From the Shadows

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Trap
Chapter 2: Back from the Shadows
Chapter 4: New Hosts
Chapter 5: Fresh Lands
Chapter 6: Black and White
Chapter 7: Honesty
Chapter 8: The Demon Within
Chapter 9: Cat and Mouse
Chapter 10: Hunters
Chapter 11: A Time for Learning
Chapter 12: Beauty and the Beast
Chapter 13: Loyalty to a Different Cause
Chapter 14: Not Right in the Head
Chapter 15: Family Values
Chapter 16: Night's End
Chapter 18: The Brink of War
Chapter 19: Delivery
Chapter 20: Unchained
Chapter 21: The Reaper
Chapter 22: Duel of Legends
Chapter 23: Diplomacy
Chapter 24: For The Throne
Chapter 25: In The End
Epilogue
Chapter 3: House Guests
Chapter 17: Perspectives

Chapter 1: The Trap

Cold; the only word Celestia could think of as she looked out across the barren, desolate landscape.

There was nothing on the tundra, except for the unforgiving, brutal cold; everything that existed only added to its dead, icy touch.

The ground was hard. There were no plants; the only thing that seemed to grow was the ice, spreading on the ground like an infection, coating the already tight, wind packed snow in a sharp, thin layer of near invisible frost.

The terrain was as featureless as the storm, nothing but white existing for miles around. The ice was dark white, the ground was blue white, the sky was dull white, and the snow was plain, milky, never ending white. Nothing but a few jagged rocks here and there and endless tundra, a plain without character, or hospitality for that matter.

It was among the dark, contrasting rocks, weathered and chewed to ragged, incomplete versions of their former selves by the merciless wind, that the princess and her companions found relative shelter. Relative.

The snow did not fall; it whipped back and forth horizontally in the blizzard's current, hard, frozen flakes lashing at those unfortunate enough to be caught in its grips, regardless of the amount of exposure. Even an inch of exposed hide could be enough to cause frostbite to set in in conditions as unforgiving as these.

Not even enchanted parkas helped to shield the equines from the freezing cyclone, and Celestia, along with a few Guard ponies, shivered in the biting cold. The regal mare's body was freezing and numb, but her resolve remained unflinching, even though she stared into the eye of the arctic storm.

Celestia squinted through the horizontally falling flakes, raising a hoof to shield her eyes as she tried to gauge that which was causing them to stay out in such misery.

A few meters beyond the rocks, at the edge of her visible range, was a large crystal, carved in a cordial shape and resting in the ice, slowly accumulating snow as the storm progressed without showing signs of stopping; The Crystal Heart.

Everything was exactly the same as it had been for... She didn't even know how long. It was impossible to tell night from day, let alone time in a whiteout like this. The sky was featureless, a dull, white void without end, progressing infinitely in every direction, and the lack of celestial bodies made the Princess of the Sun feel all the more homesick. But, she had a job to do.

Celestia's focus was diverted from The Crystal Heart by a sudden popping noise behind her, and she whipped around as she felt the foreign sensation of warmth at her flank.

"What are you doing?!" she shouted over the gales as she found a unicorn guard with his horn aglow, huddled against one of the rocks.

"Trying to warm up, your majesty," the guard, shivering despite his numerous layers of clothing, explained innocently.

He instinctively reduced the flame from his horn, which was put to shame by the fire in the princess's eyes.

"You'll give our position away! Do you want to let him know we're here?!" she bellowed, only a few decibels quieter than the full fledged Royal Canterlot voice, the wind drowning the sound as it picked up in a sudden increase.

"She's right Sergeant," came a new, masculine, but very familiar voice, "Why don't you and the others gather in groups; three to a rock. See if you can huddle and stay warm. We don't know how much longer we'll be out here."

Celestia turned around to see Shining Armor coming up from behind her, carefully stepping over the few rocks that weren't covered in thick, white snow. He was scarcely a resemblance of the prince she knew him as. He was completely covered, apart from his mouth, with clothes, his scarf and coat tattered and torn from constant buffeting by the relentless wind.

The guard trotted off to do as he was told, and Shining Armor took a place adjacent the regal equine.

"I thought you had gathered the best guards from the Crystal Empire and Equestria for this mission," she scoffed, her tone unusually cold.

"They're only fatigued, your Highness," the stallion explained, defending his troops, "By the looks of it, we all are."

Shining turned to the alicorn, and she understood what he was trying to say.

"You're right," she sighed, barely audible over the howling gusts, "This Tartarus condemned cold has bit into even my patience. And you need not be formal with me; consider me as a friend, not a ruler."

The two ponies stared at the Crystal Heart, still nestled in its icy nest a few meters beyond the safety of the rocks, and a prolonged silence ensued.

"I suppose that's why you chose to banish him here?" inquired the prince without averting his eyes from the crystalline prize, "Not much to do in misery like this other than suffer and think."

The princess gave no response. Her eyes remained glued to the heart, the stinging cold having no effect on her, or so it seemed at least.

"There's still time to go back you know," said the prince, stifling a shiver.

"Even if there was, we can't afford to do so."

"Why not? I mean, using The Crystal Heart as bait is risky enough in itself, let alone the rest of the plan. Is there even more to gain than we have to lose by bringing him into Equestria?"

"Sombra is our only hope of saving both Equestria and the Crystal Empire. Dark magic has taken root in the kingdoms; there are no others that know more of dark magic than he."

"'Sombra' and 'hope' in the same sentence? Never thought that would happen." chuckled Shining, retaining his humor through the oppressive cold.

"Sombra as he is now will be reluctant to consider helping us, but perhaps, if he could be reformed somehow..."

"I doubt that will work."

"Where is your faith in your sister? She is an alicorn princess now, not the filly you knew growing up."

Even underneath his facemask, Celestia could see Shining's eyes grow wider.

"I still think bringing him to Twilight is too dangerous."

"Your sister and the other bearers have already reformed Discord, have they not?"

"Yes your Highness, but Discord was less of a foe; he cared more for amusement than power. Sombra is the embodiment of evil."

"We are out of options, Shining," explained the princess, "My sister and I only know of benevolent magic; magic oriented around the elements of harmony. We are near useless in the realm of dark magic, of which Sombra is a master. Trickery, hate, and fear are his assets, assets we need knowledge of in order to expel them from Equestria. Without his intervention, it will only spread like a cancer, until all of Equestria is dead from hate and fear."

"The master of trickery, hate, and fear," started Shining, pawing at the ground nervously, "What makes you think it's a good idea to try and trap him, even if it is possible? There are still traps yet to be sprung in the Crystal Empire that he set centuries ago."

"The scent of the Crystal Heart will draw him in. Sombra's lust may be one of his few flaws, but it is his hubris nonetheless."

"And even if this does work, what makes you think my sister and her friends will be able to convince him to help us?"

"Have faith, Shining. There are things about Sombra very few understand; I am sure that the bearers will be able to find those things."

"You make the call princess, and I'll stand by it, but I respectfully disagree," stated the prince, shrugging his overcoat farther up onto his shoulders, "Sombra's too dangerous, but the only way we risk Equestrian safety is by underestimating him. We should not let him within our borders, regardless of what may have showed its face in the kingdoms. I think we should abandon this plot, and leave while we still can. Ponies will find a way to end the fear without hi..."

Shining Armor stopped talking and snapped his head towards a white, oncoming front. Something had seized his attention.

"Did you hear that?" asked the stallion, looking into the storm concernedly.

"What?"

Only the wind whistled, creating the only noise in the otherwise silent abyss of the bland, monochromatic tundra.

"There it is again!" said Shining excitedly, "It's definitely not the wind!"

Celestia remained still, listening for whatever Shining had heard, but no sound reached her ears.

"I don't hear anything..."

"Shhh," the stallion hissed, lowering his head as his whole attention was directed at identifying the source of the noise.

Again, only the wind spoke, singing its mournful song as it whistled through the rocks, and swirled in the frigid air above.

But then, something added its voice to the monotonous chorus of the wind's wailing.

A howl, more akin to a groan, came forth from behind the barrier of white, and Celestia's eyes went wide.

Shining knew the sound; its source had nearly ended him when he first heard it. He looked to his right, where he could see a trio of stallions looking nervously over their igneous barrier, almost out of curiosity.

Shining Armor waved to get their attention, and once it was his, he motioned for them to stay down. They repeated the gesture to an unseen group of guards, and then huddled behind the boulder, trying to occupy as little a space as possible.

Shining Armor and Celestia did the same, crouching, concealing themselves behind a jagged rock, protruding sharply out of the frozen ground.

The howl came again, much closer this time, its eerie, prolonged bass note pushing through the sound of the wind, and terrorizing those who heard it. It was unlike any other animal's howl; it was feral and strong, as any creature's would be, but this roar had a unique note in its resounding report. Anger.

Celestia peeked around the base of the earthen barrier, exposing only a solitary eye to the world beyond the barrier, while Shining Armor did the same on the opposite side of their cover.

From beyond the white void, an immense, black cloud came to be. It floated closer and closer with each passing second, and Celestia ducked back behind the rock, hiding the entirety of her being behind the immense stone.

"Things are about to get interesting," Shining mused to himself as Celestia struggled to control her rapidly accelerating respiration.

The shape drew nearer and nearer.

It closed the gap to The Crystal Heart with amazing speed; however, it did not move to seize the prize. Rather, it stopped short of the stone grove.

It waited just beyond the rocks, where the immense mass underwent a transformation. It materialized eyes; large, glaring, verdant eyes with red irises. A violet tail flowed out behind each ocular, creating a royal purple aura that was vaguely reminiscent of the celestial manes of the Equestrian princesses.

The shadow moved reminiscent of a being, turning its ominous essence back and forth, seemingly inspecting the area around The Crystal Heart. Those green eyes, still glaring, scanned everything, and Shining ducked behind the rock again to avoid detection, praying the others were doing the same.

The howl came again, deafening at such a close range, and Shining Armor and Celestia both jumped as its wrathful sound shook the air around them.

Shining Armor cautiously peeked around the corner again; the expansive shadow was moving closer to The Crystal Heart now, gradually creeping forward, still scanning everything and anything.

"He's onto us," Shining thought to himself, and dreaded what would happen should those menacing eyes detect some sort of movement in the rocks he and the others occupied.

There was something about the way it moved. For its intimidating size, it moved cautiously, deliberately,...intelligently.

It didn't lumber as something its size should; it floated with a certain ominous grace, the same kind of grace a predatory cat would move with, the kind of grace that goes hoof to hoof with danger.

Slowly, methodically, Shining Armor watched as the expansive shadow crept forward. It neared The Crystal Heart, stopping a few meters from it, and gauging the rocks thoroughly once again.

Shining observed a sudden shift in the emotion the eyes held; they grew more confident, reassured, almost surprised.

Suddenly, the eyes vanished, and the shadow twisted itself into a new form; a tornado.

Shining ducked as the wind force increased sevenfold with the new presence of the jet black, twisting funnel cloud. The wind roared, not unlike the howls of the entity earlier, and snow was thrown back into the writhing air as the massive power of wind pummeled everything within its area of effect.

Shining looked up when the gusts reverted to their previous intensity, seeing the column shrinking to a single point, finally dying out completely to reveal a pony standing at its point of recession.

Sombra.

He could see the former king in his entirety, even though the blizzard's snow partially obscured some of his finer details.

The fallen king was tall, dark, and imposing, even from a distance. He wore metallic armor, and a black steel crown, not only encompassing his scalp but a good portion of his head. His mane, thick and black, whipped in the cruel wind, and despite his relative lack of warm clothing, he seemed not to mind the cold.

His horn, a curved, sabre-like appendage that was red as well as gray, the shade of the rest of his hide, was exceptionally long. Over his back was a regal crimson cape, and just like his previous form, he was scanning the land around him with that verdant, menacing gaze. Only his head moved as he scanned the arctic void around him.

Finally, he took a step forward, small, black crystals sprouting in place of hoof prints. Before taking another step, he gauged his surroundings one more time, again finding them devoid of activity.

He bared his teeth, long, sharp fangs, in a vile, confident grin, and at last, approached The Crystal Heart, confidently striding forward with jagged dark crystals sprouting in his wake.

He looked down on the prize, eying it greedily and displaying his glimmering, toothy grin again.

He bent to seize it.

"Now!" yelled Shining Armor, and The Crystal Heart was flung away from the menace in a blue aura.

Sombra looked up in surprise to see several ponies springing from cover, and he snarled a deep guttural rumble as he began to twist into his former entity. However, Celestia cast a spell before the transformation could be completed.

She encased the upwards writhing shadow in an immense, light blue shell, a force field constructed from magic, trapping the former king.

"ARGGGH!" he roared, more akin to an animal than a pony, and as eyes sprouted from the shadowy mass within, the figure glared at his captors.

He roared again, louder this time, and smashed against the side of the magic sphere, causing a long vertical crack to slowly spread.

"Hold him!" yelled the princess, and Shining Armor as well as the other unicorns cast similar spells, reinforcing the magic and increasing its strength.

Sombra roared a third time, smashing against the recently reinforced barrier again to produce a deafening crash. One layer shattered, but the others held as the stallion whose barrier had failed recast his spell, stronger this time, to keep the foe imprisoned.

"We got him!" yelled a stallion, to be answered by another crash from the dethroned as he bashed the barrier again with the force of a freight train.

"ARGGGH!" Sombra roared again, a deep, jealous sound like those of a challenged lion, and Celestia, her horn glowing hot in the snowstorm as she held him in a telekinetic prison, stepped in front of him.

The shadow's eyes snapped to the princess, insurmountable rage and wrath held in their glaring gaze.

"You've lost Sombra!" she yelled, somewhat of an arrogant smile spreading on her exposed mouth.

The shadow retained its form, staring contempt and rage through the barrier at his captor, and an eerie, low, predatory growl emitted from within the confines of the mass, and all the stallions took a tentative step backwards in fear.

Chapter 2: Back from the Shadows

*BUUURP* *Fwish*

Princess Twilight Sparkle's ears perked up at the familiar sound of incoming mail. She turned from her studies, shutting her book and placing her quill in its ink well as she waited on her assistant to bring her the most recent letter from her mentor, Princess Celestia.

The pitter patter of scaly feet danced in from the hallway, and the unicorn left her comfortable seat at her desk to receive her scribe, as well as her closest friend.

The door swung open suddenly, and surprisingly violently, revealing a squat, plump young purple dragon clutching a bound scroll.

"It's from the princess," explained the drake cheerfully as he held out the rolled parchment, embroidered with the royal seal, "I promise I didn't read it this time."

Twilight smiled warmly at the reptile, who returned the expression.

"Thank you Spike," she said cordially, and unfurled the letter in telekinetic grips.

She levitated the note in front of her eyes, and began intently reading the message it contained.

Dear Twilight,

I do not mean to worry you, but there is something you must know. My sister and I have detected a dark presence in Equestria, as well as in the Crystal Empire. The troublesome part of it is this; the evil cannot be attributed to a single source. Rather, it has taken root in the hearts of ponies throughout the kingdoms. Things like fear, greed and hatred have been becoming more common; they cannot be allowed to grow any further. For this, I need your help.

I am coming to visit you later tonight under the cover of darkness. Please gather the other bearers of the elements of harmony in the fields outside of Ponyville; bring nopony else. It would be better to keep this as secretive as possible until we can determine the best course of action.

There is something I need you to do for me, so that together, we can expel the seeds of darkness before they take root, saving the kingdoms in the process. I will be bringing something for you, something I cannot risk naming in this letter for risk of conspiracy. I need you to use that which I bring to help all ponies throughout the world. I will further explain upon our meeting.

Until later tonight,

Your mentor and friend,

Princess Celestia

The alicorn gasped as she finished the letter. Why was the princess acting so strangely? 'Under the cover of darkness'? 'Risk of conspiracy'? 'Bring nopony else'?

Her shock prompted a nervous recoil from Spike. She casually played off her initial reaction, not fooling the dragon in the least due to her awful poker face, but tried to tell him everything was indeed okay.

"What is it?" asked the dragon nervously, knowing full well that something was indeed amiss.

"Well, there's been a small problem, and the princess wants us to help her fix it," Twilight explained, earnestly explaining everything she knew to be true up to this point.

Celestia's letter had been unusually vague, more a notification than an actual letter.

"Alright, well, what do you need me to do to help?"

Twilight struggled internally to come up with a way of telling Spike that he couldn't help, that Celestia only asked for the bearers of the elements, and it seemed from the urgent, secretive letter that the bearers were all that were allowed to be present.

Eventually, she came up with a way to avoid the truth.

"I need you to look after the library while I'm out. It should only be for a little bit, but if you want to make yourself some treats while I'm gone, go ahead."

Genius; nothing intrigued the dragon more than one of his gemstone cakes.

"Ok," Spike agreed, and he was off to the kitchen without another second's hesitation.

Likewise, Twilight trotted downstairs and out the door of her massive tree of a home, briskly going off to gather her friends for the impending arrival of the Princess.

****************

"Why do we have to meet her in the dark?"

The cyan Pegasus was barely visible against the night sky as she hovered above the rest of her friends, making sure they all knew the extent of her discontent at being outside in the cold, dark night for a still unexplained reason while she wanted to be sleeping.

"How is she even supposed to find us if she can't see us?"

"Good point Rainbow," agreed Twilight, sparking a glow from the tip of her horn.

The six bearers had congregated in the town's rural outskirts, as Celestia had instructed, and were now waiting on the princess's impending arrival beneath the pale face of Luna's full moon. The light from Twilight's horn cast a dull glow on the small plot of land they occupied, barely hindering the darkness of the night.

"I just hope everything's alright," said Rarity, genuine worry in her tone, "The princess has never quite requested anything like this of us before."

"It's probably nothin' sugar cube," drawled Applejack, casually reclining in the damp grass as she waited contentedly, "Ah'm sure she just didn't wanna cause a ruckus in town by showin' up in broad daylight."

"I-I don't know," started Fluttershy, her normally quiet voice sounding more normal now that they were in the most silent hours of the day, "From what Twilight said, i-it didn't sound like nothing."

"Relax silly," urged Pinkie Pie, still as exuberant as she always was, even though the clock tower had already struck midnight, "I know why she's coming out here. She just wants to come and visit her six most favoritest ponies ever!"

Pinkie looked back and forth to each of her friends, seeking approval of her theory, but before she fully realized the extent of their justified bewilderment, the sound of wing-beats surpassed the crickets' chirping in volume, and the six looked up to see a sky-borne chariot silhouetted against the moon.

The vehicle was drawn by a group of four pegasi, and was flanked by eight more, four on either side. Behind the chariot, Celestia, the chariot's sole passenger, levitated some kind of a ball, and curiosities peaked as they realized the sphere was what she was bringing to them.

The chariot set down gently in the grass, freshly adorned in its vesture of dew, and came to a gentle stop. The Princess of the Sun set the sphere, a sort of magical barrier, down in the field, and stepped off of the chariot gracefully.

"What is it?" asked Twilight, eying the ball meticulously as Rainbow Dash moved in for a closer look.

"Twilight, before I tell you, you must understand...".

The unicorn trailed off, coming closer to the ball to find out about it herself through the employment of qualitative data. The glow from her horn weakly illuminated the contents of the enchanted vessel, and she and Rainbow Dash began scratching their heads at trying to figure out what the ball contained while the others stayed back nervously.

Within the transparent encasing was... something. Definitely something; not nothing, but not quite a definite form either.

Whatever it was, it was dark; it appeared to be some sort of cloud, an all black one at that. It was concentrated in the lower section of the spherical container, and occupied about the same volume as a pony might.

"Is it some sort of a dense gas?" asked Twilight, but that theory was refuted quickly.

The mass, whatever it was, began moving as if it were sentient. It moved along the perimeter of the sphere, clinging to the vessel's walls as it circumnavigated its equator. It only stopped moving when Rainbow Dash pressed her snout against the outer wall of the cell.

It sank to the bottom of the ball, and from there, oriented itself into a shape like a mountain, wide at the base and narrow on top.

"Whoooa," whispered Rainbow Dash as she watched all the more intently, causing the other four to peer in for a closer look.

"Princess, what is it?" asked Twilight.

Celestia looked to her student, an almost concerned look on her face. The violet alicorn began to grow worried, but her friends were only interested in the strange... thing, inside the spherical vessel.

Rainbow Dash, as if it were a fish tank, tapped on the container, causing something within to happen.

Slowly, small, dark, opaque crystals sprouted on the interior of the cell, and the entity within seemed to grow wider.

The black shadow suddenly sprouted a pair of eyes, their slit pupils dilating within crimson irises as they came into existence, causing all around the sphere to shriek and jump backwards.

The guards gripped their spears tightly at the sound of feminine terror, and after the mares recovered from the initial shock, still panting, they turned to the princess.

"What the hay is that thing?" shouted Applejack, readjusting her hat after it was knocked askew by her sudden retreat from the translucent ball.

The princess didn't say anything, only looking to the mares consolingly, as if she was trying to tell them it would all be fine in the future, meaning things were bad now.

Instead of receiving a verbal answer explaining the identity of the prisoner within the ball, they received a physical one. The entity began twisting around itself rapidly, bending its formless mass into a shape; the shape of a pony.

The newly formed equine stood, confined within Celestia's prison, and devilishly, smiled at those gawking beyond the walls of the container.

"Sombra?!" the six yelled in unison, looking in disbelief back and forth between the unsure expression of Celestia to the fiendish grin on Sombra's face as he watched their disbelief unfurl in utter silence; the former king did not say a word.

He only stared at them with those evil, fearsome eyes; he did not break eye contact as his intimidating glare prodded at the spirits of those that met his gaze.

"Girls," the princess started to say quietly, but her maternal tone was drowned in the frantic shouts of those she was addressing.

"It's definitely Sombra, but why is he back from banishment?!" a sophisticated accent yelled from amidst the intermingling questions.

"W-why i-is he b-back? D-did the g-glacier he was in m-melt?" stammered Fluttershy.

"Why the hay would it've melted? It's a glacier! Somepony brought him back!" came a drawling voice, more firm than the others.

"Who would do that?! Why would anypony want a meanie like him around?!" a high pitched and animated voice asked, coming from the place Pinkie Pie had formerly occupied before she began to dart around the sphere in a blur.

"Celestia, is this the problem you needed us to fix?" asked Twilight, turning to her mentor.

"Just tell us who brought Sombra back, and we'll kick their rumps!" exclaimed Dash, confidently puffing her chest out, trying to arrogantly impose her power in the presence of two demi-gods.

"STOP!" bellowed Celestia, employing the deafening royal Canterlot voice to silence the panicking mares all around her.

They came to a sudden halt, silencing their rambling mouths and paying immediate attention to their ruler as her wings returned from their flared stance to their comfortable, resting position at her sides.

The Mare of the Sun closed her eyes, recomposed herself, and reverted her voice to its usual, gentle tone, remembering that she was not supposed to be susceptible to anxiety.

"Girls," the alabaster alicorn said softly, "I am the one that brought Sombra back."

Shock contorted the mares' faces, but when the ruler turned her coral eyes to the improvised cell, she found a glaring grin on the prisoner's face.

Celestia further explained, progressing methodically as she carefully chose her words.

"You must understand something mentioned in my letter; fear and hatred are the roots of dark magic. Like I 've mentioned, these things have come into Equestria, and infiltrated the hearts of its citizens. We cannot let it stay."

"We get that, but what does Sombra have to do with any of this?" asked Rainbow Dash, rising above the ground and silhouetting herself against the stars.

"Sombra is one of the last remaining beings in the world who knows dark magic, and certainly the best of those that remain."

Celestia turned a hasty glance to the sphere again, seeing the smug smile on Sombra's face had been replaced with a sort of scowl.

"Girls," began the princess again, "I need you six to reform him as you did Discord."

"He's nothing like Discord!" yelled Rarity, striking the ground with her hoof in justified anxiety, "Discord was more or less mischievous. He's pure evil! How can we reform something like him!"

She pointed to the cell's contents, but Sombra only smiled, seeming to relish in her contempt for him; almost too much.

"And even if we tried to reform him, if he decided not to comply, there would be nothing keeping him from harming us. We were only safe when we encountered him in the Crystal Empire because Shining Armor's and Cadence's protective spells kept him outside the border. Those spells are useless now; he's already inside the border!" yelled Twilight, angry more out of fear than actual frustration.

Sombra sat back on his flanks, and his smirking stare turned back and forth as the equines beyond his confines debated over him.

"The only thing we have for protection against him is the elements of harmony, but with those it's all or nothin'. If we have to use 'em on him, he'll be long gone once the dust clears," said Applejack, a very worried look occupying her normally bright eyes.

Suddenly, a new voice sounded off from behind the group, somewhere beyond Twilight's horn's range of light.

"That's why I'm here."

The mares turned, and saw a shadow trotting towards them leisurely. The entity entered the light, revealing itself as Shining Armor; he looked tired, but his droopy eyes lit up when Twilight rushed to hug him.

"Hey Twiley," he crooned, wrapping a forelimb around his sister, who was squeezing his ribcage in a fit of happiness to see her brother once again.

"Why are you so late?" she asked as anxiety, love and joy came bubbling forth.

"I took the train," he said almost jokingly, and Twilight released him from her vice-like grip.

"Prince Shining Armor along with these eight guards will provide security for you while you undertake this task," explained Celestia as she levitated a box out of her chariot, "But in case you need them, here."

The wooden chest unsealed itself in Celestia's telekinetic grip, and revealed six sparkling pieces of jewelry; the elements of harmony.

"Take them, but I urge you to use them as a last resort only. Whether we trust him or not, Sombra is our best chance at cleansing Equestria; using the elements would destroy that chance. I would stay as well, but my sister and I must search the kingdom to try and find the source of the dark magic, and see if we can extinguish it. In the meantime, see if he can be rehabilitated; we will need his help should we be unable to eradicate the dark magic from Equestria and the Crystal Empire. Just try and see if progress can be made with him; that will be your goal for now."

The mares nodded as they each adorned their elements, clasping them around their necks, except in the case of Twilight's crown, which rested on her brow.

"I know you will not fail me, my little ponies," serenaded the princess as she began to step back up to her chariot, but she froze when she heard a new contribution to the conversation.

Laughter, but not from Pinkie Pie.

A slow, growling, low, ominous laugh, and the alicorn's head snapped to the force field sphere. Sombra, still seated and his head bowed, was quietly chuckling to himself, his blood red eyes sealed behind charcoal eyelids.

All present took a cautious step back from the sphere, with the exception of Shining Armor and Celestia, who stood their ground as the imprisoned stallion rose to his hooves and approached the perimeter of his round cell. His head was still bowed, and his eyes remained closed, but his wide, armored chest faced the princess from the opposite side of the curvaceous, translucent barrier.

Tension built as he continued laughing to himself, the guttural sound growing louder each second, until he drew in a deep breath, and slowly raised his eyes to meet the princess's.

Sombra, for the first time in a long time, spoke.

"This is your plan, Celestia? Leaving me with a congregation of empowered foals and a few guards, hoping my nature can be altered to help you, the one who banished me to that forsaken wasteland for centuries?! You, that which I despise above all things!?"

His voice was low, strong and clear, and he spoke with a thick accent, rolling his r's and extending his vowels, prolonging each syllable as he carefully annunciated each word. Though his eyes were vengeful, his mouth was drawn up in a glistening, toothy smile.

"Surely, you are more a fool than I took you for if you truly believe these mortals can contain me."

Celestia's chariot hovered off of the ground, and her horn began to glow weakly. The chariot levitated, and the force field keeping Sombra contained vanished, sparkling down into the wet grass as it dissipated. More crystals sprouted at the king's feet, inconspicuously growing up from the ground his hooves occupied.

"You are the fool, Sombra, for believing that they can't," the regal said coldly, and then, her gilded vessel was off, soaring through the darkened skies in the direction they had come from.

Before Celestia was more than a few dozen feet into the air, Shining Armor cast a spell on Sombra.

Glowing, transparent shackles, materialized from unicorn will power and magic, formed around the dark stallion's ankles, binding him as a prisoner for transport.

The former king's horn began to glow as a savage snarl emitted from his throat, but when he caught the glint off of Twilight's crown and remembered the elements' presence, the red radiance died down.

Shining Armor, a completely different stallion from the one that had lovingly greeted his sister earlier, barked an order.

"To Golden Oaks."

The armored stallions surrounded Sombra, their lances extended at him, forming a perimeter of blades around him, to which he responded with a glaring red eye and another beastly growl.

"Wait, Shining, why are we taking him home?"

"Where else do you want to take him?" answered the prince, "We can't keep him out here, and there isn't exactly another place he could go. We have a responsibility to keep him under control; it makes sense to keep him in the same place we're staying."

"So what does that mean?" asked Rainbow Dash, turning her self-assured glare back from a stare-down with Sombra back to the others.

"It means the library is about to be a little crowded, but for the rest of you, go on home for the night, but try and sleep lightly in case something happens," explained Shining as he neared Sombra confidently.

"Alright, now move," he barked, and a guard prodded Sombra's flank when he did not start walking immediately, but the spear passed through his flank harmlessly.

The guard looked at his spear tip as he pulled it back, and the place where Sombra had been pierced sealed itself as wispy flesh filled the hole.

"Don't get overzealous Jax," rumbled the largest stallion of the group as he eyed his comrade.

Sombra gauged the stallion, committing him to memory; a white Pegasus, orange mane, amber eyes, a plain shield as a cutie mark. Then, he walked off amidst the group of guards, paying careful attention to acute details about each of his chauffeurs, crystals sprouting in his hoof steps.

Behind the procession, the mares followed at a short distance.

"Umm, Twilight," began Fluttershy, quietly fluttering to her friend's side, "Is Shining Armor okay? He seems different."

"He's just in business mode right now," she explained, "He'll be better as soon as he calms down a bit."

"I doubt he'll calm down dear," said Rarity, worry in her voice, "He's in charge of keeping Ponyville safe, and Sombra is its newest resident. I don't think any of us will be staying calm for the next few days, especially without the princess around to keep an eye on things."

That was the other troublesome part; Twilight realized that, though the problems could have been easily attributed to Sombra, he couldn't be the source. He had been exiled from the kingdoms, meaning that something possibly more powerful and more evil than the king was out there, becoming more powerful with each hateful act its darkness inspired. Now, they relied on Sombra to rid them of what he lived on; but, there wasn't a villain the bearers had faced yet that couldn't be turned by the magic of friendship. Then again, how can the essence of evil be befriended?

Chapter 4: New Hosts

The dark lord leaned into Shining Armor, pressing his scimitar of a horn against his forehead, creating a small indent in his white hide, but not drawing blood.

Shining's eyes glossed over and averted to the cieling as his consciousness descended into the recesses of his mind, all due to Sombra's curse, now actively coursing through his veins and corrupting his soul.

The menace bridged the gap between his state of being and his victim's, preparing to leech off of his negative emotions; all he had to do now was find a way to bring those emotions forth. Sombra contemplated over how to go through the session; he'd already fed on the guard earlier, but this host had much more to give. His fear would give strength, his rage would be transferred; all of his flaws would add to the king's growing power.

Sombra's eyes were overtaken by green, his irises and pupils disappearing in a lime hued glow as he himself entered the trance he had bestowed on the prince. His horn cast a crimson essence on the otherwise dark room, and he entered the delusion he had so non-graciously given to Shining, reality twisting itself into nothingness while he crossed the threshold into his victim's subconscious.

Sombra, the master of the dream, knew that to be most beneficial, he must make the fear last. He led into the nightmare he orchestrated with the simplest and most primal of fears; darkness.

The king of shadows knew, from experience and past deeds, that this fear was common. He knew that none, though they professed it as a coming of age, ever fully relinquished the fear of the dark. The fear was always there, lingering; it was instinctual and inescapable, and therefore, benevolent to wielders of dark magic, if they knew how to command it. An old stand by, darkness was the perfect way to lead into what was to come; strong enough to bring forth fear, but not potent enough to cause full fledged terror.

He watched from the shadows as Shining Armor stood in the darkness of the void he had created. The real stallion was back in the room the real Sombra occupied; these were mere duplicates, conjured up from memory and emotion. It felt as if it were reality; all dreams do, but only Sombra was aware that they occupied a dream, his own creation, planted within Shining's mind.

Darkness; it permeated the creation, as planned. Shining was visible, but everything else was obscured by shadow and the absence of light, as if a spotlight had focused on the unicorn from somewhere beyond the dead of night. Sombra remained invisible, pulling the strings of the nightmare as one with the darkness.

Shining's head snapped from side to side, staring intently into void, searching for what it may conceal. Sombra felt the stallion's anticipation and anxiety build, a surge flowing through his being as he tasted the first hints of his host's fear.

He let the stallion grow more nervous, not quite fearful yet, but coming closer every moment the darkness closed in. When it reached a summit, Sombra upped the ante.

He focused on the fibers of the nightmare, warping them to fit his needs. He created new entities from will, bending the reality of the dream to create something else in the darkness, controlling everything from a distance as he watched the frightened reactions of his unfortunate victim.

A shadow flashed by, barely acknowledging its existence as it danced around Shining Armor, hinting at its existence as it teased into the light, retreating back into the darkness in a moment's notice.

Sombra felt another influx of power as Shining grew more afraid, the nightmare having grown from primal discomfort to immediate fear. But that wasn't enough.

He changed the lucid threat from a visual one to an audio one, and he again seized the reins of the dream to create dread.

Sombra smiled as Shining whipped around at the sound of a menacing growl, modeled after his own; even if the stallion didn't remember this nightmare afterwards, its events would for ever be instilled in his subconscious mind. He would associate certain traits and places with fear, making future feedings all the more yielding.

The white stallion backed away from the low, rumbling sound, the only sound in the dark abyss, and Sombra felt yet another wave of strength come over him; Shining was growing more and more afraid with each passing moment, and Sombra felt the tingling of life beginning to flow through him once again.

Sombra stepped the fear up again; time to reveal what the darkness hid. This next fear couldn't be primal or instinctual; it had to be personal.

In an instant, Sombra pulled away the darkness of the nightmare, exposing to Shining Armor a new environment. The stallion now stood on a precipice, a stone column ascending into the clouds overlooking an expansive valley on all sides below; nestled in between the mountains, was home.

The Crystal Empire in front of him, Equestria to his rear, ablaze.

A gush of power hit Sombra like a wave, causing him to recoil from its sheer force, and he felt its cold, biting sensation filling his being as Shining's heart spilled over with horror.

The white unicorn's eyes grew wide, filling with tears and terror as he saw the tall, glistening towers of the Crystal Empire in flames, an immense cloud of black smoke corrupting the once pristine air above. The magnificent splendor of the Empire's capital was gone, turned to ash and smoke and coals. His heart stopped when he saw his own home, the palace, turned orange by fire, the flames jumping to touch the darkened skies; the entirety of the crystalline castle was burning. He couldn't move down from the immense stone column; it was simply too high, so he tried a spell to try and extinguish the flames, but his horn fizzled out weakly when he tried to stimulate it, only a trickle of smoke being produced as his helpless pain grew stronger.

"No," whispered Shining, trying to step back, away from the dismay of his burning home.

His hoof slipped on the edge, and rocks fell to the terrestrial world below. He could go nowhere; the vertical piece of rock he occupied offered no possibility for movement in any direction.

Shining tried to turn away from the Crystal Empire, the limpid pride of the kingdom melting in the intense heat of the flames, but he only found himself looking at Equestria, yet another home to him; it was also an inferno. The golden wheat fields, the thatched roofed houses, the great cities of Baltimare and Fillydelphia in the distance, the infinite forests, the boundless grasslands and the jewel of Canterlot were all engulfed in fires, indiscriminately burning everything and anything into small white flakes drifting through the atmosphere like snow.

Sombra felt another surge of power as Shining began to break down, the horror of the atrocity of his burning home being too much. The stallion's knees grew weak, and he eventually gave in, falling heavily to the cold, stony platform he occupied.

A gust of sudden wind blew the smoke from the pair of ignited kingdoms into his face, again surrounding him in a black, ominous cloud of nothingness, and Sombra tweaked the environment of the dream once more.

The smoke receded, placing Shining in another environment amidst the flames. Through watering eyes and choking smoke, the prince saw the cause of the destruction.

The kingdoms had been invaded, something he had been tasked to prevent. Black ponies, ponies with red eyes and featureless faces, darted back and forth in front of him, pursuing fleeing citizens, setting fire to buildings, and striking down guards indiscriminately. They were emotionless; nothing was off limits, and Shining witnessed the atrocities of genocide, arson, and all degrees of assault being committed before his eyes.

Yet the fear hadn't reached its peak.

A familiar guard, a lieutenant and friend, was drawn by a pair of the attackers, emotionless and robotic as they secured him. A third stepped before the guard, brandishing his long, curving, sabre-like horn.

Shining tried to move to help him as the guard's eyes grew wide, the attacker's monochromatic blade rising above his victim's head, but he couldn't; his hooves were sealed to the ground, a dark, shadowlike entity coiled around his ankles, and no matter how hard he tried, his legs would not come undone from the ground.

The invader's horn descended in a swift strike, and as the blood of the guard spilled onto the street, Sombra again tore at the fabric of the nightmare, using a bit of the immense power he had accumulated from Shining's helpless rage and boundless dread.

A pair of the dark assailants drew him, seizing him by his forelimbs, and dragged him through the ash and smoke of the burning buildings. They passed mounds of corpses, consisting of stallions, mares and foals alike, the city's ditches having been turned into mass graves filled with the stench of decay, seared flesh and blood. Flies had taken to calling the bloated bodies home, and Sombra felt the strongest influx yet as Shining's stomach nearly wrenched in horror as they passed through the streets, flanked by the innumerable remains of ponies it had been his job to protect.

Sombra, still orchestrating the nightmare from a distance, recalled the power he had acquired after the event, and realized he had found one of Shining's greatest fears; failure. By exposing him to the consequences of failure to protect a kingdom, Sombra discovered the greatest of Shining's terrors. He would not forget it. Yet, there were greater fears deeper within the prince's mind; Sombra could feel it.

The dark lord directed Shining's captors to the edge of the kingdom, the lively countryside turned bleak and grey by corrupting ash. It fell like snow, creating an environment akin to fog. One could not see more than a few dozen feet in any direction. Shining was dragged through the cloud of burnt tranquility, farther and farther from the chaos of the besieged city, the two on either side of him not saying a word as they mechanically pulled him through the accumulating flakes, which had turned his coat from the purest white to sullen grey.

Slowly, the frantic cries of terror and the clashing of blades intermingling with the crackling fires faded away, and were replaced with silence. Dead, all-encompassing, uncorrupted silence; yet another primal weapon in Sombra's arsenal of fears to call on.

Shining still couldn't move. Even for all his power in reality, in the dream, he was helpless, and it terrified him. Strength flowed into Sombra like a trickle as the progression advanced into the endless cloud of grey, but he wanted more. So, again, not caring whether or not his victim would be able to handle the dread, he raised the fear factor.

It was time to find the greatest of Shining's fears.

Something began to take form in the distance, and Shining looked up to see a shape coming closer as he was pulled, pushed, and drawn towards it by the silent pair. The form, after tedious moments, became a tree, an immense oak with wide, endless, branching limbs standing in solitude in the drifting soot.

However, as he came nearer, Shining realized that it was more than a tree. From its branches were suspended silhouettes, still unrecognizable in the haze. He reached the trunk, looked up into its cold, all-encompassing arms, and his heart, at least a part of it, died; the tree was a gallows.

Ten bodies were hung by the neck from the tree's branches, their identities hidden by ash but their features alluding to loved ones, and Sombra fought the urge to release a yell of ecstasy as the raw power of Shining's horror hit him.

Shining gaped up at the tree from his knees, tears starting to flow as he began to realize who he was seeing.

Sombra, from somewhere in the haze, symphonized the nightmare, drawing back the fog ever so slowly to reveal the identities of those suspended lifelessly from the tree, but not before tormenting his victim a bit longer.

Slowly, a glow began from each of the inert shadows among the branches, slowly progressing to become sources of light. For a moment, Shining saw clearly the sources of the radiance, and his eyes spilled over as he heaved, sobbing in desolate solitude at the base of the tree; an orange apple here, a six-pronged magenta star there, a pink butterfly below those, a royal purple gem above, and many more.

The haze retreated methodically, finally revealing Sombra's morbid masterpiece. The dark lord teased his host with horror, not wanting to spoil the coup de grâce of his laboriously, but flawlessly created nightmare.

Above him in the oak's cold grips, Shining saw the cold, decayed body of Celestia, swinging limply from her neck by a cord of wire, her crown resting skewed on her scalp above her once, but no longer, splendid mane, which had grown dull in death. Next was Princess Luna, also a dear friend, the bones of her broken spine bulging from within her rotting neck as dark blood trickled forth from her mouth. More friends became visible as the haze was stripped away; first, Fluttershy, then Applejack, followed by Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and...Shining's stomach emptied itself when he saw the small, innocent form of Spike in death's grips, hovering from a thin piece of rope secured to a dead branch a few feet above his drooping, colorless spines.

Sombra had accumulated more power than he had ever before from a single session; Shining Armor was a perfect host. So many fears to tap, so much power to be gained, but even though Sombra had more power than he knew what to do with, he didn't stop. The nightmare continued.

The haze was drawn back inch by inch, slowly revealing the final, and most devastating, of the gallows' occupants.

"No," sobbed Shining, trembling, as his sister was shown to him, dead as the others, the flesh of her jaw eaten away by the bite of decay.

And finally, a crushing blow. Sombra showed the last of the ten to Shining, not allowing the stallion to avert his eyes as his wife, Cadence, her coat dull and dirty and her eyes rolled back in their sockets, became visible.

Shining Armor screamed a bloodcurdling cry of pain and horror, and Sombra relished in its taste.

The unicorn couldn't look away from the rotting, bloody, bloated, lifeless bodies of his friends and family, suspended by wire and cord in front of his face. They each wore their jewels. The bearers, their elements, the princesses, their crowns. Symbols of the kingdoms, dead, murdered by evil.

Sombra, seeking more from his victim, had the pair that dragged Shining to the site fasten a noose around Shining's neck, but the motion prompted no sweet sensation of fear to the king; Shining did not fear death.

Odd, but the king was cunning. Rather than ending the stallion's suffering with death, normally the greatest fear of an equine, he kept him alive in front of the oak, unable to leave and unable to look away, and Sombra again felt the flow of anger, sorrow and horror.

He could feel Shining fading; he had sucked him dry, and he was weak in flesh and spirit, possibly near death. Unwilling to let him go, Sombra devised a way to get the last drops of fear from the prince.

He came forth from the fog, materializing from shadow and darkness at Shining's side, and slowly, leaned into him.

"This," whispered the king, his low, rumbling voice breaking the quiet, ending the sound of the branches' creaking's reign, "is what is to come."

The seed was planted.

"You could have prevented this, Shining," serenaded the king, "but you failed. You cannot save them from me now."

Sombra felt the last influx of strength from Shining's fear as the dream began to swirl into darkness again; his host was finished.

****************

Sombra gasped as he came out of the dream, his eyes losing some of their radiance as his irises returned. He was high from the power harvested from the nightmare, but he swallowed it down. He looked to his hooves to see Shining Armor, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth agape, trembling weakly. Sombra felt the sweet sensation of victory, conquering his hated successor after so long, but he had to stifle a joyous chuckle as he heard the door creak open.

A feminine voice shouted from the doorway.

"What is going on! What did you do to him?"

Sombra wiped the proud look from his face in an instant, and looked to the doorway to see the owner of the home had awoken. The lavender alicorn was staring him down, switching her expression from concern for her brother and accusation for the king.

Sombra didn't move as she came in, kneeling to her brother's side. She couldn't know the truth; attacking her would give away his guilt, and there were no witnesses to what he had done to Shining.

He only asked in his gentlest voice, "How long has he been awake?"

Chapter 5: Fresh Lands

"How long has he been awake?" Sombra asked a second time, raising his voice, and Twilight mistook his tone for concern.

Sombra took a menacing step towards Twilight, made confident by his recently acquired strength. Small grey crystals sprouted at his feet, adding to the amount of limpid stones already bountiful in the room.

"How long..."

"I don't know!" she erupted, a rare statement for the alicorn, and she rushed past Sombra to her brother, weakly trembling on the floor.

Twilight cradled his head, and as she looked into his glossy, blank eyes, she felt the foreign feeling of fear rising within her heart; Sombra felt it as well. The dark lord, from behind Twilight's back, blinked away the green that had begun invading his eyes as more power graced his being, and gulped it down, suppressing the feral aggression tempting him to do something brash. Situations like these had to be handled delicately, and the elements of harmony were still a valid threat.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Twilight aloud, more to herself than to the room's only other responsive occupant.

"He has sleep deprivation," growled the king, knowing full well that there was no way for the truth to be proven.

Twilight inspected Shining; he appeared to indeed be deprived of rest. All the symptoms were there, from the bloodshot eyes to the unresponsive nature. But most of all, Shining's slow pulse and shuddering body were most alarming, and Twilight knew he needed help urgently.

Sombra spoke from behind Twilight, his voice deep and ominous in the otherwise silent library.

"There is nothing that can be done for him. He is too far gone. Make your peace while you..."

Sombra's words fell on deaf ears, and he abandoned them as Twilight interrupted him with a healing spell, giving a few more minutes of precious life to her dying brother.

"We need to get him to the hospital," said Twilight frantically as a lavender aura came to be around the barely conscious stallion.

"He will not survive without immediate attention," said Sombra again, trying to discourage her, but the alicorn remained devout.

"I have to try. He's my brother, and I love him," she said as she cantered out the door, her brother, clinging to life, floating behind her in a telekinetic grip.

Sombra winced as she spoke, the words grinding together in his ears most unpleasantly. Their lingering ring was routed by the library's door slamming shut, splitting silence taking its place a moment later.

Suddenly, Sombra had the house to himself.

Perfect.

****************

Sombra relaxed, allowing the crimson glow of his horn to die away, and looked proudly at the winding staircase he had erected from crystalline columns around the library, starting at his room's window, and rising to the oak's summit.

He stalked outside onto the first of the steps, and ascended them methodically. Once at the peak of his climb, he fashioned a precipice from opaque stone, a platform extending out beyond the radius of the tree's branches, and stepped onto it. Reaching its edge, he sat on his haunches; it was still dark, but he looked out over the land before him with radiant eyes, violet tails emitting from their corners.

It was a perfect time for thinking.

He was alone, and all was still in the early morning's tranquility; he looked up to the moon, a moon long concealed from him behind the perpetual clouds of the north.

Gazing up at its pale white face, his hardened gaze softened, and a wave of nostalgia came over him. He had greatly missed its glow, which had been hidden behind the perpetual clouds, along with many other things absent in the loneliness of the frozen north; he would not be going back, ever.

There, beneath the night sky, Sombra vowed to the moon, and the stars at her side; never again would he leave the lands he had earned for the desolate tundra that had been his most unpleasant home for eons, no matter the cost.

But, the right to stay would not be given; it either had to be either earned, or taken, and he had become especially good at taking all those years ago.

Regardless, it would not be easy to earn residence south of the icy wastelands of solitude. Many factors would come into play, almost all of them against him; the elements of harmony were a constant threat, as well as his greatest one, along with the alicorn sisters, and, perhaps least threatening of all, the royal guards.

He had already surmounted the greatest of them with the defeat of Shining Armor; the rest would be no challenge. And the princesses...

They had already cast him out of one kingdom, and likely, would have no problem doing it again. But, their influence was lacking, as was their presence. The two were off, searching for the 'source of the darkness' in Equestria they had become infatuated with. In all, the dark presence was the reason for him being brought into Equestria, as well as the cause for the princess's power to be amiss in the town, and hence, it was a blessing that it had taken root.

But the elements; their power was unrivaled, and were wielded from those he was to be reformed by.

Sombra chuckled at the thought; the Equestrians actually thought they could reform him by teaching him the power of love.

He knew the immense power of love already, as it had bested him in the Crystal Empire once before. Once; It would not do so a second time. There was no Crystal Heart around to expel him now. The only thing that could do such a thing was the princesses and the elements, one of which were ever-present in the miniscule town.

Something would have to be done about them.

But even for all the power of love, it was nothing compared to the power of hate. Hate decays, love grows; one destroys, the other builds. It can take seconds to destroy, to break, to kill; but it can take years to build, be it a structure or a life. The more powerful of the two was the one Sombra knew best.

And that knowledge was his asset, his core, his ally; he planned to use it.

He vowed again to never go back to the north, and planned on how to achieve that promise.

The elements would have to be made void somehow; but how to do it?

He could not stand hoof to hoof with the wielders in battle; together, their power would surpass his.

But, one on one, he had a chance.

That was how he could win, the only way he could win; working from the shadows, promoting the decay of fear and hatred. All he needed to do was plant a seed, a seed which would grow, so long as love did not cut it down as a sapling. But that was easy enough to prevent.

Sombra had already seen the impurities in the bearers' souls; he knew nothing of them, other than their appearances and their flaws, but both were invaluable in fostering fear. The white one's contempt, the blue one's arrogance, the yellow one's fear, she reeked of it, the pink one's nonchalance, the orange one's pride, and Princess Twilight's lust for perfection; they had all shown him in the few seconds of contact when they first met only a few hours earlier, but that was all the time he needed to realize their flaws. Flaws to be used to tear them down; flaws to be used to build himself up.

They planned to reform him; he could use the time spent with them to learn much more. All the much more to use against them. Knowledge would be the deciding factor; not power, not numbers. It would all come down to who knew his enemy better, and Sombra was the only one in town that knew dark magic; it was the purpose for which he was immigrated.

Sombra's brow hardened once again as a determined grin spread across his chin.

He would not be going back to the north. Never again.

****************

Just as the first rays of light, the first Sombra had seen in ages, came through the windows of the library, Twilight came home. She looked tired, and as Sombra saw that her drooping eyes were devoid of tears, he concluded Shining had, somehow, survived.

"Still awake?" mumbled Twilight as she trudged inside, seeing Sombra seated on her couch.

The king gave no reply.

Twilight ignored his silence, putting it off as an aspect of his nature, and tramped up the stairs to her own chambers. Sombra was left alone for a few moments before she returned, the sand gone from the corners of her eyes and her mane at least somewhat combed, a small dragon at her heels.

This was new to the dark stallion; he didn't know of a reptilian inhabitant of the house prior. Yet, for some reason, the drake seemed familiar.

Twilight began speaking to him as she came down the stairs, something about Shining Armor's condition, but Sombra heard nothing; he was too focused on remembering the dragon.

Purple scales, emerald spines, green eyes, slit pupils opened wide and filled with anxiety as they met his own, small, plump body; then, suddenly, it hit him with all the weight of memory.

The drake was the one from the Crystal Empire, the one that had robbed him of the Crystal Heart, practically taking it from his hooves amidst his attempt to retake his throne during the Empire's rare moment of weakness.

More of Twilight's words were ignored as Sombra glared at the dragon, searing hate and wrath parting his lips to reveal dagger like fangs and prompting very uncomfortable, nervous looks from the dragon.

Sombra rose from the couch, standing imposingly as he stared the dragon down. The reptile's quivering jaw was mute, and his were feet glued to the hardwood among small crystals, which had been continuously sprouting since Sombra's arrival.

But, as he went to move on the drake, Twilight reached to grab him by the forelimb, her hoof passing through his body with a sound like a ghost's whisper, as if nothing was there.

Sombra looked at her disapprovingly, drawing his forelimb away from her embrace, and Twilight suspiciously eyed him as well.

A moment passed in silence, giving Spike time to hide in the kitchen, before Twilight motioned to the door, and asked, "Aren't you coming?"

He gave her a confused, disgruntled look, drawing away a few inches farther.

Twilight rolled her eyes, trying to feign a smile, and retold everything she had said a few moments prior.

"Shining will be okay; the doctor said he'll need a few days' rest before he's back to his normal self, and the hospital said that the rest of the guards apparently took a stallion named Jax to Canterlot. I guess he was sleep deprived too."

Sombra nodded consent, praying she would not catch on; luckily, she was eager to believe he was innocent, likely due to its implication that he was already accepting being reformed.

"By the way, I'm sorry about how they treated you. That was no way to host a guest."

Sombra couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was actually being friendly to him.

He was unsure of how he felt about it either. One thing was for certain; it was...odd.

"So, with them out and about, its just us," she paused, correcting herself a bit, "you, me, and the other bearers. So, I figured we'd get started on your, umm..."

"Reformation?" grumbled Sombra, looking suspiciously at the alicorn.

"Yeah," Twilight answered, and Sombra looked away, annoyed and uncaring.

"Well, I didn't really mean 'reform'. I guess what I had in mind was more of a tour," she said, raising her voice at the end of her sentence as if it was a question, "I figured you could just get to know us a bit first, so we're not total strangers anymore."

Sombra felt something rising within him, something completely opposite from the sensation fear and hate prompted. This felt sluggish, light and lukewarm, completely unlike the heavy, revigorating cold that the fears of others spawned. Is this what kindness felt like?

Sombra dismissed the notion eagerly; it was preposterous. He would not allow anything other than hate and fear into his being. Such things as love and kindness were at the core of what he defined as weakness; such things were at the core of everything he hated.

Remembering this hatred bolstered the king's power a bit, and the flamboyant emotion he experienced earlier was expelled.

"So are you coming?" asked Twilight as she stepped toward the king.

Sombra grudgingly followed her, knowing that his opportunity to stay in Equestria for his plans to blossom depended solely on his cooperation.

As he followed her out the door, the brittle, grinding sound of crystals germinating in his footsteps rivaling Twilight's hoof falls, the thought came back to him.

Kindness?

Chapter 6: Black and White

Sombra silently plodded behind Twilight as they progressed through town, and though the morning was young, the streets were filled with ponies, eager to gawk at the spectacle that was Sombra. Perhaps it had something to do with his appearance, maybe it was the fact that he was with the princess, or a certain vibe he gave off, but regardless, the eyes of every citizen they passed fell on him. He made a point to send glares back in return, meeting the eyes of each stallion, mare, and foal he passed.

He felt a faint, refreshing chill in his stomach, and he knew it to be from the fear, or at least the nervousness, he was inspiring.

His attention was wrought from a stare-down with a teal unicorn mare by Twilight, addressing him with that kind, friendly tone again.

"So, we'll visit Rarity first," she explained, gesturing slightly towards a large structure as they entered the town's bustling square.

Sombra couldn't help but feel a bit piteous, that the building they were approaching, the largest of the town, was so miniscule compared to the architecture of the Crystal Empire. It served as a reminder that he didn't belong in this place; he was meant for, as well as accustomed to, much higher things.

No matter; that would all change soon enough.

They approached the door of the building, a small crowd watching from behind as crystals marked Sombra's noiseless hoof falls.

Twilight pushed through the door, an awfully cheerful bell sounding above the doorframe. Another cheerful sound came from deeper inside; a voice, high pitched and sophisticated, sang out a greeting.

"Welcome to Carousel Boutique! Finest fabrics in Ponyvil... Oh."

Sombra recognized her as she came out of a backroom; the fabrics and thread the mare was toting in a telekinetic glow fell to the floor as she stopped in her tracks, her eyes growing wider as she saw her shop's visitor.

"Hey Rarity," said Twilight, breaking the silence spawned by her friend's shock.

Rarity pointed at Sombra, her mouth agape, and the stallion took a brazen step forward in silence as the mare remained mute, silenced by surprise.

"Soooo," said Twilight awkwardly, "Today, we're starting Sombra's reformation."

Finally, Rarity's dumbfound nature was shattered, and her composure returned.

She cleared her throat, and very elegantly repositioned herself, correcting her posture, and said, "Twilight, may I speak to you?"

"Of course," the alicorn responded, not moving from where she stood at Sombra's side.

"Alone," continued Rarity, shooting a quick glance at Sombra to indicate to Twilight the matter they needed to converse over.

Twilight nodded, and followed her friend out of sight, but not of earshot. Sombra unnecessarily leaned forward, catching the first words the mares exchanged in a yell.

"Where are his guards!"

Twilight's and Rarity's heads poked around the corner, exposing themselves from within a back room, and Sombra quickly shifted his eyes from them to pretend to be inspecting the layout of the room.

The mares retreated again into the back room once confident they were indeed speaking in private, not unlike gophers finding sanctuary down their holes. Sombra leaned in closer again, directing his full attention to the whispers from beyond his line of sight.

"Why are you going around with him without protection? He's dangerous," hissed Rarity, her frantic tone bearing no resemblance to the sophisticated manner she had tried so hard to portray moments earlier.

"The guards are all gone."

"What do you mean they're all gone? There were eight of them plus your brother a few hours ago."

"Shining has sleep deprivation, and another got sick, so the others took him to Canterlot."

"To Canterlot?"

"Yes, to Canterlot...What's wrong?"

Sombra listened a little harder as the whispers died away; he swore he could hear the mares breathing, even from across the room.

"Two guards becoming deathly ill in one night, and the others deserting; that can't be a coincidence Twilight."

"They didn't desert, they took the sick one back to Canterlot."

"It doesn't take seven royal guards to take one sick stallion a few miles to the north."

"What are you saying?"

"Did your brother say anything to you?"

"Rarity, what are you saying?"

"If your brother was fit enough to speak, I think he'd tell you Sombra is behind this."

The king gritted his teeth as he prepared for a showdown. If the princess did believe what her friend was saying, the truth, there would be little time between her acceptance and his expulsion, and he was not going back to the north. But, no duel occurred, and the hushed conversation continued.

"Why would you say that?"

"He's evil Twilight. Why shouldn't I be suspicious?"

"Rarity, trust me. He hasn't even done anything to me or Spike yet, and we were asleep with him downstairs for hours; if he wanted to hurt us, there was nothing stopping him."

"Twilight, just him being around makes me uncomfortable. He doesn't even have to do anything. I can see it in his eyes; he's up to something."

Sombra came to realize that Rarity was keen to what Twilight seemed oblivious to.

"Ok Rarity," floated Twilight's voice from the other side of the corner, "I'll be more careful, but like it or not, Sombra's not going anywhere soon. Celestia needs us to try and reform him; we can't let her down."

Something else was whispered, but Sombra was unable to hear any syllables, and as the sound of hoof steps reverberated from the back room, Sombra reverted to looking at the interior of the structure. The mares came in, trying to fool him by wearing the same expressions they had disappeared with; they didn't.

He eyed them without emotion as they came trotting up. Twilight stood at his side, and Rarity took her place to his front, creating a generous gap between the two of them.

"So Rarity, since we're going to be helping Sombra with his reformation, why don't you two get acquainted a bit."

Rarity looked at the alicorn with shock, but Sombra, willing to listen, took a seat on a crimson couch along the wall, curling up comfortably with his chest and head held high.

Much to Rarity's chagrin, a ring of crystals sprouted through the couch's fabric to encircle the king, ruining the piece in her eyes. The white mare stamped her hoof in frustration, but Twilight stopped her from further action.

Sombra waved a hoof forward, as if presenting the floor of the boutique to Rarity, letting her know he wanted her to begin. Then, he sat silent and still, as if he were a student waiting on a lecture from the professor, Rarity.

Taking a deep breath and, again, recomposing herself into an elegant stance, her knees locked out, her back straight and her head held high, she began to speak uninterrupted.

"Well, I suppose I'll start with a bit about myself, seeing how that's what you came across town to learn apparently," as she finished, Rarity looked a bit disapprovingly on Twilight; an odd expression for a princess to receive, or so thought Sombra.

"So, my name is Rarity," she said, flicking her mane a bit theatrically, "and I'm an expert seamstress and designer here in Ponyville. I run my shop here, but I have clients all over Equestria."

Sombra adjusted his seat a bit, and Rarity stepped back, becoming concerned as soon as she saw him move.

Sombra saw it in her lavender eyes as well as her jumpy, nervous state; she was afraid of him.

She continued speaking after seeing he was not about to hurt her, something about the details of her business, but Sombra wasn't listening. Her blathering and verbose monologue were not important; the things that Sombra could learn the most from were in the tiniest details of the boutique, and his eyes began to wander ever so minutely away from the unicorn, enthusiastically gesturing to this and that, before him.

The first thing that struck the king was the amount of mirrors in the room. There were at least a dozen on the first floor alone, as a set of stairs to his left alluded to the presence of a second story, and most definitely, more mirrors. Normally, the reflective panes would be expected in a designer's shop such as this one, but even in his own castle's wardrobe, much larger than this one, there had only been a trio of them.

She was fascinated, transfixed, with reflections, and judging by the makeup and eye shadow on the shelves beneath nearly every mirror in sight, her own reflection; specifically, its beauty. She was narcissistic. The mare valued her beauty greatly, and righteously so.

Sombra's wandering eyes began to explore the body of the mare, still talking, in front of him. She was gorgeous, from her slender legs and curvaceous flanks, to her sparkling eyes and angelic face, and Sombra felt the cold, familiar burn of lust inside of him.

He refocused on his inquiries. He would sate that hunger later; now was a time for learning. Now was a time for gaining knowledge; the greatest weapon of all to be used at his discretion.

Sombra began gauging the room again. The stairs, the mirrors, the cat prowling around on the far side of the room, magazines, photographs, trinkets here and there, a single piece of clothing that stood out from the decorative designs draped over the mannequins by its simplicity on the floor; this was her home as well as her workplace. Likely, her quarters were upstairs.

Sombra looked around again, seeing everything a second time to try and find the rest of the keys the room's contents might hold, but his mind kept returning to the photographs around the windowsills and the mirrors. They all contained pictures of her, be it a portrait, a memory, a picture with friends or family. But for all the pictures, not one depicted her with a stallion.

She was single.

The king was perplexed. Given her beauty, it would be sensible to think that stallions all over town would be begging her for a courtship; she could take her pick of the lot of them, but rather, she chose to remain chaste.

The king could think of two possible explanations.

Either she was not sexually interested in stallions; unlikely, as her screaming femininity pointed to a complete domination of testosterone by estrogen in her chemistry; or she valued her purity. That had to be it.

She was saving herself. She wanted to be pure and sinless, waiting on the coming of the perfect, fantasized stallion and the following marriage.

More to be used against her; more indication of her fears.

"Ahem," coughed Rarity upon finishing her verbose autobiography, calling Sombra's distant mind back to the present, "Have you any questions?"

Sombra looked at her a long while before standing, and asked in low, flowing, carefully annunciated syllables, "What is your element?"

"My element of harmony?" she asked to confirm, and looked to Twilight for assurance that she could indeed reveal that information.

"My element is Generosity."

Sombra had already begun to leave, prompting Twilight to follow, but Rarity finished before he reached the door.

Looking over his shoulder, and in a guttural, Slavic voice, he crooned, "Fitting."

"What's that supposed to mean," harrumphed Rarity defensively.

The king opened the door, silencing the joyous note of the bell with a focused, incinerating blast of dark magic, turning it to dust. He waited for a very shocked Twilight to join him on the porch, and then turned to look Rarity in the eye.

"Fitting, because you've given me more than you know."

He let the door slam shut, separating his devious glare from her shock-filled eyes, and stepped down from the porch, ignoring the disapproving look on Twilight's face.

Sombra began walking off on the road, and over his shoulder, called, "So who am I meeting next?"

Chapter 7: Honesty

"What was that all about?"

The purple alicorn was acting offended as she walked alongside the king on another promenade through the square, effectively terrorizing residents with the sight of Sombra alone.

Rather than answering her, he looked at her with a raised eyebrow, confused.

"You weren't very polite to Rarity."

"Nor was she to me," he snarled, turning his gaze to his front, "Or to you for that matter."

Twilight stopped walking, coming to a halt in the middle of the road.

"What do you mean?"

Sombra stopped after passing her on the street, circling back around to face her.

"You are royalty," he rumbled, "and she spoke to you as if she were your equal."

"She's always talked to me like that," answered Twilight, her voice gentle, contrasting the harsh notes in Sombra's words, "It's just a part of who she is."

"Who she is," countered the king, "is nothing more than a common merchant, a servant to the highest bidder."

"Who she is, is my friend," rebuffed Twilight, her face immediately contorting into a glare and her tone abandoning hospitality as she spoke.

The two stood there in the street, dozens staring at them from throughout the square, but no attention was paid to the bystanders. Twilight was locked in Sombra's eyes; the king was seized by the princess's glare. Minutes passed, neither saying a word, nor moving a muscle, until finally, Sombra broke the stare.

His scowl softened a bit, and his fangs protruded outside of his lips as the corners of his mouth drew up in a smile. His brow stayed set, but his chin adorned a devious grin. He reached out to touch her face.

Sombra's hoof touched the princess's cheek seductively, and she drew back when she felt nothing as they touched without feeling. She saw him brush her face, but she felt nothing.

She stopped her retreat once she realized it was harmless, and the king continued to caress her, from the top of her neck to her cheeks, adjacent to her eyes. The two still glared at each other; Twilight's gaze spoke volumes about suspicion and confusion, while Sombra's eyes, though scowling, seemed amused. It was a few seconds before he spoke.

Slowly, deeply, the words rolled off of his tongue as he serenaded through a rich, exotic baritone.

"So much potential," he sighed, "yet, you squander it."

With that, he suddenly drew away from her before Twilight herself could recede, his cape swinging around behind him as it passed through Twilight's chest silently, and began proceeding down the street again.

Twilight, hesitantly, followed in his hoof prints, marked by the crystals sprouting in his wake.

***************

It wasn't long before they reached the farm.

Sombra and Twilight crested the hill, together, but not side by side as before; Twilight took care to put a bit of extra space between herself and the stallion for the rest of the trip.

From the road, the rural plot was visible in its entirety. Sombra, much to the surprise of his companion, strolled off the side of the road, and sat down amidst the grass, looking out over the farm in serenity.

"It's beautiful, isn't it," she said as she approached him from behind, "It's amazing what you can accomplish with family love and hard work."

Before she finished, Sombra rose and began hiking downhill towards the farmhouse, taking great care to ignore her.

He covered the distance quickly, Twilight trotting behind him to keep up. He stopped silently when he reached the yard, a dirt piece of earth between the barn, the house, and the fields. He looked all around, taking everything in, from the chairs neatly placed on the porch to the trees, planted in rows as far as the eye could see; there was obvious pride invested in the upkeep of the property.

Reaching his side, Twilight stated, "This is where Applejack lives."

Mistaking his observance for admiration, she added, "pretty impressive huh?"

He gave an inconspicuous grunt, and pawed at the ground, not moving any dirt manually as a few crystals bloomed in the spots he touched.

Twilight herself began looking around, eventually saying, "She should be around here somewhere."

As if on cue, an orange mare vacated the barn, a basket of apples balanced on her back. She wasn't alone.

A large, red stallion accompanied her, and his eyes widened a bit when his eyes met the king's. The stallion looked at the mare, and without words, the two parted ways, nodding to each other as they did so. The stallion plodded off towards the groves, but the mare approached the yard.

She feigned a smile to Sombra, and then beckoned Twilight for a 'private conversation', just as Rarity had before; only this time, the princess denied the request.

"Then I'll just say it in front o' him," said Applejack, planting a hoof firmly into the soil, "Twilight, ya shouldn't be goin' round with him. Ya know he's dangerous."

"I know," came the response, prompting a seemingly surprised expression from the farmer.

"But," continued Twilight, "since we're going to be reforming him," Sombra rolled his eyes as she spoke, "I figured it would be better if he were able to get to know us a bit before we really got into it."

Applejack looked back and forth worriedly before her seemingly unworried friend and Sombra, who was looking at her nonchalantly, almost as if he were bored.

"So ya want for him to get to know me?"

The response came in the form of a nod.

"Well then," she said, shepherding her guests towards the porch, "Y'all better come inside."

****************

Sombra found himself ushered into a living room, and while his host prompted him to take a seat on the couch, Twilight, remembering what had happened to Rarity's furniture earlier, advised against it. Rather, the stallion stood at the side of a small table in the center of the room as Applejack courteously served glasses of apple cider.

Twilight, taking a sip from her vessel, said, "So, what we've been doing is just telling him a bit about ourselves so we're no longer strangers, and one step closer to be being friends."

Applejack looked at Twilight as if she were crazy, then at Sombra, who seemed, intrigued. Applejack shrugged, and spoke simply.

"I was born here, I've been here my whole life. Not much else to tell."

Sombra looked at her disappointedly, then at Twilight for a moment, and after waiting for something else to be said in disappointment, he grumbled, "Not as verbose as the other."

"Yeah, well, actions speak louder than words."

Sombra eyed Applejack, who returned a suspicious scowl. Yet another equine who seemed reluctant to trust him.

"And what of your actions? What have they said, since your words seem to fall short," he said articulately.

"Just look at this farm. Me and my brother do near everything on this farm and take care of my sister and Granny, and have been doin' so for years. If that don't say nothin', I don't know what does."

Sombra saw the fire in her eyes, the fire of pride, and couldn't help but feel a bit aroused as her mistrust and suspicion of him boiled over into frustration and self-confidence, normally fine in small doses, but in excess, deadly. Yet, he knew there was something behind it all, a source of that pride, the motivation for her to work so hard, and the cause of the obvious chip on her shoulder.

"Your element?"

"Honesty," Applejack responded firmly.

"Now, tell me Honesty, why have you and your sibling had to maintain such a large piece of property alone?"

The mare's fire was extinguished immediately, and Sombra knew he was onto something.

"Surely, you and he did not purchase such a large plot alone. Your parents," Applejack recoiled a bit, and Sombra suppressed a smile as his inquiry paid off, "must have been around to do a bit of the work themselves, hmm?"

Applejack stopped breathing for a moment.

"Am I to understand that your parents haven't been present for your foal hood?"

The mare was silent, a glare materializing on her brow beneath the brim of her hat, which was blatantly too large for her; Sombra could have guessed where it came from, and he would have guessed right.

"Honesty?" he pushed, using her strength against her, prying.

"Yes, that's right," she finally said.

"And, where have they been?" said Sombra, fighting the urge to smile.

Finally, much to the shock of Twilight and the delight of Sombra, Applejack exploded in rage.

"You get outta my house, now!"

She ushered the king, grinning deviously, out onto the front porch, and there, listening to arguing in the house between the alicorn and the farmer, he waited. Eventually, Twilight came out as well, angry and frustrated, but still composed.

"It seems your friends are not too fond of me."

"I think that's because you're such a creep."

Sombra glared a bit at her, but then hopped down off the porch and started back towards the town.

"And what do you think?"

Twilight was slow to respond.

"I agree, but there's something else too."

"And what's that? growled the king, his demeanor changing to a defensive posture as he began to feel threatened.

"It seems like you're eager to learn, which is good."

Sombra smiled.

"Yes, it is. I only wish to learn more."

"Well then, let's get to the others."

Twilight started off, but Sombra called her back.

"Princess, may we make the next meeting quick?"

"Yes, why?"

"I wish to learn more about friendship, specifically its magic."

"Of course," chimed the alicorn, delighted that her guest was so interested in learning about good magic.

Sombra, behind her as she trotted back to the road, was equally uplifted, but not for the same reasons.

Chapter 8: The Demon Within

Sombra sat quietly in the back room of the bakery as the two argued in front of him. Two others mirrored his stance on the opposite side of the room, staring at him with wide eyes as they sat on their haunches. The cyan Pegasus was screaming into the face of the princess, yet the pink one and the yellow one were staying silent, more out of discomfort than out of not having anything to say.

"I know he's up to something!" yelled the Pegasus.

"He hasn't done anything to raise suspicion Rainbow."

"So you trust him Twilight?!"

"He hasn't done anything to make me think I shouldn't!"

Sombra couldn't help but feel amused by the pattern going on; Twilight seemed reluctant to believe each of her friends, who didn't trust him in the least. It was convenient, but alarming, as he hadn't even done anything to lead them to mistrust him; not yet at least. All the more evidence that hate and fear had taken root in Equestria, and all the more obvious as to why the princesses, in their infinite wisdom, had taken him into the kingdom.

"How do we know he's not behind this whole thing in the first place?!" Dash shouted, fluttering higher up off the ground to gain height over the princes, acquiring a position of dominance, "How do we know he's not the source of that 'dark presence' Celestia was talking about?!"

Sombra remembered that she carried herself much the same the night he was brought to town. She was always above the others in posture, fluttering over their heads or puffing her chest out amidst impositions of strength. She always was boasting her strengths, displaying her dominance; self-assured and confident, but brazen nonetheless.

"We don't! But we have no option but to work with what we do know. Celestia needs us Dash; we can't let her down."

"The princess wanted us to try and convince him to help us find out about dark magic, not make friends with him!"

"Why are you so apprehensive? Are you afraid of him or something?"

The Pegasus froze, descending to the ground so that her glaring magenta eyes were now only a few inches from Twilight's.

"I am not afraid," she growled.

After a few moments, her scowl turned from Twilight to Sombra. He returned the look, but with less malice. Dash suppressed the urge to step back as she looked into his eyes.

He was glaring, but he wasn't angry; he seemed to be mirroring her in the sense of expression. His eyes held a familiar look to her, the look of accepting a challenge.

Her glare softened, but her gaze was not broken, at least, until a vibrant flash of color interrupted the stare down.

"I'll go first!" yelled the mare, throwing her forelimbs into the air excitedly as she took a place before Sombra.

"Pinkie, I haven't even told you what we're here for. When we first showed up, Dash and I started arguing before I could explain anything."

The mare paid no attention to her alicorn companion, and immediately began giving the stallion her life story as had been requested of the other elements prior.

"I was born on a rock farm a really long time ago, and I got my cutie mark the first time I smiled. It was so cool! There was this huge rainbow and all the colors just filled me up and..."

Sombra took a tentative step backwards. To say the mare was hyperactive would be an understatement. Joyous, excited, like a filly, even though she was fully grown by her features.

She grew louder and louder as she transferred from her filly hood into a detailed explanation of her role in town, making the inhabitants smile and spreading joy; the thought alone made Sombra shudder.

"Which reminds me, I haven't welcomed you to Ponyville yet!"

The mare reached behind her, and Sombra realized, and was shocked by, the fact that she was emanating no negative emotion. He still had plenty to use from previous hosts, but he was gaining nothing new from her; no hate, no arrogance, no fear, at least at the moment.

Out of nowhere, as if by magic, an immense howitzer was produced. The mare aimed the cannon at Sombra with one eye closed and her tongue protruding past her lips.

The stallion planted his hoof into the ground defensively, and his horn began to glow blood red.

"Pinkie no!" yelled Twilight and Dash in unison, but they were too late to stop her.

She yanked the string, and a wall of crystal tore through the floorboards violently between Sombra and the cannon's muzzle. The shot was blocked before it came forth from the barrel, killing any chance for Sombra to see that its projectile was in fact a harmless burst of confetti.

The king lowered the barrier, and stepped forward menacingly. The huge smile on Pinkie's face ran, being replaced by an expression of fear.

"You dare attack me?!" he snarled as his pupils were lost in an essence of green, dark magic beginning to emanate through his pores to create a purple haze around his entity.

His fangs bared and his eyes transformed as he became something other than a pony. He became like an animal in rage, a monster. His outline became blurred as he began to grow larger, becoming even more menacing than before somehow. Yet, for how terrifying he was, he gave off subtle magic, making the fear all the more real. This was Sombra; the pony before was lost in his new form, as well as everything associated with him.

Pinkie receded; now Sombra could feel the essence of fear coming from her now, and it was strong. Coupled with that of the yellow Pegasus cowering in the corner, it was the strongest sensation he had ever experienced, its cold, invigorating touch taking root inside him, giving him feeling, something that had become elusive in the past eons.

Sombra towered over the now cowering Pinkie Pie; tears had begun to form in the mare's eyes. Somepony shouted at him from the other side of the room, and he felt a whoosh of wind as Rainbow Dash attempted to tackle him, passing straight through his entity as if he weren't there.

He turned on the Pegasus now, forgetting Pinkie Pie, and advanced on her, baring his teeth as his eyes trailed streams of purple. The tingling of static filled the room, and the crystals in Sombra's wake grew larger as his power began to fill the room, intimidating and striking awe into the hearts of all present.

Rainbow Dash tried to get up, but Sombra, with a telekinetic wave, slammed her back into the floor. The floorboards reverberated with the force of the impact, and the mare heaved as the air was forced from her lungs.

Something else was yelled from the other side of the room, but Sombra heard none of it. He was on a high, blinded by rage and made drunk by the presence of fear and hate in the room.

Shards of crystals shot up from his hooves as he stepped forward, slowly gaining ground on Rainbow Dash, writhing on the ground from having the wind knocked out of her.

The king's horn began to glow red hot as a crimson ring formed around the Pegasus's neck, and Sombra lifted her from the ground as he bared his teeth, glaring; not an amused glare any more. Rage had come forth in provocation. These mares had dared to attack him; they would pay.

The ring constricted around a cyan throat, and Dash began to choke and squirm, suspended in the air, powerless.

"AFRAID YET?!" Sombra bellowed, a deafening roar that caused all within to cower as the ring bore down more, and Dash's face began to turn purple.

Her eyes began to roll back in their sockets, but the king only bore down harder, relishing in the Pegasus's terror of impending death.

She went limp in an instant, and a purple beam shot from the other side of the room, boring a hole through the king's head. The gap was replaced as a dark mist filled the circular hole, and Sombra let his grip release.

Rainbow Dash fell to the floor heavily, collecting in a heap of colorful fur, feathers and limbs. Silence took the room, the energetic hum having died down; only the sound of breathing and the creaking of the floorboards as a few more crystals sprouted through the floor filled the otherwise silent room. The king stood still, and from the opposite side of the room, Twilight began to wonder whether firing a bolt of magic at him was a good idea.

She was panting, her stance ready and her brow set, but the king stood as a statue.

Then, the silence was broken by a growl; a low, rumbling, angry sound that resonated in the ears of those who heard it, and as it grew louder, Sombra, slowly, turned his gaze to face the princess. Fangs bared, brow tense, and stance strong and wide, he stared her down, unharmed.

He stared daggers at her, until the growling evolved into another energetic hum in the air, and Sombra's rage returned in an instant to replicate the power and energy he held moments before sevenfold.

"T-Twilight!" squeaked the mare in the corner as Sombra's rage built to a peak, and the alicorn prepared herself.

Twilight's horn began to glow as she reared back a second time, preparing to plunge forward with all of her might to defend her friends and herself, but the king stopped her before she could.

With a roar like thunder, Sombra displayed his capacity for power.

In an instant, the king's aura, the sound, everything, was drawn towards him in a gush of hot wind. It collected within him, pent up and waiting.

There was silence and stillness for a moment, and even though Fluttershy's mouth was agape in a scream, no sound could be heard.

The energy collected in the king's center, his mouth open in a silent roar, and then suddenly, rushed outward in every direction. The king released a pulse of raw, awesome power within the room, and havoc, as well as a deafening boom, ensued.

Twilight felt herself being lifted from the floor, and when she felt an impact on the back of her head, her vision suddenly turned to blackness.

Chapter 9: Cat and Mouse

Darkness; it was all around. It was not inability to see, as the alicorn could see her own hooves in front of her face, but beyond herself, there was only darkness. Nothing was out there; not light, not sound, nothing.

"Hello," Twilight called weakly.

No response.

"Hello!" she cried, stronger this time.

Again, there seemed to be nothing in the void beyond herself. But, though she was alone, she felt the hair on the back of her neck tingling as if something was watching her. She began to step backwards, leaving the nothingness in front of her for the darkness at her rear. She was nervous; not afraid, but nervous, and becoming more so each moment.

"Hello!" she cried a third time, the loudest yet, "Is anypony out there?!"

Not even an echo replied.

The alicorn stepped back farther, her hoof falls making no noise as they struck the black surface below her. She drew in a breath, preparing to let out another call, but her breath failed her, and she gasped out of surprise rather than for purpose as she felt something at her hooves.

Something coiled around her ankles, something wet and cold and muscular, and a frightened shriek escaped her lungs. She jumped up, freeing her limbs from the thing that had seized them, and spinning around midair, saw something dark and large retreating into the darkness away from her, and out of sight. It never showed itself as it danced away; it hadn't hurt her, but it had made an attempt on her. Either she scared it away, or it was toying with her, hunting her as a cat to a mouse.

Frightened now, she tried to spark a light from her horn, but her magic failed her; she simply couldn't, and she remained in the dark.

A slight sound reported behind her, and she spun around as the sound of hoof falls receded into the darkness, their producer invisible in the void.

"Who's there?!" she yelled, hyperventilating and afraid.

When she received no response, she summoned her waning courage, and began to approach the distant clapping sound of enamel hitting cobblestone, when at last, she heard a voice, and a familiar one at that.

"Don't!" it yelled, seeming to come from miles in the distance and right next to her ear at the same time.

"Rainbow?" Twilight shouted to the unseen speaker, "Is that you?!"

She was not answered until she tried to take a few more steps forward again.

"Don't come any closer!" yelled the voice, raspy and panicked.

"What's wrong?!" yelled Twilight, frantically searching the abyss around her for a sign of her friend.

Silence ensued for a period, until the voice, static and stuttering now, responded. It started as a whisper, again, coming from the distance and her side at once, until it evolved into words.

"h-h-h-he's-e's ou-He's out here!"

"Who?!" yelled Twilight, frantic and panicked now, "Who's out there?!"

A new voice came through the darkness now, stuttering and humming as it started low and grew audible as seconds passed.

"f-f-fe-Fear."

"Fluttershy?" asked the alicorn aloud, "Is that you?"

"d-dou-Doubt."

"Pinkie?"

"r-ra Rage."

"Rainbow, is that you again?"

"h-h-ha-Hate."

"Rarity? You too?"

"p-pri-Pride."

"Applejack?"

Twilight was spinning in place now, rotating around as she tried, desperate and frightened, to find her friends, somewhere out there in the darkness, not themselves and in trouble by the sounds of their voices.

"What's going on?!" she yelled; she was confused, and ashamed by it, but above that, afraid.

"What's wrong? Tell me; I'll help you! I always have! Who's out there!? Who?!"

She heard a collection of five familiar voices hiss beyond her vision, something low and inaudible.

"What?!"

"ss-sss..." came the voices, saying the same prolonged syllable together, but not in unison.

Silence followed the second volley of whispers, and Twilight's fear gained a new level of frustration as well.

"What are you saying?! Who's out there?!"

Suddenly, the whispers transformed into a collective shout, booming, all-encompassing, and very, very nearby.

"SOMBRA!" yelled the voices of her friends, electric and strong from somewhere out of sight.

Twilight's ears flattened against her head as she heard the word, and she began to take a step away from the voices. The voices were her friends', but she knew her friends weren't speaking them. This was something else, something unlike her companions, something terrifying and foreign, and something she wanted to get away from.

Five voices joined together in another roar that resonated through the darkness.

"FEAR!"

Twilight turned and ran, anxiety and horror causing tears to well up in her eyes and cloud her vision as she pushed deeper into the darkness, away from the voices. But, before she escaped, they sounded again, in front of her, as if she hadn't moved at all.

"DOUBT!"

Twilight wheeled around, and took off, panting and gasping, in the opposite direction, but again, the voices shouted in her face mid-sprint.

"RAGE!"

Again, she turned and ran away, but she was unable to escape the thunderous boom of the words.

"HATE!"

Sobbing, she closed her eyes and ran again, not caring where she went anymore. She didn't want to be anywhere in particular; she just didn't want to be there anymore. But, she simply couldn't get away, and she was blown onto her flanks by the force of the voices as it hit her a fifth time.

"PRIDE!"

Twilight, sitting on her haunches unable to get up, frozen by fear, did the only thing left to do. She covered her ears and sealed her swelling eyes shut, trying to block out the voices as they began reciting the words again and again in a disembodied, demonic chant, but to no avail. She heard every syllable as clearly as before.

"FEAR! DOUBT! RAGE! HATE! PRIDE! FEAR! DOUBT! RAGE! HATE! PRIDE! FEAR! DOUBT! RAGE! HATE! PRIDE..."

Suddenly, the voices stopped. Twilight removed her hooves from her ears, and opened her eyes. She could see nothing more than before, but she heard even less. The silence following the thunderous chorus was deafening in itself. She looked around; nothing. Her ears twitched as they tried to detect anything, but they failed to do so.

Then, as suddenly as the chant had stopped, it picked up again, somehow, even louder.

"BE AFRAID!"

The voices in this shout were more than five; there were thousands of them, an army of them, all shouting the same warning in unison. Twilight's ears were still ringing, and her tears still flowing, when they spoke a second time.

"BE AFRAID!"

Twilight lurched from sheer terror; the silence between each roar was as bad as the roar itself. But she couldn't anticipate what happened next.

A third report from the voices, shouting "BE AFRAID!", only this time the sound was accompanied by a sight.

A pair of humongous, green and red eyes came to be in the darkness in front of and above her. She craned her neck to look up and see the slit pupils and lavender tails emanating from their tear ducts, clear even through her moist eyes. The eyes glared down at her; no body, no brow, but the eyes were glaring nonetheless.

The monstrous oculars drew nearer and nearer, to the point where they were overwhelmingly large.

"BE AFRAID!"

Deafened by the bellow, Twilight gaped in horror as a set of fangs materialized from the darkness below the eyes. They forged themselves into a smile, wicked and evil, but the eyes kept glaring.

"BE AFRAID!"

The fangs stayed in a smile; the eyes kept glaring, and together, silently, they drew nearer.

"BE AFRAID!"

The eyes were within feet of her.

"BE AFRAID!"

Within reach now.

"BE AFRAID!"

Right next to her.

"BE AFRAID!"

In her ear now, she closed her eyes as she waited for the inevitable, but no harm fell on her as the voices boomed again and again.

"BE AFRAID! BE AFRAID! BE AFRAID!"

The voices chanted again and again, until suddenly, they stopped completely, leaving her in silence with her company, the fanged, glaring entity she refused to look at. Then in her ear, a whisper; a crooning, deep and Slavic voice, the words rolling off the tongue that wasn't there and hot breath blowing into her face from the shadow's nonexistent lungs.

"Be very afraid..."

****************

Twilight gasped as she shot upright, and her head drifted to and fro as, slowly, she came to. Her head hurt; so did her ribs. Her vision was clouded and her ears were ringing. Her memory trickled back methodically, and she realized that the last minute's reality was in fact nothing more than a bad dream; yet, no matter how hard she tried to forget, it lingered, unlike petty nightmares of the past.

The rest of her recollection flooded back as consciousness once again became hers.

Pinkie Pie, Sombra, Rainbow Dash, firing a bolt of magic, the pulse...the pulse. Twilight, suddenly completely alive again, shot to her hooves to find a wave of vertigo waiting for her. She reacquired her balance after a generous period of time, and finally, inspected her surroundings.

It looked like a bomb had gone off within the back room of the bakery. Every window, vase and picture frame was shattered, the remnants of their panes strewn on the floor in tiny fragments. The furniture was thrown into the walls, and their impacts were marked by absent paint where they had struck and blown through the dry wall. Tables, chairs, even a couch topping a few hundred pounds, were lying askew within the room, propped up against the dry wall and wooden barriers they had slammed into as a result of the king's release of power.

The epicenter of the blast was obvious enough. In the center of the room, the floor was scorched and marked by a ring of obsidian crystals, two to three feet in height. A trail of the stones led off to the room's doorway, smaller than some of the other crystals in the room, yet still prominent.

Then, Twilight heard a groan, and her head snapped to a yellow mare lying prostrate in the corner.

"Fluttershy!"

The alicorn rushed to her friend's side, kneeling beside her, and helped her off the ground and into a sitting position.

"Are you okay?"

A moment passed while the mare recollected herself.

"I think so," she choked, shaken up.

Twilight gave a quick inspection of the Pegasus; her body was fine except for a small red mark on her back, likely from where she had struck the wall. She was more hurt by the fact that somepony had just willingly attacked her and her friends than she was physically.

"Good," Twilight comforted, embracing Fluttershy, "That's all that matters."

She looked up at the rest of the room. Rainbow Dash had gotten herself up from the floor, and apart from an already yellow bruise on her ribs and a red mark around her neck, she was intact; however, she was still shaking off the effects of being telekinetically choked out, crushed, and terrified all at once.

Only one pony was missing.

"Where's Pinkie Pie?" asked Twilight, searching the room for signs of the absent mare.

"I'm out here," came the immediate response, and Twilight looked out the glassless window to see a raised pink forelimb and the tops of two ears amidst a vibrant curly mane.

She had been blown out the window.

"Are you alright Pinkie?" inquired Rainbow.

"Yeah," she replied, less cheery than normal.

"Well come on back inside."

The four quickly congregated, and Twilight felt a feeling of relief that they were all okay; the same could not be said for the rest of the room. The only things still standing were the dark grey crystals.

The crystals.

Twilight remembered the trail of them leading outside, and how they sprouted wherever Sombra went involuntarily.

"He's escaped," she cried, hope abandoning her eyes, "Sombra's gone."

"Well what do we do?" asked Dash, her confidence baring no resemblance to the horror on the others' faces.

Twilight hesitated; she was a princess, and it was her responsibility to take control of the situation, but which action was the right one? She thought for too long.

"Twilight?" asked Rainbow Dash a second time, and this time, received a response.

"We go after him."

Eyes widened in response.

"Get your elements and the others as well, and hurry. We can follow him by the trail he leaves. I don't think he can keep himself from leaving crystals behind. In the meantime, I'll let Celestia know. We'll have to reign him in before he does something we'll regret."

Those around her now hesitated for a moment too long.

"Go, now!"

And hoof beats sounded as the four ran out the door.

Chapter 10: Hunters

Twilight burst into the library.

"Spike! Where are you?!"

The drake quickly emerged from an upstairs room, and trotted down the stairs to answer his summoning.

"Twilight, what's wrong?"

The alicorn realized suddenly how frantic she must have sounded; even Spike could hear the panic in her voice.

"Is there anypony else in here?"

"The library's empty, why? What is it?"

"Nopony else can hear this," she said, panting.

"Twilight," Spike said, his plump face worried and wide eyed, "you're scaring me."

"I need you to take a note," she said, lost in concentration on her deed.

The dragon responded by readily producing a scroll and a quill, looking to her to signify that he was ready.

"Dear Princess Celestia," she iterated, prompting the quill to begin scratching away on the paper in the hands of the dragon, "I am writing to you with urgent news. Sombra has escaped."

Twilight heard the quill stop writing, and turned around. The quill was at Spike's feet, yet his hand hadn't moved. He stared at her in horror, his eyes doubling in size as his lips parted to reveal small, needle-like teeth. She looked back at him consolingly, trying to tell him without speaking that everything would be okay.

When Spike realized it was indeed true, no matter how awful, he recomposed himself enough to retrieve the quill from the ground, and frantically began writing again.

"He attacked a group of us, knocking us unconscious, and escaped in the aftermath. As you receive this, the other elements and I will be preparing to go after him. We will keep him from harming anypony else in town, no matter the cost."

As she spoke, Twilight realized how incompetent the letter made her sound, and decided to add, "This letter is a situation update; there is no need for intervention. I am confident that my friends and I can handle the situation."

She looked back at her assistant to signify she was done before reciting, "Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle," and the letter was off in a burst of green flames.

Twilight went to retrieve her crown, her gilded material representation of her element of harmony, and as she opened a chest in the corner of the room, a weak voice behind her spoke.

"Twilight, are we going to be okay?"

The alicorn sighed as the crown came to a rest on her scalp.

"I'll make sure of it."

Twilight turned for the door, but before pushing outside, called over her shoulder, "I'll be back. Stay inside and don't let anypony in. If anything happens while I'm gone, run into town; I'm sure the Cakes would take you in."

And with that she was gone.

Spike was left alone in the library, the crystals from the king's promenades the night prior still existing throughout the floor. The dragon's scales drooped as a wave of loneliness hit him; there wasn't even anything he could do to help. He felt helpless, told to stay inside because the world was too dangerous.

Unsure of what else to do, he sat on the couch, the seat Twilight normally occupied, and looked around the room at the many crystals, most of them the size of a tree sprout. The stones, upon a closer inspection, were actually quite pretty, and the dragon marveled at the spectacle of a group of them sprouting in the only corner of the library where the sunlight wasn't present, creating a sort of shadow on the ground and along the base of the wall. He smiled as they crackled and ground together, rising up a few feet from the floor, and he wondered how it was possible.

But, no matter how pretty, he quickly lost interest in the crystals, and made his way up to his room where he had several comic books waiting. With nothing to do but stay inside, he didn't have a much better way to spend his time.

Spike plodded up the stairs, and as he turned the door handle, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a brief, brilliant crimson flash in the darker corner.

He paid no heed, and opened the door.

****************

Twilight oriented herself into the center of the semi-circle, the other elements facing her, waiting impending instruction. Each of the mares wore jewels around their necks, except for Twilight's crown; the elements of harmony.

"Okay girls," she said, trying her best to sound confident and assured, like the leader she was supposed to be, "Here's what we're going to do."

The five faces in front of her held varied emotions. Some were afraid, others determined, some unsure, but all, in their own way, were ready.

"Sombra's somewhere out there, probably still in, or at least not far from Ponyville. The good news is that everywhere he's gone while he's been here, those crystals have popped up, so we should be able to track him pretty easily. We lost him at the bakery, so that's where we'll start following the trail. Any questions?"

Twilight wasn't answered at first, but she knew each of her five friends had something burning to be let out within; in her gut, she knew it was the same thing.

Finally, somepony squeaked the question.

"Twilight," whispered Fluttershy, "Does the princess know?"

"Yeah," added Rainbow Dash as each of the others nodded agreement, "Is Celestia coming? I mean... it's Sombra."

"She knows!" said Twilight, suddenly angry, and shaking her head, continued, "But she isn't coming."

"Why not?" exploded Pinkie Pie.

"Yes, do explain," agreed Rarity as each of the others, again, nodded agreement.

Twilight lowered her head, ashamed for some unspoken reason, but looked up after a time with a sort of broken determination.

"The princess asked us to get Sombra to teach us about dark magic by reforming him. We will not fail her. We can handle it. Now let's go."

The alicorn stomped off in the direction of Sugarcube Corner, and the others, after an exchange of nervous glances, followed.

They reached the bakery after a short hike.

"Look," said Applejack, pointing, "the crystals lead off that-a way, towards the square."

"So that's where we're going," declared Twilight, and the six began tracing the crystallized tracks of the king.

****************

Sombra stood over the drake, perched on his hams in the doorway. The whites of the reptilian's eyes had shifted to green, and he was staring wide-eyed into the doorway. He made no noise, but his eyes twitched back and forth, following an unseen entity.

The king waved a hoof in front of the dragon's face; not even a blink, and when bitter tears began to flow, Sombra knew the spell had worked, again.

He smiled. A simple, yet effective curse. He'd used it to enchant the door in the bowels of his castle in The Crystal Empire to protect the hidden Crystal Heart during his reign, and now, again in the library.

Sombra smiled a bit to himself, admiring his quick thinking with the spell, cast from the shadows of the library moments before, undetected.

He closed his eyes as he smelled the scent of fear, pouring out of the dragon as the curse on the door did its work, showing the drake his worst fears. Just from watching him over the past day, Sombra knew the door to be displaying one of two things; either solitude, or rejection, most likely the two together. The sensation was made all the more sweeter by the fact that the dragon had aided in thwarting him, however lucky it had been, in The Crystal Empire before. Revenge at last, yet, there were bigger prizes to be won.

The king felt an influx of power as the dragon's fear gave him strength, and he breathed deeply, relishing in the feeling. He didn't need much more to perform the task, and after that, the next deed would occur naturally; the reclaiming of his throne, and adding some territory to his kingdom, namely Equestria.

But, that would come later. Now was a time for preparing, and the stallion, again, faded into a shadow, floating along the floor and walls, rematerializing adjacent to the bookcases of the library. Taking the form of a pony again, he stalked back and forth, reading the spines of the bookcases.

He needed information, knowledge to be used against his adversaries; he knew he'd need as much as he could get, not from lack of confidence, but from study and experience. He continued scanning the bookcases until he found one that would be of use; 'The Elements of Harmony: a Compilation'

He sat down leisurely to read; he was not worried about being disturbed. True, he could not stop the crystals from sprouting wherever he went; even now as he usurped the princess's sofa, crystals pushed through the cushions, their razor-like points tearing through the fabric and the springs. But, when used as a tool, they could be a help rather than a hindrance.

Sombra knew the lavender princess was planning to hunt him down; he also knew of the kind of mind it takes to hunt a hunter, and she didn't have it.

In the letter addressed to the princess, the creation of which he had witnessed from the shadows, she had mentioned tracking him by the trail of crystals he left.

Sombra chuckled as he pictured them now, running around town paralleling the obsidian stones; he knew they would never unravel the labyrinth he had laid out for them. Crossing trails, reversed courses, an impossible trail to even an experienced tracker, let alone a group of inexperienced mares.

In the frozen north, exile did have its benefits when it came to such matters. Many an adventurer had come onto the tundra in hopes of finding him and the glory of defeating him, and he had learned the trait of fighting when they did, but the skill of trickery and deception was much more beneficial in keeping them from doing so as one hunter fought against another in the deadly game of chess. He'd never lost.

The memories of trials blended together over the course of countless generations in the biting cold quickly left him as the king refocused on the task at hand, learning. He knew more about light magic than his adversaries did about his area of expertise, but still, he didn't know enough. That would have to change.

Sombra opened the book with magic, and began reading. It was a dull but useful read, bland in character but rich in facts on the first page alone.

"The elements of harmony are the most powerful source of light magic in the known world."

This line implied overconfidence; ironic, as Sombra's domain was not well known, and hence, outside of the known world. He read on.

"The six elements, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Kindness, Honesty and, most recently discovered, Magic, can only be used by a select few."

Sombra grew more interested suddenly, and in the recesses of his mind, he began going over what he knew already, trying to determine each of the six's elements. He already knew the wielders of Magic, Honesty and Generosity. The others were nearly unknown; nearly.

"Together, the elements have been used in the past as nonlethal weapons to maintain harmony and assure the ascendance of good over evil."

Sombra reread the passage. Together, meaning that if one of the elements, namely, its wielder, were to be absent...

He read on.

****************

"Twilight, we're going in circles," complained the alabaster mare, flicking her curled mane in the air as she whined.

"We haven't even left the trail for a second. I don't understand..."

"Face it, we have no idea what we're doing, where Sombra might be, or how to find him," argued Rainbow Dash, "We need Celestia's help."

"No!" yelled Twilight, refusing to admit that she was incompetent, "We can do this!"

"Well then what do we do?" asked Applejack, challenging the princess, "We've gone around the square five times now, and we haven't gotten any closer to findin' him than when we started. We're losin' daylight fast. Face it Twilight, we need help."

The alicorn sighed.

"Dash, you said you couldn't see where the trail continued from the air?"

The pegasus shook her head 'no'.

Another dejected sigh from Twilight.

"Alright," she said, downtrodden, "maybe I was wrong."

She kicked the dirt.

"Let's all go home and get some sleep. I'll write another letter to Celestia tonight, and I'll try and get her out here by morning. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow."

Her friends agreed, and, exhausted and disappointed, trudged in the direction of home.

Chapter 11: A Time for Learning

Twilight, for the second time in the last few hours, pushed through her front door, less frantic and more exhausted than her prior entrance. Her eyes drooped, her ears as well, and she half-mindedly went through her routine, shutting the door behind her and greeting her assistant.

"Hey Spike, I'm back."

She was surprised when she wasn't answered. She figured he must be asleep; she would be the same way in a few moments. The sun had hidden behind the veil of the horizon, and the land had slowly begun its descent into darkness.

Twilight stepped over the crystals, left on the floor from a few hours of hosting the king the night before, as she tidied up the room; several books were left open, all of them about magic, as well as personal favorites of hers.

"Spike was reading these?" she thought to herself in surprise.

She was proud of his interest in the subject, but she would congratulate him on that after she had rested. She was almost too tired to wonder why the drake would want to learn about the elements of harmony, specifically the topics explored in the books.

She turned around from shelving the books in their allotted slots on the shelves, and began to plod upstairs. She topped their summit, and turned for her room, but stopped in her tracks.

Spike was seated on his hind, staring with massive, overwhelmingly green, crying eyes through the threshold in a familiar trance. His purple cheeks were tainted red and tear stained, and immediately, Twilight was wide awake.

"Spike!"

The alicorn rushed to the dragon's side, and shook him back to reality, saving him from the curse she remembered from the Crystal Empire.

He looked around terrified as he came out of his fixation, weeping and dazed, as the verdant glow receded from his eyes, leaving them red and moist, but normal. He gauged her carefully, making sure she was real, repeating the action to the home he was in once again.

"T-Twilight?" he asked aloud, touching her face slowly, hesitantly, then hugging her firmly with both arms as more tears flowed forth.

"It's okay Spike," she said consolingly, "you're home. It was a trick; it wasn't real."

Twilight held him to her breast, growing wetter as time passed with the dragon's tears; the door, his reaction, she had seen it all before, and she knew the culprit as well. But when did he cast the spell on the door?

Then, she noticed her couch, a bit off to her right, ruined as much of her friends' furniture had been by the king's repose by sharp, ragged, dark grey, opaque stones. It wasn't so when she had left; true, there had been a few, small crystals through the cushions, but now, it was ruined to the extent of the guest room's bed.

Sombra had been here, recently too.

Her fur grew wetter as Spike continued sobbing into her as a child to a mother, and another thought came to mind; if Spike had been transfixed by the door's curse, he couldn't have read the books.

"Oh no," she whispered under her breath, wishing she wasn't right.

She stayed with Spike until he stopped crying, and consoled him once again. Then, she made her way into the library's main room. The king had been here, which meant that his trail was now fresh; she could prove herself to the princess by tracking him down alone.

She thought how to do it at first; Twilight remembered learning a spell similar to the one Celestia used to trap the king, one that created a force field that was nearly impenetrable, and tuning it to match her mentor's in strength. She was confident that she could muster the spell from memory, and use it to detain the king.

Twilight checked that Spike was alright one last time; he was silent in his bed, still shaken, but not as effected as he had been the first time he had experienced the curse. She shut the door, trotted downstairs, and set off to redeem herself.

Outside, she eyed a few dark crystals circling around the base of the oak she called home, and set off after them in pursuit at a gallop.

****************

Sombra sat up on his bed as he heard the door slam shut. He smiled as he accepted that Twilight had once again left the house to him, alone, except for the harmless dragon.

The foolish princess; it was too easy to anticipate her. She was blinded by her own impulses, and for all her intellectuality, was stupid. She did not plan, she reacted, and blindly at that; she assumed that the cushion provided by the elements of harmony and her regal allies' strength would be substantial enough to compensate for her brash actions. Upon reflection, he realized he could have killed her by now if he'd wanted to, or at least trapped her, making her presence void.

Trapping her wasn't the issue, that would be easy enough; the time for it, however, was a conundrum. It would have to be done delicately, not too soon to avoid the elements of harmony's power while she still had spirit, not too late, lest she would not comply. It would have to be done carefully, wisely...delicately.

Sombra eased his laboring mind for a moment. The room was dark, as was the window, his self-built crystalline staircase leading out into the outside world through its threshold. More crystals littered the room; they rose in columns to touch the ceiling, and marked the paths through the floor he preferred transgressing. They were dark and opaque, mysterious, and yet, for what they lacked in gleam, they made up for in their rigid strength; they were his creation alright.

He sat with his head erect, his body lying on the limpid mattress with his legs tucked underneath him, and his eyes provided a slight glow in the otherwise shadowy room; it almost felt like home. No, home was half a continent to the north, or at least it used to be. He was homeless now, exiled from his fatherland, unable to return; at least, for now.

The silence in the home was wonderful. It gave him the quiet he needed to hear himself think, and Sombra made the most of it.

He closed his eyes as he grew lost in thought. The time for action would come soon, when his enemies were sound asleep and his pursuers tired and deluded. They would be soon; the trail he'd left was impossible to unravel, and the moon beckoned tired eyes shut. It was a time for thinking; the time for action was coming. A time for thinking, and learning.

His heart said to act now, but in the silence, his thoughts were louder than his absent pulse, and they told him to wait, to use patience and timing and strategy. Passion told him to unleash his power, but wisdom bid him to wait. Passion demanded him to punish, but wisdom convinced him to calculate and weigh his methods, to be sure of what was right and when it would be ripe to employ.

And in the quiet, his thoughts were louder. They were wise while his heart was fiery, and now, he wisely chose to obey his thoughts. On any other night, he may have listened to his heart; he had in the past, and it had served him well.

But the past was when he was a king and a warrior; now, he was nothing more than a shadow, trying to earn a life once lost, and trying to learn how to do so. On any other night, he may have listened to his heart, but not this night. He was a thinker now, not a fighter; the time for that would come, but that time was not now. Now, he needed to think, and learn.

But what else did he need to learn about?

He knew Honesty's, Generosity's, and Magic's wielders, as well as the enigma of their weaknesses, solved in mere minutes of conversation and observation. He believed he'd figured out the wielders of the other elements; the vibrant fool, the pink one, was most definitely Laughter. It took the brunt of his power and the sting of fear to get her to stop giggling like a foal in the bakery earlier. Yes, the pink one was definitely Laughter; but the other two?

Kindness and Loyalty, the last of the six elements told of in the books, graciously provided, however unwillingly, by the library's master, but which mare wielded which? The yellow one was utterly silent; Sombra knew so little of her, that he couldn't recall the sound of her voice, let alone what she looked like. Pink mane, yellow fur, that was all he could manage; it was hard to remember the details of something that tried to recede in the face of company.

But the other one, the Pegasus, the one with a spectrum in her mane. Her personality was obvious enough, and it definitely was unkind.

The yellow one had to be Kindness, and the other one, Loyalty.

He knew their features, he knew the roots of their personalities, he knew their elements, and he could guess at their fears. But, fear as a thing, he knew well.

And fear, in its many forms, often was most powerful in the form of loss, be it loss of life, possessions, image, family or friends. The most intense fear came from losing what is most valuable; to Honesty, it was family, identity in the form of the land she owned and cultivated, and honor; to Generosity, it was beauty, purity, and image; to Magic, power and esteem; to Loyalty, strength, and image as well as her alabaster companion, but mostly success; to Laughter, happiness and joy, simple things in accordance with her simple beginnings; and to Kindness... what did she value?

Sombra realized he did not know enough, and so, his eyes opening, he drifted outside his room in silence and among the shadows to solve the problem.

No more books; he'd scoured the shelves for anything useful earlier and found worthy material, but there was little more he could learn about the properties of the elements, their history and their power, the organization of the Equestrian hierarchy, the roles of the princesses, the royal guard or each species of pony, the alicorn sisters' influence over the modern Crystal Empire, how order was maintained peacefully, the history he had missed or the customs he had been absent to learn, or how the forces of good seemed to be accepted as that which kept the two kingdoms in tact. An afternoon of reading had yielded its reward, and he was wiser because of it, but he plenty more to learn before the time for action came to be.

Now was a time for learning, and thinking; so, Sombra searched the library for a source he had not yet devoured.

He searched the house over, but it wasn't until he intruded on the princess's quarters that he found something of use and purpose. It came in the form of a diary.

****************

Twilight rounded the corner, following the trail of crystals as it led down yet another alleyway. It was dark out, but the alley was darker.

Her mind told her to turn, but her heart told her to press on.

Any other day, she may have listened to her mind. But now, with adrenaline born of the pursuit of success, her heart's voice was louder than her thoughts'. She listened to her heart.

She sparked another glow from her horn, slightly illuminating the gap between the two homes. She told herself that the king, as well as accomplishment and proof of her competence, may be just around the corner, and pressed on.

There was no time to think, only to act.

Any other day, she may have listened to her mind, but now, her heart was louder. Now, she was a warrior, a princess. Now, she was fearless. Any other day, she may have listened to her mind, but her heart told to go down the alley.

She listened to her heart.

****************

Sombra flipped another page of the diary, and found it rich in secrets and knowledge, just as the pages before it. It was not the knowledge offered by an encyclopedia; this knowledge came in the form of stories catalogued as they happened, and once unraveled, unveiled unequalled knowledge on his adversaries.

The reality behind Honesty's lack of parents, likely revealed and transcribed as a secret between friends. Kindness's value of the lives of fauna and flora, her love of the forests especially. Generosity's humble beginnings, championed by hard work and a smidgeon of luck to lead her to becoming a mare of elegance and sophistication. Laughter's near sociopathic tendencies, discovered when her friends denied her companionship for a day to hide a secret surprise party. Loyalty's dreams of becoming a member of a globally known military stunt flight team.

And all of Magic's secrets as well; her past, her thoughts and beliefs on the subjects of companionship and magic, her aspirations and hopes of a successful, regal future in which her friends, mortal companions to an immortal ruler, would linger. And, reiterated to the king, her value for flawless success.

The king suddenly jumped as he heard a *whoosh* from the corner of the room, and in a defensive instinct, faded to a shadow on the ground. He had thought the drake asleep in his miniscule bed, and upon a second look, realized he still was. Smoke lingered in the air around the dragon's dormant head, and a scroll now rested on the hardwood in front of his snout.

Sombra retook the form of his body, abandoning shadows and stealth in the process; after all, there were no eyes around to see him. Silently and confidently, he laid the diary down where he'd found it on the nightstand, willing the drawer it was concealed in to make no noise as he pushed it shut. It obeyed.

Making no noise as he walked, he strode to the drake's bedside. He made sure, twice, that the reptile was indeed asleep before he retrieved the scroll. Somehow, the dragon seemed to be a teleportation gate of sorts, as the scroll was a letter embroidered with the royal seal; a response from the princess, intended for Princess Twilight Sparkle, but received by the king of shadows himself.

He read the note quickly and quietly, taking care not to disturb and wake the only potential compromise to his stealth in the night.

"Dear Twilight,

It is good that you feel you and your friends can bring Sombra in alone, but please do just that. Bring him in, do not expel him. By this, I mean do not use the elements of harmony against him. We still need him, specifically, his knowledge.

My sister and I are coming closer to finding the source of the dark magic, but we must be careful not to be overconfident. Deal with Sombra as you deem fitting, but do not use the elements unless you have no other options.

I know you will not fail me,

Your mentor and friend,

Princess Celestia."

Sombra rolled the scroll and placed it back where he'd retrieved it, and drifted out the door. The grandfather clock struck nine o'clock. No longer was it a time for learning. No longer was it a time for thinking. The king closed his eyes as he faded into a shadow on the ground, and passed underneath the front door, moving along the surfaces of the world as a remnant.

Now was a time for action.

Chapter 12: Beauty and the Beast

Rarity was pulled out of a dream a she felt her sheets being gently tugged on.

"Opalescence, not now. I've let you out three times already," she groaned as she pulled back on the blankets, reclaiming them from their would be thief.

A few moments passed before she felt the sheets being pulled again, still gently, but stronger than the first time.

"Opalescence, no," she said a second time, and the force on the sheets disappeared.

She'd begun to fall back asleep in the silence of the night, the first trickles of a dream teasing at her tired mind, when she felt another singular pull on the sheets, the strongest so far.

"Hmmmm," she groaned, pulling back again to readjust her sleeping position.

She quickly reclaimed the dream, and images of splendid jewels were beginning to take a form when, still as gently and as slowly as before, her sheets were pulled at again, only this time, they were completely removed, leaving her bare and uncovered on her mattress.

She immediately shivered and curled up against the loss of warmth, and her eyes lazily fluttered open.

"Alright," she succumbed, "I'll let you out."

She began to roll over and out of the fetal position when she heard a faint coo from the other side of the room.

*Meow*

She saw the cat perched on the dresser to her right, looking in her direction with an arched back and hair standing on edge.

The sheets were drawn off to the side of the bed opposite the cat's perch, and she looked at the feline confused as it took another step backwards on the ledge it already occupied, yowling now instead of meowing.

"Opalescence?" she said, beginning to sit up on her mattress.

Suddenly, the cat hissed, baring its needle-like teeth once, then took off downstairs in haste.

"Opalescence, what's wro..."

Rarity stopped short of completing her sentence as she heard a faint, brittle, crinkling sound off to her left, very near, as if coming from under the bed. She held as still as possible, trying not to make any noise as she listened for the sound. There was definitely something there, and it was eerily familiar.

Suddenly, Rarity realized where she'd heard the sound, and she gasped, but the influx of air was choked off by a crimson ring constricting her throat.

It tingled the way magic does, until she felt herself being pulled around by the ring, which was encircling the entirety of her neck; she couldn't breathe, and she clawed at it until it put an end to her resistance.

Suddenly, she was violently slammed down into the mattress. She was thrown onto her back, and she lay writhing on the bed, trying to escape, but to no avail. She couldn't even move in its grasp, let alone breathe.

She reached for the wooden column at the corner of her bed, trying to get a hold of it to pull back, and perhaps defeat the entity around her neck, but as she extended her forelimb, the sound grew louder, and a trio of opaque crystals launched up through the floor, intersecting each other around her wrist and effectively trapping it in place.

The ring around her neck suddenly vanished, and though the strangulation had brought tears to her eyes, she eyed the stones imprisoning her hoof with horror and confusion. She pulled with all her might, even using her other limbs to provide leverage, but she was stuck fast; her hoof would not budge from the crystalline snare. Not even magic helped in loosening the jagged bond. With each movement, she felt the ragged edges of the rock bite into her skin, and it wasn't long before its sting convinced her to stop thrashing.

She eased up a bit to avoid being cut by the seemingly serrated edges of the crystals, but once she did, another crimson ring formed around her free forelimb. It handled her by the wrist, and drew it to the other corner of the bed, and another trio of crystals shot up to pin the hoof to the headboard, just as the first one.

She began to breathe frantically, trying to pull herself free again, but immediately, her other two legs, her hindquarters, were seized as well, and pinned as the others.

Rarity found herself prostrate to the ceiling, seized and drawn over her own bed, and no matter how much she struggled, she simply could not break free. The bonds had her spread out so tightly that she could barely move at all.

She whimpered in panic as she tried to think of what to do, but before any plans hatched in her mind, she heard a low, growling laugh off to her right.

Her head snapped to the sound, and suddenly, Sombra's head materialized into her face from below her plane of view with a snarl.

"Huh," she squeaked, and the king's bared teeth slowly turned into a devious smile.

She writhed, her head and neck, being the only part of her that wasn't restrained, thrashing about in a useless struggle against the crystals, set in the wood of her home, unyielding and cold. She pounded her head against the soft mattress in frustration, and her breath came in frightened gasps as the king began to circle around to the foot of the bed, lavender tails coming from his eyes.

"What's the matter, Generosity?" he taunted her as he reached the other side of the bed, removing his blood red cape from around his neck and placing it on the nightstand after violently knocking it clear of picture frames and a flower vase, "Forget to check for monsters under the bed?"

He wore only armor underneath the cape, and now it clinked and jingled metallically with each step he took.

Rarity tried again to free herself; no luck, and Sombra again, stalked around to the left side of the bed. His tongue darted outside of his teeth to wet his lips, and slowly, his eyes moved up and down her body, lying bare and exposed on the mattress.

"Such beauty," he crooned, and he extended a hoof towards her face.

Rarity pulled away, but she could only go so far, and when she reached the end of her reach, Sombra ran the back of his hoof down her cheek and provocatively onto her neck, but the mare didn't approve of the advance.

She snapped at his hoof, biting down on empty air as he pulled back suddenly.

"Fiery and beautiful," he mused, checking to see that his hoof had indeed been unscathed by her teeth.

"Stay away from me," she warned between gasps.

"Or what?" the king asked sarcastically, advancing on her a second time.

Rarity's horn began to glow blue, and Sombra sparked a luminescence from his horn as well, yet, he kept his grin. Rarity fired a sapphire bolt of magic at him, but he deflected the bolt easily, and kept coming closer. She fired again to see the same result, and her diverged shot created a scorch mark in the wall. A third time she fired, but this time, his smile disappearing and his eyes going completely green, Sombra met her ray with a beam of his own. Red met blue in the middle of the room, pushing against each other; it didn't take long for Sombra's magic to overpower Rarity's.

The red bolt pushed itself into Rarity's horn, causing it to fizzle out amidst a loud popping sound upon reaching it. Rarity gasped in a panic again as her horn burned, smoke coming from its tip and black ash corrupting its once ivory surface. And Sombra kept coming.

Again, he stopped at the bedside, and grabbed a small mirror from the nightstand, the one he hadn't cleared.

"Generosity," he said looking into the mirror, pushing his flowing mane into position as he examined his appearance, "I will tell you a truth you would like to hear."

He looked away from his reflection and to her, his eyes stern and his smile gone.

"Rumors of your unrivaled beauty have spread as far as the barren north, from which I hail, as you know. I did not believe them when I first heard them," his eyes wandered from the mare's horrified face to her body again, and again, he wet his lips, "but now I see their words fall utterly short. But, how long will your beauty linger?"

Rarity stopped panicking for a second, staring at the king with wide sapphire eyes. He looked at her likewise, calm and unflinching in his gaze, until again, he looked back into the mirror.

"However," he said as his horn began to glow crimson, "there are many types of beauty. Physical beauty, spiritual beauty...which do you believe in?"

Rarity wasn't sure which she feared more; the Sombra that was violent and assertive, or this one, the one that spoke kindly in tone and intellectually in diction. Both were intimidating, but this side of the king was even more threatening somehow, and her heartbeat quickened. She forgot to respond to the king's question.

"Silence then?" he said, as he looked into the mirror one more time, looking away as a bolt of electricity connected his horn and the glass of the mirror.

The mare still did not answer, which obviously irritated the king. He cocked his head slightly, and the bones in his neck popped.

"To be honest," the king started again, cradling the mirror against his muscular chest, "I've always believed that beauty is on the inside."

He drew closer to her, walking and talking slowly, exotically, menacingly.

"Don't misunderstand, I appreciate physical beauty, beauty such as yours, just as much as any of the other lust-filled stallions in this town. Granted, not as much as you, but I do recognize beauty when I see it, and I must say, you are stunning. But, mortals age; they lose their beauty until all that is left is ugliness."

His hoof clinked against the floor as he drew a step closer to the imprisoned mare.

"Unless their beauty lies within," he said, sitting on his flanks adjacent to the bed.

He stared stoically into her eyes before he continued.

"Shall we see whether your beauty will stay with you when the bite of time claims your splendor?"

He turned the mirror so that the glass faced her, but Rarity shied away. He tried to force the mirror into her face, pushing it up to her snout, but she kept looking away. Eventually, Sombra seized her by the back of her head. She screamed and whimpered, but he forced her eyes to look into the mirror.

What she saw was not her reflection.

An old, wrinkled mare stared back at her, mimicking her movements in perfect timing. Boils covered her face, and age had caused her skin to droop. Her mane was unkempt and unclean, and Rarity was disgusted by the horrid appearance before her. She noticed the royal purple mane, the sapphire eyes, the alabaster hide, and she realized...it was her.

She tried to look away, but Sombra held her head in place until she began to whimper again. Her breathing quickened again, and her chest thumped up and down as she tried to avert her eyes, but the king wouldn't let her.

Sombra held her until he felt the image had sunken in, at which point he released her and again held the mirror to his breast.

He waited for her hyperventilating lungs to relax a bit before he spoke, so that his words might be heard in their entirety.

"This mirror shows the reflection of the soul, not of the flesh."

Rarity's eyes said what she didn't as they grew even larger somehow.

"So, Generosity, which beauty do you believe in?"

His demeanor suddenly changed, and his voice reflected it as he became more fiery.

"I will answer for you, mare, since you continue to ignore me! You believe in physical beauty, the beauty of the body, as well as the shortest lived of the species of beauty. You care more about your face and your flanks than you do about righteousness. You do your make-up before you show contempt for your peers; you groom your mane with unkind words on your tongue. You perfect your body while you corrupt your soul, and it has made you hideous!"

He circled around to the foot of the bed again, the devious smile returning as his teeth glistened in the moonlight. His voice lowered again, and Rarity grew more and more afraid as each second passed.

"But like I said," he said as he threw the mirror across the room in a telekinetic grip, causing it to shatter, "I appreciate your kind of beauty as much as any of the other lust-filled stallions in this kingdom, and like I also said, you look ravishing."

He prowled up to her, coming closer from the foot of the bed, and Rarity began squirming again, trying to let herself free to no avail.

Sombra stepped up onto the bed, one hoof on the mattress while the other three remained planted on the floor.

"It's been centuries since I've seen a mare, let alone one of your beauty."

She continued writhing as the other three of his hooves came onto the mattress. He straddled her, standing above her.

"Your soul may be ugly," he said, as he lowered his muzzle to her belly, and inhaled deeply as he moved up and closer to her neck, "but your body is perfect, Generosity, and tonight, it is mine."

She continued trying to pull away from the king, but the crystals held her tight; she couldn't move, and she was helpless and vulnerable and defenseless. His muzzle kept coming closer to her head, and Rarity felt the pinch of his teeth as they bit onto her neck. Next she felt the wet sensation of his tongue as it caressed her neck as well, and slowly worked its way down her stomach again.

She whimpered and sobbed as he stood up over her again, and she continued thrashing and struggling without being able to move her legs from between the king's cold, armored legs.

He knelt down over her, and leaned closely to her ear, and growled, "Keep struggling, and I promise this will hurt."

Rarity whimpered, tears falling as she held still, giving up, and she felt herself being driven upwards by the first of the king's vicious thrusts, and her head struck the headboard over and over again in rhythm.

****************

Rarity shot up in bed, frantic and breathing heavily as her heart pounded out a rhythm in her chest. She looked down; her sheets were still over her body, and the room was empty.

She sighed; it had just been a dream.

She was so relieved that it had only been a nightmare that she almost missed the bruise on her neck, and the red marks around her wrists and ankles, exactly where the stone bindings had struck her in the dream. Any hope she had deserted her, and as she saw the cluster of crystals at her bedside, she screamed.

It had not been just a dream.

Chapter 13: Loyalty to a Different Cause

Twilight skidded to a halt in the dimly lit streets of the town as the shrill note of a terrified scream drifted through the chilled air. She looked back to the sound's source, and then back down at the trail of crystals she'd been following. It came from the direction of Carousel Boutique, and she knew her friend was in trouble.

But, was going to her aide worth giving up the trail?

Unless, Sombra was the cause of her fear in the first place.

The unicorn wheeled around, and began sprinting through the streets again, approaching Rarity's home in haste. She arrived promptly, bucking the door in and following a pair of crystal trails, one going up, the other leading down, to the stairs.

"What's wrong?" she shouted as she burst into the bedroom.

Rarity was propped upright on her bed with her back against the headboard, sobbing. Twilight received no answer, so she started trying to figure out herself. She saw nothing amiss at first, until she eyed the crystals alongside the bed.

"Was he here?" she asked excitedly.

Rarity nodded as she heaved in another sob, tears staining her sheets.

"What did he do to you?!" Twilight pressed, angry now that the king would dare harm one of her friends.

Rarity pressed her eyelids together as she held out her forelimbs, showing her the red marks encircling her wrists, and exposing the ringlet of red teeth marks on her chest.

"He held me down," she cried, "he trapped me with huge shards; they were sharp, I couldn't move... I felt him inside of me."

"No... Did he?" Twilight mumbled, and Rarity confirmed her suspicion with a tearful nod.

"That monster assaulted me," the unicorn sputtered, weeping.

Twilight crawled to her friend's side on the bed, and held her closely as she provided a shoulder for her to cry on.

She sat there; her friend needed her, and her priorities were here now, when a thought occurred to her.

Rarity said she'd felt the king, but earlier, the king was not tangible as he'd been a shadow, converted to darkness by Celestia and Luna centuries ago. Objects would pass through him as if there was nothing there, and he made no sound when he walked, because his hooves didn't have a surface to strike the ground.

Either it was a dream, or... or he was no longer a shadow.

She kept the thought private; she knew the feel of Sombra's induced nightmares, and she knew they felt real. To Rarity, it had been real, whether it was a dream or not, and she didn't want to bring it up again regardless.

But still, Sombra was still out there somewhere, and he was definitely up to no good.

"Rarity," Twilight said slowly and carefully, "I'm sorry, and I know that you're in pain, but Sombra is going to make more victims tonight. We have to try and stop him before he can harm anypony else."

"Ok," sobbed the mare as she picked herself up from the bed, retrieving her element of harmony and clasping it around her neck; her face was still damp with tears, "Ok... let's go."

With that, the two, one of them still not herself from the events of the dream, galloped back into the darkened streets of town, following the trail of crystals on the ground.

****************

The cloud home was serene and peaceful, and the night came in through the window in the form of pale moonlight and darkness. The cumulus's interior was painted blue by the full moon, and the bedroom was no exception. Rainbow Dash, sound asleep on her puffy white bed, was at perfect rest.

Everything around her was calm, from the shadows to the pale blue walls, colored so by the moonlight that arced through her window in rays. The color alone drove one to dream, and it permeated the entire house, save for where the shadows, though few, were.

A passing cloud eclipsed the moon for a moment, and when its light was free to flow into the home's interior with its passing, the number of shadows in the house had increased by one.

Sombra glided across the fluffy floor of the home, and upon reaching the bedside, twisted his shapeless essence into the form of an equine.

Red eyes and dark fur, his mane constantly flowing whether there was wind or not, and he stood over the cobalt Pegasus, looking down on her dormant body. He eyed every inch of her as he debated with himself over how to go about it; he'd harvested almost enough power from the others to suffice, but he would need more, and this session had to yield as much as possible, partly for benefit, but mostly because he thirsted for the rare fear of the Pegasus who'd so brazenly enforced herself on him as if her power could stand to his.

A guilty pleasure, maybe, but it would happen regardless, and making the mare, who claimed to be fearless, know fear as one knows a family member, would be most amusing.

Sombra lit the tip of his sabre of a horn, and slowly, touched it to Rainbow Dash's forehead, entering her limpid mind.

****************

Rainbow Dash was flying through an endless sky; it was always endless, but in the dream, it felt even more so. She felt the wind rush by her mane, and the wet kiss of the clouds as she barreled through their embrace.

She felt free here, in life as well as in dreaming; she felt happy here, no matter the situation. and as she sped along through the air, she spotted a cloud, the largest in the sky. She blew her prism of a mane out of her face, and darted off for the cloud formation, climbing above it in a spiraling climb.

Surmounting its height, she rolled, and buzzed the flat top of the cloud, reaching down to let her hoof pass through its fluffy, pure body. She closed her eyes as she felt the overwhelming feeling of serenity at heart, but when she opened them, the sky was gone.

She was still flying, but now, she was in an impenetrable fog, a mist that kept her from seeing as well as flying as she normally would; she couldn't even tell up from down. She slowed down, barely being able to see inches let alone feet in any direction, when she felt herself bump into something. It clinked when she hit it, and she felt herself fall backwards on her rump, surprisingly landing on solid ground as she did.

She shook her head and looked up at what had blocked her path; a pony, a tall, dark foreboding one with the majority of its form hidden by the fog. Dash began to lean up to see the face of the equine, but before she moved very far, she jumped as something came through the fog.

A face, suddenly materializing as it came down to meet her through the fog; it was Sombra. He wore a lazy smile as well as half-shut eyes in an expression that screamed apathy.

Rainbow Dash drew back, and Sombra made the entirety of his face visible as sarcastically, he mumbled, "Boo."

"What are you doing here?" asked Rainbow Dash angrily, rising up to look into the king's eyes and denying him the chance to look down on her.

"I could ask the same of you, Loyalty," he grumbled, content and almost chivalrous.

"Where am I?"

"How should I know?" Sombra said, looking around concernedly at the omnipresent fog all around them, "This mist is most inconvenient, isn't it?"

"What's the deal with you?" she asked threateningly, but her tone had no effect on the king.

"You are the one that bumped into me, Loyalty. I was merely out for a stroll, if you will, when our paths happened to cross, and how coincidental that they did."

"No, I mean what's the deal with you?" she asked a second time, clanking her hoof against his metallic chest plate as she finished, and tapping it a few more times to confirm its solidity, "Earlier you nearly tried to kill me, right after I tried to tackle you; then, I couldn't touch you. But now..."

She rapped hard on the metal plate one more time, and the sound carried, echoing through the mists. Then, she drew back, and punched the king square in the face. His jaw jiggled back and forth as his gaze became much more angry.

"That's for choking me out."

"You will regret that," he growled.

"I don't think I will."

"Well then tell me Loyalty...what do you think?"

Rainbow Dash's gaze was unflinching as she stared the king down with a sassy, confident expression across her face.

"I think you're overrated, I think you're a bully, and I think you've got no chance against us."

"Ouch," said the king sarcastically, and he waited for her to continue.

"I think you're going to spend forever in the cold and alone, and knowing that everypony in the world hates you, because we do, and the only thing keeping me from sending you out there right now is that I don't have my element of harmony. Because as soon as we get them, you're toast."

"Maybe," said the king, nodding in contemplation, "now tell me, what do you think about something that does not pertain to me?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, what do you believe in?" the king growled, his voice going deeper as it morphed suddenly into a menacing, ominous rumble in the otherwise silent fog.

"I believe that harmony is more powerful than evil. I believe that I'm the best flier to ever come out of Cloudsdale. I believe that the Wonderbolts are the most awesome thing ever, and I believe that you are a pathetic excuse for a villain and a king, and that you don't deserve to have anything, even if it is a cold, icy wasteland like you live in."

"And why do you believe these things?" asked Sombra, stepping closer to her with a glowing glare.

"Because I've seen them," she said to him slowly, as if he were stupid, "I believe, what I see."

"Hmm," Sombra said to himself, before taking a step backwards to expose his body in full.

"Then tell me this, Loyalty," he hissed, looking down at himself before reverting his eyes to Rainbow Dash's, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No," she said suddenly, maintaining her arrogant attitude as she let the king know in body language and words that she thought he was a farce.

"Interesting," he crooned.

The king began to turn away, nodding, but suddenly jumped back around with a roar as he snapped his ivory teeth shut inches from Dash's nose, and roared, "Then you are blind!"

Rainbow Dash moved to strike him again, but he caught the blow, and forced her to her knees, crushing her bones in his grip, both physical and telekinetic.

"Shall we see what else you are blind to?!"

Sombra took one hand off of Rainbow Dash's forelimb, raising the other into the fog, and it parted at his command. Through the mist, there was a congregation of ponies, and Rainbow Dash tried to look away, but Sombra grabbed her head, and forced it towards the scene while he used the other to keep her on the ground.

The ponies through the fog became clear, and Rainbow Dash could suddenly hear them talking.

"Yeah," drawled the familiar voice of Applejack, "she thinks she's somethin' special, braggin' all the time and always showin' off. I tell ya what, I really get sick of her."

"What?" asked Rainbow Dash aloud to herself before a second voice came through the fog.

It was high pitched, raspy and young; Scootaloo's.

"It's no use Applebloom. She said we'd be like sisters on the camping trip, but ever since, she's just been too busy making herself look good to even teach me to fly. She's got plenty of spare time; she spends half of every day taking naps, but she's just too cocky to care about anypony else."

"No, that's not..."

Another familiar voice made itself known; Captain Spitfire's

"She's not Wonderbolt material. She's brazen, cocky, lazy, she only seeks personal fame instead of the good of her teammates, she has a lazy work ethic and she relies on past accomplishments to try and secure things for herself now. If she doesn't improve drastically by the time the course ends, tell her we'll contact her when we think she's ready, and erase her name from the candidate's list."

Rainbow was crying now; she'd left the Wonderbolts Academy with promises that she'd done fine, and that she would be called back. Was this why she was never contacted again? Was this really true?

But the final voice bore the weight of memory. Deep and raspy, familiar from foalhood, and forever embedded in her mind.

"I don't know about her," it said.

"Daddy?" she cried, "Daddy, it's me! I'm here!"

But the voice ignored her.

"She's just, she's not what I expect her to be. She can do so much more, but, she doesn't. If she would commit, she could be great a I was, but, I leave every race she's in feeling disappointed."

Sobbing now, Rainbow Dash's mouth hung loosely as she heaved and shuddered, not able to articulate words.

Sombra took full advantage of the mare's silence, and leaned in close to her ear as the fog rolled back in on them like a wave.

"I too believe what I see," he growled, almost made elated by her being crushed, "And I believe you are weak, that you would be nothing without your friends, and for how high you hold yourself, nopony else thinks of you the same way."

He dragged her back into the fog.

"I believe you will lose because, like I have seen in the past, your courage will succumb to your fear. I believe you are nothing but a self-righteous hothead if not an element of harmony."

The king slowed suddenly, and lifted Rainbow Dash a bit, setting her up so she faced him on her knees. His voice changed, and his regal composure and nonchalance came back.

"And," he hissed, "I believe that without these," he unfurled one of her wings slowly, spreading it to its full length, "All the power you claim to love will leave you."

Sombra held her down as the wing began buzzing in his grip, and he refused to let her escape as he raised his curving, razor sharp horn.

"I told you that you would regret striking me," he crooned as her struggles intensified.

His horn reached a peak, and Rainbow Dash pleaded no, but he brought it down anyway. She didn't even feel the pain, but the blade of his horn sliced clean through the base of the bone and severed the wing completely.

Blood spurted through cut arteries, and she only sat there, having stopped struggling as she waited for the pain to come while she watched her wing twitching in Sombra's outstretched hooves.

"You know," the king started to say to her as her face turned pale in shock, "you may want to let your friends know you're in trouble."

He viciously separated the other wing, and Rainbow Dash screamed.

Chapter 14: Not Right in the Head

The shrill scream, though not as loud as some of its predecessors, carried through the silence of the night, halting the forward advance of a pair of mares in the streets of the town.

"Was that Rainbow Dash?" asked Rarity, shocked by the possibility of the Pegasus actually displaying fear.

"It sounded like it," responded the princess, "We'd better get to her, fast."

The two began galloping in the direction of the scream but Twilight's concern was less for her friend and more for the inability to contain the prowling king. It seemed that wherever his trail lead, he would show up somewhere else, marking his new location with the screams of his victims' night terrors.

It took less than a couple of minutes for them to reach the earth below the cloud home. Looking up to its fluffy exterior, colored pale blue by the moon's rays.

"Rainbow!" yelled Rarity up towards the home, but she received no response.

"Rainbow, come out! What's wrong!"

Again, silence, only an echoing voice resounding through the night air.

"We need to get up there," said Twilight.

"Well, I can't," explained Rarity, gesturing to her lack of wings, "but you can."

"Oh," said the princess, shaking her head slightly, "Right."

She tensed her wings, and pumped downwards in a fury of unfurled lavender feathers in a way that gave no indication towards grace or experience.

"Be careful," called out Rarity as the alicorn ascended, reaching the cloud home's front door with great effort.

Twilight pushed her way inside, finally able to walk on the surface of clouds with her recent attainment of wings. She pushed into the living room; the door was left askew, as was the bedroom door at the top of the stairs.

"Rainbow?!" she yelled, and heard a slight rummaging on the floor above her in response.

She darted up the stairs, and pushed through the unlocked door into her friend's bedroom.

"Rainbow?!"

The Pegasus was sitting on her haunches in her bed, her sheets underneath her and her forelimbs wrapped around her knees. She was rocking back and forth, her eyes wide and red with tears flowing down her face. She did not sob or whimper; she breathed heavily, snorting as she gritted her teeth in an expression of anger, fear and intense shock.

She cantered to the bedside.

"Rainbow!"

The Pegasus did not even move, save for her continued swaying back and forth.

"Sombra?"

Her multi-colored mane swished slightly as her head bobbed up and down twice.

Twilight, as she'd done to Rarity, took the mare in her forelimbs, and cradled her head against her breast.

"It was only a dream," she said, trying to console the mare, but she knew it was useless; Sombra's nightmares were something more than just dreams.

"I know," said Dash, becoming a bit more like herself as she took in a very deep breath, but the tears still flowed.

Twilight held onto her while she came back to reality methodically. It took the better half of five minutes before either of them spoke again.

"Twilight," began Rainbow Dash, "do the others like me? Do they appreciate who I am?"

"Of course they do, Rainbow. They love you," she whispered.

"Do you?" responded the cyan mare, turning magenta eyes upwards to meet the face of the princess.

Twilight, shocked, blinked away a confused expression, prompted by the question Rainbow undoubtedly knew the answer to; something wasn't right with her.

"What did Sombra show you?"

Sniffing once, the Pegasus quickly blurted, "Nothing."

She got up out of the bed, and shook her head back and forth, stopping when the tears had stopped falling.

"Look, Rainbow, I know its hard, but..."

"He's been doing this to others, hasn't he?"

"Yes," said Twilight, glad to see that at least a part of Rainbow had come back.

"Then let's stop him from doing it to anypony else."

The Pegasus opened a drawer on her dresser, and pulled out a gilded amulet, a blue lightning bolt in its center, and clasped it around her neck. Her eyes were still red, and her cheeks remained moist, but most of her surefire confidence had returned, or at least appeared to have done so.

"Time to get some payback on that asshole."

****************

Pinkie Pie, as she always did when she wasn't out and about with friends, was standing behind the service counter in Sugar Cube Corner. She anxiously awaited a customer in the unusually empty bakery, and the unusually empty town at that, and though her wide smile never left her face, she drummed her hooves on the countertop impatiently in an ever-quickening rhythm. She simply waited; she'd adjust her chef's hat or whistle a bit to break the monotonous silence of the bakery, desperately hoping somepony would come in and at least say hello.

Then, suddenly, the door swung open, and the bell above the threshold chimed a joyful note.

"Welcome to Sugar Cube Corner! Can I interest you in a triple chocolate chip cupcake with sprinkles?!" she shouted, as she normally did, to the pony entering the shop, only she didn't receive the usual 'yes' she normally was answered with.

"No thank you. I'll just take some coffee; I need to wake up a bit."

It was a stallion's voice that had responded; low and a bit raspy with a definite accent, and it was anything but familiar. He was tall and he wore a shadowy hood that concealed his face, but his exposed hooves alluded to a dark obsidian hide.

"Are you sure?" she asked, "They're really yummy."

"I'm sure. I'm just tired, and some coffee would be nice."

She trotted to the back of the kitchen, and fired up the coffee machine, which had actually accumulated dust due to lack of use.

"How do you like your coffee?" she called back to the stallion in the dining area, who'd taken a seat at a table and was leaning forward on his elbows.

"Black," came the reply.

As she placed a porcelain mug under the nozzle of the coffee maker, she couldn't help but ask a pressing question.

"So, why are you so zonked?"

"Weren't you at the bonfire last night?" he responded, turning a concealed face in her direction.

"Bonfire?" she asked as she placed the mug within the stallion's reach, and stood at the table's side.

"Yeah, last night. Nearly the whole town was there; they set up a huge party out on the town's outskirts."

"I never heard anything about a bonfire."

"Were you not invited?" the stallion asked as he took the first sip of his coffee, sighing after he'd swallowed.

"Nopony told me anything," she said, her face tensing up as she lost her bright smile.

"Huh," he said, drinking again as a wisp of steam from the coffee faded into the air, "I wonder why. Don't you know anypony in town?"

"I know everypony in town!" she said, raising her tone.

The stallion shrugged and just stayed to his coffee, and refused to display emotion as his company did.

"Did anypony ask about me?"

"No," he said, "nopony said anything about a, umm..."

"Pinkie Pie," she said, a mixture of sorrow, envy and anger in her tone.

"Yeah, I didn't hear much about anypony named Pinkie Pie."

Pinkie's head lowered, and she sniffed once as she began to slink back towards the counter.

"Wait," the stallion mumbled from the table, and Pinkie's eye regained a slight glimmer as she turned around hopefully, "I think I remember somepony talking about a Pinkie...I'd guess that's you."

She zipped back to the tableside, eagerly awaiting justification for her absence to the party.

"She was a Pegasus; she had light blue fur and a short mane. She was talking to a group of four or so. She said something about how she liked how parties were more normal without you. I don't know if that means anything to you."

"Dashie said that?" Pinkie whispered, stepping away from the table as her jaw opened loosely in shock.

"I'm sorry, I never caught her name."

"Did she have lots of colors in her mane?"

"Yeah; looked like a rainbow."

She turned around and ambled to the back of the counter, her hair straightening as she leaned up against the granite countertop as her knees grew weak. Everything about her was immediately depressed, from her deep, heavy breathing to her exasperated speech.

"Why would she say something like that? I thought they all liked my parties. Why wouldn't they invite me. I thought they were my friends."

"Oh," mumbled the stallion to himself as he finished the coffee, and stood up, bringing the empty vessel to the front desk, "seems like you've got yourself a dilemma."

"Is that why they didn't invite me? Do they not want to be my friends anymore?"

She was more speaking to herself that the stallion; her head was lowered and her voice was low and stifled by her breathing.

"What do I do? Everything I've ever known was with them. If they don't want me around anymore..."

"Look," the stallion said, leaning up against the counter, "If you'd care for a word of advice..."

"What is it?"

"You see, most souls in this world are better off alone. Granted, an occasional drink or a companion for a lone night aren't bad things, but, friendship is something that brings pain. By nature, ponies will eventually hurt those they care about. That pain can be avoided in solitude."

He dropped a coin in the tip jar before he added, "You're better off without friends."

Something behind the mare's eyes snapped, and a glare replaced her sad expression, and she stalked out from behind the counter.

"Where are you going?" asked the stallion as she prowled by him.

"To get rid of my friends."

"Ah, you see, that is where you're wrong."

Pinkie pushed through the door as she turned back, saying, "Why not. You said I'm better off without them."

"Where you are wrong is where you rid yourself of them. You seek to make them leave you, more or less."

"Yeah, and isn't that what you just said?"

"Perhaps to a certain kind of mind, but in reality, it is you that will leave them."

Pinkie turned around; the world was an empty void around her. Nothing existed except for the stallion, who now circled around her as he spoke.

She heard a sudden gavel strike against wood, and the darkness around her shifted to a cell. Cold, small, alone, and monotonous grey, the only part of the cell that stood out being the white letters above the door; 'Canterlot Asylum'.

"You see," the hooded stallion said from her side, "this is where ponies like you end up. If you'd never had any friends, you'd have nothing to miss in here, but alas, you'll live the rest of your life knowing the definition of loneliness."

"If only you'd chosen to live without friends; you may have never known pain," he said as he finally pulled back the hood, revealing a toothy smile and a pair of glowing red eyes, "And perhaps, your friends would have never learned to fear those that call themselves 'friends'. You're a danger to them, my little insane friend."

Pinkie was horrified, and she fell to the floor as her legs simply gave out.

"Unfortunately, you cannot win in friendship. Either you, as a twisted mind and a capable body, hurt your friends, bringing pain, guilt and incarceration such as this upon yourself in the process, or they hurt you first, and you learn what an empty heart feels like."

Pinkie began to blank out as she neared her mind's capacity.

"Trust me," crooned the king, and the cell simply faded away.

Chapter 15: Family Values

The trio of mares suddenly halted mid-sprint in the town square. Twilight's head snapped back and forth, seeing the intersecting trails of crystals amidst the square, finally all visible, now that she had chosen to look.

"Alright," began Twilight as she turned around to face her two friends in the dark streets, Dash's face still damp from fearful tears, "I think Sombra's leading us in circles. That's probably why we've been having such a hard time trailing him."

"You mean he knows we're following him?" asked Rarity, raising an eyebrow as she stomached the thought, "Should we even be following his trail? I mean, he could be leading us right into a trap or worse."

"Which is why we're splitting up."

"What?!" yelled Rainbow Dash, hovering up to Twilight's snout, "The elements of harmony only work if they're united. We need to stick together!"

"No Rainbow!" yelled Twilight back, louder than the Pegasus had countered her seconds before.

Her tone was confrontational, completely unlike her, and Rainbow Dash felt herself, on a very rare occasion, backing down.

"Celestia needs us to bring him in without expelling him from Equestria! It's the whole reason she brought him here in the first place; we'd waste everything if we used the elements on him!"

"Now," she continued, beginning to pace back and forth, "he seems to be targeting us, the elements of harmony; I don't know why, but he's only shown up at our houses, and I think he's hit us three so far. Which means that Pinkie, Applejack and Fluttershy are in danger. One of them is next, and we can't let Sombra get to them; I know he's up to something, and we have something to do with it, so we need to stop him before he can do whatever he's planning."

"So, we're going to split up," she ordered, "Who lives farthest from here?"

"Fluttershy," answered Rarity.

"And who's closest?"

"Pinkie," answered Rarity again after a moment's hesitation.

"Ok, Rainbow, you're going to Fluttershy's; you can get there faster than the rest of us. Rarity, you're going to Pinkie's. I'll get Applejack. chasing him down is no good, so we need to get everypony up and about; if nothing else, maybe the elements of harmony will deter him, so after we get everypony together, meet in the library; from there, we'll start on hunting Sombra down."

The princess was much more direct, much more assertive than her previous self. Perhaps it was that she was finally embracing her new regal titles; perhaps it was something else, but it didn't matter, and her authority was recognized as her companions darted in opposite directions to retrieve their absent friends.

Twilight watched them go, then turned, and ran as fast as she could, pumping with her wings, still too freshly adorned to be much use in rapid flight, to gain speed. Her hooves pounded against the cobblestone roads, and she slowly gained ground towards Sweet Apple Acres.

****************

"Hey?" called Applejack, expecting an answer and an explanation as she called into the unfamiliar darkness all around her.

"Hello!" she yelled a second time, and the sound of hoof steps began to approach her from somewhere in the distance, echoing throughout the formless void and reverberating in the air all around her, growing louder and more ominous with each passing moment.

"Who's there?"

A paced, slow, foreign voice answered.

"A friend," it serenaded, its owner still concealed in the shadows.

"Come out so I can see you."

"It would be better if you came to me," came the response.

"What's the matter?" she taunted, "Afraid o' the light?"

"Are you afraid of the dark?" countered the voice; deep, oddly familiar yet exotic, but the speaker remained hidden behind a veil of darkness and uncertainty.

Applejack recoiled a bit, but then retook her stance; she was not about to back down to an invisible presence.

"Come to me," beckoned the voice, "I have something you need to see."

"Why should I trust you?" she asked, hesitantly approaching the end of the light's influence.

"Like I said," replied the voice articulately, "I'm a friend."

"What are you thinkin' on showin' me, friend?" the mare asked as she reached the wall of darkness, nothing visible before her; the light simply ended, and the darkness held everything unknown in its embrace, including her supposed 'friend'.

"The answer," came the simple response.

"The answer to what?"

"Do you wish to end the greatest doubt of your life, or do you choose to stay within the realm of comfort? You can come, or you can stay, but decide," iterated the voice, inches in front of her, but hidden regardless behind the dark veil of secrecy.

Applejack looked around quickly; she was alone. It was just her and her concealed companion. She closed her eyes, sighed once as she realized that, perhaps, the biggest question of her life was just beyond her sight. She wasn't about to let the opportunity for truth to come forth pass her by.

She filled her lungs with cold, heavy air, and stepped out of the light.

Walking forward, the world simply disappeared in the blackness, save for sound, and her hoof falls resounded throughout the nothingness around her.

"Where are you?" she asked aloud.

"Just follow my voice," came the reply.

"This better be worth it," she challenged.

"I promise you, the answer is to the question that haunts you more than anything else in this world. If you wish to be rid of its presence, don't lose heart."

Applejack grew a bit concerned as she penetrated deeper into the darkness, when the faint glow a distant light reached her eye. Her steady walk evolved into a hurried canter, and the sound of her resounding hoof beats bounced through the air.

The light source grew nearer and nearer as she hurriedly approached. She reached it, and tried to vacate the darkness for the light, but when she went to go through the threshold, something blocked her entry. An invisible wall, a window without glass, locked her out, and her snout scrunched up and the brim of her hat folded into her eyes as she slammed headlong into the barrier.

"Ungh! What the hay?" she called out, stepping back in shock.

She tried again and again, striking the barrier in growing frustration after each failed attempt to forsake the shadows, until she wheeled around, and shouted into the darkness.

"What's goin' on here?!Just who the hay are you and what are you toyin' at?"

Silence responded.

"What kind o' friend are you if you won't even show yourself?" she called, raising her voice in anger, "Enough foolin' around! Come out so I can see you!"

"As you wish," crooned the voice, and again, the sound of distant hoof steps, resounding in the expansive, empty air, began to draw nearer.

A silhouette began to take form, the first faint rays of light beginning to fall on the figure as it approached, teasing at its existence as more and more of it became visible with each passing second. Applejack looked into the darkness intently; it was tall, methodical and cautious in its movement. Dark and shadowy, like the environment it clung to, but above all, ominous; not quite menacing, but looming, seeming to prowl around the light, hesitant to enter its influence.

Cautiously, like a foal testing the water at a pool, the figure crept one hoof out of the darkness, a dull, ambient aura encircling its flesh. A leg followed the hoof, then a torso and the beginnings of a snout, until an entire figure came to be in the weak radiance of the glow.

"Sombra?" gasped the mare.

It was definitely him, though he wasn't quite the same; he was unarmored, and his ever-present cape, as well as his ever-present scowl, were absent. He looked her in the eye once, a hint of what seemed to be regret or sorrow, or perhaps the two together, dancing behind his irises; they were red in their centers, but clear and warm elsewhere, anything but menacing, and anything but the look the dethroned normally adorned.

"You think you're a friend?" she continued, angrily and confrontationally; the king looked down at his hooves, pawing at the ground gently as he waited for a chance to speak.

"We're anythin' but friends! We're on different sides o' a fight; you're my enemy! If you think you're gonna change anythin' on me, you're dead wrong! I ain't doin' nothin' for ya, and I ain't gonna put up with any o' your tricks!"

She paused for a moment, catching her spent breath, and allowed the stallion a turn to converse.

"I didn't expect you to trust me, Honesty, which is the reason for the concealment," he explained, gesturing towards the darkness, "And I know you still won't trust me, but I have a simple offer to make you."

"I ain't havin' none o' that." she said, and began to storm away, "Why would you wanna help me; and why should I believe anythin' you say?"

"Because I know what it's like," he answered from behind her.

She stopped where she stood, and slowly turned around. Sombra's eyes matched hers; sad. The brow descended weakly into a wide, pleading gaze, begging for understanding and compassion without having to ask for it.

This Sombra bore no resemblance to the one she'd known. His lack of armor and bare hide made him seem more as an equal; his confidence and power was gone, and he seemed, more or less, vulnerable. His mane fell down around his shoulders with no crown to hold it in place, and his normally displayed fangs were sheathed behind a sorrowful frown.

The king, in a compassionate voice, continued.

"I know what it's like to lose something you once held dear, something you long for every waking moment of every single day, and the hopelessness that comes with not being able to do anything to reclaim it. For me, it's a home. For you, it's..."

"My parents," she whispered, finishing his sentence for him.

"However, I was at least blessed with memory of what I lost," explained Sombra, nodding a bit, "My curse came when I was ripe; yours came before your memory had blossomed. You have nothing to cling to, and your heart, therefore, is incomplete"

Applejack looked away; she didn't want anypony, especially Sombra, to ever see her tears.

"But if you wish, I can help to fill that hole."

Applejack looked up at the king with glossy eyes; his normal devious grin was replaced with a sympathetic smile, sincere and inviting, and she felt herself draw a few steps closer.

"You'd do that for me?" she said in disbelief, "Why?"

"Like I said," he explained, "I'm a friend, one who understands your pain. I know how you feel, and if I can help you endure what you miss in your life, I will. I learned to cope on my own, but it took me centuries. You don't even have more than a few decades; you need my help, and I will give it to you if you're willing to see the truth of your past."

Applejack sniffled once, and nodded her consent as she adjusted the inheritance on her head.

Sombra gestured towards the light source, and stood before it, beckoning her to join his side. They stood two abreast, gazing into the glow. Sombra looked to his right; Applejack's gaze was unflinching in concentration. He lowered his brow once, and his horn began to glow as a scene began to unfold on the other side of the glow.

A room; wooden walls and simple furniture, a bowl of red apples in the center of the coffee table. Packed suitcases lay beneath a darkened window, and the clock read midnight.

Applejack kept watching, secluded from the world she saw in an observant trance, but Sombra's eyes saw nothing but the expression on the mare's face. She was thoroughly captivated, and somewhat hopeful, which would make the reality of the truth all the more...effective.

Sombra felt himself falter a bit in his act, and a toothy grin began to grow on his chin, but he suppressed it, and remained in character. He wasn't lying about anything; everything he'd said was true, but the reality of truth, as he knew well, could be much more horrifying than the conceptions of imagination and assumption.

Sombra turned an eye back to the scene behind the glow.

A stallion and a mare entered the room together, hurriedly and with upset expressions on their faces. The stallion wore a familiar hat, and the mare, in resemblance, appeared much like the pony at his side. He could feel the anxiety radiating from his companion, and he knew the recollection to be doing its job.

Sound was absent in the scene, which left room for the mind to wander and assume, and as the stallion said something to the mare, she nodded and began to heave up the luggage from beneath the windowsill. The stallion did the same, and they made for the door.

Before they left, however, a small darted in at them. Thin and lanky, no more than a few years old, a red hide, a blonde mane, a green apple on his flank and a face full of tears. He cried as he rushed to the stallion's side, but as he tried to cling to his leg, he was thrown back by a swift hoof and a scalding glare.

He was angrily reprimanded as he tried to throw himself around the stallion a second time, and was struck across the face with a firm backhand, and, with a hoof extending upwards, was told to go upstairs.

The colt fell onto his flanks, sobbing as he stared up at the pair, praying for sympathy and acceptance, but all he received was a glare, and an uncaring scowl. The colt bowed his head, and wept. The pair turned to leave, beginning to push against the wood of the door, but turned around to face a new pony as she entered the scene.

Old, pasty and green with a silvery mane, cradling an infant as she angrily scolded the other two adults in the room. A silent argument came to be within the light; glares intensified as passions ran hot, and mouths opened wide in noiseless shouts and words of malice.

Sombra looked again to the mare at his side; tears had set in, and again, he swallowed a surfacing wolfish grin.

The silent exchange continued, and Applejack's exasperated and panicked breaths became the only sound in the void. Eventually, the stallion waved the older mare away, and with his female companion, turned to leave, toting luggage behind them. The door slammed shut, but produced no sound, as the pair hurriedly vacated the home, and the stallion's hat fluttered to the floor behind him.

He never came back for it.

The old mare approached the colt, still sobbing in anguish, and wrapped a forelimb around him as she cradled the infant in the other. Then, another foal, a filly, younger than the colt by her appearance, wandered in down the stairs; she was confused and was rubbing tired eyes with an orange hoof, her long blonde hair in a mess on top of her petite scalp.

She spoke, and was answered by the mare. She spoke again, a question by the looks of it, and the mare shook her head. Immediately the filly's green eyes flooded over in tears, and she ran back up the stairs, leaving the others behind.

The mare cradled the others in silence, and the vision grew old as nothing happened, save for tears striking against the hardwood and pitiful heaving and sobbing from the room's residents.

Eventually, the colt rose, and looked into the mare's eyes in a heartbroken gaze, and then, plodded upstairs.

The mare herself rose after a short pause, struggling on aged hips to rise from the ground, and she too, turned to go, but, as if on a whim, she turned back around.

She walked over to the doorway, still sealed shut, and stooped. She picked up the stallion's hat, a brown Stetson with a crescent carved out of its brim. She dusted it off, looking down at it glumly, and then turned, and with the hat in one hoof and the infant cradled gingerly in the other, returned back upstairs as the scene swirled around itself into nothingness, and a blank light took its place.

Applejack's eyes, dampened and red by anguish, heaved air in and out as she fell onto her flanks, her hat falling off in the process. Her braided mane fell down her back, and she stared wide eyed into the light, the trance having been broken but its effects still lingering with no possibility of ever leaving.

The sound of her breathing, coming in frantic chokes and gasps as despair blocked her airways, was interrupted by a low, rumbling voice at her side.

"A pity isn't it Honesty?" said Sombra, standing over her, and looking down to her with a condescending scowl, "All these years longing for the knowledge of your past, and now, this."

He shook his head slowly, closing his eyes as his chin stooped a bit. He leaned in closely, his intense eyes opening inches from hers, and his teeth bore into a smug grin.

"I don't believe it," stuttered Applejack defiantly, "My parents would never do anything like that. Granny said..."

"Granny said?" interrupted the stallion, raising a brow sarcastically, "And whoever said she was infallible? A lie fabricated for a good purpose is possibly the most effective, as well as the most potent, of all."

Applejack looked up at him in horror; could this really be true? Could this really be the answer?

"Your 'Granny', I assume, told you that your parents loved you, and didn't want to leave, but they had to," he said mockingly, "and that they would come back some day. And no doubt she gave you your father's hat, saying it was a token, a promise by your father of love and guidance for the life, your life, he has been, and forever will be, absent in."

"Then why hasn't Big Mac said anythin' to me? He was there, I saw him! And he was the one who told me that Ma and Pa disappeared when we were foals!"

"Your brother hardly says anything of importance regardless. Why should he tell you?" Sombra challenged, "Even if he was keen enough to realize the reality behind your parents' absence, he would be apprehensive to tell you anything at all. After all, you're his baby sister," he said, talking to her as an inferior, mockingly and scornfully, "and he wants to protect you from the painful truth. And like I said, a lie made up to hide the truth is the most potent of all, because the mind accepts it."

Sombra began to stalk around her.

"Everything you've known regarding your parents was told to you by another; you saw little that night, and remember even less. You've accepted lies your whole life, and I'm trying to show you the truth, but you deny it!"

"Honesty," he scoffed, "If you were truly worthy of your element, you would know me to be telling the truth."

He lounged inwards to her as she sat silent on the cold, hard ground.

Sombra whispered into her ear, "And the truth is this; your parents didn't love you. They despised you and your siblings alike, and left you forsaken and hopeless on the patch of dirt you call home in the care of somepony else to seek a life without you. Your family lied to you to protect you, but now that the truth is yours, its strength is overbearing."

He paused, stopping over her head as he looked down with piercing red eyes.

"You see Honesty," he whispered, chivalry rather than ice in his voice, "sometimes the truth hurts more than not knowing."

He began to walk off, his footsteps echoing in the darkness.

"Maybe," he said over his shoulder to her, still sitting motionless in despair, "you should reconsider what you think to be true. Because one day, the truth will find you, and despair will come with it."

He disappeared into the darkness, his sound fading away, and she was left cold, alone and afraid in the hollow embrace of the faint glow of the light.

She winced, doubled over, and cried.

Chapter 16: Night's End

Twilight's lungs burned, as did her legs, and her head from lack of sleep, as well as her wings, still pumping in hopes for a miniscule increase of speed. The cobblestones resisted the downward blows of her legs, and her hooves pounded against the road as she neared Sweet Apple Acres.

She did not bother to go through the gate, the main entrance to the property. Rather, she cut across the knolls of apple trees, punishing the grass in her haste, and found herself at the farm house in no time. She panted and staggered for breath as she cantered, her pace being reduced from a gallop, to the front door.

"Applejack!" she called out, hoping she would be heard.

"Applejack! Big Macintosh! Can anypony hear me?!"

Again, she was not answered. She decided it best to break and enter, and bucked the door inwards on her second kick. She gasped for air as she hurried up the stairs, passing a recently awakened stallion in a bedroom doorway. She hurried down the hallway, almost too quickly to notice the few crystals poking up through the floorboards, and leading towards Applejack's room.

She reached her friend's bedroom door, and violently knocked, yelling out, "Applejack!" but again, the door was not answered.

She looked behind her after she pounded the door a second time in vain to see Big Mac, standing wide eyed and awake in the center of the hallway, looking at her concernedly.

"I'm sorry," she said, wheeled around and kicked the door in.

She spun back around to enter the room, but stopped, frozen by what she saw.

Sombra was standing at the bedside, a crimson and black aura surrounding his shadowy essence, and growing brighter as each second passed. His horn was aglow, he was breathing deeply, as if relishing in something unseen, and his head was bowed with closed eyes over Applejack, kicking and tossing as she muttered inaudible words in her sleep. The energy in the room was awesome, and terrifying.

Whether it was the shock of catching the king at work, or the horror of what he may be doing to her friend right before her eyes, Twilight was unable to speak for a few seconds. But, after a moment's passing, she shouted the only, utterly unintelligent word that came to her stunned mind.

"Hey!"

The king's eyes suddenly snapped to hers as a malicious snarl escaped his throat, and he bore his teeth into a menacing snarl as the electric hum in the air was suddenly amplified, and the aura around the king retreated into his being.

Applejack woke violently, screaming a bit in tearful sobs, prompting her brother to begin charging towards the room. But, the king never gave him a chance at retribution.

The king's entity began twisting around itself, until the equine form was replaced by an ominous shadow, hovering in mid-air, but the eyes, and glistening fangs remained prominent even in his new form.

Like a rocket, he launched from the bedside, a sudden back blast overturning the end table and sending anything smaller into the walls as the windows shattered outwards. The king blasted out of the room, blowing past Twilight and the oncoming Big Mac, knocking them both to the floor with ease.

A driving wind followed the king down the hall and out the door, and after the resounding slam of the door, the home was filled with a moment of complete, deafening silence.

Applejack stirred, ushering in the relief of sound. Big Mac got to his hooves first, followed by Twilight, who quickly darted to Applejack's side. She was sitting up in her bed, clinging to her sheets, and trying to chase away tears.

"Are you alright A.J.?" she asked as Big Mac came up silently behind her.

"I think so," she whispered, turning her teary green eyes downwards, "That wasn't a normal dream. I mean, I've had nightmares before, but that..."

"Sombra," said Twilight glumly in explanation, "He's been doing this to everypony. The others are meeting in the library now; we need to meet them, and try and stop him before he does anything else."

Twilight turned hurriedly, and began walking out the door, expecting to hear Applejack following behind her, but she didn't. She whipped back around as she reached Big Mac's side; Applejack still hadn't left the bed.

"Was he right?" asked the mare, unable to hide her sorrow, "About my parents?"

Big Mac's eyes widened as he looked to his right, to Twilight.

"What do you mean?"

"Did they love us?" she pressed, "Did they leave because they had to, or because they wanted to? Please, I need to know."

"A.J.," consoled Twilight, " I'm sure your parents loved you."

"Are you?"

"Look, Applejack, we don't have time for this. We need to go, now."

"I guess you're right," she sighed, and kicked off her sheets

The mare rose from her bed without speaking, and followed the alicorn down the stairs in haste. after adorning her hat from the rack near the entrance, they both pushed through the door, and galloped off.

****************

Again, Princess Twilight punished the cobblestone of the streets as she raced through town, this time, with a friend doing the same behind her. They were going for the library, the site of the rendezvous with the other elements, recently gathered from all around Ponyville to bring an escaped king to justice.

They would make him pay for his actions; they would let him know that fear and hate were not as powerful as love; they would reform him yet.

Into the aging night the duo pushed, the leader's expression contorted into sheer focus and determination, but her follower's still wet and glum in doubt and depression.

The first rays of sunlight had begun to come over the horizon, and the darkness of the night sky had begun to shift to deep blue, the grey clouds to pink, and the wet, dark ground to gold and lush green.

The pair crested a hill, and now, finally able to see the library, realized that they were the last of the group to reach the oak's expansive base. Twilight slowed as she came barreling down the hill, and came to a stop amidst her friends.

"Everypony here?" she asked, panting.

"Yeah," came the response from all present.

"Did he get to anypony else, other than Applejack," she stammered, revealing yet another victim of the king as of late.

"Pinkie," said Rarity, gesturing to the mare behind her, her normally prominent smile evicted by a glum frown, and her energy gone as well; she was sitting on her flanks, poking the ground with her hoof with a look of pure depression on her face, the only resemblance to the Pinkie they knew being the gem in the shape of a balloon on her neck.

"He never got to Fluttershy," said Rainbow Dash calmly, "I got to her before he could."

"Well, that's at least a small victory," encouraged Twilight in vain, "See, we're starting to come back. We'll have him in no time."

"So," began Rarity after a moment's passing, "what's the plan?"

"I don't know yet," admitted Twilight, "We'd better get inside and think of something. I'm sure if we pool our resources, we can come up with something."

The six, exhausted by the night's trials, followed the alicorn as she pushed her way into the library. Twilight's horn began to glow as she lit the wicks of the candles within the oak's shell, illuminating the full extent of the damage done to the library's interior; it was enough to cause jaws to drop, and gasps to escape into the air.

Gigantic crystalline columns and shards had overtaken the home in its entirety, and now reached for the ceiling and stretched from wall to wall. Everything was ruined; furniture, the floor, most of the bookcases, everything, except the doorway to Sombra's room, the staircase, and a path of uncorrupted floorboards that connected the two to the home's entrance.

Shock stole time, and it was a minute, or ten, before any of them spoke.

"It wasn't like this before," realized Twilight aloud.

Rarity was the first to realize her implication.

"Which means, he's been here."

A new voice suddenly joined the conversation, coming from the ceiling, the floor, the crystals, and within the mares' heads, all at the same time.

"You're late," grumbled the voice.

"Sombra!" yelled Twilight to the ceiling as she took a ready stance, "Come out! It's time to pay for what you've done!"

She strutted forward, confident and ready while her friends involuntarily huddled together; none of them realized the growing gap between them.

A low, chuckling laugh answered her, echoing through the oak's interior.

"Oh princess," mocked the king, "You really think you can stop me, don't you."

"With the elements we can. Now quit hiding! Show yourself!"

A swirling black cloud began to form in the center of the room, and it twisted itself into an equine form. Sombra stood amidst his crystalline creations, smiling.

"Who's hiding?"

Before he finished speaking, Twilight heard the bursting of the floorboards behind her, and she spun around to see her friends being ensnared within a shell of growing limpid stones, trapping them within an opaque shell; only Twilight was left on the outside.

"Now, princess," mocked the king from beyond her plane of view, "do you still think me vulnerable?"

Chapter 18: The Brink of War

"Twilight," the voice called in the distance, calling the alicorn back from an eventless dream.

"Twilight, are you okay?" it sounded again, closer this time.

The blackness was replaced by two slivers of light as Twilight began to open her eyes. She blinked away the haze around her head, and saw her friends gathered in a circle around her, looking down concernedly.

Apparently, her consciousness wasn't enough to convince her friends she was still alright.

"Twilight," asked Pinkie Pie slowly, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied once breath was hers, "I think so. Am I?"

"You've been better," answered Rainbow Dash.

Twilight looked into her hooves, her skin was pale, even in the low light, and had begun to shift to a more grey shade of purple. She felt weak and cold, but, more or less, still herself.

"What did he do to you?" asked Fluttershy timidly, ducking under her mane a bit.

"I don't really know," she replied, still inspecting herself, and confirming that she was intact, "He didn't do much to me, I think, but he did more to himself."

"What do you mean?" asked Rarity nervously.

Twilight lowered her hooves and looked her friends each in the eye.

"He, changed," she said slowly, "I felt him. I heard him. I couldn't before."

"Are you sayin'..." began Applejack, but Twilight continued.

"He said 'blood and flesh, at our expense'. He just, changed...It was like he wasn't real before, but now...He's..." she shook her head, still coming out of unconsciousness.

"He's what?" asked all present.

"He's back. Sombra, not the shadow, but the pony."

The five exchanged glances of lingering fear, and Twilight, slowly, rose to her feet.

"Well, what else did he say?" asked Rainbow Dash urgently.

"That war is coming."

"War?" asked the five together, and Twilight grimly nodded.

"He offered for me to join him against Celestia but I turned him down. He wants the kingdom, and the Crystal Empire. I think..."

"You think what?" pressed Applejack hurriedly.

"I think he's going for Canterlot."

****************

Sombra looked down on the little town from afar, his presence concealed by the dense canopy of the forest all around him, and the light of the rising sun obscured by its overhanging embrace. Intently, maliciously, he gazed downhill and across the grassy plain that separated the trees from the buildings, watching, waiting, planning.

This was his time now. Before, he had been but a shadow, forced to watch and learn and prepare. But now, action was his to take, and like the blood now flowing trough his veins, he would not stop until he was dead.

It was time for redemption. It was time for reclamation. It was time for war. It was his time, and his alone. Celestia's time was up, and he would make sure she stepped down, either by force, or by even greater force. But first, he had a god-like weapon wielded by his enemy, and standing unopposed in the middle of his path to glory. He would have to fix that, and soon, before his time came to pass.

He already knew how to disable the elements of harmony, but his first plan had failed with the princess's denial of his offer. Such a shame; she would have made a beneficial ally. But, alas, she'd turned him down. No matter. He'd make her embrace the power of hate, one way or another. Conveniently, he could kill two birds with one stone; neutralizing the elements of harmony, more specifically, their wielders, would not only liberate him to take free action against Equestria, and following that, the Crystal Empire, but it would also, quite possibly, force the young alicorn to...change her mind.

Looking down to Ponyville, he saw the town's first residents begin to stir. No, not stirring; rather, a group of them sprinting out the front door of the library, barreling down the road to the northeast.

Sombra chuckled. They'd never think he was in Everfree. They thought he was going for Canterlot. They thought the war he had declared was on Celestia. Well, it was, but his aggression was not solely pitted against the princesses of the skies. The wielders, once again, were all too convinced of their own benevolence, their own invincibility. He would have to prove to them that reality was indeed much different.

Sombra smiled to himself, his fangs protruding past his lips as his grin slowly spread. His eyes took on a new fire, and with agility to rival the wind, he turned with a snarl, and sprinted through the trees like a wolf on the hunt, paralleling the mares as they ran the length of the road, with crystals sprouting in his wake.

***************

The only sound Twilight heard was the one her own hoofbeats made against the cobblestone as she and her friends galloped towards Canterlot. Sombra had to be there; where else would he be? War; where else would he wage war, except for the capital of Equestria itself?

He had to be going for Canterlot. She was sure of it. At least, until she heard a voice saying something else entirely.

"There he is!" yelled Rarity, stopping in her tracks as she pointed towards a line of trees in the distance off to their left.

"What?!" answered Twilight, coming to an equally abrupt halt, "Are you sure?!"

"Yes, he's right over..." Rarity continued excitedly, pointing to the tree line, where any trace of the king was absent, and her voice lost its volume "there."

"I don't see anything," said Dash matter-of-factly.

"I know I saw him. I'm sure of it."

"Are you sure you're not seeing things?" asked Twilight, "We've been awake for a long time. It could have been a hallucination."

"No, it was Sombra."

"Y'all, we'd better believe Rarity," pressed Applejack, stepping amidst the others as she spoke, "For all we know, it was him. The least we could do is go check it out."

The orange mare didn't receive a response, so she herself led the others towards the trees, followed closely by Rarity. The other four were quick to follow.

It didn't take long to reach the spot where the plain met the trees. But, once they reached the forest's edge, the six all stopped in their tracks, looking into the blackness and gloom of the woods before them.

"W-We have to go in, t-t-there?" stammered Fluttershy, trying to back away from the trees, and escape their reach; they seemed to be trying to grab her, their brown arms beckoning her for a simple touch.

"How sure are you?" asked Twilight coldly as she looked to Rarity; the white mare was as hesitant as she was after finally reaching their destination.

Rarity looked at the alicorn, then back to the forest, then at Twilight once again.

"I'm positive."

"Well," sighed the lavender mare, breathing in deeply, "then let's go."

She stepped confidently out of the light, and into the woods, and again, the other five followed, the trees seeming to close in behind them as they abandoned the light of their world for the shadows of Everfree.

Any doubt of her friend's vision left in a hurry, as just inside the trees, Twilight found, however dim in the darkness of the forest, a trail of crystals, leading deeper into the wood.

"Hey, check it out," said Rainbow Dash, looking over Twilight's shoulder from her perch in the air, "Looks like you were right."

"Okay, we know he's here, not in Canterlot. Yay. Now can we please go back?" whispered Fluttershy, her teeth chattering as she looked all around her.

Twilight didn't answer. She was squinting deeper into the darkness of the forest. She could almost see something, just beyond the shadows. Something moving in the direction the crystals led. It was as if it was beckoning her, daring her to come closer, almost like...

"Twilight!"

"What?" she responded, shaking her head slightly.

"Are you okay?" asked Pinkie Pie, her mane beginning to revert to its curly state, but still mostly straight, "you seem a little screwy."

"Yeah," she assured them, trying to get them to buy the act, "I'm fine."

"So what do we do now?" petitioned Dash.

"We go after him," came Twilight's immediate response.

She began to walk deeper into the trees, but Applejack blocked her path.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just hold on a minute here. This ain't a good idea."

"Applejack, move."

"Just hear me out."

Twilight stepped back, and suppressed the urge to spark a glow from the tip of her horn.

For a moment, she scared herself as she realized that the thought of forcibly moving her friend had even crossed her mind. She dismissed the notion, giving it up as nothing more than impatience, brought on by fatigue. But still, she could almost hear, though faintly, Sombra's deep, foreboding laughter inside of her head.

She nodded, recomposing herself like the regale she was meant to be, and Applejack explained herself.

"Remember the Crystal Empire? He baited ya then, just like he's doin' now. I'd bet my hide he's leading us into a trap."

"So, what do you propose we do."

'Well," Applejack began, slowly, "we're all in this together. I say we vote."

****************

Again, Sombra looked out on Ponyville from the shelter of the concealment of the trees. His mind was anywhere but the present. It was on the recent past, and the near future.

He admired his own cunning for his latest trap, using himself as bait, and the forest itself as the snare. Nothing less than pure genius.

Having just finished laying down another maze of crystals for his enemies to follow was only the first part of phase two of his plan. Phase one had involved getting to where he was now; getting into Equestria, and becoming strong enough to retake his throne. Now, the objective was to rid himself of the ever-present meddle of the elements of harmony. Without them, there were only two in the entirety of Equestria that could stand to him. Phase three was where that final problem was to be solved. But, that would come in time, and Sombra's mind came back to the task at present.

Getting rid of the elements; something to be done precisely. Standing hoof to hoof with them was not possible. He knew he had the potential and the ability to face them down without being overtaken; he had only hours before in the library, but, perhaps, a smidgeon of luck had been with him as well.

It was a risk; he'd reconciled with that in order to have the chance of gaining Twilight as an ally. But, now with her denial, there was nothing to be gained by the risk of approaching them. There was no reward to go with the risk, and therefore, anything brash would be unwise. He would take his time, and deal with them properly; one, by one, by one.

Only now, it wasn't a dream.

Sombra's horn radiated a dark red, glowing strongly in the darkness of the forest, and he took on a new look, so to say. He became covered with a brown cloak and hood, concealing his face and body, as well as his identity.

It was his time now; his time to act, his time to reclaim what was once his, his time to take, and his time for redemption. He lowered his head, and approached the town, ready to start his war before his enemies could act.

****************

Twilight looked at the five before her, all of them lifting their hooves into the air to vote for 'go back to town.'

"How could you want to go back!" she yelled, interrupting the silence of the forest, as well as surprising her friends, "We're so close! He was just here!"

"Twilight," started Rarity, "you're underestimating Sombra. We already have before; I don't want to make the same mistake twice. We need to get out of here, and somewhere where we have the advantage."

"And what, wait for him to come to us?"

"At least that way we have a chance. He's got everything on us if we follow him in there!" yelled Rainbow Dash as she pointed deeper into the forest, "He's smarter than we think, and I know he's trying to lure us into a trap. If we back out, we can keep fighting, but if we keep going, we may not get a chance to fight back, ever."

"Are you saying you'd rather take a chance than take the advantage?"

"What advantage?" yelled Applejack, frustrated.

"Twilight, I'm telling you, he's toying with us. How do we know he's not just playing with our heads again, trying to make make a mistake?" explained Rarity.

"How do we know he's not counting on us to give up? What makes you so sure that he's not just out of sight, and that we can take him down if we just committed?"

"We don't know anything Twilight," urged Rainbow, raising her voice, "But I'm more sure of him being out there waiting for us to slip up than I am of him being vulnerable. You know me, I'm not gonna back down, but there's a lot more to lose here than just pride. We need to do this the smart way, and the smart way is taking caution. I want to get this ass just as much as you do, but we can't if he wins. He wins, our chances go out the window, so we can't slip up."

"Besides Twilight," began Pinkie, "If we go back, we can get help. We need the princesses. If we just stopped for a second, we could write a letter and get..."

Twilight cut her off before she finished.

"We don't need Celestia!" she yelled, stamping her hoof into the mud, "She told us to do this, and we have to do it! We can't let her down!"

"This ain't about making the princess happy anymore!" countered Applejack, "Sombra's loose, and Equestria is in danger."

"I am a princess!" yelled Twilight suddenly, her eyes shifting to white and her horn beginning to glow threateningly as she rushed into Applejack's face, "And you do not tell me what to do!"

The hot glare between the two of them was put out by four stunned and horrified looks all around them, and Twilight looked down, stepping back as her eyes softened.

"I'm sorry," she apologized sincerely, "I...I just don't know what to do."

She waited a few moments before she spoke again.

"I thought we could take him if we only had the elements, but you all are right. We should back out. We'll get Celestia. She'll know what to do."

The others nodded consent, and Fluttershy, who'd taken a spot at the back of their little column, turned around to bid a hasty withdrawal from the foreboding trees, something she was normally warmed to be among, but not in this case. She squinted at the ground, trying to make out the crystals they'd followed to get to where they were now, but, there was a problem, or rather, many, as an innumerable amount of black, opaque stones were plaguing the forest floor all around them, leading in all different directions.

"Umm, girls," she squeaked as the other five came up behind her, "Which trail were we following?"

****************

Nurse Redheart sat behind the counter of the hospital, reading through the amounts of paper on her clipboard. So many different patients to take care of, so many different needs and schedules to maintain. She was wishing for somepony to talk to, rather than having to keep words in her thoughts as she scrolled through the endless stacks of paper on her desk.

Within moments, her wish was granted, and a fresh, familiar face came through the door.

"Morning Ms. Redheart," greeted the mare, an earth pony with a hat to match hers on top of her neatly tied up mane.

"How are you today Nurse Tenderheart?" she responded cordially, relishing in the opportunity to delay her other duties to chat for a moment.

"Doing well. Have you seen the doctor yet?"

"I know he's in," she responded, "He's probably still working with the patient in Room 203."

"That poor stallion still hasn't recovered?"

"No. We can't find anything wrong with him. No fever, no injuries other than a bruise on his back, but he has all the symptoms of a serious illness; red eyes, paranoia, trembling and vomiting. He can't sleep, he can't recover, and nothing we've tried has worked. It's like he's sick because of something other than sickness."

"Sounds like a riddle," chuckled Tenderheart, her light green mane falling out of place as she did, and she brushed it back into place with a silvery-blue hoof.

"Or something extremely serious."

"I just hope it's not contagious," chuckled Tenderheart a second time.

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a chime at the back of the room. The pair looked up, one from the front of the desk, the other from behind it, to see a tall, built pony walking through the doors. He wore a sort of cloak, and his face was covered by the shadows of his hood. He didn't say a word as he approached them.

"Can I help you?" asked Nurse Redheart as he came closer.

"I'm looking for an old...acquaintance of mine. I understand he's in this hospital's care," he said, his voice low and very masculine, and anything but friendly.

"I'm sorry," said Tenderheart as he, again, came a bit closer, not showing any indication of who he was, "but visiting hours are from noon to 2. It's only nine o'clock."

"Oh please," he said, "It will only take a moment, I promise. I just need to clear something up with him. I'm afraid, with his condition, we may never have another chance to do so."

"I'm sorry sir," Redheart explained, maintaining her smile as she did so, "But I can't let you back there. Policy dictates that patients must be left alone by non-staff members except during visiting hours."

"Could you find it in you to make an exception? He is very near death, and I need to make something clear to him. Which room is he in?" he asked, trying to steal a look at the clipboard as he leaned a bit over the counter, only to have the nurse tilt it up and away from his view with a sort of glare.

The nurses exchanged a similar look; there was something very suspicious about him.

"Sir," began Tenderheart, seizing the stallion's attention long enough for Redheart to press a small red button on the counter's underside without being seen, "I'm afraid I need to ask you to leave for now, but you're welcome to come back during visiting hours. In fact, if you would just leave your name and contact information, we can reach out to you when your friend is ready. Who was it you wanted to see?"

"I think you know the answer to that already," he growled.

"And what did you say your name was?" asked Redheart as she marked down on her clipboard hesitantly, nervously glancing towards a door off to the right of the lobby she occupied.

"I didn't."

As the pony finished, the door swung open, and a trio of security guards, all of them stallions, entered the reception area. They wore caps, and had flashlights and billy-clubs on their belts.

They approached the stallion as he eyed them down from behind the shadows cast by his hood, and as they surrounded him, he turned back to face the duo of mares at the desk.

"What is this?" he scoffed.

"These stallions are just going to make sure you make it outside okay. Oh, and by the way sir, it may be better if you didn't come back for visiting hours."

The three guards approached him, and one stepped before him.

"Sir," he asked firmly, "I'm going to have to ask you to remove your hood. Standard policy."

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

"No need to worry sir," the same guard said as he reached out a bit towards the pony's face, and a bit sarcastically added, "I promise you won't get hurt."

"I can't say the same to you," growled the figure, an ivory smile beginning to glow in the darkness cast by the hood, and the faint outlines of a pair of crimson eyes forming beneath the cloak.

The guard's condescending smile left, and as he looked to his left and right at the guards slightly behind the hooded figure, they closed in on him, forming a tight circle with hooves on their belts.

"Sir, I'm going to remove your hood now, and then, we are going to escort you from the premises. Will you comply?"

The smile seemed to grow a bit wider.

"We'll see."

The guard slowly reached towards him, any former confidence exempt from his demeanor, and carefully, he flipped back the hood on the figure.

Before the hood even hit the pony's back, a pulse of energy blew all three guards, as well as the two nurses, back and into the walls. Picture frames were shattered, papers were blown around, and the sickening thuds of bodies hitting drywall resonated through the room.

The guard that had confronted the pony felt the impact of the wall, and following that, the ground, and looked up to the center of the room as his momentum came to an end. What he saw was...unbelievable.

Sombra, the pony of lore and legend, bull-rushing him, fangs born into a predatory snarl.

He tried to get to his hooves, but before he could, the king was on him, slamming him into the floor and holding him down. He called out to his comrades.

"Help!" he yelled, looking through the king's legs to see the other two guards struggling to their feet, "Help me! He's go...UNGH!"

The king reared up on his hind legs, holding the guard in between his two front hooves by the throat, choking his words to death before they ever came to be. Sombra slammed him into the wall at his back, splitting the drywall in a long, spreading series of cracks.

For a moment, they met eyes. The king's were blood red and fierce, contorted into a scowl, but there was something else in his gaze; pleasure.

With one hoof pressed to his throat, Sombra used the other to beat the guard's head like a brawler, each vicious blow launching his head backwards and into the wall. The cracks became rifts, and the wall, as well as the black hooves of the king, grew red with blood. The guard's eyes began to drift shut, even as tears began to flow from them, but Sombra kept the blows coming. Finally, he reared back, and with a savage punch, caved the guard's face in, and blew him back through the wall completely, what was left of his head and torso disappearing through the hole, but his hind legs protruding out of the drywall.

As soon as he finished the first one, Sombra heard the approaching hoof beats of a second guard. He spun around to meet the oncoming swing of a billy-club with an outstretching forelimb, and the black stick splintered around his flesh. The guard looked at him in shock for a moment, but only for a moment. It was a quick transition from shock to fear as Sombra grabbed him by the forelimb, and wrenched the jagged, splintered handle of the club from him.

He viciously flipped the guard over his shoulder, and slammed him into the ground. All the air in his body left as the floor vibrated with the impact, and Sombra reared up, plunging the ragged remnant of the club into his throat. The guard began gurgling softly in a blood-drowned scream, and Sombra mercilessly tore to the side, ripping his throat open, and letting his blood flow out freely in massive, hemorrhaging spurts.

Suddenly, Sombra felt something constrict around his throat, and felt the weight of something substantial on his back.

"Sedate him!" he heard the third stallion on his back yell, and he saw one of the nurses retrieve a syringe from below the desk she'd recently risen from behind.

The nurse came sprinting towards him, and Sombra relieved himself of the burden on his back, reaching up with a single hoof to launch the stallion over his head, into the ceiling, and onto the ground on the far side of the room. The nurse reached him, and lounged forwards with the syringe, but Sombra sidestepped the needle.

He caught her forelimb under his, wrapping his leg around the joint of her leg. With his free elbow, he came down with a vicious blow on hers, and the sharp crack of the bone sounded over her frightened whimper. Quickly, he landed a kick on her rear left knee, and her frightened squeal was, again, lost in the sickening crack of the bone's snapping.

She dropped the syringe as he spun her around to face away from him, forcing her to her knees in the process. He wrapped a hoof around her neck as she sank towards the ground, and he held her at his stomach. She screamed a shrill note of fear, and Sombra nonchalantly looked to the other nurse, Redheart, in the room. With a swift twist, the mare's scream was abruptly ended, and he released her limp body to the ground, her corpse coming to rest with her skewed spine bulging out of her neck.

Redheart, panicked, made a dash for the door to the side of the counter, but Sombra only grinned. With a weak glow from his horn, the deadbolt on the other side of the door clicked shut, and he smiled as the nurse began pulling and pounding on the sealed door in vain.

Sombra heard the guard behind him getting to his feet, and turned around.

The stallion brandished his billy-club, and through a determined glare, yelled, "Come On!"

"As you wish."

Sombra charged forward, as did the guard with a scream. Sombra lowered his head, as well as his center of gravity, and lead into the oncoming guard with his horn, plunging it up to his forehead into his abdomen. He lifted up as they met, impaling the guard fully on his horn, and carried him on the end of his horn to the wall. He crashed into the drywall, replacing the white paint with a red furnish, and pulled back.

The guard slumped to the floor, clutching his bleeding stomach and exposed entrails with wide eyes and a quivering lower lip. Sombra looked down on him, his eyes as intense as before, and smiled.

"No," whispered the guard as Sombra reared back slowly, brandishing his horn as he stared him in the eyes.

But Sombra didn't stop.

"Nooo!" yelled the guard, only to be cut off by a dark, ivory horn piercing the skull between his eyes, and pushing through and into the wall behind him.

Sombra stood up straight over the fresh corpse, his obsidian head corrupted by the scarlet rivers of blood flowing downwards from his horn. He brushed his long black mane back into place, moving it from his face to its flowing home at the back of his scalp. He breathed deeply through an open mouth with closed eyes, taking in a moment of ecstasy. He relished in the satisfaction of a long suppressed bloodlust, until the time quickly came to seek more.

Sombra turned slowly, a growl beginning in his throat as the guard at his feet slumped over in death, his blood corrupting the floor. The king's eyes rested on Redheart, panicked now as she still tried to jolt the locked door free. She looked behind her to Sombra, seeing his devious grin growing wider at her despair, and with invigorated panic, continued tugging and pounding on the door in hopes that it would open.

Sombra stood in place, and admired his work. Bloody tracks, his own, permeated the wooden floor, surrounding the still bodies. The first, the stallion in the wall, the drywall around him stained with wet crimson as his hind legs marked his unfinished grave, with the other half of his destroyed being concealed. The second, the guard with the splintered club in his throat, still bleeding profusely though his body was still, and the tool used to inflict his death still pointing to the ceiling, embedded deeply in his larynx. The third, the mare, her grey-blue hide tainted by the blood seeping from her lips, and her beauty ruined by the mangled bones of her legs and neck. The fourth, the most recent at his feet, silent with a hole bored through his skull, his eyes and mouth still open in shock and fear. And the fifth, the only one still alive.

Redheart stole another look at the king a moment later; he'd come closer, and was now grinning no more than six feet from her. She gave up on the door, and with tears in her eyes, she faced Sombra, her jaw quivering as she anticipated the worst.

Sombra stood over her, and she sank to the ground at his feet, pleading with her eyes for mercy. But, the king, not amused by her pitiful existence, only grumbled down at her.

"What room is the prince in?"

"Are you going to kill me?"

Sombra rolled his eyes, redirecting a crimson trickle flowing down onto his face from his blood-caked, ragged horn.

"If you tell me, I'll consider sparing you."

"He's in there," she said, weakly tapping her hoof against the door at her back, "First hall to the left, room 203."

Sombra nodded, and gently, the deadbolt on the other side of the door turned in his telepathic grip. He pushed through the door, and passed the nurse, unharmed.

"Oh, thank you," she sobbed as he receded down the hallway, a weak glow beginning to emit from his horn, "thank y...flghhh."

The nurse's words were halted by a crystalline shard shooting up through the floor, piercing her throat and pinning it to the wall behind her. The blood filled her mouth, and spilled over onto the floor, but the crystal connecting her head to the wall kept her body upright. Sombra didn't even turn around to see his latest creation; he just kept walking, his eyes dead set on the hallway, as well as the prize, before him.

There was bigger prey in this hospital than a few nurses and petty security officers. Sombra replaced the hood over his head, and advanced down the hall.

His steps echoed through the empty silence of the halls, the only sound in the entire building other than his breathing. He sauntered past the rooms, ignoring the patients within, though every ounce of their fearful attention was his.

Closer and closer he came to his prey, reading the numbers on the walls of the hallway, marking darkened, unimportant sanctuaries, as well as the worthless patients within them.

197.

198.

He breathed deeply in anticipation of retribution and reclamation.

199.

200.

"Hey," he heard behind him, "you can't be here. This is a restricted area."

The king stopped, and leisurely scratched his nose as the sounds of the voice's owner came closer.

"You need to leave. I'm working here, and visiting hours aren't until noon."

Again, Sombra ignored him, and the approaching steps came to a halt at his back.

"Are you deaf?" the voice asked challengingly, and Sombra felt a hoof land aggressively on his shoulder.

Without hesitation, Sombra threw the hoof off of himself, and whipped around, plunging his hoof up and into the stomach of the doctor. He doubled over, and Sombra met his descending head with an upwards rising hoof. The doctor stepped back, clutching his snout, but Sombra followed him. He kicked at the inside of his knee, locking it out in a way it wasn't designed to bend.

The doctor fell towards the floor, but the king held him up. The doctor came to a halt on his flanks, and Sombra landed a blow with his forelimb on his kidneys. The doctor recoiled backwards, leaning back over his hams, and Sombra came down hard. He landed an arcing kick on the doctor's throat, and with a savage crunch, the struggle was over, and the doctor laid limp on the white tiles of the hospital floor.

Slowly, Sombra turned his crimson eyes, the blood from recent battles won flowing down around them, back down the hallway, and again, found his scowl being replaced with a genuine smile. Oh, How he enjoyed this.

His advance continued, and his breathing quickened as his smile grew with each step closer he came to the prey.

201.

202.

He stopped for a moment, relishing in the moment.

203.

His horn glowed crimson, and he pushed through the door.

Chapter 19: Delivery

To a grey coated mail carrier, the day was as perfect, and as normal, as it had ever been. The Pegasus glided through the air, just above the ground, her blue uniform on tight, and her smile on even tighter. Coupled with a lazy eye, her expression was nothing less than comical.

Derpy Hooves, as usual, was on her mail route on this seemingly perfect day, and was just now reaching her daily task's half-way point, just beyond the square, but just before the residential outskirts; the hospital. Only today, the mailbox resting on its post outside the front entrance was something more.

A pony waited along with the mail within the box, leaning against the mailbox, and playing with the plastic red flag, flicking it up and down quickly. She'd never seen the pony before; tall, large, probably a stallion by his size, and wearing a very uncharacteristic article of clothing for the town; a brown cloak and hood. As she drew nearer, the mail carrier's eyes grew brighter as she saw that there was a package, colored red and adorned with a big blue ribbon at the pony's feet.

"Oooh, a present," she cooed as she came up to the mailbox, "Who's it for?"

"Oh, just an old friend of mine," he answered, confirming he was indeed a stallion by his voice, "There's a certain...anniversary coming up. This is just to celebrate."

He reached down and picked up the box as he finished, attempting to hand it to her.

"Could you deliver it for me?"

Derpy took the package in her outstretched forelimbs, and was shocked that it was wet.

"I think it's leaking," she said as she inspected her hooves, now colored red.

"Oh, wait," she said, pausing, "Is this paint?"

"Er, yes," responded the stallion, still hidden behind his cloak, "My friend is allergic to one of the, umm, chemicals they use to make wrapping paper, so I had to paint it. Red is her favorite color you see. The color of love."

He sounded like he was smiling as he continued.

"It's one of my favorite colors as well, but for different reasons."

Derpy looked at the address, written in dark black letters on the underside of the box. She turned it in her forelimbs, and upon making out the destination, she replied with hesitation.

"Oh. This address isn't in Ponyville."

"Yes, you're right. In fact, it's not in Equestria at all. It's in the Crystal Empire. Will that be a problem?"

"Maybe," the mare responded, still looking through her solitary straight eye at the package, "I'm not supposed to deliver anything outside of Ponyville. You should try the international delivery service. They can help you."

"Oh please," he persuaded, the words rolling off of his tongue, "Like I said, it's for a very important occasion, and it needs to be there as soon as possible. I would take it myself, but I have a very busy schedule to attend to. I can compensate you for any trouble you may have."

"Well," the mare said as she continued internally debating, "Okay. I'll do it."

"Thank you," he said sincerely.

"Who is it for, once I reach the address," she asked as the stallion began to turn away from her.

He turned back, and said, "It's for the matriarch of the home you'll be delivering to. You can't miss her, she's a very well-known mare in the country."

"Really?" Derpy asked friendlily, making small talk, "I've never been to the Crystal Empire. Is it as pretty as they say?"

"Oh yes," he said, chuckling a bit, "the prettiest place a pony can all home."

The two stared at each other for a while, and as the mare began to turn to carry out her task, the stallion stopped her suddenly.

"Oh wait. I nearly forgot."

He reached under his cloak, and retrieved a sealed envelope.

"Please give this to her when you deliver my gift. She'll know what it means. "

"Well, okay," Derpy said as she took the letter, and placed it on top of the package she carried, "I'll just be on my way then."

"Thank you again!" called the stallion as she receded down the street.

Then he turned, and walked off in the opposite direction, small, ebony crystals marking his tracks in the cobblestone.

****************

"This is bad," iterated Pinkie Pie, stating the blatantly obvious.

The group had been following one of the crystalline trails for the majority of the day, but weren't any closer to escaping Everfree. If anything, they'd found their way deeper into the trees; the light was growing less, and the shadows seemed bigger, the silence louder, and the trees more alive.

"How'd we get ourselves into this mess?" whispered Applejack, too low for the others to hear.

Twilight slowed down, and turned to face the others. It had to be at least five o'clock; considering they entered the forest just after dawn, their situation was dire to say the least.

"Any ideas?"

No response came from their shadowed eyes.

"Alright then," Twilight said, looking around concernedly, "Rainbow, do you think you could fly above these trees? Maybe we could get at least an idea of where we need to be heading. This trail was obviously the wrong one."

The Pegasus crouched, and sprang into the heavy air, pumping her wings as she ascended. However, for all her strength, her skyward advance was halted by the thick canopy of the forest. She became caught in branches and leaves, sending compost back don as she knocked it loose from the tree's embrace, and though she repeated her attempt to burst through the vegetation over and over again, she never saw the friendly blue smile of the sky.

"It's no good," she confessed as she alighted among her friends, "The trees are too thick."

Twilight kicked the mud in frustration, her hoof being held onto by the wet forest floor as she retracted it back upwards. She began to look around, specifically to avoid the looks of despair on her friend's faces, only a hint of a glint coming off of the jeweled elements of harmony around their necks.

Suddenly, Twilight's ears perked up, and her eyes grew wide as she whipped around to face the darkness of the trees.

"What is it?" asked Fluttershy quietly.

"Shhh!" hushed Twilight frantically, turning her head upwards suddenly.

The others averted their eyes as well, trying to search for any sight, and listen for any sound, that Twilight had apparently caught onto. But, they remained oblivious.

"Do you hear that?" asked Twilight concernedly.

"Hear what?" responded Applejack.

"You can't hear that?"

****************

Sombra took in a deep breath, his identity no longer concealed by the cloak. Rather, it was hidden by the shelter of the forest once again the perfect vantage point to watch, as well as reap the benefits, of his work.

He kept his horn aglow as he continued breathing deeply. Everything was going perfectly, but he still wasn't done.

Oh no. The forest was the least of his enemies' problems. He kept the spell, the one he was casting into the forest, going as he picked up a box of matches. The smell of oil was still persistent in his nostrils, even after its spreading had long since ceased. Much of the grass he'd treaded over the past few days was now damp with the thick, dark lipid, and his grin grew wider as he lit the matchstick with a satisfying *fwish*.

He dropped the flame to the ground, and watched in ecstasy as his trail of crystals was replaced with a trail of fire, retracing his stone-marked tracks, and the black silence of the stones was routed by an orange, crackling radiance.

****************

"Wait," said Fluttershy excitedly as Twilight was beginning to walk off into the trees towards the apparent sound she'd recently begun to hear, "I think I hear it."

The sound Twilight had heard had remained inaudible to the others for the better part of fifteen minutes, until now.

"What does it sound like?" asked Twilight, just as anxious as her friend.

"It sounds like...a whisper."

"That's what I hear too."

"Wait I hear it too!" yelled Applejack suddenly, "It's coming from over there."

She pointed into the trees off to the right.

"No, it's coming from there," corrected Twilight, pointing upwards and to her front.

"I thought it was that way," added Fluttershy, nodding off to their left.

"No," said Rarity, confirming that she too now had detected the sound, "It's behind us."

The group began frantically turning around and around, trying to pinpoint the sound, now audible to now, teasing at its own existence as it grew louder, then died down, only to pick up back again just beyond the mares' field of vision. It sounded like a whisper, a breeze in the trees, nothing more than a faint rustling or a disturbance in the air, but in the silence of the forest, it seemed nearly as loud as a train passing by.

The breeze grew into a wind, and the trees began to bend and creak all around them as a driving current came at them from all sides. No more a whisper; now, it was a voice, still low and inaudible, but definitely words being spoken in octaves too low for comprehension.

The voice grew in the wind, finally becoming audible as it danced around the group of mares. From the embrace of the trees it spoke, its voice deep, Slavic, and familiar.

"Open your eyes," it breathed, invisible, but not inaudible, "See the truth."

Twilight looked to the others; they were captivated entirely, their eyes blank, seemingly empty, as they gaped upwards and all around to the infinite sources of the voice.

"You can live, or you can die," came the whisper, "Use your minds. Think."

"Don't listen!" barked Twilight, but she too felt herself being captivated by the voice's melodious, alluring words.

"Let me help you," cooed the voice, "See things from a new perspective."

Suddenly, the trees seemed to part a bit, revealing a path through their limbs, as well as a flickering glow in the distance.

"Come to me," beckoned the voice, luring the mares towards the light, "and you'll find that in the darkness, there is salvation, a light unlike anything you've known."

They followed the gap in the trees, halfway in a trance, and halfway conscious as they plodded forward, weary and enticed at the same time. The light at the end of the tunnel of bark and dying leaves grew, however slowly, stronger, and the group felt the oppressive gloom of the forest lifting. It didn't take them long for them to leave the trees all together.

But, they found that the light they'd been following wasn't cast by the sun.

Chapter 20: Unchained

"Princess Cadence!"

The coral colored alicorn looked up from her readings, shifting her legs underneath her as she adjusted her position on her bed to turn her ears towards the familiar voice, just outside her door. She knew it to belong to one of her best-known guards, somepony she trusted and held very high in her mind's eye, especially with her husband's absence.

"Come in!" she responded cordially, and after a few seconds passed, the vaulted doors to her chamber were thrown open by a trio of guards, one of them entering the room to stand before her with a package in his hooves.

His white face was grim; unusual for him, as he normally adorned either a friendly smile, or the stoic expression of a guard on patrol.

"Your highness," he iterated, bowing a bit as he came to a halt and saluted her.

He held out the package, a red box of sorts with a baby blue ribbon tied up in a bow over its top, and explained, "this just arrived, delivered by a courier from Equestria. She said it was for the matriarch of the castle; you. What to do with it is at your discretion."

Cadence hopped off of her mattress, and glided through the air over to the guard, stopping in front of him. She tilted her head to examine the source address, made out in thick, dark letters on one of the box's corners.

"Oh, It's from Ponyville," she stated, growing a bit excited.

The mare went to take the crimson package from the guard, but he recoiled a bit, temporarily preventing her from taking the delivery into her custody.

"If I may, your highness, I would request that you allow the guard to inspect the contents first. We don't know what's inside. It could be some sort of..."

"Nonsense," said Cadence gleefully, contrasting the stern expression on the guard's brow, "Ponyville is where my sister-in-law lives, and where Shining is staying. It's probably from one of them. It's nothing more than a bit of mail."

Cadence took the scarlet box from the guard, whose white hooves had been tainted a bit red, and found that its exterior was moist.

"Odd," she said to herself, "It must be leaking."

She began to pull at the bow wrapped around the box, and the guard handed her a small note, sealed in an envelope.

"This was also with the package," he said, "The courier said you would know what it means."

Cadence set the box down, rubbing her hooves together to dry them from the sticky crimson fluid seeping from the box's exterior. She tore open the envelope, and unfolded the white paper. On the paper's face, written in bold, dark, thick letters in very formal writing, was inscribed a haunting message.

Cadence,

'Til death do you part?

If you meant that, then you are free.

Not that you'll remember, but today marks the day you inherited something of mine all those years ago. I'm coming back for it. I'd use your new freedom to stay out of my way, because if you're still around when I arrive, you and your husband will be reunited again. Believe me, it's not as good as it sounds.

P.S. I hope you like my present.

The King

Cadence's eyes grew larger as she finished the note, her smile of anticipation receding into an expression of fear. She let the letter flutter to the ground at her hooves, and cautiously stooped to open the package. Slowly, she stood back up with the package in her hooves, and even slower, she began to open the sealing.

She dropped the package as she gasped upon seeing its contents, and fell backwards onto her rump, kicking frantically as she pushed herself back up against the foot of her bed. Her breath came quickly and in short little gasps, and bitter tears graced her cheeks and the fur of her stomach as they fell in streams.

The guard, who hadn't seen the interior of the box, cautiously and concernedly opened the package, and dropped it himself as he doubled over, throwing up on the floor of the princess's chamber. As the package teetered over, he gagged again, averting his eyes to avoid looking upon the atrocity of the hornless head of the prince rolling out onto the floor, staining its ivory tiles red.

****************

The six froze at the tree-line, gaping downhill in horror. Their eyes grew wide, and sparkled with both tears of despair, and the reflections of the fires that stared back at them.

Ponyville, home, was in flames.

The entirety of the town was engulfed; every building, every home, every landmark, every memory, and almost every pony, set ablaze in the red and yellow inferno. Even from a distance, they could feel the heat, smell the smoke, and hear the screams of agony; the orange sky made by the setting sun matched the terrestrial radiance perfectly.

"Oh Celestia, help us," whispered Rarity, her jaw hanging loosely open due to shock and horror.

They were frozen by the sight of the fire, at least, until they were shaken from their terrified trance.

"We have to help!" yelled Twilight, her face contorted into a sort of worried glare, as she began pulling her friends down the hill after her, and together, however a bit hesitantly, they ran towards the rising pillars of smoke and flame.

They reached the town in moments; none of them, even Rainbow Dash, had ever gone so fast in their lives. They entered the town, the cobblestones of the road, though not ablaze, scalding their hooves. The streets were all that were immune to the fire though, and even then, the sheer heat was beginning to soften the stone surface.

"What do we do?!" yelled Pinkie over the crackling of embers and the crashing of collapsing foundations.

Still running forwards, Twilight turned her head around, and answered, "We have to try to help as many as we can!"

As if on queue, a frantic scream approached them from up the street, and a pony, a mare by her high pitched, shrill sound, came into view, running down the street towards them, her body ablaze.

Twilight stepped into the street in front of the oncoming equine, raising her hooves and screaming for her to stop, but she ran straight by, crying and screaming in pain and panic. The others blocked her path, and the mare slowed, falling to her knees amidst them, her cries growing softer as the fire slowly consumed her flesh.

Twilight and Applejack began urgently trying to extinguish the flames, Applejack beating them with her hat and Twilight trying to smother them with her hooves and wings, but it was to no avail, and the pony soon went still.

However, they didn't stop trying to put out the fire on her hide; eventually, they did, and the orange glow faded from the mare's lifeless body.

Panting and exhausted, Twilight and Applejack looked down at the body, its charred flesh raw and blistered in the spaces that weren't completely turned to charcoal. Strips of blackened hair still clung to her head and rump, but other than a few secluded areas on her body, all of the skin had been seared off completely.

"Who is it?" asked Rarity, crying at the sight.

"I don' know," drawled the response.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I can't tell who it is," said Applejack, sniffing as she wiped at her eyes, looking down at the unrecognizably disfigured body at her hooves.

"This can't be happening," whimpered Twilight, just before another nearby scream registered in her ears.

The six took off towards the sound, their vision blurred by tears caused by both the blinding smoke as well as the sheer tragedy they now occupied.

They arrived at the source of the sound in mere moments; a building, unrecognizable, as every structure in town had been reduced to a uniform inferno, with small, weak voices crying out in high-pitched wails within. The fire was blinding against the darkening sky as Twilight, Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash began trying to pry the door open, some with magic, others with muscle. It was almost like the door was locked, and despite its slow transformation from wood into ash, it held fast against their straining backs and waves of spells.

Yet, for how desperately they tried to gain entry, the cries within grew weaker with each passing moment, regressing into infantile crying. That was when, with a bit of aide from a panicked remark from Pinkie, they realized just which building they were beholding.

"It's Sugar-Cube Corner!" yelled Pinkie Pie, horrified, as she pointed to a blackened, scorched sign swinging above the sealed entrance.

The four at the door looked to each other in horror as they realized why the screams inside sounded so small, so weak. Rainbow Dash reared back suddenly, a fit of blind panic and adrenaline fueling a pair of savage kicks on the door; on the second, the wood gave, or rather, the deadbolt, and the threshold swung open. They all made to enter the building, but a sudden outflowing of flame, caused by the release of the door, caused all but one of them to step back, shielding their faces from the searing flames.

Rainbow Dash disappeared into the licking tongues of fire, darting inside without hesitation, and into the mouth of the blaze. The crying kept coming, but as each second Dash spent within came to pass, they grew weaker. Moments evolved into minutes, and the five stood outside, unable to enter the home, waiting, hoping, praying, that their friend would emerge, if not this second, then the next.

What was a little more than a minute felt like a lifetime, and as the screams went silent, Rainbow Dash came hurdling out of the building, but not from the door; she burst through one of the windows on the buildings lateral wall, landing in the grass, ablaze. As she landed, two small objects rolled away from her, and the cyan Pegasus, with frantic help from Applejack and Rarity, began trying to extinguish the flames.

Dash was screaming as she and the other two slapped at her left wing, the flames clinging to her feathers, tainting them black and possibly killing chances for future flight. It took a short time, but a great deal of pain, before the fire was smothered, and Rainbow Dash sat up in the blackened grass, panting and coughing frantically a she struggled for air. A.J. and Rarity stuck to trying to help their friend breathe, but Twilight and the others hurried to what Dash had rescued from the fire.

Lying in the grass, still, were two foals; one of them, an infant, alabaster with an ash tainted coat, a Pegasus, was looking into the night sky blankly with an open mouth, not breathing, and not moving. The other, a unicorn, barely able to inflate her struggling lungs, was clinging hard to life, but as Twilight began to try to resuscitate, her sparkling eyes went dark.

The alicorn suppressed the urge to scream as she cradled the lifeless body in her hooves, Pinkie doing the same with bitter tears flowing down her face to the other foal. Twilight felt herself doing the same as she hugged the body of the infant, cleaning the smudge on her face with her tears. They looked like dolls, no longer like living, breathing, innocent little souls filled with happiness and joy; they were dead, and it was unbearable.

Rainbow, still struggling to take in air as her wing kept on smoldering, tried to speak.

"Are, cufgh, cufgh. Are Poun, cufgh. Di, cufgh. Did, cufgh. Did Pound and, cufgh, Pumpkin make it?"

She was not answered by words; rather, a tearful frown from Pinkie confirmed her fears.

"No!" she yelled as she tore away from Applejack and Rarity, pounding the ash-coated grass with both hooves, and rolling off of her flanks.

"Why was the, cufgh, door locked!?" the Pegasus shouted, looking angrily, not out of blame, but out of frustration, at Twilight.

"Wait," Twilight said suddenly, looking up with tearful concern, "It was locked?"

"Yeah, cufgh. It had to be. How else could that door be, cufgh, shut so tight?"

"Why would they lock their own door?" asked Twilight, more stating a fact than asking a question.

Just then, it all made sense; why the town was suddenly in flames, why the door had been locked, why the fire department was nowhere to be seen, but her mind was seized by more urgent matters at present.

"What about Mr. and Mrs. Cake?" asked Fluttershy urgently.

Rainbow, air finally having evicted the smoke from her lungs, shook her head 'no'.

"They were with Pumpkin and Pound when I found them, but..." she lowered her head as she finished.

Suddenly, Twilight's mind drifted back home.

"Spike," she said quietly, and took off down the road, dodging falling embers as she went, Applejack following her closely.

But, the other four stayed.

"Will you be okay Rainbow?" asked Rarity, slowly stepping back away from her friend.

"I'll be okay, but I need to get out of here. It's hard to breathe," she said weakly.

"Can you make it back on your own?"

"I think so," she sputtered, and, though it was a struggle, brought herself to stand.

"Okay," Rarity said, panicked, "Okay, try and follow the road, you won't get lost that way. I need to try and find Sweetie Belle."

With that, Rarity turned, and disappeared into the flames, running for home as fast as she could.

"I need to find my animals," Fluttershy stammered, as she backed away slowly, "I'll see you when I get back, okay."

And before another second passed, Fluttershy too was gone.

Pinkie Pie turned her eyes to Rainbow Dash, reverently placing the body of Pumpkin Cake on the ground as she walked to her living friend's side.

"I'll help you back, okay Dashie." she said, forcing a smile as tears, on the rare occasion, flowing from her baby-blue eyes.

She positioned herself underneath Rainbow Dash's charred wing, and together, they began limping back, away from the fires, but suddenly, a new sound, one louder than the crackling of the fire, came to their ears.

A laugh, low and foreboding, growing louder as its source danced with the flames. The two found themselves backing away, the characteristic warmth of the flames, reaching out to grab them, at their flanks.

"Sombra!" yelled Dash, challenging the shadow within the fire, feigning courage in a moment of sheer terror.

But the laughing only grew more hardy, and the mares kept backing away together, trying to keep their eyes off of the embers rising into the night sky.

Then, from above, they heard a new sound, the splitting of wood, and whipped around to see the timber of a crumbling house descending towards them.

****************

Chapter 21: The Reaper

Rarity ran as fast as she could through the burning town, the smoke and ash of the thick air burning her throat and lungs with each frantic breath. Her eyes were glossed over with tears, caused both by the stinging heat and the dire scene all around her.

She felt so alone as she sprinted in between the flames of homes, most of their residents being well known to her, trying desperately to save everything she held dear, still clinging to the splinters of hope that refused to forsake her heart. But, with each scorched corpse she passed, each burning doll, each shattered picture frame, each home, each life ruined by the fire, those slivers began to loosen their grip, and ever-so-slightly, she fell into a state of despair.

She bore no resemblance to her former self; her normally perfect mane was out of place, her ivory hide was stained black by the soot in the air, and her eyes, normally sparkling sapphire blue, were corrupted, and turned red by the burning air as well as her own sour tears.

It took what seemed like forever, and after passing an infinite number of destroyed homes, Rarity came to what she thought was home. The flames were higher here, alluding to the characteristic high-rising architecture of Carousel Boutique, despite being completely engulfed in a pillar of flame and smoke. Rarity stopped before the door of the building, looked up through the descending ash, falling all around her like flakes of snow, and confirmed this infernal structure was indeed home by the metallic mannequin on the roof's spire, which was slowly being melted by the flames dancing beneath it.

She ran the perimeter of the fires, a bit hesitant to enter them, and began screaming for her sister in hopes she would respond.

"Sweetie Belle!" she shouted over the roar of the fire, "Sweetie, can you hear me!"

The filly had to be here; there was no other place she could be. If not here, then somewhere out in the fire, but where else would se go in a time of distress, other than home? She simply had to be within the fire, undoubtedly in trouble by the lack of a response from within the radiant structure's walls.

She circumnavigated the home, stopping when she reached the front porch once again, and took a deep breath. She had to go in; she had to find Sweetie. She clung to her waning hope, and tried to conjure a smidgeon of courage to go along with it, took a deep breath, choked on the smoke that entered her lungs amidst the air, and ran for the door, only to have the wooden barrier hold her back.

Locked, just like Sugar Cube Corner. She began kicking at the door with all her might, rattling the weakening, crumbling structure all around her. Over and over again, she bucked the door, and with each kick, it gave a little bit more, as she and the fire worked together to reduce it to splinters. Her body was wet with sweat, and steam came off of her body as the liquid on her hide evaporated in the heat. She gritted her teeth as she prepared herself for another kick, and, to her own surprise, her blow knocked the door off its hinges.

Fire came spewing out of the opened structure, and miraculously, Rarity was not set ablaze, but it was enough to make her step back in fear, and fall from the porch into the ground, colored light grey with ash. She quickly rose back to her hooves, and without hesitation, ran inside her home, trying as hard as she could to stay low, as well as keep moving forward.

"Sweetie! It's Rarity! Don't be afraid! I'm coming! Where are you!" she yelled, using precious air to make herself known.

She made her way through the living room, most of her mannequins and all of her curtains ablaze, but found no sign of her sister.

She checked the closets, each and every one of them, as well as the kitchen, making sure to duck under the flames and avoid the singeing touch of the tongues of fire. Still, no Sweetie Belle.

She crawled up the stairs, once she found them, choking and stuttering with each inhale, which had grown more frequent with each passing moment. She checked her own bedroom first; the fire had claimed everything, and there was little left, least of all, her sister. Only one room left in the house to check; if Sweetie was not there, then...she tried not to think about it.

She inched her way out of her room, crawling now not on purpose, but because with her mounting weakness, she didn't have the strength to hold herself up. She needed air, a rare commodity in the inferno. She pulled herself across the floor of the second story; she could hear the house creaking and swaying with each movement she made, and knew she had to get out soon.

She found the entrance to Sweetie Belle's room, and saw an equine standing in its center, obscured by the smoke and the flames.

"Sweetie?" she sputtered, coughing when she should have been inhaling, but the figure remained silent.

"It's okay Sweetie," she managed to choke out, "We need to get out of here. Come with me."

But, the shadowy figure stayed still, and as Rarity implored her sister again to come, she realized she was not addressing her kin. On the ground just to her right, curled up, was another equine form, much smaller than the other, and much more familiar; it was her sister.

She turned her darkening vision back to the first figure, and suddenly, a pair of gleaming red eyes were visible, prominent even in the haze of the fire. She felt the floor give a bit suddenly, and she lurched two or three inches downward as she choked on another frightened gasp, and ever so subtly, a voice added its volume to the crackling of the fire.

"Just a tad too late," it said mockingly, and an ivory toothed smile joined the eyes on the shadow.

The floor gave again, and Rarity's scream was muffled as she fell through the crumbling floor, the rest of the house coming down with her.

****************

"Oh my," gasped Fluttershy as she skidded to a stop in the street, stopping as she crested the hill that separated her cottage from town; the separation had done little to stop the advance of the fire.

The home was in flames, and the green grass of the sod roofing was turned black as orange tongues leaped out of the shattered windows. She hated to admit it, but the home was lost, and she watched as the walls began to cave in, columns of smoke erupting from within as they crumbled.

Yet, within the blinding light of the flames, she spotted a glimmer of hope; a group of her animals, a few ferrets, a raccoon, and a very familiar rabbit, miraculously, had survived, and she observed through tear-covered eyes as they darted away from the smoldering wreckage of her home, only to run, panicked, straight into the death trap of the surrounding trees.

"No!" she called out, but she went unheard.

To her horror, her animals, perhaps some of her only surviving friends, entered the trees, made into giant torches by the relentless heat of the fire.

She had to do something; she couldn't abandon them. She needed to help, so, perhaps foolishly, she did.

She ran as fast as she could to where her animals had disappeared into the flames, acting on maternal instinct rather than rationale, and without hesitation, she ducked into the inferno.

"Angel!" she cried out into the smoke and flame, "Angel Don't hide!"

She pushed deeper into the trees, many of them bursting from the heat.

"Angel! Where are you!" she called out desperately, praying for the animals to come to her on their own; if not that, then at least some kind of an answer.

It was getting harder to breathe, and she ducked lower to descend below the smoke. She was crying now, all out of desperation, horror, and the blinding sting of the ashy air, and violently, she began coughing.

"Angel!" she choked, her voice growing weaker as each second passed.

She fell to her knees as she stopped moving forward, coughing profusely, and a tree crashed to the ground in front of her to block her path. She spun around, kicking against the ground as she tried to back away from the embers and smoke kicked up by the crumbling trunk. She struggled back to her hooves, only to fall again, coughing and choking on air, unable to breathe.

"Angel!" she yelled, her voice barely audible over the hum of the fire.

She scanned the fire around her, but found nothing alive, and, again, tried to move on, but fell back to the scalding ground, unable to inhale clean air. She tried, but was unable to bring herself up again, and again, called out to find herself utterly alone.

"Angel!" she yelled, a whisper more than a shout, and her head fell weakly into the ash-covered ground.

The orange of the fire began to fade to black, and lazily, she felt her eyelids shutting on their own. She tried again to breathe, but oxygen failed to reach her lungs. The light of the world faded slowly away, and the roar of the fire turned to a gentle purr, and gently, Fluttershy felt an allure, not unlike that of a dream, take her over.

****************

"This can't be happening," Twilight repeated over and over again to herself as she dejectedly ran across the cobbles of the road, making her way home, and praying that, somehow, the oak had not suffered the same fate as the rest of Ponyville.

She could hear Applejack just behind her, running and breathing heavily, just as she was. Her mind was on the present. There was no seed of thought regarding anything other than saving what may be left of her home in her mind; she was trying not to think of the fire's cause, as she knew the truth of the matter to be something to tear her down, and right now, she had to be strong. She didn't allow her brain to embrace that, maybe, this whole thing was her fault; at least, she tried not to embrace it.

Her ambling thoughts snapped back to the present as she neared the hill, separating her home from the rest of town, and crested its peak still clinging to tidbits of hope that all was not lost. However, that hope was futile.

Golden Oaks was no longer ablaze, to match the surrounding landscape; it had already burned through, and now, toppled, it lay in the smoldering grass, crumbling into embers and coals. Stray pages of books devoured by the fire blew around in the intense wind, and smoke rose into the night sky, birthed by the blackened bark of her home.

She stood there, frozen and unable to move, until an orange blur blew past her.

"Twilight, I need your help!" Applejack called over her shoulder, not breaking pace as she ran further down the road.

The alicorn, reluctantly, followed, swallowing her welling tears for the time being. She knew that any hope of saving what was hers was gone, but to Applejack, hope still lived. Her home, her family, her life, perhaps, could still be saved. And, even so, if Spike had gotten out of the home, like she tried to tell herself he did, he would have definitely gone to Sweet Apple Acres. At least, she tried to tell herself he would, despite their arranged meeting place being Sugar Cube Corner, but never mind that. Spike would have definitely gone to Sweet Apple Acres if he'd gotten out...probably.

Twilight put her head down, and, her heart weighing her down like a sorrowful burden, she chased after her friend.

Seconds felt like hours as they sprinted out of town, but as they realized that the orange glow of the fire was not confined to Ponyville, the burning orchards came into view. Twilight, without thinking, caught up to Appplejack, who had stopped mid-sprint in the middle of the road, gaping with a silent mouth and weeping eyes at her livelihood, the red fruit of her entire existence, ablaze on the hillsides.

Twilight matched her expression at her side, but after what felt like a half hour of horror, a new level of fear was added to the scene.

"Look!" shouted Twilight, pointing downhill and through the burning trees.

The barn and farmhouse, to match the rest of the entire property, were crumbling under the heat of the merciless fire.

"Come on!" yelled Applejack, her voice cracking under the weight of her shock and despair, before she sprinted through the burning orchards in the direction of her home.

Trees toppled around them as they galloped across the blackened grass, traversing a land of recently broken dreams, and after a seemingly endless race against time, they vacated the inferno for the farmhouse yard, stained grey by ash. Without hesitating, Applejack sprinted up to her front porch; after hesitating, Twilight followed.

"Check the barn!" yelled Applejack as she bucked the front door in, and turned to confidently enter the burning home.

"Applejack, wait!" called Twilight, but her friend had already disappeared into the belly of the burning home.

Twilight ran to go in after her, but in a split second, the wind picked up, and the fires were fanned. Twilight had to step back from the heat; it burned her eyes and stung as it taunted her hide, and in a moment, her waning courage departed all together.

She stood staring into the face of despair as she hoped, then prayed, if not this second, then the next, that Applejack would emerge from the home; she never did.

"Applejack!" yelled Twilight as she tried not to accept what she was beginning to assume.

She took a step closer to the home, but again, the fire picked up with a gust of wind, and the whole house creaked as it swayed. She heard the wood beginning to splinter before the embers began rising into the black, starless sky, knocked free by some force within, and, to her horror, the house crumbled down around itself. It fell into a massive heap of blazing wood and soaring ash, and the smoke that blew out from its weight blinded the alicorn.

She began coughing, unable to breathe in the black haze, and fell to the ground, trying desperately to breathe air that had seemingly forsaken her. Her breath eventually came back, with it, her strength of body, but not of mind.

She began to sob into the brittle, harsh grass, but as she heaved in sorrow guilt, she saw movement within the smoldering remnants of the home.

She stood up suddenly, turning to the silhouette coming forth from the smoke and fire, praying it was who she hoped it was. But, as the shadow came out from the embrace of the fire, unscathed, somehow, it grew darker. When she saw red eyes, her heart fell, but regardless, she tried to stand on her trembling knees.

Twilight tried desperately to do something, anything, but she remained motionless, frozen by despair and fear.

The dying fire danced behind Sombra as he approached her, his black mane whipping in the vicious wind. The light at his back made his already ebony face obscured by an even darker shadow, but, his ivory smile lit up in the darkness. He kept coming, his piercing eyes, coupled with fear, decaying at the courage of the young alicorn as each step brought him closer.

Tears streamed down Twilight's face, her heart was heavy, her stomach was inside out, and, in her moment of need, her courage and strength gave out. Her knees gave, and she fell lightly to the ground, trying with every ounce of her strength to maintain her gaze with the crimson eyes of the king.

Sombra stopped when she hit the ground, and his smile disappeared as he reached into a black saddlebag on his back, keeping his scarlet stare locked on her. He pulled his hoof free when he found what he was apparently digging for, and threw the objects onto the ground in front of the alicorn. They displaced the ash on the grass as they landed, and the fire weakly illuminated the faces of five all too familiar necklaces. A jeweled pink butterfly, a blue tinted diamond, an orange gem, carved in the shape of an apple...

Twilight choked as she tried to speak, the king looking down on her uncaringly as she tried to force simple words.

"My friends..." she managed, sobbing, "What did you do to them? Where are they?"

The king pawed at the soot in the grass, and looked up into the air, seeing the ash that now fell like snow.

"They are all around you," he crooned, his smile beginning to return, "what's left of them."

"You..." she choked, sputtering as she struggled to muster the will power just to speak, "you killed them."

"Yes," the king said nonchalantly, "But not only them."

He reached back into his saddlebags, and threw another object into the white grass before Twilight. This object was long, white and slender...a unicorn's horn.

"I killed your brother,"

Another object hit the ash; a purple scale, slightly blackened and scorched.

"I killed your dragon,"

Twilight looked away from the king, and her sobbing, somehow, grew more intense as she choked on the acceptance of this horrible reality. But, the king's gaze remained on her, uncaring and cold.

"Everything you've ever known," he said as he threw his hooves towards the fires all around them, "I've taken from you."

He bent down to whisper into her ear as her tears drenched her cheeks.

"Your home is ash, as are your friends, each and every one of them, and I am the one that gladly bears the guilt. I've raised hell, and all of its desolation, all of its pain, in your backyard..."

Sombra paused, and his voice grew hate-filled and harsh in an instant.

"and you do nothing about it, but sit here, and cry."

Twilight turned her red tainted eyes up to him, and he glared back down at her.

"Do you know why you are unable to do anything about it? Because you know you had a chance to stop all this from happening. Had you only accepted my offer, your friends would be alive, and you would be powerful enough to stand by my side, instead of cowering before me."

He paused as he stood up from the ground, inhaling deeply, relishing in some unseen sensation.

"I can feel your rage, your wrath. Use it."

He backed away from her, gesturing towards his exposed chest as if it were a target.

"Punish me with it," he hissed, "Avenge your friends. Kill me. Strike me down, and do the world a justice."

The king stared at her coldly, waiting patiently while the fires all around him burned themselves out. It took nearly ten minutes before Twilight was able to rise to her hooves, and answer.

"So I can what?" she said, challenging and harsh as she gagged on her own agony, "Be like you?"

"It's not as bad as it seems," he cooed, "imagine the power to do anything, to conquer everything."

"I will never be anything like you!" she screamed, trying to rise from the ground, "You're a monster, and I HATE you!"

As the words left her mouth, Twilight's glare softened into an expression of sadness as she realized what she'd just said. But, the king's alabaster smile only grew wider.

Slowly, articulately, Sombra spoke, feeding the fire within the alicorn as it brought her back to the ground.

"You are already more like me than you know."

The king walked past her, going away from his smoldering work, and over his shoulder, spoke parting words to the princess.

"As soon as you deny the lie that good is more powerful than evil, you and you alone will be able to stand to me, and perhaps, your friends' deaths will be justified."

He turned a crimson eye to her as he opened a spinning black portal in front of him, and said, "Think about it."

He stepped through the void, and disappeared, leaving Twilight alone, with only the burning remains of a life she once loved all around her. She fell closer to the ground, all of the agony and despair welling up within, and when she looked back down to the five elements of harmony, null with the deaths of her closest friends, she buried her head in her hooves, and cried.

Chapter 22: Duel of Legends

The world came back into existence after a few moments of nothingness, and Sombra re-entered the tangible world as he stepped out of the portal. He breathed deeply, not a hint of remorse or hesitation in his heart; rather, he only felt... free.

Free of the north, free of the shackles imposed on him by a thousand year curse, free of the road-block the elements of harmony had presented, free to take back what was his.

He turned his gaze to the distance, and the high-rising, ivory towers of Canterlot Palace. His crimson eyes locked onto the castle, and, ever so slightly, his oculars began glowing green to match his malicious thoughts.

Now was his chance, the chance he had waited so long for. Now was his opportunity to retake his throne, the throne that had been taken from him in the first place. Now was his chance for vengeance, for redemption. He would not let it pass. There was nothing stopping him now; no elements of harmony, no lack of a body, no exile, no magical barriers keeping him at bay.

He was free.

Sombra took a step forwards, forgetting everything, except for his royal target, locked in his sight. This was the moment he'd been fighting for, the chance he'd been waiting on; he would not miss it. His eyes glowed verdant, his irises taking on a color akin to the blood he'd recently spilled, and his horn began to glow, as with each step, memories came flooding back. Memories of his scorn, memories of his exile, memories of the home, the life, he'd had taken from him, memories of the two that had taken everything from him, and with each passing moment, Sombra's rage only grew.

It gave him power, it gave him strength, acquired from the rage, the wrath, the fear, shamelessly reaped from others. Nothing else mattered, save for his target, the source and cause of his wrath, his anger, his rage. And as the feet he covered turned into miles, his power only grew more intense, the ground before him literally beginning to quake with his hoof falls. His essence vibrated with an energetic hum, and the night air around him was filled with static. A prisoner, an inferior, a scourge; he was these no longer.

He was free.

And he would make sure he would continue to be so, or he would die trying.

He broke into a trot, and as his eyes shifted over to complete green, an ivory smile spread across his face, a glare of determination doing the same on his brow as he drank in the anticipation of justice, however cruel. It was his to take, to make, to make a reality rather than a dream, all because of one pressing, recently made reality.

The ground shook harder now, each step reverberating through the Earth's crust with increasing power.

He was back, he was strong again. He had a body, muscle and bone and blood. He was a presence once again, but, most importantly...

He was free.

****************

Celestia was asleep in her bed, her eyes sealed in peaceful serenity. The night was still and quiet, and her role in the kingdom's maintenance, governing the day, was over a short while. The night was still young, and Luna's moon, like a silver dollar in the sky, shined down on the terrestrial world below, reflecting beautifully off of the ivory exteriors of the palace, sending subtle, white light into her bedroom through an expansive window.

It had been a stressful few days of late, and the Princess of the Sun now enjoyed a bit of hard earned rest. She'd just returned from her search across the kingdom with her sister, trying to uncover the source of the darkness in Equestria and the Crystal Empire. They'd found nothing to blame for the nightmares, nothing to attribute the roots of greed and hatred to, yet.

She still clung to her confidence in her student, Twilight, and, despite her instincts, wanted to give the young princess a chance to handle Sombra on her own. She knew, in the king's diminished state, being a shadow, a fragment of his former self, he was manageable, even to a young alicorn, and that, with the aide of the elements of harmony, his escapade would be halted quickly. And, once he was reeled in, it was only a matter of time before he, just like Discord, would be reformed for the better. Then, once his aide was used to unlock the mysteries of dark magic, the darkness could be routed entirely, and everything would be normal again in Equestria.

Yet, it concerned her that she hadn't yet received a letter confirming that Sombra had been reigned in. The last one sent from her student had confirmed that he had escaped temporarily, but had also urged her to refrain from intervening, and that the issue was in control. She was confident that Twilight and the others could handle it, and, again, despite her instincts, she'd found respite from constant physical and intellectual searching for the cause of the darkness in Equestria in her chambers.

Suddenly, the alicorn was jolted awake, and her eyes darted open as she sat up suddenly. It felt like her mattress had been shaken; an earthquake perhaps? No, it had been too small. A tremor maybe?

It happened again, stronger this time, and more persistent, and the floor began to shake. Celestia staggered as she tried both to keep her balance as well as make sense of what was going on. Definitely an earthquake, she thought to herself, but, in the center of Canterlot, nowhere near seismic centers or fault lines?

Another wave hit the castle, the most violent thus far, and the furniture shook its adornments onto the floor, those made of glass shattering on impact. Celestia grew more concerned; she needed to figure out what this was. It was definitely not an earthquake; it was something much different, much more concentrated, much more...controlled.

She stumbled to her window, a massive, single plane of glass the size of a regular home's wall, and looked outside to try and spot anything of significance. She did, far beneath her, in between her tower, the western one, and the one of her sister, to the east of the courtyards.

On the ground, hundreds of feet below her, a black essence was spreading across the palace lawn in rhythmic sessions coinciding with each passing tremor. The shaking grew stronger, the ebony plague on the ground doing the same, until it began to rise, climbing upwards in increments of violent expansion. It took three more tremors until a mountain of crystals now rivaled the towers of the palace in height. But, the mountain, with a vicious lurch, decided to eliminate some of its competition.

The ebony, crystalline behemoth shot through the eastern tower with a seemingly targeted thrust, cutting the expansive pillar in two. In slow motion, the lower half of the tower toppled, while the upper half fell earthwards, the massive turret diminished to crumbling rubble and dust in mere seconds.

"Luna," whispered the princess, shock and horror taking root in her heart.

Suddenly, her door was thrown open, and a panicked voice made its presence known.

"Your Majesty! We're under attack!" yelled the guard, frantic and obviously afraid, "We need to get you to the throne room, now! We're setting up defenses, but our outer line has already fallen. The throne room is closest to the armory, and where we're concentrating our forces for a defense. You'll be safest there."

"Alright," said the princess after a pause, turning away regretfully from the window, but not before swallowing a lingering, bitter tear.

"Let's Go."

Another tremor knocked the equine's gate off balance, and the tower as a whole shook as a distant, enraged roar drifted through the halls of the palace.

"Celestia!"

The alicorn froze, looking off to where the sound had come from, her coral eyes growing wider as she heard the familiar sound. It was unfeeling, feral...cold, and very, very angry.

"Princess," said the guard urgently, and Celestia was shaken from the trance.

She turned to leave, and sprinted out of her bedroom doors, an escort of guards joining her in the halls.

They galloped through the hallways of the palace, the floor's quaking growing more intense as each volley of tremors came to pass. The group, consisting of the princess and four guards, the crests on their helmets running horizontally across their crowns instead of vertically, signifying their elite rank, came to the throne room, a large congregation of guards already present outside the vaulted room's massive doors.

A phalanx of spears and armor parted to form a path for the princess and her guards, and Celestia entered her throne room, only to push through another formation of armored stallions, finally ascending the steps to arrive at her regal throne. She stood before it, two guards on her left, two on her right, and turned to face the entrance to the chamber.

The shaking grew more violent, now causing the guards in formation to stumble with each quake, and the walls of the palace began to form small cracks.

Celestia turned to her guard in between the shaking, and said, "Shall we arm ourselves?"

The guard nodded, and darted from her side and through a door at the back of the throne room, promptly returning with five spears; four were normal, made from steel and wood, the royal crest hung on small banners beneath the blades' bases, but the fifth was an elegant weapon. A golden trident, the prongs coming together to form a gilded point, with an aqua colored sapphire nestled in a cradle where the shaft and blades met. The four he distributed among the guards, but the golden weapon, he gave to Celestia, which she held in a telekinetic grip at her side, the point rising to the ceiling

Another tremor shook the palace, this time, accompanied by the echoing of blades meeting, somewhere in a distant corner of the hallways. And, another yell, closer this time, and more enraged, drifted through the palace interior.

"Celestia!"

From outside the throne room, the excited voice of a guard updated the princess and her protectors.

"Contact, in the Main Hall!"

Another voice, frantic, young and high pitched, added its weight to the otherwise silent echelon of guards.

"The castle's been breached!"

"All of you," yelled one of Celestia's guards, looking stoically down to the stallions still within the throne room, "Outside now!"

The formation shuffled out the doors, forming up in a defensive position just outside the throne room's threshold, their phalanx now well over one-hundred strong.

"Seal the doors!" yelled the same guard, and the others were locked outside the protection of the throne room with a resounding slam of the massive double doors.

And, suddenly, the chamber was silent. An interruption of the quiet came with another ground tearing tremor, dust falling from the recently formed cracks in the ceiling as the entire palace swayed. The rumbling, as quickly as it had come, stopped, and again, the throne room was completely, utterly silent, nothing making a sound other than the quickening breaths of the princess and her quartet of armored escorts.

Then, quietly, almost, but not quite silently, a brittle, crackling sound began within the throne room, and a small area on the floor came to host a small group of sprouting ebony crystals, pushing themselves up straight through the floor. They stopped growing when they reached four feet or so in height, and then, the silence resumed.

There was no sound at all in the palace. No crickets out tonight. No words shared among the castle's residents. Silence was the ear's solitary companion.

Then, from the other side of the doors, chaos suddenly erupted. It began with a deafening roar, wild and strong, enraged, and very, very close.

"CELESTIA!"

It was followed by an excited shout of an equine, its words' volume not hindered by the wood of the massive doors.

"Brace for contact!" it yelled, and the simultaneous sound of spears being leveled rattled in through the barrier.

More of the brittle sound came to be, and more crystals sprouted on the walls and grew down from the ceiling, while outside, another roar sounded, this time, accompanied by the metallic clanging of metal meeting metal. Screams began coming from the other side of the doors; painful screams, but, perhaps more frightening, the weak whimpers of mortality, and ever-so-slightly, Celestia leaned back, away from the doors, with her eyes growing wider in fear.

The sounds of battle continued, wet spilling sounds and savage roars intermingling with vicious snapping and bone-crushing cracks. The screams, high pitched and terrified, grew more common, reaching a peak, then becoming more rare, until, the sounds of battle, all-together, stopped.

A low growling came from the other side of the door, as well as a frightened whimper, and the sounds of reverberating footsteps came nearer the doors.

There were two distinct sets of hooves walking around out of sight; one was heavy, lethargic and paced, but the other was frantic, quick, and light, slowly coming back to the opposite sides of the doors. The footsteps stopped, and the sound of a wooden spear shaft hitting the ground clattered into the throne room. Another whimper, followed by a moment of silence, until the slight thud of something soft hit the far side of the doors.

More silence, followed by a low, rumbling growl.

Then, the door gave in slightly amidst a panicked choking sound, and the tip of a gnarled, crimson horn pushed through the wood of the door, showing itself, as well as the thick blood it had adorned, to the throne room's occupants. The horn was pulled back out of sight, and something heavy hit the ground outside, while a stream of blood flowed in beneath the door.

What would have been silence was corrupted by the sound of heavy, adrenaline permeated breathing from the princess and her guards, and the brittle sound of a row of crystals growing from under the door to advance slowly towards the throne, stopping at the steps' beginning.

Another growl floated through the wood of the door, before the massive barriers were blown inwards and off their massive hinges as if they weighed no more than a few pounds, to reveal a blood-covered Sombra, amidst hundreds of the motionless bodies of dead guards at his feet, their blood turning the ivory tiles crimson.

"Celestia," he said calmly, kindly, as if he was happy to see her.

The king looked up to the throne, glaring and panting, his ivory fangs corrupted pink by recent use, and, after inhaling deeply and running a crimson tainted hoof through his mane, he coolly asked, "Any others?"

The four guards leveled their spears at him, lining up shoulder to shoulder between him and the princess.

"Very well."

Sombra's horn glowed with a newfound radiance, and at his side, a crystalline column his own height rose through the floor. He kicked the pillar without averting his eyes from his opponents, and it shattered precisely, revealing a black, limpid weapon amidst the brittle shards of broken crystal. He took the opaque, ebony saber in his magic, raising another crystal on his opposite side, repeating the action to create a limpid, black war axe.

The four guards came closer, and Sombra twirled his weapons in anticipation as an eager smile spread beneath his scowling brow. The four charged, side by side, and Sombra, too quickly for eyes to gauge, killed three of them, sending them to the floor with opened throats or smashed skulls.

His obsidian blades were colored with red blotches now, and with them in his magical hold, he held the final living guard from behind in his hooves. He turned the guard to face Celestia, making sure the two's frightened eyes met before he spoke.

"How many more lambs," he said, looking down into the wide eyes of the guard he held in a gripping hold in front of him, his obsidian hoof over his mouth, "will be sent to the wolf..."

With a savage twist, Sombra snapped the guard's neck, his gilded helmet clattering to the floor, followed closely by the heavy thud of his limp body coming to a final rest on the palace floor.

"Before the shepherd comes out to make a stand?"

Sombra, blood drunk and in obvious ecstasy, set his crimson eyes in Celestia's gaze, and smiled. The princess was in a defensive stance, her spear leveled at him, and her wings flared up at her sides as she tried to hide her terror behind a determined glare.

Sombra stepped over the body of the guard, and came closer to the throne as he dropped his bloodstained blades, letting them rattle to a rest on the floor. He shook his head sarcastically as he held his hooves out, beckoning the princess for a challenge.

"Did you miss me, princess?!" he called up to her in between breaths.

He let the silence of the palace sink in for a moment before continuing.

"Find the source of that darkness yet?"

"Silence! I will not tolerate your insolence, you murderer! You will pay for what you've done today."

"If only you knew the extent of it, princess,"

Celestia froze, and tried, to no avail, to suppress the rising sense of despair in her throat, and tried to tell herself her assumptions of the king's words weren't right.

"for I've sent far more than just your pathetic guards and your infernal sibling to the gates of Hell today."

The king's smile bore into the heart of the alicorn, and he felt the sweet essence of fear rising from within her, giving him all the more determination, all the more strength.

"You thought you were so clever didn't you..." he said mockingly, "leaving a diminished evil in the care of an inexperienced pupil, in the hopes that she would undoubtedly learn a lesson from teaching me the value of the straight and narrow, conveniently killing two birds with one stone. But, for all your wisdom, all your power, you were blind."

The king reached the steps, and began cautiously, behind a mask of confidence, ascending them one at a time, using the opportunity created by the princess's self-doubt to press on for an opportunity at a rare moment of weakness.

"Too blind to see what you had created," he said, gesturing to himself, "too blind to see that your benevolent 'wisdom' would be your followers' downfall."

Celestia shook any lingering concerns from her head, and with a new found confidence, stepped forward menacingly, extending her spear at the king.

"Silence!"

The king stopped his advance, but continued talking.

"What's the matter? I thought you preached honesty and tolerance to your subjects."

"You are the farthest thing from honest, Sombra! you are a dark, evil, twisted creature, and I will not succumb to your treachery."

"You already have," he said with a grin.

"Sombra, I'm warning you," she said as he stepped closer.

"You think I'm afraid of you?" he scoffed, laughing a bit, "You've created an illusion for yourself, in which you and your forces of good reign supreme. But it is only that; an illusion, much like the one that dictated your choice to try and reform me."

"What are you saying?" asked the princess, allowing her focus to slip, and her spear lowered ever so slightly.

"Did you think for a moment that you took me into your kingdom under your own accord? Did you think, even for a second, that the darkness in Equestria and the Crystal Empire came to be by coincidence?"

"Your blindness, your ignorance, has cost this kingdom countless lives today, and the blood is on my hooves. But, this is all your fault. I have the credit, but you take the blame, for the fall of the elements of harmony."

"You didn't..." the princess stuttered, "you're bluffing."

"No," the king iterated intensely, his Slavic tongue adding a misplaced sense romance to his words, "not this time. And not just the mares, the entire town, all burned to ash and soot, because you fouled up. Your blindness accounts for their deaths."

Celestia's spear touched the ground as her concentration began to fail, horror corrupting her heart, and the king came to within reach.

"You know, I thought the famous elements of harmony would have put up more of a struggle, or at least have died with some honor," he said as he looked deep into the coral eyes of the alicorn, "They all squealed like pigs."

The king suddenly reared up, and with a swift backhand, struck the princess on the side of her face, sending her sprawling through the air across the throne room. She struck the wall, causing a large split to form, and her spear clattered to the ground at her side. She spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground as she stood up; fight or flight had kicked in, and her stunned expression was gone. Now, she was ready for a brawl, and her horn glowed white hot as the king came stalking down the stairs towards her.

She formed a magic sphere around his being. This had worked in the north; surely, it would work again. The blue encasing surrounded the king, but he kept coming. His horn glowed crimson, and with a deafening boom, a surge of power blew outwards from his core, shattering the barrier into shards of blue, dissipating into the energetically buzzing atmosphere of the throne room.

The spell had failed, but how?

"So you did really believe that you overpowered me in the north?!" Sombra challenged, his eyes shifting back to green as his horn radiated hate.

"Did you also think that I was not the architect of the hate in Equestria?! Did you think I was a bystander, watching passively from my exile?!"

Celestia got back to her feet, but again, the king, with a savage kick to her ribs, sent her skidding across the palace floor.

"All it took was a seed. A simple spark in the hearts of the citizens of the Crystal Empire, and all those who stood before my glory and power when the Crystal Heart was wrenched from my hooves a year ago came to be tinder for the fires of fear, which have grown into the blaze of hate and rage and wrath. And here you thought I was not responsible. I allowed you to take me into this kingdom. I planned everything, and you played your role flawlessly, your highness. Because you...Are...BLIND!"

He fired a scalding bolt of magic from his scimitar of a horn as he finished, but the princess blocked the incoming ray with the shaft of her spear. The weapon went skidding across the floor in the opposite direction her body flew, and Sombra leisurely picked up the gilded lance.

"The spear from all those centuries ago," he crooned nostalgically, "just as sharp as it was when you stabbed me in the back with it, and cast me into that forsaken wasteland. This is the weapon that stole my body, my life, my throne..."

He glared up at the alicorn, struggling to her hooves, as he finished, then threw the spear like a javelin, embedding it into the wall adjacent to the princess. As she looked at the weapon, still vibrating within the wall, a pillar of crystal rose in the middle of the floor, next to Sombra. He kicked the column, as he did before, and retrieved a massive battle-axe, gruesome and imperfect in design, from the shards.

He pointed the weapon, held in a blood-red aura, at the shaft of the spear, still embedded in the ivory wall.

"Fight me," he ordered as he paced back and forth, twirling his weapon as he breathed heavily through his flared nostrils.

Celestia weakly yanked the spear from the wall, and held it at her side with a glowing horn as she came out to meet the king. Her ribs felt broken, her mind and vision were blurred, all results of the king's abuse, but she was not about to back down. Everything was at stake.

Sombra charged her as soon as she retrieved her weapon, slashing in a wide arcing blow, but the princess dodged the swing. She ducked the incoming blade, and countered with a thrust, only to have it blocked by a side swipe by the king's ragged axe. In a fluid motion, he brought the axe around again, and Celestia tried, in vain, to drop-step the blow. The obsidian blade caught her under the eye, opening a scarlet gash on her alabaster cheek.

She staggered back, shaking her head, and Sombra nonchalantly inspected the recent nick in his new weapon's blade.

"Do you feel that?" he asked coolly, "The cold sensation right below your heart."

He looked back to her, raising his axe far over his head.

"That is what makes me superior."

He brought the blade down, and Celestia met it with the shaft of the spear. She staggered under the blow, but Sombra kept coming.

"That is what makes you weak," he said, striking again, his opponent narrowly avoiding being cleaved in two.

"It is what makes me strong."

Celestia took to the air, hovering out of reach of the king's weapon, and he glared up at her as his silhouette began to grow hazy and obscure amidst an energetic, static hum.

"It is fear. None are immune to its sting." he said as his horn and voice found a new level of fire, "Least of all, you!"

He fired a bolt of magic at Celestia, a focused ray that evaporated the moisture in the air as it flashed through the atmosphere. The princess rolled out of the way of the shot, pumping her wings as hard as she could to have a few feathers, rather than her entire being, singed by the beam. Her ceiling, however, wasn't as fortunate, and a massive hole was blown in the structure above them to reveal the oily night sky.

Celestia recovered from the maneuver, and looked down, panting at the king, scowling up at her with fangs born. She circled him once, looking for a weakness, until she tested his defense. She dove on him, leading with her blade, but Sombra, with an angry roar deflected her spear with a swing of his axe.

She circled around to come in again, and achieved the same result, only succeeding in making Sombra angrier.

"Come down here and fight!"

She ignored him, staying airborne and out of his blade's reach.

"You are a coward, unworthy of royalty!"

She hovered dozens of feet above him, returning her opponent's glare from the safety of the air, until she again took the offensive. She concentrated every ounce of courage left within her, and fired a bolt of blue magic down at Sombra. But, with animal-like reflexes, he rolled out of the way of the beam, leaving behind a patch of scorched floor where he previously stood.

"You haven't changed in the least, your highness," he jeered, "Prove me wrong and fight like the regal you are supposed to be! Come here!"

Celestia stayed where she was.

"I do not take orders from you!"

She fired another barrage of magic downwards, but Sombra, with a sideways sweep of his obsidian axe, deflected the beam into the wall, opening another gaping hole in the palace's architecture. He responded by sparking another glow from his horn, and as his eyes were taken over by a verdant radiance, he whipped his head forwards, lashing out with a whip-like coil of magic connected to his horn.

"I said COME HERE!"

The whip of tangible magic, created from hate and will-power, coiled around Celestia's neck, strangling her as it constricted around her throat tightly. Sombra yanked his head back and down violently, thrashing Celestia to the ground with a staggering impact. Dust and rubble was thrown upwards as the alicorn missile created a crater in the floor, and as the debris settled, her spear came clattering down at the crater's edge. Celestia tried to regain her footing and abandon the crater for anywhere else, as anywhere else would be safer.

But, as she lifted her head and shook off the effects of whiplash, she found her vision obscured by the dusty haze created by her impact. And, frantic as she tried to climb out of the crater, she saw a dark silhouette barreling towards her through the foggy rubble. She pumped her wings downwards as she tried to take to the air again, but Sombra leapt, tackling her out of the air and throwing her savagely back into the center of the crater, sending up more dust, as well as a bit of crimson blood.

Celestia, again, tried to stand, sitting up from her back, but again, Sombra was on top of her before she could go anywhere. He pounced on her, pinning her back to the bottom of the floor's indent, and with one hoof on her skull, the other on her chest, slammed her head into the floor over and over again, picking up her torso while keeping her abdomen and legs pinned. The back of her head shifted from ivory to red, and her beautiful, flowing mane, was corrupted by scarlet traces of her own blood.

He continued beating her, the princess screaming the entire time, until her eyes began to haze over with tears of pain. Then, he released her head, and grabbed her left wing in his hooves. With one limb he pulled, and with the other he pushed, snapping the base of the wing's bone in his hooves with a sickening crack.

The princess screamed, struggling to get away and crawl out from under the king. But, as she scrambled for the lip of the crater, going for her spear, dragging her broken wing helplessly behind her, Sombra grabbed her rear leg, and pulled her back for more.

"Get back here!"

She turned, rolling on her back, and with her free hind leg, landed a brutal kick on the king's jaw. His head snapped back, but he quickly recovered, again, apparently only having been made angrier by her resistance.

Celestia went for another kick, but Sombra dodged the blow. He leaned ever so slightly so that her gilded horse-shoe overshot his face, and, still keeping Celestia's other leg imprisoned, he turned and bit down hard on the alicorn's achilles.

Again, she screamed, blood running down her leg as Sombra shook his head back and forth, tearing through her flesh with predatory fangs, until the limb was crimson and mangled to contrast the rest of the alicorn's once majestic body. Sombra's eyes, burning now in both intensity and something much more sinister, flashed back to the face of the alicorn, on her back in the bottom of the crater, screaming in agony, and again, he pounced.

He straddled the princess, and pressed one hoof into her throat, and with the other, silenced her scream with a vicious blow. His armored shins hit off of her jaw with a brutal ringing sound, and her painful scream was silenced by a soft gurgling as she began bleeding from the cuts within her mouth, caused by trauma and her own teeth.

Again and again, Sombra landed punishing blows on her face and chest, each one driving her downwards into the crater, making it deeper and deeper until only a few inches of material separated the floor of the throne room from the ceiling of the room below it.

Then, with a final blow, the king reared back, and blew the princess downwards through the floor with a vicious curb-stomp. She fell through the air of the story below, and landed with a nauseating impact on the ground below. Sombra jumped down through the same hole, landing on braced knees a few feet from the princess, crippled on the ground in a mangled heap, and the gilded spear followed him down, landing a few feet from Celestia's side, just out of reach.

Dust drifted through the air, and blood coated the floor, but the king was as calm as ever. He'd recomposed himself, and now was an articulate regal again, not the vicious beast he was a few moments prior. He brushed a bloody hoof through his mane as he closed his eyes, breathing deeply, and turned lazily to face the princess, choking on her own blood as she struggled for breath in a crippled mass on the ground.

He prowled over to her side, and knelt by her struggling chest.

"Not too bad for a 'dark, twisted creature' eh?"

He stood back up, towering over her with the muscles in his neck bulging and pulsating with his elevated heart rate.

"How does it feel to be on the receiving end of regicide?" he taunted.

"This... isn't... over," Celestia answered, struggling with each syllable, "Your kind...can't win. Your kind...is evil. Good...will...prevail."

"You will be pleased to know that your student believed that as well. At least, she used to. She was as blind as you until I...opened her eyes."

"Twilight would...never..."

Sombra turned away from the struggling alicorn.

"She already has. None are immune to the decay of hate, or the bite of fear, and her benevolent heart has been tainted by the shadow of obscurity. Her fate has yet to be decided, but I assure you, it will end with her in my likeness."

Celestia turned her eyes from the king, seeing her spear, just a few feet away. If she could just summon the strength...

"I am tempted to keep you alive, and make you endure torture as I have for the next thousand years. But we both know only one of us can live through this night."

The princess swallowed hard, trying to be as quiet as possible as she summoned the meager strength left in her shattered body.

"Before you die, I want you to know that you brought this on yourself. You brought this on Equestria. You unleashed me, and you failed your kingdom."

Celestia, silently, rose from behind the back of the king, and quietly limped, nursing her broken ribs, vertebrae and limbs, towards her spear.

"But, perhaps, in your moment of mortality, you will find some comfort in this. Princess Twilight's greatest fear was losing you; I know, as I've seen the darkest recesses of her mind. Which is why I had to make her fear a reality."

Celestia stooped, and rose again without noise behind the king's back with her spear in a telekinetic grip, her breath ever so slightly quickening.

"You and I both know she is the most powerful of any of us. She will make an excellent student to me, as she has to you."

Celestia tip toed closer to the king's backside.

"But, with your death, she will be without direction, her mind will be vulnerable. And I've already planted the seeds of dark magic in her young mind."

Sombra sighed, and Celestia lifted the spear higher.

"Perhaps one day, she and I will rule together."

"You'll never get the chance," declared Celestia weakly, and as Sombra spun around, she buried the spear's blade into his chest.

Sombra looked down blankly, neither blood nor any fluid flowing from the wound, and as Celestia began tugging on the weapon's shaft, she found it stuck fast within the being of the king. His eyes went back to green, and his horn glowed as his body grew hazy and electric with energy.

"How can you kill what does not bleed?" he said, chuckling.

"What are you," whispered Celestia, horror in her tone.

"I am more than just flesh. I am a presence that lingers in the night, and is a part of every living thing in this world. My spirit is fear; my soul is immortal. I am a feeling, and feelings are immortal. I will never die, Celestia. I can only be born again. We both know this. But, can the same be said for you?"

With that, Sombra launched the princess back with another burst of obsidian magic, smashing her into the wall, while the spear remained in his chest. He yanked the weapon from his flesh, and stalked towards the princess, brandishing the blade while he licked his lips.

"I am the darkness you have sought to destroy with your light of hope and love. But, darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. And therefore, you must be extinguished."

He rose up over her, and smiled.

"You took everything from me with this spear," he said, holding it up, "Almost poetic; as now, at the end of your chapter, I do the same to you, with the same tool. Darkness and light..."

Sombra plunged the spear's blade into Celestia's throat before another moment passed, cutting off her breath, as well as her life, instantly. Her blood flowed forth onto the tiles, and her eyes went blank.

"But the darkness prevails."

Sombra yanked the blade back, releasing it from Celestia's trachea with a sickening spilling sound, and threw it to the ground. His lips darted out of his mouth to lick at the foreign blood that caked his body, and again, he found himself laughing.

He'd done it. The crown was his again. No longer dethroned; now, he was the rightful king again, as he always was.

Sombra stooped to Celestia's still corpse, and wrenched the crown from her head. Then, after spitting on her body, he turned, and went back upstairs to christen his reign.

Chapter 23: Diplomacy

Sombra sat on his throne, made black by a layer of crystals, overgrown over the once gilded throne of the castle's previous regal resident. He leaned on his hoof, which was rested on the oversized chair's arm-rest, deep in thought, as well as boredom. He had already done plenty since his re-crowning, and now, he was simply waiting for his actions' results to return.

The king had already made good use of his new privileges; conscripting a small army and staff from the surrounding towns, after exterminating the members of the previous regime of course, beginning to redecorate the castle's interior to fit his more opaque color preference, and, perhaps most importantly, sending forcefully recruited envoys to the Crystal Empire, using fear, primarily that of losing their loved ones, to... "persuade" them to do his bidding.

After all, he needed news of Cadence's reaction to becoming a widow, namely, her decision on whether or not to try and rule the Crystal Empire, especially after hearing about Celestia's current situation. He could have gone himself, but then, what was the point of being the king if you had to actually work yourself; he'd worked so hard to get back to the top in the first place, and by the gods, he'd relish in the privileges of unfamiliar comfort.

But, other than that, there was still a different pony's response to his second coronation that he was waiting on.

But, before he could think any more in the oh so wonderful silence of his throne room, one of the faces he was waiting on came galloping through the doorless threshold to the throne room, made so by a bit of an overzealous display of power the night prior.

"My liege," yelled the stallion, his hide white, but sullied by dirt and grime, in a voice resonating in uncertainty and fear, "I bring news!"

"Well then," rumbled the king, not shifting his position nor his expression, "Let's hear it."

"Cadence has resigned her throne, and retreated to the northern mountains of the Griffon Kingdoms. She took the Crystal Heart with her, as well as many of her associates with her; I had to gather this information from the townsfolk. There are few in the Empire that remain. Most fled after their princess. My liege...they are broken."

The stallion's tone was panicked, and his voice trailed off as he finished. Though the news he was delivering was accepted well, he seemed to hate himself for telling it, and to hate the reality behind the things he had said even more.

The king leaned forward in his throne as the envoy finished, his teeth bearing themselves into a grin as his brow descended menacingly. And, upon seeing the stallion below him, at the bottom of the steps leading to the throne, look down and away from his gaze, he rose.

He began descending the stairs slowly, coming closer to the stallion as he stayed frozen in fear-instilled discipline.

"This is good news indeed," he crooned in his rich, exotic baritone, "The Empire will be vulnerable, ours for the taking. By the end of the month, our territory will double, our resources, triple. And as for the deserters; they won't last. The griffons are not unified, and will be easy enough to pick apart. Cadence and the Crystal Heart will be mine before the year's end. Very good news. Well done messenger."

The stallion looked away, avoiding eye contact from Sombra's murderous stare, but the king took it for something else.

"Do you not agree?"

"My king," he said, more out of fear than loyalty, "It is good for some."

The king stopped, reaching the bottom of the stairs, and though he stood on the same level as the white stallion, he towered over him, looking down a bit disapprovingly.

"I knew many in the Empire, and now...It's a ghost town. I find it hard to see it the same way you do."

Sombra sighed a bit.

"A king does not ask for the royalty of his subjects."

"I meant no disrespect my liege," added the stallion, his tone becoming panicked in a moment.

"It does not matter what you meant, because what you said and felt say more than your intentions. Perhaps a bit of...reformation is needed?"

"No, no, no," insisted the stallion.

"Ah, but the mines need workers, and they have proven to be excellent character builders. Perhaps you would like your family to join you in the quarries?"

"My king, I beg of you..."

"Guards!"

A squadron of armored ponies, dressed in ebony, crystalline armor, their eyes green and possessed by fear, burst into the room, and carried the kicking and screaming stallion outside, while Sombra returned to his throne to think things over. Everything was going so well, what could possibly go wrong?

****************

Twilight jolted herself awake, coughing and sputtering as she drank in the ashy morning air. Her cheeks were still wet with tears, and dusty from the soot that surrounded her. Her exhausted eyes looked around through the haze, lingering over what was left of Ponyville, reduced to nothing more than ash and smoldering embers.

This reality had been what caused her to lose any faith and hope left in a continuation of the life she'd known, and that despair, coupled with the two-day sleepless ordeal Sombra had put her through, had been what caused her to cry herself to sleep in the grey, ash covered grass of the remnants of Sweet Apple Acres.

She sniffed again as she, unwillingly, began remembering the past few days. Celestia bringing Sombra to her for the first time to be reformed, the uncomfortable night she'd tried to spend in the library with her brother keeping an eye on the king downstairs in the guest room. How the guards had all left to take one of their own back to Canterlot's military hospitals, just before Shining had gotten sick; she knew his ailment now, but she'd been blind before.

How she'd tried, perhaps ignorantly, to make Sombra comfortable in town, educating him on everything he'd wished to know, about her, her friends, Ponyville...he'd played her. He had used her kindness to take advantage of her, and the fears of her and her friends to grow stronger. Then, he simply got away.

His power was too great, his ambition too strong; what could she have done? Once free, he'd again played her, using her own determination to guide her around town in the vain pursuit of a one-sided chess game, one that Sombra knew well, one that she was green to.

He was just too cunning; too smart, too free with no morals to restrict his pursuit of power, too lust-filled to be deterred by a simple gesture of friendship or goodness, too power hungry to stop shy of complete victory, and she'd been a fool to think she could stand to him before.

And now, because of her foolishness, everything she'd known was gone. Her friends, her brother, her home... her life.

Now, she knew the taste of fear, the meaning of pain, and her heart ached as she struggled to muster the will just to breathe. She knew the feeling of helplessness, the sensation of despair, all because the one that had taught her for so many years had left them out in her lessons. But, her newest teacher knew them well, and he had made sure to pass them on. They were lessons she would never be able to forget. Never.

She struggled to her feet, feeling cold within to match the crisp morning air and the cooled flames all around her. Her eyes were dry now; she had no tears left to cry, no love left to share. They were gone, replaced with something else. It had started as fear, then sorrow, and evolved in the night with thought to become something else she hated to admit dwelled within her.

If her peers were still around, they would be disappointed in her for feeling as such; but, they were gone now. Love was gone, killed within her by the fires of doubt and fear, and drowned by the torrents of sorrow. Friendship and morality had been proven void by the heartless, numb hand of manipulation and death. All these things, fear, sadness, despair, agony, loss, solitude...they'd come together to make something new to her. Something stronger than what she'd known before, but decaying and painful to hold. Something she needed, but something she didn't want. The tool of her demise, and the only hope for her future.

Hate.

Gone now was regret; vengeance had evicted it from her heart, and had taken root in her mind. She'd forgotten about love; it was gone all around her, buried under the rubble of the homes around her, and floating through the air beyond her snout amongst the lingering ash. They would never come back, but she needed to avenge them.

Her vigil was complete; now was a time for action. She'd been reborn in the fire, not herself anymore; something else, darker, but, stronger.

She would avenge them. She would punish their killer.

Chapter 24: For The Throne

Sombra sat on his throne, looking down at one of his many recently conscripted officers from the town below as the stallion tried to explain himself.

"My liege, we simply need more time. Your army is not ready to invade the Crystal Empire yet."

Sombra sighed, and began twirling the axe he'd dueled Celestia with, which doubled as his scepter, in the air, his posture slouched as he rested his chin on his hoof, braced against the black armrest of his throne.

"Captain," the king began, his voice cold and sophisticated, "You were the one in charge training Celestia's guard, were you not? That is what saved you; that is the only reason I kept you alive when your peers were...taken care of."

The stallion below him grew visibly afraid; Sombra could taste his anxiety.

"And now you are telling me, that you are unfit for the only job I have given you?"

The stallion, clad in obsidian, crystalline armor, pleaded upwards with Equestria's newest ruler.

"My king, it takes time to train even professional soldiers to invade a country, and you've given me nothing but bakers and tailors. They are more afraid than they are convicted; they are not ready to go to war yet."

Sombra rose from his throne, and began a descent down to the stallion, carrying his axe over his shoulder. The stallion grew blatantly terrified, then extremely surprised when Sombra passed him, saying nothing more than, "Come with me."

Sombra began a stroll through the halls of Canterlot palace, the once sparkling interior of the castle changed to a gothic, black design of crystals growing over the walls, and covering up tapestries and art that once characterized the palace. The windows were obscured by the ebony minerals, and light was rare, only a few beams able to push through the exterior in singular beams of weak sunlight.

"Be honest with me captain," Sombra said, "the only thing that will bring punishment to you now is telling me something I want to hear, rather than the truth."

Another wave of fear hit Sombra like a wave, and he tried his best to suppress the pleasure.

"To what extent would you go to reclaim your home?"

Sombra turned crimson eyes to meet the bloodshot gaze of his company.

"If you saw it being torn apart from within by false leaders and corrupt politicians, would you oust them? If you had everything taken from you, would you fight to get it back?"

"Yes, your honor."

"You would fight?"

"Of course, sir."

"Would you give up the principles that had reared you since foalhood?"

"Yes, my king."

"Would you kill?"

"If I had to, sir."

"Your own comrades?"

The stallion went silent, and Sombra loosened the intensity in his gaze as he continued down the hall.

"I'm sure you would," Sombra said as his echoing footsteps continued down the hall, "I have no doubt that you would fight for your home. I have, and I will continue to do so."

"I also have no doubt that, if a change in leadership was called for, and none of your peers were deemed fit for rule, you would rise up. I know you would; all would, if only they put aside their false conceptions, construed upon them by the world, and refused to be ruled by others."

The pair continued their progression down the hall, the only sound, other than Sombra's baritone, being the sound of their hooves clicking against the floor.

"I have no doubt that, as you sought to save your homeland from itself, you would try to cling to your morality; you would try to remain good, until you realized that, though it is constantly presented as such, the world is not separated into two categories of good and evil."

"I know that you would fight to remain good, until you realized that, to your own horror, you weren't. You would become confused, but, you would rediscover your purpose once you embraced that the world is so much more evil than good. You would embrace your own evil, and harness it, use it as a source of power and strength, an inspiration to you and those that shared your purpose, and together, under your leadership, you would succeed. You would oust the evil that had plagued your country for so long, and replace it with your own darkness."

"But, I am also sure that, once you attained your rule, you would vow to keep your country from falling into another pit of corruption and decay, and you would see that the only way to do so, would be through absolute power. You would recognize that checks and balances do not work, and only promote inaction. You would seize the reigns of the country you tried so hard to save, and you would indeed save it, without tolerating interference from your peers."

"You would take action; you would begin to bring your country out of the pit it had fallen into, and, without interference from morals, a new era of prosperity would befall your home, because of your sacrifice. But, I also have no doubt that, because of the strength and success you brought about, your new followers, the citizens you ruled, would grow to expect that same prosperity instead of appreciating it. And, when, for a short time, everything is not as perfect as you had made it when you seized control, those citizens would rebel."

"I have no doubt that you would try to reason with them, that you would tell them that you would fix everything, but they would only want more. They would feel entitled because of your success, and they would betray you as soon as anything less than perfection arose. So, you would do what you had to; you would let your evil out once again."

Sombra's voice did not rise, but the passion in his voice and his breathing increased sevenfold.

"You would be forced to remind them of their position, below you, and that your authority was not to be questioned, because without unity, the strength you tried so hard to establish would rot. You would let them know that, despite their beliefs, the good of the country was more important than the good of an individual. You would be forced to remind them of this, and you would do it through cruelty to make the message hit home, not to be forgotten. They would rise to protest and rebel against your rule, because of a short period of anything less than utter perfection, and you would suppress them. You would use fear, something that is easy to use and too potent to be overlooked, to control them. You would give them the tasks that are horrible beyond comprehension; mining, sweat shops, warfighters...Both as a punishment and as a reminder, that the country is more important than they are, and that they must contribute to the country's prosperity through any means necessary, if not by their own will, then by yours."

"But, I have no doubt that some of those infernal, rebellious, infectious ponies that you were forced to punish would emigrate, and bring with them false accusations of tyranny and cruelty, when in fact, they themselves were to blame. They would spread false accusations against you, until another country's liberal, blind leader, who still believes in the separation of good and evil, takes it upon herself to 'save' your country's citizens from your... 'cruelty.'"

"I have no doubt that, without the support of your citizens, due to their misunderstanding, entitled, unappreciative souls, you would not be able to stand to the looming beast of this other country's might; before the rebellions, you would have been able to stand to them, but, because of the actions you were forced to take, your country's strength, the strength you sacrificed so much to gain, is no more. So, being the leader of your country, and, as you would have always done, you decide to do what is best for your country, and you propose negotiations, so as to clear up the misunderstanding conjured up and passed on by the cowards you once called fellow citizens."

"I have no doubt that you would welcome the foreign ambassadors, as well as their leaders eventually, and you would be hospitable and regal like the leader you were supposed to be. But, before you could explain what happened, and that you were doing what you had to do, those leaders, which you showed nothing but respect, would turn on you, and cast you out of the home you devoted your life to uphold. They would make you out to be a villain, and tell all those they came across that they ousted a tyrant, and saved the citizens you 'oppressed'. They would lie, for the sake of continuing the illusion that good always prevails over evil."

The stallion, still at Sombra's side, whispered to himself, "History is written by the victors."

Sombra nodded, and stopped in the hallway.

"You would stir for millennia, cursed with immortality, until, you decided to do something about it. I have no doubt that you would use the few assets you had left; your mind, and fear. You would manipulate those that manipulated you, so that you could come home. You would punish those that wronged you. You would kill those that defeated you. And you would reclaim what was yours."

Sombra turned to his left, and left the hallway for a massive dining hall, the table set with myriad assortments of food. He sat down heavily, and his company stood at his side. Sombra grabbed a loaf of bread, and began buttering it in a telekinetic glow.

"I have no doubt you would do this," he said, his eyes looking more sad than angry, "Do you know why?"

The stallion remained quiet.

"Because I did, and, contrary to popular belief, I am more like 'normal' ponies than those of this world want to accept."

The king set down his food, and sighed heavily.

"I was good once."

He waited a moment in silence, before continuing.

"Now do you understand why we must reclaim my home as soon as possible?"

The stallion nodded.

"Good."

Sombra took a bite.

"Now go. The Crystal Empire is weak. I need those here to be strong. Be strong for me, Captain. Do not try to stab me in the back. I would prefer not to have to punish you."

There was another long silence while Sombra chewed.

"Go."

And the stallion trotted off to do as Sombra would.

Chapter 25: In The End

Twilight just kept walking; she couldn't bear to look up, so she kept her head down, staring at the road she traversed. She paid no attention to the sunless sky, nor the land she'd once fallen in love with, now turned into something she hated to call home.

The miles passed quickly, and before she knew it, she was beholding, much to her horror, Canterlot...what was left of it. No more white, no more light, no more hope. True, this was Canterlot the city, but it was not Equestria's capital, not a symbol of hope and love and good. Now, it was Sombra's, and everything he stood for radiated from the palace's towers; darkness, despair, fear... all locked in the dark shadows the once ivory towers of the palace cast on the hillside below.

Celestia would not have allowed the capital to fall into this state, meaning Twilight's fears were confirmed; the other princesses were dead.

Twilight sighed, and continued walking. She could have flown, but that just didn't feel right. She was going through with a journey, both physical and mental; making it quick would defeat the purpose. The purpose was a cleansing, as well as a retribution, all alongside a vendetta.

She was the only remaining princess in Equestria, a kingdom, a home, that had been taken from her, and tainted by Sombra's evil. But, she would set things straight. She would avenge the fallen; her friends, her family, her mentor. She would deliver justice. It was her duty, and she would fulfill it through any means necessary; Sombra had made that possible when he stole any innocence left in her heart, and planted hate in the gap left behind. But, rather than let it take her, she decided to use it, against her better judgment.

It was what motivated her now; the need to punish the evil was overbearing. She would quench that thirst, though, no matter what.

Eventually, after passing through grim, darkened buildings, and after paying no heed to the expressions of depression and misery she walked by, she reached the palace, or, more specifically, its gates, guarded by a pair of ebony armored stallions. She paused a few feet beyond the drawbridge, stopping, her head lowered ominously as the breeze blew her mane and tail to the side.

The guards visibly noted her presence, and they shifted their positions from attention to combative, their spears readied at their sides. But Twilight only smiled. She stepped forward, planting a hoof onto the wood of the drawbridge.

"Who goes there!" yelled one of the guards.

"A princess," Twilight responded.

"Obviously!" yelled the second guard.

"I'm sorry your Highness, but we can't allow you to come any closer."

Twilight did exactly the opposite as was requested, taking a few more steps towards the massive gates of the castle, the guards coming together to block her path.

"I am a regale of Equestria, and I am entering this castle," she said coldly.

"Princess," the guard began solemnly, "Equestria is no more. You should leave, before Sombra finds out you're here. He's been exterminating the princesses; you may be the last one alive."

But Twilight only came closer, and as she tried to push to the gates, a pair of crossed spears blocked her way.

"I'm sorry princess, but we have no choice but to ask you to leave, or else we'll remove you."

The other guard continued, "Please princess, he has our families. I would like to comply with you, but..."

Twilight understood, but there was no room for delay; she had a task to do, and frankly, these guards were interfering. She sparked a glow from her horn.

"Princess, what are you..."

The guard was cut off by a massive pulse of energy from the tip of Twilight's horn, blowing both stallions over the side of the drawbridge and into the moat, as well as launching the gates inward, freed from their hinges.

She walked inside, anything but calm as adrenaline now coursed through her pulsing veins, and as guards came out to challenge her, she met them without consideration; they were foes now, as they served her enemy, and they were treated as such.

The first group came down the stairs of the hall, brandishing weapons as they charged, but Twilight cast a whirlwind into their midst, and they were all launched into the wall, strong enough to break bones, but not strong enough to kill outright.

Twilight ascended the steps to find more guards waiting for her at their summit; they were cast aside with prejudice, the sounds of their armor crushing against the wall ringing through the castle. She kept pushing.

Twilight eventually found her way to the throne room, the doors, apparently under construction, easily blown inwards by a simple force spell. She trotted through the dust, and the unconscious bodies of a trio of guards, to find the throne empty, no regicidal villain in sight.

She kicked the ground in frustration, and whirled around to see a small echelon of guards staring her down with bared weapons. They made a satisfying sound as they all hit the far wall, sending a small fissure upwards in the crystalline architecture. Now, unopposed, at least for the moment, Twilight began a trot down the hall in a search for the king.

No more guards came out to challenge her; maybe she knocked them all out, or perhaps it was that they were ordered to stand down by the source of her aggression. It didn't matter. What did matter was...

Twilight's thoughts were cut short by a black mist, spreading inwards from all sides of the hall, seeming to come in from under the walls. Her advance stopped with her thoughts...she had no more need of them. She'd found what she was looking for.

The mist spread and grew, until the hall she had previously occupied was no more than a black abyss; it reminded her of the nightmares Sombra instilled. She quickly shook off the notion; now was no time to be recalling fears. She needed courage now more than ever, never mind the fact that Sombra would use her own fear against her. Now, more than any other time in her life, she would need to be fearless.

Sound disappeared with color as Twilight found herself in a dark void; not blind, but more due to there being nothing but blackness, was the explanation she gave herself for her newest setting.

She knew what would come with the mists, the black clouds seeming to invade every space in sight; she would just have to wait.

It felt like an eternity before she began to hear hoof falls.

Off in the distance, beyond her field of view, the rhythmic sound of the clicking of metal tipped hooves striking tile drew nearer and nearer. It felt like another eternity before the source became visible.

It began as an ivory smile, seeming to glow in the dark. Next came eyes, equally radiant, and their blood red glow illuminated a bit of the nothingness of the abyss. And, before long, just long enough for the suspense to build into nervousness, Sombra, in full, stepped into Twilight's view.

The two stood, staring each other down, one in wrathful concentration, and the other, the darker of the two, in a fit of pleasure.

"Ah, Twilight. You've arrived," Sombra crooned, his tone menacing simply due to how comfortable he seemed in the nightmare of a void, "I see the guards were no trouble for you. Have you thought about what I said? Come to avenge what you once knew?"

Twilight put all of her effort into appearing stoic. She had been sure she would be able to stand to Sombra before, but now that he was actually before her...she was unsure that using hate against its master was as wise as she'd once thought.

"I have thought about what you said Sombra, and I've come to stop you, and your reign, however brief," Twilight responded a bit sarcastically.

"Very funny," Sombra complimented, "but I'll be the one laughing when your entrails stain the floor beneath you."

Twilight tried hard to appear fearless; she knew it wasn't working.

"I had really hoped we could have had a mutually beneficial relationship," Sombra said, reverting to his sardonic tone.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Twilight snapped back.

"Everything you could fathom, princess, or should I say, former princess."

"Coming from a former king, that doesn't carry much weight. I'm here to make you a former king for the second time in your pathetic life."

"The only pathetic thing here is you, you insolent child," Sombra took a menacing step forward, obsidian crystals shooting up violently through the floor as a flash of green shot from his eyes, "You still think you can defeat me?"

"I know I can, Sombra!"

"Silence, lest I kill you now!"

"Sombra, you can't..."

"I said...SILENCE!" Sombra slammed his hoof into the floor as he finished, and a fissure spread in the floor, "Before I paint my beautiful home red with your blood, I want you to know something, princess."

Twilight fought to keep her ears from lying flat against her head.

"That you are a fool, to even consider, that you are here by coincidence!"

"What do you mean," Twilight asked shakily.

"Did you really think that I kept you alive so you could come and challenge me? This is not a drama, where a finale is necessary; this is life, and I've had millennia to unlock its secrets," he paused before continuing, "I have so much planned for you, princess. I planned everything, years in advance, and here you are, going off of whims and passion, and still believing that you can stand to me!"

"Believe me Twilight, if I wanted you dead, you would have been a rotting corpse days ago. Have you any idea how many times I could have killed you since I arrived in Equestria? Seventy-eight. You have let your guard down in my presence for the last time, Twilight; I will no longer show restraint. The next time you are vulnerable, your life is mine."

"Are you threatening me?" Twilight scoffed.

"Of course I am, you insect."

Twilight forced a laugh, all a part of her poker face, and Sombra seized the opportunity. She'd let her guard down in the smallest way, and he would make her pay for it.

Sombra unleashed a ray of crimson from his curved horn, striking Twilight center mass, and launching her back several dozen feet, where she skidded to a halt on the floor. She struggled to her hooves, looking up at Sombra, who was ambling closer, engrossed in his speech.

"I would have preferred to let you live, but you declined my most gracious offer. I had planned to rule with you as my heir; few, if any, have shown as much potential as you have. If only you weren't a fool, you could have lived in this castle for eternity; instead, it will be your grave."

Twilight rose, and, summoning everything she had, she unleashed a beam of lavender magic at Sombra. But, easily, the stallion deflected the blow, simply swinging his head to strike the beam with his horn to send it into the wall, leaving nothing but a scorch mark behind in the crystal. Twilight repeated the spell, wincing as she put all of her strength into another defensive effort, but again, Sombra deflected the beam to the side.

"This was your plan?" Sombra jeered as he guided another of Twilight's spells into the ceiling, "Using these weak, infernal spells, against me?"

Sombra reached her, and, despite her best efforts to dodge the blow, he struck her with a stout backhand on the cheek. She flew backwards, tears forming in her eyes, and hit the ground, hard.

Twilight got to her hooves again, with more effort this time, and looked up to see Sombra's advance had stopped.

"At least make it a challenge for me!" he jeered, "Your friends were too easy. I was hoping you would actually put up a decent fight!"

"Don't talk about my friends!"

"Which friends? The elements? The princesses? The others that lived in that mud hole of a town? Or your dragon?"

"You... y-you shut up!"

Sombra only smiled as he continued.

"Was it the princesses? Well if it wasn't, I'll have you know that Luna died like she lived... a useless pawn in the shadow of greats, namely, me. And Celestia, she died with her own spear through her throat, like the infernal weakling she was."

"Sombra, you..."

"Ah, so it was the princesses you didn't want me to speak of. Very well, I'll address the others," he jived as he refused to come any closer, "Your dragon begged for his life, even when I told him that if he went quietly, I would spare you. He begged...like a dog."

Twilight tried to shut out his words, to no avail.

"And that home of yours, Ponyville, was it? It made excellent tinder, didn't it? And its citizens burned well too; rather pretty, as soon as you get past the macabre."

Twilight began whispering to herself as she pushed her hooves into her ears.

"No, no, no, no."

"And your friends," Sombra said slowly, "all too easy for me. Laughter and Loyalty died ablaze and crushed, but together...perhaps you will find some vague comfort in that. Generosity much the same, except she died alone, not before seeing her sister's corpse, however. Honesty was fairly similar, but she saw her entire family charred and lifeless, not just her sibling. And Kindness, the fool. Who values an animal's life anymore? Really, is a rabbit worth being burned alive?"

Twilight was on the ground now, sobbing, but Sombra was not done.

"It really was a shame though, that you had to get them caught up in this whole thing. My quarrel was not with them, until you aided them in becoming elements of harmony all those years ago; if you had never come along, perhaps they would still be alive. Perhaps we could have both found some pleasure in their being alive...They would have made an excellent harem."

"ENOUGH!" bellowed Twilight, and she rose to her feet as her eyes, still moist, snapped open to reveal verdant auras, purple tails emitting from her tear ducts.

Sombra smiled, and staggered his stance as he readied for a real fight.

Twilight unleashed another beam of magic, but this one, rather than lavender, was matte black. Sombra met the beam with one of his own, and the static energy in the room became deafening. The two beams conjoined at the midpoint of the two ponies, and neither gave any ground.

Twilight, all her rage, all her wrath pent up, was loosed, and she screamed in pain and anger. But Sombra kept his cool.

"Come on!" he yelled over the hum, provoking her, "Use your hate! All of it!"

As Twilight screamed, using everything she had to try and break the stalemate, she heeded the king's words, and began to remember.

Her friends' death, her decimated home...her life, taken from her, and replaced with this hate. She let it boil over. She let it take hold of her. She lost herself in it, and it felt...good.

And, as much to Sombra's surprise as Twilight's, Twilight's beam began to push Sombra's back. Slowly but surely, Twilight's magic gained the advantage, until mere feet separated Twilight's spell from Sombra.

The king gritted his teeth, and pushed forwards, leaning against the opposing spell, and fought Twilight back. But, it was a losing battle.

Twilight overpowered Sombra, and her beam reached the tip of his horn, climaxing in a sudden moment of silence as all of the pair's combined might gathered in a singularity at the tip of the king's sabre-like horn, before a massive surge of power threw Sombra across the hall.

When the dust settled, Twilight looked up to see that she was back in the castle hallway, no longer Sombra's void. She began to walk forward carefully, but paused, shaking the green radiance from her eyes as she, to her own horror, realized what she'd done.

She was conflicted...Hate gave her power, but, her whole life, she had been taught to love. She knew which was more effective, but which was right? Just like before, she was more sure she would be able to control herself when she was not actually confronted by the reality of her actions. It was more than black and white now...she was becoming grey, and she didn't know if she could justify it.

She walked forward slowly, her magic and her senses ready for any sign of Sombra. Eventually, as she penetrated the cloud of dust, she found him.

He was on the ground, prostrate below a large hole in the wall, where he'd obviously impacted. She kept her distance, but still, she wanted to draw nearer, but a fearful respect kept her from doing anything brash.

Eventually, Sombra began to move, rolling his shoulders back as he groaned. He spit a mouthful of something onto the ground, and struggled up onto his knees.

"Ohhhhhh," he moaned, "You see now? You see your potential? You see what Celestia kept from you?"

"The only thing I see is a defeated king," she countered.

"Then finish me," Sombra groaned, "Legitimize your new rule."

The king rose to his hooves, and held his hooves out.

"Come now. Use your hatred, your wrath, all of it," he made an X over his heart with his hoof, "Kill me. Claim your justice. Claim your vengeance."

Twilight stepped up closer, prepared to do what she had to. Her eyes glowed over white, and she took aim at Sombra's ribs. She took a breath in, and Sombra remained unflinching. She prepared to do it; she told herself she would. She tried, and then tried again...but, despite everything, she could not bring herself to kill him. She had the tools to do so, but not the heart for it.

"I can't," she sobbed.

The glow from her head died away, and her glare faded to reveal a saddened face.

But Sombra only smiled.

"Oh that's right," he jeered softly, "you've never taken a life before."

He took a step towards her, not menacing like he was before; now he appeared more approachable, with a soft gaze and an outstretched hoof.

"The first one is always the hardest. It's alright. Not everypony has the strength for this sort of thing," he said as he discreetly braced his back legs.

"It's alright if you can't do it," he consoled, "Unfortunately for you, killing is not a problem for me."

Sombra lounged forward with his head lowered, and before Twilight could bring her guard back up, she found herself stuck on the end of Sombra's horn, being carried backwards by his momentum, with his horn buried in her abdomen.

Sombra turned suddenly, and rammed Twilight into the wall, causing the layer of crystal over the drywall to shatter, littering the ground in ebony shards, like broken glass. Sombra thrashed his head from side to side, and tore his horn free from Twilight's stomach, flinging her onto the cold ground.

A puddle of blood began to spread from her place on the ground, and Twilight's eyes grew wide in lavender hued shock.

Sombra stood over her, wiping at his crimson stained brow, and he smiled.

"Just like the others," he said, as if he were disappointed, "weak and lacking conviction. You disappoint me, and you disappoint your late companions. You are a failure, unworthy of royalty, and undeserving of the blessings that graced your pathetic existence."

Sombra turned away from her, and relished in hearing her final breaths. It was not long before she stopped breathing...and started growling.

Sombra turned around, confused, only to see the hole his horn had left in Twilight's stomach sealing itself, a black aura spreading from the wound to the rest of the alicorn's body. Her eyes shifted over to green once again, and with born teeth, Twilight lurched to her hooves.

"SILENCE!" She bellowed.

Twilight reached down to the ground at her side, and grabbed one of the crystalline shards littering the floor. She lounged for Sombra, and buried the shard in his ribs, stepping away after embedding it, leaving it sticking out of his dark hide.

Sombra nonchalantly reached down to the wound, and plucked out the shard, the size of a dagger, and let it clatter to the floor.

"Well well, look who finally got the message," he said amusedly, "You've finally let the hate take over. Now, you are just like me, fighting for your homeland against somepony who stole it from you wrongly, and forsaking the good you once knew for the superiority of evil. Congratulations; welcome to true immortality."

"What'll it be then, Sombra?" Twilight jeered, her voice deeper now than it had been before, "Two immortals fighting for all of eternity over a throne?"

"My offer still stands," said Sombra sarcastically, before launching himself forwards with everything he had.

He lowered his shoulder into Twilight's chest, and the sudden impact was great enough to carry the both of them through the wall at the alicorn's back. The pair found themselves in a bedroom, unoccupied and dark, and Sombra was the first to rise. With his teeth, he grabbed Twilight, still writhing on the ground, by her ankles, and, after spinning as if he were about to toss a discus, threw the mare across the room.

Twilight struck the wall, breaking through, but not quite penetrating the wall in its entirety so that she was stuck in the drywall. She tried to squirm herself free, but she found herself stuck fast. After a few moments, she heard a snort above her own exasperated gasps, and looked up to see Sombra barreling towards her. She fired a bolt of black magic his way, but tragically, missed. Sombra leapt for her, and with another savage impact, blew her the rest of the way through the wall.

Twilight felt herself skidding across tile, until she felt her head strike something to stop her advance. She looked up from the floor to find herself in a dining room now, Sombra looking at her through a gaping hole in the wall on the far side of the room. She picked herself up as Sombra prowled through the hole, and began stalking towards her from the opposite side of the dining table, still set with silverware and plenty of food.

The king stopped once he reached the mahogany table, and casually helped himself to an apple. Twilight was amazed by how calm he was, as compared to her own demeanor, which was utterly frantic. It was obvious which of the two had been in situations like these before.

The king, with his mouth still full, spoke.

"So, you do realize how utterly pointless this is?"

Twilight got back up, and Sombra let the apple roll to the floor. Twilight concentrated on the objects in the room, and began hurling an array of forks and knives at the king, the verdant fire in her eyes doubling. Sombra was quick to react.

He picked up a chair as Twilight gripped the first of the metallic missiles in her magic, and held it up between himself and the incoming projectiles. He blocked all but one, and he winced as a kitchen knife embedded itself in his back leg. But, before he could drop his makeshift shield and recover, Twilight hit him with another blast of magic.

The beam struck Sombra completely off guard, and launched his body, smoking, to the wall. Again, he was quick to recover, and looked up to see Twilight taking her turn at the offensive. Sombra could tell she planned to vault over the table; coincidentally, as he saw this, the chandelier above also caught his attention.

For a few moments, brought on by adrenaline and instinct, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion to the king.

He looked down to see the knife still in his leg, and he yanked it free. He looked up as Twilight began preparing to leap over the table, and, as his eyes darted around, he saw where the rope for the chandelier connected to the wall, the pulleys above keeping the decoration suspended in midair. Twilight braced to leap, and Sombra threw the knife.

The blade hit a bull's eye, and severed the rope holding the chandelier up, and down came the suspended decoration, right on top of the alicorn. The weight of the decoration pinned her to the table, and Sombra began to approach her, thinking her vulnerable. But Twilight proved him wrong.

Her body may have been pinned, but her head was still free. She looked up, her stare alone enough to burn holes in a body, and sent a bolt of black magic in Sombra's direction. He ducked the blow, gasping a bit as he did, as he did to the next shot Twilight sent his way, and the next, bobbing and weaving as he tried to work his way around her, so he would be beyond her head's range of motion, and out of the way of her magic.

Eventually, at the expense of the architecture behind him, Sombra, after avoiding nearly a dozen searing bolts of black, hate-filled magic, worked his way to safety. He trotted over to the place where the knife had struck the wall when it severed the rope, and pulled its blade free of the wall.

Blade in tow, he made his way over to the dining table from behind Twilight, her rump in the air as the front of her body was crushingly pressed into the wood of the table.

"Caught in a very...compromising position, aren't we?" he taunted to the alicorn, struggling and trying to pull herself free.

Sombra hopped up onto the table, straddling the young mare, and began debating if killing her was at all possible, until he remembered something. Twilight's horn suddenly began to glow as she tried to lift the chandelier from her back telekinetically.

"Ah ah ah," Sombra scolded as he stopped the furnishing's upward advance, and pressed it back down on Twilight with a glowing horn.

"That's quite enough of that," Sombra said, and he grabbed Twilight by the mane.

He pulled her head upwards, and he scraped the dull blade across her scalp, and after much sawing, and screaming, he freed Twilight's horn from her skull.

Twilight just kept on screaming, pain and agony and horror stealing her words, and replacing them with a bloodcurdling howl, but Sombra hopped off the table amidst the screams, and tossed the horn as far away from the alicorn as possible.

"I'm sure you know this," he began as, with bloodied hooves, he pushed his mane back into place, "but, a horn is the source of all magic for a pony, like the heart is a source of life. Without that, even dark magic is absent within you."

Twilight, to her own horror, realized it was true...her head kept bleeding now, and was refusing to heal itself like it had before. She kept trying to deny it, but she knew she was done now...nothing could keep Sombra from finishing her off now.

"But, I have to admire you," the king continued, catching his breath, "I've never seen anything master the art of hate as quickly as you did, and you sure put up one hell of a fight; that's more than could be said for your peers. I think we both know who should have been running this kingdom. But, no matter. It's all mine now."

"Look, stop gloating," Twilight sobbed as her own blood flowed into her eyes, "just...just get it over with."

"Wait, you want me to kill you?"

"What else would you do to me?"

Sombra laughed as he looked away.

"You still don't get it do you?"

Twilight, if at all possible, grew even more afraid as he continued chuckling.

"The threats were a motive; I never actually planned to kill you. You were always meant for this destiny. You're so close to it, yet you can't see. Death is not in your future. No, no... I am your future."

"Don't you get it Sombra? I will never join you."

"No, that's not what I meant. You joining me was just one way for you to acquire your fate. I mean I am your future."

"What are you trying to say...that I'm going to become like you?"

"You already are like me," he said, "In fact, our stories are near identical, save for the fact that you have yet to experience a thousand year exile. But, in, say, a thousand years, you and I will have exactly the same histories. All I needed to do to complete your transformation was get your hate to overpower your love; I'd say I've succeeded."

"No, I won't. You can't make me be like you."

"You are already more like me than you choose to accept. And besides, you must be punished for your attempt on my life...regicide will not be tolerated in my kingdom. Death would be too easy for you. You welcome it; you don't fear it. What you fear will be your punishment."

"And besides, I will need an heir, eventually, and you have proven that you are adept in my methods. Few are, and even fewer are still alive. Who knows; eventually, you might be just like me."

Twilight tried to fight away her tears; she did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"I know you think yourself good, mostly, but we will see what a millennia of ice and solitude will do to that notion. Like I said, if you ever return, you just might keep my legacy alive with your example. After all, this is the new you, sculpted by the old me."

Sombra stood in front of Twilight, still pinned beneath the chandelier, and sparked a glow from his horn. Menacingly, he smiled.

"Now, this spell was used on me once before. Let us see if I can remember it."

The king scratched at his chin, and Twilight found her hide beginning to glow in Sombra's magical grip.

"You, Twilight, stand accused of your crimes.

May your soul be brought to the light.

So that now, until the end of time,

All may see the truth in your plight.

May your darkness be revealed,

And your body taken away.

May your fate be sealed,

On this, your final day.

In the name of my father,

And his father before,

I Sombra, your king

Proclaim you, Nevermore."

Sombra gave a grin as he finished, and Twilight shuddered as she saw her hooves beginning to change from lavender to black, then to a wispy cloud. She felt her heart being ripped apart, and her muscles being drawn into fibers as the curse did its work, stealing her body and exposing her corrupted soul, ridding it of any good it once held, and multiplying the bad.

Her legs joined the mist, followed by her torso and her neck, and as she screamed, the wisps stole her breath and flesh, causing her horror to go silent as she joined the air around her.

Sombra was glad it wasn't him in her place this time.

Then, a rapid wind came driving through the palace, and it carried off the floating, shadowy entity where Twilight once laid off, and to the north.

And, in the silence, Sombra began to laugh.

Everything had gone perfectly.

Slowly, he made his way back to his throne room, and sat down heavily in his ebony chair.

He'd done it. All that was left to do now, was to retake the Crystal Empire, like taking candy from a foal. Only, this 'candy', was home.

"Captain!" he bellowed, his voice booming through the dark, heavy atmosphere, "Ready the troops!"

Epilogue

"A thousand years. Hard to believe it's been so long. I guess the first century went by slowly, but the next nine hundred years...I've grown used to the cold. The wind no longer bites, the frost no longer stings, the storms and blizzards seem a bit less hostile, and more and more like home...but they never have compared to the home I once had."

"That home was taken from me. My throne was snatched from beneath me before I had the chance to inherit it, stolen from me...my rightful possession, my birthright, my purpose, robbed from me without any hint of justice or honor."

"I was a princess once, a queen in the making a long time ago. I once had a place I called home, and knew it to be true. I once had friends, and a family, and a life I was proud to lead. But then, he came. And Hell came with him."

"He came underneath a mask of powerlessness, and fooled me into thinking he wouldn't be a problem. It was my task to learn from him, for his knowledge was what we sought, not him in himself. And teach me he did...only not what I wanted to know."

"He taught me the meaning of true power...he unlocked everything within me, but not before he unleashed everything else. He taught me how to hurt, and he taught me how to hate. But then, he taught me what I could do, just before he taught me the meaning of shame."

"He has sat on my throne for generations, those reared in his shadow thinking him a hero, when they weren't fearing him, that is. They all think I was the villain. After all, I was the enemy of the victor. I wasn't a villain then, but now..."

"So, for ten centuries, I have festered here in the ice and frozen tundra. All that time gives one plenty of time to think, to remember. And thought I have."

"I had everything I could want once, but the present king took it all away. He stabbed me in the back, using treachery and deceit to strike me at my center, and then stole everything from me...my friends, my family, my home, even my body, and replaced it with this simple, solitary, miserable existence."

"His lessons have been taken to heart. A thousand years to practice hating and hurting has left me quite good at both. Plenty of time to prepare."

"I've had enough time to think, to plan... to rot, if I had a body, that is. Now is a time for action."

"I've thought plenty of the day...the day when my home was taken from me wrongly by a foreigner. The day when everything I once held dear was stolen away from the world with hate filled prejudice. The day I forgot the taste of love."

"All I taste now is hate. All I remember now is the pain I was caused...they have both made for an effective grudge. And soon, vengeance will be mine."

"I will reclaim what is mine from the one that took it from me. I've planned everything, thought of everything, seen everything. He has grown weak in his confidence and his bliss. He achieved more than anypony thought possible. His victories came quick, and the few that rose against him in his seeming immortality were quickly defeated. He thinks himself indestructible, yet his lust never dies...I know this to be his hubris. I will exploit it to the full, and the king will fall, as my home's rulers did to him so long ago. For in his comfortable bliss, I have slaved away, growing stronger, smarter, wiser, as the bite of time seemed to grow dull in the curse of immortality."

"I will manipulate the one that manipulated me. I will kill the one that killed my friends, my family...me. I will reclaim what is mine. I'm coming home."

"For I am a story told to foals at night, warning them not to betray the king, lest their fate become mine. I am a monster to be feared, rather than prey that knows the cold burn of fear. I am a ghost in the cold. I am the wrath of the scorned, and the pain of the wronged."

"I am Pain. I am Hate. I am Rage. I am Darkness. I am a shadow, a fragment...but not for long."

"I am back from the shadows."

"I am Twilight Sparkle..."

"And I'm coming back for my crown."

Chapter 3: House Guests

It was nearly one o'clock by the time the squadron of guards, along with their shackled liability, and Twilight reached the library. The others had gone off to their own homes for the night, to undoubtedly stay up all night worrying.

The guards formed a semicircle around Sombra, extending their spears to shepherd him towards the library's entrance, which he grudgingly passed through.

Once inside, the guards again surrounded the prisoner, and Sombra let them know how much he disapproved of their lack of hospitality with glaring eyes, a hue of green and purple near their edges.

"Good, Spike's asleep," the purple princess sighed to her brother from outside the circle, "I don't want to scare him. I'll have to tell him about our guest properly tomorrow morning."

"I think that's a good idea."

Twilight turned her attention to her newest, most imposing guest.

"Reform him," she thought, recalling what she had learned from the incident with Discord, "Show him hospitality."

"So, umm, Sombra," she said hesitantly, unsure of how to address him.

He looked to her with less of a glare than before when she finished, and she supposed that calling him 'Sombra' would suffice.

"If you want, there's a guest room over here," she said pointing to a door on the first level of the home.

Sombra shuffled his way over to the door, the magically constructed shackles jingling with each movement he made.

"Oh," began Twilight, "Shining, can we take his cuffs off?"

The stallion looked shocked, and he leaned in close to his sister, whispering, "Twilight, he's dangerous. Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. We can't show him why love is better than hate by hating him."

Her brother reluctantly dissolved the restraints, allowing Sombra to move about freely again. Rather than continuing to the guest room, he attended to a much higher priority; inspecting his new foster home, first with his eyes, but then more actively. Sombra began going around the room, taking everything in, from the occupants to the book shelves, and Twilight watched him intently.

There was something about the way he moved. He didn't strut or prance; he didn't quite walk like a normal pony; he stalked.

He moved like a predator. With swift, agile turns of his body and high stepping paces that fell against the floor in silence, he seemed to dance around the room, weaving in and out of the moonlight's rays, let in by frosty windows, with dark, clouded crystals penetrating through cracks in the floorboards to mark his steps.

After he finished his inspection, Sombra reported to the guest room door, the guards on edge as he prowled past them. He let himself inside, and stood, his ever-present scowl adorned on his brow, taking in the modest commodities of his new chambers; a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser were the room's only furniture.

Twilight stepped up to his side, and her brother watched her protectively from behind as she spoke to the dethroned.

"I know it's not much," she said to receive a disapproving snort, "But you can stay here. Go ahead and make yourself at home."

Before she finished, a crimson glow emitted from Sombra's horn, and she felt the ground begin to shake. Suddenly, an assembly of black crystals shot up from beneath the floor, shattering the boards and tearing through the bed to break the silence of the night with a thunderous crash. The nightstand was knocked away, and the bed was ripped apart, the only pieces of it remaining being bits of sheets or mattress clinging around the dagger-like points of the limpid stones as they rose to touch the ceiling. More broad tipped crystals sprouted in between the first, creating a dark, stony platform where the bed once was.

Sombra entered his new room, more crystals rising out of the floor to reach for the ceiling as he neared his newly created bed. The stallion hopped onto the crystalline bed, sprawling out to his full extent over its girth as he emitted a contented sigh.

Shining Armor began to approach the king angrily, but Twilight stopped him.

"Shining, don't."

"He's destroying your home!" the stallion said raising his voice, "I'm not going to just sit here and watch."

"I told him to make himself at home. In hindsight, maybe that wasn't such a good idea, but it's necessary to get him to cooperate with us, which means we need to be gracious hosts."

Shining Armor looked down at his sister; he loved her and he trusted her, but he was used to leading. It was hard, but he decided to let his sister take charge; after all, she knew more about this sort of thing than he. His resume didn't exactly point him out as one to consult about the magic of friendship.

"I'm just worried," he said as he wrapped a forelimb around his sister, "All I want is for you to be safe."

Twilight leaned into the embrace, not pulling away until Shining had already released her; she had a tear in her eye, and let it dry up without the chance to fall.

The mare stifled a yawn.

"You should probably get some sleep," advised her brother, "You'll need to be rested if you're going to be spending time with him."

Twilight shot a smile at her brother before following his advice, though reluctantly, and she fluttered tiredly upstairs to her own bedroom, softly shutting the door behind her.

Shining confirmed she was away for the night, and then turned to his stallions.

"We'll take turns keeping an eye on Sombra. One hour shifts; I'll go first. The rest of you try and get some sleep, but stay aware."

And with that, Shining Armor entered the newly rearranged guest room.

****************

Shining sat on the floor, watching the dark lord curled up on his limpid bunk in what looked to be deep slumber. It was silent; nopony moved, and he was the only one in the house that was awake. He stole a look at the grandfather clock outside in the main room; 2:15 AM.

Shining hadn't slept in what seemed like weeks. They had seized Sombra just over twenty-three hours ago and before then, he had been awake for at least two days. Over three days without sleep.

The quiet and the darkness enticed him, and sleep tried to seduce his eyelids shut, but he remained resolute. He had to make sure Sombra remained dormant; the safety of his sister, and of Equestria depended on it.

Eventually, there was nothing he could to ward off his instinct to drift off but to stand and begin pacing, which he did until his relief came through the doorway; Jax, the stallion who'd upset Sombra with an eager thrust of a spear.

He nodded to the stallion, a white Pegasus with an orange mane and amber eyes, a shield on his flank. Before he left, Shining Armor looked back one last time to Sombra.

His tired eyes were playing tricks on him; he could have sworn the stallion had been watching them with a single open eye. Shining dismissed the notion, and retreated to the main room of the library to finally get some rest.

****************

The night crept onwards, and Jax, the guard that had replaced Shining Armor now battled the urge to sleep. However, he had his own way of enduring.

The stallion, sitting on his haunches, removed his helmet and reached inside his breastplate, retrieving a picture. It was of his family.

He looked into the joyful eyes of a mare, immortalized in the photograph as she stood at his side. He relished in the smiles of two foals, a white filly and a brown colt, who resembled his mother in every way, and he felt a warm smile spreading across his face.

But, he felt something else, something strange and foreign; he felt something watching him.

His amber eyes shot up to where Sombra was lying, still with his eyes closed. He checked the other corners of the moonlit room, but he was alone.

Jax found himself looking back into the picture, a resemblance of joy rising from within, but the heat of happiness came with a different kind of heat as the picture suddenly combusted. He panicked and dropped the photo as it turned to ash in seconds.

He gasped as he looked up; Sombra, awake with horn aglow and glowing eyes illuminating the darkness, was watching him. The lord stared at him, and slowly, a devious, white smile spread across his face.

Jax stared back with what remained of his waning courage; the king didn't move, only lying on his bed menacingly with an upright chest, his posture reminiscent of a lion standing watch over its pride.

The guard's heart leapt when he heard a sudden noise, and his head snapped to outside the room to the source; the grandfather clock. It had struck the hour.

He glanced quickly back to Sombra, but the king was gone; simply vanished.

Jax panicked as he rose to his feet, his head twisting back and forth as he tried to find him. The grandfather clock spoke again, its resounding *bong* ringing in his ears.

He looked all around, frantically trying to locate the king, but it was as if he had become the darkness; he was simply gone, and the clock reported the time with a third and final *bong*.

Seconds passed in silence, the stallion's heartbeat being the loudest noise in the house.

Then, suddenly, a deep, accented voice came through the darkness.

"You should learn to respect your superiors."

The guard whipped around to face the king, his radiant eyes giving away his position in the shadows. He couldn't make out the body of the king, but in the darkness, his glistening white fangs came forth, shining brightly.

He began to back away from the entity with amber eyes wide. His hooves clicked against the floorboards as a guttural growl quietly floated through the night atmosphere.

The guard turned to run, and Sombra lounged with a voracious snarl.

****************

The silence in the library had given way to snoring as an ensemble of stallions found collective rest in the darkness. Possibly snoring the loudest in the group was Shining Armor, finally having found tranquility on the cold hardwood of the hollow oak.

However, though his slumber was only interrupted briefly by the changing of the watch, it was ended by what followed the new sentry's entrance to the guest room.

A loud gasp emitted from the darkness, and Shining's ears lazily picked up as the stallion darted back into the main room.

"Get up! Something's wrong with Jax!"

Shining sprang to his feet, forgetting his sleep deprived mind, as did the rest of the stallions, as they dashed into Sombra's chambers.

Jax was on the floor, writhing around as his chest heaved up and down. Shining Armor pushed through the group and threw himself onto the ground at the stallion's side.

Jax's amber eyes were red and bloodshot, not a hint of white existing anywhere around his irises. They rolled in and out of their sockets, and from the stallion's mouth oozed frothing saliva. He trembled and shook violently on the floor in some kind of seizure, quiet whimpers and tiny little screams coming from his gaping mouth as tears and sweat wet his hide in his fit of agony.

Shining took the struggling guard in his hooves, supporting his head like an infant, and tried to save him.

"Jax, come on. Jax, listen to me."

The stallion was unresponsive as Shining checked his pulse; it was dangerously high, and the flexing cardio muscles could be seen as they pulsated under his skin.

"Get him some morphine if we have it. If not, try and find some sleeping pills; we have to lower his heart rate."

Shining turned a gentle voice away from the stallions gathered around him to continue care for Jax.

"Come on Jax, listen to me. Pull through, now you can do it. Just stay with me. Don't leave," he turned to the others, "Morphine!"

They only stood, watching their comrade in horror.

"Morphine Dammit!"

Finally, a pair of stallions darted outside, returning with a small syringe. Shining pierced Jax's flank with the needle, and after a few moments, Jax stopped thrashing. His eyes came into focus again, and Shining kept a monitor on his pulse with a hoof pressed against the side of his damp neck.

"Jax, are you..."

"AAH!"

The stallion was frantic, and his head whipped back and forth as his breathing came in short, rapid exchanges of atmosphere.

"Jax it's okay. You're safe."

"AAAAH! NO! LET THEM GO!"

"Jax, listen to me! You're fine! You're here, with me!"

The Pegasus looked up into Shining Armor's eyes; he was terrified, and he was struggling keeping eye contact with Shining as his eyes darted back and forth, keeping watch for something that, to him, was about to attack.

"Is he gone?! Where are they?! I need to see them!"

"Jax what are you talking about?"

The stallion's bloodshot eyes darted around the room as he shivered, though the room was plenty warm, and his whimpering and sobbing came back in full strength.

"Jax," began Shining, shaking him a bit to reacquire his attention, "What happened?"

Jax's eye glossed over as he stammered away.

"He had them...Synthia, the foals...he made me...the noose, it...the knife...he used...they were screaming...I couldn't get to them...it was real, I know it was! I have to find my family!"

"Who did this?" asked Shining, horrified at what he was hearing.

Jax started to speak, but he gasped in violently and tried to draw away as he saw something behind Shining.

"Him!" he shrieked and pointed, the white unicorn barely able to hold him as Jax kicked and thrashed in panic.

Shining cocked his head to see a shadow from one of the stallions against the wall.

"No, him!" yelled Jax, pointing at another shadow and trying to escape in desperation.

The terrified pony began sobbing, concealing his eyes as Shining gripped him tight, glaring suspiciously around the room until he found the only possible culprit for the deed. Sombra was watching the scene unfurl from a resting position on his bed, his neck erect and his streaming eyes and pearly fangs glowing brighter than the dim moonlight.

"Get him stable," said the unicorn, passing him to the others before rising to his feet, rage building within, "All of you get Jax to the hospital. I'll deal with him."

Shining stormed up to Sombra, who only smiled as he drew nearer, and snorted in his face. The king closed his morbid eyes when a breath of hot air hit his snout, and his grin departed as he glared up at Shining after a moment's passing.

"What did you do to him?" Shining snarled.

The king drew in a deep breath as he closed his eyes, a small smile spreading on his lips.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

The dark equine rose from his position on the bed, standing to his full height on the crystalline piece of furniture, looking down on the stallion with something in between contempt and amusement.

"What did you do to him Sombra?"

No response, only a silent gaze from the king.

"Answer me!"

A growl emitted from the king's throat as his horn began to glimmer in a crimson aura.

"Remember your place," Sombra hissed.

Shining reared back, rising to challenge the king.

"I am remembering my place; shall I remind you of yours?" he scoffed, "You are nothing but a prisoner! I am a prince!"

"One who must remind another he is royalty is unfit to rule," Sombra growled, baring his teeth.

"You listen to me, you coward," started Shining as he looked into the glaring eyes of Sombra, "If you ever hurt anypony while I'm around again, I'll..."

"You'll what?"

Shining held his capacity for anger, but Sombra only watched him, his face amused and his stance prepared.

"What will you do to stop me, Shining?"

The stallion recoiled a bit; Sombra's tone was not the same. It held something colder now.

"There is nothing you can do. Because for all your power, for all your training, for all your noble ways and your crusades for truth and justice, your power cannot stand to mine, little prince."

Shining did his best to avoid backing down, the ice in Sombra's mocking voice burrowing into his heart.

"What you think gives you strength makes you weaker. Your morals create boundaries on what you can do, your cause makes you predictable, and your love gives you something to lose; it gives me something for me to take."

Shining Armor looked away briefly, realizing that what Sombra was saying was, though he dared not admit it, somewhat true.

"You are weak, and no matter of bravery or will can change that. You couldn't even keep that blathering fool of a comrade of yours safe from me, let alone the Crystal Empire. If not for your wife and your sister's intervention all those years ago, you would be the one in captivity while I took the throne, a throne which I earned, and you were handed."

"Don't you say another word about my wife, or my sister!" yelled Shining, finding strength again as his anger rose.

"Why not Shining? What are you afraid of; that they'll surpass you in might. Tell me, what kind of stallion is out performed by his wife, or by his baby sister," Sombra said mockingly to receive another snort in return.

"Or," he began again as Shining Armor raised a hoof threateningly, "Are you afraid of what I may do to them?"

The prince lost some of his drive as the words rolled off of Sombra's tongue; the king saw it, and pressed onward, seeking to strike at the nerve until it snapped.

"What kind of prince leaves his kingdom unattended for such a time to go chasing shadows, hmm?" he crooned, beginning to pace in a semicircle around the unicorn, "What kind of husband leaves his wife vulnerable to danger to seek the glory of hunting the greatest threat to the kingdoms? Tell me prince, what kind of commander assumes that his enemy isn't smart enough to attack while he's gone, and goes prancing off into the sunset to win a mediocre battle or two far from home, thinking that his wife and his subjects will be perfectly fine in his absence?"

"What kind of a brother finds the foe he has hunted, the foe that poses a constant threat to all in the kingdoms, and brings it into the home of his sister? What kind of a leader gives others the responsibility of keeping pure evil contained, while he rests his tired eyes? And above all, what kind of a stallion are you, Shining, to think that you can stand with me and look to me as an equal? I will tell you what kind of a stallion does such things; a fool. You are a fool, Shining Armor, for thinking you can keep your sister, your wife, and your kingdom safe from me."

"Everything I do is to protect them Sombra! I love them more than a fiend like you could ever comprehend!"

"Ahh, but do you?" the king serenaded, "It seems to me, the things you do, you do for your own glory. You married a princess after no courtship, conveniently becoming a prince in the process. You endanger your sister's life by bringing me here, a task you never had to do; I wasn't coming into the kingdoms on my own any time soon, until you ever-so-kindly brought me within your borders yourself, a most gracious favor if I may add. Did you really seek to capture me for the purposes you suggest, or did you do it for more credit to your name, a name dwarfed by the title of your sister."

"It was Celestia's idea to capture you."

"But you did not prevent her from doing so, knowing that you would be the head of the party that was to rob me of my exile, and win the glory of besting King Sombra?"

Shining Armor was dumbfounded. Why was he even considering what the vile tyrant was saying. And why were Sombra's words ringing with truths? Facts and details about what he had done permeated the dark lord's argument; facts and details that only proved what he was saying. But how could what Sombra was saying be true? Shining did what he did to protect those he loved, to keep Equestria and the Crystal Empire safe; right?

Sombra prowled around Shining, circling him like a vulture as he witnessed his words infecting the stallion's demeanor.

"You do not love them; your motives are for yourself. You are greedy, selfish, envious of your peers, and you only seek fame for yourself. Your wife Cadence is alone, waiting night after night for a stallion who never comes home. Your sister is in constant peril because of your excursions, all done for your own gain, and you fool yourself into thinking you leave them in agony to protect them. Face it prince, you do not do anything for love; it is as foreign to you as it is to me. You serve only yourself, but this time, what you seek is beyond you. You cannot conquer me, no more than you can protect your family from me; those you love will suffer because of your insolence, and I will enjoy watching their hearts give out under the weight of despair once I break you. They will curse the day you tried to stand to me, because they will suffer for your actions."

The king stopped in front of the unicorn, looking into his eyes; he was afraid. He was questioning everything he thought to be true; perfect.

Slowly, eerily, moving like a shadow, Sombra leaned into the stallion's ear, and whispered, "So much for love."

"Enough!"

Shining Armor snapped, rearing back and plunging forward with all his might in a fit of rage, but his horn passed harmlessly through Sombra's body. The hole refilled itself in a wispy, cloudlike manner, and Shining looked at the healing wound in horror.

His fear doubled when Sombra looked up at him, his eyes burning with a new, stronger fire, and smiled, whispering, "My turn."

Sombra lounged forward with a snarl as Shining stepped back, and his curved horn struck the prince's chest harmlessly, but Shining's eyes rolled into the back of his skull as the dark magic did its work.

All of Shining Armor's pent up rage, fear, doubt, envy, every emotion that he had kept suppressed to preserve harmony, congregated into a singularity on the tip of Sombra's horn, reaching its maximum density as Shining turned pale.

The power of Sombra exploded outwards, throwing the muscular stallion clear to the other side of the room with ease. The unicorn crashed through a crystalline column, slamming into the wall beyond it with the rest of his unwillingly acquired inertia.

Dazed, Shining looked up from the floor to see Sombra, his horn radiating a faint, blood-red glow to contrast the green and purple essence of his glaring, malevolent eyes. His fangs bared in a malicious smile as he gained ground on the still recovering prince, and upon reaching him, Sombra stood over the unicorn condescendingly.

The dethroned's tone changed to one of almost charismatic gentleness, though his low, rumbling voice made it hard to feel comfortable as he spoke.

"I must say, you are an eloquent vessel of evil, though you shield it with infernal illusions of good. Your rage is exemplary; your envy is great. Even your fear, however bountiful it is, is suppressed by your somewhat admirable will. They are all...wonderful."

"Oh, how I have missed this. I wish we could continue this session, your highness, but I am afraid that only one of us can be the better. And your fears and flaws will be most nutritious."

Slowly, Sombra leaned down, and whispered into Shining's ear.

"Think on your sins."

Methodically, Sombra touched the chipped, worn tip of his horn to Shining's forehead, a devious smile spreading on his chin. The ivory of his horn clinked against skull, and again, the dark magic did its work as Shining's perception of reality swirled into a new realm of shadows; a realm inescapable to all; a realm that Sombra controlled, the realm of fear.

Chapter 17: Perspectives

"Well?"

Sombra hadn't moved from the center of the room, and his eyebrows cocked as he waited for a response, the response Twilight was too shocked to give. One second, she'd had the advantage over the king; she'd amassed the elements of harmony, and was facing Sombra down, and the next, her friends were trapped within a crystalline dome behind her, their fates unknown.

"Do you still think you can beat me, princess?"

The king began to prowl forward, towards her, and she began an equally paced rearward advance, not turning away from the king as his amused smile began to straighten. She looked to her left, then to her right; crystals had grown over the windows, a result of Sombra's presence, and there was nowhere for her to go on either side. The floor space in the library had been drastically decreased by the crystalline walls and columns that now dominated the oak's interior architecture. She only kept backing up, and the king kept coming.

"Princess?"

He kept backing her towards the entrance, recently blocked by an opaque shell, his crimson eyes growing more and more intense with each passing moment. Twilight couldn't speak, she couldn't think; what was there that she could do? Her weapon, the elements of harmony, was gone, as well as any confidence she'd held moments before. But, she couldn't let him know that.

No matter what she tried to tell herself to do, no matter what her mind screamed to her body, she couldn't act, and she found her retreat continuing. It wasn't long before she felt the cold, lifeless touch of a crystalline wall, recently formed to trap her friends, at her flank, but the king kept coming.

She could hear movement from the other side of the crystal, and she knew her friends were alright. But, her attention was quickly seized again by the oncoming king, more specifically, the malicious scowl on his face.

Twilight spread out her stance, and sparked a glow on her horn, her body finally listening to her mind's commands. The king's look, surprisingly, softened, and his advance stopped.

"So, you still think me susceptible to you."

"Yes," answered Twilight defiantly, "you and your kind can never, will never, prevail against harmony."

"You truly believe that?" he said sarcastically.

The king took a few more confident steps forward, and Twilight tensed up.

"Relax," he crooned, his smile returning, "I mean you no harm...for now."

Twilight's teeth stopped grinding a moment or two after he spoke, and her defiant brow relaxed as he turned away from her, reversing his advance.

The king, to the opposite of his lavender counterpart, was utterly at ease. He strolled around the negotiable floor space while Twilight, behind him, hesitantly allowed the glow from her horn to fade, casting the room into a weak light once again. The king put a reasonable space between himself and Twilight, both to put her more at ease, and to give himself more room to work with; both were key in encouraging her to converse.

"You said 'my kind will never prevail'. What do you mean by that?" he asked softly as he turned to face the young alicorn.

Twilight was shocked by the new expression on the king's face. Up to now, she'd seen anger, amusement, and sarcasm, but now, he seemed almost...sad. Not quite sad, but an unfamiliar look regardless. His crimson eyes no longer burned, and his mouth was devoid of its normal smile, or scowl. He seemed more normal, more approachable, and utterly sincere.

Twilight, slowly, answered, and the king turned to inspect a crystalline pillar as she spoke.

"Your kind is the enemy of harmony. Your kind is manipulative and cruel and dark. You use dark magic, and you work against the forces of good. Your kind is evil."

"You sound like somepony I know," Sombra said, looking over his shoulder a bit.

Twilight's determination suddenly began to dwindle.

"Do you believe that because you think it true? Or, do you believe it because you were told it was so?"

The king turned, all of his malice coming with him as he again eyed the princess down from the other end of the room, and the air began to hum with an energetic tingling as his eyes began to stream purple tails. Yet, his voice was still gentle, chivalrous...alluring.

"Does Celestia always manipulate you like this?"

"She doesn't," the princess replied instantaneously.

"Ah, but she does."

"No," argued Twilight, "You're wrong. You're trying to make me doubt. I won't believe you."

"Doubt does not change the truth, nor does belief."

Any confidence left in the alicorn departed, and the king, nonchalantly, came a little closer.

"Now, I say again, does Celestia always manipulate you?"

Twilight didn't answer.

"Are you blind, or do you simply refuse to look beyond your own veil of blissful ignorance? Everything the princess does is to test you. I know; I've seen your memories, read your feelings, learned your thoughts, yet, you choose to remain oblivious to your mentor's cruelty. All these tests, all these trials; she's setting you up for failure."

"She tests me so that I can learn, and become better as a result."

"Does she?" replied the king sarcastically, drawing nearer all the time, "Then why did she send me to you?"

Twilight was silent.

"She gave me to your custody, but she took away the only advantage you had, the elements, by forbidding you to use them. She gave you a task she knew fully well you couldn't handle, an enemy you on your own couldn't defeat, and an impossible objective, knowing entirely the harm that could befall you, all so she could test your limits, so she could tell the extent of your power, the power that grows to rival hers."

The king stopped his advance, and now sauntered back and forth a few feet in front of the princess, speaking through bared teeth, his incisors protruding downwards like the teeth of a lion.

"You do realize that it's only a matter of time before she betrays you."

"I won't believe it Sombra; you're lying."

"No, I am not. Choose to believe what you will, but truth is not swayed by popularity."

The library was dark, the sun blotted out by dark, opaque crystals rising to touch the ceiling. The room was cold and quiet, and Twilight felt utterly alone.

"She's done it in the past, she'll do it again. Anything that has ever risen to challenge her rule, she's suppressed to any means possible. She turned Discord to stone, and took his throne for herself. Even then, though she worked in tandem with her sister, she took for herself the more revered position between the two, and allowed Luna neither glory nor respect among the kingdom's citizens. And, when Luna came to desire an equal share of her power, she imprisoned her in the moon for centuries; her own sister."

"She usurped my throne, and gave it to one of her pawns, solely to expand her own interests, forgetting the good of those she conveniently destroyed in the process, ridding herself of more potential rivals as well. She commands the Crystal Empire from Equestria, feigning independence by giving them their own rulers, but they are but tokens in her game for power, a game that she only allows herself to play. The worst of it is that she does not embrace honor in her endeavors for power. She cheats; she uses the damn elements to do all of her heavy lifting, and in my case, uses secrecy and deceit to strike at a moment of weakness."

The king adorned a smile as he continued, seeing the extent of the despair in the alicorn's eyes.

"She preaches love and toleration, but forgets it in the case of those that have the potential or the power to rival her; with them, she practices treachery. A true politician, concerned only with her own gain. What makes you think that she will not do the same to you?"

"She wouldn't. Celestia's..."

"You're lying to yourself!" yelled the king, rushing up to her, stopping just before her cowering muzzle, "Even when the truth is right before you, you deny it!"

"You are a princess, yet she assigns you to this," he said, looking up scornfully at the home they occupied, "A damn tree in the middle of nowhere, while she lives up in her ivory tower! You use the elements of harmony to do her bidding, but as soon as your wits come about, and you begin to question her infallibility, she will cast you out like a leper; she did it to me, and countless others! You will be no exception! As soon as you become her rival in power, however miniscule, you will be nothing but an enemy to her! You will be labeled a villain as all of her opponents have, and she will find another to take your place!"

The king snorted disgustedly to the side of the alicorn's face.

"Sooner or later, you and I will share the same fate, princess; lest, we choose to do something about it."

"What do you mean?" asked Twilight, unsure of herself even as she spoke.

"You may not see it, but I do, and no doubt, so does Celestia. Your power grows with each passing day; you have begun to master the magic you embrace as benevolent. But, the height of your potential is in another realm."

"If you think for one secon..."

"Again, you ignore the truth that surrounds you!" yelled the king into her face, and she closed her eyes to avoid his piercing glare.

He turned away from her quickly, his cape flowing behind him as he did so, brushing past her nose without feeling. He stomped away from her angrily, continuing to lecture even with his back turned.

"No doubt, in this kingdom, acts of love outnumber acts of hate, but which do you remember?"

Twilight couldn't help but look down as she realized his words had merit.

"You may hear thousands of kind words in a day, but the only words that linger in your mind as you lie awake in bed are those of malice. The acts you remember are not those that helped you, but those that hurt you. You are haunted by the sins of your past, rather than bolstered by your deeds of kind."

His voice shifted to become deeper, more lust filled, more wise, more convincing.

"Such things are true for all beings that have tasted fear, or greed, or deceit or trickery, and they are examples at their most miniscule. To most, it is a curse, but to the few of us that dare to embrace it, it is a gift of limitless power. Power, I think, you desire."

The king's smile became charming suddenly, almost seductive, and though he still looked down on her, his wide shoulders looming over her as did the passion of his eyes, Twilight no longer felt threatened.

"Join me," he crooned, a smiling glare on his brow, "and I can teach you the meaning of power. Let me to teach you to hate. Let me teach you to instill fear. Let me help you, and we will never have to worry about Celestia again. We will never be outcasts; we will be the ones that cast shadows for others to live in, rather than having our sun blotted out by the fool Celestia, who thinks herself invincible. Together, we can overtake her, and seize that which is rightfully ours."

He reached a hoof down to her, smiling.

"All you need to do is follow me, and Equestria will be yours. I will return to govern the north, but your jurisdiction will preside over this kingdom; it shall be yours, and yours alone, all of its riches and splendor at your hooves. Together, we can rule an empire that will last a thousand years; as long as immortality is ours, we shall know no foe, no boundary, no limit. All you need to do is embrace me as your ally, and I can promise you power beyond your wildest dreams."

Twilight looked up at him, and his smile grew a bit wider as he waited on her pending acceptance, his hoof still imploring her for an act of alliance. But he never received one.

The princess rose on her own, shunning his hoof, and stood before him to look into his burning eyes, growing more and more angry with her denial as each moment passed. But, the princess returned the glare in full.

"You may be right," she said coolly, "but you can't make me believe anything. I believe in what I fight for; my family, my friends, Equestria, and you are an enemy to them. Celestia may be jealous. She may be less than perfect. But right now, it's your word against hers, and I trust her."

She stepped up closer to the king, glaring up into his soulless eyes.

"I would rather live a life I believe in, and lose everything, than turn to one I don't, and gain anything."

The king growled in his throat, the sound building eventually into a sentence.

"I've given you a choice. Perhaps it wasn't clear earlier."

He stepped back a few feet, showing his figure in full to the alicorn, who stayed adjacent to the wall at her back.

"With or without you, I will retake what is rightfully mine," he snarled, "War is coming; not a squabble, not a fight, war. You are on the losing side, and I've given you a chance for survival. Accept it, or forsake it, but know that your choice will determine which fate you inherit."

"And which are those fates, my king," she said mockingly, returning the king's malice with rebuttal of her own; it felt good to finally stand to the king, even though, perhaps, it was unwise.

"You can either be a victor, or a martyr. Your choice, princess." he said, lowering his voice to its true baritone.

"I'll take my chances," came the response, bitterly sarcastic, only building the rage within the shadowy stallion.

Sombra began to quiver as his brow descended lower in anger, another guttural growl accompanying the tingle of energy in the air.

"Then you call down the fury of a god," he growled, and suddenly, he began to transform.

In an instant, the king's eyes went from red to entirely green, and a crimson aura surrounded his ominous essence. His horn glowed white hot in an instant, and the floor began to shake. His lips parted as his mouth slowly opened, and he began to levitate in mid-air. Bolts of electricity shot out from his being, and the power in the air kept building. His mane whipped back and forth in the non-existent wind, and Twilight began to realize the repercussions of her defiance.

The king roared, but his mouth did not move as his body remained frozen in the air of the library's center. A deafening bellow that shook the limbs of the oak, and rattled inside the brain of the princess. The king's voice spoke, but not from his mouth; his voice, like before, came from everywhere at once, full of hate and wrath, and Twilight felt the characteristic chill of fear.

"BLOOD AND FLESH," he yelled as his form began to alter.

What was once shadowy skin began to change, shifting from black to obsidian grey, the color spreading outwards through his body from his center.

"AT YOUR EXPENSE!" he bellowed, and the grey overtook his body.

Suddenly, a pulse of energy shot outwards from his center, blowing the princess back into the wall as she heard the brittle shattering of crystal all around her. Another surge came forward seconds after, followed by another and another, brutally assaulting the world around the transforming king. With each surge, Twilight was pushed farther and farther back, and she could both hear and feel the crystalline dome imprisoning her friends beginning to give.

Then, as quickly as it had started, the rhythmic surges stopped, and were replaced with a new sound, just as loud, but different. The sound of a heart, deafening and booming with each methodical beat; it was coming from Sombra.

His eyes had returned to red, thought they still streamed lavender tails, and his skin was no longer shadowy and black. He looked...real.

Slowly, the king returned to the floor, his hooves clopping against the wood of the library's lower level once his descent was complete. He breathed heavily, and the sound of the resounding heartbeat faded away. He extended a forelimb, inspected it carefully, and took in a deep breath, smiling when air reached his lungs. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feeling of blood coursing through his veins once again. A smile spread on his face, and he began to laugh.

It started as a weak chuckle, but it grew into something more hearty. He breathed deeply, and after his moment of celebration had passed, he spoke with sealed eyes.

"No longer a ghost," he crooned, still smiling, "No longer a shadow. A fragment no more."

He looked up as he opened his eyes, his smile morphing into a sinister scowl aimed at Twilight.

"Now, I am the harbinger of hate. Now, I am the root of rage. Now, I am the source of sin. Now, I am the forbearer of fear. I am a nightmare. I am a monster."

"I am the silence before the storm. I am the wrath of the scorned. I am Corruptor, Defiler, Condemner, Mauler and Warfighter. I am Power. I am Death."

His horn began to glow faintly as he paused, his eyes beginning to turn green.

"I am..."

His voice went from barely audible to a thunderous boom as a black beam shot forth from his ragged horn.

"SOMBRA!"

Twilight reacted as quickly as she could, meeting the king's ray of magic with one of her own. The beams conjoined, but Twilight's was quickly engulfed by the king's. Sombra's magic overpowered Twilight's, pushing it back to its source. When the lavender ray disappeared into the alicorn's horn, an awesome burst of power sent Twilight hurdling backwards and into the crystalline dome at her back. She burst clean through, and out the other side, opening a hole through the crystalline prison.

The king galloped to Twilight's resting place near the door, leaping over the dome with a single bound before the elements within could react.

He grabbed the alicorn by the throat, the first time his touch had been accompanied by feeling, and pulled her in close as he whispered.

"And I've come for my revenge."

In an instant he was gone, simply swirling into nothingness as he abandoned the library. Twilight fell when his grip left her throat, and landed among still sprouting crystals all around her as everything faded to blackness.

Off in the distance, she heard a familiar voice calling her back, but it grew weaker and weaker with the world around her.

"Twilight!"

"Twilight are you okay?"

"Twilight..."