//------------------------------//
// Riding Off with the Sunsets 
// Story: Bulletproof Mirage 
// by PaulAsaran 
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Back at the shack with Bulletproof Heart and Autumn Blaze, Sunset Shimmer fell to her knees. She found herself staring at the surprisingly still-alive alicorn hovering where the hole in the air used to be, then lowered her eyes down to the massive dragon head that had crashed to the ground with catastrophic damage to the fields below and around it. It had landed tilted, and Sunset could only wonder how long it would stay like that.

It almost felt like a fever dream: meeting herself as an alicorn, then having monsters out of nightmares invade her home, then attack it, one after the other, not even working in tandem as each new monster was more than eager to not only try killing ponies, but also each other. Meteors had rained on the fields and grasslands around Little Longhorn, as if the end of the world itself had been ordained by Celestia and Luna. Airships had exploded, a kirin was set on fire, she had been loaned a beautifully deadly rifle completely different from anything she had seen before.

It had been madness, and she had found herself borderline hysterical more than once. If it hadn't been for Rarity… well, the old Sunset Shimmer would have melted into a puddle of blabbering, snotty, horrified stupor.

But she had endured and fought, and at least now the monsters lay dead. The starry portal in the sky had faded, bringing back the daylight. After how crazy the last few minutes had been, it was almost surreal how quickly it was over.

Still trying to figure out what happened, Sunset turned her attention to Little Longhorn. Smoke rose from some of the houses, but she could still somewhat see the barricades and the ponies milling about. She could hear them cheering in the distance, but she also heard the sobbing.

Too much had happened too fast. Their enemy, Autumn, was now curled up and weeping in the corner, muttering over and over how this was not what she had wanted. Rarity had made a dignified effort to walk over and sit down on one of the remaining chairs in the house, although the mare was obviously exhausted and almost didn't make it before she had quite literally dropped onto the chair. It creaked alarmingly at the sudden impact, but thankfully held.

They gazed at each other with almost incredulous eyes. As experienced as Rarity was, it was also clear that this had not been her usual type of adventure.

"It's over," Rarity whispered, shaking her head in disbelief as she exhaled a long, long breath. Her shoulders slumped, and her hand went up to brush her mane away from her face. Sunset could literally see the stress slowly fade from her body. She was so clearly tired.

She felt her own exhaustion building up, but she shook her head, trying to keep herself in the game.

There were many things Sunset wanted to ask the Bulletproof Heart. Who was the kirin, really? And incidentally, why in the name of Tartarus was she still alive after all of that? Why had Sunset herself been involved in all of this? Why was there an alicorn version of herself with crazy equipment stashed somewhere unexplainable? How could all of this have been caused by business cards? How had just tossing one of said cards into a hole in the air decapitated a dragon the size of a mountain? What were all the creatures they had fought?

How many ponies were dead?

"Huh. This place is a mess," she heard herself say.

Wait. That hadn't been her! She twirled around, the heavy, powerful rifle Mirage had given her aiming at the creature that had suddenly appeared behind them. She heard Rarity shout something, but it was too late. As her eyes took in the mane of the creature and the green of her eyes… as recognition dawned on her… she realized she had already pulled the trigger.

"No!" Rarity roared, tackling her and the rifle out of the way, but there was nothing to be done. The pair of mares crashed onto the floor, the rifle sliding away from Sunset's hands. The thought that she had just shot another person in cold blood stole her breath away even more efficiently than Rarity's tackle. "What have you—?"

"I'm sorry!" Sunset kept her eyes shut tight. "I thought it was another monster!"

"Hey," her own voice said gently. "It's okay, no harm done."

Slowly she opened her eyes, then blinked in surprise at a creature so similar to her, and yet so different. She looked around the room. Rarity had an entirely unamused look of relief in her face, while Autumn stared in utter, horrified bewilderment at the tail-less creature that so resembled Sunset.

"B-but… I shot you," Sunset stammered, staring wide-eyed at her strange counterpart. There was no way she had dodged that. No way in Tartarus.

In response, the creature grinned and shrugged, patting Sunset's shoulder. "It was a nice try." She offered both hands to Rarity and Sunset, then helped them stand.

"You really need to work on your entrances, darling," Rarity groaned, rolling her arm in an attempt to loosen her muscles.

Before the creature had a chance to answer, Sunset own voice came again. "I heard a shot!" the alicorn version of herself called as she landed, guns out and ready to begin fighting anew. The amount of energy this one had was insane. Sunset was about to speak up, but stopped when she saw that, instead of shooting, the alicorn broke into a smile and dove forward to hug the latest visitor. "Isekai!"

Because of course they all knew each other. The more things were happening, the more lost Sunset was feeling.

"Hi, Desert Mirage! I did not expect to see you here," the recently-identified 'Isekai' remarked, returning the hug.

'Isekai?' Sunset frowned. That name sounded very familiar.

"Well, I didn't expect to be here either," Mirage responded, wings ruffling a little as she stepped back, grinning.

"It is one surprise after another whenever a Sunset Shimmer is involved," Bulletproof sighed, brushing her mane out of the way to reveal a warm smile gracing her face. "But it is good to see you, Sunset." It took Sunset a second to realize the name was directed at 'Isekai'.

"Well, it's not only us Sunsets that are full of surprises," the newly-identified Isekai said with a mischievous grin. "Imagine my surprise when this made it back to my bar." She extended her hand and passed Rarity the card Sunset was sure was identical to the one that had been used to seal the portal. "I believe this is yours."

"Wha—?" Sunset couldn't even finish the exclamation.

Instead, she opened and closed her mouth as Rarity simply took it with a, “Why, thank you, darling!” and stuffed it in her pocket.

"What's going on?! I thought that thing was thrown into a portal?" Sunset finally managed to ask.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Isekai said, completely missing the look of incredulity from Sunset and Autumn. The visitor turned to Mirage. "The last time I saw you, you were not an alicorn, and definitely not in this world."

"Hey. I told you I was one." Mirage huffed, crossed her arms and looked away with slight annoyance. "You just didn't believe me."

"And the last time I saw you," Isekai turned to look at Rarity, "there was never any mention of zerg around your world, to say nothing of shadow-realm dragons."

"That, my dear, is easily explained," Rarity stated. She paused to consider her words, then cleared her throat. "To an extent."

Isekai raised an eyebrow, not even flinching as the massive dragon head outside finally tilted fully and crashed down, shaking the ground under them. "Do tell."

"Long story short," Mirage said, "this kirin here stole the cards from us, hunted down this world's Sunset Shimmer, and somehow managed to use the link between cards and you to open a portal that got enemies from several video ga— worlds… to appear here."

"I-I… I could sense the magic in them," Autumn said meekly from her corner of the shack, flinching at the sudden attention this brought on her. "I thought… if I could use that magic, f-figure out how it worked, maybe it'd help me get my voice back. I didn't expect any of this."

Isekai crossed her arms. "I'm impressed you managed to somehow detect the magic in the card, but then you stole another?"

Autumn bit her lip. "I knew Mirage would come after me, and she’s an alicorn so I didn’t want to take chances. I tracked down the Bulletproof Heart with a plan to get her to fight the Mirage, but then I detected the same kind of magic on her person. I used the fight as my chance to take Bulletproof’s card and escape."

Isekai glanced at the two mares. "Who won?"

"Her," both mares replied, pointing at each other before breaking into a grin.

Sunset grimaced. That must have been a gunfight to remember.

When all attention turned back to her, Autumn reluctantly continued. "Th-then I got a mage to examine the cards in a way I was untrained to. She cast a detection spell, which I hoped would let me avoid both Bulletproof and Mirage, but then it pointed to a third pony, so I came to investigate. When I realized there was another Sunset Shimmer living here…" She had the self-awareness to look guilty when she glanced at Sunset. “I figured maybe she could tap into the magic of Mirage's card.”

Isekai hummed. "There's an indisputable link between my cards and their owners. It's not too much of a surprise that they would guide you to a local version of one of those owners. But how did finding this Sunset end up in an invasion from other dimensions?"

"Well, I didn't get here by normal means." Mirage said. "I was experimenting with Twilight and suddenly found myself here."

That got a raised eyebrow from Isekai. "The same Twilight Sparkle that can open interdimensional doors?"

Mirage chuckled uncomfortably. "Yeah."

Isekai sighed, rubbing her temples. "I'm starting to see the picture. I suspect that your magic, which carried Twilight's residual influence, resonated with the card’s interdimensional properties, which then coalesced into a magical pulse that, due to Twilight's and Mirage's original point of entry being virtual reality, connected to worlds that echoed the virtual aspects of the game you were going to play, likely with influences from past games you’ve played as Mirage."

Mirage snapped her fingers, eyes wide. "Oh! I see! No wonder all we saw came from games!"

"Okay, hold on," Sunset snapped, "Games? What type of messed up games have creatures like that lurking around?!" She started pacing, turning to glare from Isekai, to Mirage, to a cringing Autumn, then back to Isekai. "I have no idea what you are all talking about! How does foalnapping me fix Autumn's voice, why didn't you just shoot the one responsible for all of this—" She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb at the cringing kirin, then opened her arms to encompass both Mirage and Isekai. "—and how come there's more than one me?!"

"It is a lot to take in," Isekai said soothingly, although her absolutely calm demeanor wasn't helping much. In fact, had it been Bulletproof or Mirage that were calm, she'd not minded that much, but this creature had just appeared out of nowhere. As if sensing her growing distress, Isekai smiled.

Autumn wrapped her arms around herself and studied the floor when everyone turned to look at her. "I didn't want things to get so much out of control, but when I felt the magic in them, I just couldn't help myself. I’ve been searching all over the continent for this for nearly a decade, and this was the first time I saw something that might finally do it." She looked up at the group, eyes wavering. "I betrayed the chancellor, got ponies killed… I-I have my voice back but until Bulletproof pointed it out to me I was ready to continue rampaging." She shivered. "I'm a monster."

Bulletproof sighed. "You may feel guilty about your actions, Autumn, but you will have to pay for your crimes."

"I know," the kirin said, unable to meet their eyes.

It was odd for Sunset to see the previously stoic kirin showing actual regret. After all, Autumn had been so cold, calculating, and vicious less than an hour ago and that was all she had to go with. Yet Mirage, Bulletproof, and Isekai were looking at the kirin with understanding in their eyes.

"I can't just accept this." Sunset said, glaring at the others. "There's a giant, decapitated dragon's head in the fields. Ponies – some of whom I was actually starting to think of as friends – died. There's monsters on the streets rotting in the sun. How is a small town like Little Longhorn going to deal with this kind of damage?!"

"Time and effort," Isekai said, "and a little bit of magic and elbow grease from all of us to speed it up." She glanced out of the house. "See? Already the elements from other worlds are dissipating."

Sunset glared at them, then her shoulders slumped as she looked out the window. It was true: the dragon's head was halfway gone already, seemingly turning into dust that would disperse into the air. "There's still a lot of damage." And dead friends.

"Well, darling," Bulletproof said, "between all of us and the townsfolk, I think we can get the place cleaned up relatively quickly."

Sunset crossed her arms. Sure, between all of them they could clean up a lot, if not most of the damage to the town. And if the invaders were already disappearing at least there wouldn't be concerns of plagues or how to get rid of the bodies. "Elbow grease won't bring my friends back."

Rarity stepped back, visibly chagrined. "I didn't mean to belittle it."

Sunset groaned and nodded the unicorn's way. "I know. I'm stressed, and I get snippy when I'm stressed."

"I just wanted my voice…" Autumn sighed, hands fisting up as she struggled to find what to say after everything that had happened. "I don't know how or even when exactly I lost control."

"So you've said," Bulletproof replied after a moment of consideration. She put her hand on the kirin's shoulder, grasping it firmly. "And you have your voice now. But being sorry is not enough to make up for what you did, even if you lost control of yourself. If you're intent on finding some modicum of redemption, then a good place to start is to help clean up."

Autumn looked uncertain, but instead of pushing her away, eventually nodded, prompting Rarity to give her an encouraging smile. "And then what?"

"And then…" Isekai motioned to a door that had not been there a few minutes ago. "All of you can come with me for a drink and to talk thoroughly about what happened since Mirage arrived, and maybe how to prevent it from happening in the future."

"A drink? How about four?" Mirage muttered.

"Four drinks is good too," Isekai agreed. "But more importantly, we can get Luna and Twilight to explain what went wrong from their side as well." She pulled out a card, showing it to the others and unintentionally making both Sunset and Autumn flinch. "I'm very interested in hearing the theory that prompted Mirage's trip—" She looked at Autumn. "—and the theory behind what you expected from the cards."

"Well," Sunset said, pushing away from the wall and rolling her shoulders as she walked out of the building, "I for one could really use a drink, but that's not happening until we clean up the town." She glanced over her shoulders at the others. "You're all helping with the graves."





Mirage and Rarity stood outside of town, watching the sun kiss the horizon. There was a mass funeral service going on at the cemetery, and Mirage didn't feel like she deserved to be there. Rarity, not being a local and uncomfortable with the amount of positive attention she'd been getting from the townsfolk, had joined her.

There was a certain melancholy in the air, and Mirage loathed it. Helping move the bodies had produced a low mood in the unicorn. Mirage didn't blame her, but she did want to try and ease things a little. And so she elbowed Rarity. "This was one hell of a crossover, Bulletproof." 

Rarity blinked, coming out of her self-reflective stupor. "I'm sorry? A what?"

Mirage's smiled sheepishly. "Um… How to explain it? It's like… when two heroes from different worlds somehow find each other and fight evil together."

Rarity's laugh was weak, but it at least let Mirage know she understood what the alicorn was trying to do. "Well, darling, I don't know if 'heroes' is the right word to describe us."

Mirage shrugged. "I guess that's true. But it really was a great adventure. I learned a lot about myself thanks to you." She hesitated, giving Rarity a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. "Thank you."

Rarity smiled as they went back to staring at the horizon. "Nothing to thank me for, dear," she said. "I'm sure you'd do everything in your power to help me if I had ended up in your world."

"Hay, yeah," Mirage responded, channeling her inner Rainbow Dash. "Maybe one day you can come over and join me for a bit of VR fun." She grinned. "I don't think anyone in Gun Gale is prepared to face the Bulletproof Heart. Plus, I'd like to introduce you to my girlfriend."

Rarity chuckled, wrapping her arm around Mirage's shoulder for a quick, friendly hug. "Given you claim ponies don't actually die in these 'games', I'd be willing. Just make sure we all stay in one world this time."

Blushing, Mirage nodded. "Let's head back, then. The quicker we're done here, the quicker we can go to the bar."

They headed into town, arriving just in time to see everypony walking out of the local and oversized cemetery. They could see Sunset Shimmer and Isekai talking with the still confused and uncertain locals. Autumn was standing near the hastily-built graves, personally helping to bury the dead. Her face was a kaleidoscope of anxiety, fear, and some self-loathing. Isekai had said she'd be taking her to the bar for some one-on-one time tonight. It would probably do her a lot of good.

Rarity took a deep breath, pausing to perhaps examine the living proof that there was a multiverse out there. A massive, unknowable number of possibilities and worlds and people and monsters… The world had just faced a horrible fate, and yet by tomorrow the only thing that would remain in this world would be in the memory of the citizens of Little Longhorn, Autumn's, and her own.

"It's probably for the best," she declared with a shrug as she started for Isekai and Sunset.

Mirage couldn't help but agree. This world didn't need to know about all of that. As for herself? Despite all the struggles and emotions and sometimes outright pain...

She was glad to have met the Bulletproof Heart.