The Other Side Of History

"Your Majesty, surely you can't be serious!"

"Hold your tongue, Stoic Shield." A grim-faced war commander by the name of Twinkling Glass turns to face King Sombra. Despite her happy-sounding name, the tone of her voice is anything but. "Sir, with all due respect, King Garrote is on his way with a larger battalion of gryphons than we've ever seen before. Every day we lose more soldiers than we gain, and morale is too low to keep the Crystal Heart powered."

A heavy sigh leaves the king being addressed. Lines crease his face that are far beyond his years, but war has a way of aging anypony threefold.

Minutes tick by. The only sound in the room is his heavy breathing as his eyes remain shut and the bated breaths of the other tacticians and sergeants sitting at the table.

Finally, emerald eyes open. There is a maelstrom of emotions swimming within them, but the most prominent ones are love for his subjects, and terrible, terrible regret at what he must do to protect them. Everypony in the room already knows what he's going to say, knew it the second he lifted his head.

"Send out the draft. Everypony of the ages 18 through 50 will be enlisted in the Royal Army under pain of execution." He turns to face Arcane Anvil, the most skilled blacksmith and armor enchanter he's ever had the honor of working with. "Fit..." Everypony in the room is purposefully deaf to the sudden shimmer in their king's eyes and the way his voice breaks before he gathers himself enough to continue speaking, blinking furiously and clearing his throat. "Ahem. Fit every soldier with the new SOM-72s. The full set. I will not lose more subjects than strictly necessary, and if they must take lives without remembering a single second of it, then so be it." He pushes down the awful feeling in his gut; surely it's just worry for his subjects. Yes, he will lose some. There are always casualties in war. But, hopefully - please, please, hopefully - he will save enough that, one day, the living will forgive him for the ones he sacrificed.

Although the sound his hoof makes as it connects with the polished wood of the meeting table is but a soft click, over half of the commanding officers in the room jump as it seems to shatter the precious barrier that had been straining under the weight of the king's orders.

"Go!"

Four ponies sit in a war planning room where there were once fifteen. They're all well-trained to not give in to shell-shock until they're out of the conflict, and one has years of royal training and years of training at the cruel hooves of a gruff, whiskey-laden voice and laughter from a twisted pair of painted lips, for their grief to not show in any way stronger than the way they grip their whiskey tumblers just a little bit too hard.

"That's it, then." The first to break the silence is one of the younger additions to the council. Occulus Targe had been so proud when King Sombra himself had requested that the archer meet him in his private quarters, to be told that he had been accepted onto the war council, and they had shared a hearty laugh at the thought of ever having to actually use the immaculately-kept but never-inhabited room. It had seemed so impossible then. They had smiled so often then.

He wonders if his mother, tears in her eyes from the joy she had felt then, is crying for a different reason now.

'Can ponies feel sad, in Elysium?' He doesn't know if he'd prefer for her to be dead and happy or alive and in this living hell. As if to prove his point, the sound of a cannon followed by the dying shrieks of gryphons and ponies alike pierces his ears from not more than half a mile away.

They all jerk as King Sombra stands, something dark and different and somber in his eyes as he stares down at the floor. He looks so...small. Not broken, but defeated. He would sooner die himself at the hands of their enemies before allow his subjects to suffer further, but it seems he's made a decision to give in to something.

"Get out. Take your families, if you can find them. Destroy the remaining SOM-72s, though I suppose that shall be of little priority. And..." An audible gulp echoes throughout the room. "...I am honored to have served with you all."

None of them are given a chance to respond before he teleports out of the room, and nopony dares to try and follow him. That is the last they see of King Sombra, with his grey spiraled horn and his sparkling green eyes.

It is a stupid, stupid thing that he's about to do. He knows this, and knows it well. But his heart has always bled, and it always will. Emotions will always trump logic, and this horrible war is no different.

With no small amount of effort, King Sombra lifts his gaze to meet Slithar's. To his credit, he does not flinch or show any signs of fear at the demon's appearance.

Four red eyes blink, a light blue membrane retreating in a slightly delayed fashion afterwards horizontally, revealing cris-crossed pupils which narrow as they focus upon the charcoal-coated unicorn. Grotesquely chapped lips curl upwards into a grin, cracking its lips so that black ichor runs down its chin and serrated, yellowed teeth are revealed.

"Youuu...youuur...loyaltyyy..."

Its voice seems to slither across Sombra's very soul, a black oily filth that attempts to rip away innocence from parts he didn't know he had.

"...veryyy...ssstrooong...pooonyyy...should beee...afraiiid..." It leers at him, grinning wider still. The quiet sound of flesh tearing echoes throughout the caves they're in as it lunges at him, but Sombra remains stoic as it crashes into the invisible barrier formed by the edge of the summoning circle.

"I'm not amused. You are aware of what I'm asking for, yes? If not, I can return you and find a more competent demon." His face might as well be carved from stone, for how still it has remained throughout this encounter, but he can't hide the slight tremble in his voice. Despite the terror attempting to rise up in his throat, he stamps it down. Every time the muffled thud of an explosion makes it down to the caves, he is reminded of why he's doing this.

The demon scowls at him, shaking its head furiously and spraying black droplets onto several places on the stone floor. "Nnnooo! I knooow...shhhadooow, yeeesss?" It holds up what may have once been a hoof but is now hopelessly mangled into claw-like appendages, rubbing together two "fingers" in an easy-to-recognize fashion. "Priiice...whaaat pooonyyy paaayyy?"

His heart pounds hard enough to lift his coat slightly.

Stepping forwards close enough for the glowing light of the summoning circle to illuminate his determined emerald eyes, he locks gazes with the demon and utters seven damning words:

"Anything but my love for my subjects."

And with that, he steps in, and as the demon grasps him with its sticky flesh, so hot that it freezes his soul, he screams.

The demon had been kind enough to leave behind just enough of his former self to know that this is not how he should be. Not how he is. Not who he is. Or, perhaps, it was an act of cruelty. But as he swoops down into his beautiful Crystal Empire, and the screams of the gryphon armies grace his ears - distantly, he wonders if his shadowy form even has ears - he decides that both parts of him do not care how much of his original self has been preserved.

Superstitious cries ring out, about demons, about the Shadow Pony, and he can't help but to let out a deep, rumbling chuckle that permeates and vibrates the very air, the very souls of all who hear it.

'What a high honor the gryphons have bestowed upon me in their final moments.'

He is merciless. Fast, efficient. The streets run red with blood and viscera, for although he does not go out of his way to take the goriest route for each death, he also doesn't take care to execute each gryphon cleanly. Every single life he takes only fuels his bloodlust until with one final cry, he rematerializes into his solid form the moment his shadowy form had fully absorbed into a wide-eyed and screaming gryphoness's skull. Several nearby civilians are splattered with bits of skull and brains. One foal collapses after vomiting.

"K-King...King S-Sombra...?"

Black fur slicked with blood, his head turns to try and find who had called his name. A tiny filly taps his hoof, and he turns his gaze downwards.

She screams when she sees his crimson gaze and horn, the way his fangs protrude from his muzzle at the slightest opening. The terror in her eyes is that of a filly that has just seen a monster.

"S-Sombra...what...what h-happened...t-to you...?"

Raising one silver-clad hoof above her head, she flinches violently, preparing for her young life to be cut short, and then...

...he pats the top of her head. Once, twice, as gently as he would have before his terrifying transformation.

"Licorice Vine, it is still me. I...I had to do some very bad things. And I...I'm not the same pony. I'm not the same king. But I still love you." He raises his head, addressing the small crowd that's started to gather. "All of you." He looks back down at Licorice, her terror slowly starting to melt away, replaced with the adoration that he's grown used to and yet was and still is so humbled by. He smiles and leans down to kiss her forehead. She frowns slightly, as the action leaves a bloodied imprint of his lips upon her fur, but the warmth of his care far overpowers the metallic stench permeating the air.

King Sombra walks, tall and proud, knife-sharp horn glinting in the air as blood and gore dry on his fur, all the way up the stairs of his castle. But he doesn't stop at his throne. Instead, he walks out to his balcony, and his horn glows a sinister blackish-green as he casts a voice amplification spell.

"Subjects!"

He pauses, frowns, shakes his head, then speaks again.

"Beloved subjects!"

Already, the formerly dull and lifeless Crystal Heart begins a weak, barely-there thrum of power as the Crystal ponies' bodies begin to glow with love.

"After years of pain, suffering, and death, I have taken...a morally ambiguous path to ensure our victory."

A sigh.

"Neigh. 'Twas wrong, simple and true. However, I have succeeded in the goal I set out to accomplish. While I still failed to save all of you, I cut the war short. And now, I'm going to ensure that nobody is able to harm my beloved Crystal Empire ever. Again."

"Sister!" When the doors fly open, it's unsurprising that they leave an indentation in the solid stone wall. Princess Luna, out of breath from running to Princess Celestia's private studies, had not opened it with much care for what - or who - was in the way.

Oddly enough, though, Celestia's unruffled. In fact, she looks like she had been expecting such an intrusion.

"I know, Luna." Her voice is nearly a whisper. "The..."

"The Crystal Empire...so...'tis true? We thought...we thought it may simply be another one of thine protege's magical surges," but even as she makes a weak attempt to inject humor into the situation, she knows it's pointless.

The Crystal Empire has vanished.