Sunset Eclipsed

by EldritchNexus

Revelations at Canterlot High

In Canterlot High, Rainbow Dash was laying catatonic in the infirmary, with an oxygen mask pumping air into her body. Her eyes were wide open, but she made no attempt to move them, nor the rest of her body. Corporal Ghost and another Chrysalis Syndicate operative were standing guard over her and monitoring her heart rate. The rainbow-haired girl had several bruises on her body, including a black eye.

"So, what's the diagnosis on her, so far?" asked Ghost, his mask removed.

"Sir, the girl's doing fine at the moment." said the other man, who was fully-armored and masked like the other Syndicate commandos. "Not exactly ship-shape, but I'm sure her present condition's nothing she couldn't survive. Heck, this is nothing compared to that lady that my team found back in San Palamino."

"You mean the one that kept puking up that black-and-red bile, and nearly choked to death on it?" said Corporal Ghost. "Yeah, that was some pretty nasty stuff. I can't even begin to imagine how many drugs they must've injected into her bloodstream."

"Quite." said the soldier. "And you have no idea how many more our medics had to put into her to cancel it all out."

He inspected a small puncture mark on Rainbow Dash's neck.

"But that Diamond Dog must've really wanted this girl badly." he commented. "Between this mark and the blank stare in her eyes, I'd say he popped her with some kind of tranquilizer."

"Like a mild sedative?" asked Cpl. Ghost.

"Probably too mild." replied the agent. "Since I have yet to give Miss Dash a blood test, I don't know what the man injected her with, but it probably didn't relax Rainbow Dash too much. In fact, I think it made her harder for him to control. If that bruise on her eye's any indication, he had to punch her out hard."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's a fine way to treat a lady." said Ghost, sarcastically. "But why's she like this, though? I mean, she looks like she recently had a seizure or something."

"Well, it's possible that something was injected in with that tranquilizer." said the Syndicate member. "Maybe some kind of muscle relaxing agent, or...."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Come on in!" said Corporal Ghost.

Applejack rushed inside, and knelt by Rainbow Dash's side. Fluttershy stood nervously by the door.

"What in tarnation happened to Rainbow Dash?" she asked, looking at her injured friend's face. "Why's she all buggy-eyed and stuff?"

"Well, that's what we're trying to find out." said Ghost. "My colleague here thinks that Rainbow was drugged by the man that tried to abduct her."

The blonde cowgirl knelt over her friend, and gently brushed her bangs off her cold, sweating face.

"Oh, Rainbow!" she said, worried. "Please tell me she'll be alright!"

"She'll be okay." said the Syndicate commando. "Her heart rate is perfectly stable, if a littler faster than usual. But there's no indication that she will fall into a coma, or anything worse. She's just in some kind of mental stasis. It should wear off in at least half an hour."

"Well, okay." said Applejack. "But I'd like to stay for a spell, if you'd please."

"Fine by me." said Ghost.

Meanwhile, in Principal Celestia's office, Captain Umbriel and Sergeant Craw were speaking with Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna.

"Captain, I want you to understand that if anything bad has happened to Rainbow Dash..." she said to Umbriel, warningly.

"I assure you, ma'am." said Umbriel, holding a hand up. "The girl is just fine. I have our best medical equipment and operative keeping her in check."

"But I would like to know the identity of the man that tried to kidnap her." said Celestia. "And why anyone would try to do something like this at my school."

"I can answer that one." said the sergeant. "Before the man was shot dead by me and my men, he claimed that he was a member of an organization known as the Diamond Dog Cartel."

"The Diamond Dogs?" repeated Vice Principal Luna. "I've heard about them, but I'm not familiar with their work."

"They practice jewel smuggling, theft, armed robbery, and human trafficking." said Umbriel. "The Diamond Dogs are pure scum, no matter how you look at them. We suspect they came from the city of San Palamino, since that's where our organization first encountered them. But we've fought them in several other cities since then: Las Vegas, Junction City, Townsville, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Peach Creek, Vancouver, and now here."

"Yeah." said the sergeant. "And they're very hard to remove from a city once they've set their sights on it. Heck, I thought I had already gotten rid of the ones in this town two weeks ago, but they're still showing up!"

"Well, whoever these Diamond Dogs are, whatever their number is..." said Celestia. "I want you and your Syndicate to keep them out of this building, and away from my students. And if your men must resort to violence, keep it off of school property! Our contractors are still reeling from the damage caused last month, during the Fall Formal. They don't need anything bigger than that!"

"That's the plan, Ms. Celestia." said Captain Umbriel. "Once they show their ugly mugs again, we'll have the Cartel out of this town before you know it."

"And I promise that our men won't let anything bad happen to your students while we're on the job." assured the sergeant.

"And who, may I ask, are you again?" asked Vice Principal Luna. "Your voice sounds vaguely familiar."

The sergeant turned his head to Captain Umbriel.

"Go ahead, sergeant." said the captain.

The sergeant slowly pulled off his mask, and showed his face to the two heads of Canterlot High School.

"Craw?!" Celestia and Luna said at once.

"That's right, principals." he said. "I'm with the Syndicate."

"Is that why you were absent for over a week?" asked Celestia.

"That's right." said Craw.

"So were you a member this whole time?" asked Luna. "Even before you came here?"

"Yep." said Craw. "I was sent to infiltrate the school after that little stunt that Sunset Shimmer pulled off at the Fall Formal."

"And you're already a sergeant in the Chrysalis Syndicate?" asked Celestia. "But your file said you were only eighteen! How old are you, really?"

"I'm twenty-two." said Craw.

"That seems about right." said the vice principal. "You didn't exactly look like a teenager to begin with. You almost looked like you should be in college."

"Well, Sunset Shimmer wasn't exactly a teenager, either." said Craw. "Based on a blood test we got out of her, we found out that she's actually twenty years old, though she appeared to be an eighteen-year-old girl. Oh, and that she's a pony!"

He was looking between Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna, as if waiting for them to make a confession. Luna slowly nodded.

"Yes, it was only a matter of time before someone found out about her...secret." she said. "I should've anticipated that people like you would go after her."

"So, you let this girl into your school, knowing she wasn't really human?" asked the sergeant. "When did you find out?"

"A few hours after the Fall Formal ended, when Sunset finished laying the bricks for the doorway that her demon form destroyed, she decided to explain what she really was to me. She told me that she was a unicorn, that she came from a world called Equestria, and that she had used a portal to come here."

"You don't say." he said to her. "Then you must know where it is."

"Very well." said Luna. "If you truly want to know where it is, you should come with me."

"Lead the way, then." said Craw, putting his mask back on. "The sooner we find where Sunset Shimmer went, the better."

Luna and Craw walked over to the Vice Principal's office, and sat down at the desk. Luna opened a hidden compartment hidden on the underside of her desk, and pulled out a video tape.

"This is a recording taken from an exterior camera." explained the vice principal. "This was taken on the night of the shootout. I had it...hidden because of the content. I was afraid someone might get the wrong ideas about your organization."

"Then let's go see it." said Craw.

They played it on a TV set. It was an overhead view from above the door. They could make out the figure of Sunset Shimmer standing by the horse statue on the front lawn. She was banging on the side, while shouting words neither could make out. She kicked the statue, then stepped away.

"A little far back, don't you think?" asked Craw. "Never mind. I'll fast-forward."

He sped through the tape, and past the part where Sunset Shimmer was conversing with Shining Armor. He stopped it when he saw the figure of Ghost running towards Sunset, with a rifle pointing at her. He was holding her at gunpoint, but didn't pull the trigger. He handed her a mobile phone, and the girl spoke into it. After a few minutes, her body language became uneasy. She even began shouting into the phone. When the call ended, Ghost took the phone back, and had her bend down on the ground.

The police car came up along the road, and three policemen climbed out. They approached Corporal Ghost and Sunset Shimmer, one of them even speaking on a megaphone. Then Sunset Shimmer and Corporal Ghost began arguing with each other, with Ghost retaliating by savagely beating Sunset Shimmer, even as she was on all fours. Craw felt a surge of anger course through him, but he kept watching the recording.

In the video, the small dark figure representing Ghost began shouting at the police officers, and fired his rifle into the air. The cops promptly opened fire on him, until Sunset Shimmer raised her legs behind her, and bucked Corporal Ghost in the shins. She got back up, and the two began fighting each other for a while. Eventually, Sunset grabbed Ghost's rifle and struck him on the head with its butt (which earned a chuckle from Craw), and angrily tossed at back at him. Ghost was about to get ready to confront Sunset again, but then the cops resumed shooting at him. As Ghost turned to shoot at the police, Sunset dove away, and disappeared into the side of the statue, leaving behind no trace of her body.

Craw turned off the video, and ejected the tape. He handed it back to Vice Principal Luna, thanking her before walking outside the room.

---

Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer was conversing with Radiant Dawn on the road to Fillydelphia, at the rear of the Night Guard. Radiant had told her about how he came to join them, but his sister had a skeptical expression on her face.

"So, let me get this straight." she said. "You mean to tell me that Princess Luna just let you join her guard, just like that, and that she had you start training the other guards right away? Sorry, bro, but I find that a little hard to swallow."

"To be fair, sis, so did I." said Radiant. "But I guess I just had all that skill welled up inside me for all this time."

"Wow, Radiant." Sunset stopped, to look at her brother with skepticism. "You mean to tell me that you could've used those skills all this time, and yet you turned down your job at the Royal Guard all those years ago to stay in the academy that got you kicked out of Canterlot? C'mon, Red, I didn't need you with me that badly! I mean, who knows? Maybe you'll become a general by next week!"

Radiant simply gave his sister a slightly unamused look, but decided it wasn't the time to argue.

"So, sissy." he said. "What's the scoop on those monster problems?"

"Yes, Miss Shimmer." said Captain Star Shield, who came up to the two unicorns. "If there's any good time to inform us what the situation is in the city, it would be now."

"Okay, here's the situation so far:" said Sunset. "These attacks have been carried out by a variety of creatures, and they were coordinated or manipulated into attacking by a Changeling known as Lord Umbriel."

"I do recall receiving reports about a rogue Changeling being active somewhere in Equestria." commented the captain.

"And Radiant?" Sunset Shimmer said, turning her head to face her brother. "He's the one that attacked us all those years ago. He's Prince Embryo!"

"So, does that mean he's the one that made our parents disappear, too?" asked Radiant, his teeth grinding together. "I think I'll enjoy bringing him down more than I should!"

"Well, he didn't seem to know what happened to them, either." said Sunset.

"That's what they all say. I bet he didn't want to say anything because he knew that you and I would tear that monster limb from limb if he actually told you anything!"

"Red, I'm really unsure about this." said the sister. "But frankly, I'd like to see this tyrant brought to justice. Not just for what he did to our family, but what he's done to Fillydelphia and the other towns in Equestria."

"That's the spirit." said the brother. "Trust me, Sunny. We'll break that freak, even if we two are the only ones left to do it. Umbriel's going down!"

"If we hurry..." said Star Shield. "We will be able to reach Fillydelphia before the next attack starts. Miss Shimmer and Lieutenant Dawn, since you know more about this Lord Umbriel than the rest of us, why don't you two lead the way?"

"Yes, sir!" said the two siblings at once.

Sunset Shimmer and Radiant "Red" Dawn galloped down the road, closely followed by the Night Guard.

Author's Note:

I edited out the confrontation between Sunset and Radiant, and will save it for a later chapter.