Sunset Shimmer lowered her guard, not all the way through, as she processed the revelation. Mostly the fact that Twilight had met this Yukari woman before.
"Twilight, did something happened between you and this woman?" Sunset asked, quickly placing the pieces together as she glanced at the card again. "Was she the one who gave you the card?"
"Yep, that was me," Yukari answered. "However, I only gave her the card while it was still a blank card: basically a blank slate, from which she could shape it however she wanted, through science, through alchemy..." Yukari smiled wide with a hint of smugness. "Through magic."
Sunset turned back to Twilight as she explained herself. "Yukari here appeared to me with a blank card, and she told me that it was possible to alter this thing with my magic. So, I concentrated some of it here, and it changed accordingly. I didn't really expect it to turn into that spell, though."
"Of course," Yukari blurted, getting Sunset and Twilight's attention. "I'm not someone who'll just give you something and then leave you alone to figure out the finer details yourself. I'm going to give you a little rundown on how the spellcard works."
Yukari opened a portal, grabbd its edges, and spread them wide until she could shove both herself, Sunset, and Twilight into it, taking them into another world... or more accurately, some kind of void, with the same eye-portals Twilight saw before.
"What is this place?" Sunset asked as Twilight clung to her arm.
"This is an artificial realm I created using the boundary between chaos and existence, grabbing the chaos, adding some necessary things to make sure living things could... well, live here, and boom, brand new world for me to reside whenever I'm traveling dimensions!"
Yukari opened her umbrella and flew up, before she seemingly sat in the middle of nothing, a pair of bars appearing above her: a small, Red one, and a much longer White one.
"Now, allow me to explain the basics. You can have a set of spellcards in your hand at a time, but you can only use those spellcards for a limited number of times before they run out of energy. Of course, once they run out, there's a way to recharge them..."
Yukari summoned a knife, and threw it, forcing Sunset to push Twilight away and move back, narrowly missing the knife. This was signaled by a grazing sound, as well as some blue powerup-things appearing out of thin air and being absorbed by Sunset.
"We call that grazing: essentially, it's you narrowly dodging incoming bullets to summon and absorb the energy in order to recharge the spellcard. Of course, since the spellcard you have hasn't been used yet, grazing is mostly unnecessary."
"I see, I think I understand what you mean," Sunset smiled. "Once the spellcard runs out of juice, if I graze long enough, I'll be able to use it again, right?"
"Yes." Yukari smirked and looked elsewhere. "From a certain point of view."
Sunset raised an eyebrow, only to find herself and Twilight ponified from Yukari's finger snap.
"Now, let's have a little fight to see if you understand: you'll use the spellcard, drop the bars above me, and then we'll have an endurance test with one of my own spellcards. If you deplete both bars, or survive the time limit of my spellcard, you win."
Yukari flashed a threatening smile.
"But if you lose your patience or all of your lives, I win. Now, let the game begin!"
Sunset flinched, realizing she wasn't being given any chance to prepare for the fight, but nonetheless took a deep breath and used the spellcard from Twilight.
- Alicorn Sign, [Collapsing Star of Concentrated Fury] -
Sunset began charging the giant energy ball pictured in the card, the sphere growing bigger and bigger as Sunset started growing more and more taxed trying to hold the sphere in place.
"Sunset!"
Twilight flew to Sunset's side and helped her take on the overwhelming size and strength of the sphere, which grew to its biggest, sun-sized form as Yukari put her hand inside a portal, and took out a bag of popcorn.
Once the sphere was at its biggest, Sunset and Twilight aimed the sphere in front of them, and screamed as they shot a giant magic beam at the portal user, covering her completely in the concentrated magic.
However, as the beam started to fade and the white bar above Yukari rapidly depleted, Yukari herself leisurely ate her popcorn, looking barely fazed at the attack.
When the attack finally ended, Yukari
"Decent light show, Sunset Shimmer. But I'm afraid that it's my turn now."
- Childish Sign, [ The Monkey That Tested the Buffalo's Patience] -
Yukari summoned two things: a small monkey-like figure made out of knife-shaped bullets, as well as a buffalo made out of ordinary bullets, who roared as the monkey flew to Sunset's side, pestering her as the buffalo ran up to Sunset, the girl narrowly dodging the rampaging buffalo as the monkey continued pestering her.
Thus began the countdown... starting at 99 seconds.
"Um, Sunset, maybe we should swap?" Twilight asked once she saw the countdown.
"No, Twilight, we agreed that I would be the one to face off against Yukari," Sunset replied, making sure to watch the bullet monkey. "I know I have anger issues, but trust me, I can control me this time!"
The monkey jumped on Sunset's head, causing her to explode into powerups, before regenerating back then and there with one life less.
"What just happened?!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Yukari asked with a condescending smile. "A single hit from any kind of bullet will cause you to burst into powerups before regenerating you on the spot. Of course, this can only happen a couple times at best; in your case, you have four lives left."
The buffalo ran over Sunset.
"You have three lives left."
Sunset groaned and stood up, the monkey nearly touching her before she jumped away, then put her hand on the non-existent ground and leaped before the buffalo could run her over again, causing both the buffalo and the monkey to crash into each other.
Sunset's smirk, however, only lasted until both constructs burst into their component bullets, which flew all over the place, forcing Sunset to move everywhere to try avoid them. Unfortunately, Sunset tripped, and a bullet hit her, making her blow up and regenerate on the spot... without any invincibility, proven when a bullet hit her again, making her blow up again, rise and repeat one last time to signal her defeat.
So, Sunset basically blew up thrice. Spike would definitely have a field day with that one.
"I believe that'll be enough." Yukari snapped her fingers and the bullets dissipated as the dimension also vanished, returning the girls back to Other-Questria.
Once back, Sunset remained on the ground, looking stern as she tried to process the fact she lost by being hit in the same spot three times.
She didn't even get to shoot an attack!
In fact, now that she thought about it, the spellcard Yukari used was more than likely supposed to be as infuriating as possible. Perhaps that was the reason Twilight wanted to swap with her.
Then again, considering the atmosphere the self-proclaimed youkai gave off, the duo probably had very little chance of defeating her without the handicaps she provided.
"Bravo!"
Sunset flinched and stood up as she heard someone clapping wildly with a little laughter. It wasn't Twilight, since she turned to her to see the princess not only looking just as baffled, but shaking her head at Sunset.
The person turned out to be Yukari, who giggled some more as her clapping slowed down.
"You certainly lasted longer than I expected!" Yukari chirped as she walked up to Sunset. "I figured you'd give up after the first couple times I made you explode into powerups, like everybody else!"
Yukari patted Sunset's back strongly as she looked at Twilight. "You got a keeper here, Princess Twilight!"
"Y-Yeah, I know," Twilight remembered something and grabbed her card from Sunset again. "But wait, Sunset can make her own card, right? Just asking, because she seemed to be having a bit of trouble casting the spell."
"The card was made specifically to be used by you, Your Highness; truth be told, it's a miracle the spell didn't fall apart as soon as she cast it," Yukari explained, resting her chin on her palm. "Unfortunately, the blank card I gave you was the only one I was carrying on my person. If she wants to make her own card, she'll have to go to my home dimension to get one."
"Is that really necessary?" Sunset asked as she got up with Twilight's help. "Can't you just open a portal and grab a blank card from there?"
"I could, but that would bring unforeseen consequences," Yukari shrugged and shook her head once. "Like, I grab a blank card that someone else was about to use: now you'll have to worry about eventually meeting and facing this enraged individual, who could be anything from a fairy to a god, with much more knowledge about spellcards than both of you combined."
Sunset and Twilight gulped, and reunited, Twilight being the first one to speak. "She has a point in that trying to get a blank card through portals could be a bad idea, but neither of us have any idea what her dimension's like: only that it has fairies and gods in there, which doesn't calm me in the slightest."
"I understand your concern, Twilight, but if this is to introduce a new system for the human world, it might be worth a shot," Sunset argued before she pointed at herself. "And besides, I think only I need to make the trip there. I'm the one who needs a spellcard, after all."
"Sunset..."
Sunset separated from Princess Twilight, turned to Yukari, and put her hands on her hips as she stated, "Yukari, I'll go to your world."
Yukari smiled wide, almost maliciously so, before she flipped her fan and summoned a portal underneath Sunset, who barely realized what happened before she fell through the portal, which closed just as Twilight tried to chase after her.
"Don't worry, Your Highness, I made sure your friend would land in a safe spot," Yukari spoke with a friendly tone. "Now, concerning your person..."
Yukari hid her lips behind her fans and lowered her eyelids.
"I think it's time you got your own, private lesson."
On Yukari's home dimension, Sunset fell on top of a bush near a rectangular shrine, with a donation box placed in front. Ugh, well, that was a shock. Looks like that Yukari woman sent me to some shrine.
Sunset walked up to the donation box, and saw it was mostly empty. An unpopular shrine, judging by this box right here. Now that I think about it, why leave the box in such a vulnerable state, where thieves could steal whatever's inside of it?
Sunset flinched. Actually, maybe this shrine is more popular than I think and the box's nearly empty because thieves. Regardless, I guess I should do something nice while I'm here.
Sunset reached for her pocket, took out a couple bits, and put them on the donation box, seemingly also summoning a voice that snapped, "Hold it! Raise your arms and state how you got here!"
"I-I came here thanks to a youkai called Yukari," Sunset answered as she raised her arms and slowly turned around. "She shoved me into a portal and-"
Sunset saw a girl wearing a red sleeveless priestess outfit, aiming a card similar to Twilight's card, looking quite confused herself.
"Wait a minute... Yukari sent you here?"