A Glimmer of Hope

by Gordon Pasha

A Thousand Years

Sombra felt himself falling. Falling for what seemed like an eternity. He watched time go backward. Years flew by in reverse, events long past returned. A thousand years were reset in the span of a few breaths.

And then the falling stopped. The ground is what stopped it. And the ground was hard. As Sombra came flying headfirst out of the bubble, he was certain that is current smoke-based state would save him the worst of the pain. He was wrong.

He hurt. He hurt all over. Sombra quickly tried to rub everything that hurt with his hooves. It helped somewhat, but not enough. He would still be sore for quite a while, he knew.

Wait, he thought. I have hooves?

And, just like that, the pain was forgotten. Sombra looked down at himself. Not only did he have hooves. He had a body. A long, sleek, grey body.

Sombra jumped up. He couldn’t help but let out a laugh of joy and relief.

It looks like the King of Monsters has found a way to triumph again!

“What are you laughing about?”

Sombra looked up. Oh, great. That pony creature is here.

Indeed, there she was. The lavender pony from the ship, the one with the outdated mane-do and the overly self-righteous attitude. Starlight Glimmer was her name, if Sombra remembered correctly.

Not that her name mattered much. She had served her purpose, and that was all that counted. Now she was no longer useful to him.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Sombra said. “Your activation of that time travel spell has restored my body. As gratitude, I shall let you walk away with your life.”

“You couldn’t kill me if you wanted to,” Starlight said. “You barely managed to beat me the last time. And only then because you had help.”

The insolence! Sombra had been willing to reward this pony for her service. He had been willing to let her live. And how did she repay him? With mockery. Sombra would not let such an insult stand.

He summoned up all the dark magic he had within him. Becoming a statue would be too good for Starlight Glimmer. He would make sure there was no trace left of her at all.

She just watched him, her eyes narrow. Clearly, she was not impressed. But she would see.

Oh, yes, she will see.

Sombra fired the greatest bolt of dark energy he could muster. The dark black beam, rippling with lightning, tore through the air toward Starlight. She did not try to move. She could not have escaped it if she wanted to. The beam was destined for her.

And it passed straight through her, harmlessly, before vanishing completely when it hit the ground. Sombra, had he not known the force he had just mustered, would have thought that he had not unleashed magic at all.

“What? How are you doing this?” Sombra bellowed. “How are you countering my magic?”

Starlight raised one eyebrow. “I told you the spell needed some work.”

“What do you mean?”

“The spell was supposed to allow a pony to travel through time. It did. It was also supposed to allow a pony to change time, to interact with it and impact events. That—”

Starlight kicked at a small rock with her hoof. The rock did not move. Starlight’s hoof went straight through it.

“—did not happen.”

This was a setback. Sombra saw it immediately. The past would not be useful to him if he could not interact with it and extract from it what he wanted. But he was alive and his body seemed stable, so his disappointment was tempered.

“It is no matter,” Sombra said. “I am certain it is only a temporary setback. I have always to find a way back before. Especially now that we are in the glory days of my people, the reign of the Umbrum, I am sure I shall find some remedy.”

Starlight looked around. “Does this look like the glory days of the Umbrum to you?”

Sombra glanced at his surroundings. He hated to admit it, but the pony had a point. This did not look like a world the Umbrum ruled. It was too sunny, too bright, too clear. Too happy.

In fact, this place looked familiar. All too familiar. Sombra could not place it, but for some reason, this yard — he could see that it was a yard — filled him with a vague sense of something. A sense of... what was it?

Welcoming? No.

Warmth? No.

A sense of coming home. No, of course not. That would be stupid. So, what was it?

Dread. Something about this place filled Sombra with dread. He didn’t know why, but the emotion was inescapable.

He was turning it over in his mind when he heard Starlight exclaim, “Wait. Isn’t that you?”

Sombra shook himself out of his somber reverie. His eyes followed the direction of Starlight’s outstretched hoof. Sure enough, he caught sight of a small colt, grey in color, with green eyes and a jet-black mane.

“The orphanage! It’s the accursed orphanage again!” Sombra yelled.

“The orphanage where you guys grew up?” Starlight asked.

“Not that it matters to you, pony, but yes. The orphanage where I first knew suffering. The orphanage where I was taught to hate.”

Young Sombra walked over to a group of other youngsters, all already engaged in games and gossip.

“Ah, yes, I remember this well,” Sombra said. “This moment is burned into my soul forever. You watch, pony. You will see how these creatures with their unwarranted loathing cast out all hopes of a good and happy life and sent me down the path to becoming what I am today.”

“Greetings, friends,” young Sombra said. “Can Sombra play too?”

“Go away, Sombrero,” came the response.

Sombra could feel Starlight’s cold glare.

“‘Sombrero.’ I’ve truly seen the depths of pony depravity now,” she said caustically.

“Shut up,” Sombra barked. “It hurt a lot at the time. Things like that stay with you. And who are you to judge my pain?”

“Okay, whatever, Sombrero. Some kids were mean to you, so you decided to take over the world. Not an overreaction at all.”

“Oh, like you’ve never been haunted by an incident from childhood? Nothing’s ever happened to you that’s kept you hurt and angry throughout your whole life?”

Starlight was silent.

The young Sombra was sitting in the grass now, his head down, looking sad and forlorn.

“This is the part where Hope comes in,” Sombra said. “She tells me that ponies call her weird too and, if I want, we can be weird together.”

“There she is,” Starlight said, pointing a hoof.

There was Radiant Hope. She was much younger, a small filly whose mane covered half her face and who kept tripping over her extra-long tail. But it was her. Sombra had to admit, even after all of these years, he still felt some of the same surprise and joy he had felt upon first seeing her that day. It was enough to make many memories come back to him. Many happy memories.

Sombra shook his head. No, he would not think of them. All those things were in vain.

Hope began to approach the young Sombra.

“Now, watch, pony,” he said. “Here is the tragic moment when my destiny was forever intertwined with Hope’s, ultimately fating the both of us for lifetimes of pain, suffering, and destruction.”

“I have to say, you are just a joy to talk to,” Starlight deadpanned. “Were you always like this with Hope? How did she ever stand you for all those years?”

Sombra was not really listening. He was too interested in his own observations. “I have often wondered whether Hope’s act of kindness this day was truly selfless and because of my own pain, or if she was just looking for somepony to make herself less lonely.”

He did not look at Starlight, but he was somehow certain she was rolling her eyes.

“What does it matter?” she said. “She was lonely and she saw you were lonely. She thought both of you could be less lonely if you were friends. No big mystery there. Why do you have to over-complicate it?”

“Hmph, you will see,” Sombra said. “Watch now, and see how Hope used me for her advantage, just like every other pony.”

As Hope passed the crowd of children, one of them, a white colt, called out, “Oh, look. There goes fairy-girl. Guess she’s gonna try and make friends with the other weirdo.”

“I wish we were corporeal,” Sombra remarked. “I’d love to turn each of these creatures to stone. And then I would set them on the walls of my palace as a warning to all who pass by.”

“Yep, another ray of sunshine from Mr. Peppy Pony,” Starlight said.

Hope seemed undaunted by the taunt from the white colt. She answered, in a voice which suggested that the insult did not even register, “He looks so lonely and sad.”

“Of course, he’s lonely and sad,” said a pink filly. “He’s not like us. He’s weird. You hear how he talks about himself in the third-person?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Sombra said. “Pony language never came easy to me. Why do you need both a name and a personal pronoun? Why? And has anypony ever noticed that when you say ‘I’ and I say ‘I,’ we’re referring to completely different ponies? It is incredibly inefficient.”

“I can see this is still an open wound,” Starlight said.

“You said I was weird too,” Hope said to the other children.

“Yeah, you are weird, but not like him,” the white colt said. “You should stay away from him or you’ll be even more of a weirdo.”

“They do like insults that end in o, don’t they?” Starlight remarked.

The pink filly joined in. “Yeah, and if you want to be friends with him, we’re never talking to you again.”

The children gave a collective, “Yeah!”

Hope simply nodded. “Okay.”

She then turned and walked toward the young Sombra, the swishing of her tail underneath her hooves not slowing her down a bit.

As Sombra watched them, his harsh glare became softer. “I didn’t know the others threatened to ostracize her entirely. It doesn’t surprise me, but I didn’t know it had happened.”

“Still think she was being selfish?” Starlight asked.

Now it was Sombra’s turn not to answer. Everything he had to say, he did not want to say to her. He did not want to even say them to himself.

Which, as it turned out, was fine, because Starlight had something to say.

“Look, I’m sorry, Sombra.”

Sombra was surprised. Not that he didn’t deserve the apology. But Starlight Glimmer seemed like the type of mare who never apologized. Especially not to her enemies.

“I shouldn’t have made fun of you,” Starlight said. “I know what it’s like to be rejected when you’re that young. I know how it eats at you.”

“Yes, it does,” Sombra said. He watched his younger self, who had now apparently forgotten all about the childish taunts as he talked and played with his new friend, Radiant Hope.

“I was rejected by everyone when is as a filly, too,” Starlight said. “I had a friend, but then he left me. I wish I had known somepony like Hope back then. Somepony who would have cared like she did.”

“Yes, it does seem she cared quite a lot about me. But this was before it all changed. Before she changed. Later, when the ambition of being a princess clouded her eyes, she became different. She left me. She was no longer by my side.”

Suddenly, everything before them grew fuzzy. It seemed to stretch and fade and contort. And the sunny outdoor scene was gone completely, to be replaced by an indoor one.

Sombra recognized it immediately.

“This is the orphanage’s sick ward,” he said. “I spent the Crystal Faire here, every year.”

“Hope told me,” Starlight said.

Sombra looked out the window at the Crystal Palace beyond and all the ponies gathered there. “And it looks like the Crystal Faire has come again.”

“And here you are again.”

Sombra followed Starlight’s eyes, though he did not need to. He knew to what she was referring. But despite this, he looked. He did not want to look, but he did. He had to.

And there he was, in one of the beds. The younger him seemed unconscious or, if he was conscious, only barely. Though not yet in his Umbric form, his whole body looked ghastly. His limbs were contorted and lay at strange angles. Every so often, one of them would let out a little spasm.

“Not a pleasant sight,” Starlight said.

“It was worse going through it,” Sombra said, in a deliberate understatement.

There were two other ponies there. One, easily distinguished by her tawny coat and dignified bearing, was Ms. Chestnut Falls, the orphanage’s caretaker. And the other was Radiant Hope.

Though Hope was positioned directly next to the window, she did not look out at the celebration beyond. Not once. All her focus was on Sombra. She winced as he twitched, sighed as he shivered, and whenever a major compulsion shook him, she quickly threw herself on top of him. To steady him. To let him know he was not alone.

Ms. Chestnut, meanwhile, also seemed upset and worried. But her focus was almost entirely upon Hope.

“So, did we get to selfish Hope yet?” Starlight asked. “Because it still doesn’t seem like it.”

“This is the first year of my suffering,” Sombra said. “We’re still young.”

“Can’t be,” Starlight said. “You guys are much older than children. It’s been some time.”

“Sombra, please be okay,” Hope whispered. “Please, please, please.”

Ms. Chestnut put a hoof on her shoulder. “Hope, you really should get some rest.”

Hope shook her head. “I can’t leave. Not as long as Sombra needs me. I have to stay by his side.”

“But you can’t do anything for him here. All you’re doing is wearing yourself out.”

Hope let out a long sigh. “He needs me. He needs to know I’m here. Nothing else matters.”

Ms. Chestnut looked out at the Crystal Faire. “The Faire’s still going on for another few hours. I could stay with Sombra. You could go and have fun.”

Hope looked up at Ms. Chestnut, horrified. “Have fun? How can I have fun when Sombra is like this?”

Ms. Chestnut sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just know how special the Crystal Faire is to you. I don’t think it’s fair to you to have to miss it.”

“It isn’t fair to Sombra that he has to hurt like this,” Hope said.

“I know, but—”

Hope tried to put on a glum little smile. “Thank you, Ms. Chestnut, but the Faire doesn’t matter if Sombra can’t see it. Nothing else matters.”

“Okay....” Ms. Chestnut turned to leave. “I just hate to see how the two of you haven’t been able to enjoy growing up like you should have.”

“Miss Chestnut?” Hope asked.

“Hmm?”

“You know I want to be a princess, right?”

“I know, dear. It’s been your dream since you were a foal.”

“Do you know why I want to be a princess? It’s because I want to be able to help ponies like the princesses do. But I can’t help other ponies if I can’t even help my best friend.”

“Hmm, I understand, dear,” Ms. Chestnut said, in a tone which suggested that she did not fully understand. She once more turned to leave, but cast one last, long, worried look over her shoulder at Hope and Sombra.

Hope did not notice. She had turned her attention back fully to her friend.

Ms. Chestnut now left the room, stepping through both Sombra and Starlight. It was a disorienting feeling. But not as disorienting as watching one of the defining moments of his own life from a distance.

“I was too focused on my own pain every time this happened,” Sombra said. “I never could really pay attention to what was happening around me. This is the first I’m seeing this.”

“It makes quite an impression,” Starlight said.

Hope took Sombra’s hoof in her own. “It doesn’t matter, Sombra. The Crystal Faire doesn’t matter. The Crystal Heart doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re together.”

Sombra could not bear to watch anymore. He turned his gaze to Starlight, just to avoiding seeing Hope and himself. But then he saw Starlight’s eyes grow wide.

Sombra quickly turned his head back to the scene before them. There he was, in bed, his eyes emitting a black mist. Sombra realized what night this was.

“It’s tonight!” he said. “Tonight is the night I nearly died! Tonight is the night when Hope gets her cutie mark! It’s the night she saves me... for a time....”

Sombra watched it all unfold as though in a daze. He saw everything. He saw the darkness begin to take him over. He saw himself lifted upward into the air. He saw his body dissolve, becoming nothing more than a formless mass of smoke and vapor.

He heard Hope scream, “Sombra, don’t leave me!”

And then his younger self pleaded, “Hope, save me!”

And she said, “I don’t know what to do!”

Sombra did not need to hear all this a second time. It burned into his memory forever. So he did not really listen. He watched. He watched Hope break into tears as she saw her friend slowly fading into nothingness. He saw her panic. He saw her look for something, anything to do. He saw her find no options and nearly break down as she realized she was losing him forever.

And then he saw her do it. He saw her cast the healing magic which would save him. He saw her.

It was evident that she had no clue what she was doing. She was going on instinct; she was fighting for him. She was straining and she was struggling and she was striving. Sombra was surprised by how brutal it all seemed. It seemed like Hope, if it were possible, could tear herself apart at any moment. It looked like she was willing to let it happen, if necessary. It looked like she would give up anything for him.

Even her life.

It was over. The younger Sombra was still there. Hope had a nice new cutie mark. They were hugging on the floor.

“Wow,” Starlight said. “Just wow. You hear the story, but nothing beats the effect of actually seeing it live.”

“Try living it,” Sombra said.

“I can’t imagine what it was like to have to go through that,” Starlight said. “But you should thank Celestia Hope was there. She would have given up everything for you.”

“I know,” Sombra said, his voice quiet and low.

After a moment, he added, “But what a fortuitous choice of works. Thank Celestia. You forget, Starlight, Hope was the one who brought the princesses to banish me. Whatever you see here, she still betrayed me in the end.”

And then the scene shifted. Now, they were outside again. It was night. From out of the darkness, trees arose. Trees and shrubs and vines were everywhere. Amongst the trees, there was a clearing. In the clearing, a proud and imposing structure stood tall, with towering spires, high ramparts, and mighty flying buttresses rising against the backdrop of the night. It was a castle. The Castle of the Royal Sisters.

The castle doors were open wide. Out of them strode the two Princesses, Celestia and Luna. They too walked right through Starlight and Sombra.

“I find this constantly being stepped through... annoying....” Sombra said.

“It wouldn’t happen if somebody would have just listened to me when I said the spell needed work,” Starlight said.

“What do you want, pony?” Sombra asked. “Would an admission that you were right soothe you?”

“It would be a start.”

“Unfortunately for you, Sombra does not apologize. It is not in my nature to admit when I am wrong.”

“I noticed.”

“Don’t be so judgmental. You too are like this, are you not?”

“More than I care to admit.”

Celestia and Luna looked up at the moon together.

“You know it is hopeless, do you not, sister?” Luna asked.

“I know it is,” Celestia responded. “I fear Sombra is already too far gone. We won’t be able to talk any sense into him.”

“There’s princesses for you,” Sombra said. “They never give you much of a chance.”

“They could be worse,” Starlight remarked. “At least they’re not Twilight.”

“Agreed,” said Sombra.

Luna flapped her wings to take off. She noticed her sister was not doing the same.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

“I was just thinking about Hope,” Celestia said. “What we’re about to do will devastate her.”

“I know,” Luna said, “but we have no choice. The fate of Equestria is at stake.”

At this moment, a small voice came from the castle behind them, “Your Highnesses?”

Celestia and Luna looked back. Sombra and Starlight looked. Standing in the doorway of the castle was Radiant Hope.

“Yes, Hope?” Celestia said, trying her best to sound as though nothing was the matter.

“You aren’t going to hurt Sombra, are you?” Hope asked. “You’re going to save him, right?”

Celestia and Luna looked to one another, each clearly unsure of what to say. Finally, Celestia turned, walked up to Hope, and smiled.

“We’ll do what we can,” she said in a kind, gentle voice.

“I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful, Princess,” Hope said, “but doing what you can isn’t good enough. Sombra isn’t evil. I know he’s not. He’s just hurting. He’s hurting a lot and has been for years. Please, help him. Please save him. He doesn’t deserve to be destroyed.”

Princess Celestia looked back to Luna, who seemed as uncertain of how to respond as she was.

Finally, Celestia lowered her head so that she could meet Hope at eye-level. “We won’t destroy him, Hope.”

“Do you promise?”

“I....”

Celestia looked over her shoulder at Luna. Luna nodded.

“We promise,” Celestia said. “We promise not to destroy Sombra.”

Hope smiled a wan, half-hearted smile which still conveyed how genuinely grateful she was. “Thank you, princesses.”

As the Princesses took flight and Hope followed on foot behind, Sombra felt Starlight’s glare upon him again.

“Do you have something to say?” he asked.

“She didn’t betray you,” Starlight said.

“She still brought the princesses.”

“But she didn’t betray you. She thought they could save you. She wanted them to help you get better.”

Sombra let out a snort. “I know.” It was hard to accept, but he could not deny the evidence of his eyes. “Perhaps I have been too inconsiderate in my judgment of her.”

“You think?”

And then the scene changed again. Now they were on a snowy hill just beyond the Crystal Empire. From here, they had an excellent vantage of the Crystal Palace and the entire realm. Which, at this particular moment, was not a stroke of fortune, given the sight that greeted them.

The Empire looked half in ruins. Smoke was everywhere. Shouts rang out from the streets below. Shouts and cries. Cries of panic, cries of pain. Ponies, little bigger than specks, ran through the streets with stretchers and ambulances. Sometimes, in the confusion, they would nearly collide with other ponies also bearing stretchers and ambulances. Sometimes, there was no ‘nearly.’ Sometimes, the collisions happened. The smell of fire filled the air.

Sombra saw all this. But he was not interested. More pressing questions filled his mind.

“Why do we keep jumping like this? Is it a part of the spell?”

“Like I keep trying to get through your thick skull,” Starlight answered. “The spell is not finished, at least not in the way it should be. It needs work. So maybe it’s a side effect. But no, it’s not supposed to be how the spell works.”

Sombra was deep in thought. “Something must be causing this. Why else would it be taking me to such key moments in my own life? What could account for this?”

“I see your narcissism is showing again.”

“Takes a narcissist to know one, doesn’t it?”

“Smooth, Sombra,” Starlight remarked in a sarcastic tone.

Sombra shook his head. Banter was annoying. It had been one of many things he had never been good at. He did not wish to prolong it. But as he turned his thoughts back to his conundrum, an idea came to him.

“Princess Amore’s fragments were also sucked into the portal. Could their dark energy be directing us here? Or could it be... Princess Amore herself?”

“Or, you know, a pony who you destroyed a thousand years ago would maybe not suddenly haunt you from beyond the grave.”

“Princess Amore isn’t dead,” Sombra said. Much too casually, judging by the way in which Starlight’s jaw dropped.

“Sombra, what do you mean? Hope said.... Sombra, Hope doesn’t know! She thinks you murdered Amore!”

Sombra did not much hear her. He stomped his hooves into the snow which was, predictably, unaffected. “Princess Amore.... Still finding ways to manipulate my life after all these years.”

“Hey, numbskull,” Starlight said. “We're not on This Is Your Life, King Sombra. We haven't seen you for the last few scenes. We're just the audience; it's somepony else's show. These are the key moments in her life.”

Starlight pointed a hoof. Sombra looked in the direction she was indicating. There, right up against the little cliff at the other side of the hill, was a small form wrapped in a brown cloak. Sombra recognized her immediately.

It was Radiant Hope. She was crying.

He walked up to the edge of the cliff and stood beside her, in order to see her face. Hope was lying there, tears streamed downing her face, with her forelegs wrapped around the remains of Sombra’s own horn.

“Oh, Sombra,” she said through her tears. “Sombra, I did this all for you. Look at what happened. Look at the destruction I caused. All for you. I don’t even know how many ponies were lost. All for you. I did it all for you. I might have done it again too, if it would have worked. But it didn’t work. And now I’ve lost you forever.”

“Hope....” Sombra said sadly. He reached out a hoof to comfort her, to brush her hair, to wipe the tears from her eyes. Of course, he could not. His hoof just went through her face.

He knew that Starlight was staring daggers at him.

“You don’t like me much, do you?” he said, meeting her gaze.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Starlight said. “Look at what you’ve done to Hope. I would have killed for a friend like her when I was younger. And how did you repay her? By turning her into... into this. And why? All because you were so consumed by anger and rage that you couldn’t see what was right in front of your face.”

“Starlight....”

“Oh, so you were in pain. We’re all in pain. But not all of us go about trying to hurt everyone. Not all of us end up taking it out on the only pony who ever really cared for us.”

“Starlight!”

“Not all of us feel so afraid of being betrayed that we try to hurt and break and control the ponies who do care about us so that they never leave us again. Nopony does that, Sombra!”

“You’re right, Starlight. Nopony but me and you.”

Starlight took a step back. “I’m not like you.”

“Aren’t you, though?” asked Sombra. “That anti-cutie mark crusade of yours that Hope mentioned. Are you saying that it wasn’t just to control ponies and make them care about you? I would be surprised if you brainwashed a few ponies and ruled like a tyrant in your time, too.”

Starlight was speechless. Several times, she tried to respond. Each time, she stopped herself and bit her tongue. There seemed to be a struggle going on inside of her. Something in her was dying, Sombra surmised. And something new was being born.

Sombra only hoped it was the same thing that was being born in him.

“You’re right,” Starlight said at last. “I am like you. But I don’t want to be like you anymore. Now I want to be like Hope.”

“So do I,” Sombra said. “You were right about me. Everything. I’ve done so much to hurt Hope. I can’t ever fix it or make it up to her. But maybe I can try to be better. For her.”

“Fat chance of that,” Starlight said. “You made her into that thing, remember? You can’t make things right. But I, at least, can make up for some of the bad things I’ve done.”

Starlight levitated the spell scroll in front of her. Slowly, a turquoise flame began to burn the edges.

Sombra was alarmed. “Wait, Starlight! What are you doing?”

“I once enslaved ponies just like you did,” Starlight said. “And when Twilight Sparkle freed them, I went and stole this spell for revenge. But I’m letting it all go now. Whatever happens to us now, I can at least make sure nopony uses this spell to do what I planned to do.”

“No!”

Sombra leapt for the scroll. Starlight moved it just beyond his grasp. Sombra tried again. Again, Starlight lifted it just out of reach. Again and again this happened, until it resembled a pony playing with a dog rather than the king of shadows. Finally, Sombra grew wiser and just started to pull at the spell with his dark magic.

This resulted in a tug of war between the two which neither one was willing to lose.

“At least we’re able to settle this like mature, rational adults,” Starlight said. “Why is it so important to you that I save this spell, anyway? You’ll die if you go back to your own time.”

“I know,” Sombra responded. “But I have to get back. I have to try and get through to Hope. I can’t let her stay like that. I have to try and fix it. Otherwise, she’ll be the monster I made her forever.”

Sombra suddenly felt himself falling backward. He took a tumble down the hill and landed in the snow, which his body went through without disturbing. As he lay there, looking up into the sky, the scroll of the spell fell on his chest, unharmed. Starlight had obviously stopped pulling on her end.

She trotted up and stood over him. “That’s a good point, actually. I can’t just let Hope stay as... as that thing forever, either. I don’t know what we can do, but we have to try and get through to her.”

Starlight floated the spell up in front of her. Despite being both set on fire and fought over as the object of a tug-of-war between two powerful magic-users, the spell was completely unharmed.

“Hmm,” Starlight said. “I guess inanimate objects we bring with us are also immune to the effects of our magic here. Fascinating.”

Now she tells me, Sombra thought.

“Okay, get up, we need to do this,” Starlight said.

As Sombra got to his hooves, Starlight began casting. Above their heads, a bubble appeared. It began to grow. Soon, they began to feel the force of Its pull.

“You know this could just throw us into another time entirely, right?” Starlight asked as she rose into the air.

Sombra smirked. “It could. But somehow, I just know it will take us back to Radiant Hope.”

---

Would Sombra and Starlight ever return to Hope?

Read on.