Having been robbed of his eyesight for the moment, Jim could not see what happened through the flash. However, the rest of his senses permitted him to hear the rapid series of explosions that followed. He also heard the voice of someone he had not expected to be relieved to hear.
“I believe that’s enough, Mana Spark,” Princess Celestia spoke as she gently glided down.
Finally managing to blink away the glare from his eyes, Jim looked to see the solar princess land between him and the mage. Swiftly remembering the sensation on his legs, he looked down to catch the last trace of Luna’s silvery magic fade back into his shadow. With that curiosity sated, Jim returned his attention to the situation ahead.
Mana Spark grit his teeth as he struggled against the chains of golden light that now anchored him to the ground; his horn disabled by a similarly golden, bejeweled ring. Celestia stepped closer to the grey stallion, her expression firm and filled with disappointment.
“I had hoped this all could have been avoided, Mana Spark,” Celestia began. “… but it seems you care nothing for the peace and harmony that I have helped nurture over my rule. I expect you are fully prepared to receive the full weight of your actions. You will not escape punishment this time.”
The former Arch Mage ceased his struggle. Slowly, his expression shifted from anger to calm, the mage seemingly teetering between acceptance of his fate and subtle assurance that he still had control of the situation. He turned his attention to the solar princess and smiled lightly.
“It would appear that I’ve been hoofed a crushing defeat. My Timber Wolf army has been decimated, Ponyville still stands, and I’ve lost a bit more than I had bargained for…” Spark replied, his gaze drifting off yet again as he thought.
Celestia permitted herself a brief moment to fully look over the consequences Mana Spark had suffered from his quarrel with Jim. Though the stallion had been injured in permanent ways, it only allowed her to feel slight pity for him. She had not seen such losses to her subjects for quite some time, but even after all that time since, Celestia was still unfortunate enough to feel contempt toward those who hurt her little ponies. His eye could never be healed, but with the aid of a prosthetic he could walk again, at the very least… though that thought left more of a bad taste in her mouth than she would openly admit.
“Not to mention I only succeeded in getting rid of only one of the Element Bearers…” Mana Spark continued, instantly gaining Celestia’s full attention. “I had been so certain that I’d finish off at least three of them.”
Celestia’s eyes hardened and she went to stomp closer to the mage, but a sudden heavy hand grabbing from the back of her neck halted her. She turned a surprised look to find Jim glaring at Mana Spark as he held her in place. How he had moved beside her so swiftly and silently, especially with how bright her cleansing magic glowed as it continued to burn him, she could not begin to fathom.
Jim spared celestial a short glance, the red and green of his eyes glowing a little brighter. “Don’t make any unwise moves. He’s got something up his sleeve,” Jim rumbled quietly.
It took but a moment for Jim’s warning to sink in before Celestia lit her horn, a multitude of defensive spells priming for anything the enemy before her may try. Her ear flicked slightly and her wings spread as she adjusted her stance. Mana Spark’s eye looked to her ear before a grin slowly spread across his muzzle.
“Ah~… so Luna is also here…” Mana Spark said, more than likely aware of the darkening of his own shadow.
Jim’s emotions grew darker as he felt his hunger for Mana Spark’s magic grow steadily stronger. He was unsure what it meant, but it could not have been anything good. He removed his hand from Celestia and stepped away from her, making sure to keep his increasingly burning body from her.
Mana Spark turned his attention to the werewolf, his grin fading into a light smile. “You really are such a difficult obstacle to remove… but there might be some benefit in letting you live.”
Jim’s eyes narrowed. He had smelled this kind of foul play before. The last time had been when he had been held captive by a group of mercenaries roughly five years after he left his village. The group had been a lesser known one, “aiding” the so-called Allied forces in their war with the Axis. History would see nothing of the group as they weren’t truly in it to help, nor were they sizable enough to have any noteworthy impact. They did not last for long due to their scavenger-like appetite.
As fate would have it, Jim had been caught by them as he had been making his way through the woods outside of a village. His intent at the time had been to try and slip into town unseen and listen in on the goings on before deciding his next destination. Yet his life spent in his father’s village had kept him away from and unaware of the war in the world. At that time, Jim cursed his father and the council he kept for not informing the rest of the village of what was happening beyond their forests. Had Jim known beforehand, he might have been able to make less risky choices back then.
Having been caught by the group, Jim had no choice but to play the part of captive for a time. It had been an enlightening experience for him, in a way, as he did learn of things he had wanted to. Though there were some things he had been shocked to be made aware of. The mercenary group had been picking off “select” people they came across in hopes of weeding out spies or informants, anyone who still sided with the defeated Axis really. They spent a fair bit of time questioning Jim, trying to get even the slightest bit of evidence to prove that he was an Axis supporter. Supposedly they would simply hand him over to the Allied forces for a small profit if Jim had been what they suspected him to be; what with them being overly curious as to why a young man would be alone and so far from home. Apparently, much to Jim’s appalled surprise, there had been plenty of cases where even children were used as martyrs to get desired results in war.
Having been convinced that he was not involved in the war in any way, things changed for Jim’s captors. The heavy atmosphere lifted and they withheld any further interrogation along the lines of finding him guilty, but they did not exactly instill a sense of relief in Jim either. On the contrary, once he had been found innocent they gave him the feeling of being up to something much more sinister. Gone were the accusing glares, replaced with looks that made Jim feel like he was no longer seen as a person… but as an item. Even as the group’s leader had come forth in a sign of good will, smiling to him and offering to find him proper lodging the next day in a nearby town, Jim felt no comfort in their presence.
No… the look that Jim had seen in their eyes, that artificial compassionate tone in their voice, that calculated and predatory gate as they moved closer to pat his shoulder and offer him blatant lies of assurance, leading him back into the cell he had been forced into on the first day. Every bit of that situation reeked of disgusting deceit. They had no intention of letting him go. They wanted to use him for their own gain. To them, an orphan who had lost his parents and was looking to find a way of getting himself established in town to help support his village was just too good to pass up. In their minds, Jim was easy pickings and few would miss the guy, much less waste time and resources to find him.
Unfortunately for them, their newest object to sell in a “specialty market” wasn’t as easy to deliver as they originally thought. Their leisurely attitude and foolish belief that Jim had no way of bending the bars of his cell led to five of them losing their lives shortly after. That fate was doubly so for the leader of the mercenaries, as Jim’s hearing had picked up the man’s true intentions for their prisoner. Jim’s hatred of his dead father had been matched by his disgust for the human in charge of the group, which lead Jim to use a much more creative way of killing the man in the end.
The look in Mana Spark’s entire being reflected a similar plan the stallion had for him. Jim’s curiosity from before resurfaced in his mind once more. This time he was sure of his hunch.
“Who do you serve?” Jim growled lowly.
Celestia, along with the few who could hear the query, gave the werewolf a briefly disbelieving stare, but their attention was quickly redirected to the ominous chuckle that came from Mana Spark a moment after.
“Your keen senses are quite something, aren’t they?” asked Mana Spark, a pleased gleam that had no business being in his eyes beaming at the werewolf. “He’s taken an interest in you, werewolf.”
The suspicious gem on Mana Spark’s chest plate suddenly shattered, an inky black liquid bursting forth from it and snaking across the mage’s body in the blink of an eye. In that same moment Jim’s body collapsed, his hand clutching his head, as something tried to wrench control of his mind from him. Celestia reacted swiftly, casting one of her spells that would cause the golden chains around Mana Spark to shock him with high level lightning magic. Much to her shock and dismay, her attempt to incapacitate the mage was met with her chains simply being consumed by the dark substance from the gem.
Dark blue tendrils surged up from Mana Spark’s shadow and wrapped around him. Yet again the black material simply spread over them, consuming the magical bindings. This time, however, the substance traveled down into the shadow in a flash as it sought the source of the tendrils. A moment later found Luna ripped out of the shade and thrown unceremoniously into a nearby wall; the very same one that had already been damaged when Jim had thrown the twin-headed timber wolf. Needless to say, the load bearing portion of that side of the structure could hold no longer and it collapsed on top of Luna.
A triumphant cackle cut through the air as Mana Spark relished in the wondrous turn of events. Celestia stood still as dread filled her. Even now she knew that something beyond what she was prepared for had taken to the metaphorical stage. Events of the past threatened to spill forth from the confines of her mind as the black slime spread to alter Mana Spark’s injuries. Though not entirely the same as what she had seen happen to her sister, Celestia could not deny the striking similarity between then and now as the grey unicorn was steadily covered by darkness.
Mana Spark’s glee and Celestia’s fear were abruptly derailed when Jim’s fist swung up and then down, the cobblestone road gaining a deep indent as he slammed his fist into it. Slowly he pushed himself up and, though slower to build as he rose onto his hand and knees, when Jim finally let loose his cry of rage and agony it was unlike anything anyone had seen before. For that moment in time, not a single being present could honestly say that Jim looked anything more than insane… and nothing short of monstrous.
The golden flames on his back and left arm erupted, turning the werewolf into a living pyre of hatred and pain. Half of his face seemed to melt as the same black substance that now protected Mana Spark oozed from his left eye, which had already been covered by the muck. His right eye had turned completely red and a curved horn had begun to grow from atop his head as well. Not only that, but his body swelled in abnormal places as muscles bulged while he fought for control of his body and mind.
For a moment, Celestia feared that Jim may be completely consumed by either her cleansing magic or whatever it was that plagued him from within. That concern was soon replaced by a fear of just how much his body could handle, only to be turned into a fear of what he was about to become. Her eyes widened even further as she watched a spark of sanity appear in Jim’s glowing red eye and, showing no hesitation in committing the unthinkable, he shoved his broken and burning hand into the inky black on his face.
A low wailing shriek that sounded like dozens of voices crying out in unison escaped the dark material as it was scorched by the intense flames. Jim held his burning limb in place, ensuring it had plenty of time to do what he wanted. Then, without warning, he pulled the flame-covered appendage away and brought his other hand up.
There were very few who could watch as the werewolf began clawing at his own face. Even as the golden flames spread onto his good hand, Jim did not stop. Even as he willingly tore away anything that the black goop had touched, cutting away parts of himself that none could imagine being remotely capable of doing themselves, he continued.
Jim only stopped purging the material once his face had been cleared of the dark taint, the bits of the substance burning away on the ground in front of him. He glared hatefully down at it, seemingly more concerned with it than what he had done to his face. Silence filled the air.
“Remarkable…”
All heads, especially Jim’s, snapped to the source of the odd yet familiar voice. Mana Spark stood there, his body covered in cobweb-like patches of inky black. His missing leg had been replaced as well, the limb looking like pitch-black plated armor. In addition, much like what had nearly happened to Jim, Mana Spark’s face had been half covered by a mask of black. For a moment, Jim was reminded of a villainous character of an opera he had learned of in recent years. In any other scenario, he might have found the comparison amusing… but his unparalleled loathing for the being in front of him ruthlessly crushed every other emotion.
Having run out of any ability to tolerate the enemy in front of him, or even the magic that still tried to hinder him from Celestia’s spell, Jim finally snapped. Flexing nearly his entire body in a burst of pure rage, he roared. His dark essence erupted from his injuries, the dark mist ravenously sucking in the golden flames with a vicious, feral urgency.
Celestia looked on, the solar princess already beyond shocked at what she was seeing. Mana Spark simply watched, his natural half cautiously observing, while the inky masked half of his face all but dripped with approving fascination.
In mere moments, Celestia’s cleansing magic was devoured by Jim’s dark essence, the flames having no chance of overcoming the werewolf’s cruel hunger. The dark mist did not stop spreading after consuming the magic, however, and continued until Jim’s entire body had been swallowed. By that point, his body seemed to be a large werewolf-shaped cloud of black smoke, violently billowing and churning. To some it appeared that he had been eaten by his own darkness, but to the beings in front of him the two glowing red orbs that pierced the mist told otherwise.
A low powerful growl rumbled from the werewolf as it stepped forward through the mist surrounding it. Celestia’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the face of a pure white wolf push through the cloud of darkness, its burning red eyes swimming in pools of yellow and reminding her of an angry lord of chaos. Jim’s sinister snarl showed his fangs had gone back to normal, his appearance now less monstrous but clearly still furious. As more of him slipped from the embrace of the black mist, it showed more of his body to be covered in white fur. However, once the mist passed over his shoulders, the dark coloration of his original fur began to show.
It only took a few steps before Jim’s bulk had left the confines of his mysterious mist, but those simple movements revealed more than what the ponies were prepared for. The once coal colored werewolf now stood tall, the majority of his body drenched in a pure white fur that rivaled even Celestia’s in its radiance. Only his legs and front still held the original coloration from before. That was not to say that he had lost his dark fur everywhere else, however, as his palms still retained the dark fur as well. It merely meant that now, rather than have a solid coloration, everywhere Celestia’s magic had burned him held both the old dark fur as well as the new white. As if cutting through the light fur, Jim’s old dark color spread across his back like a crude but elegant depiction of thick ribs curving around his sides; while the pattern on his arms up to his shoulders appeared tribal in its nature.
That was not the extent of the changes to Jim’s body though. The small horn had grown, along with another, leaving two long and dignified corkscrew horns, as black and smooth as obsidian, that swept back atop his head. More shocking than that were the massive white, feathered wings that spread out from his back; the tips of which seeming to draw in the last of the black mist and leaving their outer ridges darkened.
Mana Spark’s body shivered as something swept through him, his emerald eye fading into black. A content smile spread across his muzzle.
“You are truly a fascinating existence,” spoke Mana Spark, though in a voice that was not entirely his own. “There is so much darkness inside of you… yet you slipped from my grasp so easily. Such a pity.”
Jim’s lips trembled and he clenched his jaw, his blood boiling even more from the way the one looking through the mage’s eyes continued to appraise him.
“But don’t worry, young wolf… there will be plenty more opportunities for me to test your boundaries,” Mana Spark continued while the black substance on his body spread. “I look forward to our next meeting…” a smirk slid across Spark’s darkened face, “my little shadow of death.”
Raw hatred filled Jim’s visage and he lunged for Mana Spark. The mage’s darkness-infused body simply swirled into a tiny orb of shadow and dashed into the cracks of the road, leaving an echoing laugh behind to taunt the werewolf. Jim landed where Mana Spark once stood. He stared hatefully at the ground as his body shook with rage. With the object of his ire nowhere to be found, Jim’s anger had only so many places it could go.
Jim’s fury tore through his throat as a bellowing roar as he allowed himself to drop onto his knees. Whatever was left of his hate and frustration went into his hands as they slammed into the road over and over.
I won’t forgive either of you, he thought bitterly as the cobblestone crumbled beneath his vented emotions. I’ll kill you the next time I see you! I SWEAR IT!!! Jim’s fists smashed into the ground a final time before he silently seethed, his breaths heaving more from indignation than exhaustion.
He remained hunched over for a time, quietly cursing Mana Spark and the being that he served. None of the ponies present dared to step closer, save one. The gentle and cooling touch of magic against Jim’s leg preceded the lunar princess’ arrival as she slowly rose out of Jim’s shadow.
“Calm yourself, Jim. He has gone beyond our reach, but there will come another time to defeat him,” she said in a soothing tone.
Jim huffed an angry sigh through his fangs. “I know. But I despise the fact that I failed to end him.” He turned his gaze to her. “That mage is serving something too dangerous to take lightly. What’s more is it got in my head in a bad way.”
Concern played across Luna’s features before she became serious. “In what way?”
Jim’s jaw clenched as his hatred came forth once more. For a moment Luna felt a tinge of fear from the intensity of his glowing red and yellow eyes, but that feeling quickly shifted to concern. Behind his anger, peeking out from the depths of his crimson gaze, was confusion, pain… and fear. Whatever had happened to Jim, it had been enough to shake him enough that words were difficult to find for explanation.
Luna swiftly moved forward and nuzzled Jim’s cheek. “Shh… we can discuss this later. I can wait until you’ve had time to find an answer,” she whispered into his ear.
Jim sighed again, slowly and steadily, as he lightly returned the gesture; a small part of him realizing how little hesitation he held in nuzzling her back. Rather than pull away though, Jim simply gave in to the calming aura he felt from Luna and pushed his head forward to lay it across the back of her neck. He let loose another sigh as he felt his emotions level off.
Luna smiled softly as the werewolf took comfort in her efforts to soothe him. Her gaze flicked to see Celestia slowly approach. The two looked to each other, Celestia seeing more than enough from her sister’s eyes to gain the assurance she sought. Celestia nodded faintly and allowed herself to relax. Yet again she found herself thankful for Luna’s kindness and understanding of their, now noticeably larger, wolf acquaintance.
A few moments later found Jim rising up from the calming lunar princess. Though it was easy to tell he had cooled his temper, Luna could see he was still focused on some matter or another. He looked between the two princesses before glancing toward Colonel Stonewall. The Colonel returned the look and gave a single nod.
“Sparky may have left, but that still leaves us with a few things to wrap up,” Jim said and looked to Celestia. “I’ll take a wild guess and say he got away from you after you confronted him about what I told you. Then he decided to launch this attack to kill Twilight and/or her friends.”
Celestia nodded. “Yes. My sister and I questioned him and he was quick to reveal a side to himself that we had been unaware of. We had a magic inhibiting ring secured to his horn and placed him in the dungeon, but he escaped earlier today somehow.”
“Now it makes more sense as to how he escaped,” Luna added. “He must have been given aid by whatever dark being we witnessed before he fled.”
Jim snorted derisively. “He didn’t flee. I don’t know if I could have killed that thing that possessed him, but I could have at least destroyed the body it’s planning to use for its current host. He merely left to prepare another attack for his own amusement.”
“What do you mean? Is Mana Spark being manipulated by it?” Celestia asked.
Jim shook his head once. “No. That idiot offered to work with it and still does so willingly.”
Celestia’s gaze hardened slightly, the ramifications of that statement filling her with unpleasant thoughts. “Why would Mana Spark willingly work with such a violent being?”
Jim looked Celestia in the eyes. “There are a lot of reasons for one to seek power... or what one can gain with it. Mana Spark had a few, but I can assure you that he was not as pure of heart as you once believed him to be. If he was then that being would not have been able to find the stallion in the first place.”
Luna stepped closer and placed her hoof on Jim’s thigh. “What is it? You’ve been putting emphasis on the thing behind this. Do you know what we are facing?”
Jim grit his teeth for a moment before he lightly nodded. “Yeah…”
“What is it?” Celestia asked as she also took a step closer.
Jim closed his eyes and gently wrapped his hand around Luna’s leg before he looked into her eyes. Luna returned the look with one of mild confusion. She could see sadness and anger dancing in his eyes, eyes that no longer glowed, but it was the flicker of empathy she saw that allowed the answer to slowly dawn upon her.
Luna’s eyes widened slowly. “No…”
Jim nodded faintly. “Even after all this time… it still wants to taint this world.”
Celestia looked between the two, uneasy with not knowing what it was they knew. “Luna… what is it? What’s wrong?”
Luna looked to her sister. Shock, fear, and uncertainty danced through her cyan eyes at first, only to shift to anger and determination. “The dark spirit that took advantage of me… the one that aided my decent into the nightmare.”
Celestia’s eyes widened in shock. Luna had shared much with her since the day the Elements of Harmony had released her from the Nightmare’s grip. She had learned many things about their relationship of the past, having known a fair amount of things that she had long since chided herself for, but there was yet a plethora of things she had not known about. One of which was that Luna had not become Nightmare Moon on her own. They did not have a name for the entity that had offered Luna help in seeing her wishes become reality, but there was no doubt that it was a frighteningly powerful being. However, given that it had taken advantage of Luna and had ultimately used her as an experimental host, the label they decided on seemed to fit it adequately.
“So the Night’s Bane has returned yet again…” Celestia whispered so only her sister and Jim could hear.
Jim huffed cynically and he narrowed his eyes at a spot on the ground. Celestia and Luna looked to him quizzically.
“He’s far more than that,” Jim rumbled lowly. “He’s the embodiment of twisted desire. A shadow of malice that lurks in the heart of darkness. If you compare him to the demons of Hell then he’d be the perfect blend of all seven sins. He slowly eats away at the darkness in your heart and soul until you’re nothing more than an empty husk of your former self. His hunger is unending… and he will not stop until everything has been siphoned into the abyssal void of nothingness.”
As she listened to Jim’s words, Celestia could not help but take notice of the way his eyes lost focus as his expression darkened. It was a look that her sister, as well as herself, would get when reminded of foes of the past. Though not all of their enemies had been capable of it, there had been more than a few to gain Celestia’s ire. One such being had been King Sombra. Were it not for her niece and Twilight’s successful efforts, Celestia was fairly certain that she would not have been able to refrain from unleashing the more destructive side of her power back then. She was not proud of her feelings on the matter, but she could not help but want to do terrible things to a being such as Sombra. It was simply too cruel and utterly unforgivable for a being to crush the will of others and enslave them for personal gain; especially when it cost the lives of far too many innocents. Even more-so when, in days nearly long forgotten, he had once been called friend…
However, there was something more to Jim’s eyes that Celestia noticed, something that set his gaze apart from what she was familiar with. She was unsure why, but it almost seemed as if he knew so much more about Night’s Bane than any other. It was as if he was… as deeply familiar with the dark being as she was with her sister. Celestia opened her mouth to gently inquire.
The subtle movement was more than enough to catch Jim’s attention and pull him from the depths of his mind. “In any case,” he began, intentionally cutting off the alicorn’s question. “Time is against us.” He turned his gaze back to Luna as he withdrew his hand from her leg. “I informed the Colonel already, but you have rats in the woodwork that is your army. You can feel them… if you look hard enough.”
Celestia lifted a curious brow and shifted her senses toward the gathered troops beside Stonewall’s barrier. She was quick to realize that the Colonel held a much more aggressive stance toward his subordinates than usual. It also became evident that he was deliberately slow-paced in lowering his Granite Keep; a unique defensive spell he had created that could be used for a variety of purposes. It was unlike him to deviate from efficient methods. Celestia shifted her senses to follow her sister’s magic to see if she had noticed something.
Luna carefully felt around through the shadows around the guards. At first nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, but because of Jim’s words, Luna knew there must have been something easily overlooked. As her magic ever so subtly brushed against the objects of her curiosity, it steadily became apparent what it was Jim truly meant.
As if sensing her discovery, Jim silently began to stalk toward the Royal Guards. Many of them spotted the werewolf’s approach, more than half of the group struggling against their instincts to flee. Though the gaze of the massive wolf no longer glowed with the fury of an inferno, his eyes were colder than the Frozen North, instilling a deep unease within the guards. However, they could not move. Even if they found a way to escape Jim, they held far less confidence in being able to survive the Colonel’s wrath afterward.
Jim’s intentionally heavy, lumbering steps came to a halt beside Colonel Stonewall. Spreading his wings subconsciously, adding to his already dangerous aura, Jim spoke only three words. “Your turn, Stonewall.”
Stonewall’s firm expression relaxed slightly, but his gaze remained hardened as it steadily passed over the present company. He turned on a hoof and began to strafe in front of the assembled formation.
“It has come to my attention, as well as the attention of the princesses,” Stonewall spoke, his voice amplified just enough to guarantee he had everyone’s attention, “… that something is amiss in the Guard that has accompanied me today. Were this to have been brought up on any other day, I might have found myself pummeling the individual who spoke ill of my troops and sending them to the dungeon. But.”
The colonel stopped his pacing and snapped a scorching glare toward the guards, causing a number of them to begin to sweat. “We have found ourselves in an unfortunate position. The newest threat to Equestria managed to escape from the dungeon. Not only did he get free and launch an attack on the ponies we are to protect, every single accomplice that was locked up with him mysteriously vanished from their cells as well. What I have been told means…”
Colonel Stonewall’s horn flashed with power and a new wall of magic sprung up around the entire gathering of guards. “There are ponies that side with our new enemy among you. I suggest you step forth willingly. Otherwise.” He nodded his head toward the towering werewolf just behind him. “He’ll sniff you out and you’ll become his personal chew-toy. And believe me… that’s a better outcome than what I will do to you.”