the Nightmare and then decided to take over the land, not realizing that she would destroy her beloved Equestria in the process. To stop Nightmare Moon, her sister had to use the Elements of Harmony to imprison her on the moon. If this "Elements of Harmony" were so powerful as this story described them to be, then it was clear what was the weapon capable of vanquishing the Elder God I was talked about. Now it was only a matter of finding them, but I would need more information around them to figure out their location. So, for now, I will go to the local library of this land or somewhere else that could ease my search for information and, maybe for the first time in my life, I will have to make sure that I don't get discovered. Should I be discovered now, it could become a problem in my attempts of getting the loyalty of the residents of this realm, a problem that could be quickly fix is this Nightmare Moon were to be defeated by me."
Always keeping the powers of the Dark Reaver activated, Raziel snick past the many ponies he found in his journey. He noticed that all the big ponies had a mark on their flanks, but they were always different in style or form, add that to how colorful this ponies were and it was quite clear that this ponies would never had an identity crisis. But Raziel would never let pass the eyes of the ponies for he could see the innocence in them. The inhabitants of this realm were good natured and it was quite clear that Twilight Sparkle was an exception to this or, at least, that she didn't had the same focus as the others inhabitants of this realm. This made Raziel be more certain that he had to save this realm from the parasite that was coming.
After a few hours of traveling, Raziel found a big Castle:
"In my journey through this city, I saw a big castle near the top of a mountain, but instead of being on top of it (as a way to tell its domination over the land), it stayed on the side almost hanging but still showing that it was strong enough to stay in place. The way it hangs from the mountain showed clearly that the ruler of this kingdom wasn't one searching for control or dominance of the land, it only wanted to let clear its power so nobody else could try to fight it or question it but that at the same time it wanted to be around or at least close to its citizens. The way a castle was constructed always told a lot about its ruler or the owner of the castle and if the one living in said castle was who I thought it was, then the information given to me about this land was looking each time more and more valid. This, in turn, asserted each time more my determination to save this land."
While Raziel was seeing the great castle in its glory, he noticed a carriage going out of the castle, with two pegasi wearing armors pulling it out. What Raziel found the most interesting of this carriage, since this verified his hypothesis, was that the one in the carriage was none other than Twilight Sparkle and her Dragon Spike. Raziel stood there, watching, in which direction they were going because, if he needed more information, he knew that Sparkle would be his best source of intelligence in case he found nothing in the library, once he found where it was.
After hours upon hours of searching, the Reaper of souls finally found the Library. It was located in the castle itself and, once again, after a few more hours of searching, he found nothing on the Elements. But the death vampire did found something interesting, apparently, Canterlot wasn't the original capital of Equestria. From what Raziel could gather, it was originally placed in a place called the Everfree Forest, and this forest was located right besides Ponyville. This discovery made Raziel take the decision to leave the Library and, after getting into a Spire, he decided to look at the Kingdom of Equestria from the mountain the city was located in. It was Nightfall but he could still see the location of Ponyville and, looking a little bit beyond, he saw the forest that possibly hold the next clue to the location of the Elements of Harmony. At this, Raziel thought:
"My search for the Elements of Harmony and where would be the location of Nightmare Moon's return was now pointing towards Ponyville and a forest that held an ancient ruler. Even though I am in a different realm, there are certain things that never change".
He looked up and saw the moon, its face had the silhouette of a mare and 4 stars were starting to get closer to it.
"Looking at the moon I could see the shape of a mare, Nightmare Moon no doubt. The stars were getting each time closer and closer to align and release her from her prolonged prison. My time was running out but it was clear the direction to follow, I hadn't found the enemy yet but I knew who it was, I hadn't befriended the ponies so far, but a way was open to me. Even though I felt that I hadn't done any type of progress, I could only be glad that I was under much better conditions compared to my other journeys. Now I only had to worry to get in time to the forest, but if this realm was like mine, then that meant that I had a way to travel faster than any chariot or magic available in this realm".
At this moment, and to Raziel's disacknowledge, there was a regal, white pony traveling on the castle. The pony in question had both a horn and wings, weared a regalia that could only describe her as royalty and, should have Raziel noticed her, he would have deduced right away that this was the Princess Celestia that has been mentioned so much by Twilight Sparkle. He would have tried to talk to her, he would have befriend her and made his journey much easier overtime. But he didn't noticed her but, rather, she noticed him. She noticed his appearance, his limb wings, his almost dead shape and the feeling of death that surrounded him. She saw all of this and it only brought fear upon her, fear of the unknown, an unknown made out of questions like 'what was this creature?', 'what were its intentions?', 'why was it looking towards Ponyville?', 'is it a friend or foe?' This, and many more, were the questions surrounding Princess Celestia but, before she could get close to it and find an answer, the creature started to move its claws from one side to the other very slowly and, in the process, it started to disappear. Before Celestia could use a spell on it, it was already gone from Canterlot and no tracking spell used afterwards could find it. Celestia could only worry, 'was it a danger to her beloved student?', 'was it a creature of Chaos?', 'was it a new enemy?', but she had no time to think on this questions or to do anything, for in that moment the stars were starting to align.
"This may be my first time in the spectral Realm in this new land but, just by entering in here, I could feel the same things I've felt in Nosgoth's Spectral Realm: The same sensation of displacement, the feeling of time being meaningless, the feeling that everything I was looking at was just an illusion, or mere shadows of what the physical realm was in reality. This meant that I had enough time to reach the forest and, if I played this correctly, I would be able to maintain myself from going against the ponies to maintain my physical manifestation. But those thoughts were for the future, now I had a journey to make".
Hours later (?)
Ponyville, clearing into the Everfree Forest
"I found myself in the opening into the Everfree Forest, if the prophecy was right, by this time Nightmare Moon was close to be released and I had to find quickly the Castle of the Pony sisters, the original residence of Princess Celestia and her sister but, first, I have to return to the Physical Realm. Taking into consideration that there are no portals in here, I will have to find corpses in decomposition to go back to the physical realm and, if the myths of this forest are true, then I have found the perfect place to respawn anytime my physical body gets destroyed".
Once Inside the forest Raziel quickly found souls of creatures that has died in the forest, as that's the natural course of life and, to his happiness, Raziel didn't found any sluaghs, or archons or any creature that belonged to the Elder God. The souls on this realm were free, free to go to the next step of their lives, whatever happened after you died, but, for now, their utility was to feed him. This souls would give Raziel the energy he needed to go between the two realms, he opened his scarf, revealing a vortex that started to suck in all the souls that lingered in the vicinity. As the souls of the departed were crying in fear at being suctioned into a unknown vortex, Raziel recovered all the strength he lost during his exploration on the city of Canterlot and, to make everything better, he found a decaying body not too far away from the clearing he was into. It was a big animal, but the size didn't mattered to him, all he needed was a mean to go back to the physical realm, the rest was adjustable to his needs.
The ground of the Everfree Forest was being disturbed for the decaying body of a dead bear that was leaving the ground it once held. The body then started to shape more and more into an unknown bypedal creature that had 3 claws on each limb, it had wings but they were destroyed and falling like dead weight; the wings looked like if they had been once useful, but they were now damaged somehow and were useless in their current state. But none of this wasn't what scared the most the residents of the forest neither it's soul piercing eyes, what scared the creatures of the Everfree the most about this intruder was the aura that left on its wake. It was an aura of power, of dominance, an aura that told all of them how everything in the forest that was living in the forest was now it's prey and that he would hunt them when he needed to feed. As the creatures of the Everfree started to run from the new top predator entering the forest, not too far away from this macabre spectacle, a Zebra was looking at the demonic creature rising from the ground. She shook in terror at the sight of the death being disturbed to house a demon whose appearance was too evil for Tartarus itself and, after watching how it shaped into the unknown creature that was being revealed to her both on its physical appearance and its aura, she decided to leave as calmly as possible and to make sure that she would never cross it ever again in her life.
"The reserve of bodies guarded on this forest, makes this the perfect place to come back any time I want to travel back from the Spectral Realm, now it was only a matter of time to find the Castle, if the sight I had back in the city was correct. I knew where to go and all I had left to do was to prepare myself from the ever closing encounter with the nightmare".
After a few hours of exploring in the forest and walking in his new territory, Raziel felt a chill running down his spine. Raziel looked around the forest expecting to detect what made this new change, but there was no earthquake at the moment and nature looked unaffected, this chill didn't came from a natural origin, he then had a suspicion of what was happening and quickly looked at the sky, the moon specifically. What Raziel saw, or better said didn't see, to his horror was how the prophecy was already fulfilled, the Mare in the Moon was gone.
"My time was up, Nightmare Moon has been released, but something was telling me that the uneseanies I have just felt wasn't because of only that, perhaps the tremor I felt was also because something else has entered Equestria, something insidious, something dangerous, something I was very familiar with".
Not too long after that, Raziel saw a black mist going through the forest. It passed above him and, while Raziel did noticed an aura of sentience on the mist, the mist failed in noticing the devourer of Souls. Raziel did noticed the mist and while he didn't knew what it was exactly, Raziel was sure that it was no coincidence that the mist appeared right after the Mare on The Moon disappeared from her original residence on the sky. As Raziel examined the mist, it suddenly stopped moving and quickly went to a cliff located besides Raziel; making it crumble. Raziel didn't understood why it did what it did, he simply went further and proceeded his journey, not forgetting this experience and deciding to reflect on the mist later. In doing so, Raziel failed to notice the ponies that were about to fall from the cliff that the black mist recently made collapse.
In the middle of his journey through the forest, Raziel found his first obstacle. But this obstacle didn't come in the shape of a puzzle or a demon, but rather, in the form of wooden wolves. The wolves tried to intimidate him but Raziel only became unfazed and slightly humored at the weakness of his enemies. Understanding the obvious, Raziel just summoned his Fire Reaver and started to burn each wolf with quick slashes from the wraith blade. The wolves would try to leap at him, but Raziel would quickly side-step and thrust the Reaver into the attacking wolf, piercing their wooden coats with a fiery power desiring to feed on its new prey. From that point on the battle, it was just a matter of either burning the wolf to a crisp or feed its soul to the Wraith Blade, bind to Raziel's very being. After burning all the wolves and devouring their souls, Raziel decided to proceed, reflecting upon what he has just found:
"The enemies I've found so far in this woods weren't anything to worry about. Sadly, I was certain that in a matter of time this notion would end for its very usual to see my enemies grow in power over the course of time. For now though, I would focus on the mist I saw awhile ago as I wasn't certain of who or what was that mist, perhaps Nightmare Moon? Perhaps something else? I wasn't sure. I was only certain that if I was meeting opposition, then I was going in the right way".
After crossing a river with no problems whatsoever it didn't took Raziel too long before reaching the castle he was looking for:
"Finally! I've reached the Castle of the Pony Sisters. The place where Celestia and her sister ruled together before envy and greed corrupted the vision of the night princess and the sisters were split apart. I was certain for a moment that I was going to meet more resistance than I initially encountered. I was sure that my current lack of enemies was because either I was having luck, or I wasn't considered a danger yet. Either way, I was finally close to the Castle. I would soon find a clue for the location of the Elements of Harmony and finally meet the corrupted Mare".
Raziel crossed the bridge and entered the ruins of the castle, not noticing that the bridge was cut off by the black mist he saw earlier.
The doors opened, revealing a very ruined castle. Its one great pillars were now crumbling as time went by. The Roof was being taken apart as the eroding essence of abandonment was taking place. Unlike Raziel's old citadel, that even after 1000 years managed to stay together, it could be seen how time destroyed the once marvelous castle, now decrepit and waiting for the forest to finally bury it and finally claim what was belinged to it. As Raziel saw the deteriorated entrance, he saw in the middle of the meeting room, a very old sculpture holding five stones. As Raziel got close to them, he started to analyze them.
"Upon entering into the ruins of the castle I saw a series of objects, I was hoping that this were the Elements of Harmony, capable of vanquishing the Nightmare and, with my help, the key into the liberation of this realm from its new, parasitic resident."
Raziel got close and touched the stone rocks, he tried to use magic on them any of the spells he knew (including infusing them with the purifying essence of the Spiritual Reaver, but nothing happened.
"I was certain that his were the Elements of Harmony, but they were now just rocks. It was possible that the reason of their current state was because they've been inactive for too long but, thankfully, it would only be a matter of time before figuring out how to activate them. All I had to do, for now, was to find Nightmare Moon and bring an end to her. I would find a solution for the elements later."
Raziel gazed up ahead and saw a tower in the distance. Remembering that certain times on his adventure, he would find his enemies in a throne room or place high above, Raziel decided to investigate the location he just saw. A few short minutes after Raziel left the entrance room, the site was inhabited again by six mares: a Purple unicorn, a White unicorn, a Yellow pegasus, a Cyan pegasus, an Orange earth pony and a Pink earth pony. They all entered from the same door that Raziel crossed to enter into the Castle. Unbeknownst to them, they've been following the same direction that Raziel has been following but, unlike Raziel (who went to this castle for information formed out of a simple guess), this mares knew what they were searching for and where to find it. But, for now, their paths wouldn't cross except for one of them.
In Raziel's way to the tower, the stairs and entryway to the tower broke, but this didn't stop him. Raziel simply used his powers to create some temporary stairs through the powers of the Dark Reaver. Not too long after crossing the shadow bridge created by the Reaver, the magically created stairs disappeared, closing the entrance in the process. Raziel wasn't worried about this as he knew how to leave the place if he ever needed to leave.
After arriving, Raziel saw that the throne room was empty and this both saddened and frustrated Raziel. He was getting nowhere in his search of the corrupted princess or The Elements. Perhaps he was too soon? He may have to return later to this room. In the meantime he would go to the castle's library, there he may find not only a map that may give him an idea of where to start his search for the Elder God, but to also know of more potential enemies from Equestria's past that may come to this land. The Elder God never spared in puppets and Raziel would have to make sure that none of them were available for him to use.
Raziel was about to leave the room when, suddenly, in the middle of the room a black whirlwind started to form. Raziel was perplexed at what this could mean, perhaps the danger he was searching for was finally appearing? When the whirlwind finally started to subside, to Raziel's surprise, it threw out Twilight Sparkle, of all ponies, right in front of him while, on the other side of the room, a big black Mare with wings and a horn appeared right out of nowhere, she had blue cat-like eyes and was wearing a helmet with a light armor on her body, she was tall enough to be at the same height as Raziel and she expelled an aura of danger and mischief.
Raziel immediately recognized her as Nightmare Moon, for she fitted that description he saw on Twilight's book. This was starting to get Raziel euphoric, right in front of him was his target and there was a pony that would witness his intentions, everything was going out as he was planning. Now all he had to do was take one step at the time and be careful of his new enemy. As Raziel moved closer to his new target, he started notice that, at the hooves of Nightmare Moon, were the five stones he just saw a while ago in the entrance of the castle. That could only mean that those stones were definitely the Elements of Harmony, Raziel did found them and now he had to recover them from his enemy. Now, more certain than ever of what to do, Raziel started to move ahead and getting closer to Nightmare Moon, not noticing that Twilight was starting to wake up.
Twilight was feeling frustrated right now, not only she have seen the return of Nightmare Moon, as she rightfully predicted and warned to her tutor, but she has also met five colorful ponies that decided to help her even though she never asked for their companion, she would have to admit that their help was very useful and she wasn't sure if she would have managed to find the Elements of Harmony without them, Twilight would be very glad if she could live with them after this whole ordeal is over. But that was it, Twilight thought that everything was going to be fine once she saw the Elements, but then everything started to go sour once she noticed that the elements were, not only incomplete but also, in a dormant state. She thought that it couldn't get any worse after that mysterious tornado took her and the Elements somewhere else, but fate decided to play a bit more with Twilight as she looked in front of her and realized how wrong she was, it could get worse... far worse...
Now, Twilight was feeling terrified for, right in front of her, was the most horrible creature she'd ever saw in her life: it was big, almost as tall as Princess Celestia; it had wings, but they were falling down like if they were useless limbs, to the point that they looked more like rags instead of actual wings; instead of being a quadrupedal creature like most in Equestria, it was a biped creature and it had three claws on each limb; she couldn't see any flesh or organs on it, which meant that it was very probably some sort of undead creature. All of this meant one thing: it was a total nightmare fuel.
What was this creature? What was doing in here? Why it was getting closer to Nightmare Moon? Was it an ally? She never heard that Nightmare Moon had any friend or ally, she also never found any creature like this in all of the books she has read in her entire life, not even on references. What to do? What to do? She already had too much to worry about with Nightmare Moon trying to bring an eternal night to Equestria. Now Twilight had to worry about this new creature that could endanger Equestria in ways never seen before. But before panic could swallow Twilight, the creature stopped right at two hooves away of Nightmare Moon and spoke in one of the most elegant, refined, gentle and kind voice she'd ever heard, putting Princess Celestia aside of course.
"Greetings" -, he said in a very respectful but relaxed tone of voice. - "I assume you must be Nightmare Moon".
Nightmare Moon looked at the creature located right in front of her, she was baffled at this creature, it looked like the type of enemy she would have destroy in her old days with her dreaded sister, or even worse, but that voice sounded devoid of any danger nor filled with ill intention whatsoever, still... she would be careful with it, after all, one should never judge a book by its appearance.
"Greetings, my humble invader" -. She said in a very smug tone. - "I presume that you're not aware that you're invading the Castle that belongs to Nightmare Moon" -. Here she changed her tone of voice for one more friendly and curious. - "What brings you here to this place and why you doesn't show respect to the new ruler of this land?"
Raziel still remembered the times he lived under Kain's empire and how, during that time, he was the lord of a clan. Tact and diplomacy was something he learned to dominate for any time he had to deal with his brothers, this was just like those old times.
"My apologies your highness, I did not know that this castle still had an owner, considering its ruinous state, perhaps you should consider in finding a better location for yourself, otherwise you would be leaving a bad impression on any visitor you could have. After all, a house tells a lot of its residents and this crumbling and falling castle only fits to falling monarchs" -. Nightmare Moon tried to suppress her desire to blast this intruder, so she only pressed her hoof on the ground while waiting for it to end his speech. - "But I will announce that I came here for two reasons, the first one being the Elements of Harmony: I heard of their immense power and decided to see them for myself."
While this remark made Twilight Sparkle raise her curiosity at the terrifying creature, Nightmare Moon responded by raising her guard. This could be bad for Nightmare Moon, if this creature wanted the elements then it was to either vanquish her or use them for its own goals. But, unbeknownst to her, the creature was already planning to do both things. Regardless, Nightmare Moon decided to simply answer with all the decor and elegance she could gather, remembering of her old days in front of the annoying elites and their very well masked speeches to appeal to her.
"As you can see, the Elements are right here" -. She moved her hooves into the rocky orbs. - "What kind of interest do you have with them? Being the powerful relics as they are, forgive me for being worried of seeing a stranger like you, wanting to take such powerful artifacts".
Raziel continued, unfazed for the speech made by Nightmare Moon.
"The reason I'm in the search of the Elements of Harmony is because I've heard of their power and how they exiled you to your moon, I supposed that if they could be recovered then you could be imprisoned once more".
At this, both Nightmare Moon and Twilight Sparkle were surprised. How did this creature knew of what the Elements of Harmony were and what they could do? They were legends by this point in time, just like Nightmare Moon. For this creature to know of them, it could only mean that it must had a very ancient background, perhaps even more ancient than the lord of Chaos himself. This revelation was starting to get Nightmare Moon very nervous, but she would keep her straight face to not show any kind of weaknesses, although Raziel easily saw through her facade. It was very easy to notice the nerves starting to get into the Mare in the Moon.
"Interesting idea" -. Responded the falling princess, she then smiled and remarked. - "Sadly, as you can see, the Elements are dormant as of now. Even if you wanted to activate them, you would need to meet certain requirements before using them".
At hearing this piece of information, Twilight decided to quickly intervene. After all, if this creature was against Nightmare Moon then he may help her to, not only, retrieve the elements, but also to vanquish Nightmare Moon once again.
"It's true, they each one represent an element of harmony: Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness and when the five elements are together a spark (the sixth element) will activate them. But there are only five of them and I was going to try to create the spark when Nightmare Moon took me and the elements into this chamber" -. Then Twilight Sparkle begged for help to the creature that may be her biggest help on this adventure. - "Please help me, if I could have just enough time I may be able to reactivate them."
This made Nightmare Moon wanting to scowl at the foal who was trying to defeat her, but the creature in front of her was the priority now and it already showed to be very skillful in his speech (clearly it knew how to handle with nobles and the high class, who knew how dangerous it could be on combat). So she decided to fake confidence and started to smile, after all, she may start to get the advantage here with the Elements as they were.
"You see? The foal has spoken. The Elements of Harmony are incomplete as they are and, even if they were complete, I doubt you have all the requirements to use them.After all, you may be able to represent one or two elements, but 5? That's impossible and you know it".
Raziel was shocked at this revelation for the Mistress of the night was right. The only element Raziel could be able to represent could be honesty at best, but laughter? Kindness? Loyalty? Generosity? he hadn't felt any of that in a long time and he was sure that he wouldn't have the needed spark to activate them, that meant that he would have to resort to the plan B.
Raziel started to slowly, very slowly, walk towards Nightmare Moon which, in return, made her nervous, very nervous, nervous because it didn't looked like the creature was worried for not having the key to defeat her. It only looked like if the Elements were just one idea he had to deal with her, and it was worrying her what could possibly be his second plan.
"You are right, I don't have what it takes to use the elements, even if they were complete, but the Elements where just one way to achieve your defeat, I still have another one."
At this Nightmare Moon opened wide her eyes and saw what he was trying to mean. While it was worrying her that this demonic creature was meaning to fight her, she still needed to be sure.
"You said that you had two reasons to be here, the first one were to find the elements, what was the other reason?"
Raziel then moved his right claw in front of Nightmare Moon and, suddenly, an energy sword appeared: it was blue, the blade was curved and it's hilt was adorned with a skull, and both Nightmare Moon and Twilight Sparkle could feel the energy coming from this ethereal sword. It was big, big enough to be a danger to Nightmare Moon and, to cement her fears, the words the creature made in that very moment transformed the sword into the embodiment of something even worse than being imprisoned on the Moon once again.
"The second reason I came here was to find and defeat you Nightmare Moon, to stop you from destroying this land and save its citizens from your madness and any other kind of monster that could dare of endanger this lands".
He then looked at a very shocked Twilight and quickly told her.
"You said that you were trying to find a way to activate the elements, right?"
Twilight, being scared of the creature, quickly nodded. Raziel then turned towards Nightmare Moon and, once more, to the surprise of both mares, he moved his left claw towards her. Nightmare Moon was then surrounded by a green field that quickly slammed her into the other side of the room, then Raziel told Twilight:
"Go to the elements and activate them with the spark, I will hold her back until you manage to activate them".
Twilight decided to move forward to the elements and activate them, while trying to figure out how the creature was planning to defeat Nightmare Moon. The Princess of the Night tried to intercept her, but the creature stepped in between her and the unicorn that was trying to revive the Elements of Harmony, the creature then aimed his sword at her while shouting "STAND BACK DEMON!"
Nightmare Moon was shocked and enraged at this new stage of development. This creature have just used telekinesis without much effort, had a weapon that could give her many troubles and to make things worse, it decided to side with the unicorn so she could be once again exiled. Why was it so decided on defeating Nightmare Moon? Even more, how could he claim so easily that he would defeat her like if she were a simple foal while, hypocritically calling her a demon? This angered Nightmare Moon to levels that not even Celestia managed to do ever.
"How dare you to attack and threaten me, I am the Bringer of The Night, Guardian of The Dreams, Ruler of Equestria, I am Nightmare Moon!!!"
But what started to anger her was seeing that the creature, instead of getting nervous, was calmed in front of her. And this anger was quickly starting to transform into fear as the response he gave her while aiming his energy sword at her was something that not even her or Celestia ever heard on their lives:
"I am the Devourer of Souls, the Angel of Death, the Shifter between Planes, The Wielder of the Wraith Blade and Inquisitor of Life. I am Raziel, The Soul Reaver and I have come to vanquish the evil that plunges on this land and protect it from any danger that dares to threaten it, starting with you".
Nightmare Moon, for a moment, was afraid over the idea of someone who claimed to be death itself and that was threatening to end her, but she then decided to show that she wasn't a mare to fool around with and started to summon thunders on the roof to strike Raziel but he quickly dodged them and started to shoot projectiles from his Wraith Blade to Nightmare Moon. She quickly raised her shield and felt how the attacks weren't as strong as she feared, that was good, it meant that all she had to do was to stay away from him and wait for the right time to strike. Raziel shot her with many attacks from the Reaver, but after seeing how futile they were, he just stopped the attack and preferred to wait for an opening.
Nightmare Moon then decided to go on the offensive and created a big shadow to surround Raziel. Once her enemy was blinded by the dark area created by her powers, she then started to shoot lasers out her horn while circling the shadow dome. She shoot for a while into the center of the area in the hopes of it wearing down the demon, once she thought that enough magic blast were launched, she stopped the unrelenting barrage of magic. As she was starting to get confident, from the inside of the dome, a great force pushed Nightmare Moon to one of the walls and, even more shockingly, a great amount light exploded from inside the dome. This light momentarily blinded Nightmare Moon and Twilight (who was starting to get distracted on the fight), in that moment Nightmare Moon started to feel many strikes in her body, they were stronger than she expected them to be and caused her a lot of pain. This slashes felt like nothing she ever felt, it didn't felt like common magic, it felt as if it were piercing into her inside and it was trying to crush her very being. Once Nightmare Moon managed to gather enough concentration in the middle of the magical slashes, she managed to make a kinetic explosion to put Raziel away and, not too long after that, her sight started to come back.
When both ponies were finally able to watch again, they saw Raziel with his Wraith Blade now colored yellow turning into a black color. Raziel then started to spin the blade above him which, somehow, made him disappear. Before Nightmare Moon could create a tracking spell and locate Raziel, she felt another series of strikes and pain, a lot of that cursed pain that was destroying her on the insides. Nightmare Moon reacted quickly and raised a shield around herself to stop the unrelenting attacks, this move was then quickly followed by a telekinetic wave that pushed everything away from her, revealing Raziel who then reincorporated himself and changed his position to a defensive one. She had to give him credit, he was faster and stronger than he looked like and he certainly knew how to fight, but she had more power and experience than him (she was sure of it), she still had a chance at winning.
Nightmare Moon decided to change tactics by going into the air and throw a barrage of spells at Raziel in the hopes of forcing him to seek for shelter, but all he did was evade them through quick side-steps while getting closer to her at the same time, but this didn't faze Nightmare Moon yet, she decided to stay in the air, where he wouldn't get close to her, and continue her unrelenting barrage of magic spells. Raziel simply responded to this by turning his blade green, he then jumped at the same height Nightmare Moon was located and started to give her another series of blows, forcing her to fall down, Raziel then went away from the damaged princess to see what she would do next and, that way, give her the proper counter attack.
Nightmare Moon was starting to get very nervous. If this new enemy could reach the same heights as her just by jumping, then who knew what other tricks he was reserving to defeat her. At this rate he would defeat her on the long run because this nemesis would have a counter measure to whatever she used, Nightmare Moon simply couldn't come up with a direct solution. If she attacked directly, he would dodge and counter attack; if she waited, he would come directly at her; if she attacked from distance, he would find a way to get near her. She just couldn't find a way to defeat it, what kind of creature was this with such knowledge of combat and tactical maneuvers while having such arcane magic? She needed to distract him with something so she could deal a decisive blow, but how? What could she use to distract this dark avenger? And as Nightmare Moon was searching on the room in her escape form Raziel, she noticed certain purple unicorn cheering for Raziel. Nightmare Moon was certain that she would take care of her very soon but, for now, she would give the unicorn a better use.
Raziel was waiting for the next attack from Nightmare Moon, his strategy of battle has been very effective so far and, granted, while she has caused him a lot of damage, it was nothing he couldn't handle. Raziel's energies were still high and, at this rate, he would defeat her through his intelligence, as he has always done. The best thing that was coming from this was that he would become a hero after defeating Nightmare Moon, if the cheers from Twilight Sparkle were any indication. He was doing well, now he would only have to observe her enemy and bring her down once and for all, it was just a matter of time and good planning.
As Raziel was analyzing the body of his cuadrupedal enemy, he saw her eyes and noticed how, suddenly, Nightmare Moon started to watch Twilight Sparkle with a wicked smile. The idea Raziel was getting from that look was confirmed in the moment she started to concentrate magic on her horn. The amount of energy Nightmare Moon was charging was large, large enough to finish him or Twilight and he knew that the energy wasn't aimed at him. It was aimed at the innocent Twilight Sparkle, who didn't realized of the attack until it was too late. As the attack went flying through the chamber towards an afraid Twilight Sparkle, Raziel jumped right in the middle of the attack and intercepted it, screaming in pain, while Nightmare Moon started to laugh at her success.
During the whole encounter between the terrifying hero and the regal villain, Twilight Sparkle was, at first, focused on making the spark to reignite the Elements of Harmony and, for a moment, she managed to make the elements glow. But they died off almost immediately after that, crushing her hopes to defeat the eternal night. It was for a brief moment that Twilight thought all hope was lost, but she then saw how Raziel was beating Nightmare Moon in every instance, how he managed to counter any spell she threw at him. It was in the middle of this fight that Twilight started to become very curious of what kind of blade was the one Raziel was holding, since it looked like its main source of power, but she would ask about it to him later, now, she was getting hopeful because Nightmare Moon was being defeated. She started tp cheer for Raziel, for her hero, and as she invested more of herself on the fight, the more she didn't noticed how Nightmare Moon started to look at her and was concentrating her next attack on a cheap shot to defeat Raziel. Twilight realized too late of the trickery done by Nightmare Moon and it was here that Twilight saw how careless and guilty she was at that moment: here was one creature that decided to help them for no apparent reason and, not only, she didn't helped him at all, but she was the main reason of his failure. It was even more painful when she realized that she was the one who did the less in this whole journey:
It was Applejack's honesty what taught her to trust in others and survive in that fall, it was Fluttershy's kindness what helped them to pass a Manticore without a fight, it was Pinkie Pie's laughter what made the forest less scary and easy to cross, it was Rarity's generosity what made a river snake happy and allowed them to cross a turbulent river and it was Rainbow Dash's Loyalty what managed to get them all into the castle she was trying to get into the first place, without any of these ponies she wouldn't have gotten into the Castle that held the Elements of Harmony. And her? she couldn't do anything, she didn't do anything in this whole journey, she tried to stay away from the ponies that tried to give her their unconditional help and she even failed into helping the one creature with enough power to stop Nightmare Moon in all of Equestria.
Twilight Sparkle felt defeated right now, as she saw her new friend hurting on the floor, she decided to get closer to him and try to help him in some way. But she didn't knew what to do, the more time it passed, the more Raziel was getting more and more transparent, was he dying? That was what it looked like and Twilight wasn't sure if she could go through something like that right now. All she could say, while tearing up on her face, right now was:
"Sorry, I thought, please don't go. I need you, I thought that I could do all of this alone and, in the end, I realized that I couldn't do anything. Even worse, I was the reason for your defeat, Please don't go, I'm so sorry for this."
In the middle of Twilight's sadness, neither of them saw how Nightmare Moon shattered the elements while laughing maniacally at her victory against such a close moment to fall. Raziel didn't cared for that, death was meaningless to him, all he was trying to do right now was to focus just enough to give Twilight his last words before going back to the Spectral Realm, since he wasn't sure how long it would take him to come back to this place.
"No" -, he said, - "I apologize to you" -. Twilight stopped crying at this words and listened closely. - "Instead of searching for help right away I decided to take matters into my own hands. I did not realized that any type of friend or ally would have helped me to end this quicker, it was my fault that we ended up in this situation but, please, don't lose hope" -. Raziel gathered as much strength as he could hold up and tried to cheer Twilight Sparkle: - "You're only defeated when you accept defeat, there's still and always will be hope, you must"- and in that moment, Nightmare Moon decided to finish off Raziel, before he said anything else that could stop her, by shooting another magic spell at him. This time, Raziel did disappeared from the throne room, but his words stood in Twilight Sparkle and, once she saw the shadows of her friends along with their voices getting closer, she realized what was the Sixth Element of Harmony and that Raziel was right, there was still hope.
Raziel was now in the Spectral Realm and he felt disheartened for his defeat, he couldn't stop Nightmare Moon on time. What actually pained him the most was that he could have defeated her faster than what was expected, but he got overconfident. He decided to take his time instead of finishing her right away and now, for his mistakes, an innocent life was endangered. Perhaps if he could find a corpse close enough, he would be able to stop her before it was too late.
After leaving the throne room and finding a corpse in the entrance of the castle, he managed to go back into the Physical Realm but, to his surprise and not too long after that, he heard Nightmare Moon screaming in defeat, Raziel quickly looked up to the tower and saw how it was starting glow with Rainbow lights. A few seconds after that show of lights, the Sun came back, meaning the defeat of Nightmare Moon. In the end, the situation got handled by the ponies. Raziel refelcted on this and understood as well that this ponies didn't needed him to defeat the enemies created on this real, they needed his help to defeat the enemy that wasn't from this realm. Understanding this, Raziel decided to think back on how well he handled the situation: he got to meet one of the ponies and he would later try to meet her again to obtain her friendship, if she was still alive of course. He knew a bit more of this land and he would probably get very soon a new house, maybe the situation he was found in wasn't so bad as he originally thought.
At this realization, Raziel decided to leave the place for now and go back into the forest to explore his new home, the more he knew the forest the better it would be for him. After a few hours of exploring, he managed to find a way to Ponyville that he found very convenient to his necessities to travel back and forth in Equestria. As he went to the border of the city, he found the town having a party, perhaps because of the victory against Nightmare Moon. After seeing this happiness, this moments of cheers and celebrations (and certain purple unicorn and a little deep blue alicorn that Raziel was suspecting on who that could be), Raziel felt satisfied with all of this and went back to the Everfree Forest. He may have failed on this battle, but he wouldn't let it happen again.
While the blue specter was marching away into the Everfree Forest, he failed to notice the blue alicorn looking at his direction and how she saw the creature, she rightfully thought was death at her hooves, was leaving peacefully into the forest. The alicorn started to feel, in that moment, very, very scared but, at the same time, she felt fine because his presence meant that she didn't murdered anypony. She would later try to inform Twilight about this, but the celebration wouldn't let her do so and, in the end, she would leave with her sister while Twilight would believe, for a while, that Raziel was dead.
This was the beginning of this tale, and it was just going to become more hectic from here onwards.
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I agree that there should be some more LoK stories. But the one I have is the least popular and no one is telling me what is wrong so I can improve it.
This brings back memories
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Then my first objective has been completed.
so... if i'm to understand correctly... this is a crossover of Legacy of Kain, MLP and, if the tag on the Feed was accurate, Dante's Inferno.
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Honestly, IDK why this was featured in Dante's Inferno, it wasn't me and I got really surprised of seeing it there, but apparently somebody thinks this goes into Dante's Inferno
Sorry for not getting back to you.
I will check out your story tomorrow.
sneak
belonging
to
reflected
realm
Bloody fine chapter! Very well made ♡
So has Raziel all glyph and Reaver powers from 'Soul Reaver' to 'Legacy of Kain'?
Time to re-reading this beauty
I am very intrigued by this crossover despite the fact that I know almost nothing about Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver
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Wow, making a story that brings attentions of people outside of the franchise. I feel honored.