Legends Never Die: A New Age

by bookhorse125

Clues

After a wonderful few movies in a Zephyr Heights theater and a ride home on the train in the sunset, Sunny retreated to her room after supper and lay down on her bed, thinking.

Your magical crystals are missing that you and your friends are connected to. No, not just missing - stolen. You have an idea of by whom, but you don’t know for sure, you don’t know how, and you don’t have any clues as to where they are. Maybe Phyllis was lying - maybe they’re still there.

There’s only one way to find out.

Sunny waited until the moon had risen and the stars were out, the lights of the city below leaking in her window. As quietly as she could, she slipped out of bed and put on her bag before tip-toeing out into the hallway. By now, she knew the guards’ schedule and managed to avoid them all as she made her way to the abandoned station, where she knew an entrance to the Hall of Princesses awaited her.

Something nagged in the back of her brain - maybe she should…

Should what? She had this under control, right? Nothing could go wrong. She was just going to go to her lighthouse - her lighthouse - in Maretime Bay to look for clues. Nothing wrong with that.

The station was lit with moonlight, the silvery glow criss-crossing with shadows across the floor. Under normal circumstances, Sunny would have found a sort of strange beauty in it, even though it would make a shiver run down her spine. But instead, she was focused on other things that she considered more important than simple moonlight and shadows.

If only there was a faster way to the floor of the airstation than the lift, but Sunny couldn’t think of any other than falling, and that would most certainly not end well. She leaped out of the basket and landed gently on the floor. There weren’t many places that the entrance could be, right? The one in the Crystal Empire had been on a bookshelf. There was one bookshelf in here, so that was where Sunny went. She pushed some books aside and found nothing but the wooden back of the bookcase. Of course she hadn’t expected to find it on the first try, but still she felt a bite of frustration. She pushed some more books aside to reveal nothing.

Growing more and more angry with each book she moved, Sunny eventually took off every book to reveal a completely ordinary wooden bookcase. No special horseshoe. No door to a netherworld. Nothing.

Sunny plopped on the floor, defeated and sad now. She reached over and picked up a book at random and began shoving them back on the shelf, thinking, This would be so much easier with magic.

My friends all have magic. They don’t share any with me. They could probably find a way, but they don’t. If they really cared about me, they would share their magic with me. But they don’t. They don’t care about me! And why should they? I’m just an earth pony without her father who never changed the world like he wanted. He probably died ashamed of me. They’re all secretly ashamed of me. They think I’m weak and pathetic and overly optimistic. They-

Something shone right in her eyes, making her stumble back, blinking hard to regain her vision. When she did, Sunny looked up angrily, wanting to see what it was that was blinding her… and forgot everything else.

The moon had risen to be right behind a part of the stained glass window, a pink six-pointed star, causing it to shine a magenta light right where Sunny had been standing. She stared at the beautiful sight, feeling a kind of connection to it that cleared her head and washed away her anger.

“You do have friends,” she whispered to herself. “And they do care about you.”

Taking a deep breath, Sunny reached deep down inside her - much deeper than she remembered - to activate her wings and horn, levitating all the books off the floor and returning them to their rightful places on the shelf. Then she looked around the room as her alicorn self faded - she could never hold the form for very long now.

If she was an entrance to a magical netherworld, where would she be?

Hidden in plain sight. She would be hidden in plain sight. And in a different place each time…

Sunny spun in a slow circle and took in every bit of the station. Something caught her eye - it was the picture of the flying team that Zipp liked - she believed they were called the Wonderbolts. The poster was beaten up a bit and tilted to the side, allowing a tiny bit of shiny copper to catch the light.

Knowing what she was going to see, Sunny pushed the picture aside to reveal a bronze horseshoe mounted on the wall, with seven pictures carved around it: the same sun, moon, heart, and star as last time, but now - Sunny’s heart skipped a beat as she saw her own cutie mark alongside Zipp and Flurry’s surrounding the small artifact.

Sunny twisted the horseshoe and opened the portal to the Hall, taking one look behind her before she left. Maybe it was just paranoia, but there seemed to be something final about the opening closing behind her.

The transportation once again disoriented her, but once she regained her balance, she found herself in her lighthouse.

“Oh…” Sunny whispered. She took a step forward and stopped, her eyes adjusting to the dark interior, a scene of horror revealing itself in front of her. Phyllis had mentioned that the Elements of Harmony were stolen - but she didn’t mention the shattered glass case on the floor, the slightly scorched wall behind where the gems used to be kept, probably from deactivating the enchantments that Sunny had set there. She didn’t mention that the pictures of Sunny and her father and Sunny and her friends had been knocked off the wall, the glass cracked. And surely there would be more destruction to come.

Sunny carefully took the pictures out of the broken frames and slipped them into her bag. She took a deep breath and trotted over to the lift, which she rode to the top of the lighthouse, where the unity crystals were. Once again, Sunny’s lamp that her father had made for her had been knocked to the side, wondrously intact, and the huge stand that held the massive lightbulb for the lighthouse was scorched and tipped on its side.

She set to work searching for clues. A hoof print there… so it must have been a pony. Or at least, there was a pony with them.

Or somepony disguised as a pony.

Sunny had overseen Izzy putting the protective spells around all the gems, and she knew exactly how they worked. Only Sunny or her friends could go within two meters of the crystals without an alarm going off that would both alert Sunny and fend off the attacker as best as it could. Only a unicorn could have undone those enchantments - a unicorn who was very skilled at magic.

The only ponies I know of who are good - really good at magic are Flurry and Izzy, but they would never-

Would they?

What if they thought that you aren’t good enough? Flurry Heart is a real alicorn - of course they would want her to lead them instead of you. Why would they need a pathetic earth pony such as yourself? They probably wish they’d never met you, were never friends with you. Not me, Sunny Starscout. I will be your friend forever and ever and ever. Just come meet me. Let me guide you there and come see who I am so that we can show those ponies that we don’t need them. We can conquer Equestria on our own, can’t we?

Sunny gasped and felt her legs grow weak. She broke out in cold sweat as she felt something worming its way up to her brain and into her heart, intent on taking over. Already she felt like she was losing control over her thoughts, over her actions, over herself.

You don’t need your friends, Sunny Starscout. Come to me, surrender to me, and everything will be alright.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, I won’t do it!” Her legs gave out from under her, and she collapsed to the floor. With an agonizing scream, Sunny writhed on the floor as she felt something dark and evil and horrible taking over her, wrapping its dark tendrils around her mind and taking control. “No!”

Think of your friends, she told herself in a comforting voice. “My friends…” Sunny croaked, somehow finding the strength to stand up. “I… I have to get back to them.”

No, my little pony, the voice crooned, no… you do not need them… come with me…

“No,” Sunny whispered, stumbling onto the lift and descending through the tall lighthouse. She made it to the first floor and managed her way to the horseshoe on the floor underneath the rug. She twisted it and rushed into the Hall of Princesses, feeling the voice leave her mind. Whatever, whoever it was, they couldn’t follow her here. And that small comfort gave Sunny the strength she needed to make it back to Zephyr Heights.

---

“She’s going to break.”

“How do you know?” the exile asked mildly, tracing a star in the dirt.

The filly shot her a glare. “I was inside her head, duh,” she snapped. “I almost got her this time. Next time, I swear…”

“This time wouldn’t have worked anyway,” the exiled queen retorted. “We want them to see her walk away, want her to break right in front of their eyes. Only they won’t know that. They will never know that. They will think that she has betrayed them, and even if some of them won’t give up, the majority of them will. We’ll have taken away their leader, and without her, they’ll fall apart.”

“I still don’t see why I don’t get to go with them,” the filly whined, and the exile rolled her eyes, thinking, This again? “Those ponies may hate Sunny Starscout and her friends, but they’re still ponies. They’ll probably decide that what we’re doing is too evil and they’ll ditch us first chance they get.” She flopped across a large rock. “Besides, I’m bored.” Not moving anything other than her arm, the filly grabbed their one and only book and opened it up to a random page, her eyes scanning the paper in disinterest.

“Every time we try to take over Equestria, Twilight Sparkle and her friends find some sort of way around our plans and defeat us,” the exile snarled, whirling around to face the filly, who, in turn, looked no more interested in her than the book. “We don’t know if this new generation has the same problem, but I am done taking chances. We’re going to take over Equestria in the slowest way possible if it means that we win in the end.”

“The only ‘villains’, if you can even call them that, that they ever defeated were a pony with a giant robot and those guys with a fancy rock,” the filly snorted, turning the page.

“Be as it may,” the exile said through clenched teeth, “this is the only possible option we have left. Our plan is proceeding as well as we have hoped - all that is left is for us to knock Sunny Starscout out of the game and set up a little game to keep her friends-” she spat out the word like it tasted like rotten fish “-busy while we sit back and wait for them to destroy themselves.”

“Really wish we could divide all the ponies again,” she huffed, putting the book down and glaring at the trees, “but they’ve made sure that’ll never happen again. For a while, at least.” She shrugged, a new thought occuring to her. “I guess one good thing about being turned to stone and then released years later is that you can reuse all your old tricks.”

“Yes, I suppose,” the exile mused. “But this will be it. Nothing that Twilight Sparkle and her friends did to us will stop us now.” She turned to the drawing of a star she had done in the dirt beside her and stomped on it with her hoof. “Equestria will finally fall.”

Author's Note:

Is staying up late and breaking several rules worth it to get you guys awesome stories with amazing title images?

Yes. Yes it is.

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

What if they thought that you aren’t good enough? Flurry Heart is a real alicorn - of course they would want her to lead them instead of you. Why would they need a pathetic earth pony such as yourself? They probably wish they’d never met you, were never friends with you. Not me, Sunny Starscout. I will be your friend forever and ever and ever. Just come meet me. Let me guide you there and come see who I am so that we can show those ponies that we don’t need them. We can conquer Equestria on our own, can’t we?

Shut up cozy glow you don't know nothing

[Yoshifan30]

Oh no this is not good Sunny starting to question about this whole situation so she went to the lighthouse to check anything if this was a lie or anyting that will lead to the crystals but so far nothing yet except for the broken pictures of her father and her friends but apparently cozy glow is not done she's playing all that negative thoughts inside of her and right now Sunny is starting to lose her mind she's trying to pass not to listen to those voices but unfortunately it's getting stronger she really needs to tell her friends or else it's going to be too late and cozy glow and Queen Chrysalis knows it as well as much as I really don't like the villains to win their tactic is actually not bad take down the leader and since nobody doesn't know any of these creatures they will take advantage of this new world they better hurry up because right now Sunny is losing it I guess we'll find out next time