//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: The Empire Part Two 
// Story: Strings 
// by naturalbornderpy 
//------------------------------//


CHAPTER TWELVE:


THE EMPIRE PART TWO


 


5

 
Discord nudged the mirror a few more inches to the right and felt he had it just right that time. The pony that was currently holding the mirror atop his head looked as though he wished much of the same.
                
Discord stuck out a thumb to help level. “Close,” he mumbled, before readjusting for the seventh time.
                
His pedestal trumpeted, “I’m hearing a lot of noises outside! I think we need to get out there!”
                
Discord rolled his eyes. “I’m sure the big baddies will still be around when we join them. I don’t think they’d start the party without me, in all good conscious.” He paused. “And this is important! So stand still.”
                
He froze the guard pony in place while he continued to refigure his mirror. When he felt it was just so he pulled out a small box from a pocket that had no place in his side and opened it to reveal two large blue contacts. He placed one on the tip of one finger and leaned closer to the glass.
                
“Don’t you just hate it when you’re touching your eyes and you can’t help but open your mouth?”
                
The guard pony only kept still and silent.
                
“Oh never mind.”
                
Discord finished with both lenses and then viewed his finish word. It was an odd sight to say the least, going from eyes of red and yellow to a naturalistic baby blue. Now he’d need to see who’d take notice.
                
He snapped the mirror away. “Thanks friend. Now what did we do here again?”
                
The guard was about to answer when he stopped to give his head a sudden shake. “Didn’t we talk about the battle?”
                
“That’s exactly right!” Discord exclaimed. “Speaking of… maybe you should go join in the fun!”
                
The guard pony anxiously nodded before trotting away, leaving Discord alone in the corridor.
                
“Now where to next?” he mused.
 

6


 

Shining Armor was in the midst of debriefing a few dozen of his men in the bowels of the Empire when the noises first found him. As they first arrived and then grew too loud to ignore, he witnessed his battle trained warriors return momentarily to just ponies in armor. He wanted to add a word of advice or a line of courage, but every moment spent inside was another that allowed Sombra access to his land.
                
“I thought we’d have more time,” he said, before lowering his helmet and gathering his spear. Once he began his hurried trot down the hall, it was immediately followed by the steady rhythm of a few dozen more. Just that sound alone steadied the heart of the stallion.
                
When he rounded the first corner he charged toward to next set of doors, only to find himself halting prematurely. “The noise… that sound.” He viewed over the heads of his squadron to find that the noise from earlier had died away slightly. He moved through the thick of his squad and once more he found the sound.
                
Only the sounds of battle were not coming from outside.
                
He rushed the other way and his heart dropped when he discovered the origin of the noise. It was coming from the basement room where they had sheltered every pony and Crystal pony that would be of no use to them in the fight. Families. Fillies. The elderly. They had hid them in there to be safe. They had hid them in there to stay away from the danger…
                
“Brrk!”
                
Something large and heavy mashed against the double set of wooden doors, bending it at its middle. Glancing at the splintered wood, Shining could tell a few more hits is all it would take to topple over. But it’s locked from the inside, he thought oddly. Why wouldn’t they just remove the bar over the door?
                
Another hollow bang echoed through the hall and he put his thoughts on hold. A moment later he got into a defensive stance and each pony behind him did the same. The next hit sent the doors peeling outward and the first image Shining discerned almost made him want to turn away.
                
One on top of the other, each black armored pony clamored to exit the basement room ahead of the previous. If there was still a section of door in their way, they hammered at it with their hooves or their head until their glass-like armor nearly split and cracked. The ones at the very top of the heap used every leg to gain traction over the rest, like some hill of excited ants. They seemed to move without pause—without hesitation or appearance of fatigue.
                
“Sombra has an army?” a pony several feet behind exclaimed.
                
“How did he get them inside? What kind of magic does—”
                
But that was when the first of the darkened creatures touched the ground outside the doors; its chipped and damaged surface somehow more frightening than a perfect set. It doesn’t care if it gets hurt, Shining figured, while barely taking his eyes off his irregular foe. Possibly most shocking of all, were the shards of red diamonds scattered along its face, creating the appearance of some metallic equine. Each bit of crimson seemed to burn from the inside.
                
The first one over the splintered hole in the door huffed out a small batch of flames between its sharpened metal teeth. Then it charged and Shining went to go meet it.
                
Full of equal parts fright and adrenaline, the tip of Shining’s spear shook heavily once it rebounded off his foe. The damage to the dark pony looked minimal at best—a faint crack around its side. A second later and Shining was head-butted into a wall, most of his air knocked away in the process.
                
When he would think of this moment months onward, the part that affected him most was not the gang of black ponies climbing over one another for a chance at his guards; it was instead the brief view he took as he was knocked into the wall, of the dozens of families still trapped inside that room with those monsters, many driven to the edges of the room or circling in the rafters. And of course all the blood that came with it.
 

7


 

When Celestia first made contact with the lead blackened pony, she nearly fell over from its strength. Honestly, she had not expected such force from such a lithe creature. Gritting her teeth, she pushed back and slashed at its throat with the edge of her sword. A chunk of armor slipped out and fell to the ground.
                
She had given everything behind that blow. And that was all it did.
                
How could Sombra have summoned such beasts?
                
Just as the notion swam its way into her mind, she was bombarded by a whole thick of dark ponies. Instead of attacking with any unseen weapon, they only rammed their sharpened heads into her sides and upraised forelegs. Her armor, barely an hour old, already boasted the tale of a miserably long battle.
                
“Enough!” she screamed, while creating a small shield around her horn. With another grunt of effort she widened it until it smashed against the enemy, sending a half dozen into the air. When they hit the ground she heard the tinkling of breaking glass. She pulled in deep bales of air and searched for Sombra.
                
“A peasant such as you should be grateful for such a death.”
                
Celestia could only watch as Sombra held another pegasus in mid-air, his sword forever trapped just inches from him. With one hoof Sombra motioned forward and the pegasus flew backward into the stairs, leaving his dripping wings behind.
                
“Sombra!” she called.
                
He turned an angry face and smiled once he caught sight of her.
                
She spoke while walking towards him. “Your fight is not with them but with me!”
                
Slowly Sombra shook his head. “No. No, Celestia. Anyone in my Empire I do not wish to be there is, in fact, also my enemy. Each and every betrayer here will feel the wrath of a King today. My only hope is you will still live to watch as they fall. This is something you cannot stop, Celestia. Not this time. It is destiny.”
                
“You are mad. And you are alone, Sombra.”
                
“Then why does it not feel that way?”

He quickly glanced to his left, causing Celestia to look in turn. A wall of black cut out the city’s dire tones and a blunt force collided into her. While she spoke with Sombra a group of blackened ponies had crept along side her. Now they were continuously ramming into her; their full-face helmets becoming more and more splintered as each hit created a new series of fissures. Celestia grew alarmed as she felt a biting pain along her chest. She looked down and found a small roadmap of red and bleeding scars.

She pushed away from the ground and tried to take to her wings, but the pushing and hammering ponies only pounded her further into the stone. Out of the edges of her eyes she watched a small battalion of Royal guards enter the courtyard, before Sombra hovered over a tiny ball of white light. Once it reached the very thick of them it shot outward with a dozen or so of those spikes she had seen embedded in the lifeless Spitfire.

The ones that were hit directly were lucky. The ones that still moved on the ground…

This can’t be how it ends, she thought quietly at the back of her mind. Not like this. Not from such an evil creature. But why is he so strong? We were never ready for this… We could NEVER have been ready for this…

With what room was still available to her, Celestia got a foreleg out and began to hammer on the helmet of the closest stallion pushing into her. A few solid hits and the area around his eyes gave way. But by then it was still too small a victory… Far too late, while she slowly got pummeled into a heap…

A white glow enveloped each circling enemy, and they effortlessly lifted into the air. Celestia grasped for breath and could not fully believe the sight in front of her.

A hand held out to her. An eagle’s claw.

“Discord?” she gasped.

“Who else?”

He helped her to stand again and then he surveyed the damage. He almost looked like some painter hunting for inspiration. “Things aren’t going well, are they?” he said matter-of-factly.
        
Celestia was still in the middle of getting her breath back. “No. Sombra is much more powerful than the last time we faced him. I don’t know what new magic is fueling him, but this isn’t good.” She stared at the dirt below her with its small specks of blood—her blood—and she couldn’t help but quiver. She was supposed to be much stronger than this. She was supposed to be strong for everyone.

Discord strolled away to view around a corner leading to the center of the city. “Things don’t look much better down here, either.” He looked at her tiredly. “What’s the—”
             
But by then something else had already caught his attention.
                
“Tia look out!” he screamed, holding out a hand.
        
She turned just in time to watch a dark spear fly towards her head. When she tried to duck, her beaten and warped helmet only seemed to slow her movements.

And that’s how it ends, she thought numbly.

Inches from her head the spear shattered into a billion specks of sand before blowing away in the wind. She turned to find Discord’s outstretched hand still in mid-motion. Their eyes locked and her eyes widened—although not from what’d just happened. “Discord, what did you do to your eyes?”
                
“Later Celestia!” he yelled, before motioning to her side.

Both parties stared in the direction of the tossed spear to find a near snarling Sombra with his head bent. “So you wish to watch more of your kind perish, Celestia? If that is your choice, I will see that it is done.” He looked at the area his spear had traveled over—the sand that was all that remained of it. Then, with rapidly expanding eyes he finally noted the tall draconequus that had just entered the courtyard.
                
“Oh Celestia,” he said, in a voice almost sweet, “you shouldn’t have.”

Gingerly, he sidestepped around the yard, never averting his gaze from the mismatched creature. Discord, meanwhile, only raised an puffy eyebrow in return.
                
“You hired yourself a dragon for me,” Sombra continued. “And here I thought your plans ended with a field of guards.”

Discord whipped to Celestia. “Did he just call me a dragon?” He turned back to the stallion. “Did you just call me a dragon? It’s draconequus!”

Sombra went on as if not hearing a word. “And what tricks this dragon does! How fascinating!” Sombra’s eyes narrowed and something large inside clicked together. “No. It couldn’t be! You couldn’t have! Just for me?”
                
Discord moved a few steps closer to Celestia. “What’s he talking about?”
                
She doesn’t take her eyes off the King. “I have no idea.”

Now Sombra looked somehow beyond excited, brandishing both rows of his oddly sharp teeth. “Be this the dragon that led to my defeat all those years ago? Could it really be? Did they really create a statue in your likeness? Oh how you’ve grown in those years.” Suddenly his smile flipped to one of unnerving menace. “I am so happy you could be here today, dragon. You now have the privilege of watching a King both fall from grace and return all the better for it.”

“He thinks I’m Spike,” Discord said quietly, while nudging her in the side. “How dare he confuse my good looks with such normality?”
                
“Now is not the time for this, Discord,” Celestia said bluntly.
                
“I feel I am wasting my time here,” Sombra said, almost to himself. “While the rest of my Empire waits patiently for their King to return, I merely stand here and squabble with you.” He glared at Celestia. “The changes to my home have not gone unnoted, Celestia; and so they must be cleansed from my land.” Then he viewed Discord. “And now you’ve graciously given me the best notion of doing so.”
                
“What does—” was all Celestia could get out, before Sombra disappeared into a wall of smoke that immediately tunneled into the sky.
                
High above, the blanket of black clouds continued to lazily circle the city, enveloping it in a constant cold shadow.
                
“Did he just retreat?” Discord suggested. “Couldn’t handle a simple draconequus?”
                
Celestia kept her words to herself as she anxiously viewed the sky. A moment later, a bolt of lightning crashed down from the clouds, tearing off a large chunk of crystal from a high rising building. Following that came the ferocious cry of a creature far too gigantic to be normal, and then the sounds of flapping wings.
                
Discord turned his oddly startled face to her. “Did he do this before?”
                
Words caught in her throat. “No.”
 

8


 

Gilded Blade had kept his well trained eyes on the sky since he’d heard that earth shaking roar cut through the city. While he viewed, he dodged the latest swarm of blackened enemies that forcefully ripped out a barred door in their search for more guards to batter into pulp.
                
Blade, along with his ten other guards—make that seven, he remembered coldly—charged at the new throng of danger and crashed through, weapons swinging and voices screaming. Then the sound of flapping wings pulled at his attention.
                
The sky had been blanketed by a thick of dark clouds since the battle had begun, and now something large and black swam gracefully out of them. Once he’d fully realized just what it was that seemed to pierce through the sky, Blade felt something warm and wet course down his legs. But he would not need to worry about such social graces much longer.
                
The dragon made of hardened black pieces descended closer to the street, as if wanting to view all that was below. Now Blade could see the curved red horn that stood prominent on the creature’s head, as well as the small juts of scale that created a type of make-shift crown.
                
The King has returned, he thought distantly, but he came back as something we have no hope of defeating.
                
As his other seven—make that four—guards fought valiantly until their last breath against the dark enemy ponies, Blade merely watched the approaching dragon in the sky. It swooped low and pushed out a long stream of golden fire, consuming the entire street and buildings around.
                
Blade, along with his allies and his enemies both, were engulfed instantly.
 

9


 

Even through the cacophony of noise filling both ears, Rainbow Dash could still hear her own labored breathing, as well as the careful hoofsteps she took towards the table near the back of the room.
                
She wore blue, the same color as she had. More than once she looked to compare, unsure of what it all meant.
                
“Spitfire…” she mumbled, as she felt her knees give way.
                
Spitfire had not been cleaned or tended to since being dropped off inside. She had been laid on a table in a haphazard fashion, to be dealt with once the battle was done… if there ever would be such a time.
                
“You didn’t have to do this… you could have said no…”
                
The tears began to fall and she rested her face against Spitfire’s lifeless head, not mindful of the thin line of blood around her mouth. For a time she wept, shuddering uncontrollably. But there was something else to all this, wasn’t there?
                
She brought her tear-streaked face up. “What happened to the rest of them? The other Wonderbolts?”
                
A guard shifting from hoof to hoof with weapon levitating near his side did not turn to her to speak. “That was it. Just her. She didn’t say anything when she got here.” With that out in the open, he lunged into the middle of the room, where more guards and more of those blackened ponies fought on.
                
“Soarin…” she whispered. “Oh Celestia why? Why them? Why…”
                
But along with this massive wall of pain and sorrow broke through another forceful emotion: rage. And now every muscle in her body wanted to strike at something. Now all she wanted to do was hit and hurt and cause pain to whatever had done this. There was fighting near the gate, she informed herself. There was fighting near—
                
“Dash! Where the heck are you going?”
                
It was Applejack, busily launching a few dark ponies into the air with the aid of both back legs.
                
Rainbow ignored the mare and focused on the fury that was welling up inside. Before she pulled up on the door brace and entered the outside world, she carefully viewed what she was clad in; just to make sure it was still what she thought it was.
                
Her Wonderbolts’ uniform.
                
She muttered, “It was meant to be.”
 

10


 

Just when it had appeared as if things couldn’t have gone more poorly, Sombra had somehow pulled another trick out from his arsenal. His hidden army had been a feat in itself, as well as the untold power he had somewhere along the way laid claim to, but this? This was too much. This she could not believe. This she did not want to believe.
                
“It’s actually more of a wyvern than a dragon.”
                
Discord stood to her side, his head facing the sky just as hers was.
                
“You see, dragons have arms, while wyvern’s don’t. They…”
                
But Celestia wasn’t listening to much of anything then. She was following the path of the dragon that had once been Sombra. His scaled crown had indicated enough.
                
The blackened sky had somehow become more ominous since his change. Splotches of red patterned the clouds like patches of blood. Lightning bolts came often and usually with force, chipping off bits of crystal buildings only to land atop of fighting ponies in the streets. Sombra would rise to hide in his thick darkened clouds for a time—the only way of telling of his location was when a bolt of white light would illuminate his body against the sky—before he would grow bored and pick another street to incinerate with his all consuming fire. Or pick some helpless pony to grab with his talons to then whip across the Empire.
                
Had this been his plan all along? she wondered gravely. Or had he only thought of this when he saw Discord, and just decided to try it?
                
The fact that Sombra had access to such power filled her with dread. But didn’t she have something similar on her side?
                
“We need to do something, Discord. Now.”
                
The draconequus turned to her with a shocked expression. “How!?” He motioned to everything around him.
                
“I… we…” she started, before discovering she didn’t actually know what to say.
                
A flash of blue pulled her away, and she had just enough time to find another member of the Wonderbolts awkwardly picking up a spear from a fallen guard. Only... that hair…
                
“Rainbow Dash?” she mouthed.
                
The Wonderbolt walked towards them. “Where is he? Where’s Sombra?”
                
While Celestia’s mouth hung limp upon her discovery, Discord pointed at the sky with a single finger. Just as he did, Sombra let loose another deafening scream that seemed to silence everything around them.
                
Rainbow Dash glanced up in time to catch a glimpse of the towering dragon against the clouds. Celestia had to give it to the young pegasus—she only stopped for a few seconds before charging into the air.
                
“Wait! No!” Celestia yelled, but it was already falling on deaf ears. Not when he’s already killed so many, she wanted to finish.
 

11

 
“Why won’t they stop coming? Do they never rest?”
                
A guard on his right yelled directly into his ear. If Shining Armor’s hearing had not by then taken a beating by the constant clangs of metal and iron, he might have even taken a step back. But as it was he only focused on the slowly crumpling door in front of him.
                
He said, “They must be some part of Sombra’s magic. He’s created them and now he controls them. They don’t need rest. And they must not feel fear or pain.”
                
The fight between Shining and his men and the blackened ponies from the holds had gone terribly one sided. The enemy’s armor had been eerily reinforced and even the very strongest of the bunch had only chipped away at them in bits and pieces. The enemy had never stopped moving, either. Relentlessly and without pause they circled his guard and pounded them until there was nothing left. Their sharp armor would slice and appear almost grotesquely polished with the additive of blood. Shining had started the day with a few dozen guards by his side. Now he was down to eight. And even a few of those...
                
“Bang!”
                
Another hit on the door. Another sliver of wood tumbled to the floor. A few of his remaining guards pushed back against the damaged wood, but each hit from the other side only served to nearly topple them over.
                
“What do we do once they get through, Captain?”
                
A guard looked at him expectantly. Even unto death, Shining knew he had to lead his squadron in the noblest way possible.
                
“We fight,” he answered carefully. “And we take every one of them with us.”
                
 The guard shook his head timidly, then returned to watching the door with the rest of them.
                
After Shining’s numbers had been shredded most hurriedly, he had retreated back into a small dinning room he thought he might fortify. The few tables he had found he then propped against the door. Shining’s main concern should have been whether an exit existed in the room to begin with.
                
It hadn’t.
                
So now everything relied on what would happen once the door would come down. If only a few of the enemy ponies remained, then they just might live through the day. If there were more, however…
                
“Bang!”
                
Another heavy thud and now Shining could see the slick black of one of their helmets. Feeling anger mixed with courage, he ran forward with weapon in toe, leaping upward before striking from the side. The hit proved true and this time the blow did more than crack its armor. This time it took a whole piece away, which clattered to the floor with absurd satisfaction. But what was revealed underneath that blackened armor pulled away whatever small happiness he allowed himself.
                
The terrified eye of a pony stared back at him.
                
“We’ve been fighting Empire ponies,” he whispered faintly.
 

12

 
When Rainbow Dash first entered the thick of clouds hovering over the Empire, she donned her Wonderbolts’ goggles to help her see clearer. Once in the sky, the sounds from the fighting below were all but muffled. Now she only heard the steady booms of lightning as it showered the city below; as well as the steady beat of wings.
                
And still Sombra eluded her.
                
“Show yourself, Sombra! You’ve taken too much from me to hide!” she yelled to the clouds.
                
A few dozen seconds passed before she heard anything. At one point she thought she might have felt the sudden push of air against her side, as if some enormous being were traveling beside her. But she told herself it was her imagination and nothing more.
                
“It is your wish to die like the rest of your blue clan, pony of many hues? Is that what has brought you up to me?”
                
It was as if the clouds themselves spoke to her, all around her. It was a deep voice, almost mixed with the guttural, inhuman sounds of thunder, and something else… was it joy?
                
“You’re not playing fair, Sombra! The Empire never belonged to you! It’s not yours to take back!”
                
“You wish to talk about fairness, pony?” the clouds chuckled. “The first time I came back, I was outnumbered and lacking the necessary strength for much of a battle. And now I return to my home to find it overrun with ponies that do not belong there… and it is I who am being unfair? Are we not commencing our battle on your field of choice, pony of many hues? The sky.”
                
“That’s not what I—”
                
And now Rainbow was certain something large and hard had ruffled one of her wings. Only when she spun did she view nothing more than black clouds with a hint of red.
                
“Little one, tell me: what is it you fear? For someone to come to me, I would be most interested to know.”
                
A bolt of lightning illumined a wall of clouds to the right of her—the shadow of a dragon hung upon it.
                
With spear pointed she flung herself at it, only to—
                
“Huh?” she exclaimed.
                
She had gone straight through the other side to find no creature at all.
                
“Oh, but I can already sense what it is,” the clouds told her. “No longer must I ask such a question; now I need only to take a peak inside of your head. Prepare yourself.”
                
Not a second later did the most uninviting sensation fill her mind. It was like a film-reel forced over her vision, played at some impossible speed. Yet she thought she could somehow comprehend it all.
                
“Your fears are lackluster at best, pony. You are too good-hearted for much interest.” The clouds paused—from somewhere in the distance (or right beside her) a giant set of wings flapped against the air. “Your symbol is loyalty, and you have proven it today. As well as did every member of your clan. Do you want to know what I did to them? To each and every one?”
                
“No!” she screamed. Why couldn’t she find him? Why couldn’t she damn well find the giant dragon in the sky? This was her domain! How could she—
                
“Not even your Sore-Arm?”
                
It only took her a moment. “His name is Soarin!”
                
The clouds giggled. “I do not learn the names of those beneath me, pony of many hues. Those that prove themselves equal… perhaps.”
                
“Then that’s too bad, Sombra!” she said through gritted teeth. “Because before I’m done with you, you’ll learn the names of each and every Wonderbolt you hurt, starting with Soarin!”
                
With that off her chest she charged forward, spear pointed. Barely a meter in front of her could she see anything more than darkened cloud, but still she continued her advance. Just when she was preparing to pull up and go back around, did a wall of black scales fill her vision. She looked up and found beating wings right above, lazily pushing itself upward. Flying a few meters away and then back, she put everything she had behind the strike.
                
The hit was true but her instrument of choice was not.
                
The broken silver head of her spear tumbled off her stick, lost somewhere miles below. With that part gone she dropped the remainder of her weapon, and told the rest of her shaking self that it had only been constricting her flight all along—that a flyer like her did not need such weapons to rescue the day.
                
The clouds spoke up again. “Only too late do you fully understand.”
                
Rainbow felt the ends of a tail slide up her back before she tried to take hold of it. Before she even realized what it was, it was gone.
                
“Do not fear your death today, pony. Greet it like a friend. You have already shown the rest of this city that you hold yourself above no one. As you die today, give them a memory they can hold onto—give them a story they can whisper to others as they return to being my slaves. Be that glimmer of hope they’ll remember from this day onward.
                
“Do you not understand, pony of many hues, how much grander you will be in death, than you would ever be in life?”
                
Rainbow hastily scrubbed away some particles from her goggles. “You talk too much, Sombra!”
                
Again she charged forward, this time with her right foreleg out, her lucky horseshoe carefully leading the way. Only a few meters onward did the overwhelming face of the pitch-black dragon escape from the clouds, its gapping and fanged jaw already gathering in the necessary air for its fire. The eyes above that jaw burned brightly like perfectly cut crystals of crimson red.
                
Rainbow craned to her side just in time to avert the flames—although the tips of one wing felt a little too warm for comfort.
                
She circled around in time to glimpse the edges of a wing as it solidly smashed into her. She took the hit and felt the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. Then she spat it out.
                
“I’m going to die in these clouds,” she told herself, not truly wanting to believe such words. “I can’t see anything. So he’s going to pick me apart until there’s nothing left. I just can’t see. I just can’t—”
                
And then an idea came to her. An idea so simple and so sure she felt like slapping herself for not coming to it earlier.
                
With the first hint of a smile on her lips she rose into the air as quickly as she could. Although she felt a heavy amount of air try to press its way nearer to her, Sombra did not touch her again.
                
A minute later, when she’d felt as though the field of dark clouds would never part, Rainbow finally saw them thin before she broke through. What touched her eyes nearly brought them to tears after so much despair and dread. Beyond the clouds, a clear blue sky came to be—untouched and unspoiled. She told herself if she should fail today, that this would be what she would remember.

Flying high in a perfect blue sky.

Another mile or so above the black clouds, Rainbow doubled back and careened to the earth robustly. It she wanted to pull of any such Sonic Rainboom with grace, she’d need the speed to accomplish it. How could she have not thought of it earlier? Sombra had been hiding in clouds of his own creation. If she should be able to clear them away, then perhaps a series of archers could help force him to land.

“Almost… there,” she grunted, as the strong winds wrinkled her face.

Out of the corners of her eyes she glimpsed the start of the multi-colored pattern that always pre-meditated the Boom. It was at that time she re-entered the clouds—but that was the way she wanted it. As the Rainboom would spread she wanted to be in the very thick of it, taking it all out at once.

It was close. She could feel it. Just a few more seconds—

But now there was something large near her side. And before she had a chance to glance over to it, a wall of pain so great it made her scream out tore its way through her.

In mid-plummet, the black dragon had snapped up her left wing in its sharpened jaws, violently ripping her from her travels to the ground. Bones broke and shattered completely; muscles tore and blood gave way from a dozen or more places.

Rainbow wanted to scream more than her voice would allow. Any air in her lungs had been hastily removed since the blow. And now those jaws were tearing at her again, dragging her along.

“Your game has come to an end, flying pony,” the clouds said. “In reward of your valor, I will grant you the reward of a brisk death.”

With her wing firmly clamped in its jaws, the great dragon came to a sudden stop and whipped his head first one way and then the other, flinging the pegasus around like a ragdoll. Bits of blood dotted the sky, and now Rainbow was released and careening in a new direction away from the beast. A moment later she came to a heavy thud against the crystal wall of the Empire tower. Rainbow had not even tried to stop it from coming. Since her wing had nearly been torn off she hadn’t been focused on much. Once she’d hit the tower—complete with a few broken ribs—straight down became her next direction.

The air blowing against her devastated wing sent fresh bolts of pain across her, but she thought she hold handle what little pain was left. Soon the ground would come and lay waste to any more sorrow. Soon she would join Soarin in whatever world lay beyond this one. Her only brief concern was if Mr. and Mrs. Cake would find a good home for her kids, as it was with them she had left in their stead.

The black clouds gave way and the sight of the ground with its many battling ponies came to. Her last thought was that she could have done more.