Cursed Reliquary

by Khanathara

Do You Have Your Passport?

I was looking at a group of items that I had forgotten I had even made. Specifically one of each of DC's Lantern Corps rings and a lantern to go with them. Mostly I was wondering what curses they could bear. The Red, Orange, and Black rings were rather obvious in what they would be. In fact they would most likely remain unchanged from there comic book counter parts, probably.

But the Green, Indigo, Violet, Blue, Yellow, and White rings I was unsure of. They didn't have any true downsides in their lore that I was aware of, I mean, Indigo forced it’s wearer to feel immense compassion and nothing but compassion, but that didn’t really feel like much of a curse unless forced on someone immensely evil, so the rings would end up being wild cards in the end.

Maybe I could make an item to reveal what they are capable of, though everything I make is cursed in some way so it would likely lie or come with some heavy price for learning the truth. Though if everything I make is cursed then perhaps the other rings already have a curse on them? I wasn’t stupid enough to give away one of the rings or put it on myself to try, so I would either need to sell it to a customer or devise a way to reveal the curse held within the item.

I threw a glance at the many cursed items of my shop, the most terrifying items were covered in a thin layer of dust, many customers being smart enough to not take the obviously evil items. Throughout the years I was able to accumulate a wide variety of cursed items, some of which held curses that I wasn’t even aware of, an issue I’d have to address at some point. If I make something to see the truth of the curses and turned it into a mirror than I could get the benefit of using it on customers as well, revealing all of their deepest and darkest sins. 'Heh, that could be entertaining.'
I had to break off my inspection of the items in my store room as I heard the bell over the door ring, time to deal with another customer.

If my calculations are correct it’s been about three years since I got here, and word of my shop had spread far faster than I would have expected, or liked for that matter. The amount of times my shop was attacked by some religious group doing, “God’s work.” caused me to have a great disdain towards any religious deity of this world. It had been a while since the last “crusade” so I expected one of those religious nut jobs to be at the door talking about some Goddess named Celestia and her divine light. Hence the surprise I felt when when I saw a race I was unfamiliar with browsing some items. From what I know of this world I would guess that this is a Hippogriff.

"Greetings, anything catch your eye friend?" I asked. Oh, he's definitely heard of me, the look he gave me after that was full of suspicion, fear, and my favorite of all, desperation. Everyone who entered my shop willingly knew that my items came with some curse attached to them, so my customers were usually stupid, arrogant, or desperate for a weapon or item to turn their fortune around.

“I hear that you accept trades for items, yes?” He asked.

“Yes, but how much you get depends on the item.” I said, prompting the Hippogriff to pull out a peculiar item. It was a small lead ring box that had a green glowing crystal like ring sitting on a red bed.

“I’ve taken this thing to several geologists, and none of them have any idea what the heck this thing is made of. Here, take a closer look.” He told me as he held out the box to me. A frown crossed my features as I brought the box up to inspect it, I didn’t see what was so special about a—

My free hand flew to my head as a strange presence invaded my mind, carrying with it an odd message.

"Bizarro am here to help! Bizarro am punch baddies in face and save trees from kittens. If you am need help to save innocent, me am be there to do it! Me Pinkie Promise. Cross me heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in Bizarro eye."

The powerful sounding voice said. Once it was finished, whatever presence I felt vanished and I couldn’t feel any more pain. My eyes glanced up to see the horrified expression on my customer’s face. He probably didn’t expect that to happen to me, and if he did, then he probably expected whatever it was to kill me. But, I chose to believe the former since the odd voice only offered help and didn’t try to eat my brain.

“That… I’ll admit, that was interesting. Alright sir, you have yourself a deal. What can I get you?” I said happily.

He cast his gaze at a few items, but the ones that got my attention were The Blade of Olympus and The Queen Slayer. "As interesting as this ring is, I am afraid that it would only cover the price of one of those blades.” The Hippogriff wilted at that, but seemed to perk up when I made a suggestion.
“You know, you still have something that might cover the price of another sword.~” I said as I grabbed a quill from behind my desk. A Hippogriff soul would definitely be an interesting thing to experiment with.

---

I stared at the lead box for a while after the customer left with The Queen Slayer and a few smaller items, apparently he was desperate but not stupid. Something about heaven and pearly white gates, yada yadda yada. I didn’t care, I was too busy pondering the strange message the ring box delivered. I wasn’t familiar with any cursed items like this one, and the only Bizarro I knew of was from the DC universe comics, but there was no way it could have meant that Bizarro.

I paused as that thought came to me and I looked at myself. Ok it could be him, but it is unlikely.

I also wasn’t entirely sure what a Pinkie Promise was, but it sounded like a gushed up version of the Needle in My Eye promise from Earth. Perhaps it was an oath of some sort? I had heard stranger oaths here.

If it was, then what end would it serve. For all I knew it could be some form of binding contract or marriage proposal. Would I be married to them if I called them? What benefit would they give me? The message made it rather obvious that whoever this is wants to help, but if they speak like Bizarro they could mean the opposite of what they said. I guess it is more of a question of if I can handle a possible hostile that might or might not have the powers of opposite Superman… 'Yes, yes I can.'

“Alright, I, Nox the Unfortunate, accept your offer. Come to me, Bizarro.” I said as I held out the box. The candles of my shop flickered momentarily as a blue portal opened up and displaced the air that was once there.

The portal state there for a few moments that threatened to turn into minutes. I was almost tempted to go through the portal myself before a large human figure emerged from the portal. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and worn overalls that were a similar shade to my dark maroon cloak, on the front pocket of his overalls was a symbol recognizable to anyone back on Earth. It was the infamous Superman symbol, but flipped in the opposite direction. 'Huh, it is Bizarro. Weird.'

“Hello, I am Nox The Unfortunate. Merchant of... unique items." I told the large white skinned man. His focus immediately drew onto me after I spoke. A wide smile was present on his face, but for some reason it morphed into a frown as soon as he saw me. ‘what? Not a cat person?’

“Hello, me am Bizarro, from Equis.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Bizarro. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you do that portal thing?” I asked as I gestured to the spot where the portal once was. Bizarro looked over his shoulder to look at the now non-existent portal before looking back at me.

“Because you call Bizarro with Token and make contract.” He said as he pointed to the ring box in my paws.

“Token?”

“Yes, Displaced am make Tokens to go to other worlds and make contracts.”

“Displaced?” I asked with curiosity clear in my voice. ‘other worlds huh. Look out universe, Nox the Unfortunate might be expanding his business.’
“Yes, Dimensional Misplaced. We humans turned into characters and sent to other worlds. Seller man am do this to us, make us hurt and go to other world.”

'Hmm, that seems like something that I will have to look into at some point in the future.' “Great. By the way, you seemed a little disheartened when you saw me. Any particular reason?” I commented idly.

"Oh, me just thought Bizarro be summoned to Earth."

"Earth?" I asked Bizarro. 'What did he mean by that? He... He does know, right?'

"Well, it me fault for expecting first time to work. Me sure it am work good soon though. Me just need hope." He said happily.

"But who's left to summon us back, Earth's..." I paused momentarily, as I inwardly debated the best way to break the news to Bizarro.

"Earth what?"

"It... I... It's gone." I had never actually thought about the ramifications of what I did to Earth, even if it was an accident. And yet, I don't feel as bad about it as I should. I lost friends and family and feel nothing. I need to look into how becoming Nox has truly changed me, before I came here I would be wallowing in grief.

"Gone? N-no. No, it no gone. It were—“ Bizarro pulled me out of my thoughts and I felt the need to hammer my point home.

"It's all gone." This time I put more force into my voice. "I saw it on the news before the Resident Evil cosplayer sent me here. The world was literally breaking apart after I sold him a cursed book. I didn’t expect it to actually do anything, but apparently it worked, and now the world is gone.“ I admitted.

As soon as those words left my mouth, my eyes widened as my paw flew to my face. My eyes fell on the impulsive lasso of truth that I had been meaning to sell to the guard, for a steep price obviously. I must have just barely touched it, and it made me reveal a secret I would have never exposed to any creature, especially to a human that gained the powers of Superman's opposite.

“You….” Bizarro said quietly as he clenched his fists in rage. 'Oh fuck.'

"YOU KILL LILLY!" He shouted in rage as he rushed at me. I opened a Chaotic Rift and hopped through it into my storage room before he could get me. Of course he had to have the same powers as the real Bizarro and he smashed his way through the wall between us and scattered items everywhere effortlessly.

“Bizarro, I didn’t—“

“LIVE!” He shouted as he rocketed towards me, no reasoning my way out of this one it seems. I was able to dodge his attack again but had a thought come to me that had me slightly worried as he crashed trough another wall. A fair portion of these items had some kind of requirement to be met in order to use, and the ones I was inspecting earlier today had a bad habit of choosing their own wielders.

Since some cursed items needed the wielder to be “worthy” to wield them, such as having a large kill count or possessing enough bloodlust to feed them, I kept those items locked away until buyers who I thought could use them came along. I desperately hoped none of the things in there deemed him worthy. But, a red glow told me that the one I was worried about already found him worthy. 'Ah fuck. He found them...'

The sound of Bizarro vomiting something was accompanied by the scent of boiling blood. Fire and blood mixed in an un-holy combination as they left his mouth before a dark laughter echoed from the room. The blood curdling sound of a monster’s joy was quickly followed by an explosion of red energy that burned through the wall. The entire foundation of my shop started to shake violently a new version of Bizarro clawed his was out of the room.

“With blood and rage of crimson red, ripped from a corpse so freshly dead. Together with me hellish hate, Bizarro am burn you all. That am your fate!” He said before he rocketed towards me in a red lantern suit.

“Fuck! Our contract is complete! Leave my world!” I shouted out as I hoped the universe itself to send him away, I did not want to deal with the powers of any of the lantern corps right now. With my luck and the rings being of my make they would likely be able to fight me on equal footing, not to mention the over powered annoyance of opposite Superman. My hopes were thankfully answered when a portal opened up right in front of him, swallowing the new Red Lantern whole instantly.

A sigh escaped my lungs as I rubbed my eyes and the portal closed behind Bizarro signaling the end of his destructive path, in this world at least. While I could have probably survived whatever attacks he used on me, I didn’t think my world could survive a Red Lantern Bizarro, let alone the town or my shop. I almost felt some remorse for wherever he was sent to, but there was nothing more I could have done. I couldn’t snap my fingers and bring all the humans back or send us back to that destroyed world.

I walked into the room through the wall and gave the remaining rings an accusing glare only to see the red lantern charger still there, and a new ring materializing in front of it. 'Well shit, I can only hope that he didn't get a lantern as well.'

I turned away from the room and summoned up a checklist of things to do.

“Number one, get carpenter to fix damages. Two, don’t call Bizarro again. Three, make my own Token later.” And with that, I prepared myself for a hopefully easy rest of the day.

Author's Note:

Crossover with Hotel Chicken's story BIZARRO Am NOT iN EQUESTRIA

Comments

[nighters]

ooo that was sad.

[GarrusVakarian]

The funny little thing is that Bizarro's Earth probably wasn't that Earth seeing as there are quite a few of them.

Rip walls through

[Bluzerker]

Wait... how come there’s no credit to chicken hotel in the author’s note? I know that bizzaro is from “Bizzaro in equestria”. Is this an official trade? Or is this just a cameo?

Man, I think I might have gotten spoilers for the couple of chapters for that story.

[Khanathara]

10166814
that would be my fault for not paying attention.

[Crystonian]

10165238
Sad that they both were too dum too think of that

[WorldWalker128]

Anyone that would take the Green Lantern ring due to the oath would be obligated to attack him, so he'd better hope that its curse is that the wearer cannot attack anyone that is of Neutral-evil alignment. It's curse probably can be found in the oath itself, though.
"No evil shall escape my sight"
It would probably mean that while wearing the ring anyone that had done any evil at all would have some sort of misty haze around them without telling you what that evil deed is. They might not even remember having done it. This constant haunting haze would make the wearer question if the person they call ally or friend really is such, or if their friend is just using them. If the wearer doesn't know that it reveals only The Fact that an evil action was performed at some point by this person, regardless of how major or minor it was or if they sought redemption or not, that might make them eventually go mad with paranoia.

[JustSomeDyslexic]

I was looking at a group of items that I had forgotten I had even made. Specifically one of each of DC's Lantern Corps rings and a lantern to go with them. Mostly I was wondering what curses they could bear. The Red, Orange, and Black rings were rather obvious in what they would be. In fact they would most likely remain unchanged from there comic book counter parts, probably.

their

[JustSomeDyslexic]

But the Green, Indigo, Violet, Blue, Yellow, and White rings I was unsure of. They didn't have any true downsides in there lore that I was aware of, I mean, Indigo forced it’s wearer to feel immense compassion and nothing but compassion, but that didn’t really feel like much of a curse unless forced on someone immensely evil, so the rings would end up being be wild cards in the end.

their

[Vigriff]

What is The Queen Slayer? Never heard of it before.

[Der Kaiser]

10485389
its from Code Vein

[Khanathara]

10745227
No, I made it up for the story