Why zombies, though?

by Draconaes

I mean, they can't even shoot lasers.

"Oh, come on!" Sunset threw her hands up and fell back into her seat. "He betrayed her because he wanted the amulet? That doesn't make any sense!"

Rainbow Dash took a moment to cease shoveling popcorn into her mouth and glanced at her friend in confusion. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Um... the movie is still playing..."

"I mean if that was the reason, why didn't he just shoot her in the first five minutes of the story? He had her all alone with the amulet in the middle of the wilderness. He would have gotten the amulet without having to put forth this crazy scheme that ended up failing miserably!"

Rarity scoffed. "Did you not watch the subsequent 50 minutes? If he shot her it would have ruined the romantic subplot."

"You mean the subplot that his sudden betrayal just revealed to be a complete lie? That was the entire point!"

"Shh!" Applejack shot a glare toward the noisy half of the room. "Fluttershy is right; the movie is still playing, y'all."

Pinkie Pie giggled, making use of the distraction to steal more of Dash's popcorn. "Maybe, but there's pretty much nothing important left anyway."

"I still think that apparently the last 50 minutes were unimportant, too." Sunset grumbled and crossed her arms. "They could at least try to make the villain seem intelligent. If they can be outsmarted by preschoolers they aren't much of a threat."

Pinkie suddenly perked up "Oh! That reminds me. SUNSET!"

"WHAT?!" Sunset jumped and leaned away from the suddenly hyper girl filling her vision. She cleared her throat, fighting the blush threatening to overtake her face. "Uh, I mean... what, Pinkie?" She ignored the snickering coming from her rainbow-haired comrade.

"So, don't take this the wrong way, because I'm really glad we ended up becoming friends, buuuuuut..." Pinkie paused for a moment.

"But?"

"Why were you trying to win the Fall Formal, anyway?" There was a brief silence. Well, there was a brief silence save for whatever song was being played over the credits. It only took Fluttershy a moment to find the remote and correct that.

"Ah..."

Applejack cocked her head. "Why? I mean, wasn't it to steal Twilight's crown and take over the school? Uh, no offense."

"Oh, uh... none taken?"

Rarity chimed in next. "I believe she said she was actually going to take over Equestria."

"Yeah, come on Pinks, you were there for it, remember?" Rainbow chuckled as she bounced a popcorn kernel off Pinkie's hair like a springboard.

"Exactly!" Pinkie pointed dramatically to Rarity. "See, at the time, we all thought it was a regular popularity contest, right? We figured Sunset just wanted to win so she could be the Princess of the Fall Formal, so of course she would want to win. But she didn't actually want to win the vote, she wanted the crown so she could use its magic and go back through the portal, right?"

Sunset groaned. Hadn't they already been through this? Did they really need to dredge up her misdeeds again. Not for the first time since that night, she was starting to question the merits of friendship.

Applejack seemed to pick up on her discomfort. "Is there a point to this, Pinkie?"

"Well, if she just needed the crown and didn't really care about the contest, why didn't she just steal it and then go back through the portal right from the start? I mean, she's pretty smart, so I figured she would have thought of that."

There was a moment's silence.

"Oh."

"Now that you mention it..."

"Huh."

"Hey, yeah!"

Dash set her popcorn down and turned her full attention to Sunset. "What's up with that?"

Sunset sunk further into her seat. So, it wasn't just a guilt session, it was an embarrassment session too. Joy. "Ugh... okay, like..." She rubbed her face with her hands. "I know how this is probably gonna sound, but it was sort of about the principle of it. Hurting Twilight directly or stealing the crown from Celestia's office seemed... I dunno, boorish."

As expected, she was met with incredulous stares.

Applejack raised her dreaded eyebrow. "You do remember ripping the crown from Twilight's hands, right? And, uh, shooting a fireball at her right after?"

"Do I remember the actions I took during the painful culmination of all of my life's mistakes? No, I must have forgotten, thanks so much for the reminder." Applejack's face darkened.

"Now, now!" Rarity put a hand on both of their shoulders. "We aren't trying to attack each other here. The purpose of this movie night is not to make Sunset feel bad. Quite the opposite, in fact." She flashed a small grin at the girl in question. "However, I must admit some curiosity as well. I don't want this to be an interrogation, but I don't believe we ever heard the details from your side of things."

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Having friends was still new to her, and she didn't want her temper ruining her one chance at happiness. "Okay. Sorry, Applejack." Her friend nodded and gave an apologetic smile. "So, I guess I can explain a bit."

She tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling. "So, when Twilight first came here, I already knew how to get the crown. I was actually planning to steal it that day. For all I knew, Princess Celestia was moments way from coming after me." She chuckled darkly. "I... guess that was wishful thinking, huh? A-anyway, I wanted to be cautious about it. Ideally I would be in another world before anyone even noticed it was gone, but better safe than sorry, right?"

She glanced guiltily at Fluttershy. "I... had to make sure..." She shook her head. "I chose to intimidate you since you would have had reason to suspect me, after I talked to you about the crown. I'm sorry."

Fluttershy gave her a small smile. "I forgive you, remember?"

Sunset swallowed thickly. "R-right. Afterward I played up my role as soon-to-be-winner. Who would suspect the surefire winner of stealing the crown, right? But then I found out Twilight was running against me. Celestia's newest student, the bearer of the Element of magic and Equestria's freshest alicorn. My replacement." She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She really did.

Rainbow seemed to ponder for a moment. "So, what, it was some kind of pride thing?"

"More or less. I wanted to prove that I was better than her. That I deserved the crown that I felt she had stolen from me. I wanted to be a powerful alicorn princess just like Celestia. If I, a mere mortal, not even a pony any more, could beat an alicorn, surely that meant I was worthy, right?"

Sunset let out a sigh. "I guess you could say I didn't fight fair, but I... I didn't want to just attack her, or steal the crown and run. I wanted her to realize that I was better than her, that I could win without lifting a hoof to her. When it didn't work, when I lost, I kind of just snapped and decided to take the crown by force, anyway."

Sunset shivered. "As for the, ah, fireball, well... I don't really want to say it wasn't my fault or anything, but I really wasn't thinking straight. Being overwhelmed by magic like that... it feels so amazing in the moment, but it's really horrifying in retrospect."

She looked around to see sympathetic expressions on her friends' faces. Part of her was disgusted, the part that felt showing weakness would only cause problems. The rest of her was thankful for all they were doing for her.

"Sorry, I kind of brought down the mood, huh?"

Rarity tittered. "Oh, think nothing of it, darling. We did ask, after all."

Pinkie and Rainbow spoke for a moment in hushed tones before Pinkie locked eyes with Sunset. "What about the zombies, though?"

Sunset blinked. "Huh?"

Rainbow's face lit up as she caught on. "Oh, yeah! That's weird too, isn't it?"

"What in the world are you talking about?"

Rainbow squared herself and clasped her hands under her chin. "You said your Princess Celestia is really powerful, right? She's an alicorn or whatever?"

Sunset blinked. "Yeah..."

"Is she, like, martial artist level strong, or super-hero level strong?"

"Uh... I would say demi-god level strong?" She was met with blank stares. "I mean, she raises and lowers the Sun daily in our world, literally. I've only heard of two beings capable of overpowering her, from my reading. One was the literal personification of chaos, practically a god in his own right, and the other was her sister."

Rainbow grinned. "So to summarize, your Princess Celestia could beat up an invading army all on her own?"

"Well, yeah I suppose..."

"Then what was up with the mind-controlled zombie teenager army?"

"..."

Pinkie Pie nodded fervently "Yeah, what she said!"

"Seems kinda silly to expect a handful of teenagers to take over a country with someone like her in charge, right?"

Sunset's face paled. "Ah! Heheheh, yeah, I guess that was really stupid, huh? Oh well, good thing I didn't end up facing that embarrassment, right? Phew!"

Rarity narrowed her eyes. "Sunset, forgive me for saying, but that was... rather unconvincing. If you don't want to talk about it any further, we understand, but please know that we are here for you. Is there something the matter?"

Sunset's eyes darted between the concerned faces of her friends. "W-well... I guess it's only fair. I shouldn't be running from my judgement." She clasped her hands in front of herself.

"We aren't here to 'judge' you, dear."

"Yeah, well I won't blame you if you do. So... part of it was to lord my power over the school. Big surprise, right? Really, I didn't make the zombie army because I thought it would take over Equestria. In the mindset I was in, I expected that I might fight with Celestia, but that was it. It was a personal thing between me and her. The Element of Magic would give me enough power to deal with her if she held back. I don't know, maybe I hoped she would be impressed enough by my power to put me in charge willingly. I wasn't thinking logically about it."

"And the other part of it?"

Sunset flinched. "Nothing gets by you, huh Rarity? I... well, the plan was to... use them as... living shields." Fluttershy gasped. "I know that sounds horrible, but I couldn't imagine Celestia cutting loose if there were innocent kids in the vicinity, even if they were from another world. She wouldn't want to hurt them, which is what I meant about her holding back in that case. It would keep her from vaporizing me instantly."

She gulped. Might as well go all the way. "And... even if she did it anyway, I'd die knowing I was right. Our deaths would be my vindication."

She glanced at her friends faces, noting the horror as expected, but also surprised to see some confusion as well.

Rarity leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "Vindication, dear? I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean."

Sunset sighed and looked down at her clasped hands. "One of the reasons that I had my... falling out with Princess Celestia was because I felt she was too soft sometimes, especially on her enemies. I was worried that she didn't necessarily have the... determination to do what was necessary in a bad situation. I guess that's part of why I wanted to be a Princess; to help her do what was needed."

She fidgeted with her hands, still refusing to meet Rarity's gaze. "Whatever part of me that was still sane during that whole she-demon thing must have recognized what I was doing was evil on some level. If Celestia really would blow away a bunch of mind-controlled children to stop me, then it would prove that I was right about her needing to... put her hoof down, so to speak."

"Huh?" She risked a glance upward to see Rainbow staring at her. At least she isn't glaring. "Wouldn't that prove you wrong instead? I mean, that she was stronger than you thought?"

Sunset gave a shaky laugh as she ran a hand through her hair. "I guess I would have just been happy to know that she was... still perfect. That she did actually know what she was doing, and that I wasn't wrong for thinking 'drastic measures' were sometimes justified." She winced at the still worried expressions on her friends' faces. "N-not that I still think that way! I understand now that her doing something like that would have been far from perfect!" She sighed. "Or at least, I think so. Honestly, I'm still trying to figure things out. It... means so much to me that you five are actually willing to try and help me understand."

She struggled to maintain eye contact with each of them in turn as she spoke. They deserve to know who they are trying to help. Don't you dare start crying! "Please, I know I was awful. I'm not sure I can do this without you all. I understand if you hate me for this, but..." Beg if you have to! "Please don't leave me."

She was surprised to feel a hand on her other shoulder. She turned to see Fluttershy smiling at her. She felt a reaffirming squeeze from Rarity's hand as well. Rainbow shared a look with Applejack before sending Sunset a thumbs-up.

Applejack cleared her throat. "I'll admit, that was a bit unsettling to learn. But thanks for being willing to share it with us. Honestly, I'm glad that your feeling comfortable enough with us to open up some, even about your past like that. As long as you stay sincere about improving, I don't think there's a problem. You've already apologized for that night, after all."

Sunset felt her eyes being to water. Please, for the love of Celestia, do not cry. "Thank you all-" She was interrupted by Pinkie Pie somehow sliding right into her lap. How had she managed to do that without her noticing? "Ack! P-Pinkie!"

Pinkie wrapped her arms around Sunset and shook both of them back and forth, tears in her eyes. "They grow up s-sooo faa-aaast!"

Sunset pushed down her embarrassment and chuckled. "Okay, okay. Really, though: thanks guys."

Fluttershy patted her shoulder and made her way over to the dvd player. "It's fine. We can go back to complaining about movies if you want. You might like this next one though. It's about a man who's cursed to look like a monster but is rescued by the power of love."

Sunset smiled. Friendship really was something, wasn't it? "Let's do it."

Comments

[CrazedLaughter]

I mean. A teenage zombie army would work. They would tirelessly follow orders and beat on Celestia's army without emotion while Sunset could taunt they are innocent hypnotized souls. Which in turn would make Celestia hesitant on defeating them. It's actually a pretty good plan. Especially if some became unicorns through the statue. Sunset could instantly teach them some destructive spells albeit with varying results.

[Fwelin]

It was a good plan, IF she could also turn ponies into zombies and her demon form could take on Celestia herself.

[Thisisalongname]

I actually have a theory about why sunset didn't steal the crown from celestias office. Think about her history. She was celestias student who thought she deserved to be a princess and wanted celestia to make her one. Celestia dismissed her and sunset runs away, later finding out that celestia chose another to replace her and made her a princess. She lost to twilight. But what happens if she wins the fall formal? She beats twilight and Celestia puts the crown (making her a magical princess) on her head. It's what's she always wanted, Celestia makes her a princess over twilight who lost. She subconsciously picked that path and thought of no other way, especially since she thought she was a sure win.

Sorry a out word ramble typed on phones and can't really see to edit it.

[Draconaes]

8645291
That's an interesting idea, actually. It's not too far removed from her motivation in this story, but I'll admit I wasn't thinking about it in quite those terms. I'm working on a larger story with Sunset Shimmer at the moment. I may have to put more thought into her relationship with Principal Celestia.

8645130
Not too bad an idea, either, though it does make some assumptions about what Sunset could do with her zombies. Would a mind-controlled unicorn be able to cast spells? Would Sunset just be channeling spells through them? I find working out details like that interesting.

The problem with "who would win in a fight" scenarios in MLP is that fighting isn't really the focus, and it's difficult to really nail down relative power levels. I've seen many debates about Celestia in particular, where depending on how one interprets things she's either fairly incompetent in battle, or is nigh unrivaled in power (if she didn't limit herself, at least).

Part of the inspiration for this story was actually several discussions about Sunset's actions in the first movie, and how certain parts didn't make sense or seemed idiotic. I'll admit I was no great fan of the movie until after Rainbow Rocks; After falling in love with Sunset as a character, I could better appreciate the first movie as an origin for her, but this also inspired me to try and make sense of several elements of the story. Properly motivated, I'm someone who is less likely to say "That's impossible" or "That doesn't make sense" than I am to say "What would it take for this to be possible/make sense?".

[Gemhunter]

8645130
True. Sombra’s mind controlled army seemed to be holding on for a good amount of time in that bad future. Given Twilight’s first encounter with Sombra and Sunset both happened in roughly the same year, if the zombies are roughly on par with the ponies fighting in the crystal war timeline, Sunset should have a decent chance of winning if she simply forces the portal to remain open, allowing for infinite reinforcements.

[Nyperold]

You might like this next one though. It's about a man who's cursed to look like a monster but is rescued by the power of love."

Sounds like a...tale as old as time.

[Norad2]

This story is legit. It needs more likes and more views! An excellent piece of EQG writing to fill the gap between movie one and two.

I thought this was going to be a story poking fun at Sunset’s motivations in the first movie, and I was prepared to propose what I believe is the best explanation for her actions.

Turns out you already thought of every single thing I was going to say (and much, much more!). And it’s portrayed with excellent characterization and natural sounding dialogue. A real winner!

[Rock-Mint-Swirl]

This was great! I never gave much thought to what Sunset was expecting in the first movie, this was a great view on it!
Is it bad I laughed when Sunset was trying not to cry? ~ Mintstar

[Aotrs Commander]

8645130

Not... Really, no.

They WEREN'T actual undead zombies, only zombies in the sense of mind-controlled slaves. So they would NOT be immune to fatigue, thirst or starvation. Sure, with the right sort of control (though we don't know whether that was actually the case or not and how complete Sunset's control was), they'd follow instructions to their own detriment - maybe even with some degree of competance if they could interpret the commands with a basic degree of competance (but then again, if that happens, they can't be entirely under your control because it's allowing some level of independant thought).

(Similarly, there is no indicationt that Sombra's mind-controlled crystal troopers were immune to such. There is a BIG difference between "immune to morale (so won't rout)" and immune to LOGISTICS. (Hell, even a true Undead army is no immune to that, it just removes food/water from the quation.)

Same goes for teaching spells - just because you can order them to "learn this spell" doesn't mean they would (pun unintended) magically be capable of doing so, unless normal unicorns can learn that near-instantly. (Hell, come to that, something I'd not thought of; the pegasus ones would be more-or-less useless, since we KNOW that Twilight had some locamotive trouble in translation - and Sunset wouldn't know how to fly like a pegasus.)

It was, frankly, a pretty daft and poorly thought out plan if "taking over Equestria with a few score teenage zombies" was her real game plan.

(That gets more stupid when you realise that Princess Spike told us Equestria is actually pretty damn huge in terms of population (someone counted - there were 130 gems visible in that statue ("over fifty" indeed Twilight). From there the population size is dependant on what Equestria qualifies as a "city;" but I did some fagpackets calculations at the time, and it could easily have the same sort of population size as the UK up to Germany (for whatever you consider to be the equivilent tech level) and upwards. The idea of take over that is as absurd as the utterly laughable number of Clone Troops in the old EU that someone insisted was right that wouldn't be sufficient to fight a war in Europe, let alone millions of worlds.)

But - that probably wasn't her game plan. Draconaes's idea of using them as meatshield while she dealt with Celestia (in some fashion) is by far the most vaguely credible suggestion I've heard on the subject.

(Also IACTUAL mindless zombies have to be micromanaged to be able to do ANYTHING useful (mindless minions are not actually very useful aside from very basic jobs).)

[Draconaes]

8646082
Thank you very much!

I'm glad to see the positive response to this story. I'm hoping to explore Sunset's character even further in future stories.

[genesisofthewind]

YES!! Finally, someone else who saw the use of the Zombie Students. I always saw them as a meat shield for Sunset, but no one else ever seemed to pick up on that.

[Ri2]

I was expecting there to be a funny answer to the zombie thing because for some reason I thought this was a comedy story. Like, she wanted a massive harem or something.

[Harwick]

I’ve always disagreed with people who mocked Sunset’s plan in that first film. As I see it, she has these things going for her:

1. Her own versions of Celestia and Luna who will follow her commands and turn into Alicorns on the other side of the portal.
2. Plenty of hostages in the form of student thralls, including...
3. The little sisters of the heroes waiting on the other side of the portal... or at least versions close enough to confuse them.
4. Everyone she needs to conquer waiting in a room right through the portal, not suspecting an attack.

It’s not about fighting a war... it’s about getting Celestia, Luna, Cadance and the Mane 5 to surrender and go to the human world where they’d be powerless. Then she passes off her versions of Celestia and Luna as the real deal, they return to their thrones, name her their heir, step down, and the nation has been conquered without even knowing it.

[Ganondorf8]

I attribute it as being one of those spur-of-the-moment situations that Sunset didn't entirely think through when she was coming up with her plan but she was determined to see it through. A shame that we never got to see her plan actually get carried out--time constraints and animating such a sequence were factors--as it would've given her a stronger incentive towards portraying the villain as she was designated to be.

I enjoyed this story as I imagined what Sunset must have felt like being asked so many questions that she was clearly not comfortable with but she knew that she had to answer them otherwise she would've only hated herself for not being honest.

[SilverStar7]

This is a good head canon. It certainly makes Sunset's plan seem more believable, which is saying something as that was, IMO, one of the weakest parts of the movie. Well done!

[chris the cynic]

Thank you for this.

I am so sick of all the stories that act like having an army of literal human shields was somehow poor planing on Sunset's part. Unless one assumes that Celestia would have no qualms with ordering the wholesale slaughter of innocent children (or doing it herself) Sunset's army was untouchable. Sure, they could be carefully contained until the magical control could be broken, or some such, given time, but:

Sunset, Snips, and Snails had all sprouted wings. Not one of them is a Pegasus (or counterpart to one.) Sunset had every reason to believe that she had three artificial Alicorns on her side. (Whether or not it's true is a non issue since we can only judge the plan based on hypotheticals anyway.) Add to that the two actual ones she had in thrall in the form of Celestia and Luna* and we're looking at the most potent magical force Equestria has ever faced off against.

The army of human shields doesn't need to win anything, they just need to keep the regular ponies from interfering while the Alicorns duke it out. Sunset has the numerical advantage. Depending on whether or not Cadance is a combatant, it's either five to three or five to two.

(And it taking place at the Crystal Empire is decidedly bad for Equestria. That drops a powerful magical artifact right into Sunset's hands after she's dealt with the Princesses.)

-

* Sci-Twi's wings not only ruin all the stories that assumed she'd be a regular unicorn, they also demonstrate that if the human's counterpart is an alicorn the human is too.

[Seraphem]

8649591
Turns out, Sci-Twi is a unicorn when she heads to Equestria.

It was still a massively stupid idea. For one, counting on Celestia to hold back because they are just mind controlled kids requires her to know this is the case, though that they are being messed with would likely be obvious. But no matter what, you are still trying to stage an invasion through a very, very, VERY narrow choke-point, that already has all of the strongest defenders of Equestria sitting right in front of it. Which in turn is sitting on top of the second most powerful weapon they have access to. Just have Shiny throw up a shield around the mirror to keep too many from pouring out, or from scattering once they do while Cadance heads down to activate the Crystal Heart. Mind control purged, evil beings vaporized. Though "They are just ablative armor while I deal with Celestia" is a much better rationalization then any we actually get in the movie.

What annoys me, are the fics the bring up 'why didn't Sunset steal the crown before the contest?' like some flaw in the movie. It has enough massive gaping plot holes as it is, this is not one of them. It's outright said that after Sunset did just that the first time to snag the fake crown to replace it with Twi's, that Tina and Lucy put the crown somewhere else for safe keeping till the Fall Formal. You can't steal something if you don't know where it is.

[PaulAsaran]

You can has review!