For Her Mistakes

by Onomonopia

The Scourge

"He needs rest, that's all that will help at this point," Sombra said with a shrug as he took his hoof off Starshine's head and the small foal looked up at Trixie, who was biting her lip in worry. "He may be energetic, but he's still young and needs to take a break every once in a while."

"And here all I've done is drag him all over Equestria," Trixie said with a worry as she tried her magic again, gaining an eye roll from Sombra.

"Rest cannot be created with magic Trixie, he needs time to recover," Sombra said again, this time looking her in the eyes when he did so. "Look, I've worked myself to the point of exhaustion many times, and I've tried every spell in the book to get around it, but it doesn't work. Stop trying."

"N-no, it's okay guys," Starshine said weakly as he tried to get up, but Trixie gently pushed him back down. "I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Heck no you won't," Sombra replied as he placed his hoof on the foal's head again. "You're burning up. Can't really blame you after all the stress you've been under the past week. Assassins, changelings and angry villagers probably didn't help your nerves, and then you get sick." Armora, who was standing behind Sombra and Trixie, buzzed twice with concern and Sombra shook his head at her. "No, he doesn't need love to recover and you probably shouldn't go into the town...actually, go on in. Scare 'em some more."

"No, I think Sombra's right in saying that you need rest," Trixie said with a sigh as she pulled the blanket that was next to Starshine over him with concerned eyes. "You've been staying so strong for so long, I think you can take some time to rest."

"Are you sure?" Starshine asked.

"Positive," Trixie replied before gently kissing him on the forehead. "Now rest." Starshine tried to argue, but yawned once and almost immediately fell asleep. Trixie extinguished the lights in the wagon and closed the curtains before ushering both Armora and Sombra out of the wagon. "We can't move until he's better. I don't want him to grow any worse."

"It's only a fever, Trixie. I'm certain that we can continue moving along and not have to worry about him getting worse, as long as he's riding," Sombra said with a shrug, but shrunk a bit when he got a death glare from Trixie. Armora buzzed and stood behind Trixie, causing Sombra to roll his eyes as he began to walk away. "Of course you'd take her side," he muttered as he walked under a tree next to a lake and closed his eyes as he lie down. Trixie followed suit and prepared to lie near the surface of the lake, looking into the water for a minute before she walked over to Sombra.

"You never did answer my question," Trixie eventually said to Sombra, who grunted to let her know he was listening. "I asked why you haven't killed me yet, and you said that it would be pointless." Sombra raised an eyebrow at that before drawing the conclusion that Trixie had very good hearing. "Yet, you are more than willing to put up with me so long as it means that you can get into Star-Swirl's temple. What are you after?" Sombra didn't answer her question; he simply looked at the still surface of the water.

"Power," he finally said after a few minutes of silence. "Power to bring down the two princesses of Equestria once and for all, despite them being immortal. The power to end my pain." Trixie tilted her head slightly at his explanation before sitting down next to him, preparing to get some real answers out of him.

"The reason they stopped you, is because you had the ponies of your former empire in chains," she reminded him. "They stopped you so that they could free those trapped under your iron hoof. I know I already said this, but it seems that you keep forgetting."

"There are two sides to every story," Sombra replied as he laid his head down on his fore legs. "I put the ponies in chains in retaliation. I have no regrets about it..." Trixie caught the hesitation in his voice and figured that he was lying. But aside from force, she had no way to make him tell the truth, and she didn't wish to resort to that. But she could try.

"What if I made Armora come over here and force the truth out of you?" Trixie asked him, Armora perking up at the sound of her name. But Sombra just looked at Trixie with no emotion in his eyes, as if daring her to do it. She eventually gave up and sat down with a sigh, ignoring Sombra's little chuckle of victory.

"...Why do you care so much about fixing the mistakes of your past?" Sombra asked her. "You did terrible things, I get that. You also made up for it, but believe you didn't and I get that also. But why do you want to be forgotten? You're arguably one of the more skilled unicorns in the land, ever since Sparkler became a princess." Trixie let out a small laugh at the name Sparkler, but quickly returned to her somber face.

"I robbed ponies of their lives and their homes," she whispered. "I helped create an army of foals that attacked an armed city. By what right should I be remembered? I'm...scum that should be forgotten in the past, where no pony will eve have to recall that pain." Sombra looked at her for a second before he chuckled again.

"Get on with your life Trixie, you can't stay in the past," he said. "If you keep looking back, you'll never see ahead. And then, you might hit something that makes your life even worse."

"I don't need advice from a hypocrite," she shot back with a growl. "I don't know what, but there is something about your past that you're hiding from me that you refuse to let go." Sombra turned towards her with a snarl and rage in his eyes.

"Your pain and mine are two separate entities, Ms. Trixie," Sombra said with venom. "You got off easy."

"Easy?" Trixie asked back. "I have to spend the rest of my life with the sins I committed. How is that easy?"

"You weren't sealed in ice for a thousand years," Sombra replied as he stood up, Trixie doing the same as they glared at each other. "You weren't blown apart barely a day after you came back. You didn't los-...Clever," he said with a smile as he regained control of himself. "Trying to make me talk, by riling up my emotions, are we?" he asked her, smiling when he saw the disappointment in her eyes. "Clever, but you won't get me that way." He lay back down as he said this and closed his eyes, telling Trixie that he was done talking. Trixie growled in frustration as she walked away, but she at least had gotten a small bit of information for her pains.

'Sombra was about to say lose, which meant that he lost something or somepony important to him,' she deduced as she sat down next to the water. 'But that, once again, goes against what I had read about him, since all the stories said that he was a loner that refused the company of others. But what could he have lost that would make him only care about getting revenge on the princesses and not me, despite how I've treated him?' Trixie asked herself, then a small thought came to her. 'Maybe the reason he doesn't tell me, is because of the way I've treated him. He may be...have been evil, but he's still a living being. And here I'm saying that I'm trying to make up for what I did, and I'm treating him how Morgaine treated others. Guess I'm the hypocrite.' Trixie wanted to say something to him, but at that moment all three of them heard the sounds of screams in the distance and turned to see what was happening.

"The town's on fire?" Trixie asked as she saw the burning buildings in the distance from where the screams were coming, wondering how that had happened in such a short time. "Sombra, you and I will head into the town and try to put out the fires. Armora, you..." When Trixie looked over at Armora, she found that the changeling had already gone into the wagon, emerging a moment later in her battle armor and armed to the teeth, buzzing wildly.

"I was afraid of that," Sombra said with a growl. "She says that the other members of the Scourge are in the town and you can guess who they're looking for."

"Us," Trixie responded with both guilt and rage, hating herself for others being hurt because of her.

"Well, me mostly," Sombra said with a smirk as he looked towards the town. "Are you sure you want to help, Trixie? The only reason we beat Armora was because I saw her coming and caught her off guard. There are likely to be more than one this time."

"We have to," Trixie said as she activated a barrier around her wagon before turning and running towards the town. Armora buzzed again at Sombra before she too ran into the town, leaving Sombra to sigh.

"Fine, but don't expect me to bail us out of this when it all goes south," he muttered as he chased after them. The three entered the burning town and immediately saw a group of changelings standing in the street waiting for them. The one in the center of the three buzzed and threw three daggers towards Trixie, but Armora knocked them out of the air with a short sword before Trixie could react. The changeling buzzed in a fury as it glared at Armora. Trixie looked to Sombra to translate.

"He said how dare you betray us, you...don't know that word," he muttered to himself as Armora began to buzz back. "And she responded by calling him what Chrysalis often calls me. So I take it that they're no longer friends, and the changelings are going to try to kill all of us now."

"Great," Trixie said as she fired a beam of ice into one of the changelings, freezing it solid. The other two hissed and drew blades of their own to attack, but once again Armora intercepted their blows for Trixie. "Armora, are you sure you're up to this? You're still not at one hundred percent!" Armora's answer was to swing her sword in a flash and slice the heads off both the changelings, looking towards the stunned Trixie with a smile before she ran off to engage more changelings.

"Okay, she can handle herself," Trixie muttered as she looked at the burning buildings. "Sombra, I'll deal with the buildings, but I want you to get the ponies out of the town."

"You're leaving me to get all of these sweet and helpless ponies out of here?" he asked her with a wild chuckle before running off to find those in trouble. "You never learn!" Trixie rolled her eyes at his words and began to focus her energy on the flames in front of her, using her magic to summon a small storm cloud above the fire. She watched the rain fall onto the house until it was extinguished and then once again used her magic to move the cloud over to the next house. The hardest part was continuing to trick the cloud into thinking that it was Pegasus magic moving it.

"BZZ!" Trixie nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the changelings attacked her from behind, blade aimed at the back of her head.

"RE FI!" The changeling hissed in pain as its body exploded into flames and ran off, leaving Trixie to turn to see who her savior was.

"Starshine?" she asked in confusion as she saw the black colt run up to her, a huge smile on his face that hid some of his weakness well. "What are you doing here? How did you get past the barrier?"

"Because you're always super-specific with your spells," he reminded her with a smile. "You make your barriers so they stop ponies from getting in, not out." Trixie facehoofed at her own stupidity, but at that moment Armora came skidding by on the ground, getting back to her hooves with blood running down the side of her head. With a quick flick of her head Trixie sent the rain cloud over the rest of the buildings while she ran to Armora's side.

"Are you alright?" she asked Armora, who nodded before drawing her blade again, and looked with hatred towards a changeling in front of her. This one was far larger than the others and carried a bloody axe in its teeth, teeth that smiled at the three soon-to-be victims standing next to each other.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" it said in a cold voice that sent chills up Trixie's spine, as she moved Starshine behind her to protect him. The massive changeling was covered in scars and one of its eyes was missing, the slash mark on its shell told Trixie how he had lost it. "A traitor, a criminal and a meal. Oh what a good day this is."

"Wait a minute, I thought Sombra said these guys couldn't talk?" Starshine asked Trixie, who, instead of answering, fired a bolt of electricity at the changeling. The changeling watched the spell approach with a smile before knocking the attack away with his axe, and Trixie noticed the green marking that appeared when the magic impacted the axe.

"Like it?" he asked in a cold tone while he showed the axe to them as he got closer. "It's designed to deal with unicorns like you. Shame Chrysalis didn't have me with her when she invaded Canterlot, but I was off...doing as she bid. But this time there won't be anything that stops me from completing my mission. Nothing." He shot towards them in a burst of speed that Trixie wouldn't have associated with one of his size. Armora leapt up with her blade to intercept him, but he swatted her aside with the butt of his axe, which he then swung at Trixie, who rolled out of the way to avoid being hit.

"What is the matter, Trixie?" he asked her as she fired two more spells at him, snarling as they both were blocked by his axe. "I thought you would be better than this." He slammed into her as he said this and pinned her to the ground with his hoof, allowing her just enough time to realize what was about to happen before he brought the axe down.

"TRIXIE!" Starshine cried as the axe cleaved Trixie in half. His eyes began to water as he collapsed to the ground while the changeling began to laugh over her body.

"That was far too easy," he said with a grin, before screaming in pain as a torrent of ice shards impaled him in his back. Starshine turned to see Trixie standing behind him with a smirk on her face, as she lifted the changeling up and slammed him through a wall.

"Clone," Trixie said as the other her vanished in a flash of magic. "Best way out of any tight spot."

"Very good, you are definitely the prey that I heard you were," he said to her with a smile as he turned to face the two of them. "But I too have a trick up my sleeve." As he said this, a tendril of green energy shot from his horn and wrapped itself around Starshine, dragging the foal over to the changeling faster than Trixie could react. "Now then, here are your options. The two of you can surrender and die. Or I can kill the colt and then you. What will it be?"

"RN BU!" The changeling roared in pain as fire engulfed him all over before another spell slammed into his side and sent him skidding, the break in concentration allowing Starshine to get free. He looked up with rage, to see the one that he had been sent to destroy walking towards him with a smile on his face.

"So, you finally decide to show yourself, fallen king," he growled as Sombra stood a few feet away from him.

"Your one of her special assassins, aren't you?" Sombra asked before smacking the changeling with his hoof. "No need to answer, I already know that it's true. Only those of the Scourge that have served her loyally can speak. Too bad it won't save you."

"I already know that this is my last battle," the changeling said through rough breaths as he looked at the three. "But the Scourge never die alone!" He glowed with an emerald green as he said this before a massive explosion went off, knocking over many of the buildings around them. Trixie threw up a shield around herself on instinct alone, but that did nothing to help the others that had been caught in the blast.

"STARSHINE!" she cried as the dust from the explosion began to clear, tears running down her face as she started to look around for him. "Please be alright! PLEASE BE ALRIGHT!" She could feel the panic rising in her chest as she looked desperately for him, barely noticing the fact that Armora was alive or that Sombra lay in a heap a ways away. All she could do was look for him.

"Oh will you shut up already," Sombra said weakly as he started to get up, bleeding from multiple wounds. "He's right here." Trixie slammed Sombra out of the way as she rushed over to Starshine, who only had minor bumps and bruises.

"Oh, thank Faust," she whispered as she pulled him into a bear hug, letting the tears begin to fall. "Thank Faust you're alive."

"I'm fine, Trixie," Starshine said back as he hugged her in return, while Sombra simply rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for throwing yourself over Starshine to save his life, Sombra," Sombra muttered to himself in a mocking tone. Trixie placed Starshine on her back and used her magic to pick up Armora and Sombra as well with a sigh.

"Come on everypony, let's head back."

/T\

"Stop squirming," Trixie said to Sombra as she tried to apply medicine to his multiple wounds.

"Stop sucking at being a nurse," Sombra shot back, getting a punch in the shoulder for his lip. Trixie had taken them back to the wagon to heal their wounds the best she could and found, much to her relief, that Armora and Starshine's wounds were minor. Armora's shell had been what kept her alive when Sombra had set her ablaze, and it had saved her once again. Starshine was alive on the other hoof because somepony had thrown himself over him. "I'm never going to heal if you keep hitting me. Oh, and thanks for worrying about me back there."

"You've escaped death twice before; I'm certain you could do it again," Trixie said, but without the usual fire in her voice as she looked back over at Starshine, who was bandaging up Armora, despite her not needing them. "I don't get it. Why did you save him?"

"Don't know. Didn't really think about what I was doing when a massive magical blast went off on me," he replied with a shrug that caused one of his wounds to start bleeding again. "Just saw the kid and happened to land on him. Plus, he's the only pony on this wagon that doesn't want me dead. Have to keep him around so you two stay nice." Trixie gave Sombra a soft look, knowing that he was lying to save face. But that didn't stop her from gently hugging him.

"Well, whatever your reasons, thank you," she said gently.

"Yeah, yeah, get off. You're re-opening some of the wounds," he said dismissively, but without any of his usual sarcasm. Trixie rolled her eyes and walked back over to Starshine, but did look back once at Sombra, who had lowered his head and fallen asleep.

'I guess I can't believe everything I read, can I?' she thought to herself before heading back to Starshine. Sombra opened one of his eyes, once she wasn't looking, and let out a sigh that made his whole body hurt. He had known full well that the blast might have blown him apart again, but he hadn't cared. He had already seen too many of those close to him die that way...and he couldn't let it happen again.

"Um, Sombra?" Sombra looked up at Starshine with one eye, the foal looking down at his hooves nervously as he tried to talk. "Um, I'd like to say...Um..."

"You're welcome, kid," Sombra said with a sigh as he rolled over so he could avoid looking at the foal. "Now let me get some sleep, I'm hurting."

"I just wanted to say, thanks," Starshine said. "I guess you're not evil after all. Just an ass." Sombra huffed as Starshine ran back over to Trixie, who was trying to help Armora out of the mummy-like state in which she found herself. Sombra closed his eyes and laid his head down, thinking about what Starshine had said to him.

'You used to say that to me as well, Gloria,' he thought silently as he began to drift. 'But maybe you were right. Maybe.'

Comments

[Uzume Tennouboshi]

What do you guys want to bet that the press thinks Trixie and Sombra actually were the instigators of that attack, completely ignoring how they drove off the Scourge?

[Shadowkeeper]

I absolutely love the way you have written Sombra. The banter between him and Trixie is perfect.

[Grahf]

first paragraph

He may me energetic, but he's still young and needs to take a break every once in a while.

small error be
saw a couple others when reading but can't find them now

[Onomonopia]

3937475
Thanks

[gwarrior2013]

'You say to say that to me as well, Gloria,' he thought silently as he began to drift. 'But maybe you were right. Maybe.'

I think that first say should be "used"

[Kenshinryuu]

"No, he doesn't need love to recover and you probably shouldn't go into the town...actually, go on in. Scare 'em some more."

I disagree, tender loving care is one of the best healing methods. And I would love to see the reactions of the townsfolk to Armora walking into town.

I just wanted to say thanks," Starshine said. "I guess you're not evil after all. Just an ass."

BURN!!!!

Nice chapter, well done. I loved Amora in action. I guess one good ninja vs a horde of evil ninja invokes Conservation of Ninjutsu.

[Mr-Astounding]

Achievement earned: Change it up (defeat the Scourge)