I ripped the roof-access doors out of their frames, holding them in my magic and spinning them around. A pair of shocked earth ponies stared with wide-eyed terror at me from within. I wasted no time on deciding if these were addicts or not. The nodes of black crystal they were surrounded by told me all I needed to know. So without a word I sent the doors through the opening, one for each of my targets.
The ponies didn't even have time to shout before the door slammed into them, hurling them back and into the wall beside the elevator hard enough to leave imprints. The door windows shattered, coating the ground with sharp pebbles of glass. I stalked forward as the two ponies were picking themselves up, shadows leaking from their eyes. I called magic to create heat as I stepped into the field of silicon gravel, melting the glass into a red-glowing sludge at my hooves. It didn't burn me, I was far too smart to have neglected mere convection from my protections. I stood in the puddle of molten glass and opened the wings of my coat, glaring imperiously with luminous eyes at my quarry.
The addicts glared at me. "Shadow Slayer," one of them said, a cruel smile curling at his lips. The other wasn't nearly as sure of himself, and his eyes were filled with fear. Either response suited me. I would just need to make an example of one to make use of the other.
I sent a wave of glass at the cocky one. He screamed as it hit him, igniting parts of his coat and searing into his flesh. He thrashed and shook, succeeding in spreading droplets of glass around. I took some of the remaining glass and telekinetically forged it into a long, thin spike. Then, using my magic to hold its shape, I speared the pony through. He froze, pain and rage overcome by the existential terror that naturally comes from having a spear of very, very hot glass puncturing a lung.
I turned to the other pony, who was stilled by similar fear, and with just as much reason. "You will tell me everything that is going on," I said. "Everything."
"I... I..." the stallion gulped. "Please, don't kill me, please."
"I'm considering it," I warned. "But the more time you waste in telling me what I want to hear, the more weight the 'killing you' option has."
"Its a trap!" he gasped, thankfully catching my meaning with no need to further explain. "The hospital is set up to–"
He never got to finish, his throat exploding with a gush of blood as spectral claws tore his trachea completely out. My eyes flashed to behind the dying pony, where Alley Cat was giving me a taunting grin. I hadn't even noticed her arrival, all my enhanced senses practically blind to her until she chose to act. A quality of hers that I find extremely frustrating. "Uh-uh," she chided the stallion. "No spoiling the fun!"
I snarled, leaping at Alley Cat. She laughed and darted away into the stairwell. I followed, ignoring the choked scream that the remaining addict made as I stopped magically holding the glass spear in its shape and it started cooking him from the inside. It didn't matter. All that mattered was catching up to Alley Cat. She knew her masters, and I was determined to make her tell me.
Of course, the stairwell was pitch black, the black crystal nodes growing like mold on the walls sucking in what light my horn was giving off. I stumbled a bit at first, but quickly began levitating, skipping lightly down the steps, following the mocking sounds of Alley Cat's laughter.
I heard the sounds of a door, and saw a flash of light and the silhouette of a lithe figure darting into a hallway. Of course I followed, the possibility that it was a trick of some kind outweighed by the futility of continuing to search in the darkness of the stairs.
I didn't blindly barrel through the door, though. Instead I stopped and took a calming breath. I couldn't afford to let Alley Cat toy with me, and blindly rushing after her like this was only playing to her strengths. No, I needed to be more calm, methodical. I had to remind myself that even if she escaped now I would find her eventually.
I opened the door slowly, using my magic to do the work while I stood back a ways and observed. When nothing immediately attacked, I decided it was safe enough and stepped out into the hospital hallway. It was a strange, almost surreal scene. The hall was empty of ponies, all the doors along the walls standing closed. Wheeled beds, IV stands and wheelchairs were scattered along the length of the hall, one particular wheelchair sitting at the start of a trail of blood that led into a connecting hallway. The lights were on, but the nodes of black crystal that had been stuck haphazardly about the walls, floor and ceiling dimmed that lighting to an anemic blue-white glow. As I watched, a shiver of dark power flowed through the building, making the crystals vibrate with the energy and sending the light shuddering between magnesium-flare brilliance and stygian shadow for a few seconds.
That flare of power had been a signal of some kind, and the moment it had passed voices began whispering from behind the doors. It sounded like they were coming from all around me, unintelligible, barely at the level that they could be consciously heard. Half formed words and alarming fragments of sentences rose above the low-level din to be heard, but while they encouraged the listener to pay more attention to the voices, they never resolved into something comprehensible.
It was an attack. A psychic and emotional strike designed to set ponies off balance, to make them nervous and anxious. I would like to say that I was immune, but I have never been in iron control of my emotions and I am forced to admit that it was at least partially effective. It certainly distracted me from the door opening until a pony was already stepping through it.
"Terminal exposure," the stallion whispered, staggering into the hall like a drunk. He wore a lab coat that was covered in unidentifiable filth, and I could see from his cutie mark that he was probably one of the doctors. Shadows were trailing from his eyes and power thrummed from him. "Beyond safe limits. But what is safe? Who decides?" he rambled as he took slow steps, nearly tripping over himself. "Who has the authority? No one! No one! I decide what is too much, no other!"
I stepped back from him, my coat opening slightly. The sound of my hooves against the ground was muffled by the costume, but still loud enough to attract his attention. His eyes snapped to me and his lips curled in a vicious snarl. "Ignorant child," he hissed. "Respect your betters!" He leapt at me, but I telekinetically grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall before he got close. He struggled against my hold, but I was far too strong for him. I stepped close, looking into his shadowed eyes. "Whelp! I have more training in my left hoof than you've ever seen in your life!" Spittle flew from his mouth as he talked, rage making his eyes bulge.
"They did this to you," I said. I could feel the dark magic surging in him, corrupting his mind and body. The contrast between the invasive power of the black crystal and his natural purity was stark. This was no addict, this was a victim. Maddened and violent, but not responsible for his actions. "They're using innocents against me." I shook my head and began to constrict my magic around the doctor's throat, cutting off his air. "Fools."
The doctor had just lost consciousness when I became aware of other doors opening. The whispering grew louder and more distinct as other ponies began to shuffle into the hallway. I looked away from the slumped doctor to see dozens of ponies, some clearly patients, others probably staff, looking at me with a hunger that reminded me of the first night I had learned of black crystal. The same look had been in the eyes of the addicts in that broken tenement.
"So strong," one of them said, stalking forward with a hip-swaying strut that I found myself unexpectedly reacting to. Black magic thickened in the air, created by the doses of crystal forced on these ponies and magnified by the crystal nodes that also sapped my power. "I want it."
That sentiment was echoed by the other victims, and as one they lurched at me. I reared back and let loose a blast of power that knocked the front lines back. This didn't deter them, in fact it only seemed to energize them. My horn flared and I readied a spell that would rend limbs and cut through anything in its path. But on the cusp of releasing it I paused.
They were on me a moment later, before I could resolve my indecision, and by then it was too late. The spell died and I was forced to fight.
They didn't fight with any coordination or technique. They weren't even trying to hurt me, not really. I don't even think they understood the needs that drove them to attack. What I do know is that the dark magic in them somehow allowed them to sense my own power, and they wanted to possess it for themselves. No matter how impossible that was. No matter that they would rip me apart in their futile attempts to get at it.
I was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. I kicked out, but deep in the hold of the black crystal they weren't feeling pain. Answering kicks knocked me to the ground. Hooves took hold, pressing down on me, crushing and stomping. My costume protected me, both magically and with the natural resistance of the leather, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't strong enough to fight them off.
Or, rather, I wasn't physically strong enough. My magic, on the other hoof, was more than up for the task.
My coat flared, throwing four ponies into the ceiling. A bubble of telekinesis expanded from me, bulldozing the rest back from me. The unicorns among them lit their horns, trying to counter my power. They might as well have been swallows trying to fight a hurricane. I brushed their magic aside, lashing out with tendrils of light to wrap around their necks and limbs, dragging them all to hang in the air.
With a snarl of effort I slammed the lot of them into the ground, dazing them. Then before they could recover I grabbed them again and threw them bodily through the walls into the rooms that they had so recently vacated. Even through the pain-deadening effects of the black crystal, they couldn't help but feel that.
I didn't have time to gloat, though, as a snickering laugh brought my attention to Alley Cat, who was standing at the other end of the hallway. She beckoned me with a wave of her hoof and disappeared around a corner. I was after her before I'd made the conscious decision to move, my magic throwing me down the corridor with a speed that Rainbow Dash would approve of. I rounded the corner, barely avoiding slamming into the wall, just in time to see Alley Cat's tail vanish into a room. More victims stood in this hall, between me and where the elusive addict had gone. I decided that I wouldn't wait for them to attack as I had before, grabbing them and shoving them to the walls as I roared past.
The door Alley Cat had went through was closed and, surprisingly, locked. As if a lock would do any more than slow me for a second. I smashed through the lock, running full tilt into the room.
Heh. On reflection, this next bit went surprisingly well. It would have been much, much worse if they hadn't decided to get clever. Ah, the beautiful arrogance of dark magic.
The room was a simple hospital room, but the beds and other furniture had been cleared out. In their place there were six black crystal cores, like the one I had pulled out of the sky-kraken. They were arranged around the edges of a pattern that had been cut into the floor: a magic circle. A magic circle that I had just run right into the middle of.
Alley Cat grinned from beyond the edge of the circle. "Surprise!" she said, and darkness exploded from the cores, drowning me in an ocean of black magic.