> Feeling Pinkie Mean
>  by RainbowBob
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: The Pinkie Pie Way!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Pinkie Pie bounced in her usual cheerful manner next to Twilight. The latter’s expression was the complete opposite of Pinkie’s cheerful demeanor; she had a frown ringed with worry lines, and bags hung underneath her eyes.

“So, Twilight, what did you need me for again?” Pinkie asked. She circled the unicorn in an impressive show of her bouncing abilities while occasionally using her own head to propel herself from the ground. “You sounded really worried about whatever it is you've called me here for! Is it a super duper uber secret emergency? Ooh, by the way, can we hurry this up? Mrs. Cake needs my help later because we’re having a mega big order of banana, macadamia nut, and even double chocolate chip cookies that I need to finish along with some triple vanilla pudding! Ooh, have you tried those?”

“Pinkie, please,” Twilight muttered. “This will only take a few moments. I just need your assistance with something really important.”

Pinkie smiled and began backpedaling in front of Twilight. “How important? ‘Equestria is doomed’ important? ‘The world is doomed’ important? ‘The entire universe is doomed’ important? Well, which is it?” Pinkie asked, her nose pressed uncomfortably close to Twilight’s.

Twilight backed away from Pinkie’s wide-eyed face. “Um… well, kind of. I think the ‘Equestria is doomed’ part hits the mark. Not sure about the world. And the universe is just pushing it, Pinkie.”

“Then what are we waiting for? To the library!” Pinkie shouted while pointing her hoof in the air in a dramatic pose while on two hooves. She held the pose for a couple of seconds, then dropped back to all fours and whispered in Twilight's ear: “We are going to the library, right?”

“First off: yes, Pinkie, we’re going to the library. In fact, we’re already here,” Twilight said, and pointed to the tree house that was more tree than actual house. “Secondly, will you please try not to cause an uproar about this? Celestia herself assigned me this task, and she’d rather keep it on the down-low for now. Understand?”

Pinkie saluted as per military standard, puffing her chest out. “Okie dokie lokie!”

“Great,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. She made her way to the front door of the library with Pinkie hopping close behind. “Just try your best to keep this a secret. Nopony else can know about it.”

Entering through the wooden library doors, Pinkie caught sight of Spike by the bookshelves organizing books. “Does Spike know about this secret too?” she whispered to Twilight, casting Spike a scrutinizing look.

Twilight held in a groan. “Yes, Pinkie, he knows about the secret.”

“So, we don’t have to keep him... quiet?”

“What?” Twilight asked, shaking her head. “No, no, we don’t have to keep him quiet!”

“You guys do know I can hear you, right?” Spike called out from the top bookshelf, glancing over his shoulder, unamused, at the duo. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the basement doors. “Also, bring rope.”

“More? Did the other ropes break already?” Twilight asked as she made her way to the corner closet to grab the replacement rope.

“Chewed right through. I told you chains would’ve worked better.”

“Where would I find chains in this town without looking conspicuous?”

“The same place you bought rope, a gag, and chloroform.” Spike snickered, turning back to his shelving in order to avoid Twilight’s glare.

After lifting the rope with her magic, Twilight motioned Pinkie to follow her. Once she had opened the basement doors, the pair descended the dimly lit stairs to the darkness below.

“Um, Twilight, what exactly is that secret thingy you needed rope for?” Pinkie asked with a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.

“Don’t worry, Pinkie. He can’t hurt you. Not from in his cage, at least,” Twilight said. Nearly blind now, Twilight peered into the gloomy darkness, muttering under her breath, “Now, where’s that light switch?"

Pinkie began backing up slowly, until her backside hit cold iron bars. She quickly turned to avoid whatever she had just walked into, nearly falling on her rear in surprise.

Pinkie could hear heavy breathing in the shadows directly before her. A low growl was clearly audible, along with a bout of shuffling as something moved closer to her.

“Hey Twilight, what was here in the basement again?” Pinkie asked.

A vile, green glow appeared in front of her, and two demonically crimson orbs shone with an evil intent as a vicious, purple haze sprouted out of the sides. The growling became a full-on snarl.

“Ah, here’s the light switch,” Twilight said. Bright lights flashed on, fully illuminating the basement. Pinkie squinted from the sudden change from darkness to light. A hiss sounded, accompanied soon after by a few muttered curses as well.

“I thought I told you to keep the lights off!” a gruff voice called out angrily.

With a roll of her eyes, Twilight unbundled the pile of rope and dropped it on the ground. Then she moved closer to the large, iron-barred cage that now made up the center of the basement. “And I thought I told you that I don’t care,” Twilight said.

Pinkie followed the new voice to its source, her eyes widening at the sight before her. King Sombra, ex-ruler of the Crystal Empire and villain extraordinaire, was standing on the other side of the cold iron bars and looking rather irritated.

“A useless wench like you should know to speak better to royalty!” Sombra yelled at Twilight, shaking his steel-clad hoof at her in rage.

In response, Twilight sighed deeply under her breath and withdrew the cage’s key. “Sorry, but my patience for a tyrannical dictator who enslaved his own ponies, tried to kill us all, and doesn’t know a thing about manners runs really thin. Plus, you’ve been complaining since you got here.”

“I’ve been complaining because you craven, lily-livered mares have trapped me here!” Sombra threw himself against the bars, wincing in pain as his attempt to break out failed. Pinkie observed a few bruises on his cheek, which were most likely from past failures. “Agh, curse this iron prison and you knave mares!”

“Blame karma, not me,” Twilight replied. She unlocked his door and whisked him up in a field of magic. While Sombra struggled in her magic grip, Twilight spun him around so he was soon wrapped in the rope. Setting him on the ground, Twilight made sure to tug at his bindings tightly, promptly leading to Sombra’s tongue to stick out and a loud grunt to leave his lungs.

“Try not to chew through these as well,” Twilight told him. Turning back to Pinkie Pie, she said, “This is the big secret I was talking about.”

Pinkie nodded and looked at Sombra struggling on the ground. “You kidnapped Sombra and locked him in your basement?” Pinkie asked, as she peered through the bars.

“Yeah—wait, no! I didn’t kidnap him!”

Pinkie rubbed her chin. “But doesn’t tying him up against his will and throwing him into a locked iron cage count as kidnapping?”

“No… well, yes, but that’s not the point.” Twilight sighed, running a hoof through her mane. “Listen, just don’t tell anypony he’s down here, okay? At least until I get word back from Celestia that it’s okay to let him out. This secret is of the gravest importance to Equestria’s safety.”

“No problemo, Twilight-o!” Pinkie said, giggling at Sombra’s attempts of breaking through the rope bonds. “You can count on me!”

Pinkie tilted her head to the side as she stared at Twilight. “Wait, do the other girls know about Sombra, too?”

Twilight gulped, a cold sweat running down her neck. “Heh, funny story about that… you aren’t the first pony I told this to.”

Pinkie’s lower lip quivered. “Why?” Pinkie asked, Sombra’s cries of protest ignored.

Twilight groaned under her breath, then looked Pinkie straight in the eye. “Okay, well… I guess I should start at the beginning.” Twilight sighed. “Spike found Sombra outside ransacking our garbage can one night, so weak he could barely stand up while mumbling something about a ‘weird looking food container’ and ‘needing nourishment to refuel his magic’—”  

“I was merely trying to acquire food, and those silver cans were overflowing with it! I had just performed a magical feat far beyond what your pribbling minds could imagine, recreating my body from mere pieces! Not like either of you two clod-brained mares could possibly understand! So, of course, my appetite was monstrous after expending all my energy into the spell!” Sombra shouted in the background. “Though the amount of junk you had in those food containers was not appreciated!”

“...Anyway, after I found him and cleaned him up a bit, I asked Celestia for advice right away.”

 Sombra laughed, a smug smile on his face. “Ha, like that bumbling fool could ever offer good advice!”

Twilight frowned and tightened the rope holding Sombra. The King went a bit blue around the face, his flailing being reduced to weak flopping.

“As I was saying, Celestia teleported here right away. After inspecting Sombra and asking him a few questions, the conclusion was reached that he somehow revived himself from the explosion back at the Crystal Empire using only his horn. It apparently landed all the way here in Ponyville and only recently did his magic kick in to bring him back. However, the blast and renewal of his body greatly hindered his magical abilities.”

“Say what now?” Pinkie asked.

“He can’t use magic.” Glancing back at Sombra, Twilight raised an eyebrow at his overdramatized thrashing. She loosened the rope a touch. “Otherwise, he would’ve escaped already.”

“You—huff—better believe I’ll—gasp—escape soon enough, you insufferable, urchin-snouted peasants!” He panted hard, positioning himself awkwardly to get into a sitting position. “And once I’m out of this petty prison, you and the rest of Equestria shall feel my unparalleled wrath!”

“I should’ve gotten him a muzzle,” Twilight muttered. “He’s not much of a threat against Equestria without his dark magic, so Celestia decided now was as good at time as ever to reform him.”

“Like we did with Discord?” Pinkie asked, just as Sombra snorted in contempt.

“As if a bunch of empty-headed mares could ever hope to change me,” Sombra said, rolling his eyes. “You’re just wasting your worthless time, insolent foals!”

“Usually, I’d try to be the optimistic one, but I may have to agree with Sombra… for once in my life,” Twilight said. “Sure, the reforming process worked on Discord, but it’s stuck at a standstill for Sombra. Nothing I or the other girls have tried is having much of an effect. Plus, Discord ate every page of the reforming spell, so that plan didn’t follow through.”

Sombra smiled triumphantly. “You are all spineless dolts that have no chance at ever reforming me! Once my magic is back, vengeance shall be mine, and—”

“Will you please, just please cut it out with the vengeance speeches?” Twilight held a hoof to her temple. “Can’t you go five minutes without declaring that we’ll rue the day?”

Scowling intently, Sombra cast his gaze to the side and said, “Only if the delicious treat you call ice cream is to be delivered to me in all due haste.”

“Ice cream?” Pinkie asked, staring at Twilight.

Twilight shrugged. “Apparently they didn’t have ice cream a thousand years ago. Or many other modern things. He freaked out the first time I turned on a light bulb in front of him.”

“I did not ‘freak out!’” Sombra protested. “I was merely surprised at the technological advancements this age has made. Lights in the ceilings, compartmented boxes to keep food at cold temperatures, soap! It amazes me what I’ll discover next.”

“Back to the point—and yes, before you ask again, I’ll get you that ice cream—I initially had Fluttershy help me out with this endeavor. That… pretty much failed.” Twilight pointed at Sombra accusingly. “Mr. Dictator here tried to bite her!”

“What, do you think these fangs are just for show?” he asked, smiling a wickedly evil, sharp-toothed grin at the mares.

Pinkie frowned and laid both hooves at her sides as she stood on her back hooves. “That was a really mean thing to do, Sombra. You should be sorry for scaring Fluttershy like that.”

Sombra snickered, his smile even wider and creepier. “Like I’d ever feel sorry for scaring one of you brain-addled, dunder-headed—”

The glow of Twilight’s horn cut him off. What resembled a magical hoof pushed Sombra over from his sitting position, causing him to land painfully on the back of his head on the cold floor of his cage. 

Twilight and Pinkie wisely disregarded Sombra’s moans of pain.

“Basically,” Twilight went on, “Fluttershy was so scared that she declined to have any more more reforming sessions. Applejack tried her hoof at him as well, but she told me he was even more stubborn than her. Rarity refused after he used a few choice words about her appearance… and weight. And Rainbow Dash said she wouldn’t even waste her time trying to fix a slimy scumbag like him.”

“So… I’m the last choice then?” Pinkie said, a slight whimper escaping her.

Twilight rested a supportive hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder and brought her in for a one-armed hug. “Hey now, Pinkie, don’t be sad. See it this way: Kindness, Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, and even Magic have failed to correct Sombra’s evil ways. But maybe Laughter can finally be the trick into making Sombra a good pony.”

“The only laughter I’ll be experiencing will be be the one I do while I am dancing over your graves!” Sombra yelled. Although he was still stuck on his back like an overturned turtle, it had little effect on his volume.

“So, the entire fate of Equestria rests in my hooves,” Pinkie said, ogling at her pink limbs.

“Well, not exactly…” Twilight shrugged, patting Pinkie’s hooves. “I mean, sure, all of Equestria is depending on you to reform Sombra. He just seems kinda helpless, though. Anyway, are you up to the challenge?”

“You bet I am!” Pinkie said while choke-holding Twilight and pointing to the ceiling heroically. “I, Pinkamena Diane Pie, shall tame the menace known as Sombra, teach him the magic of friendship, and reform the stuffings out of him, whether he likes it or not!”
“I don’t!” Sombra shouted.


“Too bad!” Pinkie said, releasing Twilight, who promptly fell to the ground and sucked in huge gasps of air. Turning back to the cage, Pinkie leaned on the bars and pointed right at Sombra. “You’re gonna get reformed the Pinkie Pie way! That involves smiles, parties, balloons, streamers, cakes, cookies, games, hugs—”

Sombra’s pupils shrank and his eyes widened as Pinkie continued to list off exactly what was included in the Pinkie Pie Super Duper Reforming Package™ without end. Flipping himself over and crawling on his stomach to Twilight, he began to beg, “Okay, bring back the others. Anyone. Even a dungeon is more preferable than being with her.”

Twilight smiled weakly and rubbed at her neck, which was sore from Pinkie’s surprisingly strong grip. “Too bad, Sombra. She’s your only chance. Don’t screw it up.”

“Just wait until I get my powers back,” Sombra said, his glowing gaze growing brighter for a short moment. “Then you’ll pay. By the fire of a thousand suns, my fury has no end and you will all burn beneath my might like the insignificant whelps you are!”

“We’ll see,” Twilight replied, a brief shudder of fear running down her spine as she picked herself up from the ground. “But in the meantime, do try to be a gentlestallion—if you even know how to.”

After Pinkie listed off the bonuses and prizes her reforming package included, she went to Twilight’s side and moved her huge grin right next to the other mare’s face. “So, Twilight, what’s my first mission to reform Sombra?”

“Um…” Twilight glanced back at Sombra. “How about you get that ice cream I promised Sombra before?”

“Ooh, excellent idea! I can spoon-feed it to him, kind of like a foal! That’ll be our first trust exercise!” With a trail of dust outlining her figure for a few moments, Pinkie was gone, speeding away to the nearest source of sugary, dairy delights for the ex-king.

“I’ll just leave you alone, then, before Pinkie gets back,” Twilight told Sombra, smirking as she made her way up the stairs. Looking over her shoulder to stare down at him, a dark frown overcame her face. “Just remember, Sombra, Pinkie is pretty much your last shot at freedom, so I’d try to be at least somewhat nice to her, if you can manage that.”

Twilight left and slammed the basement door shut, leaving Sombra in the brightly lit room to sit on his stomach uncomfortably, while he waited for the pink menace to return.

“So this is Tartarus,” Sombra reflected, staring up at the door with a mix of dread and anxiousness for the delectable treat known as ice cream. “Much pinker than I imagined.”
> Chapter 2: By The Spoonful
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Oh Sombra, I’m baaaack.” The valkyrie of annoying, high pitched noises had returned.
    
    Sombra winced. “I don’t know whether to be happy or depressed,” he muttered, chin on the floor as he stared at the basement door up the stairs. When he saw Pinkie enter with a bowl of ice cream bouncing on her poofy pink mane, all the while grinning that insufferable smile of hers, he said, “Wait, no, the phrase I was thinking of was miserable, or dismal. Both fit rather well.”
    
    “Aw, don’t be such a such a grumpy pony,” Pinkie replied, coming to a stop outside the cage.. Her cheer-filled smile beamed so radiantly, Sombra was sure he’d go blind from staring at it for too long.
    
    He averted his gaze to the bowl atop her head and eagerly licked his lips at the sight of the delectable treat it contained: delicious, sweet, and most importantly, tasty ice cream. Chocolate ice cream flavor, he noticed. Even better.
    
    Grunting, he inch-wormed forward. “Of course I’m going to be grumpy. I went from the all-powerful leader of an entire nation to a prisoner held captive by foalish mares. I’m also a prisoner who just so happens to want that ice cream you have there. Now, hoof it over!”
    
    “Oh, this ice cream?” Pinkie raised an eyebrow and looked at the ice cream in question. She gingerly took the bowl off her head and held it close enough to the bars that Sombra could feel the chill on his face.
    
    Sombra growled. “Why you impudent—yes, that ice cream.”
    
    Pinkie’s grin grew. “This ice cream? This ice cream right here in my hooves?”
    
    “Yes...” Sombra’s eyes narrowed.
    
    “The chocolate-flavored ice cream?” Pinkie gave the bowl a bounce on her hoof.
    
    “For the love of everything dear, yes!” Sombra’s eyes bulged. The rest of him fought to get free of his bonds and claim what was his by right.
    
    Pinkie smiled at his impatience and took a seat. The bowl of ice cream sat between her legs. Withdrawing a spoon from the bowl overflowing with the chocolatey delight, she scooped out a heaping spoonful. She held the spoon bearing a mountain of ice cream forward, closer to the bars that separated Sombra and his treat. “Do you know what you have to do to get it?”
    
    “If the answer is reforming, forget it,” Sombra said, scowling at the sugary delight that was just out of reach. “None of the this future’s desserts would ever tempt me to do that. But it will keep me from destroying you… for a short while. So give it to me.”
    
    “Ah, ah, ah. What you need to say to get this is the magic word.” A droplet of the ice cream fell to the floor, Sombra’s eyes hungrily following its descent.
    
    “What? There are no magic words to the arcane arts, you mammering fool!” Sombra shouted, hopping forward so that his face was pressed against the bars.
    
    “But Twilight said magic words just a few days ago."
    
    "She also said that Nightmare Moon was coming back during the Summer Sun Celebration!"
    
    "But that was true, too. And how do you even know that?"
    
    "Just give me the ice cream! Your king demands it!”
    
    Shrugging, Pinkie withdrew the spoon and ate it herself. She made sure to swirl it around in her mouth, then covered her lips with the treat, and then slowly licked it off.
    
    Giving her lips one last lick, Pinkie tapped the spoon to her chin. “Sorry, Sombry, but name calling isn’t going to get you any ice cream. Being a nice stallion, however, will.”
    
    Sombra lay silent for a few seconds, staring at Pinkie with a blank expression until he finally blurted out, “Did you just call me Sombry?”
    
    “Well duh, of course I did.” Pinkie rolled her eyes, scooping out some more ice cream, making it painfully slow. “I give everypony a nickname.”
    
    “Well, knock it off. I am King Sombra. Not some cheap, knockoff name invented by a motley-minded mare. You may also call me Your Majesty, King of the Crystal Empire, Scourge of the Frozen North, Conquerer of the Crystal Mountains, Invader of the Badlands, Dark Unicorn of–”
    
    “Wow, and some ponies say I overdo it sometimes,” Pinkie said with a chuckle, holding out another spoonful of ice cream to Sombra. “Just say please and you’ll get all the ice cream you want.”
    
    Sombra stared at the spoon, lips set in a hard line on his scowling face. “I would rather be skinned alive than say that vile word,” Sombra said, still gazing as intently as ever at the spoon laden with that tantalizing treat.
    
    “Then I guess you can just sit there as I eat the entire bowl,” Pinkie said, sticking the spoon back in her mouth. “I don’t know if I can even finish it all. I might have to throw some out when I’m done.”
    
    “You cold-hearted monster!”

    Pinkie’s tongue lapped gently at the bottom of the spoon, moving ever so slowly to the top where the ice cream was at. Just as her tongue was about to touch the surface of the ice cream, Sombra called out, “Wait, just stop!”
    
    Pinkie removed the spoon from her mouth and arched an eyebrow. “Yes, Sombry?”
    
    Biting back a harsh retort at the use of that name again, he choked back his rage and hatred for a few moments. “Can you p… pl-pl… pleeeeeeee…” Sombra coughed.
    
    “Come on, Sombry, you’re nearly there!” Pinkie said to him eagerly, holding the spoon so close he could practically taste the cold chocolate melting in his mouth.
    
    “Pleeeeeeeeeease,” he managed to spit out, gulping in a breath after releasing so much air, “give me some of that ice cream?”
    
    “Why of course I will, sillyhead,” Pinkie giggled, getting up and removing a key she had stashed in her mane. “I wouldn’t seriously eat an entire bowl of ice cream in front of you without sharing. That would be mean.”
    
    Sombra’s left eye twitched.
    
    Inserting the key into the lock, Pinkie Pie unlocked the door and opened it. Sombra’s eyes flared wide, immediately seeing his opportunity arrive at last. He jumped at the chance for freedom, then promptly tripped, crashing back to the ground on his stomach. He had forgotten the ropes binding his legs, which had ruined his completely and thoroughly well thought out plan.
    
    Pinkie smiled down at the still incapacitated ex-overlord, paying his failed getaway no mind. “So, Twilight gave me the key saying I had responsibility over unlocking your cage whenever I wanted. Isn’t that cool?”
    
    “Wonderful,” he muttered, his lower jaw wracked with pain. “Can I have that ice cream now?”

Pinkie set the bowl on the floor. “Sure!”

Sombra looked to the ice cream, then back to her with a frown. “You expect me to lap it from the bowl like some common housepet?”
    
    “No. I was thinking I would spoon feed you it.”
    
    “Even worse!” Sombra shouted, snarling at the bowl. “Do I look like some newborn foal to you?”
    
    “Wait, wouldn’t a foal be better than a pet?” Pinkie asked, giving Sombra a questioning gaze.
    
    “Shut up and untie me already, you ignorant haggard!”
    
    Pinkie crossed her forelegs while standing on her back hooves, a cross expression on her face that was the opposite of her usual jolly look. “Being rude won’t get you any ice cream, Sombry. It’s either spoon feeding or nothing.”
    
    Sombra stared at the bowl, then at Pinkie, then at the bowl, then right back at Pinkie, then returned back to the bowl as he mulled over his thoughts.
    
    “Fine…” he muttered, too eager for the long-awaited ice cream to waste more time arguing with an empty-headed mare. “Spoon feed it to me. But breathe one word of this to anypony else, and I’ll be sure to hunt you down and make you pay myself.”
    
    “That’s the spirit!” Pinkie said, sitting next to the king and lifting him so he sat up in much the same position as she did. Holding him with one hoof on his shoulder, she scootched the bowl between them both and scooped some ice cream with the spoon. Smiling, she brought it to Sombra’s lips.
    
    “Choo-choo. Here comes the train! Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-choo-choo!” Pinkie said.
    
    Sombra stared at Pinkie from the corner of his eyes as if she were a madmare. Quietly, before the ice cream reached him, he asked, “What in Tartarus’ name is wrong with you?”
    
    “It’s a choo-choo train,” Pinkie explained, making the chugging noises again as the spoon approach Sombra’s lips. “It’s about to make a stop in your mouth and disembark the passengers into your taste buds.”
    
    “I don’t even know what a train is, and neither do I care,” Sombra admitted. Restless to receive the frozen delight he went through so much trouble for, he decided to ignore the oddness of the other pony. “Just give me the ice cream.”
    
    “What’s the magic—”
    
    “I will poke your eye out with my horn if you try to make me say that word again.”
    
    Pinkie backed her face up a bit—rather, a lot, her neck stretching with a rubber like intensity–as she attempted to keep her smile going. “Okay then, I think you deserve some ice cream now!”
    
    Without another word, Pinkie stuffed the first spoonful of ice cream into Sombra’s mouth. The king wasted no time, swallowing it down and sighing in content This was followed by another spoonful, and another, Pinkie desperately shoving more ice cream in Sombra’s gluttonous mouth.
    
    The king was ravenous, devouring the ice cream the moment it touched his lips, lost to the divine flavor like never before. Pinkie could barely keep up with Sombra's demands for more.
    
    Unfortunately for Sombra, one of the most important lessons of eating ice cream finally reared its ugly head in the picture. Brain freeze: a particularly bad one at that.
    
    “Ahhhhh!” he cried out in agony, falling on his back as his eyes bulged wide and his tongue stood out like a dog panting. “What sorcery is this?” he shouted, rolling on the ground as his brain was put through one of the most painful experiences he had ever confronted. It made his head hurt like no tomorrow, and all he wanted to do was crawl in a corner and hold himself in a feeble position to wait out the pain. Unluckily for him, that wasn't an option. “You foul witch! Tricking me with ice cream and then casting a spell when I wasn’t looking! I see you for the black-hearted heathen you truly are!"
    
    “But I’m not a unicorn,” Pinkie pointed out, lifting the bowl so Sombra’s wouldn’t knock it over.
    
    “I shall bury you beneath the bodies of your friends! Your home and livelihood shall burn to the ground! I shall become your nightmare and greatest fear as I slowly make your life as miserable as possible! You shall rue this day, Pinkie! Rue it, I say!” Sombra blinked, ending his struggles against the rope bindings as a moment of clarity overtook him. "Oh wait, the pain is gone."
    
    "Yeah, you big meanie head," Pinkie said, frowning at the king and pointing the spoon at him accusingly. "That's what happens when you eat too much ice cream. A brain freeze."
    
    "Technically, this is all your fault since you started shoveling ice cream in my mouth in the first place!" Sombra pointed out.
    
    "Well then, I guess I shouldn't feed you anymore." Pinkie got back to all fours and picked the remaining ice cream up to place atop her head. "If you're going to behave like this, then you can get your own ice cream."
    
    "How am I supposed to get anything when you slack-jawed, pribbling idiots have me tied up in a cage?" he asked. "And before you answer, my question was rhetorical."
    
    "Then I'm guessing you won't mind eating out of the bowl then?" Pinkie asked, setting it within his reach. "Since this is something you can get."
    
    "I'd much prefer you feed it to me like a proper servant for their king," he replied back in a bitter tone, staring at the bowl with anticipation. "Be thankful I am letting you feed me at all. Many other simpletons would jump at the opportunity to serve their king."
    
    "Have fun then." Pinkie whisked her tail in annoyance, turning her back to the stallion and trotting out of the cage. "I have to go back to Sugarcube Corner anyways to bake some cookies for Mrs. Cake. When I come back and if you're in a better mood, I might just give you some."
    
    "Burn in Tartarus!" Sombra spat back at the mare.
    
    Pinkie frowned, then relocked his cage, leaving him alone with just a half empty bowl of ice cream. "Fine. It was double chocolate chip cookies by the way, too."
    
    Groaning under his breath, Sombra attempted to fight back the temptation. The king always did have a weakness for his sweet tooth. While nothing quite competed with the taste of the exquisite crystals in his home of the Crystal Empire, the chocolate that Twilight had introduced him to had him completely hooked.
    
    Gritting his teeth, he muttered, "I promise I won't besmirch your name if you for some cookies."
    
    Pinkie’s ears perked up in surprise, and she turned back to face him, grinning. "See, we're making progress already!" She cheered, clapping her front hooves together excitedly.
    
    Sombra wanted more than anything to beat that stupid smirk off her face. "I'll destroy you and this entire town until only dust is left," he whispered.
    
    Pinkie scowled upon hearing that. "What did you say, Sombry?" she intoned warningly.
    
    "Uh… uhm.” Sombra blinked, and bit his lip. “I said… bring some milk, too, if you are able."
    
    "Okie dokie lokie!" Making her way to the stairs, she noticed the light bulb switch swinging from the ceiling. Glancing over her shoulder at the tied-up king trying to lick from the bowl, she asked, "Hey, do you want the lights on or off?"
    
    Sombra scowled from his position of pathetically lapping at chocolate ice cream. "I've spent a thousand years trapped in pitch black darkness without one inch of light. What do you think I prefer by now?"
    
    Frowning, Pinkie pulled down the switch to send the basement back into darkness. Climbing up the stairs carefully to avoid tripping down them because of the lack of light, she finally reached the top and looked back. All she could make out was Sombra's green glowing eyes staring back up at her with a bitter hatred.
    
    "Yeah... have a nice time," she mumbled, unsure what to say next.
    
    "Once your constant babbling ends with your leave, I will be," he replied back with contempt, glaring at her to leave him be.
    
    Opening the door, Pinkie departed and left Sombra in a position he’d been used to for nearly a thousand years, which was being trapped in the shadows, with no hope of escape and not a living soul for company.
    
    "Well... at least I have ice cream," he reflected, feeling somewhat comforted by this fact. "And she's finally been rid of from my presence. So the situation isn’t so bad. At least it’s better than the thousand years of banishment, that is for certain. Yeah... not so bad..."
	

> Chapter 3: Resolution
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The basement doors opened, a desolate-looking Pinkie stepping out of the darkness. Twilight looked to Pinkie from the letter she was writing at the desk near the side of the room.

“Hey, Pinkie, did things go well?” Twilight asked, arching an eyebrow at the pink mare’s saddened mood. “I’m about to write a letter to the Princess about any improvements on Sombra’s reforming condition. Some good news would help.”

“Well, he hasn’t been that bad,” Pinkie said, making her way closer to Twilight. “Actually, he kinda is, but not as awful as everypony makes him out to be. He’s just really grumpy all the time.”

“I would say he’s more than just grumpy. He’s used to being a tyrant and a power hungry maniac,” Twilight pointed out.

“Yeah, but he couldn’t have always been like that! Maybe he even used to be a good pony once.” Pinkie tapped her chin for a moment in thought. “Well… actually, that’s pushing it. Maybe he’s just never learned about the power of friendship before? I’m sure I can teach it to him!”

Twilight chuckled, scribbling down her message on the letter. “Well, that’s the reason I chose you in the first place, Pinkie. You never give up on anything. If anypony can teach Sombra to be good, it’s definitely you.”

“Aw, thanks, Twi,” Pinkie said, her glum mood cast away as she wrapped a foreleg around her friend in her very well-known Pinkie hug. “It really means a ton that you can trust me with something as important as this.” 

“No worries, Pinkie,” Twilight replied, hugging her friend as well just as she finished the letter. “And I do believe I finally have good news to send to Celestia now. With you on the case, she’ll be able to not worry too hard on Sombra.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you something about Sombra.” Pinkie scooped Twilight’s cheeks in her hooves and stared intently at her eyes. “Can you let Sombra out of the rope and cage in the basement?”

“What? Pinkie, no way that’s happening,” Twilight replied, pushing her over-ambitious friend off herself. “He’s too much of a threat to be in the library. Even without powers, Sombra can be a danger to us all.”

“But, Twilight, all he is now is a lonely stallion cooped up in a basement,” Pinkie pointed out, going on her knees and hooves in an overdramatized begging pose. “If he’s going to change, we need to change. Starting with giving more freedom.”

“And how is letting him in the library going to change him?” Twilight asked, staring at Pinkie, unimpressed.

“Um… well, reading,” Pinkie said with a shrug. “Maybe reading a bunch of books can turn him into a nerd. And everypony knows nerds aren’t evil or threatening.”

“Hey!” Twilight protested. 

“What, that was a compliment?”

“Just… never mind,” Twilight sighed, rubbing at her temple at another of Pinkie’s antics. “I don’t really think a book will suddenly convince Sombra not be evil anymore.”

“Not just books! We can take him out, too!” Pinkie said excitedly, her body practically shaking with pent-up energy. “Go on walks through Ponyville! Introduce him to other ponies! Ooh, ooh, I can even throw him a–”

“No, no, no!” Twilight shouted, holding a hoof up to Pinkie’s face to silence her. “We are not going to have a party for Sombra. For one thing, he definitely doesn’t deserve one. Another is that he’s a secret, not some prize we show off to the rest of the town.”

Pinkie’s smile drooped to a miserable frown, her lower lip quivering. “But, Twilight, Sombra isn’t going to improve if he’s locked up all day. Please let him out.”

“I don’t know…”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?” Pinkie begged, her eyes growing impossibly huge as her pupils widened to new levels of adorableness.

Twilight facehoofed. “Fine, fine, okay. I’ll let him out of the basement.”

Twilight fell on her back, a tightly hugging Pinkie Pie wrapping her arms around Twilight’s middle. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! Now that Sombry can get out, he’ll be much happier!”

“Ooph!” Twilight coughed, feeling her oxygen levels decreasing dramatically from Pinkie’s strong grip. “Wait… did you just say Sombry?”

“Oh yeah, that’s my nickname for him. I think he’s starting to like it. Eventually.” Pinkie released Twilight, checking overhead at the clock fixated against the wall. “Talking about eventually, Mrs. Cake is expecting me eventually as well. I have to head to Sugarcube Corner.”

Twilight breathed in a huge gasp of air, too weak from Pinkie’s backbreaking hug to move. “Yeah, swell. Have a fun time.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to! I’m going to bake a special batch of cookies just for Sombry!” Pinkie bounced over Twilight and made her way to the door. Resting her hoof on the handle and glancing back, she said, “Also, how did Sombry come to love chocolate so much anyways?”

Twilight got back to all fours and cracked her back, wincing slightly. “He managed to find an old, half-eaten candy bar in the trash the night Spike found him. He managed to eat all of it, wrapper and all.”

“Wow, did he eat anything else from the trashcan?” Pinkie asked, holding back a giggle but failing miserably.

“Not exactly sure, but from the sounds he made while puking in the bathroom, it must’ve have been awful.” Twilight laughed, Pinkie joining in as well.





The basement doors slammed open, the light from the main room of the library shining right into the room. Pinkie hopped down the steps, calling out, “Sombry, Pinkie’s home!”

Sombra groaned and rolled over, muttering, “Five more minutes, and then I’ll destroy you later…”

Pinkie jumped down the last step and did a flip off her front hooves, landing right before Sombra’s cage. Taking a look inside, she noticed in the dim light the empty bowl and melted chocolate covering Sombra’s face. “Wow, you did eat all the ice cream.”

A burp escaped Sombra’s lips, followed by a snort and smack of his lips as his eyes opened up. “Yeah, was the best meal I’ve had in years. A thousand, to be exact. Now leave me and my nap be.”

“Aw, but I was just about to tell you good news!” Pinkie said, sticking her head in between the bars.

Sombra arched an eyebrow at her. “Let me guess. You’re going to leave me alone and jump off a cliff?

Pinkie stuck her tongue out at him. “Sillyhead, that isn’t good news.”

“It would be to me.”

Withdrawing the key from her mane, she unlocked his cage and made her way inside. “The real good news is that you’re not gonna be stuck in the basement anymore! Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

“I don’t even know what awesome means.”

“It means you get to stay in the library with Twilight!” Pinkie explained, going over to him and untying his rope binding. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Oh, most definitely,” Sombra said with snark, feeling relief from no longer being suffocated by the rope’s hold. “I always wanted to be trapped in a library with a moron for a mare who thinks she’s all high and mighty for being a prissy princess.”

Pinkie finished with untying Sombra’s ropes, chucking the rope binding to the side. “Well, what’s wrong with princesses?”

Sombra stared at Pinkie with a blank look for several seconds. “Two princesses trapped me in an abyss of eternal darkness for a thousand years. Then another princess defeated me with the help of some pint-sized dragon when I went to reclaim my empire. Now, try and guess why I hate princesses with a burning passion.”

Pinkie tapped her chin in thought for a few moments. “Hmmm… you don’t like crowns?”

Sombra facehoofed.

“Wait, no, tiaras!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Or what about necklaces? Do you have an opinion on bracelets?”

Sombra growled and got to his hooves, wincing from the sharp pricks in his legs as his blood started flowing freely again. Pinkie just went on and on, as she usually did, but her close proximity made it difficult for Sombra to ignore her. “Don’t you ever shut up?” Sombra snapped at her.

Sombra’s face scrunched up when he turned around to find Pinkie rubbing her face in his luxurious cape. “Wow, I bet you don’t hate velvet then!” she exclaimed, tugging his red with white trimmings cape to snuggle with.

“Give me that!” Sombra demanded, swiping his cape back and looking at the area she face mashed with it with disgust. “Commoners do not touch the royal cape with their dirty, peasant hooves!”

“But I just washed my hooves,” Pinkie said, lifting hers up and sniffing them just to make sure. Laying a hoof on his steel plated armor, she asked, “Can I touch this then?”

Sombra slapped her hoof away. “Never touch me, you lower class scum,” he growled, flashing her his razor sharp fangs. “A king is not to be dirtied by filth such as yourself.”

Pinkie sniffed her arm. “I don’t know why you keep on saying I’m dirty. I took a shower today. Wanna see?” she asked, lifting her leg to his face.

“Didn’t I say not to touch me?” Sombra pointed out, staring at her with daggers as he walked past her to exit the cage. “Just you being in my nearby vicinity sickens me to no end.”

Pinkie kept up with her cheery appearance and followed Sombra up the stairs with nary a negative reaction to his words. Sombra found this more annoying than if she was angered at his rude remarks. This never ending fountain of jolliness that was Pinkie Pie irked him to no end.

Up the stairs, Sombra was confronted by a sight that annoyed him almost as much as Pinkie. The deep contrast with her was Twilight, glaring at him with disapproval as usual.

“Well, well, well, looks like somepony isn’t happy to see me,” Sombra noticed, grinning mildly at Twilight’s frown deepened. “What’s wrong, princess? Did Prince Charming not buy you flowers today?”

“I’m single,” Twilight said, “and I would appreciate it if you kept your snarky comments to a minimum.”

“Or what?” he laughed, grinning wickedly with a dark intent in his green glowing eyes. “Lock me in your basement again? My compliments on figuring out darkness is my one weakness. How long did that take you, princess?”

Before Twilight could reply with a comeback, Pinkie’s face broke her view of Sombra when it was suddenly shoved in her face. “Heya, Twi, where’s Sombry gonna sleep now?”

“Sombra! My name is Sombra, you pathetic excuse for vermin!” Sombra shouted, his crimson pupils shining brighter for a few moments. “And I will be sleeping in the finest luxury bed you have available.”

“You’ll get the cot behind the stairs,” Twilight said with a smirk.

“Absolutely not!” Sombra argued, shoving Pinkie out of the way to confront Twilight. “As royalty, I deserve only the best living conditions known to ponykind. Staying cooped up in that basement forcibly by your hoof shall not be wise to repeat, princess.”

Twilight scowled and moved her face closer, her and the king’s nose nearly touching. “First off, don’t call me princess. Secondly, you’ll sleep wherever I say while you stay under my roof.”

Sombra snarled his teeth, fangs gleaming in the light.

“Are you guys going to kiss now?” Pinkie giggled, barely able to hold back a laugh at the amusing sight.

Twilight’s face immediately blushed furiously as she backed away fast, while Sombra just grinned slyly at Twilight. Wiggling his eyebrows, he asked, “Well, are you?”

Gagging, she said, “Forget it, crystal-for-brains.”

Sombra chuckled, glancing around at his new surroundings. he only got a quick look before he was locked down below in the basement. Books covered shelves reaching from the floor to the ceiling, with the smell of the olden tomes permeating in the air.

“While these housing conditions are less than adequate to what I am used to, they will suffice,” he said, his nostrils flaring as a new scent entered the area. “Are those… cookies?”

“Yessiree!” Pinkie called from behind the kitchen doors, bouncing in the library with a fresh batch of cookies steaming on a tray atop her head. “I brought them right from Sugarcube Corner! Freshly baked and super sweet!” Setting the tray on the table nearby, she dug around in the fluff of her mane and revealed a pitcher of milk she somehow managed to store there. “With milk, too!”

Sombra’s mouth was drooling profusely, though he attempted to hide it behind a lick of his lips. “Excellent! Looks like you are useful, after all.”

Making his way to the table that held the delicious treats of baked chocolate delights, his hoof was stopped by a force field over the tray when he went to reach over for a cookie.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Twilight tutted, her horn glowing the same color of the force field. “You only get cookies on two conditions.”

Holding back a curse, Sombra asked, “And what would that be, your majesty?”

“No escaping,” Twilight said, releasing control of the force field as it dispelled. “Just in case you ever decided to try, I made a special magical signal to go off if you ever leave the house or the border of Ponyville. Do that and you can expect yourself back in the basement in chains.”

Rolling his eyes at her unthreatening remark, he asked, “Anything else?”

“Say thank you to Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie perked up at these words, staring at Sombra intently with creepily wide eyes.

Looking at the steaming pile of cookies, then back at Pinkie, Sombra gulped. Mumbling profanities under his breath, he muttered, “Yeah, thanks, you aren’t a pathetic waste of space as I once thought. Happy?”

“WHOOOOOOOOOO!” Pinkie squealed, grappling onto Sombra's neck and hugging him with all her might. "You do like me!"

Luckily for Sombra, his armor managed to protect him from the worse of the dreaded Pinkie Pie hug of happiness. But her strong grip prevented him from reaching out for a cookie, tormenting him at their closeness. 

"Damn you, Pinkie," Sombra choked out, holding back vomit because of her touch. "I will destroy you!"
	

> Chapter 4: A Fun Game (Not Really)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Okay, moving onto question eighty-five. What was the main source and commodity for the Crystal Empire?” Twilight asked, staring intently at Sombra while she dipped her quill in a fresh inkwell.

Sombra groaned, head in his crossed forelegs on the table before him. “This is a truly torturous experience.”

“No, this is research,” Twilight corrected him. “Now, what’s the answer?”

“The shadowy abyss of dread that I was locked in for a thousand years was better than this,” Sombra muttered under his breath, staring back up to glare at Twilight. “Think really hard and tell me what the commodity of the Crystal Empire would be.”

Twilight huffed. “No need to be testy.”

“The need to be testy came and went after question number forty. Now I’m just annoyed,” Sombra said, scowling harder. “Can this suffering end sometime soon?”

Twilight shook her head. “I just need a few more questions–”

Sombra slammed his steel-clad hoof on the table, the wood bending under the force. “By the ninth pit of Tartarus, will you shut your mouth and begone from my sight?”

Sombra’s hoof was encased in a bright purplish light, lifting the appendage up in the air as Twilight’s frown deepened. “First off, you do not break the furniture in my house,” Twilight started, releasing her magic hold on his hoof. “Secondly, as long as you live in my house, you abide by my rules. Meaning I can ask you as many questions as I please.”

“You heartless banshee,” Sombra muttered, yanking his hoof away and rubbing it tenderly.

Twilight raised her brow. “Does someone want to go the basement again?”

Sombra held both hooves to his cheek, a frightened expression overtaking his face. “Oh no, I’m absolutely terrified about being sent to the wretched and dank basement! It’s not like I ever in all my elongated life have ever spent a centuries without light or comfort.” Sombra waved his hoof in the air and snorted. “Bah, make threats that at least scare me somewhat, as well as some you’ll actually have the spine to stick by. You’re too much of a goody, goatish little princess to stick me back in there for something as insignificant as not answering your insufferable questions.”

“Then I could always take away your dessert instead,” Twilight pointed out, closing her eyes in content while smirking just as Sombra’s face fell in an open jawed, shocked expression.

Closing his mouth, he said, “You wouldn’t dare…”

Opening her eyes up, she arched an eyebrow at the ex-tyrant and said, “Just try me.”

The tension in the room mounted dramatically, so much so the two were practically snarling in one another's faces. Which was a good reason Spike had departed from the two in a wise decision of not getting involved in any conflict that could potentially occur.

Just as Sombra was about to reply with a comment explaining to Twilight in vivid detail just where she could cram her next question, Pinkie decided to burst through the door in her usual explosion of noise and confetti.

“Hello everypony, what’s happening?” Pinkie asked the pair, walking in on the two spiteful rivals currently trying to destroy each other in a battle of wills and staring contests.

Twilight shrugged, brushing a lock of purple mane out of her eyes as she stared down at the scroll. “Oh, nothing much, Pinkie. I was just asking Sombra here some questions he was glad to answer.”

“Lies! You bribed me to answer those questions on the promise of pudding! Which I have still not received in spite of the agreement!” Sombra countered, pointing an accusing hoof at Twilight. “The promise of this mystical chocolate treat with a gooey texture will never be fulfilled from a villainous liar such as yourself!”

“Oh, and I’m the villainous one here, huh?” Twilight asked, lifting up the scroll she had just written in. “And who here enslaved his entire people and made an army of darkness to take over the entire world?”

“At least I didn’t lie about it!” Sombra countered, holding a hoof to his chest. “I have pride in my evil accomplishments, thank you very much.”

“That doesn’t seem like something you should be very proud of,” Pinkie said, hopping in a chair and scooted over to Sombra. “Like, I’m proud of the fact I’m the number one cupcake eater in town. Ooh, and with bubblegum I can blow the biggest bubble ever! And even the fact that I can stretch my tongue really, really long!”

“Fine, fine, we get the point,” Sombra groaned, grimacing at the over-rambunctious pink mare. “End your insistent babbling this minute.”

“Sombra!” Twilight shouted.

Sombra held up his hooves in the air in defense. “Hey, at least I didn’t tell her to shut her pribbling pie-hole up! Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Not if you’re going to be rude about it,” Twilight replied, glowering at Sombra.

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie assured her, reaching out to tap on her hoof supportively. “I’m used to Sombry being a bit grumpy.”

Sombra’s head hit the desk, a deep breathing heard from his face’s current position. “For the last time…” Sombra lifted up his head and stared at Pinkie with a livid, all together psychotic expression. “My name is Sombra! Do you need me to spell it out for you? S-O-M-B-R-A! Not once does ‘y’ appear there! So unless you want me to carve it into your thick skull, address me correctly!”

The room was cast back into a tense silence, though this one was quickly broken by Sombra’s cry of pain.

“Ow!” he shouted, rubbing his ear. Glaring at Twilight, he noticed her glowing horn and managed to put two and two together. “What was that for?”

“You threatened my friend, so you got punished,” Twilight said, rolling up her scroll in a nonchalant manner. “I gave you a punishment fit for a foal.”

“By twisting my ear?”

Twilight smiled. “Indeed I did.”

It took a few seconds for this insult to sink in. When it finally did, he was reaching over the table to strangle Twilight while Pinkie tried her best to hold him back. “I will destroy you! Burn your body and entire village to the ground as I and enslave the lot of you! Your life shall end by my hoof, you incompetent and inferior mare!”

“Sombry, please, sit down,” Pinkie begged, finally able to pull him back to his seat when Twilight’s magic forced him to be seated again. Standing between the two and their hatefilled glares at one another, Pinkie’s ears drooped and she ducked underneath to avoid their murderous gazes. Luckily, she had just the thing to fix that.

“Who wants to play a fun game?” Pinkie asked, throwing down a board game she somehow pulled out of nowhere.

“Where did you even acquire such a trivial thing?” Sombra asked, staring at the rectangular box with a scrutinous glare. “You didn’t even walk in with it.”

“Don’t try to overthink it, Sombry,” Twilight said, shaking her head to Pinkie. “And count me out, Pinkie. I see this as a much better opportunity for you two to bond. I’ll be doing some studying in the meantime.”

Twilight departed from the pair, leaving Sombra and Pinkie all alone.

Dusting off his cape, Sombra took to all fours to leave as well. “Whatever this game is, count me out of it as well. A king would never do something so foalish, especially with an artless mare such as yourself.”

“If you want, we can continue with the questionnaire!” Twilight called out from the table across the room, lifting several scrolls up in the air with her magic. “I just find your pony’s culture and timeline far too intriguing to pass up the opportunity to learn more!”

Sombra sat back down. “Due to new complications, I shall partake in this so called ‘fun game’ with you,” Sombra said, peering intently at the box with the cartoonish stallion figure dressed up in a fancy suit, top hat and trademark white mustache. “Now, how exactly do we play it?”

“It’s quite simple, really.” Pinkie opened the box and dumped out its contents: dice, game pieces, different color bits, a square, fold-out game board, a plethora of plastic housing figures, and cards that had the print ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’ on them. “This game is called Monopony, and it’s all about real estate. Both of us buy up different properties, sell stuff, do auctions, viscously land grab anything we can get our greedy hooves on, open up overpriced houses and hotels, and even win the occasional beauty pageant for a meager reward. Oh, and the point of the game is to force the other player to go bankrupt and lose any financial gain they have worked so hard for to acquire. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“It does not matter whether it is ‘fun’ or not,” Sombra said, digging through the pile of game pieces until he picked out his piece of choice, which was a thimble. “All that matters is that I win. The king must always win.”

In a flash, Pinkie had the game all set up, her own piece, a cupcake, at the starting position. “Silly, it doesn’t matter whether you win or not. It’s all about having fun!” Pinkie said, clapping her hooves together.

“Heh, that’s what you say now,” Sombra told her, picking up the dice and giving them a good shake in his hoof before releasing them on the table. “But just wait and see how badly you are defeated when I’m done with you.”

[hm]

“You dirty cheater!” Sombra shouted with spiteful rage, flipping the game board over the table, game pieces and paper bits flying across the room.

“Hey, I wasn’t cheating!” Pinkie whined, pointing a hoof directly in his face. “You are the one who can’t handle losing!”

“I wouldn’t be losing if you hadn’t cheated like an adulteress mare with her husband!” Sombra spat back, slapping her hoof away.

Crossing her hooves, she arched a brow at him and asked, “Then explain to me, Mr. Sore Loser, how exactly did I cheat?”

“... I don’t know how exactly,” Sombra said, glancing to the left and right in a nervous habit, “but I do know your credibility towards the fair play of games has been shattered over the untruthful transgressions that have taken place on this gameboard.”

Pinkie stuck her tongue out. “You’re just jealous because you suck at real estate.”

“I am a king!” Sombra shouted, pointing his hoof up high in the air. “I deal with real estate on a daily basis! Buying, or more likely conquering, land, selling off slums and ghettos to high rollers to make factories to bind the poor with cheap labor and unhealthy living conditions, and most importantly, collecting an improbably high amount of taxes.”

“Okay then, real estate expert. Where does stuffing down bits in your armor sleeves come in the real estate game?” Pinkie Pie asked, noticing bits falling on the table from where Sombra raised his hoof.

Drawing his hoof back with sweat beading up on his forehead, he muttered, “How dare you accuse me, a king of a royal bloodline, of doing something as petty as cheating at a board game! For shame upon you, for shame!”

Getting up from her seat, Pinkie shrugged, still smiling. “Fine, if you don’t want to play fairly, we don’t have to play at all. And here I thought we could go out to Ponyville for a nice walk, but if you’re too much of a sore loser to go…”

“Ha, like I’d ever go out in public with somepony as uncultured as you,” Sombra laughed, grinning smugly.

“That means you can stay here with me!” Twilight called out from the table, holding a wide arrange of scrolls and books in her magical grip. “I was thinking that we can continue with the research of the Crystal Empire while also schooling you in modern world mannerism and knowledge. Plus, we can even go through the thousand year time gap of history you missed out!” Twilight smiled broadly at Sombra’s fearful frown. “Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

“On second thought…” Sombra turned back to Pinkie and declared, “Take me out on the town! It’s about time the derelict masses know once more of my return to greatness!”

“Hey, Twilight, can I take Sombra out for a walk?” Pinkie called over the king’s shoulder.

“Only if you put him on a leash!” Twilight yelled, both mares snickering while Sombra drooped lower in his seat. Holding back more giggles, Twilight said, “I suppose now is as good as ever to show Sombra around Ponyville. Everypony was going to find out about his return eventually, and Celestia did say it’s up to my judgement when to reveal him. So yes, you can take him out as long as he behaves.”

“I’m not just some foal you two can boss around!” Sombra objected, stomping his hoof in the ground.

“Then stop acting like one,” Twilight said, returning the books and scrolls she was holding back to her desk. Tapping a hoof to her chin for a moment, Twilight said, “Oh, and Sombra, do try to not escape Pinkie or the borders of Ponyville. I still have that magical signal traced on you if you ever decide to. You wouldn’t what would happen if you do.”

Frowning, Sombra shrugged and got up. “So, shall we depart from this wretched house of learning already?” he asked Pinkie.

“Only if you Pinkie promise not to be rude or mean to anypony we meet in Ponyville,” Pinkie told him, bouncing near the door for him to hurry up.

“What in blazes is a Pinkie promise?” Sombra asked, joining her beside the door.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie said, crossing her heart with a hoof, flapping her wrist in the air to mimic flying and actually shoving her hoof into her eye.

Sombra gagged at the display and said, “I am not going to do that!”

“Then I guess no outside time,” Pinkie said with a shrug, opening up the door. A tempting ray of sunshine fell into the library, and the distant sounds of ponies going about their daily business with birds chirping in the air could be heard in the distance. Sounds Sombra hadn’t heard of in centuries.

Gritting so hard he was sure he was going to crack a molar, Sombra gulped and muttered barely above a whisper, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my freaking eye.”

“Sillyhead, you have to do the hoof motions too!” Pinkie said, shoving her hoof into her eye hole once more. “Like this!”

“Take it or leave it,” Sombra replied, his dignity quickly falling to all new levels the more time he spent with the insufferable Pinkie Pie.

“Okie dokie lokie!” Opening the door wide, Pinkie bounced out of the library, Sombra falling begrudgingly behind. “We’re just gonna have so much fun!”

“The hindsight is going to hit me hard on this,” Sombra reflected, already dreading his decision. “I’m just sure of it.”

> Chapter 5: Trot Around Town
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Come on, Sombry, hurry up!” Pinkie called over her shoulder, joyously bouncing ahead of the miserable unicorn king with her usual disposition of happiness. “You gotta get up and move.”

“I hate you, I hate this town, I hate Equestria, and I hate this planet,” Sombra muttered darkly, glaring at his surroundings with his head close to the ground. Despite his curses, he kept on trudging along behind her. He didn’t know anywhere else to go, nor anything else about the town for that matter. Escape was out of the question because of Twilight’s insufferable magical marker planted on himself that would set off if he so much as stepped out of town. So Sombra was stuck, with a constantly sugarhigh mare as his guide. “I hate my life,” Sombra concluded, sulking even lower to the ground.

“Oh, stop being a stick in the mud,” Pinkie said, suddenly bumping noses with him. “I mean, look at the scenery!” Pinkie waved her hoof in a long arch, showing off Ponyville to the depressive ex-tyrant. “We have buildings, happy ponies going about their business, and sunshine all day long! What can be better than that?”

“If those buildings were dungeons, those ponies were miserable slaves bent to my will, and the sunny days shrouded in darkness,” Sombra said, pushing her face away from his nasal cavity. “That would be way better.”

“You’re just too pessimistic,” Pinkie said, dragging him by his hoof. “Try looking on the brighter side of things.”

“What bright side?” Sombra snarled, swiping his hoof from her grip. “I’m trapped in this deadbeat town filled with oppressive ponies, when I should be back ruling my Empire and taking over the world like I was meant to!”

Pinkie booped him on the nose. “Silly, taking over the world is no fun. What you need to do is enjoy life and not care about global domination or tyranny. Why not have some fun? We can go for a walk, talk to some other ponies, and even go out for lunch!”

“Cease touching my face with your vile hooves!” Sombra shouted, backing away from the pink menace. Wiping his nose with his cape, he muttered, “There is nothing fun about any of those things! I’d rather be burning in the deepest pit of Tartarus than partake in one of those infernal activities!”

“Ooh, there’s Lyra and Bon Bon!” Pinkie said, pointing her hoof at a bench where a mint green unicorn sat and cream colored mare laid. “Let’s go say hello!”

“Did you not just hear me less than five seconds ago?” Sombra asked, question disregarded as Pinkie dragged him begrudgingly to the mares.

“Hey girls!” Pinkie called out to the pair, appearing before them with Sombra hooked around her arm. “Say hi to my buddy Sombry!”

“It’s Sombra, you idiotic twit!” Sombra replied, shoving her off himself. He scowled at the mares, his green glowing eyes taking on a malicious glare.

Bonbon and Lyra stared wide-eyed at Sombra, out of fear and curiosity, respectively. 

“Whoa, dude, your horn looks funny,” Lyra said, holding back a chuckle. “How’d you get it to curve like that? I’m guessing you used hoofpolish to make it red?”

“What? No! My horn is merely a representation of my descent in the dark arts of magic, which have fueled my power to newfound levels of destruction!” Sombra replied, adding a rather typical villainous laugh at the end.

“Whoa, you gotta teach me how to do that!” Lyra begged, poking at her own horn that looked rather unimpressive compared to Sombra’s. “Can I get mine in blue and into a wave design?”

“Um, Lyra, I think that’s a bad idea,” Bon Bon warned, scooting away in her seat from the menacing figure that was Sombra.

“But Bon Bon, it’d be so awesome!” Lyra said, clopping her hooves together. “If I can get my horn into a loop, I can use it as a cupholder! Wouldn’t that be rad?”

Sombra snarled. “That is not what the dark arts are for! Making your horn into a device to hold drinks is not a practical means for performing dark magic!”

“Then why do you get to use it to make your horn into a… um…” Lyra tapped her chin and shrugged. “Claw, I guess?”

“I always thought it was a dragon’s fang,” Pinkie added on, rubbing Sombra’s horn and giggling mischievously.

“Then why did he dye it red?” Bon Bon asked, joining with the others in curiousity of Sombra’s horn.

“Well duh, because red is cool!” Lyra replied.

While the mares continued to argue back and forth over why Sombra’s horn was such an oddity, Sombra himself fumed in quiet anger. Pinkie Pie’s constant rubbing of his horn was irking him to no end. This all built up to a certain point until he finally snapped.

“Will you bickering mares shut up already!” he shouted, the air humming from an unknown source of energy. “My horn is a reflection of the inner darkness and evil of my heart! Evil! Not for some fashion statement or some other moronic reason you harpies can think of! So shut your witless mouths about such topics as my horn!”

Lyra, Pinkie and Bon Bon remained silent for a few seconds, staring at Sombra with peculiar expressions. The dark king smiled, victorious in his endeavor of making the mares quiet themselves.

“Ooh, I got it!” Lyra said, breaking the silence and Sombra’s smugness. “I can get mine in a spoon!”

“Now, why would you ever get your horn into a spoon?” Bon Bon asked, shaking her head disappointingly. “For one thing, you already have magic to control a spoon, along with your hooves at that. Plus, how would you even get the food into your mouth if the spoon is on your head?”

“You’re just jealous because I’m getting a spoon on my head and you’re not,” Lyra taunted, sticking her tongue out at her friend.

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Oh, for sure. I always wanted silverware lodged on my cranium.”

Throughout the entire intolerable discussion Lyra and Bon Bon were having, Sombra’s left eye twitched as he felt a growing force build up in his chest, until he finally exploded. “You mares are impossible!” Sombra yelled, interrupting the pair. “Is all you females do bicker and talk? How is anypony supposed to follow a conversation while their ears bleed from your incessant chatter?”

“Sheesh, look at try-hard here with all the fancy vocabulary,” Lyra said with a laugh, nudging Bon Bon with her elbow to do the same.

Gritting his sharp teeth as a vein bulged in his temple, Sombra attempted to control his quickly building anger.

It was a vain attempt.

“Why you little–”

Sombra never got to start his tirade, for Pinkie was pushing him away from the mares with a hasty wave over her shoulder. “Well, it’s been great seeing you two, but me and Sombry have to go!”

“No, let me go! I must destroy them!” Sombra argued, dragging his hooves through the earth as Pinkie pushed him away. “I shall crush their useless heads and break their bones underneath my hooves as I bend them to my dark will. Fear shall consume your souls as I make you slaves to my magic! Live in terror while you can, for you haven’t even experienced true torment until I get my hooves on you!”

“But wait, what about changing my horn!” Lyra asked, her question lost as the two made a swift retreat. “Aww man.”

“Well, at least they make a cute couple,” Bon Bon noted, smiling a bit. “Though I never knew Pinkie to go for a stallion so… robust.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is obnoxious,” Lyra said, sulking in her seat. Rubbing at her horn, she sighed and said, “Still… a cupholder would’ve been pretty rad.”

In the distance, Sombra was continued being pushed along by Pinkie, a pile of dirt building up at his hooves as he was dragged through town. Stepping to the side and shoving Pinkie off his person, Sombra said, “Get off of me, vile mare! A stallion of my stature shall not tolerate being roughly handled by anyone.”

“But I had to get us out of there before you started calling Bon Bon and Lyra names,” Pinkie pointed out, staring unamused for once at Sombra. “You Pinkie Promised not to insult anyone while outside, and I intend to make you keep that promise.”

“Or what? Lock me up in the basement again? Be in my company for hours on end?” Sombra asked in a mocking tone, scoffing as he turned away. “If so, then breaking this Pinkie Promise of yours would be an uneventful threat that I am not fearful of in the slightest.”

Before Pinkie could respond with a list of the ramifications of breaking a Pinkie Promise, a more pressing concern became apparent in the form of Roseluck waving her hoof at her down the street.

“Ooh, another new pony for you to meet!” Pinkie said excitedly, already racing to her target while tugging Sombra along by his hoof.

Sombra followed, for the most part because she had a surprisingly strong grip, and because he didn’t have anything else better to do. Ponyville was still a strange place, and him being stuck in an abyss of eternal darkness for nearly a millennia pretty much made anything he was seeing now a whole new experience to deal with.

“Pinkie, so glad to see you again!” Roseluck greeted her, the mare smiling cheerfully at the duo. “Oh, and who’s your friend here?”

“This is Sombry,” Pinkie replied, hugging Sombra in a tight grip that closed off the oxygen supply to his lungs. “He’s new and town and I’m giving him a tour!”

“Well then, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sombry,” Roseluck said, holding out a pale yellow hoof to the stallion.

Sombra looked at the hoof, then back to the face of the raspberry maned mare, then back to the hoof again. “My name is Sombra, not whatever ridiculous nickname the pink one sputters on about,” Sombra said, ignoring to respond to outreached hoof in any way.

“Oh, well, it’s still a pleasure,” Roseluck said awkwardly, returning her hoof to the ground. Giving him a quick once over, Roseluck raised a brow and asked, “Sorry for asking, but are you from Canterlot perhaps? Your outfit isn’t really… local.”

“Actually, how do you have clothes?” Pinkie added on, tugging at his red velvet cape and bringing it closer to inspect. “I don’t think Twilight gave you any.”

“When my body regenerated, my clothes did too,” Sombra replied, pulling back his cape from Pinkie’s hooves.

“But–”

“It’s magic. Better to be ignorant like you usually are and not question it.”

“Um, sorry for the interruption, but I feel like I need to ask something,” Roseluck said, glancing side to side from Pinkie to Sombra. “Where exactly are you from, Sombra?”

“Crystal Empire,” Sombra answered, standing up just a bit more straight and proud. “I’m actually it’s ruler. Don’t believe the lies those pretenders on the throne tell you. The empire is rightfully mine, and once I acquire my full power I shall crush that current royalty and annihilate any of the resistance. The empire shall once more stand up ever powerful over all other nations and be a true power to fear throughout the lands!”

“Um… okay then,” Roseluck muttered, backing away slightly from the crazed stallion. “A simple location would’ve been fine.”

“Oh, Sombry here just likes going on and on about himself,” Pinkie said, giving a supporting pat on Sombra’s back. “He can just go for hours on end without a break.”

“Heh, just like you, I suppose,” Roseluck chuckled uneasily, Sombra’s glowing green gaze unnerving her a bit.

“There is nothing me and this incomprehensible, pathetic excuse for a barely working brain have in common,” Sombra said, pointing to Pinkie Pie.

“Ooh, we both like chocolate!” Pinkie readily reminded him, Sombra facehoofing in response.

“That’s not what I meant!”

Roseluck giggled, moving around the pair to front down the street. “Well, I just wanted to say hello. Was a pleasure seeing you, Pinkie, and you as well, Sombra,” Roseluck said before passing by. “What a cute couple,” Roseluck said, far enough away that neither Sombra and Pinkie Pie heard her.

“So, do you like vanilla, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, watermelons, mangoes, avocadoes, pancakes, waffles, apples, cake?” Pinkie asked, drawing in a breath before she went into stage two of her tirade of questions.

Sombra pulled at his sideburns until they threatened to tear off. “Is there any end to this torture?”
	
	

> Chapter 6: Visiting The Ville
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sombra stood in the middle of the street, slumped down and unmoving. His face was in the dirt, his cape covering much of his back while he breathed in the scent of the Ponyville road. A sad fate for the ex-tyrant, that was for sure.

Of course, Pinkie Pie was oblivious to his miserable predicament.

“Come on, Sombra! You just can’t laze around in the middle of the road like that!” Pinkie said, bouncing around Sombra with that detested unlimited energy she seemed to radiate.

Sombra covered his glowing eyes with both hooves. “I was hoping that a cart would arrive and run me over. Extra points if it runs you over as well.”

“Hey, no need to be a grumpy stump down in a slump.” Stopping her monotonous bouncing, she leaned closer to Sombra’s covered face. Lifting a hoof from his eye, she asked, “Since this is your first time touring Ponyville, where do you wanna go? I know every place and everypony here, so I can introduce you to all my friends.”

“I don’t want to see your friends, and I don’t want a tour of your town!” Sombra replied, slapping Pinkie’s hoof out of his face. “What I want is to burn this wretched village to the ground!”

“Isn’t that what we have a fire station for?”

Sombra groaned and gritted his sharp fangs so hard he was sure they’d crack. There was only so much torture he could handle, and the pink menace known as Pinkie Pie had cut his endurance into itsy-bitsy pieces and then trampled upon them under her hoof. How so much annoyingness coupled with jubilant energy managed to be contained in one pony, he’d never know. What Sombra did know, however, was that he couldn’t take it much more.

“Listen,” he said, practically hissing the words to her. “I’ll go wherever you want if you’d just shut up!”

Sombra instantly regretted those words when he felt himself be picked up by the mare and enwrapped in her hooves. Strong hooves, he noticed when they cut off air to the rest of his body.

“Yaaaaaaay!” Pinkie shouted, shaking Sombra in her powerful grip to and fro. “We can go to Sugarcube Corner, then to the park, then to the ice cream stand, and then to the fountain! And say hello to all the ponies along the way. I just know you’ll become good once you see how nice everypony else is!”

“R-remember what we—hack—agreed to!” Sombra coughed out, feeling his windpipe collapsing in on itself. The armor he always wore offered little protection to Pinkie’s backbreaking hugs. “No talking!”

Pinkie looked at Sombra with a quivering lip and dejected look. “Awww, but how else will I introduce you to everypony?”

Sombra pushed Pinkie off himself and brushed off his velvet cape. “Just try to manage to keep your insufferable trap shut, got it?” He really wanted to say more of how much he despised her very presence, but then he’d be repeating himself.

“Okie dokie, Sombrokie!” Pinkie giggled, throwing up a salute.

“And stop with the nicknames!” Sombra demanded. Though his words fell on deaf ears. Or ears just out of earshot, since Pinkie was already bounding ahead, unhinged. Grumbling, Sombra slowly trotted behind her, each hoofstep truding through the earth. He detested that pink mare to no end, but he really had no choice to follow her to wherever she wanted to take him. Not like staying in that library with that nuisance Twilight was any better. “Though right now, it seems like a better idea,” Sombra said aloud.

Pinkie bounced on ahead, stopping every now and then for Sombra’s intentionally slow pace to catch up with her. More buildings sprung up around the pair as they entered deeper into the town. Sombra noted that they had the same consistent variety of hay thatched roofs and simplistic architecture that resulted in nothing more than third story country homes. The entire area had a warm and fuzzy air to it that left Sombra with a sickening feeling in his stomach. Didn’t help that Pinkie had to smile and wave to every pony they passed by.

After the seventh or so greeting, Sombra asked, “Will you cut that out already?”

Stopping in her tracks and twirling around to face him, Pinkie asked, “Why?”

Sombra accidentally bumped into her nose with his own, and immediately sidetracked back from her incredible closeness. “Will you… ugh!” Sombra groaned under his breath and ran a hoof down the center of his face. “Stop intruding on my personal space!”

“Well, what is your personal space?” Pinkie asked, staring at him curiously.

Sombra ran a hoof across the earth, creating a straight line on the ground at least two feet in front of himself. “This is my personal space,” Sombra said, pointing to the line. “It is a space that only myself can be in and myself alone. Do not cross it. Got it?”

Pinkie saluted, but before she could say her usual bit Sombra interrupted her and said, “And no, you can never say okie dokie lokie in my presence ever again.”

“Aww, why not?”

Sombra gave her a deadpan look, then walked past her, taking care to keep that two foot metaphorical separation barrier between them. “Just get on with showing me your pathetic shamble of a town.”

“Well, we have town square right here!” Pinkie said, pointing this way and that at the large plaza they just entered from the road. Ponies hustled and bustled this way and that, with a much more lively attitude than the rest of the town. Market stalls sold every variety of food a pony’s stomach can take and their mouth can chew. A couple of shops were also open, with a large selection of goods and trinkets for sale in their windows. Overall, it was a pristine view of a small town life.

And Sombra hated every single second of it.

The commerce, the business of the market, the happy smiling faces of each and every Ponyville citizen. It annoyed him to no end how bright and sunny everyone was.

“Sombra, are you okay?” Pinkie asked, noticing Sombra having stopped in his tracks and glaring darkly at the ensemble of passing ponies.

In his empire it would be much different. Crystal ponies shackled together, forced to march down the streets in single file for their duty in the mines. How dejected their souls were each and every day. Total hopelessness coupled with a permanent air of sadness he was sure to create for every waking second in his empire. Just utter darkness and misery for all those under his rule.

Pinkie titled her head in curiosity. Now Sombra was smiling. Though it wasn’t exactly a happy or joyous smile. More like a ‘I’m a heartless maniac’ type of smile.

“Sooooombry!” Pinkie called out, waving her hoof in front of his muzzle.

“Cryyyyyystal slaaaaaaaaves,” Sombra hissed, fangs parted almost like he was going to pounce at something. Blinking and shaking his head, Sombra glared at Pinkie and said, “Didn’t I already tell you to not call me by any nicknames, cretin?”

“But you were acting all weirdo-mojo!” Pinkie exclaimed while throwing her hooves up in the air in exasperation. “What with the staring at everypony and then the crystals and slaves thing you just said. Are you acting okay?”

“Never better,” Sombra snapped back. “I’m feeling fine about being held against my will in a backcountry hick of a town where I hate every single citizen. Yeah, I’m just great!”

“Oh, okay, just wanted to make sure.” Pinkie smiled kindly to Sombra, who in turn contrasted her cheery grin with a deep and troubling frown.

“Apparently sarcasm is lost on your tiny excuse for a brain,” Sombra muttered under his breath.

Pinkie tapped her temple. “But my brain isn’t tiny.” Pinkie gave her head a good rattle, with what sounded like cogs of a machine clicking and clanking inside.

Sombra grimaced and stuck out his tongue in disgust.

“Can you not act weird for five minutes?” he asked, holding back a begging tone. “Just… just actually try, got it?”

“But there’s nothing wrong about being weird, Sombry,” Pinkie said.

“No nicknames!”

“You see, Sombry, everypony is a bit weird,” Pinkie explained while Sombra facehoofed. “It’s what makes us unique and special.”

“You mean weak and stupid?” Sombra asked.

Pinkie giggled. “No, sillyhorn, weird is what makes you you.”

“You just used ‘you’ twice there,” Sombra pointed out, still not getting the point.

Now Pinkie was the one to frown, but she quickly covered it up with an impossibly wide grin that sent shivers down Sombra’s spine at the sheer length of it. “I did, but that isn’t the point! I’m weird, you’re weird, everypony is weird! All of Equestria is weird! That’s why every single pony is special, because of their weirdness! Without weird, we’d all be boring, bland, and normal. Better to be a bit—or a lot—on the strange side than just a boring two-hooves that is all grumpy and mean.”

Sombra stared at her flatly, releasing a long held back sigh. “Pinkie, you’re an imbecile.”

He brushed past her, while Pinkie stared at his coattails as he walked on ahead. Pouting her lip, Pinkie followed him trotted faster to keep up. “Says the guy with sideburns,” she said to herself, giggling.

“What was that?” Sombra called over his shoulder.

“Nothing, Sombry!” she replied, barely able to hold back a laugh as she caught sight of his noticeably bad facial hair. She’d really have to take him for a trim at the barber sometime.

Sombra opened his mouth, but thought better of it and closed it. “Those damn nicknames,” he sighed, “are going to drive me insane sooner than even her.”

> Chapter 7: Run Like Tartarus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“What type of infernal contraption is this?” Sombra asked.

Pinkie giggled. “It’s a cone, silly. You use it to eat ice cream with.”

Sombra furrowed his brows and squinted at the strange device he was holding. Its name made sense now, since it was indeed in a cone shape, with a round scoop of chocolate ice cream fitted in its open end.

“Yes, but why can’t I use a bowl and spoon instead?” Sombra delicately licked the surface of his sugary treat, hesitant to dive right into it after his last experience gorging himself. “Wouldn’t that serve a more useful function than just licking it?”

Pinkie Pie didn’t share his worrying sentiments about going slow, already taking large bites from her strawberry flavored ice cream, which just so happened to match her pink coat perfectly. “Well, ice cream cones are made to be eaten on the go. Plus, you get to eat the cone as well!”

Sombra’s mouth opened in stunned silence before he inspected the cone more closely, taking a few sniffs of it as well. “This is edible? What futuristic technology makes this even possible?”

“Waffles!” Pinkie said, already biting down on her cone. Throwing the half-remains of it in her mouth, she swallowed it in one smooth gulp. Finally, she finished by cleaning her face off with the outrageously large tongue she sported. “See, it’s easy!”

“How peculiar…” Sombra licked the edge of his cone, noting a sweetness meeting his tastebuds. Closing his eyes, he bit off a small piece and chewed it in his mouth. Opening his eyes wide while smacking his lips, he said, “Amazing. Simply spectacular! They never had eatable dishware back in my time.”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow, then cheerfully asked, “Oh, what did they have then?”

Sombra waved his hoof dismissively. “Oh, the usual. Utensils were carved from stone and napkins made from soggy leaves.”

Pinkie tilted her head. “Wait, they really had all that stuff in the castle? I thought you were a king? Didn’t you have fine china and golden spoons?”

Sombra blinked, avoiding eye contact with Pinkie as his glance shifted furtively. “Uh… yeah, yeah, exactly. I only ate using the finest and most sophisticated silverware made by the most skilled pony artisans. Only the dirty, knave peasants ate with the dining equipment I mentioned before.”

Before Pinkie could press further, the ice cream salestallion coughed. “Um, folks, not to break up this interesting conversation, but I have a line you’re holding up.” He gestured towards the small crowd of disgruntled ponies tapping their hooves on the ground, their collective patience to purchase some of the stand’s delectable ice cream drawing thin. “So, if you lovebirds can move it along, that’d be great.”

“Lovebirds?” Sombra repeated the strange term, wondering what birds had to do with anything. “What type of future slang is that?” he asked Pinkie. “Does this fool mean us insult? He can insult you, but I won’t accept such a disgrace upon my person!

Pinkie smiled sheepishly and pushed Sombra out of the way of the line, a few mares behind her snickering at Sombra’s comment. “Oh, nothing, Sombry. We better get a move on if I’m gonna give you the proper Pinkie Pie Ponyville Guided Tour!”

Sombra held onto his snack in both hooves, still being pushed on by his rump. “But I haven’t finished my ice cream,” he replied hastily. 

“Then I can help you!” In a flash, Pinkie sneaked over his shoulder and took a large chunk out of the ice cream with a quick bite. “Mmmm.”

Too late, Sombra pushed her off with his elbow while staring at his diminished treat with horror. “You ate it! You got your disgusting retched peasant lips all over my ice cream! Do you have no sense within your scullion-addled mind?”

“Sombry, relax, I can always buy you more,” Pinkie said, smiling that impeccably wide grin of hers.

Sombra’s eyes flashed a bitter green as he scooted away from her, holding his ice cream close like a newborn foal. “I don’t care! A king simply doesn’t share his food with anyone! You’re lucky if I feed you the scraps from my plate.”

Pinkie tilted her head a little. “But I thought we just went over that you’re using a cone.”

“That’s not the—oh, why bother?” Sombra grumbled and focused his attention back on his ice cream cone. On one hoof, the longer he took to eat, the longer he could put off the numb-skulled tour of the peasant village Pinkie was so eager to give. On the other hoof, Pinkie was a risk to his ice cream and it was beginning to melt, which simply wouldn’t do. With a shrug, he shoved the cone into his maw, managing to break the open end of the cone outward so that chocolate ice cream covered his muzzle and cheeks.

“Oh, blast it to the ninth circle of Tartarus!” Sombra yelled, the chocolate continuing to drip from his lips. It had already trickled down the surface of his chest plate, splattering his once polished to a shine armor a muddy brown.

Pinkie stopped, and frowned at the sight. “Oooh, you made a pretty impressive mess there. Don’t worry though! It’s just ice cream, and that’s easy-peasy to get out of clothes!”

“But not armor, you dimwitted harpy!” Sombra hissed. He desperately tried to wipe away the chocolate stains with his hooves, only realizing too late that his gauntlets were now also getting coated in the chocolatey substance. Groaning louder, he wiped harder, with his only success being covering himself in more chocolate and becoming even stickier. “Drat this ice cream bane! How can something be so wondrous yet be such a malignant curse on my existence?”

Pinkie grabbed ahold of his velvet cape and began to quickly wipe off the brown gunk from his chest plate. “Oh! Hold still, Sombry, let me help. It’s my fault to begin with.”

Sombra clenched his teeth and stifled a shout from escaping his jaws. He shoved Pinkie aside and withdrew his cape from her hooves. “Are you really such a rot-brained nincompoop that you dare use my cape as a cleaning rag? This fabric alone costs more than your shallow, worthless life and that of all your friends put together!”

Pinkie crossed her hooves and scowled. “Well sorry, Mister Grumpypants. I was only trying to help. There’s no need to get your royal britches in a bunch! We have washing machines in the future. Removing stains is simpler than counting to three. One. Two. Three! That easy!”

“I don’t care if its as simple as you are! This is my cape, my armor, and more importantly, my belongings! The only ones I have in this cumbersome time period!” Sombra finished, glaring at her with hot daggers for eyes. “Don’t expect me to share many sympathies with you when it comes to touching the last remaining objects I own!”

Pinkie studied him, staying quiet and facing down his glare. 

“Wait a second. How did you get the cape and armor anyhow? I mean, didn’t you blow up into a million pieces?” Pinkie made a spewing sound and waved her forelegs about while spinning around, before falling back to her haunches. “How’d your stuff survive all of that?”

Sombra froze for a second, then hurriedly wiped away some of the chocolate on his face. “It, well… it didn’t. I made it once I was reborn from the abysmal plane of nonexistence after my magic kicked in to reincarnate my body from my scattered remains. With it, my armor and cape were remade as well.”

“Whoa, does that mean you created clothing out of magic?” Pinkie asked. She grabbed ahold of Sombra’s cape again, against his protests, and rubbed it against her face. “But it feels so real! Oooh, I bet Rarity would get a kick outta this! She can make an entire line of dresses from magic now! And you can make me a giant party hat, too!”

Sombra sneered and recoiled back. “I most certainly will not!”

Pinkie’s ears drooped and she pouted, still holding Sombra’s cape close to herself. “Aww, why not? Is it because you don’t like dresses, or party hats? If not, we can always make ponchos, or even bowties! Maybe even a—”

Sombra covered her mouth with a hoof, and began rubbing the bridge of his muzzle with closed eyes. “Okay, first off, even if I could make more clothing using my magic, I have too much sense to use it for your crass idea about making dresses or whatever ponchos are.” He opened his eyes, the pupils shimmering in a crimson, fiery field of magic before diminishing to a dull light. “Secondly, my magical prowess may be beyond what you simpletons can possibly comprehend, but regenerating my body has taken its toll. As of the moment, I couldn’t even light a candle, much less produce fabric with it.”

“Awww, but when will you?” Pinkie asked, already breaching Sombra’s required comfort zone.

Backing up a few steps, Sombra murmured, “In due time. Soon enough, my dark magic shall return to my body, and then, and only then, will my vengeance go into full swing! I shall enslave you addle-brained Equestrians like the dogs you are, and then your entire nation shall fall beneath my might!” He laughed then, cruelly and with malicious glee, attracting the attention of a few townsponies who turned odd glances at the cackling, strangely dressed stallion and the pink mare beside him.

Pinkie smiled obliviously at him during the ominous laughter, to the point when he finally stopped she continued staring with a blank, yet cheerful expression. 

Arching a brow, Sombra waved a hoof before her eyes, getting no reaction at all. “Hmph, just when I thought you couldn’t get any stranger…” Sombra slumped his shoulders, donning a droopy frown on his face. 

This quickly changed when Pinkie shoved her hoof against his cheek, turning his neck around at a one-hundred and eighty degree angle. She pointed his face up towards the clouds overhead. 

“Sombry, look, it’s Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie grinned, watching her friend soar in the distance.

Meanwhile, Sombra cried out in agony. “My neck! I think you snapped my neck!”

“No, silly, Rainbow Dash isn’t your neck.” Pinkie pressed both of her hooves on either side of Sombra’s face, forcing him to look up higher towards a distant, rainbow colored streak. “Let’s see if I can get her to come down here!”

Between winces, Sombra replied. “How about let’s see you not get her down here? That sounds like a much better idea to me.”

Pinkie, of course, paid Sombra’s comment no mind, and instead hopped in place and waved her hooves like a madmare. “Rainbow Dash! Dashie, Dashie, over here! I have a special surprise for you!”

Sombra wiped a hoof over his face and groaned. “Oh for the love of the gods, do you listen to nothing that I ever say? Are you truly brain dead or do you merely ignore every word I utter? And please don’t tell me that surprise is me.”

Pinkie, still waving one hoof back and forth, slowly turned around, wearing a coy grin. “Okay, I won’t!” she jeered.

Sombra’s eyes widened in an infuriated way, just as they were interrupted.

The rainbow streak stopped to hover in the air in short order, and a tomboyish voice called down below, “Pinkie?” it called out. “This isn’t another surprise that ends up with a pie in my face, does it?”

Pinkie looked to Sombra and asked, “Psst, Sombry, you got any pies on you?”

Sombra stared at Pinkie with a deadpan expression, not responding.

Pinkie blinked once, then shouted back up to Rainbow Dash, “Just a new friend I made that I want to get to know!"

Rainbow Dash zipped through the air, taking her sweet time performing a few spins and loopty-loops before reaching the ground. Pinkie awed and ooed the entire time, while Sombra tapped his hoof impatiently on the ground. Finally, Rainbow Dash landed with expert precision right before them both, kicking up a cloud of dust that swept over Sombra and Pinkie.

“Wow, Dashie, that was amazing!” Pinkie cheered, bouncing around in a circle around Rainbow Dash while she smirked confidently.

Dusting a hoof against her chest, Dash said, “Ah, nothing to it. Anyways, who’s this new friend of yours? I thought by now you’ve become buddies with everypony in Equestria.”

“But he’s not from Equestria,” Pinkie replied, tugging Sombra out of the dust cloud Rainbow Dash created. “Dashie, this is Sombry! Sombry, this is Dashie!”

Sombra coughed repeatedly, hastily waving away the dust from clogging his lungs. Staring at Rainbow Dash, he huffed out a sigh and sidestepped away from Pinkie Pie. “First off, no, I’m not this chatter-mouthed mare’s friend. Secondly, we’re already acquainted more than I’d like. Thirdly, my name isn’t Sombry, it’s—”

“Sombra!” Dash cut in. She instantly took a defensive stance, eyes narrowed and back bent as she flared out her wings. “Pinkie, how can this maniac possibly be a friend? Did you forget how he tried to kill all of us?”

“And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddling mares and your stupid dragon!” Sombra cursed under his breath.

“What’d he say?” Rainbow Dash asked, gritting her teeth.

“Oh, nothing,” Pinkie quickly quipped in, overcompensating her smile as she put herself between the two ponies. Still, they went on trading hard glares with one another. “And he is my friend, Dashie. He has been ever since Twilight gave me the job of reforming him.”

Dash covered her face with a hoof and groaned. “Pinkie, just because Twilight is making you reform him, doesn’t mean he’s your friend. He’s a psychopath who tried to take over the world by spreading darkness across the land! Last time I checked, that doesn’t make for good friend material.”

Pinkie tilted her head, and one of her ears lowered, while the other stayed upright. “What about Discord?” she asked plainly. “He used to be a god-like meany-head who used his magic to turn Ponyville into the chaos capital of Equestria! But then he got reformed by Fluttershy, and now he’s… um…” Pinkie scratched the back of her neck and shrugged. “Well, he’s a lot better off than he was before.”

Sombra raised a hoof and shook his head. “Wait a minute… Discord was here? The Discord? The Discord that plunged the entire world in a thousand years of chaos and strife? That Discord?”

“Well, duh, who else?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“And he got reformed… by that yellow pegasus mare? That one scared of her own shadow?”

“That’s the one!” Pinkie cheered. She leaned over to Dash and cupped her hoof against her face to whisper, “Is it just me, or does Sombry slow? Maybe he has short term memory loss?”

Sombra gulped, his left eye twitching uncontrollably for a few seconds. If that mare could tame a wild spirit of legend such as Discord, then… “Oh dear gods, I nearly bit her!” Sombra shouted, panic overtaking his expression instantly. Discord was the worse of the worse and possibly the most dangerous creature to ever live! If that sheepish mare with no backbone could possibly control such a deadly foe, there was no telling what she could do.

“Yeah, and you still haven’t apologized about that, creep,” Rainbow Dash said.

Sombra tossed a couple more panicked looks about, before shaking his head. Regaining his posture, he coughed rapidly in his hoof and took up a prideful stance. “Like I would apologize to a peasant such as her. That is below me.”

“Hey, Sombry, you promised you wouldn’t insult my friends,” Pinkie reminded him, somewhat singing the words.

Sombra scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Peasant is both an appropriate social class definition or insult. Take of it what you will.”

Rainbow Dash grabbed ahold of Pinkie’s shoulder and drew her back from Sombra’s presence. “Pinkie, you can’t be serious about helping this guy, are you? He’s completely evil! Not to mention, out of his mind and power hungry!”

“Aww, give him a chance, Dashie,” Pinkie pleaded with her. “He can be really sweet sometimes.”

Dash stared at Pinkie for a full three seconds, then looked at Sombra, then back to Pinkie. “He is?”

Pinkie held a hoof to her chin. “Um… well, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure it’s there!”

Rainbow Dash scowled at Sombra over Pinkie’s shoulder, who in turn smirked deviously and waved. “Pinkie, I don’t trust that creep half as far as I could throw him.”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “Well, that wouldn’t be really far, Dashie, since he’s really heavy. That armor of his isn’t helping, and I think he needs to work out more. For the past couple of days, all he’s been eating is sweets and junk food! You can’t do that and just sit around.”

“That’s not what I—oh, never mind.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Listen, Pinkie, I just think it’s a really bad idea to try and help out this guy. He’s a lost cause.”

“Finally, something we agree on,” Sombra chimed in.

Rainbow Dash nodded, her turn to flash him a devious smirk. “The best thing to do with him is lock him away in a dungeon and then throw away the key.”

Sombra’s smirk disappeared in an instant. “The day I rot in a cell is the day you get an ounce of intelligence in that empty noggin of yours!”

“No way, Dashie, that’s not gonna happen!” Pinkie threw a foreleg over Sombra’s shoulder to hold him in a one-armed hug, which for once in his life, Sombra didn’t particularly mind. “Twilight entrusted me with the important job of reforming Sombry, and I promised to do it! It may take weeks, months, or even years, but at the end of it, Sombry will become a reformed and functioning member of society, or my name isn’t Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

“I can’t… breathe… again!” Sombra coughed out, Pinkie’s strength cutting off his air flow to his lungs. It had taken a second, but he once again minded Pinkie touching him, and quite a bit.

Dash exhaled tiredly. “Pinkie, you do know you only have until the next Summer Sun Celebration to reform Sombra, right?” Both mares ignored Sombra’s oxygen deprived protests.

Pinkie gasped, her eyes widening in shock. She also released Sombra, who fell to the ground, taking in grateful gulps of air. “Wait, seriously? But that’s only in a couple of months!”

Rainbow Dash nodded simply. “Yeah, and it’s also when Celestia will visit Ponyville and decide whether Sombra has become reformed or not. Didn’t Twilight mention this to you?”

“No! She didn’t!” Pinkie threw out both her forelegs towards Dash. “Why would Twilight not tell me about that? Oh my gosh, we’ve barely made any progress! I need to think...” She scratched her head and stuck out her tongue, deep in thought.

Dash shrugged. “It could be the reason she didn’t mention Sombra to you in the first place,” she replied. “You… do tend to freak out and over react about this type of news.”

“Freak out? I’m not freaking out! I just need more time is all!” Pinkie rubbed her hooves together and began knocking on the side of her head, desperately trying to get an idea or three. 

“Let’s see, with a deadline that close we’ll have to skip out on your camping trip to the Everfree Forest. We might need to move our appointment at the Spa to another date, and then reorganize our scheduling to those art lessons at the rec center later this week. Ooh, but what about our volunteer work at the senior center? This changes everything!” Pinkie gritted her teeth and drew down her cheeks with both hooves, casting frantic glances to and fro.

“Now wait! I didn’t agree to a single one of those activities!” Sombra shouted with a hoof raised in the air. The choked-out ex-king was still laying on his back, and staring up at the two mares discussing his fate as if he wasn’t even present.

Pinkie went on. “Well, now with this type of news, we’ll have to do those activities twice as fast!” With that, she lifted Sombra off the ground by grabbing ahold of his metal neck plating. Their noses touched as she eyeballed him closely. “Quick, there’s no time to waste! We need to get this tour done by two o’clock!”

Rainbow Dash snickered beside the duo, not even bothering to hide it. “Wow, looks like you’re gonna have a fun time on your hooves now, Dumb-bra!” She laughed, taunting Sombra’s rage past the boiling point.

Sombra snarled. Throwing Pinkie off of himself, and creating a squawk from her as a result, he stormed over and got right into Rainbow’s face. He sneered down at her. “What an insult! You’re quite the clever one, aren’t you?” His height put him at quite an advantage, but Rainbow Dash didn’t back off. 

“Thanks for noticing,” Dash replied, pushing her forehead forcefully against his.

Sombra growled back. “If I had my powers, you and the rest of this town would be nothing more than a scorch mark on the dirt.”

“Oh, but you can’t do that, can you? All you can do is make big threats with nothing to back them up.”

Sombra’s eyes narrowed further. “Why you little—”

“Guys,” Pinkie said, her worry turning to anxiety at the sight of Sombra and Rainbow Dash’s anger practically bouncing off one another. “Hey, guys, maybe we should—”

“I got an idea, Dunce-bra, why don’t you try and make me your slave?” Rainbow Dash asked, laughing in his face. “Oh wait, I forgot, you can’t do anything without your magic!”

“You don’t know when to shut up, just like every other mare in this town! If I so wanted to, all of Equestria and even your friends would be slaves to my will, you—”

“GUYS!” Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs.

“You impertinent, fool-born, weedy, idiotic excuse for a miscreant!” Sombra spat at Dash’s face, his last word leaving the area in a tense silence.

After a few seconds of growling at one another more, both ponies stopped. Something felt wrong suddenly to both of them, and that something was just in the peripheral vision.

They slowly broke up and looked over at Pinkie Pie. The mare stood perfectly still, not moving a muscle, a rare sight of complete lack of movement from her.

Shifting glances between Rainbow Dash and then to Pinkie a few times, Sombra finally rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh great, what is it now?”

At that moment, Pinkie’s tail flickered, then her right foreleg shuddered, following her hair shaking in place. After a couple of more random body movements that Pinkie remained unresponsive to, Sombra began to back up slowly. “Uhm?” he muttered, confused.

The movements became more and more rapid, and Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she covered her mouth. “Oh no…” She recognized what was happening.

“‘Oh no’ what?” Sombra asked, casting another glance to the still twitching Pinkie.

“You didn’t break a Pinkie Pie Promise, did you?” Dash asked him. Rainbow floated over the ground and grabbed his cape, bringing him in closer. “Did you?”

“You mean that pribbling promise with the cupcake in the eyes nonsense?” Sombra frowned, remember exactly how nauseated he’d felt after making the thing. “I only did it so she would take me out of the library! I never actually meant it.”

Rainbow Dash looked to Pinkie one last time, then without waiting took off at a breakneck speeds up high in the air. She shouted to Sombra before she disappeared over the horizon, “You might wanna run right about now! Was nice knowing you! Not really!”

Sombra hacked out another cough as dust flew into his throat. Shrugging, he turned to Pinkie and said, “Wow, I think there’s actually a mare more moronic than even you, Pink—” 

Sombra barely had time to step out of the way as a pink streak of light blurred passed right where he once stood. His cape and dirt were sucked into the streak’s wake, while Sombra himself was nearly flung off his hooves. 

Barely catching hold of himself to stand up right, he faced towards the anomaly. “What in the… what was that?” The sound of bricks falling made his ears twitch. 

Where there was once a brick wall to a house, was now replaced with a mare-shaped hole in the wall. Pinkie climbed out of the hole, her frizzy, poofy mane even wilder than usual, while fire literally burned in her eyes.

“Sombra, you broke a Pinkie Pie Promise!” she bellowed, the very air vibrating from the power of her voice. Pinkie continued, steam shooting out of her nostrils and ears. “Now, you must pay!”

Sombra quickly attested the situation. Apparently, breaking a Pinkie Pie Promise promised a swift end to the promise-breaker. Seeing how she had just broken an entire brick wall by running into it, and came out without a scratch afterward, told Sombra all about the threat he was dealing with. So, he came up with the decisive defensive action to counteract a situation such as this. Not retreating, oh no. That was beneath such a thing for a king to do. Advancing in another direction, however, seemed just up his alley.

“AHHH!” Sombra screamed, running down the streets of Ponyville with a pink fury like none other hot on his hooves.
	

> Chapter 8: Broken Bones And Broken Promises
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sombra was trotting for his very life in a race against both time and a furious pink banshee dead-set on making him pay. All things considered, he would have much prefered just time over a raging Pinkie Pie.

Indeed, she was certainly in a fury. Not like any weakling peasant mare could ever frighten Sombra, but without his magic, there was certainly no sense in taking chances, either.

“Out of the way, fools! Out of my way!” Sombra bellowed. He shoved aside anypony that obstructed his path, from the smallest foal to the oldest grandpa. It didn’t matter, because the threat of Pinkie getting her hooves on him made any process of formality or manners dissipate in an instant. Not like he had many to begin with anyhow.

“Sombra, get back here!” Pinkie screamed, the very earth shaking from the volume of her voice. “Pinkie Promise breakers don’t get away so easily!”

Sombra jumped over an errant cart, and unluckily managed to get his cape stuck on a corner. Desperately pulling and tugging it, all the while knowing full well with horrifying realization that Pinkie was approaching closer and closer by the second. He was finally successful in freeing himself and sprinted again like his life depended on it—which, given the circumstances, it very well may be. 

Seconds later Pinkie obliterated the cart in a shower of broken boards and splinters in a well-placed headbutt.

Dodging falling pieces of broken wood, Sombra decided to cut corners and dive through a conveniently placed alleyway. After running blindly into the shade, he was forced to skid to a stop when his path was obstructed by a ten foot tall brick wall.

“Damned peasant masonry!” he panted. “When I regain my powers, I’ll turn you into rubble, you hear!” He growled, cornered, until the sound of hooves fast approaching from behind made his coat stand on end.

Turning around, Sombra looked at Pinkie, who was in every sense of the word resembled a rage filled monstrosity in her own right. Pinkie’s face was contorted into a visage of pure wrath, the usually bubbly mare now replaced with a being of only destruction and outrage. Sombra could only back up helplessly against the wall, Pinkie nearing closer as each of her steps created cracks in the earth.

“W-Wait, please, I implore you to have mercy!” Sombra begged. He held out a hoof of surrender, cowering in quite a pathetic state on the ground. “Pinkie, I’m too young to perish!”

“You’re over a thousand years old!” Pinkie reminded him.

Sombra waved his hoof passively. “That’s neither here nor there.” He looked sheepishly upward where his only escape was high above his head. “What is here is a king who is dearly sooooo—” He almost choked on the word, and tried again. “Ngh, I’m regretful for breaking such a sacred promise to you.”

Pinkie stopped in her tracks, her anger cooling down to a simmered curiosity. “You actually mean that?” she asked, ears raising up to full mast.

Sombra spread his hooves apart in a clear sign of a warm welcome. “Of course. We are friends, after all. Aren’t we?”

Pinkie stared, eyes scanning him with a somewhat blank, but purposeful expression. 

After several moments of this, her extremely frizzy mane poofed up to its usual fluffiness, and before Sombra knew it, Pinkie was hugging the stuffing out of him.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes! I knew you’d come around, I just knew it!” Pinkie gripped tighter, her embrace squeezing Sombra so hard, he was sure his spine would crack. “You’re not a big meanie-head, you’re just a misunderstood stallion that needs a friend, and now you’ve finally got one!”

“Thank... you… P-Pinkie,” Sombra gasped. He patted her on the back, and eventually wrapped his hooves around her as well. The two shared a playful hug, Pinkie practically buzzing with excitement in Sombra’s grip. Even she hadn’t expected him to hug back!

However, that grip quite suddenly grew quite powerful, and before Pinkie knew it she was swept off her hooves. 

“Thank you for being so dumb!” Sombra laughed, throwing Pinkie upwards and over the wall of the alleyway, where she crashed into a pile of filth and garbage on the other side. “Also, I was never sorry about breaking your moronic promise!”

Sombra cackled in the typical villain manner as he made his escape, exiting the alley in a spur of the moment jump of victory.

That victory turned moot fast, however, along with the surprise appearance of a cart at the entrance of the alleyway. 

Sombra didn’t have time to stop, and barely knew what hit him as he tumbled in an uncomfortable pile of… apples? Stars danced before his eyes, and he groaned, knocked senseless. “By the gods. Is it time for the harvest this year already?” The strange sense that he was moving, even if he wasn’t walking, occurred to him. “Oh. Uh oh.”

Thanks to Sombra’s momentum, the stand-alone cart was rolling forward,  and fast, dramatically gaining speed due to avenue’s steep hill. As fortune would have it, he’d hidden in the alley just beside the biggest hill in Ponyville.

Back in the alley, Pinkie had already clammered over the brick wall in a matter of seconds, fueled not only by the rage at a broken Pinkie Promise, but also the betrayal of her trust by Sombra’s cruel hooves, twice! In other words, her anger had been doubled!

”Soooombraaaa!”

Pinkie burst out onto the street with fire practically burning in her eyes, head swinging to check left and right to find the backstabbing promise breaker. But, the only pony Pinkie could see within the vicinity was Applejack, whistling and trotting by with a basket full of ripe apples.

“Applejack!” Pinkie shouted, and was upon her friend in an instant. Holding Applejack’s cheeks in her hooves, Pinkie shook her about like a ragdoll, Applejack’s flying right off her head. “Where did Sombra go!? Where!? I demand to know! The crime for Pinkie-Pie-Pinkie-Promise breaking cannot go unpunished!”

Applejack pushed Pinkie’s muzzle out of her face, then shook her head to fight back the growing nausea that had turned her freckled cheeks greenish-orange. “Pinkie, what is tarnation are ya talkin’ ‘bout? I haven’t seen Sombra all day. Shucks, I thought he was still a prisoner in Twilight’s basement. All I’ve been doin’ is unloadin’ my…” Applejack checked over Pinkie’s shoulder and blinked several times. “My apples. What happened to the rest of my apples? I swear I’d left my cart right there not a minute ago.”

Pinkie’s eyes focused on the spot Applejack was pointing to. With a missing cart that was supposed to be right next to the alleyway, that could only mean one thing! She looked to the wide Ponyville avenue leading downward into town square, and found her target. 

An apple cart, but also carrying what looked like a dark blur, was traveling uncontrollably through the streets. It was pulling away fast, and now that she listened, she could hear a faint bit of girlish screaming coming from the cart as well.

“Aha! Trying to get away using wheels, eh?” Pinkie proclaimed, striking a pose with a hoof pointed to the sky. Her hoof slowly and dramatically fell to point at Sombra’s location, while her brow furrowed in concentration. 

“Well... that won’t save you, Sombra! Not with Pinkie Pie on the job! There will be justice, or my name isn’t Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

In a pink flash, Pinkie was gone, only an outline of her body made of dust where she once was, which slowly dissipated in the wind. 

Applejack blinked, in a daze, and stared slack jawed at thin air. Looking down at the chase scene towards what was apparently her stolen property, Applejack picked up her hat with a grimace fast forming. “Great. Terrific. Now what am supposed to do without my apples and my cart?” 

The only answer came in the form of Sombra’s screams carrying themselves upward in the wind, along with a tumbleweed blowing past quietly.

As for Sombra himself, he was currently seated on a runaway cart that had no brakes. Of course, he was screaming his mind out, barely wrestling control over the wooden vehicle by leaning it to and fro to dodge obstructions. He narrowly avoided running into an orange cart, only to dodge a watermelon cart coming the other way. With only a second to spare from colliding with an errant plum cart, he leaned the other way, the near-crash causing the other cart to tip over and spill its wares all along the road.

Sombra looked back briefly, the wind annoyingly whipping his mane in his eyes. “What is with all these fruit carts everywhere!?” he asked frantically to nopony but himself. 

Up ahead was, of course, yet another cart. Sombra shoved his body to the left this time, and managed to avoid a head-on with the pear cart, only for the other cart to overcompensate and run into a pole as the driver dove off into a nearby trashcan. 

“For Tartarus’ sake, why do these ponies need so much fruit?” Sombra rolled his eyes.

Up ahead was a break in the hill in the form of a largish town square, centered by an irritating, ugly statue of Princess Celestia. A wide basin fountain was built around it, gurgling with water. It looked like a good place with enough room to slow down and stop, then maybe find a place to seek refuge. 

Sombra turned the cart, scowling. “Well, that was horrifying.” Circling around the fountain, the grotesque Celestia statue at its center spitting water, Sombra checked over his shoulder. “But at least it seems that pink menace is no longer breathing down my neck.” He smirked. “Ridding myself of that shrill fool was the best decision I ever made.”

Just as he was about to figuratively pat himself for a job well done, his eyes went wide, red pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Pinkie was trotting at an outlandish pace down the hill, moving yards at a time with every step she took. A dust trail followed in her wake, anything in her way running like their lives depended on it to make sure her path was free of obstructions, or said obstructions being thrown about like they were nothing.

“Strike that,” Sombra muttered, turning back around. Looking everywhere, all he had of use to him were apples. A crazy amount of apples, all fresh, right off the tree. Sure, many were smashed to mush by his hooves, but most looked serviceable. 

Sombra steered the still moving cart back towards the hill. Then, picking up several apples, he began lobbing them in Pinkie’s path, hoping they’d at least buy him more time. “A better decision would’ve been a smarter escape plan!”

“You’re not gonna get away a second time, Sombra!” Pinkie shouted. She was hot on his trail, crushing all matters of fruit beneath her hooves as she ate up the distance between her and her off-the-rails target. “Broken promises and broken apologies shall not be tolerated!”

Sombra grimaced in response. “Tolerate this!” He threw an apple right smack in the middle of Pinkie’s face. A cruel grin of satisfaction split his face. “Hah!”

Without missing a beat, Pinkie’s tongue scooped the fruit up and she gulped down the apple in a single bite. 

Holding up another apple he was about to launch, Sombra stared at it and then back at Pinkie, a cold sweat traveling down the back of his neck. “Oh… looks like you can tolerate that.”

Pinkie puckered her lips, and before Sombra knew it, apple seeds started hitting him in the face. Pinkie’s seed spitting had an accuracy Sombra couldn’t beat by mere dodging, so his only retaliation was throwing more and more apples, which only resulted in giving Pinkie more firepower. 

As the battle between royal escapee and pink vengeance seeker continued across Ponyville, the borders of the little town grew nearer.





“Hey now, careful with that!” the stallion called out.

“Sorry, boss,” the much younger and barely out of colthood stallion replied. He grunted, struggling with the great weight on his backside. “It’s just that this is so heavy!”

“I know, I know,” the boss replied. He took another few steps forward, his partner following close behind. Between them on their backs was a large brick wall, already pre-assembled for them to transport. “Just be careful with it. We’ll be outta a job if this thing breaks.”

The two stallions neared the other end of the street, having made it clear across the road without much trouble. “Gently now. Gently. Don’t want it to break,” the boss warned. Finally, the two stallions got the brick wall on the ground without any further trouble. 

The boss stallion wiped his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew, got that done with.”

His much younger partner leaned on the wall and groaned, straightening out his back with a large crack in response. “Sheesh, that was way trouble than it was worth.”

“Ain’t over yet,” the boss stallion said. Already making his way across the street, he knocked his hoof against another wall. This one was rather tall and imposing, but made of steel. The second wall was also covered with menacing spikes situated evenly along its front. “We still got this bad boy to move over there, too.”

“Ugh, why do we got all the heavy liftin’?” the young stallion asked. He moved to the opposite end of his boss, both ponies hefting and huffing to move the second wall on their backs and across the street. “And why do they have to be walls?”

“I dunno,” the boss grunted, moving at an incredibly slow pace across the street. Each step was a colossal effort, and they had to stop one too many times in the middle of the street so they wouldn’t get too winded. “Some new weirdo art gallery or somethin’. I don’t get paid to ask questions, I get paid to move the stuff.”

The boss’ partner stopped in his tracks, his ears perking up. “Hey boss, you hear somethin’? Almost like… screaming.”

The boss shook her head and snorted. “I don’t get paid to hear, rookie, and you don’t either.”

If he could shrug, the younger stallion would’ve, but instead he just continued in his task of transporting the large wall with steel spikes lining the front to the other side of the street. Just looking at their painfully pointy ends made him wince at any poor sod that could accidentally run into it.

In no time flat, their task was complete, the steel wall resting and not a scratch of damage on either it or its brick wall brother. 

As the younger stallion slumped to the ground in exhaustion, the boss poked him in the side with a hoof. “Hey, get up, we ain’t done yet. Just one more thing to move.”

“Aww dang, seriously?”

“Ah, just get up.” The boss moved to the other end of the street and tapped his hoof against the glass of large aquarium. “After this, we’re out on lunch. Get off your flank and help me if you want your hayburger or not.”

Groaning, the younger stallion got back to his hooves and moved to the other end of the aquarium. “I better get extra fries outta this,” he muttered, heaving the aquarium up on his back.

“With extra ketchup too, don’t worry,” the boss replied.

With their combined strength, the two managed to get the aquarium moving at a steady yet sluggish pace across the street. The end was in sight at the streetside, both stallions practically tasting their hayburgers already. However, instead of lunch being their destination, tragedy reared up, instead.

A runaway cart streaked in between them both without warning, smashing the aquarium right down the middle. A pink flash soon followed, water splashing and broken glass flying all around.

Both stallions stumbled back, each holding half of a shattered aquarium. They stared after the rapidly escaping cart with its pink blur following close behind, the utter randomness of the situation leaving the two without words. Then, a few seconds later, the boss stallion looked at the ground.

Sighing, he muttered, “Well, looks like no lunch break for us two. We gotta clean this mess up.”

Growling, the young stallion fell to his knees and shook his hoof at the heavens. “Noooooo! Not now! Not when the hayburgers were within sight! We were so close! So close!”

“Ah, quit your whinin’ and get a mop.” Scratching his chin and taking a glance at the steel and brick walls, the boss stallion muttered, “Why an art gallery needs a brick wall, a steel barricade with spikes, and a piranha aquarium, I’ll never know.”





“Ahhhhh! Ow! Ow! Ow! What in Tartarus’ name are these things?” Sombra ripped off a piranha that was snacking on his ear, narrowly avoiding its chomping jaws, before flicking it away. Wincing, he reached underneath his cape and dislodged another piranha that had its teeth set in his backside. “They’re like tiny hydras, but without the extra heads!”

He cried out, discovering another one attached his rump. Desperately trying to remove it, he didn’t notice Pinkie clammering onto the back of his cart. Finally successful and holding his prize to his face, Sombra’s smile dropped when he spotted Pinkie behind the wiggling, snapping fish in his hoof.

“Pinkie!” Sombra shouted, releasing the piranha just for it to snap down onto his nose.

“Sombra!” Pinkie shouted back in reply. The wind pulled at her poofy mane along with Sombra’s scream. “The time has come for you to pay! I want a real apology and for you to be really sorry about breaking a Pinkie Pie Promise! And for a whole lot of other stuff I’m not even gonna get into just yet! You are apologizing for everything, mister!”

With a pained grunt, Sombra removed the piranha from his sore nose, only to snicker. “You honestly believe I’ll ever apologize for something like that?” A sneer curled up his muzzle. “You’re an even bigger simpleton than I had thought!” With a salute, Sombra jumped off the cart, laughing villainously all the while.

That is, until he fell into another cart that was directly in his landing zone.

Sombra blinked several times, the sensation of the cart moving dawning on him at just the same moment when he realized what type of cart he had fallen into. Underneath him was a giant pile of fireworks, with even more stacked neatly at the open end of the cart for display.

“What in Tartarus’ name are all these fireworks doing in a cart?” Sombra asked himself, picking up a tiny bottle rocket. The smell of gunpowder surrounded him, fireworks being a common sight for the royalty in the Crystal Empire to enjoy. But this, these were much more highly developed than the crude fireworks he was familiar with.





The firework salespony tipped her hat to a small filly. “Thank you for your business. I hope you enjoy those ‘Firecracker Firecrackers’! Just remember, don’t blow your hooves off with them!”

Humming to herself, she turned back around to her cart, which she had just moments ago set down to sell her wares. However, both the cart and wares were gone, having disappeared in the span of what must have been a matter of seconds.

Tilting her head and blinking a few times, the mare asked herself, “Where in blazes did my cart go?”





Sombra shrugged, setting the firework down. “Well, at least I escaped—PINKIE!” Sombra rolled to the side to avoid Pinkie’s hoof snatching at him. Pinkie had taken control of the apple cart and was ramming it against the side of his firework cart, reaching out each time to grab at him.

Getting back up, Sombra growled. Taking hold of the sides of his cart, he leaned towards Pinkie’s cart and shoved her away. She nearly went toppling over, but threw herself against the cart’s side and towards Sombra to right her cart back up.

“When will your impotent mind learn that you can’t beat me!?” Sombra hurled his cart against Pinkie’s another time, one of Pinkie’s back wheels coming dangerously close to cracking under the constant strain of the chase. “I am a king, and you a mere peasant! You never had a chance in the first place!”

Pinkie gritted her teeth and shoved all her weight against her cart so that it struck Sombra’s with a collision that nearly sent both of them hurling into the streets. “It’s not about beating you, it’s about making you see your mistakes and correcting them!”

Sombra snorted. He pushed Pinkie’s chest so that she was shoved back into the pile of apples in her cart. “Mistakes? I don’t make any,” he said, grinning wickedly at her enraged face. “The only mistake I can see is you, Pinkie. And that’s all you’ll ever be!” 

And with that, Sombra crashed his cart into hers one last time, breaking the back wheel so that Pinkie’s cart keeled over and out fell Pinkie and a river of apples. Both she and the cart disappeared out of sight.

Looking ahead, Sombra hoofpumped and cheered. “Finally, I’m rid of that cursed mare! I’m free, free as a…” Sombra turned around, a sudden bump from the back of his cart catching his attention. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Chained dog!?” 

“You’re… not getting… ngh, away!” Pinkie grunted. She was barely holding onto the end of Sombra’s cart, fireworks spilling out randomly. She was so close, Sombra could see the whites of her eyes, which were no longer white but a fiery red. Smoke and flames blew out of her ears. “I won’t let you!”

Sombra’s eyes widened at the flames pouring out of ears so close to the fireworks. “Uh, Pinkie, I think now would be a good time for you to calm down.”

Pinkie threw back her head and wailed in response, “Not until you apologize!”

Sombra scowled back, shouting, “Never!”

“Then I’ll never calm down either!” Pinkie’s steely glare locked with Sombra’s own, neither of them blinking or backing down an inch.

It was then that the first fireworks were caught aflame, and not a second later, everything exploded in a shower of lights and burned manes.

The cart was instantly kicked into turbo speed and bolted down the street at a speed that would leave even Rainbow Dash impressed. 

Pinkie was dislodged from the cart’s end, with colorful flames and sparks from the various stacked fireworks quickly replacing her. Sombra held on desperately to the front of the cart, his eyelids and lips pulled back as the g-forces increased more and more.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” Sombra screamed in a most marish way. However, the fear gave way to glee when he quickly realized something. The borders to Ponyville were in sight, and left in the dust was that pain in the flank Pinkie Pie. Soon, sweet, sweet freedom would be his!

“So long, Ponyville! So long, you miserable sods for ponies!” Sombra laughed, waving farewell to the town he was quickly departing from due to the lightning fast speeds of the fireworks cart. “I’ll see you all in Tar—”

The sentence was cut off when he slammed right into an invisible force field, making contact square on Sombra’s face, his teeth loosening in his jaw from the impact. 

The cart, however, passed right through the force field, leaving Sombra to slide down it slowly, where he formed a pile of pain on the ground while the cart continued on its fiery way. A few seconds later, it launched itself off the end of a hill, crashing to the earth a good ten seconds later, then promptly exploded in a rather large fireball.

Picking himself slowly up from the ground, Sombra spit out dirt and wiped his lips. “What the devil?” He poked a hoof in front of himself, still obstructed by that invisible, force field from before. Pushing harder against the field, he noticed a faint purple outline surrounding his hoof the harder he applied force against it. “Why can’t I go further?”

It then dawned on Sombra like a bag of bricks to the skull. “Twilight!” he cursed, stamping his hoof to the ground. “She must have placed a tracer spell on me that prevents me from leaving town!” He rubbed his chin and nodded his head knowingly. “A clever ploy, I’ll give the mare that. And a complex spell as well. Now, there must be a weakness somewhere. If I search long enough, there has to be a spot that can give way. I just need some time.”

Sombra looked over his shoulder, where Pinkie was back in hot pursuit like never before. She was like a stampeding bull, except pinker and much more terrifying.

“Oh yeah… her.” Sombra started banging his hooves against the magical force field and shouting at the top of his lungs: “Get me out, get me out, get me out! Don’t let this fiend get her hooves on me, I beg of you!”

But in the end, it was too late. The pink doom was upon him. And not even cries of mercy could save him this time.

“Soooooooooombra!” Pinkie leaped into the air, and like a bolt of lightning, struck fury with a side order of hot justice upon her prey. 

> Chapter 9: The Light At The End Of The Tunnel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When two objects of equal or greater masses make contact, one of the most fundamental laws of motion calls for said contact to result in an equal opposite reaction. Now, apply this law to the situation of Sombra pounding his hooves helplessly against the magical force field separating him from the outside world while Pinkie Pie, without warning, pounces at his unprotected backside going at a speed rivaling the fastest land animal in Equestria. What results is, of course, Sombra being driven painfully into the wall, squished helplessly by the force of Pinkie’s impact.

The equal opposite reaction takes place when the force field stretches outward to allow Sombra a few feet of leverage to move forward a bit, but not quite breaking. This is similar to an elastic effect. His cheeks are squeezed and his tongue hung out as a silent scream left his lips, eyes wide open in pure terror as he felt telltale indications that his spine was being shattered.

Sombra and Pinkie hung, mid-air, in what would look to anypony who took a gander to be Sombra’s face resembling one squished against a window, while Pinkie was too busy gritting her teeth in pure fury to have any other expression. 

They stayed there for just a second, but to Sombra, it felt like an eternity. To Pinkie, it felt like five minutes and twenty-six seconds.

Then, like a rubberband being released near the breaking point, the grey and pink duo whipped back from the force field’s grip and shot back up the hill as a spinning ball that resembled a runaway tumbleweed. 

Repeatedly, Sombra’s face met the dirt, rocks, cobblestones, and sticks that made up the roads of Ponyville, while Pinkie Pie was protected by the flailing body of Sombra himself.

“Augh! Ouch, ooh, agh, nhg, AHHHHHHHH—my legs!” Sombra screamed, interrupted only by every painful introduction with the road that his face had to bear through. Before too long, his muzzle resembled the road more than anything else.

While Pinkie would normally be cheering at her heart’s content at such a dizzying and exhilarating ride such as this, the only thing she could think of to do now is grab Sombra in a vice-like grip and never let go. At this rate, Sombra didn’t know what would give out first: his ribs, or all the teeth remaining in his jaw.

The two were making good speed back up the upwards slope of the hill, already passing by the confused firework salespony along with the movers from before. A floundering piranha gasped for breath on the ground, before immediately hitching a familiar ride on Sombra’s butt.

Thankfully for what was left of Sombra’s dignity, their trip was cut short when his face smacked right into a fallen plum that was caused by Sombra’s escape earlier. While the pit impacted quite painfully into his eye, the ripe outer fruit was reduced to squishy juice that Sombra’s cheek slid on for a good number of feet, before the two crashed right into the basin of the Princess Celestia fountain.

Once contact was made with the fountain, an upside down Pinkie hit it first, which caused her to be thrown over the top and into the fountain pool rightside up again. However, her grip on Sombra slipped, flinging him out of her hooves to be propelled away as a shrieking missile. 

Airborne, Sombra flailed uselessly in a desperate bid for flight. He did, somehow, manage to fly for a short moment on pure momentum. After only a second of his pegasus imitation, his forehead smacked right into the middle of the sun on the stone rump of Celestia’s cutie mark.

Pinkie’s eyes spun while she came to her senses. “Holy-canoley. Did anybody get the number of that truck?” 

She sat in the pool for a bit, panting while her soaking mane covered much of her face. After shaking her head and returning her mane to its normally fluffy state, she heard something fall with a loud sploosh into some water.

“Sombra?” she called out, splashing through the pool to the center where Celestia was displayed. She noticed a large hole where Celestia’s cutie mark once was, and directly underneath it was Sombra, who was currently floating on his stomach with his head in the water, unmoving.

“There you are!” Pinkie shouted. She trudging through the pool to get to Sombra’s side and tugged at his soaking cape with both hooves. “You’re not gonna get away this time, you slippery, slick slimeball of snidefulness!” Sombra made no response, a few bubbles rising to the surface his only reply.

“Trying to play dead isn’t going to work on me this time, Sombra!” Pinkie narrowed her eyes and growled. “I know all about your tricks. Now, am I gonna get that apology or not?” She pulled Sombra’s face out of the water and squeezed his cheeks together, which produced a thin stream of water fountaining ou in an imitation of the statue he’d hit. 

Pinkie shook him back and forth. “Wake up!”

Sombra’s tongue lolled out afterward, but he stayed silent. Pinkie released him, which re-submerged the stallion into the water. She stood still, staring at his body which showed no signs of movement.

“Uhm, Sombra?” Pinkie whispered. She poked his head once. “Sombra… please, can you hear me? It’s not funny.” The last bubble rose to the surface, and with that, the pool was still. “...Sombra?”

Pinkie’s eyes went wide. She dragged Sombra’s body to the edge of the fountain and hefted him over the side, where he slapped onto the ground in a wet pile. Jumping out of the fountain, Pinkie pulled Sombra away so that he had some free space.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no!” Pinkie panicked. She turned Sombra on his back, but even then she saw no sign of his chest rising or falling as an indication for breath. “This is bad. Really, really bad! Sombra, please, if you can hear me, wake up!”

Sombra’s laid still, even as a fly landed right on his eye to walk around.

Pinkie began to pull at her mane with both hooves until she felt like she’d tear it off. “Aah!” she shrieked, looking around for anypony to help. “He needs CPR! He needs the lips of life!” Not waiting for the bystanders that had gathered, she squished Sombra’s cheeks together so that his face puckered up. 

Closing her eyes, Pinkie pushed her lips out in imitation of him and closed the distance between their faces, their lips inching nearer and nearer until they nearly touched. With only the space of a cupcake to spare, she stopped.

Pinkie’s eyes opened, and she dropped Sombra’s head unceremoniously with a clunk like an empty coconut. “Wait a second, I don’t know CPR!” Her face contorted in panic and she cupped her hooves to yell, “Hello, anypony!? My friend needs the lips of life, STAT!”

“Why here there, youngin’,” an extremely old and balding grey earth pony stallion said, hobbling forward and shaking like a leaf in a strong wind.

“Mr. Waddle!” Pinkie exclaimed, throwing her hooves around him. “Please, Mr. Waddle, do you know CPR? He needs help!”

Adjusting his large, black-frame glasses, Mr. Waddle grinned friendlily and nodded. “Why sure, I learned it back in the day as a lifeguard at the local swimming hole. Now, let me tell ya, half the mares there would pretend to drown just so I can go rescue them. Why, this one time—”

“No time! We have no time!” Pinkie pointed to Sombra, who was covered in the shadows of several vultures circling overhead. “He’s not breathing! Please, can you help him?”

“Oh, right. Why of course I will, youngin’, it’d be the neighborly thing to do.” Mr. Waddle removed his yellowed dentures and placed them in Pinkie’s hooves. “Hold my teeth for me now. Don’t want them dropping down this young fellow’s throat.”

Mr. Waddle straightened Sombra’s neck upright, rolled his tongue back in his mouth, then opened his jaw as far as it would go. Breathing in a large gulp of air, Mr. Waddle pressed his lips against Sombra’s and breathed in oxygen to Sombra’s lungs. He then punched the other stallions ribcage fiercely, and with surprising strength for such an old codger. After a few punches, he repeated the first step.

After a few attempts, while Pinkie also jumped up and down on Sombra’s stomach in order to help, he finally came to, though not without upchucking a barrel’s worth of water.

Sombra continued to spit and sputter, his eyes blinking rapidly. Pinkie had ended her bouncing, and was now sitting on Sombra’s chest, staring him right in the eye.

“Sombry, are you okay?” Pinkie asked. She pulled his neck up so that their faces were only inches apart. 

“Ugh… why does my mouth taste like tobacco?” Sombra muttered. He winced, holding a hoof to a rather large bump on his noggin. “And why does my head hurt?”

“You were drowning after your head hit Celestia’s butt and then you weren’t breathing and I thought you were trying to trick me again but then it turned out you really had drowned, and I was afraid I had lost your forever!” Pinkie said without taking in a breath.

Looking at Pinkie with an arched brow and furrowed gaze, Sombra touched his mouth, before his eyes opened wide and his pupils turned to pinpricks. “Oh no… don’t tell me you kissed me to save my life!”

Pinkie giggled. “No, silly-head, Mr. Waddle did that!” She pointed to the old timely stallion, who was busy putting his dentures back in his mouth.

“That’s even worse!” Sombra’s face turned green, and before he knew it his head was back over the fountain, where coughing and the loud sounds of gagging could be heard.

“Well, I never.” Mr. Waddle huffed and trotted away from the duo. “Young ponies today and disrespecting their elders. When will it change?”

“I’m over a thousand years older than you, you barnacle-brained coot!” Sombra yelled out, before returning to the fountain to continue retching.

Pinkie was on Sombra in an instant, wrapping him in her hooves. Before Sombra could retaliate against this sort of ambush, he noticed instead of attacking him, Pinkie was… hugging him? This event wasn’t too strange, since the impotent mare was big on shows of affection, but only seconds before she had been ready to tear his throat out.

“Oh Sombry, I was so worried about you! I thought I’d lost my friend!” Pinkie nuzzled her face against his cheek, earning a blush upon Sombra’s face. “I’m so, so, so happy that you’re still alive!”

Sombra gritted his teeth and growled. Shoving Pinkie off himself, he pointed an accusing hoof right into her face. “Worried about me? You tried to—urg, kill me!” Every movement made his limbs or back or ribs or head hurt, which covered just about everything.

Pinkie frowned sadly and shook her head. “No, I wasn’t! Honest!”

Sombra pointed to his face, where numerous scrapes and bruises covered his cheeks while a huge, swelling bruises could be seen on the side of his head, along with a black right eye. “You don’t call this trying to kill me? After chasing me around town, nearly setting me on fire, causing me to almost perish from drowning, and covering me in a plethora of bruises and cuts, you don’t call that trying to kill me?” Sombra winced, reaching below himself to remove the merciless, pointy jaws of a piranha from his rump, which he threw into the fountain. “And do I even need to remind you about those things?”

“Well, that’s because you broke a Pinkie Pie Promise!” Pinkie reminded him.

Sombra tugged at his sideburns to the point they were nearly ripped off. “Who in their right mind would go to all this trouble and nearly kill someone over a stupid promise?” Sombra held up a hoof before Pinkie could answer. “And before you ask, it’s you, you annoying pox of a mare!”

“I… I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.” Pinkie pulled at her wet mane, which was showing signs of straightening out. “I just wanted you to apologize for breaking your promise. And, well, you were running away.”

“I was only running because you were trying to end my life, or are you so numb-skulled that you forgot that already? Is an apology worth me nearly drowning, Pinkie?” Sombra asked. She didn’t answer. “Is it?” 

Pinkie sniffed, her gaze unable to meet Sombra’s. “N-No, it isn’t. I didn’t want you to get hurt, I mean it. I would never mean to hurt one of my friends!”

Sombra cut her off, waving a hoof dismissively. “Well, that tells both of us clearly enough that we aren’t friends, now, are we?” He snorted, twisting his soaking cape to release some water from it. 

Pinkie’s look saddened further, looking at the ground. Her voice was a near incoherent mumble. “But, you just stopped so suddenly, that I…”

Sombra got back up to all fours and walked forward, stopping near Pinkie’s side so that he could glare at her out of the corner of his eye. “And to think, Twilight thought you could be responsible enough to actually reform someone, much less me. That tells me either she’s as big a fool as you, or that your friends put too much faith in some pink, babbling imbecile like yourself. Or both.”

He trotted past her, not even bothering to shove her to the side. She wasn’t worth the effort, or the agitation to his bruises.

Before Sombra could walk a few feet away, Pinkie held up her hoof and yelled, “Wait, Sombry, please—”

“Don’t you call me by that name! Or any other name!” Sombra replied sharply back to her, not turning around to look at her. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re through! I’d rather rot in a dungeon than be in your presence for any longer!”

“But, I, but I only wanted to help…”

Sombra glanced over his shoulder. “You know how you can help me?” he asked. He turned back around, and continued on his way to Twilight’s library. “By taking a hint and getting out of my life.”

As Sombra departed, Pinkie sat in a pool of water from her soaking coat, staring at her unsmiling reflection. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt,” she whispered to herself, sniffling. “I swear, I didn’t. I’m… I’m… sorry.”





Sombra threw open the doors of the library which crashed against the walls. He stomped into the treehouse adobe, mud and water following in his wake as droplets ran from his armor and coat. A clear frown of disapproval was etched on his face like a stone inscription.

Spike looked up from where he was dusting a shelf along the wall. 

“Oh, come on, at least wipe your hooves on the doormat!” Spike said. He held both claws against his head and fell to his knees as Sombra continued to walk into the library, a huge, dirty mess appearing wherever he stepped.

Twilight trotted down the stairs, stopping when she noticed Sombra’s appearance. “Wow, um, Sombra. You look like you had an… interesting visit to Ponyville.” Twilight cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck. “So… did Pinkie show you a good time around?”

“I am officially done with that clouted nitwit!” Sombra replied. He stamped a hoof on the floor, Spike gritting his teeth when he noticed how difficult a stain that would be to remove. “She tried to kill me!”

Twilight blinked in response, then smirked and rolled her eyes. “Oh, that sounds ridiculous. I’m sure you’re just overreacting to things.”

“Does this look like I’m overreacting?” Sombra asked, pointing to his bruised and beaten face.

Spike opened up a closet and withdrew a bucket and mop, already filling it with water to clean up Sombra’s mess. “No, but it looks like you’re ugly,” Spike said.

Twilight couldn’t help but giggle, despite looking in disbelief at Sombra’s condition.

Meanwhile Sombra had to resist the instinct to blast the rude naysayer to ashes. Not like he could anyhow, on account of his lack of magic.

Sighing deeply, he merely trudged to the basement door, taking care to spread as much mud as possible on the floor along the way. “Fine, you knaves believe whatever you want. I’m going to back to my prison to rest, and hope this day leaves my memories for good.”

“Don’t forget, you have a tea party with Pinkie tomorrow!” Twilight said to him just as he opened the door.

Sombra faced Twilight, his left eye twitching while his right remained swollen due to its bruising. Was she not listening at all? It didn’t matter. “I’d rather have a tea party in the darkest, deepest, and most vile pit of Tartarus than with that mare!” And with that, he slammed the door shut, which was quickly followed by several crashes and screams as Sombra attempted to walk down the stairs without a light.

“Wow, what’s his deal?” Twilight asked.

“I know, right?” Spike began scrubbing the floor with his mop, a scowl appearing on his scaly face at the amount of effort it took to remove the mud tracks. “Doesn’t he know how damaging water is to laminate wooden floors? I swear, the nerve of some ponies…”

As Spike and Twilight continued in their discussion about how to properly remove mud from the floors without further water damage, Sombra picked himself up from the basement floor, his entire body feeling like one large bruise. He couldn’t see a thing, but it wasn’t like the darkness ever bothered him in the first place, other than causing him to trip down an entire flight of stairs. No, what was currently bothering him was much more painful and annoying than that.

“Curse you, Pinkie Pie. Ruining my life even more than it already is,” he whispered. He clenched his eyes shut, feeling his hatred for her make his blood boil with rage. “Not only have I lost my entire empire and all my magic, but now my dignity as well? When will it end? When?”

He stomped a hoof into the floor, breathing deeply over and over again. Just the mere thought of the mare made his skin crawl. He wanted nothing more than to end her, along with her entire moronic town as well. All of them, from every mare to the smallest colt, were nothing but whelps before his might.

But, it was a might which had no power to it, he remembered sadly enough.

Opening his eyes, he slowly adjusted to the blackness. After a few seconds, Sombra noticed that the basement’s shadows weren’t as dark as he first thought. Looking up, he saw a new light in the dark. A light he was all too familiar with.

His horn was glowing a menacing purple with swirls of foul green circling around it, flashing here and there like lightning bolts. It was weak, incredibly weak, but it was magic nonetheless. His magic, to be exact. And even now, in its vulnerable state, he could feel it growing more powerful by the second.

“Hello darkness,” Sombra said, his pupils glowing a brighter shade of red as a smirk appeared on his lips, “my one and only friend.”
> Chapter 10: Party Time Is The Best Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sombra slept well that night. Bruises covered him from head to hoof, but not even those—nor the fact he slept in a cage—got in the way of him getting comfortable. To him, he was sleeping on the softest mattress and fluffiest pillows because of how high mood currently was. Nothing could possibly bring him down.

Well, perhaps it was safer to say almost nothing could do that.

The creak of the basement door opening filled the basement.

“S-Sombra?” came a mare’s voice, timid and shaky. “Twilight let me in and—look, I just wanted to say that I’m still super, super-duper sorry for yesterday.” 

Sombra’s eyelid peeled back, and he immediately felt the gut-kick reaction of irritation whenever Pinkie spoke. However, strangely enough, when he listened for more, nothing else came, so he answered, “Yes, you said that yesterday. And?”

Pinkie was quiet again, before saying, “And... can I come down, Sombra?”

Sombra noted with a hint of satisfaction that the insufferable fool of a pony addressing him hadn’t used her imbecilic nickname she’d given him: Sombry. He exhaled slowly, raising his head off the floor and looking up. 

The basement was still pitch black, with the one exception of the light from the opened door at the top of the stairs. 

Sombra sneered, but the facial expression was lost on Pinkie in the darkness. “I get the feeling you wouldn’t leave even if I demanded it, like every other request I make, so come in, if you must.” He could see her head’s silhouette look back, then down into the shadows again.

“N-No, if you want me to leave, I will,” Pinkie stammered.

Sombra snorted. “Good, then leave and don’t bother me again. Ever.” He rolled over then, intent on sleeping in. He needed to regain his strength, heal from his injuries, needed solitude to keep his secret safe—

“But, before I go, I did want to tell you one other thing.”

Sombra would have groaned if he didn’t think she’d say something about it, and remain there even longer. “Out with it then. I’ve better things to do, like laying here in an insurmountable amount of pain.”

The sound of Pinkie Pie shuffling her hooves in quick succession told him all he needed to about her thoughts. She obviously, moronically enough, sought for his forgiveness.

He would have laughed if it didn’t mean it’d hurt due to his bruised ribs.

The sound of Pinkie taking a deep breath rolled down the stairs. “Sombra, if we’re being perfectly honest adult ponies with each other, yesterday was both our faults. Even what happened in the end. Me hurting you so bad was as much a result of my carelessness as your stubborn attitude and sheer stupidity.”

Sombra was busy smirking to himself as Pinkie poured her heart out, fruitlessly trying to gain his forgiveness. Which made the back-hoofed comment she made at the end all the more surprising. 

Sombra scowled. “What did you just—” But Pinkie wasn’t done there.

“I’m here because you’re wrong, I am responsible, and I’ve got responsibility to you, to help you learn there’s a better way to live life. I’ve tried doing that entirely my way so far… but I guess maybe the Pinkie-method might not be the best approach… Crazy, right?”

Sombra was about to call her an imbecile for only just now realizing that, but she kept going.

“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I spent all day setting up a party for you later. Just for you. It… I tried to make it special. Lots of ice cream and treats, not very many ponies.” Pinkie sucked in a tense sounding breath. “So, after everything we said and did to each other yesterday, could we… could we call it even?”

The air held a gloomy tone.

Sombra stared flatly up at Pinkie’s shadow, still at the stairway’s top. He couldn’t have cared less about anything that she had just said to him. His ears had twitched at the mention of sweets, yes, but that didn’t change anything. It truly was all just so much drivel as everything else she’d ever said before.

At least, so he had initially thought.

The mention of a party, for some reason, made Sombra hesitate. A party, he considered. She honestly thinks some party is sorry enough for that pummeling she gave me? Honestly, a party for me, that could never make up for… 

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he’d never had a party before. Not for himself, anyway. Not by somepony’s own free will.

The silence in the basement had gone on for quite some time.

“I-It’s fine, Sombra. I understand,” Pinkie finally mumbled. She turned back towards the basement door. “I’ll let Twilight know that you don’t want me reforming you anymo—”

“I want chocolate cake,” Sombra interrupted. “Do you understand?”

A sound like a firecracker popping went off, followed by a horrible squealing noise. It took Sombra a moment to realize both noises were from Pinkie, and not a dying cat like he first thought.

“You won’t regret this, Sombry!” And just like that, Pinkie was out the door again, the dust cloud stirring in the sun rays were the only sign she’d even been there.

Sombra flopped back onto the floor. “That was a mistake. I can already tell.” He was just about ready to try and get some more shut-eye, when more noise roused him once again.

The sound of hooves thundering at the top of the staircase made Sombra look back up.

“Oh, Sombry, I almost forgot to say, but from now on, since you’ll still accept my help trying to reform you, I totally promise I’ll be gentler and won’t beat you up so bad when it’s an accident anymore!” Pinkie giggled, dancing in place without ever really stopping her constant movement. “Okay-gotta-go-now-bye!”

Sombra blinked, unsure if that had even really just happened. He was, however, reasonably sure she’d just managed to insult him while also getting away with what she’d wanted.

“Why couldn’t I have just died? Damn black magic and resurrection rituals!” Sombra dragged his hooves over his ears in an effort to shut out the world and groaned. After a moment, he mumbled, “And what did she mean by ‘when it’s an accident?’”





Sombra dragged his hooves lazily over the cobblestone streets of Ponyville. It was near sun-down, and he was… on his way to a party being thrown for him. At least he was clean and managed to look somewhat presentable for a king.

“Are we there yet?” he asked.

Twilight glanced back at him and nodded. “Sugarcube Corner should just be around the next corner.”

“This entire stupid village just looks the same,” Sombra quipped, glaring dismally at the similar thatch-roof houses they passed by. “Even with a thousand years of progress you peasants still live in mud-shelters and dirt. I guess some things never change.”

“Yes, I believe tyrannical jerks still remain consistent as well. Go figure,” Twilight said, a faint hint of a smirk on her lips.

Sombra furrowed his brow at her, but let the matter rest at that. Twilight had already gotten used to his insults and now managed to retort with comebacks just as stringing. Slandering her was getting to be less satisfying and more like throwing rocks at a mountain.

After a few moments of silence, the two arrived in the outer proximity of Sugarcube Corner, where all the lights were ablaze and balloons could be seen hanging from the rafters and roof. The sight was both foreboding for Sombra as well as… something else. He wasn’t sure what but it had his adrenaline going. It was if he was about to step out of space miles above the ground, freefalling to the earth and living in the moment of exhilaration before the eventual and final splatter.

Was it excitement? Surely not, even if it was his first party... ever.

Twilight blocked Sombra’s view of the ridiculous looking bakery. She had on the same scowl she always did when dealing with him. “I’m hoping you can remain civil tonight, can’t you?”

Sombra scoffed, flinging his cape in the air in a dramatic flourish. “I am a king. Remaining civil is my speciality. I don’t expect you to expect how true royalty composes itself.”

“I am royalty, you dunderhead.”

Sombra arched a brow and flashed a fang-filled grin of satisfaction. “Learning some of my insults, eh? Well, royalty or no, it matters not to me. You’re only a princess in title, not blood.” Sombra patted his armor where his black and icy cold heart would be. “And blood is what makes all the difference.”

“If that difference is that I’m not a dictator with a god-complex, I’m incredibly thankful.” Before Sombra could object with a snide comment, Twilight cut him off. “Listen, Pinkie’s worked really hard on this party. She’s put more work into it than I’ve seen her do for any other. So she’s obviously intending the best for you here. Just try, and I mean try to be nice. It doesn’t even have to be sincere, since I’d never expect you to be. Just… just fake it if you have to. You can pretend, can’t you?”

“Yes, your highness, I’m a king. I deal with politics. Faking it is what I’m highly trained in,” Sombra replied with a sickeningly devious smile that could peel paint off a house.

Twilight stared at him with a deadpan expression for several seconds before turning around with a sigh. “Fine, then try some of that. Just make Pinkie happy tonight, won’t you?”

“Well I’d be happy if she jumped off a cliff,” Sombra muttered darkly under his breath.

“What was that?” Twilight asked, stopping again.

“I said, ‘don’t push your luck,’” Sombra lied.

“Whatever.” Twilight trotted up to the front door and pulled it open, indicating with a nod of her head for Sombra to enter the building filled with so many strange colors and sounds. “Get through tonight without a major incident and you don’t have to sleep in the basement anymore.”

Sombra’s ears perked up. “Do I get a bed?”

“If Pinkie is truly happy tonight and you behave, then yes.”

“Ha!” Sombra walked past her, practically swimming in his smugness. “Piece of cake.” He stopped, clapping his hooves together and licking his lips and fangs. “Which for me will be chocolate!”

Just as the thoughts of sweet, delicious, mouthwatering and hoof-licking chocolate cake entered his mind, Sombra’s sugary daydreams ended with rude interruption. The perpetrator, of course, was nothing else but the music.

It was… it was unlike anything Sombra had ever heard of. It was just a bunch of random noises and gibberish from a language he could only guess demons used. It pierced his eardrums and rattled his brain, making his teeth clatter together and his stomach twist in knots, and worst of all, it made his entire body quiver like a plucked string with each note. He could barely hear himself think with such loud, obnoxious, and downright abhorrent music torturing his hearing through such vile practices. And just as he thought it had stopped, when a moment of respite was at hand, his sigh of relief was cut off by a booming explosion of sound that threatened to crumble not only his sense of hearing but his soul itself. No torture imaginable could ever possibly one-up the torment he was experiencing.

“Hey, Sombra, you okay?” said a voice in the endless sea of agony.

Sombra opened his eyes, only now realizing he was curled up on the floor in the fetal position, rocking himself back and forth while shielding his ears with both hooves. Glancing up at Twilight Sparkle, he noticed her stony expression… with a crack appearing to showcase a smile.

“Mock me, will you?” he snarled, quick to get back on all fours. The irritable music was less of a bane on his existence now, Sombra realized. In fact, it was just extremely jarring at first, but then it mellowed out to annoying white noise in the background, that he had overreacted to… “Stop with your asinine giggling this instant, whelp!”

Twilight sniggered, not even bothering to cover her muzzle with a hoof. The nerve.“Oh, I beg your pardon. Did I interrupt your self-important wallowing again?”

Sombra fumed. “This music is abhorrent! Downright despicable! A pox on not only ears but the mind as well!” He huffed out a breath. “Not to mention it’s really loud and I can’t even think straight here.”

“When do you normally think anyway?” Twilight asked. That insidious smile of hers was still there on her stupid face—mocking him! He would have rebutted, but was rudely interrupted by something far worse than that mare.

That other mint-green mare instead, for example. The one that had just rushed him before he could even react.

“Bah-wah!” Sombra shrieked in an un-kingly and rather girly fashion. That damned lunatic of a mare from the day before was back with a vengeance. Also, she was really heavy, and suddenly sitting on top of his head.

“Uh… Lyra,” Twilight said, a puzzled look on her face, “why are you sitting on Sombra’s head?”

“Tell me your secrets!” Lyra demanded. Then she bit Sombra’s horn.

“You’re mad! Mad I say!” Sombra screamed. He attempted to throw her off, but she was stuck to the spot with her teeth clamped securely on his horn. “Someone get this harpie off of me! She’s trying to tear out my skull and scoop out of my brains!”

“Well, we won’t really have to worry much about that last part, now will we?” Twilight said, rolling her eyes.

Bon Bon approached Sombra’s back and dragged Lyra off, smacking her upside the head with a rolled up newspaper. “No, no, no.” Another smack. “Bad roommate. How many times have I told you to not eat other pony’s horns?”

Lyra hissed and flailed her hoof in the air to deflect the newspaper assault. “But Bon Bon, I had to know!” Lyra frowned and crossed her hooves over her chest. “It wasn’t cherry flavor. Geez, so laaaaaaaame.”

Sombra, who was busy rubbing the last trails of saliva off his horn, glowered at the two mares with a look that could melt steel. “Just what is wrong with you dizzy-headed trolls? Is your brain made of nothing but mush and mold? Is your head filled with peasant gruel?”

Lyra stuck her tongue out at Sombra. “No need to be so insulty, Sombry.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I just wanted to see if the rumors were true,” Lyra said, her face twisting in a grimace. “Your horn tastes more like… well, sweat, really.” Lyra poked her own horn and frowned. “I didn’t even know we had sweat glands up there.”

Bon Bon sighed, then turned to Sombra and asked, “Please, Mr. Sombry sir—”

“That isn’t my—”

“Can you just tell Lyra you can’t turn her horn into a spoon?” Bon Bon’s eyes glared to the side at Lyra, who was currently chuckling to herself while reading the comic section of the newspaper Bon Bon had just swatted her with. “Please… she’s becoming obsessed with turning her horn into kitchen tools. It’s unbearable. Well, more-so than usual.” Bon Bon glanced at Lyra again, although instead of annoyance there was fear. Terrified, undeniably paranoid fear. “For the love of Celestia, please, help me.”

Sombra glanced over Bon Bon’s shoulder to where Lyra was sitting. “Lyra, you’re a nincompoop.”

“Hey!” Twilight snatched the newspaper, rolled it up once more and hit Sombra’s muzzle with it. “No insulting party guests!”

“That was hardly even an insult!” Sombra hissed at her, his forked tongue snaking out from between his fanged teeth while spittle flew from his lips on Twilight’s face.

He got smacked in the face again, although this time much harder. “Yeowch!”

Ignoring the scuffle, Lyra pulled Sombra to the side and stared him right in the eyes. Their faces were uncomfortably close, so much so that Lyra actually contested with Pinkie for who could defile someone’s personal space the most.

“Tell. Me. Your. Seeeeeeeecrets,” Lyra whispered. “It’s always been my dream to turn my horn into a spoon. Or a fork. Or maybe even a cheese grater. You must teach me your secrets of horn manipulation. I’ll do anything—” Lyra paused, then silently wracked her brain for a moment while Sombra stood there, uncomfortable as always, “—for free, that is, just to learn how to do it. Please, I’m begging you!”

“It seems more like you’re abusing me to coerce me into giving in to your demands,” Sombra said. “Also, your breath smells like peanut butter.”

Lyra pulled up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from seemingly out of nowhere between the two of them, took a bite out of it, then slowly withdrew it, all while remaining eye contact with a suddenly more terrified Sombra.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

Sombra slowly pushed Lyra’s unblinking face away, then shuddered and took a step back. “If you promise to not disturb me for the rest of the night, I’ll tell you later.”

Staring at Sombra skeptically for several seconds, Lyra finally nodded and stuck her half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich on her horn. “Then the deal is made, and set in stone, with the promise etched into the marble of the ages.” Lyra was dragged by a disgruntled Bon Bon away from Twilight and Sombra, departing with a wave and shouting: “I’ll call you! Or fax! Or even send a carrier pigeon!”

Twilight and Sombra stood still while the rest of the party went on around them, the beat of the music and mingling of the crowd all the same, despite the strange occurrence that had just happened.

“What is wrong with that mare?” Sombra asked.

“We all have a different theory,” Twilight replied.

“I think mine involves fillies being dropped on their heads at a young age.”

Twilight nodded. “Mine’s similar, although it involves lead-painted toys as well.”

The two remained milling around awkwardly with one another for few more agonizingly uncomfortable seconds until Twilight finally blurted out: “I’m… uh, going to go get some punch.”

“Indeed. I’ll be looking for my cake. The only item of this event I’m actually interested with.”

Twilight nodded and started trotting away, calling over her shoulder at the last second, “Remember, be good for Pinkie! There’s a mattress out of this if you are!”

Sombra repeated her words silently with exaggerated lip movement before he muttered darkly under his breath, “Yeah, perfect. A mattress. I’m positive that’s worth degrading myself at some paltry social event for a mare I can’t stand.” Sombra stared at his hooves for several seconds in silence. “Damnit, it is worth it! What has my life come to?”

A shrill shriek reverberated in the building. It was a call Sombra was unfortunately familiar with. One that haunted both his dreams and the waking hours of his disgraceful life.

Pinkie had spotted him and was racing across the room tackle-hug him in a pounce that would most likely hurt. A lot.

“Oh please, not in the fa—”
	
	
	
	
> Chapter 11: Best Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As Sombra slowly regained consciousness, he realized two vital pieces of information: first and foremost, his face bones hadn’t been shattered to a million pieces (again) like he had first thought. Secondly, he was stuck on the floor with a vice-grip of the Pinkie variety around his neck.

“Sooooooooombry!” Pinkie squealed, much to the chagrin of Sombra’s long-ruined eardrums. “I’m super-duper-luper excited that you showed up!”

Sombra’s response was muddled by the lack of oxygen. Also, his vocal cords being squeezed into mush. But mostly it was the oxygen.

“I planned out this whole party just for you!” Pinkie said. She lifted Sombra’s struggling body like a ragdoll, her amazing strength astounding him once again. Although that could be the oxygen-deprivation kicking in. “I got the balloons all picked out, and then the snacks, the music, the party games, oh, and best of all, I invited the whole town to come over and celebrate!” Pinkie’s protruding eyeball snuck up close to Sombra’s, which was currently an inch or two bulging out of its socket. “So, you’re happy now? Huh? Huh-huh-huh-huuuuuuh? I bet you are! You’re practically red in the face from so much excitement!”

Sombra’s face was in fact blue, mostly because of—once again—the lack of life-saving air.

Pinkie finally caught on to the fact he was blubbering and gasping like a fish out of water. “Oh, wait, no, you’re blue.” She released him, and like throwing a bag full of rocks into a river, Sombra sunk like a stone before meeting the welcoming cold embrace of the floor. “Why so blue, Sombry? You don’t like the party?”

After a few seconds of filling up one lung while hacking out another one, Sombra managed the weak response of, “I don’t like any parties, you buggering nincompoop! I was forced here against my free will!” Sombra gulped down another breath of air. “Well… Perhaps I was coerced into coming with food… and also, a mattress, but the two have no correlation!”

“Well, whatever your reason, I’m glad you showed up anyway,” Pinkie said, always smiling a beam of fresh, horribly annoying optimism Sombra’s way. He couldn’t decide whether he prefered choking from her hugs or her cheery attitude. “Especially since I have so many fun activities planned out for us tonight! First we can play some pin-the-tail on the donkey. I couldn’t get Cranky to volunteer for that role, so I had to make due with a painting, but I’m hoping you won’t mind! Then we can have a exciting game of charades, although I must warn you, I’m a world-wide champ! Ooh, oooooooh, and then I can introduce you to everypony in Ponyville and give you short synopses of their lives and day to day schedules!”

Sombra was pretty sure at this point the “choking on her cheery attitude” would essentially kill him before the night is through.

Pinkie leaned in toward the party’s guest of honor, head tilting slightly. “So, Sombry, what are you feeling in the mood for first?”

“I would prefer not to be subjected to the obscene torture of any one of those activities,” Sombra said, now back on all fours after dusting himself off. He sneered in a royally snobbish fashion at the crowded room of ponies having all manner of fun. Whether it be from dancing to the horrendous music—which sounded similar to trying to play a harp using a boulder while blowing into a trumpet made out of rusty nails—having small-talk while enjoying the party platter, or worst of all, sharing laughter over some awful pun these peasants considered comedy; Sombra couldn’t stand for any of it.

Pinkie’s curious head tilted traded out for a ninety-degree head tilt of confusion. “Why not?”

“Because, you simple-minded mare, I am a king. A king does not participate in party games, a king does not dwaddle with moronic peasants, and most especially, a king does not take interest in those of a lower class.” Sombra gave an exasperated fling of his cape, his nose so high his chin could have very well act as a replacement for his mouth. “And that is the reason I shall not participate in this party of yours.”

“I thought this was supposed to be your party.” A voice that was definitely not Pinkie’s, but unfortunately still familiar, spoke beside him.

Opening his eyes to gaze upon the newcomer, Sombra’s already disastrous night was sure to take a turn for the worse. Somehow, Pinkie had been replaced by this other pony, and was nowhere to be seen.

Rainbow Dash cocked a grin and pointed her punch cup at Sombra’s face. “What? Cat got the tyrant’s tongue?”

“Where in blazes is the pink one?” Sombra demanded.

“Ooooh, so suddenly when Pinkie is gone you’re interested in her, eh?” Dash grinned a devious smile, which certainly added fuel to the fire of Sombra’s misgivings.

Sombra snarled. “Just answer the question.”

“Oooooh, I dunno.”

“That’s a lie and we both know that. I positively detest lies.”

Dash stuck her tongue out at him. “Coming from a fat phony king like yourself, that seems a bit hypocritical.”

Sombra released a held in breath of air and composed himself to resist the strong temptation to bludgeon the mare over the head with the nearest available furniture. “Listen,” he said, “I care not for whatever childish antics you attempting to force me to participate in. Wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of those dreaded party games Pinkie was telling me about. Just. Answer. The question. You. Shallow-minded. Naive-headed. Worthless. Excuse. For. A. MARE!”

“What was the question again?”

Sombra bit his lip and pulled at his sideburns like he was trying to yank off his mane from the roots, all while containing with an intense form of will the rage pestering him to erupt.

Dash, in turn, was grinning from ear to ear. “Why don’t you answer for me why you’re so interested in Pinkie’s whereabouts?” she asked.

“If that infernal mare wanted to throw a party for me so badly, then she should be here. By my side.” Sombra let go of his mane and frowned, a shiver running up his spine. “Forcing me to enjoy it in her usual annoying, pressuring way.”

Dash hummed, and seemed to almost size up Sombra, before grinning wickedly. “Well to me, it sounds like you miss h—”

“Just answer the question already!” Sombra arched her neck back, his sneer growing ten-fold. “And don’t you dare ever even insinuate such a sentiment on my part, peasant.”

Dash rolled her eyes and sipped her punch, taking her sweet time to smack her lips afterwards. Just as Sombra’s left eye was beginning to twitch, she said, “Pinkie noticed you were going into another one of your ‘episodes’ so she told me to keep you occupied while she prepared the cake.”

“What episodes?” Sombra relaxed a twinge at the mention of his cake, but only a twinge.

Once again rolling her eyes, Dash shrugged. “Oh, y’know, being all ‘I hate everyone here, blah, blah, blah, everyone should kiss my hooves because I’m a king, yadda, yadda, yadda, I have an ego bordering on the pathological, nag, nag, nag, and a stick the breadth of Equestria up my butt.’ You know the rest.”

“I… do not do that!” Sombra could feel his cheeks flushing. “I merely… just… express my opinions more, is all!”

Either Dash had pink eye or eye rolling was suddenly in season. “Dude, you totally go on some type of hate-spewing tirade every five minutes or so. It’s any wonder Pinkie can put up with you.”

“It’s any wonder I can put up with her!” Sombra screamed profusely. Luckily, it was drowned out by the music’s obnoxious tempo. “She’s made my life even worse than it had become after what you fools did to me! Every second she plagues my existence with her chipper attitude and her smiling and her incessant appeals to my lack of better character to try and ‘shape me up’ into somepony I’m not. What’s the point of trying to reform somepony unreformable?! Do you mares just have no brains?”

“Listen, buster, I have plenty of brains. And so does Pinkie.” Dash cringed slightly and tilted one hoof in the air side to side. “Uh… sometimes. But all she’s been doing is trying to help you. Heck, you went from being trapped in the basement to having some form of freedom. From the looks of it, she’s been doing you a favor this entire time.”

Sombra pointed wordlessly to his black eye.

“Okay, maybe not this entire time, but she’s still better than nothing. Really, you couldn’t actually try to be a little nicer? You can’t expect everything out of life by acting like a jerk. King or no. Even I know that.” Dash sipped from her punch, then glanced over at the crowd of ponies chattering and laughing. “Like it or not, Sombra, you’re not king here, and you never will be. Just, I’dunno, try being a regular pony for once. Make some friends. You… do know what friends are, right?”

“I’m not some foolish foal with half a brain like the rest of you ingrates,” Sombra spat back with venom backing his every word. “I had friends. Plenty of friends, actually. More than you and the rest of you peasants could ever muster.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Dash said with a deadpan expression.

“Well, of course I had friends. I was the king, after all.” Sombra cast a leery look at Dash. “And before you ask, yes, they were actual real friends, too. I can tell the difference between somepony faking it to avoid my wrath and true sincerity.”

“I’m sure it must’ve been wonderful being your friend.”

“It was indeed,” Sombra said. His smug smile grew to all new heights. “Who wouldn’t want to be the friend of a king? And a powerful one at that. In fact, the most powerful in the entire world. I was lauded across the globe for my greatness in magic and willpower, of which there was no contest.” He momentarily dropped his smile and snarled. “Except for two incompetent princesses. Who I remind you needed their combined power to defeat me. One on one, I could have wiped the floor with either of them in a heartbeat.”

“So, I gotta ask,” Dash said, eyeing Sombra with a half-lidded gaze. “Why didn’t any of your friends decide to help you out in your time of need? Celestia had Luna and Luna had Celestia, but what did you have?”

Sombra guffawed. “Help? Help?! Like I’d ever accept someone else’s help to suit my own needs.” He stuck out his tongue, sick to his stomach. “Accepting help from anyone is the most pathetic sign of weakness I’ve ever had the displeasure to see. You think I became the most powerful ruler in the land because of help? Absolutely not! I did it all by myself, proving I was the strongest. I didn’t need friends or anything else to be at the top, and never will I ever consider doing so.”

Dash nodded, finishing off her drink. “So yeeeeeeeah, how’d that end for ya?”

“With…” Sombra paused, struggling to come up with a response. “With… me alienating all my friends. And then being defeated by Celestia and Luna. Then being… trapped for nearly a thousand years in a deep, dark abyss to soak in my own hatred.” He blinked. “And now here… having this moronic conversation with an air-headed mare!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaand that’s why I’m hesitant to believe you ever had friends. Ever.” Dash glanced over Sombra’s shoulder and wave greetings to somepony approaching the pair. “Now time for you to meet a pony who’s an actual friend, unlike the fake ones you keep on blabbering on about.”

“You’re the only one blabbering!” Sombra replied while pointing an accusing hoof at her. “Blabberer!”

“So, this here’s the birthday colt, I reckon,” Applejack said, tipping her stetson at Rainbow Dash while giving Sombra an unrestrained stinkeye. “How old are ya? Ten? Twelve? From the sound of all that cryin’ and hollerin’ I can’t right tell if you’re still in grade school or a teen.”

Already Sombra could feel despair eating away at his stomach until only his hollowed out insides remained. “Oh great, it’s the southern hick one.”

“That’s Applejack to you, Mister Smart-Mouth,” Applejack said. “Although, that amount of smartness is probably on the low side, if you’re catchin’ what I’m sayin’.”

“Oh please, no, not like this,” Sombra whispered in a daze. He sat on his haunches between both mares and gripped the sides of his head while staring at the ceiling, desperation etched on the worry lines of his face. “My life, over, trapped between two opposing forces: an utterly obnoxious mare with the intelligence of a rotting fruit, and then a hillbilly peasant who grows rotting fruits. What kind of crime on this mortal plane could ever be justifiable for such a punishment?”

“Y’mean, other than bein’ a dictator to your entire country and treatin’ your people like owned property?” Applejack said.

Dash shook her head and rubbed her chin. “Nah, I’m guessing it’s probably him being an annoying jerk all the time who can’t be bothered to fit into modern society.”

“Wait, wait, I got it,” Applejack proclaimed. “It’s for him actin’ like a stuck-up snob who can’t go for more than five seconds before he spouts on ‘bout somethin’ involvin’ him bein’ better than the rest of us, even though he got his flank handed to him over a thou—”

“The question was rhetorical!” Sombra said, interrupting the two’s heated debate. “And even if it wasn’t, I’m right here!”

“And?” Dash asked.

Sombra’s left eye was beginning to twitch again, but he managed to control whatever pent-up tirade that was about to pour forth. While he did indeed enjoy them, Rainbow Dash was correct… to a point… that he was making way too many of them. Plus, they sapped his energy much more than he’d like.

Applejack coughed into her hoof to break the silence and dispel the air of awkwardness in the air. “So, uh, Sombry—”

“Not my name,” he said, almost immediately.

“Shucks, I’m just callin’ ya by that pet name Pinkie took a shinin’ to.”

“I’m not exactly sure what a ‘pet name’ is, but I don’t like it, I don’t abide by it, and I definitely don’t support the pink one using it in my vicinity, which I hope for your sakes you take to heart and don’t reciprocate.” Sombra’s glances bounced off the two mares, both of whom were sharing puzzled looks. “I just don’t like the name; end of discussion.”

“Awwww, now ain’t that the cutest thing I ever saw,” Applejack said, slugging Sombra in the shoulder in a playful fashion. Nevertheless, it still smarted Sombra enough to cause a whelp of pain to leave his lips. “He don’t like pet names.”

“And can you believe he gets flustered whenever Pinkie isn’t around? It’s like he can’t function without her,” Dash added. “Heck, I’m surprised he managed to survive this long.”

“I lasted over a millennium without that mare and I can last to the end of existence more!” Sombra shot back. “And what’s more, your incessant belittling is beginning to outlast my patience.”

Applejack attempted to pat him on the back, only for Sombra to shrug her off and back a few paces away. “Don’tcha worry none, Sombra, I’m sure Pinkie’ll be out here any minute,” she reassured him. “I hear she’s puttin’ on the finishin’ touches to a special cake just for you. You should feel real obliged, since Pinkie’s cakes are the stuff of legend ‘round these parts.”

“Like I care,” Sombra muttered. His stomach growled with an ominous roar. Immediately his face turned a few shades redder while Applejack and Rainbow Dash didn’t even attempt to hide their giggles. “I-I only care if the cake is chocolate and nothing more!”

“Ah, quit your yappin’, I’m sure it’s gonna be fine,” Applejack said. “Plus, if you’re too much of a sourpuss, I’m sure the rest of us will enjoy it plenty.”

“I can assure you, I can enjoy it plenty by myself, since none of you will have the satisfaction of consuming it.” Sombra licked his lips and rubbed his hooves in the most insidious manner he could manage. “An entire cake all to myself while the rest of you are forced to watch.”

“We could actually leave anytime you know,” Dash said.

“Then do that already! It’d save me the pain of talking to you insufferable mares!”

Applejack arched a brow and cocked back her hat. “Y’know, if ya never wanted to talk to us in the first place… then why ya still doin’ it? That don’t make a lick of sense.”

“Because I… uh… um…” Sombra’s tongue had skedaddled out of his mouth and his brain was grasping at straws, excuses, answers, and anything else lying about in his mind with no luck.

Thankfully, his saving grace had just arrived around the corner: cake. Chocolate cake at that.

Pinkie was parting the crowd in half just to tug along a cart that bore the most impressive cargo Sombra had ever laid eyes upon. A triple decker, pink-frosted, and covered in every manner of frosted flowers and balloons and decorations galore! “Make way, everypony, the Pinkie Express is off the rails and about to dock into port! Yay for train and ship metaphors!” she bellowed, zigzagging through the party with the cake teetering from side to side, but never managing to collapse.

“Finally!” Sombra clapped his hooves together, nonexistent tears in his eyes. “The only reason I showed up at this stupid party—other than the mattress!”

The cart slided to a smooth finish right before Sombra, with Pinkie standing right before him with that slightly less than annoying smile plastered on her muzzle.

“Attention everypony and everybody, it’s caaaaaaaaake time for a certain special somepony in this room!” Pinkie announced, catching the attention of the entire crowd. Even the music stopped, Sombra thankfully noticed. “Now I know not many of you know him, but this here is Sombra, the newest member of this fine and dandy town of Ponyville. Everypony give him a round of cheer to welcome him!”

They obliged, with the entire room filled with stomping hooves and shrill whistles. Despite its juvenile nature, Sombra somewhat basked in it, the nostalgia of days long gone filling his heart. Plus, this was much more sincere and less half-hearted than he was familiar with.

Pinkie laid a hoof on Sombra’s shoulder, and he surprised himself when he didn’t brush it off immediately. “Sombra, I just wanted to say that despite everything you’ve gone through and the hardships you’ve faced, I hope that you’ll be able to find Ponyville a new home of sorts for yourself. And I know that our friendship has been kinda rocky, what with you being trapped in Twilight’s basement in a cage and then me spoon-feeding you ice cream and then Twilight tying you up in rope in utter darkness, also in her basement, and then Twilight—”

“Pinkie, get on with it!” Twilight shouted at her, slinking back into a dark corner to avoid the confused gazes from everypony in the room.

“Anyway! Just know that despite all that, I still consider you a friend, and I hope you consider me one too… eventually.” Pinkie stepped forward and wrapped her hooves around Sombra’s neck, albeit not with the spine-crushing squeeze like he was expecting. In fact, this one was… nice. Comforting, actually. Before he knew it, Sombra’s own hooves were around her back, completing the hug for maximum amounts of what Sombra could only describe as… goodness.

For some odd reason, the entire crowd of ponies were making a “d’awwwwwwwww” sound, which Sombra couldn’t quite wrap his head around. At least what he could wrap his head around was that cake, and more specifically, that cake being in his mouth at his earliest convenience. He even snuck a peek over Pinkie’s shoulder to get his first good look at it.

It was at that very moment Sombra realized some crucial details and the horrifying implications they brought. First of all was the cake; specifically, what was on the very top of it. Because drawn quite crudely with pink and grey frosting was a pair of figures Sombra could only guess represented him and Pinkie, holding… hooves. Then above the sugary drawing was a pairing of balloons and hearts and smiley faces. And finally, in big red frosting no one could properly miss, blind or otherwise, were the words “Best Friends,” right at the very top.

Sombra’s eyes shifted to the right while the world and time itself seemed to be slowing down, second by second. He could even hear a white noise pestering the sanity of his mind. He could spot that one mare from the market—Roseluck—who just couldn’t stop grinning at him. Then he could hear what she was saying, like a light cutting through the fog paralyzing his mind: “Awwwwwww, you two would make just the cutest couple ever!.”

With his jaw now hitting the floor, Sombra’s eyes turned to his left, where he caught sight of Bon Bon and even worse, Lyra, of whom was looking at him with a clearly bemused expression.

“Hey, Bon Bon, are they ‘best friends’ like how we’re ‘best friends?’” Lyra whispered discreetly to Bon Bon.

“Well, of course. Just look at the way they’re hugging,” Bon Bon whispered back. “I mean, they couldn’t possibly be anything other than ‘best friends.’”

Best friends.

Best friends.

Beeeeeeeeeeeest frieeeeeeeeeeends.

Sombra’s eyes widened while his pupils shrunk, the full ramifications of what everyone else was interpreting hitting him like a hammer on the head of a nail.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”