Come on, Havoc, you can do this. Yes, The S͆̄͐̂ͮ͏̶̘͖͔̘̣̼͕̫͇͘͢͞ͅţ͇̘͕̞͚̘̘̮͎͎̹̭̐̈́͋̑̀́͐̊̽̽́ă̵̷̺̫̳̣̱̖̹̙̹̲̖͇͎̍͆̊̏̓ͪ͡͝ͅr̵̷̛̟̩̠̠̣̖̣͕̖͎͔ͦ̍ͫͨ͗͗̊ͯͩ̄ͩͤ͘͠e̛̥̰̗̤̮̩̰̯̪̳͙̦̰͂̋ͦ̎͒ͥ͌̋̽ͪ̒͂̇͗̅ͣ̏͝ ̢was one of the scariest things you have ever seen, but that won’t stop you from going on.

...

Alright, here it goes.

I flew out of the tent in my owl form just after Fluttershy did the same. Things had gone awry outside very fast. Many buildings were covered in dark crystals, and the barrier was flickering all the time. The crystal ponies were panicking, some of them returning to their emo status. This sparked an idea in my mind that made me forget the horror that is the S̴̶̴̷͢t̶̢̡ą̨͟͜͞r͘͘͢͡e̵͢͞. What will happen if I “discord” an emo pony? … Screw everything, I need to know that. I flew back to the ground level, and found an emo pony peering through the open window of a house. Target locked. I flew through it, managing not to collide against the pony’s head.

“What the...” he began as I turned back to draconequus and put my finger on his forehead, trying to discord him.

“FUCK!” I exclaimed as my finger was pushed back by an enormous force that came from inside the pony as soon as I tried to use my magic. This force made me crash against a wall a few meters behind me so hard I left my silhouette on it when I passed through. I rose surrounded in a cloud of dust, my back aching due to the impact. When the cloud dissipated I found myself in a bathroom and two emo ponies, the stallion I had tried to discord and a mare, staring at me from the draconequus-shaped hole in the wall.

“Sorry for breaking your wall, give me a second and I’ll fix it,” I said, feeling very embarrassed.

They moved back to let me pass, probably too shocked and emo to be scared. I used my magic to repair the wall, filling the hole with mint flavored play dough.

“You might want to get that plastered after this whole deal is over,” I added with an awkward smile.

The mare looked at me with bored eyes.

“Are you going to kill us, or will you leave us so we can be enslaved by King Sombra again?” she asked with no hint of emotion in her voice.

“More like the second, I just came to check what happened if I used my magic on any of you while you were under Sombra’s curse. It seems like it has some sort of defense system, which was what threw me to the wall. With that said, I’m leaving.”

I walked towards the open window, but just before I could leave the house a wall of dark crystals covered the window, plunging the room into darkness.

“... Shit.”

I tried to punch through a wall with my ent arm, but I was stopped by something far stronger than bricks or cement. I removed my arm from the hole I made on the wall and found that the outside of it was also covered by dark crystals. Fuck. I’m stuck in here with these emo ponies. I sure hope these crystals will disappear when the episode ends and Sombra is defeated. I better keep myself busy to avoid going nuts and killing everypony in the building in the meanwhile.

“Great, now I’m trapped here with you two,” I stated as I healed my ent hand, which had two broken fingers after punching the crystal.

I heard one of them walk away and, after a click, the room was illuminated again. I looked up and found one of those lamps with a shining gem inside, like the ones in Granite Back but fancier.

“I didn’t expect you to have artificial illumination... Anyways, we might be stuck here for a while, I think knowing each other will reduce the awkwardness,” I added, sighing. “My name is Havoc, what are yours?”

“I’m Emerald Sword,” said the stallion I had tried to discord. True to his name, his cutie mark was a greenish sword. “She is Opal, my wife.” LOL, she has the same name as Rarity’s cat.

“Don’t worry, I serve Equestria,” I explained when, after managing not to laugh at the name, I noticed they were still wary of me, which probably means they would have run away screaming if they weren’t emos. “I would never harm a pony.” I can’t believe how easy it is to lie at these ponies. They are so gullible...

“If you say so...” said Emerald Sword, as they both left me alone in the room. Best hosts ever.

I took a look around, noticing for the first time that I was in a bedroom. I found nothing amusing so I left the room. I had to move on all fours to avoid hitting my head against the ceiling, and even then I had trouble crossing the doors with my great girth. There were only two other rooms in that floor, one being the bathroom I had already visited by accident and the other a junk room filled with old furniture and, well, junk in general. Only after turning the lights off in the junk room did I realize I had been using the switchers like I would on Earth. It seems that habits don’t die so easily. I tried to walk down the stairs, but the steps were too narrow for me so I used my magic to float down. I found the door to the outside in front of me, but I didn’t bother trying to open it, as I was convinced that it was covered by crystals. On the right there was a kitchen with nothing remarkable. I’m sure someone with more culture would have been marvelled at the differences between a pony kitchen and a human kitchen, or even at the differences between the one thousand years old kitchen I saw and any other equestrian kitchen. But that someone isn’t me.

On the left was the living room, where the two emo ponies were sitting on a sofa, staring at something. I followed their gaze and found a bookshelf that covered all the wall.

“That’s a nice personal library,” I said.

“I guess so,” replied Opal.

I took a book and read its title: Harry Clopper and the Order of the Phoenix. Really?! I took another one, it was “The Art of Crystal Swordsmanship.” After a minute I found that most of the books were either fiction works or manuals on fighting and swordsmanship.

“So, you are good with the sword?” I asked Emerald Sword.

“I think so,” he replied without emotion.

“Show me your moves,” I said. “I am getting bored and I am dangerous when I’m bored.”

He sighed as he got up from the sofa and opened a wardrobe, which was filled to the brim with swords.

No, really, there were a LOT of swords in there. It was, like, one of those wardrobes in which an adult human would struggle to fit in, and the crystal pony had managed to fit in there at least fifty swords somehow. I don’t know why did he have so many, but he did.

He threw me a wooden sword and took another with his mouth. The ceiling was too low for me to fight standing, so I grabbed the sword with my right hand while standing on the remaining three limbs. I started with a horizontal slash that he parried with a lazy move. Then I tried a vertical one, which was deflected with the same laziness. I continued attacking, each attack a little faster than the previous one, but he kept on dodging and parrying them without even flinching. I got a bit angry at how he didn’t even try to attack back and I did a horizontal slash with all my might. He ducked to dodge it and jumped at me, touching me between the eyes with the tip of his sword.

“You are dead,” he stated, not even bothering to boast.

“Wow, that was awesome,” I said, genuinely surprised. “I will have to try harder to make you sweat.”

I changed into dragon, becoming small enough to stand in the room. I charged at him again, using my height to my advantage. He seemed to have no problems parrying my attacks, so I tried to punch him with my spare hand. He dodged my fist and retaliated by bucking me in the solar plexus. My scales protected me, but it still knocked the wind out of me. When I could breath again my sword was behind him and his sword was on my neck again.

“Dead.”

Growling, I changed back to draconequus and used my magic to levitate three wooden swords from the wardrobe, which attacked Emerald Sword at the same time. I expected him to be hit by at least one of them, but he surprised me by dodging two and blocking the third with a swift move. I kept on attacking him, but he just blocked everything I threw at him as he slowly advanced towards me. I made the swords move in ways only possible with magic or large tentacle-like arms, attacking him from all directions at the same time, and I still couldn’t hit him even once. He moved his sword so fast I could only see a blur blocking my attacks, and he dodged what he couldn’t parry with such a small margin that, had the swords been made out of steel, I would have shaved his coat. After a minute he was close enough to hit me in the muzzle with his sword, and he did.

“Dead, again.”

“YEAH! THAT’S MY HUSBAND!” Opal cheered, jumping from the sofa with excitement, her coat turning back to its colorful aspect. Emerald Sword spat his weapon and smiled smugly when he heard her, his coat also returning to its original state.

“Come here and kiss me, silly mare,” he said.

I checked the books again, waiting until they stopped being all happy and lovey-dovey. When they did, Emerald Sword faced me with suspicion.

“Now that I am back to normal I want to know what are you and why are you here,” he asked, slowly moving away from me.

“I am Havoc, a draconequus. I am here helping the Equestrian ponies in their mission to defeat Sombra. I barged into your home to check how my magic was affected by Sombra. You saw how that ended. Now I’m here stuck with you until that crazy unicorn is defeated.”

“Are you sure they can handle Sombra? He is very powerful and evil,” said Emerald, frowning.

“Yes, his heart is darker than black!” exclaimed Opal, hyperventilating. “He doesn’t know the meaning of mercy, and he will come and put the chains on us again and send us to the mines and-” her husband covered her mouth with his hoof.

“Everything will be alright,” he whispered soothingly as he hugged her. “Don’t worry about him, we have to be strong and move on so the curse of that monster doesn’t take over us again.”

“You are right, those Equestrians will defeat him and bring us freedom, and we will never be scared again.”

Yet again, I did as if I was checking the books until they finished, but that only reduced the awkwardness a bit. Only when one of them coughed did I dare to turn back.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Emerald Sword, “I was a member of the Royal Guard before Sombra took over the Empire. I know the palace like the sole of my hoof and you’ve seen that I can fight.”

“Meh, by the time we manage to go out Sombra will have been defeated already. So have a seat my dears, if it's all the same. Just sit back and relax, unless you know a way to break those dark crystals.”

“Many of us tried when Sombra started spreading them, but our efforts were fruitless.”

“Then tell me where can I take a nap, I have been awake for around 30 hours and now that there’s nothing I can do I really need to rest.”

“Go to the bedroom upstairs,” said Opal, “we will wake you if the crystals disappear.”

“Thank you.”

I learned when I spent two months in the woods that I didn’t really need to sleep, I could just keep myself running with magic for as long as I wanted. However, doing that makes me feel tired and it is a stupid waste of energy. I also think sleeping lets my brain catch up with all the new information I gather every day and helps me remember things better. The point is, I had woken up as a dragon, fought against one of the black dragon twins, planned an attack, fought against Morg and Rake, guarded the entrance to Morg’s cave for hours, covered a great distance flying, escaped from a crazy pink dragoness, walked through the frozen lands, fought against Sombra, had a phone conversation with Disharmony, met Shining Armor and Cadance, lurked around the Crystal Empire, learned how to do illusion and transformation spells, ████████████████, lost against Rainbow Dash in the jousting, suffered Fluttershy’s S̕͡t͏̧à͜rę̵, and, to top it all, sparred with a insanely skilled swordspony; so I was EXHAUSTED. I went upstairs and lied down on the floor of the bedroom.

I put my head on the fluffy surface of my right arm, purring with contentment like the weirdest and biggest cat in the world. I was already half-asleep when, after ten seconds, I heard an ominous voice shouting.

“What?! No! NO! STOP!” the voice, which obviously belonged to King Sombra, shouted.

His powerful cry of pain was almost deafened by the noise of the dark crystals breaking into nothingness and the sound made by some sort of blue magical barrier-wave-thing. When the magic touched me it put me back on my feet, leaving a tingling sensation all over my body. I looked at my arms and found that they were shining like diamonds.

“This draconequus is now diamonds” I said, then I whistled.

I ran downstairs and barged into the living room, where I found the crystal ponies, their coats so... crystalline I could see through them.

“The Crystal Heart has been recovered!” Emerald Sword exclaimed. “We are free again!”

“If only it had taken them a little longer to defeat Sombra... “I muttered. “I couldn’t rest at all. Hm... Is this crystal thing permanent?”

“Don’t worry, it will fade as soon as you leave the Empire,” explained Opal. “It’s just a side effect of the Crystal Heart’s magic.”

“Well, at least it didn’t make me explode or anything. Well, now I should leave and check on the Equestrians. I don’t know how long will we stay, so I guess this is a goodbye. It’s been a pleasure to meet both of you.”

“The world surely has changed if ponies and draconequuses live together in peace,” said Opal.

“Actually... I’m sort of the only draconequus working with ponies, and probably the only one other than Discord that lives in Equestria,” I explained as I moved towards the room’s window.

“I see... Well then, feel free to visit if you ever come back to the Empire.”

“Thanks! Goodbye!” I said, opening the nearest window and leaving as an owl.

“That was weird,” I heard Emerald Sword say with my keen owl hearing.

“We have just travelled 1000 years into the future, nothing can be weirder than that,” replied Opal. “Anyways. WE ARE FREE! SOMBRA IS NO MORE! LET’S PARTY!”

I couldn’t hear Emerald’s answer, as the noise of all the ponies celebrating the victory over Sombra drowned it. Meh, who cares? It’s not like I’m going to see them ever again. I flew towards the palace above the celebrating ponies, ignoring them as soon as I noticed that their feasting and rejoicing was completely non-chaotic. As I expected, I found Shining Armor, Cadance, Spike and the mane six waving from the balcony at the crystal ponies below. I landed on the balcony railing behind them and took advantage of my awesome owl powers that allow me to sleep while standing. I missed Cadance’s “we won, we are awesome” speech, but fortunately it was so long I managed to sleep for half an hour before the hoofsteps of all of them leaving the balcony woke me up.

“That was an incredible speech, Cadance!” Twilight said as she walked past me. “I can’t believe you improvised it.”

“I didn’t,” she calmly stated. “I knew you would save us, so I had a victory speech ready. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to sleep. You should do the same, it’s been a hard day for everypony.” I know that feel sis.

“Let me show you to your rooms,” Shining said, leading the mane six and Spike towards a corridor.

I followed Cadance as she walked through another corridor. She probably heard the flapping of my wings, as she soon turned her head back and stared at me.

“You can show your true form here, there’s nopony else in this part of the palace.”

I tried to change back to my draconequus form, but I felt a weird external magic altering my own power which made the spell misfire. I could heard random silly noises as my body shifted from one form to another. Dafuq is going on?! Most of the changes were too fast for me to realize what I had become, but I am sure I was a giant scorpion, a centaur and a llama for an instant. After a few seconds I finally recovered my draconequus form. I landed on all fours, dizzy after so many changes.

“That never happened to me before,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I blame your anti-Sombra magic messing with my chaos magic.”

“You have been affected by the Crystal Heart. With all things considered, you should be thankful. Had it considered you a threat, you would have shared Sombra’s fate.”

“What happened to him, anyways? I got homestuck by his dark crystals and I couldn’t see anything.”

“He was destroyed,” she deadpanned.

“Wow, congratulations. That is totally badass. Well, I know you are very tired, and so am I, so tell me where can I sleep and when does the train to Equestria departs and we’ll be able to rest.”

“This part of the palace is empty. Choose a room and lock it from the inside, no one will disturb you. No train leaves the Empire until tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, princess Cadance,” I said, bowing. “Sweet dreams.”

I opened the first door I found and blocked it with a chair. I was lucky enough to enter a bedroom with a huge bed. By huge I mean it was large enough for me to fit in my main form, which can’t be said of most pony beds.

“A real bed... So beautiful...” I whispered, unable to contain a few tears of happiness. When those tears touched the floor they turned it into a green goo that covered a rather big portion of the room, but the siren song of the bed was too strong for me to notice it.

I fell asleep before my brain processed the feeling of my head resting on the pillow.