Auroras & Souls

by Blues Rider

6 : Dictatoral Plans

Chapter 6

Ponyville.

Twilight was having a panic attack. Her heart was pulsing and she could feel the blood pounding around her skull. Sombra had returned and her friends had been outside only moments before Starlight had saved her from his magic.

“Breath Twilight, breath.” She had a captivating stare and Twilight was forced to focus solely on Starlight. The two calmed each other as Starlight felt her urgency calm with Twilight. “Let’s not think too big. What do we need? What did you do last time Sombra returned?”

“Sombra never returned last time.. We managed to stop him before...” A worrying thought hit Twilight. “Starlight will the spell frequencies you used on that shield match the ones protecting my school and it’s dormitories?”

“I think so, I don’t know, I kinda just shot it out.”

“Okay, well we’ll need my friends. That’s a place to start, please see if you can find them, do everything you can. I must check on my students, Celestia forbid if anything happened to them. Flash Sentry!” Flash Sentry had been listening, guarding the doorway of Twilight's throne room, but he had also been tightening his armour and was surprised to be called. He stood readily to attention.

“Flash we might even need the legends. Cloudsdale is currently in southern Equestria,” Twilight edged to the map and indicated where she meant. Flash came over to get a closer look. “It seems like it will have been least affected, it looks, at least on this map like whatever force the Crystal Empire has produced is weaker there." The light turquoise of Southern Equestria on the map certainly seemed like a safer colour than the deep red of Northern Equestria.

"I want you to head there and find Flash Magnus. Tell him that Princess Twilight has asked him to collect the legends together and meet me in my castle. Stygian included.” She added on the end.

Stygian was the group's researcher. He was intelligent and had recently published a book on his experiences. If this was ancient magic, he would be just as useful as his more famous colleagues known as the "Legends of Equestria".

“Yes Princess, I’ll be as quick as I can be.”

"Once we know it is safe to leave this room, we can get set. So let's figure out spell frequencies to mask our...." Just at that moment the world was rocked and attacked with a mix of light and darkness, red and green. Everything moved on it’s own. The world around them was warped and twisted, the ground and air boiled and bubbled. And then from one side of the room to the other, normality returned.

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Walls of light and darkness were forced against each other in a strained push and pull.

All you could see in the light was white.

All you could see in the dark was black.

The arched red crystal doorway that separated the room from the corridor shuddered at the tension between the two forces. The Crystal Palace rippled and strained with deep colours of blue and red. The throne room shook with power.

Love and hate.

Sombra strained.

This alicorn had grown stronger than the last time Sombra had met her.

Princess Cadence felt a sudden surge of power and ease flow through her. Sombra faltered for just a second. Cadence took the opportunity and sent shots of light into the black void.

The piercing light stabbed into every corner around Sombra, he could use this.
Allowing the shards of light to contain his darkness, he felt himself being pulled together inside the white void of love. His cracked and withered body reformed. He lit up his horn, producing a red light of anguish which shone as dark as it could.

Cadence felt her body tremble, her spikes of light faded, she felt her wall of love be forced, intercepted and then dispelled. Cadence was only knocked a little by the spell. The light in the grand throne room turned back to normal.

With one exception; the castle was now red.

She stared at the open door to the corridor. The thick crystal pillars that made up the arch of the doorway framed the shimmering black coat of Sombra. The Dark Prince stretched his back.

“Aahhh long time since I’ve had a fully formed pony body.” The deep, gravelly voice haunted the momentary stillness. He glared at Cadence with death in his mind. “I think you’ll find Miss, that this is my Kingdom.”

“This kingdom belongs to its people and the love we share. I will protect that at all costs.”

“Foolish pony!” His curved horn lit again with the now familiar red glow, blood began to seep from the walls of the castle. The echoes of a young foals cry haunted Cadence's ears. She keeled from the shock until she worked out that there was no way that sound was Flurry Hearts.

None the less, she was horrified by the spell.

The two pillars of the large doorway and the two pillars on the other side of the grand hallway were orbited by black slithers of the old King's magic.

Cadence gathered her balance as the floor beneath her began to rumble. She prepared the most intrinsic protection spell she could muster.

Sombra lowered his head towards Cadence, charging a spell and muttering some devilish words of old ponish under his breath. His eyes blackened and matched his own coat. Raising his head to face Cadence, he fired a beam of the darkest energy.
Cadence had never seen anything like this.

His body shook with power, adrenaline, satisfaction. The dark energy travelled at lightning speed right up the centre of the great hallway. It utilised the charged pillars of the red crystal tower and boosted itself up through the central column to the top of the central spire.

Cadence reacted faster than she thought she could. Her charged shield spell morphed into an intercepting ray, the absorbency of the shield spell doubling up with the intercept ray. The combined result was a thin magical lattice with hexagonal magical supports. The ray emanated from the horn of the alicorn spreading wider as it travelled towards Sombra's beam, always staying the horizontal, two dimensional form as it did so.

Within a second of Sombra firing his spell Cadence's intercept beam sliced through the thick magic, dispelling the column of darkness.

“AHAHAHAHAHAAAA it’s too late!” Sombra laughed with a roar.

"No!" She exclaimed, studying the figure in front of her. She had no knowledge of how this King had ruled the empire without love or alicorn capabilities.

Until she had weighed these two things up she decided she would be either outsmarted or overpowered. Sombra charged another red spell full of hatred spreading to every corner of the hallway and throne room, Cadence responded with another shield of light and love, dispelling the magic from the throne room. She pushed, Sombra would be a challenge, he was skilled.

Instead of pushing away the shrouding magic from the castle, Cadence experimented. She was covering about two thirds of the throne room in the light magic, she took a moment to observe the origin of the attack.

It once was rare she would cast more than one spell, but since having Flurry she had been doing it more and more. That thought gave her a warm loving smile. Then her horn glowed brighter with a second layer of magic as she cast a condensing spell. The light in the room pulled into a small sphere around her, glowing intensely.

The darkness slowly seeped into the areas of the room the light had left behind.

Then Cadence focused a dart of light, piercing the blackness, aimed straight at Sombra’s heart.

The spell shot through the wall of magic Sombra had created, slicing away with the force of a hurricane. Her aim was spot on.

A jet black streak shot into the wall. A white streak slammed into the crystal throne. A shimmering black unicorn body fell to the floor. A shimmering pink alicorn body tumbled beside the throne. Magic faded from the room.

Cadence could just about see. She felt lifeless, slumped against the throne but she was still alive. She caught through fuzzy vision the dark pony’s coat changing colour. Erratically flickering between a pearly crystal and the deep black and blood red.

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Back in Ponyville the three ponies were shaken by the events. The sun was exactly where it had been left. The sky was still orangey but the air had lost it’s musky greenness and was now just dulled. The map was however still red.

A patter of claws came from the hallway. Spike knocked on the door. “Guys it’s Spike! did you feel that?! I just got back and then this big wave thing hit the castle. Are you okay in there?”

“We’re fine Spike.” Twilight called, actually quite shaken. She composed herself.

Looking around she took in the throne room of her castle again. Everything was still. Her horn lit up quickly as she cast a detection spell. She looked to Starlight. “Whatever energy was endangering us seems to have disappeared.”

Starlight took the hint and dispelled her shield on the door. Spike reeled in. “I’m so sorry Spike, we couldn’t open the door earlier, there was dark energy everywhere targeting all ponies.”

“Do you know what happened yet?”

“I’m sure it has to do with the Crystal Empire. The structure and colours of the map look similar to the time when Starlight stopped our friend’s cutie marks appearing synchronously." She eased Spike into her theory.
"Remember the world where the Crystal Empire had been captured by Sombra and he was invading Equestria?” Twilight tip-toed knowing how much he cared for the city. Well Twilight did too, especially for her brother, Sister-in-law and niece. Starlight thought about Sunburst too, but didn’t let anything out.

“We think Sombra has returned.” She said 'think' as if it might soften the blow of the theory.

“Well...” Spike Hesitated, “We’ll need to just save it again won’t we. And you’ve got Spike the Brave and Glorious on your side, what can go wrong!” Twilight appreciated Spike’s enthusiasm. Starlight chuckled. The tension in the room eased after that.

“Yes, how was Sunset?”

“Our friends are going to take turns watching the portal and Sunset agreed that she wouldn’t use the journal to write to you. They all agreed to look out for any signs of new or bad magic, and they’ll talk to Principle Celestia tomorrow to get time off lessons so at least two of them can watch the portal at a time.”

“Great! If anything happens we’ll have to let them know.”

Flash hadn’t understood what they were talking about with this mirror portal thing. He had been told during training about magic portals and mirror pools but it seemed rather unimportant at the time.

“Okay, Flash.” Twilight turned her attention back to the Pegasus Royal Guard.

His training kicked in and he was alerted to the Princess' motion.

“I’m already gone Twilight” He always felt comfortable around the princess and now he had to suddenly correct his slip. “Uh um, Princess.” And with that he trotted out of the room with a faked coolness.

“Hehehe” Starlight nudged Twilight as she Blushed. They had both been keeping a professional attitude, but Starlight had heard the crush stories from Spike and Sunset respectively. Only it hadn't occurred until now that the mirror world Flash could be mirrored here.

"Anywaaayy..." Twilight motioned to her sniggering friends, “I will go to the students.” Twilight said readying herself for the road ahead. “Spike go into Ponyville town and see if you can find anypony who might have seen anything important, there might be a chance somepony is still around. Starlight you go find our friends.”

"Meet back here in an hour?” Starlight checked.

“Check.” Spike replied.

The two ponies then charged their spells and teleported to their respective targets.

Spike stared at the red map and the realisation of how big this problem might be sank in. Then he turned and ran down the steps of the castle into the town.

Flash found himself lost in the maze of corridors. Eventually he found a balcony, it would have to do. He opened the doors and stood there feeling the breeze on his face. Or what more confused him was the lack of a breeze. The air felt weird, distorted and still. He took in the sight of Ponyville.

There was a train stopped half way out of the station, a few shopping baskets in the streets. But no ponies anywhere. Everything was eerie and wrong. Fear crept up on him, he knew what he needed to do, he spread his yellow wings and took flight heading southwards towards the last known location of Cloudsdale.

He looked over at the sun on his west. At least if the sun was static it would make it easier to locate south, he just had to keep the sun on his right the whole time.