Comes the Sunset
Chapter 1
The Happy Return
Sunset Shimmer stood in the midst of ruin, looking around her at the destruction that was everywhere present.
It was Canterlot. She recognised it now. The first few times she had seen this sight she been confused, not knowing where she was. Or possibly she had not wanted to believe the evidence of her own eyes.
The gleaming golden towers lay sundered and broken, the gilded spires lying in the streets amidst white marble rubble and the broken forms of ponies. The streets were covered in them, lying in between the piles of brick and timber, or sometimes half buried beneath them. Some of them were ponies Sunset recognised: Lyra Heartstrings, the captain of the school duelling club, Breaking Dawn who had gotten her expelled from school, her own colt friend Flash Sentry.
Trixie lay motionless upon the palace steps, her blue eyes open, staring vacantly up at a sky growing dark as smoke obscured the sun.
Sunset knelt beside the body of her best friend. Though she knew that this was not real, it felt wrong to pass by Trixie, like this was an arcade game level she had played so often it no longer had the power to effect her.
"You should have come with me, Trixie. I could have protected you," Sunset whispered. "Now...with what I have to do, I'm not sure that I can." She had already been warned that the cost of her burden would be high, and that she would be required to shoulder it alone. That would present no obstacle, she had been alone since she was a filly, and had not only survived but triumphed over every challenge.
Sunset looked up to where the palace doors stood half off their hinges, blackened by fire, the archway gaping open.
The royal palace was a burnt out ruin, the roof torn open and the throne room exposed to the elements. Ash fell from the sky upon the dais and shattered throne, turning the crimson carpet black as pitch. Dead guards, their armour tarnished with blood, littered the floor, but there was no sign of Princess Celestia.
Sunset Shimmer was no stranger to sights like these. Other ponies, had they been in receipt of such a dream or vision or whatever this was, might have recoiled in shock. Sunset was no such pony. She had seen such sights as this before, been the cause of such more than once, and she was professional enough to recognise the signs of a city sacked when she saw one. But to see it done to Canterlot... it felt wrong to her. The city was a sanctuary, or so she had recalled it in her exile. To bring war upon it, war in such savagery, would require the soul of a beast.
She suspected that was why she had been drawn home, why she was being shown this. Equestria was at the mercy of a beast, and nopony could withstand the savagery which threatened them. Sunset Shimmer had left home because she felt a tiger amongst sheep, yet now the tiger was to be loosed upon Equestria's enemies, for what were the lives of a few lambs when the entire flock teetered upon the brink of destruction.
"Hello," Sunset called out. "Are you there? I know you're here somewhere." She always was, her night time visitor.
"I assume you want me to stop this," Sunset shouted. "Come out, and tell me how. Tell me who is behind this."
There was no response, except the wind howling through the dead city and the last half-standing towers crumbling and falling.
Sunset turned away from the broken throne and the shattered stained glass windows, her hooves scuffing a fragment of lavender glass, part of a trail of such fragments leading back towards the window pane. Sunset could make out enough to guess that it was an image of Princess Twilight Sparkle, the last mare standing of the sequence of fillies who had taken it in turns to jump through Celestia's hoops. A fat lot of good being the lucky winner would do her, if this vision had any truth to it, and a fat lot of good she would do Equestria.
"I'd say you should have stuck with me, but then if you had, I wouldn't have the skills I need to save you now, would I?" Sunset murmured. Funny the way that worked. Fate had a sense of irony, it seemed. That the prodigal daughter should become the saviour while the chosen one would be...dead? Useless? An active hindrance? Sunset knew enough of Twilight Sparkle to know that she might have to be dealt with - hence why she had brought the Labyrinth Box - but she hoped it would not come to that. She would destroy in order to save if she had to, but she would rather keep the destruction to a minimum.
She left the palace, stepping lightly down the scorched steps and wandering through the broken streets. She stepped over more bodies, ponies beyond count, looks of terror and surprise etched upon their mortal remains. Most of them she did not give a second glance. Only one, a dark blue unicorn with a silver-white mane, made her stop and stare.
"No," Sunset whispered, running towards the body, hoping she was mistaken. "No." The word was torn from her throat in a low moan, Sunset's voice cracking as tears welled up in her eyes. "No." She cradled the tiny pony in her hooves, rocking her like a baby as a piercing cry ripped from Sunset Shimmer's mouth. She wailed like a mother bird returning to her nest to find the eggs smashed or stolen by cruel poachers.
"I'm sorry, sis," Sunset murmured, holding Eclipse tight against her as if her warm would bring her sister back to life. "I'm so sorry. I'll make this right, I promise."
She looked around. "All right, where are you? I get the message. I came, didn't I? I'm in Equestria! Why don't you stop messing around, come out where I can see you, and tell me what's going on?"
No answer. Sunset supposed she shouldn't be too surprised, she had never gotten an answer yet, just lectures. Still, she had thought things might be different now. She had done everything that was asked of her, she deserved some answers.
"I'm going to make this right, sis," she repeated, laying Eclipse back down upon the ground. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
She got up and walked towards the edge of the city. It was there, standing at the edge of the mountain drop and looking out over the river and the broad plains of central Equestria, that Sunset found the one who had summoned her. She was an alicorn, and she looked very alike to Princess Celestia, if maybe a little older and without the agelessness that Princess Celestia carried so well. But this alicorn's mane waved in exactly the same style, and if the colours were a little different, incorporating pale yellow and several streaks of pure white, the multi-coloured effect was much the same. She wore no crown, but Sunset thought a diadem would not have looked out of place upon this pony's head.
Sunset walked briskly to join her, intent upon getting some answers at last. But, before she could speak, she first had to gasp at the sight she beheld as she looked out across the country.
Equestria was burning.
Ponyville was in ruins, smoke rising from several of the buildings to join the great black cloud forming in the sky above. The Everfree Forest was being devoured by fire. The flames of war were spreading in all directions across the land. Sunset could see no fallen ponies, but she had no doubt she would have done had Ponyville not been so far away.
"Who is behind all this?" she murmured. "Who dares to shatter the peace of Equestria so?"
The alicorn said nothing, giving no sign that she had heard Sunset. Sunset had worked out from earlier visitations that she was an observer upon these scenes, not a participant. Anything that was said, though it was spoken to her, was spoken without reference to her words or actions. It was very frustrating.
"Can I stop this?" Sunset demanded futilely. "Is this what you brought me here to avert? Or is this all inevitable, and I am here for something else entirely?"
"The future is not set," the alicorn said. "There is no fate but what we make."
Sunset sighed with undisguised relief. Eclipse, Canterlot, there was still time to save them all. "What must I do?"
"There is still hope," the alicorn seemed to reply. "This can be averted, if you act quickly. But you must act, because you alone can change this destiny. The power to do so resides within you."
"Well, obviously, otherwise my being here would be pointless, wouldn't it?" Sunset snapped. "Besides, who else in this land can do the things that I can do? Who else can do what has to be done?"
"Do not ask why you were chosen."
"I didn't," Sunset said.
"But accept your fate. However reluctantly you must take this burden upon yourself, or all things good and true and worthy of life shall perish. I am sorry. I wish there was another way."
"Save your apologies and your sorrow," Sunset said. "This is what I am and always have been: a warrior. I make no apologies for that and I require no excuses to be made on my behalf by you or anypony else."
"You are probably wondering who I am? What is the purpose of these visions?"
"How astute of you," Sunset replied dryly.
"My name is Creatrix. I am long dead now, I suspect, but I sent these visions to you so that you may act where I failed. Look up." Creatrix looked upwards, and Sunset followed her gaze. Beyond the pall of smoke covering the sky, Sunset could just about make out the stars in the heavens, their pristine glistening a stark contrast with the devastation engulfing the world.
And then, as she watched, the stars started going out.
Sunset swallowed. "That's not the smoke obscuring our view, is it?"
"The all-devouring storm approaches," Creatrix said. "When the heavens will tremble and worlds will quake. All will depend upon the results of your war here. If you can stand firm and defeat him here, then his malice will recede from all worlds. If not, then there is not a single world that has the power to stop him."
"Him, who is he, who is behind this?" Sunset asked. "Is it Moloch?" she half-hoped it was. On the one hoof, she had no doubt her patron could do a lot of horrible things to her if he wished, but on the other hoof, she would relish the opportunity to show him that nobody owned Sunset Shimmer.
"I cannot help you," Creatrix said. "I can only warn you of the danger. Only you can act to prevent this fate."
"I will do whatever it takes," Sunset vowed. "This future shall not come to pass."
"You must unite the races," Creatrix said, absolute certainty ringing in her voice. "Divided as you are, you will fall or destroy each other as your predecessors did long ago. You are all so small, so vulnerable, so helpless, I cannot protect you any longer."
"They don't need you, they have me," Sunset said firmly. "They will follow me to salvation or I will break them and reforge them into a stronger blade."
"Somepony must unite them."
"I will, and lead them through this darkness and into the sunlit uplands beyond."
"Somepony must protect them."
"I will stand before this darkness and keep the safe until the storm has passed."
"Somepony must lead them."
"Under sun and moon and stars I, Sunset Shimmer, swear to do this thing." Sunset grinned. "Have no fear. For I am a hero whose fame has spread far and wide across the stars. I will not fail. I never do."
"Aeternus may appear, and try to mislead you," Creatrix said. "Do not trust him. And do not trust to friendship, this burden is for you alone."
"Isn't everything?" Sunset asked.
***
Virtuous Fury, who had been known as Virtue to his friends and was now referred to as such by his new mistress, sat under the shade of a tree in the Everfree Forest, the knots and tangles of the tree bark digging into his back as he read.
Well, not read precisely. His mother, bless her, had never gotten around to teaching him to read in the too-short season allotted to her, and so all Virtue was able to do was stare at the pages and the black spidery letters stamped all over them without the meanest scrap of concentration. His mother had read to him, and his brother and sister, when they were young, and later on Glory or Vigilant had been good enough friends to read to him when he was feeling out of sorts. But there was no one in this company he liked half so well that he would ask them for such a favour, none before whom he would disarm himself enough to let them know his dreams, see his fears, perceive his vulnerabilities.
There were none, more to the point, whom he would allow to share with him in anything which had, until then, been the preserve of those ponies who commanded a special place within his heart.
And so he sat with his back to a tree, ignoring the scratching sensations as he did so, and stared at words he could not read. Some of them he remembered, words memorised from having them read to him over and over again, and as he mouthed them to himself he could almost hear his mother's voice reading it out to him as he sat with Gem and Felix before the hearthfire every night.
"Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,
And in the combat soon shall put to flight,
For the old Roman valour is not dead,
Nor in Italian hearts extinguished," Virtue murmured. He had always liked that one because it had seemed to be about him. He had no idea who the Romans or the Italians had been ─ the Hippokastaian traders would share only the meanest scraps of knowledge with their trading partners ─ but as a colt the idea of reviving ancient traditions, being the inheritor of Chevalia's venerable legacy of chivalry and courage, had appealed to him. Had not his mother raised him so, to be the Last Firstborn of Old Chevalia, the pony who would grow up to save his world and lead it into a new golden age?
Now, of course, the little poem resonated more in the sense of the two halves of himself being pitched against one another in battle. He just wished he could be so sure of virtue's triumph as that long dead human had been.
Or even Virtue's triumph, if it comes to it.
He heard hoofsteps coming towards him, so he slammed the tattered old book shut between his hooves and stuffed it into his knackered old saddlebag. These Equestrians and the like knew nothing of other worlds beyond their own, had never heard of humans or their works, and he was not keen to change that. Words had a magic more powerful than that of unicorns, as it was said, and he was not at all sure these zebras and folk could be trusted with such power.
The hooves in question belonged to Muttines, the zorse captain of the zebra forces camped in the Everfree Forest. Muttines was the son of a zebra father and a pony mother, and he had most peculiar coat that Virtue had ever come across: zebra stripes across his head and upper neck, then a pure white lower neck and forequarters, and then stripes again on his hindquarters. Even his mane and tail changed colour, his mane being first black then white, while his tail started off white and then turned black. Most zebras were bigger than ponies, and Muttines was no slouch when it came to size, but when Virtue stood up he had a couple of inches on the Grevyian officer.
"Ser Knight," Muttines said, bowing his neck. Virtue had not known him long, but he had already learnt the way that Virtue liked to be addressed. It was more than Mistress Sunset had managed.
"Esteemed captain." Virtue, in his turn, had tried to learn the various subtleties of talking to the Grevyians. By calling Muttines 'esteemed', he marked him as Virtue's subordinate, but at the same time made his respect for the captain clear. "What is it?"
"Revered Lady Sunset wishes to speak with you," Muttines said. "Immediately."
"I see, lead on then." Virtue knew the way, but there was no need to be impolite.
Muttines led him away from his place of solitude and back into the main Grevyian camp. Concealed deep within the eaves of this dark and tangled forest, five hundred zebras, two hundred and fifty ponies, some griffons he had not troubled to count and even a small clutch of elephants waited to be unleashed upon the little town of Ponyville that lay before them.
They waited, of course, upon the word of Sunset Shimmer, who commanded not only this force but also the greater host of thousands who lurked just off the coast for her command to invade.
The zebras maintained an orderly camp, their tents pitched in neat rows, their campfires tended to with constant care and vigilance, their war elephants well fed and watered. Sentries patrolled the camp outskirts against the dangers of the wild or the discovery of careless travellers, while other warriors guarded the prisoners that the expedition had already yielded up.
No banner flew over this camp, and unlike most of the Grevyian warriors Virtue had met, not a single one of these zebras wore any facepaint, or bore markings of any kind to indicate to which of the great houses they were sworn. These zebras were the last survivors of House Aethiope, which dynasty had fallen after the failure of their attempt to capture Canterlot and secure Equestria for the Most Ancient and August Empire of Grevyia. Virtue, along with Mistress Sunset, had watched as the other noble families had torn Aethiope apart, scattering their warriors, taking their lands, slaying Lord Aethiope's heirs. These five hundred zebras and their score of elephants were all that remained of the Aethiope strength, and though the family they served had been proscribed and eliminated, they clung to one another with the fervour of those who had nowhere else to turn to.
Most of the other zebra lords, the same zebra lords who had happily exploited the fall of a rival to increase their power, disdained this remnant. Virtue found he trusted them more than most zebras. They fought to regain their honour, and he could sympathise with that more than they knew.
Mistress Sunset, as befitted her status as the commander of the expedition, the anointed representative of the Grevyian Emperor and lead of the grand coalition - that was, at the moment, not so grand but Mistress Sunset had high hopes and serene confidence that it would be soon - had the largest tent near the centre of the camp, an eight-sided pavilion of cloth of gold, trimmed with fiery scarlet like Sunset Shimmer's mane. Rather than make his way straight there, however, Virtue paused a moment to drop off his pack at his own tent, and to make a brief visit to the prisoners who sat in chains around a communal fire.
They looked an odd trio: the zebra (a Quaggai zebra, as every Grevyian had been at pains to inform him with a sneer in their voice), the changeling and the unicorn. Considering how frivolous ponies where in this country, Virtue would not have been surprised if they had a jest that started in just that way.
"Good evening, ladies," Virtue said, proffering a slight bow. "I trust that you have been fed? If not I shall have somepony attend to that at once."
Chrysalis, the changeling queen, hissed at him like a particularly angry cat. The unicorn, Miss Trixie, flinched away from him. It was only Miss Zecora who answered in a calm, clear voice.
"Thank you, Ser Knight, it is good of you to ask,
But this morning we've already broke our fast."
"Good, good," Virtue said softly. "I trust it was not wholly distasteful to you."
"It was terrible," Chrysalis spat. "Swill fit for swine. Now, if only I could feast upon some love-"
"Absolutely not, you monster," Virtue said sternly. "Mention it again and I shall have you gagged."
"Are you going to set Trixie free now?" Trixie pleaded. "This must be a mistake. Trixie was Sunset's friend. Trixie wants to talk to Sunset, then you'll see. She was Trixie's friend."
"Not any more, obviously," Chrysalis drawled. "It isn't as though you just happen to live here, you've been caught on purpose, just like me."
"But it isn't right," Trixie protested. "Trixie hasn't done anything."
Zecora leaned forwards to shoot Trixie a quizzical look, to which Trixie responded by saying, "Recently."
"Life isn't right, honey, any more than it is fair," Chrysalis said. "If life was right, I'd be ruling in Canterlot right now and Celestia would be trapped in one of my cocoons." She looked at Virtue slyly. "You know, if you let me go I promise to command my subjects not to kill you when they arrive to rescue me."
Virtue scowled. "You will forgive me, ma'am, if I put little stock in the word of a creature born to deceit. And besides, a knight of Chevalia does not trade his honour for so cheap a thing as life." He looked at Zecora. "You, on the other hand, ma'am, are free to go at any time. You have my terms. You need only give me your word that you will tell nopony, no one, of our presence here and I will have these chains struck from you."
Zecora met his gaze levelly. Her voice, when it came, was cool but not overtly hostile. "You have come into this forest here,
To bring some mischief to the ponies dear,
Who dwell beyond these woods in yonder town,
Do not deny it, you confirm it with your frown,
Though it is true I was not always loved,
Once I, my good intentions had at long last proved,
They were the first folk ever to embrace me,
Their kindness I will not repay with treachery."
"What?" Trixie demanded. "Promise not to tell and then run away and tell somepony! Get help! What are you doing?"
"Displaying a sense of honour lacking in this country, it would seem," Virtue remarked. "I regret your decision, ma'am, but I respect it. You are a fine mare, I regret that I cannot call you friend."
"I think I'm going to gag," Chrysalis said.
"I regret, I do not villains call my friends,
Nor will I, unless first they make amends."
"I am not a bad pony ma'am," Virtue said. "We are not the villains of this tale. Our cause is noble, the very noblest, and if we must commit distasteful acts our noble object justifies them."
Zecora said nothing, but her look said plainly that she did not believe a truly noble cause could ever be advanced through ignoble means. Virtue did not have an argument with which to counter such a view, if he even believed it should be countered, and so he bowed and retreated from their presence before resuming his journey towards Mistress Sunset's tent.
Firethorn was standing guard outside. He was a young pegasus with a light brown coat and a jet black mane, which he wore bound up in a topknot on the back of his head. His cutie mark was the silhouette of a hound, apparently because he had some skill at tracking but, speaking for himself, Virtue found it more appropriate for the way he stood guard over Mistress Sunset.
Firethorn looked at Virtue with hostility as he approached, rising to his feet and placing himself foursquare in Virtue's path.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
Virtue stared at him. He loomed over the young pegasus, but he had the lack of fear the colt showed in face of somepony larger, heavier and stronger than himself. Not to mention the fact that Virtue looked half-demonic in appearance with his pitch black coat and blazing red eyes, and that tended to disconcert most ponies. Although that was less true here than it had been elsewhere. They did not fear darkness in this land, as they did back home and in places that knew sorrow and the ravages of the smooze, he would have to get used to that he was not marked out in this Equestria as he might be elsewhere.
But Firethorn was no more an Equestrian than Virtue himself, so his fortitude still resounded to his credit.
"I was not aware that I was required to explain every detail of my movements to you, forgive me," Virtue replied, lacing his words with sarcasm.
Firethorn scowled. "I won't allow you to jeopardise Sunset's success by your malingering."
"Malingering?" Virtue laughed. "We are not in battle now, nor is the enemy so much as in sight. When danger threatens, you may brand me malingerer, but not before."
"Your duty─"
"I do not require a colt as green as summer grass to lecture me upon duty," Virtue snarled into Firethorn's face. "I am a knight and I have been at war since I was half your age."
Firethorn opened his mouth to reply, but Mistress Sunset chose that moment to emerge from her tent. "Firethorn, that's enough."
Firethorn stopped at once, bowing his head. "Yes, Sunset."
"Have you completed the first book of Polly Math's Histories yet?"
"No, Sunset."
"Keep reading then," Sunset said. "I will test you on it when you're done."
Firethorn mumbled something under his breath as he walked away.
"You sound more like his teacher than his commander, Mistress," Virtue said softly.
Sunset let out a bark of laughter. "I suppose I do, don't I? What would Princess Celestia say, I wonder? Well, he has no parents, nopony he listens to but me. I want him to be fit for more than fighting, so that he can live in the world when the fighting is done."
"You think the fighting will ever be done, Mistress?"
"I hope so, or else what's the point," Sunset replied. "And if all I've made of that colt is one more mindless thug then what was the point in saving his life?"
Virtue frowned. Firethorn did not give the impression of possessing any great aptitude for scholarship. He seemed, at times, little better than an animal. But then the same had been said of him once, and yet a wise unicorn had taken Virtue beneath his wing and made a knight of him.
"It is a noble thing that you attempt to do, Mistress. For Firethorn, and for this country."
Sunset smiled wanly, sitting down in front of her tent and staring into the fire that Firethorn had made for her. Though the zebra nobles she led off to war were attired in all manner of gaudy finery, Sunset Shimmer herself was dressed simply, swathed in a dark cloak with a hood that was, at present, lowered. Yet, by some act of magic beyond the power of unicorns, she cut a more striking figure than the most heavily adorned of the High Bloods of Grevyia.
As she gazed into the flames, their reflection flickering in her blue-green eyes, she looked so distressed that the chivalrous gentlecolt in Virtue wanted to place his leg around her shoulders and reassure her that all would be well. The knight in the presence of his lady commander, however, was content to say, "You look troubled, Mistress. Is there anything I may do to ease your burden?"
Sunset shook her head. "No. She was quite clear on that point. The burden is mine alone to bear. I know now why I was bidden to return here, and I understand what I must do and why. But I will confess, I fear the price that must be paid. I have been called to save Equestria, to save the whole world, yet to save it it appears I must destroy much of it also."
Virtue bowed his head a little. "Mistress, I am at a loss. I fear this is not a struggle in which I can assist you."
"Fortunately I don't need you to fight all my battles for me, just the large scale ones," Sunset replied. She placed her hoof in the fire without flinching. "I don't feel anything. Can you believe that?"
"I can indeed, Mistress Sunset," Virtue said, placing his own hoof in the firepit next to hers. "Since my earliest memories, I have taken no heat from flame and felt no warmth. Yet the cold bites me twice as hard as any other pony I have ever known."
"You poor boy, for me it happened much more recently," Sunset looked pained, by the memory, not the fire, before she withdrew her hoof. "I do not truly belong in this world. Or in any other, I sometimes fear. Yet, it is because I do not belong in this world that I am the only mare who can defend it, no matter the cost." She looked up at Virtue. "We're more alike than I thought."
Virtue said nothing. Mistress Sunset rose to her feet. She said, "I'm going to Canterlot with Shrike. You are in command until I return. Don't let anypony find you, but don't act until I come back."
"I am your second, mistress?" Virtue asked.
"That surprises you?"
"Talon has been with you far longer, Mistress, and he is as experienced in command as I."
"I don't trust Talon, not any more."
"Yet you trust me, Mistress?"
Sunset smiled slyly. "You know what I'd do if you turned on me, don't you?"
"I am well aware, Mistress."
"It's nothing personal. I find it hard to trust anypony any more." Sunset's horn glowed, and she levitated a glowing blue sphere on a golden chain out from her tent and placed it around her neck, concealing the sphere within her cloak.
"If I may, Mistress, before you go, I suggest you speak to Miss Trixie. She has been asking for you."
Sunset looked pained. "I suppose I better had, hadn't I? I owe her that, at least. Since I mean to leave straight after, I'll say goodbye now."
"Good luck, Mistress," Virtue said.
Sunset walked towards the three captives, while Virtue headed deeper into the camp, looking for trouble now rather than storing it up for later.
The non-zebra portion of the advanced force consisted of three groups: Shrike's Shadowbolts, which he understood to have been the name of an old and prestigious company once but which now meant the fifty or so vagabond pegasi she had enlisted to her cause, a hundred pony warriors conscripted from the Tenochtitlan valley basin after Sunset's forces had occupied it and brought down the local tyrant, and the surviving members of the Sunset Company, ponies and griffons who had served as mercenaries under Mistress Sunset's command. Virtue did not think that the Shadowbolts would prove particularly troublesome, especially since their captain would also be absent, but he wanted to nip any impudence from the valley ponies and the mercenaries in the bud as soon as he could.
But it was Shrike that he ran into first, a light blue pegasus with a midnight blue mane and gleaming golden eyes. A quick smile spread across her face at the sight of him.
"I hear you get to boss everypony around while me and Sunset are in Canterlot? How does it feel?"
"I prefer commanding when I am sure those I command would not prefer me dead," Virtue replied.
Shrike laughed. "You could try unbending a bit if you want ponies to like you, instead of wandering around with that stick shoved up one end and coming out the other."
"Don't be vulgar, ma'am, please."
"You see, that is what I'm talking about," Shrike said, shaking her head sadly. "When I get back, we'll have to try and teach you to have some fun."
"I already know how to have fun," Virtue said reproachfully.
"Ballroom dancing does not count as fun," Shrike replied firmly. "Anyway, I've got to go or Sunset Shimmer will leave without me. I can't miss a trip to Canterlot, I need to find out what happened to the Shadowbolts after I left."
Virtue thought that after a thousand years it was most likely their bones had crumbled into dust, unless they had all been thrown through magical vortexes.
But all he said was, "Who is your second in your absence?"
"Lightning Dust," Shrike said. "Full of herself, cocky as all get out, but having seen her fly, she's got a right to think she's all that; she pretty much is. Just don't hesitate to get tough with her if she gives you any trouble."
"I'll...keep that in mind, ma'am."
"And stop calling me ma'am, my name is Shrike," Shrike said angrily, before dashing off to find Mistress Sunset.
Virtue let her go, continuing to look for Talon and Nahuatl, the leader of the valley ponies. Fortunately, he found them together, muttering to one another with scowls affixed to their faces. At the sight of him, their scowls became even more pronounced.
"Gentlecolts, um, gentlegriffons," Virtue said calmly.
"Apparently I'm to call you sir," Talon growled. He was a griffon, whose grey feathers were brushed up like spikes running down his neck. He wore battered iron armour, and had a large sword slung across his back.
"That is what Mistress Sunset has decreed," Virtue replied.
"Why should I follow you?" Nahuatl demanded. He was a blue stallion, wearing a red-crested headdress and looking like he quite badly wanted a spear in his hoof. "Why should I not take my folk home right now."
"Because I won't allow it," Virtue said calmly.
"You see the thing is, I don't particularly want to call you sir," Talon said. "And I think if anything were to-"
Virtue didn't wait for them to finish, any more than he waited for them to attack him. He struck first, going for the more dangerous of the two: Talon. He hit the griffon with a full body tackle that carried the mercenary right off his paws and claws before he could react. Talon's talons raked down Virtue's shoulder, but he ignored the pain as he reared up onto his hind legs, lifting the griffon up into the air, then brought himself down to plant Talon headfirst into the earth. Talon's squawk of pain turned to a moan as Virtue planted his forehoof into the sellsword's face.
Nahuatl roared with anger as he lunged for Virtue's exposed rear, but a single kick from Virtue's hindlegs sent him flying backwards eight feet into the nearest tree.
"Now both of you, listen to this," Virtue snarled. "I know that you do not like me, and I do not particularly care seeing as I do not much care for you either. But you will obey my commands or so help me I will kill you both. Do you understand?"
They both groaned softly, which he took to be a yes.
***
Although she had asked Sunset to come and talk to her, when she saw her old friend stalking towards her like some kind of predator, Trixie found she would have preferred to be ignored. She flinched away as Sunset got closer.
"What are you doing, Trixie?" Sunset asked, seemingly genuinely. "You're not...you're not scared of me are you?"
Trixie, who was making gallant efforts to hide behind Queen Chrysalis, nodded.
Sunset looked both hurt and ashamed. "Come on, Trixie. It's me."
"That's what's scaring Trixie the most," Trixie replied. There was something not quite right about the pony standing before her, something she couldn't put a hoof on but which was definitely there. It would have been unnerving in anypony, but the idea that this was what her best friend had turned into was filling her stomach with lead and ice. "What happened to you, Sunset?"
"I grew up," Sunset replied simply. "Though I suppose I should thank you and Flash for starting that off, Trixie."
"Did you go through that mirror?" Trixie asked. "I heard that you'd disappeared."
"Yes," Sunset said. "I went through the mirror. You were right to stay behind. You wouldn't have survived out there."
Trixie's eyes widened. "Was it...bad?"
"Terrifying," Sunset replied simply. "And the worst part is I can never go back to being what I was, even if I wanted to. But that's all in the past now. I'm back. And I won't ever leave again." She smiled insincerely. "Now, I suppose you want me to take those shackles off you, seeing as how we're such good pals and you never did anything to upset me, ever."
Um...only if you want to," Trixie squeaked.
Sunset sighed and looked away. "You see, the trouble is Trixie is that it's all too late. If things had been different, if we had been different, maybe I could help you. But when you refused to lift a hoof to help me out of pure cowardice, you started to teach me a lesson. Later, some other folks finished off that lesson: the difference between a somepony called a friend and somepony who isn't is that, while everypony wants to betray you, a friend has the means to do so."
"I wouldn't ever betray you, Sunset, I swear," Trixie said loudly. "I promise, I won't say anything to anypony about you or any of this."
"There's an east wind coming, Trixie," Sunset declared.
Trixie hesitated, trying to work out what that was supposed to mean. She looked at Zecora, who seemed curious but reluctant to speak, and then at Chrysalis who acted as if the whole conversation was beneath her.
"It...it's too warm for an east wind, Sunset," Trixie ventured.
Sunset chuckled. "It's coming, all the same. I know because I'm riding on its wings. When the wind passes, whatever is left of Equestria will be better, stronger, purer. But before that happens this land will have to endure the coldest and most bitter wind that ever blew upon it. Times will be hard for lots of ponies. You may not mean to, but you would sell me out to survive. You'd have to. And I can't take that risk. The stakes are too high to allow myself to fail. So you'll stay here, as my guest, for a little longer."
A light blue pegasus with a midnight blue mane made her way to Sunset's side. "Are you ready to go?"
Sunset nodded. "Yes, I'm ready. Trixie, for what it's worth, I am sorry that it had to come to this."
Then Sunset's horn glowed with magic, and she and the pegasus both disappeared in an azure flash.
***
The guards pushed the doors open, and Hardy Bloom was admitted into the presence of the princesses.
Princess Celestia sat upon her throne, her multi-coloured mane waving despite the complete lack of any sort of breeze indoors. Beside sat Princess Luna, looking subdued and just a trifle uncomfortable. Guards flanked them, and attendant secretaries stood ready to record the royal word.
Under the gaze of the two princesses, Hardy was reminded of the first time she had ever gone to court and how she had nearly quailed under the stern gaze of the judge. She forced herself to breathe in and out slowly and calmly. She had mastered her fear in court, she would master it here. After all, this was just as important as any case she had ever tried.
A guard signalled for Hardy to stop at a certain distance from the throne and Hardy halted, taking off her saddle bags and unfastening her suit jacket.
"Miss Hardy Bloom, isn't it?" Princess Celestia asked. "I'm told that you have requested an audience to petition for something."
"Indeed, Your Highness," Hardy said. She unfastened her saddle bags and out of one of them she took a box which she set down on the floor beside her.
"What is that?" Princess Luna asked.
"That's my soapbox, Your Highness, I like to have it ready so I can get on it for my big finish," Hardy replied.
Luna's eyes narrowed. "Glibness will not serve you well here, Miss Bloom. We suggest you take this seriously."
"Believe me, Your Highnesses, there are few occasions I take as seriously as this," Hardy said. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment and thought of everypony who was counting on her today. She opened her eyes. "Princesses, I don't suppose that you're aware of this, but Breaking Dawn was vandalised two nights ago. Somepony spray painted her right foreleg green and wrote the words 'Down with School' down her flank."
Celestia nodded. "I am well aware of that, Miss Bloom. I suspect, and the faculty agrees with me, that it was students engaging in horseplay. I understand the damage has been removed from the statue by now."
Hardy's jaw tightened to hear her friend referred to as the statue, but she continued. "Your Highness, whether or not the damage has been removed, whether or not whoever did it is caught, the fact is that it shouldn't have happened. I stand before you, here, to correct an injustice. I'm here to speak for somepony who can't speak for herself any more. I am here, for Breaking Dawn."
"You are very bold to come here and treat on her behalf," Luna remarked.
"Bold, am I?" Hardy smiled. "You should tell the circuit judges that, it's nicer than most of the things they call me. But no, I don't think this is particularly bold of me. In fact, I'm very confident that Your Highnesses will see things my way. After all I'm here on behalf of the little ponies, and we've got justice on our side."
"Justice?" Luna said, her tone filled with disbelief. "You talk of justice in reference to a traitor? A mare who poisoned Princess Cadance and plotted against Princess Twilight Sparkle."
"That's a strong, harsh way of looking at it," Hardy said.
"I would call it an honest one," Luna said.
"Peace, Luna," Celestia said softly. "I think, Miss Bloom, it would be best if you first told us what exactly you came here for, and then try to explain why we should grant your petition."
"What I want?" Hardy started pacing up and down, turning every now and then to look at the two princesses. "What I want is what everypony wants: I want friendship, I want laughter, I want to sit on the balcony every night with my best friend drinking cocktails and making jokes. I want to share in her successes and be there to support her in her failures, the way that she shares with and supports me. And I can't do any of that because my best friend is a statue, a statue in a school where clearly nopony treats her with any respect, treats her, in fact, like a lawn ornament."
"She is a statue," Luna pointed.
"No, she's not a statue," Hardy snapped. "She's not a statue, she is a pony and her name is Breaking Dawn. I want her taken off that plinth, I want her given into my custody and ultimately I want her de-petrified so that she can get on with her life."
"You say that as though she deserves to get on with her life," Luna said.
"Luna," Celestia's voice was quiet. "Miss Bloom, if Breaking Dawn is de-petrified, she will die."
"You don't know that, not for certain," Hardy said emphatically. "Maybe she would have done, there and then, on that night. Perhaps you saved her life, in which case Princess I will be your biggest fan for the rest of my life, but what if, somewhere out there, is a pony with the special talent that would enable them to save Dawn's life? You don't know that there isn't, you haven't even looked. I am willing to look, my friends and I, Dawn's friends. We will search everywhere, we will leave no stone unturned. All we want is for you to tell us that when we find that special pony, you won't stand between them and Breaking Dawn. And in the meantime, please, take her off that plinth. It's demeaning and humiliating and it degrades her."
"Perhaps she would have preferred to have been robbed of all her memories?" Luna asked archly.
Since it was clear she was getting nowhere with Princess Luna, Hardy focussed all of her attention upon Celestia.
"Your Highness, I know that Breaking Dawn made mistakes. I know that I helped her make them, and I am very grateful that you decided not to punish me or my compatriots for our actions on Dawn's behalf. But I would like for you to understand, I need you to understand that Dawn's actions were driven by love, not hatred. Breaking Dawn loved you. She loved you so much that she couldn't live without you or at least without knowing that her love was, in some way, reciprocated. And, yes, it drove her to do things that were stupid, things that were wrong but, in a way, that just goes to prove how deeply devoted to you she was, how true was her love."
Hardy climbed up onto her soapbox. "One of the most infuriating, and at the same time the most wonderful things about Breaking Dawn, was her unlimited capacity for hope. That's something that most of us lose somewhere along the way as we grow up. We stop imagining that tomorrow will be better, because we realise that it most likely won't be, and so we compromise with the world and accept that things are the way they are for better or for worse. Dawn never did that. Dawn never stopped believing that she could do better, even when she was at her lowest she saw hope for a brighter tomorrow. Even after you replaced her with Twilight Sparkle, even after you kicked her out of school, despite all the jobs she lost, despite every humiliation that was heaped upon her Dawn never compromised and never stopped hoping. She always held on to who she was, and how much she was worth, and she never doubted that one day her sense of her own worth would be reciprocated by everypony else."
"And now, look, she's on one of the stain glassed windows helping to fight off zebras. She freed you from captivity. She is a hero to ponies who don't even know her name and what is her reward? To get covered in graffiti by bored kids. I do not believe that that is right and I very much hope that you don't either or you are not the princesses everypony thinks you are."
Hardy looked down at her brown hooves, then back up at the princesses. "If you want to exile Dawn for what she's done, then that is your right. I can't stop you. I don't think anypony can. But, please, don't treat her like a garden gnome, don't leave her in that school to be gawked at for a thousand years. Because we're talking about a pony, here. We are talking about my best friend, somepony I love very much. Let me help her, and then you can deal with her as you wish. Just, please, deal with her as a pony."
For a moment, silence reigned in the throne room.
Celestia leaned forward. "Miss Bloom, you make a very persuasive case. However, I am afraid you must give me time to consider the points you have raised. If you return here tomorrow, at the same time, then you shall have your answer."
Hardy breathed a sigh of relief that they were not denying her request straight away, and bowed as she got off the soapbox. "I don't suppose I have any other option, do I?"
"No," Luna growled. "You don't."
***
That afternoon, as Sugarcube Corner resounded to the sounds of furious baking, the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat forlornly at a little table, picking at their sundaes.
"You know, we might have our cutie marks by now if you'd let us try being psychiatrists," Scootaloo said.
"Well we didn't try it, and we don't have them, so why don'tcha let it go and see if you can come up with a new idea," Apple Bloom shot back. "What do we know about bein' psychiatrists anyway?"
"What do we know about anything we try?" asked Sweetie Belle despondently.
The other two offered mournful groans to state their agreement with that assessment, and their heads lowered to the table in shared despond, resting their chins upon the wood and lowering their eyes downwards.
"Maybe if we," Apple Bloom began. "No, that wouldn't work. Maybe... nah."
"Ugh, we'll never get our cutie marks if we can't even decide what we should be trying to get them in," Scootaloo moaned. "Let's try the zip lining again, maybe a bang on the head we'll give us some inspiration."
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle affixed her with looks that said quite plainly that they could not believe she was serious.
The bell above the door to Sugarcube Corner rang as a white earth pony stallion in the armour of the royal guard stepped inside. The crusaders watched as he took his helmet and hung it on the hat stand near the door.
"Afternoon, girls," he said. "I was told I could find Princess Twilight here?"
"She's in the back with Applejack and Pinkie Pie," Scootaloo said. "Are you one of her guards?"
"Lancer's the name, Captain Lancer," Lancer said.
"I thought Twilight left all her guards behind in Canterlot," Sweetie Belle said.
"She did," Lancer replied, disgruntlement showing through his tone. "I'm here to rectify that, if she'll let me. I've been stuck in Canterlot feeling useless ever since she came back here."
"We know all about that," Apple Bloom said with a sigh.
Lancer frowned. "You girls seem down about something."
"Oh, the same old thing," Scootaloo said. "We try so hard and we can never get our cutie marks."
"Everypony in class has theirs except for us," Sweetie Belle added.
Lancer sighed. "Blank flank blues, huh? I know how that feels. Do they give you a hard time over it?"
"Totally," Scootaloo moaned.
Lancer nodded. "They'll do that. My brothers gave me no end of grief for not having my cutie mark."
"But I bet you showed them once you finally got your mark, right?" Scootaloo said.
"No, I didn't get my cutie mark until after I'd left home," Lancer replied. "And I haven't spoken to any of them since."
"So how did you get your cutie mark, mister?" Apple Bloom asked, leaning back a little to peer at the spear cutie mark of Lancer's haunch.
Lancer looked upwards briefly. "I grew up in a little town just like this one, on a cabbage farm outside of Hollow Shades. I was the youngest of seven brothers, and I hated it there. I hated the farm, I hated cabbages, I hated the grief I got for being the youngest and the smallest and the blank flank in the family. I mean, looking back now it was pretty small stuff, but when I was a kid it seemed absolutely massive. So, when I was just a little younger than your sisters, I ran away in the middle of the night and headed for Canterlot to seek my destiny.
"I got there in the end, after a few mishaps and some lucky escapes, and I tried to join the Royal Guard. Some of the ponies laughed at me there too, wondering what a blank flank earth pony would bring to the Royal Guard, but the captain, old Ironsides, he gave me a chance. He threw me a spear, and when I took it in my hooves I felt a charge run through me like lightning. I was a natural with it, and by the time I'd completed the second kata I had my cutie mark."
"You sure got lucky with your name," Sweetie Belle said.
"Well, between you and me, I only started calling myself Lancer after I got my cutie mark, cause I thought it sounded cooler than the name I was given. My real name, and you have to promise to keep this to yourselves because it's very embarrassing." Lancer leaned in close and whispered, "My real name is Wet Lettuce."
"No way!" Scootaloo said. "You're just messing with us aren't you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," Lancer said, standing up with a wink. "But the rest was true, I promise. Now, I need to talk to Princess Twilight."
"Here I am," Twilight came out of the kitchen, with Applejack close behind. "Now, shall we talk outside. About your business and about stories that are appropriate for impressionable children."
The eyes of the Crusaders followed them as Twilight hustled Lancer out of the building, unheeding of the fact that Applejack was watching the three of them like a vulture.
Grew up on a farm...ran away to Canterlot, Apple Bloom thought. Hmmm.
The three of them looked at one another.
"Don't even think about it," Applejack said firmly.
"We weren't thinking nothin' sis," Apple Bloom protested.
"Well you're right about y'all not thinkin', but still," Applejack said. "That don't change the fact that I can see the wheels in yer head turnin' Apple Bloom and I won't stand for it. You ain't runnin' away to no big city if I have to truss you up in Winona's dog house to stop you."
"Why not, you did it when you were younger'n I am," Apple Bloom said loudly.
"And I wish that I had had an older sister to wup me upside the head and tell me what an idiot I was bein'," Applejack said. "Not to mention that I told everypony where I was goin' first. Were you really thinkin' about runnin' off someplace in the middle of the night? Can you imagine how upset Granny Smith would be? Or Big Macintosh? Or me? How worried we'd all be about you?"
"But this might be our chance to find our destinies and earn our cutie marks," Apple Bloom said.
Applejack rolled her eyes, "For the last time, you ain't gonna find your cutie mark by runnin' off and doin' crazy things or pullin' stunts. You'll get them by working out what kind of pony you want to be and acceptin' who you are."
"But what if the kind of pony we want to be is in Canterlot or Manehattan waiting for us?" Scootaloo asked.
"Then they can wait a few years until your old enough to make the trip responsibly," Applejack said firmly.
Sweetie Belle raised her chin defiantly. "You're not our sister, you can't tell me or Scootaloo what to do."
Applejack gave her a slightly incredulous look, as if she couldn't quite believe that Sweetie Belle had gone there. "You know what, you're absolutely right, I can't make y'all do anything or do anything to you."
"That's right," Scootaloo said. Apple Bloom, who could guess what was coming, had her head in her hooves.
"But I can tell Rarity and Rainbow Dash all about this nonsense and see what they have to say about it," Applejack said.
Sweetie Belle's face froze, then fell, her whole body slumping forward. "That's a low blow."
"So long as it worked, that's all that matters," Applejack said. "And remember, if I find the three of you gone I'll know exactly where to start looking."
She turned around, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders put the idea of running away to Canterlot to seek their destinies aside.
"Seriously, can we just try the zip lining again?"
"No!"
***
Shrike circled around Canterlot for a while, flitting above the streets, flying over the rooftops, before she finally found what she was looking for: the Canterlot Museum of Ancient History. She was still getting used to the fact that the world she had left behind was already ancient history to everypony who lived now, but however weird it felt, this was the place she wanted, and so she landed on the white marble steps leading up to the museum and began to climb up towards the temple-like building.
So this was the capital now, huh? That was another thing that would take some getting used to: the capital she knew was gone, the place where it stood turned into a wild forest ─ Wild! Could you believe it? ─ and the palace of the Royal Sisters destroyed. The last thing Shrike herself remembered she and her fellow Shadowbolts had driven the Royal Guard out of that palace and raised the Nightmare Standard from the highest spire. It was when the Guard had come to take it back, with Celestia at their head, intent on purging Lady Nightmare in the mistaken belief that 'her' Luna was the true form of the princess rather than a child who had been outgrown by the mare, that Lady Nightmare had ripped open a portal in the fabric of space and bidden Shrike, her loyal captain, to go and bring her allies in their war against the sun.
"I do not know where the rift will take you. I cannot promise you will return. I ask much of you, my faithful Shrike."
"You ask nothing more of me than I would gladly give you, Lady Nightmare."
"Then go, and find me children of the dark on other worlds willing to take our cause up for their own. If the battle still rages when you return, then come to my aid. If I have fallen, then avenge me. Avenge us all. Let darkness fall."
"And never be lifted." And with those words, Shrike had dived into the swirling, crackling vortex and been hurled through space and time, passing through worlds of dream and nightmare, drifting out of thought and life itself before Sunset Shimmer had rescued her.
And then she had found out that a thousand years had passed since she had left Equestria, that Lady Nightmare was nothing more than an old mare's tale to frighten fillies, that the tyranny of the sun had not been broken, that she had been too late.
The sun shone down upon Shrike as she climbed the steps, its brightness and its heat mocking her every step, causing her to sweat in penance for having forsworn its light for the service of the dark.
She had done her duty, as all the Shadowbolts had. They were sworn to the moon. So when Nightmare Moon had commanded that the night would never end, they had done their utmost to see her will done. They were not thestrals, who claimed to love the night but deserted in face of a night that did not end.
Shrike shivered. What had become of her brothers and sisters? What was known of them in this strange new world?
A clock chimed, the loud bongs of the bells making Shrike jump half a pace into the air. So many things she would have to get used to.
She reached the top of the steps and passed into the shade of the colonnade, the long rows of ionian columns holding up the roof. Crowds of ponies were going in and out through the heavy wooden doors, colts and fillies with their parents, elderly scholar looking types, young ponies with the harassed look of students about them. Shrike slipped into the crowd and entered the museum, passing beneath three monumental statues of Platinum, Hurricane and Puddinghead which guarded the entrance. Thankfully it was free entrance, and Shrike deftly avoided the pony trying to sell guidebooks or prise donations out of the viewing public in order to get to the first map she could see.
"Right then. Pre-Migration...Migration of the Pony Tribes...Founding of Equestria...come on, where is it...aha! Rule of the Pony Sisters and Nightmare Moon." Shrike noticed the 'No Flying on the Premises' sign moments before she was about to take off to get above the crowds, and rather than draw needless attention to herself, she duly trudged through the heaving masses, stalking in between them like a cat hunting its prey. Her prey was truth, and no matter how bitter the taste she would not be sated till she had consumed it all.
Shrike eventually reached the section she was looking for: Rule of the Pony Sisters and Nightmare Moon. Inside there were a lot of exhibits inside glass cases, or on public display surrounded by red velvet ropes with large and prominent Do Not Touch notices festooned around them. As she walked through the hall, Shrike was amazed by how much of this stuff she recognised, how what had been a functional utility to her, something she would have barely even noticed as she went about her life, was now, by the magic of a thousand years, transformed into History and often caked with the detritus of time to go with it. There was one of the leaf-bladed spearheads they had used back then, brief glances told her that the guards of today used more of an arrowhead shape. Over there was a helmet of the Lunar Guard, and there was one of the first flying goggles ever developed. Shrike remembered when they had first tested those goggles, the things were worse than useless as often as not as the lenses would crack at high speed and you'd get glass in your eyes. Now look at them: an item once scorned now revered as a chunk of the forgotten past.
A large painting, entitled Frigid Winds and Burning Hearts, hung on one wall of the museum gallery. It was labelled an 'artistic interpretation' of the defeat of Nightmare Moon, from some three hundred years after the event itself. Shrike gazed at it for a few moments, letting her anger at the thing grow to the point she was sorely tempted to desecrate the canvas. Nightmare Moon was painted as a figure of monstrous proportions, so vicious, so bestial that it was unbelievable, baring her fangs to her sister like some wild animal, poised to leap on her and pound Celestia with her hooves. Her side of the canvas was a deep coal black, as though Lady Nightmare had wanted to make everypony blind instead of lighting their way by the light of moon instead of sun.
By contrast to this evil black, Celestia was all white. She radiated light, as though she was the sun instead of simply raising it. She stood tall and proud, the epitome of civilised virtue facing the feral fury of Nightmare Moon.
"That wasn't how it was," Shrike said. "Lady Nightmare was eloquent and generous to her loyal subjects, she would have been a kind-hearted ruler. She wasn't some monster. What would that have made us, her followers?"
She turned her attention to a Shadowbolt uniform in a glass case, a uniform so pristine it needed no little card to tell Shrike it was a reproduction. Beneath that there was another card, with some information about the Shadowbolts.
Reproduction Shadowbolt uniform (ceremonial) c. 80 TA
The Shadowbolts were a notorious band of ponies who gathered around Princess Luna in the years leading up to Nightmare Moon's banishment. After Princess Luna complained at Celestia's 'interfering' with her Lunar Guards, she began to assemble a force of ponies loyal solely to her. This group, called the Shadowbolts, was noted to consist of villains, vagabonds, bandits and other assorted detritus of society, drawn to Luna's service by the promise of pay and tolerance of their licentious excesses.
"No we weren't!" Shrike snarled. "Okay, a few of us were looking for a fresh start in life, but we were loyal to Luna, in the end we were the only ponies who remained loyal. That other stuff is just what ponies said about us because they didn't like our methods."
When Nightmare Moon arose the Shadowbolts, drawn by the promise of lavish rewards, remained loyal to her even while the more upright and honourable Lunar Guards attempted to restrain her.
"Because they were traitors!" Shrike hissed.
And drove the Royal Guards out of the Palace of the Royal Sisters. However, despite their best efforts they failed to prevent Princess Celestia from confronting Nightmare Moon and defeating her.
Leaderless, the Shadowbolts fled, pursued by the Royal Guard. They were cornered in northern Equestria, in an old fortress on the border with the vanished Crystal Empire. Called upon to surrender, the Shadowbolts refused and were entirely wiped out in the ensuing battle.
Shrike's jaw hung open. The words she had read reverberated in her head over and over again.
Entirely wiped out...leaderless...despite their best efforts...failed...notorious band...villains, vagabonds, bandits...entirely wiped out...failed.
"I'm sorry, brothers and sisters," Shrike murmured, bowing her head as a single tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm so sorry. I came too late. It was I who failed, not you."
She wiped the tear from her cheek, only for another to take its place, "I can't make amends for abandoning you, for failing you, for failing our mistress. But I promise you this: the world will know our story and you shall be honoured as you deserve, the bravest of the brave. The Shadowbolts shall rise again."
She closed her eyes, and let more tears fall.
***
Sunset Shimmer stood in Canterlot Cemetery, standing over a set of matching headstones. She didn't know who had chosen them, but whoever it was had chosen well. Simple designs, but with intricate flower patters garlanding each stone. Her parents had always liked flowers.
For a long time she stood there in silence, looking down at the white marble grave stones. Even when a very young colt began shouting that 'the mare over there doesn't have a shadow!' she had barely moved, except to cast the illusion of a shadow where one should have been and then smile politely when the colt's parents apologised for disturbing her.
She felt as though she should be more upset than she was.
Sunset knew, on an intellectual level, that there was no requirement for her to cry, for her to bare her soul, for her to collapse upon the graves. And yet, feeling the hollowness inside her chest, the cold void where there ought to have been heaving emotions, she could not help but feel at fault. She knew that she lost a part of herself when she accepted Moloch's bargain, but she had had no idea that she would be cutting such basic, instinctual ties.
What kind of pony could not cry for her parents?
But it wasn't as if she didn't feel. She felt the desire to save Equestria, a thrill at the thought of leading all ponykind in a great and righteous struggle, she felt a petty glee at the thought of visiting payback upon Breaking Dawn, she still felt the same driving ambitions that had driven her this far.
So why did she feel nothing in this place? Had it all just been too long ago?
"I started this for you," Sunset murmured. "That was where it all started. I was looking for a way to save you. I guess I took too long.
"But I did find a way to keep myself from joining you. I don't know what kind of consolation that is, if any, and maybe I'll be with you soon anyway as a result of this mission Creatrix has laid upon me, but for what it's worth I survived. I survived, and I'm going to make sure that Eclipse does too." That had been the greatest consolation for her: that there had been two graves, not three.
"Just so long as you don't forget to whom you owe your survival this far," a snide, mocking, surprisingly young voice said from behind her.
Sunset glanced back. It was the colt from before, the one who had been so excited to see a pony without a shadow.
"So," Sunset said. "You're one of his. I'd never have guessed, you were very convincing."
"Look mommy, the mare over there doesn't have a shadow!" the colt shouted, in a higher pitched, more childish voice. "You were getting careless, I had to do something before somepony noticed who might actually look into it. We can't have you failing before you've paid your dues to your teacher."
"I take it you don't mean Princess Celestia?"
"You know exactly who I mean."
Sunset Shimmer nodded. Indeed she did, "What about your 'parents'? Are they spies too?"
"No, they're just clueless ponies who have a son of an innocuous age. Or should I say they had."
A minute frown was the only visible reaction this obtained from Sunset Shimmer. "Give it back."
"What?"
"You heard me, give the kid his body back," Sunset snarled. "You get out of that pony suit, you send that colt running home to his parents and then you tell Moloch that I will keep my end of the bargain but he needs to leave me alone to do the job my way! This is my home, I know it better than he does. And if you ever come talk to me wearing a child again I'll kill you!"
The little colt smirked. "Okay, okay, have it your own way. Just remember: nopony breaks deals with Moloch, and those who try, regret it. Don't ever think that you're out of his reach. We can always get to you."
There was silence. When Sunset Shimmer finally looked behind her, there was nopony there.
"Jerk," she spat on the ground. "I'm your student, not your slave. I'll save this world from you or whoever threatens it, and then you'll find out why Sunset Shimmer shouldn't be taken lightly."
Her blue eyes flickered back to the graves of her parents, "You probably won't see me again. But wherever you are, be proud of me."
Sunset Shimmer turned away, putting the cemetery behind her as she trotted away. She had one more place she had to go before she called on Breaking Dawn.
Her hooves carried her to Hurricane Hospital, and to the children's ward. The hospital smelled of disinfectant, and the corridors were filled with nurses and doctors bustling about. The children's ward was painted in the brightest colours, with pictures of balloons and bears on the walls. Sunset walked briskly towards the nurse's desk.
"Hello, dear, are you hear to visit somepony?" the nurse asked kindly.
"Yes, I'm here to see a long term patient here, Eclipse?" Sunset said. "I haven't been to see her in a while, so could you tell me where she is now?"
"Of course, Eclipse, that poor girl, such a tragedy," the nurse said. "Yes, I know where she is. Are you a friend of hers? I don't believe I've seen you before."
"I'm not a friend, no, I'm her sister," Sunset said with a touch of impatience. "My name is Sunset Shimmer."
"Oh," the nurse's blue eyes widened. "I didn't know Eclipse had a sister."
"I'm afraid I've been away, out of the country," Sunset said. She smiled insincerely. "But I'm back now and I really want to see her so could you please tell me where she is?"
"Oh, of course. She's in ward F just round the corner. And I'm so sorry about what happened to your parents."
"Um, yeah, thanks," Sunset mumbled as she made her way to ward F.
She spotted her little sister at once, sitting up in her bed on the far side of the room, head turned so that you might have thought she was looking out of the window. Sunset crept up on her, and sat down on the green chair placed next to the bed.
"Hello?" Eclipse turned towards her, her sightless eyes still somehow seeming to look right at Sunset herself. "Who's there?"
Sunset leaned forward and reached out, taking Eclipse's hooves in her own. "It's me, sis. I'm back."
Eclipse gasped. "Sunset, is it really you?"
Sunset smiled, though she knew Eclipse couldn't see it. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me Eclipse. Really. I've come back."
A broad smile spread across her little sister's face, so bright it lit up the whole ward. "I knew it! I knew you'd be back some day. You're not going away again, are you?"
"I," Sunset heard her voice getting very choked. "I have to go away for a little bit, but I'll be back soon and once I am, I promise I'll never leave again. Okay?"
"Really? Cross your heart?"
"And eat a thousand needles," Sunset replied. "I...I'm sorry I couldn't be here for you when, when mom and dad..." Sunset stopped, bowing her head, unable to go on.
"Sunset, are you crying?"
Sunset realised her tears where falling on her sister's hooves. "I'm sorry, sis. I shouldn't be doing this."
"It's okay, you can cry if you want to," Eclipse said kindly.
Sunset laughed. "Thanks, Eclipse, that's nice of you to say. I'm so glad to see you. I'm so glad you're okay."
"Are you okay?" Eclipse asked. "You seem sadder than you used to be."
"I..." Sunset hesitated. "It hasn't always been an easy few years."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," Sunset said firmly. She was not going to expose Eclipse to the kind of pony she was. "It's all in the past now, it doesn't matter. But, I think I might have found a way to fix your eyes."
"Really?"
"It will be difficult, but I think I can do it," Sunset said. "Would you like that?"
"Of course, because then I could see what you look like now, big sister."
Sunset reached up, put one leg around Eclipse's head, then drew her close so that their foreheads were touching. "No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, I love you. Don't ever forget that okay, no matter what. Promise me you won't ever forget."
"I could never forget that, Sunset, not in a thousand years."
Sunset smiled through her tears. "You are the only pure thing in my life, you know that? I love you so much. I'm so sorry that I have to go now."
"Where are you going?"
"To see an old friend whose help I need with something."
"An old friend? Is it Trixie?"
"Yeah," Sunset lied. "Yeah, it is."
"Tell her I said hello. Do you think you could ask her to come and visit me?"
"I'll ask, but I don't think she's going to have time right now. Everypony's going to be very busy, very soon."
"Why? Is something going on?"
"There's a storm on the horizon, is all," Sunset said. "But don't worry, I'm here now and I won't let it touch you at all." And then she left, the quicker to finish her business in Ponyville and get back to Canterlot for good.
The darkness was gathering by this time, night descending upon Canterlot as the sun made way for the moon. Somewhere above, in the high towers of the palace, Celestia and Luna were hard at work shifting the heavens in its sphere, changing the stars in their courses. Little did they know that the courses of the stars were about to be irreversibly altered by forces beyond their control or understanding.
By the time she arrived at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, it was fully night, all the students had either gone home for the day or were in their dorms in the rear part of the school. The courtyard was deserted, not even a gardener or a porter in sight. Sunset opened the gate and a swell of nostalgia engulfed her, the memories of years gone by overwhelming her mind for a moment as the familiar sights and scents of schooldays past crashed down on her. Here she had learnt, here she had played, here she had lived. She could still remember the time she and Trixie had dumped Lauren's schoolbooks in the fish pond over there. That was hilarious, watching her getting her hooves nibbled at goldfish as she tried to get them out.
For better or worse, this school had made her the pony that she was today, and you had to respect that. Sunset Shimmer whistled as she walked through the gates and into the quad, stepping over those old familiar cobblestones until she stood before the new statue that stood on top of the fountain. The statue that, unbeknownst to the ponies who passed it every day, was actually the petrified remains of one Breaking Dawn.
"Hello there, Dawny," Sunset grinned. "How would you like to do me a favour?"
***
High above, in her chambers in one of the highest towers in the palace, Princess Celestia tossed and turned in fitful sleep.
She dreamed that she took silver, iron and common clay and mixed them all together in a giant cauldron. She took dragon fire and set it beneath the cauldron to heat it up. She used a lightning bolt to stir the ingredients as they bubbled and boiled. The silver, iron and clay all melted, and Princess Celestia blended them together and made molten gold. Then, she poured the gold out of the giant cauldron and forged it into a mighty statue of herself, a statue taller than the mountains, a statue which cast its shadow over the whole world. A statue so great, so beautiful, that all the peoples of all the world came to stare at it in awe and wonder. It’s shine was so radiant that many of those who stared at it were stricken blind. Then, Celestia took the flares of the sun and set them in the statue’s heart to make it glow, and she stole moonbeams to make it glitter, though the mare in the moon howled with impotent rage. And while ponies sheltered in the shade of the statue, warming themselves by the heat of the sunflares she had set within it, all other creatures: dragons, griffons, zebras and diamond dogs gathered in the shadow of this colossus and looked upon it in despair, for before its majesty they were as ants.
And Celestia looked at the work she had wrought and she was pleased, knowing that she had crafted well.
Then, as she watched, an uncut rock hurtled down from the heavens to strike her golden statue, shattering it before her eyes into a thousand pieces. The ponies howled in terror, while the zebras and the diamond dogs laughed like shrieking monkeys.
And Celestia stared at the head of her statue, a head that was larger than she was herself, and as she gazed at the fallen visage she saw it weeping.
“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” somepony said, cackling derisively.
“Who’s there?” Celestia whirled around, to see a pony made of shadow standing behind her, featureless and indistinct. “Who are you?”
“I?” the shadow pony tilted its head to one side. “I am the storm.” And then the shadows spread out to blot out the entire sky, becoming outstretched claws which descended upon Celestia-
Celestia’s eyes snapped open as she gasped for breath. “Guards! Guards!”
The door opened. “Yes, Majesty?”
“Ask Princess Luna to come here at once,” Celestia said. This dream was a message, she was sure of it, and Luna would know better how to interpret it than she.
It was a warning, she was certain, but what was she supposed to do with it?