The Unique Properties of Dark Magic

by Shadestyle

(Present Chapter 33): Schaudenfreude

"She will seek out her well of power," Chrysalis begins, her drone wheeling her to an ornate table in the meeting room that had been hastily constructed days ago to handle matters of state during the reconstruction of Canterlot.

"Well of power?" Cadence asks, doing her best to keep an open mind to the potential ally in front of her.

The queen nods. "We were unable to keep infiltrators in the Shadow Realm for any length of time when it was at its peak, but once the empire dissolved, it was trivial to keep tabs on the Anathema's alchemist. She returned to Zebrica for a time, rampaging for centuries trying to locate Weiss Noir's vessel through scrying and other means. During this time, one particular location was of interest. An abandoned well that she used as her primary cauldron."

Cadence thinks on this. She was vaguely aware of what the changeling queen was referring to. Though she only knew of it as 'The Blackstone Well', which was thought to be cursed.

"You believe she will return to it? Does she have some sort of method of damaging the seal laid by the Elements there?" Shining Armor interjects.

Chrysalis looks at the unicorn with a measured gaze. "No. She already has what she needs to do that. The witch was one of the Anathema's most critical assistants, and aided in designing many of his creations with her clever magic. Among those are a set of four relics that we believe to be capable of breaking the seal of the Elements, somehow."

"While you ponies may not have paid any mind to that being beyond his foalish pranks, we are not so easily fooled. He built those ancient blueprints in public, loudly, and carelessly, trusting that no one knew what he had planned for them. An automaton, a reality-bending cap, a shapeshifting substance, and..."

She shudders, the first real emotion that the queen had shown thus far. Fear.

"A machine. A terrifying machine."

The guards in the room stir at this nervously, reading the mood, but Chrysalis and her drone ignore them.

"I believe he has completed those relics, and, once Thiefwitch Malusi has obtained them, she will return to her well of power to use them."

Taking a deep, rasping breath, Chrysalis continues. "No matter the cost, I cannot allow this. That creature's freedom is a threat to love itself. Surely you of all ponies know this? Surely you are as sentimental as the rest, in the knowledge that your so-called Lord may grow Restless, or even destroy himself afterwards, should his vengeance be complete?"

Cadence, for a moment, understands that perspective, even if she doesn't share it. It is, perhaps, true that at one point, the princess had hoped for Lord Weiss Noir to survive in this new era.

But that was years ago, and clearly, the Queen of the Changelings didn't know her as well as she thought.

"I have greater concerns than what used to be Lord Weiss Noir," Cadence explains, making the queen grow tense.

Cadence rises from her chair, pacing around the table to the wheelchair-bound queen. She notes the holes that Chrysalis had never seen fit to fill with love. The missing limbs that she had never seen fit to heal.

Signs of physical damage, yes, but more than that, for a race of shapeshifters and masters of Love... Signs of guilt. Proof that what Cadence was about to demand held a kernel of justice to it. If even Chrysalis refused to fix the wounds she had gotten from her ill-planned assault on the Shadow Realm, then even she must have seen fault with it. Seen fault in her actions.

"Maybe it is callous of me, but I knew Weiss. He was like an uncle to me. He cared, even when Dark Magic influenced him in ways he wouldn't admit to us, he kept his soul pure. But I've read the history books. I am not as 'sentimental' as Luna and Celestia are, no. The Weiss Noir that I knew is long dead, and what has grown into where he once was, I have tried my best to never meet," she admits with some shame.

She, who ascended out of love for even her enemies, found herself oddly numb towards her uncle, and what he had become. She did not despise him like some, but it was clear that he was ill, and she couldn't find it in her to believe that he would ever return to his former self. She could neither hate nor love the former Lord of the Shadow Realm, so instead, she left him be.

Her mind returns to the matter at hand, and she blinks away the mist in her eyes. "If Thiefwitch Malusi is truly going all the way to Zebrica to free Weiss Noir, then we don't need to act hastily. If she is not, then your lead is of no consequence. Either way, I have time to deal with you first."

Chrysalis's eyes widen. "I came here to help you!" she shouts, squirming for a moment, before coughing heavily and sinking back into her chair.

"At any cost, right? Surrender yourself and the Crystal Heart to Equestrian custody. That is the cost," Princess Cadence states, staring down at the queen.

Chrysalis refuses to expend it. Refuses to express the fear inside her. "We need the heart, your majesty. Have we not been good caretakers for it? Is Equestria not flush with love due to our management of it?"

"It is still stolen, and as the Princess of Love, I know all too well that you have not respected the Crystal Heart as you should. Love is still malformed in the world. You are right that under Changeling control, the heart has evolved our world's love to be more than base desires and childish crushes, but it is still malformed. Malformed to suit you, not us," Cadence explains, despite how redundant it is to do so. They both knew that whatever Chrysalis was using the heart for, it was to maximize the amount they could harvest.

Chrysalis frowns. "It is not perfect, yes, but you overestimate how malformed it is. All we have done is alter some of love's priorities. Are you really going to tell me that Equestria suffers because orphaned ponies find more plentiful and rich love surrounding them?"

"It suffers when love is treated like a hedge, trimmed and cut to fit a shape, instead of for its health. It's clear that you do not trust me, but I know these things," Cadence argues.

Shining Armor, who had been listening quietly, notes something that the Changeling Queen had said. "Oh sweet Celestia, don't tell me you've been kidnapping orphaned ponies," he says with growing horror.

Chrysalis snarls. "And what if we have? The Anathema's reign permanently stunted the growth of changeling kind. Should we have replaced those suffering from dwarfism instead? Don't act as if we simply snatch foals from their cribs and pod them up without care or nurture. There is a process to these things. There must be, to ensure the Heart's compliance," she explains bitterly.

Cadence glances to the Crystal Heart, embedded in the stone mantle around Chrysalis's neck. She notes the ebb and pulse of the relic, and the painstaking manipulation that Chrysalis has used to keep it from turning on them. If changelings were really using abandoned children as a resource without care or nurturing, she doesn't doubt that the heart would find a way to put a stop to it, with the amount of magical energy being pumped through it.

"I find that hard to believe, considering you left me in one of those pods for a thousand years," Cadence points out calmly.

"I saved your life!" Chrysalis barks.

"And that's why I stand here before you, willing to help your people, if it is possible. But you have committed crimes, and the heart is not rightfully yours. Will you trust me with the Crystal Heart, if it means witnessing what love can truly be?" Cadence asks, kneeling down before the queen.

She looks distressed, breathing in a wheezing, uneasy way at how close the princess's face is to her own. "You don't even care if he escapes, do you?" she says quietly.

Cadence shakes her head, sparks flying from her mane. "I care about my aunts, Celestia and Luna. I care about Equestria. And yes, I care about the plight of your race. But I can't truly care about your 'Anathema'. I'll help stop him, and, if my aunts have their way, I may even help save him, but you can't use the threat of his hatred as a way to diminish what is important."

"And just what is that?" Chrysalis asks, trying to inject snideness into her tone, but failing out of exhaustion.

The sight makes the alicorn realize something from their apparent exaustion. Here sits a queen so terrified of hatred, so wounded by it, that she defied her race's tennants of deception. She kept her ruined state as it was, even as the ancient relic of the Crystal Empire ensured more than enough love to regenerate it, to present strength instead of the weakness her current state showed.

She came to openly face the pony she cast into the future, the one she attempted to capture, to parlay for alliance against a common enemy, and for what?

Cadence can't help but put a compassionate wing over the crippled queen. She can't help but show what she is so very talented at showing.

"Love."

---

'Come on, Weiss, I know you made them, now where are they? Tower are they? No, not good enough,' Malusi thinks to herself, stalking around Weiss's tower in the Everfree, constantly looking at the lamp tied to her cloak, as if frightened that it will disappear.

She finds herself baffled as she enters his alchemy lab. The entire thing was stocked, sure, but not nearly well enough for her use.

Stalking past the crystaline beakers, the shelf of bottles and urns, trotting past the simple distillation apparatus, and the dinky cauldron, Malusi grits her teeth at how crude the lab is.

He would never leave a lab so underequipped if he knew she was coming.

'You really thought I bit it, huh, big guy?' she thinks to herself, staring at her master's lamp.

The worst mistake of her life, and it had to hurt the pony she owed the most to.

The door slams open, and she glances back, gripping one of the potions at her belt as she faces whoever threw it open.

"You know, when it comes to barging in like that, I'd say don't knock it, but you clearly haven't," she says, realizing just who had found her so quickly.

It's Zecora, her own daughter.

"You're just in time. I'm after a couple of relics, and I relic-ould use your help finding them, little one," she says with a relieved smile.

Her smile fades as Zecora does not move immediately to help.

"I know not how you've returned ~ But many many things I've learned,
"Mother, please, I'm begging you, ~ Do not enact what you plan to,
"His very fate, his life, hangs in the balance ~ It's not too late, this strife! Restrain your talents!" Zecora exclaims, stepping forwards.

"That's Zecora-f the matter, isn't it?" Malusi muses sadly. Her daughter's rhymes were intricate and interwoven, proof that she was preparing her magic.

The younger zebra winces at the old pun that her mother loved to use.

"Well, if you must know... My potion combined a nick of thyme with a clockwork orange. It was meant to whisk me away to the day when my lord returned, beat the clock so to speak. Sadly, it seems my time-out has only left me whipped and beaten."

She glares at Zecora, striking fear into her daughters heart for a moment, before her expression softens somewhat. "I do have mixed feelings, but decant let myself be shaken or stirred by your words. I can sense the cocktail of dark magic that they emit, but I cannot find the relics themselves. I won't cask you again, where are they."

"I will not tell you, I do not care, ~ You'll find I'm not so quick to scare," Zecora finishes, pulling out a vial of liquid and preparing to do battle.

Malusi frowns.

"So bee it."

With a flash of movement, Malusi flings a bottle of bright yellow liquid at Zecora, the fluid erupting from the uncorked flask, and expanding into a thick honey that traps her against the ground!

Zecora struggles as Malusi approaches her with a frown.

"Honey, you can't break that. I'd love to wax poetic about why you should help me, but I don't have time to bumble around. When you manage to escape, I'd comb through town if I were you. They'll need to hive an alchemist around to help deal with my little... Treats," Malusi smirks, walking away as Zecora tries to grasp the bottle of slip-and-sliodine stuck painfully to her coat by the thick honey.

Walking away from her trapped child, Malusi eventually finds herself in a massive room with an even grander and more ominous looking set of doors, made of black obsidian and rimmed with veins of boiling magma.

Above the door, she smiles fondly as she reads the first line of the quote engraved above the door. "Enter stranger, but take heed, of what awaits the sin of greed."

'Some things never change, do they, my lord?' she thinks to herself, ignoring the rest of the stolen poem.

As she approaches, she notes Weiss's enchantments at work, golem-based defenses sliding out of the walls, pointing lasers at her body that seem to overtly threaten; 'Leave now!'

Trusting that Weiss himself created the enchantments, she pulls down her hood, showing her face to the golems.

The room cracks, and dust falls as the doors slam open as fast as they possibly can, further doors behind that one slamming open as well, rapidly, desperately, to not impede her for even a moment.

The flaw of enchantments, Weiss had taught her, was that they did as the enchanter would do.

She gallops down the hall, following the scent of dark magic.

Author's Note:

The Song of the Day is "Seymore's Theme" from Final Fantasy X

Comments

[CarolMAssphault]

10836761
...And? I will have died the way I wanted. Besides, you make it sound like living is more important than anything. Why should I care when I don't mind dying in the first place? Besides, better to be a dead warrior than a living coward. I'd sooner end my own life than ever run from a fight or stand idly by when I could have helped. I literally wouldn't be able to live with myself otherwise. Foolish to most, yes, but again, I consider dying better than running or inaction.

[Asolem2]

The Weiss Noir that I knew is long dead, and what has grown into where he once was, I have tried my best to never meet," she admits with some shame.

Certainly explains why we haven't seen you until now.
Still, can't say that avoiding him was right way to try and deal with the issue of Weiss Noir

She did not despise him like some, but it was clear that he was ill, and she couldn't find it in her to believe that he would ever return to his former self.

No one can ever return to their former selves Cadence

She could neither hate nor love the former Lord of the Shadow Realm, so instead, she left him be.

Wow, apathy from you... that's harsh

[Shadestyle]

10837021

To be fair, when I wrote "Return to his former self", I meant "Return to being kind and sane instead of mischevious and malevolent"

[Asolem2]

10837032
I know

[Maramanasa]

I feel sad for everyone involved. All hurt in diffrent ways and none can ever go back to the past.