A Twilight's Shadow

*8 Days later*

Twilight paces across her room, thinking of what could be happening that requires her assistance so suddenly. She just called her friends to come immediately, impatient to tell them about the news.

"Oh, not good not good. Did Equestria finally break down? Is there another attack? Are the princesses in trouble?!"
She takes a deep breath, attempting to calm down.
"Now, now Twilight, she's just giving me a new job, that's all. I'm just a student given another assignment. That's right, a new assignment! Oh, but what's the assign-"
A knock sounds from the door, and she bolts to it, literally throwing the door open.

"Hey, Twi-" "Quickly everypony, inside!" Twilight says, cutting them off. All her friends gallop into the home, and spike quickly shuts the door behind them.
"What's up, Twilight? As much as I would love to stay and chat with y'all, I need to get back to work pronto!"
"What's with the crazy sky, can you explain that Twilight?"
"Yeah, some weird stuff has been going around! My Pinkie Senses are going crazy!!!"

"Please, we don't have time for questions, this is important! HEY!"
Everyone looks at Twilight, stunned by her sudden raise in voice.

"Everypony, I just received a letter from Princess Celestia, telling us to come to her immediately. She says it's very important!"
They all gasp.
"What for? What's going on?"
"That's all the letter says, so I can't explain anything. Now let's hurry!" Twilight says, and runs off. All the ponies hesitate for a moment to take in what just happened, then rush out the door, galloping to the station, where a train is already waiting for them. They board the train, silent with suspense and worry about what is to come.

Twilight takes out her journal from her satchel, and begins a new entry.

-Twilight's Report: Day 8

I'm currently on the train to Canterlot. I received a letter earlier today from Princess Celestia. She told us to come to her immediately with all of my friends. She seemed pretty urgent, because her writing was a bit messy, and she didn't include much except that it was related to the flashing sky anomaly. I have a bad feeling about this...

She closes her book, and looks out to the large city of Canterlot slowly coming towards them.
A loud clap of thunder echoes through the valley, and she sees the sky flash another image of hell behind the city. She could have sworn she saw the city turn into a crippled ruin along with the sky before resuming it's grand state.

"WERE HERE!" The friends say as they burst into the room, sprinting across the hall towards Celestia and Luna. Twilight breaths hard as she tries to regain her breath. "Princess, we came here as fast as we could! What do you need, what's going on?"

The princesses turn towards them, their faces showing much concern and worry.

"I've called you here for a very important reason. I'm sure all of you are just as confused. Now, listen closely, because there is a lot of explaining to do, and there is not much time for me to do so."
Everypony leans forward, eager to hear what she has to say.

"Now, do any of you know about the Crystal Empire, or about King Sombra?" All of the ponies have no clue. Not even Twilight knows, despite her vast wealth of knowledge. Celestia does not seem surprised by all of their confusion.

"I thought so." Celestia looks at one of the pedestals containing a strange, glowing crystal sealed within a glass vase. The colors appear to swirl around with a light shade of blue and violet. She levitates the vase, and takes the strange crystal out, presenting it in the middle of the room above her.

Celestia's horn begins to glow, and she shoots a beam of light energy at the crystal, emitting a spectacular glow across the room. All the ponies gasp, except for Luna who stays dormant. A faint projection of some abnormal city begins to appear in the light in front of them. The picture starts to become clearer, showing an enormous tower standing above a large city. Everything seems to be made of crystal. The friends stare in awe. Then, Celestia begins to speak:

"Several millennium ago, an ancient Kingdom called the Crystal Empire was founded in the north, consisting of only crystals, as the name implies. The inhabitants were special ponies that shared crystal-like properties that allowed them to thrive in such conditions unlike normal ponies."
The projection of the city began to show tiny figures of ponies living about the city. Their bodies also seemed to glow just like the crystals.
"To explain would take hours, time which we obviously do not have. Now, these ponies behaved as we do: They live in peace and harmony, which as you know, creates a realm of light that surrounds them. They continued to do so for thousands of years, until a great evil came and overtook them."

Suddenly, dark clouds began to surround the city, which swept across the city. Then, they rose, revealing the barren landscape they saw in the flashes in the sky. The blue sky was replaced by a bloody orange, the blue crystals turned into black obsidian. The ponies within the city lost their beautiful color, and were all grey and dormant.
"Their light collapsed under his power, and he successfully usurped their throne. He absorbed all of their power, and the darkness began to spread across many legions of land. Nothing we tried could stop his expansion."

Celestia's face hardened, and she lowered her head, closing her eyes for a moment. The map zoomed out, showing the entire continent being consumed by the darkness, like a giant black fire. Whatever it touched, it instantly became devastated. Celestia then resumed her posture, and continued.
"All the rulers, including us decided we would join together in harmony, and spread our light across each other, which also created the barrier of light. But because many more kingdoms and nations were involved, the barrier was able to withstand the expansion." The map zoomed out once again, showing huge hemispheres of light spreading across the continent. The dark clouds were stopped by the barrier, the clouds swirling around, trying to break through.

"In order to prevent fear and disunity among our citizens, we hid the darkness as a secret, and prevented anyone from leaving. So long as we continued to live in peace and harmony, we thought it would not be a problem...until now."
A bolt of lightning struck the crystal, and the entire map began to swirl like a tornado. It began to decelerate, forming a ominous cloud, and it showed a projection of a horrible face. All the ponies flinched.

~~It's~~ His eyes glowed a poisonous green, the mane was just like the dark clouds, except they looked alive, whipping back and fourth. His horn was a tainted red, and had the shape of a claw. It looked like a pony devil come true. He opened his mouth, and a serpent-like gurgle echoed down the hall, making everyone feel icy cold, and sent shivers down their spine.
"This is King Sombra. He is the pony responsible for the chaos. He is no ordinary pony, but believe it or not, there was a time he was normal." Celestia began to speak about his life. The horrible face still remained.

"Sombra was a very intelligent pony, who excelled in magic. Unfortunately, he was completely obsessed with power, so much that the city he called his home excommunicated him, and banished him from the settlement. He was enraged almost to the point of insanity. He swore revenge, and to make himself more powerful than ever seen by ponykind. He stumbled upon a spell that would call down a spirit. It said that by successfully controlling the spirit, it would grant him enormous powers.

"What he didn't know, was that only evil spirits hunted down those who summoned them. They were extremely powerful, and if the spirit overpowered the host, they ended up controlling the being. It said it required the polarization found by going to the top of the globe, so he began his journey to the tip of the arctic.

"Upon reaching there, he saw a large, crystal tower he thought was the north pole. He summoned the spell, and an entity flew down and began to possess him. He underestimated it's power, and the spirit took control of him, and possessed him. It took advantage of his thirst for power, and it used Sombra to absorb the power of the crystals in the Crystal Kingdom. You know what happens next."

Celestia walked towards the window, and looked out upon the landscape of Equestria.

"Now, our kingdom is in a state of chaos and depression, and we can no longer sustain the light we used to have. Our people suffer, and we can't anything about it. The barrier is shedding away as we speak, which is why you see the flashes throughout the sky. The darkness is closing in."

"Wait, so your telling us that..." Twilight hesitates.

"Yes Twilight. I fear that what you see is not some image, or something that is not there: it is a picture of reality--and what will be our inevitable future."

All the friends cry in fear. "Were all DOOMED!" Rarity cries. Applejack bumps her in the stomach with her elbow, making her stop with a hiccup. "Now quit it, girl! Cryin' ain't gonna help us do anything to stop this from happening! Now what exactly are we gonna do?"

"We cannot initiate an evacuation, nor can we give a state of emergency. Doing so will cause fear and panic, which we cannot afford because the darkness would immediately break in, giving us no chance at all."

"Well, what if we...well, if we-like-OH!" Twilight thinks hard, struggling to come up with a solution.

"What if we throw a PARTY!" Pinkie leaps in excitement.

Rainbow Dash groans. "Pinkie, of all the times to throw a party, you could not have picked a worse time! For the sake of Equestria can you just-"

"Wait, that's a perfect idea!" Twilight says.

"What?! Have you two lost it? Actually, Pinkie Pie never even had it..."

"HEY! no fair!"

"Guys listen! The entire point is to keep the darkness from coming in, right? Well, if we make everyone happy, then we can bring light from all the ponies and reseal the barrier!"

"Girls, we have no time to waste! You know well that all the ponies are in no mood to party, and we don't have enough resources to do so." Celestia added. "Now, i'm sorry I must break this news to you, but Luna, the council, and I have debated this throughout the past weeks, and we could not find a long-term solution to fix the problem at hand."

"Wait, so were really all...doomed?" Twilight slowly says, unable to bring the truth to herself.

"Yes...i'm afraid so." Celestia reluctantly answers. Rarity breaks down again, bawling on the floor.
Rainbow Dash flies to Celestia.

"But we gotta do something! Like, we can use the elements to reseal the barrier, or maybe go to King Sombra and beating the f-"

"But that doesn't mean we don't have a solution." Celestia affirmed. All the ponies stopped and stared at Celestia, listening to what solution she has.

"Now, like I said, we have no long-term solution, but we can only delay the darkness for what we have planned."

"Delay it for what?" Twilight asks.

Celestia takes a deep breath. Then she orders: "We will send you away from Equestria, and when the darkness overtakes us, it will become your job to take it back."