Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam
Sunset Shimmer
Sunset moved as quickly and as carefully as she could. The foreign language they’d heard made sense now, and it hadn’t taken more than a second to figure out what had happened to Ponyville. She glanced back with a thrill of fear at what was hovering over the castle, big enough to blot out the rain. A huge black mass, it broke through the thick clouds like a monstrous whale cresting the waves of a dark and churning ocean. Whatever it was, whatever gargantuan creature or machine it could possibly be, it gave off an intolerably loud hum that drove deep into the ears as it lowered itself ponderously towards the ground.
“S-Sunset...?” Sonata breathed. “What are you looking at?”
“We’re going to find somepony. Somewhere. There has to be somepony around here.”
“There were... in the castle...”
“We don’t know who they were,” Sunset responded hastily. “And if they’re responsible for this...” she glanced around at the houses as they passed them. A tall, pink and brown building stood out as they passed, its cupcake upper floor blown to bits, and its leaning outer walls collapsing with age and abandonment.
“Then... who?” Sonata asked.
Sunset didn’t answer. She got as far as what looked like a small square with an oddly empty centre. Sunset blinked. She could have sworn the remnants of the library had been here at one point.
“Sunset?”
Sunset didn’t answer. Where should they go? Where could they go from here?
“Sunset... eyes shouldn’t be... dark.”
“What?”
“Just gonna... lie down a bit...”
The sound of Sonata hitting the floor resounded even over the deafening hum and rumbling of thunder.
“Sonata!” Sunset cried. “Sonata, no! Don’t lie down! You have to stay awake!”
“I’ll just be...” Sonata slurred. “A bit... not long...”
“Get up,” Sunset pressed, trying to get her head beneath Sonata’s shoulders and push her up again. “Come on, we can’t stay here. We have to get you help!”
Sonata didn’t respond. Sunset tried vainly to get her up, but when it became clear that Sonata either couldn’t, or wouldn’t move, she shrieked out in frustration and fear. She looked frantically around, her rain soaked mane whipping her face. There had to be something, anything that could help them. Spotting what looked offhand to be the remnants of a shop, Sunset tore across the street to start searching for anything that could help Sonata not bleed to death. Tearing across a desiccated stretch of earth where the sinews of an enormous tree seemed to have been uprooted, she suddenly felt herself being thrown upwards by the back legs, sending her back end flying upwards and her face slamming hard into the ground.
It was a moment or two before Sunset raised her bruised and aching face from the floor, and found that she’d been flipped nearly entirely over by a concealed trap door.
“Are you the one shouting?” snapped an irritated voice. Sunset stared in perplexity at a dark head sticking up through a hole that the door had been covering. It glared at her, apparently taking in her appearance. Then it looked up at the thing hovering over the village. “Hmph!” it scoffed, and went to close the door again.
“Wait!” Sunset blurted. “Can you help us?”
The head condescended to pause. “If you mean with the bombardment,” it said briefly. “My suggestion is that you run, and run fast before it starts. The patrols will be out after that.”
“Bombardment?” Sunset repeated uncomprehendingly. “No, Sonata’s leg, it’s broken. Please,” she rushed over to the trap door. The head retreated a little, as though it were going to slam the door shut on her. “Please help us; she’ll die!”
The head turned to look sidelong at Sonata’s prone form. Its eyes roved over her broken, bleeding leg illuminated momentarily by a flash of lightning. It paused for a long moment and then gave a disgusted sort of sigh.
“Fine, fine,” it said quickly. “Get in here. Leave her!” it said snappishly, emerging fully from the hole and shoving Sunset roughly away from Sonata. “I’ll get her in. You’ll just make her injury worse.”
Sunset hesitantly lowered herself into the hole whilst the stallion quickstepped over to Sonata and hauled her up. Sunset stood at the bottom of the short steps down to the underground, trotting back and forth with anxiety, ready to catch Sonata should the stallion drop her.
“Back up!” the stallion barked, pushing passed her with Sonata on his back. “Come on. If anything hits that door, a few planks of wood aren’t going to stop you getting blown up.”
“Blown up?” Sunset asked, bemused. “Bombardment? What are you talking about? Do you mean that thing in the sky? What can it possibly do that’s—“
Her question was interrupted as the ground shook around her. Dusty soil broke away from the ceiling and fell over the tunnel, and the wooden boards rattled ominously.
“What in the name of Celestia was that?”
“You don’t catch onto things quickly, do you?” the stallion said in an off-beat sort of voice, descending down a circular walkway to a floor below.
“But—wait, what’s going on? Who is bombing us? What have they done to Ponyville?”
The stallion stopped abruptly next to a table covered in workplace paraphernalia, and turned around so that he and Sunset were almost nose to nose. Sunset stopped asking questions immediately.
“Stop. Talking,” he said slowly, and clearly. “Save life now. Answer questions later.”
Sunset flinched as his horn gave a tiny flash of bluish light, and everything on the table disappeared. With a heave, Sonata was deposited onto the cleared surface. Turning his back to Sunset again, the stallion examined Sonata’s leg closely. Muttering something impatiently under his breath, he gave his horn a wave.
Forced to be quiet, Sunset’s mind overflowed with questions. In a desperate bid to fill in the many blanks, she subconsciously did what she always did in such situations; she began paying attention to everything around her, looking for answers. Aside from the continued muffled thuds from above and occasional shower of debris, the first thing she noticed was that this mysterious stallion was able to use his magic.
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” the stallion said idly, levitating a torn strip of cloth and a makeshift splint carefully around Sonata’s now clean leg. Sunset immediately stopped trying to use her magic, feeling like a chastised child. “You’ll give yourself a headache. Now come over here and hold her hoof. This is really, really going to hurt.”
Sunset did as she was told. Leaning over Sonata’s prone form, she wasn’t sure whether or not she was glad to see Sonata’s eyes fluttering open. Her face was chalky white, but she managed to smile a little.
“Hey,” she whispered hoarsely.
“You’re going to be fine,” Sunset assured her, eyeing the stallion. With a cursory look at Sonata, he set his front hooves to the break.
“I expect so,” Sonata breathed. “But—“ her words were cut off by a loud and agonised shriek of pain. Sunset’s mouth was dry as she heard the snap of bone, and held Sonata close as she seemed to tense all over.
“Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” the stallion said, dropping to the floor. “I suppose you’ll want something for the pain,” he sighed, as though this was inconvenient for him. Setting a splint into place he magiced a clean bandage neatly around the leg. “This really isn’t my day.”
Whilst holding onto Sonata as she sobbed and tried to get control of her own breathing, Sunset eyed their rescuer askance. For the first time, she took in his appearance properly, and noticed a few things she found a little odd. Several of his features – an unusually sharp and elongated snout, large and tufted ears, and a general lankiness of his frame, struck her as somehow... un-Equestrian. His eyes, a bright green, had a natural black outline to them that resembled mascara, but certainly wasn’t. His coat was a uniform dark blue, and his mane and tail trimmed short was bluish-grey, almost white. An equally close trimmed and neat beard and moustache sat sharply around his mouth. His horn was chipped at the back as though it had been struck with something sharp at some point, and most curious of all, he wore a length of cloth around his neck and torso with thin, dark blue lines along the width.
“Thank you,” Sunset said, after taking all of these features in.
“Oh, you’re welcome,” the stallion said, a slightly sardonic inflection to his voice. “I like to stir up my day every now and then. Take in a few spies, fix a leg. It’s what I live for.”
Sunset said nothing to this. He evidently had a preconceived notion of who they were, and she didn’t think it prudent to correct him until she figured out exactly who he was. Instead, she watched the magic playing about his horn as he searched through a small crate of little spherical bottles. Unlike the glowing aura of Equestrian unicorn magic, the energy of his seemed to rise from his horn in a spiralling effect to match the contours of the horn itself, reaching out like thin coloured ribbons. Additionally, the aura itself was striated with little somethings that Sunset couldn’t make out; something that looked like tiny pictures or letters.
“Who are you?” Sunset asked.
The stallion shot a side-glance at her. “A deserter.”
Sunset blinked. “Deserter? So, you were a royal guard?”
For the first time, the stallion gave her his full and undivided attention. His head gave a little spasm, and he turned to stare at her with an expression of the utmost disbelief on his face.
“One moment,” he said, holding up a hoof briefly before trotting quickly over to Sonata. Raising the bottle up, he popped the little cork stopper out, and before Sonata could so much as focus on the object floating before her, shoved it unceremoniously into her mouth. She gagged for a moment, until the stallion held her down with one hoof, and used the other to stroke her throat. She involuntarily swallowed a huge gulp of the stuff, and then lay there gasping for air.
“Could you not be so rough with her?” Sunset snapped indignantly.
The stallion raised a leg to stop her moving forward. “I get the distinct impression you have not the least idea what is happening around here.”
“That’s a keen sense you have there,” Sunset responded acidly.
The stallion looked her dead in the eye for a second. He seemed to decide something. “Parchment Script,” he said abruptly.
“Sorry?” Sunset asked, taken aback.
“My name,” the stallion said. “In your language, my name is Parchment Script. Or just Script if you’d prefer. And you two are...?”
“I’m Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset replied. “This is my girlfriend, Sonata Dusk.”
Script narrowed one eye. “Your what?”
“Marefriend,” Sunset said after a second or two of puzzlement. “My marefriend.”
“Uh huh,” Script said, still staring at Sunset curiously. “No offense, but you don’t seem smart enough to be spies. That’s a terrible cover story.”
“And you don’t seem brave enough to be a soldier,” Sunset retorted. Despite the fact that this stallion had helped them, possibly saved Sonata’s life, she found that she really didn’t like him very much. Despite Sunset’s animosity, Parchment Script seemed amused; he gave a short spluttering laugh as though of surprised delight.
“That’d explain why I’m a deserter then.” He turned to one of the high bookcases lining the walls of the room. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Can’t you be a bit more helpful?” Sunset snapped, getting truly angry now.
“Oh!” Script exclaimed. “I’m sorry! No, please, forgive me for not being entirely forthcoming with you complete strangers. I’ve been a most ungracious host, fixing up her leg, giving her some of my very limited medicine, and offering you both cover from a standard perimeter bombardment. Please,” he said loudly, giving a mock bow. “Do find it in your heart to forgive me.” He gave an irritable snort, and went about looking for some book or other. “That potion should kick in any second,” he said to Sonata. “When it does, I’d like my table back.”
Sunset said nothing, but stood with her eyes fixed on the floor, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks.
“We’re... sorry...” Sonata breathed.
Script gave a long-suffering sigh, flicking his eyes at Sonata. “At least one of you has some manners,” he grumbled, setting a large tome on the table next to Sonata.
“I’m sorry,” Sunset mumbled. “It’s just... we’re a bit confused. We don’t know what’s going on. You said yourself that we don’t seem like spies.”
“I said you’re too stupid to be spies,” Script corrected. “There’s a difference.” He stopped flicking through the book, and seemed to be trying to not roll his eyes. “If I tell you anything, it’s not going to be anything that puts my countrymen at risk. I may have deserted, but I’m not a traitor.”
“Just a general idea of what’s happening would suffice,” Sunset said hesitantly, having no idea what he was talking about.
“Do you know where you are?” Script asked, frowning suspiciously. “You know you’re in the ruins of the Land of Friendship, don’t you?”
“I thought we were in Ponyville...” Sunset said uncertainly.
Script narrowed his eyes at her. “Why don’t you tell me your story first,” he said. “How did you get here? Why don’t you know what’s going on?”
Sunset exchanged a brief glance with Sonata. She was looking a little better, but still pale and tired. She wondered whether to tell him the truth; she couldn’t see how it could do any harm. The portal was closed temporarily, and Twilight had the only means to open it again. What harm could there be?
When she’d finished explaining the brief version of where they’d come from, Script had his eyebrows raised so high, they were in danger of disappearing into his maneline.
“Let me just sum this up,” he said, holding up a hoof. “You come from a land beyond a magical mirror inside the Friendship Castle. Is that right? I am understanding you correctly?” When Sunset nodded, he nodded too. “Huh. Right.” He paused, his mouth open a little. “If you’re telling the truth, then I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about what’s going on,” he reasoned. “But then, you could just be insane. There is that possibility. Although if you’re telling the truth, that would be really quite fascinating.”
“Do I look insane to you?” Sunset asked, annoyed.
“You were standing under a ventnavis that was in a firing position,” Script said bluntly. “You tell me.”
“A vent—what?” Sunset asked.
“Ventnavis. What you’d call an airship.” He smirked. “Then again, I’ve seen what you Equestrians call airships.” He sniggered. “The huge thing hovering over the village, currently bombarding the area around the castle, is a ventnavis.”
“Us Equestrians?” Sunset caught. “You say that like you’re not.”
“Well of course I’m not,” Script said impatiently. “I’m Roaman.”
“Roaman?” Sunset was admittedly quite astonished. Roam was quite far away across the eastern sea, beyond Griffania, the eastern-most griffon nation outside of the Equestrian continent. Admittedly it wasn’t as far away as Saddle Arabia, but it wasn’t as though one regularly saw either Roamans or Saddle Arabians in Equestria. “What are you doing here? And why are you attacking Ponyville?”
“First of all,” Script said sharply. “I am doing nothing to Ponyville. And the reason that I am here is my own private concern. As for my countrymen, they’re nominally a part of the Magna Badtis occupation army. Or what you used to call the Badlands.”
Sunset puzzled this for a moment. “Roam invaded the Badlands? But what about the changelings?”
“They were driven off or conquered some seventy years ago,” Script said idly.
Sunset snorted involuntarily. “What? No they weren’t. The changelings have been a threat to Equestria for centuries. We hear stories of them growing up; we’re taught in school about past invasions. They were certainly around when I was growing up, and I’m not seventy years old.”
Script raised one sceptical eyebrow. “Okay, get out.”
“What?” Sunset asked, alarmed.
“You’re playing dumb with me. Get out. I have work to do and no patience for this nonsense. Mind the patrols on your way out, they will catch you if they spot you. Oh, and they’ll kill you. Not painfully, I shouldn’t think, but still.”
“No, wait, stop,” Sunset said, stomping a hoof as Script turned back to his book.
“Magic mirrors indeed,” Script scoffed under his breath, ignoring Sunset. “Don’t touch that!” Script smacked the heavy tome hard on the table, making Sonata jump and pull her hoof away from an object leaning against one of the bookshelves.
Sunset frowned; the object was about the shape and length of a yard stick wrapped in a heavy sort of hessian cloth and tied with a length of string.
“Sorry,” Sonata said meekly.
Script glared at her for a moment, and then sighed again. He seemed to do little but sigh, presumably at the supremely irritating ponies he constantly had to deal with. “I don’t know about your country’s past dealings with changelings, but the Republic decided to occupy their land precisely seventy three years ago, and completed the conquest sixty nine years ago. The reason that there’s a ventnavis hovering over the desolated ruins of the Land of Friendship is because said land was destroyed and made no-pony’s-land following the aborted invasion of Equestria.”
“What!?” Sunset and Sonata exclaimed at once.
“When—? How did—“ Sunset blurted, feeling the colour draining out of her face.
“Sixty three years ago,” Script said, now almost scowling. “During the time of Neighro. Part of the reason the invasion was called off was because of the turmoil that occurred when Neighro was branded an enemy of the state.” He flicked his eyes between them. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about Roaman events.”
“I just don’t understand...” Sunset said through numb lips. “I visited Equestria only months ago. None of this had happened. Equestria was whole, I met with Princess Celestia and everything was fine.” She felt her heart squirm a bit more at the appraising look Script was giving her. It had a slight tinge of something to it. Something a little like pity.
“I don’t see how that’s at all possible,” Script stated flatly. “Unless you’ve been to Roam recently, there’s no way I know of that you could have spoken to Princess Celestia.”
“Why?” Sonata asked, trying to sit up on the table.
“Because she was captured during the Battle of Canterlot, three months before the invasion force was recalled to deal with the civil war. She’s been an official ‘guest’ of the Republic for about six decades,” Script said as though this information was common knowledge. “Maybe you’re smarter than I thought,” he said speculatively. “I’m starting to believe this mirror story of yours. Although you might have mentioned it time travels too. Be sure to mention that the next time you come up with your fatuous story-telling.”
“It doesn’t... I-I mean...” Sunset’s head swam. How could any of this be real? Equestria invaded, Princess Celestia gone, the Badlands conquered by Roam. All of it seemed like a bad dream. And then there was the issue of how and when any of this could have happened. If Sunset hadn’t seen the ruins of Ponyville, she might have thought it all a joke or a lie. She glanced at Sonata, but she was staring absently at the wrapped object Script had told her not to touch. “What about Princess Luna?” Sunset asked swiftly, grasping feebly at a ray of hope in the darkness of her confusion. “Or Twilight?”
“The Princess of Night was not captured during the siege,” Script admitted. “She now rules the Nightlands.”
“The what?” Sunset interrupted.
“Oh-quite-I’m-forgetting,” Script said in one breath. “Equestria is no longer quite so... united, as you seem to remember. It’s now divided into Equestria proper, ruled over by the Crystal Princess, and the Nightlands, ruled by Princess Luna, where night time and twilight rule, never becoming day. I believe that the Friendship Princess dwells in the Nightlands too.”
“The Crystal Princess?” Sunset repeated, puzzled.
“The ruler of the Crystal Empire. Some relative of the sisters I believe.” He let out a sound of impatience. “I told you not to touch that!” he barked, trotting over to push away Sonata’s outstretched foreleg. “It’s magical. It’ll knock out my camouflage spell if—“ He stopped speaking as he tried to remove Sonata’s leg, but he didn’t seem able to. He gave a tug, but still Sonata reached out.
“Sonata?” Sunset asked uncertainly, tilting her head to look into Sonata’s face. Her expression was oddly... blank, as though she couldn’t see anything in front of her. She reached forward, ignoring Scripts attempts to stop her. “Sonata, what are you doing?”
“What is this curious feeling?” Sonata asked in a voice that was not her own. “Some buried magic.”
“Sonata?” Sunset asked, waving a hoof in front of her face. “What are you doing?” She stared into Sonata’s eyes. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of red there?
“Get the bone away!” Script grunted, trying hard to hold back Sonata’s leg. Either she was unusually strong, or he was feeble, because he wasn’t able to stop her inching closer and closer to the package. Sunset blinked, hesitating a moment too long. No sooner had Sonata touched the rough fabric, then Sunset’s senses were overwhelmed by a truly ominous presence. The wrapping tore and burned away, as a dark, fiery aura enveloped it, revealing something long and thin. Script was blown back by the force of the aura’s sudden eruption, flying over the table and into a bookshelf that deluged books upon him. Sunset, not being quite so close, lost her balance and fell back onto the floor.
“Sonata!” she cried as she shook off her dizziness. Sonata was splayed on the table, gasping for air as though invisible hands were pressing down on her airway as the malevolent looking aura surged and pulsed around her. Then Sunset heard the voice again; the same voice that Sonata had spoken a moment ago, only this seemed to come from everywhere; a voice deep in the way that canyons aren’t, a voice so chilling it gave Sunset the impression that it could freeze flames into place.
“Give it to me, you feeble creature,” it snarled. The darkness billowed downwards, enveloping Sonata like a cloud of smoke as she gagged and choked. Her eyes were green, the irises a burning red, purplish smoke intermingled with the darkness like vapours from a witch’s cauldron.
“Sonata!” Sunset shrieked, picking herself hastily up and leaping forward as Script emerged from a pile of weighty books.
“Do not interfere!” the voice snapped, rising angrily. A tendril of darkness whipped out, but Sunset ducked. Forgetting about the block on her magic, she flared her horn, which instantly frazzled out. The tendril wrapped back around and caught her legs, sending her crashing to the floor and into the table leg.
“Damn!” Script cursed. His own horn surged with sky-blue light. With a cry he sent a blast of spiralling energy at the darkness, which recoiled violently away from the impact, the voice giving a terrible cry of mingled rage and pain.
“Who dares—“ it began, in that typical villain’s cry. Before it could get into full monologuing flow, Script blasted it again. The darkness burned like smouldering paper, singing away where the blasts had hit it. It gave a howl of rage and attempted one last lunge in Sonata’s direction, but Sunset pulled herself up, and with a massive effort of will, released a burst of magic that lit the room with green light. The darkness burst apart into a thousand curling wisps, the maniacal voice letting out one last throat-tearing roar of rage as it dissipated like smoke in the air. From the midst of the terrible aura, a long, thin length of dark blue crystal hung in the air. Sunset just had enough time to think that it looked strangely like a bone, perhaps a femur given its shape and length, before it fell to the floor, shattering into a million tiny pieces.
Sunset’s eyes misted over as a wave of nausea and a massive throb of pain pulsed through her head. Through streaming eyes she sought Sonata’s face.
“Are... you okay?” she gasped.
“She won’t be when I get over there,” Script snarled, kicking the books aside as he fought his way out of the deluge. “Ruined! Everything, ruined! Spirits curse the moment I gave into mercy.”
“S-Sunset!” Sonata cried in a strangled voice. “Help... m-my... neck!” She flopped off the table, an ominous red glow emanating from her. Staggering away from Sunset, she seemed to gasp for air.
“What’s wrong with your neck?” Sunset asked, trying to pull her around. “Let me see. Stop tugging or—“ She let go with a cry of horror.
Sonata clutched at the spot as best she could with her hooves, as something pressed upwards from beneath the skin. Something hard. Something that was giving off that eerie red glow.
“What in Tartarus is that?” Script whispered, staring aghast at Sonata.
Sunset couldn’t bare it. As Sonata screamed, Sunset held her close, trying to help her bare with the pain of the thing forcing itself through her skin. As the red light suddenly died, Sonata let out a single wet cough, and fell forward. Sunset held her up as best she could as Sonata gasped and breathed quick shallow breaths.
“Get back!” Script barked, trying to shove Sunset away.
“Hey!” Sunset cried, pushing back. “Let go of her! Stop—“
“Sunset?” Sonata sobbed, tears running down her cheeks. “My paintings.”
“You’re what?”
“My work... I don’t remember... I can’t remember any of them.” Sunset looked her directly in the eye. A blankness had settled there, a dullness reminiscent of despair the likes of which were burned into Sunset’s memory, and which sent a stab of dread into the depths of her soul. The eyes Sonata had had when Sunset had found her on the roof all those long months ago. Something inside Sonata had broken.
Automatically it seemed, all three of them: Sunset, Sonata, and Script, all looked slowly down. Where the agony of a broken limb had failed, the sight before brought tears to Sonata’s eyes.
Around her neck, held in place by a black strap that was steaming slightly, rested a large, red stone, dangling innocently in the dim light of Script’s lit horn.
- To be Continued