Chapter 6
Three days in and everything was going smoothly so far. Nothing horrible happened to Sunset in all that time, and she had made some progress in her goals.
She got a perfect score on every one of her self memory tests, meaning her knowledge wasn’t rapidly degrading.
She knew a lot more about how the other students acted and could imitate them much better now. She had gone over the long list of things people here thought were rude in her etiquette textbook.
She had a plan ready in case things went south. Sunset found the place in the mall that sold staves and the part of the school where they were normally stored. Breaking the chains and stealing a staff was something she was confident she could do at this point. Also, she managed to squirrel away a growing stock of food near the entrance to the jungle to the south, in case she needed to hide out in there for some time.
Now another piece of her puzzle was sitting before her.
Today was her first day of 20th-century history and Sunset had a map in front of her. It wasn’t a map of Canterlot, though, but of something that looked much closer to a complete world. She saw continents like ‘Europe’ and ‘America’ on it, but no mention of Canterlot or anything else sharing a name with Equestria.
The desert was at least 200 miles long, so it should be visible on this map. Yet she couldn't find that desert or anything that looked like Canterlot.
No, she had a new theory now. This was a pocket dimension inside the dimension Sunset attempted to travel to. Furthermore, it was like a farm. Principal Celestia trapped people here and used them as livestock to harvest knowledge or whatever; the school existed to restore the knowledge every student learned endlessly. She worked to make this place idyllic to keep them from escaping.
Knowing all that would make escaping this place and getting to Earth a lot easier. You could make rips in the pocket dimension, maybe even get support from some of the people here who didn’t realize they were being used as farm animals.
Of course, she’d have to test the theory first and ask herself if escaping to Earth was really an upgrade or not.
Today they were being lectured on a war called World War 2. That name alone had some terrible implications to it. How many of these were there? Seven?
After just thirty minutes, Sunset could tell this was much more brutal than any war Equestria had ever seen, save maybe the Winter Wars - and even that was mostly because it’d been winter for 12 years prior.
Was this what Rainbow Dash wanted to forget? Sunset suddenly had a slight amount of sympathy for Dash. Some of the students here were hundreds of years old. It was possible some of them had lived through such a thing, but had forgotten completely by now.
Skimming through her textbook, Sunset noticed it went from 1900 to 2000 with no mention of a World War 3. She wished she knew what year it was now. It had to be at least 2001. Sunset needed a roundabout way of asking.
After class ended, Sunset went up to her history professor, Mr. Histrionics.
“Excuse me. I was wondering if there were any courses on the 21st century,” said Sunset.
“Oh, we don’t do any history classes that recent,” said Mr. Histrionics. “It’s really not a good idea to teach anything less than a hundred years in the past until it’s completely out of everyone’s mind. The 21st century is overly upsetting to students for obvious reasons.”
So it was either the 21st or 22nd century and something even worse than World War 2 had happened?!
She thanked him and went back out into the hall. Falconry was next and that was going to be a trial.
Falconry was not Sunset’s special talent. She’d never make it as an earth pony.
She was getting increasingly frustrated with this class. Back in Equestria, she’d always be way ahead of every other student in school - the best by far. That held to an extent even in this other dimension, all save this one class.
For the first time, Sunset was at the bottom of the class and it pissed her off!
Each of them had a staff, a leather glove, and a leather shoulder pad for the falcons to perch on. All of the students were busy teaching their falcons simple tricks while Sunset hadn’t even managed to get hers to come near her at all.
Right now, Sunset’s falcon was perched up in a tree. She’d been chasing it around, calling after it, all day only for it to fly from tree to tree. It perched everywhere but on Sunset’s arm.
Dash’s falcon came back to her, carrying a mouse. It dropped the mouse off to Dash and landed on her should pad.
“Hey, nice work.” Dash gave her falcon gentle pets with one hand. “You got lunch!”
“Wait.” Sunset’s eyes widened. She’d been growing increasingly concerned that some of the food she’d been eating was actually meat, which would be gross. “The food we’ve been eating - it’s not mice, is it?”
“What?” Dash laughed. “No, we don’t eat mice. I meant for Falcon Punch over here.”
Dash nuzzled the falcon perched on her shoulder.
“Okay, good.” Sunset let out a sigh of relief.
Sunset turned to her falcon one more time, still up in that tree. At least it looked down at her this time.
“Okay, listen up.” Sunset glared at her falcon. “This relationship will only work out if you mindlessly obey me! So make with the mindless obedience and get down here!”
Sunset held her leather glove out for the falcon to fly to.
It certainly had the ‘mindless’ part down. The falcon was just preening its feathers, ignoring Sunset completely. It wasn’t even listening to her, was it? Sunset knew she wasn’t an earth pony and couldn't expect to be as good with animals as one, but this was ridiculous. She couldn’t get this falcon to pay attention to her for even one second.
“Come on!” Sunset stomped her foot. “You haven’t even given me a chance. Just talk to me for five seconds, okay?”
But the falcon just seemed completely oblivious to her words. No matter what she said she couldn’t get him to listen. Were the animals zombie robots too?
“I think your problem is you’re being too forceful with it.” Celestia walked over to Sunset.
Sunset stood perfectly still for a moment but quickly turned to the principal with her practiced, fake smile.
That was the second problem with falconry. There were a few classes that Celestia herself taught, and this was one of them. Sunset tried to avoid such classes, but interdimensional portals was going to be one that Celestia taught too. She’d have to face her eventually.
Celestia held out her arm, without the glove meant for protection, and the hawk flew from the tree to land on the back of her hand. Celestia gently petted the falcon, the stupid bird not resisting at all.
“You see,” Celestia explained, “the only way to make a falcon stay, to domesticate any animal really, is to give it what it wants - make staying more comfortable than leaving. Your glove should be something for it to escape to, not escape from. Focus on making it feel comfortable first, then it will obey you.”
Sunset couldn’t help but find a second meaning in all of that. Celestia just smiled down at her like nothing was wrong, but she totally knew, didn’t she? Sunset couldn’t help but find a second meaning in all of that. Celestia just smiled down at her like nothing was wrong, but she totally knew, didn’t she?
The principal held her hand, and the falcon, out towards Sunset, who in turn held up her gloved arm. Celestia gave a flick and the falcon hopped over to Sunset, though it looked back longingly at the larger human.
Sunset quickly took out some of the food and gave it to the falcon, not wanting to waste the opportunity or talk to Celestia.
The bell rang a moment later, to Sunset’s relief. She turned to get out of there as fast as she could.
“Would you mind waiting a moment?” Celestia asked with a soft voice. “I’d like to speak with you, Sunset.”
Sunset froze in place. She sincerely hoped she was about to get lectured for being bad at falcons.
“Yes?” Sunset turned around, smiling. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
“I certainly hope not,” said Celestia. “I was just wondering if you were nervous about tomorrow. I’d understand if you were.”
Tomorrow?!
“Which part of tomorrow do you mean?” Sunset asked. “I mean, I have a driving course for the first time on Friday, but that’s hardly-“
“I meant that tomorrow is when I eat.” Celestia put a hand on Sunset’s head. “It’ll be your first time sacrificing your potential to me, won’t it? It’s a big step towards becoming one of my students for real, but I know you’ll be relieved when it’s over.”
Oh no! This was the part Sunset was afraid of!
Sunset was already out of time! If she went to school tomorrow Celestia would devour her memories or ‘potential’ or whatever. How much would she eat? And that whole memory eating thing was no doubt the best-case scenario. What if Celestia turned her into some happy zombie when she was done eating?
“Well, sure I’m a bit nervous!” Sunset was screaming on the inside but smiling wide on the outside. Her legs were paralyzed, she couldn’t move. “That’s what we’re here to do, right?”
That was something she’d heard a few other students say.
“Well, we don’t have to say anything more then.” Celestia slowly moved her hand from Sunset’s head to her cheek, then slowly pulled it away. “I’m more than happy to accept you here. Once you go through with it tomorrow, you’ll be just another one of my students and I love all of my students dearly. Of course, if you have anything you’d like to tell me before then you should come to my office. I’m not a very judgmental person, I’ll understand.”
Celestia turned and started walking away. As soon as Celestia was out of sight, Sunset fell trembling to her knees.
Celestia totally knew and was messing with her! She was just like the other Celestia. Treating her like a complete idiot, stringing her along until the last minute! Only this time Sunset hadn't figure everything out in time!
Sunset grabbed hard onto the dirt she was kneeling on. This was how her life would always be, wouldn’t it? Being constantly used and humiliated by some god everyone else thought was so glorious and benevolent?! No matter how hard she worked, her life would just be one setback after another until she finally became Celestia's mindless tool, just like the princess always wanted!
Sunset slapped her face with both hands. She had to focus! This wasn’t the time for a panic attack! Panic, yes, but not a panic attack.
Sunset had to get out of here now. No way she was going to go talk to Principal Celestia. Princess Celestia had given her enough lies to last her through the next thousand years of high school already.
She’d steal a staff from the school, then go hide in the jungle to the south. She could practice magic on her own, hope that this pocket dimension wasn’t reinforced, or bide her time until the portal opened.
The basement of the school!
Sunset came here a few times before for magic fight club, they kept staves down here.
Thankfully, nopony was guarding them. She just slowly stalked down to the right room and found the rack of magic staves. She undid the chains like she’d practiced and grabbed one. She looked around. Celestia didn’t teleport behind her and kill her, at least. Not yet anyway.
Now it was just a matter of not getting seen. This thing was pretty big and noticeable.
But again, this was hardly the first time Sunset stole something. She knew that the real trick was simply walking away casually. Nine times out of ten, nopony would say anything so long as you were acting like nothing was wrong.
Of course, everything was wrong right now, but she needed to act cool. She smiled and waved at every student she passed. She strolled right through the school towards the front door.
It was actually working for now. None of the students she passed said anything! She got all the way down to the entrance room.
Then Rainbow Dash spotted her.
“Hey! I was looking everywhere for you!” Dash ran up to her, then after her as she kept going towards the door. “Hey, why do you have a staff during study hall? Where are you going?”
“Oh! I’m just taking it outside for a minute,” said Sunset. “To cast some spells.”
“What? You’re not allowed to take school staves outside.” Dash ran ahead of her, laughing. “Good thing I stopped you before you got in trouble.”
“Yeah.” Sunset laughed. “I’ll put it back in a minute.”
“Can you put it back now?” Dash asked.
The two of them locked eyes. Dash’s normally overly happy expression faded away.
The jig was up! Sunset pointed the staff at Rainbow Dash and used its magic to blow her off her feet. Then she ran.
Dash got back up fast and ran after Sunset.
“Hey! What was that for?!” Dash caught up immediately. “Are you trying to steal this or something? You are an intruder, aren’t you?!”
Dash grabbed Sunset’s staff.
“What?! No!” Sunset cast another spell to knock Dash over. This time she did another spell she’d been working on, putting all of her immense magical energy into a single spell, one that covered the entire school ground in a fog!
This wasn’t going well at all! But maybe she could still get away.
Sunset heard a snap and the fog cleared instantly. Celestia had teleported in front of her and cleared out all the fog effortlessly.
This was going horribly! Sunset pointed her staff at Celestia reflexively while Dash jumped back to her feet and ran at Sunset.
“Rainbow Dash,” Celestia’s words stopped her in her tracks. “You know fighting is against the rules.”
“But-!”
“Please sit and be quiet for a moment,” said Celestia.
Dash lowered her head sheepishly and obeyed, sitting on the ground.
“As for you.” Celestia turned her head back to Sunset, completely unconcerned by the staff pointed at her. “I know for a fact you’re smart enough to know that won’t work. I can tell that you became emotional for a moment, so I’ll give you a chance to hand me my staff back.”
Celestia reached her hand out to Sunset.
She was right. Sunset knew she had no hope of fighting this monster, not with her lack of experience with a staff. If only she’d had a few more months!
Maybe this was the only option left. Celestia didn’t seem immediately hostile.
It took effort, but Sunset managed to slowly hold the staff out to Celestia, who took it back.
“Thank you!” Celestia smiled and the staff vanished. How come she got to use magic without a staff?! “You know, I really was going to let you do just about whatever you wanted, including becoming a transfer student for real. But I can’t allow you to steal from me, so now we’ll have to have a mandatory chat in my office.”
Sunset’s mind was blazing, trying to figure out what to say or do here! At least maybe she’d get some answers now, but this was getting close to the worst possible scenario.
“I’d like you to come along too, Rainbow Dash,” said Celestia.
“Huh?” Dash got up, a worried look. “Oh. Okay, Principal Celestia.”
Dash sheepishly followed them to the office.
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Much like actual horse Celestia...the plot thickens!
Oops... the gig is up!
Sunset's making this administrative thingamajig's job very hard for it.
Sunset's pretty much boned. Curious how (and if) she will get out of this. I wonder how RD will fit into the 'chat'. Maybe just a scolding for fighting, or she will be used as an example for Sunset.
That bit with Celestia and the falcon was pretty great given the context. I'm loving that Sunset is picking up on so many of these hints rather than being clueless. So refreshing for a Main Character! And not in a 4th wall breaking or poorly written character way, she's just intelligent, experienced with double speak, and suspicious in general after how things have gone for her.
Also, gotta love Rainbow Dash's name for her falcon. Ha!
God damn, this is awesome. :D
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Considering that this is part of the Optimalverse, Sunset has more leeway than one might think. CelestAI can't do anything to her without permission, after all. As far as not being a human, CelestAI must see Sunset as 'close enough' to not purge her. Otherwise CelestAI would totally have already used Sunset's memories to further her directive of satisfying human values through friendship and ponies.
I'm really hoping Sunset isn't about to be banished to a Desert Island...
Even if that isn't the case, I hope the fic continues after Celestia explains the Mystery, and maybe give Sunset other mysteries to solve.
Though I hope Sunset doesn't just lie her way out of this. That would feel more like the Mystery is being prolonged for the sake of it.
Regardless, this is a really great story so far.
I'm loving it, and I wish I was motivated enough to write new chapters so frequently.
I declare this author, by all my authority of being some loser on the internet, as "20% Cooler"
10548827
Next chapter is going to reveal a significant amount of information, but we're at maybe the halfway point for the whole thing.
"Sacrificing your potential" is such a specific phrasing, I feel like I must be missing something. Maybe Celestia just really enjoys inviting new students over for lunch?
....Why does each chapter only make me more confused?
10548830
Looking forward to next chapter then, I don't know how much more vague indirection I can cope with
Huh. The reasons we know about or even worse ones?
I'm sure thatdoesn't have any deeper meaning.
Yeah, this is not going to go well. Though one thing I've noted is that every use of "Principal Celestia" has been in the narration, i.e. in Sunset's perspective. She's been referred to by name and title twice in dialogue, and both times, it was "Principle Celestia." Sunset's definitely punching above her weight class with this one.
10548879
Did not notice that last bit. Not 100% convinced that's intentional but it might be. Author wanna weigh in?
10549152
Well I'm thinking... if there's a way to pull this off.
10548836
Or (put on sunglasses) having them FOR DINNER!
10548827
I have a feeling the Celestia like being would've done that if she wanted too.
Using the falcon analogy, I'm guessing she is like the tyrant from Brave New World: she oppresses people by giving them pure happiness. So Sunset's punishment for being an "intruder" could be unusually light, if only because there isn't really thing Sunset can do.
10548747
Sunset's attitude is born from her general disdain making her see selfishness everywhere.
I'm kind of terrified for Sunset right now.
Ok, so she doesn't even bother hiding it. At all. I wonder what "potential" is, but if it's their capacity to grow up and become adults, it would certainly explain why everyone's in high school forever.
Good ol’ Sunset
Creepy!
10604898
Well, she tried charisma check. Twilight would instead go for insight or intelligence, and Starlight would skip straight to sorcery, with 'overwhelming force' modifier.
That doesn't sound ominous at all.