I can feel his magic all around me, smothering me like a wet, oily blanket. I can taste it on the air and hear it resonate with the crystals making up my cell walls.
My cell is only twenty-five hooves long by the same wide, just barely large enough for the bed, table, bookshelf, and hole I use to relieve myself. I realized a long time ago that he didn’t want me dead, if the twice daily meal was any indication; he had put far too much towards molding me to just toss me aside like one of his other puppets.
Something woke me up, a slight change in the enchantments keeping me within this prison. I tentatively reach out a strand of my magic, green in color, the same as my eyes, and prod at the bonds.
Unfortunately I hit a wall, figuratively and very, very literally. As my strand brushes the wall of the cell, an unseen force takes ahold of it, dragging my magic into itself and pulling me along with it. I turn my head just in time, smashing my cheek, and not my horn, into the hard unforgiving crystal. Figures that spell would still be working. Thankfully, however, my master failed to realize the inventiveness of a captured unicorn, especially one of my talents. Careful of the wards he placed specifically to stop me from doing this - which took about a year to learn how to bypass, give or take - I call past my well of unicorn magic, down to a deeper, darker part of myself, one born of hate, rage, and will. I pull it to the fore, and my horn blazes to life, casting the cell in a strange purple and black light.
Calling upon the Dark is always a game of balance; it feeds upon your own power, amplifying it to near god-like levels in the right hooves. However, feed it too much or for too long, and it will consume you, much like my master.
I carefully channel the dark magic, weaving a spell to find the caster of the enchantments around me. As green tinges the edge of my vision, I search the enchantments for a simple observation spell. In a blink, I find it and latch onto it, feeding it my finished spell and reversing it. I am pulled out of my body and up through the crystal, my vision stabilizing over a familiar courtyard.
I shiver, though the body I am looking through doesn't move. The oily magic is thickest here, and I feel him gathering even more power as he glares down at two ponies in the courtyard below. One is a blue-maned white unicorn, and the other is a tall pink… alicorn? That can't be right; the only two alicorns in the world are Celestia and Luna. It takes me a moment to realize the alicorn is speaking.
“Sombra!” She calls out. “Your reign of terror ends today! Surrender and release the Crystal Ponies from your grip, or we will do it by force!”
He laughs, a deep rumbling growl that holds no mirth. “So, the Princesses don't have the courage to face me again, so they send a half-breed in their stead? I see ponies have not gotten smarter in the last thousand years, to have such a death wish.”
What? A thousand years? That's not possible. Not even his magic would keep him alive that-
Then I sense a bit of an unfamiliar spell on the air. Reaching out my own tendril of magic, I quickly identify it as a time dilation spell cast by my master. That explains it, then; he lost against the Sisters, and fled like the coward he is, hiding in the timestream.
“Cadence, look out!” I snap back to reality as he levels his horn at the pair, disgorging an intense purple-black beam. The unicorn leaps in front of the alicorn and projects a large pink bubble around them. The beam is deflected harmlessly, causing my master to become angrier. He begins preparing an even stronger beam, and that’s when everything connects. He used up most of his Dark keeping the time spell running, so he is drawing on anything he can to destroy these two, including the wells of power keeping me -mostly- contained. Well, I could definitely help with that. I begin siphoning off bits and pieces of his pool of magic with the corrupted observation spell; I gag as his magic slithers into my system, but at this point I would do anything to escape.
He fires again, and again the unicorn blocks his attack, Then, out of the corner of his eye, I see the alicorn break out of the shield and fly in a wide arc at my master, her horn glowing a light blue. Unfortunately, he catches sight of her as well, and just as she fires a beam of energy, I get the unpleasant feeling of my insides becoming my outsides as he shifts into his shadowy Wraith form, leaping off the balcony and reforming in the center of the courtyard. He wastes no time in launching a flurry of magic attacks at the alicorn, causing her to divert all her attention to dodging.
“Yaaa!” My master shifts again as the unicorn lashes out with his back hooves. He reforms right next to the unicorn, bringing his hooves down across the unicorn’s back in a vicious hammer blow.
“Shining!” the alicorn cries out as the unicorn drops like a sack of rocks. With a guttural scream, she collides with my master. She lands several hits before he shadows himself away, laughing.
“Is this really the best the Princesses could send against me? You had better run, foal, before I stop playing with you,” he boasts, but I can see he is grasping at the dregs of his power as he sucks the magic out of his hidden reservoirs, and my bindings.
The alicorn gallops over to the unicorn. “Shining! Are you okay?”
Shining slowly rises to his hooves, coughing up a glob of blood onto the crystal courtyard. He answers her while wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Are you kidding me? I took harder knocks at the academy. Look, I have an idea, Cadence, but I need you to keep him occupied.”
Cadence nods. “I can do that.” She faces my master again, charging straight at him as Shining begins gathering power. He just laughs, however, catching her in a black aura.
He snarls. “Do you really believe me to be so naive? That I would focus solely on you, half-breed? Observe the true power of the Dark!” Keeping Cadence held in midair, he charges power for a death-dealing beam directed at the unicorn.
I make a rash decision. Mentally preparing myself, I draw in a massive amount of his magic all at once. Immediately, I gag, breaking my concentration and the spell. I hack up several black globs, and through my almost entirely green vision, I can see the globs squirming around; physical manifestations of Dark Magic overload.
I quickly recast the reverse observation spell, eager to see my master’s reaction.
As my vision stabilizes, I see black sparks falling from his horn. He growls “What? How can this be?” Then, I feel a tugging on my spell, and his eyes narrow. I am suddenly treated to the nauseous experience of watching my master, through his eyes, watch myself.
Looking at myself, I see I don’t have much time before I must end the spell; my fur is caked with perspiration, my horn is sparking wildly, and out of the corners of my eyes flows a purple magic field, not unlike the ethereal manes of the Princesses. He sighs, muttering “I will deal with you later, Revenant.” I smile, beckoning him with a ‘come hither’ motion of my forelegs.
Sneering, he ends the spell, just in time to change to his wraith form and avoid a surprise uppercut from the alicorn. I try to resume stealing his magic, but he has erected walls around his source, cutting me off.
I watch as he barrels towards the alicorn, intent on goring her with his horn. He narrowly misses, and redirects towards the unicorn. The magic field around his horn is fluctuating wildly, drawing in a massive amount of power. As my master closes the distance, he and the unicorn lock eyes, steel against steel, and for the first time, I sense a hint of doubt from him.
“Cadence! Now!” The unicorn shouts, and my master vaults to the side, still in his wraith form, to avoid a blue beam… that was not aiming for him. I can only watch in awe as the bolt strikes the tip of the unicorn’s glowing horn and I am blinded by the thaumic reaction. I can sense the power of his spell increase tenfold and stabilize. My master’s worm of doubt turns to dread. With a heroic shout, the unicorn unleashes the spell.
I am knocked flat on my back as my spell abruptly ends. What happened? I try to recast the observation spell, but am met with a massive block. Reaching out, I also find that the anomaly caused by my master draining power from the enchantments is also gone.
Then, I realize the skull-splitting headache I have, caused by the dark magic overflowing my system. Working fast, I channel as much of the Dark as I can into one blast to dissipate it. It fires wildly, striking the wall with a beam as large as my head. I cringe, waiting for the reciprocation spell to bash me against the wall, turning my head into nothing more than a red smear. When it doesn’t come, I tentatively open my eyes. The crystal opposite me is cracked, with a hole a little larger than the beam bored several hooves into the center.
Now curious, I extend a tendril of magic, which has now returned to its normal color. Prodding gently at the spell matrices, I am surprised to find the reciprocation spell gone, blocked off by a magic bearing my master’s signature taint. Cautiously, I tap back into my well of Dark and taste the familiarness of my magic, but mixed with a hint of magic I recognize as his. I grin.
Opportunity, my name is Revenant.
