It had been almost a year since the Umbrum Kingdom had finally been completed and its residents had all moved in.

The Umbrum were a race who's history tied into that of the Crystal Empire. Or rather, SOMBRA did.

A tyrant obsessed with ruling the empire with an iron hoof, many had simply forgotten about him after his defeat by Cadance and company.

But it turned out the story went FAR deeper than that, for Sombra had been living amongst them the whole time. Found outside the Empire's shield by a guard patrol as a child, he'd been raised in a local orphanage. Lonely and confused as to why he didn’t fit in like the other kids, his only confidant had been the orphanage director. She'd treated him so kindly that he'd grown to love her as a foster mother.

When he'd found out she was being relocated elsewhere, it broke his already distrustful heart and a long dormant impulse had been sent in motion. He'd fled the Crystal Empire, ending up out in the wastes surrounding it. He'd found a red, talking crystal there who said she'd been waiting for him..

It identified itself- no, herself, as his mother and told him the truth about who he was. He wasn’t a normal pony, he couldn’t get a cutie mark, he was an UMBRUM. This news had shocked young Sombra to his core. The loss of his childhood hopes and dreams had proven too much for the young stallion and he'd lashed out. Year after year, he'd tried to go see the Crystal Heart on the day of the faire, only to suffer excruciating pain and headaches. One encounter had led him to meet Princess Amore, where she'd told him she couldn’t help and had smiled sadly. As he was being led away by the director, he'd glanced back at the Princess and seen something in her expression that made him distrust her. The way her smile seemed so fake...

The mother crystal said Amore had called them by name when she encountered her during the attack. She knew who they were all along...

The knowledge that the Princess lied to him had been the final straw and Sombra's mind had crumpled under this onslaught and he'd tapped into his power alright, ALL of it. But he was never meant to gain complete control so fast. Acting on his desires, the magic he'd inherited changed his physical form, a terribly painful process that had resulted in him turning into a full grown adult.

A fearsome visage of vengeance, he'd abandoned the red crystal, who'd begged for him to come back, crying that she was sorry...

He'd returned to the Empire running high on power, where he'd banished Princess Amore and captured that sadistic Crystal Heart. That thing had hurt him so much, at the behest of that lying Princess no doubt.

But such direct exposure had been his ultimate undoing and he'd lost all claim to his former, sane self. His once quiet nature had been warped beyond recognition and he'd become obsessed with one fact the red crystal had given him. His kind still existed, they just needed to be found.

His race had fled their old home as food dwindled and the brutal weather gradually consumed it. They'd fled for the Empire all that time ago, not knowing what was in store. They did not know their darker nature of magic put them at risk of harm from the Empire's most powerful defence, the Crystal Heart.

They day they chose to flee there for help was the day of the crystal faire. As they’d raced towards the shielded Empire, the heart had been unleashed to mark the celebrations. Its power, so bright and pure, had driven them crazy, causing them to frenzy and mistake it as an attack. They’d swarmed the palace, intent on destroying this object. But in the end they’d been defeated, sealed away in caverns deep under the palace.

All but one, that was.

She'd kept her rage in check using sheer force of will and her wish to protect the ponies in her care, even as the corruption ate away at her. She'd escaped the Empire's forces, fleeing to the wastes and once far enough away, she'd invoked an ancient rite of the Umbrum's. They could create, or "give birth" to one of their own under special circumstances. It took everything she had, but she was able to create a crystal which, as she'd started to go into crystal stasis of her own, had formed into a small foal.

"I will call you...Sombra." was the last thing she had said to her child before she'd become a solid lump of crystal herself.

And so her baby had been found by the guards and given a home. She'd implanted him with the knowledge of how to find her when the time was right, when he'd realised he was different. He was destined to become their leader, to bring them up out of the depths of their prison.

He was to be a type of Umbrum called "Umbrum and Infinitum", the Umbrum King.

This facet of his lineage had become warped when Sombra lost his mind and he had become obsessed with raising the Umbrum as an ARMY. Celestia and Luna had sealed him away and the red crystal, a unicorn named Umbra, had fallen into the deepest, darkest sleep in order to reserve the waning power she had left.

That had been her final memory until she was awoken once more and came face to face with her son again. He was still an adult, still a striking sight with red eyes and a uniquely curved horn. Growing up in the regular pony world, his Umbrum magic had been sealed away, so he'd developed a type of magic that DID exist. Dark magic. But he was no longer an angry ball of fury, he'd returned to the son she'd imagined him to be. Kind, gentle.

But a lot had changed for him and she learned he'd hurt others and been hurt in turn.

It turned out that Scorpan, Tirek's younger brother, had developed a plan to rid the world of those meddling Princesses. He'd found Sombra's horn and revived the dark King to serve his purpose. But Scorpan would not have the pony thinking he could defy him and put him through a brutal, unforgivable regime of torture, mixed with physical and mental assault. Sombra had been almost completely broken, rendered afraid of the world around him, wishing it all to end. He didn’t think he had any hope left...

But a one-in-a-million chance by a passing bird led to Fluttershy, Discord and the others finding out about him, and staging a rescue on Celestia's orders. They'd followed the bird back to the cave, where they were faced with a mere shadow of the King they’d once feared. He snarled at them, lashed out, and did his best to drive them away. As far as he was concerned THEY were the enemy. Eventually, they’d convinced him they were trying to help him and he sat still, letting them undo his chains. They had escaped with barely time to spare. Scorpan's screams of fury chased their heels as they flew away, disguised as Breezies.

Celestia had done her best to ease Sombra's pain, but swiftly realised no doctor could fix the mental scarring that’d left Sombra afraid of touch and distrustful of everypony around him. He'd begged her to kill him, just to be out of his misery. Seeing him so broken had worried everypony involved in the mission. They needed what he knew in order to stop Scorpan, but Sombra was so badly broken that hope seemed slim.

Until Discord.

Fluttershy had asked if his hypnosis could ease Sombra's nightmares, before the strain of everything the stallion was bearing under destroyed him for good.

Discord had done as she had asked, granting Sombra a reprieve from his nightmares. But as the days passed, he'd started to feel a sense of sympathy for the pony. After all, he too knew what it was like waking up in a different world, unsure what was going to happen to you. He had Fluttershy, his one true friend, but who did this lost pony have?

And so he'd found himself trying more and more to help Sombra. Gradually, the pony began to relax around him, actually talking without hypnosis, giving Discord every detail he could remember.

He'd begun to trust not just Discord, but Celestia and the other girls too. He'd started to feel...safe.

But Scorpan hadn’t taken kindly to this theft. Just as Sombra was starting to think he was free and had accepted a promise from Celestia that he could have a home somewhere peaceful, his former jailer had come back for him.

Scorpan, having already absorbed a significant amount of stolen magic, had force fed Sombra a large amount of power, thus triggering his real form.

Although born a unicorn, Sombra's ascension to his destined role, albeit by force, transformed him into an Alicorn. One made of a stunning crystal.

Scorpan had collared him with a control spell and ordered the brainwashed Sombra to attack and destroy his friends. For a moment, they had all been afraid that it would come to pass-

But in the end, Sombra had chosen the new chance Celestia and his new friends represented. He'd turned on Scorpan, breaking his leash and unleashing his true power. A big battle had ensued, with Sombra and Scorpan going head to head in the middle of Canterlot. Sombra had won out in the end, but having exhausted his magic and suffered severe injuries, things looked grim.

During the fight, Cadance and Shining Armor had arrived to speak with Celestia about the whole "Sombra's alive" thing. They’d witnessed his victory and approached him to talk. Sombra had gathered the little strength he had and asked the two bring his apology to the Empire as a whole and had used the sliver of magic left in him to give Shining Armor a key. The key to a hidden vault full of historical items.

It had shocked his two former foes to see him alive, an Alicorn made of crystal AND to hear such repentance from him. Sombra had then collapsed, the use of that last smidge of magic meaning his injuries were free to run rampant.

Sombra had begged Discord to bring him to the highest tower in Canterlot palace, so he could see the skyline before he fell into what he assumed would be an eternal sleep.

Discord had teleported him away, granting this last wish.

It'd pained him, he discovered, to see his new friend fading fast and he'd tried using his chaos magic to help him, but Sombra had shaken his head, saying the process was irreversible. Discord could sense he was right, but he was stubborn by nature and hated to lose anything. Doubly so a friend.

Sombra had smiled bravely, thanking him for the help he'd given him, for allowing him to sleep peacefully, safe from his nightmares.

By the time to others had caught up to the two, Sombra was deep in crystal stasis, slumbering inside a big lump of crystal.

Celestia and Twilight Sparkle had worked as hard as they could to finally reveal a way to awaken Sombra. This investigation and led Twilight and company to the cave where Scorpan had held fort, where he'd held Sombra captive. But they didn’t get far, finding only a few documents and Scorpan's diary before they’d been caught by the Centaur/Gargoyle guards and taken to see the King and Queen, Tirek and Scorpan's parents.

On hearing the news that both their sons now resided in Tartarus, the Queen had been bereft. The King had asked if they could help awaken the victim of their second sons madness, so they might apologise on Scorpan's behalf for what Sombra had suffered.

It was thanks to so many concentrated efforts that Celestia and Discord had been able to venture into the Umbrum pony’s slumbering mind and guide him back to them.

Sombra discovered that things had changed a little, most notably that the wings he'd sprouted during the fight had become permanent. This had plunged him into a fearful depression, dread of how Equestria would treat a former tyrant having something so beautiful consumed him. That he had something only held by the public’s beloved Princesses terrified him.

Already a nervous wreck over how he was going to live with the shadows of his past crimes, he'd become obsessed with getting rid of them, not realising what they symbolised. After an attempt at suppressing them failed and left him bandaged and in pain to Discord's very severe concern, the pony had eventually started to realise his task wasn’t over. Defeating Scorpan and awakening his Umbrum infinitum form was just the start!

He'd journeyed back to the Crystal Empire, his faithful Draconequus friend at his side, where he'd come face to face with his race. Awake, angry and blaming the crystal ponies for their suffering, they'd been almost unstoppable, until Sombra realised he'd needed to let them see his true form. So he had finally shown off what he truly was, their leader.

The angry Umbrum's had been snapped out of their rage, thier anger cleansed by Sombra's magic. For the first time since the battle, they were seeing the world through new eyes. Sombra also revealed the truth about the war that’d led to the Umbrum being sealed away, letting them know it had been a regrettable mistake. The Empire hadn’t known they were coming and the Umbrum hadn’t known about their weakness to the Heart. The day they’d attacked had been the day of the faire, when the Heart's powerful magic filled the sky...

The Umbrum's had been overjoyed to be free of their own madness and had flocked around Sombra as he stood before them. The prophecy was real, their saviour was here, their Infintie Shadow King! However, to thier shock, he'd denied the right to rule them as prophecy demanded, feeling they deserved better than a monster, instead giving them not only the truth about what HE'D done, but the choice to choose their King or Queen amongst themselves.

The Umbrum had tried, but in the end they knew only one could guide them, their Infinitum. They seen his memories, seen his remorse and his suffering at Scorpan's hands and they understood. He'd suffered too, but far worse, the pain of the Heart dragged out over the years..

They'd created a crown to present him with, begging him to see not only that they loved him, but that he had a good heart after all and they trusted him. It'd taken Sombra a long time, but eventually he had stepped up to the role, with the support of his friends and even the crystal ponies!

Umbra had been rescued from the wastes once the Umbrum's fate was secure and given power to assume a full solid form alongside her son. She had decided to remain in her slumber until the others had been saved from their anger, thus she'd slumbered in her crystal as Sombra adjusted to becoming a ruler once more…

During this time, the ponies of the Crystal Empire had learnt of not only Sombra's revival, but his apology to the Prince and Princess. They'd seen his Alicorn form, his crystal body, seen how much damage had been done, how it'd frightened him but also brought him crashing back to earth with a bump. This gentler, decently humbled pony had been deemed worthy of a second chance by the crystal ponies. They could understand how much he clearly loved his Umbrum's and many offered to help build the ponies a new home...

Unable to sit on his rear in the Empire, Sombra had joined the work-site, working alongside ponies from all over Equestria. He'd learned how to settle disputes and make new friends, how to stay calm when confronted by those who could not yet trust him and how joyous an occasion it was when he won those battles against the acts in his past.

A chance encounter with some ponies fleeing raging Timberwolves led to him offering help and homes to not only a town suffering a fate similar to his Umbrum's, but a nearby Zebra colony too!

Now, the fledgling kingdom had been up and running for 2 years. New guards were being trained, and Sombra was developing new gifts he could grant to his race. As the Infinitum, he was like a master document, any changes he made to himself could be copied to his ponies. It wasn't an easy process, requiring a lot of magic and concentration, but it was this capability that’d allowed him to develop an immunity to the Crystal Heart and finally free his race from their suffering.

But that wasn't all. A soul-searching confession to the ponies at the bundling site had led to one of Sombra's childhood dreams coming true, he'd gained a cutie mark.

He'd been overjoyed to gain such a thing and had naturally granted this gift to his Umbrum's as well. Along with the way their colours changed as they became more settled in their destinies, his Umbrum's could now further their abilities and skills by working towards a cutie mark. This had given the long dormant ponies such hope and delight, they now considered the date Sombra got HIS cutie mark a national holiday, Cutie Mark day!

Cadance and Shining Armor had remained good friends, being the first to open up a supply and trade link with the Umbrum kingdom. Not only them, but the King and Queen of the Gargoyle/Centaur kingdom had become good friends to Sombra. King Vorak was impressed by Sombra's strength even after what he had endured. He and the Queen considered him a part of their family, like a surrogate son and they happily became frequent visitors and trade partners to the Umbrum Kingdom.

The Umbrum ponies main traditional skills lay in sculpture and their buildings were the subject of many a magazine cover for their stunning architecture. Their art was complex and simple at the same time, stunning colours of crystal and shapes, so variant.

Throughout all this, Discord had spent a lot of time at his friend's side. Sombra still considered the trickster Draconequus his closest friend, for all he'd helped him with he would always be grateful.

Getting to watch over the Umbrums, see them settling in and learning so much from the ponies that visited made Sombra smile. He was determined to give the Umbrum's the perfect life they had been denied after the accidental war!

Therefore, he began devoting his time more or less solely to his Umbrum's happiness, with little care for his own.

Now he was preparing for a visit from not just his dearest friend Discord, but Fluttershy too! She was bringing some supplies for the animals of the new kingdom and to help teach at an animal shelter Sombra had set up. It was named after her, "The Shy Centre for injured animals".

Many parts of the city were named after those that had helped him. The Palace was named the Umbral palace, after his mother. The Celestial Observatory Learning Centre was named after Celestia, who'd made a promise to help Sombra find a perfect home. A tower at the top was named the Luna post, where a telescope was positioned.

A race track/stadium was officially dubbed the "Rainboom Stadium", a name suggested by the one and only Rainbow Dash.

For Rarity, a fashion avenue was named "Generosity Avenue".

A kids play centre was named "Party Pony Central" for Pinkie Pie, who not only visited, but often helped with supplies and ideas via letter.

The palaces garden was named "AJ's Oasis", a peaceful area filled with lots of trees, many of which bore apples, courtesy of Applejack's family!

Naturally the main city library’s name was given to Twilight Sparkle, thus the "Princess Twilight Learning Library". Her friends could barely get her to stay still, she was bouncing up and down even as she cut the ribbon!

For his most faithful Gargoyle guard, Corona, Sombra named the training centre for new guards. Any being was welcome, be it pony or otherwise!

Given the Draconequus' nature, it was no surprise he had picked a joke shop when Sombra had asked him. Fitting really, but it was very popular with the kids…

His citizens wanted a way to commemorate HIM, Sombra discovered, after a public petition to have a statue built in the central plaza was brought to his attention. He had agreed to it on condition images of the ponies and Draconequus that’d helped save him be engraved on the statues pedestal. Discord had made a brief enemy of the royal guard when he'd stuck a moustache on it. Luckily once Sombra heard this, he not only laughed his head off, but insisted on being driven down there to see it for himself!

He and Discord had gone around wearing identical moustaches for the rest of that day, to the guards confusion. But, since the King wasn’t mad, they’d left off trying to arrest Discord for vandalism! It was one of the rare occasions they seen their rulers more light-hearted side.

His ponies loved him dearly, the newspapers often noted, but there was the underlying curiosity about their King's personal life that was often discussed. He'd never expressed any romantic feelings for anypony, seemingly never indulged in any romance. He poured every bit of time he had into THIER general happiness, yet seemed to sideline his own. It was a bit of a mystery to the Umbrum's, was he just keeping his personal fulfilment under heavy secrecy? If so...why?

Some theorized that being raised amidst normal ponies in the Crystal Empire, he'd grown up with different cultural norms and habits to them. Somewhat stricter, more reserved ones. The Umbrum ways did vary from the rest of Equestria in a few notable fashions but there were shared habits and similarities too.

As his nation debated who he was behind closed doors, Sombra was blissfully unaware...