//------------------------------// // (Past Chapter 14): I Hate You // Story: The Unique Properties of Dark Magic // by Shadestyle //------------------------------// Eclipse screams at the holographic feed from the Heavy Lobster, while Priss and several others just silently tear up. He just fell in. She turns to the center of the gigantic, auditorium-like room, where, just a few floors above, Lord Weiss Noir was thrown into the Black Flames that she can see blazing upwards from the bottom of the pit. No one could survive that. Huh. I survived that. Good thing there was a gigantic barge filled with garbage to cushion my fall. ...It would have been better if all the garbage from the Shadow Realm wasn't made up of rocks and broken glass, though. I drag myself to my feet, staring up at the Black Flame Furnace's blaze. I guess I must have fallen down a few floors. Better not fall too much further down, or I'll end up in the Fast Travel room. I can't feel my left leg at all, so that's probably broken. I'm also not reacting very strongly to what should probably be a frankly unreasonable amount of pain, so I'm probably going into shock right now. And here comes Sombra, burrowing through the ground like a damn mole. Guess he couldn't take the express elevator down like me, what with it being full of pure destructive hatred. He's saying something, but I can't really hear him that well. "I'm gonna be honest, Somber, I'm pertty sure I'm about to blag out. So if we could get on with the fighting?" I slur dizzily. "Trick Room." I state, as Sombra just frowns. My horn ignites, the space between the garbage we're standing on firms up as I expend raw, unaltered Stoppered Time on it. No point losing this fight because I tripped over something. I smile behind my helmet. "Now, I believe we left off at..." Sombra's horn flares as he tries to blast me, but the time warping effects of my Trick Room come into play, allowing me to easily stumble out of the way when it freezes any magical energy moving faster than a set speed. "Wave Motion Gun!" From my armor, crystals rapidly sprout at insane speed, forming a gigantic structure in front of me, a barrel. Inside that barrel, Royal Ice grows so quickly that it doesn't even have time to turn to steam from the pressure increasing exponentially. Though it looks like someone strapped a gigantic water bottle to my chest, it's ridiculous appearance is offset by it's much less amusing destructive capabilities. I smile even wider at Sombra's befuddled expression. "Fire!" With that, the Wave Motion Gun unleashes a beam of water as wide as my torso, like a Pokemon Brand Riot Hose. The mixture of steam, water and razor sharp lonsdaleite powder rips through Sombra's magic shell, and in turn, his body, pushing him back closer and closer to the Black Flame Furnace's raw destructive fire in a blend of steam and writhing smoke. The stream of water and diamond fragments actually splits off of him in a few places from the sheer force, causing spurts of the beam to splash over the walls and floor, instantly ripping thick gouges in the solid stone and garbage from sheer water pressure. Come on, just a little bit more, you freak. There's no blocking this one. Just a few more inches and this all ends. His spells can't travel rapidly, and Unicorn Light will fail outright, with the Stoppered Time in the air freezing any magical energy that moves too quickly through it, while allowing my stream of water to punch right into him. I scowl when black crystals begin to rush back up my Wave Motion Gun's beam like vines in stop motion, forcing me to break the gun off of my armor so I can dodge the creeping curse with a small pulse of Prestidigitonium. I swear I feel my legs bend slightly when I hit the ground, but ignore that for now as Sombra reforms. By now, I'm able to hear him again, the haze in my head dispersing with time. "You know, I was being sarcastic about killing you, but I really do think you're winning me over," he says, walking away from the Furnace and towards me. I smirk at him, but it's a fake smirk. I'm running out of Vances that can handle him. I could try the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, but that clearly didn't work last time, and my Trick Room would just slow it down enough for him to hit it with another Crystal Curse. "Oh, was it just how cute I am, or my winning personality?" I snark back, stumbling onto my ass when I accidentally try to put weight on my broken leg. Sombra shrugs. "Six of one, half-dozen of the other." "Flare Sword!" I shout, firing a beam of fire at him. Unfortunately, it seems F-Rank magic isn't going to do the job, as the beam deflects off of his magical shell harmlessly. Sombra's smile returns. "Oh thank goodness. You're running out of steam," He mocks, sighing with quirked eyebrows. Suddenly, I feel his telekinesis trying to break the armor around my neck as he pins me to the ground. "Now, I'm a bit rusty at murder, so pardon me if it takes a few tries." I run through my spell list trying to think of something I can do to get him to back off, but before either of us can get to work debating my mortality, the black flames behind Sombra part as the Heavy Lobster's hellfire engines send it flying towards us, claws outstretched. How the hell did he get that thing in here?! Iron Diamond isn't even slightly nervous, as he backs up to the end of the hallway. If the Heavy Lobster won't fit, then he'll make it fit. To be honest, he's not that big a fan of this machine. Ponies were meant to get tactile feedback from pony bodies, not giant metal crabs in a virtual dreamscape. Ignoring that for now, Iron Diamond flexes hatches on the wings of the Heavy Lobster, opening up it's hellfire reactors to full bore, while the feet release thick skis to protect them from skidding. "Let's ride or die." Iron Diamond quotes, as he rockets towards the narrow entrance and smashes through it, flying through the Black Flames and directly into Sombra and Weiss. "Get the hay off of Weiss Noir!" Iron Diamond shouts through the Heavy Lobster's speakers as a claw opens up with a wave of flames, forcing the evil king off of Weiss. Picking up Weiss softly with the other claw, Iron Diamond places them behind the Heavy Lobster, out of danger, before turning to Sombra, who is becoming increasingly angry. "And now we're doing this. Delightful," Sombra groans, his horn igniting with the power of the Crystal Curse. Suddenly, the Heavy Lobster's face opens up, revealing a white glowing crystal with a Hexagonal shape and another crystal floating in front of it. A magical speaker made of enchanted sapphires. "Sonic Destroyer!" Iron Diamond shouts, causing a deep throb of pure bass rips through the space between Sombra and Iron Diamond, blasting the evil king back and disrupting his concentration. Sombra growls at this, although his shield managed to hold off the worst of the damage, being yelled at by a crab is entirely too painful for his liking. He unleashes a wave of black crystals that infest the land around him, crawling towards the Heavy Lobster. Unfortunately for Sombra, another rippling wall of noise crashes into the black crystals as a result of Iron Diamond activating the Sonic Destroyer again, making them vibrate and explode on the spot, spraying Sombra with fragments of the black glassy material. Returning to his normal form after the glass has all finished falling, Sombra's snarl grows in fury. "What a clever toy. I'll enjoy scraping out it's insides." Waves of purple lightning and green fire rip free from Sombra's horn, crashing into the Heavy Lobster and smelting off small parts of it's armor before it's rockets ignite and send it sliding around the garbage pile, arcing towards Sombra with it's claws outstretched to block the magical attacks. Nearly a ton of Orichalcum and Adamantium smash into Sombra when the Lobster punches him with it's rocket powered tackle, sending the Dark King flying into a wall, before, with a roar of anger, a rippling black field appears around Sombra, growing in size before he fires it at the Lobster. Unable to dodge the attack in time with it's thrusters still recharging, the ball of blackness explodes on impact, sending the Heavy Lobster flipping end over end into a pile of rubble, where it slowly and painfully groans back into a standing position, one of it's wings broken off, and one of it's claws half-melted. Damn it, this is the price of me not being ready. I can see now that the Heavy Lobster might have stood a chance, if I was the one piloting it, but Iron Diamond is barely even beginning to tap into it's features. His method of charging Sombra head on and swinging those claws around like maces just isn't going to work... I need to help, somehow, but... Yup, leg's still broken. Fuck me. Suddenly, an idea hits me. It's incredibly risky, but it might just work. I shakily pull out a granule of sugar from my utility crown, before growing it into a larger chunk of Royal Sugar. I should be within range... I swallow the sleeping drug, and- "Weiss? How did you get in here?" Iron Diamond says, trying to get the Heavy Lobster to pull itself up from within his holographic dreamscape harness. "Not important, but just for future reference, I need to fix a security leak in the Moon Crystals later," I answer, shoving him out of the virtual pilot's seat. "Keep a camera on my body, Iron, I'm kind of busy napping right now," I finish, assuming direct control over the Heavy Lobster. "Activate Combat Mode." Sombra stares at the metal crab. It seems like it's caught it's second wind somehow, if it's unfolding armor is anything to go by. "You know what they say, Sombra. If you want something done right..." Weiss's voice comes out of the monster, making Sombra turn to look over where he last saw the whelp. He's still there, passed out on the ground, so how..? "You do it yourself," Weiss finishes, as the Heavy Lobster unleashes a swarm of Crystal Shrimp. Sombra, recognizing the shrimp, explodes with anger, firing waves of magic at them, trying to destroy as many as he can before- Sombra explodes into smoke as one of the shrimp crashes into his head. Dodging is not something Sombra enjoys doing. At all. Weaving between the shrimp, blasting them when he briefly reforms, and flying away from the Heavy Lobster itself using his shadow form are all slowly beginning to drain Sombra's magical power. Something he is fully aware of, like the first hints of lactic acid appearing during a strenuous workout. "Hey Sombra, are you familiar with the concept of air pressure?" Weiss shouts, as the Crab's back opens, revealing a set of yellow crystal pylons. 'Oh what nonsense is this now?' Sombra scowls, obliterating a swath of the shrimp with a twisting barrier of gem blades from within his shadow form. Suddenly, his chest feels tight as the smoke composing his body is crushed together like a toddler mushing a ball of playdough into a ball, just in time for a Crystal Shrimp to bleep red and explode in his face without him being able to reduce his body's density to avoid it. Sombra crashes to the ground, bleeding from a long gash on his face as the Shrimp hover in the air around the Heavy Lobster. The pair stand off, Sombra, having taken the first injury he's felt in years, and Weiss, having delivered it. Sombra's eyes begin to bleed green smoke, drawing on his arrays in the Crystal Empire to recover his expended magical energy, the raw potency of stolen fear bloating his spirit with arcane might. "I believe I'm done. "This game ends now." Weiss's chuckles ring out from the Heavy Lobster. "I couldn't agree more." Sombra chuckles as well, before shouting to the heavens. "Submit!" As waves and waves of black crystal sweep over the garbage pit, the Heavy Lobster's sonic cannon prepares to disrupt it once again, before a lance of magic spears through it, cracking the speakers. "Not this time!" Sombra shouts, galloping towards the machine, his black crystals growing up from the ground to snatch the Crystal Shrimp before they can hit him or explode. A missile from the Heavy Lobster's remaining wing surprises him, but he ignores it, instead firing two more beams of magic at the Heavy Lobster's Topaz Pylons when they emerge to restrict his shadow form. This allows him to simply slip past the heavy ordinance, sliding around it without detonating the impressive-looking warhead. With an almighty roar, Sombra fires a gigantic Crystal Spear that pierces through the Crab, narrowly missing Iron Diamond's vitals, but obliterating the machine's. The feed from it's holographic camera eyes shut down entirely, along with it's radio output. Sombra looks over to Weiss, who had jolted awake when the attack happened, and, with a fanged grin, begins the slow walk towards him to end this. "So tell me, then. Weiss Noir. Give me your last words. Give me something good, too. I want to see what you'll say to try and convince me not to kill you. "Will you offer your service to me? Your undying loyalty? "Or maybe you'll offer me your wealth, that I'll be sure to claim postmortem anyway. "Heh heh heh. Maybe if I'm really lucky, you'll just start begging." Sombra finally reaches Weiss, who has managed to stand up by this point, his blank visor staring into Sombra's mad eyes. "Oh that's an easy one. You're not going to kill me, because I'm green. "I'm a novice, an amateur. And if you kill me now, I'll be a martyr. The ponies you reclaim today will fight that much harder, because you had to put me down before I reached my peak. Because there exist ponies who can threaten you if you don't stop them before it's too late. "But if you left now... If you kill me after I've grown to be your peer... The ponies will be thrown into the depths of despair. The Princesses of Light have failed them. The Sage of Darkness has failed them. There would be no more hope, and they would finally fall in line. "If you don't let me live, you'll never get the chance to prove once and for all that you can't be beaten, even by a master of the dark arts," Weiss says, smugly. About halfway between the two, Sombra notices something on the ground. A large chunk of metal, grey, but glittering. Sombra ponders this for a moment. Then, a few more moments. He smiles widely, and slowly nods, a thought popping into his head, almost as if by instinct. "You know... The funny thing is, I know you're playing me... His fanged grin turns knowing. "But you're right." Behind my mask, I stare in shock. What did he just say? "Not about that, no. But about you," Sombra says, lifting up the piece of grey metal in his telekinetic grasp, admiring it fondly. "You see, you're under the impression that I refuse to accept the idea of someone being a threat to me. You've gotten this idea in your head that my arrogance is supreme." How did he make a reference to that show? The phrasing was too exact, too exact! Sombra turns the head-sized chunk of metal over, examining it for any imperfections. "But you're right. You see, I'm aware that you could become a threat to me, one day. That's exactly why I'm going to kill you." Right after I nearly quoted the show line-for-line about me being a novice. Is he in my fucking head? Sombra tsks, shaking his head, but I'm frozen still in shock. "You know, I'm disappointed. I'm assuming all of this below our feet is garbage, yes? Refuse?" I take a step back, but a pulse from his horn binds my feet in an almost playful spurt of black crystals from the ground. Sombra begins firing little pulses of magic at me, tiny instances of his crystal curse that make my armor fly off to reject it touching me, triggering my NulAll's automatic armor ejection function, designed specifically to counter curses. "But this right here is a piece of genuine, pure Migrant Iron. It's so useful for torture, so I don't know why a self-professed master of the dark arts would just be throwing it away." I struggle, but it's no use. "It's like dropping a stone into a pond. When a piece of Migrant Iron touches a pony's body, it just sinks right in, harmlessly. "And just like a cork in a pond, it floats around to the pony's whims. "But the moment they fall asleep, the metal does what it does best. It sinks down towards their chest, without a conscious mind to hold it in place." I unleash a wave of Killing Intent, to try and distract him, but when he feels it, he just laughs, as though he learned something from it. My struggling halts in an instant when he presses the boulder of metal into me, and I can barely feel anything other than the heavy weight on my ribcage. "And stops their heart," He finishes, before firing a blast of magic through my shoulder, making my bleeding intensify, and my vision dim. I hiss, before looking him straight in the eye. "If you think I'm going to give up hope, you're wrong. "Because I've got my friends behind me. "I told everyone that if I ever fought you, to call the princesses and tell them to come here. By now, they're probably less than five minutes away," I struggle to say through the pain. "And with that power, my ponies will go free." Sombra just pats me on the cheek, like some kind of child. "Try not to let that blood loss make you pass out, my little Pale Shadow. I'm going to go downstairs and give everypony the good news. It'll take me less than a minute to spirit them all away, I imagine." With that said, he sinks into the floor. I try to use magic to stem the flow of blood, and willpower to stay awake. This is the sort of thing Sombra lives for, it really is. Looking down at all their fearful faces, a crowd of ponies, staring at their master with stark horror in their faces. He's probably got time for a speech, considering that he's already won. He lands on the floor, walking up to the fearful crowd of ponies. "Your hope has died. Weiss Noir, a pony who aspired to be my defiant equal, but fell short. A pale shadow of what real power looks like," Sombra starts, looking at a filly in the crowd who has a defiant look on her face. He smiles, trotting up to her with a swagger in his step. "You have the same look he did, little one. He wanted so badly to hate me. He tried to harness that anger to hurt me. "He failed for two simple reasons. Firstly, he tried to harness hatred, something even I can't do." Sombra admits, surprised at his former foe's unnatural resistance to the flames. He shakes his head. "But more importantly, he didn't hate me enough. "If I had to guess, he joined your little cause out of pity." Sombra gives off a smug air of superiority at the word "Pity". "I've certainly never met the unicorn myself, so he couldn't have had that personal encounter that sets a pony's soul on fire seeking revenge." Sombra says, looking up ponderously as he considers the facts idly, while casting a spell to wrap all of the ponies in a teleporting curse to drag them back into the Crystal Empire with him when he's done. Magical chains sweep through the hall, linking them all together as a physical manifestation of his teleporting curse. "My point is, if your so called 'Sage of Darkness' couldn't do the job, then you certainly can't, little foal. So why don't you just cower with the rest of your disgusting worm-kind," Sombra says, glaring at her as he uses his magic to try and inspire mind-shattering terror in the child. He's a bit shocked to find that it doesn't work. Priss's eyes narrow, even as tears stream down her face. "I hate you." "You took away my best friend!" She screams, spittle flying into Sombra's shocked face. Another filly steps forward, a firm set to her expression. "You took away my teacher!" Eclipse flash shouts, glaring daggers at Sombra. He looks over the crowd, whose expressions of fear are turning violently angry. "I hate you! You took away my wife! Get away from my children, I won't let you take them too!" A stallion shouts, holding his foals tight. Guard Captain Helmsplitter steps forward. "I hate you! You took away my daughter! I'll fight you until the end!" Dr. Absolutely Real Homeopathy steps forward. "You made a mockery of my life's work! You think just because you didn't slaughter ponies in the streets that they weren't dying?! "Your crystal mine outputs corpses every single day! An endless procession of the dead and dying, because of you! I hate you for making me face ponies whose lives I can't save!" Whittle Miss Priss throws a rock at Sombra, which he ignores as it passes through him. What he can't ignore is the lash of black fire strikes him in the back immediately after that, blasting away a chunk of his shadowy body. He turns to look at the Black Flame Furnace, which is roaring, louder and louder. "I had twenty sisters before your dumb-shard regime came along, now thirteen of them are slaving away in your marble-bucking mine, and I want them back, do you understand?!" "I hate you more than anything else in the world!" She roars, tears streaming down her face. Sombra backs away from the furnace, sweat dripping down his face as he stares at the yawning black fires lashing out from it, swelling up with every single instant. The crowd of ponies by now are all shouting, screaming and shouting with decades of buried feelings being unleashed in one single moment. "Get out of our home!" "I hate you!" "Go away!" "I hate you!" "Don't you dare touch them!" "I hate you!" "I hate you!" "I hate you!" Sombra turns back to see Eclipse Flash standing right behind him, her body glowing with a black halo. Priss is right there next to her, not glowing, but instead recalling something Weiss explained to her a long time ago. With nothing but a lovely pair of words from Priss, her and Eclipse Flash's souls are laid bare to the dark ruler. "Fuck. Off." Almost as an afterthought, Eclipse adds; "And by the way, I hate you too." And with that, the Black Fire Furnace explodes, a tidal wave of endless hungry fire roaring through every tunnel, every room and every corner of the Hidden Palace Zone, scouring every surface clean in an instant as Sombra is thrown through the tunnels and forced to cast his teleportation magic to escape total annihilation. His slaves, all of them scoured clean of his magic by the eruption, were left exactly where they were standing. As he appears in his throne room, body nearly burned away entirely, he stares out the window at the landscape of the Frozen North. Furious. In pain. Confused. Shadows drip onto the floor mixed with blood, an inky black color that perfectly reflects what he sees in the distant frozen north. The land itself is on fire, an endless conflagration of void surrounding the Shadow Realm's borders. His confused, pained expression leaves no room for him comprehending how Weiss Noir could have done this, how any one pony could have prepared a spell of hatred so potent that it could force Sombra himself to flee. What kind of madpony would make a contingency spell that kills everything nearby? Because surely the baying of those worms alone couldn't have done that..? He stalks into the hidden chamber below the throne room, if he doesn't, he suspects he might very well die from his injuries. The chamber opens to reveal the sounds of terrified screams, and a fog of green. Sombra's body seems to almost disappear as he stumbles into the ocean of fear-powered magic, his body already beginning the slow process of regenerating as he walks deeper into the haze. If it's the last thing Sombra does, he will make The Sage of Darkness pay for these wounds. The doors slam shut, and the throne room goes silent. Iron Diamond finally pulls himself free of the Heavy Lobster's wreckage, and stumbles over to Weiss, three steps at a time. A wave of Black Flames washes over them both, wiping away the garbage and black gems alike, and dropping them gently to the ground in the process. He manages to catch Weiss before he falls to the ground, when the black crystals holding him up are erased by the flames as well. His radio headset crackles with a report. One Weiss presumably hears as well. "Scenario fifty-one. Storm's been repelled." Weiss smirks groggily. "Come on you crazy bastard, let's get us some life-saving doctors, and a couple of cute nurses," Weiss mumbles when Iron pulls him onto his back, and stumbles down the stairs to the Fast Travel station. Priss's lip wobbles, before she finally falls to her knees after the furnace's explosion, sobbing. Eclipse and her parents are at her side within moments, attempting to comfort the filly. Suddenly, she hears a voice that is unmistakable. "The reports of my death... Are greatly exaggerated!" Weiss shouts. "..I've always wanted to say that." He chuckles weakly, as cheers erupt, and several ponies run up to their ruler outright. "So I can black out, now, yeah?" He says to the throngs of relieved faces, before doing just that. "Weiss... You need to wake up. Please." Luna says. So I do. Luna's always been a trustworthy authority on sleep, after all. I open my eyes to the sight of the two rulers of Equestria doing some sort of funky magic to my chest. Oh right, I was dying of heavy metal "poisoning". With a flex of my intentions, the metal chunk rises up out of my chest, and settles there, not moving any further. Luna looks mournful, while Celestia's eyes spray out fat unrestrained tears as they cut the power to their horns, and the glow around the metal ball disappears. Doctor... Dr. Real walks up to me. "I'm sorry Weiss. The princesses were able to keep the Migrant Iron out of you for now, but I'm not sure if there's anything we can do beyond that. "We've only delayed the inevitable." I raise an eyebrow at my doctor, prompting him to continue. "The only way to remove Migrant Iron is by passing it on to the living flesh of another sapient being, but that's... Not suitable," he explains, glancing towards the princesses. "And it can't be completely removed from any body that it touches otherwise, we can cut parts of it out, but only up to a certain point. "The solution that we normally use is..." He gestures in a chopping motion, making Princess Celestia bawl unabashedly. I take a deep breath, before laughing. God, whatever healing magic they've got me on is the good stuff. "So tell me something right quick," I ask, as I shift the chunk of Migrant Iron around, until the boulder is in the middle of my leg, parting both halves of it with nothing but the metal between them. "Why can I still feel the rest of my leg, even though there's Migrant Iron between the two halves of it?" He looks confused at this. "Because it's magically transmitting the signals and energy across, sir?" The princesses look confused as well. I laugh, sitting up. "Dr. Real, you're an idiot, I'd like that on record." Moving the boulder of metal onto my back, I stand up out of bed, the two princesses backing away from me. "Please take me to the Biomagitek lab, Dr. Real, this metal's curse has entirely too many loopholes for me to take it seriously. "Princesses, thank you dearly for preserving my life, but I'll take it from here. Princess Luna, I'll be sure to send you a report tonight." I say confidently and dismissively. Luna responds, cautious hope clearly in her tone. "You believe you can remove that cursed metal somehow?" I smile greedily. "Now why would I want to do something like that?" I'll just have to move up the timetable on project Asura.