156 Battle with Shadows, and a bored Chaos...

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Ha!!! I actually prevailed and ended up writing a huge chapter because of waking up at 4am haha. The pain in my ear was quite annoying but whatever. I had nothing better to do and I'm quite proud of this chapter haha. Hope you like it and like always EEEENJOY!!!

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Shining Armour held his lovely Wife close as a hint of helplessness and anger swelled within his heart. He wanted to help her. He wanted to help her so much! Yet no matter what he felt, it didn't change the fact that he was unable to fight of the dark magic that Sombra cast upon his horn, the black crystals blocking his magic from manifesting.

He regretted not asking Starfall how he learned to channel his magic without using his horn. He knew that the Stallion could do that. He had seen him do magic without it after all... Damn it, even Twilight could do that, if not to the point of it being very practical...

But there was nothing he could do about it right now. He had other things to worry about, the main one being the exhausted mare, leaning against his chest as her horn constantly glowed in order to maintain the barrier around the Crystal Empire.

Though something seemed to have changed...

His eyes swept the horizon...And then... he saw it...The black storm...It...stopped attacking!

...

No...It seemed to have changed its target...but who-

*BOOM*

An explosion of light tore through the darkness before it quickly reassembled itself, though Shining Armour at once recognised the culprit of the unexpected situation.

His muzzle turned into a relieved smirk as he looked at his wife who already looked a bit more relaxed, with Sombra having stopped his continuous onslaught on the barrier.

"It's going to be alright Cadence. Starfall is here and Sombra is about to find out why he deserves his title as my brother in law!" Armour reassured Cadence who smiled at him weakly and closed her eyes to focus on preserving her strength.

They were going to prevail through all this. He knew they would.

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Twilight's magic surged. She didn't know what she was really doing, her only thought being of channeling positive energy into her spell. Though as her magic escaped her horn and impacted the crystal adorning the doorway, she couldn't help but feel that it wasn't what Sombra had in mind when he set it up as the actual key to the doorway. and she thought so, because her magic almost completely tore through all the spells woven in the doorway, Completely destroying the sinister trap, and unlocking the alternative destination of the doors, which she could open now with just a simple magic trigger.

She of course didn't do so, as her destination was already set on the current setting. She would go back here another time and see what secretes laid behind those doors, but that's something for when the Crystal Empire wasn't on the brink of a total take-over by an evil dictator...

Without hesitation, the mare passed through the doorway followed by Spike and Phoebe, and the trio found themselves in what appeared to be an endless space of nothing but white, with the only other thing being a large Pilar, with a doorway that they had just came out of, and with what appeared to be stairs that encircled the pilar and seemed to led upwards for seemingly forever....

"Ugh...Stairs..."Twilight groaned. She didn't even care about the honestly impressive spatial manipulation of the entire area, because whoever designed this place seemed to plan on tormenting her with those never ending stairways...

Phoebe's head stretched back as she looked at the long stairway with a hint of wonder.

'Does it look like it would be a mighty fun slide If you looked at it upside down, or is it just me?...'She asked and Twilight's face instantly turned into a wide, excited smile. This could totally work!...

_________

Applejack watched with a bit of amusement as Pinkie and Meena worked together on the stage to grab the attention of all the ponies in the plaza. It seemed like they didn't have to worry much about hiding the disappearance of the crystal heart for at least another while...

Though that thought was shattered when one of the buildings at the back of the plaza suddenly started to transform as black ominous crystals started to grow over and replace it's previous colorful form.

She'd have to make sure the Crystal ponies wouldn't notice, or they might have a panic situation, which was not good for their situation no matter how you looked at it...

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*BOOM*

A blast of magic tore through the black storm, easily ripping a hole in the seemingly impenetrable darkness. Though it didn't seem to do much as the black cloud simply filled back up in seconds not looking as if it has been damaged in any way or form.

Starfall smirked as yet another blast of dark energy impacted at the location of where he stood a second ago. No matter what world, it was always important to know how to dodge...

His magic slowly gathered at the tip of his horn, a magical fluctuation passing through it as he readied another blast of a counter magic he had developed to fight King Sombra. Nopony could say that he was ever unprepared after all...

"Stop jumping you BUG!!! Bow before this King and he might even offer you a place in his army! Otherwise prepare for a painful End!" The all encompassing voice of Sombra reverberated through the dark Storm making Starfall almost laugh at the typical villainous speech.

"That's a tempting offer, but I would have to decline! After all as the Prince of Equestria and the lover of three Princesses I have technically a much higher Statyre than your self appointed kingship, "Your Grace"."Called ot Starfall as he maneuvered through the shadows, dodging what appeared to be tentacles of tainted magic, which could probably possess or kill a normal pony by a single touch.

His words seemed to infuriate Sombra even further, as he didn't seem to appreciate being called a fake King. Or maybe it was because Starfall had basically flaunted himself as the one with a higher status that Sombra himself, while not even being a King.

With a powerful roar, The storm spread out as if trying to engulf everything, as multiple fists of shadow cane crashing towards Starfall, but the unicorn barely smirked as he channeled his magic throughout his body.

His coat seemed to almost shimmer as the shadows impacted his body, and to Sombra's astonishment, the moment the attacks came in contact with their intended target, they completely disintegrated as a rainbow coloured wave exploded from the point impact, actually spreading outside and disintegrating a large chunk of the storm, causing sombra to momentarily become visible as his black mane blended almost completely with the surrounding darkness, and his face showed a hint of fury and uncertainty.

Starfall couldn't help but inwardly cheer at his accomplishment. This...This was the first time when he actually managed to properly weaponize the magic of Friendship inside of himself!

He had used this magic multiple times before, but it was always unrefined and instinctual. But what he did now, felt more like a proper spell. An armour to destroy all darkness. Oh yeah. He liked that. Now if only he could teach it to Twilight. No matter how much he trained, he still wasn't as strong in the magic of Friendship than one of the actual Elements of Harmony that his girls represented. He might be much stronger in regular magic power, but he was still nowhere the capacity of his girls when it came to the magic of Friendship that would continuously increase with their friendship only making it more powerful the closer the original six was to eachother and all their other friends...

Sombra looked at Starfall feeling wary of this weird armour. He could tell that his shadows wouldn't have an effect on this particular enemy. He could feel it... His magic...It was making him recoil in revulsion. It was just like...With the Crystal Heart!

The single thought of the accursed artifact that was the cause of his torment year after year ever since his awakening in the Crystal Empire, made Sombra loos any semblance of sanity. He wanted to destroy him!...No...he wanted to make him suffer for even daring to remind him of his past. He was going to show this disgusting Unicorn how he, King Sombra was able to conquer the Entire Crystal Empire!

As the evil monarch prepared to attack Starfall with everything he got, He failed to notice the transparent, golden, sparkling barier that surrounded them, with his dark snowstorm gradually getting absorbed towards it as a tiny swirl of darkness slowly formed inside of the sphere atop the device that Starfall activated at the start of the battle...

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Inside the underground Lab that Starfall build under the Golden Oak Library, Discord laid on a large bean bag with his head looking at the ceiling as he threw the ball upwards before catching it as it bounced off of it and back towards him. he exhaled some air from his stony throat, wondering how did Starfall manage to immigrate even that with his body still being made of...well...stone... He knew that it was magic. He could easily do the same thing whenever he wanted if he had his magic, but for once, he was curious how it actually worked for someone for whom their magic didn't do whatever they wished for with a single thought.

Even he, while always having been the Spirit of Chaos, had once upon a time had troubles in controlling the output of his Chaos magic, but it was never about "how" for him. It was always "What"...

"...Ugh...I think those two are infecting me with their eggheadness...What do you think Fluffderick?" Discord Asked lifting his small "friend" up with his clawed hand, as the fluffy ball/rabbit looked at him in a weird mix of confusion and its ever present excitement.

A small adorable squeak was the answer that Discord received and he couldn't help but sigh as his heart melted inwardly... Good think there was nopony there to see him right now, because he would deny his actions without hesitation, and probably turn the observer into a pinecone terracotta pudding...

His gaze lingered for a moment at the fluff ball, before the Draconequus unceremoniously tossed the Rabbit behind himself, to the Fluffderick's apparent excitement as it sounded a squeaky giggle while flying through the atrium...

The Lord of Chaos then stood up and feeling as if his entire body was completely rock hard, decided to stretch his limbs, only to remember that he was in fact, completely rock hard...

He sighed accepting that it was still much better than his previous prison as an unmoving statue, before walking over to a bookshelf. Oh yeah. He was actually surprised how much he actually enjoyed reading, though after getting through a few of the more interesting adventure books to pass the time, he found himself yearning for something, anything more chaotic to actually happen in any of the books he picked.

But after being sorely disappointed, Discord decided that since there was no books that grasped his fancy, he would try and make on himself! After all who could make a better book filled with chaotic plot twists and unexpected and exciting story writing than the Spirit of Chaos himself! Not like he had anything else to do here anyway when neither his captor nor his fellow free labour worker were here to keep him company...

He walked over to his desk that the unicorn was suspiciously more than happy to provide and decide to read through the first few chapters of his story that he started a few days ago. He had been so absorbed in writing that he had no time to even check what he did.

But as he read through his story he suddenly blanched...That...his cheeks reddened...did...did he write this monstrosity?!

Discord shuddered as his feather started to write multiple corrections and changing entire paragraphs... This whole writing business was turning out to be much harder than he originally expected...

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It had been several hours later they discord finally finished correcting his first few chapters to a point he was satisfied with. He had no idea that writing a book could be actually so difficult. Even now he could see a clear difference in quality between his drafts and the story books he had gotten from the bookshelf.

In his mind the Draconequus had to give all the successful writers his grudging respect. This was pretty hard, he wasn't going to lie.

Feeling slightly mentally drained, the Spirit of Chaos decoded to go for a walk through the Laboratory.

He couldn't really acces many of the Rooms, But the unicorn...Starfall.... finally gave him one of those fancy security cards with the lowest level acces to find him something to do when he was really bored.

Discord of course didn't wait long before letting himself explore all the places he could possibly visit, yearning for some new scenery and maybe finding something that could possibly unpetrify him. Though he doubted Starfall would leave such an obvious loophole, and he wasn't wrong.

His rocky steps reverberated throughout the empty corridors as the only other sound came from behind the Draconequus where a squeaky sound indicated that Fluffderick was following him through his favourite way of jumping up and down.

There wasn't much to say about the low security labs. There were some curious inventions. Plans. And even an actual Artificial beach that felt almost identical to the real thing. It was one of his favourite spots to stay in as despite his rocky form he could still feel the warm beams of sun and the relaxing feeling of soaking in the water. He almost regretted never appreciating those things in the past.

Though he would never admit it, he didn't feel like getting caught by Starfall was really so bad...Of course they would need more than this if they think he would become their "friend" But...This...would it really be so bad? He...He never did those awful things that he was imprisoned for anyway... It was all...for HER...And he was starting to wonder whether she was ever worth all of that in the first place...

Feeling under the weather from remembering his past, Discord hadn't even realised when he stopped in front of a new entrance.

"Huh... These are new...Am I right of am I right Fluffderick?" He mused as he looked at the closed doors in front of the two of them.

Fluffderick jumped up in excitement and Discord laughed.

"You're right. I guess it's only right If we check what's inside!" The Rock Hard Dragon Horse replied before swiping his security card over the special device beside the doors.

He was actually surprised when the doors opened, having half expected for It to be yet another of those high security labs, but as it turns out he was pleasantly surprised.

Though his surprise at the doors' opening was nothing in comparison to what he found inside.

"This!...This just got a whole lot more interesting!" Discord looked at the center of the room with his eyes one of wonder and curiosity, as his face got split by a wide grin. Guess there was something for him to do today after all...

"Do you think it would work?" He asked his fluffy companion after a while of contemplation while Fluffderick once again squealed in excitement.

"One way to find out then!" Discord exclaimed as his mismatched legs led him closer towards his intended target.

It was going to be a very interesting day...