Sombra had told the truth, he was not far away. A silent procession followed the crusaders through the rock and crystal corridors until they reached a long straight hallway which ended in a wide wooden door.
On either side of the corridor, waiting in eerie stillness, was an honor guard of sorts. A clawful of dragons, some few heavily armored griffons, and a small herd of ponies. They lined the corridor and loomed over Twilight and her friends on their approach.
Guards notwithstanding, Twilight was cheered. If this was all Sombra could summon to intimidate them, then they might have a chance. She was fairly certain she could have defeated them all alone, and with the help of the others the odds were definitely in their favor, disregarding Sombra himself, of course.
That optimism died a quick death as the wooden door swung open before them. On the other side was the welcoming committee they would have longed to see had they returned to Ponyville in victory.
Granny Smith and Big Macintosh, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Rarity’s parents, and perhaps most painfully, Fluttershy’s parents and older brother had all been brought north by Sombra. Even Grist, Gilda’s old commander was there to greet them. As if the CMC were not enough, this was another stark reminder that to fight Sombra was to fight everypony they cared for.
Though she could not make out his body from the entryway, Twilight heard Sombra speak. His voice was not the powerful baritone Twilight had grown accustomed to hearing through his thralls, rather it was rough, gravelly, and pained. By that imperfection she knew it to be his own voice, coming from his own body.
“Welcome to my prison,” he said.
As they entered the room and the door swung shut behind them, Twilight could see that Sombra’s prison was different from how Luna had described it. The chamber was wider than she’d imagined, and the back set so deeply into the shadows she could scarce make it out. Most pertinently, instead of a statue King Sombra was present in the flesh. He was clad in his dark armor and a heavy red velvet cape with white fur trim ran along his back. He cut quite the imposing figure and would certainly have looked at home lounging on an ornate golden throne. He did not sit upon a throne, though.
Instead he hung like a sacrifice at the center of the cavern. Spears of light Twilight instinctively recognized as the product of the mantle of the sun were driven clean through each of Sombra’s limbs, hoisting him spread eagle into the air while leaving his head slumped. A fifth spear was stabbed deep into his side and blood so black it might well have been Sombra’s shadow magic dripped from the unhealing wound.
Enemy though he was, Sombra’s plight was still terrible to behold and the ponies recoiled at the sight. With a pained groan at the effort, Sombra raised his head and regarded the beings that he had ordered brought to him.
“You may go to your loved ones,” he said. “They are in my thrall, of course, but satisfy yourselves that they are unharmed.” The ponies hesitated for a moment, believing that there must be some kind of catch. When no further words were forthcoming they rushed forward en masse. The room filled with babbling voices asking after their families’ wellbeing.
Shining Armor, though did not rush forward. He had no cause to. Instead he sat at the door with an expression of purest relief on his face. A Twilight’s glance he spoke. “She is not here. My wife, I mean. I never thought I’d be happy not to see her, but I am glad she’s not in this place.”
“Understandable, Shining. I hope she’s well back in Canterlot.”
“She is,” Sombra cut in, a trace of his voice’s former power letting it carry across the distance and the noise. “Your foal was born a few days ago, a healthy baby girl. I had no wish to kill them prematurely with a journey they could not handle. And I think I have enough hostages to make my point.”
Shining Armor’s mouth twisted, as if he wanted to say thank you but couldn’t bear to thank his enemy. Twilight placed a comforting hoof on his shoulder and then made her way through the cavern to stand before Sombra. Holding him in the air as it did, his prison placed him above her.
Looking up at him felt wrong, somehow, so Twilight let her memories of being a pegasus guide her and lifted herself up to eye level. Sombra’s amused expression revealed that he knew exactly why she’d done that, but not allowing him to look down on her was worth it regardless.
“Well well, Twilight Sparkle. You’ve certainly come up in the world,” he remarked
“It’s just Twilight now,” she said shortly. “You brought us here for a reason. What is it?”
“Perhaps I just wanted to see more of those dear ponies I’ve grown so fond of.” He cast his eyes around the room and settled on Pinkie. She’d run to the Cakes, but on reaching them had found herself unable to speak. When she felt his gaze turn toward her she flinched and shrank back from it. “Like Pinkie, for instance. I had such fun with you, my dear, and I look forward to having you once again.”
“No! No no no no no.” Pinkie’s hooves blurred as she backpedaled away from Sombra. She tripped, tumbling onto her rear but still trying to crawl away. Her breathing hissed jerkily through her teeth as they chattered. She scrambled to keep moving, begging, “no, please, no!”
With a sudden yelp, blood started to dribble form her mouth and her body twitched and shook.
“Pinkie!” Twilight cried and sped towards her friend. Shining Armor beat her to Pinkie’s side.
“She’s having a seizure,” he said worriedly, “and she bit through her tongue. If we don’t calm her down, she’ll tear herself to pieces.”
The magic came easily to Twilight because there was nothing she wanted more at that moment than to help Pinkie. It was a gentle spell designed to take her away from all of this. “Sleep,” Twilight murmured as soothing waves of lavender scented and colored magic washed over the seizing pony. For a moment Pinkie resisted out of panic. Then the ebb and flow broke through her haze and carried her consciousness through the door of sleep. With an expression of sweet relief, she drifted away from the pain of facing her tormentor.
Twilight’s heart eased as Pinkie’s face relaxed from its grimace. Shining Armor turned Pinkie to let the accumulated blood drain from her mouth. It left a scarlet trail from the corner of her mouth down to her chin before dripping into a small pool on the cold floor. “So she won’t choke on it,” he explained to Twilight. “I’ll watch over her.”
“Thank you,” she said. Then Twilight spun around and glared at Sombra. With a gust of wind her wings brought her face to face with him once more. “Was that fun for you?” she spat. “Do you enjoy bringing ponies to tears with the memory of what you’ve done to them?”
“No,” Sombra said softly. “But it doesn’t bother me either. I know of those emotions that others feel. Care. Love. Empathy. And I have seen too many memories of their efficacy to ever doubt their strength. But I seem to lack them, and so what else could I ever have done?”
“You could’ve not been a torturer and slaver. How about that?” Twilight’s anger came through clearly as she shouted. “You could’ve chosen not to be a monster.”
“I am a monster,” he agreed easily. “And I am reminded of it every moment of every day. Ten thousand mothers curse my name as they tuck their foals in, and ten thousand fathers rage against me as they perform the work I set to them, and ten thousand foals curse me in their thoughts as they play with the ponies who were once just their friends.”
“I am Equestria, Twilight, and Equestria hates me with a passion they’ve never felt in their ordinary lives. They perform the functions of life, but their thoughts turn ever to me. Can you imagine what that is like, Twilight? To have an entire nation spend it’s every waking moment hating you? Sombra shivered in his chains. “I never held so many the last time, and I confess myself unpleasantly surprised at some of the ways in which the experience scales.”
Twilight hesitated. She spared a moment’s thought for what it would be like if every one of those lives within her memories hated her with a passion. She couldn’t have borne it, she realized. They had nearly subsumed her in their indifference. Outright hatred would have destroyed her.
“You chose this,” she said again to Sombra, but her voice was not nearly as certain as it had been.
“I did,” he acknowledged. “And yet, somewhere deep inside of me, there is a lonely magic-loving colt screaming at what I have become.” His eyes bored into her, and she could have sworn she saw the faintest glimmer of regret buried somewhere deep inside. “Tell me, Twilight, if you could talk to that colt, if you had the chance to coax him out of the dark, what would you say?”
“I’d tell him… I’d say…” Twilight trailed off, looking unsure. Then a fierce joyless grin crossed her face and she leaned in close.
“I’d tell him that’s a load of horse shit,” she spat in Sombra’s face. “I remember your misspent youth. I saw you delve deeper and deeper into the magic of the mind, searching for some way to imprint yourself over another pony. I saw you choose to test your spells on parents who had done nothing but love and encourage you.”
Sombra threw back his head and laughed with honest mirth. The roughness disappeared from his voice, yet another aspect of his deception. “Ah, Twilight, you are wonderful! I truly wish we could have met in some other time. You might have been able to teach me the magic of friendship.”
For just a moment, Twilight tried to imagine how that might have gone. Perhaps she could have rescued this brilliant but utterly immoral unicorn if she’d met him before he’d gone too far down this path. Or, more terrifyingly, perhaps he would have brought her down with him. He alone threatened all of Equestria. The two of them against the world would have barely been a challenge.
Sombra seemed to read the direction of her thoughts for he sobered quickly. “In all seriousness, Twilight. No tricks, no deceptions. Will you join me? You apparently know the spell I use for possession, or at least the initial form of it. Use it on your friends and they will be safe from me. I’ll give you a fair share of the population of Equestria, and I’ll even key you in to my control of Hvergelmir. What do you say?”
Twilight could see the hope in his eyes. Perhaps he had not entirely been lying about the loneliness of his younger days, or perhaps he was simply that skilled at dissembling. She rather suspected the latter. Regardless, she shook her head. “I know better than to use that spell, and there is no circumstance in which I would join you.
“I see.” The almost conversational tone he’d used before was gone and he was every inch the conquering king once more. “In that case, tell me how you know of my youth and every detail of your ascension.
“I won’t,” Twilight was defiant, vindictive in her refusal. “Does it burn you up not to know? Does my ascending when you could not grate on you? I hope so. I hope the pain of never knowing teaches you to understand the smallest sliver of what you’ve inflicted on others.”
“Very well. I hope you come to change your mind. These are things I would dearly like to know.” Sombra said calmly.
“Very well?” Twilight asked, unnerved by his calmness. “That’s it? No threats against my friends and loved ones?”
“Let me lay out the situation. You may not leave.” At Sombra’s nod, Twilight turned around in time to see the door swing shut and hear the distinctive thunk of wooden bolts falling into place. “If you or any of the other ponies here attempt to leave, I will begin killing the ponies in my possession that are dear to you, both those here and those elsewhere. You have knowledge I desire and you may use it to bargain if you wish.”
“You won’t harm those of us that are still free from you?” Twilight asked cautiously.
Sombra shrugged. “I have learned about you, Twilight, through Pinkie and through the memories of others that have known you. You have a particular propensity for coming through at the last instant before some dramatic event occurs. So I will not give you that instant. These ponies will stay here and slowly starve to death, or, if you tell me how to ascend, they can be set free.”
Twilight realized with dawning horror what Sombra was proposing. There was no food or water in the cavern and it would not take long before the effects would set in. Could she remain resolute in the face of her friends’ starvation? If she struck against Sombra he would hurt their loved ones here in the cavern, or, if that failed he had the entire population of Equestria to choose victims from. Twilight alone could not protect everypony.
Fortunately, she had a relatively harmless piece of knowledge she could trade to him. Not enough to win anypony their freedom, but perhaps enough to gain some protection.
“I’ll explain a key piece of information about ascension to you,” Twilight offered. “But in exchange I want you to leave my friends alone. No taunting. No offered deals. As far as you’re concerned it’s just the two of us in this cavern. Especially for Pinkie Pie, you’ve hurt her enough. None of your thralls are even to touch her, no matter what else happens.”
He considered for a moment, clearly checking for hidden meanings, then nodded. “Very well. But if they come to me requesting a deal for their life, then I am permitted to bargain with them.”
“Acceptable,” Twilight said.
“The deal is struck. I would shake your hoof but,” Sombra indicated the spears that still impaled him, “I cannot. Now, what is this information?
“You cannot ascend,” she said. “Given what you have done and what I know of the process required you would have already ascended if you were capable of it. I suspect it is your inability to care for others that renders ascension permanently out of reach.”
Sombra nodded. “I must admit I had expected as much. In that case, there is little value in the information you still have to offer me. Your knowledge of my past is a curiosity, but nothing more. So here is my standing offer. If you surrender yourself to my control, I will let your friends go without enslaving them.”
Twilight cursed herself even as she hesitated. “My life for theirs?” she asked.
“Their lives, or anything else you might wish in exchange, within reason of course,” Sombra said magnanimously.
Still hesitating, Twilight asked the question that had been bothering her for the past few minutes. “Why all this supposed generosity? You have brought us to the seat of your power under heavy guard. Why bother making deals now?
“Because I’ve won,” Sombra said simply. “This is not, as you are imagining, the prelude to some final confrontation. My victory is not imminent, it is complete. Equestria is mine down to the last foal, save for your party here. Your ascension disrupted my control of Hvergelmir, but even now it reasserts itself and I doubt you can ascend again. If you kill this body, all that happens is that I am spared the pain of my prison. To completely wipe me out you would have to complete a genocide of the pony race, and I don’t think you could do that even if I stood still and allowed you to try.”
Sombra did not view her as a threat, Twilight realized. She was just an opportunity for him to indulge his curiosity. On a whim, she sent a pulse of magic toward Sombra strong enough to disintegrate flesh and bone. It dissipated so fast that, even with her new immortal sight from the eye that held the mantle of the sun, she could barely see the dark shadow that swallowed her spell.
Sombra shot her a quizzical look.
“I wanted to verify your strength for myself,” Twilight explained. “How stupid would it be to surrender only to find out that you were barely holding yourself together?”
“Understandable. However, there are always consequences. Look,” he said, and nodded toward the Cakes. “This is the cost of your test.”
Mr. Cake drew himself up, standing rigidly straight. His head painfully jerked to the side exposing his throat. Twilight’s vision was so fine she could see the faint beating of his carotid artery.
“Don’t,” she requested, trying to keep the pleading note from her tone. “I take your point. No more tests.”
Sombra shook his head. “You must learn this lesson.”
Mr. Cake stumbled forward and threw himself neck first onto his wife’s horn.
Or he would have, had his wife been a unicorn. She was, instead, an earth pony, so he simply flopped awkwardly onto her face and then stumbled to the floor.
Everyone stared at where he slumped, and then turned to stare at Sombra in abject confusion. Sombra for his part, shrugged, and then winced as that jostled the places where the light speared into him.
“Would you believe I actually forgot not everypony has a horn? Ah, well. Let’s say that fortune smiled upon you this time.” He fixed Twilight with a dangerous glare. “No more tests, though. I know how dangerous you can be if I let you poke and prod at me. I hope that alone was sufficient to convince you that your position is hopeless, and that you are ready to accept my offer.”
“No more tests. I will–” Twilight hesitated, looking disgusted by the words that left her mouth. “I will think about your offer.”
“By all means, consider at your leisure. Your friends keep the timer, not I.”
The weight upon Twilight’s shoulders carried her down to where her friends had gathered. And when they looked to her for answers she didn’t know what to tell them.
***
Luna had brought the dreams of just over one hundred of her soldiers into the Dreaming. It had been a challenge, though she’d found it easier to bring in those ponies that had given voice to the Lunar Anthem with her. Unsurprisingly, there was a kind of resonance to their dreams that made them easier to find and to hold.
As more ponies had come forth, Nightmare Moon had faded further. She rested on the floor now, lacking even the strength to stand. Her midnight blue coat had turned to the slate grey of a stormy sea. Luna shot her glances now and again, in between reaching out for new ponies. Nightmare Moon, for her part, did not complain at her impending death, though now and again she loosed a complaint at having gained a body just in time to suffer from its loss.
Every time Luna awakened a pony she guided them to the other awoken ponies and set them to the task of orienting the new arrival and teaching him or her how to cut Sombra’s threads as Luna needed them to. Luna had worried that cutting the same thread over and over for practice would alert Sombra to their attack, so she’d lit up several with her magic to give the ponies places to practice. She could only hope that the momentary flickering of a few threads out of hundreds of thousands of connections would go unnoticed, at least for a short while.
Faint snatches of the Lunar Anthem drifted over to her from where the soldiers stood. It seemed that they’d all found the music useful in achieving the necessary degree of focus to will the threads to break.
“You’ll be fine,” Luna said gently to the recently summoned grey mare. “They’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Thank you, princess,” she said in her clipped precise accent before being welcomed into the herd.
Luna turned away to repeat the now familiar process when she was interrupted by the appearance of a pony she had not summoned.
Sitting on the floor shivering, wrapped in a blanket, and clutching tight to a mug of hot chocolate was Pinkie Pie. Luna rushed to her side.
“Are you okay, Pinkie? What are you doing back here? Where are the others?” The words spilled from Luna in a torrent to hide her from the question she both wanted and feared to ask.
Pinkie took a sip of the chocolate. She breathed in and out, fighting the tears that trembled in her eyes. “He’s not here,” she muttered to herself. “He’s not here.”
“Shh,” Luna comforted, draping one wing over the trembling pony. “It’s ok. He’s not here. Take your time.” Luna could feel the Dreaming flowing back into Pinkie and calming her down, returning to her the control she’d had when Luna had last seen her.
As she waited for the process to complete, Luna was forcibly reminded of the last time she’d had to ask a fragile Pinkie Pie for answers and for help. What was it about this poor pony that made her so central to the fight against Sombra, despite, or perhaps because of, her torment at his hooves?
At last, Pinkie gained control over her breathing. She relaxed her death grip on the chocolate and looked up at Luna. “Princess? Oh, I’m dreaming aren’t I?”
“Yes Pinkie, you are one of the few ponies who come to this world in all their dreams, as we discovered last time you were here.” Luna’s eyes saddened and Pinkie flinched back, knowing what was coming. “I’m sorry to ask this of you Pinkie, but once again there are painful answers I must have from you.”
“I can be brave,” Pinkie said. She took a deep breath and repeated it to herself. “Here, at least, I can be brave. What do you need to know?”
Slowly, Luna managed to tease out the situation from the pony next to her. She learned that everypony she’d let out of the Dreaming was gathered in Sombra’s chamber with an ascended Twilight.
When she had a grasp of the situation, Luna hesitated. There was an alicorn who, by the light Pinkie had seen in her eye, clearly possessed the mantle of the sun. And Pinkie had made no mention of a white alicorn. But Luna had to know for sure, no matter how it pained her.
“Pinkie, did you see Celestia? Did you see a white alicorn, larger than a pony, like me, with a pastel-rainbow mane?” Luna looked away, not wanted to see the lack of dawning comprehension on Pinkie’s face.
Sure enough, the answer was the one Luna had been dreading ever since she’d felt the mantle of the sun leave her, and even more since Sunlit Rooms had told her who she once had been. “No,” Pinkie said. “The only alicorn I saw was Twilight. Which is weird because she’s my friend, but she’s like a princess now too and I don’t know what that means.” Pinkie broke off, seeing the tears Luna had tried to hide. It was her turn now to offer comfort and she reached out to place a hoof on Luna’s side.
“Don’t give up until you talk to Twilight,” Pinkie said. “She’s a smartypants and if anypony can help Celestia, it’s her, especially now that she’s an alicorn.”
Luna nodded, gathering herself. “You’re right Pinkie, I’ll worry about that when Sombra is finished. Now, I need you to carry a message, one that may be crucial to beating Sombra.”
Pinkie’s ears went flat against her head and she flinched back. “I can’t. I can’t wake up again. I can be strong here, but when I go back out there I’m all alone against everything he did to me.”
“I need you to, Pinkie,” Luna pushed. “If I can’t send a message to Twilight she won’t be ready when I attack and we might lose because of that. I know I’m asking more of you than you should have had to give, again. I know he’s made you suffer more than anypony else. But you are the only pony that can do this.”
Pinkie met Luna’s gaze with a pitiable expression. “Please don’t make me wake up,” she begged with watery eyes.
“I need you to,” Luna said firmly, though to do so hurt her soul. “It doesn’t have to be for long. You can come back here the second you deliver the message. A couple of minutes, maximum.”
“And this will help beat Sombra?” Pinkie asked.
Luna nodded. “It will. I don’t think we can beat him without it.”
Pinkie was quiet. She looked around the cavern where the troops Luna had woken were talking quietly, or practicing applying their will against Sombra. Luna couldn’t have said what thoughts went through Pinkie’s mind, but when she turned back there was a glimmer of defiance in those once-blue eyes.
“Ok,” Pinkie said. “On one condition.”
“Thank you, Pinkie,” Luna said in relief. “I’m sure the answer is yes, no matter what your condition is.”
“I want to fight.” Pinkie gestured at the troops. “When I get back I want to fight with them. Beating a small part of him wasn’t enough. I want to face him here where I’m strong.”
“Of course,” Luna said warmly and without hesitation. “I only discovered the way to let them fight because of what you did. I would be proud to have you fight at my side.”
Pinkie blinked, as though she’d expected to be refused. Then her ears perked up and a very small smile found its way onto her face. “Good. Now, what’s the message? The sooner I wake up the sooner I can come back to sleep.”
“It’s a message for Twilight. Or if you see another alicorn—no, it’s a message for Twilight. Tell her that I’m going to give her a shot. I’m going to cut Sombra’s connection to all the other ponies. She’ll know it once it starts. It’s temporary and even if she kills that body the rest of them will still have his mind so that won’t be the end of it.” Luna sighed and looked away. “I don’t know if she can somehow take that chance and end him or how that might work, but I trust her. I’m trusting her to find some way to make this opportunity count.” Luna looked back at Pinkie and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, that’s a bit of a long and rambling message. The important thing is that she needs to be ready to attack Sombra when we separate him from the others. Do you have all that?”
Pinkie nodded her head. “I got it. I tell Twilight that I’mgoingtogiveherashotI’mgoingtocutSombra’sconnectiontoalltheotherponiesshe’llknowitonceitstartsIt’stemporaryandevenifshekillsthatbodytherestofthemwillstillhavehismindsothatwon’tbetheendofit. SIGH. Idon’tknowifshecansomehowtakethatchanceandendhimorhowthatmightworkbutItrustherI’mtrustinghertofindsomewaytomakethisopportunitycountsorrythat’sabitofalongandramblingmessagetheimportantthingisthatsheneedstobereadytoattackSombrawhenweseparatehimfromtheothers.” Pinkie finished the message in a single breath and then gave a satisfied nod. “Heh, still got it.”
Luna stared at the little pony who had suffered so much and still could find a way to joke around in the face of the end of the world. Then she burst out laughing. “Oh, Pinkie, thank you. I needed that.”
With that same small smile, Pinkie nodded. “I think maybe I did too. I’ll give Twilight the message. I think she’s the bestest pony to put your trust in.”
“I do too, Pinkie. I do too.”
“Good.” Pinkie looked around in confusion. “Now, how do I get back to Twilight? Do you have to make another one of those weird swirly portals?”
“Not this time, Pinkie. This time you just have to wake up.” With the last two words, Luna reached for what remained of her control over the Dreaming and pushed Pinkie back out of it. Like a soap bubble popping Pinkie disappeared and Luna knew she had arrived back in the land of the waking.
“So that’s what this is about then, eh?” Luna turned to see Sunlit Rooms, Barrel, and the rest of the soldiers watching her closely.
“That’s what this is about,” Luna confirmed. “We can give Twilight a shot from here. Beyond that I’m out of ideas. It will likely be dangerous and I don’t know what type of backlash we may face. If anypony wants to back out there is no shame in that and I can send you back to ordinary dreams. You won’t even be hurting our chances since I can wake up other members of the army and make the same offer to them.”
The soldiers looked at each another and one raised a hoof and spoke up. “I’m sorry, but I’d like to be sent back to sleep. I signed on as a guard to fight and protect, not to struggle in this strange dreamworld.”
“That’s fine,” Luna said. “Come forward.” The blue pegasus who had raised his hoof came forward and stood before her. It was easy enough to retract what she had granted, possibly more so because he had been a recent awakening.
As the control over the Dreaming flowed back to Luna, the pegasus disappeared just like Pinkie Pie had. Though unlike her, Luna could feel his dream reform on the fringes of the Dreaming.
When they saw that the first pony had come to no harm, a few others spoke up and were quickly sent back to their own dreams to await good or bad news. With the power she’d had returned to her Luna awoke a few more soldiers and made them the same offer. It took a few more iterations, but in the end she had an army of 106 soldiers, and Sunlit Rooms, ready to apply their collective will to the Dreaming.
This left Luna with just enough power over the Dreaming that Nightmare still lived and Luna herself could still bend her surroundings to her will about as much as she had been able to before. It would be enough. It would have to be enough.
Speaking of Pinkie Pie, with a pop, the pony reappeared in the Dreaming’s version of the cavern. Thanks to the Dreaming’s disconnect with the time of the real world, she’d appeared at precisely the right moment.
“Pinkie, how did it go?” Luna asked.
Pinkie shivered and didn’t answer for a moment. She seemed to gather herself in, and Luna saw a ghostly set of armor, made out of balloons, briefly cover Pinkie’s white fur. It faded away as Pinkie felt herself sufficiently fortified by the Dreaming. Only then did she look up and notice Luna looking at her.
“I gave Twilight your message,” Pinkie said.
“And did she respond?” Luna asked eagerly.
“She said that she’d attack at the first sign you were successful. But she also said she wasn’t sure what she could do.”
Luna’s face fell. “She doesn’t know how to beat him? Does she think we should hold off?”
Pinkie shook her head. “She said it was a good idea, and that she’d come up with something. But Sombra’s threatening to starve our friends so we can’t afford to wait.”
“Alright. This is it then. Once you’re recovered we’ll begin.”
Pinkie spared a last look around the room. She opened her mouth for a moment. Not the painfully wide yawn of Sombra’s possession, just a little gap. She gave a little huff, and then another.
“I thought maybe I could laugh again here,” she said sadly. “For good luck, or defiance, or something. But I can’t. And it’s his fault. So I’m ready for the end, one way or another.”
Luna’s heart broke for her. She was such a small soft figure, and in that cavern surrounded by darkness she looked all the smaller. But her white coat and golden mane shed their own light against the dark. And she was standing. It seemed important to Luna that Pinkie Pie was still standing. It gave her the strength she needed to begin.
“Soldiers, attend me!” Luna called, and her voice easily cut through the quiet chatter. Within seconds all of the troops stood at attention before her and the room was dead silent. Luna had given no thought to unit cohesion when she’d gathered her troops, preferring instead to follow her instincts in selecting her ponies. Surveying their ranks now, Luna was pleased with what she saw. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the ease and confidence of consummate professionals. More, they were comfortable in the Dreaming, willing to accept that they had been called to fight in a world beyond their ken, so long as the princess was doing the calling.
Luna began to walk the line up and down, looking each soldier in the eye as she passed. “The coming battle will be fought not with strength of arms, but with the strength of your will. But make no mistake. This is a battle as fierce as any you have ever waged. Injury is a possibility. Death is a possibility. The total rending of your mind and soul is a possibility. Will you cower?”
“No!” came the thunderous response, and Luna saw pride and certainty in their eyes. They were soldiers, and they had signed on knowing they would face pain and death.
“In a normal battle the loss of any one pony, while tragic, does not change the outcome of the battle. Here we must maintain a perfect block for as long as possible. Every one of you that falls will leave the full weight of your burden on ponies already struggling under their own burden of equal weight. A single loss could produce a cascading failure and doom us all. Will you falter?”
“No!” The air had a darkened in the cavern, not Sombra’s darkness, but the familiar deep velvet blue of Luna’s night.
“We can achieve no final victory. All our effort, all of our struggles go to providing another pony with a single shot. Our task is simply to create the opening and hold it for as long as equinely possible. We may well make no mistakes and still lose the day. We may die, all of us even me, for a chance that never existed. Will you despair?”
“No!” The cavern should have been pitch black, but as the final defiant call rang out a light began to shine on the brow of every proud standing solider.
The light of Luna’s stars had found its home in the ponies that believed in her.
Save for two. No light shone from the brow of Sunlit Rooms or Pinkie Pie. No, those white-furred ponies blazed with their own light, comets to the stars around them. They bore the standard of the Dreaming in their own flesh, and all who looked to them took heart.
“Take your positions,” Luna commanded. Moving with military precision the 106 soldiers formed a ring around the stain Sombra’s imprisoned form left on the Dreaming. Luna herself followed suit, taking position at the head of the circle, face-to-face with where Sombra hung in the real world.
Pinkie took the position one quarter of the circle to her left, and Sunlit Rooms the same on her right. Across the circle stood Quartermaster Barrel with Polaris, the North Star itself, upon his brow. Together these four bright lights formed the foundation upon which their defiance would be built. Luna’s gaze swept counterclockwise across the circle, meeting each proud face in turn, but lingering longest on those beloved friends whose light would lead the way.
“Now we begin.”
At Luna’s words a great hum sprang up. The Anthem of the New Lunar Republic resonated in that cavern, growing louder and stronger than even 109 throats should have been able to make it. Luna could swear that as she sang she heard the music of the instruments that she had had at her beck and call so long ago in that park.
As the old Equestrian chanting began, so too did the battle.
As one, in time with the music they were still singing, the stars bent their will against the dark. They were strong, stronger than Luna had dared hope. Spreading her power so widely among ponies so closely in sync had magnified it. Each star took on far more darkness than they should have had to bear, cutting through ten threads, a hundred threads each in an instant.
Luna herself was awestruck at her own power. Riding the wave of their strength, buoyed up by their song, she struck such a blow against the dark that she could feel Sombra reeling away in another realm.
Sombra, though, was not so easily undone. Each star cut a hundred threads, yes, but here in the heart of Sombra’s power there were a nations-worth of threads to cut. Threads so tightly wound that the seams could not be seen and even a hundred thousand cut threads were barely visible compared to his all-consuming shadow.
A princess and 108 ponies against a nation. How could they have prevailed?
Sombra rallied and struck back. Only his ignorance of the Dreaming as the vector of their attack prevented his counterstrike from being catastrophic. Luna saw more than one pony sink to their knees before the sheer weight of his radiating malice. Suffocating darkness billowed out and snapped at the defenders. They shrank back before it.
Say this for them, they did not cower. They did not falter. They did not despair. Though it grew fainter, the Anthem of the New Lunar Republic did not waiver, nor did the circle of stars break. But Luna knew it could not last. This was not a fight they could win. Given the level of strength Luna could now see on each side, this was not a battle that they ever could have won.
“Luna,” croaked Nightmare Moon. The other pony had faded so that she was barely more than a wisp. She lay on her side just outside the circle, her head barely raised so she could see the ongoing fight. Luna didn’t know what the Nightmare wanted, but she had not the time or energy for consideration of it.
What could she do? Was there some power Luna had left untapped she could now throw against Sombra? Luna flared her magic and her will and for a moment the dark was pushed back. The soldiers rallied to her and the crushing pressure of Sombra’s will lessened. In exchange, though, the full weight of Sombra’s regard rested on her, and it was more than she could handle.
Luna sank to her knees as her light dimmed. She had bought scant seconds for her soldiers to regain their hooves, but at what cost? What else did she have left? She’d gifted her power over the Dreaming to her soldiers, and their numbers proved a force magnifier, but not enough of one. She’d flared her magic and it had barely done anything. All that was left was her physical strength, and even that was fading fast in the face of the crushing pressure of Sombra’s control.
“Luna” coughed Nightmare again. Except it wasn’t exactly Luna’s name. It was another word. Lunar. Nightmare Moon was saying lunar. And all at once Luna understood.
She’d thought that giving up her control over the Dreaming was a sufficient gift, but that had been arrogance. The path she had chosen was to lead by giving all, and there was so much more to give. There was her remaining strength in the Dreaming, embodied in her own preternatural control and the continued existence of Nightmare. Important as that was, though, it wasn’t what Nightmare meant.
Luna still possessed the mantle of the moon. She’d thought it separate from her control of the Dreaming. One of the two pieces of immortal magic that made up Princess Luna. She should have known better. At the very least she should have known by the time she’d seen the stars shining on the brows of her soldiers. If giving them the Dreaming lent them stars, then to truly give all Luna had to relinquish the moon as well.
Could she do that? The moon had been a part of Luna for as long as she could remember. It had been taken from her by her sister in her banishment, but that was a far cry from voluntarily releasing it knowing she would never hold it again.
Barrel cried out in pain as Sombra’s dark taint pushed back his will so far that it began to eat into his flesh, jerking Luna from her reverie. She scanned the circle, noting that though pain had clouded every face, none had yielded. Not yet.
How could Luna not answer their awe-inspiring will in kind?
Over the heads of the circle, Luna met Nightmare Moon’s eyes. They could not speak, but in that brief contact Luna tried to convey her gratitude for the hint, her sorrow that this was the end Nightmare should reach, and her unmitigated hatred of the past that Nightmare’s form reminded her of. Nightmare, for her part, acknowledged Luna’s complicated expression with a small smirk. Moments later, that smirk and the rest of Nightmare Moon’s body faded from the Dreaming, never to return.
Luna could not spare a thought for the vanished pony now that her purpose was served. Instead, she took charge of the anthem once again. She was not repeating it now. That was not what was needed. Luna changed it. Altered it to be a receptacle for the power she needed to express. A new tone, and new words, but the same themes running throughout to keep the connection to her stars.
The soldiers noticed the changes, and they felt their futile struggle against Sombra grow easier. Glances snapped toward Luna and away, conveying only their trust that she knew what she was doing.
And she did. She finally, truly did. As the anthem reached a crescendo, Luna reached deep into her own heart. She wrapped her will tight around the mantle of the moon. And then, in perhaps the hardest action she’d ever taken, Luna let go of her immortal mantle.
At once, the mantle flowed from her in ethereal wisps of light. They drifted, dancing as so many ponies over the millennia had danced in the moonlight. As the stars breathed, they took in those wisps and became something other. They were changed by the moonlight, made creatures of night and silver flame.
Coats darkened and eyes shone brilliantly like the lights upon their brows. Pegasi’s feathers fell from their wings and in their place ribbed leathery skin like that of a bat spread. Unicorn horns elongated and became jagged and sharp. Earth ponies became sturdier still, and claws graced the ends of their hooves. And despite all the changes, not a one of them stopped singing.
Two ponies alone did not change with the others. Pinkie, who had already paid her dues and changed form, smiled brilliantly as she felt the others become kin. She laughed at last, and her true joy rippled through the Anthem and infused it with a trace of the most whimsical of the Elements of Harmony. With her laugh a trace of color returned to her. Pale glowing pink and green tinted her mane, and her eyes sharpened from washed out to piercing purple.
And then there was Sunlit Rooms, who had been an alicorn, and lost it; and been a friend and stayed true. Her feathers faded like the other pegasi, yes, but nothing took their place save for the light itself. Her wings of pure light flared out and spread to cover all in the warm glow of lazy Sunday afternoons, putting them all in mind of fresh summer pine and dappled forest traceries.
By their light did Luna know them, and she knew their true names. And she named them Aurora and Daydream.
While her ponies grew and changed, Luna, for her part, buckled under the weight of Sombra’s darkness. It had been hard enough to bear when she’d had all of her power. Now, as an alicorn bereft of her mantle, she could scarcely hold her place in the circle.
Fortunately, she did not have to hold alone for long.
When the transformation reached Barrel on the opposite side of the circle, Luna felt the drain on her power cease. At once, a vast image of the moon’s face expanded under the hooves of the circle. It brought the refulgence of moonlight to the dark cavern, burning back the shadows.
Luna could feel the power of the mantle humming through her stars. The way it was expressed in each pony resonated with all the other ponies, strengthening it far beyond anything Luna could have commanded alone. Together, all the ponies who had knelt struggled back to their hooves and they all took one step forward and then another. The circle tightened and the shadow was pushed back.
Sombra’s darkness rose like a wave and moonlight rose to answer it. It was close. Even after all Luna had given, after all the striving of the stars, Sombra still commanded a nation that did not want to be sundered. But in the end, they were not attacking Sombra, the gestalt of a nation’s enslaved minds. They were attacking Sombra, the individual. And no one individual could stand against the moon and stars.
With a sudden flash, the weave of Sombra’s darkness was cut through entirely, and the frayed ends left waving in the cavern air. Shimmering walls of moonlight rose around him cutting off the threads that already sought to reknit themselves.
It was done.
Sombra was cut off from his network of slaves. He was left alone and, hopefully, vulnerable. The anthem quieted, though it did not completely die out. Soldiers checked their stance and settled themselves to hold for as long as they possibly could. They had no way of knowing how long their endurance would last, or how long they would need to hold on for.
“We’ve done all we can,” Luna whispered to herself in the spaces between the notes of the anthem. “Now, Twilight, it’s up to you to find a way to end this. Faithful student and inheritor of my beloved sister’s will, I place my trust in you.”