Kiss of the Dark Pt. 2

2

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

Some small part of Twilight’s mind, the small part that still remembered having so much fun she lost track of time in her lab and her friends had to send for Celestia to unlock her door, waited until the next drop.

Drip…

She started counting as soon as she heard it. One Draconequus, two Draconequus, three Draconequus… and so on until she reached 56 Draconequus, when she heard another drop. So… Almost, but not quite, one drop per minute. With this realization came another, in that she was awake now, and had to get up.

Her eye cracked open, and she could’ve sworn she saw a midnight blue blur before she blinked again. She looked around the cave as she sat up, checking the rest of the cave. Nothing. Weird.

She stretched, popping every joint in her legs all the way down to her hooves, before standing up fully. She stretched again, this time like a cat as she yawned. It felt like she’d slept for a while. She stood back up, turning her back to pop it as she reached out with her magic to her discarded cape and armor on the cave floor.

The instant spike of pain that shot through her horn did it’s best, in a very whiny way, to tell her something was wrong. With a yelp, Twilight sat back down, patting at her horn delicately. Still there. Still straight, still spiraled. So what was wrong with it? She hadn’t felt like that since… since she was a filly. Since before she got her cutie mark, when she was still struggling with magic.

This was magic exhaustion, she realized with a start. The sensation had been absent for so long that she’d completely forgotten what it felt like. She had no magic, or at least, none beyond what she personally generated. Her stores were dry. Which was odd, because she still had a good charge before she’d slept… Anyway, at least it was something she could fix.

She stepped outside the cave mouth, feeling the sun on her fur. Before, Celestia’s sun felt warm, inviting. It felt like she wanted to go out and play in it, like a filly again.

But now? Whether it was the plot-kicking she’d received the day before, or simply another side effect of dark magic exposure, Celestia’s sun felt different, like a glare, like she’d be sunburned if she stayed out in too long. The worst part was that it felt cold, too. By all rights, the sun should’ve at least warmed her. But today, it felt more like freezer burn than anything else. She’d have to make this quick.

She closed her eyes, and concentrated her miniscule amount of magic. A neon yellow line shimmered into existence against her eyelids, a ley line. This one was an aerial line, pointing over and in front of her, likely towards Canterhorn mountain. Quite a lot of ley lines converged there, so she wasn’t surprised by this one.

Still keeping her eyes closed to see it, she reached out and began to draw from it, like a foal suckling. It took a couple of minutes, but soon she had a full charge again. Yet… she still felt empty, as though she hadn’t charged fully. She was more used to this feeling, but only slightly so, as the Golden Oaks library had been a convergence point for two ley lines.

It felt… off, this time. It hit her at the same time as an arcing pain from her horn. She was- ugh, that stung… was drained of dark magic, as well. Over the past week or so, she’d grown accustomed to it, and her body had adapted to use it, hence the purple mist and glowing green eyes. Now that it was absent, her body was telling her it needed it again, not unlike a drug.

That was disconcerting, but only for a moment. This was how it had to be now.. Her thoughts turned back to the book, and what little she had read. Dark Magic wasn’t recharged by tapping into a ley line, but instead by drawing magic out of another creature. Earlier, when she had been practicing in Ponyville, she’d simply drawn magic from nearby vegetation. That wouldn’t work up here, as there was no vegetation to speak of. Well, maybe some lichen, but that wouldn’t provide enough magic.

The shriek of a hawk far above caught her attention. Putting her hoof to her brow and looking up, she caught a dot circling high above. Definitely a hawk. If the book she’d borrowed, or rather, been strongly recommended to read by Fluttershy was accurate, the call was that of a red-tailed Hawk. Not large enough to draw from, but the thoughts of the book brought something else to mind. The call was that of a warning, to tell other-

Her thoughts were interrupted again, this time by the yowl of a Mountain Lion from behind her. She turned just quick enough to catch it as it leapt, and on pure instinct had picked up a skull-sized rock before launching it on an intersecting trajectory. It slammed into the side of the Mountain Lion at the perfect moment, impacting into its ribs and nudging it off it off-target.

The lion barely missed her, landing on the rocky plateau just to her left before rolling a few times over the loose gravel. It scrambled back to its paws, blood dripping from a shallow gasp on its side. It yowled again, slowly pacing towards her.

That was when the hawk dove onto it’s face, clawing wildly with it’s talons. The Mountain Lion easily swatted it away with a paw, and the hawk made a ‘whap’ sound as it hit a rock wall behind Twilight. The distraction was all she needed, however, and Twilight had picked up the rock again, this time smashing it right into his forehead. It’s eyes crossed, and it stumbled, struggling to remain standing with its new concussion.

This gave Twilight another opening, which she used to pick up the Mountain Lion in her magic, before trying one of the first spells in Starswirls’ book. Twilight magically reached out to the Mountain Lion. She could feel it’s pulse, the steady thump-thump of it’s heart, the little electric shocks bouncing from it’s brain down it’s spine, now a little confused due to the good smack it had gotten from the rock.

She felt it all, and began to extract it, to pull it out and store it in her horn. The mountain lion went rigid for a second, as if unsure what was happening, and then began thrashing around in pure pain.

“Hold… still… I’m almost… done…” It gave off one last pained yowl, which trailed off as she finished siphoning it. It finally slumped, still held by her magic, only to be dropped a second later. It lay still on the ground, the kind of still only a corpse could achieve, before it began to decompose rapidly.

The fur fell out, the flesh withered away, and the bones crumbled. The only thing left was a fine powder, which was seized by the wind and blown away, leaving a few drops of blood as the only evidence there had ever been a Mountain Lion there. Twilight stared at the spot for a few seconds, before she screamed and started scrabbling backwards, away from it.

She only came to a stop when her back hit a rock wall, hyperventilating in terror. She… She had killed something, without even thinking… That mountain Lion was dead now, because of her… But it had been trying to kill her… And that… That felt…

…Good.

She knew, in the back of her mind, that she could do that again, especially if it came with all the dark magic it had provided. She needed more of that, and if she had to kill more living things to do it… She could do that. Even if they had to die in the most painful way possible, it didn’t matter as long as she got more magic.

There was a pained squawk from beside her, which brought her back to reality. The hawk from earlier had hit the rock, and it’s wing had broken. Hmmm… Maybe she could get some more-

No! Bad Twilight! What the buck! This hawk saved your life, you can’t just murder it like that! She slapped herself, before reaching down and picking up the poor bird. Definitely broken. And come to think of it, it looked sort of familiar…

Oh Tartarus. This was one of Fluttershy’s birds. That’s why it came to help her. And she couldn’t get it back, and she couldn’t help it, and it was going to die up here sooner or later…

…But maybe she could make it painless. It gave a sort of pained caw, and looked at her. She felt herself tearing up, and closed her eyes as she put her forehead against the hawk’s beak.

“I’m so sorry. Thank you for saving my life, but… I can’t repay you any other way. I’ll make it quick…” With that, she seized the hawk with two separate fields of magic, one above and the other below it’s neck. It gave one last squawk…

…And she twisted the fields in different directions. She both heard the snap, and felt it through her magic, crunching as bones were yanked in ways they were never designed to. The last few twitches of the avian body as the head died, and the body followed suit. The tears were freely flowing from Twilight’s eyes now, but she didn’t try to stop them. She just held the now-lifeless bird in her hooves and sobbed, as something inside her died.

She lost track of time after that. Lost track of what she was doing. She knew she’d buried the Hawk, and had scrounged up a few sticks to make an eight-pointed star for it’s grave. It had made sense at the time. It’s what Fluttershy would’ve wanted, and she’d tell her what she’d done. Tell her where. She owed Fluttershy that much.

It was only when she was sitting in the cave again, still crying her eyes out, that a question asserted itself. What would she do next, with her ill-gotten dark magic? There didn’t seem to be any point. Sombra was still dead. Magic couldn’t fix that.

Then, a glimmer of hope. What about Dark Magic? The tears slowed, as Twilight thought back to Sombra, every memory she had of him, from the Crystal Empire to their wedding night to his death. As she did so, she felt a twinge from her horn, like the point of a compass spinning inside it. She was on to something.

She began to will most of her dark magic together into a large shapeless blob before her, molding and rearranging it into a shape vaguely resembling a pony. Oddly, it seemed to be helping her, filling out the shape like paint filling a container. She simply had to keep pouring magic into it, and it guided itself. She closed her eyes and looked at it again, like she had with the ley line, and-

There was that blue blur again, from earlier! Out of the corner of her eye! Where did it- Aggggh!

All thoughts of the blue blur disappeared as the worst pain she had ever felt in her life shot through her skull. This was far worse than magic exhaustion, worse even than when she’d been bitten by that snake as a filly. It hurt so bad she couldn’t even scream, instead simply finding herself unable to stand. She dropped to the cave floor with a thump, like a sack of potatoes.

For the second time that day, she reached up and felt her horn, and this time something was very, very wrong. Touching it in the first place felt like her hoof was made of lava, and she almost didn’t trust them, thinking at first that the massive amount of pain had fried her pain receptors. In stark contrast to this morning, her horn felt like a loose tooth, almost soft, and like she could shift it unpleasantly just by touching it. Almost more disturbingly, she could no longer feel the spiral, which meant it was smooth. It seemed to crackle with static electricity as she followed it to the end, curving behind her, just like Sombra’s.

Before her, the pony-shaped blob of dark magic had solidified and was fully visible to the naked eye. It was coloured black, and she could see smaller details beginning to etch themselves into it. With one last jolt of electricity, the massive pain in her horn stopped, leaving only a dull ache. Almost simultaneously, she found she still had control over the magic shaping itself before her.

His head seemed to be almost finished, with his ears having already taken shape, as well as his nose. His horn had been curved from the start, and his mane was growing like grass. His eyes finished next, and as soon as they could, they snapped open, darting around until they settled on Twilight.

“Mphmmph!” He had no mouth, but he tried to scream anyway. Twilight began focusing her magic there, and soon his lips had finished outlining his mouth. In response, all work below his ribcage slowed to a crawl. He tried to open it again, and failed again, this time due to his tongue not having separated from the top and bottom of his mouth yet.

“Hwalught! Awe you okay!?” His words became clearer as his teeth sprouted, but she could understand him now.

“Sombra! Yes, I’m okay! Thank Faust that worked!” His face curled into an expression of pain as she stopped concentrating on her magic.

“Working, Twilight, working!”

“Buck! Sorry, sorry, don’t distract me!” Sombra shut his eyes and cringed as her magic finished his head and forehooves, completing his front half and starting to work its way down his barrel.

“Come on Twilight, I know you can do this; that’s why I looked so hard for you…” That gave Twilight pause, and she stopped the spell to narrow her eyes at him. As soon as the magic ceased to flow, he gasped and grabbed his half-completed hind legs, making a pitiful whimpering sound.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Wh…what? Twilight, without the constant flow of magic I’m going to start unraveling and it hurts quite a lot-“

“What do you mean, you looked for me specifically?”

“In the Crystal Empire, when you defeated me, I saw how much potential you had within you… More than myself, even more than Celestia-“

“Is that all I am to you? Potential?”

“Twilight, no! I saw- grrg!” His hind legs had begun to crumble like sand in the wind, and his teeth had clenched together hard enough to dent steel. Twilight began funneling just enough magic to him to keep him from dissipating too fast.

“When we were back in the castle, Celestia said something. I thought she was lying at first, but it’s been growing like a parasite in my thoughts. She said you were using me, just like you apparently used Starswirl the Bearded.”

“Celestia s-said-“

“SHUT UP! I’m not DONE! I hate when ponies interrupt my lectures! She said that you corrupted me from the start, that you played me like a damn piano until you got what you wanted!”

“Twilight…”

“I said SHUT-“

“She’s right.”

Those two words derailed Twilight’s train of thought better than any amount of explosives could. “I… What?”

“She’s right. I did just that.” Sombra’s legs had dissipated, or rather, unraveled up to his flanks now. “I manipulated you. I’m the reason you lost control of your magic all those times. I killed those guards, and saved you from a problem I created. And I’m sorry, Twilight. So very sorry. I’m sorry you thought any of it, any part of this whatsoever, was your fault.”

His barrel was beginning to unravel now. He coughed, and a small smear of red appeared on the cave floor in front of him. “I’ve been an evil, manipulative bastard, but will you-“ Another cough, this time more throaty and painful, accompanied by a larger smear of red. “-Can you forgive me?”

With that, his eyes dropped back to the floor, and settled on the growing pool of blood, now fed by a small dribble from the corner of his mouth. Twilight’s voice had a tremor as she spoke.

“But… How do I know you’re not just manipulating me again? How can I trust you?”

Sombra responded without looking up. “I’ve… been loyal, sticking –cough- by you when nopony else would. I’ve been generous, giving you my –cough- castle, my library, everything I own. I’ve been kind, always there to help you and never getting angry or annoyed. I taught –cough- taught you a new kind of magic. I even made you laugh a couple times that night in the castle. I’ve never been anything but honest, but –cough- …you’ll have to trust me on that one.”

Both sides of his mouth were dribbling blood now, steadily dripping into a growing puddle of blood beneath his chin. The lower half of his barrel had completely unraveled now, and his upper half was quickly following suit. Sombra was little more than the front half of a pony now, and he seemed to lose all strength, lose all will to stay sitting upright. He began to slump into the puddle…

…But was stopped by a purple hoof. “I… forgive you Sombra.” The unraveling slowed, stopped, and began to reverse. The pain stopped, as did the blood, but he could tell this was a tentative peace. That she could stop at any time.

“But I do want you to explain why, Sombra. Why marry me? Was that part of your plan? And choose your next words very carefully.” Sombra looked back up at Twilight. She was crying.

“From… from the first time I met you, not as enemies in the Crystal Empire, but as equals in the guise of Forest Rain… I saw you were so amazingly smart, so beautiful… You were, and still are, perfect. Every time we met after that, it only made me more sure. I love you, Twilight. That’s why I changed my plans so drastically. I could’ve had Equestria in a week. But… I wouldn’t have had you beside me.”

Twilight was still crying, and used the hoof not holding Sombra up to wipe her eyes. “Sombra… You’re right. You’re an evil, manipulative bastard.” She held his head with both hooves, cradling it like she had held the Hawk, and whispered next to his ear, “But I love you anyway.”

And then she kissed him. They both lost themselves in the kiss, Twilight not caring about the static taste of dark magic, nor the taste of copper from the blood, and Sombra simply being happy they were both still alive, and that she still loved him.

They were both simply happy to be there, and even happier the other was there too. In the back of Twilight’s mind, she registered the spell rebuilding him had finished, and that he had shifted from being a unstable, half-built copy of him to a full, flesh-and-blood pony.

Like all good things, however, it had to come to an end. This happened, in this case, when Sombra’s eyes snapped open and he pushed Twilight behind him, before leveling his horn at-

Twilight blinked. At Princess Luna? She was here, now? Notably, she seemed a little worse for wear, with her armor tarnished in some spots, blood-spattered in others, her wings ruffled, and her fur messed up overall. She was lying awkwardly against the cave wall, and wearing an expression that Twilight would’ve had trouble deciphering had she not been around Celestia the past years. She looked vaguely pissed off. But it was layered behind walls of suspicion and… jealousy?

Sombra horn began to spark with magic, before growling, “What? Was one death not enough to sate the royal bloodlust?”

“Nay. ‘Twas not our intention, Shadow. We simply wished to observe Twilight Sparkle, so that we might greet our comatose sister with good news ‘pon her awakening.”

“So you were going to rat her out? Wrong answer!” His horn began releasing more sparks, before it emitted a ‘pop’ sound as it backfired. He slumped to the ground, a brand new scorch on his horn, as Twilight stood over him, taking the position over him that he had over her not moments before. She leveled her own horn at the Princess of the Night.

“Princess Luna, you can’t tell Celestia what you saw here, or where we are.”

“Correct. I cannot.”

“Er… Whuh?”

“We art relegating ourselves to the position of an impartial observer. We hath seen the path thou hast chosen to traverse, and it doth not well. But. It ends worse, shouldst we interfere. We walked this path ourselves, but we walked it alone. Thine husband is with you. Mayhaps I am wrong. Mayhaps this will end in smiles and cupcakes.” Her eyes narrowed. “But it doth not seem likely. We shalt be observing you.”

And in an instant, she was gone.

Author's Note

Alright, so since my prereader hasn't responded or even been online for a week and a couple days, I'm going to assume he died in a horrible industrial cheese-making accident. Farewell, Somebody. My only wish was that you responded earlier than a week after every message, and that you had a less meta name.
Anyway, we dithered on this chapter for far too long, considering I finished it only a couple days after the first. You can kinda assume that'll be the time frame for the rest of these, unless he gets so pissed he comes back from the dead and demands we go back to dithering about it.
In other news, I'm also going to be writing another story, yet again set in Las Vegas. You will note I did not say "Las Pegasus". It'll be my best attempt to write an out-and-out comedy, with no planning, no outlines, nothing. And that's all I'm going to tell you here.