//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: The Shadow of Sombra // by Lupus_Umbra //------------------------------// Spike's POV Library I woke up early in the morning due to the sun assaulting my eyes with a bright rays. I turned around to try and go back to sleep. But of course that had no effect. "Alright, I'll get up." I said to myself, yawning as I swung my legs around my bed and jumped down to cool wooden floors. Looking up to my clock and saw it was a little past seven, though a specific time was never set I knew that the girls would be here soon to discuss the Sombra situation. I shivered, remembering the time when Sombra the Shadow Mage nearly took over the Crystal Empire. It was terrifying to think just how strong one mage could be if given enough power. And that door door we had opened the door that had revealed to me my greatest fear. If Twilight hadn't snapped me out of that trance, I probably would have got down on my knees and begged the fake to let me stay. There was also the man himself who was terrifying. Able to control people with a single gaze of his red eyes, able to control the shadows as if they were alive, able to step into the shadows as though they were his home, the man was a the personification of a nightmare. It's really hard to believe that such a man truly existed. But then there was Sombra, the teenager who had put his own life at risk to save four kids when he didn't really need to. He came to check on us to see if we were hurt, and I may have not known him for long, the concern in his eyes was genuine. And now we are hearing that he gave the Cakes a large amount of money when they were in attacked by the Diamond Dog. I wouldn't expect anyone to give that much money to someone they didn't know, yet Sombra did it. "I just don't know what to think" I groaned, but i put that thought to the back of my mind, for now I had to make sure that Twilight was awake. I walked out to the hall and began to make my way towards the door on the other side of the stairs. I didn't make it half way to her room before I heard snoring coming from down stairs. 'Oh no, please don't tell me she did it again.'I ran down the stair, already preparing for what I was about to see. I looked to the right when I got to the bottom of the stairs and sighed. There Twilight was, dead asleep on the couch wearing her pajamas and surrounded by books in what could be considered organized chaos. I walked towards one of the books and read the title. "Magic Theories Vol. 3: Rare and unusual magics." I read out loud, before picking up a different book. "Arcanology: a deeper look into distant magic." I read again, getting confused as to what Twilight thought she could get out of these books. I put the books aside and walked up to her, deciding to ask her. "Twilight, wake up." I said, gently shaking her. My response was a sleepy grumble that like she was saying 'voodoo'. I shook her harder, but she still wouldn't wake up. Then an idea struck me, an idea that might be considered rude, but worse things were done between us. I got up and looked around for a certain object. When I found said object, a piece of rolled parchment, I grabbed it and got ready to put on an act. "Twilight, wake up!" I shouted trying my best to sound as panicked as I possibly could. That got a response as now Twilight was sitting up, but still had a groggy look. "Look, it's an urgent message from the princess, she needs a response right now!" That got her going, it didnt even take a second for her to shoot off of the couch and trip over all the books that she left on the floor. And though the books seemed to have tried, they didn't stop her from reaching for the "message" and snatching it from my hand. I watch as she search the blank parchment, trying to see if there was a hidden message, even going so far as to turn it over. When she finally concluded that it was blank, she fixed me with a glare. The glare she sent leaned more to the crazy side rather than angry do to the wild bed head that she had. I couldn't help it, I laughed. "Not funny, Spike." She said, rolling up the paper and throwing it at me, I caught it and tried to take the grin off my face. "What were you doing sleeping down here Twi?" I asked to distract myself from laughing. It almost worked immediately, as the mood in the room shifted immediately. Twilight sighed and walked over to the couch, using her magic to lift all the books in the air. The books were cover in a purple glow, along with her hands, moving through the air into all of the proper places along the bookshelves, leaving the room looking as though it was never touching. "I'm reading about all know magic that I have access to in this library." She said, rubbing a knuckle into both her eyes. I waited for her to follow up, but she yawned and looked like she was ready to go back to sleep. "Twilight!" I shouted, she jumped at my shouting, waking back up."why were you reading all these books?" She shook her head, remembering where she was and started again. "I was reading to see if there was any possible way that Sombra survived" "Did you find anything?" "No, King Sombra's magic was unique, so there isn't a lot of information that I can find with the books I have on hand." She explained. "But I thought you said that Sombra used shadow magic, you told me that it was extremely rare but people could still do it." I said, remembering all the lessons that Twilight gave me. Magic was a crazy thing in this world in how people were able to use it. In Equestria, how you use magic determines what race you are, Earthbound, Mage, and Cloudwalker being the most common Those who are Earthbound used there by keeping it in there body with no way to use it externally. Because of this, Earthbound are the physical superior race, and those who train their magic can make themselves much stronger than their appearance lead. Those who are Mages can use the magic in their bodies externally in many different ways. They can use their magic to pick up objects and throw them to name the most basic. But those who train hard enough could do things like teleport. Their magic was the most versatile. Cloudwalkers are a special case, their name being something they are only called in Equestria. They can also use their magic externally, but instead of being able to manipulate objects, they can form extra limbs. What limbs they can for are determined by genetic, as Twilight said, but wings are the common one in Equestria. They can also walk and move the clouds, giving them a indirect ability to control weather. That was why they were in charge of the weather. Of course there was other magic that was outside of Equestria, me being an example. I was Dragon born and we are able to breath magic fire and withstand extreme heat just being an example. "You're not wrong spike, but that's not the only thing that made him strong." She explained, snapping me out of my own monologue. "What made Sombra was how he fused his shadow magic with dark magic. And because of that, I can't find anything that can find anything, since all books on dark magic are under lock and key." Dark magic was another unique and scary case. It was basically a form of magic that corrupts anyones magic, willing or not, and makes it the most destructive it can possibly get. That was all that was know, atleast to most of the population. Twilight had better lessons, being Princess Celestia's best pupil and all, so she knew more and refused to tell me. "Do you think there's a real chance that he could have survived." I asked, worry lacing my voice. "Had you told me this yesterday, I would have told you that there was no possible way he could have survived." She answered, rubbing her temples to soothe her coming headache. "But now I'm hearing that a young man that's literally named after him that came into town." I nodded, thinking that King Sombra could come to Ponyvile where the elements of harmony lived to get revenge on them. But Twilight stood before I could voice my opinions. "We'll discuss this when the others get here, along with the crusaders. I don't want to waste energy jumping to conclusions anymore." She said, and without a second glance, she started walking to her bathroom. "I guess that I should start getting ready to." 30 minutes later It didn't take long for me to get ready, after the shower I just got ready and and started to set the library up for the up coming meeting. After another ten minutes of moving couches and chairs to make a circle, Twilight opened the bathroom door, revealing herself in her usual clothes. "You came just in time, you missed all the hard work." I joked, putting the last chair into place. "I wouldn't be talking Spike, I still have yet to decide how I should punish you for going to the Everfree." I shot back, I winced at that, causing her to grin smugly as she walked down the stairs. "Come on, I already told you that we we going to stay close to the edge of the forest." I said. She only shook her head. "And I told you to not go into the forest unless you had one of us with you." She said, scolding me. "Sticking to the edge isn't enough anymore, the animals have been acting strange lately and it's more dangerous then when we first moved her. Even the hunter are taking less trips then they used to. Just last week, Glinting Arrow was nearly crippled, and he's a seasoned hunter." She didn't need to explain to me that story. Glint is an older man, close to forty, who was our main provider for venison. We do have trade for beef and other meats, but they usually ran out before the next shipment because it was so popular. So we relied on hunters to bring us other meat. But ever since Gling was injured, more and more hunters had quit, as he was usually the one who guided everyone on what to do. Before I could answer back to Twilight, there was a knock at the door. I turned around and walked towards the door. I opened and saw the all eight of our guests at the door. "Morning girls." I said, moving to the side and letting them all in. "Morning Spike." They all said lazily, all of them looking like they didn't sleep a wink. All of them expect the the crusaders and Pinkie Pie, who walked with a pep in her step. "Good morning girl." Twilight said, taking the seat that was closet to the stairs. She receiving a good morning back and they all went to find their seats. When we all found our seats we stayed in silence for a few minutes, no one really wanting talk about this. "So how should we start this." Rainbow asked. Twilight looked up, looking glad that someone started to speak. "Maybe we should start with the man in question." Twilight responded, looking at both the crusaders and I. "You four are all we really have to go on right now.". All eyes in the room shifted to us, and we shifted uncomfortably. "Well, what is there to really say? I think we covered everything that we could yesterday." Scootaloo explained, and the rest of use nodded. "What did he look like?" Rarity asked. "Was he tall? Did he look muscular? What about his age?" "N-No." Applebloom stuttered. "He wasn't old, he looked around he looked a little older that us. Ah' think he was fifteen, maybe sixteen." "Yeah, his skin was tanned and he had black hair too." Sweetie Belle added. "He was wearing really weird clothes too." I said, trying to remember what he was wearing. "He was wearing a lot of black, both his shirt and his pants. And his pants had a lot of pockets, way more then what anyone really needs. He had boots on instead of shoes. He also had glove covering his hands." "Did he also have a cloak on?" Applejack asked, I thought about it for a minute and nodded. "Ah' saw him." Applejack sighed leaning back in her chair. This time everyone turned their head towards her. "When we were running to go fetch the kids, there was someone that was walkin' own the same path. He had to jump out our way seeing as he didnt want to get stomped on. Didn't really give him too much mind, but I definitely saw him. "Why didn't you say anything Applejack?" Rarity asked. "Yeah, if you had I could have gotten a good look at him. I want to see what kind of person he is so I can throw him a big welcome to ponyville party." Pinkie said. Everyone looked at her, baffled that she could think about throwing a party right now. Especially for what we're discussing. "Pinkie, you want to throw Sombra a party?" Fluttershy asked in a soft voice. Pinkie nodded towards her. "Of course I want to throw him a party silly!" She said in her usual cheery tone, as if that explained it all. 'Then again, this is Pinkie Pie that might just explain everything.' "Why would we throw him a party Pinkie, we're in the middle of deciding if were even going to report him to the princesses." "Maybe we shouldn't tell the princesses then." Twilight's eyes opened wide as though she just got smacked in the face, the others looked exactly the same. Fluttershy and Rarity going as far as to cover their mouths with their hands. "How can you even say that Pinkie?" Twilight asked, recovering from her shock. "I'm not saying that we don't report him so he can take over Twilight. I'm saying this because because I don't think he's the Sombra we defeated." "What do you mean Pinkie." Rainbow asked from her seat, leaning forward with a serious expression. "Well I was talking to Mrs. Cake yesterday when we both finally got the twins to calm down and I asked about Sombra." She explained, her hair losing both color and curl. "She told me that after the Dogs attacked and Mr. Cake was rushed to the hospital, she didn't I know what to do, so she just sat and cried with the twins in her arms." The tension started to leave the room as pinkie told Mrs. Cakes story. It was hard to hear what was going Mrs. Cakes mind after both her shop and her husband were attacked. Applejack, who was sitting right next to her, gave her a supporting hand on her shoulder. "She told me there was so much going through her head. What was she going to do with the shop? What was going to happen to her husband? What about the twins? What would she tell me? She was terrified of what would happen." She continued, never losing her smile, but even that was losing some of its joy." But then Sombra came in, helping Big mac with her order of apples." Applejack perked up at her brothers name, but didn't interrupt her, it would be something she would ask him later. "Sombra was the one to find out and instead of doing what anyone would do and not get involved, he did the one thing nobody would expect of anyone, especially the big meanie King Sombra. He help buy giveing her a large bag of gems." She looked up, her curls regaining their color and her wide smile returning. "I think that if this was King Sombra, he would have just leave Mrs. Came without a care and let her shop go out of business." Everyone stayed still I there chairs, shocked at how serious Pinkie was. It seemed that she was adamant about her choice on not telling the princesses and if I'm being honest, she pretty much convinced me. "And besides," Pinkie said, her sudden mood shift giving everyone whiplash. "Have any of you heard a real reason on why these two Sombras are the same person?" We all looked between each other, the answer being clear. No one had heard anything anything that lead to them being the same. "Pinkie's right." Scootaloo said, standing up. "And besides, Sombra told us in the everfree that where he comes from, people don't use magic." "WHAT!" Everyone, but the crusaders and I said. "Where in this world could he have possibly came from that doesn't use magic?" Rarity asked, everyone nodded, being baffled at the idea that such a place existed. "He told us that he came from a place that no one would probably know it was something that started with an A." Scootaloo paused for a minute to think. "He said it was a place called America." I jumped in, helping her with the name. "Yeah that's it! America!" "Well he's right about one thing, I've never heard of this place before." Applejack said, and everyone agreed with her, even Twilight. "See, not only does Sombra not resemble the Big meanie, he's also from a completely different place." Pinkie said, bouncing up and down in her seat. "I don't know." Rainbow dash said. "W-well do we have to make a final decision now?" Fluttershy asked. "It doesn't look like he's causing any trouble right now, and I think Pinkie is right on this. This isn't how the Shadow Mage would act if he was still Alive." "No we don't have to make our decision no I suppose." I heard Twilight, I looked over to her and she looked relaxed now that the meeting looked like it was finally coming close to an end. "I would probably be a bad idea to come to one right now with what we have. Does anyone else have anything to add." "Not much, but maybe he deserves the the benefit of the doubt." Applejack said standing up and stretching her leg out. "Ah' mean, we can sit and try to compare the two all we want, but for right now, none of us have truly got not meet him yet. So let's wait until we actually do." She finished, everyone seemed to agree and followed her lead, standing up and stretching. And as if the universe was listening in on our conversation. The door had opened had begun to open and someone came in. The person who came in was none other than the one we had just been talking about. Sombra. Every just looked and started at him, amazed by the sheer coincidence that had just happened, while he just started at the older girls with a confused look. "Umm...Am I interrupting something?"