//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Manifestation 
// Story: Heir to Darkness 
// by Vivid Syntax 
//------------------------------//


Six Years Ago


Sweat rolled off Brimstone's brow. He looked around at the rest of his high school flying team and drank in the cheers from the crowd. The name "Cloudsdale Blue Hawks" flashed onto the scoreboard, and Brimstone smiled as their score followed soon after. They had a 95.4, a respectable score for such a difficult aerial steeplechase. It wasn't quite a record for the regional meet, but it put them comfortably in first place. With only one team left, Brimstone finally allowed himself to picture his team competing at nationals.

Brimstone and his team breathed heavily as they walked to the sidelines to stretch their wings. Brimstone waved to his adoptive parents in the stands, who were literally bouncing in their seats as they waved back. He slapped his teammate, Glitter, with one of his over-sized wings and smirked. "You picked a good time for a personal best, G-Colt."

Glitter blushed, but tried to sit tall on the bench. "Thanks, Beasto."

The rest of the team shared a round of congratulations. Another teammate, Dewdrop, leaned in to Brimstone and said, "You think we've got this?"

Brimstone smirked back at her. "I know we do." He felt a familiar tickle at the back of his mind, and his heart swelled in way that felt menacing yet comfortable. His smile twisted, and he felt a rumble build in his chest.

Dewdrop's smile twitched. "You're… doing it again, Beasto."

Brimstone gasped slightly and shook out his mane. "Oh. Sorry." He blinked hard a few times. "Just excited, I guess."

The team joked and stretched. An adolescent blue dragon passed them cups of water, which they drank deeply. Moments later, the last team lined up at the starting line, and the gun went off, quickly drowned out by a grandstand's worth of cheering ponies. The Blue Hawks leaned forward on the bench, but when one of the fliers clipped the first aerial hurdle, they relaxed back into their seats.

Glitter peeked around Brimstone and chuckled to Dewdrop. "We've got this, DD. You can stop freaking out."

Dewdrop bounced in place and mumbled to herself, "We're going to nationals. We're going to nationals!"

Brimstone nodded. "You've got that right, DD. We're just…" He trailed off when he looked up again. The Las Pegasus High Rollers were doing well. Better than well. Besides the initial slip-up, the team was executing every obstacle flawlessly. Even more than that, they were fast.

Glitter's tone dropped. "They're… really good."

Brimstone's instincts took over. "Hey, no worries, G. They've got nothing on…" He looked back at the High Rollers. True to their name, they nailed the barrel-roll series, and with every flap of their wings, they seemed to gain speed.

Brimstone's mouth hung open. He started rapidly doing calculations in his head, and the more he watched, the more his stomach twisted. The High Rollers would get the full ten points on the rings, probably at least nine and a half on the over-unders, another ten on the cloud tunnel. They were on track to…

Dewdrop stopped bouncing. "No way. No way."

Brimstone's breathing became shallow. He could feel the hope draining from his team members beside him, but he couldn't look away. 'No,' he thought. 'No, not like this. We worked so hard. I cannot have let them down.'

Cold fear spread through his entire body, but soon, he heard a dark thought at the back of his head. 'Look at those monsters.' Brimstone narrowed his eyes. 'They're trying to take it away from us. Don't they know how hard we worked? My team will be crushed if they lose now, and Glitter even got a personal best!'

The longer he watched, the louder the voice became, and Brimstone found he couldn't tear his eyes away from the rival team's captain. 'Their captain thinks he's better than me. He is not. He is a weakling.' His icy fear turned to a warm annoyance, then bubbling anger, and then a hot, seething rage. 'He needs to be put into place. My teammates deserve glory. We have earned our spot.' The High Rollers were on the final obstacle. Brimstone snarled. 'And these ponies are so much less than us.'

Brimstone shouted, "No!"

It happened in the blink of an eye. Brimstone grit his teeth, and something surged to life deep inside him. A small, black spot appeared on the High Roller's captain's wing. He faltered, and the crowd gasped. The spot grew, forming a small, black crystal on the joint of the pony's wing, and he dropped like a stone in front of the screaming crowd.

Voices beside Brimstone shouted wordlessly. All he could hear were two ideas that echoed in his mind: a feeling of mournful grief, and a satisfied glee that this pony was about to pay for his hubris. Together, these feelings excited him, grew inside him and made him feel satisfied in a way he'd never known. He found himself huffing and growling as the crystal grew, and as the safety techs moved in to catch the falling captain, Brimstone thought, 'They deign to help a failure? The fools! No matter. Three birds with one–"

A splash of cold water ripped him back to reality. Brimstone gasped and whipped his head to see the dragon standing there with a bucket of water. Brimstone wanted to bark at him, but the rhythmic movements of the sapphire in the dragon's tail calmed him, almost hypnotically.

The dragon frowned and spoke with a Trottish accent. "Yer… Yer face looked like it was aflame, lad. Smoke 'n everything."

Brimstone didn't breathe. As his senses returned to him, he quickly looked around and saw the techs narrowly catch the falling captain. As the weight of what he'd tried to do settled onto him, he felt repulsed, like he needed to claw his way out of his own skin, and he felt very, very small.