//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Hotter Than Hell // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// “You’ve been busy,” Lucifer said. Sunset did not ask how he knew.  Either he’d stalked her to acquire personal information before approaching her with the contract, or, well, magic.  She still didn’t know what sort of magic there might be in this universe. “Why are you here?” she asked, putting down her backpack, opening the refrigerator, and otherwise ignoring Lucifer.  As before, he seemed tired and sat hunched at the table.  He looked like he could use some coffee.  Sunset didn’t have any, but wouldn’t have offered it anyway. She feigned unconcerned, but was wary about showing her back to him, considering he’d already taken the step of breaking into her apartment.  However, she reasoned that he wouldn’t have given her power only to attack her.  Which reminded her, she still had no idea who he was or what power he kept for himself...or how she could get ahold of it. “There’s a storm coming,” Lucifer said. “So?” “It would be irresponsible of me not to notify you.  Both of us depend on your success.” Sunset came over to the table and sat down across from Lucifer.  She had retrieved a bottle of soy sauce from the fridge and now put it to her lips for a sip. She would never drink it in front of anyone whose impression of her she valued.  Once had been enough to know that this was behavior that would make her stand out in the wrong way to humans.  But maybe Sunset’s pony tastes ran differently than theirs, and she used it as a salty soy snack as much as a condiment. Lucifer, whatever he was, seemed to take an interest, but didn’t mention it.  Sunset said, “I don’t think you would be here about a storm of the meteorological variety.” “Correct.  I see something like this every so often.  Someone gets uppity, thinks they can just take over Heaven, Hell, or Earth, or a piece of it.  We might be headed into another cycle, but there haven’t been enough indicators yet for specifics on who you would be taking down.” “You say that as if I would.” “You signed the contract to use the power I gave you as stipulated.  This is a stipulation.” Much as Sunset didn’t appreciate being ordered to do something that wasn’t to her personal gain, if this theoretical storm was real, she might relish the test of strength. Lucifer got up, stretching.  Sunset wondered if he was perpetually tired, or if he had been waiting long for her.  “You might want to get some exercise and training with the Spirit before you need it.” He walked past Sunset out of the kitchen door behind her back.  His footsteps didn’t continue, nor did her front door open. She smiled wryly to herself.  It took a powerful unicorn to teleport, and even that was accompanied by a flash of magic and a pop of displaced air.  Lucifer was messing with her.  Maybe not intentionally, but Sunset still took it as a challenge. Exercise and training with the Spirit of Vengeance?  She was going to have to find a playground. Fortunately, having a bike greatly increased her ability to range.  She would have to find a place to see what this power could really do. She would have to add that hunt to her other research.  For now, she did an internet search on her phone for the new motorcycle she had taken from Blair, to learn everything she could about it. While Sunset may have craved power of all kinds, and had certainly enjoyed the type she’d just received, she recognized that all the force in the world still required finesse, and the more the better.  Not that she gave humans credit for much, but the phrase knowledge is power was a particularly astute notion. She spent most of the rest of the evening learning about the new bike.  Some of it carried over from the first one, building her knowledge base.  Once she felt comfortable, she switched to hunting a quiet place to truly test herself.  The railyard might work, but perhaps she’d been going there a little too often. When she had a new location in mind, Sunset filed it away for further exploration.  She then checked her mental list for what to search the internet for next.  Something about the conversation from earlier had struck her.  Lucifer had mentioned Heaven and Hell.  Sunset was vaguely familiar with the terms, having heard them a time or two before in relation to what she thought was human religion. Hell: a general term for the afterlife location where evil souls are punished  That seemed in line with religion.  Reading further, Sunset decided that considering there were no solid facts that were not in dispute across several religions, apparently that meant the place was not as tangible as, say, Tartarus back in Equestria.  That didn’t necessarily mean it didn’t exist - after all, she’d come here from another dimension that humans didn’t know about. A central figure of Hell was...Lucifer. Sunset stared at her phone.  She knew better than to believe everything she read on the internet, but this couldn’t be a coincidence.   Some interpretations had him as the leader of Hell, the chief executive sinner-punisher.  And from what he had told Sunset so far, that fit. However sometimes he was depicted as a being who had strove to take the highest seat of Heaven only to fail and be cast down to the underworld. Did that sound like Sunset?  Did Lucifer think so? Sunset scoffed out loud and put the phone down.  Most of what she had learned was that human religion was unreliable and inconsistent, if it was even real.  Some humans didn’t even believe it.  Maybe this wasn’t even Lucifer, but someone using his name.  Though, Sunset had to admit that so far the man had been able to back his words with subtle signs of actual power, if not a demonstration itself. Well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t already distrust him.  Now she just knew more. In the morning, Sunset rode her shiny new motorcycle to school.  This one was definitely higher performance in all respects than the first one she had taken.  Blair would probably be missing this bike. She had Silver meet her there with breakfast.  Maybe Silver could have ridden on the back from Sunset’s apartment, but Sunset didn’t trust her to hold on, and wouldn’t have let anyone get that close to her anyway. She checked in on the feud between the cheerleaders and the drama club, seeing that it was well underway, and made plans to move forward as the moderating savior between the two groups.  Still, while she had planned it and it was working, she felt as if there was more she could be doing.  How could she leverage this new power towards greater dominance? Humans had greater differences between genders, but this would give her an edge.  Tryout for the football team?  It was not unheard of for a high school to have a female kicker.  She might raise suspicions if she was a linebacker - and if she had the strength to back it up. She would have to consider it.  Unfortunately, her thought process came to a screeching halt as she turned and caught sight of Principal Celestia. It still baffled Sunset how there were expies of ponies she knew from her world here in this one.  While she was pleased that the human Celestia was merely a high school principal, Sunset still had a deep detest for her.  It was mostly based on the even deeper loathing she had for the Princess; Principal Celestia had never banned Sunset from using dangerous magic. But Sunset always managed to put on a fake smile around the principal, and did so today.  “Good morning.” “Good morning Sunset.”  Celestia smiled.  “That’s a very nice motorcycle I saw you riding.  Do you have a helmet?” Sunset knew the law, and knew she was breaking it.  “I’ll be going to get one after school.”  She just wished she’d done it earlier, to avoid even talking to Celestia. “That’s good to hear.  Have a nice day.”   Sunset doubted her principal had near the observational powers that Lucifer did, and couldn’t help a glare at her back as she walked away.  Despite human Celestia not being an immortal alicorn master of magic, she still carried the same superiority mixed with sweetness, as if that made it go down any easier. Speaking of sweetness, Sunset stopped by the home-ec room for a treat, though not of the food variety.  She found Pinkie Pie there, her mass of tangled fuchsia hair bound back with a hairband and squinting at tiny stitches in what had to be the most intricate pair of boxer shorts the world had ever seen.  She looked up as the door opened.  “Oh hey Sunset!” “What are you working on?” Sunset asked. “Rarity thinks she’s going to win the School Sewing Spectacular but I can’t let that happen,” Pinkie said.  She turned back to her work.  Her fingers were covered in minor needle pricks and she bent low over her work, almost to the point her nose touched the fabric. “It’s a shame you can’t bake anymore,” Sunset said. “Y-yeah, but the school was really upset about the whole food poisoning thing,” Pinkie said, sounding like she was trying for offhand but not quite making it.  She poked her finger with the needle and drew back suddenly, putting the injured digit in her mouth. She glanced up at Sunset.  “There’s some sugar cubes in the new supplies that just came in.  I didn’t touch them, honest.” Sunset hadn’t come for a literal treat, but maybe she could have both.  “Thanks Pinkie.” “I still don’t know what you do with them.  Do you drink a lot of coffee?  I make a really mean double-chocolate expre-” Pinkie’s eyes dropped.  “Nevermind.” Sunset said goodbye to her and left, grabbing the box of sugarcubes as she went.  It was still sealed, and she opened the box to sample one before stowing it in her locker.  Okay, maybe two.  Just eating sugarcubes right out of the box was not proper human behavior, and she was careful not to let anyone see her doing it. After school, Sunset stopped by a motorcycle shop to get a helmet.  It wasn’t because of the questions Celestia had asked, but to avoid questions like that in the future from people such as the police.  The shop was filled with shiny things, and Sunset took her time in examining them.  Perhaps she would be back in the future. She took a longer look at the helmet display.  With the variety of styles and colors, this required careful consideration.  That is, until she saw one labeled “Kaiser.”  It was flat black, with a big chrome spike out the top.  Sunset smiled to herself and picked it up. She also stopped by the display of gloves and selected a black leather pair with silver studs that sort of matched her helmet. At the checkout, the clerk looked a little bored.  They probably didn’t get much business in the winter.  Still, he looked every inch the biker himself.  He gave Sunset a sideways look, and then glanced out the front window at her motorcycle parked in front of the shop.  “That’s a nice bike.” “Thank you.” “Is it yours?” “It sure is.”  Sunset had detected the undercurrent in his voice.  As a shopkeep and biker in the local scene, he might recognize the motorcycle. “Where’d you get it?” he asked, meeting Sunset’s eyes. She smiled.  “I beat the shit out of Blair Beltdrive and took it.” Whatever he had expected her to say, that wasn’t it.  Sunset put a wad of cash on the counter and walked out, getting on her motorcycle.  The new helmet didn’t really match with the sleek bike, but there was a beauty in that, too, as an expression of Sunset herself. Speaking of Sunset herself, she decided that it would be a good idea to get more practice with this new power.  A fight would be best, but those wouldn’t just fall into her lap, even if she was riding a known stolen motorcycle. Deciding that she’d rather not be disturbed, Sunset didn’t go to the railyard where she might have been seen before, instead striking out for a still-in-business factory that would be closing for the evening and its parking lot emptying. She spent an hour or two there, with nothing but wide open pavement.  Part of it was training with the bike.  Not hard enough that she might be in danger of damaging it, but she’d still only been on a motorcycle of any kind for a few days, so every little bit helped.  The other part was training herself. As Sunset had noticed, she might not be able to exert her whole power when not faced with an adversary.  Still, she tested her own limits, getting to know this new power just as she’d had to get accustomed to this new body when she’d first showed up on Earth. She didn’t quite have a handle on the quantity of her strength.  The only heavy object she had around was the motorcycle, and while she got the sense that she could have bench-pressed it, doing so would have been too awkward.  Not to mention, she’d rather not explore the upper limits of the material strength of her bones if she could help it.  There was no way of knowing if they had been reinforced, too. It had started to snow fitfully as she was wrapping up.  Sunset realized she didn’t feel cold.  Part of that was certainly from exertion, but she also just simply felt warm.  Well, that didn’t seem as if it would help her combat ability, but it was a nice perk regardless. She was careful riding the bike in the snow, though at least it hadn’t started sticking to the road just yet.  The oncoming night didn’t help.  Still, she made good time back to her apartment. Much to Sunset’s surprise, Silver was huddled near her front door.  She started forward when she saw Sunset, apparent fridgedness forgotten.  “They’re after you!  I tried to call, but...” Who they were seemed fairly obvious.  Sunset hadn’t noticed a phone call, perhaps hidden by the noise of the bike.  She said, “What happened?” “I saw some people hanging around.  This is about the motorcycle, isn’t it?” Timid and subservient as she was, Silver wasn’t stupid.  Sunset suddenly gaining a new bike, asking about lost title transfers, and angry bikers looking for her were obviously connected. Sunset was disappointed that her warning to Blair hadn’t been heeded, but not too surprised.  Frankly, Silver being proactive and going out of her way was more surprising. She just wished Silver had managed to pass the word quicker.  From behind her, she heard Blair’s voice.  “There you are.”  Sunset turned, annoyed, but the sight of Blair suddenly set her on edge.  Something was different. No, not the knife in her hand, though that certainly had Sunset’s attention.  Something else.  Sunset couldn’t quite figure out what, though. “You are remarkable,” Blair said.  Her patient matron guise from the day before was now totally gone, and replaced with what might have been an undercurrent of madness.  “I’ve never met anyone like you.” “I know,” Sunset said.  She had started to get a sense of the situation, though wasn’t quite yet willing to put a name to it.  It felt as if she had developed some sort of sixth sense.  Not a magical sense like a unicorn, a feeling of something else.  Something hot, and dangerous, and vile. “I hated to do it,” said Blair.  “I hated to admit that you got me.  But even if I couldn’t help myself, I wasn’t going to let it end there.  I made a deal.” A few of the things Sunset had read the night before about Hell came to the forefront of her mind.  The irony of it being similar to her own situation was not lost. Blair smiled.  Her eyes flashed crimson.  She moved so fast Sunset didn’t have time for conscious action, only reflex. The knife missed, though not by much.  Sunset only had time to realize it after she saw the blade going by her, Blair’s thrusting forearm deflected by her own.  Up close, nearly nose to nose, she now got a good look at the new energy behind Blair’s eyes, and suddenly, Sunset didn’t feel quite so powerful. Especially not as the knife, having missed its original target, still managed to glancingly slice Silver’s arm, behind Sunset. It was not a deep cut.  It lacked most of the original force, but the supernaturally powerful attack still slit straight through Silver’s coat and into her upper arm.  Sunset heard her gasp in pain. Sunset saw red.  It wasn’t that she was angry - her eyes literally caught on fire.