Sunset awoke to a pounding pain in her head. She tried to open her eyes, only to be immediately blinded by scorching sunlight. Slowly, she tried to sit up, feeling coarse dirt and dead grass under her palms. Cracking open her eyes a second time, she found herself sitting on the edge of some kind of public park, complete with outdated-looking playground equipment. The grass was brown and dead, and the sun was beating down on her in a miserable wave of heat. Above her, the sky stretched on as far as the eye could see, with nary a cloud to provide relief from the sun. The horizon was as flat as a sheet of paper, with no visible landmarks in sight.

Despite the searing heat, Sunset's blood ran cold as she turned and re-examined her surroundings, searching for any sign of her friends. There was nothing but empty swings and a few sorry-looking trees. Sunset felt a lump welling up in her throat as panic began to overtake her.

Did- did I lose them? Did the spell backfire? Did they fall through the portal? The geodes were reacting so violently, who KNOWS what could have happened to them?

Still woozy from waking up, the stress was making Sunset's head start to spin as burning tears began to run down her cheeks.

I thought we did our math right? I double and triple-checked all of the numbers, myself! I- I- This is my fault. This is all my fault! I missed something, and now all my friends are- they're-

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Slowly, the world stopped spinning and her hands stopped trembling. As her strength came back to her, she rose to her feet, wiping away the tears from her face.

If it's my fault, then I'll fix it. The first step is to figure out where I am.

Sunset took one more glance at her surroundings, this time differently from the rest. This time, she was looking for anything that might be able to help her. There was a clear view of the sky, and judging by the height of the sun in the sky, only about an hour and a half had passed since she fell unconscious.

But I know the area around CHS! Even if I had started moving the moment that I passed out, any route out of Canterlot would still be recognizable. This place doesn't even have the right landscape to be anywhere near Canterlot High School! I must have been transported magically, which means... Sunset sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on.

She glanced around, trying to spot any way to get information. Luckily, she could see a person headed her way. He appeared to be out for a jog in the summer heat, not much older than herself and wearing a red and white baseball cap. As he drew closer, she waved her hand, trying to get his attention. Luckily, he spotted her and quickly came to a stop, reaching up and pulling a pair of earbuds out of his ears.

"Hey, what's up?" He reached up, taking off a pair of blue sunglasses, and the look on his face quickly shifted from a casual greeting to worried concern. Sunset was suddenly very aware of the fact that is was still very obvious she had been crying moments ago. His expression softened and he leaned in closer, giving her a quick examination to check for injury. "Are you okay?"

Sunset was faced with a choice. It was the kind of choice she had been making ever since she had "reformed" and decided to give friendship a try. For all her good intentions, she DID still know how to manipulate people with ease. Chances were that if she played the fearful, helpless victim, she might get more help out of this stranger...

She quickly blinked away the thought the same way she had a thousand more just like it. She wasn't THAT Sunset Shimmer, any more.

"Yeah! Just a little lost..." Sunset forced herself to smile as she outstretched a friendly hand. "Do you think you could tell me where I am?"

The stranger blinked and furrowed his brow, as if the very idea of someone being lost seemed to perplex him.

"Well, this is the city park..." He pointed to a building to their left. "That's the youth center." He changed direction, pointing over her shoulder. "That's Main Street, if that's what you're looking for, and the elementary school is just past it."

The stranger's eyes widened in surprise, and Sunset knew that she was definitely making herself look and feel more and more lost by the second.

"Seminole? Seminole, Texas? The United States? Earth? The Solar System? The Milky Way?" He gave her a questioning look as Sunset felt the color drain from her face.

"Yeah? Are you SURE you're okay? That's kind of a difficult fact to be surprised by around here..."

"Well, maybe I can help. My name's Elijah, though my friends just call me 'Penn.'"

Sunset took a deep breath and took the hand, feeling him give it a firm squeeze and a rough shake.

For a moment, Sunset thought she caught his expression change, though she could have imagined it as he gave her a wide smile. I must be imagining things... my nerves are getting the best of me.

"You look pretty hot in that leather vest, and there's a gas station with a self-serve milkshake machine a few blocks from here. You thirsty? My treat."

Sunset pondered for a moment. She didn't want to take advantage of him, but she had to admit that he was right, she was quickly burning up in the heat, and a milkshake sounded like the perfect thing to accompany what was obviously going to be a long discussion about how she wound up so far from home.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset took a long sip from her mint-chocolate-chip milkshake as she and Penn stepped back out of the gas station, silently wishing that Canterlot had a machine like the ones here. Sure the mall had plenty of places for a nice smoothie, but she liked the idea of the convenience of having one at the corner store five minutes from her home.

Penn chuckled, raising his own smoothie in a toast as he took a long sip of strawberry-kiwi.

"I just wish I'd found you earlier this morning! If you're new in town, that means you haven't tried any of Mariah's breakfast burritos!" He pointed to a small restaurant down the street. "Best I've ever had!"

"You know, I have another friend from Texas, but you don't have the same accent... In fact, you hardly have an accent at all. If you don't mind me asking..."

Penn chucked to himself, motioning for Sunset to follow him as he walked to a nearby crosswalk and pressed the button for them to cross. Sunset wasn't entirely certain where they were going, but decided to follow her self-appointed tour guide without pestering him with too many questions at once.

"Your friend was probably raised here. I only moved down a few years ago from the other side of the country. If I had to guess why I have no accent at all..." He paused in thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Too much British sci-fi when I was a kid?"

Sunset couldn't help but chuckle at the joke as they finally made their way to a bench just outside the town hall, taking a seat. Sunset sat beside him, taking another sweet sip of her milkshake.

"And what exactly brings YOU to Texas? I mean, one does not simply wind up in the middle of West Texas without realizing it!" He chuckled and took his turn to take a long sip as Sunset answered.

"Well, you might not believe me..." Sunset sheepishly stirred her milkshake, trying to loosen the contents to make them easier to drink.

Sunset's eyes widened. That had to be the absolute most nonchalant reaction she had ever seen to someone being told magic existed.

"Nope. Look at it this way:" Penn leaned forward, giving her a wry smile. "You're completely unharmed, dressed well, you don't seem to have any kind of head injury and don't exactly strike me as mentally ill. That rules out escaped mental patient, kidnapping, or human trafficking. You were alone, so that rules out being part of a traveling group, and you don't exactly seem to have any idea where you are or have a means of transportation, so that rules out traveling alone." He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. "Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. What reason do I have NOT to believe you?" He shrugged again. "Besides, I never rule out magic because you never know when you'll run into technology so advanced, the line is indistinguishable."

Sunset took a deep breath, feeling some measure of relief that he had ruled out the possibility of her insanity so quickly.

"It all started when my friends and I were trying to-" Sunset was cut off as Penn raised his hand for her to stop, placing his sunglasses back over his eyes and peering up into the sky as best he could.

Sunset tried to look in the same direction raising her hand over her eyes to try and avoid looking directly into the sun. She could see SOMETHING flying through the air, though she wasn't exactly certain what it was. It looked almost conical, round and wide at the bottom but narrower towards the top. The top of it was rounded and dome-shaped, and as it drew closer, she could see that it was covered in some kind of bronze-colored bubbles on the lower half. Just as she was about to ask whether or not that thing was normal around here, a blast of blue light flew out of the thing and blasted the gas station, causing a near-deafening explosion. Sunset threw her hands up in front of her face, trying to protect herself from shrapnel. To her surprise, she heard a muffled voice and felt a hand grab her wrist. Before she was even fully aware of what was happening, she was up on her feet and sprinting to keep up as Penn pulled her along, across the road and into a nearby store, shoving a path for them past the rest of the people running out to see what had happened. He didn't stop inside the store, pulling her along all the way to the back of the building's furthest aisle before finally coming to a stop. He turned around, quickly beginning to say... something... to her. Her hearing still hadn't recovered from the explosion, and her ears were filled with painful ringing.

Penn gave her a quizzical look before shouting something back. Judging from reading his lips, he had said "WHAT?" It took a moment for him to put two and two together, motioning to his ears and making a slicing motion across his neck. Sunset nodded.

Penn sighed and shook his head, turning to look at the walls of the aisle. It looked as if he had pulled them into a hardware store, and he was now browsing their selection of hammers, picking them up one at a time and testing their weight before setting them back on the shelves, dissatisfied with his selection. After nearly a minute and about a dozen hammers, the ringing in Sunset's ears came to a stop, and get gave her fingers a few experimental snaps beside her head. The noise was crisp and clear once more.

"Well, I can NOW..." Penn muttered, now sounding significantly less friendly and chipper than he had moments before.

Sunset felt her heart clench in terror. The people there had been friendly and kind, innocent! How could that THING have just done something so awful without a second thought or a moment's hesitation.

"WHAT? No! I've never seen it before in my life, I swear!" Sunset held up her hands defensively, but Penn didn't press the matter any further, taking a deep breath. For the first time, Sunset noticed his legs shaking violently at the knees as he picked up a claw hammer with an oversized head, giving a resigned sigh and tightening his grip.

"Penn, what WAS that? Why is it attacking?" For a brief moment, Sunset wondered if it might be after her. She and her friends had obviously broken SOMETHING with their efforts, but she wasn't sure what. Could this thing have come to punish her? Were there more after her friends?

"Imagine taking a person raised in the middle of a warzone and warping their body beyond recognition through forced mutation..." he whispered, leaning carefully out to peek out from the edge of the aisle towards the front of the store. "Imagine genetically engineering a creature with no emotions left but seething hatred after years of torment, literally blocking out any other capacity for feeling from its brain. An emotional lobotomy geared only towards being the last species standing in the universe. Xenophobia incarnate."

"Now imagine putting that thing into a near-impervious tank and giving it enough firepower to wipe out a city in a single day."

Sunset felt only terror at the thought. Who could have possibly been so cruel as to make something like this monster?

"But it shouldn't be here! It CAN'T be here!" Penn's grip on the hammer tightened as he motioned for Sunset to follow him into the next aisle.

"Why not?" Sunset was REALLY hoping for some kind of reason that would give them a solution on how to send this that back where it came from.

"Because that is a dalek. And daleks are fictional monsters from a fictional television show!" He hissed. Sunset could see that he was very nearly on the verge of panic, himself. His words were every bit as much to inform her as they were to reassure himself.

"Well, apparently not any more!" Sunset replied, pointing to the front door, where the "dalek" was pushing its way through the entrance. Penn grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her back into the aisle and out of sight. He peered around the corner, trying to get a better look at the dalek's location.

Penn tightened his grip on the hammer. "Well, do you happen to have any high-caliber rifles on you? Laser weapons?"

"Then the weakest point is the eyestalk. That's the only way it can see into the outside world. If we can break that, it'll be firing blind and we can make a run for it." He stared down at the hammer and examined the handle. "I need rubber gloves, in case they've electrified the surface to discourage people from whacking-" He was cut off as the dalek came rolling around the corner, staring directly at the two of them. Sunset stared directly into the eyestalk, a glowing blue eye, unblinking and robotic.

The Multiverse in a Nutshell

by Pennington Inkwell

Wake Me Up When It's All Over