Equestria Girls and The Golden Bell

by Sparky Brony


Chapter 5.

Sunset shifts in her bed, it’s not that the bed is uncomfortable, the opposite happens to be true. In some ways it reminds her of the beds in the dorms at the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns. She flips over in her bed and stares at the book. She spent over an hour explaining what was going on. She described in detail everything she saw. She remembers something about that bell. It was something from her Equestrian Magical history class. She just can’t remember enough about that creature. She finally reaches out and opens the book,

From the desk of Twilight Sparkle. The information you have requested is currently unavailable. A messenger has been dispatched to retrieve books from Canterlot Castle, and I hope to be able to locate the information you require shortly. SPIKE! Stop eating nachos on the map table! Yours truly, Twilight.

“ARGH!" Sunset sighs and falls back on the bed, hugging the book tightly to her chest, "You are such a princess at times Twilight. All I need is a little information." Huffing, Sunset looked up at the ceiling, "It’s Equestria, Sunset, remember, no internet. Research takes time."

*tap tap*

Her eyes go wide, had she actually fallen asleep again? She glances at the clock on the bedside table. No, it’s still two in the morning. She shakes her head.

*tap tap*

She glances over at the window, there’s something there. She leans down and looks through.

*tap tap*

There’s an owl there. Sunset frowns as she opens the window, allowing the owl entry. It’s carrying a parchment envelope in its beak. She gently takes the envelope from the owl, which dutifully turns and launches back out into the night. She looks at her name written on the envelope. She shrugs and opens the envelope.

“Please see me in my office at your earliest convenience. A student will be waiting outside your rooms to take you here.”

Sunset’s eyebrows rise, she glances at the clock. She really isn’t all that tired right now. It only takes a moment to pull her robes on. She stops and contemplates her wand, the power and abilities it represents to her, just lying on the table. She reaches out a hand, mentally calling it to her hand, and it flies into her hand. She stops in shock, how much has been opened in her to allow something like that? She has been missing her magic for years now. She had thought that she would never touch her music again except for occasional trips back to Equestria. She slides her wand into a pocket in her robes and grabs the book as she walks towards the entrance to their little haven in this school. She opens the door. She looks at the student there, a young lady, a few years younger than her, with long flowing white hair and the most unusual earrings Sunset has seen in this world, a pair of radishes. She smiles at the girl who speaks in a dreamy voice, “I’ve been sent to take you to the headmasters office.”

Sunset smiles, “Thank you.” The girl leads off, and Sunset follows. After a few moments of walking she moves up next to the girl, “It’s late, isn’t it?”

She shrugs, “I was reading fairly late. Professor Dumbledore had come down to the library to get a book, and had asked me to head here.”

“Ah.” Sunset says, it doesn’t take very long until they are standing before the statue of a phoenix.

The student stands before the phoenix, “Sherbet Lemon” She says to it, causing it to rotate in place and lift, revealing a spiraling staircase. Sunset reaches out a foot, and the staircase acts like an escalator, she lets it take her all the way up, and in a matter in a moment, she’s in a very large, yet exceedingly cluttered office. On the walls are oil paintings of various wizards. Sunset stands in silence, looking at the wizards, many of them seem to be sleeping in their paintings.

“They are previous headmasters of the school.” Comes Dumbeldore’s voice.

Sunset starts, “Huh?”

“The paintings, these are the previous headmasters of Hogwarts school.” The wizard himself comes from another room in the office, he gestures, “Sometimes I find the need to talk to them. When times are troubled, as they are now.”

She sighs, she knows about troubled times, the tall wizard comes closer, “I don’t deal with muggles very often, though I have a feeling you would be a full witch had you been born here.”

Sunset sighs, “This reminds me of so much that I turned my back on.”

“Why did you turn your back on all of that?”

She looks at him sharply, he seems to have the ability to know the exactly what to say, she looks down, “Back then, all it was, everything, was a means to an end. My power, my strength, my abilities.” She hugs herself, “I was mad, magical abilities came easily to me, I was the strongest of my classmates. I was the protégé of the Princess herself.”

A chair is magically floated over and settles right behind her, she sits down as a second chair, “Tell me more about the Princess.”

Sunset can feel tears, she thought she had worked past all of this pain, “Princess Celestia is a wonderful teacher, it seems as though she knows everything. Especially when it comes to magic. She’s patient, and forgiving, and she knows how to push a student, even though that student wants to press forward even faster than is safe for her.” She looks up and sees the compassion on his face, she swipes an arm across her face, “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Sunset Shimmer. You’ve learned since then, that the power you craved needs to be tempered.”

She sniffles and nods, “I needed friendship. I needed to know that the power for power’s sake is poisonous.”

He leans back and sighs, “I knew a young wizard that could have used that lesson many years ago.”

Her eyebrows raise as he continues, “His name was Tom Riddle, and he was a student here many years ago.”

She finds her jaw dropping as Dumbledore continues, talking about the first wizarding war, the Order of the Phoenix along with what has been happening the last few years. Then he talks about what is happening with the Tri-Wizard tournament, he finishes with, “And then someone did an extremely powerful confundus charm on the goblet, allowing another school, and a fourth year student, Harry Potter, to be entered. Something that should be impossible.”

“The Harry Potter that found the Basilisk and the Philosopher’s stone?”

He nods, “The same.”

She taps her chin, “I think I should meet this young wizard.”

He smiles, “You might, in passing, he has a lot of work to do, the goblet is a magical contract, he must be in the tournament, the consequences if he doesn’t would be dire for him.” He stops for a moment, “And now we have you girls added to the mix.”

The book starts to vibrate and glow, Dumbledore arches an eyebrow, “Your Princess Twilgiht?”

Sunset nods as she pulls it out. She opens it and looks at the latest page… she feels all the color drain from her face, “I do remember him. This is bad.” She holds the book towards Dumbledore, one word is written there, and it looks like Twilight nearly ripped through the page with her quill.

Grogar

Dumbledore adjusts his glasses as he reads, then he looks at Sunset, “Who?”

As he does, more writing appears, Sunset starts to read, “Oh, this is bad. Very bad.” She finds herself shaking as she reads a second page. And at the very end, she reads some more that Twilight had written out loud, “This creature is extremely dangerous. Though due to events going on here in Equestria. I don’t think I can pull myself away from my duties here at this moment. Perhaps in a few weeks?”

She looks at the words on the page, Twilight won’t be able to help. They are scheduled to fly home in about a week, and yet she can’t leave until this creature. This necromancer, is dealt with. What can she do?

“Miss Sunset?”

Sunset looks up at Dumbledore, he looks concerned, “Is there something wrong?”

She shakes her head, “No, I’m just sorta used to her being able to come and help if a problem arises.”

“And this time, she can’t. So you are concerned?”

She nods, “What if I can’t help? What if this Grogar can beat me and my friends, that prophecy you said in the elevator.” She closes her eyes, “A bell once rung, cannot be unrung. He comes, he comes, to enslave and destroy, he comes and even the Death Eaters scatter before him. He comes, with the shadow of death all about him. And no Wizard alone, can stop him.” She looks at the older wizard, “He’s powerful, your prophecies even confirm the danger around him.”

“Do you think you and your friends are going to be the only ones to stand against evil?”

Sunset looks down, “Well. No, I guess not.”

Dumbledore smiles, “Then we know that we will stand together against him. Though the prophecy does not say whether or not he is stopped, I tend to be an optimist when it comes to such things.”

She looks at the book in her lap, then closes it firmly. A whisk of her wand has the book disappear, she knows it is now safe on her bedside table. Having her magic back is pretty much the best thing ever, “Well, now we know who. But what is he going to do next?”

“What do you think he will do, Sunset?”

She sighs and shakes her head, “I don’t know.”

He cocks his head ever so slightly to the side, “Do you know what his goals were before?”

Sunset looks down, “He wanted to rule over the ponies.” She shudders, “Well, he wanted to rule over everything.”

He smiles, “Do you know any reason those goals would have changed?”

She thinks for a few moments, then shakes her head, Dumbledore continues, “Tell me what you do know about him, why he’s scaring you so much.”

Sunset thinks back, remembering her Equestrian history classes, as well as much private tutoring by Princess Celestia herself, “Grogar is a demonic ram necromancer. He was the leader of a kingdom named Tambelon, who once ruled Ponyland with an iron fist a long time ago, before he was defeated when the ancient bell was rung. This banished him and the city to the Shadow World.”

“Ponyland? I thought you were from Equestria.”

Sunset nods, “Before we were unified under the banner of Equestria with the Princesses, we had many smaller kingdoms. Much like how the United Kingdom was formed here on your world.”

He nods and gestures for her to continue, “The trouble is, he keeps coming back. It wasn’t all that long ago, Princess Celestia, along with many of the ponies, were able to drive him back. That time he was sent to Tartarus. It was believed at the time, he would never be able to return.”

Dumbledore sighs, “So, how did he end up here?”

Sunset shudders, “That’s the thing, I couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess. Though there’s something wrong with him, he looks like smoke. He wasn’t fully at the ministry. There are two possible reasons, he was either projecting his will from somewhere else.” She rubs her arms for a moment as though a chill has washed over her.

“Or?” Says Dumbledore.

She sighs, “He may not be fully in your world. And that’s all he can do to affect things.”

Dumbledore stands up, “We will prepare for the first, but hope it’s the second possibility.” He gestures towards the clock, “I’ve kept you up late enough already.”

She stands up, then after a moment, she rushes in to hug Dumbledore, “Thank you for listening to me.” She murmurs softly.

He returns the embrace for a moment, then pushes her out to hold her by the shoulders, “I needed to know all of this. Thank you for coming.”

***
Sunset stretches on her bed for a moment, the bright morning sun has woken her. The sounds of her friends stirring gets her to rotate in the bed and put her feet on the floor.

Pinkie hops up and drags Applejack towards the exit of their little haven in this enormous castle, “Food. Breakfast. Pastries. Let’s go!”

Applejack laughs as she pulls away from Pinkie long enough to grab her robes, she looks at Sunset, “You comin’ sugarcube?”

Sunset looks at the rising sun and yawns hugely, then she thinks for a moment, “yeah. Let me pull on some robes.”

Rarity just waves them away when they try to wake her up, Fluttershy has already gone, leaving a small note on her bed saying she went to Hagrid’s very early, and she was going to be deep in the forbidden forest with the teacher for most of the day. Rainbow Dash was snoring until Sunset whispered that there was lots of food ready for them. Which gets a snort and her cerise eyes open quickly.

Twilight leads the rest of the girls down the narrow tower as they head towards the great hall. It doesn’t take very long before they get to see nearly the entire school’s population. Their black robes meld in with the rest of the Hogwarts students, though there are subtle differences. Normally, each house has its own trim color, red, gold, green, or blue, as well as its crest sewn on the robe. The girls, however, have silver trim and sport the patch of the US Magical Congress. Sunset look around, a set of several girls are interspersed with the Hogwarts students, they are in lighter gray robes, and there are some young men in furs. Dumbledore had explained about the other schools in attendance. Sunset looks around, most of the students here seem to be focused on the food that had appeared on the tables.

Suddenly hesitant, the girls look at each other, “Where do we sit?” Sunset asks softly.

Applejack squares her shoulders, “Ah reckon we’ll just find a spot anywhere.” She leads off, along with the other girls, Sunset brings up the rear, just watching the student’s reactions to them. They find some room along with some students, she looks at their markings, thinking furiously, then she smiles, Gryffindor students. That one boy Dumbledore was talking about, Harry, is in that house. Maybe she’ll meet him. Looking down at the food she retches a little bit and covers her mouth with her hand. After years in this world, she has come to handle the various meat that humans tend to eat. But she had been turned into a pony, just two days ago. Even if only for a few minutes. This reversion brings with it some of her equestrian nature, causing her stomach to rebel against the whole idea of bangers, streaky bacon, and black pudding. She grabs a glass and pours a drink. She takes a sip, then drinks greedily. She sets down her cup, “What is that?” She marvels as she pours another glass.

One of the younger students leans over, “It’s pumpkin juice. Don’t you have it in America?”

She shakes her head as she downs another glass. Then she taps her wand and some of the breakfast items, tomatoes, mushrooms, and potatoes float onto her plate, along with fried eggs and toast with jam.

She looks up to see Pinkie Pie giggle as she takes a small candy from an older teen. This one with bright red hair, and is apparently an identical twin, said twin is at Pinkie’s other shoulder. The first one smiles, “It’s called a magma pepper candy.” His grin gets wider as she unwraps the candy and pops it into her mouth.

Pinkie frowns for a moment, then her ears turn bright red, steam starts to come from her ears as her hair stands straight up. Pinkie finally swallows and her hair bounces back to normal. She licks her lips, "Yummy, its spicy but not overpoweringly hot. Oh, oh, oh, I know!"

He looks at her for a long time, then he holds out a hand, “I’m George, that’s my brother Fred.” Pinkie shakes both of their hands before she opens up her bag. Giggling, she reaches her entire arm in, starting to root around, then her head disappears, finally she brings out a brown paper bag marked with an apple crossed with a chili pepper.

“I just KNEW I had a bag of these." Opening the small bag she pulls out a single reddish colored pepper and holds it out. "If you like those, then you’ll love these. They are Windigo Ghost Chili’s.”

Fred reaches over and picks up the pepper, “I don’t think so.” He laughs, “I can think of a few things we can do with those.”

Pinkie giggles as Sunset takes a bite of her food. She taps her wand on the pitcher of pumpkin juice, which floats over to Pinkie and fills a glass for her, Sunset smiles, “Try this.” Pinkie Pie drinks the pumpkin juice and giggles, Sunset looks over at Rarity and the other girls. They are trying their hands at talking with the students. Twilight is talking to a girl with long brown hair. Her accent is prim as she talks to Twilight. Twilight reaches out gingerly and touches the book in front of the girl.

“Oh, I just got it for some research.” The girl says, “You like to read?”

Twilight blushes slightly, “Yeah.” she slides over a bit as both of them look at the book, she grins, “A book of spells?”

The girl nods as both of them get absorbed in the reading. Sunset smiles as she finishes up her food. Judging by the rapt attention the girl has, a book would likely be her cutie mark if she stepped through the portal. That gets Sunset thinking, would all these humans turn into unicorns going through the portal? She shakes her head at the thought as her fork spears the last mushroom and she puts it in her mouth. As she chews she continues to think, what else is in this world is similar to hers? She sighs, that’s a question to ponder much later.

Soon enough, a loud gong sounds throughout the hall, and the students all start to get moving, Sunset looks at her empty plate, as she stands up, the plates, along with all the food simply disappear. She turns and follows the students out of the grand hall.

***

Sunset, along with Rarity and Twilight all find seats at the back of the classroom. The teacher isn’t there. Though from the clothing, she can see they have Slytherin and Gryffindor students in this class. The girl that Twilight was talking to is in there. She looks over, is that him? A young teen boy, he’s huddled and giggling with another teen boy, this one with bright red hair and his robes look like hand-me-downs. Is that the Harry Potter? Tomorrow he’s going to have to be doing some sort of task for the Tri-Wizard tournament. Her attention is grabbed by a rhythmic thumping. The door to the classroom slams open and a big man enters. Sunset gasps, tied around his head is a leather strap. In that strap is an obviously artificial eyeball. Though it seems to be moving of its own accord.

“For the new American students in my class, I’m Professor Moody.” He says as he stumps down the corridor. He gets to the head of the class and whirls around on his wooden leg, “Today, we are going to be doing some practical work. Everybody up!”

All the students rise, and the teacher thumps his staff on the floor and all of the desks and tables disappear, he smiles, “I think I’ll pick on our new guests. Sunset Shimmer, you have your wand, right?”

Sunset steps forward, “Yes, Professor.”

“Yes professor, how formal.” He chuckles, “Now, who around here would be up for trying out their wand against miss Sunset here?” He looks around, noting all the faces. Then he smiles, “Hermoine Granger.”

The girl that was talking to Twilight earlier steps towards one end of the room, Sunset moves to the other, and the students line up on each side, watching intensely. Hermoine pulls out her wand.

“That’s fair, mudblood girls are just right to go against the witch from America.” Comes a voice from the Slytherins in the room.

“Who said that?” Thunders the teacher. He stumps to the middle of the room, staring down the Slytherin boys, who shrink back at the glare from that electric blue eye, “Who thinks that this American won’t be able to beat your sorry behinds?”

Sunset gulps, she remembers dueling back at home, but this is different. They are going to have to curse each other. She watches as that disturbing eye focuses on one of the boys, “Vincent, I knew I recognized your voice. Get out here.”

The boy called slouches forward, “Aw, I didn’ mean nothin.”

The teacher points and the boy moves slowly over towards the other end as the teacher approaches Sunset, he smiles at her as he moves to the side, “Whenever you are ready.”

The other boy raises his wand in a salute, which Sunset copies. Sunset readies herself, watching Vincent intently.

“Stupefy” The other boy screams as he flourishes his wand. Sunset is ready for this, a quick shield absorbs the blast to begin with. She gathers her energy and blink teleports ten feet to the side and sends her wand from side to side, spitting out short stun bolts, all of them curve and head towards the boy. He throws up a hasty shield himself as Sunset blinks to the other side again, letting out a strong power bolt at the slytherin youth.

“Stop!” Roars Moody, his wand flashing out, deflecting her bolt into the ceiling. The section of the ceiling hit explodes violently, and Sunset automatically contains the explosion directing it away from the humans in the room.

“What the hell were you doing?” Moody continues to roar, the thump of his wooden leg loud in the silence of the room as he stalks towards her, “Is this how they do things in America? You could have killed him!”

"Sunset lowers her wand and bows once taking several steps back. "I'm sorry." She looks back at the boy who's crouching down, trembling, "I was…" She lowers her head, "I was expecting him to do a wink evade. That's why I used a concussive blast, even if he did a short wink, concussive effect would have still knocked him down."

The teacher’s one natural eye narrows, “Wink evade? Here, apparition isn’t allowed until they are seventeen. This is practice, a mock battle, Sunset Shimmer. And that did not look like a concussive blast."

"I'm sorry sir, I just... I got lost in the duel. In my class I was the top Duelist. We were expected to act and react in fluid motions. I'm sorry, I didn't know."

He turns to the boy, “Crabbe, get back in line. This American witch seems to actually know what she’s doing.” He smiles evilly as he walks to the other end of the room. A quick wave of his wand has the ceiling repaired, he whirls back towards Sunset and raises his wand, “With me, do your worst.”

Sunset steels herself as he bows, she bows quickly as well.

“Ready?”

She nods tensely, and he flicks out his wand, unleashing a bolt of power. Rather than shield this time, she unleashes a bolt of her own, both bolts meet in the air in a powerful explosion. She can feel how strong he is, so she blinks to the side, keeping her own attack open for a moment longer, the bolt landing behind him.

He smiles, “You are going to have to do better than that.” He blinks to the side himself as he throws another curse at her, she smiles as she deflects it harmlessly into the ceiling and she slides to the side and fires off a stun spell. She’s having…fun. She blinks back and fires off a fireball at the teacher, as she does so, her ears change and her hair lengthens. She can feel her connection to Equestria, to Equestrian magic. She leaps into the air to avoid a curse aimed at her feet, then she rolls as she lands, she’s not doing it for herself, she’s not proving her abilities for a teacher. She’s doing this because it’s fun, she catches a glimpse of Twilight out of the corner of her eye, she’s doing this for friendship, and for fun. She giggles as Moody’s artificial eye zips to look through the back of his head, he dives to the side as the spell she had landed earlier has finishes its course, long thick vines lashing out to where Moody was standing from behind.

***

Professor Dumbledore is walking through the courtyard, he stops at the sound of a crash and the tinkle of glass breaking. He looks up at the tower where Defense against the Dark Arts is taught. He chuckles upon seeing the massive vines curl out around the outside of the tower, “Well, looks like someone is having fun.”

***

Lucius Malfoy rushes down the stairs in this London house. He growls as he slams open the door to the sub-basement, “Alright, Thorfin, what have you done?”

Thorfin Rowle cringes at the rage in Lucius’ eyes, “I told you in the letter, Lucius. I tried to bring back the dark lord, and I got something else!”

Lucius backhands the other man, “You fool. Plans are in place to bring back our master. He has a plan, why are you messing with it?”

Thorfin wipes blood from his lip as he glares up at Lucius, “Well, some of us don’t trust that rat’s plan. This should have worked.”

Lucius growls as he turns and looks. Thorfin steps up next to him “You know we haven’t been able to find the horcruxes that he made. So, I decided to make one for him.” He points at the spell filling the room, “I used that bell in the middle of the circle, I put out one of his robes, his wand, and all of that. Along with the spell form in the floor, with goats blood to energize it. It should have worked.”

“Why is the spell still active?”

Thorfin steps up to the boundary, “It’s been like this for three days. I can see a dark form inside it. But all I can see is the bell moving around. I summoned something from the dark land. And I’ve been afraid to let it down, so we can see what it is. But I know for certain, it’s not the dark lord.”

Malfoy pinches the bridge of his nose, fending off a headache, “Of course it’s not the dark lord. There isn’t enough of an impression of him from merely his wand, or his robes.” He huffs, “I don’t know where you got that from, but we had better send it back where it came from.”

Malfoy pulls his wand from his cane and levels it at the active spell, a muttered spell and the green and blue magic coursing around slowly settles to the ground. Revealing a form which steps forward.

Malfoy looks at the other man, “A goat? You summoned…A goat?”

“I am Grogar!” The creature steps forward, his bell glows and both men stand rigid, “You have summoned me to this world.” He smiles evilly, “And now I will take it over. And I will find that unicorn, and have her take me to Equestria, so I can finish what I started with the Princesses.”

Both men stand there, their minds on pause as Grogar looks around, he steps towards them, “You two shall be my first slaves in this world.” His bell glows again, and the same glow forms around both of them. “But first, you will tell me what I need to know, you will tell me about this world.”