The Alchemist and the Mirror

By the time that Sunset Shimmer arrived at her apartment building, shortly after dropping Rarity off, she was beyond frustrated. Her ire wasn’t even directed solely at Silver Script, whom had caused her no shortage of grief simply by playing the good Equestrian. Neither was she entirely bothered by her exploding inbox, as annoying as it was. No, against all odds, she was frustrated with herself, both present and past.

Despite what Silver had said about being unable to rely on her memories of the future, and her offer to help her remember a possible future, Sunset still found herself bothered by the fact that she hadn’t been able to predict an encounter with this unknown enemy. Had her past self simply not encountered this particular incursion, or was whatever spell she’d used to send her memories backward through time just that imperfect and incomplete? Every time she tried to remember something to come, she’d get either a blank or incomplete picture.

There was also the possibility, she had to remind herself, that her mind was trying to protect her from something. In her opinion, it seemed fairly unlikely that she herself was suppressing the memories, which was the only real case that she could see the mare-turned-woman actually being able to help. If that was the case, though, was there something that was so horrible that she shouldn’t remember?

Putting all that aside, there was no way that Principal Celestia hadn’t heard about Silver Script’s display at the mall; it was all over social media, as it had been for hours now, and the principal and vice principal were very well informed when it came to the social media goings-on when it involved her students. That she had yet to contact Sunset regarding this incident, especially after Sunset informed her of the presence of an Equestrian, was a small miracle.

The sound of an electric guitar riff sounded off from the smartphone clipped to her hip while she stood in the elevator up to her floor. Without even glancing at the display, she knew it was a text from Rainbow Dash. Bracing herself for the butchery of the written word that was surely Rainbow’s text message, she unclipped the phone from the case opposite of Silver’s bag of holding.

Sunset read, cringing slightly at the rushed message. As she prepared to type a reply, a second message came in.

Sunset’s palm met her face and she couldn’t hold back a loud sigh as she walked into her apartment. She almost wanted to tempt fate by asking if today could get any worse. Thankfully, she remembered that it could; Sonata Dusk was still in the bag of holding with Silver Script, so she was effectively bringing her former enemy into her home. If Rainbow Dash did come along, something would go wrong.

The thought occurred to her to try to facilitate a peaceful meeting so that they could all just clear the air, but she quickly put it aside. Rainbow was, if nothing else, hotheaded at times. Sunset didn’t know how the woman in the bag would react if confronted aggressively, and by her own admission she played for keeps. If it came to blows...

With that message sent, she shut off her phone, barring her from being notified of any more messages and let herself into her apartment. Sunset knew that if she explained what she meant now, Rainbow would only get more riled up, and in turn, the others would as well. The last thing she needed was everyone showing up on her doorstep while Sonata was still there.

Putting Silver’s bag on the counter, she opened the zipper and peered in. “We’re back, and we almost ended up having com—what...” She blinked, trying to process what she was seeing. Inside the bag, Sonata Dusk was without her top or bra, smearing some sort of salve all over her bruised front, while Silver Script worked it into her back. “What are you...?”

Sonata looked up, not bothering to cover up as she worked the lotion into her forearms. “Oh, hey, Sunset,” she greeted in a cheerful, if hesitant tone. “Did you know Miss Silver has all sorts of neat things in here? She’s got a salve that makes bruises go away, and a rock that makes whatever it’s dropped in not run out! Isn’t that cool? Oooh! Do you think it’d work on taco filling?”

“It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again,” Silver added in a sinister half-whisper, breaking into laughter at the end, as though it were all some strange joke. “Sorry, I’ve been waiting nearly twenty years for an opportunity to make that reference.” Her grin fell as she too looked up at Sunset. “Your peers did a real number on her, you know.” She shook her head and went back to rubbing the salve into the bruises on Sonata’s back. “I know she and her kindred goofed by trying to feed off the conflict they created with their innate talent to inspire, but you can’t rightly blame them for acting in their nature.”

Again, Sunset blinked, puzzling over Silver’s condemnation. “What do you mean?” she retorted, a hint of anger edging her voice. “Are you saying we should have let her, Aria, and Adagio get all that power and do nothing?”

The blue-haired girl shook her head as a look of pain and guilt spread across her face. “No, you guys were right to resist; we were power-hungry and needed to be stopped,” she answered, closing her hand over Silver’s as it grazed her shoulder. “It’s just, what you did to me and my sisters... it’d have been better if you killed us.”

Recoiling away from the bag opening as though she’d been slapped, Sunset’s blood ran cold. “What are you talking about? How would murdering them in cold blood made us any better than them.”

“Sirens are emotional manavores, Sunset Shimmer; they feed on, the energy generated by powerful emotions, not unlike the changelings,” Silver stated flatly, even as she handed Sonata her discarded top. “Their amulets are their magical cores, and as a unicorn who studied under princess Celestia, even you should understand what that means for Sonata here.”

Her legs gave out beneath her as Silver’s words began to impact her. Celestia had impressed upon Sunset the importance of magic to all life in Equestria; it was every bit as necessary for survival as eating, drinking, or even breathing. Magic wasn’t just some convenient force that gave ponies their race-based attributes and allowed magi to weave spells, but instead an energy that suffused every single thing that existed on their planet. Ponies whose magical cores had been damaged or otherwise prevented from processing any sort of magic often died as one would were they being starved.

Theoreticians postulated that ponies would likely die on a world without a sufficient magical field, but that couldn’t be the case here. This world couldn’t have had any real magic of its own until she brought the Element of Magic through the portal, and she had been living here for years without any ill effect; instead she’d thrived here. Surely that old theory was just bunk, right?

But if what Silver Script was saying were true, destroying the amulets prevented the Sirens from feeding on magic at all; as much as food might keep them alive in the short term, the three sirens were condemned to death the moment they lost. Sunset’s face fell into her palms as the realization hit her. Seeing how thin Sonata had become since last they’d met, her proclamation did make sense...

“How long did it take you to figure this out?” she asked, barely noticing as Silver Script extracted herself from the bag. “This doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a pony could just learn in all of fifteen minutes.”

Silver Script walked over to the fridge and opened up the freezer. “I didn’t,” she said softly. “I’ve treated a couple of freeman changelings in my time, and I understand the basic principles of manavores as a result. Sirens are a bit more obscure, and I never met one in person before today, but there are still plenty of materials on them.” She reached in and pulled out a tray of ice cubes. “Treating that is going to be another matter.”

Sunset turned to watch Silver, her hands falling to her lap, and her eyes widened upon seeing the ice-cube tray. “You might not want to do that,” she warned, watching as Silver put some in a glass began to fill the it at the sink. “Those—”

“Why the fuck would I not wanna help her?” she growled, giving Sunset a threatening glare. “Are you saying she deserves to die because of that?” Taking a pull from her tumbler of water, she looked back at the bag. “I have to at least—urp.”

She gagged and then belched a large bubble of soap. “What the fuck.” The look on her face was enough to make clear that it was not a question so much as a simple statement of disbelief. “No, seriously.”

Sunset’s face met her palm. “I think you’ve figured it out, but I was talking about the ice cubes, not Sonata,” she explained, taking the tray of ice and dumping it in the sink. “Rainbow and Pinkie pranked them a while back, and I was hoping to turn the joke back on them.” Her expression softened, and she looked to the bag as well. “Nopony should have to go through what she’s going through; by all means, help her if you can.”

~ 07 ~

For Sunset Shimmer, the next hour went by in a blur. It wasn’t that it was busy; rather to the contrary, she barely did much of anything. Sure, from her spot on the sofa she watched Silver Script enter and exit her bag of holding a few times, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and puzzled over the mischievous, almost Pinkie-esque smirk on her face. She was clearly up to something, and if Sunset had her head in the game, she might even have been a bit concerned. But no, her mind was elsewhere.

For much of that hour, she found herself looking over her journal, rereading all the exchanges she’d ever had with Princesses Celestia and Twilight. Silver Script’s words really struck deep, and she couldn’t help but be reminded of how she pitiful she felt after Twilight had purified her with the Elements of Harmony. At the same time, she felt so much worse. Sure, at that time, she’d been full of ill intent, but she’d never hurt or killed anyone. She hadn’t condemned three people to a slow, awful death.

She soon found herself writing a letter, despite the bridge between worlds having gone inert again. Sunset didn’t expect a response at all. Instead, she found herself just writing for the sake of getting her feelings out: it was for the therapeutic effect.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Having lived for thousands of years, you’ve had to make some hard choices, right? Some of those choices have likely even sentenced a few to death in order to protect many more. How do you live with it, knowing that your actions, despite their well intentions, can bring great suffering and misery to others?

A while back, Twilight, my friends, and I defeated the sirens that Starswirl banished to this world. They were gathering power, and breeding nothing but conflict with their ability; for the sake of the school, my peers, and this world, we used the magic of harmony to defeat them. All should be good, right?

I met one of them again today, and she was in miserable condition. She’s showing clear signs of mana deprivation, despite her human physiology, and she seems to think it would have been better if my friends and I had simply executed her. Why would the power of harmony magic shatter their magical cores like it did? What’s so harmonious about that? I feel... dirty, knowing that I brought someone so much suffering.

I don’t know what to think any more, Princess Celestia. I thought that we’d inherited this world’s equivalent of the Elements of Harmony, but what if the Element of Magic simply awoke some new magic attuned to the lot of us, and it has nothing to do with harmony? What, then, is this power we wield now?

Her hand trembled, and her pen slipped from her grasp. She stared at the last words she’d written, wanting desperately to finish her thought. What if I keep failing because I’m trying to wield a sword like a shield? Sunset didn’t want to admit that this might be the case, because if she did, she’d have to admit that taking another’s life might sometimes be necessary for her to protect those she cared about. It went against everything that Celestia, even if it seemed par for the course for humans, and it terrified her to think that this world could be changing, no, corrupting her.

“Here,” came a voice from her side as something cold nudged her arm. Somehow, without Sunset’s notice, Silver Script had taken a seat beside her, and was now offering a small glass of ice with some chocolate-brown liquid poured over it. “You looked like you could use something to take the edge off.”

Sunset accepted the glass, momentarily wondering how the woman had managed to make more ice so quickly, but thought better of it. She seemed like the sort to ‘walk off’ magical burn-out, as it were. Bringing the glass closer to her face, she paused; the scent of alcohol and coffee wafted up into her nose.

“You know I’m technically a minor, right?” Sunset asked, before shrugging and taking a sip. She raised an eyebrow at the creamy, sweet flavor of the beverage. “I’d have pegged you as a wine connoisseur.”

Silver waggled her hand and leaned back, sipping from a similarly filled glass. “You look old enough, and besides, with how much is in that glass, you’d have to be a field-mouse to get anything more than a buzz.” As though reconsidering her position, she leaned forward and set her elbows on her knees. “I dunno, I guess I figured I was due to make a sort of peace offering; I’ve been told that I lack tact, and I definitely saw that today when I bluntly told you what you guys basically did to that poor girl. I figured the least I could do is give you a chance to unwind. Both of us could do for it, to be fair.”

Though she imagined it made sense to Silver, the point was over Sunset’s head. “Where is Sonata, anyway?”

“There is nothing else I can do for her at the moment, so she’s gone back to her own apartment.” Brushing her bangs out of her face, she took another sip from her glass. “I’ve got some tests running on a shard she kept, and I might even be able to help her and her sisters. The rate of regrowth looks promising.”

With a nod, Sunset took a sip from her own cup. “That’s good,” she answered with a relieved sigh. “For all the trouble they caused, I never wanted them to die.”

The two sat in silence, sipping their liqueur. As much as she wasn’t fond of the burn the alcohol left in her throat, she couldn’t deny there was something pleasant about sitting here, drinking with Silver Script. Maybe it was the paradoxical warmth the drink brought to her cheeks, or the way Silver was, right then, treating her like an equal—an adult—rather than a kid, but it was... nice.

Yes, it was definitely nice to take her mind off the day’s events and revelations. Yet in spite of herself, Sunset could not bring herself to relax. Even though the woman exasperated her to no ends, the tired, unhappy look on Silver Script’s face made her want to ask her what was up, if only to get her to smile a bit. There was nothing that she could really say that would probably make her happy, but maybe she could take her mind off of it.

“Say, you mentioned being able to help me remember,” she said at random. That much was true. Though it honestly felt as though weeks had passed since the offer had been made, it had been mere hours. Would the former pony still be willing to help? “How would we go about doing that? Do you have some sort of potion in your bag of tricks there?” She gestured at the bag of holding that was once again at Silver’s hip.

Glancing down at her bag, Silver shook her head, and then, much to Sunset’s surprise, she actually did smile. “Nah, like a memory charm, those sorts of potions are only ever good when you’re trying to remember something that isn’t purposely hidden,” she said with a snort and the sort of tone she often heard the human Twilight using when explaining something she found amusing that you didn’t already know. “If there’s a mental block, it’ll cause more harm than good. Trust me; the mind isn’t something to be fucked with.”

From her bag, she produced a large indigo candle and a bronze lighter that was clearly griffon in make—that is to say it was made for someone who had digits, but bore unmistakable griffon designs. She casually set the candle on the table, and with a fluid flick of her wrist, flicked the lid open and lit the candle. No sooner had the wick lit did she slide the lighter back into her bag of holding.

“What don’t you have in that bag?” she muttered to herself. In a louder voice, she asked, “A candle?”

Rather than answer, Silver rose and crossed the room. Once at the lightswitch, she gave Sunset a shrug, plunging the room into an eerie indigo half-light. “Candle gazing is a means to achieve a meditative state,” she explained, crossing back over the room and draping herself across the back of the couch as a cat would. “Before I became proficient at doing it all with my mind’s eye, I used to use candles just like this.”

“And now?” Sunset’s eyebrow perked. “If you can do that all in your mind’s eye, why carry around the candles?”

The corner of Silver’s mouth curled upwards. “Who doesn’t like a nice, sensual, candle-lit bath?” she said, unable to stop herself from laughing. “Nah. Any good adventurer always carries a number of things, like at least fifty feet of rope, and a number of health potions. Don’t you ever read fantasy?”

Sunset didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, the redhead turned and fixed her gaze upon the flickering flame. “So how does this work?”

~ 07 ~

As I walk Sunset through the basics of a meditative, self-hypnotic trance, I observe a visible change in her demeanor. Since I came to this world, she’s always held herself like she’s carrying a too-large burden while she walks the razor’s edge, but now, that tension is gone. She no longer looks like she’s afraid of hurting someone or in turn being hurt. Instead, her shoulders have slack, and a soft, genuine smile is perking the corners of her mouth.

It hits me that, from her perspective, it has only been a few scant years since she abandoned the guidance of Celestia to seek power in this world. With all Twilight tells me she’s been through, Sunset’s probably able to look back at the times before she broke that bond with a newfound fondness. How many times did she sit alone with Princess Celestia, learning by candle-light?

“By this point, you should be deep enough to move into the real work,” I say, conscious of how my tone has slipped into an approximation of Celestia’s own soft, even voice. “Rather than force a construct and risk breaking your relaxation, let your mind construct the mental blockage into something you can interact with.” After a few more moments, a look of confusion takes her smile away. “Describe what you see.”

Though I know most of what’s going on is unconscious for her, it still takes her a while to answer. “I’m standing in a riverbed before a large dam. The sluice is blocked by a wall of ice, but there is a trickle of water coming over the top,” she says in near monotone. Her brow furrows, and her body is wracked by a momentary shiver. “I barely can see... my friends in the ice, like it’s a film on pause.”

Her friends, huh? That probably means the mental block has to do with the endgame scenario in the previous session. If so... “Sunset, you have a choice now. If what I suspect is true, you will see something terrible if you try to break the mental barrier. You might very well witness the deaths of your friends, and your past self.” I watch her expression as she battles the idea turning away. “You can turn away now, and decide that we don’t need to build upon the knowledge of the previous timeline, or you can face what is in store for you, and likely bear witness to your friends horrible demises in exchange for knowledge we otherwise might not have.”

Sunset lets out a drawn-out, shuddering breath before nodding. “I won’t let their sacrifices be in vain.”

~ One Won’t Be Forgotten ~

She’d been here before, Sunset realized suddenly. This intersection, which she’d passed through regularly on her way to school, was the very one she stood near at the countless ends of this world. It was almost funny to think that she’d be standing here again before the next doomsday, but then again, it was doomsday.

A rainbow ribbon of solid magic orbited her body, even as the light of the magical explosion faded. Even though she’d cast her spell, it occurred to her that it had always taken time for the spell to separate her consciousness from her body. What was worse was that her body had been almost completely unresponsive during the process; she remembered that much.

“Guh, this isn’t good,” she said, or had said. “I can’t move while the spell does its thing, girls, and I need more time.”

Sunset knew at once from their sad nods that they knew what she had asked of them, even before her past self had truly realized it. All of them took up position in front of her, interposing themselves between her and the unholy mass of writhing tentacles. Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were front and center, while Fluttershy and Rarity took up position behind them. Twilight, however, kept close to Sunset: her last line of defense.

As Rainbow, Applejack, and Pinkie kept the tentacles at bay, with their kicks, agility, and whatever they could temporarily weaponize, Fluttershy and Rarity conjured up magical projectiles reminiscent of their pony counterpart’s cutie marks. Diamond-shaped projectiles tore through any tentacles that attempted to flank the group, while the butterflies intercepted, shielding the others from grievous blows. The group actually worked really well as a team, Sunset came to see, despite how unprepared we all were and knowing they were all going to die...

This defensive display went on for many minutes before a roar of frustration erupted from the gaping maw still struggling to burst free of the portal. A tentacle, longer and thicker than any they’d yet seen, surged out of the rip in space, tearing into the nearest building. Even though its eyestalks had been destroyed, it clearly had no issue in the slightest determining where the group was.

Rainbow Dash was the first to react; though she was by no means a math prodigy like Twilight or Sunset, sports had given her an advantage in estimating trajectories on the fly, and didn’t like where the first volley of thrown projectiles were going. Spinning on the spot, she threw herself at Fluttershy, knocking the pink-haired girl back a number of feet. Inwardly, Sunset flinched as a piece of rebar caught Rainbow through the chest at an angle, pinning her atop an unharmed Fluttershy.

“Hfff, I got your back, Flutters,” she wheezed, even as blood trickled from the corner of her grinning mouth. Her breaths were incredibly labored, and there was no doubt that one of her lungs had been utterly destroyed in the attack. “Rainbow Dash never leaves... her friends...”

Sunset couldn’t look away as the tears welled in Fluttershy’s eyes; she’d once been told that Rainbow and Fluttershy had been friends since they were little, and now here her friend was slumped over her, dead before she could finish her boast. The pale girl’s hands came up and cradled Rainbow’s head to her bosom, even as a strangled sob worked its way out of her throat.

“Look out!” came Applejack’s warning.

Sunset tore her eyes from the scene just long enough to spot the large tentacle tearing into the sidewalk. This time, when it loosed its load, it didn’t seem to be bothering to aim; chunks of concrete rained down at random onto the group. In the end, it didn’t really need to aim anyway. With Fluttershy pinned beneath Rainbow, bereaved but otherwise unharmed, she couldn’t do a thing to escape.

Her friends all froze upon hearing the sickening crunch signifying the death of another friend. Even if none of them had looked directly at what had happened, it seemed as plain as day to them all what had happened. In the blink of an eye, the party had gone from six to four.

The first retaliation came from a most unlikely source: Rarity. With a most unladylike scream of “You fucking monster!” she began firing off diamond-bullets like a machinegun. Her firing was wild and mostly unaimed, but many a diamond struck one or more tentacles, cutting through them like butter. “She never hurt a soul, you heartless piece of shit!”

Emboldened by her rage, Rarity strode forward, ignoring the flailing tentacle that batted Pinkie through a storefront, seemingly intent on firing into the beast’s body from the edge of the crater. So blinded by tears and hatred was she that she didn’t even hear Twilight’s cry of warning as one of the barbed tentacles lashed out from the side, wrapping itself around her throat and digging into her face.

She was dead the moment those barbs sank into her throat, Sunset thought, watching as Applejack kicked at the appendage. Rarity let out a shrill scream that trailed off into a gurgle as AJ’s kicks began to force the tentacle to withdraw, ripping her face and throat. She didn’t stand a chance.

Out of the shop’s display window, Pinkie dove at the tentacle now holding Rarity’s body a foot off the ground. Swinging a makeshift poleax fashioned from a length of rebar and a huge meat cleaver, she cut cleanly through it. The indigo-haired girl dropped to the ground, unmoving but bleeding.

There was no time for Applejack and Pinkie to grieve the loss of another friend. Urged on by the fresh kill, the eldritch abomination seized the pair with as many tentacles as it could: two for every limb. In no time, the two girls were wrenched into the air above the crater, where they hung perilously above their death.

“Twilight, I need you to snap out of it!” Applejack yelled, despite the grip the thing had on her throat. “You gotta get Sunset outta here so her spell can finish and all this can be turned back!”

Jerking out of her shock at all of her friends dying, Twilight nodded. In a display of strength Sunset wouldn’t have thought possible for the girl, she swept the redhead up into a bridal carry and began to run. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, casting a glance back at Pinkie and Applejack. “This is all my fault.”

Sunset Shimmer couldn’t see the deaths happen, as Twilight’s body was between them, but the wet ripping sound that filled the air and the screaming told her all she needed to know. Rather than eat both of them whole, the duo had been torn into pieces.

Her vision began to dim as her consciousness began to part from her previous body. As her senses become more and more vague, she became conscious of the fact that she was crying, and that Twilight was crying too. Before the memory came to an end, she could make out just one more thing. “This all happened because of me.”

~ 07 ~

“You’re sure those were her exact words?” I ask curiously after listening to Sunset’s account of the events. “‘This is all my fault,’ and ‘This all happened because of me?’”

Sunset nods, wiping tears from her eyes with a handkerchief for the fifth time. “I’m not sure if she was talking about them all dying, because she froze up, or if she was talking about something else.”

I extract my bottle of coffee liqueur from my bag and take a pull from it, not bothering with a glass. “Fuckin’ hell,” I whisper. “I thought what I saw in the dream was awful, but to actually see that happen.”

Now, I already have my own theory as to why Twilight might actually think she’s responsible for all of this, but Sunset’s clearly distraught by having seen all that. I’m not about to postulate that her friend is literally responsible for all of that happening because her fuckery with magic opened the door to something interested in this world. I’m not about to announce that Twilight brought the destroyer of worlds to their doorstep.

“Did it work, though?” I ask, wiping excess alcohol off my lips. “Did you get any memories back?”

Sunset sits there for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought. She nods to me, slowly. “We have a little over a week before the next attack,” she says numbly before unclipping her phone and flipping through her contacts. “Unfortunately, you and I are going to have to have a sit-down with Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, and Dean Cadance.”

I blink upon hearing Cadance’s name. “I thought you said she worked at Crystal Prep Academy.”

“She does, and that’s why she’s gotta be read in on this.” Sunset puts the phone to her ear. “The next attack is going to be at the Friendship Formal, an interschool event that has been in the works for months to promote better relations between our schools. It’s being held at Crystal Prep.”