11-7: Too easy!
Once the children had a better grasp on their abilities Flurry called them to order.
“We have to get to the Crystal Heart," said Flurry. "Since we don’t know where he’s keeping it the best option is to try where he hid it the last time.”
“Do you think he’d hide it in the same place even though he lost last time?” asked Plum.
Flurry shrugged. “I don’t know, but he should feel confident hiding it there. He’s captured my parents, Aunt Starlight is pretending to be on his side, we’re supposedly dead, and the rest of the Crystal Ponies are terrified.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Flash. “It certainly can’t hurt to try.”
“It’s going to be dangerous. If he’s in the throne room we’re stuck. And even once we get through he’s got traps waiting.”
“So why deal with them?” asked Masky. “If we just need to get to the top of the tower then why not just go from the outside? You can fly or teleport, and Flash is so fast he could probably just run up the side.”
“I think it’s just safer to go the intended way. If Sombra had traps waiting for someone going the intended way, he probably has some for people that try to get past them by just getting in from the outside. Imagine if his dark crystals try and stab anyone who tries to fly in. And since he had an anti-teleport spell around the Heart itself he would definitely have something like that protecting us from getting in that way.”
“Fair point,” said Pound. “So let’s not waste any time.”
Cautiously they headed up a set of stairs, moving aside a fake wall and winding up in a relatively empty room.
Once they were all through they closed the entrance behind them and headed into a main hall, scanning the area.
“It’s so quiet,” said Plum. “That kinda worries me.”
“King Sombra…” Flurry sighed. “He put a curse on the empire that lasted a thousand years. Even though he was defeated before, the memories of what he did to them while under his rule still haunt them all. I’m sure even the guards are hiding somewhere.”
“Not to be rude,” said Flash,” but what kinds of guards are they? They’re gonna hide and let Sombra just do whatever he wants to the regular ponies?”
“I think if it was anyone else they’d have the strength to fight, but they’ve never been able to escape his curse. Almost every one of the crystal ponies are earth ponies. I don’t know if that’s because Sombra did something to the other races that lived here or that’s just the way it always was. They didn’t have the power to do anything about him.”
“Well, we’ve got powers now,” said Tree Leaf, transforming into a rhino. “We should just go confront him!”
“No!” Flurry said sharply. “We don’t have the power for that.”
“We outnumber him twelve to one,” said Flash.
“It’s not about how much power we have. Don’t forget that he has my parents hostage. Even if we can fight him he’ll do something to them and Aunt Starlight. We need to be able to run in and take him out right away.”
Tree Leaf transformed back, his excitement faded. “Right. We can’t put your family in danger.
“It’s fine. If we need to be sneaky then I’m your pony.” He transformed into a mouse.
They followed after him at a distance, slowly getting closer and closer to the throne room. It was still eerily silent besides their steps.
None of them spoke, not wanting to miss any sign of Sombra. A few minutes later Tree Leaf came to a stop, chittering at them. They couldn’t understand him, but they stopped.
He ran back to them, turning back into a pony. “I can hear voices. They’re close by.”
“In the throne room?” Peppermint asked with a groan.
Tree Leaf nodded.
“Well, now what do we do?” asked Chocolate. “There goes our only plan.”
“I think my power will be of use here,” said Masky, sinking partially into the ground. “Everyone but Flurry put a hoof on each other and I’ll sink us all into the shadows.”
“Then what?” asked Pumpkin. “I know we’re going to be shadows, but it’s not like shadows are invisible. He’ll see us moving around the throne room.”
“That’s what Flurry is for.”
“Hmm?” Flurry said.
“You fire at Sombra from the doorway without him seeing you. Naturally, he’ll give chase to see who attacked him. By that point I’ll have already pulled you into the shadows along with the rest of them. Even if he looks around he won’t be focusing on shadows so long as they’re not completely out of place.
“I don’t know how long we’ll have, but it should buy us a few minutes until he gives up and comes back.”
“That works out perfectly!” said Plum. “If he leaves Starlight alone then we can save Flurry’s parents, and together we can ambush him when he returns.”
“I don’t think it will be that simple,” said Flurry. “He’s not stupid.”
“Well, we’ll see what he does first,” said Pumpkin, “and then make our plans from there.”
“Right.”
“Umm,” Chocolate said quietly, hesitating on joining the others. “Is this shadow thing safe? If we move into the shadow of something else won’t we just disappear?”
Tree Leaf shook his head. “Not at all. It feels a little strange to become sorta like flat, but you can still move like you want, and see too. We all experienced it at the last adventure when we tried to use it to sneak attack Mayhem.”
“Well… okay. If you say so.”
Flurry watched as they all sank into the shadows, and used her magic to levitate herself to get outside the throne room without making noise.
The doors were opened wide, and Flurry glanced through the crack. She felt a flush of rage seeing Sombra sitting on her mother’s throne. Nearby she could see Starlight and her parents.
She used a spell to boost her hearing so she could eavesdrop on their conversation.
“I’m getting bored,” he said. “How long is this going to take?”
“Brainwashing is a delicate process,” said Starlight. “I could turn them into brainless drones easily, but-”
“And you haven’t done that because…”
Talking louder she said, “BECAUSE it’s not that simple. If you’d be so kind as to actually listen to me.”
Flurry saw Sombra give her a dirty look, and for a moment he made a move as though he was going to attack, but then he leaned back into the throne. “Forgive me, your highness, but you’re contradicting yourself. First you say it’s easy, and then you say it’s not.”
“As I was trying to say, it’s an easy matter to create mindless drones, but it’s also easy for them to overcome the magic through willpower, usually because you’re doing, or trying to make them do, something that conflicts with their core values.
“It wouldn’t be good for your plans if, in the middle of an important battle, they suddenly came back to themselves. That’s why you have to slowly erode their willpower and crush their spirits.”
Sombra smirked. “Well, if my arrival today was any indication, then you know I’m talented at that sort of thing.”
His horn lit up. “A few hours of torture will surely shatter their spirits enough that your magic will truly corrupt them.”
Flurry saw red, lighting up her horn and firing through the crack. She missed him by an inch. She was about to fire again when she felt a hoof pulling her, and she sank into the shadow of the wall.
Sombra growled, his eyes turning pure green as he charged towards the entrance. His head rapidly whipped back and forth, seeing no one.
“WHO DARES?” he yelled out in pure fury. “SHOW YOURSELF! NOW!”
He closed the throne doors and looked around the immediate area, spotting no one.
“STARLIGHT!” he snapped, a shadowy aura coming off him.
She teleported over. “Who in the world would have the guts to attack you?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. I’ll search this entire castle if I have to. No one defies me!”
“And what should I do with the hostages?”
He pulled Cadance and Shining towards him, shooting a blast of magic at them.
Flurry felt a jolt of panic, but the only result seemed to be that their horns become infested with crystals. “They’re worthless to me right now. Even if they wake up they can’t do anything without their magic. Once we have the culprit and present their battered body to anyone else who believes they can defy me we can work on ‘converting’ them to my cause.
“Now let’s go.”
“Right.”
The pair took off in opposite directions, inspecting every conceivable hiding spot on the way until they were out of sight.
Masky waited another minute before moving their shadows into the throne room and pulling all of them out.
“That worked out great,” said Spring. “Good plan, Masky.”
“Thanks,” he replied.
Flurry focused on her parents. She tried shooting a few beams at them with seemingly no effect. She tapped her hoof on the ground a few times in frustration. “Ugh! It’s no good. I can’t get that stuff off their horns.”
She tensed up and let out a deep breath. “I can’t do anything for them, so we have to leave them behind for now and just keep moving.”
“What?” said Pound. “Why?”
“Yeah,” said Pumpkin. “We should at least hide them somewhere.”
Flurry let out another slow breath. “Sombra is already mad enough about being attacked. If he comes back and my parents are missing he’s going to blow his stack, and then it could put the regular ponies of the Crystal Empire in danger.
“At least in the castle he’ll be focused on converting my parents to his side, and Aunt Starlight is stalling him any way she can. If he finds that they’re gone he might think she had something to do with it and go after her.
"And if he believes that one of the common ponies have hidden my parents away he’d probably torture everyone for information.”
A tear came down her eyes. “I can’t allow that to happen to them. And my parents wouldn’t want that either.”
Peppermint bit her lip. “Yeah… I see what you mean. But if we’re not going to take them with us then we have to hurry and get the Crystal Heart back before he can spread all his hatred and evil around. “
Tree Leaf nodded. “Right. So let’s do what we came here to do.”
Flurry had to struggle to take her eyes from her unconscious parents. Simulation or not she felt horrible about abandoning her parents to Sombra, even if she knew Starlight was going to do all she could to protect them.
She reminded herself that the faster they moved the less chance anything would happen to her family.
She got her spirit back, teleporting close to the throne. As Nega had said, using dark magic felt just the same as other magic. She shot it at her mother’s throne, and just as in the memories Twilight had shown her the brightness of the throne turned black and a hole opened up in the floor, revealing a large spiraling staircase.
She extended her wings out, wrapping them up in them and using her magic to float them down to the bottom. She constantly scanned the area, but nothing bad happened.
She spotted the cursed door Sombra had created to block the path to the heart.
“You remember how this next part goes, right?” said Flurry. “When I hit it with my magic it’s going to show me my worst fear.”
“And that’s when we snap you out of it,” said Flash.
Flurry nodded, taking a deep breath. She didn’t know if she was ready for this.
She reminded herself that she was doing this for her parents. Fake or not they were still her parents, and hesitating wasn’t going to save them from being tortured.
She fired up her horn with dark magic, shooting it at the crystal above the door.
After a few moments she glanced around. Nothing had changed. They seemed to still be in the exact same spot.
The door opened, revealing another room.
The children looked at each other in confusion. “That… wasn’t what was supposed to happen,” said Pound.
“Maybe,” Pumpkin said uncertainly, “he didn’t reset the trap from the last time?”
“I… guess,” Flurry said slowly.
“Or he set up some new ones,” said Plum.
“Or the Crystal Heart isn’t even up there,” said Mayhem, “so he didn’t bother to put up his traps.”
“Well,” said Flurry, “we’re not going to find out if it’s a waste of time until we proceed.”
“Right,” said Sweet Pea.
They went into the next room, seeing the staircase that now went up a few stories.
There was a flash of light, and then Flash was skidding to a stop in front of them. “It’s up there!” he said in delight. He let out a squeal of excitement. He loved how fast he was. He was truly living up to his namesake now.
“Awesome!” said Spring.
“Sombra really wasn’t too smart, after all,” said Chocolate. “It seems like his traps are super easy to get past simply by having another person with you.”
“I think Flash is fast enough to get past the trap alone, but just in case he should take Flurry with him up top.”
“Got it,” she said.
There was another flash and the pair were gone. After another ten seconds Flash and Flurry appeared in front of them again, Flurry laughing victoriously. “Got it!” she said.
They all cheered, clapping hooves together.
“Now let’s go show that jerk who's boss!” said Spring.
Flurry grabbed them all in her wings like before, this time levitating them upwards towards the ceiling of the room they had come in originally. As they neared the top Flurry shot a blast of dark magic at it to open it back up.
They landed in front of the throne to Sombra’s shock.
“W-wha-” he cried out. “Y-you kids got the Heart?”
“Got that right,” said Flurry, levitating it in front of her. “Your evil reign comes to an end right here!”
“N-no! This is impossible!”
“Whether you want to believe it or not this is the end!”
The Heart lit up with a brilliant light, shooting at Sombra as he let out a howl. The light engulfed him as he continued screaming, dissolving into pieces.
Starlight was speechless, blinking repeatedly.
Cadance and Shining Armor stirred, the pieces of crystal falling off their horns.
“What happened?” said Shining, rubbing his head.
“Mommy, Daddy!” Flurry said joyfully, running over to them. “We got the Crystal Heart back and defeated King Sombra.”
Cadance’s eyes went wide. “You did? That’s incredible.”
“We won!” said Pound, jumping up and down.
“It’s too bad it was so short,” said Chocolate, flexing. “I didn’t even get to show off what I could do.”
“Oh, well,” said Sweet Pea. “There’s always another adventure with a worthy enemy.”
Starlight hugged her niece. “I’m very proud of you. This calls for a celebration!”
“Definitely!” said Cadance. “We have to let everyone know that Sombra was defeated.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Flurry, grinning from ear to ear.
They left the throne room to head outside and place the Crystal Heart in its usual place.
***
Twilight stared at her niece, curious. All of them had been staring at the magical doorway for the longest time.
What had her so intrigued was that none of them had the green eyes Spike had had when he had experienced Sombra’s door. Quite the opposite. All of them were smiling wide.
She glanced down, seeing a faint light coming from Flurry’s neck, and things clicked. The ‘charm from her mother’ Mayhem had given her shielded her from all dark magic, as well as anyone close to her.
Her horn lit up, and she saw things from Flurry’s eyes. They were all celebrating Sombra’s defeat.
She slowly shook her head. “Hmmm... very interesting.”
They were all stuck in an illusion. Good one or bad one, it didn’t change what it meant: they were immobile, and thus couldn’t progress in the game.
‘How are you planning to get out of this, Flurry?’ she thought, then shook her head again. ‘That’s right. You don’t even know there’s something you need to get out of.”
She wondered what was going to come next. It wasn’t her place to interfere in this contest, so she’d have to just let this play out.
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What was his plan. That was a little too easy. Hopefully Twilight is ready when the real plan is revealed.
Ohhhhh the Black Mercy move. Very curious to see how they’ll get out of it.
10330518
Well, that IS the name of the chapter title. I'm curious what exactly you mean by it, though? Do you mean that Flurry and the rest should realize something is up because it was too easy, or that it was too obvious as a reader it wouldn't be that simple?
And you say hopefully Twilight is ready for the real plan. She's not participating. She's just an observer.
I will say, though, that the effects of Sombra's door is going to cause something HUGE to happen later on because Flurry expects things to run the same course as the illusion once they get the Heart back for real.
10330731
Too easy as in the sense that young foals stopped him. I am surprised that a few of the foals haven’t realized it. They should know superhero conventions enough to realize that something fishy is going on.
Hmmm...very interesting. Quite the illusion made here.
10330745
Well, these same young foals defeated a crazed reality warper. And these wish granting adventures are basically power plays, letting children accomplish things they'd never be able to do in the real world, so defeating Sombra isn't that different than destroying a skeleton army or Ahuizotl from the initial wishes.
And if you want to get technical it had nothing to do with their own power. Anyone holding the Crystal Heart could have done the same.
I knew that was too easy (and not just because of the title). Before the reveal at the end, I was thinking that Sombra may have faked his own death similar to in the Season 9 premier.
I also thought that there was something suspicious about the fact that Sombra was in the throne room so soon after being distracted. But it wasn't suspicious enough for me to actually question it. But it makes sense now in hindsight.