//------------------------------// // (Past Chapter 27): Proxy War: Part 1 // Story: The Unique Properties of Dark Magic // by Shadestyle //------------------------------// Eclipse Flash's hooves shake as she reads the latest newsletter. "So it's really going to happen today..." she whispers. Glitter Miss Priss looks over curiously. "What's happening? What'cha got there?" Eclipse swallows. "Weiss and the others will be attacking the Crystal Empire. They probably already are." Priss's eyes widen. "I know Cool Spot was staying home today, do you think he..?" "It makes sense. He's got the Ixion. They'll probably want him to join the fight, so he can use its power," Eclipse responds, her eyes scanning over the document. "Are they going to be alright?" Priss asks, dreading the answer. Eclipse nods. "They're only using remote-control drones for the fight. No point risking anyone's lives." Priss kicks the floor. "I feel so useless. Why didn't they tell us, then? Wouldn't Weiss know that we want to help?" Eclipse shrugs. "That's probably why we weren't told. Cool Spot is a lot older than he looks, and we don't have any training. If we were piloting one of the golems, it would get destroyed too quickly." Priss grimaces. "Don't we, though? We've been living here, just like everyone else. Getting stronger, learning more. Isn't that what we've been doing? What you've been doing? "How much do we need to learn before we can do something that matters?" she questions, sighing heavily. It takes Eclipse Flash several moments to decide on a response. "Maybe there's something we can do to help. If not this time, then the next time. With everything we know, couldn't we help just as much as anyone else, with preparations?" she poses. "Padparadscha has been learning some of Lord Weiss's secret tricks, and I've been studying under him as well. Between the two of us, we could do just about anything Weiss can, so long as it doesn't require a unicorn." Priss stares, uncomprehending. "What are you suggesting, Eclipse?" Eclipse brings up a holographic screen, flicking through it with determination. "If Weiss can revolutionize magic every time he touches it, why can't we? The Arcana Nox just got a massive load of transcribed Earth Pony spellbooks. Old magic, from an almost forgotten era. I'm suggesting we start from the beginning. We'll learn everything they have to offer, but we'll push them to their limits as well. "Any one among these hundreds of spells could hold the secret to helping the Shadow Realm. Any one of them could hold some sort of new discovery to be made." Priss looks unsure. "Do you really think magic that old has anything worthwhile left to it? Surely, the older a spell is, the more it's been researched?" Eclipse shakes her head. "Some of these spells were written during a time before ponies even understood magic as we know it. We can't know until we've exhausted each spell's possibilities. Until we've tested everything they have to offer. "We can decide whether or not we're ready to help our friends after we've done that." I stare dispassionately at the gigantic obsidian ponies that Sombra has constructed overnight, their green eyes glaring out in all directions from beneath their helmets as they loom over the buildings themselves in the Crystal Empire. "Sister Ray, fire at will," I state, pointing a single purple finger towards the Crystal Empire. In less than a minute, the black ray of hatred produced by one of our warships splashes over the gigantic obsidian device, scouring away the surface, but refusing to burrow deeper as it is intended to. The golems turn to face our warships, slowly thudding their way towards us. I hum. "The golems have hostages inside of them, launch the Arwing drones, lure them to Killsite Gamma," I state, hopping down from the battleship and exploding into smoke as I crash into the stone below. My darkened form rushes towards the empire, directly towards Sombra's fear array. I'll be gathering those ones myself. As I do so, several other ships emerge from the snow around me, submarines equipped with potent timeshift crystals that make it appear as though they were plowing through snow instead of seawater. Sombra's golems hum ominously, firing bright green beams that turn the landscape into black crystal, which, unfortunately for Sombra, doesn't hinder my ships in the slightest as their timeshift technology reverts it to seawater just like everything else. One of the Arwings drops its first bomb. A gigantic coiled mass of portals as large as the ship itself flies forwards, crashing into the head of one of the gigantic golems, and instantly doing what it was made to do. Teleport the golem into the Kingdom Heart, where it is instantly erased by the hateful flames, kindling them to even greater heights of power. The ponies inside, excluded from the Portal Bomb's effect, are instead left floating unconscious in the air from antigravity enchantments woven into the explosive. Arwings immediately begin swooping by, snatching them one by one. One of the golems turns red, firing a spray of its own golem fliers, spraying thick plumes of black glitter behind them as the rocky fragments attempt to chase down the Arwings and retrieve the slaves. It's around this stage that one Arwing drops a device that unfolds into a gigantic flying portal, from which hordes of remote-controlled Pokemon begin to emerge, lacking Windigo inside of them physically, but still controlled and powered using portals embedded in their body for communication and power supply. The first one at the lead, a Moltres-Model, emits a vast firestorm that seeks out Sombra's flying drones, instantly reducing them to slag, and then nothingness. I briefly reform to give commands. "Remember, the Golems contain ponies. Use Hatefire to disable, use portal bombs to destroy," I hiss insistently before stabbing myself to return to my incorporeal smoke form. My form rushes into the palace, past the guards, and down the halls, sliding around the new golem guards that Sombra had packed every single hall with. As I pass through them, black flames infused into my form melt them into slag, leaving a trail of my hatred and his destroyed toys in my wake. Cool Spot leaps out of the portal, seeing an endless sea of black spiders flooding from the Crystal Empire. Bracing himself, he charges alongside the others, his horn crackling with lightning. "Aerospark!" he shouts, flicking his head towards the horde and flinging blades of wind towards them, crashing into the mass and reducing at least a hundred of them to chunks. Several other Windigo follow suit, unleashing wave after wave of elemental might as they push their Pokemon to the limit. His horn serves as a suitable instrument to bash apart several of the black glass spiders that get too close to him, and one particularly brave one is crushed into powder underneath the hoof of the mighty Ixion. When one of the spiders leaps at him, exploding into dark magic, the crystals that spread from it threaten to overtake the Ixion, crackling up his legs. His eyes narrow, and his horn snaps and pops with power as he flings his head to the skies. "Thor's..!" "Hammer!" A blast of lightning rips across the landscape, energy cells depleting as Cool Spot unleashes his kamikaze attack. Each branch of the lightning leaps around his friends and family, striking one of the spiders and shattering it to pieces. A gem beeps in his chest as it detects Sombra's curse, causing his body to erupt into black flames that destroy it entirely. Cool Spot wakes up in his room, hoping against hope that he was able to help out enough for the others to win. Iron Diamond may not enjoy fighting indirectly like this, but he can't argue with results. His remote-controlled golem armor allows him to easily leap up into the air, where several hellfire jets embedded in his limbs flip him over and give him the opportunity to send a violent kick that instantly sends a gigantic wave of splinters running down the gigantic obsidian wall in front of him. Several of the Golem's green eye lights instantly dim as power is cut to them by his kick. Before one of the other enemy golems can capitalize on this, his golem armor explodes into fragments, dodging around the green beams and reforming in front of another one of the obsidian giants, where he delivers another picture-perfect crystal-smashing buck into it, turning its head into a crater. 'This armor might be effective, but the real reason why this strategy is so effective couldn't be clearer,' Iron thinks to himself, flipping backwards as his hooves magnetize to a passing Arwing, which ferries him to another golem. 'It's because we thought things through. We considered what our enemy had at their disposal, and ensured that only the possibility of our victory remains." The Golem Armor is blown apart by a blast of green light, fragments of his modular armor exploding before Sombra's curse can take hold of it. The remaining shards scatter, using a spread of portals to draw in replacements. In moments, Iron Diamond's armor is restored, complete with a newfound shield that intelligently begins blocking the beams, acting as ablative armor to absorb the curses before they can reach the main mass of his drone. He lands on the ground heavily, galloping towards the grounded obsidian spiders. Crystal hoof meets crystal chitin, and the winner is decided in an instant as Iron Diamond smashes the spider to pieces, moving on to the rest. Galloping towards a Pokemon being overwhelmed, he wonders why the small yellow dog-rat was even included in the list of Pokemon to be sent to this battle. When the rat wiggles free long enough to unleash a sheer pillar of lightning in a straight line through the army, he stops wondering. He climbs atop a pile of rubble, speakers bellowing to the world around him. "Sombra believes he sends a tide after us, but now, he will see a true tide! He will see our tide!" A spider leaps at him, only for him to spin and kick it away, the spider exploding in the center of a mass, coating them all in black crystal. Leaping to the pile, his hooves thunder down onto it, breaking the spiders apart before they can unweld themselves from the mass. He spots another one of the Pokemon on the ground having trouble, but it seems to be too late for them. Before the Ixion-model Pokemon is destroyed, it's user bellows out a shout of their own, before calling down a titanic bolt of lightning that rips through a wide swathe of Sombra's ground forces before their body self-destructs. 'I should give that guy a medal,' Iron smirks, before turning and leaping back into the fray. His radio activates, and he receives a useful report. "The heads of the big ones don't have any ponies in them, the Sister Ray can decapitate them. We're marking targets now, so stay clear!" the pony on the other end belts out, as the world grows quiet in anticipation for another blast from the ship-spanning cannon. In the space between instants, a lance of black rips through one of the Golems, reducing it to a headless statue unable to defend itself from the rescue teams aiming portal bombs at it. Iron Diamond flips a mental switch, allowing a portal to open inside of his armor, flooding it with the Essencia needed to add his own destructive capabilities to the ones being used to turn Sombra's creations into glitter. With a flex of the armor's enchanted limbs, it leaps high above the battlefield, holographic indicators marking the radius of the attack. "A bit larger than I thought it would be," Iron hums to himself, aiming for a spot where the spiders are densest. A sphere of energy forms around the armor as he slowly flies down, picking up speed like an unholy meteor. And, as if the attack could be named anything else, Iron shouts it aloud as the armor's red field of kinetic energy reaches its highest peak, moments before impact. "Meteor!" A rippling wave of force explodes from his armor, traveling at incredible speeds before halting in an instant, a sphere of red and destruction swirling slowly in the middle of the battlefield. It fades away, revealing a sphere of empty space, and a single drone shard that begins summoning more of its brethren to restore it. 'Without ponies to control his golems, Sombra is relying on his power to make up for the difference in their intelligence,' Iron Diamond realizes belatedly, as his armor clanks to the ground, reformed. "But now that's not good enough." Sombra grins faintly as he sits on his throne. What a hilarious sight. Like watching the ants of two hives squirming on the ground below, while he himself sits above it all. It's almost impressive, watching them fend off the golems he had casually created. Indeed, if they are struggling this much against his creations now, it's only a matter of time before he can craft even grander ones. "This sight alone truly demonstrates what it means to be above all others. To know what they can barely comprehend, to do what they can barely struggle against. How much sweeter will their desperation be, when in a day, I'll have replaced my losses, and within a year, they've only managed this much." He laughs in spite of them pushing back the army. How could he not? The sight alone proves to him that he will win the war, without a doubt. "You've really opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities, Lord Weiss Noir, Sage of Darkness," King Sombra says, chuckling as the doors open. Weiss walks forward, arms held tightly behind his back. "I've come for the ponies, Sombra. You can't stop me." Sombra silently heaves with laughter, standing up from his throne. "Go ahead! Take them. I don't require garbage in my empire. They've become obsolete. Outmoded. Taking up space. "Worthless." Weiss doesn't cease his approach. "I've come for the ponies in the secret chamber." This prompts a negative reaction from Sombra. "Ahh, I see. Well, that's not going to work. I have need of them. All kings must manage their resources, Sage. You of all ponies know that. Why, if I let you take those ponies, then it would be an inconvenience." He tuts, shaking his head. "I don't like inconveniences." His horn unleashes a blast of green energy, which phases through Weiss's body, smashing into the ground behind him and triggers a vast growth of black crystal. A flicker of light dispels the illusion that had made Weiss appear several meters away from where he was. "You can't stop me from taking those ponies home. If you run, you'll prolong your life," Weiss states, one of his arms reaching out and snapping its fingers, creating a swirling disk of purple flames. "Dragon Magic? How queer," Sombra claims incredulously, preparing a stronger spell. "But I've defeated dragons, Sage." Weiss offers an odd response of his own, holding his hand up to the disk of purple fire. "Me too." Sombra's confused expression is blasted away as the swirling blaze opens to reveal a portal, out of which floods enough black flames to turn the throne room into red and melting glass. Sombra reforms with a snarl as I begin sliding down the crater and into the stairwell. "X-Zone," I say, snapping my fingers at the tyrant as I continue down the stairs. His violent scowl disappears from sight as he is wrapped up in the bubble of warped space. Sensing his impotent struggles, I make my way down to where the Fear Array is being maintained. I try to keep myself under control when I see them all. Like some unholy cross between The Matrix and Dante's Inferno. My daemon informs me of an incoming attack, and I avoid it by activating the suicide device implanted in my Shadow Clone, my body erupting into smoke before reforming in an instant. "Aero," I state, swiping my palm down and increasing the air pressure in the room by several orders of magnitude as my body turns black with graphene reinforcements weaving through my blood vessels to keep them from rupturing. Sombra collapses to his knees, a visage of pure rage on his face as his smoky form is compressed long enough for me to unleash a vicious overhand punch that sends him flying down the stairwell like a comet made of dense smoke. I snap my fingers to create a portal that blocks the entirety of the stairwell below me, the edges of the portal digging into the stone walls and stairs to make it seamless. The low rumble of a small earthquake heralds Sombra using his magic to try and flood the room with crystals The portal ensures that they instead grow up and out into the middle of nowhere. "I don't have time to play with you," I state, using my force daemon to increase the volume of my voice loud enough for him to hear me. I step into the array, feeling the fear that has grown so thick in this room that one could cut it with a knife. It will take him a few moments to destroy the crystals he grew, so I'll use that time. Walking by each pony, I use an enchanted metal wand I brought with me to portal them away one by one, dropping them into a stasis field that freezes them solid. I hear Sombra howl behind me, and reopen the portal to the Kingdom Heart, the flames inside of it ripping through the portal to try and murder Sombra. It might not work without a way to trap him completely, but it will keep him busy while I finish my mission. I ignore the exhaustion that comes with casting so much magic myself, and the exhaustion that came from summoning a Shadow Clone and reforming it so many times, walking from pony to pony. A lance of dark attack magic rips through my shoulder and my shadowy blood begins to drip on the ground. I can't leave until every single one of them is safe. "You won't take my slaves away, Sage. Not the ones that are still useful to me. Take your trash and leave. You may consider this mercy," I hear Sombra state from behind me. I can sense him picking away at my Aero spell, trying to disable its compression effect. I turn to face him. "What a load of shit. Here I am, in your most precious place, and you think that you can offer me mercy?" "No ponies means no power source. I could kill every living thing in this room, and your reign would end today," I offer. "You could do that, but you won't. It would be a waste of resources," Sombra claims easily. "I don't consider ponies to be a resource," I respond. Sombra chuckles at this. "A lie, of course. You absolutely consider them a resource. We're really quite alike, you and I. If not in what we do, then in how we behave. "We're kindred spirits, you and I. Gathering up the trash, and putting it to good use!" he laughs. My eyes narrow. "The difference is, I'm not a sociopath like you are." He shrugs. "So you consider them to be treasure instead of trash. I believe there's a metaphor detailing such a situation. "Be realistic, Sage of Darkness. Who else would turn to dark magic at every turn, and recruit foul entities with nothing more than an understanding of how to manipulate others? "We find their weakness, we capitalize on it, and we bring them into the fold. You're every bit the rival and peer that you desperately wish you weren't." He sighs, shaking his head. "Really, our point of divergence is that you're clever and stupid in equal parts. Smart enough to come up with such toys, and stupid enough to waste them playing with the little worms." "I disagree. The difference is, you're pure evil, and I'm at least trying to be good." Sombra smiles. "Evil? No, evil refers to the loser. Justice refers to the winner. The last man standing!" I scowl, leaping to the side as he sweeps the room with a beam of dark magic. I'm running out of portals strong enough to handle the Kingdom Heart, I'm running out of options to distract him, and I've still got what could be thousands of ponies left to recover, what's worse, it still sounds suspiciously like Sombra is somehow reading my mind. I've been in worse circumstances. My fists clench simultaneously as a jet of water from my shoulders sends me sliding in an arc around Sombra, throwing me in the perfect range to unleash another violent set of three punches slamming into his body, the smoke he turns into unable to properly disperse to protect him from it. While he's dazed, I summon up my strength, limbs clicking into place as highly pressurized water begins to flood them, steam hissing from the black surface of my body. "Lernian... Hydra!" One after another, fists slam into Sombra's body, catharsis made physical as bruises erupt on his body faster than he can regenerate them. The fists keep flying, streams of water and steam streaking from the seams of my arms as I pummel him into a wall and then some. Finally, with one heavy blow, my final punch smashes into his head, sending his incorporeal form streaking out of Aero's range, and giving me the time I need to focus on what's important right now. "Dragons of the Darkness Flame!" While Sombra is still trying to return, I summon up several summons, long snakes made of portals and black fire, able to minutely tap into the Kingdom Heart for a boost in power. I point towards the tyrant. "Go, hold him off!" The summons do as I command, all seven of them rushing towards him and harrying him with blasts of fire as I gallop down the halls, using my portal wand to warp away one after another. The more I run, however, the more I come to realize that this isn't going to work quickly enough to get everyone into the stasis zone before Sombra manages to kill my dragons. I open radio communications. "Prepare the mass-stasis field, I'm going to activate the multi portal device." After receiving confirmation, I summon up the gigantic bomb, planting all six of my hands into each of its sockets, the DNA keys allowing me to initiate the timer. "Just five minutes. Five minutes to get everyone out of range of this thing before it turns the Crystal Palace into Swiss-cheese, and portals out every living thing into the world's biggest liquid-time swimming pool." The clock begins ticking down, and Sombra has finished reducing the final dragon to a pile of shattered crystals. "I'm displeased, Weiss. You know I'm going to have to send my new fancy golems to the Shadow Realm to retrieve the slaves you've stolen from me, right? "I was going to let you keep the trash ones that I had no use for. A gift between Tyrants. But you've really gone too far, here," he snarls, shattering my Aero field, and preparing a rather sizable looking spell. "So, first I'm going to destroy you, then I'll retrieve those slaves. Any last words?" "Eat a dick," I respond, planting all six of my hands together, palms facing towards Sombra, who unleashes a broad beam of destructive magic. "Galeck Gun!" The two beams clash, a blend of purple and black pitted against a ray of solid green. Normally, this would be the part where I'm overwhelmed entirely, save for three key elements. I've grown even stronger, I've prepared for this fight, and Sombra is weaker than he's ever been before, just from the ponies I've freed from his array so far. Is it enough for me to hold him off for five minutes? My Vance begins petering off, the stored spell beginning to run out. "Full Power Death Beam!" I shout, the beam coming from my hand shifting to a pure black lance that replaces the fading dark purple spiral. I've got to hold him off just a little bit longer.