Twilight grabbed another drink from the fridge and made her way back to the rather comfy sofa in Sunset's living room.
"-and the integral between the two points is defined as the square root of the sum of the squares of the separation between the points along three spatial dimensions."
Sunset gave a quick nod as she sipped at her own drink. "Of course. That's basic scrying calculus 101. But you're saying you just threw together a harmonic resonance circuit out of spare parts?"
"Pretty much."
"But what about the crystals? Wouldn't you need like, a crapton of high grade crystal?"
"That's the thing! My new castle, the one that grew out of that box from the Tree of Harmony? It's one gigantic crystal formation! And it's positively saturated with harmonic energy."
"Wow. So you, what? Just knock a chunk out of the walls and-"
"No! I just tap the machine into the walls! Or the floor! Or whatever!"
Sunset's eyes went wide. "You're kidding me."
"I kid you not."
"But that would mean-"
"I know."
"Damn. That's gonna be one sweet lab setup. "
"Yep."
...
"So with a focusing crystal that big, how strong a laser do you think you could make out of it?"
"I don't know but I'm dying to find out!"
"I bet you could hit the moon with it. Probably even sign your name on it or something."
"I doubt Luna would appreciate me tagging the moon with graffiti."
"Right. She might think you're trying to muscle in on her job as Princess of the Night."
"But...if I could convince her to place some reflectors on the surface..."
"Should I be concerned? Do I need to go find a group of young mares and start teaching them to wield the power of friendship?"
Twilight huffed and raised her nose in mock offense. "I'll have you know that I would only use the Friendship Laser for good, and in the service of friendship. Like...um...uh..." Twilight strained to think of an applicable example that didn't involve maniacal laughter or shouting anything along the lines of 'I'll show them all!' "...Making popcorn?"
"Making popcorn."
"Yeah."
"By bouncing a laser off the moon."
"It would be a lot of popcorn."
Sunset gave a shrug. "Sounds good to me. All hail the Princess of Friendship! Bringer of tasty snacks and/or instant incineration!" She raised her drink high in a toast before they both broke down in laughter.
When they had both finally recovered, a quiet pause settled over the room as they sipped at their drinks.
"Hey, Twilight?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm really glad you were able to drop by for a while. I hadn't realized how desperately I missed having someone to talk about magic with."
"Same. My Ponyville friends are great and all, but not exactly the best conversation partners on arcane theory. I also never thought I'd ever meet another one of Celestia's students."
"I know, right? She usually only ever picks a new one when the old one dies, or runs off to another dimension I guess. Does she still do that little ear twitch? The one where she's trying to be all serene but she clearly couldn't give less of a shit about some noble's stupid problem?"
"She totally does! I know exactly what you're talking about!"
Another bout of laughter filled the room, followed by another brief period of silence as they searched for the next topic of conversation.
"Um, Sunset?" Twilight asked with some apprehension.
"Yeah?"
"So, there's this question I've had that's kinda been bugging me for a while now."
"What is it?"
"Well, it's about back when you were all...demon-y." Twilight gave a slight wince.
"Oh."
"You don't have to answer if you don't want."
"No, no. It's fine," Sunset reassured with a gentle wave of a hand. "Go ahead and ask."
"Well, you seem like a pretty smart pony. You were one of Celestia's pupils after all." Sunset gave a nod and Twilight continued. "So I keep thinking back to your 'invade Equestria with the mind controlled population of a single school' plan and wondering what the heck the endgame was supposed to be. I mean, you'd have what? Eleven? Twelve hundred students tops? All basically shambling zombies who would likely immediately be transformed into unfamiliar pony bodies upon crossing the portal. Even if they wouldn't have been exiting one or two at a time directly into the cross-hairs of three alicorn princesses (which they would have been by the way) how were they supposed to defeat the entire Equestrian military (including said alicorns) and subjugate the entire country? With a couple hundred brainwashed civilians with no knowledge of the territory, any understanding of magic, or even how to walk on four legs! The whole thing is just utterly ridiculous on every level!"
Sunset winced at the memory. "Yeah, I...wasn't really thinking all that clearly at the time. That definitely wasn't the original plan. Originally I was just going to study it and try to unlock some of its power to cement my control here. Then I went kind of...well...crazy."
"Because of the sudden rush of magic from the element?"
"Well that was partly it. But I was already a bit out of my right mind from using the portal. It turns out that throwing a bunch of raw magic on top of that is like taking medication with alcohol."
"Wait, what about the portal?"
"You didn't notice?"
"Notice what?"
"Well, having your physiology completely rewritten into an alien species can be a bit rough. Suddenly you're full of completely unfamiliar hormones and neurotransmitters and your blood and brain chemistry is just fucked six ways from Sunday. Basically, you turn into a complete idiot for a couple days."
"If that's true, then how come I didn't...wait...no, actually that explains a lot." Twilight raised a palm to her face and shook her head. "Like why I thought running for princess of the Fall Formal was the best idea instead of just grabbing the crown and running back to the portal, or explaining that there had been a mix up and giving the fake crown back to the Principal, or any other course of action really."
"Yeah, that's a definite case of the STUPIDS right there. In addition to knocking a couple dozen IQ points off and making you generally more impulsive, there was one other effect I noticed."
"What?"
"Well, with hormones out of whack and both your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems unsure whether they're coming or going, you're likely to turn into a stammering, blushing mess, ready to jump the first human male you bump into. It doesn't matter if they're the blandest, stupidest, lamest sack of crap in the world with a face that just begs to be punched in, you'll be drooling and staring dreamily while your pants suddenly turn into neighagra falls. It's only maybe a week later that you wonder what the fuck you were thinking."
Twilight gagged slightly as a bright blue haired figure came to mind. "This really does explain so much..."
"Yeah, it certainly doesn't help that the portal decides to stick us in adolescent bodies for whatever reason. Puberty sucked enough the first time around when it didn't involve alien physiology."
"Wait, what was that?!"
"What? You didn't pick up on that?"
"You're saying that neither us nor any of my friends here are actually adults?!"
"Nope. We're all like, two to three years away from legal adulthood here, and still pretty much on the tail end of puberty from what I can tell. We're not even legally allowed to drink alcohol actually. I had to use some connections to get these." Sunset pointed to her cup. "I mean, it wasn't really that hard, but still."
Twilight shook her head in disbelief. "So that school?"
"Secondary school, not a university."
"And all the students there..."
"Minors" Sunset nodded.
With sudden realization, Twilight's hands flew up to the side of her head in horror. "Sweet Celestia! I'm a pedophile!"
"Twilight, please. You are not," Sunset attempted to reassure in her most calming voice. She leaned forward in her seat and placed a gentle hand on Twilight's shoulder.
"B-But-"
"The correct term is 'ephebophile', you filthy cradle robbing slut."
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
"AHAHAHAHA!"
Author's Note
This was a very short fic idea I had half written back when Rainbow Rocks first came out that I then left on the back burner and forgot about for two years. Randomly remembered it and decided to finish it this evening. Better late than never I suppose.
