Author's Notes:

Number of Edits: 4
Number of OCs: 1
(for OC info look back at last chapter, more welcome just pm)
We ask for honesty in words by others when reading of our human, also there was no editor except us..

The Condemned and Seeds of Hate

The Dungeons - Crystal Empire - Sombra Perspective

The smell of fear and anguish can be easily taken in with some who sounded defiant for whatever reason they had, but our focus was on Emperor Shatter Hoof leading us for some reason beyond current knowing. But soon we were upon the interrogation room as the first thing we saw were three individuals one being an Earth Pony, another being a Griffin and lastly a Zebra.

The confusion was clear on our face as Shatter Hoof just looked them over with mild contempt before uttering these words onto us. “Well boy, choose one of them to end by thou own hand. For they all are to die for conspiracy against the Empire.” Our shock only deepened more before the flash of memories as we had killed unknowingly the one whom we have become, it feels as though our stomach needs to be stronger. ‘Or our feelings of compassion to be deadened.’

He smiled at our own reaction before giving what we think is his malicious grin, one he avoids giving around his family for we felt a shiver. “Boy thou WILL make the choice, as there will be a bit of practice to be had with thou new access to magic, seeing as how we lack proper methods of teaching we shall use OURS…” We felt terrified for our living being, even the guards we took note of gave a shiver. One looked to even be praying for our soul, wait WHAT?!?

Taking a moment to calm our thoughts, looking upon the three prisoners bound before us like prizes to slaughter. They each had hoods over their head to cover their identity and our own, but by how they shifted we knew they were uncomfortable thinking that someone who might be a young colt having to kill one of them, the earth pony reacted the worse while the zebra she merely muttered a prayer for our action.

But our eyes focused on the golden feathered Griffin as she didn’t move but her body showed the signs of torture and rape that felt, difficult to comprehend in our mind for such things to be allowed but another part told us it was ‘common’ to treat outsiders who commit crime horribly, we presume she would be an incredible flier with few to match her build but to our shame we knew our eyes lingered on her form with almost no clothing on her and what left was stained by fluids...

Others could see us just silently look at her before our gaze shifted to the left towards the brown Earth Pony stallion, we saw his mark as being a hammer striking something, the torture had left half of it burned beyond recognizing but his was only physical before our eyes saw older wounds and possibly early signs of frostbite affects. He’ll likely lose a few fingers and a hoof if they were to let him live, if he would survive with no treatment and was lucky, he was undoubtedly older out of the three and held a Strong Presence even in his broken state.
Finally we looked upon the zebra and our brow raised at her condition being ‘nearly’ perfect despite a few bruises and thoroughly chained more than the other two, one of the main nasty rumors were that zebras knew arts that raised the dead or even excelled at assassinations, but our brow only furrowed further when in wonder WHY she was better when the griffin was not, or WHY she was chained and not the earth pony stallion? All we knew was that a choice had to be made by us.

In our thoughts two figures appeared, one the first we had killed also called Sombra. He held a sneer looking over what we had especially the earth pony and demanded that we kill him, but was interrupted by the other image being our necklace proposing that we kill the zebra due to her mystical arts, while we stood in the middle torn between the choices as three weapons appeared in our thoughts in choice.
The first was a shifting melee weapon made of pure Amethyst crystal that was made for strength and melee combat, the second was a similarly shifting pole based weapon as it too was made out of amethyst crystals, lastly was a staff that pulsed as another focus though looked as if plucked unshaped from one of the mines of pure amethyst with runes littering across it. We made the choice as our counterpart Sombra gloated when we clutched the Gem Sword as our choice.

To the guards and Emperor Shatter Hoof saw our magic course from our left hand for the first time as a pure sharpened Amethyst bastard sword formed within our clutching grasp, if we were paying any attention the growing smirk and sparkling eyes on Shatter Hoof’s face would have told us volumes of his madness. We lifted our sword pointing at the griffin in the middle and the other two prisoners were pulled back, leaning forward we whispered into her hooded head this. “We are truly sorry, may thou forgive us for this hopefully swift action.”

She merely nodded her head and offered her neck with a whimper, we stood at her side and raised our sword high in gesture of our action then swung downward with speed that made the gem blade HUM with approval that felt like a symphony of song to the dying. The next sound that ended the song was that of a thick clean cut with our shadow lashing out at the griffin’s corpse that same moment, the SURGE felt empowering, but the HATE bubbled and lashed with our body feeling a change coursing through our veins, the sound of the other two being killed didn’t reach our ears nor our eyes left the spot she was at, but we FELT our shadow pulling something else within us.

It didn’t feel the same as with the griffin, we felt their skill and maybe their abilities wash into us but nothing else. With the griffin we felt as if we consumed her in a more personal way, memories or maybe a new presence within US, it was like a touch rested upon our shoulder in consoling yet filling us with HATE…

We felt tears in our eyes after we saw our vision was blurry when our head raised and looked at those in the room, the guards who were stoic and neutral to us before were now showing unadulterated FEAR towards us and had fled to the other half of the room while Emperor Shatter Hoof just smiled where he stood. “Thou task is done boy, thou may just grow a spine yet if we keep this up! Guards, bring in the next batch for us to continue. At most three more groups of three for this undertaking, since it’ll clear up the cells a bit as we wouldn’t want to have him be overworked.”

Our Home – House Onyx – Nightfall - Sombra Perspective

We simply sat in our new study on the chair by a warm fire and looked at our hand as if it was diseased filth, yet that sensation covered us like the swings of our blade upon four necks this day, the first was the Female Griffin, the second was a Female scarred Diamond Dog , the third a Female Unicorn Pony, the fourth was a Female Earth Pony. Those four stuck out to us, something moved in us when we saw that they were the worse treated yet their talents harmonized inside us, our tears were black water upon each beheading and ignored what our shadow did as it consumed the other two with each group.

Rumor had spread quickly after we left as every guard showed fear looking at us and kept from being impolite while the odd one was our king, he REVELED in our action or magical show though unintended did please him. We felt forgiveness from those we ended but that same HATE collected and bubbled up from our depths, the feeling of a dam was being put up to push it back to let it not consume us, it was odd as it felt like others were helping us steel our mind and erect fortifications while the others our shadow consumed were soldiers to be commanded under them.

The new servants at our new manor felt alien to us, in truth it was hilarious in some cases because senses from both griffin and dog told us that they were frightened and also trying to gain our favor though we knew some were not loyal for some reason, it may have been the earth pony among the consumed who had a talent for reading others and manipulating, the unicorn had a talent for magic which we felt our potential horizon was broadened, perhaps her talent was magic? The Diamond Dog was an interesting one for knowing how to work gems into useful things with intricate carving for added effect while skilled in hit and run tactics on the ground or under it, but the griffin was a battle genius with calculating ease but was being wasted.

They were all being WASTED until under one means or another sent here through unknown third party but the earth pony knew her contact was somepony trusted in the New Equestrian Military. That would be troubling as depending on how this will go if into a war we’ll be overwhelmed at our current state from the presences we have from their information put together from spying or sabotage. But this HATE is distracting, it needs to be channeled into something useful, but the unicorns suggest using our magic with another’s talent we ‘gotten’, [Undying Loyalty] we think it’s called.

“Summon the Knight Captain and Head Servant, I wish to converse with each of them separately to learn more about those who I may call ‘friends’. Have the later bring our diner here when they come.” We instructed a maid, taking the time to center ourselves by meditation as these new presences need structure to better commune with. Though being close to diner we’ll likely only get two servants ‘converted’ tonight in-between partaking of gems in their delectable states, it would be nearly impossible to poison us it would guess.

The thought just concluded when the door knocked. “Excuse us milord” a jade coated Crystal mare with a ruby mane entered wearing crystal armor with her helmet in arm as she closed the door and strode closer before taking knee, she raised her eyes and barely flinched seeing our eyes as her pupils shrunk a bit before recovering her composure. “We requested to speak first in hopes to show thou of our intentions as a new Dame under thou by Princess Crystal Heart offering us.” She soon after placed down her helmet and presented her hammer that has our emblem on it.

Looking her over she gave off a lower born’s accent and noted she had not said her name yet until we remembered she was likely to be from Crystal Heart’s strange ‘worship’ who gave up their names when going into service under her, it felt wrong in some ways but our test will hopefully cut any and all ties to others and only to us. “New Dame, under our service would thou PROMISE us complete loyalty and protect us and be commanded to the best of thou's ability?” Looking into her eyes from her kneeled position to see any sign of faltering.

“We shall swear it and continue to do so for it is our DUTY-” We didn’t let her finish as our left hand had lifted and surged from using [Undying Loyalty] our hopeful successful ability into the young adult mare, our essence funneled into her EYES making her body rigorously jolt and spasm from possible pain though she endured and when the tail end of our essence left our palm and ended in her eyes. By the divine we saw the change, the edges of her closed eyes seeped a purple and the opening of them were showing a black with amethyst irises that GLOWED with joy, we literally ‘felt’ her devotion for us radiating off her like a star shining in the night sky. “- and we shall HATE thou’s enemies and smote them into dust!”

That change of light hearted religious fealty was now hardline fervor towards us like we were god, in some parts of us it scared us by how quick she had changed but at least we knew it worked. By that time another knock took place as a butler came in with a disdainful slight frown seeing her kneeled before us before shifting it to a false smile when taking careful steps in our view while having a silver tray with gems carefully piled onto a plate separated by types with a bowl for smaller ‘finger’ sized gems. “Duke Sombra of House Onyx, we am Crystal Clear as thou’s Head Butler for every need or task thou wishes of us.”

He gave off a refined tone of voice as if having practiced what he was going to see to try and have us see him in the best light as possible, perhaps his name alone lets him see the intentions of others just as ‘clearly’. When he placed the tray on the stand beside the chair we have been sitting in since we came gave us time to rest, though now hopefully this will go just as smoothly. “We would hope that thou will give us a similar oath of fealty as our Knight Captain has? These are dark times and we’ll need our servants’ complete trust to flourish.”

We saw his eye travel to the now risen Dame before us as she eyed him with suspicion clear upon her face. He gave her another forced smile before looking back at us when she took her weapon in hand hefting the Crystal Maul with ease only made him move into a kneeling stance with flourish of moving his hands wide showing no weapons presentable, likely would have some under his butler attire perhaps.

When his eyes moved up to meet ours he spoke just as rehearsed a tone still. “We will endeavor to show our new lord he has nothing to-“ his words were stopped as our eyes flicked down from our Dame to his head and silently she grabbed his neck holding him down forcing his hands to plant on the flooring and head tilted back to look into our eyes before he activated our ability [Undying Loyalty] once more upon now our second test subject, the essence from our hand flowed into his eyes just as harshly and we saw that it had the benefit of silencing them due to possible pain through conversion to us.

His spasm was subdued due to our Dame’s Hold upon his neck as we saw it was possibly more difficult on him than it was on her as it felt like he had another allegiance that we were overwriting at present, but eventually the extended casting of our ability ends leaving us drained more than the earlier beheadings. But our task had results as when his eyes opened they were just like our Knight Captain, he gave an HONEST smile towards us now.

“- FEAR as we devote our being as thou humble servant and provide information on the rival house who had us try and sneak in to steal thou secrets before our horrid mistake was revealed to our eyes.” He had finished with a loyal malicious grin crossed his features while our Dame gave a similar smile, but we soon pointed to her as she stood strait ready to be commanded. “Knight Captain, retake thou former name under our command with pride. Also present it than starting tomorrow organize the guards placed under our House’s Command and have three of them meet us later that day.”

Pointing to Crystal Clear now with the same hand as he stood with poise, glowing with pride from what is to come from our lips. “Organize the servants as well and choose candidates whom seem the least loyal to meet with us during mid-day one at a time while giving us time to rest before the Captain is to send.” We sighed after with a rub of our head and soon noticed the three gems presented to us by Crystal Clear that we took to eating as the first tasted like blueberries with the second to taste like apples and the last to taste like lemons.

Tomorrow has much to bring, though at least we don’t have to worry about immediate death. “Milord, as thou Devout Knight Captain our birth name being Dark Faith. We once were ashamed of our destiny but fully embrace it under thou our handsome lord!” Also possibly worry about a start of a new worship centered on us if not already by non-magic users hoping to achieve what we did, there will be a lot of HATE to come from what our friend tells us..