1 Enough, Just… You know what? I’ve Had it With This Place
In a clearing, the smell of ozone permeated the air. Residual energies of powerful magic strayed and drifted from the ground as smoke would rise from a burning green wood fire. Scorched patches of grass and leaves turned to crisps by intense heat littered the ground, some turned to ash. Trees, broken, burnt, or turned into massive, now melting, icicles laid like scattered toothpicks on the dirt.
Numerous incapacitated golden and dark blue armored unicorns laid on the ground groaning in pain. Some trying to even return to their hooves before succumbing to the spells casted on them that cause them to be now resting uncomfortably with their heavily enchanted armor, which likely saved most of them from premature death, on the forest floor.
Surprisingly, two unicorns still stood, both breathing heavily, one of both dark blue and golden armoured ponies with more decorative effects on their chest pieces that designated them as officers. Their horns glowed with magic as they both concentrated on a single shimmering shield, that covered both of them, to deflect a huge sphere of energy propelled by a hooded bipedal figure. The golden sphere slammed into their combined teal and light green auras of magic holding their protective barrier together. Both of them straining as the orb depressed into their shield, clenching their teeth, then it careened off into a still standing tree in the unnatural clearing, exploding violently before toppling over.
The bipedal figure was human, his golden eyes blazed yellow with power. His blue hood covered his messy brown hair. He stood almost double the height of the opposing ponies. His hands shook with a misty gold aura as he deflected a shadow-like light green sword, that spun off into the distance before disintegrating into mist.
He shook his head in annoyance at the pair of ponies, “You both may be just be normal unicorns,” he admonishes. “but i see you are both well practiced in defensive spells.” he complemented, smiling.
“Though,” he began, “ you could use some practice with offensive spell-casting.” he stated in a sincere tone as he moved closer to them, the metallic sound of his boot striking the helmeted-head of a still-conscious unicorn, knocking the unfortunate pony out.
The unicorn with golden armor turned his head to his darker armored colleague. Whom was trying to recover from casting the high powered spell that the hooded human brushed aside without much effort on his part.
Seeing the pony distracted, the biped, with a gesture, materializes a lance of golden magic, and hurls it like a javelin at the head of the turned pony.
His partner shouted a warning, but his friend turned his head too late. He faced the speeding shimmering lance with widened eyes and grimaced, bracing for impact.
Despite its original intention, the magical projectile strayed and landed in the dead center of the chest piece of the unicorn. when it struck his armor, it exploded, blasting apart the enchanted gold metal. The stallion flew backward from the impact, gaining several feet of altitude, before he crashed into a fellow unicorn that laid on the ground, both groaned in pain from the impact, the former’s body had trails of steam rise off what remains of the armor that still covers him.
The recently freed human was about to have a terrible day, much like the ones that led to his defeat numerous times in the past.
After being freed from the entropy of the power of his prison encasing him, He ran into two platoons of both Day Guard and Night Guard unicorns doing drills in the forest near where he was imprisoned, a new town in place where a vast empty field used to be. Remaining stationary for the past two-hundred years did a number on his normally calm and patient demeanor.
Doing the the only rational thing a pissed off, angry, and spiteful wizard would do, he promptly engaged in magical combat with both platoons of unicorn guards from both cores of the equestrian military.
Despite that, let it be said, it was not a fair fight. The twenty-eight well trained battle magic users, now twenty-nine, who laid on the forest floor could atest to this.
The mage gazed at the Night Core officer still on his hooves; he took a deep breath then released the air in his lungs, taking in the fruits of his labor.
The pony saw this, and thought the biped had let his guard down.
He was so terribly wrong about that assumption.
The unicorn, the green aura coating his horn aura turning a darker tone, dissolved into a fiery darkness into the ground.
His eyes widened, and he turned behind himself, observing the unicorn reform from a shadowy mass from the ground. Wasting no time the human encompassed the unicorn with his golden aura, quickly overpowering his foes resistance to such an act, then smashed him into a tree with enough force to break the trunk.
Then another.
Then another.
Then another.
Motioning with his hands, he beckoned his power back towards himself. The unicorn, his limbs now restrained with shimmering golden chains, struggled to use his magic to break free, but the human quelled his build up of power with a wave of a hand.
He brought the pony face to face with him, “Now that was impressive,” he started, “ You ponies surprise me with your capacity for magic with every new century.”
The pony coughed, expelling blood on the ground. Then looked up at him with a neutral expression, his dark green eyes bore down on the other with hatred.
“... I see.” he said, before the golden flames from his eyes extinguished into pale gold colored irises.
“As I was saying before you decided to express your warm opinion of me,” he rolled his eyes, “that was exquisite spell work.”
He turned his head to the many other ponies on the ground, unconscious, “ The use of your hatred of me, and what i did to your friend and fellow soldiers, to fuel the requirement of the dark magic you casted was intelligent.”
Being stubborn, the pony didn’t dignify the human mage with a response.
The human narrowed his eyes in part with the pony’s continued silence, unamused; then placed a hand on the pony's horn, a shimmer sent a spell through his hand. The unicorn’s eyes rolled before his body was released from the mage's telekinetic grip then the pony crashed into the ground blissfully asleep.
He sighed, “I hate when they disrespect you even when you try to compliment them…” he muttered to nothing in particular.
The mage took a cursory look around, ensuring that all the ponies were indeed unconscious, or unable to provide a surprise blast from behind. The mage then turned his head to the town at the edge of the forest, still present through the foliage. A bell rang loud with purpose, its rapport still clear even an hour’s walk from the town center.
The population of the town definitely noticed the ruckus in the forest. In the case of a unicorn, perhaps even felt the magic being caste within.
‘Hopefully Celestia and Luna have forgotten about me, I’m glad the pegasi transporting my petrified self to the Capital in the Eversong forest managed to hurl me off the side of the chariot. I need to familiarize myself with the nation, again. Then perhaps i can try to incite another revolution?’
He rubbed his chin in thought then shook his head, “That barely worked last time, then i was petrified by a bloody basilisk of all things…” he grumbled.
After finally managing to find a way to nullify the sisters with a stone of power, enchanted by Clover The Clever. When used, ponies could turn problematic rampaging dragons into drooling messes at the direction of the wielder.
Turns out it was effective on ponies too, and more importantly alicorns. Which the results were admittedly adorable.
To say he was angry after he had a "accident" with a pony’s pet basilisk, just after pacifying Luna and Celestia, was akin to saying a zealous paladin’s righteous hate for the undead was demure.
‘Maybe I should track down that damn equine’s great great-grandchildren… Dandelion Pie, how i wish to throttle you.’
Sighing, he took a single step towards the pony town before being promptly blasted with the magical shimmering blue beam equivalent of forty-two semi-trucks from the side.
Pain exploded across his entire body as the human was sent flying at a impressive speed and force.
After colliding with ten more poor trees, snapping the thicker parts of branches and trunks. He skidded across a nearby pond, like a skipping rock, then clipping the ground, doing a flip then finally coming to a stop on his back.
Blood trailed down from his nose, and numerous scratches were on his body from the fauna helping soften his flight. The bruise, he would certainly feel the effects of the next day
“What…” coughed the mage, “ the fuck…” as he slowly managed to stand up.
Once he managed to get to his feet. The flap of wings in the air caused him to turn sharply, while he grimaced in pain, to see something he definitely didn’t want to see.
The sight of two alicorns landing in front of him, one of a dark blue coat and a starry mane. The other had what seemed to be a wave of constant changing color in her mane and a white coat.
‘How… how did they...’ the thought coursed through his mind with the tenacity of hellfire.
Clearly, the sisters didn’t know where the pegasi had dropped him exactly; otherwise they would have collected him to be in their wonderful garden at the castle of Eversong City.
Though, after four-hundred years of imprisonment in his own section of the garden, he lost all love he could of had for its beautiful charms.
“That was quite… the greeting party princesses.” he addressed to them, grasping his side.
"Consider that recompense for your actions earlier." replied Princess Luna.
The princesses warily observed him as they approached, knowing better than to let their guard down.
They both paused thirty feet away from him
Both princesses didn’t look a day older from when he last saw them, and to be fair he didn’t get older either. Though that was one positive side to his multiple run-ins with the Elements of Harmony, and the… unfortunate accident.
Taking initiative, the older of the two spoke first, “You look not a day older Virgil from when we last met.” complimented the Sun Princess.
Virgil smiled, “Why thank you Celestia, I always try my best to look presentable for royalty.” he replied sarcastically.
Celestia took a deep breath then exhaled, steeling herself, “Perhaps we can talk,” She asks hopefully with a pleading smile. “We were all friends once.”
The man scoffed, “Really, we are going to do this again?” his eyes lit up in a golden blaze of power. “That was before you both turned me to stone the first time.”
Both took a step back, “We did not mean to do that, twas’ only an accident!” Luna replied indignantly, stomping and crushing the forest leaves with her right fore hoof, “You stood in the way of Discord, we didn’t know it would affect you as such as he.” she finished in a lower tone of voice.
“No…” stated Virgil in a low voice.
“No what?” asked Luna
“ I… can’t forgive you, do you know how it felt the first two hundred years?” he asked in a trembling voice.
Celestia opened her mouth to reply, but then thought better and closed it.
“You wouldn’t know, because you weren’t the one encased in stone!” he shouted, “At Least that asshat of a reality warper could sleep and dream...” he mumbled angrily
“We are sorr-” began Luna
“Sorry does not cut the additional four-hundred years princess!” He cut her off, crossing his arms.
“It is not our fault you did not listen to reason, and only wished to spite us!” Celestia finally raised her voice.
“Perhaps you could tell me how you figured out where I was this time,” he asks in an even tone, “I would love to learn how.”
“We were returning from the Crystal Empire after dealing with a tyrant wielding dark magic,” Luna explained, “when we received a distress spell coming from this forest.”
The human’s eyes opened wide at the information.
One unicorn managed to cast a distress spell, but he thought nothing of it. As the range of such spells are limited.
The odds that Celestia and Luna just happened to be right above where it was casted were possible, but very low.
But, that was enough to make Virgil snap
“Are… are you serious?”, his hands shook in fury.
Both sisters nodded slowly.
“No… thats... just not fair FOR THE GODS THAT EXIST THAT ISN’T FAIR!” he yelled angrily, as he fell on the ground and punched the dirt in despair.
.
.”EVERY…. SINGLE …TIME…. I’VE BEEN SCREWED!” He enunciated with each blow.
He smashed his fists into the ground, yelling obscenities. Before falling still and silent.
Celestia and Luna looked at each other before sitting down themselves, “To be fair, you “got” both my sister and I multiple times and practically defeated us…” murmured Princess Luna, trying to comfort Virgil.
“It doesn’t matter anymore…” uttered Virgil in a defeated tone.
Not knowing what else to say, the three sat in silence for a prolonged period of time.
At this point Virgil was a broken man. At every turn, no matter his power, something or some pony managed to beat him down in his career of villainy.
Yet, a idea came to our young, yet several hundreds of years old friend. It was insane… but it was his only way out of this colorful hell. It was the way he came here in the first place.
“Enough…” He said, his voice gaining new strength.
Both sisters, who laid their heads down, turned toward him in curiosity.
“You know what?” he paused, but didn’t wait for them to respond, “I’ve had it with this place.” he stated in a worriedly calm manner.
Virgil stood up and walked forward, away from the princesses, then stopped. He held both arms out to his side and turned his palms skyward.
Slowly, wind gathered, while power steadily rose in the gusts of air, which caused ripples in the nearby pond. His shimmering golden aura covered his arms completely.
The air in front of him shuddered, before finally screaming and splitting open. A swirling blue portal took the place of the space in front of him. His eyes glew a stark white as the portal grew bigger. Finally it was large enough for him to walk through.
Virgil turned towards the princesses, “No offense to you princesses,” he paused, “but… fuck this world and screw this land and to hell with everypony on this ridiculous plane of existence!”
He grinned a toothy smile then hurled himself through the shimmering green portal.
As soon as he was swallowed whole by the green portal, it near instantaneously closed behind him. The sound of air replacing the space where it used to be.
“I hope he comes back some day.” mumbled Princess Celestia as stood staring at the place he used to be. “ He really wasn’t a bad… human… I think?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea sister,” replied Princess Luna sincerely