First surprise: the portal had an end. As Sunny fell, she became aware that she was falling toward a glimmering point of light in the distance that grew larger and larger as she fell.
Second surprise: it was daylight. When Sunny finally burst out of the darkness of the portal and into the glorious sunshine of her final destination, the first thing she did was squint her eyes to adjust to the bright light.
Third surprise: there was ground.
Sunny looked down and saw a massive structure of old, toppled stone below her, and she seemed to be heading straight toward it. She would flatten upon impact, turning into a Sunny smoothie.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself as the wind whistled in her ears and whipped at her mane. “Alicorn powers, come on!”
Golden light shimmered in her peripheral vision, and her wings snapped open, catching the air and jerking her to a painful halt a couple feet above the cracked stone floor before her wings flickered out of existence again, and Sunny landed in a heap on the cold stone.
“Ouch,” she moaned, pushing herself to get on her hooves, stand up, and have a look around to see where she was.
Sunny was standing in the middle of the old stone ruins of what might have been a castle, or a temple of some kind. Collapsed stone masonry was everywhere, with old tapestries and dusty decorative rugs still hanging on the walls. There were jewels embedded in some of the stone, making Sunny think that this place must have looked very impressive in its golden days. Bushes and other plants had begun to grow between the stones, making them uneven. At the end of the room she was standing in, which was open to the sky, the roof having collapsed long ago, was a dias with two thrones on it. But the most breathtaking thing was the massive crystal tree in the center of the room, with crystalized pink leaves and what looked like windows and balconies and stairways. Sunny sensed something familiar about it, but before she could pinpoint what exactly it was, she glanced up - and gasped.
Stretched across the achingly blue sky was another dagged scar, just like the one back at Opaline’s lair, only this one was in the sky. It was just as dark and twisted and ancient, and, as Sunny watched, something came falling out of it as she had surely done.
The thing landed between the two thrones at the end of the room: a black goopy blob that, upon impact with the ground, took the form of a wolf. From the looks of it, this was the largest wolf, the one who gave orders to all the others.
Sunny felt a flash of annoyance. She jumped through a portal to escape those guys, and even that didn’t work. But soon all she felt was fear as the wolf growled at her, angrier than she had ever seen it, and stepped menacingly toward her. Sunny hurriedly stepped back, tripping and stumbling on the uneven stones as she went, her mind wildly searching for a way to defend herself and get her friends back, but coming up with nothing.
The wolf snapped and snarled, its white eyes flashing.
Suddenly, a blast of magic came from just behind Sunny. It hit the wolf in the shoulder, causing it to stumble.
Sunny gasped and looked up.
A pony was galloping into the castle, a hood pulled low over their face and a scarf covering their muzzle. The pony also wore a kind of short cloak that obscured their cutie mark and boots that made their hooves on the stone make almost no sound. The only thing that Sunny could see was the stranger’s horn, blazing with bright pink magic as it approached her. Sunny hurriedly tried to get out of the way in case this strange pony was going to hurt her, but the stranger sped right past Sunny and blasted the wolf again. And again. With each blast, the wolf took a few steps back, growling and shaking its head, trying to shake off the newcomer’s magic.
“Quickly!” the strange pony shouted to Sunny. Her voice was muffled by her scarf, but Sunny could have sworn she had heard it before. “That’ll only daze it - we have to get out of here!”
Normally, Sunny wasn’t one to go running off with a stealth pony who had just fought off an evil shadow wolf without a little bit of knowledge about their intentions, but she didn’t have much of a choice right then. She followed the stranger out of the castle just as the wolf’s howl split the air.
“This way!” she shouted as they dashed through the forest surrounding the ruins of the castle. “We have to get to the lake - it’s the only safe way in now!”
“What lake?” Sunny asked, turning to look at the other pony as she spoke, and paying for it by nearly toppling into a wide expanse of water at the edge of the woods.
“That lake,” the stranger clarified. “Come on, it’s not too far now!”
Sunny glanced behind her and saw the wolf running toward them from the forest, and she eagerly followed the stranger around the edge of the lake and up a dirt path. Sunny kept glancing back to see if the shadow wolf was gaining on them, so she didn’t see that they had arrived until the stranger held out a hoof to stop her, said, “In here. Quickly!” and shoved Sunny through a door before she followed suit.
Wherever they were, it was dark. The strange pony lit her horn, magenta light illuminating the small space they were in. It looked like a storage closet for cleaning supplies, and Sunny looked at her rescuer questioningly, but before she could say anything, the stranger opened another door with her magic and trotted outside. Sunny, not seeing another option, followed.
The closet opened up into a hallway that was, thankfully, bright and lit. There was a carpet along the floor, and the walls were lined with framed certificates and pictures as well as trophy cases, vases of flowers, and the occasional artifact displaying a crest: a six-point magenta star on a purple background, with different colored gems between the branches of the star.
It was so familiar, but Sunny couldn’t quite recall where she had seen it. She frowned, trying to remember, but the other pony was moving along, and Sunny didn’t want to get lost.
“What is this place?” Sunny asked, looking around in wonder. It was so bright and airy, and there were so many other doors leading off of the main hallway. She glanced out one of the windows and saw a small lake spreading out just outside.
“It’s the only place where we can be safe anymore,” her rescuer explained. “We aren’t sure why yet, but I have my theories, of course.”
“You say ‘we’... but we haven’t seen anypony else.”
“You’re right. Most of them stay where they’re sure to be safe. That’s where I’m taking you now.” The stranger turned into a large room that was filled with bookshelves. Sunny felt her eyes grow wide, and she felt her hooves itching to grab one or two volumes to see what secrets they held, but this wasn’t their final stop. The strange pony walked around to the back of the room, where there was a vent in the floor. Using her magic, she levitated the vent up, revealing a crystal ramp hidden beneath it, and gestured to Sunny. “After you.”
Sunny stepped down the crystal ramp, her hooves slipping and sliding. She finally managed to reach the ground without falling flat on her face. The stranger came in after her, leaping down much more gracefully than Sunny had done, and levitating the grate back into place. The whole thing kind of reminded Sunny of the abandoned airstation back in Zephyr Heights, and she was overcome with sadness when she thought about her friends.
“This way.” The strange pony led Sunny through twisting stone tunnels punctured by so much crystal that it reminded Sunny of the secret treehouse on the inside of the Tree of Harmony. Or maybe Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle in Ponyville. The tunnel finally came out on a balcony overlooking a large circular room emitting a strange kind of glow. Six crystal tree branches had climbed their way up the wall and met at a mural on the ceiling of the sun. Down below were dozens of tents and sleeping bags, and hundreds of ponies and creatures.
It made Sunny do a double-take to see all manner of dragons, changelings, griffons, kirins, hippogriffs, yaks, and buffalo mingling among the ponies there. Most of the other creatures seemed to be younger than a lot of the ponies, but seeing them still reminded her of her friends. She wondered where they were right then…
“Wait,” she said, looking out over all the creatures and ponies there. “Why are you all down here? Is this… is this where you all live?”
Her rescuer snorted a laugh. “For now, yes. A few days ago, those shadow wolves, like the one you saw back there, fell out of that rip in the sky and began attacking. They can capture ponies and trap them. All of the survivors gathered here, at the School of Friendship, in the one place it seems that the wolves can’t touch us. We are safe here, so this is where we stay.”
It was all so much information that Sunny couldn’t process it all at once. The strange pony turned and led Sunny to a set of stairs that brought them down to the same level as the tent city.
“Twilight!” called a voice, and a blue pegasus flew up. She had a rainbow mane that she blew impatiently out of her face and was dressed the same as Sunny’s rescuer, only her hood was pulled back to reveal her rose pink eyes and fierce expression. When Sunny saw her, she gasped, and her mind started working double-time to try and process what she was seeing.
“What were you thinking?” the pegasus demanded, landing in front of the strange pony and glaring at her. “You just disappeared! We were so worried, and you can’t go out there, you know those wolves are looking for ponies by themselves. You could have been captured, or - or worse! You’re the ruler of Equestria - you have a role to play, and you can’t just go gallivanting about like that!”
Sunny’s rescuer sighed and pulled back her hood and scarf so that they hung around her neck. “Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry, but as ruler of Equestria, it’s my job to make sure that ponies are safe. I had to go out there and search for anyone who might have gotten left behind-”
“You can’t protect anypony if you’re trapped in some shadow wolf!”
“I’m sorry, Rainbow.” She tossed her mane, which was an indigo color with stripes of violet and pink. Her lavender coat matched her horn, which poked up through her bangs. Her purple eyes were bright and powerful and a little bit scary. She glared at the pegasus, and the pegasus glared right back.
Sunny was gaping now; she looked back and forth between the two ponies, unable to find words. She forgot how to speak, she forgot her friends, she forgot her own name… All she could think of was the old story her father used to tell her. Once upon a time, many many moons ago in ancient Equestria, there lived a very special unicorn…
The purple unicorn finally noticed and shook her head. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Rainbow, this is, uh… what’s your name?”
That’s a good question, Sunny thought. What is my name?
“I, uh, um, I, ah… S-Sunny,” she finally managed to stutter.
Her rescuer nodded. “Rainbow Dash, this is Sunny. Sunny, this is Rainbow Dash.” The pegasus nodded to Sunny, a serious look in her eyes. “Oh, and I’m Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”
The last thing Sunny saw was the floor getting very close before she blacked out.