• Published 21st May 2019
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The Unique Properties of Dark Magic - Shadestyle



Stranded in Equestria's far past in the body of a unicorn without any magical knowledge, the self proclaimed "Weiss Noir" fights for survival in the Frozen North by indulging in sorcery most foul.

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(Past Chapter 23): Fool's Errand

My first road trip with Celestia was a learning experience. She's a bitch, and also a toddler.


"What do you think, Luna? There must be some potential in my scheme," I ask, subtly preparing Vances, in such a way that she at least doesn't see exactly what's going on.

Luna ponders my explanation with a sip of her tea. "A pony's mind is like a maze, Weiss. A labyrinth. There are entrances into it from the dream world, yes, but no exits will dismount from their moorings to follow somepony inside. If your mind were to enter any other, it is unlikely that you would ever leave."

"What if it wasn't my mind? What if it were something else," I pose carefully, trying not to show too much of my hand.

Luna's eyes narrow, demonstrating that she's clearly counting cards. "You're suggesting that you use mind control of your own. Worm your way into the mind of the pony and take control of them doubly."

I sigh and stand up from my virtual chair, allowing it to disperse into glittering data. "If the mind is a maze, then Sombra's control is the fucking minotaur-"

"Not all minotaurs live in mazes, Weiss." Luna glares lightly. Shit, was that racist?

"Fine, the Wall Shadow, then," I change my verbiage.

"Look, my point is, if I can suppress Sombra's control with my own, wouldn't that at least give the pony a chance? Give them their minds back?"

Luna shakes her head. "They would be comatose, unable to wake while your creation wages war in their mind. Only by destroying the crystal can they be truly freed."

I swallow heavily, the action doing nothing useful in my sleep. "That isn't what I asked, Luna."

Her eyes widen. "It isn't a solution Weiss, it's a bandage at best."

I shake my head in response, with a small frown. "It's triage. Stabilize them, keep them alive and safe. Asleep in the Shadow Realm, awake as Sombra's slave. I know which one I would choose."

"The strain such an arrangement on your resources would create-" she starts before I wave her off.

"Oh fuck off, Luna. They aren't a strain, they're people. I'll find a way. I've been working on a problem. Every naive idealist considers how to solve world hunger sooner or later. I'm not special in that respect," I state firmly, losing my carefully crafted cool.

I lean on a desk nearby, rubbing the bridge of my nose with a claw as I think as hard as I can and reign in the emotions churning in my gut.

"I've got an entire kingdom of ponies who know how to grow food. We just need to take that even further, to support the influx of sleepers."

Luna's expression turns tense, and a little bit sad. "What if I told Celestia? Maybe we could obtain shipments of food from Equestria, our lands are rich with grasses, further than even our own eyes can see. There is sufficient supply."

I consider the matter strongly. "How will you get a message out? We need you here working on breaking the anti-alicorn barrier, and I'm not confident that whoever you have left in your stead will listen if I send my own ponies as messengers."

"I won't like the idea of taking charity, but if accepting food from Equestria means I can spirit away the last ponies left in the Crystal Empire, I'm willing to do anything," I say sincerely, a bit of involuntary shame water escaping my eyes.

I jerk slightly when one of Luna's wings falls over my back. "You won't have to do anything unsavory for our help, Weiss. Your people are not receiving Equestria's charity, our two countries will be giving it. Giving it to the ones who will need it."

The physically impossible amount of water coming out of my eyes confuses me, obviously I'm crying, but these tears are as big as grapefruits, Christ!

I inhale sharply, pulling away with a hasty nod as I cease my hydrodynamically impossible crying. "Right. Of course. Who will we send to message the Equestrians of this deal?"

Luna grits her teeth. "I am loathe to say this, but if your plan would take every pony from the Crystal Empire, and place them in your care as soon as possible... I believe we will delay researching the barrier in order to pursue your scheme first and foremost. My sister, with your permission, will remain here, while you and I go to Equestria in order to finalize such an agreement as rapidly as possible."

"Why not stay? You could continue your own research into the barrier while Celestia and I take care of it?" I counter.

Luna coughs lightly. "Are you certain? I was under the impression that my sister... was not suited for enduring your charming personality for long."

Shaking her head, she continues. "Besides, while I dare not admit so to the public, Celestia is the more capable of the two of us, in direct combat. I am confident in my ability to fight Sombra, but what grand foolishness it would be for me to spend the next several weeks alone, near the heart of his power, distracted by my studies?"

I grimace slightly in confusion. "Well, she's just going to have to rapidly gain the thousand or so years of maturity that she should frankly already have."

"As for your protection, if it doesn't wound your pride too greatly, I've been wanting to give you my help anyway. I know you've seen my scouting vessels."

"The ships that you've somehow set to sail on the frozen snow itself?" she asks.

I nod affirmatively. "I'd like you and Celestia to be on one. I can set one of them to patrol around the barrier, close enough for your research. You'll be on the move, and the ships are prepared with methods of evacuation and defense, if you are concerned for your safety."

"Sombra hasn't even pushed them to activate some of the defenses aboard my ships, and between your sessions of study, you can act in my stead during the brief interim that I am not physically there to manage the Shadow Realm." I finish, driving her into deep thought.

"It does wound my pride. But by the stars, I'm not going to let that stop me, not if it won't stop you, Weiss. We will go forward with your plan if you truly think you can handle my sister."

I bring up several screens. "You'll need to know some of the functions I use for managing the Shadow Realm. It mostly runs itself, honestly."

"Just pose questions here-" I point at the Arcana Liber's survey system. The one I've been using to decide all of the Shadow Realm's laws and law changes.

"Give a list of acceptable answers, and the system will automatically ask all of the citizens which option they would prefer. The system then automatically pushes the update to Law Enforcement.

"Right now, you've only got lower-level access. The choices you'll be able to pose are minimal at best, stuff like traffic and fines."

I then point to a big red button.

"This button sounds the alarm. I've set it up to automatically contact you with Iron Diamond or Helmsplitter. They'll be able to direct the alert to where it needs to go."

Luna looks incredibly skeptical, poking the screen as though it were a particularly nasty brussel sprout. "I do hope this is a temporary system of governance, it seems quite... fickle."

I restrain my annoyance.

"It is extremely versatile, and you'll only be using it for a few days at most. Suck it up."

Luna gives me an incredulous expression. "Weiss, it will take months to make the journey to Equestria."

I laugh, probably way too loudly. "Now that's a hell of a joke to lighten the mood, Princess."


Celestia and Luna arrive to the sight of Weiss sitting on some sort of angular object, strumming a ukulele as the ship below him chugs along at a fair clip. Everyone involved was fully aware just how fast those ships could go, when pushed.

♪"Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel."

"Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel~!"♪ Weiss slowly trails off, as he spots the two Diarchs of Equestria.

Luna smirks. "Desirable traits, Lord Weiss Noir?"

Weiss coughs nervously, putting the instrument down and trying to ignore Luna's words.

"Alrighty then. Princess Celestia, are you ready? It'll be a long trip, so I hope you've used the bathroom already."

Celestia looks over the dark ruler, unimpressed. "I do hope you're a fast walker, I don't enjoy keeping a slow pace."

Weiss tilts his head. "I had planned on us flying."

Celestia rolls her eyes with a loud scoff. "I'm a royal, Weiss, not a royal chauffeur. I hope your plans did not rely on me carrying you, my flight tends to break bones."

Weiss shrugs. "Actually, I was planning on carrying you."

He hops off of the odd angular structure he had been sitting on, allowing it to unfold into what looks to the Princesses like some sort of bird, if the bird were made from whatever was laying around a blacksmith's shop, and designed by someone who had only heard birds described to them vaguely.

"Say hello to the McCloud, my personal super-high performance combat spacecraft, complete with backseats and cup-holders. I actually retrofit her with some new armor yesterday, too." he gestures to the Arwing's bright blue accents grandly, as Celestia and Luna share skeptical looks.

"What exactly does this... object... do?" Celestia ever-so-subtly questions, having no earthly idea what exactly Weiss believes this pile of geometric metal, stone, and crystal is capable of.

He flashes some sort of hand sign that makes the ship bleep positively, as the cockpit opens and expands further to allow access to the rear-seating.

"Please, take a seat. Let me show you it's features," Weiss says in an odd tone, climbing inside and claiming the front seat as he fiddles with various esoteric dials and levers with his excessive number of hands.

Celestia gives Luna a pleading look demanding explanation, but Luna simply motions towards it with her head, smiling faintly.

Either this goes wonderfully or horribly. In both cases, it should be entertaining.

With a regal gulp, Princess Celestia climbs in as well, slowly working her way into the slightly cramped area behind Weiss's cockpit.

The opaque cockpit closes, immersing them in complete darkness for a brief moment before lighting up with a full suite of holographic displays, feeding information from the McCloud's exterior cameras and sensors directly into the computing crystals and illusion generators buried within.

"Princess, there's a strap of cloth behind you, could you please use that to strap yourself in? It's a safety measure."

Smiling at the quaint request, 'Safety Measures', she titters in her mind, as she reaches back with her telekinesis and grabs some sort of metal clasp. Small illusions of arrows gesture where and how she is to attach it, which she obeys quietly.

"Alright, good. Now, beginning takeoff. Eclipse, you ready to play wingmare?" Weiss demands as a screen displaying Eclipse's impossibly wide smile appears, nodding frantically.

Weiss begins checking over both his and Eclipse's readouts, just for an added level of safety. "Wing servos... Looking good, holodeck's obviously running, Essencia tanks are full. Activating G-Diffuser."

Strange rings of energy begin sweeping from the Arwing's nose all the way to its tail, making Celestia feel a curious loosening of gravity, until it seemingly loses it's grip on her entirely.

She notices that the entire ship is filling up with an invisible heat that sinks into her, and on reflex, she very nearly dispels the entire thing. Sucking a breath through her teeth, she instead asks in her own characteristic way.

"Weiss, why is your garbage pile trying to put magic in my body?!" Celestia's voice booms, making Weiss wince.

"Princess, it's a G-Diffuser system. It diffuses G-Forces, just let it do its job, please," he grimaces.

Huffing loudly, she allows the invisible fire to do it's dirty work, shuddering slightly as the temperature in the cockpit rises to levels that would kill an ordinary pony.

Weiss smiles. "Let's rock baby."

Celestia turns her head around in shock when a loud explosion erupts behind her, the holographic cameras displaying a roaring flame erupting from the vehicle's rear.

"Weiss, explain to me what this device does, please?!" Celestia shouts in confusion as it shakes and shudders.

His stupid stupid smirk gets wider. "It flies, Your Majesty."

Oh, sweet sun in the heavens no.

The ship that they were perfectly fine being on instead of spiraling through the air in a flaming deathtrap quickly disappears behind them, shrinking into a dot on the horizon as she sees a second vessel fly up next to them. The other vessel is too small to hold a pony, Celestia notes.

"You getting good latency, Eclipse?" Weiss asks, making his student nod frantically, still too excited by the virtual experience of flying her miniature Arwing to trust herself with the act of speaking.

"Remember, just follow for a few kilometers, then swing back around. Your Miniwing doesn't have enough range to follow us out of the Frozen North," Weiss reminds his wingmare, making her nod one final time before speaking.

"Yes, Lord Weiss," Eclipse says, before getting distracted by something else happening in her virtual dream.

Weiss rolls his eyes. "Focus, Eclipse, you are going to crash if you don't keep your total focus on your ship."

"Sorry sir, Spot was trying to ask me something, I'll focus," she says with embarrassment, suitably chastised.

Celestia, meanwhile, is only just now getting her breathing under control, having nearly started the process of assuming the Alicorn Suite out of fear of injury via sudden deceleration.

As odd as it is for her to say, however, if it weren't for the holographic screens everywhere, Celestia would suspect they aren't moving at all, just based on how little turbulence or g-forces she is feeling in spite of Weiss's visibly amateur flying skills.

Some aspects of this magical field his vehicle has applied to them? It's certainly worth investigating later.

He crashes into what would be obvious to any pegasus is a solid cloud, sending the Arwing flipping end-over-end until Weiss wrangles control of it, returning to their original flight path.

He avoids making eye contact with the silently laughing princess.


The axe-wielding minotaur currently wandering around this freaky lava forest is completely lost.

"Oh, go kill a bunch of ponies, you'll be paid handsomely, what a waste of my time," they claim, stalking forward as they finally spot one.

Oh, here we go, one of the holes going into their little homes, practically swarming with the knee-high buggers.

He steps out behind the glowing red bush and pulls his axe off his shoulders in both hands.

"Well, they ain't soldiers, but heads are heads," Steel Driver claims, charging forward to begin the job he was paid for.

A brief twinge of instinct is the only thing that allows him to leap back at the last second, when a spear whizzes by him, and the ponies calmly and rapidly scramble into the tunnels, the door slamming shut.

Steel Driver turns to look for where his attacker is, grimacing as he holds his axe out defensively.

"Come out come out, little pony," he says, walking sideways as the river of molten metal near him burbles softly.

Suddenly, another spear flies out, which he deflects, and he spots its source, a shiny grass-covered hill over in the distance. "Looks like someone isn't good at hiding," he mumbles, planting his feet before charging it with a mad roar.

Several more spears fly out, which Steel Driver dodges and deflects, before reaching the hole in the hill and ripping the soil away with his bare hands with a malicious smile.

His smile slowly transforms into a confused frown, when instead of a screaming little pony, it's some kind of weird ticking contraption.

The device, he notices, has a metal plate welded to the top, with some writing engraved on it.

Brushing away the dirt, Steel Driver's frown turns more confused.

"Prank'd?" he mumbles, before the entire device explodes, splintering him with shrapnel and flakes of molten rock.

He blacks out shortly thereafter, as the poison contained in the spear-thrower takes its toll.


Iron Diamond resists the urge to roll his eyes when the screen before him marks the minotaur automatically with a small block of text reading "got eem", signifying that he's been knocked out by the defenses.

Honestly, Iron Diamond is far more impressed with how composed the civilians were. It seems those desensitization drills were really working, at least to get ponies to run to safety in a panic instead of danger.

He radio's Weiss, Weiss's screen coming through in chunky low definition.

"Hey Iron. There's probably going to be a lot of latency, I'm pretty far out right now," Weiss explains after about a minute.

Iron shakes his head. "I'm just calling to inform you, a mercenary attempted to attack one of the parks. There were no casualties, but he clearly intended on there being many."

Another minute passes, before Weiss responds with a cautious frown. "Restrain him and send him to the labs, I have a suspicion tickling my mind right now. I'm about to be completely out of range, Iron, so you'll need to handle things without me for a bit. Call Luna if you need anything."

Iron nods. He had already been briefed on Luna temporarily entering the chain of command while Weiss traveled to Equestria for negotiations.

"I'll be sure to do that. Over and out," Iron Diamond finishes, ending the call as Weiss nods affirmatively.

After sending commands to have the minotaur brought to the labs, Iron trots out of the security room, making his way to the Wacky Workbench fast travel station, intent on doing some investigation of his own.

Because by everything in the ground, he's not going to treat this situation with anything but deadly seriousness, even if nobody was hurt.

The minotaur is only just coming to when Iron enters the lab holding them. Looking around the scientific room with confusion, but oddly, no fear.

As the guard captain motions to the laboratory assistants and professors to give him a few minutes before they begin their scans, he approaches the mercenary.

Captain Iron Diamond feels there is no other course of action available to him, other than to rectify this scum's lack of fear.


I spot a bunch of pegasi flying alongside the ship. They look particularly mean and armored.

When I look at Celestia, she raises her hooves "They're none of mine. They may simply be curious. It's not every day that a chariot bumbles through the sky without a pegasus at the helm, after all."

A spear is jabbed into the McCloud, making it wobble slightly from the impact.

She titters in embarrassment. "Or they may be bandits. Another distinct possibility. Would you like me to-" I motion for her to stop, before she can unbuckle her seatbelt.

"No, no, that would be incredibly rude of me. Just hold on."

I reach down below my seat and pull out a small handgun, allowing the cockpit's hatch to slide back and exposing us to the ripping winds of high-speed flight.

Activating a small voice-amplifying Vance, I shout at the raiders.

"Fuck! Off!" I shout, while gesturing my piece at them, keeping a tight grip on it as my face warbles in the wind, while Celestia's remains curiously unaffected.

One of them moves in closer, flapping their wings hard with their spear at the ready, so I shoot him with a cannonball that pops out of my piece, sending the pegasus flying away with their armor scattering everywhere.

The others, seeing their friend and hearing my warnings, quickly adjust course to go help their crash-landed companion.

Celestia's face looks torn between amusement and disdain. "Perhaps we should have taken care of them, they may harm others if they aren't arrested..?"

I shrug, closing the hatch and slipping my gun back under my seat. "You want to stop crime? Make jobs. Throwing them into prison makes criminals less able to function in society. Not more."

Celestia looks vaguely displeased with my rebuttal, but thankfully shuts up after that.

After a few minutes of silence, I turn on the radio and swipe down my playlist until I find a good one. Some sort of power ballad ditty that an up-and-coming pony wrote. Turns out, the right pony can make even midi-guitar music sound good.

Turning the music down low, I try for some small talk. "So, speaking of food, what exactly have you two been eating? Just growing your own stuff?"

Celestia, who had been resting her head on her hoof watching the scenery roll by, turns enough to shake her head. "We haven't been eating. It's not a necessity for most immortals."

I breathe harshly through my nose with some sympathy. "How awful. Food is one of life's great pleasures."

I hear Celestia's teeth squeak slightly. "Pleasure is not our concern when there is work to be done, Lord Weiss. I'll enjoy meals once more when my stomach is no longer turned by Sombra."

Reeling it back in the face of her sharp downturn in mood, I idly adjust the coolant feed to help the McCloud adjust to the slowly changing temperatures.

"That's a respectable trait, Princess. So long as you can tolerate others not living up to that standard, it's a downright enviable one. Very zen."

The awkward silence continues for several minutes, before something strikes me. "Oh, Princess! Do you have the files I gave you, for the prosthetic limbs?"

She nods firmly, reaching behind her back and pulling out the folder. "I would not forget such a thing."

I notice the ink on the folder's surface is still wet, and she had nowhere on her person she could have kept the papers, making my eyebrows scrunch in confusion. "Where have you been keeping it?"

Her confusion matches my own. "I've been keeping it on my person?" She says, putting it back behind her, where my cameras seemingly witness it cease to be.

Not wanting to out myself as ignorant, I simply nod. "Right, my mistake."

I swerve out of the way of an oncoming cloud, making Celestia grin as I scowl slightly.

Suddenly, her expression turns serious.

"Weiss, if you would land, I need to lower the sun," she states with the utmost seriousness.

Nodding, I slowly bring the Arwing down, coming in for a mostly smooth landing as the vehicle tilts and tips slightly, floating directly down like a balloon before softly landing on the grass indicating our presence outside of the Frozen North.

Unbuckling herself rapidly, I open the hatch and let her out.

She plants her hooves, and as her horn ignites, I'm mesmerized. My chest pounds uncomfortably as I'm somehow aware of just how much power she's using to bring that gigantic ball of flames down. I'm reminded of our first meeting, where I had first witnessed that stifling presence firsthand, and of the first time I had seen dragonfire, the overwhelmingly potent emotions needed to cast such a spell.

Snarling, I tear my eyes away from the princess and her overwhelming aura, leaning back in my chair as the sky slowly dims and stars slowly appear in the sky alongside the moon.

If she were as mature as her age should suggest, she could probably do literally anything. But nope, instead we have this lunk, dragging stars across the sky and incapable of understanding utilitarianism.

Even though I'm little better, it still bites to see someone with that much power and time acting like she does. Self-righteously refusing to eat in one moment, and thinking that beating up bad guys is a grand solution in the other.

I suppose if I want that to change, I'll have to start by pushing her.

Her job done, she skips over merrily, stretching her back from the cramped seating before leaping up onto one of the Arwing's wings with a loud clang, using it as a makeshift sleeping spot while I flip a switch that fills the cockpit with white-hot black fire, allowing the heat to ease me into my slumber.


Unable to properly produce Vances away from the Arcana Nox, I'm forced to use bottles that I had prepared before I left, drinking them one after another while Celestia watches me like a hawk, curiosity burning in her gaze.

I cut a glance her way. "It's none of your business, in case you were wondering," I claim, burning the bottles to oblivion with a handful of black fire.

She snarls ever-so-slightly at me, hopping into the back of the cockpit while her fat-ass makes the entire vehicle shake.

"Yes, shake my ship a little more, why don't you. I think there's a few bolts you haven't yanked loose yet," I mutter.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't quite hear you over how we're on Equestrian soil, what was that?" Celestia states firmly, with a raised eyebrow.

"I said that the McCloud, in my grand incompetence, hadn't quite been calibrated for someone of your... Generousness. In the next iteration, I will pay Equestria's Princess of the Sun her due respect, and add a few zeroes to the maximum weight," I claim, bowing low to the princess sarcastically.

"That's all I needed to hear, Lord Weiss," she intentionally shakes the ship a little more as she wiggles in place to get comfortable in the backseat, the picture of innocence.

God, I hate her.

A similar routine occurs for the next few days, me flying, the two of us sniping at one another, and our moods rapidly declining until they swing back up at lightspeed when the so-called "Everfree Castle-town" finally appears.

As I land the ship in a clearing among the crowd of nervous ponies, my grin widens, as I make no effort to hide any of my features.

Celestia grimaces, jabbing me in the side with an elbow to make me stop terrifying her precious little ponies.

"Ponies of Equestria, we hath returned briefly, an impressive and new ruler of the Frozen North in tow, we wouldst ask that thou treatest our new ally, Lord Weiss Noir, with the respect he deserves in the coming days, as he shalt do the same for thee, thou mayst return to thine business now," she shouts in the Royal Canterlot Voice, somehow managing to include her subtle warning in her entirely unsubtle foghorn voice.

Turning to me, she gestures for the castle rising up from the ominous forest bordering this opulent villa, a long, straight road carved through the brush. I can't help but feel like such a road in the show would have made things a lot simpler for those future protagonists.

She sighs as her little ponies disperse rapidly, Princess Celestia being a pony that nobody should defy, at least in their minds.

"Let us take our leave for yonder Castle Everfree, we cannot help but wonder what horrible fate might befall thine realm should our haste be anything but the greatest."

I give her a funny look that has nothing to do with her sudden relapse into old-timey speech.

I turn to the McCloud "Arcana Janus, mark. Fast Travel Station: Equestria."

At that, my ship spits out a huge crystal capsule, which unfurls into a swirling portal.

Her shocked expression is gratifying when Luna comes through the gateway, smirking as though she were in on the joke.

I shake my head in a pitying way that turns her shock into anger. "Seriously, your majesty, you're a bit behind the times if portals are sufficient to surprise you. We'll discuss the matter as quickly as is reasonable. You know, as adults do?"

Even as Celestia angrily drags me towards the castle with her leg wrapped around my neck like a vice, I can't help but feel that that was totally worth it judging by Luna's endless helpless laughter at the situation.

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