Flash Sunset
Homecoming
The hardest word to say is ‘Sorry.’
--Princess Celestia
“I’m naked!” It was a tribute to just how long Sunset Shimmer had spent in the weird world of ‘humans’ that even before the mind-scrambling effects of dimensional travel had fully faded and the wonderful feeling of Equestrian magic had soaked into her horn once again, her absolute first instinct had been a shocked realization that her carefully-selected outfit with matching earrings, pumps, and a daring-but-not-flaunting miniskirt that Rarity had pressed on her before departing was gone, and the cool breeze that swept through the Royal Gardens felt extremely weird on her bare rump.
The second shocked realization was that Starswirl’s Mirror had been moved out of the secure storeroom where she had first encountered it, and placed in the middle of what could only be Celestia’s private garden. Nowhere else could there possibly be such a degree of flowering, blooming, growing, sprouting, and just plain green that filled every single crack and crevice of the ground around her, only parting in its expanse of photosynthesis in order to grudgingly permit the occasional stone bench or gravel pathway, and even there, the tips of curious vines crept out onto the forbidden territory just as far as they thought they could get away with their intrusion. All around her, the rustle and creak of hidden creatures filled Sunset’s mind with a strange mixture of intrigue and fear. The mirror should not have been put out here; it was a priceless treasure of Equestria that should have been locked away where nopony else could possibly fall through the cracks into another world like Celestia’s rebellious young student had done so many moons ago. Her reflexes surged to a near-panic as a nearby bush rustled, and her eyes caught the glint of polished steel in the moonlight.
It’s a trap!
Teleportation had always been easy for Sunset, an application of her boundless will upon the universe indicating that her current position of here was incorrect, and she actually was supposed to be there instead. A surge of welcome magic flooded over her horn and she reappeared on the wall of the castle in a flash of golden light, which did nothing for her night vision and everything for the guard’s ability to see where she had gone.
“There she goes!”
The rustle and flapping of wings brought a hammering terror to Sunset Shimmer’s heart. She had stolen from the Princess, assaulted the Royal Guard, and even committed what could be considered Treason Against The Crown, for which there was only one penalty. She had hoped that the kind and compassionate Princess Celestia who had once been closer to Sunset than her own mother would have been willing to listen to her plea for mercy. Now it seemed instead that her destined path was going to lead to a dark jail cell somewhere and unthinkable consequences.
Blinking through tears, her dazzled eyes could just barely make out the form of the mirror in the garden, but there were bulky armored shapes in front of it now, as well as a tall pale shape she knew too well. The only option left that held any hope was flight, away from Canterlot and into some place in Equestria where she could hide until Celestia’s immortal vengeance cooled, which looked to be a long, long time. An armored shape flung itself out of the dark garden in her direction as Sunset Shimmer turned her back and fed power into her magic again.
“I’ve got he—“
The wind from a pair of pegasi hooves barely breezed through her mane as Sunset reappeared on a nearby castle roof in a brilliant flash and a breathless panting. Using magic after this long away from Equestria was far more draining than she had anticipated, and she took a moment to orient herself against the shapes of buildings in the silver moonlight, trying to make sense of the moon symbols that had replaced so many of the familiar sun symbols in the castle.
Either things had changed far more than she realized in the last few years, or possibly she had managed to connect the portal to the wrong Equestria, because even the city beyond the castle walls seemed different in some fashion as it faded into sight to her flash-blinded eyes. Canterlot had always been awash in small changes as ponies attempted to one-up their neighbors with an ornate roof here or a trellis garden there, but this was far more. The normally dark streets were glowing with streetlights, and the distant throbbing music of dance clubs drifted through the mountain air, something she had never seen before in her time as a student despite her best efforts. Even the moon had changed, no longer bearing the image of a dark unicorn, but instead wearing a soft silver of vague craters like some old pony who had gotten a facelift.
The enchantments that filled the city beyond the castle remained the same, from the pegasus wards on the tops of tall towers to the vibrating pillars of massive enchantments anchoring the city to the side of Mount Canter. She could even feel the distant traces of the magic beacons in the Royal Guard armor, still unchanged since her abrupt departure—
“I’ve got you no—“ The triumphant cry of a Royal Guard pouncing down from the sky was rather rudely cut off by the solid wave of roofing shingles Sunset brought up between them, giving her a fraction of a second to teleport to another nearby roof before armored hooves reached for her again. He had sounded familiar for some reason, but she did not have leisure time to consider just what pony lurked behind that faceless identical facade of armor, just that whoever it was smashed out of the pile of shingles far faster than Sunset was willing to believe, and had streaked across the intervening space almost before she could teleport away again.
Fire seemed to fill Sunset Shimmer’s chest as she teleported again and again, each time barely able to heave a few anguished breaths and look for another safe spot before being forced to teleport to avoid capture. Whoever was chasing her was far too good to give even the smallest advantage. She had even taken to the rather risky method of double-teleporting to try and gain range on her pursuer, teleporting a distance away and into midair before teleporting to a new spot on the ground, but even that only gained her a few more seconds of panicked breathing before the whisper of wings sounded again and she had to flee. It would only be a matter of time before the Royal Guard managed to get one of their barrier experts — probably that arrogant twit Shining Armor — into position with a teleport-suppression field, and her attempts at escape would be squelched, leaving inevitably to that dark dungeon that she was seeing in her mind’s eye every time she vanished into a new position.
She was watching for it, so when the feeling of a dull magical shield appeared at the end of one of her teleportations, that was the cue to release a spell she had never actually cast before. A thin lance of magic speared silently through the barrier, expanding out even as it murmured sweet nothings into its pierced counterpart. With luck, nopony would be able to detect her tampering, and the natural tendency of barrier spells to self-heal would seal the hole behind her in just a few moments. With a flash of golden fire, Sunset Shimmer threw her teleportation spell through the barrier and into the open space behind it.
The very open space.
Air roared through Sunset Shimmer’s mane as she stared down at the bottom of Mount Canter, headed towards a rather messy impact that the barrier around the walls of Canterlot were supposed to protect ponies against, unless some idiot was extremely stupid enough to both poke a hole through the protective barrier and jump through. There were even a set of magical nets concealed under the lip of the wall, designed to catch any suicidal ponies who managed to make it past the barriers to jump, but not any brilliant unicorns who decided to actually go teleport far, far away from the wall.
Muffling a virulent curse, Sunset twisted while falling and tried to focus magic into her tired horn. It was not impossible to compensate for velocity while casting a teleportation spell, not even when accelerating away from the destination, but it required intense concentration and a calm mind, both of which were agonizingly difficult at the moment. Still, it beat dying.
...acceleration of 9.87 m/s less air friction resulting in a terminal velocity of 47 m/s and considering the amount of time fallen and the distance to the top of the wall means I need to fall another three point five seconds and exert thirty-two thousand thaums to cancel my base velocity and another fifty-seven thousand thaums for the range but better round that up to sixty thousand just to be sure and charging… now!
Nearly all of her prodigious magical power was focused on one task, so it was forgivable that she missed the whisper of wings from a single pegasus guard who had followed her out of the narrow hole in the city wards, but it was impossible to miss his triumphant shout as he plunged down out of the sky and wrapped his hooves around her body.
“Got you! You’re under — Oh no you don’t!” One armored hoof swung down at her blazing horn, making the teleportation spell spark and heave like a wild bucking bronco and Sunset cursed virulently at the guard.
“Get off! Get off you bucking idiot!”
There was no stopping her spell now, even with the additional weight of the guard and the frantic slapping he was doing at her blazing horn. They tumbled as they fell, the overcharged teleportation spell throwing sparks into her eyes until it discharged in a massive disruption of magic that wrenched her head to one side.
Even though the roar of passing wind had not stopped or even slowed, the night air had turned cloying and damp, clinging to their coats as the two ponies crashed through the trees sideways, branches and limbs reaching for them as they passed and leaving a shattered trail to their rear until they struck a forest giant far too large to even acknowledge the impact of two insignifiant ponies. Ever so slowly, the two entwined ponies slid down the bark, leaving quite a few patches of fur or blood along their path, and accumulating a number of long slivers in return, until they fell into a mercifully soft patch of moss at the base of the tree.
The relative pattern of the dark forest took a few minutes to return, the screaming of frightened birds and buzzing of disturbed insects slowly turning back to the regular chatter and hum of the deep forest. There was a new noise in the forest that added to the din, a slow moaning and groaning of injured ponies who had separated upon their impact with the forest floor and now lay on opposite sides of the mossy lump that had broken their fall. Finally, Sunset Shimmer dragged herself rightside-up and and spit out a lump of tree bark.
“Flash Sentry, is that you?”
There was a respectable period of time before the other pony responded, a faint but brief rustling indicating he had taken the time to shift position slightly and determine that perhaps immobility was the way to go at the moment. Still, that did not stop him from saying a phrase that she was dreading.
“Sunset Shimmer. You’re under arrest.”