Dying Embers

by MrSpartan

Rendezvous with Death

Almost there, Illitheous thought.

He was sitting with his legs crossed, eyes closed, in an improvised isolation chamber. It was made of slabs of rock he himself had torn from one of the few dwellings whose walls were made of stone. The moonlight tried and failed to pierce the rocky tomb. The only light came from two diamond shaped crystals that floated in the air before him. Illitheous was no longer in his rage-fueled skeletal form. His hands rested on his lap, palms open, in a meditative posture. He was NOT, however, attempting to relax. He was instead using the crystals to focus on a vision. He dared hope the vision would show him a way into the castle of Canterlot and Celestia that did not require the use of the noisy and easily foreseeable army he brought. He would take the goddess’s life himself. There would be no more interruptions and nothing to get in his way. Seeing a stealthy method into the castle remained illusive however. The dream vision would near his mind then it would slip away like water. He was no path-walker or shaman but only he had the strength of will to FORCE the vision to come to him.

His partially decayed features tightened in frustration. He had seen a path that would take him past the outer defenses of the city if he remained vigilant, but a way into the castle proved harder to catch then a Willo-the-Wisp leading the unwary to their deaths. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it came to him. There was an old, seldom used passage that served as an emergency exit if the castle was ever under siege. He saw it clear as day in his mind’s eye. He chastised himself for his stupidity. Of COURSE there would have been an escape route. No matter how peaceful and under control that cursed goddess thought her kingdom, she wouldn’t be so arrogant as to leave herself completely cornered. But now the man knew…and the alicorn abomination would DIE. Illitheous’ bloodshot eyes opened wide and his body once more regained its torch like quality. Before he went to commit his bloody and (in his mind) justified action, he remembered the fellows who needed his guidance, likely waiting for his decision outside. Still…he knew he must do this most important act alone.

Always alone.

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A few hours later.

It was still dark. There was a muffled knocking and asking of permission to enter the chamber Illitheous had been secluding himself in. There was a sound of rock grinding against earth. The entirety of the human forces, including one golem and two ugly ogres pulling what looked like a massive metal and stone drill built for destruction, gathered around the entrance. Illitheous’ youngest, and perhaps most devoted, follower stood in front. One wizard prodigy named Terran.

“Master Illitheous, daybreak nears. What are your orders…” Terran trailed off.

The small chamber was barren and empty like a crypt. Only a simple hand-scrawled note and a crystal on the dirt lay within. Terran picked the note up and read to himself what was written on the note. The young mage lowered the note and stared straight ahead, a distraught and surprised look on his face. All those behind him leaned in, trying to see what was jotted down on the note, even the dim-witted golem hunched over in curiosity. It was a rather ridiculous sight to be honest. The well built older soldier named Gua more or less politely plucked the thick paper from the younger man’s hand since he remained silent on the matter. He read it out loud so the others would hear.

I am sorry my brothers, but I see now that I can not bring you with me in our moment of greatest triumph. Without your assistance the opportunity to destroy Celestia would likely never have been as good as it is now. She is weak and without her sister and many others to come to her aid, but the final step will require a more subtle approach and I can only do this alone. You will have the victory and justice we all deserve. I ask for your forgiveness at my leaving of you for this. I will still need you to conquer the capitol, but I know that it will take you a day or two to reach the city. This viewing crystal will show you all that you need see when the time is right. Celestia should be dead and gone when you arrive and the capitol city ripe for the taking, as will this whole land.

If by some chance I do not survive to see our victory, be sure to keep yourselves alive.

Live on my brothers and sisters, live on.

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The dawn would soon rise upon the mountainous landscape, bringing forth a light that would eliminate any reasonable chance of true stealth for Illitheous. His undead form was almost imperceptible in the waning moonlight. His burning aura would have given him away to any guards he neared, so he had intentionally suppressed it while still utilizing the stronger form’s power. Only wisps of black smoke drifted from his bones. At first he had been teleporting with a sequence of fiery “jumps.” Each jump had brought him a good couple miles closer to the capitol city of Canterlot until he had reached the inclining train tracked mountain on which it rested. The jumps were simply too noticeable at night so Illitheous was currently making his way there on foot (though to his credit, he was making time that would make even Rainbow Dash envious.)

He moved like a macabre blur from boulder to boulder, using the nearby train tracks as a point of reference so he would keep going the right way. He had seen only a couple guards keeping watch. Illitheous surmised they were indeed low in number, with the bulk in the prison back at the town encampment of Ponyville, and that most would be guarding the city and Celestia herself. There likely weren’t enough even for that, but any competent general would leave at least a scant few to warn the rest if enemies were spotted. They would not spot Illitheous.

Illitheous ran behind another rocky outcropping and glanced over the side. Two unicorns with spears stood on a bridge that served as the only clear path into the city with the bright purple pink of a force field rising in the shape of a great wall behind them. Besides the path in the middle there was no obvious way past. A sheer cliff face dropped to the left and the mountain rose to the right. The human hiding behind the rocks closer to the rising mountainside felt the stirrings of a plan form in his mind.

The two unicorn sentinels stood stoic faced as they were trained to do despite the mix of tension and boredom they felt. All was clear so far. The ear of the unicorn on the right twitched slightly.

“Hey Cross, you hear that?” asked the equine.

“Hear what?” the other unicorn raised an eyebrow.

“It sounds kind of like…” the solider trailed off. He leaned forward slightly, struggling to hear.

About seven or so pony sized boulders rolled their way from higher up on the mountain to their right. They would have most likely been crushed had the one not heard the telltale sign of cracking and shifting earth. The pair’s horns glowed. The rocks slowed down until they came to a complete stop only a few paces away. The duo had their spears at the ready and slowly went up to the spot where the rockslide had originated. Nopony was there. The two looked around in apprehension.

“Hey what’s this thing?” One of the royal guards asked the other. He briefly strained to pick up an object from the ground. It came out with a pop and a hiss of steam spouted from the oddity.

The other looked it over. It looked like a weird cross between a pot filled with machinery and a drill. It was about the size of the spear head.

“No idea, but we should get back to our post. Don’t want to get chewed out by the sergeant for getting distracted, right?” said the more observant of the two.

“Right,” his buddy said.

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“Right,” Illitheous muttered to himself from the side of the cliff. It was far too steep for anything without hands and a steel grip to climb across. It was also a very long way down. “Next time I must be sure to ask of Terran an incantation that allows flight or perhaps a way to teleport past magic barriers.”

Once he was sure he had edged his way far enough past the barrier and its guardians he put all his strength into his arms and pulled. He hurtled up above the steep side and a good five feet above the ground. He landed with hardly a sound and rushed like a smoky shadow to the center of Canterlot, or more specifically, the forgotten passage that traveled from there to somewhere into Canterlot Castle. The sun was already beginning to rise. Time was not on the human’s side.

After an unknown amount of time later, Illitheous made his way past a normal enough set of mansions to what appeared to be a dead end alley without alerting any to his presence. He was no stranger to stealth after all. He had been forced to rely on it for many millennia while he gathered info on his enemy and searched for a way to safely reach the remnants of his fellow man. The infernal human knew this was the spot and seeing as how there was no way he could discern the key to getting it to open for him, he relied on something more simple and direct. He had always preferred things that way anyhow. He placed his hands on the smooth wall and channeled his hatred for the alicorn rulers into a vast, yet non hell-fueled heat that would incinerate a dragon. A section of white wall the size of himself melted into a puddle near his booted feet. Without any fear of possible danger beyond, he stepped through intent on reclaiming what was rightfully humanity’s.

The secret exit/entrance wound and twisted this way and that like a serpent. Illitheous pondered if perhaps it was not the passage he was looking for, especially after having just come through a portion of it that echoed with the sound of rushing water and leaking droplets of it seeping through the roof. Was he under a river? Where was it taking him? After being in the cramped hallways for so long he had lost all sense of direction and wasn’t even sure if he was moving deeper into the earth or heading somewhere above it. Illitheous came to a sudden stop. The once narrow pathway had just opened up considerably into what looked more like a natural cavern. At the opposite side was a single door. Illitheous headed straight before stopping again. He sensed something was amiss. And it was coming from the slight dip in the middle of the cave.

Illitheous was fed up with this drivel and decided to tempt fate. “I don’t have time for this! Show yourself or leave me be! If you get in my way I will make you eat your own liver after I rip it out! Now make your choice!”

A moment of silence passed. Then a rumbling at the cave’s center transformed into what felt like an earthquake. Fate had apparently answered his challenge. The floor collapsed almost entirely. The human teetered on the remaining edge of stable floor and looked down to find a horrible mass of brown, teeth, and tentacles. It was an Oyortogu, a species of plant that grew to enormous size that had a diet of meat, metal, garbage or pretty much anything that it could fit into its massive mouth. They tended to live only in damp places or areas with a huge amount of non plant material to devour and lured anything unlucky enough it could into its belly. Illitheous had thought that they were among the monsters that had gone extinct after the New Princesses had gone on their campaign to make “their land” safe, driving back the wilds until all that remained in any large quantity was the Everfree Forest. Apparently they had missed one. Judging from the small (in comparison to most at least) size of this one and its brown color the abhorrent creature was likely slowly starving to death.

Guess that explains why they don’t use this passage any more. Illitheous thought.

Before Illitheous could think any more on the subject, one of the Oyortogu’s needle laced tentacles moved to grab him for a bite to eat; and not in the “hey, let’s have dinner together” kind of way. Illitheous hopped from one part of stable footing to another with the grace of an acrobat. The needle covered tentacles kept him on the defensive. The tentacles would smash into the stone walls near him in a sort of tantrum. Every time it missed gravel and debris rained down on top of him. All the plant wanted was its next meal. It was its sole objective in life. To eat, grow, and eat again, that was all the beast knew. With hunger driving it to near insanity the monster would stop at nothing short of destroying its own lair if it meant it could eat after so many years of starvation. Sets of tentacles kept thrashing about as it grew increasingly erratic in its need to consume.

Illitheous was in no mood for this whatsoever. Another barbed plant extremity almost impaled the undead human. It was just about to pull that tentacle free but Illitheous grabbed it with both hands and pulled in opposite directions.

“ENOOOOOUUUUUGH!!!”

With the brutality of a demon Illitheous ripped apart the Oyortogu’s tentacle with his bear hands. Green blood sprayed like a sick fountain. The monster screeched in agony, shaking the room. Illitheous was at full hate fueled power again. He caught and held the next tentacle that lashed at his direction with only one fiery hand. Clenching his fist hard a line of fire burned at the tentacle and trailed down it, heading strait for the Oyortogu’s toothy mass that served as its body. The pitiable creature was on fire both inside and out as it screamed, perhaps for the pain to cease or perhaps only out of some animal instinct. It had no eyes, so one couldn’t be sure if the creature had a soul that was being incinerated as well, but it was definitely dying in a pain that could not be matched.

The cavern was alight in red and orange that reflected off of the Oyortogu that was now a living, screaming fire pit. Illitheous’s face was like a scowling statue of the Grim Reaper. He turned and teleported to the bit of floor in front of the door leading out of the thing’s self excavated grave. The creature was still screaming as he left it to die.

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Inside a castle foyer a pair of unicorn guards in gold armor stood lazily at their post chatting.

“Look I’m telling you the Princess of the Sun has a thing for the pegasus troops,”stated the unicorn on the right named Informing Trooper.

“Yeah sure. Last weak you said the Legendary Elements of Harmony were all filly foolers and that the they all liked each other. And the week before that you thought Her Majesty was gonna send you to the moon for accidentally knocking over that vase. Oh and we can’t forget when you said that more than half the ponies in Equestria were actually born as some kind of alien monkeys and were all shape shifting into ponies in secret with the help of Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn called Stoic Belief said.

“Hey! That last one was sort of true. Remember the changeling incident?” Informative Trooper said.

“Pfft. Look you really need to stop reading those stupid tabloids. None of them are ever true,” Stoic Belief responded.

“I’m SERIOUS Stoic! Why do you think she has so many pegasus guards with white coats and made it regulation for those without to dye theirs white? She has a thing for white coated pegasus guards I’m telling you!” Info said.

“Ok then Info. Does your little theory explain why she lets unicorns join? Or why we have to dye our coats gray?” spoke Stoic

“I guess it’s for when she feels like something different maybe?” Info offered.

“OR she has us each dye our coats to give a sense of uniformity and to make it easier to tell what branch of the royal military we’re in,” Stoic countered.

“Ok NOW who’s the pony being gullible? You actually buy that official line?” Info

“Well it makes more sense then what you say,” Stoic

An uncomfortable silence settled on the two colts until Informative Trooper tried to start up another conversation.

“So…you see those new BT-16’s?”

“Greetings, you wretched piles of filth,” interrupted a gravely deep voice.

The two less-then-ready guards fumbled with their spears as Illitheous leaped out of the shadows of a decorative pillar and landed with a heavy thud in front of them. The human smashed their helmeted craniums together with extreme prejudice. An audible crack was heard even over the clang of metal. The stallions slumped to the floor, unconscious. Illitheous stepped over their bodies as casually as one stepping over a slight bump in a road. He marched through a set of doors with a stylized sun symbol above it. No doubt it led to Celestia’s chambers. To his slight aggravation, beyond the golden doors was a large, spiral staircase instead of the ruler’s chambers. With no real directions to go on, he decided to keep going up. It was as good a direction as any. Illitheous lost count of how many steps he impatiently climbed by the time he reached another set of gold doors. With the faint trace of a sadistic smile on his flaming skull the black clad human kicked them open. A startled looking alicorn looked at him from the middle of a master bedroom decorated in pink and blue. She was smaller then a fully aged alicorn. She had pink fur tinged on the edges with purple and a cutie mark that was definitely not that of the sun.

“You are NOT Celestia,” Illitheous growled.

“I…I’m Princess Cadence. Who are YOU?” Cadence stammered in surprised.

“I am the last thing you will ever see.”

Illitheous sprang like a cheetah. Cadence barely managed to move away in time. The commander crashed and set alight the bed behind her where he landed. Destroying the wooden edges of the bed with a swipe of his arms, he threw one of the splintered burning chunks at the newly discovered alicorn. He missed, but the piece actually imbedded itself into the wall like a spear in the belly of dead warrior.

“What do you want!?” Cadence cried.

“FOR EVERY RULING GODDESS HERE TO DIE!!!” Illitheous said.

Illitheous cornered the poor mare and inched closer. He was crouched like a wolf about to pounce on its prey. Princess Cadence was terrified. She had only been told a meager amount of details of what had been happening in Ponyville by her aunt Celestia. The much older mare hadn’t wanted to worry her niece. Cadence was completely inexperienced with any real conflict. This was befitting a demi-goddess of love and Celestia didn’t want to involve her so as to protect her. It was a plan that had gone swimmingly until just now. Illitheous had no prior knowledge of the relatively new princess who usually stayed in the safety of Canterlot’s walls. On the opposite side of things Cadence only knew a threat to the kingdom was centered in Ponyville. She knew that it was from ancient times that involved Untie Tia and Untie Luna’s pasts. Now she was practically staring death in the face.

“ *panting* Cadence I’m back from helping maintain the array of force fiel…GET AWAY FROM MY WIFE YOU MONSTER!”

The skeletal figure turned to see Shining Armor in the doorway wearing a brave and furious expression. All the undead human saw was a fool-hardy unicorn who was wearing the traditional Guard Captain uniform with a unique coat of arms badge. Illitheous looked back at the quivering demi-goddess, noticing for the first time the ring on her horn.

They’re spreading like the damned plague! He thought in disgust.

“Have you children?” the man inquired.

“What!?” was Twilight’s older brother’s confused response.

“I will take that as a no.” Illitheous said.

“Please don’t hurt him!!!” Princess Cadence begged.

“Don’t worry,” the fire around his skeletal hands grew hotter. “This will only take a moment.”

With a gesture, a cinder jumped off of the cadaver’s hand and landed on the carpet in front of Cadence. From it combusted a circle of tall fire that trapped the princess of love.

This only further upset Shining Armor. “If you hurt one hair on my wife’s head you’ll regret it!” he threatened.

“Worry more about what eternity rotting in a dungeon will be like,” Illitheous replied.

The second those words left the undead creature’s jaws a shiny pinkish purple force bubble enclosed around him. Illitheous didn’t flinch.

The captain of the guard put a hoof up to his chest in pride. “Ha! That was easy. Maybe next time you should bring backup.”

Illitheous tilted his skull to the side, a disturbing image considering he was a black-coated, fiery skeleton. He moved his skull back and put a hand on the wall of the force field.

“I wouldn’t waste energy trying to escape. Nopony’s ever escaped my force field before and I aim to keep that record intact,” Shining said with just a hint of fear in his voice. He created another force field shaped like a ring and lowered in onto the fire around his beloved wife to pat out and suffocate the flame.

Cadence moved next to her husband with a frown. She couldn’t stop looking at the fearsome creature inside the force bubble. She could sense a nauseating amount of dark magic exuding from it but…something else as well. Sadness perhaps? Buried under a planet’s worth of anger. She couldn’t help feeling more then a little sympathetic to the trapped entity inside. Being a demi-goddess of love will do that to you.

*CRACK*

The two ponies’ eyes widened and their ears shot up. The creature hadn’t budged from his position since being imprisoned. His hand was still on the wall of the force bubble. Another crack sounded from the sphere, this time a hairline fracture was clearly forming on the spot where its hand was. The sphere started to change its color to that of a ruddy orange.

Shining Armor’s pupils shrank to pin pricks. “CADENCE, WE GOTTA GO NOW!” he yelled in warning.

Not an instant later, the force bubble violently exploded. The two ponies were hurtled into the walls so hard they couldn’t move lest their nerves send out pain signals too numerous to deal with without fainting. Illitheous cracked his neck vertebrae and kneeled down near the two ponies in real need of a doctor. He thought about killing them both right now but realized he had spent far too much time dealing with Celestia’s lackies then he should have. These two obviously weren’t going anywhere anytime soon and “Her Majesty” was the real prize. The revelation of another alicorn was troubling though. How many others were there he didn’t know about? It would have to wait. Celestia might already be readying her cowardly escape. He took a moment to bind and gag the two with the heavy drapes on the nearby window and then shoved them in a closet.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Illitheous said with a smile.

He then melted the lock on the closet before exiting the room. Illitheous was a black and red blur of motion. He ran up those spiral steps in a mad (in every sense of the word) dash for the top chamber. His boots left melted imprints in the carved rocky stairs. His patience was completely gone and he would find the sun princess if it killed her, since that was what he would do when he found her after all. The steps ceased. Another set of gold doors loomed before the undead entity. These were larger than the last few he had passed, including the two that had led to the unexpected encounter with that other lesser goddess and her spouse.

He should have considered pursuing a different profession. Illitheous mused.

Comments

[DavidPony]

loving this chatper

Illitheous is kicking ass and taking names...and hostages too

[voiddragon]

This world is ours now and forever

[MrSpartan]

857455 Writers block is bi*yay*.

[MrSpartan]

859936 She died due to a deal she made to have the chaotic foreign races moved elsewhere out of Equestria at the cost of her strength. She promptly died of a lack of will to live after. Celestia mentions this from her point of veiw briefly in chapter "One Princess's Perspective is Another Man's Lies". It wasn't overly important to the story so I kind of went over that part in brief. I know in my head what the details were but it would have destracted from the main focus of the story too much.

[OdinBrony]

le more

[MrSpartan]

1058604 Just a warning that the chap Bring Down the Sky will be rewritten because it really could have been better I'm told. So mabey just skim that one or something. Im also starting to reworke with most of the other chapters to a much lesser degree.

[SupremeSoviet]

Score another one for god ol Human ingenuity and force. Humanity is on top, while the ponies are between a piece of lettuce and tomato!

[Mehnlo]

I'm confused as to this. . . How did Illitheous actually get past the barrier?