Fallen

Fallen
By: Justarandombrony

As she sat there surrounded by dark crystals, Twilight Sparkle could have sworn she heard the evil laughter of the corrupt King Sombra. She stood up and look around for the piece of crystal she had lost.

"The heart! Where is the crystal heart?" She asked.

"It's over here! It rolled over to me when you dropped it!" Spike responded dodging dark crystals sprouting from the ground.

"Don't move!" Twilight commanded. Spike grunted as the crystals kept growing around him. "You can move, just not toward me."

Spike stepped back away from the crystals; the stopped growing. Twilight tried to teleport out of the prison she was held in, but was surrounded by dark magic and teleported back into the crystal prison hitting the wall.

"How could I have been so foolish?" Twilight said as she tried to push on the crystals with no luck. "I was just so eager to get it; then when I saw it was going out side I..." She ran to the other side of her prison to try to push it. No luck.

"You have to get out of there Twilight!" Spike yelled at Twilight. "You have to be the one to bring the heat to Princess Cadence! And if you don't, you will fail Celestia's test!" Spike looked to the edge of the tower and saw the tell-tale dark magic of King Sombra.

"King Sombra is already attacking the empire." Twilight stated looking out of the crystal prison still holding her and seeing Sombra attacking. "He could reach the crystal ponies at any moment; reach Princess Cadence, my brother, my friends! There may not be enough time to let me escape."

Twilight's eyes lit up with realization. She looked over at her number one assistant, his claws in his armpits, dodging some crystals. He fell over barely missing some crystals. Spike looked up at Twilight.

"You have to be the one to bring the crystal heart to the fair!" Twilight announced.

"Me? But Twilight-" Spike started.

"Go!"

"But-"

"Go!" Twilight yelled putting emphasis on the "o".

Spike took his claws out of his armpits. They dripped with sweat. He quickly picked up the heart just in time to watch a massive dark crystal grow where the crystal heart had once been. He then turned and jumped out of the tower, and onto a platform. Massive dark crystals started to grow preventing him from going back. He could hear the cries of the crystal ponies as they watched in horror.

"Now don't y'all worry your yer' pretty little crystal heads." Applejack yelled to the crowd still at the fair. "The real crystal heart will be here any second!"

"I don't know if they believe you." Rarity whispered to Applejack.

"I don't know if I believe me." Applejack whispered back.

Just behind them, Princess Cadence's magic grew wary from exhaustion and fatigue. Her horn finally stopped producing magic with a final burst of the the shield. It then failed, falling apart showing the crystal ponies what truly lie behind the shroud.

"He's back! I can't take it! Ahhh!" a crystal pony yelled, running from the fair, right into a dark crystal that Sombra had advanced to. "King Sombra." the same pony said in almost a whisper. King Sombra then did something no one saw coming, he corrupted the poor crystal pony.

"I will serve you for all time." the same pony stated.

"My crystal slaves!" King Sombra announced to the ponies.

Meanwhile, Spike had tried to get down to the princess, but the crystals kept blocking his way. As a last resort attempt to halt their advance, Spike had tried to blow fire at the crystal. There was no effect. He looked out, a spire had grown. Spike jumped onto the spire of crystal just as some crystals grew to where he was standing.

"Hey, up here!" Spike yelled to the ponies below him.

"Spike?" Rarity asked as they all looked up, including Sombra.

"I got the crystal heart!" He yelled back.

"That is mine!" King Sombra yelled in anger as he dived into the ground, spreading crystals where he went.

Spike started running down the spire. It became a race to the chamber. Sombra became a dark crystal and started moving really fast toward Spike, who tripped and let go the the heart as he fell off of the spire.

"Spikey-wikey!" Rarity yelled in horror.

Shining Armor pick up his wife, Princess Cadence. She looked up and saw the heart nearing the king. Sombra lost his shadow form, but not his power over crystals as he continued to climb to Spike, who was falling. Spike tried to grab the heart, but missed. Shining threw his wife and she soared toward Spike, the heart, and Sombra. Seeing this Sombra reached out and one of his crystals grabbed the heart, right before the princess could. Spike was devastated.

As they landed they all heard laughing.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha ha! Aha ha ha ha ha!" to all of their horror, Sombra had the crystal heart. The heart suddenly turned dark and started sprouting dark crystals. "You fools! You think I could be defeated just like that? You are all going to suffer! Aha ha ha ha ha!" Sombra laughed.

"Nooo!"

"Help us!"

"He is going to enslave us all!" The crystal ponies yelled.

"How could this have happened?" Rarity asked horrified.

"I missed." They all turned to see Spike curled up in a corner. There were tears in his eyes. "I had one shot, and I blew it. I deserve what I get."

"Yes! All of you deserve what comes next, my slaves!" Sombra lashed out with his magic. It hit all of the crystal ponies corrupting them, twisting them. "You will never see freedom again! Aha ha ha ha!"

"No." Twilight Sparkle, who had been imprisoned all of this time, said. "No, no, no, no, no!" She tried everything she could, to no luck. She sat down in defeat. "I failed." she slumped over and wept silently.

Ascent from Darkness

View Online

Chapter II
Ascent from Darkness
By: Justarandombrony and Edward Brady

As the darkness engulfed the room and and the silhouettes of the guards slowly left view the only thing left behind was a light blue mare with crimson eyes inside a cage made of some type of crystal-like bars that had a seeming yellow glow to them. The room was dark and cold, and had a faint musty smell. There were stone walls and floors, and water dipped from the ceiling onto the cracked cobblestone floor below. The only furnishings were a sparse stone cot pushed up against one wall and a barred door leading into a dimly lit hallway. Similar cells ran down the length of the hallway as far as you could see. The armored figures shuffling around, occasionally striding up and down the corridor.

The blue mare slowly picked herself off the ground, she looked around and slowly approached the bars and reached out to touch them and received a shock as it pushed her back. As she lay on the ground trying to regain her strength a mysterious figure approached her from the corner of the cell.

“It’s no use. The bars have a draining field on them,” the stranger said. “The name’s Shadow by the way. I was once a guard to Princess Luna. Now just a prisoner of war, like countless others down here.” He motioned toward the other cells.

As she looked up at him the room was slightly swaying

“What’s your name?” shadow asked. She shook off the the confusion and looked at him

“Me, you don’t know me?” she quickly got to her feet. “Rainbow Dash. You know, R-a-i-n-b-o-w D-a-s-h. Like, the fastest flier, like, ever?”

Shadow thinks for a minute. “It does sound vaguely familiar...are you a friend of a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yeah, that egghead and I have practically been to the moon and back.” She replied, giving him a victorious grin.

“Oh, well it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Dash.” Shadow said as he made his way to one of the sides of the cage walls.

“We need to find a way out of here, I presume?” he asked, not making eye contact.

“Yeah. but where exactly is here?”

Out of nowhere, a loud voice yelled:

“Feeding time!”

“I’ll touch on that later once the guards are on break we can talk more about it, we don’t want raise any suspicion.” he says as he backs away from the side of the cell so that he may sit next to rainbow dash.

“For now, we eat.” he says, presenting a tray of gray squishy goop that the guards slid into their cell.

“Blah! What is that?!” Rainbow yelled in disgust.

“I like to call it dinner, but whatever will help you swallow it is fine,” he said with a slightly sly grin. As shadow starts to eat the gray substance with ease not pay much attention to rainbow dash who was looking at it as if it were to get up and start talking. she poked it and pulled her head away as she had seen it move

“Yeah.. I’ll pass.” saying this while she pushed the tray towards shadow, who shrugged and took it and started to devour it.

“You don’t know what you missing out on once you get passed the crusty bits and the plain close to no taste it not half bad.”

“Yeah sure whatever you say.” Rainbow Dash replied rolling her eyes.

As he finished his second helping he placed the trays next to the door. He looked down the hallway for a bit before walking back towards Rainbow. He sat close to her, and glanced at the door again before speaking. “Alright, the guards will be away for a few minutes, so I can catch you up on a few things you need to know.”

“What is...happening here?”

“King Sombra. He has taken over and forced thousands of us to do his slave labor in the crystal mines.” he said looking down at the ground as he reminisced more.

“It all happened back when we were assigned to help with the help protect the crystal fair, I was on my break with one of my good friends, Silver Shift. However, while we were enjoying our break, we noticed some of the townsfolk panicking and fleeing part of the city.

“When we went to investigate, there he was, followed by an army built to destroy an entire castle. We tried to fight them off, but knew we were hopelessly outnumbered. We were quickly overcome, and I was knocked unconscious. The last thing I remember was a pair of Sombra’s soldiers dragging Silver off towards an enormous mine. So, through this, I take it that we must be inside that mine being forced to gather crystals to fuel Sombra’s armies.”

After a short pause Rainbow asked: “So, what happened to Silver?”

Shadows facial expressions changed as he just looked at the ground once more but this time much more sympathetic.

“I don’t know, but I’d have to guess he’s in here somewhere, and I’ve got to find him. It’s my fault he was caught. It’s my job to get him out.” Shadow now looked enraged, but still trying to show a bit of calmness.

“Hey, don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find him.” Shadow looked up at her.

“I know,” he said. “but never mind that we need to focus on getting out of here.”

Suddenly the silence broke between them as cries of pain echoed through the corridors leaving a ringing in Rainbow Dash’s ears.