Legion's Plague

"King.....Sombra?" Anna asked, raising both brows as she cautiously walked to the screen. The beating of her hooves against metal made a dull echo that resonated through the tank.

The dark head in the cloud of shadow seemed to lean forward a bit as it nodded slowly. "I see you much the same as you see me. So, exotic ones, why don't you come out to play?" He asked, his voice wry and sinister with a very miniscule echo to it.

Anna and Lance exchanged glances. Kaleb stood up and tilted his head to the side upon seeing the shadow-clad head. Natalie crossed her arms and tapped an index finger.

"And why do you want to see us specifically?" Asked the mage.

"A rather nosy little wizard, no?" Sombra asked, grinning. "You'll see for yourselves once you climb out."

"I am not moving until I find out about how you treated this poor thing!" She retorted, picking up the Moogle for him to see. Upon seeing the shadowy king, the Moogle started wailing and moving his little feet as if he were running.

"Oh.....that little rodent?" Sombra asked, raising a brow in curiosity.

"He's not a rodent!" Natalie shrieked, putting the terrified Moogle down. It ran and hid behind the legs of a pony, only peeking out occasionally to look.

"'He isn't a rodent,' so says a grade-A whore. I am not responsible for what my creations do other than to gather up slaves." Sombra taunted, grinning again.

Natalie uncrossed her arms and clenched her hands into fists. Her eyes narrowed low and her lips curled into a snarling frown. "Grade-A WHAT?!" She hissed in complete fury.

"And by the way.......the 'human' that deflowered your child was really me." Sombra said, grinning ear to ear.

Natalie fell silent, processing what Sombra had just said. Her ears twitched thrice.

Kaleb grabbed Lance by the shoulders and yanked him out of his way as he took his place before the screen. He was heaving as if steam was emerging from his earholes. "You.....you....you......you depraved monstrosity! How dare you......!" He lost all strength to finish that sentence as his hands curled into fists as well.

"You read my mind. Either that or you're thinking what I'm thinking." Natalie commented, her voice with a snarl to it.

Sombra's grin didn't waver. Not one bit. "Come out and fight me if you are so hellbent on vengeance. I know full well it's what you desire." He taunted, grinning so wide now his teeth gleamed.

The satyrs and brute climbed out of the hatch, making sure to secure it behind them to keep the ponies and Moogle safe. They then hopped down and Sombra's shadow cloud seemed to back away as the mini-mob approached his very being. But he grinned nonetheless the entire time.

"Before we start pounding you for pretty much everything," Anna started, stomping a hoof in anger, "Are you a masochist?"

Sombra shook his head, grin unwavering still. "You can't hurt darkness when it flees the light. The same is true for my current form." He answered.

His horn started emanating some black sparks of what seemed to be darkened electricity.

Lance raised a brow, his wings twitching a bit.

Anna shifted backwards an inch, raising her bow in the process.

Natalie clutched her Flameheart with a tight grip.

Kaleb's muscles tensed up, especially the shoulders and wrists.

Sombra's wispy shadow grew precisely three wriggling tendrils that touched three spaces of the ground around him in such a way a triangle was formed should one happen to literally connect the dots. Then, three slim columns of dark crystals shot straight up and touched the ceiling. Said columns broke in two pieces each, then four, and then it became literally millions miniscule pieces. The pieces collected into bizarre shapes--one a sword, one a bow, and one some kind of bladed staff--before levitating to three places again, this time upon runic circles lined up single file, one next to the other.

The evil king began chanting aloud in some ancient, Equestrian tongue that nobody could comprehend. His own horn was bathed in darkness that shot out and bathed each bizarre shape in a sinister anti-glow of collected shadows. More sparks, this time larger and outlined in a deep green, red, and orange danced around these shapes as they were lowered onto their sides directly on the runic circles that had begun rotating.

A shadowed arm shot out from the rightmost circle and grabbed the bladed staff with such speed the group took a step back. Then, the same happened for the sword and bow. Another arm shot out of each occult symbol and pulled their owners out of the blackness. These.....things were soon standing with their backs turned to the group, and all three were bipedal. Each held the weapons at their sides, and the middle one seemed to have broader shoulders than the other two, whose shoulders were more rounded in shape.

The shadows lifted off the beings and showed zombie-grey skin on their upper bodies and black hair on their heads and lower bodies, save the leftmost one which had red instead. The rightmost figure's top, save the arms, were covered in a black thing still. Their tails were only a few meager strands of long-since-dead hair, the rest having been ripped off sometime back. The middle being had bleeding holes where wings would've been present, and the right one had wings with the leathery holed frame belonging on Changeling queens. The hair on their heads was filthy and hung perfectly straight thanks to dirt, crystals, and other residue. The beings, who were satyrs as well, lacked cutie marks for some odd reason.

Then, slowly, the rightmost figure turned, revealing a torn, black dress that barely hid her privates.

Natalie immediately went wide-eyed, for she was staring at what was best described as a dead-looking version of herself. The look-alike had a stitched smile that went ear to ear, and where eyes should've been were black, bleeding voids of darkness that had meager glowing red dots in place of irises. On her forehead was a gnarled and black horn forged of solidified darkness. A cutie mark, now present, was an inverted cross with demon wings that had multitudes of holes that sat on her thigh....or was it flank? The staff fully materialized, revealing a slender black handle with a skull's face at the backside of the top. Black spikes extended from the protrusion as a silver, curved blade dripped with hints of blood. The look-alike was holding a crystal scythe. A strange, red symbol was just above her cleavage line, and it looked like a thorned cross with a snake on it.

The middle figure turned. It had the same eyes as Natalie's doppelganger and he was missing his entire lower jaw and a good portion of skin on his upper jaw, revealing the skull a bit. He had many scars on his upper frame, and a shredded loincloth didn't hide the fact that this satyr had his junk brutally torn off. The creature had blood red hooves that appeared to have been recently dipped in the aforementioned substance rather than ruffs of hair separating the two regions. His cutie mark was a blood red mushroom cloud, and his weapon was an exact crystalline replica of Lance's gunblade.

The last figure turned, revealing no clothing whatsoever on her emaciated frame. She shared the eyes of the other two, but her mouth was perfectly normal for a zombie. She had stitched scars on her face and chest, but they were miniscule. Unlike Natalie's doppelganger, who had seemingly perfectly fine breasts, this one's chest was flat and lined with many more gruesome stitches where they would've been. Where a horn should've been on her forehead was a crystalline stalactite impaled into her skull. Her cutie mark was a black blood pool and three red arrows in its center crossed over like swords. Her crystalline bow was black and it had red eye-like pieces, making it look like it had spider eyes, and the bow itself was elongated and curved in such a way spider legs was the first thing that came to mind when one was looking at it.

"How would it feel to fight your dark desires in such pain given form and evil given life?" Sombra taunted, smiling.