Hoofsteps. Sunny lifted her head and blearily blinked open her eyes to see Tirek walking down one of the stone ramps that led to the rest of the stone structure. His eyes met hers, and she flinched under the piercing gaze of his creepily yellow eyes that seemed to glow sometimes. But she held her gaze, and it was Tirek who looked away first this time, and that seemed to have him scared. He closed his eyes and focused, and Sunny felt something battering against the walls of her mind, but she held firm.
Tirek glowered at her, but Sunny could read him well enough now - there was a layer of fear under the frustration and the indifference. She cautiously lowered her barriers and opened the mind link to see what he was thinking.
…getting stronger. Not safe. Dangerous. Knew we should have gotten rid of her. Even without her friends, she’s much too powerful. Don’t know how Cozy Glow intends to control her. Just like her ancestor. That’s not good. Too powerful, too strong, too dangerous, too… hopeful. Not good. Not good at all.
Wait… Tirek paused. Something’s off…
Sunny quickly withdrew from his mind and put up her walls again. She had to be careful about how much time she spent in their minds - they were bound to notice she was there.
Unlike Tirek and Cozy Glow, Sunny had not found a way into Chrysalis’ mind - and the thought worried her. And unlike Cozy Glow, Tirek had very few memories of a happier time, very few memories of any friendships he may have had. Sunny theorized that he tried to forget them as quickly as possible to strengthen himself - and he did have a lot of time locked in Tartarus. Cozy Glow, on the other hoof, either didn’t know she had so many memories of friends, or secretly wanted them. Nevertheless, for both villains, Sunny found happy memories and reminded them of better days - days with friends. Days they were happy. She didn’t force them on the pegasus or the centaur. She would simply push it into their conscious mind.
Tirek was a lot better at hiding his reactions than Cozy was - Sunny could barely detect anything from him. Cozy Glow was a different matter - every time she remembered her groups of friends (from what Sunny could tell, the filly mainly hung out with the three other foals she had seen quizzing Cozy, but she eventually became friends with most of her school), the pegasus’ mind became sad and guilty.
But her mental walls refused to come down. Sunny still had to slip between the cracks - and even those were becoming increasingly few and far between.
Tirek picked up a book lying on a stone table and flipped through it, turning and slouching back to his room with the book in hand. Once he left, Sunny set her head down on her hooves again, sighing and wishing she could get back to sleep. She had been dreaming about her father - she usually did when she was stressed. But this was different. There had been… something else in the dream, something she was pretty sure was important. Maybe if she went back to sleep, she would catch it…
Sunny closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths, feeling herself drift off into dreamland.
Her father was sitting underneath the Tree of Harmony, the bright pink leaves contrasting against the dark night sky. Stars glittered above her, gleaming like tiny diamonds scattered throughout the heavens. A cool breeze lifted her braid off of her shoulder just a tad, and Sunny felt herself breathing a sigh of relief.
“Dad?” she whispered, taking a step towards the pony by the huge tree. “Dad, it’s me - it’s Sunny.”
He made no response. Sunny took another step forward, saying, “Dad? Daddy, are you - are you okay?” She took another step, and another, and soon she was running, running towards her father, touching his shoulder, and he felt so real, and yet so far away, and she was shaking him, saying, “Dad, look at me! Dad!”
And then he did look at her, and his eyes were empty, dull, unknowing, and her heart broke inside her as she realized that this, while he looked like him, was not her father.
“Who are you?” she whispered, unable to keep the tears from forming in her eyes. “Where’s my father? What have you done to him?”
The pony before her shifted - his coat rustled, and he wasn’t her father anymore, but a different pony, one with a blue coat and a candy pink mane, one she recognized all too well - Candy Floss, the pony who almost single hoofedly brought the pony tribes to war. He turned to Sunny, and his lips curled into a cold, cruel smile.
“Anything and everything, my little pony,” he whispered in a deathly low voice. “Anything and everything to get what I want. You should understand that - you would do the same thing.”
“No.” Sunny’s voice was thick with unshed tears. “No, I would never do the things you’ve done.”
Candy Floss stood up and slowly approached her; she stumbled back. “Oh, really?” he said quietly. “Even if it was for your friends?” Her hoof tripped over a rock, and she fell to the ground, and Candy Floss towered over her, leaning down so that his face was inches from hers. “Wouldn’t you do anything - anything - to be with them again?”
“Nothing as awful as you,” Sunny stammered, but in her heart, she knew that he was right. She would do anything to be with her friends again - but she couldn’t. She could never be with her friends again. She could never…
“Really? Well, my little pony,” Candy Floss said, his voice shifting, growing deeper, more mealovent than anything Sunny had heard before, “I’ll be testing that theory.”
The pony shifted again, his coat turning a dark gray, his mane turning black as shadow, a tall, curved horn growing from his forehead, his eyes a piercing red that made Sunny wish she could crawl up inside her and never have to come out again. He lifted his head to the heavens and laughed, a bone-chilling, blood-freezing laugh, and the sky turned red, crackling with black lightning.
Sunny stumbled to her hooves and looked around - she was standing alone now, but in front of her were Hitch, Sprout, Izzy, Zipp, and Pipp, their eyes completely an unnatural green, their faces passive, their colors dimmed. They made no movement as Sunny ran up to them - it was as if they weren’t… themselves.
“Sunny!”
She whirled around to see Flurry, trapped in a cage of jagged black rocks, approached by the shadow pony, his horn lit. The alicorn tried to light her horn, but more black rocks on her horn prevented her from dong so, she shouted, “Sunny, help me!” and the shadow pony shot a blinding blast at her, and Flurry Heart disappeared-
“NO!”
Sunny felt as if she were outside herself, she felt anger building in her chest, felt her wings and horn coming back, felt strange new power rushing through her veins, felt herself lifting into the air, golden streams of magic flowing off of her like water, vaporizing once they hit the air, felt her horn, crackling with lightning, lighting up, felt a rage like she had never felt before as her gaze landed on her friends, her helpless friends, and this pony who dared to do this to them-
A wordless scream escaped her mouth, and a blinding light suddenly enveloped her, burning away everything, and then-
She was standing in… nothing. An endless expanse of starry sky stretched out underneath and around her, and she was standing on a path of stars… She was still an alicorn, her wings and horn gleaming with a rainbow sheen over the gold, but she felt… calmer now.
Like nothing was there to hurt her anymore.
She heard a gasp, and she turned around to see… a pony. A regular earth pony, but he looked… different. He had a dark blue coat and a purple mane that looped into curls around his ears. And his eyes… They were a bright blue, a blue that looked unsettlingly like Flurry Heart’s, but they were different. Like they were the shape of a crystal or something. Around his neck was a pendant of a crescent moon made of pure white crystal, and it appeared to be… glowing.
“Sparkle,” he breathed, his voice barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You are… the last Sparkle. Aren’t you?”
Sunny inclined her head as a yes, and the mysterious pony let out a sound of disbelief. “Who are you?” Sunny demanded, taking a step forward and spreading her wings, casting a golden light over the other pony. “And why should I trust you?”
“I-I have a message for you,” the pony spluttered, coughing into his hoof. “They have been lied to. Deceived. They do not know the truth, and they will fight for a lie. Tell them the truth, Sparkle. Tell them the truth and befriend them… or everything you built will fall.”
She opened her eyes, gasping - she was back in the cave-fortress-evil-villain-hideout - whatever you want to call it. It was still the middle of the night, but now two ponies were sneaking outside, aided by the light of a frosty blue unicorn horn…
“What are you doing?” Sunny called, standing up and squinting into the cursed darkness.
Permafrost froze, but Sour Lavender did not. He whirled around and marched up to Sunny, bold as you please. His partner hissed at him to get back, but he didn’t listen.
“Places you don’t need to know,” he muttered, and Sunny recoiled at the wretched scent of his breath. “Things you don’t need to tell anypony. And if you do…” The pegasus leaned in, his face an inch from Sunny’s. “Well, let me say that it won’t be pretty.”
“You’re going to betray them, aren’t you?” Sunny guessed, and he took a step back in surprise, nearly bumping into Permafrost, who was right behind him. The unicorn fixed his gaze on Sunny, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to pretend to go with them, pretend to help, and then you’re going to stab them in the back.”
“What’s it to you?” Sour Lavender snapped.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Sunny pleaded. “Trust me, I’ve had these guys in my head - they aren’t going to take betrayal lightly. You’ve already gotten yourselves in big trouble by following these guys - trying to turn the tables on them isn’t going to work. You’re just going to make things worse for yourselves, and-”
“Since when has Sunny Starscout ever cared about what other ponies are doing?” Permafrost interjected, his horn sparking and glowing brighter. “Since when has she cared about other ponies’ safety?”
“Longer than you,” she retorted. “You don’t have to be my friend for me to care about you.”
“Wow,” Permafrost said, slowly clapping his hooves. “That was really moving. And since you care about us so much, why don’t you throw us in jail again? That showed me just how much you care about other ponies.”
“Oh, no, other ponies had laws that decreed that you be punished for crimes you committed, how awful,” Sunny said dryly. “Look, I had nothing to do with that-”
“Then don’t say you have our best interests at heart,” Permafrost snapped, grabbing Sour Lavender’s arm and pulling him away. “And if you value your friends, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Perhaps we’ll spare them after we finally get what we want.”
As they vanished into the dark, Sunny called after them. “Everypony has a story,” she said. “They all have hopes, dreams, thoughts, feelings. Some ponies are just really bad at listening to them. Some ponies choose to focus more on themselves than on other ponies - and that leads to a warped perception of the world that isn’t true at all. You can’t say that you know other ponies when you don’t know them at all.”
Silence.
“I may not know you,” Sunny added, “but I know what will happen, and it won’t be good. Can you really blame me for at least trying to warn you?”
The two ponies didn’t answer, but Sunny had other things to worry about. She had a mysterious dream pony to think about.