King Sombra smiled as he relaxed in his throne, the Crystal Empire once again under his command. Screams and pleas for mercy echoed up from the city below, where his enslaved guards were putting the pathetic ponies of the city back in their rightful place.

Under his hoof.

He would have the populace back in the mines by the end of the week, even with the time he planned to take to solidify his control over all Equestria. He had special plans for that damnable whelp and his caretakers, and the Princesses who had banished him the first time.

Speaking of Princesses….

“I should thank you for keeping the place clean during my absence,” he noted, looking down at the royal family chained at the base of his throne. All three glared up at him through iron muzzles, even the infant. Sombra chuckled deeply to himself, licking his lips and the sharp, batlike fangs that marked his sinister nature.

“Of course, I can hardly approve of how you’ve handled the rabble. It’s dangerous to let them start thinking, you know. So much more manageable when they know who their betters are and what will happen if they disobey them.” He stood from his throne, walking down the stairs and circling the trio, looking them over with a predator’s gaze on Cadance’s flanks. He raised a hoof, touching the crystal heart on her thigh and tracing around it.

“You have no idea who you are, do you, Princess? Perhaps I should show you.”

There was barely a rattle of chains before Shining Armor lunged, telekinetically snapping the chain binding him to Cadance with his horn aimed squarely at the tyrant’s throat. Sombra didn’t even move, his own horn merely blazing with red and green light as he picked the prince up by the head and slung him across the room like a rag doll. Cadance and Flurry both screamed into their muzzles. Sombra sneered at Shining Armor, dragging him back over through the air.

“Foalish colt - don’t you remember the last time we fought? I took your magic with no effort; this time, I’ll take your-” He was cut off as Cadance reared up, slamming her hind hooves into Sombra’s jaw, sending blood and teeth to clatter against the opposite wall. The guard standing next to the captured royals turned, lowering its spear towards the elder Princess.

“Enough!” Sombra snarled through blood-soaked teeth and blasted each of the adult royals with his magic, slamming them into the floor. He put a hoof on the back of Shining Armor’s neck, digging the tip of his steel-shod hoof into the gap between two vertebrae. “One more outburtht and he dieth!” Cadance turned her head, looking pleadingly at her husband as she ceased struggling against Sombra’s superior power.

Sombra wrinkled his nose at the new lisp he’d been gifted, and cast a quick healing spell to undo the harm, quartz-like teeth regrowing to replace the ones kicked out by the alicorn.

“Guards, take the Prince and his spawn to the dungeons,” Sombra growled, picking both the alicorn toddler and her father up in his magic and chaining them together again. This time, he also blasted both of their horns with his magic, black crystals growing along the spiral spires and locking away their magical abilities. “I have business with this insolent wretch.”

Shining struggled against Sombra’s grip, but Cadance shook her head, indicating Flurry Heart with her own horn and eyes. Reluctantly, the unicorn stopped fighting, stepping close to his daughter as they were put on the ground for the guards to escort out of the throne room.

The doors behind them closed with a deafening slam, leaving Sombra and Cadance alone, in silence, at the base of the throne they had each once called their own.

“I underestimated you, Princess,” Sombra admitted, keeping himself outside of easy striking range as he circled her like a timberwolf circling an injured fawn. “I suppose that cursed Luna taught you to fight. It certainly couldn’t have been your mother; she never would have dirtied her hooves with an enemy’s blood. I’ll make a deal with you. If you behave like an adult, I won’t have my guards make your daughter watch tomorrow as her father is executed for assaulting the King. If you meet my demands… I may even excuse his conduct, and spare his pathetic life.”

Cadance’s head shifted as she swallowed hard, then nodded. Sombra released the pressure on her back, and undid the muzzle keeping her from speaking. Cadance stood, working her jaw and watching the conqueror warily.

“Celestia isn’t my mother, and she won’t be too proud to beat your sorry flank back to Tartarus where it belongs.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about Celestia either. I meant your real mother.” Sombra chuckled at Cadance’s confused expression.

“You really don’t know, do you? Ah, they haven’t changed, have they? Over a thousand years, and still Celestia and Luna prefer to keep their secrets. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.”

“I’m not any thousand years old,” Cadance frowned, circling to keep Sombra in sight. “You didn’t know my mother.”

“Don’t I? You really don’t know what you are! You have the heart on your flank, and you still don’t get it!” The coal-black stallion laughed, his entire body shaking with mirth.

"The Crystal Heart only responds to the Empress of the Crystal Empire, Princess. The Empress, or her line. That meant that despite my claim to the throne, my conquest, my power, I could not control the Crystal Heart. Only Empress Amore could. Empress Amore, or her child. As you might imagine, she was… less than willing to assist me."

Cadance looked back at her cutie mark, starting to put together what he'd told her with what she remembered from her childhood.

Her parents, her real parents, had never been one of those memories.

"So you started hunting down her descendants," she guessed. Sombra laughed again, shaking his head and reaching up to stroke Cadance's chin. She jerked her head away, fighting the urge to snap at him.

For Shining and Flurry, she reminded herself.

"She had no descendants, nor any nieces or nephews - Amore was the sole heir, and last of her line. At the time I conquered the Empire, at least."

Cadance’s eyes widened as the rest of the pieces started falling into place, but Sombra just continued speaking, conjuring a puppet show of crystal to play out the melodrama.

"I intended to raise the foal as my heir, my malevolent little bundle of joy," he moaned theatrically, an obsidian unicorn teaching a rose-quartz pegasus something from a book, presumably of dark magic.

"But instead, the Queen conspired with the midwife to keep the birth a secret. When I heard what was going on, I reached her chambers just in time to see her cast our foal into time." A ruby unicorn and a smaller emerald one glowed with magic, and the pegasus disappeared. The black unicorn reared up, and with a flash of light the rubies and emeralds shattered, falling to the floor as dust.

"I was preparing to find our foal when those alicorns arrived from Equestria," he muttered with disgust. "They attacked with their precious Elements, and all I could do was throw the Empire into the aether with me, until my daughter had emerged whenever the Queen had sent her. Of course, it didn't work quite as planned." He snorted, sweeping away the crystals and turning back towards Cadance.

"You said 'our foal,'" she observed cautiously.

"What, do you think I'd trust control of the Crystal Heart to the child of some pathetic guard?"

He moved in close to her, whispering into her ear.

"Now, will you do what I need, or will it be my granddaughter?"

"Stay away from my family," Cadance growled, her horn blazing to life and wings springing wide open, pushing him away from her.

"That's the spirit I'd expect in my daughter!" He grinned wickedly at her, dropping down into a defensive stance.

"You might be my sire, but I am not your daughter!" Cadance fired a magical blast at Sombra, who dodged effortlessly.

"You may be right; no daughter of mine would fight so poorly."

Cadance heard something snap off to the side near the wall, and turned to see what it was just in time for two bloody teeth to hit her face, a third striking her eye and sending her reeling, shaking her head and trying to clear her vision.

"A pity you were born a pegasus," Sombra mused, picking her up in his magic. "You keep forgetting everything you're capable of."

He focused his grip, muting Cadance's heartbeat, slowing her blood to a crawl as she started uselessly gasping for air.

"Of course, most unicorns don't even bother, so I can't be too surprised. Don't worry, I'll make sure my granddaughter is properly trained."

“Over… my… dead… body!” Cadance focused her magic, releasing Twilight’s failsafe spell and gasping as she felt like she could breathe again, dropping to the ground and following up immediately by grabbing Sombra and slamming him against each wall of the throne room, rattling the crystal walls. She took a moment to line him up with the window, ready to let gravity finish the battle, when he twisted around to face her, his eyes glowing with dark magic.

Flurry Heart screamed as she watched her father’s body being pierced with spears by the guards he’d trained himself. He fought not to cry out, but as the blades were twisted and ripped from his body, carrying organs with them, his stoicism gave way to agonized screams. Cadence watched, bound in place, crystal spikes driven through her limbs to keep her from turning away, not even able to blink thanks to her eyelids having been cut away.

Flurry sobbed as her father gasped his last, turning into the comforting grasp of Sombra, who smiled sadistically over her at his daughter, stroking Flurry’s mane gently.

"You know what she is capable of," Sombra crooned as he limped around Cadance. "What she could accomplish without your pathetic morals, without love and compassion holding her back."

The alicorn toddler was older now, clad in black armor and one of her grandfather’s mind-control helmets as she stormed Canterlot with an army of crystal ponies, stripping the flesh from the bones of the Pillars with her magical blasts. Sunburst tried to break through to her, and was ripped apart from within for his troubles, his remains flung into Starlight’s face before the unicorn was crushed beneath the rubble of the Friendship School. Twilight, Celestia, and Luna flew towards the born alicorn, only for Sombra to reveal his presence by impaling the two elder unicorns on crystal spires rising from the ground.

"And you know that you cannot stop me from unleashing her full potential upon Equestria, if I decide to do so."

Flurry scowled as Twilight called out to her - and the Princess of Friendship screamed as her body froze from the inside out, her friends showered with shattered pieces of their leader just before Flurry annihilated them for Sombra’s approval and amusement. Cadance only trembled, in vision and reality, tears streaming down her face as Sombra made her worst fears come to life in front of her.

"I'm not an unreasonable stallion, dear Cadance. Everything you're seeing? That only happens if you force my hoof. All I ask is what is mine by right!"

The Crystal Heart blazed with black and emerald light, its power growing greater by the day as Flurry fed it with the pain and misery of nations, leaving all Equestria, all the world a frozen wasteland of death and hatred, only the Imperial City hospitable to anything besides the windigoes. There, Sombra and Flurry ruled over paradise, their subjects working themselves to death building ever greater monuments to the glory of Sombra.

"Give me another option, and you have my word that none of this shall come to pass."

"I- all right," Cadance whispered. "I'll control the Heart for you."

Sombra sneered at her, licking the tears from her cheek.

"You think me a foal? No, daughter, you are beyond my faith. Even your firstborn, I admit, might prove a threat to me. It would be such a shame to have to kill you both for treason."

He strode behind her, summoning his magic and casting a spell. Cadance gasped as she felt it sinking into her, Sombra’s dark magic slithering through her haunches, settling into her womb, stoking her libido to raging heat.

"I will need a new heir. One who hasn't been tainted by Equestrian weakness. One with the steel to lead, to command - and to obey."

Cadance flagged her tail, instinct overwhelming the sickness in her stomach as she felt Sombra - her sire - mount her from behind, his breeding spire dropping from his sheath and sliding between their bodies.

"Give me another child, and I will leave you and your weakling husband to raise your bastard in peace. Refuse me, or do what your mother did…."

She felt a hot, slick drop of pre land at the base of her tail as he remembered what he'd done to Queen Amore.

Cadance didn't particularly care to learn anything more about her alleged parentage.

"Just leave my family alone," she begged quietly.

"As long as you remember this foal is mine," he growled. He shifted, plunging himself into Cadance's magically readied body.

The princess drew in a sharp breath, biting her lip to deny Sombra the satisfaction of knowing how badly her body ached to be filled thanks to his spell. She squeezed down around him, putting her considerable bedroom skills to work satisfying the dictator.

That he claimed to be her sire was something she tried her best to ignore.

Sombra bit at the base of Cadance's wing, forcing a cry of pain and pleasure out of her as he started thrusting into her with all the strength of his reborn body.

Does your precious Captain fuck you like this, Princess? His lips curled as the scent of sex and shame filled the throne room. Let’s see if your second foal is an alicorn as well!

He imagined Cadance heavy with foal, his foal, her belly and teats swollen at his bedside. This time, he would make sure he wasn't betrayed, that he didn't lose another weapon to the whore wrapped around his cock.

Cadance drew him deeper into her sopping cunt, squeezing down as he pulled out and relaxing when he drove himself in to the hilt. Tightening her muscles, she practically rippled herself along his length, dropping her chest to the floor to like a cat, curving her walls to make herself tighter around him. She whined as he twisted at her wing painfully, reaching back with her magic to fondle his balls, hoping he'd respond to her tricks.

I'm so sorry, Shiny!

Sombra snarled around bone and feather as he felt her grip on his hefty orbs. They tightened up against his body, pulsing as centuries of scheming and planning poured into her. He squeezed his eyes shut, casting one last spell to ensure his plan would work.

Cadance shuddered as her magically created heat was extinguished by the splatter of seed in her body. She shifted her telekinesis, using it to seal his seed into her womb, wanting it to be over as soon as possible.

"Good girl," Sombra chuckled, pulling out of her and wiping himself off in her flank. "Remember what happens if you betray me."

He walked up along her side, nipping her ear.

"And that I'm much more creative than your darkest nightmares."

Cadance shivered, tucking her tail under herself tightly as the door opened to admit some of Sombra’s mind-controlled guards. Fortunately, they didn't seem to notice the stench of sex in the room.

"Train approaching along the Central Equestrian route, your Majesty," the sapphire-colored pegasus guard announced emotionlessly. Star Sapphire, she believed his name way.

She hoped he wouldn't be hurt in any battle.

"Excellent. I wondered how long it would take for them to respond. Thank you so much for inviting them, dear." He replaced Cadance’s muzzle, zapping her horn to seal her magic safely away.

"Take her to her family," he commanded. "When my guests arrive, have them all brought to my chambers, so they can witness my victory."

As she was led away, he chuckled and went up to his throne, taking a seat and relaxing there.

He loved it when everything went according to plan.

Author's Note

Originally, this was the meat of the story - and if you don't want to see things get a lot darker, you may want to stop here, maybe after Chapter 2.

And yes, I realize I'm saying that after Sombra forces himself on his daughter to impregnate her with his grand/child to control the Crystal Heart. The parts that follow carried through with Sombra's plan, and he's a sick jagoff.