• Published 1st Jan 2014
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Let's Kill King Sombra! - defender2222



The Doctor, Derpy and Dinky accidently end up in the ancient Crystal Empire and must figure out who is trying to kill King Sombra

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Part 3

“So,” the Doctor said, trotting around Princess Solsra’s limp form, “I want to make sure I have this correct.”

“Ok!” Dinky said happily. She was sitting on a stool, looking about the room with wide, happy eyes. “You try and break me, copper, I won’t budge!”

The Time Lord frowned. “Dinky… this isn’t an intero-“

“Ok, it was me; I’m the one that gave Miss Pie that coffee! I didn’t know it would make her do that dance! You can’t blame me! I want a lawyer! I want a better lawyer! Attica! Attica!”

“Attica! Attica!” Derpy chimed in, stomping the floor. When the Doctor stared at her the mare trailed off, blushing. “Sorry. I love a good chant.”

The Doctor rubbed his temple, hoping that might help him ease away the headache he could feel coming. He loved his girls with all his heart; without them he might still be running about. They had given him a reason to slow down, to settle down, to step out of his box and actually interact with the world instead of just darting about it. Still, there was times when his dear wife and child were so… like him… that if gave him brain a thrumming.

“Dinky, this is not an interrogation. I just want to know why you knocked out Princess Solsra.”

“Oh,” Dinky said, shaking out of her prisoner-gloom. “That’s simple, Doctor.”

“Glad to hear.”

“She is plotting the assassination of her father and discovered that I had learned of her plans. So, before she could attack me, I took her out.”

“…what?”

“That’s my girl!” Derpy said happily giving Dinky a hug. “Well done, muffin!”

“Thanks mama!”

“No, no, not well done!” the Doctor exclaimed, glaring at the two. Mother and daughter, however, were use to the Doctor trying to dampen their good moods and just kept on hugging. “How did I end up the straight pony? I am never the straight pony!” The two gray ponies began to giggle and the Doctor just rolled his eyes. “I don’t mean like that.”

Derpy kissed Dinky on the forehead. “Well, you might not be happy but I am thrilled. Good job, sweetie.”

“How can you be happy about this?” The Doctor exclaimed. “She knocked out a princess!”

“First, I always think royalty needs a few good knocks on the head. Keeps them humble.” Derpy spread her wings and began to lazily fly about the room. “Second, did you miss the part where the little shiny mare on the bed tried to murder her father? Third… Dinky was discovered and instead of letting herself become a victim like so many of your companions, she did what you or I would do: knocked… the bitch… out.”

The Doctor pursed his lips. “Well, when you put it like that.” He ruffled Dinky’s hair, earning a grin from the filly. “Still… would it hurt you to let yourself get kidnapped every once and a while? I miss rescuing my companions… kept me in great shape. Better than swimming, which is after all the best exercise…”

“Mu… wha…” Solsra mumbled.

“She’s waking up,” Derpy said.

“I got it!” Dinky said, prepping to deliver another bucking. The Doctor, however, quickly grabbed the filly and spun her away. “WWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Dinky giggled as she spun across the floor. She flew into the bathroom and her parents winced when there was a mighty crash. “Again, again!” Dinky screamed in delight.

“Alright, time to focus!” The Doctor said, tapping his forehead and closing his eyes. “Crystal Empire. King Sombra. Previously unknown princess named Solsra. Death traps. Threats from the South. Missing Crystal Heart. Assassins. Fratricide. Check that, attempted and failed Fratricide. Discovered by Time Lord filly. Nargles, this is complex. I wonder why Supermare vs. Batstallion was delayed. No, need to focus. Solsra taken down by Time Lord filly. Princess waking up on bed.” The Doctor nodded. “Right, all caught up.”

“Oh, and I also ate some cookies!” Dinky said happily, emerging from the bathroom.

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped. “Well, that just ruined everything!”

“It did?” Dinky said nervously.

“No, it didn’t.” The Doctor trotted over to her and touched her nose. “That’s for being silly. Derpy!”

“On it!” Derpy said, snatching a curtain and zooming around Solsra with speed that would make Rainbow Dash jealous. She landed next to her daughter and nodded, pleased with the bindings and knowing they would hold the princess nice and tight. “Snug as a rug in a bug!”

“Very good,” the Doctor said, walking over to Solsra. “Now then… I think it is time we had some light shed on this mystery.” He thrashed his head forward and his sonic screwdriver leapt from his mane and into his mouth. The sonic’s head rotated several times before pointing directly at Solsra’s face. “Now, normally the sonic would be rubbish when it came to actually affecting living beings in this situation but having a wife that likes to sleep in I learned a few things… like how to set its alarm setting.” The sonic let out a loud bell chime and Solsra’s eyes popped open. “There we are! Was wondering when you’d wake up!” The Doctor returned the sonic screwdriver to his mane before focusing his attention on the princess. “Well then… I suppose we have a lot to talk about.”

“What… what have you…” Solsra struggled against her bonds. “You-“

“Don’t bother. Derpy is an expert at tying knots.”

“And you don’t know the safe word!” Derpy said with a grin.

“ You’ll never get out of that binding… well, until we let you that is.” Solsra’s eyes flared in anger at the Doctor’s comment. “I’m betting the next words out of your mouth will be something along the lines of ‘All I have to do is scream and you will be thrown in the dungeon!’.”

Derpy smiled. “And the Doctor’s next words will be ‘Cor, I’ll bloody well show them your plans, that’s for true!’.”

“Well, I won’t say it like that but you get the idea” The Doctor did a little spin, a smile on his lips. “Of course, you’re response would be ‘I’ll tell them they were yours!’.”

Derpy nodded quickly. “And the Doctor will counter with, ‘Is that a risk you are willing to take? Bob’s your uncle. What you call soccer I call football!’.”

“Again, not like that but pretty close.”

“And I will ask for milk to go with my cookies!” Dinky replied. “I’ll also point out that you seem really nice and I hope you aren’t really mean because I’d kinda like my big sister not to be mean.” She looked up with wide, watery eyes. “Please?”

Solsra swallowed hard, trying to retain her icy demeanor. Dinky merely took a step closer, her large, glistening eyes locking onto the crystal pony’s. She glanced over at Derpy, who shrugged, as if asking ‘what, you think I can stop her?’

“I don’t think you want to be mean.” The Doctor tilted his head, studying the princess. “And I think you don’t want to harm anypony… not really. There is something though… something that drove you to think these horrible things. Something that made you not just willing to kill your own father… but something that made you believe that his death is so important that you would contemplate killing us as well.” The Time Lord marched forward, his nose nearly touching Solsra’s. “I know a bit about that… about wanting to be good… wanting to save all the crying foals and the innocent families. It eats you up, to see them, to watch them… so you decide to try and help. And after you help a little you find it easy to help a lot. But then there comes a time… a time when you are forced to do something you never thought you could do but you have to because the alternative is so, so far worse.” Solsra tilted her head away, no longer able to meet the Doctor’s eyes. “So you do it… and that is all it takes because once a line is crossed it becomes all the more easier to cross it again and again, like breaking through a bush to continue along a path. And if you are willing to cross one line why not the next? Or the next? Soon you are just smashing through the lines, not even bothering to see what happens when you do so because you have to save them, you know you can save them and yes you have to do bad things but it is better if you do bad than let the bad touch them. Until finally… until finally…”

The Doctor lowered his head, his eyes half shut as he focused on breathing… in and out… in and out.

“Until finally realize you’ve forgotten yourself and become something else entirely… something more... yet something less. Yes… yes… I know a bit about that.” The Doctor gently lifted her head up, forcing her to look him in the eye. “I do not know what drove you to these actions but I do know that they were not without reason…. perhaps even the greatest of reasons. What we need to know now is what those reasons are.”

Solsra swallowed hard, her lips quivering as she struggled to deal with the feelings the Doctor had drudged up. She looked at the little family and suddenly found Derpy guiding her onto a chaise longue, the room spinning about her. She realized, only belatedly, that Derpy had freed her from her bonds. “I… I’ve been at this for so long… so very, very long… but I’ve never forgotten why I began doing it.”

“Then tell us,” Derpy said gently.

Solsra nodded. “My father… is a large stallion. Not just physically. You sensed it tonight, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “There is something… grand about him. Something that draws your attention.”

Solsra looked down at her hooves. “Doctor, have you met many stallions like my father?” Before he could answer, the princess continued. “I have. In the beginning, when my father was merely the crowned prince, the Crystal Empire, while still isolated, was more open than it has been under my father’s rule. My grandfather, King Mombra, played host to dignitaries from Griffland, Reinssia, the Mareatine and the Tropic of Capricorn, Ponpan, Prance, Iponia, Zebrica, Saddle Arabia, Draxico, Tigasia… so many formal dinners and grand balls.”

Solsra smiled, a true smile, not the forced one she wore when out in public. She began to sway a bit, the phantom music of a long last age playing through her head. She could see the waltzing nobility, smell the fresh-cut flowers upon the lapels of the gentlecolts and braided in the manes of so many beautiful mares. She could taste the food upon her lips and feel the dance floor under her hooves.

And then she was back in the present, the past left little more than a distant memory that tickled the back of her mind.

“During those events, I met so many beings of strength and power. The dukes who called Leodon home, the Czar of Reinssia, princes of Saddle Arabia dressed in silk and robes… I even talked to the great Lord Tydal himself, before he and his kind were rendered into stone by Discord. They all had this… aura about them; the same that my father has. And all of them were the same, including my father: they were all dangerous in their own way. That aura… that energy… that draw… it is the mark of one of great power; the mark of one that has the potential to do great good… or evil.”

“But that doesn’t mean your father is evil,” Dinky said, tilting her head in confusion.

“She has a point… the potential to do great evil is not the same as doing great evil.”

“No… but it was my first warning.” Solsra pulled herself up off the chaise longue and began to pace up and down the length of the room. There was a nervous energy about her that demanded release of some kind, lest it explode. “My father has locked us away from the rest of the world.”

“The Empire has always isolated itself,” the Doctor stated. “That is why there are so few crystal unicorns and pegasi.”

“There is a difference between isolation and complete removal. Under the kings and queens of old the Empire remained neutral in wars and was strict with their borders, yes… but that is not what my father is doing. He’s refused to allow any travelers into the city. Not just citizens of Equestria but any pony… even our own subjects who left if only for a day or so. They have been driven away, denied entry, out of my father’s misguided belief that they have been… corrupted.”

“Corrupted?”

“Yes. By disease or Equestrian values… it doesn’t matter to him. My father has grown paranoid, seeing enemies wherever he goes.”

The Doctor frowned. “You haven’t helped that, I imagine, what with you trying to kill him.”

“My moves against him began 6 months ago. His madness existed long before that.” Solsra turned, looking the family over. “Did you not think it odd that my father would throw a dinner in your honor and only have you three be in attendance?” She shook her head slightly. “It wasn’t an honor, even though he dressed it up as such. My father wanted you here, in the palace, because you are the first three ponies to enter the Crystal Empire without his knowledge in over 2 and a half years. He wanted to observe you, to study you.”

“Why not just kill us then?” the Doctor asked.

Derpy, however, knew the answer. “If he is truly as paranoid as Solsra is suggesting, he would want to observe us, to see his worries confirmed. Killing us wouldn’t destroy his fears… it would only make him wonder more.”

“Yes,” Solsra whispered, tears in her eyes. “During dinner, did he tell you of all the troubles we have faced?”

“He said there had been spies from Equestria sowing dissent among your subjects and spies sent by the princesses to find ways to usurp him,” the Doctor stated.

“Delusions,” Solsra stated. “Or it was, for a time. Equestria does want my father off the throne, but only now that word has reached them of how he has used them and the princesses as an excuse to terrorize his own subjects.” The princess violently shuddered. “So many innocent ponies have been captured and tortured because my father saw them as a threat. Any that dared to speak out against him, to claim that he was in the wrong… he has seen their actions through a polluted lens and twisted their words and motives to be something different. He claims he is the greatest protector of the Crystal Empire… but I tell you he is the greatest threat.”

“You are sure of this?” Derpy asked.

“Of course. He claims there are spies in this very city, trying to start revolts. And yet he has closed our borders and lets no one in or out. You are the first… I still don’t understand how you managed to make it so deep into the city… in such a very long time. How can there be spies when my father has laid out so many traps and barriers to prevent them from entering? The answer is there aren’t!”

The Doctor glanced at Derpy, worry shining in his eyes. While knowledge of the future could be a dangerous thing for a time traveler is also allowed one insight to look at events and signs and see the importance they would one day hold. Some might have listened to Princess Solsra and wondered if the same paranoia she claimed her father had did not color her own actions. Yet the Hooves family knew of King Sombra’s final fate… of what he did and how it affected the Crystal Empire. For them, the city’s future was their past.

Solsra continued on, the floodgates opened as she poured out to the Hooves all the things she had kept bottled up inside, unable to share with anyone. All the concerns and worries that she whispered to herself in the darkness and solitude of her room were at last being laid out to bare.

“My father does so many things, claiming they are for the good of his subjects. He doesn’t see that his actions are causing the very things he is trying to prevent.” She looked at each of them, her eyes pleading with them to listen and believe. “He says that the guards he continues to station all about this city are to prevent our subjects from feeling fear… but those very guards INSTILL fear into the masses! He sets up traps to stop invaders, never seeing that they end up hurting the crystal ponies instead!”

“What about the Crystal Heart thingie?” Dinky asked. “Why did your daddy say mama couldn’t see it?”

Solsra glanced towards the wall. Once there had been a window there that allowed her to see out upon the city. Her father had used his magic to seal it away, fearing that an open window would give the imaginary assassins a way to infiltrate the castle. “The Crystal Heart responds to the crystal ponies… and it responds the most to the king. It times of danger the ruler of the Empire could call upon the magic within the Heart to drive away invaders. My father sought out to use the Heart to do this but failed to take into account something very important.”

“And that is?” the Doctor asked.

“The Crystal Heart is alive. It is a sentient weapon, one with a conscience. The rulers do not control it as much as they request its aid and seek permission from it. The Crystal Heart… denied my father. It has viewed him as unworthy and refused his demands. In his mental state he took this to mean that the Heart had been corrupted and tampered with and had it locked away. He experiments on it day and night, trying to get it to react to his demands… and fears that another will arise, strong enough to use the Heart against him.”

“Why does the Heart not defend itself?” Derpy asked. “if it is alive couldn’t it move against your father?”

“Who says it hasn’t? Who says it hasn’t already found a way to defend itself, to protect itself… to SAVE itself?” the Doctor said, moving towards Solsra. The mare refused to back away, even though it was clear she wanted to. “YOU are the Crystal Heart… aren’t you?”

“…yes,” Solsra whispered. “And no.” She looked down at the ground, scuffing her hoof against the tile floor. “I have lived 20 years… and countless millennia. I am young and old… flesh and stone.”

“Doctor, I don’t understand…” Derpy said softly.

The Time Lord smiled. “Two souls merged into one. Princess Solsra and the Crystal Heart’s living conscience merged together, creating one being… fantastic.”

Solsra began to cry. “I was in so much pain… the King was hurting me and my subjects cried out for aid and I couldn’t help them. Then I came and saved me and I and me worked with me and I and-“

The Doctor gripped Solsra’s checks and forced her to stop. “Breathe! Breathe! You’ve gone this long as one being, don’t separate now! Just breathe! Breathe!”

Solsra swallowed, giving the Doctor a watery smile. “T-thank you… normally I’m able to avoid the… separation. When I focus it on it that is when we split apart. I’m ok now.”

Dinky instantly ran over and hugged the trembling mare. “You better be! I don’t want my big sister hurting!”

The Princess looked down at the little filly. “You… you still want me as your big sister?”

“Of course!” Dinky exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t I?” Before the crystal mare could answer Dinky continued to ramble on. “I’m half pony and half time lord! I know what it’s like to be two halves shoved together! Sometimes I feel bad that I am going to live for thousands of years and all my friends are going to die… probably before I even regenerate for the first time. But I manage a-ok and just keep moving and you need to do the same!”

Solsra smiled and hugged Dinky back. “Thank you.” She looked up at the Doctor and Derpy. “Do you understand why I’ve done all this? My father… King Sombra… he has done so much to the Crystal Empire and its ponies. He cannot be allowed to continue on! If there were any other choice I would take it but this is the only way! We have to kill King Sombra!”

“No… you don’t.”

Dinky found herself shoved behind Solsra, the crystal mare’s horn glowing as she faced down her father who stood in the doorway, watching them with green-tinted eyes. All of them could feel the dark magic rolling along his body, coating his flesh like heavy black smoke. A pulse of energy seemed to run through the air as he stepped forward, demanding their attention, and all of them fought against the unnatural pull he was exuding.

“Oh, my dear daughter…” Sombra said with a sad smile, “what have those Equestrians done to you?”

“We have done nothing,” the Doctor said sternly, pulling out his screwdriver.

Derpy just stared at him. “Love, unless he’s a loose cupboard door that isn’t going to do much.”

King Sombra looked at the Doctor in confusion. “Of course you did nothing… oh, those damn princesses! Even now they use their magic to deflect blame! They make you believe my anger is at you instead of at them!”

“Ok, maybe it will work since he has a screw loose,” Derpy muttered.

“Look at what those usurpers have done to my daughter… turning her into an instrument of destruction and pointed her at me!” Sombra reached out and touched Solsra’s cheek. “My dear, they have filled your head with lies… dreams of living stone and destinies that are not your own. Listen to your father… none of what you think is real. They are not your thoughts.”

“Yes they are!” Solsra snapped, shoving her father’s forehoof away. “You attacked your own kingdom and have harmed your subjects… and forced me to move against you!”

“You have moved against me, yes,” Sombra said, “but not of your own free will. Do not worry, my dear… soon your mind will be your own.”

“What are you talking about?” Solsra demanded. “What-“

The entire palace trembled, nearly pitching the ponies off their hooves. Derpy quickly grabbed Dinky and held her tight, taking to the air in hopes that would help protect her little girl if the walls of the Crystal Palace began crashing down upon them. The Doctor was the first to regain his footing and turned his attention to Sombra. “What was that?”

“I have always had a plan… a plan to save the Crystal Empire. We must be separated completely from the world that threatens us if we have any hope for survival.” The mad king smiled benevolently. “I have researched the spell for months, tapping into magic the southerners would call ‘dark’. We will be removed from the world, allowed to exist on our own, without their interference or their manipulative ways!”

“You… you fool!” Solsra screamed, it clear that the Crystal Heart was in the driver’s seat. “You have abandoned all sense of sanity! You will kill us all!”

“I will save us all!” Sombra shouted with a crazed laugh.

Solsra leapt at him, grinding her hoof into her father’s throat. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you and stop this madness!”

“It… it doesn’t matter now!” Sombra shoved her away, the mare crashing at the Doctor’s hooves. “You are too late… I performed the spell an hour ago. Within minutes it will finalize… and we will have peace.”

“Doctor…” Derpy said nervously.

The Time Lord swallowed. “This is it, Derpy… the last day of the Crystal Empire.”