Reconciliation
“Sombra!” Twilight demanded, lighting her horn and approaching her foe. “I don’t know where we are or how we got here but whatever you’re planning, forget it!”
Sombra sighed mockingly. “Really Twilight? 'Don't know where we are'? Think about it.”
“I’m not playing any more of your mind games.”
Unphased, Sombra continued. “Fine, just one question. What were we doing just before we got here?”
Twilight smiled. “Well, you were getting your flank handed to you by Chryssie.”
“And?”
“And I was flying into the nest, to protect -”
Now Sombra smiled, as he saw a look of horrified realisation sweep across Twilight’s face. Twilight turned her horn off, and her smile almost vaporised into thin air.
“Am I -”
“Yes,” Sombra replied, making sure to put as much hissing on the ‘s’ sound as possible. “How does it feel?”
Twilight was taken by surprise again with this question. “Well, uh… a lot like being alive actually.”
Sombra nodded. “I’ve always wondered about it myself actually. Especially with my, ‘day job’, let’s say. I come across death quite a bit.”
Twilight glared at Sombra but said nothing.
“Oh come on,” Sombra laughed, “what’s a little violence between friends?”
Twilight continued glaring, lighting her horn again.
“Alright, fine. I suppose you want to know my plan. The original idea was to capture you, lure the others into the nest, injure you to slow you down, then teleport away and set off the explosives. Two world leaders would have disappeared overnight. Equestria would have been in chaos. It would’ve been the perfect time for, well, an invasion. I would’ve had more power than even Celestia could imagine.”
“Okay, so if it was such a wonderful plan, why didn’t you go with it?”
“Ah,” Sombra said with an even wider, more unsettling smile than before. “That’s the Twilight I know. Good question.”
“Get on with it, Sombra.”
“As you wish. When I captured you, I decided to see if I could have some fun, I decided to ‘corrupt’ you, as you would call it. However, in the process, I noticed something peculiar. The way you got so interested in that book, the way you performed those spells with such precision, such power - even if you were trying to miss. It reminded me of… well… myself. So I figured, if we teamed up, we could gain so much more power, so much more knowledge. And I’d finally have someone to share it with. And, well, the only way we could be together, once you turned on me, was, well - this.”
Twilight thought about making some dismissive remark. ‘Well some job you did, getting us both killed’, perhaps? Instead, she gave a legitimate reply.
“I’m sorry Sombra, but I will never join forces with you. I can forgive Chrysalis, she was just protecting her people, I can forgive Trixie, she just wanted somepony to love and admire her. They had honourable intentions; they just went about them the wrong way. But you, you’ve crossed the line too many times. You’ve blown too many chances. All you wanted was power for its own sake.”
“So that’s the way it is? Then I have no choice.”
“What are y - argh!”
Twilight gasped in shock as she felt to the ground, feeling all her energy being drained, piece by piece.
“With your power,” Sombra declared, “I could go back. I could take over everything! I could destroy every last one of your ‘friends’, and there’d be nothing you c - what’s happening? What are you doing? No!”
“You will never, ever hurt my friends, do you understand that Sombra?” Twilight said with a snarl as she got back to her hooves, draining the energy straight back from Sombra.
“Wait! Please!” Sombra pleaded back as he collapsed onto his knees. “What about mercy? W-what about friendship?”
Twilight released Sombra, causing him to sigh with relief.
“You’re weaker than I thought” Sombra observed. “Such a shame - so much power wasted on a pony who never uses it.”
A light began to shine behind Twilight, and she found herself being pulled back towards it. She dug her hooves into the ground and held on for dear life.
“Sombra, stop this, now.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Sombra hissed. “You gained too much of my power. You’re going back. And when you go, that’s it, I disintegrate. I’m gone, forever.”
Twilight started at him suspiciously. She lifted one hoof from the floor. The far end of the room disintegrated as she drifted a little further towards the portal. Sombra winced in fear.
“You’re not lying” Twilight realised.
Sombra nodded. “Hold on for five minutes, and the portal closes. I don’t get destroyed. You can ‘reform’ me or whatever you do.”
Twilight thought to herself for a second, but the decision was obvious. She had to make the tough choice.
“NO!” Sombra cried as Twilight let go of the floor, and flew backwards into the portal. In the last few seconds, before everything went white, she saw Sombra disappearing in an instant, lost to the void forever.
After what felt like a few seconds, she opened her eyes.
She was in a particularly fancy-looking hospital room, with marble walls and ornately decorated curtains, covered in the patterns of the day and night skies, blended together. She looked up to see five familiar, smiling faces.
“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight practically squeaked with joy. “Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy! Applejack! Rarity!”
“Twilight Sparkle!” Pinkie Pie replied, giggling as she spoke.
Twilight reached up and attempted to hug them, only to find she was held down by several monitoring machines and tubes.
“Stay right there sugarcube,” Applejack told her, “there’ll be plenty of time for hugging and mushiness when ya haven’t got these wire thingies all over ya.”
Twilight lay back down reluctantly. A mission without group hugs was like a library without the sixty seventh edition of The Egghead’s Guide to Precise Item Teleportation!
“We’re just glad you’re alright darling,” Rarity added. “Fluttershy managed to get you breathing again, but the doctors were up all night rushing in and out of the room. We were worried you wouldn’t make it.”
“All night?” Twilight asked.
“Why yes darling, we stayed up too of course. Friendship takes priority over beauty sleep.”
“It’s been a whole night?”
The door swung open before Rarity had a chance to answer, and an extremely excited little changeling came bounding into the room, beaming with health and full of even energy than usual.
“Everyling - um - pony! Celestia and mummy are doing the speech now! They told me to tell you so tha - Twilight?”
“Pupa!” Twilight exclaimed as the little changeling jumped onto her bed and scampered onto her chest, hugging her tightly. Twilight reached out a bandaged arm to hug back.
“Hey,” Pupa squeaked, directing his sparkly eyes right at Twilight’s arm, “you have band badgers too!”
Twilight’s heart monitor suddenly spiked.
“Y-yes, I do.” Twilight replied, trying to regain control after the wave of cuteness that just struck her. “Anyway, what’s this speech you’re talking about?”
“Oh, right,” Pupa said, pulling the most serious and proud pose he could and clearing his throat in an attempt to sound important. “Mummy and Celestia are giving a speech about giving the changelings a new nest. We can watch from the balcony here, since this hospital wing is part of the castle.”
By the time the main six, with the help of several royal hospital staff, had managed to safely wheel Twilight’s bed and medical equipment out onto the balcony, the speech was ninety percent over - but Twilight and her friends listened intently to the last ten nonetheless.
“So, as you all know by this point, as a reward for Chrysalis’ brave efforts to save her people, and our princess” they heard Celestia say in a loud but calm voice, “Equestria is planning to build a new nest for the changelings - a nest where they never have to go hungry, where they will know love and friendship the way we do.”
Thunderous applause could be heard from the crowd gathered outside the castle.
“What you may not know, however, is that this nest will be built on the outskirts of this great capital city, Canterlot!”
The applause was replaced by uncertain murmuring.
Back on Twilight’s balcony, Pupa jumped up and down.
“Did you hear that? I’m gonna live in Canterlot!” the changeling squeaked, his wings buzzing. “That’s like, ten gazillion times closer than the Badlands! You can all come visit me all the time! Or I can come visit you!”
“I don’t know about all the time,” Fluttershy replied, “but I’ll certainly make sure to visit often.”
“I understand we changelings haven’t been the best neighbours in the past,” Chrysalis explained, interrupting the crowd’s unsettled chatter, “and I understand that it’s hard for you to trust us. But believe us when we say we’ve changed - after all, it is what we do best.”
The crowd let out a couple of giggles at the changeling queen’s attempt at a joke. She ticked ‘say something funny’ off the mental ‘giving speeches to ponies’ checklist Celestia had given her.
“In all seriousness though, we changelings are more grateful than you can imagine for the second chance you’ve given us, and we will do everything we can to repay our debt to you. From this day forth we will be official allies of Equestria - we will fight alongside you in every war, just as Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy fought alongside us. And we will learn to find love without hurting anypony - in fact, if we can, we will share our own love with you. Thank you, all of you, for everything.”
With that, Celestia shook hooves with Chrysalis, and the crowd went wild, cheering, applauding and leaping into the air.
Satisfied, Celestia and Chrysalis thanked them for their attention and headed inside.
A few minutes later, just as she finished being slowly wheeled back inside, Twilight saw the two speakers enter her room.
“Sprinkles, you’re awake!” Chrysalis exclaimed with a smile.
Celestia let out a giggle. “Wherever did you come up with that? I’d better use that one later.” She turned to face Twilight. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Hello Prince - um, Celestia - sorry, still not used to just calling you -” Twilight started.
“It’s alright” Celestia assured. “I’m glad to see that you’re okay.”
Pupa flinched a little as Celestia walked towards him. He knew she wasn’t the enemy anymore, but still, she was a bit scary.
“H-hi”, he managed.
“Hello,” Celestia answered, her calm smile barely covering up her near heart attack from the cute.
Celestia let out a slightly reluctant sigh, before turning to Twilight.
“Twilight, since you’re awake, it’s about time I told you something. Something I was, well, too ashamed to tell you before.”
Chrysalis turned towards Celestia as if she knew what the princess was about to say.
“Ashamed?” Twilight, asked, puzzled. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, you’re pretty much perfect.”
Celestia shook her head. “That’s the image I have to convey. The truth is, when I was younger, I made some not particularly wise decisions.”
“You mean banishing Nightmare Moon?”
“That was one of them. There was another.”
Now Twilight was positively baffled. “None of my history books say -”
“I know. When I realised how much damage I had done, I wanted to hide it from the world. Especially from you. And I shouldn’t have hidden anything from you Twilight, I’m sorry.”
Twilight gave Celestia an unsure look.
“Have you heard of the name ‘Nova Shine’, Twilight?” Celestia asked.
Twilight nodded.
“She was a skilled magician, and a close friend of mine. She created the first recorded dark magic - and then, as now, creating magic was a major part of becoming a princess. Nova, however, had not used her talents to help the rest of Equestria - so I denied her requests to be crowned, until she could prove to me, to Equestria, that she was willing to serve others as much as herself. Instead, she decided to use her new-found magic to create an army, specifically designed to feed off us, to drain our love - the changelings.
Of course, Equestria defeated the changelings, Nova was imprisoned, everything went back to normal - but I was left to decide the changelings’ fate. Help them to live among us, or banish them, leave them to starve. I chose the second option - and I never forgave myself.”
Celestia jumped in shock as she felt Chrysalis wrap a front limb around her back. She relaxed when she realised what it was.
“I forgive you,” Chrysalis said softly. “You did what you had to. Your little ponies had been through a war. Back then, you simply didn’t have the resources to look after us too.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Chrysalis?” Celestia teased.
“Forgiveness? What a ridiculous sentiment! You will pay for what you’ve done” Chrysalis pretended to threaten. “Is that better?”
“Much better,” Celestia giggled.
Twilight joined in the giggling, before whispering something to Pupa.
Pupa hesitated, but after and encouraging nudge from Twilight, he leaped into air and landed straight on Celestia’s back. “Prepare to pay! With tickles!” he declared.
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Your welcome. This was fun to read, I really enjoyed reading this story from beginning to end. I hope that you keep writing my good friend.
Poor Sombra just wanted a Dark Magic buddy.
Well, to be honest, Sombra had that coming big time. He was willing to sacrifice the entire hive.
Huh, so the Cutelings were created by magic. Yeah, seems probable, with just how counterintuitive they are from the evolution point of view.
Good that Celestia admitted her error. At least all's well that ends well.
I foresee a massive spike in heart problems in Canterlot and its neighbourhood.
All in all, a rather enjoyable read with several golden comedic moments.
6930233 Thankyou so much, glad you enjoyed it :3 Don't worry, I definitely will continue writing, all the comments and views are really encouraging, the fact that 500 people actually took the time to read a story I made, I still can't get my head around that
6930696 Alas, poor Sombra. I guess attempted genocide isn't the best way to make friends?
6932725 Thanks for commenting, glad you liked it! And thanks for sticking around this whole time, I appreciate it
Yeah, I think Canterlot's healthcare department will need a budget increase. Celestia has no idea what she just got herself into! 
6933134 Kill 'em all, befriend the survivors?
6933377 I'm not sure the survivors would be too approachable afterwards...
The survivors--->
6934352 Kill 'em all, raise them as zombies, befriend the zombies?
I dunno, I'm bad at this whole "villain making friends" thing!
6934393 Hey, that might work actually. I think you're onto something. We should get Sombra on the phone XD
I'll take that hug from Pupa! That was...WOW!
6946993 Thanks heaps :3
7010422 I got my own stalker, score!
No need for the gore tag at all.
And don't use the word 'literally' in the narration.
I was disappointed by this story. There are a lot of issues that bring it down, the first of which is that the pacing is much too fast. Everything happens too quickly. There's no suspense, no time for emotional buildup before the issues are taken care of.
Secondly, there are a lot of major plot holes. First off, Pupa was seriously injured, but is then almost fully healed literally overnight. That ties in with the fast pacing issue as well. Secondly, what was that about having "plenty of love on the way over"? I thought the hive was supposed to be starving. When did they find time to gather love on the way over? It's also rather reckless for Twilight to head off immediately with only Fluttershy and Chrysalis, and reckless is something Twilight is not. She should've gathered her friends and asked Chrysalis for more details, followed by preparation for the trip.
There's no time for character development, either. Chrysalis was spiteful and full of herself, but then she turns good and humble at the drop of a hat.
Pupa is a stubborn idiot, even by toddler standards. Twilight and Chrysalis caved in to his demands far too easily. Couldn't they have devised some sort of shield to keep him inside the castle? Or, I dunno, locks on the door and windows? I can buy him sneaking out and following them to the battle, maybe, but they're not stupid enough to willingly bring him along, no matter how much the spoiled brat demands it.
7050658 Yeah I know, this was pretty bad. I learned from this story that adventure just isn't my thing XD It moves around too much and I tend to rush moving around. I'm hoping eventually (once high school is over) I can try a slice of life project with a similar length to this and try to get it to work. We'll see how that goes though. Probably badly. XD
As you've no doubt been told, slow it down. I'd say you have a good framework to and plot points but it need to be fleshed out more. It's not that it isn't good, it just needs some polishing to make it much better.
7059133
Well, I can't upvote the story, but I can certainly upvote your comment. Keep writing, and keep improving, and maybe write some stories with less going on so you can focus more on what is happening, and the characters.
as the saying goes: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy."
... wat.