When the alicorn of magic goes missing, it's up to his brother, Erebus the alicorn of death to find him.
Alicorns. Every pony in Equestria knows who they are, but when the alicorn of magic, Apophis goes missing, it's up to Celestia and Luna's cousin to find him. There are just two problems: One, he has no idea where Apophis is, and two, he's the alicorn of death. This will not end well.
Erebus pressed the doorbell for the third time in a row. Like what had happened three times before none of his siblings showed up to answer. He rolled his eyes and mentally checked his magic to make sure the cookies he had packed in his basket weren't going to fall. He snorted, annoyed that when his siblings came to visit Mount Mortem, he had always come to the door to greet them, pull them into a hug and invite them for tea and cookies, but when he came, it was a whole different story. He sighed, turned and spread his gaunt skeletal bat-like wings, grimacing as the leathery skin in between the fingers grew in before he cocked them, ready to fly back before he heard a clicking sound behind him. He turned around faster than seemed physically possible, put his nose up to whoever opened the door, and gave the biggest, happiest smile an alicorn with a skull for a face could give.
With a squee that broke the eardrum of any mortal in a three-mile radius, Erebus lunged forward and enveloped his older brother in a rib-crushing hug, which considering that he was built as heavily as a grizzly bear, was pretty hard. Pulling himself out of the hug he lifted a cookie out of the basket and gave it to his brother, being careful to keep a steady stream of magic to not to let the cookies fall- if there was anything more important in the world to him it was always having cookies to share with his siblings, and that included the alicorn of evil.
Diablo Malo, looked all the world like his namesake, his fur was the color of freshly spilled blood, and his talent glyph, cutie mark Erebus reminded himself, was a black pitchfork, surrounded by flames. His mane was chopped short in front but flowed like a river of magma down his back.
"Erebus, welcome." He said, with what sounded like a slight quaver in his voice, he turned and walked into the mountain, turning his head to indicate Erebus to follow, which he did, tripping over Diablo's outstretched leg. As he trotted down the hall he grimaced again as the skin between his fingers receded, before he turned his attention to Diablo's tone. Is he nervous 'bout something? Erebus thought as he walked down the torch lite hall, before laughing internally. Diablo was never scared, even when Flora had turned into a raging she-demon and tried to murder all of ponykind three thousand years ago. He gave a little laugh, as he wiped a tear from his eye with one of his bony wing fingers.
Finally, the two of them pushed through the bronze doors that blocked off the hallway to the main council room, Erebus went in first with a light spring in his step, while Diablo hung back, his head drooping.
There were ten of them. All of them sitting on thrones made of the purest metals and jewels ever found, arranged in a semicircle.The only exception was Flora, who as usual was sitting on a tree stump eating a raw turkey. Erebus smiled at all of them, looking from face to face before he settled on the throne directly in front of him. It was empty, missing its usual owner, Erebus's eldest brother, Apophis, alicorn of magic
"Um, where's Apophis?"
The alicorn sitting directly to the left of Apophis's throne nodded solemnly. With a start, Erebus realized that it was Lux Bonum, the alicorn of good.
He looked exactly how Erebus had remembered him last, his blonde mane half covering his face and his gold fur glistening in the sun. Where the sunlight was coming from was a mystery since Erebus knew for a fact that the Council Room didn't have a skylight- to Flora's very routine displeasure.
And he realized with another start the new ruler of Immortality. Erebus didn't understand the complex royal coronation that made Apophis the Prince of alicorns, and quite frankly he didn't care. But what he did know that the title would be passed down to the next oldest child, which would have been Flora if Lux wasn't born ten seconds before. Needless to say, there was a little bit of hostility between the both of them
"Hey, Lux." Erebus said as he turned to face him, "where exactly is Apophis, and follow up question," he backed up, took a deep breath and cried out: "WHO WANTS COOKIES?" Almost immediately there was a rush as nine hungry alicorns mobbed him trying to get the cookies. It took some doing but he managed to get everypony one.
But of course Lux had to mess things up.
"Erebus, what in Tartarus are you doing?"
Erebus looked up at him with a cookie in his mouth, and a trail of floating cookies that was slowly being eaten by Flora.
"Eadhing?" He said with a muffled mouth as he dumped the rest of the cookies down his mouth, which was a shame since it took forever for Erebus's body to break down organic matter into energy, one of the side effects of being a skeleton he supposed.
Lux looked at him and then sighed deeply and collapsed back into his throne.
"Erebus, I need your help.
Erebus looked at him surprised, Lux had asked for his help before but it was usually for small things, like can you remove your wing so I can find the ball that rolled under the boulder, or can you please reap the soul of that evil tyrant that's threatening that city I favor, stuff like that. But growing up with Lux made Erebus learn that all he ever wanted was to become Prince, but now...
"Look, I know what you're thinking, I've always wanted to be Prince and now I am. But the thing, is I don't want to be Prince if it means that Apophis is missing, it's been a month. A. Month. And we still haven't gotten word from him, yes I know he loves to disappear for days at a time but he tells us beforehand!"
Erebus nodded slowly as he processed what Lux said. It was true that Apophis loved disappearing to meditate or study some arcane form of magic from a different dimension, but to vanish for a whole month? He put his wing hand on his chin and stroked it when was the last time he had come to Immortality? He went through his memories until he chanced upon it, it was two years back but he still felt the magical aftershock.
"You know what Lux? I agree I will find Apophis, and if anybody tries to stop me I'll reap their soul and drag them to Tarturus myself! One question though, how'm I suppose to find Apophis? My magic pretty weak and we all know that Apophis is the master of all magic."
Lux chuckled and brushed his blond hair out his face,"
"I know two alicorns that might just help you. It's been a while but do you remember Celestia and Luna? Those two fillies that Faust asked you to fillysit while the grownups argued?"
Erebus nodded absently before he registered what Lux said.
"Lunny and Tia? I loved them! It's said that Faust had to tell them that they had to move to the mortal plain and resume their studies with that weird wizard with the hat. But I don't know where they went after that, you know how busy it gets in my realm, not mention with my reaping duties."
Flora snorted, and as Erebus turned to glare at her, she rolled her eyes.
"Ereb, sweetheart. You say you are busy but I've visited Mount Mortem multiple times, and I know for a fact that all you do is read comic books, bake desserts and tell awful jokes to the newly deceased, not that I find them awful, it's just... the puns physically hurt me."
She shook her head.
"Back on topic, I may know where Tia and LuLu are, have you heard of the Everfree Forest?"
Erebus smiled and nodded enthusiastically before he frowned and shook his head.
"Right. Keep forgetting you have the attention span of a sparrow, and not even a greater blue one, more like a lesser dusty, or maybe a ruby red chickadee."
Lux gave an impatient cough, and an get one with it gesture.
"Never mind. There's a castle nestled somewhere near the center, I've felt a large source of magic there, but whenever I ask one of my companions to take a closer look, they never manage to return alive. But knowing the two of them are royalty, and that there is a castle and an artifact or something of great power there, it's a good chance that our cousins are there, we would do it but out of the nine of us, we're pretty filled up with work, but you Erebus have Reapers that do the soul gathering for you, you have Fates that snip Life's cord, and you even have a fully functioning kingdom! Compared to us, who need at least four of us on Immortality to keep it running smoothly, you've got it good."
Erebus beamed, as he ruminated over what Flora said, and set his mind on it. He and Apophis were close, and he knew that he or any of his siblings would do anyhting to get him back. So, Erebus, the one and only alicorn of death looked up at Lux, snapped a sharp salute with his wings and asked:
Erebus was not happy. When he had asked when he could start, Lux had thought that right this very second was soon enough. And to make matters worse, he had been dropped off in the epicenter of the Everfree Forest. Right on top of a hungry pack of Timberwolves.
But all was not lost, he managed to swing by Tia and LuLu's old castle; only to find it abandoned and ready to fall down at any moment. Did he say all was not lost? He meant the complete opposite. And the Timberwolves had managed to pick his scent up and were chasing him deeper and deeper into the forest.
So now he was currently running for his- not exactly life if you're immortal, perhaps his dignity. He nodded to himself as he ran, just managing not to trip over his hooves and tumble over. If any of his siblings heard that he had gotten gnawed on by a pack of Timberwolves, it would take eons for them to get over it.
There was a sharp bark as one of Timberwolves-the beta judging from its size- lunged towards him, it's wooden teeth ready to rip his throat out- if he had a throat. There wasn't enough room for him to do much damage, and his magic wasn't useful in close range combat. But he could do something else.
Kicking his back legs out, he shattered the Timberwolf's skull and sent it flying back into the ravenous pack behind it. He knew it wasn't dead, and that even being bucked by an alicorn wasn't going to be enough. But that wasn't what he was aiming for. He released the magic that kept his body- his bones- up and collapsed to the ground as a pile of bones.
Which then promptly rearranged themselves in a snake-like fashion and shot off deeper into the forest.
Needless to say, the Timberwolves were very confused but determined they chased after their quarry. And what Flora had forgotten to mention was that the creatures of the Everfree Forest had thousands of years to cope with the harsh environment, so the alicorn? He was going to lose. Badly.
Fluttershy hummed quietly to herself as she hovered next to the birdhouse gently carrying a baby bluebird in her hooves.
"Here you go Azuly," she said as the bird's parents popped their heads outside, and chirped happily in recognition and reached out to take the little one, and then pulled him in for a group hug. The father looked up at Fluttershy and gave a chirp of thanks.
Fluttershy blushed and waved a hoof nonchalantly.
"It was nothing, but tell Azuly that he needs to stay off of flying for a couple of days while his bones mend."
He nodded and motioned for his wife and son to return inside.
Fluttershy smiled and flew higher, above her house and breathed in the fresh fall air. Turning, she saw Ponyville come into view, with all its residents preparing for the Running of the Leaves. Did she want to participate this year? Fluttershy mused as she beat the air gently. Registration was still going for another week, perhaps she could wait for an little longer. But now she had much to do: she needed to prep the hibernators for winter, help gather the migrating birds, and teach the new generation of animals how to migrate and hibernate, the rookie vet's job was never done.
But she sensed something wrong, there was a scent in the breeze that she couldn't recognize. But whatever it was, it carried the telltale smell of death.
Shuddering, she made a mental note to talk to Twilight about it, before she realized she had promised to help Harry and his friends gather food for winter. She looked worriedly at Ponyville, its members happy and carefree, she wanted to warn them, but the scent had already left, sighing she flew back down.
Erebus was exhausted. Even after serpenting the pack for twenty minutes, they still hadn't given up. And Erebus was on the verge of collapsing on his hooves. If he had them in this form.
Leaning against a tree to catch his breath, Erebus let his gaze wander. Being chased by ravenous predators tends to cut down on one's observing skills. The forest was beautiful, he had to admit, the leaves alternating between red, yellow, brown, and bright blue.
He snapped back to attention at that least one; careful not to touch the Poison Joke. Seriously did Χαώδης need to create a plant that gave you a random curse? But as he thought about it, an idea sprouted to life- which was a bad analogy coming from him. A smile crossed his face as he heard the tell-tale howls come from behind him.
He slithered forward careful to avoid any sign of the Poison Joke, which was easy to do when your serpenting. The Timberwolves weren't as smart or coordinated enough to do the same. Instead, they all ran straight through the flowers, each getting inflicted by more and more hilarious curses.
One got his teeth switched out with daffodils, the other turned bright pink, and the third started playing polka music whenever it barked. But they still kept coming. Almost like the Tao-Tei of old, which reminded Erebus to have Apophis give Flora a strict talking to about creating nearly unkillable monsters.
Then so suddenly he almost missed it, a path leading out of the forest and the sudden brightness of the shine blinding him. He slowed down substantially, his snake form not able to grasp as much on the dirt path then it could in the forest. It was either slow down and be attacked or return to his normal form and keep running. He chose the latter.
His head shot up into the air as the rest of the bones followed suit. Leg bones were attached to the shoulders, the vertebrae's making up his spine popping into place. It was all over in a span of seconds. Right in time for the Timberwolves to break from the forest and follow towards him.
It made Erebus happy to see that many of them had been cursed so many times that they looked almost unrecognizable. The alpha, for example, had gotten its feet grown to a comedically big size, it's tail was replaced with paddle-ball. It had also grown twice as large and grown an extra head from a bulb-like sprout. Erebus wasn't as happy when he saw that.
And the fact that it was glaring at him with so much hatred didn't put his mind at ease in any way. So Erebus did what anypony would do in a situation like this: he straight up bucking panicked.
Rainbow Dash lounged on a cloud like one would lie on a sofa after a long day of work. And it was a long work day; she had helped the weather making pegasi make the snow clouds, and managed to get a sneak peek at which town would get winter first; which was sadly not Ponyville.
Secretly, Rainbow Dash thought that Cloudsdale was still upset about the whole "sabotaging the weather factory in order to stop winter" mess.
But as Rainbow leaned back on the cloud, ready to take a quick power nap, she heard a faint voice crying out: "Oh Buck it all!"
Rainbow raised one eyebrow in confusion; who in their right mind would be cursing this early in the afternoon? Heck, even some of the more, unruly pegasi didn't start cursing until well after midnight. And even then it was the sort of cursing you would hear in one of those pre-mare magazines.
Not that Rainbow had read any sort of that, but she digressed. Standing up, she shook her coat to get the mist off and swooped down to meet the stranger.
Erebus was tired to the point of letting the cursed Timberwolves play fetch with his bones than run any further. So that left him two options: Charge blindly towards the Timberwolves and be smashed to bits, or curse to the high heavens and hope somebeing would notice and help. He was in a small little town near a forest filled to the brim with monsters, surely some roaming band consisting of a wizard, barbarian, druid, and a ranger would come to the rescue. And of course they would have a bard; there always was one.
"Come on then ugly," he taunted as he saw one of the Timberwolf's rounded the corner of the town, it's three heads filled with explosive honey. The next time he saw Χαώδης, he was going to buck him so hard that his mismatched eyes would rattle, or he would lose that weird snaggletooth he had.
With a thundering roar, the Timberwolf lunged at him, it's maw already starting to spit out honey. Erebus was faster and managed to flip completely over it and land on it's back, his scythe already out from his pocket dimension.
The scythe flashed and embedded itself into the eye of the middle head, blinding it. The Timberwolf howled in agony and tried to buck him off. How in Mag Mell is this not attracting any attention? He thought as he raised the scythe and sent it down, again and again, blinding the wolf, and hopefully attracting the rest of the pack.
That was before he saw it.
The Poison Joke must have been angry he had used its powers as a weapon and decided that he needed to get pranked. And pranked it did. The alpha Timberwolf rose to the air, it's butterfly wings flapping with ferocious energy.
Of, course it had to have twelve legs, three scorpion tails, a lobster claw, and singing a rendition of that new pop song "Rainbow" It also was spitting seeds- actually Timberwolf eggs- all around the town. Welp, Erebus thought we're screwed.
Rainbow Dash's day had turned from pretty decent straight up 'are you bucking kidding me?' When she had flown down to get a closer look at who had cursed earlier, she didn' think that there would a pack of mutated Timberwolves rampaging inside Ponyville. The sad part was that this was the second time this had happened, so everypony was somewhat better prepared than last time.
Rainbow had spent the last ten minutes punching, bucking, and pretty much making sure that whatever was keeping the Timberwolves alive wish it was dead. But that was before she saw the alicorn.
He was standing on one of the bigger Timberwolves, repeatedly stapping it in the eye with a scythe. That wasn't the weirdest thing about him, even with his billowing black cloak that covered all of his body, and the hood that covered most of his face, Rainbow could clearly see one thing: the dude was a skeleton, not unhealthily skinny, he was an actual skeleton, with bones bleached white. And he. Was. Awesome! She could only watch in awe as he turned and slashed another Timberwolf across the throat, and buck it halfway across the field that separated the Everfree Forest from Ponyville. She was so busy watching his feats that she missed a Timberwolf pouncing on her.
There was a sharp crack, and a pained yelp, as an orange earth pony spun around, and glared at it.
"Go on, git lost ya filthy varmint." AJ spat as she turned back around, ready to give the wolf another taste of her famous apple bucking kick. The wolf whimpered and shot off back to the Everfree Forest.
Applejack smiled as she turned back to see a friendly face.
"Howdy Rainbow, fine day we is havin' ain't it?"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. Even in the thick of fighting monsters from the Everfree Forest, Applejack stayed remarkably calm. The smile soon faded as she looked past Rainbow, towards the mysterious alicorn.
Applejack looked at her, and with the dedpaniest voice ever asked: "Rainbow, who th' hay is thet?"
"Truth is, I have no clue."
Applejack nodded, "Wal, we kin't leave a mysterious pony on th' lose kin we? Howsabout we work togither wif t'clear out th' ress of these varmints, an' then take him t'Twilight an' t'others, see whut we kin find out about him."
Rainbow nodded and grinned; "Sounds like a plan to me."
With a guttural roar, Erebus cut the head off of another Timberwolf and sank to his knees heavily, he took the lull in the fighting as an opportunity to pull out his whetstone and start resharpening his scythe. Should have gone with the bit-back guarantee of never dulling, but no you had to go with glowing in the dark ability. Granted, living in a place that only got light every year, when starved Windigos stampeded to Tarturus to feed off the hate that was formed from the prisoners, that would make anybeing wish to have any sort of light. The only downside was that Erebus, couldn't stand intensely bright light, a bright sunny day at noon would be torture for him.
"Howdy partner!" Came a friendly female voice dripping with an accent that Erebus couldn't recognize, and he knew about seventy-five languages and another three well enough to get by.
He looked up from his whetstone, he saw two mares looking down at him. One was an orange earth pony that was smiling in a caring, motherly way, while the other, a cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail was smiling in a way that made him nervous to let her even look at a weapon.
"Er, hi?" He said as he stood up and extended his hoof out in greeting. "My name's Erebus, what's yours?"
The earth pony took off the Stenson she was wearing and inclined her head; "Mah names Applejack," she nodded her head towards her friend, "an' thet lovely mare on over thar is mah friend Rainbow Dash."
Erebus smiled and nodded; it felt nice to meet two heroes, though they were a bit late. They should have been here immediately after the first Timberwolf had charged in. Or at the very least be here the next day and ask for a sum of money in exchange for ridding the town of the rest of the Timberwolves.
It didn't occur to him that this wasn't a bad immersive RPG game that Apophis sometimes made from small dimensions.
Rainbow took the opportunity to take a closer look at him and his scythe. He had to admit his scythe was unusual, even for a weapon wielded by an alicorn. The handle was made out of the only tree that could grow in Mag Mell; the Chilling Willow, it's head was made out of onyx, which made it easy to lose everytime he accidentally turned off the "glow in the dark" feature.
"Looks pretty awesome," Rainbow told Erebus as she stepped back, "but can you use it as well as it looks?"
Erebus looked at her with half-lidded eyes before he burst out in laughter; "Sweetheart, I've been reaping souls with this bad boy before your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granny grew in her flight feathers. And I've even longer than that!" He stopped and thought for a moment.
"Actually, I think there's a chance that I reaped our granny's soul with this. Whatever. You wanna see this being used up close and personal?"
Applejack was terrified. No, not by the Timberwolves, she had dealt with things twice as big as them before. She was terrified by the pony that waded through the pack, killing its members and flinging them like they were ragdolls being swung by a hyperactive filly. (Which had happened once or twice with Applebloom.) And the worst part, the new pony- Erebus if she remembered correctly, he looked happy, about as happy as a grinning dog eating hornets.
Wait, what?
It occurred to her that she needed to rethink some of her countryisms, though a small part of her brain was laughing its hooves off at the thought of that. And while it slightly nauseated her to see Erebus like this, not even five minutes after meeting him, she knew that it was they had to do. But she was still waiting for the other horseshoe to drop.
"Whoooo!" Erebus hollered, "I haven't had this much fun killing stuff since the Battle of the Netherverse, 69,000 years ago! And I was only two centuries old then!"
Yeah, the other horseshoe had dropped, and it had dropped hard.
Erebus whooped in delight, as he beheaded another Timberwolf, then spun around and stapped another one through the mouth, he could feel the energy that kept these things alive start to wither as their physical bodies were broken apart. Their souls were all around him, coating him in a haze of kill and repeat. He wanted more, nay he needed more. It was the same intoxicating feeling he got every time he reaped a soul and wanted it never stop.
He slashed and stapped, beheaded and... other synonyms because really who had time to remember other terms for fighting with weapons?
It was all well and good, but he still remembered the alpha; Rainbow could fly, but he didn't want anyone dying because of his stupid mistake, but if they did die, then it was his duty to reap their souls. But there was nothing against the souls about-
Wait, never mind there was a rule against him returning the dead back to life. Something about Flora getting all upset about this warrior that killed her pet Elwetritsch, and the warrior's wife begging Erebus to return bring her back.
Truthfully, he didn't see what was wrong with killing the Elwetritsch; it was big, loud, and ugly as the Lords of the Nine Hells.
He suspected the only reason he did it was because the warriors wife promised to build temple in his houner. The only problem ws she died after her wife came back, and the warrior killed herself soon after.
Stupid noble warrior code.
He was so engrossed with the cycle of kill and repeat, that he almost missed a whimpering Timberwolf running away from a bout of green fire.
The telltale sign of a dragon.
Okay, he didn't want to reap a dragon, but the chance was too close to put off. But a little part of his head was telling him to not to go for it, he did not want a rehash of Queen Everfree.
Shaking off the morbid images of ponies with trees growing out of their bodies, he ran past a corner and spotted the dragon.
It was a hatchling from the look of it, maybe a couple years old, seeing as it hadn't grown in its first set of wings.
It was also currently torching a Timberwolf with its fire as it stood in front of a... purple alicorn?
Was this what Apophis disappeared for? To be the father of another great wizard, or lich if you wanted to pessimistic, but he digressed. The point was, their were only a few naturally born alicorns, unless Tia or Luna hadn't created one...
But just in case Tia or Luna were around, he decided he would the age old trick to get any being to spill.
