//------------------------------// // Meetings Part 3 // Story: Shadows // by DNA Hochburger //------------------------------// The door opens and through it steps: Sombra. It´s silent. Not like normal silent, but like when everything knows something is gonna happen and just wait that something to trigger all of the tension that build up. There they are having a stand off. Sombra, DNA and Discord on one side of the barrier and the others on the other side. They just stare at each other. Sombra sighs and then looks to DNA, before saying: "I still think this is a bad idea. I mean look at them they are scared of me." "Well I on the the other hoof think it´s going great," answers DNA with a casual voice. "Please explain." "For one they did not try to attack you." "Because they think I´m stronger than them." "But they have the Elements of Harmony." "Then please tell me: Why haven´t they attaked yet?", wants Sombra to know from DNA. "They are probaply in a shock state right now, not knowing how they should take your arrival and are measuring what the best plan of action is, at this point." "Or they are to scared to do anything," a familar voice interferes them. It comes from an even more familiar draconequus. Sombra turns to look at him and greets him: "Oh Discord it´s been centuries since I have seen you. How has it been?" "It´s been as well at it could have been. You look good." "Yeah DNA gave me an work over" "Oh I want one, too," says Discord with played jealousy. DNA interrupts him: "And why should I do that?" "Well I was imprisoned in stone for a millennium," answers Discord, while wiping over his hair. The three of them share a laugh like old friends would. She can´t believe. Celestia can´t believe what she is seeing right now. Her old friend DNA, the reformed Discord and on of the most evil dictators Equestria has seen over it´s life time are laughing toghether like old friends. She has to be dreaming. She thinks back. Did she have to much alcohol last night? No, she had no alcohol last night what so ever. Was she still sleeping. She closes her eyes trying to wake, when she opens them she is still in the room at the same point. She pulls all her courage toghether, befor asking: "DNA, is this real or are you pulling a prank on me?" DNA stops laughing, before turning towards Celestia and saying: "Oh hey she can talk. Of course this is real. Do you know how hard it is to create a dream with so much ponies connected? No, that would be to much work for a joke." "So I´m not seeing things?" "Correct." "That means Sombra, the real Sombra, the one I fought with so hard, is standing here in my throne room laughing with you and Discord?" "What is the matter with you today, Celestia? Yes you are here at this point in time. You are in real life with us, with your family, your friends and also Sombra." "Then please explain," she requests DNA. "We need him and I wanted to see my old friend, that´s why." "I mean everything. Why was I fighting him and now he is standing here in peace? And what is happening that we need him anyway?" "The first question I can answer right now. I needed to test them." Celestia raises an eyebrow, before continuing: "What do you mean by 'testing them'?", now with less stiffness and more curiousity in her voice. "I mean the element bearers of course. I needed to now if they are ready for what lies ahead of them. If they had failed my little challenge, I would had to take the whole population of the planet and put it somewhere else." Celestia gulps, knowing there was comming something big towards them: "And what? "Ah yes your second question. I hate to disappoint you, but this has to wait a little longer." "And why is this?" "When you would have counted you would know. Before Sombra stepped in ,I said we are missing another three ponies. So what is three minus one? Correct it´s two. We are missing two guests." "Will they be as big of an suprise as Sombra here?" "I guess you mean if you know them and if they are a threat," DNA puts a hoof to his chin thinking shortly, before he carrys on, "To be honest I´m not sure. I know for certain that Twilight and her friends saw at least one of them. From the other I´m not sure. But I don´t think you saw them yet. On the threat thing yeah definitely a suprise. They are both really kind, that is when you don´t get on their bad side. One of them destroyed two races until extinction one of them being his own, while the other really loves muffins. Also the way they travell is... special." Now Discord gets into the fun as well: "I don´t think I had the pleasure of meeting them. Who are they?" DNA smiles slightly, before answering: "None of you have, I think. But you will meet them in due time," he chuskles a bit,"The problem is I can´t just call them. I have sent him a message, I can just wait and hope that he shows up." "Should we maybe disable the barriers, seeing they don´t try to attack Sombra?", asks Discord, while leenig down to DNA. "I don´t think it´s a good idea, just yet, seeing Celestia is the only one being able to do anything and the other are stunned. And when we put them out of this state there could come rather strong emotions free. I don´t see actual dangers in that sight with anypony, but Twilight. She seems to have some strong emotions today, like a bomb just waiting on getting detonated. What do you mean Sombra, it´s you life on string." "I´m gonna leave the decision in your grasp, seeing you know what´s going to happen," Sombra respondes, with his usual monotone tone. "Ok, then it´s decided you will have to stay behind these walls." "I think that´s a good judgment, because I think I would not be able to control myself on killing him," throws Celestia in, while throwing a death glare to Sombra. "Oh and why is that my dear Celestia?", asks Discord. "Well maybe, because he tyrannized a whole city, overthrew their ruler, send ponys into the mines against their will, imprissoned a whole city for a millennium and killed THOUSENDS." "Oh Celestia please do you think I would let something like that slide, while I´m there. He never tyrannized anypony it was just an illusion from me. He never overthrew their ruler he became ruler fair and square. I just let them all forget it. The mine thing was also an illusion of mine. The city thing was also my doing. Or do you think he has enogh power to do something like that? And the killing also an illusion." "That means the whole Crystal Empire accident was your doing DNA?" "Yes." "Ok give me a moment here," Celestia takes a couple of deep breaths, before saying,"Ok I think I accepted it now. You said that Sombra has not enogh power to imprission the empire, but he was strong enogh to face me and Luna while we took him on with all our power. So how can this be?" "Oh I never said he faced you two alone. I helped him." "You help him fight US?" "Yes. He would have been never strong enogh to fight both of you together." "And why did you do this?" "To keep the illusion up of course. When you had defeated him that easily the elements would have never been able to fight him. That´s why I needed to keep up the illusion." Celestia takes another deep breath: "Ok good anything else you want to tell me, DNA?", with a stern look on her face. "No, not at the moment." "Then what now, DNA?" "I still think an apology is in order," interferes Sombra. "Oh I forgot you can be such a gentlecolt. Ok let´s do this," replies DNA with a huff. They both step infront of the barrier looking at Celestia, before bowing and saying in union: "We are sorry for what we did!" When Celestia looked before annoyed and angry, she was now just confused. "For what was that?", she asks slowly and carefully. They both go into a standing position again. Then Sombra answers her: "I just thought an apology was in order for all the trouble that DNA and I caused. I mean we tricked you for several month, hurt you badly and tricked you again." Celestia clears her throat, before saying: "Sombra I thank you. I would have never expect you to such a kind pony." "Well that is because you just met me as a tyrann and never casually,", responds Sombra, with a half smirk. "Oh that´s so heart breaking. Two old enemies laying their differences to the side and becomming friends. I could cry," intervenes Discord, with a handkerchif to wipe away his tears. "Not enogh attention Discord?", teases him DNA. They laugh, even Celestia. "That is a sight I would have never expect to see. My sister laughing with one of our old enemies." The sound comes from next from Celestia. It´s Luna. "Have we awoken from our beaty sleep?", asks DNA taunting. "Haha we are not amused, but I have to say I am quite suprised about that story and we are willing to exept your apology. Let´s start from sketch, so we can maybe even become friends." "See told ya everything is going to be just fine," says DNA enthusiastic, while patting his friend on his shoulder. "Hey Pinkie?" DNA screams at the pink party pony. "Yes?", screaming back. She´s allready hopping around the place full of energy again, while the rest of her friends just start get out of their stun, exept one: Twilight Sparkle. "Could you nudge Twilght for me, please." "Okie dokie lokie," and with that she stands beside Twilight and gives her a nudge so soft Fluttershy could´t have done it softer. But the nudge was enogh. Twilight starts shaking. "Great as I though." "What is DNA?", asks Celestia with a worrying voice, because she knows him good enogh to know when something is wrong... And something is wrong. "You know when I said Twilight is like a bomb that waits to detonate?" "Yes," comes it from literally everypony in the room, with a fearfull expression on their faces. "Well the bomb is about to detonate. But I have good and bad knews. The good ones being that when the next guest would have appeared it would have been uncrontrollable. The bad ones are that it´s still pretty bad." "How bad is it?", asks Celestia. "When I would be you I take a couple of steps back all of you. But I have another pair of good news for you. I thought that this was going to happen that´s why I let Snowdrop there with you. Snowdrop you know the thing I gave you?", she nods, "Put it on to her." Snowdrop is walking to Twilight. When she gets the she pulls out something that looks like a magic supresser cone with a little ball at the end of a string. Snowdrop places the cone quickly over Twilights horn, before turning away going back to Celestia and Luna. As she is still on her way to them a light erupts from Twilight. The light keeps on spilling out of her getting brighter and brighter, till it fades shortly after. She collapses on the floor. Her friends were allready on their way to her, before DNA screamed: "STOP. Whatever you do, do not touch the thing on her head, or we are all going to die." His words let´s everypony freeze. "Discord raise a shield around you and Sombra." The draconequus does exectly as he is being told. "Your others don´t let Twilight move. By all means keep her pinned to the floor, but don´t touch the thing on her head," he screams at them and they do as they are being told. When he reaches the barriers a quick punch and Discords barrier is down, then his eyes go light red again and then the second on goes away. He runs to Twilight where her friends keep her on the ground. When he reaches them he says: "Ok good job now leave he go." Her friends go quickly from her, so that DNA can get to her. He looks at ball, then touches it real soft and let´s out sigh of relief. He picks up the ball and holding it in the air, while saying: "Ok we are safe." Everything in the room let´s out a sgh of relief. Rainbow Dash comes over to him asking: "What was that all about?" He holds the ball infront of her muzzle, so she can see it better and then explaining: "This is a bomb. It has enogh power to destroy half of Canterlot." Rainbow steps a step back. "It absorbed the energy that Twilight had stored and kept it." He walks over to Snowdrop, before saying: "Snowdrop I´m sorry, but that is going to feel weird now," with that he pushes a spot on her back and it opens. He puts the ball inside it and then it closes again. "Good now that that is taken care of." "Is there bomb in Snowdrop now?", asks Celestia, with fear in her voice. "Yeah," answers DNA in a casual voice. "And why?", wants Luna to know. "I had to store it somewhere," replies DNA. VROMM Everything looks around and Celestia asks: "What was that?" VROMM "Oh they are here!", exclaims DNA, with great excitement in his voice. VROMM "Who?" VROMM "Haha, our last two missing guests of course." VROMM A blue box starts to materialize in the room. VROMM It´s almost not visible at first, but gets more and more colour the more time passes. VROMM Come on one last push. VROMM There it is a blue box. It has about the height of Discord. And a pony would almost not fit in, but the weirdest is, voices come from inside. "Are sure we are right here Doctor? I don´t want to be on the wrong planet again," says a female voice. "I don´t know what you mean Derpy. I thought it was great on that last planet," says the voice from a stallion. "You think almost every planet is great. Where are we anyway?" "We should be on your home planet." "And where?" "It says Canterlot Palace." "WHAT? Oh no no no no. We are screwed. What if the royal guards find us or worse? Doctor we have to get out of here NOW." "Calm down Derpy. I always wanted to visit the palace. Also we got called." "And who could possiblely need our help?" "Maybe the princess needs help with something." "She can raise and lower the sun and her sister can do the same thing with the moon. Do you think they need help, from US?" "Maybe she wants to play chess. I heard she´s good in it." "But that´s not the point here, Doctor!" "Yes it is. Ok let´s take a peak outside when somepony is outside we go again. But when nopony is out there I can have quick look around. Ok?" "I guess that´s ok then, but not for to long." "Yuhu. Then let´s go." The sound of a door being opened can be heard. "Look, nopony is there." Two ponies step out the box with their backs tuned to them. The door is being closed. The two ponies that stepped out of the box walk towards the door. "Where do you think we are anyways, Derpy, this room looks to good to be just some closet and when I want to live in a closet from now on." "Oh Doctor you are being silly again," says the mare. "No I mean it. Look at this place it´s huge. Not as big as my TARDIS, but big enogh." Now DNA fianlally says something: "Hello, Doctor." "Aaaahhhh. There is somepony there. What should we do, Doctor?", asks the mare , with a scared voice. "I say we say 'hello'." "And when the ponys evil?" "But why should an evil pony say hello and don´t attack us?" "I guess you have a point there," replies the mare in a much calmer voice. They come from behind the box for everything to see. The stallion has a brown coat with a lot darker mane and hourglass cutiemark. The mare has light grey coat with blond hair and seven bubbles as cutie mark. "Doctor we are in big problems. There is every single equestrian royalty. Do you think it´s to late run?", asks the mare, with a paniced voice. "Everysingle one? Oh boy that´s gonna be fun," he turns to DNA,"Hello my name is the Doctor and this is my companion. And who are you?" "Hello, my name is DNA Hochburger, I´m the one that send you the letter." "See Derpy I knew it would be fine. But DNA Hochburger is a weird name." "That is, because I come, like you, not from here." "You don´t mean?" "Yes I mean exactly this, but we shouldn´t discuss our private matters here at the moment. There are things that need more attention than this." The Doctors face is getting cold, before he asks: "How bad is it?" "Bad enogh that we have to kill a species." "Do we really need to?" "You want to see" The Doctor gulps, before saying: "Yes please." "Ok then, you said you wanted to see." DNA stepts for and lays a hoof on the other stallions head. Thousand of memories are flowing directly into his head. Pictures of horror and violence struck the Doctor. When it´s over DNA puts his hoof of his head as a single tear rolls down the Doctors cheek. He looks DNA directly in his eyes as he asks: "Why does this always happens to us?" "I don´t know, but we always get draged into stuff like this so we can change something. Are you going to help me?" "After seeing something like this? Of course. I mean how can I turn away from this?" "I´m glad that I can count on you Doctor," he turns around to the rest and saying: "Okay everypony listen up. This is the Doctor. And before somepony asks it´s just the Doctor. Deal with it. His companion here is Derpy. Please be nice to them," then he turns around to Doctor,"So let´s introduce you to everything." The Doctor wipes away the tear, before putting on a smile again and replying: "Sure. I heard here is every equestrian royalty?" "Yes why not start here first, because why not." "That sounds like a plan." "Ok here we got some of my closest freinds," he points at Discord and Sombra still in their magical bubble. They wave a their guests. "Why are they in that bubble?", asks Derpy, while waving back. DNA looks at the bubble, then at Derpy and then he turns around to face the others. "Can all of you promise me not to attack Sombra?" A quiet grumbling goes throught the audiences and a series of nods from everypony, some heavier then others. "Good I´m glad we can agree on that. Ok Discord you can lower the shield now," with a quick nod Discords lowers the shield around him and Sombra. "I have never seen something like you and I have seen alot in my life-span. What are you?", asks the Doctor, with great exitment, while walking around Discord inspecting him. "My name is Discord, I´m the spirit of chaos. And what are you? I can sense something weird about you, but I can´t put my finger on it," responds Discord while looking at the brown stallion, that stopped walking around him. "Discord, he´s comming from the same place I am comming from, also he travels through time and space," answers DNA for them. "Also the pony next to Discord is Sombra, " adds DNA, while pointing at Sombra. "WHAT?", everything turns to Derpy, because she screamed suddenly. "What is it Derpy? Did something happen?," querys the Doctor. Derpy says: "Yes. Sombra was a tyrann who ruled the Crystal Empire under an iron hoof," while pointing at Sombra, "So what is he doing here?" "If you care to know I can explain this," interfers DNA,"Sombra and I have set everything up at the Craystal Empire, so that it looks like he was a tyrann. We needed the princesses to fight and hate him, for reasons I don´t want to explain again." Derpy calms down, before saysing: "Ok, that means he´s not a big meany pants?" "That is right Miss Derpy. I´m not a 'big meany pants', as you called it," replies Sombra. "Over here we got Princess Luna, the blue one, Princess Celestia, the white one and Snowdrop the little one," continues DNA, while pointing at the three of them. The Doctor steps forward, takes a bow and greets them: "It´s a honor and pleasure meeting you, your highnesses." Princess Luna recovers from her little shock, before saying: "It´s nice to meet you too... Doctor was it? That´s sure an interesting name. I always thought it was just an profession and not a name." "It is not a name Princess Luna. It´s a title I choose to wear." "Then over here we have the royal pair. The stallion, Shining Armor, is captain of the royal guard and the prince of the Crystal Empire and the mare is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadence for short, she is the princess of the Crystal Empire," proceeds DNA and continues to walk, without caring about what they might have to say to each other. Derpy and the Doctor bow quickly, before following DNA hasty, as he is alredy at the Elements of Harmony. "This here are the Elements of Harmony. You can talk with them later, but I want to hurry with this. It took me already longer than expected and I have to still so much today. DNA walks towards the middle of the room then turning around to face everything in the room. All eyes are on him, as he says: "I´m sure that most of you wonder why I gathered you here today. The reason is simple. Let me explain."