//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: Armor for two // by LostUmbrella //------------------------------// A week after the failed attack on the Crystal Empire, Warm Sun sat peacefully in his study, his forelegs behind his head and the rear ones on the big mahogany bureau in front of him. The study was quite wide and square in shape, mostly occupied by the desk and three big coordinated chairs; the white walls were decorated by tribal mask and two surfing boards. All in all, it didn't give off a bureaucratic aura, looking more like a travel agency. Sun was a yellow coated, lime green maned earth pony and the current governor of the Independent Republic of Haywaii, yet, with that flowered shirt on he didn't look the part. "There's nothing better than idling in here, well except surfing," he said wearing a wide satisfied smile. His idling was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Mr.Sun, I'm sorry to intrude," said his secretary, an elderly red unicorn with her silvery mane tied in a bum, entering the room "There are two visitor that asked to meet you. They seem to be ponies of the high spheres." "Strange: I haven't received anything announcing an official visit..." mumbled the governor before ordering: "Whatever, let them in! Last thing we need is to anger some foreign aristocrat." A minute later, the door opened and two ponies made their way in the room: one was a gentle looking, white coated, blonde earth mare, the other a vicious looking, gray, male unicorn clad in a full armor and wearing a red regal mantle bordered in white that complimented his black mane. "Welcome to our joyful land! I am Warm Sun, governor of this republic. To whom I have the pleasure to talk?" welcomed them with a wide smile. "Good day, my good governor. This mare here is my fiancé, Bright Shine, while my name is Sombra. We traveled from the far crystal mountains only to meet you," explained the unicorn in a grave tone exercised in years of public speeches. "Oh, my best wishes for your wedding," he said shacking one of Sombra's forehooves, before commenting: "You must be famous, since I'm sure I have already heard your name. Are you a politician in the empire?" "We can say so," chuckled the mare. "Then, what do you need from this humble pony that requires travelling through an entire continent?" said Warm Sun sitting and inviting his guests to do so. "Your country," simply answered the unicorn, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Excuse me? I think I misheard" "We are taking over this country, my dear ex-governor," explained the now evilly smiling Bright Shine. "You what? Ah, I see, it's a joke!" said the yellow stallion patting Sombra's right shoulder with a nervous laugh. "I am well known for being a cruel tyrant, not a funny comedian," answered the unicorn blocking Sun's leg with his telekinesis "Now, would you kindly ask your defense forces to surrender? I'm sure that we all prefer to avoid useless bloodshed." "The joke has gone too far. GUARDS!" Immediately six bulky stallions in navy blue armor entered the room. One of them, wearing a matching helmet, intimated the two to surrender. "Bright dear, would you kindly?" asked Sombra without even bothering to turn. "Fine, but you are much too lazy for a pony in your position," she conceded mocking him. She stood, facing the guards and closed her eyes. In the arc of an instant, a series of black crystal shards started sprouting from her spine, culminating with a five-pointed shard on her forehead, mimicking both a unicorn's horn and a crown. When she reopened her eyes, they were flowing with dark magical energy like Sombra's usually did. The six guards exchanged confused and terrified looks. "What was it? Ah, right: surrender and yada yada or I'll show you what colors are your insides," she said with a vicious smile. It turned out she wasn't as gentle and kind as she looked, and perfectly fine with Sombra's methods, as long as she profited from them too; it also turned out that he didn't love her, but having a being as powerful as him and devoted to boot was a good thing, and she was beautiful too so he didn't complain when she asked him to marry her. The guards did what were paid for and charged Bright Shine, well, five of them since one ran away screaming "Pink, they are pink!" A deep purple aura surrounded those five brave stallions as they found themselves floating in mid air; a second later they were flying out of the window towards the ocean, where they 'landed' two kilometers offshore, five from where they stood. They would have later been saved by two fisherponies who were passing by. "Y-you killed them?" asked the shocked governor. "No, of course! It would have been a waste: such disdain for danger is commendable," said the mare returning to her previous form. "Now, you plan on resisting again or we can proceed with your surrender speech?" asked the unicorn finally letting his interlocutor's leg go. --- It had been a fairly normal day on Harmony Beach, the most beautiful in Haywaii and just a mere three kilometers away from the government office, with surfers in the waves, mares tanning on the shore wearing only alluring swimsuits, and foals playing around. Then, as the hottest ours where coming to an end, five stallions flew over the sand line and into the sea; that by itself could have been not that strange, if it wasn't for the fact that the stallions clearly didn't have any means to fly. But the strange things were just starting: less than ten minutes later, a massive projection of the governor's head appeared in the sky over his office. The apparition stared apprehensively in the empty space before it for a couple of minute, the it nodded and started saying with a sigh: "Citizen of the Independent Republic of Haywaii, I have a very important announcement: due to external pressure, I resign role as governor of this country with immediate effect and, even though it's unusual for a democratic state, I design as my successor king Sombra." With a static noise, the image shifted to from Warm Sun's defeated face to the dark unicorn's grinning one. "Greetings my new subjects! As my first act, I declare the end of this country and the birth of the new Independent Kingdom of Haywaii and nomine me it's ruler!" boomed the image with the king's low voice. Everywhere, the ponies, who were initially mad at Warm Sun, were now cowering in fear of what else the new king might had prepared for them. "On a side note, I pick the occasion to extend to everypony an invitation to the royal wedding between me and my fiancé Bright Shine, next week," said the image in a more cheerful way. The whole Haywaiian population blinked in surprise at the missed display of tyrannical cruelty. --- As Pinkie Pie is usual telling, the best way to gain a pony's trust is through a party, and that's precisely how things went for king Sombra: having learnt that being too oppressive with your subjects brings only a duo of unsatisfied goddesses, he did his best in leaving things as unchanged as he could (apart for the fact that he held absolute power and that he introduced a cult of his person), an effort that his new subject appreciated greatly. Thanks to this, Sombra's new kingdom went on without any major complication for more than two hundred years, when an unfortunate accident involving a coconut, an ice sculpture and princess Twilight Sparkle caused a diplomatic incident and the subsequent war, which ended with king Sombra and Bright Shine making their own kingdom and themselves disappear into nothingness for the next millennium, but that's a story for another time.