//------------------------------// // I Feel...Cold... // Story: A Heart So Cold // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// "Well well, look who finally showed up to the party!" Sombra shouted with a cackle as Freeze walked over to the center of the city, preparing himself for a battle. Freeze narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the dark pony, seeing the clouds that were swirling around behind him. "Oh, you like the new clouds? Yeah, grey and dreary was cool for a while, but dark and thundering is where it is at," Sombra said with a huge smirk. "I do not know why you bothered to come back, but you saved me the trouble of having to find you eventually," Freeze said as he raised both his arms and pointed them at Sombra. "But I have other things to do and you are wasting my time. Farewell." He fired both of his freeze rays into Sombra, watching as the ice formed all along his body and caused him to fall to the earth. Freeze shook his head as he turned away, but then an explosion of heat went off behind him and he turned to see that Sombra had broken out of the ice, flames coming off of his body as he smiled at Freeze. "Sorry iceman, but sticking to ice makes you very predictable," Sombra said with a huge smiled before he let out a huge roar, flames shooting from his mouth and swarmed around Freeze. He narrowed his eyes at the fire and fired both of his rays into the fire, putting it out in a matter of seconds. "Of course, with my hot looks and raging personality, I figured that fire would be a great way to fight off the chills you give me." "Enough of your puns, I am going to put an end to you," Freeze said as he fired his rays at Sombra, who slipped into the shadows and moved behind Freeze. He shot out of the shadows and unleashed the fire into Freeze's back, Victor letting out a roar of pain as the fire consumed him. The suit held up well enough so that the fire didn't kill him, but he did fall to the ground while trying to clear his vision. "It will take more than fire to defeat me." "Oh I know that Freeze, but that's why I brought the remaining pieces to the game," Sombra said with a sinister smile as he looked up to the sky. "But as I do think of you as a worthy opponent, I decided to bring some creatures that bring the chill, just like you." Freeze looked to the sky to see a massive number of transparent horses flying down to the land, unleashing their ice breath upon the ponies off the town. Freeze could see that they needed help, but he knew that he could not fight both Sombra and those creatures at the same time, so with a growl of rage as he turned back to Sombra. "You know that you cannot win. I have bested you before," Freeze said as he raised his arm and fired a beam of ice into a building behind Sombra, causing the structure behind Sombra to collapse and fall towards him. "Oh Freeze, you are so predictable. You're not a fighter," Sombra said as he vanished into the darkness to avoid the buildings, reappearing behind Freeze to blast him again. "You are a scientist, not someone who will be able to fight the likes of me. While you sit in a lab to get your work done, I'm always the first to the battlefield. You have nothing on me." "Except that I am a thinker," Freeze said as he stood up and pointed to the floor, Sombra looking down to see that ice had covered his hooves. Before Sombra could ask where the ice had come from or melt through it, Freeze pulled a light post out of the ground and hurled at Sombra, sending the dark pony skidding back as he struggled to get back up. "I have planned up five steps ahead of you and you are far too busy bragging to notice. That is how I will win." "Five steps ahead? How can you possibly be five steps ahead of me when I have seen pretty much everything you have done!? What makes you smarter than me?!" Sombra roared, but then he took a blast of magic to the chest and sent him skidding back again, Freeze turning to see Twilight and the other ponies land behind him. "Because I am not a fool who believe he can defeat you and your forces by himself," Freeze said as he turned to the other ponies. "I am glad to see that you saw the ice flower, but I have no time to talk. Some kind of spectral ponies are attacking the city and I cannot take my attention away from Sombra to fight them. Can you assist me?" Twilight and the others nodded and flew off, but Luna and Celestia stood beside him as Sombra got back up. "We have not had the chance to thank you for what you have done Freeze, but hopefully by assisting you in this battle we can at least even the debt a bit," Luna said as she began to fire magic at Sombra, who turned into darkness and slipped through the ground while firing blast of fire at them. "Indeed, but we can talk about apologizing later, right now we need to defeat Sombra," Celestia said as she threw up a shield around the three of them, Sombra roaring as he tried to break through the barrier with his fire. The battle continued along similar lines, with freeze and the princesses trying to fend off Sombra while Sombra continued to slip through their attacks. But the battle took a darker turn when Fluttershy came flying over to them, worry in her eyes as she was let through the barrier. "It's bad, Sombra has made a number of ice golems attack the empire as well!" she exclaimed as she pointed to the distance where Twilight was doing her best to fend off one of them by herself. "You have to go help her!" The princesses looked to Freeze, but he nodded and began to fire through the shield, trying to keep Sombra back so the princesses could go. "Hold them off as long as you can Freeze!" Luna yelled as she and Celestia took off to the skies, Freeze trying to keep the flames Sombra was shooting at him away from Fluttershy. "Don't worry Victor, I'll help as best I can," she said softly, but Freeze didn't see how this was possible given how he could barely hold of Sombra himself at the moment. He was still waiting for his chance. "Get behind me Fluttershy!" Freeze yelled before getting knocked back by a blast of fire, sending him skidding across the ground with a growl. Sombra smiled as he glided across the ground as he prepared to finish the man, but he had to shield his eyes when he ran right into the stare. "Dammit Fluttershy, don't startle me like that!" Sombra yelled as he shielded his eyes, but the stare pierced through him. "Argh, that stare is so damn annoying!" Fluttershy continued the stare while Freeze got back up, firing twin blast of ice into Sombra and sending him into a wall, where he froze in place. "You lose Sombra," Freeze said as Sombra tried to ignite his fire again, only to be frozen even more by Victor. "I can keep you contained here until the princesses come back and lock you up for good." Then to the surprise of both Fluttershy and Freeze, Sombra began to laugh at the two of them, a laugh that caused a shiver to go up Fluttershy's spine. "Lose Freeze? No, I have only begun to play this game," Sombra said as he levitated a small flask out from behind his cloak and downed it before either of the two could react. With a massive roar he exploded into flames, sending the Freeze and Fluttershy bouncing back across the ground. The two of them weakly got up as they saw Sombra land in front of them, flames erupting all over his body as he walked towards them. "Because as you see, while the king, you in this case, may need to be protected by these ponies, when I am the king I am the most dangerous piece on the board." "Hell," Freeze muttered to himself before a massive burst of fire blew him across the ground, only coming to a stop as he hit one of the legs holding up the crystal palace. Freeze staggered back up before another blast of fire blew him through the leg, causing him to gasp for air as his helmet cracked almost fully. He forced himself back to his knees as Sombra appeared in front of him, smiling down at him as fire appeared at the tip of his horn. "See Freeze, I am far superior to you in every way," Sombra said with a smirk. "You only stick to your one trick, your ice and because of that I am able to pretty much predict your every move and defeat you. Care to give up yet or do I have to burn you some more before you submit?" Freezes answer was to open the armor of his chest and place one hand on the crystal heart, supercharging his ice before firing it at Sombra and causing him to flash freeze. Freeze got back up weakly, looking down at his computer to see just how well he was holding up. 'This suit can't last much longer,' he thought to himself as he saw Sombra beginning to burn his way through the ice, wondering just what he was going to do now. The he saw where he was, the very place where his time in Equestria began. There was the pedestal where he had taken the crystal heart, where he had taken the main item that protected the land of Equestria. He knew what he had to do, but when he tried to take a step forward his leg gave out and he collapsed to the ground, struggling to fight through the pain. 'Here we are,' the silver mare said from beside Freeze, looking down at him as he struggled to get to the pedestal. 'You got here quicker than the others, but I have the feeling that you had to sacrifice much more to get to this moment. Even though I have not been with you long, I am proud to see that you did have good still in your frozen heart.' "I appreciate the kind words, but helping me to get to the pedestal would be far more beneficial to all of us," he pointed out. The silver mare nodded and let her magic flow through Freeze, giving him enough strength to get back to his feet, where he removed the crystal heart out of his chest and looked at it one more time, knowing that what he was going to do might kill him. But then he thought of the others and of Fluttershy, who had been the only one to really been there for him, had shown him kindness. This one time, he would do this for them. So with one last breath, he placed the heart in the center of the pedestal, getting knocked off his feet as a wave of magic passed through him and every other pony in the entire city. All of the creatures that Sombra had brought with him where expelled from the city by the blast and the ponies that had been frozen by the Windigo's. Even Sombra was freed from the ice, but the magic power tore the fire power from him, causing him to scream in pain as he was blasted away. "They gave me so much kindness while I was here. The least I can do is return their heart," Freeze said before he fell over, the power of the crystal heart shooting into the sky and blasting away the clouds that had been covering the land for weeks, allowing the sun’s rays to rain down upon the land. "Just this once, I act for someone else." And unknown to Freeze, in a far off reality, six pedestals sat in an empty tower, but only one of them was empty. However, a gust of cold wind blew through the room and surrounded the pedestal, vanishing to reveal a belt with a glowing, icy heart in the center of it. The silver mare let out a sigh of relief when she felt this and she looked down at Freeze with a smile. 'Congratulations,' she said to him as he struggled to get up, looking around the land to see the sun shining upon all of the land. 'It seems that you were the champion I needed and the ponies needed. You have overcome your past and your pain.' "It seems that I have," Freeze said as he looked around. 'So, why did you do this for them?' she asked him as he reached the pedestal. 'Is it because you have finally learned the meaning of kindness? What it means to help others?' To her surprise, she saw that Freeze hung his head a bit as she said this and looked down at something that he had been keeping in the suit. The small ice sculpture of Nora. "For them. So that they could live," Freeze whispered as he looked sadly at the sculpture. "But now I am ready to move on...from this life." 'Freeze, you cannot live like this.' "I completed my other goal. I saved lives, just as Nora wanted. Now it is time...to join her." 'Freeze, listen to me, you can still-' Her words were cut off as a massive explosion flew by Freeze, sending him flying into the palace and he collapsed to the floor. He slowly got back up to see that there was a massive trench in the ground, making Freeze wonder what could cut through solid crystal with just it's speed. He then realized that there was lightning crackling on his suit, but he hadn't felt it before though it did seem familiar. He looked around for the silver mare to see that she was gone, but he did see Fluttershy, Cadence and Shining Armor running up to him. "You did it!" Fluttershy yelled as she rushed over to him. He raised one arm to wave to them before letting out a scream as a blast of magic pierced his armor and caused him to collapse to the ground holding a hand to his chest as blood began to pour out. The ponies and Freeze turned to look at the attacker, seeing Sombra barely standing but with a huge smile on his face. "King...takes...king," he said with a cackle before he fell over, the last of his life escaping in one last breath. Freeze looked at where Sombra lay before he collapsed to the floor, everything going dark.