Sombra's Bat

I wake up one morning and I know that the two-week warning from Celestia has expired because I can hear the thunder outside of the Crystal Empire. The pegasi will have stopped taking care of the weather this far north, but closer to Equestria things will probably be a lot different.

Neither Sombra nor myself receive any post, because the Equestrian Mail Service will not cater to foreign countries in times of unrest. It isn't a bad thing to stop being sent hate mail, though, and since Sunbutt doesn't get on with the Changelings either the bug horses deliver the mail themselves.

As we sit there eating breakfast, I ask him, "Do you reckon somepony's upset?"

"Yes, Moonlight. Somepony is very, very upset. Something is going to happen today. Maybe those Elements of Harmony ponies will be sent here, or a quantity of the very rubbish Royal Guards of Equestria. If she's really upset, we might even get to see an alicorn in the flesh."

"I doubt it. However, we need to be cautious. You'll have to tell the elite guards to be extra vigilant."

"They listen to both of us now, remember."

"We will tell them, then."

"Yes. However, there is something else that we need to do once you finish that porridge. Hurry up, because it's exciting and I've been wanting to show you for weeks."

I swallow the last mouthful and show him the empty bowl. "You were saying?"

"Guards," Sombra calls.

Three guards gallop into the room immediately. "Yes, your majesty?" one asks.

"Moonlight and I have to go and talk in private. We will be in my private chambers. I request that you make sure nopony comes in and stop laughing because it is NOT for the reason you think it is for."

The guards stop chuckling immediately. I glower at them. "Don't you dare insult the King, and if you decide to go spreading rumours, you will be put in the elite Crystal Guard. Does that sound nice?" I threaten them.

No answer.

Sombra teleports all of us outside of the room. "Good," he says. "Now, if anypony asks, tell them that I am busy and Commander Shade is out on her daily patrol. We shan't be long."

We both walk into the room, and Sombra uses magic to lock the door.

"So why are we in here?" I finally have the sense to ask.

"Do you still want to become one of the Umbrum?"

"Yes."

"Follow me, then." His dark magic reveals a door in a section of the wall. I follow him through the passageway and down a spiral staircase.

"Why can't we just teleport to the room?"

"Magic. I wanted to make the passages in this castle maze-like for outsiders, but if you look on the torch brackets at the intersections and stairwells they tell you which of the hidden rooms you are closest to."

At the bottom of the staircase, I look at a torch bracket. In the flickering firelight, I can see Sombra's chambers and an arrow pointing up the stairs inscribed in the metal. "Clever... wait, you aren't related to that unicorn Clover the Clever, are you?"

"No. Are you forgetting your history? He died about four hundred years before either of us were born. We are here."

He opens a door, and beckons for me to follow him. I trot in behind him and close the door. Using magic, he lights the torches in their brackets.

I am instantly blown away by the intricate tapestries on the walls and the stories that they tell. They show innocent-looking enough ponies using dark magic and changing into their Umbrum forms, which I recognise because I remember what Sombra looked like: a glowing purple form surrounded by shadows and mist. One Umbrum appears more often than the rest. She has a light green form, wings and a curly mane, but no visible cutie mark.

"Where are we?" I whisper because the place has taken my breath away.

"This is a little collector's room. There's a lot more the further into the room you go. These are some tapestries of the Umbrum, made to make them seem like creatures who are less than their pony brothers and sisters. As you know by now, this is nonsense."

"I thought that Equestria always wanted to spread peace and friendship, and this was just everypony not realising who you really were behind your sometimes unnerving but stunning appearance. I didn't know that this had been going on for so long. Why hasn't old Sunbutt stopped it?"

"Celestia does not like dark magic. It is something outside of her control, because it relies on the emotions of the user, not their magical ability. Anypony, even pegasi and earth ponies, can use dark magic if they try hard enough. She remembers when the three tribes of ponies lived separately and, although she gets along with earth ponies and pegasi, she still sees the unicorns as dominant, as she was a unicorn before she discovered alicorn magic."

"But that's hypocrisy!" I cry. "So she dislikes anypony who isn't a unicorn but can use magic. No wonder she didn't trust me when I wanted to get here." I pause for a minute. "You look a lot like windigos."

"Umbrum is a Prench term that translates roughly to pony of shadow and frost. What are windigos? Pony-like creatures who spread darkness, icy weather and frost. Nopony before has realised that we are very similar creatures. The main differences are that Umbrum are corporeal beings that ponies turn into through the use of dark magic, and windigos are pure spirits born out of disharmony between the pony races."

I stop in my tracks. "Is that why you live in a place called the Frozen North?"

"The Umbrum don't directly control the weather, but we can cause enough trouble for windigos to appear if we like."

"How about showing me a bit more of this place?" I inquire.

"Follow me."

I go deeper into the cavern and discover ancient artifacts, more artworks and even huge novels. I know that there is something in particular he wants to show me and ask, "So what are we looking for?"

"This."

I look at Sombra, who holds a scroll in his magic. "Never have you been so secretive about something as you are being now. Details, or I'll have no idea what I'm doing, which you will find hilarious and I won't. Please tell me," I pout.

"This scroll contains the spell that will allow the transformation to take place. It takes a few weeks to work, and the changes will be very minor at first. The one thing you must do to set off the reaction is stop using light magic altogether."

"Should be able to do that. I'm not sure how much light is left in my heart now, after being so broken by Celestia. She'll have her comeuppance, though."

"Too right. The first change you will notice is the way that light works will change. It generally seems as if you are repelling the light so that the shadows are closer to yourself."

"That sounds strange, but a creature that literally commands the shadows would be able to mess with the way that light and shadows normally work. Then?"

"At some point, you will start looking more like a transformed Umbrum. At that point, you will have to be confined to bed rest for a good long while, mainly because we don't want everypony knowing about the choice you made, but also because it can get very painful."

"Right," I say slowly. "That sounds... Less fun. How long is a good long while?"

"A month. This is when most of the major changes to your body will happen. You'll know that you are ready to go back into the public eye when you can control certain aspects of your appearance."

"So I will be able to change from looking like this," I point at myself with a hoof, "to my Umbrum form?"

"Well, you have three forms. Your pony form," the shadows surround him and transform him into one of the semi-corporeal horses displayed on the tapestries, "Your Umbrum form, and your shadow form, which is the one that looks like the windigos." He seemingly disappears, only for a huge dark cloud to fill the room. A glowing pair of red eyes appear on the front of the cloud. He looks how he did when I first arrived at the Crystal Empire.

"How is this even possible?!"

"Transformation magic. You can turn a glass of water into a rain cloud. What makes this so different?"

"I... I don't know. I guess this is real and I'm not dreaming."

"You aren't, believe me. I was just as baffled once, when I found these scripts in the Crystal Library. Amoré believed in sharing the truth with others. One of the perks of having her in charge was that she often wouldn't judge you if you asked questions on some of the less pretty subjects of life."

"Why didn't she trust you, then?"

"Ah, I asked one too many questions and she asked me where it was leading. I said that it was just for academic reasons, but she warned me that I was delving too deep into dark magic, and she ticked me off. At the time, it was purely academic."

"So, go ahead and cast this little spell then."

He does nothing.

"Sombra?" I ask.

"Just reminiscing, don't you worry. Are you one hundred percent sure you want to do this?"

"Hey, I only lived for a thousand years because I was trapped on the moon with an immortal alicorn who pitied me and kept me alive with magic. You're almost immortal, so you're going to be King of the Crystal Empire for a long time, and I want to be your Queen for a bit longer than sixty years," I remind him.

"Fair point. Close your eyes."

I do so, and Sombra reads something from a scroll. The temperature in the already cold room drops to almost freezing, and I shiver. Still, I keep my eyes closed until I feel magic surrounding me. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck, unsettling but also exciting.

"Finished," Sombra tells me.

I open my eyes. "So what did that do?"

"You can no longer use light magic, and over the weeks you will start to look more and more like an Umbrum. Congratulations on joining us."

I walk over to him and kiss him on the cheek. "May the sun be blocked out by our immortal shadows," I say.