• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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The Dream Maker, Part Five (New)

The Dream Maker, Part Five

Princess Celestia sipped delicately from her mug of hot chocolate. "So, little sunbeam, how are you finding Hinny the Elder?"

Sunset looked up at her. The light from the fire before them made Princess Celestia's samite coat gleam like pearl; the reflection of the flames danced in her eyes.

The fire was red and gold, just like her mane. It danced in the princess' eyes the way that Sunset was in her heart.

And always would be.

Sunset smiled. "I love the language. It's like reading poetry, but … better."

Princess Celestia smiled down at her. Her voice was soft and kind and curious as she asked, "'Better'? In what way?"

In every way, Sunset was tempted to say, but she had been taught well enough to reach beyond such a vague and vapid generalisation. She sought for specifics. "So often, the beauty of language found in poetry is wasted upon unworthy subject matter: trees and flowers and autumn leaves—"

Princess Celestia raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "And what is so unworthy about trees and flowers and autumn leaves?"

Sunset fell silent for a moment. It was a rebuke, a gentle one but a rebuke nonetheless. She ran her tongue along the outside of her mouth. "I … find them boring."

"And yet' to other ponies' they are the centre of the world, as dear as life itself," Princess Celestia reminded her. "If you came across a pony with a cutie mark of flowers, whose passion was for flowers, who grew or studied or sold flowers, would you think them unworthy?"

Yes, Sunset thought, or at least less worthy than myself. She knew from occasionally bitter experience, however, that that was not the kind of answer that Princess Celestia wished to hear, and so, Sunset glanced away from her and muttered, "No, Princess."

She felt Princess Celestia's wing enfold her from above, the feathers soft and warm and tickling her coat ever so slightly as wrapped around her.

"I am glad to hear it," Princess Celestia replied. She paused for a moment. "No one will begrudge you your passions or your interests, Sunset, so long as you do not begrudge others theirs or hold yourself above and they below because of it." Once more, she paused a moment. "But you were saying, about poetry and Hinny the Elder?"

Sunset looked back up at the princess, and the fact that the smile had returned to the Princess' face gladdened Sunset's heart. To upset or disappoint Princess Celestia was never her intent. Princess Celestia might raise the sun and moon, but in truth, that smile upon her face was as much sun to Sunset Shimmer as the celestial orb that lit the world. That smile was the sun, and — despite her stated disinterest in them — Sunset was the flower that blossomed in its dazzling light.

They sat together in Princess Celestia's sitting room, the two of them sat upon the carpet before the fire. Princess Celestia's horn glowed golden, and that same golden light enveloped the cup of hot cocoa that she levitated in the air not far from her face. Sunset's cup, which included marshmallows and whipped cream, sat on the floor in front of her.

Sunset continued, or rather started again, leaving behind her prior argument and the distaste that Princess Celestia had for it to say, "And oftentimes, poetry uses its language like a fog, dazzling you with words to disguise the fact that it is saying nothing at all: words without meaning or relevance. Hinny's language is of a different sort, not less delightful but used in service to describe events that really happened to real ponies."

She drank from her cup, licking up the beard of cream that stained her face around her mouth.

Princess Celestia nodded. "For myself, I think he is amongst the best historians of any era; I do not always agree with his conclusions, but few others, if any, can be said to combine facts with artistry in the relaying of those facts the way that he does. The lives lived by the ponies of those days, the characters of the ponies concerned—"

"The deeds that they did," Sunset added. "But, Princess, there is one thing I don't understand. Maybe it will be explained later, but—"

"But there is no reason you cannot ask," Princess Celestia said, taking another sip of her hot chocolate. "What is it that confuses you?"

"Why does Hinny talk of the Last Unicorn?" asked Sunset. "After all, I'm a unicorn, and there are plenty of us left; for that matter, Hinny was a unicorn himself, so what makes this Evenfall so special?"

The smile faded from Princess Celestia's face, replaced with a twisting of her mouth in distaste "I would rather that you didn't use that term," she said, her voice becoming clipped and sharp. "It is, as you point out, inaccurate, and unseemly."

Sunset looked down. She spoke quickly, words galloping out, "Forgive me, Princess, I didn't mean to—"

"Oh, sunbeam, I am not angry with you," Princess Celestia insisted, craning her long neck down to nuzzle Sunset gently. "I'm sorry if that is what you thought, but it is not the case. You are not at fault for raising something you have read, but … the name 'the Last Unicorn' is one that I dislike, and something on which I disagree profoundly with Hinny; at best, the use of it shows a worrying sanitisation of Evenfall's unsavoury attitudes; at best, it reveals some darkness in the hearts of those who use the name."

"But what does it mean?" Sunset asked.

"As you have correctly identified," Princess Celestia replied, slipping into the didactic tone that Sunset recognised from their lessons, "it does not refer to the physical absence of unicorns after her. Rather, and this is what makes it so pernicious a term, it refers to values. Evenfall Gleaming was called 'the Last Unicorn' because it was believed that the spirit of the unicorns of old had vanished with her." Princess Celestia took pause a moment. "Something vanished with her, I admit; she was the last flowering of an idea, an attitude … but it was a bitter flowering of a poisonous plant, and everything that Evenfall represented, Equestria is far, far better off without."

Sunset frowned. "What do you mean, Princess?"

Princess Celestia chuckled. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather hear it in Hinny's words?"

Sunset smiled as she snuggled up to Princess Celestia. "I'd rather hear your words."

Princess Celestia chuckled. "Very well," she said softly. "This all happened a very long time ago, more than a thousand years ago, before my sister and I took up the rule of Equestria. I had already taken over raising the sun in the sky each day, alleviating the need for powerful unicorns to sacrifice their magic by working in concert with Starswirl the Bearded to accomplish that task. For that, and for Luna's part in raising the moon at night, we were widely acclaimed, and there were those in each of the three races who said that we deserved the rule of Equestria, that we were … destined for it."

Sunset smiled at that. She had no doubt that those who had said such things at the time had been right: Princess Celestia had been destined to rule all of Equestria.

Just as she, Sunset Shimmer, was destined to succeed and to surpass her mentor.

"But we were still young, Luna and I, for all our gifts, and not yet fit to rule. Not wise enough, not educated enough, so we remained under the tutelage of Starswirl the Bearded, although many suspected — as turned out to be the case — that he was not only teaching us magic, but also grooming us to ascend the thrones of Equestria as rulers of all three tribes." Princess Celestia paused for a moment. "There were some who misliked that. None moreso than Evenfall Gleaming."

"But why?" Sunset asked. "Why would anyone object to being ruled by you, wise as you are, and gentle, and noble, and—?"

Princess Celestia laughed aloud. "You are very kind, Sunset, but I am not telling you this story so that you may flatter me and soothe my vanity. Remember that I was not so well known then, and had not had a thousand years ruling — I hope — wisely and well to endear me to ponies of all races. Some of the objections were self-interested, by those who feared to lose their power and position in a new order; others were those who disliked the other tribes and feared yet closer integration. Evenfall had some of both in her: hating pegasi, despising earth ponies, envying Starswirl his preeminence amongst unicorn mages, she was a throwback even then to a time that was rapidly fading away — and for good reasons and good riddance. She would have seen the windigos return with the malice in her heart. Although she had never taken part in the raising of the sun, fearing to lose her magic in the process, she railed against me and my sister too for having usurped this function that properly belonged to the unicorn race. She spoke of the superiority of unicorns, of how, blessed by magic as they were, it was their responsibility to rule over pegasi and earth ponies for their own good."

"So … when she is called the Last Unicorn," Sunset said, "it's because she was the last one to think this way?"

Princess Celestia nodded. "The last, at least, with any power or influence. Now you see why I dislike the term; it imbues squalid prejudice with a sense of grandeur and turns arrogance into something heroic we should mourn the loss of. Nevertheless, I must admit that she spoke well, and many unicorns flocked to her banner."

Sunset had a hard time understanding that. Most magic, barring a few extraordinary unicorns like Starswirl the Bearded or, well, herself, was quite ordinary and unimpressive, while some pegasi had the ability to create storms out of nothing, an ability of which she was, frankly, envious; she was eager to ascend so that she could do it too. Besides that, there were pegasi and earth ponies of good families, long established in Canterlot, who, while they might lack Sunset's grand and glorious destiny, were nonetheless worthy of respect. In Sunset's opinion, good breeding and profession — or the lack thereof — counted for more than race.

"Why didn't anyone stop her?" she asked.

"Starswirl attempted it, fearing what Evenfall might do," Princess Celestia explained. "He reached out to the pegasi and the earth ponies, who were — as you can imagine — not pleased with what Evenfall was saying. A plan was made to arrest her, but she got wind of it before it could be done and fled. There, in secret, using dark magic the particulars of which I do not wish to know nor wish anypony else to know, she forged what were called the dark regalia, three dark artefacts, each of them imbued with the power of one of the three pony races: the Crown Dominate, for unicorns; the Lightning Collar, for pegasi; and the Armilla Superior, for earth ponies."

Sunset blinked. "Imbued with their power? What do you mean?"

"Each artefact, when worn, gave their wearer the power of the strongest unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony," Princess Celestia explained. "Wearing them all, Evenfall gained even greater magical power, and the strengths of the pegasi and the earth pony races."

"But didn't she think that unicorns were so much better than earth ponies or pegasi?" Sunset asked.

"So she claimed," Princess Celestia replaced. "But sadly, Sunset, hypocrisy was far from the least of her vices. With these dark regalia, Evenfall vowed to take Equestria for herself and restore what she called the natural order of things."

"But she was stopped, wasn't she?" Sunset asked. "Did you stop her?"

"No," Princess Celestia admitted. "Starswirl told me that I was too young, too inexperienced; he told me that my potential should not be thrown aside unrealised in battle with an uncertain outcome. He went to confront her himself. I know not what, exactly, happened when they met; I watched Starswirl gallop away, and three days later, he returned and told me it was done. And Evenfall Gleaming was never heard from again."


Sunset stared at her. Eve. Evenfall Gleaming. The Last Unicorn.

“It can’t be,” Sunset murmured. “That was … that was over a thousand years ago!”

“Yes, I am rather well-preserved, aren’t I?” Eve asked. “A beneficial side effect of the dark regalia. I may not have ascended to become an alicorn, but it appears that combining the powers of all three races has given me all the advantages that come with ascension.”

Sunset scowled. “Or using so much dark magic has hollowed you out and left your skin stretched over nothing. Why don’t you take those artefacts off and see how immortal you really are?”

Eve chuckled. “Come on, Sunset Shimmer; surely, you can do better than that if you want to take my regalia away from me?”

“What’s going on?” Malmsey asked.

“Your uncle has done me a great service,” Eve replied, reaching out with one gauntleted hand to idly stroke the hair of Professor Scrub where he sat, hunched up and quivering, in his armchair. He squirmed away, but ineffectually; she was able to stroke his head as though he were a Labrador just the same. “And now, I’m going to do him — and all of you — a great service. You won’t have to worry about any nasty nightmares anymore, because I’ll be taking your little girlfriend and her passenger and returning to my own world where I belong.”

Malmsey’s eyes widened. “Plum? No! No, you can’t take her back there; you can’t take her anywhere!”

“And who is going to stop me?” Eve demanded.

Malmsey looked away from her, his gaze flickering to Sunset.

He stared at her, as though he were waiting for her to say the words.

Sunset did not say the words. She knew what he expected her to say, she knew what a hero would say. There was only one real response to someone asking ‘and who is going to stop me?’ and that was to say ‘I will!’ in a ringing tone and at significant volume.

And yet, she did not say it. She didn’t say it because she was sharing a room with two people, one of whom was injured, one of whom didn’t have any aura that she knew of, and she didn’t want to get into a fight with one of the most powerful unicorns of her or any age, who was also empowered by three incredibly dangerous artefacts which she had made herself, while they were in a position to get caught in the crossfire.

To tell the truth, she didn’t really want to get into a fight with one of the most powerful unicorns of her or any age at all, not here in Remnant where her own magic was sadly diminished, not even in Equestria maybe.

But if it came to that, she didn’t want it to start in this room.

So she said nothing as she levitated Malmsey Scrub out of her arms, keeping her fists closed to show Eve that she meant no violence — she trusted Eve was smart enough to understand that, with closed fists, she couldn’t shoot any magical beams out of her hands or fingers — and set him down, gently and carefully, in the corner of the room.

“Everything,” she said softly, “is going to be alright.”

Eve smirked. “Is that so? And how, precisely, is everything going to be alright, Sunset Shimmer?”

Sunset licked her lips. “As I understand it, Starswirl the Bearded went to fight you—”

“Him and his little coterie of peasants and barbarians, yes,” Eve said. “I never understood why he chose to associate with such filth.”

“And then he came back and told Princess Celestia that it was done,” Sunset went on, “by which he meant—”

“That, unable to truly defeat me, he banished me here,” Eve said. “Which I’ve always thought was a bit of a cheat, really.”

Sunset didn’t reply to that, instead choosing to reflect that it was things like this which had given Equestria such a bad name with those in the know like Professor Ozpin.

“So, you’ve been here for a thousand years,” Sunset said. “And you decided to pretend to be a student at Haven because…? You told me you weren’t interested in glory, or honour for that matter?”

“I’m not,” Eve said. “Honour was what led so many of my people to bow their heads to the usurper Celestia, honour was what led them to follow that traitor Starswirl, because of course he was such an honourable unicorn, and so worth following where he led. As I told you, Sunset, honour is just words, words, words.”

“Then why are you here?” Sunset demanded.

“Because I want to go home,” Eve declared. “I want to get out of this place, I want to reclaim my full power, I want to reclaim my birthright as a unicorn! And so, I have been a soldier; I’ve been a huntress; every twenty five or thirty years or so, I disappear for a little while, before it gets too obvious that I’m not ageing, and then after a discrete interval, I reappear as someone else. You’d be amazed at how a little weight gain here, a little weight loss there, can render you unrecognisable. So I have served and died and served again and in the service of kings and lords and common men; I have travelled across these lands, always searching, listening, watching for any sign of anything that would lead me back to the place where I belong, any way I could make use of to get back home. And my patience has finally paid off. When the nightmares started, I knew; I recognised the signs of a tantabus. I knew there was a way. I knew that something had come from Equestria, and I knew that if something had come that way, then I could go back—”

“The dome,” Sunset said. “That was your doing.”

“Of course,” Eve said. “You didn’t think the tantabus had sealed off the village, did you?”

Honestly, Sunset hadn’t thought too much about it. “And when you felt my magic touch the barrier—”

“I was curious,” Eve said. “I thought that if I couldn’t find the way back to Equestria here, I could ask you how you got here instead.” She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll do that anyway.”

“I’m not particularly minded to tell you,” Sunset murmured. If you couldn’t find the mirror in Canterlot by yourself, I’m not going to let you know where it is.”

“Why not?” Eve asked. “I’m going back anyway; you’ve got nothing to gain by your silence.”

“Really?” Sunset said. She held out one hand, and although her fist was closed, she nevertheless levitated all the rings up into the air, yellow and green alike turning lazily in circles, like planets moving in orbit around an invisible star.

Eve’s eyes narrowed. “I advise you to think very carefully about what you do next, Sunset. I’ve waited a thousand years for this chance.”

“Yes, a thousand years,” Sunset replied. “A thousand years you’ve been here, and what have you done? Searched and searched for a way back to Equestria? Searched and found nothing until now?” She laughed. “You are regarded as a mage to rival Starswirl the Bearded—”

“I am—”

“Then where is your kingdom, where is your crown?” Sunset demanded. “I can’t help but find it all … rather pathetic.”

Eve let out a wordless snarl of anger. “'Pathetic'? You think that I should have settled down to rule amongst these … these animals? That I should have dedicated all my years to ruling them, to being a glorified kennel master, to settling their wretched arguments, to defending their worthless hides? I am a unicorn! I am the Evenfall of my race, the last light of our surrendered greatness; I will go back to Equestria—”

“And the Elements of Harmony will stop you,” Sunset said. “You’d be better off sticking around here, if you ask me.”

“The Elements of … what are you talking about?” Eve demanded.

“Um, right, that might be a little after your time,” Sunset murmured. “Powerful magic. The greatest magic. Magic to protect Equestria from the likes of you.”

“There is no magic more powerful than the regalia that I possess,” Eve snapped. “With my crown and collar and my armilla, I am the perfect pony!”

“The perfect pony is one who can inspire others to stand alongside them,” Sunset insisted.

Eve’s lip curled into a sneer. “If you think so, why not let me go? If I go only to my defeat, then why would you rather I remained?”

Because I’m not certain. Because every time Twilight fights for Equestria, there is a chance that she will lose, or that it will be her last fight — or the last fight of her friends. Because even if you were defeated, as you probably would be, I would be responsible for any damage that you did.

Because I didn’t come here to throw anyone else under the train.

“If you are so confident in your triumph, then why do you want the tantabus?” Sunset countered. “Go to Equestria without it and conquer all with your own strength — or at the least that of your dark artefacts. You can’t think you can control it, can you?”

“Don’t make the mistake of assuming I cannot,” Eve replied. “I’ve always had a certain affinity with dark creatures.” She smiled. “They recognise me as one of their own. Why do you think that I, alone of everyone in this village, have not been troubled by nightmares?”

“And why you would have no problem ruling over the living nightmare that the tantabus would create once it grew strong enough,” Sunset muttered.

Eve shrugged. “The ponies of Equestria had their chance,” she said. “I offered them leadership; I offered them the benevolent rule of a good shepherd—”

“That is what Celestia offered and what Celestia gave Equestria once you were gone!” Sunset snarled. “You offered them the grinding oppression of a bigot. I’ve often thought that we ponies are better than the humans of this world, but you’re worse; at least when the humans put down the faunus, they don’t talk about it as if they’re doing them a favour!”

Eve rolled her eyes. “I’m getting tired of this,” she said as she grabbed Professor Scrub by the neck and lifted him off his chair and up into the air, legs kicking helplessly in the air as he gasped and gargled wordlessly. “Let me make this simple for you, Sunset: give me those rings, or I’ll take them from you — but not before I kill the old man and the boy.”

“You can’t let her take Plum away!” Malmsey cried. “It doesn’t matter what happens to us—”

“Quiet, boy, or I’ll kill you first,” Eve said. Her eyes were fixed on Sunset. “What’s it going to be?”

Sunset glanced at Malmsey Scrub. Some might say that you have more the heart of a hero than I do. Although I can’t say I approve of dying.

And because of that, I won’t let you die for Miss Pole’s sake.

She released the rings and let them clatter back down into the wooden tray on the table.

Malmsey gasped.

Eve stared at her for a moment. Then she released Professor Scrub, dumping him back down roughly onto his chair — he very nearly fell out of it and had to grab the arms to support himself.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Eve asked. She raised her hand, and her spiked gauntlet — one of the Armilla Superior, no doubt — was wreathed in a red light the same shade as the dome that enclosed the village, as she, in turn, levitated up one of the yellow rings.

Sunset teleported, disappearing and then reappearing again with a crack and a burst of green light, covering the distance between her and Eve in an instant.

Eve’s eyes widened as Sunset grabbed her by the collar of her long coat.

She teleported away again before Eve could react, the two of them vanishing from Professor Scrub’s study and reappearing again high in the air, close to the top of the dome that Eve had created, close to the rocky ceiling of the nightmare Mountain Glenn — how was it that hadn’t disappeared while Sunset was away? — and above Arcadia Lake.

There was another crack and a flash of red light as they teleported again, at Eve’s command this time, reappearing in front of Doctor Diggory’s house.

Eve grabbed Sunset by the neck and slammed her, back first, into the ground. Sunset groaned in pain as she felt the shock through her aura. Eve really was strong. Sunset understood what Princess Celestia had meant by the Armilla Superior granting her the strength of the strongest earth pony. Even if she’d been able to check how much aura she had left, she wasn’t sure that she would have wanted to.

“Now what do you think you accomplished by that?” Eve demanded. “I’ll just take the girl first, and then—”

“Sunset!” Starlight cried, and her voice heralded a burst of fire from her rifle, the blue bolts streaking through the air towards Eve.

Eve raised one hand, and a crimson shield appeared before her, absorbing Starlight’s bolts without visible effect, the energy dissipating against her shield like water splashing against a window.

But Sunset was on the wrong side of the shield, and the twin beams of magic that burst out of her hands like rivers were not intercepted, not blocked; at least, they were not blocked by anything but Eve’s chest as she was flung up into the air.

Sunset kept firing, bolt after bolt of magic leaping from the palms of her hand as she climbed to her feet. Even as she tried to see what was going on out of the corners of her eye — she could see Starlight, Trixie, and Ditzy, as well as Doctor Diggory with some sort of large-barrelled blunderbuss in his hands — she kept her focus upon Eve as she flung magic up at her.

Some of them hit her, a few of them missed as Eve was flung through the air, some of them struck the shield that she managed to fling up before, probably using a reverse gravity spell, she lowered herself down to the ground about a dozen or so feet away from Sunset.

Ditzy took a step forward. “Eve? What’s going on?”

Eve closed her eyes. “In all the time that I have spent trapped on this wretched, disgusting world, there is nothing that has frustrated me more than having to listen to you! I am going to enjoy pulling your head off before I leave.”

Ditzy recoiled a little. “Well, that’s not very nice.”

Starlight shuffled over to stand beside Sunset. “What’s going on?”

“Short version: she’s evil, and she wants to take the nightmare monster that is in Miss Pole and use it to turn a world into a living nightmare.”

Starlight blinked in shock. “There’s a nightmare monster in Miss Pole?”

“Did I not mention that earlier?” Sunset asked.

“No,” Starlight replied. “No, you didn’t.”

“Okay, there’s a nightmare monster inside Miss Pole,” Sunset said. “Sorry I didn’t bring that up earlier; I wasn’t one hundred percent certain.”

“Give me the girl!” Eve bellowed. “Or do you want to die for someone you don’t even know?”

“You’re making quite an assumption there, aren’t you?” Starlight replied.

“Miss Pole is in my charge,” Doctor Diggory declared, “and I will not surrender her, certainly not to the likes of you.”

“Bravely spoken, Doctor, but maybe leave this to us,” Trixie said. “She looks like she means business. Sunset! Can you stop these nightmares?”

Sunset swallowed. “I think so, yes.”

“Then do it!” Trixie commanded. “The Grrreat and Powerrrrrful Team Tsunami, pride of Atlas, will handle things here.”

“But—” Sunset began, mouth opening to protest that Eve was too powerful, that she couldn’t abandon them to fight somepony who had rivalled Starswirl the Bearded in his day.

“Go, Sunset,” Starlight urged. “The sooner you take care of the nightmares, the sooner we only have one problem to worry about. Go on. Don’t worry about us. We’re tougher than we look.”

For a moment longer, Sunset hesitated; she didn’t want to leave; she didn’t want to abandon them to this fight. But Starlight had a point; so long as the tantabus remained inside Miss Pole, then they all had that to worry about as well as Eve, while once the tantabus was gone, then whatever else Eve might do, she would have no more interest in Miss Pole.

“Her crown, necklace, and gauntlets strengthen her,” she said. “Try and remove them if you can.”

“We’ll bear that in mind,” Starlight agreed.

Then Sunset turned away, and hoped that Starlight, Trixie and Ditzy were as strong as they thought they were.


Things had happened very fast for Starlight Glimmer.

She, Trixie, and Ditzy had fallen back in the face of the grimm, covering the gradual evacuation of Arcadia Lake until they had reached Doctor Diggory’s house, which by that point had had what seemed to be the entire population of the village — good thing it wasn’t a big place — crammed inside, with the good doctor himself standing outside with his gun that could only be a huntsman’s weapon from however many years ago.

They had been prepared to make their stand there, outside the house. The advantages of fighting from inside of a building, against the grimm, were not great enough to justify the concomitant loss of visibility and movement that would entail; the grimm didn’t shoot, in the main, so you gained nothing from what little cover the walls might offer, and once they broke into a house full of panicking civilians, said people would not only be in greater danger but would also get in the way of defence. Best to fight them outside, keep them away from the civilians, have the freedom to move around a little more as the situation dictated. And that was what they had been prepared to do, hold off the grimm until Sunset hopefully found out what she needed to bring an end to this.

And if she didn’t find out what she needed … then they were prepared to stand their ground anyway, for as long as it took.

And then Sunset had appeared in front of them, and Eve had appeared as well; having made herself scarce as soon as all this madness got going, now she turned up with Sunset in a chokehold, slamming her into the ground hard enough to crack it.

That was why Starlight had taken a shot at her, but she couldn’t honestly say she wasn’t a little glad of the opportunity.

When Sunset had told her that Eve was, in fact, evil, it had only been the seriousness of the situation that had stopped Starlight from telling Sunset that she could have told her that much sooner.

Okay, perhaps not evil per se, but there had clearly been something with her at least from the moment it became clear that she’d lied about what happened to Ditzy’s teammates, and even a little before then.

And now she wanted to kidnap a girl for … well, Sunset hadn’t explained why, but Eve had had plenty of time to say ‘no, you’ve got this all wrong,’ and instead, she’d threatened to rip Ditzy’s head off, so that was that, as far as Starlight was concerned.

Eve faced them from down the street. She did not move; she did not speak. She seemed content to wait, for the moment.

How long that would last, Starlight couldn’t say. Probably not long enough for Sunset to do everything she needed to.

If there was one thing that concerned Starlight, it was the fact that Eve seemed to know much more about them than they knew about her. She’d been watching them; she’d seen what they could do.

Starlight didn’t remember Eve at all, and her capabilities, her strengths and weaknesses, her semblance, they were all a mystery to her. Ditzy could perhaps have supplied at least some of the answers, but there wasn’t likely to be much time to ask now.

Eve spread out her hands a little on either side of her, and almost immediately, dark clouds began to appear above her head, spreading out all around her. Dark clouds rolling with thunder, obscuring the stony ceiling of Mountain Glenn and the dome above that held them prisoner, dark clouds spreading towards the three huntresses and the house that they guarded.

And as they approached, lightning began to erupt from out of the thundering, rumbling clouds, lightning in forks and chains leaping down to strike the ground, splitting stone and sending little shards of dark rock bursting upwards.

A trio of lightning bolts hammered home into the ground around Ditzy, striking in quick succession, but with the help of her semblance, she dodged easily, avoiding each lightning bolt as it fell from heaven.

Starlight was not as nimble on her feet, but she managed to get out of the way of one such bolt, rolling away from the blast before rising to her knees to snap a shot off at Eve.

The bolt struck a red forcefield — red, just like the dome, she noticed — right in front of her, as Eve’s gauntlet-clad hands began to be wreathed in an aura of just the same crimson colour.

Sunset’s hands, Starlight recalled, did the same thing whenever she was pulling off one of her tricks.

But I’ve never seen Sunset control the weather like this. Could she be a Maiden?

If so, I guess I’ll see what I missed out on.

Starlight had hoped that the distraction of needing to protect herself from Starlight’s shot would distract Eve enough to stop the lightning, but it continued to fall, keeping all three of them on their toes, all of them jumping, all of them moving to stay out of the way of the next bolt to fall.

“Is this your plan?” Trixie demanded. “Are you just going to stand there and hope that we get struck by lightning?”

As she spoke, the howling of the grimm grew louder, and up the street charged more beowolves, snarling and growling, heedless of the thunder and the lightning up ahead. With all light now obscured by clouds, they seemed even blacker than usual, the white of their bony spurs muted, only the smouldering red of their eyes truly visible as they came on.

Eve was the closest target, and it was a relief that it was Eve who they attacked first, descending on her from behind in a great wave, maws gaping and claws bared.

Eve turned in a flash, her whole body snapping around to punch a beowolf so hard that its head was severed from its body, the whole grimm disappearing a split second later. She grabbed another by the neck and slammed it down into the ground, causing it, too, to disappear.

Starlight shot at her again, but her shield had not wavered despite the grimm.

And then Eve disappeared. There was a flash of red light, a crack that could be heard even above the thunder and the lightning, and then Eve was gone.

And with the darkness shrouding and obscuring the village, there was no sign of her.

Only of the grimm, the beowolves who, cheated of their first target, now rushed up the street towards the huntresses with howls and snarls and baying cries.

Starlight fired, pressing the trigger repeatedly, swinging Equaliser in a wide arc covering the street, blue bolts flying to cut down the beowolves as they charged in a great black wave. She kept Equaliser in rifle mode even as the grimm came closer, and Trixie spat fire at them from out of the tip of her wand, even when they got close enough that Ditzy went on the attack against them with her fists flying. The beowolves might have charged in heedless of the lightning, but as the lightning cut them down, they seemed to be or to become aware of it. These beowolves in this wave were larger than they had been before, larger and older and stronger and more dangerous; Starlight was reminded of the behaviour of grimm hordes and wondered if that, too, was a part of Sunset’s nightmare, or if Sunset’s fear of Mountain Glenn had combined with someone else’s nightmares of a grimm horde to form this scenario in which they were currently trapped. Either way, the grimm danced around the lightning as much as the huntresses did, which meant that huntresses and monsters danced around each other more than they might have done in similar circumstances, which meant that shooting was a perfectly viable strategy even at close quarters.

A beowolf darted around Starlight and made for the house, but she put it down with four well-placed shots to the back. Another tried to leap on her while her back was turned, but Trixie incinerated it with a well-placed, if prolonged, torrent of flame before she was distracted by some more pressing issues.

Another beowolf tried to get past her, but Starlight hit it in the face with Equaliser’s muzzle hard enough to knock it onto his back, then shot it in the face until it disappeared.

She fired a few shots in Ditzy’s direction, thinning the numbers confronting her, then turned to take down a couple of beowolves in support of Trixie.

A lightning bolt forced her to dive hurriedly out of the way, and she replaced the power pack in Equaliser before causing two more beowolves to vanish with two three-shot bursts.

There was a loud crack behind her.

Starlight turned swiftly enough to see the gauntleted fist coming for her face. She raised her left hand to block the blow, catching Eve’s telegraphed punch, but even the block made her aura tremble, made her whole body shake, made Starlight wince as she was pushed backwards.

She tried to bring up Equaliser, but Eve grabbed the barrel of the gun with her free hand and wrenched it sideways, causing Starlight’s shots to go wide.

She drew back her other fist, and this time, she punched Starlight in the stomach.

Starlight’s Atlesian armour meant that she wasn’t winded or doubled over, but she was hurled three feet backwards, clutching her stomach and feeling her side protest in pain where she had landed.

Equaliser slipped from her grasp and skidded away, scratching the ground as it went.

“Starlight!” Trixie cried.

Starlight took a deep breath.

Lightning crashed behind Eve as she bore down on Starlight, her long coat billowing out behind her.

Her hands began to glow red.

Starlight leapt to her feet, teeth gritted, hands balled into fists as she punched Eve in the gut before she could do whatever it was that she had planned. Once, twice, three times, Starlight slammed her fists into Eve’s stomach, focussing her aura around her fists to strengthen each blow.

Eve reeled backwards. Starlight followed up with an uppercut to Eve’s jaw that snapped her head up and sent her staggering.

Starlight drew her fist for another punch—

Eve hit her first, fist snapping out to catch Starlight on the cheek. Starlight was spun around by the force of the blow, spun around and knocked halfway to her knees as her hair flew around her.

The only thing stopping her from being flung aside completely was the hand on her shoulder.

Eve’s hand.

Eve’s hand which forcibly pulled Starlight back around until she was facing her opponent again.

Eve hit her in the chest, and Starlight felt a huge chunk of her aura vanish as she was thrown through the air, thrown with the force of a football in a soccer game kicked at the goal, thrown all the way back into the wall of Professor Diggory’s house, which cracked as she struck it.

Thunder rolled.

This time, Starlight didn’t have time to get out of the way of the lightning bolt that sliced straight down towards her.

She screamed in pain as the lightning broke her aura, the last vestiges that broke through her aura rippling up and down her body, making her limbs convulse with shock.

Starlight lay on the ground, propped up against the cracked wall, listening to the cries of alarm from those inside. She could … she felt as if she couldn’t … it felt as if movement would be very painful right now.

Breathing was painful enough; her whole chest hurt with every breath she took.

“No!” Trixie cried as she finally broke free of the grimm that had constrained her, prevented her from going to Starlight’s aid. “Starlight!” Her blue eyes, normally so warm, that sparkled when she laughed or smiled or winked, were cold now, cold as ice as she charged towards Eve, her cape streaming out behind her, the light of the lightning reflecting on the gold and silver stars.

Trixie pointed her wand straight at Eve, and a great column of flame came roaring out, completely engulfing Eve, causing her to disappear from view.

Until the flames died down abruptly, and Eve stepped through the few that remaining, waving one hand to banish them completely.

She smiled. “The Great and Powerful Trixie,” she sneered as her hands were covered by a veneer of red light. “Would you like me to show you some real power?”

Trixie tilted her chin up proudly. “Trrrixie,” she declared, “is quite powerful enough.” She threw out her free hand, palm open, as if she meant to shoot a bolt of magic at her.

But nothing happened.

Eve raised one eyebrow.

“Oh no,” Trixie murmured.

Eve rolled her eyes and flung out a hand of her own to shoot a bolt of crimson energy straight at Trixie. The bolt flew straight and true, striking her squarely in the chest.

And dispelling the illusion of herself that Trixie had cast with her semblance.

Trixie herself reappeared in the air above Eve, flinging a trio of explosive-looking canisters down at her.

Eve raised her hands, smaller blasts of power shooting from her fingertips to strike Trixie’s projectiles.

They turned out to be smoke grenades, which exploded in great clouds of purple smoke, blanketing the area around Eve with the thick, cloying smoke as it descended to the ground, settling around her.

Starlight could hear Eve starting to cough from inside the smoke cloud.

She staggered out, coughing, spluttering, eyes watering.

Ditzy charged at her from the right as she came into view, cutting her legs out from under her with a sweeping kick then following up with a punch to the jaw that knocked her sideways.

Knocked her sideways into Trixie, who closed with her from the left, one fist closed, one palm open. With her first, Trixie decked Eve across the face, snapping her head sideways, while with her open palm — and a lot of aura behind it — she thrust Eve backwards and up into the air with a cry of pain.

Ditzy followed, leaping up into the air after Eve, her body twisting in mid-air to dodge the lightning, her fists flying as she struck at Eve again and again.

“ENOUGH!” Eve yelled, as a pair of crimson bolts shot from her hands to slam into Ditzy’s chest, the range too close even for her semblance to dodge them, blasting her backwards towards the ground.

She fell, back arched, arms outstretched, and for a moment, she seemed to hang in the air, suspended, motionless.

And then the thunder rolled in the dark clouds, and lightning bolts converged on her from all directions.

There was no way that she could avoid them all.

There was a puff of blue smoke, temporarily obscuring Ditzy Doo from sight, but when the smoke cleared, it was not Ditzy hanging there, the lightning converging upon her like a pack of hounds.

It was Trixie.

Starlight tried to cry out, but only a hoarse croak would issue from her throat.

The lightning struck. Trixie cried out in pain as it rippled up and down her body, crackling and snapping, tearing at her aura, ripping at it, shredding it.

She dropped like a stone as the lightning died, head first, plummeting towards the ground.


Sunset’s stomach was like ice. A cold hand gripped it and was squeezing ever tighter. Her throat was dry, and no amount of swallowing could make it moist again, for anxiety had dried her out.

She knew in her head that she had done the right thing, that if they could take care of this one problem, then it would certainly help Arcadia Lake and might well spare Miss Pole besides. She knew that in her head, but in her heart, she hated to have left them; she felt like a coward to have done so. They had come here only for her, to help her, because Rainbow Dash had asked them to keep an eye on her, and she had left them to fight without her.

Following her heart might make her feel guilty after the fact, but it felt so much better in the moment.

Yet here she was, descending the stairs, walking briskly — so briskly that she was almost running — down the corridor, slowing a little as she entered Doctor Diggory’s laboratory, where Miss Pole lay.

Sunset couldn’t have said exactly why she had slowed down, except because of the association of this place with a hospital room, because it had a patient in it, and you weren’t supposed to run in such places.

Not that Miss Pole was in much position to object at the moment. She lay just as she had when Sunset had first — and last — seen her, laid out on the bed in a blue frock and white stockings, her blonde hair held back by a black silk hairband but splaying out behind her anyway. Her eyes were closed, and her arms were by her sides.

And in her mind…

“What is it that you intend to do, Miss Shimmer?” Doctor Diggory asked as he carefully shut the door behind them both.

Sunset looked at him over her shoulder. “Miss Pole has been … possessed,” she said, “for want of a better word. There is … a creature inside her mind. Not only is it tormenting her, but it is also responsible for this madness overtaking the town.”

She half-expected the doctor to scoff or protest, but he did not. In fact, he looked rather thoughtful, even as he half turned away from her. “I have … always thought that there is more to this world than we can explain,” he murmured. “In the mind especially. I thought that if only I could make contact with Miss Pole’s mind, touch it with my own, then I could bring her out of this state she’s in.”

Sunset turned to face him. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Doctor Diggory said. “Or at least, I thought that nothing had happened. I had nightmares; I assumed that I’d fallen asleep when the experiment didn’t work.”

“More likely, the creature that haunts her mind touched yours as well,” Sunset said. “You were lucky to wake up.”

Doctor Diggory did not reply to that. Rather, he said, “What is this creature, and how did it come to be in Miss Pole’s mind?”

“It is called a tantabus. For the how, you must ask Professor Scrub,” Sunset said. She had no compunctions whatsoever about dropping him in it; in fact, she could think of few people who deserved it more. “He had enlisted Miss Pole in some of his research.”

“I see,” Doctor Diggory growled. “If we come out of this alive, I will certainly seek an explanation from him.” He paused for a moment. “You never told me what you intend to do.”

Sunset took off her jacket, dumping it roughly upon the floor. Aided by telekinesis, she unstrapped the vambrace from her right wrist and dropped that down upon the jacket. Then she realised that she probably ought not to be leaving things on the floor where a man with a limp and a bad back would be walking, so she lifted them both up with her telekinesis and put them on the chair. Then she pulled off the glove from her same right hand. It felt … right, or perhaps necessary, that she should use her whole hand for this.

“My semblance allows me to … it’s empathy, or touch telepathy, or perhaps a mixture of the two,” Sunset said. “I haven’t trained it as much as I should … or at all, but I think it’s our best chance to reach Miss Pole and defeat the tantabus.” She walked towards her, standing over the unconscious girl. “Doctor Diggory, will you monitor Miss Pole’s condition?”

“Of course,” Doctor Diggory replied. “If it becomes dangerous—”

“Break the connection,” Sunset said. “It should leave us both with no ill effects.”

Although it will still leave us with the tantabus problem.

There wasn’t much point worrying about that until it happened. For now, best to focus on Plan A.

Doctor Diggory nodded. “I wish you luck, Miss Shimmer.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Sunset murmured. She looked down at her hand, and then at the unconscious Miss Pole.

Sunset took a deep breath and placed her hand on top of the girl’s forehead.

Her whole body stiffened as the world turned white around her.

Sadness.

That was what Sunset felt as she floated in nothingness: an intense sadness, a sadness that made her want to weep, a sadness that did cause her to weep, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. It was all around her, this melancholy; it filled the air, it surrounded her like an ocean in which she swam, it was everywhere.

It was the universe.

And someone else was sad too. Sunset could hear them sobbing. She couldn’t see anything, not yet, there was nothing here but whiteness, but she could hear, the sobbing coming from all around her.

She should have cried out, she wanted to cry out, but the weight of sadness all around her almost made her fear that if she opened her mouth, the sorrow would fill her lungs like water, and she would drown in it.

Gradually, the world filled up again, the white void that had surrounded her transforming into a room. It looked more like an apartment than the room of a house, the kind of place where the front door leads straight into everywhere, with only the barest divisions between the kitchen, the living space, and so on and so forth — perhaps the kitchen doesn’t have carpet on the floor. The kind of place where the only walls are the ones that hive off the bedrooms — although she had to admit that even that was more than could be said of a Beacon dorm room, so she probably shouldn’t look down on such places. In any case, Sunset supposed that even if it looked like an apartment, it could still be a house, just one where the homeowner had decided that they weren’t a fan of interior walls and knocked them all down so that they could roam more freely.

It was, it had to be admitted, a nice-looking place, wherever it was, with a modern wooden floor — the difference between that and an old-fashioned wooden floor of course being whether the floorboards creaked; also how dark or light the wood was — and bright, crisp lights, and white plastic bucket seats that sat very high up on gleaming metal poles.

It looked like a show home, pristine and perfect and devoid of any of the little homely touches that a place acquires simply by the act of being lived in.

And yet, someone lived there, for people appeared there before Sunset’s eyes. She knew their names; they appeared in her mind just as she had known the names of Cinder’s stepmother and stepsisters without needing to be introduced. The stern woman standing in the kitchenette, her bouffant hair turning grey, her features sharp and her green eyes cold, wearing a long maroon coat and a white fur stole around her neck, that was Aunt Augusta.

And the two people, the blond-haired man in the tan brown suit and the black haired woman in the black dress, heading out of the doors, they were Mama and Papa.

They were Miss Pole’s parents, rather.

And the girl sobbing on the floor as they went, her hair falling down around her face, covering it as much as she was covering it with her hands, that was Miss Pole.

“Don’t go,” she whispered in between her sobs. “Mama, Papa, please don’t go. Don’t leave me here.”

“It’s for the best, dear,” Papa— her father said, without looking back at her. “Vacuo is no place for a child.”

“Please,” Plum Pole pleaded. “Please don’t leave me.”

Ma— her mother stopped and began to look back at her daughter.

“This is the only responsible course of action,” Aunt Augusta declared, her voice cold and rich and fruity. “Vacuo is no place for a child. Being waited on hand and foot by the natives will spoil the girl, and she seems to have been spoiled quite enough already. Rest assured, I will take her in hand, for her own good.”

Miss Pole’s mother was still for a moment, and then she turned away.

Her father opened the door.

“Please!” Miss Pole cried. “Mama, Papa, please—”

They left, shutting the door behind them.

Miss Pole bowed her head, her whole body trembling. “Please don’t go,” she whispered.

“Don’t just sit there like a disappointed fat boy,” Aunt Augusta said witheringly. “Go to your room, at once. And stay there until I say otherwise.”

Miss Pole rose slowly to her feet, shaking slightly from side to side, tears falling from her face to patter like raindrops upon the varnished wooden floor.

And then it started again.

“Please don’t go.”

And then it started again.

“Don’t just sit there like a disappointed fat boy.”

And then it started again.

“She seems to have been spoiled quite enough already.”

And then it started again.

“This is for the best.”

And then it started again.

Sunset didn’t want to keep seeing this; she didn’t want to keep feeling what Miss Pole felt, to be abandoned over and over again, left to the mercy of a woman who, while she might never admit that she disliked her niece, certainly didn’t dislike taking her in hand for her own good.

She didn’t want to keep being forced to watch, to feel, to relive by proxy over and over again.

There was nothing worse than to be abandoned by your … to have the one who should have loved you the most turn away from you and cast you aside.

Sunset could only imagine how much worse it must feel to someone who hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

Actually, that was a lie. Sunset could do a lot more than just imagine; she could feel everything that Plum Pole felt, and it was breaking her heart.

It was all she could do not to turn away.

But she couldn’t turn away; she had to find the tantabus. No wonder it had grown so strong here, with such a fertile mind. This must have been Miss Pole’s recurring nightmare, forced to relive her parents’ rejection of her night after night. Yes, a tantabus would feed fat upon such sorrow.

But where was it? It could not have escaped already.

Sunset heard the slight scraping sound of a window open. She turned to face the back of the house, looking past Aunt Augusta to one of the windows, open now, opened by the dark shape, a kind of liquid cloud, viscous and amorphous, the edges moving like waves, that was trying to climb out of said window.

Sunset raised her hand, the glow of magic surrounding it as she slammed the window shut again.

The tantabus turned, silently, and darted away, aiming for the bedrooms.

Sunset teleported across the house, appearing in front of the tantabus, hands raised. She fired bolts of magic from both her palms, striking the dream creature and knocking it back. She pursued it, advancing with a steady and relentless pace, firing bolt after bolt into the tantabus’ cloudy form, driving it back, driving it down, blasting it over and over again until it was a small, diminished, cowering shape in the corner of the house, curled up on itself as though it were hugging itself for protection.

Sunset gathered her magic in the palm of her hand. One more solid hit should finish it off.

“Please!” Miss Pole cried.

The tantabus grew again, expanding to the size it had been before Sunset started her attack, and as it grew, it lunged at Sunset, knocking her off her feet and onto her tailbone with a thump that left her backside aching. It didn’t bother to open the window this time; it just smashed the glass like an action hero as it made to fly out.

Sunset conjured a magical barrier just beyond the window, then disrupted it, causing an explosion of energy that flung the tantabus backwards and into the house.

“Don’t just sit there like a disappointed fat boy.”

Sunset hurled a beam of magic at the tantabus, but this time, it simply split itself, forming a hole in its own form through which Sunset’s magic passed harmlessly to singe the floor of the dream home.

Sunset growled, baring her teeth as she spread her hands out wide on either side of her, spears of magic forming all around her, a halo of weapons which she flung in a storm of power towards her target.

And the tantabus simply opened itself up, that Sunset’s power flew through it and harmed it not.

And it headed once more for the broken window.

Sunset cast a shield all around it this time, a bubble of emerald energy enfolding it completely, trapping it in place.

“Split yourself to avoid that,” Sunset muttered.

And yet at the same time, she knew that this was only a temporary solution. Already, the tantabus had begun to pound against her shield, and she couldn’t hold it indefinitely — that wasn’t even a simple question of power; that was a question of the fact that she didn’t want to be trapped in Miss Pole’s mind forever.

She couldn’t keep the tantabus confined, and she couldn’t destroy it with magic.

Sunset turned back to Miss Pole, sobbing on the floor.

The only person who could destroy the tantabus was her.

Delicately, keeping one arm raised, keeping half a mind upon her magic in order to maintain the spell that bound the tantabus, Sunset walked across the room. The exchange was playing out again, and once it had done so, it would play out again, and again, and again.

Unless Sunset could stop it.

“Miss Pole,” Sunset said gently as she walked towards the crying girl.

“Mama, Papa, please don’t go.”

“Miss Pole?” Sunset asked. “Can you hear me?”

“Don’t leave me here.”

Sunset crossed in front of her, so that if Miss Pole had noticed her presence, she would have realised that Sunset was between her and her parents. “Miss Pole!” she said loudly.

“Please,” Miss Pole murmured. “Please don’t leave me.”

Sunset knelt down in front of the girl, hunching her back to herself even smaller, even closer to her height. A sigh escaped her as her ears drooped and her tail went limp.

“Plum,” she said gently, attempting to ignore the frantic raging of the tantabus in its prison. “Plum, can you hear me?”

Plum gasped, looking up at Sunset with tear-filled eyes. “Wh-who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said. “And I’m here to take you home.”

“Home?” Plum whispered. “But … but I—”

“What’s the last thing that you remember?” Sunset asked gently.

“I … I don’t…” Plum trailed off. “Professor Scrub said … he said I couldn’t leave without accepting a present.”

“A yellow ring,” Sunset said, her voice close to a growl.

You know, being in this place, for the first time since I left Atlas, I really understand Cinder’s point of view; there are a lot of people who deserve a gleeful, smiling death.

Plum nodded. “That’s right.”

Sunset closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” she said. “For everything that has happened to you. But it’s time to wake up now. You … you don’t have to be sad anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Plum asked.

Sunset frowned slightly and pointed at the tantabus, beating against the shield that restrained it. “That … that’s called a tantabus,” she said. “It’s feeding on your sadness, on your nightmares, and as it gets stronger, it's causing nightmares across your village, and worse than nightmares. Living nightmares. And if it gets strong enough, it will spread those living nightmares across the waking world. I can’t stop that from happening, but you can. Without you, without your sorrow, it will have no more power and everyone will be safe.”

“So … so I have to stop being sad?” Plum asked.

“Pretty much, yes.”

Plum was silent for a moment. “But I am sad,” she whispered.

“I know,” Sunset softly. “And I understand—”

“No, you don’t!” Plum cried. “You don’t understand, nobody does, how could you?”

“Because I feel what you’re feeling,” Sunset declared. “And because I know what it’s like to watch the person you love most in the whole world turn away from you.”

“Do you also know what it’s like to be all alone?” Plum demanded. “To have nobody, nobody who’d miss you, nobody who cares about you?”

“Is that what you think?” Sunset asked. “Is that what you believe?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Plum asked.

Sunset was quiet for a moment. “Tell me about Malmsey Scrub,” she said.

“Malmsey,” Plum murmured. “I thought … I thought he understood. I thought … he found me crying once; I thought he was going to laugh at me, but … but he didn’t.” She smiled. “I used to rush to finish my breakfast so that I could get out of the house and spend time with him, and I used to hate having to go back in for dinner because I wouldn’t see him again until the next day. But then his uncle—”

“That wasn’t his fault,” Sunset said.

“Wasn’t it?

“No,” Sunset insisted. “Do you know what Malmsey has been doing while you’ve been asleep? Just like you used to spend every day with him, well, since then, he’s spent every day travelling back to the place where you were attacked, trying to find a cure for your condition. Every single day, every chance he got, going back and back. If he had … I had to go and rescue him too because he got himself in trouble there; he’s broken his leg, he won’t be able to walk for a little while, and even then, the only thing that mattered to him was whether you were going to be okay — and whether you hated him for letting this happen to you.

“You’re not alone, Plum Pole. I know that you’ve been abandoned, and I know how much that hurts, but you’re not alone anymore. You’ve found someone, someone who … who’ll see you crying and not laugh, someone who will try and help you, no matter what it costs, someone who cares with every fibre of their being.” She smiled, and held out one hand. “Now, is that something worth waking up to?”

The tantabus thrashed and writhed behind Plum, but it seemed weaker now, smaller, diminished, its blows having less impact on the shield than they had done.

Plum began to reach for Sunset’s hand, but hesitated. “If … if I wake up,” she said, “do I have to go back to my Aunt Augusta?”

“No,” Sunset said. “No, you won’t ever have to go back there again, I promise.”

Plum looked down at the floor, then wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Okay,” she said gently. “I think I’m ready now.”

She placed her fingers in the palm of Sunset’s hand.

The tantabus stopped struggling. It went still, utterly and completely still, hanging limp and listless inside the shield. And then it began to shrink, growing smaller and smaller until there was nothing left of it at all.

Sunset smiled as her fingers closed around Plum’s hand.

And then the world went white.


Ditzy caught Trixie as she fell; she cradled Trixie in her arms, bridal style, as she landed on her feet, which felt a lot gentler than landing on her head would have done, Trixie was sure.

“Are you okay?” Ditzy asked.

“Never better,” Trixie croaked.

“I … I don’t understand,” Ditzy said. “Why did you—?”

“Canterlot Girl, remember,” Trixie murmured. “That’s what we do.”

Eve landed on the ground, her long coat fluttering a little behind her. “How long are we going to continue this farce?” she demanded.

Trixie was starting to wonder that herself. It was clear that, for all their bravado and as much as Trixie really, really hated to admit it, they were kind of outmatched here. Eve was just too powerful. Too strong. She had magic, and that magic was a whole lot more impressive than anything that Trixie could muster against her. Starlight, Ditzy … they were no slouches, but Eve had taken them both on and didn’t look any the worse for wear.

Maybe if they could have gotten her crown or necklace or gauntlets away from her like Sunset said, but how were they supposed to do that?

Great and Powerful, Great and Powerful, the words seemed like mockery now in Trixie’s head, echoing in her mind like the laughter of a derisory crowd.

She didn’t want it to end like this. She really didn’t want it to end like this. She wanted to rise, she wanted to shine, she wanted to be the greatest huntress in Atlas, the greatest that Atlas had ever seen. She could do it, she knew she could, it wasn’t all just the dream of a…

Dream…

Dream!

“Ditzy,” Trixie said. “Put me down?”

“Are you sure?” Ditzy asked anxiously.

“Quite sure,” Trixie said.

Ditzy set her down upon the ground. Trixie’s legs felt a little unsteady beneath her — she was glad that her boots were flat instead of heels, or this would have been harder — but she was able to keep her feet, and even walk a couple of steps away from Ditzy.

She ostentatiously straightened her hat and cloak as she stared at Eve. She flicked her slightly frazzled looking hair.

“You want to stop?” she asked. “Very well, Trixie would be happy to discuss your surrender, if that is what you wish.”

A wordless snarl rose from Eve’s throat. “You … who in Tartarus do you think you are?”

“Trixie Lulamoon,” Trixie said. “Trixie Artemis Lulamoon. Otherwise known as the Grrrreat and Powerrrrful Trrrixie! So come on and give it your best shot!”

Eve spread out her hands on either side of her, as the thunder rolled and growled and rumbled.

More lightning lanced down from the clouds straight at Trixie.

Trixie smirked as she raised one hand.

And caught the lightning.

It did not hurt her. She barely even felt it; it was like static electricity, and mild static at that. The lightning did not ripple down her body, it did not shock her, it did not fry her. It was like her hand was a lightning rod; no, more than that, it was as though she had a power over the lightning equal to Eve’s own. She gathered the lightning in the palm of her hand, holding it there as it swirled eagerly all around, and then, still smirking, she lowered her hand until it was pointing at Eve.

And then she unleashed the lightning, sending it leaping from her hand in streams to strike at her enemy. Eve conjured up a shield to absorb the lightning, but her shield shattered like glass, literally forming shards of glass that tumbled to the ground as the lightning struck home, rippling up and down Eve’s body as she was tossed up into the air and hurled backwards, rolling even once she had landed on the ground.

Eve lay on the rocky surface for a moment, panting. She looked at Trixie with astonishment in her eyes.

Trixie stuck out her tongue.

Eve’s face contorted into a snarl as she leapt to her feet, both hands wreathed in the glow that was a signature of the kind of magic Eve and Sunset used as she fired a broad beam, red as blood, straight at Trixie.

A thick rock wall rose in front of Trixie, the ground splitting in front of her, a barrier emerging to take the impact of the magic.

“Perfect timing, Maud,” Trixie said.

“No problem,” Maud said, her voice quiet and without emotion. She was down on one knee, her hands — clad in her enormous grey power gauntlets — pressed against the ground.

“Maud Pie?” Ditzy gasped. “What are you doing here?”

Because this is a dream, and since we’re all trapped in a dream, then why should we be bound by the constraints of petty reality? Trixie thought. Why shouldn’t I be able to catch lightning in my hands, why shouldn’t Maud be here to help us, why shouldn’t Rainbow be here as well?

And indeed, Rainbow was here, rushing down the street, leaving a rainbow trail behind her as she got up into Eve’s face and unloaded a barrage of punches on her, fists a blur as she struck their enemy in the face, in the gut, everywhere that she could reach, forcing her backwards under the unrelenting force of her assault.

Eve raised her hands protectively, covering her face with her spiked gauntlets, falling back in the face of Rainbow’s savagery.

Trixie teleported behind her — because she could do that all the time now, and why not? — and thrust out her hand towards the retreating Eve. Little balls of fire, blue flames flickering in the air, each about half the size of Trixie’s palm, appeared in a ring around her hand.

Trixie pointed at Eve, and one by one, each of the little fireballs leapt towards their target like bullets from a gun, streaking through the darkness to strike Eve in the back in a torrent of explosions.

Eve cried out, her guard dropping as she staggered from the assault.

Rainbow struck her with an uppercut to the jaw, the sound of her aura boom echoing throughout the village as Eve was launched upwards into the air.

Into the air where Maud was already waiting for her, her enormous gauntlets, each the size of an anvil, wreathed in lightning.

She brought that fist down onto Eve’s stomach.

Eve was slammed back down to earth hard enough that the earth itself cracked beneath her, blood spurting from her mouth as her aura shattered.

Maud landed on the ground and placed her hands upon the ground as the earth moulded and reformed around Eve’s arms and legs to restrain her.

Trixie held out her hand and telekinetically ripped the circlet from Eve’s brow, the necklace from around her throat, and the gauntlets from off her hands, because she’s always been so jealous that Twilight could do that.

They were wreathed in blue energy as they flew through the air towards her.

And as they flew, the dome, the crimson barrier that separated Arcadia Lake from the rest of Vale, shattered into a million million fragments which fell for a moment, hung for another moment suspended in the air, and then simply vanished altogether from sight.

“No!” Eve howled, struggling futilely against her earthen bonds. “How dare you touch them?! Give them back to me you, you insect! You worthless maggot! I will kill you! Do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

Trixie ignored her, focussing upon the accessories that she was pulling towards her with her mind.

And then they dropped to the ground at her feet. Maud and Rainbow Dash disappeared, and so did Mountain Glenn. The rocky ceiling was gone, replaced by the stars and the night sky. The additional houses, the tall black towers, the black rock on which they had stood, the ruined cars and makeshift barricades, all gone. Nothing remained but Arcadia Lake, the picturesque village on the water.

Sunset, it seemed, had done it. The nightmare was ended, and ended too all their dreams.

Except for the ones we work towards, of course.

Of course, the rock holding Eve fast had also disappeared, and so she rose unsteadily to her feet, wiping away the blood from her mouth with one bare hand.

She was breathing heavily, and her hair was a mess, and if looks could kill, then Trixie would have been dead of the glare that she was giving her.

She reached out her hand towards her gauntlets, circlet, and collar, and the hand that reached began to be surrounded with a crimson glow.

Ditzy leapt towards her, fist drawn back.

Eve half-turned and saw her doom descending.

There was a crack and a flash of red light as she teleported away.

And Trixie had no more sight of her.


Sunset teleported into Professor Scrub’s study as soon as she could. As soon as she recovered her sense of where she was, as soon as she saw Miss Pole open her eyes, as soon as it was confirmed that she had succeeded, she was gone. She ignored the professor’s cry of surprise as she appeared in his room, and lifted up all his magic rings in the grip of her telekinesis.

She held them in the air for a moment, gold and green alike hovering in front of her. How easy it would be to keep a pair, to have the means on hand of going home whenever she liked, to be able to come and go like a cat. Breakfast at Beacon, tea in Canterlot, then back to Beacon for bed; weekends at home, then back to school for the week. She could even become a sort of day pupil, commuting to school each morning and back at night. No, that would probably be a little much, but the fact was that she would have so many choices, and all she had to do was keep the rings, just one set of rings.

But even just one set of rings could be stolen, could fall into the wrong hands, could expose Equestria to absolutely anyone.

And the risk of that was too great to be outweighed by any notion of her own comfort.

Sunset closed her eyes and steeled her heart and let a beam of emerald magic fly from her palm to capture all the professor’s rings, all the products of his life of study, in its blast. In the blast that consumed them all.

Professor Scrub had fashioned the rings from dust, and now to dust, Sunset returned them once again.

She also blasted a hole in Professor Scrub’s wall, but frankly, he had that coming.

“NO!” Eve shrieked as she teleported in behind Sunset. “What … what have you done?”

Sunset turned to face her. “I’ve done what I thought was best, for Equestria.”

“For Equestria,” Eve murmured. She was not wearing the dark regalia, Sunset saw; the Atlesians must have managed to get them off her. “I … I needed that.” She bowed her head, and Sunset was astonished to hear a sob escape her, to see her body wracked with a tremor.

“And that is why I had to destroy them,” Sunset said.

“I want to go home,” Eve moaned.

“After a thousand years, is this not your home?” Sunset demanded. “Evenfall, I … I know not what you have done in all those years, but I know that you were once a unicorn mage, a philosopher of magic, renowned for your skill, admired for your virtue. Think, I beg of you, what good you could do here, what wonders you might achieve, how well you might serve the people of this land. Please, we have sore need of one such as you.”

Over a thousand years had Evenfall Gleaming; she was older than Princess Celestia, who had been a mere youth and student when Evenfall was at the height of her powers. How much had she seen in that time? If she would consent to join with them, then why should she not lead their struggle against Salem? Surely, Professor Ozpin would recognise the advantages of an immortal leader in their war, someone who could truly pursue a strategy over many lifetimes.

Would it not be a wondrous thing if, for once, an Equestria visitor to Remnant proved to be a blessing, not a curse?

Eve looked up at her; her eyes, though they were filled with tears, were yet sharp enough that her gaze grew talons, and her teeth were bared like a wild dog.

“What I shall do,” Eve snarled, “what revenges I shall wreak upon you and your friends, I yet know not, but they shall be the terrors of Remnant! I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!”

She teleported away, leaving Sunset with the terrible impression that they would meet again.

Something to worry about later. For now … for now, we won.

We won, and I have promises to keep.

“M-Miss Shimmer,” Professor Scrub stammered. “You … surely there was no need to—”

“Shut up, Professor,” Sunset said. “The fact that I have no desire to publicise the existence of Equestria is the only reason you’re going to get away with any of this — although Doctor Diggory knows that you’re responsible for Miss Pole’s recent condition, so I’d watch out for him if I were you.”

Professor Scrub whimpered.

Sunset took a deep breath. “Speaking of Miss Pole,” she added, looking at Malmsey, “she’s woken up, and she’d like to see you. I can take you there, if you’d like.”

Malmsey’s eyes widened. “Yes, please!” he cried.

So Sunset scooped him up in her arms and carried him across the village, where people were now emerging back into the streets, looking around them as if normalcy had become so strange to them that they must marvel at it, and back to Doctor Diggory’s great house.

Miss Pole was waiting for them outside. “Malmsey!” she cried, and rushed up to them as Sunset and her passenger drew near.

“Plum!” Malmsey shouted. “You’re awake.”

“Yes,” Plum agreed. She smiled. “I’m told that you spent all your time trying to save me.”

Malmsey laughed nervously. “Well, I tried, but I can’t really say I did anything.”

“But you did try,” Plum said, reaching out to take his hand. “So thank you.” She frowned a little. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“It was nothing, really,” Malmsey insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, young man,” Doctor Diggory declared. “At least, until a real town doctor arrives, which shouldn’t be too long, now that that wretched dome is gone. We should be able to make contact with Vale now.”

“One can only hope, Doctor,” Sunset said.

“But in the meantime,” Doctor Diggory said, “would you mind carrying Mister Scrub inside? You can stay in the guest bedroom for the time being.”

“Of course, Doctor,” Sunset said. “And, Doctor Diggory?”

“Yes, Miss Shimmer?”

Sunset glanced down at Plum Pole for a moment. “You told me once that Miss Pole was in your charge; I would ask that she continue to be so, at least for the time being.”

Plum beamed.

Doctor Diggory gasped. “I would be glad too, Miss Shimmer, so long as Miss Pole doesn’t object—”

“Yes, please!” Plum cried. “I mean, thank you, Doctor Diggory.”

Doctor Diggory chuckled. “But what about your aunt?”

“Leave that to me, Doctor,” Sunset said. “Miss Pole, do you trust me?”

Plum hesitated for a moment, then nodded vigorously. “Yes. I do.”

“Good,” Sunset said.

It was not that the spell wouldn’t work otherwise, but it felt right that she should ask. She held up one hand, magic gathering around it, wreathing it in a green light. She prepared the spell, the same spell that she had used on Pyrrha once in order to draw the attention of the gawkers in the street away from her. What she wanted now was a more limited usage, not to make everyone in Arcadia Lake forget about her, but only one specific person: her aunt.

She touched Miss Pole gently on the forehead and cast the spell.

A green light ran from Miss Pole through the crowd, heading off into the village in the direction of Aunt Augusta.

“That tickles!” Plum cried.

“It will tickle you aunt too,” Sunset said. “And she will not come to take you away, I guarantee it.”

“Well, it has been a long time since I had guests to stay,” Doctor Diggory said. “But I daresay that Mrs. Macready and I will muddle through. Do children still like cake?”

Sunset carried Malmsey inside and set him up in the guest bedroom.

When she got back outside again, she found Trixie, Starlight, and Ditzy waiting for her. Starlight was leaning on Ditzy, one arm draped across her shoulders. Trixie was looking a little unsteady on her feet. But they were all okay; they were alive.

Everyone was alive.

Everybody lives. This time, everybody lives!

“I’m glad to see you made it,” Sunset said.

“Just about,” Starlight groaned.

“Trixie was amazing!” Ditzy cried.

Trixie swept her hat off her head and bowed — and then lost her balance and tumbled to her knees. “Uh, you’re welcome,” she muttered. She looked up at Sunset. “Although we did lose Eve.”

“But you saved everyone,” Sunset replied. “That’s what counts. I see that you got the dar— the circle, collar, and gauntlets off her.”

Trixie spread them out on the ground in front of her. “Just about. What should we do with them?”

Sunset knelt down in front of them. The Crown Dominate, the Lightning Collar, and the Armilla Superior all lay before her. The strength of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies all lay before.

Dark magic lay before her. Who knew what Evenfall had done to craft these monstrous devices?

Did it matter? Whatever it had done, it was a thousand years and more hence; the end products were before her now, and might it not be said that time had washed them clear of all sin and fault?

What might she do with magics such as these? What might she not do with this power at her fingertips? Her magic strengthened immeasurably, as Eve’s had been? Just think what Eve had been able to do, to cast a shield over so vast an area and then to do other magic besides as though the shield were nothing, a trifle, a petty distraction requiring little thought. And then to add the powers of pegasi too and earth ponies beside? She would be as strong as Pyrrha, and as fast — faster maybe. In this war in which they were engaged, against such foes as they were matched withal, did they not need not all the power that they could muster?

And with such power at her command, she would not suffer so much fear and doubt, none of them would. Pyrrha need not be afraid, none of them would.

Such power, and so close at hand, she need only reach out and take it. It called to her. It whispered to her with seductive promises; she could hear them in her ears and in her mind. What might she not do? She would give this world the security that it required, and with her glory, rally all men to her banner.

She would give Remnant the leadership that it had been so sorely lacking, give the sheep a benevolent shepherd to watch over them.

“Sunset?” Starlight asked.

Sunset realised that she had been reaching for the dark regalia. She drew back her hand, shaking her head from side to side. “I…” She paused.

Perhaps she ought to destroy them. Perhaps that would be the safest course, as with the rings, to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

But it stuck in her craw to destroy such a gift to the foes of Salem; even if they were not used regularly, even if it were perilous to use them — they were talking about dark magic, after all — surely, it would be better to have them, to keep them safe and sound … and use in darkest, direst need.

“I will take them,” Sunset said. “And keep them safe.”

“Are you sure?” Starlight asked.

“Yes,” Sunset barked, a little louder and more sharply than she had intended. She softened her tone. “Yes. They are … my power is of a similar sort to Eve’s, I can understand these things. I can manage them. Trust me, I will make sure no ill comes of them, from them … or to them.”

“Very well,” Trixie said. “That sounds for the best.” She took a deep breath. “So, what now?”

“Now,” Sunset replied. “We can go home.”

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