Sunset had once read that the most significant portion of a soldier's time was spent waiting. While she wasn't a soldier, she understood the sentiment now. Sunset and Trixie stood outside of the wooden palisade walls of the outpost, the armed ponies accompanying the caravan having called a halt at least ten minutes ago. They had spent the past while doing nothing but waiting as the guardsponies investigated the razed outpost to see if it would be safe for them to bed down for the 'night'. If it wasn't, then they would have to keep going. The idea was extremely unappetizing to her, as she hadn't had anything to eat and hadn't had any rest.

From her perspective, it'd only been a few hours since she'd been arguing with Celestia. At the time, she wished for nothing more than to shovel something nutritious down her throat and then crawl into bed. Had she known this was going to happen, she would've probably argued with Trixie about just bedding down back in her family's manor for the night and making the trip on hoof when they were both rested, but it wasn't like they had anything to eat. Speaking of eating, she looked over and watched as Trixie eyed down a nearby patch of grass. As much as she agreed with the sentiment, lowering herself to graze was... not something she was willing to do yet, despite how much her stomach hurt. It seemed Trixie shared the sentiment, glancing over and sharing a look with Sunset.

Still... "Trixie is starving..." The mare groaned, shifting from hoof to hoof. How long had it been since she'd last eaten anything substantial? Sunset estimated by the thinness of the mare's ribs the answer had to be anywhere from a week to too long. The statement wasn't complaining as much as it was the truth.

"Yeah? So am I." She said in response, raising her head up and looking around. Stealing wasn't great either, but it was better than having to drag around this half-dead encyclopaedia of current events. Trixie is useful, she repeated to herself in her head like a mantra. At this point she supposed there was more than a bit of pity keeping her from just abandoning her on the side of the road. In any case, Sunset refocused her efforts, spotting an unattended case of hardtack nearby on one of the carts.

Trixie seemed to glance over at the same time as her, and she nodded. The act itself was trivial; Sunset merely levitated a couple pieces of the stuff away from its prior owner and... redistributed them to herself and Trixie. While they enjoyed their meal of brick-like stale bread, the other ponies seemed to be entirely occupied on waiting for the guardsponies to return. Sunset was more than happy to shatter her teeth on the horrid rations while they did so. Well, not really, but it was the first thing she'd had to eat in two days, so she wasn't really complaining.

"Trixie suggests you soak it before you eat it." The other mare said, pouring some water from her canteen on the hard stuff. It seemed to soften enough for her to eat it with less difficulty.

"That's good to know," Sunset said, one of the bricks halfway to her mouth. She followed suit with Trixie's suggestion, dousing the shingle with some canteen water and then letting it soak in for a few moments. It seemed to suck the water up, the horrid brick-cracker becoming less and less appetizing the more she observed them and was forced to eat them. Still, it was more dignified than eating off the ground. As if being dignified was something she should prioritize.

She supposed she needed to straighten her priorities out sooner or later. She had food, so she could go for a little while without anything more to eat, but in the future she needed to be less picky about what she ate. Then there was the matter of finding somewhere to lay her head down. She figured once she'd gotten to Lindstrotten she could probably find a hotel to stay at. But then again, she didn't have any money. Maybe there was a property she could... squat in, outside of town preferably.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour of waiting, the pegasi returned. Focusing on their grim expressions, she instantly knew whatever they had to say wasn't something she was going to like. The brown pegasus mare from before stepped up on a nearby boulder to address the caravan, and everypony was instantly at rapt attention. Sunset attended herself as well, an unpleasant feeling boiling in her stomach.

"Listen up everypony!" The brown mare started, "The outpost here isn't safe. We're going to have to keep moving. If we double our pace, we can make the next safe location in less than four hours. I know this isn't what anypony wants to hear, but we really don't have any choice! To keep the load off our haulers, we'll all be taking turns pulling carts."

There were loud complaints in the crowd, which the mare silenced with a hoof. "I know you're all tired. We'll take a short rest here for an hour and then push on. Once we're over the bridge, we'll be home safe!" There seemed to be a consensus of reluctant agreement there among the caravan ponies. The two mares seemed to groan in exhaustion at the same time.

"Trixie will die if she must walk further..." The blue mare moaned in agonized despair, raising her hoof to cover her forehead somewhat dramatically.

Sunset didn't really have anything to say about it, deciding to sit down and rest for the time they were allotted. Trixie looked down at the mare, huffed, and laid down as well. "Trixie does not know how you can be so unsympathetic to her plight!" She complained. "She-"

Sunset cut her off with a stern look, "Look, Trixie. I may be traveling with you but we're not friends, alright? Once we get to Lindstrotten, I'm going off on my own. I can't have you whining and complaining every bucking step of the way, and I have actually important things to do. So shut the buck up, alright?"

Sunset flinched slightly as the mare looked at her with a look that actually seemed hurt, perhaps despairing. Maybe she had been the only pony to show any kind of kindness to Trixie in a long time. The thought made her stomach churn as she watched the blue mare stand up. "F-fine. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not need friends anyway! She will not... bother you with her whining."

The guilt burned a little as she watched the magic mare walk away and lay down somewhere else, sulking while resting. She had figured she kind of made their relationship clear far earlier, but she supposed it didn't matter as long as Trixie wouldn't be sticking around like a stray dog begging for food. She didn't need a two-bit magician once she got to Lindstrotten- there would be plenty of ponies she could interrogate about the state of the world. Ponies who hadn't given up on Equestria.

She distracted herself from her tiredness and slight guilt with thoughts of the future- Equestria was divided, and ruled over by a tyrant. They needed a princess! A mare who could lead them back into the light. It was almost as if destiny had lined up perfectly to put her right where she needed to be. She could be that leader, she could be that shining beacon! And she definitely didn't need a bunch of leeches called friends to do all that. Celestia had told her time and time again that friends were worth her while- that friendship was worth a chance.

All friendship had ever gotten her was heartbreak and a bitter taste in her mouth.

So rather than do something stupid like 'making it up' to Trixie, she sat and stewed in her thoughts. She'd be rid of the mare soon anyway, wouldn't she? Still, something about their last interaction ate at her. She supposed it was... a bit overly rude. Trixie had been one of the only ponies to show her kindness so far, but still. That much was tinged with the expectation of getting something out of it, though. Just like all the other ponies. She grimaced tiredly.

That was enough ruminating. She stomped down all the thoughts she was having and decided to focus on something else more productive. She supposed she had enough time to do one or two things, so she decided first to take off the cloak she'd been provided and examine it. While it wasn't made of the finest substrate for enchanting, she didn't exactly need to [or have the time to] weave complex and powerful enchantments. This place that had once been her peaceful home of Equestria was dangerous- already that much had been made clear when Trixie had been instructed to hoof her a weapon- so she needed at least a bare minimum of protection.

The traveling cloak was made of a thick, durable cloth. It would be good for a number of enchantments, but anything more complex than that would require a more specialized material. The fabric could hold what she needed it to for now, but any talented spellcaster or magic researcher had a garment of clothing or pieces of jewelry with a wide array of protective enchantments on it, mostly for the case of misfired spells or experimentation gone wrong. It would be utterly stupid to go without. Sure she had a bit of a reckless streak... but she was far from stupid.

Most unicorns could get by with a hooffull of minor enchantments on their hoofshoes, as most unicorns didn't know much more than telekinesis and maybe a few basic spells related to their talent. Of course, she smugly grinned, I'm not just any unicorn. For her own purposes, she'd need some pretty heavy duty spells, but for now it'd have to be two fairly easy enchantments. First, she lit her horn, and began to weave the lattice to support the enchantments into being. This process wasn't very taxing at all. It was something Celestia had had her practice maybe a million times growing up.

Imbuing something with magic wasn't a process that could be done on the fly. It was an undertaking, but not so much of one that it would eat up an entire hour of her time. For the first enchantment, she wove a general-purpose shield spell into the lattice, creating multiple endings for the flow of magic. This was a bit less efficient than having one kind of shield spell, but the different 'flow endings' would allow her to cast different kinds of shields on the fly with much less effort, and she had enough raw power to make efficiency an afterthought. A lot of the thinking was taken out of the equation. Not that shield spells were incredibly difficult to cast, but flowing magic through an enchantment was always faster than manual casting.

The shield could be personal or summoned elsewhere, and also would have the capability to be either a bubble or a plane. Both had their uses. Then the branched endings would allow her to either proof against fire or kinetic impacts- she would need the former if she intended to cast a lot of fire spells. The enchantment wasn't too hard to weave together, even considering that she had a time limit. She sighed as she finished, feeling a slight tinge of exertion. That was to be expected- even though she had a monstrous capacity, this was still not the type of spellcasting she was specifically aligned with.

The next enchantment would be much easier, since it was at least tangentially related to her field of expertise. Working her horn again, she began to weave into the cloak a powerful fire-retardant warding spell. The ward was something she also had enchanted her horseshoes with, but it was best to be safe and go ahead and do the same to her cloak. The ward would be able to draw in passively ambient arcane energy to keep itself powered, but a ward of this level would also occasionally need to be charged manually if it saw heavy usage. Hopefully it wouldn't.

She levitated the cloak up and eyed the matrices that were held within the lattice. There was a good bit of 'room' left in the lattice to put a hooffull of more spells in. She could probably weave something fairly complex in if she had the time, but she wasn't able to immediately come to a decision. A teleportation matrix would be great, but-

"Alright everypony! We need to get a move on if we want to make the next outpost anytime soon. Everypony get ready to move out!"

Save it for later, Sunset. No time for rest. She sighed and stood up.

The caravan had resumed its walking pace. The ponies seemed content to leave the strange, relatively well-groomed mare who had powerful magic alone. That suited her just fine. Since their prior discussion, Trixie also seemed to give Sunset her space. Not that she minded that either. She hardened her heart against the tiny pangs of remorse and carried on. It would be better this way- she didn't need ponies getting in her way and distracting her from her goals, or holding her back. She most certainly didn't need dumb ponies who thought they knew the best thing for her and wouldn't ever give her any clear answers about anything.

She unclenched her teeth and snorted. Getting angry about things that were done and gone wouldn't help anything. Once she figured out the Alicorn problem, she'd beat the stuffing out of the Nightmare Queen and put her back in time out on the moon. Then the ponies would adore her, and she would be loved across the land. They would give of themselves freely to her without asking for stupid things in return.

At least, that was how it would all play out in her head. She supposed it was kind of childish to entertain those fantasies- she wasn't stupid. When she became a princess, there would be responsibility. But at the same time, with all that power, she could just make everypony do whatever she wanted them to. That's what Nightmare Moon had done, hadn't she? She'd just be... a bit nicer about it. More tact. Ponies didn't have to suffer while doing what she wanted them to; in fact it would be better for them. Celestia had taught her well in that way. There were plenty of ways to manipulate a pony into doing things you wanted them to and making them enjoy it at the same time.

Lost in her own head, she nearly slammed horn-first into the cart she was walking behind when a whistle rung out, and another halt was called. Stumbling to a stop right before she would've hurt herself, the unicorn raised her head to look around, trying to get a sign of what exactly was going on. They'd been walking for at least another few hours now, or at least it felt like it, and estimation was the only way she could tell time without some kind of clock. She'd seen some sort of timepiece on most ponies around here, but neither she nor Trixie had one. She'd have to fix that at some point.

The brown pegasus guardsmare's voice rang out, the mare whose name she still didn't know, "Everypony keep your eyes and ears out! We might run into undead from here on! Keep your weapons on-hoof, and resume march!"

There were worried whispers among the caravaneers. Sunset sighed and decided it was probably a good idea for her to keep her eyes out. Even if she wasn't exactly an experienced combatant, her fire spells would be useful in dealing with the undead. They tended not to like being set on fire, she'd been told at some point. She thought it was perhaps one of her professors in the Defense Against Maleficarum 101 class- but maybe it had been Celestia. Either way, spells aligned with fire would work against the undead better than simple force blasts or other spells that placed more emphasis on the actual magic doing the direct work.

It was still a bit sickening to think about- burning something alive- but if she had to do it to defend herself she wouldn't hesitate. She supposed it would be lamentable if Trixie and these other ponies didn't make it to their destination either.

The caravan seemed more tense now as they walked. An earth pony mare and her daughter were bundled up in cloaks of their own, walking somewhat nearby to Sunset. She'd seen the green-eyed earth pony filly occasionally glance over to her in interest, but admittedly she didn't really like interacting with kids. All the crying and whining and fussing from that brat Blueblood had put her off of foalcare for a lifetime. She still didn't know why Celestia made her foalsit that brat. Maybe she was trying to teach her... something. Discipline maybe. Either way, it hadn't worked as intended. After the last time he'd decided to bite her, she refused to put up with the little hellion anymore.

In a sense that had kind of been the beginning of her disillusionment with Celestia.

Enough of the inward; she focused outward. The forest was dark and the light from their caravan shone brightly out into the woods, sure to attract anything with half a brain cell for miles, if it could see through all the thick pines. The heavy wind still blew, and subtle tingles in her horn alerted her to the possibility of rain soon. Looking up into the sky, she could see thick, dark clouds on the horizon, blotting out the starlight and the moon. It would rain soon, and plainly that wasn't good for her. While she wasn't useless when it was raining, she'd have to pour a lot more power into her fire spells to get anything done- should it be necessary to actually do anything.

The rain would be on them soon enough, and it'd make their already arduous trek even more of a journey. She flipped the hood up on her traveling cloak. The sturdy fabric would probably be enough to provide at least a little protection from the elements, but the armchair tactician in her [the one who'd read all the old stories about the Griffonian Clan Wars as a filly] immediately pointed out the obvious- the rain would decrease their visibility horribly and ground their fliers. No pegasus wanted to be flying in high winds and whipping rain. Most ponies from her time would probably balk at the idea of even considering going out in this uncontrolled weather at all.

She glanced over and noticed Trixie retrieving a worn and beaten wizard's hat styled in the same fashion as her cloak, the article sticking to her head despite inclement weather. An enchantment, probably, although Trixie probably didn't have the magical knowledge to explain it given what she'd seen so far. She found herself puzzling for another moment whether she should've said what she said to the mare, and if she should apologize. She was about to get her out of her hair soon anyway. Trixie seemed to notice her staring, but her eyes lit up with shock as she seemed to look past Sunset, raising a hoof to point at something behind her.

That was just another harsh reality of Nightmare Moon's Equestria that she was facing head-first today. Never lose focus, and expect the unexpected.

When she turned, she didn't need to be a genius, although she is, to know what she was looking at.

The wall of pallid, rotted, foetid flesh was charging wildly into the side of the caravan. There must have been dozens of the things; a crowd of mangled bodies that seemed neverending. The horrid stench the ravening corpses brought wasn't something she'd ever experienced, nor did she ever want to experience again. They were more than enough for her. Sunset couldn't move her legs as she stared in the milky eyes of one of the dead ponies charging straight for her, its rotted mouth hung open like a dog. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she stood there in horror.

"SUNSET!" Somepony was screaming in her ear, but she couldn't think, she couldn't move. Her blood was full of ice as she watched the undead monster lunge towards her, its head snapped to the side as it went for her neck, salivating jowls wide.

This thing wanted to eat her. She was its prey.

Ponies had not become one of the dominant species on the planet out of sheer luck, although perhaps there had been a divine guiding hoof involved in the process. Sure, everypony had herd instincts and would do what everypony else was doing, and failing that they usually had the prescience to run before things got too dangerous, but what happened when a pony was cornered? Specifically, a unicorn, in this instance. Monsters were a reality in Equestria, and when faced with mortal danger, nopony would cower and let it happen. That just didn't make sense from any perspective.

Earth ponies scrapped- they put up a Tartarus of a fight with all that durability and monstrous strength they seemed to have. Pegasi dodged and ducked and flew away to fight another day. But what does a unicorn do when they can't run? There's the obvious answer; casting a spell, but then there's the one that most ponies would balk at in spite of the fact that it was sheer instinct.

Unicorns had a very hard, very strong, very sharp horn. It was a misconception that unicorn horns were fragile or sensitive; they were on less-talented casters, but the more skilled a pony grew with magic, the more durable that little implement on their head grew. It had to, otherwise it would fracture to pieces when they drew up too much power into it, just like an overloaded battery exploding. A strong caster's horn took immense physical force to break- perhaps enough to necessitate running their horn over with a train just to see anything happen. The horn was also ridiculously difficult to break or damage with outside magic. Effectively the same principle as trying to kill something like a zombie- a highly magical being- with magic.

Sunset was probably one of, if not the most powerful unicorn for kilometers. And she had a very strong horn- one that had been strengthened by a dozen miscasts.

All this is to say that when instinct screamed at her, she ducked and lunged forward, a splatter of ichorous blood spraying her face and hair as her neck and shoulders screamed agony at her. She had managed to arrest the thing's charge without snapping her neck by sheer fact that the corpse didn't possess any of the innate earth pony magic it would in life. The thing scrabbled against her and its teeth chomped down ineffectively on her right wither, but the flesh there wasn't quite as tender as her neck. It didn't manage to break skin.

Sunset acted on autopilot, summoning magical energy into a blast of kinetic force and throwing it out through her horn. More of the blood splattered onto her as the thing was sent bowling back into the crowd with a shattered-apart torso, some of her fur in its teeth, but she wasn't bleeding yet and nothing except her neck hurt.

In the next moment somepony grabbed her and hauled her behind the cart, her stomach rejecting its contents in the same moment. Down was up and up was right. She felt dizzy, like somepony had hit her in the head with a rock [they sort of had]. Trixie was in her face screaming and that was enough to get her to focus- by Faust that mare was annoying. "What?!" She hollered loudly and dumbly, blubbering past the bile in her mouth.

"We need to run!" Trixie said, grabbing her by the hoof and dragging her forward. Sunset looked around for a moment and witnessed as the caravan was swamped. A unicorn was tackled to the ground, fighting off a horde of the things as they nipped at him, using a rock held in his telekinesis to fend them off. She hadn't had time yet to register this was all really happening, but when she saw a chunk of that stallion's leg get torn off, her brain started firing again.

"No!" Her mouth erupted for her, stumbling away from Trixie. A princess didn't run from danger, she charged straight for it! She fought for the ponies of Equestria, and Faust damn it, she wasn't going to let anypony get killed on her watch!

A fire like the sun burned in her veins, and her horn was alight. Without warning, the air crackled with burning ozone as she ripped apart molecules of hydrogen and oxygen like paper. She bounded forward and jumped atop an abandoned wagon, Trixie following behind as several of the zombie horde stumbled after her. Like moths to a flame, the undead horde saw life force, and saw that it was offering itself on a silver platter.

Fireballs shot out into the dark; she turned the undead attacking the stallion into chunks of rotten meat and viscera, ash and bone. She whipped to her left and saw that green-eyed filly and her mother being attacked! She gathered energy again, a gout of pressurized fire melting through the crowd. The twisted corpses stumbled away from the flame as it licked their necrotic skin and caught like tinder. The undead, even though they were flesh, could not abide flame and cleansing light.

The pegasi and other guardsmares who had been protecting the caravan were embattled far ahead, having managed to gather a sizeable amount of the caravaneers up into a defensive formation before things had gone south. Shouts and calls and screams rang out across the battlefield, and that told Sunset she wasn't done. The undead were stupid, yes, but they seemed endless. Explosions ripped through their ranks as she burned through her magic reserves clearing the way for the ponies who had been left behind. Sweat poured down her brow.

Beside her, Trixie screamed in fear as several of the zombies began to try to pile up onto the cart they were taking shelter on top of. She swung at them the dagger in her telekinesis, barely warding the things off. One of them got far too close, grabbing Trixie by one of her hooves and almost pulling her off the side as the mare screamed, but Sunset responded by blowing the thing into scorched chunks with a directed fireblast. Trixie stumbled away from the edge of the cart towards Sunset.

They needed to leave. "Get close! I'm going to teleport us!" She barked at Trixie over the howling wind and the din of battle. The blue mare drew close without further complaint and Sunset grabbed onto her barrel with a hoof, flinging her eyes foreward to where the majority of the caravan was. Some hadn't made it, but there was too much going on for her to know that yet.

Teleporting two ponies was difficult, but it wasn't impossible. She'd practiced it before; she knew all the safety precautions to take. Space ripped around her and the world turned black for a split-second, the pop and the stench of burnt ozone letting her know she'd succeeded in her endeavors. Now they were further ahead, where the caravaneers who'd made it were making a fighting retreat against the horde. A guardsmare was pulled down by the horde and disappeared into it before Sunset could do anything. It shook her resolve, but she couldn't freeze again. She had to act. Do something, Sunset!

Digging for power, she ripped apart the air once again, a flame wall springing to life in front of the guardsmares who were holding the line. With the wind blowing towards the horde, the flame would catch easily.

"EVERYPONY RETREAT!" One of the guardsmares screamed as the flames washed over the undead horde like a rolling tide. Sunset balked as she watched the primordial force of fire rip through their ranks, turning the unholy monsters into piles of ash as it caught between them. She had heard that fire was effective against them, but she had never known it was this terrifically effective. Being upwind of the horde, she couldn't smell the burning flesh anymore, but the stench still hung in her nostrils. Trixie tugged on her foreleg as she stood there dumbly, the two mares joining the stampede as they fled away from the rapidly-developing wildfire.

The fire blazed as they ran, ran like the wind. The bridge they needed to cross was just up ahead! It would form a natural chokepoint that they could fight the undead from, and that would be key to their survival. The zombies weren't smart enough to swim, and if they jumped in, they'd get pulled away by the river and dashed against the rocks anyway. If anypony had time to think, they might've realized what a dumb idea it was to put a horde like that in a chokepoint.

Built over a rushing river, the sturdy stone bridge had stood there since before the last time Nightmare Moon had been banished from the realm, and would probably stand there for centuries. The river was five meters below, deep, and dark like the night. White froth rushed over rocks as the river headed downhill, down towards the coast. The bridge itself had to have been at least twenty meters long. By all means, it was a marvel of pony engineering that had stood the test of time.

Fortunately, it held up remarkably well as over a dozen ponies thundered across it at once, laden down with what they could carry from their caravans. Sunset was especially grateful for this as she skidded to a stop on the other side, right behind the forming line of guardsmares. She got the feeling her pyromancy would be needed.

There was a sudden quiet as the ponies reached the other side. The non-combatants were laying down and licking their wounds as what counted for medical personnel amongst the caravaneers dispensed aid to the injured. The sudden calm was something she hadn't really expected, and her body let her know how much it despised the abuse she had put it through all at once.

She panted and fell onto her haunches, her head pounding from the exertion of running for her life and expending so much magic. She thought she knew her own limits, and she swore that she shouldn't have been feeling this tired from using so little magic. She'd only cast a hooffull of fire spells, and those were her specialty! Her horn ached, feeling quite warm, and she felt more than a bit magically winded. Sunset supposed it could've been the enchantments she'd woven earlier, but... It just didn't add up in her head.

"Stupid mare! You could've gotten us killed!" Trixie wheezed, collapsed on the ground from exertion. "Do you have... any kind of sense of self-preservation?!"

She didn't deign to answer her, huffing and puffing as she tried to sort her thoughts. Trixie wasn't having any of it, picking up a twig in her magic and tossing it at her. The thwap of it striking her barrel made her flinch, but it did make her glare over at Trixie, finally paying attention.

Sunset snapped at her, "You'd be bucking dead if it wasn't for me! Throw something at me again and I'll shove it so far up your flank that they'l-"

A sharp whistle cut her off as the brown pegasus mare from before called each and every one of them to attention. "Look alive! The rotting bastards are coming again!"

Sunset staggered to her hooves and hopped atop a rock to see over the guardsmares, watching as the horde of undead shambled onto the bridge, many of them horribly burned and scorched, but still walking. What concerned her more was the fact that the massive wildfire seemed to be just gone now, snuffed out by some unknown force. That could only mean that there was a mage skulking about in the area providing the horde support, and direction.

The undead stopped halfway across the bridge, groaning and growling like feral dogs. The guardsmares kept their spears leveled towards the threat, the pegasi hovering off to the side of the bridge, ready to divebomb the horde. But nothing happened. A pregnant silence, tension rising.

A voice called out from the other side of the bridge as a cloaked white unicorn mare stepped through the crowd, the undead parting like water for her, "I am a servant eternal of Mistress Nightmare Moon! By right of law, your pathetic mortal lives are forfeit to me for whatever purposes I deem necessary to Her cause! You shall lay down your weapons and bring forth your pyromancer for summary execution. I order this in Her name!" She was imperious, arrogant. The way she walked exuded infinite confidence. Sunset already didn't like her.

The brown pegasus mare looked to her subordinates for a moment, scowling. "We're not taking that deal." She grunted, audible mostly only to those around her.

"What do we do, Captain? She's got us outnumbered!" One of the guardsmares whisper-yelled. "They'll trample us down with all those bodies!"

"We'll-" The Captain began to speak, before Sunset cleared her throat.

"Everypony move! I'll talk to her." Sunset said, stepping forward and pushing her way through the throng of guardsponies. The Captain flew in front of her and put a hoof out, stopping her for a moment.

"Look, kid, you don't have to go out there. We have no idea what in the Tartarus that mare's capable of, and if she's the necromancer then you're as good as dead if you get in range of her horn." The brown mare, the Captain, was stern, but her voice was tinged with genuine concern.

"You wanna get home or what? Let me bucking talk to her. Maybe I can get her to back off, distract her long enough that everypony can get away. I can teleport and no one else here can, so I'm automatically the most qualified for the job."

The Captain stared at her hard. She sighed and nodded, before hovering back into the sky. "Don't get yourself killed, kid."

"Just get everypony moving the minute she's not looking." She scoffed.

She stepped out onto the bridge, heading forward to meet the witch half-way...

The rain had started coming down as she stepped out onto the bridge, the sky opening up with wind and thunder and buckets of water as the two mares walked towards each other.

Sunset stared down the dark mage as she walked forward. The mare was taller than her, with a smooth, curved horn that dwarfed her own [not that size mattered, it really was all about how you used it]. The mare had a stark white coat that seemed to deflect filth. Her long, green mane hung down from her cloak's hood. Sunset couldn't see any part of her face except for her smugly grinning muzzle, but she didn't need to see her eyes to figure that they were stark red with green sclera and burning purple flame at the edges of her eyes. The cursemark of dark magic on its users.

The mare strutted forward like a cat, full of confidence and smug satisfaction. She thought she couldn't be harmed. Maybe she couldn't, and it made Sunset honestly think about why the Tartarus she'd come out here to potentially die. Her heart thundered in her chest and sweat poured down her brow, but she stood tall. The dark mage couldn't see her evident fear with the rain pouring down.

Oh, and the rain. It didn't make her flame magic useless, but she estimated she maybe had only a few good spells left in her even without the rain pouring down. She'd need to put so much power into any flame spell she cast that it wasn't really worth it. She didn't have an ace-in-the-hole other than teleportation, and even that was probably a pipe dream. This mare could probably teleport with her eyes closed. Or could she?

Sunset dug into her preternatural senses and felt the world around her as she stopped a couple meters away from the dark mage. She felt the waves of power thrum against her horn as the mare stopped, dead ahead. But what she didn't detect in that mare was structure. She didn't see the organized thrum of matrices; only the fuzzy, shadowy edges of raw power. It was hard to explain, but the way you cast magic determined what your 'aura' looked like. Sunset could tell just by looking at her in this way that she wasn't an educated caster; just a very strong one.

She stood up straight. Raised her chin. Looked down her nose at the monstrous mage before her. Dark mages drew power from lashing out wildly with their emotions. They thrived off the fear of other ponies, cowing them with their 'power' before the battle even begun. This dark mage was stronger than her, but Sunset knew she was smarter. If it came to spells, and it would, then she would come out on top. She knew it. She just needed to keep her talking. Anger her. Make her mad enough to make mistakes and fling around power like a foal having a tantrum.

She smirked smugly, watching as the dark mage suddenly seemed to frown, noticing Sunset's sudden confidence.

"I am Sunset Shimmer, Dame Solar of Equestria! I demand to know your name, Maleficarum." Sunset inflected her voice with all the arrogance and confidence she could muster. She was better than this brutish amateur who could probably not even cast anything more advanced than teleportation.

The dark mage cackled, "A knight of Equestria? You?! I can hear your heart thundering little mare, but soon, it will not beat at all..."

"I am Moonshadow Darkblood, and-" Sunset couldn't help herself- she interrupted Moonshadow Darkblood with an involuntary guffaw.

"Moonshadow Darkblood? Are you bucking serious? Did you pick that one out at Hoof Topic?" She couldn't stop laughing at the name, backing up slightly as she tried not to fall over. The dark mage, for her part, looked absolutely furious.

"H-how, how badly were you bullied in school? Did you like, not get the hint that that's the most dork-ass bucking name you could've possibly chosen? Holy ponyfeathers girl." She wheezed.

"Silence you foal!" Moonshadow Darkblood barked in rage. "I am a powerful vampire, and a true child of the Night Mare herself! I will not be-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut the buck up already." Sunset interrupted. "Listen, Moonshadow Darkblood, I'm willing to give you an offer. You take your little army of corpses and you walk right back home to whatever shitty little hole you crawled out of, and I won't turn you inside out." She wasn't certain about her ability to actually do that, but it didn't matter. She just needed to bluff hard enough to get her going.

Wait, did she say she's a vampire? The thought suddenly registered in her mind as the white mare flipped back her hood, glaring hatefully at her with stark red, bloodshot slitted eyes. That was... new. It wasn't what she was expecting, but it didn't matter. She could feel the dark magic rolling off the mare.

"I do not think you understand, little mare... I will slaughter every mortal here like a dog. I will string you up in the dungeons and keep you alive as a living blood bank. I will snap every bone in your pathetic body like twigs and watch you squirm. You will wish for death by the time I am done with you!" The vampony snarled, taking a step forward.

Sunset smirked. "Sure, if you say so. But I got a question for you to answer before you do all that. Is it true that vampires melt in water?"

It was suicidal. It was incredibly bucking stupid. It was borderline insane. But the bridge didn't have any magic in it; it wasn't a living thing, and she didn't detect any strong enchantments keeping the thing together. She lit her horn, gathered every single ounce of magical energy she could pull together in just a few moments, and fired a beam of heat and kinetic force into the ground right in front of herself. A blazing cyan beam, bright enough to leave spots in her vision, leapt from her horn and crashed through the stone like wet paper.

The vampire dove back in shock, hissing in pain as the blazing light and heat burned her skin. But that wasn't the only problem she would face.

Sunset was by no means an expert on vampires or undead, but every piece of fiction she'd read about vampires mentioned their utter incapability to enter water without shriveling up and dying. It was a stupid gambit. It was a nonsensical move, reckless. It was exactly the kind of move that Princess Celestia would've disapproved of.

The world dropped out beneath her as the bridge collapsed.

She flailed in the air for but a moment, and then...

Her world went dark as she slammed into something hard, a loud CRUNCH and a searing pain the last thing she felt before unconsciousness took her.

Goodnight Sunset!

Author's Note

im a bit disappointed with this chapter but i've already taken so long to complete it that at this point i really just want to push it out

next time on dragon ball sunset, we get a little kooky