SunLight Sliders, Chapter 22, Take One · 7:43am Apr 10th, 2017
This was my first pass at Chapter 22, but it didn't do enough answering near the back-end. It ties into my first fic here, because they were written literally back-to back, and I hadn't quite extricated myself from that world yet.
Hope you enjoy!
The light faded from Sunset’s vision as she felt stone beneath her hooves. She opened her mouth to say something when the vista before her stole away her words. There were none sufficient. ‘Vast’ didn’t cut it. ‘Expansive’ didn’t even come near the county the mark was in. ‘Limitless’ was closer, but still failed utterly at describing it.
She settled on, “…what?”
They had taken their pony forms again, so that was something to anchor herself.
She needed it.
The devastation of Sombra’s Hell had been terrifying due to it’s sheer isolation.
This was different. It stole away Sunset’s voice and a fair bit of her reason by how sprawling it was. In every direction, the lights of their destination lay before them like twinkling stars in an upside-down sky.
And the buildings! She fell back on her haunches as she followed them up and up and up into slate gray clouds.
There’s no end to them. They just keep going!
She fought back a sudden sense of vertigo, and glanced over to Twilight. She was staring out at the sweeping expanse with her mouth open.
“Wha— wha— what is this?” Twilight stammered.
Sunset met her gaze. Twilight’s wheels were spinning.
“Equestria has a little over three million inhabitants. This place could house them all! Several times over, even! What— Sweet Celestia, where are we?”
They’d emerged on the rooftop of a monolith of a building, with five spires jutting out from the ground below them.
“I'm gonna take a look around!” Twilight stretched her wings once and lifted off.
“Twi, no! What about Tirek? He’s—”
“—Swallowing up dimensions whole, or something, yeah. But look at this! Can you imagine the technomancy required to pull this off?” She looped in the air around Sunset. “And I really want to see what’s out there!”
“Twilight, we shouldn’t go far. I’m not sure why this hunk of junk didn’t take us right to him, but I don’t want to risk running out of that… metal… whatever it was.”
She could still feel it thrumming in her veins, like a urge to dance, to run, to fight, to act.
Without something to act on, she didn’t risk expending it.
“Oh, my stars! Sunny, you have to see this!” Twilight’s voice echoed from somewhere to the—
I can’t tell direction here. The sun… Where is the sun? Or the moon?
She grunted, peeled back the desire to do something, and found her own magic nestled beneath it. She channelled it for a moment into a seeking spell, and followed the teal stream of light towards Twilight.
Twilight had perched on a large metal cylinder near the center of the massive rooftop. It stretched far above Sunset. If it wasn’t for her spell, she would never have seen the alicorn.
With another slight focus of effort, she teleported up to a maintenance hatch. Then another. Then two more. Then to the top.
She felt the urge ebb slightly. They were on a clock.
“Sunset, look!” Twilight swept her hoof out behind Sunset.
“Twi, we don’t have time, this is fading. Channel something into the Talisman, let’s go!”
“But Sunny, look! It’s my stars!”
Rolling her eyes, Sunset turned. Sure enough, stretched out below them was Twilight’s cutie mark. The building they had arrived on was the central star, and the other five were represented by the surrounding towers.
Sunset felt a sinking sensation. They’d been gods, heroes, and villains already. This felt like something else. Something—
Something like a sleek flying cart with no wings buzzed overhead, bathing them in a bright spotlight as a sudden gale-force wind buffeted their manes.
“Unidentified ponies: you are trespassing on private property. Surrender all magitech and step aboard. You will be escorted to the edge of SparkleTech property, and released. Failure to comply may increase the severity of this unit’s response.”
Twilight squinted up at the strange contraption. “What in the wide, wide world of Equestria is that thing?”
A trio of small metal tubes emerged from below the cart. “Unidentified ponies: this is your second warning. Surrender all magitech and—”
“Yeah, we got it!” Sunset shouted back.
The cart swung parallel to them. In one motion, a hatch unfolded on the side into a set of stairs. Two ponies holding rods coruscating with lightning in their mouths eyed them carefully.
Or they did, before one of them saw Twilight’s horn. He switched his rod off and tossed it aside. “Miss Sparkle? Princess Sparkle? What are you doing out here on the cooling tower?”
“Good question, um, officer? I was just showing S—”
“—She was showing me around the place. Thanks for checking up on us, officer. We can—”
The guardsmare extinguished her rod as well, and shook her head. “Ma’am, if you’d let us take you back to your suite, it’d really make our night.”
“Uh, sure!” Twilight said with forced cheerfulness. “Escort away.”
As Sunset and Twilight stepped aboard the vehicle, the stallion continued where his partner had stopped.
“Thanks for the breather, Princess. We’ve been on high alert for that possible incursion for weeks now. When we got the lifesign reading from on top of Central Tower, well, you can imagine…”
His partner cracked up laughing, “You should’ve seen poor Lantern’s face! All that nonsense and for what? Just the Princess and her new marefriend.”
Sunset’s cheeks flushed. “Uh, we’re not—”
Twilight’s cheeks were as red as they’d ever been. “—No, we’re not— we’re just friends…”
The security mare just laughed again. “Oh, no need to explain, Your Highness. We’ve sworn oaths, haven’t we?”
“Oh, yeah, Princess. You can count on our silence.” He tipped his blue cap, and winked. “SparkleTech Containment and Security Corp, at your service.”
They’d pulled up to another hatch near the top of the building. After a moment’s pause, both hatches opened. The two security ponies saluted in unison as Twilight and Sunset stepped off and into SparkleTech’s Central Tower.
A set of violet and indigo pillows sat arrayed against one wall, with a colossal window dominating two of the others. The last wall was dominated by a glass screen.
That wasn’t what Sunlight was looking at as they entered, though.
In the center of the room, suspended in a mesh of wires and cords, was a tall, narrow-limbed alicorn wearing a black jumpsuit. She stood almost a full head taller than Sunset or Twilight, and was hooked into a machine that pulsed faintly. A helmet fitted for her horn sat snugly over her head.
Twilight took in the room as she flitted about.
Sunset noted with a frown that she was definitely slowing down a little. That clock was still ticking.
“I see Aeon got you our nanoparticles,” a voice said, echoing in large bedchamber. Sunset couldn’t place it, but Twilight’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Starlight? What are you—”
“Starlight Glimmer? No. She was my great-grandmother. My name is Skysign.” The ivory unicorn mare stepped out of the shadow she’d been lurking in, and flicked her ice-blue mane out of her face. “Forgive my intrusion, Princess. When I saw the Princess’s access code being used, I had to see for myself what was going on.”
She cleared her throat. “I mean her code,” she says, indicating the suspended alicorn. “Not yours. Er, not that you’d have one yet, and goodness, is it getting warm in here?”
Sunset furrowed her brow. “Nanoparticles?”
Twilight spoke at the same time, “What do you mean, ‘yet’?”
Skysign sighed, and tapped her forehead with her hoof. “Voyagers. Sweet Sun, this is a headache.” She sighed, and continued. “Welcome to your future, Twilight. It’s been fifteen years since Sunset’s… well, it’s been a while since we’ve hosted Miss Shimmer here, let’s say that.
“About two years ago, you got a message from your past. It mentioned an incoming threat to the Tapestry, and said that you’d been the one to cause it while trying to—”
“‘Tapestry’?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah, that’s what you called the— dear me, have you not read your own theories? Allomancer X37-B was supposed to pass on that—”
Twilight levitated the small cube she’d picked up what seemed like aeons ago. “This?” she asked sheepishly.
Skysign groaned. “So we’re starting at the beginning. That’s… Well, we’re starting, at least.” She wrapped the cube in her magic, slotted it into a matte black helmet, and offered it to Twilight.
“Do you want your answers, Princess? You have but to take them.”
Twilight swallowed, and took the helmet in her own magic. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and put it on.
As she did, wires descended from the ceiling, and bore her up. She floated alongside the other alicorn, their helmets pulsing in unison.
Sunset looked on, worried. “Now what?”
Skysign’s gaze hardened. “We have assets in place across the Tapestry, waiting for Tirek’s reemergence. We need to decide which worlds survive, and which we must abandon. I hate saying it, but it’s time for the hard choices, Miss Shimmer.”
Safe to say, this would have pushed the story in a different direction.
Most interesting. It's always intriguing seeing what and why didn't make the cut, especially when the reasons are more than "it wasn't good enough."
Oh now im even more curious and want more
4490639
Indeed. I'm glad we went where we did, but I had to expell the last of that world out before I could see where we needed to go.