The Siren's Remorse

by TheronSniper

Ch. 37 Tribulation of Sunset Shimmer

Ch. 37 Tribulation of Sunset Shimmer

The steady beat of a heart was the first thing Sunset came to realize, everything was black and quiet beyond that fact. The thumping of the organ echoing in her ears, rhythmically and without fail to hit every second. She felt cold at first, numbness over her entire body that had slowly began to lift. Tingling limbs and body dancing as if beneath her flesh she was hallow and full of skip jacks kids use to play with ages ago. Silver stars with spikes and balled tips that composed of her entire innards, and it hurt like nothing else even though she did not move. The countless little bits of metal seemed to dance to the music of the blood being pulsed through her.

Then, she could breath, a gasp at first which had her still in a place of nothingness until but she could take in air even though it felt like she did not need to suck in. The ice cold frigid air filled every little pocket of her lungs, adding to the chorus of very negative sensations that tormented her in the first ten seconds of becoming aware. After the initial intake, her breathing became quick and shallow as panic set in from being unable to know where she was and why the world was harming her. Breathing through her mouth which now became usable, her teeth soon started to dry from the temperature drop as the interior lost its moisture and dried. Nothing else would move yet, but she held hope that this drawn out moment would end in her being able to leave wherever she was.

Thoughts were unclear and hardly even able to form, memories were gone and all she knew was this lonely painful place, 'I need to wake up! I need to wake UP!!'

'I need to wake... wake up...'

The awful feeling of her body being tortured by unknown machinations, yet she could not move.

'... wake up'

'Wake up...'

'... please'

'PLEASE!!!!!'

Just as she shouted in her head those words, everything became clear as her eyes opened for the first time in what felt like eternity. As with her first gasp of life giving air, her lids snapped open just the same as if one were just then given birth by their parent. At first, only the blanket of white replaced the void she had been plunged into, this time it was blinding and excruciating in contrast to loneliness and fear. Just nothing but light and more light, permeating through her eyes and into her very skull. The change welcomed eventually by her, as it mean she had faculties available which seemed distant not long ago. Though her limbs were still nonfunctional, perhaps now she could at least figure out what was going on and figure out a way to safety.

Her breathing hiked up with her new eyesight, the blood in her veins on fire as adrenaline peaked. It took a few moments before she could pass through squinting in the brightness around her, eventually it subsided and thus evaluate her environment.

"W... where am... I?" she hazily tried to sit up only to not even feel like she did much than move her head about.

Before anything of value beyond the blindness was determined, she suddenly found herself yanked from the floor she laid on. Like some cruel joke by a god, she felt like a puppet flying through the air under a puppet master, just given enough freedom to know what was happening to her. What made matters worse were the thousands upon thousands of the spiky stars bumbling inside her, flaring up every nerve they could touch and stressing her body beyond its limits. She wanted to scream, she wanted to get away, to end it even if it mean being free from the tartarus she was in.

Nothing worked in her favor however, no voice which stifled the roar her soul needed to let out. No movement and numb legs and arms declared her inability to leave, that singled out and removed her wish to call it quits. Just the air whipping past her as if she were on a plane with an open cockpit, or like the pegasi of Equis going through clouds at high speeds. How she wished she never took that self exile just because she could not have her way. How stupid she felt, the hatred towards her past for the decisions she made that lead her up to this scared moment that she'd likely never forget.

'Please... make it stop...' she felt tears being dragged away fiercely from her eyes as they left them.

A loud scream shouted beyond her own tolerance to withstand as it almost shattered her ear drums, a torrent of many voices crying out as if death were claiming them. Their herald ended her flight which put her in a vertical position still above nothing but the clear abyss. Stopping her very body abruptly and painfully to the point she could even whimper and feel the tears roll down as her body endured the rumbling spikes in every inch of her physical form.

The screams still bounced in her mind, like a rubber ball foals use to throw at a wall and play games with. Even as she could practically hear a feather drop on whatever floor existed if there was one, the voices persisted and haunted her for a little while longer.

Closing her eyes, 'None of this is real... its not real...'

She repeated for a little longer until they went away, leaving her in a shattered state. Shaking even though nothing worked, why had life chosen her to endure so much when she already? Sure she knew deep down something tugged at her after being reformed that a punishment for someone as nasty as her needed to take a decent sentence. However, this was beyond what she expected, oh how she desired to be in another nightmare, to be hunted by the black fell beast once again. Because, at least that thing ended everything in a chase, never drawing out the experience like this had been.

Opening her eyes, she found herself in her dorm room once again. Lights were all turned on, the vents pumping cold air that she could feel even as she hovered in the air above the floor. Nothing was out of place, not even the stack of papers she made and piles upon piles of notebooks filled with everything for Twilight to help find the solution and enemy from. Even the ticking clock in her room faintly registered, it was all there and yet she knew she wasn't at the same type.

"Schrodinger's Cat..." she muttered.

Another blink of her eyes and on the sofa before her, with the back to everything sat a very familiar visage or at least the hair. Purple hair with a streak of hot pink running through it, there was only one person or pony princess with those mane colors.

"Tw... Twilight?!!" she gasped though the person failed to move.

"No... you’re not real... this isn't real." she realized quickly.

"Does it disappoint you? I was hoping this would ease things along." she heard a completely different voice emanate from the Twilight before her a few feet away.

As the masculine tone asked, Shimmer felt paralyzed for a few seconds as her eyes tried to track down the source knowing it wasn't the right source. Of course she was dreaming, so why would anything neither make sense nor try to make it any easier.

"Sunset Shimmer, a creature of magic from another earth? Well within my grasp as well as my sword." it was a man speaking, certainly not the Princess of Friendship.

"W-who are you!?" she stuttered in her immobile state of being.

Twilight's head moved up, jerking quickly and sending her long flowing hair into a subsequent wave downwards.

"I am happy this will only take but a moment, because that is all we have." he said as she tried to track the origins of the speech.

"Who are you!!?" she shouted back as best as she could.

Just then, she witnessed a very unforgettable sight as the Sparkle before her soon started to bend her neck backwards. Popping vertebrae and dislocating others to extend her head all the way to face her eye to eye. It was a sickening thing to see, and yet she could not turn away no matter what. With the final crack, the fake girl smiled and gazed upon her trapped form with amusement.

"I go by many names, but that is not what we must talk about. I am on orders here and my time is very precious, answer my questions and you may yet live through this." it said speaking through Twilight in the grotesque way she bent in.

Sunset wished she could shy away in disgust and revulsion, but she was still locked in place by some unseen force. Her head trapped in place so her eyes would not miss any of the disturbing ways the fake Sparkle moved and contorted. Though soon she disappeared after another blink of the eye lids, and Flash stood before her smiling innocently with no sign of the past Princess ever being around.

"Are you from Equestria too?!" she finally forced through her lips, her voice trembling like a quake wracking her body.

"No..."

"Then let me go already! We have nothing else to discuss!" she yelled at him, hating the fact that this shape shifter knew who she was friends with and that disturbed her even more. Had she been captured by that group again and have another curse put upon her?

Flash lifted his left arm and grabbed it with the other, letting her fidget trying to figure out what was happening. He hesitated as her intrigue grew as well as her own terror, the pause lasting just enough for the maturation of suspense in its purest form to come to a head. He lifted the sleeve of his jacket to expose the bare skin for her to gaze at the show.

"No… I will say this never more, our time together is very short before your... Magic comes back, you need to know a few things." his chuckled as glyphs and characters of unknown origins began to form along the skin of the forearm.

Shimmer froze as she watched the scars manifest, ghastly imagery scribe onto him like he were a canvas. Something different penetrated her mind with how they seemed to have severe reservations with magic itself, this was no Equestrian that she was sure of. This was something even more powerful than those who stole the gem, the way it held her captive was a dead give away by having full control over her. It let her wake up like she did to prove that point, to let her know who was in charge. Once again, she begged to Celestia as to why she was the center of all of this.

"A magical horse has come here, giving magic of another verse into a new plane. I can tell you that you've attracted the wolves which will be very hungry no doubt. Not that I care of your little short life, something is coming that you need to stop for my Lord.” he said as more marks appeared on his face etched into the skin itself through vile means.

"Where am I!? Am I dead?!" she shouted before some kind of invisible hand gripped her throat just enough to choke a little air from going through.

Sentry held his hands up and positioned them towards her, one outstretched and splayed out while the other pinched the index finger. He smiled in a disturbing way, letting her watch as he pulled the digit back till it snapped and lay out across the back of the palm. The other fingers followed till the maimed hand became to broken to gaze at, so she closed her eyes. His goal achieved to keep her leashed in and listen to him.

'This has to be a dream... this has to be a dream... only a dream... only a dream!!!?!' ever synapse in her brain firing off trying to get out of the captors trap.

"Oh I assure you... this is no dream and your god can't help you." Flash's voice became almost angelic into the point where Shimmer no longer could even visualize him as the boy she knew, "A great battle is coming and it must not spill into this world lest the kingdom be destroyed. My Lord’s promised land, ours to corrupt… ours to kill… to control as we see fit! Not you or those magics your kind wields."

He walked up to her slowly and methodically, "The time will come... when this domain becomes... contested. The weight of the words will hangs in the balance, as there should never be a bridge connecting universes. It affects the order of nature, sharing the fate of one to the other and this little war in your home will be catastrophic!"

She could sense he was right there before her, forcing her eyelids to open to him and no longer was it Flash anymore in form. He was something else twisted into two beings, one she could swear possessed avian features and a haunting left eye that seemed owlish. Behind her, a snarl sent shivers down her spine which could then move, a primal fear commanded by the beast hidden from her sight.

"Your task will be to stop the powers over there from trying to breach into my Lord’s soon to be domain, and I can give you the power and knowledge to stop them.”, he shoved his face up to hers as if trying to see into her soul with eyes black as the darkest bottomless pit, "Just be a good little horse and follow the rider’s commands. You may even come out of this unscathed.”

A loud bang and party noise makers shot out into the realm Sunset was trapped in, her room no longer there. Instead, an all together more crazier insane world had now become of it, a mostly pink mix matched environment that narry a mind could fabricate even if a mental disorder was in play. Mountains in the distance where upside down, the lands pokadotted with checkerboard patterns on grass that transitioned to a wide variety of textures a structures that were a moss of many things. Trees merged into homes, cars with living things as they interacted with the environment. The sky a sea of different colors and weather patterns happening simultaneously to the point Shimmer felt if she had Epilepsy, she'd have had a seizure. Both her and the thing before her couldn't even register much beyond even fifteen percent of the landscape, it was all... Chaos.

Hands clapping signaled the arrival of someone who'd she never would have thought come to her aid. The chimera slid into view on her right side with gloves hovering around him all cheering to nothing, as he smugly joined the two. A snap of his bird claw ended the cacophony and soon appeared a monocle and a top hat onto his face, complete with a big mug with which she'd seen at gas stations for large sodas to go. Discord had said nothing as he drank from the nearly three foot tall drink and sipped away its plastic container, leaving nothing but the beverage which was discarded with a huge explosion.

"I do say the humans sure love their sugar and chemicals, quite chaotic with what it does to their bodies. Nonetheless I'm skipping... off topic." he introduced himself popping into place by teleportation on her right.

The warped Flash took a step back as if the magic off of Discord was a toxic fog, but never gave quarter refusing to step away from her than he deemed necessary. Clues though are what she was about to get and none of this would go without being memorized for her mental library.

"Oh don't be such a hissy and throw a fit there chum. Strange that I manifest into such a destructive thing in the human world, a fallen who sows Discord among man? You see I've been doing a little research myself just like ole' Sunny here, and I must say I never thought that the extremes humans live conveyed into their magical world as well... as buried deep as it is." he snapped his talons again.

"NO!!!"

Shimmer found everything that was wrong with her had been relinquished, no pain nor constricted movements. Though stiff joints and muscles were a bit of a pain to handle, it was far from what she had been not seconds ago. However, Discord had his tail around her to keep her in his grasp, a gesture she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad. On one hand that demonic thing had her and seemed about ready to do something vile, but Discord actually seemed to be the lesser of the two devils from what he did during his reign.

"Let's see...” Discord summoned a small book as he licked a talon and flipped through page after page before making a sound as he found what he needed, “Great Marquis of Hell was it? Andras? Seems you are the demon of thirty legions and sow discord for the summoned who calls upon you. Hmmmm…. Seems like you not only dispatch their foes, but you will them if you can to remove their existence as well. I can’t say you really are my other universe half in the human world, but they are quite the negative creatures so hard to say really?" Discord separated himself in two to demonstrate as his upper half held the equestrian flag, and the tip of his tail manifested the flag of Marquis’ symbol.

Sunset held onto the dragon tail as if it were her life preserver in the sea of evil, "She MUST go and stop the spillover from her world! Or else all will be destroyed by the titans fall." Andras appeared to be on edge ready to burst at this insult to his plans.

"Oh please! Gag me with a spoon and that old cliche is so old it’s covered in dead mushrooms! Sunset’s destiny is preset for her to follow and alter as she deems fit, and nowhere does it involve neither you nor your hot headed Lord of Lies. Besides with me around you can’t do anything to her no matter what power you seem to think you have." Discord looked to her and winked, a flea sized version of himself jumped onto her and worked its way into her ears which she barely felt if the horror around her wasn’t enough.

"Magic… you vex me you worm. So you’d make your own path on chance alone, and refuse my aid which will guarantee victory even if there is a chance of a price? Are you so certain you will save the world before the avatars of the powers shake everything down it their foundation?” Andras reappeared as Twilight Sparkle the human, a strong black wolf walked out from behind her as she petted its obsidian fur coat.

"Yes yes yes, I know already that's why I'm here. Not just to watch the disharmony, but to make sure the balance is maintained. In fact, I've been speeding along a few things to make sure everyone plays their part. And trust me Shim Shim, you don’t ever want to make a deal with these guys, they love to turn around and backstab." The tuft of his tail formed fingers which snapped again and the two were teleported into the air.

Andras grimaced, scowling in a way Sunset never thought her friend could feasibly do and look as malevolent. A sword of blue light formed in her free hand as large as her own body, though it looked like it was purely for show. The black canine growled menacingly with its gold eyes tracking them, if its owner gave the command it surely would have leapt up and attacked. Sunset felt the safest she ever did in the hold of the very being who brought Chaos to Equestria for many years, never wanting to let go.

"You do what you will with your little... darker version of Tartarus. My purpose here is to oversee and protect Equestrians, as my new job entails. However, I will be ensuring that you don't..." he reached to Sunset with his lion's paw and held it to her forehead, bringing out a twisting writhing mass of dark putrid flesh no bigger than a tennis ball, "Harm nor ever gain access to her home, they are under my protection even if you can't sense me. You’re just a little shrimp, following the swarm in the bay while I... I am the true god here and I know how much you hate magic..."

Much to Andras’ chagrin, he was turned immediately into a rather large crustacean that flipped and flopped on the checkerboard floor along with his vile hound. The little black ball trying to reach back to Shimmer had been flicked back at the shrimp below, like some nose pickings tossed by a foal bored at school. In an instant, Discord removed one of his horns and held it like a gun, taking aim and making the firing nose with his mouth. Though comical and lame, the demon below had soon been enveloped in a bubble of light, banished back to whence he came. The smoking horn was soon blown on to cool the hot tip before placed back on his crown.

"Now then Mrs. Shimmer, let's try to avoid that again shall we?" he asked her as they reappeared on a soft grassy knoll near what smelled like a chocolate river lined with soapy banks where ballerina bison drank out of.

Now released from his secure protective grip, she fell onto her rear stunned and shocked beyond reason. It earned a grin from the Lord of Chaos, but even he had his reasons to not draw the moment out too long. So as he sat down beside her, he extended his long neck even more into a long U shape till his head was right at her face, waiting for her to come back from oblivion. Once she did, the movement of her eyes giving it away, he made the most utterly ridiculous face that only a five year old could have thought of. Tongue lolling out, hands appeared by his face and fanned out, goofy eyes swirling in their sockets, and the biggest smile as he laughed hard and loud.

"GAH!!!" she popped off the ground and beheld the spirit questioningly.

"Ahahaha hahahah, you should see the look on your face! Priceless!" his retracted back into a normal position and the disembodied hands vanished.

She rubbed her arms and shoulders after the surprise wore off, but there was no going back to the old life she had. Magic and monsters and stopping them with her friends, and now she had just seen an agent of pure evil that put Tirek, the Nightmare Moon lore, and other villains to shame. Monster wasn't even close to describe the thing that was the Great Marquis of Hell, something as indescribably as it.

Discord noticed the returning feelings that soiled his recent attempts to help the girl, "My dear don't fret, he and his kind can't hurt you. Now scare you they may, and of course that will be all together on your ball court to not accept their gifts and rewards." he formed a basketball in his hands that he dribbled in place before shooting it into a hoop off in the distance, "But nothing he can do can make you do anything, so long as you have magic in you. Which by the way was how he was able to get so close to you, I see you had a little... accident?"

It all came back to her, the statue and how she felt sapped of her mana down to the fumes even, "The portal... what happened?"

"As much as I'd love to say what did happen, even if it was fun to watch, I don't like spoilers. Just rest assured that everything is falling into place and you have your best buddy Discord to watch over you?" he had at first put on a superhero outfit as Wondercord and was about to strike a pose.

His heroic stance had been shaken when he felt Sunset hug him, she even started to cry as she nuzzled her face into the blue spandex costume. With his arms raised above him at the suddenness of her embrace, he giggled lightly seeing how fragile even she could be after all she'd been through.

Through choked sobs she told him, "Thankyou... thankyou... thankyou..." rubbing her face into his noodle length barrel.

It was at that moment he remembered what Fluttershy told him during a particularly special tea time they had where they tried out some Germane recipes and tea. That making more friends other than her would be rewarding in itself. His sweet little pegasus friend and her cursed logic that spoke the truth time and again, he hated how she was always right ever since that day he relinquished his desire for sowing chaos back home. That and her heart was just so big it could fit him in there regardless of who he was, and it seemed that the little lost unicorn did the same as well from what he'd seen. He could sense the genuine honesty in her gratitude, then again who wouldn’t be when they were given the company of such characters this world played host to. Strange how magic in this world really worked, though he supposed that was why the human Twilight Sparkle was set onto the path to becoming who she would be. Indeed, she would lead a revolution of this world and free it from its tethers of misused magic, ridding the old system of its use and giving Humanity its own little version of Equestria where needs were met and good ruled after so much had been given to ruin.

"Well I guess that makes us... friends?" his eye brows popped off his face and formed two fingers ready to snap.

"Thankyou Discord..." she squeezed him one last time as lovingly as she could before a loud snap ended the moment.

After the Friendship Games

Sunset awoke to her dorm room, nothing out of place from the living room to the kitchenette, to the stairs and the bedroom up top. The TV was off and black as much as her mind felt at the moment. Once again, every limb of hers felt chained to something she could not see other than feel, and that caused a great panic as she tested the strict limits. All she could remember was that black dragon and nothingness, just utter nothingness like a black hole which sucked out a piece of her and it hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before. She could remember the spell to fix the human Twilight Sparkle and how it did nothing just as Discord said it would. The sheer blank expression that consumed her as she remained motionless to the retaliation which followed suit, how very afraid she felt that in all her best attempts nothing worked again.

“How…”

“Why did it not work!?!”

She could remember all of it and how much of a failure she turned out to be yet as always. Even with all the magic they could muster and the corrupted version of Sparkle giving her an advantage, nothing went as planned. Why it did not work she figured was the lack of the Princess of Friendship that was a given in their situation. The conduit of true magic and the master of arts itself, someone who fate gave the resources to be the best of the best. While she a mere unicorn who tried to do what was best and came up short, and now here she was probably dead and in limbo. Sunset remembered touching up on human religions not long ago for hints at possible exiles acting as gods, as complicated as they were they all spoke of the soul in some form or fashion that gods vied for. She, now a human, it all made it very clear that death was something completely different in a world without magic she could feel and tether to.

“Why am I such…. a failure?”

It had been so long since she was in Equestria, but to unicorns and pony alike there always existed a realm the dead went to. Passing on from old life unless they were eaten by a rampaging monster, there use to be a place magical beings went to. She felt hollow and alone without it there to comfort her, the threat of going somewhere else than the field of Elysium. Did she even deserve it after what she did and the pony she was before?

“I… hate myself…”

“… I deserve whatever is coming.”

The air around her shifted as she felt movement nearby, disturbed from her melancholy as her senses guided the alertness onto the source. Her head pivoted around while her body remained frozen in place, the hair on her arms standing on end as another wind caressed her skin. Something was around and did not want to be seen, quickly misplacing her self hatred with an altogether familiar dark feeling. An old friend who plagued her since the cleansing beam of Twilight removed the cursed magic she forced onto herself through the element of magic.

Speaking of the devil, the very girl soon appeared before her after she blinked, looking as the same equestrian version of the being of magic and friendship. Dressed in her original outfit she once encountered when the shadow of greed and desire cloaked Sunset beyond reasoning. Yet this all felt very familiar to the former unicorn like she’d been in this situation before. It hit her as a sucker punch she once gave some poor sap on the streets who stepped on her foot by accident long ago.

“You…” she seethed as anger at the human world demon simply smiled like an innocent child before her.

Something happened to her when the possessed Twilight fired that spell, it wasn’t a normal offensive spell that she was sure of. If her moment with the Lord of Chaos was anything to go by, she lost her magic the first time as she catered to the malevolent being. So the chances were high that she once again lost the mana she was given by the very twisted visage of her fellow pony friend.

“I see you remember me? It has been too long… and no Spirit of Chaos to interfere either.” Twilight gave no hint to discern from as she maintained the happy gaze with glassy eyes.

The construct made to look like Sparkle reached out to touch Sunset’s face, only for a magical barrier to suddenly spark to life and zap the demon, “Marquis Andras was it? Guess I got a following then if you came to me for a second visit even after all, the Lord of Chaos made sure you’d never be able to harm me again.” Sunset grinned at the discomfort etched into its face , studying the hand which sported carbon soot from the burn.

The illusion scowled as if it tasted the bitterness of old milk by the mention of the deity, it growled in an unnatural deep tone. Dispelling the ruse of being the princess herself completely with such uncordial behavior that would make a noble faint, Shimmer delighted in its loss of footing.

“Astute as ever and witty nonetheless…” Twilight turned away and walked to the kitchenette, “Yes we are unable to do anything to you that is true, however, my intention is to only offer once more.”

“You bound me again just to keep pressing on that?! Nothing’s changed and we will stop this without your help!” she shouted with vigor.

The footsteps of Sparkle ended after she reached the fridge, opening it to withdraw something before closing the door. The inner light lasting a brief moment of the machine before it faded into nothing, something inside a container swished around. Twilight was intentionally sloshing it about to make the object present to all even if they were unable to view the action of its acquisition.

“Let me GO!!!” Shimmer shouted as her neck could only turn so far around and yet the whole scene behind her was nearly unobservable.

Through the quiet anticipation, Sparkle made her way over again only she appeared just before Sunset with the blink of an eye as usual. Before Shimmer she held a golden chalice emblazoned with iconography of alien nature and language she did not know. Dark sinister imagery decorated the cup section of the instrument filled with some kind of black liquid as dark as crude oil. A few gems inlaid into eyes or other things in the depictions, gleaming with beauty and perfection upon the precious metal construct.

Twilight stood before her still smiling as if the gesture never left her face, “Things have certainly changed haven’t they since we last met?” She tilted her head with that look which Shimmer desired to punch, “For the benefit of us both, you will listen and heed my words little horse. The enemy of my enemy is my friend as they say?”

The nightmare facade brought a hand to caress Sunset’s face, gentle and careful as an unseen power denied the prior pony the ability to move away. Fingertips just slightly cold tickled the nerves as they swirled upon her right cheek, Twilight moved to just inches from her victim. Breathing in deeply as she spoke in whispers, but as she talked there were many disembodied voices wracking her brain with promises of glory and control. Sweet honeyed words she once lavished, that was before the tiara she stole was placed upon her head by her own hands and the pain of transforming into that She-Demon was realized.

“Dear child… you’ve lost from the start and it will only get worse from here on out. So I over a little help to stop what is coming, to end the faculty that is pushing this all too fruition. I’ve seen it from one of the little worms that came through… and his screams were… delicious.” Twilight pulled back and stepped away from the bewildered girl who had no clue as to who the demon was talking about.

“You’re not making any sense, what great battle and who was this person you hurt!?” her mouth suddenly felt dry and her throat like sand, leading her to cease talking and cough through the imposed sensation by her captor.

Swirling the chalice’s contents around, Sparkle gave a rather unamused look at the trying intelligence it had to work with, “There was a reason why your little pony friend never wrote back. An outside force is keeping its grip on what is to come, because it believes itself to be the true guardians of the holy gate. Ever since they began sending their condemned to our plane, so have their minions to keep an eye on things and how bad they were at that job. How fun it was to hunt those horses, I almost considered it gifts from your world honestly. Till they managed means to protect themselves…”

Sunset grimaced at the notion it made, that many unicorns likely met their ends at the hooves or hands of this beast of pure evil. Yet if she even believed it, anything it even said was most likely tainted lies and devices to get her to do its bidding. If there was one thing she picked up on the mythos of this world, it was to never trust nor form pacts with these fallen or lest you risk everything.

“You realize I have no reason to believe you, everything about you is like a lie told in place of truth. You are all like mazes with no exit, to believe you would trap me in there. Let me go you sick Tartarus roach!” Shimmer hissed as she painfully spoke through the relenting soreness of her mouth.

Andras just shook his head, as the lavender skin of the fake Twilight began to form the same writings Flash had the last time. Like a floating buoy resurfacing, large and small runes glowed with the intensity of molten steel. Sentences could be made out along the arms and legs that were not clothed, even along her face things were inscribed as some kind of tongue of the demons. Though some of the letters Sunset made out to be of the human language she once covered in a class back when she was her old vicious self, not that she even cared about it. The memory whizzed by because of the way it was spoken and how it sounded, a faint bit of intrigue that lasted seconds at best before she went back to plotting how to win the next formal that year.

Sparkle giggled at the face she made trying to guess at the inscriptions she now hosted, but her laughter was far from human. It was deep and masculine, like a minotaur heavy lifter though even deeper than that and it echoed around the air. It had to be Andras’ true form hidden from plain sight as his avatar communicated for him, likely rivaling the size of the wyvern that haunted her.

“We are on the precipice of disaster unlike anything we’ve seen before. My Lord will not part from what is rightfully his, and thus since you no longer have the magic to fight again accept our help and power will be at your very fingertips even this new… thing won’t be able to withstand!” Twilight spoke, normal as if there wasn’t a grotesque being underneath that form.

Gritting her teeth as that was the most she could do, “I don’t CARE!! Let me GO!”

“Such tenacity will only get you killed, but without that protection around you from your god friend I’m willing to bet a few hundred souls you’d be speaking differently before me. You’ll have to fight alone until you realize what is happening, not that sticks and stones will do anything to your enemy. Until you call for me and me alone, I’ll let you go… you have a few new faces just dying to get to you when you awaken. Till we meet again.” Andras grinned as she started to feel movement coming into her arms, legs, and body with the rush of pin prickling sensitivity.

She fell to the carpeted floor trying her hardest to support herself, hands and knees quivering in mute pain, “I’ll be keeping this cold for you…” Twilight waved as the chalice disappeared and she started to walk off into the growing white light.

Before Shimmer could act or say anything, a sudden scream of inhuman origins nearly shattered her ears as she dropped herself to cover the ears. Her sight and hearing overwhelmed by the realm she’d been trapped in, the process of truly waking up slipped over her head. Where she was in the fetal position doing everything she could to stop the pain in her hearing and the pins in her eyes from the intensity of the vanishing dreamscape, a quick inhale popped her eye lids wide. Whiteness still pervaded, but in the form of foam ceiling tiles and a nearby wall.

Tiles meant she was somewhere like a place other than home, perhaps the school or a business. Considering she’d recently come out of the fight with Twilight in her dark form she’d have figured open skies and the grass beneath her to be what she woke up in. However, as her bearings came to she could feel the lack of her normal clothing upon her skin, instead the gentle cool sensation of a thin garb and soft sheets below her. Her dazed eyes looked about, finding machines and a couple chairs to her flanks along with a chrome rail up above in a U-shape. It had a soft aqua curtain halfway attached, moving as if something were tugging at the ripped off section which led to the ground.

‘I feel like that truck really did hit me.’ She muttered to herself painfully rising up in the hospital bed.

Groaning, her hearing came back to crying whimpers just as her eyes fixed upon bodies intertwined on the ground. She instantly discerned Flash Sentry and Principle Celestia, however, policemen were either knocked out around them, locked into submission, or clutching their groin in immense suffering. Celestia had just removed her foot away from in between the man’s legs as she stood up, her usually glorious hair frayed and messed up from the scene. She gave the subdued men a stern glare before blowing a few strands of rogue hair out of her view. Sentry’s arm tightened around the authority figure’s neck just enough to elicit a sputter for air, struggling to stand both of them up.

‘This better not be… it can’t be…’ her arms ached like no tomorrow, but her brain managed to shut off most of their whining as the demon’s words came back to her like a bad commercial tune.

The woman who governed Canterlot High let out her breath before turning to Flash and the other policeman, taking two steps before she was face to face with them. Quick as lightning she slapped the officer hard and the sound was both impressive and cringing, the pain of it could have broken any emotion state for a whole clean slate.

“I do not like being interrupted when I talk, as you can well see of your fellows here. Now as I was saying… you’re not from EPD because I spoke to the head investigator that Sunset would be left alone until she recovered. Having you storm in her demanding to take her down to the station in her state was a very bad choice to make. I hope you all learned your lesson, especially about what I’m capable of. So, who are you and where did you come from?” Celestia crossed her arms over her chest as Flash let some pressure off the throat.

Gagging and choking out air to speak, the look of horror and indignation was evident on the man. It had Sunset mute like a gargoyle statue, none of this all made sense especially seeing such a woman and teenaged boy be able to take down that many people. Whatever happened was fast and brutal, but how Celestia could do such a thing when she was always such a peaceful shining beacon of kindness flabbergasted her to oblivion.

Gulping air, the man soon appeared very nervous at where he was now with no support to rely on. There was no escaping what he needed to do to avoid ending up like the sobbing pile of mess nearby. Anxiety fell to defeat as he loosened his grip around Flash’s arm and gave a bit in his legs. They lost and now to the victor went the spoils, with his conquer lifting an eyebrow as if daring him to make her repeat herself.

“We’re from another world… ordered to watch these jailed… orders to remove a Sunset Shimmer… after defeat against powers of darkness…” his raspy reply wasn’t received very well.

Celestia huffed, “You did not answer my question, who are you?”

“Answer her!” Sentry growled in a rather cute kind of way Sunset found.

“Scholar Arcana Securitas Foraneus!!” the police officer cried out in desperation to lessen the anger of his enemies.

“Who are they? What is this Arcana?” Celestia dropped her arms to her side, her eyes never blinking once as they bore into the man.

“Equestria’s… scho… school of magic! Stewards of Equis…” he grimaced as if to say such information was bile in his mouth.

Sentry punched the man in the ribs and gained a yelp, “Why would Equestria want to take Sunset away? She’s been through a lot and now you guys show up?! Where were you when she needed the help?! Where were you guys when Twilight stopped responding to her and left us to deal with this mess alone? Huh? Can you tell me that!!” a quick squeeze of the choke hold he had earned a messy gag and clenched jaws as if the truth were hurting the officer just thinking about it.

Celestia changed her dour look as the mental state of Sentry tore at her, even with the sense of his questions it seemed the boy had a strong bond with the other worldly girl. A bond which had led him to act in a way that seemed to the principle from the boy she knew and the little band of musicians he led. One of her own students roughing up the suspect as if he were an adult, unabated by youthful ignorance and innocence as he had been hurt by Shimmer’s condition. She continued to study the situation as the person in their grasps answered.

“We’re… we’re just prison guards honest! We’ve been… tracking a few exiles for years and we kept losing them! Once… once we saw the battle, Smart Ticket said we had to secure the package to ensure she… she wasn’t cursed by the new nightmare moon!” the man whimpered and in all honestly he sounded true to his word, a pathetic soul who seemed like he did not even wish to be in the job he occupied.

The principle seemed conflicted as they handled the alien, someone from the portal and who obviously had something to do with all this magical nonsense that endangered her students and the world. Exiles here, she wondered if the origins of Princess Twilight Sparkle had been sending criminals to her home as a penal colony? Not that she knew much of this world of magic or the arts itself, having only seen battles be fought with it and nothing really helpful other than uniting hearts with friendship. She was beginning to have reservations of this place, but as of now they stopped their goons from making off with her student. A quick call from the nurse staff and the security guards here could probably hand them off to the right authorities.

“Flash let him go, they’re broken and we’ve gotten what we need. I’ll go hit the call button and…” the woman sighed as she started off to the big red button to Sunset’s bed on the right, only to lock gazes with the once unconscious girl who nearly died appearing very awake and very much aware.

“And what Principle Celes…” Sentry could only get so much out before he too received his shocking fulfillment at Sunset.

The policeman that was once in the young man’s grip was thrown into the wall just above the one still grasping his groin in solitude of pain. The two friends of Shimmer took slow steps as if they wondered if this wasn’t real, that the adrenaline of the fight still in their blood led to hallucinations. What chances were it that the doctors prognosis was wrong, that she wouldn’t come out of her coma anytime soon from the shock to her system. They had said she was dying spiritually, hanging on by a thread even though her body was physically fine. She had been the worse of the group, hit by that forsaken attack which had ripped out the will to live from what they all assumed.

Celestia hesitantly reached to the spot close enough to the girl before a quivering hand touched the amber yellow hand. It was really true, the heart beat beneath the warm skin as well as the bright clear ice blue irises reacting to them and a head pivoting in confusion.

In a slow fluid motion, Celestia wrapped her arms around the young girl softly so as not to hurt the hospitalized patient. It tickled a bit through the feelings her body received, the heat of the woman’s intimate distance going through the hospital gown, shifting the clothing as the ability to feel and move really became something she appreciated. The scent of wildflowers from Celestia’s colorful hair was a welcomed relaxing feature, seeing as the two rarely met each other in the past and now this close. Sunset really didn’t know what it was like to be within such proximity of her principle, much less found to be cared of by like she were family. Barely a breath could be sensed from her, even as the girl wondered if she could ask her burning questions yet.

Of course they’d be stalled as she caught Flash whose right hand cupped her left cheek ever carefully. He had tears in his eyes as he sniffled from the growing waterworks of his fragile emotional state towards her liveliness. The jacketed free arm went up to brush away the tears as a choking sob escaped his restrained demeanor. Here she was between two people and not a clue as to what was going on, nor how to react to the pile of bodies before her that apparently were Equestrians in disguise. As if finding out who Greed was in those tombs and books she went through days ago was hard enough to comprehend, all of this would end in a taxing day and a hot shower with one of Pinkie’s bear claw pastries and a warm cup of coffee.

‘… Do I really deserve this?’

‘Of course you do my dear, your journey is far from over…’ something that sounded like a microscopic Discord spoke up.

‘Discord?’ her eyes widened at the voice inside her mind.

‘Yes my dear, and I’m quite happy to say you passed the test! Now we’ll see what happens because of it…’ he cackled happily as it faded away leaving her confused at what to do.