//------------------------------// // One more "Monster of the Week" chapter before shit gets real // Story: Sunset Shimmer Hunts the Undead // by Rune Soldier Dan //------------------------------// Weightless, Sunset swam. Ahead, Applejack and Twilight leaned through the shimmering blue portal, reaching back desperately for her. Too late, too far. Sunset grasped for them anyway. Her feet stumbled on floating, moss-slick stones, bringing the impossible distance even further from sight. In water-like air (or air-like water?) she continued to flee, pushing herself from floating debris, scrambling for every bare meter. The way home seemed as far as ever when something wrapped around her ankle. It was cold and slimey; solid and spongy. A sickly green tentacle. The same green loomed at the edge of Sunset’s vision – the cyclopean bulk of the tentacle’s owner, so huge that even facing away she could see it. Now, close enough to grab her. Sunset drew in and closed her outstretched hand. No point dragging the others down with her. She pushed with the arm, turning to face her aggressor. Twilight screamed, but no noise could be heard save Sunset’s voice. “I bet you’re wondering how I got here. Well...” “To be honest, I have trouble keeping track of it, myself. It all started as a pretty normal Friday.” Visiting Twilight Sparkle’s personal laboratory was always a trying experience for Sunset. Yes, the girl made fantastic use of it, and yes, it was entirely deserved. But Sunset had never quite gotten over the fact Twilight’s parents just built her the damn thing for a birthday or something on the grounds of their estate. Contrasting that with Celestia’s apologies for not covering the Dali Hall rent made Sunset seriously consider the merit of workers seizing the means of production from their capitalist overlords. Then she remembered Twilight found cures for alien plagues here, and all was well. Sunset had been over often enough that she let herself in, and held open the door for two other hunters. Adagio stretched and groaned, still smelling faintly of gun smoke, while Applejack gingerly rubbed a shoulder bruised by too many rifle kicks. A timid knock sounded on the door behind them, and Sunset quickly opened it again to let in Wallflower. Sunset fingered in her purse and frowned – an uncomfortable feeling, being out of ammo. “AJ, why didn’t you tell me your farm had a mole monster infestation?” Applejack shrugged with the good shoulder. “It ain’t really worth mentioning. You spray for bugs every spring, check for blight every summer, and every blue moon you drive off those thieving varmits or they’ll steal the whole orchard. Thanks for the help, girls.” Adagio tossed her jacket over a computer monitor. “Sure, sure, but why are we here? If Twilight didn’t want to come, that’s her business. The rest of us could have slept over Applejack’s. We could have watched movies, played spin-the-bottle...” Sunset cut in. “Because I got fifty-seven texts from Twilight in the half hour it took us to fight the mole monsters. Most of it’s Sci-Twi gibberish, but the long and short is that–” A nasal, joyful cry echoed from the depths of the lab. “PORTALS!” “...Twilight thinks she has a breakthrough on her hands, and is using quantum physical blah-blah-blah to open a gate to Equestria. We’re here to make sure she doesn’t...” Sunset shuffled in place. “Um, die.” They walked down a sloped metal hallway, Adagio yawning as she went. “Is that why you brought the rocket launcher?” A grimacing grin came to Sunset, abetted by the hefty metal tube slung on her back. “If the experimental – and technically, physically impossible – mad science portal leads to Equestria, great. Somehow, I don’t think we’re that lucky.” “Not to brag or anything, but I saw this coming from a mile away. Even before the punchline hit.” Two blue orbs of science pulsed on each side of a wired mirror, sending bolts of impossible colors circling around its edge. Beeping computers and thumping generators cluttered the inner lab, connected to each other and the mirror with thick cords that whined and smoked. Twilight practically danced among the chaos, her every move known to her in advance. No step was wasted. No hand raised except to jot notes or flip a switch, then moved on seamlessly to its next task. Dark bags pulled at her eyelids, her hair had a greasy shine more common to Wallflower’s, and her mouth gave a maniacal laughter whenever it broke from her monologue. “It’s so simple, so elegant!” Twilight sang as she plugged one enormous cord into another. “Time cannot be frozen, but in an absolute zero, electronically-neutral vacuum environment, why, it’s the same thing! Keep the positrons, add the Higgs Bosuns, and bam! Time and space, at my fingertips! Euclid, Newton, Einstein… all have carried the torch, and it is now passed to Twilight Sparkle to light the lamp which will illuminate the universe! BWA-HA-HA!” The others laughed as well – strained, painful smiles, with thick beads of sweat. Sunset managed to whimper a question. “How did you come up with it?” Twilight’s black leather glove clutched the final lever, and she grinned in frenzied triumph. “Inspiration struck as I stalked that fool, Discord! He read of Bosun portals in science fiction, and mocked them because one cannot stop time to make them stable. BUT I HAD THE VISION! I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!” “I know, I know. I should have stopped her. But let’s be real, you would have been scared stiff, too. Twilight’s unstoppable when she’s in these moods. She would have tazed or teleported me or something if I had tried to get in her way, and then where would I be?” “...Probably not about to be eaten. Fair point.” Sunset wasn’t sure where the portal lead. Gray rocks and desolate architecture could be seen through the mirror’s blue haze, forming an island surrounded by a swirling black ocean. No place in Equestria she knew, but she hadn’t been everywhere. Twilight would not be dissuaded from going through. Neither would Sunset out of fear for Twilight’s safety, and she gave orders for the rest not to follow. No one questioned her, and Twilight was already gone by the time she turned around. Sunset sped through after her. One step on linoleum, the next on wet, slippery stone. Sunset’s heel flipped up, her body pitched downwards, and she hit the ground. Unpleasant, but oddly mundane and comforting. No poison filled her lungs, and no alien weightlessness cushioned her fall. She stood. Twilight was a few paces ahead, staring to the center of the island. Sunset stepped alongside, following Twilight’s point with her eyes. Green-gray stone blocks of a great carved monolith towered before and above them. Pillars with hieroglyphs loomed within its structure, and squatting statues as wide as Canterlot High guarded its base and leaned like gargoyles around its crown. Twilight’s finger shook towards the structure. Her voice held low, breathless excitement. “That’s non-Euclidean geometry.” “What’s that?” Sunset asked. “It’s geometry that’s not based on a flat plane.” Sunset took a slow blink and looked to Twilight. “What’s so special about that?” “Never. Ever. Ask Twilight that question about something she’s passionate about. She began explaining to me exactly what was so special, in language you’d need three doctorates to understand, and wouldn’t stop for the life of me. I won’t say what happened next was ‘good’ – you know, because I’m about to die and everything – but at least it saved me the last seven hours of the lecture.” They moved closer to the monolith, but not too close. A mercy to Sunset, though the delay only came from Twilight’s distractable nature. She scraped off mosses and pocketed stones, then spent a good twenty minutes studying a tiny fish bone. For her part, Sunset’s eyes moved nervously across the monolith. Green and still. Worry for the black sea around began eclipsing it in her mind. The waves beat shallow and loud on the rocky shore, speaking of a much wider mass of land hidden below the surface. Just as ominously, the island seemed to stand mere inches above the water level. Another foot, and their socks would get wet. Any more than that… Even as she looked, water ran beneath her feet among the piled stones. It hadn’t done that before. The water was rising, almost as if it heard her fear. Sunset opened her mouth to call a warning, and felt the stones tumble and rise. Her words were lost as a million loose rocks clattered in sudden motion, and as she quick-stepped to keep balance she skid and fell. But she did not reach the ground. Hands thrust to ward the fall brushed aside floating stones, then hit air. Sunset recovered from her instinctive flinch to find herself suspended alongside countless and growing layers of rocks, rising one after another as the ocean beneath them evaporated to mist. Sunset cried out. Twilight scribbled in her notebook until a tremendous grinding emerged from the monolith. What seemed to be featureless wall from a distance proved a hinged door, creaking outwards. It paused, halfway open. Four claws as large as semi-trucks curled around the lip of the door, aiding the final push as the occupant emerged. Flabby and squid-headed, with sinuous long wings and impossible size, a mountain walked or stumbled from its tomb with boiling eyes fixed upon the flashing blue portal to Canterlot. The thing had fully emerged by the time Twilight looked up from her notebook. Her common sense used the moment to seize control and unleash a scream. Both girls began to run or swim, frantically pedaling on rocks and sweeping their arms in a wild flight for home and safety. The corpulent monstrosity in their wake pursued swiftly, utterly unhindered. Sunset’s paltry momentum seemed to grow slower, as if the thing made its own gravity that sucked her backwards. She could feel air blast her limbs as its every step displaced incalculable stones and water. Hot, moist breath buffeted her frantically kicking legs. Twilight slipped through the portal. AJ’s strong arms had pulled her in, and now both girls reached back for Sunset. Too late, too far. The barest tip of one of the monster’s face tendrils grabbed Sunset’s leg… This close, the thing was so large Sunset fancied she was being pulled towards a sickly green landmass. The eyes were hidden from view on opposite sides of the head, and the claws loomed so far away as to seem entities totally different from the grasping tendrils beneath her. The beast pulled. Sunset closed her eyes, and swallowed hard. “I guess that about sums things up. Either this tentacle will snake up or another will move in, and then I’ll be crushed. All that’s left is to hope it kills me fast instead of slow.” “...Is what I would say, if I didn’t come prepared.” Sunset opened her eyes. She ceased her flailing, and reached back for the metal tube over her shoulder. She pulled it to the front and depressed the trigger, sending a rocket flying into the tendril that held her prisoner. The explosion severed the bond, and its blast launched her through the air. Towards the portal… towards safety… ...Just not enough. A few meters short. Twilight and AJ looked back to her in sadness for one second before steel took its place. They turned to each other, nodded, and Twilight jumped through the mirror. Half of Applejack’s body followed, with the other half braced back in the lab. A strong peach hand clutched Twilight’s ankle, letting her stretch to her full height and seize Sunset’s wrist. Teary purple eyes found Sunset’s. “I’m sorry!” “Damn right you are!” Sunset yelled as Applejack heaved them towards the blue. Twilight vanished into it – then reappeared, collapsed on the laboratory floor where Sunset followed in her third fall of the day. Applejack lurched back, tripping and tumbling over the pair. “We’re through!” At her signal, Adagio ripped open the thickest cord connection while Wallflower flipped the largest switch. The mirror went dark, then exploded instantly along with one of the computers. The lights blacked out, then low red emergency lights came on a few seconds later. Applejack groaned. Sunset moaned. Twilight gasped for joy. “What’s that!?” Sunset dizzily followed her gaze to find the tendril tip still around her ankle. She kicked it off while Twilight prattled. “Actual physical contact? This is the best thing ever! I can do experiments, I can test its reaction with known substances. Find its chemical makeup! Its weakness!” “Weakness!?” Sunset and Applejack shouted at once, with the former continuing. “Twilight, we barely made it out of there alive! What say I take you to Equestria the normal way sometime, yeah? Maybe a little safer than whatever planet that was, and maybe next time send a drone or something.” “And maybe burn the piece before it makes like a movie?” Applejack added, though Twilight looked to Sunset curiously. “Whatever planet…?” Twilight wiped sea-spray from her glasses, biting a lip. “Sunset, I… eheh, definitely got overexcited. But I know dimensional travel has a lot of hazards, so to make sure this worked I set a… you know, a closer destination.” Sunset blinked, confused for a second before the coin dropped. She groaned and cast her gaze to the ceiling, asking the question she already knew. “How close?” “Close enough to be measured in kilometers,” Twilight said. She put the glasses back on, hiding her eyes behind a red flare in the lens. “That island… was on Earth.”