“This isn’t the way! I know you feel powerful right now, like you can have everything you want. I’ve been where you are, I made the same mistake you’re making! I put on a crown, and just like you, I was overwhelmed by the magic it contained. I thought it could get me everything I wanted.”
“Oh, you’re wrong, unlike you, I CAN have EVERYTHING that I want!!”
“No you can’t. Even with all that magic and power, you’ll still be alone-”
“ENOUGH!! Don’t fashion me into some maiden that needs saving from a dragon.” She said in a dark voice as her hands began glowing with power.
"I AM the dragon, and I will EAT YOU WHOLE!!!” Without warning, she suddenly shot her power out straight at Sunset, who was totally unprepared for the attack. Her eyes went wide as everything seemed to turn to slow motion for Sunset, before the magic impacted her straight in the chest with the force of a speeding bullet, and knocked her hard into the ground, her head impacting the ground with a sickening thud.
Sunset felt as if she had been shot, hit by a bus, and had a blunt object strike her head all at once.
“SUNSET!!!” Her other 5 friends screamed and tried running to her, but were stopped by another magic blast right at their feet.
“I suggest you STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!” The demon creature screamed, as they reluctantly backed up again, knowing that there wasn’t much they could do.
The creature flew down to the prone Sunset, and took her by the throat.
“Twilight….” Sunset gasped weakly as her fingers clawed at the creature’s hand in a weak attempt to loosen the strong hold to get a breath of air.
The creature smirked, bringing Sunset closer to her.
“Twilight is not here…Only the darkest of the night…Only Midnight.” She raised a clawed finger over Sunset’s chest, putting pressure into it, but not enough to break skin.
“And sunlight is an intrusion that has no place among the night. When midnight comes, the sun is ERADICATED!!” Upon her last word, the claw stabbed violently into Sunset’s chest, forcing a shriek of agony from Sunset as her eyes went wide. The claw twisted sharply inside, making her scream even louder before losing her voice and gasping. Feeling herself become immensely weaker as her body shut down, she went near limp in the demon’s grasp.
The creature paid her no heed, and dropped her to the ground, Sunset moaned as her life hung on by a thread.
Midnight’s hands started glowing with magic once again.
“Now I never want to see your face again...Suffer….and DIE!!” The magic was released, and overtook Sunset in an inferno of flames.
From within the flames, Sunset screeched and writhed, trying vainly to put the fire out. Her struggle didn’t last long at all, combined with the stab wound, Sunset’s body quickly gave in, and her struggles ceased. The fire continued until there was nothing left of Sunset but ashes.
Both student bodies, along with their staff, looked on in horror, too stunned to even utter a word…except one.
“My God…..” Principle Cinch uttered barely above a whisper.
“What have I done?...”
“God??” The demon spun around to face Cinch, flew towards her, grabbed her by the throat and rammed her up against the wall behind them.
“What God?? I am your God and everyone here will bow to ME!!”
TING!
A sudden object hitting and bouncing off her back made the creature turn its head in surprise. There, next to the shadowbolts, stood a wide eyed Soursweet, holding an already empty bow. Seeing that her plan had backfired, gave a nervous chuckle.
“Eh heh, uh…” She then shoved the gear onto Sugarcoat, and pointed at her. “She did it!!”
“You are a terrible person.” Sugarcoat deadpanned.
The creature flew to Soursweet and got up right in her face.
“You would dare challenge ME?!!” It shrieked, causing Sour to flinch before looking to her with a somewhat nervous expression and answered with her sing song voice.
“Whaaaaat?....No, no, I would never do ANYTHING like that….I was…merely…bestowing an arrow of…good fortune upon you…Ya…getting hit with an arrow is…. symbolic of getting hit with good fortune!”
“In all the times I saw Twilight take part in Archery, never was it used in such a way as that!” The creature countered.
“Well DUH…” Sour gained some of her spunky voice back.
“Twilight was never that popular, so no one wanted to give her good fortune by hitting her with an arrow!”
“Then do tell why the other students never hit eachother with these arrows?...” She asked suspiciously.
To that, Sour actually scoffed.
“Oh, I don’t know…. Maybe because we’re Crystal Preppers! We only care about ourselves.”
Midnight narrowed her eyes.
“Then tell me…why not hit yourself with an arrow then?...”
“Well, that would be an absolutely MARVELOUS idea!!” She beamed, before going back to her famous glare.
“If shooting YOURSELF with an arrow didn’t mean 7 years bad luck!!”
Everyone had their eyes trained on Sour and the demon now, hardly believing that she was coming up with all this stuff right on the spot. In the distraction of it all, nobody noticed that the place where Sunset’s ashes were, actually started lightly glowing.
“Good fortune can only come when the arrow is shot by someone else, you cannot give yourself the good fortune.”
“I see….It would appear that I have much yet to learn about human customs…” She then turned and went away from Sour. Sour nearly passed out from relief that that had actually worked.
The creature was about to continue speaking, when she stopped suddenly, seeing the glow coming from the ashes.
One of the students spoke up upon seeing the ashes beginning to rise and take form.
“What is this? Do my eyes deceive? Am I to believe in life from the dead? For death is unchanging, but where life is raging, there can it be done? Is it foolish to wage, that this is a mage?”
Upon the girl finishing her statement, there was suddenly a bright flash of light as everyone shielded their eyes, including the creature, before it slowly died down again, revealing a renewed Sunset Shimmer, appearing almost…heavenly.
She was wearing a dress as beautiful as the Sunset, had wings that appeared to be made from light itself, and had a long white horn. She was wearing heels, emblems on both of her arms, and a necklace. All of which bore her cutiemark.
She was the picture of grace and beauty, wisdom in her features.
Both student bodies looked on in awe, the lone student speaking quietly again.
“It is not a mage I see…but a mystery.”
The creature looked on in fear, before suddenly going on the offensive, and taking off towards Sunset, who unlike last time, was prepared, and took off in flight, as the two forces collided halfway in an explosion of light, before being thrown away from each other by the sheer power of it all.
Wasting no time, Midnight shot a beam of power at Sunset, who matched it with her own halfway, as a brilliant light show followed as the two fought for the upper hand.
Midnight’s magic began to overpower Sunset as it drew closer to her. Moments from her victory, Midnight laughed manically.
“You should have stayed dead Sunset Shimmer!!” She screamed as her beam was mere inches away.
“I’m going to kill you slowly this time, make you an example of just what will happen if anyone dares cross me ever again!!”
“HEY!!” A lone voice shouted from below. Midnight glanced down.
There, right below them, was CHS’s janitor. In his twenties, with a goatee, and white hair, he was a high school dropout who managed to get a job back at the school.
He had a twister on the shirt he wore, and the word “Chaos” tattooed on his arm in the form of crumbling rocks.
Seeing that he had her attention, he continued.
“You know it’s crazy, and well, we’re just meeting now…but… take my number!” He held up his arm with a piece of paper. Lipping the words Call me.
“….What are you doing?...” She deadpanned.
He put his arm back down, before replying with a smirk.
“What’s it look like?... I’m distractin’ ya!!”
Midnight looked confused for a moment, before bringing her eyes back up to the fight at hand, and realized that she had indeed been distracted, and had unknowingly let up on her power, letting Sunset get the upperhand, as the beam overtook her just as she brought her gaze back up from the ground.
“NOOOO!!!!” She screamed, before it engulfed her.
Midnight opened her eyes and saw white light all around, and there, a few feet in front of her, was Sunset as she came closer to her.
Fearing that Sunset was going to kill her then and there, she curled in on herself, wrapping her wings protectively around herself.
Sunset stopped, looking at her.
“Twilight…” She said….That name.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” That surprised her.
“Why?...” She asked quietly.
“Because you’re not evil.” Sunset answered to her shock.
“But…I…I killed you…” She whispered.
“You didn’t kill me Twilight…The magic you released did. You had no idea what it would do, you were just pressured into it.”
“But we can still make all of this right…” She extended her arm towards her.
“Take my hand Twilight…Let me show you there’s another way. Just like someone once did for me.”
She hesitated for a moment, before, with tears in her eyes, she extended her own arm and took Sunset’s hand. The moment they touched, they began reverting back to their original selves.
Author's Note
If you want an audio track for this, I feel like this goes quite well when they’re in the void….
0:25 being when Sunset says “Twilight…”
0:31 being when sunset says “Because you’re not evil”
0:51 “But we can still make all of this right.
1:00 Sunset extends her hand
1:08 Twilight takes her hand and the transformation back begins.
That should give you an idea of how this scene should be timed.
Second Star to the Right (Alternate Ending Chapter)
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Second Star to the Right (Alternate Ending Chapter)
Midnight’s magic began to overpower Sunset as it drew closer to her. Moments from her victory, Midnight laughed manically.
“You should have stayed dead Sunset Shimmer!!” She screamed as her beam was mere inches away.
“I’m going to kill you slowly this time, make you an example of just what will happen if anyone dares cross me ever again!!”
Suddenly, there was an explosion of light, and a Shockwave of energy. Everyone was knocked from their feet. When they looked back, only Midnight Sparkle was left in the air. Sunset had been thrown back down to the earth, no longer in her glorious apparel, but instead, she was now left with no clothing at all. She was stomach down on the ground with many bruises and lacerations now littering her exposed body.
Midnight laughed manically as she saw Sunset's pathetic state on the ground.
"Look at you now! Oh mighty heroine of CHS!"
Sunset weakly looked up, before noticing Twilight's device within reaching range of her. She looked at Midnight Sparkle.
"Don't....make me do this Twi." She said with sadness, but determination.
Midnight scoffed.
"You seriously think you still have ANY power over ME?!!"
Her hands lit up with power once more, as she charged downwards to Sunset to put an end to her once and for all.
Sunset reached out and grabbed the device, still containing the power of the elements within it, and without missing a beat, held it out to Midnight Sparkle, and opened it up.
What hapened next seemed to move in slow motion as Midnight saw what Sunset was doing,but it was too late. With the noise, and force of a bomb, Midnight was thrown back, back, back, with un-natural force.
When everything had ended, Applejack, finally being able to look back after all had subsided, saw that Sunset was looking up at the sky with a look of utter disbelief. She also saw that Midnight Sparkle was....gone. But there was also no sign of Twilight in her place.
Rainbow Dash ran over and covered Sunset with a sweater.
Sunset was just staring into the sky.
"Twilight....oh Twi..."
Rainbow dared to ask the question she had been fearing the answer to.
"Sunset....where...is Twilight?"
Sunset weakly pointed to the sky.
Confused, Rainbow looked above, to the star spangled night sky.
She suddenly noticed a single star, different than the many others...it shone bright....mesmerizing to the eye.....and it was...purple?...
Rainbow put two and two together.
"No way.....No freaking way....That is....humanly impossible." She argued.
Sunset looked from the sky to Rainbow.
"All the crazy stuff you've seen since I came here, and you think something like this is impossible?"
"I....mean..." Rainbow started.
"It's real Dash...."
Vice principal Luna came over at that time, having gotten a large towel to wrap Sunset in, before getting her up off the ground, and taking her back to the others.
Sunset didn't have it in her to look at either body of students.
"You all might as well go home." She said sadly. "Twilight's not coming back..."
"Wait!!" Sunny flare suddenly cried. "What are we supposed to tell Twilight's family?!!"
"We'll tell them the truth!!" Principal Cinch cried. "That this school is a magical chaotic hazard to all, and that Twilight was menace!!"
Sunset looked sternly at the Shadowbolt's principal.
"Don't be ridiculous! They would never buy a story like that, and even if we showed them our powers to prove it, we don't want anyone becoming subject to experiments that would be likely to follow. No one can know about the powers here. This world is not ready for it. We also cannot afford to do anything that would ca use investigation into CHS... they could find something, and trace it's source to magic...so we can't say it was an accident that caused her death...."
"Then what do we tell them??"
"Tell them...." Sunset sighed. "Tell them I killed her."
"WHAT??!!" Her friends all shouted in unison.
"The only way to not have CHS as a whole investigated, is to put the blame on just one person that they can take to court."
"No way Sunset! There has to be some other way!" Applejack argued.
"There isn't. There just isn't..."
Author's Note
You guys....before you say anything about this alternate chapter.... I realized right after writing this, that Cadance was there, and witnessed everything....but, can we just pretend that this is an AU where Cadance did not actually come, and therefore was not present?
Otherwise I might as well delete this entire chapter.
I kicked myself so hard when I remembered she was there the whole time.
