Phase 2
It was a quiet night in Ponyville before a most irritating roar woke everyone up long enough for them to roll over and grumble about those lousy ‘magicycle gangs’ before drifting back to sleep. The fact that none of them had ever heard of a magicycle was — either oddly or predictably — of no impediment to this.
Sombra was providing commentary about Ponyville as he and Velvet rolled along towards the end of their magicycle journey. That’s probably what he was doing, at least, but Velvet wasn’t hearing any of it. Her attention was focused squarely on the giant tree made of crystal with windows and doors down the road in front of them. It looked like something that belonged in the Crystal Empire, and looked out of place among the wood and thatch buildings around it, that was true. But darn if it didn’t sparkle under the starlight, moonlight and the few street lamps that were glowing.
She hoped they weren’t going to meet a princess. As we all know, she had a tendency to freeze up around princesses. And if you didn’t know that, you have a lot of reading to catch up on (editor’s note: because of this extra reading, this is the last cameo show we’re doing) (chief editor’s note: unless cash is involved).
The magicycle rolled to a stop and fell silent just in front of the entryway. Velvet and Sombra removed their helmets and goggles — although they kept their very stylish leather jackets and scarves on — looked at each other, and immediately broke into giggling fits, their manes wild messes of helmet hair that were restored to a roughly normal — if still windswept — state after a few moments of fussing. Climbing off the cycle and out of the sidecar, a single red spark escaped from Sombra’s horn and vanished into the air, and the cycle’s horn beeped twice in response. Wasting no moments more, both of them approached the front doors, and with another flash from Sombra’s horn, they opened, revealing a foyer and main hall made from just as much crystal as the exterior. Everything shone with magical light, and Velvet couldn’t stop herself from staring in wonderment at the sparkling floors and walls and the plush carpets. She was sure that even the inside of the castle in Canterlot-Sextus didn’t look this incredible.
“Welcome to the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle!” Sombra said, sweeping his hoof across the room dramatically.
“The what?” Velvet asked, her plans to continue admiring the crystalline view completely derailed like a train that had also completely derailed, probably due to an obstruction on the tracks.
“Yeah. For fairly obvious reasons, chiefly that the name is too long and too stupid, nopony around here actually calls it that. It was on the deed that came with it, though, so legally, it’s the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle on all documents, maps, and tourist brochures. Especially that last one.” Exposition provided, Sombra stepped past the threshold and made his way inside, Velvet hot on his heels.
“So, what do you call it, then?” she asked, setting aside another moment to admire the construction as he trotted alongside Sombra. While he was only walking. Why were his strides so long?
“Most of us just call it ‘Twilight’s Crib,’ although I’m partial to ‘the Retinizer’ myself. Sounds more exciting. Also describes the effect it has on your eyes.”
That explained almost nothing. “Who’s Twilight?” Velvet asked, stepping up her speed briefly when she realized she was falling behind and nearly lost Sombra around a corner.
“That’d be Twilight Sparkle-Decimus, or in the case here, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Not sure what Sparkle-Sextus is up to,” Sombra replied.
That actually explained several things. “Princess? Wow, you went straight for the big guns, didn’t you?” Velvet remarked. An instant later, her ears pinned back to her head and she asked, with great trepidation, “Is… is there anything I should know about meeting the Princess? I kind of freeze up around them.”
“Yes. Don’t call her ‘Princess,’ don’t bow to her, don’t say ‘Your Majesty.’ Basically, don’t do anything except treat her like you’d treat your neighbor, or a low-rung local politician that you see at the market occasionally but don’t know that well. She gets all insistent that you treat her like anypony else off the street, and then backpedals like crazy because she thinks she’s being too forceful about it when she’s meeting you for the first time,” Sombra replied. “Super awkward.”
“O-ok. That’s… easy?” Velvet said curiously as they rounded another corner. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Somber came to a stop just outside a set of large, suspiciously reinforced-looking double doors, the crystal surrounded with bands of steel and rivets. “Whatever you do, try not to surprise her. She reacts very poorly when taken by surprise.” Without wasting another moment, Sombra unceremoniously and without any warning kicked in the doors. “Sparkle!”
“What?!” a pearly purple alicorn shouted in surprise as a bright ball of energy went streaking away from her, ricocheting off the wall at high speed and immediately becoming a danger to life and limb.
“Watch out!” Sombra shouted, leaping out of the way as it zoomed through the space he’d been standing in only a moment before.
“Help!” Velvet shouted, weaving to the side as it ricocheted again and came back.
“Top-right corner!” Twilight added.
“There!”
“Duck!”
“Jump!”
“Sparkle, do something!”
Without warning, Twilight leapt onto one of the tables and was promptly knocked off of it and onto the floor as the ball struck her squarely in the chest with a sound more like a dull ‘thump’ rather than the cracking of bones. With the chaos dealt with, Velvet and Sombra looked at where she had been standing with expressions of concern ranging from ‘very’ to ‘blasé’. But a moment later, Twilight’s hoof crept up from below and planted itself on the tabletop just before she pulled herself up enough to rest her head on it. “That was close,” she said.
“What was that?” Velvet asked, still dazed.
“The culmination of days of research!” Twilight exclaimed, standing fully, rearing up and throwing her hooves over her head in triumph. “It’s the Holy Grail! The goose that lays the golden eggs in the pot at the end of the rainbow! Lightning in a bottle!”
“Yeah, but what is it?” Sombra asked.
“I just told you,” Twilight replied, returning all four hooves to the floor. Her horn glowed, and up from out of view came floating a jar filled with energetic electric arcs. “It’s Lightning in a Bottle™. I guess I didn’t enunciate very well.”
“Lightning?” Velvet asked, excited rather than dazed. “Real lightning? In a bottle?”
“Oh!” Twilight’s horn glowed brighter for a moment, and the bottle of lightning vanished in a puff of smoke just as she turned her full focus to Velvet. “Sorry, I didn’t see you… wait, who are you?” Her attention jumped back to Sombra. “And why are you even here?” Her eyes widened. “Wait, why did you bring a mare here?” Quickly, she backed up into the wall. “Oh my god, you’re here for a cutie call!”
“What? No I’m not! Why would you even think that?” Sombra protested.
“What the heck is a ‘cutie call?’” Velvet asked.
“Twilight! Twilight!”
The conversation stopped as all three of them turned to the library doors as a little white unicorn filly with two-toned pink and lavender mane and tail came hurrying through them, looking very distressed. “Twilight, we tried to ignore it like you said, but it’s still there!”
“Sweetie Belle, I told you, there is no boogie in the closet,” Twilight replied with a hint of irritation.
“A boogie?!”
The attention abruptly shifted to Sombra, whose expression was one of alarm, and Twilight’s own shifted from irritated to aggravated. “Seriously, Pops? You believe in that garbage?” she asked.
“Garbage? Garbage? Do you have any idea how many little colts and fillies get gobbled every year because ponies like you refuse to believe?” Sombra demanded, which did nothing to calm Sweetie Belle, who suddenly looked even more distressed.
“Oh no! Scootaloo and Apple Bloom are still in the room! They’re gonna get gobbled!” she wailed.
“Show me,” Sombra said with regal authority, even if he did not actually have any, and galloped after Sweetie as she hurried to save her friends.
Velvet Step was not far behind. “Wait for me! I wanna see this!” she exclaimed.
Twilight stared after them, and then sighed and simply teleported to the room the Cutie Mark Crusaders were using for their sleepover. The night light she’d provided them was still turned on, allowing her to see that the closet door was closed, and that Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were both still in bed, sheet pulled up over their snouts so they could quickly hide if necessary. “See, just like I thought. Everything’s fi —”
She was abruptly cutoff as Sombra kicked in the door, sending it flying open and into her side, knocking her to the ground. “My clavin!” she cried.
“There!” Sweetie Belle shouted, pointing a hoof at the closed closet door, made of blue crystal just like everything else.
Silently, Velvet wondered if this preponderance of crystal construction was a sign of inherited mental instability. So far, that seemed to be the theory with the most evidence supporting it.
Sombra’s eyes narrowed at the closet. “Get under the covers, Sweetie,” he ordered. She complied immediately, jumping onto the princess-sized bed and scrambling under the sheet to watch events unfold with them pulled up to her snout. Sombra walked into the room and towards the closet with deliberate slowness.
Velvet stepped in after him, but was careful to keep her distance, standing safely off to one side and as far from that strangely looming closet door as possible.
Twilight picked herself off the ground, groaning miserably.
“I know you’re in there, boogie,” Sombra said evenly. “I just want to talk.”
Without warning, his horn lit up brightly with red magic and loudly discharged, causing all three fillies to take cover under the covers while Twilight and Velvet shielded their eyes in the face of the sound of crystal shattering, and kept covered and shielded as Sombra’s horn discharged again and again. They did not dare look again until the noise had stopped, and all five of them observed the closet door, now dotted with eight smoking holes.
“I’ll give you a minute to prepare a rebuttal,” Sombra said.
“My castle!” exclaimed a very distressed Twilight.
“That was amazing!” exclaimed a very excited Velvet.
“Yay!” cheered the three fillies before they all clambered out of bed and surrounded Sombra, clamping onto three of his four legs in very fierce and happy hugs.
“Oh, look at that!” said Velvet with a very slight squeal as she sidled over to Twilight. “He’s so good with foals.”
“That’s because he treats every foal he meets like he’s their grandfather and spoils them rotten,” Twilight replied sharply before she turned to address the other adult in the room. “Now, if you’re done making me look bad in front of the girls, didn’t you have something urgent to ask me about, Pops?”
“Oh, right!” Sombra exclaimed. A moment later, his horn lit up, and all three fillies floated into the air with a matching glow and were deftly laid back onto the bed, their pillows fluffing and the covers snaking up to their shoulders. Finally, Sombra leaned up on the bed and gave each of them a kiss on the top of the head as his magic faded out. “Good night, girls,” he said.
“Good night, Mister Crepúsculo,” replied Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle in unison.
Rolling her eyes, Twilight walked out of the room, Velvet following after her, and Sombra bringing up the rear, closing the door as he left. “Precious, aren’t they?” he said.
“Yeah. Precious. That’s the first word that everypony in town thinks of when they think of those three — so! What was so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow, but not so important that it could wait until after you embarrassed me?” Twilight asked, not sounding terribly pleased with the situation.
“Right.” Sombra cleared his throat before he continued. “Twilight Sparkle-Decimus, meet Velvet Step-Sextus. She’s from a different Equestria in a different dimension and needs help getting back home, so naturally, I thought of you and brought her here so you could fire up that mirror portal you have and get it done —”
“Wait, I came here through a mirror?” Velvet asked.
“Preferably tomorrow, on account of how late it is right now,” Sombra added, giving Velvet no acknowledgement at all.
Twilight stared at Sombra for several uncomfortably long seconds, and then turned around, walked down the corridor, opened a door, stepped inside the room on the other end, and then shut it behind her, allowing silence to settle on the conversation for several uncomfortably long seconds.
“The nerve!” Sombra finally exclaimed, grinding the tip of one hoof into the floor. “That’s it! I’ll settle that filly’s hash!” He began to take a step forward, but found his path blocked by Velvet.
“No, no, Sombra, don’t worry about her,” she said with a smirk. “You go to bed. I’ll handle this.” Without another word, she sauntered off down the corridor after Twilight with a slightly exaggerated sway in her hips.
Sombra stared dumbly after her as she left, and then ground his teeth as his face twisted in anger. “Well, maybe I wanted to settle her hash!” he said, throwing a hoof up in protest. “You didn’t stop to consider my feelings, did you?!”
Velvet shut the door behind her.
With a low growl, Sombra turned and stalked off towards the guest rooms not currently occupied by young fillies. “Ought to settle her hash, too….”
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Hahaha! I continue to love your Sombra. And your Velvet is great, too.
And, well, overall, I just thoroughly enjoy your sense of humor.
I'll have to remember the "settle your hash" line. That's a fun one.
6677578
Stay tuned. The awkwardness is going up to 11 in the next phase.
Twilight's introduction is fantastic. XD And what the hell is a clavin?