Sunset Eclipsed

by EldritchNexus

Interactions with the Syndicate, Part One

In Principal Celestia's office, the principal was speaking with Sunset Shimmer's landlord and his building's electrician. The landlord was a short, neurotic-looking man native to Baltimore, with greasy, balding hair and dusty spectacles. The electrician was a tall and buff, bearded man wearing overalls, hiking boots, a plaid buttoned shirt, a grey neckerchief, and a black woolen cap that made him look more like a lumberjack than a custodian.

"Look, Ms. Celestia, I just wanna know what this whole thing is about Sunset Shimmer being some kind of criminal mastermind." said the landlord. "I've been that girl's landlord--and by extension, her legal guardian--for the past two-and-a-half years; since the day she came into town; before she even set foot in your high school. So I know what a girl like her is capable of. And one thing's for friggin' sure: She ain't no friggin' terrorist!"

"Yeah." agreed the electrician, speaking with a thick accent. "She ain't some kinda spy! She's just a perfectly normal young woman."

"C'mon, Nips." said the landlord. "We can't say she's normal. Sure, she was pretty bossy up until a couple months ago, but ain't a menace to society! I mean, so she was once a bully at this school, so what? She never did anything that warranted sending these armored wackos after her!"

"I understand what you mean, Frosty, and agree with you completely." said Principal Celestia. "But having these soldiers all come to hunt for her wasn't my intention in the slightest. I assure you that this school would never let harm come to Sunset Shimmer, no matter how many students she might have manipulated or humiliated."

"Then why the heck has Sunset Shimmer not been seen at this school or in my apartment complex for the past eighteen days?" questioned Frosty, anxiously. "And why are you letting a bunch of stinkin' terrorists just waltz around your building like they own the place?"

"It's complicated, Frosty." said Celestia.

"Well, could you at least tell me what the heck they plan to do with Sunset Shimmer once they find her...wherever she's supposed to be?"

"I don't know for certain, either." said Principal Celestia. "But I fear that, if they don't outright kill her, they may exploit her for their own purposes."

"And what kinda purposes would those be?" asked Frosty.

"Again, I don't know for certain." said Celestia. "I'm afraid that you'd have to directly ask the Syndicate leaders yourself."

"Oh. I'll gladly do that!" said Frosty. "Where's the leader then?"

Right on cue, the door to the principal's office opened up, and Vice Principal Luna and Captain Umbriel walked inside together. Frosty quickly climbed out of his chair before Nose Nip could stop him, and stomped up to the power-armored second-in-command of the Chrysalis Syndicate. Despite the fact that Umbriel towered over him, was fully-armored, and had a fully loaded handgun holstered on his belt, Frosty looked up at him with great spite.

"Okay, I wanna know what the flip you guys want with my tenant so badly!" demanded Frosty, angrily. "I haven't seen her in so long, that I'm worried that she might lying dead somewhere! What did you do to her?"

"Nothing...yet." said Umbriel, casually. "You don't need to worry, though. Sunset Shimmer is alive and well, and accounted for where she is."

"And where would that be?"

"Her homeland."

"What, you mean she went back to Canada?" asked Frosty. "Why aren't you looking for her over there then, man?"

But Umbriel just guffawed at him.

"You honestly think that she's Canadian?" responded Captain Umbriel.

"Well, that's what she always told me!" said Frosty. "That she came from Vancouver, and that she had no family there, so she crossed the border to start a new life here in Canterbury."

"Then Sunset Shimmer was a blatant liar." said Captain Umbriel.

"Look, I know what Canadians are like. Most of my tenants and guests at my apartment building are either Canadian or of Canadian descent. In fact, you could say that at least two thirds of this town's people are at least partially Canadian. Heck, even Nose Nip over here's Canadian--"

"Boss, how many times do I have to tell ya?" groaned Nose Nip. "I'm not Canadian, I'm Norwegian! I have a grandmother in Oslo, for pete's sake!"

"Okay, okay, Nips!" said Frosty. "My mistake!"

Umbriel cleared his throat, prompting Frosty and Nose Nip to look back at him.

"Right." said Frosty, sheepishly. "Anyway, as I was about to tell Ms. Celestia over here, I haven't seen Sunset Shimmer since eighteen or nineteen nights ago. She told me that she was going out for a walk, and left at what I think was a quarter to midnight. She didn't tell me where she was going, when she'd be back, or how far she would walk. So I'm afraid that something terrible may have happened to her."

"And where do I come into the picture?" questioned Captain Umbriel.

"Well, you're in charge of these soldier guys, aren't ya?" asked Nose Nip. "Did they do anything bad to Sunset at all?"

"If we did, we wouldn't even be having this conversation; me and the rest of the Syndicate would be long-gone from this town." stated Umbriel.

"Well, then I was hoping you can explain some weird guy that came to my apartment building a couple of months ago, looking for Sunset Shimmer." said Frosty.

"What 'weird guy' would you be referring to?" asked Umbriel, tilting his head curiously.

"Black-haired guy wearing red shades, had a very strong grip, and carrying a cardboard box in his hands." recounted Frosty. "Maybe one of your Syndicate agents?"

"Can't be. Our organization didn't even set foot in your town until after the Fall Formal."

"Then you guys can't be responsible for why Sunset came back to my building, all dirty and roughed-up."

"No. That happened because of something Sunset had brought upon herself." said Umbriel.

Captain Umbriel told Frosty and Nose Nip about what really happened at the Fall Formal, and about Sunset Shimmer's true origins. After a moment of silence, Frosty chuckled.

"So, you're saying that Sunset Shimmer is not only some kind of pony, but turned into some kind of fiery monster that then got beaten by a bunch of pony-human hybrids with a magical rainbow, all because she wanted to be a princess at some parallel universe?" Frosty inquired.

"That is very much correct, actually." verified Principal Celestia.

"Get outta here, that can't be it!" said Nose Nip, skeptically.

"It's very much the truth, Nose Nip." said Vice Principal Luna. "What Captain Umbriel just told your boss is one hundred percent accurate."

"This has to be a joke, because there's no way in the world--" said Frosty, shifting nervously in place.

"Frosty, You're looking a power-armored super-soldier dead in the face." Vice Principal Luna spoke at last. "If this was all a simple joke, it would've exceeded its punchline a long time ago."

Frosty looked at Luna with uncertainty. She had been Frosty's number one source of knowledge as to Sunset Shimmer's behavior and activities at the school, since Sunset herself rarely ever told him about what she did there. Therefore, she was his go-to person for the truth on his tenant's would-be antics and schemes. Frosty slowly took a deep breath to let all this information sink in. He turned around to sit in his chair again, and look at Principal Celestia.

"Okay, Ms. Celestia." he finally said. "If your sister says this is the truth, then I'll believe anything you and Master Chief over there tell me."

He turned to take another suspicious look at Captain Umbriel, who seemed to be reaching his muscular arm around Vice Principal Luna's waist in a suggestive manner, then retracting it when he noticed Frosty and Nose Nip were both watching.

"Well, anything you tell me, ma'am." Frosty turned to correct himself. "So, my tenant's a pony, huh? That's kinda neat, if you ask me."

Suddenly, the door opened again, and two teachers came into the office: Mr. Doodle and Mr. Shill. Doodle looked as cranky as per usual, and Silver Shill looked very nervous, especially when he wound up walking right into Captain Umbriel.

"Oh sorry about that, sir." he said.

"Principal, Silver and I are having some problems with these Syndicate thugs being here." said "Cranky" Doodle to Principal Celestia.

"Mr. Doodle, whatever do you mean?" asked Celestia.

"What antics have my soldiers done this time?" asked Captain Umbriel.

"Well, it's awfully convenient you're here, Captain Umbriel." said Mr. Doodle. "I wanna say that ever since you and your 'soldiers', as you call them, first showed yourselves on school property, a few of your men have been giving some students of mine a hard time."

"And they've been barging into and disrupting my classes, too!" added Mr. Silver Shill. "How am I supposed to teach my Home Economics class when I have a bunch of machine gun-toting, black-armored brutes turning my classroom upside down every ten minutes for someone that clearly wasn't there? They scared the pants off poor little Sweetie Belle the last time they came in, during a quiz I was handing out to the freshmen just this morning!"

"And I just saw a couple of them pointing guns at Button Mash for playing a game on his laptop during break period, even when he had my permission to do so!" added Mr. Doodle.

"Well, what game was the boy playing?" asked Captain Umbriel.

"I dunno, I'm not a video game kind of person." said Doodle. "But I remember hearing him mention it had something to do with 'fallout' and the city of Las Vegas."

"I know exactly what he's talking about, then." said Captain Umbriel. "Your student was playing an M-rated game. I think my men had every right to scare him out of playing it at school! Isn't that right, Luna?"

He turned to Vice Principal Luna, who slowly nodded in agreement.

"Maybe you should keep an eye on your students next time, Doodle." said Umbriel. "You can't expect Luna over here to babysit your troublemaking students all day, can you? Can't you see the poor woman already has enough on her mind as it is?"

Vice Principal Luna blushed a little at the captain's flattery, but said nothing.

"Actually, I know about what my colleague's talking about, too." said Principal Celestia. "Except Button Mash wasn't actually playing the game in question, but working on some mods for it. He told me all about it. He assured me that it didn't have the violence or bad language the game itself actually has--"

"Uhh...look, I think that's beside the point, Ms. Celestia." said Frosty. "I think you need to do something about what Doodle and Silver over here just told ya. I mean, why the heck haven't the cops come barging in yet about whatever the heck these guys are doing?"

"Because the mayor herself gave us permission to conduct our operations to search for Sunset Shimmer without interference from the local authorities." explained Captain Umbriel.

"Sure, I'll believe that when I see it." said Frosty. "Well, Nips and I have a couple of things to check on at my building. Bills to pay, tenants to check on. Wouldn't want to keep you all busy! See ya!"

Nose Nip proceeded to leave the office to go back to the main entrance, but Frosty stayed behind for a moment to whisper something into Principal Celestia's ear.

"Oh, and I don't wanna go pointin' fingers, but I think you miiiiight wanna keep an eye or two on that captain fella. Call it a hunch, but I think he's got the hots for your sister!"

Celestia peered over Frosty, and saw Captain Umbriel playfully flexing an arm and shifting himself in place while staring at Vice Principal Luna, who was talking with the other two teachers about their complaints.

"Noted." said Principal Celestia, nodded her head slowly.

And then Frosty left the room, whistling quietly.

Author's Note:

If this story was properly adapted in animated/audio form with my recommended casting choices, then this chapter would be something of a Beast Wars reunion, since most of the characters present in this chapter would be hypothetically (or canonically, in Silver Shill and Cranky Doodle's cases) played by the principle actors from that show:

Nose Nip: Garry Chalk [Optimus Primal]
Frosty: Scott McNeil [Rattrap/Dinobot]
"Cranky" Doodle (Donkey): Richard Newman [Rhinox]
Silver Shill: Ian James Cortlett [Cheetor]
Umbriel: David Kaye [Megatron]

Comments

[Metroid Prime]

Tell me if these new insignias give you a predacon and Maximal feel

tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attach/1/TF-pics-03_1396679237.jpg

P.S. their suppose to represent a two new factions coming in the Transformers Prime Sequel sereis

[Lord Nopony]

4197286 So wait. You're saying that there's gonna be a sequel to Transformers Prime?!

AWESOME!

[Metroid Prime]

4199109
tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attach/1/transformers-cartoon-prime_1395870966.jpg