“Okay, moving onto question eighty-five. What was the main source and commodity for the Crystal Empire?” Twilight asked, staring intently at Sombra while she dipped her quill in a fresh inkwell.
Sombra groaned, head in his crossed forelegs on the table before him. “This is a truly torturous experience.”
“No, this is research,” Twilight corrected him. “Now, what’s the answer?”
“The shadowy abyss of dread that I was locked in for a thousand years was better than this,” Sombra muttered under his breath, staring back up to glare at Twilight. “Think really hard and tell me what the commodity of the Crystal Empire would be.”
Twilight huffed. “No need to be testy.”
“The need to be testy came and went after question number forty. Now I’m just annoyed,” Sombra said, scowling harder. “Can this suffering end sometime soon?”
Twilight shook her head. “I just need a few more questions–”
Sombra slammed his steel-clad hoof on the table, the wood bending under the force. “By the ninth pit of Tartarus, will you shut your mouth and begone from my sight?”
Sombra’s hoof was encased in a bright purplish light, lifting the appendage up in the air as Twilight’s frown deepened. “First off, you do not break the furniture in my house,” Twilight started, releasing her magic hold on his hoof. “Secondly, as long as you live in my house, you abide by my rules. Meaning I can ask you as many questions as I please.”
“You heartless banshee,” Sombra muttered, yanking his hoof away and rubbing it tenderly.
Twilight raised her brow. “Does someone want to go the basement again?”
Sombra held both hooves to his cheek, a frightened expression overtaking his face. “Oh no, I’m absolutely terrified about being sent to the wretched and dank basement! It’s not like I ever in all my elongated life have ever spent a centuries without light or comfort.” Sombra waved his hoof in the air and snorted. “Bah, make threats that at least scare me somewhat, as well as some you’ll actually have the spine to stick by. You’re too much of a goody, goatish little princess to stick me back in there for something as insignificant as not answering your insufferable questions.”
“Then I could always take away your dessert instead,” Twilight pointed out, closing her eyes in content while smirking just as Sombra’s face fell in an open jawed, shocked expression.
Closing his mouth, he said, “You wouldn’t dare…”
Opening her eyes up, she arched an eyebrow at the ex-tyrant and said, “Just try me.”
The tension in the room mounted dramatically, so much so the two were practically snarling in one another's faces. Which was a good reason Spike had departed from the two in a wise decision of not getting involved in any conflict that could potentially occur.
Just as Sombra was about to reply with a comment explaining to Twilight in vivid detail just where she could cram her next question, Pinkie decided to burst through the door in her usual explosion of noise and confetti.
“Hello everypony, what’s happening?” Pinkie asked the pair, walking in on the two spiteful rivals currently trying to destroy each other in a battle of wills and staring contests.
Twilight shrugged, brushing a lock of purple mane out of her eyes as she stared down at the scroll. “Oh, nothing much, Pinkie. I was just asking Sombra here some questions he was glad to answer.”
“Lies! You bribed me to answer those questions on the promise of pudding! Which I have still not received in spite of the agreement!” Sombra countered, pointing an accusing hoof at Twilight. “The promise of this mystical chocolate treat with a gooey texture will never be fulfilled from a villainous liar such as yourself!”
“Oh, and I’m the villainous one here, huh?” Twilight asked, lifting up the scroll she had just written in. “And who here enslaved his entire people and made an army of darkness to take over the entire world?”
“At least I didn’t lie about it!” Sombra countered, holding a hoof to his chest. “I have pride in my evil accomplishments, thank you very much.”
“That doesn’t seem like something you should be very proud of,” Pinkie said, hopping in a chair and scooted over to Sombra. “Like, I’m proud of the fact I’m the number one cupcake eater in town. Ooh, and with bubblegum I can blow the biggest bubble ever! And even the fact that I can stretch my tongue really, really long!”
“Fine, fine, we get the point,” Sombra groaned, grimacing at the over-rambunctious pink mare. “End your insistent babbling this minute.”
“Sombra!” Twilight shouted.
Sombra held up his hooves in the air in defense. “Hey, at least I didn’t tell her to shut her pribbling pie-hole up! Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Not if you’re going to be rude about it,” Twilight replied, glowering at Sombra.
“It’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie assured her, reaching out to tap on her hoof supportively. “I’m used to Sombry being a bit grumpy.”
Sombra’s head hit the desk, a deep breathing heard from his face’s current position. “For the last time…” Sombra lifted up his head and stared at Pinkie with a livid, all together psychotic expression. “My name is Sombra! Do you need me to spell it out for you? S-O-M-B-R-A! Not once does ‘y’ appear there! So unless you want me to carve it into your thick skull, address me correctly!”
The room was cast back into a tense silence, though this one was quickly broken by Sombra’s cry of pain.
“Ow!” he shouted, rubbing his ear. Glaring at Twilight, he noticed her glowing horn and managed to put two and two together. “What was that for?”
“You threatened my friend, so you got punished,” Twilight said, rolling up her scroll in a nonchalant manner. “I gave you a punishment fit for a foal.”
“By twisting my ear?”
Twilight smiled. “Indeed I did.”
It took a few seconds for this insult to sink in. When it finally did, he was reaching over the table to strangle Twilight while Pinkie tried her best to hold him back. “I will destroy you! Burn your body and entire village to the ground as I and enslave the lot of you! Your life shall end by my hoof, you incompetent and inferior mare!”
“Sombry, please, sit down,” Pinkie begged, finally able to pull him back to his seat when Twilight’s magic forced him to be seated again. Standing between the two and their hatefilled glares at one another, Pinkie’s ears drooped and she ducked underneath to avoid their murderous gazes. Luckily, she had just the thing to fix that.
“Who wants to play a fun game?” Pinkie asked, throwing down a board game she somehow pulled out of nowhere.
“Where did you even acquire such a trivial thing?” Sombra asked, staring at the rectangular box with a scrutinous glare. “You didn’t even walk in with it.”
“Don’t try to overthink it, Sombry,” Twilight said, shaking her head to Pinkie. “And count me out, Pinkie. I see this as a much better opportunity for you two to bond. I’ll be doing some studying in the meantime.”
Twilight departed from the pair, leaving Sombra and Pinkie all alone.
Dusting off his cape, Sombra took to all fours to leave as well. “Whatever this game is, count me out of it as well. A king would never do something so foalish, especially with an artless mare such as yourself.”
“If you want, we can continue with the questionnaire!” Twilight called out from the table across the room, lifting several scrolls up in the air with her magic. “I just find your pony’s culture and timeline far too intriguing to pass up the opportunity to learn more!”
Sombra sat back down. “Due to new complications, I shall partake in this so called ‘fun game’ with you,” Sombra said, peering intently at the box with the cartoonish stallion figure dressed up in a fancy suit, top hat and trademark white mustache. “Now, how exactly do we play it?”
“It’s quite simple, really.” Pinkie opened the box and dumped out its contents: dice, game pieces, different color bits, a square, fold-out game board, a plethora of plastic housing figures, and cards that had the print ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’ on them. “This game is called Monopony, and it’s all about real estate. Both of us buy up different properties, sell stuff, do auctions, viscously land grab anything we can get our greedy hooves on, open up overpriced houses and hotels, and even win the occasional beauty pageant for a meager reward. Oh, and the point of the game is to force the other player to go bankrupt and lose any financial gain they have worked so hard for to acquire. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“It does not matter whether it is ‘fun’ or not,” Sombra said, digging through the pile of game pieces until he picked out his piece of choice, which was a thimble. “All that matters is that I win. The king must always win.”
In a flash, Pinkie had the game all set up, her own piece, a cupcake, at the starting position. “Silly, it doesn’t matter whether you win or not. It’s all about having fun!” Pinkie said, clapping her hooves together.
“Heh, that’s what you say now,” Sombra told her, picking up the dice and giving them a good shake in his hoof before releasing them on the table. “But just wait and see how badly you are defeated when I’m done with you.”
[hm]
“You dirty cheater!” Sombra shouted with spiteful rage, flipping the game board over the table, game pieces and paper bits flying across the room.
“Hey, I wasn’t cheating!” Pinkie whined, pointing a hoof directly in his face. “You are the one who can’t handle losing!”
“I wouldn’t be losing if you hadn’t cheated like an adulteress mare with her husband!” Sombra spat back, slapping her hoof away.
Crossing her hooves, she arched a brow at him and asked, “Then explain to me, Mr. Sore Loser, how exactly did I cheat?”
“... I don’t know how exactly,” Sombra said, glancing to the left and right in a nervous habit, “but I do know your credibility towards the fair play of games has been shattered over the untruthful transgressions that have taken place on this gameboard.”
Pinkie stuck her tongue out. “You’re just jealous because you suck at real estate.”
“I am a king!” Sombra shouted, pointing his hoof up high in the air. “I deal with real estate on a daily basis! Buying, or more likely conquering, land, selling off slums and ghettos to high rollers to make factories to bind the poor with cheap labor and unhealthy living conditions, and most importantly, collecting an improbably high amount of taxes.”
“Okay then, real estate expert. Where does stuffing down bits in your armor sleeves come in the real estate game?” Pinkie Pie asked, noticing bits falling on the table from where Sombra raised his hoof.
Drawing his hoof back with sweat beading up on his forehead, he muttered, “How dare you accuse me, a king of a royal bloodline, of doing something as petty as cheating at a board game! For shame upon you, for shame!”
Getting up from her seat, Pinkie shrugged, still smiling. “Fine, if you don’t want to play fairly, we don’t have to play at all. And here I thought we could go out to Ponyville for a nice walk, but if you’re too much of a sore loser to go…”
“Ha, like I’d ever go out in public with somepony as uncultured as you,” Sombra laughed, grinning smugly.
“That means you can stay here with me!” Twilight called out from the table, holding a wide arrange of scrolls and books in her magical grip. “I was thinking that we can continue with the research of the Crystal Empire while also schooling you in modern world mannerism and knowledge. Plus, we can even go through the thousand year time gap of history you missed out!” Twilight smiled broadly at Sombra’s fearful frown. “Doesn’t that sound exciting?”
“On second thought…” Sombra turned back to Pinkie and declared, “Take me out on the town! It’s about time the derelict masses know once more of my return to greatness!”
“Hey, Twilight, can I take Sombra out for a walk?” Pinkie called over the king’s shoulder.
“Only if you put him on a leash!” Twilight yelled, both mares snickering while Sombra drooped lower in his seat. Holding back more giggles, Twilight said, “I suppose now is as good as ever to show Sombra around Ponyville. Everypony was going to find out about his return eventually, and Celestia did say it’s up to my judgement when to reveal him. So yes, you can take him out as long as he behaves.”
“I’m not just some foal you two can boss around!” Sombra objected, stomping his hoof in the ground.
“Then stop acting like one,” Twilight said, returning the books and scrolls she was holding back to her desk. Tapping a hoof to her chin for a moment, Twilight said, “Oh, and Sombra, do try to not escape Pinkie or the borders of Ponyville. I still have that magical signal traced on you if you ever decide to. You wouldn’t what would happen if you do.”
Frowning, Sombra shrugged and got up. “So, shall we depart from this wretched house of learning already?” he asked Pinkie.
“Only if you Pinkie promise not to be rude or mean to anypony we meet in Ponyville,” Pinkie told him, bouncing near the door for him to hurry up.
“What in blazes is a Pinkie promise?” Sombra asked, joining her beside the door.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie said, crossing her heart with a hoof, flapping her wrist in the air to mimic flying and actually shoving her hoof into her eye.
Sombra gagged at the display and said, “I am not going to do that!”
“Then I guess no outside time,” Pinkie said with a shrug, opening up the door. A tempting ray of sunshine fell into the library, and the distant sounds of ponies going about their daily business with birds chirping in the air could be heard in the distance. Sounds Sombra hadn’t heard of in centuries.
Gritting so hard he was sure he was going to crack a molar, Sombra gulped and muttered barely above a whisper, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my freaking eye.”
“Sillyhead, you have to do the hoof motions too!” Pinkie said, shoving her hoof into her eye hole once more. “Like this!”
“Take it or leave it,” Sombra replied, his dignity quickly falling to all new levels the more time he spent with the insufferable Pinkie Pie.
“Okie dokie lokie!” Opening the door wide, Pinkie bounced out of the library, Sombra falling begrudgingly behind. “We’re just gonna have so much fun!”
“The hindsight is going to hit me hard on this,” Sombra reflected, already dreading his decision. “I’m just sure of it.”