Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"Nice Trick!"

Author's Note:

Dear Reader,
Please note that as of the publication of this chapter the rating tag has been changed from Everyone to Teen based on Sunset's frank thoughts in reference to Brandywine.
—ScifiPony

I awoke on my back, feeling bruised all over. I blinked as I stared up into a dim purplish sky that had odd, jagged lines as if it were composed of large square-sided puzzle pieces. I noticed I laid at the bottom of a canyon with walls of glowing sparkly rock devoid of any plants, even moss. It looked like pyrite, but silvery-blue. I felt a pressure on my diaphragm and looked toward my hind legs.

I froze. Actually, my impulse was to shriek and jump, not necessarily in that order, but another part of my brain stifled the impulse. I saw Brandywine, still asleep or unconscious, lying on top of me between my rear legs with his charcoal-dipped blood-encrusted nose touching my lower ribs and his golden-brown head laying on my belly.

This was a unique sensation.

Looking down my nose, I studied him as he breathed rhythmically. He had disobeyed the princess to rescue his father. I'd seen many ponies visiting the princess from many lands, but on close examination, I didn't think I'd seen any quite like him with a jaw heavier and squarer than average. And maybe strange eyes, too. He acted very noble. The dried blood made him look rugged, like a real bruiser.

I had done the right thing to try to help.

As much as I could have lain there for hours, imagining things I'd last read in Duello Steel's romance novel The Palomino, we were undoubtedly in Tartarus. I decided not to wake him, nevertheless, and wriggled my hindquarters to slide from under him, which swiftly put me in another situation as he slid downward. To say I was ticklish there did not quite describe the sensation and confused the stuffing out of me. I rolled over, trying not to laugh and fighting not wanting to roll over because part of me wanted to enjoy the sensation further.

Brandywine landed on the glassy white, faintly glowing floor with a cringe-worthy clunk. He groaned, trying to scramble upright even before he opened his eyes. I found my balance and swooped over to lean against him and help him up. After what I'd just felt a moment ago, I'd lost all hesitation at touch. It might not last until tomorrow, but I liked how he felt warm and wobbly.

"You okay?" I asked, only to have my voice echo back at me.

His amber eyes sprang open. In the moment between his eyelids opening and him adjusting to the light, his irises went from slits to round.

He did have dragon eyes! Amazing. I just wanted to gaze into their amber depths. Now I felt wobbly, too!

We looked around at the same time. We stood in a small amphitheater that reminded me of a volcanic crater with very steep sides, but two of the four walls (if it had been a room) were missing. The glassy floor was perhaps twenty pony-lengths in diameter, and we stood at one edge. The floor flood-lit the silvery-blue pyrite walls and the strange lifeless golden square mirror a couple pony-lengths away in the wall out of which we had undoubtedly tumbled. Our shadows played tag on the peaks.

As he steadied, he said, "Don't you know that walking through the Gate of Tartarus is a one-way trip?"

His words caused my body to cool and a shiver caused the fur on my spine to rise. Then I remembered Brandywine had thought he could rescue his father, which meant he could leave. He was teasing me. Besides which— "I can open the gate whenever I want!"

I flicked my tail at the mirror, expecting to fling fire. When nothing happened, I held up my tail. "Phooey." It looked as normal as it ever had. The vacuum had put out the flames, which, thinking about it, was a good thing. Were it alight, where Brandywine had lain—

I broke into uncontrollable giggles.

"Fillies!" Brandywine said, exasperated. He separated from me and looked around. "Well, that proves it. Father ended up somewhere else or he'd be in chains just like you."

I looked down at my hooves, still giggling. I lifted my hooves, then pranced around him high-tailing it, slapping his nose with my tail as I passed, even stepping over the margin of the round glass area on to what was some sort of striated blue rock. I sang, "I have the key, silly. I have the—"

He shook his head and rubbed his smacked nose, looking very surprised. "But-but the gate locks everypony in!"

"Not you, apparently."

He waved a hoof, again exasperated. "Of course not me, I traveled here. I didn't go through the gate."

"Obviously, you don't understand Tartarus as well as you thought you did. Besides which, if Celestia sent your father through, she'd have expected him not to be chained."

"Of course. When the rainbow crows arrived, he would have shown them the princess' pardon—"

I sang, "And I have the ke-ey."

"The key, rrrright. You did do something— Where are the rainbow crows?" He trotted about, looking over the cliff and scanning the skies. "They mobbed me within seconds the first time I arrived."

"How did you get unchained?"

"I traveled here. It's different. The rainbow crows think I'm native and have no power over me. Whoa!" He crept closer and stared at me.

More accurately, he stared at my flank.

"Wait, did you—?" he said, and stopped.

"Did I what?" I asked, beginning to thrash my tail as he continued to stare rudely at my rear end. Actually, on second thought, I kind of liked that he stared—

"You are the princess' protégé. It kind of makes sense..."

"What?"

"Your cutie mark."

I shrieked and jumped 180 degrees, which didn't help me one jot. I twisted and looked. There, in a prairie of yellow fur, blazed a radiant solar cutie mark. Unlike Celestia's, my sun was a yin-yang circle with flares that were half yellow and half red, and—totally awe-some.

I'd earned it by creating magic from scratch. I'd had to do something. I'd applied myself, figured it out, and done it. It had been easy.

It had felt so right.

"Sweet Celestia! I create magic! No wonder the princess picked me as her replacement!" I bounced up and down, laughing gleefully.

And if I had a solar cutie mark, and nopony else in Equestria did, that meant I indeed was Celestia's heir.

Or her daughter.

I sobered instantly.

I couldn't be her daughter. I wasn't an alicorn. The train of thought was just wrong, anyway. I had once sworn that if I learned who my mother was, I'd kill her. The painful memory of being beaten up and lying bleeding, left for dead in the snow, flashed back to me; it was on that day I'd made an oath. I'd traveled a long way up the food chain following that hellish day.

No. Celestia wasn't my mother and that was that.

It was Brandywine's turn to look concerned at my dramatic mood swing. The caring expression directed at me looked good on him. I felt like melting cheese as he asked, "Are you alright?"

"More than alright. Just startled. So, we need to find your father. How do we do that?"

"Congratulations," he said pointing his nose at my flank, which was dripping blood again, then sobered. In a low voice, he said, "Nopony congratulated me when I got mine. Not even my father when I rescued him." Brandywine's was a compass. "Where are those stupid rainbow crows!? I could ask them!" He stomped the glass. It rang hollowly like a huge gong.

"You rescued your father… from Tartarus?"

He glared at me, and I could tell he worked hard not to roll his eyes. "Somepony had to when Princess Celestia refused to release him after I brought her evidence of his innocence."

I blinked. In a low voice, I said, "That doesn't sound like Aunt Celi."

"Well, the princess has priorities that have nothing to do with individual rights. She is more flawed than most ponies believe."

"Like me."

He snorted. "Like you."

"Convince me. What evidence did you give?"

He took a deep breath and turned to face the cliff before he slowly let it out. "Fine!" He looked down and said, "I betrayed my mother and her village to the princess." He looked over his shoulder, eyes narrowed, gauging my open-mouthed response. "Princess Celestia arrested my mother and got her to confess."

I walked over so I could look at him face to face. His amber eyes were moist as I prompted, "Confess?"

He blinked and said, "Well, it's none of your business, now is it?" He stomped away, gazing skyward. "Where are those stupid crows?"

I followed, noticing now that tears ran down his face. "Do you want me to help you or not?"

"Haven't you helped enough already? That Tartarus gate wasn't Celestia's. It had a tunnel and a second door that wasn't opened; I had just about convinced Father to turn back, but no, you had to come along and open the thing, didn't you?"

I felt my face heat up embarrassed, that I'd hurt him, but then pique thinned my lips. I said, "If I levitate spilt milk back into the glass, would you drink it? Fine. We both have mother issues, obviously. My mother abandoned me barely weaned on a back street in Canterlot, and I'd probably buck her in the throat if she ever had the gall to introduce herself to me. You want me to help you? You tell me why I should trust you. I learned to feed myself, protect myself, do magic, talk, and finally how to trust with nopony's help."

After a long wait, he took a deep breath and nodded.

"Convince me."

"Sit," he said, and we both ended up laying sphinx-like facing each other. "Why I'm here in Tartarus won't make sense unless I start at the beginning." He used his magic to compress his bloody nose while he spoke, but he still managed to sound way more mature, and masculine, than his years.

"I like a good story." Feeling a bit snarky after talking about my mother, I added, "Is it a… romance?"

His jaw dropped open, then clacked shut, the muscles on the side of his face bunching up for a moment. "Yeah," he said, "My father was a junior diplomat working at the Equestrian embassy in Equidor when he met my mother. Or rather, as I wheedled out of him, she met him in a farmer's market and helped him pick fodder herbs and mountain melons. He thought she was beautiful and exotic, though I can testify she is strictly average. He was a bit of a nerd, taken by a mare favoring him. She volunteered to cook for him what he'd bought, and struck up the friendship. Equidor Highland Eyrie food, with its reliance on herbs, nuts, crushed berries, roasted seeds, and rind fruit is very spicy, and so much better than the bland or sugary stuff that passes for food here in Equestria. She pursued him in every fashion possible, arranging day trips on his days off, visiting historical sites, parks, and romantic restaurants only locals knew about. And despite a warning from the ambassador herself that his relationship would cost him promotions or worse, he continued the growing romance." The word was a sneer. "He even moved into an apartment outside the embassy compound. He still insists that my arrival wasn't planned. I never could get my mother to deny it wasn't."

He sighed loudly and looked me in the eye to say, "My mother is a night wing."

A night wing! That's a rare type of pegasus pony with bat wings instead of feathers and sharp teeth for eating hard mountain rind fruit. Night wings can't walk on clouds and instead built pueblos in large caves. "I bet that explains your dragon eyes."

"You've lived some sort of protected life, Miss Bossy. If a pegasus and a unicorn foal, the foal is either a pegasus or a unicorn. I'm some sort of mix, like some sort of animal, a monster with qualities of both my parents. My mother was certain I would grow wings when I grew up, so she took me with her— But I'm getting ahead of myself."

I sputtered. "If-If you grew wings, you'd be an alicorn!"

"Not the same thing. Alicorns are made, not born. You've heard of Mi Amore Cadenza, right? The perky pink pony princess in 9th grade? Hey, wait a moment: she's the mare-friend of Twilight Sparkle's brother. Some coincidence, there."

"Wait, alicorns are made?"

"I've read that Celestia made her a princess because of some sort of love magic she created to protect a village from a witch. She was a pegasus."

Ohhh! Maybe there was a chance that when I succeeded Celestia it could be as a made alicorn princess. A chill ran down my spine and I shuddered.

Brandywine continued, "Father married Pear Brandy. That wasn't what got him sent home; it was my mother's suggestion that he hide the fact. She got sent to Canterlot with him, and later some of her family was allowed to emigrate, too. Drummed out of the diplomatic corps, he tried to get a job as a royal guard or a constable, something she really wanted him to do. She tried to start a restaurant, but Canterlot is notable for its snobbishness and conservatism. After they both failed, they moved to Fillydelphia where he got a job as a constable and proved really good at it. With my mother's prodding, advice, and guidance, he made inspector by the time I was ten. She opened the Highland Eyrie Fresh restaurant in Old Town, and they became a little bit famous. She became trusted, despite her family being unique in the city…"

He paused, locking his amber eyes on me. In a testing voice, he asked, "Did you hear about the Walk Withers bridge collapse?"

"Well, yeah. It was all over the newspapers when I was learning to read about three years ago—"

"That same night, Princess Celestia was supposed to have attended the opening game of the Hoofball Aurora Cup Tourney at Filly Stadium adjacent the bridge, but cancelled at the last moment. My father had been the inspector in charge of security for the event. My mother had used all her influence and trust to gain access as royal caterers to the stadium so she and her family could plant magic that would bring down the roof over the stadium boxes—"

"What!?"

"—where Celestia would have attended the game. My mother's helpers changed targets, despite ponies starting to learn about the plot. Father learned of the plot to destroy the bridge because my mother had left a trail implicating him to trap him and make it look like it was all his plan. Father risked his life—even fought his own duty officers who thought him responsible—to clear the bridge before the magic went off. In the aftermath, Mother acted used and dishonored. 'Disillusioned' with Equestria, she returned immediately to the old county, taking me with her. Celestia sent Father to Tartarus."

"Why would your mother try to hurt ponies?"

"Because my mother and her family are crazy, and smart, and cunning? Night wings trace their origin to the abandoned crystal caves below Canterlot mountain. Nearly a thousand years ago, they migrated south, finally settling in the Equidor Caballero mountain range where the peaks are riddled with cavern systems. A few lunatics, like my mother's family, believe that Princess Celestia killed a night wing alicorn princess who ruled Canterlot mountain so she could conquer the surrounding lands. Mother's marriage and my birth were a big lie concocted to exact revenge for something that happened a thousand years ago. After living with her, and the crazy ponies in her little Andean pueblo for a year, I learned the truth about how she framed father for the crime. I ran away to the same embassy my father had staffed—"

"And had her brought to justice."

"I am half-night wing and she's my mother. I betrayed her, at least to the extent that she loved me. She did, too, but I understood that would change if I didn't grow wings at puberty. So far, no wings—yet. Pretty messed up, huh?"

I nodded and extended a hoof. He extended his with a half-smile and tapped mine. I said, "You almost make me feel better about my mother. Nopony was hurt in the bridge collapse, were they?"

"Nopony. My father got the warning out in time, and still Celestia sent him to Tartarus."

"And… You rescued him?"

He stood. "I had to. And my heart tells me the only reason Celestia didn't send him back was that she sees me as a future asset. Him coming back and getting stuck?" He shrugged as he scanned the sky. "Oh, well. No biggy."

"He has a pardon."

"Nopony is sent here that doesn't stay." He gasped and pointed upward. "Stars!"

I chuckled at the romantic notion. "I've been out of the city—"

He bent down to address the glassy surface. "Please, I'm hungry, give me food." Like all floors I knew, it remained mute. "This is bad." He looked at me. "No chains in the maximum restraint zone, or food, or water? No rainbow crows to act as Celestia's eyes and ears to watch everypony. And stars in the sky of a world that exists as a pocket dimension between just now and barely later? If that's Equestria's stars, we've lost half a day, and we couldn't have been unconscious more than a minute. There will be monsters."

"It is Tartarus—"

"Don't make fun of it! They're not likely any more restrained than you are. Do you know Force?"

The spell. I stepped back a step. "Of course." Of it, anyway.

"And Shield?"

"Y-yes." I could take one apart easy peasy lemon squeezy.

"Show me."

Well, didn't this scratch the patina off my crush on him? Not entirely, because my face heated up and I felt a need to demonstrate I wasn't just some random ditzy filly. I had taken apart two shield spells today, so I knew the shape. What I didn't know was how to make the spell take shape. I knew that Shield and Levitation were related from textbooks, but recognizing a spell didn't mean you could cast it. I did try imagining how it might work, and did manage to shove Brandywine slightly, but I think at best I managed to change the directionality of Levitation from an upward force to a slightly sideways and up force. My horn began to itch.

"Not going to stop a charging Monocularos," he said and sighed.

"How would you cast it?"

He turned away and walked to the edge of the amphitheater. As I followed him, I noticed a stone stairway, with no railing, carved into the side of the mountain. He stopped with a hoof on the first stair. "It's not like Celestia teaches her 'gifted' unicorns combat magic. My father taught me. And," he began downward, "that was a pretty good attempt at warping Levitation."

"Thanks."

"We need to get to Central Town, where somepony can help me find my father." He walked about four steps and realized I wasn't following. He looked back and raised an eyebrow, causing his not quite right amber eyes to gleam.

I asked, "How long to get there?"

"Tartarus is a pocket world. Everything's close, relatively speaking. Seven-eight hours, or two-three if my fickle talent decides to help us."

I took a deep breath and glanced back at the golden mirror. "Sparkling's mirror gate isn't going to last that long. I can't imagine the runt's magic storm lasting much longer, especially with Celestia unworking her magic."

He gave me a quizzical look.

"The gate? You know. Key. My way home?"

"Seriously? I think I said that 'when you go to Tartarus it's to stay'? There are no gates on this side!"

I looked at the mountain side. The silvery mountain and the glowing glass arena reflected in the golden pane. I lifted a hoof. "Then, what's that?"

He tried to turn around, then though better of it and walked backwards until he stood peering in the direction that I did. "What's what?"

"That!" I pointed and motioned.

"A geologist at Central said it's a mixture of 'arsenopyrite and magnetite.'"

I glared at him, then looked where he looked, which was where I looked. "You really don't see it?"

"See what!?"

I walked to the mirror and tapped the glass with my hoof. I half expected to sink in, but it went tink-tink. He ran up and tried it, but he made the clacking noise of striking rock.

"Brandywine—" What a nice name for a dense colt. "I said I had the key. I had to have the key to something if I said I had a key."

"This changes everything. You need to go back. If you disobeyed the princess coming here and the gate is dispelled, she'll undoubtedly let you stew here a while to learn a lesson and, trust me… you don't want that. Unlock it. Go."

"But— I came to help!"

He showed a half-smile. "You're sweet—and that's something I'd never thought I'd say about Miss Bossy—but it's really not your battle, being the princess' student and all."

Blushing, I said, "I've made it my battle, and I gather you can leave Tartarus."

"I rescued Father. There's no guarantee I can travel that far with you, though. We aren't related and I don't understand my talent well enough, yet, to know if it matters."

I looked down at my hooves, shuffling one before the other, looking at the bandage with a brown stain. He was right. And— I had no battle magic. "Ok. You win. Do you have a match?"

He didn't, but a choreographed force bolt at the right instant in the ritual worked miracles. My mane and tail ignited with a dramatic flash and whoosh. With a flick, I sent a glob of— With my cutie mark informing my reasoning I realized it wasn't fire—it was liquid sunlight!

The brimstone frame of the gate lit with a baleful fire.

In the mirror I saw his jaw drop. After a few moments, he looked at me as if I were somepony glorious and smiled. "Nice trick!"

"Thank you. Sure you don't want to come with me?"

"Gotta find my father."

I nodded and walked toward the mirror. Before, I had just leaped into it knowing it would open for me. This time I hesitated. Good thing, too, considering Brandywine's busted nose. I only bumped my muzzle on an unyielding surface. "Huh?"

I tapped the glass, then looked closer at the spell I'd cast, finally slipping mentally into the incredibly complex construct of the gate itself. After about a minute, I found reciprocating spell elements that looked like they could slot together, like the tumblers on a lock. The egg shapes in other eggs in spheres rocked and twirled in a tight space. As I watched, they precessed on a common axis.

I hissed.

"There's a stinking timer! The gate won't open until the clock elements align. I'm thinking that if that one is— seconds, the other one is— Multiply each by ten. 100,000 seconds. What? 27 hours?"

"A timing mechanism on a magic mirror? Why?"

"Limit access? Refresh the magic? To keep it anchored in this dimension?" I looked at the simple shapes, tilting my head. I almost felt I understood how it worked. If I were a better poet, I might even be able to invent spell mnemonics so I could add something like it to another spell. A pop-up illusion would make a perfect prank on Celestia! "I'd love to figure out how to make timers."

"We could get to Central and back in a day. Want to come with?"

I looked at the mirror and let out a deep breath. "Sure."

"Good. You're obviously a high level unicorn. If you can do fire magic and open the Tartarus gate only a princess—well, the princess and Twilight Sparkle—can open, I can certainly teach you Force."

He'd just called me out on my inability to perform combat magic, but somehow the obvious praise from the cute colt changed something I'd normally bristle at into a friendly jab. Wow. Friendly banter! Just like Miss Victory with Bey Kenspeckle in Filly A. Whinny's The Mystery of the Golden Horn. I actually smiled. Could a crush become a friendship? At least I wasn't babbling.

"Oh," he said as we clattered down the stone steps, my mane lighting the way as we descended into darkness, "If I should start to become transparent, you need to grab me immediately or you will find yourself left behind."

Comments

[Skulljack17]

I rather like the light banter back and forth they have. Learning off of one another, of each other, and that they are kinda sorta stuck together for awhile. A fun dynamic!