//------------------------------//
// Bonus (Sunset Shimmer cont.) 
// Story: Siren's Call 
// by Thornwing 
//------------------------------//

A ringing sound from under my seat had me digging through my bags as soon as the train came to a stop. I reached in and pulled out my diary, but didn’t stop there. The ringing came from something else, something that sounded even more familiar—my cellphone.

I quickly grabbed the phone and answered the call putting it on speaker. “Hello?”

Pinkie’s frantic voice greeted me on the other end. “Hey there, pony Sunset Shimmer. Umm, the human Sunset Shimmer sort of vanished on us when our world started collapsing in on itself, so we were wondering if you could open up that portal thing-a-ma-bob and let us through before we get sucked into a scary vortex of magical oblivion? It looks like that magic stuff that came over with you and Twilight kind of changed us, so we aren’t just mindless automatons anymore. If it’s okay with you, it would be totally awesome if we could sneak on over to your world seeing as we kind of have this magical power that makes us sort of not totally human anymore. Any chance you could take care of that, like, now?”

“Hold on one second, Pinkie,” I said.

I turned to Twilight. She shook her head. “The portal was powered by the diary, and now both copies are on this side of the gateway.”

I glanced around at the rest of the ponies gathered in earshot.

“Don’t look at us,” Aria said. “We don’t do the magic stuff anymore.”

I turned back to the phone, almost ready to deliver the bad news. That’s when I realized the answer to my problem was literally floating right in front of me. “Umm… Twilight, how about we use my phone?”

Twilight shook her head some more. “I don’t know. I’ve never used human technology in an Equestrian spell before. The results could be unpredictable. Plus, what would happen to our pony friends if our human friends came through the portal?”

“Well,” Pinkie said, drawing out the reply from the other side, “we’ve got about one minute before it won’t matter, give or take sixty seconds.”

“Hope for the best?” I said.

Twilight bit her lip. “I guess we can give it a try.”

“Hold on, Pinkie. We’re coming.” I tossed the phone to Twilight. She blinked away from the train and took off flying across town.

I ran as hard as I could to catch up. It took what felt like forever to reach the castle. Once I made it to the doors, I threw them open and ran inside. There to greet me stood a duplicate set of ponies, two of each of my Canterlot High School friends, eying each other with a curious regard. The charred remains of my cellphone lay on the apex of the portal apparatus.

Rainbow Dash spoke to Twilight, “Yeah, so, umm, we couldn’t find Discord, but…”

One of the Pinkies cupped a hoof to her mouth. “Awkward.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.