To the Crystal Empire
Dear Diary,
If anything good came out of that imprisonment it was that I had time to think. I'd been doing it wrong all along, instead of charging the heart with love I should have completely drained it, then corrupted it. So far this is only a theory, as I couldn't test it while under millions of tons of ice, so far the empire still isn't back to how I like, but hopefully I can test this new theory soon.
How could this have happened? Sombra was stuck below the Arctic ice, angry and freezing, and the princesses, they cheated! He didn't have any super powerful magic artefacts... not yet at least. When he got out of this icy prison he would have to steal them, the look on Celestias face would be precious as be blasted her to pieces, and using her own weapons no less. Luna won't really prove to be a problem, if her going down after being hit by one mine was any indication. Celestia or himself would have simply shrugged it off and carried on. If the fair ruler of Equestria had actually battled fairly he may have had a chance at winning, at the very least she would have been extremely sad at the loss of an empire.
10 years later...
Ten long years he had been trapped down here, slowly losing his mind. Sombra did not know how long this would last, but he knew for sure he would survive it and bring Celestia to her knees, or just kill her. After thinking, Sombra could have prepared better for the assault by perhaps using a shield or two around the empires border; even so he wasn't sure if he'd be able to create a shield to hold back two princesses and an army.
Year 102 of imprisonment...
By Starswirls beard how long had she banished him for? After 102 years Sombra was getting ever more erratic, often falling into fantasies of killing thousands of armies with a single thought. When he had first been sent here he hadn't liked how dark it seemed, but now... it was like he and the darkness were becoming hard to tell apart. Sombra simply put this down to him going insane, but what if that wasn't the reason for this happening.
Year ??? of imprisonment...
Sombra was in the ice, as he had been for many years. He wasn't even sure how long he'd been here now, he had lost count long ago, he also no longer cared. Sombra had started running out of energy a while ago, energy that stopped his conciousness from fading. His solution for this was to go into magically induced comas to save energy, this was a good idea to begin with but when he used them he suffered constant nightmares, all of them involving Celestia killing him, sometimes with those gems, sometimes without, either way they were unnerving all the same. All he wanted was for this to end...
Year 999 of imprisonment, 2 minutes until release...
Sombra awoke from the nightmares he had to endure to stay alive, but why? He hadn't woken himself up so what had happened? Suddenly a large fissure opened up in the ice above him, sunlight flooding in. Sombra roared in agony at being exposed to light after so long, before he had time to adjust some unseen force began forcefully dragging him up towards the surface. In a blind frenzy to escape the pain Sombra actually attempted to fight it and go back down, to no avail. When on the surface he realised what he thought had been sunlight was just light from the moon, he shuddered as he imagined how painful the sun would have been.
After waiting a couple of minutes for his eyes to properly adjust, Sombra finally had the opportunity to look around, first of all realizing that he was just a shadow, that was new and could take some getting used to, with any luck it's only temporary. As for the surroundings... Sombra let out a load groan as he realized the snow was back, while his empire had no snow, he couldn't stand the snow around the empire, it reflected Celestias sun back at him too much. He would deal with that later but for now he needed to reclaim his empire, all that could be seen of any significance was a large purple bubble in the distance, it looked about the size of his empire. Wait, what if Celestia beat him there? Looks like this would be more difficult than had been expected, the heart brought the empire back before him for some reason.
Sombra found he could move significantly faster in his shadow form and his magic was starting to return; as he got closer to the empire he started feeling something putrid, love. This seems to be a lot worse than expected. Upon reaching the bubble, which was helpfully translucent, he could confirm it was his empire but at the same time it wasn't... not any more. The entire empire had reverted to pale blue crystal, only significant amounts of love would have been able to remove his hold on the area so what was generating it now? Might as well find out, Sombra thought right before running straight into the shield, it would also seem his brain wasn't working properly yet. Quickly he conjured a simple scanning spell to check the shield for weaknesses, surprisingly it had more weaknesses that a house made of hay, to him anyway. Sombra focused on one of the weaknesses and forced it to grow larger, an area of the shield visibly darkening. He only managed to make a small weakness but he compressed his shadow form, a curious sensation, and passed through.
The empire was silent, it would seem his soon to be slaves were asleep. Everything looked just as it had before he took over, well everything except the white unicorn and pink alicorn standing on his balcony staring at him, whoops. Wait, an alicorn? Both the unicorn and the alicorn teleported what looked to be 400 metres to the empires border, Sombra was surprised they had done so as even he wasn't capable of such a feat. He could now see that the unicorn had striking blue hair of three shades and a shield cutie mark, he must have been the one who created the shield, well he wasn't very good at his special talent. The alicorn on the other hoof was bright pink with a mane of cream, purple and pink. And her cutie mark was a... Crystal heart? This meant she represented love in some respect, then this was very, very bad. Although a quick glance at his former castle showed the crystal heart wasn't connected underneath, so they hadn't found it yet.
"Who are you?" the white one started,
"Did it really only take 1000 years for you to all forget me?" Sombra replied as he expanded himself to look more intimidating, his burning green eyes lock onto the white unicorn.
"I'm afraid I don't know who you are, I am Shining Armor and this mare here is my wife Cadance," He said gesturing to the alicorn, "We mean you no harm and simply wish to speak to you."
"On what grounds do you wish to speak with me, peasant?" Sombra replied harshly.
"Please can you just tell us who you are," the pink one finally spoke, "We simply want to know why you came here."
"Well then, if you truly wish to know why I came here, I came here to ground you two into dust and take back my empire" Sombra stated while forcing his eyes to burn even brighter, the purple smoke trails now going back three metres.
"Wait you're..." the one named Shining began.
"Yes?"
"K-King Sombra?" he stuttered back, Sombra loved the fear that was emanating from him.
"Oh so you do know who I am, I had almost lost hope."
"You're the one that caused years of suffering for the crystal ponies?" the pink one stated confidently, was she stupid?
"Yes I am, and I also had a lot of fun doing it wouldn't you know."
After this last remark a spell began to appear on her horn, did she think she could hurt him. Apparently she could as a beam of blue light shot out from her horn and was absorbed by his shadow form, what she fired was painful and felt like... concentrated love? How was this possible? Still questions could be asked later as Sombra made a beeline for the weakness he had opened, that was also getting smaller. He only just managed to get through as the annoying pink one shot him again. Sombra didn't even pause until he was clear by at least 1000 metres, looking behind him, the shield had changed from purple to blue, that would match the magical aura of Cadance then. One scanning spell later and it was revealed that it was a shield compromised completely of love, although something like that would require a constant spell and constant spells lead to fatigue. Sombras eyes grew greener as he started getting a rush at how much the tides had turned so quickly. Now time to play the waiting game until the annoying one collapsed, he was only sad he would not see it for himself.
*****
In Canterlot an excited but nervous Twilight Sparkle was standing in the station with the other elements of harmony, her best friends. Celestia had just showed her a projection of the Crystal Empire and how she would be the one to find a way to protect it. Her friends were giving her happy and quizzical looks, Pinkie Pie immediately presumed she'd passed whatever test Celestia had given her and immediately set off a party cannon.
"Are we gonna celebrate your awesomeness with Princess Celestia?" Pinkie yelled as she jumped in unison with her cannons confetti.
"Not quite." Twilight replied as pinkie fell back to the ground, as the confetti went back in the cannon... Twilight didn't even bother thinking of a explanation better that 'it's Pinkie Pie' and shrugged it off, "We're going to the Crystal Empire!"
"Huh?" her friends all let out in unison.
"Crystal what?" Rainbow Dash said.
"Crystal Empire, Dash," Twilight said again incase her friend hadn't heard her properly.
"I heard you Twi, but what do you mean by Crystal Empire?" Rainbow seemed rather confused, the others all just nodded in unison.
"Ok I'll explain on the train there, we need to get going"
"Must we really leave now darling?" Rarity protested, "I had hopes to look through the Canterlot shopping district."
"Sorry Rarity, we can go after we get back, but this is of the utmost importance"
"All aboard for the Arctic North," A conductor yelled out, signalling the train was about to leave.
"We're headed to the north?" Applejack asked, she probably preferred being in Ponyville where it wasn't below freezing half the time
"Oh oh oh, will we see yetis?" Pinkie said with her usual randomness.
"I highly doubt it Pinkie," Twilight answered
"How about a Lausk? or a dragon, how about some hippocampi?" Pinkie said as she raised a hoof to her chin in a thoughtful pose. After this Twilight facehoofed, she then turned her attention back to the others.
"Ok we should probably go and get seats, the train leaves soon and there won't be another to the north for an entire day."
They all got on just as the conductor did his last call, they found a small but comfortable train car with padded seats. Pinkie lay down and fell asleep before the train even left, being random must be tiresome, Rainbow began reading a Daring Do book, Rarity was looking in a hoof-held mirror, Applejack started chatting with Fluttershy who hadn't said a word and looked very, very nervous. Twilight then sat down and pulled out a book on Advanced magical theory, by Starswirl the Bearded of course. Twilight remembered she needed to explain fully but that could wait, she wanted to try and calm down a little bit now, Twilight was engulfed by the extremely detailed book and soon forgot all her worries about failing her test, for now she was with her friends and she was happy. At the same time she couldn't help but feel like she'd forgotten something... Spike was still outside the train! How could she have forgotten him, after teleporting out to grab spike, Twilight reappeared in the train with a sheepish look on her face, her friends giving her almost embarrassed looks.
*****
Sombra had forgotten how boring waiting was, he'd been waiting almost 10 hours and the alicorn was still at it. Curious, for some reason Shining Armor was leaving the shield wearing only a scarf and flimsy mask, his curiosity spiked, Sombra followed unseen. After a gruelling trek through a snowstorm Shining was near a train station that had a train there now, what good timing. At the station there were six ponies, two unicorns, one purple and one white, two pegasi one yellow and the other blue, with a rainbow coloured mane no less, he wouldn't be surprised if she was actually called rainbow, knowing some ponies names that are around. Finally there were two earth ponies, one orange, wearing a stetson and the other was pink and bouncing around the entire station and her friends, why were the annoying ones always pink?
He saw Shining approach the new group, the purple one then embraced him and they spoke for a moment, they then started heading towards his empire, what exactly was special about this small group of fillies anyway? When they were about halfway to the empire Sombra was bored of waiting, he let out a loud ominous wail, expanded his form and began to chase them. A small dragon he hadn't seen before that was carrying a large suitcase was paralysed by fear, perhaps an easy meal, but the white one saved him, what a shame. Now shining stopped and turned to face him as the others continued to the blue bubble on the horizon, if he wanted to battle so be it. Sombra rose far above the unicorn, who tried to hit him with a beam of purple magic which Sombra dodged easily, Sombra then proceeded to swoop down.
Got him! There's no way he could survive- where did he go?
Sombra was incredibly frustrated that he had been tricked by a stalling tactic, how low of him. No matter, he would punish the trickster later. All he accomplished was scaring the life out of a group of seemingly unimportant ponies, he supposed that was acceptable for now, at least they wouldn't be as keen to leave the empire so he had them pinned for now.
*****
Twilight and her friends had made it to the empire, scared and out of breath. She saw all her friends were accounted for, but her brother wasn't in sight, a wave of panic rushed over Twilight as she started thinking of what Sombra would do to him. Mere seconds later Shining stumbled through the shield, he looked fine except from the crystals that seemed to be embedded in his horn.
"Oh, no! Shining Armor, your horn!" Twilight spoke as she rushed over to him, purple sparks danced between the crystals and only half of his horn had a visible aura.
"I'll be fine, we need to get you to Cadance." He replied in a crackly voice.
Twilight was finally able to get a good look at the empire, instantly noticing how in here it looked more like spring than the snowstorm that was occurring outside. The entire empire was beautiful, seeming to reflect sunbeams in all possible colours, giving the illusion of there being rainbows in quite a few places.
"Sparkleriffic!" Pinkie exclaimed, the look of amazement on her face matching the expressions of the others.
After getting back to reality they all continued towards the empire.
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5962516
After thinking about it, your comments saying that my concept could never happen will be deleted. As you will see there is the alternate universe tag, meaning things may work differently and may happen differently, I am glad you voiced your thoughts but I feel as if you made too big a deal out of it. I don't like to have deleted them but I don't want the comments getting filled up with arguments that don't apply given the alternate universe tag, I'm certain that Sombra would be capable of teleporting further than I said but here he can't, in the show he most likely didn't use the heart to banish the empire, here he did. You acted like this was taking place in the same universe as the show, I'm sorry but it's not and things work differently. I may not have made this clear and will edit the description to fix this.
This review brought to you by: Authors Helping Authors.
Story Name: 'Corrupted Heart', by Starglare.
Grammar: 6 out of 10: There are several run-on sentences and many apostrophes where they shouldn't be - as is common in most new authors' works, you tend to mix up 'its' and 'it's'; remember, 'its' is possessive, while 'it's' is literally just saying 'it is', but with fewer characters.
Story: 7 out of 10: It's an interesting concept. Not much has been done like this with Sombra that I've seen, and it seems like a solid plot; Sombra wins instead of Twilight and, after corrupting her and her friends, sets out to take over Equestria.
Execution: 5 out of 10: It's not the worst I've seen, but it's not the best, either.
Pros -----------------------------------------------------------------
Sombra's Rule. I like your version of the pre-banishment Crystal Empire. It's fitting that Sombra thinks nothing of his slaves; using their lives to fuel his magic and their bodies as furniture fits him to a T.
Avalite Seeker. The idea of someone going along with Sombra willingly is something hardly anyone seems to touch on. Evil attracts evil, and Seeker is a textbook example of that; of course a ruthless power-seeking pony like him would find pleasure in Sombra's rule.
The Battle. Not many new authors know how to write a battle scene, but you get a few things right straight off the bat. The focus on troop movements rather than trying to go into too much detail, the emphasis on numbers; it's a well put-together scene, and I get a clear idea of what the battle looks like. Kudos.
Cons ------------------------------------------------------------------
Sombra's Diary. It's a useful way to mark the time, but I feel like there could've been more entries during his banishment, slowly chronicling his descent into madness - okay, he was already insane, but you get the idea. It goes from a few days to a hundred and two years - a strangely arbitrary number - to ???? years, to two minutes before his release.
The Battle. Sombra isn't the smartest - any ruler who does what Sombra did in the episodes isn't too bright - but he isn't an idiot, either. If he was so confident he couldn't lose, why wouldn't he tip the odds; expend a bit of energy to help his soldiers win? They may be just slaves, but, as his army, they're useful ones, and even though they aren't dead, the more soldiers he has undefeated the better. As it is, he should at least know a little bit about the Elements of Harmony; his surprise at Celestia and Luna busting them out feels forced. Heck, the whole conflict with the Princesses seems a bit rushed. At least give us some banter, or maneuvering; in a fight like this, positioning is pretty important.
The Return. It seems to me like Cadance and Shining Armor would know who Sombra is; Celestia wouldn't just send them in blind. They know he's evil, and that he won't listen to reason; why even talk to him? In addition, the parts of the fic that are literally just the episode could be removed. We've seen the show; we know what happens. That being said, you should start transcribing the episode a bit before events change. For instance, if Sombra beats Cadance and Spike to the Crystal Heart, there's nothing wrong with describing Spike's desperate climb down the castle, or Sombra's mad rush to get at the thing, or Shining and Cadance's last-ditch effort.
Notes --------------------------------
Some things I noticed that aren't full Pros or Cons:
Celestia should be talking like Luna, or at least with a bit more majesty and weight to her; when Luna came back, she spoke as if everyone still spoke like they did a thousand years ago; what does that tell you about how they should be speaking in the past?
You tend to do a lot of telling, when showing would be better. Why tell us that the engravings on the crystal would burn up after one use when you could note how fragile the carvings look, as if they're about to fracture, then describe the engravings burning away as the heart fires up? Why tell us that Sombra's seat is made out of useless servants when you could have Sombra absently run his hoof over a cutie mark on his chair and chuckle, finding a bit of humor in the fact that this particular slave had been able to serve him properly after all? It's a fine and subtle art, showing and telling; I haven't even gotten the hang of it.
Overall ------------------------------
It's a solid fic. Solid concept, solid execution, solid ideas. It's a little rough around the edges, sure, but everyone's first story is. Keep at it; the more you write, the more of a feel you'll get for it. Consider finding a proofreader; even a cursory look from another person is a good way to get a fresh perspective.
I hope I helped you improve your fic.
And hey, if you want to hit up my story list and review one of my tales about multicolored horses - and humans; I write EQG too - doing things, that'd be cool. 再见，我的朋友！