Hidden Blades
All three of the ponies collapsed upon the floor the moment they got back inside of the wagon, feeling the exhaustion from their escape from the Changeling Castle. Trixie used the last of her magic to get the wagon moving again before she lifted herself up and dragged herself over to her bed, placing the changeling claw on the stand next to her bed.
"Alright you two, I'm calling it early today," she mumbled as she threw herself onto the bed with a groan. "Starshine, you can practice your magic if you want. Sombra, do anything and the collar will zap you into next week. Good..."
"I've never seen her this tired before," Starshine muttered as he walked over to Trixie's bed and poked her hoof, not getting any kind of reaction out of her. "I wonder what happened in the temple?"
"She probably overused her magic in there, trying to get us out of the castle," Sombra muttered to himself as he put his head down on his hooves, lost in thought. "Something doesn't add up though...well, two things. One, how did we get away so easily? I know Chrysalis better than almost anypony, and I know that she doesn't give up on a target once it gets in her sights. So why just let us go?"
"Maybe she was trapped in the castle?" Starshine suggested, as Sombra reached inside of his bag and pulled out a number of violet shaded crystals that he placed around him, letting out a small sigh that Starshine didn't hear. You did blow up her castle, so maybe she got trapped inside?"
"It would take a lot more than her castle collapsing on her to stop her from coming after me," Sombra muttered with a yawn as he gazed into the crystals. "I just don't like it. The other thing that's been bothering me is, how did we get from the maze to the wagon like that?"
"Like what?" Starshine asked as he dragged out one of the practice dummies from the back of the wagon. "Trixie teleported us out of there and-"
"No, somepony teleported us out, but it wasn't Trixie," Sombra muttered as his eyes narrowed. "When a pony uses teleportation magic, nine out of ten times it's the same color as their other magic. So if Trixie had been the one to teleport us out, the magic field that surrounded us would have been azure, like her other spells. But all I saw in this field was white...or maybe it was silver? Hard to tell apart sometimes..."
"So, you're saying that another pony teleported us out?" Starshine asked as he tried using the fireball spell that Trixie had shown him, only to get a bit of smoke from his horn instead. He growled in frustration and tried again, but this time he set his mane on fire. He yelped in shock and ran over to where the bath was, running his mane under the faucet to put the fire out. Sombra watched the spectacle with a thin smile, shaking his head at the colt, once he pulled his smoldering mane out from under the faucet.
"I don't know why you bother trying to practice magic, you can't do it," Sombra said as Starshine started trying to practice again. "Your horn doesn't work. You can't use magic."
"So what am I supposed to do, give up!?" Starshine roared at Sombra, causing the dark pony to raise his eyesbrows in surprise. "Am I supposed to be what my parents said I was? A failure?"
"I take it, there's a story behind that rage?" Sombra asked, but Starshine ignored him and went back to practicing, this time he covered himself in soot that he had to go wash off as well. All the while Sombra watched the colt struggle, he silently thought to himself.
'I remember the days like this, back before I figured out how to get around my weakness,' he thought to himself as Starshine went back to practicing. 'Of course, for me to overcome my lack of magic, I had to use a certain ritual and it took years of training. Besides, I am a genius, so it was easy for me. But this kid...' Sombra shook his head as the colt tried again only to be lifted into the air and slammed back down. 'His horn is even worse than mine.'
"Why?" Starshine asked as he stood back up. "Why can't I do it? Why can't I get my magic to work!?"
"As I told you before, it's because you have a problem with your horn, that makes it so that you can't use magic properly," Sombra explained again, getting tired of repeating himself. "And as amusing as it is to see you try, you simply can't keep trying without eventually hurting yourself. Just give up." Starshine looked at Sombra before sitting down, staring at the floor while Sombra continued to mess with his crystals. After a few minutes of silence, Sombra looked at the colt who hadn't moved. "Why do you want to use magic so badly? There are plenty of other choices for unicorns that can't use it."
"Because my parents kicked me out due to my inability to use it," Starshine snarled back, Sombra smiled a bit at his reaction. "I want to prove that I'm not the failure that they said I am, and that I can be a great wizard. Now I've got to train." Sombra smirked at the stubbornness of the colt, since it reminded him a bit of himself when he was little. After a few more mintues of watching Starshine fail, Starshine eventually looked to Sombra with a confused look.
"Wait a minute, you don't have your horn."
"You're just now noticing this?" Sombra asked.
"No, I mean, you were using magic back in the castle, yet you don't have a horn," Starshine muttered. "How did you do that? It's like you were...speaking magic." Sombra said nothing, but instead rolled over to avoid looking at the colt. "Come on, tell me," Starshine said, once he had run over to the other side of Sombra. When Sombra didn't answer, Starshine frowned until a thin smile spread on his face. "If you don't tell me, I'll tell Trixie."
"You wouldn't dare," Sombra growled, but the look on Starshine's face told him that he would. So with a snarl, Sombra sat back up and glared at the colt. "Worded magic, that was the magic I was using back in the castle. It's a lost type of magic that allows a pony to use magic with magic words instead of casting a spell with their horn".
"You can really do that?" Starshine asked in disbelief, causing Sombra to roll his eyes in annoyance.
"Were you not paying attention to anything I did in the castle? Oat Fl." Starshine shrieked as he was suddenly lifted up into the air, floating there demanding to be put down while Sombra chuckled. "As you can see, it works just fine even without a horn. Now leave me alone, I'm thinking to myself."
"Can you teach me?" Starshine asked, once he was put back on the floor. Sombra stopped in his tracks as he said this and turned to face the colt with a smirk.
"Are you kidding me? You can't even control you horn, which is a much easier way to use magic. There is no way that you could do this," he replied before Starshine smiled again.
"Then maybe Trixie could help me figure it out. I'm sure that she's great with all magic." Sombra once again growled at the colt, who had twice managed to blackmail him with threat of Trixie. Even with his worded magic, he knew that he couldn't defeat somepony who was at her level of skill, and even with his horn it might have been tough. Plus, for as destructive as his magic was, it drained him incredibly fast. If he couldn't kill Trixie in the first hit, then there was no way he could win a prolonged battle with her. And if she found out about his magic, she would put even more handicaps on him that would prevent him from using it as well.
"Fine kid, but don't go crying to Trixie when you can't get it to work," Sombra said before looking at the dummy across the room. "Alright, for your first task, I want you to use that fireball spell you've been practicing so much. The way to use the spell is to concentrate all of your power towards the target and say Re Ball Fi. And don't stop till you can do it right," he said with a chuckle as he laid back down while Starshine began to concentrate, knowing that the colt wouldn't be bothering him for a while. It had taken Sombra years to master even the most basic of spoken magic, and he was a genius, so he had no doubt that it would take Starshine--
FWOOM!
Sombra sat back up in disbelief as he heard the fire and felt the heat, not believing his ears. Starshine had been able to get the spell to work on his first attempt. Could he truly be greater than-?
"Um, I seem to have set the curtains on fire," Starshine said with a meek smile as Sombra looked at the scene. The dummy was once again unscratched, but the curtains behind him were a raging inferno. Sombra looked at the fire for a moment before he began to laugh.
"Tuo," he said in between laughs, extinguishing the fire before any real harm could be done to the curtains. But he did look down at Starshine with a raised eyebrow, still amazed and slightly impressed with how the colt had been able to get the fire aspect of the spell down on his first try...even if his aim needed some work.
'So there is some skill in him,' Sombra thought to himself as he resisted the urge to smile. 'I may be able to use that to my advantage.' "Not bad," Sombra said to the colt, whose eyes widened at the praise. "In fact, I think I may keep teaching you with promise like that. But," he said quickly, before Starshine started to celebrate. "You have to keep this a secret from Trixie."
"Why?" Starshine asked as he looked over to Trixie, who had just begun to move. "She'll be delighted to see that I can finally use magic. Why would I not tell her?"
"Because if you do, she'll stop me from using my magic and then I won't be able to teach you," Sombra said with a sly smile, which grew even wider when Starshine looked down in confusion. "So, whaddya say?"
"I say, that if you're trying anything, you'll be a pile of ash in a heartbeat," Trixie said as she got out of her bed, glaring at Sombra who backed away from her slowly as she approached. "I don't know what lies you were trying to tell Starshine, but if they hurt him in any way, you will regret it." She then stopped for a second and sniffed the air, smelling the faint scent of ash. "Did you set fire to something Sombra?"
"No, that was the colt," Sombra said as he looked at Starshine's mane. "Kid set his head on fire while trying to use magic. Good job teaching him, by the way." Trixie growled at Sombra while placing a hoof around Starshine's shoulder and led him away from the dark pony.
"So, what was he talking to you about?" she asked him with worry on her face. Starshine looked at the floor to avoid her gaze while he thought of an answer.
"He was telling me about a way that he thought would allow me to use magic," Starshine said, which was mostly true. Trixie narrowed her eyes as he continued to avoid her gaze, knowing that he wasn't telling her everything. But when he didn't say any more, she let out a sigh and walked to the front of the wagon, looking out the window to see that they were traveling next to the side of a lake.
"You know what, we could use a break after what happened in the Changeling Empire," she said to the other two as she brought the wagon to a stop. "How about a few hours relaxing?" Starshine ran past her with a huge smile once he saw the lake, diving into it without a moment's hesitation. But when Sombra tried to walked past her she grabbed him by the collar and drove him into the wall. "I don't know what kind of lies you're telling him, but he has gone through enough in his life. Don't make me regret saving you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sombra said with a smirk as Trixie let go of him, walking by her as she glared at him.
'Why do I have him with me again?' she asked herself as she walked out of the wagon and stood upon the sand with a sigh. 'He has been of little use to us since we found him in the temple. And whatever he's telling Starshine can't be good. I'll need to keep a better eye on him.' She sat down on the beach, watching Starshine play in the water, while Sombra found a tree to rest under out of the sun. She had a few questions for Starshine, but figured that they could wait until he had finished having some fun. Faust knew that he was overdue for some.
"Trixie, are you going to come it?" Starshine asked her as he ran up onto the beach, his long mane completely covering his eyes.
"Maybe later. Mind if I ask you a few questions?" she asked, to which Starshine nodded in response and sat down next to her. "Can you tell me what happened while I was in the temple at the Changeling Castle? Because somepony told me that you two had been taken hostage by the changelings and were in trouble. Is that true?"
"Yeah...that's pretty much what happened," Starshine said as he looked over the lake. "Chrysalis also threatened to kill Sombra in a terrible way for something he did in the past, you'll have to ask him what it was, and I was probably going to be killed alongside him." Trixie's blood boiled as he said this, and she thought about what she'd do to the queen the next time she saw her.
"So then what happened?"
"Well, Sombra did...something...and managed to break us out of the prison and helped me to escape," Starshine said, causing Trixie's eyes to widen in shock. Sombra had helped Starshine escape? Since when was the evil king so kind? "The two of us then made our way through the castle to find you, with Sombra keeping me safe from the changelings." Now Trixie was completely confused. Sombra had protected Starshine AND helped him look for Trixie instead of just running for his life? But something didn't entirely add up.
"...You said he did something to escape the prison, but it would take some considerable magic to bust through those bars. What did he do?" Starshine looked up at Trixie with no idea how to answer before he looked at the ground, afraid to look her in her eyes. "Please Starshine, I just want to keep you safe."
"He...he used spoken magic," Starshine said in a small voice, just not able to bring himself to lie. Trixie felt fear leap into her heart as she looked over at the dark pony lying under the tree. Spoken magic was one of the strongest magics in the past, but they were supposed to be lost to time. How did he...?
"But that would explain how he managed to survive what happened back in the Crystal Empire," she said to herself before pulling Starshine into a hug. "Thank you for being honest with me. Now I need to go have a talk with Sombra."
"Wait, before you try to take away his magic, let me tell you that it was because of that magic that I'm still alive," he said quickly. "Yeah he may not be the nicest pony, but he did save me. Don't be too angry with him." Trixie frowned as she walked away towards Sombra, planning on giving him a piece of her mind. But she didn't know what to say to him on the subject of Starshine. If he were telling the truth (and she had no reason to doubt him) then Sombra, the evil king, had saved him from a terrible fate. But why?
"So, you can use magic still, can you?" Trixie said with venom to Sombra, who opened one eye to look at her before closing them with a sigh.
"Shouldn't have told the kid what I could do," Sombra said with a shrug. "So then, what are you going to do to me?"
"In light of what Starshine told me about what happened in the castle...nothing," Trixie said with a sigh, causing Sombra to look up at her in disbelief. "But I'm still keeping my eye on you. so if you do anything that may hurt me or Starshine-"
"Yeah, yeah I get it, you'll kill me or worse," Sombra said with a smile. "Trust me, you're not the first to...Orm St De Bla!" Trixei yelped as she ducked under the swords that materialized out of the air and flung themselves towards the wagon, driving themselves into the wood.
"What are you thinking?!" Trixie roared in rage, but Sombra was looking in every direction with fear in his eyes and a scowl on his face. He then spun around and roared another spell, causing the ground to erupt and throw something into the air. Trixie watched as a changeling appeared out of thin air and landed on the ground ten feet from her, the only thing making it look different from other changelings was that it was wearing a black bandana over its mouth.
"What is a changeling doing here?" Trixie asked before the changeling rushed towards them with a speed that she couldn't fathom. It rushed by her and pulled out two blades that it dug into Sombra's chest. But much to its surprise, Sombra vanished into thin air before materializing behind the changeling with a smile on his face.
"Rn Bu," he said as flames shot out of the ground, consuming the changeling in the fire. The changeling let out no sound as it burned, but after a few seconds it fell over. Sombra stopped the fire as Starshine came running over to them, with Trixie looking over the changeling.
"It's still alive, but barely at that," Trixie said as she looked over the burn wounds, figuring that it would take a long time for these wounds to heal. "So what do we do, drop it off back at the Changeling Empire?"
"Doesn't matter where we take her, she's dead anyway," Sombra said as he looked at the black "X" carved into its shell. "This is a member of the Scourge, a group of changelings that have done something to offend the queen. Their punishment is to either die in battle or be killed by the queen, but no matter what, it ends in death. However, they are all extremely skilled and Chrysalis will use them to do her dirty work, but she doesn't care if they live or die. So I say we leave her here, where she'll die in her sleep hopefully. Better here than at the hooves of Chrysalis." Trixie looked down at the burnt changeling, knowing what Sombra said was true. But she looked into the changeling's eyes, and she saw eyes that had no desire to live in them...eyes that were devoid of will. And in those eyes she saw a bit of herself after she had brought down Morgaine, after she had to kill her mother and no pony was there to help her.
"No...we bring her with us. For a while anyway," Trixie said much to the shock of Sombra while Starshine smiled at her. "I will tend to her wounds and try to get her to a point where she can live. I cannot let her die like this."
"And yet you were fine with letting me die," Sombra grumbled.
"You have done many evil things to ponies over the years. You would have deserved it. Besides, I saved you, or have you already forgotten?"
"You're in the same boat as me, so don't try acting high and mighty." Trixie narrowed her eyes at Sombra, but focused her energy on lifting the changeling without causing further harm. She brought the creature into the wagon and told Starshine to help her run a bath for the changeling. Once the tub was filled, she brought down a bottle from her shelf that had healing properties that would heal burn wounds.
"I've set myself ablaze many times and this has helped me, so hopefully it will help her," Trixie said as she lowered the changeling into the tub, watching with a smile as the look of pain faded from its face. "It will take a while, but it should work. However, I am putting a defensive shield around her."
"You're far too kind for your own good," Sombra said with a shake of his head as he went to lie down. "Saving ponies like me or changelings like her won't make up for what you did. Better to move along with your life."
"You're a real heartless, you know that?" Trixie asked him as he shrugged and closed his eyes as Starshine and Trixie continued to monitor the changeling. "And I'm not trying to make up for what I did. That's in the past. But I've seen enough death to last a lifetime. Now, I just want to help protect life."
'She calls me a heartless, yet she has no idea what a heartless really is,' he thought to himself as he closed his eyes. 'She has no idea how heartless the ponies of this land can be. Isn't that right...Gloria?'
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A hint that will foreshadow Sombra's past. Is this going to tied in with that youtube video of "A tale of one's shadow"?
3904152
Not really.
Woohoo. We gonna be getting some of the Sombra's backstory soon.
I'm sensing we might have found out the queens real name just now
So Sombra's secret is out.
And Starshine is showing how much raw potential he has, even if he can't control his power all that well yet.
And a member of the Scourge, being taken in.
And who is this Gloria?
Nice chapter. I hope the Change-ninja takes Trixie as her new mistress and serves her. BECAUSE NINJA ARE FREAKING COOL!!!!
Fus Ro Dah at some point????? 
Or Starshine could just talk to her, he seems to be able to bring out the best in everypony... everything???
Spoken magic... will anyone be using
Trixie: Hello Changeling of the Scourge, Welcome to the Order of Reformed Villains. We don't have jackets yet, but we are working on them.
3906890 I don't think it fits the pattern; so it probably won't work
He's quite the firebug isn't he. Its probably just as well that they aren't in any towns while he's practising magic. He'd burn the whole thing to the ground.
3924512
You'll see.
The kid agreed not to snitch =/ technically he said "I won't tell on what you're going to do" but since he used worded magic it still counts. I probably said that confusedly.
I also wonder how Trixie would of handled "sealing" his magic words. Wiping his memories or sealing his mouth?
Achievements earned:
Good Cop Lives (learn Sombra's secret from Starshine)
Scourge of Battle (defeat the Changeling assassin)
I have Standards (spare the assassin)