Sunset moaned as she slowly attempted to open her eyes, fighting the large amount of fatigue that she was feeling at the moment, only to find that she was barely able to open them at all. She was grateful that she was still able to hear things, because she could make out the sound of beeping that reminded her of the time she had awoken in a hospital after her fight with Chairman Drek, when Searing had taken over and destroyed the corrupted businessman with their incredible power. She had to assume that she was in yet another hospital, somehow wounded from her ordeal with Qwark, but this time she didn't hear either of her siblings in the immediate area. She could only hear the beeping of the machines and the beating of her heart, not to mention feeling like her body was twisted or broken in some manner.
She would have left out a sigh if she had the energy to do so, but seeing how she lacked the energy to do even that she merely closed her eyes again and decided that rest was the best course of action this time.
During her rest she felt several needles pierce her skin, no doubt to either take blood samples or inject her with necessary nutrients that would keep her going until she was able to get up on her own, but she mainly ignored them. She decided that it was best if the doctors did what they needed to do without any interference from her, despite the fact that she was clearly in no condition to be moving anywhere. She figured that the doctors would tell either Ratchet or Starlight how she was progressing, whether she was improving or not, so she didn't worry about her family too much at the moment. When she heard the door close again she knew that she was alone once more, so she allowed herself to relax and truly drift into a restful sleep that would no doubt allow her to recover from what had happened.
She had no idea how much time had passed between the last time she had heard the doctors visit her room and the time when she next awoke, where she decided that she would try to open her eyes once more. She had some degree of success, because she was able to crack her eyes open enough to notice that the room was darker than she was expecting, telling her that it had to be nighttime. With that discovery made she tried to move her arms and her legs, but to her annoyance she found that none of her limbs were willing to respond to her commands at the moment. She mentally sighed in defeat as she made that discovery, to which she gently closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, so she could visit the dream world once more.
More time passed before she attempted to move her body again, but once again she found that, for some odd reason that she was unable to grasp, she was unable to move her body at all. After her second failed attempt she was beginning to wonder if something terrible had happened to her when Qwark had revealed whatever his master plan had been. She dreaded to wonder what would happen to her if she had been paralyzed as a result of whatever mad scheme the former captain had come up with, which she knew would severely limit how much aid she would be able to give Ratchet and Starlight the next time adventure came knocking at their door.
During her thoughts about what had happened to her she could have sworn that she felt something akin to Generosity in her immediate area, but after some time it faded away and left her to wonder if she had been daydreaming.
Sunset rested for what she assumed had to be another day at least, not that she could tell because of how little sunlight or moonlight she was able to see from her room thanks to her weakened sight, before she tried to move again. Third time was not a charm for her, because she was, once more, reduced to merely trying to move herself and failed despite all the commands that she sent throughout her body. She would have tried to use her magic to aid her, but she knew that it would have been a bad idea considering how terrible her attempts to move her own body were. She decided that it was best if she didn't attempt to use magic at the moment, otherwise she might accidentally blow something up or destroy the entire room that she was resting in.
On her fourth attempt to move her body she managed to open her eyes more the before, but she found that she was still unable to get anywhere with her arms or legs. Her fifth attempt yielded some results in the form of the fact that she managed to get her limbs to twitch for a few seconds, which she counted as a small victory in her sea of failure. The sixth attempt brought upon more twitching and what she thought was some movement, but she quickly found that she was still unable to do anything. After finally admitting defeat, and accepting the fact that she might not be able to move until she recovered more, she drifted off to sleep once more.
After some time Sunset opened her eyes and, to her amazement, managed to move her head from side to side, giving her the ability to look around her and see who was in the room with her. She was expecting there to be some machines hooked up to her body, as that was the case when she had woken up in the Veldin hospital, though she was somewhat surprised when she found that neither of her siblings were in the room with her. Instead she found Angela Cross sitting in one of the chairs, checking out something on her tablet as if she was passing the time until either Sunset recovered or waiting for one of the others came to switch places with her.
Sunset watched her for a few seconds, wondering if she had the capability to speak at the moment, before Angela glanced up from her tablet and spotted Sunset staring at her.
"Oh Sunset, thank the Maker that your okay," Angela commented, closing whatever was on her tablet at the moment before getting out of her chair and walking over to her, "How are you feeling?"
"T... terrible," Sunset weakly replied, not surprised to find that her throat hurt considering that she had no idea how long she had been out for, which had to be a long time, "How long... was I out for?"
"Two weeks." Angela answered, checking some of the machines for a few seconds before turning to face Sunset again, "You gave Ratchet and Starlight quite the scare when you didn't wake up during the first few days after the defeat of Qwark and his idiotic plan. Despite everything that happened that evening your siblings thought that you would awaken in a day or two, but when the first week passed they began to worry that you might not awaken at all. I mean, the amount of magical energy that you and Starlight drew into your bodies would normally be enough to knock you out for a few days at most... even Starlight had to rest from the ordeal before she could get back to work with her weapons.
You don't remember much of what happened two weeks ago, am I right?"
Sunset nodded her head as best she could, because her lack of being able to move was starting to annoy her, though she was starting to understand why her body was resisting her commands.
"Starlight and I figured that your response would be that," Angela said, tapping on her tablet for a moment, as if she was searching for something specific, before turning it over and laying it before Sunset, "Starlight told me to show you this when you recovered, as she said that it would answer some of the questions that you might have."
Sunset watched as the video started when Qwark revealed that his entire plan had been to get all of them into one area so he could use Starlight's magic to shatter the golden bracelet that she had been wearing for the last fourteen years. When the bracelet was broken into a thousand pieces Sunset winced when she was consumed by the power that had been locked inside her, releasing Searing into the world once more. Her eyes widened in surprise and horror when she gazed upon her corrupted form, when Searing had completely taken over her body, which she knew was on a different level than the feral state when she had taken on Chairman Drek. Then came the 'fight' between Searing and Qwark, to which Searing managed to receive no damage until Qwark used some sort of energy blast against the demon.
Sunset then witnessed the total destruction of the facility they had fought through, all because Searing unleashed what was apparently a 10.0 earthquake and shattered the entire area around her. She was sure that her siblings would have given up and leave so they could come up with a plan to rescue her, and it appeared that they actually might do that, but then Mr. Fizzwidget, the real one, walked in with what appeared to be a second Raritanium Core. That was when things got really weird, because Starlight used the fragments of her golden bracelet to forge a necklace that the orange Core could rest in, though Sunset noticed that her sister looked like she was surprised by something after putting it on.
The weirdest part was when the northern lights opened above them, filling the ruined facility with an array of lights that almost seemed to take on a mind of their own as they descended towards Searing. She watched as the spirits of ponies, some large and some small, formed from those lights, though her eyes widened as she gazed at the large white one that had both a horn and a pair of wings. It was almost as if Searing had the same reaction to that spirit, because she had stopped whatever she was doing and seemed to accept whatever fate the spirits had in store for her. Sunset then watched as the power of the spirits tore into the corruption that Searing had inflicted on Sunset, wiping away almost every trace of the demon until she was a cazar again.
The strangest, and most unbelievable, part out of everything she had seen was when she had been laid on the broken floor, because there was an amber coated mare, with a horn and a pair of wings, resting where Sunset knew she should be resting.
"Now before you say anything, or freak out, I have one other thing to do," Angela said, putting the tablet on the chair she had been sitting on before pulling out a large full body mirror for Sunset to look at.
What Sunset found in the mirror was an amber coated pony staring back at her, complete with the horn and wings she had seen in the video, sitting where she knew that her reflection was supposed to be. She looked down at her arms and legs and found that they had been turned into hooves, along with her entire body being reshaped to look like a pony's body. She looked like Starlight now, though the only major difference she noticed was that her coat was different colored, before she noticed that there was some sort of sun mark on both sides of her rear. She even noticed that she was now wearing the necklace that Starlight had crafted from the fragments of her bracelet and the second Core, leaving her to wonder why this had even happened in the first place.
"Why? Why am I suddenly a pony?" Sunset asked, knowing that Angela wouldn't have the answer to that question, but she needed to ask it anyway, "I've been a cazar since birth... so why have I suddenly changed form?"
"It was all because of that infernal bracelet," another voice said, to which Sunset turned her head to see Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight enter the room, though she knew that it was Starlight who answered the question, "I did some research on the necklace while you were out, on the metal that was used to forge the band, and I discovered that there was a trace of some magic that is unlike anything either of us have used during our lives. I had to speak with Honesty in order to determine what type of magic it was, though when I heard that the fragments had been tainted by something called Chaos Magic I began to piece some of the details together for myself."
"What do you mean by Honesty?" Sunset asked, though even as the words left her mouth the gemstone in the necklace glowed for a few seconds, to which her eyes widened for a moment, "Of course, how could I have forgotten the fact that we recovered a second Raritanium Core?!"
"Was that sarcasm?" Starlight said, shaking her head as she took her seat across from Sunset, while Ratchet and Clank sat beside Angela, "Anyway, Honesty told me that the bracelet, which had been infused with Chaos Magic, was designed to do a number of things to you, one of which was to change your form into something other than a pony... or more accurately the alicorn you have become."
"Wait a second... your telling me that I would have been a pony if I hadn't been wearing that bracelet?" Sunset asked, not believing that her sister was saying something like that to begin with, though she considered that this change might make them more related if they were both ponies.
"That's what Honesty told me when we had our conversation a week ago," Starlight confirmed, tapping something on her tablet before showing Sunset a chart of sorts, "it also told me that each of the six Cores could unlock something that the bracelet sealed up. Your form has been returned to you, thanks to Honesty, but I have no idea what the other five will return to you when we recover them... so our first course of action, the next time we return to Solana anyway, would be to obtain Generosity."
Sunset looked at the reflection in the mirror for a moment, allowing her mind to wander while she took in every bit of information that Starlight was telling her. Apparently the Raritanium Cores could speak, something that Starlight must have acquired from her usage of Honesty so she could seal Searing away once more. They were also the keys to recovering who she truly was, before she had slipped on that bracelet and doomed herself to this cursed existence where she had no idea who she was anymore. As she looked into the mirror she had to wonder if the body she now had was Sunset Shimmer's body, or if it had been a form that the Core had chosen at random considering who was using it at the time.
Her identity was shattering all around her, because she knew that if she hadn't been born a cazar, and was actually a pony like Starlight, she had to wonder what else about her was false... or rather what else the bracelet had conjured to replace who she truly was, which led to tears starting to run down her new muzzle.
"Please don't cry Sunset," Ratchet said, wrapping his arms around his sister for a moment, while making sure to avoid hurting her new wings or poking himself with her horn.
"Am I truly Sunset Shimmer, or am I someone else?" Sunset commented, letting the tears flow however they wanted, "Whose the real Sunset Shimmer? The cazar that you both grew up with, or the pony that's sitting before you at the moment? Which of my memories are my real memories and which are ones that were fabricated by that cursed piece of jewelry? Ratchet... Starlight... I truly have no idea what's real and what's a lie anymore."
"Sunset Shimmer is, and will always be, our sister," Starlight answered, picking up the bed sheet with her magic and using it to pick up some of her sister's tears, "It doesn't matter if you're a cazar, a pony, a lombax, or even one of the Blarg, because you would still be our sister on the inside. We'll all help you out of the mess that Qwark put you in and, maybe someday far in the future, you might actually thank him for allowing you to discover who you really are. Before we start helping you, however, there's one thing you have to do... stop crying, because Ratchet and I are going to find the creature that gave you that bracelet and smack them upside the head with our weapons until they apologize for what they did to you."
Sunset highly doubted that she would ever thank Qwark for what he did to her, but she had the feeling that Starlight wasn't going to rest until they had discovered who she actually was. One thing that Sunset did know, however, was that their adventures were far from over and that it was only a matter of time until they found another villain to take out.