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Part 1 - Alone4,093 words
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1-42,566 words
1-54,611 words
Part 2 - Shim-Curious2,396 words
2-21,361 words
2-32,769 words
2-42,613 words
2-51,638 words
Part 3 - Propogandist1,586 words
3-21,985 words
3-33,610 words
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3-51,300 words
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Part 4. The willing pawn3,469 words
4 - 22,559 words
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4-42,717 words
4-52,509 words
4-62,379 words
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4-83,292 words
Part 5. Public Enemy5,153 words

3-8

Ten PM.

To a pony, that was incredibly late.

Shim Sham gave them an overactive circadian rhythm, making it hard to stay up late. The number of waking ponies sharply fell from nine to ten, until there was hardly any left. Not long after that, Ari realized she might be the last one still up.

On the flip side, this made them all super-early risers. But for now, Ari had some slight advantage. If you could call it that.

It was lonely but Ari wasn’t tired enough to sleep just yet. Besides, everypony said Ragnarök would show up when it started raining. It’d been raining for hours now but only just now did the storm pick up enough for Ari to hear the raindrops.

The rain viciously slammed against the window as if trying to force its way inside. But Ari was far too safe for that. Though she did hope nopony was actually sleeping in those tents tonight.

She walked back down to the main living room finding it dead quiet other than the rain and nearly empty. But not completely empty. On the far edge of the couch were two ponies snuggled up and fast asleep.

She decided to sit down close to them and give Ragnarök maybe another fifteen minutes to show up before going to sleep. He’d still be around tomorrow even if Ari missed him.

But she stopped halfway to the couch.

Without so much of a lightning strike to announce his presence, a pony with glowing, slighted simply appeared behind the banister right above where the sleeping ponies lay. Another night pony. Not the one she saw before (Shiv?).

Ari and the night pony stopped where they stood and locked eyes.

It seems we are at an impasse.

These, she knew, were very protective of their fellow ponies. He was standing right next to his sleeping friends. If anything bad was going to happen, it would happen right now.

The night pony looked at her hair, then the symbol on her jacket. Then he relaxed and stalked off.

“Nice,” Ari whispered under her breath. “I’m in.”

Ari hesitated to get too close to the ponies. They were generally the most affectionate creatures on the planet with zero puncture when it came to cuddling with one another. But they were also a bit weary of strange humans. Allegedly tons of humans would get all ‘grabby’ with pony strangers they just bumped into on the streets. So they needed a minute to warm up to you.

Or rather, they needed to see another pony give you a nuzzle or sit on your lap to realize that you were okay. Just earlier today, a group of foals was giving Ari some nervous looks until Spring Breeze started nuzzling her hard. Then they just relaxed immediately and came over.

So if you were friends with one of them, you were friends with all of them.

Hesitantly, she sat two cushions away from them just in case.

“Cloud Weaver!”

Ari turned her head back, looking up at the banister from which the night pony had just vanished. But instead of him, she saw the familiar white-maned pony she’d come to idolize.

“Ragnarök!”

Ragnarök flew up over the banister and landed just in front of Ari with a yawn. Any tiredness Ari felt was long gone by now.

“I’m so excited to meet you!” Ari giggled, just a little giddy. “I’ve been listening to you since almost the start! Uh! Ah, geese I know it’s rude, but I want to hug you.”

“Stop acting so human,” he teased her. “The whole ‘no petting’ thing is for creepy strangers. You’re ‘in’ I think you just said a second ago.”

He heard her?! Ari blushed slightly as Ragnarök jumped up onto her lap and flicked her with his muzzle. Taking the prompt, Ari ran her broken hand down his neck and back.

Ragnarök typically had bags under his eyes, Ari watched his show enough to know that, but the darkness and discoloration seemed worse in person. Whether it was just him looking different in real life or he really was just worse off than normal.

“You’re not tired?” Ari asked.

“The only time I drink coffee,” said Ragnarök, “is when I’m staying up this late. But I stay up late all the time. Pony-late, I mean.”

Ragnarök had no such hesitation. He jumped right onto the couch and leaned against the sleeping pair comfortably enough that Ari feared he might fall asleep with them.

“Of all the people,” Ari corrected herself, “of all the powerful people in the world, Sunset Shimmer was the only one who tried to make my life better. All the others, when they change the world it's just to get more control over us, more money, more power. I really feel like Sunset was the only one who actually cared on some level.”

Sure, there was an official story saying she wanted to gather enough power to destroy some evil monster she saw in a prophecy… but wasn’t that exactly what Purple and the government were doing too? The important difference was Sunset shared a vision of a better world, while those in power merely wanted to chain them forever to the status quo.

“I really do wish she’d… at least turned most of the world into ponies. Or lived. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get to talk to a pony like that? If I could meet three people from history, I’d just choose to talk to Sunset three times. No one else can compete. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

He smiled wearily and shook his head, his white mane shaking along with it.

“No way. I’d rather pour battery acid into my eyes than talk to Sunset Shimmer for one minute.”

Ari pulled back hard enough that Ragnarök nearly fell off. He took the hint a second later and hopped onto the floor.

“What?!” Ari stood up. “You’ve said that Sunset Shimmer is the most important person in history. Several times!”

“I think you misunderstood. That’s true, yeah. But to me Sunset Shimmer is…”

Ragnarök turned to the nearest banner bearing Sunset’s cutie mark. He waved his hoof about, searching for the words.

“She’s the perfect icon.” He pointed straight at her cutie mark with certainty. “Think about it. She never left a manifesto. There’s no recording of her voice. She never explained herself to anypony on this planet. The best we have is the Equestrian telling us to trust them that she said all this stuff in a dark room while nopony was looking. And even that account tells us almost nothing.

“She’s transcended personhood. Sunset Shimmer can stand for anything. She can be Satan or God and anything in between: whatever you need. Even those who hate her most ardently have adopted her into their hearts as an icon. The most powerful and influential person in history… can be anything.”

Ragnarök spun around.

“Do you get how powerful that makes her? Atheists. Christians. Communists. Libertarians. All of them can pick up her mantel. Anypony can. The only pony who could have stopped Shimmerism was Sunset Shimmer. And they killed her.”

Ragnarök gave a little laugh and jumped backward, landing next to the pair of sleeping ponies.

“So if I sat in front of her and one, single, goddam word came out of her mouth, it would ruin everything.” He stroked one of them a little too hard. “If they hadn’t killed Sunset Shimmer, I wouldn’t have had one single move I could make. Nothing. ‘We had mercy on the person who humiliated us beyond belief’. What can I do to someone like that?”

He threw up in defeat the hoof he’d been petting the other pony with.

“Of course, we don’t live in a world where Sunset Shimmer would have lived.” Finally, he turned back to Ari, crawling towards her a step or two. “In a world like that, people like you and me wouldn’t even exist. Do you ever feel… like you wish you could live in a world where you would never have existed?”

Ari thought it’d been raining heavily up until now, but she’d been sorely mistaken. A newer, much stronger sheet of rain crashed into the house and its intensity became the new norm. The room was no longer so silent

And at last, some lightning came in, just a few minutes later, thunder following soon after. It was a good night to be inside.

“Yeah, of course I would.” Ari watched the rain and lightning come crashing down a moment before sitting down next to Ragnarök. “I guess… she’s a hero in my eyes because she gave us a choice. It felt like we were stuck on this one path leading to the destruction of our planet and everyone becoming further isolated and consumed by greed. But Sunset gave us the choice between humanity and ponies, between selfish capitalism and community.”

“That is true,” said Ragnarök. “But if we don’t do anything, those in power will make sure we take the former path. Break up everything we’ve worked towards. Grind up our friendships into dust and put ponies in factories for 80 hours a week. Most people still want that path on the surface.”

Ari nodded sadly.

“Why is it so hard for them to value anything but money?” Ari asked. “That they literally need to become ponies to care about other people. About friendship, community, anything?”

“Well think about it. Why don’t you put all of that aside to focus on building community?”

“I can’t be so big-hearted and bold. Treating strangers like they’re friends? This town’s too big and cold. If I went door to door talking about friendship or whatever, I’d get shot. It’s not possible.”

“And yet everypony here has done it.”

Ari shook her head and stood up in a sudden flash of anger. This was the sort of thing she hated from those ‘above’ her and she wouldn’t take it sitting down. Not even from a pony she admired.

“Don’t you get it?” Ari bent over to look Ragnarök in the eye. “Don’t you understand how much easier this is for you? What am I supposed to do?! I’m stuck as a normal human. I don’t have any magic. I don’t have any special powers. I didn’t get my mental problems cured. No one’s ever going to let me have any of that! No one’s going to let me out of my cage like Sunset did for you! I don’t even have a PhD! I didn’t even get this magical five-minute pep talk from the aliens that you all did! I’m so far beneath all these fucking gods that I might as well not even exist! I’m sure if Purple ever accidentally looked in my direction, she’d just sneer at me for even feeling this way.”

Ari turned around once, a hand in her pocket, the other sweeping across this community sheltering Ragnarök from far more than the rain.

“You have all of this! You’re part of a community that actually cares about you, that will actually protect you and pick you back up if something happens. Out there? In New York? There’s nothing! Everyone’s on their own; it’s the law of the jungle. Half of them pride themselves on how little they care. I can’t take any risks because if I make one slip it’s over for me. No one will care as I get ripped to shreds.”

Ari had to turn away a minute. She put a broken hand over her face, mentally adding that to the list of things she didn’t have, which was apparently the most important part of being human these days. But it was enough to rid herself of some lingering tears.

“And you know this. How can you ask me to be brave?”

Ragnarök laughed just a little and hit the couch once with a hoof. Indignant, Ari spun around to face him.

“I think you misunderstand where I was going with all this,” he said. “Of course I understand. You’re right that you’re weak. Without magic or a billion dollars… you’re just some lowly human who can’t do anything. But that only makes you worthless in their eyes. I’ll tell you this. It doesn’t matter if you’re weak. So what if you’re useless by yourself… if you aren’t by yourself?”

“But I am alone. Every human is alone. It’s what generates the most capital.”

“You don’t have to be. I brought you here to make you an offer, remember?”

Ragnarök patted the couch cushion next to him. Ari sat down; a bit closer than before.

“We do have a job for you,” said Ragnarök. “I’ll give you a chance to finally screw over Blackrock for once. But I won’t lie. Yeah, you’re a pawn. The only advantage you have is that you’re the right person in the right place and time. But you do know what happens to pawns, right?”

Ari froze, unsure how to respond to something like this. Was he asking her to…?

“Now, I’m not going to ask you to kill anypony or anything like that.” Ragnarök turned back to his sleeping friend to give them another pat. “But if you pull the stunt, we have lined up for you well… You won’t be welcome in human society for the most part. Have a real hard time getting a job after this one. And yet it won’t matter. Why?”

He looked back at Ari with a smile, beckoning her to lean forward to hear what the reward on offer was.

“I’m offering you the safety of a herd. Do this for us… make a serious attempt and even if you fail you can have your pick of some fifty pony communities to join. We’ll take care of everything. You won’t need to be part of the rat race anymore so none of that will matter.”

Ari’s body went numb. She felt as though her body was no longer tethered to the ground and might go floating off. It took a moment to straighten her thoughts, to focus enough to respond.

“Wait. You… I want to get this completely straight,” said Ari. “If I do some job for you… I can join a pony community? And… and live in a Shimmerist commune?”

Ragnarök nodded. Ari wasn’t sure if her heart was still beating or what.

“And more. Pawns are weak. Unless they’re in the exact right spot,” said Ragnarök. “This is also a chance to push our cause. And if you actually pull it off, you’ll earn a great deal of respect from us on top of that.”

Like Ari even cared about what those other humans thought. This was…

“I’m not going to lie,” Ari managed to say. “A pawn is a massive promotion from what I am to the other humans.”

Oh, to be a pawn! To think she could ever soar so high! Ari smiled.

“Better to be a pawn in heaven than a shadow in hell, right?” Ari asked.

It got even later.

The rain died down and things became quiet again, yet still it poured. Even Ragnarök was asleep now. Ari alone lingered, staring out into the storm.

Was she really safe now?

She knew the answer was yes, but…

Ari pushed open the door and stepped outside into the dark. She stood on the porch, in the middle of the downpour, getting absolutely drenched.

But it didn’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Ari said it and it was true!

She was… for the first time in her entire life she had actual safety. She wouldn’t have to worry about things like food or shelter ever again. To not be one bad day away from the streets. That kind of guarantee was the sort of thing an American her age could only dream of.

To be safe…

She was safe!

“Hehehe.” She hung over the edge of the balcony, water streaming down her hair. “I might as well be in a pool right now. Hahaha!”

No wonder they never wanted her to be safe. She could actually be brave now.

Ari pushed back from the railing, laughing even louder! She skipped down the stairs and ran once around the large building with her arms out. And it didn’t even matter how drenched she became!

End part 3

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Heroes Never Die - Shimmerist Ari

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