//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 – A Final Solution // Story: The One True King // by JDPrime22 //------------------------------// Chapter 22 “Fear the Unclean Thing of the Mountain! For her feet shudders the world and her cry blankets even the clouds! The beast will not find satisfaction. The Living Earthquake will share her kin until all the earth is hers.” — Unknown, Hollow Earth tablet Foal Mountain, Equestria Outpost Peak Discord had to admit, King Sombra had definitely seen better days. Though he should have expected it. For he himself was an eye witness to Sombra’s last defeat, the pure power of the magic of friendship itself vaporizing him into oblivion. Not into the aether. But into death, for what all had believed to have been the last time. What should have been the last time. He had nowhere else to go. The aether would never again accept his dark influence. It would reject him into utter destruction that he of all ponies most definitely deserved. And yet there he sat, breathing again, living again. Existing. But the more Discord stared upon him, the more he understood that the fallen king… had never truly risen again in the first place. On initial observance, Sombra sat mighty and proud, holding a wicked grin to conceal his broken posture. But after several seconds of labored breathing—exhaling the sulfurous breath into the cackling, electric atmosphere of the mountain cavern—Sombra hunched forward and surrendered to the shattered and weakened flesh of his present corpse. He was as a near-skeleton, hardly whole but still managing to hold that wicked smile, as if he had physically morphed his rotting skin to forever hold his grin no matter what pain or exhaustion claimed him. Dried and wet blood molded together around his charred skin, empty and dying veins weakly covering his exposed skeletal structure. Rotted and broken flesh acted as a chrysalis to contain his dark spirit, from what Discord could actually sense. His chaotic senses were practically bursting from the high quantity of dark magic flowing inside and out of Sombra’s shattered person. It filled the air of the cavern, the light of the electricity, the crystals of pure, unfathomable darkness. Most of all, it flowed from him. Not from his withered, rotted heart. Not from his dead, decayed brain. From his shadow. From his soul. From his spirit. That was the part of him that had survived fully. That was what consumed the corpse of his former self. A parasitic ghost infesting the body of his former self. Discord did well to keep down his dinner. The cavern played its tricks and shot off more bolts of multicolored lightning from the dark throne. It spewed its red mist as a fog upon the rocky floor of the mountain. The throne continued to beat like a living heart against the mountain itself, all while the fallen king steadily inhaled and exhaled his quiet, weakened breaths. And spoke with a wicked smile, “My message was received after all… after all… After all these years, my vengeance upon the princesses had gone… in other ways than I anticipated. You, especially, Discord…” Discord cast his eyes about the room, spinning his head fully around until he finally settled back on the throne. He pointed to himself, mouthing the phrase “Me?” Sombra showed more of his fangs from how wide his smile grew. He certainly did miss Discord’s idiotic—yet subtly controlled—naivety. Almost as if he was always playing a game with any tormented soul to come across the Lord of Chaos’ path. Discord believed he was still in control. He believed he still had all the power in the universe at his fingertips to do with as he pleased. That was why Sombra smiled. The naivety. The drunkenness of power. How a single spirit never even knew how to properly utilize it. Not until now. “Though I must thank you. I never would have achieved such power, such grandiose height had you not intervened and pulled me back from the aether.” “‘Grandiose height’?” Discord scoffed, arms crossed as he grew a large and amused grin. The shock of the situation slowly dissipated into the realm of ridiculous, and one where Discord knew he had all the power. He exemplified it. “From where I am, you look like you belong in a box floating down the river. What power do you believe you have, exactly? What power could you have possibly retained after Twilight and her friends vaporized you into a million, itty-bitty, Sombra pieces?” A shriek of lightning burst forth and struck the ceiling, slithering high above until it finally died and darkness devoured their realm. To Discord’s surprise—and what nearly took away his confident smirk—Sombra laughed. He laughed so quietly that they sounded like chuckles, only escalating when he lifted his head back and struck the throne. It was elongated, Sombra wheezing more than cackling. He let his head fall, his eyes darkened for a moment, but never surrendering the smile. Never letting the dark magic cease radiating from his person like a sulfurous fog. He was out of breath for nearly five seconds before he finally inhaled again, and did so that filled his decaying chest cavity and expanded his dried, cracked ribs. He opened his eyes, and the green brightened to a horrifying hue. The purple mist flowed and dissipated from his gaze. His red pupils narrowed and he showed his fangs. Sighing with that twisted, unnatural grin, Sombra replied, “I am no stranger to death, or defeat. I have cheated it before… banishment and hibernation… the aether… and now the very power I attained so very long ago bends to my will and my will alone. I… brought myself here. I… birthed my crystal here. I live… only because of meee...” Sombra tilted his head slowly upon that drawn-out final phrase, his pupils falling to his right foreleg and the clear bone visible beneath the rotted flesh. “Though defeat for a third time did not release me entirely whole… as expected. The magic of friendship was a power I underestimated… but never again. I now know what I face. What I have now attained will assure my victory over the powers of this old world. But…” Discord’s arms fell. His smile finally left him, and he stood in the presence of the living shadow shrouded by his crimson fog, by his violet and emerald lightning. He remained silent as Sombra searched for the right words, the words he had practiced time and time again for this exact moment when he knew somepony would discover him. Would find him. Would finally confront what remained of him. He remembered and said, “It seems I have made one last mistake. A fatal flaw from the past… finally returned. Both a blessing… and a curse. There are those who would lay claim upon my rightful throne. There are those who would dare rise up to overthrow the powers and declare themselves… as king. There are… usurpers among me…” Sombra let his head fall slack in front of him, the tilted gaze weakly focused on Discord, yet held the widest, most alive and demented eyes the draconequus had ever seen. There was no life upon the face, yet in the eyes there was something more that was alive. Something darker. “You know what I speak of…” Discord gulped. He gulped because he knew. There was no questioning what Sombra was referring to, or who he was referring to. “Ghidorah,” he managed to reply. Sombra growled softly in the back of his torn throat. “My first defeat led me to him, and in my desperate hour I was consumed with all the fatal flaws of a fallen king. Wrath. Hatred. The lust for revenge without so much as a clear, rational thought. I acted as my rage dictated… and believed it to be the great serpent who would overthrow the princesses… not I… for even I in my weakened state could not overthrow him. “His magic is not of this world…” The former tyrant of the Crystal Empire chuckled weakly, shaking his head with a quiet growl as he stared off into space. “Alien… fusing with my crystals to make them impenetrable to any feeble unicorn or Alicorn who would dare to even forge a crack upon them. A magic that was darker, alien, beyond our world and something even I could not control. In the past… that was the serpent’s blessing. My message would not be destroyed and he would awaken at the appropriate time… when they would come to discover him.” Sombra leaned back into his throne after a pang of effort. The shadows washed over him until only his eyes were seen shimmering in the black, followed shortly by the bursts of light from his green and purple electric currents, showcasing every horrific detail of his grin. “His rise would give way to my vengeance.” “That was your plan all along?” Discord asked, taking a slow and cautious step forward. “In the Frozen North… at Outpost Frostbite. If you couldn’t have the world, then nopony could?” The revelation of Discord’s current status was still fresh, what with speaking to the literal corpse of King Sombra, who had miraculously survived his last defeat at Canterlot. Though considering Sombra could barely sit let alone breathe, Discord knew the fight was over before it even started. He could end the tyrant once and for all with just a snap of his fingers, but he waited. There was that mild curiosity that plagued the draconequus, leaving him with more questions than he could stomach. When the time was right, he would finish this. He would end Sombra’s tyranny for good and return to his friends in victory. Until then, he needed to know how he did it. He needed to know how Sombra became what he was and what his plan would have been. “Initially,” Sombra admitted. “But time changes everything. The Crystal Empire returned… I was freed from the aether… by you, no less.” He chuckled, cackling softly and salivating blood between his fangs. Discord snorted, narrowing his eyes and clenching his hands. His patience was beginning to wear. Sombra’s smile remained as he continued. “I have already failed three times too many. I will not fail again. I have already won this war soon to come. With the serpent’s release, I have ensured all the world will suffer… will burn… and out of the ashes I will finally build my empire.” “Ha! Maybe in your pipe dreams!” Discord gloated. Sombra did not even twitch. Not a movement. No reaction. He continued on as if nothing had happened, staring right through Discord. “Nothing of the old world will survive. They will surrender their freedoms… their lives… and their kingdoms to me. All will kneel or die. The world will finally be reborn… with me as its rising sun.” His hooves clenched the arm rests of his throne, his smile daring to fall into a wretched snarl. “And now… the serpent brings with him a curse…” the king growled with the intensity of a feral, primal beast, “… the audacity to rise against the true ruler of this world.” “Such confidence,” Discord, reaffirming his former veil as Grogar by using the same words to defy Sombra once again. He continued to play with the corpse a moment longer, holding a valiant smirk and flicking his tail at the throne. “You have to wonder how far that kind of thinking got you last time? You stand against a mighty world with an even mightier army. What makes you think now will be any different, less-of-a-brainiac?” Sombra hunched forward, a tiny smile gripping his lifeless lips. “Oh, you torment me with these memories, Grogar. My pride has fallen and I have risen to a higher peak. I have seen it all…” He reared back, lifting his head to the ceiling while Discord watched on in silence, still holding his own shred of confidence. To his continued amusement—albeit with a slight pinch of concern—Discord saw as Sombra’s pupils slid into the back of his skull, leaving just the pulsating greens with purple mists. He uttered, “I have sensed them… resting as I once have. Waiting for their moment… to rise. Waiting for someone to bring them out of the darkness, out of the earth, and upon the world that was theirs before. Their radiating presence brought me to them, and I found the Titans after you set me free. These creatures were no different from me… “They wanted their freedom… their home… to live on the land they once ruled, breathe the air they once breathed… and I could give it to them. The crystals I have birthed in these various outposts survived the magic of friendship purely because I imbued myself within them… all to enact my final vengeance. “The Frozen North would never be enough… not while my heart still beat and my spirit still thrived in this mortal plane. Unleashing the serpent will not give me the retribution I so rightly deserve. I am connected to every crystal I have planted throughout the world. I have my eyes and ears and voice spread from every corner of every nation. I have been watching you all for as long as you believed I was dead. Every shadow, every whisper in the wind, every nightmare… mmmeee… My final solution to the plague of resilient parasites upon my world… has now finally come to fruition.” King Sombra’s pupils returned, the red burning like fiery charcoals as they centered on the Spirit of Chaos. He smiled again. “And I never could have done it without yooouuu…” There was no witty remark that time. No sarcastic quip. No confident rebuttal that the embodiment of chaos and disharmony would have been more than happy to supply. But there was no appropriate call to respond, no accurate reason to assume Discord could have retorted with anything clever. What he was told, what he had pictured, it had only left Discord in a state he had been in a handful of prior times. Back when he lost his magic to Lord Tirek. When his chaos was stolen by the combined evils of Chrysalis, Cozy, and Tirek. Back when he was helpless, without power, utterly naked and unable to fight back properly. Here and now, he had the power to fight back. He had the power to end this, but there was another power consuming him, another power that rendered him speechless and frozen. Fear. Sombra, the master of fear, had consumed Discord in the shadows of his dark spirit, his dark magic. And left him broken in his silence. “But I wanted to wait for them…” Sombra continued with Discord trapped in time, “… for all of them to witness my message in the Frozen North. Twilight and her frieeennnds especially. They would have but a taste of my wrath, a mere breath of my revenge with the serpent’s awakening. Sadly… they survived… and now they will experience the full cup of my wrath. Now they will breathe the full breath of my vengeance.” He leaned forward, eyes so wide and full of death that Discord felt their sickness clench his heart. Sombra spoke in a lost whisper, muttering the legend made reality, every syllable laced with an epoch of horrifying truths to the past… and the future. “The serpent… has been unleashed upon the world of mortals. That much is done, that much we cannot change. But what we can… is already set in motion when your clones discovered my other crystal hives. With a mere thought I can detonate them… unleash another monstrosity upon the world…” His eyes flared upon his muttering, and Discord tensed at that. And then Discord settled the same moment Sombra’s eyes had. “But one monster is not enough. My final vengeance is not yet complete. For what you have done… posing as Grogar… releasing me… allowing Twilight and her friends to defeat me… only now do you realize it was all for naught. What remained of my life essence returned to the crystals in the Frozen North, to the volcano of the Dragon’s Lair, to every last facility and outpost throughout the world…” He caressed the throne gingerly, Sombra heaving in and out. “To here…” he breathed, lifting his eyes back to his hated foe. “My last act of will before what remained was reforged, damaged, but returned to the peak.” “First you unleash them one at a time… and now what? You control them from your little throne room? And who’s to stop me from ending this now and banishing your spirit and that crippled corpse of a skin you call a body into… Oh, I don’t know, let’s try Limbo this time…?” Discord retorted, finding his strength, finding his courage at last. He affirmed that threat and took a step closer, bent low, pupils glowing a dangerous red as he bared his own fangs. Sombra only smiled in mild amusement. “More fatal flaws from the Lord of Chaos. You detest my brilliance and fail to imagine that my spirit remains. Therefore, I remain. Not chained to your will, or your chaos. Chained to nothing any longer. The final step… is this.” He stopped caressing the throne. He stopped moving. He stopped breathing altogether. To Discord’s continued shock, he watched as Sombra cracked his neck bones to stare fully onto his limbs, his chest, his legs, and what remained of his mortal flesh. With a tremendous, sulfurous sigh, Sombra whispered, “I cannot remain in this chrysalis of a body. Not in this shell. The Titans will be unleashed… there is no stopping that which is already set in motion. The beast of the mountain we dwell within will arise, and I… Sombra… will be their king…” In a sudden burst of terrifying movement, Sombra pressed his hooves firmly into the throne’s arm rests, the dark spirit that dwelled within his corpse flowing from his limbs and into the crystal itself. The reds of his eyes slid into the back of his skull once more, only the green remaining to pulsate brighter and brighter. The purple flares from his gaze grew wider, more fiery, more vengeful. Discord’s shock had transformed into terror the moment he watched Sombra perform the unholy action. Transmitting his spirit into a separate entity went deep into the dark arts, delving deeper into the realm of chaos magic. Deeper than Discord ever wanted to go. It was not the only reaction he could offer, for the mountain itself started to react as well to Sombra’s actions. The throne burst with light and power, more and more lightning bolts striking off and colliding with the mountain cavern. Darkness and light flashed again and again from the heart of the crystal throne, that deep, mortifying blue shimmering a bright white before dying into a perpetual black. Rocks fell from the ceiling. The earth trembled. Jagged cracks shot out from the throne and reached Discord’s feet, prompting the draconequus’ attention back to it. He could only stare at Sombra, watch as the pony had become something far, far worse. His voice transcended his mortal body. His magic and his spirit were forged into one and elevated him to heights far beyond that of any mere unicorn. He lifted his head to the heavens and gave a ferocious, threatening cry. “They will recognize me… They will answer my call… The powers of this old, old world have known and feared me for eons, and only now will those fears reawaken to give me the strength I need to RISE! The mortals will fall and scream in terror when my reborn shadow will fall upon them! The Titans of this earth will know who rules them once and for all! They will know their ALPHA! They will bow to their king!” The lightning struck his own body and eviscerated it. “And all the world will bow to the one... TRUE... KIIINNNGGG!” With a final scream, Sombra’s dark spirit had perfectly infused itself within the throne of crystal his body sat upon. The violent green and purple lightning shot out rapidly from each jagged tip, striking the walls, floors, ceilings and cracking through it all. Through rock and solid mountain. Shattering everything as his body erupted into fiery embers of purple, green, and red. Discord shook away the stupor that tried to claim him a second longer. He acted quickly and fired a chaos blast at him from his lion paw, but Sombra’s body only gave its final laugh as his spirit deflected the chaos with a mere slash. His magic rebounded and struck Discord in the chest, launching him several yards backwards and rolling to an eventual and utterly humiliating halt. And it was humiliating, knowing that he not only failed to destroy the crystals, but he also failed to stop the true threat behind it all. His eyes opened at that realization. Through the pain coursing through his chest, Discord opened his eyes upon the horror of the reality that came into existence. Weakly but stubbornly, Discord lifted his head from where he laid and turned to see it. The last horrifying image before his entire world turned into a piercing, fiery blaze. Sombra laughed as his body became a blackened skeleton, became cracked and crumbled, still holding that unholy smile through every wailing cackle, every echoing cry, through the shrieks of the crystal burrowing deeper and deeper into the mountain until… The crystal erupted. The throne, the hive, every vein, every ore, every rock… destroyed in an astonishing blast of impure, unholy dark magic. Outpost Peak joined it in a fiery explosion, decimating the entire southern face of Foal Mountain. The blast rivaled that of a volcano, creating a supersonic shock wave of thundering force. The power could be felt for miles on end, vanquishing the nearby clouds and tilting entire forests to the bed of the earthen floor. Each tree would eventually tilt back skyward, but the aftermath of the eruption remained. Chunks of rocky mountain shot forth and decimated entire portions of the nearby forests, even striking sides of neighboring mountains and quaint, still villages. Being so close to the explosion awakened the village of Hollow Shades, and the populace was quickly flung into terror when earth and rock rained around them. Their eyes all returned to the source of the madness, seeing only the fires and billows of smoke from the peak of Foal Mountain. And the mushroom cloud colored a sickly purple and green. Lightning coursed throughout the mushroom cloud, lightning of violet and emerald. As the mountain settled and the world around it as well, reality set in to the horrifying truth that had befallen Outpost Peak. Nothing had survived in the explosion of wrathful magic. Nothing mortal. Not a single scientist. Not a single T.I.T.A.N. agent. It was all dead. And from the ashes… he was reborn. A secondary eruption followed suit, the populace of Hollow Shades screaming in shock to see the western slope of Foal Mountain burst open with devastating force. There was no fire to come from this explosion. All they could see once the dust and embers cleared was a single, jagged, titanic claw. The eastern slope erupted all the same, and the very same claw emerged, extending its spear-like talons as it stretched its muscles and bones. Both claws fell and gripped the sides of the mountain with tremoring power, shaking the very base of the once great peak with its mere strength alone. And from the angle the town of Hollow Shades could not witness, so came forth the beast of the mountain. The Titan emerged with explosive energy, creating an avalanche of earth and rock upon the entire southern face of Foal Mountain. The sound was horrific, and that was all that was needed to send the innocent ponies within Hollow Shades screaming and running for their lives. The rocks struck the earth first, followed by the claws and the remaining body of the awakened Titan. For the beast that had risen out of the mountain growled and shook itself awake after so many years of slumber. Weariness was not its only adversary at the moment. There was another, another presence creeping in on its mind and overtaking its weakened senses to the point that it had lost all control within seconds. Just seconds was all it took for the creature’s mind and will to fall. The claws pressed firmly against the forests and devastated earth, each talon leading up to the forelimbs of the mighty creature. Which led to the many other forelimbs stretching and moving upon the Titan’s chest. The two main forelimbs changed in their illumination. For what once shone a bright orange with its scales were transformed into a haunting, sickening red. Green and purple veins washed across its slick, black body, razor-sharp back spires rising up higher and higher. For what rose out of the mountain was no forgettable Titan of the earth, lost to history like so many others. She could never be forgotten. Her legend became real the moment she took her first breath and shined her eyes. Rising out and rising up was Jinshin-Mushi. The Unclean Thing. The Living Earthquake. The Dragon Beetle. An Abomination. Or as T.I.T.A.N. dubbed her… MUTO Prime. And Sombra’s eyes infected her. The visor-like eyes of MUTO Prime flickered and burned a deep, piercing red, but with every shake of the creature’s head to combat the evil force encompassing her, her eyes continued to be reforged into a new fire. It was overwhelming. It was all-powerful. It was omniscient and unstoppable. The red visor slowly mutated as MUTO Prime stopped fighting… and surrendered to the greater will. The red shimmered a haunting green with purple mists rising forth. In little to no time, the Titan stopped resisting. In little to no time, his spirit controlled every aspect of her being. From heart, body, mind, and melding with her own spirit so that he was all that was left. His unholy red horn split her skull and rose from the beast’s head. It was over. And Sombra… was reborn. Planting his fists with a firm and thunderous crash back into the ground, King Sombra unleashed an earth-shattering tremor. From his fists and from his howling roar that all the night sky and beyond heard.