“Sombra? What? Why?” Twilight asked to no pony in particular. She was simply shocked to see the former ruler of the Crystal Empire there.

He too was nervous, but for different reasons. His fear, however, soon became real as soon as he noticed that the confused expression on the mare turned into a deep frown.

Her eyes narrowed as she used her magic once more to completely bind ‘Sombra’ and levitate him from the ground. She then concealed him into a floating magic bubble.

Twilight started saying with a furious expression: “So, this was all your doing? I should have known that the smoke that attacked Spike had something to do with you! If I had figured it out earlier…UGH!” she finished closing her eyes tightly, cursing herself for not realizing things sooner.

The trapped stallion simply breathed deeply trying to calm himself. ‘This isn’t going to be easy…For neither of us.’ He thought right before he begin talking.

“First things first, Bearer of the Element of Magic, my name isn’t Sombra. It’s Cielo Gris…”

“Do you Think I would believe that? After all you did? You even got close to Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo! What did you intend to do wit them?” twilight interrupted raising a hoof at him in accusation.

Cielo sighed once again before continuing: “My name is Cielo Gris. I’ve been known as Sombra because I made a foolish mistake over a thousand years ago. I am and I’m not responsible for the things that happened in both Crystal Empire and here…”
Twilight put down her hoof with a loud stomp on the ground, not liking one bit his tone. “Are you trying to dodge your blame? How can you possibly not be at fault for enslaving an entire nation and hurt my little brother?”

The lavender unicorn was now breathing deeply trying to calm herself. She was face to face with a pony who she believed to be responsible for brutally torturing Spike and now that she knew that this Cielo Gris and Sombra were the same ponies, she realized that all her friends were in grave danger.

She wanted to punish him herself. But she knew better than to give into her anger. Her thoughts were once again directed at the stallion as he spoke.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be cryptic…It’s just that it’s complicated even for me. I guess I should start from the beginning, right?”
Twilight said nothing in reply, she just stared at him firmly.

Seeing her silence as permission to speak, Cielo begun: “I was born in Canterlot and since I was young I displayed a great affinity with magic. By the age of ten, I managed to perform spells that only adults could. My talents somehow were heard by the princess Celestia herself. She decided to make me her personal student...”

“Wait, wait, wait! YOU were Princess Celestia’s student? I find it hard to believe.” She said rolling her eyes. “You have to improve your story a little bit.”

“Where did you think I learned dark magic?” he replied coldly raising an eyebrow. “There were books in her library. I sneaked there back in my day to study them. She wouldn’t let me saying that they were dangerous.”

The lavender unicorn rolled her eyes and replied sarcastically: “Dark magic dangerous? Who would have guessed…” but Twilight immediately regretted even mocking him as soon as the words left her mouth. She remembered that she used the same kind of magic when they visited the Crystal Empire to defeat Sombra.

Dark magic felt…wrong for her. It was like she was being hollowed of every single emotion as she used it. She however pressed on using it because she thought it was necessary to pass the test Celestia gave her.

She still felt embarrassed for thinking that she should do everything alone. If it weren’t for her friends, Sombra would have won.
She secretly vowed to never use dark magic again. Not only it was risky, she also didn’t want to end up corrupted by it.

But again, she also couldn’t help but to notice that ‘Sombra’ had raised an interesting point: How did he know Celestia could do dark magic? ‘Maybe what he says is true… But ,on the other hoof, the best way to create a lie is to add some truth in it…’

Cielo blinked a few times staring at Twilight having an inner monologue, but he then decided to continue: “*Cough* I’ve secretly trained how to use dark magic and after some years I thought I had mastered all the spells from the books. I must admit, they greatly interested me. Illusions, mind control, bending space itself, among other things.”

He stopped briefly as he gave a loud sigh. “These were my first big mistakes. To think I have mastered that form of magic and not to ask the Princess for advice…She must hate me now.”

Cielo Gris looked to the night sky through the bubble then back to Twilight, who was still listening to him, and asked: “Did she say anything about me, when she ordered you elements to come to defeat me?”

Twilight was a bit surprised by this sudden question, but she quickly shook her head and replied: “She only referred to you as ‘Sombra’ and she wanted me…I mean, us to find a way to free the Crystal Empire from you. Even after we came back, she congratulated us and she seemed relieved, I think.”

Cielo closed his eyes and replied: “I can’t blame her. She thought I became a monster…”

“You were a monster! You enslaved an entire Empire!” Twilight shouted.

The stallion growled at her and said: “I didn’t do those things on purpose! I wasn’t even in control of my own body!”

“So, did the dark magic possess you?” She asked getting quite intrigued by it. ‘If his story is indeed true, then this is more reason for me to not dare use it anymore.’ She added in her mind.

Cielo shook his head and replied: “Dark magic can’t possess anypony. All it does is to instigate one to make bad choices. Dark Magic has as much influence on somepony as cheerleaders in a hoofball game. It inspires you, but ultimately it’s your choice and yours only.”

Twilight blinked a few times, surprised: “Oh! Then what happened?”

“Well, Princess Celestia sent me to the Crystal Empire one day for mere diplomatic reasons. She wanted to establish some commercial routes with them. But after a couple of days there, I started to hear some cases of ponies being slaughtered on the Crystal Empire. They were killed in many different gruesome ways. You saw what happened to your friend, right? So you have an idea of what is capable of.”

Twilight then scowled again at the mention of Spike. It made her raise her guard again. ‘The last thing I need is to be sneak attacked.’ She then glanced at the unicorn’s broken horn and finished her trail of thought ‘Somehow’.

Cielo Gris just continued: “Anyway, I decided to take upon myself to check what was going on and arrest the perpetrator. I..was sure that I powerful and talented enough to do everything by myself and ignored the late Crystal Princess’ offer of having some soldiers to aid me. Receive help from others felt almost…insulting to me.”

Twilight couldn’t help, but to cringe a little. She could relate with it a little.

“I’ve spent many days and nights searching, lurking around until, one day, I met…it.” His face was filled with disgust as he remembered “Its name is Ombra, Schatten, Σκιά, but from his original language, it was Umbra. All of those words mean one thing: Shadow. And that’s what the creature is.”

“I guess the name is fitting…” it was all she could say.

“I tried to fight it with every spell I knew. I think I hurt it a little, but nothing seemed to kill or knock it out. I then started resorting to dark magic to enhance my own power. But the moment I fired a magic beam at it, Umbra grew. It fed on my magic. At the time, I was confused by it, but now I now that as a being created and molded in dark magic. But I tried to keep pressing it in order to prove my own worth. I saw it as the biggest challenge of my life. But after an hour of battle, I started to fear it. It was then that I made my stupidest mistake.”

After a brief pause he said: “I tried to use dark magic to seal it inside of my own body.”

Twilight’s jaw fell. Many things rushed through her mind. “Is that even possible? To seal another creature inside of oneself, that is?”

The stallion nodded and continued: “Yes. The spell created some kind of pocket dimension inside of the caster sealing the being away and the caster’s body become its prison and lifeline. If the host dies, the creature dies. What I didn’t expect, but I should have, was that the barrier separating me from the creature was formed by dark magic. So it was only natural that the monster ate the barrier and crept into my body and mind. It simply took over me.”

His breathing intensified as he recorded the feeling of having his body robbed from him. “It then adapted its name to my first language, thus becoming the one you knew as Sombra. It liked that I had such affinity with dark magic. He used my power to add to its own and caused terror by killing the former crystal princess and assuming the throne as their king. When the princesses heard who was doing all that, they tried to intervene. The creature made sure to make them believe it was me and that I would rule over all ponies in their place. But it didn’t expect the Elements of Harmony. Princesses Celestia and Luna tried to use them to defeat me, but before they could purge it from me, Umbra kidnapped the entire empire. You already know the rest of the story.”

Twilight wasn’t sure how she should take this information. On one side, she was familiar that there were beings that possessed others. It happened with Luna and Rarity, plus her gut feeling was saying that he wasn’t lying either. However, she didn’t want to risk, especially when the lives of those she cared about were at stake.

She gave a deep sigh and said: “Alright. I’ll believe in what you said, for now. But I have a few questions. That thing is a shadow, but has a conscience on its own. Do you know what is it exactly?” Twilight inquired.

Cielo nodded and then replied: “I know…From what I could grasp from its memories, it’s a byproduct of an attempt to create immortality. You see, about a hundred years before I came to the Crystal Empire, there was a unicorn called Shooting Meteor. He was the warden of a high security prison there. He had to control several psychopaths, murderers, robbers, drug dealers and other criminals. The thing was that he was on the same level as them. He liked to torture them and even keep them longer than what theirs sentences ordered…”

“So, what happened?” Twilight asked, wondering why he stopped explaining.

“He killed them all.” The cold said simply with his eyes closed. “I…have the memories of both the warden and the criminals. Shooting Meteor bribed the guards to take several prisoners to an underground laboratory, which was under the prison, to experiment on them. He used dark magic to drain life from them. Their lives were little green balls of energy that came out of the bodies and were stored in a single glass jar. The spheres merged with one another growing in power, but not in size, for some reason. The warden thought that once he was immortal he wouldn’t have to fear anypony, not even Celestia and Luna themselves. But after he killed over a hundred prisoners, one of the guards decided to denounce the warden, hoping to be spared of the punishment.”

“Shooting Meteor, when he heard that he was about to be arrested, teleported to his lab to use the energy he harvested so far. He got the green energy ball and pressed it against his own heart. His research came to the conclusion it would give him the life spam and power of all ponies he had killed. But the result of the dark magic was another. He…exploded.”

The lavender unicorn blinked a few times in disbelief. “Exploded?”

“Yes. The energy was filled with rage, desire to hurt and, with the addition of Shooting Meteor’s life, the urge to rule over others. When the royal guard managed to get to the laboratory, they could only see blood stained metal beds where the prisoners were held, alongside with tools and now with the remains of the former warden. In front of them there was the shadow you’ve seen before. A creature that wasn’t the warden nor the prisoners. An entire new entity molded with the feelings and memories of the ones used to create it. Umbra, then killed the guards and all prisoners. Nopony ever knew what really happened in that prison. When I first came to the Crystal Empire, and heard of the happening, I thought that it was done by a riot, which was the popular theory since nopony could come up with anything better.”

After he finished explaining, there was a brief silence between them. She still couldn’t detect any lie in his words and she started to curse herself in her head for what she was about to do: “Alright. I think I’ll believe in you for now!” she then dispelled the magic bubble concealing the stallion and continued “So, what’s the plan?”

Cielo was quite surprised that she was keen to help him. “I think you should get the other Elements of Harmony as soon as possible. It’s the only thing I know of that Umbra is scared of.”

Twilight nodded and replied: “I’ll call the girls as soon as possible. Thankfully, Princess Celestia let me have the Elements for me to study the magic from a book written by Starswirl the Bearded But how will we find it?”

“I’ve been merged with it for a thousand years. I still share a faint connection with it that allows me to track it down. That’s why I came here in first place. I wish I hadn’t lost most of my horn when we were separated back then. But I can still cast some spells. I’ll try track it while you go get the other Elements.”

Twilight then gave him an angry glare and said: “And what? What will you do if you find it before we get all Elements of Harmony? Try seal it again? Challenge it to a hoof fight? You said so yourself you can’t use magic very well. How do you expect to defend yourself?”

Cielo was taken by surprise and gave a few steps back: “I-I…can fight it! I can fix my own mistakes. I can hold it off until you get everypony.”

Twilight frowned and quickly trotted to him making her face be just a few inches apart from his: “Believe me, Cielo, I know how it’s to prove yourself at all costs, but the stakes are too high for me to take random chances. Tell me, if you engage in combat with this Umbra, how are we supposed to know where you are? Going to use magic to signal it on the sky? With your limited magic, that will make you vulnerable for an attack!”

Cielo opened his mouth only to close it again. He knew she was right. He was even ready to die to bring it down with him in order to redeem himself. But good would his efforts do? Umbra would need like three minutes to kill him. He needed the Elements to destroy it.

“Alright…Lead the way…” He conceded.

Twilight then decided to make the stallion walk in front of her, on their way to the library, where the elements were, to prevent any surprise attack.

Again, he couldn’t blame her for being suspicious. But then something came across his mind that disturbed him a little, but he kept quiet. ‘Wait…Umbra knows I can track it and it knows I’m weaker than it…Why didn’t Umbra try kill me before?’

‘Spike’ simply smiled as he now peacefully walked into the Everfree Forest. He knew he wasn’t being pursued by anypony. He walked until he reached a clearing, where a black mist awaited for him.

‘Spike’s’ now glowing green eyes showed a hint of happiness as he merely opened his mouth. The black mist then quickly flew into the maw so fast, it seemed like the drake was sucking it like a vacuum.

Once all mist was inside of the baby dragon, pike held his stomach in some discomfort. ‘I need to keep myself disconnect from this body. I don’t intend to be here for long, anyway’. It thought

Then his body started to change. The green spines on his back started to turn red and the sound of bones clicking and cracking echoed through the forest.

Spike’s body started to grow.

Author's Note

Author notes:
1)English is my second language. Forgive me for any mistake.
2)I don’t own My Little Pony
3)Sorry for the delay in this chapter. I've been awfully busy with my Master degree course and I don't think I'll be able to upload anything anytime soon.
4)Also, cheesy chapter title is cheesy.