3- Restoration
The Terror of Death- Restoration
Crystal Empire (Hospital)
Immediately after the defeat of Sombra, Cadence and Radiant Hope rushed the unconscious Adept Rogue to the nearby hospital. He might’ve not shown any signs of physical wounds, but he was beyond the point of exhaustion. Barely anypony know how or what he used to defeat Sombra, but that wasn’t what mattered right now. What did matter was to try and help the young rogue as best as they could. Lying him down on a bed as the rest of the ponies nearby were either helping the rest of the Empire or in the Hospital like they were. Rainbow Dash herself still thought that they should’ve zapped this Haseo with the elements the first chance her and her friends got and was grumbling to herself while Twilight and Shining Armor were talking to both Cadence and Radiant hope.
“Cadence, you’re saying you knew this… Haseo from your fillyhood? Before coming to Canterlot all those years ago?” Twilight questioned, unsure about some of the information that she was trying to process. Earlier in the day, she found out that Cadence was suppose to be the new ruler for the Empire. Now, not only did they find out a friend of the old Princess Amore was still alive, but they also discovered that he was her and Cadence’s protector. Not only that, but he is the feared “Terror of Death”, they were sent to stop…
“Yes…” Radiant Hope replied, confirming Cadence’s claims. “Before you came here, Haseo exposed Sombra of his crimes. Haseo may be seen as the Terror of Death, but he never actually killed anyone. I’ve been here ever since he took control of the throne… many of my dear friends were murdered because of Sombra… All while Haseo was frozen away because of the king… Not anymore though.”
“I believe you two,” Shining told the both of them, before looking at the figure on the bed. “But I don’t think I can easily trust him… Not after what he did to defeat Sombra. There are just many unknowns with this guy.”
“I may not trust the guy, but he was kind of cool. Taking on that snake thing.” Rainbow added, remembering the fight she witnessed. “But I would’ve been faster.”
“We get that, Rainbow…” Applejack groaned, before she got an idea. “Hey, how about when he wakes up, I get the chance to talk to him. No matter how we all look at this, I’m the element of honesty. So no matter how strange he tries to explain himself, I can tell whether he’s lying or not. What do you think?” That got everypony to talk amongst themselves for a few moments. Shortly before one voice spoke up as everyone turned to the yellow pegasus in the room.
“I-i agree with Applejack. Maybe we should wait…” Fluttershy squeaked. This got approval from a couple of other ponies in the room. However, Twilight herself groaned a little as she looked back over to the Adept Rogue and began to trot over next to him on the side of the bed and lit her horn.
“Twily?” Shining asked her sister, the unicorn mare looking back at her brother. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to try a simpler solution. A simple mind reading spell should do the trick.” The Unicorn told her brother as she returned to the task at hoof. However, the simple spell instead caused the strangest of backlashes as it threw Twilight into the wall and caused her eyes to close.
“Oww…” The unicorn groaned to herself, trying to open her eyes and make sense of what was going on. Only for her to be frightened by the roar of an unknown creature as she ducked for cover.
“Out of my way rookie!” yelled a being in a set of strange clothing with a large sword as she ran into some kind of hoard of monsters. As the warrior jumped over her, and cut down a number of them. Before the being was lost in a sea of movement. The unicorn watched as everything that would’ve hit her or harm her instead just went through her as if she wasn’t even there.
“What’s going on?” She said to herself. “Are these… memories?” That was when things around her begin to change and this time, she was seeing herself in a crowd of people. People that looked to be of the same species as Haseo! However, what she didn’t realize was from whose perspective she was seeing it from.
“Hey Ryou!” A boy wearing an orange costume yelled.
“Huh?” Twilight said as she felt herself being turned around. That was when she heard someone else speak instead of her… and realized who was speaking.
“Son of a bitch, Seamus?! Holy crap, I honestly did not expect to see you here!” It was Haseo’s voice… but how did he know this kid? And why did they call him Ryou? “How have you been man? It’s been ages since I’ve last heard from you.”
“Mom died of cancer last week and my cousin vanished. All of ‘em. Other than that, I’m good.” Seamus said. “What about you?”
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” Twilight heard Haseo speak. “My parents actually let me decide to finally come here on my own. It’s been weird for me though because I lost contact with my friend and his cousin a long time ago. No reason why…” For a moment, Twilight thought that the whole disappearance but was not exactly what it seems as she just watched everything. “So are you here by yourself or are you here with a friend?”
“Tessa, my brother Luke and his two girlfriends are with me! Haha!” Seamus laughed. All Twilight could think to herself was ‘What the hay is a girlfriend?’ until she heard Haseo speak up.
“Would Tessa happen to be the one gladiator that looks like BlackRose?” The Unicorn looked up, only to gasp. It was the same warrior that she saw in the vision before this one. Just what was she doing here though?
“Yeah, how’d yo-” Seamus was cut off as the warrior mentioned jumped onto his back. Only to hear someone in their small group snicker to themselves as they said something that Twilight was utterly confused about as another guy came up to them and overheard the three of them, looking like a priest or cleric.
“Well, would you look at that! one of them is Japanese and the other is fucking german! Now all we need is an Italian and they got themselves an Axis of Righteousness!!"
“God, I hate it when you got these ‘holier than thou’ assholes trying to ruin the fun.” Twilight heard him groan and turn around to face both of his… friends.
“Hey Ryou! How’re ya? Chance meetin ya here!” The girl said with the same accent the random guy shouting at them said.
“Good for the most part, except for when the guys that passed to us tried to refer to you as a Nazi.”
“What’s a Nazi?” Twilight thought to herself, forgetting the question and thought to herself that she rather not know the answer to that question as she watched this Tessa react to what Haseo told her.
“What a jerk. Well, we’ll just ignore ‘em.”
“Yeah, I hate it when people who are racist try to get on our case because of our family heritage.” The Unicorn heard Haseo tell the other two as she felt herself looking left to right. “Hey, I’m going to look around for a while and be at the food court for lunch. Wanna meet up later?”
“Sure thing. We’ll meet you there man.” Seamus said. “I’ll introduce you to my brother then.” Twilight felt herself nod as she turned around and began to walk over to where a few of the makeshift booths at this place called PAX prime or something like that upon Haseo having his badge be identified by what she saw as guards at the door. However, shortly after making her way in though did she see some kind of booth run by a blond man in a light blue coat with a long braid in the back and blue eyes. She felt herself look at him and stop, then turning towards them as she approached the booth calmly. “Well, you sure do have a few good items here.”
“Why thank you,” The salesman replied back to him pulling out a couple of items from a nearby makeshift shelf. “Though… I think you might find this to be of great interest.”
In that instance was when Twilight began to hear a deepened version of Haseo’s voice inside where she was. “No way… Is that what I think it is?” What Twilight soon saw on the table looked to be some kind of strange bracelet that she would normally put around her hoof during special occasions like the Grand Galloping Gala and a small figurine. Before he heard the merchant speak again “Something fitting for the Terror of Death I suppose?”
“Wha-?!”
“Okay, if this guy is trying to impress me by calling me by the alias of the character I’m cosplaying as, then it’s working.” Twilight stopped the moment she heard that thought and tried to process it. Not paying attention to the transaction and her walking away as she was deep in thought. Just as she finally hypothesized what it was, she looked up to feel herself fall through the floor, being dragged by an unknown force.
“W-what the hell!!?!”
When Twilight felt herself fall down, she felt herself crash onto the floor as she tried to stand… It was complete darkness around her as she began to hear whispers and voices of other ponies. One she recognized as Sombra. Another being Haseo… One even sounded like a young Cadence. But the last thing she remembered hearing was Haseo screaming something… A name possibly… And seeing a pair of three red eyes looking straight at her.
“I HAVE FOUND YOU!”
She couldn’t respond and a bright flash of light went off that caused her to feel like she was being pushed backwards and a burning sensation across her body.
Present Day
As the Element of Magic was trying to regain her senses, she felt a pair of hooves holding her by the shoulders and violently shaking her as she looked up to see who was doing so. Turns out… it was her friend, Pinkie Pie. “E-EVERYPONY!! TWILIGHT’S AWAKE!!!”
“Pinkie stop! You're going to shake the poor mare’s head off!” She heard Rarity try to caution the earth pony as everypony else started to enter the room. Twilight found herself now in a hospital bed as everypony else was around her and showing multiple signs of relief.
“W-what’s going on…? W-why am I in the hospital?” Twilight groaned, looking back at everypony else.
“You passed out right after using your spell. We were hoping, you could tell us what happened?” Cadence told her, asking for her friends to leave the room as it was only Twilight, her brother and the Princess of Love. However… what she had to say surprised them immediately.
“I… I think I saw… H-haseo’s… memories…” She said, explaining to them everything she saw and leaving out the details of certain things to avoid confusion. But, all that did was just make the two of them even more confused.
“Wait, are you saying he's a fake?” Shining asked trying to wrap his head around this.
“N-no… It’s a little hard to think of it from that angle… Think if you were dressed up as Captain Equestria, only to end up in another place as the actual hero you dressed as…” Twilight tried to simplify it. Only to look down at herself before speaking. “B-but I was confused at the last thing I saw before waking up…”
“What did you-?”
“You saw Skeith…” A voice spoke up, having all three of them turned towards the one who said the voice. It was Haseo. He was awake, but in a set of different clothes that almost looked a lot like armor. “Did it say… I have found you?”
“H-haseo?” Cadence said, almost shedding tears before going over to him as they hugged. “Oh thank Celestia you’re okay… I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too Cadence…” He said, feeling relieved to see her again. Twilight herself tried to go ahead and explain again, only to be interrupted by the Adept Rogue. “You don’t need to explain it again… Everything you saw was true… How I got here was unknown, even to me… and Ryou is my old name. I abandoned it a long time ago the moment I met Princess Amore for the first time.”
“What is this… Skeith?” Asked Shining.
“Skeith is my Avatar… Think of it like a guardian of sorts… Do you remember the fight I had with Sombra?” He asked them specifically, seeing all of them nod their heads in a affirming motion. “Well, the form I turned into was one when I use Skeith’s powers. It’s complicated to explain, but I’m worried that something that transpired in that fight we might be seeing more often. Now… Do you remember seeing that snake?”
“Yes, one head sounded angry the other sad.” Cadence replied as she looked at him. “Do you possibly know about that?”
“That was not suppose to happen…” Haseo firmly spoke, “He turned into that thing because of something called AIDA. It stands for Artificial Intelligent Data Anomaly and it acts like a virus. Whoever gets infected by it acquires power beyond their wildest dreams… but… at the price of their sanity. They lose sense of everything that’s around them and the longer it grows, the more vicious AIDA controls it’s host.” He then continued to explain a little more about it the best he could, so nopony was confused.
“We don’t understand… Are you saying Sombra was being driven mad by this, AIDA thing?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying…” Haseo kept a few crystals on him during his encounter with Sombra, not just to catch him in the act, but for other purposes as he set one down. “Watch this…”
“What is it?”
“It’s a memory crystal. Using a bit of magic allows for memories to be recorded and played back in crystals such as these. I had one on me during the fight with Sombra.” The recording played as the ponies now saw Sombra as his rage and anger caused the AIDA around him to bubble around him.
“I think it time, I show you… What I’ve found in the last 1000 years!”
“Sombra, what the hell are you doing!? Are you insane!?”
“It doesn't matter how I got this power! What matters is I kill you!” The recording showed the complete possession of Sombra as his eyes bleed black as the bubble consumed him and the room around them began to crumble. After a little while longer, Haseo snapped his finger and the recording stopped before returning into the crystal and allowing for the Rogue to pick it up and put it in his pocket.
“See what I mean?”
“So… How do we stop this from happening to anypony else?” Asked Twilight.
“Right now… This is just one case. Before Sombra encased me in ice 1000 years ago, I did not see anything then. Meaning that this is only the first incident that AIDA has actually caused. We shouldn’t be causing a mass panic right now, but if it happened more frequently… then there would be a reason for concern. And not just because of what happens, but also by who could defeat it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Shining raised an eyebrow, in confusion.
“Only those who have Avatars like myself can actually defeat and destroy it.” Haseo replied back. “From what I remember, there are eight avatars in total and the host for those avatars are chosen randomly… Skeith, my avatar, represents the reaper.”
“Oh… Umm, so how do we find them?”
“That’s the thing… Finding an avatar user is really hard because there are only so few. The only indication I know of is that a user of an Avatar would have markings glow around their body and call out their name before summoning it. The same thing happened with me facing Sombra earlier.” Haseo told them. “We should have this discussion again once we find out more about our enemy. Right now though, our focus should be rebuilding the empire after all the destruction that Sombra caused.”
While hearing Shining Armor talk about this with Twilight and Cadence, Haseo himself reflected back on his… current situation. He had turned into his Xth form during the fight against Sombra… but he couldn’t do so anymore. That form now just seemed like only something to turn into on rare occasions because when he tried to change shortly after he woke up, an unknown force was preventing him from doing so. The Adept still had a lot of his original skills and equipment from many years ago. But that equipment was in need of repairs after the unexpected transformation the Mad King went through. His attention was drawn back to them once he heard Cadence speak up again.
“I believe Haseo is right. First though, I think Twilight should fully recover first before she goes back with her friends.” The Adept Rogue, hearing this, looked back at Twilight and then looked back at Cadence before having a hand aimed towards Twilight as he said one.
“Repth.”
Cadence was surprised to hear that, but Shining thought that he was trying to hurt Twilight. That was until he put his hand down and looked back at the stallion. “Just a simple healing spell. Picked up some tricks with magic back in the day.” The stallion first had doubts, until he soon saw Twilight hop out of the bed and looking fully healthy. Surprising him in the process.
“Now… Let’s make sure you get to your friends before the train leaves.”
Days after watching his little sister leave with her friends on the train, Shining Armor and Cadence had a lot of things to do immediately after they parted ways. First off, they had to rebuild the walls and the buildings destroyed in the fight against Sombra. Fortunately, the crystal heart helped with that and made the cleanup process very simple. Second though, as onepony told them, they had to select both a Chancellor and a guardian to help them during their rule. After giving it a considerable amount of thought, they finally decided for Radiant Hope to be the chancellor and offer Haseo the position of guardian.
The third thing they had to do though… was tricky… Schedule a date for both Princess Celestia and her sister Luna to not only visit the Empire, but to also introduce them to Haseo. This was necessary because Cadence wanted to make sure that the three of them were on good terms… and to clear up the possible confusion regarding “The Terror of Death” that they had heard about in the past. However, there were many things right now that made it look like scheduling a date for them impossible.
On the plus side though, in the days after the defeat of Sombra, things began to look like they were improving. But there was one thing that was still difficult for Shining Armor to accomplish and that was trusting Haseo. Even after the defeat of Sombra, Shining thought of him as a risk. Especially with the kind of power that he was able to control as he tried explaining his case to his wife for the twenty-seventh time tonight.
“Shining, please… Let’s not overthink these kinds of things. That just sounds silly,” Cadence tried to calm him down. “He helped raise me when I was a filly. He was like a father to me that I didn’t have. Can you at least try to get along with him without being suspicious?”
“It’s hard to do that when everytime I look at him, I see that avatar thing that he turned into-.” The Stallion rumbled a little before he felt Cadence kiss him on the cheek.
“Honey, just relax… You don’t know him like I do because you haven’t spent that much time with him. If you actually spent some time together, you’re bound to find a common interest……” It was then that Shining Armor noticed a gleam in his wife’s eyes as he looked back at her. Something did not seem right. “Aha! I think I found the perfect solution.”
“Oh no… Nonononononono.” Shining tried to stop her, until Cadence looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh come on, Shining. You haven’t even heard me out!” The Pink Alicorn insisted. “Besides, I think you’ll enjoy it because it’s something right up your alley.”
“Come on, Cadence! What could you possibly think of that would get for me to actually-!?” The Unicorn asked before he was interrupted by a series of knocks on the door. Cadence used her magic to open the door as she held it open for the same person that they were talking about to step in.
“Oh Dear Celestia-!”
“Hey Cadence, sorry I was running behind. I needed to make sure the Blacksmith was done reforging my equipment,” Haseo told her as he walked in, shortly before noticing Shining Armor. “Oh… I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”
“No no, this is perfect!” Cadence insisted as she had Haseo sit down next to Shining Armor. “I had something that I thought you two could work together on.”
Both the stallion and the human looked at one another in shock and utter confusion as they both repeated two words simultaneously. “Work… together?”
“Yes! I was thinking that we can establish some kind of Royal Guard here in the empire to protect everypony that lives in the empire. I thought that given Shining being the Captain of the Royal Guard in Canterlot and Haseo’s experience with Combat and being the protector of myself and Amore when I was a filly, I thought that you two could work together on it!” She squealed happily like a newborn filly being given a puppy for Heart’s Warming. Only causing Haseo and Shining to look at her, even more confused than before.
“Okay… Just… How?”
“That I’m going to leave you two to do,” She smiled as she trotted out the door. “I had to go see Radiant for a meeting so I gotta go. I won’t be back til late tonight so have fun!”
“No Cadence wait-!” Shining Armor tried to cry out, until the door slammed shut. Leaving the nervous wreck of a unicorn… with the nervous wreck of a human. Why Haseo was nervous? Just a couple of days ago, he found out that not only was Cadence (the filly he raised during her fillyhood and had not seen in 1000 years) alive, but that the same filly he once knew was now a married mare… To the Captain of the guard no less!! He was really not wanting to embarrass himself in front of him. The same way that Shining did not want to embarrass himself in front of Haseo.
The awkward silence continued for a while… Until one of them decided to break the silence. “So… Um… Do you… have any ideas?”
“Possibly…” Haseo responded, gulping his nervousness down his throat as he looked back at the stallion. “Would you like to… hear what I had in mind?”
“Well, we are being asked to work together… So any suggestion can possibly work.” The Unicorn said, shortly before seeing Haseo take out a series of index cards out of his pocket. “What’s this?”
“My suggestion…” He said, spreading the cards out. “Cadence might’ve been talking about a royal guard, but I think there's a need for more than just guards… I think maybe we should have a jobs system.”
“What would that entail though?” Shining Armor asked as he rubbed a hoof to his chin.
“Well, with what I’m familiar with, some of the locals know what certain occupations are, but are limited depending on if they are Unicorn, Earth Pony or Pegasi. I was thinking of a series of classes and professions that could fit multiple needs throughout the Empire. Some of them are magic related, like Shadow Warlocks and Harvest Clerics, but some of the other classes can fit with the lines of a royal guard. Plus, you have professions like Alchemists and Blacksmiths along with traders who sell goods for bits.”
“That… might actually work,” Shining replied, relieved by the process of that being painless. “Dear Celestia, that was easier than when I first tried to find the forge in Canterlot as a new recruit a few years ago.”
“WHERE’S THE BLACKSMITH!?!”
“Mom, that Stallion is scaring me.”
“Not my best moment…” The Stallion sighed in embarrassment as Haseo began to put the cards he had away. Until something else fell out of that same pouch and landed on the coffee table. “Hey… is that a Twenty sided die?”
“Wait… You know what these are?” The Adept Rogue asked, surprised to hear this new revelation.
“Of course! I use to play Caverns and Chimeras all the time during my days as a recruit. A few of my friends and I would spend nights trying to finish certain games. Dear Celestia, did we really make our supervisor’s mad back then.” Shining laughed as he looked back at Haseo.
“That sounds a lot like me during my youth and before I arrived here,” Haseo replied back. “I have my own dice set and character for Dungeons and Dragons because my friend would sometimes pull me into some awkward situations. Mostly though, I played video games, read comic books, watched movies and would draw from time to time.”
“What a coincidence… I did some of those things and Luna plays games as well for most of the day until she’s needed at night.” Shining himself chuckled a little. “Hey… Since we finished up early… is there anything you want to do to pass the time?”
Haseo scratched his chin for a moment and looked back at the stallion before looking back at the leather pouch he had kept his stuff in, including a deck of cards. “I think I might have a few ideas.”
As Princess Cadence and Radiant Hope was walking back to the princess's quarters and discussing some of the things on the agenda, before they heard what sounded like Shining on the other side. “Hit me.”
“Shining, are you sure. Given everything so far?”
“I don’t care, just hit me.”
“Did… Shining just ask Haseo to hit him?” Cadence thought to himself, only to hear an angered shout from her husband as she opened the door. What the Princess found was quite a strange sight.
“Not again, that’s been ten times now!”
“I told you Blackjack was a simple game, yet so far, you lost around 200 bits.” Haseo chuckled, tossing some of the coins he acquired from Shining Armor from in between both of his hands. The Unicorn just looked dazed as he shook his head.
“I’m never playing Blackjack with you again,” Shining grumbled as he drank from a glass of water. “How am I going to explain this to Cadence?”
“I was beginning to wonder that myself,” Cadence spoke up, startling Shining Armor in the process. Haseo just took it casually as he watched the pink alicorn stare down her husband with eyes of rage. Only causing him to say one thing.
“Oh horseapples…”
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great so far
Let it die wolf.
Let it die.
Nothing says bromance like geeking out together.
This takes place in the comics timeline, right?
7138367 After season 3 opener, but different. Consider it an alternate timeline
Ya know, this is suspiciously similar to a story I had in the works about a year ago.
Right down to the name and the Displaced. Granted, I chose to change it from a Displaced, but still.
7138602
Really? That's surprising...
7138617 I was planning on parodying the Displaced genre with a story titled Terror of Death, with the "protagonist" turning into Skeith from the original .Hack//.
I decided to change it because it would have been incredibly stupid for a story (in my personal opinion. The OC was going to be edgy and just hate the world, and the ponies were simply going to be an outlet for his anger, resulting in the justified imprisonment of the OC), and haven't worked on it since.
7138630 xD. I just thought Haseo would be a good fit for this. Plus, some of the moments in season 3 look like good moments for plot development
This was good!
Are the ponies anthro or not? You haven't really given a clear description of them, espite the anthro tag.
7138974 No Anthro
7138981 Ah ok, is the tag there by accident?
7138987 That it is... Fixed
That ending!
And I look forward to the next chapter!
7142228 Father Cornello exposed?
looking good so far, love the Markiplier reference.
orig11.deviantart.net/6545/f/2014/220/5/9/markiplier_is_our_hero_by_malgirl101-d7u9okd.jpg
7142611 first one to actually notice that.
7143130 ya I noticed that. Now...
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/682/218/ab6.png
[youtube=gsJO-ZSqcjw]
Was looking for a pile of dirt and found this
Loving it so far
7145595 Thanks
Much joy has been had my friend.
7201750 Wait til more comes later
7202049 Oh I am mate!
.....I just started playing GU again and then this........
I look forward to more and maybe a keynote specifically A in C major actually wait
here we go
... that Markiplier reference...
curious did you get to play Dot Hack Recode on PS4?
9509267
Yup. Beat Volume one and started Volume 2 a little while back
I USE THE RAKE ON THE LADDER!
ROFL i just remembered the markiplyer video of this