• Published 17th Feb 2015
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Sombra The Highly Unmotivated - naturalbornderpy



When sent through a human's toaster after his defeat, Sombra craves his revenge. Seven months later, he doesn't seem all that interested.

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Later (Bonus Chapter)

Author's Note:

I'd originally planned to write a very short (1K) extra chapter and release in on my birthday mid-January, basically just as a present for myself. When a few more ideas climbed atop the original, I decided to write a longer chapter and finish it off before I forgot it.

So here's some (mostly) innocent fluff just for the hell of it. Enjoy. :twilightsmile:

It’d come to my attention recently that Sombra was a manipulative little shit. Hard to say why it took me four months plus a week after Steve kicked the bucket to finally realize that, but now the evidence had become too clear to ignore.

What worked best was when I reminded myself of all the negative things he’d done throughout his life. Like that he’d been a king at some point, overseeing others and directing slaves and armies to march to war. Not to mention that continued fascination of his with death and gore and terrible jokes.

It was just so hard to remember these things when he had that Pringles can stuck to his muzzle again. How could someone so mischievous be so dumb? Hell, he probably thought the exact same of me.

“Greg?” Sombra asked, his voice muffled from the can. “It’s… it’s happened again.”

I sighed and reached over to him on the couch, one hand on his horn and one hand on the can. One pop noise later and the furry mass murderer was free once more. Murderer. I had to keep using words like that to remind myself of who I was dealing with. Sociopath. That was another good one. If only the terms lazy, sweet, fluffy, and thoughtful didn’t spring to mind at nearly the exact same time.

***

I looked at Susanne across the dinner table and took a pull from my beer. “You see Fluffy Butt lately?” I asked.

“Nap Master?” she replied with a snort. “Nope. But I’m not surprised. He rarely shows up when he knows it’s my turn to cook.”

I nodded and leaned back in my chair. Months ago I’d called a family meeting, if anyone could call our little arrangement a family: the wife, myself, and our pet pony. I laid out my idea to the other two that we had to start eating better and actually start using the expensive dinner table in the kitchen every little while, Susanne and I alternating as the family cook every night. Sombra raised a hoof and asked what day of the week he’d be in charge of. I laughed. He didn’t. Since then, every Friday had been Sombra day. Also, takeout night.

“I think he’s updating his blog,” Susanne informed me at the table. “You ever read that thing? I think he expects us to.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’d imagine he would. And sadly, I’m stuck in control of most of it.”

Susanne cocked a brow. “Care to elaborate?”

“Remember in Steve’s will about us taking the house and the money as long as we take Sombra, too?”

She nodded. “The Sombra Stipulations. I’ve read them over as much as you have. Sombra’s got those pages laminated and framed above his bed. Or… the couch he still calls a bed.”

“One of the agreements was that he remain ‘happy’ and ‘content’ while in our care, or the closest thing to that. Now he’s releasing his inner most thoughts onto the Internet for just anyone to read.”

Susanne smiled thinly. “I take it by your bitterness that the ‘Internet’ doesn’t exactly like Sombra’s everyday musings?”

“Right-o. Or sort of. They may like his one- or five-star no bullshit reviews on movies, but his actual supporters are very far and few in-between. Most know him from that book of Steve’s and all the shit he’d done in Equestria. Also, from all those infamous talk show appearances and those select few that just hate ponies in general.”

“Sombra’s blog getting a lot of bad comments, then?”

I whistled. “Try bad forums worth of comments. Not to mention web pages linking to the blog; comments in all capitals with exclamation points; full blown video responses.”

“Even Sombra doesn’t deserve that.” She grimaced. “How’s Sombra holding up?”

I finished off another portion of my beer, hopeful to wash away some of the more elaborate insults aimed at Sombra. “He’s fine. Actually, he’s just peachy. Since I was the one that set him up with the site, I’m also the one that controls it, so to speak. He knows how to write and update and that’s about it. And post fan art, as little as he gets. Everything else is left to me. Including comment culling.”

“Deleting only the bad comments, Greg?” she spoke as she carried the dishes to the sink. “Aren’t you a big sweetie. But you must realize that by doing that for him, you’re just sticking him inside a bubble—a bubble safe and sound from anything even remotely negative.”

With a hand, I indicated the kitchen around us—the dark marble countertops, the stainless steel fridge and separate freezer, the restaurant-sized oven and grill, the thirty piece knife set and butcher’s block. “You wouldn’t consider this a bubble of sorts? A bubble Steve trapped us in with his very deep pockets?”

Susanne turned away from the sink. “We’re not trapped, Greg. We travel. We have fun. We enjoy life. We’re only able to enjoy an easier life than most thanks to what Steve left you.”

“He left me a never-ending pony project is what he did.”

“He left us a pet. A sweet one, too. You’re honestly going to sit there and tell me you haven’t warmed up to him since he stopped moping about? It’s clear he’s changed since we’ve moved in.”

I thought on that.

“And I don’t think you’d be spending so much time clearing out Sombra’s blog unless you cared about him at least at bit.”

I pointed a finger at her. “That’s called survival, Susanne. Three weeks ago, remember how gloomy he was? How irritable? All that because someone called him ‘fat’ online.”

“That is rather mean.”

“P-H-phat. They actually thought he was cool. They also might’ve been a skinhead, but let’s not get sidetracked here.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’ll be as nice to Sombra as long as Sombra is nice to me. Simple as that. I’m just not buying everything he’s selling. He wants more ice cream, he ain’t getting it. Sombra Stipulation No. 64: Don’t feed him too much junk food. Sombra Stipulation No. 2: Don’t let him die. He might get all pouty and teary eyed without his sweets and pretend to miss Steve all of a sudden, but shit like that, I just won’t buy anymore. Not from him. He’s a source of income and that’s that.”

I crossed my arms to show how serious I was. My wife did the same, only she added a head tilt to the pose.

“Is that why I found you and him napping together so peacefully in the living room again today? What have you been calling him lately? Fluffy Butt the Nap Master?”

I felt my cheeks flush. My failure to answer must’ve said enough.

I really didn’t think she saw that, I thought dourly.

Since I had no defense in the matter, I polished off the rest of my beer and threw the can in the trash. Susanne playfully patted my stomach where I stood.

“I was gonna warn you about drinking too much, but I can’t say that seems to be a problem. You start exercising when I haven’t been looking?”

I paused, putting a hand on top of hers. “Walking around the house, if you could call that exercise.”

She tipped me a wink as she strolled out from the kitchen. “Keep it up. But maybe less naps with Sombra, hmm?” she japed.

I laughed dryly and ran another hand through my hair. It seemed fuller for some reason—the few strands of grey around the temples not as noticeably as before. But I wasn’t about to question good fortune.

On the way out from the kitchen, I took a quick glance at the couch in the living room.

Stupid fluffy Sombra.

***

The title “Fluffy Butt the Nap Master” wasn’t just some random term that happened to tickle my fancy. It had developed slowly, over the course of a couple weeks, when I would say I was at my all-time laziest.

It was inevitable, I must admit. Given several lifetimes worth of cash, a house with ten times as many rooms as were needed, and with no jobs to devour our time, there was not much else to do besides become one with the pony we were supposed to keep entertained. During the mornings, Sombra would play one of his many video games, yelling at the poor teenager on the other end that had trouble speaking English. Then he’d eat a lunch big enough to make him fall asleep.

It was usually when Sombra napped that I’d toil away on my laptop or read a book. If neither of those interested me much, the midday sun shining through the windows was just warm enough to want to sleep under. And, yes, I know that’s what cats do. Maybe that was the issue with preparing Sombra’s lunch everyday, as that usually meant I ate the same thing. And every time I strolled around the kitchen and cooked, that little black pony would sit on the barstool against the island and ask how my sex life was going.

It was moments like these that reminded me Sombra had the ability to live forever. Was he already trying to secure the next poor soul that would take care of him until they weathered away and died? What a terrible thought that was. My whole bloodline screwed, basically. Maybe I’d rethink that vasectomy idea again. Unless Sombra had the ability to reverse it somehow

With my hands propped under my head on the couch, I fell asleep. An hour or so later, I pried open my eyes and managed to hold in a scream by sheer will alone.

Dead ahead of me was Sombra’s snout, less than an inch away from my nose. His tongue lolled out between his teeth and his eyes were closed. The first thought that came to mind was being eaten alive while I slept, but that soon sailed out the window. It wouldn’t make sense. I was too important to him. I made him lunch and could reach things on the top shelf. My second thought was a far more abstract one.

King Sombra the cuddlier?

It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities. He’d softened up quite a bit during his time with Steve and his impulses for global takeover had effectively been dropped by the wayside. Had Sombra become a big softy since living here?

Truthfully, it didn’t matter. It was still plain weird.

Using the arm not pinned underneath me, I gave his shoulder a shove until he faced the other direction. Once he was near the edge of the couch, I stopped. I didn’t want to throw him to the floor and sour what relationship we had. But the moment I stopped shoving him, the pony scooted backed up until his back was pressed against my chest.

That little shit. That stupid fluffy little shit.

He was practically a portable heater—a furry one, granted, but a heater. A heater that ate Captain Crunch right out of the box and refused to make a new pot of coffee if he took the last cup. I sighed, admitting defeat for the time being. In front of me, Sombra snored on, or at least pretended to. Wrapping my arm around the big softy, I gave his chin a quick scratch and then continued on with my nap, promising myself this would be a onetime thing.

Sombra chuckled quietly.

***

On the laptop in my office, I reviewed the latest comment on Sombra’s blog and sent it to the bin. A comment about finding Sombra’s “Top Ten Best Couch Cushions” far more digestible than his “Top Ten Torture Tools You Need To Try This Winter.” Before I could move onto the next one, Susanne popped her head into my office.

“Get the email?” she asked flatly. “Or the invitation, I mean?”

I clicked out of the blog. “I haven’t checked, but I’m sure it’s there. What movie are we on again?”

“Can’t remember. Lost count around number thirty-six.” She frowned. “How long are we supposed to keep this up?”

“Until Sombra grows bored of it.”

“He’s not the type that gets bored easily.”

“I’ve come to notice that.” I scooted out my office chair to face her. “But what’s the harm? Sombra likes films, so he picks out a series and we watch them together. A guy like that has all the time in the world, so he’s just trying his best to eat it up. At least he doesn’t like trash. Or… complete trash.” I smirked. “One movie a night won’t kill us. And he sets them up for us.”

“He had the basement turned into a theater just to watch films with us.”

“You’d rather it be converted into a dungeon?”

She didn’t laugh. I thought it was funny.

I smirked. “But the popcorn’s nice.”

“Can’t say the same about the pony handing it out, though.”

Later that night, Susanne and I descended the stairs to the house’s far too big basement. Along the hallway that fed to the theater was a series of framed movie posters, some from films over a hundred years old. We exited the hallway and entered the “Snack Lobby” portion of the place. Before, I’d tried to force the word ‘concession’ into Sombra’s head, but it never stuck. Each time I entered the “Snack Lobby” I still had to suppress my giggles as I strolled up to the counter and made an order.

Sombra stood behind the counter with his hooves resting along the top. Around his torso, he had on a button-up vest and nametag reading: “K. Sombra”. The one time I asked him about a hairnet, I was pretty sure he tried to spit in my popcorn bag when I wasn’t looking.

Regardless, it was cute. A little creepy, too.

I was almost certain he’d gotten the idea of building a personal movie theater after watching a repeat of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Why he wanted to hand out snacks before the show and play dress up was still anyone’s guess. Was he trying to show a softer side of himself? A nicer side? Or had living for so many years by then just scrambled his brains beyond repair, leaving him a lonely, desperate, and sad individual, highly dangerous and deranged?

Important questions could wait. Buttery popcorn came now.

I placed my hands on the counter. “Hi, Lloyd. Little slow tonight, isn’t it?”

Sombra furrowed his brows. “What? What are you talking about? Greg, it’s me. Sombra.” He pointed at his nametag to prove it.

A swing and a miss.

I sighed and raised two fingers. “Two popcorns. Two pops. And did you ever get any candy besides Fuzzy Peaches in stock?”

He glanced at the glass counter below—the one loaded end to end with dozens of bags of Fuzzy Peach and nothing else. He set the popcorn and pops on the counter. “But I like Fuzzy Peach, Greg.”

“But that doesn’t mean that everyone does.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Because not everyone likes the same things as you.”

“Why not?”

“Because….”

When it became clear I was confusing him, I dropped the subject and grabbed our snacks off the counter. Instinctively, I shut my eyes and waved the smoke from the air, knowing for a fact that Sombra had teleported into the theater ahead of us. Every time it played out the same. Give out snacks and then be the first to grab their seat. For mostly juvenile reasons.

Most home theaters I studied online had anywhere from five to twelve seats. Ours had only three, seated in the very center of the room and staring up at the twelve-by-ten foot screen on the wall. Already, Sombra had claimed the middle seat, a large tub of popcorn in his lap. He watched us enter and take our seats on both sides of him, then clapped his hooves three times together to kill the lights.

On the screen, the thirty-seventh James Bond adventure started to play and I settled into my seat. For the longest time, I just couldn’t get my damn cup into my cup holder.

Sombra levitated a kernel into his mouth and turned to me. “You think they’ll finally get him this time? No one can stay this lucky forever. They just can’t.”

I lightly patted his head. “You never know, bud. You never know.”

Actually, I did know. For a fact.

If over a hundred years of James Bond lore had taught me anything, it was that the odds of James Bond dying by the end of one of his own films were highly suspect. Too bad what Sombra liked most about the films were their villains and little else.

Goldfinger. Blofeld. Silva. Jaws. Oddjob.

Not to mention his personal favorite baddie of them all—Christopher Walken as the batshit crazy Max Zorin from A View to a Kill. Zorin laughed. He gunned people down in cold blood while laughing. Then he fell off a bridge and laughed some more. To Sombra, that was what real villainy was supposed to look like; giggles and death and plain insanity all around.

I could still remember Sombra almost in tears when Zorin’s plan failed, hiding his face behind his pop. “He was so young,” I heard him squeak out. “He had so much more villainy left to do! And then that stupid Bond had to come ruin it all! Hasn’t he ruined enough villains’ careers by now? When will someone put a stop to him once and for all?”

To console the bastard, I gave him what popcorn I had left. Then I told him that every time a new actor took on the role of Bond, it meant a villain had actually done away with the suave figure and he’d had to be replaced. At that Sombra smiled, before demanding a copy of Bond’s demise. Hopefully by now he’d forgotten I’d ever mentioned it.

By the time I found my cup holder again, I tried to focus on the film. It was one of the newer ones, less than twenty years old and with at least ten percent of the cast filled by ponies. Not any large roles, mind you. In this particular film, one of the henchmen was played by a stallion called Iron Hooves, who bucked just about anything or anyone that happened to get in their way. In the opening action sequence, Bond got his ribs broken by the dastardly pony and spent the next three months holed up in a hospital, piecing together the beginnings of the mystery he was bound to solve over the course of the film.

When Iron Hooves struck Bond and sent him reeling off the building he was on, Sombra almost spilled his popcorn in surprise. He snapped his head back and forth between Susanne and me, clapping his hooves together childishly. “I think this is the one, Greg! Bond’s going to die this time, I guarantee it!”

I left him to fantasize. Whether I said anything or not, his dreams would be crushed in time. I turned to him to see what he’d do next, but already he was leaning his head against my wife’s arm, letting her other hand scratch at his head.

It was clear why he always wanted the middle seat.

If only his slaves could see their King now.

***

That night after the film, I spent a good ten minutes in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to pop a pimple that had arrived in the center of my forehead and refused to go away. Disgruntled, I washed my face until it hurt and made a mental note to cut out the crap—sugar, grease, whatever Sombra was hungry for that day.

A dozen steps towards our bedroom later, I stopped and listened to a voice in air. Even from all the way down the hall, I could hear Sombra writing again. And by writing, I didn’t mean he was scratching his pen loud enough to make a noise or mashing his keyboard until it broke. Rather, Sombra was the type that liked to talk as he wrote—most likely from all that time spent as a monologue-crazed tyrant.

Honestly, it hadn’t been my intention to eavesdrop. If Sombra had been updating his blog, I would’ve just turned around, crawled into bed, and called it a night.

If only he hadn’t had said that name.

“I… uhh… hope things are going well, Steve,” I heard him speak. “I’m not sure what kind of accommodations you have up there, but I could always send you some money if you really needed it. Maybe get away from all those gross, poor dead people and into the richer neighborhood. It shouldn’t cost much and I still have lots. But I guess it’s your money, though. Were you able to bring it up there with you? I’m still not sure how this whole death thing works on Earth. Everyone I ask online seems to have a very different answer for me. Most think the place I’ll wind up in will be someplace hot. That’s fine, though. I’m sick of snow.”

I stood silent outside his door, a lump in my throat. The door had been left ajar and I could see Sombra sitting at the edge of his couch, a piece of paper and pen under his head. He spoke as he moved the pen with his horn.

“Today was fine, I guess. We had tacos for dinner and Susanne made them. But I guess you already knew that, having watched her make them. Can you see everything up there? That’s what Susanne says, although it’s hard to believe. That also means you’re a pervert, Steve. Stop being a pervert. What I do on my throne is between me and my throne.” He paused and thought about what to write next. “Is Luna up there? I’d feel terrible if she was and you had to deal with her. Although if you do see her, could you kick her in the shin for me? Oh, who I am kidding. Luna would never be admitted up there. You’d be where good ponies go.”

In the gloom of the hallway, I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

As a grieving exercise months ago, Susanne had shown Sombra the simple art of letter writing—telling him that channeling one’s grief into a mock letter to the deceased could help ease the pain. What she failed to mention was that the letters were never meant to get mailed at all… and would actually never reach those you were writing to.

Such a long while later and Sombra still had no idea—all those letters to Steve remained locked away in the drawer of my desk. Excuses why Steve hadn’t written back were becoming much harder and harder to come up with.

Deep in my own thoughts, I completely missed a chunk of what Sombra wrote next.

Through the door, I could see his eyes start to water. “I really miss you, Steve. You were my only friend in the world and then you left me. You just left and you didn’t even ask if you could. The answer was no, Steve. That wasn’t part of the plan. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” He hitched it a breath. “I thought we were friends….”

I gripped the edge of the door, prepared to push in and console him when I was once again stopped by his words.

“Although… I don’t really mind those idiots you stuck me with. Greg and Susanne, I think. I guess they can stay here, as long as they don’t get in the way.” He ran a leg under his eyes. “Do… do you think they like me, Steve? I’ve been trying to be nice, I really have, but it’s hard. I was able to insult you and you just took it in stride. Greg… he’s not as witty as you. Or as sarcastic. He doesn’t insult back.”

Only in my head, I thought.

“We have movie nights now, and sometimes we even have dinner together. It’s nice. It’s… I really hope they stay. And before you start to worry, I promise I’m not going to make the same mistake as I made with you. I’ve learned a lot since then and I think this time it’ll work. So, sorry, but that means you might not be seeing Greg up there for a while.”

The hard lump in my throat began to slide down towards my gut.

Sombra nodded to indicate just how serious he was taking all this. “I don’t want to be left alone, Steve, so I’m going to make Greg immortal, too. Only this time, I won’t screw it up. The problem with you was that I tried to make you immortal and remain that way, but all that did was slow your aging by the tiniest bit. With Greg, I’ve instead reversed the aging—day by day, month by month. I’ve even made him a little healthier, too.”

I grabbed at my diminished gut. So that’s where my love handles and grey hair went, I thought, even as a large part of me wanted to do anything besides just act casual.

“It all has to do with body contact,” Sombra continued, far happier than he’d sounded minutes prior. “Whenever one of them goes to sleep, I just curl up beside them and reverse the aging process without them knowing. It’s simple, really, once you know what you’re doing. And I don’t think they’ve caught on yet.”

And that would explain Sombra’s sudden cuddly nature.

It was all clicking into place—into horrible place. Now the one question that remained was if a stern talking-to would do the trick or if Susanne and I had to pack up and find a motel before we wound up becoming fully functioning babies by accident one morning.

“Can you keep a secret, Steve?” Sombra asked the room, glancing at a framed picture of Steve and him in Disney World next to Mickey Mouse. “I’m really hoping to surprise him. Greg, I mean. I’m thinking about turning him into a unicorn. I’ve even done a few tests on some rabbits I found outside. Growing horns is pretty easy, actually.”

I touched the pimple on my forehead, praying it was only part of the de-aging process and nothing else.

“I think it would be fun,” he continued. “We could both be unicorns and live forever and hang out a bunch. Do you think Discord could help with that? I know half my blog’s dedicated to my severe loathing towards the fellow, but… he still might, right? If he had nothing better to do?” He sighed. “Maybe I’ll give Greg a tail first and see how he likes it. I think it’s his birthday’s coming up next month.”

By then, I’d heard enough. Actually, far beyond enough. On numb legs, I crept back into my room and slid into bed beside Susanne, my eyes as wide as they would go.

She put her book down when she noticed me shaking. “Something wrong?”

How could I put this delicately?