Before anyone gets their Schwartz Twisted, chillax, I'm only posting this to clear up some processing space in my head for other projects. I'll probably get back to this later but for now this should whet your appetites.
Prologue: Requiem For an Impossible Dream
The Multiverse is, by definition, a collection of hypothetical possible universes that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter and energy, as well as the physical and meta-physical laws, variants and constants that describe them. It goes without saying that there are any number of possible universes out there, one for every decision made or otherwise forgone, be it something as insignificant as which gender or race you were born into, to more complex conundrums such as which shirt to wear or whether or not to drink Chocolate Milk with everything.
The answer to that last one, naturally, was a resounding YES, or at least it was in the opinion of a certain Lord of Chaos, who was currently reclining on what had come to be regarded as ‘His’ couch in the home he shared with his best friend/parole officer, when he wasn’t making a minor pest of himself in order to prevent himself from going insane.
Now don’t get him wrong, there was nothing wrong with indulging in a bit of dementia, the affliction, not the Spirit, (though she certainly knew how to party), now and again. Indeed, he challenged anyone to spend a millennium as a decorative pigeon latrine, completely aware of their surroundings yet incapable of scratching that damned itch in the small of their back, and not go a bit loopy.
It was simply that he’d been there, done that, and had even printed several fashionable Shirts (Tai-Dyed, Naturally) to advertise the fact on multiple occasions. By the end of it he’d simply gotten bored and defaulted back to his typical state of not-quite sanity that could still enjoy driving others to their wits end, a pastime that continued to prove a welcome anathema in the otherwise humdrum his continued existence had sadly become, now that he was burdened by the oh-so-humbling shackles of ‘Friendship’.
“Stupid Writers with their stupid moral lessons…” he stage-muttered, summoning a glass of chocolate milk, which he promptly consumed, chucking the contents over his shoulder, where it promptly began chasing Angel Bunny around the house “Seriously, couldn’t they have pulled some other trick? Like the Reformation spell requiring that I eat it?”
It wouldn’t have worked mind you, as trying to impose order on a being whose very existence was Chaos Incarnate would have the same effect as introducing matter to anti-matter, or the Cutie Mark Crusaders to Power Tools.
“Speaking of which…” he mused, snapping his talons to pause the channel before peering out the window to check on the fillies, having promised to keep an eye on them while Fluttershy and her friends were off in the Crystal Empire for the Princess Summit, a task he surprisingly found to be both entertaining and cathartic, as the trio of fillies made quite the effective trifecta of chaos, and the Unicorn couldn’t even use magic yet!
“Maybe I should take a leaf or two from Celestia’s book…” he mused, idly nibbling on a random page from the Sun Princess’ diary, one of the saucier pages naturally, as he watched Scootaloo lay out her latest ‘sure to earn us our cutie marks (or land us in hospital)’ plan, only to toss the idea aside, knocking Angel Bunny out of mid-air as the rabbit once again attempted a futile show of dominance “Nah, too much effort…”
There was also the fact that if he were to start giving lessons on Chaos Magic, there was no doubt a certain recently ascended Alicorn would turn up, notebooks at the ready to suck all the fun out of it.
Besides, as was the nature of Chaos, it was far more fun for him to simply sit back and watch the resulting fireworks from the trio’s latest scheme. After all, he’d only promised to keep an eye on them so they didn’t hurt themselves, at no point had he promised to keep them from getting into trouble.
“The Hospital, maybe, but certainly not trouble.” He amended, snapping his talons again to resume watching his show once it was confirmed the Crusaders weren’t in any immediate danger “Ooh, I like what Cadence has done with the place.” he mused, pulling on a pair of cardboard 3D glasses to avoid lens flare “Always did feel it could do with a bit of touching up. Hm?”
He paused as he spotted something in the corner of the screen that actually caused him to quirk a brow, namely a group of Unicorns that were watching the proceedings with interest, among their number an admittedly pretty mare with a fiery mane that would’ve had any bacon-lover drooling in appreciation.
However, while the Mare’s presence was to be expected, her attire and apparent lack of animosity towards Twilight were not. If anything, she seemed to be just as decidedly unimpressed with the new Princess as Discord was. No, what truly drew Discord’s attentions were her companions, namely a pigtailed Unicorn Mare, a red-maned stallion with a VERY interesting Cutie Mark, and…a little white Alicorn?
“Oh Zelretch you cheeky Dick-Waffle…” he chuckled, sitting up straighter and snapping his fingers, summoning a fresh bucket of buttered popcorn to snack on as he hit the rewind button on his remote “And it isn’t even my Birthday!”
Canterlot Castle – Several Years Ago.
They say that pride cometh before the fall, and if ever a pony embodied that term it was Sunset Shimmer, one of the elect few to be granted the prestigious honour of not only attending Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but also being personally selected to become the Sun Princess’ Personal Student.
From the moment she’d first walked through those gilded doors at the academy, it was clear to all that Sunset Shimmer would go far, both in terms of her magical acumen and as a pony. It wasn’t simply her raw magical skill, she simply possessed a force of will that few other ponies could match, or indeed handle. Indeed, many a time prior to being selected by the Princess she often wound up showing up her professors, many of whom had to take sabbaticals to recover from the humiliation of being shown up in their chosen field by a mare easily half their age.
However, while no-one could doubt Sunset’s magical prowess, her social skills, while far from lacking, were not the kind Celestia approved of from those closest and dearest to her heart. To put it bluntly, despite Celestia’s many lessons in humility, Sunset’s prodigal power and skill, coupled with the praises of her instructors and position as Celestia’s student, had caused her to become boastful, arrogant and condescending towards anypony who couldn’t measure up to her ridiculously high standards.
In all fairness it wasn’t entirely Sunset’s fault that she was like this. After all, while her rank as Celestia’s Student opened many doors for her, what lurked behind some of those doors was enough to turn the stomach of any decent pony. From the moment she attended her first gala, the young mare had been exposed to more potential suitors and ‘business partners’ looking to cash in on her position than many a mare could expect to meet in a lifetime. This, as you might imagine, led to her becoming jaded on the subject of ‘friendship’, despite it being a key tenant of most of her lessons with Celestia. She grew distrustful of anyone who tried to get close to her, whether they be old classmates or the Canterlot Elite.
But why should she care for the opinions of lesser folk when she had the company of a Goddess? What need had she for friends when every day was spent pushing the bounds of magic further and further under the caring tutelage of her wise mentor? The only Alicorn in existence?
Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and for Sunset, her good times ended the day Celestia pulled her aside after a particularly boring seminar on the importance of Friendship to introduce her student to the latest addition to her family, her recently adopted niece, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.
Now Sunset was no stranger to members of the Canterlot Elite claiming to be ‘relatives of the Princess’, as Celestia tended to step in to adopt the foals of old family friends that had fallen on hard times or were on the verge of dying out. Prince Blueblood was a prime example of the latter, his family having served the crown for years until his father passed away due to choking on an apple seed.
But while Cadance confessed to having been born in Canterlot, she didn’t have the benefit of being from an ‘old blood family’ that had served the crown for generations, nor had her parents been a part of the Canterlot Military. A good thing too, for if they had Celestia would have had them exiled for abandoning their daughter in the woods simply for being born a Pegasus instead of a Unicorn. Indeed, had things simply ended there, Sunset might have been willing to humor Celestia and at least attempt a friendship with the mare, or at the very least help her find her hooves among the court.
Sadly, any hopes Celestia had of cultivating a friendship between them died a fiery, agonizing death in the face of Sunset’s indignation that Cadance, a self-confessed Pegasus, had not only been adopted as Celestia’s kin, but had managed to ascend to the lofty rank of Alicorn.
It had been a shocking development for the normally confident Sunset Shimmer. And could you honestly blame her? Here she was, the most powerful Unicorn of her generation, the prodigal student of Princess Celestia herself, arguably the closest thing the Sun Princess had to a daughter, and yet some random Pegasus raised by Earth Ponies from the sticks had managed overnight something that, to date, had eluded even the legendary Starswirl the Bearded.
Needless to say, Sunset had made it clear from the outset that she thought very little of the so-called ‘Princess of Love’ and wanted even less to do with her, going out of her way to purposefully avoid the mare, though she limited herself to being excessively formal whenever in Celestia’s presence.
It wasn’t as if Cadence was a bad pony. Indeed, unlike many of Celestia’s adopted family she was actually rather down to earth, no doubt a result of being raised by Earth Ponies, even going so far as to insist she enroll at Canterlot Academy instead of simply waltzing into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, which in Sunset’s opinion had been rather clever of her, as she highly doubted the naïve mare would’ve survived one minute among her former colleagues.
No, the reason Sunset chose to distance herself from Cadence was simply jealousy, plain and simple. And could you honestly blame her? She’d worked her flanks off for years to get where she was, had devoted herself entirely to her studies to impress the Mare she saw as a second mother, only to be shown up by some random mare from the middle of nowhere.
And so, in a rather interesting turn of events, Celestia’s gambit to convince Sunset Shimmer to make friends wound up making her student even more of a recluse, pushing away any and all attempts from her peers to get to know her in favour of bridging the gap she believed had formed between her and the Princess. Desperate to reach out to her disciple before it was too-late, Celestia found herself with no choice but to bend one of her own rules, whilst simultaneously breaking one of the many, MANY rules laid down by Starswirl prior to his disappearance, and unearthed one of her mentor’s magical mirrors.
Normally she would never dream of doing such a thing, not after the falling out that occurred between the two of them due to her abusing his trust, but Celestia remained confident that if anything could get Sunset back on the right track, it would be to see how happy she could be surrounded by the friends she was so sorely lacking.
Alas, however, it seemed Starswirl’s warnings had been well placed, for while whatever Sunset had seen within the depths of the mirror had indeed lit a fire within her, it was a fire that hungered for power, power Celestia did not believe her once erstwhile student was ready to handle in her current state of mind.
Now Celestia had made many mistakes in her lifetime, chief among them the events that culminated in Luna’s fall to the Nightmare and subsequent banishment, but unlike then she recognized the signs for what they were, and she would be damned before she failed Sunset Shimmer as she had her sister.
And so she had sealed the mirror away, hoping that, in time, she could wear down her student’s patience with knowledge. Alas, while Sunset hadn’t inherited Celestia’s desire for companionship, her hunger for knowledge was just as voracious as the Alicorn’s had been during her own tutelage under Starswirl. She was certainly just as stubborn as Celestia dimly recalled her foal-hood self to be, refusing to take a hint, always trying to bring their conversations back to the mirror despite Celestia’s best attempts to distract her.
In this regard, Celestia had to admit that Starswirl had been the better instructor, the old Stallion having possessed the patience of a saint and the knowledge of how to reign in overbearing foals who thought they knew everything just because they possessed both wings and a horn. For Faust’s sake he was able to keep two inexperienced Alicorn Fillies under control, while here Celestia struggled with a single, admittedly brilliant, unicorn.
In the end, after countless days, weeks and months of dodging the issue, Celestia’s millennia spanning patience finally ran thin, the Solar Princess making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that she had no intention of discussing the mirror and whatever Sunset had seen within its crystalline depths until she deemed her student ready. While the look of betrayal and anger in Sunset’s eyes as she laid down her ultimatum had cut her to the core, she knew in her heart that it was for her own good. In time, once she was certain Sunset had matured physically and mentally, she would be more inclined to discuss what her student had seen, but until then she still had some growing up to do.
It was only after the events that followed that she would recall how that very mind-set had cost her another figure close to her heart. But unlike her sister, who was scheduled to return within the next few years, there was no guarantee that she’d ever see Sunset Shimmer again.
Canterlot Archives – Restricted Section.
“If we cannot get past this, your studies end here.” Celestia intoned as she glared imperiously down at her former student “You are welcome to stay in Canterlot, but you are no longer welcome in the castle.”
“This is the biggest mistake you’ll make in your entire life.” Sunset vowed, her pride and anger overpowering the crippling fear and shame that were practically begging her to throw themselves at her mentor’s hooves, to plead for mercy like some scared little foal. Instead she turned on her hooves and marched out, flanked on either side by the two Royal Guard Stallions Celestia had brought with her.
‘She never even intended to hear me out.’ She growled, glaring heatedly at the normally taciturn stallions, who simply returned her glare with equal venom, as if they were looking down on the scum of Equestria instead of a mare who had more power in her horn than they would ever possess in their entire lives. A mare that, had she not let her pride get in the way, could have been their next Princess.
There was no doubt in Sunset Shimmer’s mind that she was the most powerful Unicorn in Canterlot, if not all of Equestria. While Cadence had the advantage of being an Alicorn, her Pegasus origins meant her control over magic was even weaker than a newborn filly’s. This had done little to soothe Sunset’s ego however, and so when the chance arose for her to close the gap, to learn how to ascend to Alicorn-hood, she had leapt at it, confident that between her skills and Celestia’s guidance, she would finally achieve her destiny.
Instead, her Mentor had betrayed her, lied and avoided the issue before outright denying her access to the knowledge she needed to make that next step, and now seeing fit to cast her aside for the ‘crime’ of refusing to dance to her tune for a second longer.
It went without saying that she wasn’t about to take this lying down. Make no mistake, the only reason she had gone along quietly was to give the Stallions escorting her a belated sense of security, as anyone who’d lived in Canterlot for any amount of time knew that the Royal Guard were essentially there to look pretty. And could you blame them? Celestia had ruled over Equestria for well over a thousand years and in that time no other country had ever so much as sneered in their general direction. And why would they? Only an idiot would purposefully make an enemy of the immortal demi-goddess who controlled the cycle of the sun and moon.
Now the Wonderbolts, those she might have taken seriously, as only the best of the best were accepted to even try out for the squad. But as it stood the two Pegasus Stallions assigned to escort her out of the castle were most likely from the countless failures who just couldn’t cut it and figured guarding the palace was a cushy job. Sadly, it seemed they had forgotten a key fact about their supposed escort, one that Sunset was all too willing to remind them of as they drew close to the room she recalled the mirror being stored in.
And the remedial lesson for the day is: Never send a Pegasus to guard a Unicorn, especially when that Unicorn is Sunset Shimmer.
‘You’d think Celestia would’ve known better.’ She scoffed, glaring down at the concussed forms of the Stallions in disgust ‘Or did she simply think so little of me that she thought these overblown bookends would be enough to keep me in line?’
If even one of the guards had been a unicorn he might have put up more of a fight, or at the very least tried to get a flare spell off before she took him down. The fact Celestia hadn’t deemed her enough of a threat to warrant such concern simply proved to Sunset that her former mentor was underestimating her.
‘Yet another mistake she’ll live to regret.’ Sunset vowed, turning her back on the downed guards in favour of striding towards the source of her dilemma and supposed answer to all of her problems, namely Starswirl’s Crystal Mirror.
A part of her wanted to smash the damned thing, partly for ruining her reputation with the Princess, and partially to spite the mare by destroying one of the few relics from her old friend. However, that part of her was greatly overshadowed by her desire to delve deeper into the vision she’d seen within, to learn the secrets that would grant her the power needed to ascend, to claim the power and status that were rightfully hers.
While she hadn't learnt much beyond the bare basics before Celestia’s arrival, she’d learnt enough to know that the portal seemed to rely on the phases of the moon, an odd trait given Celestia’s preference for the sun, and would only activate once every thirty moons, or once every two and a half years, give or take. She obviously couldn’t sneak the damn thing out of the castle, and while it wouldn’t be hard to sneak back in over the next two years given the ineptitude of the Guard, there was no guarantee that Celestia would leave the mirror in the same place once Sunset left.
In other words, this was the only chance Sunset had to use the mirror, and it just so happened to be a Full Moon tonight.
‘Just you wait.’ She preened, smirking confidently to herself eve as she heard the familiar dainty hoofsteps of her mentor drawing closer to the chamber ‘When I come back with the power I deserve, I’ll make you regret the day you cast me out!’
And with nary a look back, Sunset Shimmer turned to face her destiny, gathered all the strength she could into her hind legs and launched herself towards the mirror, closing her eyes instinctively as she neared the glass surface, only to gasp in surprise when instead of slamming into it her hooves passed through as if diving into a pool of ice-cold water.
At that moment, an explosion of colour caught the corner of her eye, the former student of Celestia turning as if in slow motion to gape at the rainbow-colored shockwave that was bearing down on Canterlot Castle, her eyes widening in alarm as she sensed the sheer magical power of the field just before her head was consumed by the portal.
What happened next, Sunset still isn’t sure to this day, but if pressed to recall anything about her passage through the mirror portal, the only thing she could confidently recall was the mind-numbing pain before everything went white.
Ground Zero - Fuyuki - 1994
He had no idea how long he’d been walking. Hell, he didn’t even know to where he was walking, as most of the familiar landmarks of the city had been long-since consumed by the flames that had seemingly erupted out of nowhere to claim the lives of his friends and family. Every now and again he’d hear a scream for help, a plea for assistance, a desperate cry to some higher power to save a loved one or themselves. He blotted them out, covered his ears and forced his gaze to look ever forward to the cool darkness that lurked tantalizingly at the end of the Hell the world had become, squashing down the sickening feeling of joy he felt at being the only one in this hell to have retained his human form.
Had it been mere luck? Had his house simply been far enough away from the epicenter of whatever caused this inferno that he’d been able to escape the worst of it? No, if that had been the case then he would hardly have been alone, if that had truly been the case, he wouldn’t be the only one alive right now.
I lived on, so I have to keep living.
Such was the thought that drove him ever onwards, the forced him to put one foot in front of the other, to block out the screams of the dying that begged him to save them, the smell of roasting flesh and burning fat that sought to suffocate him along with the smoke, and the intense heat of the flames that even now reached out hungrily for his form so that they could burn brighter for longer.
He held no delusions of being rescued. It was a miracle in and of itself that he’d survived this long, when so many other more qualified individuals, men and women with lives and families of their own to care for, had been snuffed out so easily. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he struggled, it was impossible for him to escape this Crimson Hell. This might have been a morbid thought for a seven-year-old boy, but that was simply how iron-clad his situation was, even a child could understand it.
And so, whether it was from exhaustion or from the lack of oxygen in the air, the boy fell to the ground even as the flames themselves began to die down, his eyes gazing emptily up into the cloudy sky overhead.
‘That’s good…’ a part of him mused distantly as he reached out for the sky, knowing in his heart he’d be long dead before the first raindrop fell, a fact which came as something of a relief, as then he would no longer have to feel such intense pain ‘Let the rain wash it all away…’
And so, gazing up into the sky, having lost everything without gaining anything in return, the boy known as Shirou let his hand fall, only for another, larger and yet more slender, to suddenly latch onto it, the boys vision once again filled with flames.
‘No…Not flames…’ he realized, his conscious slowly slipping as he gazed into the terrified face of the girl looking down at him, her sooty, tear-stained face framed by locks of hair as brilliant as the rising sun ‘An angel…’
The first thing Sunset Shimmer could feel as she slowly returned to consciousness was heat, not the comforting warmth of Celestia’s sun, or the stifling heat of the Saddle Arabian Desert, but something not unlike the one time she’d accompanied Celestia to the Dragonlands on a diplomatic mission, which was basically to remind Dragonlord Torch precisely why any Dragons that sought to set up hordes in Equestrian Territory were to ensure they didn’t lay a claw on Celestia’s Little Ponies. And to his credit, Torch was rather respectable for a Dragon. Oh he was a brute, make no mistake, but when your culture essentially dictated that might made right, being the biggest and baddest brute kind of came with the title of being Dragonlord.
That being said, all the muscles in the world weren’t worth a damn thing if a smaller, weaker contender could get the drop on you, and Torch hadn’t lasted as long as he had by being stupid, which is precisely what opposing Celestia would have been. It didn’t matter how tough you are, not even an Alicorn could survive having the SUN dropped on them, though considering how similar this current heat felt to how she imagined it, perhaps she’d have to revise that statement after she passed through the portal…wait…!
“I passed through the portal!” she exclaimed, or tried to at least, barely managing to get the first word out before devolving into a coughing fit due to the intense cloud of smoke in the air, dropping down to the ground and attempting to cover her mouth with her hooves as she’d been taught, only to freeze as she felt something soft and claw-like beat her to it, her eyes widening as she recoiled in alarm, only to blink as the limb retreated with her hoof.
“What in the world…?” she stammered, attempting to rotate her hoof, only for the strange, paw-like appendage to turn in response, the blunt, claw-like appendages twitching at her merest thought “Don’t tell me-!”
Turning her eyes downward, she found herself gaping not at the well-toned, in her personal opinion, equine body she was so familiar with and more than a little proud of, she found herself gazing down at something that resembled a sickly primate, all long limbs and torso with nary a patch of fur save for a around her pelvic area. For Faust’s sake she didn’t even have her Cutie Mark!
“What…is this…?” she stammered, pawing at her body with her new appendages, hands she believed the Minotaurs called them, her horror slowly reaching its apex when she reached up to her forehead only to find her horn missing “No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no this can’t be happening!” she shrieked, gripping her mane, the only part of her to remain unchanged, between her newfound fingers as she settled into a full-blown panic attack “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! I was supposed to become powerful! I was supposed to become a Princess!”
Was this Celestia’s plan all along? Did her mentor purposefully let her stumble onto the mirror, knowing she’d take the chance to seize her destiny, only to cast her away in a world where she couldn’t use her magic? A world where, from the looks of it, everything appeared to be on fire?
No, that made no sense whatsoever. If Celestia had simply wanted to banish Sunset there were plenty of ways she could’ve done so without jeopardizing the lives of her guards. True, Sunset had never intended to hurt the stallions any more than she had, but it still was highly unlikely Celestia was behind any of this.
‘Calm down…’ She urged herself, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to calm down only to choke once more on the smoke-filled air, covering her mouth once more with her new appendages as she lowered her head as she’d been taught to try and avoid suffocation ‘Let’s just focus on getting out of here first!’
And so she started crawling, awkwardly at first due to her unfamiliar limbs, but thankfully her new hands made grasping the heated soil a lot easier than her hooves could have ever hoped to do. A part of her, the proud part that resented Celestia and blamed her for everything, raged at the indignity of her being forced to crawl on her belly through dirt and debris, while the more rational part of her, the part she had ignored in her quest for power, promptly told her ego to shut the buck up and let her focus on getting out of this mess she’d gotten herself into.
‘Maybe I should have seen that psychiatrist…’ she mused distantly, only to push the thought out of her mind as she crested a ridge, her eyes widening in horror as the sheer scope of her situation was laid out before her.
It was, put simply, a nightmare. From what little she could see, she was in a city of some sort, not unlike Manehattan if the skyscrapers were any indication, though even from this distance she could see these buildings were far worthier of the name than their Equestrian counterparts. But what held her attention was not the towering buildings and flashing lights of the city, but rather the dying hellscape, like a scene from Tartarus, that she was apparently standing at the center of.
“Sweet Celestia…” she breathed, her anger at her mentor temporarily forgotten as she found herself gazing out at the flaming ruin of what had to have once been a more rural part of the city, before someone had apparently decided to burn it all to the ground “What…what happened here?”
Whatever happened, there was no denying that Magic had played a role, as even without her horn Sunset could feel the sheer amount of Magical Energy in the air, though admittedly she’d never felt anything so malignant, or foul, even during the few times Celestia had demonstrated ‘Dark Magic’ to her. Whether that had more to do with Celestia’s inherent ‘Goodness’, Sunset was uncertain, what she did know, however, that whatever caused this mess, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
‘All the more reason to get out of here.’ She reasoned, reaching out to grasp a nearby rock, only to stiffen as she spotted movement down below, gripping the rock tightly, weighing it’s effectiveness as a weapon in her mind only blink as a figure with a similar structure to her current form staggered out of the smoke, it’s smaller stature denoting it as a child.
‘A survivor?’ she marveled, sighing in relief as she let the rock drop ‘If that kid survived there must be others…maybe things are looking up-!’
“Hey!” she called out, cursing as her voice cracked halfway due to the heat and smoke, clearing her throat before attempting again “Hey! Kid! Over here!”
If the child heard her, he gave no response, Sunset’s frustration slowly getting the better of her as she grabbed the rock once more, intending to hurl it to grab the kid’s attention, only to freeze as he toppled over and lay prone on his back. “No-!” she gasped, the rock dropping from nerveless fingers as she rose instinctively to her feet, only to curse as her new legs, unused to balancing her weight, sent her toppling headfirst over the edge and down the slope, eliciting a plethora of colorful curses she’d picked up over the course of her studies, most of them aimed solely at her former teacher, until she finally came to a halt at the bottom.
Right on top of a spike of metal.
“Buck-!” she swore through clenched teeth, gripping her left side where the pole had punched through her skin, though thankfully it appeared to have missed her kidney. As an added plus, the impact of the blow had apparently snapped the metal off the main piece of rubble, so at the very least Sunset didn’t have to worry about bleeding out if she tried to remove it, choosing instead to drag herself the rest of the way towards the youth with her free hand.
“C’mon, stay with me kid…” she hissed through clenched teeth, grasping his hand as it fell, peering into his eyes desperately only to curse as they began to close “Dammit! Hey! Is anybody out there?! We need help-!”
The sound of rubble shifting drew her attention, the former unicorn turning slightly in time to see a tall figure stumbling towards them through the smoke, revealing itself to be an adult male, at least she assumed it was a male, of the same species as the child, clad in a black suit and coat that were just as stained with soot and dirt as his hands and face, which was set in a mask of joyous disbelief as he staggered towards them “Hey! Over here!”
“You’re alive…” the Stallion, or whatever they called males here, croaked in a dialect not dissimilar to Neighponese, tears of joy streaming from his haunted black eyes as he fell to his knees beside the pair, clasping his hands over theirs as if to confirm they weren’t a hallucination “Both of you…you’re both alive-!”
“Not for long at this rate…” Sunset countered in Neighponese, clenching her teeth as she clamped her hand over her flank, drawing the male’s attention to her unwanted piercing “The kid’s in worse condition than I am, we gotta get him to a doctor fast.”
“The nearest hospital is too far away…” he countered, earning a curse from Sunset that he ignored in favor of releasing their hands and bringing his own to his chest, Sunset’s eyes widening in shock as a golden glow began to form between them.
‘That’s…Magic!’ she exclaimed, looking on in stunned wonderment as the golden particles of light streamed from his body, forming an exquisite golden scabbard that hovered in the air between them ‘These people can use magic!’
Now it should be noted that, while Ponies were the most accomplished users of Magic in her world, that wasn’t to say they were the only ones capable of wielding it, they were simply the only species that had completely integrated Magic into their way of life, to the point that, as far as Unicorns and Pegasi were concerned, it was almost impossible for them to do anything without it. It was for this reason that Earth Pony settlements set such high regard for doing things the ‘Old Fashioned Way’, relying on their natural born talents and ingenuity rather than the quick and easy methods their more magically inclined cousins preferred.
However, while Magic was not mutually exclusive to Equestria or Pony-kind, those races capable of tapping into it typically expressed some form of trait. Setting aside Unicorns and Pegasi, whose Magic typically manifested in their Horns and Wings respectively, and Dragons, whose very Lungs acted as Mana-Generators, which is why their flame possessed magical properties, those without an obvious Magical Focus, like Earth Ponies, Minotaurs or Diamond Dogs, tended to exhibit superior Physical Prowess compared to other races, traits that Sunset certainly hadn’t felt during her brief time in this new body. And yet here she was, looking on in amazement as the raggedy looking stranger placed both hands over the child’s chest, the Golden Scabbard once again dissolving into motes of light that seeped into his body within moments.
“It’s done…” the older male gasped, looking exhausted by whatever it was he’d done, though his eyes still shone with the same unbridled joy he’d displayed the moment he’d laid eyes on them as the child’s breathing resumed as normal “He’ll live, thank God.”
“That was Magic, wasn’t it?” Sunset demanded, the former unicorn torn between wonderment and desperation, for if it was possible for this creature to learn how to use Magic, then maybe, just maybe, she could turn this all around “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I’ll explain later,” the stranger countered dismissively, cutting off Sunset’s protests by pulling off his coat and using it to cover her up “Right now I need to get you two to a hospital,” he instructed, reaching down to pick up the child before glancing down at her in concern “can you walk?”
“I… I don’t know.” Sunset confessed, hoping that he’d assume her lack of ability was due to the metal spike in her abdomen rather than unfamiliarity with walking, only to flush as he reached down and scooped her into his arms bridal-style along with the child “H-Hey! Wait a second-!” she stammered as he took off down the rubble “At least tell me your name first!”
“My name?” the stranger repeated, only to blink as he realized how this situation might have appeared to an outsider “Ah forgive me,” he chuckled, offering Sunset a smile so tender, so joyous, that there was no doubt in Sunset’s mind that he considered her survival to be a blessing he didn’t deserve “My name is Emiya Kiritsugu…and I am a Magus.”