Author's Note

SURPRISE CHAPTER GO!
BOOM!
Gottem.

With all the attention that this story's getting, I thought I'd give you the second chapter before chapter 8 of Crucible Spark.

As a treat.

Just this once.

Couldn't hurt, right?

Anyway...
I genuinely can't believe this story blew up as much as it did! You know, when I first started writing Three Outcasts, I thought 'Man, I really hope one of my stories will get featured some day. Eh, it'll probably take years for that...'

Oh you naive child, past Baroque.

So! From the bottom of my heart, thank you, for giving my story a read.
:)

"Glory and honour, the Land of Equestria"

Chapter 2: Castle Life

Not even a day in Canterlot and she had already caused a scene. Wonderful.

At least they were able to sort it all out after Sunset recovered. The meeting went about as well as anybody who's read a few stories about pre-Fall Formal Sunset would've expected.

It consisted of three tablespoons of eye rolling, two cups of sighing, three-and-a-quarter ounces of huffing, and to top it all off, a generous drizzle of glaring, specifically towards Cadance.

Throughout it all, all three alicorns noticed her odd demeanor whenever Daybreaker becomes the focus of the conversation. It was as if she was trapped in her own fantasy, with her frequently staring off towards the flaming mare. This worried Daybreaker.

She knew that Sunset, particularly in this era, had an unhealthy obsession of wanting to become an alicorn, and thus, a princess. Seeing the way she reacted whenever the fiery alicorn was brought into the spotlight could only mean one thing.

She was scheming.

'And she's not doing a great job covering it up, too.' Daybreaker thought to herself as she followed an assigned guard down the hallway to her personal quarters.

Sunset had been trailing her along the way, up until the student realized that she had an assignment due soon and hurriedly returned to her room. While she did put a decent effort into hiding herself, her naturally bright color palette certainly didn't help her blend in all that well.

Daybreaker sighed, 'Hopefully that won't be a problem in the future...'

When they finally made it to her room, the guard proceeded to open the door and stepped aside.

"Y-your room, Lady Daybreaker." he said while discreetly avoiding eye contact with her.

Daybreaker nodded, "Thank you."

She noticed that the guard flinched slightly when spoken to.

Once inside, she closed the door behind her with a gentle kick before taking a deep breath. Her mane and tail seemed to dim slghtly.

"Finally..."

Daybreaker took in the sight of the room, it was just as she had expected. The room was absolutely luxurious. Every piece of furniture and decor looked like it costed at least a fortune to buy, with intricately carved patterns on each of them. Even the stack of paper on the bedside table seemed expensive.

She looked towards the massive bed curiously. The four-poster was large enough to fit at least three of herself with enough room to spare.

"Can't complain about that."

Daybreaker slowly took off her regalia with her magic and hooves. It took a bit of fiddling with the peytral and wing plates, but she eventually worked it out.

After putting the pieces in a neat stack on a dresser, she took another weary glance at the bed.

Daybreaker ran a hoof along her mane, "Well, it doesn't feel hot right now."

She climbed up onto the bed and bounced on it a few times. Nodding to herself in satisfaction, she laid down on her back and sighed, enjoying the softness of the bed and pillows.

Of course, as all good things do, the comfortable atmosphere of the room came to an abrupt end when Daybreaker realized how deep the hole she dug for herself was.

She immediately shot up to a sitting position, "Oh crap."

Pretending to be Celestia's alternate self, from the future, who came back in time to 'fix' an incoming calamity that she's not allowed to describe. Masterpiece storytelling right there.

Daybreaker practically shot off the bed, she frantically searched around the room for paper and writing implements.

Once found, she slapped the paper and inkwell on the desk and sat down on the larger-than-average chair.

"Alright, let's write down some lore... shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Daybreaker dropped her head on the desk, causing inky sheets of paper and snapped quills to fly all over her and fall to the carpeted floor.

"Me and my big mouth..." she muttered to herself tiredly.

She didn't know how long it had been, but based on the way the sun was closing in on the horizon, it was likely that she had spent about three hours writing down a list of excuses and tidbits of her own 'lore'.

And most of it can be boiled down to her blaming time travel and experimental magic shenanigans. It wasn't concrete, sure, but with good enough acting, anything is possible, she supposes.

Daybreaker straightened her posture, "Anything is possible... hm..."

It hadn't fully hit her until now, but she was transported quite the ways back. This was a mostly uncharted territory for a human who was transported to Equestria, if she's not mistaken.

Finally catching up with her own lore, Daybreaker perked up as it finally dawned on her.

"I can... change things. I can change things!"

She swept away the remaining paper on the table and stored her 'character sheet' in a drawer before grabbing a newer, cleaner sheet. Her mind raced with an endless flow of ideas waiting to be released.

For the rest of the day—and eventually night—Daybreaker wrote down all of the things she could do to make her own perfect version of Equestria.

Daybreaker slowly stirred from her slumber when she felt... something calling out to her.

She sat up on the bed, a part of the blanket still clinging on one of her wings.

"Mmm... gotta... sun..." she mumbled. Body still mostly asleep from pulling an all-nighter.

Once awokened, that strange feeling returned again. With greater force. It was enough to make the sluggish alicorn to get off the bed.

As she stood up, Daybreaker felt the sudden urge to walk—or in her case, hobble—towards the balcony.

Still stuck in sleep inertia, she mindlessly followed along whatever the feeling was telling her to do, which lead her outside, facing towards an early, sunless horizon.

The mysterious force then told her to light her horn, and visualize the rising sun. Of course, in her condition, the mental image was mostly a blur of yellow and orange within her mindscape.

When Daybreaker did as instructed, the sun peeked just over the horizon. It jittered and spasmed for a moment before shooting up into the sky, almost instantaneously causing the sky to switch from orange to blue.

It was then that the force simply disappeared from her being. Feeling oddly satisfied and even more tired, Daybreaker went back to her room and unceremoniously dropped herself back on the bed, not caring to wear the blanket again.

From another part of the castle, on a balcony situated higher from Daybreaker's room, Celestia turned her gaze from the hijacked sun to her guest's balcony, only to see a glimpse of a flaming tail slipping back inside.

'What the hell happened last night?' Daybreaker thought to herself as she made her way to the dining room.

When she woke up that morning, she noticed that the balcony doors were slightly open, allowing a faint breeze to enter her room.

She did not remember ever going outside.

'Gotta make sure to check the locks next time.'

Continuing down the hall, Daybreaker took occasional glances at some of the paintings put up throughout the hall. Most of them depicted historical Equestrian figures, but there were some that intrigued her.

For example, a painting depicting a beautiful scene of a forest. According to the plaque on its frame, it was a gift from none other than King Aspen himself to celebrate five hundred years of Equestria's friendship with Thicket and the Everfree as a whole.

"Comics are definitely real here." Daybreaker noted.

Next to it was a painting of two black-furred anthropomorphic cat creatures. This painting was another gift, specifically from when the Abyssinian embassy made first contact with Equestria.

"Movie's real too..."

By the time Daybreaker arrived, she could see that Celestia, Cadance, and Sunset were already having breakfast, with her own plate already placed on her seat's side.

"Good morning." she greeted.

Cadance gave her an uneasy smile.

Sunset took a glance away from the book she was reading, and straightened her posture.

Celestia gave her a warm smile, "Good morning, Daybreaker. Did you sleep well?"

"Like a b- foal." Daybreaker replied.

'Almost...'

The monarch nodded, "That's good to hear." she paused to take sip of tea, "If I'm not mistaken, you will be meeting with Raven and Kibitz today, right?"

Daybreaker took a seat and opened the cloche that covered her plate. It was a fancy fruit salad.

She looked back up at Celestia, "Are they not upset that I'm taking away what is essentially their primary roles?"

Celestia covered a giggle with a hoof, "Oh goodness no. Raven is actually quite glad that she can devote more time to other tasks, and Kibitz simply doesn't mind."

Daybreaker nodded, "Good to hear."

Breakfast went about as well as a human-turned-demonic alicorn could expect. With Celestia discussing a couple of leftover topics from the day before.

Eventually, it was time for everypony to part ways, and for Daybreaker to meet with Raven Inkwell and Kibitz, two very important ponies whose jobs were to aid Celestia in leading the nation.

"I wonder what they're like?" Daybreaker muttered to herself.

Supposedly, they were waiting for her in Kibitz's office, and will be discussing about her duties as Celestia's advisor. A part of Daybreaker hoped that she doesn't have to deal with stuffy nobles too often.

"Don't want to end up throwing one of them out of a window..."

Daybreaker shook the thoughts of defenestrating nobles out of her mind as she knocked on the office door.

"Come in!" a voice called from inside.

With that, Daybreaker entered. Once inside, she saw Raven—who was apparently an earth pony in this Equestria—reading something on her clipboard, while Kibitz was sorting through a stack of documents.

"Alright, you better make it quick because-"

Raven interrupted herself as she finally saw who had just entered the room. She slowly turned her gaze upwards from an orange peytral to see the slitted eyes of a towering alicorn with a burning mane and tail.

Her eyes shrunk into pinpricks, "Uh-"

Kibitz gave Daybreaker a welcoming smile, "Ah, Lady Daybreaker! Right on time! It's good to finally meet you. As her highness has likely already informed you, I am Kibitz, the scheduling advisor." he motioned a hoof towards his companion, "And this is Raven Inkwell, the royal secretary. I see that you are here to discuss your new role as an advisor, yes?"

Daybreaker nodded, "I am. Shall we begin?"

"Absolutely." Kibitz turned to the secretary, "Raven, could you please bring out the documents I've prepared? It's on the shelf to the right."

There was no answer.

Kibitz raised an eyebrow, "Raven, could you-"

THUD!

"My goodness Raven, I've told you to keep up with your sleep schedule!" he sighed and looked back at the soon-to-be advisor, "My sincerest apologies, Lady Daybreaker, it appears our companion here has been staying up late with paperwork again." Kibitz commented while shaking his head.

Daybreaker looked over the unconscious secretary, "I'm starting to see a pattern here..."

Thankfully, Raven recovered quickly, and they were able to finish their meeting in record time, much to Kibitz's delight.

From what the two had informed her, the entirety of her duty is mostly centered around telling Celestia to not do anything stupid that could lead to the nation's demise.

Simple enough, and fitting with her 'lore' as well. Now all Daybreaker needed to do is figuring out what to change in the timeline first and when.

'Sunset's an obvious choice, but isn't it her 'destiny' to be the mirror world's savior? What would happen there if she never went through?'

Daybreaker took a silent moment to think as she explored the castle.

'Let's see... sirens might not be too much of a problem since there won't be a rainbow laser, Sci-Twi probably won't be investigating the portal, Gloriosa might still go for the geodes, though...

Daybreaker passed by a maid, who nearly threw herself into a large vase to get out of the way when she saw the—to her—irritated look on the alicorn's face.

'And then there's the rest of the stuff Starswirl threw in there...'

She snorted in frustration, causing a pair of patrolling guards to halt and tense up momentarily before shakily continuing on.

"God damnit, Starswirl. Why did you need to make this harder than it should be." Daybreaker murmured.

'Maybe I can tell Celestia to send a team there and collect them SCP style? That could work.'

Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time that day, Daybreaker decided to go back to her room and flesh out her plans more. There was an opportunity here to save a lot of ponies from living a life of villainy. Specifically for three of her favorite unicorns who will eventually become memorable big bads if she didn't decide to change their fates.

"No time to waste."