//------------------------------// // Forgiveness // Story: Sunset Eclipsed // by EldritchNexus //------------------------------// On the human side of the portal, Ghost was discharging more rounds in the direction of the policemen, while taking a few bullets himself. Fortunately for him, the experimental Changeling combat armor he wore was highly resistant to small arms. He was able to hit one of the officers in the leg, and another had his gun shot out of his hands. "Give up, officers." the enforcer casually told them, as he finished reloading his rifle. "Your guns can't hurt me! Don't make me break orders!" Suddenly, the three cops were swiftly struck down by a series of melee attacks from another figure in Changeling armor, who appeared out of thin air just behind them. The officers lay non-fatally incapacitated on the ground as the two armored men walked up to each other. "Sergeant Craw, it is so good to see you again, this evening." the enforcer said. "I think we can report to the Supreme Commander that this new armor works well!" "Corporal, I can't believe you." Sgt. Craw groaned, frustrated. "You disobeyed one of my direct orders! You weren't supposed to engage the police in direct combat yet! How are we supposed to get Principal Celestia to cooperate with our organization if we just start shooting members of the local law enforcement agencies in front of her school?" The corporal looked over at the statue, in front of which he previously had seen Sunset Shimmer on the ground. But now she had vanished from sight. "I understand you, Sarge." said Ghost. "But they caught me by surprise, and just when I had Sunset Shimmer right where we wanted!" "Corporal, where is she now?" Sgt. Craw's voice rose through the black, face-concealing helmet he wore. "I know that you had her here, now where is she?" "That terrible pony-girl bucked me in the legs while I had her pinned down." the corporal admitted. "Next second, I'm having a bit of a tussle with her by this statue. Then she appeared to be surrendering, when the cops started shooting at me. I had no choice but to return fire. When I looked over to discover where she went, I couldn't find her anywhere. It's like she just...disappeared." "Then let's send a message to Supreme Commander Chrysalis, asking her for reinforcements." Craw said. "Sunset Shimmer can't have gone far from here. If we hurry, we can have an entire squad of Syndicate commandos in town, and we'll be able to hunt her down by next month." "Very good, Sarge." saluted the corporal. "We'll get that filthy pony soon!" They heard the sounds of police sirens in the distance, indicating that the police officers' call for back-up had been successful. "I know a place where we should be able to catch Sunset Shimmer." Sgt. Craw said. "She has an apartment a couple of blocks from here. Follow my lead." The two armored soldiers suddenly faded into the surrounding environment, just as a pair of squad cars, an ambulance, and a paddy wagon pulled over across the street. Several policemen climbed out, and started swarming the front yard of Canterlot High. Unfortunately, they were unable to catch the men responsible for the shootout. Craw and the corporal looked on from down the street, to see the police had dispatched paramedics to resuscitate the wounded officers. Craw made a gesture for his subordinate to follow him. "The building should be right around the corner." Craw said. "Ghost, cover the rear. I don't want any of those cops tailing us!" "Yes, sir." acknowledged Corporal Ghost. They walked around the corner, and entered the apartment building with absolute stealth. They utilized their cloaking technology to sneak past the landlord's desk, and climbed the stairwell to the third floor. "Here it is: Room 32." Sgt. Craw told the corporal. "If the door's locked, get ready to breach it." Ghost checked the door, but was surprised to see it was already ajar. The two soldiers loaded their weapons, and pushed the door open, to find that it was unoccupied. They turned the light on, to find that the room was decorated in red and golden wallpaper. There was a small bed with amber sheets in the middle of the room, with a dresser on the front end. There was a TV set and a radio along the wall opposite of the doorway. "It looks clear, Corporal." Craw said. "Let's get this armor off of us." He tugged his mask off of his head, toggled off the electronics on his body armor, and stripped down to his casual wear. He piled his gear onto Sunset's bed, and propped his scoped carbine against the wall. Cpl. Ghost followed suit. "Sarge, do you think she'll come back soon?" Ghost asked, once his armored mask was removed from his sweating face. "She might." Craw said. "Unless she's hiding in one of the nearby buildings, or she skipped town. Though if she tried that, the Syndicate's satellite network would be all over her." "Right." Ghost nodded, looking around the apartment. "This really doesn't look too shabby a place to live, once you get over the fact that it probably smells like a petting zoo." He was sniffing the room cautiously, as if checking the air for the stench of fecal matter, but was relieved that the apartment's owner at least knew how to use a toilet. He decided to look under the bed, and excitedly started digging some objects out from underneath it. Mostly, there were relatively mundane things: discarded clothing, old magazines, empty water bottles, and other things one might find under any normal teenager's bed. Once or twice, Ghost found a sharpened pencil or a dusty-looking notebook. "Wow, this pony's been studying hard, hasn't she?" Ghost muttered as he skimmed through the various equations and essays written on the many loose pages of the first notebook he found. "My cousin's the biggest math whiz I know, and not even he writes this much stuff down." He decided to check the magazines, and saw that they were mainly about fashion trends and celebrity gossip that already became irrelevant months ago. Then he reached further under the bed, over what felt like an empty soda can, and felt a large wooden object. He reached in with both hands to try and grab it. Meanwhile, Craw sat down on a bare corner of the bed, turned the television on, and decided to check the news. There was a deadline report from Canterlot High, where a television reporter was broadcasting at the scene of the incident that occurred only a few minutes earlier. This was probably the first time that a news report was made regarding that school since last month, on the day after Sunset Shimmer's battle with Twilight Sparkle and her friends. "This is Pressure Point, with Channel 15 News." the reporter said. "And we are here on the front yard of Canterlot High, at the aftermath of a brutal shootout between three police officers, and as eyewitnesses claim to have seen, one or two armed suspects in high-tech military armor." "Well, how'd you like that?" Craw said, turning an agitated face at Ghost, who was still searching under the bed. "Although no fatalities have been confirmed," Pressure Point continued. "absolutely none of the officers present during the firefight are in any condition to give us a detailed description of what the long-gone attackers looked like. Apparently, all three of them were wounded, and then knocked into severe unconsciousness by what was clearly brute force. One person, on the other hand, claims to have seen the offenders appear and disappear in plain sight of his upstairs window." "Yeah, that's right." said a tall young man in a leather jacket, approaching the camera. "I can tell you that even though I saw it from so far away, I could hear the guns going off, and lots of shouting. And for the rest, I could tell that there was something more to it than just random gang violence. One took a whole bunch of bullets to the chest, and shrugged it off like it was nothing. The other just popped up behind the cops, and kick-boxed the heck out of 'em! And then I saw both of them vanish from the front of the school just a few minutes later, right when the other police started showing up." "Were there any other people that you can recall being near the scene?" asked Pressure Point. "Did you see anything that went on before the shootout began?" "Well, I heard a woman yelling loudly near the school's statue about something, and that woke me up." the witness said. "So I walk up to my window to shout for her to be quiet, and I see some big guy pointing a gun at her head. I would've gone down to help, or got the cops on the phone, but I was too interested in looking at the guy with the gun. He had some pretty cool stuff on him, like he came straight out of a sci-fi movie." "Sir, can you elaborate on this?" the reporter inquired. "You know, big bulky power armor, futuristic-looking guns, and cloaking devices!" the young man said. "Like something out of..." "Sir, I meant the woman in question." Pressure Point flatly corrected him. "What did she look like, and what happened to her?" "She looked pretty skinny, and had long hair." said the young man. "She was probably in her late teens. I wouldn't be surprised if she was one of the students here at the school." "Whatever happened to her, though?" asked the news reporter. "Well, the guy had the girl bend over in front of him, yelled at her about something I couldn't make out, and then the three cops showed up in their car. They were all shouting at each other for a while, and then the man fired his rifle in the air. That's when the shooting began." "What about the girl?" "No idea. I saw her kicking her legs back at the guy in his knees, but then I was too focused on the fighting to see where she went after that. She probably made a run for it, though. That's what I would've done." "And...unfortunately, that's all we have time for." the reporter stated, cutting off the witness. "This is Channel 15 News, advising you viewers at home to keep your eyes open for any further incidents of this sort. If you should become aware of any further sightings, please report to our news station, and to the police department. This is Pressure Point, signing off." Then the news report cut straight to the weekly weather report. Craw decided to start looking around the apartment for anything that could help them find Sunset Shimmer's whereabouts. He had never been in Sunset's apartment before, though the address did come up in her school files. He noticed that apart from the bedroom, there was also a small living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom interconnected with each other by doors. In the living room, Craw found various photographs of Sunset Shimmer on the walls, mostly from school. Whether it was posing as the winner of whatever contest she participated in, or hanging around with Flash Sentry, Craw couldn't help but put his eyes on Sunset. He was surprised and even amused to see a small photograph in a stand next to Sunset Shimmer's laptop, from around the time Craw was first befriending her. In that picture, they were affectionately shoving slices of pizza into each other's mouths. He then realized how thirsty he was, having been running around all night. He decided to raid the fridge of the kitchen, and started chugging down a bottle of soda that he found inside. Craw couldn't help but smile for a brief moment; when they were still friends, Sunset once said she would keep some bottles of Craw's favorite drinks in her kitchen, in case he decided to visit her. Neither of them ever thought it would be for an occasion like this. And then Craw reminded himself that she turned out to be some dimension-hopping humanized pony, and frowned again. "It never would've worked too well, anyway." Craw thought. Then he decided to shift his thoughts back to the Syndicate's efforts in subduing Sunset Shimmer. "It really isn't working too well for us." Sgt. Craw rambled on to himself, once he finished his drink. "At this rate, the entire town will be in chaos before we can even find her again!" "Sir, I just found something very interesting!" Ghost said, pulling out a box from under the mattress, which he had been straining to pull out for the past few minutes. "What is it?" Ghost pulled out a book from inside the box. "It doesn't look like something you just borrow from the school library, now does it?" he shook his head. "Check out these arcane-looking runes all over them." Craw decided to check out the box. He pulled out several books and scrolls. He felt like he was opening a humongous birthday present. "Wow, you gotta check this out." Ghost said, as he was reading a page from the first book he pulled out. "That Sunset Shimmer may be a pony, but you've got to admit that's she's got some complex-looking stuff to read." "Yeah." Craw said. "She probably brought it over from Equestria, or Unicornia, or whatever that place is called." "What should we do with all this stuff?" the corporal asked. "Well, it should be obvious:" the sergeant answered. "We pack it up, and confiscate it for Supreme Commander Chrysalis' archivists to examine." "Right you are, boss." Cpl. Ghost said. "But what about that pony-lady? What if she comes back, looking for her books?" "You're right." nodded Sgt. Craw. "We'll stake ourselves out here for the night, in case Sunset Shimmer returns. If she doesn't come by morning, then we'll radio a message to the Supreme Commander...and then..." "Then what?" the corporal asked. "We'll request," Sergeant Craw said, as he examined one of the magic scrolls. "that she start deploying Syndicate troops into this town. This is already starting to look a lot bigger than it should be." Unseen by both Craw and Ghost, a lone man stood on the sidewalk outside of the apartment building, looking up at the window of Sunset Shimmer's apartment. He grinned maliciously, and then turned to walk down the road, disappearing into the night. In Equestria, Sunset Shimmer was being sent to Canterlot by train. During the mid-afternoon, she was brought to the palace’s throne room, where she was prepared to be questioned and ridiculed by Princesses Celestia and Luna. For a while, she remained quiet, allowing her former mentor and her sister to chew her out. “Sunset Shimmer, as happy and relieved I am to see you have finally returned to Equestria.” Celestia said. “The things you did before you had done so aren’t what I would have asked of you.” “You caused much before you came back here.” Princess Luna added. “First, you try to steal the crown of Princess Twilight Sparkle…” Sunset Shimmer simply responded with a raspberry at Luna’s mention of the name. “And then you apparently transform into, as Twilight described it, a power-crazed demon, and attempt to invade Equestria with an army of brainwashed humans.” Princess Celestia said. "I know, I know!" said Sunset, irritated. "Really, It's not like I actually meant for that stuff to happen! I wasn't even in complete control of myself when I turned into that demon!" “I understand that, Sunset." said Celestia "But even in exile, I expected better to come out of you!” “Of course you did.” Sunset rolled her eyes, and turned her head away from the two alicorn sisters. “Sunset, listen to me…please.” Princess Celestia asked, gently. “I know that you wouldn't do such wicked things of your own accord. That's why I am willing to give you another chance to redeem yourself in my and the rest of Equestria’s eyes.” “Why would you do that, Princess?” Sunset asked skeptically. “What makes you think that I would want to be your loyal subject again?” “That is why you returned, is it not?” Princess Luna asked the now-fuming unicorn. “Buck no!” Sunset snapped, indignantly raising her voice at the younger alicorn sister. “I came back here because your sister’s favorite little kiss-up dollface of a student ruined my life!” Under most circumstances, Luna would've ended such outbursts by shouting back at the offender with the Royal Canterlot voice. But this one was a special case: Sunset Shimmer was not yelling out of anger or vengeance, but from confusion, anxiety, and fear. Since she herself went through such hardships for a while after her own evil was destroyed by the Elements of Harmony, Luna was only too familiar with this. “Sunset, I understand you are upset…” Princess Celestia attempted to comfort her former student. “And why wouldn’t I be?” The young mare ranted on, turning her head back to the elder Princess. “Nobody ever took me seriously after that, and even started pushing me around! And that’s not all. Principal Celestia—your counterpart in the human world--suspended me from Canterlot High for two weeks straight, and didn’t allow me to participate in or even attend any competitions after that! She even had the local police force dog me around every other hour of the day to make sure I didn’t do any more harm. And you know what else? This happened as soon as Twilight Sparkle left me to fend for myself, and had been going on for thirty days straight! And that was all before someone I thought was my friend tried to have me killed, just for being a pony!” Princess Celestia and her sister were taken aback, and felt even more sympathy for the mare. “And that is when you returned through the portal?” Luna deduced. "Yeah, only to be arrested a couple minutes later!" said Sunset. "Really, Princess Celestia. If you wanted me to come back here, you shouldn't have let your niece ship me back here like I was going to be on death row!" "Sunset, I realize that Princess Cadence was a little overzealous with arresting you and sending you here the way she did." said Celestia. "But I trust that it was all a misunderstanding. Cadence is Twilight's sister-in-law, and is very protective of her. And she doesn't quite understand your situation the way that I, Twilight, and Luna do." "I'll believe that when I see it." said Sunset, rolling her eyes. “But how were you able to use the portal to come back to Equestria in the first place?" asked Luna. "We thought that it could only open every thirty moons.” “Well, as it turned out, that’s not always the case.” Sunset informed the two princesses. She thought for a moment, and decided not to mention the text message or the mysterious K.N.. Or at least not yet, since she felt this would only raise more questions. “Upon further investigation, I recently discovered that it could also act as a one-way passage to the other world once every thirty nights.” “Interesting.” Celestia said, exchanging nods with her sister, before turning back to Sunset with a frown. “I’m actually surprised that you only just now made this discovery.” “You’re what?” Sunset glared furiously. “You mean you could have told me about the one-way portholes when I was still with you, and you never did?” “Sunset, I didn’t want to tell you, because exploiting those one-way passages could have brought greater imbalance to the two worlds!” Celestia admitted. “I often wish I did, though. I missed you so much these past few years.” Sunset Shimmer was outright distraught, and was shaking all over. But she managed to choke out a few words. “And I…” she stammered uneasily, as if her own words were hurting her. “I…missed you, too…Princess Celestia!” Suddenly, she shook her head bitterly, bowed it in shame, and sniffled loudly. She felt Celestia put a hoof on her shoulder to comfort her. “Now, now, my dear Sunset.” Celestia said calmly. “You’re back in Canterlot, safe and sound. You can put all of your cares away until tomorrow.” "I almost died last night." sniffled Sunset. "And I wouldn't have been in that mess if Twilight didn't make me stay behind!" "But I'm sure Twilight didn't mean it!" said Celestia. "I'm sure she only left you behind so that you could learn about friendship from her friends there." "Believe what you want, but it doesn't change the fact that what happened happened!" growled Sunset. "Yeah, I did some bad stuff in the past, but I didn't do anything that warranted almost getting shot by some psychopath!" "I understand, Sunset." said Celestia. "Just please calm down! I love you, Sunset. I always have, and always will." "You...you mean it?" asked Sunset. "With all the honesty in my heart." said Celestia. "If you're still upset at me and Twilight, I understand--" Then Sunset Shimmer lost all self-control, and began sobbing loudly, with long tears streaming down from her green eyes. “Shhh…you’re going to be fine, Sunset.” Princess Celestia whispered gently into her ear. “You’re going to be fine. Please control yourself.” "I...I'm..s-so..." "You don't need to say it, Sunset." said Celestia. "I know. And I also understand that you're tired and scared. You've gone through a lot before you came back here. Just relax yourself...please." Sunset Shimmer finally stopped crying, and lifted her head back up with a determined look on her face. “Okay. I’m ready for anything, Princess!” she said, rubbing the dried tears off her face with her right hoof. “Anything you want me to do, I’ll follow it. Just say the word. Sunset Shimmer’s back in business!” “Sunset, dear?” Princess Celestia said, raising her head. “I am glad to see you back to your old self. And since Twilight Sparkle has already learned so much from me, I am willing make you my personal student again.” Then Sunset hesitated, and her face shifted anxiously. "But what if everything repeats itself, and I turn evil again?" asked Sunset, nervously. "Listen, Princess Celestia. I have a very bad feeling about this. I'm...I'm scared of what might happen if I were to go through the same routine as last time. I want to help you out, for sure. I really do! But is there some other way I can do it? I don't wanna end up turning into that demon again! And I couldn't stomach any more of the pain and torment that I went through when--" Then Celestia bowed her head, so that she and Sunset were each staring into the other's eyes. "The choice is yours, dear." said Celestia, with a smile. "If you have any suggestions on how the methods could be changed, I am all ears." Sunset opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her. She tried again and again to come up with a solution that would allow her to redeem herself in a manner that was beneficial to both Equestria and herself, but she couldn't think of any. She started to sweat all over, and her breathing became heavy. Suddenly, a miracle happened: Princess Luna approached them. “Pardon us, sister.” Luna interjected to Celestia. “With all due respect, could we perhaps…” Princess Celestia and Sunset Shimmer tilted their heads curiously towards the Princess of the Night. “Take Sunset Shimmer as our…my student?” Luna requested, even dropping the use of the Royal “We” for the occasion. Sunset Shimmer felt her jaw drop. “I just yelled at you, a Princess, not even five minutes ago!” the unicorn stated with surprise. “And you still want me to hang around with you?” “Of course, Sunset Shimmer.” said Luna. “I see much of myself in you, actually.” “You’re joking!” “I do not joke about matters such as these.” Luna said. “I once fell down the same path as you. Are you at all familiar with the ‘Mare in the Moon’?” “That was you?!” Sunset quickly deduced, mentally adding the pieces together. “It was.” Luna nodded. “And it was thanks to Twilight Sparkle and her friends that I was free of the evil that corrupted me for all those years.” Sunset Shimmer frowned at the mention of Twilight’s name. “How am I supposed to compete with that, Princess?” she asked. “I mean, they have the Elements of Harmony! I’m just…” “Hush, Sunset.” Luna told her. “You are by no means inferior to them. I will not hear another word about it.” Turning to her elder sister, Luna asked: “May I take Sunset Shimmer under my wing?” “Why, of course you can.” Celestia chuckled. “You don’t need to ask me about that! Unless, of course, Sunset says otherwise.” Princess Luna blushed, and sheepishly turned to face Sunset. “Sunset Shimmer, Will you be my pupil, and follow my example?” the dark-coated alicorn asked. After a moment looking back and forth between the two Princesses, Sunset finally shifted her undivided attention to Princess Luna with a smile on her face. Not a cruel or sarcastic smile, but a genuine smile that exhibited gratefulness. “Yes, Princess Luna.” She said at last, with a bow. “I shall gladly do whatever you ask of me!” Suddenly, Princess Luna bellowed in the Royal Canterlot voice. “Huzzah! From this day forth, thou shalt become my personal pupil!” she began, before catching herself, and continued in her normal speaking voice, but with the modern dialect. “And welcome back to Canterlot, young Sunset.” "Thank you!" Sunset cheered, even louder than Luna. "You're the best, Princess Luna! You're so awesome! You don't know how much this means to me!" "Slow down there, Sunset." chuckled Celestia. "Let's not get too excited." Sunset Shimmer blushed, and gave a simple nod. "So, when can I start training under you, princess?" she asked Luna. "Well, I suppose we could review a few things that you've learned under my sister." said Princess Luna. "But I must admit that taking on a student of my own is, for the most part, alien to me. So you must forgive me if I neglect to teach you anything new. At least, anything that you might find noteworthy." "I understand, princess." said Sunset, nodding mechanically. "But if all goes well, I may have a few sessions of my own for you in the future." said Luna. "But again, I will have to review what you've already learned, so that I don't make you feel as though I were holding you back." "Well, I'm ready when you are, boss." said Sunset.