In Which Sombra Grapples With an Apparatus as Evil as He

Sombra didn’t know how, exactly, he’d come back this time, not after being flat-out vaporized. It seemed the universe was too scared to let him die. As it should be. His deeds were great and his power vast. It was only natural that the natural order itself twist to permit his rule. (The fact that the last time he’d gone up against the natural order had been the time he’d been vaporized was utterly irrelevant. Utterly.) But he had never lacked focus, nor commitment. The moment his mind had reformed enough to convince him he hadn’t been wailing like a pansy when he’d died, he set it back on his target: the Crystal Empire. He would get it eventually. Definitely. Absolutely. He had to.

He recollected himself outside the border and began flowing in like smoke. Why fix what wasn’t broken? But before he could reach the first houses, a shield went up around the Crystal Empire. A shield that was a very familiar shade of cornflower blue. Sombra drove at it from all sides, but it was a well-crafted shield and managed to withstand even his assaults. Well, his first assaults, perhaps; it would certainly fall if he simply kept battering it.

But Sombra had empires to conquer, and time was of the essence. Combat by champion it was, then. He settled on the main boulevard leading in and roared out, “Princess Cadance! I would have a word!” And he sat on his haunches to wait.

As is common among the powerful and self-important, Sombra became irritated within moments. How dare she make him wait! How could she not cross the entirety of the Empire in seconds? She was an alicorn, the strongest of all the tribes. (Sombra was a power unto himself, therefore not a tribe, therefore not included in that.) She ought to know how to teleport! Surely she must be like him and learning all the relevant fields of magic rather than any actual rulership. Smiting his problems always worked perfectly fine, thankyouverymuch. At least the screams of the crystal ponies that had noticed him were nice.

After an interminable minute, Cadance swooped over the houses and alighted before him on the other side of the shield. Sombra convinced himself he wasn’t envious of her wings as he composed his speech. What would be the fastest way to convince her? Perhaps a reminder of how quickly the Empire had fallen last time? Or maybe a threat against her family. Friendship was among Equestria’s greatest diseases, allowing for easily-exploitable-

“I’d like to talk about surrender,” Cadance said calmly.

Sombra sneered. “Surrender?” he scoffed. (Sombra knew what surrender was. In spite of being a thousand years displaced, he was after surrender.) “You think I, of all ponies, would speak of surrender?”

“You’re not surrendering. I am.”

Suddenly, Sombra felt all tingly inside. Was this glee?

“You- are… persistent,” said Cadance. She flexed her wings. “And- with your- unstoppable drive-”

“You probably say that to all the villains,” Sombra sneered. For, really, she looked like cotton candy. (Sombra was after cotton candy.) How could she hope to understand real strength?

Cadance’s eye twitched and she flexed her wings again. “It is. Quite. Clear,” she admitted through gritted teeth. “That you will not be dissuaded, and- it’s best if we… cut our losses.” Was she sounding… stilted? Bah, no matter. She was a new princess, still unsure of herself.

But why would she be? For she had finally gotten something right! Oh, if only everypony was as smart as her. It would almost be worth missing the thrill of conquest. (He disregarded the fact that, as of late, he’d utterly failed at keeping his conquests.) The tingly feeling grew stronger. Yes, it surely must be glee-

“But I have one condition.”

A- A condition?

The idea passed through Sombra’s mind as if it’d been lubed: swiftly and in a way he desperately wanted to forget. He was Sombra. He didn’t bow to conditions! He set the conditions! This- pasty pink pastel pony princess surely couldn’t think he would agree to the conditions, could she? And she was doing so well. She’d properly surrendered-

“Ahem. Equus to evil overlord.” Tap tap. “Are you there?”

Sombra pulled his mind back to himself and glared at Cadance. Somehow, she remained unmoved. “Obviously you must be delusional if you think I’ll listen to your condition,” he scoffed.

“Obviously Delusional’s the court record-keeper and is much more lucid than her name implies,” Cadance said. “I just need you to fill out a few forms.”

Sombra’s lip curled. “Ah. The bureaucracy.” (Sombra was after bureaucracy. But then, pretty much everything is after bureaucracy. The only thing that isn’t after bureaucracy is taxes.)

“The bureaucracy,” Cadance confirmed. “If you don’t cause any trouble and go through the process of formally acquiring control over the Crystal Empire from its ruler, no one in Equestria will have a legal leg to stand on if they object. You’ll be King of the Empire, fair and square. …King of an empire. How does that happen?”

“The Empire was named as such before I arrived,” Sombra said airily. “I merely preferred the title of ‘King’. A better question would be why a mere city-state thought it deserved the title of ‘Empire’.”

“You tell me. You burned all the histories that came before you.”

“…Yes.” Sombra almost smiled at the fond memory, but he had Business to attend to. “Very well. Unbelievable as it may seem, I accept your condition. Pledge on your life that the deal shall be honored.”

The idiot princess very nearly smiled. She put a hoof to her heart and said in a faux-dramatic voice that Sombra was horrified to realize actually worked pretty well, “Should you properly follow the procedure, rulership of the Crystal Empire will be surrendered to you as soon as it is possible. Provided, of course, that you honor your end. No trouble.”

Holding his head high, Sombra said, “It shall be as you requested. I shall make no moves against you nor the Empire’s ponies until these forms have been completed.”

Cadance nodded and, to Sombra’s surprise, the shield fell. “Then let’s get to it,” she said. She turned around and marched for the Empire, shaking in a way that certainly couldn’t have been suppressed laughter. For a moment, Sombra considered pouncing on her right then and there, taking out his immediate opposition. But he was nothing if not a stallion of his word, which was why he kept attempting to take the Empire in spite of his setbacks; he had always said he would, and he didn’t want to be a liar. He followed in Cadance’s wake, his mind already conjuring plans for his upcoming reign. Success would be sweet.

Although… surely that couldn’t be all, could it? Filling out a few forms, writing a few words on paper… There had to be a catch. Even somepony with a name like Mi Amore Cadenza wouldn’t go down so easily.

But Sombra turned the idea over, picked it apart, dissected it, did other various scientific crimes against it to see what made it tick, and came up with nothing out of the ordinary. There were no clever phrasings to trick him into making a mistake or wasting his time. It really was that simple. The only thing he needed to do was navigate the bureaucracy. And how hard could that possibly be?

(Sombra was before the phrase, “What could possibly go wrong?”)