The Conversion Bureau - Most Faithful Student

Chapter 1: *Honesty*

Sunset Shimmer ran through the Mirror of Reflected Worlds without looking back.

The spell she used to transit warped the mirror past its breaking point in her wake, allowing her passage while destroying the glass and its enchantment behind her.  Sunset was going to miss Equestria, but given Celestia’s plans for the human world Sunset knew in the depths of her soul that she could not afford to leave that route open.  Not when Celestia could follow her through it, or send troops through it.

How petty her old, villainous ambitions seemed, now!  How foolish, and how simple-minded of her!  Once, she would have given anything to have been like - greater than - her mentor, the Princess.  To have ruled, like the Princess.

No.  No time for self-pity; time for escape, time for warning.  She knew that she would emerge on the other side in the shape of a human, fully clothed – that lore was in Starswirl’s On the Riders and their Realm that she had stolen from the restricted section of the library (safely ensconced in the bag on what was a wither and was now her hip).  That didn’t make her lurching transition from four feet to two any easier.

It didn’t make casting spells any easier, for that matter – her ability to sense leylines and tap mana wasn’t impaired, but her land bonds were severed and she had no way of doing anything with what little energy she could channel. She tried to throw a spurt of flame just to prove she still could, but that failed act of pyromancy made the tips of her fingers throb and left her feeling exhausted and raw, accomplishing little else.

Sunset collapsed in a heap under an awning of the concrete citadel she found herself in.  It was her namesake hour, when stars in alien constellations shimmered for her; and yet there were electric lights in the windows of the square buildings that rose like monoliths in the distance, though the fortress she found herself in was quiet and dark.

She drank water from a gourd, tried to eat a dried alfalfa ration before she spit it out in disgust – apparently, this body couldn’t digest it - then nibbled at an oatcake with currants and found it palatable.  She took stock of her belongings; she had gold on her she could sell for money, and some potions which she HOPED would work – including several vials of conversion serum, which she desperately needed to analyze and counter.  But that could wait.  It would take time for Celestia to discover that the Mirror had been broken, and even more time for her to devise another route to invade the human world.

There, away from every friend she had ever had, and having just betrayed the mentor she now had to admit was a genocidal tyrant, Sunset Shimmer cried herself to sleep.