My Little Pony: Friendship Is Absurd: Equestrian Gals

by Lord Seth

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle (EqG), Alternate Universe, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Comedy, Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 10295

It's the Friendship Is Absurd parody of Equestria Girls you never asked for, but you're getting it anyway!

It's the Friendship Is Absurd parody of Equestria Girls you never asked for, but you're getting it anyway! Unhappy with the result of her recent ascension, Sunset Shimmer heads to the Crystal Empire to see about fixing it. Much to her dismay, however, she instead ends up getting drawn into a completely unrelated subplot when her Element of Irony gets stolen and taken to an alternate world. It’s up to her to navigate this strange plane and get the Element back before time runs out… or before she just loses interest, whichever comes first.

Takes place after Chapter 21 ("Magical Mystery? Sure!") of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Absurd.

Published 2015-08-16 05:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-08-16 05:20:02 UTC

Equestrian Gals Part 1

“This,” complained Sunset Shimmer, “has been the dumbest day of my life.”

“You say that so much it’s lost all meaning,” said Trixie dryly.

“I know I’ve said that a lot, but that’s only because my life keeps getting more stupid! I still can’t believe that–”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Trixie dismissively. “You don’t like recent events. Got it. Are you going to spend the entirety of this train ride complaining? Because it takes a while to get to the Crystal Empire, and it’s getting kind of repetitive. You should do something else, like reading the new Power Ponies issue.” She levitated the aforementioned comic in front of Sunset’s face. “Seriously, check it out! Look at the cover!”

“Why in the world would I care about the new issue of a comic series?” asked Sunset indignantly.

“Because there’s a Mare Do Well crossover in this issue! See? Mare Do Well is right there on the cover. Do you know how much value this brings to the brand?”

Sunset batted the comic away. “For the last time, Trixie, I don’t care about that stupid comic book character that you and Lightning Dust made!”

“Actually, Mare Do Well’s character is better described as comically naive than outright stupid,” said Trixie.

“Whatever! Don’t care! As for the whole complaining thing, the whole reason I dragged you along was so I’d have somepony to complain to!”

“The things I do for a free ticket,” muttered Trixie.

“Hey!” said Sunset. “I fixed that issue everypony was having with their cutie mark, which includes yours!”

“The issue you caused to begin with,” said Trixie.

“It was an accident!” snapped Sunset. “Anyway, as I was saying–”

Trixie held up a hoof. “Here. I’ll do it for you. After solving some spell by Starswirl by, in your own words, ‘saying the cheesiest thing I could think of,’ you got transported to somewhere else. Because you completed the spell, for some reason this resulted in an ascension, which is really a more complicated term for transformation in this case. Then you got all upset because the ascension or whatever didn’t turn you into an alicorn, but a changeling instead because apparently it affixes the race of whoever is the ruler of Equestria at the moment, which right now is Chrysalis. Speaking of Chrysalis, after you complained a bunch to her about it, she just told you to go to the Crystal Empire to see if they could figure it out.”

“She only said that to get me out of her hair,” muttered Sunset.

“What makes you think that?” asked Trixie.

“Because she said she was only doing it to get me out of her hair.”

“You took something Chrysalis said at face value?”

“There wasn’t any other options that seemed to be available!”

“Whatever,” said Trixie. “Anyway, apparently the reasoning for that was that Cadance might know something about that, what with Cadance having done that whole ascension thing before. Also, you would have probably muttered ‘life is pain’ somewhere in your complaining. Did I miss anything?”

Sunset slouched. “No, that’s pretty much all of it.”

“How the heck did Cadance get turned into an alicorn anyway? Sombra was ruler at the time, right? And unless he’s been hiding wings, he’s a unicorn.”

“Technically she’s not a true alicorn, because she was a pegasus, so she’s just gotten pegasus and unicorn powers but not the Earth pony stuff.”

“Great!” said Trixie cheerfully. “So now you don’t have to complain any more because I clearly have absorbed all the requisite information. Now will you read the comic?”

“No!”

“Your loss,” said Trixie with a shrug. “But considering how much you’ve complained, you haven’t explained what your plan is if you can revert yourself somehow.”

“Oh, easy one,” said Sunset. “Revert myself, overthrow Chrysalis, get some actual alicorn onto the throne, probably Luna, then re-ascend all over again.”

“That,” said Trixie, “is one of the dumbest plans I have ever heard. This is the kind of nonsense strategy I’d come up with.” She paused, then frowned. “Hey!”

“‘Hey’?” asked Sunset.

“Oh, just too used to someone making a statement like that about me,” said Trixie. “But seriously, why are you so hung up about it? You get wings like an alicorn, right?”

“Only when in changeling form,” muttered Sunset, “and I look absolutely ridiculous like that. Bleh.”

“Well, fine. How about the whole shapeshifting thing? Heck, that’s a great opportunity! Mimic me!”

“Not without filling out a ton of paperwork with you giving permission for it.”

“Huh?” asked Trixie.

“Yeah, apparently you’ve got to do that now. Did you know how much I had to fill out just to be able to mimic myself?”

“Well,” said Trixie, “I suppose they didn’t think of the possibility of somepony turning into a changeling when they made that law.”

Sunset shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure Chrysalis did that to screw with me.”

“You think Chrysalis deliberately left out a self-mimicking exception just so that, in the off chance you or somepony else ascended and turned into a changeling, they’d have to go through a bunch of paperwork to be able to shapeshift into themselves?” asked Trixie. She paused. “Actually, that sounds exactly like something Chrysalis would do.”

“Exactly!” said Sunset. “I can’t even get any real usage out of the one cool ability I did get!”

“You know, something occurs to me,” said Trixie.

“What?” asked Sunset crossly.

“If my life were a series of films, and the newest installment started with us getting onto this train, this whole conversation would serve as a decent way to fill in the viewers on the backstory.”

Sunset’s eye twitched.

One train ride later…

“Here we are at Cloudsdale!” declared Trixie as they left the train.

“I know,” said Sunset wearily before she performed a double take. “Wait, Cloudsdale? We’re not in Cloudsdale.”

Trixie shrugged. “I thought it would be funny to see how you’d react to that.”

Should have grabbed Suri instead of Trixie, thought Sunset to herself. “Whatever,” she said out loud, “let’s just go find Shining Armor and Cadance and see if they know if there’s any way to fix this.”

“Nope,” said Cadance, “no idea. Sorry.”

“Well,” said Trixie, “that was fun. Now let’s do sightseeing!”

“Oh, come on,” said Sunset, “you don’t know of any way to un-ascend? I even brought my Element of Magic with me just in case it would somehow work!”

“Ascensions aren’t particularly common! I’m not even sure what criteria I fulfilled for mine. It’s all rather unclear.”

“Well, this was a waste of time, then,” said Sunset. “Guess I might as well head back.”

“Actually, there aren’t any trains leaving until tomorrow,” said Shining Armor. “You might as well stay the night. We can definitely set up some guest rooms for you. You did help save the Crystal Empire, after all.”

“Sure!” said Trixie. “But in the meantime… sightseeing! Probably have an hour or two before it gets dark!” She dashed off.

“Ugh,” said Sunset, “this has been a long enough day for me. I’m just going to go to bed.”

Sunset turned over in her sleep. “No, doctor, I already told you I didn’t want to stick that pill there. I need it to the right to set up the combo correctly.”

A loud crash suddenly woke her up. “Whosawatit?” she stammered sleepily. She opened her eyes to see a cloaked figure running off while holding something. “Hey! Stop!” She ran after them. She must have grabbed something from my room, thought Sunset as she gave chase, but what?

The cloaked figure took a glance back at Sunset before continuing to run. To make a short story slightly shorter, Sunset managed to eventually catch up to the cloaked figure right after they turned into a room, then tackle said cloaked figure. The sudden inertia loss caused that figure’s bag to fly open, catapulting the Element of Magic into a mirror that was in the room, where it disappeared.

“Okay, who are you?” asked Sunset as she tore off the cloak to reveal a lavender unicorn wearing a partially broken red amulet. “Twilight? What are you–”

Sunset found herself interrupted by Twilight kicking her away. “Sorry, Sunset, but that crown of yours was necessary.” Twilight then leapt into the mirror.

“Well,” said Sunset, “that was odd.”

A large cloud of gas suddenly appeared. When it dissipated, Trixie was revealed. “And the Great and Powerful Trixie has arrived to stop the interloper!” She looked around and saw only Sunset was there. “Uh, where’d the aforementioned interloper go?”

Sunset got up. “Twilight went through the mirror with the Element of Magic.”

“Wait, Twilight?” asked Trixie. “The Twilight that’s Shining Armor’s sister, who he apparently hadn’t been getting along with for reasons he refused to divulge to us? The Twilight that, through a bunch of crazy circumstances, some of them arguably my fault, ended up with that whole alicorn amulet thing that gave her an absurd amount of power and also made her go crazy, except it stopped giving her the power boost after Gilda shot it with her sniper rifle, but the shot didn’t completely destroy it so she’s still crazy but hasn’t been seen since? That Twilight?”

I really should have brought Suri instead, thought Sunset to herself. “Uh, yes,” said said out loud, “that Twilight. Anyway, I guess I should report this.”

“… and that’s when Trixie came in,” finished Sunset in front of Shining Armor, Cadance, Trixie, and several random guards.

“So many questions,” said Shining Armor. “Why did my sister come here after all this time? How did she manage to sneak past everypony? Why did she take the Element of Magic? And how the heck did she disappear into this mirror? It could be a portal, but why hasn’t it worked like one before?”

“Do we really care?” asked Sunset. “It’s not like that Element ever did much anyway. I only actually got to use it once, and it didn’t even do anything. Do we need to even care about any of this?”

“You know,” said Trixie, “did we ever figure out if it didn’t work because the warranty expired, or if Celestia’s attempts at forcing friendship was just ironic enough that the Elements of Irony did nothing to her?”

“Hey!” said Shining Armor. “Just because they ended up not being relevant in the past doesn’t mean they can’t be important in the future. But also, that Element could be dangerous wherever she went. Also, whatever… issues… we might have had in the last few years, she’s still my sister, and I want her restored to normal and back here.” He pointed to the mirror. “Can you guards examine this? Maybe there’s a clue.”

“What were the issues between you and and Twilight?” asked Sunset. “You mentioned that once before, but refused to elaborate.”

Shining Armor sighed. “Guess I might as well explain. Several years ago, Twilight… changed. I mean, she was still thoroughly Twilight, but… different. It wasn’t a gradual thing, either; she just suddenly felt like a different person despite being the same. I tried to get her to tell me what happened to cause this change, but she continually denied there being any change at all.”

“What changed about her?” asked Trixie.

“Well, all of a sudden, she seemed confused about a lot of things she’d known about for a long time. She did get over that quickly enough, but then she absolutely poured herself into researching magic. And while she certainly did a whole lot of research beforehand, it was on a wider group of things; now she was obsessed with only magic, and mostly just powerful offensive magic at that. It was like some kind of impostor who didn’t know the things Twilight did took her place, but… besides all of that, she was Twilight. Same general mannerisms, same general quirks, same general personality… it’s really hard to articulate.”

“Hey!” said a guard. “I found something! There’s something written on the side of the mirror. But it seems to be in a different language.”

They all looked at the side of the mirror. Or at least they all tried to. Due to the there being a lack of space, this resulted in everyone shoving up against each other until Shining Armor finally got some of them to back off while he and Cadance looked at it.

“Hey, I actually know this language,” said Cadance. “It says that it’s a mirror to another world that opens every thirty moons, but only stays open for three days, and it closes when the moon is at its peak at the end of the third day. Also, it says that not too many should go through it, because it could upset the balance of the alternate world, and that the aforementioned suggestion of not many going through it is in no way a lame attempt to justify why a bunch don’t go through it.” She paused. “Oh, it also says ‘made in Chineigh.’"

Shining Armor looked at the side of the mirror. “You got all that from six symbols?”

“It’s a highly efficient language,” said Cadance with a shrug. “You can fit a whole book on a napkin.”

“All right, then!” declared Shining Armor. “As this is my sister we’re talking about, it’s obvious I should be the one to go in after her. I’ll see you all again soon.” Shining Armor ran towards the mirror and jumped into the portal.

Or at least that’s what he tried to do. What happened instead was that he undershot the portal and instead slammed straight into the base instead. “Ow,” he said. “I think I might have broken something.”

“Having too large of a late night snack causing you to misjudge your weight?” asked Cadance.

“Having too large of a late night snack causing me to misjudge my weight,” groaned Shining Armor. “Okay, guess I’m disqualified. Anypony else volunteer?”

Trixie pointed at Sunset. “I think you should go,” Trixie said. “It is your Element, after all.”

“I don’t care!” said Sunset. “I’m not going into some alternate world just to try to find something I didn’t think was important to begin with. Besides, who knows what’s there? It could be some kind of horrible alternate world where I’d be immediately eaten by cream puffs!”

“… cream puffs?” asked Trixie.

“Not the point!” snapped Sunset. “There’s no benefit to myself to get the stupid thing!”

A finger snap was heard and Discord suddenly appeared. “Hi everypony!” he said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m Discord, the spirit of chaos. Remember me? I broke out of my stone prison and caused a bunch of chaos, but got bored and left for Acapulco after a little while? Well, I got un-bored, so I’m just here to mention that I’m totally planning to come back and cause chaos, take over Equestria, and all the rest of that jazz, but I’m running a bit late thanks to traffic. So please make sure everything is ready for me in a few days. Ciao!” He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

“There you go!” said Trixie after an awkward silence. “You have to get the Element of Magic or else Discord will pop up and destroy us all! Destroy us all! Destroy us all! Destroy us all! Destroy us… hrm. Do you think this would be more funny or less funny if I kept doing that for longer?”

Life is pain, thought Sunset to herself. “Fine! I’ll go! But you owe me for this!” She jumped into the mirror.

“Wait,” said Cadance, “didn’t we get everything Discord-proofed? We don’t need the Elements to handle him.”

“Yeah, but Sunset kind of jumped into the portal before I could tell her,” said Shining Armor. “Well, at least somepony is trying to get the Element and Twilight back.”

“We’ve got time to kill,” said Trixie. “Want to hear about the next issue of Mare Do Well?”

Sunset flew out of the portal and fell unceremoniously onto a patch of grass. “Okay,” she said, “note to self: Don’t jump through portals. Walk.”

Sunset suddenly realized that her body felt very different. Looking down at it, she observed a number of notable changes to her, which should be all obvious enough that they don’t require additional description.

“Okay,” muttered Sunset to herself, “apparently my body got warped into… something. Not sure how any of this worked, but… guess that’s the way it’ll be.”

She looked around quickly to see a being with what looked like a body similar to her new one walking around on two legs. “So that’s how they walk? Well, don’t want to stand out.”

Sunset attempted to stand on two legs, only to find the balance wasn’t particularly easy, forcing her to grab hold of the statue that contained the portal she came out of to stay up. Okay, might need a little practice on this, she thought.

Some walking practice later…

“Okay,” muttered Sunset to herself, “I think I’ve gotten the hang of this. Now I just have to find Twilight Sparkle, get that Element back, maybe drag her along with it, and then I can forget any of this ever happened. I guess I might as well start at… that building over there. Is that a castle or something?”

Sunset walked towards the building, doing a much better job of it than she had before. Upon reaching the door, which had a window, she looked at her reflection in the window. “So I guess this is what my actual face looks like… hrm. I guess in this weird alien body I look vaguely like my old self. That must mean that Twilight looks vaguely similar to herself as well. The question is–”

Sunset found herself interrupted by a loud ringing noise. “What is–” she started before being interrupted again, this time by a large mass of people walking out of the door. Emergency evacuation? End of a shift? Parade? I’d probably look really dumb if I asked, so I guess I should blend in for now and hopefully see if Twilight happens to be in this crowd somewhere.

Sunset tried to walk out with the rest, but the crowd soon started heading in different directions, causing her to simply stick by the statue and watch the crowd, scanning for someone that looked like Twilight. Ugh, this is probably a waste of time. Who knows how big this world is? The odds of Twilight just happening to be in this crowd–

Her thoughts were this time interrupted by noticing a lavender-colored person walk by… who wasn’t Twilight, due to having neon hair. However, she was soon followed by someone who did have Twilight’s skin tone and hair color, along with a dress that, oddly, happened to have her cutie mark plastered onto it. Well, thought Sunset, I can’t confront her with this crowd, so I guess I’ll follow her and try to see if she has the Element.

A bit of following later, Sunset took the opportunity to run up to and subsequently grab Twilight. “Okay, Twilight! I want you to give me back that Element of Irony so–”

For what was at least the fifth time that day, Sunset found herself interrupted. Twilight nonchalantly held up a can of some sort and sprayed a substance directly into Sunset’s eyes.

“GYAAAAAH!” screamed Sunset as her eyes slammed shut in pain. “IT BURNS! WHAT KIND OF MAGIC IS THIS?! GYAAAAAH!”

Twilight tilted her head. “Magic?” she asked. “Hrm… and you mentioned the Elements of Irony… could you possibly…”

“GYAAAAH!”

“Oh, right, the mace,” said Twilight as she winced at Sunset’s obvious pain. “Well, luckily I have some milk with me, we can start treating it with that.”

After a bit of pepper-spray curing, Sunset found herself mostly back to normal. “Now,” said Twilight, “you should really avoid touching your face for a while. Anyway, can you elaborate on what you were saying?” She held up the can at Sunset’s face.

“You spent all that time curing me of whatever that was and now you’re threatening me with it again?”

Twilight shrugged. “I need insurance to make sure you don’t try to attack me again.”

“All right, Twilight, while I appreciate you seem less psychotic than before, you seem to have gone crazy in another manner by forgetting things that happened in the last few months!” said Sunset. “Why are you asking me to explain things you already know?”

“Indulge me,” said Twilight flatly.

Sunset rolled her eyes, but ultimately decided that she wasn’t the one holding the can of mace. “I was in the Crystal Empire, you stole that Element of Magic, one of the Elements of Irony, that I had, then jumped through some portal with it. Then I followed you here and want it back.”

“Fascinating,” said Twilight. “So my hypothesis this whole time was correct…” Twilight appeared lost in thought.

“Uh, so, can I get that crown back now?” asked Sunset.

“Oh, I don’t have it,” said Twilight. “See, I crossed over to this universe years ago through that mirror. What must have happened is that at the same time, a Twilight from this universe crossed over to yours and is the one who you’re familiar with. That’s what I assumed was the case all this time, but I didn’t have independent verification until now.”

Sunset stared. “What.”

“Yeah, when I say it like that, it does all sound rather screwed up,” admitted Twilight sheepishly.

“So, wait, wait,” said Sunset. “There was another Twilight in this universe?”

“Yeah, there’s a ton of people here that are counterparts to people in Equestria. It’s a bit weird. But the original Twilight completely disappeared, which I assumed was due to her also going through the portal simultaneously; now I know that’s the case. I basically just took her place here.”

“Why didn’t you ever come back?” asked Sunset.

“Well, first, I didn’t even know the portal could open again,” said Twilight. “Second of all, why would I want to? Have you seen the stuff this world has? Who needs magic when you have technology? I mean, you can store thousands of books on a smartphone alone!”

“Smart what now?” asked Sunset.

“And you get fingers!” said Twilight, wiggling her fingers in front of Sunset. “These things are great! Do you know the amazing things you can do with fingers?!” She paused, then frowned. “That came out sounding different than I meant it to.”

Sunset sighed. “Look, I don’t care about any of that. I’m just here to get the stupid Element from the stupid other Twilight so I can go back through the stupid portal and get back to my own stupid universe.”

“There’s no need to use the word ‘stupid’ that many times in a sentence,” said Twilight.

“The point is that it’d be really nice if you were to help me out!”

“All right, then,” said Twilight. “So what does this Element of Magic of yours look like?”

“Sort of like a crown,” said Sunset. “Actually, probably a little more like a tiara. And it’s got this gem that resembles my cutie mark… which, incidentally, is on this shirt I’m wearing. And your dress has your cutie mark on it. What’s with that?”

“It’s just an idiosyncrasy of this world; I couldn’t figure it out,” said Twilight. “Anyway, that sounds an awful lot like the crown that’s going to the Princess of the Fall Formal. If so, my alternate self probably lost it, then it probably got found by someone and now it’s being used for that.”

“Well, that’s easy enough,” said Sunset. “All we have to do is just say it’s mine and get it back. Who would I ask?”

“Chrysalis,” said Twilight. “She’s the principal.”

“Ugh, Chrysalis?” asked Sunset. “This is going to be painful. But might as well try to see if I can get that crown from her.”

“Nope!” said Chrysalis.

“What?” said Sunset. “But I said it’s mine!”

“Do you have a receipt for it?”

“Well, no, but there wouldn’t–”

“Do you have photographic evidence of yourself with it?”

“I didn’t really think to–”

“Do you have anything to prove it’s yours?”

“No, but–”

“Well, then!” said Chrysalis. “A the principle principal of Canterlot High School, I can’t just hand this over to you if you don’t have any proof it actually belongs to you. I mean, it’s not like it’s really a magical artifact from an alternate universe that must desperately be returned to said alternate world in order to stop the attack of the titans.”

“Huh?” asked Sunset.

“Semantics,” said Chrysalis dismissively.

“But semantics don’t have anything to do with–”

“Again, semantics,” said Chrysalis. “But what I’m confused is why you ever thought this would work, Twilight.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” asked Twilight.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about how you came in here earlier claiming it was your crown, and I asked you all these questions. It doesn’t make sense to think just having someone else claim the same thing would change anything, but it makes even less sense to actually be here with her. It’s almost as if you’re a completely different Twilight from the one I talked to earlier because you got split into two thanks to a transporter accident involving an ion storm.”

Sunset and Twilight stared at her.

“Anyway!” said Chrysalis as she started filing her nails. “I have more important things to do than talk to you, as shown by the filing of my nails I’m doing right now to indicate that the current situation is boring to me. So turn around 180 degrees and start walking. Well, except for you, Twilight. You’re more at an angle, so try turning 170 degrees instead.”

Sunset and Twilight walked out of the office. “I think she might be an even bigger troll here than in Equestria,” said Sunset. “And oh boy, does she look weird in that human shape.”

“You get used to it,” said Twilight. “But the more important thing is that the alternate-me clearly was already here trying to get the crown back.”

“Well, there’s clearly only one thing to do,” said Sunset. “Figure out some way to steal that crown back.”

“Oh, right, you’re unfamiliar with Chrysalis’s security systems,” said Twilight. “That’s a bad idea.”

“How so?” asked Sunset.

“The last person who tried to steal something from her encountered the security system, and, more specifically, its defense mechanisms. He ended up hanging from the top of his flagpole by his underwear.”

“But how in the world could a security system–”

“Exactly!” said Twilight.

“Well, then what’s your brilliant idea? You’ve been the one in this universe for the last few years!”

“Easy one. I’ll just win the Fall Formal, get the crown, and that’ll be that.”

“Well, what makes you so certain you’ll win it?”

Twilight shrugged. “I won the last three times. It really helps when you’re able to win over the various cliques due to having friends in each clique.”

“Finally!” said Sunset. “An easy solution to a problem. None of this nonsense like needing clones and sniper rifles to defeat something. An easy solution is nice to have. Nothing convoluted like me having to win the thing by winning over everypony–”

“Everyone,” corrected Twilight.

“Fine. Nothing convoluted like me having to win the thing by winning over everyone myself in some kind of song and dance routine.”

“Well, it’s not time for the Fall Formal yet, so there’s not much else to do today. Since I guess you need a place to stay, I’m sure I could convince my parents you’re just some friend who’s here for a sleepover. But first I should try to see if alternate-me has tried visiting my house.”

“And how are you going to do that?” asked Sunset. “Go up to the door and ask if you were there earlier?”

“No, that would just look weird,” said Twilight. “You’ll go up to the door, introduce yourself as a friend of mine, and ask if I’ve been home recently.”

“That,” said Sunset as her eyes widened, “is actually smart. Oh boy, is it nice to work with someone who’s half competent for a change. Normally I have to make do with something more akin to one twentieth competent.”

Sunset knocked on the door. Slightly less than 10.8731273138362 seconds later, it was opened by a human version of Shining Armor, not to be confused with humanoid armor that shines. “Hello?” he said.

“Oh, hi,” said Sunset, trying to sound as pleasant as she possibly could. “I’m a friend of Twilight’s and was wondering if she was home.”

“Twilight? No, you just missed her.”

“Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know; she didn’t say.”

Twilight took the opportunity to come up. “I’m home!”

“Hi, Twilight,” said Shining Armor. “Your friend was looking for you.”

“Great!” said Twilight. “What a coincidence I came home right now. Come on, let’s go in.” Twilight grabbed Sunset by the wrist and took her up the stairs into her room.

“Okay,” said Sunset, “so we’ve established that the other Twilight did come here. Now the only question is what she was doing.”

“Not really sure how we can find out without sounding really suspicious ourselves,” said Twilight as she stroked her chin. “I think that while we have to keep an eye out for her, the important thing is to get the crown for ourselves. Then you can take it back to Equestria, and whatever plans she had for it can’t work. What in the world is her plan for it?”

“You got me,” said Sunset. “I believe I remember learning something about how weird stuff can happen with Elements if they’re brought into an alternate universe, but I think I slept through a lot of that class and missed any further details.”

“You shouldn’t have slept through class!” said Twilight. “That’s how you learn things!”

“Look, they were out of coffee that day!” said Sunset. “Anyway, now what?”

“Well,” said Twilight, “one thing we should figure out is how to make sure you don’t mistake the other Twilight for me. Want a code word or something?”

“The fact you’re not wearing that alicorn amulet seems like it would be a good enough indication,” said Sunset.

“Hrm, good point,” said Twilight. “But just in case, the secret password is ‘preserve.’”

“By the way, that guy, your brother?” said Sunset. “He seems a little old to be living with you. Is he unemployed or something?”

“What? No!” said Twilight. “My parents are just out of town for a while, so he’s the one minding the house in the meantime.”

“Do you two get along?”

“Why do you ask?” asked Twilight defensively.

“Apparently the alternate-you and the Equestrian version of him were having difficulties of some sort, and I was wondering if it was true here as well.”

“Well… yeah,” admitted Twilight. “I can’t very well tell him I’m Twilight, just from another universe, and the subtle distinctions between myself and the Twilight that was originally here must be rather noticeable to him.”

“Yeah, that sounds bad, I guess,” said Sunset. “You know, I wonder what they’re doing back in Equestria.”

“And then the comic ends with Mare Do Well saying, ‘that’s no coconut ailment; that’s your wife!’” finished Trixie. There was an awkward pause.

“I don’t get it?” said one of the guards uncertainly.

“Just think about it a little,” said Trixie.

Another pause ensued. Then everyone fell over laughing. “Oh wow,” said the guard between laughter, “that’s gold once you figure it out. Man, I have to get that issue when it comes out.”

“Actually,” said Sunset, “I’ve suddenly realized I don’t care what they’re doing. However, my original question remains. Now what?”

“Well, I didn’t really have many plans for the rest of today, so if you want I can try to catch you up with how this world works so you can try to pass for someone who lives here.”

Considerable stating of what we could consider to be the obvious later…

“Finally, when you point at something, you use the finger next to the thumb to do it. And that’s everything I can think of,” finished Twilight. “Now, though, I have to finish up on some of my homework.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Hrm,” said Twilight. “Good question. Ah, I’ve got it!” Twilight pulled out a smart phone and pressed a few buttons. “Here. Try playing this game to pass the time. It’ll at least make you get more used to having fingers. You just press the buttons to execute the commands.”

Sunset dubiously took the phone and tried playing the game. “This looks so incredibly stupid. And it seems really easy. Everything is so slow.”

“Give it time,” said Twilight.

A short time later…

“WHY DOES THIS GET SO HARD?!” screamed Sunset. “Gyah!”

“I’ve got other games if you want,” said Twilight.

“No, no,” said Sunset, “I am going to master this stupid thing. This stupid robot unicorn will destroy all of the stars.”

Equestrian Gals Part 2

“Aaah,” said Twilight as she woke up. “Nothing like a good sleep. How did you sleep, Sunset?”

Twilight looked and saw Sunset still feverishly playing the game. “Uh, did you get any sleep?”

“Huh?” asked Sunset distractedly. “I’ll get sleep later. I have to master this first.”

“You know you can’t actually win the game, right?”

“Yeah, I figured that out on the first one. I’ve moved onto another game. These pigs will pay for stealing from the birds!”

What have I created? wondered Twilight to herself. “Well, we should have some breakfast and then head to school.”

“Why don’t I just stay here? I’m not sure I can pass for a student at a school I’m not actually enrolled at. I mean, it’s been a while since I was at school, but I doubt I could just pretend to be a part of the classes I’m not registered for, unless they’re the really big lecture ones.”

“Those are more of a college thing, to my understanding,” said Twilight. “But we can’t just have you stay here; that’ll look weird, and I’m not sure I could explain it to my brother. And it’d be best if you stay in the same general area as me so we can find each other easily if we need to, so you really should be at the school. The real question is where you should be spending your time. You can’t really be in class, because you’d stand out. In the school proper no one would notice an additional student, but you can’t spend the whole time roaming the halls or else you’ll get caught. Hrm…”

“Well, I’ll keep playing this game until you figure it out,” said Sunset.

Twilight snapped her fingers. “Got it! We can hide you in the janitor’s closet when classes are going on!”

“Wouldn’t the janitor just find me?”

“Nah,” said Twilight. “Our janitor is notoriously lazy and doesn’t really clean that much.”

“Staying in a closet for several hours sounds boring,” said Sunset.

Twilight shrugged. “You can spend the time playing the game.”

“I’m in!” declared Sunset.

A substantial amount of explosions, levels, and stars later, Sunset heard the bell ring. “Okay, so that’s the eighth bell ringing… Twilight said that meant it was time for lunch.”

Mildly annoyed she was being interrupted in the middle of the level, Sunset still put the game on pause and stepped out of the closet. Thanks to directions given to her earlier, Sunset was able to navigate her way to the cafeteria outside of a small mishap that wasn’t funny enough to justify elaborating on here.

Okay, she thought, just have to find Twilight. Then she realized that she was hungry, so she first got some food, then found Twilight at a table with several other girls.

“Who’s she?” asked a blue-skinned, rainbow-haired girl who was with Twilight.

“This is Sunset Shimmer,” said Twilight. “She’s a relative who’s staying with us briefly.”

“Why didn’t you ever mention her before?”

“I didn’t mention I had a brother until he got married!” said Twilight.

“Huh, yeah. You’re right. Though that was still kind of weird.”

“Anyway,” said Twilight, “I’d like to introduce you to my friends. This is Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy.”

“Uh, hi,” said Sunset. “Nice to meet you.” Oh, darn it. Which one was which again? I was thinking about the video game when Twilight introduced them. Enh, I’ll just wing it.

While the other girls talked amongst themselves, Sunset spent most of the lunch trying to work out how to beat the level that was frustrating her, causing some degree of awkwardness as the others attempted to start conversations with her only to receive nondescript responses. Eventually, the bell rang and they all left.

“You know, you could have tried to be more sociable,” said Twilight to Sunset.

“Why bother? I’m leaving tonight; I’m not going to see them again. I might see their Equestrian counterparts, but not these guys.”

“Well,” sighed Twilight, “I guess that does make some sense. Still, if you’re like this back on Equestria, you probably should try to open up. I was a real loner before I ended up here, but then I ended up making friends.”

“Maybe,” said Sunset neutrally. “Anyway, guess I’m going to spend some more time playing that game.”

After several more hours of video game playing, the final bell rang. However, due to a glitch, it didn’t stop ringing. Eventually a loud breaking noise was heard due to a hammer hitting it to make it stop. Sunset wasn’t happy to be interrupted from her game again, but wearily decided that it was more important to get back to the plan, so she left the closet and walked out the school with the crowd. She waited by the statue for Twilight. After some waiting, she grew bored and took out the game again. “They need to get these things in Equestria,” she muttered to herself.

Soon afterwards, Twilight walked up to her.

“What took you so long?” asked Sunset.

“Had to take care of some things,” said Twilight. “See, there was–”

“Enh, just realized I don’t really care,” said Sunset. “As long as we can get the crown at the Fall Formal, I’m good. By the way, can I bring this game back with me to Equestria?”

“Well, I have a spare, so okay,” said Twilight. “I’m not sure it would work there, though. Actually, I’m a little worried you might be becoming addicted to it.”

“Hey, I can stop whenever I want to!” protested Sunset. “I just don’t want to is all.”

“Anyway,” said Twilight, “we just have to get ready for the Fall Formal and get that crown. It should be simple enough, but the real wild card is that alternate version of myself that’s running around; if she’s going to make her move at any time, it would be at the Fall Formal. Do you want to get a dress for it? I’m sure Rarity has some spares.”

“Well, I don’t really care about the whole thing anyway, so I guess I’ll just go as I am,” said Sunset.

The next several hours were a bit of a blur to Sunset, mostly due to her spending more time playing video games. It seemed like only a few sentences had gone by before the Fall Formal had not only started, but also gotten to the point where the princess was to be crowned.

“First off,” said Chrysalis, “I want to say how wonderful everyone looks tonight. Because that’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to say, I think? And ordinarily I’d use this opportunity to talk about things you don’t care about… and this isn’t in any way not ordinary, so here we go. I bet that some of you think ‘oh boy, I can’t wait until I graduate, because then I’m finally out of high school.’ Well let me tell you, like the song says, high school never ends! The whole world is just as obsessed with who’s the best dressed and who’s–”

“Oh, for the love of,” muttered the nearby Luna as she grabbed the microphone out of Chrysalis’s hands. “I’m going to take this over before you say something else that gets us all sued. I still can’t believe you got the principal position over me.”

“I wasn’t the one who pushed so hard with that crazy plan to have all classes at night!”

“Oh, you’re always going to hold that over my head, are you? It’s not like you brought up any great objections at the time when I mentioned it to you. My sister would’ve talked me out of it.”

“Your sister was the one who tried to put into place a policy that simply not getting along would be grounds for expulsion! Why do you think she doesn’t have a position here anymore?”

“Um,” said a student, “could you hold off on your arguing long enough to announce the princess so we can get on with the dance?”

“Huh?” said Chrysalis idly. “Oh, right. Uh, Twilight Sparkle gets it.” She nonchalantly threw the crown to Twilight, who put it on.

“Oh, good,” said Sunset as she went up to Twilight. “We’ve got the crown. That was way easier than I expected. So, Twilight, can–”

Sunset was interrupted by a flash of blue light that suddenly encompassed Twilight. It rose up into the sky like a pillar, smashing a hole in the roof while doing so. Then the light abruptly vanished, and Sunset saw that Twilight had been transformed into some kind of pseudo-demon version of herself, including wings.

Sunset scratched her head. “Is this part of some kind of weird ritual here? Because it seems odd.”

“Oh, Sunset,” said Twilight, “you don’t get it? I’m the Twilight you chased here! I managed to get the drop on my other self from this universe today and have been posing as her. And you never noticed!”

“Argh!” said Sunset as she clutched her forehead. “Man, I really should’ve tested you on that password.”

“You mean ‘preserve’?” asked Twilight.

“How did you know that?” said Sunset.

“What, you don’t think I couldn’t accurately figure out what word I would’ve picked? Come on. We’re the same person, she and I. Well, outside of the fact I’ve got this amulet that lets me see things more… clearly.”

“But you’re not wearing the amulet!” said Sunset.

Twilight held up a finger. “Just another brilliant idea of mine! I knew you’d be looking for an amulet, so I simply wore it as a bracelet under my sleeve so you wouldn’t notice.”

Sunset looked around. “Why did everyone suddenly get so quiet? I’d think this would have caused a bigger stir.”

“Oh, I just used my powers to brainwash all of them.”

“You can do that?” asked Sunset.

“Apparently!” said Twilight.

“That would explain the fact their eyes are all blue and glowing,” said Sunset. All right, It looks like I either have to get that crown away from her, or just run back to Equestria and leave this world to its fate. Well, the latter sounds less dangerous. But first I have to figure out how to get away… stall for time, I guess? “So… are you planning to use all these brainwashed people to try to take over Equestria?”

“Oh, come on,” said Twilight. “That’s a terrible plan. A group of untrained individuals who wouldn’t even be used to moving around as a pony would immediately fall to the guards I assume you have back in Equestria. Not to mention that thanks to their eyes being replaced with the blue glowing thing, they don’t have pupils and are thus actually unable to see at the moment.” She gestured towards several of the brainwashed people who were constantly walking straight into things.

“So then what is your plan?” asked Sunset.

Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the door suddenly opening and another Twilight staggering in. She looked around. “Oh, darn it, too late,” she said.

“Hey!” said the Twilight we will now refer to as Demon-Twilight in order to avoid confusion. “How did you get out?”

“You know how there was that show that featured this dog that was always rescuing people and seemed far more intelligent than normal, and how I have a pet dog that seems far more intelligent than normal?” asked Twilight.

“Yes?” asked Demon-Twilight.

“Well, it had nothing to do with that.”

There was a pause.

“You’re not going to tell me?” asked Demon-Twilight.

“Not going to tell you,” said Twilight. “You know, I feel kind of bad for you. I mean, you had all of these people you could’ve made some friends with while you were here, but you insisted on being a loner. It’s only because I took your place that you’re even thought of someone other than that weird girl.”

“Oh?” asked Demon-Twilight as her eyes literally flashed, “and you think you’re better? You spent all your time studying magic rather than actually using it! You had one of the highest concentrations of magic that anypony has ever had, and you let it languish!” She flew up a bit so she was hovering several feet from the ground. “Enough talk. I don’t see the need to argue with you. I don’t seem to be able to mind control you or Sunset, possibly due to you being from Equestria, but I’m sure that a simple–”

Demon-Twilight suddenly found herself interrupted by getting hit in the head with something. This had the effect of both knocking the crown off of her and reverting her back to normal, but also knocking her out. Conveniently, this also caused everyone who had been mind controlled to collapse.

“What happened?” asked Twilight, spinning around.

“Well–” started Sunset.

“Actually, explain later. Let’s get her and us out of here before all these guys get up.”

The two grabbed the unconscious Twilight and crown and ran with her out of the auditorium and into a deserted classroom. They laid her on one of the tables. Sunset pulled back her sleeve to grab the amulet.

“So, wait, what did you do?” asked Twilight. “How’d you stop her? Did you do something while she was distracted talking to me?”

“I threw a rock at her,” said Sunset.

“While I appreciate stopping her, that could actually really hurt her,” said Twilight.

“It wasn’t a big rock,” said Sunset defensively.

“Okay, so I guess what you’re going to do is take the crown and the amulet back to Equestria before the portal closes?”

“And her, too, I suppose,” said Sunset with a shrug.

“What if she just doesn’t want to go back? What if she wants to stay here? I mean, I sure know I want to stay here.”

“Look,” said Sunset, “I have a time limit here. Unless she wakes up now to say she wants to stay in this world, I’m just grabbing her unconscious body and dragging her through the portal with me.”

“Ugh,” groaned the Twilight on the table as she slowly opened her eyes. “What happened?”

“You got ahold of an amulet that made you crazy, then you came into this alternate world to take it over or something, powered yourself up with the crown, not really sure how that part worked but whatever, mind controlled some people, then got hit by a rock and thus defeated,” said Sunset.

“Oh, yeah,” said the aforementioned Twilight. “I guess I did do all of that. Um… sorry?”

“Good enough for me!” declared the other Twilight.

“Okay,” said Sunset. “So, are we leaving? The portal’s closing in a few hours. And if you’re worried about getting in trouble, I should point out that being under the influence of a magical object is a valid legal defense.”

“I would like to return, but I wouldn’t mind doing a few things first,” said the Twilight that will hereafter be referred to as Equestrian-Twilight (as opposed to Human-Twilight, though both are currently human) to avoid confusion, though note this refers to where she was at the start of this story, not in the backstory where she was from this universe, and this sentence has been rather long.

“You want to head back, thought?” asked Human-Twilight.

“Well, duh,” said Equestrian-Twilight. “Why in the world would I not want to have all that magical power? That was amazing. I wouldn’t give that up. However… I feel like I have to say goodbye to my family and explain to them what happened. I mean, sure, I have their equivalents in Equestria, but… they’re still not the ones I knew for most of my life. I mean, I feel I had a bit of a strained relationship with my brother after crossing over, and I kind of got the feeling that that’s the case here as well. I can’t not take this opportunity to rectify things, at least with Shining Armor, as he’s actually nearby.”

Well, this took a turn for the stupidly sentimental, thought Sunset to herself. Out loud she said, “Fine, but be quick about it.”

“You know, she’s got a point,” said Human-Twilight. “If the portal’s open, I should probably go over for a bit and talk to my original family… are they near the portal?”

“Shining Armor is,” said Sunset.

“Great!” said one of the Twilights. “Actually, we should probably both go to the one from this universe, in order to prove the whole alternate universe thing.” The two Twilights dashed off, leaving Sunset alone in the room.

“Well, at least I’ve still got this,” muttered Sunset to herself as she took out her game.

Meanwhile…

Luna and Chrysalis looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “Okay, how are we going to explain this one?” asked Chrysalis. “I don’t even know how this happened; it’s all such a blur.”

“Well, I don’t think we can blame it on the alcohol as usual,” said Luna. “Wayward rocket?”

“Well, if it lets me cash in on that insurance money, I’ll call it anything. We can use that cash to fix the bell that broke. And I never liked that roof anyway.”

Sunset waited by the statue, still continuing to play her game. She glanced up. “We’re cutting it a bit short. I mean, cutting it a bit close. Why did I say cutting it a bit short? And why am I talking to myself?”

The two Twilights came up to her. “All right! Mission accomplished!” said one.

“Uh-huh,” said Sunset, caring just barely enough to pay attention. “How’d he take it?”

“I think,” said one of the Twilights, “his exact words were ’if you had just told me this a while ago, you could’ve saved both of us a lot of trouble.’ Anyway, now to cross over!” The two went into the portal.

“Come on,” muttered Sunset to herself. “There’s not much time. I have to beat this stupid level before time runs out, because I’m not sure how well this will work back on Equestria.”

After a presumably emotional reunion that occurred entirely offscreen due to it being ill-fitted for a comedy story, one Twilight emerged. “Well, everything’s taken care of,” she said. “I should probably get back to that dance before it completely ends. Are you going to be heading back?”

Sunset put down the game. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Why am I heading back? All it means is that I’d still be stuck with the whole changeling thing, and it’s not like there’s much I liked back in Equestria to begin with. It’s not like my job is particularly great, as I got stuck in Ponyville with a group of very annoying ponies. And if I stay here, I can keep playing this game! Why in the world would I head back?”

“Wasn’t there something about you needing to be there to defeat this Discord guy you were mentioning?”

“Meh, the Element’s back, and I’m sure it can be reconfigured somehow. Maybe Twilight could use it; it’s the Element of Magic, and she’s rather powerful magically.”

“Well, I guess I can’t fault you for wanting to stay here, considering I chose to,” said Twilight. “I guess I could probably arrange some way for you to stay with us for a while. And, hey, you can meet my boyfriend! He’s out of town right now, so I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to him. See, his name’s Flash Sentry, and he’s really nice. We… uh, is something wrong? You seem go be going pale.”

No. No no no no no. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. “Um… you know what?” said Sunset. “Upon further consideration, I think I really should be going back into my own world. It really could be in trouble without me being there to use the Element of Magic.”

“Oh, sure,” said Twilight. “Well, maybe I can introduce you next time you’re here. The portal does open again… eventually.”

“Uh, sure, yeah, that might be a better time,” said Sunset. “Anyway… anything else to say before I leave?”

“Well, like I said earlier, I think it’d probably be good for you if you were to make some friends, as you indicated you don’t really have any. I know it was good for me.”

“Uh, I’ll think about it,” said Sunset. “Anyway, off I go.” She stepped through the portal.

Sunset walked out of the portal. “Wow, walking does work a lot better.” She looked at the various assembled ponies, which included Shining Armor, Cadance, Twilight, Trixie, and some various guards. “Uh… hi.”

A large ball suddenly floated up in the air and exploded into confetti. “WELCOME BACK!” declared Trixie.

“All this confetti takes a while to clean up,” said Shining Armor.

“Not my problem!” said Trixie.

Sunset looked at the phone she took with her. “Well, this seems like it works. Now I just have to figure out how to keep it charged up. Well, at least we have the Elements for whenever Discord pops up.”

“Actually,” said Shining Armor, “we might not need them. Remember how previously we accidentally only Discord-proofed the glasses? We were able to melt down the glass and put a small coating on a whole lot of stuff, so Discord’s powers should be fairly limited.”

“So I went and got back the Element of Magic for nothing?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” said Shining Armor. “After all, Discord is still a dangerous force, so if he wants to come back and cause havoc–”

Shining Armor was interrupted by a finger snap and Discord appearing. “Hi again everypony! I just wanted to mention that the previous message had some errors in it. To make sure I do it right, I wrote everything down.” He took out a piece of paper and read it. “Ahem. I’ve gotten bored from my vacation, so I plan to show up to Equestria again soon. But I don’t really plan to be causing too much chaos, because while I was away, I realized something: Equestria is so completely screwed up and crazy by itself it’s actually a lot more fun to just watch all the craziness rather than causing it. Besides, anything that’s completely chaotic is statistically uniform in composition and therefore orderly. Also boring. So all that stuff about me taking over? Totally wrong. Anyway, see you later when I get out of traffic; could take a while before I make it back to Equestria.” He snapped his fingers again and disappeared.

“So, yeah, I did it for nothing,” muttered Sunset.

“Well,” said Twilight, “you did rescue me from myself. I didn’t get a chance to say this before, but I feel like I have to… thanks, Sunset.”

The shock of someone actually thanking her for anything left Sunset speechless briefly. “Oh… um… okay. You know, I’ve got a question. Is there any chance I could work here? My employment contract with Equestria is expiring soon, and you seem way more tolerable to work for than Chrysalis.”

“Wait, you’re work-for-hire?” asked Trixie.

“Yes!” snapped Sunset. “That’s why I stuck with that lousy job; I was under contract. Also, it pays better than my other choices. But I’m sure I could get similar pay here, right?”

“Well, you did help save the Crystal Empire and got my sister back and allowed us to reconcile,” said Shining Armor. “I’m sure we can find something.”

“Finally!” said Sunset. “Something is going my way!”

Just then, a blue-maned, orange-coated guard entered. “Do you guys need more food? You’ve been here for a while.”

Sunset took one look at the guard, screamed at the top of her lungs, then shouted, “Never mind! Going back to Equestria! See you all later! I’ll catch a train!” Then she ran off.

“That was weird,” said Trixie.

“Do you know what that was about?” Shining Armor asked the guard. “Let’s see, you’re new… Flash Sentry, right?”

“Right,” he said. “Actually, she and I went out briefly, but then broke up.”

“What left such a weird impression on her?”

“I think her exact words were that I was ‘such a black hole of personality that you don’t just lack any trace of personality, you also suck personality away from those around you.’ She thus was completely terrified of being anywhere near me. Personally, I don’t get it.”

“Well!” said Trixie. “Now that this whole mess with Twilight has been concluded and nicely wrapped up, I suppose now there’s no reason to ever have to worry about that alternate universe ever again.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Uh… I just realized there’s something I forgot to tell you. See, being half-crazy kind of screws with your memory, and I only just remembered that there were these other three who came with me.”

“You had help?” asked Shining Armor.

“Well, I wouldn’t have been able to sneak past all that security by myself,” said Twilight. “They went through the portal before I did, though; not sure what happened to them. The original plan was to work with them on this other plan they had, but once the opportunity to grab the Element of Magic popped up, I opted to try to go for that instead and forgot about the guys I was with.”

“And who were they?”

“Do you know what that was?” asked Adagio as she gestured towards the sky.

Sonata and Aria shrugged. “Enh?”

“That was Equestrian magic!” snapped Adagio. “You know, giant pillar of light?”

“It could’ve just been a weird firework celebration,” said Aria. “Besides, this world doesn’t have Equestrian magic.”

“That was not what fireworks look like! As for the world not having Equestrian magic, it does now! And we’re going to use it to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

The three struck a menacing pose. Then they realized the pointlessness of doing so when there wasn’t anyone around to take pictures of them, so they opted to head home instead.

“Finally!” declared Adagio as they walked. “I was starting to think we were actually stuck here for good! All we have to do is figure out exactly where that light came from! That could probably take a few months. And then–”

Adagio found herself interrupted by someone coming up from behind and covering her mouth with a cloth, as did Sonata and Aria. They all shortly passed out.

“Ugh,” groaned Adagio as she got up, rubbing her head. “What just happened?”

“I think someone made us pass out with chloroform,” said Aria.

“Ahhh!” screamed Sonata as she looked down. “The pendants are gone!”

“Yet, oddly, not our wallets,” noted Adagio. “Whenever anyone tried to rob us before, we always just sang to them to make them stop… but this group of robbers went straight for covering up our mouths, preventing us from doing that. And they took only the pendants. The only explanation that comes to mind is they actually knew about the pendants’ power and wanted to steal them for their own benefit.”

“This is bad, right?” asked Sonata.

“Yes,” snapped Adagio as her eye twitched, “this is very bad!”

Three shadowy figures stood in the shadows, as shadowy figures are wont to do.

“Come on, Thunder Strike, who’s the better leader?” asked one gleefully. “This plan of mine is totally being more successful than anything you came up with when you were the one making up the plans. You never would’ve thought to use those Wonderbolts uniforms we stole to help us sneak into the castle.”

The aforementioned Thunder Strike folded his arms. “Stormy, talk is cheap when you haven’t completed your plan yet. In fact, you’ve really only accomplished yet another step in this seemingly endlessly convoluted plan rather than getting to the actual goal. Getting those pendants was, what, Step 24?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Stormy Skies, “because there’s only three steps left. Step one: Figure out how to use these pendants. Step two: Use them to take over the world. Step three: Profit.”

“Fine, whatever,” said Thunder Strike. “But can we go to somewhere where there’s lights? It’s way too dark here. I mean, I know we’re the Shadowbolts, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some lights on while we’re discussing things.”

“Fair enough. Now, it might take a little while to master the usage of these pendants. But once we do, we’ll be able to use them to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

“Hrm,” said the third figure.