//------------------------------//
// The Shard 
// Story: The Crystal 
// by The Lunar Samurai 
//------------------------------//

	“What is it?” Celestia asked as she stepped through the door and into the small concrete walled room. The large table in the middle of the room was surrounded by ponies. Some were dressed in armor, others in lab coats, and others in their diplomatic attire.

“Nopony knows, your highness,” one of the guards said. “all we know is that this thing is, well, its alive.” Celestia stepped to the door and peered through the small crack. Through the crack in the door Celestia could make out the object. The small black crystalline object was ordinary in form, yet from deep within its defectless prison a crimson light pulsated, like a heartbeat.”

“I can’t believe I’m asking this, but have we attempted to communicate with it?” Celestia asked as she eyed the rock. 

“Your highness?”

“You heard me. If that thing is alive, it is either brain dead, or it has an agenda.”

“How do you expect us to communicate with a piece of stone?” the guard asked as he peered into the chamber. “It’s just a rock.”

“Crystal,” Celestia corrected, “and there is something oddly sinister about this crystal.”

“What do you plan to do?” the stallion who wore a white lab coat asked as he took a sip from his mug. “It’s not like you can waltz in and say ‘take me to your leader’.”

“I’m going to communicate with it.” Celestia said resolutely as she stepped toward the door.

“Your highness!” the stallion shouted, spilling his drink onto the floor. “This… thing, whatever it is, possessed one of your guards when he came in direct contact with it not two hours ago!”

“I am fully aware of the last incident that occurred with the crystal and I have no intention of letting it commit such an act again,” she said as she pushed open the door.
Celestia stepped into the room that housed the sentient mineral. It was dark, just barely bright enough for her to see the object. In war times, this place was the interrogation room for high value targets and treasonous ponies who dared to withhold information from the crown, but now its use was to retrieve information from something that had appeared in a shipping crate that morning.

“Greetings.” Celestia said confidently. She addressed the crystal as if it were as alive as one of her subjects. She waited for a minute or two as she looked for any sign of response from the object.

There was none.

“Figures,” she muttered as she rubbed her chin with her hoof. “How do you communicate with something that just sits there?” she thought aloud. An idea slowly crept into her mind. “If it emits light, maybe it receives it as well.” A slight glow encompassed her horn as she tried to evoke a response in the object. Slowly but surely the pulsating light grew faster as her light grew brighter. “That establishes one thing, it lights up when there is light stimulation.” She shook her head. “But that doesn’t matter!” she said as she stomped her hoof onto the ground.
The object blinked twice at the tactile sensation of the slight vibrations that rattled it’s pedestal.

“So you can feel things, and see things,” Celestia mused as she neared the object. As she drew closer she realized the absolute beauty of the crimson pulses that echoed through the dark glasslike faces. It beckoned her to reach out and take it from its resting place, but Celestia knew better, that thing, whatever it was, had already made one of her subjects go insane, that was not a fate she wished to endure herself. Nevertheless, the supernatural quality of the object was unmistakably tantalizing, and it called with an unwavering siren’s song to the most innermost parts of the soul.
Suddenly, a powerful sensation overcame Celestia’s mind. A great pressure had just assaulted her forehead, temples, and ears. She had had some mental attacks before, but never as strong as this. The pressure moved beyond a simple force to an oppression on her very thoughts, seeding tendrils deep into them as they tried to gain control.

Celestia, acutely aware of the situation, began began to condense her own thoughts, making them more difficult to penetrate. The defensive methods had worked to a degree, but the oppression continued to wear down on her thoughts, albeit at a much slower rate. On the outside, although a violent battle raged on inside her mind, her body remained in a transfixed pose. Her eyes locked onto the rhythmically pulsing crystal. A battle of souls was raging, and Celestia was slowly beginning to fade, she was losing the war.

“Celestia,” a quiet voice shouted in the distance through the fog of the battle. It was one of her guards, barely recognizable through the haze.

That’s right, I am Celestia. She thought, regaining confidence and power. I rule the nation of Equestria, and have done so for thousands of years! The oppression faltered. I control the rise and fall of the sun each day! The oppression began to withdraw from her mind. The ponies of Equestria swear by my name! The tides of the battle had turned.

Celestia had begun to assault the soul of the rock, its crimson glow becoming more and more frantic and powerful. You are a rock that thinks! Her attack, sharpened to a point by her confidence, pierced through the meager defenses the rock had instilled. She tried to pierce the thoughts of the crystal, but the barriers it had erected were unlike any Celestia had ever encountered before. Try as she might, using all of the methods she knew how, she could not penetrate the shield. Reluctantly she withdrew her assault and pulled herself back into the consciousness of reality.

Celestia violently shook her head and stumbled backward away from the pedestal, breaking the trace that the object had lured her into. She had not realized how close she had come to touching the object with her horn.

“You are a crafty one indeed,” she said as she struck the ground with her hoof. The rock blinked twice. The response gave her the feeling that maybe she had some control over the situation. 

“Guards!” she shouted, still confused about the recent encounter. “Dispose of it immediately.”

“Your highness?” the scientist asked as he pushed open the door.

“You heard me. That thing nearly possessed me as well. It has much more power that we can ever hope to understand, and that power poses a major threat to Equestrian society.” She looked back at the crystal, the look of hatred in her eyes. “I don’t know who you are, what you want, or who you answer to, but I am going to destroy you.” She turned to walk out of the door and nodded to the two guards. They readied their swords to destroy the item that had caused so much chaos over such a short period of time.

There was a bright flash, a split-second cry for help, then nothing. By the time Celestia had turned around to see the commotion it had ended. The two stallions who had just stood there moments before were gone, as was the crystal. She quickly raced over to the pedestal to try and understand what had just happened to her two soldiers. They were gone, but a small peculiar scorch mark lay where the object had rested. Its seemingly unorganized pattern drew out a single word, a name, Sombra.