Trial by Sound

by Agrith

Chapter 5: Monster

Author's Note: I changed the fight scene a bit after reading a few of the comments. If you already read it, I would suggest going and rereading it.

Chapter 5: Monster

“Hey Magic, are you in- WHAT IN EQUESTRIA IS THAT?”

Derahk’s eyes snapped opened and he looked towards the library entrance. Standing in the doorway was a dark blue earth pony stallion. His eyes were wide with fear and looking at Derahk. Not in the right mind, Derahk waved at the new pony and rolled back over, ignoring him.

“Wha-wha-wha-“ the stallion continued to stutter until Magic walked in.

“Good morning,” Magic said with a yawn, “Welcome to the Silver Grove Public Library. How may I help you?”

The stallion almost couldn’t believe how calm Magic was being when there was a monster in the room.

“What is that?” he said, shakily pointing a hoof at Derahk.

“That’s Derahk. He came over last night to talk. Well, more like write since he can’t talk. Do you need something, Blue?”

Blue was completely speechless. The local librarian saw fit to house a monster with no support. Was she insane?!

“It’s rude to stare, you know?” Magic said, breaking him out his trance.

“Stare? That thing is a monster,” Blue said, “Why did you let it in here?”

“’Him’ not ‘it’,” Magic said.

“Him?”

“Derahk is a male. And he is not a monster. He is intelligent and is capable of writing complete sentences.”

“I believe it when I see it.”

A piece of crumpled up paper struck Blue in the head. Blue looked down and spread it out. The night before, Derahk had memorized most of the Equestrian alphabet and could write complete sentences with the help of the guide.

“Shut up. Your voice annoys me.”

“What? How?” Blue said.

“Told you,” Magic said, “He’s a lot smarter than he looks.”

Derahk clicked a few times and flipped Blue the bird. Since ponies don’t have fingers, the gesture was lost on them.

“Umm, okay,” Magic said, “Let’s introduce you to each other. Derahk, this is Blue Earth, local shopkeeper. Blue, this is Derahk, a rahkshi.”

“What in Equestria is a rahkshi?” Blue asked.

Derahk gave Blue an “Are you serious?” look.

“Okay, next obvious question, why is he here in your library?”

“Crystal and Stone found him yesterday morning,” Magic said, “Then they came to me and asked if they could bring him here. I said yes and they brought him over in the middle of the night.”

“And you see nothing wrong with this?”

“I find it best not to think about it too much,” Magic said, “I fainted twice when I first saw him.”

Blue took a deep breath to try and collect his thoughts. After a minute of calming down, he trotted over to Magic and looked her in the eye.

“Are you INSANE?!” he yelled, “You have no idea what he is capable of! You don’t know what he wants! He could have been waiting for you to fall asleep before he killed you!”

“What’s with all the yelling?” Stone asked as he stumbled into the library.

“What are you doing here?” Blue said to Stone, “Shouldn’t you be at your house?”

“Me and Crystal stayed the night,” Stone said.

“In the same building as a monster?”

“He’s not a monster.”

Blue’s eye twitched.

“What in Tartarus is wrong with all you ponies?!” Blue screamed, “You’re all insane and none of you realize it!”

“Please stop yelling. I’m getting a headache,” Magic said, rubbing her temples.

Blue began sputtering incoherent gibberish, pointing between Derahk, Magic, Stone, and Crystal who had just gotten up. A piece of paper slid in front of Magic.

“I think we might have broke him.”

“Don’t worry,” Magic said, “He’ll come-“

“EKKKKK! MONSTER!”

Everyone looked at the door in time to see a yellow tail disappear from sight.

“Was that Miss Lemon Drop?” Stone asked.

“I think it was,” Magic sighed, “That’s going to be a problem.”

“Problem? This is perfect!” Blue cackled manically, “The whole town will be alerted and that monster will be captured and all of you will-“

Blue slumped to the floor, a large bump forming on his head.

“Thank you Derahk. He was getting a little annoying,” Magic said.

Derahk nodded and motioned to the open door.

“Yes, we should try to stop everything from getting worse,” Magic said, “Knowing Lemon, the whole town probably knows by now. We should head to town hall and stop a mob from forming.”

“What about him?” Stone said, poking Blue.

“Leave him for now; I’ll take care of him later.”

They exited the library, Derahk just barely making it through, and headed towards the center of town. As Magic had feared, a large group of ponies had formed, some carry improvised weapons; others, torches for some reason. The mayor, Fire Storm, was attempting to calm the mob with little success.

“Ponies, be calm,” Fire Storm yelled out, “I’m sure Lemon Drop was just exaggerating.”

Fire Storm was the mayor of Silver Grove. He had a black coat, red mane and tail, and had a flaming meteor as his cutie mark. He was elected as mayor less than a year ago and had little time to learn how to calm an enraged mob.

“I’m not exaggerating,” Lemon Drop yelled out over the crowd, “There was a monster in the library and it was about to attack Magic.”

“Kill it!”

“Burn it!”

“Kill it and then burn it!”

“I didn’t think our town was that violent,” Magic said to herself.

“What do we do?” Crystal asked.

“We need to get the crowd’s attention, but I don’t know how,” Magic said.

Magic began thinking of ways to do attract attention when Derahk let loose a roar. If Derahk was next to Magic’s ear, her eardrums might have blown out. Thankfully, he was standing at full height and wasn’t near Magic. While probably not the best way to quiet the crowd, it nonetheless did its job. Everypony was dead silent and looking at Derahk, most with fear in their eyes though a few looked curious as to what the eight foot tall metal beast was. Fire Storm forgot what he was trying to do and looked at Derahk with wide eyes.

After thirty seconds of very uncomfortable silence, someone finally spoke up.

“So Lemon was actually telling the truth?”

Magic’s ears were still ringing so she couldn’t hear what everypony was saying.

“What do we do now?”

“Well, we already formed a mob, let’s get him!”

The entire crowd of ponies charged forward towards Derahk. He rolled his eyes and pulled out the two halves of his staff. He assembled them and twirled it around, getting into a defensive position. When the mob was thirty feet away, Crystal and Stone jumped in front of Derahk. The mob ground to a halt, some ponies tumbling over each other during the sudden stop.

“Stone, Crystal, move.”

“No,” Stone said.

“We won’t let you hurt him,” Crystal added.

“We won’t hurt him, we’ll just destroy him.”

“I’ve always wanted to perform a vivisection.”

Derahk growled softly and motioned for Stone and Crystal to move.

“No we won’t let them hurt you,” Crystal said.

“Or you hurt them,” Stone said.

Derahk sighed and stabbed his staff into the ground. He then crossed his arms and looked at the mob expectantly. One by one, the ponies lowered their weapons or put out the torches. Around this time, Magic was able to hear again and looked around in surprise.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

Derahk turned to look at her.

*Bzzzzzzt, plink*

An arrow clattered to the ground, having failed to penetrate the metal on Derahk’s back. He ripped his staff out of the ground and spun 180 degrees, facing the direction of the archer. A diamond dog stood in the middle of the road, bow in one hand and a shocked expression on his face. He obviously thought the arrow would injure Derahk or at least imbed itself in his armor. Derahk roared and charged towards the diamond dog when he heard hissing behind him. Digging his feet into the ground, Derahk whipped out with his staff, smashing the bow and using the momentum from that to spin around towards the source of the hissing. The diamond dog ran off in terror, not wanting to fight in close quarters.

On the rooftop of one of houses bordering the center of town was the lizard Derahk saw on the path. On several other houses were several other diamond dogs and another lizard. They all had various weapons drawn, but none of them had bows.

“Isss that the thing you sssmelled on the path yesssterday?” the lizard hissed.

“Yes, that smell is too unique to be anything else,” one of the diamond dogs said.

“Ssshame sssomething ssso unique hasss to die.”

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” some random pony out in the crowd yelled.

“Forgive me, we haven’t introduccced ourssselvesss yet,” the lizard said.

He jumped off the roof and walked towards the ponies, causing them to back away.

“My name isss Sssilver Ssskin, and we are the Onyxxx Banditsss.”

“Filthy scum, what are you doing here?”

“Isssn’t it obviousss? We are here to kill all of you and sssteal everything,” he turned towards Derahk, “and you will die firssssst.”

Silver Skin stepped forward but stopped when Stone ran up to him and bucked him in the leg.

“No, I won’t let you hurt him!” Stone yelled.

“Foolisssh pony,” Silver bent down and picked Stone up by his scruff, “You think you have any chanccce of hurting me? How laughable. Maybe I’ll kill you firssst sssinccce you are ssso eager to die.”

Silver pulled out a knife from his belt and was about to slit Stone’s throat when a blast of yellow energy struck him in the chest and sent him flying. He dropped Stone and Crystal ran up to him. Everyone turned their eyes to Derahk, who was pointing his staff where Silver was standing before the blast.

“What are you waiting for foolsss, kill him,” Silver ordered.

Derahk looked at the rest of the Onyx Bandits. If he could have been smiling, he would have been doing so. The end of his staff began to crackle with yellow energy. When it was sufficiently charged, Derahk swung it in a wide arch and a large wave of energy was sent towards the diamond dogs and lizards. The dogs suffered the worst injuries. While the lizard was only thrown off the roof, the dogs all had blood dripping from their ears and mouths. They howled in pain, clutching their ears and staggering around. Derahk charged forward, grabbing a diamond dog by its arm and throwing it into another. He then twirled his staff around, impaling a dog in the chest. Leaving the staff imbedded, he grabbed another dog and violently broke its neck. Pulling his staff out of the now dead diamond dog, he sliced the chest cavity of another dog open and broke another ones jaw. He then went over to the two he downed first and slit both of their throats. When he got to the lizard, he punched it in the jaw and impaled its tail with his staff. He twisted and pulled, ripping off two feet of the tail and spraying a fine mist of blood around him. The lizard screeched in pain and held what was left of his tail. The end of it was still on the staff and twitching slightly.

“You…bassstard.”

Derahk turned to where Silver Skin had landed. He was standing unsteadily and pointing a sword at Derahk.

“I’ll…KILL YOU!” he roared, before charging at Derahk.

Derahk sidestepped and tripped Silver. Silver immediately got back but was forced back to the ground when he felt something stab his chest. Derahk had impaled Silver with his staff. It was in so deep the tips were sticking out the back. Derahk twisted the staff slightly and lifted Silver into the air; the end of the tail continued twitching. Silver’s hands were gripping the staff, trying to keep weight off the wounds.

“What…,” Silver gurgled, “How…?”

Derahk chuckled lightly before swinging the staff around and sending Silver flying. He rolled a few times before coming to a stop. His stomach was ripped open and blood pooled around him. He breathed wheezily, coughing up blood.

“Not…posssssible,” Silver said with his last breath.

His breathing stopped and blood continued to poor out of his wounds. Derahk split his staff and stabbed the ends into the ground, removing the blood. He then pulled them out and attached them to his back. That’s when he realized how quiet it was. He turned around to see everyone staring at him with fear in their eyes. Even Stone and Crystal were frightened. Magic stepped up, tears in the corner of her eyes.

“Why…why did you have to kill them like that,” she said, nearly breaking down, “The two that you slit their throats, they might have surrendered if you gave them a chance. And you killed Silver when you knocked him over. You could have knocked him out, but you killed him instead.”

She looked away, tears streaming down her face. Derahk began approaching her but stopped when she raised her hoof.

“Don’t come any closer,” she sniffled, “I can’t believe I ever trusted you. Leave. Just…leave us be. We don’t want monsters in our town.”

Derahk lowered his head and looked around at the carnage he created. All the diamond dogs lay on the ground, blood staining the ground. The remaining lizard was unconscious due to blood loss. He turned back to the crowd. They were all staring at him with looks of pure hatred. He clicked once before walking towards the edge of town; the stares followed him. When he reached the edge of town, he took one last look. The remaining lizard was unconscious due to blood loss. He turned back to the crowd. They were all staring at him with looks of pure hatred. He clicked once before walking towards the edge of town; the stares followed him. When he reached the edge of town, he took one last look. Several ponies had begun to clean up the destruction and help the lizard, but most still stared at him. He knelt down and scratched out a message in the dirt. He stood back up with his back towards the town, not wanting to see the hatred directed at him.

Wanting to get out of there as fast as possible, he let instinct take over. He jumped up and moved his legs in front of him. His feet locked together and the staff halves on his back shifted until the pole ends attached with his feet. His hands gripped just in front of the prongs at the end. He was hovering a meter off the ground with no visible propulsion. He tilted his feet down slightly and began moving forward. He pushed down on the staff ends and began gaining height until he was level with the tree tops. He continued on until he was out of sight of town.

Magic walked over to see what Derahk had written. What she saw had her completely break down. He had only written two words, but those two words meant so much to her.

“I’m sorry.”

Comments

[Ultimaraven]

Asum! i was just wondering though why dont you upload more often/longer chapters?

[Agrith]

1161597 Because I'm lazy. I only write when I feel like.

[Teridax1234]

This was difficult for me to read, because Rahkshi are monsters. At least, under the control of a Makuta.

[Agrith]

1161843 This is set in the Chess Game of the Gods universe. Derahk is a human turned Rahkshi; it would make sense if he still had some of his humanity left.

[Ultimaraven]

1161677 Fair enough. Me personally im a dark kind of person, ive thought of more... creative ways to get rid of dem onix bandits if you know what i mean to be honest i was kinda surprised at the reaction of Magic. he did save them from imminent death and it wasnt (in my opinion) all that horrible.

[Agrith]

1161959 He disabled all the others without killing them; he didn't need to kill Silver, but he did. I'm also going with the assumption that most ponies are not used to intelligent creatures killing each other. I'll explain it more in a later chapter.

[norsefire]

wait, so he saves their lives and is somehow the bad guy?

[Agrith]

1161959>>1179981 I decided to change the fight scene around. One death didn't seem enough, so I put more in. I don't like senseless violence, but Derahk technically is a monster so I had to do something that shows that a little more.

[Hat and clogs guy]

nice story

[JaDan]

Ponies you assholes

[Agrith]

3190110 Huh?

[The A I]

This is good. More please

[Agrith]

5180373 Not sure if you noticed, but the story is cancelled.

[The A I]

5180515 oh...
sorry.
I didnt notice...

[SkylordF]

5180515 bloody shame

[The Warmaster]

I wish this wasn't cancelled. It had such a good start. And is also very good through and through.

[Shadowkage]

Why did you cancel it?

[Caldoric]

5180515

Shame about this being cancelled... I definitely would've liked to have been able to do a crossover between this story and one of my own, which has a human who is Displaced as a Toa. I must say, though, that your story was rather well written, and had a nice storyline, at least by my standards.