//------------------------------// // Prologue: There's No Place Like Home // Story: Sunset Reset // by LordBrony2040 //------------------------------// “True magic comes from Honesty, Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, and Kindness!” Sunset Shimmer shouted before activating Twilight's strange device while cursing the unknowable rules of magic on this side of the mirror. If magic had worked the way it was supposed to, there was no way that a flashy compact would have been able to contain the mystical energies of Equestria no matter how many little light bulbs had been added. But the demonstration over the past few minutes had shown Sunset both how to use the device and that it did indeed contain Equestrian magic. A second later, she threw the object on the ground to both destroy it and release the magic that was stored within. A torrent of mystical energy washed over Sunset, blocking out the world in a wall of white. After she felt the magic from her friends settle within her, Sunset managed to keep her face even despite the unease that came with all of the power that she felt flowing through her body. The last burst of energy that came from the girls, it was everything they had, the last spark of their magic from which more would have grown in time. If she messed up, there would be no flame inside them that could be rekindled. She had to return them after the battle was over or their magic would be gone forever. The wings on her back felt too light to be real, but for the first time in years, Sunset felt that little tingle in the temple of her head that said she had a horn again. It felt amazing to have that sensation after such a long time, to be able to channel magic naturally. Even when she had been empowered by Twilight’s crown, that sensation hadn’t been returned to her like it was now. Okay, no need to get all giddy over the horn Sunset. First thing’s first...gotta make sure reality isn’t torn apart, Sunset told herself before holding out her arms. Despite having the feeling of having her horn back, hands were easier to aim. She quickly sealed the breaches, surprised at the amount of power flowing through her. It was more than she had ever experienced before. But then, both times before now, Sunset realized she had only wielded a piece of whatever magic Twilight had in her crown. The Princess had been right. Even when she had worn the thing on her head, Sunset had been unable to wield its full power because she didn’t understand it. Now that she did, now that she accepted that magic from her friends and understood that bond...everything just seemed to work the way it was meant to. In front of her, Twilight’s corrupted human counterpart looked around wildly as her wanton destruction to the fabric of reality was undone, the confusion and panic evident on her face before she frowned at the other winged biped and charged through the air. All of a sudden, Sunset had a revelation. That’s right. It’s just like what Twilight said to me back then, only...she doesn't understand the nature of magic. Hell, she doesn’t even know the basic mechanics of spellcraft! the former pony thought to herself as a smirk appeared on her face, and a tingling sensation ran through her horn. Twilight came in swinging with a fist full of dark magical energy. Sunset...willed herself out of the way. She didn’t dodge by flying up or down, or anything so mundane. She simply used her horn to change her position in space instantly. And the bright flash that accompanied the teleport probably did a lot to blind Twilight since the horned harpy-girl was right on top of her. When Sunset reappeared above the confused teenager, Twilight was still looking around wildly. “What? How did she-” Sunset pointed a hand down at her opponent. “It’s called magic, you idiot,” she said before blasting the poor girl with as much power as she could put into a purification spell. “I AIN’T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT!” Twilight looked up in time to see the attack envelop her, and screamed as she was knocked to the ground while the dark energies within the teenager were washed away. As the dust cleared, Sunset floated in the air, looking down at the cowering girl. A girl who had nearly destroyed the school, and quite possibly been on her way to ruining not just one, but two worlds. Ablaze with power as she was with a pair of magical wings and a horn, it was understandable to see the little girl trembling beneath her in terror. Especially after their battle that had ended so quickly. While Sparkle had the upper hand when things started, the human girl had no real understanding of Equestrian magic. It had been simple for Sunset to avoid her attack using a spell cast through her newly manifested horn, pop up behind her, and blast the corrupted human with enough harmonic energy to cleanse her of the dark desires run amok. Now that everything was over, she floated over the crater that Twilight had been knocked into. “Please,” the Twilight that was born a human pleaded with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t mean it, I just wanted to find out what was going on around the school!” Sunset looked down at her. The contrast between where Twilight was now and where Sunset had been was…irrelevant. “Really?” she asked in a tone that sounded much too harsh from the gentle sadness that she was feeling at seeing the poor girl so panicked. “I told you this was dangerous, and even then you still opened that pendant.” “The principal told me to!” Twilight shouted back rather weakly in her defense. “But you were the one that did it, even though you knew the danger, didn’t you?” A trembling of the human’s arms at the question made Sunset’s eyes widen, and she descended to touch the frightened girl’s shoulder to stop Twilight from thinking Sunset was about to blast her out of existence.  “Twilight, I’m not going to hurt you,” she promised. Sunset could be angry with Twilight’s stupidity, but even that didn’t mean she was going to do anything but scold the girl. She surrounded the child in her magic to help lift her up and out of the pit before looking around at the destruction. While the holes in reality had been closed, the grounds were still a mess and the horse statue was just a pile of rubble. It would take weeks to clean up properly. Still...it didn’t look as bad as when she had turned into a demon, Sunset realized. At least the school was still in once piece. “If anything, I’m as much to blame for this as you are.” Twilight looked at her with wide eyes. “You? But…y-you tried to stop me before it even got this far,” she said before she sadly hung her head. “And you were right. I-I shouldn’t be messing with something like this. Even if I could someday understand it, if someone were to get hurt along the way I…sometimes, the price to pay for knowledge is just too high.” The girl’s words and her simplistic view were left alone by Sunset as she focused on what was important. “I’m the one who brought magic to this world,” she explained. “Like you, I probably could have made something to contain it, and maybe even control it properly, but…I didn’t, and it’s time I corrected that.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked as Sunset brought the two of them out of the crater that Twilight had been smacked into. Footsteps told of Sunset’s approaching friends, and she could feel the magic within her starting to be pulled back to the girls where it had rested moments ago. So she grasped onto it will all of her will, and bound it to herself so that it could never escape. “Wait ta go Sunset!” Applejack cheered. “You rock,” Fluttershy added with a little woohoo the redhead could barely hear. “A magnificent display darling,” Rarity said. “Hey Sunset, like the horn! Uh, does that mean I’m going to have to hold off on the balloons from now on? Because that thing looks extra pointy and-” Rainbow Dash stepped in front of Pinkie Pie before she could finish. “Can I have my wings back now?” The last question managed to kill the building apprehension in Sunset’s chest about what was coming, not to mention her smile at all the congratulations her friends were giving her. She gave Rainbow a little frown and said, “No.” As Dash’s expression turned to one of confusion, Applejack stepped in. “Rainbow! She’s still gotta use them fancy new powers of hers to fix everything Twilight blew up when she was an angry harpy-hellbeast-thing,” the farmer explained as she gestured to the damaged field. “Then we can get on with the Friendship Games!” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Twilight wince. Watching another girl be reminded of her darkest moment wasn’t any easier on Sunset than experiencing it herself. So, a little bit more of her patience drained. “Are you kidding me?” she deadpanned to her friends. The world had nearly ended, and they just wanted to get back to playing in their stupid contest? Sunset had managed to care about their feelings when she found out how important it was to them...but there was a limit to her empathy. And they just long-jumped over it. “UNACCEPTABLE!” a rather annoying and tedious voice shouted from behind the gathering of frightened Crystal Prep students before that Grinch (or was it Crinch? Bench...maybe? Sunset couldn’t remember) was came storming out with her arms raised. “Principal Celestia! I demand that your school forfeit the Friendship Games, this instant!” Thus did the last of Sunset’s patience die a horrible death as she watched the head human from the other school yell at the woman that had given her a home for the past few months since the Fall Formal. She ignored the argument in favor of her friends. “This…is this really all you really give a damn about?” she demanded of the girls. “Winning a stupid game with a bunch of little brats you’re never even going to see again?” “Well…” Sunset didn’t let Fluttershy keep going. “I mean seriously! The world, your entire dimension was nearly just destroyed, and none of you seem to give a damn about it!” “Oh come on Sunset,” Rainbow chimed in with her usual cheer. “It’s not like this sort of stuff hasn’t happened before.” The alicorn-human let out a cry of indignant rage that made sparks fly as she stomped her foot into the cement, adding to the cracks in the ground. “Which makes this the third time, the third time people have almost gotten hurt because of MAGIC!” she shouted before gesturing to the five girls in front of her with her hands. “And you, all of you! You know how serious this stuff is since we fought the Dazzlings, but you just-you just use it to…to play around with like it’s a fucking toy or something!” “Well it isn’t really as if we know what we’re doing with the stuff anyway darling,” Rarity chimed in with a concerned voice. “I mean, you’re apparently the only one of us that knows how to um…” she gestured wildly with her hands at Sunset’s energy appendages. “I’m still not even sure how we fought the Dazzlings off.” Seeing her friends worry, Sunset let out a long sigh as she cemented the decision in her mind. “I know…and that’s why I have to take it back.” The five girls in front of her gasped, and Sunset used her powers to block the sound coming out of their mouths before any protests could start. If she heard them telling her not to leave...Sunset wasn’t sure she could go through with it. “Look, this isn’t easy for me, okay?” she told them with a frown as she held onto her anger over the situation to block anything else out. “But the magic that was left behind when Princess Twilight left, it’s a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. What if the next time, someone gets really hurt when something happens? Or we have someone show up that wants to dissect Rainbow and Fluttershy because they grow wings? Not every normal person out there is as stupidly selfish as Crystal Prep’s principal, and I can’t just stand around here waiting for the next dangerous thing to come along because of this magic when I know a way to make sure everyone will be protected from it from now on. I'm going home, and taking all the magic back with me.” The spell around the mouths of her friends cut off, and Sunset waited for the protests that she feared were coming. If they tried to stop her that way. She had said her peace, and even if it might hurt, her friends deserved to have their say. That was one of the hard things about friendship, giving the people around you so much control. Strangely, none of them spoke up. Not immediately anyway. “Well can you at least leave me my magic?” Rainbow Dash asked after a few seconds. “Those wings are cool.” After Applejack reached over to slap Rainbow upside the head, Pinkie rushed apart from the crowd to glomp onto Sunset in a tackle the teen knew would have floored her before the mystical infusion of power. Although why she also had increased strength and durability was a mystery. “I’ll miss you Sunset!” the girl with the pink hair cried into Sunset’s chest. The girl with the golden wings returned the gesture. “I’ll miss you too Pinkie.” Which seemed to signal the other four girls that it was alright to try and dog pile her. After the initial squeeze, Sunset took a second to look at the growing battle between the Wondercolts and Shadowbolts as their respective leaders went on and on about the Friendship Games, and who deserved to win. She pulled away before anyone decided to look away from the growing mob scene and looked over to Twilight. “I’m going to have to take Spike’s ability to talk as well.” The purple girl nodded. “I figured as much,” she said as she held up the dog. “Awww,” he whined before she felt for the piece of Fluttershy’s magic that had allowed the canine to communicate with the primates and pulled it into the greater whole that was contained within her. When she was done, the only complaints Spike could make were in the form of actual whines. Before the girls could start some long goodbyes about how they would miss her, Sunset channeled some magic through her horn and teleported to the statue. A tiny bit of magic that would burn out in less than thirty seconds was added to reestablish her connection to Equestria, and then she stepped through. The swirling vortex of interdimensional travel overtook her, and the girl gripped her stomach in what she knew was a vain attempt to keep from vomiting. Then, a new sensation overcame her as she interacted with something that hadn’t been a part of her first few trips through the portal. It washed over her almost too fast for Sunset to focus on it and try to understand what was going on. “What the hell?” she mumbled as her restored magical senses identified the type of magic she had just passed through. “That was temporal magic! What in the hell is time magic doing to the-” Sunset’s words we brought to an end as she reached the other end of the portal and found herself flying through the air. At least until she hit the ground a few seconds later. Then Sunset rolled forward onto her back, and continued to slide until she crashed into the wall on the far side of the room. Her ears rang from the experience, or maybe it was from the concussion. The room seemed to be upside down. A quad of marble pillars with a golden base moved towards her, and Sunset could have sworn she heard something. “-set! Sunset! Are you alright?” Sunset blinked and looked down when her vision started to just show a bunch of dancing colors that sparkled. The face that greeted her only made the mare even more confused. “Prin-Celestia?" Sunset asked as she rolled up onto he stomach to try and stand up. "What’re you doing in-urk!” She was unable to finish the question of why Celestia was in Twilight’s castle, where the mirror was now stored. It was at that time that Sunset’s earlier predictions about upchucking came true. A lunch that she was pretty sure contained some kind of meat byproduct despite her instance on the school’s mandated vegetarian alternative came flowing up from her stomach and out her mouth in a gray mess that both clouded her vision, and painted Celestia’s shoes. Then…darkness. Celestia didn’t wince as the little pony beneath her threw up on her golden horseshoes. Such things were minor compared to the mare’s health. She quickly took Sunset up in her magic to make sure her airway wasn’t constricted by her leaked lunch and made sure that nothing else was going to come out. Once she saw the little mare was breathing normally, the Princess of Equestria let out a relieved sigh before addressing the slightly less panic-inducing, but far more confusing conundrum that had been presented to her. Just moments ago, she had come into the room that housed the crystal mirror with her student to let her see what possibilities it held for Sunset. For a few moments, all the little unicorn did was stare at it, admiring her own reflection until Celestia fed a trickle of magic into the mirror and asked Sunset what she saw. And that was when everything had gone wrong. As her prize student looked even deeper into the mirror, there had been a bring flash, followed by an intense wave of magic of every kind that Celestia knew. The expulsion of magic had even been enough to temporarily blind the Alicorn of the Sun for a few seconds. Once she regained her sight, Celestia had found Sunset on the far side of the room, slightly different than before. Those differences being: a pair of wings that now protruded from her back, and a horn that was slightly longer than the one she had been sporting less than a minute ago. Even her weight and size had increased slightly, unless Celestia missed her guess. But instead of feeling elation at the sudden changes Sunset had undergone like several of her successful students in the past, Celestia felt only confusion and concern for the child in her grasp. She looked back at the mirror, its magical emissions returned to their normal state, and then down to the newfound alicorn in her grasp. “Oh my little Sunset, what in the world has happened to you?”