Author's Notes:

This chapter is a bit of a backtrack in time. The first part, with the pegasai, happens during Chapter One. After King Sombra leaves the Marazon council once Queen Ainippe realizes he's taken possession of her bird scout and instructs his troops to advance while possessing Captain Iron Blade, he goes back to their camp and starts manipulating the sleeping mare's nightmares.

Oh and there is a tiny bit of gore in this one. It is war, after all. I don't think it's enough gore to justify a gore tag, but it is enough to give you a heads up. If you feel differently, please let me know in the comments!

The next section, with Nyx in the Marazon's northern Moon Temple, picks up immediately after her companion Charon gets thrown out the window to her death.

I hope I don't confuse everyone too much doing it this way. It should be the only back-telling of the story I'll have to do.

If you like the story so far, please give it a little upvote and tell your readers and Sombra fan friends. Also, I love to get comments, so don't hesitate to leave suggestions!

Earlier that morning, as the crystal army and its leader gazed over the bay and discussed battle tactics...

The pegasus scout division were still asleep, enjoying the last few moments of rest before the warriors were due to rise and begin the day. Three females – Fly Away, Sky Wind and Cloud Rider were clustered together for each other's body warmth, their wings making a canopy over their heads, interlocked as a makeshift shelter against the early morning fog's damp and cold. Every day on missions away from home found the trio like this; they ate, flew, exercised and slept together every moment and few of the Marazon's division were closer. Queen Ainippe praised them as being the most effective of her scout teams for these reasons, giving them even more incentive beyond their close bonds to watch each other's backs during dangerous assignments.

Deep in this slumber, they did not notice the silent, deadly dark cloud of evil that entered their camp, carrying out its promised to Captain Iron Blade to “keep their enemy occupied”.

The dark wraith flowed between the clusters of sleeping Marazon warrior mares, searching, reaching out for the scent of that special, untapped fear that could be fanned into the flames of terror. Terror that could serve Him in the heat of the battles to come.

It was not long before He found His first victim.

Within the quiet, sheltered sanctuary of peaceful slumber afford by the safety of her Marazon pegasai sisters, Fly Away stirred uneasily, shivering as a cold breeze and darkness flowed over and into her subconscious...

The King of Fears settled into His new, temporary home within the mare's mind with a natural, practiced ease revealing of His Umbrum heritage and His pacts with Darkness. Others gifted with such powers, not born into them, could practice their art until the end of time itself and still never achieve the fluid dexterity with which King Sombra insinuated Himself into such primal landscapes as populated a pony's soul. It was where He was at home most when in His shadow form and where He ultimately did the most devastating damage to His unfortunate victims.

For this mare, searching for her terrors would be unnecessary as her already unsettled dream scape would give Him the clues to what frightened her the most. Deep-seated fears often cropped up in the early morning hours, starting out as smaller fears that led like stepping stones to progressively stronger and deeper fears that, if left unchecked, could potentially plunge their victims into sheer madness.

The King would not require madness this early morning. He needed functional, sleeping cells of walking, untapped fears that could be unleashed at His whim on the battlefield by a simple trigger word or action. One he would plant personally himself.

So for now, while their Queen planned tactics and planted guards against the shadowy essence that had fled her bird scout and the council meeting, He was here amongst her army, unseen but definitely not unfelt.

For this one, her dream of flying over the enemy, His crystal army, was easy to tweak with the trigger of a future event.

It had started out innocently enough. Fly Away and her two sister scouts were on a mission, heading over the land towards King Sombra's troops to the North. While she felt happy and free in their natural element of the open skies, there was a linger anxiety and fear of what they would encounter once the spotted the crystal army. This was the sensation that had drawn the King of Fear to her in her slumber.

“Fly Away, c'mon, you slow poke!” Sky Wind teased, pulling slightly more ahead.

“Hey, that's not fair!” she protested, also good-naturedly, altering her speed to catch up.

“A bit slow, are we?” a voice mocked her, coming from Cloud Rider's direction.

“What?” Fly asked, turning to her Marazon sister. The voice had not been hers, had even sounded like a stallion's, which of course was impossible as it was only the three mares flying in formation with no enemy in sight. “Did you hear that? It sounded like a – a stallion's voice!”

“Hearing things as well,” Sky Wind shook her head. “Whirlwind was never such high maintenance.”

“Sky?” Fly Away was shocked. “you promised you'd never mention Whirlwind again. You know how I hate - “

“How good she was?” Rider piped up.

“How promising she was,” Sky jabbed.

“Stop it!” Fly snapped, her emotions becoming brittle in the unchecked landscape of the subconscious. “it's not funny anymore!”

“It never was,” her friends echoed, drawing slightly ahead again.

“Try to keep up,” Cloud taunted and scolded at the same time, sounding like Fly Away's father, always berating her for being the slowest in the top percentile of her flying class. “You wouldn't want us to get shot because you can't cover our flanks,would you?”

“If it'd shut you up!” Fly Away snapped, furiously.

Sombra smiled at the deep-seated jealousy and anger this one kept at bay buried in her psyche. This would be so easy...

Feeling the satisfying influx of power at her submission to his manipulation, the Umbrum took a hand in the dream further, creating the illusion of his army below them. Waiting until Fly Away was sufficiently behind, he caused one of the dream mares to be stabbed through by arrows shot by his unicorn archers.

“CLOUD!” Fly Away screamed, watching in horror as her friend was struck, banking sideways from the force of the impact and finally spiraling down towards the ground.

Sky Wind turned, shock on her face, to Fly Away. “I can't believe you said that!” she cried. “Cloud died hearing your last words wishing her dead!”

Fly Away sobbed. “No! I didn't mean it!”

Sky was suddenly thrust upwards, but banked downward again. At first Fly thought she had caught a particularly vicious updraft that had thrown her off course. That is, until she saw the blood staining her withers, dripping down her leg from red crystal shards embedded in her throat.

She was the next to fall, Fly screaming her name as she plummeted towards the ground.

Satisfied, the Shadow King left the twitching, shivering mare, her green-tinged, violet bleeding eyes already fading back to normal as the dark blur of Sombra's form split into a dozen more tendrils, each one insinuating themselves into their hosts to continue their work.

Later, back at the Marazon Temple of the Moon...

Last we saw...

The Shadow that was Sombra's extension of consciousness settled down, opting for patience, melting into its fellow shadows at the corners of the room, waiting for another scent of food.

Nyx came back to consciousness slowly, at last free from the pain and the hallucinogenic properties of the violent time shift she had experienced. “Ohhh...” she winced at the memory. “I am not looking forward to that – whenever that happens! Well, you know what they say, Charon, what doesn't kill a Marazon...” she looked around.

“...makes her...” She was alone. Rising, she glanced around the room. “stronger?” she finished, confused.

No Charon.

“Charon?” the Marazon trotted into the other temple rooms.

Sensing movement, the shadows in the corners of the room followed.

Nyx padded quietly throughout the expansive temple, through the baths, the inner sanctum, the dragonfly pond scrying room. Still, her keeper was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was the long shadow that slipped in from the other room, following her.

Dipping her nose over the calm body of water, she studied her reflection in its mirrored surface. She was still herself – black fur, silvery, fog-like mane framing her face, its sparkle fractured by the water disturbed by the temple dragonflies as they chased and played with each other upon its surface. Clicking to the insects, she tracked one as it hovered closer, level with her muzzle. She lifted a hoof and it alighted, perching on its silver shod surface. “Oh, you are a beauty, aren't you?” she cooed to it. “For your simple existence, my friend, I would give half my remaining days,” she snickered. “and I can tell you exactly how many that'll get you, too.”

The insect buzzed at her in agreement. “It's a deal then,” she nodded. “as soon as I can figure out how to turn into a dragonfly.” She looked into the pond's surface. “You can have my life, my armor, my steel and gray crown and its - “ she peered harder into the water. “its – red crystal cabochon?” she finished slowly.

The shadows slid across the room, behind the Marazon TimeWitch, gathering themselves, slowly rising, sensing growing fear, homing in on it. Nyx, oblivious, peered closer at her reflection, lost to the sudden agitation of all the dragonflies in the room as they clustered together - an iridescent swarm of living colors.

“I wear neither armor, nor is my jewel red. It's blue,” she murmured, fascinated. “And is that,” her hoof going to the reflection before her. “a choker? No a collar. How odd.”

Leaning closer, she ducked just as the shadowy essence behind her struck, homing in on the signal of fear it sensed...

...The fear of the dragonflies poised on the other side of the pond from her.

The rush of the mass over her and the sudden glittering movement caused her to look up, her eyes wide in surprise at the dark essence that swallowed up her insect companions. The memory came rushing back to her from before she had blacked out.

I will sing your funeral dirge in the enemy's camp.

“The King of Shadows,” she whispered, watching as the mass thinned and the insects, terrified, scattered in all different directions, confusing Sombra's senses.

The twinge of fear she had felt at being startled, then realizing what had almost gotten her, caused it to turn in her direction. Now this was a larger source of fear – and had the same scent as before, it realized.

Nyx, for reasons of her own, lost her fear to an intense fascination at the black, smoke-like essence before her. “Is this what you are? Is this what you look like? Oh...” she whispered. “is it you?”

The darkness poised, losing the scent, but sensing something was close by, attracting its attention.

“Is it?” she repeated in a soft voice.

Why had she expected a reply, she wondered, watching it's efforts to find her. By her estimates and the reports from the Marazons, the Empire's army, and its King, were still a good day's journey away. Extending Himself this far must be an enormous strain and how could He have any real grasp of consciousness or sentience as well?

Slowly and carefully, keeping her thoughts as calm and neutral as possible so as not to agitate it, she got comfortable on the edge of the pond, never taking her eyes from it. This was just like taming a wild beast, she told herself. “Okay, this is where we get to know each other,” she whispered. “I'm guessing you're not very – lucid at this point. That at a hundred miles away, your perception's limited, otherwise you would have just grabbed me and ignored Charon.” She tilted her head in curiosity. “And since you're not reacting to my voice, I would say you have limited physical senses as well, beast. How much do I dare do before you take an active notice in me?

“But then, how did you know to go after her and not me? What was it you were homing in on? Was it her body temperature? Not movement, or you would have swallowed me up by now.”

In its search, the wraith moved closer to the center of the room, closer to her. “Could you have simply not been able to sense or grasp me when I was pinned by that vision?” she wondered, but then something occurred to her. “But how could you have? I was not even completely here, was I? I was stuck in another, future reality,” Nyx nodded. “That must have been it, right?” she smiled.

Thinking she had had it figured out, she was left to wonder at it's form once again, marveling. “So, this is what you really look like.” So close she could touch it now, she reached out, passing her hand through it. It of course had no body temperature, but it did feel warmer than the surrounding air. It was thicker than fog, as if this darkness could be a blanket that enfolded physical items, could hold and touch. Having blacked out before she saw it grab and kill Charon, she could not have known her theory was right about its ability to do such things. It moved on, flowing back towards the door slowly, tendrils reaching out, still searching for its prey.

Nyx sighed, relieved. Shaking her head, she turned back to the indoor pond, gazing back at her reflection. “Back to normal. I would rather stick with my own attire, thank you. I do not look good in a slave collar,” she said humorlessly. She glanced back at the retreating cloud. “And you scared away my insect friends you annoying - “ her voice faded, realizing something.

It had gone after the dragonflies. They had been scared of the shadow. Just like Charon. It wasn't because of her shifting ability, she realized with a start. It was because of fear -

The shadows turned back to the room, sensing the fear that had accompanied her eye-opening realization.

“Oh, crap baskets!” she cursed as it floated closer, gathering itself into a single mass before her. Taking a step back, she slipped on the wet tile surrounding the pond and yelped, feeling herself lose her balance and fall into the pond.

Her sudden fear at falling was like a rubber band snapping. The mass lunged forward in the blink of an eye, but too late to catch her as she plunged into the deep water.