Darke Life

I saw from my window that Amber was doing a good job following in Sombra's hoofsteps. Her mane had grown during her transformation, and was flowing down her side like some sort of anti-material. She wore the metal breastplate and arm-covers that Sombra did, as well as an almost perfectly matching crown. The only missing pieces were the cheek-guards on the crown, and the royal robe.

Amber was sitting on the balcony of the royal castle, watching the crystal ponies trot by in their shackles. Her newly-grown horn slowly levitated a glass to her lips as she watched them. Her transformed eyes, which now matched Sombra's, watched each and every pony as they stumbled along. You can tell she's holding back tears, I thought.

From the tiny little chamber we were sentenced to, Crimson, Shadow, and I watched the outside world. We were locked in the very top room of the tower, surrounded by black jagged crystals. Amber had told us this was the room where Twilight Sparkle was held when Sombra first captured her. Amber brought us food twice a day, always staying a little longer to make conversation or stare out the window at the Crystal Empire.

Twice a day, she gave us her apologies for letting this happen.

"Guys, I'm really sorry. I-I just... I figured if he beat me, he would kill you, and I would die if that happened. I just thought that this way, he wouldn't kill you. A-Again, I'm really sorry...."

Crimson and Shadow just turned away, and she sighed. Amber turned back to the doorway and headed out.

~

"Sombra told me that you three are sentenced to your death tomorrow morning."

"At least he'll be killing me, and not one of my best friends." Crimson spat coldly. Amber's eyes teared up, then shocked brighter with rage.

"I did this to save your flanks! It's not like I knew he would do this!"

Shadow Coat turned. "What does it matter? We're dying, your dad's taking over your brain, and you're not even stopping it. Look at you! You look just like him!"

Amber turned and started to trot away. "That's it. I'm telling him to move your deaths up. You have three hours."

Crimson's eyes watered, and he turned away angrily. The door slammed shut, and we were all alone in the tower.

~

"I can't believe this." I mumbled, laying back.

"Shadow?"

"Yeah Crimson?"

"You were right."

"What?"

"That day when I first met Amber in fillygarten. You were right, she IS a freak."

Shadow silently nodded. I spoke up.

"Well, from what I understand, she's being brainwashed. She has no choice. And well, did you see her? Amber looks like she's hardly slept. Probably guilty about letting us get into this situation."

My coaxing didn't seem to faze Crimson. "Amber is moving up our deaths, Trevor! Do you not understand that?!" His hooves repeatedly motioned to the door where Amber had exited. "She. Is. Going. To. Let. Us. DIE! She's exactly like Sombra, brainwashed or not! Look at her. She's given up her best, her ONLY friends!" His eyes started watering up again, and he went to sulk in the corner.

"Crimson."

"What?!" He snapped.

"You liked her, didn't you."

His face went more crimson than his mane. "Not anymore. I won't even bother with that freak for the next few hours of my life."

"Let's go." We all turned. A guard was in the doorway.

"Let's go. Execution is now."

"W-Wait, we're supposed to have three hours!"

From behind his armor, the guard smirked. "The Princess seemed so agitated that three hours became three minutes. Now let's go." He prodded me first, and we headed down the long staircase.

~

The first thing we saw at the bottom of the stairs was a large grey unicorn similar to Sombra, only younger. His greenish-grey eyes flashed at us, and he flicked out a long snake-like tongue at us.

"Say goodbye, prisoners."

"Soul, play nice. Goodbye, freaks." Amber was on the unicorn's back, glaring at us. The male unicorn laughed ferociously and lunged at Shadow, who squealed and stepped back.

The guards led us to a large platform that overlooked the Crystal Empire. Near the ground was some sort of large tank with jagged crystals in it.

"Jump." Sombra instructed. His throne's not too far... I thought, Maybe if I...

"Give it UP with the damned escape plans!" Amber interjected. "You're outmatched. So go. Execute. NOW."

A trie of guards came, ready to push us to our doom.

~

...

.....

"... are you guys okay?"

~

The three of us, Crimson, Shadow, and I, were encased in some blue bubble. We turned to the voice and saw Amber. The armor was off, her hair was shorter, and her eyes were back to normal. We were inside a sort of shelter made of crystals.

"What do you want?! Haven't you done enough?!"

"Easy there, Crimson. This is just a hallucination. I blasted you with some temporary magic, and as you can see, it's already fading." She pointed outside the wall, and the white surroundings were starting to revert to their crystally counterparts.

"Just listen. I'm gonna get you guys out of this. I promise."

"Why should we believe you?!"

Amber stepped forward and nuzzled Crimson slowly. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. "Because if you don't, you'll have to die. And that would kill me inside...."

Everything was silent. Then the bubble shook, and we returned to reality. We were about to be pushed to crystal impalement when Sombra spoke up.

"You spoke to them, Amber."

"Yeah, so?"

"Your message was LOCKED to my magic. You're still their ally." His eyes gave off cold hate. "Her too. Kill her too."

The guards grabbed Amber and prepared to throw her over as well. "N-No, wait...!"

We were sent over the edge of the balcony, and shut our eyes in terror.

~

A warm feeling washed over us, then we crashed into a hard tile floor. I blacked out a while.

~

"Trevor, sweetheart?" A familiar voice stood over me, and I struggled to open my eyes. My mother was standing over me and smiling.

My mom held out a bowl of soup and petted my head softly. "Were you out at your friends' again? I found you passed out in the kitchen."

"Huh? Y-Yeah, I guess." I groaned and looked around. I was back home, in my bedroom. "How long was I gone?"

"A couple days, sweetheart. You didn't answer my phone calls or anything." Mom nervously cocked her head. "You don't know how long you were away? You weren't drinking, were you...?"

"No, Mom! No!" I sat straight up. "I would never. I'm not into that kind of stuff."

She smiled warmly. "Now don't yell. You have some guests who seem to need their sleep. I found them nude in the kitchen with you. I also seemed to notice some tattoos on their buttocks. A bit inappropriate for your age, but I believe they were in some sort of traumatic coma or something, or a gang. I hope you don't mind that I found some clothes for them to wear, out of your dresser. Oh, and the girl is wearing some of Riley's and my clothes."

Wait. Girl? Friends? Passed out in my kitchen? I was home?!

... something wasn't right. I turned to my left and saw the spare air mattresses blown up in the corner. Each one held one of the ponies from Equestria, but.... they were human!

Human. They still had their hairstyles, and their skin was slightly tinted of their original coat colors; Amber however, stayed a slight pumpkin-tan. Crimson and Shadow were wearing some of my clothes, and Mom had managed to fit Amber into one of Riley's shirts and her own long skirt. They had blankets pulled over them, and were each sleeping softly.

"Amber? Crimson Mane? Shadow Coat?" I choked out. Mom cocked her head again.

"Strange names. Are they in a gang?"

"N-No Mom. Just nicknames they like... can I wake them up?"

"If you must. But I'd be careful with the girl over there." Mom seemed to be slightly scared. "I nearly woke her while dressing her, and she swung her fist out and nearly gave me a black eye. Now I have to find someone to fix the hole in the wall." Mom left the room, and I jumped out of bed.

"Amber! Crimson! Shadow! Wake up!" The boys stirred, but Amber pulled the blanket tighter. I whipped it off and gasped.

Mom was right. Amber's skirt had a slit up the side and proudly displayed her fire cutie mark. Since I didn't want to bother Crimson and Shadow by asking them to moon me, I took Mom's word for it and threw the blanket back at her. Amber slowly sat up.

"What is so important you had to interrupt my sleeping, Crash? I was having this weird dream. Y'know how I went to the human world a couple times? Well, I was ruling with Sombra and he was about to kill my friends, so I saved us by sending us to the human..." She suddenly opened her eyes and stared at her hands, "... dimension."

Crimson and Shadow were having different opinions on their surroundings. "Holy buck! What the buck are these?! Why am I-" Amber cut Shadow off.

"We're in the human world. I did it to save your flanks."

"What?"

"You heard me, Crimson! I saved your flanks because I'm not how Sombra wants me to be! I still love my friends, more than anything and everything! At the last second, I opened a portal to the human dimension with Crystal magic. The magic was so pure it cleansed me back to normal. When we were supposed to hit the spikes, we fell into it and wound up in the last human place Trevor remembers being at. Luckily, Trevor has quite a caring mother that she's allowed us to stay here a bit."

"What about when you moved up our executions?"

"I did that to end the suffering as soon as I could."

"And hissing at us?"

"Staying in character."

"What about.... um..."

"That's it, Crimson. That's all I did." She stood up and pulled her shirt down a bit. "Now if I recall, I still have money here to get around. Trevor, you're old enough to drive, right?"

"Yeah. Where do you need to go?"

"The closest bank. I need to take some money out."

I jumped into my white Audi A6 and threw open the passenger side door. Crimson climbed in. Amber and Shadow sat in the back.

"Wells Fargo."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Only bank I knew at the time."

We left the garage and started driving down the street. Amber readjusted her shirt again and stared at out surroundings. Shadow chose the time to ask questions.

"How long will we be here?"

"In the human world? Hard to tell. I used some pretty advanced magic. Probably a year."

"Seriously?"

"Am I the only one who noticed you guys are older?" I interjected. "You were thirteen in Equestria, and you're seventeen here. What happened?"

Shadow spoke up. "We have longer years, so it takes us longer to reach a certain age. When we crossed over, the days that we have been alive were probably very thoroughly and complicatedly calculated and we became that amount of days here."

"How many days are in your year?"

"Four hundred forty-nine."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So I guess somehow that crosses over to seventeen?"

"I guess."

"Wow." Again.

"There's the bank." Amber spoke out. "I'll only be a minute." She jumped out and ran out to the bank. I sat back in my seat.

"So she's going to get money, and you guys'll work on getting back home?"

"I suppose so. There isn't anything else we can do while we're here."

"There's tons. If you're only seventeen, you still have to go to school. Things will be different though. A lot different."

"You'll help us though, right?" Crimson interjected.

"Of course. Maybe now that I've gotten used to your lifestyle, you can try mine. You can stay at my house, see what it's like on Earth, y'know?"

"Sounds fun!" Amber jumped back into the car.

"Where to?"

"We need clothes. To J.C. Pony's!"

"Err, on Earth, it's J.C. Penney's, Amber."

"Right. To that place!"