Chapter 1: Rising from the shadows
Chapter 1: Rising From The Shadows
The harsh blizzard’s fleet of adversary snow and ice pelted against the jet black door that parted through the middle, opening for a group of pegasi to enter. They each walked in, single file, despite there being room for all of them to enter at once. They were in a large hallway; the floor, walls and ceiling were all as black as the door, with patches of red every now and then. There are no windows; just dimly lit lights that hung from above and bright red glimmers above every door.
The group of five pegasi are each dressed in a tight fabric uniform, a deep midnight blue with a dark grey arrow shape on the torso, outlined by bright red. Halfway down each hoof a lightning bolt shape, in the same red, intervienes the blue and every hoof below the lighting shape is purple. The uniform covered them everywhere, except for their face, and their wings.
One of them seemed to stand out though. He had a pair of goggles -something the rest seemed to lack- that on the side said ‘Captain’.
“Damion, do you have the paperwork?” his voice was deep and lukewarm, of which matched his facial details. The dark brown fur didn’t seem to provide any help alleviating the dismal mood as the lack of sleep that the whole group suffered through only provoked the lack of energy and enthusiasm. “we wouldn’t want to upset Nightshade, would we?”
“I’ve got it ri-” the meek pegasus started.
“Shut up.” he commanded in annoyance as Damion stumbled backwards. He turned his attention to the two of his members caught in a quarrel. “hey! You two!” he raised his voice as they both paused mid-sentence, realising what they had gotten themselves into. “I thought I told you two, that if I see you fighting again, I’d report it straight to Nightshade.” the mere mention of Nightshade’s name had the two trembling and shaking; Nightshade was someone who you wouldn’t EVER want to see her bad side, not that her good side was any better though. “Next time I catch you two, I won't prolong it any more.” he paused to look at their stance “next time, you’ll have to face Nightshade.” feeling confident that they wouldn’t continue, he turned to Damion. “You were saying, Damion?” the meek pegasus paused for a while, in case the prior event would reprise.
“I have all of the paperwork right here and in order.” he responded.
“Good, at least I have One pegasus I can trust in my squad.” no further words were exchanged between them.
The group of pegasi eventually marched down the hallway slowly while remaining with a high posture. Each door they walked by seemed to have a progressively harsher red glow; each door had a glow brighter than the last, larger than the last, with a higher concentration of red. Until they reached a door, a door, larger than the previous ones. It was easily ten times the height of their captain and almost the size of the room in width, leaving little wall. But what wall that was there, had a small, yellow, crystal driven into it, glowing this bright lightning yellow shade that easily outshines every other light in the hallway.
The captain walked up to the wall, placing one of his hooves on it. “Nightshade, it’s squad three, we have returned from our latest mission and wish to report our findings.” as he spoke the crystal began to glow a brighter shade of yellow. The group were expecting a voice to be emitted but at first nothing happened. For about thirty seconds nothing happened. Until finally, the doors opened, after gaining a yellow glow around it, the left side of the door seemed to slam against the wall but the right one only just avoided a collision. The door lost its yellow tint and the crystal dimmed down but no voice was spoken. Usually Nightshade would tell them a command but this time the doors just opened, so naturally, they all walked in.
The throne room seemed to be more jaded than the hallways; not in lighting or in colour. Something, unexplainable, about the room was darker. The room was much wider than the hallways with dark purple pillars that pierced through the palace-like floor and prevailed through to the ceiling, of which seemed to double in height from the hallways.
As the captain walked along, ahead of his squad, he looked around the room. In the center of the room there was a long, rectangular, table that stretched from one side to the other; filled with meticulously and flawlessly placed cutlery and glasses of all sorts with multiple crystal shaped chandeliers hanging from above. He had been in Nightshade’s throne room a few times, but never noticed the cutlery or glasses before.
The end of the table reached towards Nightshades throne. To any normal pegasus, her throne may look like it was made from bones. They’d be half right. It stood out like a like a bright suit at a funeral as it was yellow from top to bottom with dusty, scarred and cracked dragon teeth edged and attached to the sides of the throne protruding outwards, gradually gaining in size as it went down. Though the throne, standing three steps above the ground level, wasn’t the biggest part of the room.
It’s what sat in the throne that was.
For the group's entire march towards her throne and up until they all stood in attention, it was a, nebula like, haze of black, red and pink smoke. As they drew near, it shifted, moving, gyrating and moulding until it stopped, dead in its tracks, and burst outwards, in every direction like and exodus of pure darkness causing the whole group, even the captain, to flinch.
And in its place, stood Nightshade.
Nightshade’s fur was almost as dismal as the deep abyss of space, yet it had this moderate tint of a deep, dark, nightmarish purple. She wore a leather trench coat, almost as dark as she was, outlined in a purple that was visibly brighter than her fur and she had a lightning yellow band around the front right arm with a symbol that looked like an upside down kite shape with a vertical line intersecting it but not surpassing it.
She also wore a black cape that completely concealed her wings and back. And a helmet-like mask that was mostly made of metal with three triangular shapes facing the center of her visage, one triangle pointed down from above and had another triangle engraved into it, facing upwards and the other two pointed diagonally up from the sides. Each triangle was almost black, outlined in the same purple lighter than her skin.
Just below the center of her face was another metal piece, completely covering her muzzle with sharp, predatory teeth-like shapes carved into it at the front. The rest of her mask seemed to be made up of some kind of black fabric with golden yellow visors shaped like stern, stoic eyes that her harshly intense, yellow, glare jettisoned itself through.
She wore a platinum necklace that had an intense glow on the bright, golden yellow crystals that it held. She also wore a platinum crown that protruded itself, hovering just above her head; it split into three sections that, each, edged upwards towards the center. The middle, largest, section of the crown held a large yellow gemstone that had a faint white glow moving about inside of it.
Every edge of Nightshade seemed to narrow down to a sharp point, no curves were visible except for her ears, of which, curved upwards just behind the crown. It was impossible for anyone to know what she was feeling. Her emotions and visage was obscured by her mask, completely. Her body language; always high, chest out, back up with her face tilted higher than normal, looking down upon everyone, and her voice-
“Captain, report your findings.” her sly voice was distorted in a multitone with something that can only be described as a small echo effect. It would be hard to tell, from voice alone, that she was a mare. Yet despite the seemingly random pattern to her pitch; she was quite the opposite. Very concise and knowing what to say, every single time without failure. She’d never stutter or second guess her own words because she would always wait about a second or two before talking; she’d always know that her words were right.
“Well, first of all I’d like to say that it wasn’t easy getting this information. In this folder we've pretty much covered every detail about Prism in the month that we-”
“captain.” Nightshade spoke quickly, intervening Mort’s ‘speech’.
“Uh, yes.” he paused but quickly and poorly added “m-ma’am.” he tried desperately to stay in attention, though he was now shaking vaguely in fear of having done something wrong.
“You,” she paused for about three seconds to slowly raise her head “analysed, Prism sky?” she paused again, staring at the group for a couple of seconds “am I correct?” her words drew out slowly. And latched themselves onto the ears of those in the room.
“Y-yes. Of course. Ma’am.” his voice cracked and shuddered as his squad members dared not say a word.
Nightshade thought over this for a few seconds, stealing a breath of air from around her and relinquishing it back out.
“Continue.” is all that she said.
“Yes, m-ma’am” Mort gasped in a breath and let loose within the same second, allowing him to collect his thoughts. “F-First of all-”
“Skip the speech! Just tell me the facts.” Mild annoyance could be heard resonating in her voice through the distortion in that command. Mort seemed to take a second to register it. Attempting to form a new way of exhibiting the information.
“W-well I think the most,” he paused to think of the right word “crucial fact, is that Prism is currently on her way to the skybolt recruits event this year and she’s also-”
“WHAT!” Mort stood still, he shook vividly but he didn’t move nor speak. Nightshade slowly stepped off of her throne, calmly walking down her steps until she was just above eye level with Mort. his whole squad took a step back but he was to dismayed to even think about moving “you’re telling me, you let Prism Sky go to the one place in all of Equus, I can’t touch her?” She asked, collectively, despite one of her ‘imperial captains’ cowering before her.
It had been about fifteen seconds before he had responded; muttering to himself, choking on his own fear and relishing what little air he managed to get through “I,” he cut himself off “I didn’t,” he stopped, again, to think about his words “I’m sorr-”
“Not to worry...” Nightshade spoke with, somewhat, more emphasis in each word.
“Not to worry?” Mort asked himself, Nightshade had just created a massive cognitive dissonance in his mind as fear was moulded into confusion. He stopped himself, but he almost felt like confronting Nightshade about the fact that he hadn’t yet been punished in the slightest. Was he really that important?
“Everyone makes mistakes...” the words seemed to slowly slither out of her predatory mouth as the group didn’t need to see it to feel the grin on her face behind the mask and the malice in her tone. Everyone was utterly confused and anxiously terrified simultaneously. “Now,” Nightshade took a step back. “Let's talk business,” she waited. Waited for him to speak.
“Well-”
“You know what?” she purposely gave him plenty of time, watching him closely. “All of the information is in this folder, yes?” a yellow aura appended around the folder as Nightshade’s magic came to life and brought the folder towards her. It levitated as she flicked through it, skimming the titles of information.
Nightshade eventually leaned in closer, releasing a dim, intrigued ‘ooo’ that slowly subsided. She subsequently bookmarked the page with a pale sheet of paper that she picked up, with her magic, from underneath the table. “Ok, dismissed.” she sounded happy, for some reason. If mort knew anything from the time that he has spent working under Nightshade; it's that ‘when she's happy, she’d better not be happy about you’. Though, a wave of relief filled Mort as he relaxed his tense muscles.
Mort turned to his squad, smiling gently, feeling genuinely happy. Is he actually safe? Did he really convince Nightshade to let him go without injury or punishment?
“Thank you Nightsha-”
“Though,” Mort stood still as Nightshade spoke “I’d like you to stay a little longer” he was now petrified, still, unable to move. “I’d like to get to know my, Imperial captains, of the Shadowstorms a little more.” her words were slow, full of malevolence and acrimony. This was bad. He wanted to leave but if he did, she could class it as insultive or insubordination. So he stayed. Reluctantly.
“Of course Nightshade. Why would we ever say no?” Mort put excessive emphasis on ‘we’ attempting to bring his squad with him, hoping dearly never to be alone with Nightshade.
“No no no, just you. I did say that I want to know my imperial captains. Though,” she gyrated her head ever so slowly, landing on Damion for a moment “the docile one looks like someone I’d like to meet soon.” he stammered back a couple steps, looking up at Nightshade who surmounted over him. She laughed lightly to herself at his reaction.
“Well, of course, his name is Damion and-” He was getting desperate.
“Not now,” Nightshade nonchalantly walked towards the table, “you four stay here and stand attention until further notice from me.” she looked at Mort. waiting a couple of seconds “captain, walk; come have a drink with me.” Nightshade began to walk as Mort unwillingly obliged to her demands.
They both began to walk towards the opposite end of the table, away from the throne. Each step he took, every inch he got further away from his group, shook him more and more.
The two seemed to be walking towards a small table of beverages, though mostly alcohol, it seemed to have a wide variety of flavours. “What would you like to drink, I think ‘Moartea Este Aproape’ is perfect for you right now.” she said as she hovered a red glass into their vicinity; holding it in front of Mort.
“No, thank you,” Mort nervously reciprocated “I'll just have coffee.”
“Suit yourself.” Nightshade lifted one of her front hooves and within a matter of seconds a bright yellow glow emitted itself from her eyes. A jet of water quickly materialised and was lurched into a small grey pot -large enough to hold ten pints of water- next to the drink rack. Her eyes began to glow brighter as a scorching blaze of fire subsequently jettisoned from the same hoof.
The group of pegasi stood there, the opposite side of the room from Nightshade and Mort, stealing glances now and then.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” one of them spoke up.
“None of our business, clearly,” Damion whisper-shouted, facing one of the previously brawling pegasi. “So shut up before you get all of our asses killed, ok?”
“Whatever.”
The flames erupted when they were lit below the grey pot, casting a harsh red glow against everything around it. Nightshade used her magic to lift a whisky glass and fill it with a pinky crimson liquid from one of the glasses on the rack. She walked towards the head of the table and sat at the seat. She beckoned Mort to sit next to her.
“please, do take a seat, Mort, may I call you Mort?” She inquired almost joyfully whilst encapsulating an adjacent chair in a yellow aura, pulling it out for him.
“Yes, yes of course.”he stuttered.
“good, well, please do take a seat Mort, your coffee won't be long.” as Mort sat down Nightshade removed her cape and let it fall to the ground as her ripped, scarred, deep purple wings extruded outward, massive compared to her body. They flustered and twitched every now and then but than relaxed as they weightily came to a close by her body.
Nightshade began to mess with her metal muzzle piece on her mask, pushing it back and forth, until it finally came to a halt with a loud click. The bottom half of the muzzle piece fell to the table, thumping to a stop. Her lower jaw was visible and Mort noticed the small cuts and grazes all around it.
And then he noticed the smile.
It was terrifying. She was watching him closely, smiling at him. Smiling with what seemed to be either malice or euphoria, but when it comes to Nightshade, those two emotions are hard to tell apart.
The water pot began to increase in temperature as small bubbles began to appear.
Nightshade took a sip from her glass “lets have a captain’s talk.” she paused to look at him from her glass and despite lacking the lower muzzle piece to her mask, her voice remained distorted “it sounds fun.” she was talking quicker now, more fluent. more, relaxed. She slowly placed the glass down, leaning her front hooves on the table in a collected manner. Almost as if she were a job interviewer “I mean, you're the captain of your squad and well,” she chuckled to herself “I’m the captain of, not only the superior squad, but also of the whole Shadowstoms.” her tone seemed to gradually crescendo into a more serious tone near the end.
“Of course.”
“Now, out of curiosity,” she turned to his squad “has any of your squad members acted…wrong, in any way? Insubordination, uncooperation, stuff like that?”
The water pot began to boil louder.
“No, they’d never do that.” Mort lied through his teeth in an attempt to keep them out of punishment; despite everything they've done, he doesn't believe they deserve what Nightshade would do. She looked at him and had lost her smile, though she quickly regained it.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” she asked in a confident tone.
“Of course not.” gulping vividly, he shifted his sitting posture lying back in his chair with his head down.
“Good,” she looked back at her glass, taking another sip and placing it back down. Mort’s eyes couldn’t keep still. They were darting back and forth between the increasingly boiling pot of water, Nightshade and the floor. Nightshade released a satisfied sigh. “now theoretically -this is completely theoretical- but let’s say you were lying to me.” Mort tried to hold back a look of shock and disbelief as Nightshade shifted her glance at the boiling pot; frowning at it. She turned back to him with that obscure smile and continued “let’s say you were withholding this information because, say, I don’t know...you felt you wanted to protect them.” Her gaze seemed harsher; her small smile on the serious face seemed to be full of ill-intent. “And you was to then tell me the truth… I may be more lenient with my punishment.” she paused for a prolonged amount of time. Staring at Mort. Taking in his distressed state. And smiling wider. “And I wouldn’t harm your family in the slightest… your wife Saphire and son Cain would be safe from me and the shadowstorm force.” Mort’s eyes couldn’t have grown any wider as Nightshade seemed to get closer with each word while speaking in a diminuendo right up until it was just a whisper, with emphasis on every word. On every syllable. “now,” Nightshade moved backwards, speaking at a normal tone again. “Since I forgot the first time you answered this, I’m inclined to reciprocate the question.” she looked down upon him as he held his chin against the table; thoughts darting around as fast as his eyes were. “Would you lie to me?” she was now completely serious. Her smile, now stoic, her eyes, now stern and fixed upon him… and he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop her. Nightshade broke him within minutes.
“Yes ma'am.”
“Good, now for clarification, could you point out the two that are constantly in quarrel?” he had to do this, for his family. Did she already know it? He couldn’t tell.
“Yes ma’am.” he languidly raise a trembling hoof, pointing towards two of his squad members. The two that had previously faught.
“Good,” she raised her glass and finished the contents, placing the glass back down and sliding it to the side so that it wasn’t between them. She looked up at the two of them; they stopped glancing over when they realised that Nightshade was watching them “I’ll deal with them later,” she gazed back at the shaking pegasus sitting before her, “ but first I’ll deal with you.” his ears stood up as he shot up from his traumatised state. Looking horrified at Nightshade.
“Me, ma’am?” he questioned quickly.
“Or rather, your recently failed mission.” She emphasised the ‘failed’ in the sentence putting massive weights on Mort’s shoulders. Weights that he couldn’t carry alone.
“But we-” he didn’t manage to get far before being immensely intervened by his superior.
“Why didn’t you kill Prism Sky?” all traces of Nightshade’s smile had disappeared as she coldly asked him a question. Her glare was directed only on him -not even taking into account the fact that the water was now visibly boiling with massive bubbles erupting from the pot. As Mort struggled to fathom what he was experiencing, Nightshade took the time to reattach the bottom of the metal jaw to her mask; concealing and burying her whole visage in obscurity once again.
“The... um, you, you didn’t tell us to.” his mind was racing nearly as fast as the bubbles from the water were exploding.
“I didn’t. Tell, you to.” she gave significantly more emphasis on the word ‘tell’ when repeating what he stated.
“Ye-”
“Tell me something.” she didn’t seem to care whether or not he was talking. She would always continue her side. “What’s your squad number?”
“My squad number? I told you on the way in, I sh-”
“Just tell me again!... To make sure.” there was an elongated amount of dead air between the two before he spoke up.
“Squad three.” and almost instantaneously after; Nightshade fired another question.
“And what was your first mission as the imperial captain of squad three?” Mort seemed to be getting annoyed at Nightshade, it shrouded his perplexity of the situation.
“what? My first-”
“Answer the question!...don’t make me repeat myself.” she sounded equally annoyed with him yet both of them were blocking out the sound of the boiling pot as they both remained with full concentration on the conversation.
“My first mission as captain was to assassinate the mayor of Illumhay.”
“Your second mission?” she subsequently asked leaving no time between when he finished and when she started.
“We had to take out -think it was- ‘Blade desert’ or something like that.” he struggled to remember the pegasus but he remembered clearly how he killed him; it was a quick bullet through the head, he didn’t feel a thing and no one heard a thing. Obviously they left the body in place so that pegasi would find him. They left a note that Nightshade told them to leave, but, they never knew what it said. It was in an envelope with a symbol that looked like an upside down kite shape with a vertical line intersecting it but not surpassing it. It had the word TEMPEST written underneath it.
“And what about your third?” she looked over his Nostalgic face; he was remembering the missions. Good.
“We had to kill that family member of one of the SkyBolt elites, I can’t remember which one.” he could remember her, he just didn’t want to. Her face riddled with fear and at the mercy of him and his squad. Begging. Pleading. Screaming, to stay alive. It was horrible to watch but he had to do it. He didn’t want to but it was the mission.
“Good, are you seeing the paradigm that I am?” she questioned coldly.
“Paradigm?”
“Pattern, you yearling. Do you see the pattern?” Nightshade was getting frustrated as Mort snapped out of his daze. He now noticed the boiling water nearly overflowing. But he didn’t mention it to Nightshade, she wouldn’t care.
“Uh…” he was sequestered from Nightshade’s thoughts, not seeing what she was seeing about the current conversation.
“It was an unspoken rule that you killed someone in every single mission I’ve ever sent you on so why did you fail to abide by it this time.” she was raising her voice slowly but she never shouted.
“B-because you d-didn’t tell us t-to.” he was now fearing everything about this situation and for those in his squad. Nightshade wasn’t happy. She was angry. Angry with him.
“Didn’t tell you?” she repeated his words “I didn’t think I had to!” she pushed her chair backwards to walk towards him. “I thought you would have known by now! I thought you would have been intelligent enough to put the pieces together!” she looked down on him, cowering and shaking. If he could have moved at that moment; he would have ran. But he was paralyzed. He was stupefied and helpless. “I clearly thought wrong… Tell me, Mort, when I opened the door to my throne room, what did you do?” Mort stared, utterly confused with Nightshades choice of questions, though still cowering.
“You saw me, I walked in.” he raised one eyebrow, lowering the other.
“But why?” she inquired while sitting back down in her chair at the end of the table.
“What do you mean ‘why’? You opened the door.” he gingerly sat back up, avoiding direct eye contact with Nightshade.
“But I didn’t tell you to come in, does that not mean you don’t have to.” She quickly added; slyly using his own words against him. He didn’t know how to respond. “What’s wrong?” She mocked, picking up her cape with a yellow glow of magic and embarking it back around her neck.
The glow faded as just the black, dark, jaded outfit and the unrelenting sharp illumination of the fire’s red light; drowned them and the room in its coarseness. “ I thought you liked disobeying me!” Mort stood up as if to retaliate but he stopped himself. The boiling pot had now reached its maximum temperature. Yet, as the water was evaporating into a vapour, something was turning it back into water. Mort couldn’t pinpoint what it was though.
“No, I,” he sat back down; his face was emotionless, a blank slate. How she was able to do this was unexplainable to Mort, he didn’t know how she did it. How did she always knows what to say? “I’m sorry” he forced out through the constriction in his throat. “It… it won’t happen again.” he turned to Nightshade “I won’t make the same mistake again.” she stood up from her chair, knocking it back a bit as she leaned in next to his ear and whispered,
“I know you won’t...”
Mort’s eyes widened immensely as he began to stand up but before he could take, even one step. Nightshade’s eyes incandescented, subsequently lacerating a deep slash into his front, right hoof; causing him to cascade on his first step and extrude a dissonant scream of pure pain and terror.
His whole squad watched the situation as they were frozen still by the javolines of fear that Nightshade was subconsciously piercing them with as she ‘played with her victim’. Mort reached a hoof out towards his squad as it was struck down by another deep cut. They did nothing but watch the horrific scene play out and listen to the cacophonous, ear piercing screams and pleads.
Mort was struck down over and over and over and over and over and over again. But then it stopped and even in his current state of peril, Mort heard the distinctive sound of boiling water, subside. Slowly but surely it stopped. He turned around with all of his effort, narrowly able to roll onto his back, to see Nightshade’s menacing yellow eyes beam down on him. “Here’s your drink.” she uttered, just loud enough for him to hear, as she began to diverge the pot, tilting it forward and pouring all of its contents onto him.
At first he began to scream as the scalding water corroded at his skin but his airways quickly constricted and halted any sound when his whole body began to blister. Steam was protruding itself within seconds of contact and Morts body began to shake violently and uncontrollably -all throughout this, Nightshade stood over him, smiling maniacally to herself underneath the mask- yet despite all of the torture, Mort was able to force out a couple of words.
“Y-you,” his shaking wasn’t helping, nor was the over tense muscles and relentless pain, though he remained as much eye contact as possible. “You sa-” he gasped, hastily beckoning husky, raucous air into his lungs. “You said you’d be more lenient.” he vividly spoke before collapsing his head back, shutting his eyes in pain and holding an everlasting grimace on his face. He let out loud grunts and moans of painful suffering as his hoarse, wheezy breathing increased.
Nightshade’s horseshoes could be heard clicking against the floor as she walked closer to his trembling body. She slowly lowered her head; picking him up by the goggles of his flight suit, so that her muzzle was right next to his ear and muttered,
“I said I MAY be more lenient,” she forced his head into the ground, taking a step back from him “ I never said I actually would.”
“But-”
“Mort,” she cut him off, almost eagerly awaiting this moment. And she didn't waste a second. “Your time is up.” three excruciatingly loud CRACKS could be heard echoing and ricocheting of the walls of her throne room. With one swift motion, Nightshade had snapped Mort’s neck and stood over his lifeless corpse. His squad all stared is shock and horror, mainly because of the fact that their captain had just been brutally murdered in front of them, someone they had known, someone they could understand, and could understand them; dead. Yet they were now terrified by the fact that Nightshade’s gaze was locked onto them, or more specifically, “Damion!” she shouted from across the room, in a calm tone “walk; come have a drink with me.” his muscles locked up at his mention but out of fear that he would be in more peril if he were to stand still, he walked, joining Nightshade at the end of the table; stealing a glance at the pegasus’ corpse, which was lying limp in its own pool of blood.
Nightshade passed Damion a drink. He smiled -nervously- not touching the drink, for obvious reasons. “Welcome, Damion.” she watched him gingerly messing with the glass; keeping it a safe distance away from himself. “Don’t worry.” she reassured “that one’s not toxic, its from this glass.” she gyrated the glass of pinky-crimson liquid; twirling it back and forth while pointing at it with one of her hooves.
“Toxic!” Damion’s eyes widened
“Yes,” she pointed towards the rack of drinks. “Everything on the top shelf is full of hepatotoxins. Very strong hepatotoxins, their my favourite; as soon as a pegasus starts showing symptoms, they have one and a half minutes to say their goodbye’s until they meet their untimely demise.” Damion was scared, mostly by the fact that Nightshade sounded very ‘into’ the conversation about how she was originally going to kill Mort. or so he assumed. “Though, it’s a lot stronger than normal hepatotoxins. The one’s in them,” she looked back at the table “I made them myself, to make for the most excruciating death.” Nightshade looked back at the distraught, mortified look on Damion’s face. “But that’s not what I asked you here for.”
“Wait,” Nightshade willingly waited, intrigued by this sudden change in caliber, from cowering at a mere mention to interrupting and taking charge. That’s what she’s looking for. “If they contain toxins, what would happen if you drank them?” at first Nightshade was confused; perplexed by the question, for a moment it sounded like he cared.
“I’d die.” she stated blatantly without a flicker of change in her emotion.
“Then why do you keep your poisons so close to your drink?” Nightshade leaned in and slowly stated to him,
“Because you can’t live if you don’t have a chance of dying.” something about that line seemed so right yet so wrong at the same time. It gave Damion a very strange feeling and chills all over his body “But this isn’t what I called you here for.” she looked down at Damion’s old captain. “Pick up the goggles.” she casually demanded in a tone that sounded like a request as Damion’s breathing became distorted and shaky.
“But th-”
“Just, pick them up.” Nightshade was already frustrated with Mort, Damion didn’t want to end up like he did. So he obliged; leaning down and hesitantly removing them from around Mort’s amalgamated neck. The feel of touching a cold, lifeless body was traumatizing, especially since Damion had previously known him. To see someone not react, it was hard for him.
“Here.” he spoke with little emotion is his voice, still feeling off about the whole situation, he held up the goggles towards Nightshade.
“No no no, you misunderstand,” she took the goggles and placed them on Damion’s head “you are now, ‘Damion, imperial captain of squad 3 of the Shadowstorms’.” Damion took a couple steps back as his eyes aviated rapidly.
“But… but I,” Nightshade sternly cleared her throat, staring at Damion. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate his thoughts “I accept your promotion…” Damion’s voice, again, reverted back into being devoid of all emotion.
“Good, now let's go back to your squad.” Damion didn’t object, he just followed her as she began to walk.
They eventually reached the squad and the small muttering between themselves had long stopped as they all stood in attention. Nightshade simply glared over them all as she walked back onto her throne. All eyes were on her. Waiting for their instruction. “Lust, Argon! Step forward.” she commanded as they both shot forward, not uttering a single word.
She turned her view directly at Lust. Her eyes intensified and within seconds; before anyone could gather what was happening. Her neck was snapped. the blood seemed to blend in with her dark crimson coat, though that didn’t make it any less real. Argon watched in horror at his squad member's death, knowing he was next.
As he saw Nightshade turn her head towards him, he closed his eyes and encased himself in a flash of bright blue light. Another blue light flashed as he teleported himself to the opposite side of the room. “Ooo, you’re feisty.” Nightshade spoke to herself as he began to run towards the main doors to the throne room. “I like that!” the doors we forced shut with Nightshade’s magic as Argon’s eyes widened. He lunged himself at the door, hoping he could open it, break it, loosen it, anything really.
But before he could do anything.
A yellow glow binded itself around him, pulling him closer to her. He quickly began kicking and thrashing to no avail, in an attempt to stop Nightshade’s magic from dragging him to his inevitable death. “you’re very good.” he tried to grab onto anything he could as she continued to talk to him. Everything seemed to be just out of his reach, just out of grasp. “You’ve got guts to attempt to run from me.” he noticed now that he had been pulled past the table “but…” he was forced to turn around and lie on his back as his distorted, heavy breathing increased.
He was now face to face with Nightshade.
His eyes shot around the room as he squirmed around; trying desperately to find an escape, to find some way out of this inevitable horror. “Argon.” she picked up a fork as it floated towards her. “Your time’s up.” she slowly forced the fork into his mouth and through the bottom of his jaw. He used his last moments screaming as he pivoted his eyes towards Damion. Who slowly shut his own eyes and turned away from the horrific scene. Nightshade twisted the fork whilst it was piercing through his lower jaw forcing him to shut his eyes and shudder with pain. And when he opened his eyes to look up at Nightshade she ripped the fork forward, away from his face. Tearing his jaw clean off. His body untensed, falling quickly to the floor as rivers of blood jettisoned out of his mangled face.
As soon as Damion couldn’t hear the ear-piercing screams anymore, he turned to the dismal sight of another dead body. “Damion,”
“Yes Nightshade?” he took one step forward.
“I want you and Dusk to scout for new recruits, for your squad.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I want you to bring me six candidates and I’ll shorten it to three, though it may take me some time to,” she gave an eager sigh and raised her posture “‘persuade’ them to join your squad.”
“Yes ma’am”
“On your way out, tell superior commander Exploit and superior commander Vex to meet me, post-haste!” she waited for him to nod his head but before he could speak “Go now!” and with that Damion and Dusk left her throne room.
Nightshade closed the doors behind them and turned to the folder she had previously been given, specifically the page on Prism going to the SkyBolt compound. “You think you’re safe Prism? You think I can’t reach you there? You’ll be surprised.” she closed the folder and placed it next to herself as she sat on her throne, smiling maniacally inside the mask and giggling to herself. “This is going to be fun!”
Author's Note
I cannot wait to see what reception I am met with the introduction of this story and how people will respond to it.
Thanks for reading this, I'll see you next chapter
