A King's Vanity

With the noise of the festival at my back I walk to the edge of the shield.

“Sombra!!” I shout “I want to talk to you”

The shield falters for a moment and I see the green serpentine eyes surrounded by the purple mist.

“And who of such low birth seeks and audience with me?” A deep guttural voice echoes.

“A willing recruit.” I answer.

Ten seconds pass when one of the crystal ponies gets too close to the shield, a massive black crystal emerges from the ground and a misty figure of Sombra snaps at her making her run off. After she vanishes into the fleet of brightly colored tents Sombra glares at me.

Don’t flinch, don’t fucking flinch!

“Come into the snow” He says “Away from these… dull creatures”

I walk through the shield… the winds sing an endless opera of screams, Sombra flies at me turning the cold icy ocean into a royal chamber decorated with red and grey flags, a fire emanates from a solid gold hearth and I find myself sitting in a chair carved out of emerald and encrusted with rubies. I look at the tea table and see an aquamarine chess board with obsidian and diamond pieces.

“Now then-” Sombra chuckles; moving the c3 diamond pawn forward one space “-Let’s talk.”

“Last time I played chess, I lost against a ballet dancer…” I growl moving the G8 knight to F6.

Sombra laughs and throws the game into the fire “Then perhaps I shall offer you a drink? SLAVE!!!”

The room vibrates with his voice, a door opens and Fluttershy limps in balancing a platter with a glass of merlot on her head. Sombra engulfs the merlot in a thick dark purple aura pours the drink into a glass chalice I grab the glass from the purple mist.

“Let me guess-“I mutter taking a sip of the noxious syrup “You found the crystal heart, destroyed it, enslaved the Elements of Harmony and took over Equestria?”

“Indeed-” Sombra answers putting the merlot back on the platter and Fluttershy limps out “-While looking through your memories, I also broke the magical spell that disgusting colt lover placed on you as an act of thanks while making you my personal own assassin”

“Knew you’d be old fashioned but it’s strange that I would become an assassin when I spent most of my life as an honest thief”

“It took a considerable amount of effort to undo the damage they did to your mind but fortunately it was only in its larval stage and given your silver tongue it would have been a waste to throw you into the mines.”

“But I still have metal wings” I state waving the heavy brass past my eyes.

“Consider it punishment for giving into your primal instincts against a possible ally.”

“And yet this is only one of a few possible outcomes.”

“How many exactly?”

“Four”

“Not one for high stakes?”

“Not one for looking for the most outlandish of possibilities”

“Then tell me of these four outcomes” Sombra growls leaning forward

“One: You succeed and turn Twilight into your apprentice because with her grief of failing a test to her teacher and failing her friends will break her mind long enough to see the alternative side in a much more favorable light that is IF she had taste of dark magic”

“Seems a bit cliché”

“Two: The crystal heart is found but the traps you’ve laid out for anyone trying to steal it is lethal and so ends the life of Twilight Sparkle, you gain enough power and when Cadence is unable to keep the shield up you retake the Crystal city and continue your life of mining up crystals until the lands run dry, then the slaves start to revolt, you get slaughtered by your faithful zealots and they parade your head through the city on a pike”

“They can try”

“Three: Since this land has unhealthy habits of letting ‘good’ win whenever some force threatens the already shifted balance, they find the crystal heart and you will no doubt be obliterated by the power of ‘love’”

"‘Love conquers all’ what a disgusting notion” Sombra spits into the fire.

“You’ll receive no complaints from me on that m'lord”

“And the final outcome?”

“You kill me and an Element of Harmony dies with me leaving Equestria defenseless you then kill every alicorn you see then you continue your reign as if nothing changed. Plus if you kill me, you eliminate an even greater threat to your kingdom”

“Yes… this ‘Gin’ has been a particular problem in your journeys but he had a different name under my rule”

“And here I thought we both had a great distaste for clichés”

“Sometimes they are unavoidable”

“So he was telling the truth when he said he had lived for eons”

“We called him Hermot, and he was alive long before I was born… he showed me the gift of darkness but he never told me of the spell that could prolong his life but no matter how hard I tried, no matter how painfully I killed him he would always come back so I decided to bury him in a large room with many old wards but when my empire faded… so did the wards.”

”A creature older than Princess Celestia herself? One even the great king Sombra fears and has been on this planet long before either of you with no historical records? What the fuck is he?”

“He simply is, if he wanted to tell us about his past we would already know but for now the time for talk is over, it’s time for you to prove your worth. If I release you from this illusion, will you go back to my castle and kill the princess of love?”

Before I can answer the room is filled with a loud klaxon alarm, everything turns into a black mist and is replaced with snow, Sombra flies over me and toward the spire, and I try to move back into the shield but he looks back at me and a concussive force knocks me back onto the other side of the train tracks. The wind howls and ice stabs through my skin as I try to trudge back to the city when a loud blast fills the air and the shield rushes towards me stopping an inch from my nose… I walk through the shield to find all the snow has melted, the air is warm, and no wind can be felt.

I reach the city and find all the crystal ponies have their original sheen as do Spike, Fluttershy, Rarity, Twilight, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Cadence and even Shining. All are now well groomed but when I look into a window I see that I’m still the same dull, ragged white coat and dirty black maned stallion that was dragged out of his bar and forced into his sentenced servitude, I glare at Twilight and when we meet eyes I gesture to the spire, she whispers something to Cadence, then tosses Spike into the crowd who catch him and start parading him through the city leaving me to piece together what happened when the booming thud of the spire doors snap me out of my daze and I see the six, Cadence and Shining staring at me ready for the moment I explode but I just let out a long, deep, shuddering sigh… I’m too tired to be pissed.