He wishes to see you, and you alone.

Princess Celestia’s voice seemed to echo inside Twilight Sparkle’s head as she walked. With every step, a thousand dull reflections strode alongside her, moving along the surface of the black crystal that covered the tunnel walls.

But why? she had asked.

You are a seeker after knowledge, came the answer. He has some that he wishes… preserved.

Twilight shivered and shook out her wings, then brought them sharply back against her sides. The air in the cave was bitterly, painfully cold, and even that brief moment’s exposure had left her sides feeling icy. Her breath fogged before her with every shuddering gasp she took.

You’re sure it’s safe?

No. That is why I have left this decision up to you.

This variety of crystal, she knew, was called “morion”. It was a sub-variety of smoky quartz, which was itself simply normal quartz that had formed with an unusual amount of free silicon in its structure, giving it an opaque, grey coloration. It was not supernatural, and far from inherently evil. She had written a report on it during the second year of her studies with the Princess.

If he’s been weakened-

Then he remains one of the most ferociously intelligent… entities… to ever live.

She couldn’t seem to recall how that report had gone now. Funny, that. She had always prided herself on her memory for such things.

Be careful, Twilight.

The crystals jutting from the walls were so black that they failed to refract the light from her horn at all. They simply reflected it back at her like a thousand broken mirrors.

She had long since lost track of how long she had been walking, but finally, after an eternity of cold and darkness and distorted reflections, she turned a corner and found her destination.

The light from her horn was not bright enough to illuminate much of it. The darkness ahead of her seemed to drink and deaden the glow, as if she were surrounded by a sea of ink rather than a simple absence of light, and the cavern was so large that she couldn’t even make out the ceiling, let alone the other side.

But it was not empty. The light from Twilight’s horn failed to reveal anything ahead of her, but she knew that the cavern was not empty. There was an inescapable, undeniable sense of pressure in the blackness. This was not the darkness of Equestria. This was an old darkness, an ancient, primeval thing. This was the night of the deepest oceans, where light was crushed out of existence by a world that was affronted by its presence.

For several seconds there was no sound but the ragged, uneven panting of her breath in the air and the rush of blood in her ears.

Then, in the distance, a low, deep thrumming began. It was weak at first, but grew stronger with each pulse of its rhythm, as if a great engine were being stoked into life. It was not, in actuality, a sound, but something that Twilight felt within her mind. It wasn’t real. It nearly deafened her all the same.

It was the telltale throbbing of powerful magic. Twilight could feel it rising up, gathering in the distant expanses of the cavern.

She took one step back, then stopped, quivering and staring wildly into the darkness. Her mouth opened. No sound came out. She shut it, closed her eyes, and wished fervently that she were somewhere else.

When she opened her eyes again, she was not alone.

Wicked, gleaming fangs bared in a malefic mockery of a smile. A twisted, unnatural horn, black at its base, stained with a dull, rusty red towards the tip. A broad, angular face that might once have been considered handsome, before it had been so twisted by the malice beneath. A coat as grey as ash, the color of crushed stone. The gleam of burnished metal armor. A cloak of bloody crimson.

And, above it all, a pair of eyes that shone with acid-green light around viciously red irises, that seemed to smoke and hiss with toxic power, that promised violence and the enjoyment of it.

Twilight felt her heart skip one beat, then another, before it finally fell back into any sort of rhythm. At the same time, she forced herself to release the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

King Sombra.

“Princess.” His voice was a deep, bassy growl, filled with undertones of twisted amusement. It was the voice of a jungle predator watching its prey. It was a voice that knew full well the kind of terror that it engendered, and reveled in every second. “Such a pleasure. It’s been a while.”

Through every word, those eyes stayed locked on her own, pinning her with his gaze.

Twilight straightened up and, slowly, forced her expression to change from a frozen grimace to icy, imperious calm. Then she nodded once.

“You called for me.” Somehow, she managed to keep her voice from shaking.

“Indeed I did,” said the stallion. The smile widened, became a parody of a grin. “Though I must admit I wasn’t expecting you to actually be willing to come alone. You must be quite confident in yourself to walk into this cavern undefended.”

One of Twilight’s wings twitched. She ignored it. “You lost most of your power when we took the Crystal Heart from you,” she said. “You can’t intimidate me.”

“Can’t I, now?” Sombra’s grin shifted, became a crooked, mocking thing. That tone of cruel amusement never left his voice. “If that’s the case, why are you shaking?”

Twilight clenched her teeth and hissed, “Because it’s cold. Don’t get any ideas, Sombra. You’re not as strong as you were before, and I’ve only gotten stronger.”

She pushed a little more magic into her horn, and the light swelled, bringing the stallion into sharper focus. “I’m the one in control here,” she said. “Not you.”

The only answer from Sombra was a slightly raised eyebrow and a deep, gravelly chuckle. “Really?” He took a step forward. Even with the growth that her body had been going through since becoming an alicorn, Twilight still felt dwarfed by his presence.

“Tell me,” he rumbled. “Do you feel in control?”

She flinched. It was instinctual, utterly beyond her control. Her ears flattened against her head, her legs bent slightly, and she felt her muscles tense. She opened her mouth to speak again, but her vocal cords betrayed her once again. All she could do was stare.

He gave a short, sharp laugh, then turned away from her and began walking off into the darkness. “A word of advice, Princess,” he called over his shoulder. “Before you claim you are in control of a situation, make certain that you are in control of yourself.”

Twilight shook herself, then straightened up and set off after him. For a moment, she slipped into a trot, instinctively trying to catch up. Then she caught herself and settled into a sedate, unhurried walk that was just fast enough to keep Sombra at the edge of the light cast by her horn.

When she spoke again, she sounded steady, self-assured, as befitted her title. “So what is it that you wanted to show me?”

“Several things,” said Sombra. He didn’t bother looking around, or slowing his pace. “I have been told that the scholars of your kingdom know almost nothing of my empire. Worse, they know nothing of me. I wish this corrected.”

Twilight huffed and glared at the back of his head. “So you called me here just to appease your ego?” she said. Despite the fear, she felt indignation bubbling up from within her chest. “Well, I’m not at all sorry to tell you that nopony is going to be interested in hearing you talk about how great you are. You’re just another bully. We’ve got plenty of you.”

Sombra stopped walking, but still didn’t turn to face her. Twilight stopped as well, and for a moment, the two of them simply stood there, a little island of light in the sea of black.

“‘Just another bully’?” Sombra’s voice was quiet, but still carried that same note of amusement. “Is that what you think? That I am just another petty tyrant? An unruly foal on a larger scale?”

“Yes.” Twilight paused for a moment, startled by the sudden strength in her voice. “That’s all you are. That’s all any of you ever were, for all your ego. You were never anything special, Sombra.”

“Wasn’t I?” Now Sombra turned his head, and one of his eyes found her. His fangs gleamed in the light from her horn. “Aren’t I? I believe it is time for the first exhibit, Princess.” He looked upward, into the gloom overhead. “Why don’t you push that light spell a little harder, and see where you are?”

She stared. Then she, too, looked upward. A moment later, a miniature sun burst into life above their heads, bathing the cavern in a brilliant violet light. It only lasted a moment, but it was enough.

Great, sweeping seas of black quartz, grown over the natural rock of the cavern. Spires of twisted ebony larger than houses, reaching down towards her like grasping claws. A thousand reflections of herself, scattered through infinity.

And the shadow, Sombra’s shadow, that didn’t flow like it should but instead reached out and up and connected him to the great mass of glistening black…

As the light faded, Twilight felt her gaze dragged back to the thing in front of her.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “This - this is all you.”

“And now you begin to understand,” said the construct. There was another flash of gleaming fangs as it smiled. “I was never ‘just another bully’, Princess. I am much, much more than that.”

She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on his body, but her gaze was directed at something that only she could see. “The crystal,” she murmured. “You used it to - you turned yourself into-”

“Quite,” said Sombra. He turned to face forward and began walking once more. “A mortal body was not enough, and I was always skilled with crystal magic. This was a rather elegant solution.”

Twilight started after him, still wearing that same thousand-yard stare. “But the sheer power this would take… Nopony could manage that. Not even Celestia. Not without something to amplify-”

She stopped. A moment later, her gaze snapped back into focus, and she was glaring at the back of the stallion’s head. “Is that what you did it all for?” she said. The anger was rising again. “Is that why you enslaved and tortured an entire civilization? Because you wanted this?”

Sombra chuckled. Once again, he didn’t even look back at her. “Not quite.”

“Then why?” Twilight sped up, dashed forward to overtake him and block his path. “You say you’re not just a petty bully, but all I see is somepony whose ego made him abuse his power to become immortal.”

Sombra raised an eyebrow. After a moment, he said, quite calmly, “That is because your entire view of my empire is based on a lie.”

Twilight blinked, but said nothing. She simply waited.

“The Crystal Heart,” said Sombra. “Tell me. Do you really believe that it has any kind of power to protect?”

“What?” She blinked again. “Of course it does. That’s why it beat you.”

He snorted, then started forward again and shouldered past her. Her body stung with the cold of his touch. “Your civilization endured for over a thousand years without its ‘protection’,” he said flatly, as she turned to follow him again. “And you all emerged none the worse for wear. No. It does not protect.”

Twilight frowned. No trace of anger or fear remained now. She was thinking too hard to be afraid. “But History of the Crystal Empire-”

“Was written by fools who were fed the same lie that you were.” Sombra laughed derisively. “The Empire was built to contain the Crystal Heart’s power. It does not protect. It is a door to a realm containing unfathomable, dark power, and left to its own devices, it will open. Slowly, but it will still open.”

“Then filling it with positive emotions,” said Twilight slowly, “just shuts the door, while negative ones open it wider. All the rituals, the legends about it protecting the Empire, were just to keep it closed.”

Sombra grinned again, and this time there was a satisfied edge to it, as if she had passed some test.

She ignored him. There was excitement in her voice as she went on, the same excitement that she always felt when she reached the end of a puzzle. “And you used its power,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “You used it to power your transformation into… into this-” she waved a hoof at the darkness “-and when the door shut, all of your power was taken away.”

Then the rush of gratification drained from her as reality came back.

Sombra had stopped, but there was something else present now. It was a mass of crystal, far too large for her to make out the extent of it.

And, in the center of the morion, something else glittered.

“Exactly,” said Sombra. His teeth were bared again, but this could not be called a grin. “And so I am reduced to this, a crippled remnant of my former self. So long as your civilization endures, I will remain a prisoner - but I will not be forgotten.” His eyes flashed. “You will tell my story.”

Twilight felt the sense of pressure building around her once again. Vertigo washed over her in waves. She fought to remain steady as she looked up at him.

“What story?” she asked.

The puppet in front of her offered no answer, but she could feel the magic shift around her. A single thread of it reached outward from the crystals - from the single clear quartz at its center. It snaked its way through the air, invisible to all senses except her magic, and moved towards her.

She took a step back, but it stopped of its own accord and simply hung there, waiting. She glanced to the side, towards the Sombra that she could actually see.

“A memory,” he said simply. “That is all.”

Twilight paused for a moment, watching him. Then she turned back towards the crystals, shut her eyes, and reached out.

Armies. Legions of twisted, misshapen things from beyond the mountains. Cities reduced to charnel houses. Soldiers, loyal to the last, dying bravely and oh so pointlessly, bleeding for every inch of ground lost.

The sensations were jumbled, disjointed, flashes of emotion and concepts rather than images. She saw nothing, heard nothing, but she remembered everything, the same way she remembered a childhood nightmare. The words remained, but the music behind them was gone.

“A king must give his life to his people.”

A weapon, one with limitless power but unconscionable cost.

“And when your life is not enough…”

An ultimatum. Those that accepted became his weapons; those that refused died heroes.

“...you must give all that you are.”

Twilight opened her eyes. She was shaking again. She couldn’t control it. She didn’t try.

“You-” She swallowed, tried again. “You did it to save them?”

The puppet shrugged.

She didn’t look at it. Her gaze had gone distant again, staring at something that wasn’t there. “And they could never know,” she murmured. “They had to hate you. You - you tortured them, but you kept them alive…”

She shuddered. “They think you’re a monster.”

Sombra smiled that disparaging smile again. “They’re right.”

“You’re a hero,” said Twilight, as she turned to face him again. “You saved them from-” the sensation ran through her mind again, and she fought the urge to vomit “-from that.”

Suddenly, Sombra was in front of her, towering over her, gazing down at her with his toxic-green eyes. “A hero?” he said. Every word dripped disdain. “I did not call you here for forgiveness. I neither need nor desire it.”

Twilight shrank into herself as he continued, every word gathering strength as his voice rose. “I am a creature of fear and hatred, of avarice and spite. I devised tortures the likes of which you cannot even begin to fathom, and I revel in each and every one. I chose this path knowing full well where it led. I offer no apology. I did not call you here - you, a petty upstart who imagines herself better - to beg for absolution. I do not want sympathy. I seek your understanding, nothing more.”

He spun away, faced the mass of crystal again. Twilight stared at silently, shivering in the cold.

“Is that it?” she asked quietly, after a while. “Is that really all you want?”

Sombra gave a harsh bark of a laugh. “Do not think yourself wise enough to understand me,” he said. “I have told you what I desire. I wish to be remembered. You are one of nature’s scholars. You will ensure that I have my rightful place in the annals of history.”

A few more moments of silence passed. Then Twilight shook her head and turned away. “If that’s it, then,” she said, her voice steadily, icily calm, “I’ll be leaving.”

“That is all,” he answered flatly. There was nothing else.

Some time later, when the sound of her hooves against the stone had faded and all trace of her light was gone from the gloom, the construct sank back into the darkness. It had never been more than that, anyway; it was just a shadow given substance. The entity that had once been called Sombra turned away from it and allowed it to fade away like everything else.

And, in the darkness, a quiet noise sounded as the single shard of clear quartz splintered beneath the black.