• Published 22nd Nov 2012
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The Spread of Darkness - The Grimm Reaper

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Chapter 9: Requiem

THREE MONTHS LATER

The Gryphon king stood at the peak of his tower, looking out from the porch that gave him a view of the land he controlled. For thirty years, he’d rued his people with iron talons and for thirty years, he knew his rule would never be tested. But now, as his soldiers began to retreat and die, due to the sudden increase of soldiers amongst the pony race, as well as the recent regularly scheduled interferences from the cause of the war, he was beginning to reach the end of his tether with everyone. Suddenly, his soldiers were incompetent, his bed companions unfulfilling, everything in his life had grown dull. And to make matters worse, he feared he was leading his gryphons into extinction. While he held no personal attachment to them as a whole, he knew that a king couldn’t be a king without control over others.

Things seemed to turn even worse for him as a messenger entered his chambers. “Your highness, I have urgent news. Over a dozen soldiers have reported having killed at least three different enemy units four to five times. They suspect Celestia has made a deal with changelings for reinforceme–.”

The sound of a chain rattling towards the messenger could be heard before the inevitable pierce and cessation of life. The king had thrown what was now revealed as his metal talon at the messenger and killed him on the spot. As if by magic, the chain attaching the talon to his arm began to retract and clamp shut in place. He growled at the news. A deal with the changelings was the last thing he needed to happen to him. He returned to looking out at his kingdom when he heard a tutting noise a second later. He whipped his head around again to see a white gryphon with an eye patch over his right eye.

“Ever heard of the saying: ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’?” he asked, his deep and raspy voice chilling the king’s spine. The king just turned to the intruder and pressed his talon to his throat which didn’t seem to err the white one’s confidence.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The white one seemed to wink at him before replying. “The last thing you’ll ever see if you don’t stand down.” he replied. The king suddenly felt five sharp tips press lightly against his chest. He looked down to see a talon similar to his own, though the knuckles were long black blades roughly twice the length of daggers. The white gryphon before him had the blades positioned perfectly around the left side of his chest. All it would take is a thrust and a clench for his heart and left lung to be sliced into five equal pieces. With little choice but to submit, the king stood down, returning his own weaponised talon to the ground.

“What do you want?” the king asked returning to his balcony.

“Less paperwork to do whenever some gryphon, changeling or pony dies in this war. In short, I want the war over, and I’m going to offer you a face saving way out of this whole mess.” he replied. While the king wished to know what sort of occupation required paperwork regarding the deceased from all sides of a war, he thought better than to ask and went straight to the main article.

“How?” he demanded. The white one cleared his throat and waited for a moment.

“Bluff.” he said simply. The king turned to look at the white one who appeared right in front of him, almost beak to beak. “Tell the princesses that you have a certain number of forces waiting in the wings to overtake all of Equestria by storm, but you are willing to call them off if the peace treaty is renewed and placed into effect immediately. In essense, wipe away the last year and start off with a clean slate.”

The king considered the option for a second. “But the whole reason I declared war was to take revenge on that damnable dragon for killing my scouts on my territory!” he shouted.

“And that’s proven to be more trouble than it’s worth. As a nomadic race, you should be admiring his tenacity and endurance. Besides, I’ve seen the border of your territory as well as the resting place of your soldiers, not to mention his comrades. The truth would reveal you to be in the wrong, yet again… Hyperion.” The king went wide-eyed as his name was spoken.

“How do you know that name?” he asked, more shocked than anything else.

“I know the names of every living thing that has died, every living thing dying and every living thing that will eventually die. Nothing about anyone is hidden from me, murderer.” the king growled at the white gryphon and threw his talon up to his face, tearing away at the flesh.

“I told everyone that an assassin killed her, not me!” he shouted. The white gryphon fell back, dead. His blood began to pool out and stain the floor. Hyperion turned back around, frustrated at everything that stranger had said.

“And of course they’d believe you.” Hyperion swung his head around again to find nothing, not even the blood where blood once was. The white one had disappeared from view, yet his voice still remained. “After all, no-one aside from you and her knew that your brother left the kingdom to his daughter instead of you. Of course you felt you deserved it more, given your outstanding loyalty. And upon his deathbed you murdered his daughter and opened a window, claiming an assassin did it. The others didn’t know you had a motive.” the king looked around for the source of the voice, but couldn’t find it. It was as if it was coming from all around the room.

“Your kind used to believe that in the afterlife, if you’d committed a sin you’d be weighed down by chain and ball. For working gryphons, it would take years of unfaltering business that infected the lives of others to create chains strong and heavy enough to carry the weight of the ball that was their sin. But for someone like you who has directly cut off the life of another through your own talons… such a quick and heavy sin is murder.” Hyperion gasped as the air around him became tight and the gravity increased to a point he was forced to his elbows and knees within the span of a second. It doubled and he was flat against the ground in half that time.

“Then… doesn’t it… make sense… to… continue the war… for the sake of… the fallen?!” he cried out. The gravity returned to normal and the air began to flow freely into his lungs again. He gasped for air and revelled in it.

“So your answer is to bring justice to the dead through war and suffering on both fronts?” the white gryphon appeared again right in front of him through a cloud of white smoke and stopped just short of him. The king rose to his paws with difficulty.

“That is correct.” he replied.

“How stale!” the white one retorted, showing his displeasure at the mere idea. Hyperion huffed at the white gryphon and walked away from him.

“I know who you are now, demon. And I know that you cannot kill me yourself, otherwise you would have done that. You do not ally yourself with one particular side, but simply watch from the sidelines and wait to collect the souls of the dead. You have rules which you must follow and playing the arbiter is one such rule.” Hyperion stopped one last time at his balcony, staring confidently out toward the gryphon kingdom.

The white pony recalled the deal he’d made with the princesses and the changeling queen three months ago…

“It’s settled then; I’ll go to the gryphon king and attempt to convince him to give you a way out of this war. If he accepts, then it’s smooth sailing from then on, if he refuses, then I will pretend to be a gryphon and kidnap your student, Twilight Sparkle. I’ve seen the reaction the dragon has whenever she is in danger or upset and I am confident all you would need to do from then on is recall your ponies and let him work his magic, so to speak. Once that’s over and done with, you three will follow behind him and take over the gryphon kingdom to expand your Equestrian Empire.” The angel of Death was clear and concise with the plan as he laid it out to both princesses and Queen Chrysalis.

“Yes, while in the meantime, Chrysalis will have her changelings change into our fallen soldiers and continue to fight. In exchange, we will allow them to take the places of those lost to us and absorb the love from the widowed.” Celestia replied. Chrysalis nodded and offered her hoof to the white alicorn who took it with some unease and tension. Luna however, had something else on her mind.

“It is such a terrible time for Twilight Sparkle’s sister to be born in.” she stated. The angel looked to her and seemed to grow distant.

“Yes, Misty Nebula. In exchange for using miss Sparkle as bait, I shall endeavour to ensure that no more of that family will die during this war.” he said.

“Speaking of death, there’s one thing that still confuses me.” Chrysalis piped up. All ponies looked at her, waiting for her to ask. “If you don’t allow second chances, how come Spike is still alive, shouldn’t you have killed him instead of sealing away his power? From what I heard, he was supposed to die when the corrupted magic took him over.” she said.

“Spike divided his soul into two prior to corrupting himself with dark magic. As far as the rules are concerned, division of the soul is equivalent to a second life.”

…The white gryphon sighed as he took into account the past with what Hyperion had just said.

“That used to be the case. Now, I’m free.” with a buzzing sound, he was gone in a blur. Hyperion turned around to question him but saw nothing but his chambers with the messenger from before still lying in the doorway.

Spike leaped into the air and focused all his magic into his fist. As he descended upon a small platoon of gryphons, his hand collided with the ground. A wave of dark energy surged like a ripple in water, consuming and killing everything within its radius. The bodies of the gryphons were drained of all fluid and they looked like they’d been decaying for years. Spike’s scales shone black as he grabbed another gryphon by the beak and began to drain its life force. One could watch as the muscle and fat on the creature was sucked out from its body and converted into energy. He tossed the remains aside and ran full throttle into the next horde.

Twilight was using her enhanced magic to overcome the resistance the gryphons had to regular magic and was giving them a good taste of her anger as she took hold of several in her telekinetic energy and crushed them from the inside out, breaking every bone and organ in the process. Their dying screams resonated with her fury and she was sent into a hurricane of a blood rage. Cadence fared no better as her sorrow and misery took over and had begun to mutate into a new form of dark magic that drove its targets to the brink of insanity. As an alicorn her magic was somewhat better channelled. She just strolled through the crowds of gryphons and watched with melancholy eyes as they all dropped dead out of fear of the insane images and scenarios that played randomly throughout their minds. Shock was one hell of a way to die when around her. The rest of the elements of harmony had grown even more dismal as they watched their friends fall to darkness and sorrow one by one.

Applejack had grown stronger for the sake of breaking gryphon bones with her apple bucking skills. Rainbow Dash had learned to use her Sonic Rainboom as a means to distract enemies and ground airborne gryphons. Fluttershy had tapped into her affinity for animals and called Timber Wolves and all sorts of creatures from the Everfree forest, creating a legion of monsters all under her control, feeding off of her restlessness and directing it to the source. Rarity began designing traps as well as armour for the others in order to protect them and bring them home safely, though she felt she was unable to contribute directly to the fight and was left to look after the fillies with Gilda who believed her presence on the field would blend in with the enemy and endanger one of two things Rainbow Dash had left to live for. Finally, Pinkie Pie had long since lost her poufy manestyle and took up general fighting, combining it with her unnatural stealthy abilities, she was the ultimate assassin. She returned to using her old name, Pinkamena.

Having taken back yet another town along the borders of Equestria and driven the enemy that much farther back into their own territory, the group felt they had succeeded and stopped their advances on the gryphons to rest and take the time to revel in their acomplishments. Though it was a small thing given what they had all lost. Twilight had lost a brother, Cadence a husband, the other elements of Harmony had lost a friend and Spike had lost any possibility of thinking he could live a happy life with Twilight after this.

“We did good today guys. Well done.” Spike said, ripping the hind leg of a gryphon from it’s body. He then began to cook it in his own fire, the smell wafting to the others who once would have felt queasy at the scent, but now felt a sense of accomplishment. Some of the wilder animals under Fluttershy’s control had begun picking off the bodies, but others had piled around Spike and Twilight, trying to get their meat cooked.

It wasn’t until they went homeward that everything turned dark yet again for the group, especially spike. Travelling single file, they all heard a thump from behind and the sound of Twilight crying out for aid. Spike saw a white gryphon with an eyepatch holding Twilight in his arm. Twilight’s cried ceased as he headbutted the mare, knocking her out.

“If you want your partner back, destroy the gryphon king and anyone he sends at you. Then she’ll be yours once again.” he said, taking to the skies. Spike growled and pointed a finger at the white gryphon.

“I’m not playing your game. She stays here!” he shouted, a line of black shot out towards Twilight and the gryphon, but instead of making contact, the gryphon shot upward, creating a sonic boom similar to Rainbow Dash’s without the colour.

“NO!” Spike roared, spreading his reverse-angled wings and following after him. He was stopped by Cadence as she grabbed him in her magical aura and brought him down.

“Cadence, let me go! I’m not going to lose Twilight too. She’s the whole reason I’m fighting now, just as Gilda is to Rainbow Dash or you to the memory of Shining Armour.” Cadence felt a pang of emotional agony at her husband’s name, but she remained in control of herself.

“I know you want to save her, but rushing in blindly to the epicentre of the enemy’s territory is just foolhardy. Who knows what they have planned for you there?”

Spike was forced to watch as the white gryphon disappeared into the clouds with Twilight in his arms, waiting for him to follow.

“I’ll kill them… I’LL KILL THEM ALL!!!”