Diamond Dogs scrambled for their weapons and armor. Shouting, barking, and the clang of metal on metal made it almost impossible to think. This was not looking good; it was a darn long hike to the castle ruins, and traveling as an army would slow us down badly. Not for the first time I regretted that there were no horses-- the ridable kind-- to be had in this world.

I was looking over my dark-magicked timberwolves, trying to decide how many to bring for the raiding party, when I had a rush of brains to the head. With a quick yank, I magically disassembled them. Working quickly, I pulled a sizable pile of the pieces together and magically coaxed them to reassemble. In a few moments I had a new wolf standing before me, one that stood over four feet tall at the shoulder. Purple-green-black light bubbled from its mouth and eyes, and its wood was discolored from the magic I'd used, looking almost charred black.

Grinning to myself, I leapt onto its back.

Cursing and swearing, I leapt back off.

After several minutes of yowling, swearing, and pulling splinters and thorns out of my crotch, I added some tweaks to the spell. I shaped the wood on its back into a smooth saddle, added some reins made from rope, and tried again. Much better. Perfect, in fact. Thanks to my magic the TimberWorg (see what I did there?) was perfectly docile and obedient, and was so responsive to my lead with the reins that it was like it was reading my mind. I gave the enchanted pile of kindling a magical twist and push, and set it to spawning more TimberWorgs, slightly smaller to suit the Diamond Dogs.

By the time the 'dogs were ready, I had a hundred steeds ready for them. There were two hundred Diamond Dogs in our lair. Half would be riding with me. The other half, mostly bitches, pups, and the old, would be busy in the lair, following plans I had laid out for them. The 'dogs in armor weren't too thrilled with their new rides, but some blunt threats got them up and in the saddle. Their timberworgs weren't as responsive as mine-- I had the advantage of magical control-- but they were docile enough. We tore out of the lair and plunged into the woods, 'dogs and 'wolves baying at the moon, purple-black eyes burning like coals all around us as we raced through the twisted trees.

Man. We were so fricking metal.

I think I'll call mine "Deadwood."

By sheer dumb blind luck, we got there first. I blew open the double doors and we rode right inside. "Take the towers! Secure the battlements!" I shouted, pointing dogs off in different directions. "Skrag, Picknose, Droops, scout the perimeter! Skank, set dogs at every window! Stay in teams of three, people, and pick a password amongst yourselves, we don't need Changelings infiltrating! Runt, get some diggers and reopen the tunnel! And watch the skies, people-- changelings can fly!"

I rode Deadwood up to the battlements and began casting growth spells down the outside of the walls. Thick, thorny vines filled the ravine around us, turning it into a hellish moat. they began growing up the sides of the castle, plugging gaps in the walls and blocking off windows. I had to be careful to keep the vines from creeping into the crumbling mortar and pulling down the very walls I was trying to reinforce. Soon, I had turned the crumbling gap-faced ruin into a jagged, thorny fortress.

Once I had that done, I raced back down inside the castle to where Runt and his crew were digging out our painstakingly blocked tunnel  to the tree. It seemed stupid, but I had to do it; there had been other tunnels into the chamber, and although I had blocked them off, there was still the chance that Chrysalis might find a way through by some back passageway. And after all, what I had magically blocked off, someone else could magic clear again...

I was halfway through the castle when Runt's crew met me going the other way. They were yelping in terror and running like the devil himself was on their stumpy tails. Runt skidded to a halt in front of me. "Dark Lord! The tunnel--"

"What?"

"Ghosts, Master Vulcan! Dark evil ghosts!"

I didn't bother correcting him. It was Equestria, for all I knew there were such things as ghosts. I spurred Deadwood on and rode for the tunnel. Deadwood took the spiral staircase down in massive leaps, bounding from the stairwell on one side down to the other. I reached the bottom in seconds. Man can those 'dogs dig like the dickens; I could see they already had made several meters of headway into the loose stone.

I could also see why they had bolted. What I saw down there made the hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end.  A black, undulating cloud the size of a car was coiling through the air over the tunnel, probing at it from time to time with wispy tendrils. A feral growl was emanating from it. Not just a little growl either; it was a basso profundo rumble that I could feel in my bones. The last time I'd heard that, it was in an IMAX theatre, just before the lawyer in Jurassic Park got eaten. It seemed to be skimming around; bumping up against some invisible wall around the hole in the floor, jerking back like it was stung. I heard it hiss in frustration.

I pulled together some mojo and got ready to blast it. It stopped swirling around the tunnel entrance and coalesced into a ball about five feet across. A pair of glowing eyes formed. I got a bad shock there; the last time I'd seen eyes that color, I'd been looking at my own reflection. Then it spoke, in an echoing hiss:

"Cryyyyystalllllssssssss......"

Okay, brain, time to do a google search: "Villains," "Equestria," "Smoke Monsters" and "Crystals." Ding, one entry: KING SOMBRA. Evil unicorn wizard king, ruled Crystal Empire, enslaved the Crystal ponies (note: not made of crystal, flesh and blood with sparkly coats) and defeated by the Princess of Love, Cadence. Hobbies include staircases, turning into a cloud of smoke, enslaving the world and crystals. Wild guess; he wasn't quite defeated as they thought (oh what a surprise) and is here for the Crystal Tree, presumably to recharge his batteries and resume conquering the world or destroying it or destroying it and THEN conquering it.

Smite him down smite him down

invader trespasser thief how dare he

make the usurper beg for mercy

Like hell he was. I wasn't going to be the slave of a giant bug, and I wasn't going to be the slave of some pony fartcloud who thought he was Lord Voldemort. "SOMBRA!" I roared, throwing some serious bass in my voice.

A face formed around the eyes; grey and horselike, with long pointed fangs and a blood red horn. "Ah, the creature who found the Alicorn Amulet," it said, looking at me. "My subjects told me of you. I came to the Everfree to wrest it from your undeserving grasp... Imagine my surprise when I find a far greater treasure hidden at the bottom of your lair. I can feel it, the power calls to me from below...the ringing symphony of crystallllllsssss, brighter and more powerful than---"

I interrupted his monologue with a fireball to the face. It passed right through him harmlessly, splashing against the far wall.

He laughed mockingly at me. "Petty little creature, did you think I was so vulnerable as--"

I cut him off with a second fireball. This one was on a timed fuse and exploded inside him, splattering his vapors all over the room. He remained splattered for a few seconds, then regrouped. He swirled back together, seething. "You DARE--"

"Begone, trespasser," I said, flicking another ball of darkfire at him. He dodged this time.

"I will return ere this day is through," he snarled. "And claim what is mine. You will rue defying me!" He swirled about and zipped away, disappearing like a silk scarf up a magician's sleeve. The moment the last of his smoky self was gone I started slapping every magical ward and bubble I could around the perimeter of the room. I then started frantically clearing the tunnel to the Tree, running over the facts as they stood:

What DID I know, if anything?

Okay, I knew Chrysalis and Sombra BOTH were coming for the Crystal Tree. they were two defeated tyrants who had their power crushed and their armies scattered, trying to rally and make a comeback. They were at the nadir of their power which meant I had a fighting chance. I had the alicorn amulet, which meant I had (allegedly) the same level of power at my disposal as Celestia or Luna... or at least Cadance or Twilight Sparkle. So we were probably all at about the same level of firepower here.  If they teamed up and decided to cooperate, I was in trouble. Were they likely to do that?

Okay, put yourself in their shoes. Hooves. Whatever. You're Chrysalis, you're basically a cross between a pony, a cockroach, and a succubus. Your species gets by on trickery, deception, and the occasional usurpation from within. You probably get your rocks off on pulling the wool over other people's eyes. Can changelings imitate anything other than ponies? What other abilities do they have? Guess I'm about to find out. But I figure you're going to either go for infiltration or deception.

You're Sombra. You enslaved your own people and ruled over them by brute force. My guess is that you don't DO subterfuge. You got your ass blasted to dust by the Crystal Heart. You're now physically powerless and probably barely clinging to life--- Voldemort in a pony suit, basically. It's gotta be driving you nuts, being dependent on whatever minions you have for even the littlest thing. In fact you're basically trying to pull off a reincarnation, trying to find enough crystal-based magic to give yourself a new body a la "Goblet of Fire." God help my skinny ass if you succeed. The minute you get ahold of a hammer, everything in your way is gonna look like a nail.

Big clue: He was here himself. Poking around as an intangible smoke cloud probably made searching this booby-trapped dump easy, but I didn't see Sombra inconveniencing himself too much. Ego freaks like him don't like being far away from their thrones or from flunkies they can boss around. So his current seat of power was probably somewhere close.

Chrysalis, on the other hand, had sent a spy. And the spy had gone to the trouble of infiltrating a group of ponies miles away from her final destination. Either it was dumb luck the spy ended up here (not likely; the traders had said it was her idea to take a shortcut through the Everfree), or Chrysalis had gotten word of the Great and Terrible Darth Vulcan and decided to put out feelers (har har.) Chrysalis was therefore most likely in a distant and secure location, and would move at her convenience.

By the time I had reasoned this all out, I had cleared out the tunnel down to the Tree's chamber. It had gone depressingly quick; that just underlined that plugging up the caves with rock wasn't going to be enough. I stalked over to the Tree, cursing, trying to think up some sort of defenses to put up around the chamber--

--and suddenly felt myself flung backwards across the cavern. I landed hard on the stone floor, denting my armor. Again. After a whole night of pounding the dents out... argh.

I got to my feet slowly and shook off the stars floating around my head. A force field of some kind? Was the tree defending itself? Carefully I walked forward; when I got within a few yards of the tree I started feeling resistance, almost like walking into a powerful wind... and a burning sensation on my skin, like I was being sleeted with stinging nettles. I found myself leaning against it, almost sliding back. I made another step... another two.... and the field surged again, flinging me back.

I kept my feet this time, and stood there shaking off the burning and stinging sensation while I regarded the Tree. Oh yes, it was defending itself all right. And it apparently didn't like me very much. I could almost feel a sort of hostility rolling off it towards me. I guess it didn't care for my charming personality. That was probably why Sombra couldn't just slide his smoky way in; if the tree repulsed me, then it probably repelled Pony Hitler out there a thousand times harder.

It would make sense that this was why noone had touched it in all this time. Maybe I wouldn't have to defend the tree at all. Maybe it could defend itself?

That hope sort of fizzled away in the next second. I could get this close; Chrysalis or Sombra could probably figure out a way to get past its defenses too. And even this close was too close for comfort. Not only that, but when the tree had repelled me, the light coming from it had dimmed. Even now it was fading in and out a bit.

Curious, I crept closer. Close as I could, in fact. At the very edge of the repelling force, I could see it: the tree had pieces missing. One, two, three... I counted six gaps in the tree, hollow places with very familiar shapes. The star-shaped one in the middle looked especially familiar.

Then my memory flashed back to six little ponies wearing six little pieces of flashy magical jewelry, and I realized just why the tree seemed so weak. Yeah, maybe it was a leap, but when you spend a week or two seeing someone walk around with six super-charged magic batteries around their neck, and then you find a magic Macguffin with six suspicious gaps in its superstructure... let's just say noone with any experience playing puzzle side-quests on their Nintendo would be struggling to figure it out.

Naturally. They had plucked the components of their Orbital Friendship Beam from this tree, leaving it weakened and vulnerable... and never thinking to put them back. And just as naturally, the consequences were landing right in MY lap.

I fumed and raged to myself about idiot ponies.... but when I finally calmed down a little, I thought it over and I started to grin. This was actually... perfect.

About an hour later, a black tarball of magic whisked through the skies of Equestria. It flew to Canterlot, swifter than any pegasus, more agile than any guided missile, passing through the tortoise-like defenses of the mountain city and homing in on the castle. It zipped through the marble halls of the palace and stopped dead in midair in the center of the throne room, eliciting shrieks of terror from every pony present and even causing Celestia herself to leap to her feet, wings outspread in alarm.

With laborious precision the inky purple-black spell unfolded its intricate layers, taking the form of a ghostly rendition of Equestria's newest peril: Darth Vulcan. The translucent, glowing image towered over everypony there, the tips of its horns brushing the ceiling. It looked down at the gaping Princess of the Sun and spoke.

~Greetings, Princesses.~

~I am DARTH VULCAN, Master of the Everfree and soon, Master of ALL I survey.~

~I wield the Alicorn Amulet. I have claimed your forest, and your castle. I have now laid claim to the Tree.~

~Come to the Castle of the Royal Sisters.~

~Bring your crowns, bring the Elements, and surrender them to me before the sunset...~

~OR SUFFER MY WRATH.~

The figure disappeared with a deafening roar and a blinding flash of light. Mass panic ensued. Heedless of the pandemonium around her, Celestia called out:

"Guards! To arms! Summon your commander. Awaken Princess Luna. We fly for the Everfree!"