Severed Ties

by Carol Heart


Chapter 43

“You were right, Sunset,” Twilight whispered to the unicorn clutched in her arms, “Friendship really is magic.”

“You ain’t kidding,” Applejack breathed in wonder.

Looking up, Twilight was dumbstruck at the sight of not just Applejack, but all five of the Canterlot High girls sporting familiar hair extensions and pony ears. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy even had pairs of feathery wings emerging somehow through their clothing.

“Wha-How?” gasped the bewildered scientist.

“It was you, darling,” Rarity said as she produced a pocket mirror and held it up for Twilight to see. A pair of shocked eyes behind thick frames stared back as they took in the full picture. Twilight, too, was sporting a pair of pony ears atop her head poking out of her now much longer hair that had somehow formed itself into a ponytail. Feeling a strange weight on her back and registering a movement she knew she shouldn’t be capable of, the teen turned and found she had her own set of lavender wings.

“But it shouldn’t...I’m not,” the teen began before shaking her head and putting aside the how for now as much as the scientist inside her was screaming for answers, there were more pressing matters now and now she had the power to fix them...she hoped. “Right, questions later. Now I need you all to focus on sending all of your power...uh, magic to Sunset.”

“Will it be enough to stabilize her,” asked Fluttershy looking worriedly at Sunset.

“Oh, we’re not going to stabilize her,” Twilight said determinatly The other girls looked confusedly at her, but still continued to circle around the pair.

“Then what are we-” Rainbow Dash began, but saw the look in Twilight’s eyes. The amethyst orbs blazed with a fire that Rainbow knew well. It was the same look that had stared back at her these past several days. One that said she was going to make things right no matter what it took. It was something she could understand and who cared about the rest.
Trusting her, Rainbow joined the others in placing her hand atop the downed unicorn and focused all her energy on sending whatever power was inside of her into Sunset. Each of the girls remembered the times they had spent with Sunset. Not all of them were good, but the good shone brightly and they remembered all the work done on both sides to try and make up for the bad. Sunset had worked hard to earn their forgiveness, and they in turn had fought to earn hers. They would make sure she got her second chance, a real chance.

The rainbow hues that radiated off of each girl, shot out from their gathered hands and directly into Sunset, and leaving the girls without their pony up forms. They all sat expectantly staring at their friend, but nothing happened.

“Is that it?” asked Pinkie, “That’s what was supposed to happen right? She’ll be okay now?”

Seconds ticked by and nothing happened, each girl held their breath, praying for a sign. Then Sunset bolted upright, inhaling sharply as she did and caused all the girls to fall backwards. Sunset’s eyes sprung open revealing glowing white pools. Her horn began to pulse with a red aura before blasting out in a wave of rainbow colored light.

The light was so intense, the girls were forced to look away. When it finally faded, Sunset slumped back into Twilight’s lap. Checking on her friend, the teen saw that what was left of her fading cutie mark was now flickering in and out of existence, barely visible.

“No, it should have worked. It had to work. What was the point of all of that, if we’re still going to loser her?” Twilight asked as hot tears began to sting her eyes and fog her glasses. The Rainbooms, too, hung their heads, believing they had once again failed their friend when she needed them the most.

Then they heard a whimper. Looking up, they found Spike pawing at the open space in front of where Sunset had just loosed her light show. As they watched, tiny cracks began to form in the air outlined by a rainbow prism effect. Unlike the previous tears in space, this one seemed to be having trouble taking hold, and it seemed like the cracks were trying to reseal themselves. Then there was a new glow that seemed to be leaking through from the other side of the cracks. A magenta aura gripped the edges of the tears and began to wedge them back open. Then the magenta light was joined by others in pale blue and teal, and the portal started to expand.

By now, Twilight had a lot of experience with magical dimensional rifts and was likely the world's leading expert, but this one was not what she had come to expect. It did not reveal a picturesque landscape or a macabre forest. No, this time, they found themselves looking at the interior of a crystal castle, and face to face with six familiar faces. Well, not exactly familiar, but it was hard to mistake who these ponies were.

“This is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me,” the two Twilights echoed. Then Princess Twilight cast a sideways glance at an unfamiliar lilac unicorn, while the human girl glanced at the amber one in her lap, and they both followed up with, “Make that the second strangest.” Registering the stereo effect, Princess Twilight caught sight of her counterpart, but before she could add to the list of strange events this day had brought her, she spotted the familiar form lying unconscious in her double’s lap.

“Sweet Celestia, Sunset! Starlight, I've got this, can you grab her?” Twilight shouted, wanting to do it herself, but remembering she was propping open reality at the moment.

The mystery pony nodded and carefully enveloped the injured pony in her magic and hovered her through the portal. “It’s magic depletion. The worst I’ve ever seen even during my early days of experimenting with-”

“Can you help her?!”

“Oh, right...um, maybe?” the flustered unicorn started then more confidently, “I think so.”

“Good, do it. AJ, can you and Pinkie-” the princess began only to be interrupted by a saluting pink pony.

“One cart ready to go.”

“...get Sunset to Ponyville General while Starlight and Rarity keep try to stabilize her mana flows. Fluttershy, can you hurry their first and let them know we’re coming and help them get any supplies they might need. Rainbow Dash, you rush to Canterlot. I’ll have Spike send a letter, but I don’t want to risk it being lost in bureaucratic limbo. Make sure Princess Celestia knows as soon as possible what’s going on.” Ponies rushed to carry out instructions, and the lavender alicorn leveled a very angry gaze at the human girls on the other side of the portal.

“What happened? What did you do to her this time?” Princess Twilight had just had a very long day (or several days depending on how you looked at it), and returned only recently to discover the world was back to normal, but with no sign of Sunset anywhere, she was beginning to worry Sunset had somehow been written out of time after her misadventures with Starlight, only to find her friend once again on the other side of the portal, unconscious and with those that had hurt her before. Needless to say, the pony princess's nerves were a bit frayed and she was testier than usual.

“It-It was my fault,” came a familiar voice the princess was not expecting. Looking over the crowd of humans, she was met by a familiar pair of amethyst eyes staring determinedly at her through an unfamiliar pair of glasses. “I was researching this mysterious energy signature I’d discovered at Canterlot High, and I guess a major surge of Harmony Magic on your side knocked Sunset into the portal, and...uh, I pulled her out?"

Princess Twilight blinked, barely registering the explanation as she was still dealing with the fact that her human counterpart not only discovered magic, and the Rainbooms, but was now ponied up herself.

The princess’s friends seemed to have finished getting Sunset secured in the wagon when Applejack called out, “Twilight, she’s sayin’ something.”

“What is it?” asked the alicorn.

“Oh, not you, Twi, the...uh, other one,” Applejack corrected awkwardly. “She says’ it ain’t your fault, and everything will be okay now...thanks to you.” Applejack smiled at the strange version of her friend, and saw in her eyes that this was a bit of truth she had needed to hear, then she heard more whispers coming from the amber unicorn. “She says, ‘And no one had to sing...Coom-bye-ah’? Not sure if I heard that last part right.”

“No, you got it right," the human girl said with a watery giggle, before addressing her best friend, "I’m going to miss you, Sunset.”

Pony Pinkie took up the translation, “Silly Twilly, she says, 'This isn’t goodbye. It’s just goodbye ‘til next time!' Oh, and she has one more thing for you.”

As the two earth ponies began to pull away with the wagon containing the fiery unicorn, a ball of light rose out from her horn and through the protective auras surrounding her, much to the disapproval of the two unicorns trying to stabilize her. Heading back through the portal, it shattered as if through a prism into six distinct colors and flew towards the human girls, with a spark of Fluttershy’s yellow energy breaking off and finding its way instead back into a thoroughly excited purple puppy.

“Alright!” Spike cheered, then ran to the edge of the portal and shouted, “See ya, Sunset. Thanks a lot. Watch out for those doctors, they like to give you shots and hide pills in your peanut butter, oh and one time they put me to sleep and when I woke up I was missing my-” He was cut off when he was snatched up by Fluttershy administering tummy scratches successfully derailing his train of thought seeing as the animal lover had a good idea where this comment was going.

The teen scientist turned back to her pony doppelganger. “She will be okay, won’t she?” the girl asked, worry clear in her voice.

The princess smiled seeing the care and concern for Sunset in not just her double’s eyes, but all of the human girls. “Yes. It may take some time, but Sunset’s a fighter, especially when she has friends to fight for.”

With that, the alicorn princess released her magical grip on the interdimensional tear, and allowed the rainbow cracks to mend until there was no sign of that other world or its magical inhabitants.

“Do you think we’ll see her again,” asked Fluttershy, still petting Spike.

“Without the journal, there’s nothing to connect to open the portal. It should revert to running on its original lunar cycle,” the scientist replied, trying to hide her emotions behind a wall of data.

“But she’s safe, and that’s what’s important,” consoled Applejack seeing through Twilight’s façade and placing a friendly hand on the dejected girl’s shoulder.

Rarity voiced what the bespectacled girl was feeling, “Yes, but two years without her?”

“Don’t count her out,” Rainbow said with a knowing smirk, “Sunset was able to get magic working again here, open and close holes in time and space, and save Twilight here from going magic crazy wiping out Cinch and the other Shadowbolts…uh, no offense.” The other members of the Rainbooms shot her a glare, while Applejack went the extra mile and slugged her in the shoulder.

“Now, we ain’t gonna be startin’ that nonsense again.”

“It’s okay,” Twilight sighed, “none taken.”

Rainbow Dash winced a bit at the response. Looking thoroughly abashed, she met Twilight’s eyes and said, “No, they’re right. I promised Sunset I’d look out for ya and that includes from myself and my own big mouth. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Thanks.” Twilight smiled knowing she meant every word of it.

“The point I was trying to make though is still true. Sunset’s faced worse odds and still managed to come through when it counts. My money says we’ll see her sooner than you think.”

“I hope you’re right,” Fluttershy said as she handed Spike back off to Twilight albeit a bit reluctantly.

“In the meantime,” piped up Pinkie Pie, “We have a party to get back for.”

“What party, darling” asked Rarity, raising a manicured eyebrow.

“The one for the Friendship Games, silly.”

“You mean the one Principal psychopath ruined to start the Games?” questioned Rainbow.

“No, not that one. The victory party I’m going to throw when we get back.”

“Uh, there were no Games, sugarcube, and I doubt we’d end up doin’ them after everything that happened today so technically nobody won,” Applejack corrected.

“You mean revealing a corrupt principal and replacing her with a super nice one that cares about her students, getting the Crystal Preppers to see Cinch’s methods were wrong and that they shouldn’t treat people as obstacles or stepping stones in their own pursuits of power, and making a super awesome new best friend who just learned super awesome best friend magic aren’t wins?” asked the pink party girl knowingly.

Applejack chuckled, “Well, I guess when ya put it like that, we've got quite a lot to celebrate, don’t we?”

“Yepperoonie so let’s go!” Pinkie proceeded to, quite literally unless Twilight was much mistaken (something to investigate later perhaps) bounce out of the room, the other girls following after in the conventional manner.

“Plus, added Fluttershy worriedly, “we have to let all the principals and other student’s know what happened,” dropping to a lower tone she continued, ”especially with Cinch’s disappearance.”

Twilight watched the group of girls head out. A new group of friends she’d found thanks to the one she’d just lost. She glanced back at where the portal had been one last time before glancing down at her number one assistant. “What do you think, Spike, think I’m up for this?”

“Based on what Sunset said those wings you had meant, I know you’ll do great. Just remember, if there’s a big glowy artifact in the middle of an open room, it’s probably a trap,” the puppy added as an afterthought.

“Got it,” Twilight giggled, and together they walked out of the destroyed lab to catch up to their new friends.