The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 79: The End of an Empire

Suddenly, the half-broken machines binding the Heart of Darkness engaged. They whirred and turned, driven by some unseen signal. Penumbra opened her eyes, but only saw them distantly. Perhaps, in some way, she understood- -but it still took her by surprise when the charges fired, and the hypodermic chisels were fired straight into its very core.

She screamed softly, because they had simultaneously penetrated her very soul.

Then the machine shunted the very last energy of the Heart upward and outward, and Penumbra’s life-force along with it. The Heart, drained of the last dregs of its power, shattered, exploding outward into thousands of dull blackened fragments.

The explosion threw Penumbra backward, and she fell to the ground, her eyes still open but her body limp. Her cutie mark flickered and went out entirely.

Now empty and devoid of any and all power, the shield protecting the last remnants of the kingdom slowly and quietly dissipated. Daybreaker watched as it fell around her, dissipating into fine, glimmering particles. She tilted her head back, her horn still smoking, and took a deep breath. Then she stepped across the final boundary.

“Penumbra!” cried Burnt, grabbing her friend. “Penumbra, wake up!” She squeezed her, and burst into sobs. “Facet, Facet! The hugs! They aren’t working!”

“Hold on,” said Facet. “There’s still a chance, there has to be- -”

“No,” said Daybreaker, approaching them. “There isn’t. It’s over. I’ve won.”

A minor burst of her magic cast Burnt and Facet aside, and Daybreaker’s hooves crunched over the powerless shards of the Heart of Darkness. Then she began to smile.

“Princess,” she said. “You challenged me. And you lost. Congratulations, heretic.” She laughed softly to herself, her glowing shadow falling over Penumbra’s unmoving body. “Say,” she said. “Would you like to hear a joke?” She did not pause for an answer. Her smile grew. “What is the difference between an earth-pony and an alicorn?”

Daybreaker’s horn ignited, and a blinding white light appeared beside her, assembling itself into a cutting spell and finally a blade of brilliant solar intensity.

She laughed, her smile revealing her numerous long, sharp teeth.

“A pair of wings...and a HORN.”

“Sister!” cried Nightmare Moon. “You can’t- -”

A flare of magic from Daybreaker’s horn atomized her sister into a plume of smoke. She did not even bother looking. Her eyes were focused solely on the usurper, the false alicorn- -the disease she was tasked by fate to end.

She raised the blade- -and felt a slight warmth on her side.

“Get away from her!” squeaked Burnt, firing her incendiary magic into Daybreaker’s left shoulder. “Get back get back GET BACK! GET- -ERK!”

Daybreaker lifted Burnt by her neck. Even as she was held aloft, Burnt struggled, sending burning fire in every direction. A great deal of it struck Daybreaker, but had absolutely no effect.

“Stop that.”

“I’m warning you! I’m trained for cuddling but I’ll still kick your fat BU- -”

Daybreaker sliced off the end of Burnt’s horn. Burnt’s magic immediately faltered to only a thin trickle of vague like-warmth.

“I am not fat,” said Daybreaker. “Let us please make that clear. Fat is what is used to FRY THING.” She suddenly increased the heat around Burnt, and Burnt cried out as she began to smolder. “I am the goddess of the SUN, you pointless moron. Why would you use FIRE against ME?” She smiled. “But what can I expect? You’re clearly an idiot. Such an ugly color...a disgrace. I TOLERATE pure, perfect white unicorns...but not you. Brown is the wrong color.” She squeezed harder, crushing Burnt’s windpipe and choking off her breath. “But if you like fire? Allow me to oblige!”

Daybreaker was suddenly hit in the chest with a spell. A powerful one, too, but quite clearly not one cast by a unicorn. Daybreaker raised the colored unicorn she was holding and struck her attacker with it, sending them both reeling back- -but her eyes narrowed with hate when she saw that the pony who had dared to cast a mildly competent spell against her was made of CRYSTAL.

“So,” she said, approaching the crystal pony who had cast against her. “I see Sombra trained you well. Defending his daughter, even to the last. Always obeying. Never choosing.” She laughed. “But only I can choose, can’t I? I’m the only one here truly alive. Certainly not you.” She paused. “Well, at least not any longer.”

The crystal pony raised a crystal containing a spell. Before she could activate it, Daybreaker shattered it, causing a small detonation that sent both the crystal pony and the ugly brown unicorn flying backward. Out of sheer amusement, Daybreaker took aim at the crystal pony in midair. The others of her pointless kind had not fled; they were too simple to know to run. So she would make an example for them.

Daybreaker fired- -but as the beam struck the crystal pony, strange and hellish runes around her neck ignited with sickening light. A black shield spell formed around her, protecting both herself and the toasticorn.

“What?” Daybreaker actually took a step back as the pair landed on the crystal ground, both still alive. “That curse? Where did you get it?!”

Facet reached for her neck, wincing as the marks singed deeper into her coat. “What…?”

Daybreaker laughed. “You don’t know, do you? Huh. Well, you’ll find out. Understand, I was being merciful.” She turned away and back toward Penumbra. “Not that it matters. I have no time for mortals. But her...she needs PAIN.”

She took a step toward the princess and was promptly struck in the face by a tiny and inconsequential fragment of crystal.

Daybreaker’s blackened eyes turned toward where the piece had come from.

“Who dares?”

“Go away!” cried a crystal filly, tears running down her face, even as her mother- -with marks from a rope still around her ankles- -tried to pull her back. “You leave her alone, you- -you BIG MEANIE!”

A murmur moved through some of the crystal ponies. They looked from one to another, seeing the response of each other and trying to judge it. Yet they were all too foolish to run. They were not smart enough to leave their princess’s side.

“She was trying to save us!” cried one of the crowd, a mare whose body had been shaved in preparation for a surgery that had never happened. “She gave us everything she had!”

“And she FAILED!” boomed Daybreaker, using her Royal Canterlot Voice- -only to be struck in the face with another fragment of crystal, this one thrown by a crystal stallion who worked at a bar that was now buried deep under a small fragment of the HMS Monocerus.

“Who do you think you are?!” he demanded.

“Yeah!” The eldest of several maids stepped forward. “We won’t let you hurt the princess!”

“FOOLS!” Daybreaker cast a solar plume over their head and laughed as many cowered in fear- -even as many among them did not. “She’s a MONSTER! Just like ME! You know it in your hearts, you want this just as much as I do! Sombra is gone! And if she lives? SHE takes control of the Empire, just like her father- -”

Several fragments of crystal pinged off Daybreaker’s superheated armor.

“She’s not a monster!” screamed a stallion shielding a little child, both dressed in uniforms given to Turing testers by Emeth himself.

“She’s a good pony!”

“We won’t let you hurt her!”

“She’s not FAT like YOU!”

“I AM NOT FAT!”

Daybreaker summoned her magic, but as she did, several of the bravest among the crystal ponies did the unthinkable. They charged her.

She knocked them away with ease, sending their useless crystal bodies flying- -but upon seeing the bravery of the others, more came, ignoring their fear of Daybreaker and her unstoppable magic.

In seconds, it seemed that the whole of the kingdom had rallied around Penumbra, swarming forward against Daybreaker. She found herself wading through them but unable to approach her target, who many of the crystal ponies covered with their own crystalline bodies.

“Get off me! LET ME THROUGH! You don’t UNDERSTAND!”

“Go away!” cried a crystal pony in response.

“This isn’t your kingdom!”

“We’re not afraid of you!”

“We’re not afraid anymore!”

They buffeted against Daybreaker in waves, hitting and striking her- -but their attacks were useless. Pointless, even, for they could accomplish nothing in the face of an alicorn goddess. Yet still they pressed forward regardless.

And as they stood together and united, courageous even through their fear, the fragments of the Crystal Heart began to quiver upon the ground. Slowly, they began to shake, pulling themselves across the ground toward one another.

“FINE,” growled Daybreaker, igniting her horn. “I had hoped this would be more orderly and less messy. Oh well, if you want it that bad- -”

Even then, at the moment of their last stand, the crystal ponies still did not stand down- -they stood together, holding one another as the very last of their fear evaporated. If the daughter of Sombra would stand for them, then so could they.

The fragments of the shattered Heart ignited, their blackness purged by a glow of purest blue. They drew together, slamming together as the Heart was reconstructed. Now pure and bright, it stood without the help of its machines, and the morlock clasp that had once held it was burned away by its light. In the center of the kingdom beneath the Crystal Citadel, it began to revolve freely, its cosmic form at last freed from the plague created by Sombra’s misunderstanding of its true power.

Daybreaker brought down her spell as the force of the Crystal Heart burst outward. The blast of solar heat met only crystal as the bodies of the crystal ponies changed, their bodies imbued with the light of hope and unity. Daybreaker herself could not understand what Celestia would have known in an instant, and when the light of the Heart reached her she could not comprehend it.

It rejected her. She tried to fight against it, but doing so was pointless. Daybreaker was instantly overpowered and driven backward by the same energy that tore through the Citadel, tearing away the machines that had once bound its smallest fraction. The energetic force of an entire kingdom’s love.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one. The spell cast by the Heart was meant as a final defense for crystal ponies and crystal ponies alone. While it passed harmlessly through Penumbra and the crystal ponies, it bumped Burnt hard in the rump, driving her outward.

“EEP!” she cried. “Where am I going?!”

“Burnt, no! Hold on!” Facet grabbed her heel, trying to pull her in- -but as the shield passed through her own body, she screamed in pain.

The magic rejected all that was evil; it was inherent to its design- -and it had caught on the runes that were indelibly marked into Facet’s neck. They glowed with terrible light as the love of the Heart burned into her flesh, and she, like Burnt or Daybreaker, was carried outward and away from her own people. Luciferian’s curse had manifested.

The three of them were thrown to the ground in the ruins outside the Capital District. Burnt had landed on top of Daybreaker’s face, and Facet still desperately attempted to tear her way through the dome, to pull her way back to her people- -but although her body would pass, the marks on her neck would not allow her.

“No! NO! Let me- -let me back! PENUMBRA! I won’t leave you! I’m sorry! I’M SORRY!”

A dark mist congealed beside Facet. Facet cried out and cowered in the rubble as it assumed the form of Nightmare Moon.

“I am afraid it is too late, Facet Flare,” she said, her turquoise eyes narrowing on the crystal pony. “That curse, once spoken, cannot be unsaid. We humbly apologize.”

Nightmare Moon’s body partially reverted to mist again as a brown unicorn was thrown through it. Burnt landed hard on Facet as Daybreaker stood up.

“NO!” she screamed, driving the full force of her magic and rage into the force of the Heart. “NO! I will NOT be defeated! I won’t! I WON’T! I REFUSE!”

Her attacks did not even make the barest of dent into the surface. When she tried to drive her horn through it once more, she cried out as she was thrown back by the force.

“Do not hurt thine self, sister,” sighed Nightmare Moon. “I am afraid it is too late. You cannot penetrate this force.”

“Shut up! SHUT UP!”

A thin smile crossed Nightmare Moon’s face. “It is ironic, in a way. Celestia would cry tears of joy to see this, and walk through it with the greatest ease.” She turned to her elder sister. “And yet even you, her ‘superior’ self, cannot scratch it.”

“I am NOT Celestia!” shrieked Daybreaker, charging the wall again and slashing at it with her magic. “I am STRONGER! I am BETTER, more beautiful, more POWERFUL! I demand you let me in! LET ME IN! I will end you all! EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!!”

Nightmare Moon nearly laughed- -but that laughter caught in her throat when, as if in response to Daybreaker’s demands, the color of the energy became pale and its strength began to wain.

“HA! Take that, stupid magic!” Daybreaker poked it with her horn. “Even that ridiculous heart can see I DESERVE this...and I’m going to shatter it so hard...”

“Sister. We have failed.

“What are you talking about, you fat idiot? I just told you, I almost have her, that filthy heretic- -”

Then Daybreaker too sensed it. She looked up to the sky as the red glow of her sun faded, overwhelmed by ominous darkness that seemed to spread downward from the sky itself. Darkness that even the light of Daybreker’s sun could not penetrate; a form of the deepest and most pure form of despondent blackness.

Nightmare Moon felt it. A feeling she knew all too well. Daybreaker, though, had never known fear, so as it permeated her soul she took a step back, raging and confused at wahatever force dared to make her so weak. Beneath the protective light of the Cyrstal Heart, the crystal ponies held one another, looking to the sky and watching. They knew the name of that dreaded fear all too well.

Part of the darkness stretched downward, coalescing and gaining impossible tangibility. Shadows had no form, and no substance; they were simply the absence of light, nothing more than a void- -and yet, as the alicorns watched, they took form.

Sombra emerged before them, built piece by piece as the shadows formed bone and muscle and flesh. He no longer had the form of an ancient wizard, but nor did he have the form he once held. Nightmare Moon had seen that form on more than one occasion and marked it well, how uncanny he seemed- -that his youth was little more than an illusion, a commodity bought through the use of foul and dangerous magic.

Yet the being that stood before them had no look of a revenant. His youth had been restored to him, and restored eternal. The creature that stood before Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker was no longer a pony- -but he was most certainly immortal.

Sombra looked at them both, his pale eyes reflecting in the waning light of Daybreaker’s red sun. And then he smiled.

“I had forgotten,” he said, his voice quiet and elegant with no sense of malice or anger.

“Forgotten what?”

Sombra’s eyes met Nightmare Moon’s. “How good it feels. To be alive.” He lifted one of his hooves, flexing it. “How long it has been...how slow, though. I had never noticed, even as my power slipped away. As the Heart ceased to expand my power and came to replace it...” He looked over his shoulder. “Although I suppose I no longer require it now, do I?”

“Do you really think you can challenge me?” demanded Daybreaker. “Because from where I’m standing, I don’t see a pair of wings.” She bared her teeth. “And you are not going to leave hear alive. This kingdom is MINE.”

“Of course. You are welcome to it.”

Daybreaker blinked, taken aback completely. “Wh- -what?”

“I surrender it to you. I shall even sign a treaty, if that even matters in deals between gods and whatever it is Gxurab has made me.”

“Forgive us if we do not trust you,” growled Nightmare Moon.

Sombra turned to her. “I would expect simplicity from your sister, but please consider this logically. The kingdom is and always was a means toward an end. Power for power’s sake is utterly pointless and a waste of my talent and time. Even if that time is now far less limited.” He gestured toward it. “Take it, if you like. Or level it, I don’t care. As I have said, I no longer need it. This body is more than adequate for what I need.”

“Which is?”

Sombra blinked. “For one brief moment, I glimpsed them. The endless doors to knowledge beyond all knowledge, to worlds beyond these and beyond endless time. My body is massless and eternal. My kingdom has served its purpose. Please, feel free to take it.” He turned sharply toward Daybreaker. “HOWEVER. I have one request. A condition, so to speak.”

“Which is?” asked Nightmare Moon.

“My daughter. You may have her, if you like. But I request your unbreakable word as a divine being, a true Princess Promise, that she will not be harmed.”

“You would not take her with you? Your private weapon?”

“What does an immortal have need with a weapon? Conquest is pointless. Warfare is pointless. And...” He paused, and looked back over his shoulder- -but this time not at the Heart. “I think...”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Why not take her with you, then?”

Sombra looked back to Nightmare Moon. “And drag her with me, driving her ever toward my own dream? I do not want that. I release her.”

“Even if that means we ought to take her?”

“To be raised by those that can give her the love and happiness that I never can? I do not feel regret for what I have done to her. I am not capable of it. But neither am I capable of love. I...” He paused. “...I do not want her to become as I have. Unless that is the path she chooses by her own will. And should that day come, I shall stand beside an equal.”

“You would give us the Empire, if we take your daughter?”

Sombra shrugged. “My kingdom for a pony. Is that not a fair deal?”

Nightmare Moon smiled. “Of course. We wish the same, Sombra- -”

“No,” interrupted Daybreaker. “Request denied. We do not accept these terms.”

Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened as her pupils narrowed. “Sister, have you gone mad?! He is proposing a perfect diplomatic resolution! There does not need to be any more violence!”

“I said NO! I am not done being violent!” Daybreaker strode forward, meeting Sombra directly and glaring into his eyes. “We absolutely REFUSE. The princess must pay for her insolence.”

“Sister- -”

“NO. I will not suffer the existence of another alicorn. There can only be ONE.” She glared at Sombra. “I will take the kingdom, and I will take the princess to do as I please. And you will do nothing to stop me. This is our final decision.”

Sombra shrugged. “I see,” he said. “Then my only other option is to test my new power on you.” His silvery eyes turned toward Nightmare Moon and he smiled. She could not help but realize how similar he looked to Specter. “Then perhaps I can broker a deal with your successor.”

“No,” said Nightmare Moon. “I stand by my sister, even when she is an unfathomable idiot. I shall never betray her. Not for all of Equestria.”

“Then neither of you will leave the Empire. I do not want this. As a king to a pair of princesses, know that this is your last chance to reconsider.”

“Ha.” Daybreaker lowered her horn toward Sombra. “Like you even truly ever had a choice.”

She fired a beam of solar energy, splattering his body. The force of the light struck the shield cast by the Crystal Heart and the dome rippled, weakened by the presence of Sombra.

Yet, even with a hole torn through his body, Sombra scarcely moved. His form was no longer flesh- -that part had been left behind, a pile of ash left for Gxurab to carefully bottle and place on a shelf in his new home. What Sombra had become could not be destroyed so easily.

The shadow welled up, bubbling and hissing as it reformed his body.

“Then the choice is made,” he said. “Out of respect for you both, I accept your challenge. Your tissues may yet prove useful to the next phase of my research.”

Daybreaker, clearly annoyed at her attack being rebuked by Sombra’s survival, struck back with twice the force, tearing through Sombra’s location. His body was ripped to shreds of living shadow, and in the light of her magic they suddenly burst apart and became a plume of pitch-black fog.

“SISTER!” cried Nightmare Moon, knowing the spell all too well.

It was too late, though. The inky fog surrounded them both, blocking out all light and vision, separating the two princesses from each other’s sight.

Daybreaker roared with rage, tearing at the shadows as they pressed against her body, swarming over her divine flesh.

“How dare you- -I am LIGHT ITSELF!”

She lit her horn with brilliant solar energy, but the blast only caused the shadows to become deeper and more defined. They pressed against her harder, caressing her flesh- -and entering her nose as she breathed them in.

Her mind began to fill with voices. Some of them she knew, but many she did not. But they were all really just one- -one voice that spoke in the ancient and forgotten language of the Dark Unicorns. Her own voice.

“I understand,” it said. “I understand what you are.”

“If you could truly comprehend the power I wield, then you would not have CHALLENGED ME!”

She screamed and struck again, but her magic met only black mist.

“What is power?” asked her own voice, echoing from the darkness. “What does it matter, what does it bring? Why do you care when you are so very ALONE...”

Daybreaker’s breath caught in her throat. “Get out of my head,” she said, slowly coming to understand. “GET OUT I DEMAND IT!”

The voices whispered from the edge of her perception. “All alone...so alone….”

“They do not love you,” said her own voice. “All that have loved you have long since passed to dust. None can follow you on your path forward across eternity. There are none to stand beside you.”

“Then I stand alone, as I was destined to! Atop all ponies! THE ONLY TRUE GOD!”

“But that accomplishes...what? To be alone...always alone…and without love...”

“They will love me!” cried Daybreaker, feeling fear welling within her. “They HAVE TO! I will give them no choice! Even now- -”

“It is not you they love,” said a female voice, one that was almost her own. “They love Celestia. But you are HATED.” The mist caressed her. “How it must feel...for them to love the lesser part of you, the part that hides her true emotions deep within herself.”

“She is weak! She doesn’t understand! I’m not her! I AM NOT CELESTIA!”

“No. And they will forever hate you because you are not.”

Daybreaker collapsed to her knees. “I am perfect,” she whispered. “I am the definition of perfection. I have to be alone, alone because I am perfect...I don’t need their love.” Burning tears dripped from her blackened eyes. “I will burn everything...burn everything so I can be alone. Then I won’t have to be lonely ever again.” She raised her head, the light of her horn flickering. “I do not need their love.”

“Their love...” echoed many voices.

“But it is not THEIR love,” said a distant male voice, a voice that almost made Daybreaker cry out in fear- -or in joy. It was a voice she was sure she would never hear again.

“You are hated, Daybreaker. They do not love you. They never will. No one ever will. You are doomed to be alone and empty for all eternity, with none to walk beside you.”

“Because you failed me!”

“Do you really think I wanted to succeed?” The voice laughed in her face. “Do be with YOU for all eternity? No one wants that. No one EVER WILL. They do not love you. They love HER...”

“H...her?”

“While your disciples fear and plot against you for the sake of your far more beautiful lesser half, hers adore her regardless of form. Their loyalty is absolute, their love eternal and unending. She is as a mother to them, whereas you are nothing but an oncoming storm barely worth giving a name. The love for your sister is endless. Love that you were too weak to earn. Love you do not DESERVE.”

A face materialized from the mist, a visage of a gray unicorn with a flowing white beard- -although Daybreaker remembered him when he had still been young and beautiful, when the name they had given him was meant to be an ironic description of his youth. The only pony she had ever truly loved.

“St...Starswirl...”

“Know this, failure. I did not choose my name from your sky. I chose it from HERS...”

New thoughts whispered into Daybreaker’s head. Thoughts that told her whose fault it was that she was hated, that she was forced to be alone. Thoughts that suddenly became so clear.

She understood, and her fear was replaced with rage. Range- -and the realization that the time had come. That she had been betrayed, and that it was time for Equestria to serve under a single queen- -and only then would she finally be loved. If she desired the sadness to stop, it would take one final act of violence.

The thought made her smile.

Nightmare Moon was thrown back by the sudden surge of black shadow. Even as it pushed her back, she summoned her armor, encasing herself. It was too late, though. She had already inhaled some if it. It reached into her mind, although it seemed to be surprised that it was not the only voice that reached her mind. Within her, the Blackest Night watched, amused by this turn of events.

“Luna,” whispered her own voice- -the voice of Sombra.

“No,” she said, her voice somber. “Luna is no more. I had to give her up.”

“You are smarter than your little sister...”

“I am aware of that. I do not begrudge her for being a fool.”

The voice ceased to be hers. She heard it for what it truly was- -and yet it continued to speak.

“I spend centuries trying to understand her power. To understand what Eternity Gaze knew, how such a wretched being must perceive the world...time itself...”

“Then you were a greater fool than I thought. The future was not meant to be known, to mortals and immortals alike. To know is sure destruction.”

“I know, and yet I could not stop. I learned from her. I learned her telepathy, came to understand it...but I could not take her vision.” He laughed softly. “And, as it turns out, I did not need it.”

“Really.”

“Starlight Glimmer. I saw within her mind. The briefest of glimpses, the slightest of understandings...and I saw you. I saw what would become of you, in her future.” The voice laughed, and the whispers spoke in strange languages. “She will betray you. Your beloved sister, to whom you are endlessly loyal. She will turn against you, imprison you alone and cold until she can conspire a method to tear you free of her softer, lighter, easier to control sister.

“And your children, she will take them. Purge them from the land. And your beloved...well, his fate is already sealed. One who serves a false-goddess cannot be suffered to live.”

Nightmare Moon stared into the darkness and sighed. “Yes. I am aware.”

Sombra was somewhat taken aback. “And you do not fear this?”

Nightmare Moon smiled, and something dark began to seep from beneath her armor. A creature that itself had been forged from her own sample of elemental shadow- -and that which kept Sombra from ever truly reaching her.

“I created Tantabus to expose me to everything I could possibly ever fear. To every situation, to every scenario, to every form of agony and depravity that could be experienced. My own dreams are the greatest and most terrible of their kind, to harden me against all fates. Yes. I will be left alone and in despair. I know this. Yet I do not fear it. There is nothing left I fear, save for her sake.”

Nightmare Moon lit her horn, casting a light that could never warm- -a light that was itself forged from the deepest darkness of her perfect night. The shadows recoiled from it, retreating and receding, unable to exist against Nightmare Moon’s own moonlit darkness. And as she stood without fear, the smoke dissipated.

From the darkness came light- -burning, blinding, devastating light. Nightmare moon barely dodged it, with Tantabus taking most of the damage as her armor superheated. She fell against the ground, rolling, only to suddenly feel her sister’s sharp teeth clamp down on the metal protecting her neck. The quicksilver creaked and began to buckle, and even though the armor Nightmare Moon could feel the teeth of the first of the vampires.

What was left of Tantabus reacted, pouring outward as Nightmare Moon evaporated- -only to have her smoke shot through by a blinding beam of light. The effect generated a peculiar sensation as some of her particles were lost. It was not quite pain, but whatever it was forced the spell to prematurely terminate, dropping Nightmare Moon onto the heated ground.

“Give them to me!” screamed Daybreaker. The black marks of burning tears had left streaks running down her face, although her expression now contained only rage. “Give me your Elements! You DON’T DESERVE THEM, you filthy traitor!”

“Daybreaker, even if I could- -”

“GIVE THEM TOO ME NOW!”

Daybreaker poured her magic into the earth, causing it to erupt violently as the rock beneath her liquified. Nightmare Moon was barely able to escape in time, flying into the air- -only for her sister to teleport behind her and send a bolt of light through one of her wings, burning away the flight feathers.

Nightmare Moon spiraled to the ground, gracefully catching herself and dodging as Daybreaker, screaming incoherently, landed where she had just been, sending a swirling vortex of destruction in every direction.

“They will love me!” she screamed. “When I’m the only one left, they will HAVE TO!” She charged Nightmare Moon. “They have to love me! THEY HAVE TO LOVE ME!”

Nightmare Moon saw the panic in her sister’s eyes, and she understood it. In a way, she had always known, even if she had never had the will to address it directly. Just as she herself was the embodiment of Luna’s coldness, ruthlessness, and passion, Daybreaker was the embodiment of Celestia’s rage, hatred, but most importantly her endless pain.

This thought only angered Nightmare Moon further- -that she had summoned this creature that had brought her sister so much torment.

As such, she had grown fed-up with Daybreaker’s antics. She sidestepped Daybreaker’s attack easily and struck her hard at the base of her horn. Daybreaker cried out and released a plume of magic from her body, even as her horn was otherwise rendered inoperable for the briefest of moments.

She turned and instead leapt forward- -only for her wings to buckle and fail. Daybreaker fell on her face and looked back, seeing that Nightmare Moon’s touch had transmitted part of her armor. The enchanted metal had bound to Daybreaker’s flaming, angelic wings.

“Don’t mock me!” she wailed, breaking free of the quicksilver as she vaporized it. “I am stronger than you, smarter, cuter- -I am BETTER in EVERY WAY! And even then, you took two of MY Elements! I will tear them free of your skinny horse body, Nightmare. They are MINE! I DESERVE them!”

“Sister. I tire of this.”

Daybreaker turned suddenly, blasting away an entire district of the Crystal Empire and utterly vaporizing her sister- -only to too late notice the thin silver thread attached to her forehead.

The real Nightmare Moon was behind her. Daybreaker turned and struck, but Nightmare Moon parried her blow with her own alicorn magic, drawing close enough to punch Daybreaker square in the snoot.

Enraged, Daybreaker was thrown backward, and lashed out again- -only for her magic to strike Tantabus.

“Why are you hiding, LITTLE sister? Where are you? SHOW YOURSELF!”

“Sister. You seek love. Is mine not enough?”

Daybreaker’s eyes narrowed. “You love HER. Not me!”

She spotted the real Nightmare Moon and charged- -only for Nightmare Moon to turn, grabbing her sister by the shoulder and shoving her head-first into the shield dome cast by the Crystal Heart.

Daybreaker cried out and began to convulse as the magic poured into her, rejecting her presence. Even it loved Celestia alone- -only the half of her that was good and pleasant, kind and free of anger or sadness. Never the whole- -never the self that the sun-goddess was forced to conceal.

Even through the pain, she broke free and turned to her sister. She was fully prepared to do to Nightmare Moon what she was not yet able to do to Cadence- -to win the love of her subjects by purging those who would serve as distractions.

Except that Nightmare Moon was too fast. Without warning or hesitation, she leaned forward and kissed her sister on the lips- -a kiss complete with tongue.

Daybreaker’s face darkened several shades to an interesting red color. Nightmare Moon disconnected and looked into her sister’s eyes.

“I want to have your babies.”

Far more than Daybreaker’s face changed to shades of red. “But- -that- -not- -princest- -possible?”

“Come on. I have seen it in your dreams more than once. And I am not above frosting myself.”

“N- -NO! Stay out of my dreams!”

Nightmare Moon’s seductive smile faded. “Now that I have your attention, sister, listen to me. Sombra is playing you like a rented fiddle. He is using you as a tool.”

Daybreaker gasped. “I am NOT a tool!”

“We can agree to disagree. Regardless, consider how willing you are to bend to the will of a stallion.”

“I bend to NO ONE!”

“And yet,” said Sombra, who was lying quietly on top of a shattered building. “You are so very easy to manipulate.”

“Sister.” Nightmare Moon put her hoof on her sister’s shoulder. “Please listen. I think we may have the advantage, if you can just keep a cool head.”

“Keeping cool is not exactly my specialty. I want to give him THE POKE!”

“You may not be able to. His body is made of shadow, like Tantabus- -he may only be able to cast illusions.”

Daybreaker looked at Nightmare Moon and smiled. “Maybe you’re not as bad as I thought.”

“Is that what you think?” asked Sombra, now standing inches from Nightmare Moon. His horn ignited with black light and the earth below Daybreaker exploded into tendrils of crystal, several of them immediately converging to crush her. “I think you may be mistaken.”

Nightmare Moon rolled to one side and fired a beam of silver light. Sombra caught the beam in mid-air, blackening it and reversing its course it back into Nightmare Moon’s horn. She cried out from the feedback wave and suddenly Sombra was on top of her, striking her in the side and tearing away the quicksilver that protected her. It reacted to his touch as it did to hers, controlled and contorted so that it impeded her motion and dug into her flesh. Then she felt his magic inside her hair, and her face was shoved to the ground.

“To be honest, I had always thought you the more attractive of the two. If only things could have been different.”

“I have a husband!”

A thread of silver reached out from Nightmare Moon’s horn to Sombra’s head. He did not bother to defend against it, because when it met, she found that there was nothing to link to. He had no brain, at least in any normal sense of the word. He was not like an alicorn: he was something else entirely.

The crystal containing Daybreaker suddenly vaporized in a plume of shards as she burned through it.

“You can’t even keep your filthy hooves to yourself during battle, Nightmare? Stupid horse!” She summoned a spell and fired its fully solar force at both her sister and at Sombra. Nightmare Moon collapsed to smoke, leaving Sombra alone in its path.

His body was torn apart, but even as the light passed through him his shadows became more intense, casting themselves darker against the contrast of Daybreaker’s light. They swam across the ground, swarming toward her and erupting against her. This time he did not form mist, but rather a wave of liquid shadow. Daybreaker cried out as they grasped her body, holding her neck and seeping across her entire body.

Then she was picked up and throne into the side of a crystal building- -and thrown into the ground horn-first.

The ameboid shadow gave no sign of relent- -but suddenly began to vibrate and pulse as black mist condensed within it. Then it exploded outward as Nightmare Moon reformed herself inside it, tearing through Sombra’s shadow with her own.

The force required was immense, and Nightmare Moon dropped to her knees even as Daybreaker was released. Daybreaker, falling to the ground, saw her sister weak and defenseless- -and saw her chance.

She raised her horn and fired- -and the bolt struck the shadow as it advanced toward her sister, repelling Sombra’s spell. Daybreaker frowned and cursed under her breath; apparently, just as she lurked inside Celestia, Celestia in turn dwelt within her.

Nightmare Moon, having partially regained her composure, deployed Tantabus against the shadow, forming a corrosive barrier. Sombra retreated, his shadow returning to a single point and bubbling back into a concerted body. Even before his flesh had fully reformed, his horn ignited.

Two buildings were fragmented to razor-sharp shards of crystal and accelerated toward Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon. Daybreaker raised her horn, casting a shield around them both- -just as a black fireball erupted over both of them, sending them flying backward.

Many of the crystal shards were shattered, and Sombra released those. The rest, still sparking with black energy, Sombra took to himself, immediately beginning the carving process. Even as he did, Daybreaker stood, uninjured and undamaged but with her magic already beginning to wane.

“Fight me!” she cried. “I DEMAND IT!”

She lobbed a bolt of solar energy toward Sombra. Sombra met it with his own shadow magic, and the pair became spellbound, their two beams meeting at the midpoint and sparking relentlessly as the spells tried to overwhelm one another.

Daybreaker smiled, because she knew that no matter what form he took, no pony alive or immortal could match the strength of the Sun.

Drawing on her limitless well of power, Daybreaker forced more magic forward toward Sombra. His half of the spell shrank- -and then began to stabilize. Daybreaker’s eyes narrowed, because she did not understand- -but she could feel it. While she could only emit uncontrolled bursts of energy, Sombra’s icy shadow had begun to parse and separate, being driven apart and reconstructed at his will to form a spell calculated to survive Daybreaker’s solar inferno. It was true sorcery, the pointless system of mathematics and theory that Celestia insisted on constantly learning and teaching- -the thing that Daybreaker had always considered too pointless to learn herself.

Sombra was already absurdly powerful, even without a connection to the Crystal Heart- -but with a spell that had actually been planned and designed with the precision only achievable by an ancient wizard, he was able to take a step forward.

“You horseson!” growled Daybreaker, her gold-clad hooves digging into the soil. “How dare you?!”

“How dare I what? Win?” Sombra smiled. “As I have told you. I no longer require an alicorn for a weapon. It is not such because I have become a pacifist. It is because I no longer NEED ONE.”

He took another step, and suddenly Daybreaker was forced into the ground. She cried out as the gravity spell corrupted, burning her in black fire. Confused, she looked behind her- -and saw a small swarm of black crystals hovering behind her, casting Sombra’s magic remotely while her own magic was fully dedicated to defending against his.

The spellbinding broke, and Daybreaker was punched in the chest. One of her wings was tugged almost to the point of dislocation, and she found herself unable to move. Although Sombra’s body had no mass, hers was tangible and material; with the gravity spell still in effect, her motion was slow and bulky.

She was thrown to the ground as Sombra’s crystals assumed different combinations, performing the auxiliary mathematics to generate more and better spells. Daybreaker was struck by several at once, all from different directions. There was no way to defend against them all.

Nightmare Moon charged from behind. Sombra turned away from Daybreaker and cast a spell. Before him, a construct formed from black energy. It took the shape of an enormous cat, a remnant from a species that had been rendered extinct alongside Sombra’s own. It tackled Nightmare Moon to the ground, its claws tearing deep gouges in her quicksilver armor.

A beam escaped Daybreaker and burned through Sombra’s body. He hardly noticed as the shadow reconstructed itself. He felt no pain. He felt nothing at all. Inside him, there was only darkness. He could not help but smile. After eight hundred years, the Heart had finally served its purpose. He had become what he was destined to be.

He could not help but laugh. This endeavor was of course pointless, and he cared little for the princesses- -but as a test, it proved that he might finally be able to transcend the need to rule. To truly be free to complete his work.

Daybreaker, further enraged, stood, drawing her full strength against the gravity spell. She summoned her magical energy and poured it into herself, igniting with nuclear fire. The gravity spell shattered and Sombra’s crystals were forced to become intangible to protect themselves, terminating the spells they had cast. He himself was forced to cast a shield spell.

As he did, smoke coalesced beside him. A hoof struck him- -and passed through his intangible shadow body. As Nightmare Moon was knocked off balance, he punched her in the face, his suddenly solid hoof sending her reeling backward. He then slid beside her and gave a quick jab to a single small location on the mare’s body that had been one of Buttonhooks’s favorites.

Nightmare Moon collapsed, writhing but silent; although her mouth was open, she had been put in far too much pain to scream aloud.

“Don’t you dare hurt her!” shrieked Daybreaker.

Sombra raised an eyebrow and summoned a black sword from his magic. He put its tip against Nightmare Moon’s cervical spine. “Why?” he asked. “You hate her. I know, because even now I can see it within your mind. Recall, it is not you who values this pony. It is Celestia.” He looked down at Nightmare Moon, her nerves still overloaded although her mind still very much intact. “Celestia will not allow you to ever truly harm her, I think. But I still can.”

“She belongs to ME,” growled Daybreaker. “Do not DARE to believe I will permit you to touch my property!”

Sombra sighed. “You’re just insufferable. What do you even expect to accomplish here?”

“I refuse to relent. All I have is my power. If I give that up...what is even left?”

“I see. So this is a matter of vanity.”

He used his magic to throw Nightmare Moon to her sister.

“Then let me at least use it to finally see what spells they have brought me.”

Daybreaker caught Nightmare Moon while simultaneously drawing upon her limitless magic. Instead of firing pure light, she instead reached for everything substantial around her. If she could not cut him or burn him, she would crush him instead.

Buildings were torn free of their foundations. Their crystal was instantly superheated and was partially melted into streams of glowing lava. Daybreaker charged, pulling the weight of Sombra’s own city behind her. She dropped it upon him, crushing him flat. Then she grasped the half-ruined hull of a fallen skyship and lifted it high into the sky before bringing it crashing down upon him. It exploded violently within, scattering metal and crystal in every direction. Even the crystal ponies beneath their shield cried out from the sound of it.

Daybreaker turned to her sister, picking her up. “Come on, it’s not that bad, weakling.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” groaned Nightmare Moon, rubbing the aching spot that Sombra had struck.

“Yes. Because I am not weak. But look. I made him flat.”

Nightmare Moon looked, and all she saw was Daybreaker’s failure. As she watched, the broken steel and machines of the battered sky-ship were disassembled, unscrewed and unfastened with expert precision achievable only by one who had been privy to every aspect of their regional design.

Then the pieces came to together. Crystal and steel were combined, with new pieces forged and cut to shape. From the rubble arose hideous golems. They crawled forward on disturbingly long limbs, their bodies glowing from strange internal fire. It was clear that Sombra lacked the aesthetic sensibilities of his previous golem-master, and Nightmare Moon could not help but shiver. These things looked so very close to the monsters sometimes found in the deepest nightmares of those cursed with the farthest vision.

The golems advanced. They were terrifyingly quick.

“Nightmare, I need a blade.”

Nightmare Moon obliged, separating part of her badly damaged armor and forming it into a sword- -the second of its kind she had ever created. Daybreaker took it in her magic and charged the golems. While she refused to show it, Nightmare Moon was becoming distinctly aware that Daybreaker was growing weaker. Even if her power was unlimited, the fortitude of her body was not.

Daybreaker attacked the first golem, tearing its legs free with her magic and stabbing it through the torso with the blade- -only for the blade to strike nothing in particular. Surprise crossed Daybreaker’s face, but Nightmare Moon understood in an insant.

“Sister, get down!”

Daybreaker rolled, and Nightmare Moon fired a dispilation spell into the golem. It struck its center, casting away the spirit bound within. The burning light inside flickered and went out- -but the other golems seemed to notice, turning their attention toward Nightmare Moon. Their masks retracted, revealing the flaming eyes within. They were not machines; they were robotic suits of armor wrapped around dark spirits summoned from beyond a burning door.

“It’s Zebric conjuration magic! I can dispel them, but- -ACK!”

A golem leapt upon Nightmare Moon, trying to grab her wings.

“Stupid ZEBRAS! Ugh!” Daybreaker cleaved the golem in twain. “I’ll cut them! You make them go away!”

Nightmare Moon could not help but shiver. The idea that her and her elder sister could ever work together had never occurred to her- -and she realized that it would make the eventual fulfillment of her promise that more difficult.

The golems swarmed, and Daybreaker charged into the fray, slashing through them and blasting at their legs and torsos with her magic. As she cleared the way, Nightmare Moon followed, using her sister’s girth to provide cover while she dispelled the evil spirits. It was an intensive process, but working together, they were able to make headway.

“Headway toward what?” asked Sombra, his body forming itself on the summit of the rubble pile that had been dropped on top of him. “Or do you really have any goal?”

He raised his hoof to the damaged golems, and the black crystals implanted within their armor ignited, resonating with his own magic. The golems, even deprived of their spirits, rose once more.

Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon were immediately outnumbered.

“Sister, we need to retreat- -”

Daybreaker stabbed her sword into the ground. “Get behind me, Nightmare!”

“Daybreaker, you can’t- -”

Daybreaker ignited herself, her body erupting with solar might as she pushed her physical form to its very limit. Her golden armor burned away, and both her wings and horn began to spark with energy- -even as the sun above began to dim, and the dark skies grew even more ominous and dim.

Then she released it. Not a directed beam, or an instinctive corona, but a force of magic so vast that there was no hope of controlling it apart from leaving a tiny sliver of protected space to preserve her sister.

The energy expanded outward and the golems were vaporized. The flame spirits, now free, vanished orthogonality through space. But even as they departed, darkness loomed on the edge of her spell, cast by Sombra and through his crystals. The detonation was contained by his magic, stopped by his force of will and endless knowledge of magic.

Then it all flickered. Both spells faltered, and the world fell silent.

Broken crystals fell to the ground as Daybreaker dropped to her knees, Nightmare Moon at her side. Sombra stood on the other end of a long street, all alone. The sky had grown overcast and dark, and snow was falling slowly between them. The air was growing cool once more.

“Daybreaker,” said Nightmare Moon, softly. “Do recall Discord? That may be our only chance.”

“I don’t know how to do the spell.”

“I do. Forgive me.”

A thread dripped from Nightmare Moon’s horn and inserted itself into her sister’s mind. Daybreaker squeaked in surprise, but her horn charged with a spell that she herself did not know. Just as Sombra took a step toward them, his body was struck by what looked like yet another light beam.

It passed through him harmlessly, and he smiled. “I am afraid I have become indestructible, my dear. Your magic cannot...” A frown crossed his face, and he looked down. Where the magic had touched him, his flesh was rapidly changing, becoming lighter and stiffer. To his horror, he realized that he was becoming stone.

He looked up at them, confused, and then the spell overwhelmed him, turning him into a statue.

Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon both collapsed. That spell was not at all easy to use, especially without the Elements to guide it. Both princesses ad been completely drained.

“That spell will not hold him forever,” sighed Nightmare Moon.

“If you did it yourself, maybe. That’s genuine solar magic. I am a goddess...pretty...fluffy wings, etcetera. Ugh I’m so tired.”

“But in a thousand years? Two thousand? He will eventually break free.”

“So? That won’t be our problem.”

Nightmare Moon sat up. “You do realize we’re immortal. It will be OUR problem.”

A look of realization came over Daybreaker’s face. “Buck,” she said.

Nightmare Moon stood and helped her sister up. They both turned to Sombra’s statue. Unlike Discord, he had not had the foresight to freeze in the most uncomfortable and ridiculous position possible.

“Another decoration for our garden, I suppose,” sighed Nightmare Moon.

“I think I shall use him as a hat rack.”

“You do not own any hats.”

“I shall make one out of his daughter’s wings. I think that would be hilarious.”

Daybreaker laughed, although Nightmare Moon did not. Something was bothering her.

The darkness in the sky had begun to clear, and although the sun sat low on the horizon there was more than enough light to see. The world was cast in strange northern twilight, and the shadows cast were long.

Somehow that bothered Nightmare Moon. As Daybreaker began to walk, she suddenly saw motion, and in an instant understood. Sombra’s statue was casting a long shadow- -but the shadow was pointing the wrong way.

“Sister- -!”

It was too late. Just as Daybreaker turned, the shadow beneath her erupted in a plume of darkness, overtaking her body and pressing against it from every side, drawing her into it and crushing her with devastating force. Nightmare Moon heard screaming and something crack- -and then saw her mangled sister thrown aside as Sombra formed a new body.

Nightmare Moon’s horn flickered as she stepped back. “But- -the stone- -”

“A cockatrice spell. Quite a risk.” Sombra’s silver eyes turned toward Nightmare Moon and he smiled, revealing a mouth filled with strange teeth. “But even stone casts a shadow, Nightmare Moon.”

His magic swarmed around her, corroding everything it touched. Nightmare Moon spread her wings and pulled herself into the air.

“Sister! The time has come to fly!”

Daybreaker, though badly injured, seemed to agree. She snapped one of her wings back into place and took to the air, flying with her sister while they left Sombra on the ground. Sombra looked up at them, watching them circle. Then his body shifted, the shadows within him changing at his will. Shadows sprung from his back, assembling themselves into a pair of chiropteran wings. Then he, too, took to the air.

Nightmare Moon looked back and saw Sombra pursuing them. He appeared to be flying, but that was not quite the truest way to describe his motion. Rather, he seemed to simply be sliding through space, moving silently as a shadow without the barest sign of resistance to his motion.

“Sister,” she said.

“If you say ‘sister’ one more time, Nightmare, I swear to ME I will give you the poke myself- -”

“We are out of options. We have to use the Elements of Harmony.”

Daybreaker’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, hurriedly. “I still have energy! I can still fight!”

“He is the living half-incarnation of the Pony of Shadows. At this pace there is nothing we can do.”

“But I can’t use the Elements! Only Celestia can!” Daybreaker’s eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to betray me!” she shrieked, nearly attacking her sister. “You want Celestia back! You don’t think I’m good enough- -”

Behind them, Sombra’s body flashed with black light in a pattern curiously similar to the green shade used by the changelings. Where he had once been a pony, a vast black dragon suddenly appeared, its jaw opening as it rushed forward. Nightmare Moon saw this, and saw that there was no choice.

She stopped flying and turned to her enemy, manifesting the Elements of Loyalty- -to her sister, to her kingdom, and to her people- -Honesty, of the strength to always speak what needed to be said, and Laughter, drawn from the shining memories of times spent beside her sister, or alone with the stallion she loved. The three Elements manifested as three crystals suspended before her.

Although the set was incomplete, Nightmare Moon wielded them against Sombra, casting a spell of pure silver light into the mouth of the dragon as it prepared to swallow her. Sombra was knocked back by the force, his form distorting and collapsing until he was once again a pony.

He cast a shield of his own shadow-magic and forced it into the wave from Nightmare Moon’s elements, effectively spellbinding the pair of them.

Nightmare Moon was pushed backward by the feedback. She had not fully understood what Sombra had become until that moment. Even then, she could not fully comprehend what had been done to him, only that the creature that had been built around his soul had been freed of its limits. His mind had been freed of the slowness and weakness of a brain, and his strength freed from muscle and marrow and the magic borne of a horn. He had no elemental power, nor did he need it. His strength was not the divine might of an alicorn, but the cold and unflinching mind of a perfect unicorn.

Never had Nightmare Moon wished so badly that things might have been different. That they might have been friends, instead of enemies. That perhaps there was still a chance.

But with only three Elements, she simply did not have the power. Sombra focused his energy onto one specific gemstone, his magic snaking forward through the silver light of the Elements. Nightmare Moon tried to fight it, but found that she could not, even as the tendrils of shadow surrounded the Element of Loyalty.

Sombra’s face contorted as he fired a spell through his own body and into the Element. Nightmare Moon screamed as it fractured and her personality was fundamentally rewritten. Broken and on the verge of shattering, the Element of Loyalty hemorrhaged elemental shadow, its corruption reaching out and taking hold of her body.

Daybreaker, meanwhile, had been attempting to flee, to led both her enemies deal with each other while she regenerated her power and took down whichever survived, if any. But when she heard her sister’s scream, she turned suddenly, her eyes widening and losing their blackened aspect.

“Sister?!”

“NO!” screamed Daybreaker, taking back control of her and Celestia’s mutual body. “I am the real you! ME! You will not take this away from me! It’s my body! I refuse to let you have it! I REFUSE!”

Despite her rage and power, Daybreaker’s threats were useless. Celestia, held dormant in Daybreaker’s burning heart, surfaced in an instant at the cries of the pony she loved most in the world. In an instant she regained control, her armor cooling to ordinary gold and her mane once again becoming a beautiful pastel rainbow.

“Sister! Hold on, Nightmare, I’m coming!”

Celestia manifested her own Elements, the embodiment of the very things that Daybreaker lacked: Kindness, from her devotion to the safety and happiness to all ponies; Generosity, derived from her endlessly selfless and benevolent rule, and the most important of them all, Magic, or that which could only be gained when all the other five were used in unison.

She combined her Elements with Nightmare Moon’s, casting gold light that meshed with her sister’s silver to form a beam of pure white light. That white, in turn, separated, swirling apart into a stream of divine rainbows. Sombra’s black energy could not stand against it and he was overwhelmed, forced to surround himself with a powerful but failing protection spell.

He held on for a moment, managing to withstand the force of the Elements, but his shield began to fragment. He roared with pain, trying to summon more energy- -but there was nothing he could do.

“Murderers!” he cried, looking them both in the eye through his faltering spell. “That spell will not reform me! There is nothing left to reform! My evil is absolute! Hypocrites!”

Celestia smiled. “You’re wrong, Sombra.”

Harmony began to seep through Sombra’s shield. As it touched him, his body began to change. His gray, blackened coat became lighter, the evil binding it flecking away.

Sombra’s eyes widened. “But that- -that’s impossible! My soul is bound to this body by pure fear!”

“No. Because fear alone cannot do what you have done. The shadow would have consumed you the instant you touched it.” Celestia smiled. “Something else was used to make you. Something GOOD.”

Sombra gasped, realizing what he should have known from the beginning. This was his daughter’s final gift to him- -that a fragment of her love had been used to create him, and that the Elements of Harmony were vastly amplifying that tiny but critical piece of contamination.

“No,” he said, looking up at them. “What survives won’t be ME. You will destroy my fundamental personality. I will cease to exist!”

“We can give you everything you ever wanted!” shouted Nightmare Moon. “I’ve seen your dreams! You can rule alongside your daughter! Alongside Hope!”

“We only want to help you,” pleaded Celestia. “Please, Sombra, don’t fight it!”

Sombra nearly wept, knowing the choice he had been forced to make.

“So it comes to this,” he sighed. “After all these centuries, I am finally given a chance at the happiness I could never have.” He looked up at Celestia and smiled. “You win.”

Celestia smiled for a moment- -but that smile turned to horror as Sombra directed his magic behind him, tearing a hole in space itself to the unspeakable void beyond reality. Then he summoned his magic and plunged it into himself. The screams were unspeakable as he tore his very soul in half, breaking free of himself and casting his truest half into the pit he himself had opened.

The part that remained turned to Celestia and Nightmare Moon, its eyes alight with confusion and energy. It focused on the Elements they carried, and the eyes widened.

It screamed, its voice still tinged with the unnatural aspect of Sombra’s screams of agony. Yet the voice formed no words, as it could not. It was not a product of thought, but of instinct; the being raged against the magic of the goddesses despite being only the barest shadow Sombra’s true self.

As the void door closed, the connection to the soul-fragment was severed. The piece Sombra had severed broke apart in the light of the Elements, and then was torn apart entirely, reduced to ash and destroyed for all eternity.

The rainbow light of the Elements faded. As the gemstones ceased to manifest, the Element of Loyalty shattered, and Nightmare Moon lapsed into unconsciousness, the blackness of her body retracting to only her cutie mark as her coat became blue and her body smaller.

She fell. Celestia swooped downward, catching her just before she struck the ground. To her surprise, she realized that the pony she was holding was not Nightmare Moon at all.

“Luna?”

Luna opened her eyes. For a moment, they seemed to recognize Celestia, and the younger pony smiled, only for the smile to fade as her pupils narrowed into thin vertical slits.

She shivered as the blackness spread outward from her cutie mark, restoring Luna to her true form. Nightmare Moon sat up, and for just a moment Celestia saw a look in her older sister’s eyes that she had never before witnessed. It was a gaze of absolute hatred.

It passed quickly, though, and Nightmare Moon grabbed her head. “Ugh…sister?”

“I’m here,” said Celestia.

Nightmare Moon looked up and smiled- -although even her smile was strange. “It’s good to see you again, little sister.”

Celestia smiled as well, dismissing her strange expression as fatigue from the battle.

“What happened?”

Celestia turned to the pile of ash. “Rather than submit and lose who he was, he cast himself into the void.” She shook her head. “And once that door is closed...there is no way back in.”

Nightmare Moon stared at the ash pile for a long moment. “In a way, I suppose it is admirable,” she said. “Admirable, but oh so foolish.”

Comments

[ponepony]

I wonder does Luna remain as Nightmare Luna in the future of your verse?

[alamais]

Burnt had landed on top of Daybreaker’s face

Of course she had.

Boy, these alicorns have some serious family issues, and I guess issues in general. Of course, I suppose the same is true of Lovebutt. Hmm...I rather doubt the deluded, force-grown, gothy Penumbra is the worst possible side of her, so I wonder if she has her own 'grown-up' form, or if that's unique to the sisters.

But I guess that makes Twinkle Sprinkle the most normal alicorn ever. She may be an obsessive nerd and moderately bad at the friendship she's supposedly the princess of, but at least she seems to have normal parents and not want to murder her brother! Winner!

[alamais]

9855517
Here we already see at least one way Glimglam is superior to alicorns: she tried the whole "bottle up your emotions" thing for a day, and then realized it's a terrible idea and stopped instead of continuing for thousands of years and growing a whole extra personality.