Redemption: original

Twilight stared at the door in front of her, conflicted on whether she should go through with her plan or not. She debated every possible outcome in her head, but eventually she saw the futility of doing that. she took a deep breath and knocked on Princess Luna's bedroom door.

The door opened slowly and a curious dark blue mare with a mane that seemed to be made of the night sky poked her head out her room. "Twilight? It is good to see thee once more my friend, but why art thou up so late? Is there something thou wishes to speak of?"

Twilight awkwardly rubbed her left fore hoof. "Yeah.... I wanted to talk about Sombra..." Luna's face filled with a mixture of surprise embarrassment and fear.

"Come into our bedchambers, young princess... These are matters best not spoken in public." Luna let Twilight inside and closed the door quickly behind her. Luna stood in front of the doors her head pressing against it. Twilight could not understand why Luna was acting like this. "What did thou learn of, that brought thee here tonight?"

"Well that's the thing... I haven't been able to learn anything about him.... it's like he was erased from history... not even the Crystal Empire has any information about him..... but I did learn that before you and your sister defeated him that you went to the crystal empire for negotiations for five months... I was wondering if you could tell me anything about him..." Twilight nearly closed her eyes in fear of the rejection she would receive.

"Certainly... What sort of things would thou wish to know?"

Twilight opened her eyes surprised to get such a casual response. "Uh... What was he like, day to day, hobbies, favorite things...."

Luna looked happily surprised by Twilight's request. "It is not often that somepony asks about Sombra's personal life... Wait on our bed we need to get something for this." Luna ran trotted off to her closet while a very confused Twilight climbed onto the night monarchs bed. after a few moments of rummaging in her closet Luna quickly hopped onto her bed and set down an old wooden in front of Twilight. Twilight watched as Luna opened the box to reveal a collection of manuscripts and small paintings. "Many ponies assume that Sombra was a big mindless brute, however he wasn't always like that, at least not at first..."

Twilight flipped through several papers of notes with advanced calculations on magic. "Luna... what are these?"

Luna gently took the papers from Twilight's magical grasp and pulled a single page out from the stack. "These, dear Twilight, are the notes and equations for magical theories Sombra created. Majority of them are based on Starswirl's work. He was just as fanatic about Starswirl as you are."

Twilight popped her head up surprised and looked over the page of notes Luna had pulled out. "Really?" The majority of the page was illegible and seemed to serve no purpose other then to prove a point that magic and energy are one and the same, however at the very bottom a tiny equation was triple underlined and circled. E = M (C squared).

"Oh yes. He owned just about every Starswirl book edition ever published. He knew each by art and could recite them like poetry. I swear if it weren't for the fact that he wanted to keep appearances he would have grown a Starswirl beard." Luna looked back at the notes Twilight was deciphering, a sad smile growing across her face. "He was a genius you know... possibly one of the greatest minds the world will ever see... That paper was the last thing he worked on before he began losing his sanity... He said it solved everything by connecting magic to matter. Personally I didn't understand any of it, but I do know for certain he was amazing at chess."

Twilight looked up at her curious. "How good, exactly?"

"I had over five hundred games with him. I did not win a single one."

Sombra sat on the couch holding his knees against his chest. It was decided if anti dream charms and potions couldn't stop this then he would just have to stop sleeping. Some knocking at Fluttershy's door Startled him off the couch in a flailing of limbs. after recovering whatever was left of his dignity Sombra answered the door expecting to find Rainbow Dash on the other side.

"Good morning Sombra." Twilight spoke in a cheery voice.

"Twilight? What are you doing here?" Sombra was confused and very tired.

"Well i'm here to take you to my Castle as Rainbow is off being a Wonderbolt. And don't worry I have something very special planned for you." and with that she winked at the former tyrant leaving him utterly clueless.