Frozen Shadows

by Hail King Sombra

6. Unwilling Passengers

Back in the corridors just outside the King’s private chambers…

Tight Planner lay sprawled on the floor, several aides grabbing slowly drifting paperwork in their teeth, another bending to help him up. Poised to utter a sharp retort at the pony who dared laugh at him, he looked up to see it was not only the Grand Commander Iron Blade, but standing next to him, King Sombra was being hard pressed to contain his snickering as well. Biting back his temper, he let the page assist with getting him back on his hooves.

Turning away, Blade felt suddenly dizzy. He fell to his knees, the room spinning sickeningly.

“Blade!” Sombra exclaimed, kneeling down to him. “What is - “ he stopped, feeling another disorienting time disturbance ahead of them.

“No! Sombra! Blade! SOMBRA!”

“That’s Nyx!” the King’s head snapped in the direction of his chambers. He looked down again quickly.

“I’m fine, Sombra. Go, GO!” he yelled, struggling to his feet.

Sombra and several guards galloped in the direction of his consort’s cries. That strange, wheezing, groaning sound was back again and his new temporal instincts told him they were related somehow. “Nyx! I’m coming!” he called out, but could already feel the waves of distortion fading and her with them. Turning to shadow, he crossed the long corridor in an instant and burst through the doors.

There had been a struggle, he could see immediately. The floor was gouged, the copper death scythe he had gifted his mate with was frozen in mid-throw before him and a strange, blue wooden cabinet was trying to phase out of their time stream before his eyes.

“No! Sombra! Blade! SOMBRA!”

The repeating echo of her last cries only served to anger and frustrate the King of Shadows that he had not been present to protect her. Not knowing who or what was responsible, his only clue was the out-of-place cabinet that was rapidly fading before his eyes.

Snarling, he threw a quick temporal loop spell around the box, enveloping himself and the rest of the room in a protective, counter-aura. “Oh no you DON’T!” he snapped. The Tardis made a sound like the brakes being slammed on a war wagon.

“No! Sombra! Blade! SOMBRA!”

Her voice was rapidly fading as the broken local timestream was repaired, then time began to wind slowly backwards.

Iron Blade and the crystal guards King Sombra had left behind in his haste to get to Nyx arrived, coming upon the bizarre sights and sounds of the heavy double doors splintered off their hinges, Sombra head down, hind legs spread in a fighting stance, his dark magic swirling about the room in varying degrees of intensity and door splinters doing a slowed down dance through the air before them.

A mare’s distorted voice ripped through the air. Next, Nyx was thrown in slow motion out of the box, one hoof grabbed around her wrist by the magic of a stallion in dark armor who stepped out of the box and let her go. The TimeWitch fell to the ground and started being pulled forwards towards Sombra and Blade!

“ARBMOS! edalB! Arbmos! On!” she screamed, a mixture of tears, terror and anger in her eyes.

“What in Tartarus?!” Blade breathed, transfixed as the other guards were by the sight.

Nyx’s copper scythe came flying out of the strange, blue contraption before them, causing the guards to dive aside for fear of being impaled. Blade braced himself, readying his aura to catch it, however, it stopped in front of them, ensnared by the TimeWitch’s magical aura.

Sombra rose, his horn still glowing with black, green and purple energies. Nyx’s back legs pulled back from a near kick of her assailant.

“Time is winding backwards,” Sombra explained, watching, fascinated as chips from the marble floor fixed themselves under his consort’s hooves, Nyx screaming further incomprehensible gibberish all the time.

Blade raised an eyebrow as Dark Watch pulled his leg back from a swing of Nyx’s scythe. He bit his lip, feeling nauseous, dismissing it as the time distortion’s side effect. “Best birthday present you ever gave her,” he glanced at Sombra.

“She would tell you that was last night’s tryst,” the King muttered low enough only Iron Blade could hear. “She was a quick learner with that weapon,” he admired her vicious swing. “She hated that scythe at first.”

“They are not easy to wield, as you well know,” Blade replied. A thought occurred to him. “Wait, why are we not ‘going backwards’ as well, your Majesty?”

“The ‘bubble’ of reverse time is very localized,” the Dark Pony explained. He looked pleased. “Another few seconds I can stop the spell, retrieve Nyx and capture this interloper and his strange box.”...

Just before King Sombra burst into the room…

Dark Watch flew into the Tardis, dragging a very angry, upset TimeWitch with him. Hooves and Derpy were looking over readouts at the console, not seeing what Luna’s guard was doing until they heard Nyx snarling curses upon the guard’s bloodline. The pair looked up, seeing a differently dressed Nyx flung into the time machine and thrown hard enough against the wall it stunned her.

“No, no, NO!” Whooves yelled, coming around the console in a panic. “That’s NOT our Nyx!”

The Night Guard merely looked at the Doctor like he was crazy. “Oh, it is her, Doctor,” he assured the Time Pony. “Same mare, same temper,” he glanced over at the wall where the scythe had earlier accidentally embedded itself in the wall with the force with which Watch had thrown it into the Tardis before throwing it out of the time box again. “Same deadly weapon. Trust me, it’s - “

The Tardis was violently grabbed by an unknown force that gave the Doctor the worst headache of his life. He crumpled in agony to the floor. “Doctor!” Derpy yelled, kneeling down to him.

The Time Pony could only fight to stay conscious and not black out as he dimly registered the screech of his beloved ship as if something had grabbed her and not only stopped their time jump, but were impossibly dragging her back to the place they were leaving.

The pain peaked as something dark and shadowy snaked through the door that was suddenly flung open, grabbing both Nyx and Dark Watch in a temporal fit, flinging them back out the doors in the reverse order through which they had come.

“What was that?!” Derpy asked in a panic.

The Doctor could only groan in reply, reaching up a hoof, catching the side of the console to pull himself up eye level with the time box’s indicators and readouts. It took another few seconds for his vision to clear and the pain to recede enough that he found the button he wanted and slammed a hoof down on it.

Another second past with King Sombra and Iron Hoof…

Time snapped forward as Sombra started to release the spell, but something yanked control of it out of his hooves, accelerating it faster than normal. Growling, digging his hooves into the floor, Sombra fought for control of the timestream.

“I’m - losing - her!” the King snarled, putting all his dark power into the struggle. “Blade, grab her!” he cried.

Iron Blade’s aura shot out, enveloping them both. Time normalized under their combined pressure.

Nyx suddenly became aware of them in front of her. “Sombra?”

Try as he might to keep his concentration, her scared voice distracted him for a split second, allowing time to speed forward again and gain momentum. Sombra would have lost his grip on her completely were it not for Blade’s sheer force of will to hang on to her.

It was long enough for the King to realize to his horror that his magic was dangerously depleted, so in sheer desperation, he grabbed her back leg, breaking through the weakened time counter field.

The Grand Commander’s unicorn guards had lent him their power in the struggle, but it only delayed the unstoppable force of time by a second. The Empire’s leaders were torn out of their grip and flung into the box which winked out of existence without a trace.

The Doctor’s soul-crushing headache was gone as fast as it had appeared, coming on with the unleashing of Sombra’s spell to draw them back and now gone completely with the reestablishment of their forward momentum once again. He righted himself as the sounds of thuds, grunts and armor hitting the floor echoed throughout the room.

Nyx had been thrown against the wall as before, but this time Dark Watch had been stopped from joining her as Sombra’s heavier bulk landed on his back legs and they ended up a heap of entwined legs and armor.

“Oh no, this is BAD!” Whooves uttered the obvious, immediately recognizing the curved, blood red horn of the Unicorn Witch King. Derpy, eyes fixated on the two, asked, “Who’s that - “

“You really don’t want to know, trust me!” the Time Pony replied tersely.

The charcoal pony in question jammed an iron-greaved hoof down on his opponent’s neck beneath him, looking quickly around for Nyx’s copper scythe, but not seeing it. Realizing it must have been thrown out of the room again, he struggled to keep his balance on his opponent’s throat, shifting to keep out of the way as the bat pony fought to wrench him loose.

“GET OFF ME!” Watch snarled, mentally cursing the armor that while protecting him was also now hampering his efforts to throw the Crystal Tyrant off him.

Derpy and Whooves slowly ventured closer, though still keeping a respectful distance. They watched Sombra take in the larger space of the room with an unreadable, emotionless gaze until he spotted them. His gaze narrowed, horn bubbling in the colors of dark magic in preparation to do Tartarus-knew-what to them. “You two,” he rumbled in a deep, terrifying voice the mail mare had only heard in her worst nightmares. “I would have answers as to why you were attempting to kidnap my consort.”

“Uh, King Sombra, I presume, then?” Whooves said weakly. Stunned to see the legendary King of Shadows in the Tardis, the two stared blankly at him for a moment, too shocked to answer him.

“You were in my palace attempting to abduct my TimeWitch,” Sombra replied evenly.

“Well - yes and no! You see, we lost her in the vortex and - “ Derpy volunteered until Whooves nudged her warningly.

Dr. Whooves stepped forward. “It was a terrible mistake, your Highness,” he babbled quickly.

“‘Mistake’?” the King snarled. “Either you are a fool or an idiot,” he rumbled, taking himself up to his full, intimidating stature, made a tad difficult to maintain as the muscular stallion beneath him was bucking wildly, or trying to. “I choose to believe you art the former. This contraption is too complex and time travel too difficult to be left in the hands of idiots,” he concluded, taking in the tardis console. He locked eyes with the pegasus. “Your mare makes more sense than you!”

Derpy performed a nervous yet flattered curtsy before the King, lowering her gaze. “Tha - thank you, your Highness!” she stuttered, her face growing red, but then she realized the implication of what he had said. “Oh!” She quickly stood up, she and Hooves gestured in the negative to each other. “We’re not…involved!” they both began to say at once.

His demeanor darkened considerably, coming to a further conclusion. “Spies then? If you have come to interfere in the affairs of my reign...”

Whooves eyes grew as wide as saucers. “No, no, no!” he answered desperately. “It was Dark Watch’s mistake, dragging Nyx in here! Our sincerest apologies! We will drop you off forthwith with all due haste!”

Sombra wrinkled his nose at the stallion’s poor attempt at medieval diction. “Not before I obtain answers as to why thee hath come in the first stead and why thee were meddling with Our time spells.” If this earth pony fool knew who Nyx was, it seemed extremely unlikely this was a mistake or coincidence they had come in a time machine!

A wheezing sound at his hooves caught his attention. Glancing down, he saw Dark Watch was turning blue from lack of oxygen. His opponent’s weakening struggles reminded him he was probably killing the nuisance on the ground beneath him. If this one made more sense than the other two, he was worth keeping alive for the moment. He removed his booted foot and stepped back. Certain the bat pony guard was in no shape at the moment to put up a fight, he cantered over towards the mare and stallion when he spotted Nyx still pinned up against the far wall. “Nyx, are thee injured?”

She didn’t respond. The Umbrum frowned. The two travelers before him turned to her as well. The mare was oddly quiet, unmoving yet eyes open, her face blank.

The three went to her side, her King there first. Behind them, Dark Watch has ceased wheezing and coughing, getting back to his hooves.

Fear tightened the Shadow Pony’s stomach. He was so close to Nyx, his breath ruffled her voluminous mane, yet she was still unresponsive. Behind him, Whooves made a negative gesture to the lunar guard’s motion to jump Sombra while he was occupied with the state of his mate.

“Nyx?” Sombra asked in a gentler tone as he nudged her. She slid slowly down the wall, leaving a thick smear of blood where her head had impacted some sharp machinery jutting out from the wall. “Oh no!” he breathed, catching her with his magic, lowering her gently to the ground.

The King carefully brushed her mane aside as best he could, deeply concerned how caked it was with blood. Derpy ran to get the medical kit as Whooves and Sombra examined the back of the Marazon’s head.

“It’s not deep,” the Doctor said, relieved. “Head wounds always bleed much worse than they look. She probably does have a concussion, though.” He looked up, “Derpy - ah good!” he said as the mail mare was already at his side with a medical kit. Glancing up, his voice took a wry tone. “I don’t suppose either of you two possess healing abilities, being warriors and such.”

“No,” Watch replied tersely.

“It was never a skill I was adept at,“ Sombra added. The King watched the earth pony rummage through the strange box, most of its contents foreign to him except for a dark glass bottle containing what he could only guess was a tincture of an herbal preparation. Oddly, Whooves ignored it and everything else in the metal box in favor of something else he drew from a pocket of the cloak he was wearing. It was long, round, smooth and of shiny metal, but what it did, he had no idea.

The concern in his voice dropped in favor of a more authoritative tone. “If you are to minister to her, I would have your names.”

“I’m the Doctor,” the brown stallion replied. He gestured to his companion.

“I’m Derpy,” she nodded.

“And the stallion you tried to crush the life out of is Dark Watch,” Whooves replied as he used his sonic screwdriver to ascertain the extent of Nyx’s head wound.

“If I had wanted him dead,” the dangerous pony rumbled. “He would already be so.” Sombra cocked his head in curiosity. “‘Dark Watch’ you say?” he shook his head, grunting.

“Something amusing about my name?” Watch challenged him.

“Interesting more like,” Sombra replied, watching Derpy dab away the blood from Nyx’s terrible-looking wound. “Something Iron Blade’s parents told me many years ago,” he added thoughtfully, then dismissed it.

Derpy smiled a bit. “That sounds like a warrior’s name.”

“Indeed. He is my Grand Commander over the crystal army,” Sombra nodded, glancing at her. “A friend of many, many years.” His dark eyes traveled back to what Whooves was doing. “This ‘technology’ is far in advance of our own,” he said idly, suprising the pegasus. “You have come far in time indeed.”

“Hand me that patch, Derps,” Whooves asked, pointing to something in her kit, then it occurred to him what the unicorn king had said. “‘Technology’? How do you even know that word,” he asked, shocked.

“Why should I impart such knowledge to a potential enemy?” the king frowned. “You could be from that foul Celestia’s nest of spies for all thee has told me of thy mission here.”

“Princess Celestia would never - “ Dark Watch began.

Sombra turned, his dark crystal gaze shot to the bat pony’s. “Torchhoof is not such a well-guarded secret in my time, creature, that I have not come to an awareness of its existence,” he said acidly. Behind him, Whooves winced in pain as the king’s aura grasped his wrist. “You will not touch my consort without permission, dirthoof. What is that you are applying to her wound?”

The time pony expected the demon king was using only a tiny fraction of his magic to hold him, judging from the weak spark from his horn, yet he had nearly crushed his wrist bones. “Ahhh!!!” Whooves winced. “Something I picked up from the Kinda world. It’ll knit the wound back together..please stop that! You’re bloody crushing my wrist!”

“Fragile thing, aren’t you,” Sombra said, amused, yet not letting go. He glanced at Watch. “Are they all this frail in your time?”

Dark Watch nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”

It was Derpy that spoke up next. “Please, your Highness. We are just trying to help!”

The use of his title and/or sincerity and pleading in her tone seemed to be more to his liking, for Sombra relented his grip, the sudden release of pressure almost as bad as the pressure itself. “Mares are better at healing than stallions and this one’s tone of respect much more to my liking. You will tend my mate,” Sombra ordered, spearing her with his gaze.

Whooves nodded at the reasonable request, as did Derpy. They quickly traded places. She nodded at the time pony. “He’s right, you know. That hasn’t changed in a thousand - “

“ - anyway,” Whooves cut her off. “I don’t always travel with a healer, so I find it’s useful to pick up the odd healing device when and where I can,” he said hastily, not wanting to give away the year of their origin to the tyrant.

“So you are not 100% the fool,” Sombra muttered rhetorically, watching the mare work.

She was having a hard time getting the bleeding to stop long enough, however, to get the patch on. She looked up at him. “Your - your Highness,” she stammered nervously. “Could you please, I mean, can you use your magic to apply some pressure to stop the bleeding? The patch won’t stick long enough to work if it’s bleeding this much.”

Sombra concentrated a bit of his magic - the three noticed it was still dark magic - to apply pressure. Nyx whimpered, semi-conscious. He brushed a hoof against her cheek tenderly, noticing she was also shivering. “Try to stay still, my love. You’ve taken a bad injury,” he whispered. “She’s cold,” he told them. Derpy and Whooves traded glances at the sight of King Sombra showing someone affection, let alone any type of compassion.

“She’s clammy, as well,” Dark Watch noticed. “She’s probably in shock.”

“There are blankets in that room,” the Doctor nodded in the direction of a door off the control room. “Bring several. We can fold one for a makeshift pillow. I don’t want to prop her head up too high, but this floor is quite cold.”

The bat pony ran to get the requested items. Sombra caught Derpy smiling at him. Confused, he looked away, surprised at the flush he felt from her gaze.

Watch returned with the blankets. He and the King carefully levitated Nyx, spreading one out underneath her body and another carefully folded one under her head. Hooves drew the emergency kit to him and pulled out another device. Unwilling to have his wrist suffer near crushing again, he held it up before the Shadow King. “This is a serum to prevent shock,” he explained. “Shock kills, as you may or may not know in your time, so I highly recommend we administer some anti-shock serum before it becomes a bigger problem to treat with our limited resources.”

Sombra eyed the needle for a moment, but relented, watching carefully as Hooves worked to give Nyx the injection. Once the dosage was given, Whooves passed the spent needle back to Derpy to safely get rid of. The Time Pony sat back on his haunches, satisfied, sighing. “That’s all we can do for now, except move her to a more comfortable room.”

“There is one on this vessel?” Sombra inquired.

“Wouldn’t she be more comfortable back at the castle, Doctor,” Derpy suggested, hoping he was already thinking it the perfect excuse to get the Crystal Empire’s tyrant ruler off the time ship.

“Yes, yes,” Whooves agreed. “She would definitely be better off in more familiar surroundings.” They both looked to Sombra.

He wasn’t the least bit impressed by their attempts to not only get rid of them, but to dodge the answers to his previous questions. The King stood, again raising to his full stature without looking like it was even an effort and glared at them. “If she were conscious, that might be a consideration. Were I inclined to be feeling generous and not in need of answers to the questions I have already put forth to thee, then perhaps.” He reached out casually with his magic and grabbed Whooves by the throat, dragging him closer. At this distance the time pony could see nothing but malice in the slitted, snake-like eyes framed by their surrounding red, refracted crystal. “Neither currently apply and I have run out of patience!”

“I will tell you then,” came a voice from behind them. All three turned to see Dark Watch standing there, unafraid, almost challenging. “I have the least of us to lose if you are displeased with the answers, so I am the logical choice to provide them to you.”

Sombra dropped Hooves with hardly a thought, turning his large frame to the bat pony. He endured the King’s up close, intense inspection without even blinking. The King stared at him, eye-to-eye. “There is something familiar about you,” the umbrum said thoughtfully. “But first, let us take care of my consort’s needs as to accommodations.”

Sombra levitated Nyx through the corridors while the other three ponies led the way. They pulled ahead just enough to be able to whisper to each other. The Tyrant King was too busy holding Nyx steady and memorizing the twists and turns of the corridors, they hoped, to eavesdrop as they talked.

“You can’t tell him about the future!” Hooves whispered urgently to Dark Watch. “With that kind of knowledge - “

“He could use it to avoid his fate, yes I know that, Doctor,” the lunar guard replied sourly. “Mi’lady Princess Luna emphasized that quite emphatically upon our departure back in Canterlot.”

“If he finds out the Princesses sent you - “ Derpy said, wide-eyed.

“He already knows I am in service to Princess Luna by the very design of my armor,” he replied. “It is not Luna he has issue with.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Hooves nodded. “I wonder why that is...” he trailed off thoughtfully.

As they turned yet another corner, in the moment they were out of sight of King Sombra, Dark Watch spoke up. “Luna and he were once lovers and Celestia tore them apart when Sombra’s darker side emerged after he perished at Lake Evershine,” he told them.

The Doctor and Derpy looked at each other, then back to the guard.

The gray pegasus was confused. “‘Perished’? As in died? But he’s - “ she trailed off, nodding her head back at a very much live Tyrant King coming back into view from around the corridor.

“That’s not in any of the accounts. How do you know that?” the Time Pony asked.

“Did Princess Luna tell you that?” Derpy added.

Dark Watch looked uncertainly at them. “I - I do not know,” he admitted. “my Princess would not impart such personal knowledge to her guards. I just know that is the truth.” He paused, appearing as confused as to where the knowledge came from as they were.

Their curiosity was cut short when the mail mare realized where they were. “This is the room, Doctor.”

“Ah, so it is,” he nodded, stopping so Sombra and his precious load could catch up.

The room was minimally furnished with a single, large bed, clothes armoire, desk and chair. The King went in, surveying it first. “This is adequate - for the moment,” and brought Nyx in, drawing back the covers on the bed and settling her in. After pulling the covers back over her, he felt her forehead. “No fever. That is good. How long does this ‘patch’ typically effect its repairs to the body?” he asked the Doctor.

“It depends on the severity of the injury, your Majesty,” he replied. “Also on the species and their general health.”

“Her health is excellent,” Sombra replied.

“Then she should recover quickly,” the brown pony nodded.

Leaning down, Sombra kissed her forehead just below her horn.

While Dark Watch remained outwardly unmoved by the tyrant’s uncharacteristic display of affection, inwardly he was just as surprised as the others for the second time in their unwilling passenger’s short stay.

“I would speak with Dark Watch,” the King told them. “In private.”

Hooves wanted to balk, to make some excuse - any excuse to stay, but knew the Shadow King was done with him and dared not press the issue.

Luna’s guard nodded his assent to the request.

“As you wish,” the Doctor replied. He and Derpy exited the room. He leaned over to Dark Watch and whispered, “Good luck!”

Comments

[Victus454]

Good chapter, wish I had more to say. I like the way you write Sombra here.

[Hail King Sombra]

7260567

Good chapter, wish I had more to say. I like the way you write Sombra here.

Thanks Victus. Simple words of praise are as wonderful in their own way as detailed ones. They remind me there are ALWAYS peeps (or ponies) out there who are worth writing for

[Hail King Sombra]

7263298

Hmm, crystal dust as weapon. That's sounds brilliant and deadly.

Yes! Nothing anyone in their right mind would actually use - kind of like how the "A-Bomb" was a threat while I was growing up, save for the fact that no one else could possibly counter crystal dust nor repair the damage it would cause.

[The Bricklayer]

Sombra's terrifying here, just as any good villain should be.

[Victus454]

7260724
To be fair it's awesome writters like yourself that makes visiting this site so fun and great. So I hope you keep writting :)

[Hail King Sombra]

7273417

To be fair it's awesome writters like yourself that makes visiting this site so fun and great. So I hope you keep writting :)

BLUSH! Aww...you say the cutest things! And yes, yes I will keep writing as long as I am above ground!