//------------------------------//
// Chapter 32: The Price of an Empire 
// Story: A Somber Tale: FIENDship is Magic 
// by Maltrazz 
//------------------------------//

As the sun rose over the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor found himself already busy at work. Cadance had left in a rush after receiving a letter from Luna the night before, and he had heard nothing from either of them since. That left Shining Armor, as Prince, to run things until his wife returned.

However, there was a reason they had divided the tasks necessary to keep the Crystal Empire running. Usually, Shining Armor just managed the Crystal Guard and defence of the city. Even at such an early hour, the prospect of dealing with the day-to-day management, as well, seemed daunting.

Just as he was settling in to start the day's paperwork, a burst of green fire appeared before him, dispersing to leave a rolled-up letter in its wake. "Did Twily send something?" He muttered to himself, as he unrolled it and began to read.

'Shining Armor,
You must prepare the Crystal Empire for an attack as quickly as you can! King Sombra has returned. He is more powerful than ever and is heading your way as I write. He cannot be allowed to reach his study beneath the throne room, or even the Crystal Heart may not be enough to stop him.
Worst of all, we can't trust Twilight to help us this time. Black Knight was nothing but a cover while he recovered from his defeat, and Twilight knew this the whole time. With how much time he spent with her, it's possible he may have affected her mind.
I want to believe that Twilight is guilty of nothing more than a lapse in judgement, but after everything that has happened tonight, we cannot afford to hesitate.
The other princesses have already left and I will depart Ponyville as soon as I get Spike to send this. I will explain more when I arrive, but King Sombra and Twilight have a head start and can travel faster. I can't say how much time you will have once this arrives.
Please, try to stay safe,
Cadance'

Shining Armor was stunned when he was finished reading, having to go through it a second time before he could believe the words before him. Once that passed, he sprang into action. "Crystal Guards! To me!"





As the morning sun glistened off the ice of the Frozen North, a shadow approached the city that seemed immune to the ice's chill. It hesitated for a moment at the edge of the snow, before pushing across the magical border. Magical energy burned away the shadow, forcing Sombra to resume his equine form. Yet, once he had, the magic seemed unable to harm him further.

"It is so much weaker..." Sombra said as he pushed onward. "Has it really been that long since the last Crystal Faire? Or did the draconequus give me a body resistant to the Crystal Heart's power? I must not forget that he has his own scheme in the works. No matter, those accursed alicorns come first." He forced a smile, although it was strained. "The Heart still makes this place rather uncomfortable, even if it is not actually painful."

Sombra paused looking back the way he came for a moment. "You followed me..." He mumbled. "Are you that determined to stop me, or have you changed your mind? I suppose only time will tell." Turning toward his goal once more, he added, "Either way, my course is set. I shall have what I deserve, one way or another."

Seeing a group of ponies in crystal armor charging toward him, led by a familiar white stallion, Sombra's grin returned. "Looks like the first hurdle has appeared. Perhaps I'll spare him for your sake. The rest, however..."

Sombra let out a roar as he charged toward his first foes.





The sun was approaching its zenith when Twilight reached the border of the Crystal Empire. Sombra had left before her and had far more experience with the Shadowform, so she had no choice but to push herself as fast as she could to try and catch up, or at least, to try and keep herself from falling further behind.

Thus, she crossed into the area effected by the Crystal Heart without thinking, and she immediately cried out in pain. It felt like the light itself was burning away her shadowy form, like every part of her had been lit on fire simultaneously. Panicking, she threw herself backwards, the sensation fading as soon as she crossed back over the border.

Shifting back to her equine form, she took a hesitant step forward once more, and let out a sigh of relief when she was able to cross the Empire's border painlessly. Hurrying forward once more, she immediately saw signs that her quarry had arrived first. Half a dozen Crystallized guards stood trapped in various poses near the border, with more leaving a haphazard trail towards the castle and city proper. Before she could push on, movement nearby caught her attention amongst the eerie stillness of the crystalline forms around her.

"Shiny!" She declared in relief, recognizing her brother's white coat and blue mane even from behind. He had a shield spell up, but was surrounded by onyx crystals pressing in against him. However, he had clearly not been Crystallized.

Shining Armor recognized his sisters voice and called over his shoulder, "A little help here, Twily?" As she rushed over and shattered the crystals holding him in place, he turned to face her, only to stop in shock at her appearance. The green glow in her eyes and the shadowy scarf encircling her neck reminded him of both the being that had left him trapped and the warning his wife had sent him. "Twily... What's going on?"

Seeing the suspicion in her brother's gaze, she said, "There's no time to explain, I have to reach him before-"

And that was when they heard the screaming begin.





Sombra didn't even bother to hide the grin on his face as crystal ponies fled before him. As he approached the castle, he saw the remainder of the Crystal Guard surrounding the Crystal Heart. However, they were inconsequential to him. What he truly marveled at was that he could come close enough to see the Heart while it was powered without it harming him. A pulse of power scattered the guards, as he strode purposefully towards the Heart. The guards that could still stand rushed him, but were Crystallized with barely a thought from the dark stallion.

"So easy..." He muttered to himself. "Is this due to the body Discord gave me? The power I absorbed from Luna in that other dimension? The Nightmare Forces? All of those? No matter, my victory is only a matter of time, now..." Stopping before the Heart he raised a hoof and slowly pulled it from where it floated, the discomfort he had felt since entering the Empire fading a moment later. Tucking the now inert crystal beneath his armor, he turned towards the stairs leading into the palace. "Now... now to do what I should have done a millennium ago."

With the princesses still on their way, Shining Armor trapped, the Crystal Guard broken, and the Crystal Heart disabled, King Sombra strode into the the throne room unopposed. It was but the work of a moment to open the staircase leading down to his study. With the power of the Heart gone, he turned into Shadowform, allowing him to reach the bottom of the staircase in mere seconds.

Entering his study, he approached the unassuming door hidden in the shadows. As he did, an excited voice called out from beyond it, "My king! Your power is greater than ever! Has the day finally come? Are we to finally be freed?"

"Indeed. Tell Rabia immediately," King Sombra declared. "The Crystal Heart's power is no longer a threat. As soon as this door is opened, the Umbrum shall claim what they deserve!"

"At once, your highness!" The Umbrum on the other side of the door said gleefully, before retreating to deliver the good news.

Sombra began focusing his power on the door, hesitating only a moment as his gaze rested upon the amethyst bar that had been added to reinforce the seal. With a snarl of rage at the memory of Twilight's decision not to join him, he ripped it away, although doing so required more effort than he expected. Once it was gone, he shattered the rest of the door with laughable ease. Not even a minute after the door was destroyed, the first of the Umbrum drifted hesitantly through, as if having trouble believing that it was truly free after so long. Having never truly seen one of his kin before, Sombra took a moment to examine the true form of his race.

The 'shadow pony' before him had a vaguely equine face and forelegs, but that was where the similarity ended. Its face was elongated and its mouth filled with crooked teeth. Its eyes glowed a solid color, empty of any visible iris or pupil. The lower half of the being trailed away into a wisp of shadow, its whole being looking more like a cloud of smoke than a solid creature. Upon its back were a pair of delicate moth-like wings, eerily out of place on the otherwise horrifying creature.

And it was only the first. Shortly after a second came through. Then a third, fourth, fifth, a dozen. Scores of these being began to pour forth from their prison and up the stairs to the outside world.

Just as he began to lose count, one larger than the rest emerged. Looking down at him, it said in a feminine voice. "Well done. Just as we had nearly given up, you succeeded after all."

Immediately recognizing the voice from the crystal in the Arctic North so long ago, Sombra grinned, "The ponies of Equestria have a saying, 'It is always darkest before the dawn.' I think the reverse is true in our case, but the fact remains that our time has come, Mother. Now go and enjoy your freedom. I think I will stay here and bask in my victory a bit longer."

"As you wish," Rabia replied, before moving to the stairs herself.

Once the last of the Umbrum had left for the surface, silence reigned in Sombra's study for a moment, before he said, "I believe I told you not to let me see you again, and yet you return to my presence so soon. If you are here to stop me, then I am afraid you are too late."

Behind him, purple shadows condensed into the form of Twilight Sparkle. "I can see that. I don't know what I expected the rest of the Umbrum to look like, but it certainly wasn't that," Twilight said. "But, I still have to ask; why? You could have released them a thousand years ago, yet you didn't. Can't you see that the Nightmare Forces are affecting you after all?"

"Come now, I planned to free the Umbrum long before the Nightmare Moon's leftovers even existed," King Sombra replied, still refusing to turn and face her.

"Please, it's still not too late," Twilight pleaded. "If you help me stop them, then I'm sure we can convince the princesses that you've changed. The Sombra I knew left the Umbrum imprisoned for a reason!"

"Then, maybe you didn't know me as well as you think!" Sombra snarled, as he finally turned to face her.

Recoiling slightly, Twilight realized that her pleas were getting nowhere with him, as his pride would never let him back down. 'Wait, his pride... That's it!' Twilight thought to herself, as she came up with a new way to appeal to him. Straightening herself in the face of his wrath, she sneered back, "I guess you're right. The Sombra I knew was never this feeble, either."

"What?" Sombra growled, narrowing his eyes in fury.

"The Sombra I knew didn't need an army," Twilight said. "He disdained even the Alicorn Amulet as a weakness. Why would he need some parasite to augment his powers? He could do anything with the right plan, and he knew it! You're nothing but a pale imitation, a puppet letting himself be manipulated!"

"You dare!?" Sombra roared. "I... I do not..." However, he trailed off as the shadows around him began to roil and thrash, his own power starting to reject the Nightmare Forces he had absorbed. "I... I am King Sombra! I do not need some crutch!" With a final roar, the foreign power was burned away by his own magic.

Twilight watched as the hate and corruption slowly faded from his eyes. She could see his reasoning and logic returning and regret filling in the void left by his momentarily expended pride.

"Why?" Sombra gasped, as he finished expelling the Nightmare Forces. "Why did you come to help me? I betrayed you, abandoned you..."

Twilight nodded sadly. "You did betray me. You betrayed my trust. You betrayed our... friendship. Worst of all, you let me down."

"Then... why?" Sombra asked simply, his head hung low and his tone empty, drained of emotion.

Twilight stepped forward, placing a hoof under his chin and raising his head until his eyes met her own. "Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?"

Sombra's eyes widened for a moment. Then, his shoulders began to shake as Twilight saw the ancient tyrant cry for the first time. She wrapped her forelegs around him, simply letting him sob against her neck until he was finished.

As Sombra regained his composure, he mumbled into Twilight's neck, "I truly do not deserve you..."

"Then, you won't mind if I get rid of her bad influence, will you, my son?"

The pair sprang apart to see Rabia floating in the entrance to the study, just as her eyes began to glow in the telltale sign of an Umbrum using magic.

Sombra opened his mouth to speak, when he was distracted by a gasp from the mare at his side, accompanied by a spray of warm liquid. A single drop landed on his tongue, filling his mouth with a sickly metallic tang. Time slowed to a crawl for Sombra as he turned to see Twilight with a shocked expression on her face. Her gaze fell to stare at a spur of ebony crystal the Umbrum matriarch had just manifested.

A spike of crystal that was impaling Twilight's chest, her blood glistening wetly in the candlelight as it flowed towards the ground.

The light left the young mare's eyes and her body sagged limply, held up only by the crystal spike that was piercing her flesh. As if that were some cosmic cue, time seemed to take hold for Sombra once more.

"TWILIGHT!"