//------------------------------// // Drained (3) // Story: The Black Cloak Files // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// “An underground lair below a factory… when will villains ever learn?” Bucky grumbled as Sunset Shimmer pushed aside a heavy metal slab using her magic. “Speaking as an evil warlock, I hide out in a nice somewhat rustic looking farmhouse near a school for foals and instruct said foals in my evil ways daily. No do gooder heroes ever come to try and root me out.” “Master, you are a competent villain that has made himself useful to society… in spite of your many nefarious acts, you are seen as a good guy… plus you keep competent help,” Sunset Shimmer said as the rusty metal slab was finally pushed aside, revealing stairs downwards. “I also try to be a good father… and no pony ever wants to punish a good doting devoted father,” Bucky quipped as he began to go down the stairs. “Stay close Minion. I don’t want you getting hurt again.” As Bucky emerged at the bottom of the stairs, he was greeted with spellfire. Heavy incoming spellfire, including a few necromantic spells that Bucky simply did not appreciate. He threw his cloak over Sunset Shimmer… there was a burst of cold… and then the cloak fluttered to the ground, laying flat upon the floor. The six unicorns in the room all stared at the cloak, wondering what had just happened. One of them, braver than the others, approached the cloak cautiously, knowing that the room was warded against teleportation, so he knew that the invaders had not teleported away. He made it to the cloak, standing near it, and he felt a growing feeling of dreadful apprehension. “Where did they go?” the unicorn asked, looking around the room at his fellows. There were several shrugs and one grunt in reply. Feeling a very foalish sense of fear, compelled to look beneath the cloak, the unicorn banished the foalish thoughts from his mind and then he cautiously reached out with his magic, grabbing the edge of the cloak to lift it and peer beneath. Under the cloak was a portal to Tartarus. Flames billowed, the stench of rotten eggs assaulted the unicorn’s nose… in the middle of the flames was one terrible eye staring up at him, a crimson eye surrounded by a sickly green. A horrific purple mist drifted from the eye that was surrounded by flames on all sides. “THE BOOGEYPONY IS REAL!” the unicorn squealed in a frightened foalish voice as he stared into the portal to Tartarus and saw the hideous eye of the boogeypony. “THE BOOGEYPONY IS RE-” The unicorn’s terrified shrieking was cut off suddenly as a flaming claw shot out from beneath the cloak, grabbed the unicorn by his throat, and then dragged him beneath the cloak. The edge fluttered down the floor and the cloak went flat again. There was one single horrified scream from beneath the cloak that filled the room with a strange disembodied sound. “I never signed on to fight the boogeypony!” one unicorn shouted as he bolted for the stairs, carefully avoiding the cloak on the ground. He ran away, fleeing up the stairs, dribbling urine on the steps as he departed. He didn’t get very far, the patch of ice upon the stairs caused him to come tumbling back down. He landed near the cloak… screaming, wide eyed with terror, and immediately began to crawl away while his companions screamed bloody murder. The edge of the cloak lifted, there was a ferocious belch, and a pony skeleton was vomited out, the bones scattering over the floor, the horned skull visible, each bone having been picked clean, all of the flesh devoured by the hungry boogeypony that clearly had a craving for sweet delicious pony flesh. One of the unicorns let out a very fillyish scream and then fainted dead away. “I huuuuuuungerrrrrr,” a voice moaned from beneath the cloak. The ‘r’ sounds rolled into a terrifying growl and the sound echoed around the room strangely. One of the unicorns stopped screaming and simply went still, his eyes going vacant, filled with a ghastly green light as dark magic overtook him. “The boogeypony must be fed. Give yourself to him,” the unicorn commanded. “He must feast upon your souls!” The unicorn made a gurgle, his eyes rolled back into his head, and then he began to vomit out a endless stream of maggots, a writhing wriggling mass of maggots that poured from his mouth, his nostrils, and then finally his ears, flooding the floor around him. Fear was now contagious. It spread through the room like wildfire. There was no defense, no protection, no stopping the horror of the boogeypony. One by one, the unicorns succumbed to the fear, telling their fellows it was hopeless before they too, began spewing maggots out in an endless stream. When there was no credible threat left, the pile of bones upon the floor became a pony, a paralysed pony whose eyes showed the lurid green glow that was the easily identified symptom of dark magical influence. The maggots stopped pouring out of those afflicted by the fear spell. One by one, the bodies dropped down, now helpless, paralysed by the fear and the hideous dark magic that Bucky had brought to bear. The maggots vanished, leaving no trace that they had once been there. The terrible black cloak rose into the air and Bucky materialised with Sunset Shimmer standing safe beside him. The pair looked around the room, and Bucky chuckled a smug sounding chuckle. “You alright Minion? One of those necromantic spells got close, I’m worried,” Bucky said after a moment of chortling. “That was fun! When can we do that again!” Sunset Shimmer shouted. The sunny orange unicorn’s nose crinkled. “Wow, I think somepony shat themselves.” “Ugh,” Bucky grunted. “I do believe you are right… Minion, I am in a hurry to get out of here. These unicorns won’t be trouble ever again I don’t think,” Bucky said in a disgusted voice, looking at one unicorn whose mane had turned white. He had been the one that had been pulled beneath the cloak. “There’s a door. I say we introduce ourselves to whomever is left down here,” Sunset Shimmer suggested, her nostrils still crinkling from the smell of feces. “I always thought the boogeypony was just a story… now I am his Minion. Life is funny how it turns out sometimes.” The large industrial cellar stank of strange chemicals. A mechanical thrum filled the air. In the center of the room was what appeared to be a makeshift hospital. Several unicorns walked around, pacing, nervous, but made no move to attack. A few simple golems walked about, small things, golems made for simple tasks, not attacking. In the middle of the hospital area, there was a sling hanging from the ceiling, and hanging from that sling was a unicorn, a terrible jaundiced looking pony whose pelt had mostly fallen out, revealing yellowed wrinkled skin that had hung in flabby folds from the unicorn’s body. The most notable feature of the pony in the sling, his legs dangling down towards the floor, his head held in another sling, were the wings. The surgical sutures were still visible, they were weeping pustulent infection. Somepony had tried surgery to make themselves into an alicorn. Tubes were inserted into the body at various locations, locations that Bucky and Sunset Shimmer both knew from anatomy lessons, locations where there were major thaumaturgical glands in the body. A clear liquid dribbled through the tubes. Nearby, there was a vat of greenish liquid that Bucky recognised as changeling goop. “If you unplug him, he will die,” one of the unicorns said in low voice. “We’re so close. He’s getting better… he’s recovering,” one announced. “We know he looks terrible now, but he really is recovering,” another stated in a pleading voice, his eyes filled with worry as Bucky approached. “You murdered ponies to get the liquid mana you needed for this abomination,” Bucky accused in a flat sounding icy voice. “Just useless ponies that had nothing else to contribute to society… at least their deaths fueled our great work,” a unicorn replied, being blunt and direct. “Unicorns deserve to rule… we are owed-” “YOU ARE OWED NOTHING!” Bucky thundered, whirling to look at the unicorn that was speaking. “As a unicorn you have an obligation to use your magic to protect the least among you… you preyed upon your own kind, your own tribe. We were created to guard the equine race from the threats that the pegasi could not fight… you have violated this sacred trust.” “So you want to turn all unicorns into alicorns… except for the ones that you deem unworthy and lemme guess… you kill those unicorns, bleed them dry of their liquid mana reserves, and then you continue to make abominations of yourselves,” Sunset Shimmer said in a voice gritty with rage. “This isn’t even garden variety unicorn superiourity, this is a special kind of stupidity. Somewhere, some villages are missing their idiots.” “Being a unicorn used to mean a life of privilege and respect! We lost Canterlot!” a unicorn retorted angrily. “None of you in this room are even type threes. I sense a couple of type ones and a few type twos. Tell me, in your perfect society, what is to stop the strong from preying upon you and taking what they need? From where I’m standing, you’re part of the useless unicorns that serve no purpose,” Bucky said in a cruel cutting voice that dripped with acidic truth. A tense moment filled the room as the unicorns looked around at one another. “If even one necromantic spell is cast I will be the end of you. Surely you know who I am. I am the Lord of Winter. I have been dead and I have endured the trials of the stygian pits in Tartarus to bring Love back to the world. I am utterly immune to necromantic magic,” Bucky announced in a cold emotionless voice, his horn glowing as he looked around the room, prepared to do whatever needed to be done. “We have power,” one of the unicorns hissed. “You release demons into the world and are offered a false hope in exchange!” Bucky roared, turning his terrible Taint filled stare upon the unicorn that spoke. “Do you want to see real power? I could show you. I could make you feel it!” “You have nothing. I have felt real power,” Sunset Shimmer said, her eyes narrowing. “It requires sacrifice, pain, and suffering… not deals made with demons… give the word Master… I will kill them, cleanly and quickly. Necromancers do not deserve to live.” “We submit. We surrender. Fighting you will accomplish nothing, but if we surrender at least we can be martyrs for our cause,” a unicorn said, hanging his head in defeat. His horn glowing with black fire, Bucky shook his head. One by one, the unicorns fell to the floor, shouting and screaming in agony as black crystals grew from their horns. “No… no martyrdom. Nopony will remember you. We will go through and erase every memory of you from those that knew you. We will cut you away like a tumorous growth. We will purge this poison from society. Not a single one of you will ever be remembered, your own mothers will not even remember birthing you. There will be no record of your passing. You will fall into shadow and be completely unknown. And society will go on, having been made better after your erasure.” “Master, should I unplug the abomination?” Sunset Shimmer asked in a low voice as she looked around at the unicorns with black crystal growths all around her, watching them writhe upon the floor. “No Minion. You did summon backup, correct? We should keep it alive so Twilight Sparkle can examine it,” Bucky instructed. “Poor dumb bastards. They actually believed that they would get a public trial. Tsk tsk tsk. Too bad we Black Cloaks don’t work that way,” Sunset Shimmer said, peering around the room with great interest. “By the way Master, I shall expect to be compensated in some fashion for not telling Bon Bon that you told a lie about being immune to necromancy.” “Minion, how could you?” Bucky protested, looking at his apprentice in disgust. Back in Canterlot, Bucky watched as Twilight Sparkle and Fever Cure moved around the room, gathering materials and supplies as they prepared to perform an autopsy together. Other doctors also moved about, but Bucky did not know them. The abomination, still alive, was suspended in a tank of clear liquid, a breathing tube inserted down it’s nostrils, its head held above the clear liquid by a loop of padded strap. Bubbles percolated through the liquid. “This really is extraordinary,” Twilight Sparkle said in a cold clinical voice. “It shows signs of healing, natural healing, not necromantic healing,” Fever Cure stated in an oddly excited voice. “The infection was getting better it seems. The sutures show signs of closing. They really were close.” “Damnable cultists,” a doctor muttered. “Given enough time, the constant infusion of raw liquid mana would have magically charged the body and I do believe they would have eventually succeeded in making an artificial alicorn,” Twilight Sparkle said in a detached voice that contained no emotion. “All of the thaumaturgical glands have been enlarged. Sort of like yours has Bucky. Similar, but we do not believe they are quite the same,” Fever Cure stated in a pleased sounding voice, barely able to contain himself as he bounced around in place. “I love fringe science!” “Yours grew enlarged as well after your… alteration... by Princess Luna and Buckminster,” Twilight Sparkle said as she looked over at Fever Cure. “I have arrived,” Princess Luna announced as she burst into the room. “Are we ready to begin?” she asked, looking around the room. “I just hope that some good comes out of the horrible thing we are about to do,” Bucky grumbled, unable to watch as the life support was turned off one switch at a time.