The Crusader King

by naturalbornderpy

First published 28th of June, 2015

After discovering King Sombra preparing for his latest attack in their clubhouse, the Cutie Mark Crusaders soon learn they have a lot more in common with the tyrannical King than they might've thought.

After discovering King Sombra planning his latest scheme in their clubhouse, the Cutie Mark Crusaders soon learn they have a lot more in common with the tyrannical King than they might've thought.

Can two groups of blank flanks get along long enough for all of them to succeed? Or will Sombra's need for revenge instead lead all of Ponyville to ruin?

Edited by spigo.

The Blankest Of Flanks

Someone was poking at Sombra’s nose, but perhaps the term “poking” was incorrect. The poke in question was soft and timid, almost like a…

“Boop.”

Yes. Something akin to that.

“Boop. Boop,” the poker said, continuing to prod at his snout, the voice high enough that those that listened had a good chance of developing cavities on the spot. “Hey, mister? You awake? Why are you sleeping on the floor like that? Doesn’t that hurt your neck?”

Sombra sluggishly pried open his eyes, the first sight to greet him being a white unicorn with small curls in both her tail and mane. Those of the quaint populace that was Ponyville’s might have called her ‘cute’; it was another word entirely that came to his mind to describe her.

“You’re rather annoying,” he mumbled, jaw struggling to lift his head off the floor.

“He talks!”

“He’s alive!”

Two more fillies surrounded the unicorn, eyeing the peacefully laying King with curiosity. One was a pegasus while the other was an Earth pony. Their heads appeared to be sixty percent eyeball.

“You think he’s the one that’s been eating all our clubhouse cookies?” the Earth pony asked with an accent. “I knew there was a reason why they kept on disappearing.”

Sombra got to his hooves, shaking out each leg, before cracking his neck from side to side. “I wish you would’ve left me something better to eat. Those cookies were all stale and near tasteless.”

The pegasus came towards him. “Cookies aside, why are you sleeping in our clubhouse? And how come we’ve never seen you around Ponyville? You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Thank Celestia for that.” Sombra snorted and lifted his chin. “Honestly? You three cannot recognize the great King Sombra after all this time?”

All three filly heads stared at him from head to hoof. Together, they said, “Ohhhhhhh!” in final understanding.

Sombra smirked, revealing a fang. “That’s better. Now let’s talk about provisions better than cookies, like—”

“So you’re the King my sister helped defeat?” asked the unicorn.

Sombra’s momentary elation dropped. “Well… sort of…”

The pegasus interrupted him, “The one that blew up into a million, billion pieces and everyone cheered and had punch afterwards?”

“I never heard about the punch part, but, yes, I guess I did blow up pretty good…”

“The same Sombra that Spike the baby dragon destroyed?” added the southern one. “The crystals, slaves, and stairs pony?”

Sombra stomped a hoof into the wood, cracking it. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

He spun around and exhaled slowly, rubbing a hoof through his mane. He mumbled, “You create one awesome staircase and then that’s all you’re known for. If I ever find that architect again, I’m going to make him design his own guillotine.”

He turned back to them, a forced smile on his face. “All right. You know who I am. You know what I’ve done. Clearly, my character has been besmirched quite terribly since my rule, but I promise it will not remain that way for long.” He pointed at the unicorn. “You mentioned a sister. What is her name?”

“Rarity,” she answered.

“A member of the Elements of Harmony.”

She appeared concerned. “… Yes?”

“That’s good to know. Anyone else related to an Element of Harmony?”

The Earth one stared at the floor and rubbed at a leg.

Sombra giggled. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He grabbed a notebook from the floor behind him and placed a pen in his mouth to write.

NOTE TO SELF: Squeaky one and Southern one—incredibly kidnappable.

NOTE TO SELF: Is kidnappable even a word?

While he jotted down his notes, the unicorn introduced everyone. She was Sweetie Belle, and the others were Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.

Sombra looked up from his book. “That’s nice, but I won’t remember any of that.”

Scootaloo asked him, “So if you’re really King Sombra, then what are you doing hiding out in our clubhouse? Shouldn’t you be planning something all dark and menacing?”

Sombra raised a brow. “Who says I’m not?” He closed his book with a snap and started pacing around the room. “When I was defeated, a hunk of my horn soared well past the Frozen North. Once it landed, it was picked up by a bird and then dropped off at the outskirts of Ponyville. There it stayed for well over a year and a half, until a passing mail mare happened to drop a gallon of goat’s blood overtop of it. Odd, I know. A few days later, I became myself again, although with a few minor setbacks.”

Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo, “Twilight was right—villains really do like to monologue.”

“I am whole,” Sombra continued, “as you see me now. Only my limitless magic has yet to resurface, but I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of days until such time.” He chuckled deeply. “So until then, I will wait, and plan, and survive off stale cookies and water from the rain gutters.”

“Doesn’t sound like that great a comeback, if you ask me,” Apple Bloom said.

Sombra rolled his eyes. “Too bad nobody asked you. Phase one is always boring. Wait for the phase after that one.”

“Is that what all this is about?” asked Sweetie Belle, looking at the cover of his notebook. She read from it: “Die Ponyville Die. Subtitle: No Seriously, I Hope You Burn And Choke On Your Own Boiling Blood.”

Sombra blushed a bit and snatched the book away from her. “No, of course not! Goodness me, wouldn’t that be silly, keeping my master plan out for just anyone to read! No, this is… a play. A very large scale play.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes grew big. “A play!? Can I be in it?”

Sombra narrowed his eyes and smiled at her. “Oh, of course you can. I think everyone in this little town of yours will be a major player in it. One performance only, I’m afraid.”

“Is it a comedy? Or a musical, even?”

Sombra scratched his chin. “I think that might depend on who’s watching it. I know I’ll be laughing my sides off the whole time. Tortured screams always did have a certain melody to them, I’ve found.”

This last statement didn’t seem to affect Sweetie Belle’s original enthusiasm, as her eyes took on a glossy shine. “Me? The star of my own play alongside the entire town?” She fell on her back and giggled from the notion.

Apple Bloom went to Sombra’s side to look at his back. “Why’re you wearing all of our Crusader capes for?”

With a hoof, Sombra carefully flattened his piecemeal cape over his back and plot. “I am a King, remember? Kings wear capes, and since mine was torn asunder all those years ago, I’ve had to make due. Since your capes were all so small, I had to glue three of them together to form a suitable length. Not bad, but not great. I make it work, regardless. Everything goes good with black.”

She eyed him quizzically. “Why not get some fabric from town?”

“I’d rather not. Too many ponies would recognize me.”

“Even we didn’t know who you were until you told us. I reckon the only ones that would know would be my sis and her friends. You could’ve taken something off a clothesline, too. You didn’t need to ruin our Crusader stuff.”

Sombra grumbled and closed his eyes. “I like capes, all right! Plus it doesn’t matter. I’ll be out of your manes in a few days, so—”

Sombra went cold as someone lifted up his cape. He hurriedly retreated to a corner of the room.

“Whoa!” whispered Scootaloo, whose hoof was still in the air where she lifted his cape up.

A bead of sweat trickled down Sombra’s face, his mouth quivering. “What did you see!? Tell me now!”

Scootaloo mouth was agape. “Nothing.”

Sombra pointed a hoof at her. “You’re damn right you saw nothing!”

“No, I mean I saw nothing. No cutie mark or anything.”

“Shut up!” Sombra spat. “It’s only higher up than most! You didn’t see it right.” He thumped over to her. “My cutie mark has swords and fire and blood and is so amazing I need to wear a cape at all times otherwise your eyes would bleed from its sheer beauty. It was something I was born with; right out of the womb, I was destined for greatness!”

While he spoke, Sweetie Belle deftly undid Sombra’s cape with her horn and tossed it to the side. When a cool wind blew past the open window and his newly exposed plot, Sombra’s ears fell flat against his head and he sat on the floor with his head lowered.

He couldn’t look them in the eyes. “Go ahead. Go ahead and laugh! I’ll be the one laughing when my plan comes to fruition.”

Sweetie Belle put a hoof on his shoulder. “Why would we laugh, Mr. Sombra? It’s no big deal if you don’t have a cutie mark. It just means you haven’t found that special talent of yours yet.”

He turned to her, eyes red. “But I’ve already accomplished so much. Slavery, mutilation, death, torture, assassination, eye poking, name calling, not wiping my hooves when I enter a building. I would’ve thought at least one of those things would’ve given me my mark.” He sighed. “You have no idea how hard it is, keeping it a secret for all these years. Once, my favorite slave Jerry happened to be walking in as I was exiting the bath. For his crimes against the royal plot, I had to have him catapulted into a nearby mountain side.” Sombra mused. “I always did wonder if he didn’t knock because he only had a crush on me.”

“Don’t think you’re the only one like that, Mr. Sombra. None of us have our cutie marks, either.”

Sweetie Belle gathered the others and together they displayed their completely blank bottoms. Sombra wiped at an escaped tear and smiled thinly.

“I thank you for the kind words, but as a King, I should be respected as such. You are all… you, and will most like not amount to anything of much worth during your lifetimes.”

Apple Bloom ignored the barb. “You ever think your missing cutie mark was the reason you started doing bad stuff to begin with?”

Sombra leaned back against the wall. “Perhaps. I had a hard time in school. The fact that I never received a cutie mark in my youth, coupled together with my dark coat and appearance, made me a very unfortunate and unpopular colt. Friends were hard to come by. Even harder to keep tied up in my basement.” He giggled madly. “I called it a game. They did not. That reminds me of a time…”

As Sombra continued on, the three fillies gathered in a circled with their heads lowered in the middle. Scootaloo said to the others, “All this talk of cutie marks gives me an idea.”

“What’re ya thinking, Scootaloo?” asked Apple Bloom.

“What happens if our special talent is befriending super villains?”

Sweetie Belle asked, “Kinda like what Fluttershy did with Discord?”

“Sort of, but I think I know of a way we can do it a lot quicker.”

“How?”

Sombra, wholly ignored, huffed out angrily. “I can hear you, you know! You might not realize this, but your whispering is just as loud as your normal speaking voices!”

Sweetie Belle asked, “You think he can hear us?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “I doubt it. Anyways, what happens if the only thing stopping Sombra from being a good pony is that his body’s just too full of evil to be friends with other ponies?”

“That happened to the kitchen sink once,” Apple Bloom said. “There was a nasty clog in there that Big Mac spent half-a-day getting out. But now it works fine.”

Sweetie Belle nodded. “But how do we get it out of him? All that built-up evil gunk?”

Scootaloo thought for a moment. “Maybe it’s like squeezing juice from an orange, or a blueberry.”

“Or an apple,” added Apple Bloom.

“Or a strawberry.”

“Or a tangerine.”

“Or a grape.”

“Or a mango.”

“Or a pineapple.”

“I can still hear you!” Sombra shouted from the corner of the room.

“Or a watermelon.”

“Or a big, ugly zit!” Sweetie Belle chirped.

Her two friends spat their tongue out at her. “Eww!”

Scootaloo raised a brow. “Wanna try? It might mean a cutie mark that no one’s seen before.”

The three of them agreed by loudly clapping their hooves together.

***

Sombra was busy muttering to himself when something small latched onto to one of his forelegs. Looking up, he found Sweetie Belle tightly wrapped around him, head buried in his coat.

He stood and roughly tried to shake her off like a piece of used gum.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to rid your body of all its dark evilness,” she answered plainly enough.

“I see.”

Someone latched on to one of his back legs and he stuck his head below his legs. Apple Bloom had grabbed hold of an ankle, her hold tighter than her friend’s. While he looked that way, the last one jumped atop his back to wrap her legs around his shoulders. Her short legs barely got halfway around his neck.

“The power of friendship compels you to be good, Sombra!” Scootaloo shouted, before squeezing him with all her might.

“Really?” Sombra extended both infested legs and gave them a shake. Neither filly seemed inclined to let go. He sighed loudly. “What? You think all my darkened thoughts and powers can just be forced out of me? I was given my powers only because of how ruthless and deadly I had proven myself—despicable tasks done over centuries. Such things cannot be undone in a single embrace, young ones.”

“We’ll see,” answered Scootaloo, clearly committed to the job at hoof.

In defiance, Sombra took a quick jog around the room, hoping to bounce one of them off. Sadly, all three held on tight, hardly slipping an inch.

Sombra surprised himself with a chuckle. It was annoying, no doubt about that, but also a bit cute. They really thought they could change his very being with just a hug?

He stopped at the center of the room. “Girls, honestly, you are wasting your time here. There is no good in me, nor will there ever…” Sombra took in a breath and held it as he looked upward. His mouth hung limp, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What… what’s happening? There’s warmth in my chest. A small fire. It’s weird and I don’t like it. It hurts. It’s…” Sombra gasped. “My heart! It’s beating again! It’s been so long since I’ve felt it. It makes me feel so alive, but it hurts. It hurts! It’s scaring me!”

Scootaloo took a moment to remove her head from his neck. “See, girls! It’s working! Squeeze tighter to get out every last drop of evil! Nuzzle him if you have to!”

All three fillies gripped him tighter and buried their tiny heads into his coat.

Sombra lifted his free leg towards the ceiling, eyes glittering brilliantly from the rays of sun through the windows.

“As all my darkness is swept away, I can finally see the error of my ways. It was wrong of me to hurt others. To enslave them and have them bring me coffee that I didn’t touch for hours and then sent back because it was cold. Oh, how monstrous I have behaved.” He grabbed at his chest, right above the heart. “A light is passing through me. A bright one. So bright it burns, pushing out all feelings of pain or sorrow. Erasing all temptations to rule and enforce my will upon others. Now I know what my calling has been all along: to plant flowers, to pick up trash, to eat lemon squares and dainty treats and always use a napkin.”

“I like lemon squares!” Sweetie Belle piped up. “We can eat lemon squares together!”

Scootaloo scolded her. “Wait until we’re finished, Sweetie Belle!”

Sombra pounded against his chest with a hoof. “The light! It burns! It’s too much! Too much happiness! Too much sunshine! No more! My body cannot possibly contain anymore pure, unfiltered rays of friendship!”

With that said, he collapsed to the ground, all three fillies rolling away from him as he fell. Sweetie Belle once again poked at his unconscious face; his tongue lolled out to the side.

Apple Bloom came to watch. “He don’t look any friendlier.”

“Maybe it’s more of an inside cleansing,” Scootaloo added. “Let’s see what he says once—”

“Hehehehe hahahaha!”

Sombra started laughing on the floor, one leg holding his belly while the other wiped away tears from his eyes. His laughter went from a small chuckle to a howling shriek before it ended. He got to his hooves and sighed.

“Oh, you girls are all right. That was all very adorable.” He wiped away another tear. “I’ll make sure to kill you three last.”

Sweetie Belle grimaced. “Thanks?”

Sombra waved a hoof. “You’re quite welcome, Squeaky Bell.”

“Sweetie Belle.”

“No. I think I had it right the first time.” He strolled around the room again. “Nice try, little ones, but I’m afraid my heart is far too blackened and stained for simple hugs to fix. Plus, I like my heart the way it is. Matches the rest of me.”

Sweetie Belle turned to the others. “My sister always says the best way to get rid of stains is with bleach. Maybe we should get him to drink some of that.”

Sombra came around and patted her head. “Maybe later. But I really should be going. I’ve been found, along with my plans, so I’d best find a new place to rest until—”

“The premiere of Die Ponyville Die?” Sweetie Belle finished.

Sombra grinned. “Exactly.”

He scooped up his taped-together cape and notebook and headed for the door.

Apple Bloom held out a hoof. “Wait! Don’t you want to stick around for awhile?”

Sombra stopped. “And why would I want to spend any more time with the likes of you?”

“Do you even know what this clubhouse is for?”

He turned to face her. “To safely live out childish fantasies that adulthood will surely crush into dust?”

“No.” Apple Bloom indicated the podium against the wall, a blue and yellow symbol of a leaping foal stamped on its front. “We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders! Together, we try and find what special talents will grant us our cutie marks.”

Sombra frowned. “Good for you.”

Apple Bloom glanced at the floor. “But, if you want, I’m sure we could make you an honorary member. Don’t you still want a cutie mark in something you’re good at?”

Scootaloo sidled next to her and whispered, “You sure that’s a good idea, Apple Bloom? I mean, he is King Sombra, a pretty bad dude. And he doesn’t seem all that keen on being our friend.”

“But he can’t even use his horn,” she replied. “He said so himself. Wouldn’t it be cool to have an adult help us get our cutie marks and actually take it seriously for once? Plus, if we help him get his cutie mark, that might mean we all get one for helping him.” She thought. “Like super villain helpers! Or something that rolls off the tongue better.”

Sombra was still left standing by the door, awkwardly glancing at his cape-covered plot. “Do you promise you’ll find me my cutie mark?”

Apple Bloom gulped dryly. “We’ll sure try!”

Sombra weighed his options for a while. No matter what, his plans against the denizens of Ponyville would need to wait a few days until his powers returned to him in full. So, truthfully, what better way to kill time than by trying to get that blasted cutie mark that had been haunting him all his life?

“Fine,” he said, “but a few changes will need to happen before I agree. First, who is in charge of this little ramshackle clubhouse?”

Scootaloo told him, “No one, really, but I guess Apple Bloom makes most of the plans.”

Sombra glared at Apple Bloom unblinkingly. “So it is you I must usurp. Fine. Those that wish for Apple Bloom to stay in charge, raise a leg.”

Apple Bloom raised a leg. Hers was the only one.

“For Scootaloo to lead?” Sombra asked.

Scootaloo raised a leg and blushed. “What? I just don’t think we do enough radical stuff. We can’t do apple related activities every week, Apple Bloom.”

Sombra pointed at Sweetie Belle. “I’d give you a chance to lead, but I’m guessing you’re already in charge of snacks.”

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “He’s not wrong.”

Sombra straightened his back. “So then, who votes for King Sombra to be the newly appointed ruler of the Cutie Mark Curses?”

“Crusaders!” all three corrected.

“Whatever.” Sombra raised his leg, joined by Sweetie Belle.

The other two stared at her.

Sweetie Belle frowned. “What? No offence, Apple Bloom, but since you’ve been in charge, not a single one of us has gotten a cutie mark.” She said more quietly, “And I really like his mane.”

Sombra chuckled. “Now that all that nasty business is out of the way, I will be implementing my first major decision as your new leader.” He lowered himself to the three of them until his shadow covered their heads. He smiled wide, showcasing his fangs.

“Have the three of you ever thought your special talents might lay in super villainy?”

Author's Notes:

Sombra story no. 1,342. You'd think I'd be sick of the guy by now. You'd be wrong!

Thanks for reading!

The Worst Of Villains

Close to an hour later, Sombra gave out the garments he had been carefully piecing together by himself in the corner of the room. Sweetie Belle had lent him the necessary fabrics and her and her friends watch him in quiet astonishment. For such a dark and foreboding figure, Sombra sewed with deft precision.

“Here… one for you… and for you… and for you.”

Apple Bloom raised a brow at the new red cape on her hoof. “What was wrong with our old capes?”

Sombra shook his head. “Not the right color for villainy, I’m afraid. Red and black—those are strong colors. Plus…” He pointed at the blackened silhouette stitched into the very center of the cape. “Couldn’t very well call this group King Sombra’s Cutie Mark Crusaders without my chiseled features adorning our capes, now could we?”

Apple Bloom looked to her friends, both already donning their new apparel. “But we haven’t even agreed to be super villains. What’s so great about it, anyways? All they do is get defeated over and over again. That doesn’t sound like all that much fun.”

Sombra rolled his eyes and began fixing Sweetie Belle’s and Scootaloo’s capes around their necks. “You must be a very simpleminded mare, always looking at the smaller picture.” He sighed. “Sure, villains get destroyed, we get defeated, we get trounced—sometimes, horrifically, we get befriended—but what do we do right afterwards?”

“Cry?” ventured Sweetie Belle.

“After a good cry?”

“Take a nap?”

“After a good forty-five minute nap?”

None of the three had an answer.

“We return!” Sombra shouted. “We come back and make those that defeated us wish they’d finished us off for good the first time. We come back stronger and wiser and thirstier for blood. What doesn’t kill a villain only makes them a little more unhinged, a little more ruthless in their ways.”

Scootaloo said to Apple Bloom, “That might explain Discord.”

Sombra stuck his head close Apple Bloom’s face. “And you don’t even realize how much fun it is to be bad. Let me ask you a question, Apple Fritter.”

“That’s my cousin.”

“Whatever.” He smiled thinly. “When was the last time you saw a villain not having fun? We get to laugh and cackle and do whatever we want whenever we want. We get to wear capes every day of the year and never adhere to a bedtime schedule.”

Sweetie Belle gasped. “No bedtime? Ever!?”

He turned to her. “Nope. You can even jump on the bed and eat cookies while jumping.”

“Aren’t you afraid of crumbs?”

Sombra scoffed. “King Sombra is afraid of nothing. I am the creator of fear—its manipulator. If I wanted to, I could use my dark magic to make everyone in this tiny town believe themselves to be wearing pants.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Scootaloo said.

Sombra glared at her. “Pants full of sand?”

All three fillies shivered at the notion.

Sombra stood before them with his back straight. “Villainy is an art form like any other. It must be respected and done well, otherwise there is no point in doing it at all. What sounds nobler to you, Apple Bloom? A hero that always gets their way and never encounters hardship? Or a villain that is forced to fight for their ideals and always strives to do better; pick themselves up with their own volition time and time again?” He took her cape and tied it around her neck. “Heroes are lazy. They only do what they do when they are forced to deal with the likes of me. Villains are the ones that get things started; villains are the ones that get the job done so that heroes can exist to begin with.”

He stood in the middle of the window frame, a golden ray of light outlining his jet black mane and blood red cape. He gave his head a quick flick to jostle his wavy mane.

“And we always look damn good doing it.”

***

Sombra stood at the podium in the corner of the room, a half-dozen cue cards by his hooves. Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo sat on the floor in front of him—Sweetie Belle with parchment and quill to record today’s lessons.

“We will start with names,” Sombra said, leaning over the podium to see them better. “Proper villains are only as good as their names. So that is where we will start.”

Scootaloo raised a leg. “What’s wrong with Scootaloo?”

“Everything.” He pointed at Apple Bloom. “Let’s start with the easiest. You will now be known as Apple Doom, also known as The End Bringer.”

Apple Bloom looked confused. “How am I supposed to bring the end?”

“That’s up to you to figure out.” He pointed at Sweetie Belle. “You shall be Slaughter Belle the Terrible, capable of exploding hearts with just the sound of your voice.”

Her eyes went wide. “What? When did I do that?”

“Every day since the day you were born. And last but least, Scootaloo…” He thought for a moment. “Umm… Scootaloo, also known as… Screw Loose? No, that’s no good.” He waved a hoof. “Okay, I’ll come back to you.”

Scootaloo frowned. “Hey! That’s not fair!”

“You’d rather be known as Scootaloo the Grumpy Butt?”

She grimaced. “Not really.”

“Then we’ll figure your name out later.” Sombra clapped his hooves. “Now comes the fun part: the sad backstory. No proper villain is complete without a good backstory that effortlessly tugs at the heart strings of all those around.”

Apple Bloom asked, “What’s yours, then? No one really knows besides all that Crystal Empire stuff and your fight with my sis and her friends.”

Sombra pursed his lips. “What do you mean? Surely there must be some history books that go into lavish detail about my life’s work.”

All three of them shook their heads.

“Really?” He pouted. “I feel so cheated! So shortchanged! As if the great King Sombra was not worthy of a proper back story or a meticulously constructed character arc!” He lowered his head to the podium, eyeing up his notebook full of carefully articulated revenge notes. He growled, “I think my image might need to be rectified soon.”

“Why don’t you tell us your backstory, then, Mr. Sombra?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I’m sure it’s interesting.”

Sombra nodded. “It’s very interesting, have no doubt, but all this isn’t about me. I’m still trying to create a formidable ragtag group of evil villainesses out of you and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m giving you all a two percent chance of success. But we will venture forth, regardless.” He indicated Apple Bloom. “Give us your backstory.”

Apple Bloom blushed. “Okay, then. I grew up on a farm, with my Granny and my older brother and sister. We buck apples and sell them in town. And I love my family more than anything.”

“And what was your reason for turning to villainy?”

“Because you asked us to.”

Sombra grumbled. “No. No! You’re not doing it right. Your name is Apple Doom, and you grew up in a dilapidated farm on the outskirts of town. Your family neglected you, made you work the fields all hours of the night. Cut up, bruised, you brunt the worst of your family’s wrath as they laughed and ate juicy apples right in front of you. In your suffering, you made yourself a secret vow to see them all dead. So one night, you injected every apple in the house with rat poison, boarding up the doors so none could escape or call for help.”

Apple Bloom blanched. “That sounds terrible! Why does my back story need to be so mean?”

“Because the worst type of childhoods create the worst type of monsters.”

Apple Bloom crossed her legs over her chest. “I just don’t think my whole family needs to be dead to have a good back story.”

Sombra raised a brow. “Just your parents, then?”

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shook their heads at him.

“They already are dead.”

Sombra bit his tongue and went pale. “Oh… I… didn’t know. I’m…” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Apple Bloom. You may keep the rest of your family alive in your back story, if you wish.”

Apple Bloom looked downcast. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

Sombra awkwardly coughed into a hoof. “Well, that sure drained the fun out of the room. Let’s move onto Scootaloo, or Skull-Crusher, or no that’s terrible.” He pointed two hooves at her. “Backstory, go!”

Scootaloo glanced at her friends. “Umm. I’m an orphan, if that’s what you mean.”

He slammed his hoof down. “Perfect! Done!”

“Really? That’s it?”

Sombra nodded. “Yes. I think in this case, the more that’s left to the imagination, the better. ‘Why was she an orphan? What was it about her later in life that pushed other ponies away; made it impossible to get close? Was it because she always smelled like cabbage? Did she chew with her mouth open? Was she a mouth-breather? Was her only topic of conversation the weather and if it might rain later in the day, and then if it did, was she the type that always made sure to say I told you so?’”

Scootaloo slumped. “I don’t like my back story.”

Sombra smirked. “You’re not supposed to, but at least you’re starting to understand. All right, Sweetie Belle. Hit me with your best plot!”

Sweetie Belle stood up and cleared her throat. She smiled at him sweetly. “My name is Sweetie Belle and I live with my older sister who makes a whole bunch of clothes for ponies.”

“And somehow she’s still in business…” Sombra mumbled.

Sweetie Belle nodded. “One day, I came back home to find my sister creating a new dress.”

Sombra yawned.

“A new dress made out of pony skin!”

Sombra leaned forward, clearly invested. “A family trade secret, perhaps?”

“And when Rarity saw me standing there, she instantly died of shame and fell to the floor, and the next day the Boutique sold the most gorgeous white and purple skirt.”

Sombra stared at her unblinking. “I’m becoming concerned about you, Sweetie Belle.”

She pouted. “Why?”

“Because you’re already leaps and bounds ahead of your friends.” He smiled and went to her, pulling out a yellow sticker from his cape that he stuck to her forehead. “Gold star!”

She tried to look at her new sticker. “Thanks?”

Sombra showcased a hidden pocket loaded with tiny stickers. “Collect five gold stars and receive a purple moon. Get two purple moons and you’ll get the highest reward: a giant smiley face sticker.”

Apple Bloom raised her leg. “What happens when we get a smiley sticker?”

“Nothing. The stickers are nothing more than meaningless psychological validations.” He grinned. “Would you believe I took over a whole Empire with these things?”

***

The clubhouse rang out with the noise of laughter; a dark chuckle that soon bloomed into a cackle with a side order of sharp giggles. From this came a startling shriek that edged towards madness, before it abruptly ended in a sigh.

Sombra lowered his head to look at the three of them. “Now that’s how you do a proper villain laugh.”

He got them to stand in the center of the room, a wide length apart from each other. He stood in front of Sweetie Belle, who raised her head and gave a forced laugh. It didn’t sound like she was having all that much fun with it.

Sombra shook his head. “No. No, that won’t do. Here’s a trick I always use. Imagine what makes you happy. Picture it in your head and keep it there. Let it tickle your ribs and let the guffaws flow forth.” He busied himself angling her head up and her back straight—the proper laughing pose. “What I’ve been imagining lately is a pony, inside out, but still alive. Doesn’t that sound funny?” He lowered to her. “Got something in mind?”

Sweetie Belle thought, then nodded. “Yep.”

“What it is?”

“A big, puffy marshmallow.”

Sombra closed his eyes and brought a hoof to his temple. “Is it at least on fire?”

“Nope. It’s in my tummy and it’s delicious.”

“And that makes you happy? Marshmallows?”

She nodded. “Yep. Even better between graham crackers.”

Sombra huffed out angrily. “Where’s your gold star? I’m taking it back.”

Sweetie Belle avoided his stare. “I lost it. I’m sorry, Mr. Sombra.”

A tad annoyed, he calmly took a breath and ruffled her mane. “That’s all right. There are always more where those came from. Maybe villainous laughter can wait. Perhaps a proper villainous deed will get the correct chuckles out of you sorry lot.”

He strolled behind the podium again. “But before we start with our first plan of attack, let’s do roll call.”

Scootaloo sat on the floor again. “Why? There’s only the four of us. And we’re all here already.”

Sombra showed her a fang. “Humor me, please. It’s for my own personal safety.” He put on a pair of black reading glasses and held a small scroll in a hoof. “Apple Bloom?”

“Here.”

“Scootaloo?”

“Here, obviously.”

“No need for that, Spider Glue. Nope. Still haven’t found a name for you. Next. Sweetie Belle?”

“Present!”

Sombra peered around the room, eyeing up the bare windows. “Twilight Sparkle?”

Apple Bloom came up to the podium. “Why would Twilight Sparkle be here? We only spend time at her castle for Twilight Time.”

Sombra ignored her. “Twilight Sparkle!? Are you present or are you not?”

He waited half a minute before facing the fillies again. All was silent from outside.

He took off his reading glasses. “I have a good inkling that if Twilight Sparkle were indeed in earshot, she would not be able to resist answering roll call, whether intended or not.”

“What makes you say that?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Because it is widely known that Ms. Sparkle has a rather strong promptness fetish, meaning being tardy just a single time might shatter her very existence and send her on a downward spiral towards self-cannibalism and overdue library books. I’ve seen it happen before.”

Scootaloo raised a leg. “What’s a fetish?”

He leaned against the podium. “You know how some ponies really like something? Well, imagine they like it so much that it scares other ponies—that their whole life revolves around that thing they like, and they’ll do absolutely anything to have more of it.”

“So you’re saying Apple Bloom has an apple fetish?”

Apple Bloom turned to her. “Hey!”

Sombra nodded sadly. “I believe so; a severe one by the sounds of it. I’d keep a close eye on any apples near that one, if I were you.”

Apple Bloom crossed her forelegs. “I do not have an apple fetish! Applejack, maybe…”

Sombra clapped his hooves together. “Enough time spent inside. Let’s begin. Where, pray tell, is your club’s treasury?”

Scootaloo scrunched her face. “Our what?”

“Your funds. Your monetary means. Your bits and coin. Whatever keeps this place afloat.”

She glanced at her friends. “We don’t have any.”

Sombra grimaced. “Nothing? How are we supposed to get started? You’re not funded by Celestia or something? A royal grant? Even I knew of some villains hundreds of years ago that lived off grants supplied by the royal family. ‘Performing Arts,’ they called it. ‘Garbage,’ I always corrected.”

All three girls sat in silence, waiting for one of them to speak. Eventually, Sweetie Belle stood. “Whenever we want to raise money, we make a lemonade stand to set up in town. On hot days, a lot of ponies end up stopping by. We could do that, if you wanted to.”

Sombra rubbed at his chin. “It’ll have to do. For now.” He came to stand before them, his eyes opened wide and burning in an eerie glow. “So it is decided! We shall plan and administer the grandest lemonade sale of all time, and afterwards we will have the necessary funds to continue with our plans.” He held a hoof by his head. “No other drink stand will dare get in our way! Not with King Sombra in charge.”

Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo, “He’s got gumption, I’ll give him that.”

Sombra eyed the windows again. “Twilight Sparkle!? If you do not answer, you will be marked as tardy and it shall be placed on your permanent record for all time!”

Silence followed.

“Good enough. Come little troublemakers. Let us rob this town of all its bits.”

Wrapping his legs around their shoulders, he escorted them out the door.

***

Applejack could hardly hold Twilight still even as her four other friends also tried their best to keep her pinned on the ground. Every chance Twilight got, she attempted to wrestle loose from them, one leg hoisted in the air as if answering an important question.

The six of them grappled together underneath the Cutie Mark Crusader’s clubhouse.

Rarity had wrapped a leg around Twilight’s head, keeping her quiet. “What in Equestria has gotten into her? All Sombra did was ask if she was present.”

Twilight managed to free herself from Rarity’s grip. “No! I can’t be tardy! He asked if I was here and I haven’t answered yet! He’ll think I’m late! Let me go!”

Applejack pushed her into the grass and planted two hooves on her chest. “This ain’t no schoolhouse, Twilight. This is just my little sis’s clubhouse and you weren’t even invited. Maybe Sombra’s actually onto something about you being late for things. Maybe you do got some kinda fetish about attendance.”

Twilight looked up at her, pleading. “But I’ve never missed a single day of school, ever. Not even a single minute!”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, sugarcube.”

Rainbow Dash stood by their sides. “Let me handle this. Twilight Sparkle, are you here?”

Twilight shot out both legs with gusto. “Here! Present!” A second later, she stopped moving against the ground and glanced at her friends with a blush. She closed her eyes. “I did it again, didn’t I? The roll call thing?”

Applejack helped her up. “I don’t know how all our enemies are figuring that out about you, but we gotta figure out a solution soon. Last time Discord asked if you were present, you raised your leg so fast, you nearly gave me a shiner.”

Twilight lowered her head. “No more, I promise. But, bigger problem: what do we do about Sombra? He mentioned a grand scheme against Ponyville. We cannot let him get away with it.”

Applejack nodded. “Let’s not forget the fact that he’s spending his time with my sister.”

“Sweetie Belle, too!” Rarity added.

The five of them looked at Rainbow Dash expectantly.

Rainbow Dash sighed and rolled her eyes, leaning against the tree casually. “And Scootaloo, too. Don’t go forgetting about her.”

“Exactly,” Twilight said. “I understand it’s dangerous for the four of them to be together, but I also don’t think we should stop them just yet.”

Applejack took off her hat. “Come again?”

“Think of it like this: as long as Sombra and the CMCs are trying to get their cutie marks, his mind is focused on that and not destroying the town.”

Applejack frowned. “That ain’t a good enough reason, Twilight. We could stop him right now if we wanted to. No magic means no threat.”

“But what happens if Sombra does get his cutie mark and he no longer wants to act as an enemy of Equestria? What if it turns him into a friend, like Discord?”

Applejack thought. “That still sounds like a long shot, Twilight. I know you like to look at the best of ponies, but Sombra’s done some right nasty stuff in his time.”

Twilight raised a brow. “At the moment, King Sombra just joined a club of three fillies and personally designed their capes. I’d say he’s not in the worst of moods right now, and I think it might be beneficial to keep him that way.”

“Where’d he learn to sew, anyways?” Rarity asked.

Twilight said, “I image if you live as long as he has, you’d pick up a few skills.”

Applejack put her hat back on and looked at them all. “If we’re gonna let this continue, then I want a promise from all y’all that someone will always be keeping a sharp eye on them. The moment Sombra does something dastardly, we put a stop to it right then and there. Agreed?”

The other five nodded.

“All right. Good enough for me.”

Pinkie Pie bounced onto her back, stealing her hat and holding it above her head. “And just think how much fun it’ll be! Sombra running a lemonade stand? Who’s coming up with this stuff!?”

Applejack sighed and bucked her off.

Author's Notes:

Going to the states to celebrate the 4th. (Dual citizen!) Have a good one! Or if you're Canadian, hope you had a good one! Won't be able to update for a bit, but I'll try and brainstorm on the ride down.

BTW, anyone got a good Scootaloo villain name? I can't think of one to save my life.

The Grandest Of Stands

The sun was bright and burning and centered squarely above the town. Cloud cover was non-existent and any breeze that day was weak at best. Sombra wiped away a bead of sweat from his forehead and shielded his eyes with a leg. If Celestia had wanted to rule over Equestria with an iron hoof, all she’d need to do is up the price on water and bring the sun closer to the ground. But of course, Celestia wasn’t as evil as him.

“This will work,” Sombra said, looking first up the street one way and then the other.

It had taken close to an hour to hammer together the CMC’s ramshackle lemonade stand. While he hammered away, the other three gathered together the necessary ingredients for the day: sugar, lemons, cups, straws. A former tyrant King asking with his best manners for a cup of sugar from one of the Elements might come off as a little odd.

Atop the stand, Apple Bloom finished stirring the first batch of lemonade, slices of lemons and chunks of ice swirling around the large punch bowl. She gave him a glass. “Here you go, Sombra. Looks like you did a mighty fine job with the stand.”

He gave the stand a once-over. After retrieving it from the Apple family barn, he’d instantly grimaced from the sight. No two pieces of wood were the same size or color, nor did they properly meet. Boards slumped and most were in desperate need of polish and a good sanding. Most disgusting of all, the letters on the front: “CMC’S LEMONADE STAND,” complete with a couple backwards letters and each one done in a different color. Perhaps the three fillies had been going for something cute, possibly to help customers ignore their shoddily-made lemony beverage. The only problem? Sombra didn’t do “cute.”

Sombra did professional.

He held the glass of icy liquid in front of his face. “Why are these glasses so big?”

Apple Bloom tilted her head. “What do you mean? These are always the glasses we use—the ones I borrow from my kitchen.”

Sombra sniffed the top. “Smaller glasses would have been better. The customer receives less liquid and is therefore more prone to return and have another glass. We save on lemonade with each serving using the smaller glasses, therefore reaping the benefits. Alas, these will have to do.”

He took a dainty sip and sloshed it around his mouth before gulping. “Not bad. Not too tart or too sour. But add more sugar.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “But that’s the Apple family recipe! Everyone likes our lemonade.”

Sombra set the glass down and raised a brow. “A family that revolves around apples has a lemonade recipe?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s not go down that path. I never said it was bad, only that extra sugar couldn’t hurt. Your town’s populace is dumb, or perhaps dumber than regular dumb, meaning if something is sweet and refreshing, they will return for more without hesitation.”

Scootaloo stood by Apple Bloom. “That doesn’t sound all that healthy.”

Sombra chuckled. “I have yet to see a single overweight pony in this town. I’m starting to believe it’s impossible to get fat here. More sugar won’t hurt, I promise. You’re really going to need to start trusting me, children.”

Both of them hesitated, eyes going from the punchbowl back to Sombra.

Sombra lowered to them and grinned wide, fangs glimmering in the burning sun.

“Do I seem like the type to lie?”

***

Sombra couldn’t quite understand it. Their stand had been open for business for close to an hour and all they’d sold had been a glass apiece to Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. When Sombra saw them coming up the street, he dived headfirst into a nearby bush and watched them from there. While hiding, his anger at each of them made his body thrum like an electric current. For a moment, he became worried his rage would become too much and he’d jump out to attack, or else that he’d burst into flames and everyone would start to wonder why that bush had spontaneously caught on fire.

Sombra’s face ached from scowling at them so much.

When the Elements went on their way, Sombra returned to his post next to the others, as little good as it did. He tried to drum up some business.

“Hey, you! Peon! Buy some of this yellow liquid! It is hot outside and now you want it!”

The stallion trotting by came to a stop and stared at Sombra uneasily. He took a few steps towards the stand. “Aren’t you a little bit old to be selling lemonade?”

Sombra lifted his chin. “I have no idea what you mean. I’m barely a day over five hundred and twelve.”

Sweetie Belle leaned over to the stallion. “He’s just helping us. He’s… Scootaloo’s long lost father.”

Sombra and Scootaloo turned to her, glaring.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “What? I dunno what I was supposed to say. Uncle? Complete stranger?”

The stallion furrowed his brows, looking from Sombra to Scootaloo. “You should be happy you got your looks from your mother, then. Maybe I’ll come back later.”

The stallion left as Sombra stared daggers at him, one of his sharp fangs poking his lower lip. “This isn’t working. We need to raise the stakes. We need ponies to want our product. We need to force them to want it.”

Apple Bloom rested her head on a hoof. “And how do we do that?”

“Leave that to me.”

Sombra turned and strolled away from them, a bit of wind catching his cape before it fell back into place. In that brief moment, Apple Bloom noticed a few heavily faded scars along both sides of his lower back and plot. Ignoring them, she soon returned to chopping lemons and enjoying the day.

***

Since Sombra had no means of increasing the sun’s wrath or destroying every icebox in town, he did the next best thing. The town’s water pump sat on the other side of town and he found it easily. With next to no one around, he whistled tunelessly and stepped over the wide metal pipe that dispersed the water from the basin to every home in Ponyville. While stepping over it, he gave it a mighty kick, wincing as the pain traveled from his hoof all the way to his brain.

The pipe stayed locked where it was. So he kicked again. Then another time just to be sure.

“Hmm.”

Sombra scratched his chin.

“Oh.”

The shutoff valve. He’d almost missed it entirely. Two hard spins later, Sombra could hear the rushing water from the pipe come to an immediate halt. He smirked.

“No more water for you, Ponyville.”

***

With Sombra’s dark and foreboding figure gone, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle found a sharp increase in business. While he was gone, close to two dozen stallions and mares came by to give them a bit and take a glass, most complimenting the Crusader’s drink. A few even said how sweet it tasted, compared to the watered-down lemonade sold from those two “creeps” also selling in another part of town.

Apple Bloom added the latest hooful of bits and coins to their Power Ponies lunch box stashed at the bottom of the stand and found a small mound already growing. She smiled. The bits were nice, but Apple Bloom enjoyed running a business more. It made her feel more adult. Something she wished the rest of her family would do more often.

“And just what do you three think you’re doing?”

Just like that, Apple Bloom’s smile faded away.

She looked up to find Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in front of their stand, an overwhelming look of annoyance to both of them.

Apple Bloom sighed. “It’s a lemonade stand. It says so on the front.”

Diamond Tiara came up to them. “Oh, I know what it is. I’m just curious why you’re even bothering. I don’t think a single pony in Ponyville likes your lemonade at all.”

Apple Bloom put her hooves on top of the stand. “That’s not true!”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not—that’s just what ponies have been saying. Plus, how do you expect to sell to anyone after we set up only a block away?” She flipped her mane out of her eyes. “My father imported lemons from the best orchard around, and I had my servant gather the most expensive types of sugar he could find and create the most perfect lemonade.”

Scootaloo whispered to Apple Bloom. “By the sounds of it, I think she’s going to actually lose money selling lemonade.”

Sweetie Belle stood by Apple Bloom and tightened her jaw. “Why are you even selling lemonade? Your father’s rich! You don’t need any money.”

Diamond Tiara giggled. “I know that. But when I saw how nice it was out today, I just knew you three blank flanks would be running this crappy stand again.” She took a moment to stare at the stand’s lettering. “Although I will say it looks better than before. Still, when ponies try our lemonade, they won’t even give your stand a second look.”

Sweetie Belle banged a hoof against the boards. “I’ll have you know we’ve already sold a ton of lemonade, and ponies told us they loved it! We’ll show you! We’ll sell more lemonade by the end of the day than both of you!”

Diamond Tiara smiled. “Big words. If only your voice matched them.” She threw a couple bits onto the stand. “Here, enough for two glasses. Friendly competition and all that.”

Sweetie Belle stared at the bits for a while; Apple Bloom did the same.

“Am I not a paying customer?” asked Diamond Tiara snidely.

Begrudgingly, Apple Bloom filled two glasses and slid them over, no ice or straw included.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon both took their glasses and held it close to their mouths, before dumping the contents onto the street. They placed the empty glasses back on the stand.

“I wouldn’t dare ruin my taste buds with lemonade made by blank flanks. Let’s go, Silver Spoon.”

Diamond Tiara trotted away, Silver Spoon trailing behind. Before she got too far, Silver Spoon turned her head and mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” before galloping to catch up.

As Scootaloo began to clean the empty glasses, Sweetie Belle sat on the ground and crossed her legs over her chest, lowering her head. She sniffled and her eyes began to water. “It’s just not fair. They have the best of everything, and the one thing we do to make a few bits, they just have to do too. And they don’t even need the money.”

Apple Bloom wrapped a leg around her. “Oh, just ignore them. Heck, they might not even have a stand, and even if they do, I can’t imagine them using it for long. Not on a hot day like today.” She brought out the coin-filled lunch box and shook it noisily. “Hear how many bits we have already, Sweetie Belle? Even if this is all we make today, we still did good.”

Sweetie Belle nodded, without a lot of conviction. “I guess.” She sighed. “But I wonder where Sombra went.”

***

It hadn’t taken long for Sombra to track them down. All he had to do was follow the trail of unfinished lemonade cans and sing-song melodies lazily floating in the air—something to do with an assault on the senses that leaves one reeling for more of the brothers’ tasty concoction. It was catchy, Sombra had to say, but also horribly annoying. Somehow, the pair of salesponies had managed to rhyme “lemonade” with over a hundred different words in a matter of seconds. When Sombra tried to rhyme “lemonade” himself, all that came to mind was “slave trade.”

“You two,” Sombra greeted, stopping before their traveling wagon converted into a makeshift stand, “stop your infectious tunes at once.”

“A customer!” one of them cried.

“Right you are! A customer!” cried the other, striking the exact same pose as his brother.

Sombra ran a rough hoof along his face. Sweetie Belle was loud—piercingly loud. These two seemed set on out-shouting even the likes of her.

“Welcome tall, dark, and thirsty to the Flim and Flam Brother’s Lemonade Escapade of Yesterday!” He wrapped a leg around his brother—the one without the mustache. “This here is Flim and I am Flam. How many cans of delicious lemonade can we put you down for?”

Sombra glanced from the smiling pair to a mare a few yards away. He watched her pop open her can and take a sip, only to stick out her tongue and throw it in the trash.

Sombra turned back to them. “None, I’m afraid. And why is it called the ‘Escapade of Yesterday’? Today is today, not yesterday.”

Flam leaned in close—too close. “Because with just one sip of our miraculous ice-cold liquid libation, you’ll start wondering how you were ever thirsty to begin with—including yesterday! Right, Flim?”

“Right, Flam!” the other one answered.

Sombra rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Well, obviously he was going to agree with you.”

Flam held out a can to Sombra. “Care for a sample? Might add a bit of color to your otherwise dour appearance.”

Sombra lifted a leg to glance at his coat. “No. I’ve worked quite hard to rid myself of bright hues some time ago. I’ll stick with this for now.” He placed both forelegs on their stand. “But let’s talk about you two now. I want you gone. Away from here. No more terrible lemonade giving lemonade a bad name.”

Flim chuckled. “You must be pulling on one of our four legs, good sir. Our lemonade is the best in the land!”

“Is that why I counted over thirty-four half-finished cans of it on the ground while I walked over here?”

Flim chuckled again, a little weaker. “Oh, that’s only because it quenches thirst so well, a full can is much too much for the average pony!”

Sombra raised a brow. “What about the piles of vomit next to the cans?”

Sweat trickled down Flim’s cheek. “Ponies allergic to lemons, perhaps?”

Flam came to stand before his brother. “If you’re not planning on buying our wonderful product, sir, you can depart from here. We have no plans of leaving. We’ve absolutely done nothing wrong. Good day!”

Sombra grinned. “So you will not move? Is that what you are saying?”

Flam crossed his legs. “I said ‘good day,’ sir!”

Sombra let out an thick tendril of purple smoke from each eye, drifting close to his mane. He added a glow behind both eyes, highlighting his red and green hypnotic stare.

Flam gulped dryly. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Showing you the error of your ways,” Sombra told him calmly, “using fear.”

Flam held up a hoof. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Flim stepped in front of him. “My brother told you to leave, so you’d better—”

Once he caught sight of Sombra’s glare, Flim cut his sentence short as his eyes darkened and went purple. His mouth hung limp and his shoulders slumped.

Sombra asked him, “What is it you fear, pray tell? And speak truthfully.”

Flim’s eyes were locked tight on his. “That our parents will find out what we’ve been doing. That they’d be ashamed of us.” His chin quivered. “I didn’t want to do all this stuff! It’s all Flam! Every time he comes up with something, he tells me it’ll be different, but all we’re doing is selling cheap stuff that we pretend is great! I don’t wanna be known as a crook, but he’s my brother and when he says he needs my help, I feel I have to.” He sniffled. “And I hate the songs! We rehearse all night long and there’s so many words and some of them don’t even rhyme and we sing them like forty times a day! You know how embarrassing it is to sing and dance for one pony that doesn’t even buy some—”

Flam jammed a hoof into his brother’s mouth. “What do you think you’re doing, Flim? What’s gotten into you?” He turned to Sombra. “What did you do to him?”

Sombra glared at Flam. “This.”

The effect was instantaneous, as Flam’s eyes clouded over with a deep purple mass. Sombra expected more of the same drivel that his brother unburdened, but got something completely different in return.

Flam hitched in a breath. “I’m afraid Flim’s going to try and steal my mustache soon. Like at night, while I’m asleep, he’ll take a razor and chop it off and pretend to be me around town. We’re almost identical, so he could get away with it too! And it’s all because he’s jealous of it. He’s never been able to grow a mustache, so now he wants mine!” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I can’t let that happen! Don’t you understand? This mustache is all I’ve got! Without it, who am I? I’ll tell you what. I’m Flim! But I can’t be Flim, because I’m Flam! Flam’s the one with the mustache, remember? That’s all ponies know about me!” He rubbed two hooves into his eyes, blubbering loudly. “What have I become?”

“My sweetest friend, you’ve become something you hate, and it’s beautiful to watch.” Sombra’s smile widened as he placed a hoof on his shoulder. “But I have lemonade to sell. And both you and your brother have major life decisions to discuss.”

Sombra lit up his horn. Before leaving, he kicked over their wagon and dropped the nearby heaviest tree branch on it. Nicely flattened, watery lemonade cascaded onto the ground from the wreckage. Neither Flim nor Flam seemed to notice or care, as they kept on crying and consoling one another. Flam wouldn’t remove his hoof from overtop his mustache.

Sombra rubbed his hooves together.

“Now, I’ve only one thing left to do.”

***

Sombra visibly brightened as he returned to the CMC’s stand. Over his cape he had on a saddlebag loaded with small glass objects, gently tinkling next to each other.

He eyed the half-empty punchbowl and gave the lunchbox a shake. He ruffled each of their manes and set down his pack. “You’ve all done well in my absence. Seems we are making progress. But I’m sure very soon, we’ll have more business than all four of us can handle.”

Scootaloo came up to him. “What did you do, Sombra? Tell ponies about our stand?”

Sombra chewed on his tongue. “Not… exactly. But I can’t give away all of my dastardly secrets, now can I?”

Scootaloo stared up at him. “How many secrets do you have, exactly?”

“More than I’d like.”

Sombra grabbed a thin green bottle from his pack and emptied its contents into the punch bowl. When that bottle ran dry, he grabbed the next one and did the same. Scootaloo looked inside his pack and found another ten or so.

Apple Bloom popped the top off one and smelled it, gagging instantly. “That smells awful! Why would you put that in our lemonade?”

Sombra didn’t stop pouring. “You know before when I said we had to add more sugar?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this is sort of the same principle. More of this stuff—” he held up a bottle and took a tiny sip “—can only make our product better. Also, I think selling lemonade to children has run its course. We need to diversify our demographic and target adults. They’re the ones with more bits, so we can charge more for our drink.”

Scootaloo sniffed the same bottle Apple Bloom had. “Where’d you even get this stuff?”

Sombra kept pouring. “Around town. There was a nearby restaurant I tele… I went inside and took from. I’m sure they won’t be missed.”

Once Sombra had finished off the last bottle and added more sugar and lemon juice to the mix, he gave the stirring spoon to Sweetie Belle.

“Since you’ve been so quiet since I’ve come back, I’ll get you to stir.”

Sluggishly, Sweetie Belle climbed atop the counter and held the spoon between two hooves. Without a word, she dropped it into the bowl and lightly swirled it around.

Sombra furrowed his brows. “What’s wrong, Sweetie Belle? I thought you three enjoyed selling lemonade.”

Sweetie Belle sighed. “We do, it’s just that…” she frowned, and her eyes shimmered. “Never mind. It’s okay now.”

Sombra took the spoon from her and angled her head to look at him. “What happened? Why do you look so sad?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” she answered softly.

Sombra looked at Apple Bloom. “What happened here? Tell me now.”

“It’s not a big deal, really. Just two bullies from our class came by and told us how much our lemonade stunk. Then they said they’d set up their own stand that would blow ours out of the water.”

Sombra clicked his sharp teeth together. “What are their names?”

“Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon,” Scootaloo told him. “Although I think Silver Spoon just follows Diamond Tiara around because she tells her to. They call us ‘blank flanks,’ even though they’ve only had theirs for a year or so.”

“Blank flanks?” Sombra spat, his eyelids twitching. Tendrils of purple smoke billowed out from both eyes. “They ridicule you three simply because you don’t have cutie marks? I’ll kill them! I’ll peel off their skin and make them eat it! Who has a potato peeler I can borrow?”

Scootaloo took a step back. “Why are your eyes like that?”

Sweetie Belle had begun stirring the lemonade again, but dropped the spoon when Sombra quickly wrapped her up with both legs, pinning her to his chest.

He whispered to her, “I will find those that made you cry and I will make them pay. That, I promise you, Nocturne.”

Sweetie Belle managed to look up at him. “My name’s Sweetie Belle, remember? Or it is still Slaughter Belle? I can’t remember now.”

Sombra ran a hoof through her mane and tried for a shaky smile. “Yes, of course. Sweetie Belle. My mistake. How silly of me. Stay here and try to forget what they said, all right? They are foolish and don’t yet understand just how amazing not having a cutie mark can be. They already know where their talents lie, but you three… your talents could be anything you could possibly imagine… anything you could dream.”

Sweetie Belle was about to say more, but Sombra disappeared in a puff of black smoke, leaving her to tumble forward and land in the dirt by their stand. She waved a leg around to get rid of the smoke.

Scootaloo leaned over the edge of the stand. “I thought he said he didn’t have his magic anymore; that it was gone?”

Apple Bloom stood next to her. “He did say that. You reckon he’s been lying to us the whole time?”

Scootaloo thought for a moment. “Either way, what do you think he’s gonna to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon? He wouldn’t… I don’t know, hurt them, would he?”

“I know they deserve something for the way they act, but I don’t wanna see them get hurt,” Apple Bloom said. “I mean, Sombra hasn’t hurt any of us, right? I don’t think he’d hurt fillies.”

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at each other uneasily.

Sweetie Belle got to her hooves and brushed away the dirt from her sides. “I’ll go check it out. You two stay here and see if whatever Sombra added to the lemonade really works.”

Apple Bloom looked concerned. “You sure about that, Sweetie Belle? Sombra looked a lot scarier than usual this time.”

“If things get bad, I could always get my sister. Rarity always knows what to do. Older sisters always know what they’re doing.”

***

Rarity snored gracefully on the spread out picnic blanket, a pair of shades pulled over her eyes and an unread magazine by her head. She and Pinkie Pie had been scheduled to keep an eye on the CMCs as they spent time with Sombra that day. It also happened to be one of the hottest days of the year, so Rarity had decided to take the time to make the most out of the beautiful weather.

“Sombra’s back!” Pinkie Pie chirped next to her, sitting on the grass in the small clearing across the street from Apple Bloom’s lemonade stand. Pinkie Pie held a pair of oversized binoculars to her eyes. “And now he’s gone! And now Sweetie Belle’s gone too!”

“That’s nice, dear,” Rarity replied, repositioning herself to better catch the sun’s rays.

“He ran off in a big puff of smoke, like, like, foom! Or, no, like a magician! Oooh, oooh, do you think he’d ever put on a magic show!? That would be so much fun!” Pinkie Pie turned to her. “Hey, Rarity? D’ya think he got his dark, mysteriooous supervillain powers back, maybe?”

“That’s nice,” Rarity repeated absently.

As a stumbling mare with a grapevine cutie mark stepped up to the lemonade stand for the fourth time in just as many minutes, Pinkie Pie got herself an idea.

“You think I should get us some lemonade while we’re staking out, Rarity?”

“That sounds nice.”

“I know nothing goes better than watching washed up villains and lemonade.”

“Very true. Say hi to Sweetie Belle for me.”

“If she comes back, you mean.”

Rarity started to snore again.

Author's Notes:

I thought all this lemonade stand business would remain a single chapter. Turns out I was wrong!

The Coolest Of Clubhouses

Sombra’s hooves vibrated in the dirt, his mouth twitching between a smirk and a sneer. It hadn’t taken him long to find the two fillies that ran the other lemonade stand a block over, and for the longest time he waited and watched, trying to catch his breath and steady his thoughts.

It was easy to figure out which bully was which by their cutie marks. Diamond Tiara leaned back in her cushioned chair while a servant of hers handed out glasses of lemonade fitted with mini-umbrellas. Currently, only two ponies stood waiting in line.

Sombra’s eyes darted from Silver Spoon to Diamond Tiara.

Which one first? Who would scream the loudest?

He stepped towards the stand, teeth bared.

A tiny hoof touched his shoulder.

“Please don’t, Mr. Sombra,” Sweetie Belle said, looking up to him. “Please don’t hurt them. My sister always says that violence never solves anything.”

“The same sister that ripped me limb from limb only a few years ago?” he growled.

Sweetie Belle looked away. “But you were up to no good, remember?”

“And those two aren’t?” He knelt to her. “I know it must be hard to understand, but I can make this pain go away. All of it. One spell—one little spell—and then you’ll never need to deal with them again. No more taunting; no more name-calling. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment. “It does, but I don’t want it like that. Twilight told all of us that bullies only do what they do because they’re afraid. I even think one day we might be friends with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Or… at least Silver Spoon.”

Sombra clicked his teeth together. “Not good enough.”

He took a step forward and Sweetie Belle stopped him with two hooves to the chest.

“Please, Mr. Sombra! Can’t we just go back to our stand? I’m sure Apple Bloom and Scootaloo need our help.”

He took another step, pushing her along. “Right after a quick double murder; shouldn’t take longer than a minute.”

Sweetie Belle wrapped herself around him. “Do it for me, then, please?”

Sombra stopped. A heat burned behind both eyes.

Do it for me?

He'd broken that first promise, all those many years ago. Would he really do the same now?

He gave her a quick squeeze. “For you, Sweetie Belle, those two will live to see another day. But that does not mean I will not sink their business.”

He lit up his horn and directed it towards the mare that’d just purchased a glass and took a sip. All at once, her eyes shot open and she spit out her mouthful of drink, coughing.

“Oh, Celestia, that’s horrible!” she screamed. “It tastes like poison! I think I’m blind!”

Sweetie Belle pulled away from him, mouth agape. “Did you do that? Why would you do that!?”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “She’ll regain her sight and sense of taste in less than a minute. I just need to make sure the word around Ponyville is that their lemonade is dangerous. And now I have.”

Already a crowd had gathered around the shouting mare, bewildered expressions all. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon soon came to investigate, before evacuating their stand as fast as their little legs could carry them. Diamond Tiara’s servant sighed and followed close behind.

Eager to get away from the mass of ponies, Sombra plucked Sweetie Belle up and set her on his back. Together they made their way up the street and away from the commotion.

He turned back a single time to watch the two bullies steadily disappear into the distance. He might not have allowed himself to hurt them that day, but that wasn’t something he couldn’t correct in the future.

Picking up the pace, he gave Sweetie Belle a single buck, making her laugh and cling to his sides. Sombra smiled in return.

***

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo could not believe what had happened since Sombra left with Sweetie Belle close behind. Business at their little stand had not only doubled or tripled, but had gone much further than that. The punch bowl that Sombra had filled with his tiny vials had already sold out and Apple Bloom hastily made them up another batch. This one was also running out fast, even if it contained none of the ingredient Sombra had dumped into the first.

Sixty or more ponies surrounded their stand and clogged the street. Berry Punch was currently being tossed in the air by a couple of red-faced stallions, as she hollered and hiccupped and somehow held onto her drink, managing not to spill a drop.

“What’d’ya think was in that lemonade?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo furrowed her brow. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it sure got everyone acting funny. Too bad we didn’t save ourselves a cup of that.”

Apple Bloom nodded. Then she watched as Berry Punch quickly galloped into a bush to vomit.

“Actually, maybe it was a good thing we didn’t get any,” she corrected.

***

Rarity’s snores had grown louder as a trail of drool seeped from her mouth. Four empty lemonade glasses circled her thin blanket.

Around Pinkie Pie were twelve empty glasses as she sat in the same spot as before. She spent her time scanning the rowdy crowd through her binoculars.

She frowned. “Why is everyone acting so silly all of a sudden? And why am I not acting like that!? I mean, come on! I drank more than everyone, I should be—”

Pinkie Pie quieted as she suddenly realized she was upside down and had her binoculars pressed against her plot as if her cheeks could see.

She giggled. “Oh, Pinkie Pie, you so craaaazy! You know you can’t see anything like that.” She moved the tip of her tail out of the binoculars way to give her butt a clearer view. “That’s better!”

When enough blood had rushed to her head, Pinkie Pie collapsed to the grass next to Rarity. In a few hours’ time, they’d both wake up to a nice, juicy hangover and have absolutely no idea why.

***

Sombra made sure not a single one of them saw as he led them to the clubhouse. When one of them tried to pull at their blindfolds, Sombra hurriedly flicked their hoof away. He wanted everything to be a surprise.

Yesterday’s lemonade sale had been quite the success. With other businesses torn apart and Ponyville’s water supply oddly missing for the better part of the afternoon, that meant most ponies took to the streets in search of something cool and refreshing to drink. Those that’d had the CMC’s lemonade earlier in the morning came back to sample their “new” lemonade at close to double the cost. Peeved as they were, most still paid the full price and returned several times over; a faint lightheadedness telling them that they could somehow afford another glass.

Apple Bloom’s Power Ponies lunchbox soon became fit to burst, so Sombra emptied a nearby potato sack and filled it with what remained. Grunting from the weight, he then took the bits with him and told the girls he’d surprise them in the morning with that he had planned.

None of the girls seemed to mind. They were just happy they’d out-sold Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, as well as serve close to the entire Ponyville population in a single day.

In front of their clubhouse, Sombra halted them with a leg. “All right. You can look.”

The three fillies removed their blindfolds and scanned upward, eyes trying to take in all the changes to had taken place.

Apple Bloom asked, “How in Equestria did you manage all this, Sombra?”

“And all in one night,” Scootaloo added.

Sombra smirked. “Oh, my silly fillies. It was not me that did all the work. I only had the coin to get it done.”

The four of them took a loop around the trunk of the tree that supported their place. The CMC’s clubhouse had now become an extra story taller and close to double the width. The wood planks had all been reinforced with steel and iron and had taken on a more industrial vibe. A circular hole through one of the walls showcased the end of a new telescope angled towards the sky; a smooth wooden ramp with a sharp curve at its end lead out from a high window—a giant mound of haystacks at the ready to catch ponies launching off the ramp in the nearby distance.

Sombra continued their tour. “Yesterday, while mingling amongst the crowd around our stand, I happened to have a conversation with a doctor. He informed me he liked to tinker and build things. I then told him that his services might become needed soon.” He chuckled. “At first, he said no—because he knew who I was and didn’t want to become associated with me—so one kidnapping later and voila! Your new clubhouse.”

Scootaloo angled her head. “It looks more like a fortress than a clubhouse now.”

Sombra raised a brow. “And what’s wrong with fortresses? I assure you, it has the absolute best in defensive technology. If anyone wants inside, they’ll have to try very hard to get in. Take the elevator, for example.”

Sweetie Belle gasped. “Elevator?”

“Secret elevator,” Sombra corrected. “Voice activated and everything. Come and take a look.”

He led them around the trunk of the tree—new supports added to hold the additional weight. With a hoof, he pressed on a knot in the bark and a speaker panel flipped out.

He cleared his throat. “Sombra, King.”

“Welcome,” replied the robotic voice, before a wide space of bark slid out of the way to reveal a hollow core.

“It might be a bit tight, but we should all fit,” Sombra told them, before they all stepped inside. “To get in, you’ll need to say your names like I did: Bloom, Apple; Belle, Sweetie; Loo-Scoota.”

Scootaloo looked up at him. “Why’d mine need to be reversed? It’s only one word.”

Sombra shrugged. “I don’t know. Didn’t want you to feel left out, I guess.”

The tree trunk elevator rose to the main floor and its doors parted with a soft hiss. The four of them exited and strolled around the room, marveling at all the new objects and bits of furniture.

In the corner of the room was a new podium with attached speaker system, painted black with a red cloth draped over its front. Sombra’s silhouette had already been stitched into the fabric. A small bar with stools had been set up towards the other end, with a three spout system offering ice-cold apple juice, chocolate milk, and root beer.

“Is that a new chemistry set!?” asked Apple Bloom, gasping at the long table loaded with various tubes, beakers, vials and a burner. “I don’t even know if Twilight has stuff this nice!” She stuck her head behind a wide beaker, elongating her face.

“This I gotta try!”

Sombra turned in time to watch Scootaloo plunge out the window connected to the ramp outside. She disappeared from view for a moment before shooting up again on her scooter, hitting the lip of the ramp and soaring meters and meters into the air.

Sombra perked his ears up for either the sound of a swoosh or a thud. Only once he heard Scootaloo safely hit the haystacks and tumble down did he breathe out a sigh of relief. (He’d only been guessing where ponies might land once they launched off the ramp.)

Sweetie Belle pointed to a wall lined with black and red metallic objects, all clearly labeled. “What’s all this stuff?”

Sombra came over. “Our armory, of course. We couldn’t very well be considered super villains unless we had practical weapons at our disposal.”

Sweetie Belle scratched the back of her head. “Oh, right. We’re still doing that, aren’t we?” She leaned in to read a bit of text next to a long metal tube with a trigger. “What’s a toffee blaster?”

Sombra groaned. “One of the few weapons Ponyville’s good doctor would allow me to have. I said I wanted something with a little more power—you know, something to knock the head off a pony—but he said he only had non-lethal stuff. It’ll have to do, I’m afraid.”

Apple Bloom poked Sombra’s side. “This is nice and all, but who’s that pony in the corner?”

All three of them turned to the grey pegasus with yellow mane sitting in the corner. On the floor next to her was a length of rope. While she pleasantly snacked on a muffin, one of her eyes found Sombra’s while another found the framed Wonderbolts poster adhered to the wall.

Sombra put a hoof to his temple. “I almost forgot about her. I was supposed to return her, wasn’t I?” He strolled over to her. “How did you even get out of my ropes? I’ll have you know that was double knotted.”

The mare shrugged and continued eating.

“And where did you get that muffin? I searched you before I brought you up here and everything.”

The mare stopped chewing as she thought. “I have no idea.” Then she reached behind her back and retrieved another muffin. “You want one?”

“What kind?”

“Carrot.”

Sombra stuck out his tongue. “Blargh! I’d rather die all over again. Come on. Get up. You truly are the worst kidnapping victim I’ve ever had the displeasure of kidnapping. No screams. No calls for help. No nothing.”

The mare finished her muffin, licking the crumbs off her hoof. “I really had nothing better to do today.”

Once Sombra booted her out the window and down the ramp (she giggled the entire time she was airborne, eventually noticing she had wings with which to fly), Scootaloo reentered the room from the elevator and immediately ran to the window again.

“Again! Again!” she shouted, hoisting her scooter up.

Sombra held her back with a hoof. “You’ll have plenty of time for that later. Right now, I want to show you all something even better than this.”

“Something else?” Apple Bloom asked. “Isn’t this enough already?”

Sombra shook his head. “Villains can never have enough. Usually that’s our downfall. Didn’t you know?”

Sweetie Belle finished drinking her chocolate milk, leaving her upper lip with a tiny milk mustache. “Where is this something else?”

Sombra pointed towards the ceiling. “On the roof, obviously.”

***

A drop down ladder revealed a square hole in the ceiling that led onto the roof. Once they’d all safely climbed up, Sombra revealed to them what had been adhered to the thick upper branches of the tree and mostly obscured from ponies on the ground.

A trampoline. A very high and very big one.

Another ladder let them climb onto the trampoline’s side. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle nervously stepped on and looked around.

Apple Bloom appeared uneasy. “This seems a little… I dunno, dangerous, don’t you think? Bouncing up so high with no net or anything.”

Sombra patted her head. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? No, I assure you, dear Apple Bloom, that a magic barrier is in place should anyone topple off. It’s only invisible so as to not block out the view.”

That answer didn’t seem to calm her any. “So that means the only thing stopping us from smooshing against the ground is your magic?”

Sombra brought a leg to his chest. “I’ll have you know I take great offense to that. If I’d have really wanted to kill the three of you, I would’ve done it the moment we first met. Trust me: the three of you are safe. For now.”

Apple Bloom glanced downward. “So how come you lied to us about your magic in the first place? You said you didn’t have it before, but yesterday you were using it just fine.”

Sombra dropped his leg as his expression softened. He glanced away from her. “Sometimes, when dealing with children, one finds it more appropriate to lie. Sometimes the truth can hurt to hear. Sometimes it can be too painful to understand.”

“How would knowing you had your magic back be painful?”

Sombra looked at her. “Would you have trusted me as much, knowing I could crush your skull with the simplest of spells?”

Apple Bloom’s thoughts were temporarily suspended as Scootaloo began bouncing near the center of the trampoline. Apple Bloom lowered herself to balance.

Scootaloo smiled. “I don’t know why you’re complaining, Apple Bloom. The height only adds to the danger! And the fun!”

Apple Bloom turned to Sombra again.

Sombra mouthed the words, “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Reluctantly, Apple Bloom took a spot next to her friend and started bouncing.

***

“What’re they doing now, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

Twilight set down her binoculars. “They’re playing together on a trampoline.”

“That dastardly bastard! How could—” Applejack caught herself. “Sorry, hun. Come again? King Sombra set himself up a trampoline on the roof and invited the Cutie Mark Crusaders to come bounce with him? Why’s he doing all this? Some kind of a diversion?”

Twilight turned to Applejack and the rest of her friends. “I don’t think so. We’ve been keeping track of him since he appeared in town, and so far, all he’s done is spend time with the Crusaders. Sure, he’s done some slightly odd stuff so far, but nothing close to what he’s done before. You think the Crusaders might be having a positive effect on him already?”

Rarity took a step towards her. “I don’t care one way or another if they’re having an effect on him. What I’m worried about is whether he’s having an effect on them. He’s still trying to make them super villains, right?”

Rainbow Dash hovered above them. “Haven’t heard of too many bad guys spending their time fixing clubhouses and bouncing around on trampolines. You think when he got blasted by all that love at the Empire, it might’ve scrambled his brains a bit?”

Twilight gasped as Scootaloo was bounced off the roof, soon caught by a reddish aura that stopped her and pulled her back in. The fillies and Sombra continued to bounce and giggle, all of their matching capes whipping around in the breeze.

Twilight handed the binoculars to Rainbow Dash before sitting on the ground. “If only we knew more about Sombra. All the history books know about is his time as King and, then later, his defeat. There’s no word what he did before then, or if he was related to anyone at all or what type of life he led. Most ponies aren’t just born wanting to hurt others.”

“Discord might’ve,” Rarity added.

“Discord’s not normal. Also: not a pony.” She looked up at Rainbow Dash, who was looking through the binoculars. “What are they doing now?”

“Having fun, by the looks of it. They’re playing popcorn.”

“Popcorn?”

“Yeah. It’s when one pony curls up into a tight ball and the other ponies try to bounce them out of it—popping the kernel, so to speak.”

“Who’s the kernel now?”

“Apple Bloom.”

Applejack chuckled. “Apple Bloom’s tough. She won’t pop. I guarantee it.”

Rainbow Dash lowered the binoculars. “And she’s popped.”

Applejack lowered her head. “Darn it, Apple Bloom. And here I was vouching for you.”

“Why are you all pretending like I don’t exist!?”

Pinkie Pie’s shrieks were wholly ignored by the rest of them.

“Let me out of this thing! I promise I’ll be good! Oh, Celestia, I can hear them laughing up there!”

Twilight sighed and went over to her. On the grass, Pinkie Pie was currently tied up tight in a white straightjacket, three times the usual amount of buckles wrapped around her. Twilight had designed the device herself with Pinkie Pie’s realm bending abilities in mind.

“We’re doing this for your own good, Pinkie,” she tried to tell her softly. “The levels of fun they’re having up there are close to a nine—perhaps a nine-point-five on the fun scale. If we let you out of this, there’s a good chance you’d be unable to control yourself and join them on the trampoline. If you did that, then Sombra would know we’d been spying on him and know of his return.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes spilled over with tears. “But… but Twilight… there’s fun being had and I’m not having it! How can you be so cruel? Just five minutes! Just… just let me get one good bounce in!”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry, Pinkie, but it’s something we can’t risk.”

Pinkie tried to sit up against her restraints. “What if… what if you shrunk me down to the size of a filly? Then… then I could join them and he wouldn’t know!”

“You’d just look like a miniature Pinkie Pie.”

“Then I’ll dye my coat! Light pink or something! I must get on that trampoline!”

Twilight’s silence was enough. Pinkie Pie whimpered and curled into a ball.

Rainbow Dash landed between them. “Jeeze. Sombra’s sure got a hold on some of you. Twilight and her attendance thing; Pinkie Pie and being left out of fun.”

Twilight turned to the rest of them. “I know it may be hard, but once we fully understand Sombra’s plan, then we’ll be able to act accordingly and end all of this silliness. Either he’ll discover the joys of friendship through the Crusaders or he’ll decide he still wants to be a villain. And I have a feeling one of those things should be happening very soon.”

Pinkie Pie whispered, “Can we come back when they’re gone and bounce?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “All right. But no popcorn.”

***

One joyous bounce-session later, Sombra and the fillies descended back into the clubhouse and shared a round of drinks by the bar. He made them all clink their glasses together, before giving each of them a matching box topped with a bow.

“What’s this?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Open them and find out.”

The three of them did and removed the tissue covered present within. They each held them up to look at.

“These look an awful lot like you.” Apple Bloom spun the silver and black mask in her hoof.

Sombra nodded. “That’s because they’re supposed to. These will be our villain masks, used to hide our identity. The outside is made of chrome and contoured to my likeness. The inside is filled with a soft black padding with a four-way relay talking system. It even has a built-in voice changer.”

Sweetie Belle gulped. “But why would we need to hide our identities?”

Sombra grinned, before donning his own silver mask. When he spoke, it came out much lower than before, a slight echo making his voice rebound off the walls.

“Because tomorrow is when we perform our first heist.”

Author's Notes:

Please don't tell me I was the only one that played popcorn on trampolines as a kid.

Or was that only a Canadian thing?

The Sweetest Of Heists

INTERVIEWER: Just tell me what you remember. Anything at all.

BON BON: It was terrible, I tell you. Just terrible! They came out of nowhere and ransacked the whole place. I was terrified. I just stopped by the shop to get some lemon drops—Lyra loves those, you know? And then I watched them through the shop window and they came in and just started—”

INTERVIEWER: Maybe it would be best to take a breath and start at the beginning. Can you do that for me?

BON BON: Sure, yeah, fine. I got it.

***

Sombra spoke into his mask’s intercom to halt Scootaloo on her scooter. That morning they’d secured it to their new over-sized and reinforced wagon, long strips of steel carefully welded across its sides and corners. When they came to a stop in the center of the street, thick smoke wafted from their vehicle’s massive exhaust port. Sombra took a breath to calm himself, momentarily gagging on the breath trapped inside his mask.

He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d brushed his teeth.

With a hoof, he pressed a button on the front console of the wagon that sent a carpet of thick fog billowing out from underneath their vehicle. Ponies that had been watching the four masked ponies with interest immediately began to hack and cough and back away.

“Let’s see what wonders we might find inside, my fine fillies.”

Sombra gripped the long metallic instrument attached to his belt and exited the wagon. Over his back and around his head was a cloak as dark as his fur. He clicked a tiny button attached to the side of his mask, both to alter his voice and to add a haunting red glow behind both of his mask’s eyeholes. Before entering the shop, he knelt down and did the same with the other three’s masks, waving away the thick fog with a hoof so he could see what he was doing.

“You ready?” he asked them, all with their own matching dark cloaks.

Scootaloo looked up at him. “We’re not going to hurt anyone, are we?”

Sombra shook his head. “Not unless they need a good slap in the face. Then again, most ponies in this town need a good slap in the face.” He gripped the side of her mask, twisting a knob. “Your voice isn’t low enough. Now say something.”

“What should I say?” Now her voice sounded as if the very gates of Tartarus had been shattered open and the very mountain that held its prisoners were moaning in terror.

It was good enough for Sombra. “Can everyone hear me through the intercom?”

The three nodded.

“Then here we go.”

Sombra climbed the first step to the shop, spun and bucked with both legs. The door ripped off its hinges and flew inward, crashing to the floor and making those inside shriek in surprise.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlecolts,” Sombra announced once inside, brandishing the metallic weapon in the corner of one leg. “The four of us have come here today for many reasons: to scare, to intimidate, to learn, and most importantly, to rob this place of all its confectionary delights.”

The interior of Sugarcube Corner was small, but each nook and cranny was packed to the gills with candies and sweets. Shelves and showcases displayed trays filled with pastries and hard candies; others had gummy ponies, sugar pops, sour balls, and some of that black licorice that was plainly ignored by all customers until it had to be thrown away.

Mr. Cake manned the register by the back, his under-bite already wobbling. Mrs. Cake had just come out from the back, a tray of delicacies in hoof. Since the moment Sombra’s crew had entered, she’d frozen in place, as if remaining motionless would somehow make her invisible to them.

Two stallions stood to the right of the shop, one with a small basket of candy bars. A mare with a light yellow coat and pink and blue mane stood to the left, a thin bag of yellow balls in one hoof.

Sombra leisurely paced the room, the aroma of fear touching his nostrils even through his tight mask. “If one of you decides to be a hero today—which, to be perfectly honest, would be insane because all we’re taking here is candy and candy can always be remade—this is what one can expect to happen to you.”

In an instant, Sombra aimed his candy cannon at the mare with the yellow sweets. Using his horn, he set the dial to “STICKY” and pressed the trigger. From the end of the tube shot out a perfectly circular ball of brown toffee that quickly expanded and dispersed until it was akin to a spider’s web.

The gooey wad hit the mare and propelled her into the wall behind her, her bag of sweets tumbling to the floor and rolling all over the place.

Sombra blew at the tip of his smoking weapon. “Stick around, if you’d be so kind.”

***

INTERVIEWER: He didn’t honestly say that, did he?

BON BON: I’m afraid so. He even left a pause, as if someone was supposed to laugh at it. To make matters worse, he even starting explaining it to the other three ponies in masks.

INTERVIEWER: That sounds terrible.

BON BON: It was. He was all like, “You get that? I said ‘Stick around’ because she’s stuck to the wall now. And I did that. I made her stick to the wall.” And the three of them nodded. But then he continued anyways. “Sometimes, when villains do really villainous activities, it’s nice to lighten the atmosphere with a well placed quip. Why isn’t anyone writing this down? This is important stuff here.”

INTERVIEWER: Did the other three ever say anything?

BON BON: Not a lot. Right after I was hit with the toffee, one of them came over and whispered they were sorry about sticking me to a wall. I asked who they were and they said, “Apple Doom: the Endbringer.”

INTERVIEWER: Did they happen to mention when they’d be bringing the end or how they’d be doing it?

BON BON: Afraid not.

INTERVIEWER: Too bad. That would’ve been a nice break to have in this case. So what happened next?

***

“Slaughter Belle, rough up those two stallions.”

Sombra looked at Sweetie Belle, then indicated the two stallions by the window, butts pressed up against the window glass.

Sweetie Belle took a step back. “Really? That doesn’t seem very nice.”

“Of course it’s not nice—it’s intimidating.” He waved a hoof. “But come here first. Your mask isn’t doing anything to your voice.”

Sweetie Belle came over and Sombra spun the dial on her mask.

“IS THAT BETTER!?”

Sweetie Belle’s voice pierced the eardrums of everyone around, causing all of Sugarcube Corner’s windows to shatter outward and even create thin cracks along the display cases. Sombra tried to knock away the ringing in his ears.

He must’ve spun the dial the wrong way.

Sweetie Belle’s normal speaking voice was hard to listen to already. That same sweet and infectious voice heightened and amplified a hundred times? It was a miracle no one’s head had exploded like a soft watermelon from the sheer magnitude of her voice.

Hurriedly, Sombra spun her mask’s dial down.

“Is that better?” she whispered.

Sombra patted her head. “Sorry about that. Yes, that’s fine. But I believe I gave you a task.” He pointed to the two shaken stallions, one still chewing on a thick wad of gum. He must’ve forgotten he was chewing it at all.

“Spit that out!” Sombra roared. “Don’t you understand you’re in the middle of a robbery?”

The stallion stopped chewing. “If I spit it on the floor, then someone might step on it. You know how hard it is to get gum off of hooves?”

“Then swallow it. I won’t be distracted by your incessant chewing while I go about my business.”

The stallion’s friend nudged him in the ribs. “Just swallow it, dude! Can’t you tell this guy's nuts? He’s shooting toffee out of a mini-cannon! What if he’s packing hot fudge in that thing? You wanna try and get that out of your coat?”

The stallion with the gum awkwardly swallowed his gum before turning to his friend. “Hot fudge? That’s kind of ridiculous. How do you even know that thing shoots anything besides toffee? And why does it need to be food-based? He could shoot us with rocks next for all we know.”

His friend scratched at his mane. “Rocks? In that case, I’d rather have hot fudge. Unless it’s the kind that had almonds in it. Those could hurt.” He looked at Sombra. “Does your hot fudge cannon come with—”

Something small and white collided with his gut, making him double over. He wheezed out a shuddery breath.

Sombra tipped his weapon upwards and loaded in another projectile. “Hot fudge? Afraid not. You’ll have to settle with hard-packed marshmallows. Care for another? If you open wide enough, I might be able to lodge it down your throat. Or are you two done squabbling for the moment?”

The stallion rubbed at his injury. “We’re done. Please, no more marshmallows.”

Behind his mask, Sombra sneered. “Just one more for you. A much cuter one.”

Sombra had to physically shove Sweetie Belle over to them. Once she stood in front of the pair, she anxiously rubbed at a leg. “What am I supposed to do again?”

Sombra sighed. “Rough them up.”

“How do I do that?”

“By making sure they never forget what happened here today; burning this memory onto their hearts for the rest of their days.”

“That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

Sweetie Belle lowered her head in thought, then went to the stallion that had swallowed the gum and walked on to one of his hooves. She started to jump up and down.

“Take that! And this! And…”

The stallion regarded her wearily.

Sweetie Belle turned to him, whispered, “Could you please pretend this hurts? I’d rather not rough you up too bad, but Mr. Sombra says I’m supposed to.”

The stallion’s eyes darted from side to side. “Uhh. Yeah, sure, no prob.”

Sweetie Belle jumped on his hoof a single time more and the stallion collapsed to the ground in a spasm of pain, clutching his hoof. “Oh, Celestia no! It hurts! Please, won’t someone stop this horror! I doubt I’ll ever be able to walk again after this! And that’s even more terrible because I’m, umm… a professional runner!”

Apple Bloom stood to Sweetie Belle’s side and gasped. “How could you do that Swee—Slaughter Belle? Now he’ll never be able to run again.”

The stallion continued to writhe on the floor. “And here I was preparing to ask my marefriend to marry me. I was going to profess my love at the top of a hill, but now I doubt I’ll ever be able to meet her at the top!”

Scootaloo came to join her friends. “Sounds like you completely messed up his life, Slaughter Belle. Jeeze, I really didn’t think you had it in you. By the sounds of it, you must’ve broken his hoof in like a hundred places. I had no idea you even weighed that much.”

Sweetie Belle blanched. “Hey! I do not weigh that much! He’s just pretending to be hurt!”

The stallion stopped screaming for a moment to look at her. “It’s true. But good performance, right? I do improv on the weekends. Can you believe last week’s suggestion was candy store robbery? Crazy world, am I right?”

Sombra shot a hard-packed marshmallow into his gut, silencing him.

“Well, that didn’t work out as planned,” he muttered, before he trotted to the counter, slugging his weapon over his shoulder. He propped a hoof on the counter, eyeing up the trembling Mr. Cake. “I’ll take one of everything, if you’d be so kind. But when I say ‘one,’ I actually mean all. So give. Now.”

Jerkily, Mr. Cake hit a button on the register, popping out the bottom metal tray. In one swift motion, he slammed down several small pouches of bits. “Here! Take it and go! I don’t want any trouble.”

Sombra eyed the stacks of coins for a moment. “You think I came all this way for money?”

Mr. Cake quivered. “Didn’t you?”

With a hoof, Sombra lowered his voice another few notches. “This isn’t about money. It’s about candy. It’s about sending a message.”

“What message?”

“Let me check.”

Sombra brought his hoof to his ear, angling his head towards it.

“Bring-bring. Bring-bring.” He pretended to press a button on his hoof. “Hello? Oh, yes, Mr. Cake is here. A message, you say? Well, I’ll be sure he gets it.” Sombra listened for a moment, nodded, then closed the cover on his make-believe phone.

Mr. Cake brought a hoof to his temple. “I’m dealing with a completely insane pony, aren’t I?”

“Obviously.”

Mr. Cake sighed. “So what was the message?”

“Blam.”

He furrowed his brows. “Blam?”

BLAM!

Sombra discharged his weapon into Mr. Cake’s face, staggering him into the counter behind him, upending several jars of multi-colored jellybeans. Plastered to his face was a thick mound of heavy whipped cream. Once Mr. Cake bounced off the counter, he fell to the floor.

Sombra went around the counter to stand over him. “Why so grim?” Using his horn, he levitated over a banana and two cherries, placing them in the center of the whip cream circle to form a makeshift smile. He even added two bits of licorice for eyebrows and a half-dozen chocolate chips for freckles.

Sombra chuckled to himself. “Girls! Come look what I did! It’s rather amusing, it—”

Sombra spotted a small blinking red light underneath the counter that held the register.

He knelt beside the fallen Mr. Cake. “What did you do?”

“Pressed the alarm,” said the whipped cream smiley face. “They’ll be here before you can even make it out the door.”

Sombra tilted his head. “Ponyville police?”

One of Mr. Cake’s cherry eyes slid down the side of his head. “Worse.”

“Who called for Pinkie!?”

Sombra spun to find Pinkie Pie leaving the backroom, the tray of sweets balanced on her back instantly flung to the floor. Her usual jolly disposition melted away as she surveyed the scene—notably, poor Mr. Cake all helpless and sticky on the floor.

“What are you doing!?” she yelled. “Wasting good candy! What did candy ever do to you?”

Sombra spoke to the girls, “We need to split, banana style. Grab what you can and meet me outside. I’ll deal with the pink menace.”

Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom exchanged a single look before running in opposite directions. Each of them went to a display of sweets and started loading them into the saddlebags they’d kept hidden underneath their cloaks.

Sombra watched in annoyance as Sweetie Belle took her time picking and choosing which colored gummies to loot. “You can pick the ones you like after we’ve made our escape!”

She turned to him. “But I don’t like the sour kind.”

“I’ll take anything sour,” Apple Bloom told her. “If you like stuff with coconut, that’s what I’m getting. We can trade afterwards, if you like.”

“That sounds like a good idea. What’s Scoota—I mean, what’s Saw Blade getting?”

Sombra clamped both hooves to his ears for fear of brain rot. “Just take everything! Now is not the time to care about what you grab!”

Sweetie Belle asked him, “Oh, I almost forgot. What do you want, Mr. Sombra?”

Sombra dropped his hooves and moaned. “Anything dark chocolate.”

Pop! Fizz!

A wall of bubbly, sticky liquid slammed into Sombra’s chest, toppling him to the ground and propelling him towards the other end of the store. He shielded his face from the harsh blast of soda until it died off. He watched as Pinkie Pie grabbed another cherry drink and shook it up and down with alarming speed.

“Give the candy back and no one gets hurt!” she shouted.

Sombra got to his legs and shook what soda he could from his coat. “Too bad ponies have already been hurt.” He aimed his candy cannon and shot a hardened marshmallow at the mare. Pinkie Pie curved her middle to warp around it easily. Sombra fired twice more, the first sailing over her head and the second disappearing into her mouth to never be seen again.

“So be it!” Sombra screamed, flipping his weapon’s dial to “STICKY.”

He fired again and a thick ball of toffee expanded into a web that stood much taller than Pinkie Pie, hitting her right on target. Her shaken can of soda crashed to the floor and zoomed off to parts unknown.

Sombra pumped one of his forelegs. “Ha! Stick around, pink pony!”

“You said that already!”

Sombra viewed the mare he stuck to the wall from earlier, busily munching on a bit of the sugary toffee that confined her. Sombra growled, but choose to ignore her. Bigger things were happening at the moment.

He took his time walking over to the pink mare trapped in his web, gingerly stepping over the fallen Mr. Cake while scooping up one of his cherry eyes to pop under his mask and devour.

Sombra hooked a hoof under Pinkie Pie’s chin. “Looks like you’re in some trouble, aren’t you, my dear?”

She smiled at him. “Not really. Not when I can do this!”

Sombra recoiled in horror as her tongue shot out and went over her head, lapping at her toffee prison until every inch of the gooey matter had vanished. It somehow even left her with a buffer-like shine.

Sombra almost choked on his words. “How did you…? That had to be forty pounds worth of compacted toffee. That’s just not possible!”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Mmm! And what a delicious forty pounds it was! Does that candy thing of yours happen to shoot sprinkles? I could really go for some sprinkles right now. Or any time really. Like five minutes ago. Where were you five minutes ago with my sprinkles?”

Sombra looked from his weapon to the mare, pondering his current chances. After careful deliberation, he eventually made up his mind and made his choice well-known to all those around.

“ABORT MISSION!”

***

INTERVIEWER: How was the toffee?

BON BON: It was good, but is that really relevant?

INTERVIEWER: No. But all this talk about toffee has me thinking about it now.

BON BON: There’s probably some of it left in my mane. You want some of that?

INTERVIEWER: I’ll pass. Anyways, after the leader of the group said to abort the mission, what did he do?

BON BON: He ran away. Not all that menacingly, really. He’s kind of a prancer. He grabbed his three accomplices off the floor and threw them on his back. Then he charged out the door.

INTERVIEWER: But they still got away with the candy, didn’t they?

BON BON: More or less. But I really have no idea what all happened once they got outside.

***

Sombra stared into the blackened abyss and shuddered. It could never be full, he was starting to believe. It would never stop hunting him, either, as long as he had the candy. It was a force of nature he had been unprepared for and now it might cost him everything he held dear. Including the painstaking lengths he’d gone to prepare his little fillies for their lifetime of villainy, and with any luck, their cutie marks.

The abyss in question being Pinkie Pie’s gaping maw, which took everything his candy cannon could shoot and more.

As Scootaloo guided their powerful vehicle through the congested streets of Ponyville, Sombra stood on the back of their wagon, weapon raised and supported on his shoulder.

“Take that!” he screamed, aiming a chocolate cupcake at her eye.

Pinkie Pie jumped into the air and caught the cupcake with ease, not even wasting time to chew. She smiled at him. “More, please!”

By that point he had already blasted her with everything he had: sprinkles, marshmallows, peanuts, hard-impact gummy balls, hot fudge (even Sombra was surprised to find hot fudge available—what was even keeping it at such a perfect temperature?). Each time, the pink monster only swallowed it whole, with no noticeable bulge on her belly. Perhaps scariest of all, Sombra had the oddest of feelings that all that sugar-based ammunition was giving her more energy with which to pursue them with.

As their wagon rounded a sharp corner, Sombra had to cling to one side of the wagon as their vehicle drifted on two wheels. With a thud, the wheels came back down and Sombra shook his hoof at the trailing Pinkie Pie, hardly out of breath yet.

“Curse you, you meddlesome mare! Take the hint! You’re not wanted here!”

Pinkie Pie ground her hooves into the dirt, momentarily gaining on them. “Then give back the candy you took!”

Sombra laughed. “I’d rather die than give it back!”

He spun around to face Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom in the back of the wagon. “I don’t really mean that, girls. I’m sure we’ll make it out all right.”

To Pinkie Pie, he roared, “You’ll need to pry this candy from our cold, dead hooves!”

To Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, he then clarified, “That’s a worst case scenario, mind you. Most likely I’d turn us all in before things get that far.”

Scootaloo revved the handlebar on her scooter, making the engine growl. She looked back at them. “We’re almost at the spot! Should I hit the button?”

“Not yet,” Sombra said. “We can’t have her possibly trailing us back to the hideout. Give me just a moment more.”

He lifted his candy cannon to inspect the dial, checking for one setting he might not have tried. He smirked as he spotted the last possible one listed. Too bad his newfound euphoria blew away in the breeze as his weapon was snatched from him.

“Gotcha!” Pinkie Pie said, holding the candy cannon up to Sombra’s face. She must’ve caught up with the speeding wagon while he was checking the setting.

Sombra held a hoof up. “Wait—”

SPLAT!

Sombra’s mask was coated with a thick wad of whipped cream, so much so, he found the mask’s air holes quickly covered as he soon ran out of air. In fury, he ripped off the mask, sweat drenched locks of mane stuck to his forehead.

Pinkie Pie gasped. “So it was you all along! Beneath the Sombra mask was actually Sombra!? What are the odds?” She brought a hoof to her chin. “But if you’re here… then who’s trying to take over the Empire?”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “No one. Now get off my wagon!”

He lunged forward and ripped the cannon from her grip, spinning it around and turning its dial to its last setting. He fired, and a hooful of gumballs slammed into Pinkie Pie’s gut, sending her spiraling off the edge.

Pinkie Pie bounced off the dirt, not much worse for wear. When she tried to begin the chase anew, her hooves slid from under her due to the gumballs, and she face-planted back onto the road. Sombra laughed, then he laughed some more.

Scootaloo looked back. “Ramp’s dead ahead!”

Sombra sneered. “Then hit the rocket boosts!”

Scootaloo undid the plastic cover on her scooter’s handlebars, revealing a tiny red button. She pressed it, then latched on tight as her scooter and the wagon behind it zoomed up the road and quickly onto a hill. At the lip of the hill was a smooth wooden ramp, before a cliff. The other side of the cliff sat a full eighty feet across.

As the wagon rocketed forward, Sombra stumbled back, his back hoof slipping on the goo-covered surface of his mask and causing him to topple off. Before he hit the dirt, he hooked a leg around the wagon’s edge and held on for dear life. His cloak was hurriedly stripped from him as it dragged against the rough, rock speckled road. Soon only his legs and torso bounced against the dirt.

He bit his tongue and grumbled his displeasure. “Oh, Celestia that hurts.”

The moment he got a better grip on the edge of the wagon, the wagon tilted upward and the surface underneath him became smooth. They’d already hit the ramp.

As Scootaloo cheered while flying in mid-air, Sweetie Belle held two hooves over her eyes, and Apple Bloom held on to the three large sacks of candy. Sombra, instead of enjoying the view as he thought he might’ve while planning this all out, began to scream as one of his hooves let go of the wagon and he was forced to hang on with just the one.

Scootaloo’s scooter hit the grass on the other side and it skidded to a halt, the wagon trailing behind her doing close to the same. Once she killed the engine, she took off her mask and went to the others, who had already removed their own masks and set them aside. Together, they jumped up and down and hollered.

“We did it! We actually did it!” Scootaloo shouted. “I didn’t know if we were all gonna clear that gap, but—” She raised a brow. “Shouldn’t Sombra have been in the wagon with you guys?”

Sweetie Belle looked around for him. “Mr. Sombra? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay…” someone whispered out from behind them.

All three fillies trotted to the edge of the cliff, where Sombra’s head, chest, and forelegs rested on the lip of the cliff. Sombra didn’t look as charismatic as usual, as he inhaled and exhaled thinly.

“What happened?” Apple Bloom asked.

Sombra just continued to stare forward, his face blank. He whispered, “Fell off the wagon… continued to soar into the cliff… hit near the top… ribs first… I’m sure I’ll be all right in a moment.”

Scootaloo raised a brow. “You want us to pull you up?”

Sombra shook his head. “No… I’m good… I’ll just dangle here for a while… try not to cry… figure out which major organs might be badly damaged… might be fun… always liked pony anatomy…”

The Crusaders gathered together, heads bent. Sweetie Belle said, “So what do you want to do until Sombra feels better?”

“We could eat some candy,” Scootaloo suggested.

“Got anything with dark chocolate?” Sombra asked softly, his face going pale.

***

INTERVIEWER: Any idea where they’ll strike next? Soda shop? Ice cream stand?

BON BON: No idea. They all seemed so unhinged—deranged, even!

INTERVIEWER: Perfectly understandable. But that’s all the questions I’ve got, although I’ve been told there’s someone else that wants to speak with you. I hear she’ll be leading the Sombra Squad crime case from here on out.

BON BON: Oh?

INTERVIEWER: Here she is now. Bon Bon, this is Twilight Sparkle.

BON BON: Hello.

TWILIGHT SPARKLE: Hello. Now, how about you start from the beginning again?

Author's Notes:

Hope nobody guesses the ending too early. Where it turns out Sombra's only a ghost apparition with a limited time in Equestria, so he decides to pass on his dastardly mantle before it's too late. Oops. Shouldn't have said that.

Potential sequel name: The Revenge of Sombra Belle.

The Prettiest Of Princesses

Colorful candy wrappers and brown bits of chocolate littered nearly every inch of the floor. Sombra had to tread carefully so as not to crush anything as he strolled around the room. In one corner, large mounds of gummy candies had been gathered. In another, more obscure sweets—sour balls, lemon drops, almond bark, chocolate-covered marshmallows, candied apples in various designs. Everywhere he turned there was another bright stack of candy waiting to greet him and make him wince. Sombra had always been an advocate of deep blacks and dull grays; a splash of crimson if the mood should strike him. Just why did candy need to be so visually loud?

“Where’s the lollypop pile again?” Sweetie Belle asked, holding a colorful batch in her horn’s aura.

“In that corner, I think.” Apple Bloom indicated with a leg, busily spreading candy along the floor to separate and then organize.

Sombra was almost taken aback by the scene. Originally, he’d expected his three henchponies to dive headfirst into their stolen loot and not resurface until their bellies were filled to the max with sugary delights. As he was witnessing, the only one acting like a proper foal at the time was Scootaloo.

“Argh…” Scootaloo moaned to herself. “Belch!”

Scootaloo sat with her back against a wall, her lips smeared with melted chocolate. By her side was a half-finished bottle of “Bubbly Chewy Pop,” a Sugarcube Corner original. It looked almost identical to a pop bottle, but once you were done drinking the liquid inside, the container was completely edible and rather tasty.

After allowing himself a single morsel of chocolate to enjoy (even hidden under a cape most of the time, Sombra’s robust figure was always forefront on his mind), he carefully went to each filly in turn, whistling as he did.

“Let’s just see how well we’re doing. Hmm?”

Sombra picked up the near comatose Scootaloo and twisted her around to stare at her plot.

Blank.

Sombra grimaced. “And here I thought ‘getaway driver’ would’ve been the one.”

He did the same with Apple Bloom, who merely glared at him quizzically as he flipped her around.

Also blank.

Sombra raised a brow and grumbled under his breath, “Two for two? I really wasn’t expecting that. Oh, well. I guess that just leaves my best henchpony, then.”

Sidestepping a wide array of sweets, Sombra went over to Sweetie Belle to stand overtop of her. He smiled warmly. “Sweetie Belle? Do you happen to have something new to show Mr. Sombra?”

She cocked her head to him. “New? Like a piece of candy or something? There’re lots to choose from, if you want to have a look. I think Apple Bloom started a dark chocolate hill behind the drink bar if that’s—”

He shushed her. “No, no. I mean did you get your cutie mark yet?” He grinned. “The way you handled those two in the candy shop, I really can’t see how you couldn’t have gotten one by now.”

Sweetie Belle dropped her candy and gasped. “I completely forgot about our cutie marks! I was just having so much fun doing all that other stuff! Let me see if I got one!”

Using her horn, she lifted an edge of her cloak up and turned back to him with a soft-beaten expression. She shook her head and looked down.

“Maybe next time,” she told him gently.

Sombra exhaled loudly, his hooves beating against the floor. He tried to control himself, but found the task far beyond him.

“So none of you,” he paused, glaring at each of them in turn, “not a single one of you got your cutie mark? Not after the lemonade stand or the new clubhouse or the robbery?”

Apple Bloom abruptly stopped sorting candy. “What about you, Sombra? Weren’t you trying to get your cutie mark too?”

Absently, Sombra glanced backward at his own plot, both sides with heavily faded crisscrossing scars. No cutie mark was there to be found.

Sombra stomped against the floor, mashing mounds of candy underneath.

“This isn’t about me!” he roared. “I’m only trying to help you three! Don’t you get that? And here I thought this time would somehow be different! But so far—”

Smash!

With one solid kick, Sombra sent his leg flying through the front panels of the bar, splinters and bits of board spraying outward. When he pulled his leg back out, it had a few scrapes and cuts.

“—absolutely nothing has changed! I can’t get anyone a cutie mark and it’s all my fault all over again!” he finished, before sitting on the ground and panting.

After a while, Sombra raised his head and saw Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo huddled together in front of the pile of candies and chocolates. All at once, he hated himself. Their expressions reminded him of the way Nocturn had looked at him when he told her what he’d planned to do to their King. More than anything, he didn’t want to see the look of fear anymore.

He ran a hoof across his eyes. “I’m… sorry, you three. For the outburst and for failing you like I have. You all gave me the benefit of the doubt… you trusted me when others wouldn’t… and still, here you are, without your cutie marks.” Chuckling dryly, he added, “Maybe that’s been my special talent all along—letting ponies down.”

Sweetie Belle was the first to separate from the group and approach him. Apple Bloom had whispered something into her ear and she had said something out of earshot in return. Regardless of what her friend might have warned, she came to him and, without a word, wrapped her legs around his side.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter if we get our cutie marks or not,” she told him. “All that matters is that you tried, Mr. Sombra. So far, you’re the only grownup that’s joined our club and helped us like you have, so it really means a lot that you’re here. And even if things haven’t worked out completely, it doesn’t mean we haven’t been having fun trying, anyways.”

By the time Sombra got a leg around her and gripped her tight, both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had found another part of him to hug.

When Sombra thought of himself in all the years he’d lived, the image that usually came to mind was that of a boulder—so large and so immovable it would take more force than most were capable of to shift it even an inch. How odd, he thought, to find that just the tender embrace of three innocent little fillies could break such a solid object so easily.

“Just don’t get mad at yourself anymore, all right?” Apple Bloom added. “My big brother gets mad sometimes and so far it hasn’t solved any of his problems. Okay?”

Sombra swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat. “…okay.”

Scootaloo gave over her own piece of advice. “And don’t be so hard on yourself, Sombra. At least you’re trying to help us and, really, that’s all that should matter. That’s why we made the Crusaders to begin with—to keep on trying and never give up until each of us get our cutie marks. They wouldn’t be worth getting unless they were at least a little bit difficult to get, right?”

Sombra knew if he were to speak, he might start crying in front of them, so he nodded instead.

After a silent minute or so, Sweetie Belle parted from the close-knit group and looked at him. “Since we haven’t gotten our cutie marks from any of your activities yet, maybe we should try something else.”

Sombra chewed on his tongue. “Different how? What could be wrong with a life of supervillainy?”

She glanced down. “Nothing. It’s… fine and all, but just maybe something else would be nice for a change. Like maybe if you did something that wasn’t so terrible or mean, you could get your own cutie mark in that.”

“A cutie mark in what exactly?”

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Being normal?”

***

As Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo went to the Clubhouse’s upper floor to pull out their little table and chairs, Sombra went about his single task in silent complacency. “Make tea for everyone,” they had told him before hurrying upstairs. And so he had.

On a tray he placed four matching cups with saucers alongside an old teapot with a small folded napkin underneath. Even though Sombra was more of a coffee-type pony—dark roast, obviously—he boiled the water as he’d been instructed to and added the tea bags accordingly, making sure not to spill a drop.

With one leg resting on the first step of the stairs, he paused and retrieved a thin vial from one of the inner pockets in his cloak, uncorking it and pouring it into the tea. With one of the spoons, he gave it a quick stir and made sure none of the green potion he’d just added could be seen.

Tea parties were nice and all (and he knew he’d humor them for as long as he could), but this wasn’t why he’d camped out at their clubhouse to begin with. To get the results he’d been after all along, he had to set certain actions into motion, whether mischievous or not.

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” he told himself, before ascending the stairs.

***

Sombra heard hushed whispers behind the door, so he knocked before entering. In the half-second it took him to come inside, Scootaloo gasped and three chairs squeaked across the floor.

Sombra regarded the three with a smirk.

“Seems like some ponies have been rather nosy, haven’t they?”

While Sweetie Belle blushed and fixed her stare on the table, Apple Bloom spent her time gazing at the floor. The only one that would dare meet his eyes was Scootaloo, who could hardly seem to sit still in her chair.

“That’s all right,” Sombra reassured them. “I would’ve given them to you eventually.”

As Sombra levitated the small tray of tea and cups to the center of the table, he pulled out his own chair and took a seat. He looked from one filly’s head to the next—the silver and jewel encrusted tiaras that sat on each of their manes glittering richly in the warm light coming in from the windows.

After the Crusader’s lemonade stand had been such a success, Sombra had found a jeweler in town and commissioned three near identical silver tiaras. As well as a crown.

Sombra chuckled deeply. “This feels good.”

From the same sack he’d hidden their three tiaras, he’d brought out his own silver and red curved crown to sit atop his mane. He’d been so long without something atop his head, the crown almost felt heavy to him.

With a hoof, Apple Bloom readjusted her tiara. “We’re awfully sorry about that, Sombra, but when we saw something all silvery-like in that sack of yours, our first thought was that it might’ve been something of Diamond Tiara’s. Then when we saw it was three different tiaras… well…” She suppressed a giggle and turned to him. “I’ve never gotten to wear anything like this before, you know?”

Sombra waved a hoof. “It is perfectly okay. I’ve always considered you three to be my unofficial Princesses of Darkness, so what good would three princesses be without tiaras? Or a king without a crown?”

The three fillies squealed as loud as a screaming teakettle.

“PRINCESSES!?”

They made to leave their seats and charge him, but Sombra slapped an aura around their chairs, holding them in place.

He rolled his eyes. “No more hugs today, all right? I still have a reputation to uphold. If some of my older colleagues were to see me having a tea party right now with foals, I’m pretty sure my lifetime membership to the Victorious Villains Club would instantly be revoked.”

Scootaloo furrowed her brows. “Wouldn’t you have to be victorious first to be in that club?”

Sombra scratched his chin. “You’d think that wouldn’t you? Either way, time for tea!”

Sweetie Belle divided the cups and saucers as Apple Bloom set out the napkins and spoons. Scootaloo grabbed a box of cookies from a nearby cabinet and laid them on a plate. If they were the same stale cookies Sombra had been eating several days prior, he’d probably just stick with the tea.

Once everything was more or less in place, Sombra filled each cup with steaming tea and set the teapot back down. Then he made the four of them clink their cups together.

“Here’s to misunderstandings!” he announced.

“And cutie marks!”

“And candy!”

“And awesomely cool tiaras!”

The four of them drank.

When Apple Bloom set her cup back down, she asked, “What did you mean by misunderstandings?”

Leaning back in his chair, Sombra admitted, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t? Whaddya mean I…” she stopped speaking and froze as if stuck in the middle of a sneeze. Her eyelids drooped down, nearly reaching the bottom. “Why am I suddenly so sleepy?”

Scootaloo took a bite out of a cookie. “You okay, Apple Bloom? You look—” The uneaten half of her cookie hit the floor as Scootaloo fought to keep her eyes open. A bit of drool leaked out of the corner of her mouth.

With rising alarm, Sweetie Belle turned from one of her friends to the next. “Girls? Girls, what’s going on?”

Sombra shook his head and sighed. “I’m afraid they’re under the highly potent effects of a potion right now, as you, too, will be feeling in just a moment.”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes expanded as large as her tea saucer. “But why! Why would you—”

“Because drinking tea won’t get us anywhere, and what I’ve got planned for us next might’ve been met with some opposition. So I’ve taken it upon myself to hurry things along. But I must say the whole thing was rather cute—three little princesses and their king.”

Eventually, Sweetie Belle collapsed to the back of her chair, a single eye straining to keep open. “My sister always told me not to steal candy with strangers…”

Sombra put both back hooves on the table as he sipped from his teacup. “Don’t you worry your adorable little head about a thing, my dear. Your very good friend Sombra has everything well under control.”

He flashed her a very toothy sneer.

Sadly, it didn’t seem to have all that much of a calming effect, as she gulped and then passed out onto the table next to her friends.

Slurping noisily, Sombra finished his tea and looked over the still bodies of the Crusaders and realized he’d made his first honest mistake.

He actually did want some of those stale cookies now.

***

Sweetie Belle flinched as she accidentally bit her tongue, causing her eyes to pop open. With a jolt, she sat up on the floor; something large and paper thin falling across her back. As she tried blinking the sleep from her eyes, she noticed how dark the room had gotten—the full moon and billions of stars glittered outside.

When she noticed her and her friend’s discarded tea set and cold cups of tea, her heart gave a lurch and she grimaced, oddly biting her tongue all over again.

“Ow! Why do I keep doing that?”

The room was dimly lit by two thin candles atop the table. Sombra strolled into the light so Sweetie Belle could see him fully.

Again her eyes widened as large as saucers.

“Mr. Sombra? Why’d you do that to us? And why do you look so different now?”

In the time the three of them had passed out, Sombra had removed his cape and grown a new pair of long bat wings, currently resting on his back. When Sweetie Belle eyed up his wings, he spread them out with a whoosh! More changes had befallen the stallion. His ears appeared furrier and more bat-like; his fangs a few centimeters longer and poking out from his mouth.

He chuckled. “I drank the same potion as the rest of you had. I only put you all to sleep first, as to not set off any alarms.”

Sweetie Belle got to her hooves and frowned at him as hard as she could. “You think putting us to sleep without us knowing wouldn’t alarm us!?”

Sombra shrugged.

When she turned to her friends, Sweetie Belle felt that same light tap as something papery settled against her back. Then the sensation of something new attached to her entered her head—the muscles and nerves of limbs she hadn’t had before. Moving her shoulder gently, one of her bat wings swung out to her side before it went limp and whapped into her. Two attempts later, she got both wings upright and straight, recalling how Scootaloo would hold hers right before she tried to fly.

On the floor behind her were her friends, both of them beginning to stir from their sleep. Like Sombra, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom each now had a pair of matching fangs and batwings, with ears a little larger and fluffier than before.

With a mix of excitement and unease, Sweetie Belle whirled to Sombra.

“You changed us!?” She winced as she accidentally bit her tongue again. “I didn’t want to be a batpony! You should’ve told us you were going to do that!”

Sombra took a step closer, stretching out both his shoulders and his wings. “Have no fear, Sweetie Belle. It is merely a spell and nothing more. When the morning sun peeks over the horizon, the spell will be effortlessly wiped away. So a word of caution before we begin: don’t be in mid-flight when the sun hits you. Trust me, a two story drops onto sharp jagged rocks hurts just as much as it sounds.”

“My wings! What happened to my wings?”

Scootaloo gasped at her new pair of bat wings, flapping them incessantly as she paced around in a circle.

“Wings? Why do I have wings?”

Apple Bloom seemed to be taking it the best out of the bunch, as she curiously grabbed at a wing to examine closer.

Sombra pulled a wide mirror out from the corner of the room to prop in front of them. “No more surprised reactions, please. I think everyone’s more than a little tired of gasps by now. So here’s what you look like. Get used to it. At least until tomorrow morning.”

For close to five minutes, the Crusaders took turns standing in front of the mirror, inspecting every last inch of themselves for the smallest of changes. As much as they peered, the changes had basically been the same for all of them: a darker shade of coat and mane, sharper teeth with fangs, bat-like ears and batwings, and a set of glowing yellow eyes.

Apple Bloom took a long look out the window. “What time is it?”

“It’s rather late,” Sombra answered calmly, “so we should make haste with tonight’s activities before we waste too much time.”

She turned to him, fangs digging into her lower lip. “I was supposed to be home by now. But now I can’t go home! Not looking like this! You gotta change us back, Sombra. What’ll my family say if they saw me looking like this?”

“They’d probably run you out of the orchard with flaming torches and pitchforks…” Sombra mumbled to himself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

He went to the window to stand beside her. “Worry not. I’ve already set up precautions at each one of your homes to make sure your absences will go unnoticed. Not only am I a master of the dark arts, but I am also a skillful manipulator of every mind I come in contact with. In each of your beds—should your family decide to check—they will find, in your place, a perfect illusion of each one of you. Should they ask the illusion a question, it will answer them true to form. Should your illusions speak, it will speak just the way I think the real you would. Believe me, in my short amount of time spent in Ponyville, I already know you three and your families and friends better than you even know yourselves.”

***

Applejack stopped outside Apple Bloom’s bedroom door, pressing an ear against the wood to listen. Inside, her sister snored softly, muttering to herself. Applejack heard her sister turn in bed and begin sleeping again.

Applejack laughed quietly. “Always was the soundest sleeper out of all of us.”

Apple Bloom mumbled something. Then repeated it.

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “She couldn’t be having that dream again, could she?”

Slowly, carefully, Applejack pried open her sister’s door and took a tentative step inside. From the doorway, she could see a mound of blankets pulled up to Apple Bloom’s head, a single bow left atop the covers. Applejack took a tiny step towards her to hear what she was saying.

“… apples… apples and junk…”

Between each snore, Apple Bloom whispered out a few more words.

With a hoof, Applejack clutched at her chest as a single tear dripped down her cheek.

“She’s having that same old dream all over again.”

Apple Bloom went on between snores.

“… my name is Apple Bloom and I like apples and junk… and I’m a filly and there’s a bow in my mane… and apples apples apples…”

Applejack sniffed, wiping away a tear. “I knew it. That old ‘my name is Apple Bloom and I like apples and junk’ dream she told me about last month. She really is dedicated to those darn apples of ours. If only she’d stop finding the need to introduce herself in her own dreams.”

Apple Bloom mumbled on for quite some time.

“… my name’s Apple Bloom and I’m pretty sure my blood’s made of apple sauce…”

***

Well away from such insanity, the recently transformed bat-like Sweetie Belle asked them all:

“So now that we look like this, just what are we supposed to do?”

Sombra displayed his enhanced set of fangs.

“Get revenge on those that deserve it, of course.”

Author's Notes:

You probably all thought Sombra was about to do something completely different to those three unconscious fillies, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!?

Shame! Shame!

The Scariest Of Scares

Soaring together across the midnight sky, Sombra held one hoof underneath Apple Bloom and another underneath Sweetie Belle. Every few seconds, he’d boost them up another half-foot to let them adjust to their wings.

“This is kind of hard, Mr. Sombra,” Sweetie Belle lamented, beating her thin wings with all her might.

Sombra propelled her up again. “You’ll get used to it. Don’t worry. If one of you should suddenly plummet towards the Earth tonight, you’ll probably be traveling so fast you won’t feel a single thing once you hit.”

Sweetie Belle spared Apple Bloom a glance—a glance that Sombra had begun to keep track of which meant: “I think we’ve made a mistake.”

Sombra grumbled, “But I wouldn’t worry much about that. If anyone falls, I’ll catch you with my magic. You two aren’t afraid of heights, are you? Scootaloo’s having a great time.”

With longer and lighter wings than before, Scootaloo took to the task of night flying faster than even Sombra had, circling around the top floor of the clubhouse before charging out the window and up into the clouds. Although Scootaloo had never been much of a giggler since he’d known her, she couldn’t stop them from bubbling out that night.

Sombra looked up to find Scootaloo dividing a cloud in half as she passed through it. She then lazily looped around the other three fliers as they struggled. “Isn’t this great, you guys!? I never thought I could love flying this much! But somehow I do!”

“Well, maybe that has something to do with the fact you’re actually flying now,” Sombra grumbled, as Scootaloo shot past his snout by less than an inch, “as opposed to whatever it was you used to do before. Hovering? Is that what you did?”

Apple Bloom poked his shoulder. “Be nice, Sombra. This is the first time Scootaloo’s really had a chance to fly, so don’t you go ruining it for her.”

“Tonight’s not only about flying, you know,” Sombra replied. “I have a lot in store for you all. If tonight doesn’t warrant at least a single cutie mark for one of you three, then I doubt any of you were destined for a lifetime of villainy.”

Sweetie Belle gritted her fangs and flapped her wings hard enough to get some distance off his hoof. “We never actually said we’d be good at being evil, though. You did.”

“That’s because I know what’s best. And right now, what’s best is a good scare. So let’s land.”

Over the next few minutes, Sombra gradually descended from the sky to land on a rooftop in the center of Ponyville. Once Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom safely touched the roof, Sombra shouted for Scootaloo to come join them. He was told, “just five more minutes.” Six-and-a-half minutes later, he grabbed her in his reddish aura and dragged her down to their level, Scootaloo glaring all the way.

Sombra never thought he saw a filly look at him with such unrelenting levels of hate as when he brought her down—which was odd, considering how many foal slaves he used to oversee on a daily basis and point at and laugh.

Standing by the edge of the roof, he told them, “The art of a good scare is all in the set up—the atmosphere, the tension, the sounds. If someone just pops out and goes ‘Blargh!,’ then they’re nothing more than annoying. First, you have to make them think that’s something wrong. Then, you need to make them think that something’s very wrong. And after that?”

Scootaloo raised a leg. “Make them think that something’s super wrong?”

Sombra shook his head.

Apple Bloom also raised a leg. “Make them think all their apples are gone?”

Sombra shut his eyes. “Why hasn’t your family had a surprise intervention yet?”

Lastly, Sweetie Belle answered, “Laugh really loud and tell them you’re going to bite their neck and suck out all their blood?”

With a hoof, Sombra rubbed a wayward tear from his eye. “You always seem to know just what to say to get the waterworks going, Sweetie Belle. Five jellybeans for you.”

“What happened to all those stickers from before?”

“I lost them.” He straightened out his back and looked to the street below. A middle-aged mare casually strolled away from them. “Target acquired, my fine fillies.”

When Scootaloo found the mare on the road, her pupils shrunk. “That’s Mrs. Cheerilee!”

“It is?” Sweetie Belle asked, before looking herself. “Oh, hey, it is! We should say hi or something.”

“Looking like this?” Apple Bloom interjected. “I wonder why she’s out so late.”

“Maybe she had a date with Big Mac,” Sweetie Belle said.

Apple Bloom laughed. “Yeah, sure. Those two on a date after… .” Her chuckles died as something came to mind. “Although that might help explain why Big Mac said he was too busy for chores this afternoon.”

Sombra silenced them by spreading his wings with a whoosh. “It matters not who she is. This Cheery Lee will now have the scare of her life! I hope you all brought something to write notes with.”

All three fillies glanced at their exposed sides. “With what?”

“Just pay attention,” Sombra said, before jumping from the roof.

***

Even from a safe distance away, Sombra could hear Cheerilee humming some faint tune, her head bobbing to the right and to the left. Not once did she spare a glance behind her or take in her surroundings. Perhaps Sweetie Belle’s thoughts of her recently finishing off a romantic entanglement had been true.

Only Sombra didn’t want her happy or content. No. He wanted her scared. And he knew just how to get her there.

Sombra’s horn illuminated in a pulsing red glow, and from the edges of each alley seeped out a thick white fog. Soon it rose several feet into the air, encasing the street from front to back. Sombra had to strain to see ahead of him—could barely make out the silhouetted figure that was Cheerilee.

Once the fog rolled over her, she came to a halt and looked around. “This fog is… oddly sudden. The forecast never said anything about this.”

Using his horn, Sombra wrapped a bit of magic around a trashcan next to her. He cocked his head to the left and the can toppled to the street, crashing loudly and spreading garbage in the still night air. Its lid rolled up the curb noisily.

Cheerilee sucked in air and remained where she stood.

Sombra took a quick sniff and tasted fear in the air. We’re well on our way, he thought pleasantly.

In a flash of black smoke, he disappeared to materialize behind her. As quietly as he could, he stretched out his neck and warmly exhaled on her neck.

Now Cheerilee did more than suck in air. Now she squeaked like a chew toy.

“Is someone there?” she whispered.

Sombra replied as low and as guttural as possible. “Yes.”

When she spun around, Sombra turned himself into a pit of pure darkness, only his floating red-and-green eyes visible, burning with a fiery intensity. He opened his jaws and displayed his fangs, dripping with saliva in the blackened void he had created.

Cheerilee collapsed to her rump and stared at him awestruck, screaming the entire time. The moment he appeared behind her, Sombra created a soundproof bubble around the two of them. A smart move, he soon realized.

Sombra remembered what Sweetie Belle had said and decided to use it. “And now to bite your neck and drink your blood. All of it!”

Cheerilee just continued to scream, shielding herself with a leg.

Making his whole form visible, Sombra awkwardly chewed on his tongue. “So you’d better run away soon! Otherwise… .”

Cheerilee’s cheeks became stained with tears as she continued to shriek.

Sombra sighed. “Seriously? I haven’t even done anything. Just run away! Go! What are you waiting for?”

“I don’t want to die!” she yelled, a bit of snot dripping from her nose.

“Well, you’re doing a terrible job at not dying, then!” Sombra told her earnestly. “Here, I’ll show you what to do.”

With his horn, he levitated her back to an upright position, only for her to crumble the moment he didn’t support her. By the third attempt, she finally found her footing, still shaking like a leaf caught in a breeze.

Sombra said, “Now mush! Go! Run!”

“But I don’t know how anymore!”

That last part made Sombra so mad, tiny dots danced in his vision. He quivered out a breath. “I know what you need: motivation. How ‘bout this?”

From the pile of garbage on the ground, Sombra found a soaked newspaper and rolled it up tight. He then smacked her on the plot with it and watched her gallop up the street—the opposite of the direction she’d been going previously.

Before returning to the girls, Sombra rubbed at his temple with a hoof.

“I should’ve stuck to my original plan of destroying this town.”

***

“This house looks big,” Apple Bloom said, once the four of them landed next to the pool.

“And familiar, too,” Sweetie Belle added, taking in the backyard’s in-ground pool and numerous tables and deck chairs. She gasped. “Wait. This isn’t Diamond Tiara’s house, is it?”

Sombra whirled around to her with a grin. “One and the same! But we must be quiet now—everyone’s asleep inside. Follow me.”

After Sombra stepped off the ring of cement around the pool, he strolled around the side of the house and looked up towards a large shut window.

“I don’t have a great feeling about this,” Scootaloo admitted. “Why can’t we just go fly around some more? That was fun!”

Apple Bloom shot her a look. “For you, maybe. I’ve only had wings for an hour and they’re already sore.”

Sombra flapped his wings and rose in the air. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home.”

Not giving them time to interject, he flew upwards and hovered in front of the window he’d been staring at. Scootaloo shot up after him in a hurry, while Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom both struggled to reach them. Again, Sombra used a bit of his magic to give them the necessary boost.

Through the window, Sombra could see a lone burning candle on the floor. To one side was Diamond Tiara wrapped tight in a sleeping bag, eyes closed. Opposite of her was Silver Spoon, also asleep in a matching sleeping bag.

Sombra turned to the trio. “What do they call these things again?”

Apple Bloom bumped her nose against the glass. “You mean sleepovers?”

“Sure. That sounds right.”

Visibly winded from continuously beating her wings, Sweetie Belle landed on Sombra’s flank and held on tight. “Why are we here again? You really need to start explaining things in advance to us.”

He regarded her wearily. “And ruin the surprise? Unheard of. And it should be obvious why we’re here. Revenge, remember?”

Sweetie Belle gulped. “Revenge?”

“Yes, indeedy.”

“But we told you not to hurt them!”

“I have no plans of hurting them, Sweetie Belle. Instead… we shall merely scare them a bit. Perhaps make them think twice about bullying you in the future. Wouldn’t that be a nice change of pace?”

Scootaloo returned to the group after doing a few fast dives off the roof. “And how do we go about doing that?”

“Are you three really going to make me explain everything?” Sombra grabbed Scootaloo with a leg so she wouldn’t wander off again. “I’ve given you all wings and fangs and you can’t even figure out how to scare two little fillies? Well, I’m not going to do everything for you. Sweetie Belle, as my top student, I’m leaving you in charge. Make me proud.”

Suddenly, Sombra shot his plot up and bucked Sweetie Belle back into the air, causing her to chirp and start erratically flapping with her wings. It didn’t take her long to get her flight back under control.

She looked down at Sombra on the lawn. “Do I have to?”

He nodded. “Yes. Otherwise I’ll take away all of the candy we stole and bury it somewhere you won’t find it.”

“Now that’s just mean!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

Sombra stuck his tongue out at her. “Then I guess the tyrannically king of the Crystal Empire and ruler of slaves is a little bit mean! Who ever would have thought?”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “How are we even—”

“Shh!” Sweetie Belle pressed her face against the glass. “I think I see one of them moving. They must have heard you, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo flew next to her friend and glanced inside. “Sorry. What should we do? What can we even do?”

“Duck!” Sweetie Belle grabbed both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom and pulled them down enough to not be visible from the window. She whispered to them, “One of them grabbed the candle inside. I think they were coming over here.”

Apple Bloom asked, “Shouldn’t we let them see us? To scare them, I mean?”

“Wait until they get close—then we’ll fly up and surprise them.”

Scootaloo nodded. “Okay. And make sure to look scary, you guys. We should hiss or something.”

Apple Bloom looked downcast. “You don’t think we’ll get in trouble for this, do you? I mean, what if they tell Mrs. Cheerilee at school tomorrow?”

“Tell her what?” Scootaloo said. “That three bat ponies were hovering outside their window? Who’d even believe them?”

Sweetie Belle sighed. “Well, Mrs. Cheerilee was scared by bat Sombra only a little while ago, so….”

Scootaloo pursed her lips. “Good point. But a better question: do you really care? We won’t look like this tomorrow. Or, I hope we won’t.”

Apple Bloom clumsily propelled herself in-between them. “We could talk about this more, or we could jump up in three, two, one, scare!”

“BLARGH!” all three fillies screamed in unison once they were visible from the window, brandishing their fangs while throwing their wings to their sides.

Silver Spoon was closest to the window when they made themselves known; Diamond Tiara was busy clutching her friend’s back like some makeshift shield. At the sight of the trio of bat ponies, Silver Spoon leapt back and collided with Diamond Tiara, who had the candle from earlier in her mouth. Knocked to the floor, the candle flew from her lips and landed atop a nearby blanket—one which quickly caught on fire.

Instantly, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle dropped their nefarious act as their jaws dropped in shock. Silver Spoon kept her attention on the ponies outside the window until Diamond Tiara screamed behind her. Diamond Tiara soon began beating the lit blanket with one of their sleeping bags. That, too, was hurriedly set ablaze and abandoned.

The second fire only added to Diamond Tiara’s terror, and she backed into the corner furthest from the flames. The lit sleeping bag leaned against the only door in the room.

“How’s it going, girls?” Sombra called from down below.

Apple Bloom turned to him. “Sweetie Belle set them both on fire.”

Sombra smiled. “Really? That’s fantastic. I had no idea you had an interest in pyromancy, Sweetie Belle. To think, we could’ve brought stuff to make smores with.”

Horrorstruck, Sweetie Belle told Apple Bloom, “I did not set them on fire! We need to help them!”

Apple Bloom didn’t appear as concerned. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Diamond Tiara’s parents had to have heard something by now.”

“Unless they’re not home,” Scootaloo said, not taking her eyes from the scene inside.

Sweetie Belle looked back inside to find Silver Spoon trying to beat away the fire closest to the door with a pillow. A moment later, that same pillow was blackened with flames and tossed away.

Silver Spoon joined her friend in the corner and both of them tried to make themselves as small as possible.

Scootaloo tapped on the glass. “Look! Sweetie Belle! There’s a pitcher of water on the nightstand over there by those glasses. Grab it with your horn and dump it!”

“They had water this whole time and didn’t use it?” Sweetie Belle exclaimed.

“They were probably scared… and maybe a little dumb, too, but that doesn’t matter!”

Sweetie Belle flew a foot above Scootaloo and landed on her back.

Scootaloo began beating her wings twice as hard to support them both. “What gives?”

A white aura wrapped around Sweetie Belle’s horn. “I can’t concentrate if I have to fly. Just stay put and try not to move too much.”

With a grimace, Scootaloo did as she was told. Inside the fiery room, the large water pitcher levitated into the air and sluggishly made its way to the burning pile closest to the door. Sweetie Belle gave a grunt and the pitcher turned on its side, extinguishing the flames with a hiss. The moment the fire was out, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon bolted for the door and out of sight down the stairs.

Using what water remained in the pitcher, Sweetie Belle put out the remaining two small fires before letting the empty pitcher fall to the floor. She exhaled a sigh of relief.

“It’s okay, Sombra!” she yelled out. “I put out the fire! It was cool… sort of.” But when she turned around to glimpse the lawn below, Sombra was nowhere to be found. “Mr. Sombra?”

Cautiously, the trio descended to the ground and went back to the pool area to look for him. Only when they made their way to the front of the large house did he nearly run into them, his head beaded with sweat and a one-sided grin on his lips, hardly holding in a chuckle.

“Have fun, you three?” he asked them.

“Where’d you go?” Sweetie Belle said. “Did you go get the fire department?”

He snorted. “Why’d I ever want to put a fire out? No. I only had to relieve myself at the other side of the house. That tea from earlier must’ve just shot right through me.”

Scootaloo hovered near his head. “And that made you all sweaty?”

Sombra smiled thinly at her. “I’ll remind you, it was a rather large cup of tea.”

“Then why were you laughing?”

He roughly ruffled her mane. “Because I managed to write my whole name and official title on their sidewalk before I was done. Any more questions? Or can we press on?”

By the tone in his voice, none of them were about to question him any further.

Sombra sighed. “Good. Now time for the best part.”

***

Applejack got all the way back into bed and even pulled her blankets up to her neck before she realized she’d been a complete idiot. This, obviously, made her sit up straight and contemplate just what Apple Bloom had said only seconds ago.

“Apples and junk?” Applejack mumbled out, brain slowly coming alive like it’d been hit by its first cup of morning coffee. “Blood made of applesauce?”

Then the largest revelation of them all.

“Apple Bloom never had apple dreams. That was me! So just what in tarnation is going on around here?”

That was when Big Mac kicked in her bedroom door and stared at her gravely.

Applejack only had to nod a single time. “You felt it, too, didn’t you? The apple sense?”

He nodded. “Eeyup.”

“I knew something fruity was going on here.”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack shot out of bed and had her hat on in a snap. “Then let’s move. One way or another, this Sombra nonsense ends tonight.”

***

“Keep going! You’re all doing a very good job! A few more scoops and I’d say you all earned those juice boxes I promised you.”

Scootaloo looked up to Sombra, bits of fresh dirt clinging to her hooves and coat. “This would go a lot faster if you were to help, you know. You’re only, like, four times our size.”

Sombra greedily finished off another juice box and threw it into the pile of other empties by his hooves. “Sorry, only brought the three shovels along. And I’m just terrible at manual labor. Ask any one of my slaves.”

Using her horn, Sweetie Belle poured another half-scoop of dirt out of the rectangular hole she was in. Her two friends worked on a near identical hole next to her. “This should be deep enough for the seeds. Right, Sombra? What type of trees did you want to plant anyways?”

Sombra shook his head and chuckled. “Oh. No, I’m sorry dear. As much as you all might’ve liked to plant some random flowers or trees in the middle of the night for some reason, I actually had you dig those pits for a far grander purpose.”

For the second time that night, Sweetie Belle gave Apple Bloom the “I think we’ve made a mistake” look. Only this time it didn’t seem nearly as comical as before.

Sombra leisurely paced around the pair of three-foot deep pits. “I’ve never been much of a gardener. But what I am good at is grave digging. Don’t you recognize what you’re standing in?”

Sweetie Belle’s shovel dropped out of the air. Her lip quivered. “Mr. Sombra, I’d really like to go home now, please.”

Sombra paid her little mind. “Right after we’re done here. We still have fillies to bury.”

His last sentence spurred the three of them into action. Scootaloo flew out of the small hole like a bullet before quickly returning and pulling Apple Bloom along beside her. Sweetie Belle had less trouble escaping, using both her wings and some magic from her horn to climb over the edge of the grave.

They only got two meters away from the scene before a crimson aura wrapped around them and dragged them back. Using his horn, Sombra spun them around and stood them in a row next to him.

“Leaving so soon?” he said coldly, narrowing his eyes at them. “I thought we were a group? I thought groups stayed together through thick and thin?”

“But I don’t want to be buried!” Sweetie Belle shouted.

Sombra cocked a brow. “Who said anything about you? I only see two graves before me. I think it’s time to reveal our special guests.”

When he released them from his aura, the trio remained where they were, watching as Sombra went behind a nearby tree and returned with two wriggling sacks above his head. Into each grave went a sack. From each sack came a familiar voice.

“When my father hears about this, you’ll be in so much trouble!”

Diamond Tiara trapped in sack number one.

“What she said!”

Silver Spoon from sack number two.

“Shut up!” Sombra roared at them, making both sacks jolt and keep quiet. He turned to the other three with a toothy sneer. “I’ve been going too easy on you three. Perhaps something a bit more drastic might earn you all a mark or two. Hmm? But I guess before we get started, I really should ask before I get egg on my face:

“Have any of you committed murder before?”

Author's Notes:

Well, considering things are getting pretty dark at the moment, that should inform you we're only a few chapters away from the end. I'd say 2 or 3 chapters remaining at most.

Sorry about the wait. I'll be pumping out the rest of the story without pause. Anyone else going as Sombra for Halloween? "Candy... Crystal candy..."

The Gravest Of Circumstances

Rarity sluggishly answered the door with her sleep-mask wrapped around the side of her head, one of her eyes struggling to stay open while the other remained shut. The sight of all five of her friends finally helped lift that droopy lid.

“Twilight?” she greeted tiredly. “What’s—”

Applejack charged out from the rest and pushed Rarity further inside. “No time to explain. We can’t find Scootaloo anywhere and now we need to know if Sweetie Belle’s all right.”

Rarity rubbed at one eye. “Why of course Sweetie Belle’s all right. She’s been asleep since this evening—I went to check up on her myself a few hours ago, and…”

Applejack’s anxious expression killed whatever Rarity had left to say. Without another word, the pair galloped up the boutique’s stairs and entered the first room on the right.

Rarity sighed at the sight of her peacefully sleeping sister. “See? Everything’s fine. What’s gotten you all so riled up suddenly, dear?”

Ears twitching, Applejack stomped across the room. “Because my sister wasn’t in her bed tonight, or anywhere else for that matter, but something else was.”

“What was?” Rarity asked.

“A trick; not even a good one.”

Applejack lifted the covers off of Sweetie Belle, revealing the filly curled up in a tight little ball. She mumbled something just below hearing.

Rarity clutched at her chest. “I still don’t understand. What’s she saying, Applejack?”

Applejack leaned in to listen to Sweetie Belle, then rolled her eyes. “She’s saying she’s a cute little marshmallow… and that’s it, over and over again.”

Chuckling uneasily, Rarity added, “Well, she does sort of look like—”

“Sweetie Belle! Get up right this instant!” Applejack screamed into her ears.

The filly jolted and fell off the bed head first. An instant later, she was back on her hooves and confusedly glancing at each pony in the room. “Marshmallow?” she said earnestly.

Rarity gave Applejack a smack on the shoulder. “Now look what you’ve done! You scared her half to death—”

Applejack shoved a hoof into her mouth. “Listen for a moment.”

Sweetie Belle set her big eyes on Rarity, angling her head to the side. “Marshmallow?”

“Ee ‘as ‘rain m’age!” Rarity exclaimed through her friend’s hoof.

“Or…” Applejack started, removing her wet hoof from Rarity’s mouth, “she’s just an trick, like I said.” With one of her dry hooves, she went to pat Sweetie Belle on the head, only for her leg to slip right through her and hit the floor.

Sweetie Belle giggled as if it tickled. “Marshmallow!”

That finally did it. Rarity grabbed hold of Applejack’s shoulders and pressed her snout against hers. “So where is she? Where’s my darling sister?”

“Heheheheehehahaha!”

Rarity and her friends turned to find Sweetie Belle laughing as loud as she could. In place of her sweet, innocent voice was King Sombra’s. It had the oddest effect coming from an adorable, curly-maned little filly.

Sweetie Belle glared at each of them. “You will never see your darling sisters again!”

“What!?” Rarity and Applejack yelped together.

“Or Scootaloo!”

All eyes on the room turned to Rainbow Dash until she sighed and begrudgingly said, “Oh, no. That is also a bad thing.”

Sweetie Belle chuckled deeply. “I will harvest those fillies’ souls—drink their youth so that I may live forever. You will never find their bodies or wish them farewell. You are too late, I’m afraid. Far too late.”

Rarity slapped both hooves to her cheeks. “That can’t be true! You’re lying!”

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Or maybe we’re playing hide and go seek in the dark. Either way, don’t bother us anymore!”

One last laugh and Sweetie Belle ceased to be—a small flash of light showcasing her exit.

For a long while, no one knew exactly what to say. Until Pinkie Pie did.

She fell to her knees in horror. “This is just the worst… possible… thing! They’re playing hide and go seek and I’m not there to join in!?”

Applejack consoled her with a hoof. “That Sombra sure is evil. No doubt about that. So I think we better end this little experiment before someone gets hurt. If my sister or her friends were going to befriend the tyrant, I’m sure they would’ve by now. Twilight? Can we put an end to this, please?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “That’s probably for the best, Applejack. I thought the Crusaders would help show Sombra the more joyful things in life to help him finally earn his cutie mark, but so far all Sombra has done is try and recruit them as sidekicks. Perhaps in his mind, he’s being kind.” She glanced at the empty bed and the spot where Sweetie Belle disappeared from. “Only now he’s trying to trick us so he can spend more time with them, and that just doesn’t sit right with me. Sombra never seemed like the type to stay calm and collected for more than a few days. He may well be at his snapping point.”

Rarity shot a hoof towards the ceiling. “Then what are we waiting for!? He might have them smoking or swallowing gum right this minute! And that stuff never leaves your system!”

“Never!” Pinkie Pie added gravely, before nodding. “And I would know.”

Applejack gulped. “Or maybe he’s having them do something even worse.”

***

“Okay. Who wants to start?” Sombra asked, holding a shovel out to the three of them.

Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo looked at him awestruck.

“Don’t be greedy, my little ones. I know these pests have done a number on you over the years, but I’ll make sure you each get a turn. So who’s first?”

“Let me out!” protested Diamond Tiara behind him. “It smells like gross potatoes in here!”

Sombra turned to her. “That’s why it’s called a potato sack, darling. But I think you have bigger things to worry about right now.”

The filly in the sack sat up in her grave. “Like what? Smelling like some stupid vegetable?”

“Or…” Sombra explained to her calmly, “the fact that you’re about to be buried alive in the next few minutes.”

“What!?” both sacks shrieked.

“Feel that dirt underneath you? That’s called a grave. Bodies go into graves and usually don’t come back out. I say ‘usually’ because there was this one time—”

“But I don’t want to die!” Diamond Tiara wailed.

“What she said!” Silver Spoon agreed.

Sombra grumbled, displaying his fangs. “Well, maybe you should’ve thought about how badly you enjoyed not being dead back when you were terrorizing the young and innocent!”

“My father’s rich!” Diamond Tiara responded. “Really, really rich! He’ll pay you anything! Please!”

Sombra stood by the edge of the graves. “This was never about bits, little one. This was always about sending a message—that life is not fair; that not all little fillies get to grow up and live the life of their dreams; that sometimes things end for no good reason and there’s just not anything you can do about it!”

Inside her potato sack prison, Diamond Tiara turned to her side and whimpered. It was sweet music to Sombra’s ears. Turning and seeing Sweetie Belle nearly in tears was not nearly as sweet.

He lowered down to the three of them and pulled them close. He winked. “How am I doing?”

Sweetie Belle told him, “You’re scaring us, Mr. Sombra. More than usual. Please, stop. Oh, please, please stop this!”

Sombra raised his brows. “You think this is real? That I’m really going to bury two fillies in the middle of the school playground?”

Apple Bloom glared at him. “You mean… you’re not gonna murder Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?”

He snorted. “You must really think I’m a monster, mustn’t you? No. What was tonight’s big lesson on? Scaring. And what better way to scare a pony than by pretending to kidnap them and bury them alive?”

Scootaloo thought for a moment. “Anything but that?”

“Incorrect, but thanks for playing.”

Scootaloo said tentatively, “Okay. Then if that’s the case, I think they got the point. So we can stop now. All right?”

Sombra scowled. “Not all right. Not nearly all right. Not until that first bit of loose dirt hits their sides will they truly know what losing everything feels like.”

“But I thought this was about scaring ponies,” Apple Bloom spoke.

“It… it is….” Sombra paused, thinking. “I’ll… I’ll only do the one scoop and then we’ll be done. Okay? Maybe you three could stand by their graves and pretend they’ve wound up in the underworld or something. That might be fun. Although, I highly doubt the underworld contains adorable fillies with bat wings and—”

“Stop what you’re doing, Sombra! Right this instant!”

The four of them spun around when a harsh bright light fell upon them, blinding them all. Sombra shielded his eyes with a leg and could barely make out the figure of Twilight Sparkle with a bullhorn in one hoof. The rest of the Elements stood beside her—Rainbow Dash in the air with a massive spotlight. Each had a look of stern determination.

Except for Pinkie Pie, who appeared more than excited by the current proceedings.

“Are you all done playing hide and go seek!?” she screamed across the field.

Sombra grinned. “Yes, pink mare! And it was glorious! Afterwards, ice cream cake was served and, that too, was glorious!”

“Is there any left!?”

Sombra gave his back to her and pretended to munch on something. He yelled to her, “Sorry! All gone! I would have saved you some, but I had no idea you liked ice cream or cake or the combination of the two.”

Pinkie Pie pointed a hard hoof at him. “You liar! Everyone knows that!”

Using her aura, Twilight closed Pinkie’s mouth. She brought the bull horn to her mouth again. “We’ve been watching you for some time, Sombra!”

Sombra put a hoof to the side of his mouth. “No shit!”

Twilight continued unperturbed, “Seeing if you’d change your act! Obviously, this was a mistake! We need you to step away from the Crusaders and we’ll discuss what happens next! We are not here to harm you as you haven’t actually done anything to warrant it! So stop whatever it is you’re doing and come with us quietly!”

“Quietly says the one with the bullhorn,” Sombra muttered to himself.

For a time, he looked from Twilight and her friends and back to the Crusaders by his side. He could tell the fillies wanted to run to the others to get away from him and this ghastly scene. Maybe he had gone overboard this time—maybe the Crusaders’ path was never supposed to be one of villainy and all-around nastiness. But could anyone blame him for trying? How long were ponies going to let the Crusaders continue on their quest before someone suggested they mix it up and try something new?

He stared down Twilight again, his face twitching between a snarl and plain bewilderment. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know how to react. He’d shown a gentler side of himself to Sweetie Belle and the others that he hadn’t tapped into for centuries. But could he show that side to the same mares that destroyed him only a few years ago? Could he let his title as one of the greatest villains in Equestrian history honestly slip away from him in just a night?

Sombra had always been good at making speeches, whether rehearsed or on the spot. Tonight would be no different.

Standing up straight like a true villain should, he told Twilight: “Make me!”

Throughout their short-lived conversation, Sombra could tell both Applejack and Rarity desperately wanted to charge ahead toward their sisters. Twilight seemed to be the only one that held them at bay, reassuring them that a peaceful outcome would work better than an all-out battle. It seemed Sombra’s last statement was enough to break their composure, as he watched them escape the group and gallop across the field.

While Applejack jerked a lasso out from her saddlebag, Rarity lit up her horn and gritted her teeth. Sombra waited to see if he should dive to the side to avoid a blast of some kind, but instead found Sweetie Belle and her friends wrapped in Rarity’s magic and clumsily lifted into the air.

It seemed Rarity’s magic was limited to sewing needles and fabric stitches.

Too bad Sombra’s magic was limited to nearly everything.

“You’re coming with me,” he told Sweetie Belle and the others, snapping Rarity’s magic off of them before encasing them in a crimson bubble.

When he faced the group of mares again, a patch of grass near his hooves burst into flames. He looked up and saw a bit of smoke at the tip of Twilight’s horn. A warning shot. Unless she really was as terrible an alicorn as Sombra’s malicious rumors said.

“Put them down, Sombra,” she warned. “We only want to talk.”

“And I only want to dance on your graves while eating quesadillas, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

Sombra screamed, forming a swirling black vortex in the center of the four remaining mares at the end of the playground. In the blink of an eye, the vortex expanded and swept them up and away. Rainbow Dash was able to shake it off and fly away, but Twilight and Fluttershy were sent sprawling into the dirt. Pinkie Pie, somehow, bounced off the growing vortex and curled her body into a cannon ball, giggling the entire time.

As Sombra ran behind a tree, he made a mental note to one day fire her out of a cannon should the situation arise. Although he knew she’d somehow survive, the sight might still grant him some momentary levity.

“Let go of my sister, you varmint!” Applejack had made her way to them, her pace grinding to a halt only feet from the graves.

Rarity was close behind her, horn at the ready. Unlike her friend, though, she’d actually noticed the two freshly-dug holes in the ground.

She sucked in enough air for three ponies. “Oh, sweet Celestia’s Equestria! What was he about to do!?”

Applejack turned to the scene and raised a hoof to her mouth to keep from gagging. “About to do? What are in those sacks?”

Diamond Tiara mumbled something to them that Sombra couldn’t hear. More than likely more of that “help me, I don’t want to die” type of stuff. Once you’d heard it a hundred times, it truly all started to blend together.

Sombra poked his head out from behind the tree, his bubble of carefully contained fillies close to his back.

Applejack was already staring in his direction. “What were you planning on doing, Sombra? What was the point of all this?”

Again, Sombra thought of the avenues of answers he could travel down. The truth—or something else that might be better for all of them to hear, including himself.

He bared his teeth at her. “I was going to bury those brats alive! Save everyone some trouble! You should be thanking me, you meddlesome mare!”

Behind him, Sweetie Belle scratched at the edge of her bubble enclosure. “Tell them the truth, Sombra. You just wanted to scare them. You only went too far this time. They’ll understand. I’ll talk to them and they’ll—”

Without turning to her, Sombra said, “I don’t think that’s the way this ends, Sweetie Belle. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you all when I said I would.”

Applejack took a few steps to them. “Those fillies will be just fine now that we’re here, Sombra. Now I want my sister and her friends! So stop this foolishness and give them back to us!”

By that point, Twilight and the rest of them joined the pair by the graves. Fluttershy was the only one that actually helped Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon out of their sacks, carefully wiping away their tears.

Such lightweights, Sombra thought.

Twilight approached him cautiously. “I know you don’t want to hurt any of these fillies, Sombra. You wouldn’t have been spending so much time with them if you did. You wanted to help them. And I think you also wanted to help yourself in the process. Like most of us, we tried to help the Crusaders earn their cutie marks as best we could—and you, of all ponies, went beyond that. Maybe you’re mad that they haven’t gotten them yet, but I think there must be more to it than that. Think, Sombra. Just think for a moment. You don’t really want to hurt them, do you?”

Sombra looked away and placed his back against the tree. He took a few deep breaths.

In the crimson bubble, Apple Bloom slid next to Sweetie Belle. “What are you waiting for? Tell them about the cutie marks! And the clubhouse and the lemonade stand! Tell them that you’re a Crusader too and that you were only trying to earn one yourself. They’ll understand. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Really!”

Sombra closed his eyes and the bubble popped. The three fillies landed in a heap on the grass. He spun away from them and left the protection of the tree, glaring at the mares only a few meters away.

“You’re all so stupid, it’s almost unreal,” he spoke thickly. “You think I’ve gone good all of a sudden? Hmm? Is that what you think happens to every villain you deal with? Nitwits, all of you! It’s called deception and you fell for it wholeheartedly. First, I’d win the love of those you care about. Then, I’d pretend to accept the error of my ways, foregoing my evil tendencies. Then, when you all thought that nothing could possibly go wrong, I’d kill all three of them in front of you. I’d make you watch—make you carry the knowledge with you that you could’ve stopped it at any time, but you didn’t. And you’d only have yourselves to blame. That’s what—”

“He’s lying! He never would’ve done that!” Sweetie Belle yelled to them, bounding out from behind the tree. She stopped near Sombra, pleading, “Why are you saying that? Why are you lying? Tell them the truth, Sombra! Please!”

Rarity brought a hoof to her mouth and gasped. “Sweetie Belle!? Why do you look like a bat pony? Better yet, why does everyone look like that?”

Sweetie Belle looked at her. “Sombra gave us all a potion—himself, too.”

“Not permanent, is it?”

“It wears off in the sunlight. Or I think it does.”

Rarity shot Sombra a glare. “Now you’re giving my precious little sister potions and turning her into a bat? What’s wrong with you?”

“Lots of things!” Sombra screamed. “I used to make potions all the time! They’re safe! Not once did Nocturne ever show signs of—” He cut himself off and frowned deeply.

Twilight entered the scene and took the lead ahead of her friends. She spoke to him gently, “Who’s Nocturne, Sombra? Were they someone special to you? We know you’ve said that name before.”

Sombra scowled. “How could you know that?”

“Sweetie Belle mentioned it in passing—after the lemonade sale. She asked Rarity if that was a filly’s or a colt’s name.”

“It’s a filly’s name, you annoying simpleton! And… it doesn’t matter anyways. Leave me alone! I’m done with this town.”

Twilight took another step forward. “Is that why you wanted to spend time with the Crusaders? Because they reminded you of this Nocturne?”

Sombra clicked his teeth together. “Don’t say her name! Go rot in Tartarus!”

He lowered his head and fired an orange beam from his horn that formed a circle of red markings on the ground. A second later, the inside of the circle collapsed in on itself and started pouring inward like a sinkhole. Once all the dirt and grass from inside the circle had fallen into the pit of darkness below, it hurriedly ate up the area of Earth surrounding it and continued to spread.

Twilight took a few steps back as did the rest. “This doesn’t need to end in a fight, Sombra!”

Sombra shook his head. “I’ve read up on you, Princess. When was the last time a battle between you and a villain didn’t end with a fight?” Then he laughed and laughed, straining to keep them coming. If it felt forced to him, it must’ve looked forced to everyone around.

“’Nuff of this!”

Applejack tightened her jaws on the end of her lasso and spun it around her head. She hooked it around the tree behind Sombra. Backing away, she leapt into the air and bounced off Pinkie Pie’s back, launching her another dozen feet up. Using that momentum, she swung towards the laughing tyrant with both back legs leading the charge.

Still in mid-chuckle, Sombra never saw the cowgirl’s strong legs buck at just the right time to strike his head and knock him out cold.

For the first time in years, he dreamt of Nocturne again.

Author's Notes:

Well, it seems since everyone's become aware of my tendency to darken up comedic material to the point of being cruel, they should also note my tendency to end stories on more positive notes than not. This story will be no different.

The last chapter of this story will return to its goofy, gooey, warm-hearted ways. The same cannot be said for the second last chapter, though.

The Saddest Of Stories

A gray-coated stallion with deep blue mane crept into her room late into the night. A streak of silver wove through his mane, ending just above his cobalt eyes. The horn that gripped the lit candle by his head was long and straight. Dark bags and hard lines underlined his eyes.

Sombra almost didn’t recognize his former self, as he watched the scene in the black void of dreams.

On a bed four sizes too big for her was a filly with a light blue coat and silver mane—a unicorn like her father. She hadn’t been asleep when he’d entered the room.

“You want your bed back, Daddy?” she asked, her small head nearly consumed by the plush pillow behind her.

Sombra shook his head. “That’s all right. The couch is plenty. You need a big bed so you can get your rest.” He set the candle on the bedside table and sat next to her. He put a leg to her head. “How are you feeling? Did you drink all of that remedy I gave you?”

Nocturne winced. “I did, but it tasted awful. Can’t you add something to your potions so they don’t taste so bad?”

He smiled thinly. “I think it’s best they don’t taste good. Don’t want ponies getting addicted to sleeping potions or pain removers, do we?”

She struggled to sit up in bed, so Sombra helped her up. She asked, “Do you get to talk to the King tonight? I tried to stay up and wait for you, but then I fell asleep until I heard you come home. You must’ve talked to him if you were gone so long.”

“I… actually….” Sombra stared down at the bed sheets. “I wasn’t able to see him, Nocturne. The line was too long and he must’ve been busy with other matters. But, I promise, I’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Nocturne set her back against the headrest. “He’s not going to let anyone leave the city, is he?”

Sombra shook his head. “Don’t say that. I only need to talk to him—to make him understand. I’m sure any day now he’ll see the error of his ways.” He tried for a smile. “And if nothing else, I’ll make you feel better myself. My potions must’ve cured nearly half the Empire by now.”

Nocturne looked up to him, finding his eyes again. “But I heard there’s no cure for this—that the only cure is beyond the walls and that the King won’t let anyone—”

In one swift motion, Sombra scooped her up and held her to his chest, stroking a hoof across her mane. He kept her head pressed against him to hide his tears from her. “Don’t believe everything you hear, sweetie. Everything’s going to work out fine. Trust me.”

Nocturne wrapped her hooves around his neck. “I wish you were King.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure a lot of ponies wish they were King right now.”

“But you’d be a good one. And then that would make me a Princess.”

“You know I’ve always considered you a Princess.”

She giggled, burying her head into him. “But a real one. And I’m pretty sure there’s not a single Princess without their cutie mark.”

“You’re still young enough for that. You still have time.”

“What do you think mine will be? When I get it?”

Sombra pulled her away from him, uncaring of his shimmering eyes. “You wouldn’t want me to ruin the surprise now, would you?”

***

Twilight Sparkle circled the invisible enclosure, checking and double-checking the marks on the floor and making sure they matched the ones from her text. The clear barrier was a circle twelve feet in size, and at its very center was the unconscious Sombra. During his sleep, his legs kicked out at random intervals, a line of drool seeping from his mouth. Either he was dreaming, or Applejack had scrambled his brains something fierce by her kick.

Twilight turned to her friends at the other end of her laboratory. “I think that should do it. Nothing will be getting in or getting out of that barrier unless I let it.”

Twilight’s laboratory sat in the west wing of her castle—so large and expansive, it basically made up the entire wing. Silver machinery and instruments lined the walls, while a giant moveable telescope poked out from the glass ceiling two stories above. Although she didn’t consider Sombra a science experiment or anything of the sort, she thought having extra room to maneuver should something arise would be the safest option.

Rainbow Dash hovered near the shield, keeping a careful distance away. “You sure about that, Twilight? Sombra seemed pretty pissed and powerful back at the playground.”

Twilight gave her a reassuring nod. “That’s only because we were unprepared. The markings I put on the floor, I uncovered from an ancient text, used to keep demons out of old villages. Ponies could cross the barrier, but no one else. I made a few changes, and I’m now able to control the setting on the walls that surround him—it goes from one all the way to ten. One being a tiny shock, up to ten which may or may not stop the heart once touched. If I set it to zero, it will shut down completely.”

Applejack whistled, staring up at the invisible prison. “What you got it set to now?”

“Eleven.”

“But I thought you said it only went up to ten.”

“Shh! He’s awake!”

On the floor, Sombra lifted his head from his legs, blinking sluggishly. He cracked his neck from side to side before standing, wobbling as he did. When his eyes met Twilight’s, he sighed angrily. “Really? You still haven’t learnt your lesson?” He started towards her. “As long as I am still alive, I will not stop until each one of you—”

Zap!

Twilight could tell the moment his nose mashed against the barrier, even if it only lasted a fraction of a second. Next, she watched as the fully grown stallion was propelled to the other end of the cage as easily as a tennis ball hit with a racket. She lowered the shield’s power down to one before he struck it again.

“Ow,” Sombra muttered, his back legs bent halfway up the wall while the rest of him was sprawled out along the floor. He grimaced and set his sights back on her. “What do you want!? Either let me go or do away with me! It’s not that hard, you know.”

Twilight approached the shield, cranking its power back up once Sombra stopped touching it. “We’re not here to harm you, Sombra. We’re only here to talk.”

“Tell my burnt forehead that!”

“This barrier is only for our protection. Don’t touch it and no harm will come to you.”

Sombra glared at the area around him, noting the markings on the floor. Keeping an eye on them, he came forward until he was at the very edge of his prison. “Why would I tell you anything?”

“Maybe you want to—it might feel good to let something out.”

Sombra belched, fogging up the wall. “You’re right. That felt great. Ready to release me yet?”

Twilight shut her eyes. “If you’re not ready to talk, then maybe I can piece together a few things until you’re ready. For starters, I know you have feelings for someone named Nocturne.”

At that, Sombra tightened his jaw.

“And after doing some research, I found out you weren’t the first King of the Crystal Empire. Not even the tenth or twentieth, actually. Although you were the last.”

He sneered. “So bookworm read herself some books. What do you want from me? A history quiz? Fine. Here’s a multiple choice question, just for you. How does Twilight Sparkle meet her demise? A) Decapitation. B) Immolation. C) Paper cut—”

Twilight didn’t let him finish. “It also says that during your reign as King, you attached yourself to no one. No friends, family, spouse—no one at all.”

“I had an Empire to run. It was enough,” he spat back.

Twilight hated herself for going down this path, although she thought it was the only way to get everything out of him. She bit down on her tongue painfully before she spoke.

“So you left this Nocturne behind when you became king?”

His lips twitched in fury. “I had an Empire to run. It was—”

“Enough. Yes, you said that. Did you cast her aside with your newfound position, or did something else happen to her? Something beyond your control? I read your Empire was afflicted by a plague right before your reign. Was it around then that something happened? Something that made you the way you are?” Twilight shook her head. “I can’t imagine you were always like this. What happened to you? What happened to Nocturne, and why does it have you following the Crusaders around so much?”

She spared a quick glance at his plot—at the ancient scars that crisscrossed his flank, heavily lined and faded.

He covered it with his tail when he saw her staring. He gave her a one-sided grin. “If I tell you, will you let me out of this thing?”

“That depends what you plan on doing afterwards.”

“I plan on leaving this town and never coming back.”

“That sounds a little too good to be true, considering how many death threats you’ve been spewing tonight.”

Sombra cocked a brow. “Don’t want to risk it all for some more knowledge, little bookworm?”

Applejack walked up to Twilight. “Can we talk? In private?”

She and Twilight went a few meters away from the circle, speaking in whispers.

Applejack started, “You can’t trust him, Twilight.”

“I don’t, but what else can we do? We can’t destroy him, like he wants. We can’t really let him go, either, without knowing for sure what he plans on doing.”

“Then what does that leave?”

Twilight looked down. “I guess that leaves getting to know him a little better. He might’ve cast doubt on his goodwill towards the Crusaders tonight, but some part of me still thinks it’s just an act. I think it’s only pride that’s getting in the way. In all the time we spent spying on him, did it ever seem like he’d hurt your sister or her friends? It might be helpful to get to know him more.”

“And if it’s all nothing but lies?”

Twilight stared into the cage.

Sombra had settled down near the edge, his plot on the ground and his forelegs resting on his lap. His eyes had a tired, faraway appearance, as if thinking of something. He caught her eyes and immediately gave her a smirk—a faint one, at least.

Twilight took a breath. “Somehow I don’t think he’s going to lie.”

***

Spike lifted his head from his scroll, his eyes narrowing until they were only slits. “I can hear you whispering, you know.”

On the thin bench against the wall sat the three Crusaders, tightly bunched together. When Spike spoke to them, Apple Bloom quickly spun away from Scootaloo and fixed her eyes on the ground again. It was a position they’d all been keeping since being brought up to Twilight’s workspace, high up in her castle. Spike had been given the task of keeping an eye on them until she returned, and he took the responsibility with as much seriousness as Ms. Harshwhinny would.

The silence in the room dragged, and Spike found it hard to concentrate on the list he’d been creating. He huffed and raised a claw. “Look. I’m not trying to be the bad guy here, but Twilight gave me a job, all right? I’m sure she won’t be much longer and then you can all go home.”

“And what about Sombra?” Scootaloo inquired.

Spike scratched his chin with his quill. “Well… um… Sombra will be just fine.”

“You promise? He hasn’t done anything wrong, honest!”

Spike dragged out a lengthy note from a drawer by his side. He scanned its contents morosely. “Threats of violence, threats of death, serving alcoholic beverages to the populace and the underage, having underage ponies serve said alcoholic beverages, attempted burial without the consent of those being buried—”

“He wasn’t really gonna do that!” Sweetie Belle chirped.

Spike didn’t look up from the list. “Didn’t seem that way to Twilight and the others. Let’s see: robbery, assault, assault with an unlicensed weapon that shoots candy and other sweets, driving a vehicle without a license, driving a vehicle that didn’t pass its exhaust emissions test, stealing untested devices from a well-known scientist, extorting said scientist to create said devices by kidnapping and use of threats.” He stared at the three of them. “You girls are in a lot of trouble by the sounds of it.”

Scootaloo blanched. “What? None of those were our ideas!”

“So you’re saying Sombra made you do all this?”

“No. It’s just….” She thought for a second. “It’s hard to explain, okay? Sombra’s very… charismatic when he wants to be. Or when he wants you to do something for him. He has a way with words, okay?”

Spike chuckled. “Then he really must’ve changed since the last time I saw him.” He returned to his scroll and made another note. He only wrote a single line before the fillies on the bench started whispering again. This time he let them continue unabated—honestly, it was more interesting than cataloging the castle’s various mustard varieties by shape, size, and color consistency.

“What do you think they’re doing to him?” Scootaloo asked softly.

“Talking, probably,” Apple Bloom replied. “Although, I’m not sure how much Sombra wants to talk. Why was he lying at the playground? He could’ve just told them he didn’t have a cutie mark and that he was trying to get one.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom sighed. “Probably not. Why do adults need to make things so difficult sometimes?”

Sweetie Belle finally joined in on the discussion. “Twilight wouldn’t hurt him, would she? I mean, he did attack them and everything, but… what do you think?”

“Not unless he insults them enough.”

That last part made all three of them go silent for a time.

“I wish we could be in there,” Sweetie Belle said glumly. “We could explain things better. Sombra’s being a big meany right now for no good reason. You think Spike would let us go see him if we asked?”

Scootaloo whispered, “I think there’s a fat chance of that. We won’t be seeing Sombra until Twilight’s done with him—whatever shape he’s left in, I mean.”

“Unless we escape and go see him ourselves.”

“You want to get in more trouble, Sweetie Belle?”

“Well, we were caught trying to bury our classmates this evening. I mean, how much more trouble could we get in?”

“Okay, but how?”

“Leave it to me.”

***

“Your idea sucked, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo told the unicorn bluntly, the paper bag over her head muffling her harsh tone.

Sweetie Belle shot her a look. Or, what Spike thought was a look, considering she was also wearing the same type of paper bag atop her head—three holes cut for her eyes and mouth. “At least it was an idea! Didn’t hear you coming up with anything better.”

The moment the Crusaders sent Sweetie Belle to intercept him, Spike opened the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved the few items listed under “Crusader Tactic No. 12”; namely, to quickly subvert the Crusader’s overabundance of cute. Without a word, Sweetie Belle came around his desk and looked up at him with gigantic, pleading, shimmering eyes, bottom lip quivering in the air. The sight alone caused Spike’s heart to slow, so before she could open her mouth and deliver the killing blow to him, he slapped one of the three paper bags he had over her head, instantly disabling her adorable offensive strategy.

When she tried to take it off, Spike told her he’d only put a new bag on her head—one without any holes in it. That seemed to do the trick, as Sweetie Belle’s shoulders dropped and she rejoined her friends on the bench.

Two paper bags later and Spike thought he had the situation well under control.

I think someone deserves a raise after this, he thought, picturing dancing red and green gems in his mind’s eye.

Two minutes passed and all he could hear in the room was the scratch of his quill. Five minutes later and he only heard more of the same. Just out of eyesight, he could glimpse the trio of brown paper bags, staring solemnly at the floor. Maybe if he penciled in a few mustaches for his own amusement, things wouldn’t feel so awkward.

Spike sighed, rubbing at his temple. “You can still talk, all right? No one’s mad at you or anything, so—”

Spike finally glanced up from his desk and the dancing gems in his head shattered to the imaginary ground. On the bench against the wall were three floating paper bags and nothing more; held in an aura that could only have been Sweetie Belle’s. The door to the room was left ajar.

He moaned, “I’m never gonna hear the end of this.”

***

As Sombra sat on the ground and spoke, Twilight did the same only a foot outside his cage. His tone of voice rarely wavered, almost as if he was reading the ingredients of some recipe and not telling the tale of how the tyrannical King Sombra came to be. The only tells Twilight could read were when his eyes darted to the floor, or when his lips curled faintly into a grin or to a snarl. But for the most part, he was calm, which felt all the more unsettling to her.

“Before I was King, I was a potions maker,” he began evenly. “I started out with simple fixes before advancing to levels beyond even my teachers. As I grew, I became known around the Empire—I made remedies that could cure even the worst ailments. I was surprised as most were when I became an adult and never earned a cutie mark in my field of expertise. Odd, I must admit, although I stopped caring after a while.”

“So what you told the Crusaders was true, then?” Twilight said.

Sombra stared at her without answering, before clearing his throat and continuing. “I fell in love with one of my patients—a mare that I can hardly picture anymore. During our short time together, she gave me three very important things: her love, a child to call my own, and a reason to exist. I held little Nocturne in my hooves for less than a second before I was granted my cutie mark. It seemed my special talent was to be a father all along.”

Twilight couldn’t help but glance at the large scars on Sombra plot. If he took notice, he made no mention of it.

“My wife died in childbirth, and overnight I became the sole caretaker of my daughter. Life was hard, for a time, but as she grew, things became easier and life was all right again. It felt okay to move on, finally, years after she had passed.”

This was one of the times he turned away to stare at the floor.

“Our King during this time was of the paranoid type. He’d read of past battles and skirmishes that’d ruined entire cities. He busied himself thinking that everyone he wasn’t keeping an eye on was out to do away with him. When he took control of the Empire, he sealed its doors and did away with the outside world. No trading. No bartering. He’d already become certain that many of the cities nearby wanted the Empire for themselves and that it was only a matter of time until they came and took it. So he sealed us in. And kept us there. Alongside a disease that had leaked inside our walls without our knowledge.

“Some took to calling it the ‘Ghost Curse,’ although that never really fit. Sure, one of the ailments was paleness, but… .” He paused. “It killed one in ten. It made them weak and frail and eventually shut down their organs until they simply ceased to be. A cure might’ve been found outside the walls—it might’ve even been a simple one, too—but our King found one in ten pony’s lives more than acceptable in order to keep his doors closed.”

Sombra’s lips curled up into the smallest of grins. “That was where I came in. Ponies from all over the Empire sought me out, begging me for a cure. Perhaps I was cocky, then, thinking one could be found in time. But no matter what I tried, all I did was keep the sickness at bay until it came back with a vengeance. Then one day, my Nocturne came home with a cough and my, oh my, did I realize how far things were out of my control.

“Hundreds of citizens, my friends and I included, attempted to speak to the King—convince him he was making a mistake by not seeking outside help—only to find he’d sealed himself in his castle and would not leave until the ‘Ghost Curse’ took its toll and faded away. It was then, when I found my own skills in potions nowhere near what we needed, that I heard word of a darker potion—one which gave insurmountable strength, but took something much bigger away from those that drank it.”

His eyes flicked up to Twilight’s and held them there. “What would you do for someone you loved? Better yet, what wouldn’t you do?”

Twilight barely opened her mouth before Sombra answered for her.

“Anything?” he snapped. “It’s not always as simple as that, Princess.”

He turned away from her again, focusing on one of his hooves. “I rallied ponies together, mostly those with dying spouses or children. Almost everyone wanted someone to usurp the King, take the ill-fated potion and regain control of the city. But none were willing to pay the price. Once someone took the potion, neither their mind nor their body would be theirs anymore… or worse.”

“So you took it,” Twilight said. “You did what no one else was willing to.”

Sombra kept focused on his hoof. “In time, yes, but not then. I went to Nocturne after our rally; her weak and in bed. I told her what I wanted to do—what I needed to do, for her—and she told me that was the last thing she wanted.”

“Why?”

“Because she didn’t want some monster looking over her, she wanted her father there beside her. She said that’s all she ever wanted. He was the one that reassured her things would be all right. He was the one that consoled her after foals at school told her she wouldn’t amount to anything because she didn’t have a cutie mark yet.”

Twilight took a hurried glance to her side, where her friends sat and kept a careful distance away. Applejack gave her a quick nod and Twilight looked back to him.

“Nocturne died,” Sombra continued absently, “without a cure or a cutie mark. She was in my hooves when it happened—when she ceased to be anymore. I buried her that same day, next to the hundreds of other graves that had been dug in the previous weeks and that night I took a knife and slashed at my own cutie mark until it was unrecognizable.” He looked up with a toothy sneer. “I didn’t think I deserved such a mark anymore. I was supposed to be a parent and I let my only daughter die when I could’ve helped her. She looked up to me. I was her guardian. Perhaps the worst part was that she trusted me, throughout it all.”

Twilight shook her head. “There was nothing you could’ve done, Sombra. Don’t start—”

He shot her a look that told her now was not the time. She remained silent again.

“That night, I gathered every angry pony in the Empire. I told them of my plan and in return they cheered. It must’ve sounded wonderful to them. I know it would’ve to me if I had been the one listening. In front of everyone, I drank the potion that no one else would dare take to save us all. I’d expected some pain, yes, maybe some burning in the chest, but I was willing to accept all of that if I could wield untold power and march them all to the castle myself. Instead, I died that night. Right there in front of everyone. And they buried me next to my daughter and probably thanked Celestia herself that they never came to me for a potion to help them.”

With a near twinkle in his eyes, Sombra looked upward. “The next night, I came back to life—or, something resembling life. My coat was darker, was horn twisted, my eyes venomous. To others, I must’ve appeared awful. And inside, I felt empty, like my soul had left me when I died and didn’t bother to return. Which was probably for the best, mind you. The new me didn’t remember a thing about his older self. He only knew there was a King that wasn’t supposed to be. And soon he dealt with him. The only way Sombra knew how.”

Twilight scooted a few inches closer to the barrier. “In my books, it says you kept the King alive for twenty days while you took control.”

He smiled. “History books have a terrible reputation of overlooking details. What they fail to mention is that during those twenty days, I actually killed the King repeatedly, then brought him back to life to start all over again.” He sighed. “It was only when one of my more noble guards took the King away from me one night and put him out of his misery once and for all that he got away. Pity, really. I had so much more in-store for him.”

“Did you ever open the Empire’s gates like you said you would? To look for a cure?”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you think?”

Twilight tried to change the topic at hand. “This curse of yours. Is there a cure to it?”

“Curse?” He furrowed his brows. “I accepted this new form wholeheartedly. I wouldn’t call it a curse.”

“I would. But is there a cure?”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “Probably. It’s been a while. Love? Forgiveness? Some other trite concept? Something along those lines, I’m sure.”

“You said when you came back from the grave in the Empire, you didn’t remember anything about your former self. What changed this last time? You wouldn’t just start remembering Nocturne out of the blue again.”

“It was because of those Crusaders of yours,” he breathed out. “I was more than ready to demolish this town along with its inhabitants, when I happened to spot those three fillies going about their day. They were talking about their latest plans for cutie mark gathering… and I guess it struck a chord.” He chuckled. “My softer side must be trying to make a break for it again. I’ll be sure to quell him soon enough.”

Twilight heard a sharp cracking noise from up above and chose to ignore it. “You saw Nocturne in the Crusaders that day and that’s why you wanted to help them. Nocturne never got the chance to earn a mark of her own, so you thought you could be more at peace by helping them.”

Using a hoof, Sombra busied himself straightening out his mane. “That, or what I told you in the playground tonight. This all still might be a ruse to get sympathy from you until I decide to retaliate.”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you will. Only know—”

Both Sombra and Twilight looked above them as the glass ceiling overhead loudly shattered, raining broken shards down on them. In the midst of all the glass were Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom, who must’ve been watching the scene from the ceiling atop the laboratory. The weight of all three of them on the thin piece of glass must’ve sent it caving inwards.

Not one of the fillies seemed comfortable enough with their new wings to try and fly.

Sombra took his eyes off of them to watch Twilight. It only took a second to understand why.

“Do something, Twilight!” Applejack yelled.

Rarity cleared most of the sharp shards out of the air with her horn, but that still left the three fillies helplessly tumbling towards the ground. Or in this case, directly onto the energy-charged shield below. Still set somewhere around eleven.

As Sombra’s lips formed into a smirk, Twilight muttered, “Damn it!” before she removed the shield completely. At her will, three soft spots of magic winked into existence eight feet below the Crusaders. But by that point, Sombra had already caught the three of them in his forelegs with a quick leap into the air.

He set them down and gave Twilight a curt bow. “Thanks for the chat. I honestly do feel better now. By the way, who here’s a strong swimmer?”

Before Twilight could charge up her horn, Sombra formed himself into a mound of black smoke and escaped through the hole in the ceiling. Once Twilight and the others made sure none of the fillies were cut or otherwise hurt, they stood together in a circle and thought of how best to proceed.

“Do we go after him?” Rainbow Dash said first. “I mean… it’s obvious he’s still planning something by that last thing he said.”

Twilight’s eyes went from the glass on the floor to the ceiling up above. If the Crusaders were willing to try something so reckless just to see what was happening to Sombra, would they be willing to try something else in order to help Sombra—as well as the rest of Ponyville?

Twilight raised her voice to be heard. “I have a feeling I know where Sombra’s going, but I don’t think it’s wise for us to interfere. It’s clear he has no attachment to any one of us, besides the Crusaders; which means that I need you three to try and talk him down from whatever he’s planning.”

She looked down at Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom.

“You three might be the last chance we’ve got of getting through to him.”

Author's Notes:

All right. Got all the dark/sad stuff out of the system again. Next chapter will be the last and shouldn't be as overwhelmingly depressing. It'll be a little like the first chapter, actually.

It seems the Sombra trilogy finally comes to a close. Good riddance. That guy's a jerk.

The Brightest Of Beginnings

Sombra set his hooves down at the edge of the stone and set his sights on the horizon. The sun was still in hiding; the sky was dark and the only items to be seen in the distance were the glowing lampposts in town and small candles burning inside homes.

Most residents in Ponyville were asleep. Even those that were awake would not be able to outrun what was to come. If, that was, Sombra kept to his plan.

With a sigh and a quick flap of his bat wings, Sombra leapt off the lip of the town dam and hovered around its top. The wall of the dam was lined with deep cracks—some patched over with cement and some just left the way they were. Safe for the time being. A dozen jagged bits of crystal sat wedged deep inside those cracks. They’d gone in a few hours before he’d met the Crusaders for the first time.

Once embedded, he’d melted them into a liquid and pushed them as far as they would go inside the cracks before they hardened again. If he left them untouched, the dam would be in much better repair. But if he flicked his horn—if he even so much as thought about those bits of darkened crystal suddenly expanding and exploding—the entire town would be submerged, much to his delight.

It’d seemed so simple, days ago—before he stood atop Ponyville’s dam for the first time and witnessed the Crusaders make their way across town, a spring in their step and a song in their heart—or in this case, sung aloud for all to hear.

Feeling an emptiness inside his chest that wasn’t there a short while ago, Sombra returned to the top of the dam and set his sights back on the town. He still had a lot to think about.

“I could always put the Crusaders somewhere else and then blow up the dam,” he told himself. “But then what would you do? They don’t like you anymore. They’re scared of you. Can’t you tell?”

His eyes fell on the candy shop the four of them had vandalized and robbed. Did he honestly think a cutie mark lay in-store for one of them after what they did there? A cutie mark in violence or destruction? It seemed hundreds of years of evil deeds had left him with a one track mind.

“But what would be the point?” he said bitterly. “You save them and then what? Try for more cutie marks in a field they’re not even interested in? Haven’t you failed enough by now?”

He chuckled, as quiet as a whisper.

The notion of turning Ponyville into an artificial lake didn’t seem quite as amusing now. Not when it left three fillies without a place to call home.

“Damn it all,” he muttered, flapping his wings and lifting himself off the ledge. He hovered, several stories off the ground, eyes focused on the horizon. A hint of light was already glimpsing over the faraway mountaintops.

“Mr. Sombra, what are you doing?”

Sombra gasped and dipped a few feet in the air. He whirled around and saw the last thing he wanted to. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom stood by the dam’s edge. Each wore a frown, each brow furrowed.

“I… um….” Sombra swallowed dryly. “You fillies shouldn’t be up here. It’s dangerous, and—” A more pressing thought pulled at him. “How did you even get up here?”

Scootaloo flexed out her bat wings. “We still have these, remember?”

“And Twilight let you go just like that?”

Sweetie Belle glanced downward and ground her hoof into the stone. “We might’ve run away after we crashed in on you. We also might’ve overheard what happened to your daughter. We’re awful sorry, if that makes any difference.”

Sombra sighed. “Thank you, Sweetie Belle. I think the three of you would’ve liked Nocturne. She could’ve been a Crusader like you—a good one, too.”

Apple Bloom hesitantly approached the edge of the dam and glanced down. “Why don’t you come back over here, Sombra? Doesn’t that make your wings tired?”

“Yes,” Sombra admitted softly. “But I think I’ll stay here for a little while longer. Soon enough, the sun will peak and all this madness will come to an end. If I should happen to return sometime in the future, maybe then I won’t make such a mess of it all.”

Sweetie Belle held a hoof to him. “But, Sombra, you said that when the sun comes up, we lose our wings and—”

Cold realization took hold. Her eyes popped open and together with her friends she leapt from the dam to fly to him.

Apple Bloom grabbed hold of one of his legs while Scootaloo pushed on his back in the direction of the dam. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle seized Sombra’s head in a vice-like grip and pulled with everything she had—far more strength than he’d given her credit for.

Instead of physically shaking them off, Sombra let his horn do the work, yanking on each of them in turn and setting them safely back down on the ledge. He had to turn his back to them once their tears began.

“But why, Sombra?” Sweetie Belle squeaked out. “If it’s about Twilight, we can talk to her. We promise she won’t bug you anymore.”

“I have a feeling that’s not an option now,” Sombra said calmly, watching the spreading light in the distance. “And this was never about Twilight, really, or any of the Elements. All I wanted to do was to try and help you three and even that I couldn’t do. I can’t help anyone, it seems.”

Scootaloo zoomed passed his head and tried to talk to him directly. He set her back on the dam while she yelled at him. “But there’s still time, Sombra! You’ve only been here for four days! We’ve all been trying to get cutie marks for years already!”

He chuckled. “Yes. And I’m sure Applejack, Rarity and the rest of them will happily welcome me back after tonight’s events. I can’t imagine I’m the most popular of ponies right now.”

A ray of light shot up over one of the darkened houses in town, making Sombra shut one of his eyes. He felt his wings start to thin and the elongated fangs inside his mouth begin to sink into his gums. With every passing second it was getting harder and harder to remain in the air.

“There must be another way!” Apple Bloom said. “You can’t just quit when things don’t do your way! Kings don’t quit!”

“Some do,” Sombra answered, as he flapped his crumbling wings as fast as he could just to remain in the air. “Look on the bright side, little one. I came up here to destroy your town—break this dam and drown everyone you know. But the thought that you three might get hurt is what stopped me. And I know if I stayed around any longer—even if I left and swore never to return—there’d always be some chance I’d come back for Twilight and the rest and you all would become nothing more than a casualty. I don’t want that. I don’t think you want that either.”

The sun came over the horizon in full force and Sombra had to shield his eyes with a leg. Painlessly, his wings crumpled into ash and he began to fall. The moment he began his descent, he closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see death come and greet him.

Sombra’s fall was short lived, though.

“Gotcha!” Apple Bloom shouted, wrapping her hooves around his back legs.

In mid-fall, Sombra came to a full stop and his momentum carried him into the front of the dam, his snout and ribs taking the brunt of the damage. He wheezed out in silent agony and looked up to find all three fillies holding onto one another like a short chain made of ponies. At the top, Scootaloo had her back legs wrapped around a thin metal post, while her hooves dug deep into Sweetie Belle’s legs. Like her friend, Sweetie Belle held onto Apple Bloom until sweat poured down her mane.

“Okay. Fine,” Sombra croaked, painfully gripping his sore ribs and tasting blood. “I’ll think of something else to do. Just pull me up. I am in so much pain right now.”

Sombra cleared his head and pointed his horn at Scootaloo, tugging on her tail inch by inch with his magic until the four of them were safely back on the dam. Sombra put his back to another metal post and poked around his chest and face for broken bones. It seemed as if they were only bruised rather painfully.

“That was really stupid of you, Sombra!” Scootaloo informed him the moment she got her breath back.

He nodded. “Probably. But so was what you three did. If I hadn’t lost those ten pounds last week, you might’ve all gone down with me.”

Scootaloo awkwardly scratched the back of her head. “We might’ve had a little help, actually.”

Sombra frowned deeply, paining his muzzle further. “What do you mean?”

Apple Bloom laughed uneasily. “Well, you didn’t think three fillies could really support a fully grown stallion, did you?”

“I was never very good at physics.” Sombra thought for a moment, narrowing his eyes to the other side of the dam where a trio of large boxes sat, all left over after construction.

Loudly, Sombra cleared his throat and yelled, “Twilight Sparkle! If you do not announce yourself in the next ten seconds, you will be marked tardy and it shall remain on your permanent record until the end of time! Furthermore, if you do not declare yourself present, I shall create a new wing of Hell just for you called Tardy-rus! Where only the tardiest of ponies are sent to!”

He paused to catch his breath.

“Ten! Nine!”

All three boxes exploded in a blur of deep purple. That blur continued towards them until it came to a sudden stop, revealing Twilight Sparkle with a scroll and quill by her head and poised to strike. Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash still latched onto her sides, their manes disheveled by the hurried ride over. Atop Twilight’s head sat Pinkie Pie, one foreleg held above her as if riding a bull.

“Again! Again!” she shouted, kicking Twilight’s shoulders to nudge her along.

“Twilight Sparkle, present and accounted for! I’m not late, am—” Twilight said before she exhaled roughly and shut her eyes. She sat on the ground and rubbed at her head with a hoof. “I really should see a therapist about that.”

Applejack pried herself from the rest of them. “So where does this leave us now? Aren’t we just back to square one? I mean, Sombra’s still Sombra, right? Just because he tried to kill himself just now doesn’t mean I forgive him for all he’s done. And I still don’t feel comfortable about him being near my sister, either.”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “Why can’t I be friends with Sombra? Who says it’s just up to you?”

Using a hoof to flatten out her mane, Rarity entered the conversation. “Sorry, girls, but I’d have to agree with Applejack on this. Until we can figure out just what Sombra plans to do right now, I don’t think it’s safe for any of you to be near him. That includes you, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo stomped a hoof. “That’s not fair!”

“Neither is kidnapping and burying two fillies in the school playground.”

Sombra laughed and glared at her. “You’re really gonna hold that over my head forever, aren’t you?”

Rarity pursed her lips. “Probably.”

Wincing, Sombra rose to stand, keeping a hoof against his injured chest. His eyes went from the six mares to the three fillies closest to him. “It seems our quest has come to an end, you three. In case I don’t see you again, know that I’ll miss you all very much. Try not to remember me as the pony that tried to get you to commit murder. Maybe, try and remember me as that really good looking stallion that only wanted to help.”

Sweetie Belle held her hooves to him. “Can we have a hug before you go?”

Sombra shrugged. His reputation had been in tatters even before setting hoof inside Ponyville—truthfully, there was nothing left to salvage by now. “Sure. But be gentle. My insides are a little soft at the moment.”

Sweetie Belle took a step towards him and wrapped herself around his chest. He put a hoof on her shoulder and Apple Bloom gripped his neck, nuzzling her head into him. Scootaloo, being the only one of them left with wings, hovered onto his back to latch around his shoulders.

“Thanks for everything, Sombra,” Sweetie Belle whispered to him. “I’m sure Nocturne would be happy you tried to help us.”

At that, Sombra smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

All this sweetness is getting to me, Sombra thought casually, as warmth spread throughout his chest and made him shudder.

He coughed. “That’s weird. That’s really warm. And why is it…?”

Sombra grunted, his eyes shooting open. He pounded on his chest with a hoof.

“Ow! Ow! Why does that hurt so much!?”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong, Sombra? Are you joking again? I remember the first time we met, you said—”

“No, you idiot! It feels like I’m being torn apart from the inside! What did you do!? What in Tartarus did you do!?”

Sombra had both hooves to his chest, almost as if attempting to tear at his skin to get at the pain inside. A thin trail of smoke oozed out from one of his nostrils.

“I’m on fire! Ahh! Ahhahahahha!” Sombra shrieked as he flailed around.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom took a step back to stand next to Sweetie Belle, their eyes wide in horror. Scootaloo asked him tentatively, “Sombra, if this is all a joke, I think you can stop now.”

That was when Sombra suddenly stopped thrashing around and vomited blood on the three of them, before collapsing to the ground.

Scootaloo blinked blood out from her eyes. “I guess he wasn’t joking.”

***

The moment he came to, Sombra felt something plastic up his nose, feeding him oxygen. He opened his eyes and found another half-dozen tubes and patches covering his chest and forelegs. Underneath his head was a pillow and a blanket had been pulled up to his lap. Some machine was beeping by his bed.

He never thought he’d experienced so much pain in his life.

A stallion in a doctor’s coat and spectacles strolled inside the room, a chart tucked in a leg. “How’s our miracle patient doing?”

“I should be dead,” Sombra mumbled out through cracked lips. “That was terrible.”

The doctor snickered. “I bet, by the sounds of it. Honestly, you should be dead. Then again, you weren’t exactly alive to begin with. More… ghost… apparition… shadow spirit-type thing—”

“I get it!” Sombra cut in, hurting his throat. “Just get to the point.”

“All right.” The doctor slid a white box on wheels to the side of his bed. On its front was a black screen with a faint green line shooting across it. “This machine monitors heart rates.”

“I don’t have a heart. Or a working one, at least.”

The doctor raised a hoof. “Well, you’d be wrong about that! You actually never got rid of your heart completely. It was always there—just beating so slowly you didn’t even notice it anymore. But then something quite magical happened today.” He paused, listening to the room. “You hear that?”

Sombra grimaced. He didn’t like where this was going. “Hear what?”

With a grin, the doctor said, “That’s your heart; ticking again after hundreds of years of laying dormant. When those fillies gave you that hug on the dam, it must’ve triggered a reaction that caused your heart to restart… as well as grow three times in size.”

Sombra glared at him. “That means I should be dead.”

He whistled. “I know! Isn’t the body fascinating! But that’s not all.”

“You mean something else of mine grew three times its normal size?”

“Not quite. Take a look for yourself.”

The doctor handed him a mirror from the bedside table. Clumsily, Sombra got a grip on it and held it over his face, almost dropping the mirror when he saw the pony staring back at him. His black coat had returned to its original light-gray, along with his blue mane. His horn looked straight again, all hints of crimson removed. Sombra pulled down an eyelid to inspect and saw cobalt eyes instead of his red-and-green ones. Using the tip of his tongue, he searched his mouth and found his fangs gone as well. Removing a bit of his covers revealed his old, cut up cutie mark back in full: a black silhouette of an adult pony with the silhouette of a foal standing on their back, a single leg pointed up.

He looked up at the doctor. “What did those fillies do to me?”

The doctor shrugged. “I dunno. You’d have to ask a magic doctor about that. I’m the science one. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say they forced out all of your evilness with the power of love and friendship.”

Sombra raised a brow. “Like when someone leaves a tube of toothpaste on the floor and someone steps on it by mistake and then you just know there’s no way of getting all that toothpaste back in there?”

“I kinda liked my analogy better, but I won’t take up anymore of your time. I think you have visitors.”

As the doctor left the room, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom ran into the room, leaping up to hang onto the sides of his bed.

From the sight of all their adorable, curious faces, Sombra screamed out in pure terror before hiding under his covers. “No! No more, I beg of you!”

“I promise, Sombra. They’re not here to hurt you again,” spoke Twilight from somewhere near the door.

Sombra removed the covers over his head with a frown. “Twilight Sparkle. How long must we do this dance of ours?”

She furrowed her brows. “Dance? You mean the dance between hero and villain? Although I’d never be the type to call myself a hero, I think that’s what you were referring to—”

“Yes!” Sombra spat. “You continue to keep me alive, but for what purpose? I will continue to do evil deeds as long as I live! You are only making things worse on yourself by keeping me around.”

Twilight had to use a hoof to keep in her laughter. “Have you taken a look at yourself lately, Sombra? You don’t look all that nefarious anymore. Whatever curse you had on you was lifted. Now you look more like…” she gave him a quick scan “… someone’s boring father.”

He shot a hoof at her. “I do not look boring!”

“Well, you definitely don’t look evil, either. Honestly, is that still how you feel inside?”

“Of course that’s how I—” Sombra stopped his sentence short, closing his mouth with a snap. Ever since he’d woken up, he’d felt two distinct things: a bitter pain in his body due to his transformation alongside an unfamiliar thumping sensation in his chest. The second he could, he verbally sparred with the doctor overseeing him, then did the same with Twilight. He’d spent the last thousand years arguing with everyone in sight, so it only felt natural to continue on like that. But where was that sense of malice and anger that continuously swirled in his gut? Where had that simple quest for revenge gone off to?

He took a breath and waited for a time—waited for that usual drive for blood and death to return. Only this time, it never came. It didn’t mean he wasn’t annoyed by all the ponies around him or that he hadn’t been making a mental list of insults and puns to spew at them later, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hurt them, either.

Sweetie Belle set her head on his hoof and he flinched. “We’re sorry we hurt you, Mr. Sombra. But I think it was for the best. You look a lot friendlier now.”

Stepping onto her friend’s back, Apple Bloom launched herself onto his bed to study him. “You still having evil thoughts, Sombra?” she asked, extending one open eye towards his face. “Blowing up dams or burying fillies?”

Sombra swallowed thickly. “I… I don’t think so, Apple Bloom. I’m not sure how I feel right now, but I know it doesn’t involve anything quite like that.”

Apple Bloom pressed her nose against his. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really! Now knock it off!”

The next moment, Apple Bloom began jumping on the bed, forcing Sombra to relocate his soft lower parts a safe distance away from her hard hooves. She giggled excitedly. “We did it, girls! We reformed a villain! We have to get our cutie marks now!”

All at once, the trio of fillies happily stared at their rumps, only for not a single mark to appear. With a sigh, Apple Bloom climbed off the bed and exited the room with Sweetie Belle.

Twilight kept her distance by the doorway. “We’ll talk again, Sombra. Figure out where to go from here. If you want to stay in Ponyville for a while, I could look into getting you a job. A normal one, if you remember what those are.”

Sombra sneered. “Goody. Can’t wait to work reception somewhere I know I’ll hate. Thanks a ton, Princess.”

Twilight tipped him a wink before she left the room.

Happy to see her gone, Sombra settled back into his pillow before remembering Scootaloo was still in the room. She pulled over a visitor’s chair to his bed and sat in it. She couldn’t seem to get her eyes off the floor.

“I’m glad you’re doing better, Sombra.”

“Thank you, Scootaloo. Have no fear. I don’t hold any grudges against you three. How were you to know what a single hug was capable of?”

“About that… .” She chewed on her lip. “So, you’re kinda normal now, right?”

He nodded. “More or less.”

“And, um, before the dam thing, we overheard you talk about your daughter. And you said you were a good father a long time ago—that it was even your cutie mark and everything.”

“Yes, although you weren’t supposed to hear all that. A lot of nasty business.”

Scootaloo hesitated, before asking, “You, um, think you still might want to be a father again someday?”

Sombra thought for a moment. “You mean, have another child or…?” He turned to her and found she could hardly keep still, her hooves gently tapping against each other. Sombra sighed, then chuckled. “You’d honestly want me as a father, Scootaloo?”

She seemed a little more at ease once he’d figured it out. She looked at him. “Why not? You’re not evil anymore, right? And even when you were, you were a lot of fun sometimes. Scary, yes. Weird, yeah. Corny, absolutely. But I think a lot of fathers are like that. And… Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom already have a family to call their own. I’m the only one who doesn’t have anyone.”

Sombra had to look away from her when her eyes began to water. “I don’t know if you’d like me very much, Scootaloo. I lost my mind a long time ago.”

“Then maybe I could help you find it again.”

He smiled, and patted the edge of the bed. “If that’s how you want it, Scootaloo, then come give me a hug.”

“Aren’t you worried about almost dying again?”

“If you kill me, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. Now give me a hug before I lose my nerve.”

Scootaloo didn’t need any more convincing. She leapt off the chair and used her wings to carry her to the bed to wrap her hooves around his chest. He winced, then hugged her back.

“Thanks, Sombra,” she said.

“You can call me dad, you know.”

“Okay, Sombra dad.”

She pulled away from him and sat on his lap, staring at him excitedly. “Can you turn me into a bat pony again? That was awesome!”

Sombra scratched his chin. “How about once a week? But only if your homework’s done on time.”

Some of her elation slipped away. “Whoa. You really are like a dad now.”

He smirked. “You better believe it.”

“Will you come to school with me next week? It’s bring your parent to class day. I can’t think of many kids in class whose dads are kings.”

“Might be a little early for that.”

“Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon will be there. I heard them in another room still screaming at the nurses about you.”

A tiny fire grew in Sombra’s head. “I think I could make an appearance.”

Author's Notes:

And so ends our very, very, very odd tale. If I had to give it a Batman rating alongside my other Sombra comedies, it would probably get a "Dark Knight Rises". Not the worst, but definitely not the best.

As I said in the comments, I'm hoping this is the last Sombra story I do for a while. I think I'm stretching things a bit thin by this point. Then again, I said nearly the same thing before two new stories of mine collapsed on themselves and I felt compelled to launch two more Sombra stories to save face, so... you never really know.

A big thanks again to my long term editor spigo, who by this point I think is only editing my stuff to have an excuse as to why he's not working on his own material. Seriously. If you're reading this, get to work!

Anywho, thanks for all the comments and support. Now to finish up some Twilight clones!