Fleta the griffon nervously twiddled her claws and adjusted her glasses. Today, something would happen that apparently hadn't happened since before her parents were born.
Lord Weiss Noir, the mysterious master of the Shadow Realm would make a public appearance. At her school no less!
There was a lot that people didn't know about the mysterious ruler. He never made proclamations, and nobody ever saw him. Some rumors had him showing up in Equestria on rare occasion, and one theory she personally believed in was the one about him prowling the Shadow Realm in disguise, but one way or another, if you weren't a criminal, you were unlikely to ever see the ruler, much less speak to him.
A few of her classmates didn't even believe that the pony existed, as a matter of fact.
'Dummies,' she scoffed, glancing over to where some ponies and pokemon were sitting around one of the tables, playing games on their terminals before class started.
She looked down at her own personal copy of the Grimoire Noir, it was a battered old thing that her grandma had purchased years ago, and the notes penned into the margins of the book had only grown with each generation since then.
"Doodling in your dusty diary, Fossil Fleta?" a scrawny blue longma asked sarcastically. His friends, a longma-pegasus filly with a mane of lightning and little wingtip claws, and another griffon, a burly individual with undersized wings and a mechanical backpack, both snickered at his "genius" joke.
Her book was also a source of bullying, from ponies who thought pen and paper were 'primitive'.
"Ok, first? It's not a diary. Second, can you even think of a better insult? Lastly, you know I can beat all of you to a pulp, right?" Fleta responds, standing up with a dark aura.
As she does, the trio's own energies come to the surface, the room pulsing with a youthful malicious energy.
"On your own, or all at once," she boasts, smirking at the bullies, who respond with grins of their own. This was the way of things here. What wasn't a fight was always merely the prelude to one, in this realm.
They reveled in it.
The building violent emanation is quashed by the arrival of their teacher, who pops into the room cheerfully, automatic doors sliding open for her.
"Hello class! Everyone to your seats, please," Miss Weldline chirps, bouncing along into her own seat at the head of the class.
As the trio of idiots took their seats, and the rest of the class slowly closed out of their various terminals and did the same, Miss Weldline began preparing something on the board, projector glowing as the lights were turned off
"Today we'll be learning a bit more about enchanting. As you all know, enchanting is-" she begins to explain, going on about emotional influx, magical splitting, and the ways perspective mattered for spellcraft.
Fleta was anxious, and she had already learned today's lesson, which made it easy to tune it out and worry about what was supposed to happen today.
Though, even if she did know how to enchant items already, she would never admit it, for fear of being placed a year ahead.
One of the many lessons she learned from her personal studies into her copy of the Grimoire Noir was caution. 'You don't know how fast is too fast until it's too late to stop.'
It was true for learning Dark Magic, and it was true for other things too. Accelerating her learning could see her out of school sooner, but she would miss out on things too. Not least of which the fun fights.
Finally, though, when she was almost afraid he wouldn't show, the sliding door opened, and a young-looking unicorn peeked inside.
"Is this room #209? I was supposed to come for a visit?" the white pony asked, his purple eyes sliding across the room. Along his back, six pads of metal were seemingly stuck to him, and despite having the black flame of a Longma, his hooves didn't seem to have a single scale on them.
Miss Weldline blinked at the newcomer.
"Oh! Yes, my lord! Please come in," she said, turning the lights on and turning to the class.
"Everyone, this is Lord Weiss Noir, he has agreed to come here and speak with you all briefly, so please be on your best behavior!" she insisted, her brown flames flickering nervously.
Of course, anyone could have seen what came next quite handily, as the sparking pegasus took a shot at Weiss, flying towards him with wing-claws outstretched.
He just chuckled a bit, taking a smooth step to the side that resulted in her crashing into the closed door with a loud CLANG!
"Kids these days, am I right?" the Lord of the Shadow Realm said, shaking his head at the teacher, who grabbed the little filly by her ear and pulled her back to her chair.
Honestly, who could blame her? A few other students were eyeing the Sage of Darkness as well, a fight with him would be the stuff of legends, the kind of brawl that only happens once in a lifetime!
Sadly, it looked like the filly had ruined it for everyone else, the sage would be on his guard now, making a sudden fight much more difficult.
"Heh. So, everyone, I'd like to preface this by explaining why I'm here. You kids probably haven't seen hide or hair of me before, and that's because I'm typically quite busy," Lord Weiss explained, stepping to the front of the class and taking a seat on a chair that comes into being with a quick spell.
"So, to clarify, I'm here because, as Princess Luna told me, 'your ponies are beginning to doubt you even existed!', and trust me, when a princess is mad, you know you've screwed up," he joked, making the class laugh.
He shrugs. "So, if there's anything any of you would like to know about, I'd be happy to give the deets," he explained.
Fleta was the first one to raise a talon, as high as she could. She had so many questions, and now was her chance to get them answered!
"Ehh... You there, in front," he said, pointing a hoof to a random pony.
"My pa said you was a dragon," the colt said, hoof still raised.
Lord Weiss blinked. "That's... Not a question. Do you have a question?"
The colt shook his head, and with an incredulous chuckle, Lord Weiss moved on to another question.
"Why don't you have any scales?"
"I left them at home, next," he snarked back.
"Fight me!"
"You're fifty years too young to be fighting me, brat, next!"
"Will you teach me some dark magic?!"
The class went silent, and Fleta realized that she's the one who asked, words bumbling their way out of her mouth without her authorization.
"My lord," she quickly appended, flushing deeply under the intense scrutiny of the class, and of course...
Lord Weiss Noir himself, who stared at her for an awkwardly long time, something flickering in his eyes serving as the only noteworthy aspect of his otherwise blank expression.
He blinks, and the moment shatters. "See me after class," he finally says, pointing to a small Windigo inhabiting a little fox pokemon body for the next question.
When asked why he tastes like spicy peppers to the Windego's hate-senses, the class exploded into guffaws, and weird Fossil Fleta's abrupt request fell out of their short little memories.
He was waiting for her. Like a ghost standing out in the tunnels, he seemed to materialize out of nothing. Could she learn to do that?
"My lord," Fleta attempted, bowing to the dark mage of legend.
He took a deep breath at that, blinking several times like something had blinded him.
"Walk with me, kid," he said, turning and stalking down one of the halls. He was heading towards one of the older places, places where veins of white ever-molten metal did not yet light the tunnels in place of enchanted crystals.
Old, old places.
She followed as fast as she could, and as Lord Weiss turned left and right down the twisting halls, following a map that only he knew, they eventually came out of one of the service vents overlooking the Kingdom Heart.
It was a black, writhing thing, a blend of millions of emotions, thousands of viewpoints, and perhaps billions of individual little hatreds.
She stared at it with the same awe and pride that she always felt when she saw it. Her hate was a part of this too. Her grudges, however small and petty they were, helped to keep the kingdom safe and warm.
"Tell me something, kid. When you come here, what do you put into the heart? What gets your blood boiling in the morning?" Lord Weiss asks, staring into the magical flame himself.
"Oh, well... There's a lot of things, my lord! Bullies in school, teachers I particularly loathe, who honestly, I don't think are fit to teach excepting as an example of what not to do! I also particularly dislike the fact that Griffonia doesn't use greed magic anymore," she explains.
Some griffons were unhappy with King Grover, who had discovered a magical idol capable of turning the greed of griffonkind into pride. Those griffons who wished to recapture the greed they had lost had come to the one kingdom that endorsed it. Her grandparents were among those, welcomed to the Shadow Realm with open hooves.
"I'm as proud as any of us of course, but greed is what we came from! We were once as greedy as dragons, and my dream is to prove it! It's why I wanted you to teach me something, anything! So few truly delve into the dark arts, beyond knowing enough to feed the Kingdom Heart or enchant items..."
After a few moments of panting from her excited explanation, she clarified. "My dream is to find a way to combine Pride, Hatred, and Greed together. Surely it can be done, can't it, my lord?"
Lord Weiss Noir digested this answer, and pruned away the extraneous bits that came from having one so young try to give an answer so important.
He looked pained, and offered a sideways smirk to Fleta in spite of it.
"You probably shouldn't learn any more dark magic."
She didn't hear it correctly, at first. A mistake of perception, maybe.
"Is it something wrong with my answer? If there's a problem, surely I can fix it! I know magic takes a certain perspective, and I can find that perspective! Change for the better!"
He shook his head.
"I can't teach you how to change for the better, that's not how dark magic works. ...Once you go deep enough, you only change for the worse."
He looked sad, but kept smirking. "You're dreaming, kid, and it's time to wake up."
Sadly, she was capable of eventually perceiving reality, given the seconds to do so.
A pony probably would have reacted any number of ways. An adult griffon, probably just one very violent way.
But she was a child, and children had their own way of reacting to something like that.
She bawled.
She bawled in the way that someone only really did when being chastised, not just for doing what they love, or from being chastised by one they revere and respect, but by both of those things together.
She didn't take the rebuke as a source of rage to push her on further and further towards mastery of the dark arts. She didn't take it as a casual offer of advice, that she could then ignore and continue on as she had wished.
Truthfully, then, anyone could have predicted that, if left as it was, the young griffon would grow up into anything at all, so long as it was something sad and miserable. That night, she sniffled and cried her way to sleep, and met an Alicorn Princess in her dreams who knew her plight, and took up where a Lord left off.
She wasn't the greatest dark magic user in the world, but she was gentler, and knew a fair bit herself, perhaps enough to be considered second best. A consolation prize for a poor little griffon who was born too late to be a least treacherous student.
History books wouldn't remember Fleta as more than a proud researcher of magic, who used Freedom and Greed in creative ways, and invented new alloys of feathers and metals combined, but she was penned into the books nonetheless. Princess Luna demanded it.
Weiss had done many visits that day. Talked to many who thought he was a myth. It all led to here, his last visit of the day. His last reminder of his existence, and his ever-present control. One last pony would remember that he was no mere specter.
Weiss knocked on the door, despite knowing all of the secrets needed to open it by force. It slid open automatically, and he strode in with a more genuine smile. It was time to take one of his dishes out from its slow cook in the oven. It was finally ready.
The room was lavish, decorated with the skulls and heads of monsters. It was terrifying, lined with walls of weapons and armors, magical and mechanical alike.
It was old, and if Weiss allowed it to be much older, then his plan would fail.
Bruto sat in an armchair. It was his one-hundredth birthday.
"So, you've finally come. I imagine you finally figured things out? What could you possibly punish me with at this point, my lord, this late in the game?" he asked with a wizened smile.
He had spent his life in fear of being discovered for his treachery, for a time, but as the decades wore on, and he battled without end amassing victories both fair and unfair alike, that fear disappeared. Weiss Noir hadn't dared to confront him about what he had done. Hadn't dared to punish him for all he had stolen.
Weiss laughed.
"I bet you're wondering if you've been in the Three Curses this entire time, huh, Bruto?" he asked.
When the ancient Longma refused to answer, Weiss laughed again.
"No, I suppose you didn't. Well, here we are. Why would I need to punish you further, Bruto? Look at this!" he gestures with his six claws around the room.
"You made a hell of your own design. A lifetime of fighting, and now you've grown old, too late to wean yourself off the taste of it. I didn't have to do anything but make sure you survived."
Bruto took a deep breath that hurt, as he realized how insane the master of the Shadow Realm truly was. For dooming countless lives, he was punished with nothing at all? A long life to be ended quietly in his old age?
Weiss had known, perhaps from the beginning, that Bruto had given the enemy information, manipulated events just to squeeze a good fight out of the circumstances, and this was how he reacted?
It was galling. Insulting.
Effective.
"I'm not here to punish you... I'm here to make you an offer you can't refuse. One you won't refuse," Weiss began to explain.
"You, dear Bruto, are perfect for a special council of mine. One I have taken care not to bloat overmuch with those too obsessed with my care or my status. You, my dear Judas, my... My Brutus! You've wounded me by letting Sombra slip past my defenses..." he said, as if Bruto had done it yesterday.
"But like a man said, what doesn't kill me... Only makes me stronger."
He pulls from an invisible place behind him a lamp.
"And you will make me stronger... Do this, and I will grant your deepest, truest desire..."
Bruto listened with baited breath. The Lamp of Life, Weiss Noir's most treasured treasure, the source of his immortality and long life, a vessel containing what must have been thousands of years of taken lifeforce.
"I will give you worthy opponents."
And Bruto remembered the glory days. He remembered the hours spent watching cartoons, between the hours spent living them in endless bloody brawls and pointless fights. In hunts that saw him facing grand beasts and incredible monsters, with only cheating and brutality to avail him.
He remembered when he could perform his special talent. His talent had always been fighting dirty, and that meant having an advantage beyond raw muscle in a skirmish... But no pony could fight forever. How long had it been since he had used his special talent? Since he had done what he learned at age ten was his heart's desire? What he knew he wanted to do for the rest of his life?
Weiss made sure he had a full, fulfilling life in the Shadow Realm, all to addict him to it. A cruel drug that was dangled in front of him here. Life.
He didn't care about the delicate metaphors of good and evil right now, here at the end. He just wanted to fight.
"I accept."
Weiss clapped happily, drawing a white flame from the lamp.
"I'm glad to hear it, Councilman Oh Hell."
Bruto frowned at the name. If he was going to be a faceless member of a mysterious group enslaved to a madman's will, he would at least demand a proper title.
"Please... Call me Black Angel"
The next day, Weiss, brutalized and bloodied in his own inner sanctum, begged the princesses for help once again. Bruto, a violent pony from a bygone era, had stolen life from the Lamp of Life, and nearly taken away with Weiss's own. The alicorns easily dealt with the rejuvenated Longma, and had him in chains before the day was through.
For his crimes, he was sentenced to Tartarus while still alive. He laughed, even as he was carted beyond the gates, and taken into the land of the dead to remain there for eternity in its prison.
That day, a second Black Materia found its way into Weiss's hidden collection. A second Materia containing the "Summon" spell, nearly seventy years after the first.