Chapter 26
Edited by TacoTown
Chapter 26
Standard Defense and Pointed Spear stood in front of the door to the dungeon, side by side.
“You know, this place isn’t so bad.” Standard said as he glanced around the hallway. “I mean sure, there’s nopony to talk to but each other, and it’s kind of cold, but it could be worse.”
“Yeah, at least we don’t have to worry about that crazy guy down here.” Spear agreed with a nod.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you.” Ethan said as he walked into the room, his evil smirk and angry eyes in place. The two junior guards stared at him in fear. “Don’t worry boyos, I’m not here for you. Although if you two have the key to the cell with the hippogriff in it, I’d be much obliged if you hoofed it over now.” He added.
“No- you don’t have permission!” Standard retorted, it was time for him to show this man that he couldn’t just bully his way through the guards!
“Actually, he does. Now the keys if you please?” Twilight Sparkle asked as she walked into the room, she was wearing a cowl to keep her face hidden, but her robotic blue eye shone brightly in the semi-darkness of the dungeon.
“Yes Ma’am, right away Ma’am!” Standard replied as he used his magic to pull a ring of keys out of a pouch on his waist and tossed them to Twilight, who caught them easily in her own magic before passing them to Ethan.
“Thanks boys, now you should probably leave. This may get disturbing to listen to.” Twilight told the two guards.
“This is our post, we’ll stick to it.” Spear told her firmly. Ethan rolled his eyes.
“Okay, just remember that you can’t interrupt us for any reason.” Twilight replied. “Are you sure that you can make this worth our while Ethan?” she asked, turning back to the man.
“I learned how to do this from Cassie Twilight, I’ll be fine.” Ethan said with a shrug.
“Alright then, let’s get started.” Twilight said with a nod. Her horn began to glow, and suddenly every light in the cell section of the dungeon went out at once.
“Good job Sparky, make sure that you have the brightness of your eye turned up too high.” Ethan told her with a nod as he flipped on his Pipboy light.
The two friends walked down the pitch-black hallway easily, Twilight’s robotic eye gave her an advantage but Ethan’s pipboy light provided more than enough light for him to walk with untroubled steps. As they approached the cell containing the prisoner, Ethan began to tap the metal bars of the other cells, setting an ominous cadence that seemed to creep into Twilight mind as she walked along beside him. Once they got to the proper cell, they saw the hippogriff for the first time since Kane had defeated him.
He was a large stallion, with his head coming up to about Ethan’s shoulder when he was standing on his hind legs, with feathers and fur a matching shade of black. His eyes glowed yellow in the darkness, and he was staring at Ethan with undisguised loathing. He’d been strapped to the wall via magic restraints, and looked highly uncomfortable.
“What do you want?” The hippogriff asked in an obviously annoyed voice.
“Answers.” Ethan replied simply as he opened the door to the cell.
“Fuck off, I’m not answering any of your questions Equestrian. The laws of your weak people forbid you from torturing me, so unless you plan on releasing me then I would suggest that you leave and stop wasting both of our time.” The hippogriff told Ethan in a voice overflowing with contempt. Ethan let out a small sarcastic chortle of laughter.
“Well you know, that would probably stop an Equestrian, but sadly for you I’m not one. This land’s laws don’t apply to me, and when you take my current mental state into account… Let’s just say that you’re going to answer any of my questions, or else I’m going to make you wish that you’d never been hatched.” Ethan told the hippogriff with an eerie smile, as his face began to contort into the visage of heartless evil that he’d shown Twilight earlier. The hippogriff stiffened as Ethan’s eyes drilled into his; he gulped, but shook his head.
“I’m not telling you anything, Equestrian or not!” He retorted.
“Very well then,” Ethan said as he drew the blue bladed knife and handed it to Twilight, who accepted it in her magic. “Sparky, I want you to heat this up, to just below boiling point if you’d please.”
“Wha-what, why?” The hippogriff asked in confusion.
“So that it’s harder for you to bleed out once we start cutting you open of course.” Ethan replied with a smile. “The heat will make your blood clot faster, enabling us to continue working on you for far longer than we normally would. In fact, I’d say that a big, strong, determined hippogriff like yourself could survive for around five hours without falling unconscious from the pain.” Ethan continued as his smile got bigger. Despite his dark feathers, the hippogriff paled.
“You-you couldn’t! You just couldn’t do that!” He shouted as he began to struggle against his magical bonds. “This is Equestria; their princesses would never let you do that!” He shouted.
“They’ll never know what happened here. You see, my friend Sparky over there is more than proficient enough in healing spells to make it seem as if I never touched you.” Ethan replied as Twilight’s magic deposited the now glowing knife in his hand; he began to twirl it between his fingers, carefully avoiding the blade as he sent the knife flipping through an acrobatic display of skill. “So I’m going to start asking you questions, and you’re going to answer them as truthfully as possible, or I’m afraid that you’re going to be in quite a lot of pain for the next week or so.” Ethan said casually as a cold edge entered into his voice.
The hippogriff stared at him.
“You-you’ll never get away with this, Ambassador Sharp will never let you torture a hippogriff like this.” He stuttered.
“Ah, you seem to be mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck about the opinion of a stuck up old bag of feathers.” Ethan said with a cold heartless smile. “Now I’ll give you once chance to save yourself from this fate, but if you don’t answer my questions truthfully, well, I think I’ve said enough already.” Ethan said as he brought the knife up to the hippogriff’s chest and gently began to press down, not enough to actually piece the skin, but enough to make sure that the hippogriff could feel the heat radiating from the blade.
“What questions?” The hippogriff muttered darkly. A dazzling smile lit up Ethan’s face.
“That’s more like it. As for my questions…” Ethan said as he trailed off with a grin. “Where is the one sent you to assassinate Princess Gilda?”
“I don’t know.” The hippogriff said as he locked eyes with Ethan. “All I know is that she’s a black cat; she offered me more gold then I’ve made in my entire life if I started a war between the hippogriffs and the griffins.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.” Ethan told him. “I want to know what your mistress wants. Now, you are going to quit lying to me.”
“I’m not ly-” The hippogriff began, but he was cut off as Ethan’s hand closed over his beak.
“Yes you are, you wouldn’t have had minions with you who were as powerful as the ones who crashed the party unless you were working directly with the Nightmare, and I want to know where she is.” Ethan growled. The hippogriff’s eyes widened as Ethan mentioned the Nightmare. “Now tell me.” The man snarled as he released the hippogriff’s beak; he brought up his knife and prepared to slash into the meat of the hippogriff’s shoulder.
“She-she’s in the northern wastes beyond the Crystal Empire!” The hippogriff shouted. The knife stopped an inch away from its target.
“Good, I already knew that.” Ethan said with a nod. “Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what she’s doing up there, along with why she made Kane kidnap Prince Shining Star.” He continued.
“I don’t know what her plan is; all I know is that she’s not the only one there.” The hippogriff said, apparently deciding that he preferred not being tortured.
“Who else is there with her?” Ethan asked.
“I-I wasn’t there for long, but there was this voice. This really deep voice that occasionally said things.” The hippogriff stuttered out.
“What things, what specifically did it say?” Ethan demanded.
“Crystals, it kept talking about crystals and revenge.” The hippogriff muttered. A surprised gasp from Twilight made Ethan turn to face the mare.
“What is it Sparky?” Ethan asked.
“It’s Sombra, King Sombra has my nephew!” Twilight exclaimed loudly, her eyes were wide and terrified. “Ethan we need to leave, right now. If that monster has my nephew then he’s in horrible danger!” She continued as she hurried out of the cell, the lights turning on as she walked away.
“I hate to cut this conversation short, but apparently we’ve got to run. See you later!” Ethan told the hippogriff before he strode after purple unicorn. The hippogriff waited until they were gone, and then he began to laugh softly.
Things were going just as his mistress had planned; of course, he wasn’t supposed to be captured, and the griffins were supposed to be in the middle of a war of retaliation for the murder of their princess. But when faced with such inconveniences his mistress had simply adjusted her plan. Now her enemies were charging towards her halfcocked with no real plan, just the way she liked it.
________________________________________
Ethan stared into Rainbow Dash’s eyes.
“Rainbow Dash, what I’m about to ask you to do is very important. If you fail then Equestria and the surrounding continent may devolve into the madness of war, and I will not be able to stop it. In fact, not even Luna and Celestia could.” The man told her calmly, his voice level.
“What do you need me to do?” Dash asked.
“I need you to broker a peace deal between the griffins and the hippogriffs.” Ethan answered calmly. Dash just stared at him.
“What makes you think that I’ll be able to do that?” The pegasus asked.
“Well I assumed that the mere thought that your home could be obliterated by opposing armies and the ground soaked with enough blood to make even a goddess like Celestia flinch would be enough of a motivation to make you get your prismatic ass in gear; but apparently it’s not. So instead I’m going to fall back to plan B.” Ethan said with an unnerving calmness in his voice while his eyes hammered into Dash’s. “Rainbow Dash I'm telling you right now, the lives of everyone you love are on the line, if you’re really the Element of Loyalty then you’ll make this treaty happen!” Ethan shouted, literally buffeting the pony backwards with the power of his voice as she floated in front of him. His eyes were blazing with intense blue fire that threatened to reach out and consume Dash.
The pegasus took one look at that face, and took off towards where Gilda was staying with the speed of a bullet. Ethan nodded to himself before he set off on his way down the hall towards where Twilight was filling in Celestia on what they’d learned from the prisoner. He brushed past the guards, who didn’t even attempt to stop him, and entered the room to find Celestia and Twilight talking.
“If that is true then he is most likely planning on using the Prince for some type of experiment, if he has not done so already.” Celestia said with a frown.
“Then Sparky and I need to get going,” Ethan said intensely as he walked into the room.
“Good, I believe that things cannot wait a moment longer,” Celestia said, turning to look at him.
“Yeah, come on Sparky. Let’s go get your stuff from Rarity, and then get out of here.” The man said with a nod.
“I love you Tia.” Twilight said before she reached up and gave Celestia a kiss on the lips.
“And I you Twilight, stay safe.” Celestia replied once the kiss was over.
“Yes, yes, very romantic, now let’s get the hell out of this god damned city, I want to kill something.” Ethan growled.
“Ethan, are you sure that you’re up for this?” Twilight asked slowly.
“Fuck no, but it’s not like we have any choice about whether or not we do it right? Or am I missing something?” Ethan asked with a raised eyebrow. “No? Alright then, let’s go kill an ancient horror who can bend gods to her will and her simpering royal helper!”
________________________________________
Prince Shining Star sat on the bed, and did the same thing that he’d done for the past week, or at least he thought it had been a week. It might have been more. Keeping track of time when you were a prisoner was hard with no access to the sun. Suddenly, the black she-cat walked into the cell.
“Today’s the day little one!” She said with a large smile.
“The-the day for what?” The young foal asked.
“Why, the day that my partner gets inside you of course!” The cat told him with a feline grin. “And no, the innuendo wasn’t intentional.”
“Wh-what?” The prince stuttered.
“Just follow me little one, and you’ll know all.” Nightmare said with a grin.
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly Shining Star found himself held aloft in a cloud of black magic. The cat walked gracefully down the corridor as Star was floated along behind her. They walked in silence until they came to a large room, dominated by a throne made of onyx and obsidian. Sitting on that throne was a stallion that Star had heard horror stories about from the staff of the royal palace in the Crystal Empire’s capital.
Ex-King Sombra lounged on his throne, a large grin on his face. A trail of black mist rolled off of him as he eyed the foal and he nodded to himself once, before he sprang from the throne and walked towards the foal.
“Do you know who I am little one?” Sombra asked.
“K-k-k-King Sombra,” The colt stuttered.
“Oh good; I’m so glad that I’m remembered so well!” Sombra shouted with a triumphant grin.
“What do you want from me?” The colt asked in a quiet, fearful voice.
“Well you see little one, I have a bit of a problem,” Sombra told the colt as he leaned down so that he could look the colt in the eyes. “This body that I’m talking to you with is nothing but an illusion, thanks to those crystal begotten alicorn relatives of yours. So I need a new body, and that’s where you come in.” Sombra told the colt.
The colt stared at him uncomprehendingly. Sombra sighed and shook his illusory head.
“Young ponies these days. Honestly, I outlawed reading, but I never encouraged sheer stupidity like this.” Sombra grumbled.
“To be fair, he’s not very old.” Nightmare said with a shrug of her furry shoulders.
“Nonetheless, it’s disgraceful that one of royal blood is so clueless. Oh well, that won’t be an issue in a few seconds.” He said with a shrug.
Then the spirit surged forwards, and Star suddenly found himself enveloped by a dark cloud. Then the colt’s fur lost its whiteness and turned black. The pink in his blue mane turned bloody red, and his eyes took on an evil almost reptilian appearance.
“A little tiny at the moment,” Star said in Sombra’s voice with a slight frown. “But that’s okay; I can just make it bigger.” The colt’s body stretched and grew as a fog of black magic flowed around him, slowly transforming the small form of a colt into the towering and impressively muscled body of a full grown stallion. “That’s much better.” Sombra chuckled.
“Very handsome.” Nightmare said as she leaned down to kiss the stallion on the lips. Sombra laughed.
“Indeed I am!” He exclaimed with a wide grin. “Come along my dear, it is time to raise my army.”
“This should be a treat; I just love watching you work your My King! It’s far superior to what Luna or Celestia can do!” Nightmare said, laying on another layer of flattery.
“Why thank you my dear.” Sombra practically glowed with a dark ethereal light under her praise.
They spent the rest of the several minute walk in silence as the Nightmare ran her furry paw along Sombra’s back, paying particular attention to his flank. Their destination appeared to be the ice field just outside of their underground lair.
“My dear Nightmare, do you know where we are?” Sombra asked, turning to look at the she-cat.
“At the entrance to our base I presume, my dear Sombra.” Nightmare replied casually as she ran a paw through his blue mane.
“Correct!” Sombra exclaimed with a wide, almost coltish grin. “And can you guess why I chose this as the location of my back up lair?” He asked.
“I haven’t the foggiest clue my dear.” Nightmare said.
“It’s because this is where my army lost its final battle against that sun-blasted bitch Celestia!” He exclaimed, a mad glint in his eyes.
“I see, why do you sound excited about it?” Nightmare asked.
“Because my dear, I may have lost that battle, but my soldiers are still here, waiting for their king to return!” Sombra said excitedly.
“But they’re dead.” Nightmare pointed out.
“And that’s a problem?” Sombra asked, giving her a raised eyebrow. Nightmare met his gaze, and then began to chuckle a dark, evil chuckle. Sombra joined her, as the snow in front of them began to shake.
Stats
Page generated in 0.059 seconds
Total duration
677 users online
856,839 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well shit.
*WARNING*
MAJOR SHIT STORM APPORCHING IN YOUR LOCAL AREA
PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE
Holy fuck.
aaaaaand th' mindfuck that is this chapter hits th' public.
So, is Sombra a necromancer now? Those are always messy to fight. I predict that the holy frag grenade will be used just when it seems Sombra will win, it's a plot device if I ever saw one. I don't like predictable stories, so prove my prediction wrong. Great story BTW.
2405727seriously? used on Sombra? i'd rather see Ethan shove it up Nightmare's ass.
Wouldn't a hot knife cauterize the wounds, causing bleeding to stop altogether?
I guess it depends on how hot it is. If it was hot enough to cauterize cuts instantly then just touching it to the prisoner would have been enough to make him scream.
when twilight and ethan find out that sombra's in his body and the change is permanent....well.....we all know how unstable ethan is and that twilight can also lose it....it just might push her to ethans current level and push ethan a bit further over for seeing a child being warped like that.
2405829Blood-Nap, which is th' game name for that knife, is made out of blued steel, th' same thing as a gun barrel. because of that, it can get incredibly hot, but it won't get hot enough to burn skin. it was developed so that if a soldier needed to grab his gun barrel, he wouldn't injure his hand. therefore, Blood-Nap could never get hot enough to burn skin.
Well frak... this is not going to be easy will it?
Every time I'm about to start a Fallout fic I see there are already three featured.
fan meet shit
shit meet fan
now you to talk while i stand pehind a door
2406377
Start one anyways. Just because three others are featured is no excuse. More FOE is always good.
...is this a good excuse to use the MIRV?
2407319 Anything is a good excuse to use the MIRV.
Oh King Sombre has an army. Huh, didn't the super mutants also have an army? And weren't they better armed and more dangerous? Whelp there dead now and this new undead army is about to wish they had stayed so.
2407549a lone raider with a knife.
2407955 Like I said, anything is worth the MASSIVE amounts of awesome that gun has built-in.
2407968yeah, and th' 2000+ caps a shot price tag? it'd work for a crowd, but for a 1-on-1 it's just stupid.
Arthas?
2408171
What?
2408251 you dint get he joke or are you just responding ?
2408273
Nope, I have no idea what you're referencing
2408303 warcraft 3 /the frozen throne and world of warcraft arthas is a fallen prince who raises the dead
2408521
Ah, that would explain it, I don't play WoW
Poor star.
2408787
Yeah, he's had it rough
[meanwhile, in orbit]
"Attention, attention. All stations rig for orbital bombardment with Mk VIII warheads and main anti-ship armament. I repeat all station rig for orbital bombardment."
not so permanently, I think. There are still magic, elements, gods (from both worlds), human trchnology and ethan, who prouved that nothing is imposible.(well... his wife did even more, but I count them both). So, I am sure that nothing is sure, permanent or irreversable.
Wait... So the Courier does have the Holy Frag Grenade in this story... Than why couldn't she just use it on the final boss of the previous story? Or Alien Blaster (Since, you know, she has Wild Wasteland)? Or ARCHIMEDES II? Or ANYTHING THAT'S NOT A FUCKING WASTELAND GODDESS?
..Sorry, now that I got that out of my system, I'll just try my best to pretend none of that ever happened.
static.wix.com/media/c0cd1c_c483c08e7ea9545b3cefa62c6d574dc9.jpg
2414908
Or you know, you could put a comment that's actually relevant to the chapter that I posted instead of continuing to whine about something
2414950
Fine, fine. So it turns out that Sombra was working with Nightmare all this time, also they have an undead army. That sounds...generic as fuck.
2405756 Sombra appears to be the "Big Bad", and Nightmare is his head minion judging by how the two interact, so if the plot device is used it would be more likely to be used on Sombra.
2421381 nightmare's th' one messing with his mind, therefore he's th' bigger threat to Ethan.
2421381
2422092
Well Nightmare is the one who has orchestrated everything and tricked Sombra into taking a weaker host (Star) along with tricking him into thinking that she's a devoted servant all the while stroking his ego and setting him up to be the main target if things go wrong. So really she's the one you should be more worried about.
2422136that's what i said.
2422202
I know. I was explaining it in deeper detail
2434164 Im not so sure, Ice form shout, Fire ball, there are a ton of spells that can kill it. Also Animal friend shout, the best way to kill the local wildlife.
Sombro=Lich king
This just gets better and better. Keep up the good work son!
Whenever I see the coverart for this story I think I'm looking at 'The Doctor.' Only he's holding a gun.
2531425
Yep
2531549 Hehe, all thats missing now is Twilight performing the Godslayer (aka Thanix Canon Magic Edition).
PS: Now this is interesting. First have faved "Light Wanderings a few days ago and I just read the latest chapter, interestingly my Fave Icon and the Fave List still show one unread chapter yet the Chapter List says all read.
Secound, I did not get any notification about your reply on my comment and almost missed it.
Hmm, FimFiction having bugs again?
2532916
IDK, as far as the chapter goes, it's because I made an announcement about Equestrian Wanderings and made it a chapter instead of a blog post. That's all that you're missing.
I don't know about the comment though
2532931 Alrighty then.
This time I got a note. Its probably just the website bugging out sometimes.
Hmm, come to think about it, let me check something.....TWILIGHT!!!
Get of the Internet, you allone already occupy 10% of the whole web!
Dont tell me "thats nothing", thats overkill for a single user!!
MOAR!
2558171
or what if it is the covenant inquisition.
maddmedic.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/ohshit.png
I DEMAND MORE!
God I love this story. Such a far cry from the way it started out in the first few chapters of Dark Wanderings. The direction this went, and the way it developed is so beautiful.
I went on a New Vegas binge this weekend because of this fic, just so you know.
Riddle me this, what demon possessed you to write in the two most over-used and clichéd 'Villain' characters into your story? No hate this is merely suggestions, but seriously? The Nightmare and King Sombra? How often don't we have those two fight the human character / try and posses him.
(Honored Service, for a example.) The only way this could get worse is if you mixed into Chrysalis, but other than that good riddance.