//------------------------------//
// Craw Unleashed, Part One 
// Story: Sunset Eclipsed 
// by EldritchNexus 
//------------------------------//

Sunset Shimmer couldn't believe how gullible and careless she was; by allowing herself to express her love for the human world's Craw, she had given his even more dangerous Changeling counterpart the chance to regenerate his body. Her horn was glowing, and she was ready to spam King Craw with her magic. But then a sensation came over her. She hesitated, and the aura around her horn failed. She looked into Craw's red eyes, and studied his newly-restored facial features. Her heart was audibly pounding in her chest, and she was breathing uneasily.

"What's the matter, my little pony?" asked King Craw, grinning malevolently. "Getting hot under the collar, are we?"

Craw's voice was now somewhat clearer than before. He seemed to resonate a suave, but emotionless tone as he spoke. Not too different from the human Craw's. Sunset couldn't help but quiver as Craw approached her. The false king of the Changelings put one of his restored hooves underneath Sunset's chin, and tilted her head up.

"Sunset Shimmer, you have done what I thought could never be done." he said to her. "And I must say, not that I don't have the numbing pain to distract me, you are simply gorgeous."

"Oh...okay." said Sunset, nervously. "So you've got your body back to normal and I assume you can use magic. Now, what are you going to do?"

"You know, I never really anticipated that I was be restored to my original state so soon." said Craw, darting his eyes in a calculating manner. "Well, I do think this calls for a reward, my dear."

"What kind of reward?" asked Sunset Shimmer.

"That is simple, my golden beauty." said King Craw. "The opportunity to live your dream. That's right, your dream of becoming a princess."

"Where are you going with this?" asked Sunset.

"I now have the potential to overthrow the rulers of the Changeling Empire once again." said Craw. "That is, if you help me do this. I will be able to resume my rightful position as the ruler of the Changelings, and you will be able to exact your vengeance upon Lord Umbriel for endangering your family. In return, I will use the resources of the Changeling Empire to ensure that you are made a Princess. Or better yet, the Princess of Equestria."

"You know, Lord Umbriel made a very similar proposition to me a while back." said Sunset. "And here's a newsflash: I turned him down!"

"Good." said Craw. "That really displays how intelligent you are. As if anyone with even the slightest sense of independence would willingly serve under that pompous fool, let alone Queen Chrysalis. But trust me, I would not be ordering you around at all. Think of it more as...a partnership."

"Look, I'll commend you for agreeing that Umbriel is scum..." said Sunset. "But I'm not going to side with you on anything. To be perfectly honest, I don't give a hoof how the Changelings run their empire. You can all get caught in a giant bug-zapper for all I care."

Then Craw snarled.

"Very well." he said. "Then I see we will have to settle our differences at a later time."

Then he turned away, and slowly walked towards the doors.

"Wait, where are you going?" asked Sunset.

"I'm going to do what I've wanted to do for months:" replied King Craw. "I'm going to kill Umbriel. And when he's out of the way, it's open season on Queen Chrysalis."

"Craw, don't." said Sunset Shimmer.

The Changeling turned his head to face the unicorn.

"Excuse me?" he questioned in a dull tone.

"You don't want to do it." said Sunset.

"Don't I?" Craw frowned. "Don't I?! My dear, you clearly do not understand my situation whatsoever. I am restored to my physical peak. I am now at danger of being slain. Once Queen Chrysalis catches so much as a rumor of my return, her drones will be hunting for me. It is best that I kill or otherwise overthrow them all now before they do the same to me."

"But there's another way, Craw." said Sunset.

"That is King Craw to you, unicorn!" snapped the Changeling.

"Fine then, your majesty." said Sunset in a smarmy tone. "I'm just saying that there's another way you could do this."

"And what would that be?" asked King Craw.

"Go before Queen Chrysalis, and beg for her forgiveness." said Sunset Shimmer.

Then Craw let out a cold, stiff laugh that made Sunset cringe.

"Forgiveness?" he repeated. "You don't seem to understand our ways at all. Queen Chrysalis is hardly the kind of ruler that would forgive those that tried to disrupt her rule."

"But Princess Celestia is." said Sunset. "You could come back with me to Canterlot, and present yourself to the princesses. I'm sure they'll offer protection and--"

"No, absolutely not!" spat King Craw. "I refuse to humiliate myself in front of your princesses. You may have a sense of remorse or pity, but I don't! I either do things my way, or die trying! Though of course, I prefer to avoid the latter as much as possible."

"Well, you're probably going to end up dying again if you just rehash what you tried before." argued Sunset.

"Why are you so concerned about my well-being?" questioned the Changeling.

"Because..." Sunset began, but words failed her.

It took a few seconds for her to continue, but Craw was surprisingly very patient.

"Because you just remind me so much of..." she finally said.

"Let me guess: the other me, who happens to be your abusive lover."

"First off, the other Craw was not abusive." said Sunset. "Though he did get pretty angry when he found out I was a pony...somehow. Still, he was a great guy for the majority of the time I knew him. And second, I was going to say that you remind me of myself. We're really not that different, no matter how much you deny it."

Craw's face now sported a relatively neutral expression. He took a moment to think about what the unicorn had just said. He looked into her eyes, then curved his lips into an amused smile.

"Okay, kid." he said, in a bland tone. "I'll humor you...for now."





Supreme Commander Chrysalis sat at her office desk, speaking on her mobile phone.

"Now, I do hope we have come to a mutual understanding." she said, sternly. "The militant branch of your Cartel is to be dissolved, and your trafficking business terminated. If you try anything like this ever again, Diamond Dog, I will see to it that your remaining members are all wiped off the face of the planet. May what happened at San Palamino and Canterbury only be a taste of what happens to anyone that tries crossing swords with the Syndicate."

"Yes, ma'am." said the leader of the Diamond Dogs. "We only ask for your forgiveness."

Chrysalis clicked the hashtag key on her wrist-mounted computer's keypad, and hummed a few notes from a song. On the other side of the line, a loud clattering and the sounds of a struggle were audible. There was a distorted shout, a burst of gunfire, a thud, and a cry of agony before all went silent.

"All is forgiven." mused Supreme Commander Chrysalis, as she hung up.

Then there was a faint buzzing noise from the headset that was laying on her desk. Chrysalis picked it up, and fastened it to her head.

"Captain Umbriel reporting from Canterlot High!" said the voice that was audible in the receivers. "How are you doing, sister?"d

"Wonderfully, Umbriel." answered Chrysalis. "I have just concluded negotiations with the Diamond Dogs. They will never bother us again."

"Are you sure about that, sister?" asked Umbriel's voice.

"Positive." said Chrysalis. "I even had Sergeant Chitin shoot the Cartel leader's arm off for good measure."

"Ha! I didn't think those slavers would take a hint any other way!" laughed Umbriel. "Which arm, by the way?"

"His right arm." answered Chrysalis. "Fortunately for him, he was a lefty. He'll need the dexterity to call for medical assistance. And that reminds me, brother. What have you called for? I can tell that this is for more than a social call."

"It seems that Sunset Shimmer wasn't hiding out at Canterlot High, after all." said Umbriel's voice. "I have just discovered the interdimensional portal my agents learned about earlier. Not only this, but I have made contact with the inhabitants of the other side. Sister, it appears our counterparts are members of a royal family that rule over a race of insect-like ponies known as Changelings, who are supposedly our organization's counterpart in Equestria."

"Very intriguing." said Chrysalis.

"In fact, I had just spoken with my counterpart not along ago. Apparently, he is a prince-turned-lord and your counterpart is the Changelings' queen."

"That is even more intriguing." said Supreme Commander Chrysalis. "Umbee, do you think that the Changelings will be able to benefit our organization at all?"

"I'm not sure, Chryssi." admitted Captain Umbriel. "But I only have a hunch as to when we'll be able to cross over to the other side. Sister, have the archivists finished translating the books that Sergeant Craw and Corporal Ghost uncovered in Sunset Shimmer's apartment?"

"Yes, actually." said Chrysalis, taking out a file from a drawer. "We were able to translate a poem or incantation of some sort that we assume explains how the portal functions:"

"Thirty moons, the gate is shut
Three days, it opens up
To world unknown and alien, but
Be wary, it will corrupt!

Users of magic will find none here
And those with hooves will be changed;
Wings vanish, and horns disappear.
But if this should leave you deranged,

There is a way to cheat this fate:
before the cycle finishes
Wait thirty nights, go through the gate
And all despair this will diminish.

But choose wisely, my friend
no matter where you end
you cannot go back to the other side
wait thirty nights more, to retry the ride."

"Thirty moons, I assume, means thirty lunar cycles." said Chrysalis. "So that means that under normal circumstances, the gate will only open every two-and-a-half years or so, and only for a time frame of three days."

"But if you were stranded on the wrong side, you would be able to make a one-way trip back to the world you came from every thirty nights." added Captain Umbriel. "And Sunset Shimmer has done just that, it would seem: She escaped back to Equestria right under our noses, making us waste resources and rendering 'Operation: Eclipse' effectively pointless."

"It would seem so, brother." said Supreme Commander Chrysalis, with a small frown. "But if Sunset Shimmer was able to exploit this apparent failsafe, then so can we."

"Don't be ridiculous, sister." scoffed Captain Umbriel. "Even if I were to wait a few more days for this failsafe to resurface, I could probably send in only one soldier at a time, and he would be stranded in Equestria for the next thirty days, even if he were to apprehend Sunset Shimmer! I would not put any of my troops on such a suicide mission."

"Ah, but we have analyzed more than that poem." said Chrysalis. "There are also enough notes to compose schematics for this kind of portal."

"Schematics?" repeated Umbriel. "As in, one could simply build another one?"

"Not necessarily." said Chrysalis. "Such a thing would require performing an elaborate ritual that nobody in this world could possibly perform, using objects that don't even exist in our world, and a ton of other things that even the Chrysalis Syndicate couldn't so much as dream of pulling off."

There was silence on the other end, as if Captain Umbriel was waiting patiently for what his sister had to say next.

"But the way these symbols and markings are arranged, it would seem that there may be ways of tampering with the portal. Glitching it up, if you will."

"Good, I love glitches." mused Umbriel.

"I will have my archivists and engineers devise a plan for what happens next." said Chrysalis. "In the mean-time, I will deploy a Hydra tank into Canterbury."

"A Hydra?" questioned Captain Umbriel. "But now that the Diamond Dogs are gone, why would I need heavy artillery so badly? My troops already have enough firepower and armor as it is."

"Trust me on this, brother." said Supreme Commander Chrysalis. "You will understand, soon enough. By the way, I almost forgot this: Sergeant Craw had sent me an e-mail yesterday regarding his report on his raid on the Diamond Dogs. In it, he also mentioned that he discovered the portal, as well. Did he tell you about it?"

"No, Corporal Ghost did just an hour or two ago." said Captain Umbriel, who then took a deep breath and continued in a low, unamused tone. "Sister, may I have permission to chastise the good old sergeant, despite the fact that he isn't one of my own men?"

" Granted, brother. Just don't do anything that will leave permanent damage." said Chrysalis. "He's one of my best agents, after all, and still has his dignity."

Then Umbriel's end faded into static, and Chrysalis deactivated her headset.