“You have to what?” Sunset asks me after school the next day.
“I have to go to Lordran to stop Gwyn from supplying Sauron with the sun power that he stole from Princess Celestia so that I can save all our worlds.” I repeat to her.
“Who’s Gwyn?” Sunset asked.
I breathe. “Gwyn is the Lord of Sunlight from the Kingdom of Lordran, one of the four who found the Lord Souls within the First Flame of life. I had defeated him years ago and lit the First Flame to extend the Age of Fire, but for some reason, he’s back now and he’s teaming up with Sauron to take over everything and everyone.”
“Oh. Then safe travels, John.” Sunset kissed me on the mouth, then gave me a hug. “I’ll take care of Cream while you’re gone. Don’t worry.”
“Yes I wish you could come with me. But I want my girlfriend safe.” I told her, then kissed her back.
As we stand by the portal, I continue to kiss her, not wanting to leave her, but I know I have to. Twilight stood by the statue, sniper rifle slung over her shoulder and waited for me to finish my time with Sunset.
“I love you, John.” Sunset told me when we finally had enough with kissing.
“I love you too, Sunset. You must stay safe here while I go defeat the enemies.”
I wave to her, then I proceed to the portal where Twilight still is. “Ready, relative?”
Twilight nodded. “Ready.”
Together, we went through it, appearing back in Equestria. Taking ahold of Twilight once we were outside the castle, I used my lightning magic to speed away from Ponyville, running past ponies and buildings and forests until we were out of Equestria. It only took me, according to my math whiz and timekeeping skills, six minutes and forty five seconds to leave Equestria’s borders, and then it took me another seventeen minutes and thirteen seconds to get to Lordran’s.
As I stood there looking out to the yellow clouds and the looming spiky spires, I eye the main castle, which we can see from here. It was a pointy building, with more spires on the sides with brown spikes running down them, and stained glass windows depicting heroes of the golden Age of Fire along with some that I had shattered when I snuck in there to fight Ornstein and Smough. They were still broken from my last visit there. The entire golden structure looked like something out of Harry Potter. It stood there, proud in the sunlight, which hovered high above its highest structure, burning bright. A little too bright. Gwyn had stolen the sun and moon powers from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna and we had to get them back before he and Sauron could use it for evil.
I remember the last time I was here and I had defeated Gwyn at the Kiln of the First Flame, a little south from here. It hadn’t been an easy of a fight, because I couldn’t use what Solaire taught me against him, though I could still use what my other mentors taught, and I had defeated Gwyn when I used magic to create desert eagles in both my hands. All that had been so long ago and I had become a Lord of Cinder for a while after I lit the First Flame. In that time, I had done what I could to help Lordran prosper, and with my rule, there were zero hollows and everyone was human and happy, but it seems with Gwyn’s return, he had turned it back into the trash it was. I spied a group of hollows trying to breach a dark gray gate, but silver knights shot them down with arrows almost instantly, with the dragonslayer greatarrows going through the bodies and knocking them off the brick bridge.
“Think you can shoot them from here?” I asked my relative.
She unslung her sniper and took aim through the scope. “As long as you keep them off me, yes.”
“Then let’s go kill us a Lord of Cinder.”
“Technically because of the sun, he’s Lord of Sunlight again.”
“That’s right.” I answer.
As I speed down the side of the cliff to the spires of the place, I imagine Sauron’s armies marching across the world and I cannot allow it. I trained to one day protect everything I care about. I can’t fail. I won’t fail. I was the only one who could stop this, and if I did fail, everything would end. I must not.
I suddenly flashback to the time my relatives had found me. It was on a dark street somewhere outside Canterlot. I was sitting there, not knowing what had happened, my memory of the night gone. My relatives suddenly appeared and they were looking for my parents first, but said something about being too late. I still had no idea what was going on as I was only seven then. Since that day, they had sworn to protect me and teach me everything they knew, because they were Canterlot’s Defenders and Twilight and Shining became my best relatives, but Twilight was my best best relative, because she helped me the most and she helped make Sunset my girlfriend, whom I liked a lot.
After learning for three years, they said that I had already learnt everything they could teach me, so I would have to move on to other teachers, and Solaire had been my first. He was almost like a father to me, but sadly, he had gone insane and lost his mind and soul. Just thinking about it made me want to just curl up and cry. It was a painful memory and I felt as though I was going to lose my mind just thinking about it.
I stop running for a few seconds to catch my breath and calm myself before I can get any panic attacks. I don’t want to get any now, because I had a mission to complete and a panic attack would just stop me from acting in the right mind.
Now that I was back in Lordran, it became more apparent that I missed Solaire. This was where he had taught me, this was where I had learnt to hone the best of the plethora of skills I mastered.
“You are the very best pupil and friend I have ever had.” Solaire told me on the last day of my training. “I do not know where your power comes from, but you have a power no one, not even Lord Gwyn has. I know you are destined for greatness. Perhaps you are the one to bridge all our worlds. The one to save all of us.”
Remembering Solaire’s encouraging words put me at ease and I manage to let out a calming sigh and loosen my nerves and my panic begins to subside. Solaire had been there for me every step of my training. I would honor him by once again vanquishing Gwyn and this time, making sure he stayed gone.
I approached the gates, my replica Nero boots clinking on the polished marble bricks that formed the main bridge. The silver knights spot me and I hear the all too familiar sound of their greatbows being drawn.
I take out my lightsaber and I take a deep breath and then close my eyes and wait. As soon as I hear the thwack of their heavy bowstrings, I slide my first foot backwards, then I slash in a diagonal attack forward and my lightsaber cut through two of their arrows just like that. I open my eyes and smirk. The gate ahead suddenly slammed shut, falling from above and going into the beige gold ground below, sealing the entrance to Anor Londo.
“Twilight, now.” I say in my mind.
As the Silver Knights drew their bows again, I heard a gunshot from the mountain range behind me and one of the knight’s helmets splintered into pieces and he fell down and off the ramparts he was standing on, disappearing from view.
“Nice shot, relative.” I said.
The other one is unfazed and readies his bow again. I heard another gunshot, but this silver knight stepped aside, with the bullet just missing his cloak. He spun around to a knee and then fired the arrow at me again, but I skillfully cut it in half with my lightsaber, then I lifted my hand and used the Force to pull his greatbow from his grip. The force of the pull also sent the knight tumbling off his rampart into the foggy bottom below.
“Nice assist, Twi.” I said to my relative.
“Of course. It is what we were trained to do, remember?” She said into my earpiece. “We are defenders of Canterlot. And you’re the savior.”
“Yeah.” I answer.
I think of my parents again and it comes up blank. I don’t even remember what they looked like or who they were. If I was to be Canterlot’s savior, then they had to be important people, but I couldn’t remember, and my relatives also didn’t want to tell me. I’d ask Twilight, but she was also too young to remember.
I sigh as I look to the gates of Anor Londo. There was no use thinking about my parents now. They weren’t around anymore and I couldn’t remember them. I should focus on the task at hand first. Now Lordran was a big place, but I didn’t need to explore all of it. All I had to do was find Gwyn and end him so that Sauron would lose the sun powers and be weak enough to kill.
With my lightsaber in my right hand, I stab it through the large iron gates and I begin to draw a perfect circle on it, and when my circle was completed, I give the cut out portion of the gate a kick and it fell with a loud clang, the sound ringing across all of Anor Londo.
Suddenly an arrow flies out from where I cut the gate and it somehow manages to catch me off guard, so my amazing reflexes didn’t kick in. It hit me in the chest and pierced me and knocked me back, almost sending me falling off the bridge if I hadn’t caught on to the side.
“I’m coming, John!” I hear Twilight yell.
I clutch at my chest as blood begins to pour from my serious wound. With most of my strength, I pull the greatarrow from myself and let it fall off while I struggle to keep myself from falling too. I am bleeding a lot, but I first needed to climb back up to have solid ground to use my miracles.
Twilight finally arrived at the bridge and she began running to me, but more arrows come from beyond the gate and she threw herself aside to avoid them. The smash into the ground beside her and spit up rubble and dust over her, but at least she was unscathed.
I used my magic to create a desert eagle and fire wildly towards the knights in hopes of scaring them off. With my A+ luck, I managed to hit one of them in the head and he fell off the battlement, while two more ducked behind the wall to hide from my bullet spray.
With my diversion, Twilight reached me and she pulled me up with all her strength, fighting to get me back on the ground. When she pulled me high enough, I released my desert eagle back into my magical inventory, then I bent on a knee and cast a great heal, healing myself of my serious wound.
“John, you’re ok.” Twilight said and unslung her sniper rifle.
“Yes, now I am.” I replied, then I search through my inventory and I retrieve a bottle of Swag-Aid and I drink it. The cherry flavor is cool on my tongue and it pricks my taste buds and fills my mouth with an awesome taste and I am pleased with it. “Ahh, that’s the stuff.”
Then I turn my attention back to the silver knights with the greatbows. There were still more inside the gate and they were on battlements and spires past here, each of them already holding a bow and arrow at the ready.
I rub at my chest. It still hurt a little even if I healed it, but it was better than walking around with it sticking out of me.
“Twilight, give me some cover. I’ll work my way over and take them out from close range and when I get closer, we’ll switch and I’ll draw their attacks while you snipe at them from afar.”
“Got it. Lead on, John.”
I nod, and so began our assault on Anor Londo.
Sunset Shimmer wasn’t quite enjoying herself as she played on John’s Samtendo Snitch with Cream. Only part of her mind was focusing on the game, which was Super Smash, the other part of her mind was thinking of her most amazing boyfriend, John. She didn’t know how he was faring over in Lordran. Sunset knew he was strong and he was destined to save Canterlot, but she still couldn’t help but be afraid that something bad could happen to him.
From freshman year, she already had a crush on him because of how kind and caring he was for those around him, even with her trying to take over the school when she was evil. John had always been a nice kid and that somehow warmed her heart to the point of developing feelings for him.
Because of what she had done, she had never dared reveal those feelings, but things took an unexpected turn when he asked her out the other day. Sunset had been overjoyed to know he felt the same way and in only a matter of days, it was weird to be apart from him for so long. She missed his presence, his touch, his warmth, his strong body by her side in bed at night.
“Sunset, something on your mind?” Cream asked, looking up from the game.
Sunset sighed. “Just thinking about John. I hope he’s ok.”
“John can do it.” Cream told her. “When I first met him, he had helped free me from Dr. Robotnik.”
“Eggman?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Cream said. “He appeared out of nowhere and he clubbed the mad doctor in the face. And then he got me and we got out of there.”
“Didn’t you just escape from the doctor?” Sunset asked.
Cream nodded. “He got me again another time, John got outsmarted and Dr. Robotnik escaped with me in tow.”
“John? Outsmarted?” Sunset shook her head. “No way.”
“I know, it was hard to believe John was outsmarted. He’s the smartest human I know in the whole universe.” Cream said. “But Robotnik got me and John hadn’t been able to find me since because I was hidden away very well. But I never stopped thinking he cared about me. He was my friend, and John would do anything for his friends.”
Sunset thought back to the last few days and nights they had spent together and smiled. It had been brief, but Cream was right. “Yes. Yes he would.”
Just as Cream hit the punch button on her controller, a giant gloved fist suddenly burst through the side of the house, breaking down the blue wall and damaging the wooden coffee table and the TV. The fist opened up and reached for Cream, but Sunset was faster and threw the rabbit off the off white beige couch and did a jumping kick on the arm.
“Oho, you have a new friend, I see.” A voice said outside. The rest of the robot tilted in through the hole in the wall. It was Dr. Robotnik, and the robot he was in was a silver color, with a glass dome around his cockpit, and its body was painted red, and it had huge cloth gloves on its hands. Its shoulders had two rockets each and then there were lights on its chest, and there was one tank on its back where there was a glass window and Sunset could see something really bright coming from it, which shone in at her face. “You won’t escape again, Cream.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Sunset said and grabbed Cream around the waist and ran, leaping over the off white beige couch as Robotnik grabbed it and threw it at the TV, breaking it even further.
“Come back here!” The mad doctor screeched and gave chase.
Sunset ran up the staircase, heading for the third floor as Robotnik smashed through the wall to the hallway, then grabbed part of the staircase’s brown wooden railing made of mahogany wood and threw it at them. The wood smashed against the top step and splintered into a thousand pieces, with one nicking Sunset in the back of her right calf as she skipped past the stairs and around the corner to the next flight.
She had only cleared the stairs to the third floor when Dr. Robotnik’s robot crashed through the floor from under her and almost grabbed her. But Sunset was faster and she was at the window on the end of the hall. She pushed it open and then squeezed Cream out, ushering her to run along a turquoise roof extension that sloped down in a slight sixty degree angle to a primly arranged garden below. John had said he was quite the gardener, but Sunset hadn’t got to see it till now.
“What a time to look at the garden.” Sunset said to herself.
She followed out behind Cream sliding down the roof extension as Robotnik grabbed at the window, smashing it to pieces.
“You will come back here!” He yells.
But Sunset was already off the roof and she grabs Cream at the bottom and runs from John’s house. She needed to find someplace safe.
“What does he want from you, Cream?” Sunset asked her.
The rabbit shook her head. “He just wants to capture all of us.”
“Then find somewhere safe, Cream.” Sunset placed her down by the street that lead down to Sugarcube Corner. “I want you to hide. Hide yourself really well.”
“What are you going to do?” Cream asked.
Sunset balled her fists. She had seen John do this heroic thing many times and now, it was her turn. “I’m going to distract him and potentially defeat him.”
“But.” Cream started.
“Go!” Sunset cut her off and she obeyed. The rabbit scurried off and Sunset readied for a fight. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Robotnik.”
“Standing up for your friend, I see.” Robotnik said and stopped before Sunset. “No matter. I’ll deal with you then deal with her. Ready yourself.”
He smashed his gloved fists together, then smiled. When he was done, he ran to Sunset, swinging a right punch at her. Sunset ducked and slid under another punch, the kicked at his robotic shell, which didn’t do much.
“Excuse me?” Robotnik laughed. He swung around. “You expect to punch and kick your way to victory?”
“Yes.” Sunset said, then she floated up into the air and suddenly, her form changed to that of the one in Friendship Games. She’d been practicing for a while, and she could finally do it at will when she had to protect someone.
“Ah, sorcery, but I have come prepared. I have learnt your powers from my associate.” Dr. Robotnik mashed his hands together and they became a vacuum of sorts.
Sunset levitated herself up into the air, then blasted the mad doctor with her magic. The magic hit Dr. Robotnik in the vacuum, but it began to be absorbed by it, going into his suit and powering it.
“Yes, keep pumping your magic in here!” Dr. Robotnik laughed. “Power my machine!”
Sunset stopped, then she flew around behind him and punched the back of his glass shell. It cracked. Robotnik released a claw arm from behind and grabbed Sunset’s leg, smashing her against the road twice, before letting go and activating a shoulder rocket.
Sunset dodged as a red laser lined itself on her forehead, flying up just as one rocket blasted out of his shoulder mount and exploded on the road below her, creating a crater that was surely going to inconvenience drivers in a few hours. With a flap of her wings, Sunset was at Robotnik and she punched his glass shell again, then swooped around to the back and delivered a swift roundhouse kick to the back of his glass. With that combined power of her magical form, she shattered his shell and dropped broken glass into his cockpit and the road, some of which cut him on the face.
“Arr you will pay for that!” Robotnik said and wiped at his face and he grew angrier.
He grabbed for Sunset, but she had already moved and she was behind him again, readying another blast of her golden magic. Robotnik flipped around and reproduced his vacuum arms just in time as Sunset unleashed her magic. It went into his vacuum and began to power his suit again, much to Sunset’s annoyance. She needed to find a different way to defeat him instead of continuously giving him her magic. Unless…
She had a change of plans and she kept her magic blasting into Robotnik’s suit. The lights on his suit began to glow brighter as its energy began to increase.
“Yes yes! Keep making my invention stronger!” Robotnik laughed and he increased the size of his vacuum arms. “You don’t learn do you? All you’re doing is making me more powerful and increasing my chances to defeat you and capture that rabbit!”
“Are you so sure about that?” Sunset said and then increased her output of magic that it began to get too bright to even see.
“I am so powerful now you can’t stop me for long!” Robotnik continued to laugh as the meters on his suit began to increase to its maximum output. Then suddenly there is a red warning light and a look of panic sets on his face. “No. No! It’s too much, stop firing your magic at me!”
“You wish.” Sunset said. She yells and increases how much magic she is using and it began to get even brighter.
“No! No!” Robotnik shielded his face as the reactor of his robot suit went critical and then, boom! There was an even more blinding flash as his suit detonated and threw Sunset back and sent the mad doctor flying into the sky. He disappeared in a flash of light.
Sunset returned herself to the ground and depowered her form and brushed up her flowing hair. “Phew. Glad that’s over. I had to use almost all my power to overload his reactor. That really took too much out of me, I need to rest for a while after this.”
“Sunset that was so cool!” Cream came out of her hiding place and gave the girl a hug. “You really showed Dr. Robotnik who is stronger!”
“I sure did.” Sunset said and hugged her back. “Though I’m not as strong as John. He’s way more powerful. Even my hypnotizing beam back when I was evil couldn’t affect him.”
“But you did enough, and that’s what matters.” Cream hugged her tighter. “Thank you for protecting me. But John’s house is destroyed. Where are we going to go now? What if he comes back again? I don’t want him to capture me again. It was so terrible in that dark place.”
Sunset thought about it. Besides John and Twilight, there were still others who could stand up against threats like Dr. Robotnik and these were the same friends that had helped her stand back up after she thought no one would ever forgive her for what she had done. Then she nodded. “Come on. I know who we can go to.”