//------------------------------//
// 1. Regret 
// Story: The Name of Our Mistakes 
// by ObabScribbler 
//------------------------------//





1. Regret





He sank into the spreading shadows with a curse on his lips. Even as his hooves dissolved into smoke, he still could not quite believe that he had been defeated. And by two so much weaker than him! These ponies were newly made rulers of their land. They had only been in power a few decades. He had spent a lifetime raising himself from lowly unicorn to emperor. How could they defeat him?

“Celestia,” said the smaller one. “This is too cruel.”

“I did not choose this for him, Luna. He made the choices that led him to this moment.”

“But can we not use the Elements again and finish him quicker? Could we not turn him to stone, as with Discord?”

“The Elements choose each punishment to reflect the crimes it is to punish. Discord was a creature of energy and life, therefore tedium in stone is the worst price for him to pay. This is a reflection of Sombra’s crimes also.” 

“I … shall not … die …” he promised as his jaw melted and dripped off. “I … refuse …”

“Thou art not permitted the choice, monster,” the taller pony said imperiously. She was huge, white and beautiful. He hated everything about her. “Thy defeat hath already taken too long. Would that we had come here sooner, perhaps we could have saved thy ponies. Thou hast enslaved a nation, banished its citizenry to oblivion to keep them from their freedom and defied thy treaty with Equestria, brazenly devoting thyself to dark magic on our very borders. There is to be no mercy for thee this day, Sombra.”

He tried to speak through his liquefying face. The words were mangled. Though she had spoken so certainly of punishing him, the white pony turned her face away. She wasn’t even going to watch!

Hatred flared inside him like black flames. He was not merely dying. He was ceasing to exist.

Celestia. That was what the smaller one had called her. Celestia, who had come here with her sister to pass judgement on him. Celestia, who had given the order for them to use their strange magical weapons against him. Celestia, who had the audacity to judge him by her morals on his soil, in his empire, and declare what punishment she thought he should receive!

At least, that was what she thought. He had other plans. He had worked too hard and too long to give it all up now. He had sold his soul to the darkness. That level of sacrifice would not be got rid of so easily. 

“I will … endure …” he managed to say. “Thou shalt not … be rid of my darkness … Celestia!”

He roused his body into one last desperate charge. The smaller pony whipped her head up. 

“Celestia, look out!”

No! He had struck the wrong one! Yet there was nothing he could do as his consciousness drifted away. He had to anchor himself or it would be too late. This one would have to do.

“Get it off! Get it off!”

Though she and the taller one blasted him away with their combined power, enough of him clung and stuck to the smaller sister for his will to sink in and enact its final revenge. He probed and searched until he found the bright, shining core within the pony’s heart. Then he wrapped himself around it. 

Take my darkness, little princess, he thought spitefully. Perhaps this is a better punishment after all. Let us see if thy sister withholds her mercy when it is family for whom it is needed …