A Broken Crystal

         Sombra entered the small and smelly restaurant. He just couldn't understand how Rusty Gears could like this place. After the first dinning here with Rusty and Rubenius, he wondered does the staff even wash the dishes. This time he made sure he brought a sprey enchanted for disease protection.

   He looked around the room, searching for those two fools. Their table was in the corner, and as expected, they already had a cider or two. He came to the table just in time to hear their laughter over a probably one more nonsense joke. At least they were almost drunk. In that state they were more easily convinced, which made Sombra's bussiness much easier. He was the owner of the whole clothes manifacture. And Rusty always had the best silk. Rubenius was just his not very smart councillor.

"What's s-so funny?" Sombra asked, pretending to be interested.

Rubenius, a pure-blood crystal pony with a deep red coat and navy blue eyes looked at Sombra stupidly. "Wuazzzaaaaaappp?" Then both of them laughed histerycally. Sombra rolled his eyes and sat next to Rusty. He had a light brown and lemon eyes and mane. Rusty was old and worked in a mine before, so that left many scars on his body.

   "Rubenius, let's just TRY to talk about something important", Rusty said, "for example, how much foals does your sister have again?" Another histeric laugh and hooves stomping on the table irritated Sombra's ears. The soup the waitress brought him looked ... up most weird. He sprayed it and tasted: it was like dirt.

"No, seriously", Rusty calmed down himself, "let's talk about the thing I called you here today for...

the Queen wants us as her special guests at the castle. The letter says something about "being the most successful manifacture partnership" in the whole Crystal Empire!"

Rubenius choked and spit out the cider he has been drinking. "No.Way" he said.

"Oh. Wow" Sombra smiled "and when do w-we h-have to c-come to the castle?"

Rusty Gears opened his old, shabby bag ( he once said he had some emotional connection with it). He took out the letter, cleaned his throat and started reading:

"We, the Queen of the Crystal Empire, invite you to our castle to talk about investments we are planning to make to help your manifacture partnership grow even more and possibly even spread to Equestria. Our royal chariot will pick you up at the sunset of the 6th day, 2nd spring month.

Guys, that is tommorow! And see, it has the royal seal and everything!"

Sombra finished his apple juice he ordered in the meantime, sighed and said: "Is-s there a-anything else we should t-talk about? If not, I need to g-go, I have a terrible h-headache." The partners said goodbye to eachother, and with that settled, Sombra went home with relief.

                          ~~~~~~~~

   Sombra lived in a very old apartment. He didn't bother buying something better,  since his childhood he was used to living a poor life, although he was now the richest colt in the Empire.

The first thing he did when he entered the house was freezing some water with dark magic and putting it onto his forehead. Since he started to use it more often, the usage of normal magic would exhaust him. He rested for a couple of minutes, and then closed all the windows and curtains so almost no light could get inside. He had a special room locked with magic,  and the door would dissapear or move if it didnt recognize the spell. And of course, it had to be dark magic.

He opened the door. Inside, there was a skinny, tired and starving crystal pony. He looked as if obsessed with something, looking in vain with the face that seemed terrified. His eyes were green, and purple smoke was coming out of them. Sombra already noticed the first symptoms of his goal. His cutiemark dissapeared, his coat was no longer crystal and his mane started to fall off. It's only a matter of days before he will be ready. Sombra changed the pony's nighmare, making it even worse than before. He left the room and closed the door, leaving the pony scream and shake in terror.