Ch 15 - The Trials - Escape the Road of Sorrow
The world around Sunset was a panic filled haze as she ran. Before her was the path leading from Clear Spring to the road to Golden Tree.
Behind her was the seething sound of the entity hunting her.
Her lungs burned from exertion. Her sides and legs ached. Her vision blurred from the terrified tears streaming down her face.
But she couldn’t stop. Not with the entity slowly catching up.
She desperately hoped that she could lose the thing again. Find another hiding place to wait it out. But she knew she couldn’t get that lucky a second time. There were no rocky outcrops along this part of the trail. Only oak savannah.
She could only keep running.
Ahead, she could see the end of the trail, and the main road. She could hear the entity getting closer and closer, the sound of its hissing growing louder as though it were almost on top of her, the cracking and snapping of the tree branches like that of breaking bone in her ears.
Bursting clear of the woodland, Sunset ran onto the road. It was at that moment that her body finally gave out, her legs cramping up and sending her tumbling to the ground. Pushing herself up, she tried to get back to her feet, only for her legs to refuse to respond. Sobbing, she began to drag herself forward with her hands as the sound of the entity came crashing down the trial.
Only for it to stop.
Sunset continued to pull herself away, not willing to look back.
Yet, she didn’t hear the entity come any closer. It was still moving around. But, it sounded like it was stalking back and forth. As if it was held back by something, and it was looking for a way to get past it.
Curiosity overcoming fear, she chanced a look behind her and finally caught a glimpse of the entity.
She immediately wished she hadn’t.
It had form, in the sense that she could see where it began and ended. Its overall shape gave her the impression of a sort of huge mound. One whose edges were constantly distorting and fluttering around its center, like a swarm of locust. But what was within that fluttering outline was… she wasn’t sure what it was. The closest allegory her mind could construct was a horrible cloud of nothing. It wasn’t darkness, because darkness would be something. Instead, it was a strange, yawning void in the world that led to… nothingness.
Sunset stopped crawling, her attention fixated on the terrifying impossibility that was looming just beyond the edge of the road. As the thing seethed back and forth along the edge, she felt as if it were… examining her. Like it was trying to figure out how to reach her on the other side of whatever unseen barrier held it at bay.
Then, it slowly began to retreat back into the woods, until the only sign of its presence was the twisted carvings it left in its wake and the distant sound of flowing sand.
Slowly, it dawned on Sunset that the entity had left.
“Ah…ah ha ha. HAHAHAHAHA!” Sunset began to laugh, her terror giving way to unbelieving relief as the reality began to sink in. It had left. The entity had left. It had her, but it left. She couldn’t imagine why it left.
But it had.
As the adrenaline of her escape wore off, she was overcome by exhaustion and pain as the bodily debt she’d built finally caught up to her. Her legs and feet felt worse than they’d ever felt before. Rolling off her stomach to sit up, she let out a pained hiss as she put pressure on her heel. Gingerly removing her shoes and socks, she winced at the sight. Her heels were rubbed raw, with several popped blisters on the soles and sides of her feet.
Examining the damage, she found herself angrily wishing she’d been able to master the whole “letting Nitor’s heart heal her” trick. Or fly. Or even just use her magic in any way. Because she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be running again any time soon. If anything, walking might be hard.
Taking the hem of her dress in hand, she ripped a few long strips free, wrapping them around her wounds. Then, wincing in pain as she put her socks and shoes back on, she collapsed onto the dirt road. It was lumpy and unpleasant, putting uneven pressure on her back, but she was too exhausted to care.
As she lay there, the weight of what had just happened at Clear Spring began to catch up to her.
A choked sob came from her throat.
If what Lyra… no, what the moorgaunt that was once Lyra said was true, then Golden Tree had been sacked. And Lyra had blamed her for it happening. A spark of anger ignited in her chest, and she violently quashed that idea. She refused to accept that. The only one to blame was Blueblood and his night-loving family.
The route of her thoughts turned to the others in town. Bronze. The Cakes. Bon Bon.
And her oath-sisters.
Taking a deep breath, Sunset sat up and tried to rise to her feet, only for her legs to give out half way there. She had to get to Golden Tree and find everyone. But she was in no shape to walk. Not without rest.
But she couldn’t wait that long.
She needed to get home.
Clenching her fists in the gravel and dirt, she took a handful and threw it with a frustrated yell. Why couldn’t she fly? If she could, she’d be at Golden Tree in no time.
Taking another stone and tossing it, she sighed with defeat.
She needed to rest. With no other option available, she slowly lowered herself back down to the earth. Laying there, she closed her eyes, forcing herself to remain still, trying to open herself to Nitor and let its life-giving energy help her.
She just needed… to rest…
*****
Sunset awoke with a start and a sharp jab in her cheek. With a shout, she jolted awake, swatting at whatever it was that had hurt her. In her flailing, her fist struck something hard and slick. The next thing she knew, there was a wall of flapping wings all around her. In a panic, she hid her face behind her arms and began to lash out with her living flame.
As the sounds faded, she lowered her arms. Looking up, she saw numerous black forms in the trees lining the road, all of them staring back at her with beady, black eyes set in ugly bald heads with wrinkly grey skin.
Her stomach heaved in disgust as she recognized the creatures.
Vultures.
She was surrounded by vultures.
As she glared in disbelief at the scavengers, she felt a line of warm moisture trickling down her cheek at the same spot as the pain that had woken her up. Touching the spot, she examined her hand, only to find it covered in blood.
Her blood.
With dawning horror, she realized what had just happened.
“Have dreams! I’m not dead, you disgusting freaks!” Sunset yelled, picking up a stone and throwing it at the nearest bird, which fluttered out of the way, glaring at her when it landed.
Mustering every ounce of will she could, Sunset slowly got to her feet. Her legs still ached terribly, especially where her heels and balls of her feet had been injured, but she found she could at least stand with minimal wobbling.
“See! Still alive!” she shouted. To her irritation, they didn’t fly off. Only continue to stare at her. Staring back, he wished she knew any hexes that she could hurl at them. And could actually cast.
Trying to put her anger aside, Sunset looked to the south towards Golden Tree. It was still at least a few kilometers to home. But even after her unexpected nap, she was barely in any condition to make the hike. She knew she needed rest. Real and proper rest.
‘No. I don’t have time,’ Sunset thought as she looked around the edge of the road. ‘There has to be something…’
Sunset’s heart leapt with joy as she saw just what she needed: a few low hanging branches on the dead oaks lining the road. Limping over, Sunset grabbed one and wrenched it down as hard as she could. Her satisfaction when it snapped off was cut short when the faces dotting the tree’s trunk all let out a chorus of pained screams as the branch broke free.
Staggering back, Sunset stared at the tree with horror as thick, crimson sap began to seep from the spot where she’d broken the branch off. Her heart racing, she cowered in anticipation, expecting the tree to start moving to attack her. Yet, nothing more happened.
Looking down at the limb in her hands, she closed her eyes and let out a slow, trembling breath. Once she had reigned in her racing heart, she reached down and picked up a fist sized rock, hoping that she wouldn’t get a repeat performance when she was knocking the smaller branches off.
*****
Sunset slowly and painfully hobbled towards the top of the last hill to the north of Golden Tree. Leaning on her makeshift walkingstick, she found herself once again glad she’d made the gnarly thing. As arduous as the hike had been, she was sure it would have been impossible without it.
‘Just a few more meters…’ Sunset kept telling herself. ‘Just a few more meters…’
Cresting the hill, she finally beheld Golden Tree.
Or rather, what was left of it.
The south end of town had been burnt, the blackened, charred remains of the building’s frames standing like ghastly fingers reaching for the sky. While the northern portion had been spared the fire, she could see that it hadn’t been spared of violence. Every building showed signs of fighting: doors and windows broken and useless, lines of rubble where earth-weavers had summoned defensive fortifications, holes in the walls of buildings where fire-callers had no doubt used spell-dances to break in.
And the bodies.
So many bodies.
Even from a distance, she could see the streets littered with them. Most looked like they’d been picked clean by the hundreds of vultures and crows that were still circling the skies above town or perched on the remains of the buildings. The smell on the putrid wind was even worse than at Clear Spring, the already nauseating sourness mixing with the scent of rotting and burnt flesh and bone.
Sunset thought she’d been prepared for this after what Lyra told her at Clear Spring. But she wasn’t.
Her stomach churning in revolt, she doubled over, dry heaving until her throat was raw.
Shakily standing up, she kept walking.
She had to find her family.
*****
Sunset carefully leaned around the broken door leading into the Golden Tree Smithy, making as little sound as possible. As much as she wanted to rush in, everything that had happened so far made her wary. Poking her head a little deeper in, her heart sank. The inside of the smithy was completely destroyed, with pieces of ruined metalworking and raw steel strewn about the floor.
With the dread of what she would find pressing down on her, she went inside to search for Bronze.
She’d reached the edge of Golden Tree what felt like forever ago, though with the sun's impossible behavior, she couldn’t be sure exactly how long it had actually been. At first, she’d tried to head straight to Sweet Apple Acres, Rainbow’s house or the Pie Rock Farm to search for her sisters. Only for her attempts to be thwarted by rubble, summoned stone barricades, and trenches created during the attack. Were her legs in better shape, she might have been able to climb over some of the obstructions. But injured as she was, they presented impassable barriers.
And she wasn’t about to leave the safety of the road and test whether the entity was waiting to ambush her.
Which meant an arduous trek through town to find a way to reach her sisters. It didn’t take long for her to be completely lost in the maze of crumbling buildings, carrion birds and flies, rotting corpses of both Golden Tree’s residents and less frequent armored forms of Blueblood’s soldiers, blood soaked ground and putrid wind. All too often, she found herself doubling back and trying to find another route when she reached a dead end.
But there was something else. Something more sinister.
At first, she thought it was just her exhaustion and horror playing tricks on her mind. But, after wandering through the maze of streets, she suspected that the path was changing as she walked. Sometimes, when she doubled back, the streets that she found herself on weren’t the same. Or she’d see remnants of familiar houses in the wrong part of town.
After the fifth time the road had apparently changed, she’d decided to test her suspicions. Using her living flame, she began to sear an arrow into the sides of the buildings she passed. Only to find them and the buildings gone when she ended up backtracking, or in entirely new places as she rounded a corner that couldn’t have led back to where she’d come from.
If she wasn’t sure before, she knew for certain that somehow Golden Tree had been infected with Chaos. It was the only explanation she could think of. And if the land around Golden Tree was Chaos-infested, she needed to find her family even faster. Lest they be consumed by Chaos too.
So, when she rounded the corner of another ruined building and saw the familiar shape of the Golden Tree Smithy, her heart jumped into her throat with joy. The building was damaged, but that barely registered to her. At that moment, the smithy was a lake in a wildfire. With a teary eyed laugh, she began to hobble towards her former workplace and, with any luck, Bronze Hammer.
Only for her hopes to be dashed as she entered the smithy to find it wrecked.
“Hello?” Sunset called as she made her way back towards the forge. “Bronze, are you here?”
Hearing no response, she found her dread returning. Gone was the familiar heat and glow of the forge. The rune-dampened clang of hammer on metal as she and Bronze worked. The smell of hot steel, copper, iron and burning wood. The comradery and comfort of working with her former mentor as he gave her the day’s lessons, the glow of earning his praise, and the sting of his disapproval.
“Bronze, where are you?”
Instead, the forge was cold, silent, and smelled of rust, dust, stale air… and death.
It was wrong.
It was all wrong.
“Bronze, it’s Sunset. Please, answer me!”
*scrapeeee*
Sunset froze.
*scrapeeee*
There it was again. The sound of metal being dragged across stone.
*scrapeeee*
Sunset’s blood turned to ice, because she could hear it getting closer. From what she could tell, it was coming from the direction of the spell forge.
*scrapeee*
Sunset hobbled behind a barrel of metal scraps and ducked down, once again pulling her shirt up and over her head to hide the glow of her living flame. If the town had fallen to Chaos, she didn’t want whatever was coming to see her first.
The source of the scraping finally entered the forge. Along with it came new sounds: rusty axles, creaking wood, and pained, heavy breathing. After a few tense moments, the sound came to a stop somewhere in the middle of the workspace.
“I can hear your breathing, thief. Come out!” A hoarse, weakened voice said as Sunset heard the sound of a gun being cocked.
A chill ran up Sunset’s spine, both from the threat of the weapon and the sound of the voice.
It was a familiar voice that she could still recognise, despite how much it had changed.
Peeking out from behind the forge, Sunset gasped in dismay.
“Bronze?”
Before her was the forgemaster of Golden Tree. Or, what was left of him.
The first thing Sunset saw was that Bronze was not walking under his own power. Instead, he was sitting on one of the carts they used to move supplies around the forge. Catching sight of his legs, she felt bile rising in her throat; both of his legs ended in twisted, malformed lumps of gangrenous flesh from the knees down. His hands weren’t much better, and looked as though they’d been crushed and broken, leaving only a couple of mangled fingers on each. His left arm had a hooked, metal rod crudely strapped to it, while under his right arm was a double-barreled shotgun.
But worse of all was his face.
Unlike when she last saw him, Bronze was haggard and gaunt, his skin sagging off of his body as though he’d been starving. His face was covered in a wiry, scraggly beard, rather than being clean shaven. The hair on his head was long, greasy and unkempt, while his soul-gem had a massive crack down its middle.
Then, there were his eyes. Eyes that had once been the same warm dark golden color of his namesake metal, now looked cloudy and bloodshot.
The sight of him in such a state was too much to bear. Cautiously stepping out from behind the forge, Sunset said, “Bronze, it’s me. Sunset.”
Bronze’s head turned towards her, but his eyes seemed unfocused. Like he wasn’t seeing her, only tracking the sound of her movement and voice.
“Sunset?” Bronze said as he lowered his weapon.
“Yes, Bronze, it’s me.”
Bronze slumped to the side, nearly toppling off the cart in the process.
“Sunset Shimmer… dreaming darkness. Of all the people to walk through that door, why you?”
“Bronze?” Sunset asked.
“Why did she have to see me like this?” Bronze asked with a pained sigh. It took a moment for Sunset to realize that he was talking to himself, not to her. “Why couldn’t she just stay away? Why…?”
Sunset wasn’t sure what to do or say. Ever since she’d started working for him, Bronze had always been so strong. So resilient. Even when times were tough and they weren’t bringing in as much business as they needed, he’d endured. And taught her to do the same.
But now, Bronze sounded so… broken. Broken in body, mind, and spirit.
She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes again as she came closer. As she did, she noticed a few details she hadn’t before.
Details that told her he’d been trapped the Chaos-infestation for too long.
Bronze wasn’t riding the cart, he was melding with it, his flesh fusing with the metal. The metal hook he was using to drag himself around wasn’t strapped to his arm like she thought at first. It was riveted to it, with the flesh and metal also beginning to fuse.
Sunset’s gasp of horror made Bronze flinch and turn his head away in shame.
“Sunset, don’t,” Bronze said, his voice firm. “Don’t come any closer. You shouldn’t see me like this.”
“But, Bronze… I just want to help.”
“You can’t help me, Sunset. Nobody can. Not anymore.”
The defeat in his voice made Sunset take a step back, mind racing faster than a sky-runner fleeing a wyvern. What had happened to him? Everyone else in town was dead. But Bronze was alive, but only just barely. Why would they leave him…?
A horrid thought rose in her mind. One that made her chest tighten with rage.
“Bronze, did Blueblood do this to you?”
Bronze feebly nodded, his breathing growing shallower.
“Yes, Sunset. Well, his soldiers did. But he might as well have driven in the knife.”
There was a long pause, Bronze’s words hanging in the air like a cloud of poisoned smoke.
“Why? Why would he…” Sunset began to ask, only trail off.
“They did it to punish me for knowing you. Said that a quick death was too good for me. Told me that they were going to make me regret ever showing you a grain of kindness or love.”
“They what?!” Sunset shouted, her voice full of revulsion. “They did this… to punish you for knowing me?”
“Yes, Sunset. They did. First, they took my legs. Then, my hands,” Bronze said as he held up the mangled remains of his hands. Now that she was closer, she could see that the ragged, torn wounds were infected, with puss seeping out from behind the scabs as he moved the remains of his diggets. “Then my sight. They weren’t fast about it either. Took their time. And throughout it all, they told me that if I wanted to blame someone, blame you. That if you had never crossed the Heliopolans, this would never have happened.”
Sunset had to prop herself up on a nearby anvil to keep from toppling over. Her head was spinning and she was having a hard time seeing straight as the weight of what Bronze had just told her came crashing down around her.
“I’m sorry, Bronze,” Sunset finally said.
There was something in Bronze’s face when she said that. A strange, pained look of resentment and regret. Sunset wanted to say more, only she couldn’t find the words.
“Sorry. She says she’s sorry. As if that means a nighted thing anymore,” Bronze said, his voice soft and tired. She almost wished he’d yelled it at her. Showed anything more than resignation. But somehow, those simple words, spoken without any passion hit harder than anything she could have imagined. “You should never have gone to the ascension. Should have just stayed here where you belonged. When I found out you had ascended, I just thought I’d lost my apprentice. Lost the girl I wanted one day to inherit my smithy. Lost a daughter…”
Sunset choked back a sob as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth, Bronze’s last admission stabbing her through the heart. She’d known that he cared for her. But she never knew he thought of her like that. She had never said it aloud, but she’d come to think of him like a father. So to know that he’d thought of her the same way.
“But now, look at what you brought down on me. On all of us. And you have the gall to say you’re ‘sorry.’ Golden Tree is gone, Sunset. There’s nothing left here for anyone. Least of all you.”
Reaching down towards the floor with the rod embedded in his arm, Bronze clumsily used it to push the cart, turning away from Sunset and back towards the spell forge.
“Wait,” Sunset said. “Bronze, please. Don’t go. Let me help you. I… I can get Roseluck to heal you. Or maybe Raven. Or the Queen. I can fix this.”
There was a long pause as Bronze stopped pulling himself forward with the rod. Eventually, his shoulders slumped and he let out a tired sigh.
“You don’t get it, Sunset. There’s nobody left to help. And if there was, Raven and the Queen wouldn’t care. Not after the fallout in the East. If they did, they wouldn’t have let Blueblood and allies do what they did.”
“I…”
“And what would they fix? Me? I know I’m Chaos-tainted, Sunset. Even now, I can feel it. Clawing at my mind. Telling me to gut you where you stand. And if they could fix me, what’s the point? Golden Tree’s gone Sunset. Everyone’s dead. Where would I go? No town would take me. Not without risking Blueblood attacking them too”
Sunset tried to find something, anything to say. But her jaw just flapped open and closed uselessly without forming any words.
“Just… go, Sunset. And don’t ever come back. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
And with that, Bronze slowly dragged himself out the back door, shutting and locking it behind him. Sunset didn’t move as the pain in her chest grew even sharper. She thought about following. Trying to do something to make things better. But she couldn’t bring herself to.
Instead, she simply hobbled back to the barrel to retrieve her walking stick.
And slowly began to leave, the world once again growing darker.
*****
Sunset was shaking with despair as she staggered out of the smithy, barely managing to hold herself up with her walking stick. She should have been angry at Bronze. She wanted to be angry at him. At all the things he’d said to her.
But she couldn’t be.
She couldn’t blame him.
Her anger was elsewhere.
At Raven and the Queen for letting Golden Tree be destroyed.
At Blueblood and the Heliopolans for what they’d done to her home and family.
But most of all, she was angry at herself.
Bronze was right. This was her fault.
All of this started when she insisted on going to Heliopolis.
She should never have gone. Never gotten mixed up with the phoenix-born.
She should have just stayed here in Golden Tree where she belonged, with her friends. Her family. Her oath-sisters.
It's not like she was the only one who Philomena could have bonded with. Lily and Daisy would have been a better bondmate for her than Sunset ever could be. They wouldn’t have gotten their town destroyed and everyone in it killed. They wouldn’t have started a fight they had no chance of winning. They wouldn’t have been torn away from Philomena like she’d been.
Philomena…
The thought of her bondmate sent fresh waves of grief through the core of her being.
“Mena, why can’t I hear you?” Sunset muttered as she gripped her walking stick tighter. “Are you really gone? Did you leave me too?”
Closing her eyes, Sunset once again tried to reach out to Philomena through the thin smokey whisps she could feel of their bond. It was like Philomena was on the edge of her perception, just out of reach. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t touch Philomena’s mind.
Sunset’s desperate attempts to touch Philomena’s mind were interrupted by a sharp cracking and rumbling as if wood and earth were being crushed and torn apart. Lifting her head, Sunset’s heart nearly stopped at what she saw.
All around her the buildings, corpses and the very stone of the land began to break apart and lift into the air, like leaves being blown away by a sky-runner summoned wind.
Panic wrapped itself around Sunset’s heart at the Chaos corruption now openly running rampant. Turning back towards the smithy, Sunset hoped to hide in the building until the upheaval ended. Her hopes were dashed when she found the front of the building twisted and crumpled like an earth-weaver had used their power to warp it, leaving the entrance blocked by wooden beams and swirls of stone.
Slamming her eyes shut and slapping her hands over her ears, she dropped to her knees and curled in on herself, waiting for the cacophony of whatever was happening behind her to die down. When the noise eventually went quiet, Sunset reluctantly turned to face whatever new horrors it had brought. What she saw wasn’t especially disturbing in itself, but the magnitude of the change wrought to Golden Tree still left her trembling in sheer primal terror.
Before her, everything had been torn out of the ground and formed into a long pair of walls on either side of a newly formed road. The road itself looked like any other of Golden Tree’s dirt roads. If anything, its mundanity was more heavily contrasted by the towering walls on either side, composed of a melding of the buildings, trees and corpses that had been caught in the wave’s path.
Sunset could only stare in mute horror. The amount of magic needed to do something of this scale was astronomical. Queen Celestia surely could do it. But… she was the queen. Her power was second only to her mother the Empress, and the Avatars of Chaos. But for any being other than a god or abomination, something like this would require hundreds of fire-callers and earth-weavers collectively dancing for hours, if not days, to pull off similar feats.
If she needed proof that there was Chaos involved in what was happening, she had it. But the thought of the Avatars having pierced the Empress’s defenses and touched Nitor in any way was not one she liked.
As she stared down the road, she realized that it led to a stretch of boulder strewn hills. One with a lone farmhouse with an unremarkable windmill and tall gravel silo. It was a farm she knew well, because visited more times than she could remember. A farm that was the site of one of the most important events in her life.
A farm house that had always felt safe and welcoming, but now filled her with a deep sense of unease.
Sunset couldn’t imagine any reason for the road pointing directly at the Pie Rock Farm, but she was certain she wouldn’t like it.
Looking at the towering walls trapping her, she resigned herself to the fact that she didn’t have a choice.
Focusing on her meditation techniques, Sunset did the best she could to calm her mind. Then, she slowly began to walk towards the farm.
And whatever fate had befallen Pinkie and her family.
*****
Opening the gate to the Pie Rock Farm, Sunset stepped off the Chaos-born road, and onto the familiar stone path to Pinkie’s home. As she’d drawn closer to the farm, she saw more of the now familiar signs of fighting. Many of the fields were riddled with earth-weaver ramparts and trenches, as well as spent bullet casings glinting in the now weak light of the sun.
The farmhouse didn’t look much better. Even from as far away as she was, she could see that it had taken considerable damage. Worse, the front door was open. Sunset suspected that they weren’t left ajar by the Pie clan, but instead had been broken down in the attack.
Sunset’s heart sank at the sight, and the implications. The Pies were rock farmers, not trained soldiers. Even with their geomancy, they wouldn’t stand a chance against sun-gazers trained to fight. And kill.
After seeing what happened to Bronze and Tender Heart, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find them.
But, she had to know Pinkie and her family’s fate. Even if it broke her heart.
As Sunset began to pass the windmill, she spotted something. Not two meters from the windmill was a sky-runner’s body, laying in a shallow crater as though he had fallen from a great height. It… no, he… was kitted out in ranger armor, including his service carbine, which was still gripped in his hands. Both of his wings were burnt ruins, with nothing but charcoaled rachises.
But what really drew her attention was his rainbow colored hair and pale, light grayish blue skin.
Sunset felt her heart wilt.
It was Rainbow’s father, Bow Hothoof.
And if he was here, that meant that both Windy Whistles and Rainbow were too. Sunset found little comfort in that knowledge, because if Bow was dead, she was certain Windy had met the same fate. And that didn’t speak well to her oath-sisters’ chances.
No, she couldn’t think like that. They’d have found a way to escape. They had to. She refused to believe that they could be…
Shaking her head and looking back at the grisly scene, Sunset’s mind put the pieces together, and she grimaced. In all likelihood it was a fire-caller warcaster who had set fire to his wings while he was in the air.
It was a particularly cruel tactic, especially for someone as kind and loving as Bow. Her imagination was running wild now, images of Bow and Windy desperately fighting to defend Rainbow and the Pies, only to have their wings ruined and falling to their deaths.
Sunset’s heart ached as she stared at Bow. She wanted to properly bury him. Maybe look for Windy and bring her so they could be buried together properly. But another told her that there was nothing she could do.
Turning away sadly and muttering an apology to Bow under her breath, Sunset hastened her hobbling towards the house.
*****
Carefully stepping around the wreckage of the front door, Sunset entered the Pie house. The entrance was riddled with bullet holes, and bore the now familiar scent of blood and decay, along with the sulfurous smell of ignition powder.
Things only got worse when she entered the main family room. It looked like Pinkie’s family had attempted to hold off Blueblood’s soldiers by turning their stone dining table into an improvised barricade. A barricade that lay shattered on the ground, four discarded hunting rifles and scattered patches of drying blood a testament to the violence that had been brought down on the Pies. At first, Sunset was relieved that she hadn’t found any of their bodies, since it meant that the Pies could still be alive. Only for another thought to enter her head.
Bronze hadn’t been killed. Instead, Blueblood had “punished” him for knowing her.
Insidiously, that line of thinking spread its roots through her brain. If Blueblood was willing to do something like that to her former teacher, what would he do to her oath-sisters’ families? Sunset felt her chest tightening with panic, her heart racing and her breathing became shallow as her thoughts began to burn out of control. In the heart of the inferno, there was one thought that survived the blaze.
In as much haste as she could manage, Sunset began to search the house. The rational part of her mind would have argued that she wasn’t likely to find anyone. But that part of her was on the far side of a wall of terrified concern for her oath-sisters.
She needed to find Pinkie, Rainbow and Applejack.
Nothing else mattered.
*****
Sunset sat on the edge of Igneous and Cloudy’s bed, her shoes and socks off as she carefully applied some of Cloudy Quartz’s herbal oils to her injured feet. She’d searched the whole house, but couldn’t find any trace of anyone. With the realization that her oath-sisters weren’t there came a cooling of her panicked rushing around. In place of the blaze came cooler, more rational thoughts.
The first of which was that she’d made her wounds worse with her crazed searching, and was barely able to stand. Knowing that Pinkie’s parents kept a stash of bandages and healing ointments in their room, Sunset had carefully made her way there. Pulling the box out, she began to treat her injuries and figure out her next move.
If there was nobody around, then Blueblood had moved them elsewhere.
The problem was she didn’t have any idea where he would’ve taken them.
“Dreaming darkness,” Sunset hissed as she applied a healthy amount of the herbal oil to the cut on her cheek. She didn’t want to imagine what sort of filth was on a vulture’s beak, but she hoped Cloudy’s medicine would help mitigate it. “What am I going to do now?”
Sunset continued to consider her options. There weren’t many. She couldn’t leave town under her own power. Even if she could find a horse to ride to the next town over, it wouldn’t work. She didn’t know how to ride.
There was also the problem of the Chaos-infestation.
And the entity.
Would she even be able to leave if she tried? She had a feeling the moment she stepped off the roads, the entity would be able to reach her. And the Chaos-infestation… that threw everything into disarray since it could just reshape the landscape at random. Sunset shuddered as another thought came to her; if the Chaos-infestation was bad enough, the Queen might be preparing to cleanse the area with a deluge of true fire. Could she even survive that? Would her phoenix-born immunity let her withstand a manifestation of the perfect form of fire? Especially when she was cut off from Philomena.
Everything felt so hopeless.
Just like when Sapphire had threatened to have the orphanage burnt to the ground and her family killed.
Sunset began to re-wrap her feet with fresh bandages, the fire of her anger beginning to burn through her despair. She grabbed onto that feeling. Let it sink into her.
No.
She wasn’t going to let that pig-sniffing son-of-blight-scum beat her like this.
Maybe there was no escape.
Maybe she was trapped in a Chaos-infestation.
Maybe the entity would eventually find her.
But she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
She was Sunset Shimmer.
She was a phoenix-born.
She’d beaten the odds before.
She would do it again.
The first thing she needed to do was figure out where her oath-sisters were. If they weren’t in Pinkie’s house, they might have fled to the rock-fields. Pinkie knew plenty of places to hide out there. Maybe she and Rainbow got out and found somewhere to hole up until Blublood’s goons left.
The chances might be slim, but slim wasn’t zero.
Slipping her socks and shoes back on, she grabbed her walking stick. She had a lot of ground to cover.
*****
“What in Celestia’s name?” Sunset gasped as she opened the Pie’s back door.
Rather than leading out into the rock farm’s fields, she found herself staring down a long, arched corridor made of slabs of cut gray stone. Looking at the edge of the door, Sunset saw that the inexplicable passage was coming directly out of the side of the house.
Backing away and closing the door, Sunset headed for the front door.
Only to find the same passageway waiting beyond the shattered wooden remnants.
“How?” Sunset asked as she backed away.
Staggering over to one of the windows, Sunset peeked outside. There was no stone corridor, only the dismal, overcast and darkened sky with the sun stuck at high noon casting its increasingly weak light across the rock fields of the Pie family farm. Heading back to the kitchen, Sunset checked the windows, only to find the familiar view of the rock fields.
Cautiously, Sunset reached up and undid the latch on the window. When she pulled it open, she found herself staring down the stone corridor again.
Closing the window in a panic, she found she could once again see the rock farm fields.
Tentatively pulling open the window by a crack, she peeked out. Only to be greeted by the stone passage.
Nervously peeking back the glass of the window pane, the fields greeted her.
Swallowing nervously, she closed the window and backed away.
Her plan to find her oath-sisters evaporating like water on hot metal as she realized that she was trapped. The Chaos-infestation had lured her here and trapped her. Now her only choice was to either enter the passageway to Celestia knows where, or stay in the Pie house and eventually starve.
As Sunset was contemplating her situation, a familiar sound began to tickle the edge of her hearing. Freezing in place, she heard it rapidly growing louder.
The sound of flowing sand and gravel.
Staggering to the kitchen door, she looked out the front window, and felt her blood run cold.
The entity had found her.
But it was different. Bigger. Where it had towered over her before, now it filled the entire horizon with its painful, writhing nothingness.
And it was coming straight towards the house.
Sunset didn’t think. She just turned and bolted for the back door, her eyes tearing from how much it hurt to run. Just as she reached the door, there was the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood as the entity crashed into the side of the house.
Ripping the door open, Sunset lunged through. Turning around and grabbing the knob, she saw the entity closing in just as she pulled it shut.
The moment the door was closed, it vanished as though it had never been there.
Her panic subsiding, Sunset realized that she’d just trapped herself in the stone corridor. Worse, the only source of light was her living flame, its flickering light causing the shadows to dance in ways she wasn’t sure she liked.
But if it was a choice between that and letting the entity catch her… she wanted to think she’d made the right choice.
No. She had. She was still alive. Harmony knows what would have happened if the entity had caught her.
That still left her stuck… wherever she was.
In the weak light of her living flame, she couldn’t see very far. For all she knew, they went on forever. It wasn’t like being trapped in a Chaos-infestation was going to leave much in the way of logic intact.
Which left her with her current problem: what to do now?
Without knowing which direction led to where, there wasn’t any real way to know what was the right way to go.
With a sigh, she turned away from where the door had been, and began to walk.
‘Better to pick a direction and go than stand around getting nowhere,’ Sunset thought to herself ruefully as she limped off. ‘At least it doesn’t smell like corpses anymore.’
*****
Sunset wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, but she was sure it had been a long time. And yet, the corridor just didn’t seem to end.
Which meant she had time to think.
Too much time.
Most of which concerned oath-sisters, their families, what had happened in Golden Tree…
And what Bronze had said.
Was all of this really her fault?
No. She refused to believe that.
Highblood and his goat-licking family were the ones at fault. Him and his stupid conspiracy to make his jerk son a phoenix-born. They were the ones at fault.
Not her.
They would have found any excuse to go after Golden Tree. They just needed an opportunity…
… that she provided them by causing a scandal at the Harvest Festival.
But that wasn’t her fault either.
That was Raven’s fault for putting her in that situation. It wasn’t like she had to be there.
No, she did have to be there. Raven had told her that.
But Raven shouldn’t have treated her like she was incapable of handling herself. Hadn’t she shown that she could at the ascension.
And proved she couldn’t at the museum.
But still…
Still…
Sunset let out a sigh of defeat. Maybe she was to blame for some of it. Not all of it. But some.
Yet, having it out for her was no excuse to go after her hometown. Had Blueblood been punished for what he did? She doubted General Sentry or Spitfire would allow it. And with the Riches and Neighsay on his side, she was sure they’d find a way to get him out of the fire.
Raven could have stopped it! She had Dawn Wings and Eyes. Surely they could have found out Blueblood’s plans.
Unless they didn’t care.
Had things gone so wrong with the kirintal that Raven had let him do what he did without reprisal.
Did she let him do it as a lesson to Sunset about the price of embarrassing her.
No, Raven wasn’t like that.
Was she?
Sunset’s thoughts were interrupted when she saw that something had changed in the corridor. There was a small speck of light off in the distance.
Light.
Light could mean an exit.
Or a trap.
But either was better than sitting in the corridor until she died.
Hardening her resolve, Sunset pressed forward towards the light.
As she drew closer, the light began to take form, until it resembled an arched doorway. She also noticed that there was something odd about the light. Somehow, it felt hostile. Angry. She couldn’t explain how or why.
Only that she didn’t like it.
*****
Stepping through the archway, Sunset could finally see what was beyond the strange light. The room was enormous, and reminded her of the inside of the furnace at the smithy, only much larger and built with uncemented stone rather than brick and mortar. She couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. If anything, it felt like it was coming from everywhere all at once, like it had no source.
Sunset was only peripherally aware of these other features, as what was in the center of the room commanded her full, undivided attention.
There, at the middle of the room was the oath-stone from Pinkie’s yard. And, standing around the central brazzer were Rainbow, AJ and Pinkie. All three were in their oath-ceremony tunics. Only, they weren’t the proper blood-red color. Instead, they were deep blue, and bore a white crescent on the back.
Sunset’s pulse began to race. The only reason to be wearing robes in the Traitor's colors was to dissolve an oath.
Sunset turned to flee back into the corridor, only to find that the passage had vanished, leaving her trapped in the room.
“Why yah tryin’ tah run, Sunset?” she heard AJ call. Her tone was cheerful, yet contained an undeniable inflection of hostility. As though she were putting on the airs of pleasantness while not trying to mask her hate “Yer tha guest of honor.”
“AJ’s right, Sunny,” Pinkie chirped, the same false joviality in her voice. “We’ve been waiting for you. Now we can get this party started.”
“C’mon, Shimmer, don’t be shy. We just want to undo the biggest mistake we ever made in our lives,” Rainbow added. Unlike the others, her tone was nakedly hostile. “I promise it won’t hurt. Well, it won’t hurt us.”
Turning back towards her oath-sisters, Sunset pressed against the room’s wall as the three of them slowly advanced on her.
“Girls, please, what’re you…?”
“You’re the smart one, Shimmer. You figure it out,” Rainbow said.
“It’s not that hard tah get,” AJ added.
The three of them were right next to her now, surrounding her and corralling her to the wall. Now that they were up close, Sunset could see that each one had a long, thin, vertical cut starting on their foreheads down to their cheeks, running across their left eye. All three of their left eyelids were crusted shut with dried blood..
“Please, stop. Can’t we talk about this?” Sunset begged.
“Nope!” Pinkie chirped. “We already talked about it, and there’s nothing left to say.”
“We don’t want you anymore,” Rainbow said as she grabbed the front of Sunset’s shirt and yanked her forward, getting right in her face. “You already destroyed Golden Tree, got our families killed, and ruined our lives. We want you gone. And we’re going to start by kicking you out of our sisterhood oath.”
“We ahlready got started,” AJ said, pointing to the bloody cut on her face, then grabbed Sunset’s arm. “Now we jus’ need tah finish up ahnd take yers, and its done.”
“Don’t be scared,” Pinkie said as she joined AJ in pulling Sunset towards the stone. “It only hurts for a few hours, and then, you get to see the world from a whole new perspective. Isn’t that super awesometastic?”
“Girls, please, don’t. I can’t… you can’t do this!” Sunset cried as she struggled to break free of Pinkie and AJ’s grip, but to no avail. They were just too strong. “I love you.”
“That’s nice,” Rainbow said. “The feeling’s not mutual. Not anymore.”
They’d reached the edge of the stone. With a shove from Rainbow, Sunset stepped onto its surface and was dragged to the bowl in the center.
“If yah loved us, then yah wouldn’ have stahrted ah feud with ah bunch ah nobles yah had no chance tah beat,” AJ said as she and Pinkie grabbed Sunset’s shoulders and pushed her down, forcing her to kneel by the bowl.
“You took everything from us, Sunny,” Pinkie growled, her tone now completely devoid of any cheer. “So now, we’re going to take everything from you. Starting with our place in our oath. Rainbow, do you have the knife?”
“Right here,” Rainbow said in a dangerous tone. Stepping around front, she grabbed Sunset’s cheeks, forcing her head up. In her other hand, she held one of the ritual obsidian knives used in the oath. Brandishing it in front of Sunset’s face, Rainbow’s mouth twisted into a vicious grin. “I’m going to enjoy this, Shimmer. I hope you scream as much as my parents did when they fell.”
Closing her eyes, Sunset started to cry as Rainbow placed the point of the blade on her forehead, a small trickle of blood rolling down and stinging her eye..
“Girls, I’m sorry. Please. Don’t.”
There was a sudden wave of heat, a burst of sound like a bomb going off, and an enraged shriek.
Sunset! A voice in her head shouted, her mind flooding with a wave of love and horrified worry.
Mena!? Sunset cried as Philomena’s voice suddenly came back to her in full force.
Simultaneously, Sunset heard Rainbow let out a pained cry as the sound of flapping wings and phoenix screeches filled the air. Opening her eyes, Sunset saw Philomena was mobbing Rainbow’s face, laying into the sky-runner with her claws and beak.
“What in tarnation!?” AJ exclaimed.
“How’d she get here?!” Pinkie cried.
“Who cares, get her away from me!” Rainbow shouted as she tried to swat Philomena’s furious attack away. It only served to further agitate the already enraged phoenix, who evaded one of her swipes before sinking her talons in the back of Rainbow’s hand and biting her thumb hard enough to reach bone, causing her to drop her knife.
Mena! What are you doing? Stop! You’re hurting her! Sunset sent desperately as AJ and Pinkie let her go, then ran and tried to grab Philomena, who flew up and away from them, circling around to divebomb the back of Pinkie’s head, grabbing her hair and yanking hard. Pinkie let out a pained scream as she tried to reach around and get Philomena off.
AJ rushed in, only for Philomena to let go and fly away.
“Rainbow, git after that damn bird!” AJ shouted.
“Shut up! I can’t see a damn thing! Stupid bird scratched my eye!”
Sunset, they’re not real! None of this is! Philomena sent. With the sending came a second perspective, that of Philomena looking down at an unconscious Sunset, her face pale. Next to the two of them were Roseluck and Amara, who were in the process of performing a complex spell-dance. One that had wrapped Sunset’s body in a thin layer of water. Water that was slowly becoming discolored with a noxious yellow pollutant. We’re in Rose’s Blossom at the Fall Harvest Festival.
Not real? Sunset sent back in confusion. What do you mean it’s not real?
Just what I said! Philomena sent as she quickly circled around and dove at AJ, landing on top of her head and shoving her hat down over her eyes. None of this is real!
“Argh! Git over here, yah stupid flamin’ chicken!” AJ shouted as she tried to grab Philomena, only to be rewarded with a pair of talons raking her hand and a bitten finger.
The Cult of Endless Decay did this. Used some sort of Chaos-poison. Remember, we were with Roseluck. You got sick.
“Pinkie, get Sunset! She dies, so does the bird!” Rainbow shouted, her voice now with a strange echo.
I… that’s right. I was with Roseluck when everything started to go wrong.
“Gotit, Dashie!” Pinkie said as she rushed forward to grab the obsidian knife.
Sunset! Don’t just sit there! Get up! We have to hold them off until Roseluck finishes getting the poison out of you! Philomena sent urgently as she continued to struggle with Applejack.
“Guess we’re going to get you out of the sisterhood a little more directly!” Pinkie cheered as she lunged at Sunset, the obsidian knife held in an icepick grip. “Time to meet Grogar, Sunny!”
Sunset’s instincts kicked in and she lashed out with a living flame tendril as she threw herself to the side. Pinkie recoiled in pain, gripping her side as Sunset’s strike left an angry red sear mark on her arm.
“Pinkie! I’m sorry! Let me…” Sunset began, only to have to roll away as Pinkie tried to stomp on her, causing the stone to crack with the force of the impact.
“Thanks for the consideration, Sunny!” Pinkie snarled, her voice now containing the same odd echo as Rainbow. More frightening, Sunset saw Pinkie’s eye had changed. Rather than the cheery light cerulean she’d known for years, Pinkie’s eye sockets had become filled with the same yawning nothingness as the entity. “Let me slit your throat as payback.”
“You… you’re not Pinkie,” Sunset stammered as she managed to get to her feet, her living flame forming into tendrils. “Who… what are you?”
“I am Pinkie!” The thing wearing Pinkie’s appearance snarled back. “I’m the Pinkie that you know is waiting for you back in Golden Tree. The one you abandoned. The one Blueblood will kill. The one who regrets ever having met you. Just like everyone else in your life.”
Sunset, don’t listen to her, Philomena sent as she had to fly away from Applejack, who had freed her eyes from her hat and was now tearing chunks of rock out of the oath-stone to throw at her.
Mena, below you! Sunset sent as Rainbow took to the air and made a grab for her. Sunset caught a brief glimpse of Rainbow through Philomena’s perspective, and saw that the sky-runner’s eyes had also changed into the nothingness of the entity.
“I’m going to break every bone in your wings, you stupid bird!” Rainbow snarled as she took off after Philomena.
With Philomena distracted, Applejack turned towards Sunset, pulling out her own ritual knife.
“Now that tha pest’s outa tha way, Pinkie and Ah still have somethin’ to deal with,” Applejack said jovially as she walked up next to Pinkie.
Before either of them could strike, Sunset felt the ground rumble while everything started to become translucent. All three of the land bound sun-gazers were nearly thrown off their feet by the shaking.
“What’s happening?” Pinkie shouted as she looked around.
“Ah don’ know. But we can’t let ‘er git away!” Applejack said as she made a grab for Sunset.
Sunset, just hold them off, Philomena sent. Sunset could feel the panic in Philomena’s mind as Rainbow made a grab for her. Roseluck’s almost cured you.
Another quake shook the room.
Sunset drew her living flame tendrils up in front of her, presenting them threateningly as she willed them to become searing hot.
“Stay back,” Sunset said, her voice wavering. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Good tah know,” AJ said as she and Pinkie lunged. “We cahn’t say the same!”
Sunset stepped backwards to avoid Applejack’s swing, thrusting one of her tendrils at the earth-weaver’s arm. The living flame raked across Applejack’s biceps, searing a deep gash through the skin and muscle. She was horrified when Applejack didn’t react and continued to press the attack.
With her attention on Applejack, Pinkie rushed in from the side. Sunset didn’t have time to react before Pinkie buried her knife in her right side.
Screaming in pain, Sunset turned her attention to Pinkie, wrapping her arm with a tendril and yanking it back. Pinkie let go of her blade as her arm was nearly cut off by the living flame. Yet, like Applejack, she didn’t seem to register the wound.
Sunset suddenly found it hard to breath as Applejack pressed forward, attempting to drive the point of her knife into Sunset’s neck. Before she could bring the blade down, the ground shook again, throwing off her swing, which instead struck Sunset’s shoulder.
Only for the blade to pass through her as though she wasn’t there.
Sunset was too stunned by the fact the blade had just passed through her to fight back as Applejack raised it again.
“No! Yah won’t get away!” Applejack screamed as she tried to bring the knife down.
Before the blade could strike, Applejack spontaneously evaporated into a cloud of yellow smog. As did Pinkie and Rainbow. Moments later, the entire room sublimated into the noxious yellow cloud.
*****
Sunset’s eyes flew open as she let out a blood-curdling scream of terror as her body convulsed violently.
Sunset! Philomena’s sending came.
Sunset threw their link open as wide as she could, allowing the entirety of Philomena’s presence to flow into her. It was like taking a drink of cool, fresh mountain-spring water after being trapped in the Bright Desert for days. Sunset greedily drank it in. All of Philomena’s worry. Her love. Her relief. Her joy. It was overwhelming.
But she didn’t care.
“Sunset!” A familiar voice called. One that was filled with terror and worry.
Warm, strong arms wrapped around her, holding her still as she continued to thrash around violently.
Sunset, stop! You’re awake! You’re safe now!
“Sunset, calm down. It’s me. Roseluck. You’re okay. I promise. You’re okay.”
Mena? Sunset sent as her mind started to process what was going on around her. The first thing that registered was the familiar smell of roses and the comfortable feeling of being held. Sunset instinctively wrapped her arms around the person hugging her, holding on as tightly as she could as she began to sob uncontrollably.
“It’s okay, Sunset. I’ve got you. I’m here. You’re okay now.”
“Roseluck?” Sunset asked nervously between sobs.
“Yes, Sunset. It’s me. I’m here. You’re safe. I promise.”
“Roseluck!” Sunset cried as she buried her face in Roseluck’s chest, holding onto the older woman so hard her arms hurt. Something not helped by the injuries that had followed her out of her poison induced trance.
Mena? Sunset sent, the sensory overload from her throwing open her bond to Philomena beginning to recede.
I’m right here, Sunset, Philomena sent as she lept up to Roseluck’s arm with a flap of her wings and snuggled herself against the side of Sunset’s head, a continuous stream of worried trills coming from her throat.
I’m right here.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
798 users online
969,206 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
No, it was worth the wait.
It was very much worth the wait. And some part of me hopes that Sunset and Steel get to have a conversation as I have a feeling he might know something about the fear of losing family.
Well at least she's out, Sunset might need a visit to Golden Tree soon for several reasons.
“A hole would be Something…no…it was Nothing.”
And here I am without my racing snail.
One hell of an emotional chapter, and the vibe was great for Halloween as the posting date. Kudos!
Sunset’s raw stubbornness definitely shone through in this nightmare—she might be traumatized, but shes not out, and she’ll come back stronger I’m sure. The bad guys may have just made themselves one hell of an enemy.
11736488
I agree I going to day the same thing besides adding great chapter love it to the beginning
PTSD X 100
It's going to take her time to recover from that poison induced "Night Terror." I think one major side effect is it will make her more paranoid to trust ANYONE after that. It's easy to hate one's enemies. But to hate family? Loved ones? They could not have wounded her deeper than what they did.
And of course, we will want to see how Raven is recovering from the price she paid for the truth of what poison.
It was an excellent chapter. It kept me on the edge the whole time.
I'm glad that's over these chapters were hard to stomach.
11736488
Thank you. I'm happy you enjoyed it.
11736514
Thank you.
Steel is one option. There is another one. One that Sunset's a little more positively inclined towards, who isn't an immortal.
11736798
The question becomes would she end up having flashbacks if she went. Her mind's in a pretty unstable place right now, so the others around her are going to have to manage this carefully.
11736835
"They look like big, good, strong hands, don't they?" TNS was a source of inspiration for the entity, as was Lovecraft and Junji Ito.
Of course, the question will be how this affects her growth as an immortal, and a leader. This could easily end up turning Sunset into mega-asshole Sunset, if Mena wasn't in her brain. I have a feeling Mena's going to be instramental in keeping Sunset from going to the darkside, so to speak.
11736973
Thank you.
11737122
Sunny's probably not going to be "okay" for a while. Nightcrawler really outdid himself with this one, yes? If the poison works, Sunset dies. If it doesn't, it leaves her scarred. Heads he wins, tails they lose. The one thing that may help Sunset get through this is Mena, since she's got an outside voice she can always trust.
Would it surprise you that Steel would very much like to get his linnorm hunting gear and pay Träklo a visit to remind him that he lives in sun-gazer territory, and therefore his presence is tolerated, and is therefore a privilege, not a right.
11737471
But at least I hope it was engaging.
Moar Please and im Glad this part is over. Now we get to see if Pinkie Aj and Rainbow will come
That was painful to get through, but certainly worth every bit.
11738014
True. Also, if you haven't played it yet, Alan Wake 2 just came out and it has a song titled 'Wide Awake' that I feel fits the ending to this chapter perfectly. I highly recommend listening to it if you get a chance.
Yeah, it's going to take a lot of time and care to get Sunset to anything resembling okay. And in the land of Body, ills of the mind may be tricky to resolve, to say the least. If nothing else, a trip to Golden Tree to assure Sunset that it's still there and doesn't hate her may be in order... assuming the familiar sight doesn't trigger horrific flashbacks.
Just because the poison has been dealt with doesn't mean the struggle is over. We'll see how they handle this going forward. (Where's the Memory Stone when you need it? Though something tells me Wallflower Blush would be one of Sombra's...)
11738014
you did nothing wrong I just a weak stomach when it come to bad thing happening to kids.
Well... That was positively horrifying... In a good way ?
And damn, Sunset still facing all... that with so much bravery and determination while still being a 12 (10?) years old? This will be a forging experience, let's hope it is in a possitive manner.
11738046
I'm working on the next one, don't you worry. How her oath-sisters play into her recovery is going to depend on how deep the wounds run.
11738287
I'll check it out.
11738419
There's going to be some downtime on Sunset's part before Raven et al let her go to Golden Tree. Best to make sure she's recovered enough to handle it before going to the place of her trauma, even if it was a twisted version of said place and not the real one.
There's a reason Steel and Raven make sure to put everything into "killing" Nightcrawler every time they get the opportunity. He's essentially the Chaos-born equivalent to an ascendant, with all the power that entails and the mind of a psychotic genius. This was one of his more subtle plans.
The problem is no matter how many times they kill him, he keeps coming back.
11738835
That's completely fair.
11738889
Would it surprise you that horror is the main genre I write?
Sunset's a bit more resilient because Nitor's not exactly a nice place at times. But, she's got willpower/stubbornness to spare, even for a 10-year old. It gets her into trouble sometimes, but that's Sunset. Stubborn, temperamental and driven.
She's going to need a lot of guidance to make what she just went through into a positive thing. Lets see if the adults in her life are up to it.
That is one screwed up curse. Sunset might need more meditation lessons, probably. Warding mind against manipulation?
11740475
Nightcrawler doesn't mess around. Its one of the reasons he's a very high priority target to kill whenever he's done regenerating. The problem is, the phoenix-born haven't figured out a way to permanently put him down.
OMG THIS CHAPTER WAS SO WORTH THE WAIT!!! I love this story so much and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next. The detail you put into everything makes it feel so real. I’m so excited to see what they did to cure her and what happens to her because of this. I’m also so excited for how she reacts to finally seeing her friends and oath sisters again and how this event will play into that. As always good luck on the next chapter. This is Phoenix Flame and I hope you have an amazing day ❤️
11742895
Thank you.
Ragarding the Ascension chapter, I have a rough idea, but what to the colors of the inner flames translate to?
11749899
from least to most pure red-orange-yellow-blue-white. Intensity denotes size.
11751939
Why does she hate Rose so much?
11751943
That gets expounded on in a later chapter, but the very short version is that Rose unintentionally got a lot of Spitfire's soldiers, including a few of her close friends, killed in a very wasteful way during the war against the Heralds of Lightning.
11751980
Well crap. If ever there was legitimate reason.
11757277
Which is an ideal leader. She is superior to mortals, any that wouldn't obey are foolish. I'd follow her to death if she were real.
11764755
Understandable. S'why I tend to try to avoid making OC's in general, if I can help it.
11768174
That's actually so freaking cool, you don't even know.
Got SH vibes from this chapter, which is a compliment.
I really hope Sunset appreciates what Raven did for her after this.
11806543
Would it surprise you that Ravenloft is my favorite D&D setting, H. P. Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood are two of my favorite authors, and Junji Ito is my favorite mangaka?