Unfortunately, I Am The King Of Equestria

Chapters

Well, This Is A Fine Mess
Hail To The... King?
We Are Not Amused
The Royal Welcome
The King's Speech
Royal Blood
Interlude: Fear Of The Unknown
A Brief Interlude: That Moment Of Dawning Comprehension

Well, This Is A Fine Mess

Alternate timelines persist.

They sorta have to, in order for time travel to work at all: Let's say you go into the past, and then change history. Alright, so assuming you can't paradox yourself out of existence, that has to mean that your original timeline still exists in some form or other. Now, however, let's say you go back again, and prevent that change from occurring, resulting in events going back to the way they went the first time around (or maybe just creating a new timeline nearly identical to the one you started with, always a strong possibility). If non-paradoxing out of existence means that your original timeline never ceased to exist, wouldn't that mean that the alternate timeline you created must still exist as well?

Questions like this are pretty much THE reason why time travel makes your head hurt. Time is not a single straight line that goes from point A to point B: It is more like the ultimate tangle of Xmas tree lights, a trillion different lines of lights tossed together without rhyme or reason. Or perhaps, a better comparison would be to a vast ocean, filled with currents going in every possible direction, and nearly impossible to keep track of. Thankfully, this is not, strictly speaking, a story about time travel, or you'd be reaching for your your Asprin right now. Instead, this is a story of an alternate timeline, where a guy named King Sombra, Equestria's perfect asshat, was not stopped right after he escaped from his imprisonment, but instead was able to retake the Crystal Empire, and from there, started metaphorically kicking Equestria in the dick over and over again.

Now, those of you familiar with the Primary Timeline (Or PrimeTime for short), are probably wondering how a single wizard with an army of maybe a thousand ponies, tops, could be such a massive threat. To understand that, I'll need to give you some info on Equestria in general. In PrimeTime, Twilight Sparkle and her friends handled a sizable number of Equestria's problems. Problems, I might add, that would be Celestia's to deal with, if Twilight Sparkle and her friends had not gotten together. See where this is going? Starlight Glimmer monkeyed with the timeline, and suddenly, Celestia's go-to group for solving problems was gone. And things started to snowball from there.

Lacking any other alternative methods due to an absence of Twilight and Friends in this timeline, Celestia had to deal with everything that went wrong in Equestria, and a lot of shit goes wrong in Equestria, every single day. To make things worse, for one thousand years Equestria's entire military strategy during a crisis boiled down to 'keep whatever it is busy until Celestia can come and deal with it'. Up until this point, it worked, because Sombra-level problems were rare. However, let us take a quick look at the highlight reel of all that had happened in Equestria, leading up to Sombrero's escape and invasion.

First off, Celestia's sister, Luna, escaped from the moon. Yes, she was still hopped up on dark magic, and as Nightmare Moon, she tried to overthrow Celestia and steal all her cakes. Celestia took offense to that, as no one messes with her cakes, as the sun princess' massive booty can testify. Two alicorns, equal in power, did battle, and Celestia just barely managed to overcome her sister, and basically sent Luna back to her room to think about what she did for another thousand years.

Second, Discord. Motherfucking Discord. Not that I have anything against the guy personally, but this is someone who can change reality with a literal snap of his fingers. He's the ultimate godmode cheat made flesh. He's in a weight class all his own, and Celestia having to fight this guy in the best of times would be dicey. Worse, this guy showed up not long after Nightmare Moon, so Celestia had barely recovered any of her strength. She had to cheat, and pulled a Discord herself: She tore reality a new space hole and shoved Discord right up into it, just as far as she could. She shoved him so far up her space hole that it would take centuries for him to find his way out, and even then, she made sure to clench it shut, nice and tight, so he'd have a hard time forcing his way out.

Third, a bigass dragon took up residence on the mountain by Ponyville, and began releasing a metric fuckton of smoke into the atmosphere. This blocked out the sun, and made the air difficult to breathe, and would cause a lot of problems in the long run. Celestia tried being nice, but the dragon was kind of a dick, and made disparaging remarks about the size of Celestia's flanks. As anyone who knows anything about females of any species can tell you, this was a spectacularly bad idea. Thus, the dragon had to go. Not having anyone else available who could defeat the creature or convince it to go elsewhere in her stead, she had to go and defeat it herself. She fought the dragon for six days straight before finally suplexing it into a volcano. Seriously, she did that. They even had a stained glass window made to commemorate that event. It looks exactly as insanely awesome as it sounds.

Then, there was the changeling invasion. That was a complete clusterfuck: Security for an important royal wedding was sorely lacking, and Equestria paid the price for it. The bride-to-be, and only other alicorn around, was abducted, and by the time she was found, she'd starved to death in a cave somewhere. The husband-to-be, and leader of the royal guard, was brainwashed, and ultimately his mind was completely destroyed by changeling mind magic: While his body was saved, the cheese had slid completely off his cracker. The queen of the changelings and Celestia did battle as the changeling army invaded the city en-masse. Canterlot was more than half destroyed in the resulting chaos, and while Celestia was able to secure victory through dogged determination, it was a very near thing. The changelings fled the city, carrying their wounded queen with them. Celestia was too exhausted to pursue and try to finish things.

And then Sombra came along, less than a day later. Celestia was exhausted at this point, still recovering from the battles she'd barely won, and was unable to nip that particular evil in the bud. And by the time she was well enough to fly of to the Crystal Empire, Lord Tirek busted out of Tartaraus, and she had to deal with that first, as he was a more immediate threat. Thus, Sombra had plenty of time to retake the Crystal Empire, consolidate his forces, and ready his slave army for war. By the time Celestia defeated Tirek and choke-slammed him back into Tartaraus (Not hyperbole, but sadly, there wasn't time to make a window of this particularly awesome scene), King Sombra and his army of battle slaves were marching into Equestria.

Now, as mentioned, the Equestrian army's battle doctrine consisted of holding actions. This meant that they were great at slowing the enemy's advance, but when it came to actually winning battles, they sucked asses on fire. Had Celestia ingrained into them the idea that they could actually win battles on their own, hell, even just given them the idea that a bit of initiative when the princess wasn't giving them direct orders was a good thing, they might have beaten Sombra's army on the first day. After all, they had a distinct numerical advantage, and while Sombra was a brilliant individual in a lot of ways, he was no expert military strategist. Sadly, Equestria's army leadership was staffed by ponies who were staunch traditionalists, and weren't going to change things just because it was clear standard procedure was failing. Tradition was infallible: Generations of dead ponies can't be wrong, can they?

Sure they can. They had to die somehow, right? Bad traditions do a fantastic job of getting people killed. Sadly, traditionalists make a tradition out of ignoring that fact. 'We've done things the wrong way for generations! You'd insult your ancestors by doing it the right way now!'

Regardless, due to Celestia being extremely exhausted, she could not bring her full might to bear against Sombra when she took the field, even had she been willing to kill a thousand mind controlled civilians to get to him. Instead, it turned into a battle of attrition... and that was exactly what Sombra wanted. Sombra had intentionally timed his escape at a point when he suspected Celestia would be worn out by several rough battles, as various evils were unsealed and ran amok. A full-on, head-to-head battle with Celestia at her full strength would spell instant defeat for Sombra. However, an exhausted Celestia and a war-weary Equestria would be ripe for the taking.

Just like the Equestrians, Sombra's forces didn't fight to kill, but to capture: Every captured pony was outfitted with a brand new brain bucket, and turned against their former allies. Meanwhile, since Sombra's forces consisted mainly of civilians, capturing one of Sombra's soldiers and de-bucketing them did not automatically mean a new soldier for Equestria: Instead, it meant a civilian, often horribly traumatized by what the helmet had forced them to do, and one who needed food, rest, medical attention, and counseling. It meant a new mouth to feed for a country barely getting by during a harsh war that had no end in sight. Equestria got weaker with every defeat AND every victory, while Sombra's forces tended to just keep getting more and more numerous...

Yard by yard, Sombrero The Asshat And The Bucket-Headed Army Of Doom advanced. It took several moons, but finally, the dreaded king marched to the gates of Canterlot itself, an army numbering in the tens of thousands at his back, and confronted Celestia head to head, confident he would be victorious. A mighty battle was fought, and...

...And this is where I happen to come in.

I awoke with a splitting headache, unable to recall what I'd been doing the night before. Thus, I reasoned that it must be either Saturday or Sunday morning, and Jack Daniels and his buddy Jimmy Bean were holding a no-holds-barred tag-team death match in my skull against Bud Wiser and Johnny Walker. The fact that so many people were inside my head probably explained why it felt like it was going to explode.

Since the searing pain of my hangover would ensure that sleep would be impossible, I decided that the best thing to do right now would be to get the fuck up. The sooner I did that, the sooner I could start searching for something to cure my hangover with... like a Tylenol... or a loaded shotgun.

I rolled off of my back, and got my hands under me... and immediately realized that they felt odd. I couldn't feel my fingers. My eyes snapped open, and I looked down... to see hooves where my hands should be. It took me a few brief seconds to realize that I was no longer a human: I was some kind of horse creature.

What. The. Fuck. What in a million, billion, trillion fucks?

Hail To The... King?

"Master."

I was interrupted from any further self examination by a monotone voice. I looked up to see... well, I'll be honest, it looked like a pony wearing the most ostentatiously metal outfit I'd ever seen, topped off with glowing green eyes. Seriously: If they ever made Mad Max: Pony Road, this was what the bad guys would be wearing.

"Speak," I said, for lack of anything else to say, given that I was still in shock at discovering I was no longer human.

It seemed to do the trick, though. "As per your instructions," the uber-metal pony stated emotionlessly, "we have chained the fallen Princess Celestia, and placed the collar you gave us upon her. She will not be using any further magic against you, so long as it remains around her neck. After your successful defeat of the princess, we followed your orders and secured the city of Canterlot. There was little resistance: The populace lost the will to continue the battle when they saw their princess fall. Canterlot is yours, and with it, Equestria."

O... kay? Well, better go along with whatever the fuck this is, at least until I had a chance to find my feet... or hooves. Whatever. I asked, cautiously, "And the condition of the princess?"

The... soldier, I guess, replied, "She lives. No apparent injuries of note. It seems that it was fatigue that has laid her low, more than anything else."

"Good," I said, making sure my expression was a mask of calm. I hated my parents for a number of justifiable reasons (Including, but not limited to, the fifty cigarette burns on my left forearm), but being forced to take classes in acting, theatre, and improv for several years in preparation to starting a career in politics gave me a poker face that nothing short of a zombie-sharknado apocalypse could break. Finding myself in a strange new world, and myself some kind of evil pony conqueror king? Thankfully, not quite in the same category. "Make sure she remains that way. She is far more valuable as a hostage than as a corpse. And find someone authorized to formally surrender the city to me, and with it, the country. It's important that we do this properly before I take the throne. Ah, and have someone set up a tent for the proceedings. Properly furnished, of course. And a mirror: I want to make sure I look my best." And I definitely wanted to see what this new body of mine looked like.

The soldier saluted, and said, "Your will, King Sombra."

As the soldier gave a bow, and then went to relay my commands, I filed away a few useful nuggets of information.

Item One: My name, apparently, is King Sombra.
Item Two: I was in the process of conquering a city called Canterlot, in a country called Equestria.
Item Three: I had, by all indications, been in a fight with a princess named Celestia. Apparently, she was in charge.
Item Four: She lost the fight, and is currently in chains, plus a collar that prevents her from using magic.
Item Five: Magic is a thing here.
Item Six: Sombra won, and is about to finalize his victory. Therefore, Sombra must have magic enough to be able to defeat Princess Celestia.
Item Seven: I was the king now, and would be saddled with running a newly conquered country.
Item Eight: Apparently, after Sombra was knocked unconscious, his underlings went about conquering the city without paying their unconscious king any attention. Weird.

Fuck. I got away from my parents specifically because I hated politics (And the constant physical and emotional abuse, mustn't forget that), but now it seemed I was stuck in the middle of some serious Game of Thrones shit.

Still, at least I had some intel to work with. I suspected that, in whatever battle took place between King Sombra and Princess Celestia, Sombra probably took a blow to the head, or something of that nature, which would explain the agony my current head was experiencing. Maybe it was enough to kill him? And somehow that resulted in me taking his place. Why? How? Questions to answer later. For now, I'd need to keep up appearances: I doubted if anyone would believe I was anyone other than King Sombra right now...

And if they did, they might decide to kill me, just to make sure that King Sombra didn't somehow come back: Conquerors are never popular people at the best of times, historically, no matter how much good they may end up doing for the people they conquer. Something told me that these were not the best of times.

Having filed all this info away for future reference, I looked around for the first time, and really examined my surroundings.

The first words that come to my mind, even now, when describing the aftermath of Sombra and Celestia's final battle are 'Blasted Heath'. This was a term used by H. P. Lovecraft in his story 'The Colour Out Of Space'. It is a term used to describe a portion of land that was... I guess the best term for it is 'corrupted' by, of all things, a color from outside the known and accepted spectrum. An alien, sapient color that corrupted, then consumed, all of the life of the land around it. People included.

The reason I use the term Blasted Heath, therefore, isn't because the area looked 'blasted', even though there was tremendous property damage to be seen for a considerable distance. I use the term because it was obvious that whatever dark magicks had been used here, it had left a clear and unmistakable mark: Jagged shards of crystal, blacker than the pits of hell and seeming to ooze some manner of black liquid, were scattered around the place, and for at least ten to twenty yards around those shards, all the greenery was drained of life. A pity: It was clear that this was once a very picturesque bit of scenery, before it became a battlefield. Very little vegetation remained alive, now, and I could actually see the... corruption spreading, killing all plant life in its path. Just looking at the dark crystals made me nauseous, as if whatever those things were, they were trying to reach in and corrode my body and soul through my eyes. I wished like hell they weren't there...

And suddenly, they were gone. The crystals just... evaporated. The spreading corruption stopped. Just like that. One thought from me, and it was as if it had never been. I mean, the plants that were dead remained dead, but the ground they were rooted in no longer looked like it might eat through flesh if anyone touched it.

So... unless those crystals were Celestia's doing, and I randomly had the power to dismiss them, those crystals must have been Sombra's doing. That wasn't good: It meant that, rather than this being a regular war between two countries, which might have been fought for various legitimate or semi-legitimate reasons, this meant that Sombra (and by extension, myself) were the bad guys. And I mean, Skeletor, Sauron, and Voldemort level bad guys. Worse, Sombra had won whatever war had been going on. Everyone in the world would hate me, and not just the way that the conquered hate a conqueror. I was this world's evil overlord. Everyone here would despise me with the fiery fury of a thousand exploding suns.

Just fucking fantastic.

I took a deep breath, and wished my headache would stop. Sadly, this wish did not come true. Still, the presence of that headache actually allowed me to approach the current situation with a clear head: It was impossible for me to be asleep and dreaming with this level of pain raging through my skull. This had to be real. While I couldn't remember what I was doing before the start of my current situation, that was irrelevant: This was my current reality, so I'd have to at least try to take things seriously.

Sadly, events that would soon transpire would make that very difficult.

A trio of winged versions of the Metal-est pony touched down right in front of me. One of them produced a crystal from a small pouch secured to its waist. It tossed the crystal a dozen or so feet away, and when it struck ground, it popped open with a bright light and a noise like a firecracker. When the light faded, a massive black and red tent was standing where there was once open field. It was impressive: The sort of tent you might expect a king... or tyrant to reside in when on the battlefield. A second pony stepped in, and began tossing crystals about inside. There was a series of pops and flashes as, I wagered, furniture was being provided. After the second pony was done, the third walked in, and there was the sound of movement inside, as the pony arranged the furniture to whatever kind of Feng-Shui applied to the tents of evil overlords, I guess. A few moments later, the third pony stepped out, and the three saluted before flying off to whatever duties they had.

I'd watched this with a feeling that something was... off about all of this. It took me a moment to realize what it was: None of them had said a word, not to me or each other, throughout the entire event. No chit-chat, not even a grunt when, inside the tent, the pony within had moved what sounded like a heavy table. They'd performed their duties with a precision one would more associate with ants or bees... or robots, rather than sapient creatures. It was more than a little creepy.

My thoughts were interrupted when a new death metal pegasus flew in. It dropped down in front of me with a salute, and said, "My king. I was sent to inform you that a member of the royal family, a Prince Blueblood, has been located. He was found hiding under his bed within his quarters. He will be brought here directly. Be advised, he insisted on an honor guard to escort him, before he'd come out from under the bed. As such, three other soldiers are coming with him."

So, he was hiding under his bed when a major battle was going on? That was cowardly, foolish, and immature. Most members of royalty have some sort of escape route planned in situations like this, rather than just 'If I hide long enough, it'll go away'. Still, it was hardly my problem: I just wanted this taken care of quickly so I could start getting my bearings. I shrugged, then said, "That's fine. Have ten of our best soldiers stationed inside of the tent, with an additional twenty around the tent's external perimeter. I don't want anyone getting any clever ideas. Or even any foolish ones."

The soldier saluted, and flew off. Within seconds after the messenger's departure, ponies both winged and ground-based began assembling both in and around the tent. Once again, all were silent, and there was no discussion as to who went where, or whether they should be inside or out. It all took place with a strange sort of silent choreography, every pony slotting into place as if they were meant to be there, and only there, a space meant only for them.

Creepy as fuck.

I was getting the feeling that there was something strange going on here. However, I didn't have time to contemplate this further. I needed to get myself ready for Prince Blueblood and his entourage, and I knew next to nothing about the guy...

Prince Blueblood
Sex: Male
Race: Unicorn
Color Scheme: White coat with a blonde mane and tail, blue eyes.
Cutie Mark: Compass Rose
Bio: Distantly related to Princess Celestia. Born into a life a wealth and power due to said relation, and skated through life with minimal effort ever since. Shallow, selfish, elitist, and notoriously cowardly, the only thing worse than any of the various fiends of Tartaraus conquering Equestria would be Prince Blueblood taking the throne himself.
Threat Level: Insignificant.

Gah! I shook my head, trying to clear it. I had no idea where that information had suddenly come from, but having it enter my mind so suddenly didn't do anything to help my headache. It was like someone had just stuffed a dozen pairs of socks into a briefcase that was already overfilled. It was several seconds before my head cleared enough for me to think.

So... apparently there's some info banging around in my head. Maybe leftovers from Sombra's consciousness? Useful, I suppose, but not pleasant. Still, getting even just a little bit of info on the guy gave me something to work with. I just hoped that the next time it happened, it wouldn't be quite so... severe. My head felt like it was about to explode already.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, and walked into the tent. I looked around: Okay, there's a big table, chairs for a dozen people or ponies, ten warboy ponies standing at attention, and a mirror. I got a glimpse, for the first time, of how I currently appeared...

SWEET BABY CTHULHU, KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

There are certain expectations that humans have when they hear the word 'Unicorn'. They think of stuffed animals held by little girls. They think of a brilliant white, horned horse galloping through fields of flowers with butterflies flitting happily to and fro. They think of something that goes around delivering hugs and rainbows to orphans. They think of something that eats cookies and poops ice cream.

They do not think of something like King Sombra.

If someone made a stuffed animal that looked like King Sombra, it would come alive and twist its creator's head off, then do a little dance in the blood fountain that ensued. If King Sombra ran through a field of flowers and butterflies, it would burst into flames as he went, all to the sound of his maniacal laughter. The only thing that King Sombra would deliver to orphans is the severed heads of their freshly murdered parents. King Sombra eats the hearts of those who dare to oppose him, and if he ever shit out ice cream, it would mostly be made of blood, cyanide, and razor blades. That is what King Sombra looks like.

If Cruella DeVille had a gangbang with Sauron, Voldemort, Bad Horse, Sparklelord, and Skeletor, this would be the result. Sombra is not a unicorn. He is the antithesis of a unicorn. He is the anti-corn. He is nightmare incarnate. And his was the face I'd be forced to wear, going forward.

It took all of my self-control not to scream in horror at my own reflection. Were it not for the sound of approaching hoof-beats outside, I would most definitely have shattered it, to rid myself of the sight of my horrendous visage. Instead, I quickly spun it around so I wouldn't have to look at it again.

And then, I prepared to meet Prince Blueblood, so I could accept his formal surrender. I just hoped that it would go quickly, without incident.

Sadly, I'd be wrong on both counts...

We Are Not Amused

Author's Note

Before this chapter starts, I did wish to point out a small tidbit of info: Please keep in mind that the characters in this story are of an alternate timeline. They've lived different lives since the Sonic Rainboom failed to occur. Just like how in the Changeling Resistance timeline, Fluttershy was more that willing to kill someone on the suspicion of being a changeling, and Rainbow Dash would serve Nightmare Moon in the Nightmare Triumphant timeline, the ponies you know and love can and will sometimes do things that may shock and/or surprise you. However, to quote The Question from Justice League Unlimited, 'Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular, and has characteristics that are part of what it is. A is A.' Prince Blueblood is Prince Blueblood. Maud Pie is Maud Pie. Rainbow Dash is Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash is Loyalty Incarnate. This does not change, regardless of the timeline. But what is that loyalty to? In PrimeTime, that loyalty is to her friends. In the Sombra's War timeline, she is a soldier, and as such, her loyalty is to Equestria. And what happens when a loyal soldier meets a traitor?

Ah, and I did want to point out the source of this story's title. It comes from a meme I discovered not that long ago, connected to an amusing Skyrim mod. The meme is known as 'Unfortunately, I Am The High King Of Skyrim'. Find it here.

We Are Not Amused

This is what passes for a prince around here?

That was my first thought, upon seeing Prince Blueblood enter the tent. I mean, don't get me wrong, the guy had a few positive qualities: He was tall, broad in the shoulder, probably what passed for handsome among equines, stuff like that. But the guy was very clearly terrified. Not just of me, but of this entire situation. The moment he looked at me, personally, he looked like he might fear-piss himself so hard all of his organs might spontaneously eject themselves through his urethra.

I mean, I'm sorry, but this was a fantasy world we're talking about: A prince, or at least, any prince worthy of the name, should be brave, dignified, collected. This shitstain was anything but. He immediately started looking around at anything but me, hoping to find a way out of here, even if it meant Kool-Aid Manning through the tent walls. However, since the guards were positioned all about the tent, both inside and out, that wasn't going to happen. The only way out was the way he'd come in, and when he looked back, he blanched, as though whatever he saw there was at least as terrifying as being in the same room as I was.

As he finally walked fully into the tent, and his honor guard began to enter behind him, I saw why. I...

Rainbow Dash
Sex: Female
Race: Pegasus
Color Scheme: Blue coat with a rainbow striped mane and tail, red eyes.
Cutie Mark: A white cloud with a rainbow colored lightning bolt coming out of it.
Bio: Drafted into the Equestrian air force at a young age, she has served with honor and distinction, her accomplishments quickly netting her the title of captain. Has served as a continuous thorn in Sombra's side since the war began, and many of the victories won for Equestria over the course of the war can be traced, in part, to the presence of this aerial ace. She lost a wing at the battle of Fielder's Hollow, which has since been replaced with a metal prosthetic. The origins of said replacement are unknown, but it does not perform as well as the original wing. Regardless, a dangerous foe, and one of the few ponies in the military leadership worthy of respect.
Threat Level: High.

Maud Pie
Sex: Female
Race: Earth Pony
Color Scheme: Grey coat with a purple mane and tail, blue eyes.
Cutie Mark: A Rock
Bio: Sister to Pinkamena Diane Pie. A former rock farmer and rock expert, now serving as a soldier in the Equestrian army. While she is noted for having served with distinction, her personality has made promotion practically impossible, given that she has no charisma whatsoever, and little interest in anything other than rocks. However, she can reduce a boulder to a cloud of pebbles in a second or less, and possesses a sixth sense known to be present in the females of the Pie family. Most notably, her special senses are among the strongest exhibited in generations.
Threat Level: EXTREME!!!

Pinkamena Diane Pie
Sex: Female
Race: Earth Pony
Color Scheme: Bubblegum pink coat with a dark pink mane and tail, blue eyes.
Cutie Mark: Three Balloons
Bio: Sister to Maud Pie, she shares many of the same qualities as her sister, save for a love of rocks, and a less powerful sixth sense, mostly only able to sense immediate danger to herself or those immediately around her. However, she has demonstrated, on several occasions, a strange ability that allows her to temporarily bend, if not outright break, the laws of reality and causality themselves. How this is able to occur is unknown, and all attepts to study this ability have failed. She appears to do this unconsciously, for which I am grateful. If she ever gained conscious control of this power, she might very well become more powerful than even the dreaded Chaos Lord Discord himself.
Threat Level: RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!

Well, while I could have done without the trio of crippling migraines, on top of my other crippling migraine, the info was useful, at least. Based on appearance alone, I might not have realized just how dangerous these three might be, as, quite honestly, all three of them looked almost huggably adorable, regardless of the fact that one of them had a cyborg metal wing, and two of them were scowling in anger. However, with those little tidbits of data, I could now appreciate just how much power was now in the room with me. I'd need to make sure not to provoke any of them. Unless I could spontaneously gain full control over whatever magic Sombra had, I had nothing to protect myself with, should all three of those mares decide to try and assassinate me here and now.

Best to nip that thought in the bud.

"In case you were curious," I began, keeping my expression neutral, "Princess Celestia is well: Asides from severe fatigue, there were no injuries that my soldiers could see. A few days of rest, and she should be fine. And so long as no one tries to do anything... ill-advised, she'll be allowed to recover without incident." Translation: Fuck with me, and the princess gets it.

Prince Blueblood seemed too busy trying not to piss himself to notice this, but the expressions on the faces of the three mares were a combination of relief and frustration: Relief that their princess was alive, but frustration at the fact that they couldn't do anything to help her.

With a gesture, I calmly motioned to the chairs across from where I now sat. "Take a seat, and we'll begin discussing the terms of Equestria's surrender."

"Youcanhaveanythingyouwantjustdon'thurtme!" Prince Blueblood exclaimed in a single breath as he sat. He looked, for a second, like he was about to jump up and bolt out of the tent, but his honor guard, who had remained standing, all put a hoof on his shoulders, and held him down. The anger, frustration, and disgust on their features made it clear just how much they hated him for that one statement... and who could blame them? He'd just thrown Equestria under the bus to save his own skin.

The words of royalty have power. Even words spoken in frustration and not intended as orders are basically orders. They are inviolate: To go against even the least of the commands of a king is tantamount to treason, and in most monarchies during a medieval time period was punished by immediate execution. For example, Henry the Second's exclamation, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" He said this without intending anyone to take it seriously. This was taken as an order by several knights, who then rode off and murdered the priest in question, Thomas Becket. This would cause all manner of problems for the king afterwards. With this all said, anyone with royal blood is schooled to be very careful about what words they speak, even in private, to avoid situations like that.

Thus, it was not possible to take what Blublood just said as anything other than a legitimate offer. This gigantic, flaming douch-canoe had just said he would sell out his entire nation for a promise of his own personal safety. That's it. That's all it would take. He wouldn't even try to negotiate anything more (Although admittedly, things were pretty bad, and he didn't have much leverage, he still should have at least tried). A normal person without any sort of real authority might have simply laughed this off, and then tried to continue with proper negotiations...

Unfortunately, I am the king of Equestria.

"Very well, I think I can arrange something along those lines," I said, giving my best shit-eating grin. I had in mind exactly what I wanted to do to this cowardly piece of shit, and I wanted it clear that anyone with any sense would see it coming, so that Blueblood would have no one to blame but himself. Besides, if I was going to be playing the part of the 'Evil Overlord', then by all means, dicking this jackass over would definitely be 'in-character'. Turning to one of the soldiers stationed around the tent, I said, "Have someone bring pen and parchment. Let's make this all nice and official." The soldier nodded, saluted, and left to do so. As I waited, I took note of the expressions of all four ponies at the table.

Blueblood looked slightly relieved, but still terrified. Rainbow Dash and Pinkamena looked like they were ready to throttle Blueblood, but couldn't, since throttling a prince was treason, and they didn't want to be traitors, even at the moment of their nation's demise. Maud, though...

She just stared at me with a blank expression. I realized, suddenly, that her expression had not changed once since the trio had walked in here. I hadn't really taken notice of that before, but her face was so... blank that her poker face rivaled my own. Whatever it was that she felt, or thought, it was impossible to tell from where I was sitting, but it almost seemed like she was searching for something in me, and not finding it...

My thoughts were interrupted by the return of the guard with parchment, a quill, and an inkpot. After they were set down, I slid the items over to Blueblood and said, "We'll keep this simple. Write the following words: 'I, Prince Blueblood, acting on behalf of Princess Celestia, do hereby turn over the nation of Equestria, in its entirety, to the one known as King Sombra. In exchange for this, King Sombra will not harm Prince Blueblood, neither through his hooves, or any form of magic, nor shall any soldier he commands.'" If you can already see where all of the loopholes are in this lovely little statement, then congratulations, you're smarter than Blueblood was. Give yourself a cookie.

I was surprised to see Blueblood magically levitate the quill, and after dipping it in the inkpot, began to write. I wondered, briefly, if I could do that...

Telekinesis
Entry Level Spell
Effect: Used to magically move objects without touching them, it is the most common spell used among unicorns.
Activation Code: Think the phrase 'Ragglefraggle' while intending to do magic.
Deactivation Code: Think the phrase 'Fraggleraggle' while intending to end magic use.

Shit, I needed to quit thinking about stuff, or else my head was going to explode. Still, it was useful to know that I could, in fact, do that. When I finally got this headache to quit, and maybe got some headache medicine, I could start figuring out which spells were rattling around in this noggin of mine. Still, it shocked me to hear that was how the spell worked. Was all of it that weirdly easy?

After Blueblood finished writing down what I told him, I said, "Now, sign it, and slide it over here." He did so. I took a moment to study the writing on the page to confirm that he had, indeed, written everything exactly as I had stated it. It was... well, it looked like random squiggles, but my mind somehow translated this into actual words. While I'd be interested in knowing how the fuck that worked, I didn't have the time or inclination to see if another one of those painful flashes of insight might happen. Instead, I activated the telekinesis spell, as it was outlined to me, and used the quill and ink to sign the paper. Then, I handed the parchment to one of the guards, and said, "Go and have this put in a frame. I'm going to want to keep that as a memento."

I turned back to Prince Blueblood, and with a smile carefully crafted to convey malevolent, if not outright satanic, glee, I said, "So, Equestria's surrender to me is now official. Now, let me tell you exactly what your cowardice has bought you, dolt." I had meant to say 'Dumbass', but dolt came out instead. Weird. Did Equestria have a profanity filter?

Blueblood's expression of outright terror turned into one of shock and indignation. "You can't call me that..."

"SILENCE!!!" I shouted, shutting him up mid-sentence. "I am king now, Prince Buttmunch, and I can say whatever I please." I don't think that what I had intended to say in place of Buttmunch is safe to print anywhere, ever. But Buttmunch worked just as well, I supposed.

"My... my name is Prince B-blue..." he tried to stammer out.

"BY ROYAL DECREE, YOUR NEW NAME IS BUTTMUNCH, AND NO ONE IS TO SAY OTHERWISE!!!" I roared in his face.

The soldiers inside the tent, in unison, proclaimed, "All hail Prince Buttmunch."

At Blueblood, no, Buttmunch's shocked expression, I laughed aloud, and said, "Again!"

"All hail Prince Buttmunch," the guards repeated.

Grinning evilly, I said, "Now, just the ladies."

Four of my guards, and both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie of the Prince's 'honor guard' intoned, "All hail Prince Buttmunch." Maud Pie, however, remained silent. She was still staring at me, but I worked to ignore it.

With a chuckle, I said, aloud, "It's good to be king."

Yes, yes, I'm horribly immature, and easily amused. So? What's wrong with that?

"In addition," I added, my evil grin kicked up a step further, as I began twisting the proverbial knife, "you are hereby stripped of all titles, properties, and funds. They will be confiscated by the state, and used however I see fit: Maybe I'll give it all to someone who might actually deserve it. Maybe I'll sell it all and use the proceeds to build a statue of myself. Made of gold. Depicting me kicking you in the junk. Or maybe I'll build an orphanage with it: I suppose I could use some good karma at this point in my life. Regardless, you shall own nothing, and by royal decree, you no longer have the right to own properties, nor are you protected by the law. You are no longer a citizen of this country." It should be impossible for a white pony to go pale in the face, but Blueblood somehow managed it.

At that, Rainbow Dash suddenly raised her hoof. "Um, excuse me?"

Toning my grin down to just 'very happy', I tilted my head slightly, and asked, "Yes?"

"That means that he's no longer a prince, right?" the colorfully maned pegasus asked, cautiously.

"Indeed," I said with a nod.

She nodded back and said, "One second, please." She then punched Prince Blueblood so hard that he fell out of his chair.

"What... what do you think you're doing!" Prince Blueblood exclaimed, when he got his jaw back in working order. "You can't..."

"She can," I said, cranking evil back into the grin. "You're no longer a prince, and no longer protected by law," I continued, "so it is no longer a crime to hit you."

"But... but the contract..." Blueblood stammered out, weakly, his gaze going back and forth between me and Rainbow Dash.

I replied, "The agreement specifically states that 'I, Prince Blueblood, acting on behalf of Princess Celestia, do hereby turn over the nation of Equestria, in its entirety, to the one known as King Sombra. In exchange for this, King Sombra will not harm Prince Blueblood, either through his hooves, or any form of magic, nor shall any soldier he commands.'" Gesturing over to Rainbow Dash with a jerk of my head, I added, "Rainbow Dash doesn't fall under either category, nor does the overwhelming majority of ponies in Equestria. So, if every pony in Equestria wants to take a swing at you, they can do so without consequence. In fact, I could charge admission for right to do so." I smiled a little at the thought of that, then said, "But then, if Rainbow Dash just wants to go ahead and beat you near to death with the chair you were sitting in a moment ago, I certainly wouldn't stop her. I might even applaud."

Dashie had the chair up before I even finished the sentence, and began bringing it down on the former prince angrily, cursing (As well as Equestria allowed, at least) at her victim the entire time.

"You dirty *THWACK* cowardly *SMACK* rotten *CRASH* piece of filth!" she shouted. "You handed *SMASH* over your country *WHACK* to him without *BLAMMO* any consideration *WONK* to any of your *BAM* fellow ponies!" Here she paused, panting heavily, as the chair she held was now in pieces, and she looked at the results of her work.

I'll say this much for Rainbow Dash: She's in excellent physical shape, and her years on the battlefield made her more than adept at beating the ever-loving shit out of someone with a chair. Buttmunch might have tried to stop her, had her first strike with the chair not snapped the horn clear off of his head. After that, he'd tried to shield himself with his forelegs, but both of those had broken from the second hit. After that, she'd hit him in both hind legs (One hit each), leaving him flat on his back. The next three hits were targeted direcly on the groin, and the last one went directly to the face, breaking his jaw with a sickening crunch. The fact that Rainbow Dash then spit on him was just adding insult to injury.

Regrettably, he'd lost consciousness after the third hit, but when he woke up, he'd be in a world of hurt. I almost pitied him. Almost. If he could walk after this, it would be with a limp... and a high pitched voice. And he sure as hell wasn't 'pretty' anymore.

I later learned that Prince Blueblood had done absolutely dick all during the war against the true King Sombra. In fact, during a time period when nearly everyone else in Equestria were pulling together to try and defeat him and his army, Blueblood had spent all his days sequestered in his mansion. He gave no assistance to the war effort, not through direct aid or through financial donations. He sat back in his mansion, drinking wine and eating only the finest foods. He confiscated supplies intended for the war effort, and got away with it, simply because he could hide behind the title of prince. The only reason no one had beaten the shit out of him before now was simply because it was a crime to do so.

So, who could blame anyone for hating him, especially now?

Giving a slow clap, I said, "Excellent work. Now, if, when you leave, you want to drag him out and finish up with him, I would have no problem with that. Just drop his corpse into the nearest ditch when you're done. I think one of the guards can point you to a latrine ditch, in fact, if you'd like to go the extra proverbial mile." I paused, and putting on an expression of disgust that I didn't have to fake, I added, "I can tolerate a wise coward, or a brave fool. A cowardly fool, on the other hand, is beneath contempt."

"So, what happens now?" the one named Pinkamena asked, taking care not to look at the wheezing remains of Buttmunch. She may not have liked what Dashie had done to him, but she'd made no move to stop her from laying the smacketh down.

"A fair question," I replied, calmly. "This evening, I'll want every pony in Canterlot present to hear a speech I intend to give. I trust that there's a courtyard large enough at the royal palace to accommodate?"

Rainbow Dash, having gotten her breath back, nodded and said, "Yeah. The palace courtyard can hold every pony in the city and then some."

"Fantastic," I said, putting a small smile on my face. "Then I won't have to repeat myself. I'll expect everyone, soldiers included, to be there."

I noted a disquieted expression on two of the three mares' faces. With a dismissive wave, I added, "And don't worry, I don't intend on any summary executions, or anything like that right now. I'm in far too good a mood for that kind of nonsense. Just be sure to be in attendance: I think you'll be very interested in what I have to say." With a dismissive wave, I said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie dragged Buttmunch out by the hindlegs. I honestly don't know if they really did finish him off, or if they just left him by the side of the road, broken, beaten, but still clinging to life. I do know that I had it proclaimed, in every city in the land, what he'd done, the consequences of that action, and that he had no protection under the law, so odds were, if he wasn't lying face down, dead in a ditch, right after that meeting, he probably ended up that way eventually. Either way, I never saw him again. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Maud Pie, however, had stayed, not moving, not speaking, her gaze never having left me, even when her compatriot had been bashing the former prince with a chair. She'd just kept giving me that intense, silent, unreadable scrutiny. She'd stood there, alone with the one pony she ought to have hated more than anything, giving me the stare of hers. After a few seconds more of this, I finally broke the silence and asked, "Is something wrong?"

For the first time, she spoke, asking, "Who are you?"

A line from that brief description that had run through my head earlier came back to mind: '...possesses a sixth sense known to be present in the females of the Pie family. Most notably, her special senses are among the strongest exhibited in generations.'

Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. She knows something is up. Somehow, she knows I'm not the real Sombra! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!

Still, my inscrutable poker face remained unbroken, even if inside I was panicking. I took a deep breath, and then replied, "I am who I am. Right now, unfortunately, I am the king of Equestria... whether anyone wants me to be, or not. I must behave as such."

This seemed to satisfy her, and she gave the slightest of nods, and left the tent.

Well, the good news was, she didn't seem intent on ratting me out, blackmailing me, or striking me down. That was good, given that she could have Saitama'd me if she wanted to. The bad news, though, was that at least one pony knew that I was just a wolf in Sombra's clothing. My future would be in her hooves for the time being...

The Royal Welcome

Sombra is an absolute motherfucker.

As I looked down at the unconscious Celestia in the tent she was being held in, that was the first thing that came to my mind. I'd taken another migraine to get some info on the pretty pony princess before being taken to see her, but even a detailed description was insufficient to prepare me for the reality of her. She was beautiful. Not simply beautiful the way a person was, but beautiful the way waterfalls are beautiful. Beautiful the way rainbows are beautiful. Beautiful the way a sunrise or a sunset is beautiful. Hers is a beauty that transcends all boundaries: Hyper-intelligent shades of blue would find Celestia just as beautiful as any pony would. To see her was to love her...

And Sombrero the Asshat had declared war on this. He had struck her with the intent to harm, to maim, perhaps even to kill.

Sombra is lower than cockroach shit. That is not an opinion: That is fact. If I had a whiteboard and some markers, I could prove it mathematically. Leaving aside the fact that Celestia's existence keeps the sun going up and down in Equestria (Which is both awesome and terrifying), striking a pony like her would be like wiping your ass on the Mona Lisa, after taking a shit in the Pope's hat...

"You're certain that she is not seriously injured?" I asked of the doctor examining her.

The doctor in question, a Doctor Stable, looked over at me for a moment, then back to his patient. Refusing to look at me again, he said, "No broken bones, no indications of any serious internal trauma. Alicorns are extremely durable, so I'm not surprised. She's just exhausted. The only prescription for that is rest."

"Very well," I said, with a nod. I turned towards a nearby guard, and said, "Assemble at least fifty soldiers, and take the princess to her royal quarters. She is to be watched over, day and night, until she awakens. I'll have further instructions later on. In the meantime, simply make sure no one tries to approach her without my permission."

The soldier saluted, and left to follow my orders. I turned to the doctor and asked, "In the meantime, doctor, I have a more personal problem I needed assistance with."

"There is no cure for everything that's wrong with you," Stable replied, still not looking at me.

I rolled my eyes, then said, "Not what I was after. I've got a terrible migraine, had it since I woke up after the fight. I was hoping you might check to make sure I don't have a concussion or anything like that."

The doctor turned around, and looked me in the eyes. After a moment, he gave a sigh, then said, "Fine. Sit down, and give me a moment."

Well, the good news was, I didn't have a concussion. In fact, my head seemed to be just fine. No sign of anything having hit me there, which negated my 'head trauma catalyst' theory for what started all of this. He gave me some willow bark to chew on (Which I was able to recognize as such), and told me how to make a tea from it that would help in the long term, as well. He didn't give me any actual pills for it, which surprised me. When I asked why he didn't give me something else, he countered, "Would you really trust any medicine I gave you not to be deadly poison?"

Good point, there. And surprisingly, the willow bark worked. The raging pain in my skull went down to a dull roar. After I left Celestia's tent, I told my soldiers to prepare for my Royal Entry, that being a procession through the city from the gates to the palace. It's practically a parade, just to say, 'Yo, the king is in the hizzy'. Personally, I would have loved to just go into the palace, tell everybody to take the day off, and spend some time trying to piece together everything that was going on. Sadly, that would not be the way that Sombra rolls, so I couldn't do that and remain in-character, and in-character was the only armor I had to keep me alive just now. I more than half-expected to be pelted with vegetables on the way.

That might have been preferable to what I actually got.

I feel I did a decent job of arranging things.

First, came the criers: I sent about twenty pegasus soldiers to fly throughout the city, announcing the outcome of the treaty negotiations (Leaving out the part where Equestrian soldiers had beat him near to death, and dragged him off to a fate unknown). It was then announced that I would begin my procession to the palace. All who wished to view it would be allowed to do so.

Then came the soldiers, to clear the path for the procession itself. More than two hundred soldiers lined the street, there both for security, and to make sure no one tried to block my way. Also, they checked to make certain there were no potholes or anything like that which might disrupt the procession.

Then came me, and my chariot. It was metal, in more ways than one: I don't think I have the words to do this monstrosity justice. Sombra had apparently said to himself, 'How can I make this as absurdly evil-looking as possible', and had gone to work with that in mind. The end result was impressive: It was a monstrosity of black iron, with wicked spikes and the heads of dragons carved into its mass. Looking at it, I couldn't help but wonder if Sombra was serious about this whole 'Evil Overlord' thing, or if it was just a joke that he was playing on the world, constantly raising the stakes, and waiting for someone to finally say 'You can't possibly be serious'. I mean, I honestly didn't think that anyone could seriously be this dedicated to looking like an evil overlord, let alone acting the part.

I do feel that the fact that the dragon heads on it being able to breathe fire was a nice touch, though. Fashionable AND functional. Honestly, were it not a gross breach of character, I'd have wanted to ride through town on it while wailing on that flamethrower guitar from Mad Max: Fury Road, just to prove that, yes, I can in fact be that metal.

The streets were lined with ponies, hundreds, maybe thousands. I didn't really have a true appreciation of just how large, and populous, the city truly was until now. It wasn't like a medieval city, it was more like... well, the only thing that comes to mind is something like Venice, Italy: It's a modern city, but it has no skyscrapers or anything like that, so on the surface, it doesn't look like a modern metropolis. It would be a little while before I saw places like Baltimare and Manehattan, and began to truly appreciate how modern some parts of Equestria were, but right here and now, I began to realize that, in spite of my previous assumptions, Equestria was more advanced than I'd expected.

However, I had an odd feeling, like certain things that had made sense before were no longer adding up, and it would be a bit before I'd be able to put to words exactly what was wrong. I was too distracted right now to be able to put it together...

You see, it was too quiet to think, just then.

I'd expected boos, cat-calls, insults, a rain of garbage, rotten fruit, and rocks. I expected anything other than what was happening just then. Every pony lining the streets just stood there and stared at me as I passed, no one making a sound. No, stare wasn't the right word. It was a glare of pure hatred, so intense I could practically feel it on my skin. It chilled me to the bone. Nearly everyone on this long street wanted to kill me, but couldn't, because they thought that I was powerful enough to be able to kill every single one of them in a heartbeat. If any of them thought that I was powerless, even for a second, I'd be rushed, mobbed, and stomped to death faster than you can say 'Taste the curb, bitch'.

And of course, right when I was halfway to my destination, I saw Maud Pie on the side of the road. Yes, her, with Rainbow Dash and Pinkamena at her side. The one pony who knew I wasn't Sombra, with two soldiers for backup. More importantly, Maud alone was strong enough to break the line, all on her lonesome: If she decided to start something, I'd be fucked.

The thirty seconds that followed were among the longest in my life. Now, let me tell you about the second longest thirty seconds in my life. My parents, as I may have mentioned, are terrible people. They're also extremely wealthy. They got that money by doing a lot of illegal shit, and laundering the proceeds. Remember Breaking Bad? Remember how much money Walter White made over the course of that series? Chicken scratch, compared to the paper my parents made. But you don't get that rich without making enemies. The kind of enemies who like to send a message, and have no problem with killing kids to make that message perfectly clear. One day, when I was twelve, I was outside taking a walk, three bodyguards that my parents insisted I have along with me. The first thing I heard was a bang, and the first guard, Tony, went down. The second, Carl, had me down on the ground, shielding me with his body while the third one, Rick, pulled out his pistol and took cover behind a tree.

For thirty seconds, I could only lay flat on the ground while Rick and whoever it was exchanged fire. The last five seconds were the worst: Absolute silence. Then Rick said, "Clear," and I was picked up, brushed off, and all was well... except that two people were dead, and my nerves were shot for weeks afterwards. I never complained about having bodyguards again.

That was what those thirty seconds were like: Waiting to find out if I was going to live or die, and having no control over the outcome.

She said nothing as I rode past. She did almost nothing. Almost. She did something that, I would later come to understand, was very rare for her.

She smiled. A very small, very brief smile.

I might have been able to relax after I went by, if she hadn't given me that smile. There's no telling what that smile might have meant...

Once the procession was completed, I insisted on having a few minutes alone in the throne room, so I could prepare for my speech. After taking in the sights, including that stained glass window of Celestia suplexing a dragon into a volcano, I sat down on her throne , and braced myself.

Why? Because I needed data for my speech, and there was only one way to get it.

It was time for an info dump...

"Show me... Equestria..." I said, and strapped myself in for the first of a long line of migraines.

The King's Speech

The overall outlook of the situation seemed grim, to say the least.

I don't mean mine. Mine was looking pretty bad, but it was manageable. What I meant was Equestria's overall situation. As I wiped blood from my eyes, nose and face, I struggled to stand. Yeah, it seems that trying to load all the info I needed into my noggin in one go was actually a spectacularly bad idea: I lost consciousness for a bit, and woke up bleeding from my eyes, nose, and mouth. I'm surprised I didn't die.

But enough about my personal drama, I needed to get ready for the speech. With considerable effort, I stepped out of the throne room and called for one of the soldiers, to request a towel and some clean water.

Twenty minutes ago it would have surprised me that the guard seemed completely unconcerned by the fact that I was bleeding like I had hemorrhagic fever. Now, after that unpleasantness I'd just experienced, I knew more about Sombra and his army than anyone should ever know.

As I looked at the armored pony, I silently swore to myself that I'd do whatever I could to make things right. Simple self-preservation may have been one reason for not just releasing every one of Sombra's battle slaves immediately, but there were other reasons, as well: Removing those brain buckets is traumatic, especially since the ponies wearing them are still awake and aware, and have to live with everything those helmets made them do. Removing all those helmets at once would means thousands of traumatized ponies who needed counseling. There were about fifty psychiatrists in Equestria, tops. More to the point, the Crystal Empire, their home, had more or less been demolished in the process of preparing for Sombra's war, and Sombra, just to be a dick, had shattered a relic called the Crystal Heart, which was one of the few artifacts with enough power to defeat Sombra, and also had kept the frozen climate of the north from consuming the city. The Crystal Empire was gone, buried under mountains of snow by now: Release the battle slaves, and they'd be homeless, jobless, a drain on a nation's economy at a point in time when there was little enough left to spare.

Some of the information I'd looked at had either not seemed important to Sombra, or he just hadn't cared about the fact that winter might kill up to twenty percent of the Equestrian population. The good news was that it was currently early spring. The bad news is that Equestrian years are one hundred days long, so I might end up having to spend Blueblood's assets on food, clothing, and housing, unless I could find an alternate source of cash within the next sixty-five days. That, or I'd have to postpone winter, but that was a dangerous proposition, given what info I'd stumbled upon while force-feeding myself data.

Equestria may not have had naturally occurring seasons, but that didn't mean that the creatures here didn't behave like they did: Experiments regarding delaying, if not outright skipping, seasons had shown that it could easily wreck the entire ecology of the nation. Thus, winter, as inconvenient as it sometimes was, simply had to happen on schedulre, even if it might drastically reduce the population. Not having winter this year could easily result in losing fifty to seventy-five percent of the population next winter.

Look, I know this stuff can seem dull, but it's important, okay? Logistics can be insanely boring, but a good politician is supposed to have a keen grasp of the subject, or else he'll accidentally make promises he can't keep... instead of intentionally making promises he won't keep, which is the norm. Luckily, I had a very good memory, and a very good head for figures. If your father put a cigarette out in your arm any time you made anything other than an A+ in school, starting from kindergarten, you would, too.

Sorry, I said I'd leave off the personal drama for now. My bad.

There were other problems, and it was taking time for me to correlate the new contents in my skull so I could recognize them all, and come up with solutions. However, just at a glance, I had a good idea of what I needed to start with.

It was now four o'clock, Equestrian time, and it was time to give a speech.

` I was honestly impressed by the turnout. I thought that the numbers present at the Royal Entry were something, but this was absolutely incredible: Literally every pony in the city was here, and it is a pretty big city. Good thing I didn't have a fear of public speaking, or crowds, or I'd be terrified. As it was, I will admit to having been a bit unsettled, and the fact that I was still woozy from nearly explodinating my brain with an information overload wasn't helping.

Still, soonest started, soonest finished. I cleared my throat, and began.

"My fellow equines," I started, "I stand here before you today, not to boast, not to gloat, and not to beat my chest and bellow about how great I am, as many of you expect. Instead, I come before you to make an announcement, one I feel is long overdue."

"Equestria is dying."

There was a ripple in the crowd, the kind you can only get when a large number of individuals hear something they weren't sure they understood. Whatever speech they were expecting, this was not it.

"I know many of you are probably assuming that this is my fault. I am sorry to disabuse you of that notion, but the truth of the matter is, this country has been dying for years, centuries even, but no one seems to have realized it. I, however, have seen the disease for what it is, and am prepared to treat it."

"What disease afflicts Equestria, you wonder? Well, before I answer that question, let me ask you all a question: Has anything been invented recently that changed Equestrian civilization as you know it? Can anyone name even one thing invented in the last hundred years that had a serious impact on the nation as a whole? Raise a hoof if you have an answer, please." I briefly paused, and when no one in the crowd did, I added, "I'm serious. I want to hear it from you. Please, just take a guess."

A pony raised a hoof, and then called out, "The railroad!"

I chuckled, and called out, "Invented one thousand, four hundred, twenty-three years ago!" Seriously. There was a railroad that literally led to the Crystal Empire, and had remained there, regularly maintained, for the entire time the city was banished from space and time. Sombra even had his own personal train, which looked intimidating as fuck. The railroad in Equestria predated the railroads that existed on earth. The rail system, and even the steam engine, weren't new. It just wasn't used to its full potential. "Someone else, please!"

Another pony raised his hoof, and then called out, "The Rainbow Factory?"

"Invented three thousand, fifty-nine years ago, although it would not reach its current form until about one thousand, two hundred years ago," I called back as I got a little jolt from a data download into my brain. It still amazes me to this day that ponies literally manufactured their own rainbows (And in spite of some very ugly rumors, no, they're not made from ground up pegasus bones, thank you very much). Weird. Awesome, but weird. "Anyone else?"

A very fat pony called out, "Easy Cheese?"

I paused. Literally nothing came to mind on that one, so Sombra apparently didn't even know that cheese in a can was a thing. "Okay," I admitted, "That one's pretty recent, but even if you really like portable cheese, that's not really gonna count as something that changed society as a whole. Anyone else?"

No one else had anything to offer.

"And that, right there," I said, going back into my speech, "is the problem. Equestria is stagnating: There's been no new magical developments since the days of Starswirl the Bearded. Now, common knowledge tells you just that Starswirl invented spells 'over a thousand years ago'. However, no one seems to realize that 'over a thousand years ago' in this case actually means FIVE THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED, THIRTY-NINE YEARS AGO!!!"

That sudden shout was calculated to shock my audience, and it had the intended effect, right enough, and why not? The average pony didn't even realize that Equestria was more than a thousand years old. Much, much more. 'One thousand years ago' is mostly just a catch all phrase to cover all kinds of shit that went down in the past. Hell, the exact year that the first Hearthwarming happened is lost to the ages in modern day Equestria: At some point, it just turned into 'Pre-Celestia and Pre-Luna', which tells you jack shit about when it happened in relation to the modern day.

"Over five thousand years ago, the last bit of creativity when it came to magic died with the passing of Starswirl the Bearded. Over a thousand years ago, your collective scientific creativity died. And no one seems to realize it. And no one seems to have realized just how bad something like that could be."

"Don't believe me? Let me ask you, then: How else could a wizard from one thousand years ago have conquered your nation? My understanding of magic, technology, military tactics, more or less every aspect of society, should be woefully out of date. I should have been shut down in short order by weapons and spells you'd all spent a thousand years developing in preparation for my return. Instead, here I am, your king. That can only be because of the fact that, in a thousand years, NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED!! You are still struggling to deal with threats that you barely managed to subdue a thousand years ago, when you all should have found solutions to them well before their reappearance, especially since your ancestors sealed them away: Sealing things away doesn't make them cease to exist, it only makes it so that future generations have to clean up the mess you left for them."

"The cancer that has afflicted Equestria all this time has a name. It is called Complacency. At some point in time, your ancestors decided that there was no new ground to cover, that there was nothing left to learn or discover. Everything was perfect, so there was no need to improve further. And they passed on that false sense of perfection to all of you, and you believed it, even when all around you was evidence to the contrary. You've all been asleep for the last thousand years or more, thinking that nothing was wrong with there being no real progress, while this affliction has slowly eaten your country alive from the inside. Now is the time for your wake-up call."

"Back a thousand years ago, I'll admit that my intentions were selfish in conquering the Crystal Empire: I wanted to rule over Equestria for the sake of stoking my own ego, and that city was the first step. However, I was sealed away for a thousand years, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on my poor choices in the past. Were Equestria a different place, I might have simply walked away, and tried to start a new life elsewhere. However, when I broke free from my imprisonment, and saw the current state of the nation, I knew something had to be done. However, the only way to solve the problems facing this country was to take the reins of power away from those who were leading this country over a cliff, and change course before we all went past the point of no return. Equestria's well-deserved hatred of me would prevent anyone from paying heed to my warnings, so the only choice was to take the country by force, so that it could be saved."

"You all hate me. Fine, feel free to do so: The fact that you're all powerless to do anything but glare daggers at me as I walk past only further illustrates my point. One thousand years ago, Celestia and Luna were the only ponies powerful enough to stop me. The only thing that has changed since then is the fact that Celestia has run herself so ragged that not even she could stop me now. But she should not have been required to do so. A better Equestria would have been able to say, 'Go home and take a nap, your highness. We've got this.' Instead, she had to play mother to a nation too set in its ways to change anything, even when it was clear that doing things the old fashioned way was killing your princess by inches."

"I know of a dozen ways, at least, that I could have been stopped, none of which required the presence of Celestia on the battlefield. If anyone of you had shown a little ingenuity, a little initiative, a little imagination, I am certain you could have come up with dozens more. Instead, you've all relied upon the great mare in the sky to solve these problems. I'm sorry to say that, while Celestia is a strong pony, carrying an entire country on her shoulders is too much to ask, especially when she's been doing it for a thousand years and more."

This was not hyperbole: I can give you one example, right off the top of my head, of how Sombra could have effortlessly been defeated. In the sporting event, the Equestrian Games, ponies use an anti-magic field powerful enough to block even alicorn magic to prevent cheating. If a trap had been set up with that anti-magic field, during one of the battles against King Sombra, then all it would take is maybe half a dozen earth ponies to run in and stomp the ever-loving shit out of the dreaded tyrant once his magic was gone, and the nation would have been saved. Hell, the changelings have a throne made of a mineral that provides a similar effect, making it impossible for anyone other than a changeling to use magic. It can allegedly block even Discord's magic. It can even block the effects of spells cast outside of its effect and then brought in. If such a mineral exists, why not just dig some up, take a big chunk of it to the site of the Crystal Empire and use it to negate the 'Banished From Space And Time' spell that Sombra used, rather than having it be lost for a thousand years? Or maybe make arrowheads of it, and use it as a kind of 'Mage Killer' weapon, for any time a powerful magic user gets too uppity, and tries to conquer the world: I mean, just knowing that all it would take is one shot from a sniper and you're no longer a reality warping demigod would make even Discord stop and reconsider messing with Equestria. Or, instead of trying to overpower Sombra in a fight, why not teleport his head off of his body? Or teleport him into an active volcano? Or to the bottom of the ocean? Or transmute the oxygen in the air around him into a poisonous gas? Or into molten lead? Or use a Come To Life spell to animate his cloak, and have it strangle him to death? Or use a Want It, Need It spell or a love poison to make him fall in love the princesses, and make him their obedient servant? These are just a few potential examples, off the top of my head. I'm sure there's a million more creative ways to stop Sombra.

Seriously. Equestria has so much amazing shit at its disposal! It's just that no one has ever had the imagination to use it properly!

Still, the mention of Celestia had perked up a number of ears. I smiled, and continued, stating, "Celestia, I am certain you'll be happy to hear, is alive and well. She's resting, and in a couple of days, she'll be up and about, I'm told. At that time, we'll begin working out what her role will be in the ruling of Equestria. While she will no longer be in charge, I do not intend to cut her out of your lives entirely."

I could see the wide eyes of surprise on the faces of many of my subjects, even from up there on the balcony. I was fairly certain everyone in the courtyard was expecting an announcement of her pending execution, if it hadn't already happened. Telling them that she was alive, and would still be a part of their lives actually caused a ragged cheer to come up from the crowd.

Okay, there's the carrot. Now for the stick. (As opposed to what I did with Blueblood, which was basically showing him the carrot, and then beating his fool head in with it.)

"Of course," I added, keeping my tone even, "while I intend to make the transition as smooth and painless as possible, there will be a few changes that not everyone will like. I know this, and accept it: I hope you will, as well. As I've said, Equestria is sick, and the best medicines often leave a bad taste in your mouth. I ask that you trust that Doctor Sombra knows what he's doing, and swallow any bitter pills I give to you. The first change you've already heard about: Prince Blueblood is persona non grata, as of today. He has been stripped of rank and privilege, and all of his assets are being seized by the state as we speak."

This actually got a bigger cheer than hearing Celestia was still alive. I think that if anyone else had announced this, there'd have been dancing in the streets as ponies began singing 'Ding Dong The Prince Is Dead'.

"Yes, yes, I know you're all pleased to hear that he is no longer a part of the Equestrian government," I said with a chuckle I didn't need to fake. "A pony willing to sell all of Equestria out to save his own skin has no place calling himself a prince, or a stallion, or even Equine. While Blueblood may have been an extreme case, part of the transition will involve fixing much of what's currently broken in Equestria. Of course, if it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing, but in the case of those like Blueblood, things that refuse to work... get broken."

The menace, and the wicked smile, I put into those last two words, was chilling. There are advantages to looking like a unicorn that had crawled out of the deepest bowels of hell. For one thing, it meant a metaphorical +10 to all intimidation rolls. The entire crowd shuddered as a single entity. If anyone was questioning whether I was actually Sombra after that speech, they weren't now. They were too busy trying not to lose control of their bowels.

Returning to an expression of serene calm, I said, "But for now, go home. Be with your families. And rejoice. Your future is in the very best of hooves: Mine."

And with that, the speech was over. I turned and left: Sombra wouldn't expect applause, and wouldn't care, even if there was, so I didn't bother to stay and listen for it.

As I walked back into the throne room, after giving that speech, I was ready to just plop down and go to sleep on the throne. However, there was a bespectacled earth pony inside who, in spite of looking slightly terrified, seemed intent on getting my attention.

Who...?

Raven Inkwell
Sex: Female
Race: Earth Pony
Color Scheme: Off-white coat, dark brown mane and tail, brown eyes.
Cutie Mark: Pen and an inkwell.
Bio: Princess Celestia's personal secretary. No further data available. Regardless of all inquiries into her history, nothing has come up concerning her origins. However, an absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence. I am naturally suspicious of any mystery, but the probability of her being anything other than what she appears is low. Low, but not non-existant.
Threat Level: Currently unclassified.

Ooookay. Well, best to see what she needed, I supposed.

I asked, calmly, "Can I help you, miss...?"

"Secretary Raven Inkwell, at your service, you highness," she said, introducing herself. "In the interest of maintaining the stability of the nation, I am here to offer my services to you until such time as Princess Celestia regains consciousness. I understand you are most likely in need of rest, so I'll try to keep this brief." She pulled out a folder from... fuck, I don't even want to guess, ponies sometimes just make shit appear, I don't know how. Using telekinesis, I gently took it, and read the contents.

Wow. Just... wow. I hadn't even thought of acquiring this stuff during that info dump, but having seen it, I realized just how badly I would need all of this.

"Contained is a list of what you might call a 'who's who' in the Equestrian government," she explained. "Ministers, heads of vital agencies and departments, and so forth. I can arrange meetings with whichever ones you wish to see, although it might be wise to wait a day or two before doing so: Everypony is still a bit in shock after this morning's events."

"That's fair," I admitted. Besides, it would give me a chance to see who, if any, were willing to actually give the new government a chance. I expected at least a few of them to, ah, vacate the city the moment I requested their presence. At least this way, they'd get a chance to pack their bags first, rather than fleeing in the middle of the night.

I checked the list, and while I found just about everything I expected (And a few that I couldn't believe. There's a Ministry of Silly Trots here? Really? And they have THAT big a budget? Dafuq?), there was one individual I couldn't find. "And the Royal Spymaster?" I asked, giving the secretary a cool, measured look.

Raven, an eyebrow raised, asked, "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, I don't know what Celestia calls the position," I explained, "but no matter how good or just a ruler might be, no one remains in power without someone keeping track of, and sometimes removing, all the hidden potential threats that endanger the kingdom. While most anyone else on this list can wait, I need to speak with that individual immediately."

Especially since, if anyone was going to try and assassinate me tonight, it would be on the orders of that individual, whoever that pony may be...

Raven gave me a long, measuring look. After a moment, she reached into her hair, and pulled out a small, blue crystal. "One moment, please," she requested, then tossed it into the air. It hovered, and then began to glow. After a moment, she nodded and said, "Alright, it should be safe to talk, now that an anti-eavesdropping enchantment is in place. What did you need to discuss?"

I raised an eyebrow, the only outward sign of the confusion and surprise I was suddenly feeling. What the hell?

She laughed in response. "What, you thought I was just Celestia's secretary?"

Author's Note

Didn't think Sombra had a train?

Then why does this train look kinda scary? If it were black, it would be downright terrifying. I think they just repainted Sombra's train after his defeat.

Royal Blood

A brief history lesson for you, boys and girls...

The position of Royal Spymaster in Equestria has a long history, although admittedly a secret one, as is befitting the nature of the position. It was never officially called what it was, but was instead masked by the title of Court Jester, and later Celestia's Fool. When jesters fell out of favor in the courts of royalty, the official name was changed to personal secretary when the spymaster was a mare, and butler when the spymaster was a stallion.

The spymaster, these days, doesn't do much spying his or herself, truth be told. Instead, she acts as an intermediary between the dozens of agencies that now secretly saw to the safety of the kingdom. SMILE, SCOWL, BLINK, GROAN, and many other agencies with nonsensical names that formed amusing acronyms did the actual legwork. However, someone, at the end of the day, had to correlate all of this incoming information, keep the agencies from stepping on each other's toes, and keep the princess up to date on anything important that came up. The fact that all of these agencies were honestly quite woefully understaffed and underfunded made this even harder all around. However, Raven Inkwell, and those before her, were vital to the continued existence of Equestria: Celestia had her hooves full just keeping the big, obvious, kingdom destroying evils at bay on top of her various other duties as the leader of a nation. There was no way that she could do that AND stay on top of that manage every bit of court intrigue, or counter-intelligence op, or any of the other vital tasks needed to protect the nation from more mundane threats, both foreign and domestic.

"First, just to confirm, you don't plan on assassinating me tonight, correct?"

I knew that was a silly question to ask of the pony directly in front of me, but it was my biggest concern at the moment. I mean, I was getting hungry, sleepy, and I was also in need of a bath. I couldn't take care of any of those problems if I also had to watch out for someone who wanted to perforate my hide the moment I dropped my guard.

Raven Inkwell gave me an assessing look, then replied, "Full Disclosure: If you had executed the princess, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd have had agents trying to put you down from the moment you stepped into the city. Since you've kept her alive and well, that has bought you... well, let's call it the benefit of the doubt. We're waiting to see what you do next: You've talked the talk, so the agencies who report to me will wait until we've seen if you can walk the walk." While no Maud Pie, Raven was good at keeping her emotions off of her face when it came to business. However, I got the impression that this was an honest answer. Of course, this meant that I'd only bought myself time: If I failed to live up to my promises, I'd probably go to bed one night... and not wake up.

Fair enough, I supposed. I nodded, and then said, "Good. Now, I need to ask you a serious question, and I hope you'll forgive me if it is overly blunt."

"Blunt questions don't bother me. Ask away," Raven said with a slight smile.

I cleared my throat, and then asked, plainly, "How many times did Prince Blueblood try to betray Princess Celestia, and by extension, Equestria, during this war?"

Her eyes widened in shock, and then narrowed as she gave me another one of those appraising looks. It was like she was reevaluating her opinion of how intelligent I was, each time I said something she wasn't expecting.

After a moment, she admitted, "We intercepted a total of three letters that were intended for you, the contents of which indicated a desire to assist you in regards to conquering Equestria in exchange for favorable treatment after your victory. We recovered a fourth from his estate this morning that was intended to be sent in the near future, but you reached Canterlot before delivery could be arranged."

Shit. I hate being so good at reading people sometimes. Even pony people. It takes a lot of the fun out of life....

Confused? Shocked? Can't believe that the Blueblood you know and lo... well, let's be honest, probably mostly just tolerate would actually try that shit? Well, let me explain something to those who might be fans of Blueblood in PrimeTime: In the prime timeline, Blueblood might have been... well, let's face it, a jerk, but he at least wasn't a traitor, and for good reason. He lived in an Equestria where he had much fewer in the way of doubts regarding Equestria's safety, and thus his own safety by extension. He also lived in the lap of luxury, and never had to work for any of it. He'd never even think to betray Equestria, since he literally wanted for nothing. Why would he risk everything he had when nothing anyone could give him would ever be better than what he already possessed? He may not be a very good pony, but he had no reason to betray his kingdom, especially when it had been so good to him.

The Blueblood in the timeline I was stuck in, however, did not live in such security. Since the Rainboom didn't happen, Twilight Sparkle and friends never joined up and helped preserve the peace of Equestria. Thus, Princess Celestia was Equestria's one and only defense, and as I'd mentioned previously, she was getting broken down under the strain of all the threats she had to deal with in such a short time-frame. While most of Equestria was ignorant of this, Blueblood was of the royalty, and thus had a front row seat to watching her many-greats aunt getting worn down to nothing. Blueblood could see clearly that it wasn't a matter of if, but when she'd fail, and to whom. Sombra just happened to be the one who drew the winning lot. Just like how in the other alternate timelines, Celestia was defeated by Lord Tirek, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and even the Flim Flam brothers, in the timeline I was in, King Sombra came out at just the right moment, so he was the one who reaped the benefits of Celestia's exhaustion.

Worse, due to the war, resources were stretched thin: Nearly everything produced went to the war effort. And if you weren't willing or able to fight, you had to contribute financially. Everyone was expected to give, especially those who were physically capable, but were just too chickenshit to go to the front lines. There could be no conscientious objectors in this war: No one was fighting with the intent to kill, and everyone was trying to free mind controlled slaves from the grip of an evil unicorn wizard who was practically Aku, Voldemort, and Sauron, all rolled up into pony form. If you had a conscience, you fought. Thus, Blueblood had to pay out the ass in order to keep his ass out of the war. He wasn't poor by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't get to live in anything like the luxury he did in PrimeTime. For some reason, the fact that he did not live in maximum luxury here caused him to experience a sensation bordering on physical pain, in spite of the fact that most ponies would gladly chew off their favorite leg to trade places with him. Still, that's Blueblood for you.

So, when it became clear that Sombra was almost certain to win, this timeline's version of Blueblood opted to do what any rat does, and leave the sinking ship, and tried to curry favor with Sombra by betraying his country to him.

Sombra wouldn't have been interested in any such deal: Sombra is like an even more hardcore version of Darkseid. He wouldn't be satisfied with anything other absolute obedience from literally every other lifeform on the planet. Maximum oppression, everywhere and forever. The idea of even one being on the planet being allowed to retain free will was intolerable to his ego. However, even attempted treason is still treason, regardless of whether or not it would have worked. And for royalty, the penalty is death, usually by public execution, historically. The higher the limb, the sharper the saw, as the saying goes.

"And you couldn't tell Celestia about those messages," I said, half to her, half to myself. "After all, there was a war on, and Celestia was on the front lines. The princess would have to be called back for the trial, since Blueblood is of the royalty, and a trial concerning royalty requires a royal presence. A public trial that could potentially stretch on for days or weeks, depending on how good a lawyer Blueblood was able to buy... and he'd likely be able to afford the best. It couldn't be just a show trial with a kangaroo court, it had to be the real deal, with a jury and everything. And then a public execution, unless somehow Blueblood could manage some kind of plea deal and was just banished instead. All of this would take Celestia off of the front lines, and she couldn't be spared for a second, let alone weeks. But worse than that would be the damage to morale: Celestia would be heartbroken that her only other living relative would try to betray her. The citizens of Equestria would lose faith in their government, since Celestia famously doted on Blueblood, and yet he turned out to be a traitor. How could Equestria rely on a princess who couldn't even see what was right in front of her? Worst of all, there'd be a succession crisis: If Celestia suddenly were to pass away, or become too ill to lead, then who would lead the nation if Blueblood was gone? Normally, that wouldn't be an issue, as alicorns are, if not invulnerable, at least immortal, but with a war on, there was a very real concern that Celestia might die at any time. I imagine that a number of powerful individuals would jump at the chance to become her official heir once Blueblood was gone. Even if I didn't march up to the gates of the city while the trial and execution were going on, Celestia'd likely have riots in the street from feuding nobility, if not an outright civil war. I wouldn't even have had to invade at that point: I could have just sat back with a tub of popcorn and watch Equestria self-destruct."

"Perceptive," Raven admitted, after a moment's pause. "Very perceptive. In a way, you may have done Celestia a favor, having dealt with Blueblood the way you have. Still, his current whereabouts are unknown. I'll have to..."

"You'll leave him be," I stated, bluntly. "No one in any of your organizations is to look for him, and no one working for the crown is to lay a hoof on him.

Raven raised a questioning eyebrow, and asked, "What? Why?"

I shrugged, and said, "My one kindness to Blueblood is that, if he managed to survive the day, he is no longer a threat to me, and is thus no longer worth any further action against him. He's been... removed from the field of play, and can no longer be a pawn in anyone else's game, so if he exercises at least a little intelligence, he might be able to live out the rest of his life in relative peace... as long as he stays well away from Equestria. Let everyone think that he's a coward and a fink, but not a traitor. Unless he somehow appears at the head of an army with the intent of trying to take the throne, he's not even worth thinking about, and I don't care if he's alive or dead." Funny, 'Bastard' came out as fink. I'd need to remember that: Fink is a fun word to say.

"Very well," Raven said, after a second's consideration. "I suppose that's acceptable. If he ever did return to cause problems in some fashion, the evidence marking him as a traitor to the crown would effectively nullify any threat he represented to you or Celestia."

With a nod, I stated, "Exactly." I took care to ignore the mention of Celestia in that last comment. After all, maybe once all my ducks were in a row, and my personal safety secured, I'd actually just hand her country back over to her. I paused, then said, "Now, I'd like for you to do me one more favor: I'll need a file containing copies of those letters that Blueblood tried to send my way, along with detailed records of anything else that Blueblood did that might have hindered the war effort in even the smallest way. I won't need it this instant, but I will need it available by dawn, so I'll have it when Celestia wakes up: When she learns of what I did regarding Blueblood, I'd like to be able to demonstrate how I was doing her a kindness in this situation." I didn't feel super-good about having fucked Blueblood over in epic style like I did, even if it was even more deserved than I'd thought it to be. Still, that was solely on me, not on Sombra, so it was my burden to bear, and I'd have to own up to it with the big pony in the sky when she woke up. That said, I wanted to have plenty of ammunition available when we started on that particular argument...

Raven Inkwell nodded, and said, "I can have that information compiled and made available for your review first thing tomorrow morning."

"Good," I said with a stretch. "In the meantime, I need a bath, a meal, and to retire for the evening, in that order. It's been an eventful day."

Raven Inkwell waited a full five minutes in the throne room after Sombra's departure, then turned to her right, and addressed the empty air.

"Well?"

The air shimmered for a moment, and then a lavender, bespectacled unicorn mare was standing in front of her.

"I can honestly say that I'm stumped," Twilight Sparkle admitted, and then cast a spell, bringing up several clear panels with words flashing across them at high speed.

"Really? Explain," the secretary/spymaster ordered.

Twilight turned her gaze to one panel, then tapped it with a hoof, causing the writing on it to hold in place. "I got a blood sample: I collected a cloth he had used to wash off his face, and I compared it to the sample collected at the Battle of Fielder's Hollow. As you are aware, when Commander Rainbow Dash kicked him in the face then, a sizable amount of Sombra's blood was spilled, more than enough for what we needed in this case. I used a spell to compare the two samples. Perfect match, blood type and all." What she left out, of course, was what Sombra did in retaliation for that kick: There's a reason why Dashie had a metal wing, after all.

Turning towards another panel, she added, "And I've managed a full spectrum body scan. Bone structure, muscle mass, the whole deal. All within the expected parameters. In terms of the purely physical, he's one hundred percent Sombra. But everything else..." She paused, searching for the right words.

Raven raised an eyebrow, and then asked her apprentice, "What about everything else?"

Twilight then closed down the panels she'd been studying, and the brought up a dozen more. After a moment, she pointed to one and said, "His thaumatic signature, the magical footprint that he leaves whenever he casts a spell is... off. Not by much, maybe five percent, but that's four and a half percent more than should be possible for anyone. It's like... the difference between one pony's hoofwriting, and an expert counterfeiting that hoofwriting: Only another expert could tell the difference, but there is still most definitely a difference. I have no idea why that could be...."

Moving that panel aside, she brought up another one, and said, "And his individual magical aura is completely off-kilter. Zero percent match, and not just for Sombra, I mean for anything. I've got nothing I can even compare this to. I mean, I've got a baseline for Sombra, but even if I scanned every unicorn on the planet, I doubt I would ever find anything like what I'm seeing. I honestly don't know what I'm looking at, here. If I didn't know any better, I would think I was looking at a completely unknown species of sapient creature, rather than a pony."

Raven considered that for a moment, then asked, "Could he be using some kind of a spell to scramble the readings?"

Twilight gave that a moment's thought, then said, "There's a problem right there: The spells I used for the analysis were graded to be able to cut through any sort of scrambling or blocking enchantments known to Equine, so I'd normally say that it can't be blocked. But as he himself said, we've not exactly made a lot of progress in the terms of magic development in more than a thousand years, so even a single new spell might be enough to stump the spells I used for the scan. Plus, the field of dark magic isn't exactly well-studied to begin with. There's every possibility that he's using either a hitherto unknown dark magic spell, or just a spell that he developed himself, and either way, we'd have no means of piercing through it." She paused, then rubbed the back of her head with one hoof, then added, "But what would be the point of giving such unusual readings, if there is a spell responsible for it? It would make more sense just to completely block the scans, or give information that is completely unlike his own in every conceivable category, rather than mostly giving out moderately confusing information."

Raven pondered that for a moment, then asked, "Anything else?"

Twilight paused, then brought up another panel. Rather than this one being covered in letters and numbers, this one had two silhouettes of Sombra moving through various poses, as well as two curved lines in constant, fluid motion.

"Here's the real puzzler," Twilight stated, squinting at the screen. "His posture, the... way he holds himself, his speech patterns, his standard vocabulary, his... tells, I guess you'd call them, they're completely off. All of it fails to match the accepted baselines. Nothing he does comes close to the behavior he's shown in the past. A literal zero percent match. And that should be impossible: I mean, spells can obscure thaumatic signatures and individual magical auras, that's easy enough if you know how. But I can't imagine any spell could completely change a pony's conscious and unconscious behavior to such a radical degree. Not even amnesia could account for this: Even a pony with no memory of his past will maintain unconscious habits and speech patterns. But nothing he says or does matches the accepted behavior of King Sombra. If I didn't have such clear evidence in front of me that I was looking at the most evil pony to ever exist, I'd say that I was looking at a completely different pony, no, a completely different lifeform altogether, one that just happened to look like King Sombra." She paused, then added, "And before you ask, yes, I did a deep scan to make sure he wasn't a changeling in disguise, first thing. He's not." Twilight paused, then said, "This isn't 'Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck', it's 'Looks like a duck, walks like an caterpillar, and moos like a cow'. I can honestly say that I have no idea what I'm looking at, so I can't even begin to hazard a guess as to what it all means."

Raven sighed, and then admitted, "It is a puzzle, I'll admit. Worst of all, this particular puzzle is going to be running the country for the foreseeable future." She paused, then changed the subject, asking, "How is it going with those... automatons you've been working on?"

Clearing away the panels, the lavender unicorn asked, "The golems?" Twilight sighed in frustration, and admitted, "I'm at a bit of a bottleneck right now. The simple ones are alright, I guess: Dumb things that can only do a couple of pre-set tasks, and a few that can hold a conversation, as long as you don't go above words of two syllables, or outside preprogrammed parameters. But the ones you've been interested in? The ones that are fully sapient and capable of using offensive and defensive magic? They self-terminate as soon as I give them their directives, even if directive number one is 'Do Not Self-Terminate Ever'. Which is a shame: The power that a golem possesses is directly proportionate to the complexity of its mind. A fully sapient golem would be powerful enough to go hoof-to-hoof with an alicorn, nevermind King Sombra. But, asides from a few legends from ancient times, no one has managed to successfully create one that lasted more than an hour. And even the ones in myth and legend tended to destroy themselves once their task was completed." She paused, then added, "But I've still got hope. I haven't completely ruled out a fault within the artificial brain yet..."

"Well," Raven said, after a moment's consideration, "keep working on it: It could be an ace in the hole, especially since we're currently stuck with a busted flush. For right now, it seems that this... Sombra-esque fellow is going to go in a different direction than the one we'd feared. If he's sincere, fantastic. If not, we'll know soon enough, I'm sure. However, until Celestia awakens, is back at full strength, and has been freed of that collar of his, we have no way of overpowering him and retaking the throne. I just hope that this isn't a temporary condition: If he suddenly goes full tyrant on us before Celestia wakes up, we'll have to kill him by any means necessary..."

Author's Note

In PrimeTime, Twilight Sparkle makes friends.
In this timeline, Twilight Sparkle makes friends.

Honestly, I kinda feel bad for her: At least in PrimeTime, she grew up with Spike, so she had at least one friend all along. In this timeline, she never even got that much. But at least she got a job that gets her close to Celestia.

Interlude: Fear Of The Unknown

From The Journal Of Royal Chronicler, Moondancer

The only thing more terrifying than knowing exactly what you're up against is knowing nothing about what you are up against.

For over a year now, we've done battle against King Sombra and his army of mind-controlled slaves. For over a year now, we've struggled to make any kind of progress towards victory. And we've failed. And all because of one simple, undeniable fact.

We know absolutely nothing about King Sombra.

Here's what we know: We know that he appeared in the Crystal Empire, wrested power from its rightful rulers, stole and corrupted the Crystal Heart that protected the kingdom, fought the alicorns, was sealed away, and then came back, intent on conquering Equestria, if not the entire world.

And that is the totality of all we know about him.

Where did he come from? Is Sombra his real name, or a moniker he took on to mask his true identity? How is he so powerful? Why is he so driven to conquer the world? Why do his eyes leak crazy purple smoke like that? We have no answers to these questions. And it is possible that the keys to defeating Sombra lie in those answers.

Is Sombra even a pony? There's any number of creatures that can change their appearance to suit their purposes. If Sombra were some manner of magical creature with a specific weakness that could be used against him, it would make sense to take on a new identity and a completely different appearance. However, our finest mages have used spying spells from afar to try and gain any insight to his true nature, and have come up with nothing.

And yet, no pony who ever lived has ever been as vicious, as cruel, as outright evil as King Sombra.

...Wait, perhaps that is not completely true. There is one pony, as old as myth, who was as outright terrible as Sombra, but... I shudder to think of the possibilities if there were any correlation between the two.

I suppose I should explain, in case somepony needs to read this later. And to do so, I'll need to crack open a book of our oldest legends.

In the beginning, our world was not, or so the legends say. There was naught but a cloud of cosmic dusts, gases, and raw magic. Then, the Builders came. The Builders were beings of immense power, and sought to create a new world. Not for any purpose or plan, but for the simple joy of creation, and because all of existence was empty of life, save themselves, and they wished to have others to share the wonders of the universe with. The Builders took the masses of dust, gas, and magic, and used them to build our world. It is difficult to say how long this took: The words for different lengths of time in Primeval Equestrian are almost identical to one another, so it could be anywhere from six days to six billion years. How long it took and how long ago are irrelevant, though: The fact is, they made a world. And then, using their own blood as a base, created life. The first ponies.

Things quickly went downhill from here.

You see, the Builders were not born with such great powers. Instead, they had gained their abilities through an amount of time that, while difficult to be precise about, context indicates was very, very long, and extremely arduous. During this time, they became immortal, but the Builders had to struggle for ages to gain the full powers they possessed. This meant they remembered what it was like not to have those abilities. They knew what it was like to be powerless. To have nothing. The Builders didn't want their 'children' to have to go through the same struggles that their parents did, so the Builders gave great power, knowledge, and immortality to their offspring.

In the Builder's defense, they had no other sapient lifeforms to compare themselves with, so they didn't understand just how bad an idea this would turn out to be. They were trying to do a good thing, giving such lavish gifts to their creation. They didn't understand just what these gifts would mean.

Don't understand? Well, then I should explain: If someone has started with little or nothing, and then worked hard to reach great wealth, power, or office, that person will, more often than not, be humble, kind, and generous. They'll remember what it was like to be helpless, and be more likely to reach out a helping hoof to others.

However, those born with wealth, power, and privilege that they had to do nothing to earn will often think of themselves as a 'special existence'. They will often be arrogant, selfish, and cruel. They'll be quick to use their power to cause harm to others, instead of helping them.

Don't believe me? Two words: Prince Blueblood. Need further evidence? Diamond Tiara. The prosecution rests, your honor.

Thus, the first ponies were nothing like the Builders. They had an entire world to themselves, and they treated it like garbage: They played 'games' that would ravage entire continents, and then demand that the Builders fix things. They pulled the sun and moon from their intended orbits, and tossed them about like playthings, to the point where it was impossible for them to be returned to their proper course and required constant guidance from the Builders. They changed the weather and seasons at a whim, to the point where all the plants and other animals on the planet would go extinct every other week, and the Builders were forced to recreate and repopulate them over and over again. Their creations didn't care: They were all-powerful and absolutely immortal, so no matter how utterly they ruined their world, they'd survive.

And speaking of the animals... Celestia above, the things that are described in these pages make me glad I've not eaten dinner. The first ponies tormented animals for sport in ways so cruel that words fail me... and I've not exactly lived what you might call a sheltered life this last year.

In short, the first ponies behaved like the most spoiled rotten colts and fillies on the planet. Spoiled colts and fillies who could flatten continents with their tantrums, and loved torturing small animals for fun. Meanwhile, the Builders played the part of the well-meaning parents forced to clean up the mess.

This went on for a long time, which speaks volumes for the Builders' patience. However, they finally came to the realization that this wasn't working. If things kept going on this way, then they'd basically be the slaves of their offspring forever. Finally, they said enough was enough, and that if their offspring wanted things fixed, they'd have to do it themselves.

The first ponies reacted to this in a calm and rational... oh who am I kidding? They turned against their creators and tried to force them to return to the status quo. The creations had spent ages believing that they were gods, and their creators were nothing but their slaves, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. When their 'slaves' rebelled, they did what any 'master' does when the 'slaves' get uppity, and 'asserted their authority'. Through the timeless medium of violence and bloodshed.

This did not end well for the first ponies.

The battle that followed was long and terrible. But it could only end one way: All the first ponies knew was how to break, crush, and destroy. They had the powers of gods, but they had the mentalities of spoiled colts and fillies, and no real imagination in regards to how to use their powers. The Builders had eons of experience in how to use their powers, and had imagination to spare. And neither side could be killed. Thus, the first ponies could throw wave after wave of unbridled cosmic annihilation at their opponents, and the Builders would just sit and take it. After the first ponies exhausted themselves, the Builders would then restrain them and move on to the next group. It took perhaps a week, although as mentioned, it is hard to say for certain when reading Primeval Equestrian.

But once the first ponies were restrained, the Builders finally understood that they'd made an error with their creation, and something needed to be done. As long as the first ponies had phenomenal cosmic powers and absolute immortality, there was nothing to prevent them from pulling the exact same stunts all over again. And given their immortality, the first ponies could just ravage the world over and over again, destroying continents and eviscerating bunnies and kittens, and never having to worry about consequences.

Thus, their powers needed to be taken and their immortality revoked.

One by one and with great sorrow, the Builders stripped their children of their nigh-omnipotence and invulnerability. Then, the Builders rebuilt the world one last time. Then, they populated the world with dozens upon dozens of other sapient creatures, and thousands of other ponies (versus the two or three dozen first ponies) , some of whom could fly, and some of whom could do magic. They then dragged the first ponies up into the heavens, and made them gaze upon a world where they were not the masters of all creation, and were now as ants before the might of their creators.

"Where before you had this world to yourselves," the Builders proclaimed to the first ponies, "now you must learn to share it, else you will find yourselves surrounded by enemies. Where before you could control the sun and moon, the weather and the seasons, with but a thought, now you will be forced to work tirelessly to manage them, else you and this world be brought to ruin unending. Where before you had no fear of pain and death, now you must live forever under their shadow unto the end of your days. Where before you thought yourselves special and unique, you are now but a few amongst many. And where before you lived as gods, now you will live as the beasts you once tormented. And in the fullness of time, when death claims you, you and all who follow you will be judged for your deeds in life. Those who have been good, kind, generous, and honest will be treated to an eternity of happiness. But you, who turned against your creators and who have spent countless ages steeped in wretchedness and cruelty, you and those like you will know an eternity of suffering and torment, lest you change your ways and redeem yourselves. And you will know that you have earned every moment of it, either way."

And the first ponies wept, knowing now the depths of their folly. They'd been given paradise, and proved themselves to be wholly unworthy of it. Now, they would be sent to what was, in their eyes, Hades itself. And more Hades would inevitably follow it if they did not change. And they had no one to blame but themselves.

The Builders, before sending their creations to their fate, did a final counting of the ponies... and came up one short.

And the Builders turned to count their own numbers... and came up one short as well.

The Builders searched for the missing Builder and the missing pony. It took a long time. And when they found them...

It was far too late. The pony had figured out a way to sever his bonds, and had abducted one of his creators for a fell purpose: He knew that the Builders possessed secrets they hadn't shared with their creations, and these secrets had held the key to their victory over their creations. This renegade pony had tortured the kidnapped Builder in order to obtain those secrets. Or at least, the one that mattered most.

The secret of true immortality, a form of invulnerability that, once gained, even the Builders could not take away. Immortality that would mean that he could not die until he chose to die.

I cannot imagine what torments could have been used against the poor Builder that this renegade had captured, but when his comrades found him, the victim's second action upon release, after telling his rescuers who had done this and where to find him, was to allow himself to die.

The Builders before had acted as disappointed parents. Now, with one of their own dead, after torture at the hands of their own creation, the Builders were like a force a nature. They found their quarry, stripped him of his power (or tried. There's mention of how 'he had a shadow of power that would eternally be his', whatever that means), and then did everything in their power to destroy him.

But it was, again, far too late.

The Builders tore the renegade limb from limb. The renegade's body pulled itself back together. The Builders turned the renegade inside out. The renegade turned himself outside in. The Builders broke the Renegade down to the smallest possible particles. The Renegade put all of those particles back together again. The Builders converted the Renegade's body into pure energy, then dissipated that energy into pure heat and spread it all throughout the cosmos. The Renegade created a new body for himself from stone and water, sand and air.

What had been done could not be undone. The Renegade was immortal, as the Builders were immortal. He could not die until he chose to die. Or so he thought. The Builders proclaimed that there was a way 'for his death to find him', and called to it.

Death did not answer.

Yeah, this part is weird. There's about a page and a half of the Builders searching everywhere for the Renegade's death, including the back of the moon and the heart of the sun, but never finding it. I'll skip that, because I think you get the idea. The Renegade had duped his creators thrice-over. First, by escaping his bonds, then by obtaining seemingly irrevocable immortality, and finally by ensuring that whatever loophole the Builders had in subverting that immortality would not work.

Understandably, the Builders were livid. They bound the Renegade to an unbreakable stone with unbreakable chains, and imprisoned the Renegade in the heart of the world itself, where unending fire and unimaginable pressure would torment him until the day he 'chose' to call out to his death. And if his death was released from wherever the Renegade had hidden it, it would seek him out and claim him, whether he wanted to die or not.

And when it did, the Renegade would be sent to a place worse than anyplace else, a dark and terrible pit that would make the fires and torments of Hades seem as Elysium in comparison.

With that, the Builders left, and vowed never to return, for if they did, they might choose to undo their judgement out of pity. They're probably out there, somewhere, making worlds and creating life. Hopefully, they're doing a better job than they did with their first run.

Supposedly, the Renegade was bound inside the heart of the world for eternity, and could never escape. But then, he's slipped his bounds once before. And if he ever escaped his bonds... then how long would it take a truly immortal pony to dig his way out from the center of the world? After all, he'd have all the time in the world...

You're probably laughing at this, and think there's no way this could be. Well...

I was there, observing, at Fielder's Hollow. I witnessed Rainbow Dash and her command fearlessly charge Sombra himself. I watched as she kicked the dread tyrant in the face. I heard the pop of his jaw shattering, and the snap of his neck breaking... and then felt the cheer of triumph die in my throat as his jaw healed and his neck popped back into place, and then used his magic to shear the wing off of Rainbow Dash's body.

Far too much makes sense if King Sombra is truly this immortal: Dark magic harms its user, and King Sombra has used enough to slay an ordinary pony a thousand times over. Perhaps this is why he is bold, and so terrible. If he cannot die, then there is nothing that can truly stop him. Strike him, and it will not hurt him. Break his bones, and they'll pop back into place. Seal him away, and he'll patiently wait until his bonds wear away with time. His conquest of the world would be inevitable. All anyone can hope to do is delay it. After all, he has all of eternity with which to grind our defenses down to dust... and then all of eternity to grind us under his hooves.

I'm tired, and exhaustion has made me morbid. I need to get to bed. Sunset Shimmer is returning from her trip through the mirror portal tomorrow, and I need to be well rested: I'm sure she's got lots of fun stories to tell about the world that she visited, and I could definitely use something to cheer me up...

A Brief Interlude: That Moment Of Dawning Comprehension

Author's Note

This is not going to be a 'funny' chapter, but it is a necessary one, for plot purposes. Enjoy.

A Brief Interlude: That Moment Of Dawning Comprehension

"We may have a problem."

Rainbow Dash raised her head from her work, and turned to look over at the approaching Maud Pie, then held up a hoof, indicating to wait a moment. She looked back down, briefly, at Prince Blueblood, who was fitfully struggling to raise his head out of the urine-filled latrine ditch he was currently being drowned in. Of course, with all of his limbs broken, Dashie didn't really to keep her hoof on the back of his head to keep him there, but she'd always felt that, if you wanted a job done right, you should do it yourself rather than leave it to chance. A few seconds later, Blueblood quit struggling, and bubbles quit rising. With a final kick, she knocked his body into the ditch. A perfect resting place for traitorous filth like this.

Pinkamena was standing nearby, taking care not to look at what had just happened. She'd refused to be a part of what Dashie had done, but she hadn't tried to stop her either...

Looking back over to Maud, Rainbow Dash asked, "What's up?"

Maud Pie was not the most expressive of ponies. She rarely talked about how she felt, or expressed an opinion, or even changed facial expressions very often. It wasn't because anything was wrong with her, it was just the way she way. However, Pinkamena's head jerked up when she heard what Maud had to say. Something in her sister's tone of voice rang warning bells. Big, loud ones.

"Thanks to what just happened, we're going to be stuck supporting King Sombra, no matter what," Maud Pie stated bluntly.

Shocked, Dashie asked, "What... what are you talking about?"

"You just killed Prince Blueblood, the one other pony who has a blood relation to Princess Celestia," Maud explained. "More to the point, we were seen leaving the palace with Blueblood, and he is not coming back, thanks to you. Celestia always doted on Blueblood, ignoring his many flaws, and the fact that his actions had a small, but measurable, negative impact on the war effort. In Celestia's eyes, Blueblood could do no wrong. So, if Sombra is deposed, and Celestia put on the throne again... what happens to us?"

Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped, as did Pinkamena's, as two and two came together to make four. Sombra had removed Blueblood's royal privilege, and any protection he had granted to him by law. Thus, so long as Sombra was in charge, killing Blueblood wasn't a crime at all. However, there was always the faint hope that maybe something would happen, and the Princess could reclaim the throne. But if that happened...

Then what Dashie did would be considered regicide. A very big crime. Whatever Celestia did to Sombra, she'd do double to Rainbow Dash. And to Maud and Pinkamena, just for letting it happen.

"The worst part is," Maud added, "we can't claim that Sombra tricked us, or controlled us. He used no magic on anyone in the room. It was... very smooth: Blueblood wrote the 'treaty' in his own hoof, and anypony with any sense would have seen that not only was it full of holes wide enough to drive a cart through, but that Sombra was making no effort to hide the fact that he was setting Blueblood up. Sombra was grinning the entire time: It must have been like a tiger watching his prey season itself, roast itself over an open flame, and then lay down on a silver platter and say 'Dinner is served.'" She paused, then added, "And then he dropped the hammer on him. And we reacted exactly how he expected us to, I think."

Dashie's eyes widened in horror as she replayed the last few minutes in her head. She'd asked if Sombra's proclamation meant that Blueblood was no longer a prince, and then struck the fool directly in the face. And then Sombra had explained to Blueblood exactly what that farce of a treaty actually entailed. The tyrant had wrapped it up by saying that, if Dash wanted, she could beat the prince to the brink of death with a chair. He hadn't commanded her to, or used magic to coerce her, he'd simply mentioned it as an idea, and she'd leapt at it, like a monkey jumping at a low-hanging fruit... not realizing that she'd land in the mother of all pitfalls.

You couldn't even call it being manipulated. He'd shown them all the door leading to their doom, and all of them had gleefully jumped right through...

"And with Blueblood out of the way, and Nightmare Moon still sealed away, Princess Celestia is the only member of the royal family left," Pinkamena added, putting one more nail in the coffin of realization. "And Sombra has her right where he wants her."

"We did Sombra's dirty work without him even having to ask us," Rainbow Dash said, with the kind of horror one might normally associate with someone watching an avalanche approaching. "And it gets even worse: Blueblood might have been scum, but somepony might have tried to use him as a figurehead for a resistance movement. Having the backing of the last free member of the royalty would have gathered ponies under any banner who had it. Heck, even if Blueblood were banished from the country, he could have used his clout as a member of royalty to raise an army to retake Equestria almost anywhere he might have ended up." Looking back at the drowned corpse of what might have been Equestria's last hope, slim as it was, she added, "No loose ends: We did a better job of handing Equestria over to Sombra than even Blueblood did..."

"So, we're stuck supporting Sombra, at least for the foreseeable future," Maud stated, bluntly. "At least, until we can figure out a way of turning the tables that won't leave Celestia wanting our heads when she's back in power."

'Clever boy,' Maud thought to herself, as the three walked the long road back to Canterlot. 'Whoever you are, you're not Sombra. Sombra would have either killed the four of us on sight, or subdued us with his magic. He wouldn't have let us dance in the palm of his hoof of our own free fill. Was all of this intentional? Removing Blueblood as a threat, and forcing me, Pinkamena, and Dashie to see supporting you as our only option? The best commander in the Equestrian army, plus two of its best soldiers, are now left with no sanctuary except under your banner. Just how far ahead are you thinking, Mister "King of Equestria"?'

"Well, in the meantime," Maud said, her tone the same monotone she almost always used, "we have a speech to listen to. Hopefully, it will give us an idea of just what we have to look forward to."

What she didn't say was, 'And tell us whether the "King of Equestria" will be better or worse than the real Sombra..."

Meanwhile, far to the north...

There was a cave, deep beneath the Crystal Empire. It is very dark there. It is the kind of dark that one can only get when someplace has never seen light. Ever. It is the kind of place where one would close their eyes instinctively, in fear that the shadows might try to pull your eyes out of their sockets.

However, it was not silent in this cave. The cave was filled with what can only be called the sound of limitless rage. The rage of someone who was thwarted, a fraction of an inch from his greatest victory. It was the rage of someone who had escaped from death by bare inches. It was a sound that came from no throat of flesh and blood. No mortal body could express such fury without bursting into flames and exploding twice.

It would take dozens of ponies, digging for days, to reach this place from the surface. And if they tried, they'd run into many a terrible trap, set to prevent anypony from reaching it. And worse would befall anypony who did manage to enter this cave just now. Pure hatred like this could strip flesh from bone faster than any acid in existence.

Still, the cave was perfect for what was needed.

It's the perfect place to hide, and to wait.

And generate a new body.

There would be a reckoning.

There would be blood.

Sombra was not dead. Only one thing could truly kill him, and he had sealed that death away in a box, specially made for that purpose, and buried it in another world. He hid it in a place where he was certain no one would ever find it. As long as his death remained sealed away, Sombra's body could be destroyed a thousand times, and he'd revive again and again.

It should still be there. But it wasn't. Somehow, it was here in Equestria. It was lodged in the body he'd just abandoned.

He'd felt it reaching for him when that usurper had entered into Sombra's body. It had taken root within Sombra's flesh, and the usurper's mind had taken control, once the true Sombra had withdrawn. It was why he'd been forced to flee here, to generate new flesh to hold his spirit. And as soon as he had hooves to walk with, and a horn to cast spells with, Sombra would find that fool, and rip that death from the usurper's chest, along with his still-beating heart...