//------------------------------//
// Final Part of the Crystal Equestrian War 
// Story: The New Brotherhood of Darkness 
// by JeckParadox 
//------------------------------//

	

Makuta looked over the city of Metru Nui, the millions of interconnecting tubes, kanoka disks being shifted from system to system, being turned into masks for the millions of Matoran that kept the greatest city in the universe running. All gone now. He had ruled over it for hundreds of years, and now it would be the last time in his life he would be allowed to see the city that was his responsibility.
It was a mercy in a way. Seeing the city torn and crushed, flattened by earthquakes, decayed from not being used or taken care of, and the 'cieling' that was the sky pressed down, apparently having destroyed most of the skyline a few days ago. In some places he could see the skyscrapers and towers still falling apart.
When he had been struck in the head by that moon it had fatally damaged his brain. 
And when he had been the Great Spirit of the universe, his brain was this city. It would only be fitting that his trial would be carried out at the place of his greatest and final failure. 
His new body was weak, and held his spirit in. He could not escape, could not move without great force of will. Even moving his eyes over the horizon required great effort on his part.
He mentally sighed and closed his eyes to the destruction.
With that signal his captor, the brutish-looking Axonn, pulled him along the floor roughly. And through the reverberations in his armor he could feel some pain in the bumps and shakes of being pulled down flights of stairs.
Teridax was placed in the center of the Great Colosseum of Metru Nui. Here he had spent ages watching Kohlii and Akilini games. He had watched gladiators battle, trained soldiers, held cultural events in the huge arena. But now this was where he would face his judgement. He saw no way out of it. The body he was in could not escape the gravity Kanoka, and he could not escape this body.  
"Turaga of the Universe." Mata Nui finally said. "You have been brought here to oversee the last trial of greatest criminal in the Universe." The Great Spirit's golden Avatar kneeled on one knee before Makuta, bringing more than a hundred gasps from behind, all clearly audible in the silent, dead, city. "My Brother. Do you have any statements you would like to make before the gathering of all Turaga before the trial begins?"
Teridax's neck creaked against the insane pressure of the Kanoka beneath him, and he made direct eye contact with the Great Spirit, his wavering crimson meeting the glass-like blue. "I do. Will you repeat it to them for me? My voice is hard to throw in this gravity."
"Of course."
"I was, for a time, the Great Spirit."
"Makuta would like to offer his statement for you all, it goes as follows; I was, for a time, the Great Spirit."
Cries of blasphemy, gasps, and even some condescending laughter came from the crowd of elder Toa, but was silenced by a glare from Mata Nui. "And before that I was the supreme leader of Metru Nui, the most powerful Makuta in the Universe, the most powerful of the most powerful race ever created."
Mata Nui repeated. 
"I am now, here, lying humbled before you, the shattered Toa, failures, elders, weaklings, false heroes."
Makuta was surprised that Mata Nui said it to them word for word. 
"I will face my judgement with pride, knowing I exceeded my station, while my captors gloat in falling beneath theirs!"
Mata Nui repeated it without emotion. 
"I am done. You may move on with my trial."
"Thank you. Though I have only one thing to say to you before we begin."
"Oh?"
"The toa exist to fulfil their own destiny, many do not, some fall, some die, some are changed along the way. But those here who became Turaga, the most honored elders of the Matoran, all were able to ascend to that state either because they failed with honor, or achieved their destiny. You have no place judging whether they fulfilled their destiny after you spent so long fighting against yours."
He turned around and made his way to his throne. "Axonn. You may begin the trial."


Sombra flew through the smoke, it becoming part of his body. He followed the smoke, and it led him to Makuta's signal. "There he is!" He solidified and looked around. There was nothing there. Just snow, and the smoke. No mechanical parts. 
He looked around for about six minutes before finding a strange object buried in the snow. It was an animal of some kind, it had rubbery skin, and a design on it's head. It was rolled into a ball, and was shivering. He put it in a bubble and put a healing spell and a heat spell on the strange creature, probably some kind of monster that drifted North from Everfree, he could do experiments on it later. Sombra sighed after searching another two minutes, but after being unable to sense Makuta's prescence, gave up and flew back to the Castle with the strange creature in tow, maybe he'd be able to get an accurate reading on him then.

~~~~

Teridax sighed with relief as the bubble began to slowly warm him. The numbness going away, but leaving a pain from having his skin nearly frozen off. He looked around to assess the situation, with Sombra flying below him, and they were heading back toward the Crystal Empire. So the unicorn had left his post to save him. He would have to commend him later. He then tried to call out to Sombra, but only a hiss got out. He tried making some more sounds, just hisses and screeches. Crap. Now he was mute too.
He decided to make the most of it and bask in the heat, going into a cautious sleep.

~~~~

The Equestrian First Wave was doomed, it was as simple as that. It's leader had received severe head trauma several times, it was dispersed, and most importantly, they had failed at containing the inky smoke, and had began to breathe it in. They were blind, slowly becoming insane, but one lone Pegasus, barreling her way through the smoke, managed to get above it without losing her mind, and better yet, with an idea of what was happening. She flew as fast as she could toward the second wave, which was only half way in, and hadn't reached the part where the smoke collapsed in on their 'tunnel'. 
She dropped to the ground in a snow bank and relayed everything she knew to the lieutenant. 

~~~~

"I need to have a word with Princess Celestia." 
"I'm sorry, but I won't be having it. She expended a lot of magic and energy, and went through a lot of injuries in her battle with Nightmare Moon, and needs to rest and heal." The Doctor looked smugly at the soldier but was simply pushed aside. "Guards!"
Two spear-wielding Earth ponies moved in on the Messenger, but with a flash of a badge they stopped. "I need to see the Princess... we just got word that the first wave was wiped out... the second is preceding blind without the first wave's tunnel, and is slowed by having to keep getting the survivors of the first wave moved back to the front... you might want to take a look at them, that magical smoke has hallucinogenic properties." The messenger then pushed the doctor to the side and moved into the tent. "Princess?"
"I heard." She said quietly, lying on her side facing away from him, her mane reverted to it's pink 'mundane' form. "Any word of Shield Wax or the elements?"
"...No Ma'am. Captain Shield Wax hasn't been located yet... but we do not think we have caught up with the first wave yet. We had to carve a whole new tunnel.... and, beg your pardon, your majesty, but I don't know which elements you refer to."
"The Elements of Harmony of course. Or rather, the bearers of them. Six mares... they were wearing specialty armor, and were the Captain's ceremonial guard." 
"I... I don't know. There have been many recovered mares, but in their state of mind... well, let's just say they can't identify themselves."
Celestia gave a grunt. "So why are you here? To give me bad news?"
"No Ma'am. Lieutenant Quiver requests a new strategy... for some reason the first wave fell miserably, and we don't know why... he suggested surrounding the smoke on all sides and planting magic bombs to dispel it."
"It wouldn't work, it's too massive... and it regenerates."
"What do you suggest Princess?"
Princess Celestia didn't stir for two minutes. "Bring me some pen & paper, I need to write some desperate messages."

~~~~

Spike burped a blaze of green fire while organizing the library. A scroll fell into his claw. "What would the Princess be doing sending a letter? She knows that Twilight is with her."
He unfurled it and read the words with growing disbelief. He then grabbed a pen and began furiously writing the letter and then when he was satisfied, lit it on fire with a green burst. 

~~~~

Luna's eyes opened slowly. She waited for Nightmare to get up and start their morning ritual. But after a few minutes she realized that she couldn't feel Nightmare's mind. She hesitantly blinked, and a smile formed when she saw she could control her own body. She got up slowly, testing everything out. Everything was sore.
Right hooves, left hooves,  left wing, right-
She turned to her right and almost fainted again. It was gone. Completely gone. Luna sank to her haunches. She tried to remember what had happened inside Nightmare Moon. 
The battle came to her in a rush that left her gasping for air. Celestia did it... to Nightmare. She didn't know Nightmare couldn't just regenerate it. Luna flapped her remaining wing and floated slightly off the ground before promptly falling back to the ground. "No..." She whispered. 
At least Nightmare was gone. 

~~~~

Sombra gave the final command and it was done. The second Equestrian wave was dispelled by the Crystal Heart, and his legion pushed back the Equestrians to the border. He had done it. And mostly by himself. Well, Makuta wrecked the first wave, and Nightmare took care of Celestia, but he fought the Elements of Harmony all by himself!
And won!
"That reminds me... was I supposed to be doing something... oh crap." He teleported down to the specialty cages where he kept the elements of Harmony. "Have any of you done anything stupid while I was gone?" He found Twilight's cage completely obscured by the dozens of constantly bouncing spells inside, Applejack was lying on her back groaning from boredom, and Rarity simply glared at him from where she was sitting in her cage. There was also the three holes in the ground. "No? Good. I'd like to let all of you know that I won the war, just now, all by myself. I beat back the entire second wave." He waited for a gasp, but it appeared that Applejack and Rarity didn't care, and Twilight was still surrounded by her spells, so he couldn't gage any possible reaction from her. "Hello? I just beat your army, you don't care?" 
Still no reaction from any of them. He trotted over to Twilight's cage, the closest, and glared into it, but the purple beam had completely filled the cage, had she vaporized herself? "Twilight?" He asked. He began sweating now. A tendril of darkness rose from his mane and unlocked the cage. He extinguished the beam and let his mouth hang open as he looked at the empty cage. 
He turned on Rarity and roared. "WHERE DID SHE GO?!!"
Rarity continued to glare at the doorway. He waved his hoof in front of her and felt a twitch coming on as she merely kept glaring into space. He did a little burst of light in her face, but she didn't flinch. He unlocked her cage and sighed as his hoof phased through the illusion. A quick magic burst dispelled both her and the bored Applejack. 
"She... tricked me." He made his way to the message pipe and called for a search of the castle grounds. He turned toward the wall where the necklaces and crown were placed, and finally sank to the ground as he saw that all of them were indeed gone.

~~~~

The Smoke had finally stopped at the border with Equestria. It was official, the Crystal Empire had officially forced the the Equestrian forces out of their territory. Celestia looked to the South and watched the horizon, waiting for the cavalry. Which appeared in a flash directly behind her, dressed in an aloha shirt and a straw hat. "Celestia! I just got your letter. Where's Fluttershy?"
"We don't know Discord. The smoke is too dangerous to enter at the moment so we haven't been able to send for a search party." The Draconequus spun in the air a few times before eyeing the smoke and nibbling on his claws. 
"Celestia, I can smell the black magic from here, why did you send Fluttershy into that thing?!" 
"We need the Elements of Harmony to defeat the thr- two of them. And to be fair she was with a large force who were continuously beating back the smoke."
"Not good enough! Go in there and find her!" Discord kicked her in the flank, making the Alicorn Princess jerk forward suddenly. She glared at the Draconequus before taking in a breath and letting it out to calm herself.
"Discord, I can't send in any more troops. Two waves have already been lost, we've just been taking care of the stragglers who find their way out. "
"Then I'll go!" With a snap of his claw a snowmobile appeared underneath him. 
"Wouldn't teleporting directly to them be the fastest way?"
"Ahem, all powerful Spirit? I know what I'm doing, sheesh."
He took a deep breath and plunged into the smoke. 
"Discord!" Celestia shouted. She ducked as the Snowmobile crashed into a cloud above her head, Discord falling back down. 
"What."
"Could you perhaps clear the smoke for my soldiers?"
"Ugh, if you want to take the easy way out, but I'm warning you, a few minutes and it'll be well on it's way back, with a vengeance." 
"I'm sure we can take it."
"I'm not sure you could take it, let alone a bunch of tired unicorns. Just trust me Celly, I'll have your precious Elements back here before you can say the name of that one swedish hill a dozen times. And no cheating! This might take a while." And with that he was off again, disappearing in a flash, taking the wrecked snowmobile with. 
"Are you sure this is wise Princess?"
"Discord is the most powerful creature in the world, we are simply lucky that we managed to contact him. I really need to begin thinking about honestly employing dragons in the royal archives."
"Princess... now that we have Discord working for us, why did you even bother with the military? We could have sent Discord in to get Empress Cadenza out, and that would be done. We'd still have to deal with Nightmare Moon, but we have the Elements of Harmony now too."
"I... understand. But I don't want to rely on Discord. The Elements of Harmony are what they are, tools meant to be used to restore peace. But Discord... he's essentially a force of nature. Having him around will benefit us, but really I have no control over him, in fact, the only reason I think I can rely on him now is because of his connection with the Bearer of Kindness." She gestured toward the explosions finding their way out of the cursed gases. "If anything he's a natural disaster that happened to strike only our enemies."
"But still, why didn't we contact him to start out with?"
"I couldn't reach him. He's literally constantly teleporting wherever he fancies. I find it a wonder that Spike managed to get the letter to him during a time where he's holding still long enough to notice. Just be glad he's here now." She trotted away from the border line and moved back to the medical tents where her sister was. She had the apology of an eternity to give.

~~~~

Sombra was in full panic mode. He had soldiers combing the castle, but they were honestly just galloping around hoping to spot one of them. He himself was flying straight toward the lower dungeon where he dropped the two Pegasi and the pink one. He came to the entrance via an array of secret tunnels and readied the spell to remove his centimeter thick wall of diamond, but found it partially shattered. A vein on his forehead expanded enough to become visible. He flew past his experiments in a blur and burst into the room, his eyes darted immediately to the suspended cages, all three occupied. "Oh thank goodness."
"You mean badness." Pinkie corrected. 
"I'm not going to rework my entire language under the pretense that everything bad is good. It'll just make a bunch of paradoxes, say, have any of you seen Twilight in the time since I dropped you down here?" All three of them nervously looked away. "It's a good thing all six of you are horrible liars."
"You mean it's a bad thing that all of us are great liars?" Pinkie asked hopefully. Sombra rolled his eyes at the mare and ignited a fear spell. 
"I'm going to give you your worst nightmares continuously for six hours each, and not at the same time, so you can hear the others scream. Now then, which of you are going to tell me where they went, and why they didn't free you when they could?"
Rainbow Dash stared down the stallion of darkness. "None of us are going to tell you anything."
Sombra choked down the beginnings of doubt and made the shadows emanate from him. They filled the room, surrounding and slowly suffocating all sources of light in the room. He steadily grew, the whites of his eyes shifting to a deadly green, purple haze emanating from his tear ducts. He opened his mouth enough that Rainbow Dash could see the fire building inside of him.
"Good. Then you're first."

~~~~

A few minutes earlier
Twilight had been calculating the angles of her laser spell bouncing off the shield of the cage. And she had begun understanding how exactly her magic was being counteracted. She could overload it. She began focusing her reserves into the simple act of teleporting between the bars and the shield, a tiny space that if she actually teleported into would probably mangle her, so she had to trust that her instincts were right and that the shield would push her back as long as possible. 
After a few minutes of constantly pushing back her teleport, as well as redirecting her beams around her, the shield had begun overheating. It was too many variables, too much excess energy. The shield was becoming more and more unstable, and was getting slower at forcing her back. 
When Twilight thought it was weak enough she changed targets and teleported through and impact site of the shield and her laser, this time pushing outside of the shield entirely. With a flash of light she was outside the trap, panting, despite the fact she wasn't aware of anything during the instant of teleportation, she could tell it was a close shave. The laser was still  bouncing, obscuring the inside. Sombra was unlikely to catch on any time soon. The other two were going to be harder. 
"Twilight! You got out?! How?"
"I don't really have enough time to explain, magical mathematics and other boring stuff, right now though, I need you to look as bored as possible for a few seconds."
"Wh-" Applejack began. But a pained look from Twilight got her to recline back and groan softly. 
A few seconds of Twilight making her horn glow later she let out a sigh of exhaustion. She made her way to the cage and pulled it open with magic. 
"Just like that?" Applejack asked incredulously. 
"It's meant to be unbreakable from the inside out and easily controlled from the outside in."
"What was the point of her slouching?"
"You'll see." Twilight said slyly. "Come on out Applejack."
The Earth pony complied, looking back with shock that she was both outside and inside the cage at the same time. The one on the inside notably more bored. 
"What in tarnation?"
"It's an illusion, might by us some more time. Rarity, get into a pose that you could hold for a long time, and that Sombra might believe was you for a few minutes."
Rarity promptly lied back in her 'woe is me' pose. But a snicker from Applejack made her sit up and aim a glare at the Earth Pony leaning on the door. 
"Done" Twilight gasped out, the last of her reserves depleted. 
"Wait!" Rarity cried, looking at her glaring face. "I look so inelegant!"
"Quiet, yer supposed to be a prisoner, now come on." Applejack flipped up her hat, pulling out a spare length of rope. "We got to find the others." She looked down the hole Pinkie Pie fell through. "Should we... jump?"
"We'd never survive a fall that far." Rarity said, before realizing exactly what that entailed and bit her tongue. "I mean, Rainbow and Fluttershy are both Pegasi, so they'd be impact resistant. And Pinkie Pie probably has an even greater impact resistance considering how many times she's fallen from her flying machine without getting a scratch. We don't really have that power."
Twilight nodded, attempting to relight her horn, but a pink spark sprouted off from it and sizzled into nothing. "Sorry girls, but I don't have the magical power to lower us down safely."
Rarity eyed Applejack's lasso. "How much rope do you have on you?"
"Not much, less than six yards." Applejack replied. "Not enough to lower us down."
"Hmph. Figures, we'll just have to find some stairs then."
Twilight winced at the mention of the immense number of stairways that covered the Crystal Palace. "And no gravity spells to help us cheat..."
"We better get going then." Twilight turned toward the door before Applejack made a dignified 'ahem'. Twilight turned around and finally locked eyes on the Elements of Harmony proudly displayed on the wall. She blushed. "We should... probably take those with us..."

~~~~

Discord was having fun streaking blind through the darkness in his snowmobile, but when he crashed into a crazed unicorn in purple armor he decided to stop riding the thing. He looked around at the growling crystal ponies, an aggression spell making their eyes glow faintly red. He stooped down and looked at the pony he had hit with his snowmobile, a blue unicorn wearing mangled purple armor. A captain. An Equestrian. He blinked as he seemed to get much closer to the ground, not noticing the crystal pony that had tackled him until after it had crushed his spine. 
Discord righted himself, cricking his neck until he popped it off. He reached inside of his seemingly hollow body and padded the area of his spine and clearing out a little dust before reattaching his head. "That wasn't very nice." he finally said. The Crystal Pony soldiers eyed him warily before he began snapping his claws, turning the first soldier into a scarf, the second into a dragonfly, and the third a foot above his armor, which he crashed into. But as they were still all still made out of impenetrable crystal they were no worse for wear. "Now then, what shall I do with you?" He said, looking down at the horribly beaten up Captain. 
A sly grin wrapped around his face. 

~~~~

The three mares stealthily made their way down the castle. Stopping at every corner, checking for guards. But the castle was suitably empty. They made their way down to the dungeons via secret tunnels that Rarity had found her gem-tracking spell could find. 
They came to the dungeon and made their way down the black crystal pathways, the cells were mostly empty until they reached a solid wall of diamond, one that Rarity had to spend twelve minutes finding the weak point of for Applejack to buck several times. By the end of their journey both unicorns were at the edge of their magical reserves, and Applejack was limping. 
The three made their way slowly through the new hallway. Covering the walls were magical diagrams, vials containing a variety of substances, and huge desks covered in samples of millions of magical elements and creatures. Twilight could have stayed for hours simply browsing Sombra's collection, but the sound of a certain party pony cheering around the corner brought the three of them to their goal. 
"Pinkie!" Twilight yelled, jumping up toward the Earth Pony's cage. She turned and smiled at the two Pegasus on the other sides of the room. "You're all alright!"
"Yep, just bored." Rainbow said sighing, "how did you guys get out? Did Rarity whine until he caved in?"
"Hey, it's a legitimate method of getting what you want. And no, I didn't."
"Twilight here found the weakness in the cage and broke us all out. We even left some nifty tricks back there so Sombra won't notice we've left."
Rainbow Dash held in a laugh. "Nifty? That's weird even for you Applejack."
"Be quiet, we're here to rescue you." 
Pinkie felt a series of twitches go through her body. "Uh oh, you need to all hide right now." The three free mares rushed to hiding spots around the room seconds before Sombra materialized in front of the three still caged. "Oh thank goodness."
"You mean badness." Pinkie corrected. 
"I'm not going to rework my entire language under the pretense that everything bad is good. It'll just make a bunch of paradoxes, say, have any of you seen Twilight in the time since I dropped you down here?" All three in the cages nervously looked away, carefully locking eyes with the mares in hiding. "It's a good thing all six of you are horrible liars."
"You mean it's a bad thing that all of us are great liars?" Pinkie asked hopefully. Sombra rolled his eyes at the mare and ignited a fear spell. 
"I'm going to give you your worst nightmares continuously for six hours each, and not at the same time, so you can hear the others scream. Now then, which of you are going to tell me where they went, and why they didn't free you when they could?"
Rainbow Dash stared down the stallion of darkness. "None of us are going to tell you anything."
A wave of different motions shot through Sombra's face, a sequence that disturbed Rainbow Dash. "Good. Then you're first."
The glow began wrapping around his horn, and Rainbow Dash realized what he was going to do. She had been hit by the same spell a few days ago. She shivered as the black and red glow came close and closer to her forehead. 
"Are you sure none of you want to give any information?" Sombra offered one last time. Fluttershy opened her mouth but was silenced from a hardboiled glare from Rainbow Dash. 
"No."
"Six hours of screaming it is." He said grimly, he brought down his horn, but it only made contact with the ground. "Wha-" He looked up to see Applejack lowering her hind hooves. 
"Don't you touch my friends."
Sombra smiled maniacally and whipped a shadow hand upward to grab the two Elements of Harmony Applejack wore around her neck, Loyalty and Honesty, but it was pushed back by an instant of bright light. "Curses, they're still connected. Oh well." He grabbed her by her tail and shoved her into the jail cell next to Rainbow Dash. 
He prepared the fear spell again. "Rarity, Twilight, come out. Are you going to leave your other friends to live out their nightmares? You saw what this spell can do to someone as mentally stable as Celestia, what about your weak-willed friends?"
The last two slowly complied. And Sombra wasted no time in placing them in cages of their own. 
"Now then, you're going to tell me how the three of you managed to escape, and how you managed to navigate down here. And as you know, the cage can tell if you're lying."
Before any of the mares could begin speaking however they were interrupted by a stallion in full armor bursting in. 
"King Sombra!!"
"What. Is. It?!" He growled.
The soldier gulped twice before Sombra's glare tightening made him spit out the information. "We have confirmed sightings of the Spirit of Disharmony in our territory. He already dispatched one of our patrols."
"D-Discord?" Sombra choked out. 
"Yay!" All the ponies in the room turned toward Fluttershy, who realized she was cheering. "Uh... sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."
"Looks like you lose Sombra." Twilight said with a proud grin. "Discord's one of our close friends."
Sombra blinked. "You- you're kidding me!" He sank to his haunches. "That... what the heck could have possibly happened to that monster while I was frozen? The great Spirit of Chaos, coming to the aid of Equestrians?"
The Crystal Pony backed out of the room slowly. Not only was he the bearer of bad news to King Sombra, he was in the same room as ponies who were allied with the Spirit of Chaos and Destruction! He immediately ran as fast as he could to the surface to begin spreading the news to the rest of the Crystal Army.

~~~~

Makuta watched from his tiny cage on a high shelf as three mares made their way across the room. One of them, a purple unicorn, stopped several times to look at some of Sombra's collection. He thought about blinding her and trying to hint to Sombra he was, well himself.
The lord of darkness watched with interest as they made their way to where the talking was coming from, likely Sombra's dungeon, and a conversation began. Teridax was only able to grab a few words out of the conversation. But after Sombra rushed into the room he could hear it slightly more clearly, Sombra being so loud. And even louder once one of Sombra's soldiers showed up. But just two words of that conversation were truly important.
The words 'Great Spirit'. 
Makuta felt the flame of ambition roaring within him. He had a new goal. 
And it was time to start a new Plan.