She had stood on a golden balcony only moments before, looking over a kingdom of crystal. Despite the recession it was still filled with love and life, and would gleam beneath both the sun's light and the moon's.
She thought nothing could ever happen on this scale. Nopony in this isolated paradise did.
But it did happen, a black fog rushing through part of the mountains. It held a power not seen by her ponies before, some few thought it was their reckoning. It might as well have been. The kingdom went from a calm peace to sheer chaos. Terrified screams filled the sky but it kept coming, passing them and cloaking the world in darkness. It was so fast...
None of the magic was working. Not even the prized crystallokinesis of the ponies. Nopony was powerful enough. Nopony was brave enough. Now the only racial ability they had to preserve them was their resistance to the cold. The Heart wouldn't work if the terror of the razing was too much. Buildings crumbled around her.
The mare ran to the edge sprouting a crude staircase of gleaming rainbow flecked gems down to the plaza. She had to get the Heart. The Heart could save them all, she thought. When she arrived there she ran and grabbed it from its floating state, holding it tight and whispering to it as if it were a foal - and her own foal.
There were thundering calls she did not know, in the chaos it seemed there were no ponies at all. Only endless screams.
Then there were hoofsteps. She didn't hear them then but she hears them now. They were silent. Deadly silent, and then came the voice.
"I'll hide the Heart,you should run."
She turned around. It was a guard. His helmet was askew but otherwise he seemed okay. She couldn't see his face, but he was young and tall. Likely one of the new recruits to the militia. The voice coming from his too-big helmet sounded familiar, but strained.
"Platinum Laurel is that you?"
Was that a nod? It looked like a nod.
She gave him the Heart. Then was the smile, it wasn't Platinum Laurel at all. That pony hid a horn in the helmet - a monster's horn. The pony changed into a tall, skinny colt dressed in rags with a shaggy mane and curved horn. He had demon eyes with purple smoke and sharp white fangs. He had a somewhat battered looking knife in his magic, pulled from somewhere in the depths of those rags that she hadn't anticipated, if any of this could have been predicted. She was not a god of the great Sapphira's line. She was a mortal, beloved as they were, but with no magical talent other than what her race could be born with.
A blast of strange magic. The Heart turned gray and cold in a way that snow could never be.
She turned to scream but her voice was too soft. It blended it with the others.
"Who are you?" she squeaked hoarsely, her last coherent words before everything turned to pain and red. There would be so much red, it's always the first thing that she remembered.
He smiled evilly, the right side of his mouth pulled higher than the left in the happiest smile she had ever seen. That's what made it so terrifying. It was a child's happy smile. Never before had she witnessed such glee. "I'm the king."
That was when the real screams began, and everything turned red,even when she closed her eyes.
...
My head still ached as I stood up, feeling dizzy and blinking at the dimness.
Where was I?
Last night. Poltergiest. My magic. A dream that left me in a cold sweat.
Gasping I ran to where the door should have been and kicked it as hard as possible with my back legs. Nothing happened.
The door was sealed shut, which was just my luck. I slumped against one of the corners of the triangular anntechamber.
This annex would be my tomb, I thought drawing a thin breath. Soon the air would run out.
Then it hit me. I was strong enough to kick the door, my vision wasn't blurry, and I still had my cutie mark.
That meant something. But what?
"How could I be so stupid?" I hissed, too angry to cry. "What idiot gets themselves outwitted by a thousand year old stab victim?!"
I tried to bit back a scream. Now who will help Queen Sapphira and the crystal ponies?
"She doesn't even have eyes! I was tricked by a blind ghost! She set me up with a bandanna as bait!" Slamming a hoof against the wall uselessly I continued my bitter rant. If only somepony where in the castle, somepony who could hear my screaming... but they also would've been hurt by the ghost.
"I set myself up for this. So much for trying to play this scenario like a card game."
Slumping further against the wall I felt my hateful emotions get something stirring inside, burning like a fire. An intelligent, determined, and angry fire that wouldn't listen to anypony at this point.
Gosh, I bet this is what Sombra feels like.
Sombra... that was it!
Who lived here once?
Sombra.
Who likes to hide things?
Sombra!
Who would build something this austere!
Definitely Sombra!
Who would leave a way out for those clever enough to find it? Even though he probably would just kill them later...
SOMBRA!
I jumped up and ran to the corner that seemed like the pointer to an arrow. I knew why I still had my cutie mark, my strength.
It would be hard for a ghost like her to take every bit of magic in me.
Oh sure, she may have taken my personal magic but she didn't take every last shred like Tirek did.
My 'matches' may be gone but there are other ways to spark a fire. I tucked the bandanna into a pocket. Who knew, I may need it later. I stared at the corner and tried to focus all my Sombra-esque rage on the wall.
I felt terrible trying to ball all that anger up. It made it feel like somepony was twisting a very small knife inside my heart. It wasn't any better that I felt a headache stemming from my horn, the magic clearly not fitting with it. Despite all this, it was no excuse! I had to get out of here!
Come on...!
At last, a stream of purple and green aura roared to life on my horn and my vision was clouded, as I bit my lip. I released the column of energy and watched as the stone burned away like paper in acid revealing a dark hallway that was nothing but shadows.
...
The hall did not have incredibly stale air like I thought it would, but it was so cold that I was thankful for even the small black jacket I wore.
Although there were no lights of any kind especially since I didn't have the familiar magic to conjure any kind I knew of, I didn't need to question what direction to head in. One way, and that just so happened to be this way.
Where I was in the castle I couldn't be sure, there were many places to hide secret halls if somepony was clever enough.
After a while I came to a dark wooden door that was clearly manufactured by Sombra Inc.
Please don't be a nightmare door, I thought with a shudder.
Channeling another painful burst of dark magic, I turned the knob not sure of what I would find.
I closed my eyes for a moment to regain my breath after using such needlessly powerful bursts of magic to accomplish simple tasks, although there was no alternative.
It wasn't a nightmare door at all, instead it flipped open to reveal a sort of cipher: multiple rings, all of the same alphabet - thankfully the one I was used to - fiddled with as if somepony had tried to get in. Perhaps recently.
Somepony who unlike me clearly didn't know Sombra.
I just wasn't sure how well I knew him...
...
Nothing seemed to work. I spun the wheel by hoof spelling out everything Sombra - like I could think of.
I had tried any word that could be associated with him, and for each fail I carved a tally in the wall with the steel tip of my boot. So far I had fourty-one tries, all based on things he said to be or things I presumed he liked. Anything. I really just went with anything.
Taking a few steps back, I paused to look at the cipher. Manual movement and one word answers were clearly not working.
If I were Sombra what would the correct phrase be?
I glanced over at the tallies for a moment pondering. Well, that's just it I wouldn't want just anypony to get in, and it would be a test as well...
Ah-ha! That was it!
Gritting my teeth, I shot a blast of dark magic at it and watched as the wheels became animated, moving and spinning until they spelled out a message: NAME YOURSELF
What should I tell it? Knowing Sombra it's probally trapped, a riddle, endowed with some sort of self-awareness, or...
The wheels spun again revealing a new message: ANY DAY NOW
...snark.
Spinning the wheels I entered 'C-A-D-A-N-C-E'. It seemed like the best place to start, and it did tell me to name myself.
After I finished the wheels spun themselves again: CORRUPTED ALREADY PINK ONE
I put in the words 'I need your help, Sombra' as best I could considering the lack of a punctuation ring.
The wheel responded: OF COURSE YOU DO BUT HE IS NOT THERE
But... what? Ugh, why is Sombra always so difficult.
Rolling my eyes I instinctively put in 'DUH'. Hopefully that might get me some more helpful snark. I'm not like Twily. I don't care about science or passing or even tests. I just want to help ponies, and I want to stay alive and safe.
My message disappeared and was replaced with another message: PASS THE TEST
I frowned. What test?
The cipher wheels flipped over with a sound similar to falling dominoes, revealing a blank under side. The center of the cipher wheel which I was covering a gear popped open revealing a hole barely big enough for a pencil.
Some of the letter tiles flipped over to give one final statement: ONE WAY YOU CAN ENTER BECOME SHADOW
Become shadow? Oh gosh, I wasn't sure if I could do that, I was no Sombra.
But I also was no quitter.
I stood firm and focused on trying to dissolve into the shadow cloud, screwing my eyes shut as I concentrated, smoke streaming from them.
Then came the pain, a terrible burning sensation like I was being consumed by fire and ripped apart at the same time. I began to feel little but my eyes as if all else was just loosely part of me.
Opening my eyes revealed that I was a large gray-blue cluster of fog-like smoke much smaller then Sombra, with the trademark purple smoke.
Despite my dulled-or lack of-nerves it still hurt to stay like this and took all my concentration.
Steering myself forward, I disappeared through the entrance presented to me.
...
Dark magic was hard. Unlike most magic it did not feel right and was painful to cast if it did not come naturally to the user. For non alicorns it was not possible to cast it without being taught or having something that would allow them to control it, like an amulet.
It was too hard for me to control, and as soon as I entered the other side, the door sealing behind me, I felt myself reform - which was just as draining and painful as deforming, since figuring out how to put yourself back together at the right speed was not exactly a piece of cake.
I didn't even have I chance to look around, I was too wiped out and so it was that I sank into a dreamless sleep.