King Sombra's Rise and Fall

by CartsBeforeHorses

Chapter 2: A Pack of Murderers and Thieves

Chapter Two: A Pack of Murderers and Thieves

Sombra's voice bellowed out amongst the shoppers, “STARTING NOW, I AM YOUR KING AND YOU ARE MY SLAVES, AND YOUR PROPERTY IS MINE. I DEMAND MY SLAVES SURRENDER THEIR HOMES TO ME."

Some of the ponies ran. Some of them cowered in fear. Some of them continued to laugh. Some of them still stood watching Sombra with mouths agape. Yet other ponies hollered for the town guards.

Two ponies in shining armor ran towards the town square. They drew their bows back and aimed them at him.

“Alright, ‘king’, time to cart you off to the nuthouse,” one of them said, “You wanna come peacefully or what?”

Sombra grinned, powered up his magic, and rolled his crystal ball at one of the archers, crushing him.

“AAAAH! Get off!” The pony screamed under the hundreds of pounds of crystal.

The other guard drew back his bow and aimed it at Sombra. The arrow glanced off of the crystal with a clink.

“Perhaps it is time to take more fatal measures!” Sombra yelled as he used his magic to shape part of his crystal ball into a lance, which he stabbed the archer with. The stallion fell to the ground, clutching his chest in pain.

With the two guards taken care of, Sombra rolled over to one of the crystal buildings. Though the building was made of crystal as hard as brick rather than the brittle substance he found earlier, he found that his magic could still make even this crystal take a clay-like consistency. He used his magic to slowly pull crystal out, which he cast his heat/transference spell on. The enchanter once again felt the sheer bliss of the crystals return to his mind. He added each brick to his crystal ball as he took them, and the sphere was soon eight feet in diameter. With a newfound vigor, he had soon demolished half of the building before three more guards arrived to try and stop him.

One guard charged at Sombra with a lance. The unicorn did not even notice the guard until he heard the sound of some of the crystal shattering off of his ball. Angered, he turned to face the guard and extended a crystal lance of his own out, impaling the pony. The other two guards, seeing this, retreated.

“Grab the Crystal Heart!” one of them yelled. They both galloped towards the town center.

Sombra heard these words, and thought, The Crystal Heart? The artifact which banishes darkness? Reacting to this, he rolled towards to the town square where the heart stood. However, his enlarged diameter meant that he was slower, so he feared he wouldn’t make it there before they did.

Thinking quickly, he extended a lance ten feet out from himself, hooked it around and tripped the running pony. He then rolled his crystal ball over the pony, crushing him. Soon, Sombra had the crystal heart within his grasp.

He attempted to absorb the crystal heart as he had with the other crystal, but to no avail. The crystal heart was impervious to Sombra’s magic. No matter. He simply surrounded the crystal heart with his crystal encasement as he did with his own unicorn body, to protect it until he could find a better place for it.

The remaining pony, who Sombra now identified as the superior officer, yelled out to the other guards who had arrived on the scene, “Fall back! Fall back! He’s too powerful! Retreat to the south entrance, regroup there!” He saw the rest of the guards running back.

Sombra moved back to the building he had been destroying earlier. The only significant armed resistance, the town guard, he had dealt with in short order. Sombra could now focus on obtaining all the crystal he wanted.

*****

After he had demolished two more buildings, he sat back and relished in the glorious sensations of the crystals. His crystal ball was now thirty feet in diameter. However, his unfocused attention was quickly drawn back by the continuing pleas of the ponies who had not abandoned their homes.

"I beg of you, unicorn, have mercy!"

"Please, quit destroying our homes!"

Sombra looked back towards them, his tears of joy turning to tears of rage. How dare they ask him to give up his crystal? He was entitled to it!

He responded, “NO, It is mine! ALL MINE! I’m magically educated, and received nothing but poverty for it all of my life! You fools in the marketplace would condemn me to live in misery, with no crystals or bits to buy them. But now I am finally rich! And I shall be damned if futile pleas from powerless individuals stop me from obtaining my desire! ”

“What if we mine more crystal for you?” one of them asked.

Sombra paused at this statement. He considered that it took half an hour to pull apart a single building with his magic, and he could only demolish one at a time. If he could get crystal from the ponies directly, it might be faster.

He called out to them, "I shall grant a concession. Ponies who mine crystal for me shall have their homes spared."

"Please give us time, Sombra. It takes time to sink a mine shaft and find crystal," the pony said.

The impatient Sombra obliged, groaning, "Two days, maximum. In exchange, I desire custody of your former king. Bring him to me in the town square.”

*****

In about an hour, the Crystal Ponies obliged and brought the king, Reginald the Fifth, to Sombra. A crowd gathered to observe the fate of the monarch.

Reginald approached Sombra’s crystal ball and spoke, “I have heard that you threaten to enslave my people. What is the meaning of this, you ruffian?”

Sombra paid no mind to the king, instead magically extending a crystal claw from the edge of his sphere and grabbing the king with it.

Sombra bellowed out, “One of you shall be responsible for hanging your old king. I shall pick a pony at random from this crowd to be my hangpony. If he refuses, I shall personally impale him with my crystal spikes.”

The crowd of ponies attempted to run away, but Sombra used his magic to extend crystal pillars upwards from the ground, blocking off the two streets leading away from the town square.

King Reginald writhed in the crystal claw, desperately banging his hooves against the fingers, breaking chunks from it, but Sombra kept re-absorbing the chunks into the claw and re-strengthening the fingers. The king’s struggle was no use.

“Don’t listen to him! I am still your king! Your loyalties—” Sombra used his magic to insert a crystal gag into the king’s mouth, silencing him.

“This city belongs to ME now, and your citizens shall execute you to prove it! Now, to pick my hangpony...”

Sombra looked around the crowd, eyeing the horrified onlookers to select a candidate. After about thirty seconds, he extended a twenty-foot long crystal needle towards an old stallion with a gray mane. The tip of the needle lay just inches from the pony’s face.

"OUR EXECUTIONER!" Sombra yelled.

The stallion stared down at the needle, trembling. He stood for about a minute, and then finally lifted his head and said, “Shall you allow an old, wizened pony his words?”

Sombra hesitated. Then, he responded, “Speak, but know that if you refuse this task, these words are your last.”

The pony spoke, “I won’t do it. King Reginald is the true king, and you are nothing more than a beast! You are a pathetic wretch, not a king. I heard your rant earlier; you need that crystal just like the boozer needs the bottle! You may call us your slaves and yourself the king, but it is WE who are free and YOU who are enslaved. You’re nothing more than a shell of a pony, with a heart as black and hollow as the crystal ball that you hide inside of. You cower there in fear, rather than ever dare come face to face with those who you torment. You will NEVER be a true king, no matter how many orders you bark or innocent ponies you slaughter. Remember that, you cretinous addict, you!”

Sombra’s needle trembled an imperceptible amount as he hesitated. His words... They... No. NO. NO! Two seconds later, his needle grew to the size of a lance as he impaled the pony and the onlookers screamed in terror.

“THIS EXECUTIONER FAILED TO PERFORM HIS DUTY. MY NEXT EXECUTIONER!” King Sombra next extended his killing tendril towards a middle-aged mare. She was the pony whom he had originally given the lucky horseshoes to. The mare recoiled in shock, and tears streamed down her face.

“No… please… not me… please just give us our kingdom back. I know there is still some good in you. Your lucky horseshoes worked, I found a ten-bit coin on the ground after walking away from your stall, before you went on your rampage! I’m sorry I didn’t pay you. You never had to do this. We will give you whatever you want. We’ll mine crystal for you, fine, even for free. Just stop killing us and demolishing our homes. Don’t kill our king.”

Sombra paid no mind to her objections, instead he impaled her instantly. He could not allow himself to feel or display weakness as he did before. He was strong, despite what that old stallion had said. His strength was why HE was still alive and these two ponies were dead.

“THIS EXECUTIONER FAILED TO PERFORM HER DUTY. MY NEXT EXECUTIONER!” Sombra extended his crystal tendril towards a young navy blue colt.

The colt quaked in his horseshoes. “Daddy, what does ‘executioner’ mean?” the colt asked, looking towards his father with a trembling lower-lip.

“NO, DON’T!” the colt’s father, a stallion named Starry Night, yelled. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill the king! Just let my son go!”

Sombra’s strategy worked perfectly. He never expected a child to be his executioner, but he did expect the child to have a father or mother. Sombra replied, “I shall spare the child and allow the father to serve in his place.”

Sombra rolled over towards the town prison, on the far side of town, the crowd of distressed onlookers following in his wake. Some of them stayed behind, unwilling to witness such a spectacle. This precession took some time, as Sombra was unwilling to remove himself from his thirty-foot-in-diameter protective crystal encasement, lest some assassin try to kill him.

Finally, Sombra reached the prison. It was a large, red crystal building with a little over two dozen windows and a gallows in the front yard. Sombra glanced over at Starry Night, who was simply staring at the rope.

“Well, get up there. Now!” Sombra commanded him. The stallion hesitated for about ten seconds, and then finally trudged up the steps to the top of the wooden platform.

“That’s better! Now, for the king.”

Sombra magically extended his crystal claw which held the king towards the rope, and fitted the noose around his neck. He then drew the crystal claw back towards himself and re-integrated it into his sphere.

By this point, many of the prisoners had heard the commotion and were looking out their windows towards the gallows below. They banged against the bars and hooted and hollered upon seeing the former king about to hang.

Starry Night reached over towards the trap door lever with his hoof. Many of the ponies in the crowd looked away, unable to bear the sight. The stallion’s eyes moistened as he placed his hoof on the lever.

“I am sorry, King Reginald!” he yelled as he threw the lever. The trapdoor opened and the old king fell through. The ponies in the crowd gasped and screamed. A few fainted. However, amongst the hundreds gathered, the reactions were not all horror. A small number of ponies in the crowd actually applauded, while everypony in the prison cheered. King Sombra knew the reason: terror is an effective motivator.

After a few minutes, Sombra spoke once more, “Now, there is one last vestige of the old order which I shall remove. This prison behind me houses ponies who are locked up for crimes they were sentenced to before I became king. Since I do not recognize the old courts, they shall all be freed!”

The prisoners all cheered, while the ponies in the crowd gasped. One of them tried to plead with Sombra.

“No, Sombra! These are the Empire’s most dangerous murderers and thieves! All of them have been condemned to hang at these very gallows. If you let them go, it will be anarchy!”

“Ah, so it’s a death row, then?” Sombra asked. The ponies in the crowd nodded.

Sombra responded with a mocking, cynical tone in his voice, “Well, you know, I am a fair king. Any of these ponies could have just been wrongfully accused. You must admit that it is at least possible, however unlikely, that they are all somehow innocent and your old justice system has failed them.”

Most of the ponies in the crowd scowled, but a few of them nodded their heads. His statement, though manipulative, was technically correct.

“Ah. That settles it then; today is amnesty day!” Sombra turned to face the prison, and cast a telekinetic spell against the bars of the windows, making them soft.

“PRISONERS! Free yourselves from your unjust bonds and join the rest of the society which had once so wrongfully condemned you to die! I am sure you shall show them more mercy than they have shown you. See now, I have cast a spell on the bars to your windows, you can now easily pull them apart!”

The twenty-five prisoners ripped the now-softened bars apart and jumped out the windows, jumping up and down, screaming and hollering and rolling around in the grass, ecstatic at their newfound freedom.

Sombra said to them, “Now, don’t run off just yet. I still have positions to appoint for my new regime, and now that you are free citizens, you are as eligible as any to become public servants!”

“Servant, eh? I could serve that one over there really well,” a chartreuse freed stallion said, pointing his hoof towards a young filly as he licked his lips. The filly cowered behind her mother.

Sombra pointed towards him with a crystal tendril and shouted, “Our new Minister of Education! You shall be responsible for teaching our young fillies and colts how to mine crystal for me, and punish them as you deem fit if they step out of line.” He tapped the chartreuse pony on each shoulder with his tendril, as if to knight him. The pony grinned from ear to ear.

“Oooh, oooh! I’d just love to slit some throats and drink some bloooood!” another stallion said, his teeth chattering as his entire body tremored.

“The commander of our armed forces! This needs no explanation; you shall do quite well defending my kingdom from any invaders,” Sombra said, “knighting” him as well.

“I’d like to get my hooves on some of these townsponies’ belongings. What’s mine is mine, and what’s theirs is also mine!” another pony, a light blue mare, said.

Sombra responded, “Since you say ‘mine,’ you shall be my new crystal mine overseer! It shall be your job to ensure these ponies are mining adequate amounts of crystal and giving it to me. You shall obviously be paid quite well yourself for this.”

“Sounds good to me! I’m gonna be rich!” She jumped in the air in excitement.

Sombra appointed many more positions, all from the ranks of the freed inmates. By the time he was done, all twenty-five inmates were government officials.

After he was finally done, Sombra hollered towards the crowd, “Now, let’s hear it for your new government, Crystopolis! Hip-hip!”

The inmates, as well as a handful of ponies from the crowd, responded, “Hooray!”

*****

“So Lanceforth, you are guarding the doors, yes?”

“Of course, your majesty,” Lanceforth answered.

“And Pennington, you are guarding the windows?”

“With utmost vigilance, your highness!” Pennington said, offering a salute.

“Good, then I can finally step out of this hot crystal ball!” Sombra said. He was slightly hesitant to expose himself even in front of these ponies, as he was unsure as to where their loyalties lied. After all, despite his ironic speech to the crowd that he gave before freeing them, they HAD all been convicted of capital crimes.

He had no doubt that they would stab him in the back the second that it served their interests to do so. However, he did not want to display mistrust towards them. So, he cast his telekinesis over the crystal ball and emerged, wading out through the black crystal like some triceratops from an ancient tar pit.

“Ah, so nice to be out in the fresh air. And this crystal palace is quite the lovely castle for my new kingdom! So nice of old Reginald to die and bequeath it to me,” Sombra said, motioning with his hoof around the throne room in which he and his administration of former inmates stood.

“So, is everypony who has volunteered to be part of my administration present in this room?” he asked.

“I’m counting twenty-five, that’s everypony,” Pennington said as he glanced around the room.

“Good. So, I trust that you all know your jobs, yes? So the two of you who are my personal guards will stay here and guard me so that I can get some sleep. The rest of you shall assume your positions throughout the town.”

The stallions and mares in the room nodded. However, one of the ponies raised a hoof into the air. It was Larceny, the blue mare who Sombra had appointed as his mine overseer.

“Yes, Larceny?”

“Well, King Sombra. You told me and some of the others as well that we would be paid for our time. In what form will that remuneration come and when?”

Sombra glanced around. The other ponies nodded their heads in agreement. He scratched his head with his hoof.

“I should think that the mere fact that I have freed you all from prison and certain death is payment enough!” Sombra said, somewhat annoyed, though not surprised that he had yet to buy their complete loyalty to him despite freeing them.

“Well, sorry, it’s not. No honor among thieves, you know,” Larceny responded, shrugging.

“Indeed, I think we should be paid,” said Lanceforth, glancing back from the throne room doorway, “What if one of the king’s old guards comes around here? I might have to fight him. I could die. I should receive hazard pay.”

Sombra’s blushed slightly, which, thankfully for him, was concealed by his ebony coat. He replied, rather reluctantly, “Well, I have no money to give you. I am sorry. Whatever you want, you’ll have to take from the townsponies.”

“But you haven’t appointed a tax collector,” said one of the ponies, “I think you should. You need revenue to support your services.”

“I don’t need a tax collector. They are to mine crystal for me in exchange for me not destroying their houses. The crystal is the tax, and my mercy is the service provided.”

“Crystal? They’re paying you in Crystal? What about bits?” Larceny asked.

“I don’t desire bits. Only crystal.”

“What, are you going to build an even bigger palace with it or something?”

“No.”

“What do you do with it, then?”

“I, well, I... you wouldn’t understand. You aren’t a unicorn,” he responded.

“What has that got to do with it?”

Sombra paused, and then decided he might as well tell them the whole story. If he didn’t tell them, some of the townsponies certainly would.

“You are aware that I can manipulate crystal as if it were a soft and malleable clay, yes?”

“Yeah, how do you do that, anyway?” one of the stallions asked, “If I could do that I would’ve broken those prison bars ages ago.”

“Magic has a different effect on the crystals than hooves do. So, when I use my telekinesis on it, it becomes soft as clay and I can make it take whatever shape I want to mold it into. But that is not the only thing which my magic can do to the crystals. I also have another spell. Normally, this spell only heats up objects. But, by using this spell on a crystal, I am able to FEEL, or sense the crystal as if it were an extension of myself. As if it were a part of my body.”

“So?” Larceny answered, “That’s all? Pardon me, your majesty, but that doesn’t sound very special.” A few ponies snickered at her remark.

“No, you don’t understand. The crystal feels magnificent, like... like...”

“What, orgasm?” The Minister of Education said, eliciting more chuckles from the group.

“Yes, exactly! Except, many times better than even that,” Sombra answered.

“Well gosh, if we were unicorns like you, then you could just pay us all in crystal if it’s THAT great,” said Larceny. The others agreed.

“Yeah, you could just pay us all in crystal, and then whatever food or water or fillies that we needed, we could just take from the citizens,” said the Minister of Education.

“You know, I think that you SHOULD have been hanged,” said Larceny, scoffing at the chartreuse-coated pedophile, “All I did was rob caravans. You’ve scarred dozens of little foals for life.”

“Lives that they still HAVE at least, unlike certain cold-blooded murderers in this room,” the Minister responded, looking towards Lanceforth. He responded in kind, sparking a debate as the ponies in the room bickered amongst each other accusingly.

“SILENCE!” Sombra yelled. The twenty-five ponies obeyed.

“As I said earlier, Reginald’s justice system and the sentences that his judges gave are not recognized under my rule. You’ve all been given clean slates. Now, as to our problem of payment. I believe I may have a solution. I can’t guarantee that it will work, but it’s worth a try. Now, who among you would be willing to accept payment in crystal if, hypothetically, you could derive the same joy from it that I do?”

Everypony in the room raised their hooves into the air.

“Alright, then I may have a solution. No guarantees, but I may be able to impart the crystal’s sensation upon you all by using telepathic magic.”

“All of us?”

“Yes. Now, I could only do this spell with one of you at a time,” said Sombra, “and I’m not sure how long it will work or how powerful it would be. Telepathy was never my specialty; I’m an enchanter by trade. But I learned a few telepathy spells at Starswirl’s college, so I think I might be able to do it. Now, I need some fresh crystal. The blackened ones won’t work; those are depleted so I can’t sense from them anymore.”

“Can you use this table over here?” One of the stallions stood by an ornate, carved green crystal table from the back of the room. It was a small round table, only big enough for about four chairs to sit at.

“Yes, that will do perfectly. Bring it here.”

The stallion dragged the table over to Sombra. He cast a telekinetic spell on the table, breaking it down into an orb about two feet in diameter. Then, his horn glowed black as he cast the heating spell on it. He was now receiving the crystal sensations.

“First volunteer?” he asked.

“I go first, since it was my sarcastic idea in the first place,” said Larceny. Nopony objected.

Sombra responded, “Larceny, I want you to open your mind. Let down all of your guard. Allow me into your mind. Now...”

Sombra touched his horn to the blue mare’s forehead. At first, the mare’s eyes widened. Then, she blinked a few times. A giant grin spread across her face. She began to moan repeatedly with pleasure.

“Um... should we be watching this?” Pennington asked. The group chuckled.

“Shut up, Pennington, your immaturity about this is breaking my concentration!” Larceny snipped. Pennington shied away. Nopony else spoke for the remainder of the session.

About five minutes later, Sombra said, “Alright, Larceny... I am cutting you off in three, two, one...” He lifted his horn from her forehead and Larceny fell to the floor.

“That’s all?” she asked, “But that was so amazing!”

“You’ll get more once you’ve done your duty in service to my administration,” said Sombra, “I have twenty-four more ponies to get through before this crystal is depleted. Now, who’s next?”

All twenty-four hooves in the group shot up into the air. Sombra grinned. So, this was how he would win their loyalty.

About two and a half hours later, he had given each member of the group his "payment." He lifted his horn from the final servant, Pennington, just as the crystal had finally turned a shade of deep black.

“Just in time,” Sombra said, “the crystal was about to run out.”

“Wow... just, wow,” Pennington said.

“I could do that all day,” said another.

“No wonder you’ve enslaved them into mining this crystal for you,” said Lanceforth, “I would too, if I were you.”

Sombra responded, “So now you all see why your jobs are so critical. Hopefully, now that you’ve received payment, you will provide adequate services towards securing my position in power.”

“Yes, your highness!” they chanted, obediently. The twenty-three non-bodyguards then filed out of the throne door, off to their various positions in the city.

Sombra grinned from ear to ear. In the span of a little over an hour, he had managed to secure the fealty of twenty-five ponies to him. Dangerous killer ponies, no less, who would defend Sombra to the death. He had them all wrapped around his horn. None of them would dare to attempt a coup against him, as he was the only one who could allow them to access the crystals’ powers.

*****

Over the next week, the citizens of Crystopolis succeeded in sinking a mine shaft in the heart of the city. Its location, right in the town square, was a strategic decision on Sombra’s part because then his mine guards would not come under attack from any possible Reginald loyalists who may be hiding outside of town.

The Reginald loyalists still did mount sporadic attacks on his city. He lost three of his twenty-five loyalists and five of the Crystopolis residents who had agreed to join his militia in exchange for not having to mine.

Over the next month, Sombra managed to transform the once-proud city into a shell of its former self. Tons of his blackened, depleted crystal littered the landscape of the city. He did not want them cluttering up his palace, so he simply used his magic to place them around the city as ominous obelisks to remind the city’s residents who was in charge.

Sombra did in fact use some crystal to expand the Crystal Palace. He hid the crystal heart atop a large tower, building a secret passage and and protecting it with dark magic enchantments which only magic could reliably break. He figured that this would stop almost any of the crystal ponies who wanted to retrieve the Heart and use it against him, as they were all magic-less.

Eventually, Reginald’s loyalist guards stopped attacking. Sombra took this as a sign that his rule was now entirely unchallenged.

However, he did not realize that Reginald’s loyalists had in fact gone south to Equestria to call upon Princess Celestia for help.

Comments

[Comet Swirl]

This is amazing! Keep up the good work!

[staples]

I admit that things really did escalate rather quickly, but that scene with the King was really intense. The part afterwards, while realistic and funny in a meta-kinda way, wasn't nearly as good though.