//------------------------------// // The Expedition // Story: A Shadow's Return // by Chlouide //------------------------------// Chapter I The Railway Express screeched to a halt at Canterlot Station. Black smoke plumed out of the engine’s chimney and pressurized air hissed out from under her, lowering the train altogether. A loud whistle rang through the station emanating from the Railway Express’ caboose. The doors on all the cabins slid open and a mob of ponies left their cabins while a mass of ponies entered. This happened to almost every cabin, the exceptions being the freight, large luggage, medical, diner, kitchen, first class cabins and the caboose. Twilight strode out of the first class cabin musing to herself, Ah, Canterlot. It’s good to be back, Twilight was wearing her golden regalia. The purple diamond gleaned from its cozy position. Four guards patiently stood by. The leader of group, a unicorn, trotted over to Twilight, “Princess Sparkle, I am Commander Garrison. I trust that your ride was pleasant.” if his face hadn't revealed to Twilight the stallion’s age surely his gruff voice did. “I assure you, Commander Garrison, that my ride here went well.” Twilight stated in an informative tone. “Understood. Your carriage to the castle is right outside of the station.” the old stallion turned around away from Twilight, “If you would follow me.” The three other guards took position around Twilight, an earth pony at the back, two pegasi flanking her sides and the Commander up front. After quickly checking formation they made their way outside the station to the carriage. The trot to the carriage was a quick one. Once they had reached it the pegasi hitched themselves to their harnesses, Commander Garrison opened the door for Twilight and they along with the earth pony made their way inside. When the commander confirmed that Twilight was comfortable, he knocked on the wall of the carriage and the carriage began to move. The ride to the castle wasn't actually long, but the awkward silence within the carriage made it seem as if seconds were minutes, minutes were hours and so on. Twilight fidgeted several times during the ride. Sometimes she would open her mouth trying to find something to say to break the silence, but to avail she couldn't think of anything to say. She simply closed her mouth and waited patiently. ~~~ Twilight and her escort made their way through the castle halls to the throne room. She had been summoned by the Princesses to discuss something of the utmost importance. Twilight had simply told her friends that she would be going to the Royal Archives to pick up some books for research. That would have been a lie, if she didn't take this opportunity as an excuse to get more books. Spike would've went with Twilight, but he had promised Big Mac, Discord, and Angel Bunny that he would be their for their game of Dungeons and Draconequi, a game developed by Discord himself. They had finally made it to the grandiose doors to the throne room. Two guards stationed at the doors opened it with their magic allowing Twilight entrance, the four other guards had turned back.There objective was only to escort Princess Twilight from the station to the throne room. With their objective complete they made their way towards the barracks. Twilight strode through the throne room, her hoof steps muffled by the soft red carpet. There in the middle of the room stood Celestia and Luna, “Twilight,” Celestia said. “Celestia, Luna,” Twilight responded a smile on her face. After several months Twilight had finally gotten use to calling the Princesses by their first names and it had stuck. Luna had only nodded in response to Twilight. Her face was grim most likely from what the two princesses were talking about before she arrived. Twilight walked up to Celestia and the two did their common gesture of nuzzling each other, “How are you my faithful student?” “I’m quite fine,” Over the years Twilight had grown, she was now slightly taller, but not by a lot. Celestia still had to crane her neck down. Twilight broke from their nuzzle, “So why was I called here for? All the letter said was that you wanted to discuss something rather important.” Luna strode up to Twilight, "The reason for why we have called you here Twilight Sparkle is that King Sombra has returned once more." "What?! I thought we defeated him!? How can this be?! Is the Crystal Empire alright? Are Cadance and Shining alright? Is the whole of Equestria in terrible, terrible danger?!" Twilight was hyperventilating at that point, what she was hearing she just couldn't believe. "I understand your shock my student, but Sombra is and was no simple foe. In fact, out of all our past enemies he was the most cunning," Celestia rested a fore hoof on Twilight's shoulder, calming her down. "Okay then..." Twilight’s breathing returned to normal, "So what was that thing we fought so long ago? How do we stop him? I’m sure if he’s as cunning as you two remember than he already has a plan!” "To answer your question," Luna began. "The creature you fought was what we believe to be a spell. A spell that allowed Sombra to break out from his frozen prison. We suspected this when you first told us about your encounter with him." "You see Twilight," Celestia was walking back over to her throne. "King Sombra was a powerful unicorn. With his knowledge he came up with a plan and spell for nearly everything. "He had developed many spells, one of them being that nearly unstoppable form of his when he first returned,” Celestia sighed, ”After our fight with him we searched his libraries and studies. What we had found was rather unpleasant..." "Indeed sister," there was a pause of silence, Luna had her head down looking at the floor and Celestia stared blankly at her throne. Twilight couldn't help but stare at them, focusing on one then the other. Celestia simply closed her eyes and turned back to face Twilight, "Another one of his spells was the ability to revive himself from death. Fortunately at the time it was incomplete. The only apparent requirements were a large supply of dark magic and the casters horn. As long as they casted the spell before they perished they would reform from the horn." Twilight's eyes widened with horror. "You're saying that he was able to cast the spell and that his horn still remained after we defeated him!" "Yes," Luna spoke up lifting her head. "Before you had entered Twilight, Tia and I had come up with a hypothesis on how Sombra was able to cast that spell. We believe that his ghastly form had enough dark magical energy to use the spell. And over the course of several years his body reformed." "Then we need to hurry the Crystal Empire! Who knows what could be happening up there?!” Twilight stomped her hoof on to the lush red carpet. “Actually there is somepony that knows,” Luna stared off toward the front of the room. Twilight’s eyes and head followed to where she was staring. In the corner was a wounded pegasus and he was walking over to them. “Twilight Sparkle this is Lieutenant Flash Sentry. He was on the expedition that had discovered Sombra. In fact, he’s all that remains, sadly.” “Greetings Princess, just as Princess Luna said, I was on the expedition,” Flash bowed his head toward Twilight. Taking a glimpse at the soldier Twilight noticed he had a large bandage wrapped around his left fore hoof. There was another bandage that went around his barrel. Several cuts dotted his body along with many bruises. “Please, Lieutenant Sentry please inform me on what happened,” Twilight did her best to not show her pity. “Ah, yes...um… The Princesses had told me that they would wait for you to hear the story. I guess I should begin.” ~~~ It had been four days since the expedition left the Crystal Empire via air carriage, and for that time there had been no blizzards. We had finally made it to the large ravine where Sombra had been imprisoned for a thousand years, and we set up camp on a ledge within the ravine to avoid any future blizzards and harsh winds. We believed that by coming to his “prison” we would be able to find his horn or at the very least a clue of some sort. But the truth is that we had no other leads, this was our best choice at finding the horn. We had been in the ravine for at least a day and during that time we were making our way down towards the bottom of the ravine. We had past the point in which ice transferred to stone and we kept going down and down and down, after all we had been given four weeks out there. And we spent most of the time searching the inner workings of caves and making a small path back to the top for future expeditions. It was the third week and we had finally were at the bottom of the ravine. Torches illuminated the area, but even with the torches everything seemed to be incredibly dark. While we were at the bottom we found a plethora of ancient Equestrian text written on the wall. It took us nearly an hour just to translate one of the sentences written or rather etched on the wall. And is said, “Spell Complete,” At the time we were baffled by what this could have meant, but our thoughts were interrupted by a loud shriek. We rushed over to where we thought it had emanated from. I took the lead while my men stayed behind me. We made our way through the depths of the ravine. A path of torches that were jabbed into the walls suddenly stopped and we found ourselves facing complete darkness. Out of nowhere black smoke came rushing out of the darkness. The cloud almost grabbed me, but a guard had pushed me out of the way and I ended up with a broken foreleg. The clouds continued to rush out from the darkness, blowing out all the torches. As it blew over me I felt several things of debris cutting and pounding against my skin and coat. And it was out of fear that I had flown up out of the ravine. As I flew up I heard the others yelling in pain, I knew they were dead. I finally had gotten out of the ravine and I turned around to see if the large smoke had been following me. Indeed it was was following me, but this time I had seen his face and his horn was heading straight for me. In the nick of time I was able to just barely dodge a fatal blow. I felt searing pain in my side, but wanted to get out of there so I high tailed it and flew back to the Empire non-stop. I was filled with fear. ~~~ Flash was now quivering, his armor quietly clanked as he finished his story. “And that’s it your Majesties. When I returned to the Empire I was given immediate medical aid. Prince Shining wanted to know what happened during the expedition and I had told him Sombra had returned. And here I am today to give you all the information I have.” Twilight was the first to speak up, “Thank you Lieutenant, you’re dismissed,” Twilight turned around to face the other two princesses. As the yellow-orange guards pony walked out of the throne room. “I believe that this calls for the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight took on a smug look and puffed her chest out. “Actually Twilight, they won’t be needed,” Celestia said. Twilight’s demeanor deflated hearing that,” But… but… Celestia! This surely calls for my friends and I! I mean we don’t have the Elements anymore, but surely we could do something!” “I apologize Twilight, but the reason why we can’t use the Elements or include your friends is that Sombra is more than prepared to face them.” “What Tia says is true Twilight,” Luna’s horn glowed a dark blue and a an image floated in front of the three of them. The projection showed Discord reeking havoc upon the Crystal Empire. “Long ago Discord terrorized all of Equestria as you know. We had defeated him and harmony was restored,” the image shifted to Discord turning to stone. “But because of the power he possessed and him being immortal, naturally he created his own following or cult,” again the image shifted now forming a group of ponies in patchwork robes. One of the ponies who was a unicorn took his hood off revealing Sombra. ”Sombra was one of these cultists. He was inspired by the havoc that Discord made. Oddly enough, he was also Starswirl the Bearded’s first Apprentice during his younger years.” The image now showed Sombra learning under the watch of Starswirl. “Sadly, thanks to his new idol he decided to steal the Elements of Harmony. He traveled up North to the Crystal Empire. There he studied the Elements as he slowly took over the Crystal Empire from under our noses,” The images, once more, shifted into Sombra traveling North to him researching the Elements to him Ruling over the Empire.. And with that Luna ceased the spell. Celestia then spoke up, “As we searched his castle one of the many things we had found was research on how to create the Elements polar opposites in order to free Discord. He believed that if Discord was sealed by the Elements then surely their polar opposites would be able to destroy the spell. Fortunately we were able to stop him before he could create them.” As soon as Celestia said that the doors to the throne room had burst open. A guard came in panting, “Your… Ma-Majesties… Princess Cadance and Prince Shining are here! They are requesting immediate audience with you, your Majesties.”