//------------------------------//
// Chapter 54: Every Little Act of Transcendence You Only Failed to Make 
// Story: Favorable Alignment 
// by Ice Star 
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Sombra:



My horn dims and once the crimson aura fades, the last of the world blurs around us. The corner of the Pantheon that I stand on - where only her and I are - is blurred to the an indistinct state, like a glittering watercolor. Paradise beyond it is reduced to a kaleidoscope haze that I can only pick so much out of while looking at the shiny, running colors.

The ground underhoof crackles slightly and my mouth twitches into a thoughtful expression. I'll have to fix that later, if it proves to be a problem. I look down to see faint disturbances where I stand. My sense tells me that the fracture lines are largely meaningless and won't need much probing or interfere. The sight of the ground crunches and sparkles in pieces, fracturing beneath me. Each fascinating imperfection is like a broken gem facet.

It looks like the new idea and the magic I've shaped and wrought with it will be very useful in the future. Blurring exactly where I 'store' myself and another - that will have to remain singular for now - and letting me step between veils of sight to slip from place to place undisturbed, unnoticed, and unseen will be a fantastic way to travel the wilds in the future, or spy on anypony who requires it.

I frowned, but my expression was still thoughtful. This would probably make it easier for me to be tracked, depending on exactly how-

"W-What did you just do?" the startled voice of Pesky Purple Eyesore says. "What happened? Why does everything look so..." She gulped, loudly and nervously so that when she spoke again her voice caught, "...broken?"

"Being 'broken' and 'different' are two different things," I muttered impatiently. My eyes found her un-blurred form easily as she stood at one of the Pantheon's edges, frightened and confused.

I didn't tell her that if she ran about, screaming, and charged into the crowd and threw her forehooves around her mentor, tugging her in the direction of whatever was troubling her and rubbed her snot in Celestia's white coat as she wept, she'd disrupt the spell.

I watched her with a partial scowl. She shivered and looked away with a twitch and a deeper look of confusion in her eyes. A shred of composure and straightened posture was regained when she was turned away, her eyes unable to see my stare, but I know she felt it.

I also know that she had no clue to what I did to her last time, she only felt the impression I left: she should be very, very afraid of me.

She swallowed again and brought a shaky forehoof to her chest, exhaling loudly and pushing it free, like an invisible weight could be lifted from her. I watched as her bangs bobbed with an absentminded nod and she straightened her posture out even further.

"Are you just going to make an effort to ignore me?" I rolled my eyes and snorted, trying to lay a bet on the exact tone of her reply.

"Of course," she said with a plastered shield of calm control that I don't think anypony, save the most oblivious of them all, could ever believe. "I'm going to try and find a way out of here, think on this spell, and where you could've learned it."

"You couldn't ignore me if you tried."

I saw her attempt at a neutral expression tighten a little before the anxious interior ate through it. "I can, and I will try," she said brightly - really, that tone right there and the garish shades of purple that make her up are the only bright things about her to me. 

"You already failed, and do you really think that optimism is going to save you?"

Her momentary almost-smile slipped and she turned to face me, but kept her gaze directed anywhere other than straight at me. "I do think it can work, and I know it will. It hasn't failed in the past."

As somepony whose copied your memories, no, no it hasn't. An outsider's insight - not one outside yourself, there's always those, but a true outsider, is valuable, and you'd never listen to any of it... you would have never listened to Luna.

"I'm sure it has." 

There was that ever-so-slight look of displeasure again. "You've never been optimistic about anything, or kind. Sombra, you just don't listen to anypony, so of course! You're so..." She prepared for her master insult, almost beaming when she hurled it at me, "...prideful!"

"I'm hurt," I say, lathering on sarcasm and bringing a forehoof to my chest while she returns to her attempts to ignore me after dropping the last of her little lecture.

"I know you'll never accept it," she says with the same obnoxious perkiness that I loathe, "but you're going to lose a lot because of your pride, and the things you've done to innocent ponies in the past. You aren't a healthy pony. No family, no friends, and you're so... unpredictable and antisocial. You can't accept the kindness and charity of others. Queen Elysium and Princess Celestia have both done great things for you. Instead, you spurn them by refusing the offer of a thousand lifetimes and continuing to commit crimes in the nation of the most forgiving and wonderful teach- goddess that anypony could want. How is that good and harmonious?"

"It isn't," I said, angry, but not growling, "which is exactly why I do it."

"You mean you think you can just get away with everything because there's no consequence to your actions?"

"Hardly," I say with an arrogant toss of my mane. "There's many consequences to my actions, they're just lesser things. What do I care if I'm not seen as a productive member of society or if a nation wants a price on my head? They're more inconveniences, at most, and absurd at others. I know the consequences for my actions, prepare for them, and break them. Or, I deal with them as they come and learn from them. My actions have very different consequences than whatever it is you're envisioning, and that might also have to do with you not knowing what my actions really are. Now, go on. I'm getting quite the kick out of this."

"You still don't take me seriously...?" she said softly, aghast.

"I never took your seriously, but once I made the mistake of pinning a couple low expectations on you, only to have to discover how subpar you are."

Her jaw clenched a little and her purple eyes hid almost a spark's worth of frustrations. I was obviously very intimidated. "It's ponies like you that ruin things for others. Instead of making decisions that are optimal for everypony, or at least, many ponies and will bring them happiness, you only care about yourself. It's just a shame that Princess Luna thinks that she can see something in you..."

I laugh.

I really do. It's so, undeniably, nearly unbelievably, and hilariously stupid and the look of something bordering on terror at the sight of me laughing at something that I find genuinely funny. Tartarus, there's a bit of a smirky smile on my muzzle. 

Now, this was making my day.

"Alright, alight, so let's see what we've got here," I began, not bothering to halt the smile - I'd let this one slip. "You are telling me, somepony who your culture that- bwahaha! Okay, let me start again: You are not only telling me something I've heard hundreds of times before, but something I've heard from ponies who died broken, bleeding, and in pieces at my hooves. Ponies who cursed me with their dying breath. Ponies who thought they knew what was happening in the Empire that was usurped from the mare they proclaimed its rightful ruler."

She stared at me slack-jawed and distracted. "You just confessed..."

I flashed my facetious smile. "Not only did you say that to me, you accuse somepony who you know to do things like murder, and if you believe your culture - which I know you do, you doubtless brown-muzzle - I've done much worse, fouler things-"

"So many ponies can't be wrong, and you know it, Sombra! You don't know anything about doubt because you have never doubted anything, especially yourself!" She stands straight despite all the confusion still hanging in those eyes and the fear that won't ever go away.

I could be angry; I feel it in me so strongly right now, I could just act upon it since she's somepony I wouldn't mind dispatching. She has no idea about anything that surrounds me, like how I'm so confident in myself because I've doubted myself most of all. I do have an obsession with being right, and I will question myself the most to be sure of it. She has no idea that the reason I realized that there was something wrong about what was going on in the Empire with Onyx and I is because I defied, questioned, and more than anything else, I had doubted. 

But I let her go on because morbid curiosity is sinking in. Very morbid curiosity. My expression is no longer the same flippant, laughing young stallion, but the dark inquisitiveness and vivid, cold, thoughtful face I've made for many other things.

"Can I go on?" Despite the fiery, tempered edge to my tone, there's a frostiness to how I speak that causes a look of primal fear to flash over Purple Eyesore for a second. She nods mutely, and the reaction fades. She's been conditioned once before, and now once again.

"Everything you've said to me is laughable. Do you think I'm unaware of all the things you like to preach? I am, more than you are ever going to know. This is a joke to me at best, or annoying if I'm in a bad mood. At worst? Don't ask. You and your mentor tell me about what it's like to be a 'good' pony and about all these ridiculous things. I have a friend too, if you haven't realized that. I'm honestly just waiting until you realize that I am not a pony. I never want to be a pony. More often than not, they're monsters or mundane... or the latter to disguise the former. 'Good' is everything that you aren't ever going to really know, and the last word I'd use to describe most things. I've met somepony who is truly good, and she isn't a pony at all - in fact, that's probably a large contributing factor to why she is that way. Even then, the best ponies out there are probably some of the worst, instead of privileged, over-grown filly-types, and absolutely ignorant little brown-muzzles like you."

Plum Pawn's face displayed an attempt at determination that got an eyebrow raise of pure terror from me. The way she stood was almost like an action pose that caped ponies and other creatures that littered many posters in Canterlot had.

"Do you think that just by saying these things you're right?"

"Really, I'm mostly in it for insulting you at this point. Being honest is just a bonus. You should talk to that freckled friend of yours about honesty - no, scratch that, you and Celestia both should-"

"Stop talking about Princess Celestia like that! I'm used to you insulting me, but insulting my friends, family, and my mentor, who has done nothing but devote time and love to me and everypony in Equestria who is good or reformed - and who is responsible for sparing you! - is crossing the line! She's not a tyrant! I know her, and she's not cruel or anything. She's good and fair. She's selfless and  has worked her whole life to help others, which is something that you have never, ever done. You aren't useful and you don't use your abilities to help others. Just what are your ethics?"

"Considerably better than yours, actually, if this is to be taken as an example of yours."

She ignored me, of course, and kept going on while I admired my reflection in a pillar. I ran my tongue over my concealed fangs. All this talk about the nature of 'good' have tragically neglected to mention how good I'm looking right now.

Damn.

"Instead of learning about ponies or any other animals and about how we're better than just slaughterers and how we have wonderful things like families, friends, and lovers in our orderly society, you've done nothing but terrorize everypony! You've broken nearly everything about what it means about being a pony-"

"I'm not a pony. Can't you at least cool your racism while I ignore you? Good grief," I mumble, tipping my hood over my head to conceal my beautiful face from her unworthy eyes.

"-you've broken our laws-"

"Some of those are really just guidelines, and before you get to my lifestyle, I'll have you know it's called 'living off the land'."

"-and you've refused to adjust and heal from whatever makes you so crazy and antisocial when you could be doing so much better!"

Better for you and everypony that matters nothing to me - it's the same as being used. I'll take meaningful selfishness over that every time.

She stood, looking up at me, puffing for breath and wings spread from the stress her filibuster of a lecture has caused her. "Well?" she wheezes. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Go die in a fire."

She blinks, and then blinks again. "What?"

"What I just demonstrated is known as 'hostility'. It means I hate you, and that if you weren't almost related to my dear friend Pink One, I'd happily wish your entire family dead. Mostly you. Have you received that information yet, or do I need to repeat myself? Would you like me to do that in a different language, because I know a few. If you're up to it, just right up a little note and give it to me and I'll introduce Fate to your neck. However, I'm afraid it will only be a brief affair. I promise that I will give the note to whomever you choose. I swear on every snarky thing I've said in my life."

"Y-You're sick."

I blow a bit of my bangs out of my eyes. Maybe I'll need to trim them just a little. "I'm actually feeling pretty good today. A little annoyed, but otherwise alright. Maybe a tad ready to rip out your vocal cords - I actually have unfortunate experience in that. Don't ask."

She gulped, raising a forehoof to her throat. "I-I-I..."

"You're magnificently articulate, by the way. I can really see why Celestia chose somepony like you as her next favorite pawn. Young. Innocent. Impressionable. Awkward. Eager to please. Tartarus knows you must've been a little bundle of joy to her. I bet she read to you often, hmm? History books. History she wrote herself. History she wrote herself and was ever-so-humble enough to submit it here and there under different, modest names or none at all. I bet there were so many monsters in those books. Oh, and of course: heroes. Big, brave heroes! They made you giggle and gasp in awe as you heard her. Did you like how she voiced Starswirl, the shining example you yearned to follow? A magician who did nothing wrong?"

Purple's voice was a whisper. "H-How did you know? Can you read my-?" She hiccuped. "Please-"

"You did, didn't you? He was just so perfect, wasn't he? Just a sorcerer who helped ponies and lived mysteriously. There was nothing strange at all about a famed celebrity being so reclusive. No questions for information, no doubt at all. Not even when you were older. There was just that memory and others of you looking up at a rose-eyed mare who was your teacher."

"P-Please-"

I continue, tone colder. "And Celestia, the goddess-princess you admired could never do any wrong. She was kind. She was caring. You struggled to talk to anypony that wasn't a family member and now here you were, giving little lectures on magic, morals, history and more that the precious, pretty princess managed to coax out out of you with all sorts of smiles. Why did you never doubt them? Why did you read everything she gave you? Why did you 'befriend' those unicorn mares that she dumped on you? Why don't you do this? I just want to hear it from you. If you're so knowledgeable - I know you think you are - why don't you tell me?"

She sniffled and looked down at her shaking legs. "I-I... w-why?"

"Perfection gets you every time. The fact that she was pretty in your eyes wasn't that bad either. Perfect. Pretty. There were other things too, things that were just as fake. Things you never doubted. You loved that mare as something more than a teacher, I know you did. Starswirl was dead. While other fillies were looking at... what are they?" I half-closed my eyes to recall the memories a little bit more, lighting my horn softly to encourage a bit more clarity since these were memories that I had Archived. "Movies. Yes, those. Other fillies stared at movie stars, you dreamed of a long-dead wizard, and eventually the goddess you idolized."

I heard her whimper.

"Of course, she had to tell you that you were a teenager with a simple crush and she was a goddess who too old and not attracted to mares."

"P-Please s-stop it," Purple Eyesore whimpered, shaking legs giving out so she hit the ground with a plop, and was left, sitting up and staring at me with teary eyes.

Adjusting my cloak, I sat nearby so that there were no more than twelve pony-lengths between us. While she sat in the middle of the floor, I had my back to a pillar and my gaze to the blurry landscapes of Paradise far below. It still looked fantastic, even in the present conditions.

"...You..." She cough-sobbed, and sniffled, tilting her head so I couldn't see her crying. Knowing her, she must've thought that her bangs would properly conceal her. "You stopped..."

I didn't look in her direction. "I did."

She didn't ask why.

"You're never going to doubt her are you?"

"Never," Purple Eyesore croaks. "She's everything I said she is and more. Why would I ever listen to you saying nothing but f-false things about h-her?"

"Because I have nothing to gain from prying Celestia's favorite pawn from her hooves."

"I'm a pony, not a pawn!"

"You're being used," I say flatly. I would know the signs better than anypony.

"The princess really cares for me! She's not selfish, scheming, and murderous like you."

"She cares for using you. I can't see anything that would suggest otherwise, and it would do you good to be cautious around her and doubt her in some way. She isn't perfect, nopony is. That seems to be a lesson that you are either incapable of learning or you're just this dense willingly. With what I know about you, I'd be betting on the former."

I heard her rub at one of her teary eyes with a forehoof. "You always assume the worst about her."

"I know more about her than you do."

She sniffled again. "No, you don't. Even if she wasn't as nice as she is now in the past, you're always accusing others of something. Ponies change!"

I snorted and replied just as quickly as she had finished. "Ponies don't change. Gods don't change. You can grow so much, but if you look back and sift through everything you've ever been, nothing's gone, just buried. You are always going to have to live with yourself and everything you've ever done. 'Change' is a joke made up by ponies who have little understanding of themselves and anything external of them."

"But Princess Luna changed! The Elements of H-Harmony change things."

"Luna's never changed."

I heard her take a shaky breath. "Are you really saying that nothing can change ponies? That's... T-That's..."

"Dark magic changes ponies. You should think on that, and what it means, because I'll tell you right now: it means something, but I don't hoof out answers on a whim."

One purple forehoof tapped at the ground. "Just what do you think you're saying, Sombra? I don't believe you one bit. All you want to do is ruin me, and hurt my friends and family."

I laughed shortly and humorlessly. "Such accusations, and here you are, still saying my name like it's still some kind of venomous curse or great crime."

"Being a demon is technically a crime," she says with the obnoxious tone of nagging attendant checking something off a list, "and you should be grateful that Princess Celestia has let you go on despite you still being... well, you."

"Gosh, I just feel so repulsed by you dredging up my deepest and darkest secrets like this. What heinous actions am I to be accused of next..." I paused dramatically before whispering, "...tax evasion? Or is that too much?"

I heard her gasp a little, but still busied myself with the landscape spread out below. "A-Are you always this... bitter?"

She said 'bitter' like it was some kind of forbidden ritual.

"I drink coffee, live alone, am usually surrounded by idiots, have to deal with you on the unfortunate occasion, jaywalk constantly, have part time employment, and like philosophy. Of course I'm bitter."

There were a few more sniffles. Her voice still sounded like she had been crying, but that effect was fading. "You're not funny. Ponies like you... you're the ponies that aren't even likely to offer something as simple as a 'good morning' to somepony else and... Ponies like you are the ones who... You're awful! I don't hate ponies, but ponies like you... and villains like Tirek, who will destroy anything for power and ruin the homes of others. You're so, so cruel. You aren't needed like everypony else."

"Nopony should have to be 'needed'. It's a disgusting thought." I slump against the pillar a little more, but not so much that I'm incapable of whipping Fate out of its sheath or making myself ready for a battle in an instant.

"You're brutal."

"You're unhealthily obsessed with something that doesn't exist, aren't able to take 'no' for an answer, and part of you still thinks that Luna would genuinely want you and could love somepony like you."

Purple Eyesore was quiet for a long time. I counted ten minutes before I heard one last sobbing noise, one that I remained indifferent to. Then, quiet resumed for a while longer.

"That's what you wanted to tell me?"

"Yes. If Luna wanted to be your friend, at the very least, or have any kind of unprofessional contact with you, don't you think she'd give you a sign? I'd expect a Princess of Friendship to know this. Luna's honest-"

"She's kind of rude... but that can change-"

"Be quiet," I hissed, still refusing to direct anything other than my tone at her, and she was as soon as she heard the venom in it. "Luna is a very honest and remarkable mare, and yet she still can't bother to call you out for some of the things you've done... things that you still persist in doing, and I know still bother her from the way she's spoken about them. I know how you've thought of her, I know that you would never be interested in Luna so much as you are caught up in thoughts of a fantasy princess that you've pushed to the back of your mind."

"Oh gods," she whimpered into her forehooves. "Oh gods, Sombra. Are you always this brutal?"

"You really think this is 'brutal' for me? And here I thought that after our last, unfortunately prolonged encounter, you would know that I am, and have been, capable of far worse things. There's nothing brutal about this."

There's the sound of a loud swallow again. "...Can I g-go now?"

My eyes still don't bother to look over to her. I light my horn with crimson aura as an answer and she fades into the outer world. Her watery-looking purple form, looks up, clearly startled, smooths her mane, then stands up. Without any words - I wouldn't have heard them here anyway - she leaves, drifting closer to the crowd.

I turn to watch as she trots over to a familiar splash of pink, but my eyes land on somepony else: a tall white mare.

I still have somepony else to talk to before I take my leave, and unlike Purple Eyesore, who was no rival - or anything like one - at all, this mare has been nothing but a problem to me.



...



Celestia greets me with a simple, cold, and indirect look of acknowledgement. I had pulled the veil-like magic I had crafted away just as she had strayed so far from the gods gathered here - far enough for nopony to notice and those that might have noticed us together and me stepping from the shadows to not care. It was apathy I could appreciate.

I heard a small way that her breath caught, and was stifled and snuffled in a way she thought nopony would notice. I rolled my eyes at what I could never stop seeing past. I knew that seeing the way the world ran around her and was solid beneath her hooves, no matter how much it looked otherwise - and the fact that it was me who controlled this. I knew it unsettled her.

"Why did you want to talk with me?" Her tone was chilly, but not absurdly so. Level and unremarkable, but not emotionless or monotone. No anger seethed there, and I was tempted to change that and poke around until I got a hostile reaction and pull away shreds of whatever she plastered herself with to let something toxic out. I want to watch something spill out and stain her. She isn't frighteningly calm, she's a painted facade with something different underneath and I want to know what.

"You know that you have plenty you want to say to me and that you still wish I was a mortal whose life you could end easily."

Her expression remained almost flawlessly undisturbed, only a bit of annoyance smoldered in her eyes and caused her expression to sour. Her emotions were as safeguarded as her magic.

Her true emotions, if any of my suspicions about her burying something uglier than everything I've seen - and most of her magic with it - are entirely, and undeniably correct. I don't know if Luna ever saw them, but I think I usually received an inkling of them.

Standing in the blurry penumbra of Celestia's shadow, I stared at her steadily as I tugged my hood up. "Are you going to deny it?"

"Of course I will." She pursed her lip with that same slight annoyance. "Your accusations against me are absurd and the product of somepony not sound of mind. All they do is reflect how filled with spite you are."

She gave me another chilly look and I returned a flat stare. "Is this about my sister?" Her tone was noticeably softer than before.

"Partially."

Her eyes narrowed. "Sombra, if you do anything to hurt her in any way or break her heart-"

"Like you did?" I arch an eyebrow and let a split-second cruel, taunting smirk show before returning to something between annoyance and a rather grim brand of stoic.

I catch her bite the inside of her cheek, and like clockwork, she recovers too quickly. "You weren't around, then. Do not talk about matters which you have no right to speak in, demon."

I growl at her but don't drop the disguise on my fangs or bare my teeth. Whenever she's says it, it's a knife, and infuriating how she's looking at me like that-

"You are far too vocal, and especially about matters you need no say in. You speak for nopony, and nopony will speak for you - and especially not with you continuing your unrepentant and entirely ungrateful behavior. I have saved you from a world of strife that your display with my little sister has cost you, and now you've convinced her that leaving the Pantheon is a good idea? It's irrational and I pray that she will reconsider and go where there's a place for her-"

"Even when she thinks I don't want her, she'll always have a place with me, and it won't be a freezing prison among the stars," I hiss through clenched teeth, glaring at her and sparing her no maliciousness.

And she does not falter. Her eyes narrow again, and with a motion like a lever being pulled, she dips her head as close as she dares in my direction.

"I know you have a temper, and are horribly impatient with ponies. If you even dare to use it against-"

She's not...

I look straight into those eyes and start to feel sick at her implications.

She is.

"I would never do anything to hurt her-"

Right now, it looks like she's trying and failing to look straight through me. Her stare lacks any intensity. "I have no reason to believe that, and neither does anypony else. You have lied to everypony you've encountered and only my dear sister, who is so fragile and still new to the modern world, has bothered to listen to every absurd thing that you say and has grown attached to you. I know not if she is able to see past your dark looks, something that has likely captured her confused heart, but I know what lies below. This is your last chance for any redemption at all, and it is not a chance you ever deserved."

I concealed no rage from her; my eyes burned with the intensity of it as my stare bored into her. I gritted my teeth, clenched my jaw, and stood tall as I growled at her. A couple locks of my mane were already shifting to shadow and my blood roared in my ears while my muscles tensed, waiting for a fight that part of me would love to have.

Celestia continued calmly, her voice kept low, even though nopony could hear us. "If you ever lay a hoof on her-"

"I WOULD NEVER-"

This mare was able to ignore me staring much more than daggers - Tartarus, I was beyond even staring wars at her - as I screamed almost directly into her face.

"-or take advantage of her in any way and manipulate her - a mare who has allowed a wrathful being who is less than beasts to know something of love I doubt you could even return in part - in any way that I can see with that repulsive sense of pride that you have, I will do worse than banish you into an ice-bound void, immortal god or not, with all the power that I have."

I was shaking visibly, and the face I saw reflected in Celestia's eyes - my own - was tinged red with fury. There was an almost magical and harsh warmth radiating from her as her mane lashed impatiently. Her words had torn at some wounds, but not ones I'd ever let her see. My restraint was thinning more than I was letting on. Plans to hurt her were swarming around in the back of my head like the Sky Scraper in Luna's hurricane.

"You really think that it would even cross my mind to hurt her?!" I bristled with anger and pawed at the ground, and the sound of metal striking the Pantheon's floor rang out.

"I do. Sombra, I do not think you are capable of the slightest kindness. You know only cynicism, cruelty, selfishness, and these brutal insults that you dish upon undeserving ponies and pass off as honesty."

"You're a lying and attention seeking wretch who can't let her sister make her own choices, and know nothing of me and what I know."

"I am not this vain and petty mare you make me out to be - and don't you know how hypocritical 'attention seeking' is coming from you? You are unhealthily self-obsessed."

"Compared to you, I want to live a quiet life." I refused to look away from her, and she ducked her gaze, and I observed that she was making far less of an effort to hide that she was displeased with me.

"I'm sure that quiet life of yours will involve silencing others." She looks at me with a sudden somberness. "Just what horrible thoughts race through your tainted mind as you end the life of somepony? Do you feel anything in your wretched heart about what you've done and care anything for the pain that you have inflicted upon the other? Does it bring you pleasure?"

"IT DOES NOT!" I scream in her face, wanting so badly to strike her, but instead have to focus on pushing away thoughts of the Crystal Empire, what happened there, and Onyx, who is now gone, gone, gone...

She won't flinch. I want her to flinch and cower at my hooves, but today isn't the day for that. 

"And yet, who is ever going to believe you, Sombra? You lack any friends or ponies who will vouch for you - good ponies with sound minds and pure hearts-"

"Are you saying that your sister lacks one of those, even in your nonsense mentality of absolutes?" When I'm this angry and my temper starts to show itself more and more, ponies are afraid of me. They fear eyes that have a glare that cuts through them and a voice that causes everything they have to say to crumble with its harsh, unstoppable tone.

Celestia is not fearless and she's not reacting to me at all. Even the way she presents the smallest things has a lie somewhere in there.

"Your silence speaks for itself, doesn't it?" There isn't anything but a hostile edge in my tone and a burning irritation in how I glare at her.

"My sister is a complicated matter and you have no right to know what struggles she goes through."

"Oh, shut up. If it were up to you, I'd have no 'rights' at all."

"You don't," she says simply, like I was being informed of something as simple as what the weather will be. "A defiant, violent, and ill creature like you - and who has done the things that you have - is one that is best killed quickly. There is no doubt that it was you who brought so much suffering to the Crystal Empire, to my student, and her family."

"You keep wanting to find a way to control me, and yet there is none. Not unless you were to hurt your sister. Again. I'm not sure if I'd put it past you too."

Mild shock showed on her face. "Just what do you think I am? I would not hurt Luna, if you're to project any of your own traits onto me in an attempt to hurl these wild accusations, please try to make them more believable ones."

I paw at the ground with a forehoof again and spare no defiance in keeping my glare unwavering. "That 'student' of yours isn't anything to be too proud of. You don't need magic to control somepony's mind, Celestia. Such an impressionable child that you found. With a mark like that, if you kept her 'pure' and implanted the right ideologies in her you'd be able to groom a Spark of Magic easily. Shelter her a bit. Feed her lies. Give her all the right books and call them gifts. Tell her exactly what she 'needs' to know and none of what she doesn't."

"You're mad, Sombra. I honestly think you should be locked away, and the key, tossed or destroyed."

"There's nothing honest about you, but your little pawn isn't going to believe that. She's going to believe exactly what you tell her and nothing you don't. She wants to please you above all else. My, my, Celestia, you certainly killed her with kindness! I don't think there's much of the child even left in there any longer. You've created the perfect, productive, fit, meaningless, happy member of society, and it's completely sickening."

"Don't you dare talk about my student like that!" While it wasn't a real surprise, getting her to raise her voice at me wasn't the most probable of reactions I could get from her. "You think that her loyalty - any loyalty at all - is the product of brainwashing."

"I might, but hers is clearly incredibly misplaced. How often did she get to visit her family? I hear ponies like those."

Anger actually showed on her face, but in moderation, and the look in her eyes darkened. "You think that the generosity that I gave her by gifting her with the things she loves and expecting nothing in return was a hoax!"

"You gave her exactly what she craved to keep her devoted to you, and exactly which resources she needed to understand and be filled with whatever perspective you wanted. What you did was nothing short of programming her."

"She's a pony, not a machine! I would expect you to know nothing of that, and the things that it takes to be a ruler! None but you and the worst of this world would look at my relationship with my dear student and try and falsely dash all that kindness into the ground."

"Kindness that was measured, timed, and all according to plan. She got to live in your castle grounds with you. Brutal honesty means more than any kind lie could ever, and your gilded cage may have had the door unlocked, but that never stops it from being a cage, nor does it mean that she'll ever open that door. She was dependent on you and you were likely dependent on her. That was your 'kindness' and it's about as fake as the smile you always manage. Dependency isn't kindness, and at the root of things, that's all your relationship was, wasn't it? You needed her, so you trained her, praised her, smiled upon her, and used her."

"I. Did. Not. Use. Her," Celestia says in a low, scolding tone, that most ponies would find chilling as she carefully stresses each word while her mane flicks threateningly. "The bond I have with Twilight Sparkle is a happy one and we have shared many laughs together. I don't know how you were ever informed about anything regarding our relationship, but you know nothing about a multitude of things on the subject, and have the audacity to assume you have a right to speak on the matter."

"I have the audacity alright," I say with a manipulative, cruel smirk flashing under my hood. "And I have the same audacity to ask you this: Did you laugh because you meant it or because you were supposed to?"

"That is enough. What are you going to accuse me of next, Sombra? Do you find this fun? Just baselessly slandering ponies?"

"It's hardly baseless. I was just going to add that you never had the honesty to make anything you did toward Purple Eyesore mean anything."

"That isn't her name!"

"Honestly, Celestia," I said, smirking insolently, "that might as well be her name. Twilight Sparkle doesn't seem to be somepony who is anything but the outline of an idea that you snatched up and rewrote as soon as you got your hooves on her."

There was genuine anger in Celestia's eyes, but it was still so smothered under something else. The harsh warmth coming from her had an audible sizzle to it now, but the magic in the air also felt stiffer from magic being suppressed in such a small area.

"Just what do you think it takes to be an esteemed, loved pony like Twilight Sparkle? What do you think that you'll need if you wanted to be something so respectable?"

I chuckled, but not warmly. "A lobotomy and some wings should cut it, and maybe some purple dye if I want to ruin myself, but if I'm to imitate her, I'm going to have to smash any dignity that I have, which I refuse to do."

"I don't appreciate your crude attempts at humor. Now, is that you you had to say? Before you had caught my attention with your strange magic, I had others who deserved my attention far more than you will ever."

"Your attention is more of a curse than anything, and whether you appreciate my humor or not isn't going to stop me from doing what I please."

"How selfish of you." Celestia's expression was twisted with disgust. "Has it ever crossed your mind to help somepony else even once? Does nothing but selfish pride reside in you?"

I shrugged facetiously. "There's always more to me if you'd bother to look, and if I'd ever let you see."

"'Let'," she repeats, shooting me a stern look. "Will you ever ceased being so entitled and stop your foolish displays of power?"

"My power is mine and mine alone. There's little you could ever do to rein it in or limit it, and what you might've done through imposing laws is just something else for me to bend, break, disregard, and ignore altogether. Do you want to try and make yourself sound vaguely intelligent again? I might humor you with something more than the presence of my esteemed self this time around." I sighed and flipped my hood off with a disinterested toss of my mane. "Or, I might not."

Celestia's muzzle wrinkles and the anger ebbs out of her expression and softens to an even more disgusted look. "One day, you will fail, and fall because of yourself and everything that you have refused."

"I'm sure I will," I say, rolling my eyes. "Perhaps that's what you're latest dreams have been about? Omens and signs regarding me? I can't say if I'm flattered or creeped out by you dreaming about me. Mostly the latter. Spare me the sordid details, if you're to spare me anything at all. Have you talked to somepony recently? Seen a therapist, perhaps? Asked somepony to kiss your ass to restore whatever you have in terms of self-confidence? Personally, I'd recommend just shoving a cactus-"

"Don't you hear yourself speak?" Celestia gestures at me with a forehoof like a gilded idol would to, well, a demon.

"I do, but the real tragedy of this is that I have to hear you too. Could you do me a favor and cut out your tongue? It's not so hard, I'll stick around to watch and give you some encouragement by cheering with all the enthusiasm I can manage in your presence. When you're done, I might even conjure a bandage for you to patch up the rest."

The way that Celestia was staring at me, dumbfounded. "Did you... Did you really just say that to me?"

I gave her an utterly flat look and spoke with an even grumpier, flatter tone. "No, I was singing you the highest praises."

She just frowned. "I have the most unfortunate feeling that I shall be hearing more about you in the near future."

"You might even be unfortunate enough to see me too," I say with a smirk, "but we both know that Luna is going to be seeing a lot of me in the future."

Celestia gives me a humorless look. "I don't know what it was that you did that was able to win over my sister and convince her to open up to you in any way to the point where she would not mind kissing you when around others-"

"I also slept with her in Germaneigh."

My expression stayed mostly disinterested, if a bit smug, but what could you expect from me?

Celestia's did not. Her jaw fell. She sucked in breaths and her pupils narrowed to pinpricks that showed only shock. I looked her straight in the eye and saw her coat pale. She was absolutely mortified.

"L-Luna..."

The heat around us - the magic that had been shimmering in the air - intensified so that the suddenly sweltering surge of sensation started to cause my spell to dissolve slightly. 

"..and you..."

I grinned with all the smugness fitting to associate with my name and much, much more. "It was an experience," I said, as I backed away from the goddess, her composure cracking spectacularly as she stared beyond me, imagination running rampant and what were the implications of the words I had mislead her with.

After all, what better to mislead a liar with then the truth?

I smirked again as I stood at the edge of the floating pavilion of the Pantheon in the still-blurry world. Crimson aura glowed on my horn again as the clarity of our surroundings started to resume.

Two steps backward would be all that it takes for me to fall.

"Celestia," I said carefully. her attention snapping to me as I gave one last rakish toss of my mane and a smile too arrogant to suit another, "there's still one thing that I forgot to add."

Anger flashed in her eyes like dying embers and her chest heaved with the emotion she still tried to keep locked tight.

"What?" she hissed.

"Bite me."

I took those two steps, and as I fell, my cloak billowed around me. The last thing that Celestia saw was the glow of my magic on my horn, lit and ready to take me to Canterlot and two unmistakable crimson eyes that could never belong to a pony knowing all too well that I was victorious... and I couldn't wait to see Luna, and I'm sure that was what showed more than anything; if Celestia saw it at all, she would never acknowledge it.

And about all this? All of everything that has transpired on this journey?

I suppose I'd do it all again.