A Sunset Refracted by FanOfMostEverything
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Like many universes, from a non-subjective, non-linear point of view, Equestria resembles a cylinder of infinite volume formed from countless timelines streaming from past to future in parallel. That these timelines can be parallel even as they branch off of one another is one of the more peculiar aspects of six-dimensional geometry.
Like any part of the natural world, these timelines needed to be guided and maintained by ponies. However, it should come as little surprise that, given the incredible complexity of the task, these ponies have a less-than-perfect track record. Especially when it comes to those who would travel from one timeline to another.
At first, the scene would be familiar to a hypothetical observer of Equestria: a cloaked pony skulking through the Crystal Palace, evading the guards, and slipping into Twilight Sparkle's suite.
That was where the familiarity came to a stuttering halt, along with the interloper herself. Her eyes bugged out as she took in the scene before her. Rather than a single sleeper, there were no fewer than three crowded in a much larger bed than she'd been expecting. One was a purple unicorn she didn't recognize, presumably Celestia's latest stooge. The other mare was clearly Rainbow Dash; the mane was a dead giveaway.
But it was the third sleeper that gave her pause. That face. That size. That hand around Dash.
Shocked out of her stealthy mindset, Sunset Shimmer whispered, "That isn't possible."
A flash of gold at the edge of her vision was all the warning she got before she slipped into unconsciousness.
Sunset groaned as she came to. For a moment, she wondered why the floor had become one of the walls before realizing that she was lying on her side. Trying to right herself revealed that her legs were bound. She narrowed her eyes. "Applejack." On any world, that bumpkin was the only person to treat hogtying as a solution to any problem.
Oh well. Easily fixed. Sunset focused her will into her horn and–
"Ow ow ow fuck shit OW!"
"Well, I think she's up."
Sunset didn't recognize the voice, but she was more focused on the circle of sharp little teeth biting down on the base of her horn. Even without channeling magic, she could sense a weight there if she focused. Years spent without hooves had done little to dull her spellcraft, but it had caused her to forget just how sensitive the damn hood ornament could be with energy flowing through it.
A door opened on the far side of the room, and Sunset took the chance to take stock of her surroundings. Judging by the close quarters and the solid sheet of faintly tinted crystal in front of her, she was in the Crystal Palace's dungeon. Fan-flipping-tastic.
Outside the cell, two mares and an impossibility approached her: a mint-green unicorn, a blue earth pony, and that which should not be. Sunset focused on the last. "How?"
The three shared a rather befuddled glance. The man asked, "Do you recognize me?"
Sunset snorted. No sense in hiding anything. If she answered their questions fast enough, she just might be able to salvage her plan. "Recognize you? I've been one of you miserable magicless monkeys for thirty moons!"
The other mares gasped at this. The man looked to the unicorn in confusion. "How long is a 'moon'?"
"Four weeks, generally." Sunset recognized the green mare as the voice she heard earlier.
"About two and a half years, then." The man turned back to the prisoner. "Where was this?"
"Like you don't know," Sunset scoffed. "I don't know how you kept your hands – or why, for that matter – but you obviously came here the same way I did."
The man leaned closer. The unicorn moved closer to him. "Lero…"
"Lero" disregarded her. "You were turned into a human… then back again?"
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Obviously. That's how the portal works. Except for you, it seems."
This got a frown. "Portal?"
The earth pony spoke up. "That mirror, then. The one giving off the unusual temporaspacial energy."
Sunset chuckled. "Of course. Celestia's left you all out of the loop. Typical." She looked around the part of the dungeon she could see. "Where is she? Too cowardly to look her former student in the eye?"
"That is none of your concern," said the unicorn. "Why did you enter our suite last night?"
"'Our' suite?" Sunset quirked an eyebrow at Lero. "What, the other two weren't enough for you?"
The unicorn gave no outward display of emotion. Just the opposite, if anything. She betrayed nothing in posture or tone beyond the kind of inner peace that comes from knowing how to kick a pony's kidneys out through her ears. "I'll thank you not to speak of my herdmates like that."
Sunset blinked. She must have misheard the other mare. "'Herdmates'?"
Lero scratched the unicorn behind her ears. She softened for a split second before hardening up again, twice as terribly tranquil. "Yes. This man is our stallion. Do you have a problem with that?"
"…'Our'?"
The earth mare stepped forward. "I think I'd better take it from here."
The green unicorn frowned at her. "You never did explain why the sousaphone player of Octavia's ensemble had the credentials to stand in on this interrogation."
"As in John Phillips Sousa?" asked Lero.
Both mares looked at him perplexedly. "As in Tsu Tsa the Metallurge, the ancient dragon composer and smith," said the earth pony.
"As for my credentials," she continued, "I'm afraid those are highly classified."
"It's on a need-to-know basis," said Lero, "and we don't need to know."
"That's… actually a very good way to put it, yes."
Lero nodded and turned for the door. "Come on, Lyra."
"But–"
"We should at least reassure Dash that this mare isn't an assassin. She's going to wear a groove through the floor at this rate."
Lyra's ears flattened against her scalp. "…Fine." She turned back to the earth pony. "You know what you're doing?" At the other mare's nod, she gave one of her own. "Then I can accept this."
The pair left the room, leaving Sunset with the mysterious earth mare. "So," said Sunset, "what's your story?"
"My name is Beauty Brass. As Miss Heartstrings said, I am a sousaphonist. Most of the time. When needed, I also serve as a member of the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau. Specifically, the Office of Parallel Realities." Beauty began to pace in front of the cell. "We are currently within what the Bureau calls Universe Eight-Six-Phi, distinguished by the unusual gender ratio of ponies skewed heavily in favor of females, the resultant adaptations of society, and more recently, the appearance of a single human from outside the local cosmic totality." She stopped and gave Sunset an apologetic smile. "Your presence here is, quite frankly, a mistake on our part."
Sunset found she had only one possible response to this revelation. "…What."
"That portal isn't exactly the most stable in the various Equestrias, hence the short active-to-inactive ratio. If I had to guess, I'd say the Celestia in the timeline you meant to access anticipated you somehow and destroyed or sealed the mirror there. That, or it's just a fluke. Probability space can be… finicky at times."
"What."
Beauty shook her head. "Pardon me, I tend to woolgather at times. In any case, you will, of course, be sent to the proper authorities, especially if you've been squatting in a timeline not your own for thirty moons. We have rather stringent immigration policies, you know." She nodded and smiled. "In any case, enjoy your stay. I understand you're the first unicorn to be held in the Crystal Palace dungeons since the Empire returned from the Shadow Plane. Quite momentous. Good day."
Sunset slumped as much as she could as the bizarre mare left the room. Well. Crap. Apparently she was in the wrong alternate world entirely, and imprisoned to boot. Now how was she going to brainwash an army of teenagers?
…huh. Saying it like that, it almost made her plan sound kind of stupid.
"You can blame Archonix for setting me up the bomb inspiration."
Should be setting up me the bomb inspiration.
I could only imagine Sunshine's face twist into confusion when she first saw Lero.
Well, Sunset is screwed. That was the first thought that came to mind when Lyra was conspicuously absent from the bed of her sleeping herdmates.
This was a entertaining read.
"…huh. Saying it like that, it almost made her plan sound kind of stupid."
Hey Hasbro, you should listen to this!
Ugh. Just try to imagine Lero face if he end up in EQG universe. You would never had a chance to see someone running so fast into some statue again in your life.
I vote this becomes a full meta-series.
No shit? :D
that got a giggle out of me
The preface made me think of that old cartoon time squad:
…huh. Saying it like that, it almost made her plan sound kind of stupid.
You couldn't figure that out before, Sunset?
dimension cops...
Everyone keeps saying this was a stupid plan, but remember that each of those 'teenagers' was the equivalent to a fully-grown pony in and around Ponyville. Which, admittedly, also tells us that ponies are considered 'adults' and 'mature' but around age 18, or else they wouldn't be teenagers.
So consider this: Hasbro slipped in a way for us to guage approximately how old the entire cast is
After all, we know their relative ages to one another.
Pinkie is a 'year younger' than Shy, who is the same age as RD, and Pinkie is the exact same body size in the Cutie Mark flashbacks, which makes them about the same age. AJ was able to leave home and travel on hoof, which suggests older age, meaning she's probably the same age or older than RD and Shy, and Rarity is probably somewhere in that three-year age group.
So there you go, the cast ranges from around 17-19 years of age, and every one of the 'human' teens at that high school (which was likely going to be just the start, with the rest of the country and everywhere else being pulled into it as well over the next two and a half years) are fully grown adults in Pony-Equestria.
So there.
3092860
Leaving aside humans are probably weaker than ponies, pound by pound, how can a few thousand of weaponless, civilian teenagers be a match against any professional army, like the Equestrian (not to mention the magic factor)?
This said, turning them into demons like Snip and Snails could give them an edge. But the plan is still stupid.
3092860
Ah, yeah... Over-thinking it much?
In 'cutie mark chronicles', Rarity and Cheerilee are shown as being at school together but in EQ-girls Rarity is a schoolgirl while Cheerilee is a teacher/librarian. How's that fit then?
Plus, Mare Mare has exactly the same body shape as any other adult earth pony which includes Pinkie Pie, Applejack etc.
The cast are as old (mentally or physically) as the writers want/need them to be, nothing more than that. If you're trying to ascribe arbitrary ages to pastel coloured cartoon ponies from 'clues' then you're gunna have a bad time.
3093192
They wouldn't be humans if they went through the portal, presumably.
3093203
Yeah, I probably am over-thinking it much, but it wasn't an entirely bad show. I'll admit, it would've been better just turned into a normal episode and released as a special feature, but it wasn't bad. And at least Sunset Shimmer wasn't as bad a villain as Sombrero, who got upstaged by a toy commercial. And then completely forgotten about by the entirety of Equestria. Ouch.
Still, I'm surprised so many people expected something more impressive, as Studio B has been fairly stubborn about making this absolutely, irrevocably a kids show with the occasional adult element, not a kids show with intelligent elements. Mainly because it thinks kids are stupid and oblivious, instead of budding humans that need mental stimulation to grow properly.
3093321
I think this is due to the fact that to some extent Bronies have embraced the concept of MLP to such a degree that they feel that it is no longer just a TV show for young girls but THEIR show if you know what I mean.
Furthermore, when elements are employed which highlight the fact MLP is a children's cartoon such as EG, it takes adult audiences out of the experience enough to make them aware as a grown up the core nature of what they are watching, bringing them crashing back down to earth with a bump.
3094853
That and TV shows and their producers think kids are moronic, incompetent twits, who can't follow a story line unless you involve lots of bright, flashing colors and loud noises.
The target demographic has already finished teething, thank you.
Anyways, I just wish they'd actually re-use older encounters more.
I had this idea where Sombra would be coming repeatedly throughout season 3, and have to be destroyed fragment by fragment,piece by piece, until he could be redeemed, the only fragment left being his heart, which then, idunno, be made into a crystal pony foal or a magical artifact of good, or something.
But no, he's dropped entirely. Discord's redemption is very rushed. Trixie's was actually rather good. We haven't seen or heard from Gilda, and the Changelings were apparently vaporized by their send-off, because we haven't even heard rumors about them.
We also haven't seen any of the actually dangerous enemies from the older generations of the franchise; the Smooze was so dangerous it ate concepts, and while the whole 'rainbow of darkness' idea sounds pretty lame, it makes sense: it's a mind altering waveform that obliterates a pony's ability to think on its own, allowing the controller of the 'rainbow' to control them instead.
And we still haven't seen anything more about Daring Do, who I, personally, want to see more about.
3095191
Unfortunately, reusing G1 villains is not an option. Hasbro no longer holds the trademarks to any G1 characters except Applejack, Spike, and three or four others due to disuse. G3, OTOH, doesn't have much that would be appropriate for use in the adventure-ish setting of FiM.
Well, having just seen EqG and having thought about it, I can see how brainwashing an army of teenagers could actually work.
They won't be the main fighting force. Assuming that the Royal Guard are actually police rather than soldiers, seeing what are essentially zombies that resemble ponies they know trying to (potentially) kill them would be a huge blow to morale. And Sunset seemed to have enough power to force the Element of Magic to give her power. And it took the Elements (all of them) to subdue her. That kinda puts her on Discord-levels of power. Her army is a distraction.
3099794
Then who holds them now? If it's no-one, they could renew their trademark.
If someone does, they could easily get around the problem by buying them back. Or pattern current villains after them. Or come up with more interesting, well-developed recurring villains!
I guess that's what I want: a developed recurring villain in MLP. Trixie sorta was, minus the developed part until part 2.
3101680
There's another problem there: Did she not mention that the power she gained from the Element was because she brought a magical thing into a world without magic?
Equestria is not a world without magic. She'd be back to her normal power there.
Well, at least she didn't run into the consultant on Planar Travel this time round. Any road. the mare I'm thinking of has different responsibilities in this timeline.....
Reference to the radio show!