Moon against Shadow
Luna
As I catch my breath, absolute silence falls on the throne room. The usurper king stares me down, radiating a sense of calm confidence but apparently in no hurry to take action. I stare back at him, projecting my best aura of divine power. It doesn’t seem to faze him. Moments later, I break the silence.
“You allowed your ally to perish,” I say, my voice now echoing in an eerie fashion. “Why?”
“Can’t you guess?” he smirks.
“Because she was no longer of any use, and you have no wish to share power.”
He nods. “True. There’s also the fact that changelings could ultimately have no place in the new order of things that I will build. Ultimately their very nature is deception and manipulation. She would have betrayed me sooner or later, better to beat her to the punch.”
“New order? What new order?”
Sombra takes a small step forward. “Did you think I had no plans for what to do after disposing of you? That I am just some rampaging monstrosity out for blood?”
“What manner of nightmare realm would a pony like you forge?” I demand brusquely.
I want to keep him talking. Sombra’s kind have always enjoyed letting others in on the full magnitude of their supposed genius, and right now I could use a small break. I’ve flown across two countries, taken on an army of windigoes, blasted my way through golems and undead while dueling Sombra, and then taken on and slain a changeling queen and more than a few of her drones. The longer he babbles at me, the longer my body and magic have to recover. Against a foe of this magnitude, I want every advantage I can get.
The false king smiles. “No nightmare, princess. Not for any who lack your foolish weakness, at any rate.”
“You think me weak?”
“I think you and all your kin idiot weaklings,” he says. “Ponies have long had it in ourselves to claim dominion over this world and stride the land as its unquestioned lords and masters. Yet, under your rule not only have we not claimed the glorious destiny that could be ours, but our race has degenerated into pathetic weaklings incapable of dealing with the slightest of threats! Once our warriors and battle wizards were feared and respected across all the lands. Now they are the butt of every joke, easily brushed aside by anyone and everyone! As I proved so recently here.”
“So you’re going to kill us because you think we’ve weakened ponykind?” I snort. “Is that it? Is that your grand vision of an ideal society? Brutal warriors and merciless tyrants subjugating the rest of the world by force? Bah! Your rule would as unsustainable as it would be foolish! Only through friendship and kindness and harmony can this world be joined as one!”
“You once thought as I do,” he says.
“You lie!”
“Many millennia ago you and your sister, under other names, once carved out great dominions through force and intrigue, seeking to end the era of disunity left by Discord through conquest. Do you deny it?”
How does he know that?! We never even showed ourselves as alicorns, much less used our own names. During those days chaos reigned and warlord armies looted and burned at will. We had a duty to step in to stop the mortals’ bloodshed.
“Conquest for the sake of conquest was never our goal,” I answer him. “We sought only to bring peace in an era of anarchy and violence! And we seceded power once peace had been attained!”
“But many had to die for your vision to be realized, princess. You had ponies who sought to oppose unified kingdoms killed. You had vision for society and you did what you had to do to attain it. And did you not claim even more power in the end?”
Celestia and I took on power over Equestria when it became clear that with mortals at the helm a peaceful, unified, prosperous pony homeland would never come into being. The hubris and stupidity of mortals had already doomed the Lost Continent to its frozen grave and then nearly destroyed Equestria in its infancy. We could not sit back and watch any longer – even if the alicorn race was a pale shadow of its former self, our duties to others remained.
“Do not compare us to yourself, Sombra,” I hiss, stepping forward myself. “We have sought nothing but peace and happiness for our subjects. You offer nothing but war and slavery.”
“In any case, your deaths here will seal the end of the old order announce the rise of the new. And no matter what you think of that, there is simply nothing you can do to stop it.”
“Now you resort to juvenile taunts?”
“Revenge is a dish best served with an extra helping, my dear princess,” he begins walking towards me, but slowly, around the side. “I want you to know just how outmatched you really have been before you die.”
I start walking myself in tandem with him, going along the same general route but on the room’s opposite side. We slowly circle each other, eyes never breaking contact.
“How did you even do this?” I ask him. “You were slain centuries ago.”
“Very true,” Sombra nods. “I confess that the task was neither simple nor easy. The mere act of prying my spirit from the bleak void between life and death was extraordinarily difficult. Simply manifesting again as a powerless ghost was the work of more than one century. I could have been drawn into the afterlife at any time, sealed forever from returning to this world. But my spirit was strong, I refused to let go. And so, inch by painful inch, I dragged myself back to this world.”
“But you are hardly a ghost now.”
“No,” he grins. “I am not. Even once I was back here the work was not half-finished. What has happened these past few critical days has been the culmination of decades of work. Hiding in the shadows, spying on old enemies, seeking allies, pushing just the right buttons at the right time, setting up a war, and even…” here he pauses, as if savoring a crowning achievement. “Engineering an ascension.”
My eyes narrow. “You liar. A monster like you could never summon the purity and power to induce such a wondrous transformation!”
“No. But your niece could. The Crystal Heart heeded her call for power. All she needed was a push in the right direction.”
“Cadence would never heed the words of a black-hearted murderer like you!”
“Wouldn’t she?” he smiles knowingly. “She craved her husband’s restoration with a passion beyond words. She simply had to be given the right rituals at the right time, just as war drew nigh. From there she stripped her kingdom’s greatest defense for me. And with dear Shining Armor so new to his body and power, he could not hope to stand against me.”
“You mentioned the war. I take it you are responsible for that as well?”
“With some help from my changeling “friends”, yes. I taught them how to create an artificial abundance of crystals with the islands, I arranged for them to be found just when I wanted, and I arranged for the murder of the gryphons’ speaker. You would have been surprised to learn how many of the delegates there were changelings or under their control.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I needed the hatred and bloodshed to fuel my power. They were necessary preconditions for my return to flesh.”
“And the windigoes?” I ask as we continue to circle one another. “Do they know what you have done? Will they countenance such a betrayal of the changelings? Or are they too expendable in this plot of yours?”
“Of course they know. They knew from the beginning that we would destroy the fool Ecdysis and her brood. Even now, I think, they should be hunting down what changelings remain in the Crystal Empire. They are not creatures of deception like the changelings. They can be dealt with to destroy our enemies, and more the fool you for not realizing that before I did. They would have made formidable vanguards to your armies, as they will for mine.”
“They will destroy you, fool.”
“Oh, I doubt that. I will give them a feast richer than even the last days of the Lost Continent. In return they will help me.”
“You have no leverage over the ageless winter spirits. They will seek to consume you, in time. It is their nature to feed on hatred.”
“I have more dark magic at my command than any other being. And once I am done here, I shall have the sun and moon at my beck and call as well. They will honor their agreement. They will have no choice.”
“You will not prevail here, either.”
“Really? Because it seems to me that I’m on the verge of it now. I’ve killed or incapacitated every last alicorn in the world save you, and once you too are defeated I will be-”
Sombra is cut off by the massive lance of blue magic that slams into his chest. The fool gave me more than enough time to recharge, and now he pays the price.
The attack isn’t as effective as I’d hoped, but about what I expected. Sombra’s armor has arcane defenses built in, and that’s not even counting whatever spells he may have cast on himself. My magic hits his chest armor and explodes with enormous force, shattering the floor beneath and sending the false king flying backwards so hard that he outright smashes through the side of the palace. His smoking forms plummets into the distance, and I hurriedly invoke a protective ward over my sister before hurling myself into the air after him.
Sombra flies some distance before crashing into an ice-covered road hard enough to leave an impact crater and still roll a considerable distance. I commence dive-bombing at once, drawing on light magic to create a silvery-white sphere and drop it almost directly on top of him. The sphere explodes into countless streams of light that move to coil him up, only for a dome of red energy to impose itself instead. He’s faster on the uptake than anticipated – even the strongest unicorn should at least have been stunned momentarily by that kind of impact.
The false king rolls easily onto his hooves as my spell expends itself uselessly against his barrier, grinning wildly and seemingly unhurt. He jerks his head in my direction and hundreds of tiny black crystal shards tear themselves from the ground in a veritable hailstorm of pin missiles. I teleport at once, reappearing a good distance away, only for the shard-storm to immediately reorient itself and come my way again. This time, I stand my ground, allowing the swarm to draw closer and closer until the very last second. When they are all but on me I stomp my hooves at blistering speed, raising a towering wall of earth. I can hear the pitter patter of the missiles crashing into it at high speeds, expending their tiny charges of dark magic by the dozens and hundreds.
Guided by long instinct I whip I my head around at just the right instant to catch Sombra rematerializing from a smoky black cloud. I let loose a miniature lightning storm from my horn, but he just dissolves back into a gaseous cloud to slip around. I take the opportunity to plunge my horn into the snow. The moment Sombra reforms hundreds of frozen claws assail him from all angles. Dozens manage to get a grip, ice rapidly spreading across his body from every point of contact even as they struggle to pull him towards the earth. Yet again he surprises me by remaining on his hooves seemingly without difficultly, and a moment later breathes a cloud of noxious green flame that sweeps over the enchanted ice. The hands I conjured melt away to nothing, while the flames rear up into the form of a great wyrm of the east.
The monstrosity opens it jaws in a silent roar even as it lunges for me. I am more than ready, seizing the flame by force of will and molding it to my desires. The beast-form dissolves as the flames whip around my body, changing from green to blue. The stream of blue fire hurdles back at Sombra, who raises one hoof to conjure a wall of black in front of himself. There is an explosion and a great cloud of steam, but my eyes have no trouble piercing it. I give the false king another blast of lightning, this time connecting. His eyes squeeze firmly against the pain and his body shudders under the crackling electricity coursing through it. Seizing my chance I fire off a lance of silvery-white light magic at him. But the usurper king is again quick on the draw, physical body melting away into smoke before it can strike.
A moment later Sombra reforms at the top of the column of steam, which is rapidly becoming a tornado of sorts. Icy winds from the ongoing storm surge into to join the twister, before it abruptly shatters in all directions. Hurricane force winds throw me from my hooves and send me skidding back hundreds of feet, bouncing along the frozen streets as I go. It is slightly painful, but not particularly so with my armor and natural resiliency. Ironically, the supernatural ice itself proves an effective shield for the trapped crystal ponies and even the surrounding architecture. As rooted to the ground as they are and as quickly as the winds pass, they remain mostly untouched.
Even as I roll to my hooves, Sombra reappears atop a nearby homestead and flicks his head. A half-dozen massive black crystal spikes burst from the ground all around me, aiming to impale me from several different angles. But I’m already gone from the spot, and they catch nothing but one another. Materializing on high, I send a spell down not onto my enemy, but a area below him. A second later the ivy decorating the house’s walls explodes from the ice as rapidly-forming tendrils six feet thick. They rise up and plunge towards Sombra, who conjures a sphere of blackness about himself. The instant the enchanted plants touch it they crackle with energy, turn a much darker green, sprout random crystal shards, and race up towards me instead. I rear my head back, open my mouth wide, and snap it forward again to breathe a vast cone of blue flame. The fires race down the corrupted ivy towards its master, who promptly vanishes into smoke again. The plants burn away to their roots.
There are a few seconds of near silence before vast chunks of supernatural ice and whipping winds tear themselves from their course to race towards a rising shadow. The shimmering ice and inky blackness merge into one another and coalesce into an orb. This orb promptly explodes out, thinning itself and winding through the earth and sky in a manner combining flowing river with winding rope. The energy takes on more and more solid form as it trails along, manifesting a shimmering coat of silvery-black scales and a thick underbelly. As the fore of it rises through the air it grows a hood, a head, a mouth, and fangs. Vast green eyes larger than my own body stare up at me from a serpent twice the size of a full-grown dragon. It opens its titanic jaws and roars with all the fury of the damned, shaking the entire Crystal Empire and no doubt lands beyond.
I drop a big rock on it.
Alright, more specifically I reach through my primal connection to the moon while Sombra is putting on his big light show. In an act impossible for a lesser magician, I call an infinitesimal shard of my great sphere to come to my aid, warping itself through space to appear at my side precisely when and where I will it. That being when the snake is roaring, and directly above its head, respectively. Not as flashy as merging oneself with dark magic to create a city-eating terror perhaps, but I would argue infinitely more practical.
I watch with a grim smile on my face as the moon rock is caught in the planet’s gravity and plummets directly onto the snake’s head with all the force you would expect from a multi-ton boulder. Not only does it audibly snap the serpent’s neck on first impact, but it grinds the construct’s head into the ground hard enough to break supernatural ice and engineered crystal road alike, leaving a massive crater. The great beast twitches once, then lies still in the snow. It is… almost anticlimactic, really.
I slowly descend towards the freight train-sized corpse, keeping wary eyes on it. By all rights that should have killed him. But then, by all rights the usurper king should already have been dragged off to the afterlife to endure his rightful punishment. I approach cautiously, just in case this thing has a little more fight in it than it seems. As I make my way, my eyes start to pick out small wisps of black smoke hissing from between the scales of the great carcass. It pours out faster and faster, and then begins to coalesce once more. No! It can’t be! Not after a beating like that!
But it is. The inky smoke fades away to reveal the unmistakable armored grey stallion. What in all the blazes is going on?! How is he so durable?! If I didn’t know better I’d swear he was concealing wings underneath that armor!
Sombra, for his part, seems more than a little shocked, and is not immediately aggressive. Instead, he’s looking at one of his hooves.
“Astonishing,” he says in a half-whisper that my ears easily catch. “This flesh is even more resilient than I anticipated. Natural, or a result of the circumstances of its creation? What other surprises does it hold?”
Enough of this! I am done with this disgusting monster and all his black arts!
I hit the ground and rear back before unleashing a brilliant blue beam of pure power directly at the monster king. For all his seeming distraction, he immediately jerks his body to face me and returns fire. Blue and black energies meet at the midpoint between us. Just as it was with Ecdysis, Sombra and I are locked together.
It becomes immediately apparent that the king is stronger than the queen was. Granted she has already expended her best weapon to defeat my sister, but Sombra has been using quite a bit of magic as well. He should be worn out. No mortal unicorn should be able to access such power and then duel an ancient alicorn princess as we duel now. It’s just not possible!
But, apparently, it is. Sombra and I both grit our teeth and lock eyes as the two beams press against one another. For all that it shouldn’t be, the two appear to be almost equal in strength. One moment blue pushes black backwards a few inches or a foot, the next its black resurgent and blue being pressed back. The balance point between us remains firmly locked in the center, only shifting slightly for short periods towards one or the other.
Minutes pass in this fashion. Sweat drips down my body despite the cold as I call on every scrap of energy I possess. Here is the tyrant king, the source of all this misery and death. If I can slay him here, the Crystal Empire and more will be saved. Such is worth everything I have, and so that’s what I dedicate. I turn I can sense Sombra’ absolute, unflinching will to prevail here, to cast me down that his nightmare empire my rise. He too is giving it everything he’s got.
“You… cannot… beat me… Sombra,” I manage to hiss between heavy breaths. “I… am… stronger!”
Sombra is silent, for just a moment. His eyes flick upwards, then back to me. His mouth twists into a sharp-toothed grin.
“Don’t… need… to…”
I manage to glance up, just for a second.
Infinite infernal hells that is the biggest windigo I’ve ever-
Sombra
The princess glances. The spirit strikes. And it is over.
The magic between us fades away as the alicorn princess is consumed by the towering windigo’s magic, the very blood in her veins freezing solid beneath his breath. Utterly focused on me and with nothing left to defend herself or ever keep watch, she made an easy target. But even then it might not have been enough if this were not one of my greatest allies: Hoarfrost, a windigo of almost unmatched age and power. He is old enough to have joined the feast that ended the Lost Continent, and was one of the ones to follow the Great Migration across the seas, almost ending Equestria before it could begin.
He was very eager for a second chance.
Hoarfrost throws back his head and roars in triumph. When the powder fades and I see the result, I cannot help but laugh with elation. Princess Luna is frozen utterly, her face contorted into a delightful expression of shock tinged with fear. When I think back on this triumph in the centuries to come, it will moments like these I remember best.
And what a triumph it is! I’ve done it! After all these years, all this waiting and plotting and patience, I’ve finally done it! The alicorns are beaten, their power and pride laid low before me. The body I wear is stronger than anything I’ve had before, the energies taken from the Crystal Heart empowering it beyond anything even I expected. I am more powerful now than I have ever been, and very soon I shall become more powerful yet! No one, not Discord nor Harmony nor the gods themselves will be able to stop me!
I’m in such a good mood as I levitate my frozen quarry back towards my palace that I even consider sparing a hiding changeling I spot along the way. But then I reconsider and kill it with a casual bolt of lightning. Others, better concealed, fly off in all directions as its smoking corpse hits the ice. I feel so pleased that I don’t even care. Do what you will, go where you like, nothing will escape me in the end. Your kind is as doomed as the alicorns.
As I make my way up the stairwell and through the open palace doors, one thought occurs to me: This day has been just perfect.
Cadence
As time has passed, my emotions have slowly trickled back. Well, one emotion really: crushing despair.
I’ve lost. I’ve lost so utterly and profoundly that I don’t know if even the hells themselves could impress it on me more. I’ve failed at everything. I’ve failed as a ruler. I set the Crystal Empire up for Sombra and his changeling witch just as surely as if I’d handed over the throne and the heart personally. Out of wishful thinking I acted the fool and so received my due reward in this dungeon. But why do others have to suffer?! What justice is there in punishing my kingdom and family for my mistakes?! I could have spared them with a little caution but failed to do so. I’m not worthy to wear a crown.
Twilight, I failed you. I’m sorry for being so stupid. I should have recognized an impostor, should have done something to save you. Where are you now? Are you even alive? Do you even want to be? I’m sorry.
Shining… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Everything that’s happened to you, from beginning to end, has been my fault. I blackmailed you into centuries of suffering out of my own neediness, and then when I sought save you I damned you instead. As assuredly as all this has damned my own soul. I’m… I’m… I’m…
Huh?
What’s that?
My ears perk up. Even from here, I can hear something. It sounds like… a scuffle. There’s screeching, hissing, the sound of magic, and then what sounds like shattering.
And then somepony pounds on my cell door.
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I don't know who the hell that is, but let's see this happen.
Time to shut down Sombra, Cadance. Save your husband? We can only hope.
dramatic chord
I'm guessing this is the changelings, turning on their former ally after his betrayal...
I expect it's Twilight, recovered somehow, as she just blasted through some changelings.
6349935 i'm guessing it is celestia after some healing magic of hers (probably looking for twilight)
6350022 yee im pretty sure twilight is dead at this point in the story, i mean changelings didn't need her and sombra wants every alicorn to be dead, (he had no use for her, and keeping her alive would be utterly pointless)
also quick question to author, from few comments i've read i get feeling that celestia you displayed is generally disliked by readers (i don't really get why) i would love to read your opinion on her
6351584
If Celestia had recovered, I don't think there would have been sounds of a scuffle before a knock. I think there would have been a flash of light, maybe a brief, cut-off scream, and then the door would have been disintegrated.
6351584 - Possibly, but it seems, like any cliche villain... that the Changeling Queen likes to gloat. They had rendered Twilight completely immobile, but I doubt they killed her right there and then, as smart as that would have been. They didn't kill Cadence off either, though Alicorns do seem to be fairly tough to completely kill off...
Sombra will probably kill them in short order if he's able, though for some reason he didn't finish Luna off (assuming she can revive after being frozen through... which I actually expect given their regenerative powers).
6352217 - i re-read chapter "return of a king" and i must say that indeed twilight is alive (how could i miss that), he keep candace alive because he wants to make a new host of her foal, as for luna i don't really know why he keeps her alive (maybe it's for the same reason he is keeping twilight).
6351819 - there is no flashes of light because healing can drain almost all magic(we did seen what it did to cadence) so celestia had to resort to more direct actions, it's why we hear scuffle(i'm confident in her ability to beat few golems with bare hooves)
now that twilight is alive and changelings are betrayed maybe they will pick offer princess of friendship gave them (they really dont have any other option now that their queen is dead), so.. all hail twilight sparkle the princess of friendship and new queen of the hive, anyone?
6353184
Fair enough; but if Celestia is already mobile again, then she'll just need a half hour or so to recover enough to be able to finish off Sombra (and Shining in his body) once and for all. There'll be far more dramatic tension if this is either the Changelings or Twilight... and yes, changeling queen Twilight does sound like a good idea right now...
i am truly sorry, i dont know why i made this post, it was some unholy whisper in my ear that told me to do it.
today i have been struck by brilliance, and i saw the bigger picture, my lips quiver and spell three simple words "fate is bitch" then i shed a tear of true pain and joy, when my heart skipped a beat i knew it all, i've seen the similarities, the events of past, i've piece them together and i knew at last.
can't wait for more
Edit 8/21/2021: