Episode 210: Purifying Flames
Episode 210: Purifying Flames
Canterlot, some years back...
It took all of Sunset Shimmer’s self-control, which had never been her greatest trait in the first place, to avoid letting out a long groan of frustration as Celestia proceeded to lecture her again on the importance of seemingly banal things like “friendship” and “humility”. This was starting to be a familiar routine with her and her teacher. Sunset excelled her in studies of magic under the ancient alicorn Princess’ tutelage and she felt she was rightfully proud of her accomplishments thus far. She’d completely crushed the entrance exam, aced every single test, essay, or practical demonstration of magic Celestia asked for!
Sunset knew she had greatness inside her. Infinite potential just looking for an outlet. It was beyond maddening that it felt as if no matter how hard she worked, how many spells she learned, or how clearly her magic ability was head and shoulders above every other unicorn studying at the school, Celestia never, ever seemed satisfied with her! Always it came back to some long winded lecture on how Sunset needed to make more friends, be kinder and more sociable with her fellow students, or display constant humility despite the fact that Sunset had no equal among her so-called peers.
What did she need friends for, anyway? She’d been alone since she was born. Just an orphan her parents clearly hadn’t wanted, whoever they were. Sunset had relied on herself for most of her life, and the only pony who’d truly shown her regard, who had given Sunset a chance to prove herself and show the world what she was really capable of, was Princess Celestia.
“Sunset, I know it's difficult for you to open yourself up after spending so long keeping yourself distant, but it’s very important for your growth and healthy emotional development to start letting other ponies into your life,” Celestia was saying, just another of a dozen variations on the same friendship speech that Sunset had heard enough times that she could quote them verbatim in her sleep. Probably had, too, the few times Sunset let herself get sleep instead of studying.
They were walking side by side down one of Canterlot Palace’s many, many side hallways. Sometimes Sunset thought this castle was more hallway than palace, with an inordinate amount of ornate corridors separating rooms that didn’t seem to line up architecturally speaking. Magic? Wouldn’t surprise her. Where even were they right now? Sunset didn’t recognize this area of the palace at all. Granted most of her time was spent on the school grounds, but she’d walked with Celestia plenty of times around the palace itself and thought she knew most of its areas by now.
“Where are we even right now?” she asked, and Celestia looked down at her with that all-too familiar frown of concerned, motherly disapproval. Celestia was really good at that look.
“Don’t try to change the subject, Sunset. I’m growing ever more worried that while your skills with magic continue to grow at an impressive rate, you’re severely neglecting even more important lessons I’m trying to impart to you.”
Now it was impossible to keep at least a little of the angry growl of frustration out of her voice as she rolled her eyes and couldn’t meet her teacher’s gaze, “I’m listening, okay!? Friendship good. I get it. But how many ponies out there do you think actually want to be my friend, as opposed to just cozying up to the Princess’ personal pupil?”
“Far fewer than I imagine you’re thinking,” Celestia replied with that caring tone of compassion that was at once endearing and simultaneously made Sunset feel a painful jolt of shame that she rapidly shoved down to ignore, “While I won’t deny that you will run into ponies like that in your life, who might only offer friendship in order to get something out of you, there are far, far more who will genuinely just want to get to know you and will grow to care for you. As long as you can do the same for them. These relationships are the foundation of life at school, and it's one of the reasons I brought you here, so you can grow into the pony I know you can be.”
Sunset didn’t quite snort, but it was close, “I came here to learn magic, and become the greatest unicorn I can possibly be. I don’t get why I need to be friends with anypony to do that. What does friendship have to do with magic in the first place?”
“...Perhaps I’m going about this all wrong,” Sunset heard Celestia mutter, although she wasn’t sure if the Princess had meant for her to hear it. She saw Celestia perk up and then say louder, “Come this way, Sunset. I want to show you something.”
A surge of curiosity overrode Sunset’s annoyance at the continued lecture and she followed Celestia’s regal steps down a side passage that soon led to a pair of large, dark purple doors that Sunset recognized as having an arcane lock upon them. Celestia effortlessly wove the spell to remove the lock and allow the doors to swing open. Sunset, as casually as she could, noted the spell patterns and memorized them. Celestia likely had no idea Sunset had found a rare tome in a pawn shop inside Canterlot that taught the skill of magically picking such arcane locks, including how to swiftly memorize the spell keys at a glance. It certainly wasn’t the kind of skill taught in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, that was for certain.
Sunset felt a twinge of guilt over being so clandestine around her teacher, but... eh, Celestia needed to recognize how great Sunset truly was, so as far as she was concerned this served her teacher right. But what was Celestia keeping behind these locked doors, anyway?
The room beyond was fairly large for how little was actually in it. Aside from the purple carpet and a few lighting globes hanging from the walls, the only thing of note in the room was a tall, oval shaped mirror, set in a glamourous frame. It could have stood in for any vanity mirror of some city noble, but Sunset immediately felt a magical energy softly humming within the mirror’s gilded surface.
“What is this?” she asked, and Celestia gave her a coy, side-long look. For as stuffy as the Princess could be, sometimes, Celestia did have a mischievous streak that Sunset wished her teacher would show more often. Sunset knew full well about Celestia’s nighttime excursion to the kitchen, for instance, to pilfer leftover cake whenever there was a banquet.
“It’s a mirror,” Celestia replied, to which Sunset narrowed her eyes.
“Obviously. But it's not a normal mirror, is it? I can sense magic, here.”
Celestia nodded, her wings ruffling a little at her sides, an old and nervous habit, “Not every unicorn could tell that much, just being in its presence. You don’t need to concern yourself with what kind of magic is contained in this mirror, Sunset, but I do want you to look into it. I’ve often come to this mirror when I needed to reflect on myself, in the figurative sense. Perhaps it will help you the same way it has for me. Tell me what you see when you look into the mirror.”
This seemed like a bizarre exercise, but it beat listening to more lecturing, so Sunset complied, trotting up to the mirror and turning herself around in front of it to get a good look at herself. The unicorn mare looking back at her was the same as ever, with flaming orange fur, and a long mane and tail of two toned fiery red and yellow. Her cutie mark, a blazing sun of half red and yellow just like her mane, was right on her flank where it should be. Her eyes, a very pale, nearly turquoise blue, looked back at her with disatisfaction.
She was never really satisfied with herself. Never felt as if she was smart enough, powerful enough, great enough. If she had been, maybe she wouldn’t have been abandoned at an orphanage. Maybe Celestia wouldn’t keep giving her lectures and looking at her with disappointment. She just needed to get... better, at everything.
She hated that feeling, of not being good enough, and lies spilled from her lips, “I see a beautiful, genius unicorn who’s got more potential than half the rest of the student body at school combined.”
Celestia, reflected in the mirror, grit her teeth and let out a slow breath, voice calm but admonishing, “Try again, with a touch more humility. Really, truly look at yourself, Sunset. See the good, but also see the parts that need working on. With honesty, what do you see?”
Celestia’s words hurt, because they hammered right upon the head of the nail leading to Sunset’s raw insecurities. She was trying to be everything she thought she needed to be! Smart, powerful, and capable of doing anything! She didn’t want ponies looking down on her, or thinking she was worth less than them! Celestia had picked her to be the Princess’ personal pupil, her, and no one else! So why was it that Celestia was always looking at her with such disappointed eyes! Why did she keep making Sunset feel like she was never good enough? Sunset didn’t want to look at herself and see a weak, flawed, incapable pony that nobody could love. She didn’t want to be the discarded foal that nopony wanted.
“I... I see...” she stammered, not wanting to tell Celestia the truth. She didn’t want to tell the one pony who had even given her a shred of a chance that when she looked at herself she saw a desperate, lost, sad little foal who was beneath everypony’s notice.
She wanted to erase that image. To smash that reflection in the mirror to pieces. She wanted power, and adoration, to shine brighter than anypony else until all were blinded by her greatness. That way nopony would ever be able to say she was worthless.
Her eyes twitched as she noticed her reflection change. She saw a radiant heat flowing from the image staring back at her from the depths of the mirror. Light so magnificent and pure it nearly made her eyes water. Wings of flame spread from the back of her reflected image, a crown of fire surrounding her horn like a circlet of gold sunlight. Her eyes in the reflection glowed orange hot with those same flames.
“I see power,” Sunset whispered, not even recalling that Celestia was still there, mesmerized by the image she saw of herself, “Somepony that could defeat any foe, no matter how strong...”
“Sunset?” Celestia said, but Sunset almost felt like she was in a trance, reaching out towards the mirror.
“I could beat anything, rule anything... so much power... where does it come from?”
Even as she reached towards it it felt as if the image was both gaining definition, yet also flowing away. She thought she saw more, for just an instant, a sword at her side, a strangely curved one in a style she’d never seen-
“Sunset!” Celestia forcefully grabbed her and pulled her away from the mirror. Sunset yelped, her reflected image going instantly back to normal, as if the odd vision of herself with such immense power had been nothing more than a momentary figment of her imagination.
“Huh? Wait, what did I just see?” Sunset asked, straining a little against Celestia’s arm, although given the alicorn’s incredible strength, Sunset may as well have been straining against an impenetrable steel bar.
With amazing gentleness in her touch for a pony of such unrivaled strength, Celestia guided Sunset away from the mirror, wings fluttering and ruffling with unchecked nerves, even if her voice remained steady as ever, “Just a trick of the mind. The mirror isn’t all that special, Sunset. Look into any mirror long enough and you might start seeing things. I... I thought this might be a good change of pace from our usual lessons, but perhaps I should still stick to the basics until you’ve gotten a little more experience with friendship.”
“Ugh, I told you, I don’t need a bunch of friends pretending to like me,” Sunset groused, but let Celestia lead her from the room. She did, however, look over her shoulder back at that mysterious mirror.
Even now the details of the image she saw there were fading from her memory like some kind of strange dream, yet she couldn’t forget the sense of power she felt when she’d beheld it.
Somehow, someway, she knew this mirror was a part of her destiny, and would lead her to great power.
She just had to figure out how.
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Sunset Shimmer felt painful tears on her eyes, facing down the roaring flames of the phoenix that bore her unicorn magic at its core. Shame burned in her, hotter than the heat of the fire searing off of each of the phoenix's beautiful feathers.
After so long, she’d nearly buried all of the memories of her less than stellar past. Her selfish, obsessive time at Celestia’s school, rebuffing countless good ponies that were probably just trying to give her a chance. She’d even utterly screwed up the one time she had gone for a relationship, which had not lasted long at all. She’d been nothing but a pest to Celestia, learning so little of what the alicorn had been trying to teach her, and only ever growing more adversarial and aggressive the more she thought Celestia was holding her back from her true potential.
It had all ended with her all but betraying her homeworld, her people, and the pony who had been the closest thing she would have ever had to a mother, if only she’d had the grace to just recognize it instead of obsessing over power.
And yet...
“I have made mistakes...” she said, hands clenched at her side, starring up into the pitiless eyes of her fiery judge, “Mistakes I’m still paying for to this day, and might always. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look Celestia in the eyes, even if I’m lucky enough to see her again. I want to tell her I’m sorry so much I...”
She choked off the words, eyes clenching shut to cut off the tears. “But this isn’t about me. I stopped wanting power for myself a long time ago.”
“Yet here you are, having claimed the power of a Soul Reaper, having pursued that power relentlessly, and never being satisfied with the power you had you seek more still,” said the phoenix, its voice like a billowing firestorm, “You remain an ambitious, prideful whelp who craves the adoration of others to cover up her own weakness!”
“No!” Sunset shouted back, eyes opening once again, even as the phoenix beat its wings and sent a wind of heated air so strong and hot it was like standing against a solar flare. Sunset’s feet dragged back even as she shielded her face against the storm, “I want power, yes, but not for just making myself feel better! I want it so I can protect the people I love! Hell, I want to protect people I haven’t even gotten to meet yet! There’s countless dangers facing both Equestria and Earth, and if there’s any power out there or in me that I can use to help keep these worlds safe, then yes, I’ll seek it out! That’s not wrong, is it!?”
“Perhaps, if your words were genuine, but are they? Do your actions truly reveal a noble soul seeking to protect what’s important to her, or are you, deep down, still just clinging to the notion that having power makes you special so you don’t have to feel like the failure you fear yourself to be? The failure you proved yourself to be when you betrayed Celestia’s trust! The truth is revealed in the crucible of purifying flames, Sunset Shimmer, so prepare yourself!”
For something as large as the phoenix was, it moved with speed and blinding grace of a shooting star. Sunset barely had a fraction of a moment to raise her arms and harden her spiritual pressure to guard herself before the fire bird’s body rushed her like a beam of molten light and impacted with the blazing force of a contained, nuclear inferno. Pain shot through her whole body as incomprehensibly searing heat surrounded her and the piercing beak of the phoenix itself, like a shard of solidified sun, seared her arms.
The wall of the arena facing the city turned red, cracked, then exploded in molten shards and chunks of stone as the phoenix emerged from it, and from the impact point a small, smoldering body was flung at an upward angle that sent Sunset Shimmer plowing through one, two, then three skyscrapers one after another, leaving bursting shards of concrete and glass in her wake.
She found herself slumped against the wall of an interior office on the upper story of the third building, a burning streak in her wake and several flaming holes giving her a clear view through not only this building, but the ones she’d been flung through. Her arms bore dark burn marks that left pain roiling through her senses, and she let out a grunting cry of agony as she got to her feet, breathing heavily. “Holy... crap... how much self... loathing have I piled up over the years...?”
It hurt well beyond the pain of her injuries because she’d hoped she had gotten over this. She’d grown so much in the time since making friends with everyone at Canterlot High, and taking up her Zanpaktou. Every step she’d felt herself getting stronger, and moving beyond the shadows of her past. Accepting the virtues in her pride. Overcoming her fears to understand the light inside. Taking on the monumental responsibility of safeguarding her new home on Earth from the threats posed by the spirit war.
Yet all this time, deep in her soul, remained the unresolved shame of betraying the trust of the pony she most wanted to apologize to, and never had gotten the chance to do so. A shame that burned so hot in her chest she’d done all she could to bury it, to ignore it, hoping that every step on her journey as a Soul Reaper would somehow... make it all better. On some level, she’d probably unconsciously avoided thinking about her unicorn magic, because it was all tied to her time with Celestia, and a reminder of what she’d done.
I can’t afford this! She growled at herself, forcing herself to stand and kicking out a window behind her. She could feel the phoenix coming, and she jumped out the window just moments before the bird of molten fire came crashing into the building, cutting the entire skyscraper in half with its wings acting like knives carving through cardboard. With metal melting to slag, the skyscraper fell in half while the phoenix banked to align towards Sunset, who was now leaping from street light to street light and rushing down an avenue at high speed.
“Running from the flames will avail you nothing! You have to face the music sooner or later!” came the phoenix’s screech as it soared overhead in pursuit. Its wings flared and a series of feathers detached in rose colored bolts of power, homing in on Sunset like scorching missiles! She recognized the technique as being the same as the one she’d used on instinct when drawing on her Anima, and she could feel that same power in the air now as she dodged down one street, then another, her form flickering with Flash Steps as the feathers rained down around her.
Explosions dotted the city streets, flinging chunks of melting concrete into the air and toppling statues lining the sidewalks, Sunset just barely keeping ahead of the burning barrage.
Looking for a way to hit back, Sunset spotted a flagpole standing tall in one street corner, bearing the flag of Equestria on it. Zipping over to it in an eyeblink, she gripped the foundation of the pole and yanked the entire thirty foot metal rod from the ground. Just as the phoenix turned the street corner, its flames reflecting off of the surrounding skyscrapers in a manner that bathed all in a hellish glow, Sunset gripped the flagpole with both hands like it was a spear and hurled it with all her might.
The metal pole shattered the sound barrier in several concentric shockwaves as it flew and hit the phoenix just below the joint of its right shoulder and wing, spinning the bird around and causing it to crash into the roof of a shorter, stone building that looked like an old fashioned library from Canterlot. It screeched as it tumbled through the stone, flapping its burning wings in anger and outrage.
Sunset, throwing her hands out, drew on as much spirit energy as she could as she rapidly spoke the full incantation on a Kido spell.
“Sprinkled on the bones of the beast!
Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring.
Move and become the wind,
Stop and become the calm,
The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!”
A build up of raw lightning current coursed over her palms in a glowing sphere of levin might, crackling yellow until it grew to the size of a beach ball. Sunset aimed squarely at where she sensed her unicorn magic to be nestled in the breast of the phoenix, a vague flaming red outline of a pony in the roaring body of pure flame.
“Hado Number Sixty Three: Raikoho!” (Fiery Lightning Howl)
The bolt of spearing lightning blasted from her hands, fully empowered by the complete incantation and Sunset’s potent reiatsu. Cracks ran through the street and hundreds of windows were shattered by the boom of thunder, and Sunset was pushed backwards with her feet skidding along the street by the force of the spell leaving her hands.
The phoenix had rolled to its taloned feet and crossed its winds in front of itself as it saw the Kido bolt coming at it. Flames erupted higher, crimson and bright orange in a towering cyclone that shielded the phoenix’s body as Sunset’s bolt of electrical power crashed into it. Power clashed in a howling roar of conflicting energies, ripping apart the building that the phoenix had crashed into as arcs of power tore around it, splashing off of the shield of magical flamed enshrouding the phoenix.
With a burst of flame and a powerful screech, the phoenix spread its wings and dissipated the last of the spell, its voice echoing through the city, “This will not quell the heat of my rage, Sunset Shimmer! You think yourself so heroic, but I’ve watched the entire time! Every battle! Every mistake!”
It aimed its open mouth at her and Sunset had just barely enough time to leap into the air as a burning beam of concentrated fire shot out in a melting line that tore through several city blocks, and caused another skyscraper in the distance to melt in half and start to fall. Sunset, teeth clenched tight, shouted back, “What are you talking about!? I never claimed to be a hero! I’ve only fought when I felt I had to!”
She landed on the side of a mid-range tower, this one more stone and turreted like the ones in Canterlot, and she ran up it, avoiding another beam from the phoenix as it took wing once more to pursue her, its voice chasing her as much as its flaming breath.
“Don’t lie to me, to yourself! You could have left it all alone! Clover told you what Soul Reapers were, and that they were the ones handling the Hollows. You saw how dangerous Hollows were! But you chose to fight anyway, dragging your friends into a war none of you understood or had any business fighting in! Did you do that because you ‘had to’ or because you wanted to! Because you got a taste of power, and liked it!”
“That’s not-!” Sunset tried to retort, but was cut short as the phoenix stopped aiming at her and instead cut its fiery beam across the top of a taller, adjoining tower of conical stone and sent the thing crashing towards her! Sunset leaped away, her body vanishing with a Flash Step as she threw herself higher still and landed atop a skyscraper overlooking the scene. The phoenix homed in on her, soaring her way, and Sunset aimed with her palms once more. She didn’t have time for a full incantation, so she rapidly invoked the spell instead.
“Hado Number Fifty Nine: Hyoga Seiran!” (Glacial Vapor Storm)
Thick, lancing torrents of jagged ice came flowing out of her palms, a forest of piercing cold that rushed down at the phoenix like a series of frozen rivers. The phoenix unleashed its feathers once more, blasting the twisting growths of sharp ice with rose colored detonations as it continued its unrelenting charge. Ice shards still got through and stabbed sizzling, misty wounds upon the phoenix’s body, but it didn’t slow down, screeching a powerful cry as it neared Sunset.
She jumped off the opposite side, but rather than let herself fall, she flipped through one of the windows and rushed across the floor of what looked like another set of bland offices to reach the other side just as the phoenix was ripping across the roof. Molten bits of roofing dropped down from the ceiling as the phoenix’s angered howl could be heard as it momentarily lost sight of Sunset, gazing over the other side to try and spot her in the streets and seeing nothing. Only then did the phoenix raise its head and look behind it just in time to see Sunset flicker into view from a Flash Step right behind the phoenix.
Not wasting precious moments on a Kido this time, Sunset coiled her spiritual energy around herself and sharpened her reiatsu around her legs as she barreled forward, launching herself into a twisting, corkscrew kick with both feet that created a whirlwind around her body and a drilling swirl of concentrated reiatsu around her feet. Ditzy Doo hadn’t quite managed to impart the Shunko technique onto Sunset, as she was still too much of a novice to Hakuda to pull off that maneuver, but Sunset had worked out a simpler, if weaker version that used her whole body and especially her legs as a funnel for the loping, destructive reiatsu release.
She hadn’t named the skill until that moment, but it popped into her head all the same. Unlike a Zanpaktou move that actually got stronger with naming, it was unneeded here, but the spirit of Rainbow Dash kindled the proper mood in Sunset, and she found herself shouting, “Ryusei-ho!” (Meteor Cannon)
Upon impact the intense swirl of drilling spirit energy on her feet was released in a spinning torrent. The move was less about dealing damage and more about horribly disorienting the target by causing their whole body to go corkscrewing around as the kick sends them flying. Even on an opponent as large as the phoenix was, the kick sent it hurtling back at a downward angle, all of that spinning energy causing the fire bird to flap around in a wild, spinning circle that left it squawking in confusion. It struck the midpoint of the building across the way and into the street beyond, crunching through dozens of meters of roadway in a shower of molten rock.
Sunset landed on the roof the phoenix had just been on, a tad disoriented herself. She hadn’t used that move nearly enough to keep herself from being a bit dizzy as well after landing it. Knowing she had only bought herself seconds, at best, she shoved away her dizziness and Flash Stepped towards where the phoenix had landed, skipping over the now burning and crumbling skyscraper it had impacted through. By now it looked like half the city was on fire or broken, smoke billowing up and reflecting the red glow of flames to create an atmosphere of dread that fit Sunset’s mood.
She’d never intended to drag her friends into a war, things had just escalated to that point. None of them had been motivated by the desire to simply claim power. If anything, everyone had been different levels of nervous about the whole venture from the get go. Sure a few like herself and maybe Rainbow Dash had had some gung-ho attitude about it, but after dealing with all that had at Canterlot High with the sirens and Twilight’s magical mishaps at the Friendship Games, who could blame the girls for feeling like if something odd was happening in their town that they ought to do something about it?
I didn’t just want power... I didn’t. I wanted to keep everyone safe, she told herself. Even so, the memory of holding Hokori no Hikari for the first time, that impulse to grab that mysterious katana filled her mind.
She remembered, if only briefly, the image she’d seen of herself radiation such power in the mirror Celestia had shown her. How had she forgotten the detail of the sword she’d briefly seen? Had it simply been lost in the swell of other terrible memories from those days? Had some subconscious part of her mind recognized the Zanpaktou, or simply drew a connection whether it was coincidence or not?
Doubt crept into Sunset’s mind. She’d taken the sword, even knowing it was dangerous to do so. She’d liked the feeling of strength that had poured from her and into the blade when the Zanpaktou had first awoken and she’d slain that first Hollow.
Had everything she’d done since then been really to protect her friends and home? Only that, and nothing else?
Underneath that layer of moral reasoning, was there really a desperate, ambitious unicorn who still wanted to feel strong, powerful, and special to prove herself worthy of being wanted and respected?
She landed a good distance from the phoenix as the bird let out a piercing cry and leaped up, fanning flames about it with the billowing flap of its incandescent wings of raw inferno. Sunset raised her hands to cast a Kido, but hesitated, speaking instead of invoking a spell, wanting more to get to the bottom of both her and the phoenix’s pain than just keep fighting, “I don’t want to keep doing this! You’re a part of me, and while I don’t think you’re right about why we’ve been doing all of this, I know this all has to be coming from somewhere real. I never... forgave myself for what I did to Celestia. Throwing all of her kindness and patience with me back in her face.”
The phoenix glared at her with eyes of burning blue starlight and its flames only grew hotter, the steel of street lamps melting around either side of it and the walls of buildings running like wax, glowing bright as oven coils, “That’s because you know you don’t deserve forgiveness, because you haven’t truly changed! All you’ve done is fool a bunch of saps into thinking you’re a good person because you happen to help them save the day a few times, all while conveniently growing your personal power and making them love and praise you, just like you always wanted! All the while, you fail them, get them hurt, grow arrogant and cocky, and will only screw up more because you were never great and never could be! Celestia finally saw the truth of you, that’s why she never came looking for you, and even after you supposedly ‘reformed’ she never came to see you.”
Sunset was shaking her head, angry and ashamed of the tears in her eyes, not liking the way those words burned her more than any of the phoenix’s flames could. She was angry, too. Was this why forgiving herself was so hard? This stubborn part of her was so spiteful, yet it was a self directed spite, feeding into her anger at herself and making the phoenix’s ire stronger and its flames hotter. She had to remind herself this being wasn’t just her unicorn magic, but it was fused with her newly awakened Anima, an Inner Beast, one she didn’t truly understand yet.
“You’re twisting everything!” she shot back, stepping closer, despite the boiling heat scalding her skin.
Nearby, atop one of the few still intact buildings, Hokori and Hikari appeared. The twin Zanpaktou spirits watched as Sunset confronted both the beast inside her and the long ignored and buried pool of self directed anger she had for a past she had yet to forgive herself for.
“Don’t look away from yourself, Sunset,” said Hikari, “You are the one person who can either defeat yourself, or renew yourself. All other external forces, all external foes, are as nothing compared to the enemy that is one's own self-doubt and hate.”
“You’ve beaten us, and earned our trust, wielder,” said Hokori, “You’ve shown us your pride and the light you can shine upon others. But now... now you must do the same for yourself. Show us again what you can do, and why you are worthy to hold the Zanpaktou named Hokori no Hikari!”
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Upon the uneven cliff face of dark stone, Sunset was like a beacon of sunfire, her body surrounded by a corona of fire so hot that a river of melting stone was coursing down the cliff. Even as her friends watched, Sunset’s body seemed to flicker and convulse, her hair growing and losing feathers of rose colored fire in equal measure, the half formed image of wings struggling to take shape like transparent phantoms of flame around her shoulders.
“Ya reckon this is a’ good or bad sign?” asked Applejack to none in particular, shielding her face from the heat. They’d gathered a fair distance away along the cliff, Rainbow Dash having set down a very worried looking Wallflower who nervously paced behind them. The rest of their party, alerted by the rather obvious flaming girl melting half a cliff face, had joined them, with Shining Armor especially looking frazzled as he gestured wildly at the air around them. There, one could see the static emanations of his barrier like an opaque dome of faintly blue glass, now shimmering with the light of Sunset’s flames.
“Bad sign!? If she keeps this up, her spiritual pressure is going to be impossible to keep hidden! We’ll be telegraphing where we are to anyone and anything even remotely spiritually aware in the entire damn region.”
At his outburst, Cadence held his arm with a calming clasp and said, “I’ll help you reinforce the barrier, Shining. We can keep this hidden, for awhile at least. Does anyone here have any idea what is happening to her?”
The group’s gazes split between either Asena and Simurgh, who stared at Sunset both with thoughtful looks in their eyes, or Clover, who had been roused from her own inner battle with her Kido scrolls to now be looking on at Sunset with a baffled face.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Clover admitted, face pale and sweat soaked from her own exertions in trying to tame the Kido scrolls, “While its not unusual for some reiatsu to spill out during communion with a Zanpaktou, nothing on this level should be happening outside of something like battling to achieve Bankai, but Sunset already has that under her belt so this...?” she gestured vaguely at Sunset and the still melting cliff face, “This I have no idea about. But I wouldn’t recommend trying to interfere. I feel like that’d be as dangerous for her as it would be for us.”
“The Soul Reaper speaks true,” said Asena, pawing the ground and issuing forth a thoughtful growl, “Anima is at work here. She faces her Inner Beast.”
“Is that supposed to be happening so soon?” said Rainbow Dash, eyeing her own transformed hand of fur and claw, “I mean, this stuff just starting affecting us. Is this how it normally goes?”
“Not at all,” Smiurgh responded, folding her wings against the heat, “No native of the Beast Realm develops at this rate, and I’ve certainly never heard of a Midgardian who did.”
“Maybe its because she isn’t really a Midgardian?” Spike put out there. He’d gotten into his Gunwolf, keeping cool in its cockpit against the heat, so is voice came out via the mech suit’s speakers, “I mean, she’s from Equestria originally, so...”
A look passed between Asena and Simurgh, the tall, colorful avian clucking her beak a few times before saying, “That could be the reason. Especially if she has an unusually high amount of Asgardian magic, which would only stimulate her Anima more.”
“Either way, this still doesn’t feel right,” said Clover, “This is still a Zanpaktou communion, and has all the hallmarks of an inner battle. She’s fighting something, but... it’s strange, I don’t sense hostility from Hokori no Hikari. She’s inside her Zanpaktou’s Inner World, but she’s not fighting its spirit.”
“The Inner Beast must be confronted and made part of oneself to develop one’s Anima,” said Asena, “For those of us who are Beasts ourselves, the process is natural, oftentimes less a inner struggle and more a growing understanding of one’s own instincts. What Sunset Shimmer faces, due to her nature of having a foot in both her original home of Asgard and her adopted home of Midgard, may be a different thing than any Beast of the Beast Realm has needed to confront. The only thing we can do is watch her struggle with honor.”
“Screw honor, I’d rather help...” muttered Wallflower, “Isn’t there something we can do?”
“No, Lady Hel, nothing at all, I’m afraid,” said Simurgh.
“I’m not Hel... at least not right now, so please don’t call me that,” said Wallflower, and Applejack put a steadying hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“Don’t fret, Wallflower. Just cheer Sunset on. In situations like this, we’re still n’ it together, even when some o’ us got ta fight some battles solo.”
“Quite frankly I’m looking forward to getting a good one-on-one sometime soon!” said Rainbow Dash, then cupped her hands over her mouth to shout, “Go get ‘em, Sunset! Show your inner fire-chicken who’s boss!”
“Please do not insult the noble phoenix by referring to it as a fire-chicken,” deadpanned Simurgh, feathered wings drooping.
“What about hot-hawk?” suggested Rainbow Dash instead.
“Flaming-flamingo?” suggested Spike.
“Burnin’-buzzard,” put out Applejack.
“...Conflagration-canary?” said Wallflower after a moment of quiet hesitation.
This caused the other girls to burst out in chuckles, while Clover shook her head with a sigh that was both one of fondness and still hiding her worry as she watched Sunset’s burning form, whispering, “You can do this, Sunset. Whatever you face, I know you have the strength to overcome it.”
----------
“Twisting it, am I?” said the scornful words of the phoenix, looming over Sunset, a towering wall of searing inferno with its body and wings blocking out the sky as its embers melted the street around Sunset, “What am I twisting!? Your love of power has always outshone everything else! That’s why you never stopped, no matter how bad things got for your friends or the people around you!”
Those wings clapped together with the force of a thunderstroke, a powerful hurricane wind that was filled with scorching flames slamming into Sunset with earth shattering force. She felt her bones creak as she took the blow, and her skin blister from the flames, even with her spiritual pressure hardening around her like a bubble ot keep her protected and grounded against the phoenix’s fury.
Rather than retaliate with a physical strike or Kido, Sunset stayed steadfast against the storm of her self-hatred and took another, painful step forward, “Yes, I wanted power. I still want power. Not to be special, but because I want to be what stands between the people in my life and any harm that would come their way.”
“Really? Is that why you keep failing to protect them?” the phoenix sneered, lowering its face towards her, “You tried to protect Adagio, and her soul became lost to the Hollows, enduring untold suffering at the hands of Grogar. You tried to protect Celestia and Luna, and all you accomplished was playing right into Starlight Glimmer’s hands and gave her exactly the distraction of the Gotei 13 that she wanted to help her steal Hitsuyo-Aku, putting all of Equestria at risk in the process. You tried to protect Gloriosa Daisy, and you got to watch her soul get blended into something else entirely, then sacrifice her mortal life to clean up the mess. Oh, and let’s not forget Rarity. How well did you protect her, exactly!? Where were you and your vaunted power while she was dying at the hands of the Quincy? Even her soul you couldn’t protect, letting her get dragged into Hell right in front of you! All that power, all that effort, all that pain, and all you done is fail those who trusted you, because that is all you are... a failure!”
With a clamor like the striking of a thousand jewels the tails of the phoenix rattled and rose up behind it, each gem-like segment blazing with azure and rose hues of intense inner fire. Its wings spread out on either side, angled towards Sunset like blades, sunfire dripping from their plumage to slag the ground beneath them. Sunset felt the power of the phoenix spread out, both her unicorn magic and the hum of her Anima seeming to seep forth into the heat and flames that had spread out across the burning city.
The countless burning fires responded like living creatures heeding the call of a pack leader, flames flickering up and forming into a storm of fiery feathers that began to swirl above in a growing cloud. Hundreds of the flame feathers gathered, spinning above in a cyclone, building heat above like a firestorm.
Sunset stepped forward, heedless of the danger, and when a flame feather speared down and impacted with her back in a blast of charring flame, she clutched her mouth shut to hold back a cry of pain and kept walking. Her eyes looked into the phoenix, towards her unicorn self buried within.
“Yeah... I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Not everything has gone our way. Even when I win, there’s usually some cost to it beyond my control...”
She thought of watching Adagio vanish behind a closing Garganta. They’d beaten Grand Fisher, but Adagio had still had to save them, in the end, at terrible cost herself.
“No matter how strong I’ve gotten, there’ve been times it wasn’t enough...”
Sunset vividly recalled standing exhausted in the crater where Hitsuyo-Aku had once been, having watched Starlight Glimmer vanish via the Crossgate to go threaten Equestria, but beyond that Sunset remembered Clover and the devastated look on her friend’s face at the loss of her Zanpaktou.
“Time and again, I fight with everything I have, only to find out that there are even stronger enemies beyond the current foe...”
She could recall with painful detail the helpless way she and her friends could do nothing against Medley as the Zero Division member had stolen the geodes right out from under their noses. Further memories assaulted her, of being overwhelmed by the presence of Glory and the Zero Division, of barley holding her own against Tirek, or Rarity being pulled inevitably into the Gates of Hell, resisting every attempt of Sunset and her other friends to stop it.
“And even when I feel like I’m in control, I get slapped in the face with reminders I can’t control every situation or crisis, sometimes causing problems for the people I want to help...”
Her mind went back to the still painfully recent recollection of the Memory Stone going out of control and putting everyone at risk, most of all Wallflower, a victim Sunset had only wanted to help but had ended up making things worse.
With every memory, she took another step. With every step, the phoenix brought down more stabbing feathers of fire from the cyclone above, exploding around or on top of Sunset. Each blast ripped painfully across her, but even as blood clouded her vision, she kept following an instinct deep in her heart that this was what she had to do. The flames burning her were painful, but within that pain was something else, something she instinctively knew she had to embrace as she kept walking.
“And all of those mistakes still never weighed as heavy on me as the first one I ever made...” Sunset said quietly, tears smearing the ash of her own skin on her face, “Betraying my teacher. Disappointing her. Being exactly the kind of selfish, egotistical brat that truly didn’t deserve the patience and compassion of somepony like Celestia.”
“Then why are you still walking!?” demanded the phoenix, bringing down the rest of the spinning firestorm of flying feathers down in a burning rain. “Why don’t you just give up!?”
Flames engulfed her in a series of explosions and hammered Sunset to the melting ground. Her vision darkened, pain overwhelming into cold numbness as she felt as if her very being was close to being snuffed out. Yet she gripped hard to the instinct within, and the desires beyond, to push her bloody, charred body up and move one foot in front of the other. She was nearly to the phoenix, just one or two steps to reach out her hand to its chest where the burning outline of her unicorn self was, staring at her.
“Because I know now that I’ve grown, and can keep growing. There isn’t a single person who is free of mistakes. There also isn’t anyone who can’t grow from those mistakes, as long as they have the strength to face themselves and grow past the person they were when they made those mistakes. That’s why friends matter so much. They’re the ones who care about you enough to show you your mistakes, and help you through them, and you do the same for them. Celestia tried to teach me that, and I was too immature to listen... but I eventually got the lesson. Now... now I want nothing more than to give back to them what was given to me. And to do that, I’ll need to keep growing. Together, with you, the part of me I hated for so long, but it's time to move past that.”
“Get away from me!” the phoenix shouted, but its screech was less primal, more the echo of Sunset’s own voice as the unicorn within recoiled, “We don’t deserve friends, love, power, none of it!”
Heat boiled forth, a beam of flame from the phoenix’s beak bathing Sunset in a waterfall of liquid sunfire. She took the burning pain, all but naked in the flames that scorched over her body until she was just a golden outline in the light. And still she took the last step forward and reached into the phoenix itself, taking hold of her unicorn self and pulling years of self-doubt and hate into her chest as she embraced herself.
“Forgive yourself first. Then we’ll go see Celestia, together.”
The phoenix exploded around her in a pillar of incinerating, purifying fire, brilliant in its light, filled with searing hues of deepest blue, rich rose, heated orange, and radiant gold. She felt her magic, and the Anima attached to it, coalescing into her and burning her further, but like before it wasn’t a bad pain. It was clean, pure, as if it was removing some long encrusted grime from somewhere deep inside her.
Her own voice echoed to her, “What if Celestia doesn’t forgive us?”
“Whether she does or not, we still need to be the pony she believed we could be. For ourselves, our friends, all the people counting on us, and all those to come we’ve yet to meet. We’re Sunset Shimmer, unicorn, human, Soul Reaper, and now phoenix... and we’ve got two worlds to save.”
She fully embraced herself, and became the flame.
----------
On the cliff-face, Sunset’s body began to glow with an even brighter shade of billowing flames of many hues, and all of those watching took involuntary steps back from the intensifying aura.
“Is it me, or is she getting hotter?” asked Wallflower.
“You’re not imagining it,” Clover said, “I think we should consider getting to cover-”
No sooner had she gotten the words past her lips did a massive spike of reiatsu blast out of Sunset and a roaring pillar of bright rose and azure flames exploded upwards from her body. The thick expulsion of heat, flame, and spirit energy lanced right into the dome of Shining Armor’s barrier. He, along with Cadence, had been placing their hands on the barrier from a spot on the other side of the cliff, and both strained as Sunset’s energies unconsciously shot upwards.
“Oh hell!” Shining Armor grunted, “We can’t hold it!”
The barrier flaked away like paint peeling, and then the whole dome broke as the pillar of blindingly brilliant and searing fire shot upwards. Up and up the fire went until the soaring geyser of unimaginable heat and force drilled right into the ceiling of the continental cavern. Like a beam of pure sunlight, the pillar of flames would be visible for hundreds of miles, and it continued to melt and burn its way through the cavern ceiling for a full twenty or so seconds before it finally dissipated.
The following silence was smothering as the gazes of the party went up.
“Dear Yggdrassil’s boughs,” Simurgh breathed, “Is that... sunlight?”
“Impossible,” Asensa said, “That would mean she just burned a hole all the way to the surface, but that’s... dozens of miles up.”
“Sunset!” cried out Clover, soon followed by Applejack and Rainbow Dash as they rushed forward. Wallflower and Spike were right behind them, gathering around where Sunset had been.
A shaft of sunlight, filtering like a small ray all the way from the surface of the Beast Realm, lit upon a bed of melted cliff stone that was now cooled to a smooth, almost bowl-like protrusion. Laying in the center of that was Sunset Shimmer, limp and unconscious. She had Hokori no Hikari clasped in her hands, the Zanpaktou in its sealed state, but with the unusual addition of a single red and orange feather now engraved into its handle. Sunset herself had feathers now fully making up half her hair and smaller ones ridging her eyes like a small mask. Both of her hands had gained avian talons, still human in overall shape but unmistakably bearing small, fine red scales and talons. Wings, very real and physical, spread from her shoulders, bearing rose and orange plumage, with tips faintly azure blue.
“Is she okay?” asked Wallflower as Clover carefully craddled Sunset’s head and Rainbow Dash and Applejack sat down on either side of her.
“She’s breathin’,” said Applejack, holding a hand over Sunset’s mouth.
“I think she’s just drained after that expulsion of spirit energy and magic,” Clover said, placing a hand on Sunset’s head and closing her eyes in focus, “I don’t sense any injuries, just a severe depletion of her reiryuku. Whatever happened, it exhausted her completely.”
“Well it's good to know she’ll be okay,” said Spike, then after a second cleared his throat and added, “She is gonna be okay, right?”
“I think so. She’ll probably just be out for a while,” said Clover.
“Then somebody better carry her,” said Shining Armor, approaching with a wary look out across the expanse of Svartalfheim, “Because that display broke my barrier and just advertised our location to literally everyone in half the Beast Realm.”
----------
The walls of ramparts of the Allhammer Clan’s ancestral fortress of Mattugeirr echoes with the awed exclamations of thousands of Dwarves. From forge workers and laborers to the adamantine clad soldiers on watch, all eyes had been drawn to the blinding beam of flame that had severed the eternal gloom of Svartalfheim and cut into the earthen sky. None could readily guess precisely how far away the display of power had been, but all, even those with the weakest Anima, had felt it.
Brogensmasher, Jarl of the Allhammer Clan, clenched his fists so hard upon the hard metal of the tower window he’d been looking out of that the near unbreakable adamantine, so mystically hard that tank shells would’ve bounced off it, bent under his fingers. The Dwarf Jarl’s mole-like face showed lips curled back from sharp teeth and the whiskers of his thick beard bristle.
“What in the name of Sindri’s beard was that?”
The gathering of his Thanes behind him, who had been talking over a table bearing a metal carved map of Svartalfheim that display figures of their current incursion efforts into Diamond Dog territory, all had little but silence to answer their Jarl’s question, for none of them had felt anything like the display of energy that had pierced their realm’s gloomy skyline. Frigrune did her best to clear her throat and venture to say, “It appeared to come from somewhere to the southwest.”
“I didn’t ask where it was, Thane!” growled Brogensmasher, “I asked what in the absolute name of Surtur’s flaming arsecrack that was!?”
Frigrune’s stubby snout twitched, her own thick fur bristling with displeasure at the sharp reprimand, but honor calmed her tone to stone neutrality as she bowed her head, “I do not know, my Jarl.”
“I, however, could stab a guess,” came the jocular yet chilling voice of G’nash as the ice troll all but melted out of the shadows of the side of the strategy room, where he’d been silently observing the Dwarves plan their war while sharpening his claws with an orichalcum cleaver he’d borrowed from the armory. He now casually tossed the near priceless cleaver aside, causing one Thane to have to duck to avoid getting his head split, and the troll strolled over to the wide window to stand beside Brogensmasher.
“Is this the trouble you were telling me of?” asked Brogensmasher, “That pack of meddlers you were telling me about?”
“I’d bet my own claws on it,” said G’nash, sporting a freakishly huge grin of bare white, sharp teeth that gleamed like frost coated knives, “And from the feel of that display, at least one of them is strong enough to be worth my time.”
“You going to go after them, then?” Brogensmasher said, stroking his beard, hiding his nerves at what he’d witnessed, and eyeing the ice troll. He knew how strong G’nash was, but what he’d just felt out there... perhaps it was a fluke? Some random, freak display of power that didn’t actually represent the functional strength of their foes? Surely he knew neither Asena or Simurgh were capable of such potent spirit energy or Anima. G’nash had said there were a couple of Soul Reapers with the group. Was one of them a Captain? They’d have to be, but even then...
“I’ll muster the reserve regiments and deploy the to the south,” he said under his breath, “Concentrate our forces and scour the area...”
A cold, clawed hand clapped him on the shoulder, “No need.”
Brogemsmasher raised a fuzzy brow at G’nash, but the ice troll just kept smiling, “Got a feeling they’ll come to us. And I want them to. This is going to be fun.”
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That was awesome, I can’t wait to see how that changes her power
It really is a lot more interesting that Sunsets canon vision in this context(or even in canon given how any Parental relationship she had was strained at BEST or non existent) was a lie made by a scared child not wanting to admit that they saw a weak lonely filly who just wanted to be loved and accepted as she was. So I am just WAITING for Sunset to pop Inheritor and immediately ascend rather than JUST having wings. Also eagre for the Celestia Sunset reuinionto happen. Honestly hoping Sunset tells her what she saw before her vision of the future too, I also got from that is that while it may not be her driving motivation, power for its own sake, she still like pushing herself to be the best and the fact that its helped bring her the meaningful bonds she spent a lifetime craving as well as defend them is what makes the former that much more satisfying than it was is CSGU.
The result was pretty much inevitable, but your execution sure was cool. The flashback at the beginning probably could have been a little shorter, though. Most people reading this are going to know Sunset's backstory already.
11896117
Your not wrong but this version was still good to have since it really recontextualized and highlighted the root behind this fight and (since I belive this was an IC flashback) give Sunset the insight to end this the right way. By accepting what she did and that while she likes having power what really keeps her going is the fact that she has beings she truly loves which is why she wanted so badly to excel in the first place so that Celestia would love her, or rather keep loving her. Plus there was no indication in canon that her vision of power was the second thing she saw rather than only and even small differences can amoun to a lot in the right context such as this fight with her younger self. To me everything even if long was a perfect way to set up the payoff.
Yes! I've been waiting for this! It always seems weird to me that sunset didn't acknowledge fully her unicorn side, even when anima was first introduced. I thought this is just a perk for this version of Sunset; like a shonen MC all fighting and getting stronger while no researching and building like Twilight. Then we get to this chapter and the exposition felt just right.
11896117
Not necessary, besides the comics are beta canon at best and should be taken with enough salt to make a pony too drunk to drive.
Its weird but I kind of want to see more crossovers between the Bridge and Friendship Souls. If only to get some Bridge content. As things have somewhat stagnated for the Bridge. Just a weird itch I have, might have to reread Hunters & Hollows again to get it to stop.
That scene with unconscious Sunset is really beautiful. Hope she didn't hit anything important, though.
Loved the Chapter.
Huh I didn't go sunset, liked open concept architecture
, and also woohoo!!! we got a power up baby😁
Well that was a rather dramatic piece of character devlopment. Thank goodness this is going by Shounen Battle anime logic, so we can be certain Sunset won't ever ever relapse back into self doubt/hatred. When as anime hero conquers their inner demons, we, the audience, expect them to *stay* conquered.