//------------------------------// // Pinprick Pupils // Story: Dark Not Like Him // by The Real Darkness //------------------------------// “No...dark magic like mine? How is it possible? Who aids Cadance?” Sombra mumbled while he trotted into his reclaimed Empire. He would send scouts, he would gain intelligence over him, and he would wear its hide as a new cloak for himself. “Nopony gets to copy me.” They arrived in Canterlot fine enough until Mittle stepped out of the train in bloodied armor with bandaged Cadance next to him. He gripped his sword at the mumurs and whisperings of all the ponies around, ready to defend the one who asked him. Mittle was not privileged enough to ever be assigned time to guard someone. Those designations were reserved for the Blood Thunder Knights who had been in the Order for years with very frayed sanities left. Cadance galloped down the street with Mittle quickly sprinting behind her to keep up. The two of them headed toward the castle and were enclosed in blue and yellow magic. The two of them were flashed and teleported into the white marble throne room of Canterlot. Stained glass bled light of all diferent colors in to just better illuminate the reason of their arrival. “Cadance, who is this?” Luna directed to Mittle who kept close the the Princess of Love, sword in both hands. “Mittle, he helped me escape from the Crystal Empire. Au-.” “Escape? Cadance, what has happened?” Celestia came off the throne pedestal along with Luna, “I see you’ve sacrificed much to get our Cadance here,” Celestia directed at him. “But your duty is done, you may leave,” Luna affirmed with a harsher tone, he didn’t argue but turned around and walked back the way he came. This was no longer his mission, task accomplished. Mittle felt a pang of fear in his chest. He wasn’t hurt personally by them, but when a Blood Thunder Knight had no duties or orders to carry out they often became problematic. Their issues ranged from self-inflicted wounds to torture of all kinds, they always ended in homicides. Nobody could make sense of their conlusions other than a want to sate the curiousity of the images they were shown. If Mittle wasn’t needed here, then he’d go back to the Empire himself and pick a fight to be useful and placate the abominations away. Or he could seek them out again and try to gain more strength or understanding to ease the things he had seen. He could make his own silent room to live another Vehement out, far away from-. “No,” Cadance spoke up, “Mittle’s under my rule, he listens to my orders alone. Mittle, you are to stay by my side and ensure my safety. He appeared in my Empire.” That’s all it took for him to turn back around once more and take to her side in vigilance. It didn’t matter that there was no danger here, it mattered that he could focus on something besides the constant images flowing through his head. “Why are you so firm as to keep him around? He owes you no allegiance,” Luna questioned, staring into his helmet and seeing his tiny pupils, “he’s disturbed, sister. Dangerous and unpredictable.” Celestia rose her eyes up, but in that one second of eye contact she saw more than she wished to. She was even foolish enough to let down her firm mental guard and she caught a glimpse of one horrific scene of fire, Canterlot, a black sun, and a mass of eyes above this castle. Mittle had no intention of passing this scene he saw himself to her, but this was the wish of these abominable bestowers of his gifts. “Mittle saved me. He bandaged my wing, fought against Sombra’s forces, and got me out of the Empire safely.” “Sombra?!” Luna lowered her head to meet Cadance’s eyes, “Sombra took the Empire?!” Cadance nodded her head. “We must gather our own forces and retake it. I’ll notify Twilight,” Celestia announced, her horn lighting and a paper on the throne room pedestal vanished in green flame, “does he sit on the Empire’s throne?” “I do not know, I never saw him attack personally,” Cadance answered. Mittle opened his mouth, his voice echoed within his helmet softly, “attacked with legions of creatures and weaponry. Ponies were no match, those that didn’t die were forced into enslavement and mind control. Your army will fall victim and grow his numbers,” Mittle gasped as another image plagued his mind, but this one was of a pair of red eyes and green wisps of black magic. Out out out out out out....out out... Mittle mumbled as he held his head with a voice that wasn’t his, he could fell an entity press on the walls of his mind. This was not one of the usual horrors, something knew his abilities and prodded at his mind with that connection. “What ails him?” Luna pointed to Mittle, addressing Cadance. Mittle had leaned over, gripping the sides of his helmet. He tried with all his might to force it away. “He’s scarred by something, something that gives him his powers,” Cadance looked to him hile Luna and Celestia refused to even glance at his mental lapse. “Vehement, I need to Vehement,” Mittle spoke louder, “I need a dark room, no sound, no light, nothing. Give me bucket, give me water, no food. One week in there,” he hoarsely managed out in a quickened tongue. “Is that a ritual he is describing?” Luna was braver than her sister to address Mittle as he clutched his head. Mittle’s armor rippled unnaturally, as if his very body bloated from his core and then extended with extra fluids to his limbs and then extremities. His plate armor had made a motion very similar to a heart. Sombra was then gone from his mind as tiny droplets of blood left the gaps of plate metal. His crimson stained the marble floor in just a few splotches before his blood clotted again. “Cadance, I trust your judgement, but be wary of him. He seems unstable,” Cadance could tell that Luna was lying, she didn’t trust her or him at all. Luna knew she wouldn’t win an arguement to banish him away though, better to keep an enemy under surveilance. Blood Thunder Knights were very accustomed to be talked about in this manner. Nobody wanted to acknowledge them as a person in the room. “If he must do some kind of ritual during his stay, he can make use of the dungeons,” Celestia answered, her eyes afixed to the ground, “to appease the things that have touched him...I’ll allow it,” Luna looked to her sister in shock. Cadance nudged her head to Mittle’s side, “I’m going to take my normal room when I visit. I want Mittle to take the one next to it,” she trotted away. “Well, we suppose there is nothing more to be discussed until we get an army gathered and Twilight arrives,” Luna commented and began whispering to her sister. Mittle, per the earlier orders, kept close to Cadance the entire way to her the suite she called a room. He had pressed bad hard enough to win a more mental fortitude. “Were you going to head back to the Empire?” Cadance spoke as soon as the door shut. Mittle nodded to her question, “you’d have ended up dead. What is even in your mind?” “The dungeon, I can help retake your Empire, but I need to use the dungeon,” Mittle spoke, “Blood Thunder Order practices are not secret...” “Then why not tell me why you are this...distraught all the time?” Cadance began to pace back and forth while Mittle kept silent. His mind willingly turned to the scenes he was shown, to gods of other worlds, to creatures hidden beyond a veil called sanity. During the Vehement, it was expected that sanity would be momentarily upheaved and the horrors would come in and leave their gifts. The Blood Thunder Knights only had one recorded instance when sanity was broken on a battlefield. The written text was constantly dripping with blood that never stopped flowing, black liquid from those who committed the harrowing sight. Past the void of blood, the first sentence was the only legible record. If you tried to talk to the older Knights of the Order who saw it, they’d immediately start thrashing to dig into their own skin with their nails, teeth, and whatever else they could use. The Knight who lifted the curtain then lived as an almost lifeless husk of himself. Bound and locked away, force fed with tubes. Those who entered his chamber to care for him were always deaf by birth, selectively chosen for it. “Princess Cadance, those in our order who have lived long and seen many become maimed in their minds. They live almost completely paralyzed with ability over their functions,” Mittle finally broke the silence, “there is one thing I can share,” he was forcing himself to speak all these words, talking sometimes helped, but having another who understood the things he did helped more. And he was far away from any brothers or sisters of his order. Cadance stopped pacing, coming back to stand in front of him while his fingers fidget under his chestplate. The thick black metal began to come off, “you don’t have to show me, Mittle,” Cadance tried to dissuade him. These things were not purposefully kept secrets. In fact, if you asked about their practices; you’d be given free information. Any question would be answered. The reality was nobody wanted to inquire about their order, nobody wanted to see or hear it. The Knights respected that and actively hid sounds and sights to not burden others with grisly sights. He pulled the black metal off to show the bare skin underneath with a sigil that warped and bended. It curved and zagged in ways incomprehensible. This line was too long, that one was too short, this one was moving, and here this curved line twisted and oscillated horribly. The black sigil winded around his flesh, also moving it, and proving that no known laws of geometry or physics applied to it. Cadance’s eyes widened as she studied it for just a couple of second before backing away from Mittle and looking to the floor. She could only guess what kinds of things Celestia saw when she made eye contact with him. If seeing this physical manifestation was this disturbing, what kind of things was Mittle seeing? “You can put your breastplate back on,” Cadance whispered and Mittle complied, his mind just a little more calm. He fiddled with the locks and straps and fit the piece back on, “Princess Cadance,” Mittle reached his gauntleted hand out and laid it on her neck, “thank you. I need to go to the dungeon for a week and then I will help you retake your Empire. I will keep you safe.” She looked to his hand and then to him, locking her eyes to his and nodding. She felt something tap on her mental willpower, but it left as soon as it came. Cadance smiled wide to him and nudged Mittle to leave the room with her to get him prepared for this ritual of his. She looked to the floor as she lead him on and whispered. ”What an enormous sacrifice.”