The arriving that morning wasn't so happy. Carrying the dead soldier by the complex was the most depressing that happened in ages in the cult, and the state of the body wasn't the most pleasing to look at.

Mothers covering the eyes of their foals, while shocked with the scene, and behind the two soldiers carrying the hammock, four soldiers wounded by the bullets of the battle they fought, and two with their eyes wide open in shock and face pale as if some ghost stole their poor souls from their bodies. They were clearly shocked by the experience and they wouldn't go soon back into their militar activities.

A group of three nurses took them carefully to the small hospital zone, after Sigil tell them what was wrong with them. And without asking, some cultists started preparing the funeral of the fallen soldier, down near the dungeon, a burial place was situated with some tombs dedicated to It's death members.

During the funeral, Mane stood with his head down by the entrace of the underground burial site, and Pinkamena next to him by the other side of the door. They closed the coffin after the prays and something caught Mane's eye, Sigil talking with an orange mare which started crying and the leader comforted her with a hug while she kept crying and crying over her shoulder.
It was probably the soldier's best friend or even girlfriend, and that made Mane even sadder, making him leave the place when they started to bury the coffin.

Pinkamena followed him with a fast pace, but as soon she putted her hand on his shoulder, Mane shoved her hand away and kept walking upstairs to his room, and closed the door with a loud banging.

He kicked a chair in anger, and threw himself on the bed crying and screaming against the sheets to muffle his noises, as if he was being tortured non stop, with a pain in his chest.

Outside the room, Pinkamena stood worried for him, hearing his muffled cries, and Copper Spear showed up worried as well for his friend.

"What happened..?" Copper whispered in a sad tone.

"He's too sensitive..." Pinkamena answered sad as well.

"I understand... should we speak to him?"

"I don't know... we should give him some time and space."

"Okay..." Took some time for him to answer. "I'm gonna head back there. Please, don't depress him even more."

"Why would I do that?" The pink mare sounded annoyed with the suggestion.

"Just be careful with what you say, nothing more..." Copper Spear turned around and walked slowly to the stairs again.

Pinkamena looked at the bedroom's door, and the noises of kicking stuff and punches on the bed's mattress stopped. She took a depp breath and knocked at the door.

"Mane?" She called but no answer. "I'm gonna enter, okay..?"

She slowly opened the door with a squeaking noise, and found Mane laying on the carpet with arms and legs open, without his vest on, breathing heavily and sobbing, looking at the rock ceiling with his eyes full of tears. He didn't move from his position and Pinkamena approached carefully.

"Mane?"

"Leave me alone." He ordered.

"I want to help."

"Leave. Please."

"I won't." She sat next to him on the carpet. "What happened, can you tell me?"

He moved his head slightly to the side and look at her on the eyes. She was in fact worried, and took him a time to think in his words.

"All of them got affected by me."

"Hum... not at all."

"What do you mean 'not at all'? Four got wounded not counting Sigil and Copper, two are in shock of battle and worse of all, one death!"

"It was not your fault, they agreed to help us on this, and we both accepted. They saw this coming."

"It should have been me inside that coffin." He said It with a cold voice.

"Mane! What the heck!" She leaned down, closer of him. "Don't. Say. That."

"You don't tell me what to say or not." He rose from the floor and sat on the carpet against the bed. "Look at me. Look... I'm the nephew of one of the most infamous characters in Equestria's history. I try to make the opposite of his actions by making justice in my own way, and what do I get? I'm the most wanted guy around the continent, I'm hunted by the law, my face in criminal posters. Tell me! You tell me! Do I have a reason to live?"

"You do." She answered with a patient sigh.

"No! I don't! Everyday I think if I should stab my chest or jump out a chasm, and join my uncle and all the sick fuckers I killed down in hell! And have nopony to cry for me."

"I would cry..." She held his hands, and he looked back at her with his eyes red from crying. "And Luna too... and your friends back in that bar, and the whole cult here..."

"I'm a nopony..." Mane sighed sadly.

"You are... don't get yourself down like this. Your uncle left a mark in history. A really nasty looking scar, but you are not like him. You're making this world a favor, and better be a unknown hero than a death villain..."

Mane kept his eyes fixed on hers. The silence was heavy in the room, and she changed her place and sat next to him against the bed as well, and they stayed there, looking at the wall of nothing thinking in the moment from before. The most silent five minutes they had together since they met each other.

Pinkamena noticed Mane's vest on the floor next to the bed, and grabbed It slowly and look at the "Sombra" stitched on the back in red gothic looking letters. He looked at her and did nothing, he simply looked while breathing quietly.

"Try It..."

"Wha-what??" Pinkamena turned for him fully surprised by the offer.

"Try It." He repeated in a dull voice.

Was he out of his mind? Knowing him well for some months, that would be the last thing he would say to her or anypony else. Every time she touched It, a time out or simply angry rumble towards her. Took her some time to dare, and the mare took off her leather jacket, and she slowly dressed the vest on top of her grey top tank.
It was a bit too big for her, but It was warm and comfortable. Cozy was the word, and she looked at him and showed a little smile of gratitude.

"Looks good on you..." Mane commented, forming a small but somewhat sad smile.

"T-thank you." She said with a happy expression as if she was about to cry.

"Keep it on for a bit more."

"If you say so." She accepted the offer.

She rested against the bed frame again, and something was off. She started to had a strange feeling over her, as if she was being observed by an evil force. She started to feel cold as if she was with no clothes on top of Mount Everhoof in the middle of a blizzard in winter, and It slowly changed to the complete opposite, now if she was with winter clothes in San Palomino Desert in summer time.
By this point, she was scared but her curiosity made her to keep the vest for some time longer, and a strange energy started flowing through her body, the essence of a lust for power and blood, what made King Sombra what he was...

Pinkamena quickly took the vest off as fast as she could, and gave back to Mane who dressed It back without problems. Her expression on fear and intrigue was clear, and he read the question she had in mind.

"It has no effect on me." Mane said with the same tone from before. "When he got 'cursed', all my family paid the price with the curse too and we had powers we didn't know of. His clothes got possessed too and he was some years older than me. This vest belonged to him and was the only surviving piece, that explains the 'Sombra' in the back, and whoever has the 'Devil Blood'... like me, doesn't suffer the curse's effects."

Pinkamena was frozen in place with the explanation, and now It was clear why she was forbidden to touch It.

"That's why I don't want nopony to touch It."He continued. "One guy once got me in a cage during one of my contracts, and to mock me he wore It in front me, and he didn't care for what It was doing, and some minutes later, the guy fell flat on the floor and went literally crazy. Needless to say, I escaped the cage and killed the poor bastard, besides being a foal kidnapper, I could have left him like that forever so he could suffer but I decided to put him out of his misery."

"Now I understand..." She whispered. "Can you explain this... 'Devil Blood', does It have good and bad sides?"

"It has a balance... which one you wanna know first?"

"The good ones." She answered reluctantly.

"The good perks are, like we saw some nights ago, I can use one of my uncle's powers..." Mane made his arm into black smoke. "I got turn into some kind of shadow form." Then he turned the same arm into grey crystal. "I have a uncommon control in my crystal form without the presence of the Crystal Heart." He turned his arm back to normal. "I can spawn wings but for a very limited time, but I never used them."Now, he swapped his fist into iron, involved in fire, then electricity. "Superior magic powers that Quill taught me, nearly close of Celetia's student, Twilight Sparkle."

"Yeah... she's runs the library in Ponyville. I've seen her before into action, she has skills."

"We had a bad relation in the past. We didn't like each other very much, but I was a jerk back then. She was Celestia's student, and me too."

"Wait wait wait! YOU were a student of Celestia?!"

"Well, kind of. Because after the war and witness my uncle's death by an execution of her blade, her sister, Luna saved me from Shining Armor, and they brought me to Canterlot and tried to be a student next to Twilight Sparkle. But do you think I wanted to be friends with the mare that killed the only relative I knew at the time? Of course not, and I was not aware of what my uncle did, I was five years old..."

He looked at her, and Pinka was sitting with her ears up listening carefully to his story, and she asked him to continue.

"Aren't you bored..?"

"No no. Please continue." She said.

"They thought It would be wise to try change my mind from my previous lifestyle, which they failed miserably. This is when Luna comes... I grew attached to her, like a mother, the mother I never knew or had. She used to play with me, talk, and sometimes taught me some magic. My best guess why her is... erm... have you heard about Nightmare Moon?"

"Who doesn't? It was an insane age between the two sisters."

"Exactly. Luna experienced a possession by her own inner demons and she was eventually defeated, captured and they performed an exorcism extremely painful on her, but she managed to go through the whole thing. In my case, I was also cursed but I didn't know, and my senses pointed to her. You can say, we had something in common."

"Sorry to ask but, what are the bad things in your curse?"

"Oh yeah. I almost forgot..." He resumed to his dull voice. "Well, there is a chance of ninety percent, every night I'll have a nightmare, and really... really bad one." He looked back at her. "Remember that time I blasted a hole in the basement wall in the middle of the night?"

"How can I forget that explosion? The newspaper analysed It has a small earthquake."

"That was me waking up from one."

"Geez..." Pinka whispered impressed.

"I have at least three different ones, and each one represents different things. Fear, guilt and wrath."

"What are they, if you don't mind." She asked with a low voice, as if she was gonna regret It.

Mane took a deep breath and close his eyes in an effort to start speaking.

"Fear." He said calmly containing his nerves. "I dream I'm on completely dark room, in nothing but my underwear and hands tied, hooves chained without any room to move and unable to use my magic. And there's a creature I never ever saw, constantly moving around in the dark and taunting me with It's sounds and tongue, or finger, whatever, over my body. And to end It, It strikes me and I wake up with a huge pain in my body, as if I got crunched." Mane took a deep breath. "It represents my fear of the dark, what the unknown hides, and be out of control of things. "

"Oh my..."

"Wrath. This one doesn't disturb me that much, but still freaks me the fuck out." He took another deep breath. "I dream I'm on top of a mountain, my eyes are not the same anymore but rather like the ones my uncle had when he was angry. They were green and the iris is red, with a evil looking purple aura coming out of them, and back then It didn't scare me, bu now that I think of, those were the same eyes that petrified the entire Crystal Empire in terror ..."

"...My horn is like his, made of pure red crystal and curved. And in front of me, all of Equestria burning , the skies are orange and red from the intensity of the flames. It represents if I'm not careful in the use of my hidden powers, they might corrupt me and turn into a destructive force of nature, with a power matching Celetia herself, but the thing is, They help me."

"They who?"

"I... prefer to not speak of Them. For real..." Mane said It with a serious tone.

"I understand. What about the last one?"

"Guilt..." Mane sobbed strangely. "This one... It's the most fucked up of them all, and It explains why I react badly witnessing the death of the innocents. It's an heavy story, so please, if you don't wanna-"

"I'm fine with It." She interrupted, eager to know the last one from the list.

"If you say so..." Mane stopped and closed his eyes before start speaking. "It was another contract. Just like the others, another filthy pig faced pedophile to kill and get the job done. I caught him the middle of the act, in a shack in the middle of Everfree Forest, beating a little filly with a stick and she was naked on a bed with her body all red from the abuse, crying loudly for her mom... We had a huge fight with each other, constantly rolling on the floor punching each other constantly while the little girl kept crying in horror of all the events taking place in one single minute. And when I thought I had him, I pointed my finger and charged a magic shot... and... he used her... as a... shi...el...d..."

Mane stopped, and he got pale as if he lost a great portion of blood, and his eyes shrunken in fear. He started crying, sobbing constantly and eventually entering in a flow of panic, started to moan his cries louder and louder, taking his hand to his head and nodding to the sides, as if he was suffering of shock like the two soldiers after the battle now in the hospital.

Pinkamena quickly grabbed his arms, begging him to stop, and his panic affected her somehow, making her starting to cry too taking a guess of what happened next in the story.

"Mane! Calm down!" She begged while crying along. "Please! Look at me! Look at me!"

He looked at her in shock, crying , babbling and moaning his traumatizing memories without control, and she hugged him tight, making him stop of shaking, rubbing her crying face on his arm, while he hugged back with his arms trembling. And they stood there, hugging each other, sitting on the floor like they had all the time in the world.

Outside the room, they all stared at the door, speechless and guessing what was happening there. All those moans and cries echoing through the main complex were scary, making the few moms there to cover their sons and daughters ears if they were around.
Sigil was frozen in her place, and next to her, Copper and Quill as well paralyzed. None of them dared to touch the door and see what was wrong, or even ask from outside.

Simply the cries of a traumatized stallion haunting the place, after one particular incident that affected him in all ways to the rest of his life.

Author's Notes:

Well, that was sad, but there you go. Now you know even more about Mane, my OC.
People may think he's edgy and OP, but I never wanted that and I made a balance with his ups and downs.