//------------------------------// // Charged with Punishment // Story: Nox Invictus // by Darkwing Dash //------------------------------// “Y-You!?” cried Luna. “How are you- What are you doing here?!” King Sombra chuckled. “Ah, Princess, I am so glad you’re here. I’ve been waiting for you.” “You? Waiting for me? What for?” Luna asked, bewildered. Sombra gave her a look. “Don’t you remember? You are the reason I have gotten this far in the first place. I sincerely thank you.” “Me? But-but I-” Luna winced as pain shot through her head. Her eyes watered as the past swam before them. Luna flew through the air, eyes fixed on the clearing below her, on the figure at the center. She landed on the grass, scratching at it angrily with a hoof. Tenebris trotted up to her. “Wow,” he said. “This night is amazing. Your best one yet!” “No!” Luna snapped. “This has been the worst night of my life! My kingdom hates me, my sister’s turned against me and I just destroyed several rooms in my castle. Things are not alright. What am I going to do!?” Tenebris’ eyes seemed to glow. “What will you do indeed? Now is the time. We must make our move.” “Make our move?” said Luna. “What are you talking about? I just need to think things through. I could really use your help.” Tenebris stomped his hoof, impatient. “Your sister betrayed you! She has turned your empire against you. You must show her your power! Create your kingdom of eternal night!” Luna backed away, astonished. “Eternal night? What are you talking about?! That would be horrible!” Tenebris looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. “Well,” he said, his voice growing several octaves deeper. “It seems we are not as alike as I had imagined. Things shall have to progress a different way.” Tenebris’ bright red coat darkened by several shades. His eyes turned blood red, the whites turning a sickly green. The fur under his robes turned pitch black. His body turned incorporeal and began to flow out from him, billowing into a cloud of inky smoke. Kind Sombra hovered before Luna, smiling sinisterly. “You,” Luna gasped. “You’re dead.” Sombra chuckled. “I? I am the master of an empire! The conqueror of an age! Did you really think that you and your sister could kill me so easily? Luna growled. “You deceived me.” “I tried to help you realize your potential,” Sombra asserted. “You lie!” Luna yelled. Sombra shrugged, as much as an inky black cloud can shrug. “So I did. It’s what I do. I thought I could get you to overthrow your country by yourself. It seems I was wrong.” The air around Luna grew dark. While she had been distracted, Sombra had encircled her in a globe of shadow. “Still, there are other ways to my goal,” he said, unconcerned. “You are deluding yourself if you think you can defeat me. You are a mere shadow. Your power is no match for mine.” Luna asserted. Sombra continued to smile. “It may not be as easy as you think.” Suddenly, he paused. Luna paused too. A faint, high-pitched noise grew slowly louder. There was a booming, muffled detonation and Sombra howled in pain. A ray of blinding light pierced through the dark shield and Celestia was on the other side. “Luna!” she cried, the beam from her horn keeping the shield open. “Hurry! I brought the Elements! We have to use them! Sombra is too powerful.” Luna looked at her sister coldly. Her sister, who had ignored her every single day for years, who even now was trying to do damage control for Luna’s mistakes. She was always the hero. “No,” Luna rejected, turning back into the cloud. “Not this time, dear sister.” She filled the two words with contempt. “I will deal with this little pinprick on my own.” The dark cloud reformed, overpowering Celestia’s magic and blasting her back. Luna turned to face King Sombra, who snarled at her. She fired a laser. It sailed harmlessly through the illusion, impacting on the wall behind. A menacing laugh echoed all around her, “You should have listened to your sister,” Sombra whispered in her ear. The darkness contracted. Luna gasped, the memory fading. “You!” she cried. “It was you! You turned me into Nightmare Moon! You controlled me!” Sombra smiled and placed a hoof on his chest, as if accepting praise. “Indeed,” he said “Some of my finer work." “You turned me evil! You corrupted me!” Luna shouted. Sombra cocked his head at that. “You flatter me, Luna. A little too much, I’m afraid. I can’t possibly take credit for that. That honor belongs only to you.” “Liar!” Luna accused. “Not this time, surprisingly.” Sombra admitted. “It’s simply not in my power. I can manipulate darkness, even darkness of the heart, quite easily. But creating it from nothing is another matter entirely. But I don’t need to tell you this. You already know it. It’s time to stop deluding yourself.” “Why are you telling me all this? What do you want from me?” Luna asked, her head hurting with confusion. “I want what I’ve always wanted,” Sombra said. “I want you to join me.” Luna’s jaw dropped. “You poisoned my mind, controlled my body and attempted to kill my soul for centuries and you expect me to join you!? Why in Equestria would I do that?” “Because you have nowhere else to go,” Sombra said simply. “You’ve been locked on the inside these many centuries, running in the woods, while I have been on the outside, looking through the eyes of Nightmare Moon, seeing all that goes on down below.” His eyes glowed. “The world has forgotten you, Luna. They don’t even remember your name anymore. You only exist as a legend, a distant figure in the history books. The ponies worship your sister, revere her as a god. They have holidays celebrating her, commemorating her very existence. Do you know what you have? Nothing. They remember Nightmare Moon more than they remember you. They have days in which they revile you, fear you, cast you out as a villain and placate you with offerings so as to keep their souls. Even your own sister hates you.” “No,” cried Luna. “You’re wrong! My sister loves me. She may have been hurt, but she still loves me, deep down. I can still make it right.” Sombra stared at her, his eyes piercing. “If she cared for you, why would she have imprisoned you with me for centuries?” “She didn’t kill me though,” Luna said desperately. “She could have. Her power plus the Elements would have been enough.” “And do you really think imprisonment was the better option?” Sombra pressed on. “Were there never any moments during those long centuries when you seriously contemplated turning around and letting my demons end it all?” “There were,” Luna admitted. “But I kept going because I was determined to make it back to my old life.” “A life you no longer have!” Sombra snarled. “You have nothing, you have less than nothing! No kingdom, no family, no home. Only me and the life I offer.” Luna sank in despair as the truth hit her. She really did have less than nothing. The best she could hope for was a population that didn’t hate her for her past crimes and even that was almost wishful thinking. It was then that Luna came to a realization. “I don’t care,” she said. “What?” growled Sombra. “I don’t care!” Luna repeated loudly. “I don’t care if I have nothing, or less than nothing, or whatever I have. Because life won’t decide what I have. I will. I will decide what life I want and right now, I decide that the best life I can have is one as far away from you as possible.” Sombra looked at her coolly. “Very well then. I’m afraid you’ll have to die.”