With his skull still shaking like it threatened to split, Spike spilled through the rift, which closed behind him and he tumbled into the tombs of the pharaohs where the others waited. Inky Rose immediately ran to him, horror clear on her face with the rift gone and one still missing.

"N-no...Sombra! Where is Sombra?!” She demanded, looking between the familiar faces, cast in a gold sheen by the treasures scattered in piles around them, her husband nowhere to be seen.

“Gngh! He was supposed to go ahead,” mumbled Spike while rubbing at his head to ease the ache.

Bellatrix Primadonna narrowed her eyes. “You abandoned him.”

“No! I'd never do that, no matter what's happened between us!” Spike insisted, trying to remember what exactly happened. Yet the last thing he could recall was the former tyrant's climb up the vines, nearing the exit before he blacked out.

“Perhaps it's the fate he deserves," Fleur de Les muttered, having never fully got over her hatred for his past aggressions.

Radiant Hope rubbed the empty cavity below the cloak she'd borrowed from Beatrix. “It would be fitting,” she said with a curl of her lip. “Consumed by the same darkness he sold his soul to in pursuit of power.”

Inky whipped her head back to shoot a dangerous look at the two mares. “Don't you dare say that!"

Fleur cast back her mane, leaning on her halberd. “We do not answer to you.”

“Yet you both stand in my kingdom. And I will not allow these remarks to fly unless you wish to be banished!” The two mares started to approach one another before Beatrix cut between them.

“Hey, that's enough!” Beatrix proclaimed. “There's no point fighting each other here. If Sombra is still trapped, we have to go back!”

Fleur pursed her lips. “You're correct about one thing. There's no need to fight as we have what we came for."

“Sombra is part of the alliance,” reminded Twilight Sparkle. “Without him, we wouldn't have beaten the Eldritch.”

“Leave it to me,” requests Lady Ewe, looking back to the dark tome. "I can provide safe passage for Beatrix to go retrieve him."

“Me too!” It was Bellatrix who spoke up and stepped forward to her sister's side. Despite her angelic appearance, she was giving Spike, Radiant, and especially Fleur a look that would remind some of her previous demonic nature. “You're all free to go, no need for the likes you anyway.”

“B-but wait! You must still be feeling weak,” noted Stygian, who leaned on a wall. “If you didn't heal all my wounds, you would be much stronger. T-Thanks, by the way.”

Bellatrix shrugged it off with a shake of her white plumage. “Pft. Think nothing of it. Not like I'd do it solely for you.”

"Hold on. Look..." Somnambula, who'd retaken her pegasus shape, approached the dark tome. It was small at first, but it started to crackle with reddish lighting. “I sense something is trying to impede reentry. If you tried to go back in, it might shred your bodies apart.”

“B-but what about Daddy!?" Whined Cerise, clutching at her mother figure's side, almost equally upset over the possibility he would not return.

Inky remained vicious in expression while comforting the younger mare. “I refuse to abandon him, not when that thing's still inside with him!”

"Thing? What thing?" Beatrix asked in confusion. The rest of the participants looked together, wondering the same thing. Was the queen referring to the Demiurge?

Oona steps forth, a look of grave dismay on her face. "I apologize, I should have told you all sooner," she spoke gently before looking back at the Necronomicon. "Inside that book is an ancient monster known as Zeloph. Like Beatrix and I, he comes from another dimension, feasting on the minds and lives of everything with a consciousness. I fear his presence is what's causing the flow of things to unravel."

"Just sounds like another villain to be beaten," Spike scoffed with confidence, but the ram shakes her head.

"He is no ordinary opponent, Spike. With every consciousness he consumes or mind he corrupts, his power grows stronger. If there is darkness or fear in your heart, he will exploit it until he drives you mad. He's been a plague on the souls of creatures for centuries, learning to imitate people, play on their weakness. He has tainted the kindest of spirits and made them into psychopaths!"

Her honey filled eyes turned from the dragon to the two unicorn mares. "Sombra has done many crimes and atrocities. But trust me, friends; Zeloph is the last inmate you want him imprisoned with."

"Then, there isn't time!" Beatrix exclaimex. To think that they spent a long time trapped there and something like that was stalking them! She felt horrified knowing Sombra was lost in the labyrinth, unaware of this 'Zeloph' creature. "Somnambula, please! There has to be a way to get back inside!"

With a stroke of her chin, Somnambula mused, “I shall try and impede the black magic that blocks us. However, I cannot do it alone. Please, I request that any casters here aid my cause.” She was joined by Beatrix, Bellatrix, Ewe, Stygian, Flurry Heart, and after a moment's hesitation, Twilight and Fleur. Holding hands, they started to chant and weave a united spell.

For the moment, Rarity remained too weak to intervene, and Radiant Hope refused outright, not that she could summon up much effort either in her current state.

A shimmer was cast from lit hands and horns, reflecting off the circle that focused on the book, which continually crackled.

The clop of heavy boots and squishes sounded when Sombra navigated a sea of corpses. He noted they were all crystal ponies, naked and pale, piled into a cold mass he was forced to walk over. A black mass not unlike the one he'd once been able to turn into rolled about the skies. He kept his gauntlet-covered hand around his sword hilt, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.

They were his victims. Some butchered at his own hands under his tyrannical rule, others executed with a detached dismissal. At first, he'd only resorted to such extremes for severe criminals, most condemned to slavery until they died of exhaustion. Later, to merely question or look at him wrong meant one would lose a digit, at least, if not suffer torture, humiliation, and then death.

Keeping his snout drawn impartially, he ignored the dead and carried on in search of an exit. He reminded himself he'd changed, that his research had corrupted him, that he'd paid a heavy price in search of redemption.

But if he truly was redeemed, then why did he still feel such hatred?

Not just for himself, but for those who always despised him without outright stating it. No matter how many times, he still felt the weight of his sins hang from his shoulders. And it only felt like new ones would stack up.

"Why even bother trying to hide it?" An ominous voice spoke, a couple of whispers backing it up. "We all know who you really are."

Sombra's gaze widens as each head of the corpses suddenly twitched to life, twisting their necks to stare up at him. A bunch of eerie-looking eyes flickers in their sockets as those closest to him tried to reach for him. All while the whispers grew louder, repeating many phrases over and over,

"Tyrant!"

"Murderer!"

"Rapist!"

"Filthy Demon!"

"Daughter-fucker!"

"M̸̨̛̀́ ҉͞ơ̴̧̧ ̸͞N̴̛͘͜͝ ̧̛͏s̨̧̢̨̀ ̡͢͜҉T̴̴ ̸̛͞͏҉e̕͘ ̴̴͜R̸̴͡"

"NO!" He roared, kicking the crawling bodies away before using his magic to blast them all apart. Panting, the dark stallion looked over to see that they had stopped moving or speaking to him. Or maybe they were never were. "N-no, I can't be...I'm no longer-"

"Sombra," two voices called to him unanimously.

As he turned towards the horizon of the pile, twin mares approached him. Their manes were in bob cuts, like their sparkly, crystalline bodies a prism of shifting colors contained below maid costumes. “Look upon your work,” said the one with slightly fuller hips.

Her bustier sister said, “Did you really think it would be that easy? Aren't some things beyond forgiveness?”

He kept his guard while walking closer. “I...I remember you. Yes, you worked for Cadance in certain dimensions. Foal-Bearer and Wet Nurse, wasn't it? Are you two real, or are you more phantoms from my past coming to haunt me as well?” He scoffed and drew his blade with a ring.

“Who knows,” said Foal-Bearer with pursed lips. “Killing us here won't mean a thing. We've been dead for a long time.”

Wet Nurse's eyes watered. “In this world, we never even had the chance to meet Cadance. You raped and murdered us when we'd barely reached adulthood. It amused you when you discovered we shared the same pleasures...and pains.”

He recalled the empathic bond between the twins, symbolized by the female symbols linked on their flanks in worlds where cutie marks were a thing, which meant they experienced the same sensations at all times, a sort of magic-induced psychic link.

“You forced me to watch what you did to my little sister,” reminded Foal-Bearer. “Worse, made me feel her shame and agony.”

“It's not like that anymore! I've become a better stallion than that! I-it wasn't like you didn't start enjoying it after I took you,” he insisted through bitter mockery, trying to shut out any guilt, to drive these spirits who dared haunt him away.

"Have you no shame for what you've done? You do not regret soiling both of us in the dirt like you did everyone who hated you?"

“You expect me to apologize?” He waved a gauntlet at the ocean of carcasses. “To throw myself upon my saber in shame?!” He leveled the weapon at them. “No.... This is all just in my head. You're just remnants of a monster who has been slain. I just...I just want to be with my family and friends again.”

Foal-Bearer mockingly laughed at him. “Oh, Sombra. You truly haven't changed then. And very soon, they'll all see your true colors.”

“You never slew any monster. You are the monster. Just lying to yourself that you became a hero to your lover and friend.” Wet Nurse agreed with a stomp of her heel. "You can hide from them, Sombra, but not from us! We see you for who you really are! You cruel, sadist fiend!"

“ENOUGH! You want a monster so badly? Fine, I'll give you a monster!” He bellowed, eyes glowing and heart darkening, unable to keep the darkness within at bay anymore.

With a wide slash, he opened their tops and split their bras, their ample breasts bouncing out, sparkly and dotted by full colorful nipples he eyed while drooling.

They didn't resist when he cut away their skirts and panties until both were down to their headdresses, frilly fingerless gloves, stockings that came to their upper thighs, and buttoned up heels. Pushing his blade to Foal-Bearer's throat, so close he bit into the skin a little with a trickle of blood, he pushed her down and undid his pants, pushing himself into her with a growl.

All rational thought abandoned him. The twins were his stress balls, and he ravaged them with brutal thrusts, Wet Nurse yelping when she was forced to feel her sister's ravishment, the puncture of his phantom cock which stabbed deep in her moist cunt.

“A-aah,” cried Wet Nurse, who scrunched up her pink-stained face, betrayed by the electric tingles of her clenching sex holes.

Foal-Bearer shot him a blank yet defiant stare, her cheeks bright too, but unlike her more sensitive and emotional younger sister, she refused to cry out or moan no matter how he battered into her. Squishes sounded each time he spread her wide, impaled her, and he took one of her massive tits into his maw, biting so hard he almost broke the skin and left red marks on the supple flesh.

Grunting, he thrust a final time, sheathed himself deep as he was able, and loosed his seed into her womb. A pop sounded when he yanked loose, his cum dribbled out her distended pink birth canal over her asshole, and he turned his hunger on Wet Nurse, who whimpered when he shoved himself into her with fangs bared, determined to break his accursed tormentors.

Pants broke from Foal-Bearer's clenched teeth, unable to take the forced pleasure that rocketed through Wet Nurse.

He backhanded Wet Nurse's tits and watched the globes, which would no doubt bruise, wobble. She whined and clenched around him, milked his dick on instinct, which pulsed and filled her uterus with repeated, messy spurts. Huffing atop her, the pair sweaty and ragged, a moment of lucidity returned, and he slowly withdrew from her with his face drawn in self-disgust.

“I am a monster,” he muttered to himself. “But if cutie marks determine our fates, was it ever truly my fault...?” He desperately wanted to believe he was a victim, that anyone else forced into his position would have committed the same terrible sins.

Standing, he buckled his pants. “Come with me,” he demanded. “There's much I still wish to know, and maybe you two can help. If you're not ghosts, that is...”

Foal-Bearer managed to sit up, wincing at her sore, lacerated vagina. Her smile spread wide, almost unfitting for a face so beautiful. “You believe we can help you locate an exit.”

“We can help you,” said Wet Nurse, stretching out before swaying to her twin, as if she didn't just take a brutal pounding.

"All you need to do..."

"... Is let u̕҉s̷̢ in~."

The twins hobbled before him, naked and knees knocked, and his sword tip poked at their backs and buttocks. Again he was tempted to embrace the monster within.

Only memories of those closest to him, Inky Rose, Cerise Silhouette, Beatrix Belladonna, and Bellatrix Primadonna, enabled him to cling to remnants of his sanity, teetering as he felt tendrils sling onto his flesh, the Pony of Shadows becoming one with him.

He could hear another voice cackling somewhere in the abyss, and it was almost soothing.

A thunderous boom sounded from the Necronomicon, and Twilight Sparkle barely raised a barrier in time, deflecting the storm of crimson lightning that almost ripped into the casters. The dark tome floated up, pages fluttered when it opened, and from it emerged twin crystal mares, followed by Sombra, who landed behind them on his knees as his saber clattered.

Red sparks popped around Inky's feet and static filled the air when she approached. “My love...”

“Daddy,” cried Cerise with hope when she ran to his side.

“I knew you'd make it,” said Beatrix with a wink, restraining her own urge to dash over and embrace him.

Bellatrix, however, remained cross. “Care to share with us what really happened back there. Spike hasn't been exactly honest.”

“I'm sincere,” insisted Spike defensively. "I just...couldn't remember. Please, tell me. What did I do...?”

Sombra rose and recovered his sword. He snorted in the dragon's direction. “Oh, it was nothing. Just another attempt on my life is all. I've gotten used to that.” He rubbed his side and felt the fresh sting of cracked ribs now that the adrenaline had cooled down. “You were quite fierce, though. Swinging and clawing at the vines to ensure I fell.”

“I...I'm sorry,” answered Spike, who rubbed the back of his scaly neck. “I didn't mean to...”

“Obviously, he didn't.” Beatrix desperately fished for some explanation. "Surely, it was the remaining forces of the Eldritch..."

"Or this Zeloph guy," Bellatrix added sarcastically.

"Sombra," Ewe said with a stern look on her face. "Did you at all encounter anything not in the realms of possibility? Like meeting an old friend you know is dead?" She, too, was desperate to make sure that creature hadn't escaped.

“No,” he lied without hesitation. "And even if I did, it matters not. I can no longer trust any of you." Sombra looked to the party of ponies and creatures with a sharp glare. “Consider my nation's part in the alliance terminated. Furthermore, Spike and his entourage are forever banished from my territories.”

“What...?” Inky sucked in a breath. She usually never openly dared question her husband before others anymore, knowing it was better to talk it over with him in private. But an outlandish display of power needed to be addressed. “My love, you can't possibly mean that! Surely, the foundations of our trust with them are stronger than that. Please, let's reconsider this and-”

“I will not. That 'strong foundation of trust' almost cost me my life! For all I know, His rebirth is the reason the Necronomicon started stirring up again. And don't think I'm not aware that you nearly killed my wife in a fit of madness. You're a threat to my family!” He pressed the saber to Spike's chest, and Fleur snarled and readied her halberd, Sombra's guards arriving with spears at the ready.

“Stand down,” said Spike with a frown. Guilt was evident on his face, but Sombra was correct. Regardless of what force brought him back, his actions were his own. “We're leaving. If this is the way things are to be, then so be it. I just hope you can forgive me, Sombra.” He turned to Twilight, who sighed with a shake of her head. If there was something she was going to say, it never happened as she instead waved their allies to them and blinked away in an instant.

“Ha! Good riddance. Bunch of help they turned out to be,” Bellatrix snorted with a crack in her nose.

“Knock it off, sister. This is serious,” muttered Beatrix, struggling to believe that this was happening. She genuinely wondered if she was cursed. Wherever she traveled, things seemed to unravel. “Teacher, this can't be a wise decision. All those years, building trust and resources with friends. All of it will be thrown away!”

“It's too late now,” he stately flatly. “Guards, I want a summit prepared by tonight, attendance mandatory. I wish to make an announcement.” He looked between those still here, some not by choice; Inky Rose, Cerise Silhouette, Beatrix, Bellatrix, Radiant Hope, the maid twins, Somnambula, her handmaidens Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow, and Stygian.

“Make our new guests presentable,” he said to Inky's handmaidens with a cold glance at the twins. “They'll be added to my queen's staff. Also, look after Cerise, and make sure Stygian feels at home. Beatrix, I wish to see you in private. And as for you..."

His attention turned to the goat woman, who was frantically looking through the pages of the Necronomicon. Growling, he stopped her by grabbing her arm and pulling her away with a forceful yank. "I don't see much use in you...outside of a few ideas," he leers, eying the shepherd's motherly figure within her robes while she glared back at him. "You are to leave as well."

"What!? Teacher, you can't, she's my-"

"Relax, Ceann Oga...I won't be far from you. But I know where I'm not wanted." With a huff, she turned to leave the treasury as well, already aware of the truth. The page that depicted Zeloph had gone blank.

Before the witch could suggest otherwise, Sombra wasted no time to hurry off to his chambers. Beatrix hesitated but eventually followed him. Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow hurried to obey their orders while Inky Rose turned to Radiant Hope and Bellatrix, trying to understand what was happening.

Torches swirled and cast twisting shadows down corridors lined in hieroglyphics. “Teacher...?” Beatrix's heels clicked when she scurried after him, his cape sweeping behind him, his weary face drawn and trying to hide a wince from broken ribs.

He moved past his guards without comment and threw the door open. “Get in,” he hissed, grabbing her by the wrist, pulling her in, and slamming the door behind her. He unlatched his armor, throwing it on the floor with a clatter, and lit a dim lamp with a flicker.

“You're hurt,” she noted with pursed lips. “M-maybe I can-?”

Grabbing her by the waist, he pulled her to his half-naked body, mashing his snout to hers. Her eyes widened, and her heart raced as she relaxed into his forceful kiss, his teeth chewing on her lips. Withdrawing, a string of saliva still connecting them, he sized her up with a nod of approval, then clasped at the top of her leotard with both hands and ripped it open with a shred.

She swallowed a small gasp when her breasts toppled loose, his hands roughly latching onto them, kneading them. He tore the fabric further, ripped away the rest of her costume so that she was down to her hat, gloves, and boots, her chest huffing when he seized her again and hurled her onto his bed. “Ugh~?!” She landed on her butt with a couple bounces on the sheets.

Throwing aside the rest of his clothes, he tackled her, pinning her to the bed. She repeatedly blinked but didn't resist, feeling his hardening tool press at her puffy labia, and she grit her teeth with a muffled cry when he plunged into her moist tunnel.

She didn't understand his sudden hunger but couldn't deny how right it felt to feel her insides filled. To have her needy marehood molded to fit the shape of his cock, which sunk in deep with a squish, her ears flattening. She surrendered to his brutal lust, lifting and spreading her legs to allow him in quickly, and he battered into her with grunts, aware only of his own needs.

She hardly minded though, gaze locked on the animal need on his twisted face, his chiseled chest heaving too. Her birth canal moistened and dripped between the crack of her ass, over her puckered pink asshole, happy to be used by him, to be wanted and needed when he treated her as nothing more than his plaything, lost in the heat of the moment, biting and molesting her.

A low yelp escaped when he nipped at a tit so hard he left red marks on it. His hands clasped around her throat, squeezed down, and her eyes went wide again, tearing up when she met his cold stare, heart racing but wanting to trust and please him.

She clenched around him, her fingernails biting into his back, head cast back, and knocking off her hat when she came on him with a muted cry. Again-and-again her lower holes gripped, milking his cock, her body screaming its biological need to take his seed into her womb, even though she was barren. He groaned with a final angry slam, emptied himself into her.

"Yessss," a voice whispered insidiously to him. "g͏͏̶͝͡į̨͝͠v̸̷̡̀e͏͜ h̀͟ȩ͏̶̛r͟͞͠ m̴̀ơ͠r̨͢͡e̵̡~!"

His body reacted violently by pushing himself off of her, sweating bullets. She panted, sweaty and ragged, his cum oozing out her gaped slit to dribble down her rectum. Locks of her violet-tinged platinum mane stuck to her face when she studied him with glazed eyes and murmured, “W-was I good...?”

He rubbed his throbbing temple with a curl of his lip in a moment of lucidity. “Get out,” he said flatly.

She rose to a seated position and tilted her head. “Huh?”

“I said, get out! Now.” He tossed the remnants of her costume into her arms, pulled her hand, and opened the door, shoving her out between the guards on duty. “Make sure she's safely escorted out.”

He slammed the door behind him, not wanting to look at her confused and hurt expression. Sombra was no longer certain what had happened, but aware he was a threat to her. To everyone. He stared at his sheathed sword on the floor.

"Perhaps...it better I end this before--GRRAAUGH!"

The Pony of Shadows would not allow him to take such an option. He hissed when it hardened his heart anew. He stumbled and collapsed onto his bed, still stained with their sexual activity, aware his apprentice was safer on her own—tendrils wrapped around his mouth, preventing his screams from being heard.

"Seems some shred of sanity still exists in you. A pity the Pony of Shadows could not bond with you completely. Otherwise, that last climax would have fulfilled my plans."

In the shadows, a being made of static glitched from within, eyes swarming around the room.

"No matter, heheh. I just need to find a convincing disguise while the two of you spread my mania like wildfire. This is so much more interesting. I can't wait to welcome all these ponies to our growing f̸̨̢̕ą̵̢̀͢m̸̵͢͝i̶͜͠l̴̛̛͟͡ỳ̷̸~."

Laughing madly, the sinister presence disappeared from the room, leaving the struggling king to suffocate in his past transgressions.

Outside the capital, the guards pushed the young mare out without so much as a chance to say her farewells. Beatrix looked back with a frown at the structure, twinkled her fingers, and summoned up a copy of her torn leotard, akin to a second skin forever tied to her. Then she set down the lonely road and followed the trade routes. She had a feeling it would be a long walk.

She couldn't believe what Sombra did. She felt betrayed. Used. If only she knew what happened when Spike lost control during their climb out. If she were faster, she could have secured her teacher, no sweat!

But it was too late, and the damage had been done. She might as well just leave this universe, seeing everywhere she stepped foot, something wrong always happened.

Unfortunately, teleportation magic remained beyond her, perhaps a limitation of her ability to traverse dimensions. Sadly she could only open one rift at a time, because she subconsciously knew to tear another hole would connect the pair in a loop and cause the dimension she was in to collapse upon itself, taking her with it. At times like these, she felt tempted to do so.

“Self-pity isn't appealing,” she muttered to herself and watched the sun start to dip below the horizon while she walked. “I wonder how two connected rifts would look. A Klein bottle or something? Ugh...such stuff is beyond me.” She shrugged it off. She could be witty, sure, but was hardly a genius.

From her mother, she'd learned a particular trick that could transport her short distances with the use of smoke bombs, but it let her travel a few feet at most, and where she ended up seemed random. Sometimes she'd simply reappear in a poof of smoke at precisely the same place! “Why is my mother's bloodline so unlucky?!”

As if on cue Trixie's wagon rolled up and scattered a cloud of sand when it stopped. From it, her mother emerged, followed by Lady Ewe, Flurry Heart, and Bellatrix. “My little hellspawn, are you okay?!” She ran up and hugged her.

Beatrix wheezed under her mother's iron grip. “Y-yeah, I'm fine! Just disoriented.”

“Good! Trixie would accept nothing less from her daughter,” she replied with a warm smirk.

“Something's wrong with Sombra! Could it be connected to the Necronomicon? Duh,” Beatrix chastised herself. “What am I saying?! It always is!”

"Perhaps not this time, my friend," Lady Ewe said while rubbing at her shoulder to comfort her. “Rest assured, We'll do what we can to stop him. Unfortunately, he's exiled most of us from his lands. We must be away before sundown, lest we be captured.”

Flurry Heart frowned. “He's threatened to have us all hunted down and executed if we don't obey!”

“It's not him,” hissed Bellatrix. “It's like he's reverted back to the demon he used to be. Whatever Spike did to him-”

Oona Ewe shook her head. “Zeloph is the one responsible for this madness. He must have slipped free when we tried to bypass the barrier around the Necronomicon. Spike will be our best bet in figuring out a way to stop him. I'm curious about the effects of whatever brought him back alive. But I insist we head to the Badlands.”

“That won't be a problem,” said Flurry. Despite her weakened state, she'd learned to work with her artificial horn, which she improved all the time, and could now transport entire groups and cargo a mass distance. Of course, it also left her terribly weak afterward, but she didn't tell them that, determined to show how useful she could still be despite her setbacks.

With a blink, the crew arrived back in the underground gardens, wagon and all. Unknown to Beatrix, through her mentor, the Pony of Shadows had left part of itself in her uterus while he'd taken her, dark magic manifesting itself to take root and begin the process of making her fertile...

From the pyramid's side, Sombra overlooked his empire. The packed-in masses teemed like insects below. He balled up his fists, reminded that they needed an iron fist to rule over them, to make them stronger and help them reach their potential.

The weak would be cut away like so much chaff under his rule. At his sides stood the inner circle of his entourage.

The moon hung in the starry night sky, the lands lit up by braziers that whooshed with crackling reddish-yellow flames. Far and wide came the attendees that were able to arrive in time, which included his other children, fully blossomed into adulthood, who ruled over distant regions and carried out his whims to maintain the united empire he'd always dreamed of.

Through the use of magic, his booming voice was carried over the crowds. “Dependence on the alliance has made us weak! The time for our proud empire to secede has arrived! From here on, we stand alone!” He raised his fist to uproarous cheers.

Quieting them down with a wave, he continued. “To celebrate the occasion, I now take my first love, Radiant Hope, and my daughter, Cerise Silhouette, as my brides! Like the ancient pharaohs, I wish to keep my sacred bloodline pure whenever possible!”

The mob erupted once more, and he pulled the pair close to him, dressed like the rest of his companions in fancier versions of the silk garments the handmaidens wore; bare-breasted with sheer, transparent gowns that clung to their lush curves.

Their nipples were stiff in the cool breeze, soaked in sweet perfume, with bits of jewelry that decorated them. Flames from the urns around them made the shadows crawl over their supple forms, which shimmered by contrast under the harsh light.

“Your w-what...?” Inky Rose tried to make sense of his decisions, letting the words sink in. "You can't be serious."

Cerise pressed her soft, bared breasts to him with a hug. “I've always dreamed of the day I'd become a bride, daddy.” Tears filled her eyes. “I'll make you proud when I bear your children. Isn't it wonderful, mommy?”

Inky said, “No...no, this doesn't make any sense. None of you are acting like yourselves! Lover, please stop this. You're not thinking straight!”

“On the contrary, my dear, I've been thinking clearer than I have in years.” He'd brooded earlier over the loss of Beatrix and Bellatrix, yet told himself it was for the best. His apprentice, in particular, was too soft for what he intended. “Tell her what we've learned, my daughter.”

Cerise nodded with enthusiasm and a hop. “I'm a partial reincarnation of Pacific Glow! It's like I get to be reunited with my old friend all over again! I don't fully understand it, but somehow daddy's magic melded Pacific's soul with mine! Isn't that awesome?!”

“That's impossible,” exclaimed Inky Rose. "As much as I miss her, I understand when things should remain dead. Sombra, please, if we can just-"

"You're wasting your breath," Radiant Hope snarled while glaring at the people who celebrated below. “He's a complete monster. I learned that the hard way.” She caressed her chest, the surface wound healed over by Bellatrix's magic before she'd been banished, but unable to fill the empty cavity where her heart should be. Yet somehow, she still lived. “He's always been a cruel tyrant. I was too blinded by love to see it...”

“You're wrong,” said Cerise, who tightened her grip on him. “Just wait, you'll see!”

Sombra stroked his daughter's hair. “Tonight, we celebrate. All of you, to my chambers.” He also nodded to Diamond Tiara, Cozy Glow, Foal-Bearer, and Wet Nurse, who he'd made Inky's personal servants, his eyes lit with lust.

"Sombra!" Somnambula stood at the edge of the overlook with her mouth drawn. “You are headed down a dark path. Call this off! Or else-”

“You're words no longer yield wisdom to me,” he spat. “All I hear now are the babblings of an idiot! Guards! Escort the priestess out of our land!”

“Madness,” whispered Somnambula, who spread her plumage and hurtled from the overlook. The pegasus beat her wings, barely evaded the arrows that were fired her way and whizzed by, and with a chant, she was enveloped by light and retook the Sphinx shape she'd inherited from her oldest, dearest companion. Bitter tears stained her drawn expression.

She'd always known this day might come. That he could fall to the darkness. She only hoped Diamond Tiara and Cozy Glow would be okay. A shaft from the archers thudded into her side, and she hissed, arrow buried under her ribs, barely missing her vitals.

Pawing at the offensive arrowhead, hot blood seeping around the wound, she nearly lost her balance amidst a desperate flight.

But she nonetheless sailed into the night sky undeterred, dodging more missiles, determined to seek out Spike and set it right.

Sombra waved down his men. “Let her go. She's made her decision. In time, they'll come to understand my vision...or else.”

By his decree, the further militarization of his empire began. His craftsmen forged helmets based on his own designs, ones he planned to imbue with his own dark magic, and 'persuade' those who failed to share his ambitions. Thankfully, most of his followers were fanatically loyal to him, and through hard work, his land would further prosper.

Realizing he could use Stygian, he'd forced the scholar to continue his research on the Necronomicon, surrounded by a cadre of elite guards. They forced him to work to exhaustion tirelessly.

With its secrets uncovered, Sombra would become greater than before! Oh, how he missed this sense of power. He could feel his heart race with suppressed excitement.

Now would be the perfect time to seek out his wives and their assistants to celebrate!