Dark Not Like Him

by The Real Darkness

March

In the raging and blinding snow, no pony could make Sombra out. He loved the spotlight, but he knew this concealing of himself was necessary. If he revealed himself directly, those seven elements would blast him away before he even began a real reign of terror. This time would be different.

This time he would succeed with his army of Yaks and Griffons all hidden by the snow, armored and helmeted with enslaving magic and black crystal armaments.

King Sombra raised his hoof and pointed it forth while his horn crackled with deathly magic. A sphere encased the Crystal Empire, allowing only his own troops to enter en masse before he sealed that even.

And he cackled away in the snowstorm, knowing his Empire would soon be his.

---

“Mmmmm, sweet smell, exquisite taste,” human eyes peered past the cross eye slits of a helmet, looking at the black shield above him, “I would love to meet whoever casts such magic. Another Knight maybe?”

He stood in his full charred black armor, tall and proud with nobody around to see him. He was drawn out of the blood frontline from his rotation, teleported and drawn from his unholy connection to forbidden magics. Mittle looked to his arms, seeing the cuts in his skin right in the gaps between plates. Sweet red still oozed from his self-inflicted wounds with purpose.

After Mittle finished peering up to the whited out sky for such a long time, he looked down to the sounds of battle across the streets of this city made of gemstones. It was another war, a common place for dark magics, but this was not the one he was supposed to be fighting. Not the one he was ordered to either. Mittle turned away from the balcony railing of the giant tower he was on, intent on heading inside for a bit of exploration.

Once he had survived his Vehement trial, he didn’t care much to think for himself. He’d gladly fight so he didn’t remember all those horrors he had seen, real or imagined. He’d gladly take an order and carry it out so it was a singular focus for his troubled mind.

“Somepony! Please!” A pink equine from myths and fairytales jumped past the balcony doors and dodged behind him, “please, do something!”

His spine chilled, something unnatural heard this plea for help across space, constructs of time, and worlds. An opportunity.

And it was no surprise that he followed the request of the first creature that asked him.

Yaks poured to the door and with a simple twinge of his ivory sword, Mittle’s blood twisted around the blade in helices. A loud boom reverberated out as all the creatures before him were blasted back with gaping wounds from lightning, red as his own life essence.

“Please, get to Canterlot, get me and anypony you can out of here!” The equine ordered more than asked of him.

“Who...what are you?” He turned back, the immediate threat having been dealt with. Self-preservation was still built into himself, though he preferred to spend every waking moment trying to outrun the nightmares that were burned into his head.

“Princess Cadance, alicorn, now please hurry!” She pushed him into the palace, “I’ll tell you where to go.”

He nodded, hefting his blood traced white blade into both his hands while he dripped red down his armor. Mittle focused solely on the task he was just given by someone who resembled authority. This was the only drawback of gaining this unholy power, they’d do anything to take their mind away from the images they’d seen. Soak fields in red, carry out orders faithlessly, dedicate to one sole idea or person blindly. It was a closely guarded secret of his order.

---

Mittle lead with Cadence behind him, she’d direct him down what staircase, which hallway, through what door, and eventually the two of them made it out. Mittle had left many bodies of yaks and griffons alike, missing limbs, heads, and split apart at different angles. The streets of the Crystal Empire was a scene of opposite forces displayed over the ground in the same manner. Though, many more ponies were wearing the helmets the yaks and griffons were. Many more bodies were in one piece than the sharpened unnatural ivory in Mittle’s hand left them.

“That way! The train station! Quickly!” Cadance pointed her hoof to Mittle’s left.

Mittle could see the princess fly out above him, leading him as she soared quickly in the open air. He clanged along in his armor, running after through the chaos. Not a single enemy was paying him any attention and they all instead focused on Cadance.

“Agghh, ahhh!” Cadance screamed as an arrow pierced one of her wings, tumbling through the air with a screech. All of the helmet wearing savages enclosed toward her position.

Don’t fail or The Room for another week.

Mittle gripped his sword with both hands, slaughtering his way through. There was a very grotesque reason why his order wore such complete and concealing armor. A second reason for its color. A black tendril shot from his arm, impaling multiple bodies as it fought almost to Cadance.

Crack

A boom cut through the violence, red lightning ripped through the entire horde around the princess. The blue gemstone pathway quickly shifted to a disturbing red. Mittle wasted no time, the tendril retracting into his arm, and made his way to Cadance. He scooped her up in his left arm, covering her in his own blood that spewed much more freely after his gamble. Mittle lugged her along on his shoulder, stopping to block this blade and slash that chest.

Since he’d already unleashed a Hell, he used the red lightning that crackled along his ivory sword freely. The train station was incredibly easy to reach. Princess Cadance started it herself and the train chugged along quickly. The two were sped away from danger.

“We...we couldn’t save anypony,” Cadance sat in one of the booths dejected, “how can we do that?” She looked up to him.

Failed. Vehement soon.

Cadance couldn’t see past his helmet, but just from the tiniest tilt towards the floor she knew something clicked in him at her words. Being a ruler meant she had grown quite the empathic ability, she could see his despondent eyes despite the cross slits hiding them.

“Hey, it’s not your fault. You got me out and we don’t know if there was saving anypony with how bad it had gotten so quick,” she lifted his helmet and he didn’t stop her. It clattered to the ground once she lost concentration of her levitation spell, “o..oh,” a gasp left her lips, “are you injured?” Her eyes looked down from his face to the blood of his that pooled on the train floor.

His face could almost be considered blasphemized. The fading outline of an unknown sigil dispersed from his face, capillaries and veins were still engorged almost unhealthily. Mittle had seen what the worst of his order could look like. He took a little comfort in knowing he didn’t look like the best warrior they had.

“No,” Mittle responded and let a silence pass, “yes,” he corrected himself and slid his gauntlets off to show the blood dripping away. It had only slowed a little since he cleared away the mob that almost descended on Cadance.

Mittle reached into his chestplate and pulled many scrunched up bandages out. He binded his wounds just as good as any other sawbones could. This was a practice that his whole order were professionals in, they had to be if they wanted to live to the next fight. Sometimes they’d choose not to and just bleed out as a way of escaping the horrors they heard and saw for their power. Mittle’s mind was still freshly concentrated on those images, on the impending Vehement.

“Who are you?” Cadance finally looked back up to him, seeing a bit more of a normal face, “and how did you do all that to save me?”

“I am Mittle of the Blood Thunder Knights,” he recited his name and his order, “I...will not say how I became who I am now,” his mind shuddered at the faces, the shapes, and the sizzles the barraged his mind upon a thin wall of sanity.

Princess Cadance nodded, “I see. Thank you for rescuing me. I don’t know how you got there at just the right time, but I’m grateful. Is it okay if you come with me to inform Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of Sombra’s invasion?”

“Yes,” Mittle nodded without hesitation, “I’ll guard and accompany you,” another order meant another task to focus on, the more the better, “where?”

“Canterlot...are you even from Equestria?” He shook his head while he finished binding his wounds, “then, what are you?” Cadance questioned him. She already knew he was trustworthy, but knowing anything about him would help build that further.

“A human. I’m not from anywhere around here,” Mittle kept himself brief. Cadance didn’t quite like that herself, she knew his name and affliation, but nothing actually concrete about him. He didn’t even know if what he said was entirely true, but it was true enough to say.

Mittle not wanting to say how he performed the magic he did left him just as mysterious.

“If you’re wondering, I will protect you. I need to.”

Cadance shook her head, snapping out from the images of fleeing the Empire, “wha-what? You felt the need to say that?”

“You lost your land, your kingdom. I lost my ruler, my superiors, and my orders,” Mittle slowly bent down and grasped his helmet, “I need something to hold onto,” he almost mumbled his last words while he slotted the helmet on. Mittle finally took a seat in the booth next to her. His arms had stopped painting the floor of the train car.

Cadance knew these words, this kind of a lost soul. This is someone who’s only known fear and keeps looking forward afraid to look back. Was Mittle even cared for? Was Mittle even aware there were other pursuits besides his career? Her head bubbled around with questions.

“Mittle, you should sleep until we arrive,” she tried to offer him a simple kindness.

His bloodied fingers were already tangling through her feathers until he found the arrow, seeing that it had made a clean entry and exit. With no hesitation he yanked the arrow out, causing minmal extra damage to Cadance’s wing.

“Ahhh, ah...ow ow,” Cadance exasperated out pain through her clenched teeth, “a little warning next time, please.”

He paid her no mind, his hand was already pulling bandages from his chestplate. Mittle bound around the wing, the arrow was close to bone, but it didn’t hit it thankfully. It was possible that it deflected over and fractured, but that’d be healed by the time the flesh mended back together. Mittle was gentle at binding, though it was tight, and he then proveeded to bind the entire wing against her side, looping around her midsection and under her other wing. He wanted it secured in place just in case there was some bone bits that needed to fuse back together.

“No flying,” he whispered out while he withdrew his hands, holding the arrow in front of her eyes so she could see the broadhead.

“You’re...a good medic,” Cadance commented, “but you don’t have painkillers on you, huh?” A small little smile curved into the corners of her lips.

Mittle shook his head and stood back up, taking a seat across from her and looking over his alabaster blade. The tangles of his blood had long since dripped and fallen away. The magical blade was still just as strong as ever. All the knights of his order knew it was some kind of ivory material, made of some kind of tusk, but not what animal. The bone was always there after their first Vehement. The owner could choose the style of hilt for their weapon and there were always holes for metal to be molded in properly as well.

Like the horrors themselves expected some kind of agreement with them, their sanities.

“It’s pretty,” Cadance interrupted his thoughts.

“It’s horrid.”

“It looks like it’s made of ivory like a tusk. It must have been expensive, why fight with it?”

Mittle didn’t mind opening up about this, “I don’t know what animal tusk it is made from. It’s magical, it stays sharpened all on its own and it never breaks,” his voice was soft, but echoed within his helmet, “it attunes to blood easy, too.”

Cadance pondered that, attune to blood. It was evident from how his blood twisted around the sword earlier that this was true, “why, Mittle?” And she asked the burning question.

The rest of the train ride went quietly, even after Mittle rose from the booth across her and stood next to her. He gripped his sword tightly and began a hypervigilance to guard and protect her from everything else on the empty train. Anything to keep the abominations away.

Comments

[OP Omni God-Emperor Doom]

You do mentioned the Yaks, but not the Griffons as well in the summary? Only the tags.

And is this "blood knight" a blood bender or something from Bloodborne?

Is that why he keeps injuring himself for a little to no reason?

[The Real Darkness]

11885216
Fixed, I had worked on this for about two weeks and this was my second proofreading and I stil frickin’ missed that.

More similar to bloodborne as blood is used as a fuel, not as a direct weapon.