Sprout slowly made his way down the stairs into the basement of the house he and Misty Brightdawn were continuing to explore. According to Sunset, it was the residence of one Flash Sentry and his descendants; nearly all of whom had been royal guards for the Crystal Empire. Apparently she had known a 'mirror' version of this Flash Sentry in the dimension she had come from.
Even after Sunset had showed him pictures from the other world and her bipedal friends, he still couldn't quite wrap his mind around other forms of ponies he knew, or even himself. Was there another Sprout Cloverleaf out there in the multiverse somewhere?
Who could say, really? He knew Sunset had come back to Equestria because she had encountered, well, herself, and the both of them in one place for long wouldn't be good for the stability of the whole fabric-of-existence stuff, so it was probably best that the dimension-hopping was over, at least for now.
He finished coming down the steps onto a tiled crystal floor, and to his surprise, it wasn't as cold as he was expecting. He was able to remove his hood and mask, leaving his radio in his ear as he made his way over to the storage shelves.
"Alright, I'm down in the basement, Misty. Everything going good up there?" He asked through his headset.
"So far, a pretty normal looking bedroom," Misty replied. "Keeping an eye out for things that look good in a museum, and Headmare Sunset wants spellbooks."
"Even if it doesn't look good right now," Sprout began. "The restorers in Zephyr Heights do amazing work, so just remember that. Even if it might look like junk right now, keep it in mind."
Sprout knew that the vast majority of the space in their new trailer would be for books from the immense library across the street, but once that was cleared out, they were going to have much more freedom to look around these houses for things to keep and restore.
He had to admit, once there was no more room in the museums across Equestria, he wouldn't mind a set of antique pony armor on display in the corner of his bedroom.
Sunset was slowly making her way down the shelves of the Crystal Castle library. While it was considerably smaller than the main library out on the main road, it was still sizeable. While Sunny wanted to keep an eye out for history books, Sunset was still adamant on tracking down spellbooks, and keeping the more dangerous ones out of reach for now. Luckily, of the two dozen spellbooks she had found on the shelves so far, they had all been Class III and below, which meant that the librarians of the Empire had been wisely keeping them out of public spaces. Or at least, that was her hope.
She heard the library doors open and shut, before galloping hooves came down the main concourse.
"Sunset!" She heard Sunny say as the galloping got closer. The unicorn stopped where she was in her current aisle, turned, and went out to the table in the center where she had been stacking spellbooks, where the earth pony could easily see her.
"Hey there, Sunny. What's up, find something?" Sunset asked.
The earth mare nodded.
"You could say that," she said, opening the left flap of her saddlebags and pulling out a book.
"It's the personal journal of Princess Flurry Heart," Sunny said, opening the bound book to where a bookmark had been placed, which looked brand new.
"Reading journals now, are we?" Sunset asked, not sure how she felt about invading the privacy of princesses, even those who were long gone.
"I figured this entry would be of interest, because she mentions you," Sunny answered.
Yep, that would be enough to get the unicorn's attention as Sunny offered the open journal to her, and she turned it and read the hoofwriting silently:
For years, Twilight didn't stop fretting over what could have possibly happened to Sunset Shimmer, and once again, I should be incredibly careful on what I wish for. It's been quite a few years since Luster Dawn left her tutelage, and a while ago Twilight told me about another talented unicorn she's encountered trying out for the school. According to her, she is the most gifted pyromancer she has ever encountered.
Twilight told me there is no such thing as bad students, just bad teachers, but I have an incredibly hard time accepting that. I remember the stories I was told about Sunset Shimmer, and luckily for us, her problems became apparent before being offered an alicorn form. Princess Twilight told me that she had turned over a new leaf in her new home, but she vanished with absolutely no trace once she was supposed to come back to Equestria. It worried Twilight sick for years, it took all of her friends to keep her focused enough to run the country. It took her so long to begin to consider selecting another gifted pony from the school as a protege. When Luster Dawn accepted the position, I figured that Twilight was finally beginning to move on. But then Luster did something quite unexpected; she turned down the offer of an alicorn form. Twilight of course respected her decision, and so the student and teacher went their separate ways.
Then a short time later, came the pyromancer, Opaline Arcana. She was everything Twilight could have wanted when it came to a protege; raw ability, ambitious, and driven to succeed. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Luster turned her offer down that Twilight seemed to put Opaline on the fast track to Alicornhood. The problem is, once that happened... Things changed. Opaline changed, and revealed a side of herself she had kept hidden quite convincingly.
Aunt Twilight is wrong. There are bad students. Sometimes those students find redemption like Sunset had. But there are good students that go bad at the drop of a bit. There are bad students that become so skilled at creating a facade of innocence that they even fool princesses. Perhaps Opaline is all of these and more.
If she gets her way, I fear for Equestria's future. I hope Twilight knows what she's doing.
Yoooooo!!! Now that’s lore for both alternate stories. I totally want to see a Sunset vs Opaline and Flurry Heart vs Opaline battles. That would be so epic it feels like a Star Wars/Lion King betrayal what Opaline must had done… I know your lore said that Twilight was last seen facing the Wendigo’s which I wonder now… if Opaline took that chance to finally end the Friendship Princess
Poor Sprout over thinking stuff
Uh-oh.
Oh dear that must be Opaline before she was an alicorn
Is that last name for Misty canon or made up, just asking is all.
If he can get permission.
Excellent find!!!
https://m.Welp, Misty better be careful now that they know who Opaline is!
And it's sadly where the story lead up to how G5 started. But it's thx to Sunny and her friends for making things right!
Oh yikes I wonder what made her go psycho
Okay so it looks like sprouts and Misty are still looking around the houses to find anything significant to be brought back while Sunset and sunny are in the castle but Sunny found a journal contain flurry heart and apparently she wrote down what was happening in the past about Luster Dawn and even Opaline and unfortunately Opaline apparently lost her mind and it's a sad how it all end up here I wonder what else could happen guess we'll find out next time
Hey there. Again, really good job on the dialogue, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Appreciated Sprout's thinking about things like the human counterparts to him and everybody else that he knows while he and Misty were looking over Flash's quarters as well as Sprout's reminder to Misty concerning magic books, even if they looked like they were in terrible shape. Also liked Sunset's relief that, thus far, all the spell books found in the Crystal Empire Library have been Three or lower as well as Sunny finding Flurry Heart's journal entry concerning Opaline. And, yeah, sounds like Twi fast-tracked the wrong student.
REALLY looking forward to more of this. Especially with the hope that Misty gets caught and reasoned with before any further real harm is done.
One incoming demon sunset on the way
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OK thanks for reminding me of that one thing, now to bug him to add Twilight in both of the stories
That can't be good.
CAPABLE Cozy Glow 2.0
I disagree with this story idea. Twilight was not offered an Alicorn form, she had to earn it by ascending. Twilight ascended by discovering the magic of friendship through completing Starswirls’ spell. A one time occurrence. Celestia did not have the power to ascend a pony only to guide them down a path where the possibility was available.
I think it’s ridiculous that Twilight would have the powers to ascend a pony into an Alicorn willynilly
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I'm guessing Opaline did something similar.
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Also Celestia had multiple students across her entire regime. While it was partially to find the one whom would rediscover the elements of harmony and purify her sister. It was mainly to make them the best they could be.
Celestia’s mistake with Sunset was she told Sunset that she had this great destiny ahead of her and that if she followed everything Celestia told her she’d become an Alicorn too. It was this impatience of wanting to achieve her destiny now and feeling cheated that led Sunset down the road she went on. Especially when Cadance appeared.
For Opaline it was likely something similar but different. Rather if she was a student of Twilight it was likely the comparison between her and Twilight that caused her to turn to the dark side so to speak. Opaline was probably constantly compared to Twilight across her time as Twilight’s student. When her time as Twilight’s student ended, Opaline probably felt she deserved to be an Alicorn due to her prowess but was denied by Twilight. Even though Twilight didn’t have the power to do that.
So Opaline sought out her own means to ascend and obviously succeeded. Opaline also suffers from a superiority complex, only she can be the most powerful magically. Which is why she steals the magic of those that may threaten her in some way. Like Sparks’s since dragon magic is likely one of the few types that can go toe to toe with an Alicorn.
It’s also likely she caused the separation of the tribes for two reasons.
1) To possibly steal their powers and make it easier to conquer
2) To possibly fix it herself in hopes of proving herself superior to Twilight
Opaline, huh? I guess you can say things are... heating up.
Sorry not sorry
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I assume you mean canon. That said, um... both? Misty threw the name Brightdawn together at the last possible second during the unicorn sleepover episode of Make Your Mark. At the same time, the name is on all the official merchandise, so I guess G5 is running with it.
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Crap, guess I wasn't paying attention when writing that message.
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Yeah!
Oh now this is getting interesting...
This is a very good point.
Does that mean Twilight blamed herself for Cozy Glow? What more could she have done though? That filly learned basically all there is about friendship and still chose to be evil...
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Flurry did say that Twilight's observation was wrong.
Great fanfic! So your flurry heart fanfic takes place in the timeline were sunset dosnt end up in the future and becomes twilights archmage?
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Correct; the second ending to 'What A Long Strange Trip' made the jump to G5.