The Unique Properties of Dark Magic

by Shadestyle


(Past Chapter 31): Lovesick

Years passed quicker than they did before.

Soon, the Crystal Empire, (now the Crystal Egg Zone, as far as a lot of ponies were concerned) found itself being a capital in more than just name. Ponies and creatures from all over played the part of tourists, some wanting to see the new magical technologies, others had a morbid curiosity that drove them to seek out the dark magic we had been mastering.

Indeed, once Sombra had been forced out of the Crystal Empire once and for all, the Shadow Realm flourished and grew even faster than before, to the point where outposts and towns on the surface were common sights to the pegasi who flew overhead. The cold of the Frozen North was held back from the Shadow Realm nearly as well as it had been kept back by the crystal heart, massive vents spewing black fire dotted the land, and around them, trees of metal and jewels covered the landscape.

On a similar note, Celestia and Luna had kept their promise to me. While we kept the last slaves of Sombra asleep to prevent him from controlling them, Equestria sent us food, vast, vast quantities of hay and other assorted things that helped to bolster the sheer number of ponies we had to keep fed while they were asleep. I found myself concerned with how interested the princesses seemed to be at my refusal to eat actual hay, but I hadn't found it snuck into any of my meals quite yet.

We did eventually figure out a way to remove the mind-controlling crystal heart-valves that Sombra had been using to keep the populous under control, thanks to even more help from the Equestrians. Using strong enough healing magic, and some information I managed to dig out of my own memories, we had figured out the trick, drawing heavily from how operations like Heart Transplants worked to control the bleeding and keep the body alive while the valves were extracted and replaced.

There was a lot of confusion, and some strife, but for the most part, the Crystal Ponies had done well enough for themselves upon being awakened, with a lot of help from their families, the Shadow Realm had found a place for those who didn't yet want to be Longma, in the form of the Crystal Egg Zone.

Some who visited the Shadow Realm were just the kind who wanted to learn to be bolder, those who were too shy, and believed time among the Longma would teach them passion. Others, the kind who felt that the rest of the world wasn't bold enough for them. The sort of brutes and rascals who found kinship in the flames of the Shadow Realm.

Some wanted to see the things that were truly unique. The Windego were uncomfortable with all the ponies and non-ponies who wanted to meet these mysterious specters. To learn about beings they once thought were just myths. Some wanted to make sure that the myths didn't reflect the reality. Queen Cold was crucial in this respect, she alone participated in those same legends, and her cuddlesome Togepi form proved suitable for diplomacy between the Windego and those who sought knowledge on them.

Honestly, I had been willing to give her a different pokemon to inhabit for a long time now, but she claimed to have grown used to it. Personally, I think the queen had gotten a little too familiar with people mistaking her for a plush toy, but of course, I couldn't extract a confession from the smug spirit.

A decent chunk of the new tourists were assassins, of course. It was actually pretty flattering, just how many ponies seemed to want me dead. Some saw me as a threat to Equestria, others saw my Dark Magic as an abomination. A few, I'm a bit ashamed to admit, were actually acquaintances I had made bets with. Something about the novelty of a noble outright gambling that they could get me killed, and us then shaking on it had struck me as utterly hilarious.

Needless to say, I had gotten a few random-ass plots of land in the middle of Nowhere-Equestria when getting stabbed by frighteningly enchanted daggers failed to kill me thanks to my egregious use of the Shadow Clone spell. It seemed that nobles were almost as weird as the princesses who ruled them, at least when it came to upholding bets revolving around whether or not they could have me killed...

There was one noble in particular who put it best, a frenemy of mine, 'Prince Pure Platinum'.

"You're too whimsical for your own good. I've got an obligation to at least make an effort to have you disposed of, it's just part of how reputation works among the nobility. You don't seem to have any hard feelings over it though, so some of us can't help but have some fun with it," he explained, before showing me how the teapot he had used for our drinks had a secret chamber for the poison he had snuck into my drink.

When I mused on how the poison tasted fruity, and called it 'a good year', I still remember how loudly and how long he laughed in response, helplessly guffawing at the blase reaction I had.

He didn't bother trying to assassinate me after that, and we still write, from time to time.

It wasn't long after that that, with some anxiety from me, Longma began to spread out themselves, a few of my ponies deciding to go out into the world for various reasons, whether to explore it to find new things to bring home, or to share with the world what they had gained here. I was worried often enough by it, but for the most part, it hadn't caused too much chaos.

Around her sixteenth birthday, Glitter Miss Priss had actually done the same, wanting to expand on her talents of taunting others by visiting the nastiest places around.

Me and Eclipse Flash had written often, and she visited often as well, when we had time between my lessons with my student.

It took time for me to open up to my student about my origins. I told her my original name, and she swore to never share it with anyone. I taught her everything I knew, I taught her how I had learned it. More years passed, and it began to take months, once, even a year, before I could scrounge together a new form of dark magic, or a new technology worth teaching her about.

She had surpassed me in every way, and when she turned twenty, I knew it was almost time. I had a test planned for her twenty-first birthday. The final exam before I passed on control of the Shadow Realm to her. It was a bittersweet lesson, one that I had only begun to devise when I found Sombra's most secret chamber in the Crystal Palace. I found his personal library, and in it, I found his notes on a spell, one so horrific that the knowledge of it threatened to wear at my sanity.

When I told Luna about it, she informed me of the truth behind the nightmares I had been having for years. That I had asked her, perhaps once every year or so, to erase my memory of having discovered the book. That it hadn't been the first time I found that secret room, nor was it the first time I had read the book he detailed the extent of his most important spell in.

I had been, every so often, stumbling onto the secret chamber hidden within the palace, finding that tome, and once more feeling my mind fray at what it had revealed.

This time, I didn't ask her to help me forget. I needed to be sharp, at least until Eclipse could succeed the throne. I needed my friends more than I had ever before to endure the revelation that I had witnessed from reading Sombra's tome, and thankfully, fortune was in my favor, as Priss had written us claiming that she was returning for good, at the end of her studies in aggravation and taunting.

It had been ten years since the fateful day when I was brought to the frozen north, and after a lot of work, after sleepless nights and so much work, I had finally begun to feel... Safe. For me, and for my newfound friends and family.


I breathed heavily, Eclipse Flash's power armor was insane, she had designed the armor from the ground up to use my own Wave Motion Gun's trick of growing ice using Royal Crystal Growth, but instead of using it as a beam of destructive gem-laced water, she had used it as the driving force for a set of pneumatics that put my own golems to shame.

Not that any of my golems lasted long enough to actually test that. Using her Hotswap spell to teleport around both herself and huge chunks of rubble, using Lucky Shot to fire crystal spears that almost seemed to ricochet between my golems, and of course, the dark magic she brought to bear.

Nothing could hold back her hate-fire, save my own body which it ignored. She even managed to get the flames to affect my arms, which cut things close more than once when I had to burst painfully into smoke in order to avoid a blast that would have left me unable to fight.

Her Royal Crystal Growth had also progressed beyond my ability to manage, her hooves serving as the penultimate focus for the stone-producing greed magic. It wasn't enough to just dodge her bucks, I had to utterly destroy the ground and walls whenever she kicked at me, as even if she missed me, it just took a smack to the walls for a pillar of crystal to erupt and smash me to bits.

Prestidigitation was its own mess. While fire and heat no longer harmed me, or any Longma for that matter, Eclipse had proven that fire immunity did not negate the use of Foxfire, by using the force magic of Prestidigitation to generate heat by friction, I had to make sure my footing was even at all times, to prevent her melting the floor to slip me up.

But all of that was strategy, and it was the only thing that gave me even the slimmest chance against my student anymore, unless I had been willing to use lethal force.

"Dragons of the Darkness Flame!" I roared, unleashing two gigantic dragons made of black flames at once that flew towards my student, claws held forwards to rend apart her armor.

The act had left me exhausted, the strain of two spells at once flying free from my horn giving me a massive headache.

My student had stopped dodging the needles I fired at her moments ago, planting her feet and turning around. Surely, even she couldn't be so arrogant as to-

She was that arrogant, and with a pneumatic buck, she kicked my twin-dragon attack into nothing, almost contemptuously battering my ultimate attack to pieces with brute force.

I plop down onto my rear, sweating heavily. "Well, uhh, that's awkward."

My student smirks as she canters over to me. "So I won that one, right?" she asks.

I sigh. "Yes, you won that one, my least-treacherous student."

With a laugh, the mare helps me stand up, grabbing one of my arms and hefting me back onto my hooves.

"It's a good thing I am, or me beating you would have been really awkward," she jokes.

I recieved a notification from one of my little minions nearby, which flapped towards me with its big unblinking eye.

"Priss is here. I should go meet her," I say, cracking my neck and stretching, despite it technically not doing anything useful in my Shadow Clone state.

Eclipse smiles. "I want to see her too. Tell her I'll be waiting at the training grounds, alright my lord?" she responds, to which I just nod, leaving my student to do the cleanup from our brawl.

Before I leave, I give her one last look. "I'm really proud of you, kid," I say, waving goodbye at Eclipse who smiles broadly.

As I made my way to Hidden Palace Zone, I saw her standing in the town square, next to the Kingdom Heart, and trotted up besides the mare. She was as tall as me now, and she looked more mature than I did. My use of stolen (freely given) lifeforce had left me looking a bit too young, even at twenty-six.

Reaching up, I ruffled her red-colored mane with one of my draconic claws, the white limb having long since become something that felt natural, despite how many of them I had.

As I gazed into the glittering black pyroclasm, I felt its warmth falling on me. 'The Crystal Heart must be crying it's eyes out knowing it will never be as warm as this.'

"Hey! Come on Weiss, I just got finished combing that!" Glitter Miss Priss complains, trying to squirm away from my playful ruffling.

I laugh, ruffling it a bit more before pulling my hand away. "And now, you have the privilege of doing so again! You really should be thanking me."

She pouts, standing eye to eye with me. "You're just jealous because under that burning wig you call a mane, you've been reduced to a chrome dome, Weiss."

I glare with a pout of my own. "It's still hair, it's just all flamey. Your hair is flamey too, you know."

Priss's mane of cherry-red fire ripples at this, the color only a few shades richer than her pink coat.

"And it's the finest flame in the Shadow Realm, thank you very much, Lord Weiss. Way better than Eclipse Flash's," She says with a stomp of her armored hoof. I could see the pistons hiss as magically created water escaped the systems as steam. Royal Crystal Growth in action.

The mare had long since taken to wearing powered armor, snatching ideas from Eclipse Flash's notes and putting them to use for her own adventures. Something that had led to their rivalry growing richer and deeper as they matured.

I just laugh some more. My heart felt light. It felt incredibly light, just talking to my old friend.

"So, you'll be staying for good this time, right? You said as much in your letters," I asked, keeping any judgement out of my tone.

She nods. "I've learned a lot. Did you know almost every country on the planet has a curse word that can make an entire room gasp in shock? I've learned fifty-three of em," she admits proudly, her cutie mark of a matador's cape and a malicious smiley face seeming to shine in response.

I blinked at this.

"What, like cu-" I begin.

"'Curses'? Oh yeah, zebras really don't like that one!" Priss nods.

I blink, "...Right."

I chuckle at this, staring at the Kingdom Heart and feeding it some of my hatred. My heart feeling lighter and lighter by the minute.

"You alright?" Priss asks, giving me a concerned look.

"Yeah? Why do you ask?" I respond. My chest feels like it's full of butterflies, and I stumble for a moment. Something's wrong.

"Actually, I..." I start, only for a terrifying pain to shoot through my chest. Another assassin?

"Weiss!" Priss shouts as I fall to my knees, coughing uncontrollably.

Little pink heart-shaped clouds erupt from my hacking, and something dribbles down my chin as my Shadow Clone ruptures.


My meditative state collapses, and I jerk awake painfully. My body!

I bite back a scream as I look at my arms, which are burning up, smouldering in reaction to the air.

I cough loudly, trying not to fall over as I feel my body expelling a foul black liquid and more pink smoke. Taking a breath as best I can, I instantly regret it as it feels like my lungs are on fire.

I slam the alarm button next to me, flaring hate-fire to keep whatever toxins are in the air away from me, but as I do, the pain intensifies further!

My concentration on the spell breaks immediately, and I hear the doors slam open, and a mix of Longma and golemic drones lift me up, scrambling to take me to the medical center, I hear voices and feel poking and prodding as they try to figure out why I'm apparently dying.

"Heart rate is dropping"

"rap-- d-cay"

"He's bleeding pure hate!" I hear one loud nurse shout.

My vision darkens, and then I wake up in a hospital bed, wracked with pain.

Forcing myself to lean up, I see the sheer damage my body is taking, patches of my coat burning with enchanted flames as my body's own magic tries to reject whatever is happening to me.

It's failing.

I look around, desperate for answers, my magical senses in overdrive to try and figure out what kind of magic is doing this, but I can't sense anything. Whatever the cause is, it clearly isn't dark magic.

"Sir, don't get up!" a nurse says, running to me and trying to push me back down.

"It's alright ma'am, I've had worse," I say politely, coughing up pink smoke as I force down the pain rampaging through my body.

She doesn't listen, trying to push me down, and calling for another doctor.

With a twitch, I push the pony away. "Get out of my way!" I snarl, flaring with dark magic as I force my way off the bed.

Immediately, I regret it as one of my arms erupts into a colorful blaze, falling apart into charred bones, something about whatever is affecting me reacting immediately to my use of the magic.

I grimace, yanking out the Migrant Iron Disk that had attached it to me and erasing it with a blast of hate-fire, stomping out of the medical wing.

As I do, I look around, noting several Longma sniffling and coughing, but more worryingly, I see Windego and Pokemon en-masse in hospital beds around me. Snatching a clip-board from one of the doctors, I glance at it before returning it to him.

Chest pains, flu-like symptoms, pink smoke.

"Weiss Noir!" Queen Cold shouts, waddling in as fast as she can. She looks awful, red eyes watering and skin aggravated. It's not nearly as pronounced, but the symptoms are the same.

This isn't a curse, and I'm not the target...

I'm just the most susceptible.

"Do you know what is-" she coughs, "What is causing this?" the short queen demands. She looks almost as bad as I do, though she hasn't burst into flames yet.

My head feels foggy, and my chest feels like I'm burning from the inside out, but I wrack my brain, trying to figure out what is happening.

It hits me like a freight train, as I grab a wastebasket near the door, and look into it with horror. It's full of trash, not a scrap out of place.

It wasn't burning.

"We have to go, take me to the Kingdom Heart!" I scream, throwing the door open as one of my arms becomes inoperable from the flames slowly erasing it.

At the same time, I bite the hell out of my tongue, summoning up a massive amount of greed and turning my remaining arms purple as I rapidly infuse my body with the obsessive emotions. It was the only emotion I could think of that wouldn't be affected by the miasma of poison in the air.

Picking up the queen, I drag her along with me, and gallop towards one of the Arcana Janus Portals as fast as I can.


I skid to a stop in front of the sacred relic of the shadow realm, the gigantic bonfire that served as both protection and emotional stabilizer.

I see Eclipse Flash in front of it, pouring as much magic as she can into the flames.

"Eclipse! What are you doing!" I shout, running to my student. For a moment, I almost suspect her to be the culprit, remembering her earlier desire to try combining love and hate together. The despair on her face, however, disabuses me of that notion.

"Love!" she chokes out. "There's something polluting the Kingdom Heart! Too much love in the air!" she hisses, struggling to keep up the flow of magic as she pours hatred into it. Ponies around her are staring in horror, and a few of them seem to be growing ill as well.

I grab her, trying to pull her away, the enchanted armor she's wearing groans with strain to resist me. "I know already! You're going to get yourself killed! Stop!" I roar, as my student shakes her head.

"I have to keep going, it won't hold otherwise!" she attempts, but with one final gasp, she collapses, magical pistons hissing as she falls to the ground exhausted.

I turn to the flame with mounting horror. One pony alone has no chance of outpacing the pollution, the Love and Hatred in the air are canceling each other out, and poisoning everything containing the dark emotional energy. If Eclipse Flash can't counteract it...

As I watch the Kingdom Heart begin to shrink, I hear a voice that sends chills down my spine, a voice that I would never forget. The voice that haunted my nightmares, nightmares of being nothing more than its owner's reflection in a mirror.

And it was laughing.

"Heh heh heh heh heh..."

Sombra, shrouded in thick green magic, emerges from around a corner, as if he had been waiting for his cue. At the same time, changelings began to emerge from the crowd with malicious grins on their faces, green flames erupting from them as a shroud of thin energy protected them from the weakening Kingdom Heart.

"It's good to see you again, my Pale Shadow," Sombra states simply.