LEGO Equestria Girls 3

by Chronicler06


An Extremely Strange World

Chapter 14
An Extremely Strange World

“Is this thing ever gonna end?!” screamed Sunset Shimmer as she continued to fall through the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness.

Sunset had no idea how long she had been falling through the seemingly bottomless vortex, but it felt like many hours had passed — possibly even a few days, she honestly didn’t know for sure anymore. She knew her friends were busy doing everything they could to hold off Midnight Sparkle, but if she couldn’t find the device that was lost somewhere down here, then their efforts would be all for nothing.

If there was one thing that gave her any comfort, it was that the surrounding scenery was not consistent throughout the entire journey. By now, the swirling dark storm clouds had given way to a wide array of various bright colors, almost as if she was now falling through a giant kaleidoscope. She couldn’t see any recognizable pattern among the colorful bands as they went by, but at least the fact that her surroundings had changed gave her hope that she might not be stuck in here forever.

After a while, something very strange began to occur. She felt herself beginning to slow down, and as she glanced around at the surrounding bands of colorful light, she realized that she was in fact slowing down. She had no idea how that could be happening, and it certainly made her feel quite concerned about what would happen next. When she finally came to a complete stop, it was as if she had reached the crest of a roller coaster, and she suddenly found herself hurtling down an entirely new direction very rapidly.

As she continued down this new path, she was astonished to witness not only more of the colorful bands of light, but also all kinds of sights and images imaginable, and even those beyond her imagination. She could see a dark and spooky castle, a pirate ship sailing through a stormy sea, a space station big enough to resemble a moon, a man in some kind of bat costume, a bearded wizard, a one-eyed computer, something that resembled a blue phone box hurtling through space and time, and even a rather advanced city covering an entire island in the middle of a silvery sea. At one point, she could’ve sworn that she even saw the face of Princess Celestia herself — a face she had not seen in years and had been convinced she would never see again.

In addition to all of that, she could also hear a wide cacophony of various sounds. There was the chirping of songbirds, the intense pounding of a jackhammer, the crying of a newborn baby, the roaring of a lion, the wailing of an emergency vehicle’s siren, and the horrible screeching of something she could best describe as a demon out of Tartarus. She was also able to hear bits and pieces of all kinds of music, everything from a calming classical orchestra to a raging heavy metal rock band and even the futuristic techno beats of something she couldn’t quite describe properly.

But it wasn’t just sights and sounds. She could also feel the soothing touch of a feather, the searing pain of an inferno, and even wonderful pleasure in certain places she hadn’t felt in years. She could also smell the pleasant fragrances of spring flowers, the awful stench of rotting food, and just about every kind of perfume imaginable. She could even taste the sweetness of a sugary treat, the sourness of biting directly into a lemon, and the bitterness of a cup of black coffee.

It was almost as if she was experiencing every single realm of existence all at once.

Sunset suddenly felt herself being yanked down another different direction. Perhaps she had just passed through the hub of all of existence and was now hurtling towards a specific realm. Once again, she was left with nothing but bands of bright colors spiraling around in the surrounding vortex.

But within moments, she suddenly felt her body beginning to stiffen up. Her legs ended up completely straight, her arms became stuck slightly bent at the elbows, her hands stayed stuck open, her back became as straight as a board, her hair solidified into a solid mass, and her neck stiffened to keep her head perfectly upright.

“What the—?! What’s happening to me?!” she screamed as she struggled to move her body around. By this point, her movements had become restricted to just swinging her arms and legs back and forth and rotating her hands and head around. Before long, even these points of mobility solidified. The last part of her body to go was her face being forced against her will into a friendly smile before it finally petrified.

Unable to move any part of her body, there was nothing she could do now but watch helplessly as she tumbled through the seemingly endless vortex. But after some more time had passed, she began to see a possible end to her very strange journey up ahead. The best she could describe it was a world that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and she was hurtling straight towards it.

The last thing Sunset Shimmer heard before she suddenly blacked out was the faint clacking noise of a small plastic object hitting a solid floor.


Sunset Shimmer had no idea how long she had been out, but she was certainly very relieved to realize that she was in fact starting to awaken. At first, all she could see was a few brief and blurry flashes of her surroundings as she struggled to fully awaken. After a few tries, she eventually managed to stabilize herself and stayed awake. Her vision remained completely blurry at first, but it eventually adjusted itself so that she could finally see clearly again.

“What…? Where…? Where… am I?”

Sunset took note of her immediate surroundings. She was lying on her side on some kind of vast concrete floor. Not far from her was a white 1x4 plate — quite likely the exact same Lego brick that Rainbow Dash had earlier tossed into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness. To Sunset, this was a good sign that, whatever happened to Twilight’s device, it had to be close by to where she currently was. Of course, she had absolutely no idea where exactly she had ended up.

“What is this place?”

Aside from the concrete floor, all she could see ahead of her were two very tall and massive square wooden columns, one much further away than the other. She tried to turn her gaze up towards the top of those columns, but found this very simple task to be surprisingly difficult. No matter how much she tried to will her body to move, she couldn’t even so much as twitch one of her limbs. Her entire body had somehow become completely petrified, yet she was still somehow consciously aware of her surroundings. She felt her face was still frozen in that friendly smile, which left her completely unable to speak or even blink.

“Why can’t I move?”

THUD!

Sunset mentally gasped, having felt the ground shake from that heavy impact.

“What was that?!”

With her gaze stuck straight ahead, Sunset was unable to glance around to find the source of that impact. But since her eyes were also stuck open, she was able to keep staring ahead until something eventually passed by. The best she could describe it at that moment was a pair of giant brown legs walking by to the left. A few seconds later, she saw another pair of giant legs — this time purple — walk by to the right. Then she saw two more pairs of giant legs — both of them blue — actually run by in opposite directions.

“Did I end up in some sort of… land of giants?”

Then, from the very edge of her vision, Sunset saw a green pair of giant legs walking directly towards her with apparently no sign of slowing down.

“No! Wait! Don’t—!”

Sunset was suddenly crushed under the white sole of that giant green boot. Remarkably, aside from her arms and legs being slightly pushed into different directions, her body had not deformed at all. As that giant boot lifted off the floor, Sunset was stuck to the bottom of it for a moment before she came loose and clattered onto the floor.

“Ow…”

“Oh! There you are, Sunset Shimmer! I was wondering where you went…”

Sunset mentally groaned in pain, then realized that she had just heard a voice that wasn’t her own.

“Did somebody just call my name?”

Suddenly, Sunset felt a series of soft yet firm appendages wrap around her body and easily lift her up off the floor.

“Whoa! Hey! Put me down! Put me—!”

All of Sunset’s thoughts instantly came to a complete stop when those weird appendages turned her around so that she found herself staring at the face of this giant who had just picked her up. It was a face that was both unfamiliar, and yet… strikingly familiar. This giant was a female with soft skin that was pale yellow in color, long flowing pink hair, big eyes with turquoise irises, a relatively small nose in the middle, round ears on the sides of her head, and a mouth that was currently in the shape of a shy but friendly smile.

“Fluttershy?!”

“Oh! Is she alright, darling?” asked another voice.

“Well… aside from accidentally stepping on her… I think she’s okay,” replied the weird giant Fluttershy as she turned Sunset around in her grasp.

Sunset soon found herself now facing directly towards another one of these strange giants. This one had flawless white skin, long purple hair that ended in a large curl, and eyes with blue irises.

“Rarity?!”

In addition, Sunset was also far enough away that she could see more than just the face on this giant. Like minifigs, these giants stood on two legs and had two arms, but seemed to consist of organic material like flesh and bone, much like ponies in Equestria. But there was also the shape of certain parts that were completely alien to Sunset, such as a narrow waist, wide hips, and two noticeably large lumps on the chest. The giant also seemed to be wearing clothes, like a shirt over the torso, a skirt over the hips and upper legs, and tall boots over the lower legs. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more Sunset realized that these strange giants appeared to be some kind of perfect blend of ponies and minifigs. The only body part she found especially weird was that their “hands” each had five highly flexible appendages.

“Yay! She survived the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness!” cheerfully exclaimed another giant as she suddenly hopped up right in front of Sunset. This giant had pink skin, a large mass of curly magenta hair, and eyes with light blue irises.

“Pinkie Pie?!”

Just to the right of the giant Pinkie Pie, Sunset saw another giant run along the side what appeared to be a table big enough to accommodate these giants. This giant had light blue skin, messy hair that consisted of all six colors of the rainbow, and eyes with magenta irises. This giant also had an excited smile on her face as she carried around what appeared to be a model spaceship. As she then stopped and aimed that model spaceship at something on the table, she flicked something on the side of that model, causing a projectile to shoot forward and knock over that object on the table.

“Ha-ha! Got ‘em!” shouted the blue giant excitedly.

“Rainbow Dash?!”

“Head’s up, y’all! Reinforcements are on the way!” called out the voice of the fifth and final giant in this room as she moved some things around on the table. This giant had light orange skin, blond hair with a cowboy hat on top, and eyes with green irises.

“Applejack?!”

Although Sunset’s sight was still restricted due to her petrified state, the fact that she was still being carried around by the giant Fluttershy allowed her to see more of this room more clearly. She immediately realized that the wooden columns she had seen earlier were actually two of the legs to one of the many tables set up in this room. And nearly all of these tables had a wide range of models of all kinds of buildings and vehicles imaginable.

However, as Sunset looked closely at the specific table that the five giants had gathered around, she made a startling discovery. All of these models were made of Lego bricks! Compared to herself, it was still at the same scale she was familiar with, but compared to these giants, it was small enough to apparently be treated as tabletop models. And even more startling about the models on this particular table was that it was a modern city with buildings and landmarks that she was quite familiar with. It was a representation of Canterlot City!

“I… I don’t believe it!”

As she gazed over the model of her home city, Sunset noticed that everything appeared to be exactly as she suspected was going on in the real Canterlot City at this moment. Midnight Sparkle’s drones were scattered all over the city, and the citizens were operating all kinds of wacky creations to combat them. She could also see the five Shadowbolt agents providing assistance in their own custom creations, while her closest friends were riding inside the spaceship that the giant Rainbow Dash was carrying around.

But what really astonished Sunset was just how these five giants were behaving around this representation of Canterlot City under attack. They appeared to be acting out everything that had to be going on in the real place back in the Lego World; moving models around, speaking all kinds of dialogue for everyone, and even making silly sound effects at times. But even though it was obvious that Canterlot City was in extreme peril, the giants were behaving as if they were simply having fun! They were smiling and laughing as if they were kids playing with their toys.

To Sunset Shimmer, this very strange place she had ended up in was making her start to question the very existence of everything she knew and loved, and it simply terrified her. She glanced around at each of the five giants, each of whom was apparently a counterpart of her best friends in the Lego World, and slowly began to realize that something seemed to be missing in all of this.

“But if all of my friends are here, then where’s—?”

SLAM!

All five giants immediately stopped what they were doing and turned their gaze towards a stairway at one side of the room. A steady thumping came from those wooden steps, indicating that someone was making their way down those stairs into this room.

“Oh dear,” muttered the giant Rarity worriedly.

Sunset watched in awe as a sixth giant slowly made her way down the stairway. This giant was wearing dark blue shoes, black pants, and a large white lab coat. Finally, the giant reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to face everyone in the room. This giant had lavender skin, dark blue hair with a violet and magenta streak down the middle and was tied back in a large bun, and had eyes with violet irises behind a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses. Unlike the more friendly and carefree giants in the room, this giant had her fists tightly clenched, her brow furrowed, and her mouth displayed a very displeased frown.

“Twilight Sparkle?!”

The human Twilight Sparkle sighed in frustration and walked over to the others as she grumbled, “How many times do I have to tell you girls? Stay out of my basement!”

“Oh lighten up, Twilight,” argued Pinkie Pie. “We’re just having fun.”

“Do I need to explain in thorough detail all the reasons why my basement is strictly off-limits?” asked Twilight irritably.

“Okay, we get it already,” replied Rainbow Dash as she rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a whole bunch of expensive lab equipment down here that you don’t want any of us breaking. But why did you move your Lego collection down here?”

“It’s because I was hoping that, with this area being off-limits, you would not be tempted to mess around with it, but it seems that clearly isn’t enough,” responded Twilight. “Look, all of you have got Lego collections of your own at each of your respective homes. There is no reason why you should be constantly messing around with my collection in particular.”

“But none of us have got collections anywhere near as big as yours,” argued Applejack. “Ah mean, you’ve got entire cities down here! Kinda hard for us to resist playin’ with such a big Lego world.”

Twilight glanced around at all of the other girls in the room until her frustrated gaze fell on the minifig Sunset Shimmer still in Fluttershy’s hand.

“Uh oh…”

Twilight suddenly snatched Sunset out of Fluttershy’s hand and looked closely at her for a few seconds. “And these aren’t even officially manufactured minifigures!”

“Ah, yes,” Rarity spoke up. “You see, Twilight, I recently took up a hobby of customizing Lego minfigures. None of them came from your personal collection, I can assure you, but rather are ones that I’ve purchased myself — as well as those graciously gifted to me by our friends. In order to provide us with an authentic playing experience, I customized these minifigures to accurately represent ourselves and everyone we know in real life.” She giggled as she added, “And not to flatter myself, but I must say, I did a rather fabulous job of getting even the tiniest details done so perfectly, one could even mistaken them for being authentic minifigures.”

Rainbow Dash took her Lego minifigure counterpart out of the spaceship she was holding and held it up as she remarked, “What do ya think? Am I awesome or what?!” Everyone turned to her and saw the smirk on her face was a perfect imitation of the expression printed on her minfigure counterpart.

Twilight turned her piercing gaze back down to Sunset Shimmer in her hands and noted, “I don’t recall ever seeing anyone who looked like this.”

“That’s because she’s totally made up,” remarked Pinkie Pie offhandedly. “Her name is Sunset Shimmer! She used to be one of the biggest bad guys, but now she’s one of the greatest good guys!”

“Seems kinda ridiculous if you ask me,” rebuffed Twilight. “I find it hard to believe that anyone could just switch sides so drastically.”

“You don’t know what you’re missin’ out on,” said Applejack. “The rest of us have been havin’ a blast with all the adventures we’ve been sendin’ our Lego selves on. Remember when we were younger an’ used to play My Little Pony?”

“That was back when we were little girls and it was socially acceptable for us to be playing with toy ponies and dolls,” Twilight pointed out. “We’re teenagers now! We need to start taking real world responsibilities seriously.”

“Take it from me, Twilight,” explained Rarity, “as an apprentice at the local fashion boutique, I understand very well the importance of real world responsibilities. But even I have come to realize that it’s perfectly okay to occasionally take some time off and simply have fun with your friends, regardless of how juvenile those activities might be.”

“Besides,” Applejack pointed out, “for someone who always talks about real world responsibilities, you sure must’ve spent an awful lotta time buildin’ this whole Lego world of yours.”

“That’s because this was meant to be a one-and-done deal,” explained Twilight. “Once I’ve built everything exactly the way I intended it to be, I can just set it all aside and appreciate all of the hard work and effort I put into this.” She then furrowed her brow and grumbled, “If only you girls would stop messing it all up every few months.”

“Like I said, we’re just having fun!” said Pinkie Pie. “You should join us! I think you would really like it.”

Rainbow Dash held out the blue and grey Lego spaceship in her hands towards Twilight and grinned as she said, “Here. I’ll even let you fly the spaceship.”

While still holding Sunset in one hand, Twilight grabbed the spaceship with her other hand and looked at it from various angles. The five other girls smiled at this. But then Twilight set down the spaceship on the nearby table and firmly said, “Everybody out.”

The five girls dropped their smiles and mumbled in confusion.

“You heard me!” Twilight spoke up in frustration as she pointed back at the stairs. “Get out of my basement! Go! Move it! Out, out, out! NOW!!”

The five girls looked at each other in confusion, then lowered their heads in sadness and slowly made their way towards the stairs. After they all passed by, Twilight glanced down at Sunset, then shook her head and tossed the minifig aside.

Sunset mentally screamed as she hurled through the air until she tumbled onto a desk in front of one of the many computers along the walls of this large basement. She landed on her side and was able to see both the Canterlot City mockup on the table and the stairway as the other girls made their way up.

Twilight followed right behind her friends and once they were all out of the basement, she slammed the door shut and turned the lock with a faint click, then turned around and made her way back down the stairs.

Twilight walked over to the table with Canterlot City, leaned forward against the edge of the table, and sighed in frustration. “This is gonna take me forever to restore all of this,” she grumbled as she gazed out across the model city with scenes of chaos all over the place. She removed her glasses and rubbed her hand over her eyes.

Eventually, Twilight put her glasses back on as she took a deep breath and firmly stated, “That does it.” She turned away and began walking over to a large set of small drawers along another wall in the basement. “Not only am I gonna fix this mess, but I’m also gonna make sure that everything stays exactly the way I like it.” She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a small tube of superglue. “Permanently.”

Sunset Shimmer mentally gasped in shock.

“Oh no… she’s got superglue!”


Back in the Lego World, Midnight Sparkle watched with increasing fury as all the citizens of Canterlot City continue to keep getting in the way of her attempts to study the magic from Equestria. Her drones were able to keep replenishing their numbers, but it was becoming very obvious that most of their efforts were being spent on holding off the resistance, leaving her with very little resources with which to do any of the research she so desperately wanted to achieve.

“That does it!” screamed Midnight furiously. “Not only am I gonna fix this mess…” She fired a magic blast at the base of the police station, blowing open a hole into the security vault. She then telekinetically grabbed something inside that vault and began pulling it towards her. “…but I’m also gonna make sure that everything stays exactly the way I like it!” The object reached her and she grasped it with both arms. She had just stolen a giant tube of superglue. “Permanently!”

Rainbow Dash continued to fly the spaceship around Midnight and when she saw what the super villain had just stolen, her eyes widened in shock. “Look out!” she shouted over her headset to everyone else in the city. “She’s got superglue!”


Twilight glanced over her model city. With so many things in desperate need of being restored to their proper state, she didn’t know where to start. Eventually, her eyes fell on what appeared to be a red biplane build out of the parts of a firetruck, complete with water cannons on the wings. She sighed in frustration and muttered, “This makes absolutely no sense.” She then picked up the odd creation and began to quickly disassemble it.


A dozen drones quickly swarmed around the firefighting biplane. As two of them pulled out the firefighter pilots, the rest tore apart the vehicle and rapidly reassembled it into the firetruck it used to be. The drones set it down on the street, then Midnight Sparkle swooped in and blasted it with the superglue, solidifying the structure into a permanent state. “Stay that way!” she shouted.


Once she glued the last brick into place, Twilight placed the rebuilt firetruck in front of the fire station and muttered, “One down.” She then glanced over towards the rural district and saw something so out-of-place that she decided to move on to that one next.


On the outskirts of the city, Granny Smith shook her fist at the incoming drones and shouted, “Darn aliens!” She was seated in an air-cannon turret that she had built out of a tractor and immediately began shooting apples at the advancing drones. Although a couple of drones got hit and fell to pieces, the rest of them removed Granny Smith and quickly reassembled the turret into its original condition.


Twilight glued every piece into place as she rebuilt the tractor. Once it was complete, she set in down just outside the farmhouse. “Much better,” she muttered. She turned her gaze back into the city, looked over some more of the weird creations and eventually settled on what appeared to be some kind of flower cart with wings.


The three girls piloting that flying flower cart screamed in terror as the drones pulled them out, with one of them hollering, “The horror! The horror!” As the pilotless vehicle began dropping out of the sky, the drones quickly rebuilt it into the original model and then gently set it down on a street corner. Then Midnight Sparkle swooped in and blasted it with superglue.


“Perfect,” muttered Twilight in satisfaction as she set down the permanently restored flower cart. She glanced across the city in search of what needed to be fixed next, and her gaze soon fell on the spaceship that Rainbow Dash had been playing with earlier. She picked it up and inspected the minifigs that had been placed inside.


“There’s too many drones!” exclaimed Fluttershy. “We can’t hold them off!”

“We’re not giving up!” snapped Rainbow Dash. “We’re gonna do whatever it takes to bring down Midnight Sparkle!”

Their spaceship made yet another close flyby of Midnight, but this time, she refused to ignore them. Using her telekinetic magic powers, she opened the spaceship’s canopy and hatch, and then pulled all five girls out of their seats.

With no one at the controls, the spaceship gradually descended as it flew towards City Park. By the time it reached a certain statue of a horse rearing up, the spaceship was flying dangerously low. It missed a direct impact with the statue, but its wing clipped the statue, breaking it off the pedestal. Just seconds later, the spaceship finally plowed into the ground and came to a complete stop.

Meanwhile, the five LEGO Team girls were held within the magical grip of Midnight Sparkle, hovering directly in front of her. With a vicious snarl, she growled, “You girls have been a thorn in my side for too long!”


“I have no need for these,” muttered Twilight as carried the Lego counterparts of her friends over to the drawers and opened one of them.

From the other side of the room, Sunset Shimmer could do nothing but watch helplessly in horror.

“Twilight! What are you doing?! Stop! Those are my friends! NOOOO!!”

Twilight dropped the five minifigs into the opened drawer.


The five LEGO Team girls were suddenly tossed into a large pit in the ground. As soon as they stood up, they noticed a massive stone slab was now being dragged over the pit. The last thing they saw before they became trapped in total darkness was Midnight Sparkle glaring down at them.


Twilight shut the drawer, then returned to the table and picked up the now empty spaceship. “Now to put this thing back where it belongs. And hopefully find the proper minifigures to go with it,” she mumbled to herself as she carried the model spaceship to one of the many shelves upon which Lego models — all of them built according to the instructions — were sitting on display.

Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer had done nothing but remained perfectly still on the desk where she had landed. The more she had watched the giant Twilight’s actions, the more she hated herself for being stuck in such a useless state. She knew that if she didn’t do something soon, the Lego World as she knew it would be doomed.

“I can’t let her keep doing this. I’ve gotta stop her. I’ve gotta get her attention somehow!”

If she was going to have even the slightest hope of any success, Sunset knew she would have to do the seemingly impossible.

“I need to move.”

Meanwhile, Twilight was looking around as she mumbled to herself, “Now where is Benny? I need to put him back in his spaceship where he belongs.” After a moment, she just shrugged and added, “Oh well. I’m sure I’ll stumble across him while I’m fixing the rest of this.” She then returned to the table with Canterlot City and began searching for the next object in need of correcting.

Clack…

Twilight immediately stopped when she heard that noise. It was very faint, so she wasn’t sure what it was or where it came from. After a few seconds of silence, she just shrugged and resumed her search. Once she caught sight of the armored van in the street, she sighed in frustration and grumbled, “This is just ridiculous. Robbers belong in jail.” She removed the roof of the armored van.

Clack-clack…

Twilight stopped as she heard that noise again. It was still faint, but it was definitive enough that she was sure it came from near one of her computers. Nothing over there was out-of-place and she was certain that all of her equipment was still functioning properly, so she returned to the task at hand. She removed Rocky and Mugsy from the van, put its roof back on, then walked over to the police station and removed the roof of the adjacent jail.

Clack-clack-clack…

Twilight suddenly turned her attention back to the general direction of that noise. Now that she stood in a new position, she could see that the Sunset Shimmer minifigure that she had earlier tossed aside was lying on that desk. She made a mental note to do something with that later, then returned to her task. She placed Rocky and Mugsy into the jail cell, put its roof back on, then began to gaze over the city for the next object to correct.

Clack-clack-clack-clack…

Twilight snapped her attention towards the direction of that noise, but still saw nothing out of the ordinary. By now, she was certain that only a small plastic object could make that kind of faint clattering noise, and the only object over there at the moment that could do that was that Sunset Shimmer minifigure. She knew there was no way that inanimate object could make any noise, so, in frustration at these frequent interruptions, she shouted upstairs, “If this is some kind of prank, this is not funny!” She sighed in frustration and returned to her objective.

Sunset Shimmer was also feeling frustrated. So far, she had only been able to twitch her petrified body around for only a brief second on each attempt. It was enough to catch Twilight’s attention, but certainly not enough to stop her efforts. Sunset knew she would need to do much more.

“Come on…! Gotta… keep… moving!”

After a lot of mental straining, Sunset finally achieved a better result. Although she still couldn’t flex any part of her body, she was able to twitch and jerk around more consistently, keeping her petrified body in constant motion… which also resulted in making much more of that clattering noise.

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack…

Twilight tried to ignore the clattering, but with how much longer it was lasting, that was simply impossible. She growled in frustration and turned to the source of the noise, but what she saw instantly made her unclench her jaw and widen her eyes. Somehow, that Sunset Shimmer minifigure was moving around all on its own.

She slowly walked over to the desk, not once ever taking her eyes off the minifigure jumping around on the surface. After watching curiously for a few seconds, she slapped her hand down on it, bringing its movements to a sudden stop. She carefully removed her hand and, at first, the minifigure stayed motionless. But after a few seconds, it suddenly started jumping around again.

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack…

Twilight immediately snatched up the twitching minifigure and quickly felt her hands all over every part of its surface. “No strings attached…” she mumbled. She then pulled open a desk drawer and rummaged through the contents until she pulled out a bar magnet. She tapped both poles of that magnet against every part of the minifigure, and not once did anything stick to it. “No magnets inside…” She put away the magnet, pulled out a small magnifying glass, then removed her glasses and peered through the magnifying glass onto the minifigure. She saw nothing unusual within the legs, removed the legs and saw nothing unusual inside the torso, removed the head and saw nothing unusual inside that. “No microscopic animatronics inside…” She put away the magnifying glass, put her glasses back on, reassembled the components of the minifigure, and held the strange anomaly in the palm of her hand. “What is with this thing?”

The Sunset Shimmer minifigure suddenly started twitching around again, forcing Twilight to yelp as she fumbled around with both hands to avoid dropping it on the floor. She eventually managed to firmly grasp the strange minifigure and stared intently at it. She glanced back at Canterlot City for a moment and then muttered, “That big mess can wait.” She returned her attention to Sunset Shimmer. “This phenomenon demands further research.” She set down the minifigure on its feet on the desk and began to walk away. But then she immediately stopped, turned back to the minifig, held out her hand, and firmly said, “Stay…” When the odd minifigure made no movements for a few seconds, she turned away and began to set up some of her lab equipment.

Sunset Shimmer watched as Twilight flipped switches, pushed buttons, attached wires, tapped on keyboards, and did various other things to set everything up. Although Sunset had spared her home from the wrath of this giant Twilight Sparkle, she now found herself as a test subject, and thus still remained unable to do anything to save the city.

“What have I just gotten myself into?”

After a few minutes of countless hardware and software adjustments, Twilight was finally ready to hook everything up to her test subject. She took a bunch of wires and started wrapping them around Sunset’s arms, legs, torso, and head. She also stuck half of the wire ends between the head and hair piece, ensuring full cranium exposure. As she attached the wires, she muttered, “This specific set-up will allow me to confirm once and for all if there really are any signs of life within this household child’s toy. I have serious doubts that’s the case, but a good scientist never denies any possibility until it has been definitively proven without a doubt that it is absolutely impossible.”

Once the last of the wires had been attached, Twilight set down the minifig on its feet and began quickly typing a series of commands onto multiple computers. After many minutes of painstakingly gathering and processing data, she finally got the definitive results she was looking for. She carefully analyzed the final results and when she realized what she was looking at, her jaw dropped.

“How can that be possible?!” she exclaimed in shock. “It’s saying this thing isn’t just alive, but it also possesses a highly advanced level of intellect, practically human-level sentience!” She picked up the Sunset Shimmer minifigure and stared at it in the face. “But that can’t be possible. This is just a collection of molded ABS plastic parts that were manufactured in Denmark along with millions more just like it. It’s not scientifically possible!” She paused and continued staring at the very strange minifigure. “Isn’t it?”

SLAM!

Twilight immediately turned back towards the stairway and saw Applejack stumble down to the bottom. Applejack turned her gaze up the stairs as she smirked and remarked, “Told ya a good shoulder-ram would do the job.”

“Now you’re wrecking my house?!” shouted Twilight furiously.

As the rest of her friends walked down the stairs, Applejack suddenly turned to Twilight and nervously replied, “Uh, it was Rainbow’s idea.”

“Was not!” Rainbow Dash shot back.

As the rest of the girls reached the bottom of the stairs, Fluttershy was the first to notice that Twilight was seated at a desk with a bunch of the lab equipment powered up and connected to one specific minifig. “Um, Twilight… what are you doing?” asked Fluttershy uneasily.

“Yeah, why are you going all mad scientist on Sunset Shimmer?” added Pinkie Pie.

Twilight sighed and replied, “I know this is going to sound absolutely nuts, but while I was busy trying to undo the mess you girls made to my Lego collection, this particular minifigure was actually jumping around all by itself! There were no strings, no magnets, nothing that could’ve made such a form of trickery possible. I decided to conduct further research to figure out how this could be possible, and I’ve just reached a very startling conclusion. Somehow, this minifigure is alive! Not only that, but it seems to possess a level of intellect equivalent to human beings like us!”

The five girls all stared blankly at Twilight. The awkward silence was eventually broken when Rainbow Dash slowly said, “I think she’s going crazy.”

“Going?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Have you seen her Lego collection? How can you not call that crazy?”

“Well, darling, this is a rather… interesting discovery,” said Rarity as politely as possible. “What do you intend to do next?”

“I think it’s obvious what my follow-up study should involve,” explained Twilight as she started typing more commands onto her computer. “If this tiny little plastic figure really does possess a level of sentience comparable to humans, then it stands to reason that this thing should be intelligent enough to understand speech. By connecting the subject to a voice synthesizer, we should be able to clearly understand what it might be trying to tell us.”

“Can’t argue with that idea,” said Applejack with a shrug. “Ah guess it’s worth a shot.”

As she continued typing, Twilight added, “By the way, you all may recognize this artificial voice as the same one used by a certain wheelchair-bound physicist.” Within a few seconds, Twilight entered the last few commands. “And… there! We are now connected!” She then picked the minifig Sunset Shimmer and said to it, “Try speaking to us.”

Everyone waited patiently for a response. At first, nothing seemed to happen, and as the seconds ticked by, the girls began to doubt they were going to get anything. But then a series of words began to appear on the computer screen, immediately followed by the computerized synthetic voice.

“Let me go,” spoke Sunset Shimmer through the voice synthesizer. “You have to send me back home. I need to help my friends stop Midnight Sparkle from destroying both the Lego World and Equestria.”

The six girls all stared silently at Sunset as their jaws dropped. This customized minifigure of a supposedly completely fictional character had literally just spoken to them! Not only that, but she had also identified specific names that they had used only when acting out their imaginary Lego adventures.

One of these names in particular left Twilight very confused. She turned to her friends and asked, “Midnight Sparkle? Who’s that?”

The others glanced at each other worriedly. “Should we tell her?” asked Fluttershy.

“Tell me what?” asked Twilight in confusion.

Rainbow Dash sighed and then walked over towards Canterlot City. She looked around between the buildings until she eventually found something. She grabbed it and then tossed it over to Twilight.

Twilight caught the object in her hands and then looked closely at it. It was another customized Lego minifigure, but it was far unlike all the others she had seen. This minifig had dark purple skin, a rather revealing outfit, large black wings on the back, and a wild dark hair piece with a horn on the front and some kind of flaming goggles around the eyes. When she noticed this minifig also possessed a symbol of a six-pointed magenta star, all the clues began to add up.

“Why… this looks kind of like… me…” muttered Twilight in shock. Her stare remained straight ahead as she slowly lowered her Lego counterpart. She remained frozen in her seated position for a moment, then she turned to her friends and hesitantly asked, “You really see me as a… bad guy?”

All five of her friends shamefully looked away. None of them could bring themselves to say anything in response, but there was no need to. The very existence of Midnight Sparkle was all Twilight needed to know what her friends really thought of her.

As the awkward silence continued, Twilight looked around at her basement, the one part of her house that she had designated as strictly off-limits to her friends. It was here that she held her entire Lego collection, which was far more impressive than anything her friends had. Yet, she was so obsessed with keeping everything neat and orderly that she had completely denied any access to it, despite her friends’ wishes. The scene of chaos in Canterlot City suddenly made a lot more sense. Her friends just wanted to have fun, but she was denying them that opportunity, so they made a massively defiant act of resistance. And the worst part was that, had it not been for the completely unexpected interference from Sunset Shimmer, Twilight would have absolutely crushed that rebellion with lots of superglue. If she had actually gone through with that, there was no telling what that could have done to her friendship with these girls.

Twilight sighed and glanced down at her Lego counterpart. Her gaze then turned back to Sunset Shimmer, still standing on the desk with a bunch of wires hooked up to her. She glanced back to her Lego counterpart, then returned her gaze to Sunset and slowly asked, “If… if you could… say something… to Midnight Sparkle…” She held up the Midnight Sparkle minifig so that it was now standing face to face with the Sunset Shimmer minifig. “…what would you say?”

Twilight and her friends silently stared at Sunset Shimmer, hoping to hear some kind of response. After many seconds of uneasy silence, Sunset finally responded.

“You don’t have to be the bad guy,” Sunset spoke through the voice synthesizer. “You are a very brilliant individual who is capable of amazing things. But you don’t have to do this alone. As great are you are on your own, you can be an even better person with the help of people who are more than happy to be your friends. Some of the greatest experiences in life can only be achieved when you share it with the best of friends. As long as you always have good friends by your side, anything is possible. Because friendship is magic.”

All six human girls were astonished to hear such an inspiring speech coming from a Lego minifigure. Twilight was so moved by those words that she began to feel tears welling up in her eyes. She removed her glasses, rubbed the tears from her eyes, and then put her glasses back on. She then slowly stood up and turned around to face her friends. Finally, she gave a small smile and held out her arms.

The five other girls smiled back and gathered around Twilight in a group hug. Some of them even awwed in happiness at this reforging of their bond of friendship.

“I’m so sorry, girls,” apologized Twilight. “I had no idea my desire to maintain a perfect collection would threaten our friendship like this.”

“It’s alright, darling,” assured Rarity. “We forgive you.”

“And we promise to help you clean up your collection after we’re done playing with it,” added Rainbow Dash.

“But first, we should probably send Sunset Shimmer back to the Lego World,” Fluttershy pointed out. “It’s what she was asking us to do.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the right thing to do,” agreed Applejack

“Before you send me back,” spoke Sunset through the voice synthesizer, “you need to find and give me the magic-capturing device that Midnight Sparkle used to obtain her dark powers. It should be close to where you first found me.”

“Yes, I supposed we must,” agreed Rarity. She turned to Fluttershy and asked, “Fluttershy, dear, do you recall where you found Sunset Shimmer?”

Fluttershy walked around the table as she replied, “I found her on the floor somewhere around… here.”

“Right at the base of Canterlot Mountain,” Rainbow Dash noted. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Canterlot Mountain? But that’s just a stack of cardboard boxes with a Lego playset on top,” Twilight pointed out.

“We couldn’t exactly build a whole mountain outta Lego bricks, so we had to improvise,” explained Applejack.

“Fair enough,” acknowledged Twilight with a shrug.

While Twilight remained seated at the desk, her friends carefully searched the floor around that table, under that table, and around that stack of cardboard boxes.

A couple of minutes passed before Pinkie Pie suddenly shouted, “Found it!” She then rushed over to Twilight and placed something in Twilight’s hand.

Twilight looked down at the palm of her hand and saw a very small round Lego piece, about the same shape and size as a Lego coin. She also noticed that it was very meticulously detailed for something so very small. No doubt, Rarity had done an extraordinary job with customizing this particular Lego piece.

As Twilight picked up the piece between her thumb and index finger, she remarked, “Wow, this is a really tiny piece.” She then smirked as she turned to Sunset and remarked, “Lucky for you we didn’t lose it.” She then rotated Sunset’s right arm forward and stuck the piece into her hand with a faint click.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had picked up a heavily decorated cardboard tube that was labeled “Magic Portal” and said with a smile, “Great! Now we can send her back! I say we drop her into Canterlot City, where all the action is taking place.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Applejack.

Rarity turned to Twilight and asked, “Would you care to do the honors, darling?”

Twilight smiled and replied, “I’d be happy to.” She picked up the Sunset Shimmer minifig and suddenly hesitated for a moment. “So much scientific potential from this one anomaly… but I need to do the right thing,” she muttered. Somewhat reluctantly, she removed all the wires around the minifig, saved all of her results on the computers, and then shut everything off. “No point in just leaving all of this running. Not when I’m about to spend some quality time with my friends.”

Once all of her lab equipment was finally shut off, she carried Sunset Shimmer over to where Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie held up the Magic Portal. Twilight stopped in front of the portal entrance, looked Sunset in the face one last time, and said with a smile, “Good luck, Sunset Shimmer. See you on the other side.”

And with that, the human Twilight Sparkle tossed Sunset Shimmer into the portal.

Sunset tumbled down the cardboard tube, but within a few seconds, everything around her had gradually morphed into the swirling vortex of bright and colorful bands of light that she had previously gone through. To her, this was an excellent sign that she was now on her way back home.

For a while, Sunset’s body remained completely petrified. But after a few minutes of traveling through the portal, that began to change. First, she was able to blink again. Then she was barely able to move her mouth around, no longer stuck in that friendly smile. Her body parts remained completely stiff, but she did slowly regain the ability to swing her arms and legs back and forth and spin her head and hands around. This was good progress, but it was not enough for Sunset Shimmer.

“Come on…” growled Sunset as she struggled to bend her body in ways that would’ve been impossible in that other world. After a few more minutes of falling through the portal, her stiff body parts finally began to loosen up until eventually, she could once again bend her knees, elbows, back, neck, and hands. She flexed every part of her body that she could and smiled. “Now that’s more like it!”

Sunset glanced down at her right hand and was pleased to see that not only was the device still in her grip, but also the string that allowed it to hang from someone’s neck had also reappeared. She quickly placed the device around her neck and said with determination, “Hang on, my friends! I’m coming to save you!” Once the device was now hanging from her neck, she once again felt the sensation of slowing down until she came to a complete stop, then was suddenly flung down a new direction. She held her arms against her sides and dove straight ahead further into the vortex.

Once again, she passed through the space that gave her the sensation of experiencing all of existence at once. But this time, she paid no attention at all to her surroundings. This time, she was focused entirely on returning home, and since she knew this time that her journey would reach a definite end, she just kept her focus straight ahead.

Some more time passed until Sunset suddenly felt herself yanked down a different direction. Last time, she had been terrified when she reached this point and had no idea where she had been going. But this time, she knew she was going home, so there was nothing to be scared of. All she would have to do now was just wait a little longer until she would finally reach the end of her journey.

As she continued down the final leg of her journey, she thought about what she was going to do when she returned to the Lego World. She had successfully retrieved the device and was now on her way back. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would have to do next, but after the extremely strange journey she had just been on, she felt confident that she would find a way to save her friends and defeat Midnight Sparkle.

Sunset didn’t bother keeping track of time, but she knew this part of the journey was the longest. However, her hopes quickly went up as she began to see a bright light up ahead. It was now only a matter of seconds before she finally returned to the Lego World.


In the nighttime sky high above Canterlot City, Sunset Shimmer suddenly emerged from within a sonic boom. She smiled as she gazed all over the city and saw all the landmarks she was very familiar with. Regardless of the battle with Midnight Sparkle that was sure to come, there was no doubt at all about one thing: it was good to be home.

After a few seconds, Sunset’s smile soon fell. Once the good feeling of finally coming home started to wear off, she made an alarming realization. She was falling out of the sky, and she had no wings or parachute to slow her down. Naturally, there was only one word she could say in a situation like this.

“Shoot.”