//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: A Dark Twilight // by Ugly-Duckling123 //------------------------------// "TWILIGHT!" every-pony yelled. The princesses, mares and Spike ran to stand over her, to see what Sombra had done. While Shining Armour was frozen in place just blinking at at his fallen sister. He thought he lost her once, only for her to come back. Now he had really lost her and this time there was no way back to get to him. Shining Armour closed his eyes to try and stop the tears. "First you corrupt my sister," Shining Armour said rage building with each word. "Then you kill her, when she was unarmed... What kind of king are you...? Other than of course... A dead one?" When he opened his eyes all that was there was anger. He threw the Scepter down and pounced onto the dark king and started beating him with everything he had forgetting he was a Unicorn Captain of the Guard. When Twilight woke up all she could see was white. There were no trees, no grass, no buildings. Just white. Twilight got up and started walking. Not knowing where to go she walked down where her mind was telling her to go - forwards. After a while buildings started to appear. Only Twilight had never seen buildings like these. They looked like the Crystal homes and shops in the Empire, except they were all white and clean. Thinking she heard a cry Twilight ran a head bit further. No one was there. "Hello," her call echoed around her. "Can some-pony tell me where I am?" "You're in 'Limbo' my dear," a voice said "The space between heaven and hell." Looking around Twilight saw a tall black mare wearing a full bodied cloak - hood up, holding a scythe in her left hoof. "Who... Who are you, Why am I here?" Twilight asked trying to be brave. "My names Hotaru," said the mare taking down her hood, "it means 'Death'. And you are here, because King Sombra killed you. But since there were two ponies in this mind, he killed the part of him that was in here. And that is who I've come for." "But... But the Heart and Scepter killed it didn't it?" Twilight asked looking around as she walked along with Hotaru used her powers to find the bit of Sombra that was in her mind. "They only weakened it. After a while the Darkness would have built up again," Hotaru said sensing something over by a bush and walking over. After pulling apart the branches, Twilight saw some kind of blackened foal, whimpering on the ground, not noticing the two mares. "The only thing to kill that..." Hotaru said using her scythe to point at it "Was the thing, or rather pony, from which it came from. And it got in here," Hotaru continued seeing Twilight was about to ask that question, "from you using the Dark Magic. While you were shooting at the Crystal above the throne to get into the vault to find the Heart last time you were here, a bit of Sombra's magic that the Crystal had gathered over the years made it's way down to you." Twilight looked at the 'foal' again feeling no ounce of sorrow or sadness for it, and walked away leaving Hotaru to do her job. "So... What happens now?" Twilight asked looking up into the white sky. "To me I mean." "Well what do you want to do?" Hotaru asked walking up next to Twilight. Thinking for about twenty seconds, Twilight gave her answer. "I want to go back and help." "There's only one way to do that then," Hotaru said smiling at the young Unicorns determination. "Wake... Up." Shining Armour was still rolling around on the floor with Sombra, both forgetting they could do magic, trying to beat the other as hard as they could. The Princesses - heads down, Spike - was lying on top of Twilight, Applejack - had her hat to her chest, Rainbow Dash - trying not to cry, Rarity - with make-up running, Fluttershy - who was in tears, and a newly deflated Pinkie, weren't noticing the fight the two stallions were having as they were crying over the loss of their friend. Rainbow looked up to Rubeus, Rose and Starswirl, anger in her eyes. "Can't you do anything? You know like bring her back?" "I'm sorry," Rose said tears in her eyes. "Only Hotaru can do that, and she doesn't normally believe in second chances." "Who... Who's she?" Fluttershy asked wiping her eye's with her tail. "She's the Pony of Death and Rebirth," Starswirl said using his wisdom to explain the situation. Every-pony was so absorbed by this, no one noticed Twilight fluttering her eyes. She stayed still as she looked around and saw all her friends, the princesses, and Spike crowded over her, all in tears. "Why's every-pony so upset?" Twilight asked smiling at the reactions this got. "TWILIGHT!" they all cried Spike giving her a 'I-thought-I'd-never-see-you-again' brotherly hug. "We thought you were dead Sugarcube." Applejack said replacing her hat back on her head. "Yeah, that mean old meanie Sombra shot one of his green beams at you and you were just lying there, not doing anything, not breathing, not moving, nothing." a newly re-puffed Pinkie said grinning from ear to ear to see one of her best friends was alright. "I'LL GET YOU FOR KILLING MY SISTER SOMBRA!" Shining Armour's voice rang over to them not noticing that Twilight was fine. "Oh you think so Young Prince?" Sombra's voice replied. "Well since you care to be with her so much... You can be with her!" he pushed Shining Armour off and got into his fighting position. Shining got up too and started charging his horn, but Sombra had already released his magic. "NO!" Cadence screamed. But Twilight had already released a shield spell of her own protecting her brother. But she wasn't the best at casting shield spells and was finding it hard keeping it up while Sombra tried to beat though it to get to Shining Armour, who was looking around to see who was casting the spell. "TWILI!" He cried, then seeing how hard she was concentrating put up his own shield spell protecting all of them, and ran over to his sister. "Twili," he said hugging her "I... I thought you were dead." "I was," Twilight said calmly smiling. "So... So how are you here now then?" Shining Armour asked looking her up and down. "I'll tell you later B.B.B.F.F," Twilight said getting up "But first we need to get rid of Sombra... For good." Every-pony turned to the king who was a little shocked to see that Twilight was alive, but he didn't show it. "So Hotaru let you live then little filly?" Sombra asked in barely more than a whisper. "You can say that Sombra," Twilight answered grabbing the Heart and Scepter in her magic "Although I doubt she'll give you that choice... After all you've done." "We can find out together, put down the shield, we kill each other, and we find out..." Sombra said smirking. "You will be the only one who finds out Sombra," Rainbow said standing next to Twilight. "Yeah. Like we'll let you kill Twi again," Applejack said coming up on the other side. "Quite right," Rarity said standing next to her fellow Unicorn. "Yeah!" Pinkie and Fluttershy said together joining their friends. "Well there's only one way to tell," Sombra said closing his eyes pausing. "Try and kill me." With that he shot a beam of darkness at the shield and shattered it. Twilight, after giving Shining Armour the Scepter, held up the Heart letting all the love she had for every-pony around her flow into it, making it spin like mad. While Shining used the Scepter more like a fighting staff, batting away Sombra's spells giving the Heart time to warm up. Feeling that the love flowing into the Heart was stronger this time, Sombra called for all the darkness he could get to strengthen his power, firing stronger Dark Magic towards the ponies. "We can't keep this up that much longer Twi..." Shining Armour said pushing as hard as he could against the magic. "Get out of the way then Shining!" Twilight said in a determent voice. "You sure?" he asked. "Positive!" she answered. After a few seconds of thinking, Shining Armour leaped out of the way and let the Dark Magic get to his sister and her friends. But before it got there a Light Magic shield appeared driving the Darkness away. After that was taken care of another shot fired out, aiming straight towards Sombra. His screams could be heard from all six corners of the Empire, as he got destroyed.