(Present Chapter 34): Hatesick
"You'll need me," Nightmare says simply, crossing her little hooves with a raised eyebrow. The synthetic body that Weiss Noir had trapped her in after their duel at the ruins of the Shadow Realm was equal parts frustrating and rapturous. She may have finally been her own pony, but that didn't make up for the issues that arose from being trapped in the form of an actual child at that madman's behest.
Luna snarls, pacing frantically. "No I won't. We can stop this, I can stop this, and if I listen to you right now, I might lose him forever."
Nightmare just shakes her head. Even chained up, hidden behind a mask, and trapped in the body of a filly, the apochriphal nightmare still has enough of what she is to unnerve her former host.
"When he escapes, he'll be too powerful for you to put down again. You remember the power he held near the end, and thus, so do I. If he escapes, then there's no hope without us working together. We were stronger together, stronger than your sister, even if I manipulated you, there's no doubt that we had terrifying power," the filly explains emotionlessly.
Luna pauses, chills running up and down her spine as disgust floods her body. "Maybe I would rather there be no hope than ever have to be us again," she muses dangerously.
"Now be silent, I'm trying to think of where that Zebra might have gone," she finishes.
Unable to keep from offering one last comment, Nightmare muses to herself. "I wasn't a person until I was us, Luna. Believe yourself if you don't believe me, that what we were together still cared for Weiss Noir's fate."
Luna can take no more, and runs out of the room desperately to get free of the Nightmare's words.
Granny Smith was old fashioned. She was the kind of old fashioned where her mouth got her into trouble when she'd call things 'newfangled' that were still pretty old fashioned by everypony else's standards.
Needless to say, Big Mac, bless his heart, had to be a bit sneaky to get her to drink that gunk he won off that old dirtbag whatshisname a week ago at that tournament thingie, saying it was medicine that'd make her feel twenty years younger.
'Did a lil more than that, hoo doggy,' Granny thought to herself, still feeling a bit unreal after having drank the grand prize of the Dark Tournament. Youth in a Bottle, a lifetime's worth of the stuff.
She was surprised when, after drinking the nasty stuff a week ago, she woke up the next morning in the literal prime of her life. No more creaky bones, no more dry mouth, no more fuzzy vision. It was more than a little frightening how the fog she hadn't even noticed was gone as well.
She never paid it any mind, when ponies asked about her eccentricities, she would just say 'Oh, an old gal like me has a bit too many memories knocking around up there! Just takes me a bit to sort through em!' she'd explain as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Clearly, though, that wasn't the case, as she remembers spending a moment in bed just staring up and thinking clearly. 'too many memories' nothing, it was like night and day!
She remembers the very loud shock she expressed when a look in the mirror revealed that the bottled youth Big Mac won hadn't stopped at greasing up her joints and blowing the cobwebs out of her attic, she looked almost younger than Applejack for goodness sake! Her wrinkles were banished, her back was straight, her mane was the richest blond she had seen outside of a beauty magazine, and even her old farming physique didn't seem so far gone!
Applejack, the poor mare, was rightly furious when she found out what Big Mac did, and Granny had to put her hoof down to stop the one-way-argument that'd surely been brewing. It took time and a lot of very short utterances from Big Mac, but eventually, everything got explained to everypony's liking.
Granny had a new lease on life, Applebloom had an endless torrent of questions, and Big Mac got extra chores for being so sneaky about things. It might have seemed a bit of an unfair punishment for all the good he did, but Big Mac knew that the family was big on honesty, so he took his lumps without complaining.
Of course, that was a week ago, and if Granny thought for a moment that a youth potion was the oddest thing she'd see within the month, she was plum outta luck.
She was just sitting in her old rocking chair, the ancient piece of wooden furniture a bit too comfortable for the invigorated mare.
"Maybe I aught to pick up some kinda hobby," she mutters, unused to not needing to have her usual sitdowns when her bones got a bit too weary for the day. As she mutters, however, one of her ears quirks at a faint sound rapidly approaching the house, galloping and the squeak of a small cart.
"Granny!" she hears desperately yelled out by some young colt dragging a cart behind him, one that looks awfully familiar. In the cart, a thrashing filly is gibbering, trying to talk as if possessed!
"GSIro'mam necnpayor neSy-" the filly attempts, their mouth twitching and spasming as if trying to say multiple things at once.
"What the hay is going on here?!" she shouts, leaping to attention and grabbing the twitching filly, looking her over.
The familiar looking colt frown, "I- I dunno, I got splashed with something that made me all little after I found Apple Bloom like this!" they squeak, and Granny gasps when she realizes that this little colt is Big Mac!
"Apple Bloom?!" Granny gasps, looking at the filly closer. Their coat is a mottled mix of yellow white and orange, with mostly yellow hooves. Shockingly, the filly has both a white horn and a set of orange wings.
"Granwe ateny Cupsmcaith" they gibber out, starting to cry as their wings buzz rapidly.
Granny's eyes narrow as she starts to piece something together. "Calm down, one at a time, alright? Applebloom, try to tell me what happened," she says softly.
The filly's mouth clamps shut before, with some effort, she manages to speak clearly.
"W-we a-ate a cupcake and it s-stuck us all together like-"
"Yeah!" she seems to interrupt herself, before clamping her mouth shut again as a sheepish expression shoots across her face.
"...like this, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, we, we're all stuck together!" the filly finally barks out, revealing that the magic cupcake had apparently somehow fused three ponies into one.
Granny hugs them tight, and grabs "Little" Mac too. "We're going straight to the doctor, lickity split," Granny says in a no-nonsense tone, lifting up Big Mac and tossing him in the cart as well before quickly hitching herself to it and galloping towards Ponyville General.
As she does, the crusaders haltingly try to explain exactly what happened.
"Well, looks like we ain't got a special talent for drink mixin', Applebloom muses as she and her friends plod down the street."
Sweetie Belle shrugs. "I dunno, we still might, it isn't as though we managed to actually do any, with how fast they kicked us out when we snuck in," she muses.
Scootaloo grimaces. "Meh, who'd want a special talent for mixing up that bad-smelling stuff anyway," she exclaims, halting suddenly and causing her friends to accidentally bump into her rear.
"Whoa, who's that over there?" she says, pointing to a zebra they don't recognize leaving a small box under a bench before running away.
Applebloom's eyebrows raise as she peeks out from behind her pegasus friend. "I dunno, but it looks like she lef' something, let's check it out!" she says, trotting over to the bench.
As she pulls the box out from under the bench, she notes a letter pinned to the top of it, reading it aloud as her friends crowd around.
"'Ah wasn't ready for the responsibility'." Applebloom reads with confusion, looking around the box for any other identifying marks. All she found was a little label near the bottom that read "Potara Edibles"
Sweetie Belle's eyes bug out. "Oh my gosh, what if it's a little puppy or kitten in there?! Did that zebra abandon some poor little creature?"
Opening the box, the trio all express confusion, as the only thing inside it is a single cupcake, with frosting on the top that reads 'Share Me'. The gold frosting is topped with little orange beads of some kind of candy or jelly, but the exact flavor is unknown.
"Huh... Well, bottoms up!" Scootaloo says, reaching for it.
"No way! It says yer supposed to share it!" Applebloom exclaims, holding the box away.
"Well it'll be messy if we just pull it apart, I've got some cutlery stored away at the clubhouse, we could share it together!"
"Works for me! I call dibs on the biggest part!" Scootaloo exclaims, making her friends giggle as they make their way to the clubhouse.
An hour later, Big Mac, who had been plowing a field for planting, heard a earsplitting scream, and running to the source, saw a zebra galloping away from the clubhouse.
With snarl, he kept an eye where they were headed, before dashing to the clubhouse and bucking the door off its hinges.
As he gaped in shock at what he sees, a bucket of some kind of liquid falls over onto his head, having been suspended up on the door.
Twilight and her friends returned to Ponyville in grim spirits, Celestia simply claiming "We will call when we require you, my student. Be safe."
As they returned however, Ponyville was practically a ghost town, and it struck some of them with what was almost a bit of nostalgia to see ponies slamming their windows shut and fearfully glancing outside.
"Jeeze, I hope this isn't another thing like with Zecora," Pinkie Pie muses.
Eventually, they figured out where everypony went when they found the clinic packed full of countless cases, both similar and worse than the one that befell Big Mac and the fillies, ponies were coming in as the wrong gender, the wrong species, or just afflicted by horrible ailments like being half their height, or somehow being as flat as a silhouette despite their otherwise normal mobility.
"I saw a zebra giving out free lemonaid and then I got one and this happened! I think she stole my wedding ring!" one mare screams, waving her tail that had started growing lemons like a tree.
"I saw the same zebra, but I was getting a mail-order dress for my marefriend and it did this! Now the dress is gone and I look ridiculous!" a stallion gestures frantically to his coat, which had grown out into the shape of a frilly dress that Rarity looks at appraisingly, before aborting her gaze with embarrassment as they glare at the fashionista.
One filly tries to say something, but, lacking a head, Twilight and the others only hear a muffled rant from the other room.
A doctor brings the head in, and she repeats herself, "I had a sore throat and this lady gave me a cough drop and said it'd fix it! She stole my tiara!" Diamond Tiara squeals with rage.
Pinkie Pie looks like she's trying really hard to be respectful, despite how hilarious some of these strange effects are, while Fluttershy looks mostly horrified and saddened at the sight of it all. Applejack just looks absolutely furious, seeing what happened to Applebloom and her friends, and quickly joins Granny Smith in trying to comfort the shivering filly(s)
Twilight looks to her friends. "Are you girls thinking what I'm thinking?"
Rainbow Dash nods. "It's that Malusi, isn't it?! We gotta find her before she can mess with anypony else!" the pegasus says with aggravation.
Rarity, however, looks nervous. "Twilight, dear, I don't mean to sound paranoid but... She claimed to be one of Weiss's, and have we ever once gotten one over on him by rushing in? This feels an awful lot like one of the schemes in which we're being provoked to act hastily," the unicorn explains.
Applejack, interjects after a moment of thought from the group. "I think she's right, Twi, if we all go scrambling around, it might get ugly right quick, specially' if there's traps around. Rainbow Dash, you think you can fly up high and look around Ponyville? Iffin you see her, don't pick a fight, get back to us as quick as you can. Sound like a plan?"
They all consider this, and Rainbow Dash finally nods. "I'll keep my head on straight, Applejack. Be back in a flash!" the pegasus exclaims, flying out of the window of Ponyville General and high up into the sky.
High above the clouds, she looks around trying to spot the sight of the Zebra Witch. 'Nothing near Sugarcube Corner, nothing near the market, not a pony in sight near Sweet Apple Acres...' Dash mutters, flying at incredible speeds around town.
Eventually, her searching gaze trails towards the Everfree Forest, and the titanic tower sprouting from what was once the Castle of the Pony Sisters. Weiss's old haunt.
"I'll check it out and head right back," Dash mutters, speeding towards the structure to see if there are any signs of anything suspicious.
Landing on one of the wild clouds, Dash glares down where she can see Malusi laughing and dancing around, wearing a familiar purple cap, that Wishing Cap that Weiss apparently made and then never really used again.
Spotting the lamp clipped to the witch's cloak, the pegasus is sure of it now, this is Malusi, and she was raiding Weiss's junk for something.
As she turns to leave, something slams into her suddenly, a flash of rainbow light and heat rocketing past her as she's thrown flying to the ground!
"Ughhh, what the heck hit me..." Rainbow Dash groans, trying to stand up, only to realize with a panic that the Zebra witch is right in front of her with a large heavy looking bottle!
She jerks to attention. "If you think some stupid potion is going to beat me, you got another thing coming," Dash growls shakily, puffing herself up against the Zebra who somehow grounded her.
Malusi just smiles, before flipping towards her in a dizzying acrobatic display!
Rainbow Dash flaps, preparing to rocket off, but before she can, Malusi brains her over the head with the bottle, and everything goes black.
Dash wakes up near the entrance of Weiss's Tower, her head pounding with a headache to end all headaches. She tries to remember what she was doing, but everything is fuzzy and her memories come sluggishly, as if being planted there at an agonizingly slow pace.
Looking around, she vaguely remembers a zebra, and how... She was supposed to catch her?
She hears a muffled groan from inside Weiss's tower, and shakes off the haze, galloping inside only to find Zecora trapped inside some kind of goop!
She flies towards the mare, stumbling in midair for a moment as her wings feel stuff and unresponsive, but quickly enough she manages to smash open the amber encasing the mare, freeing her enough to whip out a vial that she pours over the substance, dissolving it away.
"Rainbow Dash, thank you for coming, ~ My escape, this goop was gumming," she pants leaning on the pegasus for stability.
"I don't remember what happened, what's going on, why were you here?!" Dash exclaims.
"My mother trapped me, I would not aid ~ The dark working that she had bade.
"You must hurry, help me to town ~ I fear the worst, what may abound!
"My mother is cruel, mischief her goal ~ None may be safe, not even foals!"
The memory bubbled up unnaturally, and Dash shook her head with discomfort. "I think I've got a concussion. She hit me over the head?"
Zecora winces with sympathy, and, feeling better than her companion clearly does, shifts as they slowly walk out of the tower, bearing more of Dash's weight than the pegasus is bearing her own.
Back at Ponyville, the duo return to see Cadence, Celestia and Luna talking to the girls inside the clinic. Celestia is lifting the elements from the golden box they were kept inside, and as she sees Rainbow Dash and Zecora, she addresses them.
"Are you alright? We feared the worst when we heard you had not returned," she asks.
"Returned for uhh, the zebra, right? It's hard to remember, I think I got hit over the head," Dash admits, Zecora looking horrified at the ailments inflicted on the ponies there.
"Why the hay is she even doing this? Just for the fun of it?!" Rainbow Dash growls at the sight of so much suffering.
"Discord was freed by disharmony, was he not? ~ The hate to wake Weiss, well, you'll need a lot," Zecora theorizes.
"Right. You and the others need to head to Zebrica, I found out that Malusi is probably heading to her well of power to try and use a ritual to free Weiss Noir. I will remain here, but Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have insisted on accompanying you," Cadence explains.
Zecora frowns at this, rubbing an ointment onto the fused crusaders that seems to reduce their twitching.
"You are wrong, that well is dry ~ She would not go there, don't even try"
Whoever told you, they are not right, ~ Mother and Weiss are much alike"
To free her lord, she seeks his throne ~ To that dark end, she will go home"
"The Shadow Realm, that darkened place ~ Where love is gone, and hate you face."
There you must go, do not delay ~ I would help you, but I must stay."
I cannot cure this dreadful curse ~ But I must help or it gets worse."
"Defeat mother, hurry fast! ~ By her darkness these spells are cast!
The only cure, to what she's laid ~ is to defeat her, I'm afraid.
Travel there, to Hidden Palace, ~ Please save them both from their malice," the Zebra finishes
Luna nods as the last of the Element Bearers don the Elements of Harmony. "I know of where you speak. Let us hurry," she exclaims, igniting her horn in an all encompassing teleportation spell that takes the two Princesses and the bearers away.
In a blast of light, the group appears in the middle of a blistering snowstorm that is banished quickly with a flash of Celestia's magic.
As the storm fades, and the rest of the ponies stop shivering, Luna stares with dread at something that was not there the last time she visited these blasted wastes.
The underground complex of Hidden Palace, through some unknown means, had been raised up into the sky, the towering monolith channeling dark power of some sort unknown to her.
"Are we too late?" Fluttershy whimpers, seeing the black miasma hovering overhead.
Luna shakes her head firmly. "No. If he were free, I would know. We all would," she explains grimly as she leads the group towards the tower, where at the top, faint laughter can be heard echoing through the frozen north.
As they approach, Luna pauses and the group halts. "I sense a trap," she mutters, summoning a large dome of magic that surrounds the group.
They walk forwards a few steps, prepared for anything, only for Luna to pause as something cracks underhoof.
She looks down, lifting a hoof with a look of disgust at whatever liquid it was she stepped in, only for that look of disgust to become more adorable as she explodes into smoke, the effects of the potion shrinking her down to the size she was when freed of the Nightmare originally.
"Damn it all," Luna snarls, wiping her hoof on the snow as Celestia ignites her horn, trying to remove the affliction.
"It's no use, It must be designed for me," Luna insists, waving off her sister's magical aura.
She turns to the Element-bearers. "Be wary, this is what happens when you fight a Zebra so close to being a Wisemare. She is channeling enough cleverness magic to figure out not only the recipe of a potion sufficient to affect me, but to predict even where I lay my hoof in leading you to her. Do not speak once we face her, I will try to convince her to cease her grim task, and if I fail, you will use the elements," Luna says, trying to ignite her horn for another teleport.
It fails entirely, sparking and sputtering uselessly.
Princess Celestia frowns, and with a roar of magic, enters her full Alicorn Suite, burning hot enough to eradicate any toxins that might try to affect her as well.
"Allow me," she says, igniting her own horn and teleporting them directly to the top of the bramble-like structure of the Hidden Palace Zone's excavated tunnels. To the top of the tower where the eye of this dark magical storm is.
Where am I?
Am I asleep?
Hoo boy, someone's sure angry. Did they finish Sombra off already..?
...No, if they did, I would know.
What is happening? Who is carrying my lamp? I recognize the emotions, the kleptomania, the self-loathing that I tried so hard to quench. But it can't be her. She's dead.
It must be another dream. Just another cruel dream.
I want to wake up. These dreams are the worst of all.
Malusi dances, a slow swooping dance as she flips end over end on her hooves in an impossibly flexible way, like a clown, or a tumbler. All the suffering she bred in that little town is drawn here, drawn to the ashes of the Kingdom Heart. Dead for nearly a thousand years, and even its ashes still remain powerful enough to draw together hatred.
'Can you feel it, my lord? They hate me so for what I've done. It's all for you, though. I hope it's enough to rouse you, you need to be awake, if we're going to get you out of there,' she thinks, sitting down as a flash of magic signifies the arrival of her guests.
As veins in the ground ignite with her own special mix of fire-based poison, she watches Celestia take a large step back, aware of how the potentially poisoned fire could very well affect her, even in her Alicorn Suite.
She smirks as the tiny Luna instead steps forward first, prepared for the vitriol, the hatred of this misguided mare of the night.
Instead, Luna bows to her. "Councilmare Malusi, stop this, please. I beg you, do not release him now. You care for him, do you not? I care for him too. I want him to be free of this cruel fate he has shackled himself to, but should you free him now, should he take revenge on Sombra... He will be lost forever. Are you not his friend? Do you not wish to see him happy?" she begs, looking up at the surprised Zebra.
Malusi laughs, but it's a cruel laugh. "Absolute lunacy, I don't know who your friend is, but he is not the stallion I befriended. The difference is day and night."
She pulls out the lamp, and holds it up in the air, the stars and the moon shining overhead.
"I knew him as he is. A cruel, viscious old man who had learned to accept the fault in his stars. Ever since I was a foal, I could not help the things I did without even realizing. I stole and I poisoned without even realizing what I had done, and heavens help anyone who tried to befriend me. But Lord Weiss didn't care in the s-light-est."
"He taught me that just because I was evil, it did not moon I had to hate myself. I didn't have to change to be happy."
The zebra looks at Luna with a deep scowl. "So if you're wondering if I'll help Weiss change into a better person, that I would dare swap his destiny for a mere constelation prize..." she muses, holding off on her pun until the last possible moment.
"I didn't planet"
Luna stares at her with pity in her eyes, but she can feel the hatred growing more dense, and the hat on Malusi's head is charging with power, as is Weiss's Lamp. They have no more time to debate.
"Then you leave us no choice," she says, stepping aside to let the Element Bearers do what they must do.
"Right, let's go girls," Twilight says, igniting the Element of Magic, her friends doing the same. She wasn't sure what the Elements of Harmony would do to Malusi, but she was certain it would put a stop to all of this, and hopefully cure everyone in Ponyville too.
Fluttershy was sad, hearing the Zebra's story. It was clear to her that the poor mare cared so much about her lord, and had tried her best to be happy with what she had.
Pinkie tried to see the humor in it all. It was clear that, on some level, the Zebra saw deep irony in the situation. Pinkie wanted to help, but she knew that letting Weiss out before he was ready would probably be the absolute most saddest most unfunny thing ever.
Rarity absolutely disagreed with the whole situation. Maybe they were robbing Weiss of his revenge but this Malusi was robbing him of his chance to find new happiness, and a robbery like that, she could not abide by.
Applejack felt similarly. Malusi, above all else, was lying to herself, if she thought she was happy with this. What she had described was insane, and even the way the zebra reacted expressed in no uncertain terms that the zebra was saying it to convince herself, far more than she was trying to convince anypony else.
Dash... Felt wrong. Something was wrong with her element, it wasn't working right!
The elements all lit up, and Malusi smiled as she made a wish on the Wishing Cap.
"Wishing Cap! I wish for my lord's freedom! Free Weiss Noir!" she shouted, holding up the lamp as the rainbow beam of the Elements of Harmony twisted, the red light of Loyalty seeming to glitch and malfunction as it dragged its other colors away from the zebra, and towards the lamp. All four of the Relics of Darkness resonate with her wish. The Wishing Cap, Miracle Matter, Magicant, and the last as well.
"No!" Luna screams as the beam strikes the lamp, swirling around in a tornado of harmony that lifts Malusi and the lamp into the air, darkness tainting the red band of the rainbow as it does. The lamp begins to crack, growing veins of black spreading over its surface as the strain from within increases.
With only a fearful glance at the Element Bearers, who are held in the air with their eyes glowing bright, Celestia flies forwards, trying to rip the lamp from the zebra's grasp with telekinesis, but the buffeting winds shove her and all the others back away from the epicenter of magic.
Time almost seems to stop, Celestia flapping desperately, her horn on fire, Luna reaching out with her mouth open in a true scream, the Elements of Harmony, their teeth grit painfully as something causes their elements to twist and distort in function.
...
The lamp shatters into pieces, fragments glittering in the corrupt light of the rainbow swirling around it, light and flames shining from the fragments like a thousand stars.
Malusi looks on with tears of joy as the seal shatters, and from the fragments, bits of ash begin to peel away from the inside of the lamp's fragments, the flakes coming together into a pile.
The fragments of the lamp and the element bearers fall to the ground, their task fulfilled.
Luna and the others hold their breath, unable to make a noise as the pile of ashes begins to shift.
From the pile, a blackened hand made of bone reaches up, before collapsing back into ashes, then, it happens again, with a hoof instead.
A skull begins to rise up from the ashes, and slowly, brief puffs of grey and black erupt from the thing in front of them, ashes pulling together as gouts of black fire erupt from the skeletal remains. The skeleton takes a deep, rasping breath that echoes through the open air.
With every movement, another part of the ashen skeleton collapses, with every moment it spends rising, three more are spent falling apart once again, but slowly, horrifyingly, the black flames begin to pull together into the ashes, and a withered form begins to emerge, no longer ashes and fire, but flesh and blood.
The Sage of Darkness wears the unstable flames of his rebirth like a cloak held around his body, but as the flames of hatred seem to fade, in reality, they are merely absorbed, and Luna watches in despair as his wizened form begins to fill out, youth filling his frame as his muscles visibly inflate under his ancient coat.
Weiss Noir's eyes are closed as he rises to his full height, and Malusi is the first to move, rushing to his side like a puppy excited to see their human.
He opens his eyes, and he looks down at his hands with a child-like wonder, clenching and relaxing them, and twirling them around as if to examine his claws.
"Amazing... This is really me!" he exclaims with a merry laugh. As he does, however, the magically sensitive ponies in the room flinch away, while the rest feel churning unease as the sheer negativity of his emotions erupt ceaselessly into the air.
"All is for my lord," Malusi shudders with a low bow, forgetting to even include a pun, so wracked with joy at the return of her lord. She doesn't need to say clever things, she had never needed to in order to feel clever, in his presence.
He looks over, noticing her with eyes that seem to widen comically, and pupils that grow like dinnerplates with surprise.
"I thought you were dead! I..." Weiss exclaims breathlessly, laughing as he yanks her up with a surprised yelp, dancing in a circle as he twirls the zebra around, listening to her shriek with amused delight.
Twilight backs away, Weiss's overjoyed reaction disturbing her even more in the face of the sheer malevolence that the Pluck-Night Pony is pouring out into the room.
"Dear Celestia, help us," she mutters, sensing the pure, untainted hatred of Weiss Noir burrowing through her skull and down the roots of her teeth in sympathetic response, her natural talent helping her understand just how prepared, just how poised Weiss is to kill every living thing on this tower, if the mood strikes him.
Sunset feels nausea welling up inside her, her own talent for empathy making her feel like a ship in a storm, her spirit battered by what she feels of the killing intent Weiss seems to be releasing without even being aware of it. Even his joy, his genuine relief at seeing his long-lost friend, has been turned to pure malice masquerading as lighter emotions.
Weiss, however, is heedless of this, tearfully hugging the zebra after he found himself satisfied with her dizziness, six arms smothering the poor zebra.
Pulling away, he etches the sight of the immortal alchemist into his mind, staring at her with shock. "It really is you, my most faithful servant. Even now, you've surprised me with your devotion. Even when I didn't believe in you, you still believed in me. When I had given up hope on fulfilling my destiny, you came, my saving grace! My own miracle!" he says, unable to keep from grinning at the zebra.
"All is for my lord," she repeats with a smile.
When he senses the ponies around beginning to regain their nerve, he turns to face the Element Bearers.
"Girls, we have to use the elements again, he might have gotten out, but we can stuff him right back in!" Dash shouts, bravely stepping forwards.
He turns to face the brave pony.
"Indeed, Dash, you have proven to be a wonderful progeny. But you know nothing of true magic!" he exclaims.
With a gesture, he lifts up the pegasus in a burst of prestidigitation. "Progeny?! What the hay do you think you're doing?" she shouts, thrashing around in his glowing aura as he ignores her words.
"It pains me to do so, but I must end this!" the sage shouts, clenching his fist and crushing their body to pieces.
"Rainbow Dash!" her friends scream as he releases his magical grip on the pegasus, dropping the mangled form to the ground, metal chunks scattering around the point of impact.
They scramble to her, only to realize the truth as the pegasus-golem looks down in pain and confusion at the mechanical parts and scraps of shapeshifting Miracle Matter around their ruined frame. A spew of magical sparks coincides with a chunk of their engines falling free from the damaged area.
"No, that's not, I'm not-" Metal Dash cries, its exposed againte reactor flickering madly as it bursts into helpless tears. It was never Rainbow Dash, but the golem that had been built to imitate her, wrapped in shapeshifting Miracle Matter to disguise its mechanical form. It was this that made the Element of Loyalty malfunction, her false form allowing Malusi to control the target of the elements against their will, making them too weak and out of sync to properly resist.
Ignoring the golem's plight, Twilight whirls on the sage. "What did you do with the real Rainbow Dash!?" she shrieks, charging up a blast of magic strong enough to blast apart solid rock and firing it.
Instead of answering or attempting to avoid the attack that would have decimated the sage's old form, he allows the blast to hit him directly, the smoke clearing to reveal his blackened chest, unharmed from whatever magic he used to defend against it.
"At long last, the time has come!" he begins, the golem he crushed gibbering and twitching on the ground near the frightened ponies who saw him shrug off Twilight's strongest attack as if it were nothing at all.
"On a day so very long ago, the seed had been planted, and for so long, I have struggled to nurture it. And now, that thing, the creature that was born on that fateful day, has been unleashed! Before you stands the Sage of Darkness's magnum opus! His tenth symphony! His final mastery of Dark Magic! I stand here before you, the last great work of the ancient race!" he exclaims proudly, as Malusi struts beside him, staring with a smirk at the ponies.
Celestia's paralysis is broken only by the sight of her sister collapsing as the malice begins to affect even her, and with a fearful stare, she lays a wing tenderly over Luna's numb, emotionally shattered form. All is lost.
"At last, my metamorphosis is complete. At last, my long slumber has ended! No longer do you face the sentimental fool who in his drowsy daydreams played amongst ponykind, no longer do you bear witness to his confused acts of kindness and mischief," he says, smirking at Twilight and her friends.
He glares at Luna. "You do not face Weiss Noir, the Former Lord of the Shadow Realm!" the sage rants, throwing his arms out wide as the whites of his eyes turn a sickening, evil green that mingles with the purple of his irises.
He paces towards the group, stepping onto the ashes of what was once the Kingdom Heart calmly, letting out a low, dark laugh as the black flames of his mane and tail appear to grow, and his limbs seem to lengthen as he walks forward, growing in size.
"You face destiny! You face hatred! You face..." he continues, throwing his head to the sky and unleashing wave after wave of killing intent as the black magic of his 'Color of Arms' spreads to cover his entire body, turning his coat and his six arms an ebony color as the defensive spellwork weaves its way into his flesh and bones.
White scales begin to creep their way up the bottom of his hooves, until they threaten to cover his cutie mark and chest with the faintly glowing ivory-like material.
The dark pony cranes his head down at everyone standing in front of him, and in the distance, he feels the resonance of his shattered prison begin to free another from their banishment, the sympathetic response of his ritual's completion summoning back his ancient foe from their own slumber. Purple smoke begins to bleed from his bright green eyes.
"Noir Weiss!"
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Wat? What’s happening? I think I need to wait ‘till this first arc is done then reread everything.
10841593
Malusi poisoned Ponyville with cursed potions to make them pissed at her.
She used the emotions from that to wake up Weiss.
She used the Relics of Darkness to make the Elements of Harmony free Weiss.
Metal Dash, the mechanical golem powered by the Sonic Rainboom was able to make the Element of Loyalty malfunction by impersonating Rainbow Dash emotionally.
Miracle Matter, the shapeshifting alchemical mass, allowed the robot to impersonate her physically
The Wishing Cap was able to control Metal Dash and shape the magic to Malusi's liking.
Finally, Magicant, the "Final Relic" that is inside Weiss Noir is his newfound emotional strength, which gave him enough power to escape with the help of the malfunctioning elements.
*Starts clapping madly *
Magnificent! Magnificent! Magnificent!
Weiss knows how to stage an entry. 10/10 presentation
i wonder if weiss will try to kill sombra or make him hopelessly defeated like "that book" suggest
10841613
It’s not that I’m not following what your writing, more that I only half remember what half these things are and who some of these characters are.
10841732
Ah, sorry about that! I tried to sort of lead in to reintroduced stuff to avoid that sort of confusion, but it's definitely been a while, I can't blame you for that!
I wonder if negaweiss will gain his kindness back
That's not gonna go like you expect, after all, Malusia did something to Dash
Hmm difficult to say, I recall you insisting that there would not be a tragedy tag on this story, but at the same time, it takes a lot to end up like Weiss
Okay, that was epic.
What reference is that little name swap?
10842019
I leave the hidden meanings of Noir Weiss's name as an exercise to the reader.
... but is that his final form?
I'm sorry, but towards the end there i started imagining him as a dbz villain and now I can't take him seriously.
Great chapter, but I'm still snickering.
10842024
...Would it happen to have anything to do with the actual Grimoire Weiss? With the Shadowlord? With Grimoire Noir? If so, I can totally see where this is going.
10842024
Only thing I came up with is a little word play with black and white and the impliet dominance of what ever comes first in a name and of course the implied 'goodness' and 'badness' of the referenced colours.
Close enough to get a cookie?
So, did he make and then crush a person? Metal Dash was still alive and everything, right? That’s messed up.
I don’t really like the master/servant wording used here. I mean, I know it’s not intended, but zebras have been used to represent POC since Zecora’s introduction, and the tone this gives off is icky.
...Maybe this was the Bad Ending.
I am very hyped to see what happened in the past chapters.
Nuh uh
10842136
As far as Weiss is concerned, Metal Dash is a golem, nothing more. Golems are unable to learn and grow, and thus, even a sophisticated one like Metal Dash isn't quite "personable". Even her ability to recall basic factual information beyond the day she was made is sketchy and hacknied with other additional parts.
But her story isn't over quite yet.
As for Malusi calling Weiss her "Master", I meant for it to portray how they're both fucking psychotic, and how despite them acting like equals, they're both sharing in a deeply unhealthy relationship. Several readers thus far seem to have gotten the mistaken idea that Weiss is purely the good guy in the present. Hopefully this will help disabuse them of that notion.
10842136
That said, I've just now replaced every use of the word "Master" with the word "Lord". Might give off icky religious overtones now, but that's better than what you said.
Well shit
This is bad since this version of weiss crushed whats left of his goodness. Now all that's left is hate.
Theory for his name change for me is he went from good but cynical to purely dark. Either way this will all go down hill for current day ponies. Atleast time travel is now a viable option with sunsets cure being known.
Think you meant Zecora there.
I'm shaking with anticipation- wait no, that's dread.
10842136
Reminds me of Somna really. What an existential nightmare, existing as a version of yourself with permanent anterograde amnesia, uncertain of what is real. Not being able to grow or adapt, being unnaturally frozen in a single day even as you are just aware enough that something is wrong, just aware enough to see the chains, enough of a person to comprehend the true horror of your circumstances but powerless to do anything about it.
I think in Metal Dash's case specifically she might be able to get linked up with OG Dash and piggyback off of her growth and ability to change as some kind of soulbound companion or familiar, but that still has the problem where she lacks self determination and can only ever trail after RD, never going her own way. That could be lessened if a two way connection was setup I suppose, though that has its own questions. IDK. Spooky.
10842471
Error corrected accordingly!
Honestly, Weiss' whole situation brings for me this song to mind:
https://youtu.be/yk18LbDnDQU
10842291
Thanks mate, I think the change gives off a better portrayal of their relationship. And by better I mean more accurate. :)
Man-Bat and Man-Spider would like to have a word in the back alley.