//------------------------------// // I want to rewrite this story, but before I do that I want your opinion first // Story: Friendship is Magic quite literally // by CrossRedstone //------------------------------// If Sunset was good at something, it was the subject of magic. Scratch that, she could openly admit, she was a genius when it came to the subject of magic. However, even a genius as her was at a loss at the readings, which she recorded a couple of weeks ago from her friends. Despite not understanding a thing about the magic in the human world or rather BECAUSE she couldn't understand it, Sunset had been spending many evenings trying to find something that might give her a hint as to how magic worked in this world. She checked up old legends, people claiming to have real magic and even some physics book. The laws of physics so far matched up, but there still was this sneaking suspicion that it had to do something with that. Or maybe humans just understood the laws of physics differently than ponies, since ponies had long since made a connection between physics and the general laws of magic. "Urgh, this is so frustrating!" Sunset shouted, slamming the book shut. It was about some old stories in European mythology, which even include unicorns! However, they were controversial at best or straight up made up by some guy who wanted to write a good children's book. Sometimes it hurt to read these things. Sighing in annoyance, Sunset decided it was time for some comfort food, simply meaning she snatched her cell phone and ordered pizza, vegetarian of course. She knew humans generally lived a healthier life if they at least eat a little bit of meat, but she just stuck with some dietary supplements. Pretty much not the smartest thing to do, but the easiest and quite frankly cheapest solution. Heck, the only reason she lived in her own apartment was because she got financial help from the local government. It certainly beat the old factory, which she lived in the first couple of months. Slumping down on her poor excuse of a couch, Sunset turned on the equally poor excuse of a television, waiting for her pizza to arrive. About thirty minutes later, her doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of someone. Hopefully, that someone was the pizza delivery guy. Opening her door, the former unicorn found... "Flash Sentry?!" She exclaimed surprised. "Whoa!" Flash jumped, equally shocked upon getting screamed at out of nowhere. "Oh, hey Sunset. Soooo, one Pizza Hawai, no meat?" "Yes?" Sunset spoke slowly, accepting the small box. "I didn't know you're working as a delivery boy." she pointed out, now smiling a little. "Oh, I've only been doing this for a week. Lightning caused a blackout in our house last week and sadly, my guitar happened to be plucked in at the time. We're lucky the house didn't burn down, but my guitar? Melted." He said with a grin. Sunset in return blinked surprised. "Wow, that's gotta suck. You know, me and the girls don't have another gig going on for some time, so if you want you can have mine." the girl offered, but Flash waved. "No, it's alright. I actually already got one, I just have to pay a share of it every month. My dad even got a special multi-outlet, which apparently is supposed to endure a lightning strike." "Really?" the girl asked. "Well good for you. Here." she produced a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket. "Keep the change." "Hey, I can't accept that, Sunset. I mean, we're friends." Flash pushed her arm gently away. "Yes, we're friends." Sunset smiled mischievously. "And that's why" she got uncomfortably close to Flash, careful not to drop the pizza. The boy in return blushed, as Sunset put the bill into the pocket of his jacket. "You're gonna accept my generosity." She gently hit the pocket two times. "After all, friends help each other, right?" Not waiting for an answer, she pushed the boy away and slammed the door shut with her foot. "Oh man." Flash groaned, getting back on his feet. "Does she always need to be so forceful?" he asked himself, going towards the staircase. "Well, at least she isn't firing rainbow lasers at me. That'll be the day when that happens." Inside the apartment, the Equestrian happily chewed on a slice of pizza. On the TV there was a show for kids going on, seemingly trying to teach kids about friendship, which it did a poor job at. Obviously, the show just existed in order to sell toys and other merchandise. The girl switched through the channels for some time. Upon not finding anything interesting, she turned off the TV and instead put a book in her lap and started reading. However, she couldn't really focus on the story, as the unsolved mystery of human magic wouldn't leave her head. Eventually, she had eaten the entire pizza and not read a single page in her book. Sighing again, she put the book to the side and started walking up and down in the small amount of space her apartment allowed her to use. "Let's see," she spoke out loud "no theory I have come up so far holds water. Magic always happens, when we play our instruments, but during the fall formal the girls weren't even singing a heart song. They only needed Twilight at that time. Hmm...no, wait. The Element of Magic was on this side of the portal as well, so might have acted as a sort of battery. Hmm, there's something I'm missing." She walked over to her desk, looking at the readings the computers at Canterlot High spit out. "I have taken readings from all of the girls. How did the monitor show a butterfly anyway? These things aren't designed to do that. And then there are the apples! Real, legit apples! You can't just make them appear out of nowhere, that's not possible! Unless Applejack somehow teleported them from her own orchard to the school. Not to mention, Rainbow with her- Wait a second, wait a second." Sunset went over her notes once again and found something she actually forgot to do. "I am so dumb!" she slapped her forehead really hard. "I never took any readings about ME! Great job, Sunset Shimmer, great job. Once the student of Princess Celestia and overlooking something so elementary! Tch, I don't have the equipment here to get proper data." The fiery haired girl looked over to her guitar, which was positioned in a corner and then over to her computer. I do have my own program installed there, the same I used at Canterlot High. Oh yeah, note to self: delete it, before any of the principals find out about it. So, all I would need is to install a music recording program, which I can easily find on the internet, and then I could get a least some sort of data for comparison. Maybe I can get something I ACTUALLY understand. she thought to herself. Having made her mind up, Sunset started preparing the recording. Finding an actual decent program for her PC turned out to be easier said than done, as most of the freeware had some sort of virus on it. After a bit of searching, she actually found something and surprisingly it came from Vinyl's My Stable page. Yup, Sunset Shimmer wasn't the only one around with a self-made computer program. Seeing the Hobby-DJ sharing her program, Sunset decided to do the same, saying it was a self-made program for high school experiments. Most people would probably use it for their physic classes. Preparations complete, the girl turned down the volume in order to not stress the neighbors and started playing her part of "Shine like Rainbows". As expected the transformation happened in a matter of seconds and by the time she was done, Sunset had collected a decent amount of data. Except she didn't. "What the heck?" Setting her guitar aside, Sunset furiously began typing on her keyboard. As it turned out there was a little thing in the setting of Vinyl's program, which prevented Sunset's program somehow from collecting data. How that was possible was anyone's guess. Fixing that took some time and when she was done, Sunset Shimmer needed some stress relief. Instead of playing a real song, this time, Sunset played a series of aggressive notes, somehow still triggering the transformation. Sunset ended her little music rant with one strong shred, accidentally hitting her hand against the speaker on the ground. "Ow! Man, I hate it when that happens!" Sunset shouted. Shaking her hand, she turned her gaze towards the screen and was satisfied to see that this time, everything worked out perfectly. "All right, finally!" she shouted, her eyes darting over everything that her computer managed to catch. "Let's see, let's see, let's see...hmm. Interesting," she whispered, scrolling down the page. "Me having a stronger output than the others is not really a surprise. Could be because I just let it all out. I probably should take some more readings for comparison." And that she did. Sunset played two actual songs and one other time she just played some random notes and checked the readings once again. I should have been able to guess this one, but it seems that the magic is even stronger, when I play something in "harmony" so to speak. The random notes only have minimal readings, if any, but even my little shred session had more of an impact than the other stuff. No real difference between "Shine like Rainbows" and "Awesome as I want to be". But still, these waves are completely different from pony AND human magic! A mixture of the both? A fluke in the program? Or just pure coincidence? I'm not getting anywhere! Guess, I have no choice. I better consult Twilight about this. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will give me some enlightenment. After looking over the readings one last time, Sunset turned off her PC and headed towards her bedroom, where her book was resting on the nightstand. Picking it up, she produced a pen and started writing. "Dear Twilight, I noticed something I missed out last time I tested the others on magic. I didn't take any readings off myself. Granted here at home I cannot record everything necessary for a full conclusion, but I got a pretty good picture so far. I still have no idea what's going on! My initial recordings show a mixture of the magic I examined from the girls and my own pony magic! I'm a literal enigma in this already hard to solve puzzle! The girls say I should let it go and move on and I understand their sentiment, really. But it just won't leave me alone! Have you ever had stuck in your mind and couldn't stop thinking about it, until you dealt with it?! That's how I've been feeling for the past few days! I need a fresh set of eyes on this one. Do you have any idea what's going on? A possible theory from which I can work on? Anything would help. Your friend, Sunset Shimmer P.S.: Pinkie has been bugging me about going to Equestria again. Better keep the portal closed for the next week or so.