The Dark Exile

        It could all be worse I suppose. They could’ve tried to bind me, seal me, or even execute me on the spot, but instead here I sit, still alive and metaphorically kicking inside of a heavily enforced anti-magic cell awaiting my “banishment” if you can even call it that.

T’would seem I’m rambling without proper context being given once more… Let’s start at the beginning shall we? It all began with a “curse” of unknown origins that was carved into my soul long before my birth; well I call it a curse but it was just the side-effect of a spell gone horribly wrong. This “curse” corrupted and mutated the Mana and Mana Conduits within my body to a severe degree, now normally this would’ve actually repaired itself but instead my body’s Mana and Mana Circuits adjusted itself to the unholy dark nature of the “curse”, giving me the rather strongly hated Dark Mana for the rest of always. I say it that way because I don’t know how long I’m going to live, as a human mage our age and lifespan heavily depends on the amount of Mana we have in us, and I have absolutely prodigious amounts that easily outweighs the entire Magi Council (when they’re alone) and it’s been like this for me almost since birth; naturally it got stronger as I grew up and it seemed to act as a… Magnet for terrible danger and the like. This ranged from either pulling deranged mages of other species to my town on a search for their new “experiment” (Me) all the way to angry dragons razing my village to the ground.

The most recent event however was probably the weirdest, and it was by no means caused by me, in fact it was caused by that blasted Council, anyways, what happened was that I was at my little run-down cottage trying to create a summoning spell for a Kitsune familiar out of Dark Magic which I was having a surprising amount of success with. Now the reason I was doing that was out of hope that their super-natural good luck could override the magnetism of my Mana, but of course even then I never got to test it out because various knights and battle-mages from around the small country I dwelled within had suddenly barged into my home, one of them screaming “This is for you Elris!” Which I vaguely remembered was the name of one of the deranged mages that ended up getting arrested nearby, anyways that’s not the point, the battle-mages and knights started to absolutely fill the room with Magic suppressing dust which would normally be considered utterly ridiculous because of the price of the substance, but they made the right choice because I couldn’t fight back with that amount everywhere. It was just a few seconds later when one of the bulkier knights came forward with a big steel warhammer and just laid me out cold, faster than a full tankard of hard liquor at night.

When I woke up many hours later I had a splitting headache with the bonus of one eye with blood dripping into it (which by the way, hurts like hell), the sickening metallic tang of blood in my mouth, and five odd cuffs on my body that keep me stuck to the wall of my current dreary grey abode (though the bright blue sealing and reinforcement spell circuits on the walls, ceiling, and floor were quite nice). I didn’t even bother trying to move or break out of the cuffs because of what I saw on each of them. The one on my neck I didn’t see as much as feel, but it seemed to be siphoning an exponential amount of my Mana into a crystal in the wall behind me which had taken in so much of my Dark Mana it had gained a dark purple glow around it with rather… violent red and black “liquid” inside of it. The set that was for my wrists were somewhat terrifying because I realized that these might’ve been what they used to torture people because there was an enchantment carved into those cuffs to cause the person with them on severe pain at a simple command. On the ankle cuffs there seemed to be deadweight and numbing enchantments on them so I couldn’t walk even if I tried. Now that I actually think about it it looks like a blood stain over in the- Oh. A knight just walked in and started talking, I should probably start listening to what he’s saying now.

        “-And as punishment for your crimes-”

I decided to cut in for a moment, “I’m innocent.” Of course he ignored me.

        “-You, ‘Renor’, are to be banished back to the Nether realms from whence you have come, for demons do not belong among the pure.” The knight then spat onto the ground near me, which was quite frankly as disgusting as his pompous attitude and voice.

        “Well first of all, you see I’m not a demon. Second of all there is no way that any of you people working for the council are pure.” I gave the man an amused yet annoyed stare to which he averted his eyes quickly as if seeing my eyes would turn him to stone like a gorgon or pissed off god who wants a new addition to their statue gardens (some of those gardens are actually quite nice, but extremely terrifying because they display them to the mortals to show what happens if you go against their wills).

        “You were not asked what you thought. You are merely here to be banished to whence you came. You have few minutes left in our realm, demon.” The knight slammed the butt of his halberd into the ground, making a loud echoing “crack” before walking out. I seriously don’t know how I didn’t notice that thing when that knight walked in, bound weapon maybe?

        Whatever. Now is not the time for me to contemplate the nature of rare magical items, it is the time I should be coming up with a way to get the hell out of here! The only problem with that is that there weren’t any faults in the seals on the room. There were massive faults in the enchantments in the cuffs on my wrists and ankles and the one around my neck simply was an error in and of itself, but of course I can’t do anything about it for two reasons, one because I don’t have enough “safe” Mana left in me to do anything without a surge that could maybe kill me or anyone else near me, and two because if I was to try anything the guards outside of this cell would leap in and kill me.

        So I guess I’ll just wait and bide my time. There might be a way for me to escape on the way there unless… Unless they use transportation magic. Shit.

        I know the council members are pompous and arrogant, but by no means could I call them idiots. I suppose I should just hope that they can be convinced that I’m human after all. It’ll be dangerous and I probably won’t have much of a chance to do so though. That does make me wonder, what would happen if the Nether Realm banishment spell was to be used on a human and not a demon? Maybe the spell will simply fade out and do nothing, or maybe it will still send the human, or in this case me, somewhere else.

        I probably don’t stand much of a chance at the spell considering me a human because of my Mana because of the fact it’s practically identical to one of the types of high-ranking demons that we know of, in particular a black demon. As it would turn out, I’m similar in strength to a mature black demon, but by no means am I near the strength of an ancient… Well at least that power would lend me the strength to survive if I did get sent to the Nether Realm for some ti-.

        The knight just came back into my cell with an old looking wizard wearing baggy robes, seriously, what is it with human wizards wearing these things? They’re hideous! Though they’re probably good for hiding things, just like how he pulled a large spell crystal out of his sleeve, which is impressive because the crystal had a large teleportation spell matrix woven into it. Hope they don’t realize I can see these things otherwise I’m going to have an even bigger problem trying to get away.

        “Your time is up demon.” For a moment there I wasn’t sure if it was the knight or the old man, but I noticed it was the knight quickly enough.

        “Slowly arise and come to us.” The wizard snapped his fingers, causing all of the cuffs except the ones on my wrists to fall off, and even then the chains connecting the ones on my wrist to the wall seemed to just… Melt off and form into another chain in front of me. Interesting.

        I quietly sighed to myself as I realized that I really shouldn’t be so focused on the cuffs, rather I should be more concerned about what will happen to me.. Ah, what the hell. I slowly stood and walked over as per the wizard’s “order”.

        The second I got close enough to where I could’ve physically attacked one of them, the knight grabbed my shoulder with what I would’ve called a death grip because it was ridiculously strong and hurt like hell!

        “Don’t be getting any ideas. Don’t want to give me any… Incentive to kill you, now do you?” The knight was giving me a sneer that will probably give me a few nightmares if I live through this.

        I actually have a better look at his armor now that he has his death grip on my shoulder, I could tell it was all hardened steel with some runic enchantments on it that I couldn’t understand. Maybe it was part of the reason his attitude had such a flip, from the attitude of a noble’s pompous and spoiled kid who was disgusted with anything “Below him” to a terrifying person who seemed like he wanted to kill me for fun.

        Due to my… Observations I was a bit too late to notice that the old wizard had a hand on the knight’s back, or that the crystal was growing. What I did notice was the cracking sound that I heard, which made me realize what it was instantly as I managed to look over at the engraved crystal to see it’s glow halt in a massive flash of blinding white light was the crystal was crushed, the spell taking instant effect, dropping me into… Somewhere, wherever you pass through with teleport spells, but it had a feeling of utter nothingness like I was just going to… Disappear for a moment before the feeling halted just as quickly as it started, except it ended with me in the middle of a floor in a large dark room.

        Well, I noticed the room before I tried to stand which was when I realized that I was extremely dizzy and nauseous, so I remained on the ground for a few minutes, content to let the terrible feeling pass before slowly standing again, albeit with greater difficulty due to have messed up my center of balance.

        When I was finally standing I noticed that the knight and old wizard were still in the room, but just backed up against a wall covered in shadows, probably as far away from me as they could get.

        Just a few seconds after that, I heard a headache inducing voice. I could tell the booming voice had been magically amplified to a heavy degree.

        “WELCOME TO THE END OF THE LINE ‘RENOR’.” Balls of surprisingly effective ghost-fire came into existence above thirteen old people with pointy hats and baggy robes.

        “Before we go any further, I have to say this. Your style of dressing is just ugly and that I’m a human. That is all.” I decided to just be blunt in the face of fear and probably death.

        I got to enjoy a short few seconds where the man that had been speaking spluttered in response to what I had said before he composed himself with a cough and began to speak once more, “YOU ARE HERE TO BE BANISHED BACK TO THE REALM FROM WHENCE YOU CAME WITH NO CHANCE OF REDEMPTION!”

        “...Why is there no chance of redemption now?” I gave the man a stare filled with obvious confusion.

        “BECAUSE YOU INSULTED OUR CLOTHING. WE DO NOT TOLERATE THIS.”

        Wonderful, I’m going to be totally fucked over all because I told the truth without thinking. Nothing new I suppose.

        All thirteen of the mages stood at once in such a way which made me think they practiced that type of thing. All of the sudden they all started to chant something in a language… I couldn’t comprehend it. The sounds they were making didn’t seem to be of this Earth in the slightest! Are they speaking the infernal language?!

        I was a bit too shocked by what was happening to react and try and counter it with a spell of my own, but that knight and wizard behind me… They were still there so I couldn’t do anything as a completely MASSIVE blood red spell matrix that radiated heat and foul intent formed above me in the air, below me on the ground, and beside me like walls of a cage.

        The heat quickly became sweltering and unbearable and the air became too hot to breathe, my throat and lungs feeling as if they were screaming in protest of the super-heated air searing them as the spell matrix shrank, the previously massive spell becoming compressed around me to the point I couldn’t see out anymore…

        That was when it all went wrong.

        I felt my Mana reacting to the spell on a primal level, I was unable to control the reaction due to the pain from breathing before a scream tore itself from my throat caused by the pain that I started to feel... My Mana was forcing itself out of my body through my eyes and hands, giving me a disturbing appearance with the fact my normally pale skin had gained a red tint from being burned along with the violent magic flowing from my body. It was red and black with a purple aura as it came flowing from my hands and eyes, somehow mixing with the spell that had put me into this situation, the entire matrix turning pitch black as I heard a screech of fear from one of the Council members, as well as one who was praying for his life in latin before everything simply… Stopped. It stayed like that for three seconds before it collapsed in unto me, knocking me out cold with a massive flash of light, the sound of earth-shattering lightning, and thirteen screams of agony…

Meanwhile in the land of Equestria…

        The diarchs of Equestria sat together in their private room, off and away from the stressful environment of Day court and with the Guard under orders to not interrupt this time unless something big had happened.

        The room they were in could easily be considered comfortable and homely rather than most of the castle which was covered in gaudy amounts of gold and bare grey stone simply covered in either a carpet or some other decoration. This room had the kind of furnishings you would find in an average family’s home. A sofa, coffee table, a few paintings hung from the walls to bring more color to the room. The furnishings weren’t too particularly colorful either as the sofa was a light tan with the coffee table being a darker spruce color, lending a sense of normality to the room rather than the normal uptight feeling the castle may give.

        “Luna, what do you think of how the nobles are now, compared to how they were so long ago?” The most well known of the Equestrian diarchy, Princess Celestia turned to her younger sister as she set her cake down on the table in front of her before picking up her teacup, her excessively groomed mannerisms being too hard to set aside for even something as simple as holding both the cake and tea to eat and drink with minimal effort.

        “Tia, you know my thoughts on those ridiculous fools. Very few of the noble families even deserve their positions, one of the few yet most notable that do would be the Sparkles. They have only done good things that I have seen since I’ve returned, their children especially. On another… Similar note, none of their family had the gall to-” Equestria’s lesser known diarch, Princess Luna, made a disgusted gagging noise before continuing, “Propose to me.”

        “That would certainly explain why the Guard has come to me with complaints about occasionally finding some of the nobles shivering in one spot of the castle and not moving. Luna could you please try not to traumatize too many more?” Celestia sighed at her sister despite the small amused smile she had.

        “I am making no promises.” Luna resolutely closed her eyes and pointed her snout towards the ceiling along with her right foreleg before quickly losing her faux seriousness and falling sideways onto the couch she sat upon laughing.

        Celestia chuckled for a moment before sighing, “They really have fallen far haven’t they? I still remember when the original members of their family earned their titles for either creating something that greatly assisted Equestria, retiring as a high ranking officer from the Guard, or even creating new spells.” She looked out the singular window in the room with another sigh.

        “Is something wrong, sister?” Luna’s laughter petered out as she say back up and looked at her sister, “You’re sighing quite a bit, normally whenever you do this there’s something on your mind that is actually somewhat important, unlike the nobles.”

        “No no… I’m just thinking of whether it’s possible or not to change this generation of ‘nobles’ for the better. It doesn’t seem very likely to ever happen since I’m still finding more and more things that have been corrupted by their blatant use of money and position to get what they wanted from an organization or do something illegal without being found out every day.” Celestia groaned and leaned her head back, looking up at the ceiling instead of out the window.

        “Well for that to happen you might have to bring back the death sent-” Luna’s rather… Grim statement was cut off as a guard burst through the double doors to the room panting heavily. He remained still and quiet for enough time for Celestia to give Luna an annoyed stare and then look at him with a curious expression, albeit worried.

        “Quartz, what happened that would make you disobey my order?” Celestia stood and walked over to the royal guard whom was now identified as ‘Quartz’.

        The unicorn straightened up and looked directly at the alicorn, “Princess, we have just gotten reports of a massive explosion of dark magic between the city of Dodge Junction and the Badlands. It is unknown what the cause of it is but the magic is already taking effect on the ground and small number of plants in that area.”

        Both Luna’s and Celestia’s jaws dropped almost in sync before Luna’s shut and she clenched her teeth, standing before walking over to stand by her sister.

        “Thank you for informing us, Quartz. I- No, we will go handle this ourselves. You’re dismissed, please return to your previous station.” Celestia said, her voice hardening as she thought of the possibilities of it could mean, could Sombra be returning or could it be an even more ancient threat that her predecessors dealt with? Maybe something had escaped from Tartarus?

        “Yes Your Highness.” Quartz give a short bow before quickly turning himself around and quickly trotting out of the doors before taking an immediate left.

        Luna looked to her older sister, “Tia, we should go immediately. This isn’t anything we should tary about, the town could be in grave danger.”

        “I agree Luna, but this will take us some time to get there, it’s not safe to teleport such a distance and it could result in worse things than that dark magic.” Celestia’s normally passive smile quickly transitioning to a frown as she began to stride out of the room in the same direction Quartz had gone, except instead of taking a left, she turned right with a determined scowl on her face, “Come sister.”

        Luna quickly followed after her elder sister down the hallway, albeit with a thoughtful and worried expression instead of the determined scowl. “What outside of Tartarus and-” She grimaced, “-Sombra could produce that much dark magic? It couldn’t be a unicorn unless they were suicidal and put their soul into a spell…”

        “Why don’t we just find out on our own, Luna?” Celestia and Luna had arrived at the door to the Solar Princess’ bedchamber with two guards in front of it who looked at the two princesses, bowed, and backed to the side, pulling the door open for them and allowing them entrance to the room.

        Inside of the room, as per many other things in the castle, it had a lot of gold decorations and highlights along with white marble floors and a grey-looking stone wall enclosing the room, which could easily be discerned by any well practiced unicorn as an illusion. There was a large king sized bed against one wall with many many pillows and a few blankets with tall bedposts at each corner that had draperies matching the room hanging down from it. Against the other wall there were a few things that stood out, an exquisitely crafted oak table with drawers rested against it with painful amounts of paperwork atop it, along with a quill and inkwell off to one slightly cleaned corner of the table. To the left and right there were tables of similar craftsmanship but not with the same adornments.

The table to the left had vials filled with various colored substances, empty vials, a few jars with odd substances in them like a few dried roots and a seemingly colorless white dust.

The table to the right had a large number of scrolls atop it, as well as a few framed pictures of a few different families, most notably so was a family of four unicorns, a lavender unicorn mare with a rather bland tricolored mane, a larger white stallion with a dual toned mane of light blue and darker blue. There was a slightly smaller blue on blue unicorn stallion as well who was standing directly next to another white unicorn with a purple mane. Most of the pictures were of the purple unicorn however.

Off in one of the four corners of the room was a slightly raised circular platform that seemed to draw light into it and darken the space around it. It was rather large and visibly had runes carved around the entire circumference of it.

“Tia, I would ask why you keep that kind of transportation device in your room, but the situation is a bit self-explanatory now.” Luna gave the device a somewhat unsure glance as Celestia stepped towards it.

“It’s the fastest way to get there and you know it, Luna. The train is slower than if we were to fly, trying to continuously teleport there will grind on our concentration, and let’s not even mention how slow the ‘Royal Chariot’ is.” Celestia leaned down and touched her horn to the platform, a bright condensed sphere of magic resting at the very tip of her horn appeared before she touched it, letting the magic touch the platform instead which absorbed it nigh-immediately, making all of the sudden glow brightly.

“It may take a few more minutes than continuous teleporting, but we won’t be worn out should it come to a fight. I’m sure you remember the other rules of this transportation method?” Celestia looked back at her sister as she stepped onto the platform.

“Don’t try and get out of it early. I know.” Luna nodded as she stepped onto the platform a few seconds later.

Celestia’s horn began to glow before a similar orb appeared at the tip of her horn, but instead of lowering it to the platform, it began to move on its own, rising above the two alicorns and to the center of the platform as a bubble of golden magic began to surround them before they suddenly disappeared from the room all together.

Seventeen minutes later…

        The solar and lunar alicorns were lowered to the ground by the golden bubble, where upon landing Luna stumbled off to the side, barely keeping herself from falling to the ground whilst Celestia kept her balance and began to scan the desert area around them, taking note that Dodge Junction was visible off in the distance, but so was a dark spot a few hundred meters to their right where a faint purple mist could be seen hovering over the ground. There were also some various plants like cacti or large outcroppings of rock.

        “There’s the affected area… How odd though, there isn’t a feeling of malintent? I wonder why that is, Dark Magic always leaves a signature with a negative feeling…” Celestia frowned and began to quickly stride towards it, gaining ground quickly with Luna stumbling after her for a few feet before regaining her sense of balance and taking flight after her sister.

        “Tia, I refuse to use that again. I’ve never liked or trusted void-based spells like that, and they have never seemed to like me either.” Luna’s annoyed comment was simply answered with an eye roll and a nod.

        As the two alicorns got closer and closer to the mist, they began to notice odd things about the the terrain. The sand had gained a purple tint to it, smaller desert plants that would normally be a yellow-green or right out green seemed to have lost more color, and like the sand took a slight purple tint.

        “This is... Peculiar.” Celestia frowned as she looked out over the surprisingly large area, stopping as she reached the edge where the mist was slowly spreading out, but when she stopped, the mist began to slowly move backwards, back towards the affected land as though her presence repelled it.

        Luna stayed back and looked at the mist and land cautiously before pausing as she noted a dip in the ground that seemed to get deeper quickly near the center of the area, “Sister, I think I see the center. I’ll take a look while you think on what to do about this.”

        Luna spread her wings as she took to the air, lifting herself a few meters in the air and lighting her horn with a blue aura of magic, slowly moving over to the center of the affected land and looking down with a frown, “Tia… There’s nothing here but some odd tracks. I believe whatever caused this got away. The tracks disappear after a few hoof lengths so it must’ve teleported…”

        Celestia remained silent as her sister looked at the center, a small frown crossing her expression before a voice broke her out of her musings, “Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, thank you for coming to help us. We’ve been waiting out here for the past forty or so minutes to keep the townsfolk away.” She looked down to see a mare in a law enforcement uniform bowing to her.

        “Good job officer, you needn't worry about keeping the citizens away anymore, this spot won’t be here much longer.” Celestia took note of the green coated, blue maned mare for a moment before looking around and internally rolling her eyes as she noticed the corner of a tent sticking out from behind one of the large outcroppings of rock.

        The mare stood and gave Celestia a thankful smile, throwing a look in Luna’s direction with the same expression before heading back towards the outcropping of rocks the apparent tent was behind.

        Luna returned from her position above the affected zone and landed next to her sister, the glow of her horn having faded a few moments back. “I take it you’re going to use the purification spell you created after the events of Sombra?”

        Celestia nodded, “I am. I wish we could figure out more about what really caused this, but any traces of spells that might’ve been used have degraded beyond recognition by that mist.” She sighed before she took a firm stance on the sands, closing her eyes as her horn began to glow its normal gold aura before it intensified, the glow quickly becoming unbearable to look at as it transitioned to a blinding white light as her eyes snapped open, both eyes glowing the same white as her horn before a white mist seemed to cascade from the sky above, falling upon the corrupted land, plants, and the mist of dark magic, fixing the damage caused with a pulse of heat that expanded outwards moments later.

        Luna slowly opened her eyes after the pulse of heat to look out at the formerly corrupted land. The only real difference it had from the desert around it now was that the sand was of a brighter yellow-white and the plants seemed healthier. “Tia, it worked.”

        Celestia’s eyes had closed before the pulse of heat and she opened them again, looking a bit tired as she sighed, “I do wish we could’ve found the creature behind this…”

        “You shouldn’t worry too much sister. When things like this happen, it’s almost always bound to be the first thing in a series of events. Nobody was hurt in this, let us be on guard, yet also hope that the next event will be the same.” Luna looked at her sister with a smile, “Now let's go get a train back.”

        Celestia sighed once more and gave her sister an amused look, “Fine.”