//------------------------------//
// The Show - Part 7 
// Story: Saving Equestria 
// by Damaged 
//------------------------------//

It was poetry. Sombra's shade swung at the little pony, his attacks all deflected, but he could taste the slow creep of fatigue seeping into her. She was fast as ever, but each wall she made was a little less distinct and was similar to the previous one. 

When he detected the pattern she used, Sombra built a special attack tailored to ripping through the defense. He struck with it, just like he had hundreds of times, but now his attack shattered the wall and sped toward the shadow-clone Sombra's magic had made of the mare.

"Puppet. Marionette. Come to me. Be mine." At the last second before his power sank into the clone, however, Sombra watched in surprise when it hit the mare herself. "Interesting. But my magic works as well on you as it does on it."

"She's not an it! She's Fire Dancer!"

The strings were attached, Sombra didn't care what the mare thought. He pulled, yanked hard, and jerked the shocked mare toward him. "If you beg, I will let you survive within me. Honor me with your will and you will survive this."

"No! I—"

Sombra cut short her cries by turning the strings to fire. "That's your final answer?"

Trembling, the mare went very still. The fire still wound around her limbs, and it was clearly eating its way to her core, but she seemed beyond pain. "I will never join y—"

"Gooood." Sombra drew the word out, and poured more heat into the bindings. "I would have been disappointed in you if you had. This is going to hurt you, a lot, and if you find yourself enjoying it, just relax and let it happen."

The representation of the mare was the literal core of her being, and Sombra slowly inched into it. Behind her, the clone he'd made stared in shock as Sombra slowly won.

A blue flash of light, followed by a rainbow, shot through the dreamscape. It swung around in an arc and tore through the space between Sombra and his target. Magic lines of power sizzled and fell asunder. "What is this?!" Sombra's bellow chased after the gray-pelted mare as something pulled her away from him.

"Silly. This is the bit where you lose!" Pinkie Pie, having pulled her friend back to where their little group, stood in front of Derpy. "And I don't mean small change, because seriously, who has time for half-bit-pieces?"

With Twilight and her friends taking care of Derpy, Luna stepped forward—and was pleased that Sweet stepped up beside her. "You are but a ghost of a monster. Begone, Sombra. Find your rest." She stomped a hoof, and like a ripple in a pond, a wave of the dreamscape itself radiated out and toward Sombra.

The force slammed into Sombra, but even as his own clones—still besieging Derpy's mind-castle—were destroyed, he merely laughed. "Foolish princess, you think you can expel me from that which I own?"

Luna smiled, her blood practically boiling with the excitement of battle. It had been far too long since she'd unleashed herself fully. "Not on my own."

"Oh! Uh—" Sweet Dreams fumbled for a cool thing to say. He knew he should have one, everyling did after all, but in the end he shrugged. "We're Derpy's friends. We won't let you do this!" He risked a glance at Luna, and saw the princess smiling still.

Derpy still hurt all over from the spell that'd bound her, but being free of it made the pain tolerable. She looked up at the smiling faces around her. "Thanks!"

"We can handle him now." Twilight Sparkle with her five friends at her side, stepped forward, even further so than Princess Luna. "Your time is over, Sombra. We banished you once, now we'll do it again."

The power of the Elements of Harmony burned bright. Twilight's element—worn on her head—poured raw energy down into her body, even as the other five invested her friends with similar power. But it wasn't each pony that held the true power of Harmony.

Friendship was the key to the Elements. As each—Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity—linked their power to Twilight Sparkle, through friendship, the Element of Magic hummed more. Becoming whole in intent, the combined Elements seethed within Twilight Sparkle.

There was evil nearby—disharmony—and the Elements of Harmony directed their current host to aim them.

Twilight Sparkle aimed the Elements of Harmony at Sombra.

White magic boiled around inside Twilight, and it poured out toward where she aimed. Behind that little streamer, the full majesty of Harmony flowed.

The guiding streamer struck Sombra, then the rainbow rushed along the established line and into its target. A blinding flash of white light engulfed the dreamscape, dazzling everypony present.

Sweet Dreams was the first to see the result of the strike. He gasped.

"I told you. You cannot evict me from my property," Sombra said.

Where the Rainbow of Harmony had struck, Sombra was burned and missing, but as seconds passed, his body rebuilt itself. "This is MY PONY! My new vessel. Nothing can stop me from taking full control of it!"

"Uh. Twilight? Shouldn't that have, well, rainbowed him?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I can stop you!" Fire Dancer stepped up beside Twilight and her friends.

Struggling to her hooves, Derpy got to her feet and walked up beside Fire Dancer. "We can stop you. This is my mind and you're not welcome!" She began building new things. The first was a set of bladed claws to strap onto Fire Dancer's hooves. Then a sword for Rainbow Dash, a party cannon for Pinkie Pie, a rapier that resembled a seam ripper for Rarity, Fluttershy got a small swarm of assorted angry animals, Applejack's rear hooves gained a pair of heavy horseshoes, and finally Twilight Sparkle got a robe and a hat.

With all her focus invested in the weapons—weapons Derpy believed would hurt Sombra—she stretched out a wing on Fire Dancer's withers to steady herself. She just leveled her wandering-eyes-smile at Sombra. "You can't win."

Rainbow Dash tossed the sword from one hoof to the other. The blade crackled in the air, little sparks of blue dancing along it. "Yeah. I think we got this now. Come on!"

For a heartbeat, Fluttershy worried about the little animals around her. They were tiny, but they all seemed so alive. "Uh. I-If you could help me and go—" She was cut short by each of the little animals, one by one, turning into much larger versions of themselves. "… stop him, please?"

"Imagination is real in here?" Rarity looked around at all their various weapons. "Well, I'm not going into battle like this." Light shimmered around Rarity, and the most elaborate and flowing armor wrapped around her body. Looking nothing so much as a traditional neighketeer, she jumped onto the back of one of the bigger mice and kicked it into motion.

"Oh no. You're not beating me!" Rainbow Dash spread her wings and shot forward until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Rarity. "You take one side and I'll take the other!"

Bored already of the ponies standing before him, Sombra lashed out at them with a whip of magic. Moments before it struck, Rainbow Dash manifested a shield on her foreleg and slapped it aside. The first edge of worry started in Sombra's shade. He swung the whip around and brought it about, cracking repeatedly, to lash before the first two ponies.

Twilight, following Rainbow's example, vaulted onto another of the animals. With Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack beside her, she formed the lead of a charging V formation. A spell lanced out at them, and when Twilight built her own magic defense, the hat and robe seemed to thrum. The shield didn't just hold the magic, it absorbed it and became stronger. "This doesn't make sense, but I think this makes us able to fight him!"

Applejack nodded and leaned further forward over her rampaging mongoose-mount's neck. "Jus' get me close enough t' give 'im what-for!"

A blast of thunder sounded, and then another. Pinkie Pie reloaded her cannon and fired it into the air. The barrel was almost tilted straight up, but she was sure it would hit exactly where she wanted to. Another shot, and another. "We got this!" She loaded the weapon with another cake.

"Mmm!" Fluttershy nodded her head and pointed a hoof to where Sombra was using his whip to keep Rainbow Dash and Rarity away. "C-Could you please go and help them?"

The deafening patter of giant-tiny feet catapulted a wave of critters to one flank. They swarmed up on Sombra and caused him to change his focus.

"Gotcha!" Rainbow Dash wheeled about in the air and brought her sword down on Sombra's whip just as Rarity brought the blindingly sharp fork of her weapon in from the other direction. 

Rarity jumped down from her steed's back and galloped to confront Sombra head-on. "Darling! Great shot! Now, as for you—en garde!" To back her words, Rarity used her magic to jab at Sombra with the fork-bladed rapier.

With the rest of the six friends joining the fray, Sombra was hard-pressed to keep any one of them from inflicting a wound, and he was pressed beyond that. A cake hit him in the side, only rather than the soft splat of sponge, it felt like a cannonball had hit him. "You'll pay for that!"

Luna galloped with Sweet Dreams at her side. In this place—a dreamscape—her power was second only to that of the dreamer themselves. She built layer upon layer of heavy armor on her body, and when she glanced to her side, so too did Sweet Dreams. "Weapons!" she called.

Derpy's head shot up from where she rested. She saw her princess and her friend galloping along like a pair of locomotives, and imagined huge lances for each. Long, dark poles of steel and wood that both ponies bore forward with great velocity. "I need to lie down, Fire."

"What's wrong?" Fire Dancer guided her twin to the ground and settled beside her. "Is it too much?"

"No. Yes. I need to go over there." Derpy lifted a hoof to point at the fight. "Can you help me?"

Nuzzling her way under Derpy's belly, Fire Dancer pushed and then stood. "Come on, it's not far." Lifting her hooves one at a time, she started to walk, then trot, then she lengthened her stride into a canter.

Rarity's armor was taking a beating. Sombra kept lashing out with spells and weapons—each left its mark on her beautiful protective wear. "You really—huff—really should have let the—huff—rainbow do its—huff—thing." Parrying more and more, Rarity was losing her momentum. 

On the other side, Sombra was using magic to keep Twilight and Rainbow Dash busy. He hurled deadly spells at each, over and over, forcing them to keep on the defensive. Knowing he was not gaining ground, Sombra settled for wearing the ponies down with the duration of the fight.

The sound of thunder met Sombra's ears, and he turned to face the new threat. Too late he saw a pair of dark forms in black armor part the milling crowd around him. "No—" 

At the last moment, Princess Luna lifted her forehooves and kept them up so her whole weight bore down through the lance. Beside her, Sweet Dreams hadn't been quite so knowledgeable on the finer points of getting his point across, though he seemed to do well enough.

King Sombra's scream shook the ground. One of the dark lances was buried in his lower flank, while the other had spitted him completely from one shoulder to the other. With only one leg still obeying his command, his knees bent and limbs folded under him. "No!"

Thanks to the wonders of dreams and movement within them, Derpy and Fire reached Sombra only a few moments later. Climbing off Fire Dancer's back, Derpy struggled to keep her hooves under her. Walking up to Sombra, the giant animals winked out one by one, and even the various weapons the six champions of Ponyville carried vanished. 

With each release of her focus, Derpy found strength returning. She maintained her focus on the lances, though. "Why weren't you a nice pony?"

"What?" Sombra shook his head and laughed. "You simpleton! I needed power!"

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would have helped. Why didn't you ask them?" Walking all the way up to Sombra, Derpy stopped not even half a pony length from him. "Why didn't you ask a friend?"

Drawing in a painful gasp of breath, Sombra shouted, "I have no friends!" 

Turning her head to Princess Luna, Derpy let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She hated having to ask the question, but Luna was the best one to answer it. "Can we help him, princess?"

"Sombra cannot survive without a body, now that he has left the confines of the amulet, and there is far too much to him to live in your head. He would eventually grow and take all of you." Seeing where Derpy wanted to take the conversation didn't take much work. Luna had seen Derpy befriend a nightmare version of herself, and believed that if anypony could pity Sombra, it would be her. "The kindest thing you can do, is—"

"Boop." Derpy said, lifting her hoof and shoving it—with every ounce of her will behind it—against King Sombra's nose. "I'm sorry."





Thrown out of the dreamscape, Luna shook her head at the impending headache that was accruing. In doing so, however, she spotted a tiny form curled up against her belly. Leaning toward Sweet Dreams' ear, she nuzzled him. "We'll speak later."

The town square of Ponyville was full of ponies waking from nightmares, but none more so than Derpy Hooves. She lifted her head from the ground and pulled a funny face. "Um. Can somepony help get this thing off me?"

Chrysalis, having to watch over the nightmare-bound ponies, rushed to Derpy Hooves' side. "What of him?" she asked, using her magic to tear the straps of the bridle around Derpy's head.

Sadness filled Derpy. She looked down and let her Queen remove the nasty thing from around her head. "I couldn't help him. If I let Sombra have my body, it would have meant Fire Dancer would have been hurt!"

Pulling the last of the bridle—the horn—from Derpy's head, Queen Chrysalis was acutely aware of just how much of a pony attitude Derpy had. Holding the horn up in her magic, she pushed as much energy as she could into it. The horn launched into the air where a blue spear of cobalt light struck it. 

Chrysalis turned to Princess Luna. "Thank you."

"I live to serve Equestria, Your Majesty." The words felt strange at first, but Luna could well recognize how much better it was to be Chrysalis' weapon, rather than Celestia's. A weapon was useless if it was always sheathed. 

"Unless you know of some other threat your sister swept under a rug for a thousand years?" Sarcasm wasn't Chrysalis' favorite weapon, but right now she was getting sick of surprises.