//------------------------------// // That Grand Old Thing Called War (76-98) // Story: 101 Heinous Crimes Perpetrated by King Sombra // by QueenMoriarty //------------------------------// In theory, Raven understood the concept of wine. It was berry juice left to rot in a barrel deep underground, until it lost all of its original flavor and took on that of the barrel. Stupid ponies drank it so that they could pretend they were fancier than ponies who drank apple juice, and prattled on about its many musky flavors when they may as well have been drinking sewage. Raven understood wine perfectly. The only thing she did not understand about wine was why the butler was offering her a glass of it. "I have water," she reminded him, pointing to the almost-empty glass for emphasis. The butler nodded, and nudged the glass of wine closer. "Look, Starched Collar, it's only just gone past five. Were I the sort of mare to wine and dine, I would not do so until the day was well and truly over." The aging stallion's face screwed up in sympathetic confusion. "But you've just had to read some very ghastly charges out to the entire kingdom..." "Yes, and I'm not done yet, you old fool." The butler's jaw flapped open in shock, and his eyes slowly bugged out. He turned around, and noticed that everypony who wasn't glaring at Sombra was staring at him. He turned back to face Raven, and took the wine glass back without a single word. "Thank you." Raven finished off her water with a self-satisfied sip, and looked up at the expectant crowd with a proud glint in her eyes. "And now, mares and gentlestallions, if you'll bear with us a moment longer, we'll soon be done with the charges and be able to proceed on to the real meat of the trial. Now, Sombra de Umbrum, you are hereby charged with the following crimes, which you committed on or about the Tenth of November in the year of..." "Objection!" The sound of a voice screaming at her through a whirling torrent of time magic was a sound that Raven heard far too rarely in her life, and she hardly even minded when a crazy unicorn with a heliotrope coat and purple mane came flying out of the space between moments and into a perfect four-point landing at the foot of Celestia's throne. "Starlight Glimmer?" Celestia did not sound particularly surprised, but she did sound rather upset. "Explain yourself." To her credit, the former conqueror-aspirant of time and space itself did not flinch or show a hint of shame as she came under fire, instead reaching into her saddlebags with grim determination. "Your Majesty, I have come to report the most recent findings of the northern expeditions." "Can't this wait until we've concluded the trial?" "No, your majesty, it cannot." Glimmer produced a red and black unicorn horn from her bag, holding it aloft for all to see. "Tell me, princess, what is this?" "By all appearances, that would seem to be the horn of Sombra." Glimmer gestured to Sombra himself, who for the first time since arriving looked somewhat ill at ease. "And yet there he stands, his horn still firmly attached to his skull if the unichain is anything to go by." "What are you suggesting?" For the first time since she had appeared, Glimmer's confidence seemed to waver. "As some members of the jury may be aware, there was an... incident involving wanton abuse of time magic earlier this year. An incident which gave rise to a number of alternate timelines, in which Equestria had been plunged into various states of unrest and... collapse." She seemed to get over what was troubling her, and continued with renewed confidence. "As it turns out, the universe works according to multiverse theory. All of those alternate realities are still in existence, though they are not readily accessible." "What does time magic have to do with Sombra?" Prince Rutherford demanded to know. "In this particular case, quite a bit. You see, this is not the King Sombra that was shattered by the Crystal Heart on the Tenth of November. The stallion standing before you today is a version of Sombra that plunged Equestria into a long and bloody war, responsible for crimes far worse than any that you were about to accuse him of." Glimmer produced a scroll from her saddlebag, levitating it over to Raven. She unrolled it, and found a new, much longer list of remaining charges. "And what evidence do you have that this is indeed the case?" Luna asked. "Well, even if we ignore the fact that I'm currently holding the severed remains of our Sombra, and the fact that the Sombra of that alternate timeline disappeared at roughly the same time that the cultists enacted their ritual in this timeline, we can just ask him." Glimmer rounded on Sombra, whose skin was beginning to blister and put forth vile black smoke as his fury built up. "Well, Sombra? Which one are you? The subtle shadow, or the charging warrior?" Raven fought down the urge to scoff. Everypony knew that Sombra had been incapable of complex speech after escaping from his banishment, driven halfway to gibbering madness by almost a thousand years of isolation. If he even still had his tongue inside that half-rotted skull, it would be a miracle. "I remember you," he whispered, to a chorus of gasps. "I remember when we found your village. Those mark-robbed whelps barely even put up a fight, except for you." He suddenly lunged forward, straining against the chains until his face was pressed up against the barrier spell. "I remember turning you to crystal and eating your heart." He licked his lips as Glimmer backed away. "So unless you're a time-travelling zombie, congratulations, you figured me out." The guards managed to pull him back, and Sombra tripped and fell to the floor. He looked up at Raven, his teeth bared and his skin flaking off. "Go on, then. Read them. Show them what I really am." She looked to Celestia for answers. The princess merely gave a silent nod. 76. Failing to provide rehabilitation services for temporally displaced ponies. 77. Terrorizing a helpless neighborhood. 78. Returning to a position of power without due process. 79. Creating self-sustainable spells of a largely or entirely detrimental nature. 80. Designing a fear matrix proven to cause irreparable damage to the equine psyche. 81. Mass production of self-sustainable perception-altering magic. 82. Non-consensual recruitment of civilians into a standing army. 83. Non-consensual implementation of fear matrices on ponies with pre-existing mental conditions. 84. Use of psychomancy during wartime. 85. Failure to issue a formal declaration of war. 86. Use of geurilla tactics by a large army with a strong tactical advantage. 87. Desecration of national monuments, public property, private property and grasslands. 88. Cannibalism and the encouragement thereof in times of relative plenty. 89. Deliberate mass murder of civilians. 90. Mutilation with intent to humiliate. 91. Unimaginable torture. 92. Imaginable torture. 93. Perfidy. 94. Taking hostages despite having no intention to keep them alive long enough to receive ransom. 95. Declaring that no quarter would be given. 96. Brainwashing the enemy in order to recruit them to a cause they would not have rallied behind if possessed of their right minds. 97. Pillaging and other assorted unsavory activities. 98. Attempting to bait an alicorn into initiating Ragneighrak. There was an undeniable tension to the atmosphere of the room. It felt as though everypony was poised to kill. Raven could taste the build-up as every unicorn prepared a spell, and her ears popped as the air pressure bobbed up and down. If she closed her eyes and tried not to listen to anything, she could just feel the floor vibrating. She was glad they were almost done with the charges. If this went on much longer, she'd estimate that the justice system and Canterlot Castle would collapse as one.