//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Alliance // Story: The Secret Affair of Sunset Shimmer // by lambentLogic //------------------------------// The pact was forged, alliance sealed by the tight squeeze of clawed hands in an alley, and Sunset started to add some somewhat more secretive meetings to her schedule. Cadenza’s lessons had had an air of plausible deniability to any manipulation tactics she shared - just a social art, easily cloaked in the upbeat language of How to Win Friends and Influence People - but Chrysalis was much more forthright with her new apprentice, away from eavesdroppers and her disguise. Chrysalis did not care if she hurt humans. She taught Sunset what made for effective lies, threats, extortion and - control. Ways to wrap a naive and trusting population around the shortest of Sunset’s strange new digits and make them dance to her tune. To be adored and feared in equal measure. Sunset did not have Chrysalis’s fey senses, not yet, but the taste of it was delicious. One part of their arrangement still bothered her, though - Cadenza’s apparent close affection with Shining Armor. The two were openly dating, and as Sunset gained more insight into what made these humans tick, she could increasingly tell he was quite taken with his team captain. Also all the ways in which he wasn’t like her at all. He was capable, sure, but he also lived up to his name. “Hey, so - what’s up with you and Shining Armor?” Sunset asked one of their meetings, surprising herself slightly. There were some obvious answers to guess at, but she wasn’t quite sure about any of them. “Just a nice enough guy even a bad girl like you fell for him?” She asked wryly, quirking one eyebrow. Chrysalis chortled in answer, a raspy buzzing sound that held none of her delighted amusement back. Sunset basked to be entrusted with the inhuman noise, fondly regarding the fierce fey’s gleefulness at her light teasing. Seemed like a positive sign. “I have no love for Shining Armor,” Chrysalis dismissed once she’d again found her voice. “The boy is a means to an end, nothing more. But as tools go, he is a quite useful one.” Sunset wasn’t sure the matter-of-fact statement warranted her strange flood of relief. She’d expected as much, or so she told herself. Part of her warned that she might be in the same position and was met with an indifferent shrug from the rest of her, which was rather intrigued by the idea of being in the same positions Chrysalis might have put Shining Armor into. What she asked, though, was - “What end?” Chrysalis’s plan was horrifying. Chrysalis’s plan would be a tactical masterstroke; strengthening the power of her flock while simultaneously conquering a prestigious, yet beneath the notice of military intelligence, lair of operations in which to hide themselves - Crystal Prep Academy. The wings Chrysalis gave wouldn’t be optional. Sunset was aiding her anyway. What choice did she have, really? Help the alluring, beautiful, powerful, magical woman who was her one true friend in this world, to conquer and claim power rightly due her. Or … No. There wasn’t another choice. Not for anyone who would seize greatness.