Dark
by Kean
Editor's note: Warning - gore and dark subject matters ahead.
Twilight gasped and turned her head away from the talon running under her chin. She tried to see who was touching her, but her vision was black. Someone had blindfolded her.
“Ah, you’re finally awake,” Said a male voice. “And are you quite comfortable, princess?”
“W-where am I? Who are you?” She asked. Twilight made to remove the blindfold with her magic, but when called upon, none even reached her horn. “Why can’t I use my magic?!”
“Where you are is unimportant,” He said casually. “Who I am is as well. Let’s just say my superiors want to know more about you alicorns before making some important decisions. Since you are the newest and youngest, they figured you would know – “
“I don’t know anything! I’ve only just become an alicorn, and I’m not even sure how!”
“We assumed as much. Not to worry, we’ll both be learning a lot,” He chuckled. “As for your magic, well, we can’t just have you teleporting away now, can we? We know that even powerful unicorns are able to break negation rings placed on the horn. Build up enough charge and poof, you have pieces of inscribed shrapnel.
“Now, that certainly wouldn’t do. So our shamans came up with this.” He tapped a talon against something metallic around her neck. “This collar will attract, absorb, and collect any magic the wearer attempts to channel, and will even siphon off a bit of their passive magic!” He said gleefully. “It was made specifically for one of you, and has fail safes inscribed so it won’t be overcharged. Isn’t it just wonderful?”
Twilight’s hooves shot for the back of the collar, to search for the clasp, but were stopped by the wood of the table she had been placed on. Before she could lift her head or adjust herself to reach it, both fore hooves were grabbed and forced out to their respective sides.
“Ah-ah, now where would the fun in that be?” When he paused, Twilight could hear steps coming toward her and others milling about around her. She opened her mouth to plead with him, but the words died in her throat, replaced instead by a scream as she felt something puncture through her left leg, pinning it to the wooden table.
Even her scream was cut short, muffled by something being forced between her teeth. “Chew on that for a bit, if you wouldn’t mind. We wouldn’t want you biting through your tongue. Although, that is a thought… Oh, sorry, I thought the cloth we used would absorb the tears. No matter, you can live with a bit of wet fur, right?”
Nightmare, Celestia, Luna, Shiny, please –
“Now then, since you can’t use your magic,” He cut off her thoughts, taunting from above her. “You won’t need this, will you?” She felt him pull down on her horn. In an attempt to relieve the tension, she tilted her head back with his pull, only to feel the base press against something. “Oh, right! You’re a fellow researcher! Of course you’d make it easier for us to obtain study materials!”
A heavy weight pushed on her horn then.
She felt then heard the crack.
The gag couldn’t muffle her scream.
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“We’ve waited long enough! It’s been a week, and still no word from Twilight,” Nightmare fumed while she paced in front of both Celestia and Luna in a private chamber. “We need to – “
“Nightmare,” Celestia said calmly. “We have discussed this for the past two days. There is nothing we could do to find her without instigating a war.”
“Something I am beginning to believe that they are trying to bait us into,” Luna muttered.
“I shouldn’t have allowed her to go alone,” Nightmare growled.
“We sent her with a squad – “
“Your guards are incompetent at best, Celestia,” Nightmare spat. “Upon my return they fled at the mere sight of me and allowed me to enter your throne room, with pause only caused by the doors. Whether or not you could match me means nothing, we’d have destroyed Canterlot had I been looking to fight you again. You’ll excuse me If I believe they are competent enough to protect anything.”
Luna sighed. “Enough of this. We cannot send anyone to look for her, lest they perceive it a slight against them.”
“’We?’” Nightmare muttered, a grin beginning to form. She turned and made to leave.
“Where are you going?” Celestia asked.
Nightmare smiled at her over her shoulder. “I am going to the Griffin Kingdoms. I, a common citizen of Equestria – as your nobility so vocally protested my becoming a princess – will be there to see how they have changed and grown this past millennium.” Nightmare laughed as she pulled the door open with her magic. “If I am there for anything else, well, what would the princesses know about a common pony’s agenda?”
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How long had she been here? Weeks, months? Twilight didn’t know. The blindfold had been removed some time ago to, “Make sure she was reacting properly.” after she had stopped screaming at the pain they had been inflicting.
Day in and day out all she knew was pain. Whether it be from cuts, broken bones, tests done on what was left of her horn, drugs to test an alicorn’s reaction to them, even burns. She couldn’t see out of her left eye – she was certain it was gone – and couldn’t even feel the left side of her face.
All the while she held on to two things:
She wanted the pain to stop. One way or another. Death would be a glorious reprieve from this hell. Even most of her revenge fantasies ended up with her dying, one way or another.
She had tried, once, just lying there, breathing only enough that her chest wouldn’t noticeably move and giving no outward reaction to the pain, to see if they’d think her dead.
That’s when they burned her face.
The second was that Nightmare – she had given up on anypony else – would find her. She knew it was a foal’s fantasy that her knight in shining armor would save her, but fantasy was all she had left.
Another cut, this one on her right flank. A griffin walked by with a circular portion of her flank – her cutie mark. A slight widening of the eye was all she gave them.
It would grow back, in time. She’d learned that much, at least.
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As time went on, despair gave way to anger and hatred. Instead of her fantasies ending with her bleeding out from her wounds along with everyone in the lab, she began replacing herself with them.
They’ll miss something eventually. Forget to clamp my hooves back down, extend their neck close enough to my face, move the collar enough for the clasp to get caught on something. They are griffins, beasts, they are not perfect. They will make a mistake. When they do, I will drag them to Tarterus myself. Piece by fucking piece.
When a griffin shaman sent electricity coursing through her body causing her back to arch, pulling all limbs taught against the chains binding her, she did not scream. She looked the observers each in the eye.
The manic grin splitting her muzzle compared little to the laughter ringing throughout the room.
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Light tinted her vision orange through her one remaining eyelid. This was nothing new, of course. They’d always had a light on her. What was new was the warmth.
Did I finally die? She thought, trying hard to fight the smile creeping its way onto her muzzle.
Cracking her eye open, she found that Elysium was, in fact, pitch black. Elysium shifted and turned its teal draconic eye to hers.
Ah, not Elysium. More beautiful, anyway.
The bindings were quickly shattered, leaving only the shackles around her hooves. Nightmare slowly sat her up and made sure she was steady before speaking.
“Twilight – “
Twilight cut her off with a hoof to her lips. She sat like that for a moment, shifting her head from side to side. With a sigh, she opened her mouth, but gave no words. They wouldn’t be coherent, anyway.
Whatever composure Nightmare had left after boring a hole through several miles of earth, several robust defensive wards, tearing through the previous inhabitants of the lab, and seeing Twilight on a bloodied table, bound and scarred, fled at the sight of her marefriend’s tongue. Or, at least, what was left of it.
“I – hold a moment,” Nightmare said, choking back a sob. She lowered her horn to Twilight’s forehead and, after a brief flash, pulled away. “I have linked our minds, you should be able to – “
Thoughts, nothing more than jumbled emotions, flooded Nightmare’s mind. There was no happiness, no elation, no kindness, just anger, despair, and pure, un-bridled hatred. They passed as soon as they were felt and Twilight’s mind became clear, calmed. Nightmare shivered. “What did they do to you?”
Twilight ignored the question. She liked to think it was a rhetorical question. It would always be a rhetorical question, as far as she was concerned. Instead she pulled her lips into what she remembered could pass as a smile.
”I knew you would come for me.”
“I – “Nightmare started to press the question but the look in Twilight’s eye stopped her. ”Of course I would. I’ve been searching since you disappeared a year ago.” She pulled Twilight into a hug and held her. Twilight’s forelegs remained limp at her side. “But why are you in this condition? Your alicorn magic, it should be healing you.”
”It is, slowly. This damned collar is absorbing most of my magic. I can’t really move my limbs. Take it off?” Twilight’s voice was calm, flat. She was keeping her emotions in check while linked with Nightmare.
The moment the clasp was undone, Twilight went silent. Even as bones began to fuse back together or otherwise reform, the most noise she made was a grunt.
After a few minutes of silence, Nightmare began inspecting the collar. Even holding it in her hooves, she could feel it trying to drain her. She lit her horn, intent on destroying another object that had caused Twilight so much pain.
“Don’t,” Twilight rasped.
Looking over, Nightmare saw that all but the worst wounds and scars had either already healed or had begun to. The left side of her face was still a scarred mess. “Why not?”
Twilight was silent a few minutes longer, her eye on the collar. She licked her lips to wet them, her tongue was an odd shape, her magic still working to repair the damage. “I want it,” She simply said. “Could you get my horn? It should be somewhere over there.” She gestured behind herself with her head. “I’ll hold on to the collar.” Twilight held out a hoof.
Nightmare stared at her, trying to read Twilight’s thoughts through their link. A broken mind was generally a mess of broken thoughts and random emotion, but at least some information could be gleaned from it all.
Twilight’s mind was perfectly calm, clear. Even her roiling emotions, which were being betrayed by her face, were unable to be read.
With a sigh, Nightmare hoofed the collar over. The slight shiver Twilight gave – whether from excitement or fear, she couldn’t tell – did not go unnoticed. With her free hoof, Nightmare lifted Twilight’s chin. “I do not need to know your plan – I’m not sure I even want to know it. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time to come up with it.” Twilight tried to lower her head, but Nightmare kept her looking in her eyes. “But you will speak to me about this.”
Twilight stared back for a few moments, defiance in her eye. Even in her state, she couldn’t hold it. She nodded as best she could with her head being held up. Nightmare placed a gentle kiss on her lips before walking past her, out of her vision.
Twilight ignored the collar. Whether Nightmare would approve of her plan or not didn’t bother her, but she still didn’t want her to know. Instead, she searched what was left of the room. Nightmare spared nothing in her destruction. Desks, walls, lab equipment, gem and magic powered machines, all were destroyed. She let her thought slip for just a moment before regaining control, but knew that Nightmare felt how touched she was that somepony would do that for her.
In a far corner were the griffins of the lab. Or, for most of them, what was left. She saw the rise and fall of one of their chests and smiled. Containing her thoughts and emotions was hard. Not hopping off the table and tearing them apart would be so much harder.
“Did you find it yet?” She asked to distract herself.
“Yes,” Nightmare said as she approached, Twilight’s horn in tow in her magic. She gestured to the horn. “They kept it healthy, at least. We should be able to reattach it with minimal trouble, though you may just want to let your magic repair it. It may not be perfect.”
“I don’t need it to be perfect. I just need it to work,” Twilight growled.
With another sigh, Nightmare pressed the jagged base to the stub that was still on Twilight’s head. As soon as the edges connected, Twilight’s magic flared and fused the two together. What would make a hearty stallion squeal only made Twilight’s eye twitch slightly.
As soon as it was reconnected, Twilight’s horn flashed and she severed the mental link. No longer needing to hide her thoughts, she turned to the collar and enveloped it in her magic. There were only so many ways to absorb magic; she just needed to find how it did it.
So focused on the many enchantments and inscriptions was she, that she didn’t notice Nightmare climbing onto the table behind her until she was pulled into a hug, with Nightmare laying her head on top of hers, right next to her blazing horn. “Talk,” Nightmare said simply.
Twilight was quiet for a few minutes while she worked on modifying a few enchantments and burning new inscriptions into the collar.
“A collar,” She finally began. “It is an accessory for a pet, like a dog, either for aesthetic purposes, or to show ownership. They called me a ‘pet project’ a number of times. Fitting, really.” She rolled the collar in her magic once more before sliding out of Nightmare’s hold and stepping onto the floor.
“A dog can be the most loyal pet there can be. You can even discipline it – cause it pain – and it will still be loyal.” She settled the collar back on her neck and shivered. Even her newly mended wings twitched in excitement. Nightmare watched as she took a shaky step forward, then another surer step, to where the griffins lay.
“But, if you’re not careful, eventually the dog gets sick of it. It remembers every last thing you did to it. Every last yell, every last tap on the nose, every last slap on the rump, every last cut, injection, broken bone, and burn you gave it.” Twilight’s voice became a growl as she finished.
The collar flared to life as Twilight’s horn lit up. Instead of absorbing what she channeled, it offered what it stole. All the magic she’d tried to force out in anger, fear, and hatred was at her beck and call. An ethereal eye formed where her missing one was – it wouldn’t do to have poor depth perception. She rolled it a few times before locking her gaze on the griffin that was still alive.
Seeing this, Nightmare stepped off the table.
“And, eventually –“The griffin squawked in protest as he was hoisted in her magic. Turned to face her, she could see the fear in his eyes. She grinned. “– The dog bites. Come now, I’ve learned so much. I think it’s time for my test.”