//------------------------------//
// Sombra: Seeking Power 
// Story: To Be The King 
// by Rinnaul 
//------------------------------//





I wasn’t sure why I said that.

Revealing who I was—who I was being, anyway—couldn’t have been the smartest move. Maybe I was just getting too into it. Maybe it was some sort of subconscious thing. Maybe…

I had no idea. Maybe there was some chance it would prevent more trouble later on somehow. Maybe it would be better to announce that from the start instead of Twilight figuring it out on her own later and assuming I was trying to trick them.

Maybe those thoughts could wait until later, because those noises sounded a lot like timber wolves.

Off to the side, Rainbow Dash flew up from where the three mares had been talking, and called back, “I was right, it’s timber wolves!”

I turned my attention from them and focused on the direction the howls were coming from—across the fields in between one of the farm’s orchards and the road to the Everfree. I raised my staff towards the sounds and drew upon the magic within.

And I felt nothing.

I gripped the staff tighter and focused all my will upon it. Any other wood would have splintered under the strength of my new body, and I was certain the magic in the staff was the only thing keeping it from that fate. But still, I felt nothing from it.

Seriously? I get to visit Equestria, gain ridiculous magical firepower, get handed an invitation to go adventuring with the Mane Six, and suddenly the magic quits working?

If this wasn’t the most unfair bullshit I ever—



I felt a tingle up my arm, and it seemed that a faint glow shimmered over the surface of the staff, but then it was gone. I then had a moment of realization as the ponies lead the timber wolves back towards the forest.

This thing was powered by negative emotions. It ran on anger; hate.

So all I had to do was think about things I hated, and it should work, right?

Okay. I could do that.

Let’s start with every time I talked about what I wanted to do with my life, and my mother would remind me that dreams are fine, but everybody needs a backup plan, before handing me an application to the nearest fast food or retail joint.

Speaking of jobs, how about every person who treated me like I was somehow subhuman because of the job I had? Every person who noticed the classism and laughed at it? Every person who made unreasonable demands because the system is designed to produce entitlement. Every supervisor who talked down to me just because they got off on that tiny little power trip. Every boss who ignored me because employees are the last of their concerns. Every time I gave more than the bare minimum and got absolutely nothing in return. Every time  I tried to advance myself and got kicked back to the bottom for my trouble.

Every time I let it slide and took the abuse because I couldn't afford to risk my job.

All the years of dealing with this bullshit which left me with nothing but pocket change and a deep-seated fear of authority.

Maybe I was actually dead. Maybe this was some kind of dream. Maybe, at that moment, I was lying at the side of a freeway, imagining all of these great things while I bled out in the twisted remains of my cheap-ass car.

Real or not, this was a place where none of those things existed. None of them had sway over me, here. No parents to please, customers to placate, or job to protect. And more importantly, here, I had power.

And what good was power if you didn’t use it?

Maybe I couldn’t torch my old store or toss my old managers around like Saruman fighting Gandalf.

But there were some monsters chasing people I liked, and that worked just as well.

Ponies I liked.

Whatever.

I raised the staff again, the corners of my vision tinged with violet light. Grinning, I hoped I looked suitably feral for the scenario. I could feel the power from the staff now. It wasn’t a tingle up my arm anymore. It was… It was like cold air washing over me. Or hot air. I couldn’t tell, honestly. But I could feel something, and dark energy was swirling around the end of the staff again.

I think I’d throw Pete… No, I’d throw Wanda through a window. With the staff like Saruman, or just force choke her?

Touching two fingers to the swirl of energy, I let it flow over my hand. I willed the magic to take shape as I drew my hand back, pointing it towards the ponies and timber wolves. I aimed for the one behind Twilight—but her attention was on Pinkie Pie, who I soon saw was quickly losing ground to her wolf.

I switched targets as I felt Twilight begin to draw on her own magic, pointing towards the wolf chasing Pinkie. The magic took shape as I had willed it, forming into a bolt of black fire as it shot from my fingertips. Almost instantly, it struck the timber wolf that had been at Pinkie’s hooves and blasted it apart in a fiery explosion, along with much of the soil around it.

Twilight and Pinkie both stumbled to a stop. Pinkie fell as she did, rolling and vanishing somewhere amid the chaos. Trusting her to survive by just being too Pinkie Pie for death, I turned my attention back to Twilight.

Her pause gave the timber wolf ample time to catch up, and for a moment I was afraid she’d frozen for too long. But she screamed and vanished in a burst of white and purple light. Reappearing next to me, she just as quickly skittered away from the aura of my power.

I’m not sure about Pete. Toss him down the hill at the back of the store? Maybe find a spell to summon some sort of monsters to chase him back up, only to knock him down again. Like Sisyphus, but fatter.

I touched the swirling energy again and drew out another fireball. This time, I pointed it towards the wolf that had nearly caught Twilight. The spell shot forth and struck the monster just as it looked up in confusion from its jaws closing around nothing. It was blown to pieces in just as satisfying a manner as the first one.

And then… well, I’ve always wanted to smash all those display TVs. Sick of dusting them, sick of the 24-hour commercial feed they play. Instead of taking a hammer to them, why not just slam crystal spikes through them all at once?

I destroyed the one pursuing Rainbow Dash as easily as the first two. Before the embers and broken wood hit the ground, I was moving towards the last of them. It was big, yes; maybe even bigger than the one from that Spike episode. But I wasn’t intimidated by size. The first three fell easily enough, and I could put far more force into my magic than I had on those. Given enough power, I could take on anything Equestria had to offer—and I had power to spare.

As I passed between the timber wolves I'd already slain, I couldn't help but notice they smelled like a burning slaughterhouse. Funny. You’d have thought they would just smell like a wood fire.

I put the question of what burning monsters were supposed to smell like out of my mind, and continued on towards the final, largest timber wolf. I held out the staff and drew on the magic swirling around it. Following my will, it flowed from the staff to my upturned hand, gathering into a larger and larger mass of dark magic which began taking the form of another, even larger, fireball.

I wonder if there’d be a spell to set off all the oil in the vat at the same time?

The timber wolf closed the distance, stopped and crouched down to roar at me or try to eat me or something. As it opened its jaws, I calmly tossed the fireball into its face. I turned my attention back to the spell memories in the staff as the fires raged in front of it.

Huh. So there is.

I was distracted from my fantasies, however, by the realization that the spell I’d intended to be an explosive blast was instead still burning in the same place. It wasn't supposed to do that.

The broken pieces of the other timber wolves also weren't supposed to be floating through the air towards it surrounded in green auras. And I definitely shouldn't be feeling my magic draining away.

The roaring fire in front of the wolf was gradually shrinking away, and I finally saw what was really happening—it wasn't getting ready to roar at me, it was sucking in my spell. Between absorbing the power of my spell and the bodies of the other timber wolves, the beast had grown to truly massive proportions, dwarfing any timber wolf I'd ever seen on the show, and most buildings in Ponyville.

Then it roared at me, pulling one paw back above its head. I thrust my staff upward in front of me, raising a thick barrier of crystals between it and myself. It swang the clawed limb down at me, smashing through my barrier with the sound of breaking glass, and—



My everything hurt.

I rolled over, pushing myself up on my knees. Point against this being a dream, at least. If pinching could wake you up, I'm pretty sure being knocked on your ass and—judging from the ringing in my ears—given a mild concussion would definitely do the trick.

I coughed, and at first I thought I might have hurt my lungs. The pain of the cough spoke to damage in my ribs, at the very least, but that hit should have killed me. I guess this body was tougher than normal, too.

I coughed again, and couldn't miss the reason this time. It smelled like a slaughterhouse.

The ringing in my ears died down, and I could hear what was happening around me. Growling. The crackle of energy. Rainbow Dash's voice shouting something.

I could work out the details later. This sounded bad.

I pushed myself up to my feet, the pain of the wolf’s hit and my rough landing already fading.

Just ahead of me, the ponies were under a magenta barrier. Twilight was on her knees in the center, her face twisted with pain and her horn glowing red and beginning to spark from exertion. Pinkie was clinging to Twilight's neck, her face buried in Twilight's mane. I couldn't guess if she was terrified and clinging to her, or doing her best to keep Twilight's hopes up in the face of imminent death.

That imminent death was taking the form of the giant dark-magic timber wolf, which was furiously attacking Twilight’s barrier to reach the ponies inside it.

Rainbow Dash was standing in the barrier as well, between Twilight and the wolf, wings spread in challenge and looking for all the world like the barrier was the only thing keeping her from giving the wolf a solid ass-kicking.

All told, it was high time to lay my vengeance down upon this wooden bitch.

I held out my left hand and my staff flew into my grip without my needing to even look for it. I let the magic flow into my right hand and drew it back in a fist by my side. It drank up my magic last time, so I thought something a bit more solid was in order. Besides, one good hit deserved another.

I swung my fist upward and channeled the staff’s magic in the same way I’d done to impale the diamond dog or create my short-lived shield. The ground shook around us as crystal took shape following my motions, and a giant crystalline fist erupted from the ground beneath the timber wolf, driving into its chest and flinging it backward, away from the ponies. It didn’t fly nearly as far as I had, but it got the monster off of Twilight’s barrier.

“Choke on it,” I spat, and started towards the wolf that was already struggling back to its feet, allowing the crystal form to crumble away into dust as I walked.

Twilight let her shield drop and fell to the ground with a groan. Rainbow Dash joined Pinkie at her side in an instant, but once they were each assured the others were in one piece, their eyes went back to me and the timber wolf.

I grinned. Not only had I gotten her in time, but I’d just had a great idea for how to put this creature down for the count.

I gathered magic in my hand in the same way I’d just used it before. But this time, rather than making a fist, I kept an open hand.

“Mil fleur,” I said to myself under my breath, because there are some things a self-respecting geek, unfathomable dark powers or not, simply can’t pass up.

I swept my hand upward, fingers curled into claws. Again, the ground shook as a crystal form copied my movements. A second giant hand tore from the earth at the wolf’s paws, but rather than strike him, this one closed its fingers around the wolf’s throat. A second followed suit, grabbing it from the other side. A third grabbed it around the chest. By the time I was in front of the creature, there were half a dozen clawed crystalline hands holding it immobile, from snout to tail. Together, they looked like a solid mass of crystal.

I stood in front of the wolf for a moment. It kept its eyes on me and growled a challenge.

“Clutch,” I said aloud, and clenched my hand into a fist.

The crystals constricted inwards, slamming together and crushing the timber wolf into sawdust. The noise was an absolute cacophony. Imagine a thousand kitchens’ worth of plates and silverware being crushed in a trash compactor and you have some idea of what it sounded like.

“TWILIGHT!”

I turned upon hearing the name shouted in Applejack’s distinctive accent. She was bolting from the gate of Sweet Apple Acres towards her friends, leaving Big McIntosh standing there, staring at the destruction. Considering what she must have been seeing, I can only imagine Mac was holding her back from rushing to her friends’ sides the entire time.

As she joined the other three in the only tiny circle of grass that wasn’t utterly destroyed by the fighting, I felt something tugging at my attention. Turning back towards the heap of crumbling crystals, I held my staff up. Another black, shadowy swirl of energy rose from the shards and dust. I brought my will to bear on it, and it was drawn into the staff, just as the diamond dog’s had been.

My arm tingled with the addition of the new power as I turned and strode back towards the group of ponies. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were stumbling over one another in their attempts to tell Applejack everything that had happened, but Twilight was still watching me, questions clearly in her eyes.

“What was—”

I held up a hand and interrupted her. “Part of what I wished to—”

“And who or what in Equestria is that?” Applejack said, interrupting me in turn, with a hoof pointed my direction.

“That’s Sombra from another dimension,” Dash explained.

“Wait, Sombra?!” Applejack leapt to her hooves, taking a defensive pose between her friends and me.

Dash rolled her eyes. “No, AJ, from another dimension. He’s a—”

“Girls! Are you alright?” Rarity’s voice came from just down the path, as she made her way towards the group at a quick trot. “When the howling began, I started getting everyone indoors to safety, only to realize I wasn’t seeing any of you! I came as soon as those blasts stopped, and…” She finally seemed to notice me. Despite me being the size of a minotaur. “And what in Equestria is that?”

“Sombra,” Applejack growled.

“What?!” she shrieked, lighting her horn.

“Sombra from another dimension,” Dash corrected. “He’s cool.”

I sighed and turned back to Twilight. “I don’t suppose we could continue this somewhere more comfortable and less conspicuous? I may as well explain the matter to all of you.”

Twilight nodded, and groaned as she pushed herself to her feet. “Right. Everypony, back to the library. I’m sure we’ll all get our answers there.” She threw me a glance at the last part.

“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie Pie bounced up in front of Twilight. “All of us? Cause I have some good ones I’ve been looking for. Like if I cut off my own leg and ate it, would I still weigh the same? Does everypony see the same colors I see? How does a blind pony know when to stop—”

Twilight plugged Pinkie’s mouth with a hoof. “Most of us will be getting answers. Good to see you back to normal, Pinkie.”

We started back towards the library, with me in the center of the group. I felt disconcertingly like a prisoner being escorted to his cell. However, thanks to Rarity getting all of the ponies indoors, our walk back to the library was uneventful, beyond me hitting my head on the doorframe. Now I know what Gandalf felt like in Bag End.

Oh, and I gave Spike a bit of a panic attack when Twilight revealed who I was. Eventually, Rarity had to go upstairs and coax him out from under Twilight’s bed. He sat nestled between her and Twilight in the circle our group formed, and beyond the suspicious glare he always gave me, seemed content with all in the world.

As for the rest of the group, they were more focused on Dash and Pinkie’s enthusiastic retelling of our earlier encounter with the timber wolves.

“—and then it went crash! and smashed the timber wolf into little bits!” Pinkie said, clapping her front hooves together at the appropriate moment.

“As the resident expert on awesome things, I have to say, it was pretty awesome,” Dash said, and then smirked. “Which isn’t to say I couldn’t have handled it. Hay, I’d probably have taken it down faster. Resident expert on speed, after all. But Twilight had her shield thing up, so I decided to let the new guy take care of it.”

Rarity gave her a sidelong glance. “But I thought you were the resident expert on ‘awesome things’. Which is it?”

“Speed is an awesome thing,” Dash said, rolling her eyes and crossing her forelegs. “Duh.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “If that’s settled, I’d like to get to finding answers.” She turned to me. “I saw something come out of the timber wolf when you crushed it. You pulled it into your staff. What was it?”

“A fragment of dark magic,” I said, doing my best to give an explanation that was mostly guesswork on my part in the first place. “I found something similar in the creature that attacked me in the forest when I first arrived here. It… resonates with my own magic, and I am able to manipulate it to some extent. I believe the fragments are manipulating the creatures that bear them.”

“Now, just a second,” Applejack said, fixing me with a gaze. “Now, I may not understand much about all this magic hooey, but it seems to me that if them bits of darkness are controlling anypony who carries ‘em, and you go and pull ‘em out, wouldn’t they be in control of you now?”

I shook my head and laid the staff down in front of me. “I draw the magic into the staff. That keeps it separate from me, and free of its influence.”

Twilight groaned and clapped a hoof to her forehead. “Of course!” All eyes were on her when she looked up. “He’s Sombra from an alternate world. What kind of magic would resonate with his but the magic of the Sombra from this world?”

Spike bolted upright. “But Sombra was destroyed! Blown to pieces by the Crystal Heart! We all saw it!”

“Yes, Spike, blasted into fragments,” Twilight said. “He could take the form of a cloud of pure dark magic. If he reverted to that form when the energy wave struck him, it could have scattered pieces of his magic all over Equestria. No wonder we were seeing problems arise in such a huge area. But if that's true, why haven't they overwhelmed us yet?”

“What sort of problems?” Applejack asked. “This the mess that’s been keeping you holed up in the library the past couple weeks?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, it is. The Royal Guard have been crisscrossing Equestria chasing down every report we get of strange events. I’ve been trying to coordinate their efforts, looking for patterns, and researching possible causes. And now that we know the cause, it’s just a matter of deciding how to fix it.”

“I believe I made an offer on that point,” I said, and all eyes were on me. “It’s simple.” I stopped myself from continuing with ‘We kill the Batman.’ “We seek out the fragments, and I draw them into my staff. Once we have gathered them all, we purge the staff.”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “That… that should work, I think. It would take some time to gather them all, but once we do, the Crystal Heart should be able to purify your staff. It shattered Sombra, so I’m sure that with no escape route, it could wipe that magic out entirely.”

Applejack sighed. “Well, I suppose my brother can handle the farm himself for a couple weeks…”

“And all of my current deadlines are open to extension,” Rarity added.

“And all I need to do is not sleep tonight and get twenty hours of work done in the eight hours that saves me, and all of my party preparations would pan out for the ponies whose parties I was planning!” Pinkie said cheerfully, then paused, frowned, and started trying to do math on her hoof.

I couldn’t tell how much progress she was making, given that using hooves left her with four to work with at best.

“Girls, we don’t have to all go,” Twilight said. “In fact, with how things have been happening everywhere, I’d prefer knowing that there’s somepony staying behind to keep an eye on Ponyville.”

“Are you sure, Twi?” Applejack put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “We’ve had each other’s backs ever since we found the Elements.”

“I know, Applejack, but now that we’ve given them up, it doesn’t make sense for all of us to go” Twilight said. “And besides, even if we did still have them, Fluttershy’s away on that trip, so we wouldn’t have been able to use them anyway.”

Wait, what? They’ve lost the Elements? When… how did that happen? Is this the same Equestria from the show? Can I even trust my knowledge of it to be reliable at this point? I close my eyes and take a breath. Fortunately, when I open them again, nopony seems to have noticed. Their attention is one one another, not me. Still, losing them as a backup plan…

Applejack sighed. “I know, I know. It’s just… I’d feel better knowing you had somepony looking out for you.”

“She’ll have me looking out for her,” Dash said, swooping over and landing next to Twilight. “I’ve got nothing tying me down here, and who else could get her out of trouble faster than me?”

“What about the weather?” Rarity asked.

Dash shrugged. “Eh, nothing big coming up. Thunderlane and the twins can take care of it.”

“I figure you’re more likely to get all of y’all into trouble than out of it, but you better make sure she’s alright.” Applejack gave Dash a glare that lacked any of the chill in the ones she’d directed towards me. This one felt more like friendly banter than the suspicion I warranted.

“Don’t worry, AJ, I’ve got this.” Dash made a show of crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, but the two still tapped their hooves together and shared a nod afterward.

“Alright then,” Twilight said cheerfully. I guess knowing for certain she’d have a friend along was doing a lot for her spirits. “Then if that’s settled, all that’s left is to send a message to Celestia telling her the plan.”

I coughed, and all eyes turned to me. 

“Would that be wise?” I asked. “Imagine how the princess would take the news of Sombra arriving from another world, regardless of the offers of aid.”

“But… I can’t just not tell her,” Twilight said. “I may be in charge of the actual investigation into what’s causing all of this, but she still needs to know what’s going on.”

“Be that as it may, I fear that drawing her attention to me will only serve to take it away from the actual crisis,” I said. “I would also prefer to avoid defending myself against someone as powerful as Celestia if she assumes I’m an enemy.”

“He may have a point, Twilight.” Surprisingly, it was Rarity who spoke in my defense. “If he isn’t a threat, perhaps it would be best if he remain unknown. Perhaps if you just left him out of the report?”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Applejack said. “This is the sorta thing I warn our sisters about! Like I tell them, as soon as ‘don’t let the grown-ups know’ becomes part of the plan, you get a new plan. No good ever comes from them goin’ behind our backs, and no good’s goin’ to come from us goin’ behind Princess Celestia’s.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Applejack. We’re not trying to cut her out of the loop entirely. We’re just not going to provide her with a meaningless distraction during a crisis.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, nodding. “Like Rares said, we just leave out the bits about this guy. We’re not hiding anything we’re doing from her.”

“I still don’t like it,” Applejack said. “Look, ya’ll can tell me off about it later if it turns out I’m just bein’ hardheaded again, but for now, I ain’t too keen on picking him over the Princess." She glanced my way again. "Sorry.”

“He did save our lives,” Pinkie said. “I think that earns one little favor like not telling on him being here.”

"For the record, while Rarity makes a good argument, I'm still going with telling Celestia everything," Spike said, glancing at Rarity and cringing.

Rarity patted a hoof on his head. "It's perfectly fine to have your own opinions, Spike."

He relaxed at that.

"So, that's three to tell and four to not." Twilight groaned and rubbed a hoof against the opposite leg. "I guess Spike and I can come up with something to tell her about attempting a new method to contain the problem…" She looked back up at me. "But if things get worse, I'm going to be telling her whatever I need to, alright?"

I nodded. "Fair enough. Do we set out immediately?"

She shook her head. "No, Spike and I still need to write what we can to Celestia, and I'd like to go out well-rested and prepared, at the very least." She glanced out the window to the darkening sky. "It's getting late. How about we meet back here in the morning, everypony?"

The others all sounded their agreement and farewells, and soon it was just myself, Twilight, and Spike left in the library.

"You can stay here for the night, if you'd like," Twilight said to me. "Feel free to read anything on the shelves if you aren't quite tired yet. I have a letter to write, and then it's bed for me. You're too tall for any bed I could offer you, but there are spare blankets in that closet."

"I'm sure I can find a way to make do," I said.

After wishing me a good night, Twilight went up to her room, leaving me alone in the library's first floor. While I was excited enough about the chance to read Twilight's books, I was still wondering about the loss of the Elements of Harmony. What else was going to be different here?

How many more surprises did Equestria have in store for me?