Shimmer Run 1981

Sunset Shimmer stepped out of the mirror and held her front hooves up one at a time. It had been a while since she had stepped into Equestria. She looked around expecting to see the mirror room in the castle but was instead surrounded by trunks full of magic supplies in a dark, cramped space.

"Princess Twilight?" She called out.

"What are YOU doing in Trixie's caravan!?" Trixie came bursting through the door, with the Alicorn Amulet hovering beside her.

"It appears you have taken the wrong mirror." The red jewels on the amulet blinked with each syllable.

"Well there's no room for a third pony in Trixie's show!" Trixie huffed as she turned her nose up at Sunset Shimmer.

"So can you help me get back to Ponyville? I was supposed to meet Princess Twilight for tea." Sunset Shimmer carefully examined the Alicorn Amulet.

"Please be cautious. The ritual to purge this vessel of it's sinister machinations was not completely successful." the amulet warned.

"Let me help." Sunset Shimmer reached her hoof forward and touched the amulet. All of Stygian's memories flashed into her mind as she was pulled into his heart. She wasn't expecting such a long and powerful torrent of memories as she came crashing down onto the red and black laser grid. At the far end of the monochrome landscape stood a humble unicorn surrounded by pall of writhing shadows.

"I warned you it is not safe here." He sighed as the shadows consumed his energy.

"We've all made mistakes in the past." Sunset Shimmer sighed as she trotted towards the unicorn. "But that doesn't mean ponies don't forgive. That doesn't mean we can't move on."

The landscape began to shake violently.

"What was that!?" Sunset Shimmer asked in a panic.

"You are waking up."

As Sunset Shimmer opened her eyes the light was painful and blinding as she waited for her eyes to adjust. The details slowly emerged; she was in a prison cell, the cell door was open and the large zebra stood in the doorway. She jumped up onto her hooves and ran for the opening but with a mighty hoof he knocked her to the floor.

"I see the prisoner is awake, so to the boss I shall take." He rhymed as he started walking and motioned for her to follow.

At the end of the long hallway they emerged through a set of ornate wooden doors into a room full of windows with a birds-eye view of Neighami. Starswirl stood behind a desk with his back to the room, staring out one of the windows.

"Why didn't you just kill me?" Sunset Shimmer sobbed.

"My child." Starswirl sighed as he turned around and walked over to Sunset Shimmer. "It's because you are meant to serve an even greater purpose." as he continued he walked over to a different window and beckoned to Sunset Shimmer who followed and looked out the window with him. "What do you see out there?" Starswirl quizzed.

"Neighami?"

"No..." Starswirl shook his head. "Equestria... and for centuries I watched her grow and become more powerful than ever before, the birthplace of magic beyond wonders-"

"Then why do you want to poison this world with magicaine!?" Sunset Shimmer snapped. "You and Stygg worked hard to clean up these lands."

"Poison? Goodness, no." He sighed. "I acted on prejudice. I destroyed plantations and factories and sentenced many a pony to exile and not once did I ever stop to really research what I had been fighting against." Starswirl walked over to his desk, a mirror was on top. He pulled out a vial and laid down a line of white powder. "Look again, out that window. Equestria has grown stagnant."

Sunset Shimmer looked across the landscape. She heard a sniffing sound and she turned back around to Starswirl and the line of powder was gone from the mirror.

"I'm giving ponies what they want. I'm giving ponies what they need to continue to grow Equestria's magic, to end this stagnant dark age." Starswirl continued.

"You're poisoning them. You're killing them!" Sunset Shimmer cried. She lowered her head and fired a blast at Starswirl who blocked it effortlessly with his energy shield.

The zebra motioned toward Sunset Shimmer but Starswirl motioned to him and he backed off. "I need her." He explained

"I need you." Starswirl looked back towards Sunset Shimmer. "Your friends look up to you in the other world, no?"

"I will never help you poison my friends!" Sunset Shimmer objected.

"You remind me of myself, acting purely on prejudice and dogma. Not seeing what greatness could truly be." Starswirl chuckled. "Think of what you could do with all this power." He urged. "Is there nothing you want that is out of your reach right now?" Starswirl walked up beside Sunset Shimmer, levitating a vial of magicaine.

"You and Stygian seem to have developed a real special bond together." Starswirl smirked. "But there's a problem isn't there? The lack of a warm body to touch. It's truly regrettable what happened so long ago. We stumbled across the fabled Alicorn Amulet and so we conducted a ritual to purge it's evil influence from Equestria once and for all. Unfortunately his body was destroyed in the process. The only way to save him was to place his soul inside the amulet." Starswirl shook his head and sighed.

"We get along just fine." Sunset Shimmer snarled.

"Imagine being powerful enough to restore his body from nothing. To undo that misfortune and be able to have a normal relationship like anypony else." Starswirl taunted as he levitated the vial even closer to Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset Shimmer reached out with her hoof and touched Starswirl with it. The centuries of memories flooded in like a torrent and she winced in pain as she reached desperately for relevant strands; the location of the building, locations of his operations, it all came to her. Deeper yet, she grabbed for the memory of the purging of the Alicorn Amulet and just then she felt a shocking blast knock her to the floor.

"Get out of there!" Starswirl snarled.

"You... You trapped him in there on purpose." Sunset Shimmer trembled as her horn began to charge with magical energy.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Starswirl chuckled. "You can't get past my shield."

Sunset Shimmer fired a blast through the window that exploded into the air and radiated out like a fiery beacon in the sky. Papers and other loose objects in the high up office went flying out the window in the ensuing blast of wind.

"Put her back in her cell!" Starswirl snarled as he motioned to the zebra. "Tell security to be on high alert."