Looking over her body, Twilight was in glee at how powerful she felt. There wasn't exactly any physical changes to herself, she was just in awe at how every inch of her being felt so much strength cursing through her.
"I can feel my new dark powers just flow within me!" She said in a twisted smile, looking deeply into her hooves. The magic residue from her 'conversion' was beginning to softly fall to the ground where small dark crystal began to form, spike up in a strange unnatural way. Sombra noticed but only with a fast glance, quickly shifting his attention back at the mare in front of him.
"Dark powers you cannot even comprehend right now." He said as he began to think of things he could do right now, but truth be told, out of all the scenarios he had spent nights going over and preparing for, this one was not one of them. Sombra, for the first time in a very long time, was lost for both words and actions.
"But I can, with your help of course." Twilight said, now having her fill of self adornment and staring back at Sombra who was towering over her, his gaze fixated on her.
"And what makes you think I would do that?"
"Because I know you Sombra. You wouldn't let some pony practice magic unsupervised." Twilight said with a smirk. Slowly, Sombra was beginning to see what the corruption had done to Twilight.
Darkness does not take away your core being, once one found something to focus on, they would see that and only that as their objective, in Sombra's case, it was crystals. It seems that the thing Twilight has come to obsess over is knowing everything, or rather, proving that she is right. This experimental mind set will surely bring bad news for every pony.
"So you think that I will do as you ask simply because 'I have no choice'?"
"You do have a choice, I suppose, but I know you. I know what you would do, what you will do."
"Have you perhaps considered that I might simply take away your magic again?"
"I have." Twilight said, beginning to walk around the stoic stallion. "But you can't, at least not yet. You've never been against someone of your...rank, in the dark arts."
"You might be the same 'rank', but I've a thousand years of experience compared to you."
"Experience in what? Being trapped in ice?" Twilight asked, a giggle escaping her, though her laugh was soon gone when she noticed herself surrounded by black crystal spikes, all aimed at her from the ground around her. The tip of one of the spikes shinned from one of the library's lights. "You would kill me then?"
"I would defeat you, and figure out what to do with you later." Sombra said as he turned to face her. Twilight was not smiling anymore, mostly because she had read into Sombra wrong and how he would react. She hated to be wrong.
"Sombra..." She said quickly, her head down as a shadow lingered over her eyes, covering them from view.
"What is it?"
"How strong am I compared to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"If you tried to kill me here and now, would you be able to do it?"
"I told you I am not trying-"
"I want to know!" Twilight shouted. "I want to know that even after becoming like you...that I am still inferior to you."
"Me being stronger than you has nothing to do with inferiority, Sparkle." Sombra tried to reason with her, but he was starting to understand that words were not getting through to her. She was too far gone to try to reason with, or even have try to have a conversation with her.
"Fight me..." Twilight said with a meek voice. Though Sombra managed to hear her, he asked anyway.
"What was that?" He said, hoping that perhaps he had indeed misheard her.
"I want to have a mock battle with you Sombra!" Twilight shouted, raising her head again, her magic dissipating the crystals around her.
"And why, pray tell, do you want to have a mock battle?"
"I want to know how strong I am compared to Sombra, the Tyrant of the Crystal Empire." She said, choosing her words specifically to try to aggravate him...and it seemed to work, if only for a second.
"My apologies, but the Tyrant you're looking for is long gone." Sombra said, brushing off her comment.
"Not all gone. Every pony at the Gala saw you fight."
"And I fought as a Blood, yet another version of me who is long gone."
"But can come up whenever you want."
"Not by choice exactly."
Their talk seemed to go nowhere, only back and forth banter that only seemed to frustrate Twilight more and more. This, of course, was Sombra wanted he wanted to stall, he needed to keep the mare busy until Celestia and Luna arrived, surely they would know how to calm her down, and if push came to shove, retain her.
"Enough! Fight me now!" Twilight shouted, stomping her front legs in anger.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you'll just become my test dummy." She replied, a strange smile upon her face as her horn began to glow.
Sombra barely had time to react as he was pushed back by an intense blast of energy. The library doors from where he had entered were torn off their hinges as his hooves slid on the ground from the force the blast carried. The dark stallion took a breath as the crystal he had had grown on him as a protective skin began to break off him. His eyes narrowed at the chuckling mare who began to walk towards him.
"Wow, I expected you to have been blown away, but you are still standing and with barely a scratch on you." Twilight said, eyeing him up and down. "I just can't be right when it comes to you huh?"
"My father made sure no one could read my actions." Sombra said as he brushed off some debris from his shoulder. "You, however, are like an open book." He said as his leering eyes made contact with her's. Apart from his death glare, Sombra still held his stoic expression which he was now grateful he still had. Dealing with her will be a feat all on it's own since they share the same analytically mind.
"How about I start using my dark magic then?" Twilight asked as her red irises began to bleed out a sickly green glow onto her sclera with flames sparking out of the sides of her eyes. Sombra kept quiet, but he too let out his dark flames ignite.
"You truly intend on fighting, don't you?"
"Of course. I want to know the extent of dark magic." She replied, her unnerving smile still lingering on her expression.
《=●=》
"Luna!" Celestia shouted as she saw her sister running across a hallway. Getting her attention the Lunar Goddess backtracked to see who was calling her.
"Sister, We heard an explosion of some sort, art thou alright?" She said as she ran to her sibling then coming to a stop to catch her breath. Celestia was pretty winded herself from searching so she too took a moment to rest.
"Yes, at least I hope so. Sombra came by to speak about Twilight. He think that she might have gone...astray." She said, looking away as that last word left her mouth.
"That explosion then, was it from battle?"
"I certainly hope not..." Celestia said before turning around to the sound of another crash of some sort. Struck with worry, both sisters began to make their way towards where the noise was coming from, hoping for the best, but as they began to walk, Luna began to feel a little uneasy about the situation.
"Sister?" She called out. "There is something that We wish to speak with thee about."
"I'm sorry Luna, but whatever it is, I think it can wait until after we find Sombra" Celestia replied, not turning to look at her sister as they walked. Something that Luna did not take kindly to so she quickly jumped in front her to stop her in her tracks.
"This has to do with Sombra. Just what are thy intentions with him?" Luna asked out, demanding an answer before they moved on.
"What? Now?" The Sun Goddess asked, but her sister seemed determined to get an answer. Slowly she let out a sigh before thinking of how to answer her. "I want Sombra to bring balance to Equestria by having a presence here. I thought that maybe if we had darkness and chaos around, we could skip over the thousand years of disharmony that we have ahead of us."
"Thou hath already told Us that. What We wish to know is just how Sombra is supposed to 'bring balance.' If presence alone could bring balance, Discord would have been enough."
"What are you trying to say Luna?" Celestia asked, now a little worried about how serious her sister has gotten."
"We mean to say...what if thou is wrong about how thine plan will work? What if presence alone will not help?" Luna said, her words weighing down on Celestia, suffocating her from the horror that Equestria would soon face.
《=●=》
Sombra was once again blown back by magical force, but this time he had allowed the attack to connect. As he glanced under him, he saw many ponies stories beneath him running off as glass and debris began to fall towards him. He quickly extended several pillars of dark crystal for him to latch on and then jump onto as he looked back at Twilight in the gaping hole that she had created. Dusting himself off to signal that the assault had little affect on him, he fix his posture to that of a stallion with his head held high.
"And here I thought you were a natural." Sombra said through his stoic expression. "But all you can seem to accomplish is to just excrete raw darkness into an attack."
Twilight was clearly not happy with his words, but as she opened her mouth to rebuttal, she noticed something strange with the pillars Sombra had raised. Placing her hoof to her chin, she looked back and forth between each of the pillars around them. Finally she began to grunt as dark magic oozed from her horn. Slowly, a dark pillar of her own began to extend from the ground onto the opening she had created and she gently stepped onto it.
"You were saying?" She said with a smirk.
"I'm surprised it took you so long. I was able to do the same only moments after I used the tome." He said, though deep down he was impressed with how quickly she grasped the crystallization process. He, on the other hoof, studied crystals almost on a daily basis because of Diane's work.
"Will I ever get a praise out of you?" Twilight asked with a grimace, only to shoot a blast of energy that Sombra managed to jump away from, landing on one of the other pillars.
"Attacking me is the wrong way of going at it." He replied, jesting at their situation, trying to ease the tension that was filling the air.
"Just fight me!" She shouted again as he took to the air an continued to shoot bolts of dark energy at Sombra who proceeded to dodge and evade.
Running out of pillars to jump to, Sombra looked around for possible routes to take. Their current location was a strange one. They had blown a hole through a wall of the castle that led to several floor above a garden. Taking the opportunity, Sombra leaped down into the greenery with Twilight hot on his tail. Once on the ground he began to run, something that he seemed to be doing a lot of today. More bolts were shot and the noise made many of the garden critters run away.
"How long do you plan on running!?" The mare asked as she flew along side Sombra who didn't spare her a glance.
"For as long as I need to. You need to calm down so we may think of a solution to this." He said as he jumped over a stature which Twilight quickly evaded. While in the air, Sombra used dark magic to conjure a pillar he used to redirect himself and change directions, quickly galloping away to hide from the frustrated mare.
"Sombra!" Twilight shouted as she softly landed on the grass, her target no where in sight. "Come out and fight me!"
"Why are you so obsessed with battle?" Sombra's voice came from behind her. In a quick reaction Twilight shot in the sound's direction only to destroy a shrub.
"I want to know how strong I am compared to you. I need to know!"
"Can't handle thinking I might be stronger?" Again his voice sounded from somewhere, this time in a different direction than before.
"I can't handle not knowing. I had wanted to learn dark magic since the first time I saw what it could do in the Crystal Empire but I couldn't because I was afraid that it would make me like you. But now...after you have been successfully reformed I know that dark magic isn't a bad thing." She said as she tried to explain herself. To her own misfortune, dark crystals surrounded her, trapping her in place.
"You are right about dark magic. In it of itself, dark magic is not bad. But it has the potential to corrupt the user like it once did to me. Look at yourself Sparkle. You just destroyed a great amount of the castle and the garden, this isn't like the mare I know." Sombra said as he stepped out from the shadows.
"What do you know about me?!" She shouted from her imprisonment. "I have dedicated my life to learning for learning sake, and when I come across the one thing I cannot study because it is dangerous, I did my best to stay away from it. Now you come along and show me the dark arts, telling me it is alright and now I'm the bad guy?"
Sombra suddenly wasn't sure what to do. This was technically his fault, he showed her the art, taught her the magic. It was his fault. As his mind began to be clouded with doubts, Twilight took the opportunity to break free from the crystal cage erecting a crystal pillar beneath Sombra, knocking him up into the air. Quickly recovering from the damage, Sombra twisted his body and rolled off the tip of the pillar which he then used to propel himself to the side.
"I just want to know how far my strength has gone!" Twilight continued to shout as she chased the fleeing stallion.
Sombra was now long gone from the castle ground and on the streets of Canterlot. making sure he was never in any predictable patterns in his run, he would raise pillars to allow him to jump against the sides of other buildings to run along before jumping onto another.
With so many ponies around, Twilight was now being more conservative with her attacks, something that Sombra took notice of and gave him hope that perhaps she was not too deep into corruption. Though his thoughts were soon filled with knowing that his stamina was starting to run low and the streets were starting to run out. With a quick jump off one of the buildings, Sombra attempted something dangerous.
His flames in full ignition, Sombra allowed himself to fall a few stories down into an alley. Twilight followed him down as she began a dive. Suddenly a red crystal began to grow at the bottom where Sombra was headed and with a powerful blast of energy, he shot straight down. Preparing himself for the attack, the blast reflected off the crystal and began to come straight back at Sombra who was sent flying back up from the impact. Keeping his focus, he waited until he passed Twilight who was surprised to see him pull such a stunt to get above her.
Now with a clear shot, Sombra shot a small bolt of dark energy towards the confused mare. The attack only managed to scrape Twilight's horn, but that was the idea. Softly landing down in the alley, she did her best to recover from her disorienting disposition. Sombra was less subtle with his landing, a loud bang heard as his hooves dug into the concrete.
"That should buy us a few minutes." Sombra said as he began to pant, both from exhaustion and anxiety.
"Time for what?" Twilight asked, still shaking her head, trying to get her vision straight.
"For us to talk." He replied, though with a certain grunting to his voice, no doubt from the blast her used to re-position himself. "If you would just listen to me, I am sure we can still walk away from this without any pony getting hurt."
"No pony would get hurt if you just did as I asked!"
"And what? Fight? Say we did have a duel. What then? If I would have won, which is the most likely scenario, you would have stormed off looking for more power. If you would have won, you would have further fallen into your corruption from what the victory over me would have brought to your pride and thirst for strength."
"What would you have me do then!?"
"I would have you to listen!" Sombra shouted back, making his way to her. "I would have you remember your anchor, remember those who are important to you. Come back from the darkness and into the light." He said softly.
For a moment, it seemed to have worked. Twilight's irises turned to their purple tint as her tense posture relaxed slightly. With small grunts, she still wobbled around from side to side from her horn injury. Leaning against Sombra, she began to speak.
"Sombra?..." She said meekly.
"Yes, I'm here."
"I feel...weird." Twilight said as she placed a hoof to her head.
"It's alright. You just need some rest." Sombra said with a gentle smile, one that soon went away as he quickly turned around, a feeling of being watched befalling him. The dark alley where they had landed seemed to get darker still, and faint movements could be seen from the shadows.
"S-Sombra?" Twilight asked out, bringing his attention back to her. To his dismay, her irises were beginning to fade in and out of purple and into red.
"Sparkle, remember what it is your fighting for. Remember your friends." He said as he tried to keep her consciousness from slipping away. The more she fought with herself though, the more restless the darkness in the shadows became. Suddenly it all became clear to him. "So this is how the world can bring chaos..." He said to himself.
"S-Sombra..." Twilight called out again. This time the dark stallion took a step back as the mare's horn began to spark again, now working just fine. "Fight me." She said, her eyes crimson red and a smirk upon her face.
《=●=》
Stepping out from the train, Pinkie looked around the station as she hesitated move. For some reason she was nervous about getting to Canterlot, mostly because of how her friends had acted when she last some them. Shaking away those thoughts, she quickly got back to her quest: finding Sombra and Twilight.
Making her way into the city, Pinkie couldn't help but smile. She always loved the busy streets of Canterlot. Compared to Ponyville, there was just so much more happening around, and more ponies for her to meet and greet. It was truly an exciting experience to simply walk around the streets and hear every pony go on about their business.
"Did you hear? Princess Twilight was chasing Sombra." A voice in the background said, quickly grabbing Pinkie's attention.
"Doesn't he go by Sombra, The Reformed now? He's supposed to be a good guy now." Another voice responded.
"Well I know what I saw, and by the looks of it she was trying to hit him with spells. Maybe he isn't all that reformed after all."
"Think he did something wrong?"
Pinkie, though she wanted to eavesdrop more, was now more worried than before and quickly began to run down the streets of Canterlot. Where to? She wasn't sure, but she wanted to find her friends as fast as possible. Certainly this was some sort of misunderstanding. Right?
Finding them was no difficult task. All she had to do was run in the opposite direction every pony else was running from. As Pinkie turned the corner of a building, she was greeted by a rather unpleasant sight. A large portion of Canterlot was covered in crystal pillars which all seemed to extend in random patterns, Up above the streets, Twilight flew as she circled around one particular pillar. Shooting bolts of energy, the pony who was on top of it jumped off and defended against Twilight's assault. Another pillar was erected and caught the falling stallion.
"W-What is going on?" Pinkie asked herself as she saw Sombra raise more and more pillars of dark crystal, a landscape that seemed dire to his survival.
"Getting tired yet?" Twilight asked as he continued the pressure on Sombra.
"Hardly." He responded, though it was mostly a bluff. Truth be told, had he been fighting at one hundred percent he would have finished this already, but trying to keep from hurting Twilight proved to be a much more difficult task to accomplish while staying alive.
Finally getting tired of the cat and mouse game, Twilight's eyes released her own dark flames as she crystallized the environment around them. Raising spike that would have impaled the stallion, she aimed to kill and yet Sombra managed to avoid major damage apart from a few scratches and cuts. He was just as good as she thought he was. The more she tried to hurt him, the more confident she was that he would survive through her attack.
"You sure are good at staying alive." She said continued to try to trap him into her skewers.
"This is nothing compared to what I've lived through Sparkle." He responded as jumped to the side, dodging an otherwise lethal stab to the abdomen. As he saw her get more aggressive, it was clear that the confidence she was gaining was corrupting her more and more, what was worse is that he was running out of dark magic to use. Sombra knew it was now or never. He needed to bring her down before things gt even more out of hoof.
With one last pillar raised, Sombra was ready to go through with his plan. All around Twilight were pillars of Crystal that he had raised at what seemed to be random positions. In truth, he was preparing for a chance to strike between her defenses. One that wasn't too hard to spot given that Twilight had been on the offensive up until now, a counter attack was not easily foreseen given the circumstances.
"Sparkle, I do hope you forgive me." Sombra said as he lunged himself up into the air using his crystal pillars.
"You've left yourself open!" Twilight shouted as began to fly in his direction. Now that he was in the air, there was no way for him to dodge or block.
Sombra smiled as he saw her fall into his trap. From the pillars that have been erected, string like crystal was conjured that aimed at Twilight. Though she saw it coming, she was surrounded by these pillars, meaning that the string was now coming at her form all directions. It was her that could not dodge or evade. The liquid like crystal soon found it'self attached to the mare at several of her limbs, wings included. Once it made contact, it grew and began to consume her, leaving only her head out in the open while the rest of her body was trapped in a crystal cocoon.
"There..." Sombra said as he landed on the ground with a loud thud. "That..should hold you for a while." He said to himself as he watched Twilight struggle.
"Sombra!" Pinkie cried out as she ran to where he stood. Quickly getting his attention, she began to question the odd situation. "What's going on? Why are you two fighting!?"
"Pinkie..." He said softly. "Good, Sparkle needs you." The stallion said as he shifted his glance back to the alicorn. "Your friend seems to be struggling to maintain her sanity. I think you can help, being that you're once of her anchors."
"What?" Pinkie question, not fully understanding what Sombra was trying to say. Without time to give a thorough explanation, He quickly responded.
"I need you to talk to Sparkle, you can help her come to her senses. Just trust me."
Pinkie paused. She still wasn't following on what was going on, all she knew was that her friend was trapped and Sombra was the one responsible. Given the conversation she overheard, most ponies would have thought to simply call on others for help. But with a sigh, she pushed back any doubts she might have and placed her faith on him.
"What should I say?"
"I'm not sure. My own anchor was a crystal, not a pony. Perhaps just the sound of your voice will help." Sombra replied as he held out his hoof to her. Pinkie grabbed on as she had seen him do this many times already. Once again he pulled her in as he extended a pillar under them, taking them closer to Twilight.
"Twilight?" Pinkie asked out. "I, uh. I'm not sure what I should say, but I need you to listen to me. Sombra and I are here to help."
As if every word she spoke struck at her, Twilight would flinch and jolt her head at the sound. Gritting her teeth, she squinted her eye as she looked for her pink friend. "P-Pinkie?" Twilight asked out.
"I'm here!"
"Pinkie...I need you to...argh!" Twilight shouted, a wave of pain cursing through her body as her mind seemed to be plagued with strange memories. As if affected by the same ailment, Sombra turned his head away in a painful expression.
Help!
I'm sacred... What if I make a fool of myself?
I don't want this...
When is this going to end? How do I look?
I need more bits for the mortgage.
What if I get mugged in the streets?
What if I never get accepted?
Strange yet familiar voices echoed in his mind, voices that increased in both quantity and volume until nothing but screaming was heard in his head. Squinting with one eye, Sombra glanced over at Twilight who seemed to be fairing much worse than him. In her struggle, her horn began to glow in an oozing sick color of green and black, charging up and about to blow.
Acting as quickly as he could, Sombra wrapped his arms around Pinkie before jumping off from the pillars. Only seconds after doing so, Twilight set out a pulse of energy that both broke her out of her cocoon and destroyed the pillars around her. The wave of dark magic was so strong that even some of the surrounding buildings crumbled as they were impacted. Had she been on the ground when this happened, a good four blocks would have been destroyed.
Slowly opening her eyes, Pinkie noticed her fall has been broken by Sombra who seemed to struggle to keep his stoic expression. She quickly got off of him and helped him to his hooves.
"Are you okay!?"
"I..I'm fine. What of Sparkle?" He asked as he looked up only to see Twilight flying in place, her dark magic pulsing out of her though not lethal this time. Worried, they both remained quiet as they waited for some sort of movement out of her.
"Heh..." Twilight said as slowly looked around her. "Wow...dark magic is so powerful..." She said, her eyes red, though dull and lifeless. "What if some pony got a hold of this. Equestria would be in grim danger." Twilight's lifeless eyes suddenly clung to life, as if her purpose was redefined. "We need to prepare for something like this!" She shouted out.
"Sparkle?..." Sombra asked out. The mare in the air looked down at the black and pink ponies as a smile crept on her face.
"Equestria isn't ready for an attack from a mage of the dark arts! We need to prepare something like that."
"And why is that?" Sombra asked out, trying to make sense of her words.
"Just in case! We are so unprepared, we could easily fall to the power of darkness...I know! I can take the role of an attacker! Sombra, you're the expert when it comes to dark magic. If we have a mock battle against one another as if I were a villain, we can better prepare."
"You aren't making any sense!"
"You're not understanding the severity of this situation Sombra. Tell you what. I'll give you three days to prepare. I'll attack with everything I have and see who wins." Twilight said with a smile, oblivious to how mad her words sounded.
"You would risk the destruction of Canterlot? Risk bringing pain and suffering to ponies? To your friends?!" He replied, his voice well out of the boundary of indifference.
"Let's be honest." She replied with a smile. "You will keep every pony safe, won't you?"
"That isn't the point!" Sombra shouted as he erected a pillar of dark crystal under him, making his way towards Twilight.
"You're not going to let me leave are you?" She asked as she moved out of the way, evading him all together instead of fighting head on. "Then I've got a perfect idea of how to make you stay here, and it might even increase your reputation with other ponies!" Twilight said with a giggle, her madness made apparent now.
Sombra was about to make another charge at her but stopped as he saw her eyes burn in dark magic. He was preparing for an attack, but as time passed, it was made clear he wasn't her target. After a moment of trying to figure out what she was up to, he quickly realized her intentions when the ground beneath them shook. The mountain side to where Canterlot was attached began to move.
With his eyes opening wide in surprise, he knew that the mountain wasn't the one moving, it was Canterlot. Twilight had weakened the earth keeping the city stable where it was located, and with that support done away with, the city was now sliding down the slope of the mountain, and soon it would crash into Ponyville.
"You might want to get a move on if you want to save every pony." Twilight said with a grin.
"Curse you Sparkle!" Sombra shouted as he jumped forward, dashing beside the mare in an effort to jump off the pillar and towards the edge of Canterlot. As they came next to each other, time seemed to slow down. A quick glance to the mare he was moving past gave him mix fillings Though she still held that grin, her eyes held sadness. A grimace that could only be on a pony with a conscious. Somewhere deep in side that mare was Twilight.
Sombra didn't have time to ponder of what he saw in her eyes, instead he just threw himself over buildings as he moved as fast as he could to get to the furthest wall of the city. Making over it, he dived down as he tried to beat the city down to ground. The wind cut at him as he moved fast in a straight line towards the ground. His heart raced as the hard floor grew ever closer, but he didn't have time to give in to his doubts and worries. Once below the falling city his eyes exploded in flames as many crystal pillars extended form the ground and hit the base of Canterlot.
Though they seemed to slow down the fall, it still wasn't enough to bring it to a stop. In a final shout to the heavens, Sombra used all of his remaining magic to conjure up as many dark pillars as he could to hold up the city, and though he saw it come to a stop. He was left drained. Not a single drop of magic left in him, certainly not enough to help survive the fall he was now meters away from. He lost all his strength as he felt his consciousness give in to exhaustion.
Just as Sombra was about to hit the ground, he was caught by two flying mares. Luna and Celestia both clung to his limp body as they struggled to keep from hitting the ground themselves. Slowly the managed to stabilize themselves and softly landed.
"Sombra just saved every pony in Canterlot." Luna said as he looked down at the unconscious stallion. "He hast given his all to protect us. How could thou ask more of him? He's nothing more to give."
Celestia looked over Sombra with saddened eyes she spoke in a hushed voice. "I know I am asking a lot, perhaps too much of Sombra. But sometimes...A city of light must be held up by a pillar of darkness." She said as she looked up at Canterlot, the once graceful city now casting a shadow over them. "The light that cannot exist if the darkness goes away."