Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead

by Rune Soldier Dan


Chrysalis actually wants peace.

“How did I forget my phone?” Sunset grumbled. She hustled through the empty school, making a beeline for her locker. It was already too late to take the bus, but Rarity promised to give a ride if she called before five… not that it helped, with the number in the missing phone.

This was bad. Sunset kept the phone in her purse, stored safely in the locker during school hours. Hopefully it had fallen out and was still there, because she had no idea where to look if it wasn’t.

Sunset sighed as she opened her locker. Nothing but books.

Maybe it was behind the books. Stupid, of course, but the faint chance was all she had. Sunset pulled them out one at a time, not even hopeful enough to be disappointed as her phone failed to appear.

“Looking for this?”

Sunset’s eyes lit up at the deep, familiar voice, and she turned. Iron Will approached down the hallway, her red-cased phone in hand.

Grinning, Sunset retrieved it from the burly teacher and swiped her finger across the screen. No reaction came, and her grin faltered. A dead battery meant no ride to the arcade, but that was nothing compared to the phone’s retrieval.

“Thank you so much!” Sunset breathed out, feeling her fear pass away.

“No problem,” Iron Will returned, at a sensible volume.

That… was a little odd. The normally-boisterous teacher shuffled awkwardly, picking at his pinstripe suit. “Lucky break, I guess.”

“What’s up, Mr. Will?” Sunset thrust her hands in her pockets, matching his gaze. Something was transparently wrong with the man; best to get it out and over with.

Iron Will chuckled, shaking his head. “That obvious, huh? I must be getting old. Look, the long and short of it is…”

“…We need to talk.” His lips moved with the words, but it was a regal woman’s voice that emerged. Iron Will’s peach-skinned body slimmed and shrunk, blackening as it took the familiar form of Chrysalis.

Sunset had been through enough tricky situations to keep her cool. Her hands remained in her pockets, one closing around her switchblade, the other slipping into a set of metal knuckles. A discreet glance around revealed… nothing. The two of them were alone.

Maybe. “Is this the part where I find out the lockers are really changelings?”

With the transformation complete, Chrysalis… actually was shaped a lot like Celestia. A slim, leggy build that gave the illusion of great height, and a face that scratched the door of middle age. She crossed her arms, frowning.

“No, this is the part where we act like adults.”

Sunset wasn’t born yesterday. “Adults steal phones and drain their batteries?”

“Pardon me for playing it safe.” Chrysalis gave a grumpy, aristocratic sniff. “I won’t walk into an ambush any more than you will.”

“I think I just did.”

“You think wrong,” came the prim correction. “I’m trying to avoid a fight with your little band. We both have bigger fish to fry.”

“Like what?” Sunset ventured.

“An open hallway is not a good place to exchange secrets.” Chrysalis shook her head. “No, you’re going to have to play ball. Come to my mansion and we’ll talk.”

Sunset wasn’t born this morning, either. “Come into my web, said the spider to the fly.”

“I don’t eat people,” Chrysalis groaned with the irritation of one who had said so before. “Look, kid, isn’t it enough that I passed on a perfectly good chance to ambush you?”

“And conveniently made me unable to call for advice.”

Chrysalis waved off the words. “Look at it from my perspective. I’m not one of your ‘monsters;’ I have a good thing going with my life, and I’m keen on protecting it. Between your mad bomber of a spy and your easily-traced internet scouting, I know I’m in the cross-hairs, and I want out.”

“So why not hit us first?” Sunset asked, still guarded.

Chrysalis shrugged. “It’s not profitable. In fact, it would be actively bad. I’m not a big fan of the restless dead, and I want your little band of psychotic teachers keeping them down. Preferably in a different city, but a girl can’t really have it all.”

“Huh. So by ‘bigger fish,’ you mean the undead?”

“Maybe.” Chrysalis smiled coyly. “As I said: you need to play ball.”

“Uh-huh.” Sunset had relaxed over the conversation, but only barely. “Okay, now look at things from my perspective, and tell me how much of a spider you look like right now.”

“Well I’m not letting you call in your gang,” Chrysalis said. “I came for you specifically, Miss Redeemed Villain. From what I’ve dug up, you seem like the only one who would even talk to the likes of me.”

“Celestia–”

Chrysalis gave her rebuttal before the name even left Sunset’s mouth. “–Has been in the business of hunting monsters for a decade, and thinks I’m one of them. No. You and me, my place, or we are enemies.”

“I can’t just disappear,” Sunset countered. “Let me text her about this.”

“So she can call in the army?”

Sunset shook her head. “She’ll understand. You need to understand, too. If you want me to trust you, you’ll need to trust me back. This is a deal-breaker.”

A stiletto-heeled foot tapped once on the ground, and Chrysalis sighed. She removed a cell phone battery from her pocket and handed it to Sunset. “Let me see what you write.”

“No,” Sunset replied. A power play, and she won. Chrysalis grimaced, taking a step back and looking away as Sunset fiddled with the battery.

Despite the privacy, subterfuge wasn’t on Sunset’s mind. It would’ve felt wrong, after earning this tiny bit of trust. She simply, honestly told Celestia where she was going, who she planned to speak with, and to not storm the place with machine-guns.

…Okay, she added a little subterfuge, just to be on the safe side. [My password is… ‘Sunflash.’ In case it’s not me that comes home.]

And a third text. [DON’T WORRY! I got this. I love you, and I’ll see you soon.]

A reread, and a slight edit to the words before sending it off. [DON’T WORRY! I got this. I’ll see you soon.]

“Done. Thanks for trusting – it’s a two-way street.”

“Indeed,” Chrysalis replied indifferently. “Alright, come along. We’ll talk over dinner. I hope you like panda steak.”

“Panda steak?” Sunset frowned. “Aren’t they–”

“Endangered, yes. I’m tobacco royalty; I never said I wasn’t evil.”