Unleash the Magic - Midnight Rising

1: Twilight Falling - v2

Author's Note

Hey, folks. Welcome to Unleash the Magic - Midnight Rising, v2.0! While the original story is being heavily updated and expanded, the existing versions of all later chapters have been unpublished while I revamp them one by one. But if you don't want to wait for the expanded story, the old versions of all story chapters can be found here:

Password: Unl3@sh

Now for the boilerplate: All characters in this story depicted in sexually explicit situations are of age. The operating assumption is that the Shadowbolt and Wondercolt students taking part in the Friendship Games are all at least juniors, and thus at least 18 years old. Beyond that, nothing to say except... hope you enjoy the ride! —Firesight

Heavily edited, expanded and re-released as a part of a story revamp on November 21, 2020

1: Twilight Falling - v2

I am Sunset Shimmer.

For those who don’t know, I’m a unicorn mare-turned-human; a former student of Princess Celestia herself. I passed through the portal to Earth from Equestria six years ago and have lived here ever since.

It’s been that long since I was last a pony, and yet I recently learned that in many ways, I still am one deep down. A week ago the Friendship Games between Canterlot High School and Crystal Preparatory Academy took place, which resulted in a certain… incident that occurred at the end. It was a second, but far different magical confrontation between me and Twilight Sparkle—or excuse me, Midnight Sparkle, involving not the Pony Princess I’ve come to so admire and respect, but her human counterpart of this world.

It was a confrontation that had a far different outcome than before—both for the erotically better, and for the heart-wrenchingly worse. I wasn’t alone in experiencing it, either.

Everybody from both schools, students and staff alike, bore witness to these events. And yet they didn’t. They only recall Twilight transforming into a human-alicorn hybrid and tearing open portals to Equestria. They only recall the subsequent battle between her and me following my own transformation into a godlike creature, which I accomplished using the same magical collection device she did.

For the most part, they don’t remember what else happened in and around all that, and though it still makes me uncomfortable, that’s how I’m going to keep it. For the last of my magic that day was used to wipe the memories of all present, both to protect the human Twilight and those schoolmates she...

Well. To anyone who may read this journal, regardless of how you got your hands on it—be glad you don’t live in Equestria, or I would have hexed it!—know that I’m only writing it for myself, because it feels like if I don’t tell the full story of what happened that day, I’m going to burst.

Nobody else remembers the actual events—nobody except me and my friends, that is. The memories alternately torment and tantalize us, both for what we gained and what we lost. And over and over I ask myself: how is it even remotely fair that we deny our schoolmates the same memories and abilities that we ourselves now freely indulge in?

You may question my decision, and believe me, you’re not the only one. I still remember all my magical ethics classes back in Equestria, even if I didn’t exactly intend to obey them back then, and what I did is something ponies have gone to prison for. Something unicorns have even had their horns permanently disabled for. Celestia knows that if I forcibly wiped memories on a mass scale in Equestria, losing my place as the Princess’s prized pupil would be the least of my worries.

And yet, for that, all I can ask is… just what was I supposed to do?

Well, what’s done is done, and one thing I’ve gotten good at in my life is leaving the past behind to forge a new future. I do so again now, not just for myself, but for others, which is the biggest difference between the old me and the new.

Still, I blame myself for Twilight’s fall. It should never have come to the point it did, and I should have intervened a lot sooner. Twilight’s device was sucking up magic left and right, draining the human Element Bearers—and worse, the portal to Equestria itself—of their power. I should count myself fortunate that my friends recovered their magic so quickly just by being their own wonderful selves, or else I’d never have been able to draw on their Magic of Friendship for my own transformation.

Or else I’d never have been able to reach Twilight.

Never been able to show her by word and by deed what love and friendship was supposed to be.

I have to take a deep breath before going on. The memories of what happened still affect me. I can’t even look at this world’s Twilight without remembering what she became and what she did. Or in the end, what we did. The amazing and near-Godlike power Midnight and I acquired far too briefly that day still haunt me, to say nothing of the incredibly potent and far-reaching sexual magic she unleashed. So if someone does find this someday, all I can say is this:

Read on at your peril, and be ready for a tale that would make the most jaded fan of human hentai or pony Neighponese comics blush.

—Sunset Shimmer

Let me say up front that in the end, I don’t blame the poor girl. Princess Twilight’s doppelganger she may be, but lacking not just her maturity but all sense of purpose and self-worth, the human Twilight was utterly overwhelmed by her classmates’ manipulation of her, and then by the released Equestrian magic itself.

“Unleash the magic, unleash the magic…” her fellow students chanted like a mantra, circling her like a roving pack of Timberwolves. “If we lose then it’s a crime. We can win it if you begin it. It’s up to you to not fail this time!”

You know, that’s a hay of a load to put on anyone; never mind someone like Twilight who, I’m pretty sure, had never stood up for herself even once in her life. Goaded and cornered, subjected to the most intense peer pressure I’d ever seen, the shy girl who just wanted to be left alone to pursue her studies gave in to the exhortations of her classmates and Headmistress, though I could tell it was less for the chance to beat CHS than the promise of the knowledge of magic that could be gained.

And I’m sad to say that her school head, Principal Cinch, knew that perfectly well.

“Call it power, call it magic, if we lose it will be tragic, but more important is the knowledge we'll have lost. A chance like this won't come again, you'll regret not giving in… And isn't understanding magic worth the cost?” she lyrically told Twilight.

Now that was a brilliant piece of psychological manipulation, one (un)worthy of the old me, and so poetically delivered as well! Cinch recognized that invoking competitive fire or school pride didn’t work with Twilight, so she instead appealed to her one true passion—her desire to learn. And I didn’t know it at the time, but she was also dangling a recommendation to the prestigious Everton study course over the head of her student, threatening to withhold it if she didn’t compete in the Friendship Games.

Despicable though it was, it worked, and in the end, that’s all Cinch cared about—well, that and her ‘legacy’, which she did indeed solidify that day. Though she sure as Tartarus regretted it given she was the first to feel Midnight’s wrath.

As all this was going on, I approached slowly at a walk, sensing Twilight’s intentions but not the consequences of doing it. I was only thinking that the first opening she gave me, I’d snatch that infernal device of hers that had already caused so much trouble regardless of her protests; seal it, lock it away and then give it to our Twilight to research and properly dispose of.

If she ever answered my latest letters, that was. And just what was keeping her? We learned later that she had a very good reason not to be there given what was happening in Equestria, but there’s no question we could really have used her help right then.

But such thoughts were immediately lost as to my horror, Twilight cracked open the pendant, which allowed the contained energies to burst free. The shock wave from the magical release knocked us all backwards, leaving my skin tingling and not unpleasantly as if from a static shock.

“Twilight, NO!”the now-sapient Spike shouted, leaping at her from behind as I did from the front, only for both of us to be all but blown back by the force of the magical blast. I was knocked on my flank while, due to his much smaller size, Spike was thrown far away, landing in the soft dirt of the motocross speedway they’d made for the competition.

Twilight never even noticed him, and I regret I forgot about him as well with what was happening in front of me. For which I really do owe him an apology and thank-you, not just for that, but for reappearing later just when we needed him most.

* * * * *

One of the first things an Equestrian unicorn learns in magic school is that magic is a living force. It has not so much a will of its own as a desire to seek a focus for itself; a suitable host to wield it.

Magic seeks expression, and it doesn’t much care about the end or the source. A fact Twilight learned firsthand as the magic orb took hold of her, levitating her up as a sudden wind whipped around her, storm clouds swirling overhead and crackling with lightning in response to the arcing energies. It certainly didn’t do much for her modesty as her skirt was blown up, knocking loose her glasses and undoing her hair bun, turning her appearance much more into that of Princess Twilight for just a bare moment.

A moment that was quickly lost as the now-empty pendant fell to the ground with a loud clatter along with one of her shoes, the wind tearing at her blouse and skirt with increasing ferocity until the latter was finally ripped away and the former was hanging on by mere tatters, revealing progressively more lavender skin.

It’s funny what stands out for you at a time like that, and in hindsight, it was very much a harbinger. And yet, for everything I saw then, the one thing I remember most keenly isn’t her state of undress. It was the look on Twilight’s face as she was raised up; the very real fear on her face and tears in her eyes as she realized her mistake.

“Help… ME!”she pleaded, screaming to be heard over the force of the wind; reaching out for her equally alarmed classmates and Principal for aid. Aid that would never arrive as the wind and light show picked up, shredding her clothes further as the light swallowed her whole, vaporizing her tears and then…

I could see just well enough to recognize the remains of her school uniform evaporating inside the sphere; her arched, naked body displayed in a spectacular silhouette as the magic infused her.

At that moment, it was too late. Her fate was sealed, and ours was too.

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