//------------------------------// // 67 - Sunset // Story: Re:Harmony // by starcross7 //------------------------------// Chapter 67 - Sunset   She swore.  She swore she experienced this moment before, and yet there she stood, towering over the ruin of her dear friend whose life gradually escaped her equine body.   "You're a monster.  You killed everypony.  You killed my little sister!"   It wasn't me! Twilight's thoughts screamed.  This isn't me!   The purple pony's heavenly scream burned out her lungs before she resorted to galloping to the nearest slab of rock before snapping off her long alicorn horn as a form of suicide.  When it happened, she experienced a brief jumble of déjà vu of another attempt of self-mutilation, one that involved ripping out her own alicorn wings with her jaws.  She felt the vague remembrance of herself finally obliterating the world along with herself, or the sensation of trampling over her friends' corpses out of psychotic grief.  Twilight bashed in her bloodied, hornless head for good, praying that, as her mind faded into darkness, that this time everything, including her brutally churned thoughts and emotions, would soon fade oblivion...   ...But then she came to, and she set her sights upon the destroyed world.  She found the corpses of her friends in the clearing, and Applejack, the last pony left, exhausting her last breath.     Duchess and First Lieutenant Sunset Shimmer.   Captain Shining Armor.     The Diamond Princess's heart beat hard upon the realization that the two ponies she trusted her life upon were part of the cabal that overthrew her stepfather, the King.  She withheld both tears and anger as she faced the two sitting on the throne.   She wanted to seek solace and support from her Earthian friend, but the orange pony tried to teeter over towards Twilight once more before Shimmer stopped her in her tracks with a magic blast to the nearby floor.  Applejack didn't get far, and while she did regain Rarity's side, Rarity herself would have wanted the orange pony to come back of her own accord and not out of fear.   "What have you done to Twilight?" asked Applejack.   "Her?" asked Shimmer.  "We just trapped her psyche in the Door of Fears.  You can join her, if you so please."   "Get.  Her.  Out.  You shrew."   "How rude of you to address your princess in such a manner."   "Princess?" asked Rarity.  "Is this what this is all about?"   "Like you, dear cousin, I too want to explore the world outside of our Empire, but when I learned that it is a hostile world whose inhabitants are ignorant, barbaric, and warmongering equines, I knew that it will take a ponies like Shining Armor and I to protect the glory of our Empire.  Our uncle chose to ignore the warning signs, and I'm sure you yourself won't be able to handle to dark truth of the outside world."   "You sure have a way hittin' her hard with the truth," said Applejack.   "You enslaved our citizens," Rarity declared towards Shimmer, "invited mercenaries into our Empire, and kidnapped Princess Sweetie Belle.  Your own cousin!"   "A necessary sacrifice to protect our own kind, Rarity," said Sunset Shimmer.  "Oh, wait.  You have Crystal Earthian blood in you.  How can you possibly understand our goals when the unicorns are nearly extinct?"   "Enough cousin.  I beseech you, please cease this coup and release the Queen and our ponies.  This is not the way we should protect the Empire."   "And let foreigners take over?  I knew you wouldn't be able to handle a task like this.  That is why I am fit to be a princess than you.   Or rather, a queen!  Destroy them Shining Armor!"   "Mm, hm," nodded the unicorn stallion.  His eyes flashed green as a ball of magenta magical energy grew from the tip of his horn until it nearly took up the entire throne room.  He launched his salvo, upon which Applejack bravely stood in front of the Diamond Princess with her Sword of Truth drawn with her teeth.  Yet the weapon was miniscule, and massive ball of magical energy slammed upon both Princess and Rebel in a brilliant flash of light.   When the light died down, however, Rarity lifted her hooves from her eyes, while Applejack teetered back and forth with a singed mane and coat before regaining her balance.  A silver necklace with a black crystal ring dangled off the earth pony's neck.   "Well, that smarts," said Applejack.  "I didn't expect this anti-magic doohickey to work this good."   "Grr, you two got lucky this time," said Sunset Shimmer after she shattered her wine glass onto the floor.  "Shining Armor and I don't need magic to the destroy likes of you!  My love, skewer these whorish horses!"   Blankly, the white stallion nodded, and he materialized six purple lances above his head that he sent them all hurtling towards the Princess and the Rebel.  The latter quickly deflected three while Rarity narrowly avoided the other three.  Applejack shot out a quick wink at the Diamond Princess, and then darted in swinging her sword with surprisingly graceful arcs and amazing speeds to parry each of Shining Armor's six lances as if she knew where each of were going to strike next.  It might appear as if Shining Armor had the offensive advantage, but after several backflips into the air, Applejack successfully drove him out of the throne room.  That left Sunset little time to prepare a counterattack spell, and she chased after the dueling duo with a charged horn.   Rarity knew from Applejack's wink that she too had a role in the fight.  Surely she was going to chip her hoof.  Her mane was going to be messed up, and her coat dirtied.  But a lady--no, a Princess must do all she could to protect her Empire, from both outsiders and insiders.  Her manicured hoofs sprung her into action and out into the main hallways.  There were no Obsidian Golems to tussle with, but Applejack was still swinging her sword away in her duel against Shining Armor so as to increase distance between the white stallion and the mustard mare.   After an instance's worth of hesitation, the Diamond Princess quickly tore down a huge tapestry with her magic and then threw it towards Sunset Shimmer before she cast a spell at Applejack.  Rarity had no direction to run, but she had to go somewhere whilst towing the bagged mustard unicorn away from Applejack and Shining Armor's duel.  Sunset's beating and cutting from inside the tapestry bag clawed Rarity's psyche like nails to glass.  The white unicorn mare grit her teeth as she continued to pull the full weight of full-grown pony until she finally made it into the King's personal library.  Once inside, quickly sealed the doors with everything she could find, be it books, globes, paintings, and treasure chests.  But the bagged mare in question immediately incinerated her fabric confinement with a blue haze, and then blindly shot out of a narrow magic blast that Rarity narrowly avoided.   "WHERE ARE YOU?" yelled Shimmer.   The Diamond Princess almost yelped from her hiding spot behind the desk.  Head-on fighting was not her strong suit, despite all the self-defense training she had.  She had help when driving off the Crystal Rebels after the dinner gala, and the Diamond Dogs had easily submitted to her complaints after her tail had been shot off.  All this time, she had allowed her newfound friends do all the fighting for her, and perhaps it was due to her being a Princess.   Oh, fighting this adversary was going to be difficult.  To top it off, this was her cousin, one of the strongest ponies employed in the Royal Guard.  Rarity didn't want to kill her, but she had to stop her all the same.  Sunset Shimmer had just fired magic laser after magic laser, slicing through books, shelves, tables, and one desk.  Shimmer's destruction ignited scrolls and wood, and a fire threatened to extinguish more than a thousand years of Crystal Empire history along with some more fine silk tapestries and finely cut gems.   So be it.  One tapestry was already sacrificed, and the artifacts in this room were mere baubles compared to the glory of the Empire, a concept that could never be written in scroll or tablet.  Rarity rolled out from hiding and magically flung every sharp-ended gem spilled from a nearby chest towards Sunset Shimmer.  Shimmer easily blasted each projectile coming her way, and Rarity, hoping to land a coup de grâce, flung a heavily rolled red rug towards her adversary.  Shimmer easily dispatched the projectile by slicing it in half.  Half of it rolled across the floor to lay flat, while the other half rolled itself around a tall and narrow piece of furniture.   "Throwing gems and fabric at me?" Shimmer mockingly asked.  "Is that all the skills you have as a Princess?"   "I may not be as strong as you," said Rarity, "or know advanced offensive magic, but as long as I am breathing, I will not allow my Empire fall in the hooves of villains and allow my friends and family be harmed by the likes of you.  CHARGE!"   Almost blindly she lanced her short and well-manicured horn towards Shimmer, who effortlessly sidestepped and tripped Rarity.  The white unicorn tumbled across the library, suffering ungodly scuffs and bruises before that tall piece of furniture stopped her.  Sunset Shimmer guffawed as the flames grew stronger, and Rarity counted on her arrogance causing her lapse of focus.  Quickly, the Diamond Princess magicked a shard of a shattered amethyst off the ground and shot it across Shimmer's cheek.   The mustard unicorn stopped laughing.  Her mouth formed into a gnash, and a vicious furrow drew across her face as she faced Rarity.   "Oh, for heaven's sake," said Rarity.  "It's just a scratch."   Shimmer screamed, and began charging at Rarity.  Yes, she was charging.  It was a long shot, but the Diamond Princess never expected her rough-and-tumble cousin and first lieutenant of the Royal Guard to be highly sensitive to damages to her face, which admittedly was quite taken care of and pretty.  Rarity knew she would snap at such a crime, but there was more at stake than a stylish scar.  Now she had to time this move perfectly.  A second or two off would mean the difference between being pummeled by your own cousin or saving the Empire.   It was time.  Rarity unfurled the half-rug off from the magic mirror and fired all of her magic power on the topmost jewel of the horseshoe-shaped frame.  The reflective surface flashed white, blinding Sunset Shimmer, who tried to stop herself from slipping in.   Sunset Shimmer did not break the mirror, nor did it stop her.  She had phased in, just as Rarity hoped, and the Diamond Princess watched her writhing in agony as her body coiled into the abyss beyond the looking glass.  Wherever it led to, she was still alive, but her punishment became unbearable to watch.   "Goodbye, cousin," wept Rarity.  With sadness, she covered the mirror portal once more, and hurried to put out the fires before clearing out the door.   The mirror's surface stopped shining, and then it became inert.