Hello there, my name is Barbara, or rather, it were. In this place i'm more knowingly known as Alice, the Lady of Madness, a catchy title if you ask me.
So I live in a small country known as Sweden, never heard of it? Let me give your mind some refreshments: We have the all known Falukorv, aka Sausage. the mighty and immortal (derp) Knugen, aka our king. and let's not forget the biggest thing we Swedes have to show for (except being one of the healthiest countries in the world.) IKEA, of course. But enough of that, Sweden is a very small country, and thus do not get many conventions actually worth going to, but there were one close by-ish, and I decided to go all out with my outfit. That's right, I went like Alice from Madness Returns, in the Heart Dress, with a functional Vorpal Blade. *** Another story in the "League of Humans going insane Acting Villainous.", created by... uhh <Jimmy the Grape>. Don't remember whom but the whole thing kicked off with "Rise of Darth Vulcan." Loosely inspired by "Not Having any of this S###" by Technopathic and "F*** it i'm having fun" (The later by Jimmy the Grape.) This genre was generally started by CrypticMetaphor, and then came Uberdeathninja and i'm not getting into this argument. Mature rated because, well, she's Alice! THEME SONG! : Shinedown ~ Her Name is Alice
"Children, do you remember what this statue represents?" A... Violet? Purple, maybe? A pony of bisexual colouration? Want to know an issue with being made out of stone? Everything is sort of grayscaled and colour doesn't exist in the strictest sense.
The tiny livestock - I mean ponies - following her turn their gazes to me, really drinking in my form. Why, If I was as younger, I might have thought they were staring - Not that I'd blame them, I am a sexy beast after all.
If I could smirk i could. Some of them certainly looked at me with nothing but fear and apprehension in their eyes, reminding me more of that one deer I barreled into on the freeway with my dads truck than anything sentient. Good times, but remembering just how long ago that was, well, It makes me feel like old suncunt. Honestly, the past few hundred years had been hellishly boring, and the random spurts of activity rarely made up for it, but I do have to admit, watching Luna go insane about made up problems and petty sibling rivalry was pretty humorous. Maybe I would feel bad about having something to do with that, but honestly, fuck her and everything she stands for, if I could I would growl at the thought of her, she wronged me yet I'm the one locked in stone for an eternity whilst birds shit on me? Sure, she's an Alicorn and deity of the night yes yes I know, but she's still responsible for greater crimes than I ever was. Well, maybe not greater, but at least equal! If you count the ones I helped her with at least, but shouldn't the Lady of Madness herself get some slack? With a silent sigh, I turn my attention back to the children.
They had a bit of a complex look on their faces, of course, confusion was the most prevelant one. None of them had really seen a human before, statue or not. It was only last year Celestia had decided to make me public in order to 'celebrate' her sister's return. If anything, I've a feeling a funeral might have been a better theme. The children shivered suddenly, and a thought occured. Had I just projected my aura? I haven't been able to do that for... Since I was free. And at such a minor annoyance? That could mean... Well It could mean anything, but I am choosing to believe that their little goddess Luna is about to have a whole lot more nightmares.
Goddess I want to snort at the thought, she was nothing but a immensely powerful unicorn with wings, wings of which I had given to her to begin with. She had been shocked at first, then a little grateful, but now when she had spread lies about how I had "cursed" her to become Nightmare Moon, that was her own damnable fault! I had already been locked in stone for several hundreds of years when she turned into the Nightmare.
... Although, I'm not going to say I didn't give her a nudge at times. After all, her ascent into madness was so delicious, I had not been so close to escaping ever since. Thinking about it, I remember someone mentioning I would be getting out some day due to the actions of that day. What was his name? Steering Wheel the Sheared? Something like that.
It's not until I feel soft hair - Furr, to be exact - on my pantyhose that I'm snapped out of my meandering thoughts. The reason I noticed that Is because she felt... Familiar. Similar, in a way. Maybe a lost ascendant of somebody I used to know, but my name's not Kimbra and frankly, lost bloodlines isn't my speciality.
"I... I think she's... She's very pretty," she whispered, her voice causing my mind to flash back to Clover. If I could I would narrow my eyes, bah. I doubt It was his anyways. "Pfft, she's not pretty at all! She's not even a pony!" a colt pointed towards me in what I assume to be mockery. Well... Since the seal feels to be weakening, I may as well try it out. With more focus than I'm willing to admit that I'm even capable of, I force a projection - Just the tiniest sliver of a voice through one of my cracks "I feel insulted"
"Who said that!?" The colt jumped on guard, he is a Pegasus, a gray coat with black mane.
"My, don't you recognize your own, sweet mother, Rumble?" Yeah it's really mean to impersonate a child's dead mother, but he called me ugly soooo, he had it coming. I'm hot as fuck.
"M-Mommy?" He whimpers out, flinching heavily and recoiling like I had just slapped him and looking around himself. The teacher's moving closer, seeing the colt act weird. I wondered briefly if i should let her get to him, buuuut... Nah, my whispers of silence and words of knowledge are already penetrating her mind, Gods that I don't believe in, I love how feeling just some freedom, even if they practically are touching me. Manipulating someone's mind with a chaotic force like madness, well... It's kind of like squeezing an apple and hoping it squishes instead of bursts.
"Yes, it's me! Your mother, Thunder Blossom, do you see that statue?" He's facing me, so of course he sees "that" statue. "Y-yeah..." he mumbled, looking up and staring at me. I don't think I can hide my Nobunaga-esque grin even if it's frozen in stone at this point.
"That is me, dear... It's so good to finally see you again. I need you to do someting for me though. If you just turn around and hit that white filly in the jaw... I'd be very happy dear."
He didn't want to do It, in fact, he fought against my control for quite some time, thrashing against nothing. The filly per say approached the shaking colt, and within a few seconds, her green coat turned purple. My frozen grin widened as my gift manifested Itself, the sudden spurt of claws on his hoof left her with three gaping holes in her cheek, then the screaming began. Some guards came, saw the carnage, and forcefully dragged the colt away, kicking and screaming, damaging anyone that came close enough. This magic Is closer to Discords, so I wouldn't be detected. The teacher, under my command, quickly ushered the foals away. Then, my statue cracaked. It split down the middle, and I'll admit I wasn't quite as graceful as I could have been - I fell out of it, surprised by the sudden gravity. My grin couldn't have been more pleased as I got up and clutched my sword, well, knife, If you're a lore kind of person. I bent down and looked to the pavement. ... If it's a really long knife, is it not just a butcher's sword?
I carved into the stone I once was trapped in "Come play with my, my sweet, sweet child of the Night.
I made my way out of the castle, they seem to have used my design in it after all, I wonder If Celestia did It because she thought I could be saved. Of course, there's nothing to actually save me from - If anything I'm saving her and her stupid ponies. I'm sure you're all very confused by now, so let me re-track from before I got here, yeah? I think that's for the best.
We were in my father's van on our way to the convention, Jasper was still grumbling in his Havel armor. He passed me a few thousand, In euros, that's about a few hundred. To my right sat Andreas in his Tesla Armor, a plasma rifle swung around his back, I helped design that damnable thing too, what we ended up doing involved a green one mega-wat laser with a connection to the battery on his arm, his left arm mind you, so It wouldn't get stuck in everything. two mirrors where the laser shot in with a strong magnifying glass in the middle of it, we also made the thing out of metal since we noticed that wood burnt and plastic melted. To fire, the metal plate at the end will be removed and the laser will charge up before discharging. The metal plate Is really only there in case of an accidental dischage. ... Although, It might still make It through, If used too many times, because It was a plate sheet, only two milimeters thick.
Jasper however, some fucking sword that I've no idea what It's called. There's a skull on the guard, holding the sword together, and It tapered off into a curve. The blade itself we ordered a while back, took it almost a year to get here, since then It's just been gathering dust in his closet for the past six months.
'But what about you?' I hear you ask, well I am just so utterly delighted that you portray interest in my clothing, you pervert! I've gone a little out of character with this, so I just took a needle and made sure to sew in some hearts on a red and black dress. The Vorpal Blade was a bitch to make, I was unable to make It short, but you could still see what It was. We dulled the blade to make It pass as a prop, but with enough force would cut through wood. I had gone a little more out of character and strapped a deck of cards to my dress, with Queen of Hearts facing outwards and a band of small, dulled throwing knives around my chest, so in short, I looked like I was trying too hard to be badass, but honestly? Fuckit, cosplays are cringy anyways - May as well play it up.. And for some reason, my father still thought that going to one of these conventions would get me raped or robbed. Now, I'm not a rapist (As of this part of the story anyways), but If I was, I wouldn't go after the chick with a sword, surrounded by three burly armed dudes.
There were more people in the car, because I saw a way to make money. Only one of them actually stood out aside from my two best friends, Leonardo's outfit was that of Van Helsing with a prop sheened crossbow. He put a single touch into his appearance that melded strangely, but nicely with the rest of his outfit, a long black and white scarf covered the bottom of his face, revealing only the milky eyes. Contact lenses, of course.
And another thing: I looked quite a bit like Alice to begin with, right width, right length, black hair, smooth and bony face. I also had my tools In the left pocket of the dress, the same side with the deck of cards on. I actually had to go through a lot of effort to sew a tiny heart onto that thing.
My tools consist of home made smoke-bombs and lockpicks, me and my friend was actually pulling of an act at the start of the convention. "Hey Jasper? You still got the shield, right?" We made him some stupid huge stone shield. Out of wood, of course, but It looked like stone.
Removing his mask he reached behind his back and pulled the shield out, he was about two meters tall and had a very piercing look, I was thankfully used to it by now, and met his look equally.
Then promptly burst out laughing. He briefly laughed with me before turning his cold stare out the window. Seeing as we were almost at the convention, I put on my most calmest, coldest look, sheathing my blade in a narrow steel wire and stood up as my father pulled to a stop.
"You kiddos have fun now, i'll pick you up 'round nine, and if you're going down on eachother, do use protection." Normally one would be embarrassed by such comments, but my father knew that we don't hold any particular interest in eachother, except Leonardo, but It's probably better If we never discuss that. "Will do, Father, will do." Yeah, I'm the awkward one.
And so we went, Andreas had equipped his fallout inspired Rifle, he named it Anal-ilator, (No he didn't) and were glaring death at people around him, and with that I mean he's trying his damndest to not giggle like a schoolgirl. Jasper had put the helmet back on and was walking with the sword and shield in hands, the red and orange cloak on his back made wonders for his appearance, personally I had a hand on the handle of my blade. As we moved closer to the entrance, we got patted down, reviewed for our pass, yadiyada, boring shit. Entering, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, the place weren't filled to the brim nor did it look lacking, it had a decent crowd at everything, and the cool stuff they were selling made the entire three month wait worth it.
I, as always, instantly went to the hat corner, where I laid my eyes upon a large hat with several hearts sewed into it, whilst it looked a bit worn with time it would go perfectly with my Alice cosplay, with that in mind I walked up to him and asked how much he wanted for it.
"Huh? This 'ol thing? Found it in a box I haven't opened in years. How does... A hundred and twenty sound?" Good deal, if you ask me. That was in Crowns, by the way, so It was like twelve euro. I put the money down on the desk, put the hat on and made my way over to Jasper and Andreas, who was gaping at someone cosplaying as Rin from Blue Exorcist, he looked kinda cool, had the blade and all.
We made our way forward before something... Strange made itself known in my eyes, a single woman was standing there and selling props from games, but no one seemed to be buying from it, I made my way over to it through the masses, telling my friends that i'll be there for a little while, going through the props.
What I saw made me glad I wasn't a guy, since I would probably have gotten a erection, pistols, bows, crossbows, hell the Thunderfury laid on that table and several more weapons I recognized from games, but that wasn't what drew my attention, oh no that were a pair of Gloves I recognized as the one Faith uses in Mirror's Edge, looking down on my hands I realized they would be a great replacement for my other red gloves that somehow vanished the day before the convention. ... I realize thinking back to this, my fucking dogs might've been the cause for this entire flustercluck.
And they weren't that expensive either, Hundred crowns! So, of course, being the curious fool I am, I bought them and put 'em on.
Making my way over to my friends I felt a slight tingling, thinking I had to go to the toilet I made my way over there and the tingling increased, this time however in my entire body, I slipped and fell, but instead of being greeted with the hard floor, it felt like water around me, opening my eyes I gasped in horror as I saw my reflection staring down at me with cold, dead eyes, she rose a finger and pointed at me, she didn't have any gloves like I had, I noticed, it's strange what you think about in situations similar to these.
She finally broke the surface of the mirror, and touched me. I... I can't describe how her fingers made me feel. I swear I could smell colours, see sound and hear light, pain shot through my body, and I think I felt something break.
I was sent spiraling downwards, even though my rational mind knew there was no downwards on a normal bathroom floor. Last thing that went through my head was the need to grab onto something, followed by a faint voice. I'm sorry, and Good Luck.
(Present.) I feel like I should mention this, I move very fast, props of my gloves. "What would I do without you, Fate?" I asked the gloves as I kept running around inside the castle, I was just at the gates before I noticed that my hat was missing, and knowing Miss Sunbutt she wouldn't throw it away, at least not likely.
I think I should give some backstory on that, but it's relatively short, Sunbutt never knew where I got my powers from, she just knew I got mad without my hat, so I guess she figured that was from where. Fool she is.
I felt a tingle up my spine and instinctively dropped to the ground, a light whistle flew overhead as two Pegasi guards, stallions by the looks if it, stood before me.
I didn't even flinch, I just used the muscles in my legs to force myself up like a plank, standing at my full height I slowly rose the Vorpal Blade and made a mad dash for the two guards, seemingly surprised by the course of action they did a foolish thing, attempting to block. My gloves gave of a dull grey look of boredom that transferred to the blade, with a viscious smile I grabbed the shafts of the spears and crushed them in my hands, elicting a happy green light from my gloves.
Feels good the be back, bitches.
The Guards grabbed the broken spears, I had just crushed the top of them, they threw the spears at me. I don't know how I should feel at that, despite the fact that it was kinda impressive that they had mastered a bipedal stance to such a degree where they could balance and throw things.
A quick slash with my sword and the two sticks turned into four, I felt blood rushing in my veins, a feeling I had missed a lot due to my stony prison.
The stallions tried to run away, foolish they are. I grabbed one of the sticks in each hand as my Vorpal Blade made itself known at my hip, and threw both of them.
I struck gold as they impaled the guards wings.
Slowly making my way over there, I made sure to add a very small illusion spell that would make the air seem to darken around me, a intimidation tactic really, it rarely failed me.
These guards was no exception as they saw me with the Vorpal Blade in hand, started begging for mercy. That's when I realized that one of them was actually a mare.
Should I... hmm... I considered adding her to my new... Well let's just say that I get bored sometimes and need to release tension, and i'm pretty sure my old group were just bones and dust by now.
You never know a voice whispered back in my head, electing a mental sigh from me, I need to stop thinking silliness. I was right at the two of them by now, whenever I captured a guard I used to slice of his cockles if males, and well, I wasn't the most pleasant person to mares either, but I neither had the time nor the practice right now, so I settled for something more simple.
"Soldier, what's your name?" My voice was soft, smooth and silk like, I had practiced it mentally for a thousand or so years, I thought of using it to calm prisoners, about to receive their death sentence.
It worked as the mare eased up a little, before the searing pain in her right wing shot through her body. "I asked a question." I kept the motherly smile on, observing Celestia might have been a bit of a stupid move, but it was worth it, it took a while to get the smile down with my canines, but it worked none the less.
"I-I'm Feather Duster, rank Private." She stuttered, I knew there was more but... I don't have time. "Thank you, Private Duster, i'm going to do something incredibly horrible to you, and I should feel bad about doing it, but i'll honestly enjoy every second of it." My smile was still there, so with the voice.
Here eyes went wide as dinner plates and her mouth opened to scream, I took a quick glance and noticed that the male guard had passed out, probably from pain. I drew out a throwing knife from the belt around my chest and put it to her tongue, she instantly shut up. "You know, Celestia recognize my signs anywhere, a cut of tongue, the womb seemingly missing and any vital, special abilities completely removed" I smiled again, and cut of her tongue in one swift motion. She instantly started chocking on her blood, I reached forward and kissed her with a grin on my face, my hand was around her throat and I started to pump healing energy into the wound, not much, but she wouldn't bleed to death, the pain would still be there though, I can only do so much.
I moved towards her flank, only to notice it being obscured by the armor. With a frown I swiftly removed it, and I saw the mare's true form.
She was light grey with a dull, silver looking mane, and two feather dusters seemed to be locked in battle on her flank. I gave it a flat expression. Feather Duster.
I slowly reached to my hip and unsheathed my sword, realizing it would be too big I instead put my hand on her Emblem, and wiped it clean. with a reverse motion a new mark were there, a multitude of flowers painted red, with the paint still wet and dripping. Then I saw her wings.
I had to stop myself from ripping them straight of her body. They looked just like the one's I had given Luna at the tip, but just like her body at the base. I raised my Vorpal Blade, and brought it down in two swift arcs, cutting her wings off.
Looking at the mare, I realized that yes, she was unconscious. I sent another small wave of healing magic into the wounds, healing them so she wouldn't bleed to death.
I won't describe what I did next, but she won't be having any children.
Ever.
I turned my attention back to the stallion and smiled, I had only been here for three minutes at max, my guess would be that more guards would be here at the ten minute mark.
I wouldn't be able to do what I would want to, so cutting of his wings would have to do, stallion's always treasured them more than mares, for some reason.
Probably to show of masculinity. I snickered at the though as I merrily sawed through the flash and bone of his wings with my knives, he woke up during it but were quickly silenced as I drove a knife through his snout, impaling him to the ground, I made sure to miss the tongue. So his muffled screams were like musics to my ears as I ripped the final piece's of his wings of, I didn't want to risk using any more magic to heal him, so I just bandaged him up and strolled on my way, I knew a few place's where the hat could be, and the most likely would be in a museum, to show my "defeat" and the "return" of "sanity". I'm not insane, i'm just... immoral.
So, decided that I wouldn't want to be caught up with any more guards I started running towards the museum, if you wonder how I know where it is, I helped design this freaking city. And I found it just where I thought I would, I had to jump over a few rooftops and hide a few times, but I got here alright, I already felt my hat... Calling for me.
So I walked in like a boss, and walked up to the receptionist. "Excuse me miss, but where is the Memos of Defeat section?" She didn't even look at me and just pointed me down a hallway, I shrugged and followed her directions before I saw it, first thing on display, "The Hat of Madness" it read, I crashed the glass container and grabbed the hat, but before I managed to put it on a blast of magic narrowly missed me, turning around I saw about eight guards, these in iron armor. So, actual soldiers and not puny guards for fashion, it seems like Celestia stepped up her game.
The unicorns were behind two earth ponies in heavy armor, and two light armored Pegasi flew around the room, cutting of any and all escape routes.
They must've found the guards. I chuckled a little, I considered turning the stallion into a mare, but decided against it, not enough time. Time time! What is the time? There's never enough time. I slowly drew my Vorpal Blade, this sword cut through most metals like armor, but Celestia were no fool and would most likely have them enchanted, and judging from the confident looks on the Unicorns, who by the way wore robes, they didn't think I stood a chance.
I did a quick test and threw a knife at the larger Earth Pony, he didn't even flinch as it harmlessly bounced off a pale blue surface just in front of him.
Figures i'll have to do that again. It's a temporary... Buff I guess, it really just quickens me for a half hour, but after the time is up my gloves would barely give of any magic, that's probably why the Celestial Sisters hadn't found out my source of power after our last battle, the memory brought a smile on my face. They hadn't heeded my warning.
(1330 years ago.) "Wait! If you strike me down now, i'll return more powerful then you can possibly imagine!" (Present.)
The Earth Ponies came forward in a confident stride, acting as if I posed absolutely no threat. I barely had time to dodge the first buck, so instead of a rib-crushing blow that would most likely instantly kill me, I ended up with a minor bruise that barely hurt.
"So, I heard you're liking the weather today." It had started raining just as I entered the museum. No answer. "Hey, this is no fun if you're just going to be Grumpy MC Grumpington!" A pink pony had visited my statue once, I found the quote hilarious, don't know why.
To my surprise, he froze and I could hear the sound of his jaw dropping inside of his helmet. "P-P-Pinkie Pie?!" He managed to stutter, all eyes turned to him, then to me, then to him, then to my now-pink hair. "Of course silly filly, who did you think? Princess Celestia? Don't be silly." I figured he knew her somehow, and acting's saved my life in the past, so why not now.
"B-but, but why would you do those things!" It wasn't really a question directed towards me, more towards himself. "What things? I threw that rubber blade at you because I wanted to see what direction it went! And did you see it? It went right, then hit the wall and sprung upwards! Where it fell to the ground and stuck!" I animatedly pointed at the, indeed, rubber knife on the floor. "Not that! The torture victims!" And he's short fused.
My hair instantly went flat and I put on my best 'heart broken' expression. "T-torture victims?" I asked in as small of a voice that I could possibly muster, earning a worried look from the stallion. He approached me cautiously until her were a few feet away from me.
"Pinkie, why do you look like... Well... That?" He asked, if it wouldn't break my act I would have smiled. Still fake sobbing I pointed towards the hat "I-i went in here to look at something cool, then I saw the hat and thought like, I must get rarity to make me a replica but when I leaned to close to it, I fell and shattered the glass, I blacked out for what I think was a few seconds, and when I woke up I held the hat in my hand, and then you guys entered." There, play innocent, I honestly doubt they would be able to see through this.
The unicorns dropped their spells as multiple ponies approached me, although wearily. When they were all within reach I hugged the stallion for all I could, sobbing into his coat, i'm very good at faking you see. Slowly standing up I noticed that the unicorns had dropped the protection spells and were now chatting among themselves, the Pegasi weren't far away either.
In a practiced and swift motion I drew my sword and impaled the pony I were hugging, severing his head from the rest of the body, before any of the other soldiers had time to react I halved the other Earth Pony, sent multiple throwing knives towards the Unicorns, all of which hit with deadly precision, throwing one Smoke bomb to the floor, filling the room with smoke, I used my handkerchief to cancel out most of the gas, and while the Pegasi were coughing their lunges out, I swiftly stabbed them all in the neck with my knives.
I picked up the hat from the floor, which had somehow miraculously survived any bloodstain, collecting my knives I made my way out of the room, if this was The Hat of Madness, then I guess that...
Guards, guards everywhere, left, guards, right? Guards, Forward? Sunbutt and more fucking guards, I knew just from the look on her face that I wouldn't be able to fake my way out of this.
My hair was black again and I moved forward in slow strides, no weapons were visible on my person, Celestia used to act very rashly a thousand or so years ago, but over time I noticed how her period seemingly wore off.
Twenty meters left before i'll reach her, some may argue that what i'm doing is stupid, but I want to show her just how much she and her sister had hurt me, even if it meant dying, if you discounted the guards this may very well have been a stand-off between to cowboys or something, the guards tensed up as I moved closer.
Ten meters.
I could literally see the fear in the guards eyes, I hadn't exited my spell after all, even with my slow regeneration it's still quick enough to easily cancel out the drawbacks of the spell, I ran my tooth over my teeth, smiling a little as the taste of blood made itself known, that mare weren't the best kisser, but the metallic tinge in my mouth made up for it.
I stopped two meters in front of Celestia, sat down, and began eating a salad that had been left on a table. She looked at me like I just lost my marbles, I can understand how it may seem to her; Number one wanted in the entire world, the blood of thousands upon my hands, were sitting here, eating a salad with a smile.
Snapping out of her little episode, she glared at me, I met her glare with ten times the force, remember earlier how I told you about Jasper's glares? That guy never really needed to fight, a glare would scare away the cops.
I rose and stood at my tallest height, I'm sadly not very tall though and only reached slightly above her, but it's a primal fear that all creature's have, watch out for the big baddies, herbivores had this times six.
She didn't waver much though, she just tried to step up her glare a notch, which failed when I respectively increased my power of the glare.
I'm actually a friendly girl, at heart, it's just I never feel like acting nice, last time they had caught me with those blasted elements I were in the middle of a... Questionable activity, and singing Ready to Die by Andrew. WK while torturing someone tends to make you lose yourself, I still blame Luna for making me tip like that, all because she wanted immortality like her sister, she saw only one solution; Take it from someone that has more of it then they need, a percentage of eternity is still eternity, after all.
We thrust forward as if suddenly set on fire, her large broadsword that seemed older and stronger than time itself clashed with The Vorpal Blade, both swords shifted under the blow, my Vorpal Blade got blood red at the tip, only a small part of the rose out there, and sunbutts Titan's Fury caught on fire, a large brilliant flame went out of the sword at the next slash, slightly scorching my blade.
I jumped backwards as far as I could, gaining about Fifty meters of distance as I waited for Celestia to approach, I knew her sister were observing through the cloud spell, it didn't surprise me that Miss Sunbutt didn't want her precious sister in danger.
I barely had time to dodge as the sword went over my head, severing the hat from my head as I did a backflip, landing on my hands I got the hat on my foot, as I got back on my feet I found the hat on my head, with a grin I opened my Deck of Cards, and pulled out a Knight of Spades, pure luck really, and put it on the ground before she knew what I was doing.
I felt the power surging into my body, if there's one thing i've learned from playing video game's it's that you should always save your ace's for the bosses.
With a mad dash I swung my sword with all the power I could muster towards her head, sunbutt's Fury blocked the blow, but some of the flames seemed to extinguish as my own sword were halfway in on the roses.
"Paint it red, Celestia." Her eyes went wide as I pulled out a normal paint brush, seemingly dry, and slapped it across her face, red paint stained the majority of her body, still wet and dripping I dropped it on the ground, where it would disappear to god knows where. She grabbed me in her magic and threw me across the street into a house, multiple destructive spells following.
Idiotic.
Groaning, I managed to pull out my umbrella just in time to reflect her fire spell, dodging out of the way for the second one I reflected the third, of which I found to be acid as the ground beneath me started to fizzle.
The surprise on Celestia's face was priceless, I grabbed a camera I always had on me, and took a picture of her just a mere second before the fireball collided with her.
"That, was a doozey" I said, knowing that Celestia would teleport to me in a second I readied the Vorpal Blade, she did not disappoint as the Titan's Fury nearly took my head of, before I caught it in my mouth. That's right, I bit down on a sword.
That was on fire.
The fire didn't harm me very much though, as the entire blade seemingly extinguished instantly due to shock from the user, I spit the blade out at her hoof and took a stance with the Vorpal Blade.
"Come and get me, slut." In the corner of my eyes I saw a bunch of Unicorns charging some manner of spell, I smiled as the gigantic, blue and sparkling ball of energy came at me, pulling out my umbrella I relished the 'oh shit dawg' look on their face's as the spell was slung back at them, sadly, doing this granted Celestia the opportunity to stab me in the chest with her fiery sword, the surprised look on her face that she actually hit me told wavelengths of how used sunbutt were to killing, that's right, she nearly fainted.
Standing her ground though, she pulled the sword out of me and tried with a final badass speech as blood dripped out of the wound, I could feel myself phasing, but I still had my largest Ace in my sleeve.
"For your crimes against Equestria, Gryphonia and Zebrica, your vile acts against nature and the murders of... Six thousand, nine hundred and sixty two-" she glanced at the fried unicorns and frowned "- seventy five ponies, five hundred and thirteen Minotaurs, one thousand and five hundred twenty six Zebras and two thousand five hundred and ninety two Gryphons, I here by condemn you to death for the murder of eleven thousand, six hundred and six beings, and as a binding of permanent peace, your corpse will be given to the Gryphons." Eleven thousand... It really makes you think, I felt damn proud of myself, but I decided it was the time to activate my vice card, but not before I got to say my own badass line.
"Make that... Six thousand, nine hundred and seventy five ponies, and two Alicorn." I smirked as I activated my Hysteria, the wound instantly sealed itself and I went whiter than a ghost, blood started spilling out of my eyes and I felt a familiar weight on my back, putting The Vorpal Blade on my hip, I pulled out the weapon on my back.
It's... It's finally done, the most wanted murderer in the entire living word, the biggest scar on this planet, is dying, I guess a thousand years in stone made her rusty.
My sword impaled the ground as I took a deep breath, and almost gagged at the smell of blood. Then, to my horror, The Lady of Madness spoke.
"Make... That... Six thousand... nine hundred and... and... seventy five ponies... two Alicorns." My eye's went wide as she turned white, the wound gone, her eye's were blacker than the depths of Tartarus, and seemed to cry blood.
She sheathed her sword, there were only one rose left unpainted on it, and pulled out something from her back.
I only reacted out of instinct as a giant oh Faust why pony head embedded itself in the ground, it gave of a happy and loud neigh as I narrowly dodged it, Alice were not done however, as she kept flailing the giant head around, I found no time to give of a counter attack, the last remaining unicorns in the guard were firing of magic spells at her, but she just pulled out her umbrella and deflected them without breaking a beat, eventually I tried to dash for Titan's Fury, but a giant blunt force interrupted me as it slammed into my back, a searing pain shot through my spine and I swear I heard something snap, if I were not moments away from passing out, I would have told Luna to stay away.
(Alice, Present.)
Slam, slam slam. Deflect, slam slam deflect. Slash, deflect slam. Deflect slam slam deflect. my mind worked in perfect harmony as I went through the attacks, sunbutt dashed for her sword after a while, I managed to slam my Hobby Horse down on her spine, time seemed to slow down as I added more pressure until I heard something snap, satisfied I slipped a gem onto her sword, so she wouldn't be able to grab it with magic.
I knew Luna and her guards were coming from behind, but my Hysteria had a mere fifteen seconds left, using these seconds I pulled out my pepper grinder and began mowing down guards, they dropped like Boltflies, some got their wings clipped and other's just got their brains pierced.
Five seconds left.
Putting my pepper grinder back in my hat, I made a dash for the outskirts of the city, the speed combination of Fate and my Hysteria allowed me to make it to the edge in just a few seconds, jumping of the edge I began to float towards The Everfree, I used to have my house there, built underground by some Dragons and Diamond Dogs when I slaughtered their Alpha.
I smiled at the memory, and kept descending into the forest, aiming for the mountain.
I hit the toe of the mountain, just like I wanted too, and moved my way around, feeling around for my entrance.
I felt a thin stone wall, smiling I reared back and slammed my first into it, breaking the surface and revealing a large, large iron door with a very complicated combination code, with a small snicker I put in the code, Ace, Diamonds, Knight, Spades, King, Clubs, Queen Hearts.
The door opened and air sucked in, blowing away some of the dust that had gathered over the centuries, with a critical eye I inspected the untouched dust and nodded in approval as I made my way down the staircase, making sure to close the door behind me, my venture downward were a long and boring one, it took nearly two hours to reach the bottom of it, then another three hours of avoiding traps to reach my house, it looked exactly like I remembered it, and I smiled.
I merrily made my way up to the front door, the ancient magic of dragons kept the castle floating and the expert architecture of Diamond Dogs made sure there weren't a nick out of place, the gems to avoid aging still adored the staircase and sent out a happy, purple light as they felt their rightful master walk to the throne again, I opened the door when something caught my attention. I opened the door.
That's not good news, since it meant that someone entered my house while I was away, I slowly stalked down the narrow hallway and went into the first door on the left, my
still stood there, like the day I left them, they looked vaguely humanoid but there were some key difference's, like the marks or the numbers I had tattoo'd into their skin, the sewed on legs, among other things.
They were asleep, all my minions had a sapience and were allowed to leave if they so pleased, few did so, and those that did were never heard from again, I figured Celestia had them killed on sight because they're, according to her, 'abominations against nature' then she didn't believe me when I told her that they were actually intelligent, sapient and sentimental beings, and that it was rude to insult others just because they look different.
I woke them up with a hug, it felt so good to be back, I saw my soldiers like family, and mourned each time they got hurt, swore revenge whenever they were killed and I did my best to patch them up when they came back from a battle, i've lost a total of twenty family members, as of now just six remained including me, Four of Clubs, Queen of Spades, Knight of Spades, Ace of Hearts, or as I like to call him, The Executioner, and King of Diamonds, we were all just one family now, and I had forbidden them all from fighting unless it was outmost necessary, it felt mean, but I don't know how I could handle another death of my friends or family, I would probably instantly reach The Black Rose, which is what caused the death of my two sister's to begin with. I myself are the Queen of Hearts, obviously.
They woke up with a shock, and almost instantly started hugging me back as I cried on them, i'm not a mindless beast as most ponies make me out to be, I may be mentally unstable, but I wouldn't call myself insane, immoral perhaps, but not insane.
They patted my back and broke the hug, they were conscious about the time that's passed, but they didn't have to endure it, it's like when you take a long sleep and instantly knows it's been almost a entire day.
"Alice, what's wrong? Was it Luna again? I always knew she'dd end up making you cry, and none the less after they turned you into a statue, I can't imagine how lonely you must've been," he put his giant hand on my shoulders, I feel like I should mention that he's 8'7 tall and i'm just 5'6.
"It's okay, Ace, it wasn't that bad, I even met Jack in the Mindscape during my imprisonment, apparently he suffered a similar fate to me, feel bad for him, knowing that he didn't have family to come back to." I weren't that close to my family back on... Earth I think the world was called, anyways, I weren't very close to them, mostly spent my time alone, that's how I suffered through the imprisonment.
"Whilst this reunion is very touching, i'm sad we have a intruder-" their eyebrows shot up in surprise."-I would like to find him, or her, unharmed if you could, if she's already injured contact me instantly and bring him or her to the medical ward, it's in the far left teapot, in case you've forgotten" I let it sink in for a while "I'll be in my chambers if you need me, you know the drill." Namely, if someone knocks at the door, tell them we don't want what they're selling, and if someone tries to break in whoever that captures the intruder's allowed to do whatever they want to them, the reason i'm actually not ordering them to torture whoever broke is due to the fact that this place looks like it's been abandoned for thirteen hundred years, it could be some adventurer searching for treasure or loot, or fame I guess.
I slammed the door with a heart shaped ax as a handle open and entered the room, searching about I found what I was looking for, a green and golden chest.
Opening it I noticed several things missing, The Thorns of Misery, my precious Ring of Summoning, that bitch who took it better kept it safe, or I might never see Jack again, I also noticed how my Dagger of Curses were missing, my mind draw a blank instantly as I slowly shut the chest, hearing the clicking sound of several locks engaging at once.
"Dear gods, that bastard's got no idea what he's getting himself into." you see, my Dagger of Curses does not only curse whoever it cuts, it also curses the user, which means that someone could have taken it, and fallen ill in here, just days after I got imprisoned, which meant that they spent over a thousand years here, writhing in pain.
"Death would be a mercy" I muttered as I sat down on my bed, it eliciting a slight groan under my weight. "Shut up, i'm not fat." I told the bed, the groaning instantly ceased and a slight giggle replaced it.
Sighing, I fell back on the bed, letting my damages repair themselves whilst I waited for my family to find the intruder, normally Diamond always find them first, but the other's have outdone him more than once. I thought back, to the first time I actually met him.
I finished wiping my blade on his scales, several smaller dragons watched in horror as their leader fell, the red of blood clashing with his cyan, and with a thud the great wyvern hit the ground.
I smiled as I walked up to the dragons and diamond dogs, with a happy tone, I opened my mouth and bellowed "You are now all under my control, I am your new alpha, anyone who wishes to challenge me, step forward." They all went tight lipped at that and nervously shuffled away from me, all except one big Diamond Dog, he wore very heavy armoring, a giant mace was slung around his back, he stood taller then most teenage dragons, and had darker fur than the other Diamond Dogs. So, this was the Beta, then?
My question was answered as he unsheathed the giant warhammer and pointed it at me, seemingly straining a little for holding at one hand. "As my right due to position of Beta in this pack, I challenge you, Alice, The Lady of Madness, to a duel for the rightful position of Alpha." He didn't sound annoying to listen to either, which were always a plus. Should I..? Why not... "I accept, Beta." He then charged.
(Present)
I woke up when someone knocked at the door, groggily I sat up and rubbed my eyes, the mascara still didn't get all gooey, even after a thousand years.
The knocking continued.
"Do you see a sock on that door or something, Ace? Just open it already." He slowly opened the door and had to crouch past it, lest he hit his head on the frame.
"We've found the intruder, she's in the medical ward, it seems like she's only been here for a few years, I would recommend to check up on her, we can do much with our medical equipment, but we can't cure curses." I nodded and he silently left the room, stalking off to god knows where.
Limbering up I noticed that a familiar weight had settled in my hat, it was The Pepper Grinder, as of now it would probably be slightly worn with time, but within this house all items find their way back to me, and this was no exception. I frowned as I recalled them burning my Hobby Horse.
(100 Years Ago, Third Person.)
Celestia made her way to the burial chamber, following and trusting her memory to lead her there, she passed guards and servants alike that bowed to her respectively.
Walking outside the room she had designed for her sister's made her heart ache, and thinking back of how it happened made the air around her boil with heat.
With a small snarl she teleported to the burial chamber, not feeling like walking anymore, and with a frown she lifted the lid of a grave, labelled 'Artifacts of the Lost' inside of it was a few swords, a shield, some small gems and a silvery pony head attached to a pole.
Pain shot through her leg as she remembered her last encounter with Alice, how The Lady of Madness had almost killed her and Luna, she called this item The Hobby Horse, and any pleas for Celestia not to take it was left unheard.
She pulled it out with a frown and looked at it, the unicorn head looked like it were mad at her for locking it's master in stone. "It's time to finally grant you peace, Luna, i'm sorry it took so long." Indeed, the nine hundred years without Luna had been almost complete anarchy, she was afraid that Discord would break out again, but it seemed like fate smiled upon her those years alone.
She teleported into the garden, in front of a certain statue, it stood tall and proud with a stoic expression on it's face, for most passing by it would look more like an absurd statue rather then the Lady of Madness.
Laying the Hobby Horse on the ground in front of the statue that acted like Alice's prison, she smiled a little as she thought about how it would make her feel, to see her precious weapon burn.
Deciding to risk it, she opened a small, mental channel to Alice.
"Urgh, i'm so bored, and I miss Jack, I bet Celestia thinks that he's out there somewhere, if I could I would laugh, after all Miss Sunbutt probably killed him or he suffered the same fate as me." The voice that projected inside of her mind almost caused Celestia to flinch, but she stood her ground.
"Alice, Lady of Madness, Deception and Torture, over the years you've killed more beings then I can possibly count, most were done with this weapon" She gestured to the unicorn head. "- and thus, it shall burn before your very eyes." She lift the weapon from the ground, scaling it up to eye level, and smiled as Alice begged her not to. Then, it burned.
Alice's wails of horror and agony caused Celestia to flinch and drop the weapon, suddenly remembering a thing Alice told her before she went insane.
"The Hobby Horse, it's a momento from home, y'know? It's the kinda thing you keep no matter what."
The damage was, however, done as the silver melted and the wood turned to ashes, this being the one and only time she's even heard of Alice being anything but calm and collected, and the promises of death and eternal suffering, although she'll never admit it, horrified her. Cutting of the mental link she instantly teleported into her room, bent one knee in front of a statue labelled "Faust the First." "Forgive me Faust, for I have sinned..." (Present.)
I made my way to the medical ward and slowly pushed the door open, noticing Diamond and Clubs ironically playing cards. Silently stalking over to the injured pony, the first thing I noticed was how... Indiana Jones she looked, she even had the whip, a compass adored her flank and she slept with a frown over her face, on the table next to the pegasus I saw a small bag filled of stuff, most of it were actually mine.
Thief... or adventurer? the pony started groaning, probably in pain from the curse.
Making my way to her side I searched her body for a wound, none, okay, this'll be easy. Putting a hand on her head I dispelled the curse, and the only time i've ever seen a expression that even matched hers were when I found out that Starswirl didn't die.
That expression changed into confusion as she woke up, she probably felt a dull ache over her entire body, since according to Ace, and if he's right (which he usually is.) this poor girl's been stuck here for years.
Her eye's turned into a look of horror as she saw me, I responded by a concerned furrowing of my eyes. "Are you okay?" I put a hand to her head, I understand why she was freaking out, never seen a creature quite like me. She calmed down as I sent healing energy through her body, a relaxed sigh escaped her lips and she looked at me. "Y-yeah... Just gotta learn not to touch things... labelled 'Cursed'" She attempted to laugh but coughed due to her dry throat. "Clubs, go and get our guest some water, hell bring a whole pitcher." She gave a small salute and scattered out of the room. I smiled down on the pegasus, she truly looked adorable.
"Tell me, miss, what's your name?" I asked her, I think I recognized her from somewhere... Can't remember where though.. "I'm Daring, Daring Do, what's your name?" She's probably still cautious about me, not that I can blame her, I think it would be best if I removed the sword from my hip, but I couldn't do that here.
"I'm Alice, and Miss Do, I must say, you remind of someone I met a while back..." That's true, she reminded me a lot of Wind Runner, also an adventurer, maybe it's her ancestor?
"Perhaps you've seen me on the cover of my book series?" I shrugged, perhaps. Clubs came back with a large pitcher of water and a glass, I set them down next to Daring on the table. "So, Daring, what's your story? And more importantly, what are you doing in my house..?"
***
Dear god that was taxing to write, I planned to show a lot of backstory in this chapter, but I didn't get out nearly as much as I wanted to, and i'm sorry for the late update, but it was my brother's birthday yesterday.
(???? Ago.) "Can't we just talk about this?" His giant sword slammed down in front of me, and with a quick change of his wrist I could roughly read something on there, "NO!:" I jumped backwards to avoid a thrust of that freaking sword, it gently nicked my cheek making an X shape on it. X marks the spot. With a quick calculation I pulled out my Teapot Cannon, dodged his next thrust and fired it at him, the boiling tea impacted his gut, scarring the already messed up tissue further.
He became momentarily stunned and I took a risk, dashing forward I slashed three times with my Vorpal Blade, and finished the combo by slamming The Hobby Horse on his head, a metallic clang could be heard for miles.
He gave of a roar that a mortal body shouldn't be able to produce, and with rage fueling his attack he forced the giant thing he called a knife downwards, I just managed to parry it with my own sword but it felt like my arms were about to break, I also noticed how it had painted half of all roses.
"C'mon! I didn't mean to call you Purry!" It was a mistake, he tried to tell me his name, but only squeezed out 'Pu..rr.y.. H...d.' and I of course promptly burst out laughing, I sorely regret that right now.
He didn't care, it seemed, and dashed at me again, I scarcely avoided it, at least that's what I thought at first, but when I felt something hot and wet on my left arm I spared a glance and almost wished I hadn't, my entire arm was seriously fucked up and small black wisps escaped my flesh as it tried to seal itself, for some reason it didn't.
"Y... hAV SINeD, F e EEL mY wratH!" Did I mention that this fucker was tall as hell compared to me? Don't think I did, I think his knife was bigger then me, and the only reason i've survived this long is because he always drags that giant thing he calls a knife behind him, and is forced to flip his wrist whenever he's about to attack.
Another slash, I dodged and leaped onto his sword, my thick leather boots with metal plating didn't get cut by his sword thankfully, so with some extra force I jumped into the air, and collided with his pyramid helmet head thingy, I mean usually this is idiotic but no one, and I mean no one attempts to steal the Title of Madness without getting a boot to the face. I heard my feet clinking on his helmet, and seemingly time stopped.
He didn't move, I found myself frozen on the pyramid, my eyes moved downwards and I saw that he was frozen mid-step, apparently gravity had no meaning to this being.
Something came downward from the sky, she wore long, red robes with black and gold linings, humanoid shape even.
She took a glance at us and laughed, wiping a tear from her face she sat down on a chair that was not there a second ago. "What's this what's this? Fighting are we? Didn't your mother teach you better, Alice?" I felt rage inside of me, but didn't respond. "Not going to answer me, are you? Fine, i'll leave you with this then, The Weapons of Madness should not be used against eachother, the repercussions are much more grave then you can imagine." This time I responded.
"I use my sword however I please, old lady, and may The Nine curse whoever tries to tell me otherwise." Her face darkened a lot at that, and with no small amount of anger she retorted with
"You may be a Queen, Alice, and you a King, Pyramid Head, but what are a pair of royals to a god?" I don't think she wanted that answer, but by the Nine she was going to get one, to my surprise Pyramid Head also answered at the same time.
"What is a god to a non-believer?" "whAt iS A gOD To a nON-beliEveR?" That caught me a little by surprise, I hadn't expected him to talk, absolutely in this kind of situation.
But he did, and in face of our response her mode only darkened, but then went into shock as she seemingly faded away, personally I was not surprised, gods or demons only hold power over those that believe in them, when faced with atheist they quickly falter, I guess that goes double with a history like mine.
Time started again, and Pyramid Head slipped mid-step, dragging me to the ground with him, a roar escaped him as he plunged his knife into the ground, and with a low growl he pushed himself up, still holding tightly to his blade.
The hell is this guy made out of? Metal? Why can't I harm him... Then it clicked, he's probably another human like me who got sent here, but were not as lucky as me and ended up in a position that he couldn't talk himself out of, which means... Dammit! What's his catalyst? His artifact? I didn't have time to observe as I neatly slid under a sideways swing, nearly taking half of my body with it.
I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up, so I did what I always do when I can't fight or talk my way out of something, I ran. I entered a full sprint through the field we was on, a forest could be seen looming on the horizon, and I smiled at what would probably be my salvation.
Pyramid Head, however, had other plans, and kept going behind me in a slow pace but somehow never falling behind yet always managing to stay close enough to keep my running.
My gloves started to glow and I did a backflip thingy, sending a pulse of arcane energy at him, hoping it would at least slow him down. The effect was more than I hoped for as he completely stopped, one of his arms went towards me, in what looked to be a slow and steady writing pace, some words imprinted themselves on the air, and I could read them perfectly, somehow.
I'll be waiting, Alice. I had a strange feeling that I had made a very big mistake, but kept running towards the forest. Reaching the edge, I heard a thumping sound, turning around I couldn't help but rise an eyebrow at the bipedal being wrapped in something stalking it's way towards me.
What is that..? A heavy fog settled around us, obscuring my vision for more then twenty meters at most. I kept walking in the mist, I didn't let myself be bothered the bipedal being, if you live close to the Everfree for long enough strange things like that seem insignificant, yet I could not shrug of this feeling of dread as I kept walking, I passed a graveyard and didn't give it a second thought, even though I have played enough games in my day to know that; Creepy monster + Fog + Graveyard = Bad.
I reached something that looked like a human made road and that made me feel uneasy, still, silently stalking down it I saw a sign on at the far end of it, squinting my eyes I barely made out the green outlines, rushing forward I saw the entire sign, and what unsetled me worst wasn't the sentence itself, it spelled out Sillent Hill in English, not Equues. I turned around to go back and bumped into a large roadblock that was not there a second ago, looking over the sign again I noticed something new... I'll be waiting, Alice. Dear Nine... ******** Pyramid Head in this fiction belongs to SCP Pinkamena
Dullahan collided with a cliff face, a clang echoing through the swamp and a constant rumbling could be heard, a fragile voice cut through the otherwise silent swamp, it sounded lonely, like a single stroke of a violin. "It gets so lonely being evil... What I’d do to see a smile, even for a little while... And no one loves you... When you're evil." Dullahan would have grinned and responded in his usual echoey voice. I would continue with your song, but I don’t have any teeth to lie through anymore.
The voice stopped, and the silence of the marsh returned, only broken by the occasional ruffled bush. The armor gave the impression of looking around by slowly turning his upper body from left to right. Okay, I’ll have you know I’m both armed and heavily armored, so sneak attacks won’t work.
The ruffling stopped, and out of the treeline a girl exited, a human girl. “You may be immune to my stabs, but I can still rustle your jimmies ‘till next Thursday, armor boy.” The armor gave the impression of staring, somehow. It was remarkable how much body language can be conveyed when you don’t have a head. Yeaaaah, while I admit you’re the first female human I’ve seen in a good, long while...Not really applicable anymore. Take a look in the neckhole.
The girl made her way towards the armor, and peered down the fire, seemingly unfazed by the scorching blazes, she pulled away and shrugged. “Once you've seen a man twice your height, wielding a Knife bigger than you and has a pyramid as a head, constantly trying to kill you, you really don’t get fazed by the lack of things anymore.” She tapped her hat, a small rusted key collided with several other keys on the side of it. If only I was thinking like that a good fifteen hundred years ago. Maybe then the sisters wouldn't have found me so easily. The girl flinched at the mentioning of The Sisters, as if bitten, she grabbed the lower part of her gut and made a pained expression at the memory.
“Aye’, I know that feeling, Armor Boy, but remember, by the end of every short stick, there’s a sharp edge, if you can balance you’ll probably end up better than your original position.” She frowned “I didn’t balance all that well.” Oh, where ARE my manners. Dullahan’s my name. Punishing ponies is my pastime. Alice rose an eyebrow, her cheeks tugged into a smile and she leaned on a tree. “Alice, Lady of Madness, Pyramid Head challenged me for the position, didn’t end up too well for either of us.” She frowned as she traced the scar on her left arm.
No fear, I’ve other titles to fall back on. Like ‘The shadow, the darkness, the elemental wraith.’ I’ve no need for yours, and frankly, I’d expect to turn into a Daedric mad prince if I DID take it. Alice laughed and reached into her pocket, pulling out a card she played around with it before sending towards the dead looking trees, what was once something dead and gone flickered to life like a flashbulb.
“Aye’, It can be quite awkward, let me ask, did the sisters ever try to actually exorcise you?” Alice shuddered, “Nasty piece of business.” She pulled out her sword and examined the roses carefully. “The fools thought that, if they wielded and vanquished my spirit from The Vorpal Blade they would exorcise me from this realm, and want to know the real kicker? They used my fucking necromantic spell that I taught them to do it!” She stabbed the sword into the ground.
Why do you think they outlawed necromancy? Why do you think they kept hunting me? No matter where I go to punish they that would dare to walk the darkness, they that think THEY are the monsters, whenever I am seen, the sisters try to ‘deal’ with me. I’m just fucking glad I recalled the Ward Psynergy, it stops their attempts dead! Didn't help me when they took my fucking SWORD, but I’m still in here, so that counts for something.
Alice nodded and reached into her pocket again, revealing a Knight of Diamonds. “Dullahan, you seem like the kind of guy who’s just been through too much without any way to get your anger out, so whenever you feel like it, summon me or whatever, if you need to vent my blade is sheathed but ready.” The sentence was followed by a quick jab with her sword, and she sheathed it quicker than the eye could follow.
Dullahan carefully took the card and gave the impression of nodding. Let me reciprocate. He put his right hand on his sword and shifted his shield so the left was visible. I hate this part. A book slowly faded into view, and when it was just about real, it flashed once, blindingly, before fading back to normal. Dullahan tossed it towards Alice. Hold the book and say my name three times, so as to prevent accidental summonings, and I shall aid you as well. Alice caught the book in mid-air, and to Dullahan’s surprise took her hat off, and slid it in, there was not even a dent or thud to indicate that it had landed.
“I shall keep it safe, but I’m afraid my family must be getting worried sick, I would invite you to dinner, but I think you simply do not have the guts to sit through it all.” Dullahan groaned. Okay, that one actually hurt. I should be getting back as well, Newvale must be going bonkers without me. Just as Dullahan had charged his Teleport up again, he paused. am curious. My greatest crime, in their eyes, has been my stubborn survival. What of yours?
Alice was silent for a while, before her face darkened until her eyes were just white dots in a never ending swirl of darkness. “My greatest crime..? This time, no pun intended, you really need a firm head between your shoulders to understand why I did what I did, do you think you honestly can, again, no pun intended, stomach it?” Alice looked like she was about to shed a tear, but her face hardened and she sat down. Dullahan drew one step closer before realizing that it was probably a bad idea. I may lack them now, but my shoulders are always free, my ears ready to listen. I have been away, mostly locked away, for fifteen hundred years. All I knew is dust. All I did was good. Granted, unconventionally. But I damn well did it, and her royal sunass didn’t see it! So I’m willing to listen to your tale. Alice sighed and leaned back, now lying on her back.
“I guess, the very largest one, was the murder of Sol, Celestia’s father, thirteen hundred and eighty two years ago, if I remember correctly, bastard damn deserved it, father my ass, he abused both Celestia and Selene, he wasn’t wise, he was not kind, and most certainly, did not see past his own snout.” Alice gave off a dry laugh. “ Of course, Celestia wasn’t one to ever see my points, and instead think I did it just to kill, it was my first, true murder you know? I felt like shit for almost a year afterwards, he deserved it but I think I almost died due to dehydration during that year, gotta thank my family back then, Diamond helped me through a lot, Sol was a god in the eyes of his subjects, they never saw the crimes he did, just the few goodwill's, which were scarce as it was.”
Dullahan said nothing, but his right hand was twitching violently. If you looked, you could see jets of flames coming from the seams. While I may not agree with your methods. People like him. They have a special place in hell. One I would be remiss in not helping the right legal departments in speeding them towards.
'Dullahan drew his blade and held it in front of where his face would be. My methods are a bit more...refined. Less gorey. Then again, curses usually are. I cursed a rapist so that he would experience the pain of childbirth if he were to even try and lay with a mare until he took responsibility for his foal. Cursed a businessman to give back a shop so a family wasn’t on the streets, or he’d suffer when he entered his place of business. And so on. I have yet to harm a pony besides Sombra.
Alice nodded sadly and stood at her tallest height, still slightly shorter than Dullahan. “You know, I don’t know whoever taught Celestia her sword skills in your universe, but in my universe I was the one who taught her how to use a sword, we named it together, and she stabbed me with it. Right through the chest cabinet, severing my spine.” Alice chuckled. “But, it matters little when it comes to one such as me, and do you know why, Dullahan?”
Dullahan would have cocked his head. Because Madness never dies? It merely is...reborn? “For being a bunch of metal, you’re pretty sharp. Close but no cigar, you see, I used to be immortal, used to never have to fear death, Luna, however, was not. Me and Celestia tried our best to search for a solution, I finally found one, and we were working around the side effects when she suddenly got ill.” Alice gave off another dry chuckle.
“I went into The Black Rose, and Celestia ripped my wings out, on my own request mind you.” She made a circular motion with her hand. “The Black Rose is when I reach such levels of anger or madness that it simply can’t be contained in mortal form, so my sword vanishes, so does the rest of my weapon, a pair of bloody claws appears on the end of my fingers, I grow a pair of dark blue wings and several horns, it’s the way I killed Sol, it went into a true battle of gods, Madness versus Sol itself, I don’t remember much of it other than waking up next to his corpse.” Alice’s hand reached towards her back and she flinched.
“It still hurts, you know? I liked my wings, but I thought that the immortality of Luna would surpass a little pain for a while.” She sighed. Allow me to guess. Some bit of you survived in the wings, and over time, Luna wasn’t herself anymore. Alice chuckled. “Wrong, Armor Boy, you see, compared to me and Celestia, Luna was still young, and attempted something foolish, to wield The Vorpal Blade.” She hefted her sword to emphasize her point.
“That’s when something snapped, my wings were, possibly, the most sane part of my being, but The Vorpal Blade is where all the madness stacks up, she picked it up for a mere minute, but it was enough to inflict permanent damage.” She sighed. Fair enough. The madness of normal humans is bad enough, especially Lovecraft. I don’t even wanna think about everything you’ve gone through stacking up like that and being inflicted on a pony. They seem to be...more pure. MOST of the time. Alice, as if struck, fell on the ground.
“Aye’, I figured that out the hard way, you see my immortality isn’t what it used to be, where in before I could walk through tartarus without achieving a scratch, now I can barely battle Cerberus, that sad dog, so lonely.” She slowly lifted herself to her feet. “Something, however, that you must always know is that corruption is not made. Things may seem innocent, but there’s always corruption there.” Aye, but these are ponies, herbivores, herd animals. The instinct to do one another harm is lesser, and we should be there for those who think to step out of line.
Alice shifted uncomfortably, a small sigh escaping her lips. “That’s true, would you like to meet my family? I think i’ve managed to figure out a solution to your no eating dilemma, I’ll make you a body, a temporary one.”
Alice smiled and pointed towards a cave on the edge of a mountain. Dullahan shifted his body towards it and sighed. An actual repast? My dear, so long as you promise the temporary bit, I...I am sorely...aw, screw it. YES! I want to FEEL again, if only for a time! Newvale can do without me for a night! ----- Dullahan looked at the green and black stone dubiously. Are you sure this will work? His voice echoed in the cave. Alice gave of a dry laugh, in a mock German accent responded with “Of’ courze it vill vork, I’ve done tis’ many times before friend.” She held the stone above his flames. “Now, if I got this right, you just need to focus your soul at the flames and the crystal will suck it in, if it doesn't work we’ll just try again, Soulstones are not hard to find, surprisingly.” I’m getting the strangest urge to call you Doktor, but okay… “Now usually, I take the soul of the deceased to do this, but I guess you are, technically speaking, so just focus your soul and we’ll be done in a jiffy, okay?”
Dullahan let his presence in the armor flare up, and directed it up to where his neck would be. Like this? Alice looked at the spectacle with a look that could only be translated to ‘Holy mothers of god.’ “Oh, zat is very nize, now just hold sztil’...” Okay, Medic... “Usually, you shouldn't be awake for this part, and most dead souls wouldn't be able to withstand this voltage, but i’m pretty sure your so-” Crash, Alice remained silent. What was noise? She made her way to the fridge.
“That iz zé szound of progress, my friend” A much larger soulstone now shimmered blue and red from capturing Dullahan’s soul. She came back into his view with the larger soulstone. Is this the best idea?
Dullahan’s voice echoed across the cave again, and Alice responded in a slight chuckle as she pulled the white cloth from a sewed together corpse, she held the soulstone above where the body’s heart would be and merrily answered with “I HAVE NO IDEA!” The soulstone embedded itself in now Dullahan’s body's heart, and with a jolt his soul transferred. “Oh, zat looks nice.”
The body shot up in a sitting position and made to clasp its head with its hands. “My head, you didn't-” He cut himself off as he realized something. “My voice. My hands. I...I can feel. I can talk normally. I’m ALIVE!” He began laughing, occasionally it turned a bit more maniacal, but he slowly calmed down and looked to Alice. “You...you have no idea what this means to me. Thank you so much, even if it’s temporary.” Alice shrugged and pulled off the somehow blood splattered gloves. “I can only do so much, necromancy was my mother’s side, my father was always more of a hunter, never taught me much to begin with.” She cracked her neck and pointed to the armor. “There’s clothes below it, it’s black with gold stripes, all I could find on such short notice, but it’s better than being butt-naked, carry the armor, it shouldn't be too heavy.”
Dullahan moved to the clothes and grunted. “It wasn't when I was alive or in it, as long I had the sword. Take it, and I’ve not the strength to bloody move. Still, you’re right. Shouldn’t leave it lying about.” Alice kept cracking her limbs, and with a small sigh of satisfaction she made her way to the door, a grunting Dullahan in tow. “Well, you seem like a trustworthy guy, but I won’t tell you the combination to the door, too risky if someone were to hear it, so if you ever come here, just knock seven times, wait thirteen second and stomp on the ground, Ace should answer the door then.” She pushed a few buttons and the door opened, revealing a slightly dustier tunnel.
“Let’s hope I don’t forget it in a time of need. Or that there are no times of need.” Alice didn’t respond as a eerie light came from the ceiling, a low hanging lightbulb with a gem inside it lit up the entire tunnel. “Now, my house might be a shocker, but if you’ve ever played Madness Returns you’ll know what it is.” This left Dullahan wondering what she was talking about, until they reached it.
The house floated in the air, teapots and tea coming out of parts everywhere, the thing looked like a castle up-close, the stairs came to life with a soft, green glow, as if accepting the new member. “That’s why I didn’t change your body in here, the house itself would reject you, don’t know why it does that.” Dullahan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me, but I’ve just had a thought. What if I needed to be in my armor again? What would happen?” Alice stopped, turned around and pointed at his heart, the slightly black spot encasing his chest.
“Simple, shove a dagger into the Soulstone, your soul will return to the armor, trust me on that, your human body doesn't exist anymore, thus it’ll go to the armor, and if you’re lucky it might even allow you to shift between them, but that’s very rare and I wouldn’t hope for it.” Dullahan nodded, but asked again. “Not unexpected, but not what I was getting at. What would the house do then?” Alice stopped and gave Dullahan a straight face.
“It would probably see you as a temporary visitor, and if you were out of range from me or my family it would teleport you to the other side of the world, it weakens the overall spell, but i’m not one for risks.” Dullahan nodded again. “A fair answer. One I might have to implement myself, when I finally get some sort of domicile up for my own usage. And I hate to ask, but...Are we there yet? This armor’s heavy when I’m not in it.”
Alice laughed and pushed a door open, the wood being white and a large ace painted on it, a sword was seemingly used as the handle. “We’re there now, just watch out for Ace, he’s a bit protective of me, you’ll know who it is when you see him.” Dullahan gulped. “I’m not sure if any of my powers apply to this body, so warning noted.” Alice nodded.
“That’s for the best, and if he does try to attack you, and pray to whatever deity you believe in that he doesn’t, don’t try to fight him, just crush the soulstone and stay close to me.” A thud echoed in the house. “And it seems he’s right behind you, say hello, Ace.” Dullahan craned his neck around and felt the blood drain from his face as a surely three meter tall man with a even larger scythe looked down on him. “Did you know Alice has a lovely singing voice?” Dullahan didn’t know what prompted that question, why he asked it of Ace, or why any part of him thought it was a good idea. It probably wasn’t.
Ace watched him with a stoic expression, reached towards Dullahan, and ruffled his hair. “Alice, you’re telling me this boy heard you sing? What is he? A demon? Not even Diamond have heard you sing!” Dullahan chuckled a bit. “Not...far off the mark. I used to just be a spirit in the armor, but Alice changed that. It’s been fifteen hundred years since I could feel, and I’m thankful for it.”
Ace’s eyes narrowed to slits, he leaned forward and almost soundlessly whispered in Dullahans ear “Keep it at gratefulness, Boy, else you’ll find yourself in a predicament.” Dullahan gulped but replied, he’d been a big brother once himself. “Frankly, sir, your insinuations offend me. This is temporary. I wouldn’t even dream of it.” Alice sneaked up behind him and put a hand on his arm. “What, i’m not pretty enough for you?” She gave off a laugh as blood rushed to Dullahan’s face, Ace shot Alice a disapproving look. “It’s not that, but frankly, when it requires an interdimensional teleport to see a girl, I quantify it as a long-distance relationship that can’t work.”
This time, Ace gave off a laugh. “Well, at least you got a sense of humor, just last time someone tried to flirt with Alice here they found themselves on the short end of a blade, she’s more of the ‘Action before Talk’ girl.” Dullahan’s new stomach growled then, and he looked sheepishly at the both of them. “Did I mention it’s been a while since I ate anything?” Ace gave him a look.
“Yeah, I figured.” He then shot Alice a look, who just watched him with a deadpan expression. “Fine, i’ll go get Clubs, she’ll be happy to cook something for the boy here, speaking of which, I do not believe I asked your name?” Dullahan stuck a hand out. “Dullahan, Sir Ace. Friends call me Dully, or,” and here he shot a look at Alice, “‘Armor Boy,’ apparently.” Ace gave of a small smile and took Dullahan’s hand, he felt the bones almost get crushed into mush under his iron grip. “I’m Ace, Ace of Hearts, and drop the Sir thing, i’ve done nothing deserving such a title.” With that, Ace straightened his back and scattered off to god knows where. Dullahan shook his hand a bit to get feeling back into it. “You weren’t kidding,” he muttered. Alice shook her head with a sad smile.
“He’s a combination of Dragon and Minotaur, he does forget his strength whenever his mind is elsewhere.” Dullahan merely made to put the armor in a corner. “Well, where shall we partake of our repast, then?” Alice gave him a strange look.
“I’m Swedish, i’ve no idea what repast means, but my guess is the Clubs is all over the place cooking something together, she’s an excellent cook, just a bit messy, ever met that pony name Pinkie Pie? Imagine her with the strength of a smaller dragon.” She started walking in what seemed to be a random direction.
Dullahan shuddered at the mental image. “Do not want to see that. Don’t want to see her on any energy drinks either. Oh! Just remembered something. Don’t touch the sword.” Alice merely shrugged. “The Sword, whatever it’s called, is under the house’s protection, unless I allow them to touch it, it won’t be touched, I do not betray friends, Armor Boy.” Dullahan sighed at the memories he was drudging up. “It’s...it’s not a question of your loyalty. It’s me protecting you and yours. Like your Blade contains your madness, I’m told by others my blade contains a moment of mine. My Discord was a normal enough bloke. Mischievous, yes. But one day he tried to take the sword from me to understand its strength.”
Dullahan gazed into the distance. “The moment he brushed against it physically? He...changed. He got his crazy eyes and mismatched teeth. Magically, anyone can move the darn thing, and when I’m in my armor, I don’t notice it. But touching it physically is a no-no. I asked him afterwards what he saw, and he gave me one line. Limitless knowledge is fine and dandy until you gain limitless understanding.” Alice gave a slight nod at that, her stops slowing down to a stop.
“Back… back when I first arrived here I was confused, utterly helpless and oh so very lost, but when I found Celestia fighting off some called court unicorns on her own, I had to help her, I kept the sword to myself, I knew something was wrong with it.” She started walking again “But I never noticed anything different, it’s just that feeling you get when you stand beneath something extremely heavy, and you feel the weight of it above you, just waiting for a nudge to crash down.”
Dullahan sighed. “Mine is different, clearly. I once asked myself a question when I was alive. I asked how everything, everything works. And when I found I could answer it...there’s a reason some things are not meant to be known by man. Discord knew about as much about alternate realities and dimensional travel as the average American knows about how electricity comes out of the wall sockets. But the sword...I looked, once, at the Multiverse and all it’s glory and horror. The Void Eternal, and That Which Fills It. I...I still can’t even think about it.”
He shuddered a bit as his memories took a more unpleasant turn. “And the sword captured that moment perfectly. Anyone who touches it sees what I saw.” Alice shuddered at the thought and glanced down to the sword attached to her hip. “The same goes for me, mortal bodies can’t comprehend how deep madness truly goes, and when I tried to look at it in it’s full glory and horror… I still have nightmares, Dullahan, It was thirteen hundred years ago, no, more. And I still can’t get a proper nights rest, whilst yours might have been everything of the multiverse… I saw all the madness of it, everything creepy or strange any being has ever thought of, in one place.”
A tear fell to the floor. “This world, as well as the next, is no purer than humans, Dullahan, just remember that.” Dullahan shook his head. “While there is no more purity here than any other, the potential for goodness is greater here. And I will strive, every day, to prove Murphy and his damnable law wrong. If not for me, if not for my madness, then for someone who was wronged, in spite of all the odds against me. Because if I don’t. Who will?” Alice put her hand on his arm,
“People like me, Dullahan, everything I stand for, to be the speck of light in the darkness and the shadow on a sunny day, is truly for the well being of others, i’m thirteen hundred years mental age, and two hundred physical age. Let me ask you a question, back on Earth, did you ever play any of the Silent Hill games?” Her hand went to the scar again. Dullahan shrugged. “Thought about it, watched some others play it. Never got into the series myself. Horror wasn’t my cup of tea, I preferred adventure. But I knew of it, about as much as I knew about...this place, before I came here.” Alice nodded sagely with a slight smile on her face.
“I met a man, he called himself Pyramid Head, the only one i’ve ever met that’s more twisted than me, he killed, raped, mortified and even twisted the bodies into his own creation, and to fight him, do you know what I had to do? Can you guess,” Dullahan paled a bit at the mention of the name. “Pyramid head? Fighting him? Those words do not belong in the same phrase. You don’t fight him. You run.” Alice smiled.
“Aye’, you do, but you can still fight him, you can try, I managed to find his weakness, a simple nudge in the right place and he’s powerless, did you know that on his left finger he carries a ring?” Alice waved her hand around to emphasize her point. “Like me with my sword. Or you with...whatever your artifact is. We all have a weakness. Mine is also my strength.” Alice smiled and held her right hand up in front of her face, it formed as if to cuff something. “Armor Boy, your body was used with the arms of Minotaurs and insides taken from a dragon, you’re very strong, punch my hand with every fiber of your being, and you’ll know my artifact.”
Dullahan looked at his arm, looked at Alice’s hand, looked back at his arm, and shook his head. “I’ve learned a few things about women when I was alive by watching my dad mess up. The one thing I learned is there are always more things to learn. Learning this about you would clear up nothing. It’d just reveal a new mystery.” Alice dropped her hand and shrugged.
“The adventurous type, eh? Want to feel the thrill of discovering something on your own? Fine by me, but know this then; I used a lot of my magic to create that body of yours, and I mean it almost drained my artifact.” Dullahan nodded. “Let us hope then that I don’t need to jump from it.” A voice cut in then. A deep voice. Too late. Alice instantly unsheathed her sword, it stood in a ready position as she scanned the corridor. “Whoever you are, you hold no power here” under her breath she whispered to Dullahan “Are you religious?” “Not a bit,” he replied.
I am ashamed of you, lodestone in Dullahan’s form. Jumping realities, that’s one thing. Abandoning your body is another. Alice’s face began creeping into a smile, and somehow Dullahan could hear her speaking without actually understanding the words. “Dullahan, when I say Diamond, I want you to dash down the corridor, take the first door to the left and pick up your armor, it will be there when you arrive, you needn’t to destroy your soulstone to change if you’re touching it, just don’t touch your sword ‘till afterwards, do the exact same thing like you did with the flames.” Dullahan nodded, and then he noticed the color hovering above them. He craned his neck back and gasped. Hovering over the pair was a giant gray boulder with a single unblinking blue eye set into it. He whispered out of reflex its name. “The Wise One…” Indeed.
Alice spared a slight glance at the orb and cracked a smile. “You know, it was truly foolish for you to enter the domain of Madness, even those that I do invite need to be under my direct protection, let’s just say bad things happen’ to those that is not.” Her smile went wide, and with a sharp intake of air she yelled out two things. “MORTIEM! DIAMOND!” Dullahan instantly dashed for the door, and another, slightly darker orb without a eye on it appeared next to the other one.
Child, I go where I will. My lodestone wandered out of his reality. I have come to...retrieve him. Alice responded with a sad laugh. “I’m flattered by you coming all the way over here just for him, but i’m sad that gods are not allowed to fight, are they? Very much so in a mortal domain, and you’re the one who invaded this reality, and unless you’re careful, I know a very powerful man who owes me a favor.” Her smile became twisted and she traced the scar on her arm. “After all, he gave me a souvenir.”
The sound of shifting metal caught their attention, and Dullahan walked in, back in his armored form. It would be incorrect to call him a god, Alice. He is powerful, yes. But he was constructed. Gods are not made, they are. Alice’s smile could not have grown wider.
“So you’re telling me, that he isn’t even a god? Oh man! He’s just like a lost puppy searching for his toy, sadly, that toy is no longer his.” She pulled out a very, very small pyramid head and held it between her fingers. “Wouldn’t you agree, Pyramid Head?” The small toy gave no reply. He is powerful because he was made to look after four artifacts, the foci of powers such as mine. And tell me, how do you kill a boulder? One that is a master in ways I will never be with Psynergy? Alice turned her smile to Dullahan.
“Why, of course, you see the fight with me and Pyramid Head ended in a draw, but due to request of his god, I did not come back to fight him, they say he follows no one, he may be a king, and I a queen, but we barely know eachother, isn’t that right?” The toy, again, gave no reply, but a faint echoing of metal on metal could be heard.
Dullahan somehow gulped, knowing what this could be, and before he could voice any protests, the Wise One decided to interrupt. That is ENOUGH, Dullahan. I AM your superior, and you WILL return. I am the God of Psynergy, and- Dullahan cut him off. You are NO GOD. You were made by the Ancients to protect a land from something they thought dangerous, and you FAILED. Even your final gambit failed. The Golden Sun shone. You are no god of mine. Superior… He drew his sword and pointed it at the boulder. We will have to see, won’t we? Alice smiled in approval towards Dullahan.
“Armor Boy, i’ve an idea, why shouldn’t Mr. God face The God of Silent? Aleesa I think she was called, can’t remember, but she’s the only one Pyramid Head ever responds to, even if just slightly, because if he’s so convinced he’s a god, he should be able to wink us out of existence, but I don’t feel any different.”
The scraping of metal on metal became louder. And even if he was, I have a line I’d like to use before he decides to get angry. Dullahan gave off the impression of smiling. What is a god...to a non-believer? This time around, silence reigned, the scraping of metal had become silent, and Mortiem still loomed in the shadows. “Dullahan… Me and Pyramid Head used that exact same line, when we first encountered a god.” Dullahan turned to Alice. Did it work? She smirked back at him.
“It sure did, Armor Boy, she whisked out of existence.” The fact that the Wise One was still hovering told him exactly what he was. I would love to stay and chat. But frankly, the idea that this guy’s watching me irks me. I’m gonna help, if only to beat one answer out of him. Alice nodded and pulled out a card, King of Diamonds. “But how rude of me, Sir I-wanna-be-aGodMcSwagger, I completely forgot to introduce you to my family.” She took another breath of air. “GUYS! WE HAVE GUESTS!” The card slammed into the ground, and with a resounding groan several more human looking creatures appeared, including Diamond, Clubs, Ace, Knight and Spades.
Get down here, O Wiseass, and tell me. WHY DID YOU CALL ME YOUR LODESTONE? The Wise One blinked before responding. Your sword. Your armor. They call to me across the dimensions. I sensed similar charges to the one I was meant to protect. I will come to your world soon enough. And when I am, I will rule.
“Tough tits big guy, unless you’re planning to face more madness then you can fit in the multiverse coming from two beings, I think that’s a bad idea.” Alice finished with a smirk and pulled out her teapot cannon, it started charging. The Wise One did not notice.
Dullahan growled. Get him down here. Let’s see how he holds up against limitless understanding. Alice responded with a sophisticated voice fit for a queens wedding, “With pleasure.” The bolt of acidic liquid leaped from the Teapot Cannon, the boiling green acid colliding with ‘The Wise One’ As it hit him, he actually screamed. What power is that?! I should be protected! There are no equals to my power! This time, Alice laughed.
“That my friend, was just a single shot from the Teapot Cannon, it’s a little something I discovered a while back, it’s liquefied madness, WantoBeGodMcSwaggerGuy, and you know what they say about insanity and madness, it always finds a way, nothing is perfect.” The Wise One growled. You and yours just angered me, child!
With a rush of air, everyone except Alice and Dullahan were pushed against the walls of the corridor. The wind stopped and Alice smiled, showing off a row of canines, instead of the usual teeth humans had. In front of her, you could see a simple umbrella outstretched, nothing special about it, it seemed, it vanished into a lot of butterflies. Dullahan merely responded with Element swap, Jupiter! Plasma! A ball of lightning erupted from the sword and made its way over to the Wise One, impacted, and… Nothing changed about the boulder at all.
I think he’s protected against my powers. Yours are the ones he didn’t foresee. Alice pulled out a ring from her pocket and put it on her finger. “Mister Wise Guy, do you know what this ring is?” She asked, admiring the azure blue texture of the runes. I am uncertain why I should care. I will find out how to harm you soon enough, child. Alice, however, grinned in face of the threat.
“Aye’, you may think it’s just something fancy, or something powerful, it’s neither of, across the multiverse, there are three beings that can truly claim the titles of Madness, The Lady of Madness, me. The Lord of Horror, Pyramid Head, and last but not least, The Slayer of Titans, Jack of Blades. If you are harmed by one of us, what will not only two, but three do?” The Wise One’s eye rapidly moved back and forth as he went over the implications. Two other beings with this much strength? I...I will find some way to repay this injury one day. But right now, all I require is my lodestone, back in his proper dimension. Stand aside, child. Alice pulled out something red and gold, with a lever on the back of it.
“Do you know what this is, then? It’s called The Pepper Grinder, imagine a rapid fire Teapot Cannon, are you sure you want to try your luck right now, Fake god?” The Wise One actually sighed. Why? Why do you defend him? She looked at Dullahan and smiled. “Why do I defend Armor Boy, you ask? He’s just like me, only he’s stronger, he did not give in to temptation, and if you’re going to rip him away from a place he wants to be in, or to bring him back where he doesn’t want to be, you’ll have to do it over my cold, dead hands.” Her smile grew wider.
“Plus, if you truly are so wise, riddle me this; Who was the first being I ever truly slayed in this dimension, reality and realm?” The Wise One looked around. I have only been observing Dullahan’s reality, only now did I look into this one in search of him. I know not the answer to your question. This time Alice’s smile died. “So much for being wise, huh?” Before he could explode, she continued. “Look for someone called Sol Termentio, he used to be an old sun god of this realm, an abusive, arrogant one, but a god none the less.” The Wise One actually looked worried. You...oh...Oh my. You...Well. It’s...it’s slightly worse than what I’ve done. Yes. You killed a god. And…
At this, he sighed. Fine. I admit it. I am...outmatched. But mark my words, lodestone. I will come for you and yours. Alice looked almost disappointed as he began to flicker out of existence, the last thing he saw before vanishing from this reality was a very, very large shiny unicorn head made out of silver colliding with him.
Dullahan sighed. Well, that’s put a damper on the evening. And quite frankly, now I’m worried about Newvale. I do hope you don’t take offense to me leaving before dinner. Alice laughed. “No, not at all, just be in bed before nine and pack warm clothing, it’s cold outside today.” Dullahan laughed as well. When you lose your body, you’ll find things like sleep and warmth mean nothing, but okay, MOM, I’ll see you around.
Alice just sighed and sat down. “I’ll miss ya, haven’t seen another human in over a thousand years, none the less, i’ll come if you call.” Was the same for me afore I met Solaire. Try looking him up in the Multiversal phone book. If there is one. I’ll come back some day. Possibly.
And with that, Dullahan had charged up his Teleport psynergy and vanished in a flash of light. “I hope that child’ll be alright, he seemed like a decent enough person, more than I can say for most of our visitors, Alice.” Ace smiled down at her. “Well, my appetite is ruined, i’m going to bed.” Alice stalked down the same corridor, before fading into the darkness around them.
I woke up with a jolt, almost instantly calming down thinking that it was just a nightmare, sitting up I the first thing I noticed was voices, not in my mind, but echoing around the... Whatever this place is like it was some kind of creepy music, from what I was able to decipher from my spot on the ground my guess would be fifteen people, sitting up I felt something move in my mouth. Horrified like anyone would be, I spat it out on the ground and noticed a worm attached to a big lump of dirt wiggling around, grimacing at the disgusting thought I stood up and stepped on it with quite a bit of force.
At any rate, the first thing I did not expect was my boot to crush it and dent the ground something severe, looking around I couldn't help but wounder how the fuck I winded up here, rock as far as your eye could see, far below there was a forest, but the voices seemed to echo from upwards, frowning at the thought of going to the top off a mountain, I honestly did not want too, but perhaps it was a rescue team sent out to find me, and i'm tearing Andreas a new one for drugging me. "Stupid Andreas with his freakin' drugs, always gotta drug me whenever I feel like having fun." I grumbled as I started walking, the road looked like a long and tedious one, one that I personally did not want to walk. But against my gut feelings, as of later I learned to trust, I continued stomping onward.
And onward. And onward.
I was honestly getting sick off it by then, I mean if you're not in a very good shape, your body hurts all over and you're attempting to drag your legs up a mountain, you get sick off it pretty quickly. So, I finally reached what I think was the top, and spotted armored horses, no, ponies. I used to live on a farm, I can tell the difference, and these ponies was minuscule compared to a real life horse. Didn't help that they were talking, surrounding what I could only assume was a child, I felt a bit of anger, but continued to watch in hopes that I would just wake up from this nightmare. Then, something happened.
"We sentence you to death for your crimes against Discord and his subjects, abomination of nature, prepare to die." Then, I noticed, they had horns. Unicorns. "Well spank me yellow and call me grandma..." I thought I muttered it, but judging by how their heads snapped towards me I could only assume otherwise. One of them, I assumed it was a he, shouted out something from the tip off his lungs. "Another crime! Demonpacts are the most grave of sins, seems like we'll need to erase all traces of you, Celestia." so... Her name was Celestia? Wait what? Demonpact? The fu-
Something similar to a fireball impacted with a rock next to me, and I barely had time to dodge out of the next one as it scorched the ground where I once stood, every fiber of my being told me to run, but then I saw that begging look from the child, so I gritted my teeth and pulled the sword, it seemed slightly thinner then what I remember, but it didn't matter to me. I just managed to roll out of the way from something I could only assume was a lightning spell because it frazzled the rock, at least I think it did, is frazzle a word? It should be a word.
I gave off a shriek as a broadsword cut a part off my hat open, these guys knew what they were doing. Let's review what we have... Unicorns attempting to kill us because they think we're working with a Pegasus... Unicorn... Thing. Sounds about right, why not double the insanity? I grinned and dropped flat to the ground as several spells exploded above me, those times you were thankful for having a family that went in the army.
I held the sword tight and barrel rolled out of the way of a pair of hooves, I twisted my body a little and I scooped beneath where I used to be, I grunted in satisfaction as I heard a gasp and a thunk as he hit the ground. I saw a rock that looked to be practically begging me to take cover, and cover was taken. Honestly, I was panicking quite a bit, but once again the things my father had taught me kicked in and I calmed down, there seemed to be no ranged weapon around me, and i'm fairly sure tha- Use the Pepper Grinder.
The thought was unwanted but needed, I think I put it in my hat to surprise Jasper with it but my mind was in a bit of a turmoil from the panic. Drawing a deep breath I pulled it out from my hat and rolled out from cover, then I realized that I had no idea if this would work or even how I aimed this thing, then I did the one thing my... Six hours on Call of Duty ever taught me and hipfired for all I was worth. Surprisingly I kinda locked onto one of them and filled his face with pepper, which then gave off small explosions. He screamed something about his eyes but I were far too busy dodging and rolling out of the way from spells, there was too many of them and there's no way I could fight like this.
Reaching for my pocket I pulled out a home-made smokebomb and lit it on fire, to this day I have no idea how I did that, I blame my gloves. Throwing it over to the road where I came up, I dashed for the child... Errr foal. I grabbed Celestia and had to strain my arms just to carry her, I could feel the air charge with electricity and I ran straight into the smoke, whispering to Celestia that she should hold her breath, that we did as I managed to get past the thick wall of smoke and by the time the smoke cleared I was already halfway down it.
Amazing what you can do with flour, a cooking pan and napalm. I had to drop the child by then but we kept running, I knew my mind would catch up with me eventually and that would not be pretty. We reached the bottom of the mountain and somehow did not fall to our deaths getting there, there was a cave up ahead to I signaled the foal to follow me, reaching it I practically combat rolled in there just in time for the rain to arrive. When we sat down deep in the cave, she huddled close to me, coming down from the adrenaline high of my life I was too exhausted to object.
Turning my head I tiredly looked at her. "Hey... Celestia was it?" One of her eyebrows shot up and she nodded. "I'm Barb, but you can call me Alice, everyone else does." Well, it started back when American McGee Alice came out. She smiled and spoke in a voice slightly more mature than her body. "Thank you, Alice." I only put my hand on Celestia's shoulder and pulled her close, I smiled as we fell asleep.
I woke up roughly three hours later and the memories from earlier was already catching up with me, deciding suppress my freakout until I was in a safer environment I tenderly unclasped Celestia. Apparently my brain decided it was time for comedy and a random thought popped up into my mind Heh, I just slept with a girl I've never met before. I didn't groan but simply sneaked out of the cave, it was still raining. Deciding to guard the entrance while I waited for Celestia to wake up, I found a nicely shaped rock in a dark corner of the cave, not far from the entrance and sat down. *** I must have dozed off, because I found myself waking up by hitting the stone ground, cursing under my breath I groggily stood up. No hoofsteps could be heard from deeper withing the cave, but I took a gamble and went to check on Celestia. I was thankful I did too, because she was cornered by what looked like a scaled boy, he stood slightly higher than me but had fangs, towering her he looked ready to lounge. Those thoughts were forcefully bashed out of head with the flat side of a sword. Looking at me his eyes shot wide. "What's this? An dragoness guarding a pony? Is she your pray, miss? Terribly sorry for that..." Then his eyes traveled past my dress and to my face. I had twisted it into what could be best described as horrifying cold fury. Him being on the ground, I slammed the hilt into his face, things escalated from there. And that's how I met my first boyfriend, Reginald. *** Present *** Daring Do watched me with large eyes. "You're... Over a thousand years old?" I guess she only expected The Princesses to be that old, or something. "Yeah, I don't look a day over seventeen human standards, i'm pretty good at keeping my image." she didn't even look like she registered that I said anything.
"And you met Princess Celestia when she was a foal, and is the only reason she's alive today." I frowned a little at that, but continued. "Well, not the only reason, I mean had I not met Reginald things would have gotten very hairy very fast once we ran into those unicorns again." Again, she kinda ignored me. Sighing I patted her on the head.
"Anything else you want to know, miss Do?" That got her attention, and something clicked in her mind. "Well... A few years back I found this book written in some language I couldn't understand and there was no know translation, approaching the princess with it I managed to narrowly escape her guards." Hmm... I nod for her to continue. "I managed to find a few words that I could kinda translate back into the language, but it's rough, from what I understand the title says Life of Madness Before The Grail. I doubt that's the real transla-" I cut her off right quick. "Where is it." It wasn't a question, and didn't come out as one. She blinked a bit "In my saddle bags, I don't see how this is relevant." I reached for it and started searching, I found the thin, white tome in the bottom.
"The words on this book is not Life of Madness Before the Grail, Miss Do, this title of this book is The Triad of Madness, King, Queen and Prince." Thank the nonexistent gods that she hadn't been able to read it. "Wait, you can read it? What's it about? I must know, please! It's been my life work ever since I found it in the Ancient Crypt of Sol, that book have been shrouded in mystery for longer than the murder of Sol." I hmmed and traced my fingers over it, the entire book was written in a mix between Swedish, English and some pretty vital words had been written in Latin.
"I won't tell you everything Miss Do, but I can tell you some. This book is something I personally wrote over a thousand years ago, it contains information that could seriously unbalance the world, spells written by Starswirl, never to be published, theories and secrets written by Clover The Clever, and information of the Triad that should never be made public. Do you understand, Daring Do? If this book got in the wrong hands, claws, talons or hooves the entire world would tear itself apart to get it." I had to use the magic in my gloves to keep talking for that long.
She had a mix of shock, confusion and sadness on her face. "... I understand, Alice, it's just... Can you tell me something? Something so that I can feel accomplished?" Sighing I opened the book. "Sure, i'll tell you of a little something known as The Sun of North, it's about The Crystal Empire and my second boyfriend, Sombra." At her shocked face I burst out laughing. "No but seriously, he was my second boyfriend, not only that he used to be a dragon too, from what I gather today he's portrayed as a stallion" I would have laughed as he jaw hit the floor, but instead I scanned the page and began reading. "You see, back then, Sombra was a dragon and fought against evil..." *** Somewhere a lone stallion was hanging on a cliff, a broken wing and the only thing keeping him from falling to his death was a pair of hooks attached to his hoof that had embedded itself into the cliff, he hated hanging like this.
Previously on Ain't Done, I saw a rock that looked to be practically begging me to take cover, and cover was taken. I would have laughed as her jaw hit the floor, but instead I scanned the page and began reading. "You see, back then, Sombra was a dragon and fought against evil..."
I felt that. Confusing as it may sound, trust me when I say that Daring was even more confused by me suddenly freezing up. Someone, or rather... Somepony had destroyed my calling card, I'm not sure of who or why, but heads are going to roll. If it's his, or his enemy, only time will tell. I had been in the middle of explaining to Daring Do about Sombra back when he was a dragon and I was just getting to the Battle of Tartarus, back when it was firstly opened one thousand years ago, with disastrous results. But then I felt it, the tearing in my soul, the agonizing numbness that comes from it and the feeling of betrayal in my heart. "Dullahan..." it was the only I could think of, neither Jack nor Pyramid would tear it, and I don't think Pyramid is even aware of it's existence.
I had the book on me, but from my pain I was stumbling down the hallways, crashing into doors and tripping, Ace appeared more than once but did not say anything, he must have seen the determination on my face. "Angering me, is a bad idea..." I had a very limited amount of calling cards, one single deck, and they each connected to me -- to my soul, I could almost pinpoint their location at any given time, but for it to be teared? It's only happened once before... I shall not mention him. "You don't mess, with the Lady... Madness overcomes all. Armor means little to me, your soul is visible in plain view..." He's better got a really nice explanation planned, I don't betray friends. Was my hallways ever this long? I can't remember, having a piece of your soul ripped out is pretty equal to heavy blood loss, i'm just lucky that i'm not hallucinating or seeing things. I had to slam my sword into the ground to avoid falling on my face as I blacked out for a second, the pounding in my head grew louder by the minute.
"Satan's Damnation, what did he do with it? I feel drained..." I will not deny having tapped into my natural magic reserves, rather than my gloves, but it feels like he truly messed with things he shouldn't have, and I have been the price. "Maybe he teared that wiseass a new one... Shame though, I would rather have done it myself..." The rest is pretty blurry, up until I reached my outer door and kicked it open, it was unnecessary but made me feel better if nothing else.
Stumbling out from my home I fell down the flight of stairs and onto the cavern floor, taking a few seconds to just study the roof as I laid on my back, I never noticed the glowing fungus before, and have that crack always been there? I stood up and pulled the book from under my hat, holding it in front of me with my sword ready, I chanted his name three times. "Dullahan," my voice echoed in the cave in an eerie fashion, but not to be distracted from my act I rose my voice and this time, with more force.
"Dullahan!" I was roaring by this point, and the growl in the back of my throat born from anger didn't really help, I took another deep breath and allowed a snarl to form on my face as I swung my sword in the air, just in front of me roaring yet again "Dullahan! Come to me, or you shall face the wrath of The Triad! And we do not show mercy!" I'm not sure what I was expecting, for him to just pop in? For a wormhole to open up and him to walk through it? Well, I know that I did not expect him to literally just fucking explode into existence with a rainbow, thankfully I were able to pull out my umbrella before the rainsplosion reached me, so I was left more or less undamaged. Looking at him, I growl a bit as I slip the book back into my hat and take a two handed stance with The Vorpal Blade. "You ruined my Calling Card, you have exactly ten seconds to explain yourself, if you have not by then, pray to your deity." The armor let out a snorting noise, somehow, and drew a blade that I noticed was different from the one he’d had before. Accessing memories...ah yes, the Lady of Madness, a member of the Triad. Alice, I believe you’re called. Believe me when I say that the one before you and the one you encountered are not one and the same...not anymore. I look at the armor and snarled. “Believeable story, but I do not believe you counted for one thing, if you’re not one and the same, then I would have summoned him, not you, correct?”
Unless his very soul was seperated from me and given a body of its own. The Token was tied to this form, not his. He has his own, now. “Oh, is that the case? I do believe I need to have a little… chat with him as soon as I can…” Accessing memories...oh. You’re probably upset about that whole ‘him dissolving all the Tokens he possessed to Banish a bastard,’ bit. Mostly because yours was one of them. I clapped and rolled my eyes. “Sharp, for a pile of scrap.” The story is hard to simplify, but I shall try. A pony tried to dominate...heh. My world with Psynergy. He tried to take over the Princesses. He nearly killed the same mare twice! The one you blame needed the energy contained in as many Tokens as possible to ensure the bastard was banished forever to the Void Eternal.
“Now… I’m not one to be selfish -” A lie, of course. “- but I own a very limited amount of Calling Cards, I’ve currently fourty nine and I can slip and drop them, each of them are deeply bound, I literally felt my own soul get ripped in two and patched by ductape.” The armor shifted a bit, had I made him uncomfortable? He had no idea that it would be that bad. He also felt something, a pang in his heart every time one was dissolved. But if it’s humiliation or pain for him you seek, you’re tough out of luck: he beat you to it. “Hm, I need to talk to him still, no matter if it’s for revenge or vengance, I take it he had more Tokens? Yes? He doesn’t realize what damage he’s done on the Thread as a whole, if you have a thin piece of rope holding two worlds together, don’t take a hatchet to it.” The armor waved a hand about. Now is not really a good time. In fact, I was about to curse whoever summoned me until I realized it was you. The boy’s been challenged by one who Understands just as much as he does. It goes by the name of Teridax...and frankly, it’s put him and the entire world on high alert. He goes to continue but I interrupt him with a hand. “Take me there, I protect my friends, if you can remember when he first visited, Madness always find a way, even for those whom are insane, if he Understands, he needs to Realize.”
The armor shifts around again. It was not I who first realized the threat. It was the boy riding shotgun...I think that’s the phrase? It’s difficult having memories that aren’t yours...anyways, the boy is...he might not take kindly to his home being invaded. It’s what Teridax has done, after all. I can take you to the border, but you’ll have to beggar entrance yourself. “I don’t take the beggars entrance, I knock out the guards and drag their cold bodies and dump them in the river.” I joked. You misunderstand: the wards are such that one must be invited in. “Well, Armor Boy knows me, whatever he’s called now, probably Ben or Tommy, or something equally braindamaging.” The suit sheathes its blade and extends his hand. I’ll let you find that out yourself, along with the...other surprises. Are you ready?
“I’m madness incarnate, I do not think much can literally surprise me, but I am ready.” I sheath my sword and grasp his hand, bracing myself.
You might want to close your eyes, the Void Eternal isn’t meant to be perceived like mortals do. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. “My, asking a girl to close her eyes and hold your hand before the first date? Did your mother teach you no manners?” Your sanity’s funeral...or what’s left of it, anyways. “I lost all my sanity long ago, you probably aren’t even wearing that funny hat that looks like an aligator right now…” A flash of light, a strange pulling sensation from just behind my heart, and the most indescribable sights later, and we were standing outside a massive wooden gate set into an equally-sized stone wall. Behind it loomed a tower that had to be at least fifty feet tall. “... Was that taco eating another taco?” The armor shrugged. I wouldn’t know. I leave you here, my vigil calls me. My sanctum is the one weakness, and I must guard it. Another flash of light, and I was alone outside the tower’s door. “... But seriously? Nevermind the swords fighting with swordfist, a taco eating another taco?!” I look around, seeing mostly nothing I decided to politely knock.
With my Hobby Horse, this place is weird, I shouldn’t even have it, I guess it’s more or less bound to my soul here… In the ‘Void Eternal’ material and the lack of thee is one and the same. And thus, I slammed the silver horse head into the gate seven times, waited thirteen seconds and slammed my feet into the ground, it’s the code I gave Armor Boy last boy he was in my world, I just hope he remembers it. There was a flash of light from atop the wall and a distinctly female voice called down to me. “Who are you and...well I guess the question of what has been answered. Who are you and why do you seek an audience with the one who lives here?” “I’m Alice! I like to bake cookies, kiss girls and all in all have a good time, but no, I come to see Armor Boy or whatever he’s called now, Psyngergy master, used to look like a big armor? Maybe he still does… Anyways, I think he tore some wiseass a new one and I helped him get a body once! Then I did a Team Fortress Two thingy to which he played along and don’t I need to breath in this place because it feels like I should’ve run out of breath long ago? Either waaaaay, I hear he’s in need of some aid, tell him The Lady has come to give The Master a visit.”
The voice was silent for a moment before replying. “And you’re sure you’re not a humanized Pinkie Pie?” “I once pretended to be her so I could escape a bunch of elite guards! Almost crushed my ribs, but just tell him that The Lady has come, and The King is available, and that I really need to talk about my calling card because I’m about to pass out.” Another few seconds passed before the gates slowly ground open. What I saw was...well, I’ll just describe it. Two unicorns, one white, one orange, one female, one male. The white one had a black-and-gray mane, brown eyes, a green flask for a cutie mark. The orange one had a black mane that turned to gold at the end, golden eyes, a set of crystal-blue hooves, and a cutie-mark of an eclipse. He looked at me with a semblance of shock before sighing. “Alice Liddel, Lady of Madness. An honor to see you again, but why have you sought me out?” “Do you know how much it hurt when you ripped my card?” It was a plain question really, but I couldn’t have gotten my point across better even if I tried, he winced and looked aside before answering.
“Almost as much as it hurt to think I would never see any of my friends across the Multiverse again. Or perhaps as much as it hurt Measured Thought here to be under that bastard’s direct control, where not even her actions or words were her own. I needed the energy to exile him. I apologize if it hurt too much, but if I had to choose again...I’d only do it sooner.” “Hm, very well, I am aware that it was heavy damage and permanent, much like losing a limb due to this having happened to me once before, but wait, so you’re Armor Boy… You look cute, are you married with that mare yet? You always did seem a bit young…” He actually looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head. “This isn’t my normal form. I...well, put it this way. I gained a massive amount of power when I seperated from the armor. Without a certain threshold, Equus changes you to be more Harmonius. I had more than enough normally...but she was dying.” Here he put a hoof on the mare’s shoulders...withers? Whichever. “I had one shot, one chance. And I don’t regret it. I broke my own mental barriers and gave up all that I could to save her.” “Huh, so I hear you have a pest problem, I called Dully, seems like I’ll have to be the exterminator.” And then the pony’s eyes widened and he shook his head rapidly. “I would heavily not advise that. He Understands, and he’s not normal. He’s a goddamn robot, I’m not sure what would be effective on him yet!” I give him a look. Yes, that look, the only look a woman can give a man when he’s being stupid. “Remember what you said to me when you visited? Madness always finds a way, and I’m far beyond insane, unless you truly have three eyes.”
He sighs this time. “He’s also called for an army. I’m not sure who all will join up with him, but I was visited by a version of goddamn Freddy Krueger.” “Ohhh! I like that guy, never met him but I’ve watched enough movies, and he’s calling for an army?... Armor Boy, did I ever tell you how many I have killed in self defence or when there was no other option? I waged a one woman war on the gryphons, ponies, minotaurs, Catizens and several other civilzations at once, and won. What was their reason for starting it all? I’m quoting the current griffin king now, ‘Your mere existance offends us, you will be eliminated, I have made a pact with the world.’, So yes, I am well aware what damage one of us can cause, what were we talking about again?” “...I’d almost forgotten how tangentical our conversations got. Fine. If you actually think you can stop a robot, his robot army, or his army of fellow Displaced. By all means, feel free. It’s not like you can stop Madness once it’s let out of the box.” I smile and nod at him “See? You are learning, if the robots can be destroyed through piercing, blunt trauma, words, through technical malfunctions, through acid, fire, water ice or lightning, hell if they in any way can be damaged, I am the person for the job.” He smiled and nodded. “Well. At least that’s one person on my side. And you...said something about the King to Measured?” I nod and search for the doll on my body, I know I kept it here somewhere… About ten minutes later I was about to strip out and see if I had forgotten it in my inner pockets just when I found it. “Ah, here, I can probably convince him, I mean they’re all sinners, correct? An army is not without sins, I know that Jack will come to my aid if I ask and… There’s more mad people across the multiverse, none insane enough to classify as the titles, but there’s still some that come close, I think Trevor is out there.” The pony seemed to stare off into the distance and asked a question absently. “What does it say about the monsters when the Triad decides they’re too mad to be allowed to exist unchallenged?...” “Eh, nah, but you are well aware that I will die for those I call friend, and if I so have to destroy the world, everything on it and the universe itself to make that happen… So be it.” I crack my knuckles and walk towards him. “Now, get over here and give me a hug ya dingus.” The pony lets out a wan smile and gives a smartass response. “Only when I see you toss your knives, you’re a madwoman and I’m not entirely sure I’ve convinced you me and Dully were one and the same yet.” “Hmm… I feel something radiate from your coat you know? I don’t think my mere knives could get through that, but if you truly want to…” And thus, I removed my knives. All of them. I hide them everywhere, which means I practically had to strip out of my clothing down to bra and panties to drag them away from my hips and through my boots, I look up to him and smile when a pile of near fifty knives lay next to me. “There, all gone.” He looked to the pile and sighed. “The only one I’m concerned with is the one that goes snicker-snack, m’dear. And I don’t see it there.”
I look over my body, the sword wasn’t on me, not a cause of panic of course, I had hid it. “Do you see it anywhere?” He smiled and held up a hoof, which I only now noticed was the same color as the blade he once wielded. “Allow me to ask you the same: do you see my most dangerous weapon anywhere?” “Well, not directly, I can feel the same radiance coming out of your hooves as it did with your sword, I kind of feel like an undead next to an Exalted Monk, not fun times. Anyways, I’m guessing it’s either in your hooves or you shoved it up where the sun don’t bloody shine, and that would be painful.” He rolled his eyes and laughed slightly. “Yes, but at least this way, if you touch my hooves or I touch you, it won’t automatically activate anymore. We’ve...bonded a bit. But the lesson was, just because it doesn’t look like my most dangerous weapon, doesn’t mean I don’t still have it. Or something similar for you. I’d rather not end up testing this coat against something Vorpal.” “Mhm… If you want to, I can see if you manage to take a low charge Teapot Cannon on your coat without it eating through… I do believe it will though, aaaanyways, in the Void Eternal or whatever I was looking around, why was swords fighting with Swordfish? How did they even hold it? And why did one taco eat another taco then poop out a third of which it ate?” He actually blinked three times in confusion. Darn, was hoping for more. “You looked at the Void Eternal, unshielded? How are you- you’re not, nearly forgot that bit.” He held a hoof up to his face and sighed again. “This...I’m not sure if this is why I work with you or why I don’t.” “Both, probably, yeah definitely both. By the way your wife seems cute -” I gesture to Measured. “- If I did not have respect for married couples I would proooobably have done something extremely… What’s the word for wrong again? In-something, blast this Swedish tongue.” “Let’s go with lewd and leave it at that,” the pony replies. Measured blushes a bit and nudges him. “Auric, aren’t you going to inform her?” He tries to shush her. “Not in front of her, that’ll only make trouble.” “You are aware that I can hear you, right?” “I was counting on it, I had hoped those things on the side of your head weren’t just for decoration.” Sarcasm levels rising fast! I feel my smile slowly drop, reaching my hand up to my left ear I pull it off, no blood no nothing, I just pulled it off as if it was glued. “Ya dingus they are decoration, I got them chopped off.” Bloody executioner job… Always have to chop me ears off… They remained silent, Measured looked like she was about to gag and Armor Boy stared in the space ahead of him, unblinking and unmoving. “Ey? You gonna invite me to tea or just stare at the darkness and admire the view?” He sighed and motioned to the door. “C’mon in Alice. Just don’t complain when I show you something crazy.” I couldn’t have given him a more deadpan look even if I wanted to. “You are aware who you’re speaking to, correct?” The base floor had five other doors, four had symbols on them and he moved to none of them. I did a quick calculation and figured that the room was the size of the entire bloody floor, but if that was the case, then where did this door- My mental objections cut off as he opened it to reveal a bathroom, shut it, opened it again, found a bedroom, shut it again, and finally found a kitchen on the other side. “Fancy… One very bad thing with this though, I could notice that the door was enchanted, hell it seemed as alive as you did when I moved your soul… What if someone were to drop a poison bomb, get a gas mask and just open the doors? That way it would go through your entire tower very quickly.” He blinked a few times as the idea occured to him and shuddered. “Next project, more safety protocols in door network...and yeah, I should hope they’re alive. They have minds of their own, it’s one tower-spanning network. Hate stairs in pony body. Hate too many stairs in general. Sombra was a twit, installing fifty thousand stairs.” “Ah, I remember Sombra, I used to be in a relationship with him, nice man… Was he a dragon for you as well? I don’t know what happened exactly, but he changed after The Battle of Tartarus, became more distant.” He shook his head. “Nah, mine was different. Some sort of student of Cel’s, went up there to study crystals and dark magic...and fell to it, naturally. Sad to see a teacher have to take out their apprentice. I got wind of it as things went south, and decided to make a showing. Shouldn’tve done it, to be honest.”
I hmm’d and looked around, the kitchen seemed far too ordered, I couldn’t find the spices in my quick look… “So, similar stories… But not exactly the same. Sombra was a Black Dragon, one of the first, I do know that he had the ability to transform into a pony, but he never did in the risk of corruption, Damnations to Tartarus though, we fought alongside eachother for weeks in that bloody battle, here’s a hot dose: No matter how much I tried, they kept coming, and they were overwhelming, abberations, abominations, Succubi, though those are nice if you can converse with them, Demon Lords, Pitlords, it was literally me and three dragons against all of them… I guess something must’ve gotten to Sombra.” He tilts his head, clearly thinking about something, while Measured puts a teakettle on a stove and begins rummaging through a cabinet. He gets my attention with a simple question. “What was the latest thing of Nightmare-Moon levels that happened to your world?”
I gave him the kind of smile a pedophile gives a young boy after offering them candy when they move towards the van. “Me.”
He deadpanned at me and waved his hoof in a ‘go on,’ motion. “Well, you see when I’m out Discord doesn’t dare to come out, I have more than one bone to pick with him you know? Bloody scoundrel… He tried to steal my title, it did not work out well for him. At all. In my world he wasn’t just imprisoned in stone, oh no he was bound to stone, literally, that piece of concrete? That’s him, fully.” He hummed a bit. “Who’s the captain of the royal guard, and do you know the niece of Celestia?” “The current captain of the royal guard is Nightime Fang, she’s fairly good at it as well, I heard some dork named Shining Armour were going to be the captain, but I kind of may have slaughtered his men once, self defence purely, they were looking to kill me and all exits were blocked, I think he was demoted after that, and the Niece of Celestia is Mi Amore Cadenza, right?” He nods and lets out a small smile. “Assuming you haven’t derailed their love life...once they get married, you’ll have a nice surprise soon after up north, what with the return of an Empire.”
“I am well aware, my world’s timeline is still before Discord breaking out, techincally. And I am well aware about the changelings at the wedding as well, I have a bone to pick with Chrissy… On top of that, I maaay have gone through my brothers notes on the new episodes back home, however long ago that was. Oh right, I forgot to mention this last time, it’s fairly important as well. If you’re planning to go back to our world, be very, very careful, your body was literally ripped apart to give the energy to bind you to that armor, and is the laws of physics different here because I’m not supposed to talk for this long without breathing.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But if I had to guess, you’re either tapping into Pinkie’s innate magic, or there’s something in the air here. Anywho…” and at this, Measured trotted over with a tea tray, “Tea?” With the heaviest English accent I could possibly muster I thickly reply with “Oh bu’ yes of course! Tea is the most important meal of the day! Give you energie to go on, yo know?” I dig around in my dress and yes I still have it on, I wouldn’t be talking with Armor Boy without clothes. That reminds me…
“Armor Boy, what’s your name?” I finish finding my chai tea and smile at him. He doesn’t smile back. “I don’t give out my birth name, Alice, but I’m going by Auric Fulcrum now. Only makes sense, I got hit with the Golden Sun here, and give me a lever and a place to stand, and moving the earth’s the least I could try.” “Intruging… You know what?” I walk up and stand in front of him, going down on one knee so I’m more or less at eye level with him. I then quickly snatch him up in a hug. “You’re so cute.” He sputters a bit before slowly, carefully returning the hug. “I will be so happy when I can choose to formshift as I want to again.” “Mhm, you’re soft, even though that I can feel that your skin itself is like nanomachines, heh I’ll be calling you Nano from here on out.”
I pet him a few times and stand up, still holding him. Then, I put my hand on my back and flip him over. Then… I do the most evil thing I can think of, tickle his tummy.
He laughs uncontrollably, and Measured smiles wickedly, apparently saving the information for either future blackmail or usage on her own time. “This is what you get!” I say with a smile as I wiggle my hand about. Eventually, he tries to tap out, wheeze out Uncle, all that good stuff that is him essentially pleading for mercy against the power of fingers. “You, shall not pass!” I yell as I set him down on the floor and tickle him with both hands. “Measured, help me out will you?” I ask her. She merely smiles and waves me on with a hoof. “No no, go ahead. If I’m to do the same one day, I need to observe your fingers in action, and this is a great testing environment.” “Mhm, let’s begin class, I used to own both horses, cats dogs chickens and the like, and no not horses like you’re thinking, I’m talking about the unintelligent kind, though Kraken was always friendly… Either way, see this spot?” I point on the side of his stomach.
“Ponies are very, very ticklish right here, almost all quadruples are, this is due to it being a weak spot in their natural defenses, it’s soft and easily accessible, so his brain is telling him that touching it is a nono, which is why it’s ticklish.” I point upwards on his tummy, near his neck. “This place is just great to scratch due to the nerve cluster.” And finally, I point towards the slightly lower part of his stomach. “This location is fun to play with, because due to it being close to the nether regions it’s incredibly sensitive and ticklish.” I give her a look.
“I went to school for this schizz.” Auric finally collapsed, taking deep breaths and barely talking. “You’re...evil…” “I quote Fighter, I kill more men in one day than you will ever meet.” Honestly, watching Auric just spazz about after the tickle attack just made me want to do it again… He finally managed to gather his legs under himself and shot me the most adorable-looking death-glare. “Why. Why do I put up with you. Ever. At all.” “Because… You know that the alternative is so much worse, and plus you seemed really tense, that’s bad for both your heart and nerves, makes it harder to think and lowers your charisma.” He seemed ready to argue, but sighed instead. “Yeah. The whole Teridax thing has me on edge. But hey, with at least someone willing to help, it’s not so bad. What’s that song? I get by with a little help from my friends?” “Heh, yeah, I understand… Speaking of which, do you think he’s immune to decapitation or… I shouldn’t even suggest this, it’s bad even for me… But if it truly goes awful and you’re… Killed off, there’s a type of plague that can be released…” I level my eyes with him.
“I can release a plague that will effect everything, it’s honestly the one thing even I dread to do, it will affect animals, sapient beings, trees, plants, robots. It will wipe all sapient life from the planet, if not all life. So I’m saying this now, if you do, I will avenge you, if all hope is lost however… I’ll release it.” Auric shook his head, though. “Just because that world has Teridax doesn’t mean we should condemn the whole damn world. Plus, there are...Things. Guardians of the Multiversal Branches. The Equestria branch has one, I think you know what She might look like. She’d not take it kindly if you just ‘wiped out’ one of her works.” I nod my head. “I am well aware of Her, I do not believe in gods, but Guardians are another thing all together… However, that world with Teridax, does it even have hope to survive?” He smiled softly. “And that...is the million dollar question. If not for us, we wouldn’t even be on the path to an answer.” I sigh and look around, hoping that I’ll spot something… Ah, there it is, salt and pepper. I move over and grab the two and set them down on the table. “Okay, the teacup is us, the black one is Teri-whatever because I’m slightly racist, the white is his army, this is what we’ll do, firstly I can probably sneak around pretty well, and if he’s able to sense emotion he’ll notice something weird about me, namely I have none.”
I give him a look. “Hate was the last I had, it was ripped recently, so now i’m just empty following my own path of justice.” I place a piece of sugar to represent me. “This is what i’ll do, I will make a napalm mix, make a ritualistic symbol with it, and light it on fire. Here’s for hoping that some kind of giant evil demigod queen will come out of the ground and smash him.” I slam my fist down on the table, breaking the pepper thingy. “Sorry about that.” Auric shrugged. “Okay, and what about this idea instead? What if you were to find some of his soldiers, capture one, and experiment on it to find out all its weaknesses? From there, you could make strategies to take on Teridax himself. After all, I doubt you went after your Cel’s father without a plan.” I give him one of those looks. “This was basically my plan about Sol; Step one, walk into the throne room. Step two, blow it up, step three, kill Sol as quickly as I can while he’s still surprised.” He shakes his head. “No idea as to how would be the fastest, most efficient way to do that? Dear, while I can understand you’re the Lady of Madness, that’s just on a whole other level of mad.” I walk up to him, go down on one knee and grab his neck, I was not going to tickle him this time. In his ear, I hiss… “He raped Celestia, that was the first thing I did after I found out, I went to kill him.” His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Whoops, broke him. Just after the warantee runs out, isn’t that always the case. I back up and resume my full height, watching him work his jaw. After a minute, he looks up at me, the anger in his eyes not quite gone yet. “Then you did what any decent being would. And I would applaud you for it, had I hands.” “Don’t, murder is a bad thing to do most of the case, here let me give you a bit of the story…” I take a deep breath and think back.
“It was… Two months after I found Celestia I think, I could be off key, my memory is pretty blurry… Anyways, I noticed how her… Tummy began to grow, which was weird because we were practically living just below average, anyways I managed to find a doctor who didn’t yell for the guards as soon as they saw me, then she said that Celestia was pregnant. Please mind this, you; Celestia would just classify as a child or maybe teenager, she was very young. So, me practically going like my mother with ‘Who did this to you, you don’t even know any boys’ blablabla, anyways… So I went to kill him, and I succeeded, near a year afterwards Luna was born, I think the only reason why Celestia didn’t die was because I was constantly pumping her with the little healing magic that I knew, I looked up a few books some odd-week after that and managed to find a memory-wipe spell, I used it on Celestia so that she would not remember things like they were past the third month, I more or less acted like her guardian, I said that Luna was her sister… I think that’s why she remained sane after she had to banish Luna, it’s easier to banish your sister than your child.” I take a deep breath and look at him. “That’s the quick and abridged story.” He sighs and shakes his head. “One, that’s the longest abridged story I’ve heard, two, that’s one of the sadder stories I’ve had to hear for some time. It’s only made worse by it being true where you’re from.” His eyes lock with mine, and suddenly I can see something in them that I haven’t in some time. Fire and steel. Will and determination. Armor-boy’s serious now.
“But this time is not that time. I will not lose any friends if I can help it, I will not lose this...Battle of Understanding. None will fall if I can prevent it. Not even the Triad. True, Teridax scares me to no end, but we only fear...what we do not Understand. And the first step to understanding him is understanding the weakness of his minions, that we can try to understand his.” “Yes, I’m just used to more hands-on approaches… Back to happier topics, you’re very fluffy.” He shakes his head and smiles. “Part of being a pony. Now, was there anything you wanted, or have you satisfied your curiosity?” “My curiosity is never satisfied for there is always more to know, but for the most part the fire is quelled.” He nods and motions towards the door, and we all walk through it, ending up back on the first floor. He then turns to the door and...I’m not sure what he did, some sort of secret knock? Whatever he did, the sigil in the middle of the floor is glowing now, and he’s walking towards it. “Coming?” He asks, just before he disappears into thin air. Shrugging, I walk after him, vanishing as well. Noooot sure what I was expecting to see, but I don’t think… This was it. It was a room coated in obsidian, the entire thing was black as night, except at least night had stars in it. In one corner sat a huge mirror, it was held in a golden frame. Oh, and it pratically radiated energy. “I am nooot sure exactly where you are Armor Boy, because I can usually see in darkness but this place is confusing me… Either way, the Thread of that mirror is loose, you may want to fix that before it splinters, if you’ve ever worn low quality clothing, you know what I mean, a single thread loose can lead to the whole thing going in two.” It was as well, extremely strong magical items had these… Threads, the more threads the more power, that thing was covered in them top to toe, if someone just pulled one thread… Let’s hope they’re not very caring for this planet if they do. And then he spoke up from right behind me, cheeky git. “That’s actually what I wanted to show you.”
Once I got my heart back under control and he’d stopped smirking, he walked up to the mirror and put a hoof on it. “This is what I refer to as the Mirror of the Displaced. I use it to watch others, recieve and store Tokens...and lately, it’s acted far more like a looking-glass than it should have. It was formed from a regular mirror, the remnants of the energy from that Banishment, and a bit of my own blood and power over Alchemy.” “Firstly, don’t startle me, else i’ll have to tickle you again -” I ignore his adorable death-glare. “- and secondly…” I move towards the mirror and grab the loose thread, I don’t think he can see it. “I’m going to guess that you can’t see this thread… If I were to pull it, the entire mirror would fall apart energy-wise and explode, I think this is the cause for your concern… I can’t fix, cut or pull it without risking to wipe out the entire planet in less than a thousandth of a nanosecond, it’s too dangerous… I don’t want to know what compelled you to even make this, this… It’s most likely why it’s acting like a looking glass rather than a mirror, something messed with this, and if it did that means they can see the strings, which they shouldn’t because I had to do a lot of demonic pacts to be able to see them, or you messed up in making it.” He rubbed the back of his head with a hoof, then got an idea and held out one of his forelegs to me. “I have a plan. Grab a hold of my leg.” “Well, this can only end well, if you try to imbue me with Understanding I will end you.” He shakes his head as I grab on just above the knee. “Touch my hoof to me.” “Bloody mongrel… Still, I’ve seen The Void Eternal and That Which Fills It, and I have seen far worse things than that.” I grab onto his hoof.
Just as I complete the circuit, I can almost hear his brain working at this carefully. “Now what I want you to do is make sure you aren’t touching the hoof, just the leg, let the knowledge you gained be at the forefront of your mind, and say the key word. If I’m right...it might work. You might have to use it in a sentence related to said knowledge. If this works, I’ll be forced to see what you’ve seen, and will know how to see this thread you talked about.” I nod and touch just above his hoof, a sentence I never thought I would ever form, and think about the threads. “The Threads of Life bind us all, The Threads of Death divide us all, The Threads of Magic seperate us all, The Threads of Hate drives us all, The Threads of Greed end us all, The Threads of Love bring us all. The Threads of All, Understand us all.” That was when his eyes glowed white and his mouth dropped open in a silent scream as his body went rigid. The hoof I had been closest to flashed once as I finished my sentence, and it appeared the bloody blade had done as asked. Not sure if that was a good thing or not… Measured gulped and looked from Auric to me. “He’ll be okay...right?” Whatever he did, it actually took a toll from me as well, so gasping for breath I managed to squeeze out “Yeah… He’ll probably be alright, when he visisted me… Last time, he jumped… Between his armor body… And another, that I made for him. He’s a fighter.” She slowly nodded. “If you...say so.”
At around that moment, he fell to the ground, limp as a rag, but breathing heavily. I look at him as a devilish idea starts forming in my head, walking up to his limp body I move my mouth to his stomach, took a deep breath… And blew the largest raspberry I could on his gut. Measured giggled slightly, but the pony was still out of it. It’s less fun when you don’t get a reaction.
“Measured… Can you bring me some pepper and a few grains of salt? And a bag of ice? I’ve seen ponies pass out from magic overloads before, but he just absorbed a bit of my madness, so this should work…” Just as she neared with the pepper, I saw his eyelids begin to twitch open. “Quickly Measured, I want to do this before he wakes up.” She came back with the salt, I sighed and shrugged. “Oh well, it works just as well…” I open his mouth with one first, and pour half of all the salt into his lower lip, you know the place where it hurts like a mofo? Yeah, that place. He springs up and starts trying everything to spit it out, to no avail. “AaaaGH! Alice! Why would you do this?!” “It’s the easiest way to make sure that there’s no magical feedback, if you shock the mind awake through pain rather than shock, sure there’s plenty of shock there, but the magic is going to try and numb the pain instead of trying to store itself in places it shouldn’t. Trust me, I had to treat magical feedback a few times.”
Aww, that adorable death-glare again! I never get tired of seeing it. “Or you just felt like inflicting pain on me, seeing as how that wasn’t a magical-feedback coma.” I give him a very serious look and sigh. “You don’t know how my magic works, it’s imbued with my madness, trust me you do not want to risk getting that stored in places it shouldn’t, it’s like pouring hot sauce all over your already spicy food, then tabasco.” I sigh and look at him.
“And stop with that glare before you give me a heart-attack from adorableness, wherein I will haunt you with bellyrubs.” Measured giggled and Auric shifted his gaze to her before shaking his head and muttering under his breath. The mirror catches his eye as he does so, though, and he slowly walks up to it. “Astonishing. So that’s what you see.” I nod and look over the mirror, there’s colours within names on the strings and some are as thick as my arm while other are thinner than my hair. “You do not want to mess with this mirror, if you had used too much power on this, hell only a teeny tiny bit more than you did? It would have exploded, see all the thin lines? Those are the weak spots, don’t take a hatchet to it when the world hangs in balance on a small string, hm?”
He draws closer and looks at the thin threads. “I know of those names. They’re the ones I haven’t formed any sort of real bond or connection with. I merely know of them. And yet, now the power from their Tokens is an integral part of the Mirror.” I nod and pull out my Vorpal Sword, looking over the edge. “This mirror is… Strange, it can’t be cut by claw or steel, but the Vorpal Blade is technically a fragment of my madness taken physical form, I do not want to risk cutting it, however…” I look above Auric to the thin strings going all over his body. “Can I try and cut the string to one of your legs? It should momentarily go numb before your body repairs the damage, much like nanobots.”
He almost shoots the glare at me again before he directs it elsewhere. “When did I become the lab-rat...And why would this test be helpful to you anyways?” I pull a lamp out of my hat and hold it over my head, shining brightly. I then throw it somewhere. “You see, if I can cut the magic away from a being without having to hit them, shouldn’t it be so much easier to actually weaken them? That’s the thing I’m thinking about, if I can weaken their initial magic so much that they’re unable to move, wouldn’t it be easier to fight? Honestly, the only reason I haven’t tried it with ponies back home is due to their low magic, and the damage could be permanent if you can’t repair it, however, your body is far beyond powerful enough to repair it without any concern…” I shake my head and punch myself with my left. “Sorry for that, I have this weird mad scientist mode, wherein I basically go like that, strange, it’s usually a lot harder for me to shift like that… Guess it was just that interesting?” Auric smiled a bit at that. “Like I hadn’t noticed when we first met. So long as you make it fast, then I’m willing to let you try once. Then I’m going to look into fixing this mirror.” I almost squee, but settle at an extremely large smile, that’s when I rememberd that I have canines instead of normal teeth… Oh well.
I walk up to his read and study each leg, each individual thread carefully… “Alright, from what I get the colour that looks more vibrant than blue but more glowing than pink and is closest to yellow means the initial magic…” I lift my Vorpal Blade and pick at it “Hmmm…” I swiftly cut through the Threads in one smooth motion, nearly instantly they started trying to fix themselves, I look down over to Auric. “How’ya feelin’?” “A bit numb, it’s like the leg just fell asleep and is waking up again.” “Aaaalright, now if you were let’s say… An unicorn, average unicorn that is, you would most likely suffer permanent damage and possibly loose a bit of your magic, also a thing about the threads… When you start seeing them, you can’t stop. Do you have any idea how hard it is to look at enchanted objects?”
“Probably no harder than it is to see the Djinn in this world. Okay. So...which would be the right way? Slowly taking the weakest threads out, or strengthing them?” Auric turned back to the mirror and eyed the thin threads carefully. “I would suggest strengthening the weakest Threads… However, in case it breaks then the explosion will be all the more devestating.” I shrugged and look at the mirror. Auric’s eyes followed the loose thread that I had mentioned. “And...your suggestion for dealing with that?” “Well, depends, how much do you enjoy this tower?” Auric’s eyes widened. “It’s...kinda my Alicorn...and everything bunker.” “Hmmm… Well, when in doubt always follow the rule of thumb ‘Don’t cut the red wire.’ While I personally don’t care much if this entire place goes sky-high like Konata, I would rather it not happening in a way that I may be connected with it…” And then he smirked. “Or while you’re in it, I’m sure. After all, it’s all fine and dandy to say you can’t die, but pain is another matter entirely. Plus, I’m sure stress-testing that would be something less than a walk in the park.” “Well, that confirms it, I’ve completely gone bonkers, I seriously thought I was dreaming when I saw you in pony form, but only in my wildest dreams do Celestia fight in top hats, wait, what were we talking about?” Auric rolled his eyes and sighed before replying. “I think you’ve stared at it too long, miss Lady of Madness. Now, if you’d be so kind. What would be the best way to secure that loose thread? A gem of some sort, another thing to tie it all together? I’d rather not leave it floating free where anything could pull it.”
“Hm, well… Don’t tell anyone about this, but you don’t exist, wait sorry wrong line - When the water runs red, wait schizze I can’t bloody think all of a sudden. Don’t tell anyone, but I can strengthen the weakened ones without risking blowing the planet out of orbit, I won’t promise that it’ll be strong… It’s as Adam Sandlers or whatever he’s called used to say, ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own’, y’know?” The Alchemist turned pony smirked. “Savage, and so long as Alice doesn’t like big boom, I think I’ll manage.” “Sooo… Want me to simply strengthen the weak ones, or cut them without blowing it up?” The pony looks to the threads and smiles softly. “All ties are precious, even the weakest ones. I may never see Typhon again, but that doesn’t mean what little energy there is in there deserves to be cut. The same can be said of the Twins...or of your card. Strengthen the bonds, if you’d be so kind.” “Alright…” I looked at the weakest one and tried to figure out it’s connection to the rest, it honestly looked like a child had eaten too much glue or something. “Damnations, Auric, don’t look, if you try to sneak a peek I’ll know, I’ll cut your tongue out and replace your penis with it, trust me when I say I can.”
He blinked a few times at that before replying in a very forcibly calm manner. “Noted. And for the record, I think you’ve just redefined oral sex forever.” “Mhm, very interesting, for further notice, when I tell you to look away, it either involved explosions, forbidden magic, murder, more explosions, Michael Bay, or all at the same time.” Auric replied while staring stoicly at his most fascinating wall. “So, what, are you talking Dungeons and Dragons as directed by Mr. Bay, or do you honestly think that if you make a mistake fixing my Mirror, it’ll drag that abomination of movie directing from our homes to here?” “Dungeons and Dragons? I used to play that as a child… Never stuck around for edition four… Anyways, do you have a very sharp clean object capable of penetrating scales somewhere?”
Auric held a hoof up to his face. “Eh...used to. But it’s sorta...not around anymore. And if your Blade is still a part of you, all you should have to do is focus on pulling it out of a sheathe, and you should have it again. At least, that’s how Pinkie explains the basics of Cannonspace 101.” “Interesting, but I’d rather not pull a sword out of my cunt, think of the Latin word for Vagina.” “Yeah, no thanks. I’ve read a few books by Mr. Brown. I know where you’re going with this. Frankly, you don’t need to use a part of your anatomy as a reference point save for your hand. But...I think the other part is imagining it was...always there? She gets away from me at that point.” I hmmd and started nicking at the strings with my fingers, the bloody things just went right through, so instead I bit into my hand until it drew blood and used that to move the threads. “Of course it was always there, you just don’t up and suddenly gain an ability, you’ve always had it, just didn’t notice it, don’t you think it’s weird that we got powers we actually were able to wield instead of… I don’t know, laughing really loudly? You’ve always had this, even as a human.” I winced as I cut my finger on a small thread “Damnations, who is this guy, and why can’t I edit it? The others went just fine, but this one… I think this is either you, or another whom Understands.” At this, he sighed. “Yeah, I know of that. It seems to be popping out of the goddamn woodwork, like a termite infestation. Too bad I can’t just spray the damn Multiverse with insecticide and be done with it. Those who claim to Understand like me...I either pity them, for mortal man was not meant to comprehend all the beauty and terror in existence, or I loathe them, because they are the most tenacious buggers out there, and seem to see me as some sort of target needing to be knocked down a few pegs. So far, I know of Teridax. There could be others that I just...don’t know about yet.”
“Well, I can’t fix this, but in theory if you manage to rebind all the energy around that one thread, you can cut it, I can’t do anything to it, annoying buggar, may have to pay him a visit… Quick question though, do you think he’s weak to gay men in movies? Or old black people?” “Frankly, if I knew any weakness of those that Understand, I’d decline to answer. Because then it could be used on me. What’s the name associated with the thread? Can you tell?” “Uhhh… Tara… Terra? Terramorphous? That can’t be right, such a notion would be silly… Something on T… Teradirixa? Teradix? Urgh, even his name sounds queer, this guy so got a hardon for you.” I slap one hand to my mouth when I realized that I let that slip. “Don’t. Ever. Repeat that.” I said without looking at him. “No need. I was already aware. Teridax, the damn guy I’m fighting. I scried his world once, because it was...well, it was an oddity in the Multiverse. Did you know he has a damn shrine to me? Worst. Scrying. Ever.” “And you’re absolutely certain that this guy isn’t just trying to get you into bed with him?” Unseen to me, Auric shared a quick glance with Measured Thought and smiled. “He’s too damn late for that...and soon to be too late for more, if I can find someone qualified enough...I’m leaning to Cadence, but my mind, tis a fickle thing…” “Mhm, so you’re marrying her?” I nodded towards measured “Ain’t you a quick one? I’ve been off and on in relationships for the past… However long this has been. Oh, and speaking of which.” I turn around and clap my hands together, and out of pure bad luck it splattered all over Auric, I swear I had nothing to do with that. …
Screw you, I blame Discord. Anyways… “So, wouldn’t you technically be able to legally wed yourself? I don’t know your standing in this world, but in mine, you would be a Paladin of Celestia or a Champion of Cadence, something equally silly, those can wed themselves… I’ve seen a guy wed himself with himself by being himself, it was a weird night, last thing I remember involved smoking a page from the Necronomicon, Necromonic- Fuck! Why can’t I say that word? Nec-Ro-Nom-I-Con, Necronomicon, did I even say it right? It feels like my tongue is welling up inside of my mouth.” There was a hint of a smirk in the pony’s reply. “So long as you don’t need to say Klattu, Barada, Nikto, in order to talk, I think we’ll deal. And...I don’t serve any of the Princesses. My title as Knight of the Eclipse means one thing: I serve the idea of Balance Itself. Something which this world has sorely lacked. Something which me and Discord will have to slowly reintroduce after this.” I remember letting out a shocked gasp-ish shriek, or well sque if you want to get technical. “I like Discord, did I ever tell you young snapper-wipper of how I and Discord planned to eat the moon?” Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew Auric was rolling his eyes. “I’m sure Luna enjoyed the thought of that…” “Screw Luna, bitch’s crazy, ripped my womb out.”
And that’s how I spilled the beans and took the one fucking wrong step, whatever those threads were connected to, it was addling my mind far beyond what I enjoy. “...I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to offer. I’m sure you’ve heard it many times, from many ponies and others over the years. But know this: So long as you want, my ‘door’ is always open, and I swear on my soul, I will not judge you.” I sighed “I need to learn how to shut my trap, I promised myself to not tell anyone about that, but… Something about this, I blame your mirror or whoever’s on the other side, it’s messing with my head, honestly I keep seeing you with a giraffe on your head.” “Well, we can leave if you want if you’re done with the threads for now. Are you?” “Yeah… I can’t do much more with ‘em. Oh, and do you like baked beans with pork? And trust me on this, even though your body has changed, your tastebuds remain the same, see these fangs?” I bared my maw and tapped each shaving sharp tooth. “I still eat fruit and vedg- Vedgte- Fuckin’... I give up, I can’t pronounce anything today, let’s see.. Anthropology, Complications, Xenoalchemists, well those seem fine, but why can’t I pronounce simple stuff?” Auric shrugged and stood in one corner of the lab, motioning over his shoulder for me to join him. “Cause the Multiverse is anything but simple? I dunno. I’ll have to run some tests on the Mirror later, see if its leaking anything. I hope not…” “Probably is, anyways, I’m bored, do you want baked beans and pork?”
“Actually, ever since I shifted,” and here he tapped one of the walls in a ‘shave and a haircut’ pattern, which shifted us back to the ground floor, “my tastebuds shifted as well. Possibly a side-effect of Equus itself changing me? More experimentation, then. I’ve not had meat in this body yet, but hay’s surprisingly palateable.” “And by that he means that he eats it all two days after we restock,” Measured rejoined. I looked at Auric with this kinda ’Bitcudidwat’ look, and I think he understood what I was thinking, I told him anyways. “Bitcudidwat?” “Measured pushed me into doing it. Said something about proper nutrition. I gave one piece a test, and next thing I know, plate’s empty. I’ve always had a weakness for starch.” “That just means you’ve a big mouth with ego to follow. Anyways, Measured, you want baked beans? No pork, I promise on my rotting heart.” I checked, it is. She slowly shakes her head. “No, the Crusaders are planning a...less...exhuberant outing for us. But feel free to make yourself at home. Come along, Auric.” And with that, the two ponies left me in the tower, one smiling, and the other saying ‘don’t break anything!’ Don’t break anything? Don’t be silly, I would neve- Why is the stove on fire? Wait, he’s got a stove? Wait a minute, is that gas I smell I sniffed the air a few times and decided that it probably wasn’t gas, now to put the fire away from the stove, I walked up to it, sized it up and gave a command. “You shall move from the stove without spreading, and if I catch you spreading I’ll show you what fighting fire with fire means.” The fire just sat there for a moment, and then, there was this, I swear, giggle, and it hopped from the stove to the table. “If you piss on the floor, I will end you.”
So naturally, it decided to spread to the refrigerator. Somehow. It had the Threads, I could see them now that I focused, just a bunch of tense, thin threads keeping it together, I knew that it was sapient. “I’ll bloody cut you, mate, I will cut you and devour you, I’ve done such things before.” At that, it went back to the stove, but it was now noticably larger. “Stay there, before I get curious. Actually… I think I got one somewhere…” I dug into my pockets, and deep in my best pocket, namely my entire arm was in there, I pulled out a small, flawless black soulgem. “I wonder…” I gave the being a sinister smile. It responded by shivering and, I swear, it looked around for escape routes, before jumping for the floor and racing towards the door, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “... Ain’t gotta explain shit, I’m just going to put firecrackers in his food and kindly go and mess with this world’s Celestia. Kindly.” And with that, I decided to do a flawless exit (After having put a bunch of firecrackers in his food) by slamming the hilt of my sword into the wall enough times to force a large crack. “... He seriously did not ward it on the inside? Bah, he’s never commanded armies before, I can notice.” I reared up and kicked the wall one final time, making a large gaping hole in the tower. “Well, he can’t complain about the view.”
I turned around to see the small fire thing was back, and that half of the tower was now aflame. “You know what? I don’t even have to lie for this one, I’ll be fine.” And with that, I did a backflip out of the tower, took out my sword and decided for a nice afternoon stroll in Ponyville, how did I know what it was called, you ask? There’s a large fucking sign across the street and I’ve 20/20 eyesight. So, I set off towards the library with a real nice walk, I felt like Cool Guy reborn.
