//------------------------------// // 18: Darkness Comes to Light // Story: Sombra visits Skyrim // by Blackdrag-rose //------------------------------// "What do you mean your not calling in an army?" Celestia shouted. The only survivor of the assault on Sombra's corrupted palace, a thief called Karliah, had shared her experience with everyone who was waiting in Dragonsreach. She went into detail as to how Sombra used the shadows to not only reveal where they were, but used it to create crystal spikes that destroyed many of the others. How, even when he was outnumbered, he managed to dance around their attacks and even absorbed all the arrows that they put into his body. She told the group that she had never seen anything like it in all her years of fighting from the shadows, much to everyone's shock. Celestia had known that going up against Sombra by fighting from the shadows was a bad idea and she had voiced her concern for the others, but she had been ignored. She had recommended bringing together an army to fight whatever Sombra brought against them, but they chose to ignore her and cost Skyrim the lives of at least twenty people. She had thought that, once they saw that ignoring someone who knew what they were talking about, they would reconsider their rash choice and at least ask for her opinions. Instead they spurned her opinions and tossed her suggestion into the trash, or rather the fire as the case was at the moment. "In case you haven't noticed Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war," Bulgruuf replied, staring down at Celestia, "I can't just simply ask one side to come to my aid, cause the moment I do the other will be baring down upon me and my city will be under siege. I'm sorry, but I cannot risk the safety of my people on an enemy that we cannot beat." "Oh, the darkness that holds Sombra can be defeated," Luna commented, drawing attention to herself, "When we originally fought Sombra, about a thousand years ago, we did so with the sense that we needed to save the stallion we had known. We had thought to eradicate his hatred, but by the time we got to him it had become a part of his being and made it impossible to separate them. At the time he was consumed by his hatred for Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony, and that alone defined every action he did until he was defeated. Now he'll be fighting with himself, for when he swings at my sister he'll remember who he used to be and his two sides will go to war against each other." "So your plan to fight him one on one?" Karliah asked, surprised that someone could be so arrogant that they could defeat someone as powerful as Sombra was, "You are insane. I thought I could take Mercer Frey by myself, but then I realized that I needed help to deal with the threat that he had become." "Its my fault this happened to him in the first place," Celestia said, casting a look over at her sister, "I shall be the only one to face him at this point. Trust me on this my friends, Sombra will summon his army at some point. Seeing how you won't take my suggestions seriously I'll have to strike out at the darkness before an army comes knocking at your gates." -------------- Sombra, pleased with the battle he had been in earlier, stepped out onto his balcony and stared out at the city of Whiterun, wondering where his fair lady was at the moment. There was one creature in all of Equestria, and apparently Skyrim as well, that his heart belonged to, one mare that had understood him until a single turning point. All his problems seemed to come from the same source, the same cursed creature that would never leave him no matter what realm of existence he found himself in. His problem was the being known as Discord, but his solution to that was to either turn him into a black crystal for the rest of time or to see if Celestia would entomb the Spirit again. Right now he needed to destroy whatever forces stood inside Whiterun, defeat the Jarl that commanded those forces, and take his lady, wherever she was, as his dark mistress. He gripped the rail of his balcony and felt the darkness of his new palace awaken, directing the magic into the ground towards the army he had brought together. Not a moment later he felt the ground shake once more, just like when he had summoned his palace. "Yeeesss," he growled, still staring out at the city, "Rise my army. Rise to do battle once more." -------------- Celestia and Luna, attuned to Sombra's dark magic after so many battles, immediately felt the change in the air moments before the ground violent shook once more. Not wasting any time the sisters, followed by Trixie and Raika, returned to the Dragonsreach Balcony and cast their gazes out at the corrupted palace. The ground below the palace began to crack and spilt until something began to claw its way out of the darkness, something that Celestia recognized as one of the draugr from the barrows she had been in. Then her eyes widened as an army of draugr marched out of the abyss that Sombra's magic had created, ranging from the easy to kill to the ones that guarded the end of a barrow. "An army of Draugr?" Raika gasped, seeing the sight before her eyes and still not believing it, "Just how many of the undead warriors did he bring with him?" "It looks like he emptied out several of the nearby barrows," Luna commented, counting at least a hundred soldiers below the palace, "I know the guards can deal with the weaker draugr with ease, but something tells me that they won't be able to deal with the more powerful ones. Sister, let me call upon the Nightmare and deal with these foes." "Are you certain of this Luna?" Celestia asked, surprised that her sister would do such a thing. "I am," Luna replied, stepping onto the stone wall of the balcony, "I'll do my best to keep the draugr away from the city's walls, but it will be up to you to take some sense into Sombra before he does something that he'll regret. You are the only one that he will listen to, even if you have to beat him with steel and magic to get him to listen to you." Raika, who had been listening to the two of them the entire time, was amazed that Luna was talking about fighting such a large number of draugr all by herself. She knew the stories about Nightmare, how she was victorious against dozens of enemies in the arena and defeated plenty of daedra during their invasion, and knew that Luna was getting serious. She could feel the magic in the air as Luna's skin, horn, and wings began to darken until they were almost pitch black. The steel armor she was wearing began to shift, splitting in half to expose her belly area as the colors became some sort of azure color. Her hair grew longer before becoming a flowing mess with what looked like stars dotting around the inside. "Ah, it feels good to be back," Luna, or rather Nightmare, said, her voice sounding colder than when she was Luna, "Let me get my weapon and I'll gladly do battle with these fools." At first Raika thought she meant her sword, but the moment she laid eyes on the blade she watched Nightmare's magic spin the weapon around in a circle. The weapon began to glow after a few seconds, seeming to grow in length until it was the same length as one of the ebony weapons she had heard about. When the weapon stopped spinning Raika noticed that the weapon had somehow changed from the normal sword she had been carrying to an ebony battleaxe. Nightmare gripped the weapon and swung it around, cleaving the head of the weapon through the air before slamming the end of it on the ground, hard enough to crack the stone. Before any of them could comment on her appearance Nightmare leapt off the ledge and allowed herself to fall down to the ground before unfurling her wings. She caught the wind and flew right towards the draugr army, flipping around as she buried her axehead in one of the draugr and landed on her feet. One of the draugr, a Deathlord, gripped his sword and brought it down on top of her, but Nightmare was ready as she yanked the handle in front of her to block the attack. As the draugr behind her moved to cut at her backside she leapt over the Deathlord, allowing his ally to bury his weapon in his chest, before she landed, tore her weapon free, and brought it down on another victim. "I am Nightmare Moon, the Queen of Knights," Nightmare proclaimed, allowing the draugr to gather around her, "and you bastards have no idea who you are messing with!" "So that's the Queen of Knights?" Raika asked, watching Nightmare tear into one draugr before moving onto a second, "Luna is acting like a completely different person." "Nightmare Moon is a different personality and mindset my sister developed," Celestia explained, not wanting to tell them the truth about the Nightmare, "but while she deals with the army I must get over to the palace and deal with Sombra. Trixie, I want you to follow Raika to Karthspire and help her in any way that you can. My sister and I should be alone with Sombra before long, but there's no telling how long our duel will take." "How do you plan on getting into that palace?" Raika asked, raising an eyebrow, "No doubt that Sombra sealed the entrance that the others used and I doubt that he'll just let you fly over to that balcony." "I'll be flying," Celestia replied, stretching her wings and amazing Raika once more, "alicorns, such as my sister and I, heal a lot more quickly than your average Equestrian does, so all it really took was my sister snapping my wing back in place for my body to heal itself. I'll need to do as my sister did and call upon all my power to combat the darkness." Before Raika could ask what Celestia meant by that she noticed that her steel armor began to change into a set of shining golden armor, but with no separation like Luna's had done. Celestia's body, horn, and wings remained the same color, unlike what happened to her sister, though her helm grew some points that almost resembled the points of a crown. Her pink hair, the one thing that Raika thought was normal about her, changed until it had three more different colors to it and flowed as her sister's hair had done. She also kept her sword, but it turned golden and made Raika think it resembled one of those dwarven weapons she had seen. Once the changes had died down Raika was amazed to find that Celestia now looked regal, like the Princess she claimed to be. "Sombra will be expecting me," Celestia said, stepping onto the stone balcony like her sister had done, "so I had best not keeping him waiting any longer." Celestia threw herself forward, letting her wings catch the air and allowing her to fly towards the balcony where she knew Sombra would be standing, waiting for her. As she drew closer she spotted Sombra where she expected him to be, but when she got even closer she tucked her wings in tight and hit him right in the chest. She grabbed onto him as they barreled into the open area of the corrupted palace, though it was no longer littered by bodies, before tossing him at one of the walls. Sombra flipped in the air, let his feet make contact with the crystal wall, and then summoned a giant crystal pillar that served as a bridge for him to cross the room. Once he was near Celestia again he leapt off his pillar and swung at her, grinning as their weapons clashed with each other and sparks flew off of them. Celestia pressed the attack and pushed him backwards before getting in his face once more, barely giving him a chance to catch his breath. Sombra melded into the shadows for a moment, only to reappear somewhere behind Celestia and swing his weapon once more, which she stopped with ease before throwing him backwards. "It is good to see you again dearest Celestia," Sombra said, allowing the shadows to gather around him, "Surely you can see that it was pointless to send thieves and assassins after me, in my place of power." "I'll stop you right there," Celestia replied, barely flinching as her magic flowed around her, "I asked them to bring an army to fight your army of draugr, but they rejected my opinion and decided to use these people against you. I'm sad that they had to die, as their deaths proved nothing to the Jarl and his allies, so the duty falls to me. I will restore you Sombra, of that you can be sure." "Then I will take great pleasure in showing you how wrong you are," Sombra growled, taking a step forward before receiving a blast of sun energy to the face. Celestia knew to hit him hard and hit him fast, so she had to resort to using her full power against the darkness that had claimed Sombra to have any hope of rescuing him. Her attack fractured part of the eastern wall, but she expected as much when the powers of the sun and the darkness clashed as they had. Sombra got onto his feet before releasing his magic, summoning huge crystal pillars all around Celestia, trying to either pin her to one of the walls or wound her enough to force her surrender. Celestia, casting a look at the pillars all around her, barely swung her magic around her as the crystals shattered and became projectiles that flew at Sombra. He, keeping to his battle pattern, turned to shadow to allow the fragments to pass harmlessly through him, but the moment he became solid again he found Celestia's blade in his stomach. Before he had time to react Celestia tore her blade out of his stomach before bringing it down on him, slicing right into his armor and left shoulder. Sombra, using his good arm, forced Celestia off of him, causing her to stagger backwards for a moment and thus giving him time to allow the darkness to patch up his wounds. He slammed his hand against the ground and several large crystal spikes shot out of the floor, one of them clipping Celestia in the side and forcing her backwards. For a moment he stood still, his mind focused the small wound he had inflicted, but then he regained himself and advanced on Celestia. He brought his sword down upon her, but all she did was flip backwards and avoided the weapon as it hit the ground with a dull thud. The only strange thing that Sombra noticed was that the wound he had delivered had not been healed instantly as all the other wounds had been when they had fought before. He knew alicorn's healed much more quickly, so he wondered why she was toying with him by not using the healing at all. "I can see that your taking this seriously," Sombra commented, finally realizing that Celestia was at full power this time, "that's good, cause that means we'll be able to get carried away without concern for each other." That was before a second ball of solar energy collided with him and tossed him at the same wall he had been thrown into earlier, further fracturing the wall and causing pieces of fall on top of him. The darkness surged out of him, picking up the pieces of fallen crystal and tossing them in Celestia's direction, to which she jumped over with ease. Sombra, fully expecting her to do that, shifted through the shadows and appeared behind her, digging his sword right into her side before casting her to the ground. When she landed Sombra locked her feet into the floor, preventing her from moving from that spot without hurting herself even more than she already was. "I take that back," Sombra said, eying the wounds with concern before shaking his head, "you aren't taking this seriously and it is really starting to bore me. I think you'll just stay there until you decide to fight me seriously, or until I find a way to corrupt your mind." Celestia knew what was happening to Sombra, having been told by her sister that he had stalled the moment she had screamed when her wing had been dislocated. All she had to do was fight him, thus increasing his anger, all while not healing her wounds to drive her Sombra to the surface. She knew that if she continued to press her full power against Sombra's darkness it wouldn't just destroy the entire corrupt palace they were standing it, but it would shatter Sombra completely. She needed him, the stallion she had fallen in love with, to rise up and beat the darkness that Discord had created so many years ago. Before Sombra could step away from her Celestia gathered her magic and blasted him in the chest, tossing him backwards and giving her a moment to shatter the crystals around her legs. He got up and spat out some blood, but summoned up dozens of crystal spires, shattered them all into fragments, and sent them flying towards Celestia. She leapt out of the way, which Sombra was expecting, but didn't see that there were even more heading above the first group. Several of them punctured her armor, she was lucky that none hit her organs, and caused her to crash to the ground again, but it wasn't as bad as the last battle they shared. Sombra moaned at the sight of seeing Celestia wounded, something that didn't happen when he had found both her and Luna over a thousand years ago. Somehow the Sombra she had been traveling with, the weaker Sombra who cared for peace instead of conquest, was fighting back against his hold. Then he connected the dots between everything that was happening; Celestia not healing herself, the constant spacing out when she was wounded, and the desire to stop fighting her altogether. "What...what have you done to me?" Sombra shouted, shaking as he felt the other side of him trying to gain control. "Its not what I've done to you," Celestia coughed, watching Sombra from across the chamber, "rather its what you've done to yourself. The Sombra you were before Discord, your true self, is fighting to regain his body and soon you'll find yourself back where you belong, under his control." She would have said more, but as she watched Sombra she noticed that the darkness was beginning to leak out of his body at an alarming rate. The darkness began to gather together in a spot not too far from where Sombra was standing, bubbling as something began to climb its way out of the abyss. At first Celestia thought it was another draugr, summoned to do battle with Sombra, but as she watched she soon discovered that it was a second Sombra, one made out of pure darkness. Eventually all the darkness separated from Sombra, leaving him to stagger backwards for a moment while the darker Sombra stood up tall. "Ugh...what in Oblivion happened to me?" Sombra, the stallion she had known, said as he spotted the darker version of himself, "What the...what are you?" "It is so good to have my own form once again," the second Sombra said, speaking in the same tone as he had done when he was the Tyrant, "You have no idea how annoying it was to control a body whose mind would stall the moment he hurt the mare of his dreams, giving her an opening to hurt me. Now that I have my own body, and no attachments to Celestia for that matter, I can easily destroy the both of you and conquer this pathetic excuse of a province." "It also gives me the opportunity to destroy you," Celestia said, piercing the evil Sombra's chest with her glowing sword, "Long have I searched for the way to separated the root of Sombra's evil from his body and I discovered it by accident before I left the Crystal Empire to come to Skyrim. The unfortunate part of it all was that he had to, at some point or another, allow the shadows to overtake him once more and become what you made him. He had to see me wounded by the evil that had overtaken him, to feel his true self fight his battles for himself, before he could be separated from you. Now that the two of you are separated at long last I can finally put an end to Sombra's suffering and give him back the life that was taken from him a thousand years ago. All I need to do is put an end to your existence." "You'll have to catch me first," the darkness laughed, twisting into shadows to slip off her sword before fleeing into the air, though that was before a red crystal pillar hit it square in the chest. "I'll be the one dealing with you," Sombra calmly said, though Celestia could see that his eyes were no longer filled by the hatred that she had seen so many times, "after all, you are my darkness and that makes you my responsibility. Come Arbmos, let's finish this once and for all." Before Celestia could stop him Sombra summoned another pillar and rode it all the way up to where his darkness, which he had apparently named Arbmos for some reason, was pinned to the wall. Once he was closer he summoned more spikes that grew out of the crystal he was on, several of which were designed to prevent Arbmos from escaping his hold. Black crystals grew out of the palace walls, either connecting with Sombra's crystals and exploding or expanding outwards to restrict Sombra's movements. Celestia, not wishing to be in the way of their duel, quickly moved towards the balcony, where she knew she could watch the battle progress with ease. Sombra leapt from the pillar he was on and landed on the one that had pierced Arbmos, but before he could strike out at his darkness it phased into the shadows and disappeared. Sombra, familiar with his own battle strategy when he was the Tyrant, slid down the crystal as Arbmos appeared above where he had been, his sword sinking into the red crystal. Sombra, reacting more quickly than his enemy, slammed the base of his sword into Arbmos' chest, causing him to fall backwards, before impaling him on one of his crystal spires. Sombra stayed up where he was, choosing to look down at Arbmos as he slowly began to dissolve into the shadows once more. Arbmos appeared behind Sombra and grabbed him with his magic, before tossing him over the edge in the hopes that he would crash on one of the crystal spires and impale himself upon it. Sombra, on the other hand, faded into the shadows and appeared across the chamber, standing on one of the untouched pillars while he stared at Arbmos. His darkness copied his movement with ease, appearing on another pillar that stood directly across from where Sombra was already standing. Sombra, choosing not to waste any time, brought his hand down on the pillar he was standing on and several more sprouted out of the walls, reaching over towards his foe. Arbmos, being the copycat that he was, followed Sombra's movements perfectly, several identical pillars sprouting out of his wall and crashing right into Sombra's pillars. As the fragments fell to the ground Sombra willed his magic to gather around him, causing his horn to glow red as he prepared to strike down his foe. Arbmos followed suit, though his horn turned an eerie dark purple as he no doubt was preparing his own spell that would be an identical copy to Sombra's. Sombra could feel the magic in the air as he began to tear chunks out of the walls, though he could see that the same thing was happening to Arbmos' side. He had no doubt that the moment they released their spells the magic that kept the corrupted palace together would come undone and it would fall apart. "This is it Arbmos," Sombra said, allowing the magic to build into a sphere in front of him, "our last attack. We're both tired from all the fighting and from all the magic we've used up to this point. Let this be the end to our fight, once and for all." "I will destroy you," Arbmos replied, a sphere forming in front of him, "and when the dust settles you will be broken before your precious Celestia. Then I will take great pleasure in destroying both her and her sister before I begin my conquest of this plane of existence. Soon everyone will fear the name Sombra, just like the ponies of the Crystal Empire had done before we were defeated." The moment that Sombra released his magic Arbmos copied him, sending the two spheres hurling towards each other fast enough to lose anyone who wasn't used to such powerful magical battles. The moment the sphere's made contact with each other the conflicting energies battered at each other, sending surges of magic outwards. The crystals that lined the walls shattered upon impact, the fragments falling to the floor as giant pieces of the roof began to crack and shatter. The two floated in mid air at that point, their magic conflicting with each other as the entire palace began to fall in on itself all around them. -------------- Luna, having beaten the army of draugr, returned to the stone balcony where Raika and Trixie had been standing, landing beside the two of them before reverting to her normal form. Then she felt the disturbance in the air as the palace became the home of two conflicting magical energies, though she suspected they belonged to Celestia and Sombra. After a moment she mentally corrected herself; the two sources of magic belonged to Sombra, which meant that her sister had gone through with her plan. As the three of them watched the palace began to fall apart before their eyes, chunks falling off the sides and crashing to the ground around the palace. Luna was glad that she had gotten out of there before the place had started falling a part, because healing a wound dealt from a huge chunk of crystal wasn't easy. If someone normal, like one of the guards, had been caught under one of those it would have spelled out their end in less than ten seconds. Moments passed before she noticed her sister, decked out in her armor, flying their way, no doubt to get out of the way before the place came down altogether. Before either sister could speak to one another the magic inside the palace exploded, causing the remains of the palace to collapse inwards and become a pile of dull colored crystal. Sombra, having slipped into the shadows seconds before the magic had exploded, coughed as he appeared beside the wreckage of the corrupted palace Arbmos had constructed. In the end Arbmos hadn't copied him to the end, seeing how he had no idea that Sombra intended to destroy him and bury whatever remained from the blast in such a large tomb. As he stood there for a moment the dark magic that rolled off of his eyes died away, though he was too exhausted to bother keeping the magic going any longer. He took a seat in front of one of the crystal chunks and leaned against the smooth surface, feeling himself drift away as the exhaustion claimed him. And then Sombra remembered nothing more.