Reaper: Requiem's Reflection

by Ise no Kami

Madness

Groggily, Trixie woke up and took a look at her new surroundings. She was in some sort of crystal cave, the walls and floor just barely lighter than the crystals of the city above. She was lying on her back in a pile of snow, one last gift from Alex to ensure the fall didn't kill her. Looking up, she saw the hole Alex had opened in the crystal street...except that the hole seemed...off somehow. For some reason, staring up at it was starting to hurt her eyes. Finally, she noticed a dark passage, leading Celestia knows where. With no other options, she made her way down this passage, the cave getting darker and darker as she progressed. Eventually, she couldn't see her hoof in front of her face. She lit up her horn to see, only to be met with a solid wall.

In anger, Trixie cursed and punched the wall. It made an odd sound, as if there was something behind it. But how could she get through? There was nothing in her bag of tricks that could bring down a wall of solid crystal...except... Remembering that she now had Alex's soul and powers, she reached out for those powers, only for her horn to crackle and sputter. Maybe his magic didn't work like unicorn magic? She tried again, this time ignoring her horn and searching for the power within herself. She found that power, grasped it, and focused it on the wall. Ice started to force its way into the wall, cracking it, before finally shattering and bringing the wall down with it.

The Great and Powerful Trixie is back! she thought with delight, as she proceeded to the room beyond.

The new room was just as dark and dreary as the last. A door frame was embedded in the far wall, but there was no door or opening within it, just solid dark crystal. A long stairway wrapped around the edges of the room, going all the way up to a hole in the ceiling. That exit seemed so tiny from the floor, and very little of the light beyond it made it to the bottom of the shaft. Irritably, Trixie made her way up the outrageously long staircase. As she got closer to the exit, she started to hear voices...

"So we can't do anything about this?"

"As panicked as the ponies are, the castle's changed. This is the palace as Sombra had it, and we can't switch it back."

"So we'll just have to go about our business with a massive hole in the middle of the throne room."

"That's the least of our worries. What can we do to stop this disaster?"

"Nothing. Haven't I been telling you that? Things have come too far; we're all boned."

"And I told you that I'm not gonna give up on my home that easily!"

Wait. Trixie recognized that last voice... Twilight?

"Hold on. There's somepony down there!"

Finally, Trixie reached the top, and poked her head out. She was rather surprised at the gathering she saw: a human, an Alicorn princess, two unicorns who also looked distinctly like royalty, and...Twilight Sparkle...with wings....

"Trixie!?" Twilight asked, astonished. "How did you get down there!?"

"Trixie is...not entirely sure," Trixie replied.

---

"...and then Trixie ended up here," Trixie concluded, wrapping up her explanation of Alex's duel.

"Interesting," Daniel replied. "I'd heard that ponies were wandering through holes in the dimensional boundary, but to think there was one below the palace. Nice catch on Alex's part."

"Isn't that kind of a problem?" Shining asked, concerned for his ponies. "If that hole is still open, then Lucifer can come right in here and attack us directly."

"Not if I take him down first," Daniel corrected, summoning his scythe. "Maybe I can't stop the total apocalypse that's going on outside these walls, but I can stop my father from making things any worse than they already are. Besides, he's had this coming for a long time."

"I can't let you go alone!" Twilight blurted out. "Let me come with you. Strength in numbers, after all."

"Uh, yeah, remind me again how well you did the last two times you tried to fight this guy's goons?" Daniel shot back, before suddenly realized what he'd said. "Sorry. But you get my point."

"Then let Trixie accompany you," Trixie asserted smugly. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is certain her new powers will prove useful to you."

"And how long have you had these powers?"

"...about ten minutes..."

"Go home."

Without waiting for any further volunteers, he jumped into the pit, falling all the way to the bottom and taking it like it was nothing. Even in the darkness, it didn't take him long to find the hole Trixie had blown in the wall. He followed the passageway to its end, and looked up into the dimensional void above. Staring at it caused his eyes to sting, like they couldn't accept what they were seeing. Yep, that looks like a dimensional tear all right, he thought silently to himself, before effortlessly jumping through it.

He was greeted with a dark, empty city that...honestly wasn't too different from its parallel version at the time. He turned his attention to the nearby palace. In Twilight's world, the tower looming above him was their last bastion of defense against total annihilation. Here, it was the stronghold of his worst enemy. Filling with determination, he rushed headlong into the palace, his scythe at the ready.

The dark palace was depressing, to say the least. It was somehow emptier than the city outside, leaving Daniel wondering just where his father was as he ran through hallway after eerily still hallway. As he made his way through the palace, however, he felt a presence. A dark, powerful presence. Using that feeling as his guide, he once again raced through the halls, stopping in front of the throne room. At least, it should have been the throne room, from what he recalled of its counterpart's layout.

Why didn't I just come right here earlier? Of course he'd be here.

He burst through the door into a room that was indeed identical to the throne room of the light world palace, minus the massive hole in the middle of the floor. To Daniel's surprise, the one who greeted him, the dark presence he felt, was not Lucifer, but Faris. He sat motionless on the throne, his face propped up by his fist and covered in shadow. He didn't even seem to notice as the grim reaper barged in on him. Daniel wasn't all that disappointed to see Faris instead of his father; he knew going into this that he'd have to deal with the psycho.

"Ready for Round...Seven...teen...?" Daniel tried to get Faris' attention, but his taunt was muddled by confusion. "Sorry, how many times have we done this? I've kinda lost count."

He was met with eerie silence at first...but then Faris began laughing. His laugh got louder and louder, seamlessly changing as it did so from evil laughter to the howls of a madman. As the laugh reached its peak, he finally turned his face toward his adversary. His mouth, still wide open with laughter, spread so unnaturally over his face as to make it look broken, and his red eyes revealed little intelligence outside of his utter sadism, the full brunt of which was now directed at the poor fool who had somehow stumbled upon him. With a speed that would have made Rainbow Dash jealous, he crossed the room almost instantly, and began lashing out at Daniel. The grim reaper was put entirely on the defensive as he found himself trying to dodge a huge assortment of knife whips, chains, and blasts of magic pain simultaneously. Faris licked his lips as he continued to rain death on Death himself.

"KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL..." he started saying on repeat as his onslaught continued.

Oh damn. He really lost it, Daniel realized. Is this what that amulet does to people!?

The moment he thought about the Alicorn Amulet, Daniel remembered all the suffering Faris had caused with the thing: all the pain, all the suffering, all the death. With the Amulet's power, he had become far worse than his master, an abomination that had no right to exist. The mere thought of what Faris was, and what he had done, filled Daniel with justified rage. Black mist surrounded him, once again granting him the power of the Nightmare. With this power, he effortlessly deflected a number of attacks that were about to utterly destroy him.

"You're nothing more than a monster," he stated, raising his scythe to attack. "I cannot allow you to live!"

The two rushed at each other at blinding speeds. Daniel made a wide swing, catching the knife chain Faris threw at him and pulling the psychopath along with it. He tried to retaliate, but his maddened mind simply threw a dozen attacks at the grim reaper, all of which were easily deflected or dodged without altering his course toward the cold crystal floor. Daniel slammed him into the ground, shattering the chain into its knives on impact. Faris hit the floor so hard that it cracked around him, the sharp crystals ripping into him. He got to his feet almost instantly, and uttered a broken laugh as he stumbled around, seeming to get as much joy from his own pain as he got from the pain of others. With the same broken smile on his face, he lurched forward for another assault. Daniel beat back his chain flails, scattering knives as they broke off the chains, but Faris kept replacing them with the endless supply of knives he had hidden up his sleeves. Finally, Daniel saw an opening, and shoved the flat top of his blade into Faris' face.

Again, he let out a broken laugh of masochistic joy as he stumbled around from the force of the blow. "SO...MUCH...PAIN..." Faris rambled, laughing maniacally. "PAIN...AGONY...SO DELICIOUS..."

"You want pain? Here you go!" Daniel retorted, slicing right through Faris. The wound glowed red for several seconds...then closed itself up again.

Faris laughed like a wild hyena. "THIS..." He pointed to the Amulet. "...AND I...ARE ONE! SUCH POWER...SUCH PAIN...MUST...SLAUGHTER!"

A portal opened up behind the psychopath, but rather than throw an attack into it, he just let it get wider and wider. It completely engulfed the two fighters, drowning them in a world of utter blackness. Before Daniel could react, Faris drew a knife and...dropped it into the abyss below, an inky darkness that they themselves were somehow not plummeting into. Suddenly, a knife fell from the sky, barely missing Daniel. Then two. Then three. This bizarre pocket dimension was cloning that one knife as it looped for all eternity, turning that one blade into a massive knife storm.

Faris let out another broken laugh and released two massive bolts of the Amulet's magic, giving them the same treatment as the knives. "YOUR PAIN...YOUR AGONY...I MUST TASTE IT!" he called out, actually licking his lips.

Daniel rushed toward Faris, only to be stopped short as a red beam crossed in front of him. Once he stopped, he had to immediately dodge a couple of knives coming from his right...and then some more beams, then over a dozen knives, then an insane amount of both... He was caught. All of the simultaneous attacks were pinning him down, and it was only a matter of time before he was faced with something he couldn't dodge. And once he was hit, everything else would pile onto him. He kept dodging the metal and magic agony as he desperately looked for a window of opportunity he could use to save himself.

To his surprise, a window was forced open for him.

Out of nowhere, Faris was blasted in the chest by two silver blue beams. Once they hit, the pocket dimension faded away, letting the Amulet magic loose to blast the walls and leaving the knives to bounce pathetically off the floor. The beams sent Faris crashing into the back wall, where their magic turned to ice and froze him to the wall. Surprised, Daniel turned around...and saw Trixie standing in the doorway.

"What the HELL are you doing here!?" he asked.

"There's no time to explain," Trixie answered. "You have to destroy the Alicorn Amulet now!" Daniel turned back to Faris. Though his arms were completely encased in ice, the Amulet was fully exposed. "Trixie's magic won't hold him for long, and you won't get another chance!"

"I hear you," Daniel acknowledged, rushing forward. "Time to send this thing where it really belongs!"

He leaped into the air, and came down blade first on the Amulet. The dark artifact stopped his blow on the spot and left him hanging in midair. This time, however, he didn't stop there. He put his magic power into his scythe as he tried to cut through the Amulet, causing astral sparks to fly off the blade. Just then, the ice started to crack, as Faris struggled to break free so he could save his unholy trinket. Finally, with a roar of exertion, Daniel brought the full extent of his power down on the Alicorn Amulet. It cracked and shattered. The moment it was destroyed, Faris' eyes went milky white, and his body exploded into dark energy soon after. The energy blew Daniel back over toward Trixie, and completely obscured the room. In the utter blackness, Trixie didn't even notice Daniel revert to his normal form. When the energy finally disappeared, a large hole with a staircase to its bottom had opened in the center of the room, just as it had in the other palace.

"What was that!?" Trixie asked in disbelief.

"Faris said something about how he'd become one with the Amulet," Daniel mentioned. "I think it must have corrupted him so much that his soul became tied to it. So by destroying the Amulet, I shattered his soul. Good freaking riddance."

"Well then, has Trixie proven that she can come along on this mission?" Trixie asked, a smug smile on her face.

"...go home."

"You still don't trust the Great and Powerful Trixie to handle herself?"

"It's not that," Daniel explained. "With this fight, all of Lucifer's minions are gone for good. Now it's just him and me, this one final fight against my monster of a father. I appreciate that you want to help, but this is personal." Once again, he skipped the entire staircase and jumped all the way to the bottom of the shaft.

---

In the Crystal Palace's high tower, the opposite of the room where Twilight had found her world's Crystal Heart, Lucifer was making his final preparations. He had just finished healing the nasty stomach wound Alex had given him, and was finally ready to proceed with his plan. He reached out to levitate two objects: the Crystal Heart, stolen from the light world, and its red counterpart in this world. Slowly, deliberately, he brought the two closer together just over one of the edges of the room. Just as Daniel made his way into the room, having made his way up a crapton of stairs, the two Crystal Hearts reacted to each other, and the green sky above had a seizure.

Only then did Lucifer notice his son's presence. "Oh? Come to witness the end of the world?" he asked rhetorically.

For the first time since the two worlds touched, the sickly green sky finally parted. But what lay beyond was far from the peaceful blue sky everypony had missed for so long. No, beyond the schism was some holy force, a magic reactor of some kind, glowing that same sickly green. Lucifer laughed evilly, but then Celestia's body had a sudden spasm. A dark shadow left her body, and as it left, the blood red drained from her cutie mark and her mane reverted to pink. He had no use for her vessel anymore, and was leaving it behind. As the shadow approached the schism above, it became Lucifer's true physical form, complete with his new left arm coated in white armor.

He laughed maniacally as he looked upon his son and former host. "With this, I can end your worlds' misery in one fell swoop. Finally, this is what the entirety of my existence was leading up to! Look upon this world one last time, as you watch it crumble around you!" With that, he disappeared into the void.

Daniel stepped forward, only to be stopped by Celestia. "You truly think you can stop him?" she asked.

"He was right about one thing," Daniel replied. "Everything's built up to this. I've been chasing my father down for so long, watching as he hurt so many people. For better of for worse, the time has come for this whole thing to end." He jumped up and flew into the schism after his enemy.

Comments

[NightmareKnight]

Was the cover art changed recently? I see comments about this story getting hate for it, and I see a higher downvote ratio than upvote, but I'm wondering whether or not that's just because of the picture. And if so, why is that picture so bad?

[Ise no Kami]

7104948 The cover art was changed after Chapter 10 because everyone was hating on it, and once you see it below, you'll know why.
orig15.deviantart.net/026c/f/2016/098/3/4/requiem_s_reflection_by_ise_no_kami-d9y6tvk.png

[NightmareKnight]

7105215 Okay yeah. I can definitely see why.

[krazykidfannumber2]

You should have commissioned an artist to make some cover art for this.