//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Dark Knight Rises 
// Story: Memories of the Stone 
// by WanderingPony 
//------------------------------//

"THOU SHALT FEEL SOME PAIN AT FIRST, MY DARK RIDER."

Shadows gushed from the broken tip of horn, congealing to form an equine shape, then bulged outwards as the dark spirit added red-tinged lightning to the cloud, growing into an armored unicorn who brought true light to a place that had never seen such- indeed, never truly seen anything since it had been laid down in clouds of lava and steam eons before. A fell green glow seethed from the horn of Sombra, setting the floor to a serpentine hue...but nothing of Jolfr was to be found save a distant whisper.



"Shadows do poorly in light, and thine turn to serve is at hand. From thine heart, form me a crystal, dark and black as where thou hast met me."

Cruelty glittered in the eyes of Sombra. Was his "master" so helpless? Could he simply leave...no. The Words he had used were not to be broken! Even by the worst, lest his powers flee him and leave him a mewling foal of a thing, less even than he was when he fell so low. Besides, it would be a proper test of his new body. The ruby horn atop his head began to glow.

Green flames tinged with black roared into the stone, setting it to a seething hellish boil, then yanking the molten mass upwards. Impurities dripped away from the heat as the lavalike glob settled on a patch of floor, then cooled into a smoky prism easily ten times the size of Sombra himself. He could hear a hissing sigh of...satisfaction as something crawled into the shadow left behind Sombra's mix of crystal and hatred, then set itself to swirling inside the new home.

"OH, YES. A PROPER ANCHOR AT LAST. AT LAST! WELL DONE, THOU TRUE AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!"

The shapeless darkness blasted outwards, settling into the form of Sombra's master- and the hooves upon the rock sounded like thunder. One hoof rested squarely in the burning scar left behind, but Jolfr treated it like a patch of grass. For a long moment, the eight-legged stallion looked down upon his servant.

"BEHOLD THE PROOF OF MY WORD."

One of Jolfr's hooves stomped down, shattering the floor into a spray of razor sharp splinters.

They pattered off Sombra's hide like rain.

"MY SERVANTS SHALL BE THINE HOOVES UPON THE NECKS OF OUR ENEMY, EVEN AS YOU ARE MINE. BEHOLD, THOSE WHO BE YOUR KINDRED."

Nightmares rose from the stone. The first flapped a bloated sack of flesh, bat-winged, with a single cylopean eye and a maw filled with jagged fangs. Stunted paws sparked with black magic and the thing floated inches off the ground, keeping it's twisted legs from touching the defiled stone. Another behind it was easily three times the size of Sombra, a twisted mix of lizard, minotaur, and goat. Again, it's maw was filled with teeth that would put a shark to shame, and it's reptilian tail lashed back and forth to balance an oversized pair of ripping claws that could only have one purpose- to cause whatever they struck to suffer as much as possible before being fed into it's teeth. Poison dripped from it's tail to hiss away on the stones. A group close by stood like Diamond Dogs, with grey skin like leather and bony fins along their forearms. Great swords and scythes of obsidian were in their hands, and horns crowned their furless skulls. More like them faded beyond the glow of Sombra's horn, the glow of eyes and hungry, horrid sounds marking a horde of demonic proportions waiting in the dark.

In all of his days, Sombra had never seen such creatures so well made to cause nothing but pain, death, and misery. Delight rose in his blackened heart.

"AHRIMAN, TAURI, DEMONS AND SO MANY MORE MONSTERS TO CREATE WHEN WE SEE THE SKY, SOMBRA. TARTARUS ITSELF HOLDS BUT FEW COMPARED TO MINE, AND I SHALL MAKE THEM NUMBERLESS UPON THE LAND. THOU SHALT MAKE A PATH TO THE SURFACE, AND THEY SHALL HELP THEE IN THIS TASK. GO NOW."

Jolfr's form became formless, and stained his crystalline home like ink. Lord Sombra turned to a promising wall and reached out with his mind. Yes, far above and far away. HIS land. HIS crystals. HIS slaves. They must be punished! He could almost hear their sickening, mocking laughter and joy. Rage sparked another bolt of flames from his horn, scarring a blank wall of stone. His bellow reached into the endless depths, and pointed ears pricked at the tumult.

"GOOOOOO! DIGGGGGGG!", echoed through the maze of demon-filled caverns.


"TO THE SKY AND STARS ABOVE, TO THE DEATH OF LOVE! TO THE CRYSTAL KINGDOM AND THE RULE OF MY HATRED ETERNAL! GO, AND BRING TO THEM MY RAGE AND MY REVENGE! FOR OUR LORD AND VICTORY!"

Grey and black forms surged at the wall, carving and carrying away tons of stone in an eyeblink with scrabbling claws. Lightning and fire cracked more away with every moment as a tunnel began to form, slowly burning towards the surface. Conjuring a great palanquin of basalt and garnet from the rocks around him, the newly reformed unicorn warlock stepped into it's shelter and rested. Four Kindred picked up the stone poles and began the slow ascent as the fiend on four hooves settled down, meditated, dreamed of what was to come. The sweet taste of food, carried on the back of that pink-winged alicorn wench. The head of that unicorn consort, mounted over a roaring fireplace fueled by the bones of their companions, those filthy six mares and a nice dragon-skin rug to go with it. The young ones always made the softest. And that cursed, cursed Crystal Heart. Or it would be, once he was done with it!

He slept. He dreamed. And Jolfr saw his dreams, and was content. Sombra would shatter Jolfr's potential rivals unknowing, then the road to Ragnarok would be opened, and that which had been held at bay for so long would come to pass. The end of the trickery that had kept him from what needed doing for ages, the scourging of the unworthy lives that lived in a sheltered utopia above. He had seen it in Sombra's mind. "Ponies". Peaceful. Soft. Untested by the elements and the world as they should have been, protected by powers that should have stuck to their celestial duties and not become weak, almost mortal flesh. Monsters that had been chained up instead of trying the limits of mortals as they were made to. No more....wait, what was that?

A blue, winged "unicorn" that dreaming Sombra had blasted into the snow to trample on in his conquering fantasy...this "Luna". Something was awry. The creature wasn't injured in the least as his dark rider went to confront a white-and-pastel version in endless bloodlust, and had her eye open to watch the goings on. That wasn't according to what his dreaming servant had in mind. A spy. Someone was riding HIS stallion's dreams? Well, two could play at THAT game. Shadows obscured the dream-vision, like a dreamer's sight dissolving into dreamless sleep. A faint disappointed sigh came from the misty spot before the dream-alicorn vanished without a trace. Jolfr drew Sombra's sleeping mind down into a deep hibernation filled with fantasy, leaving it chasing after "Celestia" in an endless circle of violence. It was a long way to the surface, and it would be a shame to lose his newest servant to starvation before he arrived...