//------------------------------// // Chapter - 1: Search for the Portal // Story: Sunset’s First Friend // by rpglover //------------------------------// In the town of Ponyville, a large tree stands at the edge of town tall over all other houses and trees around. It was unlike any of the other trees around, as this one shined like the crystals it was made of. Resting at the top of its branches rest a purple castle with a star. This was known as the Castle of Friendship, and the ponies that reigns in this castle is not one or two, but six. The bearers of the Element of Harmony. The Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie. The Element of Loyalty, Rainbow Dash. The Element of Honesty, Applejack. The Element of Generosity, Rarity. The Element of Kindness, Fluttershy. And the Element of Friendship and Magic, Princess Twilight Sparkle. These six ponies watches over Equestria and protects it from the dangerous threats that seeks to conquer or destroy it, facing difficult challenges along the way. One such place where a terrible threat had come from was not only from their realm, but from another. For resting in the castle’s roundtable of friendship is a mirror. The mirror is a portal to another realm, where another version of the ponies of Equestria exists, and a friend who used to be Princess Celestia’s top student. Sunset Shimmer! The sun was starting to set to give way to the moon in the sky, signaling the time for Twilight’s friends to call it a night and return home for the day. She watches as each of her friends left the Castle of Friendship, waving to them for a safe trip home. “I’ll see you all tomorrow then!” Twilight called out to the other as each one said their goodbyes back. After watching them all leave, she looks down at the purple and green child dragon standing next to her looking out with droopy eyes, half closed as if they were ready to just shut on him on the spot. “Ready to call it a day Spike?” Twilight asked the dragon who started to let out a big yawn. “You know it.” Spike said with a tired voice, glad to be heading to bed. Twilight gave a small chuckle to his eager for sleep as the two returned into the tree castle, using her magic to close the doors behind her. The two started following the normal pathway down the corridor of doors. It had never ceased to surprise Twilight how large the castle was on the inside, with many hallways and doors that leads into parts of the castle she still had yet to explore. As the two ventured down the hallway, Spike felt something chilling slither across the ground that caused him to shiver on the spot. “What was that?!” he asked looking around nervously. His claws being chitter away by his shaking teeth as he frantically looks around, Twilight placed a hoof on his shoulder to calm him down a bit. “Relax Spike, it was probably just the wind.” Twilight said, slowly returning her hoof back to the ground. The sounds of a loud clatter of metal came from one of the rooms next to them, causing Spike to shudder as he leaps towards Twilight’s neck. His body shaking, causing Twilight’s jaws to bounce with the rhythm of it. “Spike!” Twilight groaned as her horn starts to glow in a magenta color which came to surround the dragon as he was removed from her neck, “Would you relax?” she asks the jittery dragon. “Relax?! Did you not just hear that?” Spike asked freaking out. Twilight swirled her eyes at his quick to panic moment as she headed towards the door where the sound had originated from, slowly opening it to the kitchen part of the castle where another pony was using her horn’s magic to levitate pans onto the shelves. The unicorn’s a bit smaller than Twilight, with lilac colored coat with teal and purple colored mane. Her mane had a ruffled look like she had just recently woken up from sleep, her eyes were just as well with them halve drooped and expressionless as she finishes to put away the pans. “What are you doing in here Starlight?” Twilight asked catching the unicorn by surprised, she looks over at the princess who had come into the kitchen without her knowing. “I was just getting something to drink, and accidentally knocked some stuff.” Starlight said giving a sleepy smile to the alicorn as she levitated a mug with hot cocoa up next to her in a light cyan glow. She let out a yawn as she raised a hoof to cover, “I need to get back to my studies.” Leaving the two. Twilight looked down at Spike with a smile, “See Spike, there is nothing to worry about.” “Yeah, I guess your right.” He said giving a swipe against the brow with a swooshing sound, “That almost gave me a heart attack.” “Almost?” Twilight asked with a smug as the two returned their journey back to their room for the night. A sheepish chuckle coming from Spike as he hesitantly tried to ignore that part, the two unaware of another shadow against the wall in the form of a pony that had no counterpart to cast from. It glanced around a moment before soon galloping away against the wall out of the room is was left alone in. It ran through the hallway as it kept seeping through the bottom of the door frames to glance at each room as if it were looking for something. ‘Where is it?’ the shadowy creature thought as it continued to search through each of the doors. It had soon came to a room with a large round table in the center with surrounding it seven chairs made of a rock substance, on six heads of the throne are markings of balloons, diamonds, apples, butterflies, lightning cloud, and a big star around five little stars. The last of which was next to the one with the star, but smaller from the rest and had no marking on the head of it. In the corner of the room was what the creature was looking for, a mirror attached to a contraption of some sort, but it had not bothered the shadowy creature as its formless shape moved towards the thing. “This is it, but what is it connected too?” Removing themselves from the shadow on the wall, taking on a physical form of a normal sized grown pony with wings. Their body is transparent like a shadow and eyes glowing a blazing solid red being the only clear about them. Their mane is short raggedy with three stand peaking higher at the forehead, the tail laying flat down to their knee. Around their neck is a yellow bandana with a red half of a sun and another red swirl of a circle on the other side of it. He raised a hoof up towards the bandana that hanged around and gently caressed it before returning his attention back to the mirror. “I thought I had lost you when the mirror was not in the Crystal Empire,” he let out a deep sigh, “wish that Celestia would stop moving you.” He said as he approaches up next to the mirror that swirled the color of purple and pink. “Another year without you, I wish I could see you again.” He said placing a hoof onto the mirror’s glass expecting nothing to had happen when doing so. To see it starts to sink into the swirling portal. He quickly pulled his hoof back from the mirror in a total shock, ‘I was able to pass through!’ he thought in amazed at what had just happened. The shocked look soon became a smile at the thought of being able to cross into this other world. He was ready to enter, to leave the world of Equestria behind him and into the other world that this mirror would take him. Slowly seeping one of his leg through the portal before pausing as the light in the room he is in came on. “You’re certain that you left the scroll in here?” A voice spoke out cutting his attention from the mirror to where it had come from, seeing the purple alicorn with her dragon companion entering the room. “I’m positive I left it in here.” The two soon took notice of somepony hanging around the portal into the other world as Twilight quickly shot a glance at the shadow pony. “What are you doing in the castle!?” she shouted out at him unleashing her magic on the creature to pull him away from the portal. But it couldn’t grip onto him. He returned his attention back to the portal and quickly jumped through, leaving the castle and the two in a surprised state of what had just happened. Spike started getting jittery at the transparency of the creature that was like a ghost; Twilight on the other hoof looked on at what it was that had crossed into the mirror and how it got in in the first place. And this was going to be a matter that would require her to enter into the Human World.