Sunset in the gods

by red-sun

Act II – Fallen Gods – Chapter 6

THOUSAND YEARS AGO

A kind of portal opened in the middle of an abandoned town, three teenagers fell from the portal.

“Damn Starswirl! How dare you banish us!” Shouts one of the lilac-haired teenagers.

"Aria".

"I swear if I see you again I'm going to kill you as slowly as possible!"

"Aria!".

"It's not like we killed any ponies outright, most of them were already fighting when we got there!"

"Aria!!"

"What do you want Sonata!?"

"Look at our bodies!!" Says the teenager with arctic blue hair.

Then Aria notices the shape of her new body. "What happened to us!? We look like shaved minotaurs!”

Then while Aria was looking at her new body Sonata of hers she just realized something. "Where's Adagio!?"

“That idiot! Where did she get to!?"

After looking for her missing sister for a while, they find her near a burned-out house.

"Hey Adagio, what are you doing here?" Aria asks the teenager with wavy orange hair.

"I don't feel hungry." Adagio answers, disconcerting Aria by the answer. "Since we arrived at this place to which they threw us, I stopped being hungry." Agagio inhale profusely. "We may not have seen any signs of life since we came but wherever we are right now is full of negative energy."

A shocked Aria realizes the same thing. "So where did all the energy come from?"

"I don't know, but I think we're going to love this place." She says her as she smiles.

---

PRESENT

Sunset was afraid at first, afraid of the being that was in front of her, but the fear changed to confusion when she heard a whisper.

"You smell like a unicorn, you smell like a pony."

Sunset couldn't understand how she could know that she was a unicorn, the only ones who knew her secret were Discord, Velvet, Pinkie Pie and maybe Maud. But the being that was in front of her simply knew.

"Aria stop it for once!" One of the demons screamed as he removed his hood. "We are guests here, we are not supposed to make a scandal." The demon pulls Aria away from Sunset. "I apologize for my colleague's attitude, she's just too..." while the demon thought about what to say Sunset studied the appearance of the demon, he has dark grayish skin and short hair and different shades of white, he also seemed to be close to adulthood but like the gods his age could vary with his appearance. "... Moody". He said simply. "Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Double Diamond and I am one of the four lieutenants of Starlight Glimmer, and my grumpy partner is Aria Blaze the leader of the Squalo Clan."

"Don't go around giving out our names without knowing who they are!" Aria said.

"Hello my name is Pinkie Pie!" The human introduces herself.

Aria looks at Pikie Pie's big smile. "You remind me of my sister."

"Thanks!"

"It wasn't a compliment!" Aria said screaming.

"No one yells at my sister without my permission!" Limestone yells at Aria.

"I don't need anyone's permission to scream, if I want to scream I scream and that's it!" She screams defiantly.

So Discord decides to intervene. "Hey, we don't have to kill each other when we just met."

"It's true! Why don't we have a homecoming party and after we get to know each other better we can try to kill each other?!” Then everyone will stare at Pinkie Pie for her strange suggestion.

Ignoring Pinkie Pie, Discord continued to speak. “I prepared a tent so they can rest from their trip, then we will start the meeting. Fluttershy, could you please take our guests to the tent I mentioned." Then notice how nervous the goddess is. "Don't worry they don't bite... maybe they do Aria." Look at the demon. "You don't bite, do you?" Discord asks Aria.

"Only when I'm hungry or craving and I haven't been hungry for hundreds of years, but we do talk about cravings." Then Aria smiles as she shows off the sharp fangs of hers.

---

After resting for a while, Sunset wanted to talk to the demon named Aria, she didn't know why but Aria knew that Sunset was a unicorn.

When Sunset was heading to the demon tent she ran into Discord who was also going to the same place.

"Hey girl, it's good that I see you, I wanted to talk to you later but since you're here."

"I also need to talk to you Discord and I also want to talk to Aria."

“Don't worry, she requested a meeting with you too. But why do you want to talk to Aria?"

"She knows where I come from and she also knows what I am from another species." Sunset notices that Discord is thoughtful. "Is that expression that you are surprised or you are not surprised?"

"I wouldn't know what to say, among all the demons that I have known, Aria is one of the oldest after Ahuizotl, to be precise, the oldest known record of Aria was during the first demonic incursion a thousand years ago. The first time I saw her you could tell how much she enjoyed battles and conquests, but something changed in her, when the Stygian rebellion started she and her clan were the most savage in battles, during the rebellion I only saw her once and there was a mixture of anger and despair. The last I heard from her is that she had an argument with Stygian and then Aria returned to Tartarus along with her entire clan".

"Why did she withdraw from the war?" Sunset asks.

"Because Stygian broke his end of the deal." Aria said walking calmly. "You were taking time pony"

"I was just looking for you." Sunset replied. "I would like to know how do you know that I am a pony?"

"I gather that saying that in front of Discord means that he knows about you too."

"We can talk freely, I trust Discord." Sunset answers.

“Then I'll ask you something. Are the three tribes still united? Did the Starswirl experiment work? Or did it all fall apart in the end?

Sunset initially thought Aria's questions were weird so she decided to ask as well. “How long have you been in this world?”

Sunset noticed that Aria was getting angry that Sunset didn't answer the question but she tried to calm down. "Adagio has more patience for this." Aria muttered. "Me and my sisters have been in this world for more than a thousand years."

"Sisters? You mean you didn't come alone?"

"Just answer the questions!"

"At that time the princesses Celestia and Luna had just ascended to the throne and still kept the three tribes together, although Celestia currently rules alone." Sunset notes that Aria was surprised.

“Currently? That would not be possible unless…”. Aria starts laughing. "So Starswirl if he was able to find alicorns? I guess that's why she was able to unite the three tribes and her project to create a nation made up of the three tribes worked". After Aria finishes laughing she asks Sunset another question. “What was your crime? Why did they throw you here?"

"I came into this world on my own." The red-haired girl replied.

"It's a joke right? Of all the beings I have met, none of them came here because they wanted to”.

"It's true, although to be more precise I was escaping from someone, that I came to this world was just an accident... what do you mean with other beings?"

"I can see your ignorance so I'll tell you. Starswirl used this world to throw down to the equestria scum beings powerful enough that he couldn't defeat them because for some reason there isn't much magic here."

"I know, it took me a long time to accumulate energy to be able to unlock my own magic." Sunset says.

“So you also have a method to access your magic? It doesn't matter, you can answer me later. So why are you here? Discord said that you would be important to a plan that he and the demons have come up with."

Sunset tells her everything she's been through since she came to the human world until now, then she asks. “I realized that at no time did you ask me if I know a method to return to our world. Because?"

Aria looks directly into Sunset's eyes. "I'm going to explain something to you, me and my sisters are mermaids, we call ourselves The Dazzlings and we feed on negative emotions, our world did not lack that, but one day the three breeds of ponies decided to unite in harmony and little by little the negative emotions began to diminish and before we knew it we began to feel hungry. At first our race thought that it would be temporary that the ponies would fight each other again at any moment, sometimes they had wars with other races but they didn't last as long as before, so we waited, but the negative emotions kept decreasing and the mermaids began to die of starvation. Even me and my sisters cause conflicts to keep feeding ourselves. But since we came into this world we haven't been hungry for a single day, even in times of peace there are negative emotions to feed oneself. That's why I didn't ask you about adding to our world, it's because we love this world and we're not going to leave”. Aria said with a predatory smile.

"I don't know whether to feel offended or flattered." Discord replied.

“And what about you little pony? Suppose everything goes well, you save the humans and manage to get your own kingdom. what happens next?" Aria asked.

"I will take the power that I have accumulated, the army that I have built and march to Equestria."

---

After Aria went ahead of the meeting with the other demons Sunset spoke. "Discord, do you still trust me?"

"Yes girl, I still trust you." Discord answers as she walks towards the meeting.

"Despite what I just said?" Sunset asks while accompanying Discord.

“Listen girl, you made a deal with the other you, you would help save her kingdom and in exchange you would get the means to achieve your ambition. I also decided to trust you and I will always trust you regardless of the decisions you make, I just hope you do not regret the path you have chosen". Discord replied. "Do you remember the dream you had after escaping from the mines?" Asks the god trying to change the subject.

Sunset couldn't forget that dream because she felt it as a calling. “Yes, I have the same dream two or three times a month. When I told you about this dream, you seemed to know what it was about."

"Yes, I know very well what those dreams are about." When they arrive at the meeting tent, Discord sits on a rock and sighs. "Your dream is a call, it is the call of the spirit of an ancient demon beast called Nightmare."

"Why would an ancient demon beast call me?"

"I can think of various reasons, but what worries me is the fact that the beast has enough power to call you, I saw when All Master killed the former bearer." Discord said sadly. "And I also saw how All Master destroyed the ancient vessel of the beast, I know that the nightmare soul can survive almost anything but with the damage it received it should have taken hundreds of years to recover."

"Could Nightmare give me more power?"

"Yes, but I don't know what I will ask you for in return."

"Why do you tell me that now?"

“Because another demon wants to see you and Nightmare is the reason why he wants to talk to you. Although I don't know what exactly he is going to want, I had a lot of time to learn their culture well but there are still many mysteries, I even went to the tataro a couple of times and barely made it out alive”. Discord responds.

"I guess I'll have to figure it out." Says the former unicorn. “You know, when Twilight and I helped Dusty Pages organize the books and scrolls we would read them so we could study and learn whatever we found and I found out how bad the gods and demons got along. Why do you want his help?" Sunstett asked.

"Originally I didn't plan to let the demons get involved but they are going to intervene with or without my help."

"Is it because of one of the possible futures that you saw?"

"Yeah. the demons were ready for another demonic raid after the war of Equestria and the Crystal kingdom ended. That would have ruined all the plans I had, so I went straight to Tartarus to speak with the current supreme demon queen Starlight Glimmer."

“Supreme Queen? From what I read in the books, a demon only has the right to call themselves King or Queen Supreme if they manage to subdue at least one third of the demon clans.”

"Right, when I went to see her, she had already managed to subdue more than half of the demon clans, but she had decided that she would take advantage of the chaos of the war to make her own move."

"How did you convince her otherwise?" Sunset asked out of curiosity.

Do you remember that I mentioned Ahuizotl? Discord watched as Sunset nodded. “He is an ancient demon and when I say ancient I mean thousands of years and he is also a fortune teller, to be precise he is the ultimate fortune teller demon. Many clan chiefs make pilgrimages to ask him for advice, I went to ask him for help convincing Starlight Glimmer. He said that he could convince her but she was going to ask for something from her and now that her representatives have arrived, I should listen to what she wants."

“Are you worried about what they are going to order?” Sunset asked.

"I know what they are going to ask for but the decision to accept or not is not up to me." When they both arrive at a tent where the demons were gathered, Discord asks. “Do you want to participate in the meeting?”

"Don't worry, I'll wait outside. There are things I should think about." With that response, Sunset sits on a rock as she watches Discord walk into the meeting.