//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Bonus Features // Story: Behind the Scenes of SunChips // by Godslittleprincess //------------------------------// Unfortunately, Cinch’s agents had discovered the Air Force base and apprehended everyone there, including Flash. The agents brought Flash before Cinch, who greeted Flash with a satisfied smirk. “Wonderful to see you again, Agent Sentry,” she said to him. “Oh, can it, Cinch! We both know that I know you lied about Sunset stealing Micro Chips’s body,” Flash snapped. “Where is he?” “On his way to neutralize Sunset Shimmer, her Micro Chips, and the rest of Westview,” Cinch revealed, her smirk growing wider. “You found a way to bring him online?” Flash exclaimed. “How?!” “Thanks to our little mishap with the drone, Sunset Shimmer had inadvertently given us some of her energy. At the end of the day, only one synthoid will be left standing, Sunset Shimmer will go down as a terrorist, I’ll be seen as a hero, and absolutely no one will be able to prove otherwise.” “I still have copies of the original security footage in my email inbox,” Flash noted. “Yes, yes, of course,” Cinch conceded before continuing, “Although, it is a shame that Micro Chips went on a rampage before we could recover him, killing you before you could reveal that footage to anyone. Of course, you could just delete that footage all on your own, and no one else will have to die.” As Cinch delivered her monologue, Flash managed to swipe a phone someone had left lying around near him and hid it in his back pocket. “So, my options are either death or cooperation,” Flash noted. “Gee, that’s real tempting, but there’s one small snag in that little threat of yours. How are you going to have Project Hacker destroy Westview and everything in it and kill me within the hour before my friends from the bureau get here?” “You’re bluffing,” Cinch scoffed. “Am I?” Cinch paused staring intently at Flash as if trying to decide whether to believe him or not. In the end, she simply rolled her eyes and had her agents take Flash to a makeshift holding area. As soon as the agents left him alone, Flash slipped a paper clip from out of his sleeve and went to work picking the lock on his handcuffs. Those online magic classes he took five years ago taught quite a few surprisingly useful skills. Flash smiled to himself as his handcuffs came undone before reaching for the phone he had swiped and discreetly dialing his boss’s number. “Magnus, it’s Sentry,” Flash whispered into the phone. “I’m right outside of Westview, New Jersey, being held captive by Abacus Cinch and her underlings. Do you have anyone you can send within the hour?” Meanwhile, Twilight was still trapped in “Shutterbug’s” house watching Sunset and Chrysalis fight each other. Sunset had managed to get her daughters away from old witch and sent them to their room for their safety. Suddenly, a white humanoid figure flew in from the sky and attacked Sunset. “M-Micro?” Sunset exclaimed in shock. The figure did indeed look exactly like Micro Chips except this Micro Chips was completely white. The white Micro Chips turned to attack her again, but, to Twilight’s utter incredulity, another Micro Chips intercepted him, the one she and her friends have been watching through a television screen this whole time. “There’s two of them?!” Twilight exclaimed. The two synthoids flew off into the sky trading blows with each other while Chrysalis took off towards the center of town with Sunset following her. “I’ve got to help her,” Twilight declared before running for the door. Unfortunately, Lightning Dust used her enhanced speed to block her and throw her against a recliner. “Yeah, I don’t think so, little miss,” Lightning taunted. Twilight gritted her teeth and rushed forward, tackling Lightning onto the floor and pinning her to the ground. “How is Shutterbug or whatever her real name is controlling you?” Twilight demanded. Then, Twilight noticed something glowing around Lightning’s neck just peeking out from under her shirt. Twilight grabbed onto the glowing object and yanked it off, revealing it to be a string of crystal beads. As soon as the beads broke off, Lightning Dust’s eyes widened with surprise as she stared at Twilight. “Good gosh! What happened?!” she cried out. “And why are you on top of me?” “What are you able to remember, Lightning?” Twilight replied. “I came into town to housesit for my cousin while he went out of town on vacation,” Lightning recounted. “Next thing I knew, I had a massive headache, and this chick was screaming and crying inside my head. I don’t know when it stopped, but when it did, some other woman’s voice started telling me what to do.” “Sit tight and don’t go anywhere,” Twilight ordered as she got up and ran out the house. Just as she reached the sidewalk, a funnel cake truck drove up and parked in front of her. “Moon Dancer!” Twilight cried in relief, recognizing the driver. “Oh, thank goodness! Wait. You do know you’re Moon Dancer, right?” “Yeah, I ran into Micro Chips earlier, and he woke me up from the mind control,” Moon Dancer explained. “Which Micro Chips?” Twilight asked. “There’s another Micro Chips? Here?” Moon Dancer exclaimed in surprise. “Yeah, a white one. I saw him attack Sunset earlier. Speaking of which, we need to get to the center of town and help her. We can trade info on the way there,” Twilight stated as she boarded the truck. Moon Dancer nodded before driving the truck to the town’s center. One info swap session later… “So, Sunset Shimmer never stole Micro Chips’s body?” Twilight repeated to Moon Dancer. “Yeah, and I have a hypothesis about the Micro Chips we’ve been watching all this time, and another one about what happened to the one at SWORD headquarters,” Moon Dancer began before explaining, “I think that Sunset somehow created Micro along with the Hex and that the Micro Chips Cinch said was stolen actually never left her possession.” “If you’re right, that means the Micro Chips I saw attack Sunset earlier is working for Cinch,” Twilight deduced. “If Sunset did create SunChips Micro, then she could have inadvertently linked his existence to the Hex, which would explain why he couldn’t leave it,” Moon Dancer continued. “So, if Sunset takes down the anomaly,” Twilight inferred. “Micro will go with it,” Moon Dancer finished. Moon Dancer slammed her foot on the brakes when a pillar of red energy emerged from the center of town and the anomaly’s barriers began to dissolve. Simultaneously, a crowd of people stampeded past them towards the receding barriers. “Sunset’s taking down the anomaly and letting the citizens go,” Twilight realized. “Does she know Micro can’t survive without the Hex?” Moon Dancer noted fearfully. “She might not,” Twilight replied. “We’re not going to be able to drive through this mad scramble. I better try to get there on foot. I’ll meet you there.” Twilight got off the truck and ran towards the center of town, dodging panicking civilians along the way. “Yeah, sure,” Moon Dancer uttered in resignation. “I’ll meet you there, too.” “That’s our cue, people. Let’s move,” Cinch ordered when she saw the walls of the anomaly begin to disintegrate. She and her agents loaded up in their armored vehicles and zoomed into the town ready to take down anyone who stood in their way, especially Sunset and her family. As soon as the last of the SWORD agents left the base, FBI agents flooded the place and released Flash from the holding area. Flash was about to direct some of them to follow Cinch and her agents when the anomaly’s barriers suddenly rematerialized. “Okay, we’re locked out again,” Flash noted exasperatedly before ordering, “All right, everyone, let’s just get everything here packed up as evidence. Once the dust clears, we need to be ready to put Cinch away for a long time.” Twilight managed to get past the crowd but was still a short distance away from the center of town. From where she stood, Twilight could see Sunset Shimmer shooting red energy into the anomaly; she could also see Micro Chips and the twins collapsed on the ground about six feet away from Sunset. Micro was falling to pieces while the twins were, for the lack of a better term, glitching. All three of them were crying out in pain while Sunset stared in horror. Chrysalis laughed cruelly, explaining, “You tied your family to the false reality you created, and now, one can’t exist without the other. Life is full of tough choices, isn’t it?” Sunset looked from her family to the now empty town square she was standing in before cutting off the energy she had been sending into the anomaly, causing the barriers to reform. Then, she ran to Micro and their daughters, helping the three of them up and pulling them into a hug. Shortly after, Cinch and her agents pulled into the square while Project Hacker flew down and hovered a short distance away from them, glaring at Sunset and her family darkly. The four of them were surrounded. “Looks like the torches and pitchforks have arrived,” Chrysalis observed dryly from the top of the tallest building in the vicinity. “Girls, I know your mother and I never prepared you for this, but,” Micro began, addressing his daughters. “You were born for it,” Sunset finished. Project Hacker dive bombed at the family, only to be intercepted by Micro Chips, sending the two of them tumbling into town hall. Sunset looked from Cinch and her agents to Chrysalis before turning to Amber and Suncatcher, saying, “Girls, take care of the clowns. Mommy will be right back.” Sunset flew up and met Chrysalis in the sky, the two of them trading energy blasts at each other. Meanwhile, Suncatcher used her speed to disarm Cinch’s agents, and Amber used her telekinesis to crush their guns into a ball of scrap metal. Cinch scowled stepping forward and raising her pistol at the girls. Twilight realized what Cinch was about to do to Sunset and Micro’s daughters and put herself between them. “No!” she cried as Cinch opened fire. Twilight’s eyes once again glowed blue as the bullets phased through her before dropping harmlessly to the ground. To Twilight’s horror, one of the bullets zipped past her head towards the girls. Thankfully, Amber was able to use her powers to slow it down and catch it in her hand. “Nice trick,” Twilight complimented. “Thanks,” Amber replied. “I liked yours, too.” With her agents disarmed and her entire clip unloaded, Cinch realized how badly she was losing this fight. Her only chance of winning was if Project Hacker managed to destroy Sunset’s Micro Chips. That chance blew away in the wind when a white Micro Chips-shaped blur burst from the town hall’s roof and flew off to who-knows-where. Cinch growled in frustration before returning to her vehicle and ordering the driver to make a getaway, but before the driver could even turn on the ignition, a funnel cake truck slammed into Cinch’s car and pinned it to a nearby building. “Whooo!” Moon Dancer cheered from the truck’s driver’s seat. “I hope you like prison, you old witch!” With Cinch and white Micro Chips taken care of, the only enemy left undefeated was Chrysalis, and so far, she and Sunset seemed evenly matched. As she watched the fight between them continue, Twilight began to finagle with the radio from one of the armored cars. “Flash, this is Twilight! Come in! Come in!” Twilight shouted into the radio. Back at Cinch’s base, Flash and his colleagues had finished packing away anything that could be used as evidence against Cinch and were now simply staring at the anomaly’s walls in anticipation. “Come on, you two. Please, be okay,” Flash muttered under his breath, praying that Cinch and her weaponized Micro Chips hadn’t done anything fatal to Twilight and Moon Dancer. His prayers seemed to be answered when he heard Twilight’s voice coming from the base’s radio. Flash raced towards the radio, grabbed the microphone, and responded, “Twilight! It’s Flash. I hear you loud and clear, over.” “Loud and clear on my end,” Twilight replied, “over.” “Did you find Moon Dancer? Are both of you okay? What’s going on in there? Over.” “Well, Cinch and her goons have been taken care of. Something happened to white Micro Chips that made him quit the fight between him and Westview Micro Chips. It turns out Shutterbug is actually a witch, a literal witch, and Sunset might be one also, over,” Twilight rapidly explained. Flash blinked a few times as he processed Twilight’s explanation. “Okay, I guess Shutterbug being a witch explains why facial recognition wasn’t able to get an ID on her,” Flash noted hesitantly. “Anything else I need to know about? Over.” “Right now, Sunset and the witch are in the middle of some kind of aerial fight, but Sunset keeps missing her for some reason,” Twilight relayed, “and now the witch seems to be draining Sunset of her energy. Oh gosh, Flash. This fight’s not looking good for Sunset, over.” “What’s going to happen to you guys and the people still inside if she loses?” Flash questioned worriedly. “Over.” For a while, Twilight didn’t say anything, worrying Flash even further. “I don’t know,” she finally answered, “but if worse comes to worse, I just want to say that I’m really glad I met you, and thank you so much for being my friend. Moon Dancer will probably want to say something to you too, but she’s stuck guarding Cinch, and I don’t think this mic chord is long enough to reach her, over.” Flash sighed. Somehow, he had a feeling Twilight was going to say that. “Twilight, just in case I don’t get another chance to tell you,” Flash replied, “I just want to say you showed some Avengers level bravery and selflessness today. I mean, you risked your life and safety to help someone who treated you like an enemy. If that isn’t the stuff heroes are made of, then I don’t know what is, over.” Twilight didn’t answer for a whole thirty seconds, enough time for Flash to start thinking something horribly permanent happened to her. To his relief, he heard her voice coming through the radio again. “You’re not going to believe what I just saw!” Twilight exclaimed. Earlier… Sunset hovered limply in the air after Chrysalis drained her of most of her power. Chrysalis laughed malevolently as she built up her magic to blast Sunset into kingdom come, but as she moved to cast her spell, absolutely nothing happened. She tried again only to be met with the same result. Shocked and frustrated, Chrysalis looked around her. At first, she saw nothing, but then, she saw them, protection runes. Each rune was as big as a house, and each of the anomaly’s six walls were etched with one rune each. All the bystanders on the ground, including Twilight, could see them too. They didn’t know what they were for, but they did notice that their presence seemed to have an affect on Chrysalis. After giving the runes a cursory glance while replaying Sunset and Chrysalis’s battle in her mind, Twilight realized that Sunset had been discreetly carving them into the anomaly the whole time. She looked back up at the two and could see Sunset and Chrysalis’s lips moving but couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. Then, a brilliant flash of red light engulfed Sunset, and when she emerged from it, her eyes were glowing red, and she was dressed in a new outfit. Her new clothes included a cape, heeled boots, and a pointed headpiece, and every single component was red. Chrysalis stared in horror at Sunset’s new form while Sunset concentrated a massive amount of red energy in her hands. Then, Sunset unleashed all that energy in a single, powerful blast. The blast struck Chrysalis, draining her of her power and forcing her to the ground. Once all Chrysalis’s power was drained, Sunset floated down, landing softly next to her downed foe. “Foolish girl!” Chrysalis spat. “Do you have any idea what you just did?!” “I’ll deal with that when I find out,” Sunset replied nonchalantly. “For now, I need to figure out what to do with you.” “What are you going to do? Turn me over to the authorities and have them lock me up?” Chrysalis scoffed. “Yeah, right!” Sunset retorted. “As if there is a single government agency in the whole world that is equipped to deal with witches, especially one like you. Oh, no. I’m going to turn you into Shutterbug and make you live here where I can always find you.” “My, my, you really are a witch,” Chrysalis mocked. “Only a witch would impose a punishment that cruel on someone else.” “Don’t worry,” Sunset falsely reassured. “You’re not going to be Shutterbug forever, just until I need you again.” With that, Sunset raised her glowing left index finger and touched Chrysalis’s forehead with it. The energy spread over Chrysalis’s body, changing her back into Shutterbug. “Hey, neighbor,” Shutterbug cheerily greeted Sunset before looking her over up and down. “That is some getup you’re wearing. You and the husband have a hot date tonight or something?” “Or something,” Sunset replied with just a twinge of sadness in her voice despite the smile on her face. Sunset’s daughters rushed to hug her, and she received them with abundant hugs and kisses. Then, Micro Chips approached her and took her by the hand. “I know you’ll make things right again,” he said to her, looking intently into her eyes. “Just not for us.” “I guess not,” Sunset conceded before leading her family back to their home. Twilight watched Sunset and her family go before noticing that the anomaly was receding. The retreating wall of energy passed over the town as it made its way towards Sunset’s house, undoing all the rewrites the town had undergone as part of Sunset’s sitcom world. Outside, Flash and his colleagues also saw the anomaly receding and rushed into the town to assess the damage. When Flash got to the center of town, he searched frantically for Twilight. When he found her, she was still standing by the armored car, staring in the direction Sunset and her family had left. “Twilight!” Flash called before rushing to hug her. Twilight instinctively hugged him back before the two of them suddenly and awkwardly pulled away from each other. “Uh, that was, uh, really unprofessional.” “It was,” Twilight agreed, “but I didn’t mind.” She smiled at him before the two of them shared another hug. “Hey, no hug for me?” Moon Dancer interrupted, having left her post to allow an FBI agent to arrest Cinch. Flash and Twilight then traded hugs with her before Flash asked the obvious question. “So, what happened to Sunset?” he asked. “She and Micro Chips took their kids back to the house to spend their last moments as a family together,” Twilight explained. “It turns out that Micro and the twins can’t exist without the anomaly.” “And now that she’s taking it down, they’re going to go with it,” Flash sadly realized. “Speaking of which,” Moon Dancer added, turning Flash and Twilight’s attention towards the edge of the town square. Standing there was Sunset Shimmer wearing a maroon hoodie with the hood concealing her face. She needn’t have bothered; everyone already knew who she was. Sunset made her way across the town square towards Twilight, Flash, and Moon Dancer, passing her former neighbors as she did so. Every single one of them looked at her with disdain as she passed them. “They’ll never know what you had to give up in order to do the right thing,” Twilight said to her sympathetically. “It wouldn’t have mattered to them even if they did,” Sunset refuted. “Besides, it wasn’t like the four of us ever were a real family.” “They were real to you,” Moon Dancer noted, “and for what it’s worth, they were real to us too. I’m Moon Dancer by the way.” “Sunset,” Sunset introduced herself before noticing Flash. “Flash Sentry. I’m sorry for your loss,” Flash said to her. “So, none of you hate me? After what I did to you?” “If I had your powers, I’d probably try to bring my mom and my brother back,” Twilight admitted. “And you?” Sunset asked Flash. “You’re not going to try to lock me up?” “Well,” Flash answered, “I’m afraid the bureau’s a little underqualified regarding magic and the supernatural. I’m not sure I have the grounds to arrest you even if I wanted to.” “I’m so sorry,” Sunset apologized, “for all of this. I never meant to hurt anyone, and maybe at some point, I thought I was giving everyone what they wanted, but I was wrong.” “So, what’s next for you?” Moon Dancer asked. “I’m going somewhere to try to understand this power I have,” Sunset declared. “The more I do, maybe the less I’ll end up accidentally hurting people.” “Well, Godspeed, Ms. Shimmer. We’ll be here for you if you need us for anything,” Flash assured. “Thank you.” Twilight moved forward and pulled Sunset into a hug. Although surprised at first, Sunset uncertainly returned it. Twilight motioned for Flash and Moon Dancer to join them, so they did. After the four of them pulled away from each other, Sunset waved goodbye before taking to the skies. “Well, I guess my work here is done,” Moon Dancer quipped before walking away. “Hey, where are you going?” Flash called. “The higher ups will be here any minute, and they’ll want a debriefing.” “Not my problem!” Moon Dancer retorted as she continued to leave. Twilight and Flash could only roll their eyes and shake their heads as they watched her go. “Well, it’s been nice catching up, but I’ve got to help my fellow agents with damage control,” Flash said to Twilight. “You do that,” Twilight replied before asking, “By the way, how does getting a cup of coffee together sound?” “Now?” “Well, not now this minute, but maybe after damage control and debriefing, yes.” “Are you going to want a regular with cream and sugar?” “Actually, I was thinking we mix things up a bit. How does a caramel macchiato sound, a plain, unmodified caramel macchiato?” Flash chuckled in response. “As long as it’s plain and unmodified, sure. I might even get one for myself.” The two of them shared a laugh. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around then, Captain,” Flash said as he and Twilight began to part ways. “I’m looking forward to it, Agent.”