Lord Blade

by Jex

Chapter the Continuation of the Prologue

I paced determinedly on, my mind racing on ahead of me. Slowly, a shadow on my left came into view and I realized I had wandered all the way to the old ruin of Sunderbane's fortress, forger of the Scythe of Belial. I didn't know much of the legends at that point, but I did recall something about the Scythe. Wielded by Sunderbane himself in the Old Wars, battling the Sixth Archdemon empire, the Scythe had the ability cut through the levels of Hell itself and draw demons from other realms into the Sixth. Sunderbane had used this ability and his massive army of support from the Third and Fourth to lead a mighty assault against my ancestors... and had been subsequently squashed like the wyrmling he was. What? I can’t have some family pride as well sometimes, as much as I despise them?

Turns out you can only draw demons from levels less depressing than the one you're standing in. Sunderbane's downfall had come when he had tried to call demons from the Seventh as a last ditch effort at victory, sucked into the darkness of the hole he tore in the ground of the Sixth. The Archdemon family had clung desperately onto the cliffs and narrowly escaped. The Scythe had landed on the edge of the hole as it freed itself of Sunderbane's grasp, and the Archdemon Ruler, Mephisto, had taken it up, enthralled by its power but too scared to use it. Mephisto held the Scythe from there, and secured it somewhere within the Sixth so it would never be used again.

I approached the ruin, scaling the cliffs up to the darkened fortress. The stone crumbled beneath my claws as I climbed. Even though I was small for a demon, I was still the son of the greatest demon warrior alive, and the climb up the cliffs a small feat from much practice. Falling rocks made divots in the ash beneath me, stirring up clouds of charred souls. I shivered and kept climbing.

As soon as I reached the top of the cliffs and stared out over the ruins, however, a deep, bloodcurdling shout came echoed through the whole level.

"LAAAAACUUUNAAAA!!!!"

My father was calling, using an simple amplification spell. It startled me, but I was used to it by then. However, I had never been fifty miles away from Vexertane when he called. Frantically, I tried to think of what I should do. I could call back, but it sounded like he wanted me in Vexertane immediately. I could run or walk, but that would take too long. I could fly, but that would still take longer than the time I had.

Then I remembered. I got here by blinking, and damn it, I could get back the same way! I closed my eyes and thought of my chambers. I would have gone directly to my father, but I thought that appearing out of nowhere in the throne room with a puff of black shadows wasn't the best idea. When I opened my eyes, I stood in the middle of my black-walled chambers, my barbed furniture taking shape as I phased into the room. Immediately, I turned and ran to the door, wrenched it open, and slammed it shut, shaking the walls and cracking the doorframe as I flew as fast as I could to the throne room. Oops.

I composed myself outside the door and walked in. My father sat atop the giant obsidian (seriously) throne on the far side of the room, tangled black brows furrowed. His gargantuan wings stretched up behind him, slick and black like mine. His spines bristled, quivering in the flickering light of the room. His muscles were flexed, warping the tattooed designs on his skin into grotesque figures.

I walked toward the front of the room, passing pillars crawling with carved designs of demons. They appeared to be watching me as I went by. Eventually, I arrived at the base of the stairs to the throne and said, "Hello, father. You were expecting me?"

"Where were you?" he said quietly. Him quiet was infinitely more dangerous than him loud. Many times, he would chop off the heads of those who displeased him without a word.

Fearing his anger, I told him the truth. "Walking along the lake. Anything wrong, father?"

"No, no, I was just wondering where you were. You've been gone for a while." He was far too calm.

"Well, that's where I was."

"Alright, alright, you can go." I got up, bowed, and paced back down the room, not daring to look back at him. As soon as I was outside, I blinked back to my own quarters and sat on the bed. Running the grey fabric through my claws, I thought about my father's opinion of me. I knew he hated me. There was no way to deny that fact. And though I didn't exactly care most of the time, I had always had difficulty staying composed in front of him when I could feel his glare upon me. Especially when he was quiet. Though I had four wonderful wings, I was emotional, hating fights, no matter how good I was at them. And white-haired demons are always shunned under the belief that they are lightspawn, or bizarre forces of good in Hell.

In short, I had a very dismal upbringing, but I believe that’s already been established.

*****

Essentially, I grew up alone. No friends, no family, nothing but my own thoughts really. Everypony usually thinks that the youngest of five is the cutest or whatever, but demons don't exactly appreciate cute. On top of that, I was the one with the white hair. And though I was taken care of by my parents and siblings when I was young, I noticed around the age of five that they seemed to fight over who had to look after me. Other demons growing up in the castle appeared to be under strict orders from either my parents or theirs to keep away from me. I had no one to talk to except for my sister, Lunea, who had a single lock of white hair growing from the left side of her head, surrounded by the mass of black. And even she didn't talk much.

However, I suppose I don't give her enough credit for her efforts to make me happy when I was little. Whenever my brothers made fun of me, she would defend me and tell them to pick on her instead, and find me hiding when I'd gotten away from their taunts. So when I became old enough to wield a blade of any kind, I swore I would become the best fighter in the Sixth. A stupid idea, to be sure, but I had to try something to appear less weak. I soon found I hated fighting, but I forced myself to learn, constantly going until none of my fathers’ soldiers could match me for blade or power. None of this changed the fact that I still didn’t want to fight in the first place.

Therefore, as I have mentioned earlier, I spent most of my time away from the mansion, fearing and hating the eyes of my father and his followers. I’d much rather take my chances with the lava wyrms and the giant skullpions than be anywhere near that accursed place. The only reason I ever set foot in the so called palace was because my father ordered it forcefully, or when I went to the library. And I did that a lot. It was where I learned about lore, magic, demon history, and of course, the existence of the living world.

Now that I could blink, I would simply walk to a place no one could see me and instantly transport myself to my favorite spot in the library. I quickly finished the Daring Do series, and fashioned myself a notebook about the living world and my thoughts about it based upon my knowledge of demon anatomy. I had no idea if it was accurate at all, but the creatures seemed to have similar anatomy to some demons, but usually without the spines, or horns, or affinity for fire and darkness. With the inference that ponies populated and civilized what I believed to be the only world, and appeared to have written most of the books, I focused mostly on them.

One of the books I found toward the back of the library was a volume ages old, with the ancient history of the living world, Equestria. Its stories included the founding of the land, as well as the dark periods in its time, but one story in particular really captivated me.

One of the last chapters told me that Equestria was ruled by two immortal alicorns, Celestia and Luna, representing the sun and the moon, which appeared to be objects that floated through the air and gave light to the land. I couldn't really imagine what such a thing would look like, but a ball of fire floating above my head seemed like a pretty hellish thing, to be perfectly honest. Apparently one of the alicorns, Luna, had turned on her sister and become a demon of sorts herself, unleashing her jealousy on all the world, shrouding it in darkness. As punishment, Celestia had imprisoned her in the moon for a thousand years. I didn't know if she was back on not, but in any case I felt kind of sorry for her, something I had never thought my admittedly sarcastic personality was capable of.

The funny thing about the story was that this Luna character seemed to have a strange likeness to myself. Misunderstood and under-appreciated by those around her, all Luna wanted was to be loved. And because of this, she was feared by her subjects. I left the library reluctantly. Surely there was a way out of here. There just had to be.

*****

And so, once again, I found myself slowly trudging down the shore of the Ash Lake. Surprise sur-freakin’-prise. Seemed to be a recurring theme. I had become deaf to the world, lost in my thoughts as I walked. There had to be some way out of here. I knew there had to be. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed like the answer would be obvious, which frustrated me all the more. It slipped my mind like the bizarre concept of soap I had read about in my studies. I was so deep in thought I was oblivious to my surroundings.

Of course this, among many things, was not my smartest idea, because I didn’t notice the boulder the bone giant threw at me. Seriously, didn’t even manage to see the twenty-foot-high skeleton throw a two ton rock at my head until the shadow of the boulder blocked out some of the weird ambient light of the Sixth.

Noticing the hurtling object out of the corner of my eye, I quickly blinked about five feet to my immediate left, the stone crashing down in a spray of dust and blinding ash. Sighing with exasperation at having my train of thought violently derailed with many casualties from the crash, I stepped out around the boulder and looked at the bone giant with a raised eyebrow.

“Careful now!” I shouted, “you could have hurt someone with that thing!”

The giant just watched me silently, which made sense seeing as how it didn’t have lungs... or vocal chords... or organs and muscles of any description for that matter. Actually, how did those things even work? I shrugged to myself, filing that thought away for future contemplation, realizing the skeleton was still just ‘watching’ me. I decided to play with it some more.

“So, lovely weather we’ve been having!” I called out. I wasn’t entirely sure what weather was, but I had read enough to make an educated guess. This time, the giant moved at least, reaching to grab another boulder from the large stack of the things it had built up.
“Yeah, not happening,” I muttered, ripping a fist-sized chunk out of the rock next to me. I cocked my arm back and chucked it, nailing the creature on the forehead. Its skull detached with a satisfying thunk and bounced down the shore into the lake, disappearing with a fizzle. Sickened, I turned and began to trudge back to the palace, contemplating the events of the past minute or so. I never had really liked fighting much.

Sighing sadly at the needless conflict, I continued walking, trying to salvage any survivors from the burning wreckage of my earlier thought processes before I had been so rudely interrupted. Slowly, my thoughts turned away from the crumbling behemoth behind me and back to the living world.

There had to be some way out. You couldn’t just lock the Archdemons in their respective levels, could you? You couldn’t unleash demons on the world and take possession of mortals without a door to that world, could you?

As far as I knew, the only being who could freely travel between levels was the big guy on the Seventh, but he never went anywhere. He just sat in the darkness and decay, rotting in his own pride. There was my mother of course, but that was a special occasion arranged by the big boss man himself. Other than that, the Sixth War and the Scythe of Belial were the only other recorded incident of anything traveling between the levels.

I stopped dead in my tracks. The Scythe. The damn Scythe! How did I not think of it before? Sunderbane had used the Scythe of Belial to cut his way down to the Sixth, surveyed the place and had then cut his way back UP to gather his armies! That was it! If I could find the Scythe, I could slice my way through the fabric of Hell and into the living world. Of course, I wasn’t sure if the Scythe could even cut an opening out completely, but once I got to the First, then there had to be a way out from there.

Now then, where was that scythe kept? Oh wait, something, something, something, hidden so that no one could use it. Well crap son, there goes that idea. I gave another woeful sigh, something I do quite often, and blinked all the way back to my room in the palace, flopping down on the monstrosity of a bed and groaning.

“Why can’t everything just be easy and go exactly the way I want it to!” I moaned. Not sure how long I lay there before wrapping my wings around myself and drifting off into peaceful sleep.

*****

I dreamed that time. I was standing in an open area. Something whispered through my hair, cool and crisp. Wind. It was dark, but a soft pale light shown over everything, illuminating the clearing. I drank it in. Those tall things must be trees! This stuff under my toes is grass and dirt! And that means that thing up there was the... moon. La bella Luna.

I stared at it for a very long time, watching the stars twinkle around it. It was beautiful, there was no other way to say it! The ghostly white light created a stark contrast with the shadows of the swaying trees, glinting in my hair. I don’t know what it was, but the moonlight gave me a strange sense of peace I’d never really felt before. I stood looking at the intricate silver disk before me for a minute until I averted my eyes to the rest of the world. A pale light, a hue I had never seen before, seemed to flit before me as I looked away. I paused in wonderment, then continued my observations.

I turned a full circle, absorbing everything I could. Was this what the living world was like? Is this what it felt like to breathe cold air, have nothing but the sky above your head, smell the warm scent of leaves? I returned my gaze to the moon, studying it closely. It was a full moon, as far as I knew, and that wasn’t much. It got smaller from this point, right? I reached out a hand and made as if to grab it, closing my hand gently around the soft white sphere, drawing it closer to my eyes for further examination. And this is where the dream got really weird.

I opened my hand and in it was a key. It was a large ornate key made of heavy black iron and inscribed with a line of text along the side which read, “Quod per ignem et flammam ferat.” Through the fire and the flames we carry on. I recognized the key. It was the one that opened the lock to my father’s personal armory, in which he kept his sawtooth armor and his mighty helliron greatsword Kebakaran. Was that where the Scythe was held? In my father’s storage closet of death? Because if so, I was out! I was not going to deal with that! Nuh-uh, no way in... Hell?

But then again, what other choice did I have? The Scythe really was my only option if I ever wanted to escape, well, my life! I wanted to live in a world like the dream I was having, and I was willing to do anything to get it. Granted, if I was caught sneaking into my father’s private chambers, I was dead. Seriously dead. You think I’m kidding? No! My father would quite literally feed me to the lava sharks! Still, this was something I had to do. I had to feel the wind, smell the sweet fresh air, I had to see the moon...

Author's Note:

The story builds! What will happen to our intrepid devil boy? Find out... whenever the next chapter is finished! Stay chaotic my friends

Comments

[DetectivePingles]

Look, I'm not trying to piss you off when I say this, but this story needs some serious re-working. For starters, you have here a classic case of Gary Stu. A flying demon with teleportation who is the best swordfighter in hell is over-powered and unidentifiable. With some nerfing, such as only being able to glide and only blinking to familiar or visible points, the character would be a lot more likeable. Unfortunately, that isn't the only problem with the character. He also reads like a pubescent teenager, talking about being under-appreciated and how everything should just go his way. On the other hand, your descriptions, mythology, and concepts are excellent. You obviously have the skill to write an excellent story, but the character held you back and hindered an otherwise outstanding story.

[bocaj518]

Great story, granted he's a bit of a gary stu but i'm fine with this one. He doesn't really need nerfing in my opinion, he isn't THAT overpowered.

[Jex]

2646698 Funny story actually. Serious nerfing will occur in the living world. Mortal body, mortal rules. He gets an attitude change as well, no worries.

[Jex]

2646698 oh, and thank you for the tips. This is (obviously) my co-writer and I's first attempt at writing something that isn't for English class. We're open to any criticism you feel is necessary.

[DetectivePingles]

2647611 Well, that's something to be glad of. I've just become so used to OP OCs and bad characters that it didn't even occur to me that it was intentional.

[Jex]

2651545 Which is why I will do anything I can to avoid that. For now, just think of him as new Dante from that Devil May Cry reboot After that, everything will be fixed... hopefully.