Epilogue: Second Contact
One year later…
"The Equinox Ball has always been a celebration of the accomplishments of the many extraordinary people – both within and outside the company – who have helped us to achieve the success we enjoy today. Tonight, we celebrate the most eventful year that Equinox has ever had.
"Between the start of our first ever internship program, our new partnerships with top research institutes across the country, and, of course, the opening of our new branch in Cambridle, we've certainly been busy the last year, and I'd like to thank everyone who helped make our initiatives a success, including my girlfriend Twilight, who's had to put up with me being stressed out this whole time. Twilight, Equinox Labs thanks you for your generous contributions."
A polite laughter washed over the crowd as Twilight blushed a deep red. Shooting her an easy smile, Sunset spoke on. "Equinox Labs was founded on the belief that we could make the world a better place, and with your generous donations today, we will take yet another step towards reaching that goal. Thank you, all of you, and please have a wonderful night."
Sunset took a seat after a few seconds of clapping. Next to her, Twilight punched her lightly on the arm. "Way to reduce my work in the past year to being your cheerleader," she grumbled without any real heat.
"I should think that everyone in this room understands that this new renaissance of technological progress for Equinox would not have been possible without melding your genius with that of Miss Shimmer's." From his seat on the other side of Twilight, Fancy Pants humored her with a kindly smile.
"See, Fancy gets it," Sunset said, elbowing Twilight back. "Besides, I've been singing your praises for the past year – I think I'm starting to annoy everyone."
"Fine, I guess I'll let this one go. But only if you make it up to me when we get home." Twilight said with a small pout.
"Sure thing, Twilight." Sunset winked at Twilight as she spoke, a smouldering flame burning in her eyes.
"Oh, how precious!" Across the table, Rarity clapped her hands together in glee. "I was sure that two would stop being this adorable after a year, but you've managed to buck that particular trend quite thoroughly."
"Thanks, Rarity," Sunset said dryly. "Glad we're providing quality entertainment for you." She took a sip of her wine, letting the cool liquid soothe her parched throat. "Anyways, love lives aside, there's something I need to talk to you about, Fancy Pants." She leaned over to make eye contact with the businessman. "How you heard about our latest discoveries in superconductive alloys?"
"I've read a précis of your press release, but I haven't had the chance to inquire further," Fancy Pants replied. "What marvels do you have to dazzle us with today, Miss Shimmer?"
"Well, I think you'll be interested in our new mythril alloy, which we've tested and shown to be at least an order of magnitude more conductive than anything else on the market…"
Sunset spoke on, giving her practiced spiel to Fancy Pants. Just like in all their previous meetings, Fancy proved to be a shrewd businessman, holding his cards close to the chest and making Sunset work for every concession.
In the end, they managed to work something out that they both agreed would be a good starting point for proper negotiations, just in time for the dance floor to open up. "I think we've covered a lot of ground tonight," Sunset said as she stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've been promised a dance with the most beautiful woman in the room."
"What a remarkable coincidence," Fancy Pants replied as he also stood up. "I believe I have that very same engagement. Good night to you, Miss Shimmer, and I hope that love finds you well."
"Same to you, Fancy." Sunset walked over to the other side of the table, where Twilight was chatting with Rarity. "Excuse me," Sunset said, cutting in. "Sorry for bothering you, but the dancing's about to start."
"Oh, of course." Rarity tittered, covering her mouth with a hand. "I wouldn't dream of getting between a woman and her first dance."
"Thanks, Rarity." Sunset turned to face Twilight. "Would you do me the honor of sharing a dance with me, Dr. Sparkle?" she asked in the most faux-cultured voice she could manage.
Twilight giggled softly before schooling her own features into a slight frown. "I would be delighted, Miss Shimmer," she replied in her own haughty tone. She reached out to grasp Sunset's outstretched hand, rising gracefully from her seat, and together, the two of them headed out to the dance floor.
A slow, cheery love song played in the background as Sunset wrapped her arms around Twilight, her hands wandering as low as they could without being scandalous. They rocked back and forth lightly, heads nearly pressed together. "One of these days, I'll learn how to dance," Twilight said, her footsteps slightly shaky. "Especially if you're going to keep dragging me to these events."
"I think your lack of coordination is cute," Sunset replied. "But I have no problems taking lessons with you if it means I get to grope you the whole time."
"Behave," Twilight said, though she couldn't keep a serious tone in her voice. "We can have fun later tonight, assuming I can get through all my paperwork." She batted lightly at Sunset's shoulders. "You know, ever since we started dating, I've gotten twice the number of requests for thesis supervision than I did before. Because apparently being on track to be the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history pales in comparison to dating the founder of Equinox Labs."
"You can always just say you aren't taking in any new students this year," Sunset said.
"Unfortunately, I need to find someone to replace Dinky after you stole her from me." Twilight glared at Sunset. "You know, she was on track to be the best postdoc I ever had."
Sunset's returning smile was nothing short of cherubic. "And now she's on track to be one of the most brilliant scientists we've ever hired."
"I should never have let her take that internship," Twilight grumbled.
"She's in a better place now." Sunset's solemn tone was somewhat marred by her smirk.
"I'm going to get you back for that tonight." Twilight's own hands drifted lower as she pulled Sunset tighter against her, leaving no doubt as to her intent.
"I'm looking forward to it." Sunset's own voice dropped lower as she let herself melt into Twilight's embrace.
Before things could get too close to something that would scandalize Rarity, Sunset's phone buzzed. Extricating herself from Twilight with a wistful sigh, Sunset pulled out her phone. "Sorry, just got a text."
"Me too." Twilight withdrew her own phone, both of them opening their messages.
"It's Dinky," Sunset said. "She's got something urgent to show us."
"I have the same message."
"You think it's important?" Sunset eyes Twilight, unsure whether or not her new employee was simply being overly enthusiastic as she normally was.
"She knows where we are," Twilight replied. "She wouldn't send that unless it was actually something we needed to see now."
"Alright, let's go."
The pair headed over towards the side of the dance floor, where the President of Equinox Labs was standing with a small crowd of the Canterlot elite. Sunset signalled Starlight, who quietly excused herself to speak to them. "What's up?" she asked.
"Twilight and I need to head over to the lab," Sunset said. "Dinky's got something to show us. Can you hold down the fort?"
"Sure. You two have fun."
Sunset and Twilight made their rounds, saying goodbye to the more important guests at the Ball before heading out to the parking lot, where Gear Shift was ready with their car.
The drive to Equinox's less-publicized lab went by quickly, the site of the newest addition to the Canterlot labs located only a few blocks away. Twilight and Sunset tried to speculate as to what Dinky had called them for on the way, with little success.
They reached the nondescript building hiding in the shadows of the fading sunlight, and the pair stepped out of the car. They walked through the front door and passed through all the different locks and other security measures in order to reach the main lab, where an excited Dinky was practically bouncing on her heels waiting for them at the entrance. "Twilight, Sunset!" she called out, Sunset winced at the loudness of her tone.
"Hey Dinky," Sunset said, waving. "What've you got for us?"
"I did it! I finally got it to work!" Dinky actually started hopping up and down as she spoke.
"Got what to work?" Twilight asked.
"The transdimensional stabilizer!" Sunset gave up on trying to follow Dinky's movements as she listened to her response. "All I had to do was tweak the configuration of the rings in order to increase the capacitance and push the bandgap into the gamma region!"
Sunset's annoyance immediately vanished. "Wait, you got the stabilizer to work? That means…"
"Yup! See for yourself!"
Sunset and Twilight followed Dinky into the heart of the lab, where a small mesh cage sat on a table. Inside, the journal that had brought them together a year ago sat glowing faintly. On a screen next to the cage, the feed from a camera positioned at the top of the cage showed the pages of the journal. Sunset gasped as she saw a previously-blank page now filled with words written in a familiar handwriting.
"She… she kept writing to me," Sunset whispered as she studied the messages scrawled on the page. The first set of messages were from Princess Twilight, informing them as to the portal's failure and asking if they were okay. The increasingly frantic messages abruptly cut off on the next page, replaced by what appeared to be annual messages asking if they were okay.
"After all this time, she kept trying." The first tears began to fall as thoughts of the princess who had saved her wormed their way into her heart.
"Dinky, can you give us a moment, please?" Distantly, Sunset heard Twilight's request to her employee.
"Sure thing, Twilight." The sound of footsteps sounded out through the room, growing slowly quieter until Sunset couldn't hear them anymore.
At the same time, she felt a warm, comforting presence grow closer. Twilight wrapped one arm around Sunset, her other hand reaching out to cup Sunset's face and turn her towards Twilight. "Hey," she said softly, "you okay?"
"Yeah." Sunset's tone was equally soft, the former unicorn unable to bring herself to break the spell she found herself in and ruin the moment. "Just a little emotional seeing something from the Princess for the first time in years, y'know?"
"I get it." Twilight pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Take all the time you need."
"I'm good now," Sunset said, feeling the pressure in her eyes fade. She gave Twilight a weak smile. "Good thing we let Dinky in on our little secret, huh?"
"I'll admit, I had my doubts, but I suppose I did argue for getting more people to work on magical research, and it's obviously paid off."
"You know what this means, right?" Sunset's tone suddenly grew serious. "It's time to start the next phase of our plan."
Twilight sighed. "Yeah." Her voice turned sour. "And here I thought we might be able to go a little longer before our next fight."
"We don't have to fight, you know." Even as she said the words, Sunset knew it was pointless.
"Considering how our last discussion went, I have my doubts." Twilight pulled Sunset in closer, pressing their bodies together. "But it's okay, because whatever happens, we'll get through it together."
"Yeah, together." Sunset and Twilight basked in each others' presence for a few seconds before Sunset spoke again. "Twilight?"
"Yes?"
"I love you." Sunset leaned in and stole a slow, sweet kiss from Twilight.
"I love you too," Twilight said as they pulled away from each other. "And no matter what comes next, I'll stand with you."
"I never doubted it," Sunset said, sneaking one more kiss in before regretfully turning her attention back to the journal. "Do we have the statement we drafted up somewhere around here?"
"I think we kept it in the cabinet over there." Twilight walked over to one side of the room and pulled out a sheet of paper, handing it over to Sunset. "Would you like to do the honors?"
"Sure." Reaching for a pen, Sunset opened the cage and pressed its tip against the pages of the artifact, writing the words that would herald the beginning of a new era.
Dear Princess Twilight…
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Okay this had been an amazing rollercoaster ride of a story and I look forward to seeing what happens next!
Fantastic job!
I really enjoy it when I'm trying to cry at the end of a story. It was a very good one from start to finish.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this story and really hope there is a sequel to this. Excellent job my friend.
beautifully written beautifully done! looking forward to more from you.
*Chants* Sequel. Sequel. Sequel. Sequel. Sequel.
I'm surprised how plausible that resolution seems, despite my previous doubts. But the reveal of Twilight's motivations changed a lot, and it was cool how it showed that she and Sunset are even more similar than we knew. A good end for a good story. Looking forward to reading more from you!
The only thing I kinda disliked is that some of the kiss descriptions are a bit too purple. I think the scenes they describe are actually great, but "as they gazed deep into each others' souls, a cyan inferno that burned with lust", "For a few precious moments, they basked in the light of their love, a light that, though metaphorical this time and not magical, still managed to outshine the stars of the night sky." and "the dance of passion that their tongues were engaged in" were breaking the immersion for me. Not that I'd want to try and do it better, they are already too good for that :P
Now I'm wondering how universal this is as the reason for opposing technological advancement. It sounds simple, but I never realized it so clearly.
It's been a while since a story hooked me as quickly and thoroughly as this did. It was fantastic and, as a few others have said and more will say I'm sure, I eagerly await to hear if there will be a sequel where Sunset gets to go back to Equestria.
Congratulations on the fantastic story!!!
Absolutely beautiful! I love your story and it definitely earned a spot in my favorites😁
AAAAAWWWWW!
Sequel?
After a very turbulent romance, we at last come to the end! All in all it was a wonderful ride, and I wouldn't mind seeing more from this 'verse in terms of what comes next.
So...are they going to reopen the portal or what? Not sure I understand.
And does Twilight still really understand what she did to Sunset? Seeing that journal, about how worried Princess Twilight's been for YEARS makes me kind of angry at her all over again for stranding her on an alien world far from home for a decade and a half.
So uh. I'm gonna want a sequel to this. Have a rough draft on my desk by the end of next week or you're fired.
It seems like a bit of a shame to me that the real problem with Twilight's position, and to a lesser extent the rest of them, is never really addressed. Namely, that they were deliberately and repeatedly denying everyone else any way to defend themselves from a real and present danger that just kept happening. And instead played superhero every time something came up.
You don't solve your problems, particularly problems that are natural laws of the universe, by slamming the door on them and hoping they go away. At the very best, all you're accomplishing is delaying things a bit, and making absolutely sure that no one is prepared the next time it comes up, and that you have no control over when and where and how that happens.
And you don't handle threats that prey on the defenseless and ignorant by deliberately keeping them defenseless and ignorant and hoping you can handle everything yourself. Seriously, potentially world-ending problems, and you refuse to even let anyone else know they are in danger? It's so outrageous that questions like what magic means to Sunset, and whether magic is ultimately more harmful or beneficial, absolutely pale in comparison.
All this unresolved ethical tension kept distracting me from the shipping.
That was one helluva ride! Any plans for a sequel by chance?
inhales* ya smell that yep a sequel
I finally did a review of this story. I apologize if the criticism isn't to your liking, but I made sure to highlight both the good and the bad. Overall I loved the story though:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/830854/i-dont-need-magic-review
Had to do a quick Google search to see what was and wasn't cannon, I really should follow up on all the EQG stuff considering how I haven't seen past the friendship games movie, but nice job on setting up a look forward that was hood enough to get me to double check cannon lore. Bravo on the way you handled the romance. Bravo all around really, bravo
Omg this was amazing! I loved every single part of it. It took me awhile to finish the whole story but it was WORTH it! They finally got there big ending even with all the drama they’ve been through. I’m also so happy she got to reach Princess Twilight in the end! But yeah, one of my favorite stories. ♥️
That was enjoyable.
Okay, all finished. Overall, it was a good story! I know I had more thoughts I wanted to say at the end, but because I kept taking rather lengthy pauses, some of them are gone. But, I will try to pin them down. Let's start with the good.
You did a really good job on showing where the characters are at fifteen years later. They've (mostly) grown up, but are still the girls we know and love. I also love how you sprinkle mentions of their past adventures here and there, it gives a sense of this being a larger world and narrative that we only get to see a piece of, and that's good.
I also really like how you talk about magic. You break it down into believable techno-babble that gives the reader a sense of this being complicated stuff, but Sunset and Twilight know what they're talking about. I'd actually really like to pick your brain on that.
And, for the most part, I enjoyed the conflict. It boiled down to a matter of forgiveness and trust, and fifteen years is a long time to either let go of the past, or let old wounds fester. The girls really try to move on, but it's a struggle.
But, as much as both Twilight and Sunset did reprehensible things to one another, the story really seemed to lean into Sunset's favor. Yeah, Sunset accidentally almost killed Twilight, but she cut off Sunset's home and magic, and then just walked away without talking to anyone. And when we finally see the events that actually transpired... I don't know, it felt... anti-climactic?
There's also the relationship itself. Going into the fic, I already knew they would be together at the end, but I kept reading it and was wondering 'seriously, how are they going to make this work?' You know I'll ship Sunlight until Kingdom Come, but I was really wondering whether this would be a healthy relationship. And you address that at the end: they're going to fight, a lot, but if they really love each other, they'll work it out. Which, I guess is true for any relationship, I wouldn't know, but if they're fighting at an ideological level? Maybe it's best if they're just friends?
Overall though, the story was good. You had a good plot, well written, filled with drama and believable characters. You even gave me things to think about for my own stories. So, well done, and thank you!
9438162
Thanks so much for the feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed it overall. I'd be happy to talk magic any time -- feel free to ping me here or on Discord.
To be honest, the magic system (and by extension, the technobabble) came out of a "write what you know" sort of situation. My background is Engineering, but the only physics thing I really remember is EM waves and Fourier Transforms, which are a passion of mine, so it felt natural to base the magic stuff on that to ensure that the words I used were correct. Everything else came out from my experiences as a PhD student, which led to be to implement the rule of "Twilight and Sunset each get one sub-field that they're super good at, and everything else they are allowed at best a Masters Student's understanding of the subject." Ultimately, I think this helped avoid the "Physics professor can also create designer viruses and hack the Pentagon" problem, which annoys me, and also forced me to stick with simpler concepts that don't bog down the story.
I think my biggest mistake in this story is not putting the inciting incident that caused the portal to explode in the prologue. It really wasn't a big reveal or anything in my notes, so I just kinda forgot about it until I hit the memory scene and focused that on discussing how they'd changed, rather than making the event itself some grand twist. I didn't realize at the time that I'd structured the story in such a way as to build up that event as some kind of twist, which led to a lot of disappointment when the "reveal" came and wasn't much of a reveal.
It's kinda funny how people seem to be more on Sunset's side in this story? Because the first draft of this story had Sunset as much more ruthless and vicious, and thus much less sympathetic. We're talking borderline cyberpunk dystopia megacorp CEO here. I ended up toning it down a bunch because I was worried that no one would want to root for her, but in the process I went to far in the other direction and now Twilight just kinda looks like a dick. It's something I'll need to be careful of for future projects.
Finally, for the relationship thing, my perspective is this: the fights themselves are inevitable. Twilight's done standing at the sidelines and she's going to make sure that Sunset doesn't end up creating a Shadowrun future. She could do this as a friend, but the love and trust that she and Sunset share as lovers mean that there's never going to be a repeat of the old incident, and also that they'll stay together through thick and thin, Granted, regular old friendship could do the trick too, but I think at a certain point a really good friendship that needs to last forever and a romance aren't too far apart. I've kinda implied that Twilight and Sunset's fundamental ideologies aren't actually that far apart, they're just filtered through their respective experiences. Whether they can work through that will be the next great challenge of their relationship, but hopefully the growth they've experienced up to that point will make them successful.
8883540
"I was wrong, but I refuse to apologize" lol
The target of your rage was stupid and wrong, and a liar to boot, but you were certainly not on the side of the angels.
8883594
"Your hands being screwed up" is not a very solid explanation for what I've observed. If typing was difficult for you—time-consuming, painful, or just plain awkward—then I'd expect you to try to be concise. Instead you ramble, repeat yourself, and in general use probably twice as many words to make your point as you could if you put effort into minimizing your typing.
Additionally, typing things like "excepted" for "accepted" isn't because you have messed up hands. It's because you're terrible at writing. Eliminating all punctuation is just being damn lazy, not being parsimonious with your typing effort.
So I'm sorry if you really do have messed up hands, but I hope you understand why I suspect you of lying about it to try to get people off your back when they ask you to type sensibly. You're either lying to us, or lying to yourself.
In summary, when it comes to his response to your initial post, Mini Minrie was harder on you than was called for, but being hard on you was called for. As for your writing, I think he was exactly on point.
Epilog was perfect.
part of me want to see the two in in ponyville, see a wonderbolts show,
*insert Avengers theme music* this story truly is incredible, I hope you do a sequel
Just like to say thanks for this story. I read it way back when you released each chapter, before I even had an account on this website. So nice to revist it again.
Just ambled my way through this over a few days. I really, really appreciated the fact that the two main characters had fundamental differences in opinion (well, sort of) that didn't just poof and vanish over the Power of Love. They're going to be having this same fight in different ways over and over again for years.
And that's... pretty normal. The things you fight about when you get together with someone are generally the things you fight about 10, 20 years down the road.
I also appreciate--and it feels almost patronizing to say, now that I'm writing it out--that you didn't have Twilight pull a "How could you!"-and-flee when she eavesdropped on Sunset's conversation with Starlight. Hooray for having a mature, though angry, conversation. Though in their conversation in the car later, I'm surprised Twilight allowed Sunset to even try to claim the "you don't trust me" moral high ground when... they're literally in the exact situation that Twilight was afraid of.
Got my thumb 👍
This story was amazing, the concepts, the characters, and how it's fleshed out so well! It's a great read, and I would highly recommend it.
I would also be interested in seeing more of this if you have any ideas!
I just finished rereading this awesome story and was wondering if you might be planning on doing a sequel to this story?
😁
I'm left happy after all of that. Thank you for your tale.
That epilogue almost made me cry ...so you did your job! You wrote a good story!
I really enjoyed it ....the only negative that I had was that the entire Adagio "reveal" wasn't really great, it was kind of boring....OMG ADAGIO WANTS REVENGE ON SUNSET, WHO WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING?! I normally don't have a problem with predictable stuff in storys but it still was a little bit dissapointing.
But otherwise , this was a great story!
Awesome story! The ending was a superb way to leave the story on a decent note and to hold ground for the reader to imagine the future.
I've always had a weak spot for these stories, where the main characters have a fight, mostly because the story that the author tells of redemption, trust, and ultimately forgiveness between the characters often warms my heart at how well the writer perceives it. I believe that you had a great ability to tell this story, and your work to tell the events of Sunset and Twilight and their betrayal was a superb choice.
I feel like you could have given more exposition though, on both sides. The understanding is clear, Sunset loses her way home and her magic (but lets face it, that was for the best Sunset) and Twilight was nearly killed and felt betrayal by her best friend, but exactly why they did what they did could have been more polished. For example, Twilight can't just cut contact with all her friends for 15 years straight. Barring that you never explained why she just up and cut contact with them, she was written to be a Nobel Prize laureate, and I have high doubts Sunset and the rest of her former friends wouldn't try and contact her again if her name was so out there.
But overall, very good story! I love how you managed to craft the relationship between Sunset and Twilight, and how you inevitably brought them together again! Easy 9/10!
9003015
Look, I'm not going for a angry comment here, because I don't want to be seen as biased or something else, but I just would just like to know how Sunset losing her way home, which she understands was totally her fault to begin with since Twilight didn't want to do it without all of them agreeing to something, could equate with Twilight nearly dying because Sunset was angry enough to pull a dangerous amount of magic from her that it sent her to the hospital?
Wow, after spending the last few weeks reading this I enjoyed it better than I thought I did, I almost thought I'd dislike this over the plot but after reading more and more I enjoyed this story more than I thought I would which I'm happy about. And on a scale of 1 to 10 on this story, I'd rate it a 8.5 out of 10. I'll definitely make sure to tell a good friend of mine about this story so he reads it too in the future.
10953231
is there a reason you replied to a 3 year old comment just to mock me
when's the communism sequel
I thoroughly enjoyed this from start to finish! As mentioned in a previous comment, this is my favorite pairing, and I think this is one of my favorite depictions of these two I've read so far. You did very well with balancing their ideological opposition while both making me feel sympathetic for both of them and able to recognize their flaws.
You had me sighing in frustration numerous times throughout most of the latter half of the story, and I mean that in the best way possible. I was constantly waiting for their relationship to fall apart, and waiting for the shoe to drop only became more agonizing after all those adorable bits of fluff you wrote before it. That segues into my only real criticism with this story, however, in that the ending feels a tad rushed. It's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, but it feels as though their inevitable fight and everything that happens afterwards goes by pretty quickly. I was expecting something a little more drawn out and explosive given the buildup. But hey! Sometimes, that's just not how things work out.
Thank you for writing this and sharing it with everyone. Great job!