This is a story about one ancient kingdom, one grumpy evil unicorn king, that's not really evil or a unicorn, a certain pink alicorn princess that can't read a map and a magical relic that's actually a pony.
When she left the Crystal Empire she had one simple task: "Get the Crystal Heart back!" So why is she freezing in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out how to read a thousand-year-old map which is being held together by a duct-tape and why in the world is she travelling with her worst nightmare?
Who knew she will miss these boring days she spent sitting on her throne in the castle listening to numerous complaints of her loyal subjects?
This story does not follow comic universe , which means Sombra's backstory is not the same as in the comics. It also contains an alicorn OC, but the story won't focus on her too much, a few other OCs that serve as background characters and a spoiler for season 6.
"And so I told my dear neighbour: 'Tell your ewes to go play somewhere else, they are eating all of my crystal berries!' But noooo she won't listen. Please princess do tell her to keep those ewes away from my farm!" the light pink crystal pony with messy peach-coloured mane dropped on her knees and begged in front of the crystal throne on which Princess Cadance was sitting.
"Ah, yes no need to beg I completely understand," Princess Cadance replied and jumped off her throne. "I'll talk to your neighbour and see what can be done," she offered a hoof to her loyal subject and helped her up.
"Thank you princess! I just knew I could rely on you," the said subject smiled happily and trotted over to the door.
"I'm sure there is solution that will make both of you happy," Cadance said as the pony opened the door to leave. "There always is..." she added with a disappointed sigh as soon as the pony was gone and returned to her throne with bored look on her face. "How many more are there?" the princess asked one of the guards that were standing on each side of the massive door that led into the throne room.
"Emm... about twenty your highness," the blue one replied.
'Great, I'll be here for the rest of my life,' Cadance thought as she took a deep breath and forced her face into her usual cheerful smile. "Call the next one in," she ordered.
"Are you alright my love?" Shining Armor asked as his wife literally dragged herself into the room.
"Ah yes, I'm fine, just a bit tired from all complains I had to listen today," Cadance replied. "And how is my snuggly wuggly wittle Flurry Heart, huh?" she took baby Flurry Heart from her bed and hugged her tightly. "Did you miss mommy?" the reply she got was few giggles and a big hug from the cute fluffy creature. "Ohhh, of course you did!"
"If you want I could handle all the complaining tomorrow, you just stay with Flurry Heart and relax for a while," Shining Armor suggested as he took the camera with his magic and took a few pictures.
Cadance lowered Flurry Heart to the ground next to her favourite toys and ruffled her blue and purple mane, "Is it really alright? You already have your hooves full with preparations for this year's crystal faire?" she asked.
"Don't worry about that, you've been busy this whole week, I have hardly seen you get off that throne or away from paperwork," Shining said and hugged her, "besides, you deserve some quality time with Flurry Heart."
"Well if you say so, I guess I could use a bit rest."
"Mhm," Shining nodded moving a hand mirror in front of Cadance.
Cadance examined herself in the mirror and almost screamed. Not because of the huge bags under her eyes but because of her mane. What was once clean and shiny mane that everybody was jealous of now turned into a mix of purple, yellow and pink mess and kinda resembled a snake's nest. "Oh my, I really do need rest!" she hurriedly pushed the mirror aside and grabbed a comb. "You know what else I could do tomorrow?" she asked her husband who shook his head in confusion. "Visit a spa," the princess giggled.
When Princess Cadance woke up the next day she found out that she was alone in the bed, 'Shining is probably checking preparations for the faire already,'she thought, jumped off the bed and went to check on little Flurry Heart that was still asleep.
She then walked over to her dressing table, brushed her mane and feathers, put on her jewellery and make-up and looked herself in the mirror. 'Perfect,' she concluded proudly and struck a few poses before trotting out of the room and down the crystal corridor to the dining room where a nice hot meal was already waiting for her. She sat down and looked at her plate. Pancakes with chocolate and berries. One of her favourites! She lifted a fork and a knife and cut a piece before showing it into her mouth. "Mmmmm...!" she hummed happily.
Cadance looked down at the pancakes and then around herself to check if anyone was around. Hoping nobody sees what she is about to do she threw the fork and knife away and simply dug into the pancakes. 'I miss just being able to enjoy the food,' ever since she became a princess she had to start eating like a lady. In other words cut every single meal into tiny pieces and eat like a bird! Imagine being at a party where you are surrounded with various cakes and sweets and you must be a lady and eat only a tiny bit of it. What a nightmare!
Well at least Princess Celestia understands how she feels, she herself taught her how to fill her stomach without anyone seeing a thing. After all Celestia was a pro at these things, Cadance even saw a whole two tier cake disappear next to Celestia when noone was paying attention. 'Wait... Maybe that's why she likes it when her parties turn into a catastrophe?' with nobody paying attention she can easily stuff herself with all kinds of sweets.
Cadance finished the rest of her meal and licked her mouth clean before going to check on Flurry Heart again. Seeing that she was still asleep she informed Flurry Hearts' babysitter that she was going out for a bit and left for the spa.
The Crystal Empire was truly a beautifully land, many would say the most beautiful part of Equestria and Cadance agreed. She never saw such sparkly and magical place before coming here. But it was not only the beauty of the empire that made it known all around the world, it was its inhabitants. All ponies living in the empire were so kind, so loving and so peaceful, every-pony always felt so welcome here.
The only problem with living in such place was that it quickly became dull. There was nothing really interesting happening here. In Ponyville her best friend, and sister-in-law, was constantly fighting gigantic monsters, banishing the evil, restoring harmony, solving friendship problems. But here? There are no monsters to fight, the last villain that messed with the empire is most likely dead, harmony does not need to be restored, and all friendship problems she gets to solve are when two neighbours have an argument where ewes eat berries, and she solves such problems without even trying. It's not that she doesn't like living here, it is just that... at times she wishes that something interesting would happen.
'Maybe I should tell Twilight to send Discord for a visit,' the princess giggled to herself. Twilight would probably think she's out of her mind.
"Princess Cadance!" she suddenly heard a voice call out to her and turned around to see a white unicorn with short pink and red mane waving to her. It was Strawberry Shake, the pony who works at the local cafe called "Strawberry Tale Cafe". Strawberry Shake isn't a crystal pony, she came one day to Crystal Empire and started a cafe, nopony really knows where she came from or where she lived before coming to the empire. Whenever she was asked about it she simply giggled and said: "It's a secret." Cadance asked her once why she keeps it a secret and the pony answered: "It makes things more fun around here." It seems she wasn't the only one looking for a bit of adventure and mystery.
"Oh, hello there Strawberry," the princess greeted the smaller pony, "how are you?" she asked.
"I'm great, the job is really paying off this month," the unicorn laughed, "seems like the word about my super secret milkshake recipe travels fast," she added in a low voice. "Well, anyway, its real surprise to see you outside princess, took a break from all the princess work I presume?"
"Ah, yes. I really needed some time off so Shining suggested to take over for today."
"Why do all good guys have to be taken?" Strawberry pouted.
"I'm sure there are plenty of them still roaming around," Cadance patted her on the shoulder.
"Where?" Strawberry pretended she was holding the binoculars and looked around, "are they hiding under a rock or something?" she giggled. "Well I won't waste anymore of your time, I have to get back to work too. Have a great day princess!" she waved again as she returned to the cafe. Princess Cadance chuckled and continued her trip to the spa.
At that time nobody noticed that Crystal Empire's shield was growing weaker and weaker and that a certain shadow was waiting outside for the right moment to attack.
"Good afternoon my love," Cadance said as she entered the throne room. "How are you doing?" she asked cheerfully and climbed up the stairs to the throne on which her husband, Shining Armor, was currently sitting.
"Well, now I know how you felt all these days. Listening to all these ponies complaining is really exhausting," Shining admitted pushing few loose strands of his mane back in place. "Say, how was your day?" he asked.
"Oh it was just so wonderful..." Cadance replied and sat next to Shining, "I went to the spa this morning and just now I finished playing with Flurry Heart, she is just soooo cute when she's sleeping."
"I'm glad you had a good time," Shining Armor smiled happily and added. "I still have a few things to take care of, what do you say we all go for a walk this evening? I'm sure Flurry Heart would enjoy stargazing."
"That's a great idea, I could help you a bit if you want, I already had plenty of rest." Cadance offered not noticing a shadow, black as the deepest part of Tartarus sliding past the guards across the crystal floor.
"No thanks, I promised you a day off and I always keep my promises," Shining said winking at his princess. The shadow now sneaked behind the throne laughing quietly, unfortunately nobody seemed to have heard it.
"Well whatever you say," the princess replied and jumped off the throne, "I'll be in our room if you need me," she was about to leave the room when suddenly everything around her got dark.
Strawberry has seen a lot of weird ponies, well anyone who has ever travelled as much as she has. It was nothing unusual really. She didn't think it was weird that the dark green unicorn with silver and green mane and piercing green eyes asked her for a coffee, what was a bit weird was that the said unicorn asked her to add extra sugar cubes, and what was even weirder was that after she did they asked for more, and more, and more, until there were so many sugar cubes that she really couldn't fit anymore is a small coffee cup. She was pretty sure there were more sugar cubes than actual coffee in there.
Yes, ponies love sugar, a LOT of sugar, but this was a bit too much for anypony. She grimaced as she watched the unicorn happily drink his beverage of doom. "Ahh, nothing is better than a good glass of coffee to wake a pony up," the pony said cheerfully and licked his lips.
'Wake up?' Strawberry thought and looked at the clock. 'It's afternoon!?'
She decided to just give up. "World is full of all kinds of ponies, isn't it?" she mumbled to herself as she turned away from the horrible sight and focused on her next customer. "What can I get for you?" She asked.
The customer turned around and was about to answer but his face turned from cheerful one to that of utter terror. He screamed before launching out of his seat and running away as fast as his pony legs could carry him. "What the-?" Strawberry wondered and looked around to see what in the world could scare a pony so much that- "SWEET CELESTIA!!!"
The notebook in which she usually wrote the orders fell out of her shaky hooves onto the crystal ground as she stared at the terrible sight in front of her.
The once beautiful crystal castle was being swallowed up by giant black crystals and thorn-like structures formed all around it, everything they touched became dark and sinister and it started spreading faster and faster. "Princess Cadance!" Strawberry shouted in horror. 'I really hope she is still away from the castle, but wait, her baby!!! Is she still inside?!' she tried to get her legs to move, she had to help, she couldn't just stand here and watch as horror spread across the empire. But her legs wouldn't move an inch, as if they were glued to the ground. Her heart was beating rapidly and she felt sick, the ponies ran all around her and she couldn't move a muscle.
The world around her suddenly turned pitch-black, she breathed deeply and slowly looked around but there was noting there. The streets, the cafe, all ponies, everything was gone and when she looked ahead again she found herself in the middle of the Frozen North staring at the burning empire in the distance, the voice in her head that sounded exactly as Princess Cadance screamed:
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND!"
"Why didn't you help me?"
"I thought you liked me!"
"LIAR!!!"
Cadance found herself in Flurry Hearts' room, she looked around completely confused and tried to remember where she was or what she was doing moment ago. "What happened?" she asked listening to her own voice echo in the room. Flurry Hearts' room was surprisingly dark as if it was sundown. 'Did I fall asleep?' she wondered.
All of a sudden Cadance heard a baby crying. "Flurry Heart?" she asked and walked over to her crib only to find it empty. "Flurry Heart?!" she repeated in panic and started searching around the room. "Where are you?" she called desperately as the sound seemed to get more silent every passing second. 'Maybe she's outside?' she thought and ran out of the room. "Sweetie, where are you?" she followed the sound through numerous corridors of the crystal castle that now seemed more like a maze than her home, but she couldn't find her baby.
And all of the sudden... it was silent. There was no sound of any kind, no crying, no wind, only her own steps made noise that echoed loudly in the deserted castle. "Flurry Heart?" she tried again, "Shining?"
"They are not here..." the voice in her head told her.
"Not here...?" she asked cautiously.
"Not anywhere," the voice answered, "nothing's here anymore..."
"Nothing...?" the princess repeated as she slowly looked outside the nearby window at the wasteland that was supposed to be The Crystal Empire. "No... no, this can't be..."
"You failed..."
"I was supposed to protect them!" Cadance screamed as tears started falling down her face and her eyes turned green. 'This can't be real...'
"King Sombra has laid a lot of traps down here." Twilight pointed at the stairs that led down into what seemed to be deepest and the darkest part of the castle. "If it wasn't for Spike I would have been stuck in one of them for hours, maybe weeks, or even worse, the eternity, and failed to save the empire." She explained as shiver ran through her and her ears pinned back at the grim memory.
"What do you mean? What was it?" Princess Cadance looked down into the darkness worried that whatever is down there might affect them even if King Sombra is no more.
"It was a dark spell," Twilight answered, "it made me live my worst nightmare...
"Dark spell... My worst nightmare...
"Spell... Nightmare...
"Nightmare..."
"This isn't real." Cadance growled using her magic to try and break the spell. "This. Is. Not. REAL!!!" She shouted as the spell broke and she found herself back in the throne room. She tried to move her legs and wings but they were covered in thorn-like black crystals. Shining Armor was not far from her in the same state as she but he was still under the spell. She was about to call out to him but was interrupted.
"Impressive..." the all too familiar voice praised her followed by evil chuckle. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be able to simply break my spell on their own like you just did."
Cadance looked up glaring daggers at the grey unicorn dressed in the metal armor and red cape who was standing in front of her with her royal guards at his side. She knew that they would never betray her, she knew that King Sombra forced them to obey him using his dark magic, she could only hope he didn't hurt them in the process. "Sombra," she spat the name as if it was the most disgusting thing in Equestria.
"Princess." King Sombra replied in similar tone accompanied with a mocking bow. "It seems this isn't going to be as easy as I thought." He added with a grin levitating the Crystal heart in front of her.
"What have you done?!" Cadance asked staring at the black crystals that formed around it.
"Well we can't let you use its powers to destroy me again now can we," he laughed and added. "This does not belong to you 'princess'" He spat as his sclera turned green and purple smoke started flowing from his eyes. "Lets see how great you are without The Crystal Heart!"
Princess Cadance quickly used her magic to destroy the crystals that bound her to the crystal floor of the castle and dodged a beam of dark magic King Sombra shoot at her. She ran to the other side of the room and tried to get rid of the rest of the crystals that were on her wings, but King Sombra wasn't in the mood to wait for her. He tried hitting her with his dark magic again. "I'm not in the mood to play tag with you," he mocked her as she jumped around trying to avoid his attacks.
"Well neither am I!" Cadance replied and cast a shield spell hoping that it will give her enough time to free her wings. King Sombra easily shattered it with one attack but it was enough, she unfurled her big pink and purple wings and flew up in the air dodging his next attack. 'I need to go somewhere I can fight him without worrying about accidentally hitting Shinning,' she thought as she did a back flip in order to avoid incoming attack and flew over King Sombra out of the throne room.
"Trying to run away are we?" King Sombra laughed and went after her. "Don't let the other one escape!" he yelled to his (Cadances') guards.
'Good he is following me,' Cadance looked over her shoulder noticing a beam of dark magic on time to evade it. 'What do I do? Without the Crystal Heart I don't stand a chance against him!' she made a few turns and hurried through the stadium pathway praying it didn't get blocked or destroyed by the black crystals. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, luckily for her the path wasn't damaged. 'It should be easier to fight him in the open,' she flew out and waited for her enemy to arrive.
Not too soon after she stooped the dark unicorn stepped into the stadium. She didn't want to give him a chance to attack first so she fired a few magic beams at him but he was too quick and dodged them all. "So you're planing on fighting me, huh? I thought you got scared and decided to run away," he grinned.
Cadance frowned at the insult. "Like I would leave my family and subjects just to save myself! I am no coward and I am definitely not a monster who only sees her subjects as slaves and nothing more!" she yelled preparing another spell.
King Sombra turned his head a bit to the side and raised a brow. "Was that supposed to make me feel guilty?" he asked and used his magic to create and throw sharp black crystals at Cadance. "You reap what you sow, princess, they got what they deserved!" he growled.
Cadance successfully avoided the first three but fourth one cut her wing making her lose focus on her spell and fall down. "Agh!" she tried to ignore the pain and flapped her wings managing to keep herself from hitting the ground. Cadance lowered herself gently on the ground and examined her wound. It was not serious but she won't be able to fly as fast as before and dodge his attacks, which means it's time for ground combat. "They didn't deserve any of this! Stop making excuses for your actions!"
"You must really be enjoying this little game you're playing, pretending to be a princess of the empire you know nothing about!"
"It's true that I wasn't born here and that what I know about the empire's history comes from the books I found here," Cadance admitted, "but I know the ponies who live here, I saw their kindness, their happiness, their pain, their struggles, I saw what injustice was done to them! And I won't let you put them through such agony ever again!" she folded her wings and took a battle stance.
"Do you really think you can win this battle?" Sombra asked her as he hurled more crystals at her successfully hitting her and sending her flying over the field.
"Doesn't matter..." Cadance tried to get up, "...what I think..." she stood up on her shaky legs and started casting her next spell. "I'm the princess of The Crystal Empire and it is my duty to protect it!" she screamed and cast her spell which caused light pink and purple crystals to form around King Sombra like a prison.
"You've got to be kidding me," Sombra easily corrupted the crystals and shattered his prison. "Ha! Like such weak magic could possibly stop me," he levitated numerous sharp pieces that scattered around him and fired them at the princess who cast a shield spell to protect herself. The shield shattered but Cadance already finished preparing her next spell. She screamed as she swung her horn downward sending explosion of purple fire at King Sombra. "WHAT!!" he tried to dodge it but he was too slow and was blown back into the crystalline wall. "Damn you!" he growled and got up.
"Not so smug anymore are we?" Cadance mocked him. She had to admit sending that spawn of darkness flying into the wall felt gooood and she was certainly looking forward to doing it again.
"Maybe I underestimated you..." Sombra grinned.
"Spike! Spike! Have you seen The Magical Cures and Poisons Volume 7 somewhere? I can't find it and I looked everywhere!" Twilight galloped down the stairs of her castle's library. She was so happy when she discovered just how big her new library was, after all it did solve her 'too many books, too little space' problem. But finding that one book you need in such huge place was no easy task, too bad the library didn't come with the search option. "Spike?" she called again. 'Where is he?' she wondered.
She was about to call him again when her number one assistant rushed into the room looking like he just ran a marathon. "Twi-hueh-Twili-huff-Twili-phew..." he panted before collapsing on the floor.
"Spike! What happened?!" Twilight asked confused and helped him stand up again. Spike decided it is better idea to just hand her the scroll Princess Celestia sent few minutes ago and let her read it herself, speaking was no option right now. Twilight unfolded the scroll and read it.
"Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I don't have much time for explanations so I'll give you the details later. Now you must hurry to The Crystal Empire. King Sombra was not defeated like we thought and I'm afraid Cadance is in grave danger. I'm heading there myself. Hurry, there is no time to loose!
Signed, Princess Celestia"
She stared at the scroll in shock hoping that this was just a nightmare and she'll wake up soon, but she knew that was not the case and no matter how much she wanted it to be the opposite this was really happening.
"I must get my friends!" she said and levitated Spike on her back before running out of the library, "I hope Cadance is alright!"
Back at the Crystal Empire the battle continued for hours and neither side was willing to give up. The stadium was destroyed, the whole place was full of craters and few places have been burned by magic. The north wall of the stadium was no more, the pathway was just a pile of rubble and the black crystals were now 'decorating' the field on which Princess Cadance and King Sombra were standing.
Cadance could barely strand, her body was covered in scratches and bruises, her left front leg hurt so much it was pure torture standing on it. Her feathers were messy and a few were broken, her mane was a tangled mess and the tip of her tail was burned. King Sombra was in no better shape than she was and his eyes were back to normal but he still looked like he could go at it for hours, probably because he was used to fighting like this, she, on the other hoof, wasn't sure she will be able to stand for another five minutes.
"Why are you doing this?!" she asked trying to catch her breath.
"Like you'd understand," King Sombra replied and wiped the blood from his mouth. His eyes turned green again as he began casting another dark spell. "You can't win this fight! Why don't you just give up already?" he asked.
"Never!" Cadance growled and cast another shield spell.
"You leave me no choice!" Sombra yelled and fired a thunder spell at her, the shield she cast was too weak to protect her from the spell and she was sent flying across the stadium. King Sombra coughed a bit and slowly walked over to her unmoving body. She was still alive but unconscious and he assumed that she will stay like that for a few hours minimum, then again she was too stubborn for that and he didn't want to fight her again if she woke up earlier than expected so he used his dark crystals to form a prison-like structure that should be able to keep her imprisoned even if she wakes up and has enough energy to try to escape.
He examined his injuries and used what was left of his magic to heal a few more serious wounds before turning away and walking in the direction of the castle...