Sunset hadn’t expected Halloween parties to be her thing. Dressing up for a party brought to mind the fancy-dress balls of her youth, and how much she hated everypony there, eventually expanding to include even Celestia Herself.
The human tradition was instead much more chill as well as an opportunity for her to express herself personally. The black-and-green outfit and aluminum foil over plastic armor shoulders weren’t too difficult to assemble, and a fairly short black wig was easy to obtain.
“It’s been a while since I watched that. Kuvira, right?” Rainbow Dash walked up to her holding a cup of green liquid with purple ice cubes in it. The athlete wore a mock flight suit in blue, complete with a helmet she carried in her other hand. Sunset noticed that the flight suit even had Rainbow’s name on it.
“Yeah,” Sunset replied, “The idea of turning on your mentor and trying to conquer the world reminded me of me.”
“Also being saved from yourself by the chosen one.” Rainbow smirked.
Sunset smirked back. “I’m sorry, do you mean Twilight or yourself?”
Rainbow choked back. “I mean, uh, all of us! We’re the chosen six, err, seven now I guess.”
“Well, thanks for including me.” Sunset grinned as Rainbow nervously backed away. She always puts her foot in her mouth a bit.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door. “Another guest? I’ll get it!” Twilight Sparkle, wearing the dress of some Horaceland Princess that Sunset was unfamiliar with, rushed to fulfil her role of host by welcoming the guests.
Behind the door Twilight was surprised to find a grey-skinned young woman in a brown postal uniform. “Muffins? Uh, I’m sorry, I don’t remember inviting you? Are you someone’s plus-one?”
“No, silly,” the blonde replied. “I’m here with a registered letter for a Miss Sunset Shimmer.” At that moment, her left eye began to drift a little bit to the side.
The Muffins that goes to our school has a problem with her right eye. Sunset moved up. “I got this. I’m Sunset Shimmer.” She lifted her wig to show the postmare-turned-postwoman her real hair.
“Oh! There we go. Sign here please.” Sunset had been working on her ability to write in Equish with a hand ever since she used the journal to contact Twilight, so her signature was perfectly legible. “Have a nice Nightmare Night or whatever it is here!” Muffins tipped her hat as she turned to leave.
Sunset tore open the letter. She knew it couldn’t be good news, but she hadn’t been expecting this. The first page was assembled from letters cut out of magazines, like an old movie kidnapping, including the use of letters with the wrong capitalization.
Sunset ShimMer
Come to the eRgot Salt flaTs alone or I will desTrOY Canterlot.
STelLar Flux
“What.” Sunset flipped to the second page, which was a page from the Canterlot Journal of Xenocultural Studies about Sunset’s experiences with having her magic drained by Twilight’s compact. The third and last page was a newspaper clipping about Cozy Glow’s plans to drain Equestria’s magic.
“Is something the matter?” Twilight leaned in to look at the papers Sunset had opened. She’s been learning Equish, and she’s definitely not going to let me go alone.
“Oh, just my ARG. Silly that they’ve got people delivering on Halloween.” Sunset waved her hand dismissively in what she hoped was a convincing manner.
“Oh, that looks like Equish! I didn’t know ARGs were a thing in Equestria. Can I see?” Twilight’s curiosity had been piqued, and Sunset knew she’d screwed up.
Sunset sighed and shook her head. “Can I talk about this in the next room.”
“It’s… it’s not an ARG, is it?”
Leading Twilight into the kitchen, Sunset answered in a low voice. “No. Remember that whole thing about how I used to be a, uh, kind of a raging she-demon?”
Twilight nodded and, with air quotes, replied, “No offense.” Shaking her head, she continued, “I may not be the best with social cues, but it was kind of blatant.”
Sunset smiled. “It’s an in-joke now. At this point I don’t really think too much about the person I used to be.” The smile turned upside down. “But there’s a bunch of ponies who know the pony I used to be, and I haven’t really had much opportunity to make up with them. And now one of them sent me a letter and I really need to go to her.” I’m just leaving out a couple details.
“Oh, I understand. Halloween party won’t be the same without you, but if there’s a friendship emergency over there I support you fully.” Twilight leaned in for a hug. “Good luck.”
Sunset didn’t quite know what to make of that, but hugged back.
Going through the portal back to Equestria really had gotten easier for her. Sunset dropped onto four hooves and just let herself skid forward across the smooth crystal a bit. Feeling pleased with herself, she bowed slightly and flipped her hair.
Now she just needed to leave without… “Sunset!”
Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Edition trotted over, then stopped herself. “Why are you wearing armor?”
Sunset looked back over herself. Her costume armor, which only covered her shoulders, had transformed into a polished aluminum set of Royal Guard armor. “I was wearing a costume when I came in. I guess the portal made it, uh, real.”
“Weird.” Twilight looked at it as she walked forward. “Why did you come back wearing a costume anyway?”
“I got a personal message that made me come running.”
“Oh!” Twilight’s eyes popped wide open. Can I see it?”
“No.” Sunset shook her head. “It’s personal.”
“Sunset.” Twilight shook her head. “You don’t have to do this on your own. Tell me about this.” Magenta auras coated the doors leading from the room as Twilight’s horn lit up with the same color.
“Well, if you insist,” Sunset huffed. “Back when I was Celestia’s personal student, there was another student at the School for Gifted Unicorns named Stellar Flux. She wasn’t quite on my level but she was still really good. She had a scholarship that she had to keep her grades up for.”
Sunset looked down. “I can’t remember why I disliked her. Just that she did something that got on my nerves. And.” Sunset sniffed. “And I got her kicked out of the school.”
“What!?!?” Twilight shook her head. “I mean. Not judging you. Just… what?”
“Twilight, I tried to blow you to bits. I was evil.”
“Right. I’ve known you far longer as a good creature than a bad one, so it’s a little hard to remember at times. What exactly did you do?”
“So, I, uh,” Sunset nervously looked away. “Kindaframedherforplagiarism.”
“What.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Plagiary is a serious academic crime Sunset. How could you?” She blinked. “In fact, how did you? Celestia herself might have been involved in that investigation.”
“Uh, not exactly something I’m proud of. But Celestia is kind of how I did it in the first place. I used an old blank notebook of hers and an old inkpot to pass age-detection tests, then wrote out a book on the subject that contained passages substantially the same as her thesis. Then it was just a matter of adding an entry to the library’s card catalog, and dropping a tip.”
Twilight’s eye twitched as hairs popped askew from her mane. “What. What? What!!!” Twilight’s head swung wildly between each cry.
“Uh, yeah, there was a reason I never told you about this. I sent a list of all the ponies I’d framed for something to the CSGU office so their records could be corrected, but…”
“You are in such trouble!” Twilight’s head was leaning at a 45 degree angle and one of her eyes seemed bigger than the other. “Young mare, do you realize what you’ve done?”
“Twilight, I’m older than you. And yes. I ruined her reputation over something I didn’t care enough about to remember.”
“No! You made a false card catalog entry! Now go up there and fix it this minute! And then we’re going to go find your friend and we will sing a song, a magic song, and then we’ll fix everything!”
“Twilight, you’ve started, uh, frothing at the mouth.” Sunset rubbed the low side of the alicorn’s head with her magic. “Also, the letter specifically requested I come alone. So why don’t you go fix the card catalog and let me do this?”
“Not acceptable!” Twilight stamped her feet as her head rotated in ways Sunset wasn’t sure Pinkie could do.
“Fine. I’m going to insist we put a little distance between ourselves to think about this.” Sunset’s horn lit up. Twilight’s as well, with what Sunset thought was an anti-teleport spell. Too bad for her that Sunset meant something else.
Sunset leaned forward as she fired a beam from her horn, causing Twilight to suddenly freeze in place.
“Hey, I heard some raised voices and…” Spike flew into the room from the other end and surveyed the scene. “Sunset, did you turn evil again?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, Twilight was getting a little unhinged when I confessed to modifying a card catalogue, so I had to put her in time out.”
“Yikes. Did I tell you about the time she went to turn in a library book that was years overdue? Total freakout. Anyway, how long will she be like that?”
“The Time Freeze spell lasts about ten minutes usually, but I put a little more power into it than I expected, so it will probably last about thirty.”
“She’s going to be furious at you for messing with her schedule.”
“Sorry, I panicked a little. Can you take a message to Celestia, ask her to remove ‘On Reindeer Magic’ from circulation at the CSGU library since its content is plagiarized from an essay by Stellar Flux, and its card catalog entry is falsified?”
“I feel like that wasn’t a question but an order.”
“Letting Twilight know it’s been dealt with should really calm her down.”
“Point.”
“I’m going to rush to the train station now.”
“Nice armor by the way. Makes you look a little taller.”
Exactly why there was train service to the Ergot Salt Flats wasn’t something Sunset had ever thought about. There was a lot of time on the train, and not all of it could be spent running over various magical exercises.
Her first thought was that it might be like the Crystal Empire, and there was some ancient banished whatever in the area. There weren’t any legends she could recall, though her study of those had been focused on particular areas. She grimaced as the memories of her dark past roiled over her once more. Ever since the Memory Stone had temporarily erased her post-Equestria memories, her time as a pony had become fresher, more readily at hand. Er, at hoof here. The upside of that was that she now had restored her command of magic to its prime, but the downside was that while she still couldn’t remember the incident that had motivated her to ruin Stellar Flux’s life, she could perfectly recall the satisfaction she had felt at the school security leading her out.
And I’ll have to apologize in only a little while, if I don’t want this to get any worse.
Idly she looked back at her cutie mark. It wasn’t glowing, indicating a friendship problem had been picked up on Twilight’s table thing. Or maybe it’s just out of commission. Or it can’t pick me up in the other dimension.
“Last stop, Ergot!” The conductor’s call jolted her out of her reverie.
Sunset stepped out of the train into the dull, partly overcast land outside. Mesas towered over the sky behind the train, but in front of her stretched away a totally level, flat surface. She could see another pony in the distance, but there was no doubt in her mind who it was.
She took a deep breath and walked forward. In the armor the walk should have been sweltering, but it took on an oddly calming character. She could feel the emptiness in this place. The sun was starting to lower off to her right, but the flatness of the place and the soft clouds meant that the sun wasn’t going to be in either of their eyes, aside from the glittering soil all around.
“Greetings.” Stellar Flux finally spoke up as Sunset approached. Sunset remembered the dark gray unicorn with the silvery gray mane, but not the muscles apparent under her fur, or the white, gold, and amethyst amulet she wore on her neck.
“Stellar Flux. I’m sorry about what happened. I know I wronged you greatly, and I sent a full confession of my crimes to the School’s authorities. They can reinstate your standing.”
“Reinstate? Reinstate?” Stellar Flux reared up and smashed her forehooves to the ground, leaning forward dangerously. “Can they reinstate the years of my life I spent flipping hayburgers and crying? Can you fix that? Did you only confess because the Princess’s pardon overrides any punishment you would face for acts that occurred before it?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, no, and no. I had no intention of ever returning to Equestria for any length of time, so I don’t give a rusty horseshoe what my academic status is.” A twinge shuddered through her mind. Did I really have no plans to return? Saying that feels wrong somehow.
Stellar snarled and snorted. “Well. I don’t give a crap. My parents scrimped and saved to get me through the CSGU even with the Princess paying for the school itself, and I haven’t been able to dare to show my face to them since. There’s no point in trying to talk me out of it. Recognize this?” Her magic lit with a purplish glow and lifted the amulet gently up to the level of her chin, the chain sliding up the back of her neck behind her mane.
Sunset’s eyes widened as she leaned in. The amulet had a prominent pony’s head with a horn, as well as two white wings. “It can’t be!”
“Oh, but it is.” Stellar leaned back and laughed slightly. “I remember your presentation on ancient artifacts. Most ponies forgot we ever had two Princesses, and thus forgot that there were two Alicorn Amulets forged to oppose them. And now I bear the long-lost Celestia Amulet!”
“Huh.” Sunset nodded. “Where’d you find it, out of curiosity? I spent a lot of time looking for both it and the Luna Amulet when I was trying to become an alicorn. I checked every pawn shop, wandering storefront, and magic shop in Canterlot and the big East Coast cities.”
“Of course you never found it!” Stellar grinned smugly at her foe. “It was in Canterlot all along, but I’ll bet anything you never checked Sewer Joe’s Wandering Storefront because you wouldn’t dip your dainty hooves anything other than rose-scented water.”
“I only did that before events, I bathed in normal water like everypony else most of the time!” Sunset huffed.
Stellar rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. But my family are all earth ponies. They taught me how to get my hooves dirty. And now I have the Celestia Amulet, and I intend to extract vengeance with it.”
“You don’t have to do this. I can help you. Princess Twilight and I can find some way to make it up to you—” Sunset ducked beneath the blast of searing plasma with a yipe.
“Don’t think you can talk me out of this! You’ll never be able to fix this!”
Sunset scrambled back into a fighting stance and pawed the flat ground. “Fine. We’ll do this Nanoha style then.”
“Nanoha?” Stellar looked taken aback for a moment.
“It’s a thing from the human world, a magical girl who beats other people up and they become her friends.”
Stellar shook her head. “Sounds like Stockhorse Syndrome.”
“I don’t even know why I bother, even the girls back home don’t get my references because they have no appreciation for the classics.”
“Hey!” Stellar grunted and leaned forward. “You were trying to side track me!”
Sunset gulped. “Was really hoping to avoid this, yeah.”
Grinning wickedly, Stellar reached a hoof up to her back. Sunset could sense an item exiting pocket dimensional storage as her foe reached forward again with something gripped in the crook of her pastern.
“Behold, the Talon of Triumph and the Horn of Hunger! Separately, they’re a magical catalyst that does little on its own and a clipping from Tirek himself, but together…”
“Blah blah blah drain your magic blah blah blah I’m so creative. Everyone Twilight fights drains magic.” Sunset rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated gagging motion. “Just hit me with it already.”
“Fine, take all the fun out of it. I shall drain your magic, leaving you a husk begging for death!” Stellar jabbed the hoof cradling her pointy magical item forward.
Energy built across the Horn of Hunger as a great thrumming noise echoed out, only to suddenly die into sad pulsing whines.
“Uh.” Stellar shook the Horn/Talon assembly. “I shall drain your magic!” The same energy buildup, thrumming, sad whine sequence of events played out.
Sunset stared at her with flat eyes. “Try it one more time, just to be sure.”
“I shall drain your magic!”
“Is that the activation command?”
“Yes!”
The energy around the Horn faded in time with the sad whine for a third time. Stellar stared at it dazedly. “How?”
Sunset tapped a spot on her forehead directly below her horn. “Honestly, I’ve become really sick of the whole magic draining thing. Between me and Princess Twilight I’ve heard of far too much of it. So I devised a solution! I created custom micro-talismans out of aluminum, titanium, and a copper core, then had one of the local body mod shops implant them under my skin near my horn and at the base of each limb.”
“Wait.” Stellar stowed her magic items back into her pocket dimension. “If you constructed a set of talismans to do that… You’re telling me you cracked Starswirl’s Third Conjecture?”
“Well, not by myself. We’ve had centuries to collect data on the interactions. I just had to do a search of the parameter space until I found values that satisfied all constraints.”
“What!?” Stellar leaned back. “Greenhoof the Learned calculated it’d take a hundred million pony-moons of work to do something like that. And that’s the best possible case!”
“Honestly I did it in an afternoon of coding and a few hundred bucks of commodity computing. I was so disappointed in how anticlimactic it was I haven’t even published on it yet.”
“What?”
“Oh. I guess you didn’t actually read all those entries I sent to the Canterlot Journal of Xenocultural Studies. They’ve got these machines called ‘digital computers’ that can do just absurd amounts of math automatically. I just set up a program to do a genetic algorithm search and rented some computation time.”
“You! You solved one of the great unsolved problems of thaumatology and you didn’t even publish on it?!?!?!”
“Eh, I don’t really feel like I deserve to have anything published that I didn’t do actual work on.”
“Curse you!” Another bolt of plasma blasted forth from Stellar’s horn, impacting into the shield Sunset had just barely put up in front of it and driving her backwards, her hooves digging trenches in the flats.
“You think you’re such a precious penitent aren’t you!” Stellar ranted, “The most humble and kind ever!”
“No, that’s Fluttershy.”
“Don’t you dare joke around with me! You think you’re better than me, and I’m going to prove you’re not by beating you down!”
“I suppose beating me morally isn’t an option? Up until the death threats started it seemed like a pretty easy thing.”
“Shut it!” Stellar leaned forward, a salvo of dozens of bolts of energy flying forward.
Sunset conjured a shield, not dome-shaped as most ponies would, but a flat plane in front of her, angled sharply back. The bolts bounced off the shield and soared over Sunset’s head. “If you’re going to try and crush me with magical might, maybe actually use more than one spell.”
“Well, if I must.” Stellar leered menacingly, then pointed her horn not at Sunset, but at the ground beneath her. A blast of whitish-blue energy rather than Stellar’s usual aura fired forth, coating a substantial patch of ground with ice, Sunset now standing in the center. “Ha. Dodge now!”
Sunset’s hooves slid for a brief moment, then she bowed mockingly. “Give me your best shot.”
Stellar fired a series of blasts of energy, but to her shock, Sunset dipped and slid past each one in turn.
“I said ‘best’ shot.’” Sunset spun into a pirouette, dodging a blast of arcane lightning.
“When did you learn ice skating?”
Sunset shrugged. “When did I learn ice skating? I’m not sure. I’ll blame Pinkie for that one.”
“Curse you!” Stellar charged another blast on her horn. “Stop mocking me and fight.”
“Well, since you asked nicely.” Sunset charged her horn, the energy building not her original cyan aura or her new red aura, but a pure white light that hurt Stellar to look at.
Stellar grimaced and squinted as the light from Sunset’s horn split into three orbs of red, green, and blue in an equilateral triangle arranged over her horn. Then something rotated out from behind those orbs, bizzare orbs of colors that her mind tried to insist were merely cyan, magenta, and yellow, but she could see something else peeking out of her internal censor’s stamp. “You… anticolors!?”
“Yeah!” Sunset grimaced from the effort. “Turns out that searching the parameter space worked for the Meadowbrook-Nebula conjecture as well!”
A bubble shield burst into existence around Stellar, sliding hexagonal overlappings speaking to its multilayered nature. For her part, the caster shivered in the center of it.
“Really? I thought you studied this.” The antired, antigreen, and antiblue spheres shot forth, blazing a path through the shield as if none of its layers had been there. Stellar screamed as they impacted into her, dulling the fur around their impact points and flinging her backwards.
The shield, now no longer maintained by its caster, collapsed, and Sunset fired off the three colored spheres into the flailing mare. They hit simultaneously and detonated with a blinding flash and an immense cloud of dust.
“OK, now will you accept my friendship?” Sunset panted and staggered forward. The spell had been quite difficult, even for her, but it had certainly been worth it.
“Not quite.” As the dust cleared, it was clear that Stellar was still on her hooves, if a bit unsteady. “I gotta admit, that hurt. But it looks like you emptied your reserves there.”
Sunset gulped.
“Well, I guess I’ll make this painless on you. How about an age spell? 500 years ought to do it!”
As the spell launched, Sunset willed her body to move out of the way, her horn to cast something, anything, but she’d spent all her energy. Ironically, I finally understand why everyone saves their finishing attack for last. Not bad as last thoughts go I guess.
Sunset closed her eyes as the spell landed, wondering what death would be like. After waiting a moment and still feeling exactly the same, she opened her eyes. Stellar stood before her, still on the same salt flat, glaring at her incredulously.
“How in Tartarus are you not dust?” Stellar spat.
“Huh.” Sunset looked down at herself. She could feel her second wind kicking in as her metabolism adapted to the demands placed upon it. “Did you mess up? I think you made me slightly taller.”
“No! I am most certain I cast that correctly. I used oak saplings to practice that.”
Sunset shook her head. “Obviously something went wrong. I’ll tell you what. Try and cast that again, and if it’s exactly the same spell I’ll let it through.”
“Really? Are you mocking me?” Stellar pawed the ground. “Fine.” Another beam shot out.
Sunset’s horn told her this was exactly the same spell, and she allowed it through. She didn’t close her eyes, and observed her body glow slightly as she enlarged. The glow faded from most of her body, but there still seemed to be some radiating from somewhere behind her head. “No, this is definitely a growth spell.”
“But… But… You... “ Stellar was staring up at Sunset with her jaw slack. “I can’t… that’s impossible.”
“Did you hurt yourself casting that? If you want to stop this we can.”
“Dismiss! Dismiss!” Stellar whipped her head back and forth as a brief burst of light shone from her horn. Sunset shrank down to where she was when the fight started, and she ceased to glow abnormally.
“Anything else you want to try? Still feeling in tip top shape again thanks to that spell you cast on me.”
“Rrragh!” Stellar began charging a spell on her horn, but rather than releasing it normally it kept expanding and growing in power.
“Back to brute force? Well, it’s probably your biggest strength.” Sunset’s angled planar shield sprang into existence in front of her.
“I grew up among earth ponies, I know how to use brute force creatively.” Stellar fired the blast straight down in front of herself. The blast threw her back, but it would do its work.
Sunset braced, having no time to convert the useless planar field into a sealed dome that could actually protect her. The shockwave washed over her, throwing her backwards as her hearing became a constant ringing tone.
She flipped end over end through the air, coming to a halt as she hit a low-lying cloud. Ugh, don’t remember casting a cloud walking spell. Must have done it on instinct. Oddly, Sunset could see two more of herself in faint outlines. One was a sturdy earth pony mare in an ancient landsknecht uniform, the other an oddly slender earth pony in an ancient Pegasopolis uniform of all things. Both seemed to be staring at her, although the landsknecht one seemed happy and the Pegasopolis one seemed morose.
Sunset then realized she was seeing triplicates of everything, both copies of herself sitting on their own cloud, while below lay three offset groupings of craters and gorges in the flats. Exactly why she was hallucinating two copies of herself rather than three was unclear to her. In any case, she knew a healing spell for this. As she concentrated, the triplicates began to merge back into one, the hallucinations faded, and the ringing in her ears quieted. Right before vanishing, the Pegasopolis hallucination brought its front legs up, tucked its hooves, and waved its elbows to mime flapping.
Yeah, flight would be real handy right about now. Stellar’s probably trying to figure out where I am and then she’ll blast me, and I don’t want to just teleport in, in case she has a teleport delay field up. I remember when I was an angelic being in the human world, I had wings of pure energy. I wonder if I could duplicate that here.
Sunset concentrated, energy building along her spine. Wings of yellow flickering energy burst forth, fading to red at the tips.
“All right! Here we go!” Sunset swooped down, staring directly at Stellar Flux. She banked right as blasts of energy shot up at her, then fired one of her own down. Stellar dodged rather than putting up a shield, and this time she was the only one knocked around by a shockwave. Unfortunately, she’s got the energy to do this all day.
Flying was coming to her a lot easier than she expected as she ducked and dipped past further bolts of magical energy. A wild thought took her fancy and she spun about her axis, the tips of her wings encasing her in a red field that deflected further shots away from her. “Wooo! Do an aileron roll!”
“Fight like a unicorn, you featherbrain!” Stellar stamped her feet and began charging another spell.
“Tribalist, much?”
“No, just giving you a piece of advice.” Stellar’s spell completed and a gigantic dome expanded rapidly from her position.
Sunset braced for impact with the energy but felt it pass over her. What she didn’t feel, however, was any air. Apparently, despite their magical nature, her wings required some to function. It was also rather important for her breathing. She lined up a teleport to the ground on the outside edge of the dome.
She skidded on the ground, then stood up and pawed the dust off herself.
“Got you now.” Before Sunset could turn around, she felt something impact her horn. She could feel dots of numbing cold slowly spread across it.
“Oh, this is perfect.” Sunset turned to see Stellar snickering behind her. “Here, take a look.” A reflective plane of force appeared next to Stellar’s smirking mug and Sunset peered at it to see the damage. Black shards of rock seemed to sprout from points along her horn. “I knew that paper I did on ancient crystal magic would come in handy.”
“That’s one of King Sombra’s spells.” Sunset gasped.
“Yes.” Stellar’s smirk grew. “It totally blocks a unicorn from using their horn. While it can be treated by various means, none of them are here with you now. I’m afraid this amusement has run its course.”
Stomp now.
Sunset blinked. The voice had sounded like her own, but she hadn’t said anything, and Stellar Flux hadn’t reacted.
Stomp left front foot hard. It was no longer words, merely an impression of an action, as though remembering how to do something.
Figuring she had nothing left to lose, Sunset stomped, finding herself putting far more enthusiasm into it than she expected. The ground shook, surprising both of them, and a jagged spire of rock barreled out of the ground from under Stellar Flux, surprising her even more.
“Huh huh how did you do that?!?” Stellar scrambled to her feet. “You’ve got no magic.”
Sunset shrugged. “I just… knew to.”
“The Tartarus kind of answer is that?”
“Uh, the only one I’ve got.”
Stomp more.
“But you know what, let’s see if we can repeat this trial.” Sunset dove forward, pushing herself towards the panicking Stellar Flux.
Stellar teleported out of the way, giving herself hundreds of feet of distance. “No chance, Sunset. No need for you to die tired!” she shouted across the flats.
Sunset took a running leap forward and then dove as if she was jumping into a lake. When she hit the ground, she passed through it as if she really had jumped into water.
“The… what the…” Stellar stood gobsmacked for just a few moments until Sunset erupted from the salty ground into her face, hoof first. Then she was just smacked.
Stellar scrambled away on her back as Sunset brought both front hooves down on the space her ribcage had occupied with enough force to create cracks across the ground, from which erupted a new set of earthen pillars intent on similarly pummeling Stellar.
“What are you doing?” Stellar’s mane had gone entirely askew and sweat had started to foam up in her fur. She’d managed to regain her footing but her legs seemed unsteady.
“Would you be insulted if I said I actually had no idea?” Sunset took a moment to ponder this while her foe was too confused to respond. I read a book once, ‘The Displaced Mare’, that was about a pony who wandered through a portal while wearing a costume and gained the powers it represented. Did something similar happen to me?
She took a momentary break from her reverie to confirm that Stellar was not attacking and instead staring ahead in crazed panic while panting heavily.
This is sort of similar to Earthbending, but I’m not really doing any martial arts moves to activate it. And in The Displaced Mare, the costume was purchased from an avatar of commerce itself. I made this one out of aluminum foil, plastic sheets, and extra fabric Rarity had.
She looked over at her opponent. Do I have metalbending? Sunset willed part of her armor to flow over and wrap itself around Stellar’s forelegs, but nothing happened. She felt an odd sense of confusion. Guess not. Still don’t have any better explanation, though.
“So, Stellar, want to call this one here? You’re not looking too good.”
“No. No! No!!!” Stellar stamped and pranced in place. “I will not fall to the likes of you! I have the unlimited energy of Celestia herself! I shall wear you down!”
“Then let’s wrap this up.” Sunset charged and landed a mighty punch onto Stellar’s face with her right front hoof. Stellar staggered and dropped onto her belly. Sunset dove on top of her, driving the air from her lungs, then grabbed her horn between her two forehooves. “Gotcha.”
“No!” Stellar flailed about, but it was clear Sunset’s strength exceeded hers. “How are you doing this!”
“100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, 10 kilometers of running every single day!” Sunset began to lever Stellar’s head down towards the dirt, flipping the other pony on her side in the process.
“This cannot be!” Sunset removed one of her hooves from Stellar’s horn so she could press it against the ground with the other.
With that, Sunset paused a moment to consider how to proceed further. The flailing and kicking Stellar’s legs were doing seemed oddly unconcerning and muted, as though they were gentle pokes coming through thick padding. Still, they indicated that Stellar was unlikely to tap out and admit defeat. Actually breaking her horn, if Sunset’s strength even sufficed for that, was right out. She also was unwilling to try inflicting pain on her helpless opponent until she conceded. What then, is left?
Sunset wasn’t sure where they idea came from, but she did it anyway. She knew it would be there as she reached into her mane with her free hoof. When she pulled it out, she recognized it instantly. She knew what she had to do. First, come up with a good friendship lesson.
“You see, Stellar, the thing about having friends is that they’re always with you, even if they aren’t there in person. The human Twilight’s helping me from across dimensions.” She held the fateful makeup kit from that memorable Friendship Games in front of Stellar’s face.
“What.” Stellar’s face was blanked with confusion, her eye that was able to rotate up to see the compact only half-focused.
“I believe the phrase is, I shall drain your magic!” Sunset opened the case at Stellar, aiming not for her horn but for the amulet she wore. Thick bands of magenta energy flowed from it for almost a full minute before ceasing.
Sunset tossed the kit as far as she could and rapidly yanked the amulet from around Stellar’s throat, drawing a wince as the chain broke against her, then a screech as the connection between them was broken.
“Yeah, without its magic that ‘only the wearer can remove it’ doesn’t apply anymore.” Now I have to dispose of it. Unlike the drain Tirek does, Twilight’s will allow the magical core to self-regenerate. I need to…
Sunset blinked as she realized what she needed to do, as if she’d always known. She stood up, letting an exhausted Stellar Flux flip over onto her belly and gaze up as Sunset put the Celestia Amulet into her mouth and bit down with an ear-splitting crunch.
Huh, tastes almost sweet. Like evil rock candy. Verifying that her mouth wasn’t bleeding, Sunset let her molars grind the shards to powder, then swallowed.
“Just what.” Stellar Flux looked on in incomprehension.
Sunset answered by belching a cloud of inky purple miasma. “Now, I believe I stated in the beginning that I would beat you up and then you would become my friend. I feel part one of that has been accomplished to my satisfaction. Is it to your satisfaction as well?”
Stellar nodded fearfully.
“Right. Let’s try this whole thing again. I’m very sorry about everything that happened to you. I will do my utmost to restore your academic career and reputation.”
“But… how? I haven’t done anything but flip hayburgers for years.”
“How’d you like to be coauthor on my papers on Starswirl’s third conjecture and the Meadowbrook-Nebula conjecture?”
“But! You did that yourself in the other world.”
Sunset shook her head. “Yeah, but you helped me conduct experimental verification. There’s absolutely worse reasons people have been made coauthor than that.”
“You’d do that?” Stellar leaned in. “For me?”
“It’s the least I could do to make up for all I put you through.”
Stellar rushed forward into Sunset’s hug, rubbing the back of her neck under Sunset’s.
A thrumming noise ruined the moment as Sunset cast her gaze to the discarded makeup kit. “Oh right, that. I need to figure out a way to safely dispose of the stored magic real quick.” She disentangled herself from Stellar and began to trot over when it flipped open on its own.
Dozens, hundreds of blobs of magic spewed forth from the magical collector as Sunset and Stellar flattened themselves against the ground. The earth shook as spires, greenery, and water seemed to materialize from a direction orthogonal to all three spatial directions.
“Just what.” Sunset stood up, staring at the city park that had replaced the barren, now-cratered ground they’d fought across. Scaly bipeds regarded her for a brief moment before breaking out into a cheer.
“Freedom!”
“The banishment has ended!”
“Celestia’s aid arrived!”
“I’m just glad they served hay at the banquet.” Stellar Flux rubbed her belly as the morning’s train departed Ergot City’s train station.
“Hey, I ate crickets at a human festival once.”
“Do all humans eat crickets?”
“Most don’t, but they can and a few cultures do.”
“Yes, but did you have to eat the crickets they offered you while I was watching?”
“It’s my right as the victor of the battle.”
“Hmph.” Stellar looked across the carriage at the Desert Gecko representatives chatting away amongst themselves in their own language. “So what happened after I fainted?”
“Eh, we talked about how they got broken out of the banishment Sombra cast on them. Apparently he was extra-furious that they’d stopped his southern flank there and banished them for 10,000 years, but the raw magical energy we were flinging destabilized it and then the amulet’s trapped energy getting free finished the whole dimensional lock off for good. So they’re getting out 8,992 years early or so.”
“That makes sense I guess.”
“Now they’re sending a delegation to tell Celestia and Luna they’re back and ask to reestablish relations. First item is some earth pony magic to help remove some of the salt build up they’ve got to deal with. Then a renewal of their old weather contract.”
“Right, speaking of non-unicorn magic.” Stellar leaned in and whispered softly. “Are you an alicorn?”
Sunset narrowed her eyes and grabbed Stellar’s hoof with her magic, then dragged it along her spine. “Feel any wings?” she replied, equally softly.
“No.”
“Then I’m not, clearly.”
“But… the age spell thing. I really did try to age you to dust, and you turned into a giant mare with glowing hair that waves in an invisible wind.”
Sunset shook her head. “I still say that’s just a growth spell. If you practiced on oak saplings, a growth spell and a multi-century age spell might get the same results.”
“The weird earth stuff you did, though.”
“Ok, that is a bit odd.” Sunset shrugged. “I’m sticking with the Displaced Mare hypothesis I guess.”
Stellar narrowed her eyes. “Ok, first off, The Displaced Mare is a work of thaumic fiction that bears no resemblance to any real-world magical laws. Second off, you admitted when we discussed this at the banquet that you made the costume out of entirely non-magic materials.”
“I used aluminum foil. Aluminum draws in magic, maybe a spare bit of Equestrian magic in the human world got stuck in it. Human world magic doesn’t obey our magical laws either.”
“Yes, but once it went through the portal it still should have.”
“Hmm. I’ll put a pin in that, I want to do an experiment on that now.”
“I’m still saying you should look for an alternate hypothesis. I mean, there are some that claim earth ponies had more dramatic forms of magic that were lost during the Great Migration due to interruption of their oral transmission. Certainly, it would explain a few of the accounts in Hurricane’s biography of the special maneuvers used to avoid fire from earth pony forces.”
“Please. Next you’ll tell me they’re still around and there’s a conspiracy to suppress the knowledge. Having a third of Equestria keep a secret from the other two thirds just wouldn’t work long-term no matter how hard you tried.”
“Is that a conspiracy theory?”
“Yeah, I researched some really weird stuff during my time trying to become an alicorn.”
“The humans thing did turn out to be true.”
“As far as I know there’s zero evidence they lived in prehistoric Equestria. Doorknobs are a Minotaur thing.”
“Anyway, what about the wings. And oh yeah the part where you ate an artefact of darkest eldritch power like a hard candy.”
“Wing spells exist, Stellar. They’re not great but I wasn’t winning any Wonderbolt Derbies out there.”
“You still haven’t answered the ‘eating the amulet’ bit.”
“Yeah, I bit into it all right.”
“Don’t deflect the question.”
“Uh, ok, that one is pretty weird. Not gonna lie, I have no explanation for that one. Maybe all the magic we threw around combined with the amount of time I spend near Pinkie Pie caused some kind of paracausal thing. And we both know not to poke those. Next topic, please.”
Stellar bent her head and sighed before acceding to the change of topic. “So you’re going to be busy for a bit busy writing up the papers on your conjecture solutions.”
“Yeah, Equestria’s never seen a computer-assisted proof before so I’ll have to explain everything from first principles. This is gonna be loooooooooong.” Sunset stretched her forelegs apart to demonstrate her point.
“Yes, but have you given any thought to what you want to do after you graduate human high school?”
“Not entirely. I’d…” Sunset shook her head. “Well, now that I think about it, maybe I should come back here and teach electrical engineering.”
“That’s quite the career change from magic.”
“I mean, I know for sure there’s at least a few differences in how electronics work across realms, but there’s no reason that what humans have should be impossible here. I know there’s positions in Manehatten Tech that have research and teaching.”
“So what, you get a doctorate in the human world then come back here? That’s sounding like a good idea. But what interested you in that?”
“Eh, it’s the thing I could do that would benefit Equestria most I think.”
“That sounds like something an alicorn would say.”
Sunset glared at her. “Really?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure the makeup case or whatever that was that drained the amulet was already a paracausal thing, so you started that. And you can’t tell me that eating an artefact of darkest eldritch power and not having any side effects isn’t a really alicorn move.”
“Oh, I’d say I have a mild to moderate desire to rule Equestria, but I’m hoping that’ll fade away a bit if I keep suppressing it. I do not want to revisit that particular drive.” Sunset made a chopping motion with her hoof for emphasis.
“Are you familiar with the ‘territorial leadership’ theory of apotheosis? Because if it’s true then that’s another sign you might be an alicorn.”
“Oh for the love of Celestia.” Sunset’s horn ignited, picking up the now-smaller unicorn. Stellar was flipped over and her face brought nearly into contact with Sunset’s back. “Alicorns represent the three tribes in one body. I’m a unicorn. It’s possible I have vaguely defined earth powers somehow. But I know what I don’t have, and that’s wings. Do you see any wings? I am not a pegasus, therefore I cannot be an alicorn.”
“Yes, you’ve made your point. Now please put me back on my seat.”
Decades ago, but not many.
“Hello!” The yellow unicorn stallion with a red mane waved to the mare sitting at the table for two outside the restaurant. He took a seat on the cushion opposite her when she waved back, but as he looked at her he seemed confused.
“Oh, right, the tribe thing.” She rolled her eyes. “I know I said on my form with the dating agency that I’m a pegasus. And I am a pegasus, despite the whole ‘no wings’ thing.”
He looked over her carefully. She was slender and sleek, not possessing the solidity he’d expect from an earth pony. Her orange-yellow coat was shorter than average, like he’d expect from a pegasus. The lack of wings was a rather large confounding data point, however.
She sighed. “I hate explaining it to all my dates, but I have a condition called congenital pegagen insensitivity syndrome. The parts of my body that are supposed to receive magical signals in the womb and grow into wings just don’t listen. So no wings, no ridge to anchor them, nothing but a back as smooth as an earth pony’s. A lifetime of dreaming of soaring through the clouds and paying for balloon rides.”
“That’s… unfortunate. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t really sure what to say and decided to go with what seemed nonthreatening.
“Yeah yeah. But I don't want to let it get to me too much. I’m still living my life, you know. But I also don’t want any foal I have to deal with the same problem, which is why I’m here in Canterlot, dating unicorns.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the disease doesn’t do anything if you’re not actually a pegasus. So if my child is a unicorn, she’d never think to miss the wings she can’t have anyway.”