Sunset Shimmer Doesn't Bluff
Sunset Shimmer looked up at the moon anxiously, then peered out from her position behind the statue at the front of Canterlot High School to the front doors of the school. She knew that Twilight had bamboozled the rest of the school and was a shoe-in to win the bid for Fall Formal Princess and the crown that came with it. But, she also knew that Twilight would eventually need to come to the very statue that Sunset Shimmer was next to - it served as the portal back to Equestria.
There was only about an hour left before the portal closed, and Sunset Shimmer was going to run one last, desperate gambit; threatening to destroy the portal to Equestria, preventing Twilight from ever returning home to her friends, unless Twilight surrendered the crown to her. That crown, and the Element in it, were key to Sunset Shimmer's diabolical plan.
And what was that plan? To bring a bunch of zombified humans through the portal, slow and stumbling, so that they might face of against the might of Equestria's equine denizens. What odds did a magic wielding unicorn possess against a shambolic teenager? Or the winged dynamos that comprised the pegasus race, how could they possibly hope to best grounded Neanderthals? Surely, Equestria didn't stand a chance! Of course, that meant that Sunset Shimmer couldn't actually destroy the portal - but Twilight didn't need to know that!
To raise the stakes, Sunset Shimmer had enlisted Snips and Snails to steal Twilight's dog. And they were, as Sunset Shimmer was acutely aware, sitting by the statue grasping her sledgehammer, late. She didn't have to worry for much longer, as the front doors burst open and the two minions ran towards her. In their arms was the little purple dog! Predictably, Twilight Sparkle was giving chase, and the crown was upon her head! Twilight's gang of cohorts was right there alongside her, and they were fast approaching the statue. Sunset Shimmer stepped out from behind it as Snips, Snails, and the dog came to a halt next to her.
"That's close enough!" She cried, brandishing the sledgehammer menacingly.
The dog yelped from Snips arms, in perfectly intelligible English no less, "Twilight!"
"Don't hurt him!" Twilight pleaded, her eyes filled with concern for her pet. Concern that amused Sunset Shimmer.
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. I'm not a monster, Twilight." To prove it, she offered the dog back to Twilight. "Let him go," she told Snips and Snails. The puppy scampered back to Twilight with haste. "You don't belong here," Sunset Shimmer continued. "Give me the crown, and you can go back to Equestria tonight. Or keep it and never go home!"
She raised the sledgehammer threateningly towards the statue, her intention to destroy it made clear to the princess.
"Tick-tock, Twilight. We haven't got all night," Sunset Shimmer taunted gleefully. "The portal will be closing on its own in less than an hour. So, what's your answer?"
The tension in the air was palpable as Sunset Shimmer witnessed the gears turning behind that brainiac princess' eyes. This was it... the moment that Sunset Shimmer was waiting for! When she would finally have the crown, and begin her surefire plan to world dominance! She couldn't wait to hear Twilight Sparkle submit to her will, and -
"No."
That wasn't the answer Sunset Shimmer expected to hear. How could that be? Didn't Twilight know what was at stake?
"What? Equestria! Your friends - lost to you forever! Don't you see what I'm about to do to the portal?" Sunset Shimmer brandished the sledgehammer again. Perhaps Twilight wasn't as smart as she was led to believe. But, the emotional thumbscrews that were potentially losing her friends were sure to be effective!
"Yes," Twilight answered with a most infuriating 'know-it-all' authority. "But I've also seen what you've been able to do here without magic. Equestria will find a way to survive without my Element of Harmony. This place might not if I allow it to fall into your hands. So go ahead, destroy the portal." To add insult to injury, Twilight didn't stop her self-righteous rant there, and said exactly what Sunset Shimmer did not want to hear. "You are not getting this crown!"
Sunset Shimmer gritted her teeth, and her eyes closed in anger.
"GOD DAMN IT!"
Sunset Shimmer was fuming, and enraged, she verbally exploded at the gang of losers in front of her. And Snips and Snails too.
"I tried two other equally convoluted methods to assure that I got the crown, surely the third time should have been the proverbial charm?" she demanded. "But no, you and your virtuous altruism have ruined everything!" Sunset Shimmer reeled back with the hammer. "I wasn't actually going to destroy the portal, but if it would make you unhappy and take your ego down a notch, even just a little bit, I would do it in a heartbeat!"
Twilight looked flabbergasted. "You weren't going to destroy it?"
"It's too late to beg now, Twilight!"
Sunset Shimmer swung the hammer with all of her might at the base of the statue. As soon as the head of the hammer made "contact", it vanished. Unable to control the momentum, Sunset Shimmer released the hammer, and it flew through the portal.
Back at the Crystal Empire, a plethora of ponies stood anxiously around a mirror. Three days before, their best friend Twilight Sparkle had travelled through the mirror to another world. However, the time that the portal would remain open was growing ever shorter.
"Ugh! It's almost been three days, and we haven't seen or heard anything yet!" Rainbow Dash groaned in frustration. "The portal's going to close in less than hour, and we're not going to see Twilight for like, ages!"
Rarity nodded her head in agreement. "Quite right. I know we agreed that only Twilight would go through, but perhaps one of us should go through and check that everything is alright? I am getting rather worried."
"And I'm getting rather hungry!" Pinkie Pie moaned. "We've been sitting here staring at this mirror for three days straight! Equestria is burning down in a glorious anarchic blaze because its' princesses are all cooped up in a storage room staring at a mirror!"
Applejack chuckled, and approached Pinkie Pie with a comforting hoof to place on her shoulder. "I don't think that I would write Equestria off just yet, Pinkie Pie. If it makes ya feel any better, I'm famished too. Even got a hunger headache. But Twilight's dependin' on us to be here for her when she comes back."
"You get headaches if you get hungry?" Pinkie Pie tilted her head.
"Yeah... why, you don't?" Applejack asked in return.
"Nope!"
Suddenly, a sledgehammer flew through the mirror, the metal end colliding with poor Pinkie Pie's cranium. Everypony gasped at once as Pinkie Pie collapsed on the ground.
"What happened?"
"Oh my!"
"What in tarnation?"
Princess Cadence's horn glowed, and the sledgehammer levitated off of the floor where it had settled. "Is that... a sledgehammer? What in Equestria is going on over there?" She asked.
Princess Luna coughed. "Technically, they aren't in Equestria."
"The moon still has vacancies, dear sister," Princess Celestia warned calmly.
"...Applejack?" Pinkie Pie called out softly, and the orange pony knelt close to her.
"I'm right here, Pinkie. Are ya alright?"
"I think... I think I feel that headache coming on..."
Applejack just giggled. "You'll be just fine. Right, everypony?"
Nopony answered. Instead, everypony in the room was staring worriedly at Fluttershy. Normally docile, she was heaving, and positively seething with rage.
"How... how dare they throw that hammer like that! Doesn't whoever did it know that somepony could get hurt? And somepony did get hurt! My friend! Give me that!" Fluttershy commanded, seizing the sledgehammer from Cadence's magical grasp. Holding it firmly in both hooves, the yellow pegasus began to rotate around in circles, building momentum.
Everypony else in the room ducked down in terror.
"Hey, look!" Rainbow Dash shouted from the floor. "It's a real Hurricane Flutters-"
"There's room on the moon for you too, Rainbow Dash!" Celestia interrupted.
"Take... your... stupid... hammer... back!" Fluttershy loosed the hammer from its makeshift tornado, and it was catapulted into the mirror. It did not shatter the glass, but was simply absorbed through the portal.
"I... I don't understand..." Sunset Shimmer knelt down next to the portal. "I thought for sure that would destroy it..."
"Really?" Twilight laughed with relief, her friends all joining in behind her. "It's a portal - it's not even a solid object! Why did you think a hammer would work?"
"I... uhh..." Sunset Shimmer stammered in embarrassment.
"I mean, duh!" Snips struck his forehead with his palm to emphasize just how blatant he thought the oversight was.
"Seriously, that was the worst plan ever!" Snails agreed.
"Who asked you two?" Sunset Shimmer hissed at the duo. She had never experienced such utter betrayal from such utter simpletons.
"No kidding!" Rainbow Dash joined in on the belittling. "That's like trying to destroy a lake by punching it!"
A crowd gathered at the front door of the school. Applejack noticed them and presented a rallying cry. "Hey everyone, let's all gather round and point and laugh at what a stupid idea that was!" In no time at all, Sunset Shimmer was surrounded by a sea of pointing fingers and laughing faces.
"Stop it!" the failed attempt at a villainess covered her ears. "It - it seemed like a good idea at the time!"
"Really?" Rarity inquired, wiping a tear from her eye. "Did you get hit in the head as a child?"
"I did not get hit in the head!"
Suddenly, from the base of the statue, the sledgehammer emerged like a bullet. Sunset Shimmer didn't notice - she lost consciousness just as soon the hammer's head slammed into the back her head.
The laughing died down and the crowd looked in confusion from the statue to the hammer on the ground.
"Well," Twilight said as she lifted the crown off of her head to examine it. "That could have gone a lot worse."
"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie agreed. "She could have actually got your crown by simply taking it instead of going through all of these nonsensical trials and tribulations, and then turned into a raging she demon! After that, she could have used magic to turn all of the students into a bunch of mindless zombies for her own personal army!"
Twilight shuddered at the thought. "Let's not get carried away, Pinkie Pie."
Author's Note
I liked Equestria Girls one, but I won't deny it had some issues.
