Shining jerked and shifted, trying desperately to escape from Sombra's strands of magic. Try as he might, however, he couldn't break out. Instead, he was dragged at breakneck speeds, drawing further and further away from the Crystal Empire. From his wife.
Shining finally managed to roll over enough to bring his horn to bear. He fired several blasts of magic at the sentient cloud of smoke; all to no effect. Before he could try to aim for anything else, another tendril came out from that shadow and wrapped around his horn. Blood pounded in his ears as he was well and truly stuck.
He continued to struggle, a kind of desperate fear adorning his face. He hadn't felt this helpless since his days at School, where he and his friends were the targets of bullying by the more popular students. Despite his strength and bulk, he had been rather restrained, not wanting to somehow reveal his secret. That restraint had earned him a good deal of torment, and now he was desperate to avoid such a situation.
Finally, after what felt like hours of being dragged behind the shadowy form of the Tyrant, he once again managed to wiggle into a position that gave him some more leverage. He simultaneously extended his legs, jerking his head back to try and snap free of the restraints. Sombra slowed, apparently trying to reassert control of the hold, but Shining was finally able to twist over his forelegs and break free.
Once he got his forelegs free, he leaned forward into a somersault. The momentum of the roll gave him the leverage he needed to free his horn and his hind legs. He rolled over, years of Guard training allowing him to come to a stop on his hooves, firmly planted and battle-ready.
Sombra came to a stop, the snarling face emerging from the mass of black smog to glare at him. Shining quickly scanned his surroundings, trying to find something that could give him an advantage. Unable to take Sombra head-on, he had to find a way to buy time or make a distraction. His eyes fell on what appeared to be a small cave, and he made a slow step towards it.
Sombra saw the quick movement, and lunged forward with a shriek. Shining once again rolled to the side, quickly forming a magic barrier to direct Sombra's charge away from him. He then took off at a full gallop, pausing only to occasionally fire a bolt of magic back at his pursuer. As he ran, his right hoof began to burn and ache, sending sparks dancing across his nerves.
With a final effort, he bolted into the cave, igniting a shield over the entrance to prevent Sombra from following him. So focused on his burning hoof and his magic, that he nearly fell forward. The mouth of the cave only extended a few hoof-lengths, before entering into a steep slope down to a lower level.
Shining turned back to the entrance, seeing the dark cloud that was Sombra on the other side of the shield. The back-and-forth movement of the cloud almost resembled pacing, the half-formed face glaring at him with flickering eyes. To Shining's surprise, Sombras's form began to coalesce into a defined shape. The smoke seemed to fold in on itself, compacting and solidifying into a flesh-and-blood Umbrum.
Shining had seen the small version of him as shown by Celestia, but the stallion before him only barely resembled that. The magnificent fur-lined red cape was tattered and pockmarked; even now, the fraying garb was being torn apart in the frigid wind. His suit of black armor was likewise damaged, covered in dents, scratches, and patches of rust. His grown was missing, his hair wild and matted. His appearance, combined with the posture of a feral animal, called to mind images of a beast more than a sadistic tyrant.
"Kinnn..." , Sombra hissed, pacing in front of Shining's shield. "Whyyy... Help... Crystalllssss...?"
"To stop you from enslaving them", Shining replied, trying to think of a way out of this situation. There was no guarantee that the cave went any deeper, and there was no way he could outrun Sombra. Now out of the cold, pain throbbed across almost all parts of his frontal body, leaving him at a severe disadvantage if he had to fight. His only option: try and outsmart the former king.
Sombra snarled, saliva dropping from his mouth and freezing before it hit the snow. "Deserve... Whyyyy?"
"I don't need to justify my actions to you, Tyrant!", Shining snarled.
With a roar of fury, Sombra battered the shield with both hooves. Spiderwebs of dark light seemed to race across the pink barrier, before it shattered like glass. Shining tried to react as Sombra charged in, but between his shock and the pain arcing across his body, he was unable to.
Sombra tackled the two of them down into the cave behind them, the impact softened only by the thin layer of snow that had made its way this far into the cave. Shining rolled hard, the wet and hard stone floor doing his aching nerves no favors. He attempted to right himself, but Sombra brought a hoof down before he could.
Sombra glared down at him, raising his other hoof to deliver a blow. As it appeared he would deliver it, though, he stopped. He began to look around, almost desperate in his search for some unseen item or noise. "Whattt?", he hissed, distracted.
Shining took advantage, delivering a kick to his knee. Sombra fell forward, with Shining swinging upwards in a hard punch. Sombra went spilling off of him, falling to the stone floor next to Shining. Though he wheezed and made other noises Shining had only heard in a hospital, he did not get up.
Try as he might, Shining could not force himself to get up either. Everything throbbed with pain, either an incessant dull throbbing or a firm, screaming pain. He rolled over onto his side, hissing in agony as every aching nerve protested the move, insisting he lay there until the pain stopped. His eyelids apparently agreed, as they grew heavy the longer he lay there. Try as he might, he could not keep them open, finally falling into unconsciousness.
~+~+~~|~~+~+~
Shining blinked, a dull throb coming from his head and his hoof as his eyes forced themselves open. His vision was a blurry mess, though he could vaguely make out the still-unconscious form of Sombra and elements of the surrounding cave. He tried to lift himself up, though putting weight on his injured hoof only succeeded in sending jolts of pain running through his body.
As he fell back to the ground with a hiss of agony, he heard something. It was faint, just barely audible over the ringing in his ears and the howling wind outside. As the seconds dragged on, he could make it out more clearly: the barking of Dogs.
Something made a noise outside the cave. No, not just a noise; a voice. There was somepony out there. Maybe Cadence had alerted the Guard?
His head still swimming, he once again tried to raise himself back upright. Once again, he felt a sharp stabbing pain run up his leg, forcing him back onto the ground, though without as much pain. He rolled onto his side, clutching at the limb with his other forehoof.
His vision cleared up somewhat, he was able to make out an equine shape sliding down the snow-coated slope into the cave. He was immediately dissuaded from his earlier opinion of it being the Royal Guard. The clothing the pony wore was a heavy coat and brown belt, along with a conical hat that appeared to be made of fur. Their face was obscured by a heavy scarf and a pair of goggles, but their horn...
The pony grabbed his face with a hoof, forcing his gaze to turn upwards to the cave ceiling. "Ciaran!", they yelled in a harshly accented voice that caused Shining's ears to ring. As they recovered, he thought he heard something else slide down into the cave.
"Oh, that's not good", another voice, this one much more feminine than the first.
Shining tried to turn his head over to look at his rescuers, but was held in place by the hoof of the first one. "W-who...?"
"At least he's alive", the first figure said.
"Barely", the second, apparently called Ciaran, replied. "Go get the others. We'll need to get them both back."
Shining felt the hoof of the first one remove itself from his head, allowing his head to roll to the side. It would have hit the floor of the cave if not for another hoof, much gentler than the first, lowering it down the rest of the way. Bathed in the warbly glow of some kind of spell, he got a good look at the face of one of his rescuers before all went black:
A face possessing thin features, an exposed set of fangs, an exposed piece of bone where their nose should be, and a curved horn.