Of Dreams and Magic

“Twilight!” cheered Sunset. She rushed forward and swept her friend up into a hug so quickly it left Twilight double-tapping Sunset’s shoulder for air. Sunset let her go as Twilight nervously chuckled while she backpedaled a couple steps.

“I am so glad to see you,” sighed Twilight as she wiped away her tears. “Not that I’m not normally glad to see you, but this… all of this has been so insane. Sunset, I…”

A hoarse cough interrupted the two as the injured man breathed heavy and clutched his side and injured arm. He smiled sadly as he said, “Ah, don’ mind me, you lasses. I can live a minute while y’all reconfirm each other is alive. This ain’t an easy fight for youngsters.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, sir. Um, give me one moment and I’ll have you safe as you can be,” said Twilight. A black light hovered at her fingertips; she slashed with a hand downwards. Underneath the injured man another rift tore itself into existence. He sank into it instantly with a startled and then relieved expression. Once the man was entirely gone the rift snapped shut with a soft puff of displaced air.

“He’ll be safe, right?” asked Sunset. She glanced between the rubble in the far corner of the room and the spot where the injured man was. Not wanting to be in here any longer Sunset grabbed Twilight’s hand and led her out of the room. “Let’s go outside to talk.”

“Yes, I, um, I portaled him to the medical ward. There were a few very tough shielders blocking any of Behemoth’s attacks there. He should be fine. Well, I mean, he’ll live. Fine is subjective in this situation.” rambled Twilight as she followed Sunset.

“This is just all so insane. I’ve never witnessed anything like this at all, not even in my own worst nightmares.” Twilight took a breath of fresh air as the two stumbled out of the crumbling building and into a wide, cracked street. “I… there aren’t words for this. Well, there are words but how can you describe something like this in totality? I’ve read numerous history books about wars and the experience of battle. Several biographies detail how soldiers felt and what they went through, but I just…

“Sunset, I’m scared.”

The pit of Sunset’s stomach squirmed. Sometimes she forgot how peaceful living in the human world can be even with the occasional magical incident. Her own training and experiences in Equestria have included fighting back monsters and ancient evils, but this was enough to wear her nerves down to threads and make her doubt her own sanity. Seeing Twilight step through that portal gave her world a foundation, to help fight back those doubts that crawled into her mind.

Sunset pushed all those worries and doubts down inside her. She couldn’t burden one of her best friends with that while they were suffering the same and worse. “Remember who you are. You’re Twilight Sparkle, a brilliant girl who is helping someone she barely knows fight back a demon no one knows anything about. This… this is all just a dream. A nightmare that we’ll beat. I promise.”

Twilight stared directly into Sunset’s eyes. “Is it really just a dream? Is this… this place a figment of unconsciousness? Is it really that simple?”

The thoughts Sunset pushed down started to bubble to the surface.

“Was that guy I sent away imaginary? Is this whole battle not real?” Twilight cried as she gripped her own arms tightly. “I… have memories. My name is Spring Dew, I live at home with my mother and uncle. I go to school and have many friends who share my interests. The visit to the observatory, a trip to the creek; I see their faces and hear their voices.

“My name is also Starfall. I-I’m a hero that works in natural disasters. I help save people from places that aren’t immediately accessible. Years of this all stuffed into my mind alongside another. Another me named Twilight Sparkle.” She hid her face beneath her hands and crouched against an empty car. “I don’t know what to do.”

Explosions flashed in the distance as the resulting warm wind washed over the two girls in the street. All those feelings Sunset ignored tried to overtake her, some of them were the same worries Twilight was having, but she forced them deep down. Sunset had to be strong right now in order to support her friend. She knew there would be time later for her own tears, but not while her friend was in need.

Sunset slouched against the car right next to Twilight and gently pulled the girl in with a one-armed hug. “I don’t have the answers to that. This… maybe this is what Trixie was referring to. Maybe not, but Twilight. I’m here with you, and we both know who we really are. Whether this world is real or not, whether it’s a dream or we’re both crazy, we’re both here. Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer.

“The real question is do you care?”

Twilight sniffed as she peeked between her hands at Sunset’s face. “Care?”

Voices yelled in the distance accompanied by a monster’s roar. The hexagonal force field grid up above blinked furiously as it tried to stay lighting up the night sky. A quiet crackle of static as the communications buzzed with a pleasant lady’s voice ordering about all the available heroes.

Sunset ran a hand over her helmet and down through the hair flowing out the back. “Yes. I don’t know what you’ve done or seen, but everything you have was a choice you made. Do you regret doing those actions? Is it meaningless to you to save people fighting this battle?”

Twilight sat up straight quickly and furiously shook her head. “No, no, of course not!”

“Then you care.” Sunset smiled at her friend. “And no matter what this all is, you know who you are and who you want to be.”

The two girls stared at each other for several moments in silence before Sunset stood up. Her own words settled the feelings inside herself. “And no matter what name I go by, I know I’m not the type of girl to stand on the sidelines of a battle I could be helping in. I’m not asking you to join me, Twilight. It’s scary, terrifying even, to fight.”

Twilight slowly stood up and slapped her cheeks lightly twice. “No, you’re right. If we’re here then that means Trixie and Lemon Zest are somewhere in this disaster. I can’t forget why we’re here in the first place. If this is the nightmare that Lemon is to face, I won’t let her face it alone.”

“We won’t,” said Sunset.

They nodded to each other. A crackle of static buzzed in both their ears as the comms flared on.

“Pyrebright, head to the front lines. We lost Flamespire and need a heavy fire attacker. Starfall, move her and get over to the Steel Stadium. There’s two injured to recover. Long Arch out.”

“As quick and precise as usual. Would you, Twilight?” Sunset stepped a few feet away.

Black light hovered around Twilight’s fingertips as she slashed downwards ripping a portal in the air beside them. “Sunset… thanks. Be careful though, we don’t know if what happens to us here has any consequences or not. Something I think I will remind Trixie of when we go back home.”

Sunset rolled her shoulders as she prepared to fight. “I agree, but I can’t say she’s at fault. Maybe she didn’t know, or maybe it’s hard to explain and put into words. She did tell us it wouldn’t be pleasant.”

Twilight huffed. “There’s a difference between unpleasant and mentally scarring. Be safe, and we’ll meet again. Promise.”

“Promise,” said Sunset. “Also it’s hard not to meet again when you have portal powers!” Sunset genuinely laughed away her fears as she jumped through the rift.

Sweat formed nearly instantly as the stale and scorched air hit her hard when she stepped foot onto the broken asphalt. What remained large square park she stood beside wasn’t enough to render is recognizable. The trees were naught but broken husks or ashes underfoot. Stone and brick buildings alike were crushed, frozen, slagged or hovering in midair in a golden hue as time itself halted its destruction.

The cacophony of yells of all ages shocked her into action. Towering over everything amidst the ruined park was Behemoth. Now that she was up close and personal it was even more monstrous than she had thought. It was five times her height and twice that long as it shambled around on four thick legs. One of the frog eyes stared at her desynced from the other two.

“Down!” someone yelled.

Sunset quickly drew in a large wall of air in front of her. Unsure of what the warning meant she wasn’t going to stand there. The air exploded inches away from her. While the heat didn’t harm her the physics of it didn’t ignore her either. She was blasted back several feet from where she was and was sent rolling across the ground. In a hurry she got back to her feet to witness a green laser streak from the frog eye and incinerate the ground where she had once stood.

“Quit gawking and blast it,” yelled that same female voice.

“Right. I got this,” muttered Sunset. An air javelin formed in her hand before she took off sprinting around the side of Behemoth. When she got around to its flank she threw the javelin and let it impact the thick leg before combusting it. The explosion shook everything around it leaving a large burn mark on the leg, but little else.

Behemoth turned slightly enough for the eye to lock back onto her again. It began to gain a green hue signaling another laser attack, but before it could the ruins of a car impacted it as fast as a bullet. The screech of metal sent shivers down her back, but in response she formed a heavy and dense air sphere. With an effort she sent it whizzing up to the eye just as the car was about to fall and ignited the sphere.

The explosion warped and fused the ruins of the car to the eye leaving it red and glowing from the heat. Behemoth roared in pain, anger, or whatever emotion it was feeling. Sunset would’ve bet on anger as it spun around so fast she barely had time to dodge a claw from taking off her head.

“Jeez, what’s this thing made of?”

An older tanned gentleman with a half-singed top hat, broken monocle and wearing tuxedo suit with numerous burn holes in it landed beside her. “Ma’am, we need your firepower concentrated on the shell. We need to break it if we’re to finally kill this damned beast.”

He held out a showman’s magic wand in one hand, his singed top hat in the other, and tapped it twice. With a small flourish a cannon as large as Sunset dropped out from under it. When he pulled the tug string at the base it shot a pair of manacles out large enough to clasp together two of Behemoth’s legs. The beast was strong, but this surprise entanglement caused the massive monstrosity to trip on itself and collapse atop its stomach.

“What do I do?” asked Sunset as she pointed at the shell. It was currently the colors yellow and green signaling its immunity to fire and acid.

“I will try and get a companion of an opposing element to maintain assault on it long enough for it to shift its defenses,” said the magician. He crawled into his own cannon, lit the fuse, and gave a salute to Sunset. “When it changes try to destroy a section of the shell. We’ve made a lot of breakthroughs, but we lost our last firepower. Godspeed.”

In a surprisingly quiet explosion the cannon shot the magician at least a hundred feet across the park over to the top of a half-standing building. There was a blue and white suited fellow just short of where the magician landed.

“Alright, we have a plan.”