Obsidian: Shards Of Sombra

by Randimaxis

Fifty Nine: And The Truth Shall Set You Free

It would be fine, it would all be fine - Amy would make the right decision...

"Amethyst... listen, Amy, we're a long way from the pones we used to be..." Tourmaline attempted to appeal to her. "We don't need to take any steps backward, here..."

"Backward?" Amy gave a bark of a laugh. "You're implying that BOTH of our lives ever went forward - besides, now that we ARE free... I think it's time I knew for sure who the better of us is... and which of us is most likely dead weight, waiting to expire."

Amy now stepped forward, her stance becoming tight and alert, her dagger circling her head in a slow orbit as her smile grew more and more feral. "And now, finally, we get the chance to find out for sure - who's the stronger of us both... and I promise you, I haven't been lacking in my training... have you?"

Amethyst faced off towards Tourmaline, and the two locked eyes.

"Amy... don't do thi-"
"Shut the FUCK up, and come get me!" Amethyst screeched at him.

"Amy saved my life... she knows that our lives all moved forward, and that we can be better than we were... though I really don't think she could consider our current situation to be very 'free'," the Grey Princess mused... unless, of course, Amber was making a salad out of her mind.

"AMY! I BELIEVE IN YOU!" Obsidian cheered to her.

"Not HELping OBsidiAN!" Tourmaline yelled back at her.

Which is when Amethyst lunged for him. He managed to stay out of her range, but the dagger was another matter as it stabbed and sliced at him, keeping him in a defensive stance as she worked her way around his side, bound to try to flank him... which Tourmy wasn't having, as he kept himself facing her, no matter what direction she moved in.

Amethyst was the aggressor; she left zero room for her brother to counter-attack from, and managed to herd him towards one end or the other, not leaving him even room to think. But it was when he went to dip around her, and she sent him flying with a simple buck that Obsidian could see the determination and rage in her eyes.

Tourmaline, to his credit, wasn't using his magic against her and didn't attack back until she began to use her dagger more and more... then, he began to take on a fighting stance as well, and even managed to sling a hoof at her which actually connected with her jaw...

And made her angry.

She turned and simply charged in on him, hooves flying and connecting with him as he went as fully defensive as he could. The blows and blocks began to blur together, until the two of them had gone from fighting on their hooves to rolling in the dirt and dust of the ancient fighting ground.

"ARE you SUCH a FOOL? You KNOW she LIES about your FREEDOM!" Tourmy yelled as he continued to dance around Amy's strikes as best as he could.

"And?" Amy scornfully replied, "At least she lies to my face, and not behind my back like others I could think of! And what have YOU done to improve yourself, Tourmaline? Anything?"

His look faltered as he tried to strike close to her, but she was far too nimble, and had been keeping up with her training even while Tourmaline had enjoyed his hammock and his radio... which, now that it was down to the wire, meant that he was quite possibly going to be a dead pony, very shortly.

Tourmy moved like a trained fighter, but his moves were sluggish - the times he did connect, however, Amy let out a yelp of pain and anger; his time working outside hadn't done his speed any favors, but he most certainly seemed to be stronger. A fact that wasn't lost on Amy, as she began planning her strikes during his wind-ups.

After a number of hits, Amy upped the ante and actively stabbed Tourmy in the upper right flank and in the lower left foreleg. Though they were both showing an incredible degree of skill, Amethyst had speed on Tourmy... and though he was strong, his inability to connect as often slowly began to wear him down. Obsidian could see him becoming more and more beaten and winded as things progressed.

The entire time, Amy wore a severe grimace as she began to slowly best her brother.

Oh shit - perhaps her shout was misinterpreted! Obsidian started to panic at the sight of her brother enduring blow after blow. Damnation! What was Amber doing to Amy's head? Shouldn't mind control be almost impossible in Amy's case? 'Like breaking through wet paper', she'd said!

"AMETHYST! I'VE ALREADY ASKED THE PRINCESS TO RESTORE YOUR MAGIC BEFORE I LEFT TO MEET OPAL! TOURMALINE HOPED YOU WOULD START ENJOYING THE MODERN WORLD - AND I DO TOO!" Obsidian's throat was having a difficult time with all of this yelling.

"Listen to her, Amy!" Tourmy pleaded as he narrowly missed a blade in the ribs. "You have the chance to be something MORE than just a killer! There's a chance at a real damned family here! Are you going to just THROW that AWAY after SO much WORK!?"

"SHUT UUUUUUUP!!!" she screamed, and jumped at him. His hooves connected with her muzzle just as her knife jammed itself into his right foreleg, making them both yell out with pain and surprise... but she reeled back, even as he regained himself and lunged to take her down.

A lunge he totally telegraphed, due mostly to how beaten he already was. Amethyst, looking considerably worse for the wear as well, brought her front end down, then brought her rear hooves under her and launched herself upward into her brother's barrel - knocking the wind out of him and making him stagger back, collapsing to the ground.

The fight, technically, was over - they'd both taken a lot of damage, but Amy had been fast enough to avoid the worst of the blows, while Tourmy had tried to soak it all up and had succeeded... for a while. His wounds eventually caught up to him, and now he was laying on the ground at Amethyst's hooves, panting from exhaustion.

Gasping to catch her breath, she loomed over him, the Foci Dagger hovering over her own head like a scorpion's stinger at the extreme ready. Tourmaline tried to stand up, but his head was reeling from the solid hit, plus the rest of the compiled damage made for a poor attempt at best.

Obsidian couldn't even say anything more. In fact, she was afraid that whatever she might say would make the situation worse! Amber would make Amy think they didn't trust her, or, or...

Amber... that bitch would pay for everything... EVERYTHING SHE WAS DOING TO THEM ALL!

Tourmaline started to get up, but a band of boiling green energy shoved his face back down into the dirt again. Amethyst, with a deadly serious expression on her muzzle, slowly walked up to him, looking down with disdain, her breathing labored from the fight.

"I have been waiting... YEARS... for the chance... to prove... I'm not a failure... and now... you know... Tourmaline... that I am... better... than you..."

She floated the dagger down until the tip of the blade was resting lightly between his eyes.

"... and you... are... beaten..."

The dagger drew back... then suddenly flipped around, and thumped him lightly on the tip of his snout with the blunt end of the handle.

"... boop," she smiled.

[ ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING MEEEEEEEE!? ]

Amethyst turned to where Flurry was seated on a stone throne at ringside... and the magic holding Tourmaline down disappated. He sat up, just staring at his sister as she fixed her gaze on Amber.

"I've done it. I finally managed to win at something... for once in my life... and... a-and it feels GOOD. All the time spent training under Father's pains, then dealing with Onyx's crap... I never thought I ever had a chance to win. Ever."

She now looked over at Obsidian. "It's amazing, what a little love and encouragement can do." The smile she wore was just for her.

"And you?" Amy turned her attention back to Amber. "You're enjoying this only because you're so fucking pathetic, you had to steal your success from Father and an alicorn. You can't succeed on your own..."

Her smile was lovely, as she looked as though she was honestly happy, possibly for the first time in her entire life. "But I just proved that I can. And that was all I ever really wanted - to win. And I just won against YOU, Princess Skullfuck."

[You're as bad as Sids! She's contagious! Fuck, she BROKE you!]

"No," Amy said, "she fixed me."

It was extremely satisfying to see and hear Amethyst throwing her defiance in Amber's stupid face! Tourmy would probably brood about his defeat for a while, but it was the best thing that could have happened to him, in this case.

"Thank you, sister! Thank you for EVERYTHING!" Obsidian shouted to her - for saving her life, for sparing Tourmaline, for such a compliment...

Obsidian? Contagious? Heh heh - just like she told Aqua.

Amy redoubled her stare at Amber. "And the best part? You will never take that from me, you leech!"

"I BEG TO FUCKING DIFFER!" she screamed out loud in that strange double-voice, and fired a massive blast of corrupted Dark Magic energy at Amethyst, determined to destroy her...

And Amethyst smiled, then raised her dagger with her magic and blocked the shot. And with a strange sense of coming full circle, the beam from the blast just kept coming, pouring into the Foci Dagger exactly the same way it had poured from Siddy's own horn when Onyx had fooled her into blasting her. Flurry's muzzle wore a look of utter shock as she struggled to stop her energy from being syphoned away... but to no avail.

Amethyst gave a snide laugh. "Dear Princess Twilight, I learned today that those who never bother learning a damned thing from history are DOOMED to repeat it... and that something as easy as goading someone into using magic is even easier when the one doing the casting is a fucking moron!"

She now turned to Siddy and the others. "We need to go - NOW!"

A few blasts from her own horn popped open their siblings' cage doors, and they were all free to try to esca-

[OH... NO... YOU... DON'T... YOU... BITCH...]

And like that, they all began to hear the sounds of mechanical devices whirring rapidly; the stomping of steel, the hissing of hydraulics and the pounding of pistons. The Umbral Harnesses were coming.

"Hoschyiit," said Diamond.

A moron, eh? Well, that might explain how Onyx was able to goad Obsidian into casting such powerful magic at her - twice. Everything would have gone so much more smoothly if she would have taken a bow on that specific meeting. Miss Applejack would probably still be alive too...

However, when such a sight was seen from the perspective of a pony who WASN'T the target, it looked epic. For a moment, Obsidian was actually inclined to try to call for them all to quickly dispose of Amber while she was held fast - but how could they do it? She was in Flurry Heart's body, and it would be rather unfair to simply kill the alicorn for being posessed.

"Does anypony see any way out?" Obsidian said as she practically bolted out of her cell. Damned robotic harnesses! She'd been having far too many problems with them lately!

Her siblings all ran out of their cages, while Amethyst helped Tourmaline to his hooves. Quartz gathered the others by himself, while Amy looked towards Obsidian.

"Help me get him up!" she yelled; Tourmy was winded, but it seemed as though he was more taken by the change of heart his sister had.

Quartz began to speak with the rest. "Alright, stay together, no running off. Now Mundy, if you'll get up on my back... we might not know the way out, but anywhere is better than HERE!"

Being a pony who just recently managed to (not) survive being sliced, exploded, fried and overall abused, Obsidian could surely understand Tourmy's problem with getting back onto his hooves. She dashed to Amy to help her.

"You're absolutely wonderful - both of you," Siddy felt as though she just had to say that. On another note - damnation, Tourmaline! Did you have to eat so many of Cup's sweets?

Tourmaline looked at her with a grin. "And you, dear sister, are-"

[NO] "THIS..." [DOESN'T] "END..." [HERE!]

A stray ripple of Dark Magic energy lashed out towards Obsidian and Amethyst, but it went wild and slammed into the ceiling instead. Chunks of ancient masonry rained down, and one of the massive stone columns toppled over and smashed into the center of the arena next to them, knocking a sizable hole in the floor. The smell of cool, dank air wafted up from below - was it a way out?

Unfortunately, the collapsing of the ceiling also brought down a TON of debris between Obsidian, Amethyst, Tourmaline and the rest. There was a moment of panic as the dust settled, then...

"{Obsidyan!}" Diamond's voice called out, echoing through the chamber as pebbles and stones clattered to the floor from above, "{Obsidyan! Did the roof fall on you? Oh, PLEASE say it has not...}"

It seemed that Amber was a pretty sore loser who got quite mad when her toys began breaking in ways she didn't intend for them to. And she apparently wanted to display this soreness by devastating ancient buildings that would be of empirical interest to any archeologist in the world.

"We're fine, Diamond!" Siddy called out in response, "If we can't find each other, somepony has to go to Ponyville and ask Twilight about those jail cell glyphs!"

She then turned to Amy and Tourmy. "The hole - quickly!"

"JUST GO," bellowed Aqua, who even at his age could speak with the inherent volume of authority, "WE'RE HEADED OUT THIS WAY!"

Amethyst looked back at Obsidian as she jumped down onto one of the lower outcroppings of rock. "The Foci Dagger won't hold her forever - chances are, I just lost my favorite weapon! Don't let it be in vain; move!"

Tourmaline, getting a second wind from the adrenaline, also made his way down into the hole, Amethyst helping him keep his hooves as he crept down as quickly as his wounded body could handle.

"NO! YOU DON'T GET TO GET AWAY! YOU FUCKING BITCHES - YOU WILL PAY FOR THIIIIIIS!!!"

The Foci Dagger, hovering in place, was beginning to grow a network of glowing cracks and was starting to vibrate in the air; Amy was right - it wouldn't last too much longer.

But as Obsidian made her way to the hole where her brother and sister were looking up to help her down, Amber let out a dual shriek that harmonized with itself, and another stray bolt shot out of her horn... hitting Obsidian squarely in the back.

There was a momentary twinge of pain, then all she could feel was the world around her slowing down and fading from view... and the last thing she saw was Amethyst and Tourmaline, their eyes wide as they stared at her, their voices screaming out her name in shock and horror.

-=[ ????? ]=-

Obsidian opened her eyes, and she found herself in the center of a great devastation.

All around her was barren, lifeless rock and dust. The sun itself almost looked a vile red color, and the air was stale and quiet. Nothing moved, nothing stirred, nothing existed...

Except for the cloaked mare facing away from her, painting a picture on an easel.

She was covered in a simple brown cloak from head to hoof, and her stark white mane seemed to pour out of her hood like a waterfall. She had a hoof raised, and tied to it with a bit of twine was a paintbrush, which she used to daintily dot and swipe on the canvas.

Simply sitting on a wooden stool - painting - in the middle of all of this nothingness.

Obsidian was frankly sick and tired of being treated this way by life; when she had read about the magical past adventures of Princess Twilight and her friends, what happened to them? Normal problems: a bit of fighting from time to time, maybe a villain or two rearing their ugly heads, but everything ended up fine, eventually.

Ironically, the only death in the team they had ever had to endure happened years after their original days of glory - which meant that Obsidian herself had more experience with this not-really-alive state than mares far, far older than her had ever known.

Hopefully this time, it wasn't death; it would be terrible to die twice the same day.

Taking great care not to disturb the painter at work, Obsidian silently walked towards the cloaked artist to see what she was painting.

The mare was drawing her brush across a breathtakingly beautiful picture of Ponyville, complete with the cutesy trim on the houses, the central fountain, and even a few ponies painted along in the backgrou-

Her friends!

Each of them was painted into the picture: Clap was flying by with a wink, Mica and Gypsy were sitting outside Sugarcube Corner talking, Wart was patrolling the street in her Royal Guard armor and Cupcake was laughing and dancing in the fountain. They all looked happy and healthy, and very much the way she always wanted to remember them.

But the painting, from her angle, also had another feature... as she was looking at it, the actual area behind the canvas - the windblasted world around them - seemed to match with it, almost exactly; it was like a small window in the middle of all this desolation, that looked into a world she wanted to be in.

It was so real that Obsidian had to peek behind the canvas, just to be sure that there was nothing there. She also couldn't help but notice that the painting lacked her own humble personage. There was only one thing she could do...

"Good afternoon... er, beautiful painting," she said aloud, though a bit hesitantly. This whole thing... so real and yet so surreal...

The artist gave a little giggle. "You address paintings before the artist? I like you already."

She turned to face Obsidian; all she could see was the mare's lovely smile. "Obsidian of the Greyheart... I believe that's what Stalwart called you, yes? I liked that, honestly... sounds regal." She turned back to the painting and began to work some more.

"I have been waiting for you for a looooooooooong time, Siddy - a LONG time - but it's been worth the wait, from what I've seen. Finding your self worth, making your first friends, beating back The Umbra..." She gave another chuckle. "You've been fairly busy, haven't you?"

Now Obsidian saw that she was painting what looked like a blot of grey... for now. "But it's time for you to know, Siddy... about everything."

She turned to face her again, the artist's muzzle still shrouded in mystery. "And seeing as how you're a crystal shard right now, I figured it would be the perfect time to talk, yes!"

Finding her self-worth... well... lately, she'd mostly been admonishing herself for her misgivings and calling herself rather disheartening names. Ironically, it was still a net positive compared to her old days as King Sombra's royal slave.

"Good - I was afraid I died again... a-and I like knowledge." So, Amber had sharded her again... and apparently, an ancient being decided to visit her mind while she was locked into the form she'd been originally awakened from?

Eeyup - just another typical day.

The cloaked mare gave a soft giggle that sounded delightful. "I know you do... it's a solid part of who you are."

As Obsidian watched, the little grey blob in the painting began to take on more of a familiar shape as she continued; she'd brushed it out so that it appeared to have legs, a head, and a horn.

"So," the artist went on as she continued to brush the canvas lovingly, "I suppose you're wondering what we're doing in the middle of such a barren place, hmmmm? I mean, it's nothing like Ponyville, is it? Is it?"

Obsidian shrugged slightly. "I didn't even notice when I was sharded the first time; considering that, as far as I could say, in one moment I was standing next to 'father' and in another I was staring at armed Equestrians... so yes, it kind of surprises me. I first thought this was to be my afterlife... obviously, that's not the case."

Hopefully being sharded meant that this time, nopony could interrupt her.

The painter laughed, which was a melodious sound that was full of joy. "Oh, no - this isn't any sort of afterlife; you're too important to die right now, Siddy... FAR too important, yes yes."

She gave a light stretch, then reached over and got a dab of red on her brush and continued with her painting. "But yes... your Father certainly did what I expected he'd do with you, but I had no idea you would turn out so very lovely; Cupcake is one lucky stallion to have you. Of course, he's just lucky for the most part anyway - you're just the best luck he's ever had, is all."

The wind picked up a bit around them, and the air was thick, hot and humid... and it tasted like sulfur.

"But really, who can blame him? You've got brains, you've got brawn in your Grey Magic, you've got style... you've even managed quite a bit of class. I must admit, I never thought you'd be quite what you are." The smile returned. "But I'm glad for it."

Now, the grey blob was a pony-shaped blob, and the artist was apparently giving it a red mane, with a little bit of red on the horn. "At any rate, now that you're here, I can set you straight - Harmony knows you've been told so many lies and half-truths, your poor head is probably full of questions, right? That's okay, that's okay..."

She nodded, seemingly to herself. "Because it's time, Obsidian. Time you knew the truth... all of it."

Now, the pony-blob looked suspiciously like a Siddy blob, and as if to confirm, the artist now took up a small dollop of black paint onto her brush. "Now... where should we start, dear?"

Well, Obsidian really couldn't deny that Cupcake was lucky - and she was lucky to have him, too. Considering that she was born a thousand years before him, it was truly a match made by Destiny. Hopefully not literally, too...

What was wrong with this foul air?

Being flooded with compliments by an ancient being was, um... well, it would be rude to deny her. She was far more experienced and older than Obsidian herself was. The same respect that King Sombra had beaten into her was almost forcing her to accept that, despite her own opinions, perhaps she DID have more brains and brawn that she was giving herself credit for. It actually improved her mood a bit.

"Radiant Hope - let's start with Radiant Hope. Why do I look like her? If we're all Sombra's attempts to bring her back, then what went wrong with those like Aquamarine or Tourmy? I mean, I love them, they are great, yes... but they're not exactly too 'Hope-like', methinks." Unless Hope became a berserker when she was furious. "Please, tell me... what really happened to her and the shard she'd created?"

The artist stopped in mid-stroke. "... always have to take the hard stuff first, don't you? Well, it was to be expected."

She sighed before she finished her last stroke... and there was Obsidian, centered in the painting, looking almost as if she could leap right out of it! Also, now that she had been added to the artwork, she saw that each of her friends were all looking in her direction.

As if the artist had wanted her there from the very beginning.

"Sombra and Radiant Hope were two of the closest souls in the history of ancient Equestria; they had a love for each other, but it wasn't romance love; it was a friendship that couldn't - and wouldn't - be denied. Radiant Hope was a genius when it came to magic, so she had that going for her. And Sombra? Well, he was a tool of The Umbra, made for nothing more than to serve... sound familiar?"

She chuckled. "In fact, you have just as much in common with him as you do with Hope, believe it or not... 'useful tool, kept in the dark, used for nefarious purposes'... yes yes, you two are far more alike than you'll ever really know."

"Anyhow, Hope's plight was that she was actually one of the first ponies EVER to understand Grey Magic enough to use it - nobody in the HISTORY of Equus had ever even tried before... and yet, here she was, making Kings out of Paupers."

The artist grinned. "The Kayfadd Spell? She created that from scratch... at the age of six summers. Oh, she was so very talented, and had such a long life ahead of her..."

The smile faltered, then fell. "Until those damnable altars came into the mix... THAT was where she made the only mistake I ever felt angry at her about."

She stood up from her stool, dabbed a bit of paint onto her brush then slung it at the barren ground... and a swirling, colored portal opened up in front of them both.

"Okay, Obsidian," she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "let's show you what you've been missing. Come on - it's time to visit the past."

Obsidian couldn't deny that she had at least some resemblance to Sombra... however, she was still drawing a bold red line between Sombra and King Sombra. One was, as far as she could tell, the closest thing to a 'biological' father she could have.... and the other one was the entity known to her as 'father'. She'd never even met the first one, after all... and she had grown to rather dislike the second one.

"Another dream with her memories?" Obsidian tried to guess as she approached the portal cautiously.

"Not a dream - a revisiting." The mare nodded. "You'll see..."

As she stepped through the portal, Obsidian felt a shifting that was disorienting... then, she heard voices slowly fading in as her vision cleared.

"... don't know if it'll even work... and yet, here we are."

It was Sombra, in his teenaged years. He was standing in the center of the frosty chamber, and a number of items and equipment-looking things were all set up at the altars where Hope stood with a smirk on her muzzle.

"Oh, shush - if YOU had the knowledge of the spell like I do, you'd be up here, and I'd be down there."

Sombra tossed her a chagrined glance. "Yes, yes... can we just do this, please? My ears feel frozen solid!"

Whistlewhite's voice was audible to Siddy, but only inside her head - a soft and direct narration to what she saw before her.

This was the moment it all went so very wrong. Radiant Hope, Grey Magician Adept, was destined to be the next great ruler of Equestria. She was going to have a kingdom that would live in peace and Harmony for many, many generations, and she was going to be remembered as the greatest leader in the history of the Empire...

Hope lit up her horn, and a tightly-bound stick of incense sparked a small flame, then began to smoke. She nodded. "Okay, everything's in place... now, close your eyes and wait."

Sombra scoffed. "It's all I've been DOING for the past few hours, Hope! When are you-"

"Right now, if you'll shush!" Hope's horn began to glow, and her magic enveloped all three altars simultaneously.

But The Umbra stole that from her. It had managed to get a book about the altars into her hooves, and had fooled her into thinking that the power the altars granted would change history... and it did...

She leaned down, and began to focus her energies on the central altar, aiming her view directly at her Soul Friend.

Here... I'll let you in on the part she never told him about...

Suddenly, the altars began to glow with a foreboding red energy.

YOU SEEK THE POWER OF THE UMBRAL.

The words echoed through Obsidian's skull and startled Hope.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

Hope's eyes went wide. Sacrifice? But I gave the oils and the herbs... a-and I lit the incesne, just like in the boo-

MORE... OR WE SHALL TAKE THE STALLION.

Hope's mind flew into a panic.

What she didn't know was that the entity in the altars and the entity in Sombra were the same entity... so she thought he was in grave peril - there was a chance it might have taken him... but as useful as he was, it was more likely not to have done a thing. But poor Hope didn't know that...

More? Hope's mind asked timidly.

MORE... NOW.

She looked at her Soul Friend, eyes closed and waiting, and asked, then what is the proper sacrifice?

The response she got was a rumble... so, panicking, she spoke to it within her mind. Okay, alright, fine! Just don't take him, please!

NAME THY SACRIFICE!

M-my power? My wealth, because I don't h-have any... my mind? My-

A red aura grew rapidly behind Sombra, seeming to reach hungily for him as he stood there, oblivious, with his eyes closed in complete trust. Hope saw the vision reaching for him and blurted out the only thing she could think of:

MY DESTINY!

There was a BURST of red light from her horn, and arcs of red energy shot from the middle altar directly into Sombra, who gasped and cried out in alarm... yet kept his eyes closed, as per his Soul Friend's instructions.

Hope, still standing at the altar, now wore a look on her muzzle that spoke VOLUMES about what she'd just realized she'd done.

When she did that, her entire future as a leader and a ruler was gone - GONE - forfeit to The Umbra, to save her friend's skin... which was what it had wanted, all along. It TOOK her future from me, and I couldn't get it back for her...

Obsidian stood there, watching the events that were unfolding in front of her in silence, trying to comprehend what was happening. She couldn't say that she didn't understand Hope's decision - if she thought that something was going to happen to Cupcake, she would go quite a long way to help him as well... and it was a similar thing for the rest of her friends, of course.

For Hope and Sombra? Well, they were fairly close friends...

"Equestria, or the Empire? You aren't very clear about that," Siddy said quietly - even though Sombra and Hope couldn't hear her. "What is it that the Umbrals want, anyway? As far as I've seen, it was simply cruelty for the sake of cruelty and pain for the sake of pain."

Hope would have led a united nation; the Crystal Empire, Equestria, Troy, Dragon's Peak, Griffonstone... ALL of it would have been under one flag, one ruler, one Harmony.

Hope steadied herself against the altar, then realized what she was touching and jerked her hooves off of it quickly.

Sombra, the arcs having ceased, opened his eyes. "I felt... something... did it work?"

Hope just looked at him with scared eyes for a second... then, slowly, she smiled and shrugged. "It... doesn't look like anything's different... so... no, maybe?"

Sombra sighed. "Great. Well, there goes that idea. C'mon - let's get back to the orphanage before they find us gone."

Hope began to methodiaclly gather her things together, and Sombra spoke on... but her mind was far elsewhere.

The spell itself didn't begin to manifest until about a month later, when Sombra began looking into King Crest's rule... and began to point it out to anyone who would listen. He was like a stallion possessed, spreading his message of revolution and change. He was even arrested for it, on three separate occasions. But he was doing something active, and the citizens rallied to his cause.

"Hope? You okay? You look... haunted." Sombra said to his friend, who shook her head and smiled as if she hadn't just sold her destiny to The Umbra.

"Naaaaaaah... just not looking forward to going back out in the cold again, is all!" she said with a slightly forced joviality. Sombra gave her a skeptical look, but said nothing further about it.

Now, you've seen what brought the need for you about - I couldn't help Hope, but I could prepare for a future where she could get peace at last...

Whistlewhite, who'd been at her side the entire time, flicked her brush again and another portal opened against the wall. "Now," she said to Obsidian, "we move along to the part where you get your answers... and I get to relive the pain. This... isn't pretty, but in the name of the Truth... you have to know."

So.. these two were going to mess with the entire fate of the entire world, plunging it into absolute chaos and disarray, just because one mare made an honest mistake? Destiny was apparently a more fleeting thing than Obsidian had once thought.

"Let's go, then," Obsidian said with a determined nod. "I need to know."

The Grey Princess stepped through the portal and ended up hovering ghost-like outside of the cavern she had just been standing in, fully exposed to the blasting snowdrift, yet she felt no cold. What she saw was a fully-grown Sombra, climbing the frayed ropes that had been there for so long, the look on his muzzle one of determination.

"... never meant to ignore her, by damnation! How could I have been so selfish!?" His voice was loud and harsh, even in the blast of the fierce winds surrounding him.

You are as we wish you to be...

"And YOU!" he argued with himself, "YOU have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do when it comes to Hope! Trying to tell me she needed to be executed for what she did is NOT going to happen!"

She is useless to us.

"To you, perhaps... but there is NO replacement for Radiant Hope, and I wouldn't want one even if it was possible!"

You deny us?

"YES, I DENY YOU! YOU AND YOUR LIES! YOU AND YOUR 'UMBRAL EMPIRE'! When I get to Hope and we do this spell like she wanted, YOU will be the next focus of my purge! I will cut you out of me, if necessary!"

He reached the top, and saw the extra rope hanging there. "... she's already casting the spell, I'm sure of it."

Leave here now. Turn back. OBEY.

"NO MORE! NEVER MORE!" He made his way through the opening, and slid down the rope to the floor. "I'm going to tell her how important she really is to me... and if that means she'll want to do this spell a hundred times, I'll be right there with her!"

Turn away... or SUFFER.

"I've suffered you enough, already... now shut up; I have to find her..." He walked to the edge of the room, and saw the light blazing from around the corner. "Damnation, she HAS already started!"

He galloped to the edge, just in time to see the shard floating directly in front of Hope, her eyes glowing with power. "... wish to cast this spell! FOR US! I present to thee... my-"

And Sombra saw the dark red aura surround her - the same one that had scared Hope into action - with tendrils of vile crimson, looking like claws about to snatch her up.

"HOPE!" he yelled, attempting to warn her...

Her muzzle snapped over to look at him, surprise filling her eyes... then a bright white energy enveloped her and shunted into the crystal itself, which took Radiant Hope with it. The shard, now glowing with a white aura, fell to the floor with a barely audible >TINK<.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

It was a scream of pure agony and heartbreak. He ran forward and fell to his knees in front of the glowing crystal, sobbing hysterically as he just stared at it.

That day, Sombra lost his Soul Friend - all because he was too busy being a kind and just ruler to see what treachery The Umbra had planned for him. But, he didn't just surrender to what had happened, oh no no no...

Agonizing, he looked up towards the ceiling as if there were answers there... then his gaze flicked over to the altars. He got to his hooves as if in a daze, walking over directly to Hope' Spellbook where it lie on the central altar and flipping pages as he read, his look going from one of despair to one of desperate interest.

He still had her research, and he wasn't exactly any sort of slouch himself at magic... so, after studying what she'd written down about the Simulacrum Spell, he decided to try to use the altars to bring his friend back.

Now, the scene had an eerie doubling as the sight of the heartbroken Sombra faded away... and was replaced by a hopeful-looking one. The altars had a number of new devices and tools in place, and it looked as though he were set up to cast another spell.

Resting in an iron stand on the middle altar was the original shard, still retaining its' soft glow.

So, he studied her magics, and in a year's time, he made his first attempt.

He was concentrating fiercely, red energy pulsing from his horn as he set about casting the spell... which was when the voice spoke into his head.

YOU SEEK THE POWER OF THE UMBRAL.

"Yes," he said without hesitation, his muzzle grim and determined.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

He gazed soulfully at the shard, and tears rolled down his muzzle as he sighed.

"I give you my POWER," he said softly, "for my Soul Friend is worth more to me than my own ability to use magic."

But it did not take that power - he was already The Umbra's tool - so instead, it TWISTED that power within him, and took control of it completely from this moment onward. But, his casting did have a residual effect...

As she watched, a pulse of red energy from the shard grew brighter and brighter, then shot out into the middle of the cavern...

The glow pulsed, wavered, then began to fade... and when it cleared enough to see again, there was what looked to be a filly of about ten summers, lying there and sleeping peacefully. She had a pitch black coat with red flares from her hooves fading into the inkiness of her dark fur, and a bright red mane and tail that flowed from her like strands of bloody water. On her flank was a dark crystal heart with, of all things, Sombra's crown surrounding it.

Behold... the birth of Onyx.

She looked so young and cute... it was hard to compare this sweet-looking filly to the snide and dangerous mare she had eventually grown to become. Sombra stared at her for a moment, a look of pure shock writ large across his muzzle... then slowly, he came forward and placed a gentle hoof on her side, his eyes filled with wonder.

And so, his quest to regain his Hope began in earnest, now that he saw there was an effect - which, in his mind, meant there was a chance.

The scene doubled and faded again; this time, Sombra was there at the altar again... and off to the side, watching with solemn attention and wide eyes, was a young and reverent Onyx, observing her father's doings as he prepared the spell again.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

Sombra steeled himself, and spoke with determination in his powerful voice. "In the name of all that is good in this world... I give you my STRENGTH."

The crystal shard let out another flash of light... but this time, there was a bulky and muscular colt standing there, who fought to stay on his hooves for a moment before finding his balance and keeping it. Though he was obviously young, he looked to be built for brute strength, and muscle rippled across his barrel and down his legs. Even at his age, he looked ready to utterly destroy whatever unwisely got in his way. His coal black mane and tail fit with his dappled light grey coat, and his blue-green eyes were intense and hard. There was another dark crystal heart on his flank, but it had twin golden chains around it, both of which were shattering in front of it.

And so it continued with Aquamarine.

Another fading flash-forward, this one coalescing with a decidedly more grim-looking Sombra, with a young Onyx still nearby and watching with an intent expression.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

Sombra closed his eyes and spoke firmly, yet a bit more hesitantly than last time. "I... I give unto you... my INDEPENDENCE... with the wish of Hope's return... please..."

The light grew and flashed again... and this time, a rather tall and broad colt with exquisitely beautiful emerald eyes appeared, looking around in obvious confusion. His coat was a smooth charcoal grey, with a darker black mane and tail flowing from him. Even at his age he was quite handsome, and the dark crystal heart on his flank was framed in steel, with metallic wings outstreched from it - looking both strong and free. He turned his bewitching eyes toward Sombra and Onyx, a question filling them immediately without him speaking a word.

And Jade.

Another flash, another doubling, another scene.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

An older, more unhinged-seeming Sombra, flanked by a quiet and observant Onyx, spoke up. "Take my LOGIC from me; I can't seem to use it properly anymore without her..."

A pulsing flash, and the form of a frail-looking stallion glanced upwards at them both curiously. He was thin and reedy, as if he'd blow over in a hard wind, but his rich red eyes were filled with intelligence. His black mane and tail matched his soft grey coat - much like Aquamarine's had been - and he bore a cutie mark of an ancient tome bearing a dark crystal heart on its' cover. The colt only stared at them for a moment, then he squeezed his eyes shut and put his hooves to his head, giving out a low moan as he did.

And Peridot.

Another flash, and now there was a look on Sombra's muzzle that seemed to relay an almost visceral hunger for what he was seeking. Onyx was now a bit older, and she seemed to be standing back a few paces back from the agonized king, though her eyes followed him like they were sewn to his shadow.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

His face twisted into a rictus of pain and anger as he spoke, the tremors in his speech betraying his barely-contained rage. "Take my WISDOM, you damnable thing! Take it, and give me back my Soul Friend!"

A flash, and another young colt quivered in the cold of the cavern where he had appeared, almost looking as if he was about to run like a rabbit. His coat was a solid grey, and he had a shock of a red mane and tail - as well as some rather pointy canines, which he unknowingly displayed as he looked around the cave in both open-mouthed wonder and wary paranoia. His cutie mark was a dark crystal heart surrounded with sharp, bristle-like spines that seemed ready to draw blood.

And Tourmaline.

Another flash, another scene, another demand. By now, Onyx was almost standing against the wall of the massive cavern, but her eyes were locked on Sombra, regardless of the look of fear on her face.

"I... please... please..." he pleaded to the altars, his muzzle showing a cavalcade of lines that spoke of sleepless nights and dark dreams, "take my WILLPOWER from me if you will... but give me my friend back!"

With this flash, a filly appeared with a palomino coat of greys and blacks separated by blood red patches. Her mane and tail were a deep purple color, and when she opened her yellowish-orange eyes to witness the scene before her, she began to cry as if she'd been bitten. Her cutie mark was an open dark crystal heart with what looked like a darkly-glowing brain lobe pictured within.

Amber.

After this shift, a rather dull and listless Sombra was left standing there with Onyx behind him, ever observant and totally silent as he cast the spell yet again, his movements practised and sure... even as the expression on his muzzle was one of agony and stubborn, if pale, hope.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

He gave a great gust of a sigh, then looked up at the crystal shard within the stand, whose glow seemed a bit dimmer than Obsidian recalled it being to begin with. "... since you ask for more, then take my KINDNESS - it only hurts me now."

And THAT was where The Umbra began to take hold in earnest.

Another flash filled the cavern and when it faded, a tiny, almost doll-sized colt lie there, shivering from the cold. His loose lavender mane and tail sat against his light grey coat, almost voluminous enough to cover his entire form. He blinked his eyes open, then gave the room a quick scan until he saw Sombra looking down at him... and he smiled kindly back at the stallion. The dark crystal heart on his flank was bound with a bandage, as if healing the wound that was possibly there.

Diamond.

Now, the scenes were becoming quick and fluid, nearly overlapping each other - done over and over in front of Obsidian; each time, Sombra becoming less and less like he once was, and more and more like the one she was familiar with.

"I sacrifice my HEART, as it beats no longer without her."

A flash, and standing there was a skinny, scrawny-looking mare with a soft purple coat - very close to Radiant Hope's color - and a mane and tail which started black, yet faded to white as it reached the tips. She blinked, looking completely out-of-touch with the world around her. Obsidian got a fleeting glance at the dark crystal heart on her flank, surrounded in blue fire, before the filly stiffly teetered sideways and fell over.

Sapphire.

"I give you what I seek, that she might come back... I give you my own HOPE, pleading for her safe return to me."

A flash, and now a lovely tan-coated filly stood there. She had slashes of black and red across her legs and back, and she had a most beautiful mane and tail that seemed to sparkle with flecks of shimmering red. Her cutie mark was an open dark crystal heart holding a pool of calm water, surrounded by strands of ivy. She looked upon Sombra and smiled sweetly at him, even as a look of pain crossed his own muzzle.

Ruby.

"I give unto you... my master... the INGENUITY within my mind, so that you might use it to benefit your empire... and perhaps I might... might...?"

A flash, and a little blonde-maned filly stood there, trembling. She was lean and wiry, and her luminous purple eyes went wide with fear when she beheld her creator. On her flank was a hollowed-out dark crystal heart, filled with clockwork gears and metal. Her ears flattened against her skull as Sombra gave a strangled cry of frustration.

Opal.

"I give unto you, my most gracious master, the CHARISMA that drives me... and I beg you, beseech you, PLEAD to you... please... please... please..."

A flash, and a stallion was revealed - young, gangly and almost sickly-looking due to his thin frame. His grey coat and thick black mane and tail almost seemed to have been styled before his appearance, and he held himself with a shaky sort of dignity as he looked determined to remain on his hooves. On his flank was a dark crystal heart, surrounded by golden scrimshaw. He looked at Sombra and gulped nervously... but did not look away, even as Sombra frowned at the results of his casting.

Quartz.

So that was how it looked - their creations. It was a bit different than Obsidian had originally thought - and she was still unsure about the fine details. So... he was demanding the return of Radiant Hope, and offering bits of his soul as a sacrifice to that end - did she get it right? All this time, she was sure that he had intentionally moved their forms into a crystal-shaped format...

Did he really believe he would get her back, though? It was the same, every time, again and again - offering bits of himself, in order to have a chance to bring his Soul Friend back to him.

He didn't even seem to truly want any of his children; he only sought the return of Radiant Hope... and they were all merely unwanted side-effects. Honestly, after two or three fiascos, he should have just given up, saving whatever remained of his precious essence within the rapidly-devolving form of King Sombra.

Opal and Quartz were at least created to achieve a specific goal - the benefit of the Umbral Empire, but... was there anything left for Obsidian herself? Charisma, ingenuity, power, logic... even hope itself.

Was there anything left for her?

Now the next scene faded in, and it showed Sombra pacing the floor, his rage evident in every hoofstep and written all over his face. Onyx, wisely, was back as far as she could get from him while still able to see what was happening before her. She looked far more serious and solemn than Obsidian had seen her yet.

After this, it gets weird...

"What do you mean 'weird'? It's all weird!" Obsidian protested aloud, flinching slightly at the sound of her own voice. If some ancient entity was referring to anything as weird, then she was already bracing for what would probably be some sort of mind-blowing discovery. The last few she'd had sent her straight into a mental breakdown, so this HAD to be serious...

Sombra, by now, was evidencing almost every visible trait Obsidian could remember of her father from those 'good old days'; the purple mist seeping from his eyes, the unique and familiar armor, the stern, cold visage... almost exactly like she remembered.

Onyx, for her part, was standing back from the altars and keeping her eyes glued to her father, as usual. Obsidian could now see why she'd gone into a ball of jagged weeping with his destruction - as she had stated herself, Onyx had been here the entire time, and had seen it all... except for Obsidian's birth, she'd said.

Sombra suddenly whirled to face the Umbral Altars, and when he spoke, his voice only had the barest hint of who he once was.

"I shall NOT tolerate any further excuses, do you hear me! I will have her BACK, mark my words on it!"

You have failed, time and again... will this be the one, perhaps?

"SILENCE!" he yelled loudly enough to echo through the cavern, not even of enough focus to realize he was speaking out loud. Onyx, now almost the age Obsidian knew her to be, continued to observe... but not interact.

"This WILL be the right time! This WILL be it!" He moved to the middle altar, arranged with so much equipment she almost couldn't see it. He cast the spell, and again, the crystal flashed.

YOU SEEK THE POWER OF THE UMBRAL.

"Yes! ONE LAST TIME!" he screamed defiantly, his breathing ragged and laboured as he stared balefully into the dim glow that just barely surrounded the crystal shard.

NAME THY SACRIFICE.

He lowered his head until he was glaring only at the crystal shard in front of him, everything else in his view ignored and forgotten.

"I give you the ONE thing I have left to give, my master..." He grit his teeth, and the purple mist redoubled. "I GIVE YOU MY ANGER! THIS IS MY SACRIFICE, MY ANGER AT YOU FOR TAKING HER FROM ME!"

There was a repeat of the same pulse, then the same flash of light... and there, on the floor, was a rather runty-looking filly - roughly twelve summers in age, but scrawny and quivering with the obvious cold and lack of experience for her situation. Her off-white coat was thick and full, and her black mane and tail fell loosely along her side as she lie there. Her cutie mark was a dark crystal heart with an ornate-looking dagger stuck through the center of it.

Sombra stared for a moment... then, tears silently rolled down his muzzle - but the expression he wore was ALL seriousness. He walked over to the sleeping form on the floor and stared at her for a solid minute.

Then, he turned slightly towards the ever-watchful Onyx. "Get her OUT of here... and leave me here to mourn my failure."

Onyx, not even saying a word, came and helped the scrawny mare to her hooves - which she instantly fell off of, though Onyx caught her before she hit the ground. The two stumbled off towards the entrance, but Onyx did look back one single time before they left sight of him.

Sombra had originally taken each of his children in, and had tutors and scholars for them... and I got to be their nursemaid, so to speak. I was the one who taught them what love was... and he taught them scholastics and mathematics.

But as he sold off more and more parts of himself in his attempt to retrieve his Soul Friend, he became less and less of what he once was, and more and more of what IT was. Each trait he sacrificed never actually left him, but was instead perverted and scarred by The Umbra, so as to get more of a hoofhold on his body.

When he gave up his Kindness was when the Empire truly began to suffer; the taxes he suddenly levied, the slaves he gathered from his own subjects, the heartless tortures he committed... ALL of those were actions made by The Umbra, marking its' territory and making sure he knew who was in charge.

All the while, poor Sombra kept howling his protests from inside the prison of his own flesh. It's as if he needed to scream... and yet, he no longer had a mouth to do so with.

Sombra now focused his attention on the shard in the stand. "Hope... if you had only waited a bit longer... or if I had only put things aside for just a little while... if I had known..."

Now, his eyes lit up with smouldering rage. "I WISH SHE HAD NEVER CAST THE DAMNED KAYFADD SPELL! I WISH I'D NEVER MET HER! I WISH I COULD JUST DIE... BUT I'LL GO FOR THE NEXT BEST THING!"

With that, his horn was almost instantly alight with Dark Magic, and he blasted the altar to the left; it was blown to pieces in a single shot. "I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER! MAKE YOU BLEED!"

His horn fired off another bolt, this one at the right side altar, reducing it to a pile of rubble. "RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!" he roared as he directed his final bolt, not at the altar... but at the crystal shard in the metal stand upon it.

The raging beam slammed into the shard and sent it flying from its' stand, which had completely slagged and melted in response to the blast. The crystal fell to the floor, and it quickly began to glow bright and white, filling the entire cavern with blinding light that caused Sombra to shield his eyes...

And when it faded, lying there in a smoking crater, was Obsidian herself, a darling young filly of about twelve summers.

The final part of Sombra's soul was apparently sold to make Sister Amy - which left nothing at all to make Obsidian with. She had been expecting that he would have showed up there and perhaps offered his Magic to the thing in the altars. After all, she recalled having quite a lot of it - at least, that was before Sister Onyx had decided to steal it from her.

But this unexpected moment in time?

"I have to say that I have noticed that there seem to be a few serious differences between my own creation and the creation of my siblings," she said quietly. It most certainly wasn't a normal sacrifice - what had just happened? Why did Hope's crystal shard, after so much time, free, not a soul-starved Hope, but Obsidian instead?

Yes... you see, the blast was supposed to shatter that shard... but, I admit, I may have stepped in at the last moment to ensure you came to be. That white flash? Yours truly, doing my part for the world.

Hope's shard used to house her soul in it... but, like Sombra, each time a creation happened, it took parts of her soul to bring them to life, so she was whittled away, little by little, until she now only exists as a sliver of herself, inside all of your minds, trying to guide you to the best possible lives... though, to be fair, none of you really listen to her anyway, so... good intentions, wasted effort?

Sombra walked over and looked down at Obsidian's sleeping form. "You may CRUSH her; she is NOT whom you seek."

No. As we agreed, you will NOT kill my children; my full cooperation depends on you following that one rule - break it, and I'll fight you with every last breath I take.

Now, Sombra's voice was internal, while The Umbra spoke aloud; the role reversal was disconcerting.

He stared down at her for a moment... then slowly, he turned away and walked to the remaining altar. He took up Hope's Spellbook in his boiling Dark Magical grip, staring at it intensely. "The information in this is ours - it does not need to find other hooves."

With that, his horn flashed and the spellbook - Hope's repository of countless magical studies and theories - burst into flame instantly. King Sombra lazily tossed it onto the middle altar, and with it burning away right in front of Obsidian, he turned to leave.

Well... it seemed that Sombra had actually saved her from King Sombra immediately after her 'birth'. She should probably thank him, if she ever met him. Onyx had known everything the entire time, and-

Curses! Hope's Spellbook was destroyed forever! Obsidian could at least console herself with the fact she'd learned about the spellbook's fate before she got the chance to look for it; at least she didn't have to waste any time on searching for a book that no longer existed.

Onyx, who was returning from wherever she had stashed Amethyst, stopped at the cavern's entrance and stared at Obsidian with obvious surprise. Sombra, however, walked right past her.

"Fetch this one as well, and bring them both back to the palace... we shall NOT be returning here without the preparations being complete. Tambelon shall rise again... and WE shall fill its' throne." He walked off, striding like a conqueror instead of the kind king he had once been - the transformation was complete.

Onyx, with a sad little sigh, watched him go... then turned towards Obsidian, and began to gather her up upon her back. Once secured, she turned and carried her newest sister down through the tunnel and towards the exit as she began soundlessly crying.

"So, in a way... I am Hope?" Obsidian didn't exactly know what to think of that. It, well... it certainly went a long way towards explaining why she looked like Hope - even though she was released far younger than Hope went into it. "Is this the reason why, contrary to my siblings, I don't have any flashy superpowers like they do? Or perhaps is it why I'm able to gather their souls into me - because I'm the closest thing to the original body of Hope's soul?"

The mare in the cloak smiled. "No, Obsidian... you're YOU, always know that. But know this as well - in a perfect world, where The Umbra never existed, you were the perfect daughter that Sombra and Hope had always wanted."

She then giggled. "Superpowers? Obsidian, you've been gifted with the greatest power of them all... haven't you noticed that your siblings aren't exactly good at making friends? Even Quartz, with his charisma and charm, only knew others - he didn't have any actual friends. But you do... you alone, among your siblings, have had the ability to bring others together, just like Sombra did... and you have a brilliant mind, which is from Hope's contribution."

Whistlewhite then reached up and pulled down her hood... and she was even more beautiful in person than any dream or image could properly convey. Her eyes were the kind of blue you'd see in the ocean, and her coat was as stark white as her mane was. Her muzzle was pert and lovely, her cheekbones were perfect, and her entire face was a joy to behold; she almost seemed to glow...

"And MY contribution as well... because you're just as much a part of me as you are of them, Obsidian."

She began to walk a bit, lazily making her way towards the remaining altar. "You see, when The Umbra stole Hope's destiny from me, I saw what was going to become the future of Equus... that place we first met? That was Ponyville... six months after King Sombra takes his throne in Tambelon. In fact, that's all of Equus - a barren, desolate wasteland, the planet stripped dry of any kind of energy... all to feed The Umbra's endless hunger for power."

"So, since he had his 'ace in the hole' with Sombra... I just decided that you would be MY ace, and stacked things in your favor to see to it that you made it to the future, and that you survived up until this point... and that now, knowing the truth, you're hopefully willing to accept your Destiny..." She sighed happily. "To destroy The Umbra, once and for all!"

Obsidian knew that she was herself - nothing could change that - though it didn't change the fact that she was apparently... er... well, what she was? How should she put her thoughts into words...

"So... I wasn't even a planned creation, contrary to the rest. Not some kind of back-up plan - just an accident, at least on King Sombra's part and thanks to your timely intervention. A mix of what remained of Radiant Hope, with that bit of Sombra's soul she took from him during her last night alive... with a body made in her image?" Obsidian asked with a surprisingly calm voice for somepony who just witnessed her own birth. "I'm merely trying to understand. I've spent quite a while wondering if I was literally the new owner of her old body, so I'm naturally curious about the details."

Whistlewhite truly looked amazing. Breathtaking. Obsidian had seen a similar beauty in both Celestia and Luna, as well as Cadence herself... but Whistlewhite had an exceptional aura about her, something pure and good that made the alicorns she'd met only pale comparisons to what she felt rolling off the painter in waves.

"As much of you as of them... does that possibly mean I have three parents?" Siddy's confusion was only growing from what she'd learned.

Ah, what an intense day this was! Fighting against an armada of mechanical horrors, fighting against her own friends, her death, her rebirth, her sharding, bearing witness to her own birth... it was quite a lot for one day! In fact, the only thing that she felt she now understood anything more about was The Umbra.

A living, scheming hunger for nothing but more power - no matter what the source was, or what costs it would bring. Why did this beast want so much power? It didn't matter; it had corrupted everything it had ever touched and had purposely warped the destiny of the entire world... and for what?

"And I promise you, here and now... I shall destroy The Umbra, or die trying," she eventually concluded with a serious tone to her voice. "But... it's currently hidden in our minds, isn't it? All of us?"

Whistle smiled broadly and clapped her hooves with delight as Obsidian accepted her quest. "Oh, you have no idea - NO IDEA - how long I've been waiting to hear you say those words to me! I've been sweating and worrying, doing whatever I could to see this very day come to be!"

She smiled sweetly, and gave Siddy a sympathetic look. "Obsidian, you weren't leftovers - you were the product of two souls' last efforts at creating something that could have a Destiny; technically speaking, the other siblings are the accidental ones... YOU are exactly what they wanted in a daughter... both of them."

"And I'm more like a guide, so to speak... of course, thats a good portion of my job - making sure all of you creatures fit together in this world. The Moochick was my favorite form, but I've existed as many, many different things." She gave a light giggle. "In fact, this body you're seeing? I haven't been Whistlewhite in AGES! And it does feel just as good as I recall... plus, at least I'm FAR more mobile in this form."

She smiled knowingly. "The last time I set myself to a physical form? I was a tree..."

A tree? Now, wait a second... "A Tree of Harmony, I presume?" she asked as she remembered some mention of it in the books about all the past events from Princess Twilight's history.

The artist wiggled her eyebrows emphatically. "You catch on fast, filly."

Whistlewhite got to the altar and sighed unhappily at the ashes of Hope's Spellbook. "Such a shame - all her notes, her postulations, her personal thoughts... gone in an instant. Just like she was."

Then, a sly smile crept into place. "But, you see... Sombra already had all of her information. Her theories are what brought him to try to bring her back - in fact, her theories survived and were explored all the way into Modern Times."

She now looked a bit excited as she continued. "From Hope's work, a number of theories and spells actually managed to make it out of the Crystal Empire; they were smuggled out of the palace in my paintings, because I'm ALWAYS about sharing... and THAT was what Jade was punished for, to set you straight."

She walked around the altar, her hoofsteps light and dainty. "Jade had worked with me to share some of Hope's more useful spells and theories... and, in a sense, a version of the Simulacum Spell." She now turned to Obsidian and grinned. "A version that, after much debate and testing, was found to be able to produce offspring inside mares - even those who were unable to produce their own children. Or, to be direct, Hope's notes made it possible for the creation of Spell Foals..."

Now she let out a happy giggle, and gave Obsidian a light prod in her side. "Which means that it was because of Hope that Cupcake Sprinkles was even born..."

Then she sighed. "And when King Sombra discovered what had been going on... well, he wanted to kill us both, but your father's rule stood firm, so Jade was cursed instead..."

Now, she looked a bit sad. "... and I was dealt with accordingly. That was also part of why The Umbra put a ban on artwork - no art, no smuggling... at least, that was his plan, anyhow. A STUPID plan... but a plan."

She gave a single, light bubble of a chuckle. "Heh... you know, when he found out about it, he destroyed Hope's picture in the royal portrait - which sincerely irks me, as that was what I felt to be one of my better works."

"And here I was, thinking that it was merely done in a fit of cruelty, insanity or both," Obsidian couldn't help but smile at the mention of Cupcake and his own connection to Radiant Hope and her own history. "I'm glad you helped, then."

To be fair, it was a bit of a strange case - after all, Miss Pie could always have had foals on her own; she just got impatient... or something like that, right? So everything seemed to have an explanation behind it, even Jade's final fate. She doubted he was very grateful for his opportunity to survive, though... at least at the moment.

Then it hit her. "So... Radiant Hope is gone forever... Sombra, after his statue was destroyed, is now gone too... which would mean the only thing that left is... The Umbra. Am I correct?"

Whistlewhite sighed. "It's... not that simple."

"Sombra was, is, and always will be a product of The Umbra - that won't change, not in a million years. In essence, his soul is simply a part of The Umbra... but it's a part that developed things like empathy, morals and a conscience, all in part through the friendship Sombra forged with Radiant Hope."

She then scowled, which looked immensely out-of-place on the mare's muzzle. "And those were things it didn't want in a tool."

She now walked around the altar again, stopping right in front of Obsidian. "Things are happening, even now, to put The Umbra right where it needs to be... and to put YOU where YOU need to be, as well as your dear companions."

Whistle smiled again. "The Umbra took Equestria's Destiny... now, through you and your wonderful friends, it's time to take ITS' Destiny - the world you saw - and make certain it can no longer fool or manipulate ANYONE, anymore."

She reached back and pulled her hood up again, hiding her perfect muzzle from the world once again. "Now, with all of that out in the open where it needs to be, we ca-"

Whistlewhite suddenly gave out a sharp gasp, clutched a hoof to her chest and stumbled back until she connected with the wall, where she was holding herself up on shaky legs.

"... oh... ohhhhhh, that hurts..." she murmured, her expression one of sorrow and pain. "But it always hurts when they're so important, especially when it's WELL before their time... oh, poor, poor Flurry Heart..."

Obsidian was startled by the sudden reaction of Whistlewhite... however, she went into a full-fledged panic as soon as she heard her words. She practically jumped to the beautiful mare's side, grabbing her with one hoof, worry and anxiety painted loudly all over her muzzle. "What's wrong with Flurry Heart!?"

Whistle's hood fell partially away... and the sight of the tears perched in the beautiful mare's eyes was simply heart-shattering.

"Amber... she made her mother, Cadence, go to Jade... and..." She sighed. "Oh, I do so mourn when I lose of of the better ones... and Amber made certain that Flurry saw it ALL - every moment, as her mother freed Jade from his crystal... then, died from exposure to him... in such a horrific, HORRIFIC manner, too..."

She closed her eyes. "Cadenza Mi Amore... you will be sorely missed, my dearest Princess of Love."

She did it. Amber really did it.

There were no words Obsidian felt that she could say that would accurately describe her feelings after hearing this tragic news. Oh, she sometimes made little comments and snarks in the act of foolishness, of being evil merely for the sake of being evil - murdering, torturing and so on. Every conqueror that kept trying to defeat Equestria and rule it was eventually undone by the mere fact that they never seemed to know when to STOP being so evil.

Amber, however, was always too evil. Her father. Her own siblings. Cadance. Poor Flurry...

"I... I should have thrown her damned shard... into the crusher!" she said, her voice wavering with a mix of anguish and sheer, unmitigated fury.

Attacking Obsidian? Meh, she could survive that. Attacking her friends? Opal, Quartz and all the others had the excuse of being stuck on the other side of the fence when they did that stuff. Attacking her friends when they weren't a danger, then torturing them with the sight of their own mother being murdered horribly in front of them?

No. No, that would NOT do.

"Miss Whistlewhite... I want to kill Amber - I really do. Even when I fought against Onyx or King Sombra, I wanted to merely defeat them, not kill them... but right now, I want to crush her soul... into dust." By Darkness! Flurry!

Whistlewhite sighed and gave a tired nod. "And THAT will put her right where she can learn some manners... with you."

She now seemed as if she was a bit winded, but she continued on, all the same. "As to that... yes, being the shard that helped create them, you're the one their souls go to when they die... because they BELONG there, as a whole, with the other pieces of Hope. But even in her weakened state, she refuses to reabsorb them."

"Because she knows that THAT act will kill them permanently... and, regardless of what they've done, she STILL loves all of you... even Amber. So, if you can destroy her shard, she'll be where she can no longer cause any harm... and where she can get lots of attention from the sibling she hates most right now."

Whistle shook her head slowly, sadly. "It won't bring back the dead, though. Except..."

She now put on a smile. "The Simulacrum Spell was only as good as the materials it used, which were archaic during her time. But modern technology and magic are more advanced than Hope would have ever known in her lifetime... and because of that, someone exceedingly brilliant might be able to make the spell work now - without an Umbral Altar!"

The white mare nudged Obsidian. "Someone like, oh, I don't know, say a mechanical genius who was recently ousted from her diligent factory work?"

Siddy lifted an eyebrow. "She refuses to reabsorb them, you say? As in, it's a conscious decision? Would that mean that there's still enough of Hope somewhere inside us to - in theory - bring her back to the realm of living?" Obsidian tried to divert her own fury with another question about her fallen mother. "But... if what you say is true, then I should be able to bring back all of my dead siblings without exposing myself to The Umbra's influence. Good to know."

By Darkness, it was only because of Cadence's words to her that Obsidian even looked into this strange thing called a 'wedding' in the first place; it had been the final nudge in that direction. She had even wanted Cadence in on her wedding; maybe she could even have wed them herself?

And now she was gone. Despite the fact that Obsidian had been, at the time of their only meeting, feeling a bit too attached to the idea of being the rightful heir to the Crystal Empire, Cadance had simply been too beautiful and too kind to NOT like her.

And now she was gone.

"At first, after I noticed Ruby's spirit in my dreams for the first time, I thought it would be possible to do this trick with any pony. That perhaps I could... I could..." By Darkness, poor Flurry. Poor... what was her sister's name? Poor...

Obsidian didn't even notice that she had started to cry, as her anger was subdued and replaced by sheer heartbreak.

Whistle came to her and put her forehooves around her in a warm, soft embrace. "Imagine feeling that way, but for a thousand years... and that is why I'm so happy to see you... because it means that The Umbra's end is near, and that you and your friends are going to step up and become the heroes that all of you deserve to be, so very much."

She looked at Obsidian directly in the eyes. "I'm not going to say any platitudes like 'it'll be okay' or 'things will work out'... because honestly, I have no idea if they will or not. All these past centuries, I've been waiting and hedging my bets on you - just as ANGRY at The Umbra as you are at Amber, right now. And I've had to live with that anger for FAR too long."

"But don't let it pull you down into despair - that's The Umbra's realm, and feelings of hopelessness and sorrow are it's food and drink. Use that anger to bolster yourself, to help push you to do what needs to be done." Whistlewhite then hugged her lovingly, like a mother would.

"Obsidian... whatever has happened and whatever may come, keep in mind that you're setting out to destroy an evil that very well may be older than even I am - and that's saying something. Take comfort in the idea that the perpetuator of all this pain will soon be dead... by your own hooves."

By Harmony, being hugged by Whistlewhite was probably the best thing that had happened to Obsidian today. It didn't end her sadness or anger, but it did calm her down a bit - and gave her a good opportunity to cry in more comfortable conditions. "I will deal with Amber, then go straight for The Umbra. But... how? Onyx said it lives inside all of our minds - that it was the last presence that I felt there. That it can use us in the same way it used Sombra. So, er... a-any tips?"

Whistle gave her a smirk. "Onyx is unknowledgable about everything that went on... YOU now know more than SHE does. She honestly thinks that's The Umbra n your heads... but it isn't." She smiled again. "That is Hope, guiding and trying to see to it her children have lives that will be worth living. The Umbra wants others to think it has that much control over you all... but it never did. It was Onyx's educated guess... but it was still wrong."

"The ONLY way The Umbra can use ANYONE is if they willingly give themselves to IT... or were born from IT, such as your true father was. But you and your siblings won't be controllable by IT, not at all - unless any of you invite IT in."

"Well, that's just another reason to stop Amber as quickly as possible," Obsidian said, almost calm and collected again.

Then it dawned on her. "Does... does that mean it could be possible... in theory, at least... to talk to Hope?" She felt strange asking about such a thing... and it gave her such a strange squeeze around her heart and throat, too. She really didn't even like her too much, considering that she'd wanted to use some cursed ancient altars and some newly-developed magic just to do something as simple as create a foal... but it might be nice to be able to chat with her from time to time, perhaps?

Now the artist's smile turned sad. "If she could, I'm sure she would LOVE to meet you - all of you - but..."

She sighed. "The creation process is HARSH; there's really not even enough left of her to know how to talk. She's more like a primal force for good inside you - she no longer has enough of her soul left to actually exist; bringing her back to life would be more like trying to make a toothpick back into a full-grown tree."

Whistle now wore a look of sorrow. "The stuff's just not there anymore; it's spread between all of you, and it'll likely never be whole again..." She then gave a small grin. "But she knows that you exist, and she's so happy that you do. I can tell you that much, at least."

Awwwww... so Hope was gone for good, and Sombra's ultimate fate was more or less unknown - he had a lot of Umbral in him, and he survived his own death once already, so...

Wait. Waaaaaaait... now, wait a second!

"Likely? What does that mean?" Siddy asked carefully. After all, one of their parents (or rather, the evil incarnation inhabiting one of their parents) wanted to use their bodies for nothing more than his own return.

Whistle gave a half-shrug. "It means that, yes, there might be some sort of miracle that might allow her to speak to you... but most likely, it'll never happen; I'm simply trying to keep you from seeking something you won't ever find..."

She smirked. "Or are you just like your father, in that respect?"

Obsidian scoffed lightly. "Oh, you need not worry about that; I'm a bit disappointed, but I've already accepted the fact that the only mother I'll ever be able to speak with is my future mother-in-law." Unless Amber decided to be more insane and genocidal, of course - but in that case, Obsidian would have to deal with a moral dilemma of her own: would feeding Amber's soul to Hope, just to restore her a bit more, be considered a justified punishment?

The painter turned and looked towards the cavern's entrance passage. "Nonetheless, you and I? Our time grows short, now - won't be long before you go back to the realm of the living, and I will be relegated to a bunch of branches again. Although... speaking of that..."

Whistle reached a hoof into her cloak, and came out with a single, small white seed. "Here... take this with you; when things seem the bleakest for you and your friends, simply drop this on the ground and say, 'friendship is magic'... but ONLY in the direst of dire situations, because it only works ONCE."

Obsidian reached for the seed and took it, not questioning how it could possibly move from the dream-realm and into the real world. "Thank you. I promise I shall do my best to visit the Tree of Harmony from time to time, to pay my respects... but first things first, right?" She smiled - perhaps it was a bit forced, but she did her best.

Amber had to pay; this was non-negotiable.

"Yes... first things first." Whistlewhite smiled and stepped back from her; she was just so fragile-looking and lovely... of course she was the embodiment of Harmony - who else would be a better choice?

"Obsidian... you'll have to go soon, so now's the time to ask anything else you might want to know - because after this? I'm fairly certain you and I will never get the chance to speak again like this. It's..." She wiped away a tear. "It's like watching your children leave the nest, and make their own lives without you... but I'll ALWAYS be with you. Wherever there is even the smallest scrap of Harmony, I'll be there with you."

She sighed. "Okay, last call for questions, Siddy - make it count."

Oh dear, her final question? There were so many things Obsidian wanted to know about, so many she had to know, like with The Umbra. She had a feeling, however, that she would need to find most of those answers for herself.

"What happened to Butter Churn's brother - Washburn Washington?" Somehow, it was the first thing that appeared in her mind, and she didn't want to waste any time figuring out what else she could ask. Obsidian could at least get one more question answered - after all, she'd just gotten a LOT of answers from what she'd witnessed; one more coudn't possibly hurt... unless, of course, the answer she got was 'he died', and that was all.

Whistlewhite smiled at that. "Funny you should mention that..."

She began to walk along, and motioned for Obsidian to follow with a hoof. "Washburn was set upon by timberwolves, and he fought back hard... and lost. Sort of."

"You see, he didn't die - though he did lose a foreleg - but instead, he made a new place for himself in Ghastly Gorge. You may hear rumours about strange noises in the night, or hear someone talk about seeing the Ghastly Ghost... well, that's Washburn. Only Washburn."

"He just coudn't go home and lay the burden of his missing limb on his family. Yes, not exactly the brightest of moves, but his heart was in the right place, bless him."

She nodded. "And now, he's the survivalist he's grown to be... and honestly? The missing limb hardly bothers him anymore. He has a hidden home in the Gorge..." She then let loose with another beautiful smile. "A home that will soon house the first guests he's had in... well, ever! I suppose the upshot of all of this is that he exists, he's out there... and most likely, you WILL see him before it's all over with."

They reached the area where the ropes hung limply against the wall, but Whistlewhite simply slung her paintbrush again, creating another colorful, swirling portal.

"Oh, Obsidian... I wish we had more time. I'd talk to you about all the things I've experienced during my many, many years of life, and you could tell me all about your friends and your own adventures..." She then sighed. "But it's time to go."

She reached up and hugged Obsidian tightly. "I do so love you, Siddy - you're the hero Equestria needs right now - you and your friends. Go to them, and always remember that friendship is a magic all its' own..."

Now tears began to slide down her perfect features. "... and that, no matter what anyone else tries to say, your mother and father love you very, very much... and so do I. Now..."

She gestured to the portal. "... go be incredible."

Obsidian hugged Whistlewhite back tightly, feeling considerably good - both with this whole discussion and with the choice of her last question.

"I will, Miss Whistlewhite - I'll do my best, as always; I'm too stubborn to do otherwise." Obsidian smiled a bit once again, though each time her thoughts even merely wandered around topic of Flurry Heart, she had to force herself not to scrunch her expression into an angry scowl.

Oh, Amber... you simply have no chance in Tartarus. After all, had anypony ever told you lately that your parents loved you? HA!

"Bye... and thank you!" Siddy said simply, then she untangled herself from the hug and trotted into the portal.

Whistlewhite smiled sweetly as she watched her go... and her final words to her echoed into Obsidian's ears:

... and HOPE shall guide the Grey into the Light...

Author's Note:

And now you know... and knowing is half the battle. And TRUST ME, that's coming, too.

And so, HERE is my attempt at rewriting Sombra's history, explaining the darkness & basically taking all that nasty Season 9 crap and flushing it thoroughly. A villain like him deserved better than what he got, and THIS is my best shot at making it more bearable & more interesting. Did I do well? Was it satisfactory? Do I need to go back to Magic Kindergarten? Let me know.

And yet ANOTHER victim of Amber's control... one which was completely innocent in this situation. As she promised, there will be scars... and as of this situation, I'd say there'll be at least ONE alicorn who'll bear a Tartarus of a scar from all of this.

As an aside, I have to say that - even with all the revelations in this chapter - the best part about it was Amethyst and her show of defiance against Princess Skullfuck; when it came up in the original tale, I was so full of pride for her - it was worth the wait to get there, in my humble opinion. Y'all agree?

And so, back to the real world she goes, now armed with the knowledge of the TRUTH of her origins... but will Obsidian be able to deal with Amber? And even if she does, will she be ready to take on The Umbra itself?

'Meeting Whistlewhite' artwork by the incredibly talented Rutkotka; as always, she was an absolute joy to work with, and I feel she did quite a nice job on bringing the mysterious artist to life. Bravo, Ru - totally worth the wait!

Comments

[AcerSpacer]

Killing Cadance offscreen? Cold. As always, an extremely enjoyable chapter, filled with triumph and tragedy. I'm honestly at the edge of my seat here.

[Little_Draco]

Oh shit... youve gone and killed another mane character...

[Wungiel]

11039631
Did ya' like the scenes of shards' creations?

[prism heart]

Somehow, I doubt Amber will be enjoying her future at all. Living OR dead.

[AcerSpacer]

11039747
Oh absolutely.

[Edguy0009]

A swift death would be a mercy for Amber.

[Truthseeker]

Fantastic work, you marvelous bastard! I have rarely hated a character so quickly in my entire life.