When Darkness Falls...

by XTech309

Mad Twi-ence

"Have any of you seen Twilight?" asked Rarity.

"Uh, no, why?" Sunset replied. It had been over a month now since their interdimensional intruder's visit, and they had all been in surprisingly good spirits. In fact, as long as none of them brought it up, it was almost as if it had never happened at all. Today, as they all sat together at their usual lunch table, they were faced with a rather mundane predicament. Twilight had not been seen for two whole school days. For them, this was completely unheard of.

"Well, none of us had a face-to-face meeting with her over the weekend, and she hasn't even been in contact with any of us for the past two days."

"Hmm, do you know if she's sick?" Sunset inquired.

"Please," Rainbow interjected. "That egghead would never miss school for something like that. Remember when she had to be forced to stay home when she tried to attend with the flu?"

"That's... worrying." Fluttershy said. "I hope everything's all right."

"Well, if that's the case, I think I'll stop by her place after school, I have nothing planned." Sunset said.

"Ooh, can I come with you?" Pinkie exclaimed.

"I'll be fine. Besides, if she's sick, we'd both risk getting sick too. I'll text you as soon as I find out. Sound good?" Sunset said.

"Yep, sound's good." Rainbow said, sitting back and putting her legs on the table.

"Um, could you not, Rainbow?" Rarity said. "No one wants to look at the soles of your shoes."

Sunset giggled.

---

A few hours later, Sunset found herself standing on the porch leading to the front door of Twilight's house, shortly after the last of her classes had ended and everyone had been sent home. It had been a while since her last visit, and Sunset had forgotten how massive the towering purple, almost mansion-sized building was. As far as Sunset knew, the only house within a few miles which could compete with its size was the one on Applejack's farm. Uncertain of what she would find on the other side, she knocked cautiously on the door. The door opened quickly and Twilight Velvet stood in the doorway.

"Oh!" Sunset exclaimed. "I didn't expect to find you here."

"You didn't expect to find me in my own home?" She replied, laughing a little.

"Right." Sunset shook her head, "I'm sorry, I'm just a little brain fuzzy from school, hehe."

"Sunset... Shimmer? Right?" She asked.

"Yep. That's me!"

"I thought so. I've heard a lot about you from Twilight. Out of all the people in your little group of friends, I hear the most about you."

"That's nice to hear! Is Twilight home?"

"Ah, about that... Would you mind coming in?"

"Not at all! I don't have anything planned for this afternoon anyway. I just thought I'd drop by because me and the rest of her friends were getting worried." Sunset said before following Velvet inside.

"Do you want something to eat?" Velvet said, walking further into the house and disappearing around a corner towards the kitchen. "Something to drink, maybe?"

"No, I'm fine. My lunch block is towards the end of the day, so I'm still full." Taking a seat in the living room, Sunset waited patiently. Like everything else about this place, it was very large, big enough to fit three couches, a large coffee table, and a television that was easily at least sixty inches on the far left, with bookcases on either side to accent the furniture. Speakers of various sizes, part of what Sunset could only assume was a surround sound system, hung from hooks on the wall around the room. At the far end of the room was a doghouse built into the wall, containing a sleeping Spike. While the colors of the outside of the house weren't too dissimilar to Twilight's colors, the living room was more in tune with her father's colors. Everything except the speakers and the TV were various shades of blue. Velvet came back and sat down on the couch next to her, holding a purple cup in her hand that contained a liquid that Sunset could not see.

"So!" Sunset began. "Where's Twilight?"

"She's down in the basement, doing what she does best. I'm not exactly sure what she's up to myself, but whenever I or anyone else from her family asks the few times she's come up from there, she just says she's 'experimenting."'

"Does she do that a lot?"

"Yes, but this one seems to have her particularly... invested."

"You mean obsessed?" Sunset asked with a raised eyebrow.

Velvet sighed. "Yes, but I think that's too strong a word. I am her mother, after all, and I try to be sensitive to her work."

"I wouldn't normally use that word either. As a way of teasing her, her friends and I came up with the word 'twilighting'."

Velvet laughed. "'Twilighting!' Yes, that's the perfect word for it!"

"Are you aware she's missed two days of school? Not to be a snitch or anything, but I know her enough that it's very unusual."

"Absolutely, but I have noticed her leaving the house every day and coming back half an hour later both days with what I assume is her classwork, so I guess she figured that out."

"Is she still down in the basement right now?"

"Twenty-four-seven, I think she even sleeps down there now. The only time she comes up is to eat and to go to the bathroom. This particular 'project' of hers seems to be much more long-term. She seems to have been working on it for the last month or so. At first it was like any other time she goes down there: She works, but goes on with her life as usual. But she's much more involved now. Three weeks ago she and Shining started moving stuff in, like you would have thought someone else was moving in. I didn't see most of it because it was in boxes. But one thing I do remember was definitely a 3D printer. I have no idea how she could have gotten one of those, other than probably borrowing it from Crystal Prep, I'm pretty sure their labs are where everything came from.Then the week after that, she came home with a high-end laptop, a bunch of cables, and a smartwatch. I thought she would wear the watch, but I haven't seen her with it once."

"Hm, do you mind if I go down there and talk to her?"

"Be my guest, I was thinking about doing it myself, but after the 3D printer, the laptop, and the watch, I got scared of what I'd find down there, hehe. Besides, she has Shining to help her, and she always wears her safety gear and lap coat. So I trust her enough to just let her do her thing. I just wish she wouldn't get so obsessive about it that she shuts herself off from the rest of us sometimes."

"I understand." Sunset nodded before heading down to the basement. "Wish me luck!" She called back as she walked down the hall in front of the place where she'd been sitting.

"Tell me what you found before you leave!" Velvet called back.

---

Sunset opened the basement door. It was dark, just like any other basement, but it was just as well kept as the rest of the house. Her view of the room where Twilight was staying was blocked by a flight of stairs, but as soon as she got a glimpse of it, her jaw dropped.

"Woah." Sunset said flatly. She took a look around the basement. Almost the whole of it was covered in all the things that Twilight had been working with. Liquids, metals, wires, blueprints, computers, and a whole lot of other things that she couldn't immediately make out. The room itself was poorly lit as well, with only a single dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling, giving the entire room a very forbidding feel. The only other light came from various electronics scattered about. "Twilight?"

"Sunset?" Twilight's voice called back. Even though she couldn't see her because her back was turned, Twilight instantly recognized the voice. She jumped, almost fumbling with whatever she was holding at that moment.

"Yeah." Sunset said as she came down the last step of the stairs. "W-what were you doing down here?" She asked as she looked around the room in amazement.

"Well, to explain that, first we have to go back a month, to uh, the incident." She replied, standing up straight and turning towards Sunset. She was dressed in her labcoat and googles, just like Velvet had said.

Sunset felt a chill run up her spine. "What does that have to do with- this?" She used a hand to gesture around the room.

"Well, it didn't just affect you, it brought some things into perspective for me as well." She started.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Sunset asked, now sounding worried.

"That we've been using the elements, and magic in general, as too much of a crutch when the going gets tough." Twilight answered as she walked over to the other side of the room, taking off a pair of gloves she'd been wearing. "Yeah, they've worked every time we've needed them so far, but I want us to be prepared for the possibility that we get in too deep and don't have the elements, something we could fall back on." She finished, heading over to another part of the room and drinking from a mug sitting next to a coffee maker.

"So that's what you've been doing here? Creating a 'back up plan' in case we're in trouble and don't have magic?" Sunset said, tilting her head curiously as she looked at one of the many blueprints strung up around the room.

"Sort of. While that was my original intention, it didn't end up panning out. You might not have noticed, Sunset, but magic doesn't exactly obey the laws of physics. I tried, definitely, but it's simply impossible to recreate what out geodes are capable of with tech alone. So, I went with the next best thing, combining the two." Twilight said while using hand gestures to emphasize her point.

"Elaborate."

"Well, my theory right now is that out geodes contain only a limited amount of magical energy inside them, which would explain part of why each of us only has one magical ability. Picture this: If I could find a way to re-harness the magical energy inside our geodes, and use technology to make up the difference, we could be capable of so much more. You could even upgrade yourself to be capable of what you are as a unicorn!"

Sunset didn't reply immediately, thinking for a second how something like that would be feasible. "That's... actually really cool. I would love to do what I can as a unicorn. I love it here, but I do really miss my magic sometimes. Though, I thought you didn't want to experiment with magic again? Not after uh, midnight."

"True. But I see this as a necessity. Don't get me wrong, I've had the idea and basic blueprints for a while now, I just hadn't had the nerve to actually work on it until well, him. Now that I know there are other realities, dimensions, etcetera, out there, and that the beings inhabiting them aren't exactly friendly, I told myself I had to in order to make sure we could all stay safe. I want us to be on par with what's possible in Equestria and well, this is the way to do it."

"So, what have you achieved so far?"

"I'm still in the early stages, but I have a working prototype of the device you see in the blueprints around the room. I'm starting small, with abilities that could both improve our quality of life and come in handy when needed. Figuring out what to accomplish first didn't take long: Teleportation."

If Sunset had had a drink, she would have done a spit take. "Teleportation?! I'm not sure you're aware, but that's a fairly advanced spell, it takes a lot of ponies some time to master it, and it's certainly not something just anyone can manage."

"I figured as much, but I thought it would be nice to get some of the harder stuff out of the way first. The idea of teleportation is far from a new idea here, long before you showed up. Many had considered it impossible, including myself. The main problem with trying to achieve teleportation here without breaking the laws of physics is the following: You can't simply move something from one place to another. Teleportation here wouldn't really be teleportation. You would just destroy something in one place, move its atoms, and rebuild it in another place. A teleportation device here wouldn't really be that. It would be a deconstruction-slash-reconstruction machine. I don't know about you, but the idea of being destroyed and then rebuilt elsewhere every time you 'teleport' doesn't sound very attractive. Besides, that method has a lot of disadvantages in comparison to what magic can do."

Sunset thought for a second. "Yeah, that doesn't sound very pleasant. My first thought is what would happen if such a device broke down in the middle of a teleport. Besides, it wouldn't be anywhere near as fast or as convenient as a magical teleport."

"Exactly, but since magic violates the laws of physics for breakfast," she said, her voice getting a bit annoyed. "It's much easier for me to make that possible in a manner similar to how it works in Equestria. With my prototype, I think I've achieved that, but its capabilities are rather limited for now. You see, since it's impossible for technology to teleport in any meaningful way, I've ended up just using it to re-harness the magic and bend it to this purpose. Since our geodes presumably have a limited amount of magic for me to work with here, based on what I know so far, we'd only be able to teleport a handful of times before our geodes' magic wears out. In other words, teleportation would have to be a last resort. It's not ideal, but it's something." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Then again, I could be completely wrong. The fact that I still lack any solid understanding of magic has certainly been the hardest part of this project. " She looked over at Sunset, who was now wearing a worried look on her face. "Though I don't need to understand it, at least not completely, just enough to work through what I'm doing here, which I think I have."

"Have you tested this 'device' yet?"

"No, not yet. Although..." She trailed off. "Since you're here. Now is probably the best time."

Sunset jerked slightly, excited. She'd always missed her unicorn abilities, but she hadn't realized just how much until she was faced with the prospect of it actually being possible. "Y-yeah!" She said excitedly. "I'd love to try it with you!" She replied eagerly, a smile creeping across her face.

"Come, I'll show you the prototype." Twilight said, gesturing for her to follow. She walked over to a laptop and reached behind it, pulling out what looked to be some kind of a bracelet or a watch, only a little bit larger. She gestured for Sunset to come over, which she eagerly did.

"What, is this thing?" She asked, taking it carefully out of Twilight`s hands. It looked much like what she'd seen on the blueprints that adorned the walls of the room. It strongly resembled a smartwatch. It didn't have any kind of definitive color to it, rather it was just a collection of all the different colors that each of the individual components had, resulting in it being mostly a metallic silver with the occasional wire and the green of the circuitry visible. The clock portion of it was hollow, at least as far as Sunset could tell. Wires extended from side ports, each looping back to connections on the laptop's side.

"The prototype." Twilight answered. "The product of nearly a month of uninterrupted work. It didn't end up being as hard as I thought it would be, a lot of the work was already done by past me in the creation of the Amulet, I just recycled some of the tech and built on it. I wanted it to be something that was easily accessible, something that could be used in the shortest amount of time possible, given its intended purpose. So I looked to modern technology for inspiration and quickly found the smartwatch. After that, it was just a matter of taking what I already had and adapting it for this new purpose. You may have noticed the wires coming out of it towards this laptop, the code on the screen, and the fact that there's a big hollow area in the middle. When I get to the final product, everything will be done on the device itself, but for now, it needs an external device to hold the code in order to work. Watch." She chuckled. "Pun not intended. Anyway..."

Twilight stood back up into an upright position from the laptop, taking her geode off and placing it gently within the hollow area on the watch. She turned back to the laptop and pressed Enter, setting the program on screen into motion. What looked like medium sized metal prongs shot out from the inner lining of the device, activating and causing her geode to float up into the center. Magic began to flow out of her geode and into the prongs, a process that continued for about five more seconds before the prongs contracted back into the openings from which they'd come, leaving Twilight's geode still floating in the center.

"What did you just do?"

"Simple, I took what I think is the appropriate amount of magic for a teleport from my geode. Now all I have to do is put the device on and run the second program, and I should teleport.

"Hey, wait, shouldn't you..." Sunset began, but was cut off by Twilight as she set the next program in motion. To Sunset's shock and horror, Twilight did in fact teleport, the problem was, she had no idea where.

"Twilight!" Sunset yelled. "Twilight where are you!"

A scream. It was definitely Twilight, but where it was coming from was the last place Sunset would have expected to hear it. It was coming from directly above her.

Sunset turned and charged up the stairs, stumbling a few times but managing. Velvet greeted her as she came out, having heard Twilight scream as well.

"Sunset?" She asked frantically. "What happened?!"

"Long story, but to sum it up: Twilight's little project hit the fan, so to speak. Have you seen her?"

"No!"

"SUNSET!" Twilight could be heard screaming again.

"TWILIGHT!" Sunset yelled back. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"THE ROOF!"

"What." Velvet said, completely confused. "How is that possible?"

Sunset sighed. "Let's just say you don't give your daughter enough credit."

The two of them made their way outside, having to walk around a dozen meters away from the house in order to spot Twilight. Sure enough, there she was, perched at an angle on the side of the roof facing them. Thankfully she seemed to have a good grip, using her legs and free hand to hang on while her other contained the watch and the laptop.

"You know, I really don't think you thought this through!" Sunset shouted to her. "Are you okay?!"

"Yeah, I'm okay!" She yelled back. "In retrospect, I really should have thought to program a target!"

"Well, at least we know it works!" Sunset answered. She turned to Velvet. "Do you have any way we can get her down? A ladder maybe?"

"Yeah! Yeah, there should be a ladder in the garage over there." She said, pointing to the garage sticking out of the right side of the house. Sunset promptly took off for it.

"Don't worry, sweetie! You'll be fine!" Velvet called to her daughter.

"I'm fine, Mom!" She replied. She seemed to forget her fear for a moment, her eyes sparkling with enough excitement to be seen by her mother on the ground.

"IT WORKED!" She exclaimed.

---

Twilight shambled in through the front door, casting off her googles, labcoat, watch and laptop and throwing herself onto the nearest couch.

"You really didn't think that through, did you?" Sunset asked playfully as she and Velvet followed her inside.

"Yes yes, I get it, I'm a moron." Twilight replied through the pillow her face was currently buried in.

Sunset chuckled. "Just be glad I was here. I can't imagine how much more of a shock this would have been to your mother if I hadn't explained it to her. But, it works!"

Twilight shot up into a seating position. "Precisely! Now I know I didn't waste a month slaving away for nothing!"

Velvet spoke up. "What even was that?" She asked. "How could Twilight have gotten to the roof in the first place?"

"She, uh, teleported." Sunset said uncomfortably, looking over at Twilight. "Your daughter's really outdone herself this time. Do you think you can keep this a secret? There shouldn't be any need for me to explain the repercussions if this gets out."

"Uh, yeah?" She replied, still seeming to be trying to wrap her head around the situation as it unfolded. "I'm so proud of you, Twilight!" She said after a few seconds, her confusion having given way to excitement. "But don't ever do anything so dangerous again."

"I won't Mom, it was just a simple oversight on my part." Twilight replied. "Sunset, do you want to go back down there and help me work out the kinks?"

"Of course. Sunset replied.

---

"So, now that you have a proof of concept that this can work, how do you want to move forward with it?" Sunset asked as she closed the door to the basement behind them.

"Well, first we need to add a way to set a destination for the teleport." Twilight said, moving to a nearby table and setting down the laptop and watch. "I got lucky that time, that easily could've been so much worse than it was."

Sunset winced. "Yeah. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure!"

"Why keep this from us? I mean, as your friends, don't we have the right to know what's going on? Especially when it comes to missing school. You had us worried."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I just got too caught up in my work, is all. I mean, look around! This is a huge undertaking. I wanted to wait until I had something to show for my work when I finally told you all. Besides, I was afraid you'd shut me down, considering how midnight happened with this kind of experimentation. And since something like this has never been done before, we don't know what the possible side effects might be."

"True, if you had come forward with this earlier, I probably would have shut you down for those very reasons, and because I have a feeling the other you wouldn't have been on board either." She paused. "But since you've put so much time and effort into this, and you actually have a working prototype, I kind of want to see where it goes. Besides, now that I know that it might be possible for me to get my unicorn abilities to work here, how could I possibly say no?"

Twilight's eyes lit up. "Does that mean you'll help me?"

Sunset nodded her head. "Yes, it does. With your knowledge of technology and my knowledge of magic from being Princess Celestia's student, I think we can make this happen a lot faster. I still have to inform the other you about this little undertaking, but I think there's good reason to continue because well, you're right. We do need to upgrade ourselves in case this kind of extra-dimensional threat ever happens again. It was really close back then, and I don't want us to be in that kind of danger ever again."

"Yes!" Twilight said excitedly. "Where do you think we should start? Replicate more abilities like Applejack's super-strength? Rarity's diamond shields? Or should our focus be on the development of the device itself?"

"Well, first I think we should make it so you don't get teleported to the roof again." Sunset said walking over to the corner of the room and picking up a spare labcoat and goggles. "Now, let's get to work!"

Author's Note:

So far, this little project of mine hasn't exactly been the hit or gotten the engagement I initially expected/hoped it to be, at least compared to the work done by fellow Pibby writer Scorching. I've been debating why, and besides the excuse of being screwed by the algorithm, something I thought was crazy until I heard of other authors corroborating this on the discord server, I believe the main reason why is that I'm taking too long to get to the point. I've already explained why this is in previous notes, so I'll just skip that. I personally like stories that take the time to properly worldbuild and detail characters and settings more, but I can understand the other side.

Rest assured, it will be doing just that soon, cutting right to the point and diving into the action, just not within MLP/EQG. I still have some worldbuilding/character development to do there before I begin with that one. However, the other storylines, one of which already has a solid few thousand word head start, aren't burdened by that. Very soon I will be starting the two accompanying storylines I've discussed earlier, both of which are from hugely popular shows so hopefully less context will be needed. As I've said before, these will be fully fledged, independent storylines inspired by the work of other writers/teams of different fandoms.

The work on the other two stories is easier, given how I'm using groundwork established by others. At the same time, the MLP storyline is almost entirely my own work, which I assume is evidenced by how long it's taking to get to the main action there. FiM and EQG will mostly be their own stories, but because of how close the two worlds are in canon they'll be mixing quite a lot. Once I really get going here there will be four storylines going at the same time, along with a few other one shots taking place in various other fandoms/TV shows.

As I've stated before, I have around 8 chapters done and ready for what I'm planning next with about 4 more I'm currently working on. I call this little manuever the "Christmas Rush," since that's the deadline I've set for myself, and the idea is to upload once a day for two weeks, starting on, you guessed it, Christmas. Consider it my hail mary to hopefully remedy my current popularity/engagement issue. I hope that doesn't make me sound ungrateful/greedy for what I have already, it's just that like all authors, I very much want to succeed and make it big.