Sunset was sorely tempted to ask Flash to stay the night. She felt such tremendous warm affection for him -- it would be so nice to wake with her lover beside her -- just as if he were her husband.

She decided against this. She was unsure how long her resolution to refain from the ultimate intimacy would last if she were literally sleeping with him. She also knew that Flash's family would dispprove of Flash sleeping with her, and would moreover disapprove of her for allowing him to do so.

She very much wanted Flash's family to approve of her, though she wasn't sure just why this was so important to her. Had Flash been a Pony and this Equestria, of course, the reason would have been obvious: she would have been hoping that they might, one day, become her family as well. Their courtship was still several steps from engagement, but she could clearly see the path they were taking.

But Flash was not a Pony; this was not Equestria; and there was no way she could marry an alien barbarian, no matter how sweet and dear he was to her. His family would never be hers; she had a diferent destiny.

This was sad, but it was also true. And Sunset Shimmer had always prided herself on her ability to face the truth.

So, she decided, she would enjoy Flash while she could, always aware that she must in the end move beyond him, to rise from his limited barbarian world and return to her land, the land of true civilization, Equestria. She would never be able to forget her Flash; that already seemed clear. But no doubt she would in time become philosophical about it, regarding her love affair with a strangely-sweet alien stallion as but a fond beautiful memory, to console her in the more complex world to which he would win. She had read sentimental books about heroines in such a situation; surely it would be just like that for her?

Perhaps, if Fate was exceptionally kind to her, it might happen that Flash -- against all reasonable probability -- would be able to join her in Equestria in the end. The portal would admit him; it would turn him into a Pony; he would rejoice at the superiority of Equestrian civilization and wish to remain with her. She considered for a moment the possibility that Flash really was a Pony, transformed by some strange accident into a Human. If he really were a Pony, there would be no obstacle to their union. She'd read books like that as well; she smiled happily at the thought.

But she did not really believe that this would happen. It would be unlikely for the world, which had so often disappointed her hopes, to be so kind. The best she might reasonably hope for was to maintain some contact with Flash after her apotheosis; some sort of lasting friendship. In the moral scheme she had learned in Equestria, Love and Friendship were mutually-supporting rather than antithetical principles. If Friendship turned to Love it was a happy outcome, but for Love to fade away to Friendship was better by far than for it to turn to Indifference, or actual Hate.

Sunset Shimmer did not see how she might ever feel Hate, nor even Indifference, toward the lover she now claspsed against her bosom. In her young and innocent heart, such an outcome was inconceivable to her. Marriage seemed improbable, so by her moral code she could not give herself wholly to him; but their Love was an accomplished fact, and therefore the sexual intimacy they had shared was entirely clean. And so, thinking such thoughts, and he thinking whatever thoughts may have dwelt in his alien and masculine mind, they fell asleep together holding one another on the couch, a sleep of happy mutual exhaustion.

And when their nap concluded, they awoke. They cuddled, conversed and caressed together a bit longer. Then, regretfully, they both dressed -- he, in his street clothes; she simply pulling on a tee shirt against the night's growing cold, for though she had assimilated Human physical modesty, she had none any more where Flash was concerned -- and made ready to part for the night. Sunset saw him off at the door with one long last passionate kiss, which at points threatened to end with her dragging him back into her studio, for what might have been considered either immoral or supremely moral purposes, depending arguably on one's assumptions regarding their intentions and sentiments.

Finally, Sunset closed the door for the last time, happily hugged herself, and slid down the inside of the door, grinning in sheer and utter bliss. He loves me, he loves me, he loves me! And I love him! I haven't told him yet, because I'm going to have to leave this world, but ... well, maybe when I'm a Princess I can invade this world and carry him off captive to my castle! She laughed lustily at the thought of a scantily-clad Flash seductively draped in sungold shackles; then thought Or, I could just invite him to spend the summer with me. That would probably be more civilized. She was giddy with the possibilities.

Then, reluctantly, she returned to reality. Ah well, she told herself. No point counting my cucumbers before they're picked. Time to do the work of cultivating them. It's time ... for science!

She got up and padded over to the thaumeter, crouched to examine the display. Thaumic events! She was far from surprised at this outcome; of course she had done everything with Flash, both musical and sexual, that had triggered thaumic events on earlier occasions. The fact that their actions had produced such thaumic emissions (among other sorts of emissions, she thought impishly) was more satisfying (in more than one sense of the word) confirmation of her hypothesis.

This time, however, she had added a new refinement to her apareatus, one which would enable her to make a much more precise analysis of the phenomena. It was not enough to know that music and making out were enabling her to generate stronger thaumic pulses. She wanted to discover precisely what she was doing to generate them, and to do this she had to know precisely when these pulses occurred. By doing so, she could further refine the process, understand not merely the gross effects but the detailed causes.

Sunset Shimmer removed the datastick from her thaumoter. Then she went to the microphones and videocameras that she had concealed around her studio and removed their datasticks. She had, of course, not informed Flash Sentry of their presence, because she quite reasonably believed that if he had known what she had done, the knowledge might have affected his behavior in ways which would have rendered the experiment less useful.

All the datasticks collected, she plugged them into her personal computer, one at a time, and downloaded their files to a folder in her hard drive. She then ran an editing utility that integrated them into a single display, automatically synchronizing their times.

She had not written this utility.

Sunset Shimmer was a truly exceptional Pony, a polymathic supergenius. Her self-estimation as the smartest Unicorn of her generation was not far off: Twilight Sparkle was one of the very few to surpass her, and only by a smidgin. She had a deep, broad and profound understanding of logic, magic and mathematics, and -- to a degree slightly greater than that of the more theoretically-minded Twilight -- had mastered many aspects of Industrial Age technology. She was, for instance, a skilled engineer, mechanic and electrician.

However -- brilliant as she was -- Sunset Shimmer was the scion of an Industrial Age civilization, while the North Amareican Federation within which she currently lived was an Information Age one. She had learned some aspects of computer operation -- particularly those which pertrained to searches for knowledge -- but she did not have the visceral understanding of how information technology worked which a girl of equivalent intelligence born in Amareica would have imbibed in her malleable childhood.

So it did not automatically occur to her that, in hiring Script Kiddie to craft this utility for her -- and worse, letting him, a technologically-gfited but socially somewhat backward Humanoid teenage boy, know that she intended to use it to make a video -- she was courting certain dangers. Not only had Equestria not yet assimilated home movie-making technology, but (in this, Sunset's prejudices were all too correct) Equestrian Ponies were fundamentally more honorable and less dirty-minded than were the Humanoids of North Amareica.

(Though the differences were not that great. Sunset Shimmer might have been enlightened had she considered filthy post-cards, which were all the rage in certain Equestrian circles, and had been popular in the lower-technology past of the North Amareican Federation).

Most particularly, it did not occur to Sunset Shimmer to be suspicious of messages sent from her personal computer.

Thus, she entirely failed to notice when her computer, during supposedly idle time, made a compressed copy of her integrated file, most especially including the video, and e-mailed it to a blind account -- frm which, by circuitous routes, it would ceventually make its way to Script Kiddie himself.

To, it should be added, both surprise and shock that lad. While he had of course hoped for precisely just such content as he had received -- we speak here of the video, of course; he had not the slightest notion of what Sunset's thaumic emissions detector was registering -- he had not actually exected anything as explicit as he got; nor with the famously hard-to-get Sunset Shimmer herself as the leading lady.

He could have sold that content for a fair sum: the obvious innocence of the participants, and their sincerity, as demonstrated by their expressions of transcendant and unfeigned joy at some of the points in the procedings, would have if anything improved the value of the video. He also could simply have released the contents anonymously for a lark -- and, in the process, badly harmed Sunset Shimmer's reputation, to an audience many of whom had well-founded grudges against her, and would have happily seen her name dragged through the mud.

He could have done either -- or both -- and easily have preserved his anonymity (or so he imagined; he did not even suspect that Sunset Shimmer could have scryed the identity of the one who had copied the information, the more so because he would have been on her short-list of suspects from the start; but then Script Kiddie hadn't considered that).

Yet, he did none of these things.

Why was that?

It may have been that he was afraid of Sunset Shimmer -- and he was fully-cognizant of the fact that those who crossed her often suffered unpleasant consequences. (Indeed, he had originally assumed that Sunset wanted this computer-controlled video system for extortionate purposes -- and he still was not sure that she didn't, shooting video of herself and her boyfriend might have merely been a pleasant additional diversion).

But the truth was that Script Kiddie was confident -- even over-confident -- regarding his mastery of all things technological, his internet- founded anonymity, and consequently his ability to betray others without them dectecting his treachery. And his natural instincts were of the sneak and black-mailer. Indeed, in an earlier day, Script might have crept around, camera in hand, taking compromising photographs of unsuspecting victims: his favored crimes had simply been rendered more efficient by the march of science.

What stayed Script's hand were two atypical considerations, both of which might have surprised Sunset Shimmer.

The first was that Script knew Flash Sentry, and Flash had been nice to Script on several occasions. Most notably, when Script's smart mouth had gotten him into direct physical trouble with some of the jocks, Flash had stuck up for him, and saved Script Kiddie from a beating. That alone might not have sufficed: the experience had been humiliating for the budding hacker, and ingratitude for aid needed in an embarrassing situation is all too common among both Humanoids and Ponies alike -- were it not for the second reason.

The second reason was that Scrit knew Sunset Shimmer, and -- perhaps surprisingly -- liked her. Sunset Shimmer was not that well-liked; she was more widely-respected or even feared -- but Script sensed on some visceral level that she was as much, perhaps even more, of an outsider from himself. And more, she was an outsider whom by dint of drive and courage defied, and even dominated, the normal teenagers who Script so deeply despised.

He knew that Sunset walked a tightrope, and that his video could grease it and bring about her fall.

And he did not want her to fall.

He was, of course, both aroused and jealous when he saw the video. He was, after all, for all his intelligence and precocious skills, still but a teenaged boy, and one who had long nourished a secret and hopeless crush on Sunset Shimmer. That was his worst temptation: there was a dark part of him which wanted to use the video to blackmail Sunset into granting him her favors, or -- given that such a plan would probably fail and fail most disastrously -- use it to destroy her, for the crime of giving herself to another. To punish Sunset and Flash for their all-too-evident happiness together.

Yet, for all that was base in Script Kiddie's nature, there was also something fine in it, and that smething fine recognized the love he saw in the eyes of the young couple on the video, and knew that it would truly be a foul deed to betray them -- the more so because Sunset Shimmer had actually hired him to write the very same program which he had used to steal that data. And, for all the petty crimes he had committed, and those he intended to commit in the future -- Script Kiddie was simply not that rotten.

So, in that key moment of his life, when a moral choice, and one whose significance he did not then and never would fully grasp, was presented to him, Script Kiddie -- hacker, data thief, and would-be blackmailer that he was -- chose Good over Evil, and did not betray his friends. He passed his crucial test; even though he, imagining himself a philosophical sophisticate above such black-and-white value judgements, might well have laughed in your face had you told him this in those terms.

And because Script did not betray her, Sunset in turn was not tempted to even greater evil. Had Script betrayed her in so personal and humiliating a fashion, the hot-tempered Equestrian expatriate would almost certainly have been impelled to some dreadful vengeance, one which would have put her hooves on a darker path than the one she was to tread, an action that might well have proved unhappy both for Script and for his whole world.

Script knew nothing of this. He simply acted according to his nature, which was far less vile than Sunset Shimmer might have imagined based on her opinion of his species. And in so acting, he may have helped to save that species from horrors beyond his imagination.

Script kept his copy of the file, though, and sometimes watched it in private. Script may not have been all that bad a boy, but he wasn't really all that good, either.

Just good enough, which is all that one ever needs to be to pass a test of survival.

Sunset Shimmer, unaware of the fact that another copy of her file even existed, examined the records she had made with a deep interest mostly scientific in nature. She was on the trail of magic, whether the magic or music, or of sex, or of something else whose true nature she had only the vaguest speculations. She suspected that she was on the verge of uncovering some vast and heretofore unsunspected truth about the Universe.

Which was not to say that the young mare in the form of a Humanoid woman was entirely unmoved, whether to love or to lust, by the images flitting across her computer screen. She was, after all, young -- high-spirited and full of life -- and this whole business of being in love, and of having a lover, was all still quite new to her. More than once, she smiled in happiness, or flushed in excitement, at what her records revealed.

But for all her youthful passions, she was still a Sun of Clan Light, an Equestrian gentlemare, and a mage who had been the protege of Princess Celestia herself. She had a brilliant mind and ironclad deterination, and she was focused on her goal of finding the magic that would enable her to return in glory to the land she loved, and return to the favor of the Princess who despite Sunset's own defiance she worshipped, almost as a goddess.

So it was with serious purpose that she spent hours each day, over the next week, poring over her files, playing and replaying the video she had recorded, and trying to match up the patterns of thaumic emissions she saw with the activities on the screen. She took copious notes and mathematically-analyzed the patterns that emerged; and only at occasional intervals was she impelled to take herself to her bed for what she deemed necessary recreational relief, having been stimulated in less intellectual manners by her recorded actions.

Observing and reviewing the evidence again and again, Sunset Shimmer came to certain conclusions.

FIrstly, the thaumic emissions were very strongly correlated with her actions. Specifically, to music, sex, and to something else that sometimes seemed to happen during music and during sex, but was not itself directly tied to any particular musical or sexual activity that she could identify. She labeled these thaumic excursions type M, type S and type X.

Both music and sex, she noted, combine considerable emotional arousal with rhythmic stimulation. Hypothesis: the emotional arousal is necessary to overcome a steeper thaumic-inertial barrier in this universe, while the rhythmic stimulation is necessary to allow harmonization and resultant resonance effects.

Secondly, while she could generate type M and type S thaumic excursions through playing her music solo and through masturbating, respectively, she did not seem to be able ot generate type X emissions by either means. Also solo performances of either kind produced an order of magnitude or so less thaumic emission than did the combined ones in her file. She verified this through extensive experimentation and the analysis of their records.

Type M and Type S emissions are both an order of magnitude more powerful when performed with a partner. Type X emissions require a partner to generate, she noted. I have confirmed that I can generate type X emissions through both M-type and S-type activities with Partner F. I do not know whether or not I can generate type X emissions with any other partner.

Thirdly, type M thaumic excursions were weaker than type S excursions, and both were far weaker than type X excursions.

Hypothesis: she wrote. Type X thaumic emissions are produced by the harmony between two or more living beings who engage in some emotionally-stimulating and rhythmic activity which enables them to overcome the thaumic-intertial barrier. In a type X event, both production and emission past the thaumic-inertial barrier are much greater.

This suggested that she should be trying to figure out how to produce X-type emissions at will. The only problem was that she was not sure just what about the times that she had produced type-X emissions with Flash were different than the times she had not.

They did tend to occur at the climax of both kinds of performances. But not precisely at the climax (in either sense of the word), which was the vital piece of information she'd needed the timed-recording system to determine. In point of fact, they tended to occur after the climax -- often, she noticed, at a point where they were emotionally-interacting -- exchanging affectionate words or glances.

That, coupled with her knowledge of Equestrian magical theory, suggested some fruitful possibilities, and hence avenues of research. Love, she thought, or Friendship. Either would have correctly described our feelings for each other at that point.

Tentative hypothesis: she wrote. The M-type or S-type activities harmonize the thaumic emissions of the partners, and then once harmonized, shared Friendship, Love or some other emotional qualia enable an amplification of output.

That sums it up nicely, Sunset Shimmer thought, looking approvingly at the final draft of her research notes summary. I think Princess Celestia would have given me an 'A' on this work -- if I dared show this to her, given the nature of some of my personal research efforts. Then she frowned. Or maybe not, she considered. I haven't solved the most important problem here -- identifying the actual trigger for X-type emissions.

She wasn't sure where to continue her researches from here. I can play more music and make love some more to Flash, she thought, and I should for scientific completeness -- she smirked to herself -- and other reasons. And I can take some more timed video of it and try to narrow down the event window with my thaumic emissions detector. Yes. Definitely I should do that.

What else?

Well, I could try to see if I could generate X-type emissions with another partner. Preferably someone with some magical aptitude -- but how can I test for that? Oh, right, I can audition them solo with my video and thaumic hookup, see if they produce any emissions and if so how much. I should also try Flash solo while I'm at it -- see if he has magical aptitude, and how much -- that'll give me baselines for solo thaumic emissions for both of us.

Who would be a mage, though, aside from me, in this Harmony-forsaken world? she wondered. Well, there's that strange girl who claims to be some sort of illusionist, and always talks about herself in the third person. Her nose wrinkled. What's with her, anyway? Trixie something-or-other, I think she is.

Sunset contemplated how best to approach Trixie, and how to use her in her experiments. She's pretty amazingly arrogant, thought Sunset. If I tell her that I could really use her talents to help make a video, maybe bribe her a bit, I think she'll jump at it. I've seen her play guitar in Music Class, too. She's actually not bad.

Of course, that only covers M-type emissions. And maybe X-type, if we try a duet. S-type, now ...

She had a sudden brief mental image of herself passionately kissing Trixie, and doubled over laughing at the thought.

Um ... no, she decided. No S-type testing with her. No way, no how. There's a limit to what I'll do for science.

Then she frowned.

Actually, that prevents me from doing an S-type test with anyone but Flash, she realized. He's my Special Somepony -- it would be really wrong to make love to anypony else. Love Makes Clean. What does scientific utilitarianism make, when applied to lovemaking? She thought about it. I'd be a whore. Just one being paid in the coin of knowledge. She shuddered at the thought.

Then it struck her. That's what Celestia meant about sex magic being inherently corrupting. I didn't see it when I was just a filly, but it's plain now -- any mage who went down that path would be turning her own love life into a quest for power. I don't think that would turn out very well. She remembered the stories, not all of them fictional, that she'd read about evil enchantresses and mad warlocks, and saw now one way that such mages might have taken their first steps on their downward paths.

Strange, how it was only now, when she'd finally defied and fled Celestia, that she was starting to see the wisdom in some of the things her Former Beloved Teacher had said. She wished powerfully, against all reason, that she could somehow go to Celestia now, ask her for advice. She suppressed the urge as an obvious weakness.

Then she realized that, if her guesses about the nature of X-type excursions were correct, she didn't need to do S-type tests with anyone other than Flash Sentry, anyway.

If an X-type excursion is a manifestation of the Magic of Love, or Friendship, or anything like that, then being sexually-intimate with someone I didn't love probably wouldn't produce it, anyway. Because I would be revolted by such an act, so I wouldn't be feeling friendly or loving toward my partner!

She sighed in relief, glad that a source of temptation to do something she really wouldn't have enjoyed doing had thus been removed. Also, glad that she wouldn't have to kiss Trixie.

In any case, she further realized, while musical magic could be practical -- there's an existence proof for that, in the Sea Ponies -- sex magic would be far more cumbersome. It only takes a matter of seconds to get into a musical passage -- but lovemaking doesn't work like that. It could only be used in a protracted ritual -- as it was in the Time of the Three Tribes, in the Marriage of Earth and Sky, by two Kinds who could only cast a spell together by means of ritual magic. That's one of the reasons why it didn't survive into modern Equestria, above and beyond the obvious moral hazard.

I could only do sex magic with Flash, and Flash is no mage, so he wouldn't know what to do -- about the magic part of it, anyway, she amended to herself. But I could do music magic by myself, or with anyone. What's more, I could do music magic in public, without any onlookers thinking that I was doing anything too strange -- but I couldn't do sex magic that way. Not even solo. So I need to focus on the music.

That was as far as her researches got, that first week.

Of course, she was doing more than just researching. School was out for summer, but she was kept busy during the day running her various rackets and deals, maintaing the financial activities that kept her housed and clothed and fed, and the webwork of social control which kept her on top of her little community of savage and cunning killer apes, who would turn on her and tear her to pieces in an instant if she didn't keep on doing this.

Sunset Shimmer was something of an ascetic -- she didn't really need a lot of luxury in her life, and though she'd enjoyed sharing the hedonism of the Palace at Canterlot with her Formerly Beloved Teacher, that hedonism itself had not been for her the main appeal of such an existence. Knowledge -- and power -- were the achievements Sunset had craved., and still craved.

Now, of course, she had -- for the first time ever, whether as Pony or Human -- something more tender in her life to which she could look forward. Flash was busy during that week -- he had a job and chores and responsibilities toward his family and his other friends, and Flash was a very responsible boy. It was one of the things about him which she admired, the sense of honor which was so civilized -- almost Equestrian.

All that week they had both been busy with their other tasks, so they had not been able to see each other, save for a hasty lunch and a scarcely less hasty dinner together, both short and for practical reasons not resulting in any intimacies beyond conversation, long gazes into each other's eyes, hand-holding and a few kisses and gentle caresses. Aside from that, they had to be satisfied with phone conversations, and flirtatious texts and e-mails.

But she was looking forward to the weekend. It was understood between them that he would come over again on Saturday -- they would have lunch together, then come back to her place and make more music -- and love.

Then, on Friday, Flash phoned her.

"Um -- there may be a change of plans on Saturday, if it's okay with you."

"Is everything all right, Flash?" she asked him. "Can we still get together?"

"Yes," Flash affirmed. "But maybe not at your place. At mine, instead."

"Wait," Sunset asked. Unlike many of the students at Canterlot High School, who rented rooms near the school during the school season, and sometimes stayed in them year-round, Flash actually lived with his family. "Is your family going somewhere on Satuday."

"No," came the surprising reply. "They want to invite you to dinner, Saturday evening. My parents want to get to know you better. 'A nice, long conversation with your girlfriend,' was what my Mom said."

And it was at that moment that Sunset Shimmer discovered that she was not, in fact, entirely fearless.

"Ulp," she said. "Um, I mean yes! Of course!"

She would have rather been facing a whole squad of mad warlocks.

Author's Note

Here we see Sunset going from the most romantic sort of hopes regarding, to the rationalization of bad treatment of Flash on her own part. She really should not have concealed those cameras; her claim of scientific necessity does not change the fact that this was an abusive thing to do to Flash. He didn't know that this was in part an experiment.

And she's saved from some of the potentially-bad consequences of her folly by the fact that her pet hacker wasn't as treacherous as she imagines the Humanoids to be in general.

Why, no. Sunset has never shown these notes to Twilight Sparkle. She has shown her edited versions of these notes which only discussed the musical portion of the experiments. Sunset Shimmer believes in Science, but her scientific honesty has its limits.

I'm sure all you fans find the idea of Sunset making sweet, sweet love to Humanoid-Trixie similarly laughable. Right?

Yes, Sunset thinks "Somepony" and "anypony" there. She often forgets, where Flash Sentry is concerned. She wants him to be a Pony stallion, very badly, at this point.

Careful, Sunset. You're actually foreshadowing the climax of Equestria Girls now.

The living-away-from-home-at 16-18 thing is one of the major cultural differences between the early 21st-century ATM North Amareican Federation and the early 21st-century United States of America. The children often begin separating earlier than in our world. Flash, by living at home at 17, might be accused of being a mama's boy. Sunset doesn't care.