Tantabus, Chapter 2 (Sunset) · 6:57am Jan 4th, 2016
Tantabus
2 - Sunset
September 23rd, 12:30 pm CST
Well, that could have gone better.
Oh, let’s face it, diary, my mission was a complete and utter disaster. And I will not delude myself as to the scale of my idiocy. Yes, there is a slim hope that I might yet recover the Element and carry out my original plan, but before I do that, I want to be absolutely prepared to handle the consequences of my blunders. Therefore, I will spend the next two entries analyzing exactly what happened, and what I did wrong. This entry is reserved for my actions in Equestria; the next will cover what happened once I returned to Canterlot High.
I obtained the Fall Formal crown (and set up my contingency plan) without any trouble and entered the portal to Equestria at 7:10 am, within a minute of when it opened, with nobody seeing me leave one world, or arrive in the other. To my surprise, I adapted to being a pony again nearly instantly, which allowed me to push forward my plan by five full minutes. This allowed me to confirm at my leisure that I was indeed in the Crystal Castle at around 3 in the morning. Thus I averted the greatest danger to my plan.
To save my future self the trouble of having to search through months of previous entries, let me summarize: It was on Hearts and St. Valentine’s Day that I learned from Pinkie Pie that magic did exist in that miserable human world; it just operated on a completely different set of rules than any form of magic that I had studied in Equestria, and it was called “psychic phenomena” instead of “magic”.
I took up the study of one particular psychic ability, that of clairvoyance, with the goal of learning what had happened in Equestria since my departure. I had stored within me a considerable store of unusable unicorn magic, so I assumed it was just a matter of learning how to convert it into a form compatible with the human world. In the end, it was considerably more difficult than I had anticipated, because it turned out that human magic is tied to physical objects rather than abstract concepts as is the case with unicorn magic. Nevertheless, by late July I had used my new ability to learn the truth—that I had been replaced as Celestia’s student by a dupe named Twilight Sparkle. Celestia had effortlessly manipulated this Twilight into carrying out her plan for “saving” her irredeemable fallen sister, Nightmare Moon, by giving her custody of the legendary Elements of Harmony. After this, Twilight and her accomplices carried out several other special missions for their taskmaster that I did not bother to trace in any detail, other than the increasing number of stained glass windows in the halls of Canterlot Castle. Eventually, Twilight’s constant exposure to the Element of Magic caused her to spontaneously transform into an alicorn (well, that was the only explanation I could come up with that made a lick of sense), and she was made a princess (of “Friendship”, whatever that means). Meanwhile Princess Cadance, having done nothing to justify her title in the decades she held it, was given control of the Crystal Empire when it suddenly appeared in the far north of Equestria. Witnessing these two vast miscarriages of justice, I vowed revenge, and made my preparations to use the mirror portal when next it opened. I was worried at first when Celestia had the portal moved to the Crystal Castle, but then all four princesses converged on it for one of the endless number of empty ceremonies that Celestia uses to maintain her empty power over the pony populace, and thus the plan moved relentlessly forward.
Returning to my account of what happened during my visit of Equestria, I found that my clothing had transformed back into the saddlebags I was wearing when I last used the portal. I used my magic to convert them into a light-absorbing cloak suitable for clandestine operations, and made my way to Twilight Sparkle’s bedroom. I succeeded in substituting the false Element for the true one with only a minor slip-up, and made my way out of the bedroom. That was when I tripped on the outstretched tail of Twilight’s familiar, causing enough noise to awaken the unicorn alicorn.
I am going to lay the fault for that stumble entirely on myself—I knew all about Spike, the fact that he always slept in the same room as his mistress, and that he did not sleep well in new locations. I should have been prepared for him to shift in his sleep, and I wasn’t. In fact, I was already mentally celebrating when I should have been concentrating on getting back to the portal undetected.
My second mistake was that I had not secured the Element of Magic before I had begun my exit of the room. As a result, Twilight knew instantly what I had done. It began to fall out of its pocket, so I grabbed it in my teeth. I was literally tasting the power I sought to possess.
After that, I fled. Twilight tried to slow me down, but I evaded her effortlessly, and even got a good look at her incredulous look when I used her “signature move” of teleportation to get out of her clutches. By the time I reached the room where the mirror was kept, I knew I’d be able to escape, and began planning on ways to block the other side of the mirror portal after I had emerged, to delay my pursuers long enough to achieve my goals.
In doing this, I managed to forget the rule I had been drilling myself on ever since emerging from the Equestrian side of the portal: never allow too much magic to pass from a magically-strong to a magically-weak side of a trans-dimensional portal. I was planning to toss the Element through the portal first, and then to wait at least two seconds before going through myself. All those thoughts flew out of my mind, however, when I saw Princess Celestia standing between me and the mirror.
“Sunset Shimmer!” she said in her “voice of doom”. “What are you doing with the Element of Magic?”
I spat the crown messily onto an outstretched hoof, enjoying the look of horror on Celestia’s face as I desecrated a holy relic. At the same time, I bound the door behind me tightly, ensuring that I would have nopony to deal with beside the Princess of the Sun.
“Oh this little thing?” I replied with a smirk. “I decided to take it for a test drive.”
“Sunset, please,” she replied, her eyes going liquid with desperation. “Why do you continue to defy me, after everything I’ve done for you?”
This left me flabbergasted. “After everything...” I blustered. Now, if I had known that I would be facing my failed teacher on this trip, then you better believe me, diary, that I would have prepared a blistering retort for that particular line. Instead, I spoke a line so utterly pathetic that I refuse to copy it down, and then teleported past her to dive into the mirror.
In so doing, I forgot to toss the Element in first.
This was my fundamental error. I have the miniscule defense that I was facing off against Celestia, the one-time sun of my life. How many times had I dreamed of that confrontation, how I would make her pay, how I would make her feel the hurt she caused me, how I would convince her to take me back, to make everything better, to convince her to ascend me like I deserved, so I could serve beside her as equal co-ruler of Equestria, to finally be accepted by her as...
But that’s not to be, diary. Never. And so she must fall, alongside her corrupted sister, the freak of nature that she raised above me, and the idiotic sap-head that she used as her patsy. All of them must fall, so that Equestria can get the ruler it deserves.
Let’s just say that I had some emotional baggage to explain why I did something so monumentally stupid.
It's a shame that this won't be made into a published story, but I'm greatly intrigued thus far. You've definitely succeeded in keeping the source of inspiration obscured. I have no idea what this is based on.
Ooh maybe Sunset hoped for some Sunbutt on Sunbutt action? :p
I really wish the movies, or comics, had explained how Sunset knew about Princess Twilight and the re-emergeance of the Elements of Harmony to start her plan. Using clairvoyance is a nifty idea for sure.
I am both confused and intrigued. If there will be no more story, then please post a rundown of What Would Hath Been and all that!