//------------------------------// // (Past Chapter 39) Dragon Mouse // Story: The Unique Properties of Dark Magic // by Shadestyle //------------------------------// "It is with great pleasure that this one declares the presence of the master of the dark arts, his irreverence, Lord Weiss Noir!" Torch hears some idiot shouting at the top of their lungs. With a low grumble, he rises up from the magma, intent on discovering who would interrupt his slumber. The first, some odd looking pony with glassy eyes, holding up a scroll and wearing a ridiculous poofy outfit. Torch's senses told him there was nothing of value in the creature, it wasn't a living thing, but some sort of false shell. The second annoyance, standing on a literal red carpet that had been rolled out and into his pool, was even more ridiculous. The pony was wearing an ornate cape lined with a comedically thick fur ruffle, as well as a set of golden horseshoes and a large crown. What was the most obscene of the lavish adornments, however, was the seemingly solid-gold dragon arm statues mounted to the pony's back, each one posed artfully into frankly pretentious positions, two were clasped together, as if in prayer, while another set had its palms held to the sky in a sort of shrug. The final pair was slung low, claws set to a sort of "OK" sign. Torch stared blankly, and glanced around to see if this was a joke. If it was, it was in very poor taste. This? This was Weiss Noir? The famous Sage who disrespected his authority so? 'He is everything I expected from an arrogant pony, and yet I'm almost disappointed in how accurately this garish little fool reflects my lowest expectations,' the strongest dragon in the world thinks to himself, noticing the pony raise a hoof, and his nose, into the air. "Well? I would have respect, dragon," the pony says in an over-the-top aristocratic accent as he presents his hoof to be kissed. Dragon Lord Torch closes his eyes, and takes a deep, calming breath, before reaching over and casually smearing the pony and his herald like a stain across the ground with the palm of his titanic claw. The Dragon Lord looks down at where his claw had been. On the ground, he only finds fading black smoke and a mixture of sinister black crystals and odd false flesh where the glassy-eyed herald had been. As the smoke slips away, he frowns. It was rather smart of the sage to flee. The next day, the sage returns. His herald jolting Torch from his rest with the blaring of a trumpet. ♫"Haaaaail! Your attention I praaaaaay!"♫ the herald sings. With a roar, Torch erupts from his caldera, a wave of molten rock smothering the two idiots and washing them away in the boiling lava. The dragon lord growls as he stares at where the two ponies were. Cracking his neck, he prepares for a long flight to the Shadow Realm. Torch had planned to wait until after his slumber, but it was high time to teach this one respect. He hears a crunch. "Well, that gets rid of that headache," Weiss says, sitting casually to the side on a jagged rocky pillar with his legs crossed, chomping through a large jewel as if it were an apple. Inefficient signs of magical smoke trail off from where he drew himself together and reformed his body, and he looks haggard from the strain, despite his devil-may-care smile. The sage now looks different as well, the silly vestments gone, and the golden limbs he wore sag slightly as gold paint flakes off of them, revealing the glittering purple underneath. The obstinate crown is still poised atop his head. Torch's eyes narrow. "You're trying to provoke me. You didn't bring any little pony soldiers because you think you don't need them," he growls, climbing up from the magma pool until he towers over the sage. Weiss raises an eyebrow. "Impressive. So you can put together basic logic." "I can do more than that, pretender. Fine. If you want to disrespect me, then so will I," the dragon says in a deep, booming tone. "You are not the strongest dragon. You are no dragon at all. That means you have no authority over dragons, nor do you have the right to humiliate my race through them. If you are too weak to slay your enemies or protect your land, then that is your problem. You will give your prisoner to me for my own judgement or you will slay them. If you don't, then I will destroy you where you sit," he explains. Weiss pauses only long enough to take another bite from the large ruby in his mocking imitation of the draconic diet. "Try me," he smirks. Torch glares. The stones on this pony were quite massive indeed. "There is a reason why your little tyrant saw fit to leave the dragonlands be, and now you will learn it. Even the princesses know better than to toy with my dragons, and even your little predecessor knew better than to pit pony magic against dragonfire." Torch takes a deep breath, the dry cracked ridges of his ancient chest expanding as he filled his lungs to the brim. Casually licking gem-dust off his fingers, Weiss stands up to his full height. "Same time tomorrow?" Weiss asked sarcastically, as Torch unleashed a roiling wave of red flames that consumed everything on the volcano. With a mental smile, Torch heard the sage scream as the flames erased his shadowy form. True to his word, the foolish sage returned the next day. Unlike the previous visits, Torch was actually awake this time, and watched with a glare as the Sage casually approached, chewing through a large emerald. Despite their relaxed stroll up the volcano's side, and their leisurely grin, Torch could sense a tension in the sage that wasn't there before. Their crown was missing, leaving only the gold painted draconic limbs hanging frozen from their back. "So you're still alive. Interesting," Torch says, flames wafting from the corner of his lips as he spoke. Weiss sat down, polishing off the last of the geological snack. "Naturally. I'm afraid I came here for a reason, Dragon Lord. You see, the fact of the matter is, I'm manipulating you," he says casually, dusting off his hooves. "Oh?" Torch responds. Weiss nods. "Yup. I'm going to trick you into accepting a wager." Cracking his neck, the sage stands, having dusted all the emerald dust off of him. "The fact of the matter is, nothing you do will actually kill me, as I'm sure you've come to realize. That said, I have to admit, even though my magic makes me impossible for you to kill..." he trails off. "It hurt like hell." After that brief pulse of murderous rage, the sage returns to his previous happy-go-lucky tone. "So, a wager. I'm going to keep coming here, over and over, until you accept the authority I wield over all within my realm, or you manage to cow me into submission." Torch's teeth shimmer as he bares them in a predatory expression. "Why would I accept a bet like that?" The sage smiles, as if he had already won. Despite this, Torch notes the facts that the sage attempts to hide behind his bravado. Being burned alive leaves a mark on any creature, and the bags under the sage's eyes reveal a distinct impact from yesterday's revelry. "Because I challenged you," Weiss states with dangerous glint in his eyes. "We both know you don't need another reason." Time stretches between the two, and finally, Torch smiles. "Well played, pretender. It seems you've manipulated me after all," he finally says. "But you'll wish you hadn't. If you would pretend to be a dragon so desperately, then I will discipline you as one. Watch carefully, pretender. I will show you that I don't need to kill you to make you regret challenging me." Torch's next breath isn't a deep one, it doesn't need to be. As he does, the air begins to reek of ozone, and the clouds of smog overhead crackle uncertainly. Weiss doesn't remember what happened after that, as his entire world became bright white agony, and then darkness. This time, it took three days for the sage to return. As he did, he finally revealed the truth of his nature. No crown, nor ornate cloak was on his body. No foolish false-creature acting as his herald. He arrived with his six limbs crossed behind his back, a rich purple color lacking the slightest hint of gold to hide their organic nature. 'So they are real arms,' The Dragon Lord thinks to himself as the sage approaches. The sage looked no worse for wear after the attack, but only physically. Mentally, Torch could see the signs that the pony attempted to hide. The Flame of Pain was a cruel weapon for a dragon, one of destruction and agony, no manifestation of greed surpassed it in its ability to deal both. It was more than just fire that Torch erased this sage's curious specter with previously, but plasma, rich with the power of lightning and with a heat that could boil stone, channeled into a beam of terrifying power. A worthy sword for the Dragon Lord. "So, what's it called, then?" Weiss opens by asking, crossing two of his arms in front of him with a raised eyebrow. "Hmm?" Torch responds questioningly. The sage waves a hand. "That thing you did. I've dealt with it before. One of your stooges tried to use it on me, but it was far less powerful," he explains. "The Flame of Pain is its name. You would do well to remember it, pretender." With that, Weiss leaps to the side, narrowly dodging a blast of the eradicating plasma. "Oh? What is it you ponies say? Once burned, twice shy?" Torch asks, climbing up onto the stones surrounding his pool and standing up to his full height. Weiss smirks, creating a long spear of purple crystal and preparing to fight back. "Something like that." The next blast is too fast, and once again, Weiss Noir screams in agony as his Shadow Clone is banished. Luna watches as Weiss stares blankly at the battle before him. A small group had restarted the Golem Fighting Circuit that was once famous in the Shadow Realm, and Luna saw it as a prime opportunity to try and pull Weiss out of his isolation and keep him out of it. However, his dealings with the Dragon Lord were wearing at his already frayed psyche, and even the sight of two teams made up of various races controlling war machines more impressive than the ones Longma alone could construct was insufficient to pull him out of whatever thoughts he was immersing himself in. "Weiss, why do you persist in goading the Dragon Lord? You cannot defeat him as you are. If you would just ask, I and my sister could try to assist you," Luna finally asks, when it is clear that her friend is not even paying attention to the showing. He blinks. "Absolutely not. I won't have you interfering with my plans, especially when they're going so swimmingly," he responds. Even as he does, she notices a shiver run through several of his limbs, and a flash of instinctive fear as one of the war golems sprays sparks as it is damaged beyond repair. Luna huffs angrily. "What plan? To subject yourself to torment until you snap? To placate the Dragon Lord by throwing yourself at him day in and day out, alone?" It had been a month. Long enough for Weiss to already have developed a clear phobia that even Luna could see. He doesn't respond, at first, clearly thinking of a response that will placate her, without needing to compromise on his idiotic stubbornness. "Nine years," he says, in lieu of an answer. "What?" Luna balks at the vague response. "Nine years. In the land I hail from, it is believed that nine years is the length of time required to become a master of a trade. For an elder dragon, he will likely perceive it as a particularly annoying week." Weiss smiles, forcing strength into his body through will alone. "I will become a master at resisting pain. A worthwhile skill for the long life ahead of me, and one that will help me learn others." Luna had failed again. Again, there was nothing she could think to do. Her mind blank with the sheer insanity of what her friend proposed he would do. She knew she couldn't stop him. It got worse before it got better. For a time, the sage grew more desperate in their pitched battles. He began to use spells, teleporting around in flashes of familiar magic, using gateways to try and stem the flow of dragonfire. At first, the sage's slow ramping up intrigued Torch. With every day the sage managed to overcome the mind-numbing memories of plasma, he appeared to grow more skilled at avoiding Torch's attacks, even if his own attacks did nothing at all to the elder dragon. But this quickly faded as the days wore on. By the first year, the sage had backslid. Distracted by memories of agony, his ability to make the meetings last slipped, and for a time, the sage had only made weekly visits to taunt and goad Torch into annihilating him. Halfway through the second year, Torch did not blast away the sage immediately. "Surely you know the pointlessness of this exchange. Submit to my superior strength, whelp," he said grimly. The sage had, in the past month, simply walked up the mountain and awaited the Flame of Pain. Weiss smiled, as if he had achieved a victory. "Growing weary of our bet already, Torchy-Worchy?" A blast of white-hot energy answered the question definitively, and the sage did not return until the next year. Celestia frowned at Weiss, halting him as he made his way back to the Dragon Lands for yet another round of battle with the Dragon Lord. "You will go mad before you success, Weiss. Luna told me everything." The sage looked at Celestia bitterly, but there was an undercurrent of something else. With her senses as honed as they were, she could see him shaking in ways he likely could not even perceive himself. "But of course," he responded blithely, walking around the alicorn. Celestia grabbed him in a telekinetic aura. "Do you think he will go along with this for the better part of a decade? What will happen when he tires of your games and attacks your Shadow Realm directly? Must we then clean up your mess?" "Why would he do that? I would say the diplomacy is going quite nicely, from our perspective," Weiss retorts. Celestia's confusion grows beyond her exasperation. The sage was doing it again. One of those disturbing plots where esoteric behaviors and confusing facades were the soldiers in his war. With a sigh, she takes the bait, setting the sage down. "What do you mean, Weiss?" He chuckles. "Princess, there's a thin line between a friendship, and a foeboat." With that, he throws his horn to the sky, and casts one of his most powerful Vancian spells, teleporting away in a bolt of greedy lightning. The following years showed a slow, but noticeable change in the sage's constant duels with Torch, duels which he had come to expect, and which had slowly garnered a small audience of drakes too young and foolish to know better. Weiss had his head held high as the young dragons booed and jeered at him on his way up the mountain. He had been growing more used to the battles, and had slowly risen back in intensity to what he used before in the fights. a dance of quick movements and blistering spells, met with Torch's overwhelming brute strength, invincibility, and the unique and deadly flames that only an Elder Dragon could bring to bear. "So you're back, whelp. I'm beginning to grow weary of this foolishness. Is it really worth a hundred times the agony you inflict on your prisoner, just to taunt me and humiliate my subjects?" Torch asks. Weiss just laughs. "So you're admitting that you can't keep me down? Should I begin eating your jewels again to encourage you?" he responds, portals dispensing a suit of enchanted armor that clamps to his body. "So that's where you've been getting them," Torch growls, muscles tensing. In truth, Torch did have one flaw, one aspect of himself that would be humiliating, from the perspective of an ordinary dragon. He simply didn't care as much for wealth as his kin. Jewels and Gold were sustenance. No, what he craved was what allowed him to become Dragon Lord in the first place, and keep it through dozens of trials and tests. He hoarded power. That said, with all of the young dragons around, who were openly gaping at the idea of a pony stealing from the Dragon Lord... Well, he couldn't back down from the challenge to his power. Weiss did indeed threaten his horde, in that sense. "Are you a pony or a mouse? How dare you eat what is mine, whelp." With that, the battle began in earnest, the sage's armor sending him dashing around the mountain as Torch unleashed blasts of flame and lightning alike. With one final blast of the Flame of Pain, Weiss was obliterated, blasted apart into screaming shadowy smoke. The younger dragons who hadn't been caught in the crossfire cheered at yet another victory over the dumb ponies, but Torch withheld his judgement, watching with something almost akin to respect as the abolished smoke continued to scream. With what must have been a mind-numbing force of will, he watched as the shadows pulled back together, and with heaving breaths, the half-formed Weiss Noir stood before Torch, black smoke bleeding off of his form as he barely held it together. The pony took a deep, crackling breath at the same time that Torch did, and both of them unleashed blistering beams of the Flame of Pain at one another. Weiss was instantly annihilated by Torch's immeasurably more powerful blast, which consumed his own without resistance, but now the dragons in attendance were no longer cheering. "So you come once again, Mouse." The ninth year had come and gone, and by now, fewer dragons were willing to watch the boring affair of the Dragon Lord proving his dominance. This time, however, was different. In Weiss's company was a nervous, fearful dragon, Blister. Weiss grinned "Indeed. I've come to both proclaim my victory and my loss." With a gesture, the dragon's blackened eyes returned to normal, an even blacker flame washing over the young drake and erasing the traces of Weiss's curse from them. "I free Blister the Dragon from his punishment, ninety years earlier than planned, and submit him to your judgement, Dragon Lord," Weiss explains. Blister, suddenly aware of who he's standing before, bows deeply. "Oh! Dragon Lord?! I'm sorry!" he shouts as he bows before the master of dragonkind. Torch raises an eyebrow. Did that young drake just apologize? Furthermore, did that pony just admit defeat? By now, Weiss was able to reform his shadowy mist more often than not, sometimes even changing its shape during their battles when he reformed, turning into blackened snakes, twisted hawks of crystal and fabric, or other, more unknowable things. "That loss, I freely admit," he says merrily. "And your so-called victory?" Torch responds. The pony was conniving, sneaky. When he thought Torch to be too lax in their duels, he would sneak about, stealing treasures and openly eating them somehow, despite being a pony. It was an action that demanded swift and instant retribution from the Dragon Lord, and it allowed the sage to continue their wager thus far when needed. Weiss's expression is languorous and indulgent. "Simple. I have lost to you, Torch, but I have achieved victory over myself, thanks to our little bet. Pain is an excellent teacher, and you played your role well in supplying it," he muses. With a casual motion, Weiss bites off the finger of one of his draconic arms, turning it immediately into a hazy smoke that quickly reforms. He doesn't flinch at the action, nor does he show any signs of pain. Torch huffs. What an annoying whelp. To think this pony came to him for torment, rather than victory. Disgraceful. "I would have our final battle privately, Dragon Lord. You deserve something, as the winner of this annoying little bet of ours, and I, perhaps, would like to prove something as well," he says. The Dragon Lord thinks on this request. The lord of the Shadow Realm had already admitted defeat. Had admitted his power to be lesser than that of Torch. It was a simple request to grant. "LEAVE!" Torch said calmly. Every dragon in earshot fled in cowardice and fear at the command, leaving only the two lords to face one another atop the volcano. "So then, little mouse, what is it, then?" Torch demands, watching as Weiss walked out onto the surface of the lava, too light to sink through the molten rock, but every bit the fire-immune Longma at heart that the rest of his ponies were. Dragonfire may have been a different beast entirely in terms of the harm it could do, but mere lava? A triviality. "Simple. I have been preparing something over the years. A proof of concept that one of my lovely council members helped me to achieve, through the study of dragon biology. A secret technique, if you will. Do keep it to yourself, yes?" Weiss's body fell apart into smoke as he bit through an arm, and as it did, Torch watched curiously as the smoke began to grow, larger and larger as a single Vancian spell that took Weiss nine years to empower was cast. The smoke exploded outwards, magical black muscles growing over magical black sinews growing over magical black bones. By the end of the transformation, a truly massive black dragon hovered in the air, dwarfed by Torch, yes, but still gargantuan in size. With a flare of leathery wings, the new monster fell into the pool, and vivid green eyes opened. "Now that I've learned all I need to, I can reward you with this, a fight that is for once, worth your time, using a spell I crafted for you, and you alone." Hydraulic muscles flexed as Weiss's six arms slowly shifted their incredible mass, almost boiling hot liquids flowing through the graphene-laced false flesh. "I call it Malifessence." Torch stared, and then, he laughed. He laughed so loudly that it could be heard for miles around, and then, with a motion faster than his titanic frame would imply, the two began to fight in earnest, lightning and fire, stone and magma, all of it spilling out over the mountaintop. The battle took hours, or perhaps it took days, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Sage of Darkness, for all his abilities, and all the magical techniques at his disposal, was not the Dragon Lord. Mere hydraulic pressure wasn't sufficient to fight an Elder Dragon physically. Ordinary flames were insufficient to do more than blind one. Razor sharp claws could only do so much to scales as thick and scarred as those of the Dragon Lord, and what could be done could be healed by the magic he wielded with ease, if it were truly threatening. "Come on, is that all you've got, Torch?!" Weiss roared, flipping over onto the larger dragon's back and snaking a limb around the dragon's neck, pulling tightly to hold them in a choke-hold as he punched and clawed at his enemy. With a snarl, Torch flapped his wings, lifting into the air and diving back down in a flip that tore Weiss free from him, one of his arms being pulled off in the process. To his credit, Weiss didn't react at all to the damage, landing in a roll before shooting a trio of fireballs at Torch, clawing at the magma and dragging himself across it as the flames splashed harmlessly across the Dragon Lord's face. In this brief period of inattention, however, Weiss managed to claw at one of his eyes, blinding the dragon briefly and opening him to a flurry of slow, but immensely strong punches that pushed Torch back slightly. A glow of magic coincided with Torch growing even larger than before as greed flooded his body, and his eye healed in moments. Weiss, however, wasn't as quick on the uptake, and lost another two arms for it as Torch grabbed a pair and kicked Weiss in the chest, sending him flying back through the magma and smashing into the lip of the caldera. With a grimace, Weiss tried to regenerate the damage done to his spine, but could only manage a few weak bits of spellwork to reconnect the damaged nerves. With his three remaining arms clawing at the surface of the lava, Weiss dove under it and began growing a large spear of crystal beneath the magma. As he leapt up out of the molten rock to stab out with the spear, Torch unleashed his own attack, another blast of the Flame of Pain that erased both the spear and the two arms that held it from existence, boiling away a chunk of Weiss's false scales as well in the process. Torch grabbed at Weiss and flung him out of the magma, and it was at this point that Weiss knew the fight was coming to a close. There was little else he could do. Malifessence was too powerful a spell for him to contain any other Vancian magics alongside it yet, even with his spirit's capacity expanded by both greed and hatred, and he found the form lacking in the power needed to compete. Thus, it was with one final parting claw swipe that Weiss gouged at one of Torch's arms before that limb was forcibly removed by the Dragon Lord's own slash, leaving the artificial body helpless to continue. While Weiss's Malifessence form was bleeding black boiling water all over the ground as shreds of false flesh and royal cloth scattered the landscape, Torch was not utterly unharmed, for the first time in their years of duels. Claws and strength had done what mere pony spells could never hope to do. He had new cuts in his hide that would soon become part of the map of cracks and canyons of scar tissue that covered the elder dragon's body. New burns and bruises that would soon disappear, shedding away to reveal unfortunately fresh scales. Weiss's one remaining eye watched as Torch slowly plodded over, standing over the smaller dragon with a bright fire in his eyes. He began to laugh again, chuckling with intrigue at the sight before him. "What a worthy gift. It almost makes up for the annoyance. The sheer annoyance of finding myself respecting a pony. You are truly an irritant. A pest that is oh so persistent, even against me." "You consider yourself worthy of a dragon's claws? A dragon's form? Fine." He takes a deep breath, a full inhalation, as much air as he can manage. With a faint mutter from the Dragon Lord, Weiss's broken shadow clone grins, even as lightning begins to strike the ground from a clear sky. "You truly are a blight on my horde, nibbling at what I treasure. You have proven yourself a rodent among dragons, Dragon Mouse," was what he muttered with a toothy smile, the bright glow of power shining out from behind them. With that, Torch erases Weiss's Shadow Clone in its entirety with his most powerful flame, and listens to the maniacal laughter that erupts from it as he does.