Pestilence (JARS)

**Third Timeline as Legiel Roguerider**

* Roderick Roguerider (father)
* Meteora Roguerider (mother)
* Adonis Roguerider (brother)
* Cyrus Roguerider (brother)
* Ashera Roguerider (sister)
* Ace Roguerider (brother)
* Meteos Roguerider (brother)

* 1
* 2

*"I have been called by many names, way more than your grandiose titles. Some of them make people run away really fast. But to make things simple, let's stick with my three original names, okay? I want you to remember this well: Pestilence, the White Rider, and the First Horseman of the Apocalypse. Those are what they call me, Little Brother. I am not a god. In fact, gods fear me. They begged me to spare their existences, they envy me—they all want to be me."*
―Pestilence's introduction.[src]
*"I don't need an audience that backtalks me."*
―Pestilence, moments after slaughtering the Audience who criticized him.[src]
**Pestilence** is the overarching main antagonist for ngilerjo's *JARS* and *FATE::YGGDRA*. He is the supreme leader of the Civilization Annihilation Game and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which manifests physically by taking on a human form. After Death used his power to forcibly modify the second timeline into a "third timeline", Pestilence inserted himself into Ars Goetia's plane of existence to live as a human named **Legiel Roguerider**.

## History

### Background

As the White Rider, Pestilence is an anthropomorphic personification of a calamity that is neither good nor evil, but inherently anti-mortal life at its core. Specifically, Pestilence is associated with infectious disease and plague. However, his origins remain unknown, only the fact that he states that he's very old.

At some point, he founded the Civilization Annihilation Game and recruited Shamash as his Assistant Producer to provide entertainment for the Audience throughout different worlds.

### Second Timeline

#### Yearning Arc

After Kagaseo suddenly appeared and stole Astarte, whom the Game abducted from her world and designated as their property following the events of the Emissaries of the Sun God, Pestilence gave a mission to the Gamers to retrieve Astarte following the Audience's increasing demands to continue her torture-themed '*Gaiden*' side content. After three of the Game's best players failed to defeat Kagaseo and returned empty-handed, Pestilence sarcastically insulted them for their failures, and when the Audience criticizes him for this, Pestilence nonchalantly killed them before offering the two surviving players an 'upgrade' only to overload them with mortal suffering and transform them into Gameizers.

#### Scheme Arc

It is revealed that Pestilence knows exactly what Kagaseo is doing all along and is content on leaving him be for the moment. However, sometime later he decides to retrieve Astarte personally and appears in the their hideout, effortlessly defeats Kagaseo and imprisons him using the Naraka before leaving for Ars Goetia.

Pestilence appears before Meteos Roguerider after stopping time and casually introduced himself, assuring Meteos of his benign intentions to have a talk with him. He dismisses the narrative of being an antagonist, lamenting Kagaseo's carelessness for painting him in that light. Instead, he paints himself as a calm and reasonable entity who is eager for a conversation with the reincarnator.

Transporting them to a lavish setting, Pestilence talks about the Civilization Annihilation Game's reason for being, which is to exploit the flaws of less-than-heroic gods and feed on mortal suffering. After shocking Meteos with his casual disclosure of Kagaseo's imprisonment by his hands, Pestilence proposes a shocking offer to him to become a god himself and take control of the god if he really cherishes Ars Goetia so much. While Meteos is shaken and tries to leave, Pestilence blocks his exit by summoning replicas of Nadia Smirnova, Robin Calvello, and Walman Falkenhausen from Ars Goetia's first timeline and turning them into Gameizers.

## Appearance

Pestilence's looks invokes that of a someone from modern era, taking the appearance of a young man with unkempt white hair and lavender eyes. His outfit consists of a white overcoat with belt-like attachments on the shoulders, a flared collar with red scarf around his neck, and a loosely worn belt. He also wears a zipped shirt underneath his coat, black trousers and black leather boots.

## Personality

Pestilence speaks in a polite tone and rarely raises his voice even as he mocks and relishes in the suffering of others. Concealing his aura of malevolence beneath a veneer of hospitality, Pestilence also tends to manipulate his opponents emotionally.

He does have a dramatic flair when addressing the Audience, to whom he doesn't seem to have think highly as he is shown to have killed Audiences who criticized the way he runs his show. He encourages the participants in the Civilization Annihilation Game to plot and kill each other for a chance to play in the latest season while he records the ensuing carnage as content. In addition, he even sees his top-scoring Gamers as disposable tools that double as templates to create Gameizers.

As the Executive Producer, he seems to see a world of perpetual conflict where its people are violent and hateful to the point they are willing to kill each other without hesitation as an ideal world, which seems to be the reason behind the creation of the Civilization Annihilation Game as perfect entertainment for him and his preferred demographic. As a result, what he considers as the 'finest recordings' stored in the Game's Hall of Fame always involve lopsided conflict, whether it's natural or forced; mass-destruction of one-sided and mutually assured variety; and impossible scenarios that might be considered to be grossly "unrealistic."

It is also shown that Pestilence has a very slanted view on both deities and mortals, as he stated that the Civilization Annihilation Game exist to speed up the self-destruction of gods who don't care about their creations, yet has no qualms in letting benevolent gods such as Astarte suffer under the former group's machinations. Overall, he sees them all as incredibly insignificant.

## Abilities

* **Time Manipulation:** Pestilence is able to manipulate time, including pausing its flow and allow a select individual to move freely within stopped time.
* **Teleportation:** Pestilence can go anywhere he chooses without effort.
* **Mortal Suffering Manipulation:** Pestilence is able to manipulate the products of the Civilization Annihilation Game called "mortal suffering." This substance takes the form of a black sludge that occasionally crackles with red lightning and is extremely addictive when consumed. In addition to using it, Pestilence distributes this to the Audience not unlike a drug dealer, resulting in more and more higher beings to get addicted by it and watch the Game's proceedings to obtain more.
	+ **Gameizer Creation:** By enveloping an entity by a copious amount of mortal suffering, Pestilence is able to erase said entity of their free will and turn them into Gameizers, powerful beings that serve as his own puppet and personal attack dog.
	+ **Lullaby - Naraka:** Using the mortal suffering, Pestilence is able to trap his target inside a hellish pocket dimension where even a god couldn't escape.
* **Ode to Joy - Geno Thunder:** Pestilence is able to effortlessly unleash a crimson-colored lightning magic capable of eliminating targets in a wide area.

## Etymology

The White Rider, or White Horseman, is the first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to appear before John the Apostle, according to Christian scripture. It traditionally represents conquest, bearing a bow, with the "pestilence" association first appearing in the 20th century. This horseman is one of confusion among theologians as some believe he is representative of divine conquest (and thus a force of good) while others think of him as a representative of unlawful conquest (and thus force of evil).

Other interpretations include the rider of the white horse as Christ, whose conquest represents the spread of Christianity, or the Antichrist, who rides across the world to deceive those who are pious and faithful. Regardless of his morality, the White Horseman is said to arrive and sweep across the world, unleashing civil war and internal strife, which separates him from War, who embodies more open warfare.