The Return of the King

by MisterEdd

And Then There Were Three

"Your move."

Flash Sentry furrowed his brow, scrutinizing the board with intense concentration. Chess was never really his thing and it irked him to be shown up by his prisoner. It had started out as another typical day: he woke up, ate breakfast, shined and pulled on his armor and headed to his post. He heard from an overly-excited guard named Gleaming Helm the details of a rendezvous between Princess Twilight and Sombra, instantly ruining his morning. Apparently the two laughed, danced, exchanged I love you's (Flash's eye twitched at that) and kissed a lot (he was shaking with rage).

"It was the most romantic thing I'd ever seen!" Gleaming exposited and Flash was ready to pick the new recruit up and toss him out the nearest window. "I mean, who knew King Sombra was such a softie? I'm not gay or anything but I'd totally…-"

"I have to go," Flash stormed off, ignoring anything else that flew out of the unicorn's stupid pie hole. He descended the staircase and trotted towards the dungeon. How did it come to this? The mare of his dreams leaving him for one of Equestria's worst enemies? Was he just taking crazy pills or what?!

Sombra, irritatingly enough, was in a chipper mood, humming to himself and sweeping his cell. Flash was never a fan of violence but he what wanted more than anything was to knock that stupid grin off his face with a Buck Norris-style atomic roundhouse kick. At least the umbrum had the decency not to rub his date with Twilight in Flash's face. Instead, he requested a chess board so the two of them could play. Flash fervently refused but after a strangely aggressive order from Princess Celestia, he soon found himself roped into a match, with him on black and Sombra on white.

Flash pushed one of his knights forward onto an empty space with his wing. Sombra countered by using one of his knights to capture a pawn. It was a mistake. Finding an opening, Flash struck, his king taking out Sombra's knight. The game was finally turning in his favor.

Sombra moved his bishop and stated, "Check."

Undeterred, Flash knocked the piece off with his king and sat back. "Looks like I have you now."

A sly grin appeared on Sombra's face. "Do you?" Before Flash could reply, he took his queen, which he'd kept in the back the whole game, pushed it straight across the board and tipped over Flash's queen. "Checkmate."

The pegasus could only stare in disbelief. He'd been played!

"I've taken your queen," Sombra grinned, removing the piece from the board. If it was a boast about the game or Sombra's wooing of Twilight, Flash wasn't certain. He hated his opponent's smugness.

"That's great. Am I done here?"

Sombra blinked innocently. "Why, aren't you having fun?"

"Not the word I'd ever use in association with you," Flash grumbled and stood up, giving his wings a few flaps. "I played your game. Now I'm done."

"I see. A sore loser."

"A sore...?" Flash glared at him. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Getting me riled up, making me look bad in front of Princess Celestia or Twilight?!"

Sombra's fangs peaked through his lips in a sly grin. "Trust me, you don't need my help to make you look bad."

Flash strode up to the bars. "What's your endgame? Huh?! You got what you wanted! You won!"

The grin disappeared and Sombra shook his head pitifully. "This isn't a game, Flash Sentry nor is Twilight a prize. She chose me and you're going to have to deal with that."

"Stop pretending like you don't have an ulterior motive! I know you're just using Twilight to-..."

Suddenly, Sombra was up and his face right against the bars so quickly that Flash instinctively fell backwards and onto his hindquarters. "Shut your mouth, you pathetic excuse for a stallion!" Sombra roared, his eyes burning like wildfire. "You don't know anything about me so don't presume to! I love Twilight, heart, body and soul and if you can't accept that, it's your problem not mine!"

Flash stared up at the fuming stallion, his chest rising and falling rapidly at the end of his outburst. He always spoke so calmly, acting as though he had the situation in hoof that for Flash, just seeing him explode like that was startling. "You really love her...don't you?"

Sombra turned his back on him and Flash could barely make out his next words:

"More than you'll ever know..."

Flash grunted and pulled himself off the floor, wiping dust off his now slightly scratched armor. This is going to be a nightmare to polish. He shook his head and glanced at the moody umbrum. Slowly approaching the cell, he noticed Sombra was now facing him, adopting a mask of quiet stoicism.

"Look, ever since getting to know Twilight, I've grown to love her. By Celestia do I love her." Sombra said nothing, so Flash continued. "I don't know what she could possibly see in you but I will admit that I've never seen her as happy as she is when she visits. And kills me to know that you did that instead of me, that I couldn't make her happy. I just....I wasn't enough."

He heard a sigh in the darkness. "I feel the say way sometimes." This got Flash's attention. "I know I've done some bad things in my life, very bad things that can never be forgiven. Twilight was the first one to look beyond my crimes to see the stallion underneath. She was willing to give me a chance and I'll never be able to be who she thinks I am."

For the longest time, neither one of them spoke a word, either because they didn't know what else to say or if there was anything left to say so Flash merely left, a million questions on his mind and no easy answers. It was the first time he walked away from the dungeon feeling something other than anger and jealousy towards Sombra. And it irked him not to know what it was.

~*~

"I still don't see why you dragged me here."

Twilight rolled her eyes at Rainbow Dash. "I told you it's because you and Spike are the only ones that haven't been to see Sombra since his imprisonment. I hoping to change all that."

Beside her, Spike was waddling with a large plastic container in his arms. "Whew! When Pinkie said she was making cookies, I didn't think she meant she was working on enough to feed a swarm of parasprites."

"Well, she was trying out a few new recipes and figured that Sombra could be a good taste-tester."

Rainbow flapped lazily above them. "Come on, baking Sombra cookies? Next thing you know, he's going to be attending tea parties at Fluttershy's house!"

A hole opened up next to them and out popped Discord's head. "Absolutely not! That's our tea time!"

Twilight laughed as Rainbow jolted and rolled in the air. "Sorry about that, Rainbow Dash. Discord's been moody lately."

The draconequus stretched the hole and stepped out, crumbling it up in his paw to stuff it into a pocket-like flap of skin on his hip that vanished. "Of course I have! Princess Celestia played dirty!"

Recovering from her tumble, Rainbow Dash sputtered, "I thought you liked playing dirty!"

"Only when I do it!" Discord grumbled. "Princess Celestia said that I could do whatever I wanted in Fillydelphia for twelve whole hours. I teleported back to the castle to let her know that I was finished."

"Huh, so that's why there were reports coming out of Fillydelphia of a parade of giant lollipops and mustachioed rubber ducks," Spike offhandedly mentioned.

"So? It sounds like you got what you wanted!"

SNAP!

Discord turned towards Rainbow, only his head became that of Princess Celestia's.

"'Oh Discord, don't you recall our agreement?'" He said in a mocking falsetto, hands clasped together. "'I said that you didn't have to turn everything back. I never said that you couldn't not clean up after yourself!'" Another snap and his head was normal...ish. "It took me hours to clean up everything by paw and claw. Hours!"

Twilight smirked, "Weeeell, that's what you get for entering a bargain with Princess Celestia."

"Oh zip it!"

SNAP!

A zipper forced Twilight's lips shut. "Hrrmm!" She tried to pull the zipper only to find that there was no slider. "Hrrm-hrrd! Hrrd hrrm hrrrmg hrrff hrrm hrrm hrrrm!"

Discord gave her a cheeky smirk. "Oh I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying."

"Discord..." Rainbow Dash warned him while Spike was trying to calm Twilight down.

"Ugh, fine! You ponies are no fun!" He snapped his fingers, the zipper dematerializing as Twilight gasped for air. "Anyway, I simply must be going. Enjoy your little pow-wow with tall, dark and edgy."

He vanished before anything else could be said. Ironically, despite being the Spirit of Chaos, and thus by definition in a constant state of unpredictability, Discord could be amazingly predictable. The three continued on their way and although two of them were nervous about their upcoming meeting, Spike wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. Rainbow Dash's air of nonchalance was crumbling the closer they reached the dungeon and by the time they were in the same room as Sombra, she was feeling an urge to fly away as fast as she could and never return. She held off, however, upon realizing that it'd hurt her image and didn't want her friends to think that Spike was braver than her.

Twilight skipped up to the cell and embraced Sombra through the bars, the two nuzzling and peppering each other with kisses. Rainbow gagged at this display, wondering how any rational mare would voluntarily kiss King Sombra of all ponies. Still, she was a little touched by the scene, not that she'd ever admit it. Spike, meanwhile, was beginning to visually relax, allowing his shoulders to settle and his tail to uncurl. The couple then both turned in their direction.

"Sombra, you remember Spike."

"Hello Spike," Sombra said, being as friendly as possible. "It's been a long time."

Spike began to shake slightly. "Um, yep, it has. How, uh, have you...been?"

"Could be better. I'm not a fan of the décor but that's out of my hooves."

Spike weakly laughed at the umbrum's attempt at comedy. "Hehe, funny. Hey Sombra, about that business in the Crystal Empire...?"

Sombra waited a moment before finishing, "...when you helped to fill me with love magic, causing me to explode into a million pieces?"

"I, uh..." Spike was sweating now.

"Water under the bridge! In all honesty, I've let that go."

"What? Really?"

Sombra nodded. "I don't blame you and neither should you."

Spike was dumbfounded. "Th-thanks, I guess."

"Good, good. What's in that case?"

"Huh, oh, Pinkie made cookies for you to try." At the mention of "cookies," Sombra's eyes glazed over. "Uh, is he okay?"

Twilight waved a hoof. "Pfft! He's fine. He just really likes Pinkie's baking. Or sweets in general."

"Yeah, that's great. Can I go now?"

Sombra snapped out of his sugar-daze. "Why? Is there somewhere you'd rather be?"

Rainbow crossed her forelegs. "Yeah."

"Then go."

"What?"

Sombra gave a noncommittal shrug. "If you'd rather not be here then there's no use in you staying around."

Rainbow eyed him closely. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. Take care."

"Um...okay. Bye."

She turned and raced out, only to return a minute later. "Hold on a second! You're trying to use that reverse psycho mumbo-jumbo on me. By saying that I can go, you're really saying is that I have to stay and by saying that you're sure, what you really mean is that you're not sure. You actually want me around!"

Sombra frowned and sighed, "Yes, you're absolutely right."

"Ha! You're not so smart after all, huh?"

"I guess not."

Rainbow's left eye twitched. "Oh no you don't! By saying that I'm right, what you're really saying is that I'm wrong...!"

Comments

[Viper Pit]

Okay this was a hoot

[Blik]

I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Twilight's still harboring the Nightmare.

[PearlyDoesStuff]

10912382
Ayup.