//------------------------------// // Prelude // Story: Sonata de Equestria // by MyHobby //------------------------------// Prelude Sombra had nearly won. He laughed at the puny mortals who had assembled against him in the wake of his return. He roared in triumph as a small purple unicorn fruitlessly teleported out of his carefully-concocted prison, never escaping his magical pull. He smiled vilely as his power finally reached its peak, and he could reform his solid body. He was no longer a formless shadow floating in the darkness of the Royal Pony Sister’s prison. He looked down at his hoof and realized that it was starting to glow. He frowned. He was pure shadow, cursed for eternity to be a being of darkness and gloom. He didn't truly mind, of course. He would not have found the path to immortality unless his hated alicorn foes had defeated him a thousand years prior. Still, he now found himself confronted with a paradox. Shadow cannot glow. Something was wrong. Something was not going as planned. A jolt of pain shot through Sombra’s hoof as a small crack appeared on the surface of his crystalline body. Pure, holy light began shining through the growing gap. For the first time since his battle with Celestia and Luna, worry crossed Sombra’s face. “What? No… No! Stop!” His panicked command went unheard. He had won. The Crystal Empire belonged to him. He had broken their spirits. He heard a cheer rise from his subjects, “The Crystal Princess has returned! The Crystal Princess has returned!” He glowered as a pink alicorn swooped down to the crowd, holding the one relic he feared. More cracks formed on Sombra’s body as he began to fall apart. No, not fall apart, he was being pulled apart by the wonder, the hope, the outright happiness that was being fed into that blasted Crystal Heart. But even as he felt his last grasp of the physical world slip away, for the second time in one thousand years, he knew it was not over. He would remember the small purple unicorn, who dared to outwit his traps. He would remember the annoying dragon that had assisted her during the dark trials. Most of all, he would remember the so called “Crystal Princess” who heralded his demise. He felt his entire body shatter into dark magic and crystalline shards as the light grew to full power. At once he felt relief from the overbearing joy, and intense agony from losing his new body after so short a time. His consciousness located entirely in his now-severed horn, he soared into the distance. Landing in the middle of the Equestrian wilderness, his horn turned into a pool of magic and condensed into a single, shadowy crystal. He would remember, he would bide, and one day, he would return. And all of Equestria would belong to him alone.