//------------------------------//
// Microwave 
// Story: Transmission Spectrum 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

The ladies' room of Sugarcube Corner wasn't the best place to have an emotional breakdown, not like the soulless, institutional stalls of CHS. It felt more like a residential half-bath, with a single toilet, walls done up in a pastel blue and pink color scheme reminiscent of Mrs. Cake, and a plug-in air freshener that made the whole room smell like cinnamon sugar. But Sunset didn't let that stop her.

She wasn't sure how long she spent sobbing, but she managed to cry herself out after some time. Rarity must have been listening at the door, because a few moments after Sunset moved from weeping to wallowing in sorrow, she heard a knock on the door followed by "Sunset? Are you feeling better?"

Sunset grunted something unintelligible. Rarity of all people should've appreciated a good wallow.

"We're here for you if you need us," Fluttershy said through the door.

"Uh-huh." Sunset didn't have the emotional energy to try to resent Fluttershy right now.

"You just have to let us in. Emotionally and literally," Pinkie said from right behind her. Sunset didn't even lift her head. She knew the other girl wouldn't be there when she looked. Or she'd be standing in the landscape hung over the toilet. There were days Sunset suspected that changing the world had actually weakened Pinkie's abilities.

Well, she'd be able to confirm that now.

"Sunset?" Sunset cringed. Oh no. Not Twilight. Not now. "We need to—"

"Phrasing, darling!"

Sunset could almost hear the eye roll. It was like another dagger to her heart. "I want to talk."

Another grunt worked its way up Sunset's throat, but she cut it off when her view of the bathroom tile got cut off by a pair of indigo boots. She looked up to see a concerned Twilight look back. Twilight's gaze darted away as she started toying with a loose strand of hair. "Pinkie confirmed you weren't, er, using the facilities. And, well, let's just say you've made me question certain assumptions and provide evidence for certain hypotheses that, in hindsight, I deliberately hadn't tested. And Timber Spruce may be, shall we say... facing an oral exam soon. For comparison's sake."

The gears in Sunset's mind groaned into motion, settling into the familiar task of translating Twilish scientific euphemisms. "Even so, I'm sorry for doing that. I won't make any excuses, I still—" Then they locked up again. "Hang on, Timber Spruce? The camp counselor? Isn't he like twenty? That's kind of creepy."

Twilight's developing blush flared up in an instant, turning her cheeks a furious magenta. "He's eleven months older than me and I turn eighteen next month. It's not... creepy." She curled her fingers into air quotes for the last word.

Sunset snorted as the banter enveloped her like a comfy blanket. "Sure. Told your parents about him yet?"

The blush grew until Twilight almost glowed. She cleared her throat. "Right now, we have more important things to worry about."

"That wasn't a yes."

"Come on, you." Twilight took a step back and held out her hand. "We have a world to save."

"Again." Still, Sunset managed a smile as she took the hand and pulled herself up. "I really need to get out of the habit of Twilights pulling me out of my hole." She gasped. "Of course!"

Twilight blinked. "What?"

"In a second. 'Scuse me." Sunset scrambled around Twilight, out of the bathroom, and all but through her dearly beloved friends.

"Sunset, bipedalism!" called Fluttershy as the others followed after her.

"Right! Sorry!" Sunset had reared back up by the time she made it back to the table where Rainbow Dash and Applejack waited. "Time isn't the problem," she cried, "space is!"

Both seated girls shared a perplexed look. "So... aliens?" Dash said after a moment.

Sunset shook her head. "No, none of the species in contact with us would have anything to gain from this. Okay, maybe the Vaucoi, but this seems way outside their capabilities."

That got perplexed stares from everyone, including the Cakes and the few other customers who had trickled in during the off hour.

"I'll get to that." Sunset let the others seat themselves, then more quietly said, "You all know how Equestria is a different world with a lot of the same people as this one, right?"

Rarity grimaced. "Intimately. We had to trek through the Everfree Forest after the Lux Deluxe sank. I can understand why you'd miss unicorn magic, Sunset, but given the choice, I much prefer a society that isn't clothing optional."

"Hey," said Dash, "if it weren't for that portal, we'd have been stuck on that island for who knows how long. Or blasted by..." She trailed off and furrowed her brow in thought. "I guess it was the ghost of the Storm King? What was his deal, anyway?"

Sunset's jaw worked silently for a few moments. "We're going to have to come back to that too. The point is, it's not the only other world out there."

"I knew it!" Twilight cried, popping out of her seat with arms raised to the sky. "I knew the magic horses confirmed the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics!" She held the pose for a good few seconds before collapsing back into her chair, head in her hands. "What is my life?"

Sunset couldn't help but smile at the bittersweet familiarity. "I know how you feel. But thinking of Princess Twilight made me realize there was one discrepancy that no amount of time travel could explain, the journal."

"Which one?" said Pinkie.

Sunset stared at her in blank incomprehension. "Excuse me?"

"Well, you, I mean the local Sunset, not you-you but youish? You adjacent? She went back to Equestria to pick up a fresh one after she-you filled the first one."

"Exactly my point. In my world, the journal was supposed to provide pages as needed. It couldn't fill up. But this one did. A magical artifact behaving that differently can only mean I'm in the wrong universe."

"Isn't that worse than time travel?" said Dash. "Going by comics, there are a lot of other worlds out there. And most of them are full of evil versions of us. Or zombies."

Pinkie gasped. "Or evil zombie usses!"

Sunset shook her head. "It's fine. I know people in the local multiversal society. Contacting them may be tricky, but I have a couple options there."

"That's all fine an' dandy, but where's our Sunset?" said Applejack.

Sunset furrowed her brow. "I'm... not sure. I was honestly too focused on figuring out what even happened to think about her. She could be sequestered in my subconscious right now. She might have been sent into a third Sunset like one of those pendulum office toys."

"Falling's cradle," said Twilight.

"Or..." Sunset winced. "We could have switched places. Which is the worst outcome possible."

The others shared confused glances. Rarity spoke for the group. "I know our two worlds are quite different, but how bad could it be?"

Sunset rose from her seat. "We can talk about it at my place. I think we've taken enough of the Cakes' time and hospitality, and I don't know how much of the supernatural you want to share with anyone who happens to be in the room." She swept a hand across the cafe, making more than one person try to hide the phones pointed at the group.

"Oh, everyone in town pretty much expects this from us." Pinkie waved at a few of the more poorly hidden cameras.

Applejack hoisted her by the collar. "Don't mean we gotta go flauntin' it. C'mon, y'all." 





Silence fell over the loft after Sunset finished running down the basics of her world. The others sat, all staring at nothing in particular as they tried to grasp the magnitude of what she'd told them.

Rainbow Dash spoke first. "So... I can fly whenever I want?"

The others turned to face her, all with varying amounts of bemusement on their faces. "Really?" said Applejack. "Outta all o' that, that's yer takeaway?"

"Hey, flying's awesome!"

"You can pretty much call up yer wings whenever ya want here an' now."

Dash crossed her arms. "Yeah, but the other me's been able to do it for months more than me. She's got an edge."

Applejack buried her face into her hat. "Fer cryin' out loud..."

Twilight turned to Sunset, notebook hovering beside her in a way that every instance of Twilight apparently developed once she had telekinesis. "So, personal symbols are at the crux of a religion?"

"Is that not the case here? " said Sunset. "I didn't want to intrude." 

Twilight shook her head. "They ultimately developed from noble heraldry. Wealthy merchant families commissioned their own coats of arms, which became a sort of early corporate logo in simplified forms. As fortunes changed, more and more such symbols spread among the populace, and the younger generations made larger and larger alterations to their family crests. In time, it developed into the modern state of personally significant symbols with loose thematic connections within a family. At least, that was how it worked in Stirrope. In the East—"

Sunset held up a hand. "I get it, Twilight. Normally, this would be fascinating, but we have bigger concerns."

"Like you holdin' that whole dang universe together with chewin' gum an' chicken wire," said Applejack, who had somehow ended up sitting on Rainbow Dash over the course of Twilight's lecture. If anything, it was a comfortable bit of normalcy.

"And that's the best it's been in months," said Sunset. "If the place is going untended, it's working its way down to spit and duct tape. And if your Sunset is there, she could be doing untold damage without even meaning to."

Pinkie scratched her head. "So how do we get she-you back and you-she to the right warp pipe before the timer runs out?"

"Like I said, I have some contacts outside of the universe, and I know the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau likes to hire iterations of the same person for this kind of work. But there might be an even more reliable option." Sunset turned to Fluttershy. "Do you think you can get me in touch with Mr. Discord?"

The girl shook and paled to the color of a Maneila folder. "M-m-m... No! I hated that show when I was a little girl!"

After a moment of blank incomprehension, Sunset shook her head. "Okay, I'm lost. In my world, he's your favorite teacher at CHS."

Twilight tapped away on her phone. "If you mean John Q. Discord, in this world, he's kind of the face of popular science. He had a popular edutainment show about ten years ago, The Fun of Making Sense." She angled her phone so Sunset could see muted video of a somewhat less gray Mr. Discord capering around in a way very reminiscent of one of his classes. Then a little cartoon chimera popped into being next to him.

Fluttershy was halfway to a fetal position by this point. "There was this horrible, nasty little creature who'd show up and say the most awful things!"

Twilight nodded and tapped the edge of her phone. "The Draconequus. He'd propose scenarios that are physically impossible, Mr. Discord would shoot them down, they'd both sigh in disappointment. It happened at least once per episode." She gave a sheepish grin. "I may still have a plush Draconequus in my closet."

"Well, he was a bit of a long shot in a world without widespread magic," said Sunset. "ETSAB contacts it is. Pinkie?"

Pinkie snapped to attention and snapped off an admittedly impressive salute. "Yes, ma'am, Commander Shimmer!"

Sunset smiled. She could use a little silliness right now. "Private Pie, I'm going to need the contact information for Ditzy Doo and Lyra Heartstrings."

Pinkie remained at attention, but the others looked confused. "Beg pardon, Sunset," said Rarity, "but who is 'Ditzy Doo'?" 

"Right, she said her name was inconsistent. Sudsy Bubbles?" More blank stares. "Derpy Feet?"

Fluttershy gasped. "Oh, Muffins!"

"My next guess," said Sunset.

Rarity shook her head. "You'll have no luck there, darling. If she is a secret agent across time and space, then she's put it on hold. Last I heard, she and her beau were spending as much of the winter holiday together as they could get away with."

"Oh." Sunset couldn't help but smile. "Well, good for her and Flash. They're cute together."

The others traded yet more perplexed looks. "Flash?" said Dash. "As in Flash Sentry?"

"Um... yes? Who else?"

"Bulk Biceps."

Sunset felt her jaw drop. The sound that escaped her mouth wasn't speech. It barely qualified as human.

Applejack gave a wry grin as she gently shut Sunset's mouth. "Y' just imagined the kids, didn't ya?"

Sunset cleared her throat and looked away. "Maybe."

"Don't fret, everyone gets that look when they find out."

"The phrase 'bull in a porcelain shop' comes to mind." Rarity put a hand on Applejack's shoulder and gazed into her eyes. "Oh, but they are precious together."

Applejack looked back with equal affection. "Heh, yeah. They sure are."

Sunset smiled. "Nice to know some things didn't change."

Both looked back at her. "Huh?"

"Uh... Aren't you two..." Sunset whipped a finger back and forth between them.

As one, Rarity and Applejack cried "She doesn't—!" They stopped, looked at one another, and chorused, "Do you?"

Dash scratched her head. "I thought you two got together after the whole Equestria Land thing."

"Equestria what!?" said Sunset.

"The animation company," said Twilight, "not the pony universe."

"There's an animation company?"

"What about Ragamuffin?" said Applejack.

Rarity put her hands on her hips. "What about Dirk Thistleweed? 'Slather away' indeed."

Pinkie sidled up to Sunset, phone in her hand. "Yeah, this might take a while. It's calling Lyra now."

"Thanks, Pinkie." Sunset put the phone to her ear.

"This is Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings."

Sunset gave her universal activation phrase, the one that would activate any sleeper agent of the Strings Section of the Office of Parallel Timelines when said in her voice: "Pony wears the saddle."

After a few moments of silence on the other line, Lyra said, "Sunset, I don't know if this is a weird alien horse thing or if Pinkie's trying to teach you how to make prank calls, but either way, it isn't working."

"No, no it isn't." Sunset slumped onto her couch. "Sorry, we're in the middle of magic nonsense and there was a slim chance you could help."

"Would it help if I went to your home planet again? Because you never let me get a good look at it last time and—"

Sunset heard the aggravated "Lyra." She could only imagine how it sounded on Lyra's end. "I'll, uh, let you get back to whatever you were doing. Tell Bonbon I said hi."

"Who's Bonbon?" Lyra's tone turned almost as hostile as her best friend's. "Don't you dare spread rumors about me cheating on Sweetie Drops again, Shimmer."

Sunset flinched back from the phone before she could even think to catch herself. "Sorry! Alternate universes are involved."

"Okay. This time." With that, Lyra disconnected.

Sunset sighed. "Well, Lyra was a bust. And I'm out of convenient ways of contacting the greater multiverse." She looked around the room and noted the complete absence of mysterious doors with her cutie mark on them. "And apparently I don't need a drink as much as I think I do."

"Uh..." Dash uhhed.

"If you ever really need to find out, you will."

"You do have one guaranteed contact outside of this universe," said Twilight.

"Who?"

Twilight stared at Sunset for a moment, then took off her glasses, pointed at herself, and raised an eyebrow. After another brief pause, she said, "Please don't make me undo the ponytail. It takes longer than you think to get it the way I like it."

The penny dropped. "Oh. Of course!" Sunset sprang to her feet. "You said there was a second journal?"

Twilight pointed up to the actual lofted part of the loft. "You usually keep it on the shelves by your bed."

"Then I know what I have to do." Sunset looked around the room, from those friends smiling back at her to the ones currently lost in one another's eyes. "Thanks guys. All of you."

Fluttershy fidgeted. "Um, we didn't really do much."

"You did more than you know. You guys are how I stay grounded in my world, how I keep myself from going as distant and hands-off as the Tree of Harmony. Without you specifically, I don't know what I would have done today."

"Group hug!" cried Pinkie.

After get pleasantly crushed by everyone, Sunset waved them off. "Now go on. I don't want to eat up your vacation any more than I already have."

"Dude, seriously?" said Dash. "We're just about to get to the good part!"

Sunset shook her head. "We're getting to the part where I'll have to investigate this in Equestria. You may all have a little experience with hooves—apparently—but this calls for rigorous magical analysis. No offense meant, but I'm barely qualified for the next steps."

Twilight grinned. "You say that like it's going to deter me."

"Also, your counterparts are kind of famous at this point, so duplicates hanging around might raise some uncomfortable questions."

"There is that, yes. Your counterpart was adamant that we avoid the locals' notice whenever possible."

"Even though I was right there and I totally could've raced myself," added Dash.

"Look, if things go wrong..." Sunset thought about it and said, "You know what? No matter how things go, I'll let you all know what the plan is after I get in touch with the princess. But right now, I'd like to figure this next part out on my own."

"Well, y'all heard 'er." Applejack tipped her hat on her way out. "Good luck, Sunset."

"Let us know the moment you have something concrete," said Twilight.

"Cement your suspicions!" cried Pinkie, fist in the air. "Make an asphalt of whoever did this!"

"And when you find our Sunset, tell her we miss her," said Dash. "You're cool. Like, cool enough that people literally worship you."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "No matter how much I tell them not to."

"But she needs to get back where she belongs as much as you do."

Sunset bumped Dash's offered fist. "No argument here."

Fluttershy waved farewell. "Tell the ponies we say hi. And to visit us sometime."

"Will do." Sunset turned to her last guest, who was making no effort to depart. "Uh, Rarity? Pretty sure you have business with Applejack."

"Far more than I realized, yes, but I feel you should know one more thing about this world. Consider it further impetus to set everything right."

Sunset crossed her arms. "At least one universe will explode if I don't pull this off. I don't need any more motivation."

"All the same. You mentioned that Flash was seeing Muffins in your world?"

"Yeah," Sunset said with a nod. "The whole 'childhood friends turned lovers' thing. Which you seem to enjoy yourself."

Rarity cleared her throat, though, she couldn't completely hide her blush. "As I said, darling, this isn't about me, it's about you. Muffins didn't get together with Bulk because she spurned her best friend's advances. The name may change, but we both know she wouldn't hurt anyone like that. Flash has been trying to rekindle his relationship with you." Rarity looked straight into Sunset's eyes. "And you've expressed at least some interest in doing so."

It shouldn't have been a major revelation. It wasn't, in the grand scheme of things. But it still made the pit in Sunset's stomach sink even deeper. "Oh."

"Indeed."

"That is extra motivation. Breaking his heart once was bad enough, and that was back when I could tell myself he was just a tool, not a friend. Thanks, Rarity."

"Of course. Thought you ought to know." Rarity gave one final wave and left the loft.

Once the door shut, Sunset took the stairs up to her bedroom two at a time.

The second journal was embarrasingly easy to find once she knew there was one to look for. It wasn't like there were a lot of other leather-bound books on her shelves. Certainly none that had "Cover material donated by Daisy Jo of Ponyville, 1076-1108" debossed on the back.

The cover image brought a bitter smile to Sunset's lips. She traced the purple right half of the design. "Soon." Then she opened it and started reading. The missives from Twilight were largely familiar at first: Concern over growing royal responsibilities, funny moments from Ponyville, the trials and triumphs of Starlight Glimmer.

But then they kept going. A "Festival of Friendship" where everything had gone wrong, from the foreign dignitaries proving unable to attend to a surprise invasion by some southern warlord. A School of Friendship based on the experiences of guiding Sunset and Starlight both, intended to spread harmony worldwide. The new students' quirks, Cozy Glow's scheming, Sombra's return...

Celestia's retirement.

Nerveless fingers dropped the journal as Sunset contemplated that. Celestia... was. The idea that she would abdicate, that she even could, it would be like Sunset herself passing on her mantle.

A mantle that, right now, was either going unclaimed or resting on unready shoulders.

A few deep breaths, and Sunset managed to collect herself. "Sun-mommy issues later, filly. Investigation now." She picked up the journal again and flipped back to where she'd left off.

The gradual transition of power. The Summer Sun Celebration becoming the Festival of the Two Sisters. Discord's nearly cataclysmic attempt to boost Twilight's confidence by bringing together her greatest remaining adversaries. An accession ceremony that had gone almost as badly as the Festival of Friendship, and how Twilight was sorry Sunset couldn't attend.

And as Sunset turned to the first blank page, a folded sheet of paper fell out of the journal, not one of the creamy Equestrian pages but a standard-sized sheet taken from the printer tray downstairs.

She unfolded it, and...

Dear Princess Twilight,
Today I
I never meant I did
In a ˜π˜ƒø¨ π© ≈ƒ∫¬øƒ†† liar
If you could
Today I
Allow me to begin by
I'm sorry. I'm so not enough
Is there any way to
Tell Celestia tell her what?
Ô ˚√†¨ ≈∆†ˆ ∆¨ ∂π√µ´ ˆ∫∑ƒ 烃ø ˜ƒ

On it went, lines fitfully starting and stopping all across the page, some crossed out once, others so heavily scribbled over that Sunset couldn't begin to guess what lay under the graphite smear. But she didn't need to. She recognized her guilt as easily as her handwriting.

Still, none of the scratched-out lines said just what the local Sunset had done.

Sunset stopped herself moments before she called Apple Bloom. She'd never given this one domain over the past. The Apple Bloom she could call couldn't perform psychometry on the sheet anymore than Sunset could. The only person who could say what it all meant was gone, and Sunset was using her body.

She sighed and fell back onto her pillow. Her head lolled to the side, facing her nightstand, and that was how she saw it.

Sunset hadn't even noticed it that morning, focused as she'd been on the familiarity of her phone. But there it sat, shining like a drop of amber, engraved with her cutie mark.

Grimacing, she grabbed the necklace, holding the crystal up to her eyes. It crackled with cobweb-thick bolts of energy, and she felt a distinct sense of rejection and resentment.

"I know. I'm not your Sunset, and I passed up my geode. But I did that because I didn't need more power then, because I was honestly afraid of what more power would do to me. If you want her back now, I need your help. You're the only other entity that was here when it happened, and you clearly have some degree of awareness."

The geode didn't react to that, but it was a very pointed sort of nonreaction, deafening in its silence.

"You exist to bridge gaps, foster understanding. Help me understand what your Sunset did and why, and I'll do everything I can to bring her back where she belongs."

Time stretched on as the crystal gave no response. Just as Sunset began to question the wisdom of negotiating with a piece of jewelry, it flashed with a gentle, familiar golden light.

Sunset smiled. "Thank you." She donned the necklace and put a hand on the scratch paper.

Almost immediately, her vision whited out, and the past unfurled before her.