An expression to match the serenity of the scene on her face, Sunset Shimmer sat on a rock with an open book in her hands as the sun's rays warmed and bathed her already orange skin in golden light. For Sunset, this had been a particularly long moment of calm. A welcome change of pace from the nearly constant barrage of events that pulled her and her other super-powered friends out of the peaceful life of attending high school and into dealing with the latest entitled teenager who got a hold of a power they weren’t responsible enough for. In said teenagers defense, however, Sunset and her friends where often in over their heads even with their own powers.
Likewise, this quiet reading time was a break from Sunset’s other life. The life of a titleless-by-choice princess who often got called over to help deal with the latest threat to her homeworld at hand, hoof, or whatever appendage-they-may-possess of some new threat. That is when she wasn’t called on to keep one of her pony friends with a lot of power and little impulse control from going overboard, of course.
Little did Sunset know, the next few hours would go down as some of the most significant of her entire life. Given the decidedly eventful life she had lead up to this point, this was saying quite a bit. And like so many moments of quiet in Sunset’s life, it was overdue to come to a screeching and pronounced halt. A pattern that Sunset often lamented but assumed was some sort of karmic retribution for a childhood, then early-adulthood, then late-childhood again spent being just the worst to pretty much everyone and everypony.
“Heya, Sunset! Ya gotta moment?” a somewhat husky male voice called out from around Sunset’s feet.
Sunset suppressed a sigh as she mentally marked off where she was in her book, reminded herself of the aforementioned karmic debt she owed and assured herself that Spike was the most likely to bring up an innocuous topic out of all her friends. She looked down at the purple dog and smiled. “Yes, Spike? Is something wrong? Food dish empty? Head scratched? Someone to throw your Frisbee and Twilight is completely caught up in ‘science land’?”
“Hey!” Spike barked out in a protesting tone. “Just because I’m a dog doesn’t mean everything I talk about has to be dog related.”
Sunset set down her book and put on a more serious look. “I’m sorry Spike, it’s just that I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with you that didn’t involve the words ‘food’, ‘chase’, or ‘pet’ once in all the time we’ve known each other.”
“Well, prepare to have your mind blown!” Spike said confidently.
Sunset let out a laugh and brought up both sets of index and middle fingers up to her temples as she leaned forward. “I’ve assumed the ‘pre-mind blown’ position.”
“I have two things to talk to you about…” Spike said, trailing off as some rustling a ways away caught his attention and his ears perked up.
“Does one of them involve squirrels?”
“One thing!” Spike said quickly as he focused all his attention on Sunset. “I have one thing to talk to you about and at no point will I bring up squirrels or even a squirrel.”
“Well, let me have it!” Sunset cried. “I mean, I’d hate to think I’ve assumed this position for no reason.”
“Okay, so… Remember that there’s another Spike on the world you come from.”
“Yes, I do manage to remember and keep my two pools of nearly identical friends separate…”
“Right, and he’s a dragon over there.”
Sunset nodded. “Yes, he changes to a dragon once he’s back home… Er…. Or rather he changes to a dog when he comes over here.”
“Okay, so I’m a dragon when I cross the portal.”
“That follows.”
“So, does that mean that every dog that hops across the mirror turns into a dragon?”
“I…” Sunset trailed off. She had been preparing for Spike to get to his point so she could mimic an explosion sound and make a dramatic finger-waving ‘mind blown’ motion when whatever it was he had to say underwhelmed her, but the fact of the matter was that question had not only whelmed her mind, it had overwhelmed it. Her mind was so blown in fact that it might treat itself to a little unhealthy nicotine fix a little later. However, it was now feverishly working overtime to determine what to do with this new theory.
With the speed of thought, Sunset had an answer. At only slightly slower speed, she produced her phone, tapped at the screen a few times and brought it up to her ear.
“Uh, Sunset?” Spike said.
“Just a second, Spike!” Sunset replied before turning her mouth towards the phone. “Yes, Fluttershy! Hi! Sorry to call and not text, but it’s a bit of an emergency! Huh… Oh… No… no Equestrian magic stuff… yes… I just… look… No! No one is hurt or dying, I just need your help with something and…” Sunset huffed out a sigh and pulled back her phone to stare at it for a moment. “Yes, yes… that’s one adorable squirrel you have there.”
Spike’s ears perked up. “Squirrel?!” He frowned in realization as his ears drooped down about his head. “Ah, nertz…”
“I need you to focus for a second,” Sunset said into her phone. “The shelter you work at has lots of dogs right… Uh…huh… uh… No, not adopting but… does it also have one of those programs where you can rent a dog for a bit? You know… take it for a walk?”
“Rent a dog?” Spike exclaimed. “Dude, that sounds soooo wrong…” Spike’s eyes were alit with possibilities as his tail began to wag. “And yet soooo right. Ask her if they have any foxes over there! You know… not actual foxes, but hound-foxes. Like, a cute lady dog and not a tramp…” Spike thought for a moment and wiggled his doggy eyebrows wildly. “Eh, it’s the inside that counts! You know, so long as it’s a “lassie,” if you know what I mean?”
Sunset held up a finger as if to hush puppy Spike. “Look, the descriptions are all irrelevant. I need all the dogs!”
Spike’s tail began to wag uncontrollably, and he began to drool. “I like where this is going!”
“Yes, Fluttershy!” Sunset exclaimed. “All the dogs. ALL. OF. THEM!” After a few more moments, Sunset calmed. “Look, I’ll be there to fill out all the paperwork in a jiffy. Alright? Okay, okay… Awww… I love you, too… Yes, I’m sure the dogs will be very grateful.” Sunset said, her smile turning demonic for a split second. “You can stop crying. Okay, good-bye.” Sunset looked down at Spike. “Come on, Spike! We need to buy, like, a dozen leashes.”
“I reeeeeaaallly like where this is going.”
In hindsight, Sunset thought a few hours later after having slipped out of her somewhat gangly human form and into her more compact and cuddly pony form with a horn and a set of wings, I really only needed the one dog… I mean, initially. More dogs could have come later but… go big or go home. Guess I did both...
The idea that Sunset had perhaps gone ‘too big, too fast,’ was compounded by the crystal castle in the distance that had just had a wall partially destroyed when a handful, hoofful or, maybe even pawful, of the now gone-and-replaced-with-dragons dogs proved to be significantly larger than Spike. Sunset barely managed to save the mirror portal just before the scaly beasts started bark-fire blasting and chewing on anything they thought might be edible… which pretty much turned out to be everything in Twilight’s castle. For example, the walls…
… Especially the walls.
Additionally, Sunset’s thought that maybe, just maybe she had overdone things came in the form of rising smoke from distant fires she could spot, the terrified neighing of ponies on the wind, and the almost forgotten, but now resurrected look of ‘I’m not disappointed in you, just really, really peeved that you did this’ coming from her adopted mother Celestia. Said look was burning brightly from the white monarch as she and Sunset sat atop Canterlot Castle’s observation deck which overlooked Ponyville.
“Sunset?” Celestia began in a tone of barely contained frothing rage. “Darling? Light, of my life? I’m not going to hurt you, but I do require an explanation post haste before I take you behind a shed and unmake you.”
Sunset momentarily considered shifting the blame to the disturbed castle occupant who had shot one of the larger dragon-dogs in the face with electricity when it interrupted said occupants’ shower and stirring rendition of ‘Famous Last Words’, but decided she really didn’t need a pony with a magical lightning shotgun permanently attached to her face as an enemy. Plus, it was kind of adorable that a creature roughly five times bigger than Sunset had sniffed her out and tried to hide under her for protection. She instead looked up at Celestia and did what she did best. “Alright, prepare to have your mind blown!”
Attempt to talk herself out of the problem she had caused with her own hands… hooves… whatever.
Celestia’s scorching glare only increased in intensity as she extended her wings to their full, very impressive length. “I’m in no mood to assume the ‘mind-about-to-be-blown’ position! You have eight words to explain yourself! I’m really at the end of my tether here!”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of those I can salvage back at Twilight’s.”
“Sunset!” Celestia snapped angrily.
“Okay, okay! I can break that iron will of yours in four words!” Sunset proclaimed.
“While I normally find your bravado charmingly precocious daughter, Even if I gave you one-hundred words with one or two extra as a buffer, I doubt you could soothe my rage,” Celestia said sternly as she gestured out to the carnage. The once peaceful town now washed with fire, barking dragons, and ponies flying and galloping about as they screamed wildly.
“I’m telling you! Just four words!”
“Fine…” Celestia growled out. “But for your sake, they better be particularly impressive.”
Sunset grinned from ear to ear. “Unlimited. Trainable. Dragons. Whenever.”
Celestia paused for a moment, her anger seemingly draining from her face like a fire starved of oxygen. After an extended pause of Celestia trying to come up with an appropriate response, she spoke. “My Little Shimmering Sunlight?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard!” Celestia decreed as she wrapped both her wings around Sunset in a tight embrace. ”Even better than music from great diamond dog composer Saint Bernard!”
Sunset closed her eyes and wobbled her head from side to side in a chuffed manner. “Yeah, I know.”
“BARK!”
‘FWOOOSH!’
[Muffled panicked neighing in the distance.]
Cacophonous sounds refocused both mare’s attention. She returned her wings to their folded, upright position and cleared her throat. “However, as a protectorate of this kingdom, I still have to ask how you intend to address this mess you’ve made.”
Sunset shrugged. “Oh, you know… The usual…”
Celestia thought for a moment. “Get Twilight to fix it?” she suggested.
Sunset bobbed her head up and down. “And bingo was his name-o!”
A magenta flash punctuated Sunset’s statement and Twilight Sparkle appeared with a ‘Pomff!’ her face a smaller, slightly-singed, and purple version of the face Celestia had been making up until the ruler had regained her composure.
“Well, would you look at what the dog dragged in!” Sunset said happily. “Her ears must be burning!”
“They were,” Twilight said coldly as she flicked her singed ears irritably.
Before Sunset could address the comment and electric blue flash and a ‘Crack!’ announced the presence of one Starlight Glimmer.
“Oh, and Starlight is here!” Sunset said with no apparent lack of enthusiasm. “She’s also vital to my plan! ...Probably!”
“Really?!” Starlight said excitedly.
Sunset nodded. “I’m sure there’ll be some near illegible script from an ancient shrinking spell Twilight finds that we’ll need you to decipher at one point or another!”
Starlight considered this for a moment. “You know what? I’ll take it! Sometimes it’s just nice to be included.”
“That’s the spirit!” Sunset exclaimed.
“Uh, excuse me!” Twilight grumped.
“Yes, Twilight?” Celestia answered melodically. “Something on your mind?”
“Oh, you know… Ponyville and all the on fire it currently is from the unexpected increase of dragons that bark… and shoot fire out of their mouths when they bark!” Twilight sighed and stared off forlornly. “They just… bark at everything…”
Sunset chuckled to herself. “Right? Especially that adorable little Chihuahua that barks at everything like crazy! I mean… You’d think we’d catch a break and that’d be the smallest one, but no…” Sunset cast her eyes on a multi-story tall dragon with magenta and purple scales that ‘barked’ yellow flames at everything and anything it saw. “The portal must work on some inverse size principle when it comes to dogs and dragons!”
Twilight groaned. “Sunset, I’m pretty sure I got my answer at this point, but please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Starlight interjected with a manic grin, “Please tell me you had everything to do with this!”
The ponies present all turned towards Starlight with looks of mild confusion on their faces.
“Uh… Well, sorry to disappoint you Twilight and, er… Happy to not disappoint you Starlight? But yeah, Spike the Dog maybe floated the idea that it’s possible all dogs go to dragon mode when they come across the portal!”
Starlight inhaled, widening her lungs and her eyes at the same time.
‘Bark! Fwoosh! Bark! Fwoosh! Bark! Fwoosh!’
A random stallion’s voice floated up from the chaos below. “Why do we keep rebuilding Ponyville out of flammable wood and straw?! WHY?!”
Sunset motioned to the chaos below. “I’d consider this pretty conclusive evidence.”
“Hey, where is the dog-version of Spike, anyhow?” Starlight asked.
“Oh, he discovered he could fly!” Sunset said.
“Hahahaha… YES!”
A green glow from the nearby streets of Canterlot momentarily lit up the faces of the ponies present accompanied by a ‘Fwoooosh!’
“And now no squirrel can escape his wrath,” Sunset said as closer and louder screams from streets below joined the distant ones of Ponyville. “Also, Mom, you’re going to need to replace like… all the trees in town…”
“DIE! SQUIRREL! DIE!”
‘Fwoooosh!’
“Mwhaaahahaha! And your little squirrel FAMILY, too!”
‘Fwoooosh!’
“I’d happily burn this planet if it meant the death to every squirrel!”
“And I mean all of them…”
Celestia just smiled and shrugged. “A small price to pay all things considering…”
“… Sunset?” Twilight said.
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Words cannot express how angry I am with you right now.”
Sunset nodded. “Oh, I excel at doing that.”
Celestia guffawed. “She really does!”
Twilight directed her laser-sharp glare upwards. “Princess Celestia, how can you take this all in stride?! I know Sunset’s your adopted daughter, but that just means you’re that much more responsible for her behavior! I really don’t see how you can just overlook something as horrible as all of this without so much of a hint of discussing punishment.”
Starlight sneezed. “Pardon me!”
“You're pardoned,” Twilight said without missing a beat.
“Twilight,” Celestia began, “I know what Sunset did seems brash and grossly irresponsible” —
“In Twilight’s defense, it totally was,” Sunset quipped.
“But I know four words that will make it all better!” Declared Celestia.
Twilight narrowed the already micron-thin gap between her eyelids. “‘I’m going to help?’” she suggested
“Hah! No. The four words are ‘Unlimited. Trainable. Dragons. Whenever’.” Celestia offered.
Twilight thought for a moment. “Okay, the implications of that are staggering but Sunset could have brought over just one dog and alerted me that this was going to happen!”
“There was no time!” Sunset insisted.
Twilight glowered at Sunset. “Really?! You couldn’t have taken the time to just write me in the journal?”
“Okay, okay,” Sunset began. “I admit I got a little excited at the possibilities after I checked-out about a dozen dogs! But by the time I thought to write to you, the clock was already ticking! I had an hour to get the dogs here and then back to the shelter.”
Twilight gave Sunset a concerned look. “What?! What clock?! Does the magic become permanent after an hour?!”
Sunset shook her head. “No, but I could only check out the dogs for an hour at a time, and I have to get them back to the shelter Fluttershy works at, otherwise there are additional fees!”
Celestia let out a dramatic gasp. “No!”
“Yes!” Sunset assured.
Twilight smashed a forehoof against her head. “So, we only have an hour?”
Sunset scoffed in annoyance. “Of course not! Do you know how long it takes to walk a dozen dogs anywhere?! We have about… 22 minutes left for you and Starlight to help me shrink and round-up the dogs before we get the two Spikes to… I dunno, speak dog to them and mush them homeward bound across the portal where we bolt to get them back to the shelter, laugh about the responsibility of pet ownership to Fluttershy, and all sit down and enjoy a nice smoothie while we talk about what a great lesson in ‘texting ahead’ and not ‘getting caught up in the moment’ I learned. Then we put this dog day to an end! ...Or something.”
“A brilliant plan, My Little Shimmering Sunshine!” Celestia assured.
“Thanks, Mom!” Sunset said with a beaming smile.
“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. “That’s preposterous!” Shaking her head, she clarified, “How is it the shelter only allows you to take a dog out for an hour at a time but lets you borrow unlimited dogs?!”
Sunset shrugged. “There was nothing in the rulebook that said you could only check-out one dog.”
Celestia nodded sagely. “By dog law, that means it’s perfectly legal.”
Twilight continued, “Also, there’s no way we can execute a plan that convoluted in just 22 minutes!”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Somehow, Twilight, I’m sure you’ll manage. Besides! I think you’re missing the bigger picture here! Sure, I’ve caused lots of property damage and necessary therapy sessions today, but Equestria can now bolster an unstoppable army provided we aren’t completely blindsided by a threat and taken over in a few hours like what seemingly always happens.”
Celestia looked down at Sunset with a heavy frown. “Was that last part reaaallly necessary?”
“Yes!” Sunset snapped.
“YES!” Starlight giggled excitedly as she pumped a forehoof into the air. “Whoo-Hoooo!”
“See!” Sunset exclaimed as she pointed toward Starlight. “That’s the appropriate level of excitement!”
“No, not that!” Starlight said, shaking her head with a smile that had practically turned delirious. “I’m just… I’m just so happy somepony other than me is the source of the major catastrophe for once!”
Sunset, Celestia, and Twilight all studied Starlight for a moment.
“You know what?” Sunset said. “I’ll take it!” She turned with a smile at Twilight. “See! I helped Starlight feel better about herself, too! What a great lesson in encouragement I just learned… or something…”
Twilight looked down at Ponyville. “The schoolhouse is on fire,” she said in a grumpy deadpan.
“It is!?” Starlight said excitedly. “Oh, that is just fantastic!”
Celestia’s lips flapped with a dismissive “Pfffffft” as she waved a forehoof about. “I’ve paid to have that thing replaced about three times in the last few years.”
Twilight continued in a tone nearly completely removed from the concept of excitement. “No seriously, foals are in danger here…”
“This day is the day that keeps on giving!” Starlight cried gleefully.
Celestia chuckled to herself at the distant sound of a building collapsing. “And there goes the Apple family barn! Guess that’s getting replaced for the twentieth time! Now I’m royally obligated to treat the whole family to a free coffee!”
Sunset grinned at Twilight. “Free urban renewal project and some ponies get free coffee! It’s win-win all around!” she insisted as the screams continually drifted up from Ponyville.
“No, seriously… Won’t somepony think of the children?” Twilight grunted.
“I am, and it makes me just sooo happy!” Starlight cried.
“Free coffee for the children, too!” Celestia declared.
“I’m thinking about the children soooo hard right now!” Sunset assured. “But also, the ongoing safety and of my home nation and the fact I can train my own dragon to ride… Mostly that in fact.”
Twilight sighed and trotted away. “I’ll just… I’ll just look up that shrinking-spell, then. Come on, Starlight.”
Starlight gasped. “You mean I get to undo this horrible mess somepony else created, too! This is the happiest day of my life!”
“Winning the hearts and minds!” said Sunset excitedly as she followed behind. “Things are definitely looking up!”
“Don’t worry, my little ponies!” Celestia said. “I’m exceedingly confident you can handle this within the time frame given! I’ll be here just… observing if you need anything!”
“Sister?”
Celestia looked up as her sister Luna, complete with baggy-eyes, bedhead, and grumpy expression landed next to her.
“Good afternoon Luna!” Celestia greeted cheerfully.
Luna looked out upon the destruction. “What’s good about it?”
Celestia chuckled. “Oh, Luna! Four words!”
Luna sighed. “Yes?”
“Unlimited. Trainable. Dragons. Whenever.”
Luna paused and thought for a moment. “Admittedly, that did make getting up at this Sun-godly hour worth it.”
“I knew that would make you happy!”
Luna yawned. “I’m still going back to bed until this whole thing blows over.” She announced before taking flight again.
“Good idea!” Celestia called out. “You’ve picked up being a perfect princess so well since you’ve come back!”
The End
Author's Note
Inspired by the below picture.
Source.
