Losing Sanity

by NightShader

As Power Clouded His Mind

It was the day after Sombra’s speech. Ponies left their homes early in the morning, all on their way to their jobs. They tried to ignore what Sombra had in mind. He has never been defeated in battle before, heck, nopony was lost in any of his battles. Surely this would be the case when he invades dragon territory... Right? Uncertainty clouded the minds of his subjects, no matter how much they wanted to believe in his powers, they knew that dragons, no matter how small, would still be too much of a challenge, and even if he succeeded, he would lose most of his troops with this battle.

Sombra stood beside a window in his throne room, staring blankly at his empire before him. This was all he had done, he made sure there was no poverty within his lands and criminality was nearly non existent. Sombra had no problems with forcing information out of ponies with mind control. It was all for the best he claimed, it was a necessity to ensure the safety of his lands.

Knocking could be heard on the large door at the end of the hall.

“Investigation results,” a muffled voice spoke almost inaudibly from behind the door.

“Permission granted for entrance,” Sombra spoke bluntly, not looking away from his window. He could hear the door open, and close. Yet it was completely silent afterwards. He knew which pony could be this silent, it was one of his most loyal subjects.

A middle sized pegasus stallion trotted over to the middle of the hallway before he stood still and bowed. His coat was black accompanied with a white mane and tail. His cutiemark was a soundwave.

“Sound Proof, I see you have returned from your spy mission,” Sombra said, turning around to face the stallion.“ I assume everything went well?”

“Yes my lord. I have acquired data about the dragons numbers and the best route we should take.” Sound Proof spoke confidently.

An evil grin emerged on Sombra’s face. “Good work, now tell me. If you were to guess, what are the odds of us being the victors of this battle.”

 At these words Sound Proof visibly flinched.

“W-well, the amount of dragons present in the area are higher than we had speculated.” He paused “And it seems that some older dragons have appeared as well...”

Sound Proof stopped talking and looked away, irritating Sombra a little.

“So, what are the odds?” Sombra asked impatiently.

“If we were to attack right now... We would be surrounded and we would be completely d-disintegrated. There would be no survivors, my lord. We wouldn’t even stand a chance.” Sound Proof’s voice became a whisper at the end of the sentence, and he braced himself for whatever Sombra was going to do. Nothing happened however, Sombra simply smiled and started laughing.

“I was expecting such an answer, I need to show you something,” He said, and with a flash Sombra teleported the two of them outside. They landed right next to two of Sombra’s royal guards, they were well trained and already were in a battle pose. At the sight of their ruler they retracted their weapons and returned to their watch positions.

“Behold, I’m going to demonstrate you a bit of my new powers... See that mountain over there?”

Sound Proof shifted his vision, seeing the mountain in the distance, he nodded “Yeah, what about it?” He asked curiously. A wretched smile was the only answer he got as Sombra’s horn started glowing again. A huge ball of dark magic started to form at the tip of his horn, Sound Proof could see the immense power radiating off of the ball as the dark glow around it started to expand and dark lightning seemed to be forming around it. Even the guards flinched and they took a step backwards.

“And now,” Sombra spoke, lowering his head. A beam of dark magic shot off the ball distorting the trees and everything else that was near it. The beam eventually reached the mountain, where it seemingly got absorbed and disappeared. It was quiet for a moment before you could see the mountain tremble. Within seconds the whole structure collapsed, nothing was left of it, only dust.

“Upon contact with anything, it will be destroyed from the inside, death is almost instantaneous. We will be unbeatable,” Sombra spoke proudly. Sound Proof didn’t like the look in Sombra’s eyes, he wasn’t doing this for his empire, he was doing this for himself, to test his limits.

“Indeed, victory will be ours.” Sound Proof spoke, trying to sound confident. He was impressed by the sheer amount of power that Sombra holds. However, he knew that this would not lead to victory. The spell takes too much time to cast, and from what he saw, it only affected one object at a time. And the worst part was that he was taking an army with him, they won’t be able to defend themselves against the dragons.

“Let’s return to the castle and contrive the battle plans then.”

Nobles had gathered within the royal basement, a protective spell was cast. cloaking their presence. Most of them were powerful unicorns, their title allowed them to give advice to their King. Not that he ever listens to them...

“We all know why we have gathered here,” A voice spoke. “Sombra has achieved great things, but he is going to far. He has to be stopped, if the dragons attack... We are doomed. And if he doesn’t contribute to our plans, we have to stop him, by force.”

Sombra and Sound proof teleported back. To Sombra’s surprise, a rather large group of nobles were present in his throne room.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sombra asked with a serious tone.

The nobles were silent for a moment, They didn’t even bow, they stood tall with their chest puffed up. The front pony spoke first “King Sombra, we are here to try and convince you that attacking the dragons might not be a good idea.” He started. “For it i-”

“There will be none of this nonsense,” Sombra interrupted. “Leave, or I’ll personally have to ‘escort’ you,” They all knew what he meant by escort, and if that were to happen, their whole plan would be ruined. So at the moment he spoke these words, there was nothing left of the brave nobles. Instead of resisting, they scurried off and closed the door behind them.

“It seems we will have to take some more serious measures to make him change his mind...”