//------------------------------//
// Chapter 43: The Third Demon 
// Story: Favorable Alignment 
// by Ice Star 
//------------------------------//


Sombra:


This world had a name, and according to the one who shaped it, its name was Niflhel. Umbra walked the twisting paths in it with little trouble. He simply lit his horn with the only light - other than my own aura - that would shine here and across the surfaces of the äerint that made up everything.

...And I thought I was simplistic in matters involving anything and everything related to interior design.

None of this took away from how unsettling Umbra was. He had managed to memorize passageways in a place that was always changing. Just one flick of light with his horn and impatient lash of his tail. No direct eye contact. And suddenly, what happened? Crude tunnels would be revealed, moving as we walked through them.

As he led me on and I continued to pass off my withdrawn display back who knows how many tunnels ago. I tried to focus on the magical feel of each tunnel, or anything that would be a distinct constant, since the amount and almost all other qualities could always change. My senses were being overwhelmed and a combination of nerves.

I wasn't able to read much of his reaction at the time, but he didn't find anything in my statement worth doubting. Umbra thought that I was unfamiliar with Alicorns, and I didn't do anything that would suggest anything to support his unspoken conclusion or go against it. So far he displayed little that expressed any strong feelings toward me, whether they were a warped fondness or something destructive he wanted to take out on me.

Inside, I felt like I was bursting at the seams. I had accepted that it was me who had to set everything in motion and who had to keep everything rolling no matter how improbable success was. I can't help but wish that I could have learned something that I could use against Umbra for some admittedly sadistic retribution, or to weave some kind of trap based on the plethora of possible plans were this a scenario where I had the opportunity to create the perfect revenge. I knew that from the beginning that this was not likely to be such a situation, but I've always been fond of risks and gambles. In the end, this can easily benefit me. A lot of selfishness, excessive egotism, and never-enough-narcissism can work wonders almost as great as I am, after all. 

Unlike all my other adventures, carelessness of any kind was something I couldn't afford.

So much of me still wanted to run. The air here was dense and paranoid; I could still hear the sound of hallways echoing and folding in on themselves. I yearned to fight him as well. Seeing Umbra hurt and mangled at my own hooves by the magic-encouraged anger I had trickling through me, like stoking flames and highlighting just how powerful I really was. Unfortunately, such power was kept hiding where I could manage to keep it from mingling with my magic to the point that it would be impossible for Umbra to doubt the strong emotions I had slipping in with my power.

Umbra had proved to be fairly sociable for a xenocidal maniac that lived in a world of crystallized dark magic. He didn't come across as particularly introverted or extroverted. Many aspects of his demeanor were very bland - it was as though he was used to being indistinct or couldn't grasp certain aspects of individuality well. I was able to pinpoint and observe certain mannerisms with ease, but always took care to look like I was naturally a bit vacant. The rest? Well, the rest just fell into place. And what was the rest, exactly? It was acting like I hadn't behaved in centuries while invisible seams holding back nerves inside me frayed gradually. 

I was brash. I was bold. I was rebellious, stubborn, and had a retort for nearly everything. I defied.

There were times when I hadn't always done so, where I didn't fight Onyx. I let my ears drop and my ever-direct gaze follow, so that I appeared to be looking at my hooves instead, minding each step as obsessively as possible while waves of fear had washed past whatever barriers I had tried to manage them with. My legs used to shake. I could only sit in place and try to maintain what he had tauntingly called my 'best behavior' while I split from within and tried to give him nothing to work with in hopes of just going a little longer with only fear and no pain. He'd try to goad me into talking for a little while, and though he's as stupid as can be in almost everything else, that kid was terrifying in how effective he was at hurting others.

Especially me.

I clung to insanity while he unintentionally eased off with his cruelty. I swear that those were the few occasions were I borderline bored him. Even if he'd always take it out on me later, trying to get me to talk, to scream, to make any noise at all. He didn't care what he 'had' to do, he only wanted to ensure that I was hurt. He needed me to fight back again and say anything.

I said nothing and tried to keep myself from crumbling from within.

I feel like that now. I am like that now. Ears down under my hood, step carefully, watch everything, remain vigilant, listen to every little sound, hold my breath-

"I cannot believe I never thought to ask..." Umbra says from where he is, a few steps ahead of me and off to my right. I'm thankful that he chose to walk on that side of me. He doesn't know it, but the vision on my left side is still weaker than my right. I don't mind that I'm not ever going to have perfect vision, yet I'll never allow a pony I can't trust to walk anywhere on my left side like that. I note the unusually long pause in his state and keep walking, keeping track of his pace as he leads me through the tunnels of Niflhel.

"...But it seems I never learned what it is you chose to call yourself."

"I am Sombra," I said levelly. 

He paused again and I slowed down, always being sure to see past his rippling mane and note every subtle shift in his movements. With his dramatic contrast in colors he stood out sharply, whereas I blended into the shadows with my dark mane, coat, and cloak.

I had to try and put aside panic and rage waiting to be with every time he came closer to me, wanting there to be every gulf between us. I only felt it sink somewhere within me, lurking and building.

"You have no title? Are you not some kind of usurper, Sombra the Demon? Is there not any addition to  your name that you have been given?"

I keep my half-meek, half-bored expression while my mind instantly jumps into overdrive and panic burns throughout me like a wildfire. My breathing threatens to become as erratic as my heartbeat, but I manage to keep my outward appearance that of mystery. Despite all this, I note his words without any extra effort. Everything said and unsaid between us will act as a clue in a very dangerous game, and Umbra has no idea that I can and am playing it as he is... but by my own rules. My history is not to be disclosed, if I can avoid it. Any distinct mannerisms of mine - or at least anything too tell-tale - is also nothing I will reveal until I have enough things in my favor to satisfy me.

Yet, I cannot miss that even without any inflection to indicate that he's asking a question, Umbra expected me to be a usurper. Now that's a clue to something if there ever was one.

"I'm called Sombra the Enigma."

Umbra's expression is tinged with disgust at my liberal use of the language of the age that is a dead give away of how language has shifted since he walked the world.

"How dull, but I suppose it was too much for me too think that any of my creations would garner any grand names befitting of their true natures in a world that has fallen into dark ages. Tell me, just how little was built up again? I know that there shall be no great citadels for me to burn, but are there enough mortals for me to lay waste to?"

"There's always mortals," I reply, keeping any hint of terseness out of my brief statements. "But I'm not exactly one to count them, and there are places where lots of them live. So, there you have it."

Umbra snorts and I see his tail lash again. "What part of the north are you from, Sombra the Enigma?"

He must've noticed my accent. "All I remember was that it wasn't a place that saw anything like the southern summers."

Umbra is surprisingly still. "Far north, then? I had never really bothered to travel up there. The great citadel of Vanhoover - which I am sure is nothing to you - really had next to nothing beyond it, at least in that direction. I recall there being a few hamlets filled with ponies. Flutter ponies. Do you know of them? I slaughtered their entire populace so they might join some of the other pony races that no longer walk Midgard. Is that name still used in whatever barbaric time you live in?"

He's trying to quiz me for small details, I remind myself, however unnecessary the reminder is; it offers some distraction so that I'm able to temper the anger in me and shove it away as well, along with the small tidbit of information I learned, however trivial. I know that the Vanhoover I have heard of in this age is likely to be properly named 'New Vanhoover' if ponies were properly educated. It wasn't even that important of a citadel.

"We still have butterflies."

Another lash of the tail. "Oh." He pauses. "Follow me."

Umbra keeps walking. Though he makes no gesture to show that he wants me to follow, my hoofsteps follow his as soon as he starts walking. I'm careful to stay a few steps behind him, where I can shake some of his all-encompassing magical imprint that has me feeling like my skin is crawling every few seconds.  We walk on in silence, the echoes of twisting hallways and crunching pseudo-corridors still abuzz in my ears. Occasionally, I catch glimpses of myself in the crystalline surface of the walls and allow myself to indulge in a second or two of narcissistic admiration, just as long as isn't anything Umbra would pick up on. It's a far cry from any real comfort. These kinds of oppressive environments rife with 'You think you're paranoid enough now?' feelings.

A few crude, crystalline corridors and I'm sure that even the halls that aren't collapsing in on themselves and reforming are moving on their own. Even when they're as still as anything can be here. While I try to keep my gaze level and make it look as though my focus is far more relaxed and that I am simply distant - an art that I've mastered - my gaze keeps roaming and darting to corners and the shadows of where Umbra and I have been, because I swear that the walls are moving...



...



As I venture further into Umbra's strange lair, silence takes hold and while the feel of immense power washes over everything in even stronger waves than before. The unearthly cold of the crystalline ground seeps past my boots and chills me slightly and I continue to anticipate shifting and any other structural alterations to occur at a moment's notice.

Everything underhoof feels deceptively solid. I note this along with Umbra's lighter strides - at least, they're as light as he can manage. Despite standing in his titanic shadow, nothing is obscured from me. In fact, the shadows serve only to highlight and define every little thing that most would overlook. These are the very details I live to obsess over, as well as use to my every advantage when needed.

We've arrived in what appears to be the dark heart of his lethal and unsuitable world, where all the tunnels lead. As we walked the halls I noted small downward shifts and tilts that were silent indications of there being a center chamber.

Aside from the distinct columns of äerint that protruded from the mess of jagged crystal walls, winding their way up to the high ceiling in crooked shapes that were almost like sloppy, angular helices. If I didn't know what they were made of, I would doubt the stability of any structure that looked like that. I honestly would have just gone with a rather dismal central rotunda of äerint and hung a little sign that read 'Foreboding' on it somewhere noticeable. It probably would have had the same effect, or just impressed me more.

The vaulted ceiling was as crude as the rest of this creepy sanctum and so high up that I could stack at least eleven Umbras on top of one another before they'd be able to come close to touching the top.

Umbra walked past me, his larger strides quickly passing my more cautious ones. I watched him stand in the center of the wide central chamber, shadows slicing across his bright coat and the gleam of äerint reflecting in his eyes, as if that could add some touch of life to them.

"Welcome, Sombra, to the Heart of Niflhel." He managed something like a smile, first flashing his monster's maw at me and then settling on a thin curl of his lip that made me recall the cold sting of Arctic blizzards against my winter coat in the year before the Empire. Only that was sincere. 'Welcome' held no meaning to him, it was just something he could say, not something true, like how Luna made me feel.

Instantly, I steel myself and shift my posture into something far more appropriate for anticipating battle. As predicted, my cloak disguises almost all shifts in my form - or at least, what kind of movements I'm making. Umbra can still see me moving, and I don't intend to hide that from him.

Something like amusement shows in his eyes, which have a habit of flashing to their more reptilian appearance with his frequent uses of dark magic. His eyes are just like the ones that Luna described in her dreams, leaving no room for me to doubt Luna's description, even if it was thousands of years old.

Those eyes were his.

"You might actually prove to be interesting enough, Sombra the Enigma." It was impossible for me to ignore the fact that he talked about me as if I were less than a foal's favored toy... or a weapon...

Only 'interesting enough'?! Tartarian flames, is he despicable.

Umbra lights his horn with dark magic and the ground trembles slightly; the äerint changes so that a structure that could be used as a table arose from the ground. Two stool-like fixtures followed, placed on opposite sides of the addition to an otherwise unfurnished cavern. 'Room' really wasn't a fitting term. There was nothing civilized here, but this place also lacked the rugged, wholly natural feeling about it that would mark it as a wild land. It was entirely unnatural. Even otherworldly plains of magic belonged in nature, as rare as it is to encounter them.

My heart hammered in my chest and I could hear blood roaring alongside the part of me that screamed in recognition at the game that was being played here. In a minor act of retaliation, I used my own magic to alter the plain stool and grow it into a high-backed throne that, despite its royal flair, was far more suiting to my tastes and had a subtle imposing quality to is. Only then did I take my seat, tilting my head just enough so that the hood of my cloak fell and my mane spilled from under it, now that it was no longer hidden.

It was natural to keep my expression unreadable, but I can't help myself at times and allow myself the slight of arch of an eyebrow. Perhaps he can see the small gesture under my messy bangs.

Umbra only stares at me. His gaze doesn't roam, but I can feel his utterly heartless stare trying to size me up and predict me.

"We have much to discuss," he says, voice colder than ice and tone hinting at the illusion of choice he hoped to instill over me.

This is a sick game.

"Do we really?"

And it was a game I knew how to play all too well.

"I am certain we do."

This was a game I would spare none in, showing my ruthlessness in every way I choose. It was a subtle game that I could read almost every detail in. I needed no magic to play.

"Alright then."

It was a game I wouldn't lose.

Umbra managed to leer at me strangely again. I showed nothing in response, inside part of me felt as if it were viciously deconstructing itself. 

Bring it.



...



"How old are you?" Umbra asks; his is voice tinged with disdain as his gaze lingers on me far more than I would have liked.

"I'm twenty four." It isn't a lie - not that I would think twice about lying to him.

His stare is one of pure calculation - to him, I'm not something that even vaguely resembles life, even pathetic life or life that he loathes.

It's the way you look at something regarded as less than an object. He's looking at me the way everypony else has when they learn what I am: a demon, which is below every other monstrosity if ponies have any say in the matter. And they do. Each and every one of them has far too much to say in matters they have no qualifications to ever comment on.

"So then, you are quite young. Are there any more demons that have sprung from my master work? It has been some time since the tome was ejected into the world. Are you and I really all that came from it?"

"Yes. Just me. And yes, I am very young." Young and dashing, of course.

The way that he folds his enormous wings and sits, looking at me with unveiled murderous intent bears a striking resemblance to a vulture. While I had never come across many birds before, it was hard not to encounter at least a few of them out in the desert during my stay there.

"What is the state of the world you walk like? You said that there were still places with ponies."

"Of course there are places with ponies. 'Celibacy' isn't exactly a concept to them. The masses are uneducated imbeciles and ponies still don't find any grand flaw in a blindly social nature."

"There a few who know any form of education, then? Is your world a wasteland with only mortals to attempt to control the sun and moon, without gods?" I notice a flicker of something like partially quelled curiosity in his eyes, though 'curiosity' doesn't capture or accurately describe the morbid and oddly flat moment of emotion flickering there.

I lean back in my temporary throne, wave a forehoof dismissively, and toss my mane slightly. It is easy to watch him through my bangs, which had grown far longer than I usually let them on this adventure. "It might as well be. You act like ponies are supposed to be grand architects of something other than hovels all grouped together. Just what do you think the world is?"

"I see..."

Cynicism is never overrated. I think I've proven that time and time again. But... well, I am tempted to put a bit more effort into this game. All I've been doing is playing defense, which isn't exactly going to get me anywhere.

I need more.

I want more, and since when did this stop being a competition?

I bite back a smirk. It didn't, and if there is any folly in pride, it isn't in mine. "However, it would be foolish of somepony like me not to recognize a race from what legends still linger..."

I lean forward and let the expression of smug, triumphant viciousness that I couldn't bear to see die so prematurely spread across my face, my eyes telling nothing that even a being as old as him could decipher.

"...and would be unmistakable to one who walks ruins as I do."

Umbra offers no reaction other than what could pass for a level stare, if he didn't have a permanent air of something that made my usual indifference mixed with hostility look almost compassionate by comparison. At least a dead-eyed stare would offer some reminder of that the dead were once living too. His expression offered no such thing, and it wasn't something that I hadn't anticipated.

Frankly put, Umbra looked dead from the inside out.

"What is it that you want then, Sombra the Enigma?" His eyes lock with mine, neither of us turning away from the other, my glare boring into his stare that is too bored in appearance to even be considered level.

"I want answers."

And then Umbra blinked. "Answers to what?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

His eyes glinted with a cruel light. "You seek answers," he echoes tonelessly, rustling his wings.

"Yes," I reply flatly.

"Not power?"

"If I'm going to be demanding-" I made sure to put emphasis on the word, because this may be a game, but I will not be playing nice. "-anything from you, it will be something useful."

"Are you really that arrogant?" Umbra asks, lashing his tail and tilting his head slightly to fix his eerie stare  on me again. I doubt many have held this look of his. Something about the way he regards me makes me think that this direct habit of mine amuses him.

"All that and more." I narrow my eyes and watch him more closely. He doesn't appear to be very curious about me - or at least not who I am - but it is plain to me that he's looking for something. I think he wants to try and find a sign that I have yet to give him. I prop my head up with a hoof and fix him with a look of contempt from my throne, managing to mix some signs of indifference in there in ways only I can, while waiting for a rush of air other than the stale stuff here. It won't come, obviously.

"You do not seek wealth?"

"Money. Is. Disgusting."

Umbra's brow furrowed and he batted his voluminous black mane out of his eyes with a hoof, making a sound of disgust as he did so. His eyes found me again, narrowing and showing a trickle of resentment as he looked at my bangs. Yes, I'm sure my stunning manestyle vaporized his cornflakes. Besides, cornflakes aren't even that good.

Of all the things he chose to hate about me, he decided on the fact that I'm beautiful.

Since dwelling on just how offended at I am will be distracting and completely derail my current train of thought, I focus my continuously amounting anger into everything else I'll be able to show him later. My wrath enhanced with the aid of my divinity is something that every twisted part of me is looking forward to.

"Fame must be out of the question as well," Umbra muses, observing my stare that only shows cold hatred instead of the fire of rage that I'm stoking internally. This, of all things will have to be perfect. No exceptions will get me what I want, and more importantly, I won't let anything - be it mistakes that think they can exist in such dire circumstance, or some mythical grand design that has the audacity to think something so utterly stupid can exist in the same world that I reside in.

He accepts my silent response, but not without a slight scoff. "Is is mares you desire as spoils, then? Are you that sort?"

"I've never been into mares. Or stallions, so don't ask that either."

Umbra looks genuinely confused by such a simple truth. A forehoof rests on his temple and his blank demeanor dissolves momentarily. "Just what do you seek after conquest?"

Nothing is betrayed in my expression, I even hide some of the aggressiveness in my stare for the sake of revealing nothing in my moment of contemplation. The obsession with conquest... why does he keep applying it to me? He's mentioned it twice now, both times in context that suggests that-

I pause in the middle of my rapidly rolling thoughts. The split second pause is noticeable only to me, and it feels a little longer, but I know that feeling is an illusion and dismiss it as soon as it comes.

Are demons supposed to be usurpers? Or marauders of some kind?

"Knowledge," I reply tersely, and just quick enough so that awkward pauses could not even be considered. I may not have found much so far - it is far too early to determine what might be of particular importance - yet the detail I have obtained isn't one to simply dispose of. I'm not going to get much of anywhere by rooting my mind and every expectation deeply in logic alone. No, it is not an entirely useless thing - quite the opposite - but the real skill comes from knowing how to warp things, find things, and use things within it. 

Logic is a tool, and not one that I must use so conventionally. It is something that I have enjoyed learning about, though it is I who rule it, not the other way around. I'm not Purple Eyesore, meant to be polished and shined so I appear just as another, who would falsely deem themselves my superior, to approve of and show off. Nearly every pony lives like they're supposed to be things rather than living by things. Why be bound by things that are better off mixed with rebellion?

Umbra only gives me a vaguely curious look. "Is that all?"

No. "I guess you'll need to find out, but it should be." There, now he thinks that I expect to exercise total control of the scenario in ways that only a fool can think themselves sure of, if they were in my place right now.

With the exception of his rippling mane in tail, the latter which lashed like the tolling of a clock pendulum impatiently tolling the seconds away. In the back of my mind, I counted all of them. His predator's pose and gaze still lingered on me, as blank as ever except for traces of cruelty that seemed subdued and never vanished completely. Were he a smaller creature, I'd expect him to spring out of his seat and attempt to attack me.

"The exact fate of the Alicorns is something I've wanted to know. What is it?" I hear my own voice ring throughout the cavern-like hall. I wanted to say 'longed' over wanted, but did not. Applying that emotion to a question would tip him off to him to lie, lie, lie for every answer. I hadn't spoken that loudly but the resonance of something so unmistakably me held its own comfort. How couldn't I treasure my own company?

Umbra runs an äerint-coated feather tip over the surface of the table, creating small sparks and scratching noise. Neither chipped, of course, and he never took his gaze off of me.

"And you learned of the Alicorns how?"

"I'm literate, asshat."

For once, I saw something like confusion cross Umbra's barely expressive face. "I have no idea to what that last bit was supposed to mean. Is it a term of modern invention?"

"Yes," I mumble into my forehoof. I can't help but wonder just how old he is. 

Alicorn aging isn't a concept grasped easily by most. They have two ages. The first is a true age, which is simply how long ago they were born and is the least important. The second is their mortal year equivalent. Magic is involved with how they age, but it isn't an organized spell that can be manipulated in most any conceivable way. Warlocks would spend their entire lives and legacies trying to guess the latter. Eventually, ages and ages before a portion of the Alicorns who disappeared in the Collapse were born, one of them created an elaborate ritual to divine these sometimes-secret ages of the Alicorns.

It was a spell I would never need to use. Since that age was magical, I was able to sense it with some effort. I hadn't guessed Luna and Celestia's equivalents, I sensed them. Unlike them, Umbra's age was a literal mystery to me. His magic was muddled, and while he may have been an Alicorn once, and still retained the body of one, he didn't feel quite like one. He was more demon than Alicorn, and the centuries after casting the spell that created him only allowed him further control over those matters, especially when his Alicorn body was altered from whatever he used to look like.

"Well..." Umbra showed me his disgustingly creepy smile again, teeth dripping with spittle that he paid no mind to. "You made it this far so... I would not mind sharing a story or two with you, Sombra, who may just have proven his title to be true.

I have never felt more stoic in my gods-damned existence. "Okay."

"I have broken the Alicorns." 

I angle my forehoof so that my sharp swallow of disgust is concealed. My body language looks as natural as possible, yet I feel myself pale a bit. All of them?!

He offers another thin, cruel smile, but it isn't directed to me. "They thought a war - the world against me - would stop me. I slaughtered the demigods and - oh, well I am sure you have seen your own days of slaughter too."

I have.

"But, Sombra the Demon, this was far better than whatever feral struggle that your world goes through with whatever movements of the day and night you have left, if any. The mortals are always the easiest to get rid of. Legions of them can be obliterated easily. They are like... does the concept of a between meal snack still exist in this day and age?"

Any color that had been left in my face struggles to stay there, and I force myself to choke down the vomit that is trying its hardest to force its way up. My vision swims, and I manage to swallow the foul stuff with a ragged gasp that has to be muffled. My mind feels feverish and the throne I sit on and the air of Niflhel starts to grow chillier.

"Are you saying that you ate ponies?" I feel my eyes widen, but not as far as I'd like to let them. There's still some shreds of composure that I can't help but cling to. Especially if it mean I can distract myself from the taste of vomit... 

To my horror, Umbra laughs. Lightly. His high voice is clear. There is something is always missing from it, so it still sounds hollow and fake. "And you haven't? I drank the blood of all the world's demigods to wash it down, of course. Oftentimes, I did this in front of the Alicorn that guided them. Flora Worldheart fell easily to this. She was always so weak for our kind, forming such flighty bonds with mortals almost as soon as she was marked. Then, she had the nerve to think that I would allow her to succumb to the heartbreak that was already tearing her apart from within when I could be having far more thrills with her."

Parts of him are so like Onyx, part of my brain reminds me, though the statement is an obvious one, my own voice is never something I could fear. I wish I could bite my cheek again to disguise the revulsion that grows more obvious with each exchange between us, but blood would make it worse. I loathe the sickening taste. 

Instead, I try to recall everything I know about Flora Worldheart. She wasn't very old, even for Alicorn standards. The last records I read of her noted her equivalent being only twenty two - just barely older than her cousin, my Luna Galaxia, is now. She was known for being rather social outside of her job as a princess, taking students very early instead of going off to explore the world and establish her own empire, which would have been the typical thing to do at her age - and with her mark earned as well.

She, like the rest of her kind, were all prodigious in something amazing. It was by her genius papers on botany that I learned so much about many of the world's plants, all while sitting inside that damned castle and waiting for nothing at all. Since she never founded her own kingdom, she resided with her parents and two siblings, both of which were younger than her. All of them were marked... and it appears that all of them were called to war...

Anypony who saw a map of what the world looked like now wouldn't believe the difference between now and then, not unless they were smart, and that isn't exactly expected from ponies. One of those differences was how the land where the Family Worldheart lived sunk into the sea. It would have been a part of present day Maretonia but...

I snap myself out of the thoughts of history and lost continents. Recitations may ease my mind, but I have a game to play; an ugly game, with an even uglier opponent. I have no instinct to flee, no want of company, only everything that lies in front of me, seen or unseen.

"Her sister, Terra, on the other hoof..." He trails off into a hiss. "That despicable druid godling was a far more difficult maiden to break, and unfortunately a more skilled fighter than either her sister or brother. Why, she was almost as troublesome as Lumina Galaxia and her mother." Umbra snorts. "Queen Pani was always such a grossly loyal creature. As old as she was, she always fought like a much younger mare..." He sighs in frustration and lets his gaze drift back to me. Umbra's white coat seems luminescent in the dark.

Queen Pani Worldheart was the youngest sister of Lumina... she was the first Element of Loyalty. The part of my brain that has indulged itself on so many history texts, manuscripts of world-workings, and yes I do admit, a surprisingly modest amount of verse, refuses to be quiet. To be honest, I don't want it to. The legends of the Alicorns were always a curious thing to a hopeless, angry, and miserable youth like me who found fleeting enjoyment reading about the only equines that had mattered. All of them were so different from the ponies I had found myself surrounded by. Better.

On the rare occasion, these little reminders of what ruins once were and shrouded truths were a fragile coping mechanism for a much younger me, just like internal recitations - one that rarely worked and was usually better shrugged off until the information became relevant. Sometime like now.

She built her home, her castle, in a place called The Shifting Isles, which I believe would now be lost if the maps of the present are any indication of it no longer floating in the ocean. Yes, literally floating; a cluster of magical islands attached to nowhere and barren of all fauna. The flora and landscape rearranged itself almost constantly...

"What became of Terra?" Princess Terra Worldheart... Luna's cousin. What would Luna think to know her the fate of her family, sitting across from the one who took it all from her...? Loathing creeps into the last few words, forcing them to die and be shoved back into where I build up my anger.

There was Umbra's smile again, still a shadow of something that could be observed on a living creature. His jagged teeth dripped with spit as he lifted his lips into a sneer that gradually morphed into something that made me shudder under my cloak. "She was broken too-"

"I know. There's no Alicorns left here." There - I note a small twitch in the corner of his mouth when I said the second part. It was almost unnoticeable. I've always had a habit of noticing these little things about others - the way Mac's wingtips twitch when she's worried and she will never notice, or how Purple Eyesore will always look at me like I'm something vile and she has the upper hoof while she lies and says otherwise. I know she looks at me with an expression that tells me all I can do is wrong. Celestia really has gotten to her, and even if Purple Eyesore doesn't realize she makes this face, she still hasn't mastered the other half of the look - the Celestia half, the one that says you are the ever-humble epitome of good.

These are the subtlest of things that will betray what nopony would think to conceal. How can they hide what they aren't aware of? Little details are always going to make or break something. It always starts with one, and either that will do the trick, or it will take one more. And another after that. Perhaps a third, and so forth. Somepony should always be aware of these things about themselves - and about others - but being ponies, what can be expected of them? The answer is hardly an elusive one.

I look at Umbra as though I've noticed nothing at all. Just as I want, Umbra only reads what I want him to: nothing between the lines. Being part book has plenty of perks and experience grants many others. I claim all and make them mine.

"That is so, Sombra," Umbra replies instantly, his tone letting nothing slip. He's had thousands of years of practice, and Hasad, his summoner, must've had far more.

"You waged a war, alone against all the Alicorns?" I'm careful not to call them gods, Suggesting that legends of any kind still exist is a good way to offer a highlight into just how much culture might remain, which won't do in a situation like this where every word can betray me, even if I have only chosen to present myself as a ruin-walker. Sticking with one term and limiting myself with how much description I give Umbra offers its own implications for him to make sense of.

"Alone?" A small bit of mock incredulousness slips into his tone. I shift into what looks to be a comfortable pose in my throne, but it is really far more vigilant than it looks. "No, no, for the start of it all I had the draconequui, their minds bent to my will. They helped with terrorizing the great citadels while I played with the mortal armies and lesser gods a bit."

"You slaughtered them by the thousands," I deadpanned. The sheer magnitude of the damage he must have done is scarily impressive. Anything with a body count nearing the upper thousands is a creature I'll be wary of.

"Hundred thousands," Umbra corrects quickly, waving a hoof at my 'error'. "Legions are a strange sort of prey, but there is some delight in-"

"Blindly slaughtering them?"

"Of course, but enough about those unfavorable little mortals-" He flashed me that almost smile again. I tried to suppress another shiver and succeeded, leaned back into my throne and quietly waited for him to go on as the faint chill of äerint seeping past the parts of my winter coat that were exposed. "-since you did inquire to the fate of the Alicorns."

I hadn't realized just how tightly my still forehoof had been gripping arm of the throne. Luckily, only I noted this and instantly relaxed my metal-clad forehoof as best as possible since the discomfort of the armor digging into me ever so slightly had just sunk in and I had no appreciation for the dull ache it produced.

"That I did. So, continue." It wasn't a question and Umbra's face showed a momentary flash of his own discomfort at my remark.

"The Alicorns did lead some of their armies of course, and I stopped many of them there, wounding them greatly. When I could not and all the citadels had fallen, insignificant mortals who remained scattered only because of my grace that allowed them to build just enough for me to have something to obliterate in the Second Raze that dawns. Your summoner would be descended from the ponies I allowed to live, though they apparently moved up to the north? Being godless, they have no doubt sunk into wretched states but even that is a new low for them. There is nothing but the Wastes beyond the mountains that mark the border of the old Everfree Kingdom... or did they perhaps move to the moors just beyond them...?"

I only give him a hard stare. He doesn't know about the Crystal Empire? I know they were a reclusive nation but damn... if even he didn't know about it... "What about the Alicorns and the others?"

Umbra blinks. "The others?"

"You mentioned there being 'demigods' and 'draconequui'?" I deliberately make my pronunciation of both a bit awkward in order to sound unfamiliar with the terms as I watch shadows dance across the walls behind us, thinking all the while. Biding time. Forging anger.

"Ah! Yes, them. As the world burned I knew that the Alicorns, stranded in the southern continent with the help of my magic and..." Umbra pauses, his eyes flickering with something that looked like worry or the irritation one would direct at a headache. A particularly malicious headache. The magic around him spikes suddenly and his presence splits into two distinct magical auras for a split second, an expression of something between frozen shock and muted, near invisible horror on his face for that brief moment.

The temperature plummets as a result and I have the sense to remain composed though my mind immediately sparks to life, rapidly trying to find what would be able to cause something that should be impossible. It feels like something wanted to escape him...

I grit my teeth and try to decipher everything I recalled in that instant, trying to come up with some way to find out that doesn't need my new god's magic to read what happened and offer some clue with those red runes and the useful details they've provided so far. Instead, I begrudgingly dismiss the thoughts until I have something more to go off of and continue to slowly work my way to winning more details. Ponies say a lot of things, most of which have no value at all, but whoever first spread the idea of  'patience is a virtue' was one of the rare exceptions.

"And the rest is...?" I say, boredly offering him a reminder of his story while I prepare to mentally deconstruct and reconstruct each piece of information Umbra knowingly - and unknowingly - gives to me the more I keep him talking. My multitasking mind swarms with activity under a stoic mask, preparing for any comment and constructing possible future questions for when I need to ask about demons.

Umbra surveys my apparent disinterest, but the little signs of betrayal in his eyes tell me that he has come to no new conclusions about me. Only traces of suspicion - of what, I'll have to learn - remain present each time he acknowledges me.

"The draconequui were led here, Sombra, where I betrayed them and began to construct the beginnings of Niflhel. The rest of the Alicorns were lured here by me and trapped." Umbra concluded with the same leering look that I wanted nothing more to mar, pulling each grotesque tooth out of his jaw one by one. He was going to suffer at my hoof. To engineer the most satisfying revenge, I needed more information. There's always more to hide and almost endless ways to deceive. I would fall for none of them.

And the best plans, planned by none other than the best strategist - myself - would need to have foundations I can work with and manipulate as I choose, cheating by all rules except my own when I needed to. So I'll play this game a little longer. Perhaps Umbra will even feel humored. I only need to do as I have always done and read between the lines, something so ingrained in me by my own will and experience that it feels more automatic than most survival instincts I possessed.

Offering Umbra a facetious half-smile that held deception any who actually knew me would be able to feel, I waved a hoof with even more apathetic dismissiveness then he would ever be able to manage, effectively showing him how things are done.

"Is that so?" I start, trying to mimic some of Luna's mischievousness with my statement in an effort to skew his perception of what my personality actually is. "There's hardly even whispers of the old Alicorns outside of what buried ruins still lurk in the folds of the world. Knowledge is my price, and it's always a high one. Its rarity makes it worthwhile."

"Knowledge is... useful," Umbra says, his sick leer growing a bit, "but becoming power is truly filling."

You lie. 

I don't respond with anything other than an idle ear-flick in the direction of a distant hallway crashing into something. Tension builds in my withers mixed with a greater anticipation of possible violence. I don't roll them as I wish, since the simple gesture to dispel the feeling could be read in all sorts of ways that might give up something I wish to conceal.

"Between slaughtering the masses on a whim that isn't even worth comprehending to me, have you done anything else? You said I'm the first of your creations-" By the miracle that is my superior sense of stubbornness, I refuse to let all the contempt that belongings in the last two words that even suggest I'm not something all my own seep into my words. "-to return here. Why is that?"

The atmosphere of Niflhel dragged on, much like my conversation with Umbra. Unlike the discussion I was having, the creeping feeling of dark stagnation in Niflhel's 'heart' made the tumultuous and occasionally dizzying feel of magic feel like it was balancing on the edge of the utterly inhospitable, mostly uninhabitable cavernous chamber. To say I had a slight headache from the oddity was a gross exaggeration. Luckily, I had no problems maintaining the focus I needed to work this game of deception against somepony who only felt alive, but bore none of the normalcy of death.

Umbra was nothing, and to many that was incomprehensible horror. His magic sat equally stagnant and flat so that if I were to wave a hoof too close to the air surrounding him, I would find it unusual that the heaviness my senses detected wasn't merely illusory. With my experience, I knew better than to be fooled purely by how ponies looked... and felt...

...and the things that they promise, or the way they talk about you when...

Gah. Ponies. They aren't worth saving, so I won't save them. Ponies may live in this world, yes, but as a whole they mean nothing. I'll save the world because I live here. Did anypony think that I would do all this out of the goodness of my heart? Never. I was wonderfully selfish and I wanted the planet I lived on intact, thank you very much.

One day, however far into eternity it may be, ponies are going to have just how wrong they have been shoved back in their faces; I'll stand by with a smile at the irony of it all. That day is not today. I long for it to happen, but patience has always been something I had in excess - where it counts - and I know that if I ever want that day to happen, it'll be something I need to work towards, starting with today and onward into forever from there.

Umbra tries to remain totally expressionless. For a hollow creature like him he's not exactly half bad at it, but there's always a host of little betrayals with him. Inside, my ego soars at every victory, no matter how small, they'll all add up to something greater.

The slightest flick of his ear spells out uncertainty, no matter how hollow the gesture is on him - again, everything but his cruelty is entirely reminiscent of something that's alive. I've seen drawings with more life than he has and that's coming from somepony who can't draw.

His eyes flicker with dying hesitance and contemplation fade in his eyes and he finally speaks with that shell of conversational tone. "You know nothing of your own kind?"

"I live in damned wasteland, hang out in ruins, throw food at birds for no reason other than wanting to, and am both the most shady drifter and the least shady drifter in the remains of the world at the same time. I'm literally homeless - and proud! Sometimes when I'm lazy enough, I root through the trash to find things that are vaguely edible and these gray cats that think they can take me on. I usually don't find anything that could pass as mostly-edible on the usual day. How ever, the few cities that I still bother to acknowledge in my daily life often have very interesting garbage that is even more interesting to me as I'm stealing them. So yeah, I know next to nothing of my own kind."

Umbra looks unsure of what was just said to him, his gaze as bleak as the existence of the average pony. "An alrrakun?"

"No, they're those funky gray cat things that live in woods and trash. Part of me considers them to be something like kindred spirits. And if you're curious, I've been to enough places to pick up a few extra languages for when one language isn't good enough to properly convey how dissatisfied with all that has the nerve to occupy the same plain of existence I do."

"You are a polyglot garbage thief of a demon who... has not slaughtered anything or been directly involved with the mayhem of the world?" Umbra looks at me with the barest hints of disbelief, which for him is showing an almost extreme amount of emotion.

"I never said that."

The pause between us finally goes long enough to be awkward. Slowly, he scrapes his feathers, with their crystalline coating, on the edge of the monolith between us. The drawn out scratching sound it makes is dreadful and reminds me of the endless noise pollutants outside this central chamber. To keep it from bleeding into my ears too much, I flatten them against my skull and growl at him, spitting out my words through clenched teeth.

"Well? Are you going to disclose anything more to me or not?!"

In an motion that was eerily fluid, Umbra dips his head into a deep nod. The flow of mane feels exaggerated as he does so, but all the while I stare into his unblinking purple eyes with as much general malice as I will permit myself to reveal.

I've shaved away a few layers of him. In return he has gotten little to no reading on me, as I've anticipated when it comes to only showcasing certain aspects of my personality and bending - as well as using - the truth. Manipulation is best with an element of patience like this. Only somepony as good as I, Sombra would deal with the sheer amount of tediousness that can go into these kinds of endevours.

When Umbra raises his head to look down upon me once more with that stare that sees past me, I know that round two has begun. He knows not that I have already won the first. Compared to how things could go, it isn't the best I could do.

But hey, I'll taken what I can get...

...and much, much more.



...



By default, I cannot read minds. To control a pony's mind, you don't need to read their mind - at least, not directly - so much as you need to read them through their actions. From that, an idea of what their mind is like can be constructed and it becomes easier to pick with manipulation of the non-magical kind. It really is like lock picking and can prove to be an extremely delicate business. Ponies can rarely tell that it's happening, which, I suppose, would be tragic enough if I didn't expect it. My motives aren't the most malicious, but if they were...

Once you have a pony's mind, it's like being given a key to an entire private world. But, to obtain this key you have to unravel the trickiest part - the process that would be the interior of the metaphorical lock. Everyone has little differences that make or break the process. The larger differences are noticeable from the start, and often of immediate importance.

So how do you work something that might as well be its own language? You find the similarities, don't you? The things that bind all ponies together, a universal constant? Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The differences are what is meant to be highlighted, and in this case, exploited. Differences are what matters. I both love and hate others for them. Those are what makes a 'good' - the irony of just how relative implications surrounding that term - dark mage.

One of the best ways to manipulate somepony is to make sure they don't know that they're being manipulated. Though most wouldn't bother to think of it as so, that way is the far more merciful option than many I know.

Umbra suspects something of me. Perhaps he guesses that I'm withholding something, which would be true. There is no problem in letting him know that I hold cards, but knowing the cards I hold would be disastrous. Every perception he has of me needs to be skewed and disjointed. Any estimation he has on my intelligence should be especially unclear and play into what he would think to be the simplest answer to come to - an answer that would also be the worst.

Umbra already knows that I have some knowledge of the Old World and am not stupid... but perhaps I can work things a little bit and play inexperienced. In his eyes, a twenty four year old isn't going to be as fiercely intelligent as I would be, yes, but to him they'll also reek of false assurance. All I have to do is act my age and little details will silently bug him and guide him to certain assumptions.

And what better to start with than coming off as less than adept at some of the more technical aspects of magic, thus offering a fragmented perspective and letting him continue to believe that I'm a wasteland wandering hick - who also doesn't overthrow empires as a teenager, get trapped in voids where my lifespan is forcibly extended while I exist in an extraphysical state, fall in love with goddesses, go on adventures, eat pizza, and do other things that are perfectly average for far above-average for shameless homeless nutcases like myself.

I love me, I conclude with a surprisingly small swell of pride for one such as myself.

"Did you invent dark magic?" I ask Umbra and resist making any expression that would betray just how smart I am - oh, and resisting brain damage for asking something so utterly moronic that I could go on for hours about just how stupid it is. I force my eye to be still since a twitch is unneeded and would be risky to show. The last thing I want to do is indicate anything about my visual problems.

Umbra gives me yet another hollow smile, as if to let me know that some part of his immortal soul died hearing that question, and this one withers slowly compared to the others. Once his usual blank look was resumed. "Magic like this cannot be invented. The magic of talents, gods, and - well, there are a few other irreplicable, rare things in magic - are the only things that are truly invented... you and I were not. We came from something that already existed, sprung from the place where nothing and everything converge. The magic that makes demigods is similar. Existing magic is amplified and near-obliterates a creature, changing their soul in an almost parallel task of our summoners, but less impressive. From there, if they exhibit enough mastery to find their own way they are partially reconstructed with all that they can withstand in order to mimic the highest form available - the Alicorns, most natural of the gods, who walk all the plane of magic unburdened. Can you grasp all that?"

The enthusiasm I wished to show was smothered as I nodded curtly. Everything he just said was overflowing with so much knowledge unsaid. The pieces that I just obtained were priceless and both confirmed things I suspected and filled gaps I didn't know was there. The things I would be learning here would be things that have gone unknown to civilization for thousands of years, just like all the knowledge I'd amassed in the Crystal Empire. It was mine to withhold and disclose as I pleased, though the extents of the monopoly I so selfishly kept as my own, and weren't even known to Luna. In time, that could change.

It was also such a curious thing, the way Umbra talked about himself. I still had yet to pick apart just where Hasad began, Umbra ended, and vice versa. They seemed far more blended than Onyx and I.

I nodded again, knowing he had more to say, and Umbra continued. "The magic that you and I came from was captured and perfected by me where it was latent within the world, no matter how much Hasad thought he invented it. He has learned otherwise, but Hasad has only an inkling of anything like control now. He retreated into the inner fray once the First Raze had ended. Despite your apparent dominance, Sombra, you and I have some knowledge of the turmoil there."

There - that was something I didn't know. Not quite. The way he talked about 'the fray' - that was no doubt the struggle for control between him and Umbra? I dragged a hoof along the arm of my new throne. No, it's almost like he's suggesting there's more... Luna's stars, how I'd like to be blunt right now when such intriguing answers are begging for me to wrestle their complexity for my own gain... but...

I kept a level stare. Aloof. Distant. A small lash of his tail told me he didn't expect this from me, even if the full extent of what 'this' was had to be figured out.

...I have a game to win.

"Did Hasad have any part in breaking the Alicorns?"

Umbra waves a hoof again, it's his right, which is the most common for ponies to express dominance in. I guess it goes for demons too. I recall that Luna favors neither, something I had never seen before.

"Some, yes. We worked in tandem for a while, but never as a team. The others helped willingly, or were forced to."

Others? I doubt he means the draconequui; they were brainwashed into aiding him. Yet another thing to find out, then.

Every second is an eternity of making moves and reading silent cues with him. I yearn to say more, to retort in my usual style but this sort of thing requires so much patience to achieve a payoff where I'll be able to say everything I want to.

"Were there ever other demons then?" As risky a question as this could be, it has to be asked.

Umbra nods deeply and his main ripples again. It's the only part of him that doesn't move like clockwork. "Yes, Sombra. There were two others, long before even my summoner was old enough to walk. They lingered on in the legends of many kingdoms until-" Umbra paused, but needn't explain what caused them to fade. "...Even before it all, they were but shadows of legend, mostly in the Everfree Kingdom. It was these legends, as incomplete as they were, that Hasad listened to. They held a curious inspiration to him, but not one that he realized until all had passed, yes? Without an artifact of perfected magic, these two would not have came to be in the same way that you and I had."

Maintaining focus through all the thoughts that swarmed throughout my mind was like trying to take an enchanted sword to a twister. Yes, I was positively buzzing with inner distractions, but I of all ponies had the ability to cleave through it in such a dire situation.

"And yet, if you and I were to stand before those souls - who like you, mortal Sombra, are Tartarus bound before you even near your deathbed for both the sin of your summoner and the sin that is you - the differences between the four forms we see would not be that great. Yes, I inherited the immortality and traces of Prince Hasad's divine power instead of the more unicorn-like shape that belongs to the equine form of demons, solely because he was an Alicorn. Our souls of unnatural origin would aid us in erring to the corrupt fates of murder and conquest beyond all sense of moral - or lack of - that is our nature; to make the mortals who rise to greed and such delightfully sadistic pursuits more monstrous than ever imaginable. Dark magic would be sensed rippling in all of us, for it is our natural magic. Never before was it placed in devices of corruption."

I shiver slightly, and manage to move in a way that suggests it is only the throne that chills me. Knowing that I was bound for Tartarus as a mortal, no matter what I did, was one of the first instincts I had. When the names of the dead worlds were seared into my mind, the part of me that was implanted knowledge from something beyond unreliability knew that a demon's place in death was Tartarus. It was the only place that the bond that finalized any attachment I had to Onyx would be severed. I knew it would apply to the stallion before me as well.

He still talks about me like I'm a mad barbarian warlord - that's important, I know it is, but why? What is it that he thinks guarantees me that path? I need to listen more. The more details I have, the better, and I have every opportunity to obtain them.

"You act like there couldn't be a demon who wants to be a scribe. A demonic scribe who is evil enough to put empty inkwells with ones that are full and act like there's no difference, but not so far gone that they would break the tip of every quill."

Umbra makes a small snort, continuing to stare past me. His purple eyes were dull and didn't hold the luster of any living creature I knew. He had the stare of a blind pony. For all I knew, he could be blind after staying in here so long. Then again, with an Alicorn-like nature that would be nearly impossible unless he were to try and blind himself.

"And you, Sombra, act as though a demon like either of us could defy our irreversible nature and the agony that comes with us - and all the others within us - both for those we encounter and put such a lovely end to-" Umbra's mouth tugs in a tight, almost forced smile that looks so fake I feel myself shudder a bit, "-or what we must endure as demons?"

"Haven't you ever heard of a joke?" I reply smoothly, minor signs of annoyance showing through bored disapproval, but only because I let them.

...And, what do you know, I have more things for me to make heads and tails of. I doubt that Umbra thinks that I'll be the one leaving alive; there's something he wants from me and he's not exactly a gracious host. He has no reason to be withholding too much from me. There isn't much of a reason for him to be straightforward either.

In the two seconds I allot myself to drum my forehoof on the throne's arm as the only sign that I'm thinking instead of revealing just how deep in thought I am, I conclude that all this is dancing around some key aspect of demon nature. Were I to try and chose the simplest option, it'd be me proclaiming or assuming that all demons are 'supposed to be evil' or anything so dumbed down it might as well be another one of Celestia's lies.

I have to keep playing. Small details will be what makes or breaks every move I make in here, and I can't miss a single one; the simplest choice is the one that's usually best avoided in all but a select few circumstances. This would not be one of those times. "You don't have much of a sense of humor, do you?"

Umbra's face stays blank. "No, I do not. None of us do."

There he goes with that 'us' again. I doubt it's a majestic plural. From the Book - and this was centuries ago, when even I was bordering on completely oblivious to many things about my own kind - I learned that a demon... wasn't exactly some howling beast that rampaged through just about anything. I told Mac a little about this in our first adventure, but was careful to leave out many, many things without lying.

Though I may be honest, honesty can be even more malleable than lies when used correctly. Truth isn't fickle, merely enigmatic, and in my experience the more unusual something sounds and the more it is rejected by the masses, the more it is likely to be true. Does this apply to everything? Of course not. My mind may be a rather dark place, but it's not a place of absolutes and ignorance like a certain Alicorn mare's...

I was very lucky from the moment I was created. There was only one demon in the spell that bound Onyx and I into a complete Shadow. That demon was me, and together Onyx and I were a Shadow as Umbra and Hasad were. But unlike me, there was only one demon. Within Umbra, there could be hundreds of different demons locked in endless strife and mental bloodsport alongside Hasad, the Alicorn prince who perfected all this.

Hiding in the sagas of old and many texts in the Crystal Empire's burned knowledge was an old Everfree phrase: inner demons. 

The terms has lost most of the insult and enormity behind it that was carried in days of old, and of course, in the expected ignorance of ponies they don't know what it really means. It's a gods-damned racial slur, describing none other than entities like yours truly. While the body I have isn't merely some vessel I inhabit like many of the demons in a Shadow would have, were they to control the magic-built and magic-given body that belonged to the main demon, the Named demon: Umbra and my esteemed self. This doesn't mean that I'm not an extraphysical creature. I'm still able to manifest as such. Yet, most demons? They would have been purely extraphysical, never having any ability to exercise their form until they found themselves at the threshold of Tartarus.

I've hated the term 'inner demons' which is tossed so carelessly in reference to vice - something I've been reduced to in the eyes of many - in the more modern usage that has altered drastically from the original: a true monster, not some creature akin to a rampaging dragon, but something all too equine, just waiting to be, to lose themselves - if there's anything left at all. It refers to the unseen souls trapped within a Shadow.

Something that I just barely wasn't, only by chance and chance alone. I could have been locked in mental bloodsport for the rest of my days, unable to feel anything other than emotion and the pain foreign to all who haven't been subjected to mind magic, or just happened to be your run of the mill non-physical being. Even my own private mind wouldn't be what it is now in that kind of despicable arrangement, where most would be gradually and painfully bleeding into the main personality at their sadistic dictation as the champion - and owner of the body, the Named one.

None would be able to die until that one does. I'd never want that, but there isn't exactly anything to be thankful for about having escaped something outside of the control of any and all.

I'm just really damn lucky.

"So then why don't you tell me about your 'masterpiece'? What made it that?"

Asking a creator of anything to enlighten about their magnum opus should spark something in them, any kind of zest or emotion - just any damned spark - anything that would highlight the subject as their passion. I didn't find it to be entirely unexpected that Umbra wouldn't react like that. I had also counted on there being some sadistic delight in the corruption and poisonous nature of every letter of spell work that was meant to engineer and trick the fallen into creating instruments of destruction... like me.

He just hollowly gave me a reply as if I asked him what he thought about the dirt that one would tread upon over a road. Nothing reflected in his eyes. The toneless quality of his words caused the slightest ache in my ears as I listened and the room felt like it spun a bit.

"Of all the things to ask about, you choose to ask me about the silly magic book that acts as a channeling point for the pure corruption bestowed a half-conscious to twist living beings into summoners? That is it?"

A half-conscious entity of eldritch knowledge, and one that he engineered himself. He brushes it off as a 'silly magic book' yet has the nerve to also dub it his masterpiece...

I swallow a growl and keep drumming my forehoof with thinly masked impatience. "No, I wanted to ask you about your latest pulp fiction novel. It isn't everyday that a demon overlord authors one of those!"

Umbra's ignorance of nearly every emotional reaction fathomable and particularly poor excuses to fell trees is enough to get an eye twitch out of me. He doesn't seem to notice.

Personally, I'd like to see how he looks with a few fireballs to the face. I find it to be a recurring fantasy as my time with him wears on. My horn even itches a bit with sparks that are only barely going uncast. My stronger will reins in my desire to let the aura instinctively trying to bubble into existence until the feeling stops and only the desire remains.

"That old thing was created to house, create, and focus the magic needed to do its job. Yes, Sombra it could have done more than that, and it did. It was made solely to find those who needed to show their natures, who would lose themselves and take everything from them in return for what they had always wanted."

He didn't notice that I had nothing to say in reply. I already knew this much and simply let the passing stagnation make me a little more patient. Yes, I've waited for a millennium to live again - there was no 'simply' - to something like that. Patience is something I have in spades for all the things that matter. Tolerating those below me? That one has always been iffy.

For things like answers, revenge, love, victory... I could wait forever.

I had always questioned just how much the Book was aware of things. Umbra's words confirm that it was at least aware of a purpose, like the way a construct - curse those disgusting, hollow things - knew whatever orders a caster put inside it. Constructs knew nothing more than that. Yet, the Book knew you and what it needed to do to take you away, only to give back everything you ever and never wanted in tandem.

It also gave me the world...

...Which is something I'll never let Umbra take from me.

I let him ramble on about everything I already know. There's only so much I can do to him with mind magic.

Yes.

Mind magic.

It's not like I'm not unable to do it, or like I'm going to back down. Even if part of me will always hold the necessary doubt and fear of this victory that's been so long in the making. I use mind magic because he's done far worse than anything I'm likely to see often in all of eternity, and because I need to see him suffer.

I want to.

I use mind magic because I know I have limits, skill, and all the ruthless desire...

But...

Of all the knowledge that is spun for every demon that finds themselves in this world, the ones springing from the Book's pages from nothingness... we both know that I can't and not because I don't want to... the curved horn that we share that allows us mastery of dark magic that no unicorn can expect isn't unable to perform the task I'd like it to - it isn't that. My skill with the magic I despise and hardly bother with - and even then, only in such tame portions - is unrivaled among everypony I've met outside of this warped little world. Part of it is because Umbra's mind... and other demons... aren't things I'd like to see, to feel. Just because I have a metaphorical sword doesn't mean that I'm safe from any blows.

Really, it'd be quite the opposite. I should expect harm more than anything else. That is one of the first rules of fighting anything and not a bad rule for life, too. Those are things that could infect me - not corrupt; the both of us are immune to that effect - but there's things in there that are best unseen by all. He could try and strike me too, if I didn't have proper defenses. The true reason? Demons can use mind magic on one another all we please. If I had... others... in my head, I would need to defend against them, or even hurt them myself. The nature of demons isn't a remotely peaceful one, no matter how little you know. It's none of that because other Shadows can't use dark magic against one another. All dark magic duels would be a stalemate. Our powers would cancel one another's out.

It's that simple.

In fact, it's so simple that I didn't tell Luna.

She simply never asked.

It wasn't the simplest thing to do, to not tell her that the chance of me not coming back is simply far higher than she could've expected.

That I willingly walked into what would likely be my eternal torment. 

That she'll be the only one I miss.

That she gave me the only time of my life I have loved.

There's also Mac, and there's the few times I lie. I lied to her when I say that I would let our last words to one another be a Crystalline exchange from me and a hug. If I don't come back within a week, it's Luna's turn to save the world. I didn't let things stop there. That kind of plan would never do. Luna has three days to save the world. In the event that she doesn't and I don't come back...

Well...

With all that Mac has learned from me and the little bit of dark magic she has picked up...

...and since a little goes a long way...

...She's completely willing to drag Luna out kicking and screaming, crying her heart out, and in whatever state that she can be found in and wait out the end of the world in the Crystal Empire. Mac's willing to let her empire be the last thing to survive the Second Raze. And, she told me, that she's willing to fully harness the little bit of dark magic she still had to become a Shadow to do it. I don't care if Celestia had Mac in her greedy white hooves the day she grew a horn. That girl is my niece, through and through. She may not be Luna, but I'll be damned if I don't love her a little bit too. Plus, she did sell me her first born; she walked right into this kind of bargain.

I exhale softly, watching my breath come out in the fog that signifies cold.

And thawing. Quickening. Something under snow and ice.

Of course that is where my mind drifts to - snow, ice, and storms that blurred the border between the heavens and the earth, veiling mountains from my view. Those mountains hid a damnable city of crystal, and in that city of crystal, I met two mares that literally helped drive me to the end of the world. The thought of letting Luna down is crushing. The thought of letting Mac down is decently inconvenient.

I look up at Umbra, all my determination hiding behind red eyes. He returns the stare rather passively, as I would expect him to. All this time, it hasn't been the ponies I've met or the places I've been to that have helped me and kept me going. It was none of that, and it wasn't anything else either. It has always been me. From the start to a non-existent end, I've always been there. Everything started with me. Everything might as well be about me. Even if things were going to end, they would end with me. I've watched so much fall apart, and today I'm not about to let that continue.

Round three of this game begins now.



...



I can't bear to close my eyes, and for such a long time I felt unable to do so. I can remember blinking, but the action always felt like an illusion. For me, blinking didn't mean I missed a glimpse of a world that turned on in that split second of darkness, it meant that the world - and all the horrors, both bare and concealed, it needed to force into my vision in a way that felt as if everything and anything was being splattered across each unprotected conjunctivia of mine.

It was the world that stopped, pausing in the dark that still wouldn't lessen visions of things that were and things that weren't - both could be equally horrific - and letting them worsen every time I closed my eyes.

Glaring light illuminated everything that nopony could see. Sometimes they were things like monsters in the making, who walked among other ponies as normal as ever, and other times it simply shone upon broken things, or better things that belong in the dark - even if that dark was a crystalline tomb smack in the center of an empire felled in a single day by two teenagers.

When I looked at Umbra, I did not blink. I felt my blood boil and a growl grow in my throat. I did not blink. My jaw was caught between being slightly clenched and wanting to feel my accursed fangs grit. But I did not blink.

In my ears, I could hear a faint hum of anger and the magic this world had. Snide remarks that could be practically welled up on my tongue, waiting to fall off into existence. Always, I kept my gaze trained on Umbra, who did likewise, but far less intensely. Everything burned between us.

Umbra didn't react other than swiveling an ear slightly. When he spoke, his voice was still caught up in that toneless normalcy that any pony would never think to question or spot. "Will those be the last of your questions, Sombra?"

He tries to warp my name when he speaks and bestow the same hollow quality that the rest of his speech has. Even my name defies him and Umbra's accentless voice, barren of everything, catches on the syllables and makes parts of his pronunciation clumsy. I watch his eyes fill with dark magic's smoke and take on their more demonic appearance in agitation, his tail whipping about. The light that glistened in his eyes only looked like shattered reflections instead of a sign of life. His eyes weren't much like mine either - not in color. When dark magic swelled in him, his irises were shaded with unmistakable and vibrant read, whereas his irises and pupils were a deeper green than mine were, but almost an exact inverse of how my eyes looked with the same magic. I silently observed that purple smoke went unchanged between us. He wouldn't know this until I showed him and let my own magic flare to life in all its savagery and skill, ready to tear him apart...

"No."

His wing tips strike the surface again. The grating noise it produces is awful and drags out. I can feel it throbbing in my ears and crawling down my spine. The growl forming in my throat swells, but I hold back, if only for now.

"Then what more do you have to ask?" Unlike me, it was plain that Umbra held no curiosity towards me. All I saw said so, especially those eyes that looked at me like I was even less then a weapon with their hungry stare that wanted to tear me apart and see something I was not, looking through me in every way to visualize whatever it was that crossed his mind and stayed there.

"Our aura is the same when we use dark magic, at least on our horns, and yet our eyes show this differently. Why is that?"

Umbra let out an undignified snort and shoved his rippling mane back with a hoof so it no longer flowed beside him, but behind him as a backdrop. "Do unicorn ponies, the demigods, and Alicorns not have different aura as well? It is one of the few cursed bits of individuality that we have."

'Cursed' and 'individuality' in the same sentence is one of the few things I could call wrong. The world is filled with so little of it as it is, and here he is cursing something so right.

"Then explain why it is different," I demand tersely, finally allowing detectable slivers of hostility into my tone. 

Umbra's cold stare changes a little, shifting into an acknowledgement that he thinks I don't see. And here I thought that he would be a bit more unreadable. Yet, I suppose his lack of emotional comprehension and preconceptions of me, something I never bothered much with him - have led him to make such wonderful little mistakes for me to reap... not that he wouldn't be planning something else. Every little thing I can think of and each sign he's shown me is clear that he doesn't want me to leave while I'm still alive. Or at all.

I'm not withholding my wrath for nothing.

There will be a fight. Violence isn't the question or the answer here, it's an inevitability and one that I'm going to find myself enjoying.

"There is nothing particularly complicated behind the matter, Sombra the Demon," Umbra drawls. A monotone would be more intriguing than the way he speaks. "Dark magic lingers. It does not disappear, but can be destroyed, as we both know."

He pauses to look at me and gets no sign that confirms that I know this and that this information is merely a review to me. Noticeable hints of displeasure at my endless determination to appear as nothing short of difficult to read and hostile show with the clench of his jaw before he continues.

"More than just traces of our magic can be... ah, 'picked up' for lack of a better term to use around one as magically uneducated as you must be."

Excuuuse me?! I'm supposed to be the condescending asshole around here. I grit my teeth and internally debate which limb to remove from Umbra first or how difficult it might be to pull out his teeth one by one...

The teeth thing sounds nice, admittedly. I certainly have the skill... and experience... to pull it off.

"Dark magic-" 

Umbra interrupts me immediately. "You really could call it 'demon magic' if you wanted to properly sound like an outsider. It is the endgame of all its corruption, anyway. When dark magic is used in excess, it does not simply dissipate. It lingers. This is especially true where äerint has been festering, as it seeps into the world where it has been implanted."

Yeah, no kidding. It's not like I've ever been to the Crystal Empire! Or had to be the brains behind the whole operation that kept me there for eight years! Never!

"Because of this, your magic would still stay where you have made a strong presence - something far stronger than most all magical imprints."

IT'S NOT LIKE I EVER USED ANY OF THIS INFORMATION TO RESURRECT MY ETERNALLY BEAUTIFUL FACE AND BODY, WHICH SET ALL THIS INSANITY IN MOTION, NOW IS IT, DIPSHIT?!

I am currently redefining 'stoic'. The only reason those who gazed upon me in this moment would not find my image as the very definition is because any image of me is generally too unflattering for my tastes, and this is coming from the stallion whose first thought upon learning what a camera was how many pictures of my smug face I could take.

"When a powerful unicorn or a demigod-" He looked at me meaningfully as he said the last word, while most of me just wondered to why he excluded 'Alicorn' among those two. "-attempts to use your corrupt magic, they must work with these traces and try to encourage them to stay within them as they subconsciously work with your magic. This could include simply trying to think like you. Unless any degree of corruption takes hold, the aura's color should stay the same as yours, demon."

"Says the other demon," I reply dryly while not screaming in his face that I already knew all this.

"Are you always so spiteful and crude?"

"Kiss my ass."

"I still lack proper insight into what that means."

Oh, there's so many ways that I could take advantage of this... "It's a kind of magic."

I watched as Umbra's brow furrowed deeply, even if I didn't think it was a proper reflection of just how confused he must be. "Were you not lying, that would mean you told me to kiss a kind of magic? What..."

It was impossible not to note that he said the word 'kiss' with a tone expressing all the familiarity of the average pony with group theory. Meanwhile, my apathetic expression was purely automatic. My mind whirled with all sorts of devious potential for ironic humiliation among the many other things I had learned and tried to apply, predict, and analyze all at once. Multitasking has always been an ability that I've treasured.

"Would this 'ass' as you have called it, be your ability as I have my sentries?"

That was a question I didn't need to ask. Umbra's shadow 'sentries' weren't as unknown to me as would be anticipated. In fact, not all his magic was as wholly unknown to me.

A fantastical hat in my possession, and in it, a small shelter from the snow that any southerner like Purple Eyesore would value...

...wastes far outside of Trotland, which receded behind me with every step I took through the snow...

...and a sliver of something black cutting against the snow, and floating there, beholding me. Whatever it was, I knew it could never be smoke. It radiated the magic of the Book - something I hadn't felt since then - and something else that was far more malicious.

It felt as though it were trying to read me, to know me...

...and in that state, I couldn't get away fast enough, but maybe somepony else could...

He has already seen me before, and we both know it. All this? It's just another part of a game I won't lose. Like Celestia, he wears a mask to hide what is only revealed with each attempt to cover the truth. I merely give another version of it; but it is truth all the same.

There were many things that I was never able to learn from the physical copy of the Book, and now it would be impossible to do so now. However...

However... the Book was preserved. There was still the copy that was part of my mind... and Umbra's. I had only been able to work my way through reading so much of it and not all the depths and intricacies of dark magic told within something as unreliable as the book were known to me. Besides, that would only be accessible to somepony through mind magic now... I don't imagine that I'd be able to stabilize the Book's own shadow for very long either. The chance of nothing showing up would be even larger.

In the pages of the Book - both versions; they were equally tricky - I hadn't come across anything that detailed the ability that I held . Possession and forming myself into shadow instead of just being restricted to my equinoid form were likely to be in my nature only. Though, I knew demons were always born formless, a shift to shadow was not among their form repertoire. Thus, I had no idea if the ability was one exclusive to me - not that I would dare risk something like possession on Umbra, even if it could work on him...

"No," I replied, a thousand thoughts in my mind cramming themselves between every second of silence outside of me.

Offering no response, Umbra shifted away from me for a moment. Neither of us said a word and the air was heavy with the tension of suspicion - both of us were scheming and deceiving the other in more than one way.

"Sombra-" 

There he goes again, saying my name as if it were unwanted and that I shouldn't have any at all.

"-as the chief demon, I must inquire: what is the power that you and you alone hold?"

"Do you think I would ever tell you?"

"Ah, but surely you do not think that every act of deception that you make will be just another reason for me to inflict pain upon you?" Umbra's eyes sparkled with cruelty - and finally, finally showed something resembling true emotion. As expected, the tiny peek at all of the undeniable instability was boiling right below the surface. His blank behavior now would almost appear to be like a facade in comparison when he starts to show everything else.

"I think that I'm better than you," I reply without hesitation, my sentence ending with a rumbling growl that dissolved into quiet, letting my testy tone echo.

Umbra leaned forward, his own eyes only showing some depthless malice and hollow detachment. "How arrogant you are, Sombra. Whatever would make you say such a thing?"

An obvious, cruel smirk spreads across my muzzle and I let it grow even wider as a silent boast of all my arrogant cruelty. My fangs flash with the hint of some temper to come and a good deal of charm, however twisted. Silence breaks when a trickle of humorless laughter as cold as ice escapes my throat. Pulling and working the little stitches of concealment that cut corners none would think to look for and shifted the feel of my magic so it was rearranged to just be everything between the fire and ice that Umbra felt, I let it all fall so that he can sense just what it is that I am.

... and a part of who I am, I add silently, my irises flashing with a scarlet glow for a moment.

For once, Umbra shows true emotion when I let my godhood flicker into existence. He pulls back sharply, purple eyes so dull with detachment suddenly lucid and shining with a whole range of things between shock and horror. They fade quickly, but the clarity is there. His mane whirls about like a blacker-than-starless-nights storm before settling with an agitated ripple.

"You-" His voice is an unequine growl laced with so much blind hostility that even I can't hide a shudder as his lip curls up into a snarl that shows off his horrific teeth, slick and ripping with spit. For the first time I have heard a growl like my own from another being like me when I am so used to everything only being 'close enough' from other creatures. Ponies certainly made no growls. 

"Are an immortal god," I finish. "My name is Sombra. The world isn't quite what you'd expect it to be and demigods are the last things that you will ever have to fear when something as divine as my esteemed self walks the world. Out everything I have told you, the only unalterable truth is that I, Sombra, God of Knowledge, am your superior in every way and will defy you endlessly, as I have everything else. It doesn't matter how grand you think yourself, because I will always be better."

Like the almost-lies that I have told, the table and seat of Umbra meld to nothing and force their way back into the ground as the äerint-coated feathers of Umbra shone with crackling dark aura.

I leapt from my throne, standing in the shadow of the third demon, my crimson eyes breaking past the dark umbra of his shadow and boring into every part of them. My magic god-sight tinted the world in shades of scarlet and crimson, bathing every shadow red in some parallel to all the magic and wrath that I had burning in me.

With a simple half-second long slice of dark aura, I unmade the throne I had hastily forged myself and stood unmovable, my own form cut in sharp contrast to my surroundings - yet another place I was alien in - as the cavernous chamber's air rippled with clashing magic sensations. Those twin powers were the feeling of everything that mine held, and the near-nothing of Umbra's.

He stepped forward with a surprisingly swift but not entirely unexpected gesture and yanked me up to meet him by seizing my bangs in his telekinesis. I growled and felt dark fire start to spark on my horn, knowing my temper far too well. As unwavering as ever, my baleful and now completely merciless gaze seared into Umbra's purple one, brimming with defiance that could never break. I wanted him to know this, that I was unbreakable.

He would know this.

"You disgust me with your uselessness," he hissed. "Any demon would have been better than you - not only are you an impossibility, but an eternal outlier! Demons know two natures: those bound in amoral and unstoppable wrath that knew only to take no matter the taboo upon an action, much like myself. Then there are those forever trapped in unspeakable misery and the pain of both guilt, agony, and a demonhood made more abusive by their own attempts to overflow with such torment and passive attempts to resist the destruction that is our nature. Each have been before and would be far better than you could ever be! For the masterpiece's only creation, you are entirely worthless! I shall savor nothing more than breaking such a waste as you into eternal submission to me!"

I writhed as his filthy aura touched me and levitated me up to look him even closer in the eyes that stared beyond, shivering violently at the touch. Despite this violation that was no doubt minor for him and growls overflowing in my throat, waiting to tear through the air, I bristled with a wrath unlike one I hadn't felt in centuries. My mane rippled with hints of my shadow form; it was always the first part of me to fall 'victim' to me attempting to control any sudden shifts in my physical forms. It almost made me look like an Alicorn.

"What do you mean? An 'outlier'?" My mind swam with possible meanings, but kept turning back to the concept of a statistical outlier. What would I be a statistical outlier for...? He said there were two kinds...

"YES!" he roars. My heart pounds wildly in my chest, both from rage and fear that fills me, feeding my magic and vice versa. Umbra is still a being of immense power, despite being my inferior, it doesn't mean he isn't capable of destruction and magical feats equal to the power he has.

"Everything about you is wrong." Umbra's voice dropped, no longer a roar of indescribable anger, but a deep and guttural growl that mangled his words and made them echo off the walls. "So many more demons should have been spawned within you so the power of all of you combined would be uncontrollable. Every part of your being was supposed to be a fragmented amalgamation - NOT THIS!"

With my will alone, I managed to withstand his shouts and close proximity. Umbra's foul breath was different. Three thousand years trapped in here ensured that the fangs visible with a simple smile, while disgusting in appearance and drenched in his spittle somehow managed to be mostly intact. Being this close to Umbra, I was able to get an unfortunately good look at the rest of his teeth. Most of them were rotten and looked as corrupted as he was. Maybe he had managed to halt some of the course of whatever pestilence and array of disgusting conditions were working their way through him. Nevertheless, his bite would obviously be septic and I didn't like the glimpses of loose-looking fangs protruding like wolf teeth from the remains of his gums, which were indeed rotting while he was still alive.

The memory of my wolf teeth bubbled to the surface of my thoughts, and how awful the experience was of having to remove them myself. I was eighteen, and had it happened a few years earlier, I wouldn't have known what was going on. Luckily, pulling teeth wasn't knowledge I was never unfamiliar with once that crown was forced on my head. However horrible the memory was, it managed to distract me from most of the smell that reminded me so much of the few times I wasn't able to find a crystal pony that Onyx dispatched somewhere in the castle and days passed until I discovered what was left.

"Not what?" I growl. Compared to Umbra's outbursts, the echo of my voice dies quickly and the scraps of the short-lived sound of my unusually even tone was swallowed by the tunnels they spilled into, so that only the cold traces of anger that I put into each word would remain.

"There is only one of you!" Umbra's stare tries to tear through me and his purple irises that have never held any equinity, but there is always shock at my infinite defiance that matches his cruelty that comes in equal measure.

"Care to tell me what that entails?!"

Is that a small shimmer of fear that washes over Umbra's eyes in a thin coat? Yes. 

Using that moment of weakness, I wrench myself from his aura and move myself back to the ground with my telekinesis. Under my hooves, my own magic pulses so it looks as if I am standing in a translucent crimson puddle pooling from below my hooves. This is so I can protect myself from any attempt he might make against me, as well as aid in moving myself if he attempts a less violent offensive move.

The furious red glow of my horn reflects ominously in the pearly hilt of Fate.

"The horror of the sheer amount of individuality you must possess would mean that you and your summoner... could theoretically be separated," his last words, while still spoken with the contempt I'd always been shown for being thought of as lesser and a weapon, were almost whispered in contrast to his previous shouts. Something like fear did mange to work its way onto his face, no matter how awkwardly he showed it, and that was how I knew that his words were true.

And that was when I could manage nothing but a look of pure shock. My ears pricked to hear the sound of something great shattering. Whether it was real or not, I could feel something that was once impossible collapse and my mind manage five broken words, the loudest pauses between them:

Onyx and I... separate beings...

Everything spun. I had to have it; no matter how slim that possibility was, it needed to be mine!

A growl of pure determination echoed through the halls of Niflhel and I fix a stare of unfiltered, twisted fury on Umbra, no restraint to go with anything else he saw in my face. Through my boiling wrath and anger-sharpened senses, I caught a twitch of something vaguely like apprehension at the dark look I was giving him - one I had never given anypony or creature before and was beyond my usual show of savagery.

Then I spat on the ground.

We both knew what it meant.