(Kurama's POV)
Going into a deep meditative state is kind of like hibernating, which is just a really long nap. So I shouldn't have been too surprised when I found myself having dreams. No, dreams is the wrong phrase, more like flashing memories of a time long since past. Well long as far as I was concerned, in the grand scheme of things 16 to 32 years is just an eye blink and if I was to live as long as the Nine Tails from Naruto, it would prove to be as such in my mind too. But for now it felt like a long time ago.
Lots of my past had slowly returned over the course of my 10 years of imprisonment, that I spent conscious, but it was only in this deep sleep that some, rather, 'important' ones came back to me. The five days leading up to my death. I could see them, whizzing by at the speed of light, the good times and the times I wished I could have done more.
However it would seem I would have to think about these things later, as I could hear a voice calling out in the darkness.
(Third Person POV)
"Hello?" The girl called, as she walked through the dark-cellar-like room, her boots splashing through the thin layer of surface water as she went. "Is anybody here?" She was wearing, along with the aforementioned black and magenta coloured boots, a short orange skirt with both a yellow and a magenta stripe. A black leather jacket over a shirt that was the same colour as her boot's secondary. She had light amber skin, bright crimson and brilliant yellow hair and a pair of cyan coloured eyes looked out, fearfully, at the dark world around her.
This was Sunset Shimmer, sixteen years old and on the end of her rope. She'd spent her years at Canterlot High scheming and creating mistrust between its students, separating them out into nice, organized groups, that hated each other. She'd won the last three, biannual Fall Formal Princess awards through manipulation and cheating. All of this had left her without a friend in the world, just like in Equestria, but she'd only recently found out the reason for her loneliness in the previous world and now she was standing right in front of its cage.
Sunset gulped as she looked up at the massive, metal gate, with the paper seal keeping it shut, her eyes filled with tears of pain, sadness and terror.
"Please be asleep, please be asleep, please be Asleep" she repeated to herself with growing urgency as she inched closer and closer to the seal. She almost jumped clean out of her skin at what happened next.
"I WAS asleep, until you got here."
Sunset Shimmer went as white as a sheet of paper as she found herself staring up into pair of emerald green, slitted eyes. A bright orange fox's face came into view next, as the demon before her lazily moved himself into the dim light. He was huge. Far greater in size than he had been when he'd attacked Canterlot, even though he was crouching he would have towered over his previous self. Now more comparable to a moving orange mountain, with teeth, claws and a devilish grin spread across his massive face. Sunset was quite surprised as his body, aside from his face and tails, was pretty human looking. A wide chest and shoulders slimming down, slightly, to a waist that was clearly better for holding the Tailed Beast upright. He possessed thumbs and fingers, rather than an animal paw and toes that also looked like fingers-spread wide as he crouched down, with his elbows on his knees and knuckles on the ground. Nine long, powerful-looking tails lazily waved around in the air behind him, barely visible due to the poor light quality.
Sunset was terrified, despite already having met his so-called 'other half', this one was just a little bit worse as she could see (almost) his entire form, rather than just those teeth and horrible, red orbs. She couldn't say anything, she couldn't even blink let alone run.
"I'm a bit surprised at your appearance, you were a pony last time I checked." His words surprised Sunset Shimmer, enough so that they shocked her from her stupor and forced her to speak.
"Then where the hell have you been for the past six years?! Taking a nap?!" She blurted out, her collar rising. The beast merely cocked an eyebrow. "No, scratch that, where have you been for the past sixteen years?! As YOUR other half took control of my body every five minutes and made me do so many horrible things!"
Now it was Kurama's turn to be surprised, but it didn't last long.
"I'm sorry" He apologised, bowing his head and staring at his claws.
"Yeah damn straight you ar- Wait what?" Sunset was, once again, made speachless by what the Beast had said, but for a different reason this time. "What do you mean by 'Sorry'." She asked calming her temper, and relaxing a bit.
"I was so caught up in trying to make myself stronger, I didn't notice his presence in your psyche. It's my fault, if I'd seen him we wouldn't be wherever the hell we are and he wouldn't have such a grip on you!" He finished his rant by slamming his fist against the bars of his cage, shaking the entire room. But his bout of anger didn't last long and he went limp, toppling sideways and hitting the ground, sending a small tidal wave out in all directions. He laid there for a few moments, staring at nothing-in-particular before he felt something softly touch the end of his nose.
"It's not all your fault, I shouldn't have listened to that bastard and his honeyed words, telling me I could be all powerful and beloved by all if I just did as he said. Look where that got me. I'm in a foreign world, all alone and to top it all off I'm not even in control of my own body any more." Kurama was touched by his Jinchuuriki's words, but was suddenly put on full alert by that last statement.
"What do you mean your not in control? Did Kyuubi take full command of your body?"
At first Sunset was confused
"Who?"
"Kyuubi, that's his name, the dark one." Kurama said as he rolled his eyes slightly, they didn't have time to discuss things like that. "Did he take full control?"He asked as he pushed himself back into a crouch.
"Sort of" Sunset replied, keeping eye contact with Kurama as he rose up. "He did for a while, but recently he created another me, if that makes sense, from all of my negative emotions. He said he didn't need me any more and that he had to build up power." She said sinking down onto her knees as she spoke gathering tears in her eyes, "I can't believe what a horrible person I've been for him, all in the name of...of...I don't even know what I was working to achieve" She finally broke down into tears, loud sobs rocked her body as she cried into her hands.
Kurama, for a moment, didn't do anything. He sat and thought, his eyes shrouded in darkness.
"And what do you plan to do about it?" He asked
"Huh?" Sunset looked up from her palms for a second to stare at him.
"ARE YOU JUST GOING TO SIT THERE AND MOPE OR ARE YOU GOING TO GET UP AND DO SOMETHING?" He roared, righteous anger ablaze in his eyes.
Despite this out burst, Sunset simply went back to eyeing her palms.
"What can I do?" she asked "I'm just some worthless-"
"SHUT UP!!!" Kurama cut her off. "YOU ARE THE DAUGHTER OF A BRAVE GUARDS-MARE AND MY JINCHUURIKI, YOU STOOD STRONG THROUGH ALL THE LONELINESS YOU SUFFERED IN YOUR PAST AND CAME OUT STRONGER FOR IT! THERE IS NO ONE STRONGER THAN YOU SUNSET SHIMMER AND IF I WERE YOU, I WOULDN'T JUST SIT THERE AND WATCH AS THAT BASTARD CONTROLS MY LIFE!" After that rant Kurama had to sit back and take a moment to catch his breath. It was in that moment that Sunset moved.
Her face was shadowed by her hair and she looked pretty limp as she rose up, for a short time Kurama thought she'd just fall down again but she didn't. Soon enough she was standing tall, fists clenched, shoulders back and her head was held high. There wasn't a shred of evidence to the fact that she'd been crying less than a minute before.
"Now, what do you plan to do?" Kurama asked again.
"I'm gonna get my body back" She said a knew determination glowing in her eyes. "And I'm gonna kick Sunfall's ass!" she followed up by punching the air.
Kurama briefly thought about asking who Sunfall was, but he could figure it out.
"Sorry to rain on your parade, but before we can kick out those two fakes, I need to teach you how to fight and I need to know the situation we're in. Kyuubi's plan, where we are, all that kind of stuff."
So Sunset began to explain how Kyuubi had told her to steal the element of magic from Princess Twilight Sparkle, saying that once the element was brought to this world its connection to the other five elements would be severed and its magic could be activated without them but it would be corrupted and its magic would become dark. She also told him that she'd misplaced the crown and now it was being used as the crown for the winner of the Fall Formal Princess competition and that Twilight, who'd followed her from Equestria, was competing against her to get it back, with aid of the human counterparts of the other element bearers, before the portal back to Equestria closed in three days time. She also explained how the elements worked when they were all together and which trait applied to each element and which bearer possessed that trait.
Kurama didn't interrupt her once, simply nodding occasionally to show his understanding. There was one thing he understood almost instantly, the elements weren't the key, the bearers themselves were. A plan began to form in his head as his mild clairvoyance showed him how things were most likely to play out, one of the perks to being a Tailed Beast was a very powerful mind with abilities beyond that of most other beings. He smiled as he realized what would happen, it wasn't certain but it was close enough.
"Well then, with that being said we can begin your training." His low voice echoing through the room.
"Training for what? You still haven't told me what we're training for." Sunset grumbled, she didn't have a relaxed personality and easily became frustrated.
"The day of the Fall Formal is the day we'll get the chance to free you, that's all I can say for now. We can't risk Kyuubi reading your mind and finding out how I plan to separate us from them" He said dismissively.
"Wait, he can do that?!" Sunset asked aghast.
"Indeed"
"Great"
Kurama rolled his eyes at her response, This is going to be the longest three days of my life. He thought to himself, but put it aside knowing all too well they didn't have time for him to be complaining. So he decided to get straight to the point:
"I need you to open the seal." He said, an eerie seriousness in his voice
Sunset looked up at him, a look of distrust in her cyan eyes as they met his own emerald green ones.
"What?"