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Equestrian Gals Part 15,518 words
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Equestrian Gals Part 2

“Aaah,” said Twilight as she woke up. “Nothing like a good sleep. How did you sleep, Sunset?”

Twilight looked and saw Sunset still feverishly playing the game. “Uh, did you get any sleep?”

“Huh?” asked Sunset distractedly. “I’ll get sleep later. I have to master this first.”

“You know you can’t actually win the game, right?”

“Yeah, I figured that out on the first one. I’ve moved onto another game. These pigs will pay for stealing from the birds!”

What have I created? wondered Twilight to herself. “Well, we should have some breakfast and then head to school.”

“Why don’t I just stay here? I’m not sure I can pass for a student at a school I’m not actually enrolled at. I mean, it’s been a while since I was at school, but I doubt I could just pretend to be a part of the classes I’m not registered for, unless they’re the really big lecture ones.”

“Those are more of a college thing, to my understanding,” said Twilight. “But we can’t just have you stay here; that’ll look weird, and I’m not sure I could explain it to my brother. And it’d be best if you stay in the same general area as me so we can find each other easily if we need to, so you really should be at the school. The real question is where you should be spending your time. You can’t really be in class, because you’d stand out. In the school proper no one would notice an additional student, but you can’t spend the whole time roaming the halls or else you’ll get caught. Hrm…”

“Well, I’ll keep playing this game until you figure it out,” said Sunset.

Twilight snapped her fingers. “Got it! We can hide you in the janitor’s closet when classes are going on!”

“Wouldn’t the janitor just find me?”

“Nah,” said Twilight. “Our janitor is notoriously lazy and doesn’t really clean that much.”

“Staying in a closet for several hours sounds boring,” said Sunset.

Twilight shrugged. “You can spend the time playing the game.”

“I’m in!” declared Sunset.

A substantial amount of explosions, levels, and stars later, Sunset heard the bell ring. “Okay, so that’s the eighth bell ringing… Twilight said that meant it was time for lunch.”

Mildly annoyed she was being interrupted in the middle of the level, Sunset still put the game on pause and stepped out of the closet. Thanks to directions given to her earlier, Sunset was able to navigate her way to the cafeteria outside of a small mishap that wasn’t funny enough to justify elaborating on here.

Okay, she thought, just have to find Twilight. Then she realized that she was hungry, so she first got some food, then found Twilight at a table with several other girls.

“Who’s she?” asked a blue-skinned, rainbow-haired girl who was with Twilight.

“This is Sunset Shimmer,” said Twilight. “She’s a relative who’s staying with us briefly.”

“Why didn’t you ever mention her before?”

“I didn’t mention I had a brother until he got married!” said Twilight.

“Huh, yeah. You’re right. Though that was still kind of weird.”

“Anyway,” said Twilight, “I’d like to introduce you to my friends. This is Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy.”

“Uh, hi,” said Sunset. “Nice to meet you.” Oh, darn it. Which one was which again? I was thinking about the video game when Twilight introduced them. Enh, I’ll just wing it.

While the other girls talked amongst themselves, Sunset spent most of the lunch trying to work out how to beat the level that was frustrating her, causing some degree of awkwardness as the others attempted to start conversations with her only to receive nondescript responses. Eventually, the bell rang and they all left.

“You know, you could have tried to be more sociable,” said Twilight to Sunset.

“Why bother? I’m leaving tonight; I’m not going to see them again. I might see their Equestrian counterparts, but not these guys.”

“Well,” sighed Twilight, “I guess that does make some sense. Still, if you’re like this back on Equestria, you probably should try to open up. I was a real loner before I ended up here, but then I ended up making friends.”

“Maybe,” said Sunset neutrally. “Anyway, guess I’m going to spend some more time playing that game.”

After several more hours of video game playing, the final bell rang. However, due to a glitch, it didn’t stop ringing. Eventually a loud breaking noise was heard due to a hammer hitting it to make it stop. Sunset wasn’t happy to be interrupted from her game again, but wearily decided that it was more important to get back to the plan, so she left the closet and walked out the school with the crowd. She waited by the statue for Twilight. After some waiting, she grew bored and took out the game again. “They need to get these things in Equestria,” she muttered to herself.

Soon afterwards, Twilight walked up to her.

“What took you so long?” asked Sunset.

“Had to take care of some things,” said Twilight. “See, there was–”

“Enh, just realized I don’t really care,” said Sunset. “As long as we can get the crown at the Fall Formal, I’m good. By the way, can I bring this game back with me to Equestria?”

“Well, I have a spare, so okay,” said Twilight. “I’m not sure it would work there, though. Actually, I’m a little worried you might be becoming addicted to it.”

“Hey, I can stop whenever I want to!” protested Sunset. “I just don’t want to is all.”

“Anyway,” said Twilight, “we just have to get ready for the Fall Formal and get that crown. It should be simple enough, but the real wild card is that alternate version of myself that’s running around; if she’s going to make her move at any time, it would be at the Fall Formal. Do you want to get a dress for it? I’m sure Rarity has some spares.”

“Well, I don’t really care about the whole thing anyway, so I guess I’ll just go as I am,” said Sunset.

The next several hours were a bit of a blur to Sunset, mostly due to her spending more time playing video games. It seemed like only a few sentences had gone by before the Fall Formal had not only started, but also gotten to the point where the princess was to be crowned.

“First off,” said Chrysalis, “I want to say how wonderful everyone looks tonight. Because that’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to say, I think? And ordinarily I’d use this opportunity to talk about things you don’t care about… and this isn’t in any way not ordinary, so here we go. I bet that some of you think ‘oh boy, I can’t wait until I graduate, because then I’m finally out of high school.’ Well let me tell you, like the song says, high school never ends! The whole world is just as obsessed with who’s the best dressed and who’s–”

“Oh, for the love of,” muttered the nearby Luna as she grabbed the microphone out of Chrysalis’s hands. “I’m going to take this over before you say something else that gets us all sued. I still can’t believe you got the principal position over me.”

“I wasn’t the one who pushed so hard with that crazy plan to have all classes at night!”

“Oh, you’re always going to hold that over my head, are you? It’s not like you brought up any great objections at the time when I mentioned it to you. My sister would’ve talked me out of it.”

“Your sister was the one who tried to put into place a policy that simply not getting along would be grounds for expulsion! Why do you think she doesn’t have a position here anymore?”

“Um,” said a student, “could you hold off on your arguing long enough to announce the princess so we can get on with the dance?”

“Huh?” said Chrysalis idly. “Oh, right. Uh, Twilight Sparkle gets it.” She nonchalantly threw the crown to Twilight, who put it on.

“Oh, good,” said Sunset as she went up to Twilight. “We’ve got the crown. That was way easier than I expected. So, Twilight, can–”

Sunset was interrupted by a flash of blue light that suddenly encompassed Twilight. It rose up into the sky like a pillar, smashing a hole in the roof while doing so. Then the light abruptly vanished, and Sunset saw that Twilight had been transformed into some kind of pseudo-demon version of herself, including wings.

Sunset scratched her head. “Is this part of some kind of weird ritual here? Because it seems odd.”

“Oh, Sunset,” said Twilight, “you don’t get it? I’m the Twilight you chased here! I managed to get the drop on my other self from this universe today and have been posing as her. And you never noticed!”

“Argh!” said Sunset as she clutched her forehead. “Man, I really should’ve tested you on that password.”

“You mean ‘preserve’?” asked Twilight.

“How did you know that?” said Sunset.

“What, you don’t think I couldn’t accurately figure out what word I would’ve picked? Come on. We’re the same person, she and I. Well, outside of the fact I’ve got this amulet that lets me see things more… clearly.”

“But you’re not wearing the amulet!” said Sunset.

Twilight held up a finger. “Just another brilliant idea of mine! I knew you’d be looking for an amulet, so I simply wore it as a bracelet under my sleeve so you wouldn’t notice.”

Sunset looked around. “Why did everyone suddenly get so quiet? I’d think this would have caused a bigger stir.”

“Oh, I just used my powers to brainwash all of them.”

“You can do that?” asked Sunset.

“Apparently!” said Twilight.

“That would explain the fact their eyes are all blue and glowing,” said Sunset. All right, It looks like I either have to get that crown away from her, or just run back to Equestria and leave this world to its fate. Well, the latter sounds less dangerous. But first I have to figure out how to get away… stall for time, I guess? “So… are you planning to use all these brainwashed people to try to take over Equestria?”

“Oh, come on,” said Twilight. “That’s a terrible plan. A group of untrained individuals who wouldn’t even be used to moving around as a pony would immediately fall to the guards I assume you have back in Equestria. Not to mention that thanks to their eyes being replaced with the blue glowing thing, they don’t have pupils and are thus actually unable to see at the moment.” She gestured towards several of the brainwashed people who were constantly walking straight into things.

“So then what is your plan?” asked Sunset.

Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the door suddenly opening and another Twilight staggering in. She looked around. “Oh, darn it, too late,” she said.

“Hey!” said the Twilight we will now refer to as Demon-Twilight in order to avoid confusion. “How did you get out?”

“You know how there was that show that featured this dog that was always rescuing people and seemed far more intelligent than normal, and how I have a pet dog that seems far more intelligent than normal?” asked Twilight.

“Yes?” asked Demon-Twilight.

“Well, it had nothing to do with that.”

There was a pause.

“You’re not going to tell me?” asked Demon-Twilight.

“Not going to tell you,” said Twilight. “You know, I feel kind of bad for you. I mean, you had all of these people you could’ve made some friends with while you were here, but you insisted on being a loner. It’s only because I took your place that you’re even thought of someone other than that weird girl.”

“Oh?” asked Demon-Twilight as her eyes literally flashed, “and you think you’re better? You spent all your time studying magic rather than actually using it! You had one of the highest concentrations of magic that anypony has ever had, and you let it languish!” She flew up a bit so she was hovering several feet from the ground. “Enough talk. I don’t see the need to argue with you. I don’t seem to be able to mind control you or Sunset, possibly due to you being from Equestria, but I’m sure that a simple–”

Demon-Twilight suddenly found herself interrupted by getting hit in the head with something. This had the effect of both knocking the crown off of her and reverting her back to normal, but also knocking her out. Conveniently, this also caused everyone who had been mind controlled to collapse.

“What happened?” asked Twilight, spinning around.

“Well–” started Sunset.

“Actually, explain later. Let’s get her and us out of here before all these guys get up.”

The two grabbed the unconscious Twilight and crown and ran with her out of the auditorium and into a deserted classroom. They laid her on one of the tables. Sunset pulled back her sleeve to grab the amulet.

“So, wait, what did you do?” asked Twilight. “How’d you stop her? Did you do something while she was distracted talking to me?”

“I threw a rock at her,” said Sunset.

“While I appreciate stopping her, that could actually really hurt her,” said Twilight.

“It wasn’t a big rock,” said Sunset defensively.

“Okay, so I guess what you’re going to do is take the crown and the amulet back to Equestria before the portal closes?”

“And her, too, I suppose,” said Sunset with a shrug.

“What if she just doesn’t want to go back? What if she wants to stay here? I mean, I sure know I want to stay here.”

“Look,” said Sunset, “I have a time limit here. Unless she wakes up now to say she wants to stay in this world, I’m just grabbing her unconscious body and dragging her through the portal with me.”

“Ugh,” groaned the Twilight on the table as she slowly opened her eyes. “What happened?”

“You got ahold of an amulet that made you crazy, then you came into this alternate world to take it over or something, powered yourself up with the crown, not really sure how that part worked but whatever, mind controlled some people, then got hit by a rock and thus defeated,” said Sunset.

“Oh, yeah,” said the aforementioned Twilight. “I guess I did do all of that. Um… sorry?”

“Good enough for me!” declared the other Twilight.

“Okay,” said Sunset. “So, are we leaving? The portal’s closing in a few hours. And if you’re worried about getting in trouble, I should point out that being under the influence of a magical object is a valid legal defense.”

“I would like to return, but I wouldn’t mind doing a few things first,” said the Twilight that will hereafter be referred to as Equestrian-Twilight (as opposed to Human-Twilight, though both are currently human) to avoid confusion, though note this refers to where she was at the start of this story, not in the backstory where she was from this universe, and this sentence has been rather long.

“You want to head back, thought?” asked Human-Twilight.

“Well, duh,” said Equestrian-Twilight. “Why in the world would I not want to have all that magical power? That was amazing. I wouldn’t give that up. However… I feel like I have to say goodbye to my family and explain to them what happened. I mean, sure, I have their equivalents in Equestria, but… they’re still not the ones I knew for most of my life. I mean, I feel I had a bit of a strained relationship with my brother after crossing over, and I kind of got the feeling that that’s the case here as well. I can’t not take this opportunity to rectify things, at least with Shining Armor, as he’s actually nearby.”

Well, this took a turn for the stupidly sentimental, thought Sunset to herself. Out loud she said, “Fine, but be quick about it.”

“You know, she’s got a point,” said Human-Twilight. “If the portal’s open, I should probably go over for a bit and talk to my original family… are they near the portal?”

“Shining Armor is,” said Sunset.

“Great!” said one of the Twilights. “Actually, we should probably both go to the one from this universe, in order to prove the whole alternate universe thing.” The two Twilights dashed off, leaving Sunset alone in the room.

“Well, at least I’ve still got this,” muttered Sunset to herself as she took out her game.

Meanwhile…

Luna and Chrysalis looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “Okay, how are we going to explain this one?” asked Chrysalis. “I don’t even know how this happened; it’s all such a blur.”

“Well, I don’t think we can blame it on the alcohol as usual,” said Luna. “Wayward rocket?”

“Well, if it lets me cash in on that insurance money, I’ll call it anything. We can use that cash to fix the bell that broke. And I never liked that roof anyway.”

Sunset waited by the statue, still continuing to play her game. She glanced up. “We’re cutting it a bit short. I mean, cutting it a bit close. Why did I say cutting it a bit short? And why am I talking to myself?”

The two Twilights came up to her. “All right! Mission accomplished!” said one.

“Uh-huh,” said Sunset, caring just barely enough to pay attention. “How’d he take it?”

“I think,” said one of the Twilights, “his exact words were ’if you had just told me this a while ago, you could’ve saved both of us a lot of trouble.’ Anyway, now to cross over!” The two went into the portal.

“Come on,” muttered Sunset to herself. “There’s not much time. I have to beat this stupid level before time runs out, because I’m not sure how well this will work back on Equestria.”

After a presumably emotional reunion that occurred entirely offscreen due to it being ill-fitted for a comedy story, one Twilight emerged. “Well, everything’s taken care of,” she said. “I should probably get back to that dance before it completely ends. Are you going to be heading back?”

Sunset put down the game. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Why am I heading back? All it means is that I’d still be stuck with the whole changeling thing, and it’s not like there’s much I liked back in Equestria to begin with. It’s not like my job is particularly great, as I got stuck in Ponyville with a group of very annoying ponies. And if I stay here, I can keep playing this game! Why in the world would I head back?”

“Wasn’t there something about you needing to be there to defeat this Discord guy you were mentioning?”

“Meh, the Element’s back, and I’m sure it can be reconfigured somehow. Maybe Twilight could use it; it’s the Element of Magic, and she’s rather powerful magically.”

“Well, I guess I can’t fault you for wanting to stay here, considering I chose to,” said Twilight. “I guess I could probably arrange some way for you to stay with us for a while. And, hey, you can meet my boyfriend! He’s out of town right now, so I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to him. See, his name’s Flash Sentry, and he’s really nice. We… uh, is something wrong? You seem go be going pale.”

No. No no no no no. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. “Um… you know what?” said Sunset. “Upon further consideration, I think I really should be going back into my own world. It really could be in trouble without me being there to use the Element of Magic.”

“Oh, sure,” said Twilight. “Well, maybe I can introduce you next time you’re here. The portal does open again… eventually.”

“Uh, sure, yeah, that might be a better time,” said Sunset. “Anyway… anything else to say before I leave?”

“Well, like I said earlier, I think it’d probably be good for you if you were to make some friends, as you indicated you don’t really have any. I know it was good for me.”

“Uh, I’ll think about it,” said Sunset. “Anyway, off I go.” She stepped through the portal.

Sunset walked out of the portal. “Wow, walking does work a lot better.” She looked at the various assembled ponies, which included Shining Armor, Cadance, Twilight, Trixie, and some various guards. “Uh… hi.”

A large ball suddenly floated up in the air and exploded into confetti. “WELCOME BACK!” declared Trixie.

“All this confetti takes a while to clean up,” said Shining Armor.

“Not my problem!” said Trixie.

Sunset looked at the phone she took with her. “Well, this seems like it works. Now I just have to figure out how to keep it charged up. Well, at least we have the Elements for whenever Discord pops up.”

“Actually,” said Shining Armor, “we might not need them. Remember how previously we accidentally only Discord-proofed the glasses? We were able to melt down the glass and put a small coating on a whole lot of stuff, so Discord’s powers should be fairly limited.”

“So I went and got back the Element of Magic for nothing?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” said Shining Armor. “After all, Discord is still a dangerous force, so if he wants to come back and cause havoc–”

Shining Armor was interrupted by a finger snap and Discord appearing. “Hi again everypony! I just wanted to mention that the previous message had some errors in it. To make sure I do it right, I wrote everything down.” He took out a piece of paper and read it. “Ahem. I’ve gotten bored from my vacation, so I plan to show up to Equestria again soon. But I don’t really plan to be causing too much chaos, because while I was away, I realized something: Equestria is so completely screwed up and crazy by itself it’s actually a lot more fun to just watch all the craziness rather than causing it. Besides, anything that’s completely chaotic is statistically uniform in composition and therefore orderly. Also boring. So all that stuff about me taking over? Totally wrong. Anyway, see you later when I get out of traffic; could take a while before I make it back to Equestria.” He snapped his fingers again and disappeared.

“So, yeah, I did it for nothing,” muttered Sunset.

“Well,” said Twilight, “you did rescue me from myself. I didn’t get a chance to say this before, but I feel like I have to… thanks, Sunset.”

The shock of someone actually thanking her for anything left Sunset speechless briefly. “Oh… um… okay. You know, I’ve got a question. Is there any chance I could work here? My employment contract with Equestria is expiring soon, and you seem way more tolerable to work for than Chrysalis.”

“Wait, you’re work-for-hire?” asked Trixie.

“Yes!” snapped Sunset. “That’s why I stuck with that lousy job; I was under contract. Also, it pays better than my other choices. But I’m sure I could get similar pay here, right?”

“Well, you did help save the Crystal Empire and got my sister back and allowed us to reconcile,” said Shining Armor. “I’m sure we can find something.”

“Finally!” said Sunset. “Something is going my way!”

Just then, a blue-maned, orange-coated guard entered. “Do you guys need more food? You’ve been here for a while.”

Sunset took one look at the guard, screamed at the top of her lungs, then shouted, “Never mind! Going back to Equestria! See you all later! I’ll catch a train!” Then she ran off.

“That was weird,” said Trixie.

“Do you know what that was about?” Shining Armor asked the guard. “Let’s see, you’re new… Flash Sentry, right?”

“Right,” he said. “Actually, she and I went out briefly, but then broke up.”

“What left such a weird impression on her?”

“I think her exact words were that I was ‘such a black hole of personality that you don’t just lack any trace of personality, you also suck personality away from those around you.’ She thus was completely terrified of being anywhere near me. Personally, I don’t get it.”

“Well!” said Trixie. “Now that this whole mess with Twilight has been concluded and nicely wrapped up, I suppose now there’s no reason to ever have to worry about that alternate universe ever again.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Uh… I just realized there’s something I forgot to tell you. See, being half-crazy kind of screws with your memory, and I only just remembered that there were these other three who came with me.”

“You had help?” asked Shining Armor.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been able to sneak past all that security by myself,” said Twilight. “They went through the portal before I did, though; not sure what happened to them. The original plan was to work with them on this other plan they had, but once the opportunity to grab the Element of Magic popped up, I opted to try to go for that instead and forgot about the guys I was with.”

“And who were they?”

“Do you know what that was?” asked Adagio as she gestured towards the sky.

Sonata and Aria shrugged. “Enh?”

“That was Equestrian magic!” snapped Adagio. “You know, giant pillar of light?”

“It could’ve just been a weird firework celebration,” said Aria. “Besides, this world doesn’t have Equestrian magic.”

“That was not what fireworks look like! As for the world not having Equestrian magic, it does now! And we’re going to use it to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

The three struck a menacing pose. Then they realized the pointlessness of doing so when there wasn’t anyone around to take pictures of them, so they opted to head home instead.

“Finally!” declared Adagio as they walked. “I was starting to think we were actually stuck here for good! All we have to do is figure out exactly where that light came from! That could probably take a few months. And then–”

Adagio found herself interrupted by someone coming up from behind and covering her mouth with a cloth, as did Sonata and Aria. They all shortly passed out.

“Ugh,” groaned Adagio as she got up, rubbing her head. “What just happened?”

“I think someone made us pass out with chloroform,” said Aria.

“Ahhh!” screamed Sonata as she looked down. “The pendants are gone!”

“Yet, oddly, not our wallets,” noted Adagio. “Whenever anyone tried to rob us before, we always just sang to them to make them stop… but this group of robbers went straight for covering up our mouths, preventing us from doing that. And they took only the pendants. The only explanation that comes to mind is they actually knew about the pendants’ power and wanted to steal them for their own benefit.”

“This is bad, right?” asked Sonata.

“Yes,” snapped Adagio as her eye twitched, “this is very bad!”

Three shadowy figures stood in the shadows, as shadowy figures are wont to do.

“Come on, Thunder Strike, who’s the better leader?” asked one gleefully. “This plan of mine is totally being more successful than anything you came up with when you were the one making up the plans. You never would’ve thought to use those Wonderbolts uniforms we stole to help us sneak into the castle.”

The aforementioned Thunder Strike folded his arms. “Stormy, talk is cheap when you haven’t completed your plan yet. In fact, you’ve really only accomplished yet another step in this seemingly endlessly convoluted plan rather than getting to the actual goal. Getting those pendants was, what, Step 24?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Stormy Skies, “because there’s only three steps left. Step one: Figure out how to use these pendants. Step two: Use them to take over the world. Step three: Profit.”

“Fine, whatever,” said Thunder Strike. “But can we go to somewhere where there’s lights? It’s way too dark here. I mean, I know we’re the Shadowbolts, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some lights on while we’re discussing things.”

“Fair enough. Now, it might take a little while to master the usage of these pendants. But once we do, we’ll be able to use them to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

“Hrm,” said the third figure.

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Hopeful_Ink_Hoof

Hopeful_Ink_Hoof #1 · Aug 16th, 2015 · · ·

Well that was interesting. I for one am a little disappointed that Sunset Shimmer did not have to end up dealing with the EQG counterparts of her fellow element bearers in this. Don't misunderstand. It's a good story and very entertaining. I just kind of wished to have seen Sunset's reaction to meeting human versions of her "friends," even if it was to run screaming through the portal and declaring that nothing was worth dealing with that.

Lord Seth

Lord Seth #2 · Aug 16th, 2015 · · ·

6325751

Yeah, I was a little disappointed myself I couldn't figure out a good way to fit them into this story. But I did have ideas for some of them for in the Rainbow Rocks parody, whenever I get around to that.

keaton-furman-prower