Tyrant Era: The golem of Carnifex

by The Psychopath

A trip into the demon infested wastelands

Two scrawny looking imps were busy flipping some coins on the side of what used to be a road. They were lying down on some big rocks. These tiny red, horned creatures seemed bored out of their wits.

"You know, things aren't the same ever since we ransacked this world." the one lying down on the rock said.

"I know. It was so vibrant and colorful and full of life. I feel like vomiting just thinking about it. Good times." the one sitting on the floor and flipping a coin replied.

"Oh! Remember when I skewered that pony and dragged her intestines all over the town."

"Haha! Yeah. I remember that. That others were scared to death. Hold on. I hear something."

The demon leaned forward to make sure he wasn't imagining things.

"..."

"Yes! Come on. Some more prey."

"Excellent."

The two imps jumped out from their hiding spot, full of joy at something they weren't allowed to do in so long.

"Ha! Stop right now. The Crimson Pioneer will be taking you as prisoners now."

"Or, we can kill you now and save you the trouble of having to become the play meals of the other demons." the coin looked at his partner with a malicious smile, then they both started to nod.

"Yes. I prefer that method. We'll--"

They were instantly flattened by a familiar fist.

"So like I was saying, it's kinda hard to fly with added weight, and something that isn't really your body part, but at least it lets me fly. Besides, you get used to it, and you can use this wing to pummel everything to smithereens!" Rainbow shouted with joy.

Rarity cringed after looking at the color of her metal wing.

"I-is that why it's red? That's just paint, right?"

Rainbow gave Rarity a side smirk and a small 'Ehee'.

"R-RIGHT!"

Meanwhile, behind the golem, the violent Fluttershy was pouting. She couldn't bring her beast along with her. Spike was fumbling with his claws while trying to stay far away from this pegasus. She was much scarier than the one he knew, and far less quiet. It was quite unnerving, especially when it looked like she was going to chew your face off and scoop up whatever was behind it.

"Are you alright, Flutter-"

"NO! I didn't get to take my beast."

"But Cad-Heart Broken said that it would attract too much attention."

"I don't care. You best hope that you don't become my next beast to train." she glared at Spike with a frightening face.

The little dragon retracted his head and ran towards the golem in order to find refuge on its shoulder. Looking forward, Rainbow was holding the map that Cadance had given the group using a special mechanism installed into her metal wing. Both she and Rarity were having some trouble figuring out where to go.

"I don't know where were supposed to go. Maybe through here and near the blood jewel forest?" Rainbow pointed at a patch of the map covered with red crystals.

"While I do like the sound of jewels, blood jewels?"

"That's where one of the pieces are. Don't forget that it's the easiest place to go. The other is in the boiling blood river that the Crimson Pioneer's castle is next to, and the other is within...well...its stomach." the mare gestured towards Spike, who was still staring at Fluttershy.

"I see. We're lucky that you came along with us. I can't read this map."

"Yeahhhhhhhh. Seeing what she told us, I wouldn't be surprised. Anyways, it should be a few minutes of walking left."

The landscape they were crossing was completely devoid of life, and besides the occasional outburst of combat further away caused by the two demon armies, not much happened. Of course, every now and then, a little imp would pop up, but would eventually become flattened. After an even lengthier amount of walking, the group finally reached the small patch in the land covered in extremely tall and uneven crystal formations. There was no form of entry whatsoever.

"Hey, how do we get in here?" The metal winged pegasus thought as she tried to get around this thing.

"I dunno...smash it down?!" Fluttershy yelled.

"Oh yeah, like that's gonna work."

"So you're looking for trouble?"

"I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you through your obnoxiousness."

Rarity ignored the two fighters and walked towards the golem who looked down at her with no expression on its face.

"Golem, deary, could you open up a path for us?" Rarity asked with an eyelash flutter.

The beast grumbled one moment, and put Spike back down on the floor, then it walked towards the immense wall of red, and looked up and down. Before the two started to fight, Rainbow noticed this and pushed the other pegasi away.

"Like it's gonna manage to break this down."

With a powerful forward thrust, the golem's fist turned the crystals into a nice assortment of raining jewel shards. It stayed in position, showing that its strength was much more than one would think. Rarity scooped up as many shards as she could, only to realize she had nowhere to put them. She started lo look about frantically, hoping to find some material to build a makeshift bag, with style, of course. However, the golem moved from its immobile position and took the shards, only to place them within its body.

"Well, that's convenient."

Rarity was a bit surprised, but happy at the same time.

"Whatever. Let's go."

Fluttershy walked over the shards, ignoring any that might have lodged themselves with the crevices. This place looked like a normal forest, although everything was made of the blood jewels instead. Spike eyed one of the objects closely, and could see a real tree in there. He suddenly screamed and ran behind the white unicorn, making her panic as well.

"What's wrong, Spike?"

"Th-th-th--"

"He saw a blood victim."

"A what?" Rarity asked, shaking her head.

"Before the red river was made by the Pioneer, that bizarrety created from accumulated demonic magicks was born. It would assault anything and everything, and encase it in this jewelry substance," Rainbow added as she hit the crystal with a foreleg. "The substance itself would bring the victims and created this tiny place. That's all we know."

"B-but there's a pony in there!"

"Only one?" Fluttershy gave a sinister smile.

After widening their view range, Spike and Rarity saw that all over the place, there were traumatized and frightened animals, ponies, and any living creature imaginable, all placed in a "lively" fashion.

"Just keep moving forward," Rainbow finished.

The yellow pegasi spun around and continued walking forward with anger and fury. Rainbow shrugged and went forward as well. A few seconds had passed, and nopony had yet noticed that there was some sort of creature following them. It crawled on the crystals and quickly disappeared. The only one paying attention was the golem, but it wasn't reacting in order to keep the creature from noticing and suddenly striking. Finally, one of the jeweled trees had some type of half-decayed demon with its hand out of the jewels slightly high above the ground. There was something blue glowing in its clutch.

"Finally!" Fluttershy yelled with an eye roll. "I'll go tear that hand off and bring whatever is inside."

The golem gave a very low growl, prompting Rarity to call the pegasus back.

"Fluttershy, wait!"

But it was too late. Whatever the creature was, it was multi-segmented, and looked like the jewels around it. It seemed to be like a centipede, although it had two very long arms with three massive claws, and two similar legs at the last segment. Whatever was in-between just looked like segments of the jewels themselves. It grabbed the pegasus and wrapped itself around the tree. Its face showed three beady yellow eyes along with a mouth that, whenever it opened, showed many jagged teeth, along with a random expulsing of bones.

"What is that?" Rainbow shouted.

"I don't know!" Rarity began to panic.

"Golem. Go save Fluttershy, please!" Spike urged as he hit its leg.

The towering giant looked at the tiny dragon for a moment, and nodded. The screams coming from a pony who was being crushed can help with pretty much anything. However, Rainbow was the first to go. She jumped in the air and used her wings to stay on the walls of jewel. As the creature noticed, it gave an echoing roar, and lashed the free segments at her, only making the pony dodge in the air, and fall down on the segments with her metallic wing, smashing two of them to pieces.

While the creature screamed in pain, and seemed to be separated from the other segments, these pieces crept up on the mare and whacked her against the other side of the room, just before blasting her with the pieces of the broken segments. The ones still intact, however, reconnected with the main body It chuckled, but only until it felt itself being torn off of the tree and smashed onto the ground with such strength that it let go of Fluttershy. The two giants began to clash, but it was apparent that the golem was losing. Every strike it made had no effect on the creature, and the golem itself kept losing pieces of its body as it was struck. Even a back-stabbing Rainbow Dash couldn't harm the centipede creature.

"Spike, go grab that hand and open it, then throw it at the golem," Rarity insisted as she tended to Fluttershy.

"Wh-are you mad?!"

"Either you do it, or we all perish."

Spike started to stress. He clearly showed it by fumbling with his fingers as he looked at the hand and everything going on around him. Finally, after much deducing, he ran towards the broken, armored hand and grabbed it right before he was crushed by a falling golem, and ran back to Rarity, while panting and gasping.

"Good. Now try and open it." Try all he might, the hand would not open. "It won't open?!"

"There's a puzzle on here. Can you read it?"

"I...I think so. Let's see...I am a powerful material that existed at the beginning of every world. I can come in both liquid and solid shapes, and I was once used as a weapon and a tool at the beginning of intelligent life. What am I?"

The two started to spew out nonsensical answers when the true answer was obvious.

"I don't know, Rarity. Stone would be too simple, no?"

Suddenly, the hand opened itself to show block of granite. A simple block. Both were stumped and outraged.

"Seriously? Stone? Ugh. I'll just toss it to the golem. Hnnngh! Wow. It's heavy. Could you help me, Rarity?"

"I suppose I must."

However, as the mare's horn began to glow, she found that the block of granite glowed with the same color, and slammed itself into the golem, who froze in place right before punching the centipede creature. The monster was stunned, but quickly recovered and tried to throw itself through the giant's body, like before. This time, though, things were different. It bounced off the belly and landed on the floor. Blue linings formed all over the golem, followed by its hands starting to look like a sturdy mineral and growing slightly in size. Rainbow Dash saw that something was changing and bolted off towards the main group.

The golem of Carnifex grabbed the beast with its new found sturdiness, along with its new hands, and literally crushed the creature with its palms. Then, it grabbed the separated segments and did the same. The beast was only three segments left, and that was nothing compared to the new golem, who punched it so powerfully that a new hole was blown through the enclosed "jungle" with the remaining segment. It let out an exhale and returned to Rarity, still as emotionless as ever. Rainbow and Spike were amazed.

"Wow! Did you see that? It just punched that thing and it exploded!"

"I know! Wasn't that the coolest thing ever? Well, besides my sonic rainbooms? I've gotta hand it to ya, I wasn't expecting this thing to actually be the thing that would save us. I'm actually glad that you came. Now, about Fluttershy..."