Angel or demon?

Chapters

Chapter 1 - A wolf in sheep's clothing
Chapter 2 - Under new management
Chapter 3 - Releasing control art restriction to level zero
Chapter 4 - Cloudy with a chance of end of the world

Chapter 1 - A wolf in sheep's clothing

It was nighttime and the moon shone high in the starry sky, bathing the land with its silver light. For many this was the time to rest after a long day of work, but for Princess Celestia sleeping was the last thing on her mind at the moment.

Dressed in a white dress with golden finishing, the white alicorn walked at a quick pace through the corridor, the clicking of her heels on the marble floor being the only sound to accompany her at this late hour. Her long legs allowed her to cover more distance in a single step than what one of her subjects would do without running, each step causing her big breasts to bounce slightly. Her face, usually adorned by a warm serene smile, now bore a serious expression. Those who knew her well could tell by a look at her magenta eyes that something seemed to trouble her, and the way her ethereal mane and tail waved behind her more agitated than usual, partially hiding her big angelic wings, seemed to confirm it.

A pair of guards wearing the armor with the colors of her sister were guarding the glass door leading to the gardens. The moment they saw her, the two guards snapped to attention and, once realizing her intentions, they dutifully opened the door. The princess didn't slow her pace, but nodded in acknowledgment to the two ponies while she passed through the threshold. The fresh air of the night welcomed her as soon as she set step outside, but she barely noticed it as she made her way through the royal gardens.

Given the size of the royal gardens, it took her several minutes to reach her destination. Of course, she would have arrived more quickly if she had flew with her wings or even used her magic to teleport, but using her legs offered advantages. The content of the last report from the Crystal Empire had been shocking to say the least, and the emergency council that had followed had just managed to make her even more worried. Walking gave her the opportunity to clear her mind a bit.

‘Stop trying to fool yourself,’ she thought. ‘You know the real reason why you chose to walk is because you want to delay this meeting as much as possible.’

She passed through a gap in a tall hedgerow, leading to a secluded area of the park, a sort of backstage for the gardens where parties usually took place.

The air here smelled of freshly cut grass and loose soil, so different from the smell of ink and paper of her office, but not in an unpleasant way.

After a bit more wandering, she finally found the pony she was looking for. The gardener was mulching a flower bed housing big blue luminescent mushrooms, humming a familiar tune. Despite a voice inside her mind telling her to make haste, she waited patiently until the pony completed his task, before cleaning her throat to attract his attention. The young stallion turned his head curiously, but when he realized who she was, he hastily got back on his feet and bowed.

“Good evening, your Highness,” he saluted politely with a friendly smile.

“Good evening, Autumn Harvest,” she responded, reciprocating the smile. The sight of a gardener working so late would have been a strange occurrence in other circumstances, but Autumn was a case apart, as he was helping with a special project.

“How may I serve you, princess?” he asked.

“Uh, is Selena nearby?” Celestia asked somewhat awkwardly, briefly darting her gaze around. ‘Of course she is, you royal idiot.’ Due to the special situation of the mare, she wasn’t allowed to wander freely around, and when she left her quarters, it was always under direct surveillance of a squad of her best guards. Celestia knew it perfectly. After all, she had been the one to establish the procedures about how to deal with their… special guest. The princess however asked it anyway. It helped to give an illusion of normality, at least for the sake of the young gardener.

If Autumn noticed any changes in her behavior, he didn’t show it. “She’s in the greenhouse, princess. I’ll lead you to her, if you want,” he offered, pointing with a thumb behind him.

“Yes, please.”

The stallion nodded and gestured to follow him. He was tall, not as much as Applejack’s brother, but still taller than average. He had a nice muscular physique, the evident result of a life spent working outdoors. His coat was a soft chestnut brown and his short hair was blond like ripe wheat. His clothes consisted of a pair of green overalls, worn over a black shirt with rolled up sleeves, and a pair of garden boots.

It wasn’t a long walk to the greenhouse. It was an elegant rectangular structure, roughly the size of three tennis courts, built in wrought iron and clear crystal coming directly from the Crystal Empire. In the surroundings of the structure there were several guards tasked with securing the area and keeping an eye on the pony working inside the greenhouse.

Autumn Harvest opened the door out of courtesy to the princess and they both stepped inside.

The interior of the greenhouse was spacious and well equipped, with two lines of wooden benches neatly lined along its length. Some of the benches were empty, others were covered with flower pots with plants in differents stages of development, ranging from seedlings to full grown specimens. Even a pony without any experience in botany could easily tell that none of these were ordinary plants, given that some didn’t even exist in nature.

In front of one of the workbenches, showing her shoulders to the entrance, there was a mare who was planting blue striped bulbs in some pots. The mare was a unicorn, apparently a few years older than Autumn, dressed in an attire similar to his, only with blue overalls. She had a blue coat with shoulder-length cerulean hair. Autumn Harvest coughed to attract the attention of the mare. “Selena? You have visitors.”

The mare paused her actions and turned, revealing her eyes. The irises were round, like those of every other pony, but where the eyes were supposed to be white, they were teal instead. Celestia did her best not to look perturbed, but every time she saw the mare, she felt a cold shiver run down her spine. There was only one pony with that kind of eyes...

“Oh, Celestia. I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” the mare said neutrally with a straight face, without bothering to bow or perform any other kind of gesture of deference. Around her neck she wore what at a first glance appeared to be a simple choker with a small sapphire, but Celestia knew that it was actually an inhibitor collar. “So, what brings you here? Did you come to see the latest results of my work?” the unicorn asked casually, gesturing to a row of pots arranged ordinately on a nearby bench, each one containing a tulip. The plants were rather unusual, with blue leaves and flowers that glowed of a gentle purple light. “I’m quite satisfied of the result, although I think there’s still room for improvement. Maybe the leaves could have silver veins?”

“As much as I’d like to discuss magic botany, I came here to talk with you about a delicate matter, Selena,” Celestia said.

The unicorn studies the visage of the princess. Her face would have put a poker player to shame, but the blue mare was good at reading facial expressions and she was able to tell that Celestia was worried.

“I see,” she said slowly with a dry tone. Her face suddenly brightened, before she turned to the stallion. “Autumn? Would you be so nice to leave us for a bit? You know, mares talk.”

“Uh-” the stallion seemed to hesitate a moment, as if worried to leave Selena alone with the princess, but the smile of Selena seemed to reassure him. “Sure. Call me, if you need anything,” he said, before saluting the princess. “Your highness.”

The alicorn nodded to him in return, her gaze lingering discreetly on him as he walked away.

When she looked back to the other mare, she saw that she was looking at her with an annoyed expression. “What? The great princess of the sun is afraid that I’ll try to overthrow her with an army composed by a single gardener?” Selena asked sarcastically. “Don’t worry, I’m not gathering followers.”

“That’s not-!” Celestia paused to recompose herself. “I was not implying anything like that. I’m just pleased to see that there is somepony that seems to care for you.”

The unicorn pursed her lips and gave her a dismissive look. “Umpf, I guess. He’s a bit naive, and sometimes he can really be annoying, but he’s the only one that doesn’t seem to be afraid of me.”

“Everypony needs a friend,” Celestia commented.

Selena rolled her eyes and snorted. She removed her gardening gloves and placed them on the table, focusing completely on the princess.

“So, can we stop this pathetic and awkward attempt of a friendly conversation and instead get to the reason that forced you to speak with the mare that you despise the most?” Selena asked with a provocatory smirk, crossing her arms under her modest chest.

“I-” Damn, why was it so difficult to say something so simple? “I need your help.”

“Really?” The unicorn stared at her with a raised eyebrow. “The great princess Celestia comes to ask help from me of all ponies. Ah. How amusing.” She smiled, as if she was the only one to see the irony of the situation.

The princess tried to keep her composure, but a mix of different emotions flashed briefly in her eyes. Embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, and if Selena read correctly, anger. Well, at least Celestia was being honest.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You don’t even have to say anything. I know what really lies behind your perfect mask of serenity, as well as what you would really say when instead you are forced to tell all those sappy speeches about second chances and redemption in front of your subjects. You do not trust me and probably never will, not that I can really blame you for this. Given our story, if it had been up to you, you would have ordered my execution a long time ago. The only reason I’m still alive is the circumstances behind my existence in the first place. You hoped that on that night I would have been wiped away forever, only to become a horrible distant memory. A nightmare.”

That last word, pronounced by the mare in front of her, made Celestia flinch visibly.

“So, what would the problem be?” Selena asked innocently, deciding she had teased the princess enough.

“It’s the Crystal Empire.”

“What happened? The overgrown lizard of your student started eating it?”

“He’s back,” Celestia said seriously, looking the mare straight in the eyes.

Selena looked at her in confusion. “Who are you- no.” She looked at the princess in a brief display of surprise and incredulity when she realized who Celestia was talking about. “No, it can’t be. The Crystal Heart killed him. From what you told me, he literally exploded.”

“And yet, by means completely unknown, King Sombra somehow survived, and now the Empire is under his control.”

“Hmm. You have to give him credit. Taking over an entire country all by himself is not an easy feat. I know it from direct experience.”

Ignoring the mare’s remark, Celestia continued her tale. “According from the reports that I received from my agent before he was captured, he’s building an army to wage war against Equestria, using the citizens of the Empire as soldiers.”

“What’s so strange? I doubt he would have used them only to work in his mines. Although, I find it strange that they are willing to fight for him.”

“They don’t. They’re actually mind controlled. The armor that they are forced to wear suppresses their own free will and personality, turning them into mindless slaves that obey every single order of the king.”

This seemed to catch Selena’s interest. “Really? Interesting,” she muttered. “I guess that the armor is also enchanted to prevent magical manipulation, right?”

Celestia nodded. “There have been a couple of skirmishes across our borders during the last few hours. From what we have ascertained, the armor possess special crystals that protect them against most of the spells. Combat magic can still affect them to a certain degree, but all our attempts to remove them or cleanse them of the mind-control spell have proved to be unsuccessful.”

“Sombra may be crazy and cruel, but he’s not stupid. The Crystal War proved it.” The unicorn looked at the princess thoughtfully for a moment. “Speaking of which, I still can’t see where the problem is. You and your sister already defeated him in the past. You surely can do it again.” She paused, studying the alicorn. Celestia was powerful and there were few things on this world able to pose a match to her, especially now that Luna was back. “Unless there’s something that prevents you from going there in person.” A flash of suspicion crossed her mind. “Say, where is your niece?”

Celestia took a sharp breath, clenching her fists. If it wasn’t for the color of her fur, Selena would have probably seen her knuckles turn white.

“Cadence and Shining Armor are prisoners of Sombra,” she said with a barely audible tone, confirming Selena’s suspicions.

Selena nodded slowly. “I see. You fear that he will use them as leverage if you try to fight him like you did the first time, which he would probably do. He knows that in a direct combat he would be outmatched, so he wants to force you to engage him in a conventional conflict.”

“They are my family, Selena. And as much as the alternative pains me, I can’t bear the risk of losing them.”

“And you’re willing to risk a war just for them? Aww, how noble,” Selena said with a tone that dripped with sarcasm. “So, even the perfect princess of the sun is able to act egoistically for once, choosing her family over her country. Strange, considering what happened last time.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed dangerously and gave her a glare that would have set a tree on fire. “My actions were justified,” she hissed. “And do not dare to say I did it lightheartedly because it was the easiest thing to do. I’ve cried over my sister for centuries because of you.”

“Alright, alright. I crossed the line. You don’t like to be reminded of the past and there’s no point starting a verbal fight that none of us would win. But you have yet to explain why you came asking for my help.”

“There’s another reason why neither me and my sister, nor Twilight and her friends,” - she ignored the look of disgust of the unicorn at their mention - “can get close to Sombra. The king used his powers to corrupt the Crystal Heart, which now acts as a barrier against the avatars of harmony, both past and present.”

“And given that you and little Woona were the bearers of the Elements before those six fillies, none of you can get through the barrier,” Selena said, putting together the pieces of the puzzle. “Still, why me?”

“Your powers are... different. They should allow you to get inside the Empire without a problem. I need you to reach the Heart and break the spell, so that we can deal with Sombra once and forever.”

“Oh, no banishment or reformation using the magic of friendship?” Selena asked, pouting with faux disappointment.

“There’s no light in his heart. But I guess you know it from direct experience, right?” Celestia said innocently with a hint of a smirk, ignoring the dirty glare of the mare.

“You know, I want to punch your face so badly right now, but then I would be fined for damaging an archeological artifact.”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “I’m not the only one to lie about the number of her birthday candles.”

“Hmm, touche. Jokes aside, this leaves only one question: why should I help you?”

“If you assist us, there will be benefits for you.”

“Oh? Really?” Selena raised a brow, showing mild interest. “What kind of benefits?”

“A revision of your custody conditions. You will receive a more spacious accommodation in one of the towers, the restrictions about the nature of the objects you may request will be less strict, and…” Celestia paused a moment to get the previous information sink in and stir the interest of the mare, “... you would no longer be relegated inside the castle. Your freedom of movement would be increased to the entire city of Canterlot, with even the possibility to visit certain locations of the country. Of course, you will always remain under strict surveillance and leave only with an escort of guards.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, assuming a contemplative expression. “Nah, I think I’ll pass.”

“Think about it. Do you really want to spend the rest of your existence behind the walls of this castle?”

Selena chuckled. “I’m not your dog, Celestia. Even if you were to give me a longer lash, I would still be a prisoner.”

“Can you really blame me?”

“No. But I still refuse your offer, if this is the best you can do.”

“Countless lives will be lost if you don’t help us,” Celestia said, trying to invoke the mare’s morals.

The unicorn snorted. “You speak of it as if I should care for their miserable lives. We both know that they’re nothing more than dust and shadows compared to us. We are superior to them in the same way they are superior to insects. They should be glad that we allow them to serve and die for us.”

Her words caused Celestia’s face to turn into a mask of anger, but taking a sharp deep breath the princess managed, although barely, to not explode. “I had almost forgotten that you don’t have a soul. Alright, what do you want then?”

“Ah, finally you asked it! But I think the answer is pretty simple, my dear.” Her hand moved to her neck, tapping the choker with her index. “Remove this collar and set me free.”

“NO!” Celestia shout vehemently with enough force in her voice to cause the crystal of the greenhouse to vibrate for a brief moment. “That’s absolutely unacceptable,” she said once she had regained control. “The best you can hope for is a reduction of the suppressive spell.”

“And how do you expect me to pass through Sombra’s defenses? Let me guess, you were planning to throw me over the wall with a catapult?”

“Do not try to insult my intelligence. We both know that even with a fraction of your powers you would be as powerful as Twilight was before her ascension.”

“And we all know how well your little precious perfect student fared when she faced the King last time,” Selena said with a condescending smile. The princess remained silent. “Consider this, then. You know what I’m able to do. Everypony knows it, it’s stuff of legend by now. Sombra, however… you and your sister stopped him before he was able to enact his plans. When you faced him last time, you only got a little taste of his power. Who knows what kind of surprises he has for you and your beloved little ponies.” The mare closed her eyes and smiled. “I can already see it. A king with delusions of grandeur and great powers, without minimal respect for life, with an army literally ready to die at his will. Hmm, sounds like your guards and the population of the future war zones will have lot of fun in the next future.” Selena reopened her eyes and locked her gaze with the one of the princess, her smirk never leaving her lips.

“I will think about it,” Celestia said neutrally after a bit.

Selena seemed satisfied. “Excellent. You know where to find me,” she said, returning to work on her plants. “Goodnight, Celestia,” she saluted without even looking at her.

“Goodnight, Selena.” Even if the mare was turned, Celestia could clearly see that she was smiling.

The alicorn left the greenhouse and walked toward a big oak tree located about a hundred meters from the crystal structure. Waiting for her under the shadow of the big tree was another alicorn. Dressed in a black and silver dress, she was a bit shorter than Celestia, with a dark blue fur and a mane that resembled the night sky. Her physique was a bit less curvaceous than her sister, looking instead more athletic.

“So? How did it go?” Luna asked, stepping out of the shadow of the branches and into the moonlight.

Celestia rubbed her face and told her sister her conversation with Selena.

“Are you sure it is the right decision, sister?” Luna asked, clearly skeptical after a few moments of silent reflection.

“No,” Celestia admitted, glancing back at the greenhouse. “But I fear it’s the only choice we have.”

Chapter 2 - Under new management

The interiors of the Crystal Palace were dark, the only light provided by the occasional torch strategically placed on the wall. Gone were the bright colors of the crystal surfaces, replaced by darker and more ominous tones.

Princess Cadence walked down one of the corridors, the sound of her delicate footsteps a complete contrast with the thumping noise produced by the armored boots of the guard escorting her. Like all the soldiers in Sombra’s army, the stallion was covered head to toe with a heavy set of armor, studied to offer the maximum protection to the wearer while also appearing as intimidating as possible. The heavy helmet resembled some kind of war mask, decorated with a tall black mohawk of raven feathers and with two horizontal eye slits from which came an eerie green glow.

The entire journey to their destination proceeded with neither of them uttering a word. The alicorn had soon learned that Sombra’s soldiers were unable to socially interact.

The corridor ended to a door guarded by two guards standing at both sides. Their heavily armored heads moved slightly to follow her movements, their hands maintained a firm grip on the hilts of their swords, ready to draw them at the faintest hint of a threat for their master.

Cadence stopped a few steps in front of them. “The King is waiting for me,” she said with a neutral voice.

The two guards maintained their unfaltering gaze on her, then, without uttering a single word, one of them opened the door.

The alicorn hesitated once she reached the threshold, causing her guardian to push her gently but firmly with his gloved hand. Cadence didn’t resist, knowing it would be pointless. The stallion was trapped in his own nightmare, forced against his will by the armor he wore to obey without question every order of his master.

Picking up her courage, the alicorn stepped in the room. The office looked similar to the rest of the castle, dark and with an ominous air that seemed studied to instill fear and discomfort in whoever stepped inside.

And just like the rest of the castle, this room was adorned with several artifacts that were once on display in the imperial museum. One of the first things the king had acquired after his return, after destroying the statue built in Spike’s honor, was to reappropriate of what, according to him, was his rightfully property. Priceless finds that once belonged to the Empire’s community, displayed so that they could be freely admired by crystal ponies curious of their past, were now concealed behind the walls of the castle for the eyes of the king only.

The only reason the imperial library had not suffered a similar fate was due to the amount of volumes that made it virtually impossible to transfer all of them into the castle, but Sombra had solved the problem by closing the library to the public.

Knowledge is power and if there was a thing that the tyrant craved more than anything else, it was power.

King Sombra was sitting at a big desk made of black crystal that faced the door with his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his crossed fingers, deeply immersed in the reading of a big ancient tome. Cadence didn’t recognize the book, but the intricate black runes covering the yellowed pages told her that it was a book of magic, most likely one about dark arts that should have been sealed in a vault or, better yet, destroyed.

At the sound of the door closing behind her, the stallion slowly raised his gaze from the test in front of him and looked maliciously at the princess.

“Cadence. How kind of you to come,” he said casually.

“Not that I really have a choice in the matter, Sombra,” she replied, meeting his eyes with a cold gaze.

“True,” he conceded, never dropping his smirk. He beckoned her to get closer with a hand. “Come here.”

As much as she would have refused, Cadence forced her body to obey the order. The unicorn stared openly at her body as she walked, enjoying the way her hips gently swayed with each step while her breasts bounced due to her lack of a bra. Her only clothes consisted of a sleeveless tunic made of rough grey fabric, which not only was uncomfortable, but it barely covered her body. It left a good portion of her cleavage exposed, and it reached halfway to her thighs, while instead of a hole for her tail, there was a simple cut in the lower rear part that caused her ass to be visible, especially if she bent down. Firmly clamped around her neck was a heavy inhibitor collar made of metal, covered by an intricate series of magical runes.

When she was a couple of meters from the desk, the pink alicorn stopped, staring at the king with a neutral expression. Sombra slowly stood up from his chair and walked around the desk toward the princess until he was within arm’s reach in front her.

Despite her best attempts to remain calm, her proximity to the king made Cadence nervous. If you wanted to physically describe Sombra, impressive was likely the right word. The stallion was tall, even compared to her. Like the other alicorns, Cadence was tall by pony standard, but Sombra easily towered several inches above her six feet three.
His body was strong, unusually muscular for a unicorn, more similar to that of an earth pony stallion, with broad shoulders and powerful limbs. He had black shoulder-length hair that continued with thick sideburns that framed what was without a doubt a handsome face. The similarities with a movie star however ended here. The unusually long horn that protruded from his forehead was completely different from that of a normal unicorn; instead of being straight and conical, it was curved, vaguely resembling a blade. And then, there were his bright red eyes, glowing with malice and madness with the same intensity of a couple of burning firebrands of a fire pit from Tartarus.

His physical appearance wasn’t the only reason Cadence felt uncomfortable in being so close to him. There was something more, an aura of darkness that the stallion seemed to emanate as result not only of his abuse of dark magic, but also his evil nature.

Ignoring the little filly inside of her head screaming at her to run away from the monster in front of her, Cadence did her best to appear strong and confident, looking him right in the eyes while standing straight and dignified like her aunt had taught her. This however had the unwanted side effect of pushing out her chest, a detail that Sombra didn’t seem to miss if his smile getting a bit wider was of any indication.

“So, how is my favorite toy today?” he asked, exposing his sharp teeth in the process, while he slowly moved his hand up to her face. Cadence tensed, feeling the back of his hand delicately brush the side of her face.

“I was much better before I saw you,” she said coldly, shuddering at the contact.

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a nice thing to say,” he said, moving his hand to her nape and rudely grabbing the base of her hair. “Remember your place, princess. The life of your husband is in your hands. If you don’t behave... well, you know the answer.”

Still holding her hair painfully tight, Sombra forced her in a deep kiss, shoving his tongue past her soft lips. The mare offered no resistance as his long tongue explored her mouth like a snake, but she didn’t reciprocate the kiss, instead she just did her best to suppress her desire to gag in disgust.

‘Do it for Shining,’ she kept repeating mentally like a mantra while the stallion’s tongue violated her mouth.

The night the Empire fell under his control had been the worst moment in her life, even worse than her imprisonment when Chrysalis had impersonated her.

After having defeated her and her husband, Sombra had brought them in their private bedroom. Then, while his guards held Shining Armor still, forcing him to watch, he had ripped her battle shredded clothes and proceeded to rape her on the same bed she shared every night with her husband.

Shining Armor had tried to stop him, only to be brutally beaten by the guards. Afraid for the life of her husband, whose white fur had turned red from the blood coming from the countless wounds, Cadence had made a deal with the mad king, offering her services and her body in exchange of the life of her husband.

Shining had protested vehemently, being more willed to die rather than allow her to be forced to do something like that, but Cadence had been irremovable. Being an alicorn, she had always known that she would have outlived her husband, and so she treasured every moment she spent with him; she had no intention to lose the stallion she loved before the time has come and she was willed to do everything for him.

Intrigued and probably also amused by her offer, Sombra had accepted and in the following three days the tyrant had made sure to enjoy the agreement as much as possible, using the alicorn to satisfy his lust whenever he felt the desire, no matter the hour or the place.

After a long minute, the king finally parted his mouth from hers. Cadence turned her head and gasped for air. Sombra didn’t take too kindly to her reaction and grabbed her chin to force her to look him in the eyes.

“I see there’s still fire burning inside you,” he said, his tone a mix of amusement and annoyance. “Good. I will enjoy breaking you.”

“You are a fool if you think that I will ever submit to somepony like you,” she hissed.

“We’ll see,” he growled. Sombra grabbed the right shoulder of her clothes and ripped it apart with a sharp pull, exposing one of her breasts. When he repeated the process with the other shoulder, the dress, now without any support, fell to the ground. With her poor excuse of clothing now lying at her feet, Princess Cadence stood stark naked in front of him, save for the inhibitor collar clasped around her neck.

Sombra leaned closer to her and buried his muzzle in her hair, taking a deep breath to savor her natural scent, causing Cadence to close her eyes and shudder in disgust.

The king ignored her discomfort and looked at her with pure lust.

Even without the light makeup she usually applied every morning, and with her hair combed in a simple ponytail, Cadence was undeniably gorgeous, able to radiate beauty even if she was covered in rags. Her body was tall and slim, with a natural hourglass figure that was the envy of many models, covered by short soft fur of a delicate pink color.

And now, this prime example of feminine beauty was his.

The king kissed Cadence again with even more desire than before, eventually focusing his attention to her breasts. They were the dream of every stallion, soft yet perky, big enough that he could barely cup one with his hand. His mouth latched to her nipples, greedily sucking and licking them alternately while his hands groped the sensible flesh of her tits.

The stimulation to her sensitive breasts started taking its toll on the princess, but it was only when one of Sombra’s hands reached between her legs that Cadence released a moan of pleasure.

“I bet that wimp of your husband has never touched you like this,” he whispered in her ear while shoving a couple of fingers inside her.

Cadence bit her lower lip and shivered, trying her best to ignore the assault to her pleasure centers.

“Not in the way you may think, you lecherous bastard.”

As response to her remark, he slapped her on her cutie mark, hard enough to leave a red handprint on her buttock. Cadence clenched her teeth and hissed, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her show further signs of discomfort caused by the stinging pain.

“You are indeed the niece of Celestia,” Sombra said, matching her defiant gaze with his own. “You’re just as stubborn as she is and never know when to give up. How pathetic.”

“Fuck you.”

“You first.” The stallion shoved her against the desk and forced her to bend, pressing her big soft breasts against the hard cold crystal surface, then he forced the alicorn to spread her legs and parted aside her tail, revealing her private parts.

He slowly removed his belt and opened the buttons of the fly of his pants, taking his time to fully enjoy her growing nervousness. She knew what was coming and the fact that she could do nothing to stop it made the entire experience even more enjoyable to him.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked teasingly, looking without shame at her nether regions. Her lower lips were starting to get wet, causing his smile to get wider. He guided his stallionhood toward her honeypot, licking his lips in anticipation, eager to once again experience the wonderful feeling of his cock engulfed by the warm velvety walls of the alicorn.

“Not in the slightest,” Cadence replied stiffly, looking ahead toward the wall.

“Your words may deny it, but your body seems to think differently,” he whispered, teasingly brushing the upper side of his cock against the soft lips of her pussy, coating his thick shaft with the liquids of her own arousal.

The warmth of her body against his stallionhood, combined with the scent of her body filling his nostrils, were driving Sombra crazy and it took him a good amount of willpower to refrain himself from simply penetrating her in one go and fuck her senseless.

It wasn’t just simple lust driving him. It was something deeper, connected to his hatred for Celestia and Luna. He wanted to have revenge over them and now that he had their niece, he could unleash all the frustration and anger built inside of him. He wanted to fuck her into submission over and over again, making her his mare and his property by releasing his powerful load inside her womb, until she had not even the strength to beg him to stop. He wanted to turn her into his broodmare, to see her belly swollen with his progeny. The mental image of Cadence being pregnant of him made his shaft twitch in anticipation. Chances of impregnating an alicorn were incredibly low, especially if she was indisposed, but he was confident that with enough persistence he would eventually succeed.

He didn’t care in the slightest for the bastard that she would carry in her womb, after all his powers made him practically immortal and an heir would be of no use for him, only a potential threat for his power. No, what really mattered to him was that it would be the final way of asserting his power over her, a gesture of dominance that would show once and forever to the mare who had dared to oppose him that she was his.

Not to mention, he thought that the face that Shining Armor would have at the sight of his wife carrying the foal of someone else would be priceless. ‘Hmm, yes, maybe the decision of sparing that pathetic fool was right after all,’ he thought in amusement, brushing her clit with the tip of his cock, which caused the mare under him to squirm involuntarily in pleasure.

There would however be time for that later; for now he had other plans for Cadence. Tonight he felt the desire to try something different, so he grabbed her ample and soft buttchecks with his strong hands and spread them apart, revealing the puckered entrance to her ass.

Realizing what he was about to do, Cadence had only a few moments to brace herself as best as she could before she felt the head of his thick shaft prodding against the entrance of her back orifice.

‘This will hurt,’ she thought, knowing from direct experience how painful anal sex was if performed without proper lubrication. But that time with Shining had been different; they were still both inexperienced and the moment her lover had realized his mistake, he had panicked and started apologizing profusely for several minutes.

This time things would be very different. This stallion, no, this monster didn’t care for her wellbeing or even less if he hurt her, all that mattered for him was his own pleasure.

A few moments later the princess felt the tip of Sombra’s cock slip through her backdoor, soon followed by the rest of his head. Sombra grunted momentarily in discomfort because of her tightness before starting to push the rest of his stallionhood inside her, ignoring the way the mare under him was squirming in evident discomfort, even clawing the edge of the desk with her hands.

When he was halfway inside her, Sombra finally stopped.

Cadence’s eyes were wide open and she was taking wheezing breaths as she tried to ignore the painful sensation of her rear hole being stretched to the limit by his shaft. In terms of length, Sombra’s cock wasn’t much longer than the one of her husband, but it was much thicker.

‘Big, big, oh, goodness, he’s so big- AAAAAAH!” the alicorn was unable to withhold a scream of pain as the stallion grabbed her hips and pushed the rest of his cock inside her, filling her like she had never been before. Even when she did anal sex with Shining Armor, he never went so deep, fearing of hurting her too much.

When he had completely bottomed out inside of her, Sombra closed his eyes and hummed in bliss, savoring the warmth and the almost painful tightness of the alicorn’s ass. Once he was accustomed, he slowly withdrew until just the head was inside, before thrusting back all the way inside her, smacking his pelvis against her ass.

In and out, in and out, he kept repeating the process, slowly building up speed with his hips as the precum released from his tip lubricated the walls of her back tunnel, making the passage of his thick shaft through her tight ass slightly smoother with each penetration.

The sound of Cadence’s sobs as she cried in pain and humiliation had the only effect of increasing his libido. Sombra smirked and, after having grabbed her soft flanks for better balance, he quickened his pace, causing the princess to scream louder.

After several minutes of thrusting, he decided to change strategy. The stallion slowed down his rhythm, opting to thrust deep and strong to last longer and better enjoy her tight ass, then he grabbed the ponytail of the mare and yanked it, causing the alicorn to arch her back toward him in pain.

No longer pressed against the desk’s surface, her breasts were now free to bounce on her chest with each powerful thrust of the stallion’s pelvis. Sombra moved his strong hands from her hips up to her slim stomach until they reached her breasts and started groping them, digging his fingers into her sensible flesh and pinching her stiff nipples, causing a moan of pleasure to leave her lips.

“Oh, so you like it, uh? You enjoy my cock thrusting inside you,” Sombra asked amusedly without halting in moving his pelvis or playing with her mammaries. “Admit it, your resistance is just a facade. Behind that mask of unyielding princess there’s just a slut who’s only desire is being fucked with force by her master.”

Cadence didn’t reply. It would have been a complete waste of time to explain to him that her arousal was an automatic physical response to the stimulation of an erogenous area, while in truth she was actually disgusted by this entire situation. She forced her eyes shut and grit her teeth as the stallion kept ravaging her orifice with his savage thrusts, each impact causing ripples on the surface of her bottom.

“I bet that your pathetic excuse of a husband can’t even satisfy you.”

“You confound lust for *AH!* love. You are *HHHGN!* not even a fraction of the stallion *AH!* that Shining is.”

Sensing the pleasure that was building up inside her, Sombra moved his right hand toward her neglected pussy and shoved his index and middle finger inside her, while using his thumb to play with her clit.

The sudden stimulation of her most sacred part caused the alicorn’s eyes to snap open wide while emitting a loud moan of pleasure. Cadence felt ashamed for her lack of control over her body, but the most primal and instinctive area of her brain didn’t seem to care, only focused on the waves of pleasure rushing through her entire body.

‘Oh, goodness! I can’t hold any longer, if he continues this way I’m gonna-’ His finger touched a particular spot of her damp love channel, pulling her over the edge. Her entire body shuddered violently as if crossed by an electrical spark, her inner walls clenched around the finger invading her vagina and she came. “AAAAAAAH!” Pleasure washed through her body like a flood as the full force of her orgasm invested her violently, releasing a copious amount of her juices all over his hand and onto the floor.

The mare collapsed on the hard cold surface of the desk, panting as she tried to recover and take back control of her body, while a thin line of drool ran down the corner of her mouth.

Meanwhile, the stallion behind her had not stopped nor slowed his thrusts, instead Cadence’s orgasm seemed to have only aroused Sombra even more, if the way he built up his speed was of any indication.

Cadence tried to tell him to slow down, but with her mind still clouded, all that came out her mouth was a weak moan as the stallion kept pumping with reckless abandon, filling the room with the sound of slapping flesh.

After a few more minutes, it was finally Sombra’s turn to reach his climax. With a final grunt he buried his cock as deep as he could inside her and released several loads of his hot seed.

Sombra took a few moments to catch his breath and enjoy the hot tightness of her rectum around his dick for a bit longer before pulling it out, causing the alicorn below him to shudder at the abrupt sense of emptiness. He looked down at the result of his work and was satisfied to see that, without his dick acting as a plug, a white stream of cum was coming out from her sore orifice, dripping down her legs to the floor, where it mixed with the small puddle of juices from her own orgasm.

“Get on your knees,” Sombra ordered. Still too weak to protest and knowing that doing it would only earn her a punishment, Cadence obeyed the command of the stallion, sighing internally in relief as her legs were barely able to sustain her after the intense stimulation she had just received.

Sombra glanced at his fingers still covered with her mare juices and licked them. “Hmm, strawberry. Care for a taste?” he asked, bringing his hand in front of her face without even waiting for her reply. Resignated, Cadence leaned her face closer and used her tongue to clean his fingers. It wasn’t the worst thing that Sombra had forced her to do, and during the years she and Shining had experimented with a few things.

“Good pet. But my hand is not the only thing dirty,” he said, moving his now half limp penis in front of her face. “Clean it.”

Cadence glanced at his massive pride for a few moments, before getting to work. She started licking it, running her tongue around its warm surface, before taking the head of his shaft in her mouth and started sucking it, doing her best to keep her growing sense of nausea at bay. As expected, much to her dislike, she could feel his cock getting hard again inside her mouth. From their previous… recreative sessions, she had discovered that his refractory period was shorter than normal, most likely a result of magical manipulation, just like his ability of producing unusually big quantities of semen.

“Very good,” he growled in pleasure. “You have a real natural talent. But it had to be expected by someone like you.”

She closed her eyes and ignored his words, focusing instead on her task. The sooner he climaxed, the sooner she would be allowed to leave.

She kept bobbing her head for a few minutes, using her tongue to massage the lower side of his cock, but despite her skills, the king eventually decided that it wasn’t enough. Without warning, Sombra grabbed the sides of her head and shoved his cock all the way deep inside her mouth. Cadence widened her eyes and gagged loudly at the sudden invasion of her throat, but before she could fully realize what was happening, Sombra started fucking her face.

Ignoring her muffled cries of protest and her weak attempts to push him away, Sombra groaned in pleasure, enjoying how her tongue caressed the underside of his shaft as he thrusted it rhythmically into her warm and wet throat, the copious amount of saliva and precum making the movement incredibly smooth.

Without slowing down his pace, he lowered his gaze to the princess kneeled at his feet. Cadence looked back at him pleadingly with her teary eyes, her flushed face crossed by copious tears coming from her beautiful purple eyes. Everytime he thrusted, the alicorn gagged as his cock easily went past her pharynx, forming a noticeable bulge in her throat and forcing her to breath through her nose as to not suffocate.

The sight of her face painted with discomfort and humiliation only added pleasure to him, making him pump his hips faster. The room was soon filled with the sound of Cadence’s gagging, mixed with that of his balls smacking against her chin and the obscene wet noise of his dick sliding in and out of her mouth, forming what to Sombra’s ears was an erotic symphony.

He kept forcing Cadence to deepthroat him for a couple more minutes until he finally felt the telltale signs of an incoming orgasm. The king buried his cock all the way deep inside her throat until her soft lips kissed its base and her nostrils were pressed against his pelvis, causing her throat to contract violently around his shaft. It was too much and with a mighty grunt he came, releasing his cum down her esophagus, right into her stomach.

“Yes, drink it all you bitch,” Sombra said as he withdrew his cock so that the last spouts of cum came right into her mouth.

Cadence widened her eyes at the taste of his semen and was tempted to spit it on the floor. It would have earned her a few new bruises, but it would be almost worth it. Almost. Sombra easily lost his temper and even her smallest act of rebellion could put Shining in danger, so instead she ignored her revulsion and swallowed his cum.

Once he had stopped cumming, Sombra pulled out his now limp cock from her mouth with a loud wet sound, a line of saliva connecting the mouth of the princess with his now drool-covered shaft. With her mouth now empty, Cadence wasted no time gasping and coughing, inhaling as much air as possible now that she could breath freely again without obstructions.

“Seems like I’ve finally found a way to put your mouth to good use,” Sombra said with a smirk, pulling back his penis into his pants.

Cadence shot him a cold glare but remained silent, preferring to rest her abused throat.

“Hmm, you’re starting to learn your place,” the stallion mused.

“Now, what does a good slave say?” he asked with the tone of a teacher expecting to hear the lesson of the day from a troublesome filly.

Cadence lowered her gaze, unwilling to meet his eyes, before muttering something.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I’m glad to serve my master with my body,” she repeated louder with a strained tone, her face burning in humiliation combined with hatred.

“Good pet,” he said, satisfied, petting her hair near her left ear. “You can leave and return to your cell. I’m satisfied for now and there are no other chores for you at the moment. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Master,” she said, adding the last part when Sombra looked at her with a raised brow.

The king grunted in satisfaction and sat back on his chair to resume his studies. “Bring her back to her cell,” he ordered mid absently to the guards standing near the door. The stallion had witnessed the entire scene, but the king didn’t care in the slightest. His soldiers were more machines that ponies, husks of their former selves.

Cadence grabbed her ruined clothes from the floor and walked toward the door. While she left the room, Sombra watched with a cruel smirk of satisfaction as each step she took caused a few drops of his semen to drip out from her back orifice. He could have ordered his pet to clean the mess she was leaving on the floor using her tongue, but today he felt generous.

When the doors closed behind her, Cadence spat on the floor. The action wasn’t just vulgar, but also pointless, given that she had been forced to swallow his semen, but nevertheless she found it cathartic.

‘Sick bastard. May he spend the rest of eternity in Tartarus as Cerberus’ chewtoy.’

Taking a deep breath, she adjusted a lock of her hair, cringing at the memory of that monster petting her after he violated her body.

Clenching her fists in anger, she bit her lower lip.

Oh, how she wanted to bite his hand when he petted her. Or maybe his penis. Yeah, although it was incredibly unladylike and barbaric, she found the concept of spitting his penis in his face after having mechanically removed it with her mouth incredibly enthralling. Too bad that the bastard would then proceed to kill her out of rage in the most cruel and painful way, her husband and probably a thousand of randomly selected colts and fillies suffering the same fate. That is, if he didn’t bleed to death first.

‘I guess auntie Luna is starting to rub on me.’ The tales of the blue alicorn about the punishments in the old days - or as she called them occasionally, the good times - were rather vivid.

“Move,” her guardian ordered without any trace of emotion.

“Give me a moment,” she said as she crudely repaired the straps of her dress by knotting the ripped strips of fabric in order to prevent it from falling once she had weared it back.

“The king ordered to bring you back-”

“I know what he said, I was there with you,” she snapped, interrupting his monotone voice. “He never said I had to walk all the way back to the dungeons naked.”

Her reasoning apparently wasn’t against the directives that the armored pony was forced to follow, so he waited patiently until she had her clothes on before intimating her to move. She obeyed, wincing with each step. After the number the king did to her ass, walking hurts.

During their trip back to the dungeons they crossed by several members of the palace staff. The uniforms they wore when Cadence and Shining Armor were in power, designed personally by Rarity, much to the fashionista’s delight, had been replaced with more humble clothes... which still looked a hundred times better compared to the mass of rags that the alicorn was forced to wear.

It was just another of Sombra’s ways to make her feel powerless and vulnerable, by dressing her in a way that even the servants would laugh at her. At least, this was his plan, based on the assumption that the rest of the world thought like him.

Too bad that the inhabitants of the empire didn’t share his mindset. The reign of Cadence and Shining Armor may have been short, but under their leadership the empire had thrived like never before, and their kind and fair nature had quickly earned them not only the loyalty, but also the love of their subjects.

Whenever the alicorn met the gaze of one of the servants, they would salute her with a discreet nod of their head or, in the case of the few brave ones, by briefly curling the corners of their mouth upward in a tiny smile, before quickly returning to their respective tasks. It was a sight that warmed her heart, but it pained her to see that their eyes also showed fear. She couldn't blame them, they had every right to be afraid given the situation. Sombra was a cruel monster to put it lightly and the fact that his troops were their brainwashed loved ones made things only worse.

‘Just another reason to not give up. I have to be strong and persist, for the sake of both my subjects and Shining,’ she thought with determination as she walked with as much dignity as she could while she was escorted to the dungeons by her silent guardian.

The heavy metal door of the cell opened and she once again stepped inside what was her home now. The room was large and spartan in design, with the only furniture consisting of a big mattress placed directly on the floor with a couple of blankets; it could easily house ten ponies, but at the moment there were only two, which made it look even more empty.

“I’m back,” she said aloud after the door closed behind her, only to receive no response. Worried by the silence, she quickly looked around, but much to her relief she soon found the other occupant of the cell.

Shining Armor was sitting on the floor in a corner of the room, the side of his head resting against the wall. He too had an inhibitor collar clamped around his neck while his clothes consisted in what was left of his uniform, basically a pair of ruined purple pants, leaving the upper part of his body bare save for the several bandages wrapped around his chest. Most of his body was covered by cuts and bruises, but Cadence noticed with a certain relief that since she left the cell this morning, he didn’t seemed to have new ones.

His lack of fresh wounds however also worried her. Ever since they had been captured, Shining had proved to be a troublesome prisoner, always trying to find a way to get the both of them out of there, or just doing his best to make the job of their jailers difficult. That punctually earned him a few blows, but it didn’t seem to deter him from continuing.

This morning, however, things were different. Shining had spent the night awake and he had seemed… distant, as if lost in his thoughts. He didn’t make any sarcastic comments when the jailer brought them their morning meal and even with her he had barely spoken.

On the floor there was a wooden tray with a wooden pitcher and two bowls. One bowl was empty, the other was untouched, still filled with now cold food. Again.

Cadence sighed. “I know that the cuisine is not that of your mother,” she tried to joke, failing miserably, “but you have to eat if you want to keep your strength.”
Her hand moved to the wooden pitcher, noting with satisfaction that it was still one-third full. She took a couple of long gulps, bringing relief to her sore throat and washing any aftertaste from her mouth.

“Why?” he asked with a hollow tone without looking at her. “Why should I bother eating?”

Cadence sat next to the stallion and looked at him worriedly. “Shining…?”

“As long I’m alive, that bastard will keep doing as he pleases with you.” He sighed. “It would be better for you if I was dead.”

Her open palm met his face without warning, the sound of the slap echoed for a moment through the walls of the cell. Shining Armor stared at her in surprise without emitting a sound, working his jaw a few times as the stinging pain slowly faded away.

“Don’t you even dare to think it,” she hissed harshly, fighting back the tears.

“Why not? You know it’s the truth. I wasn’t able to stop him the first time he attacked the Empire. I wasn’t able to defend you this time. I’m a failure as a guard and as a husband.”

“You are not a failure,” she said firmly. “You are the stallion I love, the one who despite all odds, even though he knew it was a lost fight, didn’t give up.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that I failed you and everypony else,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. He lowered his head, unable to meet her gaze. “And now you are forced to be the whore of that monster because of me.”

“Shining.” She gently grabbed his face with her hands and forced him to look at her. “We both know that he would do it even if it wasn’t for you. You really think that he cares for that stupid pact? He only agreed with me because he found it amusing. Don’t you get it? It’s all just a sick game for him. He enjoys to see us suffer.” She leaned closer and gently placed her lips on his. The moment she kissed him, all the pain was gone from his body, replaced by a wonderful warmth in his chest. When their lips parted, she kept looking him deep in the eyes, gently caressing his right cheek, carefully avoiding a partially healed cut on his cheekbone. “If I have to go through all of this… I at least want that it’s to keep my husband alive, even if it’s just an illusion.” Cadence closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “You are not the only one that feels helpless.”

She suddenly felt his big strong arms gently envelope her in an embrace, holding her close to his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” he kept muttering, gently stroking her back and neck.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh. We both tried our best,” she said softly, returning the embrace, resting her head on his shoulder.

There was no way to sugarcoat the pill. Their situation was desperate and none of them could do anything. All they could do was hope that their friends would come soon, putting an end to this nightmare.

Author's Note

So... here it is. The theme is far darker from my usual kind story and quite honestly I've never thought that one day I would write something like this, but I wanted to try something different from the crossover genre. I don't think this will be my best work, and I doubt I will ever master the art of writing sex scenes, but I hope you'll have fun reading it as much as I had writing it.

P.S. The content of this story does not reflect my mindset. I personally condemn misogyny and consider rape one of the most terrible crimes that exists.

Chapter 3 - Releasing control art restriction to level zero

“We have arrived at your destination, your highness,” the royal guard driving the magically self-propelled carriage informed the recently crowned princess with a professional tone, snapping Twilight back to reality.

The lavender mare blinked a couple of times, realizing only now that they had already traveled all across Harmony Avenue and were now in front of the Royal Palace. Had she fallen asleep? Or was she just lost in her thoughts? Twilight couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t even midday, and yet she already felt exhausted, both physically and mentally.

Her distraction didn’t pass unnoticed to her friends, who were now looking at her with different degrees of concern. In reply, Twilight offered them a tired smile, as if to assure them that she was just a bit sleepy due to the lack of proper rest.

None of the other mares seemed convinced by her dismissive facade, Fluttershy seemed even to be about to say something, but after Rarity discreetly touched her shoulder, she followed her friends’ decision and remained quiet.

Twilight didn’t blame them, if anything she was actually grateful that they had not asked her if she was fine, because they all knew that she wasn’t. Not after all that had happened in the last twelve hours.

Twilight was the last to get off the carriage. She put her feet on the carriage’s ladder without problems, but when she moved to step on the cobblestone road, her foot touched the ground sooner than expected, causing her to trip. Panicking, she frantically waved her arms, trying to reach a nearby handhold, while erratically flapping her wings in a futile attempt to stabilize herself on her wobbly legs, but it was all in vain and the ground became dangerously closer and closer to her face.

“Woah nelly!” A big strong hand gently yet firmly grabbed her arm and brought her back on her feet before she could hurt herself.

“Thank you, AJ,” Twilight said gratefully while her friend helped her regain her balance.

“Yer fine, sugarcube?” The orange mare asked, showing evident concern on her freckled face.

Twilight nodded and gave her a sheepish look, clearly embarrassed for her own clumsiness. “Yeah, it’s just that I’m still getting used to the changes of my body.”

It had been almost a month since her transformation, and yet Twilight still found it strange that she was now able to look at Applejack in the eyes without having to raise her gaze. The earth pony mare was still bigger than her in terms of muscular mass, but the height difference between them now was barely noticeable.

Her ascension to become an alicorn had been like going through a second puberty, but getting taller and receiving a pair of wings that would make many pegasi envious had not been the only changes that her body had undergone. She was now faster and stronger than before, and she could also perform with barely any effort spells that before her transformation would have put a strain on her powers.

“... it’s because your boobies are bigger now, isn’t it?” Pinkie Pie asked with childish innocence, pointing at the alicorn’s chest.

And there was also the aesthetic factor, of course. She had passed from a slim, almost scrawny figure, to a body for which every model would kill, with wide hips, a slim waist and a chest that had more than doubled its original size, putting her on the same level as Rarity.

“Pinkie!” her five friends scolded the Element of Laughter in unison.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? It’s true, you gotta be careful, or they throw you off balance! I know it from direct experience, I went through the same thing during high school,” she said, bouncing on her feet and causing something else to bounce. It was a rather hypnotic sight.

“Sometimes I’d like to be as aerodynamic as Dashie, even if that would mean that my fun-bags would be less funny,” she said, staring at the really modest chest of the pegasus. “A loooooot less funny.”

The rainbow maned pegasus glared silently at Pinkie Pie, or more precisely at the generous chest of her friend, before turning around while grumbling something about ‘milk-jugs’ and ‘melons’.

“Pinkie! That wasn’t nice,” Fluttershy exclaimed, grabbing Rainbow Dash and pulling her in what she thought was a comforting hug.

“Really?! Nuuuh, Dashie! Please don’t be sad,” she said, joining Fluttershy in the hug and effectively trapping Rainbow Dash’s head between their generous bosoms.

The pegasus tried to draw the attention of her two oblivious friends by waving her arms in a rather frantic way, but failed.

“Yah know, Dash? Many ponies would die to be in your place right now,” Applejack said teasingly.

“I’ll be the one to die if I don’t get out of here!” was the muffled reply of the pegasus.

Mercifully for Rainbow Dash, Rarity decided to intervene. “Girls, please. As much as I’m sure Dash appreciates the fact that you care for her, the poor dear still needs to breath,” Rarity said politely, although not without a trace of amusement.

Despite herself, Twilight couldn’t stop from finding the situation funny too and soon a tiny smile appeared briefly on her lips.

‘The Maker only knows how much I need a laugh, after all that has happened,’ she thought. The news of the return of Sombra and the fall of the Empire had made her terribly worried for Shining and Cadence, but she had risked a real emotional breakdown when she received a letter informing her that-

Twilight shook her head, forcing that awful memory in the deepest corner of her mind. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she repeated to herself. Even her father had told her so. There was no point tormenting herself on what could have happened. All that mattered now was to save her brother and sister-in-law.

The young princess felt a delicate hand gently touch her shoulder. “Everything is going to be fine, Twilight,” Fluttershy reassured her with her soft voice, looking at her with her big blue eyes.

“I hope so, Fluttershy,” Twilight replied.

“You have to try to be positive, darling,” Rarity said. “The princesses must have a plan, otherwise I doubt they would have asked us to bring the Elements,” she added, gesturing to the decorated casket that Applejack was currently holding under one arm. Twilight was grateful that her friends had the diligence to take the magical artifacts with them before their departure from Ponyville.

“You’re right, girls. Let’s go save the world once again,” Twilight Sparkle said while looking at her friends with determination, knowing that, no matter what, they would be beside her.

“Aww, yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “That’s the Twilight we know!”

Save for returning the salute of a few servants that they met, the journey of the six young mares through the castel proceeded quietly and in silence. Thanks to their familiarity with the castle, the girls found the way to the throne room without problems and after one last turn, they finally reached their destination.

The massive double doors of the throne room was guarded by a pair of guards, both stallions covered head to toe in a heavy set of armor that left only their stoic, emotionless expressions exposed. When they were close enough however, one of the guards, a grey unicorn roughly the same age of her father, looked at Twilight with a warm gaze and flashed her a little smile.

Twilight’s expression brightened a bit as she recognized the gray unicorn as Double Edge, and she returned the smile.

A smile that she was barely able to maintain when she was hit by the disconcerting realization that even if she knew the stallion since she was just a filly, she didn’t really know anything about him aside from his name and a few other details.

Glancing one last time at the stallion while she and her friends entered the throne room, Twilight felt a twinge of regret and shame growing inside her chest. The worst thing was that Double Edge wasn’t an isolated case. Guards, maids, heck, even her classmates when she attended Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, all of them were simply faces with a name that her mind had barely deemed worthy of attention.

‘Focus, Twilight,’ she thought, forcing herself to clean her mind. The time to make amends and reconcile with the ponies of her past would eventually come, but right now she and her friends had much more urgent matters awaiting for them.

The heavy wooden doors closed with a dull sound behind them, and the first thing that the six young mares noticed was the silence.

At this hour, the throne room would usually be bustling with activity, with a constant stream of petitioners seeking audience with the princesses, ambassadors coming from other nations to discuss important matters of international policy, and emissaries bringing reports from every corner of the reign.

None of this was happening right now, as the room in front of the six mares was unusually empty and quiet, resembling more like a cathedral or a mausoleum, with its high ceiling, the rows of columns disposed at the sides, and the numerous stained windows that projected beautiful colorful plays of lights on the floor.

The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony however weren’t alone. Standing tall and straight at the other end of the room was a midnight blue alicorn whose mane and tail resembled a galaxy of stars, dressed with a long dress a few shades darker than her own coat.

Princess Luna seemed to ignore or being simply unaware of the approaching group of ponies as she stared with a thoughtful expression at one of the windows, the one showing the banishment of Nightmare Moon over ten centuries ago. When the six mares were halfway across the room however, she turned her head to look at them with the same stoic expression that she usually wore in public, showing to the group of friends how the last events have took their toll on her body. Even with her dark fur, Twilight could see the black circles that Luna had around her eyes, but despite the clear signs of tiredness and stress, the face of the blue alicorn quickly turned into a warm and sincere smile.

“Greetings, my friends,” Luna welcomed them, before walking toward the group of mares to meet them. Even after her growth spurt, Twilight was still noticeably shorter than the royal sisters, yet she didn’t feel intimidated by their imposing stature. If anything, the sight of the over seven foot tall mare was somewhat reassuring. Luna placed her hands on the shoulders of her fellow princess and looked at her with concern. “My sister and I have heard what happened to your mother, Twilight Sparkle. How is she?”

Twilight shuddered, as the recent memories that she had tried to contain flooded her mind. In the previous night when her parents had been informed of the fate of the Crystal Empire, her mother had been so shocked and scared for the lives of Shining Armor and Cadence that she had fainted, hurting herself in the fall.

Twilight and Spike were still completing the preparation for the trip to the capital with the rest of the Bearers scheduled for the next morning, when they had received an urgent missive that informed them of the incident. Once the little dragon had finished reading the content message, Twilight had grabbed Spike and teleported both of them in front of Canterlot General Hospital, almost burning out the magic reserves of her body in the process.

Rainbow Dash had been the first of their friends to reach them that same night. By sheer coincidence, she was passing in front of the library when she noticed the door open and the lights still on despite the late hour. Once she had found the message from the hospital lying on the floor, she had proceeded to alert her friends and then she had flown all the way from Ponyville to Canterlot, while the rest of the Bearers had boarded the first train that left at dawn.

“She broke her left wrist in the fall and hit her head against a coffee table,” Twilight said, trying her best to keep her voice steady. “The doctors said that luckily the head trauma she suffered is of minor entity and there shouldn’t be long term effects, however they will keep her under observation for the next few days to make sure there are no complications.”

“I see.” Luna nodded with a somewhat guilty expression. “I’m really sorry, Twilight. We should have called your parents to the castle and informed them personally, instead of sending a messenger. Maybe that way, hearing the news from us-”

“No, Luna,” Twilight said forcefully, blinking to clean her eyes from the moisture. “You have nothing to apologize for, nor does your sister. If there’s somepony to blame, that’s Sombra,” Twilight said with a clear hint of anger in her voice when she pronounced the name of the stallion. “Even indirectly, that monster is only able to cause suffering.”

“He will pay for all his crimes, my dear friend,” the blue alicorn assured her firmly.

“Yeah! I personally can’t wait to kick that bastard in the balls before we blast him into Tartarus with the orbital friendship cannon,” Rainbow Dash said, showing her eagerness for a fight by punching at an imaginary opponent.

“Same here, pardner,” Applejack said in agreement with the pegasus, cracking her knuckles. “After the beatdown we’ll give him, Ah seriously doubt he’ll dare to try to escape.”

“There won’t be any imprisonment, nor we will rely on any magical artifacts to solve our problems. This time we’ll make sure once and for all that Sombra will never again be a threat,” Luna said.

As soon as the six Bearers realized the full meaning of Luna’s words, their expressions turned to ones of shock.

“You- you mean…?” Fluttershy started asking, unable to finish the sentence.

Princess Luna kept her stoic expression and gave a single solemn nod. “He’s far too dangerous to be left alive. The first time we banished him because we didn’t realize the full extent of his powers. That is a mistake that we will not repeat again.”

“Eh, he kinda deserves it,” Rainbow Dash said bluntly after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy exclaimed, looking in shock at her childhood friend. “Do you realize what you’ve just said?”

“Of course. The princesses are going to kill a cruel tyrant to prevent him from bringing more misery on this world.”

“No matter how horrible a pony might be, you shouldn’t cheer at his death.”

“Well, you didn’t seem to feel bad when the Crystal Heart destroyed him last time either,” Rainbow Dash noticed.

“I haven’t really stopped thinking about it,” Fluttershy muttered, looking away with an uncomfortable expression. “Most of the time he just looked like an ominous cloud of scary smoke… and when he assumed his true form I was too scared to look.”

“Yeah, thinking about it, maybe it was for the best. I mean, his wasn’t exactly a pretty death. Remember his panicked expression and his screams of anger and agony just before he exploded into a bazilion pieces?”

“Yes, Pinkie. Thank you for bringing back that disturbing memory,” Rarity deadpanned. “Anyway, I’m sorry darling, but as cruel and unladylike it may sound, I have to agree with Rainbow Dash. Sombra brought his own destruction on himself and what princess Cadence did activating the Heart was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, same here. Ah reckon Ah slept like a filly that night knowing that we no longer had ta worry ‘bout that monster,” Applejack admitted. “Just like Ah think those crystal ponies fellas did.”

“Those poor dears,” Rarity said sympathetically. “I still remember their expressions of terror when they tried to remember their past. I can’t even imagine what kind of horrors they went through.”

‘I have a fair idea of how they felt, Rarity,’ Twilight thought while her mind went back to her quest to retrieve the Crystal Heart.

The memory was still fresh in her mind like it had just happened yesterday. She and Spike had found the Crystal Heart, hidden in the tallest point of the palace, but in her eagerness to complete the mission that Celestia had given her, Twilight had inadvertently triggered a trap and the next thing she knew was that she was trapped inside a cage made of black crystals.

She had tried repeatedly to escape, but each time she tried to teleport away, she kept reappearing inside the cage. It had been only with an impressive feat of self-control that she had not panicked, instead she had ordered Spike to bring the Heart to Cadence.
And then, after her little assistant had left, leaving her alone, the walls of her already small prison had slowly started moving toward her.

Twilight had summoned a force field around her only to feel the walls pushing mercilessly against her magical barrier to crush her. With each passing moment she grew more and more tired as she used all her powers to maintain her force field, struggling to ignore the sense of claustrophobia growing inside her. And then, just when she was about to consume her last strain of magic, the magical shockwave generated by the Crystal Heart had freed her, vanishing her deadly prison and its creator, along with the last residuals of dark magic that had poisoned her mind when she had been forced by that cursed door to see her worst fears.

“From what we know, the Crystal Heart shares many similarities with the Elements of Harmony. I think that if there was a chance to save him from his corruption, the magic of the Heart would have purified him of his dark powers instead of destroying his body,” Twilight said cautiously, afraid that the more vindictive part of her mind could say that Sombra deserved a far worse fate than last time.

“I still don’t like the idea that somepony must die in order to maintain peace. It sounds wrong,” Fluttershy said with an unhappy tone.

“Death is always a terrible thing, Fluttershy,” princess Luna said, putting a hand on the shoulder of the butter colored pegasus. “But you have to think of Sombra as a rabid animal. Ending his life would be an act of misery.”

“Last time it was just like smashing a statue. A living, breathing statue that screamed as he was brutally torn apart by that energy shockwave…” Pinkie continued with a distant tone, looking with a thousand yard stare at the stained window depicting the defeat of King Sombra.

Was it just Twilight, or were the colors of her friend turning darker? And why did her mane seem to be far less curly than usual…?

“Hmmm, chimicherrychanga,” Pinkie Pie said suddenly, licking her lips with a dreamy expression while her hair and coat returned to their usual appearance. Twilight decided very wisely not to try to find out how her friend had made a connection between exploding dictators and food, for it would only cause her mind to fall into an unholy abyss of madness and sugar.

“Aaaaanyway,” Luna trailed off, sparing one last worried glance at the pink chaos-spawn. “There are a few things that you have to know....”

Luna updated the six Bearers on the last report they had received from the Empire before their spy was captured, earning shocked reactions from the girls.

Rainbow Dash looked simply horrified when she learned about bewitched armors and how they forced the ponies wearing them to obey even the most cruel order without hesitation, in a display of loyalty that resembled some kind of perverse twisted version of the Element she represented.

But what really shocked the girls, in particular Twilight, was the news that Sombra had managed to corrupt the Crystal Heart itself and repurposed it for his own plans. The implications were simply disconcerting.

“But… if we can’t get past the barrier that surrounds the Empire, then how are we supposed to defeat Sombra?” Twilight asked with evident concern after Luna had completed her brief exposition.

“Celestia and I have a plan to bypass the energy shield,” Luna said cryptically. “It’s risky, but given our current situation, we have come to the conclusion that we don’t have any alternatives.”

“Perfect,” Rainbow Dash said with a cocky smile. “Risky is my middle name, princess.”

“You mean that your full name is Rainbow Danger Professional Risky Dash? Wow, and I thought that Pinkamena Diane Pie was a mouthful.”

Rainbow Dash promptly facepalmed.

“So, what’s the plan, princess?” Applejack asked, ignoring the antics of her friends.

The princess of the night seemed to hesitate. “I’ll explain it when my sister and Selena arrive. They should be here at any moment.”

“Oh, good!” Pinkie Pie said, before assuming a confused expression. “Who’s Selena?” she asked, tilting her head.

Luna flinched visibly, but before she could answer, the doors of the throne room opened once again, this time revealing princess Celestia.

At the sight of her old mentor and friend, Twilight rushed toward her and the two exchanged a warm hug. Now that she was closer, Twilight noticed that the she too showed signs of fatigue, just like her sister. Her pure white coat appeared less bright than usual, while judging from from the eye circles, she doubted she had properly slept since the news of Sombra’s return reached Canterlot.

“It’s good to see you, Twilight,” Celestia said with warmth, caressing the head of the younger mare. “I only wish it was under better circumstances,” she said bitterly as her gaze saddened.

“Me too, princess.”

Before any of them could say more, their short heartwarming moment was brutally shattered.

“Oh, please. You two really make me want to throw up,” a female voice dripping of disgust said all of sudden. The voice resembled vaguely that of princess Luna, although it sounded more mature, with a distinct note of malice and arrogance. Twilight could have sworn that it sounded awfully familiar, but she couldn’t recall exactly where or when she had already heard her.

Twilight broke the hug with Celestia and peered behind her. Standing behind the princess was a unicorn mare, apparently a few years older than Twilight and her friends, dressed with a plain purple dress with matching flat shoes. Her blue coat and her cerulean mane resembled in an uncanny way those of princess Luna shortly after she had been purified by the Elements. She had a lock of her cerulean shoulder-length hair strategically combed so that it covered her right eye, shadowing most of her face and giving her an air of mystery.

Rainbow Dash wasted no time and in a moment she was right in front of the newcomer. “Hey, who do you think you are to speak that way to the princesses?” Rainbow Dash shouted angrily.

“You can call me Selena, my dear,” the unicorn replied, completely unfazed by the hostile pegasus just a few inches from her face. “Now, out of my way.” Before the pegasus could react, Selena put a hand on Rainbow Dash’s face and unceremoniously shoved her aside, almost making her stumble. Without sparing the pegasus a second glance, she walked toward the only purple alicorn in the room.

“Twilight Sparkle!” The unicorn saluted the young princess with a smile completely devoid of any warmth, ignoring the dumbfounded expressions of the pegasus and her friends while they still tried to process what had just happened. “It’s been so long since we met last time. Tell me, is it just me, or are you getting taller?”

Twilight didn’t respond, instead she carefully studied the mare in front of her. “I’m sorry, but who are you?” she asked cautiously. “You seem awfully familiar, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember where I’ve met you before.”

The other mare simply moved closer to Twilight, until she was just a couple steps in front of her. “Oh, don’t tell me that you have really forgotten me?” she said with a little pout, brushing aside the lock covering her face to offer an unobstructed sight of her eyes to the young princess. “Because I have not forgotten you and your friends,” she said coldly while the round pupils of her teal eyes turned to thin slits like those of a reptile.

Twilight gasped in shock as realization hit her like a hammer and took an unconscious step back.

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Rarity asked, concerned.

“Yeah, Twilight. What’s wrong?” Selena asked in faux concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You,” Twilight almost growled, narrowing her eyes.

The blue unicorn smirked. “Ah, seems like your pretty brain finally solved the puzzle. So, aren’t you happy to see me again?”

“Hardly, Selena… or should I call you Nightmare Moon?”

As soon as the name left Twilight’s lips, her friends too realized who was standing in front of them.

Fluttershy emitted a startled cry of fear and promptly hid behind Rarity, whose white face turned even paler if that was possible; Rainbow Dash and Applejack meanwhile seemed to be ready for a fight, although their body language betrayed their own nervousness.

Pinkie Pie emitted an exaggerated gasp of surprise. “It was you all the time!” the pink mare exclaimed, theatrically pointing a finger at the blue unicorn.

“This is the first time in almost two years that you saw me,” the blue mare deadpanned.

“Oh, right. Why the false identity, though?” Pinkie Pie asked, voicing the question that was likely passing through the mind of all her friends.

“It’s the name that she chose when we decided she needed a pseudonymous,” Celestia responded. “The last thing we needed was the population panicking at the news that the mare that banished me to the sun and tried to plunge the world in an eternal night was spared by the Elements and kept prisoner in the castle.”

Celestia shifted a bit uncomfortably on her feet, before clearing her throat. “And, we didn’t want to make the guards too nervous in her presence. The tales of how she defeated my honor guard in a matter of seconds during the Summer Sun Celebration is common knowledge.”

“Well, maybe you should add the chapter ‘How to deal with demigods and other overpowered enemies’ to their academy textbook. I’ve noticed that it has become a recurring theme lately,” Selena joked, before refocusing her attention to the latest addition to the royal family. “So, where’s your talking pet lizard? Did you leave him behind like you always do when there’s an important mission?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Spike is with my parents,” she replied coldly, glaring at the other mare like she was about to punch her.

Selena didn’t miss her change of attitude and merely offered her a provocative smirk, almost challenging her to dare to do something.

Rainbow Dash, maybe due to bravery or maybe just for her loyalty to her friend, decided to break the rather intimidating staring contest between the two mares. “So, Nightmare Mo-”

“Selena,” the blue unicorn mare said firmly, much to the confusion of the six Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. “I refuse to hear my true name being associated to this weak form that I’ve been forced to assume.”

“Alright. So, Selena, why don’t you look like, well, you know?” Rainbow Dash asked while gesturing vaguely at her body.

“A night goddess? The living incarnation of beauty?” Selena offered with a smirk, glancing casually at her fingernails.

“Actually, I was about to say a power-hungry psychotic bitch,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned, causing one of Selena’s eyes to start twitching dangerously.

“The reason why she looks like a unicorn instead of an alicorn, like after the Elements separated our bodies, is the inhibitor collar that she wears around her neck,” princess Luna explained, entering into the conversation before the situation could degenerate into a brawl. Even without powers, Nightmare Moon was still capable of kicking and punching, like several guards had learned firsthand during the first weeks of her imprisonment. “When we first brought her to Canterlot, her body was severely weakened and her magical reserves were almost non-existent, but we knew that she would eventually regain her powers. To avoid it, we forced her to wear a special enchanted choker that prevents her from replenishing her magical reserves to their normal levels. As you may all know, alicorns are even more dependent on magic than any other kind of pony, so, in order to cope with the insufficient levels of magic, her body regressed to a form that required less energy, turning her into a unicorn.”

“Which brings us to the reason I’m here,” Selena said.

“Which would be?” Twilight couldn’t help but ask, unable to see the connection between their current crisis and Nightmare Moon's depowered form.

The blue unicorn smirked. “I’m here because your beloved teacher was so desperate that she asked for my help.”

Twilight widened her eyes. “What?!” she exclaimed after a brief moment of shock, before looking incredulously at her former mentor.

Celestia sighed and nodded. “Due to the nature of her powers, she’s the only one able to pass through the energy barrier generated by the corrupted Crystal Heart and allow us to get inside the Empire,” Celestia explained.

The initial shocked expression of Twilight quickly became one of confusion. ‘In order to break the spell, Selena should be able to use her magic, but she can’t do it as long as she wears-’ Twilight’s eyes turned to pinpricks. ‘Oh, please, no.’

“Please, princess, tell me you’re not saying that… ?” Twilight asked with a growing sense of dread, hoping that she had just jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Yes, Twilight. In order to do so… we must first set her free.”

Twilight Sparkle stared at the mare that she considered like a second mother as if she had just grown a second head.

“Celestia,” the young princess started slowly with a calm tone. Too calm. “ I’ve always supported your decisions and I would entrust you with my life, but… ARE YOU INSANE!?” Twilight yelled as loud as she could, looking at the white alicorn with both anger and incredulity.

“I assure you that both my sister and I are in full possession of our mental ability, princess Twilight,” Celestia replied, apparently unfazed by the remark or the tone used by her former student, however, her tone had lost a part of its natural warmth, while her gaze had hardened almost imperceptibly.

Hearing her former mentor address her using her title, Twilight winced, knowing that she had crossed the line. “I apologize for my outburst, princess. But what you are planning to do is extremely dangerous.”

“We are aware of the risks, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. “Do not think that we took such a decision lightheartedly.”

“There must be another way,” Twilight said, frantically thinking to find an alternative.

“I wish there was,” Celestia said with grim resignation, shaking her head. “But unfortunately, any other alternative would need time to be enacted, time that we simply don’t have. With every passing moment, not only does Sombra get closer to starting a war, but the lives of Cadence and Shining Armor are in danger.” Celestia closed her eyes and rubbed her face. She looked even more tired and stressed than before. “She agreed to help us, but only if we first removed her inhibitor collar.”

“As the griffins would say, everything comes with a price,” Selena said casually.

“The fact that you’re taking advantage of a situation like this for your personal interest is simply disgusting,” Rarity said, looking at her with contempt.

“Not everypony can be the Element of Generosity, darling,” she replied, not sounding minimally offended by the remark.

Hearing the mare use her favorite endearment term caused the fashionista to cross her arms under her bust and look away in indignation.

Unfazed by the reaction of the white unicorn, Selena moved her gaze to look at the other Elements. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were glaring at her with unconcealed hostility, Pinkie Pie was clearly feeling uneasy from the atmosphere in the room, Fluttershy was doing her best to pass unnoticed by keeping her head low and hiding her face behind her long mane, while Twilight was looking at her worriedly, probably trying to imagine the worst kind of scenarios that could happen.

“Oh, come on, Twilight. It’s not like it’s the end of the world,” Selena tried to cheer her up, although it was clearly evident that she found her anguish amusing.

“After Discord, you are the closest thing to a harbinger of the apocalypse that exists on this planet,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Aww, thank you. You make me blush,” Selena replied, fluttering her eyelashes.

“And let’s not forget that you tried to kill us several times the night of your return,” Rainbow Dash said as a matter of fact.

“Good times,” Selena sighed with a dreamy gaze, as if she was reviving a fond memory. “We should really do it more often.”

None of the other mares in the room seemed to be amused by her joke.

“Soooooo, how do we know that Queen Meanie will not, you know, betray us the very moment we set her free and proceed with her evil plan of casting an eternal night which would cause a deadly planetary winter?” Pinkie Pie eventually asked with her usual tact.

“Don’t worry Pinkie Pie. As much as watching you and your friends slowly die of starvation or hypothermia would be incredibly amusing, I think I’ll be nice and kill you with my bare hands instead.”

“Oh, thank you! That’s really considerate- Wait, what?!” The pink mare exclaimed, widening her eyes in fear.

“Don’t listen to her,” Celestia said reassuringly to the Element Bearers while casting a nasty glare at the blue unicorn, who simply smiled at her innocently. “The reason why you’re here with the Elements of Harmony is exactly to prevent her from pulling out some dirty trick once she’s free. It took us a bit of researching through the archives, but we found a spell that will prevent her from betraying us.” The princess produced a scroll from a hidden pocket in her dress and handed it to Twilight.

Twilight opened the yellowed parchment and soon her eyes widened in surprise. “But this is the handwriting of Starswirl the Bearded!” she exclaimed, recognizing the calligraphy from the book of spells that had allowed her ascension.

“Indeed. Before my-” Luna started to explain, but paused to give a sideway glance to Selena, “-our banishment to the moon, Starswirl the Bearded studied the Elements of Harmony thoroughly. Although he was only able to scratch the surface of their true power, he discovered a way to use them to contain dark entities without actually destroying them.”

Twilight returned her attention to the scroll and studied the spell carefully. It was rather complex, but well within her abilities, especially now that she was an alicorn.

“Once you and your friends will have performed the spell illustrated in this scroll, my sister and I will use our powers to remove her collar,” Celestia continued. “This way she’ll be able to use her magic again, but the Elements will prevent her from using it for malevolent purposes.”

“Whatever,” Selena huffed. “Anything if it means that I’ll no longer be forced to be, well, this!”

“Uhm, is it really that terrible?” Fluttershy asked timidly, speaking for the first time since she had entered in the room.

Selena turned sharply toward the meek pegasus and glared at her with such intensity that Fluttershy instinctively took a step back in fear. “You have no idea,” Selena hissed coldly while her expression turned into a deep scowl. “I’m tired of being trapped in this pathetic excuse of a body, unable to feel the magic flowing through me, or the soft touch of the wind on my wings, or the power of the earth under my feet. You can’t even imagine the humiliation from looking into the mirror every morning, only to be reminded that I’ve been turned into a shadow of myself. It would have been much better to get it over with it once and for all on the scaffold, but your glorious princess,” she spat with venom, glaring at Celestia, “thought that it was better to take my wings and cut off my powers to keep me tamed, all because instead of being wiped away that damn night, the Elements decided for some obscure reason to spare me.”

“Your imprisonment was a decision that we both took,” Luna reminded her.

Selena looked at Luna and scoffed. “Please, spare me the part of the independent strong mare, you little spineless brat. Under the mask of the tough princess of the night lies a filly who’s still worried about disappointing her sister and her subjects, unable to forgive herself for betraying not only her family but also those she had sworn to protect.”

The throne room once again fell silent. “You don’t know anything about me,” Luna finally said, glaring at the smaller mare.

“Oh, I beg to differ, Luna. After all, before these wretched fillies got involved, we’ve spent a long time together.”

“I have changed, Nightmare,” Luna said with gritted teeth, purposely using the real name of the mare.

“Right. I just wonder when it happened. The moment when your sister unexpectedly defeated us and banished us on the moon? Or maybe after the Elements separated us and you realized you could no longer give me the blame of our actions?”

“It was after I realized that you had tricked me and that I was a prisoner inside my own body! I’ve spent centuries trapped in a horrible nightmare from which I couldn’t escape, nor scream for help, watching helpless as you plotted your schemes of vengeance to destroy my sister and everything I hold dear on this world!” Luna stomped a foot on the floor. “We may have been one and the same once, but no more! You’re nothing more than the fading scream of a bad memory! The result of a mistake-!”

“A mistake?!” Selena exploded. “I am a living monument to all your sins! We were partners in crime, Luna! I may have been the one that physically fought Celestia and tried to assume control of the reign, but you wanted to do it even before we met! In all the rare occasions you visited me while I was imprisoned, we’ve never had a serious conversation about what we’ve done. But it shouldn’t surprise me, because you don’t have the courage to take responsibility for your actions and face your demons. You prefer to play the part of the victim, wallowing in your self-pity while blaming the darkness that took advantage of your heart filled with pain, when the truth is that you were so vengeful and power-hungry that you welcomed me with open arms!”

“Enough!” Luna yelled with all her force, slapping Selena in the face.

The only sound in the throne room was Luna’s panting breath as she stared at the mare in front of her, before she slowly realized what she had just done. Lowering her head, she looked in horror at her offending hand with her now dilated and watery eyes.

Selena just stared back at her, casually wiping a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” Luna babbled with a broken voice. “I don’t know what took me-”

“You know? You’re even worst than you sister,” Selena calmly said. “At least she had the courage to do what she did all those years ago even knowing the consequences. You? You can’t even be honest with yourself.”

She looked at Celestia, who was still shocked by what had just happened. “Let’s get over with this ridiculous pantomime, so that your pathetic little utopia may continue existing for another day.”

Celestia stared at the blue unicorn with an unreadable expression before nodding. “Let’s proceed.” Selena walked wordlessly toward the center of the room, followed by the two sisters.

“She’s scary even in this form,” Fluttershy said quietly to Twilight, who could only agree with her friend.

‘She’s pure poison.’ Despite her lack of powers, Nightmare Moon still knew how to hurt other ponies, and even after years since her purification, Luna was clearly still recovering from the scars of her past.

The group took position, with Celestia and Luna standing a dozen feet in front of Twilight and her friends, while Selena stood in the middle.

Celestia’s horn glowed brightly as she used her powers to move the sun across the sky until it reached its highest point and a few moments later the bell of the castle’s clock tower announced that it was midday.

“The sun is in position,” Celestia said. “It’s your turn, little sister.”

Luna closed her eyes, took a deep breath to calm herself, and concentrated on her task, letting the magic flow through her body. She unconsciously widened her arms and wings while her horn started glowing brightly.

The six Element Bearers looked out of a nearby window and much to their collective amazement, they saw the moon rise above the horizon. The sight of the pale orb in the daytime sky was beautiful yet unsettling at the same time. Eclipses were not an unheard phenomenon to the ponies, but due to the unique role of their rulers, they were still a rare event that usually occurred during special ceremonies.

The moon kept rising in the cerulean sky at a steady pace, until it finally reached the sun, slowly covering it. The entire process took a couple of minutes and when it was complete, the sun resembled a menacing eye standing in the red-grey sky.

The two alicorn sisters then used their magic to create two streams of golden and blue energy, aiming them a few feet above the head of Selena. Once their magic met, if took the form of a bright sphere of energy the size of a soccer ball floating in the air.

“It’s your turn, girls,” Celestia said with a hint of strain in her voice.

“Just try not to zap me to oblivion, miracle filly,” Selena warned the young princess.

Twilight and her friends exchanged a quick look, then the six of them closed their eyes and started looking inside themselves for the spark that would ignite their hidden powers. It didn’t take long and soon they felt a familiar warm feeling spreading inside their chests that caused a serene smile to appear on their lips. The six mares appeared to fall in a sort of trance as the magic of the Elements grew stronger, slowly levitating them into the air until they were floating a few feet from the floor, but they barely seemed to notice it.

Each of the five necklaces started glowing a different color of the rainbow, emitting tendrils of magic that converged toward Twilight. The young princess furrowed her brows in concentration as her tiara channeled the magic coming from her friends, using the spell contained in the scroll to adapt it to their current purpose. After a few moments, a familiar rainbow of magic emerged from the Element of Magic, crossing the air in a curve trajectory until it met with the globe levitating above Selena’s head, merging with it to form a miniaturized multicolored star.

The star split in eight smaller versions of itself that began spinning, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until they looked like a single bright halo.

Selena flinched involuntarily as the ring of light slowly began to descend toward her, but then she shut her eyes and clenched her fists, banishing the painful memories of her previous interaction with the elements in a dark corner of her mind, refusing to show further signs of weakness.

The spinning orbs continued their descent, then, once reaching the floor, they suddenly disappeared in a blinding flash.

While the six bearers were slowly brought back on their feet by the same power that had levitated them in the air, Celestia and Luna moved on to the last part of the ritual.

Once again the two sisters called the magic inside of them, only this time on a bigger scale, as shown by their now white-glowing eyes. Their glowing horns released a thin steady flux of magic aimed at the inhibitor collar around Selena’s neck, causing an intricate series of glowing runes to appear on its surface. Then, they started chanting.

The language they were using was ancient and almost forgotten, a relic of an era preceding the unification of the three tribes and the foundation of Equestria. Due to her still limited knowledge on the subject, Twilight could understand only a fraction of the words, and yet she and her friends could clearly feel through the air the power that the words carried.

With each line of the spell, one of the runes would glow brighter for a brief moment, before evaporating into thin air. The entire process kept going for several minutes, until the last rune disappeared. Celestia and Luna closed their eyes and severed the flow of magic.

The small collar around Selena’s neck finally opened with a soft click and fell on the marble floor. The mare looked at it in disgust and kicked it, throwing it across the throne room.

“Did it work?” Fluttershy asked timidly, stealing a nervous glance at Selena, who was now massaging her neck in relief.

“It’s done, my little pony,” Celestia assured her, looking at the six Bearers with pride. Both her eyes and those of her sister had resumed their usual, if now even more tired, appearance.

“Good job, everypony,” Twilight said with a little satisfied smile, still a bit dizzied by the use of the Elements.

“Wait. That’s it?” Rainbow Dash asked in surprise with a hint of disappointment. “All those flashing lights and the mysterious litany just to open a collar?”

“Rainbow Dash, that collar was the pinnacle of containment magic that exists outside of Tartarus,” the purple alicorn patiently explained. “What we just did was not an easy feat. We should be proud.”

“I dunno. It feels wrong. We usually use the Elements to punish bad guys, not to set them free.”

“Sometimes you need a monster to fight against another monster,” princess Luna said.

Celestia looked at Selena, who was currently looking up at her horn. The sight of a faint blue glow around its tip was enough to cause a wide excited grin to appear on her face.

“You should be able to recover part of your powers within the next few weeks,” Celestia commented, noticing her enthusiasm. “Although, I’m not sure how long it will take for your body to fully return to your original appearance.”

The smaller mare gave her no reply, instead she slowly turned toward one of the stained windows that decorated the throne room. It was the one depicting her defeat by the hand of Twilight and her friends, and by sheer coincidence the eclipsed sun was located right behind her own picture.

Twilight didn’t know why, but she felt the hair on the back of her head stand on end.

“We have abided our part of the agreement, now it's your turn. If you would be so kind to follow us, we can discuss-”

Whatever thing Celestia was about to say was abruptly interrupted when Selena started chuckling, much to everyone’s confusion. The chuckle quickly turned into a full psychotic laugh as the mare closed her eyes and threw back her head.

“What’s so funny?” Celestia asked warily.

“Oh, Celestia. That’s what I love about you. You consider yourself a master planner,” the blue mare said with a condescending tone without looking at the princess. “When in truth you’re just a filly who plays a game that she doesn’t fully understand.”

The white alicorn narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?” she demanded with a harsh tone that Twilight had only heard when they had met Discord for the first time.

Selena finally glanced over her shoulder to look at the eight ponies in the room. “You did your little magic trick,” she said, flashing a malevolent smile. “Now it’s my turn.”

With a deafening noise, the stained windows exploded inward without warning as what Twilight could only describe as tendrils of liquid shadow burst violently inside the throne room like a flooding river.

“Everypony, behind us!” Princess Luna shouted to be heard over the noise of the howling wind.

“Is this supposed to happen?!” Pinkie Pie screamed while a now terrorized Fluttershy hugged her tightly.

“I seriously doubt it!” Rainbow Dash replied, trying to hide her own nervousness by sounding sarcastic.

Princess Celestia inadvertently brushed the tip of a wing against one of the closest tendrils, but the brief contact with the dark mass was sufficient to make her retract her wing with a startled cry. The princess quickly inspected the damage, discovering that the tips of a few of the most external feathers appeared to be blackened, almost singed.

It confirmed her worst suspicions.

‘Dark magic,’ she thought in horror while the shadows started swirling furiously around Selena like a miniaturized hurricane, completely ignoring everyone else in the room.

A multicolored barrier suddenly surrounded the blue unicorn, cutting her out of reach of the dark magic. The mass however seemed to have its own will and, after what could be described as a moment of hesitation, it started attacking the barrier, hitting and lashing at its surface with violence. The barrier seemed to be able to resist at first, but soon cracks started to appear on its surface, getting wider and wider with each strike, until it finally collapsed with a sound of breaking glass, turning into a thin cloud of sparkling dust before disappearing.

No longer held back by the magic of the Elements of Harmony, the darkness swarmed Selena and engulfed her in a black cocoon made of shadow.

“Girls, the Elements!” Twilight exclaimed with urgency. Without wasting time, the six Bearers took position and started summoning their powers.

“Wait!” Celestia cried, trying to warn them, but it was too late.

The bodies of the six mares glowed briefly and started floating in the air, before they were abruptly dropped on the ground in a state of physical and mental weakness.

“What happened?” Applejack weakly asked while she helped Rarity get back on her feet. The rest of her friends didn’t seem to have fared better. Fluttershy looked like she was about to faint and was leaning against Rainbow Dash for support, while Pinkie Pie’s face had turned to a light shade of green.

“It’s just as I feared. Using the Elements is taxing for their Bearers, as their bodies are subjected to levels of magic far beyond the normal,” Celestia explained. Of the entire group, Twilight seemed to be the one less affected, but only due to her being an alicorn and her natural affinity with magic.

“Your bodies need time to recover before you can use the Elements again,” Luna finished, before firing her magic against the globe of swirling darkness, only to see the attack being deflected. “Dammit! We can’t simply stand here and do nothing while she recovers! We need to-”

Tendrils made of darkness burst out from their shadows and grabbed their limbs, holding the Bearers and the princesses in place, while others sealed the doors of the throne room, preventing the guards from coming to help. Luna recognized it as a form of shadow manipulation, an art that she had mastered when she was barely an adult, so it didn’t surprise her that Nightmare Moon was able to use it. When she tried to use the proper counterspell, however, another tendril wrapped around her horn, disrupting her magic and nullifying any attempt to get free. A quick look around revealed that Celestia, Twilight and Rarity were in the same situation.

“Sister, try to evoke the power of the sun to vanish the shadows!”

“I can’t!” the white alicorn replied while she struggled with all her forces to get free. “The eclipse is still in act, it interferes with my powers!”

The core of the cocoon started glowing brightly of a menacing crimson light, outlining the silhouette of the mare inside it.

Then the transformation began.

The ponies in the room could only stare in wonder as Selena’s body started growing in size in front of their eyes, slowly passing from that of an average tall mare to the amazonian size of princess Celestia. Her feminine curves became more accentuated and powerful muscles grew at prodigious speed under her flesh. Her horn grew longer and pointer, easily doubling in length, while two little stubby appendages burst out from her back, quickly becoming a pair of completely formed feathered wings, far bigger than those of any pegasus. Lastly, her mane and tail grew longer, assuming an aethereal form.

The glowing sphere collapsed with a shockwave that would have thrown the ponies in the room off balance, were it not for the magical tendrils holding them in place.

The mortal mare known as Selena was gone. In her place now stood the imposing form of an alicorn, black as the darkest depths of space, and with a mane and tail resembling a blue nebula.

Nightmare Moon took a deep breath as she stood under the light of the eclipse in all her terrifying glory, beautiful as a goddess yet terrifying as a demon. Whereas Celestia was gifted with more generous curves compared to Luna, who in contrast had a more athletic physique, Nightmare Moon looked like a combination of both their body-types.

She snapped open her huge powerful wings to their full extension and flapped them experimentally a couple of times, admiring them for a few moments before focusing her attention to the rest of her body. The few ripped pieces of clothing that had survived the transformation barely covered her powerful yet feminine physique, but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest, too enthralled in admiring and testing her newly reacquired form.

“Freedom. At last. But there’s still something missing.”

A pool of a glowing liquid that vaguely resembled mercurium formed around her barefeet and quickly started climbing up her legs, gradually covering her body with an amorphous layer of silver that quickly reshaped itself and hardened in the various components of her armor.

The entire process took less than a minute, but the final result was something that would have required at least a year of work to be achieved by the best blacksmiths and metal artisans of the reign. Nightmare Moon was now covered head to toe by a beautiful yet intimidating armor made of pale cobalt colored starmetal, brighter than silver yet stronger than steel, giving her the appearance of an ancient war deity.

“The queen is back!” Nightmare Moon exclaimed gleefully, then threw back her head and released a long bloodchilling laugh.

“Not if we can stop you!” Twilight exclaimed, narrowing her brows and clenching her jaws in concentration. Sweat was starting to flow down her forehead and her head was aching, but she ignored it, calling on all her powers. Sparks started emerging from her horn and a few moments later, the tendril holding it exploded in a purple flash of magic.

‘Yes!’

Without wasting time, Twilight fired the most powerful combat spell she could muster but, much to her astonishment and horror, Nightmare Moon simply raised her left hand without even looking at her, deflecting the beam with the palm of hand and sending it crashing against a pillar.

The black mare slowly turned her head to look at the ponies in the room, flashing a psychotic smile filled with fangs.

“Is that really the best you can do, princess Twilight?”

Her eyes glowed bright white and barely a moment later lightning bolts burst from her still outstretched hand.

Twilight widened her eyes and opened her mouth when she was hit, but she couldn’t tell if the screams she was hearing were her own or those of her friends. The only thing that she knew for sure while her body was crossed by the electricity was that it hurt. A lot.

After a series of long, interminable painful moments, Nightmare Moon severed the spell, and Twilight fell on the floor, followed by her friends.

A part of her mind vaguely realized that the tendrils must have disappeared if her body was now lying on the cold surface of the marble floor, but her body hurt too much to actually care.

Using all her willpower, the young princess managed to raise her face from the floor and look at her friends. Rainbow Dash was still conscious, although barely, probably because she was used to dealing with electricity on a daily basis due to her work with Ponyville’s Weather Team; Applejack emitted a weak grunt, but despite her best attempts she wasn’t able to move her body; Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were lying on the ground, still breathing but evidently passed out.

Gathering her strength, Twilight forced her body on her hands and knees, but new tendrils emerged from her shadow, holding her in place, just like Celestia and Luna were.

The sound of heavy metal boots started echoing through the throne room. Twilight slowly raised her gaze and saw Nightmare Moon slowly advancing toward them with the same confident gait of a predator that had cornered her prey.

When she was just a few feet away, she stopped and looked down at the struggling form of Celestia, who was still trying to get back on her feet.

The princess of the sun yelped when a blue aura enveloped her and yanked her violently from the ground, levitating her until she was in front of Nightmare Moon.

“I have long dreamt of this moment, Celestia,” Nightmare Moon said without ever dropping her evil smile.

“Do your worst, witch,” the white alicorn spat, looking with defiance at her nemesis.

“Oh, I will.”

Author's Note

And here we are with another chapter of Angel or demon?
The title of this chapter is a reference to the anime Hellsing, when the vampire Alucard is allowed to use his powers to their full extent, while Nightmare Moon's transformation was inspired by the song Nemesis, from Halo 4.

I hope you enjoyed the reading and please leave a comment :twilightsmile:

Chapter 4 - Cloudy with a chance of end of the world

The loud rhythmic sound of slapping flesh echoed through the dining room of the Crystal Palace, accompanied by moans and grunts of pleasure and the occasional whimper of pain.

A couple of servants, a mare and a stallion both in their early fifties, stood with their back against the wall, waiting for orders while doing their best to ignore the scene in front of them.

Princess Cadence was lying naked on her back on the tabletop, surrounded by toppled silverware and dishes, with King Sombra standing between her spread legs. The stallion was holding her hips with his strong hands while he penetrated her pussy at a steady pace with his big stallionhood, painfully stretching her inner walls each time he pushed his dick inside her.

It had been an irritating morning for the king, the delegations of the mercenary guilds were late due to a storm, while an accident had occurred in the forges. While the twenty four slaves that had died when the arm of the crane holding the cauldron of molten metal had broken were easily replaceable, the production of new weapons and armor for his troops would be delayed for at least two days.

He didn’t feel particularly hungry so, halfway through his meal, the king had decided to relieve some of his frustration in his favorite way. When Cadence had gotten close to refill his goblet of wine, Sombra had suddenly grabbed her and shoved her on the table. She barely had the time to realize what was happening before the big unicorn stallion ripped her clothes and started fucking her, uncaring of the horrified gazes of two other servants in the room. He had kept going for almost an hour by now, during which the princess had experienced several orgasms, thanks to her inhibitor collar, which now sported a few red glowing runes on her inhibitor collar. The device’s primary function was to suppress her powers, but it also had a few more perks, included making her body far more sensitive than normal to sexual stimulation.

Speaking of which, the princess released an involuntary moan of pleasure when his member touched a particularly sensitive spot of her innards, triggering another violent orgasm.

‘What a bitch,’ the king thought wickedly as the alicorn squirted once again, coating his penis and balls with a fresh wave of her clear juices.

“P-please, stop,” Cadence whimpered weakly, looking at the king with pleading eyes while he calmly took a sip of wine.

Oh, the shame and humiliation on her face. It was simply delightful! He should use that spell more often.

Putting down the now empty goblet, Sombra adjusted his grip on her wide hips and brought her a bit closer to him.

“I’m not done yet,” he coldly replied and, without giving her time to recover from her last orgasm, Sombra resumed thrusting his cock in and out of her pussy, exploiting the additional lubrication offered by her fluids to penetrate her more easily.

He briefly shifted his gaze from the bouncing breasts of the princess to the two servants standing silently a few meters away from the table. Both of them had their eyes downcast to avoid watching the princess being raped right in front of them, but they could still hear every sound they made. The mare was trembling and it was probably just due to the stallion holding her hand that she had not yet started crying.

Their pain was simply delicious and made the whole experience all the more pleasant.

Sombra leaned down and groped Cadence’s generous perky breasts, then he latched at her hard nipples and started sucking them alternately. While he swirled his tongue around her areolas, he wondered what her milk would taste like.

‘Oh, well. I’ll find it out as soon as I manage to put a little bastard in her womb.’

The door of the dining room opened and a young stallion dressed as a messenger walked in, completely unaware of what was going on.

“I apologize for the disturbance, your highness, but-” the crystal pony started to announced, only to stop abruptly at the sight of the scene in front of him. He knew from the other servants that Cadence was now the sex slave of the king, but now that he saw her naked body with his eyes, he understood why Sombra had kept the alicorn as trophy rather than kill her.

Princess Cadence was gorgeous. The mare was tall and slim, but not in the unhealthy way like some models he had seen on those Equestrian magazines. Her breasts were big and firm, perfectly proportioned with the rest of her body and with aureolas a few shades darker than her soft pink fur. Her slim stomach and thin waist exalted her wide hips and her long lean legs, while her buttcheeks had just the right amount of body fat.

What he wouldn’t do to enjoy her body even just once...

“What do you want?” King Sombra snarled, snapping the messenger from his fantasies. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” To prove his point, the unicorn gave a particularly violent thrust with his hips while roughly squeezing Cadence’s breasts, making her cry in pain.

The messenger gulped nervously, doing his best to look at the king rather than at the beautiful naked alicorn on the table. “I apologize, your highness, but I have to inform you that an eclipse is currently taking place in the sky.”

“What?!” Sombra exclaimed, so surprised that he stopped moving his hips, much to Cadence’s relief. “When did it happen?” he demanded with a deep scowl. Eclipses could happen only by direct result of the princesses actions, and those two whores always had a reason behind their actions.

“According to the guards it started several minutes ago,” the young stallion started nervously to explain, cowering under Sombra’s hard glare. “But their task is to watch out for threats or problems with the, ah, workers, so-”

“I know what their duty is!” The armor turned them into fighters, he didn’t need them to be smart or gifted with free will. “What I want to know is, why have none of you done anything?!”

“I didn’t think it was important until one of your knights told me to-”

“You stupid incompetent piece of scum!” Sombra roared, grabbing the messenger with his magic. Green purple smoke started coming from the corners of his now glowing crimson eyes. “If I didn’t want you to use your brain, I would have encased you in a suit of armor or thrown you in the mines like the rest of your family!”

So powerful was the anger of the king that he was about to turn the messenger into a crystal statue before shattering him to pieces. The only thing that saved the young stallion was the unexpected magic surge that Sombra felt just a moment before he cast the spell, causing him to release the young stallion and let him fall unceremoniously on the floor. The eyes of the big grey stallion were widened in shock at the sheer magnitude of the power he felt. The last time he had come in contact with something so powerful was when the Crystal Heart had destroyed his body, but this was something completely different.

He felt Cadence’s body tense under him and he realized that even with the inhibitor collar blocking her powers, the alicorn had felt the magic surge too. His red eyes met her purple ones, and what he saw wasn’t of his liking. There was now newfound hope and defiance in her tired gaze, and the corners of her mouth were curled upward, forming the hint of a smile.

“What’s wrong, oh great king? Something troubles you?”

The king scowled. She knew that something was happening in Canterlot and whatever it was it couldn’t be good news for him. ‘I must know what is going on,’ he thought. ‘But first, I still have a pressing matter between my legs to take care of.’

“This is none of your concern, slave,” Sombra hissed with malice. Fueled by his combined anger and lust, he grabbed her calves and brought her legs on his strong shoulders, then he leaned forward and buried his cock all the way inside her with a violent thrust of his hips. Cadence screamed in pain, feeling the head of his cock hit her cervix like a war ram, but Sombra paid her no mind. He spent a few moments savoring the way the new position allowed him to reach deeper inside her while making her love tunnel feel even more tight around his member, then he started pounding her pussy like a jackhammer.

Cadence’s screams quickly turned into a series of high-pitched cries matching the impact of their hips as the big unicorn stallion thrust his stallionhood in and out of her pussy with reckless abandon, causing waves after waves of pleasure to wash through her body without a moment of respite.

After a few minutes of savage mating, Sombra’s member touched a particularly sensitive spot of her vagina, finally sending Cadence over the edge. “Hnnnnnnngggg!” The muscles of her entire body tensed, causing her toes to curl up and her wings to snap open, as the most powerful orgasm she had experienced that day flooded her like a hurricane. Rolling her eyes backward, the princess screamed and came violently, spraying his pelvis once again with her clean fluids. Sombra closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as he felt her warm inner walls quivering and clenching viciously around his now painfully throbbing shaft.

‘I can’t hold it back anymore!’

Cadence was still in the middle of her violent orgasm when Sombra pushed his cock as deep as he could inside her with a loud groan of pleasure and reached his own climax. The princess wanted to scream at him to pull it out, but Sombra silenced her with a brutal kiss, shoving his tongue deep into her mouth while moving his hips in slow and deep thrusts to better enjoy his orgasm. Hot tears were now running down her cheeks as she felt the magic of her collar force her body to betray her, milking the stallion’s shaft with her inner muscles as he kept firing his hot semen inside her, gradually filling her womb with each spurt.

When almost a minute had passed, he finally stopped cumming, both panting hard as they experienced their respective afterglow. The princess was looking with teary unfocused eyes at the ornate ceiling of the room, apparently unaware of the few stray hairs stuck to her face, drenched in sweat or the fact that she was drooling from the corners of her mouth. The only thing she could think about was the intense sense of warmth coming from her now bloated womb; as her muscles started relaxing around his cock, she could feel his semen slowly leaking out of her abused pussy and dribble down his testicles pressed against her soft rump.

Sombra looked at her heartbroken face and smirked malevolently. His lust may have been sated for now, but he still thought that the alicorn needed him to remind her what her place was after her little moment of defiance when they both felt the magic surge.

A little more humiliation would do it.

Sombra pulled out his still hard penis from the cozy warm confines of her pussy with a soft grunt, making Cadence whimper at the sudden feeling of emptiness. He grabbed his thick meat rod with a hand and proceeded to pump it at a quick pace while aiming it at the exhausted princess. A few moments later he grunted as he fired his remaining load on Cadence’s body, covering her belly and breasts in white goo, and even managing to splash her left cheek and muzzle with a couple of spurts.

Finally satisfied, Sombra grabbed the ruined clothes of the princess and used them to clean the fluids coating his crotch. “Don’t ever dare to forget what your place is again,” he said with contempt, pulling up his pants.

Cadence was still recovering from the pain and the pleasure of the multiple orgasms she was forced to experience, too tired to even try to formulate a reply. Her generous bosom rose and fell with each breath she took, her legs dangled limply over the edge of the table and a mixture of their combined sexual fluids was leaking copiously from her ravaged pussy, forming a puddle on the floor.

“You, mare!” King Sombra pointed at the mare with the maid uniform. The red crystal pony made a startled wince at the imperious tone of the king and nervously met his gaze. “Get her clean.”

“Y-yes, my lord,” she responded nervously.

Without sparing Cadence a second glance, Sombra donned his heavy red cloak and left the room.

The moment King Sombra left the room, the head maid took action. “Go get a clean towel and some warm water,” Crimson Berry instructed her husband, a green pony with a thin moustache. The stallion gave her a firm nod and ran through the small door leading to the kitchen to carry out his task.

Crimson Berry looked back at the princess and felt a stab to her heart. The alicorn was weakly trying to sit up, but her body didn’t seem to cooperate, causing her to fall back on the tabletop.

“Wait, let me help you, dear,” the mare said, hurrying to help her, then she gently helped Cadence to assume a sitting position. Cadence mumbled a weak ‘thank you’ and leaned against the body of the older and shorter mare for support, before starting sobbing.
‘Monster,’ Crimson Berry thought venomously, looking at the way the king had gone. ‘Nopony deserves this, especially not her,’ she thought bitterly while something that could only be described as maternal instinct awoke inside her.

It was only now that the head maid noticed that the messenger was still standing at the threshold of the main door of the dining room, openly staring at the naked body of the princess. Anger exploded inside Crimson Berry, who now was glaring with open disgust at the young stallion for his shameless behaviour. “Hey! There’s nothing to see here! Go back to your duties!” she yelled, blocking the sight of Cadence’s body with her own.

The young stallion made a jump as her harsh voice snapped him back to reality. His gaze briefly met the burning glare of the head maid and the next moment he was gone.

‘Filthy pervert,’ the mare thought harshly while she delicately started cleaning Cadence’s face with a napkin.

Sombra walked at a quick pace down the corridors of the castle, his dark mood back thanks to the recent unexpected events. Guards snapped to attention as he passed, while servants would hastily move out his path and bow deep like they were rightfully expected to do, but the king ignored them completely, completely absorbed by far more important things than their miserable existences.

He eventually reached a door with a dark gem on top. Just like its twin in the secret chamber beneath the throne room, the door could be opened only using a specific kind of magic, otherwise it would only trap the intruder in a horrible hallucination based on their worst fears. Without even slowing down, he hit the gem with his magic, causing it to glow brightly, and opened it, revealing a long spiral flight of stairs.

It took him several minutes to reach the top of the stairs, but his strong body didn’t even notice the fatigue. He grabbed the handle of the door at the end of the staircase and opened it. Immediately, a gust of chilly air started blowing against his face, waving his shoulder-long hair.

Being the highest spot of the Empire, the top floor of the main tower of the Crystal Palace offered an excellent view of the surrounding territories, but it also offered little to no protection to the wind constantly blowing at such height. However, the tyrant was hardly bothered by the cold. Adjusting the heavy cloak on his shoulders, Sombra walked through one of the arcs holding the protective dome and stepped on the balcony running all around the top of the castle. He grabbed the railing to lean against it and looked at the sky. True to the words of the messenger, the sun was shielded by the moon. King Sombra observed the strange phenomenon, wondering what the reason could be behind it. Could it just be Discord messing with the astral bodies in a childish attempt to irritate the princesses?

‘No, that wouldn’t explain the magic surge.’ It must have been the work of the princesses themselves, but why? What could be the reason? ‘I need to see what’s going on.’

He turned his back to the eclipse and walked toward the center of the room. Where he had once kept hidden the Crystal Heart, now stood a pedestal holding a massive crystal ball. Sombra placed the palm of his right hand on its smooth surface and let the magic flow from his body to the arcane device.

“Show me the area around Canterlot.”

The crystal sphere glowed briefly of the same red aura of his magic, before a purple-green fog appeared inside of it. The fog started swirling, slowly taking a compact shape and changing color, until it finally showed the image of a tall mountain with a majestic city built on its side, right beside a waterfall.

As much as he hated to admit it, Celestia and Luna weren’t idiots. The princesses were aware of the risks of espionage through magic arts and thus they had cast powerful anti-scrying spells to protect their reign. However, even if effective, the spells weren’t perfect. The amount of magic that would be required to cast them on all of Equestria was simply too much even for the combined powers of the two alicorns, and as result the princesses had been forced to leave vast amounts of territory unprotected. Unfortunately for them, Sombra had almost casually discovered after countless attempts that scrying the surrounding area of a certain location protected by their spell allowed him to see his target, even if indirectly. He wasn’t able to observe what was happening inside the single buildings or even in the streets, but he could still have an overall view of Canterlot from afar, like if he was watching the city from a hot air balloon flying a mile away.

What he saw this time, however, was completely unexpected.

Canterlot, the heart of the reign of Equestria and the very symbol of the power of the alicorn sisters, was a war zone, with thick columns of smoke rising from the countless fires rampaging through the once majestic city. The castle itself seemed to have suffered severe damage and many of its tower were now in ruin, while an entire section of the defensive walls, the same walls that had protected the city from numerous sieges during the centuries, had crumbled. And finally, he saw colorful golden and blue rays of energy crossing the sky above the city, meaning that the two princesses were fighting.

But against who?

At first he thought that the princesses were fighting against some unseen enemy that kept moving in the sky, but the more he watched the scene, the more he noticed that oddly enough their respective attacks seemed to follow closely the movements of the other alicorn, almost as if they were trying to hit each other.

A dark figure, too big to be a pegasus and with long blue hair, suddenly burst through the thick smoke of the fires and started firing a series of powerful beams of blue magic at the roof of the main building of the castle.

‘No, not the roof,’ he quickly realized when he noticed a figure moving at high speed just a few feet above the top of the castle, dodging the attacks in an impressive display of speed and reflexes. It was difficult to tell due to the distance, but the object had the shape of a white winged pony with multicolored hair. “Celestia,” Sombra hissed with venom dripping out his voice, before a thought occurred to him.

‘Why is Luna fighting against her sister?’

And then, just when one of the blue beams was about to hit the princess in the back, things became even more confusing when a shield of blue energy appeared between her and the combat spell, causing it to crash against one of the still standing towers. The top of the structure crumbled in a rain of debris, but before they could crash onto the streets below, a purple aura enveloped them and levitated the blocks of stone out of the city walls.

Sombra however barely noticed Twilight Sparkle trying to prevent collateral damages, for he was too busy watching the two dark figures exchange a furious sequence of combat spells, culminating when they both fired a concentrated beam of magic at each other. The two blue rays met halfway and their respective spellcasters started struggling for dominance, but their powers were equally matched. Their spell soon formed a globe of energy that exploded violently a few moments later with a blinding flash, shattering all nearby windows.

‘What in Grogar’s name is going on?’ He thought, irritated. He needed to know, but he couldn’t get a closer look due to the magic barrier. This left him only one option.

Closing his eyes to concentrate, he expanded his mind over his physical body through the crystal sphere to explore the interferences in the ethereal plane around Canterlot. Ignoring the aura of all the lesser ponies, he focused on the most powerful magical emissions and quickly identified four presences. All of them were alicorns.

He felt the powerful and ancient magic of the two sisters, so different from each other like the night was from the day, yet also so similar, almost complementary. He felt the magic of Celestia’s little prodigy, that little whore that with the help of that pathetic excuse of a dragon had retrieved the Crystal Heart. Despite her young age, she was also incredibly powerful.

The fourth and last entity was however the most troublesome. There was no doubt, the magic he had felt previously in the dining room belonged to her, but only now he realized that she wasn’t just extremely powerful. Her aura was dark, dangerous, and for lack of better terms, evil.

Just like him.

For a moment he wondered if the princesses had accidentally released some kind of demon from Tartarus. And yet, her magic felt oddly familiar.

‘It feels almost like that of princess Lu-’

An ear-splintering banshee scream suddenly filled the air while the image of Canterlot was replaced by a multitude of cyan draconian eyes standing on a black background. Hissing in pain at the horribly loud noise, Sombra watched in shock as the surface of the sphere started cracking. The king had barely the time to rise a hand and summon a red shield before the sphere exploded with violence, filling the air with a deadly volley of sharp crystal shards.

Sombra stood stunned in front of the smoking remains of the crystal sphere, before slowly moving his gaze southward in the direction of Canterlot.

‘Who are you?’