"There's one missing and we can't find It, sir." Said one cultist soldier to his captain, Copper and the others in the kitchen.

"You can blame Mane. He set It on fire and threw him in the distant chasm like an olimpic thrower." Pinkamena interrupted Copper before he could say a word. "It was Don Topaz's corpse. In this moment, It's burning the in the deeps on the earth."

"Oh..." The soldier scratched his head under the brown leather hood. "Well... I guess It's all then. Should we bury the bodies or burn them?"

"Burn them. We can't leave any signal of our presence here." Sigil answered.

"Ours? I guess more of Mane's, he completely wrecked those guys. Even more when we saw the giant body behind the house." Said Copper.

"Yes. I see he went full mad against that guy in the armor." Said Quill while drinking some water. "His eyes were missing and his body had third degree burns all over him but as if It came from the inside. My suspicion points that Mane scooped out his eyes with his bare hands and then electrocuted him through the guy's eye sockets."

"That's fucking hardcore..." Pinkamena commented with a smirk. "Seems living with me made him develop a better emotional resistance against bigger violent actions."

"Shall we check him?" Sigil suggested.

"Sure, go ahead." Quill answered with all of them agreeing.

The group of four left the kitchen and the dinning room complex, going up the wooden stairs in the entrance hall and the entered in the bedroom with Mane sleeping like a rock in the bed, surrounded by three field medics that the cult had brought with them.

"Hello." Greeted one of the medics holding a needle with a bit of thread on It. "He were just finishing patching his stomach. His organs were unaffected but his heartbeat sounds weak."

"Arg... should have known..." Quill shoved gently Pinkamena and Copper out of his way to let him pass. "He overused his magic again with his body, and I didn't had the chance to tell him that time because he got kicked out."

"Wait!" Pinkamena stepped forward. "Now that you speak of It, Sigil, I want an explanation of what happened. Mane said he got banned, but then you show up with my sniper and the cult and save the day. Am I missing something here?" The pink mare demanded her answers in some frustration. Being in a situation she didn't nothing about always made her nervous in the bad way.

Copper made a signal to the field medics to leave the room, which they obeyed and walked out closing the door behind them. Quill with his magic pulled three chairs for him, Dark Sigil and Copper Spear. Pinkamena sat on the end of the bed next to Mane who was still asleep.
The leading trio looked at each other nervous, before getting in a serious expression and behavior. Sigil took a deep breath and looked at Pinkamena in the eyes.

"We were idiots..." Sigil sighed.

"What do you mean?" Pinkamena asked even more confused.

"Who are we to judge him, when we in our cult are scholars in learning about King Sombra..?" Said Copper. "After that day when you were stopping us from getting into Mane during that weird event, we started having our doubts on him, but It all began after our assault in to that hotel when he lost his mind during that rampage."

"Pretty much, our cult never risked their lives so much since you and him showed in the Crystal Empire." Inked Quill continued. "Very rarely our soldiers died in action in a fight, but that day in the mountains were total chaos."

"So you all judged us two in our backs since the very beginning." Pinkamena concluded.

"Yes... and we are very sorry." Sigil lowered her head in apologies, followed by Copper and Quill. "Sombra was a dark stain in the Crystal Empire's history, so when our one of our scouts saw Mane in the streets and came back to us with these news, we feared for the worse. Since then, we have been spying him until we found out you were his companion. You can imagine how I felt in when that day before you disappear you were Pinkamena Diane Pie, the Cupcake Killer."

"I hate that name..." Pinkamena snarled.

"I'm sorry again then. But anyway, Mane being related to Sombra was alarming for us because we really didn't know what he was planning all along, and finding out you were on his side made us even more scared of having you both with us." Sigil looked at Copper, giving him the the turn.

"When you were gone for a walk and eventually getting kidnapped, we took the chance to surround Mane and demand answers, but he's awakening wasn't how we planned. He got into his crystal form and threatened us, so we banned him from our place." Copper lowered his head like Sigil did. "I guess this part is my fault... for ordering my men to point their weapons on him as soon he would wake up. I can't blame him for feeling stuck."

"And our pressure wanting him to speak at the point of spears and muskets didn't help." Quill continued. "In my time, I used to see King Sombra doing dark rituals in his chamber, and Mane's ritual looked very similar, so afraid I launched the alert." Quill lowered his head too. "King Sombra planned taking the power and set his destiny to rule the Crystal Empire with an iron fist policy. But Mane... despiste his dark origins, we can't make justice against him."

"What do you mean by that?" Pinkamena asked intrigued.

"What I mean is..." Quill stood up from his chair and slowly approached Pinkamena. "Mane didn't set his destiny yet. His heart is not entirely black like we thought. He has a sense of harmony inside him but he feels lost in this world where harmony and peace is the majority."

"But this is where we saw his true nature." Sigil leaned forward in the chair. "Going against a gang of drug and weapon lords with you as his follower, peacefully going against the Royal Guard, and coming all this way by himself to rescue you against all odds."

"He's a good guy indeed..." Copper smiled. "While most of us in Equestria only see the tip of the iceberg, Mane has seen the other big side underwater, hidden in the depths. And despiste his kind of powers and origins, he fights against It with all his bravery and life. I personally respect that very much."

"But like I said." Quill putted his old skinny hand in Pinkamena's shoulder. "Even if he decided this as his life, his destiny is still unwritten, and It's up to him to choose his true path and story. And we trust you to stand by his side."

Pinkamena stood silent while they talked. She looked at Mane still sleeping with his stomach and left arm bandaged, and she knew most of those things all along since Mane accepted the contract of coming to the Crystal Empire to stop the smuggling of those new weapons. She remembered when she misjudged him too when they first got to the cult but he talked his way out of It.
Now the pink mare understood his problem in the world. His origins from the Sombra family stained by his uncle forever would corrupt his fame among those who knew and with Princess Celestia and the Royal Army always chasing him down and bring justice to the world by eliminating anypony related to an Equestria villain.

Those who had no clue couldn't say anything, and the name Sombra sewed in the back of his leather vest would have to stay hidden under his long black hair similar to Sombra's.

"Sir?" A soldier entered the bedroom. "That weird black cylinder we found laying around. I think me and the boys figured out what It is!"

"Really?" Copper stood up from his seat. "What is It?"

"We don't know It's name, but we are rebuilding It how we think It might be and we might have a clue of how it works... those big iron balls we saw scattered around some meters away from the dead big guy, I think that's the ammo."

"What the heck?" Quill gasped. "That thing can shoot those?"

"We can only find out in one way." Sigil commented shrugging. "Rebuilt It then and take It outside the house's perimeter, we can't wait to see how It works!"