Night Boat to Somnambula

by Awesomo3000

Chapter Three

Author's Note:

Yes, I'm well aware of Forgotten Friendship and Sunset's schuper 'durable reunion with Celestia. But that ain't gonna stop me from giving writing my own a go.

Sunset had been gone for almost twenty minutes now. The summer sun still beamed down on Canterlot High’s elegant infrastructure. All the while, Twilight leant against the corner of the statue, her fingers anxiously drumming against her skirt. Spike, giving into his dog instincts, bounded up and down as he tried to catch a ladybug in his mouth. He finally stopped with a disappointed sigh when the insect got fed up with the game and flew away. Giving the back of his ear a quick scratch, Spike finally broke the silence.

“You okay, Twilight?” Snapping out of her trance, Twilight glanced down at her canine companion.

“Okay? Of course I’m okay.” She replied, giving the most unconvincing smile in the history of unconvincing smiles, “Why wouldn’t I be okay? I mean, it’s just Sunset deciding to reunite with her old mentor after all these years and having no clue how she’ll react. What’s there not to be okay about?” It wasn’t until Spike raised a skeptical eyebrow that she finally gave in.

“I’m sorry. It’s just… well, this is a lot to take in.” Twilight explained, exhaling deeply through her nostrils. “I mean, it’s been such a long time for both of them. How do you think Celestia will take this?”

“Well there’s no doubt it’ll be quite a shock.” Spike replied, glancing at the portal’s entrance then back to his friend. “I think when we get to Canterlot, it would be best if we give her a heads-up. Just so we don’t risk her fainting on the spot when she sees Sunset.” Thinking about this for a brief moment, Twilight gave a short nod and a grateful smile.

“Good thinking, Spike.” The dog nodded in return just as the silence was broken by the sound of panting. Both turned their heads to see Sunset running up the sidewalk to them, a backpack slung over her shoulders.

“Sorry about the wait.” She said after catching her breath, “Had to pack some things and text my friends to let them know I was going.” Twilight smiled and shrugged in an understanding manner. With that, all three of them took their place in front of the statue. They stared at its stone surface for the longest time. But no one stared more nervously at it than Sunset.

“You ready?” Twilight asked, giving an encouraging glance in her direction. Taking a deep breath, Sunset mentally decided there was no turning back now.

“As I’ll ever be.”

At last, Spike, Twilight and Sunset each took a step forward and disappeared into the camouflaged vortex.

---

True to their word, Twilight’s friends were still waiting outside the mirror in her castle library. Their casual chatting amongst them finally stopped as a magical whirring sounded from the portal. The machine powering it roaring back into life while the five ponies all stared in anticipation. The pink swirls in the mirror’s surfaces finally emitted a bright white flash, causing everypony to shield their eyes. When the light died down, three figures emerged from the shining gateway.

Twilight and Spike, both back to their respective forms. And behind them, a saddlebag slung over her back, trying to stand on her hind legs was Sunset. Twilight quickly caught her before she had a chance to fall over.

“Thanks.” She said, sheepishly straightening her punkish red-yellow mane, “Still gotta get used to that.” Twilight chuckled before gesturing to her five friends, all of them giving welcoming smiles.

“Sunset Shimmer, I’d like you to meet…”

“Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.” Sunset finished. Dumbfounded, everypony instantly stop smiling and gave a single blink simultaneously.

“Umm… pleased to meet you.” Rarity replied, albeit quite awkwardly.

“Freaky-deaky!” A certain pink pony added, holding her hoof to her head in amazement. Sunset quickly realised what she had said, prompting her to awkwardly scratch the back of her head.

“Oh, yeah.” Her amber cheeks blushed a deep shade of pink, “I forgot you guys aren’t the, y'know, other versions of you that I’m friends with.” Applejack raised a dismissive hoof, smiling understandingly.

“It’s alright, sugarcube.” She gave a brief chuckle. “Honestly, we’re still tryin’ to wrap our heads around this whole other world counterpart thing.”

“I can vouch for that.” Twilight murmured to Spike, memories of her unexpected run-in with her own counterpart flooding back.

“Eh, I doubt the other me is as awesome as I am.” Rainbow Dash said, giving a flip of her multi-colour mane. “Can’t beat the original.” Sunset merely rolled her eyes in amusement; as far as she was concerned, both Rainbows would get along perfectly if they were to ever meet.

“But it’s so nice to finally meet you after everything Twilight’s told us about you.” Fluttershy said, stepping forward and extending a foreleg for a hoofshake. Smiling, Sunset reached out to take her hoof. That is, until Pinkie Pie bounded in front and grabbed it instead, giving Sunset’s hoof, along with Sunset herself, a vigorous shake with both her hooves.

“Yeah! Welcome to Ponyville, Sunset!” she cried out eagerly as the unicorn struggled to keep her balance, “Or in this case, welcome to Ponyville AND welcome back to Equestria!” Finally wrenching her hoof out of Pinkie’s grip, Sunset nonetheless kept her smile as she rubbed it better.

“It’s a pleasure.” She then paused to look down at the crystal floor, wearing a slightly embarrassed grin. “Heh, I’m just sorry the first time we ever saw each other face-to-f… well, muzzle-to-muzzle was when I stole Twilight’s crown.”

“That may be true,” Rarity stepped forward, smiling warmly, “but from what Twilight’s told us, you’ve really done a lot to turn yourself around, darling. So I think we can let bygones be bygones.” Rainbow hovered next to Sunset, placing a casual foreleg over her shoulders.

“Yeah! You’re cool in my book.”

“Any friend a’ Twilight’s is a friend a’ mine.” Applejack added with a tip of her hat whilst Fluttershy nodded affirmatively. Sunset glanced across at Twilight joyfully as the Alicorn gave a small nod that said ‘yeah, I knew they’d like you’.

“So tell me.” She said after letting all this affection sink in. “Anything major happened around Equestria lately?”

“Sunset, we’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do.” Twilight replied, cocking a playful eyebrow whilst placing a hoof on her shoulder. Once again, however, Pinkie beat them to the punch, now randomly holding in her hooves an open scrapbook as she pointed to each photographed event she rattled off.

“Like the fact that Princess Cadance and Shining Armor now have an Alicorn baby called Princess Flurry Heart, the Changelings are all good now, my sister Maud’s moved here to Ponyville, Spike reached out to the dragon kingdom and here’s a pretty big one..." Yanking a camera out of her mane, the pink pony immediately took a photo of Sunset and slapped it onto a blank page once it was printed out. "You’ve just come back to Equestria!”

Once she'd rubbed her eyes, Sunset looked at the picture of her startled self.

“Buuuut aside from that, nothing too big going on.” The party pony added nonchalantly, stuffing both the camera and the scrapbook back into her mane.

---

“To the ages, I shall bring about peace and abolish any plight. No, wait a minute… Grrrargh! Why must blight and plight sound so similar?”

All that echoed throughout the lone Catacombs of Alkulb was the frustrated muttering of Alsum.

Still in his father’s tomb, the jackal-scorpion was currently facing away from the Scarab’s pictogram on the wall, trying to memorize off by heart the incantation scrawled above it. But from mixing up parts of the sentences to saying “will” rather than “shall”, it had taken quite a few tries. Deeply resisting the urge to tear up the tomb, the creature took a deep calming breath.

“Patience, Alsum. You know what they say: eighth time’s the charm.” Taking on a more relaxed posture, Alsum recited the hieroglyphs once more, clearly and with power:

O Scarab of Ghamid, bestow upon me your powers grand and bright.
To the ages, I shall bring about peace and abolish any blight.

Looking back at the wall, he relaxed once he saw that he had spoken it correctly this time.

“Ahh, that’s better.” He said self-assuredly, “Once I get my paws… erm, claws on the Scarab, I’ll certainly abolish any blight. The blight of ponykind, that is.” A devious chuckle escaping his lips, Alsum slowly crawled past his father’s sarcophagus, stroking the lid with a claw.

“My reign is near, Father.” He leant down closer towards it, murmuring mockingly. “It’s a pity you won’t be around to stop it.” He pretended to think for a moment. “Oh, wait. No, it isn’t.”

With a vile cackle, Alsum left his father’s chambers and scuttled down the dark passageway. At last, the golden glow of the relics tomb came into view. His smirk only grew as he entered.

“And now the Scarab’s power is…” Any trace of evil joy vanished completely once he saw the barren pedestal where the desired artefact had been.

“WHAT?!”

Alsum’s enraged roar shook some dust out of the cracks in the walls.

“Gone?!” Whipping around, the jackal-scorpion prowled down the tunnel and around the Catacombs, searching high and low in every tomb.

“Father must have hidden it somewhere!” He muttered furiously. Heading back to his father’s tomb, his new claws on his scorpion half grabbed the edges of the sarcophagus lid and wrenched it off with ease. That proved to be a mistake as Alsum instantly averted his gaze from inside the stone casket, gagging in disgust.

“Eurgh, definitely not buried with it.” Still looking away, he hastily put the lid back in place and forced the disturbing image out of his memory. Having searched the entirety of the Catacombs, Alsum headed back into the relics tomb, fuming.

“WHERE IS IT?!”

Panting lividly, he looked around the tomb as he tried to think of any other place the Scarab could possibly be. He started to calm down as he noticed most of the stone columns that displayed each treasure were also bare.

“Wait… most of the relics are gone.” Alsum thought long and hard, wondering why his father would confiscate half of their people’s most valuable relics. That's when it hit him.

“The ponies…”

Remembering back to his reawakening, he recalled the two archaeologists gazing up at him in terror through the dust. He also remembered they were each wearing bulging saddlebags.

And both filled to the brim with relics.

“Why, those putrid little thieves…”

His face contorted into a menacing scowl, Alsum was out of the relics tomb, rushing out of the Catacomb’s exit and into the desert at lightning speed. His squinting eyes momentarily adjusted to the blinding sunlight, having been stuck in a stone wall for over a thousand years. His scorpion legs stabbing into the boiling sand, Alsum ascended rapidly up the slope leading down to the Catacombs entrance and onto higher ground.

Putting to good use his senses superior to any canine, Alsum held his head high and sniffed at the air. At last, he recoiled in disgust once he finally caught their scent, his head whipping to the left. Though not in sight, they had definitely gone that way. His long jackal ears folded back as he let out a snarl through his clenched teeth.

“No one steals from Alsum and gets away with it unscathed.”

Comments

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

This was good.

And let me also say, that I love Alsum the more and more I see him. This guy is really enjoyable, quite funny!

[Awesomo3000]

8913579
That's the idea, not another "I'm sad so I'm gonna destroy the world" like we've recently gotten multiple times in a row. Just a good old-fashioned straight-up villain like Tirek, Discord, Chrysalis and Adagio.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

8914037
I definitely approve. Sometimes a story just needs a bad guy who actually enjoys what they do.