If you've watched the Fairly Odd Parents then this should seem pretty familiar to you. Just a weird thing I thought of, and it could make sense, considering how he has the shortest speaking lines of any main villain we've encountered throughout the entire six seasons.
I own nothing. MLP: FIM and all its content belong to Hasbro. I don't own the cover image either.
Enjoy the story!
The sky was dark the color of brackish, polluted waters. The ground was broken with large, black crystal growing up jaggedly from the ground below, marring the once pristine and smooth, colorful roads and buildings. The inhabitants of the now frightful land were in panicked state of mind, now that their old threat had returned once again to resume terrorizing and enslaving them all in their homeland.
And in the midst of all it, near the empire's center castle, a dragon fell freely through the air, desperately trying to reach the falling Crystal Heart just feet below him before the tyrant shadow king, Sombra, ascending on a platform of dark crystals below, reached it first. It seemed bleak for the dragon, trying to keep the Crystal Heart from descending into darkness once more and an empire becoming dark again after just seeing the light again after a thousand years.
Then all of a sudden, something shot out between the two beings and swiftly caught the heart and dragon before Sombra could reach them. The dark king stared in shock at where the heart-shaped gem had been falling above him before his red, diamond-slitted eyes focused on the flying pink alicorn carrying both projectiles.
The mare turned in flight, changing course towards the tower. Sombra let out a snarl, revealing his fanged set of teeth and a snake like tongue. As the alicorn passed over head, his platform quickly elevated, sending him up higher and in-between the destination of the mare's course.
Unfortunately for him, the glowing Crystal Heart suddenly was lifted up, out of his grasp once more. He growled in defeat as it once again was beyond his reach, but then quickly realized the other flying projectile. He barely had time to react as the pink alicorn suddenly smashed into him at high speeds, sending him falling off his platform along with her and her passenger to the ground below.
The three of them freely dove through the air, before the mare lit up her horn and sent an aura around herself and the baby dragon, pulling him closer towards her as her magic grew stronger and stronger as it slowed down the speed of their descent. Sombra, however, had less of a strong grasp on his magic, so his aura over himself was weaker than hers and by the time he had gained enough energy over himself he had crashed into the ground below, bringing up several shard of crystal and dust in the crater he created.
Out of the airborne dirt and shards of shattered stone flew out something red and it landed beside the dent in the earth where it was clearly seen. The now stable alicorn and dragon caught sight of it as they flew lower to the ground.
"Yuck! Wait.. what? What is that thing," asked the dragon on her back. Their eyes were turned to the side where a red fragment of a crystal lay. Near the most jagged side of the gem, the entire base was black, fading into the red. Black veins came up, contrasting deeply against the fiery, crimson red that seemed to have a menacing feel to the color.
"A-a crystal," he asked out loud. Their ears the picked up the sound of coughing behind her and they turned to look, only to be met with a surprising scene.
In place where Sombra had been was a raggedly-breathing unicorn. His fur was the same color as the stallion that was there before him, but seemed a bit lighter grey infact. Where Sombra had also had a black mane and tail of flickering shadows, this one had a long, black mane that fell all over his head neck and shoulder in long locks. His horn was a straight, grey, curled one, unlike the red blade protruding from his head. By his armored legs was a thin, grey band, a horrific, pointed crown made for a tyrant king.
The stallion was panting heavily on the ground, but even with the few missing parts of his appearance, she noticed that he still had many of the similar traits that she had seen belonging to...
"Sombra," she called out softly. The stallion tensed and then looked up at her. Both if them held their breath, expecting to be met with a par of enraged, slitted eyes, only to release it in shock as a pair of dazed, medium green eyes with unfocused, rounded pupils looked up at them.
"T-thank... y-y-you," he said exhaustedly, dipping his head down, his chest shaking with each intake. The alicorn princess dipped down and landed, though she was still a few feet away from him. The Crystal Heart was back in her possession, yet held high above him, incase he tried to reach for it again.
"S-Sombra," she asked out loud, receiving a shaky nod from him.
"Y-Yes," he panted out. He lifted up his hoof and wobbly pointed towards the crystal laying beside him. "Finally, now that thing is out I have been restored back to normal."
"Wait... so... this whole time you've been influenced by that stone all this time," she asked confusedly. Another nod.
"Yes. Over a millenia ago, I was out exploring the outer reaches of the Crystal Empire when I stumbled upon a cave in the ice. I went down and discovered that crystal of what you see now down in the deep recesses of the cave. I thought it would be interesting to bring back home, but I had not yet to learn what properties the gemstone held. When I reached out to grasp it, a sudden tremor struck the cave and I stumbled forward into it. My mouth had opened to let out a yelp and the crystal had lodged itself down my throat. But as I got up, as I would later find out, the tainted crystal was one of the darkest objects in all the land and all who owned or even touched the crystal would be influenced by its dark magic. The stone had filled me with a darkness so evil that when I returned home I took over the Crystal Empire, enslaved all those who lived their before finally being banished for a thousand years," he explained sadly, casting his eyes down in shame and regret.
"So, all this time you were choking on that crystal and it is what influenced you to become evil," the dragon said. "That explains why you didn't say much."
"Indeed, but now that you have dislocated the rock out of my throat, I am back to normal and I most humbly thank you for it, my princess and scaly friend," he said, dipping his head respectfully down before her. Cadance blushed modestly and Spike rubbed the back of his head bashfully, before the three of them heard the sound of cracking nearby. Three pairs of eyes turned to the crystal nearby, and to their shock and dismay, saw that it was now boiling with dark energy and violet tentacles were starting to shoot out from the dark shadow it was casting around it.
"Quick, you must destroy the stone. The love of the Crystal Heart, it's enough to banish the darkness away, but you must do it quickly," Sombra ordered, gaining enough strength to get onto his legs and take shaking steps away from the ever growing dark portal from the tainted gemstone.
Cadance suddenly lifted up again, carrying the glowing Crystal Heart with her. The bleak and despaired looking crystal ponies started murmuring in amazement and awe as the alicorn flew over their heads, even one calling out and declaring her as the crystal princess. Cadance finally landed in the midst of them, breaking up the false, already broken replica of the heart before addressing the crowd.
"The Crystal Heart has returned. Use the light and love within you to ensure that the darkness does not." Her magic flung the stone, sending it at the very center of the empire where to pointed, cylindrical crystal from both the ceiling and ground sprung up and pulled it in between the two.
Instantly everypony was lit up to their glittering, happy state once more and they dipped their heads to the ground, letting the energy of their light and love inside of them come out and go to the core of their city. A glowing blue light spread out throughout the snowflake-shaped roads and illuminated everything in its path.
Sombra smiled as he felt the light wash over him for the first time in over a millenia. As it touched him, his fur instantly came aglow as well and sparkled as he felt his heart rejoin with all that he had missed all those years ago. The darkness was right next to his hoof, ready to try to reclaim him once more, but there was a smile on his face as he shut his eyes and dipped his head into the ground, letting his energy join with the others.
All in a second, the energy flooded back, into the core of the heart. The gem glowed brighter than ever before and suddenly spun quickly around as a wave of light shot out and flooded throughout all the land and covered all its inhabitants.
The black, jagged crystals that covered the Crystal Tower like ivy on a wall suddenly cracked and was shot away once the energy blasted them. The light grew brighter and more powerful, like the sun above as it banished the darkness away, from the sky above to the very edges of the kingdom. The tower in the middle lit and from its tip came a multitude of glowing ribbons in many bright colors that flowed and contrasted greatly against the sky.
The Crystal Empire had been restored to glory once more.
"Are you sure Sombra will be... okay now," Twilight asked as she and her friends walked towards the train station that would take them back to Canterlot. Cadance smiled and nodded before taking quick glance at the grey, unicorn stallion walking slowly behind them, escorted by two crystal guards on either side of him.
"I'm positive now that the darkness has been removed from him that he will be... useful to the empire's rebuilding of regular life. After all, he has begged forgiveness and has offered to help in any way he can to help ease the pain he has caused for all the years he ruled, so I am very sure he will not cause any trouble as he lives here," she replied. Twilight nodded, yet her face still looked unsure. Shining Armor then joined up beside her and the two fell into discussion of another topic.
As the seven of them departed back to Canterlot, Cadance walked back over to Sombra and dismissed the guards surrounding him. The stallion looked up at her, his face humbled in her presence.
"Whatever you have in store for me your highness, I will readily do it. Just give me the command," he said respectfully. Her face stared decisively at him, before a kind smile came onto her face.
"Very well then. Your first assignment in your acts of service to the Crystal Empire will be to begin your journey to discover what friendship is again," she ordered. His face twisted in confusion, before he let a smile also grace his face and nodded at his princess.
"I will start right now, your majesty. I promise I will not let you down," he replied and dipped his head down again in respect. Cadance smiled.
"Don't say it, let me see it. I trust you will redeem yourself of your past mistakes, but let me first see that you are willing to put it all behind."
I saw the page of a MLP comic recently and actually saw a unicorn Sombra having a conversation with a red, very evil-appearing and sounding crystal, but just for the record I had this idea myself. I only found out about the comic page after I went to look for pictures of Sombra online. The comic page you see in the cover image above is the one that was the one I found. I thought it suited my story perfectly, despite my theory that his transformation was probably more accidental then intentional.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the story. Please leave with some very much appreciated feedback and feel free to check out some of my other stories. Sincerely, v.t.7