//------------------------------// // Hero Killer // Story: Oh Captain, My Captain // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// Scootaloo rocketed towards Sombra at full speed, her hoof cocked back to deliver the first hit upon his smug face. Yet right as she reached the Dark King a barrier of darkness erupted around the king to intercept her, hurling the orange mare back across the room at even faster speeds than she had been flying. Belle and Bloom couldn't afford to spare a second to see if their friend was alright, since they were forced to dodge blasts of dark magic. "Come now fillies, I thought that this is what you had wanted for so long?" Sombra cackled as his eyes of emerald shined with a menacing light. He twisted his head towards Belle and fired off a green and black bolt of shadow towards her, yet the eyes narrowed when the mare ducked beneath the shield and deflected the blast. "I hope that you can do more than hide behind the Captain's shield. Because you will not beat me if that is all you can do!" Bloom snarled as she leapt into the air, hurling herself above Sombra with her enhanced suit. She then slammed her hoof covered in armor into the barrier of the dark king, sending cracks along its top and causing Sombra to raise an eyebrow in interest. Bloom smirked at the crack in the shield before Sombra exploded the shield himself, hurling both Belle and Bloom away from him with the explosion. Before Applebloom could hit the floor, a dark tendril of magic wrapped itself around her neck and pulled her in close. "So you are the little tinkerer that has been constructing those strange enhancements that managed to impress even me," he whispered with menace as Bloom struggled to break free of the iron grip of the Dark King. "No need to answer. I can already tell by the fact that your suit is far superior to the ones that attacked my empire. Which means that if I wish to put an end to these suits," he began before forging a sword out of the air that was blacker than his heart, "I need to kill you fi-" Sombra's words and teeth were knocked clean out of his jaw as a blur of orange and purple slammed into him at speeds that shattered the sound barrier, immediately driving him back-first into a wall. He snarled in pain as he glanced up to see what had hit him, before a flurry of hooves descended upon his face. "You! Will! Not! Touch HER!" Scootaloo roared through her fury as she cocked back a hoof before throwing it right at Somrba's eye with a cold scream of wrath. Yet Sombra's horn glowed once more and caught the attack, which he then directed back into her face. Scootaloo let out a cry as she staggered back, allowing Sombra to float into the air once more with a sinister smile on his bloody face. "That's it! That's the fight I've been waiting for!" Sombra cackled as he lifted Scootaloo with his magic and hurled her into Bloom, sending the both of them tumbling by Belle while she raced forward and unleashed her magic at the Dark King. Sombra snickered before clapping his hooves together and tearing chunks of crystal out of the wall with his magic, which he then floated before him to deflect the mare's attack. "I do not know why you bother, Sweetie Belle. I already proved before that my magic is far beyond anything you can even hope to dream of. But if you did not understand the lesson the first time, then I suppose another demonstration is in order." Sombra slipped into the shadows after firing two blasts of magic at the mare, who sheltered behind the shield to defend herself from the assault. Yet even as the shield protected her from the frontal assault, the shadow of Sombra slipped around behind her with ease. Belle had just enough time to glance behind her before Sombra re-emerged from the shadows, cackling like mad before unleashing a burst of green magic into her chest. Belle cried out in pain as she was flung across the room, slamming into the wall and sliding to the floor with a dazed look. "Is that all you can do, Belle? Can you not channel your rage into your magic and at least try to entertain me?" Sombra mocked the dazed mare, who struggled to push herself back to her hooves. "How about I help? I killed your sister with a twist of my hoof. The only reason that we managed to capture Twilight was because you thought you could be an Element! Come on, doesn't any of this tick you off at all?" "Oh trust me. It ticks me off just fine." Sombra turned around and instantly threw himself to the floor to avoid a wild haymaker that just narrowly missed his head, yet even from below Sombra could see the air trail that followed after the blow. Bloom caught on to his sudden movement and shot out one on of her hind legs to catch him in the face, yet once more the Dark King returned to the shadows to escape. "That looks like it might actually hurt," Sombra observed with another one of his smiles as he appeared across the room from Bloom, who was bouncing back and forth on her hind legs while quickly jabbing at the air in front of her. "Ah, I see that you've learned the martial arts. They are impressive...until you realize that a true master unicorn would never let you get close enough to use them." "So, let's find out if ya are a master or not," Applebloom said before throwing herself towards Sombra, who laughed at her confidence before spinning around in a circle to create three orbs of darkness that continued to rotate even with the king had stopped. He then fired blasts of magic towards the mare, yet to his surprise she managed to punch each of his spells out of existence. He had just enough time to raise an eyebrow at her display before she drove into him shoulder first, laying him flat on his back while she pinned him down by his throat with a single hoof. "Ah hope yer ready fer a world of pain. Because on this world, the pain doesn't stop," she whispered to him before throwing a massive right straight for his face, only for her blow to be intercepted by one of the spheres. Bloom registered what had happened before torrents of black lightning erupted from the sphere, causing the mare to scream in agony as the lightning was conducted into her metal exosuit. "I can see that the pain does not stop. I would hate to be subjected to such a fate," Sombra chuckled as Bloom staggered back, her whole body twitching from the surge of lightning. The spheres then lunged towards her, forcing the mare to punch and kick them away from her to keep them from getting close. Yet, each time her hooves came into contact with the spheres, she received a jolt of lightning that burned through her nerves. After striking the orbs a few times, Applebloom nearly collapsed to the ground as exhaustion and pain coursed through her. "You may be smart enough to build some fancy machines, mare, but even your incredible physical strength must strike your foe in order to do any harm," Sombra taunted with a smile as Bloom tried to push herself back up, the three spheres circling around her with lightning crackling with devastating power. "And when the things that you must hit to keep away inflict pain upon you...well, it becomes clear which one of us is smarter." Sombra caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly constructed a barrier around himself, preventing Scootaloo from hurling herself into him a second time. He still had to grit his teeth while bracing both himself and the barrier from the sheer power behind her attack. The blow was just as bad for Scootaloo, who stepped back with teeth clenched together to avoid crying out. "Ah yes, I remember you well," Sombra began as his horn glowed, turning the spheres back into nothing before constructing magical tendrils that he cracked like a whip. "You were that filly that was always hanging out with Rainbow Dash. Always kissing up to her. Always wanting to be like her, despite the fact that it should have been painfully obvious that you couldn't." "Go to hell!" Scootaloo screamed as she rocketed forward once again, but this time Sombra elegantly sidestepped her and wrapped one of his whips around her leg as she passed by. He then clamped the whip with his magic and yanked it back with all of his might, snapping Scootaloo to a dead stop and dropping her to the floor. With a furious snarl she staggered back up, yet Sombra smiled when he saw that she was avoiding putting any pressure on the leg that he had caught. "Do you want to know how your brave and unbeatable Rainbow Dash died when the five of us took over the world? She was the first to fall, the first to be beaten down into nothingness by the combined might of Tirek and Chrysalis--something they actually managed to get right!" Sombra preached as he swung the two whips towards her, forcing Scootaloo into the air though she moved as quickly as she could to avoid the whips. Yet the moment she went airborne, Sombra hurled a blast of magic from his horn that caught her dead center in the chest, rocketing her across the room and into a crystal wall. "All because she raced ahead to save the day, leaving all of her friends and her support behind. That is the story of how your precious hero met her end. Because she just couldn't for once wait for others to catch up to her." Sombra then lifted the mare into the air and hurled her into Bloom, who had just gotten up only to be struck down once more as her partner slammed into her. Sombra shook his head with a sigh of disappointment at the two before he glanced over his shoulder to see that Sweetie Belle had gotten back up. "You are tenacious, I will give you that," Sombra praised with fake pride as Belle spat out a bit of blood to the side, horn glowing as she crouched behind the shield. "Tell me Belle, do you believe that by carrying that shield that you actually know what you are doing with it? To the Captain that shield was offense, defense and a distraction that could turn the tide of battle for him. For you? It is nothing more than a disc of metal." "Steve threw me his shield before he gave himself to save all of us. He gave it to me because he believed in me and that I would stop you," Belle revealed to Sombra, who only rolled his eyes at the mare's words. "This shield shows that he is still with us, fighting in spirit despite him not being here. And you should know Sombra, that Steve's spirit is unbreak-" Sombra torn up multiple shards of crystal from the floor and hurled them towards the mare, who quickly ducked behind the shield and braced herself as the shards of crystals bounced off of the shield. She glanced up just in time to see Sombra land right on top of her, using his rear hooves to kick the shield from her grasp before slamming a forehoof right into her nose. She cursed while staggering back from the blow, clutching at her bleeding nose as the shield skirted away from her. "Your words bore me, Sweetie Belle. The Captain is dead, because he valued your worthless lives over his own, despite being the only one that could stop me," Sombra informed her before constructing a blade of darkness and slashing at Belle with it. Belle constructed a blade of light to intercept Sombra's, the two pressing against each other as light and darkness clashed. "And you are not him. You are not a hero. You are a mare that once again has tried to take on the role of a true hero...only to fail so horribly!" Sweetie screamed in pain as a black orb struck her in the back of her head, sending electricity coursing through her body. Sombra then cackled as he slammed his sword into her blade, shattering it into hundreds of shards of light. He swung his head forward as a follow-up and drove his forehead right into hers, snapping her head back and sending her crashing to the floor. "Enough of your words. Enough of you. I had been hoping that one of you may have been able to challenge me, to give me one last battle before I conquered this world once and for all," Sombra informed the three of them as he glanced around at their beaten and broken bodies, shaking his head as he turned and walked towards the eyes of the titan. "But now I see that you are just as pathetic as your sisters. They had the Rainbow Power and were not able to best us. I fail to see how you believed that you could do any better. So I suppose it is time that I finally put an end not just to you...but to this crusade." As those words left his lips, the crystal titan let out a bellow that shook all of Equestria to its core. It then lifted both of its arms over its head, casting a shadow across the entire city of Canterlot as its colossal form blocked out the sun. Then it struck with all of the power and might that Sombra had built into it, shattering the shield around the city as its fists collided with the barrier. Ponies everywhere began to scream as the crystal beast began to slam its hands down upon the city, crushing all in its way beneath its mighty arms. The Crusaders fought back with all that they had, firing the remaining catapults at it while their air force tried to distract the machine as best they could. Yet within moments the catapults were crushed into twigs, and with a clap of the titan's crystal hands it tore the pegasi from the sky. "Now you see what awaits all of you," Sombra informed the three as he glanced back at them, seeing Scootaloo and Bloom trying to get up while Sweetie had already risen to her hooves and clutched at the shield once more. "But I am a fair, mad tyrant. So, Belle, I am going to give you this one chance to defeat me. You and me. One on one. And if you win, you get to kill me. And if I win, you get to see your sister again. Really it's a win-win. So what do you say?" Sweetie answered with a roar of rage as she lunged at the king, swinging the edge of the shield towards his head for all she was worth. Sombra cackled as he ducked under the blow and constructed twin daggers of magic with which he slashed at her. Sweetie used her horn to create a second shield of magic, which she used to deflect one strike before blocking with the old gal. "Not bad, girl. But let us see if you can keep up!" Sombra then began his full onslaught, slashing, jabbing and striking at every opening and chance that he spied. And despite having the twin shields to protect her, Belle was quickly sliced and stabbed multiple times. While none of the wounds threatened her life, she could feel herself weakening with each strike and slash. Sombra then let out a bellow as he combined his blade into one, massive claymore, which he brought down on her with all of his might. She raised both shields up to defend herself, yet only one of the shields held under the Dark King's assault. Sweetie cried out as she was hurled backwards, tumbling across the floor before sliding to a stop. She groaned weakly as she tried to get up, each of the cuts and stabs burning with incredible pain as she tried to move. She then looked up at the Dark King, who was advancing towards her with a smile of victory written all over his face. 'I can't beat him with my magic. He overpowers me in a physical contest. And he's far faster than me,' she realized with dread as each of her options faded from her mind. But then she glanced down at the shield, which reflected her eyes within it. So in one last act of desperation, placing all of her faith into the shield, Sweetie Belle slid the shield from her arm and hurled it for all she was worth. Sombra saw the movement and quickly stepped to the side, causing the shield to whip right by his head before the smile retuned to his face. Yet even as he walked closer, Sweetie kept track of the shield's movements out of the corner of her eye. She saw it bounce off the wall before ricocheting off of the ceiling, sending it on a course right for Sombra. It flew on a course straight for the back of his head...before Sombra tilted his head to the side and caused the shield to fly right past once more. "Ohohoho, that is a look," Sombra said with glee as the shield clattered to the ground right next to Sweetie Belle, whose eyes were wide as could be while her pupils had shrunken down with pure terror. Sombra chanced a glance at the other two to find the same looks upon their faces, telling him that an explanation was in order. "Did you fools really believe that I would learn nothing from my comrade's deaths? I know how the shield can bounce, I know that it has a nasty habit of coming back to the Captain...but in the end, it is all angles and trajectory. And a genius such as myself, in a room that I built no less, has no trouble knowing where and how the shield will bounce." "So don't expect any miracle to save you three," he promised as he advanced towards them, twirling his claymore with the sickest of smiles that he could possibly wear. "Don't expect anything to save you. Because today is the day...that the Crusade dies!"