The hatred of the shadow

The four ponies walked through the street of the empire for some time. They saw that a few of the shadow ponies have already started patrolling around while others were discussing some things with the changelings.

Soon they reached the library of the empire and Malonex opened the door. Immediately after he opened the door he was greeted by a mare in a black mage cloak. "When it isn't Malonex, the so called right hoof of the king. We just talked about that the king will soon realize that he choose the wrong mage."

Malonex began to grin. "If I were you I would beware what you say or else I have to take more from you than just your title."

The mare became furious. "How dare you to talk to me like that, I am the archmage of the dark council,. I earned my dark name by studying dark magic for years and didn't get it from a father who failed the only task he had."

This made Malonex laugh. "You think you earned your name more than I do? I learned dark magic alone with only a book about the basics and a book that contains the most complicated dark spells ever found and my dark powers are greater than yours will ever be. My father failed his task that is true but I didn't. I conquered this empire and I freed you all. No matter what you did to earn your name it is nothing compared to me!"

Gladius stepped forward. "Venae! I demand that you give up your title and swear to serve Malonex. The king has chosen him and he has proven himself in more ways than you ever could."

Venae stomped on the ground and every mage looked at her. "You want to be the archmage, then fight for it. I challenge you to a duel to the death!"

Malonex nodded with a grin, everything was going like he expected. "So be it. Come outside, I don't want to destroy the books."

He turned around and left the library with a flattering cloak and Venae walked after him followed by a bunch of mages and at the end Gladius, Tacit and Lock followed.

Outside Malonex already took his cloak off and turned his crystal hoof into a blade, Tacit could see his mouth moving as he spoke a quick spell and then the blade burned in purple flames.

Venae took of her cloak and Malonex saw her long blood red mane and her dark gray coat. Her cutie mark was a drop of blood. Around her neck she wore a necklace with a dark red gem inside of it and she wore red claws on her hooves. She smiled at him with her red eyes, already sure of her victory. "Let us begin."

With that they began to shot energy bolts at each other but each of them summoned a barrier to block the attacks.

Malonex summoned two shadow monsters, big wolf like monsters with big mouths, sharp teeth and long claws, and commanded them to attack Venae who dodged every attack and used her claw to counter them.

Now her horn began to glow again and she dragged a massive amount of blood from her necklace. The blood turned into a deadly red shards and she shot it at Malonex. He created a mass of black crystal shards and shot them against hers. Their projectiles exploded into dust as they collided.

Malonex let his shadow crawl under her and created a crystal claw that tired to grab her but she jumped and used her blood to cut the claw into pieces.

He began to shoot with red lightning at her as soon as she touched the ground and it hit her directly at the head.

As Malonex looked at her he could see that parts of her face were completely blown away but instead of falling dead to the ground she began to laugh. "Did you really think that would kill me?"

Malonex grinned a bit. "No. I still want to see what you can do." And with that Malonex levitated the crystal remains of the claw into the air and priced it directly into her.

Her expression turned to pain for a moment but in the next moment she used a shockwave to destroy the pieces and the wounds began to close themselves. The blood that she had lost began to levitate into the air and they took the shape of four ponies.

Malonex saw them and shot with crystal shards at them but the projectiles just went right through them. Malonex noticed that and shot a dark fireball at one of the blood ponies and like he expected burned them to the ground till nothing was left.

The other blood ponies began to attack while Venae began to shoot with energy bolts. Malonex stomped on the ground and created a wave of dark fire that flew directly at the remaining blood ponies. They all burned down and the bolts were blocked by Malonexs barrier.

Venae hasn't noticed that Malonexs shadow had stretched beneath her and in the next moment she was shredded by a web of crystal spikes. She fell into a pile of blood and rebuild herself a few steps away from her previous position.

She wanted to get ready for her next attack but then she noticed that Malonex wasn't even looking at her, instead he was looking at the crystal web. In a blink of an eye the crystals disappeared and Malonex looked at something in his hoof. It was a necklace and in this moment that she realized that her necklace was missing.

While she began to panic Malonex just laughed. Malonex looked at Venae and raised an eyebrow. "How pathetic. One simple trick and you already lost."

In this moment the rage to over Venaes mind and she shouted. "Apprentice! Come here!"

A shadow pony in a gray cloak ran to his teacher and bowed. "How can I aid?"

Venae grinned evil and Malonex got ready for an attack. First the apprentice was confused but in the next moment his expression turned to horror as he felt a magical grip inside of him.

Malonex saw how the apprentice began to writhe in pain and then streams of blood began to leave the body of the apprentice through his eyes, ears and mouth.

Venae levitated the blood over her head and close her eyes. The ball of blood began to split up and soon thousands of small blood drops levitated over Venaes head. Malonex watched everything with great interest. The droops began to spin and as they stopped they have turned into small red crystal shards.

Venae opened her eyes again and looked at Malonex with rage. She shoot a bunch of shards at him and Malonex summoned a crystal wall in front of himself and shards priced into the wall and the crystal began to crack but it managed to stand. Malonex jumped on his wall and began to shoot with lightning at Venae.

While he was busy shooting he heard a strange sound beneath him and looked down. The shards had began to glow and Malonex could sense a rise of magical energy inside of them. He jumped away from them and one moment later they exploded.

As he dropped on the ground he saw that Venae had surrounded herself with the shards and created a deadly red storm. Malonex watched unimpressed and levitated the necklace in front of himself. He began to lead his magic inside of the gem and in that moment the tornado stopped.

Venae looked with surprise around and tired to let them move again but she noticed that her magic wasn't under her control anymore. All the shards exploded at once and Malonex began to smile. He sent out his black smoke to cover the entire ground and Venae began to back away in fear.

Malonex stepped slowly closer to her while she tried to get space between them. Suddenly black shackles rushed out of the smoke and grabbed Venae at her legs, another grabbed her around her neck and forced her to lower her head.

She struggled to get free but it was for no use, she could only look up and watch as Malonex stepped closer. Malonex stopped right in front of her and took the necklace in this crystal hoof.

"This duel is over! Give up!" But she still tired to get free somehow and Malonex raised an eyebrow at her behavior. He said nothing and just grabbed the necklace with his magic.

Venaes eye widened in horror as she saw that small cracks began to form. "NO! STOP! PLEASE HAVE MERCY!"

Malonex stopped and a grin formed in his face. "Give up and give me my title."

Venae sighed and let her head hang. "Fine, you win. You are the archmage!"

Malonex let the shackles disappeared and threw the necklace at her. He turned around but he sensed magic behind him. He turned back to Venae and saw a blood shard flying towards him. He shot an energy bolt and let a shadow tentacle leash out. The energy bold collided with a blood shard and the shadow grabbed Venae at her throat.

The shadows dragged her closer to Malonex and he looked deep into her eyes. "It seems like you never give up and lie through your teeth. I hereby strip you of you membership of the council." The black tentacle let go of her and she stumbled a few steps backwards. "Now bow down before your new master, my apprentice."

Everypony looked surprised at Malonex and Venae hesitated to do anything. "Do I speak unclear? I said bow before your master!" He waited for a moment and then smiled pleased as Venae bowed down in defeat.

"That is better. Now go. I expect to get a list of all mages with names, rank and abilities till tomorrow morning or else I will think again about your live." Venae wanted to say something but as she opened her mouth she got an disapproving look from Malonex, instead of saying anything she just growled and walked away.

The other mages looked at Malonex waiting and he responded angry. "That counts for each one of you!" And as he said this all the mages immediately ran after Venae.

As they were gone Malonex cracked his neck and put his cloak back on. While he was busy removing the dust from his coat he heard the others walking up to him and Tacit asked. "Why did you let her live after she tried to stab you in the back?"

Malonex raised an eyebrow about her question. "She is of more use as an ally than dead. I think that I can teach her much and she has still much to learn. Also it wasn't her fault, she lost control over herself."

Tacit asked. "I thought control is the most important tread for a dark mage and that it is needed to use it without letting it consume you, so what could get an archmage to lose hers?"

This time Galdius answered. "She hates the light and every not-shadow pony because they took her family and everything that was important to her away from her. She knew that Malonex has their blood and so her hatred was turned to him."

Tacit looked confused between Gladius and Malonex. "But how did you know that?"

Malonex chuckled a bit. "I saw it in her expression as she looked the first time at me. It was the expression of a pony that sees the killer of everything she loved. I wanted to see this expression towards me now for two years on another pony and now I saw it on the face of my ally. But I will teach her to control her emotions and she will see that I am more shadow than she is."

Malonex looked at the sky but only the dimmed light of the sun managed to get through the clouds. "I need some rest for the resurrection ritual tomorrow. Let's go back to the castle and looked if we can find any rooms for us."

He didn't waited for an answered and began to walk towards the castle. While they walked Lock noticed that Tacit was unusual quiet. "Tacit, do you have something on your mind?"

Tacit looked up and began to explain. "I was just wondering how a pony can have so much hatred."

Lock looked a bit confused at Tacit. "What do you mean, you wonder how? She was imprisoned her whole live and her whole family probably died down there."

Tacit nodded slowly. "I know but how can she blame the ponies for the death of her family?"

In this moment Gladius walked up next to them and answered the question. "Because they are to blame. While we were imprisoned under the empire we were constantly exposed to waves of light energy from the empire. Our lifetimes are connected to our darkness so the light slowly poisoned us. It killed the weak and the old, the foals that are born with weak darkness die after a few seconds and we were unable to do anything against it. The light weakened our mages and not even half of them managed to resist."

Tacit looked at Gladius thoughtfully. "I guess I would be angry too if I had been there but still, is that enough to turn a pony so bitter and angry?"

Gladius expression was serious. "Thousands of years ago I had probably answered no but now I would lie if I would say that. My son Tremor is even bitterer than she is and I saw why. It may have been not on purpose but trapping us was more cruel than if they would have killed us all on the spot. Our kind suffered great loss down there and these who are now free won't forgive so easily. I am the only one alive of us that has seen the sun before and I saw them all die. Not only soldiers but also civilians."

Gladius stopped for a moment before he went on. "I helped to bury each one of them but I managed to stay positive. Hope began to rise in me and my wife as our son Tremor was born and we saw that his darkness was strong enough to life but it was shattered again as years later she gave birth to a daughter who died after a week. I learned to live with this death but Tremor never got over it and after his mother died a month later he was never really happy again. Since then Tremor is the cold blooded warrior he is now."

Tacit and Lock both were a bit suspired to hear what Gladuis and his kind went through. Lock wanted to leave it by that and began to look around but Tacit felt sorry for Gladius and she wanted to tell him but as she opened her mouth he stopped her. "Don't say that you feel pity. Keep it to yourself and save it for the weak, they need it more."

This made Tacit close her mouth again and she didn't opened again till they reached the castle. One they way they walked by the door to the throne room and Malonex turned to one of the changeling generals and spoke to him. "You! I want you to get every slave till tomorrow noon into the stadium of the empire and make sure that they are submissive, I don't want that the ritual gets delayed because of unruly fools."

The changeling didn't hesitated to nod. "As you say!"

The changeling bowed and walked away. On the way he took a few of the soldiers with him. They began to walk again and while Malonex walked he looked around a bit. " I think a floor higher should be a corridor with a bunch of guest rooms. You can go where you want but I have to get a bit rest, these ritual and the duel was very exhausting."

With that he turned away and walked towards the next staircase. Meanwhile Lock took another look around. "So... What should we do?"

Tacit just shrugged but Gladius had an idea. "We should go to the armory. I have seen your equipment and I think you need some new weapons till you can find a blacksmith to forge you something better."

Tacit wanted to answer back but then remembered that she had lost her daggers and only had the crystal replacement from Malonex and just nodded. Since Lock had just one dagger and a few throwing knifes he followed without any hesitation. So they followed the swordspony through the castle in the hope to find the armory.

Meanwhile the plans for the war were made in the throne room. They had mostly settled how they would split the army for the different cities but there was one last thing to discuss that Sombra asked about. "What about additional targets outside of Equestria? Are there any lands that could try to support them?"

Chrysalis thought for a moment. "There are multiple lands but only two of them are in our reach. The first is Yakyakistan but they only have a small passage over the crystal mountains to reach us and they probably won't notice what happens here for some time. The others, who I am more concerned about, are the griffons. They next city is Griffenstone, at the moment it is in a bad state and in itself not really important in any way but they could use it as a base to send soldiers and recourses to Equestria. I don't think it is possible to conquer it and hold it against the forces of the rest of the Griffonkingdom but we have to make it impossible for them to use this city."

Sombras smoke head nodded a bit and turned to Tremor. ""Then I think it is the best if you get a troop together and take care of that problem. Use this as an opportunity to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies. Make these griffins clear that they don't want to be part of this war."

Tremor nodded. "How exactly should I deal with them?"

Sombra didn't needed to think. "That is not important, just make sure that they can't use the city as a base anymore. Do whatever you want."

Tremor bowed down. "I will immediately leave. I will come back as fast as I can and when I am back the griffons will have drowned in rivers of their own blood."

He stood up and turned around. With big steps he left the room and made his way to the outside of the castle to get a few shadow ponies for his attack.