The Multiverse in a Nutshell

by Pennington Inkwell

Has It Wounded You?

Sunset had to admit, she was shocked at how quickly they fell into a routine. It felt as if Isis had solved almost every doubt she had about their trip's sustainability before she had it. Every night, Isis would ask them what they wanted to eat the next day, and in the morning a box of ingredients would be waiting outside their tent. When Sunset's geode gave them a general direction, Isis would almost instantly draw up a schedule and a route with GPS to make certain they would pass by any stores they needed or places to fill up on gas. Sunset had even managed to flaunt a little knowledge of her own to Penn by pointing out places that she knew would have showers available for long-term travelers: truck stops and gyms, along with the often-overlooked public swimming pool.

Unfortunately, all the showing in the world couldn't justify continuing to wear the same filthy, sweaty clothes. On the bright side, Penn had made good on his offer to let her pick from his own wardrobe. Unfortunately, the majority of his clothes were at least a size too big for her, forcing her to tie the shirts at the waist and wear a belt tight to hold up her pants. This "fashion atrocity," as Rarity would call it, only lasted for a day as Isis proposed a better solution. Sunset's phone had opened up to a gallery of pictures of herself, cartoonishly animated and wearing all of her favorite outfits. After a brief explanation of where the pictures had come from that only slightly eased her paranoia, Sunset had picked out a few that seemed suitable for wearing on the road. That next morning, Sunset had made sure to set her alarm extra early, determined to see how the boxes had been arriving. To her disappointment, there had been only a dark shape above them, the sound of engines high in the sky, and the fresh supplies descending on their own miniature parachutes. Sunset grunted in frustration as she realized that her early-morning wake-up call had been for nothing as she watched the boxes float perfectly into place in the middle of their camp.

"How do these keep showing up?"

Sunset felt her phone buzz in her pocket, a signal she was rapidly coming to recognize as Isis's primary way of speaking up when her little drone wasn't nearby.

"A heavy maintenance unit has been assigned to deliver your supplies. It maintains a high velocity and altitude in order to avoid drawing undue attention to your campsites."

"I guess that makes sense..." she grumbled. "Still, I was kinda hoping to see some kind of delivery robot or something..."

"Perhaps the contents of the box to your left will raise your spirits?"

Sunset slipped her phone back into her pocket and dug her nails into the seam of the cardboard. Upon prying it open, she was greeted by a sight that almost brought tears to her eyes:

Clothes. Fresh, clean, neatly-folded clothes that looked as if they had come straight from her own closet. She rifled through as quickly as she could, her joy only growing as she noted that everything she had asked for was there, along with some things she hadn't. Jeans, leggings, t-shirts, blouses, and tucked at the bottom, she felt another set of very different fabrics. Taking hold, she slipped one out to examine and found herself pleasantly surprised. Never in my life have I been so happy to see clean underwear!

"Ugh... Morning Sunset..." Penn muttered groggily as he lumbered into the campsite, flanked by Isis's tiny dragon body. "What's-"

"NOTHING!"

"So... what do you think?"

Sunset took a second to ponder what she had just witnessed. The new perspective on events had been eye-opening, and explained more than a few aspects that she had always questioned and some questions she had never even thought to ask. It had forced her to sit through moments that made her want to curl up into a ball and memories painful enough to make her grit her teeth. Still, she HAD asked for it, and as difficult as it had seemed to be for him, Penn had obliged in spite of his worries for her well-being. Still, it raised a new question, one that she couldn't stop thinking about.

"Who's Rebecca Shoichet?"

Isis's projector switched off and the little dragon's maw snapped shut.

"THAT'S your only question?"

Sunset shrugged. The novelty of seeing herself animated on screen had quickly faded in the face of finally getting to see Princess Twilight's perspective of what had happened. Even if she was glad she hadn't succeeded in taking over Canterlot High and marching on Equestria in the long run, there was some small satisfaction to be taken in knowing that she really HAD backed Twilight into a corner by the end. She'd put a lot of thought into her plans to get the crown, and being foiled by what Penn called "Deus Ex Machina" (words spat with a surprising amount of venom) had been a blow to her ego. It felt good to know that she wasn't bad at planning, even back when her plans had been evil.

"She's the actress who plays you," Penn replied. "Or, well, she gives your voice. Fun fact, actually, she ALSO provides Twilight's singing voice!"

Sunset had to admit, she felt a strange sense of detachment from the animated picture. Perhaps it was the fact that it was animated, or that it was a retelling of a story everyone already knew, but she really didn't make the connection that it was anything more than a less-than-flattering record of events as they had transpired. It really was just a movie, albeit an accurate one. The idea of a voice actress needing to play the role made sense.

"Huh... Weird."

"Weird? That's IT?"

Sunset shrugged. "Penn, we've been to outer space together. Did you think a movie was going to phase me THAT badly?"

Sunset couldn't help smirking a little at her friend's disappointment. Whatever kind of fireworks he had been expecting her to give off, she had failed to give it.

"Have to admit, though, I REALLY didn't appreciate how catchy the cafeteria song was at the time!"

"Ready to apply what you've learned?" Penn asked. He held himself with an air of smug confidence, one born out of being the man who held all the cards.

Literally...

The two of them had decided to take a risk and set up a campfire tonight, and Sunset had made good on her promise to make an effort to learn Penn's beloved card game. They had been on the road for three days since Aperture before he had finally brought it up, and after a hearty dinner of fire-cooked hamburgers he had set himself to teaching her the basics. He was using the same deck he had been shuffling to himself all this time. The cards were covered in plastic sleeves, bright blue on their backs and transparent on the front to make reading easy, but Penn had slipped a few out from their protective covering for her to look at, revealing a complex swirl pattern of browns and blacks on their back side.

"Let's do it!"

Penn smiled and spread out the cards he was holding in his hand on the ground. "Identify what's what, then!"

Sunset smiled, the answers easily coming to her from the last hour they'd spent chatting. "The purple ones are trap cards, the green ones are spells, and the brown ones are monsters!"

Penn raised an eyebrow, wordlessly questioning if that was all. Sunset took the challenge in stride, placing her finger on the first card in the lineup. It was a purple card depicting a group of adorable monsters being swept up in a revolving door. "Ghostrick Revolving Door" it read across the top, with a small infinity symbol just below the text designating it as a trap card.

"Continuous Trap. I can activate it on my opponent's turn, and it stays on the field with an effect at all times."

She moved on to the next card, a green spell card with a lightning-bolt symbol under the title, "Mystical Space Typhoon." The art of the card was true to its title, an all-encompassing vortex of clouds and wind in blues, greens, and grays.

"A Quick-Play Spell. I can activate it straight out of my hand like any other spell, OR set it like a trap to use on my opponent's turn!"

Penn nodded, his smile widening in a familiar way. It was the smile of a teacher proud of their student, joy at seeing them succeeding. It was the same way Sunset remembered Princess Celestia looking at her when she was a filly learning her first high-level spells.

Of course, this was just learning a children's card game called "Yu-Gi-Oh." It was significantly easier than transmutation of matter. The most complicated part of the game that she had been introduced to so far was that each of the three main types of cards had multiple sub-types that each had their own functions. Not only that, but it seemed like every single card in the game had its own individual effect, each of which had its own prerequisites to activate on an individual basis. Penn seemed to know them almost by heart, as if an entire encyclopedia of cards was sitting in his head and he was just reading from it.

"It's just about knowing the rules and extrapolating from them. Every card works within the rules." You know... except for all the EXCEPTIONS he keeps bringing up! Not to mention...

"What about cards like Ghostrick Angel of Mischief? All this time, we haven't seen any BLACK cards!"

Penn shook his head. "We'll get to that tomorrow. I'll start teaching you how to use the 'extra deck' once you've got the basics down, like the phases of a turn!"

Sunset sighed. She didn't regret asking him to teach her how to play, certainly not. He had come alive the moment he had unzipped the pouch on his belt, and his energy had been contagious, making her eager to learn. However, Sunset would be lying if she said that she wasn't feeling as if the more that she learned, the more she knew she had YET to learn.

"But you're learning fast!" he clarified, giving her another playful grin. "We'll have you dueling in no time! I'll even start building you a starter deck tonight, if you want! Any requests?"

Sunset blinked, the offer catching her off-guard. "How? I mean, I don't even know how to play, how would I know what to ask for?"

Penn smiled and shook his head knowingly. "Well, a duelist's deck is a reflection of themselves! You can learn a lot about a person from how they choose to play the game! There's as many ways to play Yu-Gi-Oh as there are duelists!" He thought for a moment, then picked up the cards from the ground and pulled them all together into a single deck. With a smile, he offered the blue-sleeved cards to her. "The Ghostricks are great for a beginner, and plenty of fun to play! Consider it a training deck."

Sunset's eyes widened, and she hesitated to take them. "Are you sure? Isn't this YOUR deck? If they're so personal, is using someone else's deck an okay thing to do?"

Penn chuckled as he shook his head. "You're overthinking it, Sunset. I play with the Ghostricks because I think they're FUN, and I want you to have fun, too! That's all there is to it!" He gave her a playful wink as he pushed the cards into her hands. "I think it's what the cards would want, if they could speak up for themselves!"

Sunset grasped the cards with a small degree of reverence. He was treating it like a small matter, but Sunset hadn't forgotten what these cards meant to him. Not to mention the strange things that had happened in Aperture, with the cards somehow finding their way to him out of thin air or the way he constantly shuffled them to calm himself down. Not to mention...

"Thank you, I'll take good care of them, I promise!" Sunset assured. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

Penn leaned back and held his arms open wide. "Fire away."

"You said that these cards came from a show, right? In the show, do the monsters in the cards ever... save their owners? Like, if the person with the card is in danger, can they intervene on their own?"

Penn's eyes widened, but if he was wondering where the question came from, he didn't ask. He tapped his chin in thought for a moment, then nodded. "In the show and the original manga, the cards were really just a way to open a gateway to another world so that a corresponding spirit could come through to ours! Sometimes, in really rare or important moments, particularly powerful spirits could absolutely act out on their own. Without being summoned properly, though, they usually can't do much. They may intervene for a split second, but that's all." He shrugged, then leaned forward. For a second, Sunset saw his face twist into a grimace of pain as he straightened his posture to rise up to his feet.

"Is your back still hurting?"

Penn nodded, letting his breath hiss through his teeth. "Seems like it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"Wait, it's getting WORSE?"

Penn paused, giving her a confused look. "Yes? What about you?"

Sunset reached down and pulled up part of her shirt, giving him a look at her stomach and side. The blue and purple splotches were nearly gone now, and the pain in her leg was easy to ignore by this point. "Almost totally healed! You've been using Isis's cold compresses and taking the anti-inflammatory pills, right?"

Penn's eyes widened in surprise and he stared at her for a few seconds before turning back in the direction of the car with a huff. "Stupid unicorn genes... rainbow magic healing..."

Sunset considered going after him, but it was clear that he was heading to bed now that his mood had turned foul. Instead, she turned to Isis, whose tiny robot body was sitting beside the fire and keeping a watchful eye for any errant sparks. "Should we be worried about him? If his pain is getting worse, is something wrong?"

"Perhaps. However, your healing is occurring at a rate that would be considered unnatural to any native human of his world. Conjecture: perhaps your origin from a world where physical injury is generally used for comedic effect and rarely permanent leaves you with accelerated healing compared to other humans."

"I don't feel any different than normal..." Sunset muttered. "And what do you mean 'comedic effect?' People getting hurt is serious business!"

"Affirmative. However, given the status you and your friends have as 'main characters,' I would theorize you benefit from the phenomenon known as 'Plot Armor.' This would mean that you are highly insulated against bodily harm that would render you unable to function in your appointed role. If this hypothesis proves true, you will heal much more quickly than Elijah as the status quo re-asserts itself."

Plot armor? Status quo? Sunset could already feel her head starting to spin. She pushed herself up onto her feet and turned towards her tent. "Well, that's just a theory, right? If his pain is worse tomorrow, I think we should check on him."

"I concur. Goodnight, Sunset Shimmer. I will continue to monitor the campfire until it safely burns itself out."

Sunset nodded, happy that she didn't have to worry about putting out the fire herself and ruining their improvised fire pit.

"Goodnight, Isis. See you in the morning..."

"S-Sunset?"

Sunset blinked her eyes open. She could tell just from looking at the walls of the tent that it was still dark out. The heaviness of her eyelids told her that it was the middle of the night, rather than the early morning. That meant...

"What's wrong?" she mumbled, forcing herself to sit up slightly, though she refused to open her sleeping bag. It was warm in there and if she could avoid compromising that microclimate she was going to do so.

"I n-need help..."

THAT was Sunset's wake-up call. His voice was wavering and weak, a shadow of himself. In just a few seconds, she was out of the sleeping bag and on her feet, meeting him in the tent's open doorway. By the light of the still-burning campfire, she could see that Penn was a mess. He was drenched in sweat, pulling his hair thin against his head and soaking the front of his shirt, but shivering violently in a way that racked his entire body. The moment she was outside, Penn grabbed her shoulder and she felt a heavy weight come down on her that made her knees nearly buckle. His eyes were bloodshot and his face tear-streaked in a way that showed he had been crying without even a thought to cleaning himself up before coming to her. With him leaning on her, Sunset could feel the heat of a high fever radiating off of him in waves.

"It- It huuuurts..." he whined. It was like a child's whine, the kind given when they had run out of tears to cry, and it broke her heart to hear it. She had to wonder how long he had struggled on his own before he had broken down enough to come to her.

"ISIIIIS! WE NEED YOU!" Under the extra weight, Sunset was barely able to put one foot in front of the other, hobbling the two of them to the place he had sat to tutor her before. It took every ounce of strength in her legs to lower them both to their knees slowly and gently, rather than collapsing. He gave a small whimper with the impact, and Sunset spun around as soon as his weight was off of her, turning to face him and look him in the eyes. "It's okay, Penn, it's going to be okay, okay?"

"I am here, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset watched the tiny mechanical dragon slip around behind Penn, peering curiously at the surface of his back.

"The shirt must be removed."

Sunset nodded, turning her attention back to her friend. Penn was taking haggard, ragged breaths, barely controlled and on the cusp of hyperventilating. She leaned in, gently placing her hand on his cheek to break his focus and bring his eyes up to meet hers. "I need to take off your shirt. Can you raise your arms?"

Penn shook his head slightly from side to side as his forced breathing continued. Sunset leaned over to get a look at Isis, relaying the message with a tiny shake of her head. Isis needed no explanation, pacing back around and hopping up onto Sunset's arm. The little dragon's legs clamped down on her forearm and her tail straightened as a straight-edge blade emerged from it.

"Then it will need to be cut."

Sunset stared for a moment at her fresh accessory, then nodded. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Penn's for a moment. It felt scorching, a definite fever that was threatening to cook him from the inside out. "I'm not going anywhere, okay?" When she got her response, a tiny nod and an extra shudder in his breathing, she stepped away and moved around behind him. Being extra careful, she gripped the bottom of his shirt and lifted it away from his back enough to slip Isis's tail underneath. It took only a small amount of pressure for the blade to slice through the material, and in one motion she was able to make an incision from bottom to top, slicing the shirt nearly in half.

"You may wish to brace yourself."

Sunset took a deep breath, then turned the back of the shirt over like a page in a book.

Later, Sunset would thank Isis for her quick reaction to retract the blade, because her hand instantly came up to cover her mouth and hold back a cry of surprise. Penn's back was a mess of blacks, deep violets, yellows and reds all fading into and out of one another, swollen and misshapen in places, with six uniform, inch-long slits spaced out and covered in black scabs. She could scarcely believe it, it looked more like a diseased oil painting than living flesh. She had just checked her own bruises before bed, finding them near-nonexistent, and this hammered home to her that Isis was at least right about one thing:

She and Penn were from totally different worlds.

Isis released her grip on her arm and scurried up to Sunset's shoulder, giving a small hum as she scanned the damage.

"As I feared, it would appear that the incisions made whilst we were below Aperture Science have suffered a bacterial infection. The improvised tools were not ideal, but it would appear that my attempts to sterilize them were fruitless."

"An infection? What do we do?"

"I have already arranged for a delivery of emergency medical supplies."

"That's it? Can't I do anything about... THIS?" she gestured to the mess of discoloration on his back. Isis's head shook.

"Without antibiotics and sedatives, no. However, the psychological effects of comfort from another human being would lessen the perceived pain by distracting him. I would recommend attempting to make him comfortable until supplies arrive."

Sunset nodded, circling back around to face him again. He kept his head facing down and his breathing still refused to fall into an even rhythm. Sunset reached out and took a hold of his hand, feeling it instantly clamp down uncomfortably on her.

"Did you hear all of that?"

Penn's head bobbed lightly up and down in affirmation.

"Well, I'm going to stay right here with you until the medicine gets here, understand?"

Another nod, this time accompanied by a mumble Sunset vaguely interpreted as the words "thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, that's what friends are for. I'm going to keep asking questions to try and keep your mind off of the pain, okay?"

He nodded again, and Sunset started raking her mind for unanswered questions.

"Why doesn't the portal gun work, any more?"

It was true. Ever since they'd left Aperture, the portal gun had stopped functioning. It still powered up and fired, but the energy simply fizzled out any time it struck a surface.

"It- It only works..." Penn panted, "on certain... surfaces. Moon rocks. That's what the... white paint... was made of." He was struggling, but Sunset took the fact that he was answering at all to mean that he was willing to try.

Sunset thought back to another question that still nagged at her from time to time.

"I think, back in the hardware store, the dalek hesitated to shoot me. I know you think I got lucky, but is there any reason it would have let me live?"

There was a pause, and Sunset saw his brow furrow in concentration.

"M-maybe... If you're part of a... fixed point in time. They know better... since they're time travellers... than to mess with a pre-determined... event. But that's... highly unlikely." He let out a long groan, and took a deep breath. "Fixed points are extremely rare, like the eruption of Pompeii, or if you see your own future and set the course of events in stone by observing it!" He rushed through the entire sentence in one breath, and once he was finished, she noticed his breathing had finally slowed down and smoothed out. Isis was right, distracting him is working!

Sunset thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"Well, I sure haven't gotten any peeks into the future, and I don't think we're going to do any time travelling in your Oldsmobile, so I guess I really DID get lucky." She glanced around their campsite, looking for inspiration for her next question until her eyes settled on Isis.

"Why does Isis look like a dragon?"

"The guy who built her... likes dragons... more than people."

"It's... just that simple?"

"Pretty much."

"Do dragons actually exist where she's from?"

"Nope."

"...Huh. Guess he doesn't like people much?"

"Nope."

Sunset paused for a moment, a new question presenting itself.

"Do you think WE'LL ever see any dragons?"

"Not... if we're lucky."

Sunset balked slightly. That was an unexpected answer, to say the least. Of all people, she would have expected Penn to be excited about seeing a mythical creature. "Why not?"

He shook his head slightly in response. "Dragons... are like the ocean. You gotta... respect them enough... to understand... they're not on your side. They're on their OWN side."

Before Sunset could ask him to clarify the statement, she was interrupted by a high-pitched whistling from above them. Isis perked up, turning to look upwards.

"High-priority package inbound."

"Just how fast is it-"

Sunset was cut off by an explosion of sand and dirt on the other side of the campsite as something embedded itself in the ground.

"Medical supplies have arrived."

Isis strode off into the darkness beyond the campfire's reach, and Sunset heard the sound of a pressurized container opening. She wasn't certain what the little droid was doing in the dark, but when she reappeared, she was carrying a transparent pill bottle in her teeth. She padded over to the space between the two of them, dropping the bottle at Penn's feet.

"A sedative to help promote restful sleep. Take three orally. I will administer topical antibiotics and analgesic cream."

Sunset reached down with her free hand and picked up the bottle, offering it to her friend. Penn quickly released his painful grip on her other hand, promptly forcing open the bottle and shaking out the recommended number of capsules.

"I'll go get some-"

Without a moment's hesitation, he threw the pills to the back of his mouth and swallowed.

"...water. Never mind." Reminds me of how Pinkie downs hard candy when she's in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Isis padded around behind him, the tip of her tail moving aside, this time revealing a nozzle hidden underneath. Without a word, a fine mist began to spray out, completely coating Penn's back in a matter of seconds and filling the air with the smell of antiseptic. His face twisted into an expression of pain for a moment, but quickly melted into pure relief. Sunset felt her own worry ease as his pain seemed to disappear.

"Better?"

He only nodded in response.

"This spray will need to be applied every four hours. If he sleeps on his stomach, it can be applied without awakening."

Sunset pondered the situation for a moment.

"Give him the tent, I'll sleep in the car."

Penn's eyes shot open and he opened his mouth to protest, but Sunset held up her hand to indicate that she would accept no arguments. "You NEED to lay out right now. I'll be fine."

There was another pause, and he finally hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry-"

"No!" Sunset shook her head. "No 'sorry!' I'm doing it because I want to, okay? Now go get some rest!"

Sunset glanced over, seeing that Isis's treatment had already finished. She reached around and under his shoulder, helping him back to his feet. The two of them staggered across the campsite, and Sunset was barely able to stop him from collapsing on top of the sleeping bag. As they moved, Isis's sedatives seemed to be taking effect at an alarming rate, leaving him unsteady and mumbling slurred words of thanks to her. She was unable to rescue her pillow before he had claimed it, instantly falling asleep on the floor of the tent with a content smile on his face.

Sunset wiped a bead of sweat from her brow as she zipped the tent shut.

"Unfortunately, I cannot advocate the operation of heavy machinery while under the influence of these medications."

Sunset looked back, noticing that Isis had taken back up her previous place watching the campfire.

"We probably should let him rest, anyway. I don't mind taking a day off from our road trip!" It sounded carefree, but Sunset had to admit she was reluctant. She would have been willing to drive if she had any hopes at all that Penn would hand his keys over to her, if only to make certain there was one less day between now and finding her friends. Still, it would be cruel to ask him to spend another day in a seat where half his weight is on his back. "Wake me up if anything goes wrong, okay?"

"Affirmative. Thank you for your help, Sunset Shimmer. You were of great assistance tonight in a way that this unit is incapable of providing."

Sunset smiled, giving only a nod as she turned towards the car. With a sigh, she settled herself into the front passenger seat and grabbed the reclining lever. With a hard yank, she pushed the chair as close to horizontal as she could get it and pulled her unzipped sleeping bag over herself as a blanket.

Penn's been sleeping in here since we left, how hard could it be?

I wonder if Isis will give me one of those sedatives?

According to the clock on her phone, Sunset had been tossing and turning for almost three hours. She was MISERABLE. She'd tried counting sheep, sitting with her eyes closed and keeping perfectly still, sleeping on her side, sleeping on her stomach, and even asking Isis to play lullabies for her through her phone. She'd climbed into the back seat to lay down across three places, opened one of the windows so she could stick her legs through and lay out completely, and laid her arm over her face as an improvised sleep mask.

She could. Not. Fall. Asleep.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

Great! It's not as if I was sleeping, anyway! Sunset reached over and picked up her phone. "What, Isis?" Sunset's phone angrily flashed red and white in her face, forcing her to cringe and turn away the screen.

"There is an intruder in the camp!"

Sunset bolted upright. In a single motion, she threw off her blanket and pulled her legs back in through the window. She practically exploded out of the door, closing the distance between the car and the campsite in seconds.

True to her word, Isis's robot had taken up an aggressive stance against a stranger. The other boy was standing with his hands raised in a sign of surrender, clearly trying to placate her. Sunset had to admit, it was almost comical seeing someone so afraid of a robot smaller than a cat, but there was no time to laugh. Sunset ran up beside Isis, holding the handle of the lightsaber in one hand, just in case. The stranger turned to her, looking relieved at the sight of another human.

"Can I help you?" Sunset asked, keeping herself on guard. After the first day she had met Penn, she wasn't planning on taking any chances.

The stranger reached down to his pocket, keeping his movements slow to avoid provoking her. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched him retrieve a deck of cards with a familiar brown-and-black swirl pattern on the back.

"A little bird told me there was a duelist around here... I figured that in all of this insanity, like-minded folks ought to stick together?"