Sunset Shimmer winced at the way the sun rays irritated her; it was quite ironic that the source of her name was right now working against her, but she decided that it was probably karma due to everything she had done before her redemption at the hands of Princess twilight and the rest of her now friends. After a shake of her head, Sunset tried to focus back on the real world after receiving such a barrage of sensorial data. For a moment everything seemed sharper, extremely colorful and every sound was as loud as a jackhammer; it was as if Sunset had been part of the forest, no, the whole world for a few seconds.
The first thing she saw were six faces peering at her with a mixture of worry and confusion, it was a sight for sore eyes. Sunset finally stood up and noticed that she had been brought to her knees after receiving that ‘signal’ for better word. Looking around the clearing that worked as parking lot Sunset didn’t see the rest of her classmates.
“None of the others noticed… whatever happened to you, not sure if to be thankful or worried that no one could help you,” said a slightly miffed Rarity as she then began to pat off some dust that had stuck to Sunset’s summer camp outfit; the aforementioned redhead took it on stride knowing that it was one of Rarity’s way of showing she cared. At her side, Fluttershy took her head on her hands and carefully peered into Sunset’s eyes with a worried look still present on her.
“Do you feel nauseous, does anything hurt?” The shy girl asked in a voice tone that made everyone blink since they usually only heard her talk like that when in the presence of an injured animal.
“Wow, seems that those first aid lessons really did work,” Rainbow said watching the usually meek member of the Rainbooms take charge in the inspection of the redhead. After watching her eyes Fluttershy nodded not finding any signs of damage on their friend.
“I feel better now, thank you guys.”
“What happened to you? One second we are all talking next you are kneeling on the ground,” Applejack said still surprised about what had happened. From the entire group she was the one most excited about the idea of camping since she hadn’t been able to go out like before; her father had been too busy the last few years to take her out into the wild like old times so it was a nice thing for the school to make the trip possible.
“I don’t know, I was fine and then it felt like… someone was calling me, maybe? It was too confusing at the end,” Sunset was not quite sure of what had happened back there, but she knew that there were only two probabilities. Either it was something magical related or had to do with the belt. Of course, if she was really unlucky the two things were linked.
Leaving that behind, the seven friends took their bags and began to walk until they finally caught up with the rest of the group. Looking up they saw a girl and a boy who seemed the be the ones in charge of the camp, but something was wrong since the girl seemed to be in pain as the boy tried to help her up.
“Is okay, I’m fine now,” The girl said pushing the other boy gently to the side before recovering enough to hold up her microphone.
“Gloriosa, this is the second time this happened, there is something going on,” The boy said worried about the girl while this one simply smiled and shook her head.
“I’m fine Timber, there is nothing wrong, is probably some heatstroke; I swear I will rest up after we welcome our newest campers,” Gloriosa -which seemed to be her name- answered and then began her welcome speech to the newest guests to Camp Everfree. As she was talking both Sunset and Twilight had their own suspicions about what was going on. It seemed that the girl had also been hit by the strange surge of sensations like Sunset, or at least that was their suspicions because her reaction seemed too similar to the one Sunset had two minutes ago.
“You don’t think-” Sunset started as the rest of her friends began to give suggestions for activities at the camp; meanwhile Twilight began to think about what could be happening.
“I’m not sure, it could be related as in she also got the signal as you mentioned, or it could be like she said and it was only heatstroke, we won’t know until we check what happened with you- oh, excuse me,” Twilight interrupted herself after almost crashing into someone; that someone was none other than Timber who had some kind of bag on his hands. Looking at the rest of the people at camp both Twilight and Sunset saw the cards that they had in hand and decided to pull one from the sack.
“Hey, I got a sapphire, at least I think it is a sapphire since is blue, although sapphires can come in other colors,” Twilight said as Timber got close to them and was obviously wanting to engage Twilight in conversation.
“Yeah, but they are mostly blue, that’s why-” It would have been cute to see him trying to flirt with Twilight, if the girl didn’t have her head on everything scientific.
“Thank you for that, now, we need to do something about that, maybe we can do some tests,” She kept on talking as she walked away as both Timber and Sunset took a look at each other and the redhead could do nothing except shrug.
“Sorry, she gets like that sometimes, maybe you’ll have more luck later on, oh nice, I get sapphire too, see ya,” Sunset said feeling a little bad about the guy, he seemed like a nice guy but when Twilight was on a roll there was very little they could do to make her focus on the material world.
Just as Sunset got close enough to Twilight they soon heard someone screaming from the forest; just as the group of campers noticed the sound they all saw a young girl appearing form the forest and they all recognized her.
“Diamond Tiara!? What’s wrong, what are you doing here?” Principal Celestia was the first one to react and she and her sister caught the young girl as she was about to fall down to the floor due to how tired she was.
“You have to help! Dad’s limo was attacked as we were arriving!” the tiara wearing girl said almost hysterical as the other teenagers got worried at what she said “it was some kind of monster, it has my dad!”
“Where did you saw this monster?” Sunset asked getting worried about what could have happened to Filthy Rich.
“It was in the forest; it just took my dad and then disappeared!” The girl said as tears ran down her cheeks. In a second Sunset began to run into the forest as the rest of her friends and the two sisters in charge of Canterlot High could only watch her leave. They all knew that if there was something magical or dangerous happening then it was something that Sunset and her friends could solve, but the bearers of the elements of harmony knew that something like that could only be defeated by Sunset. That is, if she was capable of transforming.
-----
Light rays pierced through every nook it could find making the trek inside the forest easier for Sunset, but even with this help the path was becoming hard and soon she had stop to not only reorient herself but to take a breath. She knew that what she was doing was too dangerous and foolhardy, but if the monsters from the museum were returning then she had no other choice but to fight them.
Still, she felt like an idiot for simply running into the woods without a plan or something prepared. Sure, she was known for preferring the hands-on approach to things but this was even extreme for her. Just as she was to turn back she heard another set of footsteps getting closer. Waiting until the other person could catch up with her she saw the unmistakable form of Twilight who was completely out of breath and with her glasses skewed getting closer to her.
“Twilight? What are you doing?” She asked as the other girl put her hands on her knees and tried to recover her strength. Even if after the Friendship Games Twilight had become more active in her daily life she was still the cliché out of shape nerd.
“I… didn’t… want you… going by yourself,” She said trying to regain her breath as Sunset smiled at the dedication of her friend, but just as she was about to tell something she felt that same type of signal almost bringing her to her knees. It was a clear warning, because at the next second Twilight was trapped in some kind of net and pulled up.
Sunset was too late to react and could only see her friend being hauled on top of a branch by a grey skinned monster, like the ones she saw at the museum. It had six protuberances coming out of its back and with the addition of the eight beady eyes and fangs growing out of the mouth it was clear that the monster had something to do with a spider.
“Yujo!” was the only thing Sunset heard before she was hit by something on her right sending her flying. Shaking off the pain and getting up Sunset found one of the leaders of the monsters with one of his fists raised. The head with big eyes and two antennae made him resemble a grasshopper “you are not ready for the duel, do whatever you want with her,” the grasshopper said in perfect English as he jumped into another tree and soon disappeared. The spider seemed to understand what was said because it turned to look at the still struggling Twilight and Sunset’s blood turned to ice at what happened next.
From the high branch the spider simply let go of Twilight sending the girl on a one way trip to the ground. Her scream made Sunset move faster, her body began to change on the action of saving her friend and once more the belt appeared around her waist. With a mighty jump Sunset caught Twilight before this one could get hurt, but placing Twilight gently on the ground the warrior found her friend too terrified to talk.
Sunset felt something that haven’t felt in a long time, something that she tried to erase from her own self, something that had only brought problems for her I the past, one of the reasons why she was now away from Equestria. She felt the searing rage burn in her body, almost as if her body was made of lava. So big was her rage that her mind was clear for the first time in weeks and even the mountain of information was simply pushed aside as Sunset put all her attention on the spider.
She felt heat encompassing her body as it gathered around her belt, cracking it up until the energy was enough to change the way it looked. Instead of an oval it was now a circle still with a clear center. Around it now there was a yin-yang in yellow and red and a big sun just like her cutie mark, but for whatever reason the cutie mark was split into two as both parts were separated with enough space in the middle to insert something.
The core, the one invention from Twilight that in a way had started it all floated in front of Sunset and this one took it in one hand.
“I see… this is your real form, you were waiting for me to finally commit to the fight. Help me protect those close to me and everything will be fine,” She said as she inserted the core into the belt.
“Core Ready.” The voice said as Sunset extended her arms to the side gathering every ounce of power she had in the human world.
“This is my resolution; this is my declaration of war! Henshin!” She screamed as with her hands she pushed inwards the two sides of her belt making the belt close and a bright light engulfed the girl. As the light receded Sunset threw herself at the spider hitting him directly in the face sending him reeling backwards. The spider attacked back by kicking Sunset on the stomach, but thanks to her new form as Kamen Rider Yujo the damage was minimized; anyone else would have had several ribs broken with that kind of attack.
Attack and defense, hits and counters rained as both Rider and Monster fought for their lives as the fight raged on. Holding onto the spider, Yujo pushed it into what seemed a lake deep into the Everfree. With water up to their knees Yujo ducked under a fist from the spider and quickly hit it in the sternum, next a front kick send it backwards deeper into the water.
Sunset felt a power concentrating on her legs as the fight continued and now she knew it was the time to let it free. She screamed with the force of her rage as what could only be described as a floating version of her cutie mark appeared in the air. Jumping in the air, Yujo went through the cutie mark, her whole body being engulfed in the power of a sun, almost like an armored meteorite. Her right leg made contact against the spider and both Sunset and the monster went down into the water, getting lost among the lake. Twilight by now had freed herself from the sticky web and witnessed the fight; it was a nerve wracking experience and she could do nothing but hope that Sunset came out the winner. Then finally the two disappeared under the water and a second later a huge tower of water appeared from the middle of the lake.
Twilight ran to the edge of the lake and rejoiced at finally seeing Sunset walk out of the lake, completely drenched and bruised, but with a smile on her face and thumbs up in the direction of Twilight. Then Sunset lost all energy and felt unconscious into Twilight’s arms.