Prologue: How Did I Get Here?
Pain.
Unbearable pain.
That's all the once mighty king of the Crystal Empire felt as the Crystal Heart's magic tore threw him, shredding his body to bits. His soul still remained, connected to the one item that kept him going. But he couldn't return to it. Not yet.
The prophecy said so.
So he let it happen. He let himself die. But not without a little parting gift to Miss Bandit. His soul drifted away, into the Nothing, finally free from pain. From the pain of a lost kingdom, a lost relative, a lost marefriend. His death gave him much time to think. I will come back, I swear to Faust. You haven't seen the last of me.
Where do I go now?
"Sunset Shimmer?" Cheerilee asked.
The student next to me bolted awake. She nearly jumped five feet. She had a crazy look in her eyes, something I hadn't seen before. Was that... fear?
"Are you okay?" I asked, worried myself.
Her wild eyes turned towards me, and it creeped me out. I backed away a few inches, but my presence did seem to calm her down. "Yeah," she said, more to herself than me. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Ms. Cheerilee smiled, looking slightly annoyed. "That's great. Now, I believe you had a report for the class on the Tuskegee Airmen?"
"Oh yeah! That." She didn't make eye contact and started rummaging around in her pack. "I thought I brought the darn thing... Ah, here it is!" She pulled out two pieces of paper stapled together. I caught a glimpse of the title: The Red Tails. She walked up to the front of the room and began talking. "My report is on the Tuskegee Airmen. One would think that after the American Civil War ended in 1865..." As she continued, my mind drifted elsewhere. It was a silly thing to do, but I couldn't stay focused. It was stupid, yeah, but I couldn't help it. While she talked about the Tuskegee flight camp, I started thinking about how exactly Kronos had Chiron for a son. I had recently read Sea of Monsters, and it was fresh in my mind.
But somehow, I started thinking to alternate dimensions and how they would work. I had seen plenty of confirmation of another realm, from my watching the Fall Formal fiasco to witnessing the Battle of the Bands. That stuff just doesn't happen on Earth. And when the girls, Sunset included, turned into weird horse hybrids, that just solidified the notion. My colleague, Twilight Sparkle, also knew about the magical fluctuations in the fabric of space. No one here could forget that night. And then the Anon-A-Miss scandal not two weeks ago...
"Goes to show how far she's come."
"Get lost!"
Great, the inner arguments were starting up again. Keep it down.
With what, exactly?
Hey you stay quiet, I stay quiet, he goes about his day.
So you aren't fighting?
Not yet?
Then what... Oh Faust.
I turned my shoulder and there he was. I still didn't know his name, but he had on a race jacket and his red hair was spiked as if on flames. He stood pointing, scowling at the front of the room. When I looked, Sunset was close to tears, report in a ball on the desk, head clutching her temples, her irises pinprick.
And that was it.
I leaped up and shouted at Flame War, "What is your problem?!"
My looked shocked. "My problem?! How about your girlfriend's problem?"
"What do you mean?" The question was twofold: What problem, and what do you mean girlfriend?!
Rarity stood up and told me politely, "Crescent Moon, dear, Sunset seems to have had a panic attack of sorts."
Applejack also rose from her chair. She usually kept quiet in class, listening to what the teacher had to say. She was a friendly fellow, but right now, with her fedora covering her eyes, she was giving me the creeps. "She's about tah pass out. Ah shoot."
I ran towards her, as she was now in a fetal position, curled up in a ball on the floor. Everyone else, including the flame kid, was standing back. Far back. As I reached her and knelt down, I could hear her mutterings. "No. Not again. I can't..."
It was stupid of me to ask, but I did. "Are you okay?"
I don't know how she did it, but one second she's on the ground crying, the next she's on top of me, nails digging into me as she grabbed my wrists and put a knee on my neck, her beautiful face looming over mine. "NO! I'M NOT!" she screamed, nearly deafening me. "WITH YOU AROUND, WHAT IS?" I was scared. Having one of your best friends suddenly trying to kill you in class will do that to anyone. But not just for me. I was scared for her. This was not like her. She wasn't a killer. And I told her that to her face.
And suddenly something passed between us. A shadow. A shadow that did not provide comfort or spread life. It was a shadow that I could only describe as cold. Evil. Alone.
And then we both blacked out.
The throbbing in my head was horrible. It felt like a monster truck had decided to use my brain as a car. And proceeded to run it over. I raised my hand to my forehead, groaning. Or rather, I tried. It felt like my arms were strapped to my sides, and yet weren't. It was a strange feeling, one that I knew well.
What I didn't expect of this dream was that Sunset Shimmer was lying on top of me, bodies crossing over each other. The shock and horror of this helped to clear some of the fog from my head, and I sat up, able to move. "Gah!" I shouted as the pain in my head spiked. The shouting prompted Sunset to open her eyes, though she couldn't move. The look in her eyes was one of pain. She was likely feeling the same things I was. In more ways than one.
She glanced up at me, at my guilty expression and red cheeks, and an obscenity escaped her mouth. I scrambled to move away from her so she wasn't using me as a pillow. Her head fell down and she shouted, "Ow!"
"Sorry!" I squeaked in response, unused to having people use me as furniture.
