//------------------------------//
// 3. Implementation. 
// Story: Manifesto 
// by Kwakerjak 
//------------------------------//

Sunset didn’t make her escape attempt right away, mostly because the strictly-enforced nudity code at Ft. Featherworth meant that it would be really cold if she attempted to leave in early spring. Granted, once she had full access to her magic, staying warm would probably not pose any significant problems, but she saw no reason to make things more complicated than they already were. She briefly considered making her attempt on the one-year anniversary of her imprisonment, but rejected this idea, figuring that she would likely be under more scrutiny on any date which could have some sort of symbolic meaning. Instead, she decided to wait until midsummer, when the weather would definitely be warm at night; in the meantime, she could refine her newly acquired abilities.

That night came soon after the year’s Summer Sun Celebration. Besides being comfortably warm at night, Sunset had overheard the guard assigned to keep watch over her wing of the prison during night hours complaining to a coworker about irregular sleep patterns. Since, presumably, that guard would be reassigned if she continued to mention her drowsiness to others, that meant that there was a very small window of opportunity, and Sunset was determined to take it.

Sunset’s good behavior had resulted in her being granted the privilege of being allowed to keep a pencil and a notepad in her cell (though during every cell check the pencil was examined to ensure that it hadn’t been sharpened to the point where it could function as a shiv). She now set to work scribbling down the broad strokes of her plan, as well as a description of Starlight Glimmer; she remembered the scene at the statue before her return to Equestria, and Surprise had clearly said that when imaginary friends manifested into reality, it took their creator’s memory of them with them. Sunset wouldn’t have time to waste trying to recall important details with the plan underway.

Of course, first she needed the cover of darkness, which meant that she had to try to avoid looking overly anxious that evening as she waited for lights out to be called, and then wait a further hour or so to allow the guards’ night shift to settle into their routine. As luck would have it, on this day, her old earth pony “friend” from her first days behind bars decided to be belligerent over some trifling matter that evening, to the point where she was eventually moved to solitary confinement—though given some of the gossip that had been going around about shakeups in her clique, that might have been her real intention. In any case, it resulted in the guards being much, much antsier than usual.

Sunset briefly considered postponing her plan, but Starlight immediately vetoed the idea. “Oh, Tartarus, no. You’ve put this off long enough, and I’d like to start existing on my own, thank you very much.”

Eventually, the situation calmed down, and the night was finally still, with only the occasional sound of inmates turning on their beds and hoofsteps of guards down darkened corridors interrupting the steady chirping of crickets from beyond the cell window. A nearly-full moon illuminated the prison yard, though patches of clouds across the night sky cast it into shadow for minutes at a time.

Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes and steadied herself, taking long deep breaths as she felt for the magic flowing throughout her being. As usual, it was concentrated near her horn, but that was about to change. With all the practice she’d undertaken, the sensation of her magic rebounding off of the inhibitor ring wasn’t even jarring, and  she could soon feel it becoming more evenly distributed throughout her body.

Now, however, came the big hurdle—the key aspect of her escape plan that she couldn’t practice ahead of time, for fear of scrutiny if something went wrong: the actual act of shapeshifting. She knew what the end result would be: an earth pony. She and Starlight had briefly considered transforming into a pegasus, but the anti-flying measures already in place at Featherworth seemed to render the extra effort of sprouting wings moot. Besides, once the inhibitor was off, bringing her horn back would make her an alicorn, and weren’t Equestria’s alicorns the source of its current problems? No, this was not an instance where pushing the boundaries of magic made sense. Better to do what was needed, and nothing more.

That didn’t mean it was easy. Sunset’s intuition told her that the best way to shapeshift part of her body would be to concentrate magic there, and then use the ebbs and flows to remold herself, the way the mirror between world allowed her to alter her species. However, the whole point of her inhibitor was to restrict magic from flowing to her horn so she could produce an aura. She could concentrate magic around its base to act as a sort of lubricant, but the actual shifting would need to be done by the magic that had been in her inert horn when the inhibitor had been applied. Thus, focusing all of her awareness on that magic, she took hold of her horn and began to pull.

Five minutes later, precisely nothing had happened. Her horn was firmly in place on her forehead, having not budged a fraction of a millitrot, despite all of her exertions. She’d tugged and pulled, and all she had to show for it was heavy breathing and a rapidly growing film of sweat around her face.

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sunset told Starlight. “I know I have to be on to something, because the inhibitor isn’t smacking me with a migraine right now. I just need to think of another way to visualize what I’m trying to do with my magic, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t quite explain it, but I’m almost certain that I’m going through the process of shapeshifting correctly. I obviously can’t prove it until it actually works, but it feels right. It’s like...” Sunset paused as she wracked her brain for an appropriate metaphor. “Okay, you know how in the human world, a lot of soda bottles have twist off caps?”

“Now that you’re thinking about it, I do.”

“Well, those twist-off caps usually have textured surfaces that allow for a better grip on the cap to assist in providing the necessary torque. I can feel the texture on my horn. The problem is that it’s not budging.”

“Hmm....” Starlight said as she scanned through Sunset’s memories. “So, is this like when a previously-opened bottle of soda gets layers of sugar residue between the cap and the bottle?”

“Exactly! The inhibitor is gunking up the whole process.”

“And how did you solve the soda bottle problem back in the human world?”

“Well, either I’d run the neck of the bottle under warm water for a while, or...”

“Or?”

“...or I’d use sheer brute force to pull the damn thing off.”

“Alright, and which one of those options still works as a metaphor in this situation?”

Sunset sighed. “Okay, brute force it is.”

Once again, Sunset mustered her willpower and attempted to retract her horn. This time, however, she didn’t end her efforts once she encountered resistance, but increased her concentration and pushed forward, attempting to will herself to success. As the seconds turned to minutes, the droplets of sweat had merged into rivulets, and it was taking all her willpower to avoid spewing grunts and groans that would have attracted unwanted attention from the guards.

“I can’t give up. I won’t give up. I will succeed. I must succeed.” Every muscle in Sunset’s body was tense, and the usual reflexive migraine from the inhibitor was starting to seep into her forehead. She was almost ready to quit, until she felt... something around the base of her horn. Was it an actual shift, or was it just her imagination? It didn’t matter; it was something, and she had to power through. Sunset gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and with all her might, she pulled back on her horn. A blinding flash filled her cell for a millisecond, before something metallic clattered to the floor.

Sunset hadn’t realized that she’d been squeezing her eyes shut until she opened them to see the inhibitor lying at her hooves. She’d done it. And of course, now that her horn was free from that infernal ring of metal, it was time to bring it back. Sunset went through the usual mental process of of spellcasting, only to realize to her horror that the “process” required an actual horn. For a few moments, she began to panic, wondering how she could have overlooked such an obvious flaw in her plan that had now forever separated her from the magic that she’d spent her whole life studying... until she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

After all, if she’d truly shapeshifted into an earth pony, that meant that she would be using earth pony magic, which was largely instinctual. Soon, she was able to feel the magic flowing throughout her being once again, and, secure in the knowledge that she was fully capable of shapeshifting, she managed to reform her horn on her forehead.

Great, Sunset thought to herself. Stage 1, complete. Now... what was stage 2 again?





The first thing Starlight Glimmer noticed was the ground underneath her hooves; she was a little surprised that it felt exactly the way she remembered from before... except those weren’t her memories, because until three seconds ago, she’d never actually had hooves. Starlight shook her head vigorously, trying to chase away the temptation to spend precious minutes absorbing the details of her surroundings. Taking in sensations and processing them in her own brain to produce her very own thoughts was all well and good, but right now, she didn’t have time to engage in such hackneyed, seize-the-day crap. If Sunset didn’t get out tonight, she was going get another, much stronger inhibitor placed on her horn for the rest of her sentence, leaving Starlight stuck in Equestria with absolutely nopony she could rely on.

Starlight opened her eyes and looked around, doing her best to ignore the cool night breeze over her body and the flowing strands of her mane sliding around the base of her neck. She was standing by a large, stone wall—almost certainly the one that surrounded Ft. Featherworth. The only question was whether she’d appeared inside or outside. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed a series of small cottages—the town of Ft. Featherworth that had grown up around the similarly-named military base and prison.

So, I’m on the outside, Starlight thought to herself, as she tried to get past the strangeness of having full control of her own internal monologue. And I need to get in. I suppose I could just use my magic to create a doorway, but is there a way to do it without setting off any alarms?

Fortunately, even though they weren’t supposed to know the specifics of anti-escape procedures, years of failed attempts had left the inmates of Ft. Featherworth with a fairly good idea of what they were, and Sunset (and, by extension, Starlight) had picked up on these: Teleportation—specifically, teleporting from outside, since there were very strong magic fields in place to prevent teleportation on the prison grounds. Also, any attempts to alter the structure of the prison walls. Tunnelling, which, now that Starlight thought about it, was probably the main method of escape that earth ponies had tried over the years. And of course, there were no doubt plenty of alarms that would go off if a pegasus tried to fly in.

Of course, this all made sense. The only prison in Equestria under tighter security than Ft. Featherworth was Tartarus itself; obviously they’d have detection for everything. However...

They may be able to detect teleportation into the prison grounds, but I bet nopony has ever considered that somepony might try to teleport into the prison guards.

Starlight grinned. During Sunset’s trial, the fact that Penumbra had once been the Nightmare became public knowledge, and in the course of the public relations campaign to reassure the panicky citizens of Equestria, it was revealed that she “lived” inside Pinkie Pie’s mind. So, if that was a thing that other thoughtforms could do, why shouldn’t Starlight be able to do the same thing? Sure, Penumbra had permission to go into Pinkie Pie’s head, but permission was for those who were trying to prop up the status quo, not raze it to the ground. 

Starlight couldn’t quite explain how she did it; it just seemed like second nature to transform from her corporeal form back into a semi-abstract entity. In this form, it was easy to simply jump into the mind of the pony who was standing guard... though within seconds it was obvious the the guard was aware of something wrong. There wasn’t anything concrete within her mind that took the form of an obstacle, but the general atmosphere was one of immediate alarm. However, without any idea of what could be wrong, there was nothing to stop Starlight from popping out again... on the other side of the prison wall.

As she regained her physical form, Starlight hid in a shadowy corner and observed the guard. She looked on edge for several minutes, pacing about nervously in an effort to locate the source of whatever it was that had caught her attention, but eventually, she calmed down and returned to her regular post, having apparently concluded from the utter stillness that whatever had happened had all been in her head... which was, of course, true, but she clearly didn’t realize that that meant she’d allowed an intruder into the prison grounds.

As the guard resumed her routine, Starlight let out a quiet sigh of relief. Getting back out wouldn’t be a problem, even if the anti-teleportation field meant she had to use a different method. After all, once she met up with Sunset, they wouldn’t need to worry about setting off the alarms: they could just blast a hole or two in the walls and teleport away once they were off prison grounds. The only problem left, then, was actually meeting up with her.

I just hope she remembered to read the note.





Sunset Shimmer grinned as she finished reading her scribbled plans. The full description of Starlight Glimmer’s appearance and the reasons she’d been created in the first place proved unnecessary, as her name alone was enough to revive Sunset’s memories in their entirety. The sudden rush of memories was a bit overwhelming at first, but they were easy enough to accept, most likely because unlike Twilight Sparkle (and possibly everyone else who’d ever manifested an imaginary friend into reality), she had actually done it on purpose. Thus, feeling secure in the knowledge that somepony was working her way into Ft. Featherworth, Sunset began to make her way out.

This wasn’t too difficult at first. The bright light from the manifestation had clearly attracted some attention, as the sound of hooves on concrete began to echo through the hallway, accompanied by the soft glow of a unicorn’s horn aura which grew steadily as the guard approached Sunset’s cell.

“What’s going on here?” asked the guard as she peered through the bars.

“Nothing,” Sunset replied with a smile as the aura around her horn flared to life. Before the guard could react, Sunset had cast a neuromancy spell, and the other unicorn’s eyes went completely blank.

“Keep quiet,” Sunset said softly.

The guard nodded.

“Open the door.”

Within seconds, the guard produced a key and complied.

“Get the bed, pull the covers over your head, and pretend to sleep until dawn.”

A few minutes later, there was a pony-shaped mound on Sunset’s prison cot, pulsating with deep breathing. Sunset smirked to herself, picked up the key, and exited her cell, locking the door behind her. Okay, now to make my way out as quietly as possible...

“What the heck? How’d you get out, Shimmer?” It wasn’t the mare who’d tried initially tried to pick a fight with her the previous year, but rather one of the cronies in her clique. Sunset couldn’t recall if this particular prisoner had had any involvement in the early harassment, but right now, she didn’t care.

“Shut up,” Sunset hissed through clenched teeth.

“Hey, if you’re making a break for it, get me out, too.”

“Well, seeing as you stood by while a massive bitch tried to beat me to a pulp, how about no?”

The mare glowered at Sunset for a few seconds, and then took a deep breath. “Hey! Guards! Jailbreak! S—”

The inmate’s shout cut off and she collapsed in a heap as Sunset cast a relatively simple spell that temporarily prevented all voluntary motion, but by then it was too late. A cacophonous din of hooves scrambling across concrete began building from some unknown corner of the prison; the guards, it seemed were assembling.

Sunset began running down the corridor, and she turned a corner to see a pegasus guard flying towards her at full speed. Before the guard could give any command to surrender, Sunset  blasted them with the same paralyzing spell as before and they crashed into the ground. Sunset tried teleporting, but as she’d half expected, the prison’s anti-teleportation field was still up. Seconds later, the prison’s alarm started blaring.

Sunset let out a sigh. “So much for subtlety.” She revived the guard and cast a simple hypnosis spell. “Go back where you came from and start fighting the other guards. Actively resist them until they’re forced to knock you out.”

The pegasus wordlessly returned to the end of the hallway, turning left towards the prison library.

Looks like I’ll be going right, then, Sunset thought as she found herself headed towards the cafeteria.





Starlight was actually glad to hear the sirens blaring; sneaking around just didn’t sit well with her. Granted, she’d managed to do a fairly good job of it up to this point, having successfully evaded the attention of the guards through a fairly effective invisibility spell. Indeed, the only difficulties so far were because she didn’t have the time to refine it enough to muffle her hoof falls, restricting her to extremely slow and deliberate movements when she wasn’t traversing a grassy surface.

However, now that the alarms had gone off, there was no longer any need to hide the break-in. The first thing Starlight did was drop the invisibility spell so she could access her full magic reserves. As this happened right in front of the entrance to the main dormitory building, she was spotted almost instantly.

“Freeze!”

Starlight shrugged at the guard’s command. “If you say so,” she said as she launched a spell that encased the guard in a massive block of ice. This done she turned her attention to the doors. Though they had just been opened by the now-chilly guard, it seemed likely that somepony would have the bright idea to shut them in order to keep Sunset trapped inside. Fortunately, door hinges didn’t play very well with massive explosions, particularly ones with absurd amounts of magical oomph behind them.

Of course, the sound of a pair of massive doors slamming against asphalt brought quite a bit of unwanted attention as Starlight began to make her way into the building, as three more guards soon appeared. The first two, being earth ponies, were not too difficult to deal with: a little levitation combined with some slams against concrete walls were enough to knock them out. The third guard, however, was a unicorn, which presented a new challenge.

Starlight was almost immediately enveloped by a green bubble that matched the unicorn’s aura. “Just try to get out of that!” the guard said confidently.

This had Starlight worried for a moment, as she wasn’t certain if she’d have enough time to figure out how to overcome an anti-magic field... but as soon as her own aura flared up around her horn, she realized that this was probably a simple containment spell. “I don’t think I’ll have to try very hard,” she said as she focused her magic into a simple blast of mana that immediately shattered the bubble. As a bonus, it even rattled the unicorn guard long enough for Starlight to get off her “levitate enemy against solid object” trick again. “Now... where to find Sunset?” she asked herself.

Conveniently, the prison’s intercom system provided the answer: “All units, the prisoner is in the cafeteria!” There was more information about the appearance of a second suspect in the prison’s main entryway, but Starlight already knew about that part. She took off in a gallop, making her way towards the cafeteria... for maybe thirty seconds.

“Wait a minute... I already know the layout of this prison. The cafeteria should be right... about... there!” At this, Starlight let loose the magical blast she’d been building up at a section of wall by the hallway. Once the concrete dust settled, there was now a very useful hole in the wall, and on the other side was Sunset, who was flanked a half-dozen or so guard who’d she’d apparently brainwashed to protect her from their coworkers, who were busily attempting to break through the makeshift barricades of tables and chairs that Sunset’s thralls had piled against the doors.

“Sunset!” Starlight called out. “Did you remember to read the note?”

“Yes!” Sunset called back. “I assume you’ve made an escape route?”

“Mostly. I can get us to the prison walls.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I figured I could make another hole like this one.”

Sunset nodded. “Great. You lead the way.” She turned back to her brainwashed squad. “The rest of you keep the others busy until we’re gone.”

The two unicorns galloped out of the building, quickly dispatching the guards who stood in their way. By the time they made it outside, the pair were bathed in searchlights.

“We need to get away from here,” Sunset said. “From what I could tell from the mind-reading spells I managed to successfully cast, the military is on their way.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “You think we can’t handle them?”

“Of course we can, but it could get messy, and right now I just want to find somewhere safe to go to sleep.”

“Not a problem,” Starlight replied with a smile as she started charging up her horn. She spent nearly a minute doing this, until it seemed that the guards pouring from the building were close to overwhelming Sunset’s ability to fire off accurate paralysis spells.

“Any day now, please!” Sunset shouted.

“Roger!” Starlight replied.

The tremors from the resulting explosion were felt as far away as Vanhoover.

As much as Sunset wanted to make some sort of snappy comment about overkill, there was no longer any time for that sort of thing. “Great job! C’mon!” With that, the two of them galloped out of the prison grounds, nimbly avoiding the chunks of rubble strewn about the prison grounds like toys scattered throughout a foal’s bedroom. By the time the guards started to catch up, they’d made it outside of the prison’s anti-teleportation field and blipped away to who-knew-where, leaving behind a hole in the prison wall nearly as wide as Canterlot’s main thoroughfare and dozens of bemused and infuriated prison officials.





Penumbra let out a sigh as she looked over all of the damage. Celestia’s decision to have Sunset imprisoned in Ft. Featherworth rather than Tartarus had been controversial, and it appeared that the naysayers (who counted among their number both Penumbra herself and, somewhat surprisingly, Pinkie Pie) had had their fears confirmed. Sunset Shimmer had defied conventional wisdom and managed to escape from one of Equestria’s most formidable prisons, and in the process, she’d somehow managed to remove a magic inhibitor, which was supposed to be impossible.

Naturally, the escape of such a high-profile criminal was a public relations disaster, which is why all the Princesses were back in Canterlot with the Element-Bearers planning their response, leaving Penumbra with the responsibility of gathering information at the scene of the crime as their official representative.

“Your Grace, it’s obvious that the key to this whole scenario is the accomplice. Once that unicorn has been identified, I’m sure we’ll work out how the inhibitor ring was removed based on how her magic is specialized.” Ever since Penumbra had arrived, the warden of Ft. Featherworth had been exceptionally eager to reinforce her competence. “In the meantime, the military has graciously offered to provide an increase in guards to watch over our unicorn inmates, in case they try to duplicate Sunset’s methods.”

“Good to hear,” the Duchess of Everfree said absently, only half-listening to what the warden had to say. To be fair, the rather nervous earth pony was at least partly right: the unicorn who had assisted Sunset in her escape was clearly important, largely because it was believed that Sunset had burned all of her bridges in Equestria when she first escaped to the human world. Thus, the question of who she could have known on the outside was possibly the most nagging issue at hoof, even more so than how the inhibitor was removed. After all, between Pinkie, Penumbra, and Discord, the alleged “rules” of magic were proven to be mere suggestions on a fairly regular basis... which was why Penumbra strongly suspected that there wouldn’t be any records of a unicorn matching the description of the pony who’d blasted several massive holes in the prison’s defenses, several of which were literal holes.

That said, the mere suspicion that Equestria was dealing with yet another thoughtform was a long way off from actual proof. However, there was one aspect of this hypothesis that was particularly troubling, if only because it meant that Penumbra and her friends were now in uncharted territory: if Sunset Shimmer had indeed manifested an imaginary friend, there was a very strong possibility that she was the first pony to do so on purpose, which would mean that her accomplice had probably been designed for the express purpose of achieving her as-yet-unknown goals.

Having finished her observations and declared herself satisfied that, with the assistance of the military, Ft. Featherworth could safely house its remaining inmates until its fortifications were rebuilt, Penumbra created a dozen or so Shadowbolts and sent them out to scour the surrounding area for any clues as to Sunset’s hiding place... but quite frankly, she wasn’t optimistic.

Once again, it seemed that life in Equestria was about to get very complicated.