Shadows of the Night

The planning, the desperation, the emotional welling which distorted rational thought. It had all paid off, and now I was finally in perfect control.

“Heh heh heh heh”

“Whu-what?” the red unicorn mare grunts. The first clear sign of shock at the fact that her hard-light construct’s hoof having stopped in mid-flight. It really was a very sturdy design, well rounded and without visible flaw, it even had a bit of what looked like fur too. Pretty, yes, but a wasted effort for something meant to eliminate a target. It was a perfect circle of magic just waiting to be absorbed.

“My sincere apologies, it seems as though I’ve stopped your attack. But you see, I’m rather fond of this mortal shell and I’m going to have to ask you to stop,” I say, looking up to the magic covered pony, the voice distorting through the layers of the crystal as it flows out of every pore in Rumor’s face, my face. But rather than stopping there, I continue the march of progress, expending more magic to fuel the growth of crystal as it begins to cover his entire form in a perfect white carapace of smooth inch of my physically enhancing exoskeleton, leaving my body with a slight sheen. The extremities are the last to be armored, and once the gloved fingers are covered I increase the pressure, sapping away some of the ambient energy of the construct, and watch the leg shatter into ephemeral ruby dust.

The pony backs up some, the loss of one of the legs having made her balance come into question as the anger in her face pierces through the wavering light into a fearsome resolve. Good, she has proven a threat to my body twice over and needs to be eliminated. Her lack of intelligence as emotion continues to override any logical part of her mind makes me believe she is little more than finely tuned muscle rather than one of the top brass for decision making. This is good, as I will need a place to begin to more finely understand the world if I am to succeed in my programming.

The red pony charges, the reformed front leg causing the floor to shake some with the rest of her hooves. But rather than silted eyes, her’s remain wide open, ready to catch any new targets that might present themselves. She’s good. But it matters little as I merely raise my arm, ready to intercept her charge and absorb more of her energy.

The armored pony however, loosens her control of the energy, her enlarged armored hooves growing gauzy as she slides to the right, her momentum quickly shifting with her. Her left forehoof then slams into the ground, having turned into a four pronged claw to grip at the floor, as she swings the rest of her enlarged body at my back, launching me forward to the wall sixty feet away, which abruptly stops me. The force shatters Rumor’s bones entirely, but due to my complete encasing of his body in my white carapace his body is no longer in the light of the room, and quickly reknits.

I hear the sound of cracking floor from the light armor as it makes its way over to my small crater, and I allow it  to come closer, remaining perfectly still, and gathering my strength, bolstering it further with the pool of energy Somnium would have previously been giving Rumor had I not been storing it for myself.

“I still can’t believe Trance thought you would be a threat to me,” she says, her distorted voice coming out a few octaves lower, “I know they didn’t want me to damage you too badly, but you’ve made me waste time on two separate occasions, and that will not happen again.” Her hoof morphs into a two-pronged claw as I’m peeled from the wall. “Heh, that’s the thing I really like about you exoskeleton types, you can hide so much internal damage because your precious shell keeps it all inside,” she says after laying me down, her hoof now aiming for my host’s head.

Her hoof came down like lightning, but I was quite ready for the simple blow, as two small claw like legs grew from my back, dug into the floor, and slid me underneath the construct. Both of my arms slammed to the floor, stopping me directly under her. Drawing further from the collected energy of Somnium, as well as the fear Rumor was still producing, I concentrated the magic into my forearms. They bubbled as they grew three times in size and mass in a few moments, in which the newly formed pistons slammed out of their respective “elbows”, cracking the floor, and shooting the massive arms directly into the center of the mare’s energy armor, sending her flying to the ceiling. Now occupied with being stuck within the ceiling, I knew I would be afforded a few seconds to complete the fight while the red mare got over the vertigo and possible concussion.

Retracting the pistons from the floor back into my body, I pulled the increased mass from my arms and placed it into my back, which began to bubble in a haphazard mass until countless legs exploded in a fury of malformed crystal dust and began to lance across the floor, each one sticking it’s spidery protrusion into the still hatefully glowing white floor, and began to pull at the magic that lit it. The thin coating of crystal that covered the floor, wall, and ceiling in a single piece was quickly drained, the legs and my body thickening in the process, and turning the room pitch. This was quickly corrected as the red mare reignited her red armor as she fell from the giant sized crater in the ceiling that it had kept her in just a few seconds ago. She slammed into the floor, the crystal coating of the floor cracking and reflecting like magma as her hard-light tried it’s best to fill the room with a dull glow. As pitiful as it was, I wasn’t going to let the challenge slide.

Opening countless microscopic holes across my exoskeleton, I released the pent up darkness that had continued to expel itself from Rumor’s encased body. The immediate effect was that the entire room fell into a pitch perfect blackness. The red mare’s light was completely overcome, but were I to teleport I’d have to overcome it all over again.  The mare seemed to have some sort of idea that the tables had turned on her, better, now that she was out of that thick, light-warping armor I was finally able to see her face. It wasn’t quite what I’d been hoping, she looked remarkably determined, but it was quite gratifying to see her legs quivering as I began to circle around the defensively postured mare, her own armor having shifted into a thick dome of red light, and it all fell into place.

Concentrating on the new thickness of my body I pulled at the mass of crystals and expelled them in round sphere’s from my body. A simple command given, the simple constructs began to roll on their own, vibrating enough to sound as though each one was laughing. The mare wasn’t entirely fooled, but it certainly drew her attention as she began to discern where the real voice was coming from. It didn’t matter. My exoskeleton began to thin further as my outer fingers continued to extend and drill into the ground, their sound masked by the happy laughter that encircled the rightly defensive mare. The laughter continued until her weakness was exploited, and the unshielded floor was breached by ten deathly needles which all drove in through the mare, and severed the nerves along her spine.

The red dome shattered, leaving the room without a challenger to my darkness, until I again closed the holes in the armor, and re-extended the retracted claws to pull in and silence the laughing spheres. I then sent two lines of power through my feet as two spikes lanced through the crystal covering of the floor as I returned just enough power for a pleasant flickering yellow light to display the fallen body of the red mare, and the two serene faces of the two other unicorns which were still sipping at their wine.

Once the light was restored, the blue unicorn looked up, his eyes moving from the prone mare and back to me, then said, “Well, looks like we have a new position for you Caligo,” his voice perfectly calm and collected. Looking over, his hair was now back in place, and his neck seemed no worse for wear, “we could use someone of your strength.”

I paused for a moment, taking it all in. The captured memories of Rumor in conversation with Sprocket and stolen glances at city maps through his eyes had made finding the place remarkably easy. Better, there spokes dog had been more than efficient in his means to see the light and strike up a bargain when their defensive measures proved ineffective. They had done remarkably well in keeping up their end of the bargain. Creating a scenario where Rumor would be completely powerless and emotionally unstable enough to agree to a complete takeover under the guise of my helping, but it would be so easier to destroy the lot of them, but I didn’t know their full capabilities, and they surely wouldn’t have agreed to any of it unless they knew of some way to keep me in line, and it certainly wasn’t a connection to other organics otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested destroying Rumor’s employers. Further, their potential for knowledge outweighed the amount of energy it would require to end them, for now. I’d been asleep for far too long, and only recently reassessed my original memory files, corrupted though they were, and there obviously things I needed to catch up on if I were to bring the world to perfect chaos.

“How very fortunate then that I am in need of information that you will certainly provide in exchange for such strength,” I say, making sure to turn my head so the black spot was gazing right through him. “Now, will you show me the door, or will I have to make one for myself. I have plans for tonight.”

The blue unicorn only gave a silent smile as his horn lit up, quickly followed by a square section of the wall quickly took on the same shimmering hue only a few feet away from the lifeless red mare.

“Since you know where I live, I’ll expect a rather discreet form of contact once you have need of me,” I say as I walk out of the room and into the plush green carpet from earlier. I find that I am three doors down from the place I had entered, then turn towards the stairs. It would have been so simple to slay them all right there and end the bargain I’d made, but the effort to gain the knowledge otherwise would require more blood, and I don’t need that sort of attention just yet.

***The Yellow Unicorn Mare***

I looked over to Trance once, the now white golem had left the remodeled ballroom. It had been a pain to enchant the entirely of it with as much light as it had. I let out a small shiver thinking again of Aurora’s initial enchantment of remelting the crystals so she could line the entirety of the floor, walls, and ceiling.

“I suppose this all went according to plan?” I said, trying to drown him in arid sarcasm.

“Why of course it did my dear Severe,” he replied with his usual collected smile, as though nothing in the world that could cause him grief.

Frankly, had I not been told beforehand of his staged show of anger, I’d have been able to count on my hoof how many other emotions I’d seen that indigo freak exhibit. “Still, I know Crowly vouched for… it there,” I said, pointing to the open door where the golem had left, “but there were so many other more productive ways to get rid of Cat.”

“Heh, true, but she had allowed herself to be taken in by a mere regenerative on two occasions and lacked the forethought to quickly slay her enemy rather than toy with it. Such weakness cannot be tolerated. You did write the rules rather clearly on that point,” Trance said, thinning his smile into a sharpened slit.

“Hmmm,” I sighed, “I suppose I did at that. How’s your throat anyway? It looked like that monkey should have crushed it?”

“Do I detect a note of sympathy?”

“Curiosity, and considering you got me up at this Celestia forsaken hour, you would do well to indulge me.”

Rather than answer me he instead pulled out a handkerchief with a snatch of indigo magic and slowly brought the piece of cloth into his mouth, and then lifted out a rather slimy piece of what looked like metal piping, though it was clearly bent down on one side.

***Caligo***

I look down upon this twisted metal city of Bitsburg, and I am filled with emotion. A mere byproduct of being attached to an organic host, but the intangible quality of power that they whisper at is enough of a benefit to ignore the deficiencies of them. At least, that’s how my host seems to view them. Yet here in the land of Equestria they held so much more. Yet, having even seen firsthand the power they can literally wield, Rumor had ignore them.

…still, I suppose he can’t be blamed entirely. While damaged I was forced to leech off of his own mind to fill in many of the gaps that were left in my corroded memories. He’d recover in time, and all the while it had made him so much easier to manipulate as his mind lessened at my hunger. Better, the wealth of information it bring is truly priceless in the form of a single thought. One single constant that has long been ignored: this is a cartoon world.

All the musical accompaniments, the bending and stretching of quadrupedal skeletal structures, the gripping of objects without phalanges, and worst of all the gags, such as the disgustingly absurd fall through the clouds Rumor experienced when he first attempted a trip to Ponyville. He stood on a cloud just long enough to remember the capricious laws of physics so he might plummet to a painful heap of meat and bones.

There is so much power in knowing these strings pull at the universe, and even more to have the awareness to pull at them yourself.

Looking down from the spire I spotted the docks by the western shore. If this revelation were true, then there would most likely be some sort of crime being attempted there. The docks always seem to harbor criminals of some sort after all, and no one truly cares how such creatures meet their end, out of sight. Giving a small chuckle, entirely for my own benefit, I then leapt from the spire, sending waves of acquisitioned power through my back which extended into two plane-like wings as I glided off the spire.

***

It had been quite easy to spot the three creatures as they hugged their way across the shadows, two of them earth ponies, but the one in front was a diamond dog, obviously using her refined nose and experience in the darkness of tunneling to help guide her two cohorts. Staying upon the wooden warehouse rooftop I deaden the brain receptors for smell to keep the scent of fish from reaching the host body within, and clouding my thoughts. The sound of water lapping at the many supports of the docks partially muffles the sounds of the two ponies’ hoof steps, while the padded paws of the female would be nearly silent in any given situation. Though what really caught my eye was the fact that the two ponies wore a black eye patch over the opposing eye that the other possessed, while the female a domino mask over her own eyes, leaving them entirely white rather than showing the yellow sclera that should have shown through a piece of clothe with two holes in it.

“Quiet much, or I’ll soften your hooves myself,” I heard the female say in a harsh yelling-whisper.

The pair merely nodded and continued, until the brown stallion on the left said, “But why are we out tryin’ to get fish when we could be getting something of more value, like some of the tech up in central?” The other stallion, colored much the same, though his black mane and tail were a bit more frazzled, nodded in agreement and looked like her was about to say something until the female back handed them both with a resounding noise that caused her to start at herself, something which she overcompensated for by giving the two creatures behind her best attempt at a death glare, in the dark.

“Because some idiots pay for eating raw poisoned fish, and its less guarded than an average toy store,” she said before peeking around the corner. Once she felt it was safe to move out into the abandoned walkway she then moved to the large loading doors of the self same warehouse I spied from. Sticking her claw into the large lock she quickly snapped it open and entered with her two cohorts.

A silent chuckle rippled across my white form as I silently stalked my way to the roof’s skylight. No doubt an easier source of light, and less likely to catch any of the many odors from the room from catching alight. Placing my palm against the glass I notice it was much colder and held a few flecks of frost on the underside. I hadn’t noticed any cooling units, so it must have been power by the all power unexplained force of magic. Finding the latch I pulled it out with a second attempt once it was clear that silence wasn’t going to happen with the frozen object. An echoing screech filled the large room as I extended my claws to talons as I flipped from the lip of the skylight to clutch onto the roof inside.

Inside the relatively quiet noise had obviously been muffled through the tall stacks of boxes that filled the rows across the warehouse, as well as the bumbling of the three criminals who were clattering on boxes in the dark then bringing them to the pool of moonlight the frosted skylight provided to check the frozen contents..

No longer limited to a time constraint and magical seals I extend my reaches of the Emotivore fragment and leech off of the, now, reservoir of power she would normally give to her host had I not been keeping it in check, and making sure the frail body of my host was always ready to accept that every other sentient around him was much stronger. The influx of power makes my carapace bubble as spikes begin to form across my form. They are given a small instruction and then fired across the room’s ceiling and walls with only a small hissing sound as their sharp points pierced the air and quietly stick into the white of the frost covered walls with only a smattering of cracklings from the splitting ice. Not enough to distract the sushi fanatics. My notes in place, it was time for the show to begin.

Climbing across the ceiling, I came across the first impaled spike a gave it a small tap to activate it’s memory function as it spread like a snowflake and began to vibrate, different tones catching on the oddly shaped limbs and edges. The sound began to spread to the others as the sound waves activated the simple mimic function as the crystal projections began to take voice, as the whispers of ‘thus saith the lord’ began to echo across the rafters.

At first the group began to look around at the noise, too surprised at the sudden hissing of noise gathering around them like a storm, but as the chorus began in earnest the two stallions looked at each other as they both slowly backed away to opposing sides of the moon ray that came from the skylight.

The diamond dog looked at the two males with both increasing frustration and fright as the music began to rise in strength.

The pony on the left got a queer look in his eye as he began to sing, sorrow seeming to overcome him, his tail and mane began fraying further, but maintaining enough shape to hint at echoes of power rather than cunning. From the ceiling I drop a simple sword, fashioned from my body. He grabs it without question as it clatters on the frozen ground in a fluid motion, twining it around his left forelimb.

Standing upon his hind legs he grasps the sword in his teeth as he sweeps his front hooves spreading wide through the boxes of frozen seafood, which my shadows have, unbidden, begun to take a proxy of Bitsburg as he begins to sing, sorrow seemingly etched upon his heart.

Eyes hardening he takes another step forward, falling back to all fours as the opposing earth pony, who has become more refined in his own turn, his posture and coat immaculate, begins to come forward, his posture exuding pride as he quickly charges the swordpony with a staff, again fashioned from my body. Spinning it around his neck he flips his head, sending the staff up into the air, which he grabs it in his teeth and begins to attack in decisive sweeping arcs.

The sword wielder sings on, his own posture, while depressed, flows around the precision attacks of the staff wielder, who continues to grown in anger that his opponent won’t lay down and submit.

The staff wielder gets a lucky sweep, knocking the sword wielders balance. The flounder causes the sword wielder to clumsily back up and the staff wielder takes his turn to sing.

A swift jab to the chest is given, and is deflected at just the last second by the sword’s hilt.

The swordpony takes advantage of the staff wielder slipping upon a patch of ice and recovers his balance, but the staff wielder does so as and they rear up and lock weapons.

The sword inches closer to the staff wielders neck, who’s own weapon is poised to attempt a strike through his opponent’s eye.

Voices mix together as the as the song reaches its climax. The last echoes of the spent song wither across the room as the once living ponies slump to the ground.

The diamond dog finally begins to move again, too deep in shock to notice me as I stride over and reabsorb the improvised weapons, making sure to filter out the excess of organic material that coated them, and then proceeded to climb the walls and retrieve the rest of my crystals as the female decided the best course of action was to dig through the frozen wooden floor and into the ocean. I could hear her splashing around for a bit while her mind tried to remind her body that she had to swim through water rather than dig.

Leaving the warehouse behind I found myself quite pleased, if a trifle disturbed. It had been a wildly successful test, but the question now remained. What were the exact limitations? After all, at first it seemed as though the two ponies had resisted at first until the chorus had gone on for some time, and the diamond dog hadn’t been affected save to gaze on at the display. But the darkness had shaped itself unbidden as well as the song had progressed. There were so many questions, and so much time to exploit it in.