I stared down at the small puddle of hot cocoa on the floor. It was apparently true that due to being composed of dark magic and shadows... I could no longer enjoy cocoa. It simply fell straight through the bottom of my mouth and onto the crystal floor.
"This can't be happening," I stated with a calm tone that I didn't relate to internally. I gestured to the puddle with my shadowy hoof, "This is just entirely unacceptable."
I could hear Starlight snickering at my expense in the distance, but her amusement didn't concern me. What did concern me was the possibility of never having cocoa again. In the long run it certainly wouldn't force me to change my mind about immortality (Who wants to be flesh and blood, really?) but still, not being able to have cocoa was a setback for my own happiness.
"So are you gonna clean that up, or do I have to?" Spike asked with a bit of snark, a rag and a bottle of some cleaner prepared already.
"I'll... deal with it, Spike." I replied reservedly. Perhaps I could experiment on a new cup of cocoa to somehow infuse it with myself? No, that would be ridiculous; Sombra, The Great Chocolate Cloud! Bah. I took the rag from Spike's claw with my own magic, steadily crackling with dark power and a cloud of purple-green miasma. Using my power for something as mundane as cleaning didn't bother me for the moment. I was distracted by the future implications of my immortality now that the price of which had reasserted itself. In retrospect, it was no surprise why I hadn't discovered the beverage sooner. Why would I care about some cocoa if I didn't need to eat in the first place?
"He's zoning out again, just ignore him." I heard Spike whisper to somepony in the background. I rolled my eyes, causing the magic that perpetually vented from the sides of my eyes to perform a spiral of purple whisp...ness. There was a word for that, I'm sure. Regardless, the rag was now soaked with the failure of my cocoa-sipping experiment and was soon magically tossed into a nearby sink. I looked to see whom Spike had been talking to and saw Twilight, Starlight and Spike simply staring at me in mild shock.
"What?" I asked, looking between the three and their slightly agape mouths.
"You cleaned something?" Starlight asked before a sly grin spread on her face. "Does that make you the servant now?"
My eye twitched. It occurred to me that I had the power to obliterate this unicorn with a thought, but what would be the point of that? I could mind control her, but then the Alicorn quartet would sing a dirge of my impending doom.
"Sombra, are you alright?" Twilight asked with concern, approaching me cautiously. "You don't seem like your usual self..."
I suppose my mask had been slipping. "I am fine, Sparkle."
"You're sure? You're normally more..." She tried to find the right word for a moment, "Aggressive?"
"When I was a mortal, perhaps." I conceded. "I have greater concerns now than trivial rivalry."
"Twilight, I'm scared." Spike stated, moving closer to his Master/Mother/Caretaker... whatever Twilight was to him. "He's being calm, he's not plotting something and he's..." He gestured with both his arms at me, "He's not being evil!"
"I assure you, Spike, I could be evil right this moment if I wanted to." I sighed, looking to the sink with the dirtied cocoa rag, "What would be the point? Were I to enslave Ponyville, The Crystal Empire, Canterlot or anywhere else, there are already four Alicorns ready to defeat me at a moment's notice. I may be evil, but I am no fool. If I am to remain in Equestria and not fear for my continued existence, there is little point in petty brutality."
"So..." Twilight asked with rising hope and cheer, "That means you'll actually try to be nice?"
I held up a hoof. "With one exception, Sparkle... If I find that 'friendship' is a waste of my time, then I will leave Equestria. You and the other alicorns cannot be everywhere at once and there is always a weakened species somewhere without strong leadership."
Twilight's face scrunched in uncertainty. "Well, I guess that's someplace to start."
"So, what. Do we finally tell the others about Sombra being back from the dead and living in the castle, and working on being reformed?" Spike questioned skeptically, obviously worried for his friend's reactions to my existence.
"Well, we don't really even know what friendship lessons Sombra needs to learn are yet. With Starlight, no offense, we pretty much just started at the beginning and went from there. Sombra's been around a lot longer, haven't you?" Twilight asked.
"I doubt enslaving ponies and ruling an empire of mindless zombie servants counts as 'making friends', Twilight." Starlight sassed.
You should've seen some of the nobles; 'mindless zombie' would've been a compliment.
Spike commented back with a slightly disapproving tone. "That's pretty rude, Starlight."
"It's true though!" she rebutted. This conversation was boring me quickly, so I decided to venture out of the room as a cloud of shadow. "Where are you going?" Starlight blurted.
My shadowed head moved through the cloud of myself to view Starlight. "You three are trying my patience. Find me when there is something to actually accomplish. In the meantime, I will be exploring the village."
"But we haven't even told anypony about you!" I heard Twilight shout after me.
Good. Perhaps something interesting will happen.
Reaching the outskirts of the town I decided it would draw less attention and gawking peasants if I appeared to look as normal as possible. With that, I reformed myself as a 'regular' Sombra and began my journey onward. Thatched roofs of straw and hay were common as well as the multi-colored buildings placed around town without any layout for defense in mind. The town hall could be seen even here, the tall building dwarfing everything else quite easily. What drew my attention however, was a building decorated like a hodgepodge of cakes and other desserts near the town center. Ponies seemed to travel frequently around that area and gave me only curious glances before moving about their business.
I suppose if an Alicorn living in your backyard is commonplace, seeing a unicorn dressed as a king wouldn't be that jarring an experience.
"Hey mister," A young sounding voice chirped at me, "What's your name?"
I looked down to see a small brown mud pony looking curiously at me with some kind of propeller hat on. "Sombra," I replied neutrally.
"Oh... I just remembered my mom told me not to talk to strangers. Bye Mister Sombra!" The muddy idiot waved at me with his hoof, trotting away towards some flashy building with bright boxes, garish designs on smaller boxes with... light coming out of them and very loud noises.
Is this what life has come to since my absence? Random ponies milling around, doing their own activities and politely greeting another? I observed those few ponies in my surroundings and confirmed that ordinary meant sharing sandwiches and conversing in the sunlight. Odd; not a single one of them held a weapon they could bear in self defense. What if a bandit party were to raid? Well, on second thought there is an Alicorn in this town, though I doubt she would do more than invite them inside her 'castle' for some cookies and friendship...
"Hello, have you seen my colt?" A mare's voice asked me. I pulled away from my observations to witness yet another mud pony, tannish-brown in coloration this time with a vanilla mane. "He just came wandering through here and I've been trying to find him. He's been running off to that arcade to play games instead of doing his homework!"
She seemed upset at this, whatever it meant. Homework? Arcade? They meant nothing to me. Still, even a thousand years ago a mare knew how to look after their foals and fillies. "Perhaps you should teach your colt some discipline then?" I suggested.
She was clearly offended by that remark, scrunching her face and withdrawing a hoof from me as if disgusted with my presence. "Who are you to tell me how to raise my little Button?" She scoffed.
"I am a King, a Necromancer, a Scholar, a Philosopher and a one time father. I am also a unicorn, a fact you would do well to remember should you think to upset me, muddy." I sneered back.
Now she was even more offended. "Pah, I'm sure somepony like you would think highly of themselves, dressed like that!" She retorted, pointing out my armor and cape like they were rags. "Nopony dresses like that anymore, you know!"
I frowned. I had hoped this could become a somewhat productive battle of wills, but alas, it had already devolved into schoolyard taunts. Rolling my eyes, I decided that the best course of action was to simply remove her from my presence. My eyes glowed with power as dark miasma poured from my horn, enshrouding the mare in a green and purple haze that drowned out her screams. When the fog cleared, she was under my control.
"Well, Button's Mom, or whatever your actual name may be; I have a task for you." I stated clearly, though still fed up that I even had to waste my time with this situation.
"Yes, King Sombra." She replied in a droning monotone.
"Find your 'little Button', the colt you apparently care so dearly for, and raise them properly. Don't let them slack off, or nothing they ever strive for will get accomplished. You've been too lax a parent, and now you pay the price for your negligence."
"Yes, King Sombra." she bowed, before trotting off in a stupor towards the 'arcade'.
Some things never change. Negligent parents, governments run by the citizens, taxes and war. It's a wonder that I was able to do away with all of that before the beloved dynamic duo of Princess Celestia and Luna ruined everything for me. They may have seen mind control as horrible and evil, but what choice was there really? Try to convince ponies to accept another to rule over them? They could hardly follow their own parent's advice as just recently witnessed. What hope did they have to obey when the greater good demanded obedience? Throw away their free will? No, they always fought to the death to keep working in storefronts and pay their bills a week late. All of that nonsense is partially the reason I even sought necromancy in the first place. Who has to live in a home and pay taxes or eat food when you're comprised of shadow and magic? Well... I wouldn't have cocoa any time soon, but that was a trivial price by comparison.
Still... cocoa.
I took a deep breath out of habit, realizing that I didn't need to breathe anymore. I vented out shadow from my nostrils anyway. It somehow relieved stress like a comforting exercise. Looking around the town more, I noticed a cloud drifting towards the town. Turning my head and squinting, I realized that it was headed directly towards me, not the town. Curious...
I stood there, simply observing the cloud as it continued its determined approach. A small strand of rainbow stuck out from behind it, acting like a ship's rudder. Something was definitely off. Clouds didn't have sentience the last time I was alive... but then again, the sun and moon weren't controlled by two alicorns either. The cloud eventually hovered directly overhead and I witnessed what looked like a periscope poke through the clouds to look at me.
"Enough of this." I grumbled, lighting my horn with magic and creating two large claws above the cloud in order to rake anything out of it.
"Aaaah!" A voice shrieked, darting quickly away from the magical claws and dissipating the cloud. A rainbow colored streak flew off into the distance directly away from me.
"What, are the rainbows making a comeback as guardian of the realm?" I wondered aloud, dissolving my magic and causing the claws to vanish. I knew that there was something spying on me, but that figure moved far too quickly for me to get an accurate look at whatever it was supposed to be.
No matter, I'll simply follow it.
A great benefit to being immortal is that fatigue becomes nothing more than a bad memory. This is even more a factor when I can simply transform myself into a cloud of shadow. I followed the trail of rainbow speeding away from me to discover the source of this nuisance. This also gave me time to think about what I would do with the culprit capable of controlling the weather to spy on me. Although I couldn't match pace with this speeding rainbow, I was still fast enough to spot it flying straight for Twilight's 'castle'. Through the front door, no less.
Sparkle is controlling the rainbows? Why does she need to spy on me if she can just teleport to me?
I decided I would find out soon enough and descended towards the front door. Unsurprisingly, it was left wide open. Not as if closing it would've made the slightest bit of difference in security.
"Twilight! Where are you!?" I heard the same voice shout in a panic, "Sombra is back, and he's in Ponyville!"
I leaned around the entrance to the front door and spotted a very distressed looking rainbow colored feather duster in the main foyer of the castle. I decided to continue sneaking around as a smokey shadow, sticking to the cracks and crevices of the 'treehouse-monstrosity' to follow her.
"If Sombra did anything to Twilight... Ooh, I'm gonna find some way to use the Elements on him!"
Wait... what? They didn't have access to the Elements of Harmony? This was very interesting, as the only things that had defeated me in the past had been those Elements and the Crystal Heart itself. If the Elements were out of the picture, then all I would have to worry about would be the Crystal Heart...
"Twilight, come on! I need to talk with you!" She shouted again, flying towards the kitchen with myself in stealthy pursuit. "Twilight?" She called into the room, and earned no reply. "You've gotta be somewhere!" the Pegasus reassured herself, continuing onward. This continued for a longer amount of time than it really should have, but given the vast interior of the castle I was none too shocked when she found Twilight in the last place anypony would expect to look for a bookish nerd.
The Library.
Seriously, you'd think that I would've thought of that sooner. No points of intelligence deducted from either myself or the feather duster, as she was the blind leading the stupid in this case. Nevertheless, she found Twilight, Starlight and Spike all huddled around a very large tome sitting in the center of the library of the castle. A few other scrolls were laying around haphazardly with no concern for being stepped on as well, accompanied by frantic scribbling and nervous glances.
Oh, this should be good.
"Twilight! There you are!" The rainbow shouted, darting quickly over to the group and disturbing their work with a gust of wind that caused most papers to fall off of the table. "King Sombra is back and he's running around Ponyville!"
The other three shared an awkward glance before facing the rainbow. "Well... that's something we were going to tell you about. Eventually." Starlight explained, earning a surprised look from the rainbow-duster before it melted into complete confusion.
"Bu-huh?" she blurted, nervously glancing to Twilight for answers.
"Well... do you remember when I had to visit the Crystal Empire for a few days?" Twilight began with rainbow-mane nodding, "That was pretty much when I... resurrected King Sombra."
"You what!?" the featherduster shouted in surprise. "Why!?"
Now this was going to be interesting. I had simply assumed that she either collected my phylacteries to better resurrect me, but if she actually went through all the effort to bring me back from the dead herself? That was something I could appreciate on so many levels.
"I was thinking a long time about how we dealt with Discord when he first appeared. We used the Elements on him, and he turned to stone, right? But that didn't solve the problem, that just put it on hold until he broke out again. So that made me wonder how long it would be until somepony else would have to deal with King Sombra when he eventually returned. Would they even be able to defeat him? What if he was stronger the next time? What if there wasn't any way to actually defeat him?" Twilight monologued, quickly becoming a stream of thought. "If there was no way anypony could defeat King Sombra in the future, then we would have to deal with him while we still could, right?"
"But why bring him back? Then we'd just have the same problem and without the Elements of Harmony! We can't just carry around the Crystal Heart with us everywhere either." The rainbow mare countered.
"Because I figured that I could befriend him, like Fluttershy did with Discord! If he became our friend and learned the secret of friendship, then he could really help out Equestria as a whole!"
"Yeah," the rainbow deadpanned, "like Discord is such a big help."
I really should meet this 'Discord' fellow at some point.
"Think about it, Rainbow Dash!" (Seriously, her name was Rainbow Dash? You know what, never mind. I'm not the one that named her. Leave it to a Pegasus to essentially name their filly 'Color Fast'.) "What is Sombra known for?"
"Mind control, slavery, and being a huge pain in the flank?"
"Well, yes, that, but other things too! I've been re-reading some passages about who he was before he was corrupted by dark magic and-- look!" She shoved a large book into Rainbow's face with magic, causing her to back up a bit to actually read it. I decided to slink forward underneath the carpetting that was present in the library and stick to the mare's shadow to gain a peek of my own.
King Sombra: 1620 BB - 1AB, Deceased(?)
Last Name unknown, past ruler of the Crystal Empire. Ruled for the entirety of his mortal life before being the first pony to master Dark Magic, a practice currently banned as of 1000BB to the present time by Princess Celestia. All knowledge, records and notes of King Sombra's discoveries into the realm of Dark Magic have been purged by the Royal Court. Any attempt to delve into Dark Magic will be met with swift action.
I rolled my shadowy eyes. Typical. Ban anything you're uncomfortable with, ignorant foals.
Known largely for his later years and confrontation with Princesses Luna and Celestia in the year 1002 BB, King Sombra was(is) a master of mind based magic, shadow magic, dark magic, enchantment, transmogrification, manipulation and matters of state, country, leadership and overall management. In his years as a mortal, King Sombra devoted his life to the study of magic and learning--
"Hey, that sounds like you, Twilight." Rainbow pointed out, poking that specific line in the book with her hoof.
"Eh... just keep reading." Twilight nervously replied, focusing our attentions back to the page.
Becoming upset with the overall governance of Equestria, he journeyed to the remote location of the Crystal Empire. There, he continued his studies in magic and state, seeking a position in the government to better acquire materials needed for his studies and to streamline the local government to be less wasteful with its resources. The Crystal Empire's nobility is well documented to spend a ludicrous amount of bits and its equivalent currency on practically nothing of use, while leaving the peasantry to fend for themselves.
If they only had a brain, the useless ingrates. The only two of them that held anything between their ears were Blueblood and Opera House.
Finding that his ideas would largely be ignored, he became very upset, delving into Dark Magic to find a way to bend things to his liking. Eventually, and through methods unknown due to the literal scorching of information related to the subject, the now dubbed 'King' Sombra eventually mind controlled the entirety of the Crystal Empire. Some debate still goes on to this day about the Pros and Cons of mind controlled populations, but not in Equestria. King Sombra's direct control and influence on the Crystal Empire lead it to become an extremely productive and profitable country, though the land and ponies themselves suffered greatly. King Sombra would not allow his subjects to die, tying their souls to the Crystal Heart itself and storing it away so that it could not be used to purify his soul. It is currently unknown if the Crystal Ponies that are alive today are immortal, or simply living longer lives than usual, given the lack of information to date about Crystal Ponies in general.
If nopony has gone and shattered the Crystal Heart, I'm sure it's still working. Though I don't honestly know what it would take to do something like that.
King Sombra was initially banished by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in the year 1002BB. Recently however, he has made a short return. Given the unknown nature of Dark Magic and the fact that King Sombra was able to resurrect himself, it is unknown if he may return again, thus giving the possibility of his death to be left in the air.
The three looked up from the book. "And you wanted to bring him back, why?" Rainbow asked with confusion.
"Just think about how much he could help out places like Manehattan, or Baltimare! Those cities are full of overspending and corruption."
She brought me back from the dead to do paperwork?
"You brought back an un-killable mind-controlling villain to do taxes?" Rainbow deadpanned, "Only you, Twilight."
"Not taxes!" Twilight quickly defended herself, "I was hoping he could figure out a way to make all of Equestria... better, somehow. He did it with the Crystal Empire!"
"Twilight, he mind controlled everypony. I don't think that's better."
"Well... He was coming back anyway!" Twilight snapped, becoming upset.
"What? How?" Rainbow asked.
"I got a letter from Princess Cadance," Twilight began, unravelling said letter and showing it to Rainbow. She read it over as Twilight explained. "She said that dark magic was beginning to reform itself on the edges of the Crystal Empire again, and she thought it was King Sombra. She wanted me to go in secret to have a look and to find out what could be done, so I... may have tampered with his phylacteries a bit." she smiled nervously.
You better not have messed them up, Sparkle.
"What do you mean?" Starlight asked, interested suddenly. "Wouldn't that be dangerous to work with Dark Magic?"
"Ehh... Princess Celestia might have shown me a thing or two about Dark Magic when I was still a unicorn." Twilight explained sheepishly.
"She what!?" Spike, Starlight and Rainbow shouted.
"It was just a baseline! Nothing too bad!" Twilight blurted.
"Why does Celestia know Dark Magic!? That's like, the complete opposite of everything she should know!" Starlight complained, extremely confused.
"She's an Alicorn! I'll bet she knows all kinds of magic just to defeat dumb ponies like Sombra!" Rainbow countered in defense of the Princess. I didn't even mind the insult directed my way. It came from a feather duster.
"Yeah, like she did with Chrysalis?" Starlight snarked.
Chrysalis? That's an interesting name...
"She was totally faking it! Nothing can really bring down Princess Celestia, right Twilight?" Rainbow rebutted, looking to Twilight for confirmation.
"Yeah, Rainbow." Twilight replied uncertainly. "She's unbeatable..."
"See! Told ya!" Rainbow smirked, completely oblivious to Twilight's reservations.
I decided that enough time had passed and all the information I was going to lean from this eavesdropping had run its course. I decided for the most dramatic entrance possible, skirting around the edges of the room and slowly condensing my body, causing the room to become pitch black and covered in shadow.
"So... I hear you've been talking about me, Twilight." I ominously voiced from every side of the room at once as they looked around in nervous panic.
"T-twilight, what's going on!?" Rainbow stuttered, yet at the same time moving in front of the other three protectively. Admirable.
"Sombra, cut it out!" Starlight yelled at the shadows around her.
Eugh, fine. It doesn't work nearly as well when the ponies you're trying to scare know its you. I anti-climactically withdrew all of my shadow towards the center of the room on the carpet, reforming my body in a proud stance adorned with my usual clothing and armor.
"Nothing bad, I hope?" I said with a smirk.