The Heart of Darkness

“Tell Us of this tyrant king.” Luna prompted again as she and General Agate Shine walked a short distance away from the rest of the army. Celestia was doing what she could to calm the ponies of the Crystal Army: some were angry, some were ashamed, and all were terrified. They were in good hooves, or at least Luna hoped they were. Her sister could be… abrasive. Shaking the thought from her mind, she turned her full attention to General Agate, who had at last begun to speak.

        “He is a unicorn.” Agate said. “His favorite means of attacking is to use his magic to create jagged crystals, though he is capable of much more than that. He can be wounded, but as far as I know no injury has ever slowed him down, even those that should have been fatal. He has no weaknesses that I am aware of.”

        It was a soldier's answer: informational, almost clinical, spelling out the enemy's strengths and vulnerabilities in preparation for an attack. Luna shook her head. “We need to know more of the pony himself. What of his temperament? Has he any friends or family? How doth he treat his subjects?” She thought she already knew most of those answers, but it would be best to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

        “His temperament?” Agate shook his head wonderingly. “I don't think I've ever seen him be anything except angry and angrier. He has no friends; I don't know if he's even capable of making friends. Even if he could, he would not bother. He cares nothing for ponies except in terms of what they can do for him. As for family… Onyx killed his family a long time ago.”

        “Onyx?” Luna interjected, “We thought his name was Sombra.”

        Agate froze, suddenly terrified that this beautiful alicorn would think he was lying. “His name was Onyx when he was growing up. He… no longer likes that name.”

        “So he hath abandoned friendship, family, and even his own name.” Luna mused. “Has he no redeeming qualities?”

        “No.” Agate spat with a vehemence that surprised even himself. “Sombra is a monster. He's single-hoofedly caused more death and suffering than the changelings ever did, and there's nothing we can do except serve him! Serve him, and hope we don't say the wrong thing, or look in the wrong direction, or… or breathe when he doesn't want us to!” Agate was trembling again, and it took all of his soldierly discipline to bring his suddenly boiling emotions back under control. Where had that come from? Agate cleared his throat and attempted to regain his composure, only to flush when Luna once again draped a comforting wing around him. It was such a simple gesture, yet so warm and caring; so different from anything he could ever expect from his own king.

        “Forgive me, Your Highness.” Agate said when he could once again trust his own voice. “I am fine.”

        Luna did not look as though she quite believed the orange crystal pony, but she did take her wing back and resume simply walking with him.

        “I admit, I am not certain what information you are looking for, Your Highness. What can I tell you that would help you fight Sombra?”

        “Well, let us begin with his origins. You said that his name was Onyx when he was growing up. Who was Onyx, and how did he become Sombra?”

        Agate briefly explained Prince Onyx's history and his transformation into King Sombra. “It seemed like he was keeping the power under control, but one day he suddenly ran out into the city and deactivated the Crystal Heart. That's when it all went straight to Tartarus.” Agate suddenly realized just who he was cursing in front of. “Er, when it all went wrong.”

        “What is this Crystal Heart of which thou speakst?” Luna inquired.

        “It's an artifact designed to gather in the emotions of everypony in the Crystal Empire. It produces a field of positive magic that protects the Empire and keeps it prosperous. Except, it turned out that the love magic was making the changelings stronger, so Onyx got rid of it.”

        “And by so doing he strengthened his own power. That tells Us much, General Agate. We thank thee.”

        “It does?” Agate looked sidelong at her. He had to admit that it was nice to be able to speak his mind without fearing for his life, but he couldn't imagine that anything he'd said would be useful in a fight.

        “Indeed. If magic such as thou hast described were interfering with King Sombra's magic, that means his own magic must surely be of the opposite kind. Moreover, it telleth Us that Sombra's power is weaker than that of this Crystal Heart, else it would have been the artifact that ceased to function, not Onyx's magic. We assure thee, his strength is not without limits. Where is this Crystal Heart now?”

        Agate shook his head. “Nopony's seen it since Onyx deactivated it. Most of us assume it's somewhere inside the palace, but there's no way of knowing for sure.”

        “Were the Heart restored to its former state, would Sombra's power be sealed again?” Luna asked.

        Agate blinked. “Perhaps.” How had that never occurred to him? “I could not say for sure, Your Highness; I am a simple soldier, and know little of these things.”

        “Thou art far from simple, General.” Luna admonished him. “We shall see what Our sister thinks, but We believe this artifact may be the key to defeating Sombra.”

        “What about the weapons you used to defeat Discord?” Agate asked.

        “Thou speakest of the Elements of Harmony? They are not weapons, as such, but could indeed defeat this tyrant king. Unfortunately…” she trailed off, and Agate thought he saw her look at her sister from the corner of one eye.

        “Unfortunately what?” Agate prompted.

        Luna shook her head slightly. “Never mind. Suffice it to say that We cannot use the Elements just now.”

        Agate did not understand, but did not press the matter. “I see. Even so, with the power that you and your sister displayed, and the Crystal Army behind you, perhaps it can be done.”

        “The Crystal Army?” Luna sounded legitimately surprised. “Nay, Our little pony, the Crystal Army shall stay here where it is safe. Thou hast suffered enough.”

        Agate frowned, and when he spoke again it was as a general. “I must protest, Your Highness. Going alone would be a serious mistake. You do not know the territory or the enemy, and the Crystal Army could help you fight.” He broke off, remembering how easily the entire army had been cowed by these two. Perhaps their military strength was inconsequential when placed alongside goddesses and monsters.

        “'Tis true, the Crystal Army is a great force.” Luna allowed. “Had thou not surrendered when thou did, 'tis likely thou couldst have overpowered Us. Not easily,” she warned, “but powerful as We are, We could not have defeated an entire army.”

        “Then you need us!” Agate stomped a hoof decisively. “You can't single-hoofedly defeat an army? King Sombra can. He's more powerful than you know. Besides, I can't just… I can't let you just go off and do what I should have done myself.”

        Luna narrowed her eyes but smiled slightly, somehow managing to look stern and amused at the same time. That same expression on Sombra's face would have meant that somepony—or perhaps many ponies—was about to die. “Thou art in Equestria now, General, and subject to Equestrian rule. By royal command, thou and thy army shall stay here and recover from thy ordeal. If We are not mistaken, The Crystal Empire shall have need of thy leadership once We return.”

        Agate bowed his head. Taking orders, at least, was something that the soldier was accustomed to. “Your Highness, I must ask…”

        “Yes?”

        “Aren't you worried about leaving an entire army camped on your border? Even without our weapons, we could cause a lot of destruction while you and Princess Celestia are away.”

        “Thou thinkest We are naïve, true?”

        A flash of panic hit him. “Not at all, Your Highness!” Agate hastened to assure her, “I meant no offense!”

        Luna sighed sadly. “We have told thee, General Agate, thou dost not need to fear Us. The reason We do not worry about leaving the Crystal Army within Our borders is because thou hast shown thyselves to be good and true ponies. Granted the perfect opportunity to strike, thou stayed thy hoof. Thus, We grant thee Our trust; We would be very surprised, and deeply disappointed, to find that trust had been betrayed.”

        All that Sombra could do was kill him; somehow he knew that Luna's disappointment and anger would pain him far more than Sombra's wrath. Agate bowed to the Princess. “It will not be, Your Highness. I take personal responsibility for the actions of my ponies while we are in your land.”

        A rush of air and a soft impact alerted Agate that Princess Celestia had joined them. He deepened his bow in deference to her.

        “Are you finished, Luna?”

        “Indeed. General Agate has been most helpful.”

        “Your Highness,” Agate said to Celestia without preamble, “Princess Luna intends for you and her to attack King Sombra alone. I think it would be in your best interests to take along somepony who knows the territory and the enemy.”

        Celestia arched an eyebrow as she gazed down at him, then turned to her sister. “Is this true, Luna?”

        Luna shifted nervously, but met Celestia's eyes. “Yes, sister. These ponies hath suffered far too much already. Besides,” she turned her head toward Agate, who took an involuntary step back before the combined gazes of the sisters, “did thou not promise but a moment ago to stay here and keep thy troops in line? Wouldst thou break thy oath already?”

        “I… no Your Highness, of course not, but—”

        “You may join Us, General.” Celestia ignored the twin gasps from Agate and Luna. “If you are able to keep up.” The majestic alicorn winked, which was a greater surprise than her words, and made a white streak in the air as she flew back toward Canterlot to prepare.

        Luna chuckled. “Fare thee well, General. We shall look to see thee upon Our return.” A dark blur followed the first across the sky.

        Finally free of the awesome presence of the two sisters, Agate looked back toward his army. He saw many confused, frightened, and lost ponies, but a small fraction of them also had a look he had never seen upon their faces before: hope. The Crystal Army's weapons and armor were melted, twisted heaps of slag; perhaps the princesses were not quite as trusting as they pretended after all.

        He then turned to gaze out at the land called Equestria: lush, green, rich, ripe for the taking even without their weapons. Luna had even admitted that the Crystal Army could overpower them. Agate took a deep breath, then barked an order in a voice trained to carry across battlefields.

        “The Crystal Army will make camp!”

        As the Crystal Army cleared away the melted remains of their armaments and prepared camp, Celestia and Luna were making preparations of their own.

        “I do wish you had consulted with me before volunteering our help.” Celestia said as she donned a suit of gleaming golden barding. Her cutie mark was embossed on the criniere, and the champron looked like a stylized version of her own face hardened into an expression of righteous anger. “I could not decline without undoing all that we had done, and losing a great deal of face besides.”

        Luna was well aware of that. “I apologize, sister, I simply did what I believed was right. The ponies of the Crystal Empire deserve freedom from this King Sombra every bit as much as the ponies of Equestria deserve to be free of Discord.” She was wearing barding of her own, lighter than her sister's heavy plate, with a white crescent moon on the flanchard where her own cutie mark was and flakes of diamond scattered across the entire suit like stars in the night sky.

        “You are not wrong,” Celestia allowed, “but it was hasty and foalish to promise that we would fly off right away to the Crystal Empire. Moreover, you have left an enemy army on the very border of Equestria! I destroyed their weapons, but they have more than enough ponypower to do severe damage to the kingdom before we return. How could you be so careless?”

        “They are not enemies!” Luna shouted back, “Not anymore! 'Tis true they came with ill intent, but they are good ponies. Why is it that you must always look for the worst in everyone?!”

        Luna knew she had gone too far. She cut off her rant about a dozen words too late and took a half-step back from the fury in her older sister's eyes.

        “You may prefer to hide in shadows and dreams,” Celestia hissed, “but it is the nature of light to expose that which would remain concealed. You see what these ponies dream of being; I see what they are.” She strode toward her sister. “I warn you, Luna: if I lose a single one of my subjects to these invaders, they will answer to me. As will you.”

        “'Tia, I…”

        “Do not call me that.” Celestia turned her back on her sister and went over to the large bay window. “Let us go.” Without waiting for a response, she flared her wings and leapt into the sky.

        “Sister, wait!” Luna galloped after Celestia and threw herself out the window after her.

        The ponies below saw two alicorns in all their glory, one shining bright as day, the other gleaming black as night, soaring like comets toward the north. They did not see the tension, did not hear the strained silence. They did not notice how the darker one stayed just slightly behind, where she could avoid her sister's judgmental eyes, or how both had their teeth gritted in anger. They did not feel the disharmony that prevented the sisters from using their most powerful magics as they raced to battle against a mighty enemy.

        The soldiers of the Crystal Army stopped their work and looked up as Celestia and Luna soared overhead, well aware that they had wagered their lives on two ponies whom they had met only briefly and knew nothing about. It was an act of pure desperation, and every one of them knew it. Still, watching the mighty sisters rocketing toward the mountains and beyond, they could not help but feel hopeful.

        Agate broke his gaze away from the dwindling specks of the two alicorns. “Captain Alex.”

        Alex Andrite, who was helping him to oversee preparations for their stay in Equestria, looked over. “Sir?”

        “Continue setting up camp. I am going to visit the village.” He gestured to the southwest, where the laborers were staying while they cleaned up the last of Discord's twisted magics.

        “Alone, sir? I must protest. At least take a few soldiers for protection.”

        “If the townsponies are hostile, two or three soldiers will not make a difference. I will return by nightfall.”

        “And if you do not?” Alex asked.

        Agate opened his mouth and closed it again. “If I do not… do not come after me. If you have still not heard from me by morning, then assume that I am captured or dead. You will assume command of the Crystal Army, but take no hostile actions unless the Equestrians attack first. That is an order!” he barked when it looked like his second-in-command was about to protest.

        Agate Shine left behind a camp of worried and confused ponies and trotted deeper into what had, only fifteen minutes before, been enemy territory. He glanced around nervously at the strangely opaque ponies, who watched him with expressions ranging from curiosity to fear to anger. It was a marked difference from before Thunder and Cumulus had approached the crystal ponies; ironically, the Equestrians' attitudes were more suitable to an invading army now than they had been before.

        An hour's walk brought him to the edge of the town. It was quite small, with enough housing for perhaps a hundred ponies, most of which were out working at the moment. Still, Agate saw a restaurant, a post office, and what looked like some kind of administrative building. Not simply workers' housing, then, but a town in its own right, most of whose citizens happened to be laborers? That didn't quite make sense either. Most likely the princesses had conscripted the townsponies for their project. None of his business anyway.

        Agate turned his steps toward the structure that looked like an office building, reasoning that anypony important would be there. He opened the door to find that it was not so much an office building as it was an office. Where Agate had expected to see a waiting room and a receptionist, he instead saw a desk and a single pony sitting behind it. There were two thin cushions on the floor, clearly meant for visitors to use, but Agate was not yet certain how welcome he was. He cleared his throat to announce himself.

        The pony behind the desk, a grizzled brown earth pony with a grey-streaked mane, looked up from a stack of papers and his eyes widened, then narrowed. He looked as if he were about to call for help, though Agate was not sure what he hoped to accomplish by that, as most of the town was currently out working.

        “Sir.” Agate said as politely as he could. He was a soldier, buck it, not a diplomat! “I am General Agate Shine of the Crystal Army. You are the…?” Agate realized that he did not know what titles were used down here.

        “Mayor,” the middle-aged stallion replied, “I'm Arid Wilds. What brings you to Chaos End?” His words were kind, his tone was anything but.

        “Peace, I hope.” Agate answered. “I want to talk.”

        “Talk?” Arid Wilds placed his hooves on his desk and leaned forward. “Well, let me tell you what I know: I know you came here with a huge bucking army. I know two of my pegasi tried to talk to you, and you ponies sent them running scared for Canterlot. Next thing I know, Their Majesties are flying down here looking like they mean to vaporize the lot of you. Now you're talking about peace. What am I supposed to make of that, huh?”

        He couldn't blame the mayor for being suspicious. In his place, Agate would probably have called the guards immediately. Then again, perhaps there simply were no guards. “Mayor Arid, I know we got off on the wrong hoof, and I take full responsibility for that.”No foaling, I came here to conquer them! “By your own princesses' orders, we are to be neighbors, at least for a short while. I had hoped to make amends.”

        “That so?” Arid grunted. “What did you have in mind?”

        Noticing that he hadn't been kicked out yet, Agate finally sat down on one of the cushions in front of the desk. He had considered this very question on the walk over here. What did Equestrians want? Gems? He had plenty of those. Gold? He wasn't even certain that Crystal Empire money would be worth anything here. Agate knew exactly one thing about these ponies: they had a big job to do. He was struck by sudden inspiration. “I would like to offer my services, and those of my soldiers, to assist you with your project out by the border.”

        “Hrm.” Arid sounded entirely unimpressed. “How many ponies you got? We can't feed or house 'em, and we haven't got the budget to pay 'em either.”

        “We have our own supplies and tents, Mayor Arid. They will be paid from the army's coffers, as usual. This is simply a show of good faith.” Agate paused to gauge the mayor's reaction. He was listening, if nothing else. “To answer your original question: including myself, there are ten thousand five hundred and eighty-three ponies in the Crystal Army.”

        Arid Wild's jaw dropped. “You're lying,” he said flatly, “that's almost as many ponies as there are in all of Equestria.”

        Agate shrugged. “The Crystal Empire is much older and much larger than Equestria. Count my soldiers if you wish.”

        “And why did an army that could sweep the entire kingdom march all the way over here to offer its soldiers up as day laborers?” Arid demanded.

Because a kind and beautiful pony showed me another way. Agate shook off the sappy thought. “Suffice it to say that we have met your Princesses and we no longer wish to be your enemies.” He ignored Arid Wilds' smug snort. “Their Highnesses have agreed to allow us to stay on the border so long as we abide by their laws. That should be enough for you, shouldn't it?”

        “Well, sure doesn't look like I can stop you.” Arid Wilds still looked a bit stunned. “S'long as you're here, you might as well make yourselves useful.”

        Agate smiled in relief. Diamonds and opals, how long had it been since the last time he smiled like that? “Thank you, Mayor. You will not regret it. With your permission, I will send a few representatives here to learn what needs to be done.” Noticing Arid Wilds' alarmed expression, he made a quick decision. “Five. I will send five ponies over, unarmed, and no more than those five. Give us a day or two to learn how to do the jobs, and we will add our soldiers to your workforce. Is that acceptable?”

        Arid Wilds finally nodded. “I'll, er, I'll get the paperwork ready,” he stammered, “have your representatives here tomorrow morning. Six o'clock. Sharp, mind!”

        Agate smirked and saluted. “Yes, sir. Six o'clock, sir.”

        The mayor's eyes narrowed. “Now you're makin' fun of me.”

        “No, sir.”Maybe a little. “Have a nice day, Mayor Arid Wilds.” Agate rose and departed. As he shut the door behind him, he could still hear the mayor muttering.

        “Ten thousand! By Discord's plot, even if they're lousy workers, we could be done by next week…”