"Da-dum, da-dum, awesome! It's time to be awesome…"
It was currently a sunny day in Equestria, and right now, Casey was sound asleep in his room, dreaming (and singing) about a fun memory that involved a song that Rainbow Dash had thought up.
Little did he know that his wonderful dream was about to be interrupted by a certain unicorn that had a sly grin on her face because of what she was about to do.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
"Rise and shine, Casey! Come on, let's go, time to get up and out of bed!"
While she continued to use her magic to bang two frying pans together, an awakened Casey let out a groan, and he muttered, "Alright, Starlight, I'm up."
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
"Okay, okay, I'm getting out of bed," said Casey, and once he was standing on the bedroom floor, Starlight made the pans disappear. "Did you have to wake me up like that?"
"Not really, but I thought it'd be fun to do it," replied the amused pink unicorn, and Casey rolled his eyes. "Come on, Twilight's waiting for you in the library."
The young stallion followed Starlight out of his bedroom, and they began to walk over to the library.
"I seem to remember me telling you several times to not be my darn alarm clock," muttered Casey. "And you couldn't have picked a more simpler way to do it?"
Starlight continued to giggle, in amusement, and she said, "Seemed pretty simple to me."
Casey just let out a sigh, and thought to himself, Just you wait, Glim Glam. One of these days I am going to get you back for this.
They soon made their way into the library, where his special somepony was currently looking through various notes of hers. "Here you go, Twilight, he's wide awake and ready for ya!"
"Somewhat awake," growled Casey, rubbing his face around with his hoof to erase any signs of tiredness, but he still managed to smile at Twilight. "But, yeah, I'm ready for whatever made Starlight wake me up so abruptly this morning."
Aw, these two act so much like siblings, thought Twilight, now organizing the pages of her notes. "Good, Casey… so now, we're going to talk about on how you've been handling your time with your friends."
What the young princess meant by that is there was a lot of missed time that Casey could have spent with his friends in his own world, but instead, he had spent that time hanging out with mostly his best friend, who was a golden Earth Pony by the name of Stardust Balance that also lived in a parallel dimension, and this had almost cost him his life several times, as well as hurting the feelings of Starlight because she had come to establish a sister-brother relationship with him.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that my progress went way up since our big adventure a few days ago," reminded Casey, who was referring to the events that took place when Twilight had held her first-ever Friendship Festival. "Not to mention that I invited Beck myself to enjoy the event… and, in return, that all convinced Kronos to allow me to go back into Stardust's world… which, by the way, he says was also due to a certain alicorn having a long talk with him?"
"I, uh, wonder who that could be," replied a sheepish Twilight before getting back to the topic at hoof. "Also, yes, I'm very proud of the time you have spent with everyone in Equestria since your birthday…"
Casey nodded his head, a proud smile appearing on his face, but it went away after hearing Twilight finish her sentence.
"However, there is one friend that you haven't spent time with since almost a year ago back when we all met you at the Crystal Empire."
"And, that friend would be…?" wondered Casey, and he got his answer from Twilight showing him a group picture that had been taken at Pinkie Pie's alternate-world-saving-and-making-new-friends-from-other-worlds party, with her hoof pointing at one particular pony.
"Sunset… Shimmer?" Twilight nodded, but Casey still felt a little confused. "Well, I mean… yeah, I became friends with her after that day she and the others helped us take care of Midnight… and I also went to her world to invite her to the festival, but aside from that, I just assumed she was busy doing other important stuff."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "So, what's the difference, then, between her and Stardust? He lives in another world, too, and we know that he does important stuff, as well, since he represents the balance between chaos and harmony, but you make time to spend with him."
Point taken, thought the young pony, but she wasn't going to win this so easily. "Well, what about you? You know her better and longer than me, anyway Twilight, so-"
However, the purple alicorn already had an answer to his question. "But she knows how busy I am as a princess, Casey, along with my own time that I spend with everyone I know here. I almost have to remind myself twice every day to check in my journal what she may have written to me in case it's important. There's also friendship problems I have to handle, events I need to plan… you get the picture, right?"
A sheepish Casey nodded, and he replied, "Yeah, I do, Twilight… but I can't exactly pop over into her world, and see if she's available to hang out or whatever. What if Sunset's busy at that one place I can't remember right now that Stardust hates so much-"
"Well, today's your lucky day," interrupted a smiling Twilight, while Casey tried not to groan, much to Starlight's amusement. "Sunset actually has some free time on her hands this week, and doesn't mind you coming over to spend time with her and her friends."
Think, Casey, think. He didn't actually mind on spending some time in Sunset's world; it just wasn't what was on his schedule for today. Oh, I got it!
"Why not send Starlight, then? She's always trying to find ways to visit her whenever the opportunity comes."
Said unicorn had an answer for Casey's question. "Unfortunately, I can't today because me and Trixie are going to see how Thorax and his brother are doing… you're more than welcome to come if-"
Casey quickly shook his head, and he replied, "The last time I was near Trixie, she almost blew me up with a damn rocket-shaped firework, so I'd rather go to Sunset's world than be with-"
"Great! All settled, then," said a satisfied Twilight, while Casey glared at Starlight in irritation, and the pink unicorn gave him a small shrug. "And before you ask, I won't be able to spend time with her today because I still need to learn what I can from the books in Queen Novo's castle library. Plus, Pinkie keeps forgetting the way to get there, so…"
"Yeah, alright, I know when I'm beat," muttered Casey, giving one more "I'm getting you for this" glare to Starlight before giving Twilight a quick kiss good-bye, and then, he let out a chuckle. "I'm starting to wish that I'd never met Stardust because, then, I wouldn't have had to worry about this in the first place."
But, on the other hand, thought Casey, while Twilight shook her head in amusement. He did help me get comfortable enough into asking Twilight out in the first place... and I guess there's no harm in being another friend to Sunset.
So, after letting out a sigh, the light-orange pony walked through the Crystal Mirror, and all of a sudden, it felt like everything around him was spinning and swirling at a very frantic pace.
Then, a few seconds later, Casey found himself stumbling out of the solid marble base that once held a Wondercolt statue, trying his best to remain standing up so he wouldn't collapse. "I've got to get more used to this."
"Can't argue with that." He turned to the side, and found himself looking at the former unicorn pupil of Princess Celestia, who was now helping him stay balanced. "Alright, just… there you go! Better?"
After shaking his head a few times to get rid of his dizziness, Casey replied, "Uh-huh, I'm good… er, nice to meet - see you, Sunset." He had no idea on whether or not to give her a hug, shake her hand, or just a friendly wave, but luckily, the bacon-haired teenager solved that by giving him a quick embrace.
"Heh, heh, sorry, I just… uh, I didn't wake up right this morning," said the young teenager, giving her a sheepish smile.
"It's fine, you should see how me and the others are like on Mondays," said Sunset, who was now making a gesture to the building in front of them. "Come on, you can help me out with editing some parts of the CHS yearbook."
That doesn't sound so bad, thought Casey, and he began to follow her inside. "Uh, that's kind of like a school's version of a photo album, right?"
Sunset let out a chuckle, and she nodded, saying that his answer was close enough.
"By the way, um… did Twilight's festival really not start off so great?"
Casey started to laugh, and he replied, "Everything pretty much went downhill after Pinkie caused a giant cake to fall on the two of us."
Sunset began laughing, as well. "Twilight didn't mention that part to me."
Oh? As the two friends entered the yearbook editing room, a sly smile appeared on Casey's face, and he said, "I'm betting there's more stuff that she didn't mention to you."