• Published 2nd Jul 2020
  • 9,077 Views, 940 Comments

Severed Ties - Carol Heart



Stranded in Equestria after Anon-A-Miss, Sunset is done with friendship. Unfortunately, the human Twilight's new device pulls not just energy from the portal, but a unicorn as well. Now the two must work together to get Sunset home.

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Chapter 13

“I’m sorry,” came a listless voice. Looking up, the pony turned to face the teen meeting her eyes with melancholic teal ones. Rubbing a foreleg with the opposite hoof, the unicorn looked away. "I was scared and angry and I took it out on you, and that’s not fair.”

Twilight took the chance to enter the door followed by a rather protective puppy who shot the unicorn an even glare clearly not wanting to leave Twilight alone with Sunset. The teen approached the bed and knelt down to be on eye-level with the unicorn. “No, you had every right to be angry. It was my stupid experiment that got you stuck in this world, and I know things have gotten weird and scary and it’s- it's all my fault.”

“No, it’s my fault. Everything involving magic in this stupid world is my fault,” the unicorn grumbled. “Look, if you’re going to help me, I owe you an apology and an explanation."

“Oh, um, o-okay,” Twilight said, putting down the food tray she was carrying on the desk and avoided looking the little pony in the eyes, a fact that for the first time was spotted by the unicorn.

Sunset had been so wrapped up in her anger and fear that she had merely seen the teen as just another Twilight. Now though, for the first time, Sunset really saw the teen scientist, and it made Sunset wince. Sunset had been a bully long enough to know when someone was scared and right now, Twilight was and Sunset was the cause of her fear.

“I really am sorry. The fact is I’ve never really been a good person…”

“Pony,” the teen cut in with the automatic correction. A moment later a look or realization at what she had just done appeared followed by instant regret in doing so. The scientist’s habit of correcting had helped to cement her status as a nerdy outcast and she began to worry how the already upset pony would react.

Sunset, however, didn’t seem to mind the correction and just plowed on, huffing, “Yeah, that too.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked, confused both at the statement and the derailing of her panic train before it could leave the station.

Sunset looked up into the violet eyes of the scientist and sighed, “I’m getting to that, but, well, it’s going to seem a bit crazy, so I’m just going to need you to trust me.”

The young scientist merely nodded dumbly at this, her brain warring between the fear she’d had earlier of the unicorn and the prospect of learning something new. The concept of ‘crazy’ seemed to have lost its meaning for her recently and to gain firsthand knowledge from a new, sapient species was enough to overcome any lingering trepidation.

“Right, okay,” Sunset began trying to figure out where to begin, “I’m guessing you can gather a lot of this but, I’m from another dimension, and in that dimension, the planet is populated by a multitude of creatures that are considered mythological in this one.”

“Wait so it’s not just a world of unicorns?” The scientist’s eyes grew wide behind her thick frames at the prospect of even more discovery then shook her head in disbelief, “And I can’t believe I asked that without an ounce of sarcasm.”

Sunset chuckled and continued. “No, the world I’m from has griffins, manticores, sea serpents, bugbears, and even dragons.” At that, the pony found herself unable to keep her gaze from the puppy version of her scaly friend. “The country I’m from, Equestria-” Twilight snorted at that though she quickly slapped a hand over her mouth to which Sunset merely rolled her eyes and she continued, “is predominantly populated with, yeah you guessed it, ponies. More specifically there are three main types or tribes of ponies; earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns like myself, each with their own special type of magic.

“Magic,” Twilight questioned, “Like the kind my device has been tracking?”

“Hmm,” Sunset thought, tapping a hoof to her chin before continuing, “Yes and no. Magic in Equestria comes in many different forms-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Twilight shouted, as she rushed about the room quickly collecting a notebook and pen and repositioning herself in front of the tiny unicorn, fixing her with an intense gaze.

“Are you seriously going to take notes?” the amber unicorn asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Please, it’s Twilight,” cut in Spike, making himself comfortable on the dog bed that he frequented while the teen did her work, “if you’re going to lecture, she’s going to take notes.” That earned a frown from the girl in question and prompted the puppy’s first nervous chuckle.

“Right, like I was saying, earth ponies, as the name implies have a special relationship with the earth and what’s grown there. As such, a number of earth ponies have careers such as farmers, miners, or chefs. Pegasi are winged ponies and their magic not only aids them in flight but also allows them to walk on clouds and control the weather.”

“Control the weather?” repeated the teen scientist in a questioning tone.

“Yes, a lot of things that just occur naturally in this world are magically managed in the other. Things like weather creation and delivery, the changing of the seasons, and the raising and setting of the sun and moon.”

“You actually raise and lower the sun and moon?” Twilight gaped.

The pony shrugged, “Different universe; different rules. Imagine how I feel knowing no one in this world controlling them. That notion alone was enough to make me want to duck and cover until I could get back to where the world made sense.” Twilight considered that and just nodded, as she finished her note on the subject.

“Unicorns, like me, have horns and can actively cast spells drawing on our mana pools. These spells can range in their applications and very from unicorn to unicorn though they are typically limited and correlate to our special talent.

“Special talent?"

“All ponies are born with magic specific to them, call it a soul or one’s destiny, it is magic that’s core to a pony’s being. When we discover our special talent, what makes us us, we earn our cutie marks which appear on our flanks.” Sunset indicated the two-toned sun she sported. “For example, a unicorn with a musical cutie mark would likely have spells to help with the playing and enhancement of music, for example, on top of the basic levitation and light spells.”

The genius girl, nodded as she scribbled down the information. “So then what does your cutie mark mean? What kind of spells correlate to the sun?” The little pony looked away and frowned, the lack of an immediate answer caused Twilight to look up from her notes. “Unless that’s a topic that’s taboo,” she sputtered out hoping to backpedal out of the awkward silence. “I’m so sorry if I violated some sort of pony social more and offended you, I-”

“No, it’s fine,” Sunset sighed, “most ponies would love to regale you with the story of how they got their cutie marks and what they mean. I just… Can we just say I have a general affinity for magic and am versed in a variety of spells and leave it at that?” Seeing the sad look on the unicorn’s face, the teen simply nodded and decided it was better to let her curiosity remain unsated.

Desperate to steer the conversation away from something that was clearly a sore subject for Sunset, Twilight scanned back over her notes. “That’s quite a diverse population,” the teen stated, grasping on the first topic that came to mind. “Do they all cohabitate or do they have their own territories?”

It seemed to bring the unicorn out of her funk a bit as she replied, “For the most part, each group tends to have their own homelands, though interactions between them are steadily increasing, what with Tw…err, my friend’s success in expanding diplomatic relations. Actually, she’s been going on and on about some idea she’s had that could help with that.”

“Your friend?” the teen scientist asked, “The, um, one you said might be in trouble?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sunset said with a worried frown.

“Sorry,” the teen responded sadly, “I didn’t mean to upset you again. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m not really good at talking to other people…or ponies now, I guess.”

“Well, you were always pretty good at talking to dogs,” Spike piped in from his place on his bed. Tapping a paw to his muzzle he adopted a thoughtful look before continuing, “Though I suppose our conversations now might be a bit different as I’ll have more to contribute.”

Sunset smiled. “No, it’s alright. I know I probably shouldn’t worry so much. I mean, she’s been through all sorts of crazy adventures and fought a lot of would-be villains, but things always seem to work out fine for her in the end. Guess that’s why she’s a princess.”

“You know a princess!” Twilight gasped.

“A few, actually,” said Sunset rubbing her forehoof embarrassedly on her neck. “When I was growing up I was taken in by the pony who ruled Equestria as her personal student. She took me in and promised to teach me all the wonders that magic had to offer.”

“That sounds wonderful,” breathed Twilight.

“It was…at first.”

“What happened?”

“Me,” Sunset responded simply looking away. Taking a breath she continued, “I told you I’m not a good pony, never was. During one of our lessons, she showed me a magic mirror and when I looked into it, I saw myself as an alicorn.”

“A what?” asked Spike.

Seeing the confusion mirrored on the teen, Sunset replied, “Oh right, we didn’t get that far. So there are three main groups or tribes of ponies but there is a rare fourth group, the alicorns, that possess the attributes of all three tribes; strength of an earth pony, wings of a pegasus, and horn and magic of a unicorn. They are seen as living symbols of Equestrian unity and serve as the rulers of Equestria.”

“So the ruling family is a family of…alicorns?” Twilight questioned, pausing a bit with the unfamiliar word.

Sunset frowned. “Yes and no. For the longest time, Princess Celestia was the only alicorn as she had banished her sister to the moon centuries ago.” Seeing the dumbfounded look on the teen scientist, she continued. “She and her sister are immortal. So with her sister gone, Princess Celestia was left to rule over Equestria alone. Then one day a new alicorn appeared and we learned it was possible to ascend, to become an alicorn princess.”

Sunset looked away, rubbing her left foreleg with her right sheepishly. “I didn’t have the greatest childhood. I was used as a pawn and manipulated by those I thought of as family.” Looking up at Twilight, she fixed her with a serious gaze, “I don’t want to use that as an excuse for what I did, but it did leave me with a lot of trust issues and a lack of any real interpersonal skills.

“I know how that feels,” Twilight sighed, then quickly snapped at what she had implied, “Er, not about the manipulation, well at least not by my family, they’re great…” Calming herself slightly, the teen continued, “Um…I only meant that I understand not being able to relate to one’s peers. Actually, if it wasn’t for my family, I don’t think I’d have any real social interaction with anyone.”

The two shared a small, sad smile, comforted a bit in finding someone who understood, at least slightly, what it was like to feel alone.

Twilight, not use to the feeling of connection, was the first to break the silence. Skimming back over her notes. “Hmm…right. As fascinating as learning about your world, and believe me I would love nothing more to gather whatever information and data you can provide…I’m not sure why you needed to tell me all that.

“Yeah,” Sunset began nervously, “I’m coming to that part. So the truth is that this isn’t my first time in this world. A little over three years ago, your time, I discovered the portal that connects our two worlds.”

“So you’re like another worldly explorer, seeking out new life and new civilizations?” Twilight asked in wonder, earning a snort from the unicorn mare.

“Hardly," the unicorn chuckled, "more like an egomaniacal teenager who was too smart for her own good.” That earned a puzzled look from both the teen and the dog prompting Sunset to elaborate. “Okay, so you know how terminus of the interdimensional portal is the base of the Wondercolt statue?” Twilight nodded while Spike offered a growl at the mention of the rival school. “Well, the other side isn’t a plinth; it’s a mirror, a magic mirror.”

Seeing a look of realization appear on the girl’s face, Sunset nodded, yeah, “ The one my mentor showed it to me that day as part of a lesson. She told me to look into it and asked what I saw.” Sunset sighed at the memory and her gaze fell to the floor. “To this day I’m not sure why, but it showed me an image of myself as an alicorn princess. Obviously, I was thrilled at the prospect, who wouldn’t be? Was this a vision of the future, a sign that my destiny was to ascend and gain the power needed to protect myself and my little ponies, to rule beside my mentor?”

“When I told my teacher, though, she only seemed disappointed by what I had seen. She told me to drop the subject and refused to speak any more about the mirror or what I saw, but I couldn’t let it go. I became obsessed with the mirror and what it had shown me, to the point I started delving into the restricted tomes. I found out that the mirror was a portal to another world, but in my research, I also learned that my teacher had been keeping things from me. I learned it was possible for a pony to achieve ascension and become a princess and my mentor knew how to do it. I confronted her and demanded that she make me a princess. She refused, understandably. She said that if I couldn’t get past this, that my studies with her would be over. I… did not take that well. I said some things that I regret and made a break for the portal.

“From my research, I knew the portal was open but would be closing soon, which is why I had decided to confront my mentor in the first place. If she wouldn’t turn me into a princess I figured I could do it myself and that the mirror was the key to doing it. So after grabbing my bag, I teleported to the mirror and jumped through. Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only wasn’t I an alicorn in this world, I wasn’t even a pony. More than that, I had ended up in a world completely devoid of magic. I had timed it so that I crossed on the last day so the portal closed behind me. Brilliant strategy when you don’t want to be followed. Not so great as it cuts off your escape route, not that I thought I could go back. So I was stuck here.”

“And no one noticed the talking pony that time either?” quipped Spike.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Normally, the portal is equipped with spells that transform you to fit in with the local population, so no talking pony, just an angry teenager,” the unicorn laughed bitterly, “perfect camouflage for a high school.”

“That’s probably the magic I picked up on originally when I started siphoning from the Wondercolt statue,” Twilight said hanging her head, “I guess that’s another thing I owe you an apology for.” After a sigh, a thought crossed her mind that she gave voice to, “But even with looking human, you had no family, no home, and no knowledge of human customs. How did you find food and shelter, let alone enroll in high school?”

Sunset shrugged. “I had had some experience being on my own prior to being taken in by the princess so really that wasn’t a concern. As for learning about humanity, I made good use of the local library. Honestly, though, human customs aren’t all that different from pony customs, you just lack our clever wordplay.”

“Huh?” the scientist questioned, raising an eyebrow as she looked up from her notes.

“Never mind,” Sunset countered, waving a hoof, “so, I had some funds in my bag and apparently, solid gold coins and multi-carat gems fetch quite a sum in this world. Long story short, I showed up in March and spent the next five months learning what I could about this world and setting myself up with a place to live as well as fake identity papers so I could get registered at CHS.”

“CHS? Um, I mean, no offense, but out of all the things to do in a new world why was it so important that you register for high school?

“Mostly to keep an eye on the portal, I guess,” Sunset replied with a shrug. “Maybe part of me hoped my teacher would be able to see what I was doing.”

“And what were you doing?” Twilight asked uneasily, feeling they were coming to the part of Sunset’s story that had left the pony so upset when she began her tale.

“I wanted to be a princess, and if I couldn’t be one in Equestria, I was going to make myself one here. I set out to rule the school and woe to anyone who dared stand in my way. Manipulation, blackmail, physical violence if necessary. The halls of Canterlot High were my kingdom to rule as I saw fit.”

“You were a bully?” Twilight asked timidly.

“That’s putting it mildly,” sighed the unicorn, laying down and letting her head rest atop her forelegs. “Let’s put it this way, I was voted ‘Biggest Meanie’ in the school yearbook my freshman year and it wasn’t even a category, but it’s hard to deny when the whole school writes you in.”

“Ouch,” commented Spike with a wince.

“Yeah, but I can’t say it wasn’t warranted, and I just got worse from there until the time came for the portal to open again. With my sense of superiority, I returned to Equestria to take what I felt I was owed. I returned through the portal and found that not only had I been replaced as Princess Celestia’s student, but my replacement had gone on to become a princess herself and her crown was the Element of Magic itself. Needless to say I felt cheated. Seeing my replacement getting everything I had always strived for. Well if Celestia wasn't going to give me power, I was going to take it for myself. Thinking I could utilize the power of the Element myself, I stole it and returned to this world. Unfortunately, I was spotted and the princess followed after me.

“In the scramble for the portal, I lost hold of the crown, but after a few days of trying to get rid of the princess, I finally managed to get my hands on the Element again. When I placed it on my head though, it was too much. The power wasn’t meant for me and it wasn’t meant for what I intended. The magic took hold of me, warping my mind and body and turned me into a she-demon.”

Twilight raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. “She-demon?”

“Really?” asked Spike quirking his head at her, “That’s where you’re going to start questioning the believability of the story the magical unicorn is telling you?” Settling back in his doggie basket he concluded, “Take it from the talking dog, Twilight, magic is weird. Just go with it.”

The scientist let out a ‘humph’ at that but relented. “Fine, a she-demon. I suppose that sort of transformation might explain the readings I had around the beginning of school.”

“Those aren’t from me transforming into a monster,” Sunset corrected, “They’re from my friend changing me back. When I was in that form I tried to…” Sunset paused, remembering the darkest moment of her life and hating to have to relive it.

“Y-you don’t have to say if you don’t want to,” said Twilight tentatively hidden by her notebook.

“No, no, I can do this. It’s my past, but my past is not today.” Taking a breath, Sunset continued but wasn’t comfortable enough to look at Twilight while she did. “When I became that she-demon, I tried to kill the princess.” The statement earned gasps from her audience. “It was never part of my plan, but at the time and under the influence of the corrupted Element, I launched a massive ball of energy at her…”

“Oh, my,” Twilight breathed in wide-eyed horror.

“Don’t worry. Like I said she’s a princess and always seems to win in the end, even against me. You see while I was trying to get rid of her, the princess was busy making friends and reunited the bearers of the Elements of Harmony for this world. They dove in front to protect her from my attack and triggered the Harmony Magic inside each of them. Together they channeled a massive beam of it and quite literally blasted some sense into me, returning me to normal, but with a new perspective. The portal was due to close soon after that so she returned to Equestria and left me in the care of her friends.”

“Wait, she left you behind?” asked the girl incredulously. “Why didn’t she take you home with her?”

“I asked her not to,” replied Sunset. “Most of the bad things I had done had been in this world, and if I left I wouldn’t be able to make up for it.” Sunset toyed with the carpet absently with her hoof before continuing. “That and I figured I’d work my way up to asking for forgiveness from the one pony in Equestria I had to apologize to the most, Princess Celestia. I figured if I could redeem myself here, I could return to Equestria again when the portal opened, at least able to show her I really had changed.”

“That had to have been rough though, considering how much of a jerk you’d been,” commented Spike.

“Spike!” Twilight chastised.

“It’s okay,” said Sunset. “You’re right, it wasn’t easy. I went from the biggest bully to school doormat overnight, but it really wasn’t so bad. The princess’s friends were true to their words and helped keep an eye on me so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I worked hard to make up for what I had done to them and they included me as one of their group. The school, however, was less receptive of my new attitude that is until there was another magical incident at CHS.”

“But with the portal closed how could another magical being have gotten to this world?”

“Apparently, they were already here.”

They?” asked Spike, “As in more than one?”

The pony nodded. “Three actually, the sirens. Their voices could stir up negative emotions in others that they would feed on. They were banished here centuries ago by one of our most powerful mages.”

“He sent those monsters here?!” gasped the girl.

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually know where he was sending them, but yes, they ended up here, in human form, though they retained some of their siren magic.”

“So what happened,” questioned the pup, seemingly more interested in the story.

“Well, like Twilight, they detected the magic used at the Fall Formal. They were drawn to Canterlot High in the hopes they could obtain it for themselves and, I guess, take over this world if not the other.”

“Since that didn’t happen, I’m guessing you stopped them,” said Twilight.

Sunset smiled a bit at that, recalling the night she felt she had redeemed herself. “Yeah, when they showed up, I found a way to contact the princess for help and she managed to find a way to bypass the time locks on the portal. She teamed up with the other Element Bearers again in a band called the Rainbooms to enter the school’s Battle of the Bands, so they could perform a musical counterspell in front of everyone to defeat the sirens. Things weren’t going well and the Rainbooms were knocked down on the edge of defeat until I picked up the mic and stepped up. Together we formed a more powerful blast of Harmony magic and shattered the sirens’ magic pendants, and broke the control they had over the school.”

“So you helped save our world by defeating an ancient race of monsters from your world that your greatest sorcerer could only banish,” Twilight summarized, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, “Sounds like pretty good proof of your redemption. So did you return with your friend back to your world?”

The little unicorn shook her head. “No, I wasn’t ready for that yet. I might have helped save the world but there were still a lot of people I had to apologize to, though I thought they might actually give me the chance to do that after what happened at the Battle of the Bands.”

“So, I’m guessing that didn’t happen,” inferred Spike.

“It did, for a while,” sighed Sunset.

“So what happened?” Twilight asked warily.

“Anon-A-Miss,” the pony practically spat.

“Anonymous what?” questioned the bespectacled teen.

“No, Anon-A-Miss,” corrected Sunset, emphasizing each part of the name. “Back around December, someone created a MyStable account and used it to share embarrassing secrets about the kids at CHS.”

“So did they post something about you? Was it something good?” asked Spike eagerly.

“No. They didn’t spread anything about me, which was part of the problem.”

“I don’t get it,” replied the teen, “shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“You’d think, but the secrets were about all of my friends and even included pictures off my phone that I’d taken at one of our sleepovers, but nothing about me. That, plus the fact that the profile was done in my colors with a silhouette of someone who looks like for the picture, everyone assumed I had to be the one behind it.”

“That’s some pretty circumstantial evidence to go on,” said Twilight.

“It’s not a court of law, Twilight, it’s the public opinion of a high school, and after everything I had done before the Fall Formal, everyone believed I was just going back to how I used to be. They figured that everything I had been doing since had just been an act.”

“Everyone?” questioned Spike. “What about your-“

Everyone,” Sunset cut him off firmly. “So with everyone mad at me, thinking I was spreading their secrets, I figured I’d get away for a while, and hope things blew over, or at the very least, recruit some reinforcements to help me talk to the girls, but when I was heading for the portal, I got jumped by some of the kids from CHS. After a solid beating, I made a break for the portal and dove through, opting to smash the apparatus around the mirror, so they couldn’t follow me.” The unicorn blushed a bit, “Not my best idea, but I was kind of panicking at the time.”

Twilight pondered that for a minute before asking, “But if your friend was able to create the technology necessary to open the portal outside of the normal timeframe originally, shouldn’t she have been able to recreate her work?”

“Yeah, she could have, if the link was still established.”

“Link?” the scientist repeated.

“She needed something magical that connected the two worlds so that she could trace the magic and reestablish the magical connection.”

“Which was?”

“My journal. It was enchanted so I could send messages to a matched one in Equestria. When we were dealing with the Sirens I wrote for help figuring I they could at least help me figure out what we were dealing with. Turns out my friend was able to piggyback off that connection to reopen the portal whenever she wanted.”

“So you think something happened to one of the journals?” inquired the teen.

“Has to be,” affirmed the pony. “They don’t just transfer the information written; they are magical copies so whatever happens to one, happens to the other. I saw the damage appear on the copy in Equestria. I can’t be sure but it looked like it had been burned.”

“Is knowledge of the journal and its connection with the portal common knowledge at CHS?” Twilight thought aloud.

The little pony shook her head, “Most of the school knows there were some strange incidents. We’ve told them it was magic. Some accepted that while others just chalked it up to an elaborate light show. Outside of the girls and myself, only the principal and vice-principal knew about the portal and the journal.”

“Could the ones who beat you have known it would keep you from returning or was destroying your things just an attempt at petty revenge after the fact?” the scientist continued to hypothesize.

Sunset just hung her head and sighed, “It couldn’t have been the ones who jumped me. I didn’t even have the journal at the time. The girls did.”

“So your friends-” Spike started.

Former friends,” Sunset snapped, then calmed herself before she continued, “And I don’t know. What I do know is that they didn’t want to listen to me when the whole Anon-A-Miss thing started, and nothing that happened afterward makes me believe they’ve changed that stance.”

Twilight sat quietly for a minute, digesting all of the information she had been given. Sunset had been a bad pony, a bad person, and been a bigger bully than Twilight’s own tormenters, going so far as to seek out magic that turned her into a demon and attempt to kill those who would stand in her way. With that sort of confession, Twilight should be running for the door as fast as her legs would carry her, call the police and let them take Sunset away. But as she listened to the pony’s story, the teen could see the sadness and regret the unicorn felt for her actions reflected in the pony’s overly large eyes. Twilight could see the joy Sunset felt when talking about defeating the Sirens with her friends and proving herself. Admitting her faults so freely, Sunset had little reason to lie about the Anon-A-Miss incident, something that by all accounts was a minor offense when compared with Sunset’s earlier transgressions.

Twilight knew what it was like to be alone and afraid, and she wouldn’t stand by and make Sunset face this on her own. It had been her experiments that had pulled the pony here. Whether or not that might have saved Sunset from a worse fate, was irrelevant. The fact was Twilight was a part of this and she would do all she could to help see Sunset returned safely to her world.

Sliding across the floor closer to the amber unicorn, the teen placed a careful hand on the pony’s withers. “Well, I believe you,” Twilight said, earning a weak smile from the dejected mare. “And I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you get back home.”

Sunset’s smile faltered a bit at that, but she muttered a quiet, “Thanks.” After a minute sitting in silence, Sunset regained her composure and stood. “Alright, enough of that. How about we start from the beginning. Walk me through your data and we can see if together we can’t come up with a way to jump-start the portal.” Walking towards the computer, Sunset stopped and faced back to the still seated Twilight, “And thank you for believing me. It…it really means a lot to me.”

A wide smile spread across the face of the teen. She wasn’t entirely sure what prompted such a strong response though. On one hand, she thought it might be excitement over someone showing a general interest in her research. Someone who actually understood what she was talking about. But on the other hand, it might be that she had never had someone confide in her as Sunset had. “Huh,” the teen mused, “is this what having a friend is like,” before she rose and joined Sunset at the computer.

Author's Note:

Supersized chapter for you this time. Partly because it's a lot of not new to you info but Sci-Twi needs some education. Also partly due to hitting 200 likes. Okay, we hit it last week but this wasn't quite ready to go, so the best I can do is release it a bit early now.

Thank you again for your support. It helps a lot with motivation as real life continues to get more difficult.