Onyx did not look forward. His body was not there, and he was sure that he was not. Or maybe he was. That terrified him, so he stopped thinking even more than usual. Everything about him and this new experience hurt - more than the smack of Starswirl's hoof or anything he had ever known, and that pain consumed him. He was not supposed to be hurt anymore, not now, not ever.

But he did. And he wanted to cry even if he could not feel his eyes. He couldn't feel himself. It was dark. He was alone and he had so little clue to what had happened. Onyx's mind raced with half-thoughts that were too brief to form his usual stupidity. He wanted to go anywhere else. Onyx wanted the spell to work. He wanted to hurt something or somepony so he could be happy and feel, just to tear something apart, rip it to pieces, for it to be no more - broken...

He sure felt like he was crying. Onyx asked himself questions that he would never answer and only furthered how frantic he was in this pained and disembodied state where he involuntarily thought of Starswirl and crystal cities and then nothing at all. Who was he to think? He was likely dead. He had never believed in any of the Empire's gods, he didn't waste time on things like that. And maybe, now he would never waste time on anything again, but he really didn't care - he just didn't want anything to hurt. Not anymore. That wasn't how anything was supposed to be, and it didn't make sense - nothing did, nor had it ever, not really. But Onyx hurt and he hated that.

It was like the world had simply gone away. Now everything was dark and painful. There was no warmth or cold, and if there was any magic about at all, how was he to know? All he did was continue to do what he was sure was crying. He didn't question it. He didn't question anything.

But then he heard something. A voice - a strange voice, young in sound and new to him. Male.

What are you doing to my eyes? They're leaking. Crying... that's what it's called. Good grief, don't you have anything better to do? And just where am I...?

It sounded from nowhere, and with it something happened, something was. The world - or lack of one - plummeted and changed as Onyx had. Onyx, once a crystal pony colt, felt the shape of an impossible and foreign place that was everything, overwhelming, real, and... alive. There was a movement like breathing and something like a heartbeat that Onyx knew and managed to isolate in the limited but vast, strange place that he had so little current understanding of.

And then everything hit him, as though emotion itself could barrel into him along with the realization that he was still alive.

Somehow.

The s-spell h-hurt me-e...

His voice sounded like sobs and came from twisting himself and some part of his being - what was left of it - so that Onyx's voice came from everywhere in stutters, without the frighteningly direct and localized sound of the mysterious other one that managed to sound curious, concerned, blunt, innocent, and scarily honest all at the same time. And how young... He didn't doubt that whoever spoke to him was older than his thirteen winters. Everypony was older than him, and that had never sat well with Onyx.

Onyx wasn't entirely sure what to make of him - the voice sounded male, so male it became - but a part of him already began to hate it for something in particular that it had done, would do, or might. Onyx simply didn't question it. But Onyx heard how whoever was talking, his nameless companion, managed to imbue a strength to that innocence and feel of mystery that Onyx couldn't comprehend even when stuck somewhere within this almost-pony thing.

Monster.

And he tried and failed to say anything and everything in the dizziness of it all.

I-

-am from the Crystal Empire. - am Starswirl's slave. -need help, okay? -am scared, alright? Really scared... -alone? I feel alone... like, really alone. You're there, I think, right? -need to hurt you so badly. -want to hurt you.

His next sob was clearer, but only a little.

Let-

-me kinda explain what I can, okay? -me control you. -follow you, please, please? -hurt you.

Who-

-are you?

What-

-are you, monster? -am I? I was a pony... -happened? -can you even do?

Each bizarre echo of Onyx's voice, directed loosely where the young stranger might hear him only lost any proper sense of remaining composure - had there been any at all - as he went on, devolving into wails and sobs.

And then, from madness, there was the clarity of the sound of Onyx's newest obsession rang out, almost warming him with the strange, naive quality it held.

Compassion? Something like it?

Despite Onyx's situation, he managed to twist and flinch from the stranger's voice. The quiet strength despite the distant sound of it, and the intelligence - everything about the voice of the form he was so grossly anchored in was scary.

Just what's wrong? You've got to get a hold of yourself if you're going to tell me anything - or expect me to even do anything. I don't even know my own name, and I'm getting roped into something. Give me a break... Okay, listen, I don't like talking too much - have I already talked too much? It sure feels like it so far. These words probably sound clumsy coming from me. - but if there's something wrong, how am I supposed to know what it is? You're frantic. It's just that obvious, and it's also obvious that something made you like this. I know I was just created, but you have some explaining to do, you idiot.

That word - idiot, the one thing that seemed to define him - brought him out of the stupor.

T-The w-wizard... H-He hits m-me... It wasn't all he had done. Not by far, but it was all Onyx was able to get out. If he had a heart still, it would have been hammering. Yet he did not, and the echos - illusory or not - of his own terror rang around him, scattering what little focus he had.

Through haze and static and a wild, psychotic, dense mix of sensory waves that were not his - if he'd ever admit it to himself - an ear, gray - he wasn't sure how he knew that - and fuzzy with the coat of a creature that did not have the good Crystalline blood meant to endure such a condition - yet not the patchy, passable fuzziness of a Tribe pony, this creature had a fluffy winter coat, soft and smokey gray, and he - Onyx was very, very sure that the creature was male - had his ear pricked.

Pricked for what exactly? Onyx stirred nervously, an ill wave sweeping over him. He hated this fickle state of being and wanted to dig himself into this creature as much as possible, to cling and delve into the vast power of it - the dark magic of the monster with a curved, red-tipped horn and shaggy black mane, a colt - it seemed these details were just coming to him in pieces... oh, and he felt this being squirm as he huddled within it, neither visible or invisible.

There was the sound of hoofsteps. They could not belong to Onyx, he had no hooves. The strange almost-pony was standing still, like an unbreakable wall. He was so new, and yet he felt too real, like the world itself was just a place to support him. There was a confidence to how he stayed in a stone tower he had never seen, dark magic left about and spell books scattered... and this monster, he simply knew things. He walked, he breathed, he watched.

He was.

Onyx writhed again, feeling like he could collapse on himself and disappear. Could he do that? He wasn't sure he wanted to. Those hoofsteps, angry and reckless and loud - they were Starswirl's. But if Onyx could avoid a beating...?

"He won't ever hurt you again."

What? Onyx wasn't sure what was happening - just what had he heard? Did the monster, the young beast, born from magic that cost him his body, speak again...?

Listen, if he's as horrible as you're suggesting - even without words, I still get it - then I'll just kill him. I can feel you pressing on my mind, kid - you're younger than me, I can feel that much, I'll sort things out later. I know that you're scared. Well, guess what? I'm not. Not telling you why. But, I'll kill him for you. There's a world - the hole in the wall here, the neatly cut one-

A window.

It shows that there's something big out there. Mountains and mountains - that's what they're called?

Onyx didn't answer, something horribly uncharacteristic of the typically chatty youth.

There's mountains beyond mountains, kid. I'm never going to see them if I stay here, and I don't want to, so why would I? Exactly, he said, confidently answering himself, I won't. But...

Onyx found the stranger's pause to be unusually long - what an idiot he must be if he couldn't finish what was practically a speech for a creature so new.

What?! he barked back, squeaky voice cracking testily with age and fear. 'What do you want?"

...Since you hate him more, won't you help out? He is your problem and with you bearing down on my mind, you little freak, it's going to be hard to do anything unless we work together for a bit.

Onyx may have hated silence, but for once he chose to remain so even though he always talked more, even when he had nothing to say. Especially then.

...Y-Yeah, okay... I'll do that. I'll help you out, okay? You just have to l-let me hurt him too. he finally managed. It wasn't that he had anything against killing a pony - oh not at all - he wanted to do that more than anything. It's why he got into dark magic - so he could hurt ponies, and for no reason at all. He hated reasons - they always got in the way.

But he did have something against this stranger...

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAIHRIO73e8

Anyone who says that there is enough Sombra on this site is a liar.