//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: Your Luck Ran Out // Story: Memories of the Stone // by WanderingPony //------------------------------// While you were reading about Celestia and Luna flank-kicking a horde of demons: An atavistic feeling of satisfaction briefly passed through Sombra's head as finally, a spell got through the barrage of magic, counterspells, and shielding surrounding Celestia and mana aspirated it's way from the glowing nimbus into the unicorn's horn. It wasn't quite as satisfying as getting his teeth on her mane and grinding the Princess face-first in the dirt, but it wasn't a bad -start-, either. A ghostly laugh echoed through Sombra's skull. "Oh, this is delightful! You've made my little sisters angry!" "Wait," thought Sombra. "...did you say sisters?" Jolfr's spectral laugh rumbled cheefully for an answer. The distraction was enough for Celestia to begin to stream breaths of superheated flames across the battlefield, melting Sombra's shields to ruins faster than he could rebuild them. Frantically, he dodged and rolled, finding himself hunkered low to the ground as mind-shoveled dirt smothered the torch a near-miss had started in his ebon tail. Ashen streaks blended better with his fur, but even all of Sombra's considerable (and recently stolen) reserves had not been enough to completely deflect even the inaccurate flares Princess Celestia had been spewing his direction. "Oh, yes. It's been...why, since your ancestors were considering grazing the grass a feast!" Sombra found himself forced to contemplate the revelation in stillness as Celestia's sigil came to life and held him in place. Glaring white-hot death at his prostrate form, the princess began abjuring him in a voice that only promised certain doom. The spell gripped him tightly, forcing out a braying sound as his lungs found themselves squeezed to the edges of suffocation. "Wait a moment, she's almost to the good part...." "By the name of Echwaz, Eldest, The Nightmare...", intoned Celestia... "And THERE it is. Taking MY name in vain, even if she doesn't know it. Focus on that name, Sombra. You have a bit of Celestia at the moment, and that's all it'll take. Call me, Sombra. Call me by many names." "Jolfr, Echawz, Eldest, Nightmare..." circled inside Sombra's mind as his crimson horn coughed a spark of stolen divinity from the tip, pushing the glowing ember into the abyss that he found himself hung above... ...and as the circle rose in blinding light, an eight-legged giant of a stallion formed itself from the nothingness and held Sombra like a puppy, safe and sound between his teeth. The hole in space drained itself to reality as it was sucked into the body of Jolfr and became warm flesh and fur, winds pushing outwards as the dark avatar made room for itself in the material realm. Lowering his severely worn minion down on a patch of (mostly) un-outraged earth, Jolfr enjoyed his first touch of sunlight in nearly a million years. Mirthful noises echoed about the wreckage, shaking loose stones from their rest. Princess Celestia simply stared in utter astonishment as the black stallion (not alicorn, for Jolfr had eight legs but not a wing between them) amiably trotted forward and... Licked her on the nose. "THOU DIDS'T CALL FOR ME BY NAME, LITTLE SISTER? MY DEAR LORD SOMBRA HAS ALREADY VISITED MINE REALM, WHERE WE GOT ALONG MOST FETCHINGLY. VERILY, NO NEED TO SEND HIM THERE AGAIN SO SOON." Celestia looked like someone had just informed her that the cakes were not only a lie, but all cakes had suddenly become fantasies. Her eyes crossed briefly, then looked upwards at Jolfr, who stood a full head higher than the princess. "Buh-buh-buh...", she intoned with regal aplomb. "OH, I KNOW. TWAS WELL PLANNED AND WELL DONE WHAT YOU AND YOUNGEST SISTER DID, BUT...ALL JESTS MUST END. THINE FOOLISHNESS WITH THESE "PONIES" AND INCARNATING LIKE THIS, REJECTING THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS...." An ivory horn shoved Jolfr's mouth shut in mid-sentence with an audible clack. "YOU...YOU THINK MY LITTLE PONIES ARE A JOKE? A BIT OF AMUSEMENT? UNNATURAL?" exploded out of Celestia's mouth. A hoof stamped at the ground, crackles of ash powdering up where it struck. "They are a better way than what you had planned for this world, Nightmare. We spent tens of thousands of years cleaning your "tests" from the earth, bringing peace and joy one inch at a time from the "proper way" you beset the mortals of this realm with. After all this, you DARE come here and try to start it all over again? AFTER THE REST OF US AGREED TO TRY SOMETHING NEW?" "I AM ELDEST, AND THOU ART STILL YOUNG AND FOOLISH AS OUR KIND GO. LEAVE THIS REALM TO THE CARE OF THINE BETTERS AND RESUME YOUR PROPER PLACE, "CELESTIA". DIDST THOU GET THAT NAME FROM YON MORTALS, OR PERHAPS THOU DIDS'T MAKE IT YOURSELF?" In a moment of mind-wobbling revelation, Twilight Sparkle realized that trolling others apparently ran in Celestia's family. Jolfr's massive form yawned, revealing the teeth of a predator. "AH, IT SEEMS MY TIME HERE IS RUNNING LOW, LEST I LEAVE MINE DARK RIDER TOO WEARY. I SHALL RETURN TO MINE REALM, AND THANK THEE FOR TAKING SUCH GOOD CARE OF ALL OF MY CREATIONS." "LOCKING THEM UP IN THIS "TARTARUS", TWAS MOST KIND OF THEE. WHILST THOU HAST BEEN SPARRING MOST MIGHTILY WITH MINE FRIEND, I DID LET THEM ALL OUT." Many miles away, a pair of great leaden doors lay broken on a floor of loose pumice. A three-headed monstrous canine left a trail of broken trees as it wandered away, wagging it's tail. Shards from a rune-encrusted collar marked the point where Cerebus had been sprung from his duties... From the portal, the sounds of innumerable feet, wings, and worse grew louder as a contingent of Kindred tore sorcerous bonds asunder with knowledge only an insider could have on the subject. Princess Celestia's ears pricked as mystical alarms held at bay were carelessly set free, sending thousands of flashing red messages of broken wards and escaping beasts into her mind's eye at once. "MINE FRIEND SOMBRA SHALL BE ALONG PRESENTLY TO FREE ELDEST SISTER FROM HER PRISON IN TURN, SO WE MIGHT GET BACK TO OUR USUAL. LIGHT 'GAINST DARK, THOU DOST KNOW MINE REDE OF IT. ANON!" The flow of magic sustaining Jolfr's form reversed itself, the massive equine form dwindling to an ebon stream that slipped back into the tip of Sombra's horn with a muffled *POP*. With it came a surge of renewed vitality in the unicorn as the massive channel of power that it took to bring so much of his master into the material realm redirected itself into strength and mystical vitality for himself. He stood, ready to challenge Celestia once again... ...only to find the Solar Princess fleeing for the sky, a look of absolute horror on her features as she flung herself towards the broken gates of Tartarus and the monsters already beginning to escape in every direction. He was alone with all the "friends" he'd made nearly being destroyed the LAST time in the Empire. Well, alone with dozens of demons within easy reach. "SERVANTS...SLAY THEM! SLAY THEM ALL." The shadows gave up their hidden forms and spread them across the ground, the sun taking that moment to begin to set below the horizon. Fangs dripped. Claws clenched with eager hunger for the little colored bits of flesh in their sight. As they did, the shadows only lengthened further to reach towards the one small island of brightness remaining on the stadium floor. Pinkie Pie finally dropped her sign. If anything that hadn't wanted her torn to shreds had been looking, the expression on her face would have been as comical as it was tragic. Applejack, Dash, and Rarity formed a triangle around their alicorn friend, the cowering Fluttershy hiding under her, and the wounded Wedge lay moaning under her yellow wing. The time had come for twilight, and it came forth to devour it's namesake.