Accursed Union

Punishment

The light! The accursed light of friendship! How can something so...weak and...worthless...A tool of the easily crushed and the soft who believe that unity and togetherness are sources of power, destroy him?! KING SOMBRA! The master; The Lord of Foul Plots, The Deceiver of All Nations, Eater of the weak and the dead. The True High King Of The Crystal Empire, A God of Destruction, He-Who-Destroys and Eradicates!... his lofty names, but they befit only mortal ponies and weaklings. In truth; his might, it is...was all for naught. Names mean nothing to him. He cares for those who care for themselves, whose hearts are full of purpose, whose lives are full of deeds....evil deeds.

Now all that he could see and feel around him was the bright flashes of various sickening bright colors, A sickening Rainbow, wretched and weak butterflies, gems that he could crush in his hoof unworthy of him, the symbols of those...females. The mares who had sent him into a fate worse then death. For he could honor an opponent that would destroy him and send him into a world of darkness, the void. The cold empty of death for the malevolent where he would reawaken the dead to feast on what was left their souls, and reign forever as an unholy lord of darkness, but the mares had only given him the greatest insult they could. He'd been banished to realm of light; where second by second and moment by moment was an insufferable torment.

He came too in a void, but it wasn't a void of blackness and cold. Rather it was a void of light and colors, the swirling and blinding of the sickly sweetness, He had to shut his eyes to try and block out the pain of it all, Those elements of harmony where clearly underestimated. He wrapped himself up in his own hooves and for the first time since he was only a little colt, the weak and pitiful Prince Soft heart. He wished someone was there to make the pain stop. The pain of the burning light piercing his soft hide, no longer strong from the solid crystal that had made him immune to pain, it was all gone. Alas, his ascension to the king of all that he was had taken all that from him, perhaps this was why it pained him so. What sort of king of destruction and change can he be when he cries out for help to make his suffering end...it was a cycle; a paradox, it was a loop he had only himself to blame for being trapped in.

"Woe to thee King Sombra. He said to only himself, "Thy throne is gone, tho kingdom is asunder to the the princess of..love, and now thy flesh consumed." "Consumed in all that sickens you, poor unfortunate soul, poor besmirched King, and thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, with only your own foolishness and weakness to blame." In his new home in a torrent of his own misery...Sombra mourned.

Midnight Castle

The ebony walls; the moldy old carpets, the tapestries with their moth eaten holes and dank smell, He was truly home. A cloaked figure; hidden under the layers of tattered patches and a hood. He made his way across the threshold; His big Minotaur hooves and hulking frame as he looked around at his home. A lifetime ago he had lead a group of ponies here to become what he wanted, his army of dragons to plunge the world in darkness and destroy everything those ponies created. Lord Tirek strode over to the centerpiece of the main hall; a large black cauldron, the very one he had conjured his anti rainbow in, now hopefully it can serve another purpose.

"One cast into the light, always returns to the dark." He said as he reached his clawed hand to a pouch in his side. It was a hide pouch made from the skin of his last minion scorpan. before the magic of those accursed ponies made him shed the "blessing" he had bestowed on him. He took the shed hide where he found it in Dream Valley and tanned it into this pouch, now hopefully it could serve him better than the traitor it belonged to. Opening the flap of his pouch his hand took a lump of the terrible king's ash remains; Tirek placed the ash inside the metal crucible, the carved stone reptilian faces on the sides had their eyes glow softly red.

In his torment; the pain Finally stopped. In surprise King Sombra finally opened his eyes, the sickening color had finally died off, now he could see only darkness and silence around him, now he could rest.

"Ash of the fallen, mercifully salvaged, the one who cannot die." Tirek said to himself as he placed his wrist over the rim of the cauldron. "By the blood of my blood, return to me banished one." He recited in a chant as his free hand drew and silver dagger from his sheath belt. The silver was the only metal capable of leaving him with a wound that wouldn't close as soon as it is cleaved, but for his ritual he would need to bleed. He ran the blood over the wrist opening a vein; crimson droplets hit the ash, making it bubble and smoke softly before erupting into hissing flames. Tirek neither flinched nor winced as his blood covered the ash. Out of the corner of the shadows a green and red snake slithered over the floor to him; he picked the serpent up and squeezed the head making it hiss as it showed him fangs, wickedly sharp in the bright purple maw of the snake. He placed the snake's jaw over the rim of the cauldron and let drop after drop of venom flow into the brew, there was no more incantations, just call him home.

Burning; that's what he felt now. He felt the burning pain from when the light destroyed him yet again. Only now it wasn't hurting him, It was empowering! It was like every nerve in his body was being pleasured in ways that a thousand word couldn't even begin to describe the sensations surging through him. His eyes where wild with the green fire that he had when he last drew breath, He felt his heart, black and icy pump in his chest yet again as the wrought iron of his lungs sucked air again. He lives!

He came too curled up on a metal surface, he looked up to see a stained glass ceiling above him, It took a moment before he realized he had been stuffed inside a cauldron, and his coat was sticky with a thick and gooey purple ooze. Snake venom; pot ash? No...His first body's ash, and blood. The blood of a being as wretched and vile as he. Whoever had revived him was a being that he would thank, not kill for foolishness. He stretched his limbs for the first time what felt like eons, to have them again, to breathe to feel to be...uncomfortably sitting in a cooking pot.

"Sire? are you awake?" He heard a voice call above him. He placed his hooves on the rim and lifted himself up to the edge of it. He looked to see lord Tirek stepping back from the cauldron, he was on his knee and beside him mounted on a wooden horse, was a new set of armor and a flowing red robe with the furs dyed with sacrificial blood and the trim made from the coats of white unicorns.

"You have done well lord Tirek, You please your king with this display of loyalty to me...but why have you resurrected me?"

"Sire...You are the true King not just of the Crystal Empire but of Equestria, you're title is your's to claim, and I've scoured this land looking for a means to do so."

"What do you mean you've searched for means?' The dark king asked his savant, as he raised himself from the cauldron and trotted over the armor, taking it and steeling himself and covering his regalia in his robe, oh if only to have a crown to complete the set and make him king.

"Sire...there is someone on their way here to see you, someone with a proposition to help you claim what is rightfully yours." Tirek said smiling at the return of his king.

The Desert

Their caravans where like dark shapes making their way over the sands of the wastelands; Black with jagged ends and shapes, constructed from the shed shells of giant insects, they did indeed look like giant insects. Scorpions; beetles, spiders and other vile creatures. Only with wheels where they had legs; inside the hollow shells the dark green eyes of many displaced changelings as they sat in close proximity to each other. They stayed close softly tending to the cocoons their "mother" had encased them in for the journey. The nutrients of the silk and webbing that had been sustaining they was almost used up; they where afraid they'd die out here in the wastes.

On a throne made of ebony shells on a wagon carrying only her and her closest children; She tightened the black wrappings around her, the hood of her robes fell away as she looked up at the setting sun. In the distance on the summit of the forbidden mountains was the towers and buttresses of Midnight Castle. She smiled at it. "Soon my children, we shall not be so easily bested." Queen Chrysalis said with a twisted smile as her sea-foam green eyes glowed with a bright, fiery glint.