//------------------------------//
// 1 - Sunset 
// Story: Dazzling New Life 
// by AFanaticRabbit 
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A dark and stormy night was the perfect time for Sunset’s nefarious scheme to be brought to fruition.
Inside of an old watchtower in a long-forgotten valley, Sunset worked by crystal-light. Shiny, gloved hooves pushed contraptions into place, while her pale blue magic attached cables to imposing, spiky clips in the ceiling with a heavy clunk.
Every twisted cable came down to a single, bulky piece of machinery at the back of the round room. Its face was covered in dials and knobs, each with their own labelled purpose, and each finely tuned to perfection. She had been so careful with her measurements, in fact, that Sunset had since taped or welded many of the knobs into place, to ensure they could not be changed by accident.
From that machine ran six thinner, finer cables, each of which were attached to figures on slabs. Each one was made of a mix of metal, silicone and leather. The latter was a rarity to come by in Equestria but necessary for Sunset’s work.
If she was going to show Celestia up, after all, she had to make sure that her magnum opus was perfect in form and function.
Sunset walked past the slabs one more time, adjusting the clips at the pins jutting from the figure’s necks, and nudging their bodies just so, ensuring they looked exactly how she wanted to, exactly as she imagined.
Thunder boomed, sending a gentle rumble through the ground and up Sunset’s hooves. She first spun her ears, then her head, to look out of one of the small murder-holes in the watchtower. It wasn’t ever wide enough to let more than a sliver of light in during the day, so the lightning striking the trees and mountain tops outside had barely any hope of penetrating inside.
At least, it couldn’t do so in a more traditional manner.
Sunset clambered up onto the ledge in front of the narrow window, and peered outside. She couldn’t make out much in the weather; not the trees just outside, of the cliffs and mountains that walled the valley in.
She could, however, see distant lights. Warm orange lamps that poured their heat out of windows and doorways from a small town near the bottom of the valley. It benefit from the river that carved the valley into existence, and served as a source of food and supplies for Sunset over the past while.
Beyond that, obscured by the fog, rain and clouds, was the faint, shining beacon of Canterlot, situated above most other peaks on the tallest mountain in the region.
Being able to see Sunset’s old home was a reminder, a motivator. It still, in a way, kept Celestia’s eyes on her, though Sunset was sure the tower went overlooked by everyone in that Sun-forsaken city.
That view also meant that exact spot was where she wanted enter the next phase or her plan.
No, the next phase of her life.
Sunset wanted to laugh. She couldn’t help smiling, and the joy and anticipation rose up inside of her like an insidious bile.
She forced it down. She had to wait only a little longer.
Rearing up on her hind legs, she placed a hoof on a breaker switch, connected by yet more cables to that massive, wall covering machine. The other hoof braced her inside of the murder-hole’s frame, and she threw one last glance at the outside world behind her.
A few moments later, she saw a flash, and another rumble of thunder followed instantly on its heels.
Perfect.
The machine lit up, overwhelming the crystals that hung in sconces meant for ancient torches. The dials and readouts ticked into life, many of them immediately flicking over to their maximum readings. Some lit up sequentially, row after row of information telling Sunset everything was going according to plan. The randomly lit ones were minor errors, well within calculated tolerance.
The cables leading to the machine vibrated, making the room hum and buzz. Little motes of electricity ran over their surfaces, sometimes even jumping from one cable to the other. The shining, metal coils on the machine’s sides glowed an aggressive shade of blue, and Sunset knew it was time.
She snapped on her goggles over her eyes, and flipped the breaker.
The smaller wires leading to the bodies shone brightly, little hairs heated to dangerously high temperatures that glowed as red as Sunset’s mane. Whatever power rushed through them made them flex and wobble, and one leading to the blue figure drooped down to the floor.
“Just a few moments more,” Sunset said to herself, and that was the trigger to unleash her laugh.
It started out as a small chuckle deep in her stomach, but it rose up through her chest and grew into a cackle.
Her creations twitched, all of their fake muscles and servos contracting and bending, moving their legs and heads and rattling their beds.
Then the bowing cable snapped. The circuit was broken with a terrible flash of energy that spiked through the rest of the contraption and its cables. Dials ticked over their limits, knobs broke free off their constraints, and other cables snapped or disconnected as the billion buzzing bees of electricity exploded through them.
In a blink, the entire room went dark, save for the glowing crystals by which Sunset worked.
There was total silence. The machine, now broken, made no noise. The coils still glowed but no electricity ran through them. Even the wind outside had quietened down as a presumed gap in the storm passed over the tower.
The figures lay inert on their beds, and Sunset frowned.
That was not supposed to happen. She had checked and checked and checked. Everything was exactly where it ought to be.
She snapped off her goggles with a hoof, pinging them to the far side of the room. “Dang it!”
Walking by the bodies, she stopped and looked up at her great machine. There were cracks in its metal plating, dials had popped free, and some of the cable connectors had fused to their ports.
It was nothing she couldn’t fix or replace, but the storm overhead would be long gone by the time she was finished.
Sunset turned, giving the machine a final, hard buck as she did, then stopped as she looked to the slabs.
All the fuzz along her back stood on end, culminating in her tail puffing out. Her ears spun forward, focused entirely on what she stared at.
Three pairs of shining eyes stared at her, all completely, unnaturally still, while their glow was overbearing and hid their owners in their glare.
That could only mean one thing of course, and the corners of Sunset’s mouth turned upward. Falling to her rump, she giggled. She chuckled. She cackled once again, and the tower echoed her laugh back at her in all its glory until her sides hurt.
At the same time, Sunset’s shoulders relaxed, and the knots down her spine loosened in a wave of relief. She felt light and floaty, while her hooves tingled in a delightful, prickly sensation.
Eventually, Sunset ran out of breath, forced out of her by the lingering knot in her gut.
The eyes were looking at her, and assuming it wasn’t a trick of her imagination, a hallucination brought around from stress or lack of air, they were moving slightly, glancing at Sunset, at the machine, at each other.
Yet none of that meant her experiment was complete. There was still plenty that could go wrong.
Sunset mustered up the strength to get back to her hooves, but right as she found the energy to again stand up, it all fled her again.
“That was weird.”
The voice wasn’t Sunset’s. It was melodic, dancing in pitch in so few syllables, but with an interesting, buzzing undertone.
“Come again?” asked Sunset.
The middle set of eyes shifted, and with several clanks, rattles, and thumps, fell about a foot or so. As they came near Sunset, she pulled one of the glowing crystals from her desk and toward her magic without looking away.
Gosh, Sunset adored her work. The figure in front of her—a pony, of her own craft—was perfectly made to exact measurements. She was a little taller than Sunset, a little bigger over all. Most of her body was covered in a layer of silicone rubber, a pale, opaque yellow, and shaped around a metal chassis. Even though she couldn’t see it, Sunset knew where her creation’s joints were, what they looked like. The only exception to the smooth surface was at key joints like the shoulders or elbows, as well as a ring around the neck. The last was important to allow her to run power to crystalline cores in their torsos. Up as close as she was now, the core glowed dimly through her creation’s faux-skin, a dim red light that gently breathed through her.
Her face was a whole piece of art to itself, separate from the masterpiece that was her body. Sunset couldn’t recall exactly where she had obtained the masks she used as moulds, but she remembered the days and weeks spent tweaking their proportions, lining up the tiny servos and links to give them as natural movements as possible. It was also capped with a thick, orange mane with strips of yellow, which was one of the few organic things about her. Some ponies got a little weird about parting with their hair, but Sunset found at least a few that changed their tune with an offering of payment for it.
It meant the scowl this metal and rubber pony wore was very convincing.
“Where am I?” asked Sunset’s creation in a flat voice.
That question gave Sunset pause. She hadn’t expected that to be the first question the pony would ask. ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What is my purpose?’ would have been Sunset’s first guesses.
After what was probably too long a pause, Sunset simply answered, “Your home.”
The pony’s eyes moved first as she looked around her, following the cables from the machine behind Sunset to the worn stone walls and mouldy wooden ceiling. At the limits of her vision, she stiffly twisted her neck. She lifted a hoof—one of the few pieces of exposed, polished metal on her—then bat it against the ground with a dull, thunk.
“No offence,” she said in a tone that implied full offence, “but this place is kind of a dump.”
Okay. That wasn’t what Sunset had planned, but this was okay. A sassy personality meant she didn’t have to teach that one how to talk, or that she was her own entity, as long as she obeyed Sunset’s orders.
“This is my lab,” Sunset said. “I’m the only one that uses it so it’s always in a state of, um, organised chaos, lets say.”
“I’d just call it a dump.”
That was another voice, coming from one of the still occupied slabs. It was a high, squeezed voice that spoke very quickly. Sunset floated the glowing crystal around the first of her creations to the new voice’s source.
She was constructed much the same as the first pony, only she was a shade of light blue all over, with a straight mane of alternating tones of mid- and dark-blue. Unlike her sibling, she was grinning ear to ear.
Sunset swung her crystal over to the other slab. The last of her creations, this one pink furred with a purple mane, squinted at her.
“Can you talk too?” Sunset asked.
“No,” the pink and purple one answered.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise Sunset that each of her creations were brimming with sarcasm. Like mad-scientist, like affront-to-life, she supposed.
When she swung the light back to the first of her creations, she wasn’t scowling as severely. Instead there was a glint of curiosity in her eyes, and she leaned down to look deeper into Sunset’s.
“Who are we?” she asked.
Sunset’s eyes lit up  and she hopped to her hooves. “Finally the question I wanted you to ask!” The yellow-orange pony swivelled her ears toward Sunset. The blue one looked surprised, and the pink-purple one…
She didn’t look much different. Her face was rather neutral, aside from her squinting.
There was enough humility in Sunset that she blushed. “Er, right. You are my creations. I suppose this lab is your birthplace.” The yellow-orange one grimaced, which Sunset ignored. The pink-purple one looked over at her, well, Sister Sunset supposed, and specifically at the ruby glow in her chest.
“’Dagi, is that what I think it is?” she asked in a drawn out monotone.
Sunset tilted her head. “’Dagi’? Come again?”
The one called ‘Dagi looked down at herself in one swift, stiff motion. She lifted a hoof up in front of her, and Sunset saw without seeing each of the joints and hinges as they moved precisely into each position. The leg moved up, the upper leg twisted inward, the elbow turned and her hoof was placed over her chest.
It was precise. It was perfect.
And so was the humming that followed.
The melody flowed over Sunset like a tide over a beach, and it took some of her vision and concentration with it. Her eyes struggled to focus while her head felt heavy. She shook her head, which cleared up the worst of the symptoms rather rapidly, but the feeling was still there at the edge of her senses.
It vanished entirely when ‘Dagi stopped. She stared down at her hoof.
“I think it is, Aria.” Her face twisted up into a brilliant smile, which she then directed back at Sunset, more fluidly yet just as quick as before. “You are lucky and seemed to know what you were doing,” she said. “Just the wrong amount of energy, or a simple crack, and you’d be having a very different conversation with a very different creature.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing,” Sunset insisted.
“So is that why your big thingy is all busted up?” asked the blue one.
“…Okay I knew what I was mostly doing. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that it worked. Now—“ Sunset stamped a hoof on the floor, its rubber glove dulling the thunk. “Can you explain why you’ve already decided on names? I made you, so I should get that right, ‘Dagi?”
“’Dagi?” asked ‘Dagi. She tutted a few times and waved a hoof in front of her, while the pink-purple one—Aria—stepped off her slab and made her way to Sunset’s flank. “No one but my sisters call me that. You may call me Adagio.” She pointed behind herself. “The ditz is Sonata.”
Sonata waved, and Sunset was weirdly compelled to wave back, before shaking her head again. Back on point, Sunset.
“As for the question itself…”
Sunset felt something shunt her in the backside and she stumbled forward into Adagio, her snout shoved against her shoulder. Before she could even think of wriggling away, Adagio had a hoof over her shoulder and held her tightly.
“I don’t think that’s important right now.”
Sunset turned her head awkwardly so she could actually breath and speak. It did feel good to be against Adagio, though. She was as soft as Sunset expected—she did bring her into this world, after all—and the energy thrumming inside of her made her feel warm and drowsy. “I think it’s pretty important! I made you, so I demand you tell me!”
Adagio tutted again, shaking her head. “I’m not the only one that finds this bratty act cute, right?” She turned her attention to her sisters, with Sonata now on Sunset’s other flank, giving an enthusiastic nod in answer.
“Cute!?” Sunset tried to push against Adagio’s hold, but the bigger pony didn’t budge in the slightest. “I am not cute! I am dangerously smart and intelligent.”
“Not really doing it for me,” Aria said. “It’s kind of just annoying.”
A weight fell onto Sunset’s back, stilling her, and she twisted her head just enough to see it was Sonata. She was on her hand legs, with her front half over Sunset. Since she’d started speaking, she was constantly smiling, but as Sunset and Sonata’s eyes met, her lips thinned and eyes drooped.
Sunset gulped loudly. That wasn’t at all how she had expected things to go.
She turned her head again, getting it to a slightly more comfortable position with her cheek flat against Adagio’s chest. A part of her was annoyed at herself for not giving them some sort of felt or fuzz as an urge to nuzzle in grew inside her, but Sunset was surprisingly comfortable against Adagio nevertheless. She was warm and soft, and while she didn’t have a heart beat, there was still a rhythmic sound coming from inside her.
“She looks pretty happy squished up against you, ‘Dagi,” Sonata said. She shuffled along Sunset’s back, and Sunset could feel Adagio push down her ears as she lowered her head. “Makes me wanna just nibble and smooch her. I bet she tastes pretty good.”
Sunset’s eyebrows shot up, and she stared at Sonata from the corner of her eyes. “Taste? You can’t—I didn’t give—“
A gasp interrupted Sunset as something clamped down around one of her ear. It ground it, pinched it, tugged it up and to the side. She shivered, this time with a pleasant wave that rolled down her back. She didn’t need to see Adagio to know it was her teeth that pulled her head up, that helped Adagio pull her around to face Sonata.
Sonata giggled as she pressed her face into Sunset’s. “Oh! I think she likes that, ‘Dagi. Do you like it?”
With her mind a little scrambled, Sunset struggled to find the words to agree. She just nodded instead.
“Good! Then I think you’ll like this too!”
Then and there Sonata disappeared into the crook of Sunset’s neck, where soft, artificial lips and nibbling teeth nipped and tugged at her skin and fur.
A faint, drawn out noise floated through the air, and it took Sunset a few moments to realise that it was her own voice. She didn’t feel it buzz through her throat, and instead it was just simply out there for her and her creations to hear. Neither Sonata nor Adagio gave up their biting, nor did they make any sound to indicate they noticed.
Aria, however, definitely noticed. Her frown vanished, and while it wasn’t exactly replaced by a smile, one corner of her mouth did turn up a little.
The two maintained eye contact, and Sunset was sure her cheeks were as good as glowing hot embers the way they felt, beacons to Aria that she was definitely enjoying the attention she was being given.
Sunset’s legs were a little shaky, and she felt herself dipping down between Sonata and Adagio. Neither of them let her slip far, however, as with both their forelegs wrapped around her, and the way she was squeezed between their warm bodies, Sunset could only fall so far before they hoisted her back up to continue their assault.
Aria approached the cuddle session at last, and she turned her attention to Sonata for a moment. For a moment she seemed to do some thinking, bringing one ankle to her chin. She spared one quick glance to Adagio before she nosed in and gave Sonata a shove to the side, making her stumble and briefly exposing Sunset’s body to the cold tower air.
“Whu—Aria! What gives?” Sonata whined, and Sunset was inclined to agree with the tone.
With a smirk, Aria took Sonata’s old position, and with it she erased Sunset’s annoyance with another comforting cuddle.
The kiss to her lips helped move Sunset along pretty quickly too, and Sunset was yet again glad she picked the materials she did, as the feeling of Aria’s mouth against hers was simply heavenly. Her lips were soft at first, but there was a certain firmness that built up as the silicone squished in that helped retain their shape and feel.
Sunset shut her eyes and leaned into Aria as much as she could—which was to say, as much as Aria and her teeth would allow. She reasserted her position over Sunset with an adjusted chomp and a squeeze from her legs, pushing out a sudden little squeak from Sunset’s throat. She felt Adagio’s deep chuckle buzz through her chest, and Sunset let out a huff through her nostrils.
Sonata grumbled, but if she was actually saying anything at all through it, Sunset didn’t hear it. What she did definitely make out was Sonata shoving Aria to the side, and tearing her away from her wonderful kiss.
“What the f—“
“You ask first!” Sonata said. “You don’t shove me out of the way! What if she didn’t want you to kiss her?”
Sunset blearily opened her eyes.
“So why would you shove me back? Besides, I think she was okay with it. Weren’t you?”
The question didn’t sound much like it was meant to be one, though Sunset answered anyway. “Yes,” she said, slurring the word. “Th-though as much as I like this, I really need you two to—“
“See!” Aria stuck out her tongue at her sister, another carefully crafted silicone blob, then turned back to Sunset, trying to squeeze in close to her once again. Sonata huffed and shoved her way in beside Aria, earning a growl from the sterner sister. That turned into a shove, then a small kick, then they both tried to latch onto Sunset at the same time while pushing and hitting one another.
Very quickly, the world around Sunset teetered to one side, and she was down. That said, she wasn’t quite on the cold, hard cobblestones, but instead sprawled out on her front over a frowning Adagio.
Fortunately for Sunset, the frown wasn’t directed at her, and instead at the two ponies still bickering from on top of her back. Their weight squeezed her middle, restricting her breathing, but her diaphragm and lungs still had room to get air into her lungs.
So Sunset filled them, then barked a, “Hey!” at them both.
Aria and Sonata immediately turned to Sunset, the former shooting her a scowl and the latter blinking in wide-eyed surprise.
With a cough, Sunset breathed in again and twisted around in Adagio’s hug. She didn’t want to tear her face from Adagio’s warmth, it was easier to speak to them.
“While this is kind of fun, this isn’t what you are here for. All three of you,” she added, sparing a glance to a now indifferent Adagio. “You are my creations, and I made you for a purpose, so get off of me and listen.“
She coughed when Adagio’s legs squeezed her middle. She could still breath, but it was enough to startle her, pushing the air from her chest.
“Look who grew a spine.” Adagio turned Sunset back around to face her, propping up the unicorn’s chin with one hoof and keeping her back pinned with the other. “Fine. I’m curious enough. What frivolous idea would you like to waste us on?”
“Waste—“ Sunset shook her head. “No, not biting it.” She shifted her legs underneath her, propping her torso up a little so her neck didn’t ache. “I made you to march up to Canterlot, into the palace, and to show up Celestia.” She grinned. “I am capable of so much more than she knows, and you three are proof of that.”
Adagio’s face remained an indifferent glare. “That’s it?”
Sunset nodded. “She’d have to respect me then, to take me seriously and give me what I deserve. Recognition, accolades…”
“But no power? You have us three and just want to show off?” Adagio snorted. “Please.”
“Well it’s—There’s more than that, this is important to me. Besides, you’re just snuggling me!”
There was the grin again, and though it came from beneath Sunset, it made her squirm.
“Yes, because that’s fun. Much more fun than being a display piece for some blowhard I’d rather wrap around my hooves and make blush.” She moved a hoof to the back of Sunset’s head, and pushed it toward her face. “And I think you will agree.”
Sunset frowned. As fun as it was to be close to those three, to feel their legs and bodies and faces against her, she didn’t make them for that reason. It was a waste of her talents to indulge herself like that. She was better than that, far better.
Right?
An airless sigh escaped Adagio’s mouth. “Girls, what do you think of her little plan. Is it really worth it, or would you rather play with her more?”
Sonata shrugged. “I think it could be fun to meet new creatures! It feels like it’s been ages, buuut—“ She shifted her weight on Sunset’s back, putting a joint of her foreleg into the small of it. “—I don’t think I wanna be treated like a toy or a pet. I’m me!”
Aria barely moved. “Sounds boring. I wanna taste her again.”
“What? No! It’s my turn Arry!”
Adagio laughed underneath Sunset, and turned her around and onto her back. She spoke into her ear, letting her voice drop down to a teasing growl. “There, the choice is made. All that’s left is for you to choose; stay with us and have some fun, or go do whatever it is smart-asses do when their plans are foiled.”
While the bickering continued above her, Sunset considered her choice. She considered it very carefully.
Then she made it.
“Hey,” Sunset said, this time with far less bite to it. Two pairs of ears and eyes turned to her again, and she put on her best smile. “Why don’t you two share?”
Aria and Sonata looked back at each other, and after a little indecipherable gesturing with their hooves, they turned back to Sunset with grins of their own. They dove down, snouts burying themselves into Sunset’s neck and sending tingles up to the tips of her ears. Adagio’s teeth fired them back down again, and Sunset moaned happily.
She could figure out what to do next when this was over.



Sunset’s creations—the sisters—took a lot longer to get their fill of Sunset than she anticipated.
She lay in her bed, dead tired from close to a full day of work and, ahem, recreation. Aside from all her machines and contraptions, it was the only nice thing she had, tucked away in the shack she built around the original entrance to the old, leaking tower.
Well, she had three more nice things, she supposed. Insatiable, teasing, fun things.
Ponies? Creatures? They had a mind of their own. They weren’t her creations anymore, not really.
She watched the red sun peek in through the window above her tiny corner kitchen, rising between the sharp valley several days walk away. The overlook Canterlot sat upon cut into the distant star, and little dots of airships fluttered back and forth.
Then Sunset looked to the bodies strewn around her. One was tucked under the covers, her head pressed to Sunset’s chest. She wasn’t sure if any of the sisters needed to sleep, but Sunset had a cat for a short time when she was younger. She knew when to let the cat win, even if it wasn’t snoring.
Turning her head, she was face to face with another of the sisters. Like Sonata on top of her, Aria’s eyes were shut, but Sunset could make out the glow of the lens-crystals through the gaps in the silicone. When they’d come down, all six eyes were beacons that guided her, and gave her only the most basic of information about what they were doing with her.
Adagio was the only one not on the bed. She was sat in the only chair in the shack, tucked in by a table on the other side of the door to the kitchen, below another window. It doubled as an eating and work space, and had a few of her books and notes stacked up against the wall.
The yellow sister watched the world outside the window, her chin resting on a hoof. The sun bounced off her eyes, making their violet gleam a violent ray that made Sunset squint. In that quiet moment, she seemed ancient. Shiny, pristine, but old all the same.
Sunset lay her head back into her pillow and shut her eyes. There were a lot of questions she needed answered, lots of things she wanted to figure out about the sisters. They already knew each other, they already had identities and personalities. Based on her research, everything Sunset could find in every available tome, she was sure she would need to teach them those things, or withhold them if that turned out to be the most optimal choice.
She also felt a little used. That was only fair, she supposed, since Sunset was pretty eager to try and use them, too. Maybe they knew before they learned of her plans, on some level.
They were definitely smarter than they let on. Even Sonata.
“How old are you?” Sunset asked, again looking at Adagio.
After she blinked and tilted her eyes over to Sunset, Adagio spoke. “I thought it was rude to ask a mare her age.”
“I get the feeling you’re not really a mare.” Sunset used a hoof to poke at Sonata’s cheek. “And I don’t mean the being made out of rubber and metal part.”
Adagio shrugged, and placed her attention back on the outside world. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Older than those two dummies, but we’re pretty close.”
Sunset wasn’t sure if the sound that came from Sonata was a snore or a snort.
“Does that help?” Adagio asked.
“A little.”
Dropping her head to the pillow yet again, Sunset listened to Adagio move to the front door.
“Don’t go too far,” Sunset said.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do. We went over this already.”
“I know. It was advice.” Sunset then giggled. “And I’d just like you to be nearby if I want you.”
Adagio made a, “Psht,” noise, then stepped outside, leaving Sunset to her waning thoughts and the rising sounds of birds and breeze.
“Besides,” Sunset muttered as she yawned. “I got a lot more questions to ask you.”