• Published 29th Nov 2014
  • 10,071 Views, 361 Comments

A Sparkling Sunset - Ferhog



After all that they have been through, Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle's bond has grown into a strong and deep friendship. But as their relationship continues to mature, they will have to face challenge after challenge that will test their bond.

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The Past-Sunset Shimmer

That long red corridor seemed to just disappear into a black void.

The floor was dark plain cherry red from as far back and as far forward as she could see. The walls were a blood red color, with faded cinnamon brown stripes shifting and moving constantly. The corridor was cut off by darkness both in front and behind her. Both paths were open to her, but she couldn't go back. She didn't know why, but she just couldn't.

With no other choice, Sunset trotted forward into the darkness...

As she walked down the red floor, she kept looking at the shifting brown shapes on the walls, fading, twirling, and moving like clouds during a hurricane. The shapes appeared to be random, but Sunset kept thinking that she saw...faces.

Memories.

She could feel a cold shivering feeling coursing through her body. A fear started to grow inside her, as if the physical embodiment of the feeling was standing right behind her. She looked back. There was Nothing.

Nothing but the red corridor stretching out into the black void.

She couldn't go back.

Walking onward, the feeling started to creep up on her again, as if fear itself was climbing her back. And she couldn't outrun it. It was then that she began to hear them. Sounds, like voices. But these sounded like little more than whispers. Sunset looked further into the void. How far did she have to go? How far could she go?

As the whispers grew, she could now make out certain voices, and words...

"I have better things to do than Socialize..."

She knew that voice all too well, and started to power walk through the corridor, the fear still right behind her.

"It's selfish of you to keep me from my rightful place..."

She was jogging forward. Away from the voices. Away from the fear. But the voices just echoed down the corridors. And she couldn't outrun fear.

"I deserve to stand beside you and be your equal...if not your better..."

The hallway echoed with the voice's words and the clopping sound of Sunset's hooves as she sprinted down the corridor, the darkness in front of her seeming to just get further away and the darkness behind her getting closer with every passing second.

And then she saw it. A light! Just visible beyond the void that lay in front of her. She ran as fast as her hooves could make her go. Closer towards the light. And as far away from the voices as possible.

As the light consumed the darkness ahead, she had reached the end of the corridor. She was surrounded by circular walls, like some kind of coliseum. The walls and floor were identical to those of the corridor, surrounding her completely, except for one opening, and that was the way she came in. But that wasn't an option. She couldn't go back. But then where could she go?

Then she saw what was standing in the center of the room. The source of the light.

It was a red pedestal, the same color of the floor, and nothing more than that. But the object that was placed on it was much more beautiful.

It was a golden crown, with a base of simple gold metal, stretched in a shape to fit a ponies forehead, the ends swirled like waves. On top of the base were two thinner strands of gold metal, with a similar swirling design as if they were clouds that had stopped moving. And in between the two strands was a magenta gem in the shape of a star.

The longer she stared at it, the more she wanted it. But something inside her was saying that it couldn't be hers. But it was so beautiful. She had to have it.

The crown became encased in the aqua glow of her magic. The feeling inside grew. She knew she couldn't have it. But she wanted it so much. She began to get scared as she lifted the crown above her head, but she couldn't ignore the feeling of longing that was inside her.
And as the crown descended upon her brow. All those feeling dissipated.

Pain.

Searing pain.

She felt as if her insides had caught fire, her skin beginning to burn. A stinging sensation grew in her chest, and her screams echoed down the hallway as everything erupted into flames.

The fire dancing before her eyes, she looked into the inferno, and saw two black eyes with green irises staring back at her. The flaming silhouette of a she demon surrounding them.

"I deserve to stand beside you as your equal...if not your better..." Uttered the voice of the corridor. Her voice.

"MAKE ME A PRINCESS!" It screamed, as the flames consumed her and everything she saw...

When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying in her bed, the ceiling staring back at her. She sat herself up and looked around. The room was lit by the light of the moon shining through the window. Each one of the five other beds in the room occupied. Sunset turned over to her bedside table and took a sip of water, the liquid hydrating her throat and cooling her insides. With that, she lay her head on her pillow, pulled her blanket over herself, and closed her eyes again.

***

The cereal crunched between her teeth as the spoon left her mouth, and with that, she was done. She walked over to the sink and carefully rinsed out the cereal and milk from her bowl, and did the same with the spoon. After drying them with a cloth she placed them in their separate counters. The other kids hadn't finished their breakfast yet, but most of them didn't really have places to be.

As she was leaving the dining room she was approached by a yellow skinned girl with orange hair, highlighted with pink. That was Sweetcream Scoops.

"Uh...Sunset..." she asked nervously.

"Yeah, Scoops?"

"Um...I was just wondering, I need to get this math homework done...and...its asking me for the area of a cylinder..."

"Multiply the area of the circle by the height of the cylinder, and if you don't know the area of the circle, just multiply pie by the radius squared," Sunset Shimmer said knowledgeably.

The pink and orange haired girl looked slightly confused, but seemed to understand it fine. "Height, pie, radius squared, got it" She gave Sunset a quick hug. "Thanks Sunset."

As Sweetcream walked back to her table, Sunset couldn't help but smile. Sweetcream Scoops. Nice girl. In fact, you probably couldn't think of anyone at the Peachbottom Canterlot City Orphange who wasn't pretty nice. Well, unless you counted Sunset Shimmer herself no more than a year ago.

As she was leaving through the reception she was spotted by Miss Peachbottom herself, who was busy on her desk computer.

"Goin' somewhere, Sunset?" She asked in her rural accent.

"Oh, just visiting my friend again."

Peachbottom was looking more at her computer than Sunset but still aimed a smile at her.

"Oh ain't it just the chickens cluck to see ya hangin' out with friends these days. If someone told me two years ago , that Sunset Shimmer would spend this much of her free time socializin' with other folk, why I'd tell them to pack up and get the heck outta Mustangia. You thinkin' o' stayin' over night?"

Sunset looked at the backpack strapped around her shoulders. While it was mainly filled with equipment to help Twilight with, she did pack some overnight necessities. Toothbrush, sleeping bag, the works.

"Maybe..."

"Well if ye are, I would like to be informed first. I may be all relaxed with what ma orphans do but I cant have 'em goin' and stayin' wherever they done well please. If I did I wouldn't be responsible enough to take care o' this here place now would I?"

"No."

"So we're clear?"

"Yes."

Miss Peachbottom gave another smile, this time looking completely at Sunset.

"Have fun then!"

As Sunset walked through the doors she was struck by the cool morning breeze. The sun visible above the skyscrapers in the distance, and the city bustling with morning activity. Even on a weekend, you could see cars driving and people walking in just about every direction you looked.

Canterlot high was just over an hours walk from the orphanage. Usually she and the other kids would take the nearby bus, but during the weekend she didn't exactly have that luxury. Still, it left plenty of time for Twilight to see the message she sent her, and it was always good to have some quiet walking time to think to yourself.

Sadly, last nights dream had got her thinking about thoughts she'd rather not focus on. Particularly certain memories. But as much as she tried to think of something else, her homework assignment, her friends, her hobbies...the thoughts just weren't going away.

She started to think about the time before she studied under Celestia. Back when she lived in Equestria.

Like in this world Sunset shimmer was an orphan. While the identity of her mother was unknown to her, her father was a highly decorated lieutenant in the Equestrian militaries scouting legion. He was killed in action when his squad was ambushed by a pack of changelings as they were doing a recon mission near the crystal mountains. The two surviving scouts claimed that he went toe to toe with Chrysalis herself before he was shot in the back, but those same guards suffered serious instability from PTSD, so the truth was unknown. It didn't matter to Sunset. She was only two years old when he died, and remembered almost nothing about him, except the blurry memory of his silhouette.

Growing up in the orphanage wasn't the best. While no one was every really mean to her, she couldn't help but feel incredibly lonely. The only connection she had to any family were her dad's old colleagues. He seemed to have made many good friends during his time serving in the military, since she was often visited by soldiers who had known him. They spent a large portion of their time telling her war stories and the great deeds her father had accomplished in his life. And even though over the years she was told the same stories by the same old stallions, it was the highlight of her childhood. Every few weeks she would feel excitement course through her body when she heard that one of the veterans was coming to visit, so that she could hear the stories of how her father and other great soldiers and unicorns succeeded in fantastic acts of magic and heroics. It was this that inspired Sunset to become a great unicorn. To accomplish astounding feats like her father had, so that her name and stories would be told throughout Equestria. So she started to practice her talents to the point where she would be the best in the world.

But as she tried to improve her own talents, she saw that many fellow foals had talents and skills that they bested her in, and this was slowly eating away at Sunset. How was she to be the best if there were always people who were better than her?

She spent all the time she could honing her skills, improving, so that she could show those idiots what it meant to be truly determined. But no matter how much time she spent training every skill she knew, she could rarely best anyone who had that particular talent. It was this that gave her the realization that multiple talents were almost impossible to all master. In order to become the best, she would have to master one talent. But this couldn't be any talent, it had to be a superior talent.

It was then that she began to study the magical arts.

She spent her days saving up all the money she could, buying books and artefacts that would propel her through her studies. Her nights were spent reading books and practicing spells, to the point where she would collapse to the floor in exhaustion. It was a hard and grueling challenge, but its led her to becoming a very powerful unicorn.

But even with her talent so mighty, she often encountered competition. It turned out there were many unicorns trying to be become skilled in the art of magic. While most of them did it for helping with their own talents, Sunset couldn't help but see them as threats to her goal. And those who were also trying to become great unicorn mages were even greater threats. This caused her to start discouraging them, telling them that they were too weak, and that they would never succeed. She even went as far as to deceive and manipulate them into walking away from their goals, or preventing others from reaching them. And most of the time it would work. She would let nothing come between her and becoming the greatest wielder of magic Equestria had ever seen.

Despite all this, she had never been in direct, physical competition with a fellow unicorn. That was until she met Arran Clover.

Clover was a unicorn from the north who impressed her school crowd with his amazing feats of magic. In mere days the entire school was talking about him, and how they'd never seen any pony succeed in such feats as he had. This ignited a fire inside Sunset. A raging fire that would not be quenched until she had shown Arran Clover and everyone who had praised him so much who was really the most powerful pony around.

She challenged him to a magic duel, to which he so arrogantly accepted. The following noon the schoolyard ponies were gathered around the sight of the two unicorns facing each other off, with major effects inflicted on both ponies. Sunset had a bruised eye from the forceful blast he had shot at her, Arran's face was covered in spots from the pox she had cursed him with. Clumps of hair were missing from Sunsets tail because of the angry squirrels he had summoned, and Arran's back hooves were stained with green diarrhea.

It all ended when Sunset's horn shone like the sun in its aqua light, her full power being mustered into her final spell. The energy was unleashed upon the helpless colt in a spectacular flashing beam. When the light had cleared, all that remained of Arran Clover was the plant of which he was named after.

The crowd cheered for Sunset's victory, many of them hailing her as the greatest and most powerful unicorn in Equestria.

At this moment Sunset came to a realization, She was meant to outshine all those whose opposed her magical brilliance. She was meant to be the one who was admired by the common pony. Like the setting sun, she would be looked upon in awe by all in Equestria, for her beauty, power, and spectacular displays of color and light.

And while she did not realize it at the time, the image of the setting sun became infused with her flank, as she had realized what she was born to do.

Her moment of triumph was disrupted by a flash of yellow light, as the four leafed clover was turned back into a dazed unicorn. And in another flash of yellow light, the damage and effects inflicted on Sunset were gone. It was some of the most spectacular magic she had ever seen, and when she looked in the direction of the caster, she looked upon the glowing figure of Princess Celestia.

The rest was a tale of an ambitious unicorn whose desire for power was her downfall...

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm

As the buzzing noise reached Sunset's ears she felt strong vibrations pressing against her back. She slipped the bag off and opened its largest pocket to find her journal vibrating and glowing pink. She opened the pages to see a short message written for her.

Sunset,

I am really excited to see you again after five days but I have to go pick up some things from a nearby store, and while I've left the portal open I wont be back for an hour. Spike will keep you company if you happen to arrive before I return. I hope that's okay with you.

Twilight Sparkle.

While Sunset was a bit disappointed that she wasn't going to instantly see Twilight, it wasn't really that big of a problem.

After the book was closed and put back in the bag pack, she looked up to see that she was already at the grounds of Canterlot high.

'Wow.' She thought. 'I guess that little venture down memory lane got me thinking pretty deeply.'

Upon approaching the horse statue Sunset reached her hand out to touch the mirror. She felt her fingers dissipate as they vanished into the wavy ripples of the portal. It would appear that it was indeed open. Her heart racing with anticipation, she vanished into the shimmering light of the mirror.

Author's Note:

I honestly did not expect to get this chapter done so fast, and I probably would've released it earlier if the site hadn't run into maintenance. I still am expecting to eventually write chapters slower due to upcoming exams.

My first two chapters of a story and I already have almost 200 views, 2 followers and 11 likes (TYI that dislike is from my brother. Because...brothers). You guys are awesome.

Speaking of which he warns me that a bunch of people will be angry that I more or less just created a backstory for Sunset. I am prepared.

You've probably noticed that a lot of the backstory I refer to between Sunset and Celestia is from the IDW comics story the fall of sunset shimmer. That dream sequence even has quotes taken straight from the pages.

As always, please point out anything wrong so that I can improve for future chapters and stories.