Disclaimer: I am not Lauren Faust nor Hasbro. I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, nor Equestria Girls.

Opening Note:

See the opening note of the 'preludes.'

This chapter concerns Sunset Shimmer and her immediate response to ERAFOSS Twilight Sparkle's arrival in the human world.

Warning: As noted in the preludes, this story is rated 'M'.


Chapter 2:

In one afternoon, Sunset Shimmer had seen the destruction and utter ruin of her ambitions.

The flash of purple light and smoking crater with a girl and an odd-looking dog at the bottom of it had screamed out to Sunset 'MAGIC!' She hadn't been immediately on the scene when the girl and dog apparently dropped out of the skies, but had witnessed the purple flash, and had been close enough to come running and witness Rainbow Dash and her posse cluttered at the crater bottom around what was there – and to see Fluttershy sent running to fetch the school matron.

And there had been the wild aftertaste of Equestrian Magic in the air – something which Sunset Shimmer had tasted all too little of, since arriving in this world.

Well it was the taste of magic in the air, unmistakable to one who had once worn the shape of a unicorn, and Equestria was the only world Sunset knew of, reputed or actual, where magic was actually a major thing. (There were tantalising hints and clues that there might once have been a version of magic specific to this world here, before the locals had managed to find some way to shut it down.)

So, assuming that the girl and her dog had arrived by magic of an Equestrian variety, they had probably come from Equestria, and were certainly worth investigating – especially to discover just how they had travelled to here, and what news they might have of events back in Equestria?

And news, it turned out, once Sunset had got the new girl to herself, in the privacy of the school infirmary room, the new girl had certainly had; news which had driven a wrecking ball thoroughly back and forth through Sunset's own plans, until there was nothing left but rubble.

Discord had seized Equestria.

Sunset Shimmer knew of Discord. She'd seen the statue in the gardens back in Equestria a couple of times, and as a student very interested in the 'Element of Magic', she had studied a good deal of lore of matters pertaining to the Elements of Harmony; the tale of Discord's defeat by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna was known to her – as was the unfortunate fact that it had taken two alicorn princesses and all six Elements of Harmony to put Discord away 'last time'.

Sunset Shimmer figured that on a good day, with surprise and a powerful magical artifact such the Alicorn Amulet or the Element of Magic (if she could get her hands on such), she might rate as the superior to Princess Celestia. Discord was way out of her league.

If Discord had taken control of Equestria, then Sunset Shimmer had zero chance of usurping that control.

And worse still, there had been some kind of half-baked attempt to stop Discord according to the new girl (and 'Spike'), with the Elements of Harmony, but he had apparently just shrugged it off. He had either grown in cunning or in power, it sounded, since his previous defeat.

Or maybe there simply hadn't been two alicorns available to put him away this time; the details didn't matter much, since Sunset Shimmer had zero alicorns at her disposal either now or any likely time soon.

Of course the new girl might have been lying as part of some kind of Byzantine plot that Sunset was uninformed of the motivations behind, but her tone of voice – and the bitterness and despair – had had the ring of truth about them to Sunset's ears.

Anyway, with Equestria off the cards, Sunset had decided it was good to make nice with the new girl – and had been horrified by the response the girl had had to the compliment Sunset had passed her, on her magical prowess.

Sunset had believed up until that point that the girl was simply dejected – not completely and utterly broken.

Sunset had blathered on for a bit, trying not to show her surprise, whilst desperately mentally double-checking her diagnosis, and struggling to process the unfamiliar feeling of feeling sorry for the new girl and trying to work out what to do about it? In the end, she'd concluded that she had to try and help the new girl (Sunset's own feelings would permit nothing less), which was nevertheless likely to take some time and a lot of work if the Lord of Chaos had gone out of his way to deliberately wreck her. Although with Discord in charge of Equestria, Sunset suddenly had a lot of spare time and a shortage of otherwise achievable goals, so she may as well do something useful.

Spike might be a complicating factor, depending on his personality and how loyal he was to Twilight, of course.

And at some point, Sunset was going to have to go after the portal that she herself had arrived from Equestria into this world via. It would need shutting down or barricading or destroying permanently or something, so that Discord couldn't send anything through it.

Doing that from this end might be quite tricky, though, given the problems of using magic here – but fortunately it was more than a year of local time until it was due to reopen, so it wasn't the most urgent of problems for now.

Sunset could divert most of her attention, not required for dealing with the intricacies of human High School life, to Twilight Sparkle, and helping her to get her feet back under her.

It was a good thing that one of Sunset's gifts – which she'd worked very hard on – was figuring out what was going on in other people's heads. And Vice-Principal Luna might be a useful ally too – she had human world qualifications to do things like student counselling.

If things ended up with Sunset having another one-time pony around to hang out with and to talk shop about specifically Equestrian stuff with – like magical theory and maybe, if she was interested, the different styles of great Equestrian artists – that would be a bonus…


Author Notes:

Sunset Shimmer in the original canon works, as far as I can tell, is smart. She ended up without the regular unicorn horn magic with which she was familiar, in a world with different cultures and technologies – the 'human world' – and got into a high school and somehow figured out enough that despite being an 'outsider' she was getting elected spring fling and fall formal princess.

It seems to me probable that even before she got the magical powerup in Legend of Everfree that she was good at reading people and figuring out what was going on in their heads. She might not always use that information wisely, but she could read it if she wanted it.

Regarding Sunset's developing reaction to ERAFOSS Twilight Sparkle, shown here, Sunset is at least a year behind where she is in the first Equestria Girls film in terms of descent into villainy, and here she sees ERAFOSS Twilight not as anything remotely resembling a threat or some kind of rival; and Sunset is – once the motivation and goal of 'return in triumph to Equestria!' has been thoroughly kicked away – in a position to be touched by ERAFOSS Twilight's brokenness and vulnerability. (But just because Sunset Shimmer has decided that she needs to assist ERAFOSS Twilight, she's not going to instantly start joining charity fundraisers for animal shelters unless she sees an angle to such an activity which might benefit ERAFOSS Twilight. Sunset being worried about and for ERAFOSS Twilight is something which will take time to extend to others.)

As a general note, it seems to me reasonable to characterize Sunset Shimmer as having studied lore concerning the Elements of Harmony whilst she was a student back in Equestria. Whilst I'm sceptical that Sunset could have come through the portal into the Crystal Empire, at the start of the first Equestria Girls film, expecting to find the Element of Magic specifically, she apparently knows enough about what it is to be confident that seizing it and making a run for it will serve her ends.

Note the 'get her hands on such' turn of phrase – Sunset is 'going native' to the human world in some of her ways of thinking.

Seeking to expand the backgrounds of some of the Equestria Girls characters, I've given Vice-Principal Luna a 'student counsellor' role. Princess Luna in the Friendship is Magic series helps ponies battle their nightmares; Vice-Principal Luna helps students in a sort of counterpart way.


Omake:

The three reindeer were packing.

Since they were the three Gift Givers of the Grove, and there was a lot to pack, packing was taking some time, and involved frequent arguments.

"Do you think we'll need the haystack repellent?" Bori asked, in the midst of cramming things into a huge reindeer version of a rucksack.

"Possibly." Alice said. "Certainly not here, at this end of things, but who knows there? The place is shrouded so deep in shadows I can't see anything there from here."

Alice had made this complaint multiple times ever since the reindeer had decided that they needed to set out to look for The Tree. Or rather the 'possible' tree. As Alice had complained, and Aurora had occasionally grumbled about, it was difficult to be certain about anything about 'that other place'.

At times they could occasionally glimpse hints of what might be The Last Star flickering and burning in the shadowy deeps.

"Well:" Aurora said. "Ponies have been using that place as a dumpsite for their problems for thousands of years. It's possible that they might have dumped a hunting haystack or two along with everything else. I can see almost any regular haystack which was banished from here in Equestrian history, but I of course don't know where the banisher was trying to send it. And folk of there might have been trying to summon haystacks for any number or reasons, or folk elsewhere might have sent their haystacks to there."

"Well there are a limited number of pockets that make speedy access of items available." Bori said with a touch of exasperation. "If we bump into a haystack in the wrong place, and I can't pull a bottle of repellent out, it's run or die time."

"Or we toss it on our antlers." Alice said.

"It's a weird world." Aurora said. "We might not even have antlers there."

"We will do. I mean it would just be so wrong for us not to have antlers." Alice said.

"Do we want to risk running into a haystack without either antlers or haystack repellent or not?" Bori cut across the latest impending argument. "Vote time."

Not that this was going to resolve the issue of possible haystacks, Bori thought to herself. She didn't need any kind of forward or backward 'sight' to see that this one was going to come up several times more before the Gift Givers were even remotely close to packed…

(Author Note: Uh-oh. Haystacks keep coming up in these omakes. This is going to be horrifically bad news for someone, isn't it, in the main story? This omake is a too-small-for-a-chapter-of-its-own scene, which is probably actually happening in Equestria in the background of the main story, by the way.)