The Darkness Ascends

Two ponies who were the same person were fighting inside of Sombra's mind.

"No! I will never surrender to you! I shall find a way to overpower you, one day soon."

A deep voice laughed. "And how do you think you can defeat yourself, Sombra?"

"I-I don't know. But I will find a way!"

The voice laughed again. "Your plan will not prevail. It is too late. You are powerless. You should've known better than to allow the dark magic to corrupt your soul. Now I have full control."

"But-"

"No! I have no weakness! You shall crumble underneath my wrath eventually. How a fragment of your good side still exists is a mystery to me."

~~~

Prison was the worst.

You barely got any food, the food you got was disgusting and stale, there were absolutely no sanitary conditions, all the other inmates were scary and rude, and the guards were cruel.

They would always shout and scream at all of the prisoners. There was one in particular, however, Crimson Aura, who was always a bit more unjustified than the others. He yelled the most, and had a sword over two dark red crystals for a cutie mark. It went fine with his navy blue coat and jet black mane.

"Alright, ALRIGHT! There's a reason why all of you unworthy pieces of scum were sent down here, and I don't care why. All you need to know is that we are not equals, and under any circumstances are you to ever disregard an order from me. Ever."

He would send a dark scowl upon all of them, and stare deep inside of them, with his Crimson eyes.

He yelled at Rainbow the most, for silly things, like how she was much too close to the cell bars, or that she was not allowed to drink that much water, and would be grounded to a five day ban from meals.

Their days were dull, and boring. Inside the cold wet dungeon, nothing happened. There was always the stench of boredom and thirst for freedom that clung to the air, and was overpowering. Fluttershy needed to get out of this place. She usually slept in the back corner near her friends, but her spot was near the cell door, only a few steps away from the prisoners next door.

They were a group of stallions, who had horrible violent things for cutie marks.

Fluttershy remembered when she first arrived, the guards eyed hers suspiciously. Crimson Aura came up to her and asked, "Wow. Nice cutie mark. What'd you do, kill somepony with butterflies?" He started to crack up, and when Fluttershy opened her mouth to respond, he told her that any unpermitted words or actions would be punished upon greatly.

She shut her mouth and ignored the growling of her stomache.

~~~

Twilight was exhausted.

She had managed to evade capture again, but things weren't looking too bright for her anytime soon.

She was going to have to teleport somewhere else before the Crystal guards could find her.

She was headed to Canterlot, in hopes of finding Princess Celestia, and have her help get her friends back.

But so far, she wasn't having much luck. She had to keep running, and teleporting little by little, since her magic was growing thin.

The reason was because all of Equestria's magic seemed to be disappearing.

Fear and hatred were inside of the Crystal Empire, and it was reflecting off of all of Equestria.

Twilight needed to get to Canterlot; fast.

She was trotting past the edge of the Everfree forest, nearby her home. She wanted to go and visit there, and hopefully grab some supplies before she had to run off again, but she didn't want to put any of her other Ponyville formed in danger.

Her mane was a mess, and the rest of her wasn't looking very good either.

She kept trudging on, slowly but surely. The closer she got to Canterlot, the stronger she could feel her magic become. Perhaps Celestia had protected it from any outside dangers like Shining Armor and Candence's wedding.

After a few miles, Twilight found the strength to teleport.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Surrender traitor!" A voice directed to her called out in the distance.

Just in time.

Before the Umbra earth pony knew what hit him, the purple unicorn mare had dissapeared, in a smoky flash.

~~~

"Dear sister, I fear that something horrible has happened."

"I am afraid so, Luna. He has returned."

Luna sighed and looked at the ground.

"Is he...dangerous?"

Her voice cracked.

"Quite possibly, yes. But he is still very weak. It will take him some time to regain his full power, but not enough. We need more time!"

Celestia stomped her hood into the ground, clearly frustrated.

Luna cleared her throat.

"Ahem, Yes sister. But if he returns, is it possible to-"

Celestia looked down on her little sister with a sad gaze.

"I do not know, Luna. I know how hard this must be for you, considering that you two were very close."

There was a hint of hurt in her voice.

"I am sorry sister. I did not mean it that way."

The white Alicorn princess nodded.

"Of course you didn't."

~~~

Imagine a huge, overwhelming pool of darkness.

Now picture a single, tiny sliver of light, about the same size as a speck of dust.

That is what it was like inside of King Sombra's mind.

After a huge mistake and hard decision, the unicorn King had resorted to dark magic in order to protect his loved ones.

But he had failed.

He had been tricked, and was consumed by the evil inside of him. He could no longer think clearly, and his headaches were driving him close to insanity.

He would have loved to have his only problem be the slight inconvenience of insanity.

But it was not so, and he was corrupted. His thoughts turned dark, his heart black, his soul to crystal ice.

Any trace of him was long gone.

~~~

But there was one chance for hope.