The Kings Shadow

by Zandar13

The Cracked Reflection Of Darkness

Greymanes eyes were glued upon the lifeless body that lay before him, just outside the reflection of his mirror, the host of King Sombra, his original body before he carelessly threw it away. Although it was clearly his body, certain aspects of it had changed over the course of eight years, some of which he could not fathom considering his former life style. The main thing he noticed first was the fact that his mane had been cut and seemed to have been kept in fashion instead of being wild and uncut.

The second thing was that his body seemed to at one point become very muscular but had died down due to inactivity, but you could still see the former strength they once held at some time. Also, though a little to his amusement, was the little detail that he saw the hooves were particularly shiny and well managed. But one other small detail frightened him a bit as he glanced up to the mouth and though most were hidden, he could see that two of his former upper teeth had become fanged and pointy.

All in all, if it were not the fact that he just knew it was his body, he would of never of guessed that it actually was his to begin with. Yet again his mind just raced as he thought of questions upon questions that he wanted to ask but he could not find his voice as he stared blankly at Princess Celestia with the face of confusion. Fortunately the Princess was not blind and came to his aid with answers, the likes of which he did not expect.

“Though I believe that the full story will be for another time, I will give you a brief explanation as to why your body lies here and without a soul to carry it.” with a brief moment to gather her breath she continued “I do not know how long it was between his revival and his initial reappearance but roughly seven and a half years ago King Sombra had announced his return by attacking Ponyville having learned that the bearers of the Elements Of Harmony were living there and in his mind the one true thing he had to fear most”.

“Although he had the body of an earth pony, he still maintained his dark magic and had succeeded in slowly controlling the ponies of Ponyville to which he held captive as to assure that the elements would not interfere or else he would do many unspeakable things to them. I had heard of this when Twilight sneaked a message to me and I enlisted the help of my sister, Princess Luna, as well as Princess Cadance, and the reformed Discord as the counter-balance to his threat. We were left in a stalemate though he had secretly began forming an army of darkness through the creatures that inhabited the Everfree Forest”.

“Fortunately the stalemate did not last long, for after two months of planning we were surprised to hear a sudden report stating that the King had begun acting strange and had began to act kinder, still cruel but showed random outbursts of kindness to my.....to 'his subjects'. We continued our detailing our plans just in case but for the next month his shadowed grip had begun to loosen and reports continued to entail his strange new behavior. Some of which, along with the new kinder side, his body seemed to slack and he seemed to lack the energy to even simply move and performing even simple magic appeared to drain him”.

“It was due to his dark magic faltering that we were able to get a foothold within Ponyville and luckily for me the King had agreed to a peace talk. A week later we had finally sat down to talk and I saw that his eyes seemed distant and his body appeared to be barely walking and withered. For a brief moment I had felt sadness to see anypony in that state and much to my surprise he had asked me what was wrong with him. Though I was appalled to help, my curiosity got the better of me as to what brought on this sudden change of heart and character, so with permission I lowered my horn to his head to begin”.

“My scan of reveled that the body was in fact not his and he had taken the body and forced the original soul out and invaded with his own. It was due to this that his body began to reject the new soul and began to wither and tried to eject his soul out of the body and in doing so seemed to infect his own soul with the original characteristics of the original. I have never seen this sort of magic work before so I cannot fully explain in exact details as to the nature of this but if I had to venture a guess the body was trying to reject his soul and when it could not, it tried to reform the new soul to match the old one”.

With a slight pause Princess Celestia took a breather and seemed lost in thought, most likely to ponder about this again but she then slightly giggled and looked at Greymane with a smile “Forgive my laughter but I just thought of something quite amazing. I think it was due to the fact that you were so kind that your body continued to act out in kindness, even with an evil soul controlling it. You may think that it was your weakness that gave way to his evil, but I believe that is not the case”.

Celestia then placed her hoof upon the mirror and leaned forward slightly before saying “It was your kindness and heart that the King tried to control but you were too strong and it was you in the end that defeated him. You saved Equestria with your kind heart.” and with a kind smile she brought herself back up and replaced her hoof upon the ground and continued her story.

“Since I had discovered that it was the body rejecting his soul which caused the current body deformations and change in personality, I had informed him of this information to which he seemed to regain his old spark for a moment as his anger exploded. He began to spout at the nonsense that his dark magic would simply give way to a simple reason as that and for an hour his rage continued to spike but his new found kindness finally kicked in and he accepted his new bound fate”.

“With his acceptance he finally released his dark magic and allowed my ponies their free will as well as the creatures of the Everfree. He also gave himself up and allowed us to imprison him and stand trial for his crimes. Of which we did and he was declared that his soul shall be imprisoned for all time or that he allow his soul to burn out and die and forever leave the body he stole. It appeared that he was going to choose to die but in the end I think his evil core could not allow himself to die so he choose imprisonment”.

“With the verdict passed, Princess Luna and I began our banishment spell to remove his soul and place it within a crystal which seemed most appropriate as his jail. Once we succeeded we heard his voice begin to panic as he said “Wait! Before I leave I must tell you of Greymanes location, it was his body I stole and he.....and he” his voice had died out before we heard his evil laughter rise up and his evil self returned to say “and his soul shall remain trapped in the forest forever!”. With that final statement we silenced the crystal jail and I placed him in a place no one will ever find him”.

Celestia sighed as she breathed a short breath “It was with the mention of your name did our next journey began. I recognized it from a report that Twilight gave me after Discords invasion of Ponyville and I informed her of the Kings final words. We called a meeting and it was decided that we try and find your soul within the forest. But with no clue as to what to look for in the massive expanse of the forest, we could not find you. Until now”.

Greymane had soaked in all this information and before the Princess could say another thing, he asked “Before anything else Princess Celestia, I must ask. During his brief reign did he....did he.....(Gulp) did he kill anypony?” he finally asked with fear in his eyes.

Celestia quickly nodded no and looked back “No, your body did not kill anypony thankfully. Though any actions he did perform were all due to his dark magic and not you. You have nothing to worry about or to be blamed for. I promise you that Greymane” she said and ended with a warm and friendly smile that he had come to enjoy.

With a sigh of relief he simply smiled “Thank you, and one more question Princess. If he left my body so long ago then how is it....well....not just bones?” he nervously asked.

“That was due to multiple magic spells, mainly ice magic to preserve and keep everything...well...fresh so to speak. I had to make sure to keep it well so when we found you, we could return you to it. Though I do not know how it looks in comparison to how it originally was, I do hope it is how you remember it” Celestia said.

Greymane gave his limp body a quick look over “Well, it looks like the King made some adjustments but overall I look.....generally the same. Though I am a bit more muscular and those fangs look a bit bizarre” he offered with a nervous chuckle.

Both of them quickly looked at my still body as to make certain my words were true and after a little while they both looked back at me before Celestia spoke up “I see, well I would not worry too much about the fangs. Many races have fanged teeth and most are used to the sight, though you might be a bit of a rarity since you are not a pony of my sisters royal guards” she glanced over my body again and looked back at him and smiled “As for your new muscles, I think a few mares might be interested with your new looks” she said with a playful wink to which Greymane responded by turning red as a strawberry due to blushing.

Twilight had a slight blush as well as she could not believe she heard her mentor say that “B-b-but that won't matter much if we do not get him out of there Ce-celestia!” she slightly stuttered in a mixture of embarrassment and concern.

Celestia simply nodded “You are right as always Twilight. So are you ready Greymane?” she said.

Greymane slowly stood up and gave his mirror world one last look as he thought about everything before he turned to Celestia “So, how will this work? I mean getting me out and returning my soul to my body?” he curiously asked.

Before Celestia could answer a very excited Twilight with a mile wide smile bursted forth “Oh! Oh! Oh! Let me! (Cough) So basically what we are about to do is a two part spell. I will mainly be focusing on breaking through the mirror, which is actually a void in space confined into a reflective surface of the real world and the same mirror is also a bottle cap that allows your soul to stay confined in the bottle void area!”.

“The next part is the tricky one and Princess Celestia will be handling that part. Which is basically her using her magic to contain and grab your soul and keep it grounded while she removes you from that void and back into the main reality and slowly insert your soul back into your body! I've never seen such a feat of magic performed before, oh this is going to be so exciting and educational!” Twilight explained with a happy glee and bounce in her step before realizing that while exciting it was also dangerous for Greymane. With that thought she glided back down to the ground and coughed and slightly blushed before saying “That is basically what we shall do”.

Princess Celestia held up her hoof to her mouth and tried to block her laugh from seeing her student get caught up in her little moment before returning to the task at hand “It is as she said Greymane, but know that we both are quite gifted at magic. I also promise you that everything will be alright and we shall do everything within our power to return you home, safe and sound. Are you ready?” she asked with a warm smile to let him know that he could trust her words.

His answer was a simple nod and he closed his eyes and breathed in a good breath to prepare himself, to which he heard both of their horns begin to charge up with magic and with a slight spark of a horn he winced as he felt his body go numb and he slowly blacked out.

Celestia grasped his soul the instant Twilight had shattered the glass separating the two worlds and she gently glided his soul through the void as it collapsed behind him and melted into the ground and vanished. “Twilight, grab his body and gently move it closer to me” she asked to which Twilight nodded and obeyed. The lavender Alicorn once again charged her horn and made it focus on Greymanes body and gently floated it up and over as the blanket fell to the ground under it. She got the body to where she assumed Celestia had wanted it and slowly lowered it and place it on the blanket.

Once the movement was done Twilight glanced up and saw the golden glow around Greymane but she could see through his body 'So this is what a soul looks like outside the body' Twilight thought to herself before returning to the work at hand.

Celestia thanked Twilight and began working her magic to merge his soul back into his body, she carefully performed this since she had never done this type of magic before but what happened next surprised her. When the tip of his soul hoof touched his body his entire being vanished as it was sucked into he body and for a brief second his body flared to live and just as quickly went back to a neutral state. Both Princesses looked at the body and stared and hoped it worked.

After a few minutes of inactivity Twilight began to grow worried “Princess, is he....is he” is all she was able to get out before falling quiet. Celestia did not answer but she got closer and lied her head on his chest and listened for a few moments before smiling “Worry not, I hear his heart beating normally. He is alive” she declared. With that Twilight seemed to lose strength in her legs as she collapsed slightly to the ground in relief.

“How long do you think he will be-” Twilight began to ask before a load gasp erupted forth from the now lively body as it began to look around frantically and taking shallow breaths. Both Princesses arose to their feet and took a few steps back to allow him room to recover.

“Easy, easy. Just breathe Greymane, just breath” Celestia quietly said, like a mother trying to calm down her child and repeated those words again and again until she saw him slowly regain his senses and composure. After a few minutes of heavy breathing, he sat down and just stared at his hooves and around him and in a few moments he closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath through his nostrils and smiled. He kept his eyes closed and just breathed the same way before we saw tears start to form.

Both Princesses looked at each other in concern and were about to ask before hearing “I can feel. I can feel the suns warmth again. I can feel the air cool against my fur. I can smell the air and grass and the trees. I can hear the forest as the leaves fall and dance in the air before landing on the ground. I can feel the dirt under my hooves. I.....I.....I feel alive” he explained in a tone that was the happiest Celestia and Twilight had ever heard.

But just as soon as he said that his legs wobbled and he collapsed on to the ground, the two Alicorns quickly rushed to him to see if he was alright but they saw him smiling and breathing “Are you alright Greymane?” Celestia asked.

With a few more deep breaths Greymane spoke up “Ye-yes Princesses. Just a little (Breath) overwhelmed is all. That and I feel really weak all of a sudden” he replied groggily and slightly winded.

Celestia nodded and smiled “Yes, I suppose your body will be a bit in shock. We will get you to a hospital and get you some food and rest soon. Just relax and let us take care of you. Your home now”.

With those last words he gasped but just as quickly smiled faintly “Thank you Princess Celestia. Thank you Princess Twilight. Thank you both so, so much. Thank you” Greymane continued to thank them until he passed out but right before he did they both heard him say ever so quietly “Thank you for keeping your promise”.

Both Princesses simply smiled at each other and charged their magic for a three pony teleportation spell and in the blink of an eye all three left the forest and zipped to the hospital. The spot in the forest grew quiet once more but now a bright shine of light illuminated the area that once held the silent prison. Now it was just another spot in an endless forest, just a normal plain area that holds no importance and most likely never to be found again.

Author's Note:

Hey! Well now we know what happened to King Sombra, defeated by kindness by the very one he betrayed and tricked. But fear not, I think the King still has a few tricks up his sleeve to keep Greymane entertained. What will happen next? Read the next chapter and find out now!

Enjoy!!!