//------------------------------//
// The King of Darkness 
// Story: The Reason to Smile 
// by Onomonopia 
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Sombra sat atop the throne that he had conjured up out of the very streets of Canterlot, sitting in the very heart of the city. He shifted his weight in his seat, a smile on his face but eyes alert for any of Twilight's tricks. He expected her to come at him in a frontal assault, preaching about friendship, magic and all that bull. But she had pushed away her friends. She had killed a villain. Clearly Twilight was acting differently. He had to be cautious.

"You are going to lose." Sombra spared a moment of his valuable time to glance down at Celestia, who glared up at the dark king with fire in her eyes. "Twilight and her friends will defeat you. They've done it before and they'll do it again. The only question is how long will it take them this time?"

Sombra turned his head away from Celestia and went back to his planning. Would she send All Might in directly and attack him from behind? Go for rescuing the princesses and civilians first before confronting him? Nuke him from orbit and be done with it? No, she still had her love for the fools that followed her. Twilight wouldn't risk their lives. She would try to rescue all of them first.

"What is the matter, dark king? nothing to say?" Luna prodded. Sombra glanced in her direction. "Normally you are so boastful of your wit and skill, never shutting up about how today is the day that you finally win. How you finally are going to triumph. Is all that talk to make up for the fact that all you could say when Twilight first beat you is crystals?"

She wasn't going for the Elements. White Noise would alert him if she was and Twilight would never take down a child without at least talking to her first. So he knew that option was off the table. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were still in the hospital, so no Rainbow Power. Those were his two biggest concerns. But then there was All Might. The mighty hero. He might not have a magical bone in his body, but he could still prove troublesome. His speed and strength were incredible and, even though Sombra mocked him, you don't become the number one of something without some serious skill and luck. Sombra would know.

"This is rich, sister. The day I never thought would happen has finally arrived," Celestia laughed. "Sombra has nothing to say. No boasting, no scheming, no insults. He's just counting the seconds until Twilight and All Might arrive to toss him off of that cheap throne. Maybe I will make my afternoon spa day after all. It seems that he is not going to put up much of a fight."

"Do you know why you always lose, Celestia?" Sombra asked her. Both Luna and Celestia looked at him with some surprise, shocked to hear him talking to them in such a calm tone.

"No. But go on, enlighten me. You are the expert on losing after all."

"Because you got lazy," Sombra continued. "You hold some of the strongest magic in this land. You have thousands of years of experience to draw upon. And you have created the strongest nation in the world. For eons you defended this world alone, defeating each and every threat that came your way. And yet, for the past twenty years, you have lost to every opponent you have gone up against. Discord. Chrysalis. Tirek. Some clouds. The Storm King. And of course, me. All because you got lazy."

"Lazy?! I still defended this land! I taught Twilight everything-"

"Exactly. Twilight. You passed on everything to Twilight. Your knowledge of magic. All the skills you have learned...and your drive to protect this land. Once Twilight and her friends found the Elements, you went from...and this is hard for me to admit...the strongest magical being in Equestria to a loser. Because you didn't need to be the best anymore."

Sombra glanced down at Celestia, all of the arrogance and defiance gone from her face, replaced with confusion.

"Whenever a situation arrived that threatened Equestria's safety in the past, you would conquer it, because if you didn't, they would all die. So you dug down deeper than you thought you could and prevailed. As you had for eons." Then Sombra looked down at Celestia and shook his head. "But then Twilight and her friends became the defender of this world. And suddenly you weren't thinking that if you failed that was it. You began to think if you failed Twilight would prevail. It was okay for you to lose because she and her friend would win. And slowly, you started to lose your edge. You lost your drive to be the best."

"That...that's not..."

"Save me your excuses. You know I'm right," Sombra said. "You passed your job off to Twilight while you were still in charge. While you were still seen as the number one in the world. So everytime you lost, the ponies faith in you and your enemies fear of you took a hit. And after all the losses you've suffered, you've gone from being viewed as an unbeatable goddess of the sun to an old mare who should have hung up her crown a long time ago."

"My sister gave everything to protect this world! The ponies know it, our enemies know it and you for damn sure know it," Luna spat at Sombra.

"Have the two of you ever asked yourselves how I keep managing to come back?" Sombra asked. Their silence answered for them. "Because I am the King of Darkness. It is both a title...and a fact. So long as there is enough darkness in Equestria, eventually I will find a way to return. Back when Celestia was at her peak and her power strongest, she cast a light that drove nearly all shadows from the land. But with each loss...the shadows grew. As did I. And eventually, I came back."

"And Twilight defeated you."

"And then I came back."

"And they beat you once more."

"And then I came back. Catching onto the pattern?" Sombra asked. "When you ruled, I was gone for over a thousand years. When you pass the task of protecting Equestria onto Twilight, I come back three times within about ten years. And it get's shorter and shorter each time. Do I need to explain further?"

"Are you trying to tell me I made a mistake in choosing Twilight?" Celestia asked. "Ha. Now I know you spout nonsense. Twilight is the most gifted, brilliant, kindhearted mare that I-"

"She has suffered from the same problem you do now at the very beginning of her career," Sombra said. "She doesn't need to be the best. She doesn't have to push herself beyond the impossible to save the day. Because she has her friends. And it's okay if she falls, because her friends will succeed where she failed. And they think the same way. They can fall because their friends will win. But eventually they will look around and realize that they have no friends left. No pony to carry on for them when they fall. And when they fall, they will fall in vain."

"Twilight has drive. More drive than any other pony I've met," Luna snarled.

"Yes. But she does not have...a competitive nature," Sombra said. "The desire to push your past all others. To drive them down so you can stand above them. To truly be a number one, the very best there is. She lacks that instinct."

"She doesn't-"

"If I were to ask her if she was the greatest protector of Equestria, do you know what she would say? No. That she and her friends are the greatest protectors. They are so strong because they work together. And due to the nature of their magic, there is some weight to that argument. But how about now? Now that the Elements are gone? Now that her friends are scattered? Is it still all for one and one for all? Or will she finally realize that it all comes down to her? The very fate of Equestria riding on her shoulders."

"She will triumph. I have no doubt-"

"All Might gets it," Sombra continued. "All Might understands that we can't all be at the top of the mountain. That everything, no matter how important or trivial, has to have a number one. Number one song writer. Number one boxing champion. Number one hero and villain. All of it has somepony who's the best. Who stands above all others. And who can be depended upon when all others fail. All Might, for all his talks about heroes and working together, understands that he's the strongest. He's the best. And he's the one they call upon when all else fails. He get's it."

"And so do I. I am the greatest villain Equestria has ever seen. Because I am the most ruthless. Because I do not let even death hold me back. Because I have dragged myself up from the muck to the top of the mountain. And I know that no other can stand with me," Sombra said. There was no arrogance in his voice. None of his usual boasting. He believed he was stating fact. "You used to understand that, Celestia. You used to understand that it all fell to you, so you would drive yourself beyond your breaking point to prevail. But you have lost that edge. Twilight never had it. And once i dispose of her and All Might, there will be no pony left to oppose me."

"The other Elements-"

"Look to Twilight. Believe in her. See her as their number one hero. So when she falls...it will break them beyond all repair," Sombra said. "I have learned a lot from meeting with the villains of Earth. See, no matter how much I talked or schemed with them, one thing always came up. It all came back to All Might. That if they could defeat him, they could conquer their world. They didn't care that there were professional heroes on every street corner or that the governments of their would would band together to kill them. All that stood in there way was All Might. The number one. The symbol."

"And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they might be onto something. The ponies have had their reality ripped apart by Discord, had their magic stolen by Tirek, invaded by Chrysalis. But they held strong. Because Twilight, and formerly you, always found a way to prevail. They never watched her or you lose when everything truly mattered. They never truly saw their number one fail them...until today."

"There it is. I was wondering how long we were going to go until you began your speech," Luna laughed. "The whole "this is the day that I finally beat Twilight and send the world into darkness" shtick. Now I know for certain that you are going to lose. And I've got the best seats in the house."

"Just sit on the sidelines and watch, Luna. It's what you're best at," Sombra said. He rose from his throne and began to stretch, with Celestia and Luna noticing there was something different about him. His body shifted in ways it shouldn't have been able to, his muscles expanded and contracted. But worst of all were his eyes...eyes that burned with a fire that they hadn't seen since...All Might.

"And Twilight appears in three, two, one..."

A vortex of magic tore open the sky and two heroes dropped down out of it. Twilight floated to the ground with all the elegance and poise that a princess would. All Might slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the city. Both of them looked up to Sombra, Twilight's eyes like slits and All Might with the eternal smile on his face.  

"Sombra, it ends here," Twilight said to the dark king.

"Really? Because I think we can still get a few more seasons out of this whole thing we've got going," Sombra laughed.

"Twilight speaks the truth. So brace yourself villain, because this is the last day of your evildoing," All Might promised.

"Is it now? Well then, if this is going to be my last day of being the villain, then I should go out in the most villainous way possible, don't you think?" Sombra asked. "Be the final boss that you've been waiting for. Well, you know me...i'd hate to disappoint..."

Sombra's muscles began to spasm and expand, causing the dark king to grow until he was the size of his house. Crystal and Negastone armor began to form around his skin...until the heroes realized that was his skin. All of the glass, crystals and shiny objects in the kingdom swirled around him, forming shining wings that hovered behind him. And time itself began to bend around him, causing objects to fade away into dust or return to their original form. His own dark magic caused the sky around the city to go black as thunderclouds swirled around it, whipping up biting wind and thundering skies. Twilight and All Might looked up at the dark king in horror as he smiled down at the both of them, his laugh shaking the city to its core.

"So what do you think? Is this final boss enough for you?!"