Shining Armor circled in front of his wife, his horn glowing brightly. "How did...?" His magic was still working. The bubble that encased the returned empire was still there, he could see it beyond a window, shimmering. He hadn't yet passed it on to Cadance, for the Mane Six had not yet arrived in need of picking up. Shielding was his specialty, what his cutie mark was!

"I don't know." Cadance pawed at the ground restlessly as the dark magic gathered into the rough shape of a pony. "But we will stand against it."

"Together."

Clad in armor, the deaded lord Sombra took full form, one hoof clopping against the ground, other hoof raised as they looked around. "Where am I?" he... she? asked, dark magic spilling from her eyes as they darted about the area in a quick scan of her surroundings.

Some strange new form of trickery? Shining withdrew his magic from the shield, preparing for more offensive tactics. The enemy had already breached that defense. "The Crystal Empire will not fall to you today!"

Lightning arced across the sky. Ponies began to scream and panic. Something was approaching.

Cadance's eyes were on the window facing it. "This isn't over."

"Of course it isn't," agreed Shining with some confusion. "Sombra is right here."

Cadance turned his head with two hooves to see what she was seeing. Beyond the immediate threat, great pillars of jagged black crystals were erupting from the ground high enough to be visible through the windows. Combined with the screams, it became quite clear, and yet also befuddling.

"Crystals..." As if repeating itself, a swirl of dark energy rushed into the room, taking the form of the dead lord Sombra, scowling at the other form. A sneer on his lips, crackles of power promising pain to any that witnessed it.

"Oh," got out the she-Sombra. "Gah, I look like that?"

This answer did not please the male version who lunged at her with a swinging hoof that connected with her snout and sent her tumbling backwards. She faded into mist as she flipped, reforming upright and scowling. "Hey, Jerk! Nobody asked for your opinion!" She stomped a hoof down, jagged crystals exploding in a line erupting upwards towards the male Sombra.

But this was not a trick beyond him. He sidestepped, whisping into a cloud for just a precious moment long enough for the oncoming line of jagged minerals to miss him entirely. He had no words, just fury unending. He peered into her eyes, attempting to burrow into her mind and soul and win another way.

But her eyes were just as tainted with the strange magic that made them up. He found no vulnerable shaking spirit, but one like his own, scowling back at him. He would find no easy victory there. The she-Sombra suddenly reared up, wobbling on two legs. "Get the heck out of here!" She made a hurling motion, though she held nothing.

Her magic obliged her, grabbing a crystal chair and hurling it in a rough spin at the he-Sombra. But he had just as much magic, grabbing it with his horn and with a toss of his head, sending it crashing and shattering against the floor.

"Do we... fight one of them?" asked Cadance in a hushed whisper of her husband.

"I don't know what's happening... But there is no room for King Sombra here." That much, at least, seemed clear. Not that this propelled him into action, watching the doubles battle it out.

Perhaps if Sombra were fully recovered from his torpor, things would have been playing differently, but he and his nemesis seemed evenly matched as they darted about the room, taking swats and lashes with hoof and magic as the opportunity seemed to come up. "Up here!" called the she-Sombra as her shadowy horn glowed purples and greens, magic flashing down at him.

But he caught it in his own magic, throwing it aside to scorch a wall beside them. "Crystal..." He suddenly darted away, abandoning the fight.

"I'm not done!" She charged after him, stumbling a little in the process. "Bloody hell." She rose to her hind legs and ran that way, a most unusual way for a pony to run, but she was doing it, arms pumping as she fled the castle after he-Sombra.

Shining Armor glanced to the side and back at Cadance. "We can't just... let them do what they want. Stay here, I'll go after them." He burst into a gallop after the two ponies of dark magic, bursting out onto the street to see the two of them hurling power at one another as they slowly ascended along the side of the castle, both in shadowy and indistinct forms. Only their eyes were clearly visible, glaring at one another with an equal irritation.

Sadly, he was not a pegasus, nor were any in sight. The vast majority of crystal ponies were earth ponies. "Whatever you are going for..." He didn't want them reaching. Just as one of them was about to reach a distant window above, he conjured a shimmering field of force across it, barring the way.

He-Sombra slapped against the unplanned for barrier, glaring at Shining Armor with a roar of defiance. Shining fell to his belly, hooves at his horn as jagged crystals erupted from it in a painful display of his power. The shield flickered out of his way.

But his doppelganger had not, rising up in a shadow between him and that open window. "Stupid son of a..." Magic gathered about her horn, dark and terrible. "Gonna--" She didn't get to finish, his quick burst of magic forcing her to use what she had been gathering to deflect it in a great splash of fell colors. "Dang it, stay still!" She chased him, hitting the ground inside with the clop of her hooves.

There in the center of that crystal chamber was a heart, also made of crystal, floating there patiently. He was going for it directly, hoof reaching out for it.

"Nuh uh!" With a great outwards thrust of her forehooves, crystals exploded around the heart, barring the way towards it as they curled around, encasing the heart away from him. "That's not happening!"

With an angered hiss, he turned the same tactic on her, but the crystals raised immediately around her to capture the female mirror that was vexing him so badly. For just a moment, things became quiet. "Finally," he sighed out, his first word besides crystal. He turned in place back to the trapped crystal and grumbled, starting the arduous task of liberating the heart from the mass of crystals the mare had trapped it in.

With the sound of shattering crystals, she-Sombra emerged from her prison, horn glowing with renewed power. "Now I'm angry." The battle between them had not finished.

Cadance emerged, hurrying to Shining's side. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm fine," he got out through his grit teeth, the crystals embedded in his horn painful and debilitating at once.. "They're up there." He pointed up at the window he had lost them through. "Only you can stop them. Sorry..."

"You don't owe me any apologies." She pecked his cheek and rose to her full height, wings unfurling on her back. "I accepted this responsibility. Let's end this."

She soared up along the castle, galloping along the smooth crystal as her wings flapped to keep her passage on track and upwards. Hopping up around the last lip, she stood in the window frame to see the two locked in battle. Their sharp teeth having found a home in one another with marks of the battle showing that they had not spent it idly. Two Sombras...

She couldn't fight them both. If they turned on her, it would get ugly. She instead turned inwards, focusing on her own special magic. Little hearts began to emerge from her horn and danced in the air above her. One descended before her eyes and she beheld He-Sombra through it. She gasped with shock at what she saw. There was no love there, not even a hint. The heart exploded into flames, ashes blowing away on the breeze.

He-Sombra threw his head to the left, crystals exploding with the motion, nicking his enemy. The ground beneath him lurched upwards beneath him, but he was shadow too quickly for it to harm him. Laughing with malicious triumph, he calmly reformed in front of the new pillar, glaring at her in challenge.

Cadance peeked at the She-Sombra and saw a heart that was not kind and loving. Torn, savaged, and ugly at a glance. But it was not entirely without love. The heart she peeked through withered, but did not fall to ash. "Not a big step up..." But still, a step up. "If I have to target one..." She angled her horn at He-Sombra.

She-Sombra could see her and returned He-Sombra's triumphant smirk, which only bothered him.

"Die," he intoned as he began to gather power, horn swirling with fell magic.

But he did not see Cadance, and know nothing of her magic until it was already piercing him in a bright beam through his middle. He might have recovered from that, continued the fight, but his frustrating doppelganger was on him, pummeling wildly in what was more of a wild scream than what was any articulated battle cry.

He fell to shadow and fled, injured and beaten.

The she-Sombra sank to her haunches, breathing heavily. The room faded to quiet.

Cadance broke that silence with the sound of her hooves striking the ground on landing. "Stay right there," she ordered, horn glowing in threat. "I don't know who... or what you are..." Sombra was a stallion, that much was simple historical fact. He was pretty famously known as King Sombra. Kings did not come in mare editions.

She-Sombra pointed into the crystalline mess. "There was a heart in there."

Cadance blinked softly. "A heart?"

"Of crystal. I... think that thing wanted it. I wanted it just to spite him." She smiled a little. "Wow, that took a lot out of me. I sound odd."

Cadance inclined her head at the strange mare. "How do you usually sound? You... sound normal to me." As normal as any shadow mare could sound. Female, a bit raspy, intimidating.

"Light, high." She raised a hoof to her throat, but paused in that, the moment her hoof touched herself. "The hell?" She turned the hoof into view and began gaping at the metal clad hoof as if it were something new and alien. "The... hell?" She twisted in place, taking in her form as she went left and right, trying to view herself from every angle she could. "What...? What?! What is this?!"

Cadance raised a brow, confusion building. "You are injured..." She drew a hiss of a breath. "If you agree to let us take you prisoner, we'll treat you."

"Prisoner?" She-Sombra turned on Cadance. "What for? I didn't do anything wrong." She pointed at the crystal mess. "I protected your heart! I fought mister gloom and doom, whatever he was on about."

Cadance raised a hoof flat with the potential threat. "Be calm. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. We don't know. Consider it...a formality. You will be treated kindly, this I promise, so long as you don't give us a reason not to."

"Look... I was... cold, and--" She-Sombra looked around. "It's warmer here, nice, but what's up with this?" She put forward a hoof at Cadance. "And I sound like a girl."

"You are a girl," noted Cadance flatly. "A mare, I should specify."

"That matches the hoof." She waggled that hoof at Cadance. "I don't mind the girl part, really... Really really... Really..." A single tear ran down her face despite her expression remaining determined. "But can you explain the rest of this?" It was at this point that it hit her. "You are also a pony."

"Yes I am...?" Cadance inclined her head at the confused would-be terror of the kingdom. "Please come with me. You can... fly right?"

"I did it before." Without the adrenaline of combat, it took her a moment to sort that out, bits of her puffing into smoke in sporadic patterns before she managed to get the whole thing to come along. "Better." The glare her eyes gave did not comfort Cadance as she lifted up and floated right to the window they had come through.

Cadance followed on her feathery wings. She could hear a gasp of astonishment and relief. "I'm alright!" she shouted, waving at the ponies gathered below that had seen the she-Sombra emerge first. Had they thought she lost the battle? Perhaps... "Everything is alright!" She hoped, though was not 100% certain of.

She landed on the steps near Shining Armor, who was standing. "Are you alright?"

"I would ask the same." He closed with her, the two nuzzling and giving a brief hug. "I'm fine. This will... go away hopefully." He swatted at the crystals stuck in his horn. "Why is that Sombra not running away?"

That other Sombra landed near them and faded back into a living pony instead of a creature of shadow. "I remembered my name."

Cadance raised an ear. "Oh? Lovely. What is it?" Surely a name would help sort them out in part.

"I am Queen Sombra." She struck an imposing stance. "But I'm not sure what I'm queen of. Is it this place?" She began to circle in place. "This is a nice place. I'll try to queen it up even better."

Shining Armor stepped forward, a little ahead of Cadance. "She is Princess, ruler of--"

"I have a princess?!" Queen Sombra approached Cadance with a grin. "I never had a daughter before."

Cadance scowled at her would-be usurper. "Queen Sombra, I'm afraid your title is ornamental only at best. I am the ruler of this kingdom, the Crystal Empire."

A roar echoed from above them. "Crystal..."

Shining Armor scowled anew. "I thought he was gone."

"Me too," grumbled Queen Sombra. "Some people just don't know when to quit." She faded into shadow, raising back towards the holding place of the heart. "He's back up here!"

"He did sound like it..." She lowered herself. "Quickly, up!"

Shining scrambled atop his larger wife, blushing a bit at the reminder of how much he was not the big man of that union. Unlike most couples, they were about the same size. He had maybe an inch on her. "What are they even after up there?"

"A heart, made of Crystal." With a powerful flap, she took flight, ascending towards that lofty tower. "I have no idea why."

"Like your cutie mark?" He glanced back at her rump where it was displayed for the world to see, an image of the crystal heart. "Must be important."

"It must be," she agreed, landing on the window sill.

Inside, the two Sombras had resumed their battle. It seemed King Sombra had regained some faint bit of himself, his power stronger, lashing out at Queen Sombra with a new intensity. Was it desperation, or something else? Hard to tell, but he was forcing her back slowly but surely. With a sizzling bolt of dark magic, Queen Sombra was sent skidding back with a yelp of pain.

Cadance pointed. "Queen Sombra can be reasoned with, we must defeat King Sombra."

"But how?" He had no magic to use, but was a warrior. He did what came to mind, and he charged into the frey. Dancing over sharp bits of crystals on the way, he lowered his horn as if he could crash it into King Sombra's side.

Cadance's horn began to glow with the promise of magic. "You will not win!"

"You won't," agreed Queen Sombra, clapping her hooves together with a bright nimbus of contrastingly dark magic. "We have you surrounded."

But he ducked back, fading into shadow just long enough for Shining to get between him and the Queen. He snapped back into physicality even as his hooves crashed into Shining's side, propelling him against the Queen, the two going down in an uneven heap of flailing limbs.

"Shining!" She fired rapid rays of piercing magic, forcing King Sombra to back away, but not inflicting any real damage on the shadow menace.

Shining scrambled back to his hooves with an annoyed grunt. Before he could charge again, King Sombra was on him. The two met, horn to horn, hooves kicking and flailing with painful thuds, though it seemed to bother Shining more than Sombra, his malicious face more enjoying the pain he inflicted than whatever he was receiving.

But magic reached him, from two directions. Dark magic and vibrant love magic cashed in that center point, and the world seemed to pause a moment.

The three defenders felt like they were somewhere else. They could all see the crystal heart, spinning slowly, pulsing with strange warm power that washed over them. A thin silvery line ran from Cadance out towards Queen Sombra and Shining Armor, then from those two to each other, binding them all together. The crystal flared brightly, and the world resumed, the crystal no longer in sight, buried in crystal as it had been.

Queen Sombra kicked at an itch, her rump shining brightly with a new cutie mark, almost identical to Cadance's own, a crystal heart bold and big. "You're going down."

Cadance's own cutie mark had joined in the glow, brilliant and majestic. "There is no room in the Crystal Empire for you."

Shining's horn was smooth and unharmed by the crystals that had been in it moments ago. His own cutie mark, pulsing with the same power. "Begone!"

Their powers combined from three horns on the startled King Sombra. With a fleeing roar, he was forced back into the dark crevice he had emerged from, sealing it behind him.

"Woo!" called out Queen Umbra, dancing in place. "Did you see that? We kicked his butt!"

Shining Armor reached up to rub at his renewed horn. "Where are we again?"

"The central tower." Cadance moved towards the crystals that were falling off in sheets to dust, revealing the crystal heart to her eyes. "Where this was hidden." Her magic gently lifted it up to float next to her. "We need to learn what this is and what it's importance is."

"Good idea." Queen Umbra nodded at the curious heart artifact. "If he wanted it so bad, must be important."

Shining chuckled softly. "Well, Twilight's on the way. I can't think of a better pony to research a magical artifact. But..." He turned slowly towards Queen Umbra. "We still have a problem."

"I am not under arrest," she denied flatly. "I saved you guys. Twice!"

Cadance gently set a wing on her husband's back. "You did... but we still don't know who you are, exactly..."

Shining grunted softly. "For the safety and comfort of the ponies of the Crystal Empire, please allow us to arrest you." He inclined an ear towards Queen Sombra. "Your cell will be a comfortable room, with a proper bed, pleasant meals, and--"

Queen Sombra huffed softly, eyes flaring. "That sounds better than what I had before..." She turned for the window. "Let's show off the heart. Maybe they know what it is?" She pointed out and beyond, where the ponies lurked.

Cadance smiled. "We will do that. But, as my husband said, we do need to do this. You look very much like King Sombra, and they are very afraid of him. Allow us to get you somewhere safe, and out of sight, as we sort this out." She angled herself a little. "Did you always have that?"

Shining's armor took hold of the queen's cloak, lifting it to make the cutie mark more easily visible. "Like yours... I don't see two ponies with the same mark... basically ever. Is that even possible?"

Cadance smirked at that. "Asking if something in front of us is possible is silly, Shining. Clearly it is. When did you earn your mark, and how?"

Queen Sombra looked back at her new mark. "Never saw it before. Looks like the heart." She pointed at the floating crystal heart. "Huh, and yours." She noticed Cadance's mark for the first time, peering at it curiously. "You earn them? Did we both earn it by protecting the heart? That's kinda cool."

Cadance smiled, but it was a fleeting gesture. She was still quite unsure how to feel about the not-Sombra before her. "Perhaps, but I already had mine. Will you come with us?"

A sudden rumble issued from Queen Sombra's midsection. "You mentioned food?"

And so it was that Queen Sombra was brought down with a rope tied about her midsection. It didn't stop her legs from moving. It didn't stop her from using magic. It didn't do anything but show that she was under arrest, and that was enough to prevent panic. A theatre of security, if she had wanted to attack, she could have as she was walked into the castle by Shining Armor.

Cadance pointed up at the heart as she faced the crowd. "We found this up above. Does anypony know what it is?" Some ponies fled from its sight and the headaches that came with it. Most just looked baffled. They would not give her the answer. "I see... All is safe for now. Go on about your days."

Shining Armor nodded to a guard. "See her to her room She is to be housed in a guest room and treated well."

"Sir." That pony was an Equestrian pony, not a crystal one, and didn't even flinch as he lead Queen Sombra along towards a plush room. "Ma'am." He gestured inside. "If you need anything, I will be right here." And he sat beside the door to wait."

Queen Sombra walked inside, kicking the door shut behind her. "Ma'am... like it." She turned to a mirror she spotted and trotted up to it. "Who's a pretty pony? You are!" She giggled and made kissy faces at herself. "Who's a pretty pony? It's still you," she half sang, raising her hooves to cradle her chin and flash her great fangs at the reflection. Pretty was likely not the first word most ponies would use for her.

She hissed, remembering aches and pains that came from the battle. "Welcome to it," she grumbled as she went to a water bowl and got to washing herself.

Cadance twitched an ear. "What?" It felt like a damp cloth was running over her, but she saw no cloth. She saw no water, but she could feel it running across her. She raised a leg at a time to get different angles of views, but the unseen cloth kept right on working over her. She colored as it reached more sensitive places. "Shining!"

Shining Armor burst through the door, sending it clapping against the far wall. "You too?!"

"Me too?" Cadance raised a brow at that even as the strange sensations continued. "Are you feeling this?"

"Y-Yes!" He wriggled in place. "And it's very strange. Is this a Sombra trick?"

"It may well be." But she did not look for King Sombra, but the Sombra far closer to them. "Poor Shining." At least she was a mare. Nothing about it was new, for a mare, just confusing. "Be brave."

"I want it to stop," he grunted out, marching with purpose. They reached Queen Sombra's room in short order. "Is she in there?!"

The guard nodded quickly. "I haven't seen anyone leave or enter this room, Sir."

"We're going in." Shining's horn glowed as he willed the door open. "Whatever you're doing, stop it right now!"

The rag, tinged faintly with the marks of the battle that it had become home to, fell into the bowl of stained water. "What?" There was Queen Sombra, caught mid self-shower, or was it more of a bath? "A lady can't clean herself these days?"

Cadance hurried past Shining, looking between him and the mysterious shadowy mare. There were questions to be answered.

Author's Notes:

Hello! Welcome to a new tale. Come, walk with me. If you didn't notice, this takes place right after the Crystal Empire was first occupied by Shining Armor and Cadance, but before the Mane Six show up. It has and will deviate from that point, but is canon MLP all points before the camera flicked on. Hopefully playing with the camera didn't make any typos...

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