//------------------------------//
// Chapter 29 
// Story: Shadowy Love 
// by FinnPony 
//------------------------------//


Shadowy Love


By FinnPony
	

Chapter 29


It was night. Everything in Twilight Sparkle’s castle was quiet, and only Flash Sentry and Sam Hill sometimes passed through the hall that lead towards princess’ bed chambers. Everything seemed normal and calm to them, but none of them knew what wicked things were about to happen that night.

Sombra was awake in his dark room, laying still on his bed. His horn glowed red, illuminating the room a little. Over him he levitated a book that was telling the story of some brave knight, but he couldn’t understand anything about it. He was too distracted. Partly it was because he enjoyed the feeling of using magic again, but that was just a little thing compared to the one that kept him awake.

Soon would be the time to choose which path he would take. 

He threw the book on the table. He knew that Twilight Sparkle would have scolded him for treating a book like that, but he didn’t care. He rubbed his eyes with his fetlocks and kept thinking about the situation he was in. His demons would be there soon, there was no doubt about it. Just thinking about it made a shiver crawl up his spine. Why did they still bother him so? Then he remembered.

The Alicorn Amulet, The King’s Gem.

Sombra couldn’t help himself. That little necklace with a red crystal embedded into it. How could such a small gem cause so much restlessness of mind to a mighty warrior like Sombra? It was because he knew that at the very moment he would lay his eyes upon it, he would knew what his future would look like. 

First he would need to find it.

He sighed and used magic to levitate a new book to him, enjoying the feeling shortly. After a while he gave up reading. Sleep didn’t come to him, so why did he even try. He got up from the bed and pressed his ear against the door. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he wanted out of his room. There was no sounds heard from behind the door, so he stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Almost Immediately he heard quiet talking behind him.

“I finally got the new sword by the way,” Sam said to Flash as they turned to the hallway.
“Yeah,” Flash said in a bit irritated way. “You think that I didn’t notice it in your scabbard?”
“I was just trying to get an conversation going on,” Sam huffed. “Why do you have to be so nettlesome all the time?”
Flash frowned. He shrugged and said, “There’s just so many things going on and…”
Flash stopped suddenly, and quickly looked behind himself. Confused, Sam too glanced behind his back. There was nothing there, just a dimly lit, almost dark hallway.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked from the pegasus.
“I…” Flash muttered and looked around the hallway. “I felt like somepony was watching me.”
“It’s just the dark that’s getting to your nerves son,” Sam said calmly and continued to walk forward. “That and the lack of rest.”
Flash kept looking around himself for a moment longer, before he trotted after the older guard, thinking that Sam was right.

Well, he wasn’t.

As the two guards went around the corner, the shadows in the hallway started to shift. They stretched along the walls silently, gathering to a one point and then ran down to the floor. From the mass of shadows emerged a shape resembling a large stallion with green eyes, and blue fire flowing from them. Sombra turned back to his physical from the ghostly figure. He panted a little after his small trick. He was a bit rusty after living without his magic for so long. The purple fires in his eyes faded away and they turned back to their normal colors. 

He almost got caught. That was too close for comfort in Sombra’s opinion, so he quickly made his way to the living room before the guards would come back again. In the living room he stared at the door to Twilight Sparkle’s study for a long time. He thought if he should proceed with his plan, or to wait a bit longer. Well what the hell, now was as good a time as any.

Sombra walked closer to the door, knowing that the magic barrier was still there. He thought for a moment how to deal with the problem. Should he go with force, or without causing any unwanted attention. He decided to go with the second opinion, that way he wouldn’t need to use dark magic and risk Twilight Sparkle sensing it.

He cracked his neck and began to work. His horn started to glow red and he casted a simple spell that would make every spell that Twilight Sparkle had created visible. Easy. Now in front of him he saw a purple, glass like wall that he knew was stronger than any physical material in the world. Yet, only a small grin appeared to his lips. He had been living for far too long to be stopped by a simple spell like that. He gently touched the surface of the barrier with the tip of his curvy horn, which still glowed red light. The barrier was cut in half like a invisible knife would have cut through it.
“Foalsplay,” Sombra chuckled and stepped into her study.

He illuminated the dark room with his magic, taking in his surroundings. The many books that were moved there from the living room were stacked to high piles around the room. He knew that he wouldn’t find anything useful from them, so he began to move them with his magic, revealing many shelves and tables from behind them. None of them looked like a place to keep important files or notes that he needed, no. What he needed was a safe or a locked chest.

Sombra kept going through the books for a while, but did not find anything that would have been interesting. The guards could come there any minute and frustration started to build up, so he began to move the books more aggressively. After moving one pile he almost jumped out of his skin as Celestia herself was staring at him. He realized that he had discovered just a painting, but his heart kept pounding like crazy for a while after. He stared at the white alicorn for a moment, before chuckling quietly and turning away.

Then he stopped.
“Twilight Sparkle,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t be that stupid…”
He turned to face the painting again, and lifted the heavy painting with his magic. He let out a disappointed sigh when he saw a safe embedded to the wall where the painting had been.
“Tsk tsk tsk…” Sombra muttered as he touched the lock with his horn. There was a small click heard and the door of the safe opened with a creak.
“Here we go,” Sombra said as he saw many notes arranged into folders from A to Z. He picked the folder with big A on it and spent a small moment going through it.

“What the…” Sombra asked confusedly. There was no notes about Alicorn Amulet in the folder A. There were many kind of stupid notes such as ‘A Bird in the Hoof’ and ‘Applebuck Season’ and many more. They made no sense! Sombra read a couple of them, and they proved to be notes about some events that Twilight Sparkle and her friends had had together.
Sombra groaned a bit louder than he had meant to, but luckily Flash and Sam weren’t close. Sombra realized that he had to go through the folders until he would find what he was looking for.

Cursing silently he began to do so. He found a mention about that Trixie in a folder B in a note called ‘Boast Busters’. How in the world had Twilight come up with those names? Not spending too much time on that he continued. It took a while but in the folder M he found a note called ‘Magic Duel’.
“At last…” he said when he saw the words ‘Alicorn Amulet’ in the text. He kept reading, and found out that the story was rather interesting. He also felt almost bad for that mare, Trixie. He knew the powers of The Alicorn Amulet, and how they would affect a common pony like her. He soon found a part that told about the current whereabouts of The King’s Gem.

“...I gave the Alicorn Amulet to Zecora, so that she could hide it to a place where nopony would even imagine to look for it. It is now hidden in -”

The rest of the sentence was covered with a black ink. Sombra just rolled his eyes. Did she really think that it would stop somepony with even a slightest knowledge of magic? He cast a spell that made the ink disappear.

“- The Castle of Two Sisters, under a foot of a statue resembling Celestia and Luna. It is cast into the rock and sealed into a magicproof chest so nopony can sense it from outside.”

Sombra nodded to himself, before folding the paper in half and making it disappear into a small cloud of red smoke. Then he quickly cleaned up in the room and stepped outside. He casted a spell that made the magical barrier around the study fix itself like a big needle would have sewn it back together. He was done there.

He avoided the guards again and made it to his own room, where he laid down to his bed and made the note to appear again. He read it over and over again, until his eyes hurt. In a way he was relieved now that he had what he needed, but at the same time it made him feel very very uncomfortable.

Sombra turned to his side. His feelings were fighting with each other, making the former king confused and frustrated. The other side of him commanded him to seek even more power now that he could actually get it, and the other side of him pegged for him to leave his past life behind, so he could continue his studies with Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle… Even thinking about her made Sombra uncomfortable. Not that he disliked her, no. It was quite the opposite. He liked her, that was the problem. Sombra could already see the sorrowful, heartbroken look on her face when she would discover his betrayal. 

Sombra snorted annoyedly and turned his side again. Why should he care? Why did he care? Sombra did have an idea why, but he didn’t want to admit it.
“Why did she have to make everything so complicated?” Sombra cursed and rose into a half-sitting position, leaning against the back of the bed. He took a deep breath, and then exhaled, only to notice that something was wrong.

Sombra could see his breath.He blinked confusedly, before jumping down from his bed and looking around himself. Had his room been that dark when he had left?

There was a short, menacing silence, before the shadows started to move, three pairs of blue eyes appearing into the mass of shadows, staring at him coldly.
“What do you have there, my master?” the calm voice asked from Sombra, who held the note in his magical grasp. “Oh! And I see that you have gotten your magic back! Splendid!”
“I have,” Sombra answered bluntly. He then glanced at the noted. He hesitated a bit before saying, “And I have found The King’s Gem.”
The voices seemed to get excited about the news, even the sad one exclaimed, “Oh how wonderful!”
“That means that we need to act!” the angry one exclaimed. “Right now!”
“You are right, my brethren,” the calm voice agreed with almost delighted tone. “Are you ready to go, my master? Your kingdom awaits!”

Sombra was silent, just staring at the shadows that kept moving on the walls that started to freeze slowly. Was he ready to go? He didn’t know. All that he needed to say was ‘yes’, and he would get all the power he wanted, and he could take revenge on those two alicorns for taking his kingdom away from him. ‘Yes’ was all that he needed, but it didn’t seem to come.

“Well?” the angry one asked quite frustratedly. “Let us go already!”
Sombra blinked and turned away towards the only window in his room. It was frozen and full of small flower-like ice formations.
“I do believe that I need more time,” he finally answered, and a deep silence fell to the room. 
After a moment there was a nervous chuckle heard and the sad one asked, “Master is trying to fool us isn’t he?”
“He damn well better be…” the angry one almost growled, one of the shadows and two blue eyes moving closer to Sombra across the walls.
“Calm down!” the calm one commanded powerfully, and the other two went quiet. It then continued by asking from Sombra, “Master, why would you want to wait any longer?”
Sombra hesitated for a while, but then he quietly answered, “I am not sure if this is the right thing to do anymore. It does not feel like a reasonable thing to do. I am… not sure if I want it any longer.”

There was a shocked silence between the voices, and the shadows started to move very restlessly along the walls and the temperature was dropping drastically in the room. Sombra could tell that his answer hadn’t pleased the voices.
“Master is abandoning us!” the sad one wailed.
“This is an outrage!” the angry one continued to shout. “We will not tolerate this!”
“Then do not!” Sombra snapped at them, and they fell silent.

“We are done playing games, master,” the calm one suddenly said, very sternly.
“I do not care!” Sombra answered angrily. “I am tired of all this! I just want to get my head clear enough to think properly! I do not need you now!”
After a small moment of eerie silence the calm voice spoke with a cold, echoing voice, “You need us, Sombra.”
The voice calling him by name made Sombra realize that something bad was going to happen. The same voice continued with that same threatening tone, “More importantly… We need you.”

“We need hatred!” they all suddenly said in unison, making Sombra wince and turn back to face the shadows. They moved slowly towards him with their blue eyes fixated to him.
“We need sorrow!” they continued. 

Sombra gasped as it became hard to breath for him. The coldness was tightening around his throat and it burned his lungs. He saw how the shadows were towering over him as he collapsed down to his knees, an odd feeling washing over him. It wasn’t something that he had felt in so long time. 

It was fear. 

The shadows over him made him tremble, and not only from the coldness.
“We need fear…” the shadows said slowly, sounding like they would have enjoyed it. Sombra was close to passing out from the lack of oxygen, and his vision started to fade. A sudden sharp pain in his lungs startled him so that he regained his consciousness.

His very soul started to freeze, making him feel numb and lifeless. His eyes started to burn, tears of pain starting to roll down his cheeks, freezing almost instantly.
“We are done playing games,” the calm voice repeated with it’s voice cold and emotionless. Sombra gasped when the frozen tears on his cheeks burst into blue flames without his control.

Then the realization hit him.

He didn’t want it. The Alicorn Amulet wouldn’t have changed his mind anymore, he knew that he didn’t want it. Not the power… Not the revenge… definitely not the coldness… He didn’t want to lose anypony anymore.... He wanted to be with Twilight Sparkle. 

He struggled as much as he could, but he was powerless. He groaned painfully.
“N-No!” he groaned. “I d-do not... want it!”
The cold grip around his lungs tightened, the flames bursting from his eyes growing. He knew that he had to stay strong, but he felt very tired.
“No! I-I do... not… allow… it!” he said with all the strenght that he had left.
The blue eyes stared at him coldly, but he felt how the pain in his lungs eased up. There was a long silence, his vision getting blurry again, before fading into black. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Maybe he was dying? Actually it didn’t seem as bad idea anymore. 

Yet, he wouldn’t give up.

Suddenly the oxygen rushed back to his lungs, the terrible feeling of numbness letting go of him. He flopped his head against the floor and gasped for air, the coldness of the room still burning his lungs, but at least he could breath now. His coat was covered in frost, and his mane and tail were frozen stiff.
“Very well” the calm voice surprisingly said.
“We will get a new puppet then!” the angry one spat at Sombra.
“She won’t be as good as you, master,” the sad one sighed. “Not even close.”
“She?” Sombra coughed painfully, his eyes wide. “What do you mean!?”
“You know what we mean...” the calm one said slowly. “It will take awhile to get used to control a mare but I think that she’ll be just fine. She’s a fighter.”
“No!” Sombra exclaimed with a raspy voice.
“You leave us no choice,” the calm one continued. “There is no fear, sadness or anger enough in these lands to feed us anymore. Not without somepony causing them. You were a very gifted one at doing just that.”
Sombra didn’t say anything, so the calm one continued, “Now we know that we gave you enough power to resist us if you want to. I think that giving you so much power wasn’t the brightest of our ideas, but what can you do…”
The angry one chuckled darkly and continued, “But we know that she doesn’t have powers like you. She is naive and young… Easy to be tamed.”
“You leave her out of this!” Sombra growled.
“It is sad to break a pretty thing like her…” the sad one sighed. “So sad…”

“You will not touch her!” Sombra growled. “She has nothing to do with this!”
“Don’t do it!” he commanded, the royal note away from his voice. “Not her!”
“Only you can prevent it, Sombra,” the calm one said with a softer tone. “We need a pony to guide, no matter who it will be.”

Sombra cursed out loud and with shaky hooves he got up from the floor. He bared his teeth at the shadows in front of him, his red eyes staring right at them with a venomous fire in them, stomping his front-legs to the floor and cursing some more. He clenched his eyes shut and hoped that Twilight Sparkle could forgive him in the next life.

“I’ll do as you wish,” he growled with a defeated tone.

“Then what are we waiting for? Take us to The King’s Gem.”


* * *


Twilight Sparkle got startled awake by something. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she rose up to a sitting position and yawned.
“Brr…” she muttered and her teeth clattered a little. “How is it so cold all of a sudden?”
  Then she heard the sound that had awoken her. Somepony knocked on the door. She quickly pulled her blanket over her shivering body and called, “Come in!”
The door opened and Flash Sentry stepped inside, bowed a little and announced, “Pardon me for waking you up my princess, but you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?” Twilight asked confusedly. “In the middle of the night!?”
“Yes,” Flash answered with a nod. “It is miss Fluttershy.”
“Fluttershy!?” Twilight asked and immediately jumped down from her bed. She wrapped her blanket around herself because of the cold and asked, “Why in the world would Fluttershy come here when it’s still dark outside?”
“It must be something really important,” Flash said. “She seemed distressed.”
“Oh my…” Twilight muttered. It was was not only weird for Fluttershy to get out of her cabin during the night, it was... unnatural. Flash was probably right. It had to be really important.
“She is waiting in the living room,” Flash said.

Flash excused himself and went back to his patrol and Twilight quickly trotted to the living room, where Fluttershy was waiting for her.
“Hi Fluttershy,” Twilight said and yawed. Fluttershy was facing the other way and got surprised by Twilight. She winced backwards when she turned to look at Twilight, who was wrapped in her own blanket and with a bad case of bedmane.
“O-Oh hi Twilight,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I hope that I didn’t wake you up…”
“It’s the middle of the night Fluttershy,” Twilight answered with a deadpan stare.
Fluttershy hid behind her mane and muttered quietly, “Oh uh… I’m really really sorry… I just thought… Oh never mind…”
“It’s okay Fluttershy,” Twilight calmed her down. “I know that whatever made you come here at night has to be important. Now what’s wrong?”
        
Fluttershy tensed up. She sat down and started to rub her front-hooves together nervously. The look in her cyan eyes was so disturbingly worried that Twilight too sat down in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked from Fluttershy.
Fluttershy gulped and looked at the floor as she whispered, “There are strange things happening in the Everfree forest.”
“That wasn’t anything new,” Twilight answered to her.
“This is d-different,” Fluttershy said.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, lowering her voice again.
“My animals!” Fluttershy squeaked. “They are acting very strangely!”
Twilight frowned. She had learned that when Fluttershy was speaking about animals, she was almost certainly right. If something had made her so upset about her animals, it could be something really bad.

“Why haven’t you told me earlier?” Twilight asked. “Is it serious?”
“I didn’t want to make everypony nervous… And the princesses were visiting here and I just thought that it… Would maybe stress you even more and… And… Please don’t be mad at me.”
Twilight smiled and assured, “I’m not mad at you. I just want to know if the thing you are talking about something bad. So what exactly is going on with the animals?”
Fluttershy seemed a little bit more confident when she continued, “Well… Some of my animals went missing a couple of weeks ago, only to come back after couple of days. When they did, they were acting really strangely.”
“How exactly?” Twilight asked.
“T-They were scared. Terrified! They were shivering and they got startled when I tried to touch them! It was scary Twilight… Some of them were even angry!” Fluttershy spoke with her ears folded down.
“Was that the only time something like that happened?” Twilight asked.
“No. And that’s the worst part of it,” Fluttershy sighed. “I never got a real answer from the ones that went missing… And then there were more missing all of the sudden. They all came back though… But they were all… So s-scared.”
Fluttershy’s eyes were getting damp now, and Twilight patted her on the back with her wings, saying, “That doesn’t sound too good…”

There was a small moment of silence, before Twilight asked, “Why did you come here right now? You could have waited until morning.”
Fluttershy tensed up again, and she looked right into Twilight’s eyes.
“I saw something today,” Fluttershy whispered.
“What did you see?” Twilight asked, leaning closer towards Fluttershy. “Does it have something to do with your animals?”
“I-I don’t know,” Fluttershy answered. “I think so.”
“Well what was it?” Twilight asked seriously.
Fluttershy was very nervous when she spoke, “I woke up when my chickens were making a lot of noise, so I looked out of my window…”

She held a small pause and she seemed to shiver a little when she said, “And I saw something moving through my yard…”
“Something?” Twilight asked worriedly.
“Yes. It looked like a pony, but it moved really strangely… Like a… A shadow maybe,” Fluttershy said.
“A shadow?” Twilight asked confusedly. “Are you sure that you weren’t just imagining things? It was dark outside and...”
“I know what I saw!” Fluttershy exclaimed, what was more like just saying something with a normal voice.
“Okay okay!” Twilight quickly said. “That just sounds a bit... unbelievable if you may.”
“I know that… But it is real!” Fluttershy whined. “And that’s not even all of it.”
“There’s more?” Twilight asked.
“Yes.” Fluttershy answered. “After that… thing was gone I quickly ran to get my chickens inside… And the whole ground was frozen.”
“Frozen? That sounds weird,” Twilight wondered out loud.
“Yes. I tried to sleep after that, but I was too scared and I thought that you should know about that,” Fluttershy spoke and hid behind her mane again.
“You did the right thing, Fluttershy,” Twilight said and laid her hoof on the pegasus’s shoulder. “I promise to take a look at it soon.”
“Thank you,” Fluttershy said with a small smile.

They sat there for a short moment, before Fluttershy slowly got up.
“I think that I should get going now…” she said with slightly shaky voice.
 “It’s pretty dark outside,” Twilight noted.
“I-I’ll be fine… Probably…” Fluttershy said, clearly very troubled.
Twilight rolled her eyes, before smiling and saying, “You can sleep here for the night.”
Fluttershy sighed in a very relieved way, before saying, “Oh thank you Twilight. I don’t like to be outside at night…”
She smiled a bit sheepishly, a little blush appearing onto her cheeks when she said, “I’m afraid of the dark.”
“I know,” Twilight chuckled. “I would never force you to walk all the way to your home during the dark.”
Fluttershy nodded thankfully.
“Come on, let’s get a blanket for you. You can sleep with me now that Sombra is taking the guest room,” Twilight said and they started to walk towards her bedroom.


* * *


Twilight still couldn’t sleep. Fluttershy was sleeping with no problem, but something about her story kept Twilight awoke. Shadow like figure that freezed the ground where it moved? She couldn’t help to connect those details to somepony she knew. She refused to do so however. She knew that Sombra wouldn’t do anything like that anymore. Besides, those animals that Fluttershy was speaking about, they had gone missing while Sombra was still unable to use his magic. It couldn’t be him, no way. He was a good pony, no matter what everypony were talking about him. He didn’t want to be the thing that he used to be, and Twilight knew it.  Yet she couldn’t sleep. The eerie feeling in her kept getting even bigger and she just had to make sure that she was right.

She carefully stepped out of her bed, so that Fluttershy wouldn’t wake up. She then carefully tiptoed to the door and opened it with her magic. She closed the door behind her and walked down the hallway, towards Sombra’s room. She tried to listen for any sounds, but there were none. She braced herself, hoping that she would see a sleeping stallion in the room, and opened the door.

“Sombra?” she asked. “Are you here?” 
No answer.
Twilight used her magic to light up the room, only to gasp when she didn’t see anypony in the room.
“No no no…” she muttered and quickly trotted to the bathroom door. Without knocking she opened it, only to see a dark bathroom with nopony in it. She stared at the darkness for a moment with a shocked look on her face. No. It couldn’t be possible.

After recovering from the shock she ran to her study, and immediately started to go through her many books and shelves. Everything seemed to be in their places, and Twilight felt a wave of relief wash over her. Maybe Sombra had just slipped out to see the town? Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with that shadowy figure that Fluttershy had seen? She did one last check, and everything indeed seemed to be in their right places. Nothing was missing.

She sighed and was just about to go and try to find Sombra from the town, when she noticed something. The picture of princess Celestia was peeking at her from behind one of the book piles. 
“Oh no…” she said when she remembered what was behind that picture. She almost ripped the picture from the wall and opened the wall safe quickly. In there everything seemed to be in order too, but Twilight started to go through the folders with her magic. She remembered all her notes by heart, and it didn’t take long before she noticed which one was missing
“Magic Duel?” she asked from herself confusedly. “Why would he want that one?”
She sat down and wondered out loud, “Magic Duel… I fought with Trixie and she beat me with the Alicorn Amulet. Then Zecora taught me magic and Fluttershy sneaked out of the town to…”
Her eyes went wide.
“The Alicorn Amulet!” she wailed and lifted her hooves to her cheeks. She then flopped down to the floor and stared blankly in front of her. If Sombra would get his hooves on that amulet, nopony could even imagine what kind of powers would he get. He could become so powerful that not even the elements of harmony could stop him.

“I should have known…” Twilight sniffled and a couple of tears started to roll down her cheeks. How could she have been so stupid? Only one day after Sombra got his magic back, and he was already betraying her. She wiped the tears away and covered her eyes with her hooves. She had worked so hard to make him a good pony and that was how he thanked her? Oh, he would pay for that. She would never let him use her like that without consequences. More importantly, she would have to stop him from getting what he wanted, otherwise the whole Equestria would be in danger.

Twilight slowly rose up, her ears still folded, but her wings flared open and her purple eyes burning with rage. She sniffled as she thought how she had believed that Sombra had actually been her friend and… Maybe even more? That was the worst thing.

She exhaled and wiped the small tears away from her cheeks again, before turning to look out of the window, towards the edge of the Everfree Forest.
“I will stop him,” she said sternly. “I have to.”

Then she was gone in a purple flash.