//------------------------------// // 6- Wounded // Story: A Noble’s Shadow // by LSTS Connor //------------------------------// Six walked the battered streets of the changeling hive, a diorama of frozen violence surrounding her. Where she was going, she didn’t know. She just walked down the main street towards the palace at its core. Broken buildings of design so alien they might as well be covenant stretched into the sky, with crimson flames licking the sky. To her left, she saw a warrior frozen mid-strike against a pegasi combatant. On her right, a small swarm of drones leaped at a unicorn whose horn sparked with half-formed energy. And right in front of her stood one of the Custodians weaved in their blood red armor and swinging their void steel glaive right towards her neck. Six walked past the frozen display, continuing forward toward the palace. Looking up at it, she found her eyes drawn to a particular section, a crack in its outer shell that spilled crimson light into the scene. Like a breach in a fusion reactor, its light radiated outward in small, barely perceivable waves that warped space around it. “This is certainly one of your more… exotic dreams, Six,” a familiar voice penetrated the silence to her right. The Spartan turned to look before having to fight the corners of her mouth from plastering a grin on her face. The moon princess had taken the place of a changeling drone that had been hanging from their tangled tail fin against a wall. Her ethereal mane touched the ground and covered part of her muzzle as her wings hung limply at her sides. Clearly, she was not expecting to end up there upon entering the Spartan’s unconscious mind. With a small flash that blinded Six temporarily, the alicorn had righted herself. Her mane, however, had seen better days despite its ethereal nature. “Need a little help there?” Six asked in amusement, not bothering to fight the grin anymore. “That is what I should be asking you,” Luna responded with a small gesture of her hoof towards the Spartan’s armored forelegs, her facial expression turning from exasperation to shellshocked in a heartbeat. With a tilt of her head, Six followed the alicorn's gaze only to find nothing wrong. She willed her body to lift a hoof to inspect, yet her limb did not respond. She tried again, more forcefully this time, pulling with all her might only for her hooves to remain unmoving as if stuck to the floor itself. The sound of cracking glass shearing metal pierced the world as pain on a nigh indescribable level shot through her. The metal on her legs began to buckle and warp before finally exploding in spikes of black crystal. Six cried out as the crystal began to grow, climbing up her limb and tearing the armour from her body. She looked to Luna, heart racing, panic gripping her by the throat, only for her gaze to meet that of the King’s. The world began to crumble, buildings falling into the void and streets breaking open to reveal absolute darkness. The crystal continued to grow, encasing her limbs and devouring the flesh and bone underneath.  Her eyes became locked with Sombra’s, unable to tear her gaze away from him as the crystal reached her neck. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs had turned to crystal. All she could do was stare with frightful eyes as the crystal encased her completely. Yet as the world began to fade as crystal encased the rest of her head, just before the last remnants of herself were lost under the crystalline growth, it stopped… and Six’s vision turned red. The gentle sound of a vital signs monitor broke through the haze as the Spartan began to wake. Then came the voices from all around her, as if she was caught in a storm of activity and she was its eye. “...Six…”  As her mind dragged itself out of the gutter, the darkness across her vision began to recede. She looked up at a fractured world as the broken glass of her helmet turned the white blob behind it into a fractal. “Six…” Then came the pain. A searing, cracking, and radiating pain that crawled up her forelegs like lava. A feeling of burning flesh and melting bones, her brain screaming at her to move, to get away, save what was left of her forelegs from the fires that now consumed them. “She’s going into shock!” “Hold her still!” “SIX!” Her blurry vision finally focused on Shining Armor’s face. His tired, hurt, and sweating face. She continued to weakly struggle and kick out her limbs in futile attempts to escape the pain, yet her focus was now on her friend before her. She fought against her primal mind to still herself from burning that eclipsed all her senses.  Noticing her subdued movements, Shining did what he came here to do. “You have to detach your armor,” he spoke loud and slow, making sure every word was heard. Without a second thought, she sent the command through her neural link. Within moments, the instructions were disseminated throughout her battered Mjolnir armour. Servos whirred and magnetics disabled as the emergency command the Spartan had sent forced the various plates of armor to disconnect from her undersuit, titanium clattering to the ground and denting the floor. While Six would normally abhor such treatment of her most prized possession, it was either that or die.   The loud sound of crashing metal and hissing air filled the room before quickly being replaced by gradually dampening sounds of hurried shouts and medical work as Six’s brief awakening came to an abrupt end and she fell into a dreamless unconsciousness. Shining Armor sighed before sucking in air through his teeth as he brought a hoof up to soothe his aching forehead. The sudden limpness of the figure before him signaled her return to unconsciousness despite the helmet still covering her face.  Careful to stay out of the way of the specialized medical staff around him, he went to remove the Spartan’s helmet that now hung limply over her head. He winced as he instinctively tried to grasp it with his magic, only for the crystals buried deep into his horn to punish him for such action. The unnatural molecules consumed his focused mana and fueled their own growth outwards by several milimeters. A headache slammed into him briefly, making his vision blur before vanishing like it was never there. He cursed himself under his breath for his stupidity as he used his hooves to remove the Spartan’s helmet. Its cracked golden visor reflected his face in a fractal, the crystal suffering no such fate with it remaining perfectly clear. He turned away and put it with the rest of the armor plates that had been gathered onto a nearby, now slightly bent, metal table. Looking back, he saw the grimacing face of his friend, pain and discomfort clearly burned onto her face even while unconscious. And with the injuries she had, he couldn't blame her. Her forelegs were in a shape he couldn’t even begin to describe without his stomach beginning to lurch. The same crystal that grew out of his own horn had pierced both of her hooves, covering them from the knee down in its corrupted growth. From what magical scans and X-rays could pierce below the shell, the damage was extensive.  As one of the privileged unicorns briefed on the nature of dark magic and its related constructs, the normal way to… destroy them is to soak it in pure, unrefined mana. The exact science behind it, even he did not fully know. What he did is that when both associated energies come into contact with one another, both are destroyed. But Sombra was insidious. If they attempted to do so on either himself or the Spartan’s limbst, both the crystal and the flesh they were rooted into would be destroyed. And if they didn't find a way to remove these crystals soon and they continued to grow at their current pace… Shining Armor shook his head, ridding himself of such dark thought. Now was not the time to dwell. With Twilight and her friends here, they would surely find a way to defeat the King that had struck the Angel low. Intent on leaving the medical staff to their work, Shining turned away and exited the room. The echoing sound of an irregular heart rate monitor muffled as he left the medical wing of the palace fully. Cadence looked towards a nearby window with trepidation, her heart thumping in her ears and sweat slick across her forehead, matting her usually pristine coat as her horn burned in arcane energy. She could already feel the strain as she sat in what was to become her throne room. ‘Shiney, how do you do it so effortlessly?’ She thought with another glance towards the stained glass window, staring at it as if Sombra himself was about to burst in and send her flying right back to Equestria. And considering the situation they were currently in… that was not an impossibility.  A twitch to her side brought her back to reality as the ferrets, using her enclosed wing as a makeshift bed, kicked out in their sleep. She smiled slightly at the sight. “They are precious creatures, are they not?” Cadence stopped, a shiver running down her spine at the soul-chilling voice. Slowly turning her head, every minor combat spell she could think of prepared with what little energy and concentration she could spare. It shouldn't be possible, how was he here?! Looking up towards where the voice emanated from, she saw the King that was knocking at the gates. He stood in the center of the room, though something was off about his form. He wore his battle armor with his red cape waving in an invisible breeze, but what really caught her eye was the fact she could see through him. “H-How?” she couldn't keep the stutter out of her throat as her mouth felt as dry as the desert. “Oh, there is no need to fear, pretender. Not yet anyway. Your shield is doing its job admirably at preventing my physical form from passing its boundaries,” he spoke, his voice as smooth as silk, as he began to look around the room with a frown on his face. “Luckily for you, a thousand years is excellent practice for one’s mental abilities.” With resurgent determination, Cadence took a page out of Six’s book. Making sure to project an aura defiance, she answered the King with a bolt of magic. It passed through him without any reaction from the king as he continued to nonchalantly inspect her throne room whilst quietly speaking to himself about interior decor. Until he was interrupted by a bolt of magic burning a hole into the crystal he was inspecting. He did not physically react in any way Cadence could tell, but when he turned and his eyes met hers, she recognized that look. It was one she would never forget, that look that brought a knife to one’s throat. The gaze of a predator, moments away from devouring its prey. Cadence swallowed unconsciously, her throat even drier than before as her heart began to thump out of her chest. Within the blink of an eye, Sombra was a hair's breadth away from her face. His eyes glowing with purple magic and weeping black as night smoke into the air.  Cadence yelped, and Sombra was back to where he stood before. “Let me make sure you understand my intention clearly, Pretender.” He began to approach slowly and methodically, intoning every word with a step forward. “Were it not for the Spartan lying in your apothecary, there would be nothing to stop me from making the streets of my city run red with the blood of you slavers.” Cadence held her ground even as the image of the king was so close he could feel his noncorporeal breath on her muzzle. “Y-you are wrong. You are the slaver, Sombra. We have liberated these people from your tyranny!” “What you call tyranny, I call irony. What glorious lies those sisters have told you. But enough reminiscing about the rewritten past.” He leaned in to whisper into her ear, the alicorn's blood running cold as she found herself unable to move away, “I come to you with an ultimatum.” He pulled away and, with the barest turn of his head, cut a line across her cheek using the tip of his jagged horn. Cadence winced before bringing a hoof up to her face. It came away bloody, shocking the alicorn to her core. How…how was this possible?! How could he harm her here?! Were… were they ever even safe to begin with behind this barrier she was struggling to maintain? “Hopelessness of your situation finally setting in?” the King mocked before returning to his previous demeanor. “This is my offer: I will grant you and all your ponies safe passage back to Equestria. In return, Six and her soldiers will stay as my valued guests here, and I can give you my word as King that neither you, your entourage, or any other equestrian here in the empire will be harmed.” “And what will happen to the crystal ponies? You will just enslave them as you did a thousand years ago!” Cadence shot back, a righteous fire burning in her heart. “A far more merciful punishment than they ever deserve!” Sombra yelled, his composure momentarily shattered as a fury that eclipsed that of the sun broke through his regal exterior. His eyes billowed out smoke, and his horn glowed with such light it made the princess sick to her stomach from its baleful energies. For several long moments, the King simply stared at Cadence before he regained his usual demeanor, though it did not reach his eyes this time. “You have twenty-four hours until I reclaim my kingdom. I am many things, but a liar I am not.” And with that, the King disappeared, his image losing cohesion before dispersing like smoke in the wind. Cadence blinked as she once more brought her hoof up to her stinging cheek. It was still bleeding. A rustle from her wing snapped her back to reality as the ferrets twitched once more in their sleep, having somehow remained oblivious to the conversation that had just unfolded. She sighed as she carefully got up and walked towards the balcony before looking over towards the barrier’s edge. And for perhaps the briefest of moments, she could see the small form of the King standing on the closest hill, atop a throne of crystal, staring her straight in the eye. A knock on the throne room door and the unforgettable voice of Twilight Sparkle and the ruckus of her friends greeted her ears. She allowed a smile to grace her features. If there was anypony who could find a way to defeat Sombra, it would be her and her friends. Of that she had no doubt. ‘Right?’