A Heart So Cold

by Onomonopia

First published 14th of July, 2014

What is a person without purpose? Without anything to cherish? What is a person whose heart is ice?

I should be dead. The chances of me surviving the explosion were 999,999 to 1. But despite the overwhelming impossibility, I live. And yet, I live in a world that I cannot understand, that defies all of the scientific knowledge that I have spent my life accumulating. They tell me that friendship could be a form of magic. I can not believe them. But with nowhere else I can go, I must either make peace with these talking magical ponies...or be destroyed by them. But I know this. The Crystal Empire and those who dwell within it are not ready for the freeze I bring.

My name is Victor Fries. And I am in Equestria.

Mr. Freeze will be based on BtAS and Beyond version. And yes, almost all the chapter names will be terrible puns. This will be shorter than most my stories, but I still think it's just as good. Written after season three.

A Chilling Tale

I never expected my final moments to unfold the way they did. I was supposed to destroy the compound and kill thousands. But thanks to the interference of that radioactive monster and a certain vigilante, my plans, like everything else in my life, went up in smoke. Everything had been going according to plan, but then I was attacked by a radioactive beast whose powers ate through my suit in a matter of seconds, crippling me. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain who I was.

My name is...was...Victor Fries. I was a brilliant scientist and worked for a laboratory that allowed me to study and research all different forms of science. I was a molecular biologist, meaning that I studied the body on a molecular level. As a child, I was fascinated with preserving life by freezing it and seeing if the life could be restored later, using advanced means. My parents, horrified by what I did, sent me to a school for...special children. There I met probably the only other human who cared for me. A woman named Nora. She loved me for all of my qualities and I, over time, came to love her. My life was perfect. I had my work, my love, my life.

Then it all went wrong. Nora contracted a disease--an incurable disease--that nearly stripped her of her life and left her in a near-death state. There was no cure and she had no time. In a desperate act, I froze Nora in hopes of being able to buy her time and find a cure for her myself. But I was a cursed man. My research was shut down and I myself was fired. When I tried to break back into the place where I had set all my equipment, something went terribly wrong. One of my machines had been sabotaged and I was consumed in liquid nitrogen. I should have died, but the fates decided to continue to hate me. Instead of dying, I was reborn as a man who could not live above sub-zero temperatures and was forced to build myself a suit to survive. The suit sustained me, but I had no job and no way to pay for the supplies to cure my Nora. I was left with only one option.

Crime.

Using my knowledge, I constructed a vast array of ice-based weapons that I used to assist me in my criminal activities. No guard could stand in my way and the suit protected me from most weapons and attacks. Even in the criminal underworld, I was not one to be messed with, for those who bothered me were often never heard from again. But then there was the one man who chose to interfere, the one who could stop me.

Batman.

I know not who this vigilante is, but he was my fiercest foe back when I lived. His skills in martial arts and stealth were beyond any that I had seen, and his gadgets rivaled even my own. But what made him so dangerous was that he was smart, smarter than even me to a degree. No matter what I did or how many times I tried to kill him, he always came out on top. For years, he and I battled and I got no closer to curing Nora than I did when I started. But one day, fate decided that it was done watching me suffer and decided to be rid of me. So one day, in another battle with the Batman, a massive explosion claimed my body. Everyone thought that I had died. Even I hoped that I finally had. But fate is cruel. I survived, only as a head, and was locked in cold storage for many years. Ironic.

Ba-bump.

Then I awoke years later to find that my world has completely changed. Well, I did not wake up, I was awoken. Apparently, some of the future scientists had use of me. They said that they could change me back into a normal man and try to give me my old life back. It didn't matter to me, I was essentially dead. So I allowed them to go ahead with their plans and they actually managed to reconstruct my body. I was...happy...for the first time in so long. With the savings that I had stored up in the years past, I tried to help the world, tried to make it into the world a better place.

But the humans are all the same; they only care for themselves and for nothing else. I was used as a pawn in a part of a businessman's larger game, and when I had fulfilled my role, he and his underlings sought to eliminate me. But I always had a backup plan. With a suit that I had saved in storage, I took my revenge upon him and sought to destroy the cursed city. But Batman stopped me once again. Even in the future, he continued to hunt me, continued to get in my way. As he and I battled, a beast made of radiation appeared and attacked me as well, its powers tore through my suit like it was paper. Beaten and dying, I had nothing left to live for and without the suit's power to keep me alive, I was ready for death. But once again Batman stopped me, stopped me from letting all those innocents die. He always did try to see me as more than a machine. He convinced me to use the last of my strength to freeze the compound I was in, stopping it from exploding and killing all in the vicinity. With my one act of goodness done, I threw up a wall between us and waited. Waited for the sweet release of death.

Ba-bump.

But as I felt the flames consume me in what I believed was the cleansing of my actions, I realized that I did not feel the pain of the flames burning or the force of the explosion ripping me apart. I felt my body being turned inside out as my molecules seemed to be scattered into the winds before coming together. I could hear my heartbeat as well (which should not be working), and what sounded like birds chirping. I...am alive?

(_)

The first thing that ran through Mr. Freeze's mind when he regained his senses, was that he was still alive and that he had a heartbeat, which was odd, considering his heart should not be working after the experiment failed on him. He slowly opened his eyes, the color red being the first thing to greet him as he looked through his filtered goggles. The glass that covered his head was intact, which was another odd occurrence since in the battle with the radioactive monster it had been cracked. While he lay on his back, he realized that he was staring at a blue sky with clouds floating gently along. He could assume that he was no longer in Gotham. Was he...beyond? Deciding to look around more, Mr. Freeze sat up and started to look around, his face never changing expression despite what he saw. He was sitting in a field covered in flowers, which seemed to stretch for miles. He looked down at himself to see that his armor was now in perfect condition, despite all the damage he had taken during the battle.

"How odd," he muttered to himself in a metallic voice as he stood up, feeling no pain course through his body, despite the fact that he had almost died in the fight. What did interest him though was that his armor, while in perfect condition, was running low on the energy needed to sustain him and the suit's temperature. "Strange, the reading during the battle showed that my power was still at fifty percent. The levels should not have dropped below the ten percent range unless the power was sucked out of the suit directly."

Despite the low levels, Freeze didn't care in the least that he might die again. If he had survived the explosion, then he would simply have to wait a little longer until he finally died again. But as he stood in place looking at the scenery around him without interest, he felt something that seemed to be tugging at the back of his mind, almost like...something was calling to him. Freeze turned his head slightly to see what looked like a tower far off in the distance, which either meant civilization or some form of shelter. But he had no desire to go; he was fine with waiting for death right here. But the energy pulled even harder on his mind, and he found that he could not ignore the tower in the distance. It was almost like fate was calling out to him, telling him to go towards that tower.

"Very well fate, you have thrown so many surprises at me that I am almost curious to see what you have in store for me this time," Freeze said to himself with a hint of a smile. He may have wanted to die, but he had learned long ago that fate would not let him do so until it had grown bored of him. So if he did what it wanted, then it would be only a matter of time until it grew tired of him and sought out someone else to mess with. So he decided to see what this tower in the distance was, and what this source of power he felt was as well. As he walked through the fields towards the tower, he pressed a button on his wrist panel and opened up his chest plate, frowning to himself when he saw the destroyed circuitry inside and the crystals that he used to power it were mostly ash.

'I shall need to acquire a new power source soon if I wish to remain alive,' he thought as he walked, closing it back up while starting to test the rest of his suit's functions to see how much of it was operational. While doing this, he realized that there was more to the suit than he remembered.

"How odd, I had forgotten that this version my suit came with sound waves," Freeze muttered to himself, deciding that he should test all of the functions on his suit to make sure they were working. First up were the sensors. The red goggles flicked to a bluish color as he went into heat-seeking mode, looking around as he did so to spot a number of organisms that had wandered close to him. The biggest was a bear that growled at him as he walked towards it. The creature roared at the sight of him and charged.

"Perfect. I needed something to test my freeze ray on," he said with no emotion as he pointed his arm at the bear. He closed his fist and fired a beam of sheer ice towards the charging beast, the ice connecting with its stomach and quickly consumed it. All the other animals that had been around watched with terror as the bear quickly turned into a popsicle and froze in its tracks. "It seems to be working fine. Now how about the sound waves?" Freeze pressed another button on his wrist that sent out sound waves that were specifically designed to shatter ice outside of his suit. A small smile formed on his lips as he watched the bear splinter into a thousand pieces, some of which slid to his feet. "It works fine."

He continued his walk towards the tower, noticing as he got closer that it looked less like a tower and more like a spear of...crystal? No...It wasn't just the spear. As he walked over a small hill, he noticed that the spear stood in the center of a city, a city that also seemed to be made of crystal. He engaged the zoom on his goggles and confirmed his suspicions. The entire city was made of crystal as well as the spear. It was almost like...an empire made of crystal?

He also picked up some sort of energy reading coming from the center of the city, the same energy that had been calling to him earlier. If that was where the energy was, then it was where he needed to go. Freeze started to walk down the hill towards the city, wondering what he should do if the humans tried to stop or arrest him. He didn't care about what they did, so long as they didn't interfere with him getting that energy source, as he had stolen plenty in the past to keep himself alive and this was no different. But he had to think of something just in case they were foolish enough to try and fight him. It didn't take long for him to figure out a solution.

He would simply freeze them all.

{}{}

"Woo, did you feel that chill?" Shining Armor asked Cadence as he brought a blanket over to the crystal queen, who shivered despite the sun resting upon her back. Cadence rested on a small couch in front of a fire, eyes barely open but still smiling when her husband approached. The captain of the guard draped the blanket over her shoulders before pulling her into a hug. "Hey, you're going to get better soon. Don't worry about it."

"I hope so," she muttered weakly as she sat up and rested her head on Shining's shoulder. "But I fear for the worse sometimes. By the way, did that chill feel...odd to you at all?"

"No, just felt like the cold that we normally get this time of year," Shining replied. Cadence shrugged it off and went back to resting her head, figuring that all was alright.

"Warm" Welcome

The gates were just as magnificent as the rest of the city, seemingly carved out of a solid crystal to the arch that held the twin massive iron doors that blocked his path. Freeze wondered how rich these people must be if they could afford to make their entire city out of solid crystal and why he hadn't heard about it before. He generally never left Gotham, but he did have contacts that would inform him of something like this, especially since he required certain gems to power his suit.

'Maybe this is the afterlife and these are the gates to heaven,' Freeze mused, but he shook those thoughts from his head. If he was truly dead, then there should be fire around him. But back to the pressing matter, it seemed that this door was the only entry into the city, that or the train tracks that he spotted off in the distance. But the door was closer and there for more efficient. Also, despite the fact that it was made out of iron, it would only be a minor inconvenience to him.

Freeze pointed both arms at the door and fired away with his freeze rays, covering the door with ice in a manner of seconds. He stopped firing and placed his hand on his wrist, pushing the button to unleash the sound waves upon the ice. But as he watched the sound waves shatter the massive ice wall, he also picked up what he thought was screaming in the city. That was odd since the sound waves were not supposed to be registered by humans, but he supposed it was just the ice shattering that had garnered the screams.

"Time to see what the people that can afford an entire city made of crystal look like," Freeze said as he walked through the mist that was coming off the newly destroyed doors and walked into the city. He had been expecting panic, even police resistance to meet him. What he was not expecting were crystal ponies of varying color and species to be staring at him on the other side. He came to a stop on what remained of the door as he looked upon the ponies, amazed at the fact that they were covered in crystal. What surprised him even further was the fact that they weren't all the same race. Some were unicorns and others were pegasi. He had heard of these creatures existing in other worlds, but none on Earth.

'Of course, that might mean that this is not Earth and I have ended up in another world,' he mused. While it seemed unlikely, even impossible, he lived in a world filled with the impossible. 'Besides, I care little for where I am or how I got here. All I care about at the moment is that source calling to me. I can handle...crystal horses.'

The ponies on the other hand had just watched the doors to their kingdom be shattered by a sound that had forced most of them to their knees. And upon seeing the two legged creature with the glowing red eyes walk through, they did what any sensible creature would do.

They panicked.

As the ponies began to scream and all run around aimlessly, Freeze started to walk through the street towards the energy source, which, according to his goggles, was coming from the center of the city. With all the ponies panicking (he was still having trouble believing that the ponies were the species in this city or that they were screaming) he knew that authorities would be here soon. Not that he was worried; horses were no match for his technology. Freeze had walked down only about halfway of the first road when the pony version of the police finally showed up, a variety of ponies covered in armor and carrying spears. It was like they weren't trying.

"Halt creature!" the biggest of the guards yelled at him, which Freeze did only to see what he would do next. "I don't know what your reason is for destroy the doors to the Crystal Empire, but we will have to take you into custody for that offence. Now surrender and this won't have to get messy." Freeze counted ten of them, but only half looked ready to fight. The others looked terrified at the sight of him and considering he towered over them he knew why.

"That will not be happening," Freeze responded, causing the ponies to take up battle positions. "This is what will happen. You and your troops will stand aside and let me by or you will be frozen where you stand."

"Ha, just be thankful that you only have to deal with us and not Shining Armor!" the guard yelled as he charged Freeze. Freeze simply held out his arm and let the ice ray fire, freezing the pony solid in mid charge. His troops watched with wide eyes as Freeze walked over to the pony and placed a hand on him...before crushing his grip and shattering him into thousands of shards.

"I gave you all fair warning," Freeze said as he pointed his arms at the others, firing at them as well. Realizing their situation, the guards all let out battle cries and charged Freeze, but all met the same result as before. The ponies that weren't fighting watched with horror as the Empire's best were frozen in their tracks, allowing Freeze to walk right past the best the city had to offer. More and more guards came out to fight, but all met the same fate as he got closer to the source of the energy reading. Ponies everywhere fled for their lives as he approached, but he had no interest in them as long as they didn't bother him. The source was what he was after. Finally, after mopping up another batch if guards, he spotted the energy reading: a weird crystal heart that floated in the center of the city, radiating with power and beauty.

"Incredible," he said to himself as he walked towards it, it's power making his skin tingle even though he didn't feel it. "To think that such a backward race would be able to produce something like this. You are the one that's been calling to me then." He reached out and grasped the heart with both hands, feeling its power surge through him. To his surprise his suit began to recharge just by holding it, telling him that his suit was compatible.

"This will make an excellent power source for the time being," he said as the heart touched his chest plate and melded into the suit, Freeze backing up a bit as he felt the power began to course through the suit. 'And a perfect fit.' His systems were put into overdrive by the new power source and he watched as the small computer read all systems online. He smiled slightly at the power as more guards came up from behind him, terror in their eyes as he turned to face them with his now glowing armor.

"YOU FOAL! Do you have any idea what you have done!?" the front guard, a unicorn, yelled at him.

"I have acquired a new form of power that will sustain me for a much long duration than any other source of power," Freeze responded coldly, looking up to the sky as he realized that something was happening. The bright blue sky was beginning to become clouded and lightning started to flash across the sky, the ground shaking as the beautiful city started to be encompassed by darkness.

"Return the crystal heart this instant or you will kill us all!" the guard demanded as he pointed his horn at Freeze. Freeze responded by pointing his arm at the unicorn and firing his freeze ray at him, watching with interest as the unicorn threw a barrier around himself that stopped his ray cold.

"Interesting, you ponies can use some form of energy as well as speak. You are proving to be a most interesting species," Freeze said to the pony, who jumped out of the way of the freeze ray and fired a spell of fire towards Mr. Freeze's chest. The pony smirked with the thought of victory on his mind when he saw the spell hit freeze's armor, only to watch as the armor remained unscratched from the spell. "However, it seems that the new energy I acquired renders yours powerless. This is my heart now. Now leave or I will do to you what I did to your comrades."

"Never," the guard yelled as he charged forward, only to be frozen in his tracks. But Freeze scowled under his helmet as he saw pegasi flying in overhead and more of the guards running over to his position. Even though he had the superior tech and weaponry, he knew that he was far too outnumbered to possibly win this fight, at least out in the open. He slammed his arm through the ice that held a guard and pulled him out while wrapping his arm around his neck, pointing his other arm at the guards head as he began to back away towards the entrance to the palace.

"You'll have to kill us to stop us," the guard he was holding gasped out, Freeze waiting until he felt his back hit the entrance to the palace before he answered.

"Do not tempt me," he said in his cold, metallic tone before he let go of the guard and kicked him in the back, creating a massive wall of ice between him and the guards outside before he turned to open the door behind him. Once inside of the palace he froze the door behind him and began to walk through the crystal structure. He had no time to admire or observe it, for the ponies in here were just as foolish as the ones outside. A regular looking pony tried to jump him, but was swatted to the ground with ease. Others tried to attack him, but they fled for their lives when he began firing ice everywhere.

"These fools do not seem to realize what they are up against," Freeze muttered to himself as he walked up some stairs to gain higher ground, looking out the window to realize that it seemed to be snowing lightly now. "Strange, I did not cause this weather anomaly. Possibly removing that power source has done something to alter the weather. Fortunately, I do not feel the cold." Freeze could hear the ice beginning to be chiseled away at outside and he began to move quicker up the crystal palace, freezing anypony he came across in case he needed hostages later. His trek deeper into the palace led him to a doorway far grander and more majestic than he had yet to see, but the door also had a larger number of guards at the front of it than he would have expected.

"Halt creature! We've been ordered by the princess herself to stop you no matter what," one of the guards said as he pointed his spear at Freeze's chest, Freeze noticing that the tip of it was burning with energy. "And that means we are willing to kill you. So are you afraid to die, creature?" The guards looked at Freeze in confusion when they got no response other than him lifting his arms and blasting them with his freeze rays, turning them into ice sculptures on the spot.

"You fools do not seem to get it," he muttered to their frozen selves as he walked by them, placing one hand on the door as his ice began to freeze it solid. "I do not fear anything. I have no emotion." The door complete froze over when he placed his other hand on it and a press of his wrist caused it to shatter into millions of beautiful, reflective surfaces that bounced the light off of them in every which way. So it was with a magnificent entrance that Freeze made his way into the throne room, where a white pony with a blue mane in golden armor awaited him, while a pinker pony in a crown sat on a throne and looked down at him.

"It is my royal duty to welcome you to the Crystal Empire creature," the pink pony said to him before she snarled. "Now prepare to be brought down."

Chilled to the Bone

"Just what are you anyway?" the pink one asked as she tried to stand up off of her throne, but she staggered weakly and sat back down again. Freeze made a mental note of this as the white one slowly backed up to her side, whispering to her with worry on his face before the pink one pushed him aside and stood up straight, but Victor could still see the pain in her eyes. "I believed I asked you a question, creature?"

"And I believe it is custom," Freeze replied in his cold, mechanical voice, a voice that caused both of the ponies to look at him with shock and a bit of fear. "That one should introduce themselves first before they try to force another to do so. Not that it matters to me, for if you try anything all you will be to me is a pair of ice sculptures."

"Oh that is it!" the white one said with a rage as he went to fire his energy at Freeze, but the pink one held out a hoof to stop him, narrowing her eyes at Freeze.

"I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," the pink one said with regality and pride, but she was looking over Freeze's suit with a fear of the unknown. She had never seen a suit like it before and the messenger that had come to her only minutes before had said that it shrugged of spells and spears like they were nothing, not to mention that the creature seemed to have ice spells that she had never thought possible. Freezing a pony was easy, but it took a lot of magic to do so. But this creature had fired it off left and right without so much as slowing down. "But everypony calls me Cadence. This is the Captain of the Guard, Shining Armor. Now I ask again, what do you want and what are you?"

"I am Victor Fries," Mr. Freeze said in an emotionless tone as he looked around the room. Strong interior, well protected against outside assault. This place would protect him for the time being. And with that thought he pointed both of his arms at the two. "But Mr. Freeze will work fine. And I do not have to explain myself to animals, no matter how smart they may think they are. All you need to know is that I need a place to protect me from the rabble outside and to finish my research. Care to step out?"

Cadence narrowed her eyes at him, but she gritted her teeth once and held a hoof to her head, Shining Armor once again running to her side and confirming that he wasn't just the Captain of the Guard. “You destroy my home and attack my people, then you have the gall to ask for my own home?" Cadence asked with fury.

"Your guards attacked me. I defended myself and showed what happens when you fight me," Freeze emotionless replied. "And I am not asking. The ending to this will be the same either way, but there are two paths you can take and I am trying to be civil. It will work better for all of us if you do this peacefully."

"What do you want, the throne?" Shining Armor asked him in a rage, charging up his magic. "And what is this research?"

"I care not for the throne, but I need a base to find out where I am," he said coldly as he began to power up his freeze rays, knowing where this was going. "And as I said before, I do not explain my intentions to animals."

"We will never surrender the Crystal Empire to you!" he yelled as he jumped from his wife's side and began towards Mr. Freeze

"Then you brought this upon yourself," Freeze muttered before firing. To Freeze's moderate surprise, he found this pony much faster than the others and he was able to dodge the blasts while getting closer. Armor fired a beam of energy into Freeze's chest, but a combination of his advanced armor and the heart within him caused the spell to have no effect. The two hooves that Shining placed into Freeze's chest did knock him over however.

"Shining Armor, wait!" Cadence yelled as she unfolded her wings (something that Freeze had not seen on her) as she tried to enter the battle, but she began to cough again and fell over weakly. Shining Armor stopped his attack on Freeze to place himself between the cold man and the princess.

"Cadence, you have to get out here. You're far too sick to be this close to battle!" he yelled out as he put up a protective shield that Freeze found, to his annoyance, protected them from his freeze blasts. While the shield was up, Shining ran to his wife and helped her up. Once she was on her hooves, Freeze could see that she was a bit larger than he had originally thought, but he could make no further observations as Shining lowered his shield and began to fire at Freeze again. But Freeze knew that he had already won, since Shining was barely focusing on the fight.

"You should focus on the foe in front of you," he said as he fired a beam of ice at Shining while firing his other blast into the ground at their hooves, freezing the ground and causing the couple to slip and fall, the ice beginning to cling to their hooves. As they struggled to get up on the ice, Freeze began to walk towards them, his heavy boots crushing the ice under his feet and allowing him to walk right up to the pair with no effort. He swatted Shining to the ground with a heavy blow before pointing his arms at the two ponies, preparing to freeze the both of them until he looked down at the princess to realize that she wasn't large...she was pregnant. Victor eyes widened for just a moment before he fired at Shining Armor, freezing him.

"NO!" Cadence yelled as she struggled to get up, but Victor put a boot on her wing and pointed his arm at her, his red eyes being all she could see under his helmet.

"Do not bother grieving, he is still alive," he said to her emotionlessly, her eyes widening in surprise. "But not for much longer unless you take him and leave this palace right now. And on your way out, tell all of the guards to not enter this place. Tell them it belongs to Freeze now." When she gave him a look, he pointed his arm at the frozen floor and activated the sonic, shattering it to shards in a second. Then he pointed his arm towards her husband and looked back to her terrified face. "Do I make myself clear?" She said nothing as she used her energy to grab the frozen body of Shining Armor (Freeze beginning to suspect that it wasn't energy that they were using) and she dragged him out of the room, leaving with one last glare at him before she left.

"And with that out of the way," Freeze muttered to himself as he saw her in the streets below. "This place needs to suit me better." He placed both his hands on the ground and fired his ice into them, the ice forming over all of the walls and the floors, leaving the throne room and spreading to the rest of the palace. Outside, Cadence had to watch as her palace was completely frozen over in ice, ice that even the best of unicorns couldn't get through due to the power of the Crystal heart fueling the ice.

"Enjoy your victory now, Freeze," Cadence said with venom as the unicorns began to work on thawing Shining Armor out, Cadence taking this time to write a letter that she sent away in a burst of green fire. "But I’ll enjoy seeing how well you fair against four princesses and the Elements of Harmony."

|\/|
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Freeze spent the rest of the day removing any and all hindrances within the castle, those being of the guard variety he froze while the regular ponies he allowed to leave the palace as long as they didn't bother to attack him. After a while he sent a message to the guards saying that he had taken some of the guard hostage to dissuade them from trying to attack him, those same guards he allowed to thaw in the palace's prison so they wouldn't cause trouble.

'But why am I bothering to do this?' Victor thought to himself as he exited the last room of the palace, finding some kind of weird mirror inside that he had the oddest desire to shatter. 'I have no purpose for being here nor do I have a purpose for bothering to waste my time with these ponies. What am I doing? I was ready to die and yet I waste my time here. Why am I still here when Nora is-?'

'I never finished the cure for her.' The thought came to him out of nowhere, but that did not take away the significance of the thought as he realized that he had never finished her cure. His one, most important goal in life and he had never achieved it. And that thought gave him purpose again.

His thoughts then began to turn to if the ponies had the material and the science to allow him to continue his work and his thoughts went back to the small library that he had seen within the palace. With a purpose now, he began his march towards the library, taking the shortest route through the dungeon as he had already mapped out the castle within his mind, though he never noticed that he clutched the snow globe in his hand.

"You can't keep us in her forever!" one of the guards yelled at him as he passed, Freeze coming to a stop in front of the bars though he never turned his body or head towards them. "The princesses will come for us! And then you'll get the justice that you deserve!" The guard’s bravery slowly began to drain out of them as Freeze slowly turned his head towards them, his red eyes glaring at them through the helmet that shrouded his face.

"I have just realized an interesting fact," Freeze said to them with no emotion, but that just terrified the three guards even more as he lifted one of his arms and pointed it at the one that had yelled at him. "I realized that I only need one or two hostages to keep the others outside at bay. Not three."

"Wait!" the guards yelled as his eyes widened as he saw the freeze ray start up. "P-please don't kill me! I'll be quiet!"

"Give me one good reason why I should not," Freeze said in a cold tone that caused the other two guards to back away from him.

"P-please guy, I've got a foal, barely a week old," he said with fear in his voice and in his eyes. Victor looked at him for a moment before he fired a blast of ice into the guard, freezing everything but his head within a few seconds. The other guards looked at their friend with fear before looking at Freeze with horror and loathing. "He will live, but I made sure that he will stay quiet. And the same will happen to you two if you do not remain so." They nodded and Freeze continued on his way, making it to the library a minute later. He opened the great doors and looked upon all of the books emotionlessly before he turned to find where the books on dieses were kept.

'Their knowledge is quite advanced for such animals,' he thought to himself when he had taken a number of the books on diseases off the shelves and skimmed through them, finding that they had cures to many of the ailments on Earth that he had researched. But nothing about the dieses that his beloved had suffered from. But there was enough information in here, enough information for him to rebuild what he had accomplished back in Gotham, enough for him to start from scratch. 'It will have to do,' he thought to himself as he tucked a number of the books under his arms and headed out of the library.

'There should be a science wing of this palace back in near the main room,' he thought as he walked through the now frozen halls, preferring the place to be kept at close to freezing incase his new power source decided to fail on him. The only place that wasn't this cold was the prison cells (the ponies were no good to him dead) and the laboratory, in case it had items that needed to be kept at a certain temperature. Once he reached the laboratory (wondering why they had it within their palace) he placed the books down on the nearest table and began to look around at all of the items on the shelves, making notes of them in his suits databanks of what they were.

'Some of these are familiar to me,' he thought as he looked at some tools he had used in the past, before looking down at a blue flower. 'Others are not.' Once he had made a mental note of the items and a list within his computer, he began to search through the books and supplies for what would help him make the cure that he had failed to make. Then, for the first time, he looked down at his right hand and saw the globe in it, making him wonder how he had missed it.

'It is of no matter,' he thought to himself as he created an icicle before taking off the glass and allowing the Crystal Empire to fall to the floor, making room. Then he began to carve away at the icicle, his hands performing the actions he had done dozens of time before. 'I will find a way to cure you my love and no human nor pony will stand in my way. And I will complete my purpose. It is all I have.'

Frozen In Their Tracks

Freeze had never noticed that a day had nearly passed as he spent most of it in deep research, finding out as much about the material that he was using and how it would work with the procedures that he had used in the past. It had taken him most of the day simply to learn how to use some of the ponies equipment and he found to his annoyance that there were certain items that seemed to run on the magic that the unicorns used, making them inaccessible to him.

"But I have done greater with far less," he said to himself as he began to perform work on the chemicals that he had decided to test first, worrying about the tools that he couldn't use later. The guards in the cells were beginning to get on his nerves however and he was starting to think that he should follow out on his threat and dispose of one of them. 'It would simply be a waste of my time,' he eventually decided as he walked through the palace, looking for materials that he needed to create a miniature cryolab, something that he would need if he was to continue his research.

'However, it seems that some of the materials that I need are not within this palace,' he thought to himself as he lifted a good chunk of metal onto his shoulder as he headed back to his lab as well as carrying the closest thing he could find to a welding torch in his other hand, the extra weight causing the ice he stepped on to shatter. 'It would be suicide to try and get out there; especially since the ponies all seem to be amassing a force outside. I will need to deal with that later.' Once he was back within the laboratory (which he found to be almost as large as a few warehouses he had worked in), he placed the metal on the ground in the center of the room and began to work on it, knowing that it would be the base for his cryotube.

'But I will need more than this,' he thought to himself as he welded it, slowly trying to get it to form the shape he wanted. He had the memory of how to build these etched into his mind, but it was a slow process without the right tools or help. Taking a momentary break from his work, he checked the power levels of his suit to see that they still read one hundred percent. 'I wonder what kind of energy source this heart is? No energy I have used in the past has kept my suit at one hundred this long. Maybe if I feel like it I will explore what this item is. But the supplies I need are my most pressing concern at the moment.'

He headed down back into the room with all of the odd items that included the mirror and began to look through the supplies for what he needed, the cold silence reminding him of the years he had spent in storage himself, only to be brought back from the dead as an experiment for a sick plan.

'They deserved to die for what they did to me,' Freeze thought to himself with a cold fury running through him, the battle with the radiation monster surfacing to his mind and he felt the burns as if they happened yesterday. But with no way for him to tell how long he had been dead, if he was even dead at all, it could have been yesterday for all he knew. He gathered a few more supplies and began to head back to the laboratory, barely even noticing that it was night out as he passed by a window. He did notice that some of the guards had regained their courage in the short time since their friend had thawed.

"Hey monster! I've got something I want to say to you!" he heard one of them yell from the cells, Freeze turning towards the cells with deadly intentions. He took a step towards the cells, preparing to carry out his threat, when a shadow fell over him that shook him to the core when he saw it on the ground. It was the shadow of a bat. He spun around and pointed both his arms at where the shadow was coming from, dropping his supplies in the process, only to see that it was a bat in the window, the moon being so bright that the tiny creature cast a large shadow.

'Calm yourself Victor, he is not here,' Freeze thought to himself as he lowered his arms, picking up the supplies that he had dropped as he calmed himself. 'The Batman could not possibly know that you survived and even if he did, there is little chance that he would follow you here,' Freeze thought as he began to walk back towards the laboratory, taking one last look to where the guards were yelling at him before he turned and moved on. 'All that matters is your work. Nothing else must distract you.'

His path took him by the throne room, giving him a moment to pause as he remembered the battle with the two ponies that he had earlier that day. He wondered a bit how their rulers came into power and why they seemed more powerful than the other unicorns he had fought. Cadence had power, that much he knew, but yet she seemed weakened by something, her husband had confirmed that for Freeze. Yet she had still fought against him, despite both of them knowing that he was the superior foe.

'They must all be crazy,' he silently thought to himself as he headed back to the lab, walking in and placing the supplies on the large lab table near the center of the room, before moving to his side project on one of the smaller tables. On it was the snow globe, the glass covering resting besides it on the table and sitting beside that was the icicle, which had begun to take on a bit of a shape. 'But he was willing to die to defend her, even if I was superior,' Freeze thought to himself as he picked up the icicle and began to work on it again, painstakingly carving away slowly. 'I am the same way.'

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The sun had only just begun to rise on the horizon when freeze had decided that he had done enough work on the tube, giving him some time to look over the books on medical knowledge that he had taken to see if any of the medical practices could be incorporated into his practice. While nothing really jumped out at him, he did find an interesting page on a flower that was rumored to cure any dieses if mixed properly with medicine.

'But this flower is practically extinct,' he thought to himself as he closed the book and tossed it to the side, nothing left to be learned from it. 'And even if it wasn't, I would have to journey into the deep south to find it and I highly doubt that those ponies would let me anywhere near a flower as powerful as that, let alone leave the palace.' He placed something he had been working on the burner and turned to leave the room, nothing he could do for an hour until it began to heat.

'The hostages probably need to be fed,' he thought as he began to head to the throne room, the fastest way to the kitchen from the lab, when he heard the sounds of ice being shattered and the sounds of multiple hooves running through the palace. 'Those fools truly do not learn. This time I will not be so nice.' He stopped in the throne room and stood in front of the throne with his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the door as he waited for the group to come to him. The door was blasted off its hinges and flew by him, Freeze not bothering to move as a group of ponies ran inside.

"Greetings," he said to them in his emotionless voice, his eyes looking over the group with interest. There were four of the Pegasus with wings now of varying colors and sizes, though the darker one glared at him the hardest. There was also a white unicorn that looked at him with disgust, an orange and a rainbow one that both gave him a similar glare. The pink one barely paid attention to him as she looked around the room while a yellow one hid behind her friends. "Shining Armor. Cadence. Why did you not listen to my warning last time?"

"Silence creature," the tall, white one spat as she stepped forward, Freeze noticing that she was almost as tall as him. "I have been informed of what you have done here and I am here to put a stop to it!"

"I had come to assume that you animals were somewhat intelligent. Cleary I was mistaken. If you have heard what happened, then you must know what I am capable of," Freeze said without emotion, causing the ponies to look at him uncomfortably. The white one prepared to fire a blast of energy from her horn, Freeze moving his arms to his side with white mist coming off around his hands.

"Before I finish this, Freeze, why do you want to rule the Crystal Empire?" the white pony asked, only for her and all the other ponies to be surprised by a single chuckle he let out.

"I have no intention of ruling over animals," he said in his cold tone, but noticing that his words caused the ponies to look at him with surprise. "My only goal is to continue my research and finish my project. I am indeed the monster you friend has described, but I am also a scientist and a doctor. If your ponies wish to rule here, I have no quarrel." Then he lifted his arm and pointed it at the group. "But if they seek to hinder me in any way, as they have, I will freeze them solid."

"Then we have no choice," the darker one on her left said as she stepped forward, the other princesses (he assumed the Pegasus unicorns were all princesses) following her lead. Freeze said nothing, though he pointed both arms at them and waited for them to make the first move. He knew that the heart within him would protect him from their energy attacks and he could more than over power them. Then something happened that none of them were expecting. Cadence took a step forward towards him and then collapsed onto her face.

"Cadence!" Shining Armor yelled as he rushed to her side, everyone stopping the soon to be fight as he tried to awaken her to no avail. Shining Armor looked to the other princesses in desperation and the white one looked from her to Freeze, who still hadn't moved.

"Twilight, take Cadence and Shining Armor and get them out of here!" the white one yelled at the purple one.

"But princess..." the one called Twilight tried to argue, but a look from Celestia silenced her. Twilight wrapped Shining Armor and Cadence in what Freeze was now certain was magic and vanished in a flash. Then Celestia turned back to him with a growl, the other princesses standing beside her with a growl.

"Now then Freeze, we will continue where we left off," Celestia said. Freeze realized that he had been away from his beaker for a while and decided that this trifling fight wasn't worth his time, so he decided to use his trump card.

"Actually, we will not," he said in a matter of fact tone as he lowered his arms, confusing the ponies that had remained behind. "It has just crossed my mind that I still have three guards frozen in the dungeon and I will kill them if you and the other ponies do not leave this palace immediately."

"You cannot kill them from here and we will not let you go past!" the dark one yelled as the rainbow one zipped by him and placed herself at the door to the dungeon, smiling at him with rage in her eyes. The ponies thought they had defeated him, only to see him shake his head within his helmet.

"Fools," he said before he pointed his arm at the throne and froze it, the ponies looking on in shock as he then blasted it apart with a blast of sound. He then turned back to the dumbstruck princesses, who glared at him without the same fire in their eyes that had been there a moment before. "I do not need to be in the same room to kill them."

"You're bluffing," Celestia said, but then Freeze scared her by letting the smallest of smiles out.

"Is that a risk you're willing to take?" he asked her, reading the defeat in her eyes. "But I will release two of them if you leave now. Your choice." She looked like she wanted to fight, but then she hung her head in defeat and motioned for the rainbow one to join her side, the rainbow one doing so reluctantly. She then said to the others that they were leaving and they all turned to leave, the yellow one looking back at him with pain in her eyes.

"If you're a doctor, then why are you causing so much pain?" she asked in with eyes that would have melted the coldest of hearts. It was too bad for her that Freeze's heart was dead.

"I have my reasons," he said to with a glare. "Now out." She turned away and left with the others, though Freeze knew that this was a temporary retreat and he would be seeing them again. Once they vanished in a flash of light, he turned to go back to the burner, thinking of what he would do the next time they showed up. He kept his word and released two of the guards, though he kept the one with the foal frozen for leverage. He then walked back into the lab, taking the flask off the burner and placing it off the table for later as he walked over to the snow globe. The icicle besides it was beginning to take on a more human shape, a shape that was the only thing that could soften his coldness.

"Soon Nora, soon I will have the cure for you," he said to himself as he sat down and continued to chip away at the ice.

No Other Choice

"Why do they continue to bother me?" Freeze asked no one as he headed back to the lab, wondering why he had bothered to let them escape this time alive. He had given them a chance to flee but they came back to try and interfere with mission. He should just go outside and freeze every last one of them. 'At least I will be alone for a while,' he thought to himself as he did the best he could to use the spare parts to create something that barely looked like a computer. His suit's computer was good, but it was only created to monitor his suit.

'From what I could see, Cadence is not doing too well,' he thought as he began trying to make a hard drive, but none of the substitutes for computer pieces he tried work, continuing to frustrate him. 'Maybe then they will leave me to my work, which has been less than stellar at the moment. Curse this backwards planet, why could I have not been stuck someplace else that might have technology that I could use?' He frowned at that thought as he threw the failed tech across the room, sitting down in a chair and placing his hands under his helmet, lost deep in thought as to how he should proceed.

'If there are any more suitable substitutes for pieces of a computer, I cannot find them here,' he thought to himself with increasing frustration. 'Maybe I can intimidate the ponies enough so they will lead me to where the pieces are...no, they could use that as a chance to entrap me and prevent me from achieving my goal. The cure for Nora. That is all that matters.'

'So how long will you continue to live in that past?' Freeze almost shot out of his chair immediately, but he forced himself to be calm as he slowly stood up and looked around for the voice. If the owner of the voice had been planning to attack him, then it would have done so without making itself known. But he found as he scanned the room, with both his eyes and his thermal, he could not find the source of the voice.

"That is an impressive camouflage if it can keep you hidden from my sensors," he said to the voice, waiting for it to speak again so he could get a better read on its position. "Would you please reveal yourself? I do not like to talk to voices without a body as that further proves my theory that I am crazy." The voice remained silent, causing Freeze to tighten his frown before pointing his arms out. "Alright, I did not want to resort to this, but if you do not reveal yourself I will be talking to a pony entombed in ice. Where are you?" As soon as he finished saying this, the air in front of him shimmered and a pony in silver appeared before him. She had on a cloak that made it hard to see his face, but his sensors detected no life under the silver cloak.

'I can see in your face that you are confused by my appearance, but I assure you that I am not entirely dead,' the silver hooded pony said to him, noticing that Freeze did not lower his arms despite her having revealed herself. 'You may put your arms down; your ice will not be able to touch me.'

"Do not temp me to put that theory to the test," Freeze said without emotion, though he was curious as to what she was. His sensors, while picking up no signs of life, detected a large form of energy coming off of her, but it didn't look like any energy that he had seen before. And he hated unknown variables. "I know not what kind of being you are, but I will advise you now not to cross me or try to interfere with my work. I have killed others who have tried to do the same."

'You are a strange one Freeze, stranger than the others I have met,' the silver mare said to him as she got closer, Freeze keeping an arm pointed at her at all times. 'Your goals, while noble, result in not only the destruction of those around you, but most often times yourself as well. How many times have you 'died' now?'

"The number is not important," Freeze said. "And the number of times I die is even less significant as long as I achieve my goals in the end."

'Curing your wife," the silver mare said with a small shake of her head. 'How long do you plan on living in the past Freeze...if you can call what you're doing living.' Freeze never got a chance to respond as a flash of silver went off, the mare gone when he could see again. With a shake of his head he went over to the snow globe that rested on a table, picking up the icicle that was vaguely starting to resemble a beautiful lady.

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In the Crystal Empire hospital, the mane six and the princesses sat in chairs outside of the room where Cadence was being looked after, while Shining Armor paced back and forth across the hallway. They had been there for hours and twice more doctors had been called in to look at her, which was straining Shining's nerves to their breaking point.

"She's going to be okay brother, just wait," Twilight said as she got up to comfort her brother, but he looked at her with fear in desperation in his eyes as he shook his head.

"No she won't. This isn't the first time we've been here Twilight and that was after she collapsed the first time," Shining said with absolute fear in his voice. "She was using the crystal hearts power to help her to move around, but then Freeze showed up and stole that! Then there's the medicine that the doctors gave her that was supposed to keep these symptoms at bay, yet she's only been getting worse. I'm afraid they're both going to die!" Twilight wrapped her hooves around her brother’s neck as he did his best to keep himself from shaking, while the others talked amongst themselves.

"I can't believe Cadence has been this sick and she refused to tell us," Luna whispered to her sister, Celestia nodding in agreement. "Maybe if she had, we could have had Canterlot's best to look after her."

"It won't do us any good now, not from the way the doctors have been reacting," Celestia said with a worried frown, having seen the looks on the doctor’s faces and knowing that there could not be good news. "I just pray that they have something that can keep her alive...and even if she does pull through, we still have that iceman in the castle that we will eventually need to remove."

"Indeed. He is a nasty one." All other conversations stopped as one of the doctors exited the room that Cadence was in and looked around at all of them, Shining breaking free of his sisters grasp as he ran over to the doctor while holding on to desperate hope.

"Doctor! Is she...?" Shining Armor's face fell as the doctor shook his head, the guard collapsing to the floor as he stared at it in shock.

"We don't know what's wrong with her, it's like a dieses that we have never seen before," the doctor said as he patted Shining on the back. "None of the medicines are working and it only seems to be getting worse. She doesn't have long at this rate."

"What about the baby?" Shining asked in a crushed voice, not able to look up to see the doctor shake his head again.

"Whether we can save it or not at this point is fifty fifty," he said as he moved to the side to let Shining into the room. "She's awake, but the pain medicine has made her a bit out of it. I think that you should still see her." Shining nodded weakly as he walked inside, the other ponies and the princesses following him inside to see Cadence lying on the bed, sweat running down her face as she looked around the room in a dazed state. She smiled weakly when she saw Shining and rubbed her head against his hoof when he placed it on the bed, before coughing with pain and tears running down her face.

"There has to be something I can do," Shining whispered to himself as he placed his head against hers, waiting for the coughing to stop.
"I know that there's no cure, but there has to be something." No pony said anything for the longest time, the only sound in the room being Cadence's coughing, until Fluttershy weakly spoke up.

"Maybe we could ask Mr. Freeze to help?" All of the ponies turned to face her as she said this, causing her to hide behind her mane. If Shining hadn't been so devastated by what Cadence was going through he probably would have laughed at that idea. Now all he could do was glare at Fluttershy before turning back to his wife.

"Fluttershy, what are you thinking?!" Twilight half yelled as she walked over to her friend, who was still hiding behind her mane. "You are talking about the being that kicked Cadence and Shining out of their home and threatened to KILL them! How or why would he help us?!"

"Um..."

"I have to agree with Twilight on this one, this guy is bad news!" Rainbow said as she walked over to Shy, who hid behind her mane even more. "He'll try to kill us if we step hoof in there!"

"Yes, but-"

"He's bad news, that's all ah need to know about him," Applejack said with scorn. "We can't trust him."

"But do we have any other options?" Fluttershy said weakly, but it was enough to knock the angry looks off of all the other ponies. "The doctors said that there is nothing else they can do for Cadence and it's most likely that she will die under their care. But Mr. Freeze said that he was a doctor of sorts and he isn't from around here, at least I don't think so, so he might know something that can save her. He's the only chance we've got." The ponies all looked at each other uncomfortably, but they said nothing against her plan. "I know that he'll want something in return if he can do it, but-"

"But Cadence's life is worth any cost," Shining said as he got up. "And that iceman jerk might be her only chance. We'll go see him." none of the other ponies dared to argue against Shining in the state he was in, so they all followed him out of the hospital, except for the princesses who stayed behind with Cadence.

"Think they can convince Freeze to help?" Luna asked her sister. "And even if they do, think he can?"

"We can only hope," Celestia said in reply.

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Freeze was really starting to get ticked off by the ponies. A crowd had formed outside of the palace and had been yelling and throwing things at the iced over door for the better part of an hour, only going away when he fired bursts of his freeze ray at them, hitting some but most escaped. However, the afternoon was not lost as he had managed to get the laboratory up to at least a small medical room, but from there he would only make it better. He had just placed the snow globe down and was about to get back to work on the cryo tube when he heard voices from the throne room. With a growl, he stalked out of the lab and entered the throne room, where he found the ponies from earlier minus the princess.

"You fools never learn," he growled as he pointed both his arms at the ponies, but to his surprise Shining Armor walked right up to him and, after a moment of pain in his eyes, bowed down in front of Freeze. "If you are trying to surrender, don't bother. I warned you what would happened if you came back," Freeze threatened as he lowered his freeze rays, but the pony didn't move.

"I didn't come here to surrender," Shining said in a tone that made Freeze lower his arms slightly and allowed him to look right into Shining's pained eyes as he looked up at Freeze. "I need your help."

Cold As A Corpse

Cadence gritted her teeth as Freeze extracted a sample out of her blood and placed it into the computer in his suit, Twilight and the others able to see the transparent screen that appeared out of his arm (making Twilight's jaw drop) as he looked at it with no emotion. The computer made a sound and he removed the sample and placed it under a microscope, the other ponies able to hear him mutter to himself about how he would kill for better tech.

'Oh yes, I've seen you before,' Freeze silently thought as he examined her blood. 'Very deadly...but still in the early stages. You will be troubling to deal with...but not for long.'

"Well, can you do anything?" Shining snarled at Freeze as the scientist walked back over to Cadence, who lay motionless on a bed that had been prepared for her, using the zoom feature in his goggles and his scanner to take note of her vitals. He frowned as he looked at the information before walking back to his desk, tearing a blank page out of one of the books and writing down something very quickly onto it. "Out with it, you damned snowman! Can you save her or not?!"

"That is not the tone I would take with the only person capable of saving your wife," Freeze said coldly, Shining snarling as Freeze walked up to them and handed them the note, which had written on it a number of medicines, chemicals and medical machines on it. "I can cure your wife, but I will need these supplies first. When you have gathered those, come back to me and we will talk what I want in return for this favor. Go," he said when Shining opened his mouth to argue. The stallion snarled again before he turned and ran out of the lab, most of the other ponies going with him except for Fluttershy and the princesses, who stayed behind to keep an eye on him.

"Thank you for doing this," Fluttershy said to him in a kind voice as she smiled up at him, but she backed away slowly when he turned to face her with his red eyes.

"You should wait until after I have given my conditions for my help before you thank me," Freeze said as he chilled his hand and placed it on Cadence's side, the pony sighing softly as she felt the pain subside a bit. Then he turned away from her and walked back over to his table, where he sat down in a chair with the snow globe in his hand. Fluttershy noticed that he was carving something out of an icicle, but she couldn't make it out.

"So then Freeze, since we have some time before the other get back, how about we get to know each other better?" Luna asked as she walked over in front of Freeze, who made no indication that he had heard her. "Let's start off with a simple question, something that I'm certain that a great scientist like yourself will be able to answer. What are you?"

"A pony's life is in my hands and you proceed to mock me?" Freeze asked her without looking up, though he did peek just to see the look on her face as he said this. "I am a human, homo sapiens, but if you call me anything other than Freeze you'll be frozen." Luna backed away from him a bit as he said this, but then Celestia stepped forward.

"Why are you in our land, Freeze?" she asked him.

"Because fate continues to toy with me," he answered coldly. The two sisters tried to get more answers out of him, but he said nothing and the group sat in quiet as he chiseled away at the icicle. He only looked up again when the ponies came back three hours later, carrying all of the supplies on the list in a bag.

"Here you go," Twilight said to him as she levitated the bag over to him, Freeze taking it from her before looking inside to see if all of what he asked for was within. When he saw that it was, he nodded to them and headed over to his desk. He took items out of the bag and placed them in interesting ways that didn't make sense to the ponies but fit perfectly for him, only turning around to face them once he had arranged them the way he wanted.

"You said something about conditions earlier?" Fluttershy asked him.

"Yes. I have a few conditions before I agree to make the cure for your wife," Freeze said to them, noticing that they didn't like what he said. "The first is that no pony is to bother or try to arrest me. The second is that you will tell the citizens of this empire who I am and that I mean them little harm unless they do something foolish as attacking me. Are we clear so far?" He waited until all three of the princesses present agreed to his terms before continuing. "Next, I wish to have this section of the palace given to me so that I may continue to use it."

"Is that it?" Shining asked when Freeze paused, causing the scientist to glare at him for a moment before continuing.

"And finally, the last item I require before I aid your wife is this," he said as he reached behind him, grabbing the book with the miracle flower and showing the picture to them.

"A Lifegiver," Fluttershy whispered aloud so that the others could hear. "But that's the rarest flower in all of Equestria! There's no way we can find one!"

"You have three days," Freeze said to them as he turned around to put the book down. "My research on Cadence’s condition tells me that she has around three days to live. If you can find me the flower and bring it back to me before the fourth day is up, then I will make the cure for you and save your wife. I hope I do not need to explain what will happen if you fail?" The ponies all glared at him, but he pointed to a clock near the desk. "Tick tock." The ponies all turned around to leave except for the princesses, but then Freeze cleared his throat.

"I also wish to be left alone with Cadence to examine her condition further." Freeze added, noticing Shining's face fall. "Besides, you have a statically higher chance of finding the flower if you all go look for it. What are you all still standing around for? Get out."

"You really think that we'll leave her alone with you?" Celestia asked.

"You have no choice. Out." The ponies glared at him one last time before they all turned and ran out of the building with Shining giving one last worried look before he followed the others, leaving Freeze alone with Cadence who was writhing in pain. He placed his icy hand on her side again to numb some of the pain before he left her on the bed and turned back to the table with all of the supplies that had been brought for him. 'I can finish this cure for her in just over two days, given that they finish their end of the bargain.

"What is your goal?" Cadence said weakly from the bed, Freeze turning towards her to see that she was holding her front hooves around her midsection. "You can't just want to continue your experiments in here peacefully. No, there has to be something else that you're after, something sinister."

"If there was anything else I wanted, I would just take it," Freeze said to her in a matter-of-fact tone before he placed the pain pills that the doctors had given Cadence next to her bed. "Take those and try to get some rest. If you do not, you may not even make it the three days." Cadence gave him a look of loathing, but she did as he said and was sleeping peacefully a few moments later. Freeze looked at her for a moment before he turned to leave the room.

'I suppose that I should feed that fool trapped in the cell,' he thought to himself as he headed in the direction of the cells, but he came to a stop outside the room with the mirror. He could feel something coming from it, as if someone was calling out to him. He turned and opened the doors, walking inside and looking around the room as he headed to the center of it, coming to a stop in front of the mirror. He wasn't sure if he was seeing things or if he had finally lost his mind, but for a moment he believed that he was seeing a faint reflecting of Nora in the mirror.

"Why do I continue to allow these obvious illusions to distract me?" he asked himself as he turned to leave. "They are not real."

'Just because something is an illusion does not mean that it is not real,' Nora said to him, freeze slowly turning around to look at her faint outline.

"Why are you bothering to speak to me, illusion?" Freeze asked Nora emotionlessly, knowing full well that this could not be true. "I have far too much on my mind as it is to be bothered by you."

'I came to talk to you, to ask what are you going to do with the mother to be that is dying in the other room, with only you to save her?' the illusion asked him.

"If the ponies bring me the flower that I require, then there will be no issue," Freeze said to her with no emotion.

'But what if they do not?" Nora asked him, turning in a way that made her hair shimmer in the way Freeze remembered. 'Will you let her die?'

"Whether she lives or dies is a trifling concern to me," Freeze said to her, but this time there was the faintest traces of doubt in his words. "All that matters to me is completing the cure to save you. Everything else is a distraction at best."

'You were never a good liar, Victor,' Nora said to him with a small shake of her head. 'I know you better than that. You were not like the other criminals. You are a good man beneath that icy exterior. You know that this quest cannot save me Victor, but you can still save her. Do not let what happened to you happen to this family. I know you better than that. I know the man you are.'

"No, you knew the man I was," he said as he brought up his arm and pointed it at the mirror. "And that person is long gone. But I do not expect a fake like you to understand that. Now begone." He fired his freeze ray into the mirror as he said this and froze it solid, but it was solid for only a moment before he smashed his boot into it and splintered it into thousands of pieces. He said nothing else to the mirror as he left the room, heading off to where he had left the guard so that he wouldn't die and stop being useful to him. But for as hard as he tried, he could not keep what the fake had said out of his head. That he was better than the rest of the criminals that had plagued Gotham.

'But who I am is of no concern anymore,' he thought to himself as he silently walked through the hallways. 'My heart froze over long ago. I no long feel anything. All that matters is the cure, no matter what that illusion says. It is, after all, a fake...right?'

Does A Frozen Heart Feel?

Freeze stood silently in front of the machine that the cure for Cadence was in as the machine finished the mixing process, but his thoughts were not on the machine or the cure, but instead he was thinking about what Equestria was and how he had gotten here. He hadn't had much time to think about it due to the ponies bothering him, but with the princesses and their cronies gone and Cadence barely able to move, he had more time to himself.

'Stories that I have found in the library tell of a great alicorn that made this land, but that does not tell me if this is the same earth as the one I knew of,' he thought to himself as he took the vial containing the serum and placed it into a needle that could administer it. 'That leaves me with a single question. Did I get blow to another world through time and space when that explosion went off? Or did it send me into a distant future where ponies have become the superior race? Neither seems likely, the explosion was not large enough to create such a displacement in time or space. But that begs the question, how did I get here?' He shook his head and walked over to Cadence, who could barely turn her head to look at him.

"It has been almost two whole days," he said to her coldly. "If they do not return within twenty four hours, there will be no chance for you to survive."

"Shining and the others will be back," she said to him weakly, barely able to sneer at him before falling into a coughing fit. "I know that he won't fail." Freeze shook his head at her as he turned away and headed back to where he kept the snow globe, having seen this tale unfold before. Shining would not be back in time and she would die. He picked up the icicle once again and began to carve away at it, having almost finished the legs of his Nora and now wanting to work on her face. Cadence looked over at him weakly from her bed and saw him carving. "So killing and freezing aren't your only hobbies? Care to tell me what you're working on?"

"Something that does not concern the dead," he said to her coldly, causing her to glare at him before turning her head away from him. But even though he did the best to ignore her, he could still vaguely pick up the sounds of her crying quietly to herself into the pillow. He looked down at the carving and remembered what the reflection had said to him, but he threw it from his mind a moment later. 'No distractions Victor. You cannot allow yourself to lose focus of your goal.'

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Far in the south, in the deepest jungle known to ponies, a group of ponies walked through the thick underbrush and foliage in desperate search of the rarest flower know to the princesses. It had not been easy for them, as Shining had been worried nearly every step of the way and the fact that it had taken nearly a day to fly there cut back on their time to find the flower.

"Rainbow Dash, do you see anything?!" Twilight called up to the Pegasus, who shook her head before zooming off to find the other group. Twilight let out a sigh of frustration before she looked at her brother, who had the same dead eyes that she had seen on him for the past two days. "Don't worry Shining, we'll find the flower. It has to be somewhere."

"That's not what worries me," he said in a dead voice as he moved forward, his eyes looking left and right as he looked. "What worries me is that we won't make it back in time, even if we find the flower. We only have three days and we're at the end of our second one! How can one flower be so hard to find?!" Twilight could see the desperation in his eyes and she pulled him into a hug, before the two of them came to a stop outside of a large field, where a single flower sat in the center of it.

"There it is Shining!" Twilight said excitedly as she flapped her wings and flew down to the flower, Shining running after her with hope starting to fill up his heart. Twilight examined the flower before she pulled out the book with the picture of the flower, looking between the two to confirm that it was the flower. "Alright, so all we have to do now is dig it up and put it in this jar and we'll be good to..." Her words stopped as she and Shining looked down at the ground to realize that it was shaking, Twilight backing up with a yelp when a massive worm shot out of the ground under the flower.

"A Tatzlwurm!" Shining yelled as the worm looked down at the both of them and roared, the flower that they needed resting comfortably on top of the worms head. Its three tongues shot out and wrapped themselves around Twilight, who screamed as she started to fire beams of magic at it to no avail. Shining fired a blast at its head, but his heart sank when he saw the bolt of magic nearly hit the flower on its head.

"Shining, HELP!" Twilight yelled as she was almost sucked into the creature’s maw, only to be saved when Shining managed to get a shot off that hit one of the tongues. The Tartzlwurm screamed in pain as it released Twilight, who took the momentary distraction to try and go for the flower, only to snarl as the Tatzlwurm moved its head to the side and went for Shining. He dove to the side as the worm barreled by him, rising to its full height to stare down the two ponies.

"You said that you and Cadence fought one of these things before, how did you manage to beat it?" Shining asked her as its tongues shot out once again, forcing the ponies to dodge to avoid being grabbed. He threw up a barrier to protect himself form the tongues, which bounced off and caused the worm to roar.

"We combined our magic and overpower it!" Twilight yelled as she followed his example, the tongues not able to get to her. The worm decided to change its tactics a bit and it started trying to crush them underneath with its girth. Twilight teleported herself away from it and teleported Shining as well when the worm tried to crush him. It rose back up, though it was a bit dizzy from all the slamming. Twilight and Shining took that moment to combine their magic and blasted the worm at the same time, causing the creature to roar with pain. It let out one last moan before it began to fall...and it landed on the back of its head, crushing the flower that had been growing there.

"No," Shining whispered to himself as he ran towards where the worm had fallen. He lifted its head with his magic and threw it to the side, only to look down with a shattered heart at what remained of the flower, a few crumpled petals and a snapped stem. "No, no, NO!" He fell to his knees as he looked at the flower, just as the sun had finally set on the horizon. Twilight ran over to his side and gasped when she saw the flower.

"Shining, I'm so sorry," she said as she tried to wrap him in a hug, but he got up and turned back towards where they had parked the ship with fire in his eyes. "Shining, where are you going?"

"I'm going back to the Empire," he said in a dangerous tone without bothering to look back at Twilight. "We have barely a day left before Cadence dies, but I can still save her! I'll force that madman to give Cadence the cure even if I have to tear his legs off!" Twilight looked at her brother with a hint of fear, but she ran past him and went to find the others. Shining got to the ship before she or the others got back and he got inside, lifting it up with his magic while thinking to himself. 'Be ready Freeze, because if she's dead by the time I get back...you'll wish that you were as well!' He lifted the ship into the sky, never noticing the storm clouds behind him.

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Freeze had never been to the top of the Crystal palace, but as he stood atop it, looking down at all of the magnificence that was the Crystal Empire, he began to understand a bit of what Luthor meant when he said it felt so great to rule over everyone. But what interested Freeze even more than the view was what he was looking at. Since he had not been outside since he first arrived here, he was intrigued to see that it had been snowing and from the way it had piled up it had been snowing non-stop.

'Yet everything was perfect when I had first arrived here,' he thought to himself as he remembered the beautiful field that he had awoken in, with the sun beaming down at him. 'Is it possible that removing the crystal heart has had an effect on the natural weather as well as the city itself? That would mean that this heart is magical as well as a powerful energy source.' He then lifted his arm to check on his power reading, but once again found that the suits power read one hundred percent.

"A very powerful source of energy indeed," he said to himself as he headed back down the stairs into the palace, deciding that the weather was not one of his concerns. The cold hadn't bothered him in a long time. As he headed back to the lab, he realized that the third day was almost up and yet the ponies were still not back yet. He had expected them to fail, but he had also expected for them to try and take the serum from him by force. 'And yet they have not returned,' he thought as he opened the door to the lab, looking at Cadence to see that she had not moved. 'Why?'

"You do not have much longer," Freeze said to her as he walked by, not getting anything more than a weak grunt out of her in response. He sat down next to his snow globe and began to carve away at the head again, but his main focus this time was the clock on the wall. From how Cadence looked and acted, she couldn't have more than an hour left. The serum would take about twenty seconds to work on her, but that all depended on if Shining brought him the flower within the hour. "Do you still believe that your Shining Armor will come to save you?" Freeze got no response from her, but then he picked up on the sound again. The sound of her crying. He looked over at where she lay and then looked down at the icicle again before he placed it to the side, no longer feeling like working on it. He then walked over to Cadence to see that she both hooves wrapped around her child as she cried, whispering weakly to herself as she did so.

"Please Faust, I don't care if I die, but let my baby live. Please don't let it die. I'll give anything." Freeze said nothing as he heard this, instead he turned away from Cadence and walked back across the lab. He picked up the icicle one last time, but then he looked from it to the serum lying next to the snow globe. Cadence continued to hold her child and pray until she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck that caused her to turn over, where she saw Freeze standing over her. She looked at Freeze through the tears with confusion, until she noticed that he was holding the serum in his hand...and it was empty.

"What? Why did you...?" she tried to ask before she passed out, the anesthetic quickly knocking her out. Victor looked over her for a moment before he went back to his icicle carving, Cadence sleeping peacefully as the serum worked her way through her body and caused her to breathe easier. Victor sat down silently as he continued to carve away, with all that could be heard in the room was his knife against the ice and the soft snores of Cadence.

Trapped In His Icy Grip

"Where am I?" Freeze said aloud as he looked around a room, not sure how he got here. The room was completely empty, save for some rafters above him, but it was almost impossible to see without his goggles to aid him. But as he looked around, he wasn't sure if this was real and he sent a blast of ice straight ahead, frowning as he saw the ice vanish into nothingness. "This must be a dream or another illusion of sorts, since my readings are picking up nothing on them. This is not real." Freeze had been focusing on the scanner, so he never saw the object that was flung at him until it had hit him in the back of the glass helmet, causing him to look around.

"You never change Freeze. You lived in a world with aliens, super beings and dimensional travel, yet whenever something doesn't fit to your science or your own little reality you don't believe it to be real. How stubborn can one man be?" Freeze narrowed his eyes as he looked around the room, his heat sensors picking nothing up yet Freeze knew of only two men who could avoid his scanners so well. "How long are you going to chase after your wife, who has long since passed onto a better life beyond this world? When will you let her rest?"

"And when will you realize that no matter how hard you fight or how many criminals you stop, your city will never be free...Batman," Freeze replied as he turned around to see a dark outline of the bat, only able to see the Dark Knight's white eyes as everything else was cloaked in shadow. The knight said nothing, but he narrowed his eyes at Freeze in a way that Freeze had seen all too many times before. "You know that it is a futile battle. How many foes have you and your Justice League defeated, only to have those same criminals come back to fight you again? Why do you keep doing it?"

"Because my actions are just," Batman said before he lunged at Freeze, placing both boots into his chest and kicking the ice man down to the ground, where Freeze rolled up to his knees and pointed his arms out, only to find Batman was gone again. "I fight the forces of evil every night, saving countless lives despite the cost to me or the city. That is what allows me to keep fighting every night. But what about you, what keeps you going Freeze?"

"You know that all too well," Freeze replied coldly as he began to fire blasts of ice into the rafters, the only place where the bat could be hiding. "I continue fight so that Nora can live, so that she could be free from that curse that afflicts her! And as I told you when we first met, I will kill anyone who tries to get in my way!"

"The curse that afflicts her? Freeze, she's gone. But you can't accept that. You can't accept that she was happy without you, can you?" Batman asked as he kicked Freeze in the back, Freeze spinning around to find that he was gone into the darkness once again. "How many have you killed so that you can be with your wife again, even when she had the courage to move on? Is that how you think, that if you complete the cure everything will go back to normal? And do you truly want her to live so she can be free? Or do you want her back because you want to be happy yourself?"

"Your tricks will not work on me," Freeze said coldly as he spun and fired a blast of ice, catching the bat in the shoulder and sending him spinning off into the darkness. "I live for her. Only her."

"And what about all the people you killed, the families you ripped apart because you your selfish goal?" Batman asked as an exploding batarang hit Freeze in the leg, dropping Freeze to the ground. Batman leapt onto his chest and punched a hole straight through his glass, stunning Freeze. "In trying to save your wife from death, you subjected other families to the same pain you feel. How can you live with yourself?"

"I do not live for myself. I live for Nora," Freeze said with no emotion. Batman shook his head and brought his fist back before a silver light shown in the emptiness, causing the Batman to vanish as Freeze shielded his eyes, with Batman speaking one last time.

"She moved on Freeze. Why won't you?"

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Freeze groaned to himself as he lifted his head off of the table that it rested upon, blinking twice as he looked around the room to see that he was within the lab once again. He froze a bit of the table below him so he could see his reflection, noticing that his helmet was perfectly fine.

'Another dream, though this once was a bit different than the ones that I usually have,' Freeze thought to himself as he stood up, walking over to where Cadence was sleeping to check on her condition before he looked up to see the silver mare standing at the door before she turned and moved. Freeze followed her into the throne room, where she was looking at the throne. "Care to tell me why you are back?"

'Because I am not sure what to do with you,' the silver pony said as she looked to him. 'You do evil things, yet you have not an evil heart. You talk as if you care nothing for these ponies, yet then you save Cadence by choice. Who are you Victor Fries?'

"Who I am does not matter. I am whatever I need to be to save Nora," Freeze said, though for half a second the mare could swear that Freeze seemed confused by his own words. But then his expression hardened and he pointed one arm at her. "But what I want right now is you out of this palace." The silver mare gave no notion that she was going to leave, but then she seemed startled by something and turned her head.

'Another one?' Freeze heard her mutter. 'But how could a regular human...I will leave for now Fries, but I will be back. I promise.' Freeze said nothing as she vanished, but he did think about what she had said to him for a moment. Who was he? That thought was struck from his mind as the ground shook beneath him as something struck the palace, Freeze spinning around to see that the doors had been knocked off and Shining Armor, as well as the other ponies, were now back in the palace.

"Where is she?" Shining said in a very dangerous voice that Freeze had remembered using sometimes when he was angry. "Where is Cadence? No lies, no bull. Where?" Freeze said nothing for a moment as he looked at the enraged pony, before he moved to the side to allow Shining to head to the lab.

"She is...how you say...resting in peace." Freeze saw the fear in the pony’s eyes before Shining sprinted past him, leaving the other ponies to glare at Freeze as he turned back to them. "I should put a sign up so that you know to keep out, since it seems that you do not know how to listen."

"You're a monster," Celestia said to him as she trembled with rage, the other ponies giving him equally enraged looks. "You let a pregnant mother die when you could save her all along. I swear to you Freeze, you will pay for this." Freeze said nothing in reply, but his answer came a moment later when Shining came back out of the lab, tears rolling down his face.

"Shining," Twilight said gently as she ran over to him, hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry." But to Twilight's surprise, Shining didn't grieve or attack Freeze like he said he would, but just stared at him dumbfounded.

"Why?" he eventually asked, Freeze turning slightly to look at the pony. "Why did you give her the cure?" All of the ponies gasped as he said this and looked to Freeze, but when he gave them the same cold stare he always did they looked back to Shining for answers. "She's still alive," he said to them. "She says that she still feels weak, but she's no longer in pain. Why did you-?"

"The important question now isn't why I did it, but rather what will you do now?" he asked them, confusing them once again. "I held up my end of the bargain and saved Cadence, yet you have not found the flower for me. So now I ask, what will you give to me in exchange for my services?" The ponies all began to look at each other as they still tried to comprehend what had just happened, when Cadence came out of the room from the lab and Shining ran over to her to hold her up.

"Cadence, what are you doing out of bed?" he asked her as she leaned against him, her eyes showing that she was out of it.

"I feel a bit weird," she said, Freeze walking over and looking into her eyes despite Shining's protests.

"While my serum has cured you of your aliment, you will still not be at one hundred percent for at least three weeks. I would recommend resting in a hospital for that time," Freeze said. Shining nodded and went to take her to the hospital, but then Freeze stop him again by clearing his throat. "Not you, Shining. you're staying here."

"And just why would I do that?" he snarled back at Freeze.

"Because that's my new condition," Freeze said coldly as he approached the ponies his suit giving off a mist that told them his freeze rays were starting up. "I have decided that you will stay with me, so that I can learn of your culture and have a pony on hand to assist me if needed. Also, I need a new hostage as that guard cannot withstand much more of my ice. You may take him when you leave, but you stay."

"You can't force me to," Shining said with defiance, but then Freeze's helmet seemed to get darker and he pointed his arm right at Shining's head.

"Then maybe I should ask for something a bit more fair," he said in a tone far more dangerous than the one Shining had given him a few minutes ago. "A life for a life." The ponies all prepared to fight him as he raised his other arm, Shining debating what to do since his wife would get caught in the crossfire, but before anything could start a small voice spoke out.

"I'll...I'll stay here." The ponies all parted to the side to show the yellow Pegasus with the pink mane, who was barely able to look directly at Freeze. Nevertheless, she had been the one to speak those words and that strange fact was enough to get Freeze to lower his arms to the side.

"You?" he asked in disbelief, but her friends asked all the questions he was about to.

"Fluttershy, what are you thinking?" Twilight whispered to her, Fluttershy giving her friend a smile before giving her a quick hug.

"This is the only way nopony will get hurt," she said quietly. "Besides, Shining needs to be besides Cadence, to take care of her. I can be Freeze's hostage in his place.

"Oh no you won't," Rainbow Dash said as she stepped forward. "I'll do it instead. It'll be fun fighting a snowman." The other ponies began to speak along similar lines, each of them willing to be the one who stayed with Freeze, but he watched each of their reactions and faces before he decided on which one would be best.

"No, I will take Fluttershy instead," he said to silence them, all of them looking at him with either confusion or rage. "Out of all of you, she seems to be the one to cause the least amount of trouble. Or if you disagree, we could go back to a life for a life?" When none of the ponies said anything, he nodded before pointing his arm at the door. "Now all of you except for Fluttershy out, or I will start freezing."

"Fluttershy, I promise that at least one of us will come every day to make sure you're alright," Twilight said before glaring at Freeze. "And if you hurt so much as a strand of her mane, you'd better be ready for the wrath of Equestria to fall down upon you." Freeze pointed his arm at her in response and fired a shot past her head, telling them that he was done talking. They all slowly walked out of the room, except for RD who looked back her one last time.

"Are you certain? Any of us can do this instead. You don't have to sacrifice yourself."

"Element of Kindness, remember?" Fluttershy said with a smile, but RD could tell that she was covering up her fears with it. RD gave Freeze one last glare before she left the room, leaving Freeze alone with Fluttershy. "So then...Mr. Freeze? What do you plan on doing with me now that you have a hostage?" Freeze said nothing to her but instead turned and headed back to the lab, Fluttershy following him cautiously to see him sit down at a table and begin working on some kind of mixture. She kept her distance while she watched him work, expecting at any moment for him to remember that she was there, but he continued to ignore her. She took a moment to look around the room to see a snow globe in the corner on a small table with a small icicle besides it.

'Why would he have this in here?' she thought to herself as she very slowly walked over to it, Freeze paying her no mind. 'It almost looks like Freeze, except smaller and more...feminine? Why would somepony like him keep this around?' Even though she asked the question, she had no desire to get an answer. She simply sat there, looking at the icicle as Freeze worked away at his serum, ignoring her completely.

{}

In the far reaches of space, a solitary figure sped across the stars, his board allowing him to move faster than most beings could dream of. He gazed at each of the planets as he passed by them, until he saw one that was covered with lush vegetation. With a thin smile, he flew down to it and quickly sped across the surface of it, his smile growing larger when he saw no buildings or structures.

"It seems that this planet is devoid of any advance life," he said to himself, the sun reflecting off his silver skin. "My master will be able to feast on this planet without worry of wiping out sentient life. I should go and-" He was interrupted as a massive lightning bolt struck the ground besides him, causing him to cover his eyes for a moment. When he looked again, he saw a figure in a black outfit with streaks of red mixed in with it. He had a flowing black cape and a circlet rested upon his head. But what drew the surfer’s eyes was a lightning bolt in the center of his chest, one that was filled with power.

"It seems that once again those foals have sent me to the wrong place," the being said with a growl as he rose to his full height, looking into the surfers eyes. Then two bolts of lightning descended from the sky and struck his hands, causing electric power to course through them. "But that matters not now. if you know anything about the silver one, you will tell me now. Or you will suffer."

"You dare to challenge a herald of Galactus, you weak-" the Silver Surfer asked before a lightning powered fist struck him in the face and sent him skidding back a bit, the being looking at him with power and rage in his eyes.

"I am Black Adam. And I dare."

Coolest Guy In Town

A full day had passed since Fluttershy had been "forced" to be Freeze's captive and was now staying with him inside of the crystal palace. She used the word forced lightly, since even though he had made it clear that she had no say whether or not she could leave, he had barely said anything else to her or interacted with her much in the time she had been in the palace. During the previous night she had even found that she could have left through the top of the palace, but freeze had done nothing to stop her. The only reason she hadn't left was she wondered if he would go after he friends if she did, as well as a dream from Luna asking her if she would try to find out what made Freeze so powerful.

'But he still confuses me,' she silently thought to herself as she sat in a chair in the laboratory, watching as Freeze lifted some heavy machinery and placed it in the center of the room. He then froze them to the ground and began to attach wires from them to another machine that had been there when she arrived, but growled to himself when nothing happened. "Um, would you...like so help?" Freeze said nothing in reply so Fluttershy closed her mouth again, simply watching and waiting.

'It's weird, it's almost like he's an entirely different pony than the one who was threatening us yesterday,' she thought to herself as she quietly got up and floated around the room, looking at all of the different things he had built. She could do so with only some reservation, because despite the fact that she still feared him, it seemed that he wasn't going to hurt her. She landed next to the serum she had seen him working on the previous night, looking at it for a distance since this was the one thing she was certain that he would kill her for touching. "Um, what is this thing? I've never seen a potion or medicine that looks like it?"

"Do not touch it," he said to her, before growling to himself as he tore a chunk of a machine out of the ground and threw it into the wall, muttering how useless to him it was while Shy hid behind her mane. He then walked out of the room, leaving Shy all alone once again. Despite knowing better, she began to follow him, wondering what he was doing that was so important that he barely paid mind to his captive.

"Why are you following me?" he asked her as she flew a bit off of the ground, since almost all of the floors had been frozen over.

"N-no reason," she said to him meekly as he entered the room where the mirror to the other world was kept. She entered the room behind him only to gasp in shock when she saw what was left of the mirror resting in pieces all over the floor. Freeze turned away from what he was doing to glare at her, though he was curious as to why she responded like that. "W-what have you done?! You've destroyed the only way that Twilight could go visit her human friends." Freeze stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned to look at Fluttershy, who dove behind some boxes for cover.

"Are you telling me that the mirror that now lays in pieces at my feet was a way to the human world?" he asked her with what she was certain was a cold fury in his voice. She nodded once before diving back behind the boxes, waiting for the violent outburst only to hear a sigh instead. "Fate, you continue to impede me even in this strange world. I will get even with you one day." She then began to watch him as he dug through the supplies in that room, but after about an hour he stood up with a silent rage. "How well do you know this city?"

"What?" she asked in confusion, this being the first time he had been the one to start a conversation.

"How well do you know the Crystal Empire?" he asked her again, though she could tell that his patience was running thin this time. "Would you be able to tell me where the shops and supplies are?"

"Um, yes, I believe that I could do that," she said meekly as he walked by her, opening to door to the room before looking down at her with his red eyes.

"Then lead the way."

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Freeze said nothing to the yellow Pegasus as she lead him through the streets, his mind was far too busy with other, more important thoughts than to waste time talking to her. Like how the rainbow pony thought she was being stealthy in the clouds overhead, but compared to the bats stealth she stuck out horribly. Or how three of the machines that were supposed to work were just scrap and he'd have to see if he could...appropriate proper ones from the ponies in the city. Finally, there were the glares that all of the ponies were giving to him, telling him that he was not welcome. He did not enjoy harming citizens, but if they attacked he would retaliate in kind.

"So the, what kind of supplies are you looking for?" Fluttershy asked him in such a small voice he had to increase the volume on his helmet. "Are you looking for food or maybe some kind of book? I saw that you had a large number of books in the laboratory back there and I was wondering if-"

"Take me where ever there are machine parts and electronics," he said to her coldly, shutting her up instantly. They continued to walk in that silence, but with his volume still increased on his helmet he could hear every bad word that the ponies believed that they were having behind his back. Some were calling him a freak of nature (which he was), while others blamed him for the constant snowfall (which was also his fault). But the ones that got under his skin were the ones that called him a dumb animal, despite him being far more intelligent than the whole city combined. But he said nothing, as all that matter was finding the machines to make the cure.

"H-here we are," Fluttershy said before moving to the side as they came to a stop outside of a shop, freeze noting that this place seemed to house what he need as he saw a number of junked machines behind the store. Fluttershy opened the door for him as he bent his head slightly to enter, the pony behind the counter staring at him with shrinking pupils as he looked up at Freeze.

"I will require this," Freeze said as he walked over to a galls tube on a wall and picked it up, walking around the rest of the store while gathering supplies, the ponies saying nothing as they watched the strange sight. A few minutes later he had gathered a number of items, Fluttershy amazed that he could lift all of the supplies. He then turned and went to leave, but the pony behind the counter stopped him with a stammer.

"U-um, you have to pay for that," the stallion said meekly, but he hid behind the counter when Freeze turned around. Freeze raised an arm and pointed it at the pony, but to his and the stallion’s surprise, Fluttershy placed herself between him and the pony.

"No Freeze, I won't let you do this," she said meekly, hiding behind her mane when he glared at her but she did not move.

"I will not hesitate to freeze you both," he told her.

"Yes you will, because you haven't hurt me so far and I doubt that you would risk the princesses continuing to bother you over something so petty," Fluttershy said in a near whisper. "Besides, don't you have something else more important to do?" Freeze narrowed his eyes at her, but then he turned and left the shop with all of the supplies. Fluttershy comforted the pony behind the counter while paying for as much as she could before she took off after Freeze. She found him outside standing in front of a large crowd of ponies, all of whom were glaring at him while holding various weapons and gardening tools.

"Move," he said to them coldly, but none of them budged. "What could be so important that you would form a mob to bother me?"

"We're here to get rid of you, monster," one of the more courageous ponies said to him, causing Freeze to raise an eyebrow at them. "You've torn our city apart, caused the princess to flee the palace and doomed us to another eternity of snow and sleet by taking the crystal heart! So we're going to do what the princesses couldn't and get rid of you!" Freeze said nothing to them, although he did make a mental note that they said that he had doomed them to another eternity of snow. He really did need to read up on this cultures history when he felt like it, but right now his biggest concern was getting back to the palace.

"Out of my way," he said to them as he began to push through the crowd, some ponies trying to resist him only to find that his suit was too strong. Some of the unicorns tried their magic, but the crystal heart within him made their magic pointless. The mob backed away when nothing they did worked against him, but with cold, red eyes glaring at them he dropped the supplies he was carrying to the ground and slowly raised his arms at the mob. "What I do now is in self-defense. Prepare for a very cold sleep." Fluttershy ran forward to try to interfere, but at that moment the ponies began to look past Freeze to the sky, where what they saw caused them to flee for their lives while screaming in panic.

"That is an odd reaction to me," he muttered to himself before turning around to see what had startled them, his eyes widening a bit when he saw a massive cloud of smoke with a pair of eyes descending into the city, causing ponies everywhere to flee in panic. "But it is a perfectly sound reaction to a cloud with eyes. Fluttershy, do you know what this is?" he asked the Pegasus, who he found was now cowering behind his legs.

"Nonononono he can't be here, we got rid of him," Fluttershy said in a terrified voice as she did her best to become as small as possible. Freeze was intrigued by her reaction to the cloud, but due to her being terrified of almost everything (at least what he had seen of her so far) he saw nothing out of the ordinary. But the ponies reactions are what interested him, not to mention the Pegasus had called the cloud a "him", which it clearly was not. At least that's what he thought until it spoke.

"Greetings, my faithful subjects of the Crystal Empire!" the cloud shouted down at the ponies, causing even more to scream and run for their lives. "It has been a while, hasn't it? But there is no need to fear, your king, Sombra, has returned!" Freeze knew not what this Sombra was nor did he care, but what he did take an interest in was when the cloud flew through the streets and into the palace, where he was keeping the only thing that could save Nora. And no one would dare take his Nora again. So even as all of the ponies cowered and ran away from the palace, a single ice man walked towards it, his eyes as cold as his weapons.

King of the Ice

Freeze shattered the doors to the crystal palace with his sound waves, terrifying Fluttershy as he stormed inside with a menacing look on his face. She had no idea what to say to stop him, and that was even if he would stop, but she knew that a fight with Sombra was the last thing Mr. Freeze wanted. So despite knowing that it probably wouldn't work, she tried to stop him.

"Freeze, please listen to me," she said meekly as she flew in front of him, trying to get his attention but he stormed right past her. "We need to get Twilight and the others of Sombra is back. I don't want you to face him alone."

"I have faced worse," Freeze said to her before he reached the throne room, the doors still blasted off their hinges from when Shining had entered and allowed Freeze to look right up to the throne, where a dark pony sat upon it with a curious smile on his face when he saw the creature approach him.

"Okay, you're a new one," Sombra said as he tilted his head to look at the ice man, turning into a cloud of darkness as he approached Freeze. "I've seen manticores, gorgons and even a pony-dragon hybrid, but nothing like you. I am king Sombra, ruler of the Crystal Empire. So who are you?"

"I am Victor Fries," the ice man said as he raised both his arms at the shadowy pony with narrowed eyes behind his goggles. "And last time I checked, Cadence and Shining Armor were rulers of this empire. Not that it matters to me, but I hate to get caught up in political disputes." Sombra looked at Freeze with a bit of confusion before he saw the tiny Pegasus cowering behind Freeze's leg and a smile crossed his face as he drifted over to her.

"Well, here's somepony that I haven't seen in a while," he said to her with a menacing smile. "Are you here alone or are those bothersome Elements lurking around here somewhere? I hope that Cadence is here as well, I really want to dispose of her and her meddling husband as well. But first I think I’ll start with-" Before Sombra could finish his sentence he was grabbed by the throat and lifted into the air by Freeze.

"That pony is my hostage. I suggest that you keep your hooves off," Freeze said to him in a tone that was almost as cold as the hands that gripped Sombra's throat, the dark king smiling as he escaped Freeze's grasp by turning into smoke again.

"So you're the pony...snowman that froze the palace," Sombra said as he looked around at all of the ice. "I wondered if Cadence was simply in a mood, but it seems that somepony de-throned her before I got the chance to. So does that mean that I'm going to have to battle you for the throne?" Freeze looked at the pony careful as he weighed his chances, curious and a little nervous about Sombra's power. The magic he used (Freeze now assumed that all unicorns could use magic) would be no problem, but the smoke ability made him worry and dissuaded him from pursuing conflict.

"I have no desire to rule over these ponies nor do I have any wish to sit on that throne," Freeze said to the dark pony, who looked at him in surprise as Freeze lowered his arms. "As long as you do not disturb me as the princesses and their fools have, I will have no issue with you being here. Now if you excuse me, I have to go to my lab." Sombra looked at Freeze for a straight minute before he began to laugh out loud, completely caught off guard by Freeze and his personality.

"Very well ice man, I see no need to make this harder on me," Sombra said with a smile, Fluttershy running over to Freeze as he headed back to the lab.

"Victor, what are you doing? You can't just let him take over the throne like this!" Fluttershy said in her loudest voice, which surprised Freeze a bit, but only for a moment. "He's a tyrant, who enslaved the ponies he ruled over all those year ago! If he gets back on the throne, there's no telling how many will suffer!"

"And why should I care?" Freeze said in a cold tone. "It does not concern me or my work as to who rules over these ponies, but Sombra had said that he will leave me alone to finish. Even if he does go back on his word, that is still better than being bothered ever day by you and your princess. He will also draw their attention away from me and onto him. Why should I care what he does in his rule if I can finish my work? If you want him gone, go do it yourself." Sombra began to laugh at the crushed look on Fluttershy's face. Freeze turning to leave for his lab. But to the surprise of both Sombra and Freeze, Fluttershy looked up at the dark king with defiance on her face.

"What's this? You actually think you can stop me by yourself?!" Sombra asked with another loud laugh, as it looked like Fluttershy was using all of her courage to remain standing. Sombra then fired a bolt of dark magic into the air that encompassed the entire palace, where he looked out of his magic to see the princesses and the other Elements heading his way. "And it seems that your friends will not be here to help you. So let me ask, oh yellow one, what are you going to do?!"

"I'll...I'll...I'll stare at you!" she said as she went to give him the stare, but she was enveloped by his magic and levitated over to him where he laughed in her face.

"Oh no, not the stare! However will I defeat you?" he asked her with a smirk on his face as she struggled as best she could. "Do you not get it you, you dumb foal! I am now back in control! And without that annoying crystal heart to stop me and the other Elements trapped outside, I've already won. For if I kill one of the Elements," he said in a sinister voice as he created a blade out of darkness and placed it at her throat. "Then there will be no force on Equis that can stop me."

"Cadence can stop you," Fluttershy said. "She did it once and she'll do it again." Sombra growled as he slammed Fluttershy into the ground before lifting her back into the air, placing the blade on her neck and drawing a few drops of blood.

"Do you know what I'm going to do to that princess?" Sombra asked her in a low voice, Fluttershy looking at him with pure fear in her eyes. "I'm going to tear off her horn and impale her with it to the point where she can barely move. Then I'm going to take control of Shining Armor and get him to finish the job for me. And only after he's killed his wife and the others will I finally kill him myself. That's what you get for messing with me." Unbeknownst to the two, Freeze had not left the room yet. He had stood in place with a hand on the door, listening to Sombra with no emotion.

"But Cadence is pregnant," Fluttershy said. "Surely even you are that evil."

"No," Sombra said with a wicked smile. "I'm worse." He brought back the blade to impale Fluttershy, but a blast of ice struck him in the side and sent him sprawling to the floor. Fluttershy fell as well, but she was caught by the metal arms of Victor, who put her on the ground before he began his slow march to Sombra. "What's this? I thought that you didn't care what I did? What's changed?"

"I don't explain my actions to the likes of you," Victor said before firing both freeze rays at Sombra, who turned into his smoke form to avoid the attack, circling around behind Victor so he could fire a bolt of black magic into his back. But to Sombra's horror he found that the suit completely absorbed his magic, Victor turning towards him with malice in his eyes.

"How did you do that? No spell can absorb my magic like that," Sombra said in shock as Victor sent another blast of ice at the dark pony, who once again slipped into the smoke.

"You can thank that crystal heart that you are so afraid of," Victor said as he fired ice into the ceiling, causing icicles to rain down upon Sombra who had to swerve to avoid being hit. Then he pressed a button on his suit, but frowned when nothing happened. "It not only powers me, but allows me to be immune to your "magic". There is nothing you or any other magic user can do to hurt me."

"Then we are at an impasse!" Sombra yelled to Victor from the darkness as the ice passed right through his shadowy form. "I cannot hurt you with my magic and you cannot hurt me with your ice. But there is somepony in this room I can hurt!" Sombra sent bolts of darkness flying from the shadows towards Fluttershy, who barely had time to blink before a massive suit placed itself between her and the spells. The magic did nothing to Victor, but the action had an impact on Fluttershy, who looked up at Freeze with confusion. "If you don't care about ponies the why did you protect her, you hypocrite!" Sombra yelled.

"I told you, she is my hostage and under my protection," Victor said in a cold voice as he looked up at the smoke floating near the ceiling, pressing a button on his suit once again. "And you are incorrect in the assumption you made earlier. You were correct in saying that you had no way to harm me, but I still have one trick left." He aimed his arms at the smoke as he said this, but instead of ice this time they fired a wave of sound that caused Sombra to scream as they hit his ears. The dark king returned to his normal state and fell to the ground, clutching his ears in pain as the sound deafened him.

"I am more than a walking ice machine," Victor said in a cold voice as he walked over to Sombra and hoisted him up by his neck. "I am a genius. And by underestimating me...you have dug your own, cold grave." He let ice begin to form on his hand as he said this, slowly freezing the pony’s neck. "Enjoy the grave." Sombra snarled before a flash of light went off from his horn, blinding Fluttershy and Freeze. When the both could see again, Sombra was gone, but so was the shield around the palace. Freeze looked down at his empty hand for a moment before he turned and headed back to his lab, stopping only when he saw how Fluttershy was looking at him.

"Why?" she asked him. "Why did you stop him? Why did you save me?"

"As I told Sombra," Freeze said coldly before turning his head and going through the door to the laboratory. "I don't explain myself to the like of you." He slammed the door shut behind him as he said this, leaving a room filled with ice and one very confused Pegasus.

A Temporary Heart

"...And you are certain that's what happened?" Twilight asked Fluttershy, who nodded her head slightly as her friends and the other princesses looked at her in shock. The moment Sombra had left, the barrier around the palace had come down and enabled the other ponies to enter. RD and Twilight had checked up on Fluttershy to make sure she was alright while the princesses looked around for Sombra. It wasn't until after Freeze had started to shoot at them for bothering him that they decided to come back to the throne room, where Fluttershy explained to all what had transpired.

"I was there," Fluttershy reminded Twilight in a quiet voice, causing Cadence to seethe with rage.

"I can't believe that ass of a pony is still alive," she growled to herself as she looked out the window to see her kingdom, looking at all of the ponies that had come to the palace when they had heard of Sombra's return. "You think that after being trapped in ice and being blown up he would stay dead, but somehow he just keeps coming back."

"I just can't believe that somepony as heartless as Freeze actually fought him off," Rarity said in disbelief, the other ponies expressing similar thoughts.

"I can't believe that he has the crystal heart inside of him," Cadence said as she looked to the lab with angry eyes. "I knew that he had taken it, but I had no idea where he had put it. But the fact that he's using it for a power source will be his undoing. The crystal heart might be one of the strongest sources of magic in the land, but even it needs to gather its power from something. And the crystal heart draws its power from love, the love I feel for my ponies and in return the love they feel for us. The crystal heart can only be used by someone who feels love or else it will destroy them, like it was supposed to do Sombra," she explained when the other ponies looked to her. "That means when it is with a pony...human such as Freeze, it will fight against him while losing its power, which in turn means that he will lose his power over time. It is a temporary power source for him."

"So all we have to do to defeat him is wait him out?" Celestia asked with a frown. "I do not like that plan, for it gives him too much time to complete whatever he is up to."

"I may not like it either sister, but right now it is the only plan available to us," Luna said to Celestia. "Freeze has proven himself to be our intellectual superior and with the crystal heart inside of him he is immune to our magic. I do not even think he can be teleported now." The four princesses lowered their heads, each in thought of what they should do while the other ponies comforted Fluttershy.

"That was mighty brave of yah standing up to Sombra all by yer lonesome," Applejack said to her, to which she gave AJ a thankful smile.

"How have you been holding up darling?" Rarity asked Fluttershy as she looked the Pegasus over for any sign of injury. "Being stuck in here with that ruffian Freeze and then to be attacked by Sombra cannot be good for your health."

"Well...Sombra was a tough experience, but Freeze...hasn't been that bad," she said weakly, causing all of the ponies to gasp at what she said. "I mean...he can still be cold and mean, but he hasn't hurt me or really said anything to me the entire time I've been here. And he stopped Sombra from killing me, so he hasn't been all bad." Fluttershy thought about what she had just said while her friends tried to make sense of what she had told them, wondering herself why Freeze had been so nice. He had threatened their lives on multiple occasions and even frozen some of them, so his sudden change in attitude didn't make sense to her. 'But all he ever did was threaten. If he wanted to kill us, he would have done so already. And while he has frozen a lot of ponies, all of them were more or less fine when they were thawed out. He did kill a guard...but if he was a true killer why stop there? Why not just kill us all?'

"Hello? You in there Fluttershy?" Pinkie asked as she knocked against the side of her friends head, causing Fluttershy to snap out of her thoughts. "We were asking you if you've seen anything that could be a weakness or a weak spot in Freeze's armor."

"No...Nothing really," Fluttershy said as she thought back to the times she watched him work. If anything, he had only seemed even stronger from the time she spent with him. He could lift heavy things and he didn't seem to need sleep, like he was a total machine. But the one thing that he seemed to care about was the small ice sculpture that he was making, the only time he spoke to her was when she tried to pick it up. "I really don't think that we should bother him until the heart runs out."

"Well, then that has to be the plan for now," Luna said as she walked over to them. "As we have been unable to think of anything else. If all of you are ready to go, we will head to another part of the empire to regroup and talk about what Sombra coming back means." The ponies nodded and wall walked over to Luna, except for Fluttershy who hid behind her mane without moving. "Fluttershy, it is time to leave."

"I'm...staying," she said, getting another gasp out of all of the ponies. "I promised that I would stay here as compensation for Freeze saving Cadence's life and I will hold up my end of the deal. I'm sorry girls, but I can't go." The ponies began to try to talk her out of it, but she held up a hoof gently to silence them. "I'm sorry but I have to stay. You should all probably be going, I doubt Freeze will be in a good mood after today's events." The ponies once again tried to reason with her, but it was clear that she was going to stay. So with heavy hearts they all left their friend trapped with a mad man, Pinkie promising Fluttershy once Freeze was gone she would throw her the biggest welcome back party she had ever seen. Fluttershy watched them go and then turned back to the lab where Freeze was when they were gone, finding him at work once again.

"I never got to say thank you for saving my life," she said to him gently as he worked on the tube, having re-enforced its base and was now working on keep the base from breaking off. "So thank you." He said nothing to her once again and she let out a tiny sigh before walking back over to where he kept the ice sculpture. She was fairly certain now that he was making another human, as the icicle looked very similar to him without the armor, but it also looked different, with long hair and a more beautiful form. "But you never told me why you saved me."

"I do not have to explain my actions to the likes of you," he said in his cold tone without looking at her. "And stay away from that. I will not warn you again." She backed away just as he asked, but she continued to look at him with uncertainty, having no idea what to think of him. She shivered a bit and looked around the room at all the ice, wondering why he bothered to keep it like this.

"Can you at least tell me why you have it so cold in here?"

"I need it cold." She shook her head and decided that she needed some sleep, it having been too long a day to decipher his riddles.

"I'm going to bed," she said softly, leaving the lab without Freeze saying a word to her. "But I wanted to say thank you one more time, just in case you didn't hear me the first time." Once she had left, Freeze looked up from where he had been working to the door, shaking his head at her before he stood up and walked over to the icicle. He picked it up and continued to carve away at it, the ice almost shaped like his beloved.

'I know now why I can put up with them,' he thought while working on the sculpture, making the finishing touches to it. He turned it over in his hand to see the face of his Nora once again, the same face that had made him fall in love with her all those years ago. 'Because it is the only way to create the cure that can save you. That is the only reason.'

'Then why did you protect them from that dark pony?' the sculpture asked him, Freeze saying nothing as it turned its head to look at him. 'You would have had an easier time creating said cure with him in rule, but you chose to help the other ponies that have been bothering you. Why, my dear Victor?'

"I...do not know," he said with no emotion, but Nora made a disappointed noise that she always made when she knew he was lying.

'You do know Victor, but you do not want to admit it. Because if you admit it, then you will have to face the truth that you are ignoring. But you have to overcome your fear of what you ignore or else how can you live?' Freeze closed his eyes and shook his head, Nora looking just as he carved her when he opened his eyes again. He said nothing about what had just occurred, but he walked over to the snow globe and took the top off of it, placing Nora in the center of it before placing the lid back on. He then placed it on the table as the snow began to fall around her, softening his heart for just a moment.

"I do not need to know the truth that I am ignoring," he said to himself as he stared at her beauty. "All I need to know is that I can save you Nora, just as you saved me all those years ago when we first met." He continued to stare at Nora in the snow globe, never noticing the pair of blue eyes that watched through a crack in the lab door or the pony that had heard every word he had spoken to himself. She turned away from the door with a small smile, having at least a small understanding of why Freeze did what he did. And now she knew that he needed help.

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Far off from the main empire, a single dark being floated around his chamber, laughing to himself giddily as he opened chests of his that held within them creatures and inventions that he had never used before. Sombra lifted an egg out of one of the chests with a huge grin, flying over to a cauldron that sat in the center of his cave and placed the egg inside.

"Victor Freeze, huh?" he said to himself with a smile as he began to add potions and mixtures into the cauldron, adding a few magic words to be safe. "Never before I have been so thoroughly outsmarted and defeated. The princesses only got lucky the both times they defeated me, but you...you are a worthy opponent. I look forward to seeing how this little game of ours plays out, because whether you know it or not...you are now my opponent." He began to laugh as smoke erupted from the cauldron along with a monster, laughing at how much sweeter his victory would be now that he had a worthy foe.

Hail Hydra

Fluttershy stood outside the door to the lab the following morning, trying to gather up as much of her courage as she could. She had no idea how Freeze would react to her question, but she knew that if she was going to get any answer out of him she'd have to ask him about what she had heard last night. So she inhaled one last deep breath before she entered the room, finding that the snowman was still hard at work with the tube.

"Good morning Mr. Freeze," she said to him with a smile, waiting for him to turn or respond. He said nothing as he continued to work, so she began to walk towards him, looking at the tube with interest. "What are you making there? I've never seen anything like this from anypony, even Twilight. Twilight likes to do strange experiments sometimes that I can't make heads or tails of. You might like her." Freeze said nothing as he got up and moved past her, taking something off one of the table before returning to work.

"Or maybe you would like Rarity. She makes cool suits as well," Fluttershy said with a little giggle at her own pun, but she stopped when Freeze didn't bother to respond. "Then again, I've never seen her make battle armor like yours before, so maybe the two of you wouldn't get along. Of course, there's always Rainbow Dash...but after seeing how the two of you reacted to each other I think its best that you keep apart from each other." She could tell that her small talk was getting her nowhere, as Freeze never responded or showed any indication that he had heard her. So with a sigh she walked over to where the icicle carving sat, finding that it now rested inside of a snow globe, making the lady in it look even prettier.

"That's such an amazing ice sculpture. Is that Nora in there?" she asked him. The moment she did she felt the air in the room change and when she turned to look at Freeze she found him slowly turning around to face her, his eyes hidden behind the goggles that seemed to be glowing even brighter now. But what caused her to back away in fear was that there was an emotion on his face, despite him being devoid of one the entire time she had been here. Rage. Pure rage.

"How do you know that name?!" he roared as he rushed over to her and lifted her up by the throat, fear in her eyes as she looked into his dark face. He threw her across the room into a table, where she was fairly certain she felt something break as she bounced off the table and to the ground. She didn't have any time to recover as Freeze grabbed her by the throat again as he picked up her and slammed her into the wall, pointing his freeze ray at her face. "Do you ponies have her!? Where is she?!"

"I-I only heard you say her name last night!" Fluttershy said as she began to cry, trying to hide behind her hooves from the rage that she was face to face with. "I have no idea who she is or where!" Fluttershy was full on weeping now, but Freeze barely noticed as he was thinking about what she had said and calming himself down. He had allowed his emotions to get the better of him again and now this pony knew something about his connection to Nora, which might spell doom for her if they did have her. He glared at the sobbing Fluttershy one last time before lowering her to the ground.

"Be very careful with your words," he said to her in a cold voice as he looked down at her crying state. "You might upset some people." He prepared to turn before he heard what sounded like glass shattering, only able to take a moment to register the sound before a massive silver head slammed through the side of the wall, sending him and Fluttershy across the room. The serpent's head roared before it began to destroy the room to get to him, biting down on him with its teeth and dragging him through the hole. Freeze barely had enough time to fire off a ray of ice before he was dragged outside, where he saw that this serpent had five heads and all of them were covered in a silver armor.

"What manner of beast is this?!" he yelled as he fired off a ray off ice into one of the heads, only to see that the armor protected it. The creature's others heads roared before the one that was holding him threw him towards the ground, where he crashed through a number of vending stalls before he came to a stop. He weakly got to his feet, looking through his blurry vision to see that cracks were now running through his helmet. "No...Not now...not when I'm close." The hydra hissed and tried to bite him, but he created a wall of ice that managed to temporarily stop it. While it was trying to batter the wall down, Freeze noticed something about its eyes.

'Its eyes are similar to the smoke that Sombra used,' Freeze thought to himself as he staggered behind some of the wreaked stalls, trying to think of someway to defeat the massive creature. 'He must have sent it here to kill me for dealing with him. How futile.' Freeze shot out from behind the stall and fired a narrowed blast into the hydra's eye, causing the creature to roar with pain as it reared back. But just as one head was reeling with pain, the other four attacked him all at once.

"Four times the heads," he muttered to himself as he pushed a button on his wrist, watching with a thin smile as the sound waves caused all of the heads to shriek in pain. "Four times the suffering." He had thought that he had won, but his victory was short lived as the tail of the hydra came spinning around as the creature thrashed and slammed into him. He was sent skidding across the ground, only coming to a stop when he slammed into the side of the crystal palace. He weakly groaned as he got up, but the hydra sent three of its heads to try to crunch him. He managed to dodge for the most part, but one of the heads bit down on the arm with the sonic feature in it. He froze an icicle around his head and drove it into the creature’s eye, causing the head to roar in pain as it released its grip, allowing Freeze to see that his best weapon was gone.

'Probability of survival...twenty percent,' he thought to himself as the five hydra heads all looked down at him again, drool dripping from their mouths as the heads glared at him. Freeze began to fire ice at the creatures while aiming for their eyes, but he hit mostly armor as the five heads attacked him all at once. He was almost certain that he was going to die before something slammed into his back and moved him out of the way of the five heads, which slammed into the base of the palace with a loud thud.

"You," he said to the yellow Pegasus when he turned to see who his savior was. She shakily got back to her hooves, still feeling the effects of her confrontation with Freeze earlier. "Why did you bother?"

"Because you...saved me," she said weakly, looking at Freeze with even more confusion. He had broken one of her ribs when she had angered him, but when the hydra head had burst through the wall and brought the room down, he had created a wall of ice to keep the ceiling from falling on her. "I figured that I owed you."

"You wasted your time," Freeze said in a weak voice, with a hint of dejectedness in it as he stood up to face the hydra. The creature reared all five of its heads and roared at the pair, Freeze standing his ground while Fluttershy looked up at it with sympathetic eyes.

"The poor thing's in pain," she said.

"That poor thing tried to kill us," Freeze said in a cold voice as he pointed both his arms at it, noticing with a bit of worry that the cracks in his helmet were beginning to spread. "We need to take it down." He prepared to fire, but then Fluttershy flew in front of him, narrowing her eyes at him in a way that he hadn't seen before. She then turned and flew up to the hydra's heads, leaving Freeze to wonder if he should let her be eaten or not. The hydra's heads all roared at her as she landed on the center one's nose and they all prepared to eat her.

"Bad." To the complete shock of Freeze, and everypony that had been watching the battle, all of the hydra heads stopped as she said this, shrinking under the glare that Fluttershy was giving it. The dark smoke in its eyes vanished as it cowered under her stare. "You have been a very bad hydra and I am ashamed of you. Why are you bothering these nice ponies so far away from your home?" The hydra let out a few hissing sounds and Fluttershy's gaze softened before she walked up and began to nuzzle its head. "Sombra is a wicked pony, making you do this. Don't worry; you don't have to listen to him anymore."

'I do not know what I find more unbelievable, that the creature is so soft or that the pony seems to be able to control it with ease,' Freeze thought to himself before he looked back at the cracks on his helmet and the damage to his suit, knowing that he was now working against the clock. So as Fluttershy waved goodbye to the hydra as it left, Freeze dragged himself back into the laboratory. Fluttershy had just flown down to the ground when Twilight and Rainbow Dash showed up, ahead of the others.

"Fluttershy! What happened here?" Twilight asked her as she looked around at the destruction, seeing the hydra off in the distance. She tried to go after it, but Fluttershy stopped her by putting a hoof on her shoulder.

"Its okay, the hydra was being controlled by Sombra, but he's fine now," Fluttershy said to her with a weak smile before groaning once and almost falling over, RD catching her before she could hit the ground. "Um, girls? I think that I might need to go to the hospital. I think I broke something." RD picked up her friend and flew her across the town while Twilight looked around the battlefield. Freeze had fought the creature; the ice everywhere told her so, but where was he now? Did he simply leave the fight...or was he injured?

'So maybe you aren't the unstoppable monster that you made yourself out to be,' Twilight thought with a smile before she flew off to where the others were, knowing that they would be happy to hear this news.

{}

"I told you that the calculations were incorrect," a pony said to his friend, who had been staring at a computer screen for the better part of the day, waiting with hope that he hadn't sent the champion into another black hole again. "He hates it whenever we screw up like this, it interferes with his mission. You think that we're going to be able to catch the mare like-"

"I get it! I messed up," the pony at the computer said with a sigh of frustration before he sat back in his chair. The moment of rest was interrupted by a blast of lightning that hit behind them, causing them to jump out of their chairs. The both spun around to see Black Adam standing behind them, in significantly worse shape than when he left. His suit was torn, his face was bloodied and he was holding his arm like it had been broken. "Black Adam!" they both yelled as they got to their hooves. "Was the mission a success?"

"No, once again I was sent to the wrong multiverse," Adam said with a growl as he used his hand to wipe some of the blood off of his face. "First you send me to fight a samurai and now it is some kind of...surfer, I believe that is the term. I am getting tired of these constant mistakes."

"We're sorry, Black Adam, we're doing our best," the two said as they bowed, but Adam slammed his foot into the ground the moment they did that.

"You do not bow to me. Nopony does," he said to them as he turned to leave. "Now I must go speak with the queen. According to the vision, I am running out of time and we are no closer to finding her than we were a year ago when I fought Superman!"

"Um, if you don't mind us asking...what happened to you?" one of them asked him. "It looks like you were in a tough fight."

"I will heal quickly...but yes, it was a tough fight. I will give the surfer credit, I did not know that the power cosmic could be so...challenging. He made it clear that he would not fall easily," Adam said as he headed towards the exit with a tired sigh

"Did you win?" Adam looked back at them with a sigh.

"I failed to gain the information that I sought and a planet was destroyed in battle, so I cannot call this day a "win"," Adam said before giving them a small smile. “But if you are asking which one of us was standing at the end of the battle, then yes. I won." With that he spun and left the room, leaving the ponies awestruck.

Author's Notes:

Saw Captain America 2 about three days before I wrote this and had to name it this. I have no regrets.

The Warmth of Her Kindness

"There's no need to be worried Ms. Shy, it's only a hairline fracture," Doctor Syringe said to the yellow Pegasus as he looked at her x-rays, the ponies around her letting out a collective sigh as they heard the news. "The medication will keep it from hurting too much, as long as you take it every six to eight hours. Although I am still curious how you managed to hit a table with enough force to cause this...accident."

"I was flying pretty fast," she said as she got off the table with a groan, the bandages around her not helping the pain that much. Her friends helped to support her out of the hospital, the doctor telling her that she needed to spend the next week resting and that he wanted to see her again soon. She let out a small sigh as she saw all of the destruction, but she was glad that the hydra was freed of Sombra's influence. 'He is such a terrible pony.'

"Okay sugarcube, drop the whole this was an accident act," AJ whispered to her as the mane six moved through the streets back to where the princesses were staying. "Ah know that you are far too smart to do this to yerself. Tell me the truth; Freeze did this to you, didn't he?" Fluttershy thought about her answer for a moment. She knew that while Freeze had been the one to throw her, she had to have intruded on some very personal information in order to get the cold doctor to react like that.

"I brought some of it upon myself," she said quietly as she looked at the palace, leaving a confused AJ behind her. Fluttershy remembered how Freeze had been beaten badly by the hydra and wondered if he was doing alright. Twilight noticed where she was looking and she walked over to her friend.

"Something on your mind?" Twilight asked her, knowing where she was looking.

"I hope you girls don't mind, but I'm going to go rest up in the palace," Fluttershy said as she stretched her wings, regretting it almost immediately.

"Fluttershy, you don't have to go back," Twilight said to her as she wrapped a wing around Fluttershy's shoulder. "In his condition, Freeze can't force you to stay in there anymore. We can keep you safe." Shy smiled at her friends, but she removed Twilight's wing before she walked over to the palace, heading in through the destroyed doors into the place, looking around for Freeze. She headed to the lab to see if he was there, but the destroyed room was still empty. But she did find the snow globe, lying shattered on the floor with the sculpture of Nora lying broken on the floor. She picked it up for a moment before a smile crossed her face and she looked around for some glue.

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Freeze had a cold glare as he used his freeze rays to seal the cracks in his helmet, creating a temporary fix until he could find a way to completely repair it. He hadn't gone to the lab yet, instead taking an hour in the crystal forge (intrigued that they had a forge to craft crystal) to see if there were supplies to fix his armor, but the forge could not fix the damage done. He then sat down next to a table and placed his arm with the destroyed computer in it on the table, frowning as he saw the full extent of the damage.

'That blasted hydra completely destroyed it,' he thought when he had analyzed the computer and sonic system, finding that one barely worked and the other didn't work at all. He had taken some of the smelting tools and tried to at least close the armor back up, but he only made the damage worse and further infuriated himself. 'It would take weeks to repair this damage if I had the proper tools, but instead I am stuck in a backwater planet that could tell and atom from a-'

'That was very kind of you, protecting Fluttershy like that.' Freeze slowly turned his head to see the silver mare standing across the table from him. He narrowed his eyes at her before going back to work on his armor, not wanting to bother with her. 'You didn't have to protect her from the collapsing ceiling, but you did. Care to tell me why?'

"Perhaps if you tell me why you are continuing to bother me," Freeze responded, making no efforts to hide the annoyance in his voice. The silver mare said nothing in reply, but instead looked out of the only window in the room, seeing the sun resting overhead as she was lost in though. "Hurry it up; I do not have all day."

'Because I believe that you can be one of the champions,' she said after a few minutes of silence. Freeze didn't know what she meant by champion, but he did figure that there was something that she wanted him to do for her, not that he cared what she wanted. 'I need six champions, six of those who can overcome their greatest failures or flaws to become even greater than they were. And I believe you can do that,' she said as she turned back to him.

"Why would you need six champions?" Freeze asked her with suspicion. "Wouldn't just one be enough to save your world? I have met some powerful champions."

'If only one champion was enough to save her,' the silver mare said in a tone that he barely heard before she looked back to him. 'But if my thought process is correct, and I believe that it is, you are the last champion that I need.'

"Why would I bother becoming one of you champions? I have far more important things to be doing," Freeze said to her as he stood up, knowing that there was nothing else that could be done here. "My wife needs a cure and yet I allow myself to get distracted by these ponies and their petty problems. I should just freeze them solid."

'You won't,' the silver mare said to him as he left. 'Despite your criminal past and the rage you have within, you are a good man, Fries. You just have to learn that you are one again. The ponies can teach you Fries, if you let them.' Freeze said nothing as he got up and walked towards the lab, wondering just how far back the hydra's attack had set him. But to his mild surprise, when he entered the lab he found Fluttershy already in there, working on something in secret in the corner. He walked up right behind her without her noticing, narrowing his eyes at her.

"What are you doing?" Freeze asked her, causing her to spin around while hiding something behind her hooves. "Hand over what you have taken from me and I will consider not throwing you into another table." Fluttershy said nothing in reply, but she held out the sculpture of Nora. It was still damaged and broken in places, but most of her had been glued back together. She offered it to Freeze, who took it in one hand.

"I saw it get broken when you created the ice wall to protect me," she said softly as Freeze looked down the statue of his beloved, who still looked beautiful even though she was broken in some places. "I repaired it to say thank you for saving me. I know that the other ponies can't see the good in you, but I know it's in there somewhere, really deep." Freeze said nothing to her as he continued to look down at the somewhat repaired ice sculpture, but he heard every word. Fluttershy smiled slightly at him before she walked by him and headed towards the door, stopping only to turn around to look back at the ice man. "I also forgive you for throwing me and I'm sorry that the ice sculpture broke. Nora must mean a lot to you," she said as she turned to leave.

"My wife." Fluttershy stopped as she heard these words and she turned back around to look at Freeze, who still had yet to move. "Nora was my wife, the only source of joy in my life when everyone else had left me in the cold. But then dieses tried to claim her, a dieses with no cure. I preserved her in cryogenics to keep her alive until I could find a cure...only to have failed so many times."

"And that's why you saved Cadence," Fluttershy whispered, finally understanding why he had done most of what he did. "Because you know what it's like to lose somepony you love to dieses." Freeze said nothing in reply to her question as he simply continued to stare at the fractured Nora in his hand. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Free-...Victor. But Nora would be glad to know that you never gave up on her. And I know that one day you'll cure her and be together." Fluttershy said nothing else as she left, but there was a small smile on her face as she left the room and headed back to her friends, knowing that Freeze wouldn't mind.

"Fluttershy." Fluttershy thought that maybe she had spoken too soon when she said that he wouldn't mind, but when she looked back at him she saw that he was at work trying to put the sculpture back in the snow globe, repairing the glass with ice. Only once he had finished putting Nora back in the globe did he turn to look at her. "...Thank you." Fluttershy said nothing as he turned back to his work and began to clean up the lab, but there was a smile on her face as she left him alone to his work.

'We really can't even judge a book by their covers, can we?' she thought to herself as she left the palace and headed to where her friends were staying, knowing that they would have a hard time believing what she had found out about Victor. But she understood now why he had been so driven to work and why he had chosen to save Cadence despite them failing to get the flower for him. 'Because you're a good pony deep down.'

=-=

"BAH! This is why I should never create monsters based on weak creatures," Sombra said with a snarl as he re-watched the battle between Freeze and the hydra on a crystal ball in front of him. "But of all the ponies to defeat my monster, it had to be Fluttershy. FLUTTERSHY, the pony that's afraid of her own shadow. How the hell did she stand up to something like that?!...Suck it up Sombra, you still achieved a victory. The snowman can be broken."

Sombra shot back from the table before he turned to a cabinet where he kept a large number of bones, ingredients and potions, throwing it open. He grabbed a large number of the vials and began to throw them into the cauldron, mumbling a number of magic words as the ingredients began to swirl. "So this time I won't send a creature that she knows how to handle. A touch of cockatrice, a hint of rhino...and one, massive helping of T-Rex! Oh this is going to be fun," Sombra said as he stepped back from the cauldron, rubbing his hooves together as a creature began to emerge from the cauldron.

"You may have taken out one of my pawns Freeze, but let us see how you handle my castle," Sombra said as he turned to a shelf full of spell books, taking one of them off that was all about fire and blaze spells placing it on the table behind as he began to read. "But I hope that you do not fall to my castle, because it is no fun until the king gets involved. And when the king of the crystal empire enters the fray, you will burn."

Love Shall Overcome

Fluttershy exited the hospital room she had been resting in, finding that her friends were all sitting around a table while intensely discussing with each other. To her surprise, she found that Celestia was not there despite Luna being there, making her wonder if something had happened in Canterlot. She walked over to them to tell them what she had learned about Freeze, but she her tiny voice couldn't be heard over the louder ponies there. Luna eventually noticed her and alerted the other ponies to her presence, where she was immediately crushed as her friends all hugged her at once.

"We're so glad to see that you are alright," Rarity said to her once they had released Fluttershy, the yellow Pegasus trying to regain her breath. "Twilight told us that you had willingly gone back to that madman. We had feared that he might hurt you again, but it seems that you are tougher than believed."

"Of course we are. Pegasi are the toughest ponies around," Rainbow said with a smile as she pulled Fluttershy into a one armed hug. "It will take a lot more than snow or ice to stop us."

"It is good that you are here Fluttershy, because I have a few questions to ask you," Cadence said in a royal tone, telling Fluttershy that whatever she needed to talk about was important. Fluttershy decided to save the information about Victor for later as she sat down with the others, Cadence clearing her throat before she began to speak. "With Fluttershy now here, I am going to go over our idea again. As you already know Fluttershy, my special magic allows me to fix damaged relationships or hearts that have lost their love. In short, I can get a pony to become compassionate or to love another. This is what we plan to use on Freeze."

"I don't understand," Fluttershy said with a confused look. "I thought that you couldn't make a pony love another against their will?"

"Normally, I cannot," Cadence said before a smile crept across her face. "And I also know that normally my magic wouldn't affect him due to the crystal heart within him, but that heart will be his weakness. See, the heart is powered by love and empowers love, so my loves spell will only be supercharged by the heart and Freeze will begin to feel love again."

"And why are we doing this to him?" Fluttershy asked her, confused by the plan and a little worried for the safety of Freeze. "That seems cruel, even for...someone like Freeze." Cadence looked to Shining Armor then down to her baby before she decided to answer.

"So that we can examine his armor and talk to him about where he came from...and maybe we can get out why he's here. A few days ago I would have had no problem just blasting him, but due to him...saving me and you, I felt that this is the only way that we'll be able to get him to cooperate with us," she said with a sigh that told Fluttershy that she was tired. "He won't allow us to talk to him otherwise and he might try to freeze us if we annoy him. If he is filled with love for us though, it will make it easier to get him out of the palace. It's the only way."

"You could try asking him," Fluttershy said softly, all of the ponies looking at her with looks that said "really?" as she slightly hid under the table. "He can be nice." The ponies ignored that statement and all began to talk to themselves again as Cadence decided that it was time to go, Fluttershy thinking up one flaw in their plan as the ponies all began to head for the door. "Um wait! He already has somepony he-"

"Miss Shy, we need you to come with us for a while," a doctor said to her, cutting her off. "We'd like to do one more x-ray." Fluttershy tried to argue, but she quickly found herself getting dragged back to the examination room. Meanwhile Cadence and the ponies walked into the crystal palace (nopony had bothered to repair the door yet) and headed into the laboratory, the entire time Cadence was going over her plan in her head. There they found Freeze, who was still trying to repair the damage done to his suit, though he did stop when he saw the ponies approach.

"I am in no mood for your babble today. Kindly leave and do not return," he said to them in a tone that told the ponies that his patience was already thin, though Luna stepped forward with rage in her eyes at his attitude.

"I think that we have been more than patient with you, Freeze. You came to our land, kicked the princesses out of her home and attacked anypony who tried to so much as speak with you," Luna said in a cold tone. Freeze turned to look at her with no emotion, though he did tell her to get on with it. "I am telling you this once Freeze. Either come with us or you will be forced out." Cadence could have sworn that Luna's threat almost caused Freeze to smile, but his frosty demeanor returned and he shook his head at Luna.

"You disappoint me Luna, you know that none of you or your ponies stand a chance against me," he said in a threatening tone. "Your magic cannot work on me," he said to her as a pink aura began to surround him, Freeze not in the least bit worried. "The crystal heart will..." He stopped talking there as he began to back up a bit, feeling a weird sensation course through his cold body. He blinked twice and looked up at the ponies, confused as to why he was beginning to feel...love for them. But even though he couldn't figure out why he was feeling it, the spell was causing the love for them to increase every second.

"I don't believe it, it's actually working," Cadence heard Rainbow whisper to Rarity behind her.

"Come on Victor, all we want to do is talk," Cadence said in a kind tone as the magic completely surrounded him. "Come with us. What you're doing in here isn't as important as us." She was completely right, he shouldn't be in here. He should go with them; he should be focused on making them happy.

'They are what's important to me now,' he thought to himself as he began to walk towards them. 'I do not need to be in here, I do not need to make the cure. Why would I make a cure for someone who is already gone anyway? Why do I subject myself to failed experiment to failed experiment for her, when I could be happy with them, when...when I could be happy...no. No, my happiness is not important. How can I be happy without my beloved Nora by my side?'

"Come on Freeze, we want to take you to see our scientist friends," Cadence said again as she used more of her magic. But despite the fact that the crystal heart was indeed fueling her spell and that its effects were ten times stronger than usual, none of them could see behind the emotionless face that Freeze wore. And all the only emotion there was wrath.

"Cadence, stop now," Luna whispered, realizing what was happening.

'How could I allow myself to lose sight of what's truly important?! My happiness means nothing! Only hers does! Only when she is happy can I truly be HAPPY! Her love is the only love I need!' Freeze let a scream loose as he threw his arms back, shattering the spell that was trying to overwrite his one love. The ponies were knocked back a bit as he shattered the spell, but all of them saw the cold darkness on his face as he slowly looked up at them. Faster than they could react he fired beams of ice at them, Freeze all of them but Cadence to the wall behind them. She looked back to her friends before looking back at Freeze, who was now towering over her, seething with rage.

"T-this is impossible! You shouldn't be able to resist. Not unless you already..."

"You," he said in a whisper that caused Cadence's soul to freeze with fear. "You tried to take control of my heart, tried to get me to care for you inferior creatures. But you failed to grasp one, crucial fact." He grabbed her by the throat as he said this and lifted her up, his grip freezing her slightly. "My heart was given to some else years ago. And no amount of magic will take it from them." He then brought his right hand back, narrowing his eyes as he prepared to strike.

'Victor.' freeze's eyes widened as he heard his wife whisper into his ear, stopping his wrath from overflowing. Freeze then slightly shook his head before looking at the terrified Cadence...and then to the child she held within her. For a long moment he did not move, but then he dropped her to the ground, the rage still in his eyes.

"I will remember what you have done today," he said to them in a cold fury. "Do not think that I will forgive this slight so easily this time." he glared at all of them as he said this, allowing Cadence to free her trapped friends while looking at Freeze with both fear and confusion. He was about to turn and head back to his work when the ponies all began to feel the earth shake beneath them. All of them wondered what was going on as Luna rushed from the palace and ran outside, where she was quickly joined by the others and Freeze, all of whom were stopped cold in their tracks by what they saw.

"Is that...a dinosaur?" Twilight asked in disbelief as she and the other processed what they were looking at. The creature looked like a T-Rex, but it had a horn on its head and it had scales covering its body like a snake. But one thing that all the ponies knew about it was that it was dangerous, as it turned its gaze upon all of them with a roar.

"Come ponies, let us-!" Luna began until she looked into its eyes, turning to stone almost immediately. The other ponies gasped as they saw this, only to look up at the creature as it threw back its head and roared, shaking the city to the core.

"Oh this is bad," Twilight said as the creature began to turn to face them.

'Understatement of the century,' Freeze thought as he prepared his Freeze rays, knowing this would not be an easy fight.

What Killed the Dinosaurs?

This is not how Victor wanted the day to go. First the ponies tried to force him to love them and forget his love for Nora with a spell (even though there was nothing that he would love more than her), which would have been bad enough except that now he was fighting some sort of freak dinosaur that was tearing up the town. It had already frozen Luna in stone with its glare, which meant that neither he nor the ponies could look it in the face while fighting it. Which was terrible, because that's where it's most lethal weapons were located.

"It's a dinosaur! A cold blooded creature and yet you're having trouble with it?!" Twilight screamed at him from behind an overturned statue, Freeze and Twilight taking cover behind it when they found out the dino could breathe fire. "Come on, this has to be the perfect opponent for you!"

"If your tiny brain moved any slower, you'd be going backwards!" Freeze yelled at her as another torrent of fire blazed over their heads. "Ice does not work well with fire, which just happens to be what the monster is breathing! Now be quiet and give me a moment to think!" Cadence had been moved to the side by Pinkie and Rarity while Rainbow tried to take down the creature's legs, only to find out that the scales were practically impenetrable.

"Why can't there ever be something simple to fight!?" Rainbow Dash asked as she flew away from the flames that tried to consume her, giving Freeze the opening he had been waiting for. He shot out from behind his cover and fired his ice rays into the creatures side, watching as ice began to form ups its side, slowing it. His victory was short lived, as apparently the creature had fire running through its veins since the ice melted within seconds. The dinosaur turned its head towards Freeze and unleashed its fire upon him and Freeze barely managed to erect a wall of ice to protect himself.

"This is not going well," he muttered to himself as the ice shattered and sent him skidding across the ground, causing him to begin to worry as he saw more cracks forming on his helmet. 'I have not had proper time to repair my suit and this battle is not helping things any. I should leave and-' His thoughts were interrupted as Twilight began to fire magic at the creature, giving her a chance to rush over to Freeze and help him up.

"You should not have bothered," he said to her as she tried to get him away from the creature, but having some trouble due to how much he weighed. "I can handle myself."

"Yeah right," she said to him as she looked up at the dinosaur, watching as Rainbow got swatted away by its tail. "I have to try and bring it down. I can beat it." She said as she fired her strongest spell at the monster, only to watch in horror as the spell did little to it. Had Freeze not pulled her out of the way, the creature would have eaten her whole.

"Are you so certain that your magic will prevail?" he taunted out as he fought back to his feet. The T-Rex began to sniff the air and its head turned towards where Cadence was hiding, the creature letting out a roar as it began to charge towards her. Sensing his chance, Freeze flash froze the ground under the creature’s feet and sent it sliding past the princess and into the side of the crystal palace, where it slid to the ground in a dazed state. "This creature is not like the last one Sombra sent. That one was simply under his control, but this one only has our destruction in mind. We must bring it down."

"I don't know if we can" Twilight muttered, but Freeze did not have such reservations as he began to try to freeze the dinosaur to the side of the palace, only to growl in frustration as the creature broke through the ice with fire.

"Twilight, I cannot stop this creature unless you find a way to shut down its fire breath. Can you manage it or will you need my help?" he asked her in a slightly mocking tone, but he knew that the insult would only get her to perform better. Just as he predicted, Twilight took offense to his lack of faith in her skills and she flew at the dino, blocking it's fire with a shield.

"That's better," he muttered as he went to fire ice right into the side of the creatures head, but in his moment of certain victory was when the dinosaur broke off its attack on Twilight and rushed for him. He barely had enough time to curse before a massive leg slammed into his face and sent him sprawling, his head cracking the back of his helmet before all he saw was darkness.

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Freeze's eyes opened and he found himself back in the dark room where he had fought the Batman, wondering why he was back here until it had crossed his mind that he was unconscious again. He was immediately on guard for the bat and his vigilance paid off when he heard the sound of someone landing behind him. He spun around while preparing to fire, but he stopped when he saw which bat he was now facing. This one had a full black suit with a red bat in the center.

"The new Batman," Freeze muttered aloud, not lowering his arm but he didn't fire. He knew little about this Batman, but he had tried to save Freeze's life back when he fought the radioactive monster. "What do you want?"

"Freeze...you can't keep living like this," Batman said to him as he took a step forward, but Freeze rose his other arm and Batman stopped walking towards him. "All this pain, all this destruction. I know you're better than this Victor, I know you're better than this. Where is the man who wanted to donate the money he had saved up to those in need? Where is the man who wanted to help others in memory of his wife?"

"He is dead. He was killed when those he tried to help stabbed him in the back," Freeze said coldly as his ray started up. "And the pain will not end, not until I finally have what I want."

"And what about the ponies?" Batman asked as he began to walk again towards Victor, not stopping despite the threat Freeze made with his ray. "Are you going to sacrifice them to achieve your goals? Can you really just step on the innocent, even if it is for your wife? Is this what she would have wanted you to be? She's gone Freeze; you just haven't accepted that fact yet."

"NO! SHE CAN STILL BE SAVED!" Freeze roared as he fired his freeze ray at the Batman, freezing him where he stood. Freeze then stomped up to him and put a hand around Batman's neck, slowly squeezing it. "I can save her and I WILL save her! Even if those ponies have to die! I will be with her again!" But to Freeze's surprise, Batman simply shook his head at Freeze with a sad look.

"I know you're better than that Freeze...I know that you are a good man Victor," Batman said sadly. "You may not be able to save your wife, but there is still so much you can offer these ponies, so much they can learn from you. Help them, just as your wife would want you to. She died happy, but you never got your chance at happiness. But you can now, if you try."

"And why should I?" he asked Batman as he removed his hand from his throat. "No one every helped me! And those that did stabbed me in the back! I had to take everything for her, even when I knew I would be tearing other lives apart. They have shown that they hate me. They will not help me, so why should I help them? Only Nora deserves my help!" Batman broke through the ice as Victor said this, walking over to him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I know why you're making the cure, despite knowing that she's gone," Batman said in a sympathetic voice as he looked into Victor's eyes. "Because you live for her. For so long everything you have done, be it robbing banks to freezing an exploding building to trying to start a new charity, has been for her. But without her..."

"I am nothing. I was nothing when she found me and with her...gone...I am less than that," Victor choked out. "I...do not know who I am without her, what I should do. If I should be alive. Who am I without Nora?" He looked up at Batman as he said this, but the dark knight was no longer in front of him. Freeze began to look around for him before he heard his voice echo out of the darkness.

"You were given another chance at life Victor. The ponies can help you, if you let them try." Freeze's vision began to blur as he heard those words and the room faded to darkness, but Batman's words still echoed in his mind everything vanished. When Freeze opened his eyes again, he found himself being tended to by Fluttershy. He didn't ask her when she had gotten there; for he was too busy surveying the situation. All of the Elements were down (Luna still encased in stone) and Cadence and Shining were putting up one last stand against the dinosaur, whose fire was very close to consuming them. Shining was bleeding and hurt while Cadence looked like she was about to collapse. Freeze only watched for a moment before he got back up and fired a beam of ice into the dinosaur’s eye, causing it to roar with pain as it looked towards him.

"It is time you went back on ice," he said in a cold tone as he began to walk towards it, ignoring the fact that his helmet would probably shatter if he was hit hard one more time. The creature let out a roar and charged towards him, but Freeze placed both hands on the ground and fire the ice rays, allowing the ice to push him into the air over the creature. He landed on its nose and narrowed his eyes before he brought his fist back and drove it into the creature’s eye. The dinosaur howled while shaking it's head, throwing Freeze off of it and to the ground, where it growled before glaring down at him.

"And now you have sealed your fate," he muttered as he created a giant wall of ice in front of him, so that when the T-Rex glared at him it was glaring at its own reflection. It only did so for a moment, but a moment was enough to turn the creature into a giant stone dino. Freeze looked up at the motionless creature before letting out a sigh, picking himself off the ground and walking over to the princess.

"You saved us. Again," Cadence said with confusion in her voice as she looked at the battered and damaged Freeze, remembering how barely an hour ago he wanted to kill her. "Why? I don' get it. How can you be so angry and violent one moment and go to saving us the next?" Freeze was about to answer when the dinosaur began to fall over, heading for the three of them.

"MOVE!" Freeze yelled as he pushed the two ponies out of the way before the stone statue collapsed upon him, crushing him beneath it. The statue shattered apart and a blast of magic went off, changing those who had been turned to stone back to normal. Fluttershy and Luna looked around for a moment before they saw the pile of stone, wondering how that had happened. The Fluttershy saw the icy hand that was beneath the stone.

"VICTOR!" she yelled as she rushed over to him, seeing upon her arrival that he was buried beneath the rocks. She began to move as many of the stones as she could and after the other ponies got up, and she explained what must have happened, they helped to dig him out. After a few minutes they had managed to drag him out from under the stone, Fluttershy letting out a sigh of relief when she saw that the armor had protected him, as only his helmet was broken. "Freeze, are you alright?" she asked him. He picked his head up to look at her, but she saw to her horror that he was struggling for air and looked like he was dying.

"Cold...cold..." was all he said to her before he collapsed again, leaving the ponies around him confused as to what he had meant.

"I didn't think he could get cold," Rainbow Dash said. "Y'know, since he uses ice."

"Maybe he was trying to give us a name?" Luna suggested. "He is Mr. Freeze, so maybe he was talking of somepony named Cold?" The ponies continued to speculate until Fluttershy remembered what he had told her back in the palace.

"We need to take him somewhere completely cold, now!" she said to them in a serious tone. The others looked at her in confusion but her voice and face showed that she was not messing around. So the dragged his body back inside of the crystal palace, looking for a room that was freezing.

Author's Notes:

I believe it was a meteor actually.

Delaying the Inevitable

'You have saved them once again.' Freeze opened his eyes as he heard this and found, to his annoyance, that he was in another room that was completely white, in contrast to Batman's completely dark room. He looked around and found that the silver mare was sitting next to him, causing him to frown at her. 'When just earlier that day you were yelling at them? What changed your mind?'

"I do not have to tell you," he said with a pained sigh, wondering why he still felt the pain he was in if this was a dream. The silver mare sighed as he answered, shaking her head before looking up.

'You do not always have to be so cold,' she said to him. 'I know why you do what you do and I've seen the good within you. The ponies are starting to see it as well, even though they do not know if they can trust you. In fact, the only person here who does not see you that way is you. Care to tell me why?'

"No...I will not," he said after a moment, looking around at the room. "Can you just tell me how to leave? I do not want to be in here much longer. I must see how much damage the suit has taken." The silver mare frowned beneath her hood, but gave him a small nod as she stood up and began to glow brightly.

'There is so much joy you can bring to them,' she said as the room vanished. 'There is so much compassion within you. All you have to do is find it once again, just as Nora found it within you all those years ago.' Freeze groaned weakly as he felt himself waking up, the pain telling him that this time it was reality and not just another illusion. He slowly sat up to find that he was resting on a bed, but what grabbed his immediate attention was that his helmet was completely gone, meaning that unless he was in a sub-zero environment he should be dead.

"Be careful, despite the best treatment that we gave you there are still areas of your body that are hurting." He turned his head to see that Fluttershy was sitting next to his bed, wrapped in about six layers of very fashionable scarves, but from the ice forming on her mane she had been there a while. "You shouldn't move too much ether; you've been out for a couple of days."

"Why am I still alive?" he asked her, causing Fluttershy to look at him with confusion. "You had the perfect opportunity to kill me while I was unconscious, yet I still live despite the princess’s promises to be rid of me. Why haven't you killed me?" Fluttershy looked at the floor as he said this and didn't answer him right away, giving Freeze a moment to look over his armor. There were a number of dents and tears in the outer suit, but they looked minor to him. The lack of a helmet is what scared him the most at the moment.

"Because...we don't get you," Fluttershy said in a quiet voice. "Even princess Cadence, who has been against you from the day you showed up, is torn on whether or not you're a true villain or not." Freeze lay back down and looked up at the ceiling, deciding what to next before he looked over at Fluttershy.

"Yet you have been kind to me despite the pain I have caused you and the others," he pointed out. "Why?"

"Because I can see that there is good in you, despite your cold demeanor," she said with a small smile to him. "And after how you've saved me and the others a number of times, I'd like to think of you as a friend, even if you don't see me as one." Freeze thought about what she had said as well as what Batman had told him, causing him to let out a small sigh as he pushed himself up out of the bed. Fluttershy moved to his side to try and support him, but he pushed off of her gently and stood on his own.

"Fluttershy...I believe that it is far past time you and the others found out why I am who I am," he said to her with a hint of sadness in his voice, walking out of the room while freezing the walls around him to keep it cold. Fluttershy led him to the room where all the ponies sat waiting, Luna standing up warily when he entered but he paid her no mind as he created a chunk of ice for him to sit on. He looked over all the ponies once before he let out another sigh, looking down at his clasped hands.

"Before I say anything else, I would like to apologize for the pain I have caused you in the time I have been here," he said, causing the ponies to look at him in surprise. "I feel that I owe you an explanation for why I act this way, even though it is no excuse for how I have treated you."

"And what caused this sudden change of heart?" Twilight asked suspiciously, but returned to her confused look when he indicated Fluttershy.

"Freeze..." Cadence cut in, causing the snowman to look at her. "One moment you’re walking through the streets freezing and killing...and then the next you save my and many other lives. I can't figure you out...and I know that I said I would deal with you...but first I want to know why, why you're this way. You're not evil...but that's about all I know about you. If you want us to trust you, then we need to learn more about you." Freeze nodded at her words, even though he was about to tell her what she wanted to know.

"My name, as I have told you, is Victor Fries and in my world I was a scientist, a scientist that constantly ended up on the wrong side of the stick," Freeze began as he continued to look at the floor. "My luck only changed for the better when I met the love of my life, a woman named Nora who changed me for the better, someone who showed me what it meant to care." He inhaled deeply as he said this and forced himself to repress the memories. "But as cursed as I am, my happiness did not last long. She came down with an incurable dieses and was on the verge of death. In order to preserve her life, I froze her in a cryogenic sleep while I spent my life looking for a cure."

"Is that the same cure that you're trying to make here?" Twilight asked with sudden understanding, Freeze nodding.

"I don't get it. If you were trying to make a cure how did you end up like this?" Rainbow Dash asked bluntly, getting a glare from Twilight and Fluttershy.

"Boyle," Freeze said with venom in his voice, causing the ponies to look back to him. "He was the man who paid for my research on Nora and my lab. But when he decided that I was a waste of money, he came into my lab and destroyed my equipment. I tried to stop him before he got to Nora, but during the fight I was exposed to chemicals that turned me...into the monster that you see before you. In my state, I cannot leave sub-zero temperatures or I will die. But Nora needed my help, so I created a suit that would keep me cold, no matter where I went."

"What happened to Boyle?" Luna asked.

"I was so enraged that he almost cost Nora her life that I created the ice based weapons that you have seen and went after him, constantly trying to kill him for what he did to her...and to me. But no matter how many times I tried to kill him, one man continued to stop me from taking that final step into darkness...the Batman." When the ponies gave him a look, he gave them a quick explanation of who he was. "For years we played this game while I stole to provide the funds to save Nora. But one day I finally succumbed to battle and was lost in an explosion...and found myself here. The rest you know." The ponies took a moment to process what he had just said, but Shining was the first to ask him a question.

"You did all of this...created a suit to keep you alive while you battled freaks and the law all to save your wife?" he asked him, causing Freeze to look up at him. "You even went as far to overcome death to save her?"

"Wouldn't you do the same for her?" Freeze asked him as he nodded at Cadence, Shining nodding sadly before wrapping a hoof around Cadence. Cadence opened her mouth to ask a question, but Freeze cut her off. "That is all I am willing to say about my past life."

"Is there any way we can help her?" Twilight asked, causing Freeze to turn his attention towards her.

"Every time someone has offered to help me, all they have done is stab me in the back," he said coldly. "So why are you offering to help me? I have frozen you, taken your home and threatened to kill all of you on a regular basis. Why help your foe?"

"Because you've helped us," Fluttershy spoke up. "You saved Cadence's life even when we hadn't found the flower you wanted, you saved me when that hydra attacked and just a few days ago you saved us from that dinosaur. Yes you may have hurt us, but we would have lost so much had you not intervened. The least we can do is help you." Freeze looked around at the ponies with complete shock in his face, despite his best efforts to try and hide his emotions. Then he remembered what Batman had said, telling him that they were willing to help him if he let them.

"All I need is to get back to the lab and repair my helmet," he said as he stood up and turned to leave, but Cadence cleared her throat to get him to stop.

"We can get a master pony to craft you a new helmet while you work on the cure," she said before she looked down at her bump. "After saving both me and my child, this is the least we can do for you. I can't imagine what you must have gone through and while you must still be punished for what you have done here...I will not stand by while your wife waits for you to save her. You saved my family; I will help you save yours. Then you answer for what you've done. Ponies come help me set up the lab again." The ponies all agreed as they ran past him, leaving Mr. Freeze completely stunned as Fluttershy walked up to his side.

"See Victor, we might be a little stubborn at first, but we know a good pony when we see one," she said as she grabbed his hand and led him back to the laboratory where Twilight and Shining were helping to repair the damage to his lab. "And don't worry Victor; we will help you save her." Freeze looked at the ponies helping him, amazed that they were showing him so much kindness. Yet he could feel it, down in his heart that it wouldn't be enough. He tried to ignore it, but he knew. He just couldn't admit it.

'All I have to do is finish the cure,' he thought to himself as he walked away from the ponies and looked out of the hole in the wall down upon the land. 'That's all that matters. She's all that matters.'

The Cold Truth

"It's just as I thought, no matter how strong his ice is he can't fight against fire," Sombra muttered to himself as he walked back from his cabinet filled with potions, having watched the battle between the dinosaur and Freeze on his crystal ball. He wished that he could see how much damage that Freeze had suffered, but he had seen enough from the battle. "And it seems that the suit isn't just a suit of armor, but is what keeps him alive." He sauntered over to his cauldron as he said this, taking the potion and pouring it in, watching as the brew became a crimson red.

"So in other words, all I need to do to defeat him is bring the heat," Sombra said as he scooped some of the brew out of the cauldron, downing the drink in only a few drinks. He began to scream as he felt the liquid fire run through his veins, but the screaming turned into laughing as he looked down at his hooves, seeing the flames erupt from them. "But for my victory to be absolute, I must make sure that all of your pieces are destroyed in the battle." He walked over to a chess set that he had made of the ponies and the princesses, smiling to himself as he looked down at it.

"First, I'll crush your knight," Sombra said as he crushed the mini version of Shining with his magic. "Then I'll move onto your castle and bring that down around you. Oh and I'll enjoy crushing your queen as well, but you are the main piece," Sombra said as he lifted up the mini Freeze. "You will be the hardest piece to bring down. But when you fall, it will be glorious. But first, I need to gather my army. And just to show how much I appreciate you, they too will freeze the city cold." He vanished in a flash of shadow as he said this, the laugh echoing all throughout the chamber.

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Freeze had spent the past few days not sure whether or not he was awake, as everything had been going far too perfectly for him to believe it was real. The ponies had kept to their word and had helped him to reassemble his lab, Cadence even funding for the material that he lacked to complete the cure. In return for all the acts of kindness however, Freeze had to go out into the public and publically announce to the ponies (who still thought of him as a villain) that he was not there to harm him nor would he be trying to take over. The ponies were skeptical at first, but when Cadence told them of how he helped to defeat the monsters and Sombra, they quickly changed their tune about him.

"I still cannot believe that it was that easy," Freeze said to Fluttershy as the two of them walked through the streets, Fluttershy wanting to show him around while he waited for the final piece of his lab equipment to come in. He had to make do with a makeshift helmet, but it kept him alive at the very least. "In my world I was hated and distrusted by all, even if they hadn't met me in person. How did it only take one speech to convince the ponies to trust me?"

"Well, the do trust Cadence greatly," Fluttershy said with a smile as she looked around, waving at the ponies that waved to her. "But according to what the princesses have heard, a rumor had been spreading around that you had defeated Sombra and helped to stop the monsters. So when Cadence told them that you were a main reason that they were saved, they opened up to you pretty quickly." Freeze looked at all of the smiling and waving ponies with a bit of a smile, but then he shook as he looked down at Fluttershy.

"I am not a hero like you think I am, Fluttershy," he said to her as he came to a stop, looking back at him at the crystal palace. "I am not even a good man. All I am is a husband seeking for a way to help his wife, no matter what I have had to do to achieve that goal. I know that you and maybe the others think better of me...but I am just a shell of the man I used to be." He looked down at himself as he said this, wondering just how much longer his body could hold out. While it was more or less new, he was still an old man in his mind and couldn't have much longer in him. Then he shook his head, wondering why he had started thinking about his own mortality.

"I know that Victor, but that's just because you haven't had the chance to prove how good of a man you are yet," she said to him with a sympathetic smile as she placed a hoof on his leg, shivering slightly. "From what you told us you were constantly betrayed and hurt by the people who said they would help you back on your home, so it's only natural that you would be distrustful and cold. I just hope that we can warm you up a bit here and I think that saving Nora will be the first step to doing so." Freeze gave her the smallest of smiles for saying this, but then he shook his head and walked away from Fluttershy.

"May I be alone for a while, Fluttershy?" he asked her as he continued to walk. There is something that I need to do by myself." Fluttershy nodded and turned away, leaving freeze to walk alone until he came to the fountain in the center of the town. He sat down on a bench by himself and looked up at the gray sky, realizing that there hadn't been a blue sky since the day he took the heart. He sighed again as he looked into the water, before drawing a sharp breath and closing his eyes. He wasn't sure this would work, but he needed to try. "Nora? Are you there? I need to talk to you."

'I'm always here Victor,' he heard a voice say from behind him, a voice that he knew well but he didn't turn to face her. 'I'll always be by your side whenever you need me. What do you need?'

"I need to know...what should I do?" he asked her quietly. "I know that my only goal should and is completing the cure for you, but then what? Do I try to find a way back home or do I stay here with these ponies?" He could feel her standing closer behind him, but he kept his eyes closed and didn't move. "They have been far kinder than any man I have met, but if I stay here then I cannot be with you. What should I do?"

'That is up to you Victor, what makes you happy?' he heard her say in his ear.

"You know who makes me happy," he said softly as he tiled his head a bit to where she was, only to feel it rest against the side of the glass. Then he took in a deep breath and prepared to ask a question. A question that he had been avoiding ever since he had arrived here. "Nora...are you real?"

'What do you mean?'

"Am I really talking to you? Are you truly beside me right now?" he asked her with the hint of tears forming in his eyes. "Because I am afraid that if I open my eyes you will be gone again. Have you really been beside me all this time or am I simply going crazy and talking to a part of my mind that would create a ghostly version of you? Have I simply been talking to a ghost and all of my efforts have been for naught?!" He said nothing else after this, but he felt the faintest feeling of a hand resting on his shoulder.

'I spoke the truth for when I said that I will always be by your side, whether I am real or not,' Nora whispered into his ear, but to Freeze it sounded like she was getting further away. 'But it's time that you moved past me Victor, moved onto a new life and find a new happiness. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, even if I wasn't there to share it with you. Let me go.'

"No. I promised that I would never be happy until I was by your side again," he said with rage, but it was a broken rage that had no real anger in it. "Until your hand was in mine and we could be together again, when you are cured and I am no longer this monster in a suit." He felt her presence again and this time he did open his eyes, but just as he feared he was the only one sitting on the bench.

"Nora...am I alive?" He waited for her to answer him, but he found to his sorrow that she was already gone. He closed his eyes with a sigh before standing up, walking towards the palace even though some ponies tried to talk to him. He walked back into the lab to see that Cadence, Shining and Fluttershy were all standing there, trying to hide something from him.

"It's about time you got back," Cadence said to him with a smirk, but he gave her no response as he looked at them, wondering why they had bothered. "The other ponies are in another room, but the three of us have something that we want to give you." Freeze raised an eyebrow at this, looking down at Fluttershy as she stepped forward while doing her best to hide a smile.

"I have a present for you," she said with a smile, Freeze noticing that there was something hidden under her wings. "But in order to get it you'll have to close your eyes and hold out your hand." He narrowed his eyes at her first, but then he closed them and held out his hand, feeling something being gently placed on it. "Okay, you can open your eyes now." Freeze did so, but his eyes widened to their fullest when he saw what was in his hand. It was a flower, a flower that he had desperately needed for the longest time. He looked at Fluttershy, who had a huge smile on her face, before looking to Cadence and Shining, who both gave him smug, but also kind, smiles as well.

"We figured that all you've done for us, like saving our family, that you deserved this," Shining said as he wrapped a hoof around Cadence's shoulder, pulling her close. "And even though it took me three days to find, we finally got it. Thanks, for helping us." Freeze said nothing as he simply stared at the flower, but then he walked past the ponies and placed the flower on the table next to him as he began to work, the ponies taking the hint and leaving to join the others.

"How did it go?" Celestia asked when the ponies entered the room. "Did you manage to get a reaction out of him?"

"No, we weren't that lucky," Cadence said with a sigh a she sat down, placing a hoof on her baby with a smile. "But I know that we surprised him...even though I haven't known him long, I'm glad that I was able to help him. I almost lost my family myself, so I'm happy that he'll finally be able to save his wife." she rested against Shining as she said this, Twilight pulling out a notebook and a quill with a smile.

"Well, all I know is once he's saved his wife I have so many questions for him," she said with a huge smile as she looked down at the list. "With everything that's been going on I completely forgot that he's the only human in Equestria right now, not to mention he's a scientist! Think of all the things he can teach us, like the cure for that dieses Cadence had! Imagine how many lives we'll be able to save thanks to his knowledge."

"You may be right there Twilight," Luna said as she placed a hoof under her chin as she thought. "Maybe Victor is more of a blessing than a curse. We can learn a lot from him and his knowledge." The ponies conversations then began to drift into other areas, but all the while Fluttershy kept looking back to the lab, waiting for Victor to come out with the cure. She hadn't known him long, but she had already begun to consider him a friend. She wondered if he felt the same...or if he had even had friends before. It was a few hours before the doors to the lab finally opened, Freeze walking out and silencing everypony that had been talking when he entered the room.

"Well?" Rainbow asked after a moment of silence. "Did you make it?" Freeze said nothing to her, but he slowly lifted his arm, revealing a single vial of a strange mixture, his hand shaking slightly as he held it.

"It's finally done," he whispered to himself as he looked at the vial, barely believing that he was holding what he had been after for so long in his hand. "After all these years, after so much pain...it's finally done. I can finally save her." The ponies all began to congratulate him and Fluttershy gave him a huge smile as he continued to look at the vial...before it slipped through his fingers and shattered against the cold ground. All of the ponies let out a loud gasp as this happened before they all looked at Freeze, but he hadn't even noticed it fall. After a moment he fell to his knees, making no sound as he sat there but all of the ponies could see what he was doing.

He was crying.

Let It Go

"How long has it been?" Twilight asked Fluttershy, who was sitting outside of Freeze's room with a look of worry on her face. She had been out there for an hour now, trying to get him to answer her pleas to let her in. Cadence, Twilight and Shining had shown up to lend a hoof, but he still hadn't answered any of them.

"Almost a full week now," Fluttershy said with worry as she raised a hoof and knocked against the door, still only receiving silence as her answer.

"I can't believe that he dropped the cure, can you?" Shining asked from behind the two, but Twilight and Fluttershy turned to look at him with a roll of their eyes. "What? That's what happened."

"There was obviously more to what happened than we saw," Fluttershy said as she knocked against the door once again, still getting no response. "Twilight, I hate to do this but I need to see how he is doing. Can you...you know...get the door moved?" Twilight nodded before using her magic on the door, moving it to the side slowly so that the ponies could enter. Upon entering the room, they were surprised by just how bare it was in there, with only a place for the snowman to sit as he gazed across the room at the ice sculpture of Nora, who still rested inside of the small snow globe.

"Victor?" Fluttershy asked as she walked over to him, looking into his eyes but getting no response. "Victor, it's us. Are you doing alright? Please answer or move or something." Freeze made no indication that he had heard them and Fluttershy looked to her friends for answers. Twilight nodded and walked over to Freeze, scanning him with her magic but shaking her head when she found nothing abnormal with him.

"Then how about I try," Cadence said as she stepped forward, using her magic not to scan Victor's physical state, but instead his emotional state. Her eyes widened in shock when she sensed that the crystal heart was almost completely out of power and for her that could mean only one thing. That his love was dying. "Something happened to him. The crystal heart is no longer receiving the power of love from him like it has been. That means that he isn't loving like he was."

"What do we do?" Fluttershy asked them, Twilight thinking about it for a moment before looking up at Freeze's still unmoving face.

"There is one thing that Luna taught me that might work," Twilight said as she prepared the spell, looking at Fluttershy with a nervous face before let out a hesitant breath. "Luna taught me how to send myself or other ponies into the dreams of others, so that we can see what is going on in their minds. Well, I believe that the only way to see what is wrong with Freeze is to see what's going on in his mind. I hate to ask this of you, but...you know him better than any of us, so you'd probably be the best pony to send in. Would you do it?"

"Yes," Fluttershy said with strength in her voice as she looked up at Freeze, who had still yet to move. Twilight closed her eyes and began to let her magic wrap around Fluttershy, who's eyes began to glow white as the magic took hold. A flash of light went off and Fluttershy closed her eyes, finding herself in a completely different place when she opened them again. She found herself in a cold looking laboratory, where Freeze stood beside a giant capsule that housed a woman inside of it, Fluttershy immediately knowing who it was. Who she didn't know where the two figures standing beside Freeze, looking almost identical in image.

"You couldn't even save her Freeze," the one in the black and gray said to Victor with venom in his voice, Freeze not replying as he continued to look into the tube at his wife. "All of the pain, all of the lives lost by your hands and only now do you realize how futile your actions are! All of your sacrifices were worth nothing and all the lives you took makes you just as bad as the men who tried to kill her. You're no better than them!"

"Lay off old man," the pure black bat said to the other one, placing a hand on Freeze's shoulder with a sad sigh. "Victor, I know that she was your everything, your reason for continuing to go on. But you have to move past this. You can move past this."

"No he can't kid, you don't know him like I do," the black and gray bat said with a shake of his head. "He won't move on. He's incapable of it." Freeze continued to say nothing as he continued to look into the tube, longing for the woman that was inside. Fluttershy heard the two bats talk to him some more before she took a deep breath and walked up to them, the two bats looking down at her as she approached but Freeze never moved.

"And who are you?" the pure black one asked, but Fluttershy swallowed her fears and narrowed her eyes at the two of them.

"I don't know if you're just figments of his imagination or what he thinks his conscious looks like, but neither of you are helping him right now," she said with a fiery fierceness that she rarely used. "Right now he doesn't need to be told that he failed or that he needs to move on, right now he needs someone to listen to him, to help him with his pain. And that's neither of you. So leave." She walked past them as she said this and they vanished back into Freeze's mind as she walked up beside him, watching as he placed a hand on the tube.

"I failed her," he whispered to her after a few minutes of quiet. "I failed her."

"No you didn't, you made the cure," Fluttershy reminded him. "All we had to do was get you back to your world so that you could give it to her." But this time it was Freeze who shook his head at her as he looked down to the pony, tears frozen to his cold face as he finally accepted the truth.

"No...She died long before I came here," he said in a whisper, the tube with Nora in it vanishing in front of him as he said this, leaving the two in a completely empty room. "I knew...all this time, but I just didn't want to accept it. She died happy...with a husband, with a family. But I couldn't accept that! After all I had suffered through and all the time I had been betrayed I couldn't accept that! I selfishly thought that if I could complete the cure I could have her again! That all would go back to the way it was! But I completed the cure...and she is still gone. She was...is my reason for living. And without her...I have nothing left. No reason to fight...no reason to live. Nothing." Fluttershy walked up beside him as he fell to his knees, gently placing a hoof on his shoulder.

"You did everything you could," she said to him gently. "And even though he didn't save her, you still helped us out many times when we needed you despite your...cold personality. You're still a good person."

"A good person? She is the reason I am...kind, the whole reason I exist," Freeze bitterly cried. "She is the reason I could commit such atrocities without hating myself, because it was for her. What am I without her? For so long...she has been my reason for so long. But now who am I? Because without her...I'm just another criminal with a gun. A criminal that should be dead."

"You can't mean that. That is not what Nora would want for you. What would she want you to do?" Freeze said nothing to her as he continued to stare at where Nora had vanished, but then he turned towards her and nodded his head once. The room began to spin as Fluttershy closed her eyes, opening them again to see that they were in the palace and Victor was standing in front of her in his armor again.

"She would want me to be happy, even without her here," he muttered with a cold expression. "But how can I move on, be happy, without her?" Fluttershy thought about it for a moment before Cadence walked up and asked what had happened.

"Nora died long before Victor got here," Fluttershy explained sadly, causing the ponies in the room to gasp as they looked up at Freeze. "And she was his only reason for living. Now I'm trying to think of something that will give him purpose, if I can. But I really don't know what to do."

"I do," Shining said with a nod before motioning for Freeze and the others to follow him. They did so and they followed him until they reached Freeze's lab. Shining opened it and walked inside, before turning to Freeze while motioning his hoof to everything in the room. "This can be your new reason for living."

"Why are you showing me my lab?" Freeze asked.

"Because you have worked miracles in here," Shining said as he walked over to his wife. "In here you managed to create a cure for my wife that both magic and medicine failed to do. In a lab you created your suit, which is stronger and more powerful than almost anything the ponies have created. You can work miracles in here Freeze. You didn't save Nora, but there are still so many that you could save with your gift. So many strange things happen in this land that we have no idea how to deal with, but maybe with your help, we can make the world a bit better."

"Victor," Cadence said in her regal tone, gaining her the attention of all in the room. "I have thought long and hard about you and what you have done. Deciding your punishment has not been easy, especially in light of recent events. But you do need to be sentenced. As ruler of the crystal empire...your sentence is that you will use what you have learned about dieses and help the ponies of this land. You once hurt them, now is the time for you to heal them." Freeze thought about it for a moment before he gave a slight nod.

"That is...acceptable," Freeze said as he looked Cadence to Fluttershy, who gave him a warm smile as she nodded her head.

"You said yourself that you took no joy in harming others and how you hated what you had to do," she said before looking around at all of the materials in the room. "Maybe this is how you can make up for it, by helping ponies instead of hurting them. Becoming a better person, doesn't that sound like what Nora would want you to do?" Freeze thought about what they were saying, debating what to do with himself. Nora had been his only reason for living, for existing, so could he go on without her?

'But they are right about one thing,' he thought to himself. 'I am tired of hurting others and I wish that I could do more for others. That is what Nora would want me to do. And there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her.' "Very well ponies, I can try," he said to them, Fluttershy getting a huge smile on her face as he said this.

"Then I hope that we can put what happened to us in the past week or so in the past," Cadence said with a smile as she walked over to Freeze, holding out a hoof to him. "Can we let bygones be bygones?" Freeze looked down at her hoof for a moment before he shook her hoof, Fluttershy smiling at the display. "Alright then, now that we have an idea on what you're going to do while you're here, I'll go tell the hospital here that there will be a new doctor helping them with medicines." She and Shining left as she said this, leaving the iceman alone with Fluttershy in his lab.

"I'm proud of you Freeze," Fluttershy said as she smiled up at him. "I'm glad that you're able to try and be a better man. I'm also glad to see that I was right about you, that you're not all bad." She turned to leave as she said this, giving him one last smile before she left him alone in the room. He then turned and walked over to where he kept the snow globe, picking it up in one hand as he looked down at it.

'Yes, I am becoming a better person, but it is not for me,' he thought to himself as he looked down at the globe. 'I will...try to be a better man, to help the ponies as you would have wanted me to. But everything I do is for you Nora. Always for you.' He put the snow globe back down as he thought this, leaving the ice lady to dance in the falling snow.

A New Dawn

The first sign for Fluttershy that Victor was making progress was when he stopped counting the weeks he had been in Equestria and instead began to focus more on the work he was doing for the ponies. Most ponies now a days had forgotten that had tried to take of the crystal palace and now many only knew of him as a miracle worker, as it seemed that there was no sickness he couldn't cure or at least help lessen. Another sign for her that he had come along ways was that he no longer dreamed about the Batman and had stopped talking to himself. But that didn't mean she didn't worry about him.

"Are you sure that you're feeling alright today?" she asked him as he began mixing chemicals, not paying her too much mind as he focused on his work. She was used to this by now, as he hated to be interrupted when working, but she knew that he would answer her question when he was done. "None of the dreams or the voices talking to you again?"

"I am fine Fluttershy, thank you for asking," he eventually replied as he placed the medicine inside a container, placing the container inside of a box that was to be shipped to Canterlot. "The voices are gone and I no longer see...Nora in my sleep. Now I need to go mail this. You may come if you want." She smiled as she walked alongside him towards the post office, looking up at the sky as they left, still sad that the sky was gray. However, Twilight had promised her that she and the princesses were hard at work trying to come up with a new power source for Victor, so that he could eventually give back the crystal heart.

"I'm glad to see that all has been quiet as of late," she said with a smile as she looked around, the ponies waving to them as they passed. "With all the commotion that was caused with you showing up, I was beginning to think that things would never be quiet again. Glad to see I was wrong." Freeze nodded with no reply, but he did raise an eyebrow when he saw Cadence and Shining Armor off in the distance, Fluttershy waving to them as the two groups met up.

"I did not expect to see either of you here, considering how close to birth you should be getting," Freeze said as he looked down at Cadence's bump, Shining smiling awkwardly as Cadence looked down at the baby with love in her eyes. "You should be at home instead of wandering the streets."

"I'll consider it, doctor, but right now I need to check up on my number one mad scientist," Cadence said with a smile as she looked at the box that Freeze was carrying. "Is that the shipment for Canterlot?" Freeze nodded and opened up the box for her to see, Cadence looking inside with a smile before letting Victor close back up the box. "This is the fifth order that you've finished early "miracle worker." Just how do you do it?"

"It's not like I have any friends or family," Freeze said in his cold tone, Fluttershy frowning at that statement. Cadence then let out a sigh and leaned against Shining for support. "You should be at home resting. This constant activity is not helping you." Cadence waved him off as she got back to her hooves, giving Fluttershy a chance to speak.

"Um, have you decided on a name for it?" she asked them.

"We fairly certain of one, but we want to save it as a surprise," Shining said with a smile as he placed a hoof on Cadence's shoulder. "But if you excuse us, I think I'm going to take the doctor’s advice and get my wife home as soon as possible. See the two of you later. Oh and if you ever feel like returning the heart to the center of the city so it can recharge, that would be great. We don't want it running out of power." Freeze nodded as he walked past them, Fluttershy following him as they continued towards the office.

"Shouldn't you be heading back to Ponyville sometime soon?" Freeze asked her after a few minutes of silence, causing her to look up at him in surprise. "Your friends will be worried about you and if what you told me is correct, you have a number of animals to attend to. You do not need to observe me all of the time. I am fine."

"I-It's not that I'm observing you, it's...because I enjoy hanging out with you," she said softly as she hid behind her mane. Freeze said nothing in response, but he had noticed that out of all the ponies she seemed to be the only one that still held him no ill will over the events caused when he first arrived. "Plus, I enjoy seeing all of the miracles that you perform. Even Twilight has admitted to me that not even magic can do what you do with science."

"They are not miracles, they are just solutions to problems," he said with no emotion. "I am just glad to be able to help again with my research and knowledge, compared to all the times that I had to hurt or kill just to keep Nora alive. It is a side of me that will take some time getting rid of...if I can get rid of it at all." Fluttershy looked at the ground as he said this in thought, knowing that Victor was prone to outbursts of rage still.

"Um, Victor?" she said softly, Freeze turning to look down at her. "About what you said, how you have no family or friends? Um, if you want, this is all up to you, I could be your-" She stopped talking when she saw Freeze's eyes narrow and she turned to see what he was glaring at, but she could see nothing. Freeze on the other hand, could she a silver mare sitting on a bench by herself.

"Take this to the office," he said as he gave her the package. "I shall not be long." She watched him walk away in confusion, wondering if he was having illusions about Nora again. But the look in his eyes had been different, so she hoped that it was something different as she walked away. Victor walked over to the silver mare, who was looking into a pool with her blank eyes. "Care to tell me why you are here?" he asked her.

'Because you are getting close,' she said to him with a hidden smile, inviting him to sit beside her. 'You have shown that you are capable of compassion and selfless actions, meaning that you could very well be one of the champions. And you have finally let Nora go, finally freed yourself from that pain.'

"You still have yet to explain who these champions are," Freeze said coldly as he looked into the water, only seeing his reflection this time.

'The champions are those who have overcome great pain and weakness to rise greater than who they were before,' she explained with a smile as she looked at him. 'And I need only one more before I can finally put my plan into motion, the plan to save my home and all who I hold dear.'

"How many others are there?" Freeze asked, curious as to what she meant. He could understand her asking for help if her home was in danger, but to gather others with powers like him (he assumed) to protect it? Either she faced a powerful foe or she had no idea of what she was doing.

'There is the champion of lighting, the raging heroes, the dark knight, the masterful unicorn and the armored father,' she explained as she looked to him. 'And I believe that you are the last one. You are the human freed.'

"I have not freed myself yet," Freeze said with a sad sigh as he looked down at his hands. "There is still much that I need to atone for. So much pain that I have caused."

'But you are on the right track,' she said in a comforting tone as she stood up. 'You have shown that you can be good to good ponies, but your true final task will soon begin. I cannot tell you what it is, but hopefully you have learned from the ponies, one in particular, what you must do.'

"You cannot tell me?" freeze asked in an annoyed tone. "Why not?" The silver mare sighed as she looked up at the gray sky, wondering how to answer him.

'Because of you are the final champion, and I have no reason to doubt it, then you must fight this battle and overcome it on your own,' she said with a sad shake of her head. Freeze didn't like the answer and demanded that she tell him more, to which she sighed again and turned to face him. 'I had...a vision of sorts, a few weeks after I came into being. In it I saw my world, completely covered in darkness, with the queen of the world lying dead under a dark creatures feet. I saw many possible outcomes of how these events happened, but all of them ended the same way. In the death of my world. And then, like a cancer, it spread to other worlds and consumed them until there was darkness and only darkness.'

"And this is where your champions come into play?" Freeze asked, although he already knew the answer.

'In my vision, I saw that six unknown champions would come to the world’s defense, but I had no idea who they were or what race they were,' she said with a sad sigh as she looked up to the sky. 'All I knew about them was that I would find them in the least likely of creatures and that they would each reawaken a power long lost when they were found. I have found five of them after hundreds of others have been put to the test, but I know that you are the final one, because you are so similar to them.'

"And when all of these champions are together will the darkness be beaten?" Freeze asked, only to get the silver mare to shake her head.

'I do not know. The future cannot be completely predicted from visions and the bats have shown me that destiny and fate cannot be trusted. The final image of the vision is the six battling against the darkness,' she said. 'I know not if they prevail, but they...you are the only chance mine and many other worlds have. So I must ask this of you Freeze, will you help me when the time comes?' Freeze lowered his head and thought about it for a moment, before looking up at her and nodding.

"I promised to make up for my past," he said with confidence. "And I will help all those who need it, regardless of who they are." The silver mare smiled in response before looking past Freeze to a dark cloud that was approaching.

'Then I will see you soon Victor, for your moment is here,' she said before vanishing in a silver flash, leaving Victor to turn around to see a massive dark cloud descend upon the city. He could hear the ponies screaming off in the distance and hear the sounds of laughter, a laughter that he remembered well.

'Very well Sombra, I will end this today,' he thought to himself as he headed towards the pony, preparing to become the champion he needed to be. But then, in the farthest back his mind could go, he simply thought. 'Nora, give me strength.'

|\/|
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"This truly is the best place for thinking and observing at the same time," a solitary figure muttered to himself as he looked down on the planet below, his senses and magic tuned for any sign of trouble, be it an evil force or the rebellion that sought to bring down his queen. But his senses were also searching for a magic, his magic that she somehow wielded. 'The visions get stronger by the day, meaning that the time must be drawing nearer. She will have to make a move soon.'

But no matter how long he waited, he could not sense her or any sign of her magic. He sighed in frustration, but knew that he could not sense her at so far a distance. She had learned to cloak herself. What he needed was a hint to the champion she was with. Fortunately, he had something that would help him.

"I must remember to thank the surfer for giving this to me if I ever see him again," Black Adam muttered as he lifted his hand, narrowing his eyes at the small amount of the power cosmic that rested upon it. "Now then power cosmic, show me what I seek." He closed his eyes as he said this and felt the cosmic flow into him. Then, for a brief moment he saw an image. An image of a man in a cryo suit with red eyes and freeze rays. Adam opened his eyes as the image faded away with a smile, now knowing where to go.

I Feel...Cold...

"Well well, look who finally showed up to the party!" Sombra shouted with a cackle as Freeze walked over to the center of the city, preparing himself for a battle. Freeze narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the dark pony, seeing the clouds that were swirling around behind him. "Oh, you like the new clouds? Yeah, grey and dreary was cool for a while, but dark and thundering is where it is at," Sombra said with a huge smirk.

"I do not know why you bothered to come back, but you saved me the trouble of having to find you eventually," Freeze said as he raised both his arms and pointed them at Sombra. "But I have other things to do and you are wasting my time. Farewell." He fired both of his freeze rays into Sombra, watching as the ice formed all along his body and caused him to fall to the earth. Freeze shook his head as he turned away, but then an explosion of heat went off behind him and he turned to see that Sombra had broken out of the ice, flames coming off of his body as he smiled at Freeze.

"Sorry iceman, but sticking to ice makes you very predictable," Sombra said with a huge smiled before he let out a huge roar, flames shooting from his mouth and swarmed around Freeze. He narrowed his eyes at the fire and fired both of his rays into the fire, putting it out in a matter of seconds. "Of course, with my hot looks and raging personality, I figured that fire would be a great way to fight off the chills you give me."

"Enough of your puns, I am going to put an end to you," Freeze said as he fired his rays at Sombra, who slipped into the shadows and moved behind Freeze. He shot out of the shadows and unleashed the fire into Freeze's back, Victor letting out a roar of pain as the fire consumed him. The suit held up well enough so that the fire didn't kill him, but he did fall to the ground while trying to clear his vision. "It will take more than fire to defeat me."

"Oh I know that Freeze, but that's why I brought the remaining pieces to the game," Sombra said with a sinister smile as he looked up to the sky. "But as I do think of you as a worthy opponent, I decided to bring some creatures that bring the chill, just like you." Freeze looked to the sky to see a massive number of transparent horses flying down to the land, unleashing their ice breath upon the ponies off the town. Freeze could see that they needed help, but he knew that he could not fight both Sombra and those creatures at the same time, so with a growl of rage as he turned back to Sombra.

"You know that you cannot win. I have bested you before," Freeze said as he raised his arm and fired a beam of ice into a building behind Sombra, causing the structure behind Sombra to collapse and fall towards him.

"Oh Freeze, you are so predictable. You're not a fighter," Sombra said as he vanished into the darkness to avoid the buildings, reappearing behind Freeze to blast him again. "You are a scientist, not someone who will be able to fight the likes of me. While you sit in a lab to get your work done, I'm always the first to the battlefield. You have nothing on me."

"Except that I am a thinker," Freeze said as he stood up and pointed to the floor, Sombra looking down to see that ice had covered his hooves. Before Sombra could ask where the ice had come from or melt through it, Freeze pulled a light post out of the ground and hurled at Sombra, sending the dark pony skidding back as he struggled to get back up. "I have planned up five steps ahead of you and you are far too busy bragging to notice. That is how I will win."

"Five steps ahead? How can you possibly be five steps ahead of me when I have seen pretty much everything you have done!? What makes you smarter than me?!" Sombra roared, but then he took a blast of magic to the chest and sent him skidding back again, Freeze turning to see Twilight and the other ponies land behind him.

"Because I am not a fool who believe he can defeat you and your forces by himself," Freeze said as he turned to the other ponies. "I am glad to see that you saw the ice flower, but I have no time to talk. Some kind of spectral ponies are attacking the city and I cannot take my attention away from Sombra to fight them. Can you assist me?" Twilight and the others nodded and flew off, but Luna and Celestia stood beside him as Sombra got back up.

"We have not had the chance to thank you for what you have done Freeze, but hopefully by assisting you in this battle we can at least even the debt a bit," Luna said as she began to fire magic at Sombra, who turned into darkness and slipped through the ground while firing blast of fire at them.

"Indeed, but we can talk about apologizing later, right now we need to defeat Sombra," Celestia said as she threw up a shield around the three of them, Sombra roaring as he tried to break through the barrier with his fire. The battle continued along similar lines, with freeze and the princesses trying to fend off Sombra while Sombra continued to slip through their attacks. But the battle took a darker turn when Fluttershy came flying over to them, worry in her eyes as she was let through the barrier.

"It's bad, Sombra has made a number of ice golems attack the empire as well!" she exclaimed as she pointed to the distance where Twilight was doing her best to fend off one of them by herself. "You have to go help her!" The princesses looked to Freeze, but he nodded and began to fire through the shield, trying to keep Sombra back so the princesses could go.

"Hold them off as long as you can Freeze!" Luna yelled as she and Celestia took off to the skies, Freeze trying to keep the flames Sombra was shooting at him away from Fluttershy.

"Don't worry Victor, I'll help as best I can," she said softly, but Freeze didn't see how this was possible given how he could barely hold of Sombra himself at the moment. He was still waiting for his chance.

"Get behind me Fluttershy!" Freeze yelled before getting knocked back by a blast of fire, sending him skidding across the ground with a growl. Sombra smiled as he glided across the ground as he prepared to finish the man, but he had to shield his eyes when he ran right into the stare.

"Dammit Fluttershy, don't startle me like that!" Sombra yelled as he shielded his eyes, but the stare pierced through him. "Argh, that stare is so damn annoying!" Fluttershy continued the stare while Freeze got back up, firing twin blast of ice into Sombra and sending him into a wall, where he froze in place.

"You lose Sombra," Freeze said as Sombra tried to ignite his fire again, only to be frozen even more by Victor. "I can keep you contained here until the princesses come back and lock you up for good." Then to the surprise of both Fluttershy and Freeze, Sombra began to laugh at the two of them, a laugh that caused a shiver to go up Fluttershy's spine.

"Lose Freeze? No, I have only begun to play this game," Sombra said as he levitated a small flask out from behind his cloak and downed it before either of the two could react. With a massive roar he exploded into flames, sending the Freeze and Fluttershy bouncing back across the ground. The two of them weakly got up as they saw Sombra land in front of them, flames erupting all over his body as he walked towards them. "Because as you see, while the king, you in this case, may need to be protected by these ponies, when I am the king I am the most dangerous piece on the board."

"Hell," Freeze muttered to himself before a massive burst of fire blew him across the ground, only coming to a stop as he hit one of the legs holding up the crystal palace. Freeze staggered back up before another blast of fire blew him through the leg, causing him to gasp for air as his helmet cracked almost fully. He forced himself back to his knees as Sombra appeared in front of him, smiling down at him as fire appeared at the tip of his horn.

"See Freeze, I am far superior to you in every way," Sombra said with a smirk. "You only stick to your one trick, your ice and because of that I am able to pretty much predict your every move and defeat you. Care to give up yet or do I have to burn you some more before you submit?" Freezes answer was to open the armor of his chest and place one hand on the crystal heart, supercharging his ice before firing it at Sombra and causing him to flash freeze. Freeze got back up weakly, looking down at his computer to see just how well he was holding up.

'This suit can't last much longer,' he thought to himself as he saw Sombra beginning to burn his way through the ice, wondering just what he was going to do now. The he saw where he was, the very place where his time in Equestria began. There was the pedestal where he had taken the crystal heart, where he had taken the main item that protected the land of Equestria. He knew what he had to do, but when he tried to take a step forward his leg gave out and he collapsed to the ground, struggling to fight through the pain.

'Here we are,' the silver mare said from beside Freeze, looking down at him as he struggled to get to the pedestal. 'You got here quicker than the others, but I have the feeling that you had to sacrifice much more to get to this moment. Even though I have not been with you long, I am proud to see that you did have good still in your frozen heart.'

"I appreciate the kind words, but helping me to get to the pedestal would be far more beneficial to all of us," he pointed out. The silver mare nodded and let her magic flow through Freeze, giving him enough strength to get back to his feet, where he removed the crystal heart out of his chest and looked at it one more time, knowing that what he was going to do might kill him. But then he thought of the others and of Fluttershy, who had been the only one to really been there for him, had shown him kindness. This one time, he would do this for them. So with one last breath, he placed the heart in the center of the pedestal, getting knocked off his feet as a wave of magic passed through him and every other pony in the entire city. All of the creatures that Sombra had brought with him where expelled from the city by the blast and the ponies that had been frozen by the Windigo's. Even Sombra was freed from the ice, but the magic power tore the fire power from him, causing him to scream in pain as he was blasted away.

"They gave me so much kindness while I was here. The least I can do is return their heart," Freeze said before he fell over, the power of the crystal heart shooting into the sky and blasting away the clouds that had been covering the land for weeks, allowing the sun’s rays to rain down upon the land. "Just this once, I act for someone else." And unknown to Freeze, in a far off reality, six pedestals sat in an empty tower, but only one of them was empty. However, a gust of cold wind blew through the room and surrounded the pedestal, vanishing to reveal a belt with a glowing, icy heart in the center of it. The silver mare let out a sigh of relief when she felt this and she looked down at Freeze with a smile.

'Congratulations,' she said to him as he struggled to get up, looking around the land to see the sun shining upon all of the land. 'It seems that you were the champion I needed and the ponies needed. You have overcome your past and your pain.'

"It seems that I have," Freeze said as he looked around.

'So, why did you do this for them?' she asked him as he reached the pedestal. 'Is it because you have finally learned the meaning of kindness? What it means to help others?' To her surprise, she saw that Freeze hung his head a bit as she said this and looked down at something that he had been keeping in the suit. The small ice sculpture of Nora.

"For them. So that they could live," Freeze whispered as he looked sadly at the sculpture. "But now I am ready to move on...from this life."

'Freeze, you cannot live like this.'

"I completed my other goal. I saved lives, just as Nora wanted. Now it is time...to join her."

'Freeze, listen to me, you can still-' Her words were cut off as a massive explosion flew by Freeze, sending him flying into the palace and he collapsed to the floor. He slowly got back up to see that there was a massive trench in the ground, making Freeze wonder what could cut through solid crystal with just it's speed. He then realized that there was lightning crackling on his suit, but he hadn't felt it before though it did seem familiar. He looked around for the silver mare to see that she was gone, but he did see Fluttershy, Cadence and Shining Armor running up to him.

"You did it!" Fluttershy yelled as she rushed over to him. He raised one arm to wave to them before letting out a scream as a blast of magic pierced his armor and caused him to collapse to the ground holding a hand to his chest as blood began to pour out. The ponies and Freeze turned to look at the attacker, seeing Sombra barely standing but with a huge smile on his face.

"King...takes...king," he said with a cackle before he fell over, the last of his life escaping in one last breath. Freeze looked at where Sombra lay before he collapsed to the floor, everything going dark.

Reunited

"Victor!" Fluttershy yelled as she rushed to his side, horrified to see the amount of blood he was losing as he looked up at the sky, helmet completely shattered. "Oh my gosh! Hold on, we'll get you to the hospital and they'll-" She stopped speaking when he grabbed around her hoof with his hand, looking up at her with defeat in his eyes. Fluttershy realized that due to the goggles being destroyed this was the first time she could look into his eyes, but she saw the eyes of a dead man.

"Fluttershy...it is pointless now," he said weakly as Shining and Cadence came over as well, looking at all of the blood with horror. "You would not make it in time. It is time for me to answer for all the wrongs I have done."

"No, you're not going to die," she sniveled, trying to move him through force but he simple weighed too much for her to budge. "You can't die now, not when there is some much you can still do, so many that you can help!" Freeze once again shook his head at her as he looked up at the blue sky, his face beginning to crumble away from the dark magic that had struck him down.

"Fluttershy...I died a long time ago," he said to her in a quiet voice, causing her to start to sob. "Maybe it's time...I stopped pretending that I didn't. This...fake body...will not last much longer." He then looked over to Cadence and Shining, a small bit of warmth in his eyes. "You...once asked me why I saved you, despite all my threats? Because...I lost my chance for a family, for love. As much as you annoyed me, I could not let that happen to you as well. I couldn't...let a dies..."cough"...disease claim your happiness. I wasn't able...to save my family...but at the very least...I saved yours."

"I know Victor," Cadence said sadly as she and her husband looked down at him with sorrow in their eyes. Freeze began to cough up blood and his breathing grew weaker, all the while Fluttershy tried to stop the bleeding.

"Let me go, Fluttershy, I have been alive for far too long now," he said weakly as he closed his eyes, but then opened them again when he remembered something he wanted to tell her. "But I must...thank you...for being so patient with me during the short time I was here. Despite my cold nature and my violent outburst, you were really the only one...I could call...a friend." Fluttershy began to sob as he said this and Freeze looked back up to the sky, a small smile crossing his face. "At least...I can see...Nora...again..." He drew his last breath as he said this and closed his eyes, leaving the ponies that were by him to begin grieving. His body began to crumble away like dust, dust that was blown away by a gust of wind leaving only his suit.

"Goodbye, my friend," Fluttershy wept.

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Victor blinked twice as he opened his eyes, looking around to find himself in a place that was entirely white. He said nothing as he stood up, but he realized that he was no longer in the suit and his skin was back to normal. He figured that he must have been dead to have returned to his normal self, but that wasn't the only thing that confused him at that moment. He turned around to see what looked like a vision of Equestria, where he could see Fluttershy and the other grieving for him. He was tempted to go back to them when he heard something from behind him. Music.

He turned around to see a lady dancing on a stage, a dance that was filled with elegance and beauty, though the dance was nothing compared to who the dancer was. Victor dropped to his knees when he saw that it was Nora, dancing with the life and happiness that she had when he had first met her. She came to a stop when she saw him and smiled, jumping off the stage and running over to him, where she hugged him tight. He looked down at her for a moment before he returned the hug, tears in his eyes as she smiled up at him.

No words were said between the two as Victor took her hand in his, allowing her to lead him away from the vision of the ponies. And while he was happy to have her hand in his again, he did stop once to look back at the ponies. But then he smiled softly and continued to follow his beloved, leaving the white room empty once more.

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The silver mare grunted as she slammed into the ground, kicking up mounds of dirt and rock as she carved through it. Once she had come to a stop, she struggled to throw herself out of the way of a massive bolt of lightning, a bolt that decimated a rock cliff behind her. She looked from what remained of the cliff to the figure floating over her, remembering what it was like to be truly afraid again.

'Please Teth, I do not wish to fight you,' she pleaded with him as he floated down in front of her, narrowing his eyes as he saw her. 'But I must complete my vision or else all of my home will be lost!' She was silenced as another bolt of magic lightning slammed into her chest, causing her form to flicker violently as she slammed into a cliff, Black Adam grabbing her by the throat before she could hit the ground.

"That is Black Adam to you," he said with very cold rage as he glared at her, bringing his fist back to strike. she slipped into her silvery form as he swung, shattering the boulder before looking around to see her floating far above him. He shot after her at speeds she couldn't see, but turned around to see him floating behind her. "And I have seen your vision as well and I know what your game truly is! You seek to gather these champions to overthrow the Queen, despite all she has lost! But I will protect her from you and your champions, no matter what I must do!" She had to move quickly to avoid his lightning, creating walls of magic to deflect or stop most of them. But what she couldn't stop was Adam himself, as he simply plowed through all her shields like they were paper.

'Teth, you do not understand! I do not gather these champions to hurt her or you! I wish to save my world from the coming darkness!' she yelled back at him as he continued to shoot lightning at her, the chase taking them over a small town far from the crystal empire. 'But if I do not go back to help Freeze now, then all will be lost! Please you have to listen to me!'

"And why should I do that?!" he yelled as he electrified his fists and swung into her mid-section, causing her body to savagely flicker as she fell out of the sky, barely able to catch herself before she hit the ground. "I know you are the reason those humans appeared in my world and killed one of the ponies that was close to me! You will pay for her death and any others you have caused. I will kill you!"

'Please Teth, is this what Radiance and Sunnysmiles would want?' she asked him But then she realized her mistake as he lowered his head, lightning crackling all along his body as he slowly glared up at her.

"You dare?" he said in a cold whisper before letting out a roar to the sky, clasping his hands together and bringing them back to create a giant sphere of lightning that caused even the silver mare to shake with fear. "YOU DARE TO MENTION THEM!? YOU DARE TO MENTION TWO WHO SAVED ME, EVEN AS YOU CLAIM TO BE ONE OF THEM?! PREPARE YOURSELF!" He unleashed the sphere as he said this and although the silver mare barely managed to dodge it, it was sent sailing past the town and caused a massive earthquake when it struck the ground, causing the ponies in the town to panic as a massive sign fell off one of the buildings and headed for the streets. Black Adam looked from the ponies in danger to the silver mare with rage in his eyes, before turning towards the town and flying into it, stopping the sign from crushing them. They barely had time to register what had happened before he threw the sign into space and headed back up to where the mare was, finding her escaping into a portal.

"Not today!" he roared as he shot after her. He caught her in a moment and drove his hand into her chest, fingers wrapping around the silver sphere that sustained her life.

'Teth no!' Adam crushed the sphere with his hand and the mare screamed as her magic began to fluctuate horribly, sending out tendrils with enough force to push Adam back. She fell through the portal while still fluctuating, but the silver sphere closed behind her before Adam could reach her. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the spot where she had vanished before he shook his head.

'Gone. But it doesn't matter what she does or where she goes now, her champion is dead,' he thought to himself as he looked off towards the crystal empire, able to feel the pain coming from the ponies there. And he sadly shook his head. 'I just wish that she could have died in his place. But with the champion gone, she will not be able to destroy my land. And that is all that matters.' "Shazam." He vanished in a flash of lightning, leaving the ponies down below confused as they wondered what had happened.

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A month had passed after the death of Victor and the ponies were still grieving. Despite Freeze not having been there long, they had come to see him as a hero. Fluttershy had suffered the worst and it had been a full month before she talked to the others again and she just barely spoke at that. But despite all the pain that had gone on for the month, there was a reason the celebrate again. A new life was coming into the world. However, Shining did not think of anything but how worried he was about his wife as he paced outside of the delivery room while the other ponies tried to calm him down.

"She will be fine brother," Twilight said as she tried to comfort him, but all he did was pace faster. Twilight sighed at this and looked over at Fluttershy, who sat next to her not saying a thing. "Fluttershy..."

"I know what you're going to say and you're wrong," Fluttershy said in a whisper, the first time she had talked about Victor in a month. "I should have helped him more, should have tried to be kinder. Then maybe he wouldn't have...or something would have gone differently...I could have saved him Twilight, but I didn't. I failed him." Twilight wrapped a wing around her friend as she said this, comforting her as she cried softly.

"Cadence told me what Freeze said as he died and from his words I have to believe that you did save him," Twilight said with a soft smile. "You helped melt the ice of his heart and got him to care again. While he may not have been here for long, you changed his life for the better. Don't forget that." Fluttershy nodded a bit and looked up at Twilight with a smile as the other ponies talked, but all of them went quiet when the doctors came out and smiled at them. They then all ran past them and into the delivery room, where they found Cadence resting on the bed with her child in her arms, tears rolling down her face as she looked up at her husband and her friends.

"Isn't he lovely?" she asked them in an exhausted whisper as she showed them the baby, a unicorn with snow white coat and ice blue hair. "He looks almost exactly like you Shining." Shining said nothing in reply as he walked over and gently held the baby in his own arms, tears streaming down his face as he looked at the tiny colt.

"Yeah...he does," he said weakly before gently giving the child back to its mother. The ponies all took a moment of silence as they all gazed at the new child, until Pinkie decided that it was time to ask the question.

"So then, what are you going to name him?" she asked as she got extremely close to the baby, only to be dragged back by an angry Twilight. Shining and Cadence looked at each other for a moment before they both looked down at the baby.

"We've both thought about a number of names that would best for him," Shining began as the baby grumbled a bit. "But in light of recent events, all of those names went out the window. We wanted to do something to remember him, but we didn't know if the ponies were ready for a statue. We also wanted to remember him helping Cadence with her plight and defeating Sombra. Although it's not much, we've-"

"OUT WITH IT ALREADY!" Pinkie yelled, causing the baby to begin to cry. Once he had calmed down and Twilight had used her magic to clamp Pinkie's mouth shut, Cadence and Shining looked at each other before they both said,

"Victory."

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The silver mare said nothing to herself, but that was because all of her mental strength was being used to prevent herself from panicking completely. She had been so close; she had almost gathered all of the champions and had the chance to save her world. But all of the hard work, the pain, the dealing with Bubbles and Hulk, was taking away in an instant. In a single bolt of lightning.

The crown radiated with power, as did the armband but with a different radiation. A necklace with a bat in the center sat beside them and next to it rested a tiara with an azure wand. A shoulder pad with a drill hummed silently, but the belt with the icy heart was now darkened and greyed out, with none of the power its siblings shared.

'Maybe there is still time to find another,' she said with panic in her voice as she turned to look at the final Element, the belt with the frozen heart in the center of it. 'Maybe I can find another champion who is able to unleash its full power. I might still-' Her words were cut off as an image flashed through her mind, six warriors fighting against an oncoming darkness, but only five lights glowed on them. And with only five lights, they were swallowed by the darkness as was the rest of the vision, leaving the silver mare panting on the ground as she shakily got up.

'No, there is almost no more time,' she said as she looked out the window at the rising sun, wondering what she should do. 'I-I've failed. There is nopony left to turn to, nopony...unless, unless maybe he can help me,' she said as she prepared to vanish. 'Maybe if we can stop the creature before it is unleashed we can still stop the destruction. It is out only chance!' She vanished as she said this, leaving the six Elements in the tower. Six Elements with five wielders.

Author's Notes:

And as this story finally comes to it's cold and sad ending, I thank all who have read it as we prepare to enter the final story before the super awesome ultra mega story that will be a pain to write. You all know who it is, but for those who don't, here are some hints. Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton and Mehen.