Chapter 7
An Unforgettable Escape
It was late afternoon in Lego City. While Sunset Shimmer was busy trying to track down the Memory Stone, the rest of her friends had spent the day at the amusement park on the pier at Paradise Sands. Some rode the rides a few times, others enjoyed the food sold at the concession stands, and some were content with just hanging out together.
At one point, Rarity and Applejack left to retrieve something from one of their hotels rooms, so the rest of the group decided to wait for them at one of the tables close to the street. The distance between the pier and the hotel was short enough for a ten minute walk, so the group was a little confused when Rarity and Applejack returned more than half an hour after they left.
“What took ya so long?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Apologies, darlings,” responded Rarity, “but it would appear that some unforeseen circumstances have arisen at the hotel quite recently.”
“Ah’m afraid it’ll be a while before any of us can even go back to our hotel rooms,” added Applejack as she and Rarity stopped near the table the others were sitting at.
“What’s going on over there?” asked Twilight as she stood up from her seat.
“The cops showed up an’ set up a perimeter around the buildin’,” replied Applejack.
“Apparently, the receptionist tipped them off that he had witnessed Sunset Shimmer entering the premises,” added Rarity.
“Sunset Shimmer was there?” asked Pinkie in shock as she quickly stood up from her seat.
“She was seen entering the elevator, claiming that she wished only to retrieve something from her room,” confirmed Rarity, “but that’s all we know at this time.”
“An’ Ah’m afraid it’ll be a while before we get a chance to find out more,” added Applejack in frustration. “The hotel staff called in pest control to sweep the upper floors ‘cause someone up there heard someone else complainin’ ‘bout a ‘filthy rat’.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if Sunset set that up to cover her escape,” muttered Spike.
“If she did escape, she must’ve been very quick about it, ‘cause the cops there sure haven’t seen any sign of her,” Applejack pointed out.
“Although while we were there, I did recall Miss Shimmer’s claims that she was a very close friend of ours,” noted Rarity, “so I asked the receptionist if Sunset had booked her room anywhere close to our rooms.”
“So what did you find?” asked Twilight.
“This is where things get a little strange,” continued Rarity uneasily. “There was no record that Sunset had booked a room. However, according to the receipt from my transaction, not only did I book five rooms instead of only four as I’m sure I had intended, but it also had all of our signatures on it… including Sunset’s.”
“That is rather strange,” acknowledged Fluttershy.
“Eh, she probably hacked the system to make you pay for her room and then added her signature when the front desk guy wasn’t looking,” said Rainbow Dash dismissively.
“Okay, now you’re just grasping at straws,” grumbled Twilight as she put her hands on her hips and glared at Rainbow. “Why in the world would Sunset — supposedly the most wanted criminal in all of the Lego World — go through all the effort of obtaining access to a room on the top floor of a major hotel and even sign her own name on a receipt that only we would have access to?”
“Because she’s a crook!” argued Rainbow. “It’s what she does!”
“No, that’s what a very stupid crook would do!” Twilight shot back. “And as far as I know, Sunset is not stupid. If you took the time to actually think about it, you’d realize that your biased claims, when put into practice, would actually be much more trouble than it’s worth.”
“And how would you know?” asked Rainbow accusingly as she got up from her seat and glared at Twilight.
“Because in case if you’ve forgotten, I happen to have experience as a Shadowbolt agent!” Twilight pointed out furiously. “I know what it takes to pull off illegal activity while leaving behind minimal evidence! I’ve endured an extensive training program that taught me everything I needed to know about stealth operations! And in my expert opinion, the evidence I’m seeing indicates that Sunset has made no effort to conceal her presence — possibly because she’s not even trying to do something illegal in the first place!”
“This is Sunset! She’s always up to no good!” argued Rainbow. She then folded her arms and grumbled, “And now that you mention it, I guess it’s no wonder she would have the support of someone as evil as a Shadowbolt agent.”
That spiteful remark caused the rest of the group of friends watching on the sidelines to gasp in shock.
“Oh, you did not just say that!” seethed Twilight.
“Darn right I did!” Rainbow shot back.
“Please stop fighting!” begged Fluttershy desperately. Unfortunately, her pleas went completely ignored.
“You’d better watch what you say next,” threatened Twilight. “I may not have been the toughest Shadowbolt agent, but I’m still more than good enough to kick your butt!”
“Then come at me, four-eyes!” shouted Rainbow furiously.
That was the breaking point, and Twilight prepared herself to lunge at Rainbow. But just before they could come to blows, their friends finally intervened and desperately held them back away from each other as they all shouted over each other in terror. Applejack and Rarity pushed back against Rainbow Dash, while Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Spike tried to hold Twilight back. All sides struggled against each other for a few seconds. Eventually, Pinkie — who was holding Twilight from behind — lost her footing and fell over backwards, bringing Twilight down onto the planking with her, causing Fluttershy to fall over sideways beside her and Spike to fall face-down at their feet. At the same time, Applejack spun around and slammed Rainbow down onto the planking and pinned her down, causing Rarity to lose her balance and fall over backwards to land on her rear end.
Once everyone was down on the pier’s planking, Rarity — who was the only one sitting up rather than lying down — glanced over her friends and fearfully exclaimed, “Goodness! How could we allow ourselves to fall to pieces like this?!”
“Figuratively or literally?” asked Pinkie as she held up Twilight’s detached left arm.
“I don’t think it even matters,” replied Spike, still in shock from the narrowly prevented fist-fight.
“Ow!” groaned Rainbow as she strained under the very firm grip of Applejack. “Did you really have to be so rough?”
“You an’ Twilight were about to beat the livin’ daylights outta each other!” countered Applejack. “Of course Ah had to be rough!”
Twilight sat up, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, then turned to Pinkie and quietly requested, “My arm, please.”
Without saying a word, Pinkie reattached Twilight’s arm.
With her arm back on, Twilight stood up, closed her eyes as she rubbed her hand over her brow, then looked across her friends and declared, “Well girls, I think this incident has just sent us a powerful message. There are too many unknowns surrounding Sunset Shimmer, and for the sake of our friendships, we cannot afford to ignore this for much longer.”
“I concur, darling,” agreed Rarity as she stood up and then helped Fluttershy up to her feet.
“So what should we do about it?” asked Fluttershy as she helped Spike up to his feet.
“It’s like Twilight said earlier,” Applejack spoke up as she stood up and then helped Rainbow Dash up to her feet. “We need to meet with Sunset Shimmer an’ have a lil’ talk with her.”
“She’s already come to us twice in the last two days,” Pinkie Pie pointed out as she stood up. “She’ll probably be back soon enough.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Spike with guilt. “After how hostile we were to her both of those times, I bet she’s now trying to stay away from us.”
“Understandable, but unacceptable,” said Twilight with determination as she pulled out her phone. “I’m afraid this’ll leave us with only one option. I’m going to ask the police to inform Sunset that we wish to talk with her.”
“How is that gonna be possible?” asked Rainbow Dash skeptically. “We all know the cops have never been able to stop her.”
“They don’t have to catch her to give her a message,” Twilight pointed out. “All they have to do is get within shouting distance to her and inform her of our request. Once she’s aware that we’re willing to talk, she’ll know where to find us.” With the decision made, she began dialing on her phone.
In an abandoned underground facility, Sunset and Trixie remained trapped inside a small room. Sunset tried with all her might to pull and push the door open, but it was firmly locked shut. Eventually, she pounded on the door in frustration, then turned around to rest her back against it. She pulled out her phone to check the time, then thumped the back of her head against the door as she groaned and muttered, “Only three hours left. If we don’t get outta here and figure out who has the Memory Stone, it’ll be too late to restore everyone’s memories, and I’ll lose my friends forever!”
Trixie stood with her arms folded at one side of the room beside the water cooler. “I just wish I could remember why I don’t have my magical staff with me,” she grumbled bitterly. “How are we supposed to catch someone who can erase our memory every time we get close to catching them?”
Sunset sighed in defeat, but as she glanced back at her phone in her hand, she stared at it for a moment before she smiled and remarked, “By being clever!”
“Say what?” asked Trixie in confusion.
Sunset began tapping away on her phone as she explained, “I just remembered that, all day long, I’ve been taking notes on my phone to keep track of everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done! Clover the Clever used a similar strategy to eventually catch the first holder of the Memory Stone, and since I had no clue who even has it now, I decided to not take any chances and made sure I recorded everything I could, just in case if my memory got erased at any point.”
“Ingenious,” remarked Trixie with a smile.
“You got that right,” acknowledged Sunset. She showed her phone to Trixie and said, “See? I’ve made short and quick notes of everything I’ve been through today!” She turned her phone back to herself and started scrolling through the notes as she mumbled, “Now let’s see… recovered the secret stash… invited Trixie… bought back my old car… talked to Vinnie… retrieved my journal from the hotel… went back to Vinnie… talked to Maud at the mine…” She then suddenly spoke up, “Here it is! The last note on this list is the only one I don’t remember any part of. It says, ‘Arrived at rock formation. Someone is there. Recording on car’s dash-cam.’” She then pumped her fist and excitedly exclaimed, “Yes! If we can get back to the car, we can check the dash-cam footage and possibly discover who has the Memory Stone!”
“Such a brilliant idea!” praised Trixie. She then dropped her smile and continued in a more disappointed tone, “Except there are two serious issues with that plan. We don’t know where the car is! We don’t know where we are!”
“Not for long we won’t,” remarked Sunset as she walked across the room to the small window and held her phone up on the windowsill. “C’mon, GPS, don’t fail me now…” she muttered under her breath as she tapped away on her phone. After a few seconds, she stopped tapping while keeping her eyes on her phone. “Mount Cashmore?” she said in astonishment. She turned around and glanced around the room as she continued, “This must be Rex Fury’s old base of operations. I heard it was largely abandoned after he was arrested again. I guess what we see here confirms that.”
“Okay, so that answers where we are,” noted Trixie, “but we still don’t know where the car is.”
“Good thing I’ve got an app for that,” remarked Sunset as she pulled up an app on her phone that was meant to locate vehicles. She had recorded her car’s identification code in her notes, so she copied that into the app’s search engine. Making sure to hold her phone up at the window again, she entered the search and, within a few seconds, got the results. At first, she was confused to see it was seemingly out in the middle of the wilderness of Bluebell National Park, but then she checked a picture she had taken of the map Maud had provided, and discovered that the location of the rock formation marked on that map matched up almost perfectly with the location of the car. Again, she pumped her fist and excitedly exclaimed, “Yes! The car’s still parked near the rock formation! Now all we have to do is figure out how to get there as quickly as possible.”
“And that brings us back to our first problem,” Trixie pointed out as she walked over to the door, grasped the handle, and futilely tried to open the locked door. “We’re still trapped in here.”
Sunset hummed to herself thoughtfully as she put her phone back in her satchel. While her hand was inside her satchel, it brushed against a certain item she had, the presence of which started to give her an idea. As she slowly turned her gaze towards the sheet of plywood resting against the wall beside the door, she muttered, “I wonder…” She walked over to the plywood and pulled it over to fall flat onto the floor. Hidden behind that plywood just to the right of the door was a large light embedded in the wall that was glowing red. Upon discovering this light, Sunset smiled and said, “This could be our key outta here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Trixie as she raised an eyebrow.
“This is a color switch,” Sunset pointed out. “If it’s connected to this door, then all we have to do is turn it from red to green and the door should automatically unlock.”
“And just how do you propose we do that?” asked Trixie skeptically.
“With this!” proclaimed Sunset proudly as she pulled the color gun out of her satchel. “Thank you, Vinnie!”
“Is that the color gun he gave you?” asked Trixie. “How is that supposed to help us?”
Sunset quickly glanced around the room and quietly noted, “I think there’s enough pieces in here to build a color swapper.” As she began dismantling some of the empty racks of shelves, she spoke up to Trixie, “While I get to work on this, I want you to search through those paint cans for some green paint.”
“Seems kinda pointless, but whatever,” muttered Trixie with a shrug before she walked over to the paint cans on the opposite side of the room. “Not like Trixie has anything better to do right now.”
Sunset tore apart three racks of shelves, the water cooler, and an extra bottle beside that cooler. She then quickly reassembled all those Lego parts into a small contraption that consisted of two empty containers attached by their nozzles to a single part that on one side had a nozzle opening and on the other side was attached to a shaft that was connected to a large frame. The shaft allowed the two containers to rotate so that one was up while the other was down.
Meanwhile, Trixie picked up a small crowbar from among the various tools scattered on the floor and used it to pry open the lid from one of the paint cans, then looked inside. “Red…” she muttered as she put the lid back on, set that can aside, then pried open the lid of another paint can. “Blue…” She put the lid back on, set aside that paint can, then pried open the lid of the next one. “Silver…” She put the lid back on that paint can, set it aside, then pried open the next one. As she looked inside that can, she suddenly called out, “Trixie found green paint!”
“Perfect timing,” remarked Sunset as she removed one of the two empty containers from her creation. “Bring it over here and pour the paint into this container.”
Trixie dropped the crowbar and carried the opened paint can over to Sunset, then carefully poured all of the green paint inside into the transparent container. After a quick shake to make sure every drop was out, she then tossed aside the now empty paint can, which clattered against the concrete floor.
Sunset reattached the now full container to the color swapper she had built, then spun the nozzle around so that the full container was on top and the empty one was at the bottom. As she aimed her color gun at the central nozzle of the color swapper, she muttered, “Well, here it goes…” She stuck the gun’s muzzle into the color swapper’s nozzle, triggering the vacuum mechanism that quickly sucked the purple paint out of the color gun and into the empty lower container, then just as quickly sucked the green paint out of the upper container and into the color gun. Once the two sets of paint had been swapped, the nozzle released its hold on the gun.
Sunset glanced at the color gun’s transparent chamber and saw that it was now green instead of purple. She turned to her right and aimed the gun at the large red light on the wall. She then squeezed the handle, shooting a blob of green paint at the light, quickly engulfing it and essentially making it now glow green instead of red. Almost immediately after the color change to the light, there was a mild thunk from the door as it was suddenly unlocked and then partially swung open on its own.
“Yes!” cheered Sunset as she pumped her fist. “We’re free!”
“I can’t believe that actually worked,” said Trixie in astonishment.
“Like I said earlier, cartoon physics brought to life,” remarked Sunset as she put her color gun back into her satchel. She stepped through the doorway and pushed the door completely wide open. She glanced up and down both ends of the hallway a couple times before she pointed to the right and said, “Let’s try this way.”
“Are you sure you know which way to go?” asked Trixie as she followed right behind Sunset.
“Not really,” admitted Sunset as she continued walking down the deserted hallway. “As far as I know, this is the first time I’ve ever been in this place.”
“Trixie had been expecting otherwise,” remarked Trixie.
“How so?” asked Sunset.
“Trixie had assumed that you would’ve sought an alliance with Rex Fury to aid in your criminal pursuits,” replied Trixie.
“I was never interested in working with Rex Fury,” Sunset clarified. She then added under her breath, “Too much of a meat-head for my taste.”
The two girls continued down the hallway until they reached a larger hallway that consisted of a lower main floor and a pair of upper walkways along either side. They were currently standing on one of the upper walkways — having come through a side passage — with many segments of railing missing from the edge of these walkways.
“Let’s try to look for any paths that lead upward,” suggested Sunset. “Since we’re in an underground facility, going up will offer us the best chance of finding a way out of this place.”
“You crooks won’t be going anywhere!”
Sunset and Trixie turned their gazes down to the source of that voice, only to suddenly have a flashlight shining directly in their faces. They both squinted their eyes against the harsh light and held out a hand to block it. As soon as their eyesight had recovered, they looked down and saw at least half a dozen police officers close together on the lower floor, all of whom glared up at the two girls, and standing at the head of the squad was a particularly familiar officer.
“Flash Sentry?” asked Sunset in shock and confusion. “Shouldn’t you be in Canterlot City?”
“Normally, yes,” confirmed Flash with a very serious look on his face, “but my greatest desire as an officer of the law is to finally bring you to justice, Sunset Shimmer, so when I got word that you were somewhere in Lego City, I came over as quickly as possible. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long, because a certain wallflower tipped us off that you were hiding out in here with an associate who also happens to be high up on LEGO’s Most Wanted.”
“We’re not hiding out!” argued Trixie. “We’re trying to escape so we can stop the real bad guy!”
“I don’t have time for your nonsense!” Flash shot back furiously. He then spoke in a lowered voice, “Now then, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this—”
“We’ll take the hard way!” declared Sunset as she swiftly pulled her grapple gun out of her satchel and fired it at one of the pipes along the ceiling. Once the grappling hook was latched on and the cable was pulled taut, she pulled Trixie close to her and jumped off the edge of the walkway. As the two girls — with Trixie screaming in terror the whole way— swung across, they slammed right through the entire squad of police officers and sent them literally falling to pieces — though Flash Sentry was able to jump out of the way in time, losing only his hat in the process. The two girls quickly landed on the other upper walkway, and while Trixie took a moment to regain her bearings, Sunset flicked the cable to loosen the grappling hook and thus allow her to retract it back to the grappling gun. Without even a brief moment of hesitation, Sunset turned around and ran off down a nearby smaller corridor, leaving Trixie with no choice but to quickly follow after her.
Flash picked up his police hat and put it back on his head as he quickly got back up on his feet just in time to watch which direction the two suspects ran off. He growled in frustration, then turned to his fellow officers and barked, “Pull yourselves together and go after them!”
The other police officers grunted in acknowledgement as they rushed to reattach arms, legs, heads, and any other parts that had come apart.
While the other cops scrambled to get themselves back in action, Flash glared firmly at the corridor entrance the two girls had escaped through. He slowly shook his head and grumbled fiercely under his breath, “Bad girls, bad girls… what’cha gonna do… what’cha gonna do when they come for you?”
As Sunset and Trixie continued to run through the corridor, Trixie asked, “So let me get this straight… that little shoulder bag you’re carrying is holding your big journal, a color gun, and a grapple gun?”
“Along with a few other various things,” noted Sunset as she put her grapple gun back into her satchel.
“Okay, just how is that even possible?” asked Trixie incredulously.
Sunset smiled and slyly remarked, “Let’s just say my friend Pinkie Pie once taught me the secret of, in her words, ‘carrying oodles of items inside small containers.’”
Just seconds later, the two escapees reached the end of the corridor and entered a modestly sized chamber. Much like the room they had started in, this chamber had all kinds of various junk and debris scattered across the floor. There were also two other corridors that led in opposite directions out of the chamber. Sunset quickly gazed across every single item within the room — the mind of a Master Builder kicking into overdrive.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Trixie.
“If we’re gonna have any chance of escaping this place, then we’ll need to slow down the cops wherever we go,” replied Sunset. She then smiled and added, “And I know just where to start…” She began by quickly gathering up much of the debris into a small pile — many of which were just some basic bricks of various sizes. Next, she grabbed one end of a pirate cannon barrel and dragged it over to the middle of the room, then tipped it upright so that it now stood with its muzzle on the floor. With all the parts she needed now gathered, she quickly assembled the chunks of debris into a sturdy base with two support arms. Once she had built up enough of it, she tipped it over and held it up near the cannon barrel as she told Trixie, “Hold this right here.”
Trixie did as she was told and held up the odd structure next to the cannon barrel, allowing Sunset to quickly assemble the rest of the parts to attach everything together into a single object.
Click-clack-click-clack-click-click-clack-clack-click-clack!
By the time Flash Sentry and the other police officers reached the chamber through the first corridor, they quickly came to a stop as they watched Sunset quickly throw together the last few pieces of her custom creation. In the minds of these officers, what they were witnessing should be impossible, as Sunset’s official criminal record had listed her as having no creative talents at all.
“What the—? You’re a Master Builder?!” asked Flash in shock. “Since when?!”
“For quite a while, actually,” remarked Sunset playfully. She then pushed the cannon over, causing her creation to fall over and land upright on its intended base, which now allowed the cannon to be aimed vertically over a wide angle. As she then assembled a small projectile and stuffed it down the cannon barrel, she explained, “You just don’t know that right now because your memories of everything I did after joining the good guys have been taken away. If you guys let me go, I’ll promise to do everything I can to catch the real bad guy and recover your stolen memories.”
Although Flash was confused about the mention of “stolen memories”, he knew what Sunset was really asking for, so he didn’t hesitate to sharply respond, “As if!”
With a smile still on her face, Sunset remarked, “Yeah, didn’t think so.” She grasped the back end of the cannon and yanked the trigger, causing the cannon to blast the projectile up at the ceiling directly in front of the opening to the corridor the cops were standing in. The projectile exploded and tore off huge chunks of the ceiling, which then collapsed into a large pile that completely blocked the corridor. With the obstacle now in place, Sunset immediately rushed through one of the two remaining corridors and called back, “C’mon, Trixie! Let’s go!”
Knowing there was no time to argue, Trixie quickly followed after Sunset down the corridor.
At the end of this corridor, the two girls arrived at an immensely massive cavern with a series of platforms along two opposite sides, with a seemingly bottomless gap between the two sides.
“What’s the purpose of this big empty space, anyway?” asked Trixie in stunned disbelief.
Despite having similar questions, Sunset kept her focus on searching for new escape routes. Over to the left, she found a ladder along a series of supports leading to another platform higher up from the one they currently stood on. “You first, up the ladder!” demanded Sunset as she grabbed Trixie and shoved her towards the ladder.
Trixie stumbled, but despite her confusion, she went ahead and started climbing up the ladder as quickly as she could.
While Trixie made her way up, Sunset pulled out her grapple gun and fired it straight down at the floor to release the grappling hook. She then placed the grappling hook so that it was latched onto the bottom rung of the ladder, then began climbing the ladder herself while holding onto her grapple gun, further extending its cable as she kept climbing.
It wasn’t long before Trixie reached the top, immediately followed by Sunset. Once she was up on the upper platform, Sunset turned around, squeezed the grapple gun’s handle to pull the cable taut, then began pulling up on it. It took a few tugs, but eventually she successfully yanked the bottom of the ladder off the frame. Since this particular ladder happened to be rather flexible, it was simply a matter of fully retracting the grappling hook to bring the bottom end of the ladder up onto the platform. Once she grasped onto the lifted bottom rung, she unhooked the grapple hook from it and put the grapple gun back into her satchel.
“Help me pull this up!” requested Sunset as she began hauling up the rest of the ladder, rung by rung. Trixie did as she was told, and in only a matter of seconds, they had successfully pulled the entire flexible ladder up onto the platform. Sunset detached the top end of the ladder from the edge of the platform, then spread out the entire ladder so that it was lying straight and flat across floor.
“So what now?” asked Trixie.
Sunset glanced around and quickly found what appeared to be a frame structure that used to hold up something like a crane arm. She rushed over to the structure, then as she began removing parts from it, she responded, “We can use these Technic beams to make the ladder more rigid. That will allow us to swing the ladder around so that it can span the gap across this cavern, which we can then walk right across.”
“Trixie’s beginning the seriously question the geniusness of Master Builders,” remarked Trixie uneasily. “This idea sounds completely nuts.”
“If you don’t wanna get arrested, then this is what we have to do,” insisted Sunset as she gathered up the beams and dropped them into a pile beside the ladder. Once she was sure she had enough, she began attaching those beams to the sides of the ladder. To ensure the space between every single rung was kept sturdy, she made sure that each gap between two beams on one side was covered by the span of a single beam on the other side. Once she had fully strengthened the entire length of the ladder, she grabbed onto one end and requested, “Help me lift this thing.”
Trixie stood beside Sunset and they both grabbed onto the third rung out and pulled while using their feet to anchor the end of the two sets of beams. Their combined strength was barely enough to hold the lengthy ladder just above the floor, but that was all they needed. While Trixie stayed perfectly in place, Sunset carefully moved slightly backward to swing the ladder around to the left, then once it was pointing directly across the gap, they slowly lowered it down until the far end eventually settled onto the platform on the other side.
As soon as that rigid ladder was set down between the two distant platforms, Sunset immediately stepped onto the ladder and began making her way across. She moved quickly while also watching her every step, and it wasn’t long until she reached the other side. As she stepped onto the platform, she turned around and was annoyed to see that Trixie had not yet even begun to walk across. “C’mon, Trixie! Let’s go!” she called out irritably.
Trixie hesitated for a moment, but soon took a deep breath and began to carefully make her way across. As she slowly walked along the ladder, she couldn’t help but complain, “You’ve been on way too many adventures to think a crossing like this could be acceptable by any means!”
Sunset rolled her eyes at Trixie’s complaint. As soon as Trixie was across and standing beside her on the platform, Sunset kicked the ladder away, sending it plunging into the dark abyss below. “This way,” she said as she turned around and began running through the nearby corridor. Trixie had no choice but to continue following her.
The two escapees rushed through the corridor as it continued at a gentle upward slope. They eventually reached a small room with some more bits of debris scattered across the floor. Unfortunately, the only other way out of this room was blocked by a solid door made of silver Lego bricks.
Sunset growled in frustration and grumbled, “Great, a silver barrier. Too bad we don’t have anything explosive to get rid of it.”
“Oh, look!” Trixie suddenly pointed out to the right side of the room. “There’s another one of those vending machines that dispenses dynamite.”
Sunset glanced over to where Trixie was pointing and, sure enough, she saw a vending machine with a front decal that displayed a bundle of dynamite. “Huh, that was surprisingly convenient,” she remarked before she began walking towards it.
“Perhaps not,” stated Trixie in discouragement. “Don’t you remember what that weird girl at the mine said? Those things will only accept miner tokens.”
“Then it’s a good thing I haven’t lost my touch when it comes to pickpocketing,” quipped Sunset with a smile as she suddenly held up one of those particular tokens. “Sorry, Maud,” she added under her breath as she inserted the token into the vending machine, which then rattled a bit before a bundle of dynamite dropped out of the bottom. She picked up that bundle of dynamite and set it down directly in front of the silver door. “A little barrier to focus the blast…” she muttered as she quickly gathered up all of the scattered debris and assembled those bricks into a short wall around the bundle of dynamite. Once everything was set up, she grabbed the free match that had been provided with the dynamite, struck that match against the nearby wall, then used the tiny flame to ignite the fuse. Once the fuse was lit, she tossed aside the match and quickly took cover behind one of the support columns at the corridor entrance, with Trixie likewise taking cover behind the other support column.
BOOM!!
Sunset and Trixie waited a few seconds for the debris to stop flying. “If the cops managed to catch up to us, they’re definitely gonna know where we are now,” remarked Trixie.
Once they assumed it was safe enough to look, they peered around the columns and were surprised to see daylight shining through the cloud of dust that still lingered from the explosion. With that sign of encouragement, they immediately rushed through the newly opened passageway.
After running down a short corridor, they passed through a large open doorway and entered a very large room. At the far side of the room up ahead, some twisted frames and broken bits of glass were all that remained of what was once a series of large windows along that entire side of the room. They ran over to the opening outside and saw a balcony extended beyond where the glass wall used to be, ultimately extending out towards a circular platform with no railings, almost like it was once used as some sort of helipad. They quickly walked out onto the balcony and saw that they were essentially on the side of a mountain with seemingly no ground path to lead anywhere. Out ahead of them, the landscape below consisted of dense woodland covering rolling hills.
“Okay, good news is we’ve made it outside,” noted Trixie. “Bad news is we can’t go any further without plummeting to our doom.”
Sunset pulled out her phone and checked the map to compare it to the terrain in front of them. After a few seconds, she put her phone back into her satchel as she stated, “So close, and yet, so far. Our car and the rock formation should be on that shallow hilltop over there.” She pointed straight ahead towards one particular hill that, even front this distance, appeared to have a small clearing in the woods at its crest.
“If only we had some way to simply fly or glide directly to that site,” mused Trixie. “That would make our escape so much easier.”
Sunset sighed and turned around. “Let’s search this room for anything that could help us,” she suggested as she walked back into the large room and headed to the right.
Trixie followed Sunset back inside and, in an effort to cover more ground, decided to go left and search the other side of the room from where Sunset had decided to start.
As Sunset looked around, she noticed next to the large doorway was another color switch, except this one was currently green. She checked all the scattered chunks of debris all over the room and determined that she had enough of the correct parts to build another color swapper. Most importantly, there were also a few paint cans in one corner of the room, and although she had no idea which colors any of them contained, she decided that everything she saw was good enough to proceed. Knowing the police officers could arrive at any moment, she quickly got started on gathering and assembling all of the pieces.
Click-clack-click-clack-click-click-clack-clack-click-clack!
Trixie heard the rapid clicking of Lego parts being quickly assembled, so she turned back to Sunset and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Just setting up a precaution,” answered Sunset as she continued to build the color swapper. “I’ll handle this myself. You just keep searching for a way we can safely escape.”
Trixie shrugged before she turned around and resumed searching through some damaged cabinets and broken crates on her side of the room.
It didn’t take long for Sunset to finish building the color swapper. She then pried open the lid from one of the paint cans and, in a remarkable stroke of luck, found the red paint she needed inside the very first can she opened. She poured the red paint into one of the two empty containers, reattached that container to the color swapper, then spun the containers around so the full one was on top. She then pulled out her color gun and stuck its muzzle into the color swapper’s nozzle, triggering the vacuum mechanism that quickly sucked out the green paint that was still in the gun and into the lower container, then sucked the red paint out of the upper container and into the gun. Once the two colors had been swapped, the nozzle released its hold onto the gun’s muzzle.
“There she is!”
Sunset immediately turned her attention to the large doorway. Although it was too dark to see far inside the corridor, she definitely heard the rapid clacking of approaching footsteps. Not wanting to waste even a fraction of a second, she swiftly aimed her color gun at the color switch on the wall beside the door and squeezed the handle, shooting a blob of red paint at the light and quickly engulfed it so that it now glowed red instead of green. Just as some of the police officers came close enough to be seen, the massive door suddenly dropped down and slammed shut, cutting them off from reaching the two escapees in the massive room.
“That was easy,” remarked Trixie.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” cautioned Sunset. “If they can get access to that dynamite vending machine on their side of the door, then it won’t be long before they manage to blast their way through.” She turned away from the door and began walking towards Trixie. “Find anything useful?”
“Going by Trixie’s assumption of what you would consider to be a useful item at this time, all I could find was a single parachute,” answered Trixie as she held up the backpack piece that contained the parachute in question. “Trixie searched through all the nearby spaces, but couldn’t find another one.”
Sunset took the parachute from Trixie’s hands and stared down at it for a moment. She glanced over her right shoulder at the shut door keeping the cops out, then glanced over her left shoulder at the balcony outside high up on the mountainside. She returned her attention back to the parachute in her hands, then sighed and muttered, “Then I guess we’ll just have to share this one.”
Trixie raised an eyebrow and flatly asked, “You’re joking, right?”
With the parachute in one hand, Sunset use her other hand to grab Trixie by the wrist and dragged her outside onto the balcony. She then let go of Trixie and explained, “We can totally pull this off. Just put your left arm through the left strap…” She held up the parachute pack and forced Trixie’s left arm through the left strap. “I’ll put my right arm through the right strap…” She did exactly that, which now left the two girls standing back-to-back. “We’ll hook our remaining arms together like this…” She reached her left arm back and hooked elbows with Trixie’s right arm. “And as long as we can hold ourselves together like this, all we have to do is run together straight off the balcony, I’ll pull the cord to release the parachute, and we’ll make a safe landing while also gliding right towards where we parked the car.”
Trixie whimpered faintly and very nervously said, “Trixie would rather take her chances with the cops.”
BOOM!!
That sudden explosion made Sunset and Trixie both glance back into the room and they saw the massive door that was keeping out the cops was now significantly bent inwards on the bottom right corner, creating an opening just wide enough for a minifig to slip through.
“Move out! Move out!” shouted Flash Sentry from the other side as the police officers started rushing into the room one at a time.
“Go-go-go-go-go-go-go!” Sunset quickly shouted as she immediately started running directly towards the end of the balcony. Because she was back-to-back with Trixie, she had to run sideways to her left to move the both of them forward.
Trixie yelped and stuttered on the brink of panic as she stumbled along to her right in an effort to keep up with Sunset. Her rising nerves left her powerless to resist Sunset as they reached the end of the balcony and ran right over the edge. As soon as they began plummeting over the mountainside, Trixie finally lost it and let loose a loud shriek of terror.
As soon as they went over the edge, Sunset quickly reached her right hand for the cord on the parachute pack. She struggled to grasp it for a few seconds as it flapped around in the wind, but once she finally got hold of it, she immediately yanked it. The parachute was released and fully unfurled in a matter of seconds. The sudden deceleration yanked Sunset and Trixie upwards, but they managed to hold their mutual grip and began their slow descent down to lower ground below.
Trixie’s panicked screams made it easy for the pursuing police to find out where their suspects went, so they all gathered on the edge of the balcony and watched the two girls make their daring escape.
Flash Sentry was the last of them to arrive on the scene, and as soon as he saw Sunset Shimmer once again making a getaway, he growled furiously. He pointed at the nearest officer and ordered, “You! Keep an eye on that parachute and tell us where they went! Everyone else, back to the cruisers and go after them! We’ll chase ‘em through the woods in the middle of the night if we have to!”
The one officer nodded and turned his focus on the suspects’ descending parachute, while the rest quickly scrambled back the way they came.
Flash began to follow after the other officers, but suddenly heard a ping from his pocket, so he quickly pulled out his phone and checked the message he had just received. It was from the Lego City Police Department, and they were asking him to pass along a message from the Canterlot City LEGO Team to Sunset Shimmer that the group wanted to have a talk with her. He quickly put his phone away and resumed running after the other officers as he muttered to himself, “Looks like I just got more incentive to catch that dirty crook.”
“YOU’RE CRAZY!!” shrieked Trixie in panic. “YOU’RE CRAZY!! Did I mention you were crazy? ‘Cause if I didn’t, YOU’RE CRAZY!!”
“Just stop whining and hold on!” Sunset shot back. They were still a significant distance from the ground below, and she knew that if either of them lost their grip on either of the pack’s straps or on each other’s arms, there was a good chance the rest of their grips would fail and they would surely plummet to their doom.
Thanks to the momentum of their jump, they were now drifting ahead towards the site of the rock formation in the small clearing on the hilltop. However, it wasn’t long before a light breeze began to ever so slightly push them off course to the left.
Sunset glanced up at the parachute and was pleased to see that it was not the classic round design, but rather the wing-shape design, which meant that it could be steered by simply tugging on one side or the other. Since they were drifting left, that meant they would need to tug down on the right side, so with the pack’s right strap securely around her arm, she reached her right hand up and pulled on the handle on her side.
The parachute gradually began to turn right, and once they were back on course for their intended destination, Sunset released the handle. However, the crosswinds soon changed, and now they were beginning to drift to the right. Sunset knew what had to be done, but also knew she couldn’t do it herself, so she called back to Trixie, “We’re drifting too far! You need to pull on your side!”
Trixie was still absolutely terrified by their flight, so she very nervously stuttered, “I-I-I-I’m n-not sure about—”
“FOR ONCE IN YOUR PATHETIC LIFE, AT LEAST TRY TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL!!” hollered Sunset furiously.
Trixie whimpered, but swiftly did as she was told and used her left hand to tug on the handle on her side.
As the parachute gradually began to turn left, Sunset said with encouragement, “That’s it, Trixie! Keep holding it!” After a few more seconds, just as the parachute was back on course, Sunset quickly said, “Okay, let go!”
Trixie immediately released her grip on the handle and returned her left hand to keeping hold of the pack’s strap on her side.
The parachute and its two passengers continued its gradual descent towards the hilltop clearing. Just past the halfway point, the parachute began to drift left again, so Sunset again pulled on the handle on her side just enough to steer them back on course.
At they started getting close to the forest canopy below, it became easier to determine where their ultimate trajectory would lead. Had the land been completely clear, they would have definitely reached their intended destination, but unfortunately, there was a forest full of tall trees between them and the hilltop clearing.
As soon as Sunset realized this, she called back to Trixie, “Looks like we’re gonna be a little short of our target! It’s gonna be a rough landing in the trees! Brace yourself!”
Both girls held on tight to each other as they descended into the treetops. It started with their legs brushing against the highest branches. As they continued dropping, they started bumping into larger branches lower down. Eventually, they fell low enough that the ropes supporting them from the parachute began to get tangled up in the higher branches, causing the parachute itself to collapse. As they then bumped into a larger branch, they finally lost their grip on each other and the pack, and they began to tumble down through the canopy. They crashed into branch after branch on the way down, sometimes losing an arm or a leg as they hit a branch. Finally, they fell past the lowest branches and slammed into the ground. They were battered, bruised, and with some limbs detached, but they had survived their landing.
Trixie — who had landed on her back with only her head and right arm still attached to her torso — groaned and grumbled, “I guess this means it’s better to fall down a flight of stairs than straight off the roof.”
Sunset — who had landed face down with her head, left arm, hip joint, and right leg still attached to her torso — pushed herself off the ground and glanced ahead. “At least I can see the clearing from here,” she noted. She noticed Trixie’s hip joint — with the left leg still attached to it — on the ground nearby, so she grabbed it and tossed it over to Trixie.
Sunset and Trixie quickly recovered and reattached all of their missing limbs, then ran over towards the clearing. As they reached the clearing, they quickly recognized the rock formation consisting of three tall rocks, but were quite surprised to see the site was full of flowerbeds and garden beds of all kinds.
“Is this the rock formation from that three-year-old photo?” asked Trixie. “I guess whoever found the Memory Stone decided to turn this place into some kind of garden.”
Sunset glanced around the edge of the clearing in all directions. She recognized the pair of dusty ruts on the trail — the last thing she could remember prior to the recently erased memories. And just to the left of that empty trail, partially obscured by the surrounding forest, she saw the front end of a familiar red Spirit. “Look! There’s the car!” she cried out before rushing straight towards it.
Sunset quickly inspected all four wheels, then opened the rear hood to check the engine. “Everything seems perfectly fine with it,” she noted as she shut the hood. “I guess whoever locked us in that room didn’t think we’d make it this far, so they probably didn’t even bother with trying to disable the car in any way.”
Meanwhile, Trixie opened the right side door and pulled forward the passenger seat. Her expression immediately brightened as she looked inside the hidden compartment. “Oh, sweet precious!” she cried out joyfully as she took out her magical staff. She then kissed it a few times and gave it a tight hug. “I don’t know why I ever left you behind, but I swear it will never happen again!”
Sunset rolled her eyes at Trixie’s behavior before opening the left side door and climbing into the driver’s seat. She tapped a few buttons on the dashboard to bring up the display screen that showed the clearing ahead, with the red dot recording indicator in the upper corner of the screen. Just to be sure, she picked up a nearby pebble and tossed it over the front of the car, and saw that same pebble fall across the video screen. “Yes!” cheered Sunset as she pumped her fist. “The dash-cam’s been recording this whole time! Now all we have to do is play back the video from the beginning, and we’ll find out exactly who’s behind all of this.”
As Sunset shut the door on her side and started tapping some buttons on the dashboard, Trixie pushed the passenger seat back into place and sat down in it, then shut the door on her side. Once Sunset set the screen to start playing back the most recent recording, she and Trixie began to watch closely. The video being shown was virtually similar to the view the car has had of this rock formation and secluded garden up ahead, but soon they began to hear their own voices on the audio.
“If my hunch is right, then the person we’re dealing with here could be someone who’s easy to panic, and the sight of you carrying around such a dangerous object could make them react in a way that will not benefit us at all.”
“But Trixie never goes anywhere without her magical staff!”
“You know where it’s hidden, and no one else but me knows about it. It’ll be safe, and within quick reach, if necessary. But for now, just leave it here.”
“Fine. If you insist…”
“And for once, please keep your mouth shut.”
“I guess that explains why Trixie was without her staff,” remarked Trixie. She glared at Sunset and added, “Could’ve saved us a lot of trouble if you hadn’t insisted on that.”
“I’m sure I had my reasons,” argued Sunset.
On the video, a minifig with light green skin and messy long green hair stepped out from behind the tall rock at the far side of the clearing while carrying a potted plant.
“So that must be our culprit,” concluded Trixie. “If only Trixie could remember who that is.”
“I think I recognize her,” said Sunset in astonishment. “That’s Wallflower Blush. My friends and I bumped into her at the airport on the day before everyone’s memories were erased.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, uh, we’re just doing a favor for a friend of mine. She does a lot of surveying work, and actually looked through this area a few years ago. I heard someone built a new trail around here, so I offered to swing by for a quick look to let her know if there’s been any changes here lately. I guess now I can tell her this place has definitely changed a lot. Did you do all of this yourself?”
“Nice cover-up,” complimented Trixie.
“Y-yes, I did. This is my personal garden. I’ve never had much luck with gardening in the inner parts of the city, so when I stumbled across this place, I figured it would be an excellent place for me to try growing all kinds of plants.”
“I may not be a botanist, but I think what you’ve got here is very impressive.”
“It’s amazing to see how much they can thrive if you give them just the right amount of care. It’s not like I’ve had many requests for my services, so I’ve been coming here to keep me occupied doing what I love most. Lately, business has been so slow that I seem to be spending more time on this garden than getting paid minimum wage to work on someone else’s garden.”
“But at least you’re still getting some paying work. I saw you doing some landscaping over at the airport a few days ago.”
“Yes, where those taxis you and your friends called in shoved my van off the road and took off like it was no big deal.”
“Yeah, taxi drivers in Lego City tend to be a little careless when it comes to parking.”
On the video during that conversation, Wallflower had walked over outside the frame to the left, and some of the background noise implied that she was doing something near her van, which had probably been parked to the left, which would put it directly on the trail. As Wallflower walked back into the frame with a trowel in one hand and her potted plant in the other, Sunset suddenly turned to Trixie and began speaking quietly enough that the video was unable to pick up any of that conversation.
“I wonder what we’re whispering about,” said Trixie watching the video.
“I think I’m pointing out that Wallflower just correctly identified me being with my friends during that incident at the airport,” noted Sunset, “and since that happened before everyone lost their memories of me, that would make her the only one who has not been affected, and therefore a much more likely suspect.”
On the video, once Sunset and Trixie finished their hushed conversation, Trixie walked directly towards Wallflower, while Sunset began to sneak her way around and slowly moved closer to Wallflower.
“Ooh, a diversion!” remarked Trixie eagerly. “Obviously, this must’ve been Trixie’s idea.”
“So tell me, uh, whatever your name is, have you considered trying to expand your business beyond Lego City?”
On the video, as Trixie kept a conversation going, Sunset slowly made her way closer and closer to Wallflower from behind her back.
“No thanks. I think I’d rather— Hey! What are you…?”
On the video, Sunset suddenly lunged at Wallflower and grabbed her wrist. With this contact, Sunset’s magical powers activated, which made her body stiffen and her eyes glow completely white.
“Huh, so that’s what I look like when I look into someone’s mind,” noted Sunset quietly.
On the video, Sunset’s glimpse into Wallflower’s mind lasted only a couple seconds, and as soon as she returned to normal, she suddenly shoved Wallflower away.
“So you’re the one who erased everyone’s memories of me!”
“Wow, you sure turned violent pretty quickly,” remarked Trixie.
On the video, Wallflower stood back up and soon began fighting back with a similarly aggressive behavior.
“Yes… I did!”
“Seriously? You? A random nobody?”
“Exactly! No one ever listens to me, no one ever notices me, no one ever cares about me! Because everyone always ignores me, I’ve personally experienced all kinds of unfair injustices in this world. But no injustice could possibly be any worse than seeing number one on LEGO’s Most Wanted be allowed to go free and get away with every single crime she’s ever committed.”
“That’s ridiculous! I was pardoned because I had proved to everyone that I had changed!”
“But you haven’t changed! You may have fooled everyone in the Lego World, but now I’ve been able to expose the truth to all of them — that you’re still just as mean and ruthless as you’ve ever been!”
“And I’ve done everything I can to leave that part of me in the past! I absolutely hate doing the awful things I used to do, but sometimes I’m left with no other alternatives! And right now, because you’ve so recklessly decided to take away all the things that made me happy about my new life, you have made me very desperate.”
As the verbal fight between Sunset and Wallflower escalated on the video, Sunset watching the video became increasingly dismayed that she had actually reacted so viciously. She had a hard time believing it herself, but she knew she could never deny the video evidence that was playing out right before her eyes.
At this point in the video, Trixie suddenly stepped in between Sunset and Wallflower and spread her arms to keep them apart.
“Whoa! Okay! Timeout, everyone! Even the Great and Powerful Trixie can identify when a situation is in need of a more diplomatic solution, and this right here definitely counts as such — especially considering that one side is in possession of an all-powerful magical artifact.”
“I’ve put up with enough of your pesky behavior! Heck, the only thing stopping me from punching you in the face right now is that there’s someone else here who I’d much rather wanna punch in the face!”
Sunset cringed at the highly aggressive threat she had made to the girl now sitting right beside her. While that was going on, Wallflower retreated back to her van to the left outside the frame of the video before she spoke up again.
“If that’s what you really wanna do to me, then you’ll have to catch me first!”
“GET BACK HERE!!”
“Hey! Wait for Trixie!”
On the video, Sunset shoved past Trixie and ran off in the same direction Wallflower went, and then Trixie quickly followed after her. The rustling foliage of their running grew fainter, and once it faded into silence, Sunset paused the video.
“Seriously?” asked Trixie incredulously. “Trixie just ran off like that, without sparing even a couple seconds to recover her magical staff?” She groaned and facepalmed. “Stupid me!”
“You’re not the only one kicking herself in the butt right now,” mumbled Sunset dishearteningly. “I had a chance to convince Wallflower to undo the damage she had done, and how did I react? I behaved exactly the way she was accusing me of. I ended up playing right into her hands!”
“Perhaps it’s because she might’ve been kinda right about you,” Trixie speculated.
“Really? Ya think?” retorted Sunset sourly.
“Just hear out the Wise and Moralizing Trixie for a moment,” continued Trixie. “You’ve said that you don’t do any of those mean things anymore, so long as it can be avoided. But what if this Wallflower girl has not had any recent experiences of you being the nicer person you say you are now? What if the mean things you used to do are still the only impression she has of you? What if she still lacks any personal reasons to see you in a better light? The point is, maybe it’s not good enough to not be mean to someone. Maybe you just have to actually be nice.”
Sunset stared down at the video screen as she pondered Trixie’s words. Thinking back to what was spoken in that video, she realized that Wallflower had claimed that virtually no one ever paid much attention to her. That level of neglect could very well have left her more susceptible to believing in the more negative aspects of others. And while Sunset was certainly a much better person now, she could never deny just how awful she used to be, which meant her old self would have left a much stronger impression on someone like Wallflower. To put it simply, this was a case where actions spoke much louder than words. If she was going to prove to everyone that she truly was one of the good guys now, then it would not be enough to just say that it’s true.
Sunset sighed sadly and muttered, “You’re right…” As she glanced over at Trixie, she began to realize that Wallflower was hardly the only person she needed to improve her attitude towards. In fact, just looking back at all of today’s events, she realized that she had been responding to Trixie’s behavior in ways that seemed to care very little for the blue girl’s feelings. Trixie may not have reacted as strongly obvious as Wallflower, but there was no telling just how hurt she probably was deep down inside.
Sunset let out another sad sigh and hesitantly spoke up, “Trixie… I owe you an apology.”
Trixie turned to Sunset and raised both eyebrows.
“I’ve been treating you like absolute crud all day,” continued Sunset. “I thought I was gonna have to put up with your awful attitude, but instead, I’ve been forcing you to put up with my awful attitude. I guess I was so fiercely determined to save my friends, it never occurred to me that I was hurting other people along the way.” She turned to look Trixie in the eyes. “Do you think you can forgive me?”
Trixie stared back in stunned silence for a moment, then smiled and softly replied, “Apology accepted. I guess you’re already doing a good job of learning your lesson.”
“Yeah, well, too late for that to have any effect on going after the Memory Stone,” muttered Sunset in disappointment. “Wallflower could be anywhere in Lego City by now.” She pulled out her phone and checked the time. “And we now have just over two hours left until sunset. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen…” She put her phone away and slouched in her seat as she let out a sigh of defeat.
Although she had a much less personal stake in this quest than Sunset, Trixie couldn’t help but feel just as sullen at this perceived defeat. She shifted her grip on her magical staff still in her grasp, then turned back to Sunset and quietly asked, “So what’s next for us?”
Sunset took a moment to consider what her next options could be, following her failure to recover everyone’s memories of her good deeds. She thought aloud, “Well… my friends clearly aren’t gonna welcome me back anytime soon… and I definitely don’t wanna go back to my old life of nothing but criminal activity. Perhaps… we could try something in the middle.” She slowly began to smile. “I’d still like to be a hero, but if we won’t be allowed to join any heroic team, maybe we could be like antiheroes. I can already imagine it… the two of us traveling around, saving the world from serious threats, and not once would we ever give a darn about any laws or codes of honor. If there’s a big problem out there, we’ll just do whatever it takes to get the job done. Sure, my second road to redemption will likely be a lot slower than it was the first time around, but in the long run… I think things will turn out just fine for me.”
“Trixie actually likes the sound of that,” admitted Trixie with a smile of her own. “Truth be told, the life of an evil would-be conqueror has its downsides — most obviously is that I’m always losing all the time. If I were to take on the role of an antihero, I could actually be successful by doing something good for the world, and yet still be free to do whatever I want with no regrets.”
“And I know exactly where we should start,” stated Sunset. “It may be too late to recover all those memories of me, but the Memory Stone is still out there, and now that I’ve got nothing to lose, we’re gonna make sure that Wallflower will regret the day she found that magical artifact.” She switched off the video display on the dashboard and buckled her seatbelt. “We’ll meet with Vinnie first thing tomorrow and see where we can go from there.”
“Trixie has a better idea!” proclaimed Trixie. “Why wait to accept failure when we still have a chance to save the day? It’s time for Trixie to unleash her secret weapon!” She stood up in her seat and raised her staff up high as she proudly called out, “O Mighty GPS! Guide us, in real time, to the precise location of the Memory Stone!” She then twirled her staff around, pointed the end of it down at the car’s dashboard, and unleashed a blast of magical energy into it.
The entire car bounced from the sudden burst of magical energy. Sparks of energy danced over the surface of the dashboard for a few seconds before they quickly faded. Finally, the display screen turned on to show a map of the surrounding area, and in the corner of the screen with an arrow pointing towards the edge was an icon that looked just like the Memory Stone itself.
“Wow…” said Sunset in astonishment. “That’s remarkably convenient.”
“What can I say?” quipped Trixie proudly. “Trixie is a genius!” In actuality, Trixie had just suddenly remembered the advice she was told by that Mikey Spoilers guy back at the ice cream parlor, but of course she would never admit this to anyone.
“For once, Trixie, I’ll give you that,” praised Sunset. With a friendly smile still on her face, she quickly added, “Now put that thing away and buckle up!” She then started the car’s engine.
Trixie made no protests as she placed her magical staff back into the hidden compartment behind the seat, then sat down and buckled her seatbelt.
Once they were both ready, Sunset shifted the car into reverse, then drove it back and sharply spun it around so that it was quickly turned onto the trail facing back the way they came. She then shifted the car into drive and took off down the trail. Both girls knew they now had one last chance to catch Wallflower Blush and recover everyone’s memories of Sunset Shimmer, and they were not going to waste this final opportunity.