Sunset: Through a Mirror Darkly
Sunset - Through a Mirror Darkly
by
Ariel Schnee
Prologue
Sunset was trotting down a street in Canterlot. She was, to all appearances, just minding her own business. She stopped at a nearby fruit stand.
"I'd like some Iridescent Rainbow Starfruit." she said to the vendor.
"You know how rare that is?" asked the vendor.
"The Sun always provides for the ponies." said Sunset.
"Perhaps you should check the warehouse over there." said the vendor, motioning with his head.
"Thanks." said Sunset as she left, and trotted over to the warehouse nearby.
She entered the warehouse, and then went to the container of Iridescent Rainbow Starfruit located inside. Opening the case revealed a briefcase, a few Iridescent Rainbow Starfruits, and some cooled Iridescent Rainbow Starfruit juice. Sunset put the fruit, and juice, into her subspace pocket.
'I'll enjoy these later.' she thought.
Then she pressed her horn to the horn scanner located on the briefcase.
It scanned her horn's magical signature, and then opened. Located inside was a numeric keypad. She typed in a nine digit number. The space in the left slid away to reveal a data crystal.
Taking the data crystal in her magic, Sunset said "Copy.". The info on the data crystal was copied to Sunset's horn data storage. The space the data crystal was in rose up, revealing a hidden data crystal player.
Sunset insert the data crystal into the player's slot.
The voice of Princess Celestia started playing.
"Good morning, my Little Sun." it said. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is a vital one. The Mirror of Worlds has been stolen."
Sunset gaped at that. 'How is that possible?' she thought. 'The Mirror of Worlds is kept in the strongest vault in the Celestial Palace. There's no way anybeing could sneak in there and steal it.'
"The Mirror was stolen due to the treachery of some of the guards. ... Yes, treachery. Some of the guards have betrayed Me, and joined forces with the Cloven Hoof Syndicate."
Sunset's eyes bugged out. 'WHAAAAAT?!' she thought.
"Yes, I know it is hard to believe. But it is true. Some of the guards found Grogar's offers of Immortality, power, etc. too tempting to turn down."
Sunset's mouth tightened angrily in a snarl. 'DAMN IT!' she thought.
"They must not be allowed to go through the Mirror. The other world is not ready for them. They are a version of the human world we know. But, at an earlier time in it's history. Centuries before the Europeans colonized the Americas. The Native-Americans would stand no chance against the Syndicate. Nor would any other people on that world. The Syndicate would bowl right over them. And then enslave them all."
'That's not good.' thought Sunset.
"As always, should you or any of your team be caught or killed, the Crown will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
"This crystal will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, My Little Sun. ... My daughter."
'I won't fail you mother.' thought Sunset.
Sunset turned, and trotted away.
Behind her, the briefcase was vaporized as the crystal overloaded. Leaving no trace of it's existence. Not even any ashes.
Play This Music
Or This Instead
Sunset, along with her team, were sitting in her apartment.
Sunset was levitating a blank data crystal in her magic. "Paste." she said. ... ..... .......
Then she inserted the data crystal into her computer's data crystal reader slot.
Sunset pressed a button.
A video popped up.
~It was 1989, my thoughts were short my hair was long
Caught somewhere between a boy and man
She was seventeen and she was far from in-between
It was summertime in Northern Michigan
Ahh Ahh Ahh
Ahh Ahh Ahh
'I loooove Northern Michigan!' thought Sunset. 'There summers are great! I had so much fun there!'
Splashing through the sand bar
Talking by the campfire
It's the simple things in life, like when and where
We didn't have no internet
But man I never will forget
The way the moonlight shined upon her hair
'I can't imagine life before the internet.' thought Sunset.
And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
'Sweet home Alabama!' thought Sunset. 'I love Alabama too! Such a fun vacation state!'
Starlight giggled. "Remember when we did that last month Sunburst?" asked Starlight.
Sunburst chuckled. "Yeah. That was fun. ... I've never been so drunk, and high, in my life. ... It took a week before I stopped seeing purple polkadots everywhere. ..."
Starlight just giggled again.
Sunset just looked at them. 'Why didn't they invite me and Twinkleshine?' she thought. 'That sounds like it was a lot of fun.'
Catching Walleye from the dock
Watching the waves roll off the rocks
She'll forever hold a spot inside my soul
We'd blister in the sun
We couldn't wait for night to come
To hit that sand and play some rock and roll
'Mmmm... Wall eye. Yummy!' thought Sunset. '... I love rock and roll!'
While we were trying different things
And we were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Now nothing seems as strange as when the leaves began to change
Or how we thought those days would never end
Sometimes I'll hear that song and I'll start to sing along
And think man I'd love to see that girl again
Sunset looked over at Twinkleshine. 'I'm glad I married my girl.' she thought with a smile. 'My cute Twinkleshine. ...'
And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song
Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long
Singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long~
Sunset was staring at the button she had pressed.
She chuckled nervously. "Oops. Sorry. Wrong button."
Suddenly a sound distracted her. She looked back at Starlight and Sunburst... and gaped.
"STARLIGHT!" she yelled. "SUNBURST! DO I HAVE TO HOSE YOU TWO DOWN!"
Starlight, where she was wrapped around Sunburst and sniffing his scent while he was sniffing hers, stopped her sexy *growl*ing noises and got off of Sunburst. Starlight, and Sunburst, shook themselves like two wet dogs. They both blushed.
"Sorry Sunset." said a very embarrassed Starlight. "I couldn't help myself. Vampony instincts you know."
"Sorry sis." said an equally embarrassed Sunburst. "She made those sexy growling noises. I just couldn't help myself. ... And her scent. ... My vampony instincts reacted to hers. You know how that is."
Twinkleshine, blushing very red, just stared wide-eyed.
Sunset, her face flaming red tomato, said "You two can make love later. Right now we have a briefing to do." She didn't mention that she wanted her and Twinkleshine to join them. And that it was only the time limit that prevented her from grabbing Twinkleshine and jumping them and making love with them right now.
"If you can press the [right button." said Starlight.
Sunset blushed. "It's a new media center. The layout's different than my old one. I haven't memorized it yet."
The others chuckled.
After a few seconds, so did Sunset. Then she shook herself. And pressed another button.
After listening to a repeat of what she heard earlier Sunset, and her team, examined the other data on the crystal.
"What do you all think?" Sunset asked her team, studying the 3D holographic blueprint of the enemy's fortress.
"It won't be easy getting into the Syndicate's fortress." said Sunburst.
~Yeah.~ Snowbank, Sunset's Shadow Bird familiar, sent telepathically. ~That place is locked up tighter than Sun-butt's pastry cabinet.~
"Must you make fun of Her constantly?" chided Sunset.
~Hey, She's your mother.~ he sent, pointing his wing at Sunset, and Sunburst. ~And your mother-in-law.~ he sent, pointing his wing at Starlight, and Twinkleshine. ~I'm not related to Her. So I can make fun of Her eating habits if I want to.~
"Fair enough." said Sunset. "Now... Can we get back to the briefing?" she asked.
Snowbank shrugged, then nodded. ~Alright.~
"Getting past their weapons in a frontal assault would be impossible." said Starlight. "We'll have to sneak in. At least they don't have balefire bombs, megaspells, chemical weapons, biological weapons, or Saran nerve gas."
"If they did, we'd throwing everything we have at them right now." said Sunset, shuddering at the thought of the Syndicate having access to WDWs. No. It was a good thing the Syndicate didn't have any World Destroying Weapons. As for the human weapons... "Not even the Syndicate is evil enough to touch some of the more nasty stuff the humans have invented."
"They do have automatic machine gun turrets, rocket launchers, and other stuff they bought from Earth's Black Market though." said Twinkleshine.
"Peachy..." said Sunset in a sarcastic tone. "They've got tons of military weapons from Earth. At least, as I said earlier, even they aren't evil enough to touch some of the more nasty stuff the humans have invented."
"I'm surprised the human race is still alive." said Twinkleshine while looking rather sad.
Sunset nodded. "They do have an amazing capacity for self-destruction." she agreed.
They looked back at the data, and studied it some more on the defense placements.
"So a frontal assault is out." said Sunset. "Any other ideas on how to get in?"
"Their teleport interdiction field would make it impossible to teleport in." said Sunburst. "Or to teleport anywhere around once inside."
"Although it is cliche, could we sneak in through the sewers?" asked Twinkleshine.
"No good there." said Starlight. "They don't have sewers. They're using Toilet Meds."
Sunset nodded at that, thinking of the wonderful invention that was the Toilet Med. 'Whoever invented those is, or was, a genius.' she thought. 'All you have to do is step up on one, and it teleports the waste right out of you. And gives you a free medical scan. And either fixes the problem, or tells you to go see a doctor. Still... Them having the good sense to have them reduces the ways we can sneak in by one.'
"Sneak in with a food shipment?" asked Sunburst.
"No good." said Sunset. "They search them too thoroughly."
"Use the old 'fake guard escorting a prisoner in' ploy?" asked Starlight.
"No, it wouldn't work." said Sunset. "All the guards have electronic ID chips. We don't know the frequencies for them."
"Oh, yeah." said Starlight, while hitting her forehead with her hoof. "I forgot about those. ... Things were so much easier when infiltrating a place a few centuries ago. I didn't have to worry about electronic stuff back in my youth."
"When would that have been?" snarked Twinkleshine. "After or before Celestia?"
"I'm not that old!" exclaimed Starlight.
"You're the oldest one of us here." said Twinkleshine.
"That's not saying much coming from you miss 'I just turned eighteen last week'." said Starlight. "You're just a child compared to me."
*GROWL* went Twinkleshine, showing her sharp fangs.
*GROWL* went Starlight, also showing her fangs.
"Enough!" barked Sunset. "We have a mission to plan. Now, let's get to it."
"Sorry." said Twinkleshine meekly, while retracting her fangs.
"Sorry." said Starlight casually, also retracting her fangs.
...
.....
"I've got an idea that just might work now." said Twinkleshine.
"What is it?" asked Sunset.
Twinkleshine explained her idea.
...
...
...
...
"That's... That's so crazy it just might work!" exclaimed Sunburst.
"Looks like we've got a plan then." said Starlight.
Sunset looked at Twinkleshine and said "You are wonderful."
Twinkleshine blushed and said "Me? Wonderful?"
Sunset nodded.
Twinkleshine grinned and said "I suppose I am. Never really thought about it."
They both grinned.
Author's Note
This is a rewrite of my previous version I made before. I hope you like it. Let me know about errors/corrections/suggestions.
