"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Sombra's back, he's back HE'S BACK!" Twilight hyperventilated as she and the other girls alerted the two princesses, who were also shocked to find out the Tyrant was back. The purple princess breathing into a paper sack.
"How is he back? Didn't you guys stop him ages ago?" Starlight asked the girls but also felt a twinge of fear knowing one of the most powerful stallions was back.
"Y-yeah. The heart was supposed to destroy him, how did he come back?" Fluttershy eeped as she and Pinkie Pie were hugging each other, both of them shaking to their cores.
Princess Celesta looked at her sister and then back at the others. "We don't know, I'm afraid we don't know the answer to that." She responded to the frightened ponies.
"Sombra is the last pony we thought we'd see again. Perhaps this was part of Blueblood's plan all along, to resurrect his father to aid in his revenge?" Luna theorized but she didn't know for certain.
"Let's not forget that Sombra easily got past defenses and kidnapped Rachel." Applejack reminded them, though there was another reason why she looked so nervous.
"If Spike comes back and finds out that she's been taken, we're all going to be dead cause he's gonna definitely kill us." Rainbow Dash gulped.
Starlight reached over and rubbed Twilight's back as the pony tried to control her breathing.
Suddenly, the doors in the throne room burst open as a male guard ran in. "Your highnesses!" Stopping right in front of the girls and knelt down before them. "There's an emergency!"
"OH COME ON!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "This has been a bad week!"
"What now?!" Twilight gasped, just as she had just got her breathing under control.
"What is it?" Celestia asked, alarmed.
"Ponyville has been attacked, buildings are up in flames, destroyed, and there are major casualties." He reported, it was clear to see he was distraught about this.
"WHAT?!" Twilight and her friends shouted.
"Did Sombra attack?" Twilight asked.
Applejack had her phone out as it was explaining to get a hold of her family. Fluttershy was making calls as well to her husband.
That's when the Guard turned to look at Twilight. He shook his head. "No, I'm afraid the reports said that the destruction was done by a dragon. A rather large dragon, Princess Twilight."
Twilight had to grip onto Starlight to keep herself up. "A-A dragon?"
Both she, Starlight and Applejack paled white with those words. AJ continued to try and reach the farm. Starlight grabbed her phone out as well and quickly tried to dial up numbers as well.
"Come on, pick up, pick up Apple Bloom. Now you don't pick up this stupid thing?" AJ ranted as she tried to get a hold of her sister before calling Big Mac.
"It's not Spike right?" Twilight asked. "There's no way. It has to be some other dragon that attacked again. L-Like Garble, right?"
"It was a purple and green dragon that breathed green fire…I'm sorry your highness." The guard muttered.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
"What? No no I-it's not him, it's not him." Fluttershy whimpered.
Applejack's phone did go off and she answered immediately. "Applebloom? Big Mac?"
"Oh my Celstia Applejack!" It was Applebloom and her voice was frightened.
"AppleBloom, what's going on?" AJ asked. "Are you and Mac okay?"
"Eeyup!" Big Mac's voice called out. "Sugar Belle is here too."
"Oh my gosh!" Applejack could hear her sister crying and her voice was shaking. "It looks like someone opened a portal to Tartarus because it's bad, it's really, really bad!"
"Guys, where are you?" AJ asked.
"Storm cellar underneath the barn. Along with what ponies we nabbed and we're waiting out…oh god the screams! W-we couldn't get everyone in time!"
"Bloom, where's Scoots?" RD asked.
"She's with Sweetiebelle. We're going around to those who were injured in the attack."
"Is Rarity with you guys?" Fluttershy asked.
"No, we haven't seen her."
"Guys, hang on tight, I'm coming to get you." Applejack said.
"We're fine, we haven't heard anything else in a moment." Big Mac said.
"Does anyone seen wh~"
A loud roar echoed outside, rattling the building itself.
Celestia and Luna teleported themselves and the girls out to a balcony to see what was going on.
Over the distance in a town not far from Canterlot, they could see smoke bellowing, the skies had turned a sickly green color and a large figure could be seen flying around.
"He's coming…" Celestia muttered with a hint of fear in her voice.
Twilight leapt on the railing and jumped, wings spread and she began flying towards the burning nearby town.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Starlight lit her horn and she teleported and reappeared in front of the princess, using her magic to give herself the ability to fly. "Where are you going?!"
"I'm going to get my brother!" Twilight shouted. "Whatever is happening, we have to help him. W-we have to stop him!" She tried to move but Starlight stopped her.
"You have to stay here!' Starlight said, grabbing her shoulders. "The girls and I will do what we can to stop him, but you have to stay here. You're too distraught."
"I can't!" She said before taking off towards the direction of the flames. Flying to help her brother.
"Dammit." Starlight grunted before going after her.
"We have to help!" Pinkie shouted.
"You girls go and help those who might be injured, we'll deal with Spike." Celestia said.
"How are you going to deal with a rampaging dragon?" Rainbow Dash asked, itching to go help. "We can stop him."
"Dragons experiencing greed are mildly harmless compared to those experiencing rage. We don't know at the moment what is making Spike act out the way he is, but we are planning to stop him by any means necessary." Luna said.
And by the tone Luna was using, it was not good.
Rachel's eyes slowly fluttered open as she let out a sharp groan. "My fucking head…" she moans, trying to move but her movements were restricted. Hearing soft sounds of what sounded like chains rattled. Sounds of distant screams and hellish cries echoed wherever she was and caused her to lift her head and saw the darkness around her.
Her eyes readjusted to the dark and she gasped out loud. Finding herself inside of a dungeon kneeling in the center of the room. She turned her head to see both of her arms were shackled, pulled back as far as possible, causing as much discomfort as possible.
"No! NO NO NO NO NO!" Rachel screamed in panic as she began to pull and tug on the shackles, trying to push herself up off her knees but was found unable to move. She screamed and pulled, causing her more discomfort.
She even had the idea of shooting flames at the shackles, trying to melt the metal off of her, holding the stream of blue flames that did cause the dungeon to light up. After a few bursts however, she found herself lost of breath. Rachel didn't have the experience nor endurance to keep the flames going constantly, her being so new to this. She got the right shackle to glow red before she ran out of fire.
Rachel pulled and pulled that shackle, hoping with enough tension it'll break.
Right idea, but not hot enough.
"FUCK!" Rachel screamed out when she couldn't break the chains.
"Frustrating, isn't it?"
Rachel for a moment stopped her frantic pulling to look up at the cell door.
Standing outside of the cell was none other than King Sombra. Rachel felt the fire inside her extinguished when she recognized the tyrant himself.
From the stories and what paintings she saw, how couldn't she recognize him?
"Oh shit…" She muttered.
Sombra let out a low chuckle before his horn lit up and shadow stepped in the cell. The light of the horn glowed a solid red but it let the two have some sort of light.
"Hello Rachel, glad to see you're awake."
Rachel's frantic methods turned to anger and snarled at him. "Let me go, you bastard!" She snapped and shot a small burst of fire at him.
He easily dodges her and taunts her with a chuckle. "Oh, how adorable! Truly interesting to see how a creature reacts when being bound. But honestly, Rachel, you must learn to control that temper of yours."
"How the hell do you know my name?" Rachel asked with a growl.
"I know a lot about you, my dear," he said. "My son has done some extensive research on you," he then tapped two of his fingers against his head. "You obviously came from the human world. You grew up in an abusive household, your mother mysteriously died in an unfortunate incident and you took the abuse provided by your father." He chuckled when he mentioned her mother and her death, causing Rachel to stiffen and choke on her words as memories of what she did replayed in her head. "You ran away to this world in order to leave your old life behind" He then leans in close to her face. "But we know we cannot run from the past, it always catches up."
Rachel tugged the chains with a snarl, trying to move away from him. "Son? Blueblood's your fucking son?"
That was something she didn't see coming.
"Was. You displayed such an aggressive force towards him. A rather entertaining show I might add." Sombra said. "Surprised that a wretched urchin like that brat survived this long without being beaten to a bloody mess, much less killed off." He shook his head. "However, needless to say he won't be a problem anymore, partially, I want to thank you for that."
"What do you want from me?" Rachel asked.
He smiled at her. "As I just said, I want to thank you. If you hadn't viciously attacked Blueblood the way you did, my ascension wouldn't come to pass." Sombra then reached out a hand towards her, went to touch her head.
Rachel reacted quickly, opening her mouth and latched onto him. Shaking her head as her teeth shredded the skin, tasting blood and attempting to bite his hand off.
Sombra howled in pain before pulling his hand back, feeling the muscle and bone crush when he pulled. A chunk of his thenar - one of the meaty parts of the hand was bitten off and was squirting blood.
Rachel spat the piece of meat back at him. "Don't fucking touch me!" She shouted as his blood dripped from her lips.
Sombra grunted and pants, his injured hand trembling as blood dripped to the concrete floor. His grunts and pants then turned into a laugh. "My oh my you are truly a savage beast. I can see why that dragon chose you as a mate." He smiled before raising his injured hand up.
Rachel snarled as she watched the hand wound begin to regenerate right in front of her eyes. The blood clotted up, the bloody arteries and meat grew in place where he was bitten and a layer of dark charcoal skin and fur covered it up. Appearing as if he wasn't ever bit.
"Spike is going to fucking kill you once he realizes that you have me." she spat at him.
That made the tyrant laugh harder. "Oh my dear, I don't think that's going to happen. As you can see." He then turned his hand where his palm was facing up to the ceiling, a small burst of black smoke appeared from his palm. A moment later a view of a town burning with green flames appeared. She could just make the Canterlot castle behind the black smoke. A view of a rather large dragon was on the ground, smashing a building with a swipe of his massive claws, when turning, smashing his tail into another.
Ponies scrambled and screamed as the monster was attacking. They were trampling on each other to escape, some were trying to pat fire off of themselves and others, signs of bodies lying in ruins or crushed by either fallen, burning debris or being stepped on by the dragon.
The color from her face drained as Rachel watched on. At first she didn't want to believe what she was seeing, however, in her gut she recognized him, from the various scars he sustained form Garble to that one scar on his chest when Bouncer stabbed him months ago.
"I'm currently the least of your concern. You're so called hero seemed to be a bit preoccupied." Sombra amusingly enjoyed the look on the girl's face.
"What the hell did you do?" Rachel whispered as she watched in horror to see Spike like this. It was hard to watch it go on.
Sombra let out another laugh. "As much as I would like to take credit for his change, alas it was not I who caused your dragon this." He said before waving the smoke window away. "Now, since I wasn't able to resume my reign without your assistance, I would like to give you a reward. A recruitment I should say."
"I'm sorry, what?!"
He nodded. "Your incoming draconic strength with your transformation and skills could prove me quite useful, once I deal with Sir Spike of course."
"Oh fuck off! I'll never in a million years ever join you! Let me go now!" Rachel demanded.
Sombra flashed Rachel a toothy grin, grabbing her jaw and forced her to look up at him. "I wasn't asking."
The sclera of his eyes turned green as a purple mist seeped from the corner of his eyes. Rachel tried to move her head but was unable to resist the gaze as both of her eyes matched his. "Let's see how long you can last…"
What seemed to be a moment later, Rachel felt herself falling, air escaping from her lungs before crashing on the hard ground below on her back.
"Ah-ha-ow!" Rachel groaned, her now free hands rubbed the hard floor as her eyes now adjusted to the new setting, seeing nothing but dark rumbling clouds, seeing a thick fog lingering everywhere.
She pushed herself up and rubbed the side of her head, freezing when she felt a familiar object. "Ears?" Rachel moves her hands on either side of the head to feel she had somewhat regular ears again, however she noticed her ears had pointed tips.
Rachel quickly looked at her hands and noticed several things. One: from what she could tell, she was somewhat human again with her nails still sharpened and long like dragon claws without her engagement ring. Two: Seeing her human tanned skin tone covered with long fingerless gloves that reached past her elbows. She then looked down and saw that her clothes had changed, wearing a high neck purple sleeveless tunic with gold collar with darker purple pants tucked under combat boots.
When she ran her tongue across her teeth, she still retained her sharp teeth.
"Okay this is not an okay situation." Rachel muttered before looking around, what she was in the distance freezes all the blood in her body.
About a hundred feet from her, Rachel recognized a tall two story brick building, all worn down and vacant, the only building for what she could see in what looks like a desolate wasteland.
It was Rachel's childhood home.
"Ohhhh this is not good." Rachel whispered as she got up her feet. Fearful to be back here all these years. Though she had a brief return to this place years ago, Rachel still was fearful of that building.
A rumbling sound caused her to turn her head and saw nothing by a large moving cloud of black smoke inching closer to her and the building. Hearing hellish screams coming from the moving shadows inching to her, consuming everything in its wake.
"Nope!" Rachel yelped as she turned and had no choice but bolted towards the home. Boots kicking up the dirt as she ran. "This has to be an illusion! This fucker is in my head!" She frantically babbled.
She ran up to the old dance studio that was on the bottom level, she gripped onto the knob and tried to open the door, however it was stuck.
Rachel then rammed her shoulder, using all her weight and rammed against the door. It took a few times before the door was busted open and she fell inside, colliding onto the old tiled floor before using her feet to kick the door shut. She scrambled up and grabbed what she could to barricade the doors.
"What the fuck am I doing? Barricading against that thing." She muttered to herself, but there wasn't anything else she could think of.
Her ears then began to pick up a sound. A sound that both confused and frightened her echoing around her.
It was the sound of a baby crying.