Everything proceeded swiftly and logically from there. So swiftly and so logically that Sunset only really thought about the specifics when an imitation Canterlot accent crooned out, "Twilight?"
Twilight jumped and turned towards the sound, and the unicorn who'd made it and was now poking her head through the doorway. "Rarity! I can explain."
Rarity shook her head as she walked into the room. "No need. I can appreciate much of what's going on. For one, based on Sunset Shimmer's presence—Hello, Sunset."
Sunset gave an awkward grin and a wave to match. "Hi, Rarity."
"I can presume that this has something to do with the human world." Rarity began to pace about. "That presumption is supported by the creature who I shall assume is the inexplicably still human Muffins. Hello to you too, dear."
"Hi, pony Rarity," said Ditzy, who had to sit to fit under what was for her a terribly low ceiling, especially given the tangled assembly of wire she wore like a tiara. "It's a bit more complicated than that, but basically yes."
"I see." Rarity turned back to Twilight. "Now, both you and Star Swirl are present—Greetings, sir."
"Lady Rarity," said Star Swirl, not looking away from his work but still giving a brief nod.
"However, none of the other Pillars or our friends are, thus this clearly also involves magic far beyond my understanding or capability."
Twilight frowned. "You're a much more talented spellcaster than you give yourself credit for, Rarity. You—"
Rarity held up a hoof to cut her off. "Compliments later, darling. I'm deducting."
"Inducting, actu—"
She shook the hoof in Twilight's muzzle. "Ut-tut-tut! Now." Rarity resumed her pacing. "You teleported in rather than simply using the door, so this is clearly a matter of great urgency indeed. With all of this put together, I largely have a sense of what is going on. I have but one question for all of you."
Twilight gulped, her ears folded back. "Yes?"
Sunset's followed suit when Rarity shrieked, "Why in the name of every princess are you doing whatever you're doing to my dressing room mirrors!?" For Star Swirl had planted himself in front of the trio of oval mirrors in the back room of the Boutique and even now was inscribing looping, curling symbols into the ones on the sides.
For his part, he didn't even flinch at the shout. "I am crafting a portal to this Sunset Shimmer's adopted home plane," he said. "It desperately needs her, and without her, the consequences for both it and her Equestria will be dire. The human, called Ditzy Doo in her world, is providing the necessary vibrational frequency I can use to attune the mirror to its proper destination."
"Yes, all well and good, but why my mirrors?"
"We needed mirrors big enough for somepony to walk through," said Twilight, trying to smile, "and the Boutique was the... first place... I thought of?" The smile held up admirably well against Rarity's glare. Twilight less so.
After another few moments of trying to channel Fluttershy, Rarity said, "I see. I don't know if I should be flattered or infuriated."
"I will be finished in fairly short order," said Star Swirl. "Enchanting the portal was never the problem. Making a suitable mirror was. Quality glass was much harder to come by more than a millennium ago. I had to make most of them myself."
"And you'll clean up after yourself, I trust?"
Star Swirl was facing the mirrors, but Sunset could almost hear him roll his eyes. "We are in the process of saving multiple worlds, Lady Rarity. Some degree of mess is to be expected."
Rarity answered with an even more elaborate scoff than her human counterpart's best. "I have saved this world many a time, sir, and I have always managed to leave it as I found it, if not better."
Sunset considered the two as they kept bickering, along with Twilight watching in silent horror. "They may be a while," she said to Ditzy. "What can you tell me about the specifics back home?"
"Well, I don't have a full firsthand account, but Agent Heartstrings briefed me on the parts I didn't know. Apparently, they called in a Pinkie who's more perceptive than most to fill in the gaps."
Sunset tried not to think too much about what that entailed. "I guess they would have several available."
Ditzy nodded. "Based on their reports, it all started last night..."
The last thing Sunset had known, she'd been falling asleep in her bed, trying not to think too hard about the wishblossom or anything else she might have tried to ask of it. Then she was wide awake, standing somewhere she didn't recognize, what looked like someone's attempt to make an abandoned warehouse liveable. And going by the familiar decorative touches, that someone had been her.
"What the-?" She didn't get out anything more before the sensations hit her. First, magic. Not the faint whisper of potential she'd sensed at Camp Everfree; no, this was like she'd regrown her horn then jabbed it into a power outlet. Magic was everywhere, including in her. Especially in her.
And as her mind tried to accomodate the return of her sixth sense, it kept expanding far beyond that, out and out until there didn't seem to be any out left. Sunset didn't just feel everywhere, she was everywhere. She was vaguely aware of her body staggering against a cheap sofa and falling backwards. The sensation of a skull hitting inadequately carpeted cement hit her like a memory of an old bruise.
It was enough to remind her what and where she'd been a few moments—Minutes? Eons?—earlier. She wasn't sure how to get back, so she just tried.
And it worked.
Sunset got to her feet. She was unsteady at first, but then she realized that she wasn't actually in pain; she had just expected to be. She turned and looked at the impact site, flipping back the rug.
The cement had cracked.
She brought a hand to the back of her head.
Not even a twinge of pain.
"Huh." Sunset smiled. She held out a hand towards the broken floor. A familiar rush flooded through her body, centered in the middle of her forehead, exactly where it should be.
And the floor mended itself.
"Heh. Heh heh." Sunset felt her grin slowly widen to Pinkie proportions. "Heh heh heh. Ha haha ha. Ha hahaha haha ha ha!"
Sunset gave Ditzy a flat look. "Really?"
Ditzy brought her arms down and coughed into a fist. "Okay, the maniacal laughter might have been an embellishment on the Pinkie's part. But the point is, she figured out how to use your powers really quickly."
"Not surprising. My abilities are ultimately based on pony magic. Human magic adds some wrinkles, but for someone like me, that usually makes things easier. Still, I'm guessing people noticed that I'd been replaced."
Ditzy bit her lip. "Well, thing is, you know how you removed your need to sleep?"
"Yeeees?"
"That meant she had multiple hours to do research."
Sunset winced. She knew what she'd do in those circumstances. This specific her, anyway. "Research in how I usually behave?"
Ditzy shook her head. "Research in how you're percieved."
It had begun with a Gillion search for her name, just to get a sense of what the wish had done.
The first hit had been for something calling itself "the Church of the Divine Bacon Horse."
From there, Sunset went down the rabbit hole of Shimmerism as far as it could take her: The Digital Positivists. The Seventh-Day Zen Agnostics. The Citric Relevantists. Orthodox, Vehemist, Reconcilist, Scarlet, Saffron...
The more she looked, the more denominations she found. The more proof she had that she'd gotten exactly what she'd asked for, that this wasn't a fantasy...
Was it?
Sunset got up from her laptop and wandered the warehouse until she found a full-length mirror. Judging by all the curlicues along the edges, it was probably a gift from Rarity. What mattered was that it let her see herself.
She took in the pointed ears and the oval jewel embedded in her forehead. "Huh." She got the gem to flash like a horn tip and shrugged. "Whatever works. Now, let's try something I know is impossible."
And with the tiniest exertion of her will, Sunset made himself a new body.
He immediately realized he should've made himself new pants as well.
After a few moments of extreme awkwardness, Sunset shifted back and nodded to herself. "That confirms it." Unicorn arcanists had tried and failed to make a gender change spell for centuries. Her wish hadn't been granted; she was just dreaming it had.
Sunset shook herself out of that line of thought. She flexed her hands and will, played a few bars on a guitar that existed just long enough for her to get out the tune, and smiled even more widely. It wasn't just a dream; she was fully lucid.
She rubbed her hands together, possibilities already springing to mind. "Oh, we will have fun with this."
"So, between the many sects of Shimmerism and the possibilities offered by human magic, she's concluded that home is too ludicrous to be real." Sunset's lips twitched. "This would be funny if it weren't potentially catastrophic."
Ditzy cleared her throat and managed to get her own smile under control. "She definitely found enough reasons to convince herself that it didn't matter what she did. There wouldn't be any consequences."
A chill ran down Sunset's spine. "Oh. Great. Because that's always my healthiest state of mind, thinking I can get away with everything. At least tell me she didn't blow up the planet."
"I would have mentioned that by now. She definitely hadn't blow up the planet when I was last there, and she probably won't."
Sunset took a deep breath. It helped. A little. "Probably."
Ditzy shrugged. "We can't rule it out completely."
"And if you ignore Mr. Discord's 'A scientist is never sure' mantra?"
"We should be fine. She... actually likes the idea of being worshipped." Ditzy wrung her fingers. "Like a lot."
Sunset facehoofed. "Oh no."
"Yeah, that was the first major sign something was off."
Ruby Rose gulped. "Um, Sunset?"
Sunset smiled down on her. "Yes, Ruby?"
"No offense meant, o Glorious Proclaimer, but... why are you here?" The pale pink redhead swept her hand across the central Church of the Divine Bacon Horse to emphasize its here-ness. "You usually avoid the place like the plague."
Well that was just silly. It probably symbolized something about Sunset's latent self-loathing. "I just wanted to show my appreciation to my largest and most charitably active congregation."
"Uh... huh." Ruby edged away from her, which might have worked better if Sunset weren't watching her do so. "Excuse me for a moment, I need to go calibrate Crescent Rose." She spread her wings—weird way to work pegasus magic, but Sunset appreciated the novelty—and zipped off.
Sunset herself shrugged and walked among the Baconists, happy to speak with people who were so happy to see her in turn. Anyone who'd come on a dreary late December morning like this was clearly devout, after all.
After several minutes, she heard a "Sunset?" and looked up.
She beamed at the familiar faces. "Hey girls! What's up?"
Applejack scratched under her hat. "You, uh, feelin' alright there, sugarcube?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Sunset spread her arms wide. "This dream is amazing."
An awkward silence stretched out just long enough that Sunset furrowed her brow and willed it to end. On cue, Rainbow Dash blurted out, "Did you hit your head or something?"
Twilight shook her head. "That shouldn't have any impact on her memory. Her mind's effectively on the cloud."
"Well she needs to get her head out of the clouds!" Pinkie turned to Sunset, actually frowning. "This isn't a dream."
Sunset was taken aback for a moment before a realization made her smirk. "Okay, I see what's going on."
"We're concerned for you and want to make sure you're okay?" said Fluttershy.
"No, you're my conscience." Sunset smiled fondly. "Of course it'd take the form of you girls. I appreciate the concern, really, but it's not like I'd do anything I'm planning in real life!"
Twilight approached her, scowling. "Sunset, this is—"
"Nope, not putting up with this." Sunset wanted her friends to calm down and drop the subject. At that desire, she felt connections to them like she felt when harnessing the geodes' power (and she'd have to look into where those had gone at some point.) It was a simple matter to reach across those bonds and—
"At that point, the inter-Pinkie feed went dead." Ditzy shrugged. "We're not sure what happened."
"She found the connection between us and she..." Sunset fought to keep her breathing under control as she considered the implications. "She weaponized it. We discovered it this summer, during the whole Fluttertree incident. The girls and I are connected on a fundamental metaphysical level, and that meant she could just reach out and..." Sunset shuddered. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"I apologize in advance," said Ditzy.
Sunset blinked and tried to focus on the here and now. "For wha—"
Arms grabbed her by the barrel and heaved her into a lap. "H-hey! What are you—" Fingers began to work behind her ears, and her eyelids fluttered shut. She bit her lip to keep from moaning or any other noises.
"My word. How scandalous." Sunset was aware of the words, but couldn't bring herself to care.
"Not now, pony Rarity."
"That was not a condemnation. Going by Sunset's reaction, you could put the local spa to shame."
After that, Sunset lost track of time for a while. At least until Ditzy stopped and said, "Should I keep going?"
The pit in Sunset's stomach, banished by those wonderful fingers, started to reestablish itself. "With the scritches or the news from home?"
"The news."
Sunset sighed and got out of Ditzy's lap. "As much as I want to say no, I need all the information you can give me. People have to have noticed this on a wider scale. What's the overall reaction?"
"Well, most people are waiting to see how this shakes out before they do anything really drastic." Ditzy gave a lopsided grin. "For all we know, this is how your PMS works these days."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "I turned that off before I stopped my sleep cycle."
"Well yeah, who wouldn't? Still, everyone's hesitant to do anything too drastic in case this all blows over. You're too important to risk on a misunderstanding." Ditzy looked away, though she ended up with one eye still on Sunset. "But they're not going to wait forever."
"And we're still figuring out what can work as an effective countermeasure against me beyond ludicrously unsafe levels of dark magic." After a moment, Sunset added, "Maybe Mr. Discord."
"I actually can give a firsthand account there. He wasn't answering his phone, so Agent Heartstrings sent me to get in touch with him directly. 'Cause, you know, intern. And..."
It was already a bad day. Aria Blaze answering the door made it worse. Ditzy wasn't terribly fond of any of the sirens, but at least Sonata and Adagio just embraced Mr. Discord's more trollish side. Aria gave off the impression that the only thing keeping her from tearing out Ditzy's throat was getting kicked out of the house.
Ditzy tried very hard not to think about what Mr. Discord being out of contact might entail there. "Um, we've been trying to get in touch with—"
"I know. He left his phone here, and it's been running in circles ringing at max volume. And it's indestructible." Aria cracked her knuckles.
The decidedly destructible Ditzy backed away a few steps. Some of them were vertical. "Well, uh, if you could just tell me where I could find him, I can get out of your hair."
Aria peeled back her lips. It came off as less a sneer and more showing off how her teeth were closer to a shark's than a pre-change human's.
Ditzy couldn't exactly meet the other girl's gaze, but she did hold her ground. Airspace. A little of both.
Finally, Aria shrugged and pulled a balled-up piece of paper out of her jeans. "Whatever. Might as well pass this off to someone who cares." She threw it at Ditzy's face and slammed the door. After a moment, she repeated the process with a smartphone that had grown little arms and legs.
Ditzy let the phone perch on her shoulder as she uncrumpled the paper.
To whom it may concern,
As Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, I have decided the safest and most reasonable course of action I can take in light of Sunset Shimmer's recent descent into solipsism is to depart the planet for the foreseeable future. In the event you have need of me that my lovely assistants cannot provide, you can find me in the oceans of Stirropa, looking for life beneath the icy crust. Don't worry, I'll make sure I don't contaminate the area.
I have no doubt that I'll be able to detect whatever overdramatic magical display will resolve this little to-do, so don't worry about getting in touch when it's all taken care of. Moreover, don't try dragging me back to try to fix things. This is a strictly capital-H Harmonious problem, and I'd really rather not experience petrification firsthand.
Yours in any way that doesn't involve facing a mad demigoddess,
John Q. Discord
"So, yeah, he ducked out."
"I can't say I blame him." Sunset sighed. "I'm not happy about it, but I can't blame him."
Ditzy nodded. "That was basically how Agent Heartstrings felt. She said they may have to bring out the big guns."
Sunset took a moment to consider that statement in the context of the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau, an organization that was to the fabric of existence what a weather patrol was to climate. She gulped. "What are the big guns?"
"I have no idea, but she didn't seem happy about the idea. She said she'd try to give us a reasonable window to try something else, but..." Ditzy sucked a breath through her teeth. "Yeah. Not looking good."
"Wonderful," Sunset groaned.
"If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure my hip icons flashing through my pants were enough to convince them to hold off for a little longer."
"How long is a little longer?"
Ditzy bit her lip. "I... kind of flew out of the meeting before I could get any hard numbers. I figured every second counted."
"They probably do." Sunset took a deep breath. Nothing for it now. "Thanks, Ditzy. You've been a big help. Now we just have to wait for Star Swirl to—"
"It is done," Star Swirl proclaimed. He had a good voice for proclaiming.
"Finally." Rarity had an even better voice for complaining.
He scowled at her. "This would have taken most mages weeks to complete."
"I'm sure most mages would have found mirrors somepony else wasn't already using."
Sunset got to her hooves. "Rarity, we're on a time crunch."
Rarity had the decency to look sheepish. "Right, of course. Ever so sorry. I get testy when something forces me to close early, and I can usually take it out on some threat to Equestria."
"In any case." Star Swirl ran a hoof along the left-hoof mirror's edge. "I admit, this was rushed work. Once I activate the portal, it will burn itself out in a matter of seconds." He leveled a harsh glare at Rarity. "Which will do no harm to the actual mirrors."
She bobbed her mane. "So long as we're clear on the matter."
"Given that, it seems wisest to send only Sunset and Ditzy. I find it is best to keep everypony in their proper world."
Ditzy cleared her throat. "Right. That is definitely a thing I do."
Star Swirl gave her a long look, then shook his head and turned to Sunset. "Are you ready?"
"We have to be. And given the time we have to work with..." Sunset looked to Ditzy. "Get on."
Ditzy looked at Sunset's face, then her back, then both at once, more confused with each step. "What?"
"Get. On."
"Um..." Ditzy settled on Sunset's back. Given how she couldn't stand up straight in the dressing room, that involved a lot of hunched-over scuttling. "Is this as awkward for you as it is for me?"
"It'll be even more awkward after we're through," Sunset said with a smirk.
Star Swirl shook his head. "I only wish I had enough time to ascertain just how much knowledge of your future you carry with you. The long-term effects could be—"
Sunset shook her head. "With all due respect, Star Swirl, I hold together a cosmos for a living."
"I thought most of your income came from T-Cup donations," said Ditzy.
"My point is that I have a pretty good sense of what will or won't break the timeline. And most of the stuff in my world doesn't apply anyway." Sunset looked up at Ditzy. "This you is going out with Bulk."
That got a shrug. "And? Bulk's cute, in a craggy kind of way."
"Very well. Good luck to both of you."
With that, Star Swirl lit his horn and set it against the engravings on the right-side mirror. The magic raced along the runes, curving and spinning back on itself until it consumed the central mirror in a wavering plane of light, sparks spitting along the edge.
The moment it seemed finished, Sunset galloped through.
The other mirror portal always felt vaguely like being drunk. Through a straw. This felt more like a pinball table in freefall, with Sunset as the ball. She bounced off of not just walls, but also ceilings, floors, and Ditzy Doo. Any moments of sublime transcendence were lost in the turbulence.
Finally, Sunset found herself sprawled out on snow. Judging by the shape of the cold prickling the ends of her forelimbs, she had hands. Judging by the way she could detect the madness behind her through something that was neither smell nor hearing nor touch, she had a headgem. Judging by how she wasn't immediately freezing, she had the jacket she'd put on that morning.
But that was where it ended. She couldn't feel anything greater unfolding in the back of her mind, no connection to a vast power that would let her shake off her bruises by building a fresh body. This was Sunset, and only this was Sunset.
"Okay," she said as she got to her feet, "Call it halfway there."
"Have I mentioned how I hate portals?" said Ditzy, who'd apparently stabilized in midair, if upside down. "Because I hate portals. And I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual."
"Well, you shouldn't need to go through more any time soon." Sunset looked around, then looked behind her. "Huh." As she'd suspected, they'd come out the side of the CHS statue opposite from the usual portal location.
"Uh, Sunset?" Ditzy said as she reoriented herself. "Your zipper is flashing."
"Huh?" Sunset looked down. A stobing amber light shone through the teeth, rising further and further up her chest. She unzipped her jacket a few inches, letting the geode pop out, floating in midair and blinking like a turn signal. "I think it detects the other Sunset."
"Well. That explains her."
Sunset looked up when she heard Ditzy's worried tone, and her own eyes looked back, galaxies glittering within.