Twilight Sparkle was merely trying to go out to lunch with her number one assistant after a long morning in the lab when a strange dome of energy passed over them. Now on the other side, with Spike missing, no one in Ponyville recognizing her and certain facts about the town and Equestria she had taken for granted changed, Twilight has some questions.
What happened?
Where is she?
How can she get back?
And perhaps most importantly:
Who is this "Champion of Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer Defender of the Realm" everpony keeps going on about?
This story is set in season 3, before Magical Mystery Cure. All other episodes have occurred, or are not relevant.
Characters who deserve to be on the main character list have been removed to prevent spoilers.
Edit: Updated to teen upon reflection of the fact that it is going to get rather violent latter on.
Cover art by the fantastic Lord-Giampietro of deviant art. http://lord-giampietro.deviantart.com/
Bit of advice for you: the last paragraph should be in the Author's Note section. Other than that, this looks interesting, and I'll be keeping an eye out for this.
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Thanks for the comment! I'm not that experienced at writing, so any suggestions or grammar checks or whatnot are really appreciated.
I'll definitely be taking your suggestion into consideration, but most of the stories I've read here have in universe footnotes like that at the end of the chapter before the authors notes.
Hmm, a fairly well written Sunset Shimmer story? Those are hard to come by, especially ones that are really interesting. Could use a little polishing grammar wise and such, mostly missing comas. I'll be keeping an eye on this, but it shows promise!
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The story is really interesting?
Thanks for the advice on the commas, I'll give the chapters a read through and see what I catch.
Edit: Oh wow that was bad. I really need to check those better before I post the next chapter.
Unfortunately Sunset Shimmer will not be showing up in person(should that be in pony?) for a while, but a good portion of next chapter is about what she has been up to, as told by Pinkie Pie.
I like it and I like you here hav a follow
Very good Pinkie Pie. Written quite nicely.
And now the conflict begins!
This chapter was a bit loaded, but it's nice to see the story updating. And I see you found some new cover art as well.
Wow, just wow. I don't know what to say. Apparently there is two Twilights. Best hope they both don't go crazy at the same time.
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More than just the Twilights are going to go a little crazy before this is done.
Well that shattered by theory of a time warping spell. This makes this story even better. I love how the information of nightmare moon just was a surprise for everyone. Great job. I can't wait for the next chapter.
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K, I'm curious, what made you think Time-Warp spell, and who did you think did it?
4131543 Nothing. I am a big fan of time traveling and hypnosis fanfiction, so when a dome appears and is engulfing things, I thought a temporal shift was causing this magic. I thought Sunset would have casted it, but since she didn't have any idea about Princess Luna, that seems less likely. Maybe an alternate self, that can't contact this other sunset. This all came from my mind. Sorry if it ruined any of your ideas, or if I just gave anything away.
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So your like me then, its surprising how often my guess is: "Time travel! The solution/reason-something-happened is obviously time travel!"
Don't worry, my ideas are all perfectly intact, they tend to be pretty robust. They have to be to live up to Twilight running roughshod over the specifics of how things play out.
As for giving things away? Well, I guess you'll just have to wait and see. After all, confirming or denying, or even implying anything is no fun, rabid speculation is one of the best parts of reading!
Yay, it's back!
Nice chapter. I wonder who the mystery stallion is and who he works for.
Loving the footnotes and the general writing style; has a Douglas-Adams-y feel to it.
Very interesting story thus far! I like what you've done with the AU, and the earlier scene with Pinkie was really heartwarming. Looking forward to more!
An interesting and amusing start.
Remaining.
Wait... I thought the moral was 'to be the winner you need the bigger clique' and that's why Twilight won six to three?
I'm joking, of course. The real lesson, as exposited by a victorious Twilight to a defeated Sunset Shimmer, is that friendship is literally power and that she lost because she didn't have any close relationships to support her. So, if she'd bothered making some good friends and then setting out for conquest as a group, Sunset could have been victorious.
With that chapter title, I half expected Sunset to show up.
You know, I was amazed Twilight wasn't considering bumping into herself at home since her theory with Pinkie of entering an alternate world would have no reason to get rid of that world's Twilight (though if the world was changed but Twilight wasn't, maybe then there would be one because her not being changed could leave a 'gap').
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That was my logic, too. I thought Sunset Shimmer, having witnessed Twilight's successes and regretting her separation from Celestia went back and never had that final argument (or whatever) and then used her future knowledge to smash all threats.
But Sunset Shimmer doesn't have any future knowledge... And Discord is missing. So something else is up.
5292529 Yeah. The trick is we don't know how this happened. It can't be a magical mishap, because that only happens to Twilight in the series. And with Sunset, and Chrysalis stunned about the new Twilight, and with Discord Missing, something else is up. I this story updates so we can see if Luna can be saved still.
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Douglass Adams? High praise indeed! I will admit to the use of footnotes being inspired by him and Terry Pratchett.
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Danke!
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Ummmm, have I implied Discord to be missing? Cause I haven't meant to do that. He is supposed to currently be sealed in his statue in the gardens.
If I have implied this somewhere could you tell me where so I can go and correct that?
As for the next chapter: I really apologize for it taking this long. I didn't have anywhere near as much time to work on it in the summer as I thought I would, and some things from Rainbow Rocks have made me reconsider a few plot points that I was going to start foreshadowing soon. Plus Zecora has some speaking parts in the next chapter and uhhhhh rhyming. But now I'm back in the swing of things, so the next chapter should actually be out very soon.
The chapter after that is another aside(The last one for a while! I promise!) that should clear some things up. Or make it more confusing. We'll see.
WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is this new evidence. I can't help but wonder. Great job. Good luck with the next story.
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Glad you like it. And I like the new avatar portrait.
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"Missing" in that all events pertaining to him failed to happen, not "missing" as in "we don't know where he is" (though in fact the audience does not know where he is, only that he didn't wake up on schedule- he might still be in the garden, he might not, as far as I remember the text indicating but I am a couple chapters behind).
Also, feel free to ignore anything inconvenient from Rainbow Rocks because your story started being posted before that came out (just to avoid people pointing out inconsistencies, mention "written pre-Rainbow Rocks" somewhere, people don't always compare dates).
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Hmmm. Perhaps I should take the time to say somewhere that Discord is sitting safely in his statue.
5295224 This was done for me by a good friend. BluegrassBrooke
I have a new theory about what is up. Future Sunset talked to Past sunset, or gave her a letter about what to do to change the past and alter the future. That's why I think Sunset pulled a 180. Also, I believe, that their will be new bearers for the elements of harmony in this universe. I guess we will see though. I have no proof what's so ever for my theories to be honest.
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Well Shining Armor at least is the new Loyalty. I hope I made that obvious enough, what with the chapter title and the events at the end of the chapter.
5295319 I thought that is what you would do. It was kinda obvious between the title of these chapters, plus the fact Pinkie wasn't all sunshine and Riainbow's when Twilight showed up. Sunset must have done something to interfere with their destinies. It was shown by Pinkie that Sunset is responsible for Rainbow becoming a Wonderbolt, or Rarity moving to Canterlot. I guess they may not fit the molds of the elements now. The question, is our Twilight the element of magic or is it the alternate Twilight?
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Right. The scene with Celestia, Spell Circle, Sunset Shimmer and Shining Armor discussing Twilight back in a 'Shining Example of Loyalty part 2' has been updated to include a brief discussion on Discord's whereabouts. Thanks for pointing out that I hadn't mentioned where he was, I had meant to.
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I rather wonder if he's Shake Spear. He is going to be asked for assistance, after all. And Shake Spear is a non-unicorn who Sunset Shimmer trusts to 'do what must be done' in a way that implies he has a ruthless streak.
As for who he's working for: Sunset is an obvious option but perhaps too much so.
Could use some proof-reading on this one. Frequent use of "there" when you want "their", used "harry" when you wanted "hairy", "might" when you wanted "mighty" and "tome" when you wanted "time". There were many instances of "to" when you wanted "too" and contractions missing they're apostraphes. Also you wrote "manitcore" instead of "manticore" a couple times.
I guess I was too quick to dismiss the obvious. You're still writing "to" even when you want "too" here.
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Yeah. I didn't go over these as much as I usually do. I guess I was just so relieved to finally have them finished that I posted without review. I'll probably go over them tommorow, when the intent writing is less fresh in my mind.
Wow. I think Sunset, set some of these event in motion. Especially those with the Griffion empire. I don't know for sure though. The next chapter may help. I may suggest Derpy for a possible element of laughter though. She is nice.