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// (13-3) Initial Fear 
// Story: The Ruler of Ponies and Men 
// by Boopy Doopy 
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Cautiously, I opened the door that lead into the main part of the Crystal Castle, and thankfully saw it was empty of all ponies. It was good, because I didn’t want to cause a scene. I only wanted to get Cadance alone, and the less people there were to interfere with that, the better.
“Where is she?” I asked as I looked around the large empty room, Twilight following behind me carefully. “Is there any reason she wouldn’t be in the castle?”
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” the mare whispered. “This is so very bad. You don’t know what interfering with the past can do. You might think you’re only changing something small, but-”
“Twilight, I know,” I interrupted. “I know what I’m doing. Now show me where Cadance is. I don’t want to waste time here.”
“I- mmmm…” she frowned, clearly not comfortable with helping me. “Well, I- I can show you where her room is, I guess…”
I followed Twilight as she led me through the castle, keeping my eyes peeled. The mare walked ahead of me, stopping when she saw guards and finding a different way we could take to get where we needed to go, until before long, we were standing outside of what I was told was Cadance’s and Shining Armor’s room.
“I can hear them talking inside,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s about, but they sound angry. Are you sure this is what we should be doing?”
“I’m already completely decided on it,” I told her, giving her a look. “Now you go in first so that way they don’t try and kill me right off the bat. Actually, put that protection spell on me again before we head inside.”
She sighed and obliged me before knocking on the door, I standing directly next to her a bit of a ways away. I could hear one of them grunt as they opened the door, Shining Armor looking at his sister with a mixture of tiredness and annoyance. He opened his mouth to speak before he spotted me, his eyes going wide as he gasped. 
“Can you go get your wife for us?” I asked, giving a casual wave of a hoof as I did. “Or can we just go inside the room to talk to her?”
“Cadance!” he yelled quickly, not moving, almost looking like a statue. “I-it’s- King Sombra is back!”
I had to roll my eyes. “God, this is gonna be fucking annoying,” I said before turning to Twilight. “We need to get the past version of you, too, and then we’ll all meet up with Princess Celestia.”
“What do we need her for? Err, me? You know what I mean. Why?”
“Because I want us all to be on the same page before we go back,” I explained. “I don’t want any loose ends. I want this trip to mean something. Do you know where-”
“K-king Sombra!” the pink alicorn suddenly yelled, interrupting. Her expression at seeing me now was different than the first time she saw me. Then she looked intensely angry, and I could feel the hate radiating off of her. Here, she looked genuinely terrified, and I could feel the fear coming off of her. It wasn’t great, but it was so much better than the former. Fear was easier to change than hate was.
“Shining!” she instructed. “You go get the Crystal Heart! I’ll stay here and hold him down! Twilight, you go get Princess Celestia and bring her here!
“On it!" the stallion said, instantly teleporting away.
“The Crystal Heart certainly wouldn’t be good near you, would it?” Twilight commented. “You need to stay away from it if you can. I don’t know if my protection spell will protect against that.”
“Eh, I don’t think it’ll work because I’m not evil. It didn’t work when she threw it at me in the Canterlot Castle either because I wasn’t evil then either. Anyway, we have one of them. Let’s go get the other two.”
“Do you think we should go get Shining Armor, too, though?” Twilight asked. “I know you have that protection spell on you, but things would be easier if-”
“I don’t care about Shining Armor,” I told her. “He’s not important to this. We only need three ponies in the same room to get what we want done. Now lets-”
“Twilight!” the alicorn demanded. “Why are you talking to him like you’re his best friend? Tell me what’s happening!”
“I- that’s a long, long, long story,” she said. “So long, you could write a novel and a half out of it. You’re just going to have to come with us and trust me that it’s very much in everypony’s best interest.”
“I- what- you- how… are you under Sombra’s control right now, Twilight?” she asked. “We have to get you out from under his control right now! I know you’re in there, Twilight! Just hold on! We’ll fix you!”
“This is about you, Cadance,” Twilight told her, “and how you’re going to-”
“Don’t tell her why!” I interrupted loudly. “She’ll know why once we get there, but not yet when she’s just going to decline if we tell her what the problem is.”
“What? Why? If she’s going to know anyway-”
“Because I think that she’s just the kind of petty pony that she won’t come for the reason we need to go. I can see her just outright denying that she has a problem when she does, and we need to fix it. The less violent we can make this situation, the better.”
“Where would you take us? To a dungeon somewhere? How are you trying to fix me? What's going on?” she asked. 
“We’re going to have a talk with somepony important, and that’s it. We’re going to put everything out on the table and fix this mess once and for all.” With that I looked to Twilight and said, “Let’s get out of here and get your past self next.”
A second later, she lit up her horn and teleported us to Ponyville.