Sombra's Redemption

by Orion97

Poisoned Blood and Tainted Soul

If only we had stopped there and never ventured farther into those damned ruins...things would be different, as a result of what happened that day history remembers me as a villain, a blackened soul and a heart twisted beyond recognition. You know...before what happened so long ago I actually had a light gray coat, and whenever I used magic it appeared dark blue, until the dark magic warmed my body and mind. What history never told anyone was that everything I did...was to protect others. I sacrificed my heart, my mind, my hopes and dreams and everything I had once desired to be. I sacrificed...everything I held dear and I did it all for the people...even if they'll never know it.

"Pssst, hey, hey Sombra, wake up. I heard weird noises coming from deeper inside. I think we should see what it is." Midnight Hope had awoken me barely ten minutes after I had laid myself to sleep along with the others. After spending the rest of the day and a good part of the night talking amongst ourselves the hour of night made our eyelids heavy. As could be expected I wasn't eager to be exploring when I was so tired, nonetheless I was not one to let a friend go alone.

"Ughh...only if you must insist, but if we see anything we return here."

"Great!" He nearly shouted but silenced himself quickly when he realized he'd wake the others if he kept talking loudly.

"Well let us go find out what it was." He opened his mouth to say something but closed it. He turned around and led the way deeper into the cave. With the exception of a rat or two we heard almost nothing, it was eerily quiet yet I knew we weren't entirely alone. We tread past dozens of old, half collapsed buildings, some clear in function like a shop, or a blacksmith, and plenty of homes, some were damaged beyond all recognition, their occupants replaced with insects and the occasional vermin.

"Wow...would you look at all this Sombra..." Midnight's jaw hung low as he beheld an awe inspiring sight, it was a beautifully crafted temple, even for it's advanced age it held remarkably well. Above the temple was a huge dome-like space to give it room, easily making it one of the most open areas within the ruins. Before I knew it I held the same expression he did, after all the temple was easily a hundred feet tall at least, and wider than it was tall as it was roughly the shape of a pyramid. It's size wasn't the marvel, it was the painstakingly artistic pieces that adorned the temple the were amazing, and they all but covered the temple. This place was obviously one of great importance.

"Well let's not waste time let's explore!" With that Midnight took off and was climbing up the steps to the summit of the mighty temple. I quickly followed suit and in moments we were at the summit, a wide platform was at the top. It was in that one tiny spot within the whole world, that destiny would seize me as it's victim and curse my very existence...

At the summit we found a strange pedestal, inscribed with countless runes of unknown meaning, to each of it's four sides were four pony skeletons laying crumpled on the floor. On the pedestal itself rested but one object...the very book itself...the pages bound within a black tome, a deep crimson symbol presided to cover the majority of the front.

"Look at this...it hasn't aged a day." I said gazing at the ominous book, stepping carefully over the skeletons. I circled the pedestal before very gently taking within my hooves. I carefully flipped open the book to a random page and looked at the contents. It was old writing but if looked carefully I could understand most of what it was saying, but what caught my attention was not the words, rather what they were written with...

"Midnight...this isn't ink...it's written in blood..." I shuddered at my own words, I held a book written in what was presumably the blood of ponies.

"Oh dear Celestia...umm let's take it and show the others...this place is really giving me the creeps now." He said looking into the eye sockets of a long dead pony. Heeding his words I closed the tome and retreated down the steps with him and head back the way we came until we saw a tunnel that seemed to take a more direct route in the direction we were going. Soon we noticed webs on the walls...very large webs...

"Umm Midnight? Do you see anything?" Midnight always had sharper senses than I did so I was counting on him to not walk us over a ledge or something as I could scarcely see past only a short distance.

"I think I see movement farther in the tunnel...probably more rats." Even though it did comfort me a little I had a nagging feeling there wasn't just rats in this tunnel, I wish I was wrong...

"Wait there's something...what the..." His words grew silent as we witnessed an enormous spider over twice our height wander across an intersecting tunnel. My blood ran cold at the sight of such a monster, after it passed we waited a long moment before proceeding across the intersection. We looked down the path in followed to see it slowly returning our way. We silently walked down the path we were already on and thankfully the camp site could be seen well beyond the tunnel's end, but fate it seemed was determined to throw an unlucky stroke of luck our way.

I became more eager and began to walk faster, passing Midnight as he kept his leisurely pace. For a moment there was dead silence...not even the rats dared to be noticed, the silence was violently shattered with a bone-chilling scream of raw fear.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH SOMBRA HELP ITS BACK HELLLLP ME I'M SCARED SOMBRAAAAAAA!!!!!" I spun around and was met with the sight of a huge spider descending upon the defenseless bat pony about to sink it's fangs into my dear friend. I looked around uncertain until I found a sword plunged into a skeleton's abdomen. I drew the sword from the corpse and held it in my hooves, without delay I charged toward the spider, while the creature dug two wicked fangs into Midnight, each the size of a smaller knife.

"AAAAHHHHH IT'S GOING TO KILL ME PLEASEE HELP MEEE SOMEPONY HELP." As his desperate cries rang in my ears I took the sword and hacked off one of the spiders legs, my side becoming splattered with green blood. The creature reeled back and dropped Midnight but I didn't relent. I sliced at the monster's face a deep oozing cut appeared immediately but it wasn't quite dead. I took hold of the blade using magic and ran fast under the spiders legs, driving the sword into the abomination as I cut down the length of the spider's body. I stopped running after I finished passing under, I turned around and saw the spider finally drop dead, it wasn't split in half but it looked close at some parts of the spider's back.

I noticed I was now a sickly green mess and I would have given up food for a week to get a shower but Midnight was still hurt and needed help. I rushed over to him just before Thunder Clap and Serenity did, the screams must have woken them. "What just happened!?" They asked fearfully just as they noticed the huge spider crumpled a just a little way behind us.

"Oh nooo...he's poisoned...we're too far from any hospital to make it in time. What are we going to do?" Serenity was often the one with all the answers, I can't even say how terrifying it was to us that she didn't even know what to do. While we scrambled for answers, poor Midnight lay quivering and twisting in agonizing pain, his expression one of pure suffering.

Just then...a thought had came to me, perhaps the book was one of spells and there would be some kind of antidote spell. I flipped through the dark tome until I saw something that looked vaguely like "poison cure" and wasted no time in reading the instructions. I made a small incision near where Midnight was poisoned as the instructions said, then I followed the next step and it was to cover his wound with my magic so the blood wouldn't escape. Then I read the phrase aloud.

"Sit toxins de corpore suo parceret frater meus, vita mea, ut salvum me periclitari". Just as I ended the phrase some blood and as well as the poison floated out of Midnight and to a small point on the ground directly in front of me where it seemed to disappear within the rock itself. While this happened I noticed something, other than the fact that the spell was draining my energy at an alarmingly rapid pace, I saw a green mist emanating from my eyes but before long I couldn't even think about it and I soon passed out.

I awoke sometime later next to the campsite fire with a sandwich next to me, in front of me was Thunder Clap, Serenity and finally Midnight, whom was standing but hand a hoof on Thunder Clap's shoulder. "Ahhhh...it hurts...feels like I got hit by a boulder...what happened?"

"A giant spider attacked Midnight...but you were there to protect him." Serenity told me, then Midnight tried to stand on all four legs and carefully made his way around the fire and to me, then he simply put his forelegs around my should and began to sob a little.

"Sombra...you saved my life, thank you so much, I was so scared and you were there for me...I swear I'll never forget this, and I don't know how but you cured the poison, I'm okay now." I returned the hug before letting him go. He returned to the others and walked a short distance away with Thunder Clap and began to eat at the food they had. I sat alone with myself until Serenity walked over and sat beside me.

"Sombra...you're a real hero you know...without you we might not still have Midnight, what you did was very brave and selfless. You should be proud of yourself." Before departing to go see how Thunder Clap and Midnight were doing she kissed me on the cheek and smiled as she walked off. I would have sworn I was as red as a cherry as I sat by the fire completely speechless and dumbstruck. I doubt many would believe this story, it's often too hard for one to imagine that their most hated villains were once innocent, perhaps even heroes, or just a pony that had a crush or found a strange book in an old temple.

What little of the night remained passed on quietly, after we all had finished our meals we returned to our sleeping bags and went to sleep...or at least they did. I couldn't sleep much, so many things raced through my young mind, What was with that book we found, why did green mist come from my eyes, and did she actually kiss me? Ah, I miss my early years dearly, even if the consequences from discovering the book, which I later discovered was The Shadow Queen's tome, would not have a large impact for at least several years. The Shadow Queen, the being that wrote the book was the first to discover dark magic, it had great potential and could easily harness energy from crystals as well, it made difficult spells easy and with it the user could cast spells that could do everything from cure a disease to reviving the recently deceased. Alas, these incredible powers came at a cost, the more it was used the more it tainted the user. The user could be using it to save lives and be a hero but eventually, perhaps even decades later the effects of the magic would become more tangible. There are recorded cases of other users and black magic, they often describe symptoms such as feeling like they are are war with their own mind, several voices screaming contradicting ideas all the time, or that all they can think about is the curiosity of killing or something like torture and other insidious fantasies unless busy with something. In the end the users often went mad, insane, or worse, they succumbed to their twisted fantasies. The doctor Syril used dark magic, one day she just snapped from the voices in her head, gave into the fantasies and cut open every piece of one of her patients and examined him at her leisure...while the poor fellow was alive...I used dark magic as well, perhaps it's what many best know me for, that and being a heartless tyrant in their eyes, and I felt very mildly affected in comparison with other dark magic users, for whatever reason...I was different, the question is why...

Author's Note:

This is how I envisioned the temple summit to look for those that don't understand. http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4b0521450000000000f19fa9-480/mayan-maya-temple-mexico.jpg The corners of the pedestal would face out each of the doorways.

(If anyone would like to proofread for my story please message me or comment.)

Comments

[Orion97]

Also, before the grammar Nazis rip me apart, yes I'm going to proof read and edit out the mistakes in chapter two, I was in a bit of hurry to put that one out there

[Orion97]

3200490Actually I haven't, thanks for the idea though, was a little discouraged trying to go bigger when my first fic didn't start out well because some thought it was cliche. With any luck this could be shown on Equestria Daily