The magic is gone. No matter how hard Sunset Shimmer tries, she can’t figure out where it disappeared to. Twilight Sparkle is dreaming of darkness, and even though the Friendship Games are over, she’s barely begun her fall down the rabbit hole.
The magic is gone. No matter how hard Sunset Shimmer tries, she can’t figure out where it disappeared to ever since Twilight Sparkle had come to their school. The portal remains, her last chance to study the magic of the human dimension, but its allure of adventure and the place she once called home is tempting her away from her friends. Twilight feels like an outsider in Canterlot High. She doesn’t belong, everyone stares at her for what she did, and darkness still lurks in her dreams. Now her dreams are changing. A voice whispers riddles in a forgotten tongue, seven talismans shine, holding seven monstrous figures at bay, and she gets the most curious feeling that she’s barely begun falling down the rabbit hole.
Twilight stumbled and landed heavily, shimmering tears streaking her face as she tried to escape what was chasing her. Her knee split open on the stone, the imaginary feel of pain shooting up her leg as her glasses flew off. She quickly located them and pushed herself back to her feet, running despite the large crack in one of the lenses. She hated this dream. Night after night she ran, sobbing and falling and knowing she needed to keep running, while She chased her, laughing all the while.
She knew it was a dream. Every bit of common sense told her that she should be able to wake up, to change it into something better. Why didn’t it work? Why did she still stumble through this unending darkness, purple light flaring where her feet touched the ground?
She heard wings beating behind her, could see the shadows flickering around her as streaks of glowing seafoam and deep cobalt nipped at her heels. She was getting closer. Twilight screamed as she felt magenta-gloved hands grab her shoulders, the nails under the silken fabric digging into the helpless girl’s skin.
She was roughly turned to meet a pair of lilac irises, sans pupils, set on a background of rabid mint, halos of energy surrounding the wide eyes. “Please,” Twilight whimpered, trying to cringe away. “I-I’m not you. I don’t want to be you. Please leave me alone.” Her quivering voice was meek and broken, nearly cracking from terror.
“You don’t get it.” The other her chuckled darkly. “I’ll always be you. I’m there every time you turn around, every time you sleep, every time you breathe, I’m in your head. And I’ll make sure that someday I’ll be free, and you’ll take my place in our subconscious. Got it, Twily?” She laughed, the sharp translucent horn on her forehead close to nicking Twilight’s skin.
“Please don’t call me that,” she begged, large tears and watery snot dribbling down her face from fear. Her knee throbbed, scarlet blood seeping from the deep graze. “I don’t want this. I don’t want these dreams. Please go away.” She knew it wouldn’t work. It never worked.
Her darker self’s violet skin was suddenly washed with colour, her eyes widening not with madness, but with bewilderment. Twilight managed to wrench herself from the demon’s grasp, falling backwards and looking up at her.
The dark Twilight was glaring beyond her, her hands balling into fists as she pulled her legs up, green shoes glowing and the long onyx tail swishing angrily. Her lithe figure curled into a defensive ball, clad in a sweetheart bodice of magenta and midnight that trailed down into an incredibly short skirt patterned with dying stars and belted with fuchsia crystals. Eagle wings of menacing jet filled the air behind her, a trail of glowing mint following the bone pattern on the inside. Twilight still couldn’t believe she’d looked so monstrous.
Or that she’d worn something so revealing. Honestly. Didn’t her darker self have any decency?
Twilight turned her head to see what had the darker her reacting so violently, fixing her broken glasses on her nose as she squinted, barely able to tell past the vivid, vibrant glow.
Seven small objects floated in mid-air, each of them emitting a radiance that masked what they looked like. She had a feeling they were talismans of some kind. She could barely make out colour or shape, but she just had a gut feeling that they were safe, they were good, and that she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. The glow surrounding the seven talismans brightened until she had to look away, the dream fading to oblivion.
Dear Princess Twilight.
How’s life in Equestria? Life over here’s been pretty good since the Friendship Games. Our Twilight, Dash calls her Sci Twi as a nickname so I’ll use that so you know which one of you I’m talking about, seems to have been settling in pretty well for her first week at CHS. You could probably tell that during your visit though.
Some pretty strange stuff has been happening ever since the Friendship Games. Well, strange for here. Ever since Sci Twi and I turned into those super forms, all the magic seems to have disappeared, aside from the portal. We don’t even pony up when we play music anymore. I don’t understand why this happened. I think it’s somehow my fault. I screwed everything up, again. I just don’t know how I did it this time. I sometimes miss Equestria. The magic makes sense there for one thing. Not like here. I wonder sometimes if I should go back.
Aside from that mystery, I can’t wait for school to start up again tomorrow. We’ve been on holidays. I prefer being in school personally. I never have any time to catch up with anyone over the holida-
Her pen skittered slightly on the page as the light flared out, the teenager groaning as she realised that the power had gone out again. She put her pen and the book next to her on the mattress and hopped off, blindly searching for one of her jackets. Her hand touched the faded leather of her old jacket and she shrugged it on, quickly zipping it up as she embarked on the next problem of trying to find the door.
She blindly stumbled through the small room and cursed when she stubbed her toe on the small desk. Her hand fumbled along the fraying wallpaper and she finally grabbed the doorknob, pulling it open and stepping onto the railed walkway outside her motel room. The lights flickered overhead, creating a dull yellow haze that caused the tarnished bronze numbers on each door to gleam slightly.
She shivered slightly in the night air and was grateful for her slippers, even if they were a size too big. It looked like the entire motel had an outage, from what she could see. Everyone was coming out of their rooms and starting to congregate around the main office. Sunset walked down the stairs and joined them, deftly moving through the complaining crowd of around two dozen guests to the front.
“Pipe down, will you?” The owner of the motel, Halt Bumper, growled. “The power will be back in a couple of hours. We’re not the only ones without electricity. Deal with it.”
“I’d expect for you to treat paying guests better than this.” The artist who lived in room 12 barged forward, towering over the motel owner with a disdainful scowl. He crossed muscular arms lined with ink. “How am I supposed to express myself without any light, Mr Bumper?”
The owner raised an eyebrow, unfazed in the slightest. He reached under his desk, dropping a candle in front of the younger man. “You live here, Viridian. In a motel. With an ‘m’. That should do the trick.” He nodded at the candle. “Now go back to bed. All of you. Grab a candle from the box and go back to your rooms. It’s almost midnight anyway,” he grumbled the last part.
The box of candles was emptied as the crowd was appeased, disappearing back to their rooms. Sunset came up last, smiling at Halt. “At least there’s plenty of candles for light, Mr Bumper. I swear this is the third outage this month.”
“That’s because it is.” He gave her a fond look, his grizzled, bearded face changing dramatically. “And please, I thought we agreed you could call me Halt. Mr Bumper makes me feel older than I am.” He pulled out a pipe and began searching his pockets. “Got a lighter?”
She nodded, pulling it from her pocket and offering it to him. He took it gratefully and lit his pipe. “Ta, luv,” he said warmly, handing it back to her.
She kept it in her hand, staring at it for a moment. It was a simple lighter, rectangular and black, with a white painted yinyang on the side. She flicked the lid closed as she came to a potential hypothesis on the power outages. “That company is still trying to buy the motel off you?”
“Yep.” He puffed on the pipe. “And now that Arcane’s doing construction work on their newest land, they can try to drive away my customers and run me out of business with these bloody power outages.” He went quiet for a while, puffing on his pipe and blowing perfect smoke rings.
Sunset enjoyed the silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable or stifling, it was just because there was nothing that needed to be said. She flicked her lighter open and shut, the repetitive motion soothing and allowing her mind to just drift as the rhythm settled in.
Halt ran a hand through his rough cut, salt and pepper beard. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?” He asked, shooting her a quick look.
She nodded, flicking her lighter shut and putting it in her pocket. “Yeah, but I’m used to late nights. I’ll be fine,” she yawned.
His eyebrow went up. “That yawn tells a different story. Off you pop. Get some rest so you can wake up early enough to grab a breakfast tomorrow.”
She rolled her eyes slightly. “Alright, Halt. I’ll go back to my room. Thanks for the candle.” She smiled and walked back, noticing a black cat at her door. She smiled and crouched down, resting her elbows on her knees.
“There you are, Jinxie.” She reached out her hand to run it over his soft fur. “I was beginning to wander where you were.” He butted his head against her hand with a purr, his mismatched eyes glowing green and gold in the faint candlelight from next door.
Sunset stood and unlocked her door, placing her keys on top of the small desk by the door and fumbling with her lighter, kicking the door shut behind her. The fire was almost too bright for her when she managed to flick it on, setting the wick of the tall candle alight and placing it beside her bed.
She made sure that the door was locked and pulled her old jacket off, wincing slightly as the tear in the sleeve seemed to grow the tiniest bit, announcing its presence with a slight ripping sound. After suffering a mini heart attack over the state of her poor jacket, she made sure her newer one was completely fine to wear to school tomorrow. Rarity had made it especially for Sunset, giving it to her for no other reason aside from the day being a Wednesday. And possibly as a hint that the other girl’s original jacket was a bit tattered and probably shouldn’t be worn in public anymore.
She sat back on her bed, kicking the slippers off, and leaning her head against the wall with a tired sigh. Jinx leapt gracefully up onto the mattress beside her, sitting imperiously on the pillow that they had both deemed his. She picked up her book and looked at the letter she was sending to Princess Twilight. At least it didn’t send until she wrote down her own name, which was a useful spell to make sure she didn’t write anything stupid.
Everything after the first paragraph made her cringe. She shouldn’t be complaining. Magic wasn’t native to this world, and it was bound to disappear at some point. It didn’t follow any rules anyway. She shouldn’t bother Princess Twilight with something so mundane. The next paragraph was even worse. Why did she write that? Lots of people had jobs. It wasn’t a bad thing. So what if she wasn’t able to send every second of her time with her best friends? That was life.
She tore the page out of the book, chuckling faintly while imagining the cringe that both Twilights would be suffering if they knew. She really needed to sleep. She was starting to hit that point of tiredness where anything was funny. Besides, Princess Twilight was probably busy doing things in Equestria. With Princess Celestia.
Sunset scowled slightly. Even though Celestia was right about pretty much everything, like always, that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt.
She shouldn’t think about it. It wasn’t worth getting angry about. Besides, Equestria didn’t have anything to offer her. Sure, magic made sense there, and she did miss the adventures she went on as Celestia’s student, but high school was great. And she had friends here. She didn’t need to trade that for anything.
She sat the book on top of her backpack and got under the covers, blowing the candle out. Jinx moved under the blanket to join her and she hugged him close, lying on her side. She could feel herself beginning to drift off when she heard next door’s bedsprings begin to creak rhythmically.
She groaned and pulled the blanket over her head, praying to go to sleep fast before they added vocals. “Bollocks,” she muttered, using one of Halt’s choice words to describe the situation.
Maybe she should try find a cheap pair of ear plugs.
Tired violet eyes slowly opened, an amethyst hand extending from under a downy quilt to search the desk beside the bed for glasses. Once they were located and settled on her face, Twilight looked up at the ceiling, the patterned stars that glowed at night almost invisible in the light that crept in between dark curtains.
She had managed to sleep through the night for the first time in ages. It was amazing. Her dreams hadn’t terrified her.
No, that wasn’t true. They had terrified her. She had been there. But something had made it better. Something important.
And for the life of her, Twilight couldn’t remember what it was.
Sunset plugged the substituted numbers into her calculator after calculating the derivatives of the equations. She honestly didn’t understand how this class was difficult. Science and maths were a necessity for learning magic and while she preferred to be study practically instead of theoretically, she wasn’t an idiot. It was the same formula, just with occasional extra steps and different numbers to substitute. The calculator she borrowed from the teacher each lesson made it a piece of cake.
It did get harder at home. She didn’t have a scientific calculator like most of the class. She managed well enough though. It wasn’t nearly as bad as history or politics. This world was very different to what she was used to. Everything had happened differently. There were a lot more wars, for one thing. And it was older. Far older than Equestria.
She was startled out of her automatic calculations by the shriek of the bell. She noticed almost everyone else had packed up their things and were already filing out the door, impatient to leave the class.
Sunset packed away her supplies into a small grey pencil case, careful to make sure it stayed clean and that she wasn’t missing a thing. She picked up her books and walked to the front of the class, hugging her stuff to her chest as she tapped the Twilight’s shoulder, the amethyst-skinned girl still scribbling furiously as she solved problems, too caught up in her own head to notice the bell.
She startled slightly at the touch, jumping in her seat as her hand came up to her glasses, pushing them back up the bridge of her nose. “Sunset Shimmer,” she sounded slightly shocked. “I’m sorry; I didn’t even notice you were there. Where did everyone else go?” She looked around in befuddlement.
Sunset smiled warmly. “Its fine, Twilight. Call me Sunset. Anyway, the bell just went and everyone else went. We should get to lunch and meet the girls. I haven’t seen any of them yet.” She slept in late. Damn her neighbours. Why were they so loud?
Twilight nodded quickly, hastily scooping up her supplies and shoving them into her pencil case. The thing was huge, almost the same size as Twilight’s notebook, and patterned with interesting constellations, stating their names and positions in the sky. Sunset felt the tiniest pang of envy when she looked down at her own stuff, mostly secondhand.
She banished the feeling. Twilight had gone to an incredibly fancy private school. It was only natural that she’d have cool stuff. Like everyone else at Canterlot High.
She waited for Twilight by the door, holding it open for the quieter girl. Twilight had gone through quite an aesthetic transformation over the holidays. Sure she still wore her hair in a bun and kept her glasses, but she had traded her crystal prep uniform for a light purple sweatervest with an argyle pattern, wearing a soft cotton shirt underneath, and a simple plaid skirt, also purple. She’d also gotten rid of the blocky dress shoes that she had worn to Crystal Prep. They couldn’t have been comfortable, and it was obvious that her walk was a tad bit more graceful, her steps lighter and softer.
Sunset had noticed the fact that most people seemed to have favourite colours that tended to match their coat and hair colour in this world, often with what would have been their cutie mark in Equestria somewhere.
She’d given up on that, preferring to completely change who she was. The only sign of her old cutie mark was on her journal to Princess Twilight.
She held out a hand to steady Twilight when the other girl stumbled, not realising that Flash Sentry had a habit of subconsciously shifting his desk forward each lesson. She was not the first to trip on his desk and she wouldn’t be the last.
“Thank you,” she said meekly, hugging her books close to her chest and hunching her shoulders in as they walked through the crowded hall. Sunset knew that feeling, the worry of someone tripping her or knocking her books out of her hand or stealing them. Personally she had always been more worried about getting elbowed into a locker. But from what Twilight had said, the lockers at Crystal Prep were too small to fit someone in. Lucky girl, aside from the bullying and isolation and soul-crushing loneliness.
Sunset knew that feeling all too well.
She placed a hand on Twilight’s shoulder and got a tiny smile in return. Twilight deserved to feel like she wasn’t alone, even though there were many glaring at her for when she had transformed and destroyed part of the school and put over twenty people in the hospital. “Ignore them. Eventually they’ll stop. Trust me on that.”
“Didn’t they only begin to like you after you helped save them from sirens that were using song to control their minds?” She looked up at the taller girl. “That was one of the weirdest sentences I’ve ever said. I still can’t help but think it was all just some sort of dream. I mean… magic.” She chuckled softly.
Sunset laughed. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe. Sometimes even I forget it ever existed, and I used to live and breathe it.” It was even harder to remember it now, ever since it had vanished.
She stopped at her locker, placing all her school stuff inside. Twilight did the same three lockers to the left. It was good that one of the lockers close to Sunset’s was free. It meant she could keep an eye on Twilight and walk with her. She was a little worried about the shy girl if she was on her own, especially with the events of the Friendship Games fresh in everyone’s minds. The backlash for the Fall Formal had broken Sunset, who was already a very confident person to begin with. She didn’t want to think about the effect it would have on Twilight.
She frowned slightly as she remembered that she hadn’t been able to pack a lunch. She didn’t have time to go shopping between her jobs over the holidays. She also didn’t really want to spend money on the school food, not when she needed to save it for groceries and cat food. Her stomach rumbled slightly, the buttered toast she had grabbed from the motel kitchen while running to school nothing but a fond memory. She wondered if any of her friends would be willing to share. They always had lots of good food. Lucky them.
She was drawn out of her little sulk by the sound of Twilight closing her locker. “What was it like?” Twilight asked quietly. “Living in a place where everything was magic?”
Sunset didn’t reply for a while. She just kept walking, teal eyes fixed ahead. Twilight cringed slightly. Had she said something wrong? She ducked her head, staring at her feet as she clutched her lunchbox to her chest, curling inwards. She really hoped she didn’t offend Sunset Shimmer. Even though Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the athletes of the group and Rarity had more strength then she let on, all of them very clear warning signs, Twilight was actually more scared of the tall girl walking quietly beside her.
Sunset Shimmer had a temper; the verbal attack she had given Twilight during the Friendship Games had clearly shown that. She was also taller than Twilight, taller than the other girls, and there was a sense of power to her, like she knew how to handle herself in a fight. Twilight had a feeling that she knew from experience. It was unnerving sometimes.
Her darker self also hated Sunset Shimmer, she despised her. Sunset Shimmer had defeated her and had given Twilight the strength to fight back. She feared the older girl, the girl with an inner darkness so similar to Twilight’s, and with a much tighter leash on it.
Mostly what scared Twilight was the confidence Sunset Shimmer had. It was a confidence that was very unfamiliar to Twilight, one that none of the others shared. It was different, but obvious in the way she carried herself, proud and cunning and unafraid of anything. This wasn’t an unnoticed confidence. Other students seemed to part slightly to allow her through. Twilight wasn’t sure if this was a remnant of the older girl’s reign of terror that she’d heard a little bit about, but she doubted it.
And as much as she feared Sunset Shimmer, she also knew that it was the other girl’s presence that kept her safe, kept her darker self quiet. She was so grateful for that, for her protection, and for the fact that Sunset had a warm heart under the temper and the confidence. Twilight wished she was as strong as her.
The two girls walked in silence to the cafeteria, Sunset reaching out and placing a hand on the door. She made sure to keep her gaze focused ahead of her, her face expressionless and cold. Her voice was the same, a robotic monotone with an echo of some darker emotions, low and almost sorrowful. “If you really want to know what it was like, the only thing I can say is that it felt like home.” She pushed the door open, holding it for Twilight. Twilight stepped through gratefully.
“Okay. Thank you for getting the door.” And just like that, Sunset Shimmer was smiling again, her body language and expression changing to ‘warm and inviting’.
“No problem, Twilight.” She walked beside her to the table that was pretty much marked out as theirs, three girls already seated with their lunches.
One of the girls was drowning in what looked like an incredibly soft mint green sweater, the sleeves sweeping down to her wrists and pushed back so her delicate fingers were free, and a pink butterfly design stitched onto her front. Her long pink hair was pushed out of one side of her face by a lilac flower clip, a similar shade to her soft lavender eyeshadow. A light tan ruffled skirt and brown boots completed her apparel, emerald green thread patterning the boots with vines. It suited her really well. Fluttershy looked up and spotted Sunset’s fiery hair first, giving her a small wave that diverted the attention of the other girls towards Sunset and Twilight.
The other pink haired girl bounced in her seat, bangles and beads jangling on her pink wrists. Her yellow and white sneakers lit up every time she stomped her feet, neon blue laces tied in intricate bows. She wore a blue skirt with yellow balloons stitched around the hem, a dark pink belt holding it on her waist. The light purple t-shirt she wore already had what looked like a stain of flour, right above the cream heart placed in the middle of her chest. “Sunset Shimmer! Twilight Sparkle! Over here!” Pinkie Pie yelled, her hair bouncing on her shoulders as she waved enthusiastically
“Do calm down, Miss Pie,” the third girl said calmly, applying fresh blue eyeshadow to her eyes. Rarity had apparently been shopping over the holidays, judging by the gorgeous blue dress she wore. It hugged close to her body and flared out slightly around her thighs, the poufy sleeves gathered around her shoulders and a beautiful blue diamond shimmering in the hollow of her throat, hanging from a silver necklace and shown off by the square cut of the dress. Pale blue boots hugged her calves, the soles and short heels dark purple like the treble clef design on the side of the ankle. She looked stunning, her hair perfect as always. There was a reason she was seen by many as one of the most beautiful girls in the school.
Sunset felt a little plain compared to her friends. She was still wearing the same outfit as she had before the holidays. She didn’t exactly have money to spare for clothes shopping, unfortunately.
She sat next to Rarity and stretched her arms to the sky, leaning back until she heard a wet pop somewhere in her middle back. Rarity cringed. “As lovely as it is to see you again, could you please refrain from doing that? It’s a little...” she looked like she was struggling for the right word.
Sunset grinned playfully. “Disgusting? I guess I can ‘refrain’ from doing so. You look great, by the way.”
The other girl smiled. “Thank you. I’m very proud of it. Did you notice the pearl stitching I did on the hem?”
Sunset shook her head. “Sorry, no. But it’s a gorgeous dress.”
“I was trying to make sure it wasn’t too flashy. It had to still look casual enough, but elegant. I wasn’t even sure how that was going to work, I went through so many fabrics but none of them looked precisely right. And then I realised, satin would be perfect! It was graceful, had that beautiful sheen to it, but it wasn’t extravagant like cashmere or silk, and nowhere near as expensive. In fact, the boutique had an excess of satin come in, far more then was necessary, especially since satin’s a little out of fashion this season, and Ms. Saddles allowed me to take some of it for experimenting!” She clapped excitedly and gestured to her dress.
“So I decided to make this, and a beautiful scarf which was perfect for my little sister. I had a bit left, if you’d like it Sunset. I think it would suit you if you decided to use it to put your hair up.” She handed a piece of blue satin to her friend. Sunset accepted it with a smile, placing it in her pocket. Jinx might like it. It might suit his black fur.
“Thanks. So I’m guessing you had a good holiday, then.” She rested her elbows on the table.
“It was divine, darling.” Rarity smiled and turned to Fluttershy. “And yours?”
Fluttershy blinked for a few moments, blue eyes wide and cookie crumbs dotting her chin. “Oh, oh yes. I had a great holiday. I spent almost all my time at the shelter, and there was a new dog in, a beautiful black Labrador cross, and she had a litter of seven puppies just five days ago. They’re so cute,” she smiled shyly. “I have a picture if anyone wants to see it.”
She ended up pulling out her phone when all four girls let out a resounding yes, all of them cooing over the adorable newborn pups in the pictures. “What are y’all looking at?” There was a country drawl behind them and they all turned around as one, grinning at the farmer.
“Applejack!” She crossed her muscular arms over her chest, a button-down orange flannel over a white tank top, the sleeves buttoned in at her elbows. She wore cut-off denim shorts and a brown belt, a bit of dried mud already visible on heavy work boots. Her hat was in its usual place, a forest green tie in her hair. They all remembered the unfortunate incident with Rarity’s new kitten, who had decided the red tie that Applejack usually wore was exactly what she needed to consume at that moment. At least Rarity had a spare lying around that Applejack seemed to like as well.
The girl next to her wore a denim jacket that was buttoned over a tight black shirt, the collar of the jacket turned outwards. Simple black leggings stretched down to her running shoes, a red lightning bolt emblazoned on the side of each shoe. She blew her polychromatic fringe out of her face, grinning wildly. “Why don’t you show us too?”
Fluttershy held out the picture, watching as the grins on both girl’s faces widened. They sat down at the table, Rainbow Dash giving Sunset a high five. “We haven’t seen you for ages. Where the hell have you been?”
Sunset returned her grin. “Work, mostly. It was long, it was boring, there’s not much to tell. It’s good to see you, Dash.” She hoped they didn’t ask.
Pinkie Pie began vibrating in her seat again. “Guess what I did over the holidays!” She beamed. “I threw, like, six sleepovers and one that lasted two days and made lots of cake and got a part time job at Mr and Mrs’s Cakes as a babysitter!” Her voice rose in pitch with her excitement.
“We know about the sleepovers, Pinkie. We were there.” Dash rolled her eyes. “Dad and I went for a camping trip for a weekend, if anyone’s asking.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Aside from that, nothing much.” She laced her fingers behind her head.
Applejack noticed that Twilight seemed to be quieter than usual. “Are you alright, sugarcube?” She placed a hand on her shoulder.
Twilight flinched. “Hm? Oh, yes. I’m perfectly fine.” She was just so tired from all the sleepless nights.
“Are you sure? How were your holidays?” Applejack asked softly, giving her a kind smile. Twilight thought she liked her the most. Applejack was just so nice to her ever since the archery contest.
She smiled back, pushing her glasses up. “They were fine. Thanks for inviting me to all those sleepovers, Pinkie Pie. I’m sorry I couldn’t make all of them. My brother bought me this fantastic new book series and I just had to keep reading.” She crossed one hand over her chest, holding her left bicep in what everyone could recognise as a nervous gesture.
“It’s fine, silly,” Pinkie Pie giggled. “You didn’t have to come to every party. Sunny didn’t come to any at all.”
Sunset cringed slightly. “Yeah… sorry about that. Does anyone have any spare food?” It tore at her pride to ask like that, it was pathetic. But her stomach decided to overrule her pride. She was hungry.
The table went quiet for a moment before Fluttershy nodded and handed her a cookie, Twilight doing the same with half her sandwich. It was cut in a triangle. From what Sunset had observed, that was the only proper way to cut a sandwich. She smiled bashfully, her cheeks darkening in embarrassment. “Thanks. I accidentally left it on the table this morning. It’s pretty stupid of me.” She laughed, not willing to let them know that she had no food. She’d need to go shopping after school.
“It happens to everyone, darling. Don’t worry.” Rarity smiled, flicking her hair out of her face. “Why didn’t you just buy lunch?”
Sunset shrugged. “I need to catch a bus to the city today after school. Have to save some money for that.” The grocery store in the city was way cheaper than the one here, and it had a bigger selection as well. She just had to get in, go shopping, go back to the motel, drop everything off, and go back into the city for her shift at the Fireworks Café. It was a small place and not hugely popular, and her boss was horrible, but it got her money, and tips, and she was eternally grateful to Halt and the guy in Room 3 for helping her forge some legal papers to let her get a job.
At least she didn’t have to worry anymore about where to live. Halt gave her nearly free rent, as long as she kept her room clean and paid what she had to on time. The fact that she did all the work on his motorcycle for free and did it well may have had something to do with it. The man loved his bike. And to be fair, it was a gorgeous bike. One day she wanted to get one just like it.
She realised that she’d been staring into space for the past minute or so when she felt Dash poke her cheek. She looked over into confused magenta eyes. “Hm?”
“You kinda zoned there, buddy.” Rainbow Dash looked like she was fighting a smile.
“Oh!” She blinked in surprise. “Sorry. I was just thinking about what I have to do in work today.” There was a hum of agreement from Rarity and Applejack. They both knew about hard work.
Pinkie Pie pouted. “Awwww, but I was going to throw a ‘first day of term’ party. You won’t be able to come?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, but I’ll be off work tomorrow. I work more over the holidays.” And Wednesday she’d be gaining her pay check from her other ‘job’. At least Halt let her use his bike for that, and her job paid for the petrol.
“If you’re sure…” Dash shrugged. “So who here’s seen the new kid yet?” She asked the others, kicking her feet up onto the table.
Fluttershy raised her hand. “Uh, I did. He seems sort of… nice. He did keep laughing at other people though. And he kept shuffling this deck of cards in his hands.”
Rarity tilted her head. “That’s a little odd, don’t you think?” She asked, the school bell catching the end of her sentence and drowning her out.
Twilight was a sudden flurry of movement as she packed up and stood, eager to get to class on time. She looked at the other six girls. “Shouldn’t we get to class?”
“Calm down, Twi,” Dash laughed. “We got time.”
“But the bell went.” Twilight looked incredibly perturbed by Rainbow Dash’s casual attitude. “Shouldn’t we go? I have physics.”
Sunset shivered. Physics was a subject she did not find fun. “Good luck. I need to get to chemistry anyway. See you later girls.” She smiled, leaving the hall and walking to her locker to collect her books. At least chemistry was simple enough. Besides, acids and bases were fun.
Her boots clicked on the hallway floor as she strode proudly through the crowded hall, opening her locker and grabbing her supplies, holding the cookie Fluttershy had given her in her teeth. She took a bite and pulled the remainder out of her mouth as she walked, finishing it off as she reached the science labs and wiping her hand on her dress to remove the crumbs.
She pushed the door open and sat down in her usual spot, right up the back of the class. Hardly anyone else ever sat here and it was nice to not have anyone copying off her notes.
She rolled her eyes when she noticed that they had a substitute already today. Great. That meant they’d be watching one of those awfully filmed videos that tried to explain basic concepts and failed horribly at it. She could tell he was nervous. The outline of his aura was frazzled and jerky. The concept that auras changed colours according to exactly what someone was feeling was a myth for her. Emotions only ever affected the shape of an aura, only ever detectable if she was looking for it or it was incredibly obvious.
The ability to see auras, to see magic itself, was something she had been born with. She could see the energies of a person, or pony. Colour was linked to personality, and she was never able to describe it. There just weren’t any words for it. Magic, any sort of magic, changed an aura, shot it with a different colour that she had always been able to see on the end of a rainbow, even though everyone else had said rainbows only had seven. She could never truly describe it, but the closest she could get was some sort of indigo-gold.
Magic itself was all sorts of colours. She could always see those colours, but the essence of magic visible in an aura was different. It was nearly invisible in this world. It had even disappeared from the auras of her friends. She wondered if the same had happened to her. She couldn’t see her own aura. Not unless she looked in a mirror, able to see the proud colour clinging to her outline like a faint mist.
“Uh… it says here that I have to introduce the new student to the class,” the sub muttered, reading over whatever notes he’d been left. “If you’d like to come in and introduce yourself Mr…”
“Maverick. Name’s Maverick.” Sunset looked up from her book at a new voice that sounded incredibly familiar, the deep bass making her blood run cold. The boy was tall, probably taller than most people in the school, and skinny as a rake. While she could appreciate the leather jacket he wore and adored the look of the spikes adorning it, her gut churned in fear when she realised that something about him was off, just plain wrong. He had no aura. Her instincts screamed at her to bolt, to run away from the lean boy in the tattered jeans and combat boots. She hated those instincts; the herbivore in her was such a coward. She was NOT a coward.
She gritted her teeth and steeled herself, looking him over to see why her panic instincts had gone into hyper drive. He had brown skin, ebony hair streaked with chocolate and pulled back into a messy ponytail. With what looked like a tie-dye ribbon. What? She moved on from that, chuckling slightly at the admittedly hilarious slogan on his shirt.
Her eyes flicked back up to his sharp features and she realised that he was walking, having finished introducing himself and was about to take a seat. His dark russet eyes twinkled with mischief as he pulled out the seat on her right, moving far more gracefully then she would have thought. She would have expected someone of his body type and a teenager to boot to be all gangly and awkward.
He crossed his arms and looked over at her, offering a hand to shake. “Don’t know if you caught it, but my name’s Maverick.” She raised an eyebrow and shook his hand, his black fingerless gloves adorned with metal and leather. She had to admit, he didn’t seem as terrifying now that she had decided to quash any terror she may have felt at his presence and lack of aura.
“Sunset. Sunset Shimmer. And I caught it,” she said coldly, fixing her attention firmly forward. She was going to ignore him. Even if she wasn’t ever going to let herself be afraid, she definitely wasn’t ever going to trust him. He was obviously bad news. Especially if he didn’t have an aura.
If she had been looking, she’d have noticed the malicious quirk his grin gained as he looked down to his deck of cards, the Queen of Hearts shifting to the top of the deck before he reshuffled. “My dear, I know exactly who you are.” He muttered under his breath, his eyes flaring vivid scarlet for the briefest of seconds. It looks like he found who was looking for.
Sunset pulled her jacket in around her as a cold wind blew through the bus shelter. It wasn’t very sheltered. She rubbed her hands together for warmth, the thin top and leggings of her uniform perfect in the warm café, but awful when waiting for the night bus. Couldn’t the damned things run on schedule?
She stared absently at an apartment across the road, the flowerpot on the balcony catching her eye. Apparently neon was popular with the owner of the wilted plant, considering the pot had been painted with a giant neon yellow star on the side. She could only imagine how tacky Rarity would find the pot.
The fire-haired girl rocked back and forth on her heels, pressing her friction-warmed hands to her cheeks to spread the warmth through her skin. She set to rubbing them again, the friction coaxing warmth into her cold fingers. She fumed silently, berating herself for leaving her precious lighter in her other jacket. She could use the small light right about now. Even if she didn’t light it, she could still have something to do with her hands.
She wished she had some gloves. Warm, woollen thick gloves. Those would be awesome right now. Seriously, 110% awesome.
She had a sudden feeling she was spending too much time around Rainbow Dash. The athlete’s ‘totally radical’ way of speaking was rubbing off on her.
She breathed hot air into her cupped hands, trying to increase the warmth. At least she was off work tomorrow. That was why Thursdays were great. And she could finally go to Rarity’s with the girls and see how the fashionista lived. Apparently Rarity had a pool. It sounded fun. For people who could swim.
She actually looked forward to it, despite her lack of aquatic skill. She’d finally be able to just spend time with her friends, and talk to them properly instead of being busy and not there.
She did wish they were here now though. No matter how many times she had done this, standing alone at a bus stop in the middle of the city at night was a terrifying prospect. If her friends were with her, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. But she’d just have to rely on her own courage to stop her panicking and doing something stupid.
She breathed another puff of hot air into her hands and yelped in pain. Too hot! She shook her hands out immediately, hoping that the cold air would dispel the burning sensation on her left palm, a teal glow following her wrist. The pain faded enough and she studied her hand under the hazy orange glow of the flickering streetlight.
A patch of her skin was puffy and red, right by the sleeve of her jacket. The sleeve was actually singed, a couple of what looked like embers around the burnt bit. But embers weren’t normally the same hue as her old magical aura was. She blinked in shock. Was that fire?
More importantly, was that magic?
She had to get home. She had to look at her reflection, check her aura. She’d been avoiding the prospect ever since the indigo-gold of magic had vanished from the aura of her friends, too scared to see if it had vanished from her’s as well.
She had to find out if she still had a trace of it left in the nearly invisible colours that cloaked her body. It was imperative. Maybe it meant that the magic wasn’t gone after all.
“Sunset? Is that you?” The fire-haired girl looked up in surprise, thrown out of her contemplation on magic and auras as the motorbike pulled up in front of her. The biker stepped off and kicked the stand out, turning the engine off.
“Dash?” It was indeed her friend, pulling a motorbike helmet off her head and shaking out her polychromatic ponytail.
“What are you doing out in the city this late?” Rainbow Dash grinned, looking around with a hint of wariness.
Sunset shrugged, a tired grin forming on her face. “Waiting for a bus. I need to get home somehow. And you?”
“Dad and I came to see that new movie Solid Death. It was awesome!” Rainbow Dash began waving her hands around in excitement and to act out what she was saying. She tended to talk with her hands a lot. “So first the main character’s a cop, and he’s visiting some lady, she could be his ex-wife, I don’t know,” she shrugged. It didn’t really bother her.
“Anyway, so these bad dudes break into the fancy bank where this party’s being held, and they catch everyone except the cop, and he’s got to fight them with guns and bombs and hand to hand and stuff, and it’s seriously the coolest movie I’ve ever seen since Power Pack: Return of the Mane-iac. And all the Daring Do movies. Especially the second one with the stolen children and the sidekick kid and Daring Do gets brainwashed. That’s my favourite.”
Sunset chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve seen a Daring Do movie. Never had the time.” Or the money.
“WHAT?!” Rainbow Dash screeched, looking at the older girl like she had just admitted to eating the flesh of fluffy kittens. “You’ve never seen one? Ever? We have to fix that. Dad!” She yelled, looking at the biker who had been sitting on his bike the entire time, the engine still purring under the sleek blue paint job that Dash’s bike shared.
The shiny leather jacket pulled tight around his broad chest squeaked as he reached up his hands to pull his helmet off, shaking out the same polychromatic hair his daughter had. He raised an eyebrow, a faint curl to his mouth. “Yeah, Rainie?”
It was at that moment Sunset realised she’d never met Dash’s father. Or most of her friends’ family. Aside from the odd sibling and Applejack’s clan, as she had called it. She quickly held out a hand, giving the tall man her nicest smile. “It’s nice to meet you, sir. My name’s Sunset Shimmer.”
He looked once at her hand and back up to her face. “The same Sunset Shimmer who made my little girl’s life hell for two years?”
She dropped her hand as her cheeks flushed, looking away. Rainbow Dash immediately came to her defence, placing a hand on the older girl’s shoulder and locking eyes with her father. “Yeah, and now she’s one of my best friends. Lighten up, old man.”
There was a staring match between the two, the tension so thick Sunset could cut it with a knife. Dash’s father eventually shook his head, his shoulders shaking as he grinned, holding back laughter. “Alright, alright, I’ll let it go.” He offered his hand to Sunset’s. “Rainbow Blaze. Just call me Blaze.”
She hesitantly reached out when he grabbed her hand and shook it strongly, almost crushing her hand in an iron grip, biting back a whimper as she was reminded quickly of the small burn she’d recently sustained on her hand. “N-nice to meet you.” She quickly extracted her fingers from his grip the moment it was polite to do so, quickly stretching the digits to make sure they were okay.
Rainbow Dash laughed and clapped her shoulder. “Cool! Hey, Sunset, you should totally come over to mine tonight for a Daring Do marathon. It’ll be great, hot chocolate, lots of coffee in the morning, and you won’t have to wait for a bus!”
Sunset smiled at her. “It sounds pretty good. But only if it’s alright with your dad.”
He shrugged, spinning his helmet on the tip of his finger. “I’m cool with it, but you should check it with your family first.”
Sunset cringed. Family. Crap. “Uh, there’s no need, my… guardian would be fine with it. I already told him I’ll be home pretty late.” Guardian was the best word she could use. And Halt sort of was. He gave her a home and occasionally fed her and got her jobs. And papers to do both jobs. He was also her emergency contact, just in case.
“Are you sure?” Blaze asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” she smiled awkwardly, trying to ignore the odd look she was getting from her friend.
He didn’t look convinced. “If you’re sure.” He put his helmet back on and sat on his motorcycle, waiting for Rainbow Dash as he threw her a spare helmet. She passed it to Sunset and sat on her bike, pulling her helmet on and starting the bike. Sunset sat behind her, making sure her bag was zipped shut and that the helmet wouldn’t go flying off as she held her friend’s shoulders, careful not to use the part of her palm that was burnt. She was pretty excited. Motorbikes were awesome. They were one of the few things that was good about not being in Equestria.
She couldn’t stop the wide grin that spread over her face as the engine roared, sending them flying down the road, the scenery blurring around them until they finally stopped outside a skyscraper, a man in a dapper looking suit standing outside the doors. She got off the bike and held it awkwardly. “What do I do with this?”
“I’ll take it. You go show your friend upstairs, Rainie.” Rainbow Blaze lifted it from her hands and began wheeling his bike around the side, the tuxedo guy getting Dash’s bike and following him.
Sunset stared up at the skyscraper with awe. How expensive was it to live here? “You live here?”
“Yep.” Dash looped her elbow through Sunset’s and half walked, half dragged her inside, automatic doors opening as the girls entered the lobby. It was beautiful, the entire design almost completely white. It felt open and full of space, possibly due to the columns and sweeping, fluid architecture. It looked like everything was made of clouds or something, the lounge chairs looking comfy enough that Sunset had half a mind to go jump on one.
Aside from the occasional rainbow design to break the achromatic palette, the only other deviations were the silver metal that gleamed on the elevator doors and on every fitting, and the deep blue lounge chairs. There was a water wall in one corner, adding a sense of tranquillity as trance beats played on the speakers.
Rainbow Dash tugged her towards the elevators, causing Sunset to almost trip over her own feet. She caught herself in time and followed her friend through the chrome doors. The elevator was all different shades of blue. With a mirror. How thoughtful.
“So what do you think of the Cloudsdale so far?” Dash grinned, elbowing her gently in the ribs, pressing a button marked P.
“It’s pretty cool,” she smiled. “Did you just press the penthouse button?”
“Yep!”
Sunset stared at her, bug eyed. “You live in the penthouse?”
Rainbow shrugged. “My mom owns the hotel chain. Sometimes she visits. Dad’s a world class surfer which helps pay for other stuff. So, how’s the magic research going? Find any yet?” She asked curiously, magenta eyes brightening with hope.
Sunset bit her lip. She wasn’t entirely sure. There was that odd bit of green fire that had burnt her palm, but maybe that was just a fluke. She should stay quiet until she had a better chance to investigate. She shook her head, watching as her friend’s face fell.
“Sorry.” It was all her fault anyway. It only disappeared after she transformed into that golden super mode. But maybe it was coming back. She had to get to a mirror.
Rainbow Dash began laughing. “What are you sorry for? You saved our asses. If it weren’t for you we’d all be in a land of talking rainbow horses. That’s Equestria, right?”
Sunset chuckled. “Basically. Didn’t Princess Twilight tell you all about it?”
“Nope,” the other girl shrugged. “And AJ made us promise not to bug you on it. Rarity agreed. Apparently it was a sore spot for you. Even Sci Twi’s trying to hold off on the interrogation. We figured that you had enough worries about being hated here, then trying to understand the magic, then trying to find it, and so we decided not to make you think too hard about it.”
Sunset stared at her as the elevator stopped, the doors opening to show off a spacious living room with similar architecture to the lobby. Rainbow Dash ran out of the elevator and jumped onto one of the couches, kicking her legs up on the coffee table.
They hadn’t pestered her for a reason. She just thought Twilight had told them everything. She should tell them though. They deserved to know. “So what do you want to know about Equestria?” She smiled, sitting next to her friend.
“What about the others? And why did Twilight point to me and say ‘loyalty’ the first time we ponied up? And why did you do the same? Also, how did she know us? Was it magic? And why did you leave?”
“Well, long story short, there are six powerful talismans in Equestria called the Elements of Harmony, and they’re the strongest magic there. Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, Loyalty, and Magic. They’re powered by friendship. And there’s six bearers there. Princess Twilight is the bearer of Magic, and the Princess of Friendship. She’s the leader of the Element Bearers. The others are her five friends, who each hold one.”
She wasn’t going to explain that there were alternate versions of the others until tomorrow. She had a feeling they had an idea about it, but it was still a weird concept. “In this world, when I tried to take the Element of Magic, the other five responded with diluted magic that is now in you guys.” Or it was. “You’re Loyalty. That’s why she said that.”
“And why do I get wings and some of the others don’t?” She flapped her arms in a poor imitation of real wings.
“That’s harder to explain and something the other girls should hear too. Sorry,” she smiled awkwardly.
Dash shrugged and waved it off. “No problem then. So a land of ponies has special talismans that ward off evil? Sounds like that book series we had to read for English in freshman year.”
“Eldarot Quest? I loved that one!” She grinned, “especially the sixth one with the giant slug monster in the labyrinth where they were looking for the amethyst. And yeah, I guess it does sort of match Equestria’s Elements. Down to them being gemstones. Except Equestria’s aren’t any specific stone.” Although she heard they were unbreakable so maybe they were made of iridium diamas, one of the most magically conducive and toughest gemstones found in Equestria and actually came in a wide array of colours. What she wouldn’t give to test it out…
She was getting off track. “What was that, Dash?”
“I was just asking if you were hungry, but maybe sleep is more important. After we watch Daring Do and the Temple of Doom. Please stay awake until the end.”
Sunset yawned as she sat on the edge of the pool, wearing a random black and gold bikini top and shorts Rarity had shoved in her hands twenty minutes after she explained she had no bathers. It was almost scary how the fashionista did stuff like that and managed to get changed herself even quicker, currently cutting through the water like a fish. Or a mermaid. A very graceful mermaid. Sunset almost envied her ability to hold her breath so long. Swimming almost looked fun the way Rarity did it. And her hair was still somehow good looking and not clinging to her face and shoulders like Dash’s was.
She let her feet lightly dip into the cool water, staring at the rest of the pool with some trepidation. She was fine sitting here and watching. She couldn’t swim anyway. Besides, the sun was nice on her skin. Why would she get all cold?
“Hello Sunset Shimmer.” She turned to see the owner of the timid voice, smiling kindly.
“Hi Twilight. Care to join me?” Twilight shook her head, a fluffy blue towel wrapped around her shoulders.
“Rainbow Dash said that there was a meeting in Rarity’s room and that you’d be telling us some facts about Equestria. Is that true?” Her dark eyes were wide with hopeful caution.
Sunset nodded and stood. Good thing Twilight reminded her. “Yep, so we should go in. It’s a bit of a lengthy talk.” She grabbed her jacket and threw it on. All her other stuff was in Rarity’s room. Twilight followed her in and up the stairs. It looked like on Applejack and Pinkie Pie were left, and eventually ran upstairs with water still clinging to their clothes and hair. Sunset should probably get started. Rarity even left out paper for her to draw diagrams with. How thoughtful.
“Okay, so what I explained to Rainbow Dash is that there are six talismans in Equestria, Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty and Magic.” She sketched out what she had heard the gems were shaped like.
“Ooo! That one looks like a balloon!” Pinkie Pie pointed excitedly at it. “And that’s Twilight’s hairclip!” Twilight immediately brought a hand up to cover it, staring in confusion at the sketches.
Sunset chuckled. “Yep, they match the cutie marks of the bearers from what I heard. Anyway, these are the Elements of Harmony. They’re very powerful and pretty much run on friendship. Princess Twilight is the leader, with the Element of Magic. Her friends carry the same elements you do. It’s simple enough. The complex part is that her friends there are your pony counterparts, the way she’s the counterpart to Twilight here.”
“You’re saying there’s another Dash in another world?” Applejack drawled.
“Yeah, I don’t know much about them though. They’d look a little like you though. Which is how she recognised you the first time. She knew different versions of you. I understand it’s weird.”
Rainbow Dash looked very perturbed. “Is that why Shy and I have wings?”
Sunset nodded. “From what I can tell, the bearers are two earth ponies, two pegasi, a unicorn and Princess Twilight, who’s an alicorn.” She could see confusion on their faces. “Okay, the first three are very different from alicorns, which I’ll explain after. But they’re all very similar in build on the outside. pegasi are like the ones of legend, wings and such. They have magic that relates to flight and their ability to control weather. I figure that’s you two in the Elements, hence the wings. Loyalty and Kindness.”
She pointed at Applejack and Pinkie Pie. “You two are Honesty and Laughter. In Equestria, those bearers are earth ponies. Earth ponies are the most like regular ponies, no wings or unicorn horns. They’re ten times stronger and tougher on average and tend to be the land workers in Equestria, growing all the food.”
She smiled at Rarity and Twilight. “Rarity, your counterpart is a unicorn, bearer of Generosity. Unicorns tend to be able to learn specific spells based on their talent. Like in those computer games where mages can only learn fire magic or healing magic and such. All unicorns have telekinetic abilities though.”
She thought for a second about explaining cutie marks. It was probably too complex. “And Twilight, from what I remember, Princess Twilight was originally a unicorn as well. She was a magic talent like me though. It means we can learn all sorts of spells. The downside is that while a unicorn whose talent was gemstones could be able to do just about anything regarding gemstones without draining on their magic very much at all, unlike if they were controlling anything else which would cause a drain, magic talents use up energy with each spell. It sort of evens out. Some unicorns, no matter what their talent, tend to be stronger than others. Like someone who’s naturally better at running. Magic is like another muscle really. It’s got a base strength which can be improved on with practice, but lack of use makes it weak. Do you all understand that?”
There was a chorus of nods and furious scribbling from Twilight, who had produced a pencil and notepad and was writing down everything Sunset said. Fluttershy raised her hand. “You mentioned alicorns. What are those?”
Sunset bit her lip as she thought. “Alicorns are very rare. There’s four that I know of. They have the abilities of the other three ponies combined, strength, wings, magic. They’re also far more powerful naturally. They tend to look different as well. While the others all look mostly similar aside from wings or a horn, they are all of a similar size as well. The average size tends to be around the height of those St Bernard dogs.”
“That’s a little small, hun,” Applejack raised an eyebrow. Made sense that she was the one most surprised. Sweet Apple Acres was also a horse farm. She knew ponies and horses.
Sunset nodded. “Of the four alicorns, the strongest is easily twice the size of a pony there, the other two are a bit smaller, maybe a head shorter than her, and Princess Twilight stands only a little taller because she only recently became an alicorn. All the alicorns are princesses, rulers of the land, because they have power and tend to be fairer towards all. There’s the princess of the sun, the tallest, the moon is her sister, the princess of love was originally a pegasus who ascended, and Twilight Sparkle is the princess of friendship.”
“How did that work? You mentioned ascension?” Twilight asked, pausing in her note taking.
“Yeah. Twilight and the princess of love, she’s got a long, Italian sounding name but everyone calls her Cadence, like the music. They were originally normal ponies, which is the group term. Then they became alicorns. I don’t know how.” She figured Celestia did it to them. She gave them power. Gave them everything.
“Any questions?” She sort of hoped not.
"So does Sci Twi here have an Element of Harmony?” Rainbow Dash grinned and ruffled her hair lightly, causing the shyer girl to duck her head slightly.
Sunset mulled it over for a second. “I don’t know. I’m not sure who has the Element of Magic. I assume Princess Twilight’s the bearer. Besides, it’s not like the Elements are actually here. It was just their magic inside you guys. Magic doesn’t come naturally to this world, so I guess that’s why it’s now gone. Not like Equestria. Magic is innate there.” It was more predictable. Easier to study. And she did miss being a magically talented unicorn sometimes. It had its perks.
“Darling, if there was naturally magic there, and it was your home, why did you leave?” Sunset looked away from Rarity’s crystalline eyes.
“Because I was an idiot,” she said shortly. “Can we drop that one please? I prefer not to think about my past. It’s behind me.”
“Sorry, darling. Forgive my curiosity.” Rarity smiled at her, flicking her fringe out of her face. “I believe dinner should be ready soon from the smell of it. Shall we all head down?”
Sunset smiled back. “It’s fine, sorry. It’s just a bit of a sore subject, still.” She looked at everyone. “I still haven’t found out what happened to the magic here,” she was going to check her reflection’s aura but couldn’t. She was too scared to see if the magic had gone from it. “But I will. Promise. Dinner sounds good. And smells good.” Her stomach let out a loud growl that caused them all to jump before breaking into laughter. “I’m so hungry I could eat a bowl of live rats,” she joked, watching as Dash redoubled her hysterics while Rarity and Fluttershy cringed.
“I thought you were a vegetarian,” Pinkie tilted her head in confusion, taking it literally.
“Joke, Pinkie, just a joke,” she reassured her. Pinkie nodded and began letting out high-pitched hyena cackles, so loud it almost hurt Sunset’s eardrums. She smiled at the sight before her jaw gaped slightly. There, ever so faintly in the vibrant colour that danced with glee on Pinkie Pie’s frame, was a touch of indigo gold, centered around the faintest hint of pink magic that wisped from the corners of her mouth, barely visible for little more than a moment, invisible to all but the aura seer.
No way.
Running again, running away from her darker self, darkness nipping at her feet as she cried. She fell and threw her hands out to brace herself. The rock sank under them, like thick mud. Or quicksand. She screamed in fright as large waves of the jet rock rose around her and pulled her down, like it was trying to drown her.
She covered her eyes in a childish attempt to hide herself, curling in a ball. She heard a clatter of claws and squeaked in terror, her eyes shooting open as something touched her foot. She scrambled backwards as her breathing quickened. It was a rat. Just a little brown rat.
“Oh,” she smiled in faint relief. “That’s not so bad. You’re sort of cute.”
The rat chittered and strands of colour encircled it, gold, blue and green. She stared in horror as it began to grow, the chittering sound rising in pitch and agony. The light was hurting the poor rodent. She gulped as the three colours sank into white fur, marking the pelt with flowing, watery swirls. The former rat swung a head towards her direction, a trio of feral gold eyes joining the original two on its face. The creature was as tall as a horse and twice as long, the pelt dripping with water as the hairless tail whipped through the air, the end forked. Long claws dug into the ground as the creature roared and lunged at her, devouring her whole and giving her no chance to run.
She gasped as she woke up, quickly patting about for her glasses and turning on the bedside lamp. That was worse than her usual dreams. It was awful. She doubted she’d be going back to sleep tonight.
Twilight crawled out of her bed and over to her bookcase, sitting in her bean bag. Spike jumped silently into her lap as she selected a novel and began to read, trying to banish the dream from her mind.
Elsewhere in Equestria, a rat sniffed the air of the Everfree Forest inquisitively, picking up a new scent. It could be danger. It could also be food. With that in mind, the rodent scurried through the undergrowth towards the new scent. The potential of food far outweighed potential dangers.
“Oh man, the races last night were awe-frickin’-some!” Rainbow Dash grinned wildly as she slid into her seat at the lunch table. “Did any of you go?”
“Go where? What races?” Twilight pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she blinked inquisitively.
“The ones down by Cutthroat Field. You know, on the south side.”
“Aren’t those races illegal?” Rarity asked in concern, looking up from her newly painted nails.
“Yeah, totally, but that’s what makes it fun! Cars, motorbikes, that cage fight held every Wednesday at Uncle Clydesdale’s and there was a sick crash last night too!”
Sunset looked up in horror. “A crash?” Oh no. Please don't be her, please don't be her.
“Yep!” Dash nodded, seeing she had everyone’s attention. “It was during the motorbike races. One of the riders had a gorgeous bike, black paint-job, 750CC, mad skills, skidded and slammed into the wall. Some oldish dude ran over and got them off the track. They never even took their helmet off. Bike looked a bit banged up though. Looked like it would need some expensive repairs.”
“Are you alrigh’, hun?” Applejack placed a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “You’re looking pretty pale there.”
She blinked and swallowed. “I’m fine. Thanks. I just don’t like crashes. Ever since that one event in the Games with the motor-cross…”
Everyone nodded in understanding. Rarity smiled warmly at her. “It was a good thing Rainbow Dash was there to protect you. But honestly, motor-cross in a school event. It was incredibly dangerous.”
“It was awesome!” Rainbow Dash laughed, pulling a football out of her bag and spinning it on her finger as though it was a basketball. “Right, Sunset?”
“Yeah. I thought it was great before the triffids attacked,” she rolled her eyes. She preferred the older horror movies that Halt occasionally put on for movie night. Newer ones tended to rely more on gore for shock value. Although a heated discussion with Rainbow Dash had taught her that the new movies were still alright and popular for a reason.
Her breath hitched slightly as she shifted her arm wrong, placing her fork back down on the tray as she breathed deeply, trying to dispel the sudden flare of pain from her shoulder. She’d managed to relocate it, which had left only a slight twinge that would be gone soon enough, but the bad injuries were her ribs. None were broken, but it had been close. Compression bandages were amazing creations. Humans were so clever about getting around their lack of magic.
At least her legs were mostly fine, aside from being bruised and scraped. Last time she had a crash she’d woken up to Halt talking to a doctor outside her small hospital room, although it was more like Halt was swearing at the doctor about fees. At least the bike was fine, that time. She’d have to repair almost half the bike when her landlord let her pick up a wrench.
The pain eased in her arm and she smiled at the girls, cringing on the inside when she saw they were all staring at her with caring concern. “I’m fine. Walked into a door last night.” Worst excuse ever.
“I know you’re lying, hun.” Applejack looked her in the eye. Sunset stared back in determination, her eyes widening when she noticed the faint flicker of indigo gold magic in the farm girl’s stubborn aura. If she had to describe it, she would say it looked as hard as stone and a colour that was best described as mixing every shade of green imaginable and a few only visible to bumblebees and art students, and adding what could be some form of orange. Or possibly brown. That was still not right though. It looked unyielding, proud, and above all, truthful.
She was the Element of Honesty after all. Maybe she was a walking lie detector. Sunset smiled. “You can tell?”
“We all can, darling,” Rarity flipped her silver compact shut and fixed the older girl with a piercing glare.
“I fell off my bike.” That was close enough to the truth. “Work tired me out a lot. Seriously girls, I promise I’m fine.” These injuries wouldn’t even scar, and she had enough of those already. She would be fine. It was nothing. The time she broke her arm had been much worse.
She focused her gaze on Twilight. “How about you, Twi? You seem tired.” It was true, there were faint rings under Twilight’s eyes, mostly hidden by the frames of her glasses.
“Me? Oh, I’m, uh, fine! Yep!” She smiled nervously and began wringing her hands slightly. She quickly crumbled under the sextet of concerned gazes. Her dark eyes studied the bottom rim of her glasses as she bit her lip. “My parents still aren’t pleased about my school switch. My brother also hasn’t talked to me since then. Cadence is the only one that does. Sorry.”
“Darling, what on earth are you apologising for?” Rarity took her hand, “it’s not your fault that dreadful school was such a toxic environment.”
“Uh, I’m sure it wasn’t all bad. But whatever you think is fine.” Fluttershy put her hand on Twilight’s shoulder for a moment, “and we’re glad to have you here.”
“She’s got that right,” Applejack winked at the younger girl. “You’re our friend, and if you want us to talk to your brother, it’s no problem. We’ll set RD on him. Don’t you worry none, sugercube.”
This brought a small smile to Twilight’s face as she looked at Applejack. “It’s fine. No problem, really. I’m sure everything will sort itself out eventually. But thank you girls. You’re all so nice to me, even when I tried to destroy this world as a… a, um…”
“Evil, power crazed supervillain?” Pinkie grinned helpfully, balancing a spoon on her nose and cheeks to try cheer her friend up. Twilight nodded, eyes downcast.
Dash ruffled her hair bun, reaching over Fluttershy to do so. “Hey, no blood, no foul. We forgave Sunset for doing the same thing after all, and she was way crazier.”
“Thanks Dash,” Sunset rolled her eyes with a smirk. “But she’s right, Twi. We’re your friends. We have your back.” As far as she was concerned, this was a nice moment. And Twilight seemed a little happier as well. That was good. Poor thing deserved a bit of happy after her pretty shit school life in Crystal Prep.
Rarity seemed to agree, judging by the bright grin she wore as she suddenly began rifling through her bag. “This seems like the perfect moment, and I hope you don’t mind,” she pulled out a small silken pouch.
“I found these at the markets over the break. I got one for each of us.” She emptied the pouch onto the table, seven silver pins falling out, with a differently coloured jewel in each. “The jewels in them aren’t real, I have quite an eye for that sort of thing, but they were rather pretty nonetheless. Let’s see, purple for Twilight, and this white one is mine.” She pinned it to the strap of her bag and handed Twilight the other one.
“Oh, oh, is the pink one mine?” Pinkie Pie bounced in her seat, her curls flying everywhere as she reached for the small pin.
Rarity nodded, “of course, and yellow for Fluttershy. I’m afraid I couldn’t find all they had was simple little circles or I would have gotten shaped ones.”
“It’s okay, Rarity, it’s really quite lovely.” She pinned it to her sweater.
“And we have red for Sunset, and a nice dark blue for Rainbow,” she handed them the red and blue gems, respectively. “And Applejack, I did try to find an orange pin, but it was either black, another pink, or green, and I doubted you’d pick either of the first two.” She handed her the small green circle.
“I still think it’s mighty fine,” the farmer smiled and tipped her Stetson. “Thank you, Rares. You really didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
“But of course I did!” She clapped her hands together gleefully. “Think of them like promise rings or friendship bracelets. After all, I put my name down for the school trip overseas, so I might not be seeing any of you for a few weeks next term and it would be nice to have a sort of reminder of our friendship. By the way, you should put your names down as well. There’s not been an official announcement on the destination, but it’s bound to be an adventure.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Sunset shrugged before remembering just how bad an idea that was. Ow. “After all, I won’t be missing anything. I learnt all this last year.” She’d been kept back a year. She’d flunked some of her subjects on purpose to achieve it. She didn’t want to lose her friends just yet, or access to the portal, and the principal had agreed it might be good for her to stay back as well, after the Fall Formal.
Applejack nodded. “I don’t think I’d go for it. It’s harvesting time. Crops don’t pick themselves.”
“Want a hand? I’m free this Saturday.” Sunset offered. She loved Applejack’s farm. The horses were truly beautiful, and she wasn’t too bad at being a rider. It was a little weird, but so were thumbs.
“Sure hun, if you want.” The farmer smiled at her, fixing the pin she had been given to the band of her hat.
Sunset looked at the small pin in her hand as the bell rang. A reminder of her friendships. She’d have to keep that in mind if she graduated this year. Maybe.
She pinned it to her boot, unwilling to even slightly damage her jacket, and stood up with much less grace then was normal for her. Nurse’s office. She just had to get to P. E and tell the gym teacher she couldn’t do anything today. It also happened to be one of the only senior classes Twilight hadn’t been bumped up to on account of her smarts. So none of her friends would be there to worry. She hated bothering them.
Twenty minutes later and she was on her way to the nurse’s office. Or she would have been, if she hadn’t noticed the small crowd of teenagers gathered around a locker. She would have passed by if she didn’t hear the faint sounds of begging coming from somewhere in the throngs of the group.
Damn. She ignored the pain in her ribs and strode up to them, like she would have if she was still the queen bully of the school. There were plenty of other bullies that had been below her in the pecking order, but she had paid no attention to them, content to let them wreak havoc on the other kids. Only when she had become the most unpopular person in the school, to the point that she was a toxic influence on others and could paint a target on someone’s back if they showed a modicum of friendliness to her, did she realise how truly wrong it was. She despised bullies. Cowards, the lot of them. That used to include her.
“Hey,” she didn’t yell. That made her seem like she was trying to force her confidence. Instead she let her voice project naturally, the hallway making it echo. It had the intended effect, getting the teens to look at her and not their victim. She also saw the victim. Striped skin, sharp features, and multi-coloured hair tied in Bantu knots, a torn bag on the ground and a sketchbook open before them, a dirty boot print tearing and marking one of the pages and destroying the sketches.
It reminded her of Equestria, of zebras. She hated most of the Canterlot populace for how they treated non-ponies. When humans did the same, based entirely on looks, it still pissed her off.
“What do you want, Shimmer?” The ringleader glared at her. She met his gaze with an even fiercer glare. She never bothered to remember his name, although she knew he was on the richer end of the scale. And the nastier end too.
She had a feeling she dated him once. Or made him cry. Could have been both.
“Simple, you’re all going to run along to class. Now,” she growled, wishing she could cross her arms. She’d probably wince if she did, and she wasn’t going to show any sign of weakness.
“Or what?” The rather shrill voice was his current girlfriend, Ivy something.
Sunset rolled her eyes and hid a smile as she noticed that the victim had picked himself up and was currently trying to sneak away. Good. She was being a good distraction for his escape.
She made sure to keep the attention of the other senior and strode up to him, getting nose to nose with him. “Or else. You really want to find out?” She noted with some satisfaction that one of his friends paled slightly. She definitely remembered that one. He’d tried to hit her exactly once for brainwashing the school. While she may have deserved it, she refused to put herself in danger of physical attacks. It had ended with him being slammed against a locker door and her almost breaking his arm. She knew how to defend herself.
“Now, now, my dear,” she did actually flinch as an arm wrapped around her shoulders after appearing out of nowhere, matching the slick voice of the bane of her chemistry classes.
Maverick grinned coyly at her, holding her close even as she pushed away from him. “I would hate to see a fight break out. I’m sure you can all agree.” The group immediately scarpered, probably due to the switchblade that Maverick was casually twirling around his fingers, the handle bright violet. That was incredibly anticlimactic.
She shuddered as she heard him whisper in her ear, leaning over her. “Well that’s been taken care of. If I were you, I’d watch that fiery temper of yours. It would be a shame if it flared at an inopportune time. I won’t always be here to protect you.” She really wanted to punch him. Punch him in his stupid, smarmy face. She could reach. Probably. She wasn’t nearly as tall as him, but he was taller than just about everyone, including the principals, so it wasn’t about her being short.
“Protect me? I’d feel safer around a spitting cobra.” She roughly grabbed his wrist and pushed him away, absently noting the random jangling bracelets hanging from it and clashing horribly with his mismatched gloves. Weirdo.
“Harsh,” he chuckled, and she knew that he was laughing at her. If she were still a unicorn, her horn would definitely have been glowing out of rage.
“Toughen up then,” she snapped, turning around to finally go to the nurse’s office.
She heard him laugh out loud then, and heard his almost silent steps move towards her. Her fists clenched as he passed her, deliberately bumping against her shoulder to send a lance of pain through her ribs and pushing something into her hand.
“Make sure to get some actual painkillers for those, Sunset Shimmer. You’ll need a clear head for this week. Wouldn’t want to be a rat in a trap.” And he was gone, turning the corner away from the nurse’s office. What in Celestia’s grottiest gala dress was that about?
She looked at her hand, seeing that he’d pushed a playing card into her fist. The ace of clubs. Her brow furrowed. That seemed… cryptic yet important? No. She was being stupid. She was spending too much time thinking about Equestria and Celestia being an enigmatic mentor with her tests and magic quests and air of all-knowing wisdom that was probably fake. He was just a madman.
She stomped to the nurse’s office, face still twisted into a scowl and scrunching the playing card into a crumpled ball, roughly chucking it into a waste bin. She looked back at where the bane of her existence had gone, one brow quirking in a quizzical manner as a thought occurred to her.
How did he know her ribs were injured?
“Thanks again for your help with this, hun,” Applejack used her forearm to wipe sweat off her brow, hefting a bag of fresh picked apples into the tray of a quad bike. “Makes it much easier to get the apples before they fall.”
Sunset smiled, her leather jacket tied around her waist. “It’s really no problem, AJ. I’m always happy to help.” She lifted her own, smaller, bag into the back, stepping over a large dip in the dirt.
“I get that. So what’s really going on with you? You’ve been distant.” Applejack put her hand on Sunset’s shoulder.
“Nothing,” she replied automatically.
“Sunset.” Applejack caught her gaze, green eyes steady. “The truth.”
Sunset’s own teal looked right back with just as much stubbornness, a hint of rage at being prodded already beginning to simmer. Maverick was right. She had to work on that. “I work a lot. You wouldn’t understand.” What exactly was she meant to explain? That she didn’t think she belonged in this world? That slowly, she couldn’t help but feel envy towards each of her friends for their lives? Lives with family, and stable homes, and no monster attacks?
The farmer raised an eyebrow. “I live on a farm, hun. I understand working. And that’s not all there is. I’m no fancy mathematician like you and Twilight, but I ain’t dumb. You can trust me.”
Sunset took her time to think, weighing the options and maybe discussing one of her biggest problems with someone who wouldn’t lie to her. She could trust Applejack not to do that. She could see it, in the aura surrounding the other girl. She glanced around again, gathering her thoughts and noting in the back of her mind what looked like long gouges on on of the trees.
“You want to know, then? Alright. I have no idea what I’m doing. Magic in this world, it is incredibly different from Equestria. Currently the main difference is that it’s not there. And I can’t see it anywhere, not even in me, the only natural-born magical creature in this dimension.” She crossed her arms.
“All I know is that ever since I became Daydream Shimmer, and I still don’t know how I got that name, I must have done something to block the magic here. There’s almost nothing.”
“I can understand why that must be hard for you. You’re not used to not knowing. And what do you mean ‘almost’? And being able to not see it? Our magic wasn’t exactly visible beforehand, not unless we got the whole pony shebang.” Applejack leaned against the quad bike, Sunset joining her.
“I can see magic naturally, even when it’s not being actively used. Auras, passive spells, even old traces of all sorts of stuff. It’s not a common trait in ponies. I don’t think even Celestia herself can see things the way I can. It’s draconequus magic. The last known unicorn who could see magic before me was Starswirl the Bearded.”
“Auras? You mean that hippie stuff?”
“Yeah. Like yours. Your aura is all greens and oranges and browns. Sturdy colours. But magic isn’t there. It used to be. In all of us. It’s something that sort of clued me into the Dazzlings using black magic. I could see them igniting people’s emotions and drawing them out of their auras. It was so they could feed.”
“That must have been unnerving.” The faint indigo-gold weaved throughout Applejack’s aura pulsed gently, glowing in the light of the setting sun.
“It was! And the strangest thing about everything is that sometimes I feel like I can see traces of magic still in your auras, but the second I look, it’s gone!” She ran her hands through her fringe before looking at Applejack, a feeling of unease twisting in her stomach. “Have I just lost the plot or someth…” More magic. Right there. Currently not disappearing.
“You’re saying you can still see this magic colour around us sometimes?” Applejack smiled at her.
“Yes," she noticed the magic beginning to fade slightly. “I’m a little surprised you believe the whole aura thing.”
“Come on now, you’re a friend. I trust you not to lie to me about stuff. If you say you can see these things, I believe you.” Sunset stared as the indigo-gold let off a massive pulse of energy before fading back into the sea of green and autumn colours. She remembered what she had said to them about the Elements of Harmony. But those were in Equestria.
Was it possible that her friends had magic linked to objects in a different dimension? Or, and this one really made her pause, was there an alternate version of the Elements of Harmony here? That didn’t need Princess Twilight to activate it?
She needed to go home and rethink everything.
“Sunset? Are you alright? You kind of spaced out on me a bit there, hun.” Applejack clicked her fingers in front of the biker’s face.
“What? Oh! I’m fine. Sorry. I just got a crazy new…” was that a rustle in the grass? “Theory.” That was indeed a sound that she had not heard since Equestria, but she didn’t think she’d ever forget the sound of large paws on grass, the sound of ‘predator’. “We need to go.” Maybe she was being paranoid, but her instincts had kept her alive for years.
“Why?” Applejack looked around. “I barely even noticed how dark it was getting. It’s near sundown already.”
“Yes, now let’s go.” Sunset’s head was ticking back and forth, watching for shapes that didn’t fit with the trees. Why were there so many trees? Couldn’t it be a grassland or something?
Applejack climbed onto the quad bike, Sunset sitting behind her. “You staying for dinner?”
“Sure, yeah,” she mumbled. Was that a snout? Were those eyes she could see in the trees? Was she just way too paranoid after Maverick telling her she’d need a clear had with what might have been some sort of warning?
Yeah, right, like she was going to listen to the human teenager who wasn’t even around during the magic shenanigans and had no aura.
“Can this thing go faster?” That was definitely the sound of growling.
“Don’t worry, hun. Granny Smith doesn’t have dinner ready until half six. We won’t miss a thing.” They left the trees to cross one of the empty fields where they let the horses roam. Once more through another orchard and they’d be back at the barn.
Sunset allowed herself to relax slightly, certain she’d spot anything coming towards them now. They weren’t in the trees anymore.
Then there was a roar behind them, and by Celestia’s beard was Applejack stopping to look over her shoulder?
Humans were morons when it came to evading predators. Though she supposed that they were not prey like her kind, but were predators themselves, damn efficient ones actually,
Didn’t stop Sunset from trying to lunge around Applejack to get the quad bike to move, a strangled screech of “WHY ARE YOU STOPPING?!” tearing from her throat like a banshee’s wail.
Then she looked over her shoulder and saw it too, immediately pushing Applejack off the back and rolling them away from the pair of long white jaws that clamped onto the back half of the vehicle and crushed it to pieces.
Escape didn’t work. Time for Plan B. Sunset moved protectively in front of her friend and rose to her feet in a stance that screamed ‘ready to bolt at the drop of a hat’. Where did Applejack keep her shotgun? According to human popular culture, all farmers had one.
She’d yet to find any unicorn spell that was half as good at killing as most of the many many things/methods humans had invented to smite each other.
“What in Sam Hell is that?” Applejack was still crouched on all fours behind her, staring with abject horror at the thing eating her quad bike.
If Sunset had to put a shape to it, she’d say it was probably a rat. Except most rats weren’t big enough to swallow her whole and look like they still had room for seconds. The fur was deathly white, swirls of blue-green magic dripping off it like water. The five eyes on the beast’s head were molten gold, matching the long green teeth positioned right at the front of its maw. The five eyes (why did it have five eyes some of those eyes did not belong there) swiveled to look at her, the forked tail swishing behind it.
Sunset glared back with pride and some foolish bravery that was probably just adrenaline. But who cares? This over-sized mouse wasn’t laying a single blue claw on Applejack.
“We have to run.” Applejack had slowly risen to her feet.
“It’ll chase us.”
“We can outrun it. We just haveta get to the paddock’s end.” Did Applejack’s accent thicken slightly? Probably from the same pants-wetting terror Sunset was currently denying. Damn her prey instincts. She was so over them. From now on she was going to ignore them.
“It will kill and eat us both. You first, probably.”
“Thanks,” Sunset could practically see the eye-roll, “but no. We’ll split up and run to opposite corners, then jump the fence immediately. That thing looks too heavy to jump fast.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Trust me.”
And though every nerve in her body was against the idea, Sunset did. “When?” The giant rat had taken a step forward.
“Ready,” the biker’s entire body tensed. “NOW!” She ran, going left and staying parallel to Applejack, who ran towards the right corner. Sunset powered towards the steel gate, clearing it in a full leap and landing in a crouch, before immediately breaking into a sprint. This was what she had been born to do.
She looked over to her right to see Applejack vault over the fence and keep running, ignoring the red that appeared on her hand from where she accidentally put her palm on barbed wire. The monster slammed into the fence behind her, and flowed through the fence like it was made of water.
Applejack glanced over her shoulder and saw that the fence didn’t do a thing. “Now, that’s just cheating.” Her leg was swiped out from under her and she fell forward into the unforgiving dirt, a large paw pressing into her back and her hair coming out of its ponytail. She could feel the water dripping off the thing and soaking her shirt. Could hear it growling at her. She looked up to see Sunset turn on her heels and run towards her.
“Get outta here! I’ll be fine!” The lie was too easy to say. She didn’t want her friend to get hurt.
Sunset obviously didn’t believe her. Neither did Applejack.
One of her hands clutched the Stetson still on her head as she looked up into hungry gold eyes, the head moving closer to take a bite out of the farmer. “I’m gonna die,” she whimpered, scrunching her eyes shut. It was true. She smiled slightly. “But I made sure Sunset can get away. She’s got a chance.” At least she saved her friend. And she knew in her bones that she wasn’t lying to herself about that. She heard a sound like the crumbling of rocks and a dull thud.
Sunset skidded to a halt as she felt a powerful surge of magic, small sparks kicked up from where her heels ground into the dirt. Time seemed to slow as green light overtook Applejack’s form, making her burn brighter than a star, the earth itself rising up to encompass her body, and the soothing sound of a bass guitar thrummed in her ears for a brief moment.
A clenched fist broke through the rock and socked the rat in the jaw, sending it flying twenty feet in the air. The rock exploded out to reveal Applejack, a long braid reaching down to her ankles and a pair of pony ears under her Stetson. Sunset barely had a chance to see any other details before the other girl sprang forward, the earth acting as her springboard, and landed in a roll, already zooming forward like she was that blue hedgehog guy with the super speed.
The rat never stood a chance as she barreled into its side, knocking it over with a kick. She landed back in a crouch, and Sunset knew that she was going completely on some instinct, not even consciously thinking about doing anything but surviving.
Applejack flicked her wrist, a long whip falling from her sleeve and into her hand. The tip cracked as she wrapped around the monster’s neck and heaved, digging the heels of her boots into the ground. The rat’s head suddenly moved to the side with a loud snap and it disintegrated to nothing, leaving Applejack standing victorious, whip still in hand and streaks of green light trailing from her eyes.
The light in her eyes faded as she blinked, looking around in confusion and surprise. She turned to look at Sunset like she was about to ask what happened. Sunset didn’t have an answer. Applejack was now dressed in a red crop top and shorts that emphasized her muscular physique, trimmed with orange. Brown boots hugged her calves, the silver spurs gleaming on her ankles. They matched her belt and gloves, silver studs gleaming on her knuckles and inset in gleaming patterns on her leather bracers. The green garter on her left thigh, marked with clubs matched the green jewel on her belly button, inset in silver and cut in the shape of an apple.
The two girls stared at each other for what felt like forever before Applejack burned with light again, fading back into her usual outfit, blood staining her hand and leg. The pin Rarity gifted her fell in front of Sunset, who quickly caught it.
She held out her hand as Applejack limped up, both girls watching as it transformed in shape, the green jewel deepening in hue and forming an apple shape, while the silver around it took the form of the Ace of Clubs, still small enough to be indiscreet.
Applejack wordlessly picked it up, the gem flaring with an aura of what Sunset swore was happiness. Was this an Element of Harmony? She remembered seeing the same thing happen when Princess Twilight had retrieved her Element of Magic.
Applejack wordlessly pinned the little silver club to her Stetson. “I vote we go eat and not talk about this until you understand what the hell happened. I sure ain’t got a clue.”
Sunset nodded. “I’ll think on it. Are you alright?”
“I’ll live. Just need to get home and tell Big Mac what happened. He’ll believe me.” She placed an arm around Sunset’s shoulders and the two of them walked back to the barn, chatting about anything and everything in an attempt to distract themselves from what they just saw. Sunset looked back at where the monster had died. Strange. When she had seen that thing, she thought she could almost sense Equestrian magic coming from it.
