My Little Pony: Harmony and Chaos

As Sunny swings her sword yet again, more aggressively than the last few times she swung it, she feels not only the weight of the sword getting to her head, but also the weight of this whole situation. She has no magic, no plan, and no Izzy. Doesn’t mean she can stop training though. If she was gonna help, she had to be willing to try and do it without magic. Everyone was willing to do their part, so she had to be willing to do hers no matter what anyone says. Hoof to heart.

As the same promise her and her dad had made up crosses her mind, so do memories of her parents. She remembers her mom and how special she said she was, how she said she’d change the world for the better. She remembers how her father always talked about uniting all of ponykind again and how much he believed that if both of them weren’t the ones to do it, she would be the one. They both had so much faith in her…so much love. So many things a parent should always have. They had been two of the purest ponies anyone could meet, and yet… they were brutally ripped from her by what would appear to be fate. After everything that’s happened, Sunny was starting to think she was destined to lose everyone closest to her. She lost her mom not too long after she had been born, she lost her dad when she was still a kid then lost him again as an adult, and now? …Now it feels like she’s lost Izzy.

With no way to sense her or contact her, she was left with only the choice to wait for Twilight and the others to come up with something before she just risks going out there herself with only her sword and her shield. While she's training, she slips deeper into her thoughts until a memory makes its way to the forefront of her mind about a promise Izzy made to her a while ago.

Flashback

As the Mane 5 were enjoying a free day at the beach with both Sparky and Solaris present, they all felt the same sense of peace and serenity as everyone else who had the same idea. It had been a while since they had been able to have a single day just like this, a day without having to worry about anything except relaxing and letting the worries of the day melt away. Hitch and Zipp were building sandcastles with Sparky and Solaris, Pipp was streaming and taking pictures with a few fans and Sunny and Izzy were enjoying themselves in the water.

They had been swimming, splashing each other, and laughing with each other the whole time. This was the most fun they’d had in a while. It had only been five years since Midnight was defeated and Equestria had gotten to work restoring things to their former glory and making them better than ever. The world seemed to be becoming less divided and that was a win in everyone’s eyes. It was cause for celebration to everyone…mostly. The only one who had been struggling to get used to everything was Sunny. She had recently started being plagued by terrible nightmares and they only seemed to get worse. Not only that, but they were also becoming more constant. It was infuriating and baffling at the same time.

Sunny had talked to her friends about it, but they all suggested the same thing. Maybe the trauma of the whole experience with Midnight and everything else had just left a severe mark on her and she should talk to someone who’s gone through the same things, namely Twilight Sparkle herself. Everyone had found out about the horrible things Midnight had done to Twilight and her friends, what she took from them. So they all had to admit: while what Midnight did to all of them was bad, Twilight and her friends had it worse for sure. Twilight left longer than Sunny did and endured much more than she ever could. Yet here she was, barely able to handle the aftermath of a few traumatic experiences that don’t even come close to what the older princess has gone through. Here she was feeling sorry for herself when so many innocents couldn’t even be here today.

Her parents, Izzy’s parents, the lost relatives of the Mane Six, Solaris' family…they were all gone. Sunny had somehow managed to bring ponies back to life, but she couldn’t do the same for them. She doesn’t even know how she did it or why it didn’t bring everyone back, which means she doesn’t know if she can even try doing it again if something else bad happens… Some princess she is.

“Sunny… Are you ok?” She hears Izzy ask, causing her to look and realize she had been standing still for quite some time, just…staring at the water.

“Huh…? Oh. Yeah…I’m ok Izzy.” She says, earning an unconvinced and bored look from Izzy. Sunny sighs and shakes her head, knowing she couldn’t lie to her and cursing herself for being stupid enough to try anyway. “You always just know… How?” She asks, genuinely confused with how the unicorn could always tell when something was wrong with her, no matter how hard she tried to hide it and how well she did at it.

“Well for one, I know you too well by now.” She says, nudging Sunny's cheek which manages to get a small chuckle out of her. “Two, well…your sparkle isn’t nearly as bright as it used to be these days. It used to be this bright beautiful lavender color, then when you turned into an Alicorn, it was a bright gold. But…after Midnight and everything that happened, it’s just…so dull now. Are you…not happy?” Izzy asks hesitantly, causing Sunny to open her mouth to answer but then hesitate.

“I…I am happy, it’s just…I feel so lost. I’m feeling so many things all the time that it’s almost impossible not to feel overwhelmed. I’m happy sometimes, but the rest of the time I’m anxious, angry, and scared. I feel so much loss…and guilt.” Sunny says, backing out of the water enough to be able to sit on the sand and mostly ignore the rushing waves, Izzy following and sitting by her. “You know how I have… nightmares about Midnight? Well before… I didn’t have as many and they weren’t really about her… They were about all the ponies I couldn’t save.” Sunny admits, hanging her head and closing her eyes which causes her to see flashes of some of the dreams and the ponies in them.

“I see them everywhere I go, even when I’m awake, smiling at me, telling me to stop being so selfish and join them already. Asking me why I should live a good, long life when theirs were cut short… It’s all just…too much. And the worst part? Part of me wonders the same thing. Part of me, even with them being around me, still feels so…alone.” Sunny says, her voice starting to become shaky as tears start forming behind her closed eyelids. She curls in on herself as she tries desperately not to cry and to keep at least some of her emotions to herself.

She hears Izzy shuffling next to her but doesn’t open her eyes until she feels Izzy touching her hair, untying it and letting it fall and hang freely.

“Izzy…?” Sunny asks, but she gets no response except for Izzy shushing her and starting to play with her hair a bit.

“One thing I’ve learned as someone who struggled with something similar for years, it’s that you have to let yourself stop living in the past and let yourself forget every once in a while. You’re allowed to be happy. You’re allowed to live Sunny.” Izzy says as she starts tying Sunny's hair back into its original style. “If you hold too much in for too long, you’re gonna collapse. Buuut, if you have enough patience and you allow yourself a fresh start…” Izzy continues before she finishes tying Sunny's mane, letting some of the top of it hang to the side of her face. “You can build back up to where you were before, then move past it and possibly make something even better for yourself.” Izzy says, turning Sunny’s head to face her so she could look at her work, smiling and then brushing a stray strand of hair out of Sunny's face.

“Perfect.” She says before kissing Sunny on the nose as the finishing touch to leave Sunny both stunned and feeling better than before.

“Wow…thanks Izzy. That was…really wise and…sweet.” Sunny says with a smile before kissing Izzy back, getting a small giggle out of her.

“When you carry the limitless knowledge of your ancestors, you can learn a thing or two and teach somebody something you didn’t even know you could teach.” Izzy says confidently before her smile slowly gets wider. “You know what? Let’s make a promise. One that’ll help you feel less alone.” Izzy suggests, getting a nod in agreement from Sunny before they both put one hand on their hearts while their other hands intertwine.

“I, Izzy Moonbow, promise that no matter where you go and no matter what you do, I will always be there with you, standing by you, fighting beside you. To help you, I will always do my part, hoof to heart.” Izzy says, getting a nod and a smile from Sunny.

“And I, Sunny Starscout, promise that no matter where you go and no matter what you do, I will always be there with you, standing by you, fighting beside you. To help you, I will always do my part, hoof to heart.” Sunny says in return before both their hands and hearts start to glow. They both smile at this before Sunny makes another promise. “No matter what happens, I will always find you.” She says, getting a bigger smile from Izzy before Izzy makes a promise in return.

“And no matter what happens…I’ll always come back to you.”

Present Day

As the flashback ends, Sunny screams in anger, frustration, and sadness as she sends her sword hurtling towards a wall across from where she’s standing. It stabs into the wall and Sunny almost falls from the force put into her throw, but she manages to catch herself on a nearby table. She stands there for a bit, panting and glaring at nothing particular as she tries collecting her thoughts and catching her breath.

“I can’t lose anyone else… I won’t.” She says to herself before walking over to the sword. “I’m gonna keep our promise Izzy…hoof to heart.” She vows before pulling the sword out of the wall with a few tugs. On the final pull, just as she gets it free, she starts glitching and she screams in pain as she falls over, dropping the sword and knocking over a table with her landing. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to do this in the Crystal Tea Room… Wait. She glitched. Could that mean she still has her connection to her magic and the Unity Crystals?

Before she can think on it too much, she hears some noise coming from outside and she quickly grabs her sword before heading outside to see what it is. Once out though, she is surprised to see that everyone is running to meet Sunset and the Dazzlings. It looked like they had just returned and…they had brought some ponies back with them. Sunny moves closer to try and get a better look until an opening in the crowd reveals…Izzy. Sunny stops in her tracks and looks shocked, feeling like a world's worth of weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

“Izzy…” Sunny says, causing Izzy to look at her with a smile before Sunny tackles her in a hug which earns a hug in return.

“Told ya I’d always find my way back to you.” Izzy says as she hugs Sunny as tightly as she can, noticing that Sunny's hug lacked the same strength that it used to have over a day ago and almost immediately knowing something was wrong. Before she can question why though, she hears coughing and groaning then looks at Misty, seeing her grimacing in pain as the area around her eyes darkens more and more. “We don’t have much time. Misty needs help right now!” Izzy says, surprisingly causing Sunny to hesitate for some reason.

Sunny sighs before nodding her head and helping them move Misty into one of the buildings. She didn’t know if she could still help Misty without knowing if she truly still had some of her magic, but…she would definitely try.

“We’ll definitely try our best Izzy.” Twilight says before she looks at Sunset and the Dazzlings who have just turned into their pony forms. “Any word from Starlight's team?” She asks, getting a shake of the head from Sunset. She sighs before starting to use a spell on Misty to keep the dark spell on her at bay along with Artemis. She didn’t know what was going on with them, but she hoped that they were ok and that they came back with something helpful soon. They were gonna need it…

As Starlight and her team came to, they all groan in pain as they start to get up off the snow covered ground next to their destroyed vehicle. They started to remember what happened as they recovered. They were heading back to inform Twilight and the others of their findings and about halfway there, something had hit next to the vehicle, causing an explosion that made it flip onto its side and tumble into a nearby forest. Starlight had managed to teleport everyone out before the truck crashed and exploded, but they had all taken a pretty hard tumble next to it.

The truck was one of the Wings of Equestria's vehicles and just like a lot of their vehicles, it had a stealth mode, which had been active before the explosion, so who or what could’ve detected it and caused an attack like that? How long were they knocked out for? Why didn’t it kill them?

“Everyone alright?” Starlight asks, looking around at everyone as they all finish recovering.

“Feel like I got punched halfway across Equestria by an Alicorn… The Great and Powerful Trixie is still breathing though.” Trixie says as Starlight walks over to her and helps her to her feet. They see Tempest do the same for Sunburst and both of them confirm that they’re still in one piece as well.

“Not exactly the same as Trixie worded it, but I’m feeling somewhat similar. Nothing out of place however.” Sunburst says, getting a nod from Starlight before Tempest speaks up while rolling her shoulder.

“What was that?” Tempest asks, also confused as to what had attacked them and how it found them. “What even happened?” She asks again before they all hear the sound of a sonic boom, followed by something fast landing by them hard enough to stir up a cloud of snow.

“I happened.” They all hear before the snow clears and Dark Sunny is revealed to be standing right in front of them. They all get ready to fight but she just smirks, glad they thought they could stand a chance against her. That was just going to make this all the more interesting.

She raises one hand in front of her and looks at it. After a second, some sort of shadow tendrils start coming out of it before the shadows get bigger and start floating above her, seemingly trying to make a shape. She smirks more then looks towards the group of ponies before her.

“Time for you to start living up to your name…” She starts before the shadows seem to gain two glowing white eyes that slowly turn purple and narrow while locking on to one singular pony.

“…Tempest Shadow.”

Then it charges…