Far to the north, in the wintery and mostly frozen tundra lands around the Crystal Empire where few ponies dared not tread unless they had lost their marbles (and for some inexplicable reason, thought they’d find them again out there), foul deeds were afoot.
Ahoof?
Afoot. Foul deeds were afoot.
Sequestered in a cave, a curved spike of crimson lay on the ground, not doing much of anything that could be considered very evil. The cave was not especially evil, either. Nothing about the scene in particular would have been considered evil, or indeed, anything other than unremarkable.
At least, it was unremarkable until the spike suddenly levitated into the air.
Angry, red energy washed over the spike — the horn — and the very air appeared to bubble and roil as reality began to unravel. Then, with a quick flash of light and a very, very rude noise, the space directly under the horn became occupied by a pony — whom the horn had previously and once more belonged to — and the ground directly in front of the pony became occupied by an opened folio.
King Sombra, in all his royal regalia, royally blinked once, then royally blinked twice, and then royally quirked his royal brow before royally speaking four royal words just as this gag was abandoned: “That was surprisingly easy.”
He looked down at the folio lying at his hooves as if it might explain exactly why something as supposedly final as death turned out to not even be much of an inconvenience. It was titled, appropriately, ‘How to Come Back to Life.’ It also wasn’t terribly helpful as an explanation.
“Well, no matter!” Somber declared. The folio was wrapped up in black magic* and vanished from sight. “First, I leave this cave. And then, revenge! Or possibly vengeance? Ah ha! Revengeance!”
It was at that moment that he happened to glance behind him. “Oh, hello! I’m not disturbing you, amI?”
An instant later, Sombra galloped out of the cave and into the snowy wilderness as fast as he could — and maybe even a little bit faster — screaming his head off.
Another instant later, a hungry bear came charging out after him.
*: “Black” meaning the magic’s color (I.e. “#000000,” even though it was probably closer to “#222222”), not an implication of its morality or taste in heavy metal. Given what we know, however, it was probably pretty black magic, and maybe also just a bit more metal than Sombra deserved.