CHAPTER 1
// ~A PIECE LEFT BEHIND~ \\
//our Equestria\\
Celestia pushed open her door and walked over to Philomena. "oh, what am I going to do?" Celestia wondered aloud. Philomena brushed her head up against Celestia`s cheek. She smiled in recognition but it soon faded into a somber frown. "why?". "Why did this have to happen?". Celestia went over to her indoor tree. It was small, but it held great importance. In a branch hung a tag, which one could mistake for gold at first glance.
On it was the one word, "always". Celestia felt a tear form, and her vision became slightly cloudier. "Sombra..." she thought to herself, first, then whispered, again "Sombra...". On another branch near the tag was a piece of glass. A mirror. It hung by a golden string the color of the tag. Celestia allowed the tears collecting in her eyes to fall. Until she heard a knock at the door. "come in" Celestia straightened up and brushed the tears away with her magic.
A purple alicorn walked in, slightly smiling, a sympathetic gesture.
"Celestia are you alright?" the princess asked.
" Yes, Twilight Sparkle. Do not worry about me, please" Celestia smiled and looked out her window, at nothing, looking past the beautiful waterfall and lush mountain. And past the draconicus that whirled happily in the sky, clearly annoying a group of Pegasus.
"Celestia." Twilight Sparkle interrupted.
"oh sorry, i`m just still a little shaken up, that`s all" Celestia looked down at her purple carpet.
"Okay, I won`t ask again, just be careful, alright?".
"Alright" Celestia calmly whispered. When Twilight left Celestia fell at her bedside and wept, until she fell asleep. It was not a restful night, and her dreams were filled with horror as to what may be happening to Sombra right now.
//mirrored Equestria\\
Sombra rushed through a bush, and stumbled over a tree root. He was running. Again. Ever since he absorbed both Celestia`s and Luna`s evil magic he had been chased. By discord, and Chrysalis, and even Trixie. He did not know why and that scared him into running even more. Currently, guards were in pursuit, his own guards, and no matter how much he ordered them to halt they persisted.
Sombra jumped over a log and almost passed out from fatigue. How long had he been running now? Two hours?
He panted. The forest he was in was mucky, overgrown, and dark. So dark that it made it hard to see, never mind the fact it was the middle of night.
The guards were ganging on him, and he fought every motive to turn around and face them. He had fought every temptation, every pull, every suggestion of harming anypony. It was hard, so hard in fact that Sombra had slowed his running and even begun to start his magic until he flashed back from thinking. Suddenly, he felt a hard push from his side. He struggled to stay up, and realized the guards were trying to get him to fall. He figured from their training that if that happened, they would circle him. There were five guards in all. Two Pegasus, two unicorns and a regular pony. They all wore silver armor with gold trimming. Sombra dodged to left of a tree, and attempted to move aside a giant tree root, then a guard hit him again. Sombra was already tired, he just wanted to rest, and now these freaks were trying to make it harder on him. Every glance at them and his power began to emanate from him, pulling and screaming to Sombra to let it free, to destroy everything.
A guard, a unicorn, used the blunt end of his spear and ran it into Sombra.
"Akk!" Sombra growled. Just as he regained balance he Suddenly felt a hard force hit him and he fell. He fell down and toppled on dirt which curved and at a point he rolled into a thorn bush. Luckily when he fell out of that he hit flat dirt, and felt no neddles in his coat or flank, just cuts that slightly bled. The ponies circled him, not close to him but on the ring of a circle. Sombra had fell into a small crater-shaped hole in the ground.
"great" he mumbled.
"Surrender!" a pony, whom he recognized to be a great friend of his, Klinkle, called out.
"no..." Sombra thought. "they don`t understand, they just don`t get it!". Sombra got up and limped over to a tree for cover in case his unicorn guard, who he figured was Lance, decided to attack.
He watched as they discussed a position to go to, as he heard Klinkle say in a tense tone "if you walk... then i can stay here..." they murmured, but he could still hear them a bit. Once they decided on a position, they seperated around the circle. Sombra watched them closely. If he could just find a way out. Apparently the two Pegasus made a slow but constant fly around the circle, in opposing directions, and close to the ground. The remaining three stood in their places for a short second, tense and as if something would attack. A smart choice, but only to an actually hostile enemy, not their own king.
"no. I`m wrong, their former king" sombra sighed. Soon, one of the unicorns made a circle around the crater and stopped at the pony that was in front of him, to his left before he had started. Sombra began to make out a pattern.
Each time the pony would complete a circle, they would stop at the next pony, and then They would continue it. Sombra looked around for a quick exit. He saw that where the first pony, the unicorn, originally was, it was empty, because he had taken Klinkle`s place and then he had taken Lance`s. Sombra crept up to the edge of the small trees that were patched together in the crater. There was an opening, but if he left this soon and the guards got curiose they might look. Sombra took off his royal purple coat and threw it onto a tree branch, low to ground, it looked sorta like a hiding pony. Then sombra made his escape.
// our equestria \\
Star Gleam looked through some of Starswirl`s books. She would use her magic, pull out two at a time, and open to the back of the book. Then she would put them back and pull out two more. She had done this for well over an hour, but she kept patient. If she found what she needed to find, then all would be well. Well, besides the possible explosion or natural disaster from a backfire or mess up. Finally she pulled out a book with the cover of a sun and moon, and in the back she found the word "enim".
"Great, perfect" she put the book on the small circular table beside her. Star Swirl could be, well, odd. And she knew for this, she would need the perfect odd words that Star Swirl would use. " An effective way of security" she thought. Every pony would think it was some complicated sentence like "thy port thus douse" or something like that. When instead Star Swirl actually had used the spell words " ponies love paint" as a security code to one of his books, which had given her the first word, "ekupaccs".
Stargleam closed her eyes and focused on the blank wall she was facing. She then started to eminate magic from her horn in a wave of blue towards the wall. She began to chant "ekupaccs rea enim". She then "unscrambled" the words and said "cupcakes are mine". A weird sentence, yeah. But as soon as she finished saying "mine" the wall had turned blue and somehow a mist made it swirl, just like a portal. Just like the book described. She lifted her field journal and pencil with her magic, and adjusted her bag that hung around her flank. Then she walked in.
// mirrored Equestria \\
Stargleam stepped out of the blue haze onto a cracked mossy stone. She was NOT where she had intended to be. She had imagined a kingdom similar to her own home, the crystal empire. Instead, she was in a small temple like porch that was shaped like an octagon. It had vines and cracks in the stone everywhere. She could clearly see outside the small roman-like pillars which were actually very small. And all she saw was dry, dead grass, a cliff that led to a beach, and oh, more importantly a grey pony near the cliff who looked beat-up. It was asleep, or more of, he. Stargleam slowly and quietly walked up to the unicorn. She gasped. It was, him. Her friend. It was Sombra. Yes and no, though as Sombra had a kingdom in her world and did not wear blue, at all. And Sombra never looked this beat up before. She knew this because the only time he did get this hurt was when that pest Spike banished him with the crystal heart.
And he was actually really suprised. She had to take care of him for a whole month before he was even able to use magic to pick up a glass again. And that was really frustrating.
Sombra was apparently not going to wake up anytime soon, and even though this was a different version of her great friend, she decided to camp out here. Stargleam trotted up the treeline and gather dry pine branches that had fallen. She then magically laid them down beside Sombra, and lit the pile of sticks by changing some the oxygen molecules around the top of the pile. Then she laid down on the opposing end of the fire from Sombra, and sketched out the cliff and beach. Being dark, her drawing was a little gloomy, like a horror books version of a haunted house. But when she finished that she drew the horn that curved on Sombra`s head, his eye smoke, all normal stuff. But the crown, it just... was different. Stargleam had researched crowns in her 3rd grade history class because of Celestia and Luna`s crowns. They each represented something different based on their color and size and even shape. This one was a light blue, or well more light then the regular medium blue.
And it had a gold coin in the middle. "Kinda like a replacement to Sombra`s ruby" Stargleam observed. She had researched that a light color most likely meant that the owner represented light, at least well known ones. And blue definitely made it look as if he was good, well minus the smoke and horn, of course. As morning began to splinter the night, Stargleam got up and put out the fire, then she left for the woods.
"I`ll have plenty to sketch, Stargleam gleamed at her book. She then smiled towards the direction of Sombra. A small bag was waiting for him. A "get well" present, so to speak.
// our equestria \\
The mane six walked into Celestia`s throne room. Cadence had accompanied them.
"We came as quickly as we could, we brought the elements of harmony" Twilight Sparkle said as she slowly stopped in front of Celestia.
"Thank you, but that will not be necessary, this isn`t a matter of evil, just of loss" Celestia sighed.
"What`s the matter princess?" Apple Jack asked.
" My tree, you know the one with the mirror piece" Celestia somberly responded.
"Oh! the pretty one with the gold tag!" Rarity`s eyes sparkled.
"Yes, well you see, the piece is..."Celestia looked down at her hooves, unable to finish, the thought of Sombra stuck in her head.
"the piece is, what?" Rainbow Dash pressured. Twilight gave her a glare. "what?".
"No, it is alright, the piece is, gone" Celestia looked up at them, her eyes glossy.
"Gone where?" Pinkie pie giggled. "To manehatten, to the other half of our woooorrrrlllld?".
"Actually i don`t know, really, but it is very important to me and I wish you to find it if that`s not to hard to ask, if so that is fine" Celestia stood up straight in front of her throne, which was trimmed with gold and had a golden symbol of the sun on the top.
"Of course not!" Twilight said. "actually we`ll start right now".
"Please do" Celestia smiled slightly, a bit happier and more hopeful.
"Pinkie pie and Fluttershy check Star Swirls library. Rainbow and me will check in Ponyville and around Canterlot. And lastly Aj and Rarity go to the Crystal empire and see if somehow the merchants maybe found it and took it there for part of construction" Twilight ended her orders and headed for the door.
"Wow. Fluttershy! you and me are gonna have SO much fun!" Pinkie Pie hugged the frail yellow Pegasus.
"Um..." Fluttershy slightly whimpered.
"Diamonds!" Rarity gasped. Apple Jack snorted as they left the throne.
Pinkie pie practically dragged Fluttershy out of the room.
"Oh, Twilight are you sure about me and Pinkie? I would gladly go with you" Fluttershy squealed slightly under her breath when Pinkie Pie brought out her mini balloon whistle. It was just a normal whistle, really.
"Of course i`m sure! You two will do just fine down there!" and with that they left for the library.