The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 54: The Procedure

Sombra paused. He looked over his shoulder, although there was of course nothing to see but blackness. Even if there had been any light to guide his way, the world was still growing terribly dim. One of his eyes had gone blind and fogged over, and the other was beginning to die.

A raven descended and landed beside him.

“Is something...the matter?” it asked, looking up at him with its pale yellow eyes.

“The fear. I can feel it rising.”

The raven cocked its head. “This is a...good thing. More fear means...you have more time...”

“My kingdom is at war, and I am not there to lead it. Nothing about this situation can be classed as ‘good’, Al’Hrabnaz. We need to hurry.”

“Of course, my king.”

The raven took flight, joining the others, swarming forward through the darkness. Sombra shivered. This was not magic he understood, and that was a rare thing indeed. Even to him, it seemed unnatural and disturbing- -but it was the only way. He supposed that he could hardly protest; doing so would be hypocritical. After all, he had not truly been alive for centuries- -he was nothing more than a soul bound to the remnants of his former body, fueled by fear drawn from the Heart of Darkness.

The path was long, and Sombra was weak- -but he refused to falter. While he valued Al’Hrabnaz for his work, Sombra was not prepared to show weakness before him. Precious few would ever be privy to that aspect of him. Precious few would know that despite everything he had done to himself, he was still a pony.

That, of course, would change soon enough.

They came to a vast room and the ravens and crows spread outward, moving and flowing to the high reaches of the room and taking their perches. Each and every one of them watched Sombra as he stared into the darkness.

Something was wrong. Sombra knew every inch of the Citadel, and knew that the path they had taken had not led to a room like this. Something was wrong.

“We are not in the Empire anymore.”

“No,” said A’Hrabnaz, his crows fidgeting slightly. “We are not.”

Sombra’s eyes narrowed. “What have you done?”

“Reality opposes the process...it rejects the purity of my mathematics...so I corrected it.” Several of the ravens looked up at the strange, sickly sky visible through the grimy windows overhead. “My engines...they opened the way. And here, the soul can be transformed. Perfected.” The ravens looked at Sombra. “Severed.”

Sombra looked around the room at the vast machine that had been assembled in its center. His eyes fell onto a shape pushed hastily in the corner of the room, the only form that held any semblance of an organic thing instead of a creation of alien steel and unnatural stone.

It was covered in a sheet. A thin, sickly gray hoof was poking out from one side.

“It’s like…changing clothing,” said Al’Hrabnaz, his ravens descending and fixing the sheet. Yet Sombra heard the somberness in his voice. He had been so young. “It is...nothing to be concerned about.”

“Do you regret it?”

The ravens looked up. “No,” said one of them. “I am free now. I can finally fly.”

“You did not have to do this. Not to yourself. I never asked this of you.”

Another raven shook its head. “No. No, I never could. I had to be sure. Sure it was perfect. Something….someone of value. The only one I...value...is you. And myself.” Another raven, this one on a perch across the room, spoke. “We have enough for...two chances. If I had failed...how could I face you? To know...I had doomed you...it would be too much to bear. I could not withstand it. This way, no matter what...I would never need to face you in failure...”

“Selflessness is weakness. You understand that, correct?”

The ravens nodded, looking down at the floor in shame.

“That said,” continued Sombra, “none have shown such loyalty before. So I thank you, Gxurab Al’Hrabnaz.”

“My king...”

“Now perform. I can feel the fear rising in the kingdom. The enemy draws nearer, and my time grows short.”

“Of course.” The ravens began to move. “Please, step to the center.”

Sombra did as he was asked, moving toward the center of the machine. He stared up at it, and the singularity it contained. It was a thing of beauty, a combination of machinery and magic unlike any he had ever witnessed. There was no sign that its creation had been rushed. He supposed it was appropriate, considering that there was a very real possibility that it would be this machine that finally claimed the life of the king of the Crystal Empire.

“So,” he said, turning back to Al’Hrabnaz. “Am I to be cast into a flock of birds, as you?”

Al’Hrabnaz seemed deeply offended by this. “No, my king! You misunderstand! My soul, it is small, weak, I could not survive greater- -this is only a test of the machine’s power! Your soul...your soul is of such grand scale, such power...so saturated with fear and magic...you can survive being bonded to so much more...”

Sombra frowned. “Like what?”

“I had considered your daughter’s body.”

“Out of the question.”

“I know. Because she is yet required. And...of course...you would not want to be trapped...in the body of a hideous aberration...”

“Indeed,” lied Sombra. “At that point, you might as well link me to one of my slaves.”

“No...that would not do...there would be an overload...very messy...” The ravens swarmed around a large machine, opening the door by working in unison. Their beaks moving in such a coordinated manner was a truly disturbing sight, and Sombra came to understand that they were separate parts of the same thing. Individual beings linked to a single soul. He began to wonder just how close to madness Al'Hrabnaz had brought himself.

The door to the piece of equipment opened and a rack automatically extended. The ravens reached for one of the containers, activating the release. A cylinder extended, its frost-covered crystal shell steaming from the extreme cold it had been stored in.

Sombra stared at it, and saw that it contained something dark in color. Although even dark was not quite the right word: through the ice and frost rapidly covering the tube, he could see a complete absence of light. It was as if the contents were somehow deeper than black.

“What is that?”

The ravens laughed. It was a terrible sound. “Pure elemental shadow. I grew this sample. Raised it on the dark power of my machines...before me, it belonged to Clover the Clever, and before her...it had belonged to Starswirl the Bearded. That sample...was taken from Stygian the Unicorn.” The ravens turned to Sombra, their eyes alight with madness. “THIS will be your new body!”

“You are insane.”

“I refute that intrinsically...but would it really matter?”

“No.” Sombra stared at the tube. “Will I be able to control it?”

“You are very likely...the only pony who COULD control it...your soul is adequate...your darkness great enough to withstand the bonding...to BECOME it...”

Sombra frowned, but then nodded. “So be it.”

The ravens began to reach for the tube, trying to grasp its heavy handle with their beaks. Sombra stopped them.

“Hold,” he said. He lit his horn, his dark crimson magic flickering from its tip. The pain was intense, and it was likely the last spell he would ever have the strength to perform as a pony. With it, he grasped the various ravens throughout the room and slammed them together.

Their flesh contorted and merged, fusing into a single entity. Al’Hrabnaz cried out, stepping back- -not as a crow, but as a gaunt, pure-black unicorn.

“My- -my king!” he said, looking at his hooves. “What have you- -”

Sombra fell to his knees, out of breath. “Transfiguration. It is not a complex spell. I think, in time, you may learn to use it yourself.”

Al’Hrabnaz’s enormous yellow eyes turned to his horn. “But I’m not truly a unicorn...”

“No. You are still a murder of crows. But you need not be a unicorn to perform magic. As I will demonstrate shortly, after a change of clothing...”

Al’Hrabnaz smiled. He had neither teeth nor gums. He picked up something near the control panel and placed it on his chest. The dial began to tick as soon as it touched his flesh. “I am booting the machine. Have no fear, my king. When we are done here, you will be perfect...”

Sombra closed his eyes. He did not care about perfection. He only needed more time.

Comments

[alamais]

The evilest of bromances.

[Brony4Lyfe]

So this is how Flock came to be a pseudo-pony! Fascinating! When he morphed himself into the crows, I wondered how her managed to transform into the vaguely pony-shaped version of himself we see later, cool to know that it was an act of Sombra!