In Sombra Cadum

by Darkryt Orbinautz


Rehabilitation


By Darkryt Orbinautz

In Sombra Cadam

Chapter 3

Rehabilitation


Twilight had every intention of dragging the Crystal Empire back through a thousand years of history, make no mistake restoring every building, every house and every farm, into the way it was when Sombra ruled all those many years ago.

But before she did that, she was going to fix the sloppy, poor scheduling work of her brother and Cadence. She really did love them both, but this schedule... the schedule held in front of her with magic. It was terrible! Resources were poorly managed, the routes of the Royal Guards on patrol did not afford effective view of all possible trouble spots, tea breaks were at stilted and awkward times, and...oi. The list just goes on and on!

Occasionally, Twilight would need some relief from correcting all of her brother's poor management skills and would blast something to make it blue and pure again, just so she could corrupt it over again.

"Mmm..."

Twilight scribbled another amendment to the schedule. Afterwards, a nagging feeling ticked at her horn. She looked around the room, seeing all the twisting black crystals just slightly jutting out of the ground.

She was dissatisfied with that. Her horn shimmering with green light in multiple directions, Twilight forced all the crystals upwards with a horrible groaning sound, making them bigger and taller.

The door to the throne room squeaked pathetically, like the inanimate object itself could feel the coming darkness. A Crystal mare stepped into the room. Twilight didn't hear her, still furrowing her eyes over at the schedule.

"T-Tw-Twilight Sparkle?" The Crystal Mare whimpered.

Twilight's eyes widened when she heard her name being called. Dropping the clipboard against the floor, she turned to the peasant. "Oh, good! Could you help me with something?"

The Crystal Pony grimaced, clinging to the door, fearful of undergoing one of Sombra's cruel and unusual tortures by his anger reaching from the grave through Twilight Sparkle, his vessel. "W-W-What do you need help with it?"

Twilight motioned her hoof for the peasant to come over. "Come over here. Look at this."

With a gulp, a sign, and an under the breath prayer for Celestia to watch over her friends and family, the peasant trotted over. "Yes?"

Twilight draped a hoof over the peasant's shoulder and held up the clipboard. "Look at this schedule. It's terrible. I'm trying to rearrange so The Empire runs more efficiently. Now, currently, Guards' tea time is at 2: 04. Now, I can either move it 2:15, before the Guards all change positions, or to 2:30, at the same time the town crier delivers the afternoon news. Which do you think is better?"

"Um...well, I think it's better for the Guards to get a drink and snack in before they have to do all that walking, so...2: 15?"

"Excellent!" Twilight rasped. She magically summoned a quill that was as black and dark as Sombra, with a red tip like the Shadow King's horn, and scribbled it down on the clipboard.

The peasant looked between Twilight and the clipboard. "So, uh...does this mean you're not going to shroud The Empire in darkness and make it like it was a 1000 years ago?"

Twilight laughed heartily, patting the peasant on the back. "Oh, no! No...I'm still going to tax your lands, blight your crystals, darken your skies, and just plain ruin your day..."

Twilight pushed the peasant away and leered at the clipboard. "But not until after I fix this schedule. Mine will be an efficient tyranny."

The peasant's lips quivered, before she started crying softly and galloped out of the room.

Twilight did not care in the slightest. It was only the first few tears of many.

She stood there, coming to a stop about her revisions to the schedule. Half an hour passed before she realized what else she could fix of her brother's poor managing skills.

She continued what she had been doing for some time, alternating between revising the schedule and increasing the throne room's corruption.

At some point, she realized she hadn't been corrupting anywhere but the throne room, so she stuck her head the door and blasted a green laser from one end of the hallway to the other until it, too, was wrapped in onyx crystals. Then she went back to her little schedule.

She didn't hear the door creak open again, much more boldly this time, too.

"What are you doing?" Her uninvited guest asked.

"I'm trying to fix my brother's sloppy schedule." Twilight answered honestly...and brutally.

The intruder chuckled. "It's good to see there are some things not even demons can change."

Twilight's eyes widened. She recognized that laugh...that warm, kind, soft motherly laugh.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight exclaimed, turning around to face her mentor.

"Hello, my most faithful student." Celestia greeted with mixed feelings, like she was both happy and sad to be here with her student. Happy to see Twilight. Not so keen on seeing her like this, with her evil dress and glowing green eyes...

"I'm so glad you're here!" Twilight exclaimed, rushing up to her mentor and hugging her tightly.

Celestia was...really not expecting that. She was expecting Sombra's magic to power through Twilight's natural instincts and make her attack, locking them into a duel of magic.

Twilight removed herself from her mentor. "So, you may have heard, but I'm taking over the Crystal Empire!"

"Yes...I have." Celestia murmured. She knew what she was going to have to do, but she wanted to see where her student was going with this.

"I...never really run an Empire before," Twilight admitted, "But I can do it! I was hoping I could some tips from you."

"Tips?"

"Well, yes! Since you've been in charge of Equestria for so long..."

Celestia chuckled again. "Well, Twilight, I appreciate your kind words, but are you really sure you're fit to lead a whole Empire?"

Twilight glared, apparently dumbstruck that the Princess would doubt her abilities. "But I have excellent organizational and managing skills!"

"True." Celestia replied. "But ruling an Empire takes more then that, Twilight, much more."

Twilight pouted. "But, but...don't you think I can do it?"

"Perhaps, my most faithful student, but The Crystal Empire isn't yours to rule. It's Cadence's and your brother's."

Twilight snorted and levitated the schedule, waving it around for the Princess to see.

"Yes, Twilight, I know. But you're in current state, you don't remember what else a good leader needs."

Twilight dropped the clipboard into her hoof and looked at it before looking at the Princess. "Like what?"

"Like..." Celestia's horn lit up, and Twilight tensed, expecting an attack. A gold beam of light shot out from the Princess' horn and hit one of the dark crystals in the room. An image of Fluttershy appeared on the crystal's reflection.

"Kindness..."

Another beam of light shot out, causing the same thing to happen, except showing Rainbow Dash.

"Loyalty..."

"Stop." Twilight said, sounding horrified. "Stop what you're doing."

Another beam shot out, putting another one of Twilight's friends in the reflection. "Generosity..."

"I said stop!" Twilight snarled.

"Being able to share a laugh with your subjects..."

"STOP!" Twilight shouted, Sombra's voice overlapping with hers. The purple mists of Sombra's demonic irises blasting out from her own in huge geysers. The clouds huffed and puffed from her eyes furiously.

"HONESTY!"

"STOP! ENOUGH! SILENCE!" Twilight/Sombra screamed in rage. She/he let out an extremely pained howling wail. "ARRRRRRGGH!"

Twilight put her hooves on her head and fell down. With their ear-piercing pain howls echoing around the room, shadows began flying out from Twilight, whisking away from her in an explosion as memories of her friends returned to her. All the crystals in the room became short, friendly and blue again. Once the shadows had all left, Twilight whimpered and cried.

Celestia stepped towards her with no trace of emotion, but she may have just been keeping up appearances.

Twilight lifted one hoof nervously off her eye, still glowing green and red. "P-Princess?"

"Yes...Twilight?"

"C-can you help me?" Twilight whimpered. "I don't want...to be like this anymore, but the spell..." Twilight blasted a purple laser from her horn. "Uhhhn...it feels so good!"

Celestia raised an eyebrow. She sat down near her student. "Do you want to be helped, my little pony? I cannot help somepony who does not want to be helped."

Twilight looked down at the reflecting crystal floor before looking back up at Celestia. "Yes...yes, I do."

Celestia smiled. "I am quite glad to hear that, Twilight. Close your eyes..."

Twilight obeyed. Celestia's horn lit up again, shining brightly like florescent gold, and she touched the tip of her horn to the tip of Twilight's. Twilight shivered and moaned and spasm-ed from the eon-old energies pouring into her. There was a resounding BOOM like an bomb going off before Celestia removed her horn.

Twilight opened her eyes, which had turned back to their normal violet. "Whew! Thank you so much, Princess...I better get going." Twilight stood up. "I have a lot of making up to do if I want Shining Armor to forgive me."

"I'm sure he will." Celestia said. "Go on."

Twilight galloped towards the door, but she stopped halfway there. She lifted her hoof and observed the cloth on it.

"...Princess? Can I keep the dress?"

Celestia snickered. "If you'd like."

"Yes!" Twilight pumped her hoof. "Thank you." Twilight bowed before galloping out for real.

Celestia remained there, confident everything Twilight corrupted would be returned to normal soon. She stood up, an angry expression creasing on her face.

"And as for you..."

Celestia turned around to come face-to-face with a floating, dark grey murky cloud that Sombra's eyes on it. It floated away from her, fearful.

"I thought you and I had an understanding." Celestia growled, getting closer to it. "You understand, now that you're violated the rules.."

The cloud shook its head, like begging to be spared from whatever terrible fate was awaiting it.

Celestia stuck her tongue out in anticipation.

The cloud tried to run away, but how fast it could float wasn't fast enough to escape Celestia's snapping jaw. The Sun Princess bit into it and jerked it like a lion wearing out its prey before eating it.

More like a dragon, or a wolf, than a lion, Celestia jerked her head upwards and began swallowing the cloud, savoring each and every snap of her jaws until she had consumed the entire mist. Her eyes flashed brilliant gold before returning to their normal state.

She then turned around and trotted out the door, looking forward to spending the rest of the day with Twilight and her friends like absolutely nothing strange had happened.