Source of all Evils

by Igris Crow

Chapter 2 : Return to origins

BOOM

Finally! He was free at last! And how ironic it was for him to be sealed in the very forest he himself corrupted.

He opened his bestial jaw and roared in glee.

ROAAAAAAARRRR

A roar so powerful it shook the earth, asserting his presence and dominance in the world once again.

He shook his monstrous head, which in turn shook his entire body as he did not have a neck in his current form. Afterwards, he looked around, feeling the air around him succumbing to his mere presence.

As he looked around, he saw a ruined castle in front of him, a castle that he didn’t remember existed in the past. Meaning he was far in the future if a castle he didn’t even know existed, and was even in ruins.

Then, something piqued his attention. In the ruined Castle, he could feel demonic energy, but unlike the insignificant beasts he met before, this one was much more present and was powerful enough to be above an ant’s.

He growled in amusement and excitement, the demonic aura he could feel coming from the castle already told him enough. It was not on the level of a divine soul, but it would do to at least give him the power to change forms. Not like he didn’t like his current form, but it makes movement a little difficult.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he slowly but surely walked towards the ruined castle. He couldn’t wait to absorb that energy and finally assume a more practical form.

---

“It wasn’t supposed to go this way….” Said Nightmare Moon as she looked at the not very discreet giant monster coming her way.

Indeed, her plan was to put obstacles in front of the six mares that were coming here, hoping they would flee the cursed forest and lose all hopes of having anypony but her as their ruler. Of course, she didn’t want to outright kill them, she may be evil but she had standards, and murder was not very ethical in her opinion.

But as she was preparing to intercept the foolish little ponies, something happened in the forest, an explosion of unknown magnitude followed by a roar so powerful it nearly bursted her eardrums suddenly appeared. Not only that but an unimaginable beast appeared from deep within the forest, covered with black scales and an unbelievably dark aura.

She, who lived more than a thousand years, didn’t even know such a beast existed. Yet even if the monster was unknown to her, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity with it, as if she was seeing an old relative after who knows how long. And as soon as that feeling came, she knew that whatever she was looking at was no ordinary monster, no. It was the Origin of All monsters.

How did she know? She didn’t know, but she could feel the presence of the Origin. Not many knew this but Nightmare Moon was originally just a simple curse without sentience, but it grew within the small alicorn that was Princess Luna. And now that she manifested into the physical world, she was ready to fulfill the most dark desires of her host.

But now, as she stared at the incoming monstrosity, she didn’t desire that anymore. Instead, all she felt right now was happiness, but unlike the glee she’d feel from seeing all living things suffer, it was the joy of seeing a long lost parent. Like a child who lost her parents a very long time ago, seeing it… Him again brought tears to her eyes.

As a full fledged demon who was once but a mere curse without even a mind to think, to see her Lord and Master once again…

The gigantic beast was now in front of her, looking straight at her who stood on top of a tower. The monster seemed to wait for something, and she suddenly knew what it was.

“Oh…. My Lord…” she kneeled from where she was, awaiting her fate in front of her Lord.

Her master opened his majestic jaw, allowing her to look upon his sharp and pristine fangs. Then, she felt herself leave her host, returning the alicorn to her former self. She could feel herself fly towards her Master, she could feel herself become one with him. It filled her with unparalleled joy and if she was still in her host’s body, she might’ve had some… unsightly reaction.

She could feel herself slowly lose consciousness, lose her senses, lose her sentience. But she didn’t mind, in fact, she welcomed her change in state from a demon to energy, after all it was what her master wanted of her and in all honesty, to her it felt like a parent putting his child into a deep and peaceful slumber.

And then… Nightmare Moon was no more.

---

He was quite surprised when he saw the source of that demonic aura, he didn’t expect to see what looked like a black horse wearing ornaments and a mane and tail that was flowing with an invisible wind and looked like a starry night sky.

Fortunately, the equine demon had the knowledge to explain the overall situation of the world. It’s quite obvious that he could take the memories and knowledge of all the souls he ate as it would be required to assess the soul itself in its entirety before turning it into energy.

From the knowledge he acquired, his existence seemed to be forgotten and more than a thousand years passed since this demon was born. Apparently, it was once a curse he placed on a family of royal humans, but that bloodline ran even in the veins of a pony? How strange. But it didn’t matter to him because now, he had enough power to change forms.

According to what he now knew, the most common mortal species to inhabit this world were ponies, some sort of intelligent race of small horses composed of pegasus, unicorns, earth ponies and very rarely, Alicorns which is a species Nightmare Moon belonged to.

Using his powers, he turned himself into an earth pony. Becoming a pegasus would be useless as wings weren’t required for flight, and a horn was not necessary for him to wield magic, much less both of those.

Blinding light was emitted from his body as he morphed into a much smaller form than what he was before. It was impossible to turn into a normal pony, or a normal anything for that matter since their usual bodies would collapse under his immense power. Of course, this wouldn’t bother him much due to him being immortal, but it was still troublesome to create a new body from nothing instead of what he already had.

As a result of this, his new forms would always carry his characteristic black scales, which were in fact impossible to break unless he wanted it. If the new body had hairs, they would always become flames that were not actually flames but special hairs filled with magic power, a reason why they appear like they do. The body would also become unnaturally large to better encase his powers.

That is what exactly happened with his new body. And it was genderless, much like every of his other bodies even if he preferred being referred as male.

He didn’t have time to look at his new body as another presence made itself known, and it didn’t bother to be discreet as it literally appeared from the window, right as the sun rose making it unnecessarily dramatic.

In front of him appeared a white Alicorn that reeked of Light, quite the opposite of the alicorn that was the host of Nightmare Moon who wielded Darkness. It didn’t bother him much as even if he was more proficient in Dark Magic, it didn’t mean he couldn’t wield Light Magic.

But, he also felt another entity inside the white Alicorn, an entity not much different than Nightmare Moon. And from the brief observation he took of the mare in front of him, he could guess that she was a ruler, a benevolent one at that.

He smiled as he thought about a new way to approach his goals.

Author's Note:

Second chapter done, hope you liked it.

Completely made up the shapeshifting for Demise as he didn’t do that in the game, aside from turning from Imprisoned to Demise which is what I took as a basis to assume he could probably turn into whatever he wanted given he had enough power to do so. Same with Dark and Light magic stuff.

This chapter made me publish the story, officially forcing me to continuously find a way to end it in a satisfying way all the while releasing new chapters that won’t go too far from what I originally intended.

Basically starting a challenge for myself to make a satisfying story for both readers and myself. And since this marks the start of me publishing the story, I make my duty to try and at least release one chapter with at least 1k words each weeks until the end

If I can’t do that then rip me and you because this means I failed my own challenge which would be quite depressing for me and my pride x).

PS: Reason why I say at least one chapter each week is because I take more time to re-read and editing what I wrote than actually writing it, meaning that if I publish a new chapter, it’s final and I try to refrain myself from editing it again after it has been published.

With that said, see ya later