Twilight hummed as her sneakers squeaked down the hallway. She was having to work pretty hard, sure, but her mind wouldn’t let her focus on how her arms burned from the exertion of pulling the crate she had found. She was too excited what she was going to be able to do with what was inside.
A quick peak within reinvigorated her efforts, making her move faster back towards the science labs in the school. Her and Sunset had been saving up for a while to get these materials, and while they’d had to keep them away from the lab until after hours, she was finally able to bring them to their mad science theater. Elements the school couldn’t didn’t carry, fine tuned instruments, all in the safety of a semi-professional lab.
She nudged the door open with her rear, huffing and puffing as she got the crate carefully through the door. She glanced over her shoulder, sniffing at an odd smell in the room. “Sunset, you remembered to use the fume hood, right?”
Sunset, the girl standing at one of the many stations with a few starter chemicals beginning to heat up on a small pilot light. “Of course, Twilight. Besides, these ones don’t even produce fumes, not in this sort of combination at least.”
Twilight frowned, stretching out her back with a groan as she couldn’t get rid of the smell in her nose. She knew she should know it, but couldn’t place it. Not that it mattered. If it wa gas, the pilot light would have reacted to it before she could smell it on the other side of the room. Instead, she pushed it out of her mind, and pulled out a long, thin tube. “I have brought you your tools, mistress.”
Sunset grinned, raising a hand that, for a moment, looked slightly blackened. “Very good, my minion! However, did you bring all of it, or am I to be left alone even longer as I start on our great hypothesis?”
Twilight scoffed for a moment, putting a hand on her chest as her other hand slipped into a lab coat. Safety first and what not. “Now, how dare you! You really think I would have been away for so long only to fail to bring everything? In fact, it was only in that pursuit that it took me so long.”
Sunset chuckled, her cheeks turning slightly red as she scratched the back of her head. I guess two lockers full of materials would be somewhat hard to move, wouldn’t it?”
Twilight nodded as she finished buttoning up her coat. It was a bit dusty, probably from how many of their peers ignored such rules, and she clapped her hands together, only to find a sharp pain come from them as they came in contact with one another. Looking to her hands, she thought she saw some sort of scarring on them, before they returned to their normal purple. “What?”
Sunset glanced back at Twilight, slowly stirring the ingredients in the heated beaker as she tilted her head. “What’s wrong? Do you have a cut or something, because we do have bandages and what not for those.”
Twilight blinked a few times, still staring at her pristine hands before shaking her head. “No, no, I’m fine. Just clapped a little too hard.”
A sly grin came over Sunset’s face as Twilight came closer, and the bacon haired girl pinched her friend’s arm. “Oh yes, because these arms are-”
“-strong enough!”
“Twilight!”
Twilight blinked, her stomach and mind swimming as she tried to remember how she had gotten onto the floor. It was surprisingly warm, especially since she knew that Principal Celestia enjoyed cutting corners wherever she could. It must have been the pipes or something though, as that made sense, right?
She looked back up at Sunset, who was standing over her, frowning. Twilight waved a hand to her, trying to joke like she was just waving hi for the first time that day. “Oh, I-I’m fine. Just a moment of dizziness, alright?”
Sunset reached down, her hand becoming black and charred for a moment in Twilight’s vision, causing the nerdy girl to yelp as she recoiled from the cracked digits. Sunset retracted her hand, looking truly scared now. “Twilight?”
Twilight shook her head as she used a desk to stand back up. Something was wrong, but all rational thought declared it to be wrong. She could of course be drea- “Ah!”
“Twilight!” Sunset rushed over, putting her hands on her friend’s shoulders as she clutched her head. There wasn’t much more she could say, but for Twilight, her friend’s touch seemed to almost make the pain in her head worse, and she pushed her away.
For a few moments, Twilight merely breathed. In and out. Pause for a few moments, count to five, three out, five more counts in. Just to calm everything around her. “S-sorry about this.”
Sunset stepped back towards the station, turning one of the knobs on it as she spoke. “What… What’s wrong?”
Twilight rubbed her temples, breathing in heavily as she tried to word exactly what it was she felt. Sense had been thrown out of the window, and it seemed as if her body were going against any… She stopped that track of thought as the pain in her head felt like it was starting to come back.
A different approach was needed. What was off? Well, she could still smell that weird, revolting smell. It made her sick to the stomach for some reason, and brought with it an odd crackling sound. Then there were the burns… “Well, for some reason, I keep seeing burns on me and you. That’s at least a start.”
Sunset nodded, taking her hand away from the now stream of fire in front of her. “Huh. I was wondering if I might get a good segway to talk about this.”
Twilight blinked, watching as her friend’s arm burned in front of her, before she let out a small yell as she said, “What are you doing?”
Sunset waved her hand, before throwing a fireball to her other one. Both arms weren’t covered by a labcoat now, but instead were charred and black. “Well, now that you’re finally here, I’m recontextualizing, so that way you stay with me. So, for now, let’s say I’m a pyromancer!”
Twilight blinked for a few moments, before her mind felt assuaged by the justification. Magic had been introduced to this world by the Elements of Harmony, and Sunset had even channeled them herself… at some point, so it only made sense she would have magic now. “Oh, when do you think everyone else will start showing their own powers?”
Sunset snorted and shook her head, tears at the edges of her eyes as she smiled. “Oh, I doubt that. It’s not like you’d want them to go through what I had to.”
Twilight opened her mouth, ready to ask what she did, before the words were forced away from her. Instead, something pulled her attention to the fact that half their labstation was now on fire, along with a part of the ceiling. “Sunset, control your fire! What will the principal think if she saw this?”
Sunset glanced at the fires, and the fire on her arm spread to the side of her head, devouring her hair to make it seemingly come alive. “I doubt the damage will be the first thing she is worried about. Just like it wasn’t yours.”
Twilight blinked a few times, watching as the side of Sunset’s face began turning black. The headache was returning, but she wasn’t questioning anything. She was just scared for her friend at this point. They were supposed to be just doing a fun experiment, but now she had come back to-
And Twilight was there again. She stood just in front of the stations, watching as fire consumed half the lab, and was currently coming closer to her. She could see the pipe that the gas for their station was a torrent of flame. Sunset wasn’t at their station though. Instead, she was closer to the fire extinguisher, a part of the ceiling having collapsed to trap the arm that ad been playfully on fire just a moment ago.
Twilight took a step back, her headache growing as her breathing almost stopped. Her hands hurt from when she had tried to help her friend, but hadn’t been able to manage it, and that meant she couldn’t use the fire extinguisher. She was powerless to help her closest friend in the world.
Sunset looked at Twilight, one of her eyes gone by the flames that were consuming her as she yelled, “Run, Twilight. Get out of here!”
Twilight stammered, spots of black beginning to fill her vision. This was too real. This wasn’t her school. This wasn’t Canterlot High. This wasn’t Equestria. She wanted to be in Equestria.
Sunset, her voice much harsher now as ashes and embers went into her esophagus, yelled, “Twilight, it’s not your fault. I should have checked the smell, so please, just leave. I don’t want you getting hurt too!”
Twilight shut her eyes, her body becoming weak as she tried to turn away from it all.
Her hip hit one of the desks, throwing her off balance. The next thing Twilight knew, she was falling as everything faded.
Beeeeeeeep.
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