Sunset Flash
The Rock Cried Out
I hate jungles.
--Daring Do
“Move really careful,” whispered Flash Sentry as he stepped out from under the fallen tree and into the clearing. All around them, thick ropes of ants hung from trees, carrying the severed green of leaves away to some unknown destination the exact same way each of the ponies could imagine the same ants carrying them away, one tiny bite at a time. The clusters of ants around his hooves swarmed and surged as if they were some sort of blackish living tar, with just a few clinging to each hoof as it swept forward and down in a peculiar sliding motion to move the huge ants to one side instead of stepping on any of them. “Gentle steps. One at a time. Don’t squish any of them if you can help it.”
“I hate bugs,” muttered Sunset, picking up and putting down her hooves with the precision of a ballet dancer as she followed behind.
“At least they’re not changelings,” said Flash Sentry. “The Everfree is supposed to have a hive of them somewhere.”
“Don’t say that, Flashlight,” scowled Sunset, carefully skirting a large clump of ants nearly the size of a small pony. After a few more cautious steps, she added, “What’s a changeling?”
“Big bug,” said Flash, shifting his weight between steps. “Pony sized. They eat love.” He stopped and looked back at Sunset Shimmer with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘What’s a changeling?’ Have you been living in a cave the last decade?”
“Concentrate, dimwit,” said Sunset, shaking a curious ant off one hoof and regarding the long, long distance they had to go to reach ant-free ground, considering that they had not even seen ant-free ground yet. “I’ve been living in a funhouse mirror dimension for the last four years.” After a few more precise steps, she added, “I thought you knew.”
He snorted as if laughing at a joke that only he heard, then after a few more minutes of careful progress snorted again. “What was I supposed to think? First I hear that you got thrown out of school for getting into the restricted section of the library, and I mean the ‘restricted, do not go here or else’ part that even Princess Celestia won’t touch. Then you snuck back into the castle before I could even ask what got into your pointy little head. Half the other colts in class claimed you had been corrupted by Dark Magic, and they had all kinds of twisted theories as to what happened when you went back. Nopony would say where you went, and even my own father wouldn’t tell me.” He paused to blow a few loose ants off his flank and spared her a curious look. “Mirror dimension?”
“Yeah.” She held still while shaking a few ants off her tail. “Weird place. Nice, but weird. Four years of not having a tail or a horn.”
The two of them picked their way along with the occasional yelp or muffled curse as a curious ant bit down on exposed flesh until Flash asked, “So what did you do for the other six years?”
“Not the time for it, jerk.” Sunset bit down on her bottom lip as a number of ants bit down on her exposed hock, turning her startled jump into a slow shuffle that scattered alarmed ants in all directions. “Crap.”
“Don’t panic, Sunny. I’m here.”
“Not helping!” Sunset shuffled forward as the ants flowed and surged together, making a low hissing noise as thousands of little ant limbs and ant jaws made contact with each other.
“Should we make a run for it?” asked Flash.
“No! Walk faster, and look for a stream or some water.”
The hissing rose in volume as they walked through the never-ending carpet of living chitin and jaws. Thankfully, the path seemed at least a little less populated than the surrounding writhing bushes and brush, with bare naked branches sticking up in places where the ants had already stripped every bit of greenery and left only what she could not help but think of as skeletal remains. The agony of ant bites had grown as they walked with the beginnings of a swarming masses clinging to her heels and hocks like an obscene set of wriggling black boots, and nothing was more welcome than the sight of a greenish stream of water winding its way through a low section of the valley.
“Flash,” she started, trying to remain calm as ants were climbing her hind legs regardless of her frantic tail swatting. “Run.”
Bursting into a gallop with Flash Sentry right behind her, Sunset Shimmer lunged off the dirt bank of the stream and into a deeper section where the curve of the water had cut a deeper pool, with just enough water to submerge everything except her head. “Keep your wing above water,” she managed to splutter, lifting herself up out of the water briefly before dunking down so just her eyes and horn were not submerged. Some of the blasted ants had lost their grip during her plunge and were swimming feebly through the pale green water. She grinned in a sense of revenge as a series of small fish broke the surface and made short work of their unexpected lunch bounty.
“Sunset?” wavered Flash’s voice as he held himself very still with only a little bit of water splashed onto his wing. “Something feels like it’s eating me.”
The little fish did not stop at snapping the ants off the surface of the water, she realized, but were also nipping away at the stubbornly-fixed ants clamped onto her legs. It tickled, despite the pain of the ant bites, and Sunset giggled as she thought about the time Rarity had taken her for a pedicure.
“Relax, nitwit. They’re eating the ants. There are places that would charge you a hundred bucks for this kind of treatment. Just keep your wing above the water!”
“Bucks?” There was a small splash as the injured pegasus swung his soggy tail at an irritating ant, and then a second, somewhat more distant splash that bothered her for some reason.
“Bits, although the exchange rate is weird.” The tickle of fish nibbles was still bothering her for some reason, even though the fish didn’t look like piranha, which would be just her luck. This was the Everfree, not some jungle stream in Africa where wandering wildebeests got eaten when they went to the river to drink. There were no lions native to the settled lands in Equestria, but there were—
“Out of the water, right now!” Sunset Shimmer lunged forward, struggling up out of the muddy bank to the thankfully ant-free shore with Flash Sentry right behind her. She stumbled once before starting to run, accelerating when the roar and splashing noises of a crocodile of some undetermined variety sounded from behind and hesitating when Flash Sentry gave a startled scream. The crocodile that had lunged out of the water on their trail was clinging onto one of his armored hind legs, while Flash was prone on the ground and kicking the reptile just as hard as possible on the nose with the remaining armored hoof. She looked around frantically for a stick or a rock just as the crocodile opened its jaws to take a larger bite, and Flash curled up into a ball before lashing out with both hind legs straight into its face.
They both tumbled in opposite directions, Flash nimbly onto his hooves and dashing in her direction, and the crocodile shaking its head and grumbling about missing lunch.
“Why didn’t you keep running?” panted Flash, slowing to a canter as he gasped for breath.
“And miss you getting eaten?” asked Sunset, spitting out a small twig about the size of a pencil and looking at his hind leg. “You’re bleeding.”
“Duh. Come on.” The wounded pegasus hobbled down the path. “Let’s get a little distance away from your friend first.”
“It’s not my friend,” grumbled Sunset Shimmer as she followed the muddy, dripping, and somewhat bloody pegasus. “My friends are back in the human world.”
After a period of walking, Flash abruptly asked, “What about me?”
“Hold on there, lunkhead. You chased me down, made me crash into a tree and break my horn, and now you want to be my friend? ‘And this is my best friend, Sunset Shimmer, who I crippled, arrested and got thrown into prison for the rest of her life.’ Yeah, right.” She shook a few drowned ants out of her tail while trying to fling them in his direction before stopping at a small patch of fresh grass. “Let me look at your stitches.”
Flash had that hunch around his shoulders that said ‘I’m thinking up something suitably witty to say in response,’ and it took until after Sunset had checked her ‘stitches’ and they both had nipped a few awkward-to-reach ants off each other’s coats until his words finally emerged.
“I thought we were friends.”
“What?” Sunset spit out a dead ant and glared. “How dumb are you? I used you. I abused your trust and took advantage of your complete stupidity. We had a few laughs, some good times in bed—”
“More than a few, if I recall,” scowled Flash.
“And now that we’re going to die in the Everfree Forest, you want to be my friend.” It took far to few minutes for the weakly beeping bandage dispenser to spit out the last of its contents while she wound Flash’s bloody hind leg as best she could with a few scant turns of the enchanted cloth. She hooved the exhausted dispenser back to Flash, who dutifully tucked it away back inside his armor instead of throwing the useless thing away, but then again, he was fairly useless too, so they went well together.
“I suppose,” she growled as she nipped off the last of the stubborn ants from his flank and spat them into the grass, “that I can say you are -ptooie- the best friend I have within a few -yuck- hundred miles of this place. And that if you can forgive me -ptooie- for being such a bitch, then I can forgive you for being yourself.”
“That’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Sunny.” He made a weak effort to bite an ant off of her flank in return, sticking his tongue out afterwards and coughing. “These things taste terrible,” he rasped.
“You have to consider the source,” said Sunset. “After all, they bit me.”
“On the rear,” added Flash totally unnecessarily and with a sharp nip to dislodge one particularly persistent ant. “Bleah! Next time get bit by something tasty.”
“Or nutritious.” Sunset buried her nose in the grass and took a bite to get the taste out of her mouth, chewing with a peculiar quirk to her lips. “So, genius. You’re the one with Royal Guard survival training. What do you think we should do now?”
“Lunch,” said Flash, already nose-deep in the green grass next to the path. “And another pain pill soon,” he added with a wince, shifting his weight off the bandaged leg.
“I can’t make up my mind if this is the worst grass I’ve ever tasted or the best,” said Sunset while chewing.
“Worst,” said Flash, although through a mouthful himself. “I skipped on dinner last night because I was so nervous about guard duty. We had no idea what was going to come out of that mirror.”
“Wait a minute.” Sunset Shimmer lifted her head with a particularly sour weed hanging from the corner of her mouth. After spitting it out, she continued, “You didn’t know I was coming out of the mirror? Well, why did you try to arrest me then?”
Flash ignored her for a few more mouthfulls of grass, finally muttering, “You’re a criminal, right?”
“Yeah. No doubt about that.” Sunset returned to her grazing with a vengeance as if each blade of grass were a witness to her betrayal of Princess Celestia’s trust. After all, she had defied Celestia’s orders not to go into the restricted area of the library, attacked the Royal Guard during her escape through the mirror, and then years later actually stolen the Element of Magic from Princess Twilight in an idiotic attempt to return to Equestria and overthrow her. If she were in Princess Celestia’s golden shoes, a returning traitor would have been clapped in irons and publicly executed the next day.
But she was not Princess Celestia.
The power she had drawn from the Element of Magic had not transformed her into an alicorn as she had hoped, but something far darker and malevolent. For just a few moments, she had seen the trail of blood and destruction she would cause by her return and reveled in it.
Then… Rainbows.
In one flash of polychromatic light, she had seen what her return would have meant to others. Their pain. Their sadness. Their deaths. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but redemption requires work. Hard work in order to rebuild the bonds of trust and friendship that she had shattered in her clutching drive for petty power. With as much as she had accomplished to heal those wounds with the humans, there was none of that in Equestria. All of the ponies she had hurt here, from Flash Sentry’s father to Princess Celestia, they all bore her hoofprint on their faces.
There was no way she was going to die in the Everfree Forest before making it up to them somehow.
“Come on, Flash. Let’s get walking.” She ripped one last mouthful of bitter grass free and lifted her head. “This stupid forest is only so big, and if we walk in a straight line towards Mount Canter, we should come out somewhere around…” She paused to swallow, wishing the answer were something else. Finally, she managed to splutter out, “Ponyville.”
“In just a minute.”
“Now, numbskull. If that stupid crocodile of yours doesn’t come back, there’s still a hydra out here missing an eye. Each of the major predators has a certain hunting area, and if we can get out of range of theirs—”
“We’ll find another one, only bigger?” For some reason, Sunset could not turn her head to look around the scattered treetops for the towering mountain, but could only remain looking forward to where Flash had grazed himself during their lousy lunch. It was an odd feeling, as if that was the way down, and every other direction was up, and even trying to turn around was impossible.
“Yeah, probably.” A cold shiver traveled down Sunset’s back even in the warm sunshine that filtered through the growing cloud cover and she added, “Any reason just why you phrased it that way?”
“Maybe.” Flash’s rear twitched as muscles bunched and heaved, but he also remained pointing the same direction as Sunset. “Do you know anything about a big plant about a pony and a half tall, but covered with eyes?”
“No. Wait! Yes, I think so.” Sunset thought back to her time in the library when she had skimmed through the one book on the Everfree Forest. “No mouths, right?”
“Right.” The sense of relief in Flash’s voice was obvious and misplaced, and Sunset moved quickly to stomp it out.
“It doesn’t need teeth, lunkhead. It’s a hypnotic plant. Keep your hooves moving to keep the roots from eating you.” Sunset Shimmer obeyed her own directions, lifting her hooves up from where a number of fine filaments were trying to tie them down to the ground. “Keep stomping so it won’t immobilize you. And move forward,” she added, hoping that it was a flash of inspiration and not just a way to get Flash killed faster.
“Yes, Ma’am.” The crippled pegasus guard began stomping forward while Sunset kept talking.
“Keep moving, Flash. Keep going forward until I tell you to buck just as hard as you can. Both hind legs, just the way you nailed that crocodile.”
“I don’t understand.” He may not have understood, but he kept moving, which was at least one point in favor of the dunce.
“The ponies who wrote the book had one of their group captured, and they pulled him out with a rope,” she said, keeping an eye on Flash’s muddy rear instead of whatever was controlling their heads. “They never got to examine the plant, but they had a few theories about it. Have you reached it yet?”
“Almost,” snapped Flash Sentry from gritted teeth. “I won’t be able to bite it. I can’t move my face.”
“You won’t need to,” said Sunset, hoping that she was right and waiting until Flash stopped. The hypnotic plant paralyzed most of the victim's higher nerve centers in their brains, but Flash had a nerve center in his thick head she was hoping was too dense to be controlled. She took a deep breath and called out.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle! What are you doing here?”
“Princess!” blurted Flash Sentry, swapping ends and staring at Sunset Shimmer with wide eyes and a sense of outraged betrayal when he did not see the princess in question.
“Now, Flash!” screamed Sunset. “Buck! Buck just as hard as you can!”
The hypnotic compulsion cut off like a light when the pegasus lashed out with both hind legs right into the trunk of the fragile plant. The leaves thrashed even harder when he took out his frustration with armored hooves on the rest of the plant, being joined in a frenzy of biting and stomping by Sunset Shimmer and ending only when just the shattered stump of the dead hypnotic plant was all that remained.
“That was…” panted Sunset Shimmer, spitting out a fragment of leaf and sticking out her tongue.
“Horrible,” added Flash Sentry, staggering a little on his hooves.
“I was going to say awesome,” said Sunset, lifting one hoof to bump against his.
“You’re still under arrest,” said Flash, although he did bump hooves.
“I knew you were going to say that,” admitted Sunset.
“Do you think it’s safe here, now that we’ve killed the major carnivore in the area?” asked Flash, looking around at the green forest.
“Don’t say that, idiot,” muttered Sunset, putting her hoof firmly down on a little plant sprout that had one tiny eyestalk. “This is the Everfree Forest, after all. Everything here lives to eat something else.” Her eyes tracked to follow a brilliant yellow bit of fluff with bugged-out eyes and iridescent wings that floated by, singing a quiet little buzzy song. “The more innocent and pretty it seems, the more lethal and aggressive it is.”
A shrill and distant mournful cry echoed through the forest, making both ponies draw together and shiver.
“Sounds like it’s hunting something,” said Flash Sentry.
“Three guesses what,” said Sunset. “Come on. I spotted Mount Canter through the trees off that way before the clouds rolled in. Maybe we can outrun it.”
During their dash through the dense trees, branches reached out and clawed through their manes as they passed, and roots thrust out in order to trip them. The path divided and joined up with other paths as they ran until Sunset was unsure of the direction they traveled any more, and was terrified of seeing the same scenery with perhaps the screeching carnivore simply waiting for its prey to run to it. The forest grew thicker as they seemed to be traveling downwards down the widening path, and the scent of fresh water washed over them like a wave as they both drew up short.
The forest stopped almost abruptly, opening up into a wide graveled streambed that stretched for considerable distance in both directions. Trickling down the center of the open area with twists and turns as it ran was a thin stream, no wider than a pony could jump. A distant peal of thunder rumbled from the rapidly darkening forest in the distance, and a few small raindrops splattered around the ground in response.
“Whatever’s chasing us is too fast to be on the ground,” panted Sunset Shimmer. “If it can fly, and we cross that open area, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“There’s nowhere in the forest where we can set up a defensible position,” gasped Flash, holding his bloody hind leg up as they stood in the shadows of the streambank. “And we don’t know how many of them are chasing us. We need a defensive position like a cave or a fallen tree, something like—”
“There!” said Sunset, pointing with a hoof. “Out in the streambed.”
The jagged slab of shale was about the size of a wagon, and was tilted to one side with a number of masive trees jumbled downstream of it. It was scant cover, but both ponies bolted out across the loose gravel at a dead run as the eerie cry echoed through the forest behind them again. On the other side of the slab, there was a narrow crack between the stone and the wood, just about a pony wide that led into the darkness. Flash managed to open the compartment in his armor and fling one of the nearly depleted glowsticks into the revealed hole, which at least seemed unoccupied, even if it was dark and cramped.
“Get in there, Featherbrain,” snapped Sunset, glaring over her shoulder at the still-unoccupied streambank.
“Mares first,” said Flash, grabbing her by the tail and pulling.
“This is no time to play the noble white knight, rockhead,” hissed Sunset with a panicked look behind her. “You’re bleeding. Get in there and I’ll hold the doorway.”
“I’ve got my armor, dimwit!” Flash snarled, spitting out Sunset’s muddy tail. “I’m a Royal Guard, for pony’s sake. Whatever is flying around out there will have to chew through me first to get to you. Besides, if you get killed and I survive, Dad will kill me.”
Sunset paused with her jaw hanging open, finally ducking into the narrow hole with a muttered, “Idiot!” The light abruptly cut off as Flash backed into the hole, stumbling and almost falling against Sunset Shimmer, who cursed virulently when her horn struck an outstretched tree root. Their mutual shuffling for space in their cramped hole cut off abruptly as the unearthly cry of the creature echoed across the open gravel of the streambed.
“It sounds sad,” whispered Flash, giving a sharp twitch when Sunset Shimmer bit him on the flank.
“Shut up, you idiot,” she hissed.
The mournful cry grew softer, shifting as the creature or creatures passed by overhead. Sunset had just drawn a short breath reeking with the smell of unwashed pegasus and damp earth when the cry sounded again, even louder and coming closer. Wings fluttered in the damp air, a smaller presence than Sunset had feared, but in the Everfree Forest it was probably just as deadly. The dim light filtering through the front of their hiding place flickered as a small creature flew across the opening, then darted back and hovered in front of Flash Sentry. It was familiar in some fashion, coming abruptly into her vision as it perched on Flash’s helmet and peered into the darkness at Sunset with its head cocked to one side and brilliant yellow eyes seeming to fill the cramped space with light and heat. The bird opened its beak and called again, a deafening cry in the small cave, before hopping forward down Flash’s injured wing to perch on his rump and look up at Sunset with a raptor’s glare. She was not a happy bird, with ruffled feathers and small bits of leaves staining her normally brilliant yellow and orange plumage. She looked frazzled and more than a little pissed, much worse than when Sunset Shimmer had short circuited one of her avian practical jokes so many years ago.
“Philomena,” gasped Sunset Shimmer. “What are you doing here?”