After finding real friends for the first time in a strange dimension of odd creatures, Sunset Shimmer has finally decided to return home to Equestria in the hopes of apologizing to Princess Celestia for her betrayal. Instead, she is greeted by an attack from the Royal Guard, and a pursuit across nighttime Canterlot that ends in disaster.
Can two injured ponies who hate each other so much manage to survive the Everfree Forest and return to civilization, or are they just doomed to be eaten?
—-
Background is from James Corck on Deviant Art, with a few added eyes.
Update: Featured 10/4/2014. Thanks guys!
Chapters (7)
Yeah, I'm mean to the little lovebirds. First comment is reserved for the author. There *will* be a happy ending, for a certain value of 'happy.'
5092329
Is the value of happy "i"?
I can dig it. Love Georg stories.
Now kiss!
Sweet. I ship FlashXSunset like it's Amazon Prime, and there are already tons of intriguing questions to be answered. Is this actually the right Equestria? And if so, what's gotten Celestia so judgy. Usually ol' Sunbutt loves forgiveness and second chances.
Most importantly: Does this Flash play guitar?
Interesting concept for a story. I wonder what future chapters will hold. I'll give a better review/comment after I read two more chapters. As for initial impressions, I say this is going to be a fun story with lots of physical humor.
This isn't my crack. ;~;
5092417 You may find it interesting to separate the observations of the characters from their assumptions and conclusions in this case. I'll go as far as to say that almost everything assumed by both characters to this point is completely and totally wrong.
(I'm not saying)
5092430 Chapter 2 "Hunted" goes up tomorrow. "No Hiding Place" should be out by next week.
5092436 Time will tell.
5092384 Will you settle for having their hooves all over each other in the next chapter, but not in that way?
5092381 And I love writing them. It seems to work out well.
5092378 Well, *somebody* is going to be happy at the end of this. If nothing else, there's a hydra who is getting a midnight snack.
5092466
Yup. Still waiting for you to wrap up the next Traveling Tutor so I can reread the prior ones, but this looks like a fun read. You've taken two characters that have a relatively bad rep in the fandom for no good reason, put them in a highly awkward situation, and now we get to see it play out. Truly looking forward to what else you have in mind for us with this story.
I'm certainly intrigued. Between the mirror's location and Flash's presence in Canterlot, this definitely isn't the Equestria Sunset left. The question is, what's different? Eagerly looking forward to finding out.
5092378
Well, they say happiness is all in the mind. I suppose that does make it imaginary.
5092466 Soooooo Sunset hasn't actually ended up in an alternate dimension where Celestia is less understanding "judgmentElquestria"? That large pale figure was Luna testing a ghost costume for Nightmare Night? Flash Sentry has just arrested Pinkie in a Sunset Shimmer suit? PONY FLASH SENTRY PLAYS THE BASE!?
5092384 I agree most emphatically with my fellow commenter.
5092466
I hate Brad with the fury of a thousand suns, so not likely.
5092477
I'm not sure if this is a different universe or not but this certainly doesn't seem like something Celestia would do, something's definitely up.
Woohoo! The story I voted for was the one to win the coveted "Published First" prize!
Anywho, quite engaging so far (as any good Georg tale should be), so definitely gonna buckle my seatbelt and enjoy this ride.
5092590 You got that right.
I need this to be done, now, so I can read it. @_@
5093198 Oh I agree. This is too good. Why must authors torture us with cliffhangers??
Oh wait I do that too :P
5092417
It's all a misunderstanding, Celestia just wants to make sure Sunset gets her Welcome Back party.
I sense the down votes are simply because of Flash Sentry, because this is the beginning of a fun story.
5093498 Ooooh, Pinkie finally convinced the Princesses to pass "Cranky's Law?"
5092329
5092378
A Roald Dahl "happy" ending perhaps?
Oh heck yeah, I was looking forward to this one.
And what an action packed start, too.
"You know, I can't help but feel I have forgotten something," Celestia said. "But I can't quite put my hoof on what."
"That's not like you." Twilight said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "I hope it wasn't something important, then."
Celestia frowned. "That's just it, it feels like I have missed something vital, I just can't recall it. Oh, this is frustrating."
"Did you forget about your meeting with the goat Prime Minister?" Luna suggested.
"Believe me, I almost wish I did," Celestia sighed. "No, that's not it."
"Did you forget Raven's birthday?" Twilight suggested.
"No, and that's not for another month," Celestia replied.
"Did you forget to raise the sun today?"
"Luna!"
Twilight cocked her head and scratched her chin. "Did you forget to tell the guards that we decided to pardon Sunset Shimmer for stealing my crown?"
"Don't be silly, Twilight, of course I...." Celestia paused. Then she closed her eyes and groaned slightly. "Ah. Oops."
5094453 I just want you to remember this sequence when reading the second chapter of the upcoming "Trixie and Twilight, Sitting in a Tree"
There was a sharp knock at the front door, despite the large sign that Twilight Sparkle had put up earlier that proclaimed in large letters “Quiet! Very Important Guest! Do not knock!” With a muffled curse, Twilight darted to the door, yanking it open and snapping, “Can’t you rea—“
“Now I remember,” said Spike. “Princess Celestia said she was going to visit later today.”
There was a very small squeak, much like would be made by the rusty hinge on a jewelry box, or perhaps a young alicorn princess with dirty towels draped all over her body and a sock on her horn finding Princess Celestia standing on her doorsill.
There we go, scene set. (although it's not showing in story updates)
5094484 Showed up for me.
I sure hope this ends well for Sunset.
Good to see someone else figures Sunset dated the Equestrian Flash before she went through the mirror. I kind of figured that, since virtually all ponies in one universe have a double in another universe, that means they each have the same parents. That in turn means if one set of ponies dates/gets married, their doubles in the EQG universe almost certainly did the same. Of course as the anomaly without a double, Sunset Shimmer may not be bound by the same rules...
Well seems human flash weighs up rather favourably against his pony self in sunsets opinion, although he was younger then.
I'm suprised she didn't ask why the guard were out to catch her on mass and even why they were expecting her.
I do like how we get a sense of Sunset's character through her narration and how she compares the two Flashes. A girl has her priorities.
Not much else to say on this chapter. Just some good character bits for both ponies. Well, I say "just," but that's a pretty important aspect of any story, especially when working with a persistently blank slate like Flash Sentry. Looking forward to more.
5094484
I saw it, both in feed and in favorites.
Ouch, those injuries.
I suppose you aren't really completely helpless in the Everfree unless you have no magic and no flight. (Spoiled since we're still on the first page of comments.)
All right, I had this problem with the first chapter, but held off on mentioning it then, figuring it might be elaborated on in the second. However, it doesn't seem to have been. Specifically, it's the fact this premise doesn't make sense.
Let's suppose that Celestia is actually vindictive enough to still want to punish Sunset if she returned. Granted, this seems rather out of character (especially due to the whole reformation thing and helping in defeating the Dazzlings), but let's still assume that something or other happened to make her like that. What seems even more implausible is that Sunset would opt to return unless she was certain that there wouldn't be any kind of major repercussions. I'd think she would check to make sure everything was okay prior to that, presumably by communicating with Twilight.
Maybe someone could claim that she did, but Twilight just lied and said that she was safe even if she wasn't, or that Twilight was being duped by Celestia. Both possibilities again seem awfully out of character, but even accepting that: Why would Sunset not be more surprised about all this if that's the case?
There's just too much not-explained OOC behavior to make the plot work at this point.
5096564 Proverbs 28:1 (There is a tautology here in the pursuit of Flash and the attempted escape by Sunset)
5096331 Roman what?
5095783 Don't worry, there's lots of other creatures in there with both of those. And they're hungry.
5095042 "Pardon me. Yes, you in the bushes there. Are you here to incarcerate me?" No, not quite. Besides, what's this 'en mass' you referred. She could even feel the distant traces of the magic beacons in the Royal Guard armor... Seems as if the rest of the guards didn't follow Flash. Also please note that she did not feel Flash's beacon. This is called foreshadowing, or in other words, horribly torturing the reader.
5095500 He's not totally blank, he's just on opiates at the moment. When he's not, he's perfectly... um... Flash. Yeah. Ok, I can't argue there.
5094544 If by well, you mean a deep dark hole in the ground...
5094796 I'd go more for the 'Roughly parallel universe with strange similarities but not necessarily a mirror world, like the Evil Celestia/Luna one from the Comics' (which is a fantastic 4 comic arc, both funny and tragic. Buy it, read it.)
5096936
I meant ask Flash now they'e had a few moments alone and the guard seemed to be on her quite quickly and in numbers once she came through the mirror.
I'm also wondering about Sunset's age in this, she was apparently having relations with Flash before she left Equestria and was presumably Celestia's student before Twilight (so ten years ago?) so is she 30? Does the mirror age down the ponies that pass through it or was she a 30 year old pretending to be a teenager? Probably overthinking thing but it just hit me when I was shopping earlier.
I didn’t want turned into something. I didn’t want to be turned into something.
Great burns Sunset, though I'd have assume they are your special talent.
5096564
You are making assumptions. All we know so far is that the mirror was moved and there was a welcome party waiting. We know what actions Flash has taken. We do NOT know why he took those actions; he could have just got it into his head that he needed to apprehend her.
5096936 Done and done. I agree pretty much with your definition, you may just have higher standards for what constitutes a "mirror world" than me, as i would have classified the Reflections-verse AND EQG as mirror worlds of Equestria. I just mean that, if you see copies of everyone around, then they must have had the same parents. Everything else flows from that.
Oh, and you may need to clarify if this treats Rainbow Rocks as canon.
What's this? A Flash Sentry story that is not getting that much hate? My god... the world is coming to an end.
5098990 51:8 ratio of up/downs has a lot of hate in it.
5097237 One thing you notice if you watch EqG/RR carefully is that not everbody is pony duplicated. I would imagine the crossover would be less like the number of times strands in a rope touch each other than if a rope lays crosswise over another rope, and count the strands that touch. (did that make sense?)
5099273 I agree that we see lots of humans in RR and EqG that we haven't seen pony equivalents, but that could just be that we haven't seen their equivalents in Equestria.
And I'm not really sure I understood the rope metaphor, but you took a complex space time phenomenon and boiled it down to a fairly simple example that at least made me feel like I understand, so I feel you should consider yourself an honorary Star Trek scriptwriter.
5096957 I assumed from the way Twilight turned into a high schooler and Spike turned into a puppy (and the sirens look like they are 17, despite having once accumulated enough power to fight Starswirl the Bearded), going to EqG does weird stuff to your age.
I always figured Sunset was around 30, doing the high school thing again because she didn't have ID that could prove otherwise, but either way, how much sadder does it make the fact that she spent 2 & 1/2 years competing for Prom Princess contests with actual teenagers.
5099273 Considering some that I've seen the Ratio is MUCH closer to each other. This is the LEAST hated Flash Sentry story.... although to be fair those stories also had FlashLight as well.
This is good. This is really, really good.
Really good
I didn't really know where this story was going after chapter 1, but I like the sort of buddy comedy that is now developing between Sunny and Flash. Hopefully he wakes up in chapter 3 so we'll get more of that.
Ants are so cute
Well, that dumb, Sunset. Apparently the options are death by bleeding out or death by killer ants. *cue indiana jones music*
It seems like Flash is more interested in the Princess, so TwilightxFlash seems more likely than SunsetxFlash, but whatever.
Did someone call for ants?
Skip to 6:13
It's said that if you and a friend are running from a hydra, you have but one chance: trip your friend. Of course, that doesn't help much when the next hydra comes along...
I'd forgotten about how the heads of some ants could be used as stitches. Very clever of Sunset. A shame she didn't consider what the ants would think.
Looking forward to more, especially since these two have no incoming backup. I wonder how Sunset will feel if she ends up abandoning her human friends for thirty moons...
Some very clever stuff going on there.
So did Flash get lucky recently? With Twilight?
I came for the romance, but it's hard to stay for when Flash Sentry is such a monumental tool.
Instead, I think I'll be staying for another inoculation of Sunset Holmes.
Sweet chapter. Go sunset Shimmer for pointing out that they are so screwed. Good luck with the next chapter. This is going to be fun.