Sunset in the gods

A LONG TIME AGO

In the royal gardens of Canterlot Castle, a unicorn filly was trying to give classes to a young alicorn.

“So magic comes from the bones?” The young pink alicorn asked.

"No!". The red-maned unicorn filly said. “The magic is inside the body! "Simply all races bring out their magic differently!" Then the filly points to a blackboard where the three types of ponies were drawn. “Summarize what I explained to you.” She says as she points to the picture of an earth pony.

“Earth ponies use their hooves passively to use their magic.”

“Right, that's why they are supposed to be such good farmers, while they plant and harvest they unconsciously insert a little magic into the fruits and vegetables.” Now Sunset points to the image of a pegasus.

"I know that! When pegasi grow their feathers, they accumulate a small amount of magic, which is why they can shape clouds and if they are skilled enough, they can fly faster even without wind or air currents. The more magic the feathers have, the more fast they are". Cadance said proudly.

“And now the reason we study this.” She pointed to the image of a unicorn.

“Unicorns have active and passive magic at the same time, although they have their own internal magic at birth, their horn begins to accumulate magic from the environment unconsciously, but at some point they have to release all the accumulated magic.”

“Right, so we have hooves, feathers and horns. What do the three of them have in common?”

Cadance thought for a moment before answering. “What is attached to our body?”

“That is connected to our inner source of magic!” Sunset replied. “Usually unicorns learn the basics when they are foals but with you we must understand the logic before teaching you how to use your horn.” Sunset sees Celestia on the castle balcony and notices that the sun is going down. “It's getting late and tomorrow I have classes with the princess, next week we will continue with your magic lessons.”

"I'll be here". She says happily but Cadance doesn't move from where she is and just looks at the filly.

"Something happens? Do you need to ask me something? I know we've been doing this for a month now but..."

Cadanse just smiles a little. "It doesn't matter". Cadanse interrupted. “It's nothing important, I'll be here next week, goodbye Sunset.”

PRESENT

“Try moving a finger now.” Applejack tells Sunset as she finishes adjusting the wooden arm.

Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes and began to imagine that she still had her arm, trying to imagine how the magic extended to the prosthesis as if the prosthesis itself were her horn.

"Incredible!" Pinkie Pie said as she cheered Sunset on. “Although I'm sure fingers shouldn't bend like that.”

Sunset opens her eyes and sees that when she stretches out her wooden hand, the fingers bend backwards, breaking them all.

“For a thousand apples it happened again!” Applejack sighs in resignation. “We barely have a few spare hands left to practice on,” she says as she detaches the broken hand from her arm.

“Maybe we should try another type of wood.” Twilight said as she prepared another hand. "any ideas?"

“Why don't we use a real hand?!” Pinkie Pie suggested.

After an awkward silence, everyone decided to ignore what Pinkie said. Weeks had passed since Sunset started moving the wooden prosthesis. She had been practicing to make the movement more fluid, but at the moment she had only been able to move her arm. She still had problems. with hand.

“I guess I'll have to carve more hands.” Applejack murmured.

“You better collect a lot of wood, in a few hours we will reach the desert.” Scorpan said, the god let the group out of the cages so they could stretch their legs and some of them strayed too far from the cart but they always came back, not that they could do much to escape from a god, besides none of them would abandon the other.

After they fixed everything Scorpan begins to direct the cart until they reached the desert. “Get ready, we are about to arrive.”

They opened many carts with empty cages that had not been abandoned for a long time, then Scorpan blows a kind of whistle but Sunset and none of the others heard anything, then everyone begins to see that something was approaching and coming from the desert, at first they believed that they were some lizards like the ones The Fallen had but they were a little slower and looked slightly different, they looked more like an iguana, they stopped right in front of Scorpan, they were about four meters long and two meters high, both iguanas had a kind of shape -tent on the back so that three humans could fit.

"When everyone is ready, enter the tents, it will be four days through the desert until you reach the city, inside you will remain fresh."

Flash checks the tents. "He's right, this is designed to keep the interiors cool and from what I notice..." Then the young teenager looks in the direction of the desert. “I think that once we enter we will no longer have the opportunity to escape.”

“We never had the chance to escape.” Sunset said.

"I don't believe it". Applejack said. “We just have to make a good plan and that's it.”

"I don't know if anyone noticed but... At what point did Scorpan watch us?"

“Now that you mention it…” Shining Armor responded. “I tried to search and see when he watched us the most but…”

“He never watched us, because he didn't need it.” Sunset replied. "It's like he wants us to try something, Applejack, you yourself said that Scorpan didn't care that you had a knife, which you could have used to try to stab him.".

"I didn't think I could stab him, it would take more than a simple knife to hurt a god, you stabbed him many times with your aura dagger."

“So we just go to the City of Beasts and accept what we get?” Flash said.

“If I always accepted what I got then we would still be in the mines, we will go to the City of Beasts and we will make a plan to escape again.”

“My little eyes see something…”

“Pinkie Pie! We are inside a tent with no view to the outside! "We're not going to play that!" Flash Sentry exclaimed while Shining Armor seemed to agree.

“But there is nothing better to do and the others are in the other iguana.” Pinkie responded with a pout.

“I need you to remember me because she is the one who accompanies us.”

“Because her majesty, Applejack and my sister are experimenting with the arm.” Shining responded resignedly.

“How long have we been in the desert?” Flash asked.

"half an hour". Shining responded as she held her head.

"Do not worry! I still have a lot of ideas so we can have fun!”

“Do you think it was a good idea for them to stay with Pinkie?” Applejack asked worriedly.

"They'll be fine". Sunset said without concern. “Besides, I need help with this.” Sunset raises the wooden arm. “At the moment I can move my arm without a problem but we still have problems with my hand.”

“I think Pinkie was right about the hand.” Twilight says and she notices Applejack and Sunset looking at her like she's grown a third head. “What I'm trying to say is why doesn't she try to materialize a real hand?”

"Is that possible?" Applejack asked.

"It could work, when Diamon Tyara arrived I took the opportunity to ask her things that Discord didn't know and she told me that there were masters who could materialize organic objects." Twilight said. “But first you had to have a complete understanding of the anatomy of the body.”

Sunset thought a little about that suggestion, although it might work she would still have to learn about the biology of the human body, for a moment she remembered how she tried to understand the body of a unicorn, even at that time she had completely memorized how a unicorn's horn was made up.

“It might work but…” Sunset lifts her arm for real. “'aura of materialization' 'Dagger.'” Then the weapon materializes. “This is all I can materialize, plus if I let go of it then it doesn't last more than five minutes before it starts to fade, that means a hand let alone an entire arm is out of the question for the moment.”

“No problem for me, after the effort I put into making that prosthesis for you, I would feel offended if you decided to throw away that arm.” Applejack said.

"When we escape I will make sure to get good materials so you can make another one." Sunset said.

“And I'll make sure it's even better than the real thing.” Applejack said proudly.

"Your majesty, I suggest that if possible you hide the fact that you are missing an arm." Twilight said.

“Twilight, I'm not going to hide this as an embarrassment, so I hope you give me a good reason to suggest that.”

“When we escape and then head to Canterlot, my father should have already prepared everything for his majesty's return, you must lead his people but if they see you without your arm it could demoralize many, you must show yourself strong and a queen without an arm is not."

Sunset didn't like the idea but she understood Twilight's reasoning. "It's fine". She said reluctantly. “I guess I just have to master this to make it, Applejack. How many hands do we have left?”

“Enough so as not to get bored.”

THE SACRED LANDS

Discord felt no pain, he felt neither cold nor hot, no matter how brightly the sun shone or how cold the night got, Discord felt nothing, his body was left near a cliff facing the sea while the god's body slowly petrified. .

“At least I have a panoramic view.” Discord joked.

“You were lucky, I have to turn my head.”

A goddess with long fluffy hair who looked like she was sitting but her body from her feet to her shoulders were petrified, the name of the goddess is Adagio Dazzle and she was once known as the goddess of the Water Faction more powerful. “And when the petrification reaches the neck I will no longer be able to turn my head.”

"I'm still surprised that the petrification is slower than normal with you, and it was Cinch who gave me the petrification, that offends a little."

"Why? Did you expect more?”

“if we take into account that I made a small percentage of gods defect and that it is thanks to me that the gods cannot make divinations…”

"You're just jealous that my sentence was carried out by All Master." Adagio said arrogantly. “And all I had to do was a small rebellion, fight All Master directly and almost sink the sacred land under the ocean, did I forget something?”

“Conceited.”

“Remember that it was your fault that my entire plan failed.”

“What did you expect? If your plan succeeded then the world would fall into anarchy.” Discord replied.

“And you think your plan will succeed?”

“I have no idea.”

"What?! I'm putting my Faction, my infiltrators, and my sisters at risk because of your stupid plan based on your stupid vision! And now you tell me you don't know?!”

“I never saw the result of my vision.” That answer baffled adagio. “The vision always showed me someone fighting the gods in the land of the gods, it never showed anything else.”

“If only I could get up to hit you, I would get up to hit you! You know!? I only care what...” Adagio stops talking and closes his eyes trying to concentrate.

Discord did not say anything, he knew that he should not interrupt Adagio's concentration, the god had visited the goddess many times in the past during the first days of the sentence, there were times when he found her in that same form, when he met Aria he found out why, her sister is sending him a message.

After a few minutes Adagio opened her eyes. “My sister captured the small fortress that the gods used to guard the gates of Tartarus.”

“Does that mean they are going to start pacifying Cerberus?” Discord asked.

And with a smile Adagio responds. "Actually they already pacified it, Aria told me that they attacked the fortress at the same time that a goddess went to the dog."

“That was risky, did they tell you why?”

“They said they wanted to rescue someone, but what matters is that everything turned out well.”

"Luckily the Gates of Tartarus are one of the few areas that the omnipresent eye cannot monitor... what an irony."

“But won't the gods notice when they have to supply the fortress?”

“Our friend who has been accompanying us is going to help us.” Discord said.

At that moment Chrysalis who had heard the entire conversation from behind a statue intervened. "Don't worry, my most trusted agents will keep up the façade. If we let the Water Faction do everything then many would become suspicious, but first I must make sure that they don't attack my subordinates."

“They won't plow it, I'll let them know, just tell me what I need to know.” Adagio said.

Chrysalis gives the instructions to Adagio and when she finishes she heads to talk to Discord. “How will she send the message? “Will she send one of her agents?”

♪Aaaaaaaaaah~ Haaaaaaaaa~ Aaaaaaahhhh~ Aaaaaaaah~♪

“Why do you start singing?” Chrysalis wondered.

"What you are hearing is the greatest secret of the true leader of the Water Faction." Discord responded. “What do you know about the spy hunts during the Tenth Demonic Incursion?”

“Besides the fact that no spy was captured?” Chrysalis responded.

"My predecessor told me that for some reason the demons predicted our movements, for a moment it was suspected that the demons had a fortune teller but the only suspect cannot leave Tartarus which prevented him from actively participating in any raid, then someone suggested the possibility of a spy.”

“From what I know, if it weren't for All Master, everything would have fallen into chaos due to paranoia.” Chrysalis sighed.

"In the end she did not find any spy, after the Wave War, a few days before I formed the Fallen she told me how she sent messages to her sisters." Discord closes his eyes to hear Adagio better. “She has a beautiful voice... and her sisters also have equally beautiful voices.”

“I never knew she had sisters, what faction are they from?” The goddess asked curiously.

"I wouldn't say they are in any faction, one of their sisters is the leader of the Squalo Clan, the other sister is a crazy aura master who doesn't realize she has disciples."

“Do you realize how crazy you are telling me?” Chrysalis looks at Discord as if she had told him a boring joke but then the goddess notices the seriousness of her words. "How is that possible? And why are you telling me this?”

“For your first question I will let Adagio answer but for your second question it is because he trusted you to fulfill your part of our agreement, plus my agents have already found many of those you are looking for.”

Then Adagio finishes singing. “I already sent the message along with all the instructions, did I miss something?”

“Yes, our new friend already knows about your sisters, could you explain the rest?”

FORTRESS IN FRONT OF THE GATES OF TARTARUS

In front of the Gates of Tartarus there is a fortress, that fortress belonged to the masters of the aura,
The function of the fortress was to watch the gates of Tartarus and make sure the world knew when a demonic incursion began while the occupants delayed the incursion as long as they could, after the purge, the fortress was occupied by the gods, when Cerberus was subdued and placed to guard the gates, the fortress was used to keep the new guard, a fortress with a long history that had survived hundreds of legendary battles, the fortress fell in a single night.

“My grandmother told me stories about this place.” Big Mac said as he and other humans threw corpses into a pit. “It is incredible that she fell due to a simple surprise attack.”

“It is because so many soldiers were no longer needed because this place began to be used to take care of Cerverus.” Timber said.

"My people also used this fortress, when an incursion began this fortress was always captured to be able to coordinate the troops that left Tartarus or when we retreated back." Rarity says as she wiped the blood off her sword.

“I hope he doesn't use that if we have to train again.” Limestone said as he could see in the distance how Fluttershy was petting a gigantic three-headed dog. “That thing is supposed to guard those gigantic doors and that shy goddess tames it easily.”

“Eeyup”

“And she's not going to help?” Limestone pointed out to Aria that she was just standing at the edge of the wall. “She just started singing and then she just stayed silent and didn't move at any time.”

"Better not bother her, the Supreme Queen ordered us that when she acts like this she should never interrupt her." Double Diamondle said.
But then Aria smiles and heads straight towards Double Diamond. “It's time to open the doors.”