//------------------------------// // Sombra and Discord // Story: Destiny Book 1: Dark Vengeance // by SirScribe //------------------------------// Sombra levitated a crystal to his mouth. With a snap of his jaw, he took a big bite out of it. The taste of crystals, normally reserved for dragons and crazy ponies, felt blissful to the dictator. With the Crystal Empire back under his control, he felt like he could kick his hooves up and finally feel like a king. That included working his subjects to the point of death. He sat in his throne and expanded his mind thanks to the dark magic. He saw his ponies working underground, making him richer by the second. That was the fantasy. As he ate his crystal and watched his subjects work, the rest of the Crystal Empire walked and breathed dark magic. Shadow Ponies stood guard outside his castle, ready to defend should there be a reason to do so. The pony he acquired in his successful takeover of Canterlot was busy conducting her patrols of the castle interior. His financial advisor stood by his side with a scroll in front of him. As he read the daily report, Sombra tried his best to think above the pony’s voice. He hated the daily report. If taping somepony’s mouth shut and setting it on fire were looked upon as good, he would be doing that to anypony who talked to him. “-5 million bits in value in the one hour alone, leading to a combined total of 35 million bits of jewels during this cycle. Congratulations, Your Majesty, you are the richest stallion in Equestria,” the pony finished. Sombra sighed. “These crystals are not to be sold to Nightmare Moon! These are all my jewels and my crystals, not hers! I make one deal with a trickster and I end up losing more than I hoped to gain! When am I going to get what’s mine?!” The pony didn’t dare answer. “Leave!” The pony dropped the scroll and ran out of the throne room. Sombra threw his half-eaten crystal at his advisor, but ended up hitting the door as it slammed shut. He sighed as he pulled out another crystal and began eating. “Stupid equines.” One of the guards spoke up. “With all due respect sir, you—” “Finish that sentence and you will spend the rest of your days as a chew toy for Cerberus,” Sombra threatened. He shut up immediately. “I want this cycle to feel good to me. Let’s take a piece of the Griffon Territories. Which territory is available for us to capture?” Another guard approached Sombra with a map. He unraveled it, showing the Crystal Empire, the Frozen North, and somewhere in the West, the Griffon Kingdoms. Sombra sighed. The Griffons were once very much closer to them the last time he looked upon the map. “Their wing power is great, but have no magical defenses, correct?” “Yes sir!” “We cannot fly unless we have heavy armor, and that can be made using the crystals, correct?” “Yes sir!” Sombra studied the map. “We move on the coast, running along the North. The Griffon Kingdom will have impenetrable defenses, but that can be easily taken down by dark magic. While we are there, we can probably just take the Griffons as a whole. Contact Nightmare and Chrysalis and get them to send troops up here.” The guard looked uneasy. “If I may add, sir, that is impossible. Chrysalis is taking the dragons in the South and Nightmare is handling a rebellion that started in Ponyville. We are stretched sir. With the constant weather storms in the North, Shadow Ponies would find it hard to keep their form, and Changelings would not be able to fly. A naval invasion would be best,” he said. Sombra looked over. “Were you a military officer before?” “Yes sir!” “Well then, how about this: I send you out there with a spear and a target painted on your back. If the cold doesn’t get you, the griffons will.” The guard gulped. “Next time you object to my master plan, I will not give you a fair warning. Contact Nightmare and Chrysalis before I have you obliterated!” The guard yelped and ran out the door. He managed to trip as he did so. Sombra sighed. There was nopony that served him more than Rarity, and he hypnotized her to be his general. At that moment, the guard came running back and threw open the doors with great force. Sombra spit out a piece of the crystal. “Your Majesty! A strange object is flying towards the Empire.” “That is not a nice way of describing Nightmare,” Sombra said with a slight chuckle. The guard stopped. “No sir, um, the object appears to be in the shape of a box, sir! A big and blue box.” Sombra’s ears perked up. “What? Show me!” The guard levitated a pair of binoculars towards the king. He looked out the window and saw the object. It was blue and it was headed their way. He grumbled to himself. “It’s probably Discord playing a game with us.” At that moment, a loud BANG! echoed through the castle. Sombra turned around to see Discord in a weird looking hat. It looked like Pinkie Pie’s head. Of course it really wasn’t, but the god of Chaos was wearing a hat inspired by an annoying baker. He was laughing, oblivious to what had happened. “—and I said ‘Oatmeal? Are you crazy?!’ and—” He stopped midsentence as he realized where he was. He looked down on Sombra, and he quickly shook his hat off. He was blushing while Sombra didn’t even crack a smile. “I’m going to pretend I have no idea what you were doing and just get down to the point: what is that thing headed over here?” “Is Nightmare visiting?” “Focus!” Discord gave him a blank look. “Seriously? You are asking me, a lord of Chaos, to focus on something? It’s like you don’t know me at all.” “DISCORD!” The god of Chaos sighed as he conjured a pair of binoculars. He peered out of the window and chuckled. “That’s nothing more than a simple weather balloon. Haven’t you heard of the Balloon Colt that caught Equestria’s eye a few ye—” Sombra’s neutral expression said it all. Discord chuckled. “Ugh, nevermind. It’s probably a piece of junk I accidentally conjured up and it left my watch. I’ll put it away.” With a snap of his claws, Discord vanquished the box. Immediately after it disappeared, it reappeared in the sky. This caught Discord’s attention and he tried snapping his claws again. Again it disappeared and reappeared within a second. He clapped and stomped the ground, trying to vanquish the box, but he had no luck. He sighed. “This usually works,” he said. Sombra roared in anger. “If you need something done right, do it yourself. Move out of the way!” Sombra smashed the glass with his hoof and charged up his magic. He fired a beam of dark energy at the box and held it in a tractor beam. He smiled and laughed at Discord for struggling with something so easy. He fixed his attention back onto the box he held onto, but it was gone. Sombra let up his dark magic and stared at the point where the box was last located. “Umm, what just happened?” “Well performance issues, it happens a lot. 1 out of 5—” “Shut up Discord,” Sombra said. The draconiquus chuckled. “Well, it seems as though neither of our magic can hold the box, so I think it’s just some sort of illusion. There is no way that anything on this planet can withstand that mag—” The castle rumbled above their heads. The box was flying up the castle, passing the two rulers. A strange wheezing sound seemed to be emitting from the box itself. Discord had gotten a better look at it. It was a blue tall box with two doors in the front. There was a small light on the top of the box with a sign on it. He didn’t catch the sign because it was moving too fast. That wasn’t the only thing that caught his attention, however. As the box passed him, he noticed the wheezing sound as it flew. He had heard that sound before. He dove into his memories and latched onto where he heard that sound before. 1000 years ago… Discord laughed as he viewed the world below him. He had turned the desert into dessert and the Unicorn Range into the world’s largest taco. He had made the clouds rain chocolate milk and volcanoes spew rainbows in the Bad Lands. He laughed as ponies tried running from whatever the hell was going on. He fixed himself a glass of chocolate milk and drank the glass itself. He couldn’t stop laughing as one pony yelped before turning into a tree. As he looked around his new world, he noticed the Castle of the Two Sisters remained untouched. He wondered why it had survived his chaotic meltdown. He teleported into the castle and transformed into a unicorn guard. As he did so, a guard turned the corner. Discord yelped mid-transformation, but blowing a green dust in the pony’s eyes forced him into a quick nap. Once the draconiquus was fully transformed, he hoisted the real guard and hid him behind a statue. He fixed his fake helmet and began to wander the halls. It took a few minutes, but he had found the throne room. He leaned his ear against the door, hoping to gather some juicy information about what they were planning, or better: the secrets of the Alicorn castle left behind. Discord wasn’t a fool, he knew the Two Sisters didn’t build it. Celestia and Luna were arguing about what to do with Discord. Luna wanted to vaporize him, but Celestia thought about trapping him. Both were impossible in the draconiquus’ eyes, but he continued listening. Luna appeared to be convincing her sister on what they had to do, and before he made his escape, he heard Celestia gasp. “He’s here!” “Already? How did he—?” “I do not know, dear sister, but we are ready.” Discord froze. He expected the sisters to break the doors down, but he heard something else. A wheezing sound seemed to be emitting from inside the throne room. He continued listening and he noticed that the wheezing was getting louder, like something was approaching. The sound reached its peak before it quickly became silent. He heard a wooden door open, which was strange to the disguised Lord of Chaos. Celestia was the first to speak. “My doctor, why have you come?” “I found what you need to defeat Discord. Well, Starswirl and I did. We found this map in a chest on the shore of Equestria. Here, let it guide you to where you need to go,” a stallion said. There was a short pause, followed by Luna’s voice. “We do not understand, this map is hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. How can it be—” “Listen, you have to trust me on this. Follow the map and you will find them. Perhaps the legends are true and you can finally bring peace to this war-stricken world.” Some silence followed the statement, confusing the draconiquus. “Remember the order? I don’t exist.” “We have not be born yesterday, dear doctor. We know your code of silence.” Some chuckling was heard. “Good luck. Hopefully we will not meet again.” “Knowing you, we will.” Discord heard the wooden doors open and close. The wheezing sound began to grow again, and before Discord could storm in and find the stallion, there was silence. “Sister, can we trust him?” “He has helped us in the past, and I believe in him today. This is a lead on where they are!” “If they are here, then we can win?” “Maybe. Come, we must prepare.” Discord took that as his sign to get out. At the time, he thought he was just hearing things. He had no idea the subject in question would turn out to be the Elements of Harmony and he didn’t expect his defeat later that afternoon. Discord was staring into space. His eyes were twitching as the memory unfolded. Sombra was confused. “Umm, hello?” The draconiquus turned to Sombra. “I just realized I left the stove on at home. I really do need to go,” he lied. Sombra was confused. Little did they know the TARDIS had materialized with its cloaking shields up. Twilight snuck out and magically tied Sombra’s tail with Discord’s. She quietly giggled to herself before returning to the control room. She silently closed the doors behind her and ran up to the Doctor. Rainbow Dash and Zecora were both inside the TARDIS, and their mouths were still hanging. Bigger on the inside seemed impossible, and it wasn’t until now that Rainbow realized that Twilight’s house at the Golden Oaks library seemed to be bigger on the inside. While she did have a large library, her loft, bathroom, kitchen, and living space made the treehouse seem smaller on the outside. She decided not to think about it too much and tried understanding the concept of an old police box with an inside that could fit all of Ponyville. The Doctor turned on his monitor and set it to ‘Home Theater’. A large screen appeared from behind the Doctor with a live picture of outside the TARDIS. “You don’t understand, I have a rogue blue box flying around that can be trouble. Why are you suddenly scared of it? What, did it destroy your life?!” Discord gave Sombra a dark look. “You have no idea. Anyway, I need to see Nightmare. I do believe I owe her a reason why I vanished in the middle of a good joke. The box is in the Crystal Empire, so it is your problem. Now, if you excuse me.” Discord vanished. Sombra felt something pulling his tail, and before he had time to think, he vanished too. Everyone inside the TARDIS started laughing as they rewinded Sombra’s face as he disappeared. To the Doctor, it reminded him of a cartoon he caught himself watching judging by Sombra's face. The Doctor froze the video at the moment Sombra was teleported. Rainbow and Twilight were in tears while Derpy, Luna and Zecora were rolling on the floor. The Doctor calmed down. “Ok, that should buy us a few minutes. Let’s find Rarity.”