//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - One Hundred Percent Discounts // Story: Sunset of Star Strider // by ScopeEva //------------------------------// Sunset growled nasty nothings under her breath as she trudged through the snow, freezing her hooves off, cleaving twin tracks through the knee high snow.  Not for the first time that day she wished a lot more than her cloak had come through the portal.  The nice thick combat boots she had been wearing before coming through would have been very welcome in hoof form but no, the near incomprehensible enchantments of the mirror decided she didn’t need them.  At least the storm had let up some time before she had crawled out of the end of Sombra’s secret tunnel, and had shown no signs of returning since.  She took solace in the fact her frustratingly simple but arduous task was almost over.  Her eyes idly glanced to where her saddle bag rested under her cloak and the piece of strange black and red horn tip inside, the prize she had been seeking now secure.  While she desperately wished she could have run some diagnostic spells on it to work out exactly what it was and why it was so important, she at least had the running theory that it was Sombra’s own horn and maybe what anchored him to life.  It might even be the last physical piece of him left.  That led to a conclusion that had her standing dead in her tracks when it finally came to her.  “Ugh, no wonder the old bastard didn’t want me to have my magic.  He wanted me to run off and fetch a serious bargaining chip,” Sunset growled to herself, turning the realisation over in her head and more importantly how she might be able to turn it back to her advantage. Sunset quickly got herself moving again though, if for no other reason than the thought she might actually freeze in place if she sat still for too long.  Eventually she found herself on the outskirts of the city once more, naturally ending up next to the train station given she had been following the train tracks out of and back into the city.  This time however something caught her eye, something that infuriated Sunset with herself that she had failed to spot before her trek.  Almost audibly grinding her teeth in frustration, Sunset marched up to the window of the train station’s large gift shop and peered in at the thick winter coats hung up on display alongside a poster sprouting some spiel about winter wonderland mountain hiking trails.  She wasted no time shoving the snow that had blocked off the door aside and barging right in.  Her cloak and saddle bags were hastily thrown off in exchange for a teal parka that covered her from forelegs to over her rump.  It quickly began to help her warm herself with its insulation and she let herself indulge in a contented sigh.  After a few moments the bliss subsided and Sunset came back to her senses.  Her curious eyes darted around the room, taking in the displays of cheap tat that made up the majority of the souvenirs or the overpriced essentials a first time visitor might need.  Among the latter she found some warm looking hoof boots that quickly became a part of her new outfit.  She also saw a heating stove but in spite of the temptation she resisted the urge to get a fire going.  Some old chocolate coated granola bars provided a safer temptation though, and soon found themselves demolished by the mare.  Looking back outside, Sunset felt a good deal of reluctance about stepping outside again too soon.  The shop wasn’t really any warmer but it did keep the wind off of her, stopping it stealing her warmth far better than her cloak could.  She knew she would eventually have to make a move but for now she decided she could afford to have a closer look around.  Most of the souvenirs were the typical garbage like I ‘heart’ the Crystal Empire T-shirts, plush toy mascots, bits of pretty geodes or those super abbreviated and disgustingly sanitised history books containing nothing but useless trivia.  One purple baby dragon seemed to crop up a lot and apparently the Equestria games had taken place here not too long ago going by some postcards and pictures of the event.  There was the occasional treasure though; the snow globes were especially pretty.  Pretty enough she decided to box one up and slip it into her saddle bags in spite of its size.  There were also a scarce few useful things like stationary and overpriced hiking gear.  Most of it she passed up but the maps made Sunset stop and think.  The bigger geographical ones had her curious but she knew they weren’t relevant for the time being, the local ones however… Sunset soon found herself pouring over the shopping streets and market places, grinning with every store she marked off as a point of interest with a pilfered pencil.  Slowly, as she registered several of the more magic oriented stores a plan began to form in the back of her mind, a plan to finally implement a project that had been waiting in the wings far too long.  “And they have a nice big library too by the looks of it,” she spoke excitedly, before her enthusiasm began to drop off.  “Fingers crossed Celestia hasn’t gone and pillaged it first.  The old nag forbid ponies ever get to learn anything real.”  She took a deep breath to help clear the sneer off her face before bringing her attention back to planning out her route through the city, setting a path to make best use of her time.  It was still a significant detour, but the fact her delay might agitate Sombra only brought a smirk to her lips.  They were on a time table but it was hardly wasting that time so long as she was getting something she wanted done.  Before long Sunset was bracing herself at the front door, and with a hoof full of pilfered odds and ends - including the contents of the cash register – she once more set out into the dazzling white snow her cloak blended so easily into.  This time however, there was a grin plastered across her face and a power in her stride.  “I was wrong, he gave me a mere chore.  This, is going to be a fetch quest worthy of my time,” she muttered gleefully to herself, trotting off into the snow with enthusiasm the cold could not dampen.  The cold could indeed not dampen her enthusiasm, but what she found - or rather didn’t - most certainly brought her spirits low.  One of her first stops was the library.  It wasn’t essential but it was the most likely place she would encounter something new she wanted, such as the most recent magical, medical or science journals.  She had managed to swipe a few things she needed on the way here already, a few small precision tools from what passed for a hardware store here in the Crystal Empire, so she had been even more excited to loot the place from her previous success.  Instead, she found her eyes sweeping over empty shelf after empty shelf with a most uneasy feeling of despair.  “This feels so wrong somehow,” she murmured, running a hoof across a cold crystalline shelf, hoping irrationally it was some sort of illusion.  “A library without books… never really thought about it before.  Like a sea without fish or a forest without birds.  Sterile.  Dead.”  Sunset wondered morbidly through the empty hall for a while, hoping to find something, anything.  All she found was a scattered pile of blank parchment and stationary emptied from the librarian’s desk.  She felt compelled to tidy it away, irrationally hoping she could right some small amount of wrongness with the building.  After many long minutes Sunset finally turned and trudged back to the exit with a defeated sigh, uncomfortably accepting the place was a dead end.  Then Sunset found herself finally asking herself the questions the empty library brought to mind.  “This isn’t Celestia’s work, that’s for sure,” she admitted to herself ponderously.  “The invaders took all those books.  But why?  Were they looking for something? But then what?”  As she began to trudge through the snow, Sunset found herself becoming painfully aware of the empty houses – the homes – around her.  “They took all the ponies and all the books.  What do they gain from that?”  The thoughts and ideas running through her head were almost continuously shot down before she eventually gave up.  “I don’t have enough information to solve this yet.  Hell, maybe these damned pillagers didn’t even know what they wanted and took all the books out of potential gains… like me, I guess.  I suppose I just have to hope Cadenza can tell me more.”  With another sigh she marched out into the snow again.  Sunset still had a shopping list to see to, and she was determined to nab every last item on it and more.  When she finally reached the palace once more Sunset quickly realised she had a problem.  While she had certainly planned ahead and had been fortunate enough to gather all the components she needed with aplenty to spare, she had overlooked something.  With a sigh she flung open the doors at the base of the palace’s archways and marched on in, accepting she would have to wait for Sombra to find her again as she had no idea how she got to the cavern from the palace before and definitely wasn’t trudging all the way back through the snow to the tunnel entrance she came out of.  It didn’t take too long to find her bearings, emerging into the hallway where she had her initial struggle with Sombra.  From there she made her way to the mirror room, shutting herself inside and spilling the contents of her saddle bags so she could get to work on her side project.  He would find her again eventually after all, he certainly found her quickly enough the first time.  Only this time – Sunset thought with a smirk as she glanced towards the mirror - she would be more than ready for him.  “I told you to return to me once you had retrieved the item!” the ever billowing cloud that was Sombra growled loudly, aggressively announcing his presence as he swung the doors wide open with smoky tendrils.  An action that left the sole occupant of the room he gazed in on, completely unfazed. Sunset smirked to herself past the inscribing tool held in her mouth but didn’t budge otherwise, not until she had finished carefully etching the rune onto the brass plate.  With deliberate care that slowed her down significantly she stowed her tools using her mouth and hooves before getting up to face the king.  “I took the time to do some shopping on the way back and decided I didn’t want to traipse all the way through the snow again just to try and find a tunnel entrance halfway across the city,” she explained to the king, blasé attitude on full display.  Sombra swelled with indignation – literally so - but otherwise held still.  “I take it you at least have it?” he hissed at her. Sunset rolled her eyes.  “Of course.  You don’t think I would be stupid enough to come back here and confront you without it now?”  Digging a hoof through one of her saddle bags she brought it out, taking one last moment to survey the sharp, curved remnant of a horn… before tipping her hoof and letting it clatter to the floor.  “Now, get your crystal shit off my horn and you can have your little pseudo phylactery back,” she announced with pointed anger, bringing her hoof down to rest firmly on top of the horn.  Sombra’s form immediately bloomed to a much larger more menacing size, staring down at Sunset he made his displeasure painfully clear with a growl.  “If you have the slightest sense of self-preservation peasant, you will hoof my rightful property over to me immediately, and pray I decide to spare you for the second time.”  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Sunset replied, standing her ground with a vicious smirk. She had seen his shadowy tendrils moving through the floor, his increased stature no doubt a ploy to distract from that.   But it was already too late for him to finish acting.  Before Sombra could commit to an attack, a dozen buzzing forms swooped through the portal and began erratically dancing through the air, shooting off simple miniature rockets that slammed through his shadowy form and exploded within.  It certainly wasn’t enough to truly hurt him but it stung badly enough to leave him roaring in pain as he lashed out at the things, trying to knock them out of the sky or catch and crush them but their erratic behaviour made that extraordinarily difficult.  He indeed caught one or two – those few violently self-destructing in contact with his form as a small spiteful retaliation - but the combined swarm spread his attention thin and wore him down in a way one unprepared pony caught off guard could not.  Much to Sunset’s satisfaction his influence visibly receded from the crystal flooring, his concentration so dramatically broken.   Meanwhile Sunset sat back and enjoyed the show, knowing it was only about to get better as the sound of mechanical wining and whirring entered the room immediately followed by a resoundingly heavy stomp.  From the portal emerged a hulking if squat mechanical humanoid form, many times taller than the average pony.  In place of a head, built half way into its chest was a sphere bearing a single large blue eye that immediately began scanning the room.  “HOSTILE TARGET IDENTIFIED.  PRIMING WEAPONS SYSTEMS,” the thing boomed out in an alien tongue, mechanical arms rising to point at the dark cloudy form. Clamped to the underside of its right arm a modified arc welder sparked with deadly intent, while on each wrist lay a long pair of boxy lasers and over its right shoulder a magnetically powered grenade launcher of sorts.  Not that Sombra would know how dangerous all that hardware was, Sunset had to prove her point.  “Give him a warning shot Atlas,” Sunset ordered verbally in the same alien language.  Immediately in the same moment the small swarm of drones backed off and in the next second a violent fizz of the air itself igniting before the shrieking pop of crystal shattering under the same heat.  The room – after the tinkling of shards of crystal settled down – was cloaked in tense silence.  “Two more Atlas,” Sunset instructed, staring down the not quite corporeal stallion with a stern glare.  This time Sombra got to see the lances of ruby red energy as it filled the air, literally too fast for the eye to catch before it struck the ground, heating, deforming and expanding the crystal there so it shattered outwards.  The brief but violent event sent fragments of crystal tinkling across the floor and leaving the previously smooth surface pot marked with a flower of scorched dust surrounding it. Sombra however didn’t seem to be at all daunted by the message as he swelled up, thinned out and prepared to dive on the mechanical menace from as wide an area as possible.  In that brief moment, from behind her mechanical beast Sunset snarled at the stupidity of the old half-dead king.  He was at the same disadvantage she had been at with him, facing off against a complete unknown.  Except unlike her, he was charging in head first where she made a fighting retreat.   Well now the tables had turned and Sunset sent her next order through more silent means to Atlas.  Immediately the ark welder sparked to life, a nozzle below it spraying the area with an invisible ionised gas.  A fraction of a second later the air was filled with the shrieking buzz of arcing electricity and Sombra’s furious, pained screams.  Atlas’s arm swept back and forth across the area occupied by the gaseous creature, raking him continuously for a good twenty odd seconds.  When the barrage ceased Sombra immediately withdrew himself into a dense, whirling ball.  Parts of himself convulsing and flexing in such a way that it reminded Sunset of what she knew of solar flares, though in this context it also reminded her of an animal licking its wounds. With a victorious smirk Sunset knew she had him where she wanted for the moment.  Taking more than a little pride at her own handy work standing strong in her defence she calmly ordered the robot to stand down and called off the drones with a silent command, transmitted courtesy of the small handfull of implants at her disposal.  They immediately retreated, the quad copters coming to rest in the air at Sunset’s back.  “Do I have your Fucking Attention Now?!” she spat out at him, scowling at the treacherous stallion.  “Are you going to see about fixing my horn?  Or do I need to bring through a few more of my friends here to convince you?” she continued, asking him most condescendingly, picking up his curved horn and examining it to emphasise her confidence in her new bargaining position.  “You petulant brat!  I should refuse and kill you now for attacking my person!” the quivering ball of smoke spat back, though not without significant confusion.  “What manner of magicless contraption do you dare threaten me with?!  Do you seriously believe this is any real danger to me?!” “Like I’m telling you my secrets.  And one alone?  I would have thought not before that pathetic display.  However, the army I’ve been building on the other side of the portal?  Definitely.  Protest and threaten all you like,” Sunset argued back dismissively, “all I’m asking is for you to stick to the original deal.  The only thing I’ve changed is the fact I can now add ‘or else’ to the end of that sentence.  So what’s it going to be?  Are you going to restore my horn or am I going to have to kill you and figure that out myself?”  “Oh?  And what if I simply decide to suck your little friends dry of magic to swat you and your miserable contraptions aside?!” Sombra, literally fuming, demanded of her.  Sunset found the fact he wasn’t acting on that threat very telling.  “If you’re not willing to keep our little bargain now, then I have no reason to believe you ever had any interest in upholding whatever deal you made with the Princess.  So that leaves me better off running the risk of an all-out fight to put you down then leaving them at your mercy to use and abuse now or in another thousand years’ time.  So, if I get even the tiniest hint you’re syphoning off of them, I am taking that risk to save them rather than gambling on the mercy of a despot and a slaver.  I’ve read the restricted and quite unsanitized history books, I know what you’re capable of.”   Silently she stared down the deposed king with stony resolve as he visibly bristled in anger.  “Very well child… step forth and we shall continue our little bargain,” he finally conceded after a strenuous minute, strained patience audible in his voice.  With a nod, Sunset turned to her bipedal robotic companion.  “Atlas?  Hostage protocols,” she commanded in English, before sliding the horn fragment over where its steel foot came to rest atop it. “AFFIRMATIVE.  MONITORING LIFE SIGNS AND HOSTILE DESIGNATED ‘SPOOPY CREEP’,” the robot replied in its same forcefully loud yet neutral voice.  Sombra’s look of confusion at the alien babbling was not lost on Sunset.  “Atlas here will just be keeping an eye on things, just in case you happen to get any crazy ideas.  Wouldn’t want you accidently getting rid of me at some vulnerable moment now would we?”  “Perish the thought,” he muttered with sarcastic venom in his voice.  The thought of being further backed into a corner by the mare did not sit well with Sombra but deep down he had to acknowledge this was a step forward, as little as he enjoyed giving up his most potent point of leverage over her.  With a deep breath Sunset strode forward.  It was only now, approaching the rather overwhelming form of Sombra that she showed the slightest signs of apprehension.  It was a show of weakness Sombra didn’t miss, or hesitate to comment on.  “Having second thoughts are we?  My tender care not cushy enough for you mighty little sorcerer?”  A glance back at Atlas’s icy blue eye diligently watching was all the reassurance she needed.  “Just shut up and let’s get this over with.” He sniffed at the dismissive command but acquiesced.  “Very well.  This might… sting a little,” he said with a tone of nasty amusement.  Before Sunset could reply or ask what he meant a tendril of shadow shot forth and curled around her horn.  Immediately the crystals around her horn began to crumble away starting tip first, but as soon as it reached the surface of her horn the pain began.  It burned and itched in a way Sunset could only describe as like someone was pouring scolding hot sand into the sensitive organ.  She desperately tried to hold it back as she grit her teeth and her legs violently trembled but the cry of pain was inevitable, and enough to wake the dead.  The pain didn’t end as soon as the deed was done either.  An achy sensation lingered in Sunset’s horn as she swore under her breath, panting profusely and sweating like crazy as her strength slowly returned to her.  It was a few minutes before she could steel herself to look up angrily at the surely-would-be-smirking-if-it-could-be cloud. “Stings huh?” she muttered venomously as she panted for air.  “Can see why Celestia wanted to throw the book at you for under-selling the side effects of your particular bag of magic tricks.”  Sombra simply chuckled at her sarcastic rebuke.  “Celestia?  Throwing books at people?  Surely not, that might damage one and she values them far too much for that.”  Sunset grunted back at him as she put herself back on her hooves.  “You may be right but you’re still an ass.  A creepy one too.”  “Yes well, regardless of your inability to appreciate someone of my intellect we still have a deal to settle.  Now, return to me my property.  Unless of course, you want me to expend the vitality of your friends downstairs to retrieve it myself.”  As real as the threat might have been, Sunset couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his posturing.  “Whatever.”  With a deep breath she concentrated upon her horn, feeling her magic once more flow freely through it.  The luminous red glow was a comforting one in the cold abandoned palace.  With a flick of magic the many dozens of pieces of rubbish still scattered around the room came to life, dancing around her in the grasp of her magic before being trailing off to be set aside in one corner.  A quick mental command later and Atlas lifted its foot, allowing Sunset to take Sombra’s horn and give her one last moment to survey the sharp, curved remnant of a horn before she passed it off to him.  Or rather, threw it at him.  A part of her hoped it would fly right through and clatter to the ground behind him but she knew better.  The horn flew through the cloud that was Sombra for a moment before slowing to a stop and drifting back to his centre, hanging there in mid-air.  The black sooty mist that was his body quickly thickened, obscuring the fragment. Uneasily Sunset took a few steps back as the air in the room picked up, currents of wind whipping Sombra’s smoky form into a whirlwind of energy potent enough to put every hair on Sunset’s back on end.  Things looked like they were only getting worse for a moment as the condensing whirlwind cackled with black and purple bolts of pseudo lightning.  Eventually however it began to calm, and when it all dissipated the oppressive black mist was gone and Sunset was presented with an admittedly handsome unicorn Stallion.  He stood tall and strong with a victorious grin that looked convincingly charming – in spite of the sharp fang like teeth that smile was filled with - on his strong, chiselled features, all backed by his voluminous flowing pitch black mane.  Though, looking at it sceptically for a moment it did feel like Sombera was striking a bit of a pose for his audience of one.  Sunset however shook off her thoughts, getting back to a business as usual demeanour.  “Nice trick.  Top marks for presentation.  Now can we finally get back to the Princess and start bailing on this winter wonder wasteland?”  “Leave it to Celestia to render a magical prodigy a philistine,” he scoffed, smile dropping away as he levelled a mildly disgusted glare at her. “Like you have room to talk,” Sunset scoffed right back at him.   “You’ve undoubtedly ruined magic for far more ponies in a far shorter time frame.  Now come on!  This portal doesn’t stay open forever you know.  How do we get back to Cadenza from here?”  Sombra clenched his teeth in growing frustration.  “I do not take orders from you,” he spat back at her.  Sunset could only groan and role her eyes in disbelief.  “Ugh!  Drop the tough old tyrant act already!  If you haven’t noticed, it’s a bit late to save face with me, smoky.”  He growled and bristled at her but Sunset didn’t so much as flinch, not with the hulking form of her robot at her back and her restored horn faintly glowing red at the ready.  Sombra closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reluctantly pushing his anger aside.  “Clearly Celestia neglected to teach you neither manners nor patience.”  “Impatience is a virtue and playing mind games pretending to be polite only slows you down.  Try living in the real world and you’ll quickly learn time is money,” she dismissed with another roll of her eyes.  “Or in this case, lives.  Not only do we have to get everyone up and through the portal before it closes or these aliens turn up, but I also have to convince the Princess this is the right move.  So you can hopefully see why I don’t care about your posturing.”  Sunset emphasised the point with a stomp of her hoof, seemingly causing Atlas to shift behind her as if to remind him of its presence.  “This way,” he growled out, audible strain in his voice as he finally gave in.  The small collections of drones whizzed off back through the mirror as Sunset began to follow, Atlas not far behind her.  She only briefly paused in an effort to collect what little was left of the ones Sombra had destroyed, tossing the remains back through the mirror as well.  They were very nearly worthless, but she wasn’t going to carelessly leave such telling evidence of higher technology lying around.  Their walk was not a long one.  He led Sunset back through the previously travelled corridor, turning left as they reached the familiar balcony and into the throne room.  “A dead end,” Sunset observed simply, before looking to Sombra with a bored expression.  “Well go on then, make the dramatic reveal to your secret lair oh great Warlock King.”  Sombra did his best to pay the mare no mind, but Sunset caught a twitch of irritation cross his features none-the-less.  Silently he lit his horn, privately revelling in the use of it once more, tugging and twisting magic to his whims in a far more comfortable fashion than he could in his previous dispersed irregular form.  He smiled as he felt the shadows - his shadows – creep out through the floor of the throne room.  Steadily the centre of the room began to crack and crumble, falling away to reveal a spiral staircase, much to Sunset’s confusion.  She quickly caught on however.  “The space below the throne room… it’s empty, I was walking around under this very spot!  Extra spatial warping to implement some non-Euclidian architecture…?  Nice!” she exclaimed, a bright and surprisingly genuine grin expressing her inner glee at unfolding the magical puzzle in her mind.  Much to Sombra’s astonishment Sunset giggled, looking around like a wide eyed filly as she almost skipped down the stairs, crimson magic flickering to life as she scanned and probed the physics defying space.  “You really should have started with this if your aim was to impress!  No one’s paying attention to something as trivial as a little pseudo immortality and resurrection these days, far too mundane,” she rattled off casually as she continued to disappear down the circling stair way, her mechanical bodyguard following behind her as fast as it dared on the steps barely large enough for its feet.  Sombra meanwhile was left perturbed by her comment.  He could not decide if she was simply mocking him by brushing aside the not insignificant act of magic that gave him the ability to endure aeons trapped in ice or… if there was truth in what she said, and similar such secrets had been propagated to mundane status in her unrevealed hiding place.  With an irritable growl he shook off such thoughts.  After all, soon enough he would know for sure.  “Insufferable creatures, mares,” he griped to himself, following at a far more dignified pace.  “I will extract from you payment for every petty insult yet, little sorceress.”  With that quiet promise made, the two unicorns and the robot descended into the ancient sanctuary deep below.