3 - Transposition
Sunset Shimmer - September 6th, 2000 (16 years ago)
Ponyville - Mirror Equis
I awoke stiff and sore, feeling like I was being squeezed from all sides, with a pounding headache to go on top of all that. And probably a queasy stomach, why did I feel like I was falling?
Ugh, mom must have screwed up dinner pretty bad. That would explain the nightmare.
I peeled my eyes open, even that simple action feeling sluggish. The world was gray, like my shirt had gotten pulled up over my eyes, tinting everything while letting you see a blurry picture between the fibers. Unfortunately, that trick works best when there is light, and there wasn't any of that to be had.
I groaned and tried to move my hand up to pull my shirt down. It didn’t move.
“Awake huh?” An oily voice said in amusement. “Makes sense. Sleeping potions never affected me for long either.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. It wasn’t a nightmare!
I opened my mouth to scream, or rather, I tried to. Something was lodged in my mouth. The rag? No, not the rag. This was hard and round.
Oh god, she found my toybox!
“Yep, you’re gagged. It’s funny how many small differences there are between us. But we still remain basically the same. I knew you’d have a gag somewhere. Just to be nice, I’ve tried the key to your hair. Pretty sure you can slip these ropes after a while. I know I could. As soon as I’ve dumped you on the other side, feel free to wiggle loose,” she said, my ears clearing enough to hear the sounds of something being scraped over concrete.
I screamed, trying to yell for help, but the gag prevented anything more than a muffled squeak from getting out.
Why the fuck did I let Lyra get me one of these!? I never fucking thought about it being used for anything other than fun! I’m a fucking idiot!
“What? Surprised?” She asked, grunting slightly as she lifted me over something. “This isn’t personal. I’m not evil, I just need you to go away.”
I tried to twist and wrench myself free of her grip, but my arms and legs didn’t want to move much. I could only move maybe a few millimeters. What the hell did she drug me with? Wait, did she say it was a potion?
Oh no no no! Please don’t be some crazy religious cult thing! Please no, please no, please no!
I had to get free! I thrashed as much as I could, but all my movements earned me was a sharp kick to the small of my back.
“Stop that, it’s just making it irritating to drag you… Bucking Tartarus, I should have used my psigem at your house and learned how you operate those autocarrages. Do little things like that slip your mind too?” She asked curiously before laughing. “Right! You’re gagged. Heh… You know, if I didn’t have to stay here long enough to learn how to become an alicorn I would have to pick your brain. Who knows what kind of differences there are between dimensions. I mean, I learned you're a fillyfooler. That’s really bucking weird seeing as how we share identical metaphysical signatures. Because I’m into stallions.”
What. The actual. Fuck.
I was being kidnapped by an insane girl who liked to fuck horses. And spoke like an idiot.
“Makes you wonder how the small differences arise if not everything about you is determined by the metaphysical properties of your being. Or maybe without magic’s influences, people just develop differently. Either way, the Meadowbrook Interpretation is total road apples. You should write a paper on that when you arrive.
“The cash prize could help you get a life for yourself,” she continued. “And you’ll need one of those. You can’t take my place over there, all of my stuff was confiscated. Mostly because Celestia can’t handle the idea of someone else becoming an Alicorn.”
I stopped struggling. Maybe if she thought I was listening to her rant she would let her guard down and I could slip these ropes. Ropes work via friction, meaning struggling was just tightening the knots. Relaxing would be the best escape plan.
I was about to be murdered by an insane person who probably had like, Mission Implausible level latex disguises. I couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes.
“There’s this mirror, you’ll be coming out of it. It’s also a portal,” she ranted insanely. “But when the portal isn’t open, it can show you your future. Celestia showed it to me one day. I’m destined to become an Alicorn, and apparently, she can’t handle that idea. Or at least, that’s what I thought at first. She barred me from going back to Starswirl’s old lab.
“Pretty sure that she’s worried I’ll overthrow her if I get onto her power tier. And frankly, she should be. Limiting her apprentice's power, banished her own sister instead of talking out their problems, building a prison in Tartarus despite the realm literally driving you insane if you stay there too long, that fucking creepy and thankfully outdated tradition of her personal guard being geldings… Not sure how anypony else hasn’t seen what she is under her ‘benevolent goddess’ image.
“So yeah. I come here, and I get my wings. Not sure how yet. It wasn’t merely by traveling here and back again. Which means I need to stay long term. Which is why I’m about to throw you through the portal into my dimension. Sorry, but if there are two of us here, there will be problems. You have a Celestia too, probably some kind of science wizard queen. Can’t let her get suspicious. I don't want to fight two of them.
“So you need to go, for the greater good of an entire world. I’m sure you understand. I’d understand.”
No, I fucking didn’t understand! I didn’t understand one single fucking thing!
“Alright, here we are,” she said ominously.
I felt myself drop, shoulder hitting the ground with a sharp burst of pain. My pained cry was muted by the gag. The stars that exploded in my head cleared my vision a little. I could see that it was night still. The moon was almost directly overhead, I couldn’t help but notice that it was full.
Perfect for whatever mystic bullshit this insane person had for me!
The other me suddenly filled my vision, her lips parting almost like someone cut the smile into her face. Putting a hand on my shoulder, she shoved me onto my side roughly, pushing my face into the gray brick floor I had been dropped onto. Moments later something cold was pressed against the back of my neck.
Fuck! What to do what to do what-
A jolt of electricity raced down my spine, the cold object warming significantly before being withdrawn from my neck. My chest still heaved as I hyperventilated. My heart still hammered in my chest.
Wait, what? Why didn’t she kill me?
I twisted, trying to get another look at my doppelganger. With my vision no longer dim, I was able to see how I was tied up. Extremely well. That’s how. Not only were my wrists and ankles tied separately from each other, but she’d added in ropes over the shoulders, waist, and groin to anchor my arms and legs in position, preventing me from bending my limbs too much by looping ‘guy lines’ through those anchor points.
Fuck. This is exactly how I would tie someone up. Maybe she actually was me.
I was pretty sure that I could get out of this, I’d been tied similarly before. Unfortunately, I didn’t have ten minutes.
“Ah crap, that one was a dud,” she sighed bitterly.
I heard something clink to the ground, the sharp sound making me think of glass. The cold object was jammed into my neck again, and the same jolt of electricity sparked through me, this time making my headache pound worse.
As the thing was withdrawn I managed to roll back over, looking up at my double as she inspected a short elaborately etched brass rod, and took a small purple gemstone out of the far end. The gem glittered and shone with its own light, almost exactly how the ruby from earlier had.
Nodding in satisfaction, and then noticing I had rolled over she flashed me a quick smile and pressed the gemstone against her forehead. The gem sparked, motes of purple light flicking out from it like sparks from a welding torch, only dim instead of retina killing bright.
She gasped and pulled the gem away from herself, tossing it aside like a fucking cut and polished gem was fucking worthless.
Oh and also, what in the flying shitballs was that!? A magic trick? Magnesium or something to spark? Why? That was completely illogical. What else could it possibly-
“Whew! That one worked… Enchanted items don't like to work here. Guess that makes sense. Sorry, I had to use both psi gems, I was planning on giving you a copy of my own memories. It would have helped you out,” she said as she bent down to grab the ropes.
She grunted as she dragged me across what I recognized as the square in front of Canterlot High. What the hell? What kind of place was the school for a dark sacrifice to some kind of evil god?
She glanced at her wrist, which I just noticed had my watch on it. The watch my older brother gave me for Christmas!
“So this is a watch,” she mused. “You guys have interesting designs for them. Thanks for setting its time by an atomic clock. Somepony should invent one of those. It would be really useful for timing. Looks like the portal will close in… Fifty seconds. Time to go.”
I rolled my eyes. What portal? Where was this nut living? It wasn’t here. There was only the dumb horse statue.
“This isn’t permanent, I’ll be heading back as soon as I can work out what I need to ascend. Then you can have your life back,” my psychotic kidnapper said casually as she drug me up to the base of the statue. “I don’t know if I die if you die, and the other side is in an abandoned wizard’s laboratory. Be careful, don't touch anything, okay? See you in thirty full moons, or more. Depending. Bye!”
With extreme care to keep her hands clear of the statue’s base, she violently shoved me forwards. My eyes flew open in terror. She was going to bash my head open on the stat-
The world exploded into color noise, like an old TV set trying to display all the channels at once. Sound, light, smell, touch, all of them became meaningless. Every last part of the world was true chaos, indescribable even as I could see it.
Space had no form, time had no direction. I looked ahead and see myself from behind, the sides, top, bottom, inside and outside. I could see my own brain.
So this is the afterlife. Lovecraft was right.
Order came back to the world like a punch to the face. A split second later I hit an extremely dusty hardwood floor like a follow-up punch to the face.
Pain exploded out from my forehead, unlike anything I had ever felt before. Pure agony completely obliterated my pain scale. The rib I cracked one time was nothing anymore.
My pained screams came out as whimpering sobs. Apparently, sex toys stay with you the afterlife.
Why the hell did this hurt so much!? I hadn’t even fallen that hard and I just hit my forehead. This was serious sci-fi alien bursting out of the chest agony!
Except in my head.
I lay on the floor with my eyes closed as tightly as they went curled into as much of the fetal position as my bonds would allow. Which was surprisingly more than I remembered being able to move. Maybe the pain was so much that I’d snapped a rope with the contraction and didn’t hear it break.
The pain went away after god knows how long. Slowly I opened my eyes, expecting the maelstrom of color and senselessness. Instead, I was in a cave.
Everything was very dark, but a lantern was burning near me. I could see it just beside a large mirror framed with a purple horseshoe decorated with big chunks of light purple crystal.
Wait, that wasn’t a lantern. It wasn’t flickering, the light was steady and… Coming from a floating chunk of quartz inside the glass!?
FUCKING AWESOME! How? And why?
Why being the most important. Why would the afterlife be dark except for a single epic fucking fantasy novel magic lamp? It wouldn’t. That made no sense. Also most religions afterlife don’t have pain.
So I was alive. Okay. That was good.
Did that mean I was tripping balls? She had drugged me. Was there any drug which knocked you out and then caused vivid hallucinations? Not that I could remember.
Was this a coma? No, no, couldn’t be. Every case I knew of they claimed it was just like sleeping. A dream maybe? Nah, my dreams are stupid and never this detailed.
Concussions don’t cause this level of hallucinations either, so that ruled out getting knocked silly by being smashed into marble…
Holy shit. This was real, wasn’t it?
Pinkie had been literally right. An evil version of me had swapped places so she could take over the world. What are the fucking odds of that? Unless… She was in on it!
No, no she’d wanted to stay over and protect me. She knew about it, but was working to counter the other me. And she was new in town… And refused to let me take her home. Holy shit she was from here!
I’d just been in the middle of some kind of interdimensional Terminator movie plot! Except the good guys lost. Maybe I could get back in time to stop it!
No… No, I couldn’t. She said the portal was closing for thirty moons. Meaning twenty-nine point five three times thirty then divided by three sixty-five point two four… Two point four two years!
Fuck. I was stuck here for two and a half years…
But magic was a thing here.
And she said this was a wizard’s lab. Which meant the portal was magic, duh, and that this wizard probably built it. There’s no way you’d put a portal in a lab instead of someplace secure unless you were building one for the first time.
Which meant the wizard would have notes on how this worked. And if this was anything like Oubliettes and Ogres, there would be a basic spellbook and anyone could learn magic by trying hard enough.
I have a perfect memory. I’ll crack this in a week, find out how to open that portal myself, go back home and kick ‘my’ ass! I just had to get free of these ropes first.
Speaking of the ropes, they seemed loose. Not very loose, but just a little bit. One of the knots must have come undone. I could move my upper arms a little. If I could just roll onto my back and then arch my spine…
I rolled over onto my side. The moment felt, odd. I couldn’t place why, and was immediately distracted by the new part of the cave I could see.
The lantern's light didn’t illuminate too much of the cave, but now I could see for sure that it was a lab. The wood floor stretched out into the darkness, and I could just make out a long wooden table covered in dust and old chemistry equipment, as well as a bookshelf behind the table.
Perfect, we would start at that shelf!
I rolled over onto my back, and then arched upwards, rolling my shoulders to let the ropes slide-
Clean off.
What? They shouldn’t have been that slack. Did the rope get cut somehow? Oh god is that what the pain was?! Did I hit something sharp that sheared through the rope and then hit me in the forehead?
I lay back down. With the shoulder straps off I should be able to move my feet up to where I can reach the knot. Remembering that the chest binding would probably still squish my chest and make breathing hard I took a deep breath and sat up.
A pair of hooves stuck out of the far end of the corset tie around my legs.
My mind shut down for a full second, then I shrieked as loudly as I could. The muffled scream managed to echo off the walls.
Why did I have hooves for feet!? Oh no… She drugged me, knocked me out again, and then drugged me again, and cut off my feet then sewed these on!
Tears began to stream down my cheeks as I realized the truth. This was some kind of fucking sex dungeon! This was how they made sure their slaves couldn’t run away! No, no, no, no, no!
I had to get out! I could still crawl. I could do it. I begin to thrash as well as I could, hoping to shake my legs free of the crisscrossing tightly woven ‘net’. If I can just get my f- my legs clear. Wait a second…
Did those hooves move when I thrashed?
I thought about moving my left foot ‘up’. The hoof moved. I moved it down. Left. Right.
It fucking worked!? HOW!? WHY?!
Magic probably. But how did that work? Could I turn them back into feet? Or was this some kind of graft?
I’ll know as soon as I get the ropes off.
I moved my hands up-
Also hooves.
FUCK!
How the hell was I going to get loose now? Also is that fur on my upper arms?
Oh dear god. I’ve been turned into an animal.
Why?
I sat staring at my hand-hooves for a long time. I couldn’t think. I had no basis for reference to anything. I wasn’t even me anymore. I was… I was… What was I? Lots of things have hooves.
At least I was still able to think like a person. But seriously, what am I?
Remembering there was a mirror to my right, I twisted my head to look. A red and yellow maned unicorn looked back at me.
I blinked. It blinked. I nodded. It nodded.
Holy shit, I’m a unicorn! A fucking adorable unicorn! And also kinda sexy too…
God dammit, Lyra! You rubbed off on me.
Also, those ropes will totally come off if I just wiggle my… Uh, horse shoulders? Maybe I should have read those books on horses instead of just tearing the posters out and hanging them up.
Wiggling free of the ropes was a piece of cake. Then again they had been tied when I was a totally different shape. After a few moments, I had myself free, thanks in part to the ropes just slipping off my hooves when I shook them hard.
The question now was how to stand up. How would I move that lantern? It had a handle, and presumably, the other me moved it here.
Wait, if I was a pony in this dimension, was she a pony here? If that were so, did that mean hooves could hold things here? That kind of didn’t make sense, but unicorns are supposed to be magic, and magic is real here, so maybe I could just kind of boop something and pick it up?
I rolled over onto my belly, hoping what I had heard about newborn horses just standing up was true and I could do it by instinct. I willed myself to stand, and sure enough, I stood up.
Haha! It was instinct! Yes! Progress. Progress at controlling a beyond terrifying change to my entire life that I’m just not gonna think about right now.
Positive outlook, Sunset! Ignore the fact you've been kidnapped, stranded, and turned into a unicorn.
Something in the mirror caught my eye. The sun-shaped symbol from my favorite T-shirt was painted onto my hip, for some reason. Was that because I came through the portal wearing the shirt? Like, did it become a part of me?
PLEASE NO! I had been wearing panties with a heart on the crotch!
I twisted to look at my rump in the mirror, but my tail blocked the view of anything but my hips. At least no one could stare at my girl bits.
My tail swished of its own accord. Nope. They totally could. Because that thing moves. The upside, I don’t have a heart stamped on it… Also, my god were my lips plump. Nice!
I wonder if they would stay like that when I turned back. Retaining elements of a prior cursed form is a trope. Maybe it was also a part of reality too.
With a sigh, I walked, or rather, wobbled over to the lantern. I guess instinct only took you so far. Still uncertain on how I could move the lantern, and still unable to use my mouth at all, I reached for the lantern with my right hoof, touching the handling and willing myself to lift it.
I pulled my hoof up, the lantern came with it, the brass handle creaking slightly. I thought about twisting the handle, the lantern swung in response. My hooves worked just like hands, probably with some kind of tactile telekinesis.
COOL! I did a magic!
Did this mean I could take the gag off? I reached up towards my head. My hoof bent far enough to reach the straps, and I could feel the gag almost as well as if I were using a hand. She said she tied the key to my hair, right?
I spent a few seconds searching through my mane for any key. I did not find one… Shit. I’d have to find something to cut leather with. Or maybe the key fell off on the floor some place. I’d have to look around soon. Because I couldn’t take it off myself.
But could I walk with three legs?
I frowned around the ballgag and tried to take a step to the right, so I would face the table.
I pulled it off with no more wobbliness than when I was using four legs. Good! I could do this.
I was a fucking unicorn, but I could do this. The plan remained unchanged. This was just a dimension where everyone was a unicorn. I could deal with that.
…
Lyra is going to be PISSED if I don't bring her here. Wait, if there was another me here, then that means there should logically be another her here too. I wonder if she is into humans?
I could totally introduce them. Heh!
Putting my mind back on track, I walked towards the table. I had to get started on finding out how to make the mirror work. The floorboards creaked and sagged as I walked, clearly old, very old. And given this lab was built inside a cave, probably a little rotten.
Was this just decking so there would be an even floor? I dipped my head down, realizing that my new body was way more flexible than my human one, and peaked between a crack in the floorboards. I could see another floor below me. Not with enough detail to see what was down there, but there were at least five meters of drop between me and the floor below.
Wincing as much as the gag would allow, I stepped as carefully as I could, trying to remember which spots seemed rotten so I wouldn’t step on them. The floor creaked, moaned, and groaned as I navigated the minefield of rotten timbers, moving away from the table sadly.
I had to arc back towards it. That’s where the bookcase was. Right now I was just heading towards a bunch of boxes and piled up jun-
The floor beneath my front hoof gave way with a soft paper crinkling like sound. I pitched forwards, my horse-chest slamming into the floor with a soft whump, my other hoof holding up the lantern was unable to do a damn thing to stop the fall.
The floor immediately gave way and I fell screams muffled amid a cloud of rotten wood.
I fell into something wet with a loud splash. My entire body was instantly on fire. The pain I’d felt in my forehead became a distant memory as every single last inch of my skin screamed in pain. I thrashed, kicking instinctively, my hooves struck something hard. The distorted sound of shattering glass echoed through the definitely-not-water.
I fell again, landing on the broken glass of the ruptured tank. Everything burned with a hellish fury like I’d just fallen into a vat of lye or-
BASE! Find a base! Neutralize the acid! NO! DON’T DO THAT, THEY BURN TOO!
Scrape it off, yes, scrape it off with something!
I opened my eyes, too blinded by pain to be thankful I didn’t get any in my eyes. I was in a crowded room. Mostly book shelves. Some tables. Storage boxes.
Table! Yes, table. Scrape off chemicals. Edge. Good!
I stepped over to the table, screaming around the gag as the mere motion caused agony. Another step. Pale yellow fur fall to the floor, melting even as it dropped through the air.
Another step. Table close. Another step. Blinding pain.
Wait, table edge weird angle! How reach everywhere? Can’t. Need another thing. Not hoof. Hoof organic, dissolve too…
I screamed again, the pain only got worse as time went on. How!? Why!? Why hadn’t my nerves died yet? Please just fucking die!
At least the ball gag kept it from getting into my mouth… Wait, bronze thing on table. What is it?
I squinted, pain making my vision blurry. Horseshoes! Prefect! Metal, scrape off acid, no melt.
I reached for the shimmering brass shoe, stretching my arm-leg out causing millions sharp burning pains to dig into my bubbling skin. Oh dear sweet god it really was lye!
I grabbed the horseshoe. It was far more flat than I expected, more of a piece of thin metal that covered the point of the hoof. Like a slipper rather than a thick shoe. It also had tabs to hold it to the back of a hoof via friction.
Why? Oh duh. Sentient horse people wouldn’t want to nail something to their body.
I jammed my hoof into the shoe, then twisted to scrape my right arm-leg off. The shoe on my hoof glowed a bright yellow. I scarcely noticed the pain. The other four began to glow as well, clattering on the table before sliding off and forcing themselves onto my other hooves.
I didn’t care. Pain. Needed to get off. Going to die. Deal with magic shit lat-
The room flooded with white light, every last nook and cranny of the vast underground lab revealed for a split instance, crystallizing the dust covered mess of artifacts, equipment and bookshelves in my mind before the brilliant light whited out everything around me.
The pain vanished, swept away what felt like a rush of cool water. Looking down I saw my bubbling skin twist and flow, forming scar tissue at an impossible rate. Just as I hoped it would heal over into fresh skin, it stopped leaving behind a twisted, speckled, splotchy burn pattern of various pinks, reds, and peaches. Whatever magic provided the healing was not able to do any more for me.
My shoulders burned with fresh pain followed instantly by a grinding and scraping sound that I also felt as two things exploded from my back. I twisted my head to see two thick bones protruding from my back. Muscle raced up them as I watched in horror, followed by skin.
Scared, splotchy, mutilated skin.
Wings. They were wings. Only without feathers. Because I didn’t have fur any mo-
My wings erupted into flames, but I didn’t feel them burn. In fact, the flames felt cool, soothing even. Within a matter of moments, the fire flowed over the space where feathers would be, and shifted, each lick of flame forming a feather-like shape and then freezing as if turning into a solid.
I felt similar flames form on my head, and tail. As I watched the orange flames on my tail twisted into thin strands, much like hair, and then also froze, turning into a glowing, semi-transparent replacement. A lock of fire-mane fell in front of my eyes, obscuring my vision, but also projecting a small ring of light around me as the blinding white light vanished like a switch had been flipped.
Despite the small part of my mind which said that was metal as fuck, I was terrified beyond all forms of reason.
Mutilated, stranded, and probably cursed… Hi, rock bottem.
All I could do was walk as far away from the pool of acid as I could, then fall over and cry, sobs muffled by the gag.
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Yikes, those poor guards. But then if they get stuff removed, guess they would have a harder time harming her in a sexual manner if they revolted..
Guess he had to be right about something, with all his insane ideas.
Good luck! Magic is not nearly that easy you know...
Don't worry, you get used to it. Trust me.
Good, becaus if you did we'd have to call you a care bear cousin. What would your care bear cousin name be? Hmmm... Sunny Heart Pony?
Ahhh so the Sunset we meet in Exiled is the 'human' Sunset. Poor girl.
WOah, just woah. She's already an Alicorn! You go girl.
Great chapter Meep. And now, it is time for bed. x.x
7705990
Actually it was a voluntary deal. The idea was to ensure that only the most loyal of soldiers would ever even WANT to be her personal guard. Sort of a test of "will you ever question an order?"
Lovecrafts descriptions of the 'beyond' are awesome.
XD Oh god that did have a show, didn't it?
Yep. I think this clears things up for the readers here.
Well damn, that is really barbaric for Celestia of all ponies to do I think.
Also, I am going to guess that she is an imperfect alicorn like Cadence is, right?
7706009 That was actually voluntary. Celestia felt that she didn't need any personal guard, but since people kept demanding the honor she established one with that as a condition, assuming nopony would go for it. A total of 2,391 over the 300 years the policy was active did in fact agree to it. Celestia felt no need to stop it, figuring it was a good way to find truly loyal soldiers who would put Equestria over everything else. Eventually political pressure put an end to that tradition.
No. Celestia and Luna were created by Clover the Clever, using the original version of the spell (which Clover invented). They don't have any of the drawbacks of Cadence (and Sunset), and are what Starswirl was aiming for with his recreation of Clover's work.
Fortunately, it's not an easy spell to pull off, and Clover never told her old apprentice how she managed to do it in the first place. However, Twilight did manage to recreate it using Starswirl's flawed version and 'finishing it'. Making Twilight the only alicorn besides Celestia and Luna to be:
Ageless, have a healing factor, immune to natural illnesses, possess the magic of three ponies ( one of each kind in equil measure) as if they had been born with that power, god-like control over one highly specific aspect of the universe, and no compulsions to use their power in any particular way. Downside: Almost sterile. Reproduction is very hard due to arcane enhanced immune system usually seeing the developing fetus as a toumer and dissolving it. (1:1000 odds of a successful pregnancy).
All other Alicorns, Cadence, Fluryheart, and Sunset, are flawed and exist under Starswirl's version and possess:
Ageless, can heal any wound at a slightly faster than normal rate and do not permanently scar but nothing like a "true" alicorn being able to grow back half their brain if kept alive somehow despite that sort of injury, God-like control over one highly specific aspect of the universe within a certain radius around them (vs Celestia being able to control Equis's sun from anywhere in the universe), and are compelled to use their power just like true gods are (the gods, with few exceptions, MUST do what they are ment to do. Discord MUST spread chaos. Dusk MUST process souls and create their appropriate afterlives. Cadence MUST further the passions of those she is around.) Upside: They can reproduce like anypony else. But only 1:100 foals would be an alicorn.
7706012 well I am glad that was ended otherwise wouldn't Shining Armor be a gelding and that wouldn't have made Cadance very happy.
7706023 Check my old comment, I made an edit. As for Shining, he never would have to begin with. He was the Captain of the Royal Guard, that's Canterlot's garrison of the Guard. It's Celestia's PERSONAL guard which had that tradition, and would be the ones guarding her wing of the palace, her private estate, and escorting her person wherever she went. It's a separate branch from the city's garrison.
(Also if Shining did have to get that done Cadence would just give him a regeneration potion when he came back home from work every day, and then another to get rid of them in the morning. She's very adept at alchemy and potioncraft.)
7706012 Interesting and would the other sunset that seems to ascend in friendship games be the greater or lesser variety?
7706034 Greater most likely. If she even is an alicorn and not some sort of other form of demigod. I want to do something with that but it's so... vauge? (We're talking about that pheonix fire moment, right? I havent seen Friendship Games yet)
7706039 yeah, so Sci Twi takes most of the other girls magic using a device she built and gains great power but turns into a nightmare like entity, then Sunset channels the power of friendship and does the same only good she has wings and an ethereal horn on her head, which honestly I do find it weird that the unicorn counter parts do not gain horns when they "pony up" but the pegasi gain wings. So many have inferred that with all that magic and her embrace of friendship she ascended, and there are a number of stories that do just that on this site when she goes back to equestria. On the other hand the newest EQ movie seems to contradict this as she doesn't have wings anymore in her powered up state, and they gave them to Sci Twi which is kind of BS because she is basically an early season 1 version of Twilight. Seems a little fast for her to progress to that point, though maybe the lingering magic she stole could have been a catalyst but then by that logic Sunset should still have wings. Honestly, Sunset is really a better character than Twi in many ways.
7706044 She is better than Twi in a good number of ways... Given those facts it's likly that given the maelstrom of magic around her she was able to temporarily transcend mortal limits and became an alicorn for a bit, or partially. Or it's like power rangers, she's the red ranger, and she has her normal morphed form, and then an alicorn form as her 'battleizer mode' which can only be used if she draws on her friend's power.
7706057 yeah I like the power ranger theory. It makes me less angry than thinking about the George Lucas worthy plot holes and lazy writing or things that get over looked. I do like Star Wars despite this comment though.
7706060 Thankyou for contributing to the Equisverse's cannon by bringing up that plothole ^^
Well that's gotta hurt. I hope she kept the plumpness she was so fond of. Interesting tidbit with the psi gems, ponyset shimmer wasn't really evil, after all. Just conceited.
So, ascension. By magical horseshoes. It does beget the question, would she ascend if no vat of acid were in her path? Most likely, as "searching for magic items" is high on the D&D, sorry, O&O priority order.
She really should just get healed, though. Specially because she got rekt for celly student's actions and sunbutt's own careless approach to swirly's lab. "Hey, it's an old wizard lab, one of equestria's finest! Let's leave it to rot!"
Well, her student DOES rant to three human her about her teacher's idiosyncrasies. That's too be expected. But damn, let the old horse know how much you appreciate her, shimmy. Let no white mare control your destiny!
7706154
She did. As someone who grew up on a ranch, that's just how a mare's parts look. Sunset's skin was restored in shape and texture, but the magic didn't have enough charge to restore the color and repair the fur follicles. So she has the shape she liked, which is a thing she's got going for her.
Yeah. She comes off pre reformation to me as conceited, arrogant, and overconfident. Less evil, more villainous.
Mabey, if she stumbled onto that room. Starlight's lab is very maze-like according to the comics. The odds are greatly lower of her ascending if she didn't suffer that accident.
She should, but people don't always do the sensible thing in life. Especially when they think their freedom is on the line.
That's sadly in character for her. "Hey Twilight,I left these world ending threats laying arround a milinia ago... Can you take care of them? K thanks bi!"
So Human Sunset asecended into Alicorness? I hope Celestia listens to this Susnet about not be the pony one, she knows of the mirror, and be cursing herself for not locking away better.
Yep you sure would have to be firm in your want to be one of her guards to do that! Very much so in the never question an order deal too.
They are, creepy at times(a lot of times) but awesome.
Indeed it does, which is nice. And it is nice to see a story about her instead of Equestria's Sunset.
7706196 I've just realised something. The story shimmy gives Repose & cia, to her origin? It was cadence's. Sneaky, sneaky bacon person!
And yeah, being sensible all the time is the property of genre savvy people that make for boring stories of themselves. And their suffering in seeing everyone around them do exactly the opposite is simply exquisite
I now miss SnekBon
Wasn't expecting to jump right into Firebrand Sunset, but here we are. Have fun diving right into the deep end. Also, I forgot to ask before: Does she name her alias after her brother? I'm curious if 'present day' Sunset is aware of Twilight's adventures in human-land.
7706448
What? She told them her own sto-Oh wait, you're talking about the first version of her origin story. Don't Cadence and Sunset switch off playing Blade? She mentions it in Chapter 13 of "Exile's Journey". I figure that was actually Cadence at the time.
7706252
Considering Celestia isn't aware of super saiyan Sunset, and I doubt someone who's going through this much mental and physical trauma is in any state to suddenly learn magic (no less mastering disguise magic well enough to hide from Celestia), I get the impression these two aren't going to be meeting. At least, not at this point.
The next scene I'm waiting on is when someone finally gets to explaining things to her, and human Sunset has baby's first facehoof. "Horse me is a bitch." Though, to be fair, Pony Sunset did plan on sharing her memories so the transition wouldn't be as bad (allegedly), so maybe not as ruthless, but still.
Oh, and before I forget, it's time to increment the "Damn it, Celestia" counter. Two more, and I think we get a free frozen yogurt.
7705952 Really now, Meeps? No, with what you've posted you're around a .3, while with what's in the background you're closer to a .6....and the only reason that it's that low is because of heroes like Red and the machinations of powerful entities like Dusk.
What happens if a nude pony goes through the portal?
.........................
(How many years ago did she come to Equestria?)
I hope she gets to visit Lily in the future although she doesn't want to be discovered by Celestia( or everyone else).
And if her element wasn't fire she'd get sunburn really fast.
7706566
Yeah. Her accention was an accident, not a reward, or any sort of goal of hers. It's a thing that happened which sort of makes her life worse.
A few of them, not all.
7706981 I gotta disagree there. Sure the background plot is that dark, but the foreground isn't. I mean, 40k Dark is pritty damn high on the scale. Which is why they had to make up the term Grimdark to describe it. (It comes from the 40K advert slogan "In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war".)
7707022
We see that with Twilight in the movie. The portal gave her some clothing. This has implications. 1 The portal is at least somewhat sapient. 2 The portal knows what nudity is. 3 The portal knows that nudity amongst humans is 'naughty.
In conclusion, the portal is aware that sending someone to the human world without clothing would be wrong, and thus gives them clothing. Which means it has to know that nudity is sexual to humans. Which means the mirror is aware of the concept of sex. Keeping this in mind, despite Twilight being an adult in Equestria the mirror gave her a short-skirted school girl's outfit (lives on her own, has job, is frequently entrusted to save the kingdom on deadly missions... she can't be a kid).
IMO the mirror is a perv and left Shimmer bound and gaged despite clearly being able to alter one's manner of dress because it found that hot.
In terms of the most recent year of my AU? 16 years ago. In terms of the show? She's there from 1 month before nightmare moon comes back. (That's cannon as well, based on when EQG takes place vs events of the show.)
Perhaps she will, perhaps she wont.
7707198 I meant the fact that sunset doesn't have fur anymore
7707210 Oh, if she went back home? I have no idea...
7707198
While I sort of follow points 2 and 3, point 1 may be more of an assumption. The mirror could simply know the state of the two ends (Human Side/Pony Side), and translates an input into its equivalent output. A completely 'normal' pony goes in one side, and the mirror converts them to the equivalent of whatever their 'normal' human form would be. Ponies don't normally wear clothes, but humans do, so the portal translates their status as "clothed." A bound human going in one side would equate to a bound pony on the other. In this scenario, the mirror is not sapient, but achieves the same result.
Even if it required some amount of awareness in order to perform the conversion, that still does not necessarily mean that it has to know that nudity is sexual. It just means it knows that humans normally wear clothes, and the pony going in does not fit the conditional for 'naughty', so their translated form should wear clothes.
The whole Twilight becoming a teenager thing has to do with my confusion regard what the hell the official time-line is for these characters. Sunset is presented as having been in Twilight's position before, yet clearly they weren't Celestia's student at the same time (since Twilight didn't know about her until the first EQG movie, and there would be no reason for them not to know each other if they had been in that sort of proximity at the same time), so Sunset had to be start-of-show Twilight age before Twilight's entrance exam. But then, the mirror makes them the same age, and they've apparently been in high school this whole time, even though what the hellhighschoolisthatmanyyearslong,andnoneofthislinesupatall...
Bleh
7707210
My guess? Her skin would have severe burn scarring. I don't think fur would necessarily translate to clothes through the portal.
7707296
Sentient and sapient are two very very different things. The Curiosity rover is sentient, it is aware of its surroundings and can use that information to preform a task. Even plants are sentient, they can sense the world around them and react to stimuli. Hell, your thermos stat is to the most minimal of degrees, sentient. It can sense the temperature around it and adjust the temperature accordingly.
I used the wrong word there because I often confuse them. I meant sentient. It can sense stimuli, and act in accordance with them.
For my AU, I simplified this out. Because yeah, making sense of the chronology is something I had to do.
Equisverse rules! Every season takes place in its own year. 1 year per season. Starlight Glimmer doesn't exist. Nothing after season five's pre finale episode happens. The EQG universe is an imperfect reflection of the real world, and time doesn't flow "right" incide it unless the portal is open.
Twilight became a teen for a while instead of the 34 year old she was at the time because of this time discrepancy. She is younger in that universe so the portal simply set her to 'normal'. It dosent care if multiple versions of the same person are in a world, they just need to fit the base requirements for 'them'. (Of course giving age of a pony in my AU and human ages, in human years she went from being 22 to being 16. Not that big a change.)
7705577
Ah, yes, Captain Crunch and the origins of 2600.
You can say mirror tech works differently, but that doesn't really help if you're going for a specific point in time in real life.
7708018 Fair enough, I did admit I made a minor error. I was just offering possible ways to suspend disbelief.
7708217 Because Cadence, and her house, and her staff. And the later shipping.
Normally I write Pg-13. But this is R for gore, strong language, and sexual themes.
7708261 Heh... now about that side fic, Meep...
I'm thinking (first of all that it should totally be a thing and also) it should involve a whole lot of extremely detailed science and thaumaturgy content.
With some nice intense first-person strategizing sections for us readers to enjoy.
Edit: With the first bits conveyed as pillow talk.
TYPOS
tied (twice?)
? = in (missing)
She's looking at her rump so wondering if that should be hips?
handle
? = comma
CHUCKLES
Mission Implausible level latex disguises
I wonder how many of us old timers were thinking this?
We have lost the battle. We will not lose the war.
Story getting better each chapter.
Holy shit balls Blade's back story! Wish I had gotten to this sooner! *squee*