Path up to The Ruler

The morning after.

Twilight opened her heavy eyelids and struggled to sit. Vision was blurry, head spinning, the whole body itching, stomach hurting. Twilight vomited her bed and herself with blood. She was deadly hungry and thirsty.

Amethyst heard Twilight and jumped on her and the bloody mess she made. Happily poked Twilight’s nose with Twilight’s blood she stepped on. Her eyes were really big green burning with purple flare glow within. Her hair was a little more purplish than the last time Twilight remembered seeing her. She was also bigger.

“Good morning, Twilight. You look like you awfully need a bath. You too, Amethyst, come with mamma we’re playing ships,” Chrysalis smiled making the situation less serious than it actually was.

Amethyst jumped down and left with Chrysalis leaving blood hoofprints after herself. Twilight spent good few minutes gathering strength and filling her mind with anything so that she could ignore pain.

After half an hour she gave up and fainted.

-

“…Ready the cannons.”

“Arr.”

Splashing Amethyst woke Twilight up. She was in bathroom in one of the three baths there. In another there were Chrysalis and Amethyst bathing and playing pirates together. Trixie was wet, but not from bathing herself, wet from Amethyst splashing all the dirty water across whole bathroom.

“Welcome to the living,” Trixie smiled.

Twilight had so much hard time talking, her throat filled with nasties. “How long?” That was all she managed.

“Four days. Everypony thinks you’re dead, Spike announced that to everypony. He’s at Rarity’s Carousel Boutique, or at least that was what he told me he was headed. He can’t deal with ‘the intruders’ in your castle. Said he was sending an army to kick us out. That was three day ago. He didn’t returned, and no army.

“Ponies are celebrating your death, you were right, they really do hate you. Celestia declared that day to be ‘The Twilight’s Eve’. I really want to strangle her for doing that, I mean we don’t have days memorializing Tirek’s defeat or anything like that.”

Trixie got terrified seeing Twilight attempting to drown herself. She levitated her out of the bath onto a rug and covered her in few towels. Twilight had no strength or will to stand, and she collapsed off her hooves on her face into crystal tiles. Hopeless.

“What’s wrong, Twilight? What were you thinking? You tricked death, now you want to meet it again?”

“Food,” Twilight weakly replied.

“Oh no! You haven’t eaten a thing for days.”

-

Trixie was a terrible cook. Food was either overcooked or undercooked. Barley porridge with baked beans and lettuce for Twilight, colorado beetles and pig hearts for Chrysalis and Amethyst, hay and daisy sandwich for herself.

Chrysalis refused to eat anything, she can’t eat “normal food” but feed on love, and she doesn’t need love to survive. Amethyst ate all beetles with a relish, but left all hearts untasted. Twilight had no strength to eat, or keep her head straight above the table. Trixie had to feed Twilight.

“You don’t look good, Twilight,” Chrysalis disturbed the silence, “but you still must know. Your brother at Crystal Empire got captured. Nopony knows where he is or who captured him. I met Cadence’s crystal troops at my castle accusing me of it, but seeing in what condition my castle and I with Amethyst were, they felt absurdity accusing me of such thing. They asked my assistance finding him. I had no intention of doing so, but I agreed, he’s your brother after all, and it would soften my relations with Cadence. I came here for your help, but you were dead. Trixie told me what happened, but refused to believe you were actually dead.”

“She’s not dead, you can see that with your own eyes,” Trixie denied.

“Probably. But look at her, she’s completely physically exhausted and can’t even speak properly.”

“Then why are you asking her help. She needs a rehabilitation, she clearly can’t do a thing for a few days.”

“Yes I can!” Twilight struck her hoof into table. Her horn flickered a few times, but stopped and she fainted collapsing her head into the meal. That took all her energy.

“See?” Trixie took Twilight’s actions as proof.

“I know how’s she. I’m not asking her help, but she still must know what happened.”

“And you think the best time to do so is now?”

“I—”

“I see you’re all here,” Luna interrupted Chrysalis and Trixie’s pointless arguing.

“What are you doing here? I ordered you to get out of my sight. Chrysalis, get rid of her.”

Chrysalis stood up and approached Luna. She met Luna’s eyes with hers. They took a long minute to stare at each other in silence.

“What are you waiting?” Trixie got impatient.

“Your actions are pardoned, Luna. Come take a sit with us,” Chrysalis invited Luna.

“What?! You know what she did?!”

“Yes, and she is sorry about that. She wants to say something, and it would also be stupid to kick her out without letting her. If you really don’t want her presence, I suggest you leaving, play with Amethyst or something.”

“I’ll stay.”

“Come, Luna, take a sit. Don’t mind Trixie.”

Luna took a seat next to Twilight. “Why’s she like that?” Twilight’s head was still in her meal.

“She’s really weak right now.” Chrysalis withdrew Twilight’s head out of the food and cleaned it off barley porridge with a napkin.

“Talk,” Trixie was avoiding direct eye contact with Luna.

“I’m here to say sorry, but that’s not all. My sister and everypony else thinks Twilight is dead, but I know she isn’t, I met her in dreams. I told her everything, and that I’m sorry, she forgave me.”

“Good for you, I don’t.”

“I’m sorry. But this ‘death’ of hers opened new possibilities plotting against my sister.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Force her to give up her throne.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Do you trust me?”

“I hate you, but I hate Celestia even more, anypony willing to go against her is an ally of mine.”

“Good. I want to create chaos, or better – war, the war which would be Celestia’s fault for happening. We’ll need to use powerful forbidden mind control megaspell.”

“Why do you want that?”

“Sometimes you need to be a villain to achieve good, I feel like I owe Twilight. This megaspell can be nullified with The Elements of Harmony.”

“So what? Twilight ‘is dead‘. I don’t understand how that will work out if you want to keep this secret.”

“The war will consume a lot of lives, hopefully including the five owners of The Elements thus transferring their Element onto Twilight.”

“It would empower Twilight, and then what? She’s ‘dead’.”

“It will be as if The Elements revived her, and she’s the savior. Everypony then would pressure Celestia to abdicate.”

“Interesting plan. What do you need our help with?”

“Chrysalis help actually. She’s the strongest pony in whole Equestria. Her magic would be enough to perform, control and defend against the megaspell. But I’ll also need Discord’s help to direct it into anarchistic chaos.”

“I do have ears and eyes everywhere, unlike our little friend here sleeping,” Discord’s voice echoed throughout the room. “I’ll be happy to help you, just tell me when you’ll begin. You know where to find me – I’m everywhere, so you don’t need to search,” Discord’s voice laughed and disappeared.

“Creeper. Just how much does he know?” Trixie wondered.

“Luna, I like your plan and I will join you, but before we begin we must save Twilight’s brother – Shining Armor,” Chrysalis implied.

“Ok, we’ll do that right away. I know where he is. Trixie, stay with Twilight and make sure nopony knows or suspects she’s alive. If needed tell them that her castle belongs to you under Luna’s orders, which is true if she’s dead. And never let Twilight expose herself to public or friends, nopony but us must know.”

Luna and Chrysalis left.

“…Left with ill and a baby… Great!”

-

“…Knowing where he is, why haven’t you told me we’re headed north? Cold is my biggest weakness.”

“You’re blind for such a huge head and eyes. Can’t you see what I’m wearing?”

“You put that on moments ago.”

“Yes. And I have one for you too.” Luna took warm cap, fluffy scarf and four furry boots from her bags and gave them to Chrysalis. “These may be too small for your Big head.”

“It’s pink.”

“You’ll look adorable in these.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“I’m not. Put it on.”

Chrysalis jumped into pink boots, put on pink scarf and budged her head into pink cap. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? I look stupid. Ugh… You owe me a gallon of hot tea when we get back!”

Luna giggled.

Luna and Chrysalis reached an ice cave in black crystal mountain. It was lit inside. Both proceeded in. They were walking slowly and cautiously towards the source. Finally the source was recognizable – King Sombra was performing experiments on Shining Armor.

Thinking that Sombra hadn’t noticed them, Chrysalis and Luna launched powerful combined spells with their horns at him. Spells went through his body and hit Shining Armor instead. His body turned into void black smog with his eyes piercing shivers through Luna’s body. His eyes were different: three red eyeballs in each.

Chrysalis did nothing. The strongest being in whole Equestria could not defeat or harm Sombra in that shadow form. She had a plan: Distract and lure him out of the cave, while doing so Luna could save Shining Armor. Lure him to Crystal Empire. The power of Crystal Heart would weaken him.

But Luna had different plan: She had fought Sombra a thousand years ago and knew all his weaknesses. She knew the very spell that defeated Sombra. She needed massive amount of magic that Chrysalis possessed. “Chrysalis, I know how to defeat him, and I’ll need your help.”

“I have a plan of my own. But do tell what’s yours.”

“Attack!”

“That’s no plan at all.”

“Trust me.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. That’s just stupid.”

While Luna argued with Chrysalis over nothing, king Sombra took opportunity to attack. He consumed Luna with smoke, redirected his gaze into Luna’s eyes and trapped her in eternal fear. He then preformed the same thing on Chrysalis, but it did not work. Equestria’s strongest pony and Equestria’s master of mind manipulation and fear were immune to each other.

“Interesting – a mare that withstands my power. Size do matter I suppose.”

“What’s your plan? I can’t do a thing to you, might as well tell me.”

“I’m going to fuse my power and myself into Shining Armor’s body, then sneak back into Crystal Empire and reclaim it as mine.”

“Simple. But how would you return? Just walk in as Shining and tell everypony that you escaped?”

“Yes.”

“If so I’m sure many will suspect you. I have a better idea – come with me and I’ll tell everypony I saved Shining Armor.”

“Why would they trust you? More importantly, why would I?”

“They asked me to save him. I can’t defeat you, but they won’t know that.”

“Hmm, why would you want to help me? You just told me you’re here to save him.”

“I did promise them I will save him, but I did not promise them I will defeat you. You know that I can’t. It is said ‘If you can’t defeat them, join them’, that’s what I’m doing. Don’t you think I’m doing this for you, I’m doing this for myself – I have some scores with Cadence I want to settle. This opportunity is perfect.”

“How about your little friend here? I’m not going to release her from it, and ponies may suspect she’s missing.”

“Nopony knew she was going with me. And really nopony besides Celestia and other few ever sees her anywhere at least on a weekly basis. Leave her here. She won’t freeze considering you didn’t with just cold iron armor.”

“Very well. I’m hesitant bringing you in, so I’m watching you.”

“Sure, whatever, let’s go.”

Chrysalis plan luring Sombra to Crystal Empire couldn’t have gone better. Sombra entered Shining Armors body and left with Chrysalis to Crystal Empire. Luna stayed with the nightmares, consumed in fear.

-

“…I don’t care that you are here and that you legally own this place, but you can’t keep Twilight’s dead body here. Where’s your soul? Other ponies might not care about her, but we do. We need to bury her in a grave, that’s the least we can do to her as her only friends,” Rainbow Dash stated.

“How dare you call yourselves her friends! You are the very ponies who wanted to imprison her. Twilight had all the reasons to hate you for that, but she didn’t, her heart is the purest. You didn’t help her aiding changelings in fight against Celestia and her army. I know why – you’re weak, you were scared thinking that Celestia would pressure you all too, like she did to Twilight. Twilight needed you the most, her thoughts were all about suicide and death, but you never came to her. I and Luna did, we convinced her that Equestria would smile for her if she tried and we would help her achieve it. Luna killed her, I hate her, but I understand why she did it – she is weak too, she had to do what her sister ordered her. Chrysalis, Discord and me are the only true friends she ever had. You are not!” Trixie shut castle entrance door with a bang leaving Rainbow Dash and other four of her friends outside miserable.

Trixie returned to Guest room where Twilight was, just to find her missing there. Trixie was just about to panic and search for her, but there was no need for that. Twilight called her from behind, “I understand your frustration with them, but you definitely were too harsh on them.”

“Twilight! Did they see you?”

“No.”

“Good. I told you shouldn’t let anypony see you.”

“Yes. And that I need to wait until ponies needed my help to step in and help them so that they would like me again and such. But I don’t want to be imprisoned in here. I need fresh air, stretch my wings and hooves.”

“You know you mustn’t risk like that. Besides you barely recovering, you need all the rest you can get – bed, hot fluids and sleep. What’s wrong? Can’t you occupy yourself with books and not wander around risking getting exposed?”

“I can, I am, but this doesn’t feel right. Somehow I feel like you and your friends came up with some kind of evil plan just to get rid of Celestia and put me in leadership, but that’s crazy talk I’m sure.”

“Heh. Where do you come up with that? This just proves you need some more rest. I’m happy for you that you can now walk and talk, but please return to bed.”

“Fine.” Twilight returned to guest room and sat in bed. Trixie wondered if Twilight heard their plan or not.

Twilight was flipping through the pages of a book with her hoof, it was inconvenient for her, but she was beyond using even the simplest spells.

-

“Um, Discord, can I ask you something?”

“Well of course, Fluttershy.”

“I wanted to know of your feeling about Twilight’s death, if that’s ok with you telling me.”

“Oh, Fluttershy, why would I poison my mind with it? I tend not to think about that sort of stuff. I don’t want to be all sad, that’s just not my nature.”

“Oh, ok. I think that’s reasonable. I just can’t understand why Trixie doesn’t let us bury her. That would be the least we could do to her for everything she did for us. Trixie told us you were a better friend to Twilight than we were. How did you manage that?”

“Existing for eons helps. Fluttershy, I’m older, wiser and more experienced than you. These things repeat ever now and then and I’m so used to it. I was a stone for so long, but I wasn’t blind.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

“If I cared for everyone, I would have hung myself long ago.”

“So you don’t care?”

“Yes and no. Yes – I acknowledge Twilight and what she did. No – I don’t have feeling for her. Apparently that was enough for her – just being with her, helping her, making fun of her, not letting emotions kick her lying, unlike where you all failed. Isn’t it interesting that ex-villains were better friends to her than her ex-best friends were?”

-

“Let me in. I was asked to save Shining Armor, so I did.” Chrysalis with Sombra in Shining Amor’s body arrived to Crystal Empire. Guards let them pass.

They were met by Princess Mi Amore Cadenza (Cadence) herself. “I’m so happy to see you, Shining. Chrysalis, you redeemed yourself, your actions pardoned and we seek new mutual diplomatic connections with you from now on.”

Chrysalis with a gesture pointed out to Cadence that Shining was being possessed.

“You are free to go, Chrysalis, thank you,” Cadence understood Chrysalis. “Now let’s go to some warm place away from all the eyeballs, husband.”

Cadence dragged Sombra in disguise towards Crystal Heart. When at it, Cadence pushed Sombra into Crystal Heart, consequently pulling out Sombra off Shining Armor’s body into force-prison made by her horn magic and Crystal Heart. “I know my husband too well to know you’re not him!”

“Fool, all I need was just to get inside The Empire. It doesn’t matter if you do or not, I’m inside – submit to me.” Sombra unleashed all his might consuming all Crystal Empire in his void-black smoke. “This is the very end for you and the new beginning for me.”

From above Empire wide blue flash struck Sombra’s smoke expansion. It was Luna with the same spell that defeated him before. Sombra got constrained into mere black ash.

Luna landed near Cadence. “This should stop him for few hundred more years.”

“I thought he was destroyed with the Crystal Heart,” Cadence remembered.

“These pure magic entities never die as long as life exist. Sombra is entity of fear, but as a unicorn he’s long dead. Only this magic entity is Sombra, and seeing his pony form is nothing more than that magic in a pony form.”

“I have hard time understanding this.”

“It’s because you’re still young alicorn. Alicorns themselves are entities, godly entities – spirits or deities. Like other magical entities our lifespan surpasses anypony else. Where’s common pony’s lifespan is determent by biological laws, our lifespan is determent by other factors: Celestia by the Sun, me by the Moon, you by the crystal ponies, Twilight by The Elements, etc. This is why we, alicorns, don’t die unless we choose to abandon our determent factors.”

“Really? Then Twilight is alive, she’s not dead. I know her far too well, she would never refuse—”

“You don’t know how much mentally broken she was. Celestia eagerly condemned Twilight enough for her to give up everything thus dying.”

During their conversation Sombra’s ash disappeared.

-

“Oh no! Pinkie Pie what are you doing here! You can’t be here! Oh no no no no! Everything is ruined!”

Amethyst shapeshifted back into herself. “Twrik ya!” she laughed.

“Don’t you ever do that in time like this!”

“Don’t be harsh on her, she’s learning. Besides, nopony, even Pinkie Pie, could enter this place, it’s safe from exposure,” Twilight tried calming Trixie.

“I didn’t know. Do you understand how much this matter? I legally own your castle if you’re alive. If you’re alive Princess Luna would suffer, she’s already taking enormous risk disobeying her sister. If ponies found out you’re not dead before they really needed you, they would hate you even more, possibly claim that you were plotting evil plans or something like that with their empty brains.”

“I do realize all of that, don’t worry I’m careful.”

“It’s just that I care about you, Twilight. It’s not just that I feel like I owe you, it’s different – warmer and closer to my heart. This feeling so similar to what I felt for Maud. Back then my arrogance took away everything from me. As somepony said ‘You never know what you have until you lose it’ I guess it’s very accurate. Just lately I have managed to rebuild myself: fame, friends, lo—“

Twilight jumped on Trixie and gave her a hug and a kiss. “Say no more.”

“Coming here I did not expect seeing a fillyfoolers,” Sombra attracted attention. As soon as Trixie, Twilight and Amethyst spotted Sombra they were instantly consumed by his magic of fear.

-

Everything was pure black void. Twilight was floating on colorless black liquid. Only she illuminated herself with her own body colors. “Dark. Same familiar feeling – loneliness. Again drowning. This is my biggest fear? I know it’s not real, Sombra, you’ll gain nothing.”

“No, it’s not.” Millions of Sombra’s red eyeballs suddenly appeared, every single one of them looking at Twilight and not blinking. “I’m just setting the mood. As what I’ll be showing you will further determine your fate.”

Twilight strugglingly managed to escape the liquid then she stepped on hard surface while Sombra was talking. “Yeah? Go ahead, I can handle it. I dealt with worse threats than what you could ever be. Fear fails if you know it’s not real, and I do.”

Some eyes disappeared, in place of them screens appeared, seven in total around Twilight. Each of these screens showed all the horrible things Twilight did and how other ponies reacted to it, Sombra was commentating every one of it.

Twilight wasn’t listening or paying attention to what was being displayed, instead she was planning to escape. More importantly, why he was there and what he wanted, finding that out was the best start for any plan. “I don’t care! Nothing you show matters to me. I don’t need anypony telling me what I did wrong, I know that far better myself. I know there is something more important you want from me. That is why you are here in the first place. I’m not that dumb to not understand it.”

All the eyes and screens closed and disappeared, black void turned into scenery of dark Crystal Empire, the time when Sombra was the ruler. Hundreds of crystal ponies were working in gem mines: some mining, others dragging carts back and forward. “This,” Sombra said, “is how everypony believe it was!”

“This is horrible. Why would you do that to these ponies?”

“These times were desperate. I had to do that in order to maintain my leadership. It was necessary as outside my Empire, at that time my Kingdom, Equestria was in disharmony, led by Discord himself. I was the strongest, the last member of my royal family and a king. It was my responsibility to defend my people from outside threat. I had to submit myself to gain more power – power of fear.”

“That’s no excuse for enslaving your citizens.”

“What you saw was just few citizens working there compared to the total population at that time. The rest were living as they always did. Gems were required for magical weapons, we used them for defense.

“Over time ponies developed dissatisfaction towards me, they began to question and condemn my rule, but in truth they feared my power. To control them I used fear on them so that it would prevent them from rebelling against me. It did the opposite.

“In my Kingdom there was another royal family. They were the ones that defeated me. I’m not going to explain how, but it was rather shameful. After that they released all the ‘slaves’ from the mines and began huge militarization. During their rule, more pony lives were endangered and their freedom diminished than when I was in rule. I would say it was worse, but these brainless ponies happily sacrificed their lives for their kingdom, and a lot of them died.

“To make things worse, with successful defending they began attacking and conquering nearby provinces and my Kingdom became an Empire. I couldn’t stand it and attacked. I defeated everypony who stood in my way imprisoning them in their biggest fears, but not harming or killing them, I cared for my people, even if they didn’t care for themselves. With fury I defeated the current leaders at that time. Then I took full responsibility to defend the whole Empire, and I failed.

“Outside forces overran our empire defeating me and claiming the leadership. Their leaders were powerful beings called alicorns. New leader of my Empire was called Mi Amore. She spread the propaganda of being here to save everypony from the true evil – me. And these brainless crystal ponies believed their new leader. Yet again a huge militarization began.

“All my periodical attempts to reclaim my Empire, when new inexperienced Mi Amore came into rule, failed every time over the millennium. I had nopony that supported me, nopony that understood my intentions, nopony that shared the pain I had suffered, nopony that gave a flying buck when I tried to speak with them and explain what I wanted… Nopony but you. When I met you for the first time I understood you were different, but then I didn’t try to tell you all of this, back then you haven’t experienced the pain yet, I knew it was still too early.

“I know you always wanted to help everypony, and you did, but these ponies never gave a thing to you in return, worse – now they’re celebrating your ‘death’. You were betrayed by your closest friends, by the ponies you admired, respected and trusted the most, but yet you did no harm to them. You are the victim of the absurdity of this world, just like me. Nopony understands our intention, but questions our actions like they are all knowing.

“This is also why all ex-villains understand and help you with everything they can. They suffered similar things, but unlike you, they fallen to evil – if they couldn’t change reality to better, or at least suitable for themselves, they decided to destroy it entirely.

“All I ask you is to help me and them, to create perfect Equestria, without all of that unfairness. In return I offer myself and my assistance to you. I will help you when the time for Equestria-wide revolution occurs. I’m sure without ponies like us they will destroy themselves sooner or later.”

“I-I… I don’t know… Don’t know what to say… How to respond to that,” Twilight was having difficulties processing everything Sombra said.

“If you’ll say yes – you’ll agree to lead revolution for a better Equestria, if you’ll say no – you’ll agree to give up, you’ll disappoint me and your new friends.”

“I-I… Yes… I mean… Yes, I say yes. Yes I’ll do that, my friend.”

“Thank you.”

-

Reality returned. Twilight was released from Sombra’s magic. Around her all her new friends were standing: King Sombra, Discord, Ancient Chrysalis, Trixie Lulamoon, Princess Luna and Amethyst. They knew that Twilight understood their intentions and why they decided to follow her. She was willing to help them. Together – for a better Equestria.