Salvation | Rebirth

The story Chestnut Falls, the distraught mare, told Princess Luna shed some light on how Sombra came to exist. He was not a corrupted pony who delved too deep into dark magic, no - instead, he was... something else.

Princess Luna assembled the facts. Fact one, Sombra was found outside the city, in the frozen wasteland north of the Crystal Empire. Fact two, he was young but not newborn, and knew exactly one word, which then became his name. Fact three, every time Crystal Faire happened he had fallen sick. The last fact certainly explained why the Crystal Heart was still missing. Another fact was revealed as well - he had only one friend, a young mare by the name of Radiant Hope. Luna did remember the name, but Radiant Hope had only ever talked to Celestia, and even then the information she revealed was rather minimal. Perhaps all the information Princess Luna was now uncovering had been told to her before, but her memory of that time was not the greatest, even aside from the fact that centuries had passed since then.

Sombra’s story was somewhat similar to Wild’s, Luna couldn’t help but note. The similarities were there - both of them appeared out of nowhere, and neither of them knew the language. However, while Wild’s origins were eventually revealed, Sombra’s remained obscure, although Luna started wondering - what if he was another human? However, if he was, he had never revealed it to anyone. Then there was the issue of slavery - he had enslaved the crystal ponies in order to do... something. Whatever it was, everyone’s memory was affected enough that they could not remember.

Luna investigated the places where Sombra had been to the most. His room at the orphanage was the first, and it was rather bare save for a few personal possessions that told her little. However, when she used a spell to detect lingering emotions, she discovered a number of them at different strengths. First was, surprisingly, happiness and contentment, both of them rather strong, yet also connected to one person, and she bet it was Radiant Hope. Second was weaker but ever-present sense of loneliness and alienation. If what Chestnut Falls told Luna was right, Sombra was not liked because he was not a crystal pony. Luna smothered the sympathy she was beginning to have for the tyrant. No matter what happened to him, what he did could not be excused or justified. Last emotion she could detect was a recent spike of fear.

All of them were surprisingly normal emotions. In Luna’s eyes, Sombra had been a hateful creature that spread malice and misery while laughing about it. Seeing evidence that he was not always like this was... jarring. But then, dark magic tended to corrupt, the more the deeper one delved into it. The Alicorn Amulet had been one such example, turning the kindest into the cruelest, turning sympathy into hate, empathy into apathy. Thankfully, now it was destroyed forever more.

Luna investigated a couple more places where Chestnut Falls told her Sombra had often been to, but she had found nothing of note beyond what she had discovered in his room.

“It’s not natural how he b-became that thing,” Chestnut Falls told her, almost begging, “Please, find what h-happened to him... there must be something left of the colt I knew.”

“Can you tell me how he treated you after he... changed?” Luna asked.

“He... he refused to look at me,” Chestnut Falls used her fetlock to wipe her tears away, “He didn’t come to this place. And when he saw me... I’d like to s-say there was regret in his eyes, but... but he just didn’t look. He refused to look. I know he heard my words, but he ignored them. At least... he was not cruel to me.”

“Was he cruel to others?”

“My goodness, yes,” Chestnut Falls nodded, “He used that foul magic to make them scream. I have never heard screams this horrible b-before that. He never hurt anyone physically, I think, only with his magic, but it was terrible enough.”

Then, out of nowhere, the ground rumbled, screams rose in the air. Luna immediately took off, many offensive and defensive spells going through her mind as she prepared to fight Sombra again. Her sister wasn’t there, so it wouldn’t be quite an even fight, but Princess Cadance would offer assistance, hopefully enough to hold Sombra back before Celestia arrived. This time, they would have to be careful not to let the Empire disappear again, but they would win.

However, there was no malevolent form of a shadow waiting for her nor did she hear Sombra’s broken vile laugh. Instead, she saw the source of the disturbance - one of the streets near the Crystal Palace had collapsed, throwing shards of crystal and dust in the air. With a mighty flap of her wings, she darted there like an arrow from a bow, getting there about the same time as dust had begun to settle. Her Royal Guards were already on the move, approaching the collapsed street with stretchers ready, as well as bringing unicorn heavy-lifters with them.

The street had thankfully collapsed only a few meters down, not falling into some sort of an ancient chasm. Luna went over the street with her eyes, quickly noting that, thankfully, only a couple of ponies were caught at the edges, and none of them were under the debris. She swooped in and checked them out for injuries - thankfully, they had suffered nothing more than a couple of bruises. It was, possibly, the best case scenario for something like that happening. However, the collapse might widen, taking the nearby buildings with them, so she had to hurry.

“Captain Fairweather?” she called on the nearest guard of the highest rank, who straightened at attention.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Standing priority is evacuation of all nearby buildings,” she declared, “Start from the Crystal Palace outward and be quick, have pegasi at the ready to carry the evacuees as quickly as possible. The entire city should be evacuated to the outskirts, and a survey team must carefully check the stability, once again starting from the palace and going outwards. We perhaps had gotten lucky now, but we cannot rely on it. If everything goes well, we should have no further injuries, and we must prevent deaths from occurring. Understood?”

“Yes, your majesty. Right away,” the captain bowed, then hurriedly trotted away to carry out Princess Luna’s orders.

Luna would need to pull up old records and see if there were any cave systems underneath the Crystal Empire. Whether there were any caves or not, it all bore investigation.

***

Wild and his friends were sitting close together, listening to the radio as it brought new from the Crystal Empire.

“...the cause of the collapse is of yet unknown, but it is strongly suspected that it is related to whatever Sombra did before his defeat,” the reporter said, their voice distorted and somewhat flat over the radio, “Investigation is ongoing.”

“What can you tell us about the general state of the Crystal Empire, Breaking?” the radio station host asked.

“There is confusion and uncertainty,” they reported, “It seems the Crystal Empire is weathering the worst storm in their history. This crisis will have far-reaching consequences, without a doubt.”

Wild knew something bad was going to happen, but at least one collapsed street was far removed from the level of some ancient evil returning and laying waste to everyone. However, he still had a bad feeling about it all and was not looking forward to the future regarding the Crystal Empire.

“Well shit,” Precision commented, “What a clusterfuck over there.”

“And that’s just perhaps a couple of weeks of villain rule,” Artful said quietly.

“Yeah, fuck that,” Swingblade shuddered.

Wild had taken some time to read up on the Crystal Empire, and it was known as a prosperous country despite being so close to the Frozen North. It was an offshoot of Equestria during the early days, when unity of the three tribes was new and not without its issues. Crystal Empire started off as a country with the hope of eventually retaking ancestral pony lands, but it appeared their efforts had been continuously stalled by the Windigoes, who to this day remained strong in the Frozen North. Crystal Empire still remained as a shining beacon of hope, carving their place out in an otherwise inhospitable area. It was entirely self-sufficient as well, growing their food in glass houses and getting their water from mountain streams that did not freeze over. Crystal Empire was the first among ponies to invent plumbing, using it to heat the homes as well as provide hot water for baths and showers.

It sounded like a nice place to Wild, and it was a shame that Sombra had to ruin it all. From what Wild was now hearing, it was possible that the majority of the city would be condemned. Whether it was destabilization of existing caves under the Empire or something new Sombra had dug, it was a danger to everyone in the city.

Unfortunately, there was nothing Wild or any of his friends could do about it. Perhaps someday in the future they would travel there and see what the Crystal Empire had to offer, but that day would not come anytime soon.

“Fuck Sombra,” Lina said passionately, “What a huge dick. Bet he couldn’t make half the shit the Crystal Empire had before he went and destroyed it all because he’s fucking stupid.”

The vehemence in her voice surprised Wild, but then she did want to visit the Crystal Empire, and now she would no longer have the chance to see it how it was when it disappeared over a thousand years ago, and perhaps she would never see how it was at the height of its prosperity and power. She certainly held pretty strong opinions about history preservation, Wild had found out.

“Maybe we should start a new holiday,” Precision said, “Build a straw effigy of Sombra and then burn it while chanting ‘Fuck Sombra’, huh? How does that sound?”

“I’m in!” Swingblade rose one of his front hooves in agreement.

“I think giving him a whole celebration would be kinda...” Artful made a so-so gesture, “Wouldn’t it be better if the fucker is forgotten?”

Wild nodded to that. As much as it could be cathartic to burn something resembling Sombra, having him be relegated to a footnote in history would probably be better.

“By the way, there’s a Solidarity March for Crystal Empire that’s going to be in Canterlot in a couple of days,” Precision said, “Y’all up for it?”

“Hell yeah,” Swingblade confirmed with a nod.

“Count me the fuck in,” Lina nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll go too,” Artful said.

Wild, with some hesitation, offered his own nod. He had never been to a protest or a march, but he was willing to go out and show his support for the Crystal Empire. Maybe he could even do more than just march because, in his opinion, marching didn’t really do a whole lot for the Crystal Empire. He could perhaps donate some money, there were certainly some charities aiming to help the Crystal Empire, but he didn’t really have all that much. Could he perhaps be some kind of a volunteer worker? Or a regular worker so that he would also earn some money? There were certainly some options.

There were certainly talks of some trips to the Crystal Empire from the Royal Orphanage. As much as Wild wanted to stay out of trouble, perhaps he would go anyway if only to see if he could help. He could lift heavy things, he could do some basic magical stuff to help clean the streets up and similar things. Perhaps he would work at a kitchen making food - there were news that the Crystal Empire would have suffered from a food shortage if not for the efforts of Disaster Assistance and Relief Office to get food shipped from Equestria to the Crystal Empire pretty much immediately after its return became known. This was certainly rather efficient, though Wild knew some disaster relief in the USA did happen as well when a place was struck by a hurricane or a tornado and similar things. However, he felt like Equestria was mobilizing for it far quicker.

Perhaps Wild’s growing carpentry skills would be of help as well. While the best he could make were benches and tables, and even then they tended to be a bit wobbly at first, he could still do something. Whatever the case was, it would simply not be right for him to sit in place while he was perfectly capable of helping. Besides, Equestria had helped him a lot, was still helping him a lot, and he thought it was time to return the favor in at least some way.

As much as he feared that something worse would happen in the future, it was no reason to avoid doing something good when he could.

Later that day, when Wild and Artful were all alone at Wild’s dorm, he told his lover about his thoughts.

“Yeah, I was thinking of helping too,” Artful admitted, “So, we’ll go together. I’m not much of a builder and all, but I can see if I can capture what’s going on in paint. Crystal ponies have survived what Sombra threw at them, and they deserve to remember it.”

“History should be remembered,” Wild nodded, “In... back in my world, we had... a war. A large war. I think seventy-five years ago? It was horrible. And... if we remembered it better, maybe things... would be better. For everyone.”

Wild decided not to reveal the full extent of World War 2, not even its name. He didn’t like to think of humanity’s recent history, and he certainly didn’t want to inflict it on others. This sort of thing would have to remain hidden within him.

“Alright, so we’ll sign up for the relief efforts, right?” Artful asked.

“We will,” Wild gave a serious nod in response, “It will be right to help them. I want to help them, like I was helped.”

Wild briefly considered how similar it was to calls to war. A tragedy happens, then a call to arms is issued, and the pressure of it keeps people joining. However, he was not joining any army or military. Instead, he would be there helping, not killing. As much as he was willing to kill, he now knew that it was recovery that was the most important thing. He had killed his tormentors, but it wasn’t until he was helped that he switched from surviving to living, and from living to thriving.

There was no heavy heart as he decided to travel to the Crystal Empire and offer all that he could in order to help ponies he had never met. If anything, he felt... lighter, because of his decision. He was doing the right thing, and he liked it. He knew it was too soon to say anything because he wasn’t even in the Crystal Empire yet, but perhaps, in the future, he would do more of this.

He knew he could march in the streets and show his support that way, but he was a larger fan of doing something truly productive than what, in his mind, was largely useless. Besides, he could do it, and there was no good reason for him to avoid doing it, so it would be better if he actually, well, started doing it.

It just felt right.