I appeared in the dingy hall outside Pinkie's door. She should be off by now and at home, I surmised. Despite my trembling excitement, I also had a lump in my throat. Nervousness swelled within me. I hoped she wasn't mad at me for just disappearing like that and for so long.

I knocked on the door and held my breath. There was no answer, not even a sound from within.

"Pinkie," I called. "It's me." I knocked again and listened carefully. Again, I heard nothing. Then I heard a soft, slow scratching at the door.

I furrowed my brow in concern. I had to go in. Without further debate, I apparated to the other side of the door and was met with Pinkie's normal, messy but vacant apartment. "Pinkie?" I called once more, scanning over the living room. I turned around to face the door and saw a sickly pale Gummy staggering toward me.

"Gummy," I gasped. I picked him up with my magic and rushed him to the bathroom. Setting him down in the bathtub, I turned the cold water on and stopped up the drain. He opened his mouth, listlessly allowing the rising water to lap inside. He was in an awful state. He must not have been fed or watered in days. Pinkie never would have-

The gears in my head made a sickening clank as they revolved finely to reveal a chilling, indisputable truth. Pinkie hadn't been here for days and it wasn't by choice. They came for her.

I collapsed to my haunches at the side of the tub as the full horror of the situation solidified like a lead weight in my gut. If they came for her, it must have been because of her connection to New Moon and that would mean… probably White Caps.

"Shit," I breathed shakily. I covered my face with my hooves as Gummy began to float. "What do I do?" If she was alive, she was in detention somewhere but that could be anywhere in Crystal City. I could start blowing the doors off of every single police station in town… Or…I could sort this shit out from the top down. Sombra… Right here, right now.

No, something inside me screamed. You've been lusting after this moment for years. You can't just decide to drop in hot and wing it. You could fuck up your only chance. You've been up since seven A.M. after sleeping on a pile of gunny sacks. You just buried your sister today.

Pinkie is in danger. I can't wait. That was the end of the internal debate. I shut off the water and hurried to the kitchen. I came back with a box of gator food and sprinkled it directly into the tub water. I knew Gummy needed his food soft, especially if he was weak.

I ran my hoof down his back gingerly. "I'll come back for you," I murmured. "Please eat."

Standing in the snow on a high roof just outside the Platinum Sector, I glowered at the shimmering spire that was once my home. Searchlights played above it across the underside of the clouds. It was the center of the heart of the city, a gentrified place now only for the rich and privileged who revelled in Sombra's rule.

The city within a city had been walled off from the rest of town to keep the rabble out. I hadn't been in the area since the takeover but I'd heard a lot of rumors about what went on in there.

I thought about my old bedroom and cast a teleportation spell which fizzled in an instant. I thought about the grand hall and repeated the spell but got the same results. To be expected. The whole tower was probably warded.

I rolled my eyes and sighed before teleporting to the mouth of an empty alley I could just make out from the roof. I stepped out into the street and flinched as I nearly ran smack into a trio of masked ponies. One had the fanged face of a changeling while another had the cowl wrap of a fortune teller and the third wore a mask of tree bark with strange antlers of leafed forking branches. They laughed in inebriated surprise and stumbled apart to make way and move around.

Bewildered, I glanced back as they departed, receding into the crowds of the bustling thorofare. As I walked around, I quickly realized that they weren't an anomaly. I'd say more than half of the ponies I saw were wearing masks. All around me was laughter, music and drunken revelry swirling in a carnival-like atmosphere. There were high end boutiques and restaurants catering to the lavish whims of Sombra's pet oligarchs and sycophants.

I walked past a bordello with a multicolor array of enchanted flames engulfing the entire facade where stallions, mares and even foals danced seductively in the windows. The establishment was butted up against what used to be the assembly hall but was now a glitzy high rollers casino with illuminated dancing fountains in the front. He turned this place into a debauchery themed amusement park for putrid fat cat fucks. My face tightened in a glare as I became sickened by their joviality, their parasitic ability to flourish in an environment that destroyed everyone else.

I came upon a fashion boutique, something akin to Rarity's old shop in Ponyville but more upscale. Plastered to the windows were posters for an event, Sombra's masquerade ball. It was happening tonight in the tower, (and all through the Platinum Sector, apparently.) The ad sparked something in the back of my brain. This was something that Pinkie picked up and told me about.

In the windows were ponnequins dressed immaculately in unique high masquerade garb. My eyes landed on a red skull mask with a tattered black cape and hood. That was me. I didn't bother checking if ponies were watching. I just teleported the costume on and continued down the strip.

As I neared the base of the tower, I saw a great brass statue of King Sombra standing triumphantly atop a slanted stone pinnacle. A ring of skyward pointed lights lit the piece dramatically from below. I fought off the impulse to use it as a practice dummy and plodded onward between two big gyrating searchlights.

I pushed through a raucous crowd at the main entrance and saw ponies coming and going past a line of guards without screening. I guess if you were in the Sector at all, you were already screened. Inside, everypony but the guards wore masks. In the hall I saw elegant feathers and shimmering scales and misshapen monstrosities entirely out of somepony's imagination.

"Ambrosia?" asked a masked unicorn server floating a loaded drink tray,

I winced out of my sensory daze. "Oh. No, thank you... Not tonight."

String symphonic music swelled in my ears as I neared the entrance to the throne room. That was where he was; I was sure of it. I slowed apprehensively as I saw staff checking invites at the door or rather, it looked like they were checking necklaces. It must have been an exclusive venue within and those were the passes. I made a slow aboutface, scanning every neck in the crowd for a lanyard to pick off. I could have just teleported through that open door but I'd likely cause a stir. I'd already made it this far by blending in. The smart part of me wanted to get things done in a surprise attack that no one saw coming. The other part of me needed him to look into my eyes and know it was me, back from the dead.

There were plenty of VIPs meandering through the hall. I singled one out who was alone in a vacant wing. He sat in a chair beside a crystal table along the wall with two empty glasses, both his. I got the sense that he'd probably have more if the staff hadn't already bussed them away.

"Do you have the time?" I asked, sliding up in front of him.

He looked up at me dazedly to see my hoof flash in his eye before connecting with his jaw. His body jolted before he slumped unconscious to the side, cracking his head on the table and rattling the glasses. I swiftly snatched the eye pendant from his neck and slipped it onto my own, leaving him as he was.

I returned to the throne room entrance where the great doors were parted and all the hedonistic spoils of cruelty radiated from within. A doorpony nodded approval at me and I strode inside. It honestly felt like I was infiltrating some secret society.

Nudging through the crowd of stagnant minglers, I found open space near the dining tables and that's when I saw him. Over a sea of waltzing couples I saw him sitting on the throne I used to call mine, floating a golden goblet to his lips as he humored an advisor with his attention. He wore a black wolf mask and regal black robe.

In almost perfect contrast, Rarity sat like a statue in the twin throne beside him, wearing white on white with whiskers and long ears looking like a snowshoe hare.

I could just make out the amulet around Sombra's neck. If I could take that from him, it would be game over but I already had an opening for the kill. Sombra was distracted. Right now was as good a time as any. Cut his horn, I thought. Then cut his neck in a one-two punch.

My heart beat with the ferocity the moment deserved. I had blinders on and the only thing in the world that existed was the guy who took everything from me and the only thing that mattered was that he stopped breathing forever. In the split second it took me to conjure an ethereal blade, I felt my muscles seize inside someone's magical aura and my attack veered half a degree off course, slicing into the wall behind the throne with a thud.

"Halt!"

I turned to see a mind controlled unicorn guard who'd been watching me. I broke out of his restraint with ease and reactively flung him full force at a high window that refused to break from the ward enchantment. The crowd gasped as the music staggered to a stop.

"What is this disruption?" boomed Sombra, shooting up from the throne. "Who dares attack me in my own castle on this night of nights?"

I could feel him try to grab me by the proverbial lapels to drag me clear across the dancefloor to him but I quickly swatted his influence away and stood unmoved.

"Who are you?" he huffed indignantly, stepping down from the platform.

The masked party goers went silent, quickly clearing a space around me and a path to my target. "My name is Flurry Heart," I answered with conviction.

Sombra raised his eyebrows and scoffed, "What is this?" He tried to lift my mask with his magic but I stayed it with my own. "Princess Cadance, then," I continued boldly.

"Ugh. I see. Another suicidal new guard loyalist." He waved his hoof dismissively.

"Rainbow Dash," I offered. "Twilight Sparkle."

The crowd jeered with disapproval.

Sombra's eyes narrowed in disgust. "Guards, show him the gallows so that we might continue the festivities."

On cue, armored guards materialized from all sides and encircled me. Unimpressed, I rolled them all into a lump and chucked them out of the room in three seconds flat. The big doors boomed ominously as I slammed them closed without breaking eye contact. I blasted the ceiling with a bolt of my own ward enchantment. It rippled blue across the surface, overriding the previous ward.

Dropping all decorum, I reached for condescending annoyance. "I don't think you're understanding the situation here, jerkoff, so let me spell it out for you: I'm gonna kill you."

Sombra threw his head back and laughed haughtily. "Delusional. You missed the only miniscule chance you had, though you are welcome to fail again. But enough talk. Have at you!" The horn atop his wolf head glowed green and he shot a robust laser at me. I unflinchingly deflected the attack straight back at him with my summoned shield. Sombra threw up a barrier where the beam dispersed violently with a loud crash and a crackle.

I came alive the moment his jaw went slack as he finally recognized me by my shield and the impossibility of that revelation turned his entire world upside down.

The crowd broke out in pandemonium and scattered in fear but there was nowhere to flee except the opposing end of the great throne room. I aggressively teleported straight behind Sombra with focused energy at the ready and let it fly, not caring who got caught in the crossfire.

Sombra could hardly manifest a defensive spell before taking the close range blast in the back. Whisked away, he slammed into the wall on the far side of the room. He teleported to the ground before falling, his robe tattered and smoking. He looked back at me with rage in his eyes, no doubt unable to recall the last time he was rocked in such a way.

I launched my next attack immediately, sending a flurry of ethereal blades whirling at him. He teleported evasively but I quickly changed the trajectory of the blades to track him where he appeared. He teleported again and again as he tried to shake the attack. In a blink before disappearing again, he shot a precision beam high above me and I heard the sound of shattering crystal. Forced to look up, I saw the incredible eight tiered chandelier plummeting straight down at me. I teleported just before the deafening crash of the impact, momentarily swallowed the whole chaotic symphony of our melee.

Having lost visual with Sombra, I began to apparate sporadically all over the room, determined to keep him on defense and never give him an opening.

A sudden intense light grew from behind me and I spun around alertly. An immense crackling ball of lightning bore down on me, causing my flesh to tingle and my hair to stand on end. Instead of dodging, I countered with a sustained energy beam, driving the attack back at Sombra. He reciprocated, pushing back with his own beam. The electrical sphere stalled between us as it reached equilibrium. The light of the ball became brighter and sizzled loudly as it absorbed the energy from our combined push against push. That was the moment I realized I was out of his league.

I bared down and sent a shockwave pulse through my beam. The surge hurled the sphere smashing into Sombra with tremendous force. The whole room flashed as bright as the sun. Once more, he crashed hard into the wall but this time, with electricity racing through him, lacked the reflexes to right himself before falling to the floor. His mask was gone and his robe torn to ribbons. He staggered to his legs with a livid, bloody sneer and suddenly I felt his nightmarish eyes drilling through to the back of my mind. Reality began to warp and I heard the screams of my family again. The floor beneath my hooves was covered in the same red smears. Towering dark crystals erupted from the floor all around me and I lost sight of Sombra again.

"Face me and die, you sniveling coward," I screamed in feral rage. "There is no nightmare you can show me worse than the one I live!"

I began sending energy blasts in all directions, shattering the crystals, and raising a crescendo of terrified screams. The damage I did to the obstacles closed up again just moments later.

I galloped through the strange labyrinth, seeing flashes of both myself and Sombra in every reflective surface. As I darted around a pillar, he materialized in my path. Without hesitation, I sent a barrage of diamond cutters at him. The blades thrashed his broadside, passing straight through flesh and bone and sending a spurting severed hind leg cartwheeling away.

Without so much as a whimper, he dropped to the floor. The illusion of Sombra's likeness dissipated and I saw before me a slain party goer in an orange dress and fox mask sprawled out on the crystal panels. I leapt over her and continued my desperate hunt.

I heard Sombra laugh as his spiteful face played across the mirror-like formations. When I saw the flick of his tail, I didn't wait to confirm that it wasn't just a reflection. I blasted him. The enormous beam was big enough to envelope his body entirely before punching a hole through the black crystal barrier behind him. He tumbled dead to the floor but again it was an illusion. The stallion on the floor was burnt, smoking, his costume too blackened to recognize.

Let Tartarus sort 'em out. Applejack's words echoed in my head and they never sounded better than at that moment. I'd find him eventually. He couldn't evade me forever.

When I came across another Sombra, this one standing defiantly in my path, I mowed him down with cold decisiveness. The blades I slung pierced and lacerated his body and he dropped to the floor with a thud. Blood quickly pooled from a deep arterial slice in the neck. I slowed to check the body, hoping this would be the real one but already knowing it was just too easy.

The illusion evaporated to reveal a pink mare in a once white pierrot clown costume. It was then that I sustained the worst injury of our fight. My eyes widened in horrific disbelief. It was Pinkie, shaking and spurting blood on the floor.

She had a ball and chain shackled to one hind leg and a metal gag locked around her mouth, similar to the one Spike wore. It had a happy smile cruelly painted on it. She'd been brought here to be put on display as something for guests to mock and gawk at.

I tore off my hood and skull mask and collapsed to my haunches at her side. No, I told myself. No. No. No. It's not real. It's all just part of the nightmare illusion. She's not here. She's somewhere else.

Sticky warm blood flowed over my foreleg as I clutched her to me. "Pinkie," I cried. "I'm so sorry. Hold on!" I chopped the hinge on her mask and tossed the accursed device away. Then I tore the ruffle from her neck, revealing the gruesome extent of the damage and eliciting an unobstructed geyser of blood. I didn't know if her face was so pale from blood loss or face paint. I began closing her neck wound with mending magic. She was bleeding from several wounds but that was the worst I could see. Her eyes were staring off into space and for a moment I thought she was already gone.

"Pinkie," I shouted desperately. "Please!"

Her eyes shakily jogged over to mine as her whole body trembled. She smiled faintly as if she just noticed it was me and then gave a wet cough.

Suddenly I heard the high pitched whine of energy focusing. I cast a half sphere barrier around us just before the beam hit and splintered like light through a prism.

I looked up to see the one true Sombra cackling at us.

"I see. It all makes sense now. You and this New Moon are really one and the same." He fired another blast, stronger than the first but my barrier held firm as I tried to focus on saving Pinkie. The ball and chain on Pinkie's leg now glowed with some sort of magical influence.

Sombra tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well doesn't this all look very familiar? But be assured, this time you will join your whore in oblivion."

Sombra's horn glowed like the sun just as it had the last time I saw his annihilation attack. An incredible ray of power burst forth, hammering into my barrier with a violent rumble and an unceasing roar. I held back the initial impact but the beam kept coming like a drill.

I tried to teleport us to safety but Pinkie's unbreakable magical encumbrance anchored her to the spot. My shield began to waver. I couldn't hold off the unrelenting attack and help Pinkie at the same time. I refocused on our dying shield and looked down. Pinkie's eyes were unfocused and unblinking even under the brutal assault that rocked us. I could no longer sense a pulse through my basic diagnostic spell.

I shook her in denial. "Pinkie?" I cried. "Pinkie? No!" I hunched over her and clenched my teeth so tight, I thought they might shatter. Then I let out a feral roar that seemed to shake the whole universe and strip my throat, nay, my whole being raw. I became untethered from everything and pure light poured into my eyes until I was blinded by it. The same bodily euphoria I'd felt when putting on the ring broke over me and on my back, I could feel pins and needles as energy gathered there. All at once, a pair of white, feathered wings materialized from the aether, fusing with my own flesh. They splayed out reflexively, emitting a shockwave that shattered every dark crystal in the room. The formations dissolved into sparkling black sand which blanketed the floor and the room became unexpectedly calm.

As my whole field of vision returned, I saw Sombra staggering to his legs and then terrified party guests, running, crawling, moaning in piles and I knew the nightmare was broken.

Frothing at the mouth without a taunt or quip, I focused my unadulterated wrath into a maelstrom of dancing blades greater than any I had created. The swarm honed in on Sombra who began jumping away and shooting them down with laser blasts from his horn. I conjured more. He put up a partial barrier, having to focus all his power into a smaller area to make something potent enough to block my attacks. Though teetering on the edge of his abilities, he wielded what he had expertly, cleared the air and kept himself from a direct hit.

He faced me, flush and winded. I flung a single diamond cutter straight at his horn. As expected, he raised the partial barrier again to swat it down. Before the blade could break on his shield, I tore open a wormhole that swallowed my own attack. There was no time to make sense of it, much less react but he understood when his barrier vanished and the horn toppled off of his head.

I sidestepped the redirected blade as it came straight back at me and smashed into a burst of glowing particles on the wall. Sombra looked down at his horn, then up at me with an expression of shock and utter helplessness. It was over.

My horn glowed and hummed. Then I unleashed one last energy blast. Unable to evade or block, Sombra took the laser head on and smashed into the wall under its full force. His charred body slumped limply to the floor.

I panted heavily, not from exertion but from a subsiding all consuming rage. I traipsed slowly through the sand which had adopted a cylindrical shaped indentation from the final blast. I stepped over bodies and body parts. The room was filled with the wails of the maimed and the dying. I plucked Sombra's horn from the sand and continued through a debris field of broken musical instruments to finally stand above the stallion I'd wanted to destroy for so long.

His mane and tail were burnt off. His flesh was cracked and blistered. I'll never forget the smell. He groaned in pain as I rolled him over carelessly with one hoof. I tried to look into his eyes but they were gone, burnt right out of his skull. There was only one thing left to do.

I forced his mouth open with my magic, causing him to gurgle and writhe weakly in protest. "You dropped this," I hissed before jamming his own severed horn through his jaws and into the back of his skull. I spit on his corpse but only out of practiced diligence because as soon as his heart stopped, I stopped feeling anything. His suffering was over in moments but mine was free to linger for an eternity.

Without looking, I opened the doors and allowed the few dozen able-bodied ponies left to spill out into the hall in a wild, bloodstained panic. Right now they were most useful as eye witness messengers.

I teleported back to Pinkie's body and shut her eyes and cut the chain on her leg. Staring down at her face and running a hoof through her mane, I waited for the tears to come but they never did. I thought that would upset me but it didn't. My lack of detectable sorrow seemed disrespectful, especially when I was the one who had killed her.

All I could sense was the wings tingling on my back. At the crossroads of revenge, ascension and tragedy, emptiness, wanting to die and having to live, how could I feel so numb? The emotional burden of it all was just too great. I felt like I was watching myself in the climax of a play that I'd slept through and now, at the end, uninvested, could only make educated guesses as to how I should be feeling but wasn't.

I turned my eyes to the throne which loomed like an oppressive millstone. It was a void that would be filled regardless of the choices I made. Rarity somehow still sat untouched in Cadance's seat. She'd frozen there in shock and terror but was now weeping uncontrollably into her hooves.

I scooped up Pinkie with my magic and walked slowly toward the cold crystal chair. I was running on muted basic instinct, some kind of primordial auto pilot or maybe… maybe it was duty. Unable to triage the wreckage inside me, I was navigating through the dark by the constellations in my brain, the words of the ponies I respected most.

If not you, then whom?

Don't be angry at Rarity.

I know you love Equestria as much as I do.

Rarity's sobbing continued as I sat beside her in the empty throne. In our parallel headspaces it seemed as though we were both indifferent, almost unaware of each other's presence. I clutched Pinkie in my lap, feeling the last bit of warmth recede from my life as I stared blankly into eternity. Then I closed my eyes and whispered to myself, "It's even colder than I remember."

Author's Note

That is where the story is supposed to end. It is possible I could be convinced to write an epilogue... maybe. But having everything up in the air at the end and forcing the reader to interpret, draw their own conclusions and write their own epilogue is sort of the point.

Good to finally wrap this one. Got so much other stuff piled up and waiting to be born.

Here's the Night in Crystal City playlist