• Published 2nd Jun 2016
  • 2,198 Views, 212 Comments

The Sun Never Sets - Mr Fislewait



Sunset Shimmer finally returns to Equestria but when she arrives she is confused and sitting on death's door. Twenty five years later the mare Eventide Trailblazer is looking to continue the legacy of Sunset Shimmer for better... or for worse.

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Preperations

Everything's all ready to go, just waiting on the final components from you, Sapph.

Great, fire up the portal and I'll come drop them off.

What? No I'll come to you and pick them up.

Nah it's fine, I'm at the portal all ready I just need you to turn it on. Plus this way I can help you set things up.

You don't want to come over here right now, Sapph! It's a real mess, I wasn't expecting guests so I haven't had time to clean. Look wait where you are, I'll come over to you.

Blazer stop. What's this really about? Cause you know I don't care what you look like right?

I know I know. I'm just being a little neurotic right now. Also you might not care about how I look but I really prefer not seeing you as a pony.

Should I be offended by that?

No! No definitely not. It's just I don't get along with other ponies very well and then on top of that you sort of look like my granddad.

I look old?

No. Specifically like my granddad. Blue coat, dark blue mane. It's sort of creepy really.

I'm not though right? I'm not my world's version of him right cause that would be really weird.

No you look similar but you're not the same. Look this conversation is getting really uncomfortable so I'm just going to fire the portal up. See you soon.

Eventide slammed the book shut and groaned. She didn't dislike how Sapphire looked as a pony, it's just she preferred how he looked when he was himself. She also preferred how she looked when she wasn't herself. Perhaps it was petty, perhaps it was superficial but it was true. Eventide trotted up to the mirror collection and mustered her magic at the tip of her horn. It was still red, hopefully that wouldn't effect the spell. The blast of crimson light lanced from her horn to the surface of the mirror and a fresh sheen shone over its surface as the mirror rippled like water. After a few moments it pulsed and a blue unicorn stallion with a blue mane and a blue gemstone cutie mark jumped out of it.

"Now that is never going to stop being the strangest thing in existence!" Sapphire exclaimed, shaking his body in discomfort. Once he was done he walked up to Eventide and hugged her, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek that she tried her best not to recoil from, he might look like a pony but he was still Sapphire, she just had to remember that. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah everything's fine, now let's get this ritual set up," she broke away from the hug and lead Sapphire towards her runic circle. "I have a fresh mirror set up to receive the spell, I've got both hair samples on the table over there, magical catalyst is prepped and ready to go and my remaining batteries are on the table."

"Remaining batteries?" Sapphire placed a hoof on Eventide's shoulder and turned her to face him. Frowning as he noticed the amulet about her neck and the red glow in her eyes. "Blazer, I thought we'd been over this, you weren't supposed to actually wear the amulets, just use them to power the spell. This is dark magic, Blazer! That stuff messes with your mind."

"I know, I know!" Eventide waved her hooves in the air in exasperation. "It was a mistake okay! I messed up and now I'm stuck with it! It's not too bad though, I may have let it take me to a pretty dark place right after I put it on," she winced at the memory of beating the other Twilight Sparkle, she really shouldn't have enjoyed that as much as she had, "but I'm in control now and I've never felt more alive! All my life I've muddled through knowing so few spells that you could count them on one claw! But now! Now I feel like I could do anything, beat anyone!"

"That's the dark magic talking, Blazer! Take it off and-"

"Die. I take the amulet off right now and I die," Eventide deadpanned.

"What?" as Sapphire looked at her in disbelief Eventide sighed and undid the clasp of her now bloody cloak. It rolled off of her back leaving her naked except for the amulet and revealing a large gash in her chest, covered by a softly glowing red light. "Blazer, what happened to you?"

"Fell down a flight of stairs and landed on a kitchen knife," she shrugged her shoulders as if it were no big deal. "Managed to crawl to the amulet and stick it on before I died. It's just like you told me, dark magic is like a parasite, sure it doesn't care for it's host but it isn't going to let it expire while it's still useful. I'm hoping the magic will fix it completely sooner or later but until then I'm sort of screwed."

Sapphire hugged her again but Eventide couldn't help but notice that he angled his body to avoid contact with either her stab wound or the alicorn amulet. "Blazer, I think maybe we should put off the ritual for the time being and get you to a doctor. Dark magic or not you need some proper medical attention."

"Yeah... about that. I might be on a short leash here. For starters even though this is the amulet from..." she lifted up a tag on the side of the amulet and checked the number, "...universe twenty one, the amulet is sort of missing and stolen in this world. It's also incredibly illegal."

"So, we find you a doctor in another world then, one who won't care about it!" Sapphire was about to say something else but he was cut off by the sound of something heavy repeatedly thudding against wood. "Blazer, what was that?" his eyes drifted to a wooden door with a chair wedged against that the sound seemed to be coming from.

"I may also have a conspiracy theorist locked up in my broom closet..."

"Why! I thought this house was meant to be a secret? Why in the world would you kidnap somebody and lock them in your basement? This whole plan was meant to be secret right?"

"I didn't invite him down here!" Eventide snapped. "He came snooping, one thing lead to another and bam! I'm falling down the stairs with a knife lodged in my chest! Look, I'll let him out when we've done the ritual or..." Eventide's eyes flickered from her own amulet to the spares she had waiting on the end table. "Or we screw the plan and do something even better!"

"Blazer, what are you talking about? After all this work you want to just throw it all away?" Sapphire rubbed one hoof against his temples.

"Hear me out, hear me out. I met a couple of ponies on my travels who might be sympathetic to me, if I were to round some of them up we should have enough amulets here that everypony could have one. With that kind of magic I might be able to free my mom!"

"You told me your mother was dead, Blazer," Sapphire's surprise was slightly overshadowed by his evident hurt at having been lied to.

"No. I told you she was as good as dead. She's trapped on the Moon, banished for a thousand years by magical friendship laser beams or some other nonsense."

"Which is a problem because..."

"Because the average pony is lucky to live for a century tops. By the time she's free I'd be long dead. But with a hefty dose of magic I bet we could break her out! Think about! You'd get to meet my mother, me and Sunset would be reunited at last and then maybe if she wanted to see him again the three of us could finish up the ritual and go find dad! We could all be one big happy family again and everything would be right in the world!"

"No."

"No?"

"No, Blazer," Sapphire sighed. "Look I love you, I really do, but this?" he gestured at the amulet about her neck and the broom closet door. "This isn't you Blazer! What happened to the girl who I caught mid fall? Who fell into my arms from out of the sky?"

"Onto your back, Romeo. You didn't so much catch me as break my fall. Flying looks a lot simpler than it is okay?" Eventide chuckled at the memory.

"What happened to her though, Blazer? She wouldn't be dabbling in dark magic or kidnapping other ponies." Sapphire dropped his bags and walked over to the mirror. "If you want help setting up the ritual you know where to find me, but right now? Right now you need to get help, the magic is messing with your mind, Blazer, you're not thinking straight. Go find your friend Flurry or that therapist you mentioned to me. Talk things through with them, get yourself fixed up and then we can talk."

"Oh come on, Sapph! I'm fine! Better than fine! In fact this is the best I have been a long time!" she had half a mind to turn the portal off before he could leave but that would just prove him right.

"Get help, get healed and get rid of the amulet, Blazer. Come speak to me when you're your normal self again okay?" Sapphire sighed and stepped through the portal, vanishing from Equestria and returning back from whence he came. Eventide growled and began sorting through the contents of his bags, pulling out the crystals and instructions for the ritual. What did Sapphire know? She'd show them all, she'd set up the ritual on her own and go find her dad. Then the two of them would work together and do what Sapphire didn't have the guts to carry out! Maybe it hadn't been a part of the original plan but it would work! By Tartarus it would work! She'd save her mother and she would unmask Twilight as the traitor she truly was! Who was going to stop her? Sapphire? She shot a bolt of energy into the mirror turning it off. Not anymore he wouldn't. Twilight? She fiddled with the amulet about her neck. Not if she knew what was good for her. No, Eventide was unstoppable, nothing would stand in her way!

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Seven Years Ago

Eventide finished polishing the mirror and made sure it was set firmly in the frame. The dragonflame glass had been hard to come by and expensive to obtain but according to her analysis of the CHS mirror that was the component Starswirl had used. The material for the frame itself seemed a little less consequential so for her first attempt she had opted to go with a simple wooden finish. Eventide finished up making the chalk markings on the floor of her living room leaving the new mirror sitting proudly at their center. Starswirl's notes had been cryptic at best and downright useless at worst, the stallion really didn't seem to want anypony replicating his work. Still, using the knowledge of her other spell she was pretty sure she had managed to reverse engineer most of the enchantment and now it was time to test that theory.

Taking a deep breath Eventide steeled herself and began to channel magic, a lot of magic, more magic than she had ever used before. The casting process came to her naturally though, the holes in her theory filling themselves as the spell progressed, it was strenuous but it otherwise seemed like second nature, like casting this spell was... she quickly glanced at her cutie mark and smiled... like destiny! The spell completed and a rainbow pulse rippled over the surface of the mirror, quickly dissipating and leaving it exactly how it had looked before. Carefully Eventide approached her work and gently prodded the surface, it felt like liquid.

"Yes!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. She had succeeded where others had failed! Who should she share it with though? Lyra? A mirror like this would be the best birthday present imaginable for the mare. A working portal to CHS! With the possibility of multiple portals between the two worlds Equestria could begin considering diplomatic relationships, the other world could become a place accessible to all, not just the privileged nobility! Feeling a little light headed Eventide calmed herself and remembered the second part of the test. Where in CHS did this portal exit? Having two portals potentially sharing the same exit could be problematic, she needed to check where her new one actually lead to before she got too far ahead of herself. Taking another deep breathe to calm her rowing headache she took a walk through the portal.

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Something was wrong, that much was clear. As expected she could no longer feel her magic but she still felt like she had a coat of hair across her body, and she felt small, very small. The architecture was also clearly wrong, it was more medieval than the city of Canterlot was meant to be in the human world. Turning around she checked the exit, confirming that it was indeed the base of a statue, but instead of a statue of a horse it was... a mouse? The 'mouse' represented in the statue had a cloak wrapped about his shoulders, a sword in one paw and a little belt about his waist. He was posed dramatically as though in combat and...Eventide looked down at her own body. Paws instead of feet and hands, no clothes, fur as opposed to hair... she was a mouse. A bipedal mouse from the looks of things and perfectly sized for the surrounding architecture... but she was still a mouse. Eventide darted back through the portal and back to the safety of her own home.

Once content that she was a pony again Eventide stared in disbelief at the mirror she had created. To Eventide's knowledge there were two worlds, Equestria and the human world of Earth. The mirror standing in front of her completely changed this fact. The spell had forged a gateway between Equestria and another world, previously unknown to ponykind. Had she messed up the spell or... or did each casting of the spell open a gateway to a different world? Perhaps the material used in the frame was a determining factor, or the quality of the glass, the time of day when the spell was cast, any number of things! The possibilities were endless! This was much more interesting than just improving the ease of transport between Equestria and CHS! With magic like this she could discover any number of things, an advanced culture whose scientific knowledge Equestria might benefit from, magically inclined people who might share their advanced spell casting and advance unicorn magic to new heights! Eventide's mind was so distracted with the myriad possibilities that she didn't even notice how bad her headache had gotten, not until her ears popped and she collapsed to the ground totally exhausted.

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