Author's Note

Happ halloween from one of my two cats: Chubby

9- 90 Seconds

“You have got to be kidding me!” shouted out the would-be Prince of the Empire as he read through the response sent to him by the sisters back in Equestria. “We just had a war! Surely there must be a division they can reassign. Tartarus I’d take just Horizon Squad if they could give me them!”

“Honey… calm down.”

“How can I calm down?! Sombra’s ultimatum ends in three hours, Six is barely alive, and Twilight is still nowhere close to finding a way to stop him!”

“Shiney, please- ah!” The alicorn winced and brought a hoof to her tired head. Her minor yelp of pain broke her husband out of his spiralling and he quickly rushed to his exhausted love’s side.

Bringing Cadence into an embrace, he could now fully see the state she was in. She was never a prodigy with magic, and her inexperience showed itself now as this high level shield spell sapped at her energy and concentration. She couldn’t sleep as her every waking moment was focused on protecting the crystal city from Sombra’s unrelenting blizzard.

Deep bags were visible under her eyes that remained in a constant state of half-closed with her eyelids resting just above her iris at all times. She looked like at any moment she would just collapse with her lethargic movements and drooping wings. Not even the copious quantities of caffeine she had ingested over the past twenty-one hours had helped as her fatigue went much deeper than mere sleep deprivation.

Shining Armor wasn’t doing much better, with bloodshot eyes and small unconscious twitches his body was the exact opposite than his wife’s. Hyperactive and unable to remain still, but it was nothing the stallion hadn't experienced before during his time in the guard.

Beside the couple, the two snow-white ferrets continued to sleep blissfully unaware of the situation around them. They lay in a small basket off to the side of the throne, their bodies an organised knot that, while looking incredibly uncomfortable, allowed them a pleasant nap.

Yet it would not stay that way for long as quite suddenly both mammals woke from their slumber and began to stare into the room.

Their sudden movement did not go unnoticed as both the hyperactive prince and lethargic princess looked to see what was happening.

“My my, did the diarchs really send such a pathetic rabble to face me? I barely touched your barrier and you already look ready to collapse,” the King that should not be there mocked before his eyes met that of the tiny creatures. An uncharacteristic smile grew over his features as the ferrets ran, nearly barreling over each other, towards their original caretaker.

With an ease that spoke of this being a normal and expected reaction he held out a smoking hoof as a step for the two mustelids. They accepted it graciously, using it as a rung on a ladder to climb up and onto his back before disappearing from view beneath his crimson cape. “I am glad to see that they came out of the banishment just as energetic as they went in.”

“Sombra! What are you doing here?! How did you get in?!” Shining yelled out as he defensively jumped in front of Cadence, his posture low and ready to fight back even if his magic was sealed away.

“Simply inspecting the crystalwork of my palace. No need to worry dear usurper, I am a King that keeps his word. You have nothing to fear from me… for now at least. I paid a visit to your little weapon-on-a-leash before coming here. If only she weren't so blinded by your chains, I wouldn't have needed to hurt her so.”

“Six?” Shining asked, to which the glance from the King confirmed. Anger began to well up within the unicorn. “What have you done now?!”

“Oh nothing life-threatening I assure you. I don’t intend to hurt my soon to be guests, nor the little trespassers you call the ‘Elements of Harmony’. I do not intend to wage war against you or the alicorns in Equestria.”

“The Elements… if you hurt Twilight I swea-“

“Hold your tongue!” Sombra spoke with such power it forced the unicorn to silence and made the crystals on his horn grew a few more centimetres. “I have only one wish, and that is to enact my righteous and just punishment on the worms that created me! Even if you are no better than them when it comes to the Spartan you forced me to incapacitate! But enough about that, I have come to get your answer: Fight and die or leave and live?”

Cadence was next to speak up, “B-but, we still have 3 hours!”

“I am a practical stallion, and in 3 hours from now your answer would be the same either way. So why waste time? I have much to do and reorganise in my Kingdom and I would much prefer to get started right away.”

Shining steeled his resolve “And let you turn this place into an open air prison once again?” he asked rather mockingly.

The King didn’t even bother to register that jab as a response as he returned Shining’s glare. This lasted for several agonizing seconds until the King’s lips curled upward slightly in a sinister smile

The sun began to darken as the blizzard outside grew to encompass the dome in its entirety, blotting out the sun as Cadence…began to scream. Yet as hard as Shining tried to look away, to speak—to even turn his head towards the screams of his wife his body would not react. His very being locked in place as the crystals that bore into his skull pulsed in tandem with the smoke billowing out of Sombra’s eyes.

“This…” the voice was not that of a King, of the regal Sombra, it was that of a cold and calculated killer, “is me playing nice. I may be one stallion, but I have felled kingdoms and empires much larger and stronger than this city. So I ask you again: leave or die?“

The shield outside began to crack and flicker as the blizzard began to pound against its form, pressing against it like a pressure cooker. Cadence's voice began to crack and tear. Shining beat and bucked against the lock on his body but still nothing obeyed his command, all except for his lips.

“I…I choose-“

“Yes?” He growled as the very edges of his body almost seemed to disintegrate into plumes of purple smoke as his grin turned from menacing to victorious. He already knew what his answer would be, just as he had from the moment the Empire returned from stasis.

Six’s eyes shot open with a gasp, the Spartan shooting upwards on the bed she had laid upon. Images flashed through hermind, foreign memories and imprints still yet to settle. A mother of all migraines began to pierce her temples not unlike a metal spike being driven into her cranium with all the subtlety that came with.

Through gritted teeth she seethed as she brought both of her hooves to the sides of her head, only to be met with the feeling of cold glass mixed with rough fabric. Pain ripped through her limbs like a tuning fork against her nerves, freezing the Spartan in place with a cold shiver that rippled up and down her spine and feathers.

“Easy there, my crystals may be multipurpose but even they need time to reform your bones,“ a figure spoke from her side, a voice that sounded familiar but she couldn't quite place until her mind broke through the pain that hazed it and her instincts kicked in.

Without thinking, her body lashed out. A wing extended to pierce Sombra’s neck with its bladed tip. Instead she felt her primaries flex and give around his neck. In her haze she had forgotten about releasing the seals on her armor before falling unconscious.

“You know, back in my time that was how pegasi asked for one's hoof in marriage. Sorry Six, but I’m taken.” He raised a bare hoof and lowered her wing from his neck in a manner too gentle to be the same stallion that had strung her up by her forelimbs.

Six tried to strike out again with her hooves this time, only to find her limbs unresponsive as the brief rush of adrenaline ran out, sapping her energy and slowing her movements to a crawl.

“W-what are you-?” Six spoke, her voice hoarse and words breathless only to stop mid sentence as she took in her surroundings and her situation. She was in a hospital room, that much was obvious to her, but overlapped with another scene in her mind's eye. It was as if her vision were doubled but the two images were vastly different. One was an almost warm and clinical environment she could easily recognise as a hospital room, but the other was a nigh featureless white sterile room with a single window taking up the opposite wall.

But what was most striking were the state her forelegs were in. Bandages covered what they could of the various smaller wounds but the space between her hooves and knees were encased by dark crystals that seemed to be growing out of her very limbs in fractal patterns. Roots similar to that of a plant were visible like veins just beneath her fur showing just how deep the crystals went.

Six’s eyes went wide as her mind was bombarded with chaotic images and scenes from the feeling of being impaled, the sound of shattering glass and glaciers of black crystal bursting from the ground to swallow cities.

Bile began to rise up her throat, too fast and strong for her to fight back, forcing her to roll to the side and expel the contents of her stomach into a hastily placed bucket that still glowed slightly with dark purple energy.

“I told you to take it easy… ah, who am I kidding, I should have expected this. You have my sincerest apologies, Six, I may have overdone it in our encounter. But what a thrilling encounter it was.”

Six wasn’t listening as she stared at the ceiling, her body dry heaving in aftershocks of the automatic reaction as her body tried to make sense and recover from severe trauma it had suffered.

‘Can’t feel my limbs, weakness all over, nausea, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, double vision-‘

Six began to list off everything she could feel, taking stock of her combat readiness. Needless to say, it was not good.

‘Arms are broken and covered in crystals both inside and out, concussion, blood loss. Vision’s shot and my mind may be compromised. Probably because of his magic because this situation could not get any worse.’

She sighed audibly, though it came more out like a pained moan as bruised ribs resisted the sensation of expanding lungs and made their discomfort known to the Spartan. But Six did not care for such trivial things such as severe and traumatic chest trauma when something far more pressing was at the forefront of her mind.

“M…my Spartans…”

“Unharmed and confined to their barracks for the time being. Do not worry, you may consider me an enemy but I do not share the same view of you. You are my guest here, I will treat neither you nor those under you any differently than I would a visiting statespony. As for the others, well…”

Unpleasant images began to flash through Six’s minds eye once more of piles of bodies impaled by pitch black crystals like an old earth warlord from the distant past. Her reaction did not go unnoticed by Sombra as her wings began to twitch in agitation.

“Oh don’t look at me like that. I simply deported them out of my Empire. They did fail to go through the proper channels afterall.” He chuckled to himself. “But in all seriousness, I promised them a safe evacuation in return for keeping you as my honoured guest. And no, I see that look in your eye. When I say ‘guest’ I do in fact mean guest, not hostage.”

He took a deep breath as if to calm himself. “ I’ve seen enough upstarts give that word a bad reputation. Honoured guests used to mean something in my time, now it’s nothing more than a cliche in badly written novella.” Sombra leaned back in his chair, his horn lighting up briefly as he plucked what looked to be a bog-standard cigarette from thin air. He inspected it briefly, giving a small nod, before lighting it and bringing it to his lips. “The Equestrians do have some good ones, I admit, though they are far too full of inaccuracies and take too long to update.” He was talking to himself now more than Six as he blew the smoke towards an open window before offering the lit cigarette to the Spartan.

Six merely opted to stare down the stallion in silence, her eyes saying more than words could, not even bothering to acknowledge the offered smoke even as a small part of her would have welcomed the feeling. While not a smoker herself, she had spent enough time around them to get an inkling of what the activity offered.

Sombra accepted her non-verbal answer with an understanding nod of his own as he brought it to his own lips once again. “I wonder if the memoirs of a King would help clear things up… Something to think about once I’m done with this rotten Empire.”

Now that things had somewhat calmed down for the Spartan she was able to properly take in the visage of the stallion that had nearly killed her. He wasn’t wearing his armor or red flowing cape, he appeared to her like he had during their ‘one-on-one’ talks though this time the battle-scars his body held were far more pronounced. But what caught her eye were the outliers across his hide. Long straight and almost geometric patterns of lines in his fur dotted with small nubs of black crystal. Six could recognise what these scars were, what they echoed, as she had many of them herself.

They were surgical scars.

A phantom pain began to blossom on her chest, mirroring those on Sombra‘s as her double vision overlayed a room of pure crystal with black stalagmites hanging from the ceiling. Crystal ponies in surgical garb standing above her, the black crystal hanging from the ceiling boring into her skin, its roots growing into her chest before crawling up her spine and coalescing at her forehead.

The room, the crystals, the voice they all came rushing back vividly interposed with other foreign images and scenes. Voices and ponies spoke to her in an indecipherable language, ordering her about, shouting at her, comforting her. It reminded her of her training but with the omnipresent feeling of icy-cold crystals sprouting out of her forehead and a burning sensation of intense discomfort whenever she disobeyed the voice of her instructors.

But… they were not her instructors and doctors. One figure, one pony constantly reappeared in the images, her presence always accompanied with a cocktail of pain, comfort and obedience. She pulsed with a pink aura that hurt to look at, and was agony to ignore. All she knew was that if she told her to topple an Empire, she would stop at nothing to complete her mission. To fight and kill those who opposed the Crystal family. To eradicate all those who would stand against the Heart and its Shadow!

Because that's what he was, what he was made to do. The first successful subject of the Blighted Realm Anthema Project and he would stop at nothing to…

Six shook her head free of the foreign memories only to find the pale glow of the moon shining through the window when only moments before it was as bright as high noon.

“Oh good, you’re back. Must have triggered one of my stronger memories.”

Sombra spoke once more, closing the door behind him as he entered from the far side of the room, a large platter of crystalline food sitting upon an equally opulent tray held within his magical aura before him. Six’s mouth couldn’t help but water as her body realised just how long it had been since she had last eaten.

“What have you done to me?” The Spartan questioned with as much luster she could manage as she slowly and carefully sat up. Her forelegs didn’t hurt as much as before but that did not mean they were healed, not after such a short amount of time she reasoned. The crystals that grew around her limbs appeared to have since darkened, the material beginning to almost mimic her natural fur color.

She was in no position to fight, however. The best course of action right now was to recover and observe even if it meant swallowing her pride. Find a weakness, know the routine then strike when the odds are in her favor. Also the food looked really damn good, it felt like she hadn’t eaten in weeks.

“Nothing permanent, I assure you. Just a little conversation starter if I may be so coy. Crystal berries?” he offered with an uncharacteristically cheerful smile that looked utterly out of place on his hard face. “A local delicacy and specialty of mine.”

The food appeared to be a type of pudding bowl with the look of a stained glass window of purple, pink and red, yet when Sombra placed the tray squarely on her lap the glass jiggled and wobbled betraying its true consistency. The image of a smiling pink mare with a teal blue mane munching happily at a spoonful of the pudding flashed before her eyes wearing a white lab coat with the words ‘BRA-S-14’ emblazoned before a crystal heart sewn onto her chest pocket. As she tried to focus on the image a headache began to make itself known.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“I am showing you the cage you so wholeheartedly believe doesn’t exist. Words didn’t work so memories will have to do. I have said it once before, I am not your enemy, I do not wish to become your enemy, nor do I wish to remain one. We are siblings of war, Six. And I will not cannot sit idly by and let my sister live in the darkness of captivity while I stand in the light of freedom,” he spoke with conviction that held the weight of someone who believed with all his heart in what he was saying.

Six showed no outward reaction but grimaced with the telltale sign of another memory in Sombra’s eyes. She froze in catatonia once more, just like the last time he triggered one of the stronger seeds. A small part of him cursed himself for cutting what could have been a pleasant conversation short by walking over that tripmine.

‘Well, no use crying over crushed berries. At least this one should be shorter. Then again, I didn’t think the first one would last 90 days either…’ The King thought to himself as he encompassed Six in his magical aura, adjusting both her and her bed in order to position her in a more comfortable position for when she woke up next.

Taking his usual spot by the window he levitated a pair of spoons towards the confection still sitting in her lap.

With ease that spoke of this repeated activity, Sombra began to feed both himself and the Spartan with his latest work of crystal berry art.

Smacking his lips, Sombra hummed as he looked out towards the moon. “Needs more cinnamon,” he mused out loud before making sure to spoon an extra large serving for the catatonic Spartan.

He never could get the recipe quite right, though he doubted all the additives he needed for his guest helped much when it came to following Radiant’s recipe. Crystallized proteins and enzymes really do a number on the pudding's taste, but compared to the crushed crystalline fabric of the Anthema he needed…

‘Meh, 50/50,’ he thought as he took another bite.