Shadows of the Night

It was on the third cackle that the insipidness of my situation finally began to sit in. Things had gone… wrong. Glancing across the lightless room I began to slowly take stock of my surroundings. Firstly, I was alone. Secondly I knew only that I was in… my… castle? I was sitting upon a great chair, large and austere. It was raised upon a great dais, of which held a square shape similar to the throne’s base, and went down six steps down to the floor which stretched out into an empty room to walls that stood hundreds of feet off. Along the walls were four archways devoid of carvings, and I instinctively knew they were each placed at the cardinal points. Looking closer at my position, the last of the laughing echoes turning to silence, I was able to recognize that everything, was made entirely of white crystal.

Getting up, slowly, I made my way to the western hallway to, what I assumed was, the observation deck. The walls remained completely smooth and without blemish. There was nothing to catch one's eye save if another person were to share the hall with you, no distractions, no hiding, save for the total absence of light that my host’s body had no need of anyway.

Continuing my walk I slowly began to take note of my complete lack of apprehension, the entirety of the complex felt as though it were designed solely to put me at ease.

Reaching the end of the hall, I found myself at a balcony with no rail to catch me if I was to stumble off the side. The square protuberance thrusted out into the night over the misshapen crags and mountains. The phase “mocking their imperfection” came to my mind as an alien echo of laughter began to rise from somewhere within me. I sense of urgency suddenly arose within me and I pulled at Rumor’s power to force the darkness to silence the noise before it could escape. But rather than go away, the urge to laugh continued to grow. I could feel Rumor’s body begin to shake under the strain as it tried so hard to be heard. I could feel blood vessels rupture and repair in the darkness the night gave us as I continued to maintain control. But, it was becoming too clear that eventually the ruptures would increase to a level that Rumor would not be able to regenerate from, and I let the choking darkness fall.

A cacophonous sound, that only vaguely resembled laughter, rocketed out of Rumor’s mouth and through a hole in my protective mask that I had not consciously made. Overhead the stars began to vanish as a sheet of darkness swept across the sky. The sounds of thunder quickly shook the air as great bolts of lightning flashed across the mountaintops like day.  Had I not inhibited his body’s ability to feel or held such a tight grip on his body in the crystalline encasement he would have shook his body apart, dying of laughter.

***

Opening my eyes, I had not realized my vision had ever been impeded, I attempted to look at the mountains that I’d just looked out on. Much to my displeasure, I found I was back on the crystal throne. As my awareness again began to surface I knew that rather than a simple mask and covering around the back of Rumor’s skull there now stood a great spiked over-helm as well as matching spiked plates around the rest of his body. Great gauntlets now covered Rumor’s remaining organic arm, and had left a mirrored copy over the nub on the other side. Attempting to stand I had to readjust my stance. Looking down I found I now stood a full foot higher as the crystals had given me extra height. The crystal armor was also much thicker than I had initially given it credit for as well.

“Why am I back in the citadel’s throne room? And why did I just call it a citadel? … and why am I speaking out loud in an unnatural manner?” I growled out.

Combing through my memories, I tried to make sense of my current situation, find the logical conclusion as I backtracked from point B to point A. The first event I remembered was the fight with the Tartarusfire Club. I’d taken obvious undiluted magical shots from the unicorns that held the greatest magical potential so I could feed my crystals and grow so I could… That couldn’t be right. If I could grow crystals from undiluted magical streams then why hadn’t I used such a useful feature when I’d initially attempted the theft of the Emotivore trapped in Canterlot Castle? Surely that would have made dealing with Luna mere child’s play. But think of how much faster you could sweep away the magic users?

But wasn’t that the problem? I’d gotten into a fight to begin with rather than simply taking them out one at a time. There had been a greater chance that I’d fail. Had the blue one been faster or attacked first, I would have ceased. But I’d had a sufficient reason to attack. It was the dragon. It was an illusion maker, and I’d defeated him by… I’d sat atop his corpse as I swept its blood from a crystal blade. But where was the fight? I remember sweeping away the false hoard… and then the corpse. But there was no memory of the intervening fight. Not that it matters. If it was so easily dispatched, what difference does it make?

“True, but if I’ve always had the power to absorb magic directly rather than needing an emotion devouring creature like that of my Nyx fragment as a conduit, and if I can dispatch a dragon, and one that is clearly skilled at illusion crafting, then why haven’t I done such things before. I should be able to take on larger opponents with no fear of failure. Why, I could…”

Kill everyone right now, couldn’t you?

“Yes, I could kill anyone who gets in my way. Why, I could stop working to find the long way around. I could just give another blatant show of power, and accrue an army to pledge loyalty to me,” I said as I stood up. “Ha, I could crush the princesses right now! No army for me to trip over. Just me and their delicious magic to absorb,” I said, now shouting, and giving a burst of deep laughter.

The laughter!

“NO!” I shouted, bringing my hands to my gauntlets to my side. This wasn’t me. When did I start simply killing off others? That wasn’t my plan. I wanted them all to live. To enjoy the fairness of pure chaos. But in order to make sure it would happen it would take years, perhaps centuries, to make sure no one would catch on.

But why go to all that trouble anyway? They can’t see the strings of fate that pull at them. They’re just worthless little insects needing to be put out of their misery. They need YOU to put them out of their misery.

Yes. It was so clear they needed… you?... not, me?

“Who’s there?” I said, a low growl of anger creeping into my statement.

What am I doing now? Shouting at ghosts?

There it was again. But it didn’t make any sense. I’d been designed to contain a mind make up almost entirely of emotions, and strengthened to hold it indefinitely, conversely it meant that nothing could come in either. It couldn’t possibly be a telepathic suggestion.

I don’t have time for this, I should be taking out those two blasted diarchs and showing the world what real order looks like.

‘My way isn’t orderly’, I mentally shouted, attempting to drown out the invading thoughts. I could think my way out, step by step, there is a madness to my method. It is so simple. It’s all for the logical conclusion of my maker, to bring eternal night. She saw the inequities that life brings by something so innocuous as a circadian rhythm. To rectify the situation she attempted to let their only be one sky, unchanging and equal for all. But it wasn’t enough, there was still life, there was still motion, and worse, there was nothing I could do to help my maker achieve her dream… until I fused with an alien of the highest caliber, not even from my universe. His unique perspective allowed me to see the universal symphony, and all I’d have to do was become the conductor, and then there would be rest.

It would take gratuitous amounts of power, enough to take the ever changing forms of life, of changing order to fit the new thoughts and ideas, and bring about perfect chaos. No movement, no thought, forever frozen in one place. Not a time stop, but something infinitely more elegant: a singularity. A thing of such beauty that to experience it the entirety of existence would appear to be a void until movement was initiated. Only then would the particles of light finally hit your eyes, reflect, and warp as they are pushed aside as you move forward as you try to take in more, each step resulting in a blinking picture as you plant each footfall, stopping your movement for fractions of a second. And it would last forever. A perfect stillness that not even magic and souls would need feel the changes of time upon their immortal beings. No more chance. No more change. A complete absence of probability.

Any buffoon could discern that order, in its purest sense, was change. If it wasn’t, it would stagnate, it wouldn’t be something one was told to strive for, and it wouldn’t be so rigidly structured. Chaos was what was fair. So intrinsic to being that you could feel it’s workings. No authority to hold itself up to, it simply was. It existed. Incapable of favorites, it was fair. I’d been able to see past the strings of my own universe once I’d begun to steal information from... the... human.

No movement, no great button marked for a timer to start. It was but a single thought, a single word that rocked the citadel into sudden collapsing ruin. Human. That was it. The armor, the citadel, and the voices that came from within, but were not my own, silenced as the speck of realization bloomed in a sudden fury. It was the human, not that the one I held was of particular worth, but it was the fact he wasn’t FROM here. He wasn’t subject to the spirit of the laws that held both me and the ignorant masses in thrall.

The mountain of crystal glass came to a stop as I began to orientate myself out of the fine white dust that was now free to move with the wind. It was all so clear, or at least it had to be. I’d been given a new perspective on life, and I couldn’t possibly let myself become affected by this universe's laws. I wasn’t some cliché villain to make long winded speeches that let my opposing counterpart get an otherwise unobtainable advantage. By trying to move as fast as I’d done, I’d gotten too much attention. Worse, I’d done so by aligning with malcontents who couldn’t see past their own lifetime. I couldn’t let this hold me back, I had to move back under the radar and be unnoticed. I needed to detox from all of those who had twisted their causality to or even near my own. But that was fine; I could afford to wait, as could my host body. I just needed for their strings of causality to pass with the natural ending of their lives, dissipating from my own. I could start again without fear of sudden losses of time, power fluctuations that just as well shrink as grow given whatever whim of chance or fate decided. All I needed to do was wait and I could prevent the rest of a backlash, no more blackouts, no more time jumps. ‘And no more excess emotions,’ I thought as the disgust of the failures of organics as well as pity towards their imperfections began to fade as logic began to fill me again.

Complete.

Chaotic.

Control.

***Crowley***

“I do believe that your plans have gone awry Master Trance,” I quietly said as he wiped away a tear that was solely for the benefit of the guardspony in front of him who’d come to interview him as well as the other survivors from the white monster that had attacked. The pony gave me little heed, after his initial raised eyebrow of shock that I could indeed form a complete sentence with multisyllabic words. Trance only continued to sniffle quietly, making sure to look as though he were trying his best to maintain a strong upper lip. It was only when the guardspony left, hot cocoa drinks had been distributed, and a kind word had been given from another member of the guard of where therapy might be found that he expelled the accumulated phlegm from his nostrils and wiped the excess moisture from his eyes and turned to me with his usual calculated smile and said, “Why, I do believe you just attempted a joke, didn’t you Crowley?”

“As a matter of fact I did sir. Still, at this point in time I should like to remind you that I do not form plans in quite the same way that you do. Also, if it would not be too much a bother, I should like to be given some news on your recent recalculations, infantile as they are at this stage, to not only ease my own worry but so that I might begin to realize how I might continue to serve you in the most efficient manner.”

Already on his feet and moving out of the crowded retro-fitted reception hospital room and out into the city it was precisely three and one-half blocks before he replied in his calm voice and said, “You don’t have anything to do Crowley, in fact, neither do I or even Forge. As it now stands we’re just going to sit back, wait for my assists to inconspicuously move to a place where I can use them to start working on our latest anti-extraterrestrial weapon facility, and simply let someone else deal with the problem. I think one million bits should be a sufficient bounty, don’t you?”

“It should be sir, I’ll get right on that once your tea is ready. And here’s my latest report,” I calmly said, and reached out my paw into the air, and just as always the weight lifted from my hand, and I knew it was gone.

“Good dog,” he said, and after a few moments as the sound of pages quickly flipping he stopped, and said, “it looks like another of the old fairy tales has come to proven itself true yet again. This time it’s the Crystal Kingdom, next thing you know Atlantis will be rising from the depths. They really do just enjoy trying my patience don’t they?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it sir."