Onyx did not look forward. His body was not there, and he was sure that he was not too, in some larger way that he could not put into words. Or maybe he was still here, and whole. That terrified him, so he stopped thinking even more than usual. He let every last physical sensation sear into that distant burning unlike anything else he had ever known. Everything about him and this new experience hurt — more than the smack of Starswirl's hoof or anything he had ever known — and that pain consumed him.
He was not supposed to be hurt anymore; not now, not ever.
But he did, and he wanted to cry, even if he could not feel his eyes. He couldn't feel himself. It was so dark. He was alone and he had so little clue to what had happened. Onyx's mind raced with half-thoughts. All of them were too brief to form his usual stupidity. It was the kind that even he was aware of, despite the burning shame that came from being a semi-aware nuisance whose own thoughts usually stumbled over themselves in fragments. He wanted to go anywhere else, and just be better for once.
Onyx wanted the spell to work. In the deepest part of his mind, he knew that he would be willing to beg for that to happen. With that desperation came the usual urges. He wanted to hurt something or somepony so he could be happy and feel good, really, truly good. Onyx only felt that kind of good that came from just wanting to tear something apart, rip it to pieces, for it to be no more — broken — and...
He sure felt like he was crying.
Onyx asked himself questions that he would never answer. Only, that furthered how frantic he was in this pained and disembodied state where he involuntarily thought of Starswirl, and crystal cities, and then nothing at all. Who was he to think? He was likely dead. He had never believed in any of the Empire's pantheon of gods, even the great Crystalline Alicorns who ruled the nation long before he was born. Onyx just didn't waste time on things like that. It did not mean there was nothing ridiculously appealing about little ideas of a whole world where he alone did not have to be hurt. And maybe, now he would never waste time on anything again.
But he really didn't care — he just didn't want anything to hurt. That's what he kept telling himself, wanting to make the racing hot nervousness that was still with him die away. Not anymore, not when it made him feel like his body was still right here. That wasn't how anything was supposed to be, and it didn't make sense — nothing did, nor had it ever, not really. His whole life had been short, miserable — and for what? He had only ever wanted to make something of himself and be somepony.
Now, all Onyx felt was hurt, and he hated that.
He always had.
It was like the world had simply gone away. Now everything was dark and painful. There was no warmth or cold, and if there was any magic about at all, how was he to know? All he did was continue to do what he was so sure was crying. He didn't question it, even if it was so pathetic. He didn't question anything.
But then, he heard something. A voice — a stranger's voice — that was young in sound and new to him.
It was definitely male. Though hearing the normality of its range made his whole self feel seized with self-consciousness at his own high tone, he knew he had to listen. He had not heard the voice of a pony his own age since he left the Crystal Empire, and certainly not any colt's voice.
What are you doing to my eyes? They're leaking. Crying... that's what it's called, according to all the memories you're leaving open. Good grief, don't you have anything better to do? And just where am I...?
The voice sounded from nowhere, and with it, something happened, something was that had not been there before. The world — or lack of one— plummeted and changed, just as Onyx had.
Onyx, who had once been a crystal pony colt, felt the shape of an impossible and foreign place that was everything, overwhelming, real, and... alive. There was a movement like breathing and something just like a heartbeat that Onyx knew he was hearing. He had even managed to isolate those sensations in the limited but vast, strange place that he had so little current understanding of.
And then everything hit him, as though emotion itself could barrel into him along with the realization that he was still alive.
Somehow.
The s-spell h-hurt me-e...
His voice was full of ugly sobs and came from twisting himself and some part of his being — or, at least what was left of it — so that Onyx's voice came from everywhere in stutters. His words echoed in what had once been his head, all without the frighteningly direct and localized sound of the mysterious other voice that managed to sound curious, concerned, blunt, innocent, and scarily honest all at the same time.
And how young...
He didn't doubt that whoever spoke to him was older than his thirteen winters. Everypony was older than him, and that had never sat well with Onyx.
Onyx wasn't entirely sure what to make of him — the voice sounded undoubtedly male, so male it became, even if there was no face he could give it — but a part of him already began to hate it for something in particular that it had done, would do, or might. That crept throughout him like an itch. Onyx simply didn't question it, not when it was so fierce and something about this thing just rubbed him all the wrong ways. He had heard how whoever was talking, his nameless companion, managed to imbue a strength to that innocence and feel of mystery that Onyx couldn't comprehend even when stuck somewhere within this almost-pony thing.
Monster.
And he tried and failed to say anything — and everything — in the dizziness of it all.
I—
—am from the Crystal Empire.
—am Starswirl's slave.
—need help, okay?
—am scared, alright? Really scared...
—alone? I feel alone... like, really alone. You're there, I think, right?
—need to hurt you so badly.
— want to hurt you.
His next sob was clearer than all the answers swarming his head like an ice-sharp flurry, but only a little.
Let—
—me kinda explain what I can, okay?
—me control you.
—follow you, please, please?
—hurt you.
Who—
—are you?
In the horrible jumble of emotions going through him, Onyx knew that this would probably be the best thing to ask. Except, his mind had already trotted, hopped, and jumped on another much better attempt at a question for the second voice.
What—
—are you, monster?
—am I? I was a pony...
—happened?
—can you even do?
Each bizarre echo of Onyx's voice was directed loosely where the young stranger might hear him. Only, every attempt lost any proper sense of remaining composure — if had there been any at all — as he went on, devolving into wails and sobs being all that was audible. The questions he cast at himself were like stones being thrown, and every time all they struck was his plans! Why did Onyx have to wound himself with his own stumbles, even after he had poured all he had into the magic book's promise?
And then, from madness, there was the clarity of the sound of Onyx's newest obsession rang out, almost warming him with the strange, naive quality it held.
Compassion. The single word disrupted all the chaos that had been worsening his current headache. Hadn't the voice shown something like it?
Despite Onyx's situation, he managed to twist and flinch from the stranger's voice, even though it had not really come from anywhere. The quiet strength it had, despite the distant sound of it, and the intelligence — everything about the voice of the new form he was so grossly anchored in was scary.
Just what's wrong? You've got to get a hold of yourself if you're going to tell me anything — or expect me to even do anything. I don't even know my own name, and I'm already getting pulled into something, aren't I? Give me a break... Okay, listen, I don't like talking right now —
have I already talked too much? It sure feels like it. These words probably sound clumsy coming from me — but if there's something wrong, how am I supposed to know what it is? You're frantic. It's just that obvious, and it's also even more obvious that something made you like this. I know I was just created, but you have some explaining to do, you cursed idiot.
That word — idiot, the one thing that everypony used to define him — brought him out of the stupor.
T-The w-wizard... H-He hits m-me...
It wasn't all he had done. Not by far, but it was all Onyx was able to get out. If he had a heart still, it would have been hammering. Yet, he did not, and he hadn't the faintest idea what would substitute the core of his old-and-gone body. The echos of that heart — illusory or not — and of his own terror rang around him, scattering what little focus he had.
This only left Onyx with haze, static, and a wild, psychotic, dense mix of sensory waves that were not his — if he would ever admit it to himself. Soon, he felt the flick of an ear — he wasn't sure how he knew that — and glimpsed the gray, fuzzy coat of a creature that did not have the good Crystalline blood meant to endure the Arctic's cruel conditions that his old, dense coat had. Yet, this was still not the patchy, passable fuzziness of the dull, completely sparkle-free, cruel, and mirthless ponies of the three tribes that Starswirl associated with and always boasted of. This spell-made body and its creature had a fluffy winter coat, soft and smokey gray in a shade darker than he had ever been. He — Onyx was very, very sure that the creature was very, very male — had his ear pricked, using the brand-new body in a way that left Onyx floating and tethered all at once.
Pricked for what, exactly?
Onyx stirred nervously, an ill wave of emotion sweeping over him. He hated this fickle state of being and wanted to dig himself into this creature as much as possible, to cling and delve into the vast power of it — the dark magic of the monster with a curved, red-tipped horn and shaggy black mane, surely a colt...
...it seemed these details were just coming to him in pieces... oh, and he felt this being squirm as he huddled within it, neither visible nor invisible.
There was the sound of hoofsteps and the sharp, heavy echo they sent up the stairs to interrupt his thoughts. They could not belong to Onyx, he had no hooves to call his own any longer. The strange almost-pony he was tied to was standing very still, like an unbreakable wall. The odd creature was so new, and yet he felt too real, like the world itself was just a place to support him. There was a confidence in how the unnamed youth stayed in a stone tower he had never seen, dark magic left about and spell books scattered... and this monster, he simply knew things. He walked, he breathed, he watched everything effortlessly.
He carried himself like he was effortless.
Onyx writhed again, feeling like he could collapse on himself and disappear in all of this brand-new nothingness. Could he do that? He wasn't sure he wanted to. Those hoofsteps, angry and reckless and loud — they were Starswirl's. But if Onyx could avoid a beating... could this new creature do the same?
"He won't ever hurt you again."
What? Onyx wasn't sure what was happening — just what had he heard? Did the monster, the young beast, born from magic that cost him his body, speak again... and to him of all ponies?
Listen, if this Starswirl is as horrible as you're suggesting — even without words, I still get it, kind of — then I'll just kill him. I can feel you pressing on my mind with how scared you are, kid — you're younger than me, I can feel that much, I'll sort things out later with what I'll be calling you. I know that you're scared. Well, guess what? I'm not. Not telling you why. But, I'll kill Starswirl for you. There's a world — the hole in the wall here, the neatly cut one—
A window, Onyx thought, though he couldn't imagine how he would be heard. At least, not without doing what he had earlier, where he projected his thoughts towards this cocky voice.
It shows that there's something big out there. Mountains and mountains — is that what they're called? Where the place in your memory, with all the spots of bright upon dark waits for the great stone teeth to come and meet them?
Onyx didn't answer, something horribly uncharacteristic of the typically chatty youth. What kind of creature could be so dumb they didn't know what a mountain was? Or a window? He wasn't going to have to be stuck with some total goon, was he?
There's mountains beyond mountains, kid. That's what all of these visions are saying — can you sort through them too? I'm never going to see them if I stay here, and I don't want to do that, so why would I? Exactly, he said, confidently answering himself, I won't waste my own patience. But...
Onyx found the stranger's pause to be unusually long and annoying — what an idiot he must be if he couldn't finish what was practically a speech for a monster so new.
What?! Onyx barked back, squeaky voice cracking testily with age and fear. "What do you want?"
When Onyx heard himself speak again, he was surprised at the sound. The voice he heard when he catapulted his nothing-self forward to seize where memory and instinct told him his voice would be were all wrong. The voice that came out was one that matched the strange new monster youth's, not the high, half-crackle that never fully dropped Onyx had been stuck with.
...Since you hate him more, won't you help out too? He is your problem. With you bearing down on my mind, you little freak, it's going to be hard to do anything unless we work together for a bit.
Onyx may have hated silence, but for once he chose to remain so, even though he always talked more, even when he had nothing to say. Especially then. Sometimes, there would be nopony to tell you that you were stupid if you just said nothing at all. That was how Onyx thought.
...Y-Yeah, okay... I'll do that. I'll help you out, okay? I know you're going to need me. You just have to l-let me hurt him too, he finally managed.
It wasn't that Onyx had anything against killing a pony — oh not at all — he wanted to do that more than anything in the whole world. It's why he got into dark magic — so he could hurt ponies, show them how to submit to him in ways they never would have before, and for no reason at all. He hated reasons — they always got in the way of what that first instinct was, and all the wants that galloped with it.
But he did have something against this stranger... no monster that had the light of pride that this one did would be able to step between Onyx and everything he ever wanted.
Author's Note
Anyone who says that there is enough Sombra on this site is a liar. Revised for print editions on 8/20/2020
