Sombra, or whatever it is the Crystal Heart left behind, has ventured forth and conquered his new domain behind the till at a McTrotnald's joint in Manehattan. As he seeks to consolidate and expand his newfound kingdom he quickly finds a host of potential new subjects to subjugate befriend. If only they weren't mostly mafia, bat gangs, changeling yakuza and bicycle ponies complete wackos after his hot sexy plot power and might....
Coco Pommel, a decent definitely-not-thestral, lives a decent life, works a decent job, earns a decent living. She is certain the fashion house she works for, Mane Event, is going places, even if it's currently stuck on the second floor above a McTrotnald's joint. She is oblivious to the fact that she is the much-coveted object of adoration of many stallions. She is oblivious to many things. But she finds it hard to be oblivious to the ruckus that comes from that fast food restaurant downstairs, harder still to resist getting dragged in...
Neither expected to ever end up stuck together, at least not this way. But as they quickly learn, there's no living on expectations in the poor but lively Manehattan slums of the Four Hooves District. Together with the band of misfits and social outcasts that make up their lives they must go out and seize it - their Midnight Empire.
Contains the following strong themes underneath: struggling against oppression, discrimination and biggotry, poverty and desperation,. This is a story of unity in diversity, of love and friendship that transcends differences, and the pursuit of freedom.
Now exponentially more epic thanks to our favourite editor Dumbgamer99 who has kindly returned to do another of my works. Be sure to thank him by checking out his page!
Featured 4/7/14 - 6/7/14! Many thanks to everyone who made this possible!
Written to the tune of The Manehattan Smile by Matthew Mosier which I think nicely captures the feel of this story.
Cover Art: Oh hey, my ponies actually resemble ponies now. I mean, look, you don't have to turn the pic upside down, close your eyes and imagine the ponies anymore. Previous cover art here.
You know, I initially wasn't going to read this, but then I saw that you were the author. Lets dive in!
This story is great. Sombra is a socially-awkward smartass with great lines and the creator of many wacky things beyond his time like the toilet and taxes. I enjoyed how he cant figure out that Octavia and Star Struck desire him, how he sees everything, from his fake trial to his description as a worker in McTrotnald, from the POV of an evil conqueror, and his interaction with Coco. I really hope that the next chapter comes soon. BTW, instant fav.
So this is the rewrite of "Good Guy Sombra" you took down to rewrite?
Pen Mightier, proving it once again. Your AUs are simply the best. Sombra a genius inventor, making the EoH and the two corrupting armors. The Crystal Heart is changeling love technology.
*shakes head at tribalists* You idiots, didn't you learn from the Hearths Warming story that if you do stuff like that, the world freezes and everyone dies?
Sombra's purging of good and evil is certainly an interesting take, as is Princess Cocktail. And I love his inability to smile, and am eager to see how this story will progress.
Another amazing concept.
Hmm. I have to admit that I wasn't a giant fan of "Good Guy Sombra," but this is entirely different. I enjoy the way you've worked in Gearhead Sombra and picked an interesting way to suggest why he might still be 1) alive and 2) ripe for some kind of redemption. In fact, I like that quite a lot. It's hard to sell me on that, too, since it's usually done by woobification, the "love of a good mare," or both. So I am going to fave it, and look forward to seeing if there is more.
4641663 Why do I have a bad feeling it was the cover art that put you off?
4641978 Thanks. You've pretty much pinned down all the elements I wanted to bring to the fore. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
4642149 Not exactly. I just could never settle on an iteration of Good Guy Sombra that I felt was worth publishing so I've shelved it for the time being. This story, however, does make use of quite a few recycled story elements from Good Guy Sombra. I have a tendency to do that, recyling and reusing story elements.
4642156 Glad you liked it in the end.
As you say, it's still mostly lots of concepts thrown together, nothing fleshed out properly just yet.
You know, if you go by Faust's words, that the thestrals are a separate tribe, it makes you wonder where they were during the unification wars or why they weren't included in the post-unification alliance. That's something I might explore here.
I didn't think about the Windingos actually, that's an interesting thought. Thank you for that.
4642231 Ah, you were witness to the trainwreck that was Good Guy Sombra.
I'm glad you like this concept though, thanks for that. I'm aware of a lot of the reformation stories out there where Sombra or Discord are reformed by, as you say, 'the love of a good mare', often one of the mane 6 who set out specifically to make them better, er, ex-villains. Great stories, great outcomes, but already been done in many flavours by now. I wanted to try and steer away from that, try and put the ball in Sombra's own court so to speak. He's obviously going to have help, but I tried to tone that down by having Coco and Cadence not teach him outright, but tell him to go and try things out for himself.
You know, I was going to say this is probably the first time my story didn't attract tons of dislikes from the get-go....I kind of thought that too soon.
4642250 It wasn't.
4642250 Heh I noticed. Still it is a rather enjoyable tale (though peppered with grammatical errors here and there, hough not horrid enough to turn me off from the story). Anyways my good Pen, you've got me to like and fav ANOTHER of your tales... what manner of subliminal sorcery is this? I must know!!!
On another note, do you still have the original version of Good Guy Sombra saved on your harddrive/the cloud somewhere? If so, I'd love an email of it just so I can reread it again
[5:38:16 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: >thought it was a Sombra x Coco fic for a sec
[5:38:23 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: was like yeah
[5:38:29 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: cuz that would be awesome
[5:38:30 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: but
[5:38:31 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: then
[5:38:34 PM] Aktion Kolumbin: >:V
4642591 I thought it was all flavours of obvious this is a Sombra x Coco fic?
I mean, I drew that cover pic. 
One of my first stabs at originality. XD
What makes you think otherwise?
And do you think I should label this as such?
4642611 You drew that?... i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg232/PIMking/dayum.jpg
4642787 My art actually looks something like ponies now without you having to turn the pic 180 degrees.
4642803
I like this. I really like this.
Amazing, can't wait for more. Also, why in the name of all hell did nine people downvote this.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
… I'm interested. I wanna know where this goes. Consider me on-board, brother!
4643062 I have no idea! I'm beginning to think some people are very touchy about their Sombra ships, though maybe not. I got slammed with a lot of it for Glass Council, which is AU Sombra/Celestia. Or maybe it's Coco shippers. But I'm scratching my head here, too, because as far as I can tell, there's nothing really to dislike!
EDIT: Also, there was another AU Sombra/Celestia fic that was pulverized recently, so my money is on Sombra. Go figure.
My main issue with Good Guy Sombra was simply that I thought it was going to be set in the Mirrorverse and it was put in the Mirrorverse group, and then of course it wasn't. And a few other things, but it was about 85-90% based on the irritation you feel when you open a can reading "PINEAPPLE CHUNKS" and find that what you have there is weiners n' beans. That's not always in an author's control. I once had to ask for one of my fics to be removed from a group devoted strictly to gay Braeburn clop on the grounds that in my fic Braeburn was straight and there was no clop, and I knew there would be lots of reader disappointment when there was no, um, payoff.
TL/DR: I don't know. It doesn't deserve that many thumbs down, but it's in the Feature Box, so evidently it doesn't matter.
*looks at first chapter title and oddness of the ship*
I don't remember writing this...
*reads*
Aw, that's cute. I'm getting a Hataraku Maou-sama vibe out of it. Good luck on your first official romance, man!
I gotta say, I love Sombras' internal monolougeing. The whole, "Ah, another minion to join my army!" part was great, as was the whole "Elements of Harmony" toy line. Also, was (who I'm assuming to be) Spikes' name mispelled as Speck the Brave as a typo, McTrotland screwing up his name, or Sombra just fumbling words?
And are the Ever-Something products foreshadowing somethig? Like, some big corporate conglomerate that's taking over everything?
Anyway, really hoping you continue with this, even though I know it's going to slow down your other stories. But, it's just as full of engrossing background detail, great characters, and adorable happiness as your other stories, and has so many jokes I have to read it three times to catch them all, so please, keep up the great work!
I wonder what would happen to him in a combat situation?
This fic is amazing, hoping to see more!
Hey Pen Mighter, this is currently in the number 3 slot on the feature list!
s27.postimg.org/q15f4ga2b/Featured.png
I love Sombra's monologue in this.
A wonderful start that I hope you continue on.
You know, contrary to 4641663 I was going to read this until I saw you were the author. No offense to you but I am leery because of the disappointment I felt in Legendary Legends of the Legendary Pony Summoner... which I commented on there. To wit, that both the premise and your execution had such great potential as a legitimate story that you had no intention of trying to realize.
__TL:DR__
Reads description: This has potential!
Sees author: This guy could pull it off...
Remembers LLotLPS: But will he even try or just write it off as a joke?
4644350 I'm really sorry about that.
I was very honest when I said I started out Legendary Legends of the Pony Summoner with absolutely no idea where to take it other than turning it into a ponified ninja-exam arc which would have been, well, dead boring to write. But things have changed since. That story does have 3 chapters now, slated to end with chapter 4, with a full-on properly planned sequel in the works (I even got the cover art ready, that's how far I've put the cart before the ponies 
)
Kinda worrying when my username puts people off reading like that.
But just to reassure you, I'm quite serious with this story in that I've got an idea I want to execute and a direction to take it (one of which I was lacking with Pony Summoner, as I mentioned in my long author's note on it).
4644189 Thanks! Writing his monologue's part of the fun of this story. I'm more used to first person than third person, actually. In fact this story began as a first person narrative which I later switched to third person as I realized Sombra's the kind of character that you'd rather keep a slight mystery to rather than get in the head of, if you know what I mean.
4644081 Whoah what happened while I was asleep. That was fast.
Thanks for the heads-up! Much appreciated.
I'm curious though, it looks like it's common practice to announce being featured on the front page. Is that really the case?
4643965 Thanks.
4643709 Good question, seeing as I gave him a magical handicap and our heroine being Coco Pommel.
4643417 Putting an ex-evil overlord in an everyday situation was fun to do. Oh, and 'Speck' the brave was an intentional typo, thought not as obvious as princess cocktail and prince Shining prick-more.
The Ever-Something kind of started out as a little bit of fun corporate branding to get the Manehattan feel going, but then turned into something more....
I had jokes in here? Oh....so I did. Must have been the painkillers writing for me.
Thanks for the comment.
4643308 The dude of romance himself! What an honour! You inspired me to write romance with your really random but refreshing ships. After reading your SpikexLyra and SpikexOctavia I had been toying with the prospects of a proper romance story for the longest time. So yes, this story was at least in part your fault.
Though the title of the first chapter was not an intentional shout-out...but, hay, it is now. 
Oddness of the ship? I guess CocoX anything other than Rarity would potentially count as random (C'mon, King of Beggars, do a SpikeXCoco). I think it is still possible to come up with something more random than SombraXCoco, but this is about as random as I'm going to get, I think.
I will look up the story you mentioned, thanks.
4643230 I'm sorry you had to bear witness to Good Guy Sombra. I'm not sure who put it in the Mirrorverse group. I didn't even know what the Mirrorverse is until I looked up what some of the comments were complaining about. Then I realized I had unknowingly photoshopped a pic of Sombra from the Mirrorverse stories. I've been more careful with my cover arts since.
But yes, I was so sure I would avoid the usual mass-bombardment of dislikes I usually get with my stories with this particular attempt. No HiE? Check. No overt OCs? Check. Shows what I know about writing fanfics. :rainbowhuh
Or people may not like characters being made thestrals? Or non-OC thestrals rather? Or maybe people just hate on McTrotnalds and their toys? I'm probably grasping at straws at this point.
4643221 Welcome aboard, brother!
4643062 Thanks for that.
I'm trying to figure that one out too.
4642839 Many thanks!
Hah! That's great to hear, man. Really, honor's mine if you thought enough of my stories to gain inspiration, or at least motivation, from them.
I dunno about SpikeXCoco. I was just sitting down to sketch up an idea for something involving Spike when I saw your reply pop up, but I won't say with whom he'll be shipped yet.
And hey! If you haven't seen it yet, I just put out a new romance this week. Big Mac X Berry Punch! Should check it out if you haven't.
This sort of reminds me of The devil is a Part timer, Only with out the Hero.
Looked at the summary and saw Sombra working at fast food. Already best not-evil Sombra fic based on that alone.
Sombra and Coco... Wow, I don't think I can think of a stranger ship.
4644539 Blackwing himself likes this. Are you the chosen one?
4644539 While I've seen plenty of authors announce when they were featured on their story's front page, I've also seen plenty who haven't. It's a choice of the writer, so if you do or don't want to put the 'featured' info it is fine either way. :)
4644539
More likely that it's the horrific thestral abuse than the McTrotnalds. When did the Third Reich start running Equestria? And what made them decide that thestrals were Jewish? Also, I could have sworn we chucked them out of power and killed their leadership. I was expecting some general bigotry but not the almost slave like status, all supported by the government to boot. Sorry, did I say slave? I meant trained animals... since they have to have 'handlers'. I damn near quit reading as soon as the collars were introduced.
4645794 I didn't realize anyone would react so strongly like that. I'm sorry you felt that way.
Still, that was a rather strong comparison, one most would take offense at. I don't know if it was necessary, especially on a public comments column. But ah well, freedom of opinions.
Oppression is a story element I make use of quite a bit. I always pit my protagonists against near-unsurmountable odds. The more hopeless the situation, the more tension's generated, the stronger the driving force behind the plot. It makes for pretty powerful rise-of-the-underdog rags-to-riches storylines. It makes it all that much sweeter when the protags finally give the oppressors a sock or two.
I think if you felt that strongly for the thestrals you may like where this story's going.
Also, no government is ever a single united entity. Equestria has two diarchs and a court of nobles, goodness knows what else. Thus far I've alluded to it being something driven by the nobility rather than the diarchy.
4645389 I don't know, am I? What have I been chosen for? The solid gold toilet bowl toilet humour award?
Just kidding, I feel honoured by each and every fave.
4645357 You can always ship a TimberWolf with a Phoenix? That'd be a pretty hot if very brief relationship.
4645316 Fast food makes everything better, even crack fics.
4645201 I need to look that up. Thanks for that.
4644615 Wriiiiiite iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Also, still need to read that. It's been sitting open on a tab all day now.
4646023 It may be worth adding an AU tag to this story, or even tweaking the description. I've seen down-votes probably due to mis-tagging on many stories. Leaving off a human or anthro tag will draw ire. Besides, as far as I know, 'bat ponies' are just the Nightmare Night costumes for Luna's charioteers; I've never been convinced they're actually a 'thing', despite being adorable.
For what it's worth, I was disgusted by the bigotry as well, (a healthy reaction) but I figured the point of this story is opposing oppression. That's an uplifting and heroic theme, so I'll read on. It's authors that wallow in depression and tragedy that annoy me, and you don't seem the type.
Still, why Celestia and Luna allow this will need an explanation at some point. As long as your Celestia isn't a fool, ignorant, or evil. Too many authors seem to lean that way, though maybe not intentionally.
I'm watching you now. I'll know whenever you post new stories. Beware.
Ware.
O.O
A bit of a random comment, but the first paragraph reminds me a whole lot of 'The Devil is a Part Timer,' an Anime series with a somewhat similar premise. Did that influence your writing at all or was it purely coincidental?
Either way, added to my list to read later. >_>
Thanks for the welcome. By the way, this is a really good story. Can't wait to read more of it.
I scrolled to the top when I hit Tavi, hit fave et alia
I look forward to the rest and coming chapters
I think my favorite part is the fact that Sombra is so absolutely clueless to the fact that he's a babe magnet.
Well, that, and the idea of Sombra working at a McDonalds equivalent reminds me of the series Hataraku Maou-sama!
In fact, a lot of this seems to be so inspired. You wouldn't happen to be a fan, would you?
Was gonna pass on this, but then I saw Bucking Nonsense's approval, and I would follow him to the moon. He is the master of feels.
I don't think he necessarily has to go all the way to a past life.
I keep getting this Buy N Large vibe from all the EverProducts around.
Something I should have noted in my last comment, I don't think that the fanatic racism toward batponies is really in the spirit of MLP. It just seems so... out of place compared to the rest of the pilot , which was tounge-in-cheek campy fun humor. Other than that, I think the first chapter was pretty good. I'll be awaiting moar.
Good to know Sombra invented fanfiction lol
Solid Work keep it up.
Wait, really? Is Sombra really that grade of eye candy for the mares? Uh, i get that he has the whole 'regal demeanor' thing down, and that he looks like he could do modeling now that he's been de-Evil'd, but no fewer than THREE mares seem to be practically stalking him and he's STILL oblivious?!? I'm not sure which I agree with more, that Sombra got the looks and da booty, or that he'd be oblivious to flirting. I still don't believe that he'd have quite THAT many admirers, however.
4650487
Well, he's got Big Macintosh's muscles (Compare them, and you'll note they've got similar heights and builds), the whole "Regal Poise' thing going on, and he has that 'Tall, Dark, and Handsome' thing that the ladies are known to go for. In addition, that obliviousness is part of the charm: For some ladies, a guy that actively seeks them out aggressively can be a turn off, but someone who seems oblivious to that kind of thing makes good husband material. After all, if he's oblivious to that kind of attention, that means that it would be unlikely that he would ever have an affair.
4650705
Fair enough. I still don't believe Octy would be so taken with him... then again, I have a severe addiction to VinylTavia shipping, so I'm a bit biased.
That was absolutely fucking awesome! I'm pretty sure you and I watched the same anime that had a hand in inspiring this little gem (you know the one) but that's okay! You're pulling this off fantastically and I can't wait for more.
Hmn, well this has potential.
A really good start! Can't wait for more!
please continue this so hard. I love the first chapter so much that it completely enthralled me.