Howling Dune finally laid his eyes on Shimmering Sands, and the sphinxes that were forming a meat shield around it. Lowering his brows, he tried to find the children, but ended up seeing nothing but grown-ups. Regardless of the fact that there were no children for him to take advantage of, he still cracked his hooves together and pulled out parchments and papyrus from his cloak.

"Finally, after all this time, I will get my revenge on those who dared to raze my home..." He growled, marching forward, the sands around him beginning to pick up around him. "Not a single soul on this planet will stop me. Not them, not that pony, and surely not the child that imprinted on her."

Somnambula was the first to lay eyes on Howling, and the sand accompanying him to the site. The way that the winds violently thrashed about, spreading the sands around him, instilled a new feeling within her that she seldom felt; remorselessness. She could tell from his face, and from the dunes he commanded, that there would be no reasoning with him.

"Here he comes." Enigma lowered his brows as he watched the malevolent unicorn approach. "Everyone. Charge your magic and point it at him. Let him know what happens when you capture, torture, and harm our kin..."

"I had hoped that it wouldn't have come to this, but after all that he's done, and how devoted he is to this fleeting cause, I can only see defeat and pain in his eyes." Somnambula also walked forward, to meet this evil pony in battle. "Not even Set would want to see him in the afterlife, and his dark and twisted ambitions to take revenge have driven him down a dark path that not many walk without redemption. It goes against everything I believe in to say this, but I have no hope left for him..."

"Sphinxes! Do you remember me?!" Howling roared, smashing the sand violently, sending a huge wall of it towards the giant beasts, causing them to shield their faces with their wings. "You ravaged my home, tore my friends and family apart, and left me with nothing. All because of some insipid riddle and bias against my kind!" He boomed. "And now, your reckoning has come at last. For the crimes of invading Scarabia; my home. And tormenting Topaz Eye; my wife. I sentence you to the same fate as I. To be left with nothing more than your bodies!"

"Scarabia. Yes, I remember now." Enigma unfurled his wings again. "Those rapscallion sphinxes that ran off for some 'fun and games' as they called it instilled a dark riddle upon you and your wife. We've since dealt with those beasts by sentencing them to life as ponies. But even that, I fear won't stop you from trying to hurt us."

"So, you've managed to cull the ones that hurt my home. That, I can respect." He glared at the rest of the sphinxes. "However. That doesn't mean that it'll guarantee that the others are any different. When will the next dark riddle happen? The one where I have so many answers, but none of them are right because the sphinxes want to vent some hidden hate for the pony race?"

"Stop it!" Somnambula ran straight into Howling's face and pinned him to the ground. "Your bullies have been punished, and sentenced for their crimes! You have received justice for your home! Why can you not accept that and stand down?!"

"Why can't YOU accept the fact that sphinxes are a curse?" Casting a spell on Somnambula, he sealed her in a diamond cube and kicked her behind the line of sphinxes. "You ally yourselves with beasts far beyond your control, with powers equivalent to that of a god! Do you not remember the past? When they would hound us relentlessly for everything? When they would easily trump us and leave us high and dry, in every front?!"

"Let go of this madness, young one!" Enigma bellowed, casting a magical bolt at his heart. Electricity crackled all throughout the beacon of light as it radiated across his body. "You are taking this too far, and your mental state is deteriorating at the seams."

"Nngh..." Howling gritted his teeth and pushed the sand away as he shot Enigma a death glare. He was not about to fall here; especially after all that he had suffered through. "Are you sure that you can speak for every sphinx that there will be no more transgressions? No more betrayals? No more... renegades?!"

"I cannot promise such things, but I can live with the fact that the ones who destroyed your city and harmed those ponies have been dealt with. With that simple fact, that should be enough for you to stand down and cease this fallacy of crushing the trust between our kind." Enigma walked towards Howling, the bolt of light form his crown growing with each step. "And even if you choose to keep fighting, our overall magical strength will wear you to your limits or—at the very most—erase you from the world as a whole."

"Tell me, Mr. Sphinx. Do you know what it is like to lose everything that you held dear? To see your world torn down in front of your very eyes because of a shattered accord between two races?" Howling spat, craning his neck up at the titanic beast before him. "Because if you don't, then you and I have nothing more to discuss; and we can begin this battle."

"Even with my probing magic worming its' way into your body. Even with the perpetrators caught and punished, you still wish to fight us?" Enigma asked, his gaze unwavering as he brought his muzzle to Howling's. "Has Set claimed your body, Howling Dune?"

"Set? What a curious little inkling forming in your mind, sphinxes." Howling just lowered his gaze, let a shadow coat his eyes, and let out a sinister laugh. The parchments he carried spontaneously combusted, as black flames engulfed them and turned them into mist before travelling up his nose. "Set would not bother wasting his time on a mere mortal such as I. However—" He craned his head back up, showed sharpened teeth, and brightly glowing purple eyes "—He would have LOVED to see this!"

Somnambula was freed from the diamond block by the other sphinxes and snapped herself back around to view Howling and Enigma. Howling levitated off the ground, magic coiling around his body as his voice became double-toned. Casting bolts of black lightning down at Enigma, who repelled them with a shield spell from his crown, the sands around him were ripped up, creating massive plumes at his side.

"What in the world has gotten into him?" Somnambula asked, shakily standing back on her feet as the empowered Howling whipped up a ferocious sandstorm behind his back and threw it into the faces of the sphinx people, shrouding himself with it.

"This is not good..." Enigma grunted as he flew back to Somnambula's side. "His hate attracted Set, and now he's possessed his body. This is what happens when you hold a grudge for too long; especially around magical beings like us."

"Nergo an ykon gsmek rhoz!" Howling called out, before casting a wave of rapid-fire lightning bolts down at the sphinxes. Some of them were hit and let out audible screams and groans as they were tossed like ragdolls to the ground. "Krahith tataih alkoh!"

"What foul tongue is he speaking in?" Enigma asked, before ramming into Howling and pinning his body to the ground with one paw.

"The language of ancient Southern Equestria. Long before the time when ponies spoke like we do now." Somnambula walked up to Enigma's side and watched Howling squirm, before shooting a purple bolt to the skies. "Set's dark magic is burrowing deep into his body, and soon, he'll be much too far gone to bring back."

"This is the day when I finally end the sphinx race for subjugating my kind!" Howling growled, his double-toned voice echoing across the desert. "For all the torment, struggles, and battles that we have had against their kind, I will finally be the one to bring that quarrel to an end!" Another flurry of spells were unleashed on the sphinxes, a cavalcade of lights and colours smashed down on them, spreading them out across the crater-like ground.

"I only saw Set's magic once, but even then, he was in a weakened state..." Somnambula looked up in horror at the possessed pony before her as he flew towards a downed sphinx and fired a blast at its' chest, causing it to turn into particles of dust that hung in the air. "Only the warmth of a pure can exorcise him from a mortal. But with how much I have disdain for the pony beneath, am I really what can free him?"

Howling just said nothing more and turned another sphinx into idle particles, as storm clouds above them began to gather. The one blue and peaceful skies had turned grey, and hurled rain and purple lightning down upon the Shimmering Sands, erratic and hard to track for Enigma, Somnambula, and for the rest of the survivors.

"These sphinxes should never have been allowed to exist with their powers. They provoked my vessel's wrath, and now that wrath has blossomed MAGNIFICENTLY!" Howling announced, black and purple tendrils shooting out from his horn and coiling around his body, adding muscle mass to his hooves and causing veins to appear on his face and neck. His horn became dark purple at the tip and his mane elongated and flowed viciously in the winds. "This Howling Dune, long has he waited for a chance when the sphinxes would be destroyed. Unfortunately for him, his rage blinded him, and opened his heart to evil; MY evil."

"One that won't stay around for long if we have anything to say about it..." Enigma still stood strong, despite the sandstorm slashing his face and flying into his eyes. "One way or another, we'll free Howling from your body, evil one. And then, whatever happens next is his choice alone."

"How can you be so adamant in a time of crisis?" Somnambula spoke over the crack of another bolt of purple lightning. "Set! The god of evil resides in the body of a pony who hates sphinxes! His power has been magnified to a degree that I can't even understand!"

"Yes, but at the same time, Set is not entirely without weakness. That body he controls can still be hurt and knocked around, can't it?" Enigma asked, using his tail to clear his eyes. "If we can at least cripple the body, it should keep him from performing some more... drastic spells."

"And leave Howling beaten up in the process when he's finally brought back from Set's grip? As much as I want to slap some sense back into him, not even he deserves this fate when he is already suffering from an elongated grudge and dark magic flooding his body..." Somnambula shed a small tear as he watched Howling grow more and more veins on the rest of his body as his teeth began to sharpen. "If anything, he deserves only my pity and nothing more."

"Let this be a lesson to all of those who dare to provoke my home!" Howling Dune stomped into the ground, causing Shimmering Sands to sink deeper into the earth, taking the sphinxes, Somnambula, and Enigma with him. They all fell into a large cave, with tall stalactites and stalagmites bursting out of the ground and ceiling, and a small stream of water which rippled constantly in the storm. "I shall be the end of the sphinx race! So that we may finally know an era of peace and prosperity!"

"Through fear and terror? Through subjugation and extinction? Whatever future you dream of is a nightmare for the rest of us!" Somnambula opened her wings and flew to Howling's face, violently pressing her muzzle against his. "Whether you have the might of one god or all of them, I still won't stand down and let you walk over us like this, Set! Now. Leave his body, or you force my hoof!"

"Ha! A mortal challenging a deity such as I?" Set let out a hearty chuckle, which would be enough to make anyone's hairs stand on end if they heard it. He grinned again, his eyes piercing into hers. "What can a simple, magic-less Pegasus do against me; a god among ponies?"

"It matters not what power you wield, Set. So long as those who stand against your twisted ways have hope in their hearts, then there's nothing that they can't do." Somnambula lowered her brows and pushed further into his head, nudging him backwards ever so slightly. "Though I dislike the pony you hold, I will still save him from your wicked web of deceit. If it will save him, Equestria, and the sphinxes, then I will do whatever's necessary. Especially for my child..." Somnambula looked to the sealed cave, imagining Fwynxie and the idea of playing with her again. "My sweet, sweet little Fwynxie. Though we might not be related by bloodline, she sees me as a mother, and it would break her heart to see her lose that mother..."

"Then come and face me, pegasus mother. Show your devotion to this child sphinx of yours, and see if it will satiate my hunger when I crush her along with the rest of the race!" Set barked; more magic pouring out of his horn as he fired a huge bolt of it towards her. "Doamah alzel, taal alina!"

And without warning, a black tornado enveloped both Somnambula and Howling. Not a single trace of them was left as darkness filled the world around them and sealed themselves off from the rest of the world. Both of their eyes were still locked on each other, though. Even as the purple and black energy coiled and swirled around them, they were more focused on their target, and to prove that they were stronger, in spite of the other's beliefs.

On the outside, Enigma and the other sphinxes watched, paws tightly clutched on their chests as they witnessed the maelstrom of magical energy tear the ground up beneath it, ripping sand and stone up from the ground. Even now, the spiral was spitting storms out. Unpredictable cracks ripped through the air and brushed past the heads of many sphinxes, who had to back up and hide deeper within the sanctum they had fallen into so as to avoid being turned to powder in the air.

"Please, miss. Don't put yourself too deep into this madness." Enigma could only watch as the tornado thrashed and squirmed around in the center of the sanctum, sucking more and more sand into it. "Set is a god. And a powerful one at that..."

"Som-Mama..."

The sphinxes turned to see Fwynxie pulling her head up from a rock behind the stream, her eyes fixated on the black tornado that stood before her. Even as a baby, she was still cuddling and holding herself as she stared in awe of the phenomenon before her eyes.

"Fwynxie?" The queen's jaw dropped as she saw Fwynxie poke out of hiding, and immediately darted over to her side, wrapping her up in her wings. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the cave above with the others?"

"But... this is da cave." Fwynxie moaned, pointing to the other child sphinxes that were hidden by the deepest edges of the underground cavern. "We all fell down..."

"Tell us, miss? What's going on?" Another child sphinx lifted its' paw as it turned towards the storm, narrowly evading another of its' bolts of lightning. "Has the end of days come, as was prophesized?"

"No. That day has yet to come. But what is happening now is that a mad pony with hate for us all is being controlled by a dark and malicious entity." The queen had to hid behind one of the pillars of rock as the winds picked up. "And from the looks of it, things are looking close to said apocalypse..."

"Som-Mama in there?" Fwynxie pointed to the black tornado, her blood beginning to freeze as the sounds of her screams filled her head. "She in twouble..."

"Yes, but there's not much that we can do about it, Fwynxie..." Another sphinx, with a young boy's voice, came to her side. "Whatever that poor pegasus is fighting is going to be the toughest challenge she's ever faced. Uh... provided she hasn't fought an evil god like Set before." He blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

"Set?" Fwynxie reached forward for the storm, her lips trembling as the crackling noise of plasma filled the air filled her ears. As it continued to fire off wave after wave of lightning bolts, almost looking like something out of a movie with how unstable it was becoming, all that Fwynxie could do was watch. Her haunches, plastered to the ground as she witnessed the phenomenon causing even more damage to the ground beneath it, while at the same time emitting a deafening howl that would send shivers up anyone's spine.

"Som-Mama..." Fwynxie clutched her paw tight in her hand and gave her a small salute. "Make that meanie go away."