In the Dark of the Night

“Welcome, Princesses of Equestria, to my humble hall. Your journey was pleasant, I trust?”

In the magical torchlight, the Crystal King upon his throne was but another shadow among shadows. His rumbling voice echoed through the abysmal hall in thousands of ghostly whispers. The once-gleaming city beyond the windows mirrored the sharp, dark nature the palace had adopted. Through the red haze, the shackled figures of the enslaved crystal ponies could be seen at work, digging deeper into the scabbed earth to free their king’s umbrum army.

Two alicorns stood before the king. The first was tall and whiter than the arctic snow, with a sunburst on her flank and trailing, soft pink mane and tail. Her golden crown and armor sparkled against the black throne room, but her ancient eyes and regal bearing were even more telling of her royal station. Beside the Sun Princess, her smaller sister stood silent and resolute. Her periwinkle coat, cobalt hair, and crescent moon cutie mark were less out of place in the darkness than her sister’s palette, but the hues of twilight were still a touch too bright for the Crystal King’s liking. The Moon Princess looked too young and fresh to be a monarch, especially in the onyx and silver regalia that surely belonged on an older, more experienced ruler.

“This madness ends now, Sombra,” declared Princess Celestia.

“In my hall, Princess,” Sombra hissed, “you shall address me as ‘King Sombra.’”

Celestia ignored him. “Free the crystal ponies. Step down. You can still do what is right.”

“What is right…” mused Sombra. He chuckled, leaning forward into the torchlight. His cruel eyes and scythe-like horn melted out of the shadows first, blood-red and wicked. He was tall and stormy grey, and his mane spilled down his neck in obsidian waves. A steely crown sat upon his brow, and a crimson robe graced his muscular frame. His fangs flashed as he smiled. “Another princess once said as much to me, but, then, Amore was always deluded and… broken.” King Sombra chuckled again. “She, too, thought pretty words could change what destiny had already ordained.”

Starlight began to glitter around Princess Luna’s horn, and she flared her wings in threat. “Enough of this!” she exclaimed, scowling at the king lounging upon his throne. “You are a tyrant unworthy of redemption. Your life has been forfeit since you first drew breath!” A cascade of cosmic fire erupted from her horn, searing through the air to consume Sombra.

An oily shield of dark magic blazed to life between Sombra and the princesses. Luna’s attack flickered fitfully and dispersed. As his shield shimmered out of sight, invisible but no less real, King Sombra laughed. “Petty threats from a foal in queen’s raiment!”

Luna’s scowl deepened, ears pinned. She looked about ready to lunge at Sombra, but her sister raised a restraining fore hoof before Luna’s breast.

“Even now, it is not too late for you, Sombra,” Celestia cautioned. “You can choose a path of destruction and despair, or you can choose a path of hope. This is your last chance.”

Memories of a slender unicorn with flowing curls and kind, amber eyes flitted through Sombra’s mind. He heard again her silken voice, coaxing him away from the shadows he had embraced. Sombra swiftly banished the phantoms of the past, lips curling in a sneer. Rising to his full height, the Crystal King abandoned his throne and slowly descended the three-tiered dais. Inky magic began to ooze around his horn, and wisps of shadow streamed from his eyes.

“You speak of things of which you know nothing, Daughter of the Sun,” he growled, a withering glare leveled on the Two Sisters. “I was conceived in shadow, and it is in shadow I rule. My umbrum brothers and sisters shall soon be freed, and all Equestria shall learn what it is to truly fear.”

A jagged bolt of cobalt lightning suddenly clawed through the nearest window toward Sombra. He did not even flinch, allowing the magical electricity to dance off his shield and scorch the floor by his hooves. Magic still blazing around her horn, Luna spread her wings and took to the air. She launched a third attack—a flood of blinding balefire. Sombra countered it with a beam of writhing shadow and flame. The collision of the two forces sent a shudder through the palace. Darkness and starlight violently raged against one another, each devouring the other in equal measure.

With a roar, King Sombra drew upon more of the black art. An inferno of power surged through him, igniting the umbrum inside. Flakes of his corporeal shell split and fell away as coils of dark energy burst through the cracks. Luna’s starlight was overwhelmed. In an explosion of black fire, she was blasted into the vaulted ceiling. Dust sprayed and shards of crystal splintered upon impact. Stunned, Luna plummeted toward the floor, but her sister caught her in a golden aura of magic.

Celestia carefully set Luna on the ground, sweeping a concerned wing around her. “Sister—”

“I am no foal to be doted upon, Celestia!” snapped Luna, struggling to her hooves and pushing away her sister’s wing. Though still somewhat unsteady, she fixed smoldering eyes on Sombra. Her magic was already gathering for another onslaught.

Sombra laughed. “Paradise is not so sweet when the day and night are divided!”

A beam of pure sunlight hurtled into Sombra’s magical shield. His dark spell dissolved where the light struck, creating a molten hole in his defenses. Sombra sneered, pinning his ears and glaring at Celestia with untempered loathing.

Celestia met that glower unwaveringly. “You have languished in the dark too long, Sombra. It is time to step into the light.” Golden light sparkled around her horn, growing brighter and whiter with each passing breath.

King Sombra bared his fangs in a snarl, calling forth new waves of dark magic. “You have no power here! I rule the darkness and the ghosts, the very nightmares that plague your simpering ponies’ sleep! I am the King!” he bellowed, unleashing a tidal surge of black fire and frigid shadow.

The Two Sisters darted to either side, evading the terrible tsunami and taking wing. They swerved, joining again to face Sombra united. Piercing rays of silver starlight and golden sunlight washed the obsidian hall in celestial radiance. The Two Sisters’ eyes burned white with power. As one, they touched the tips of their horns together and bathed Sombra in a river of searing magic. Screaming, Sombra’s mortal shell fractured, his soul and body charring from the inside out. His curses and shrieks echoed throughout the palace as all that he had become was ripped apart.

And then he was nothing but shadow, indistinct and scattering. Sombra roared as glacial walls enclosed him. The last things he saw before the snow and ice sealed him away beneath the arctic were the Two Sisters silhouetted against the rising moon.

But they did not know of his curse. They may have banished King Sombra, but he had banished his Crystal Empire.

* * *

Eternity was an interminable madness, even for a creature of shadow. The next shred of light Sombra saw was a sliver of moonlight as the ice above him cracked. Wintry air filtered through the chipping prison, invigorating after the millennium of entrapment.

One thousand years… His curse had waned, but, in its wake, Sombra would rise again.

Shooting upward, Sombra fragmented into wisps of shadow and curled into the open for the first time since the Two Sisters condemned him to the ice. The biting wind sought to disperse him, but Sombra had spent his imprisonment well. He knew how to control this incorporeal form as well as any umbrum who had not been born in a pony shell. He raised a thunderous howl of laughter, racing through the night, delighting in his freedom.

Then he turned his smoky gaze upon the arctic, and in the distance he could see the dimly illuminated skyline of the Crystal Empire. If he could reclaim his throne and the Crystal Heart, Sombra would be able to regain his preferred form and begin his work anew. With his goal revitalized and dark magic humming through his phantasmal figure, King Sombra melted into the darkness and rushed across the arctic to his kingdom. The umbrum had waited long enough. The time of shadows had come.

When Sombra arrived, however, he found his slaves protected by a seafoam dome of magic. The aura radiating from the spell was strikingly familiar and, ultimately, unmistakable. A descendant of Amore had survived his reign, and that descendant had returned to defend Amore’s home. Sombra scowled, stalking the perimeter in search of a gap in the defenses. Unfortunately, the shield was complete. He was cut off from his throne, from the Heart—the means of his rule over the crystal ponies. Although he had hidden it well, if some meddlesome equine did manage to find the Heart, Sombra as well as his umbrum army would be repelled from Equestria yet again, if they survived a second cleansing at all.

In his frustration, Sombra conjured a raging blizzard that blanketed the arctic in sheets of snow and froze it with frigid gales. But he knew wallowing in his fury would solve nothing. He would have to trust in the precautions he had taken when he had learned of the Two Sisters’ approach all those centuries ago.

And so he waited.

When the opportunity arose to snuff out the new Equestrian prince’s magic, Sombra struck. The foolish stallion left the safety of the Empire to retrieve a group of ponies and a young dragon. It was almost too easy, shadowing them as they trekked through the snow, springing the trap when their guard was down. Their terror was palpable, and Sombra reveled in it. Even when the young prince tried to fight back—such a pitiful display!—Sombra gloried in the act of rendering the unicorn’s magic useless. But the prince fled through the magical dome after the others, and King Sombra was left to wait once more.

This time, he did not have to wait long. The Amore descendant was not omnipotent; her magic could only last for so long. And when it began to fade, Sombra was ready. But he was too hasty, and for his stupidity he earned a severed horn. From behind the impenetrable curtain, ignoring the throbbing in what was left of his horn, Sombra watched the crimson fragment plop onto the earth. With a growl, he willed his dark magic to life, sending the thinnest tendrils of shadow through the ground toward the dismembered tip. Black and purple pools bubbled beneath the shard of horn, and it seeped below the surface to infect the Empire from within. Tiny clusters of dark crystals sprouted in the tip’s stead. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Excitement quelled Sombra’s worries as he waited, pacing around the protective dome and surrounding it with his adumbral storm. The Amore descendant’s magic was nearly spent. He was so close now, so close to reclaiming his power that he could taste it. As the glittering dome flickered, Sombra poured more and more dark magic into the black crystals infiltrating his stolen kingdom. The great archway that had always welcomed outlanders and journeycolts to the Empire grew dull and unfriendly, casting dark shadows along the road leading into the city. His horn reconstructed itself as his magic grew. Slowly, his old might was being restored.

Suddenly, black light flashed at the pinnacle of the palace. Somepony had found the Heart.

Sombra frowned, scowling. Dark magic seeped from his horn, piercing the dome just enough to activate the old defenses he had set around the Crystal Heart. Confident his bane and treasure was safe, Sombra returned his attention to the vast city itself. The protective magic was almost entirely gone, and he could spread his own magic throughout the crystal structures. The gleaming spires and shining abodes were soon wrought of the same dark crystal and shadow as the arch. He could see the crystal ponies frantically congregating in the courtyard beneath the palace, as they had so often during that blasted Crystal Faire under Amore’s reign. The sight grated low cackles from Sombra’s throat. Did his slaves really think to be rid of him so easily?

The dome fell. The magic of Amore was finished.

Sweeping forth in roiling tides of shadow, Sombra surged into the city. The terrified screams of his slaves rang like a symphony in his ears as he neared the palace. All the city was enveloped in his dark magic, and the thundering sky was glazed red. Clusters of black, purple, and red crystals sprouted jaggedly from every surface, slowly overwhelming the city and returning the Empire to the wicked glory from the days of King Sombra’s rule.

Then a voice interrupted Sombra’s triumph. Lifting his gaze to the top of the palace, Sombra discovered a puny dragon clutching the Heart in its claws. Sombra snarled venomously, power flooding freely from his vaporous form. After all he had done to them, these worthless slaves still had the audacity to defy him? His lips peeled away from his fangs as he rushed forward, roaring and raging. Then he plunged into the earth, spreading his shadows through the soil and erecting a spear of dark crystal to pierce the heavens. The earth shuddered with the sheer force of Sombra’s magic, and the serpent thief plummeted from the palace pinnacle, the Crystal Heart slipping from his grasp.

Riding the crystal ledge skyward, Sombra felt substance replace shadow. The black dregs were whisked away, melting into his familiar physical shell. Smiling, Sombra embraced his full power and fixed his gaze on the nearing Heart. So close now, so close! He could already feel this, the bane of his eternal existence, crumbling beneath his might. He was strong enough to destroy it forever. The Heart would be no more, and Sombra would raise the umbrum to cover all the world in wondrous shadow!

A pink blur raced past; the Heart was gone.

Sombra screamed as he spotted her, soaring earthward with the Crystal Heart levitating before her. The Amore descendant—she even looked like that deceitful witch! What was more, one of his traitorous crystal slaves declared her the Crystal Princess! There was only one monarch of the Crystal Empire, and it was no righteous alicorn! Shadows streaming from his eyes and black fire blazing around his horn, King Sombra howled his fury and reached for his umbrum still trapped beneath the earth.

But he was too slow. The Amore descendant had returned the Heart to its old dwelling in the courtyard beneath the palace. The crystal ponies were kneeling before her and the Heart. Light shone pure and blinding in the roads beneath their hooves, banishing Sombra’s shadows and igniting the symbol of the umbrum’s undoing millennia ago—the crystal snowflake of Princess Amore.

His dark crystals were shattering. He was shattering! Everything inside Sombra was screaming in agony. His magic was ripped from him, seared away by the power exploding from the Crystal Heart. Gleaming fissures spread all across his body, stealing from him his corporeal shell yet again. He was nothing but shadow. He was losing himself. Empty night, he was dying! Sombra’s world was afire—it was nothing but fire. A silent light consumed all he was, all he knew.

And then there was only cold. A hollow void. Darkness.

Nothing.