The Unique Properties of Dark Magic

by Shadestyle

(Present Chapter 46) The Honest Truth

She found me sitting in the middle of the Star Sanctuary's innermost room. The one I had built to concentrate and manifest the physical form of various wishes made by individuals across Equestria.

It's one of my better works, to be sure. Ever since Luna took over caring for it, she's been able to take the stars created from these magically collected wishes, and with the help of her guards, carry them up into the night sky.

I read some of the documentation. By having a pegasus or draugr fly a star up high enough and drop it, they could release their stored up energy over a far wider area, and allowing the wish-magic to have the best possible chance of granting the stored desire through subtle manipulation of the magical field of Equestria.

Literal Shooting Stars. Genius on Luna's part, if I'm being honest.

The room was empty for now. Luna only had ponies working in here at night to gather up the stars, after all. This made the magically dense room especially quiet. It was a good place for the talk to come.

"Weiss?" Eclipse said, approaching me as I stared up at the little floating stars, thinking about what I would say.

I pulled on my own heartstrings, as hard as I could. With bleeding hands cut by too-tightly-held strands I held them taut, trying to figure out which string was meant to be tied to which peg. I could remember so many things, with the rituals I used on my mind, but I couldn't remember how they were tuned. All sour notes.

It was a slapdash job, and frankly, the metaphor I used to describe it probably wasn't that good either, but what I would say needed to come from the heart, so I needed it in working order for a bit.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Eclipse," I began.

"The way I do things now... I use my enemies against themselves. Fear, hatred, greed, pain. I've gotten extremely good at using negative emotions as a means of getting what I want," I explained, not looking at her as I spoke.

She sat down next to me, and I continued.

"What you need to understand is, I've turned myself into a weapon..."

I paused, and shook my head, frustrated at the misstep. "...No, that's not the right word. Not a weapon," I corrected.

"A weapon can be turned to another purpose. Another target, new hands could guide it, and even a sword could be beaten into a plow, when war ceases," I explained, gesturing blandly.

She listened quietly as I spoke, not offering anything of her own to interrupt.

"I turned myself into an arrow, then. An arrow, fired into the future, at a single target. And unlike a sword or a spear, an arrow isn't built to survive its task. It has so little steel that there's nothing to be done with it even if it did survive. No material left for it to be turned to another task, to be reforged into anything of note."

I paused, feeling something gripping my insides. An unfamiliar sensation that I didn't know what to do with.

"An arrow, my student, can only really be fired again, once it's done its duty."

The silence dragged on. I wondered what my student was thinking. What was she taking from this?

"What happened?" she asked, and I considered which 'what' she was looking for an answer to. There were a lot of 'what's that had happened, after all, and it seemed she was after one in particular.

I decided to start with the first one.

"You died. All of you, or so I thought."

I sighed, finally realizing something.

"Sorry, but, I think I figured out a flaw. An old zebra ritual gave me eidetic memory, but I'm only just now figuring out the flaw with that."

I chuckle, and slap a palm to my forehead.

"I hadn't realized it until now, but, just because I can remember anything doesn't mean I can remember it right. Memory is fickle that way."

I realized something wrong with my recollection of that day. I hadn't remembered the feelings correctly Now I do.

"I was so afraid, Eclipse. When I realized you were all gone, I knew... I knew."

I took a deep breath.

"I was at the precipice, my hatred growing beyond anything I could stop. I knew if I lived another minute, I would become a monster. There would be no turning back."

"So I pulled it inwards, I caught my body aflame, turning my own hatred against me. It was my last chance to escape my destiny, and I had so little time to do it, before my emotions would rampage out of all control."

I laughed.

"Luna... She begged me to live. She couldn't have known what she was asking me to do, and yet she somehow said the one thing that would work. That day was the beginning of the end for me. I spent the next three centuries watching the slow seep of my own humanity, and the thing that grew in its place and became what I now am."

She didn't respond. She understood full well the story I was telling. It was apocryphal, in terms of dark magic. There must have been a million stories scattered across history books and old scrolls, detailing in no uncertain terms the countless individuals who had fallen to exactly this, to the point where my story must have sounded cliche to her.

I frowned. "I'm not an idiot, Eclipse Flash. I knew what my overuse of dark magic was doing to me, what I was becoming. My skill with the dark arts is sufficient that, if nothing else, I knew exactly where it was taking me. But I wouldn't stop. I was so afraid, so disgusted with myself as I drew deeper on my lust for revenge, as I isolated myself from all sources of positive emotion, and surrounded myself with sources of yet greater corruption."

I remember it properly now. I remember how the nightmares used to feature my friends criticizing my actions. I remember how slowly, my mind knew I was no longer tormented by the sight of friends and family hating me. It was around that time that my nightmares changed.

Now, the sight of them happy and alive was what haunted and terrified me. I had reached the point in my studies where positive emotions could physically harm my body if I wasn't careful, and my subconscious reflected it by changing what I feared.

"It was one of the classic blunders. I'm sure you're familiar. First of which is 'Never get in a land war in Blazeia', but only slightly well known is of course this; 'Never mistake knowledge of corruption as a resistance to it'."

The reference wasn't funny, but I smiled anyway.

I froze, realizing what came next in the story.

"Then I did something bad."

Eclipse Flash tensed up beside me.

"Cadence said I needed to tell you the truth... But I'm afraid."

I could definitely identify that emotion, now. I was scared, but the words came in spite of it.

"It was, to the exact day, the three-hundredth year after I arrived in the Frozen North. I-"

---

---

"No," Eclipse interrupted, her voice thick with emotion..

I finally turned to look at her, and saw the watery look in her eyes.

"You don't need to tell me. It doesn't matter."

I blinked. What did she mean?

She shook her head. "Look at yourself," she explained, gesturing to my posture, the way I sat there, hunched in. I realized I was shaking.

"I know what it's like to be afraid, Weiss... Why would I want you to be? If telling me what you did makes you so scared, then don't. Not yet. Not while there's work to do," she said, some new emotion building up inside her.

"Work?" I asked, suddenly lost and confused. This was the part where I confessed, wasn't it?

She blinked away the moisture, and gave me a look, one that demanded she inject some humor into the situation. "We'll need potions. And a shrink. A good one."

"For what?" I asked, more confused by the minute.

"For you, moron. You're off your rocker. Completely batty. Marbles out to lunch. It'll probably get worse before it gets better, too, if this is as cliche as it seems. You try to tell me the truth, we get interrupted by someone bursting into the room, I find out your big secret later at the worst possible moment, it'll be all dramatic and blow the budget for special effects and then we hug it out in the finale. That's how these things go, you know," she joked.

I started to laugh, a low silent chuckle that built up as she spoke. I couldn't help but laugh.

"So enough of this melodrama. I don't need to know. You don't have to force yourself to tell me like this. Maybe I'll find out what you did that was so bad, and maybe things between us will change when I do, but before then, I've got work to do. You're trying now. Knowing what you did before doesn't change that, I won't let it. This will be my last big Foeship lesson, cleaning up the mess your dumb ass made with all that dark magic abuse."

She had a determined look on her face, and I feel her thump a hoof on my back encouragingly.

The determination fades a bit when she sees the awe in my eyes.

"You know, I wasn't sure why I decided to make you my student, Eclipse Flash."

"At first, it was just your name. I won't get into it, but you've got a pretty telling one," I said with a knowing smirk.

"Later on, I had another reason, but... The memory of those feelings is murky now, at best."

I shook my head in disbelief. "But now I remember it clearly. Dark magic changes a person for the worse, Eclipse, and yet, even at your worst, you're so good it hurts."

I stood up. My resolve was clear.

"If you've got work to do, then so do I. If there's even one good thing to come out of this mess, it's that I'm probably one of the most experienced dark magic users alive. There's a lot I could teach you about it."

I helped her stand up, and laid my cards on the table. "So, can I be your teacher again, Eclipse? Can we make that work too?"

After a long pause, the mare clearly thinking about how to respond, she put a hoof to her chin. "Hmm... I dunno, Weiss, my schedule is pretty full."

I balked. "What?!"

"Maybe I can pen you in for a lesson or two. I'll have to sleep on it," she giggled.

With that, she summoned a rippling portal, and leapt through it.

"Come back here you little turd!" I shout, running towards the closing portal as she stuck her tongue out at me. That brat!

Slashing open another portal and racing after her, I didn't see the pony behind one of the pillars slowly come out from behind it as I left.

I didn't see Luna, who had heard the conversation, and her role in it.

---

"Oh... Oh my," Rarity said, voicing the surprise and mild awe that the rest of her friends felt as they saw Applejack's appearance at the train station. Twilight and her both were prepared to visit New Canterlot. One to deal with a legal dispute, and the other to support her friend in this trying time.

Applejack rolled her eyes with consternation, letting out a loud huff. "Now dang it, Rarity, don't go gettin' all googoo eyed. A pony's gotta have a hat for the sun and a suit for the court. Nothing more to it," she said, adjusting her best (and only) dress-suit, tightening the bolo-tie and adjusting her hat.

"Well, pardon me for being surprised, dear, I wasn't aware you owned anything so dashing, nor had I realized how sharply dressed you can be! Oh, I have such ideas for when you return," Rarity responded.

Applejack sighed. "Well, this ain't the first time somepony took a pass at Sweet Apple Acres. Just cause we work at a farm don't change the fact that we own one. Don't no Apple I know of ever got outta wearing a suit one day or another," she frowned, dusting off the jacket of the suit.

"Ah'll be back in a day or two. Chances are the Princess'll put her hoof down hard soon as we all get in a courtroom, what with how silly the whole thing is, but..."

She smirked, and stepped up onto the train with a sly look to her friends.

"Well, we can't let Celestia do all the work."

Author's Note:

The Song of the Day is "A Lady" by Tally Hall.

Comments

[drFraud]

For Weiss this is probably like trying to piece together a 5k piece puzzle without a picture to go with...
On another note, Luna will you just finnaly say it! Gods, I'm certain Cadance will help you for free to boot.

[EnderHooves]

Very nice! I wonder if this court case will reveal all of chapter black, or start a formal investigation at least.
Meanwhile applejack is just

https://m.

I love how aware of the meta Eclipse is. I hope she forgives him.

[Maramanasa]

Well cant wait for the showdown at the court to become an all hands throw hands or hooves. Atleast the rest of the chars are are acting with intelligence now.

Good to see the ones who love him have his back and hopefully luna can forgive herself as well

[mustangdrew4]

I'm still curious if anything is going to change for the umbra. I can understand locking Sombra down there as a punishment but an entire species shouldn't suffer for his actions in my opinion.

As a side note, Eclipse really is the best student he could have asked for. It's also really funny to me that Weiss is in a similar situation to what Celestia went through with twilight when she revealed her Alicorn suite and her disposition towards fighting.

Tl:dr Eclipse best student.

[Asolem2]

I didn't see Luna, who had heard the conversation, and her role in it.

"These little wishes, dancing all around"

"Ah'll be back in a day or two. Chances are the Princess'll put her hoof down hard soon as we all get in a courtroom, what with how silly the whole thing is, but..."

Yeah, especially since she knows that magic is heavily involved with much of the Apple family's work

"Well, we can't let Celestia do all the work."

Hah no, no letting her do everything wouldn't be all that fun

[drFraud]

10897155
Actually, if you read the comic, all umbrum are bad news, and they absolutely should stay in that crystal.

[Skylord mk3]

"Well, we can't let Celestia do all the work."

that makes me think of fallout new vegas

[mustangdrew4]

I haven't read any of the comics so that's fair enough.

Thanks for the info!

[GNECproductions]

10897446
That was the intention, I imagine. References.

[Derpmeister]

Imagine trying to sue a wealthy farmer, you get into courtroom, settle down prepare to present your case and then Along came Zeus! He hurled his thunder-Bolt!~

[Midknight Defender]

10899759
I mean, he’d probably turn himself into a manticore and seduce Princess Celestia right there in the courtroom, if you’re bringing Zeus up...

[Quirky View]

"Well, we can't let Celestia do all the work."

Loads gun with religious intent