Chapters It was a beautiful night in Equestria, and in the Castle of Friendship, Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends were fast asleep, driven to utter exhaustion by their latest work day. Of course, when you had to learn how to take over the duties of the princesses, just about anybody would be left exhausted every day.
During this peaceful sleeping session, however, a portal opened, making a sound that prompted the princess to partially wake up.
"Ugh, Spike, what is it?" Twilight asked, rubbing her eyes. "I already told you to stop making weird sounds to-"
But the alicorn shut up once she saw she wasn't talking with Spike, but to a portal. A portal that had a very dark purple interior, as well as either a bunch of eyes inside it, or portals shaped like eyes. And as if that wasn't disturbing enough, a shadowy figure rose up from within the portal.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle?"
Twilight flinched and looked around, before she sheepishly pointed at her self.
In response, the shadowy figure opened their eyes and leaned forward, until they came out of the portal, still holding their shadow-cloaked form.
"Yes, you, silly. Is there any other Twilight Sparkle who's as experienced in magic as you?"
Having her ego stroked, Twilight's nerves and concerns about the mysterious figure, were slightly pushed back as she stood up, yawned, and dusted herself. "W-Well, no, but I'm not exactly one who's very welcoming of mysterious shadowy figures, especially not ones who know who I am."
And then, she realized something. "Wait a minute, how do you know who I am?"
"The boundary between the known and unknown is one of my favorite boundaries to practice with," the figure answered with a lighthearted chuckle. "Right behind the boundary between inexperience and mastery, of course."
The figure took out one of their arms, and revealed a card in their hand. "Regardless, I wanted to show this to you..."
Twilight grabbed the card with her wing and took a closer look at it. However, the card was completely blank on both sides: a completely white front, and while the black had a strange symbol surrounded in darkness, it still gave Twilight no hint as to what it was.
"Well, this is an... interesting object you're showing me, but uh... what is this thing?"
The figure slowly flashed a wide, sinister smile, which Twilight was quick to notice.
"Okay, that smile's making me trust you even less."
At Other-Questria, Sunset Shimmer walked to a spot in the public park, looking at the scenery as she waited for a certain someone from Equestria to arrive.
"This is the place Princess Twilight told me to meet her, right?"
"Yes, it is."
Sunset jumped, ponified immediately, and shot a magic blast at whoever said that. This whoever was, of course, Princess Twilight, who caught the blast with her hand and slowly contorted it into a smaller, weaker form, until she crushed it on her fist.
"S-Sorry, Twilight," Sunset sighed. "I swear, that's never happened to me before."
"It's okay, that happened to me a few times before, too," Twilight scratched her chin. "In fact, I remember Starlight telling me she suffered the same thing during her vacation in this world. Is that true?"
"Yeah, she definitely had the same kind of problem, though she didn't exactly ponify like we do," Sunset folded her arms. "Dragons, griffins, flash sentry, she seemed to transform into everything but a type of pony-"
"That sounds interesting, but we don't have time to think about that," Twilight reached for her back. "I called you today in order to show you this."
Twilight took out the card the figure handed her last night, only this time, the object had changed: the back was mostly the same, only the symbol was replaced by Twilight's cutie mark. As for the front, it had Twilight, her horn glowing, while a large, concentrated sphere of magical energy, similar to the one she charged while fighting Tirek.
"Magic can be sealed inside objects, right?" Twilight mused as Sunset grabbed the card. "How about, we catch some of the magic, concentrate it into a form that can be contained in this little card, and have it?"
Sunset raised an eyebrow, trying to wrap her head around the concept. "You mean, like spellbooks, but in the form of cards?"
"Yeah, something like that!" Twilight answered, snapping her fingers twice as she tried to further explain herself. "And when someone uses the card, it summons a particular spell exclusive to the user!"
"But the only people who can cast spells are unicorns and alicorns, and between our friends, only I, Rarity, and both you and your counterpart would be able to cast them, let alone use them," Sunset pointed out. "What could we do with the pegasus and the earth ponies, and their counterparts, who don't have access to magic like we do?"
"Well, what if the creation of this new system revolved around the three races?"
Twilight and Sunset turned around to see the voice had come from another portal, this one sporting the internal purple and eye-filled design of the one that visited Twilight last night.
From this portal came out a peculiar character, a woman, that caused both girls to take a defensive stance. The woman, however, didn't seem to notice their defensive stances.
If anything, she was amused they were this shaken.
"How kind of you to forget me, Your Highness."
Twilight recognized the voice, causing her to drop her guard as the woman took a couple more steps, showing her full form.
"I guess I can't be too surprised. It was such a lovely, obscure night, you probably figured I was nothing more than a dream." The woman smirked. "Or, going by your concern during our conversation, perhaps a nightmare."
"Twilight, who's this woman?!" Sunset asked, still standing her guard.
"The name is Yakumo." The woman curtsied. "Yukari Yakumo."
Then, she stood up, and flashed a little smile.
"And I'm here to lend you a hand."
Sunset Shimmer lowered her guard, not all the way through, as she processed the revelation. Mostly the fact that Twilight had met this Yukari woman before.
"Twilight, did something happened between you and this woman?" Sunset asked, quickly placing the pieces together as she glanced at the card again. "Was she the one who gave you the card?"
"Yep, that was me," Yukari answered. "However, I only gave her the card while it was still a blank card: basically a blank slate, from which she could shape it however she wanted, through science, through alchemy..." Yukari smiled wide with a hint of smugness. "Through magic."
Sunset turned back to Twilight as she explained herself. "Yukari here appeared to me with a blank card, and she told me that it was possible to alter this thing with my magic. So, I concentrated some of it here, and it changed accordingly. I didn't really expect it to turn into that spell, though."
"Of course," Yukari blurted, getting Sunset and Twilight's attention. "I'm not someone who'll just give you something and then leave you alone to figure out the finer details yourself. I'm going to give you a little rundown on how the spellcard works."
Yukari opened a portal, grabbd its edges, and spread them wide until she could shove both herself, Sunset, and Twilight into it, taking them into another world... or more accurately, some kind of void, with the same eye-portals Twilight saw before.
"What is this place?" Sunset asked as Twilight clung to her arm.
"This is an artificial realm I created using the boundary between chaos and existence, grabbing the chaos, adding some necessary things to make sure living things could... well, live here, and boom, brand new world for me to reside whenever I'm traveling dimensions!"
Yukari opened her umbrella and flew up, before she seemingly sat in the middle of nothing, a pair of bars appearing above her: a small, Red one, and a much longer White one.
"Now, allow me to explain the basics. You can have a set of spellcards in your hand at a time, but you can only use those spellcards for a limited number of times before they run out of energy. Of course, once they run out, there's a way to recharge them..."
Yukari summoned a knife, and threw it, forcing Sunset to push Twilight away and move back, narrowly missing the knife. This was signaled by a grazing sound, as well as some blue powerup-things appearing out of thin air and being absorbed by Sunset.
"We call that grazing: essentially, it's you narrowly dodging incoming bullets to summon and absorb the energy in order to recharge the spellcard. Of course, since the spellcard you have hasn't been used yet, grazing is mostly unnecessary."
"I see, I think I understand what you mean," Sunset smiled. "Once the spellcard runs out of juice, if I graze long enough, I'll be able to use it again, right?"
"Yes." Yukari smirked and looked elsewhere. "From a certain point of view."
Sunset raised an eyebrow, only to find herself and Twilight ponified from Yukari's finger snap.
"Now, let's have a little fight to see if you understand: you'll use the spellcard, drop the bars above me, and then we'll have an endurance test with one of my own spellcards. If you deplete both bars, or survive the time limit of my spellcard, you win."
Yukari flashed a threatening smile.
"But if you lose your patience or all of your lives, I win. Now, let the game begin!"
Sunset flinched, realizing she wasn't being given any chance to prepare for the fight, but nonetheless took a deep breath and used the spellcard from Twilight.
- Alicorn Sign, [Collapsing Star of Concentrated Fury] -
Sunset began charging the giant energy ball pictured in the card, the sphere growing bigger and bigger as Sunset started growing more and more taxed trying to hold the sphere in place.
"Sunset!"
Twilight flew to Sunset's side and helped her take on the overwhelming size and strength of the sphere, which grew to its biggest, sun-sized form as Yukari put her hand inside a portal, and took out a bag of popcorn.
Once the sphere was at its biggest, Sunset and Twilight aimed the sphere in front of them, and screamed as they shot a giant magic beam at the portal user, covering her completely in the concentrated magic.
However, as the beam started to fade and the white bar above Yukari rapidly depleted, Yukari herself leisurely ate her popcorn, looking barely fazed at the attack.
When the attack finally ended, Yukari
"Decent light show, Sunset Shimmer. But I'm afraid that it's my turn now."
- Childish Sign, [ The Monkey That Tested the Buffalo's Patience] -
Yukari summoned two things: a small monkey-like figure made out of knife-shaped bullets, as well as a buffalo made out of ordinary bullets, who roared as the monkey flew to Sunset's side, pestering her as the buffalo ran up to Sunset, the girl narrowly dodging the rampaging buffalo as the monkey continued pestering her.
Thus began the countdown... starting at 99 seconds.
"Um, Sunset, maybe we should swap?" Twilight asked once she saw the countdown.
"No, Twilight, we agreed that I would be the one to face off against Yukari," Sunset replied, making sure to watch the bullet monkey. "I know I have anger issues, but trust me, I can control me this time!"
The monkey jumped on Sunset's head, causing her to explode into powerups, before regenerating back then and there with one life less.
"What just happened?!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Yukari asked with a condescending smile. "A single hit from any kind of bullet will cause you to burst into powerups before regenerating you on the spot. Of course, this can only happen a couple times at best; in your case, you have four lives left."
The buffalo ran over Sunset.
"You have three lives left."
Sunset groaned and stood up, the monkey nearly touching her before she jumped away, then put her hand on the non-existent ground and leaped before the buffalo could run her over again, causing both the buffalo and the monkey to crash into each other.
Sunset's smirk, however, only lasted until both constructs burst into their component bullets, which flew all over the place, forcing Sunset to move everywhere to try avoid them. Unfortunately, Sunset tripped, and a bullet hit her, making her blow up and regenerate on the spot... without any invincibility, proven when a bullet hit her again, making her blow up again, rise and repeat one last time to signal her defeat.
So, Sunset basically blew up thrice. Spike would definitely have a field day with that one.
"I believe that'll be enough." Yukari snapped her fingers and the bullets dissipated as the dimension also vanished, returning the girls back to Other-Questria.
Once back, Sunset remained on the ground, looking stern as she tried to process the fact she lost by being hit in the same spot three times.
She didn't even get to shoot an attack!
In fact, now that she thought about it, the spellcard Yukari used was more than likely supposed to be as infuriating as possible. Perhaps that was the reason Twilight wanted to swap with her.
Then again, considering the atmosphere the self-proclaimed youkai gave off, the duo probably had very little chance of defeating her without the handicaps she provided.
"Bravo!"
Sunset flinched and stood up as she heard someone clapping wildly with a little laughter. It wasn't Twilight, since she turned to her to see the princess not only looking just as baffled, but shaking her head at Sunset.
The person turned out to be Yukari, who giggled some more as her clapping slowed down.
"You certainly lasted longer than I expected!" Yukari chirped as she walked up to Sunset. "I figured you'd give up after the first couple times I made you explode into powerups, like everybody else!"
Yukari patted Sunset's back strongly as she looked at Twilight. "You got a keeper here, Princess Twilight!"
"Y-Yeah, I know," Twilight remembered something and grabbed her card from Sunset again. "But wait, Sunset can make her own card, right? Just asking, because she seemed to be having a bit of trouble casting the spell."
"The card was made specifically to be used by you, Your Highness; truth be told, it's a miracle the spell didn't fall apart as soon as she cast it," Yukari explained, resting her chin on her palm. "Unfortunately, the blank card I gave you was the only one I was carrying on my person. If she wants to make her own card, she'll have to go to my home dimension to get one."
"Is that really necessary?" Sunset asked as she got up with Twilight's help. "Can't you just open a portal and grab a blank card from there?"
"I could, but that would bring unforeseen consequences," Yukari shrugged and shook her head once. "Like, I grab a blank card that someone else was about to use: now you'll have to worry about eventually meeting and facing this enraged individual, who could be anything from a fairy to a god, with much more knowledge about spellcards than both of you combined."
Sunset and Twilight gulped, and reunited, Twilight being the first one to speak. "She has a point in that trying to get a blank card through portals could be a bad idea, but neither of us have any idea what her dimension's like: only that it has fairies and gods in there, which doesn't calm me in the slightest."
"I understand your concern, Twilight, but if this is to introduce a new system for the human world, it might be worth a shot," Sunset argued before she pointed at herself. "And besides, I think only I need to make the trip there. I'm the one who needs a spellcard, after all."
"Sunset..."
Sunset separated from Princess Twilight, turned to Yukari, and put her hands on her hips as she stated, "Yukari, I'll go to your world."
Yukari smiled wide, almost maliciously so, before she flipped her fan and summoned a portal underneath Sunset, who barely realized what happened before she fell through the portal, which closed just as Twilight tried to chase after her.
"Don't worry, Your Highness, I made sure your friend would land in a safe spot," Yukari spoke with a friendly tone. "Now, concerning your person..."
Yukari hid her lips behind her fans and lowered her eyelids.
"I think it's time you got your own, private lesson."
On Yukari's home dimension, Sunset fell on top of a bush near a rectangular shrine, with a donation box placed in front. Ugh, well, that was a shock. Looks like that Yukari woman sent me to some shrine.
Sunset walked up to the donation box, and saw it was mostly empty. An unpopular shrine, judging by this box right here. Now that I think about it, why leave the box in such a vulnerable state, where thieves could steal whatever's inside of it?
Sunset flinched. Actually, maybe this shrine is more popular than I think and the box's nearly empty because thieves. Regardless, I guess I should do something nice while I'm here.
Sunset reached for her pocket, took out a couple bits, and put them on the donation box, seemingly also summoning a voice that snapped, "Hold it! Raise your arms and state how you got here!"
"I-I came here thanks to a youkai called Yukari," Sunset answered as she raised her arms and slowly turned around. "She shoved me into a portal and-"
Sunset saw a girl wearing a red sleeveless priestess outfit, aiming a card similar to Twilight's card, looking quite confused herself.
"Wait a minute... Yukari sent you here?"
Sunset sat at the table on the living room of the priestess' house, the priestess sitting on the other side of the table as she processed the information Sunset had told her.
"Okay, so, if I'm getting this correctly: you're a unicorn from a land filled with magical talking ponies, who jumped through a portal and landed on the human world. You stayed in that world for years, and without warning, Yukari came up to a princess of the pony world you're from, and after kicking your butt in a danmaku fight, she sent you here in order to get a blank card?"
Sunset scratched the back of her head with a sheepish smile. "Yeah, now that you say it like that, it does sound pretty weird, doesn't it?"
The priestess rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Girl, my world out-weirds both of your worlds by a mile. There's nothing to be embarassed about."
The priestes took a sip of her tea. "And besides, I'll take this moment to give you some advice: try not to put too much trust on Yukari. She may seem nice on the outside, but she's a youkai; her thought process is not something a human or a pony-turned-human can understand."
"Trust me, I already got that impression from her," Sunset took a sip of her tea. "My name is Sunset Shimmer, by the way. What's yours?"
"Hakurei Reimu, or Reimu Hakurei, going by your world's naming order," Reimu answered with a little smile. "And another thing I have to tell you is that, whatever money you put inside the donation box is sadly mostly useless; I can convert it to Gensokyo currency, but on its own, it's worthless."
"Gensokyo... that's the name of this place?"
"Yeah, you're right now in Gensokyo; a world hidden from the outside world, and any other world, through the Great Hakurei Barrier. Although, judging by what you told me, Yukari wants Gensokyo to not stay hidden from your world, if not merge them together."
"Really? That's not the impression I got," Sunset put her arms behind her head and leaned back. "She seemed more like she wanted to help introduce a hybrid system between Gensokyo's spellcards and my world's magic-"
"Again, her thought processes can't be understood by humans or ponies, you have to keep your guard up at all times," Reimu took a deep breath. "Anyway, you need a blank card in order to try create your own spell card, right? I can help you with that."
"Really?!" Sunset chirped.
"Yeah, there's a guy here in Gensokyo that sells a lot of stuff, I'm sure blank cards should be among his merchandise," Reimu answered as she stood up. "However, I'll have to ask you to stay right here while I go get. No offense, but you could probably cause a scandal if you go out like that."
"Because I look like absolutely alien in a world that seems to be like an interdimensional Feudal Japan?"
"No, because your lack of headwear makes your head look naked. Anyway, stay here, I'll be back in a moment."
Reimu left, and Sunset rested her chin on the edge of the table as she thought about her situation: In less than five minutes, she had the idea of a magic system brought to her, faced off against some kind of interdimensional monster, sent to another dimension that was vastly more medieval compared to the human world, and was told her bareheadedness would make a scandal in this place called Gensokyo.
Overall, it was only a slightly weirder day than usual.
Regardless, Sunset took a deep breath and stood up, taking a look around the living room to see what it had to offer: a modest table with a tea set, old-styled windows for doors, a moving closet-
Wait, a moving closet?
Sunset walked closer to the moving furniture, and stopped just before its doors burst open, unleashing a bunch of clothes as well as some horned creature that burst out of the clothes to reveal herself as an orange-headed horned girl.
"G' mornin' to tha world!" she chirped, moving left to right with half-open eyes. "'As Gensokyo 'rought a new girl t'day?"
"Okay, I have no idea what you were doing inside there, but you should probably get up before that shrine maiden comes back," Sunset said as she helped the horned girl stand up, only to drop her when she sniffed her breath. "Ugh, you reek of cider! What were you drinking!?"
The girl reached for her back and took out a sake bottle as big as her, which she promptly leaned towards Sunset, trying to get her to drink it.
"I don't want your bag of whatever that is!" Sunset snapped, pushing the bottle back. "I want to know who-"
The horned girl immediately leaped forward and got the top of the bottle on Sunset's mouth, forcing her to drink it until she took it out. Sunset would've complained about this... if she didn't immediately fall to the highly "interesting" contents of the bottle.
"Wow, that's some heavy stuff! I think I'm starting to see some colors where they shouldn't be, or maybe it's just a kaleidoscope? Regardless, I don't think I'll last long in this-"
Sunset suddenly dropped to the ground and fell unconscious.
A half hour later, Sunset woke up to see the horned girl and Reimu looking at her, the former looking vastly sober than before, while the latter looked fairly unimpressed.
"W-What happened?" Sunset asked.
"Suika here chose to give you a little Oni-styled greeting with her sake bottle," Reimu said, before shooting a look at the horned girl. "Even though I told her not to do that unless the visitor's an oni too!"
"I wasn't really sober when I saw her, so I must've gotten confused," Suika said, gently hitting herself in the head. "My bad!"
"Well, as long as nothing bad happened while I was asleep, I accept your apology," Sunset said as she stood up. "Anyway, Reimu, did you get the blank card?"
Reimu reached for her back, and took out the card itself, showing its blank front immediately. "It took quite a lot of haggling, but I managed to get one."
Sunset sighed in relief and reached for the card... only for Reimu to pull it back.
"Now, just because I got you the card doesn't mean I'll give it to you with no strings attached," Reimu answered as she saved the card on her pockets. "I want you to do something for me in exchange."
Sunset folded her arms. "Well, okay, what do you want?"
"You see, the Hakurei Shrine is... not a very popular spot: I have a very hard time gathering faith towards it, and most of the time, the money in the donation box is only able to help me scrape by. I would like that to change with your help."
Sunset raised an eyebrow.
"I want you to take one of the priestess outfits in my closet, take it with you to your world, and give some promotion to the shrine, see if doing that can help me get a couple more donations."
"But my world and Gensokyo are separate, right? It's not like they can just teleport here and back whenever they want. Heck, I don't know if I can teleport back to my world."
"As far as we know, Yukari could end up giving your world a pathway to Gensokyo. If she ends up doing that, you giving the shrine some promotion will surely help me increase my life standard a slight bit!"
Sunset thought about the proposal, and quickly came to the only conclusion she could make. "Fine, I'll do it."
Reimu smiled and handed the blank card to Sunset. "Be sure to grab and put on an outfit before you return to your world."
"Yeah, got it," Sunset looked at the card. "Alright, so, all I need to do is focus my magical energy on this card, right?"
Reimu nodded. "That's all you got to do."
Sunset snapped her fingers and summoned a small sphere of yellow magical energy, which she edged closer to the card as Reimu and Suika watched intently.
"Okay then, let's give this a shot..."
Back in Other-Questria, Princess Twilight was on her knees, catching her breath while Yukari, sitting in the air and sipping a cup of tea, looked over her with a smile. "Very well done, Your Highness! You lasted even longer than your friend did!"
Twilight, however, didn't have enough breath to reply back, so she simply gave the youkai a thumbs up. This was before Yukari helped her stand up, and she opened a portal in front of her, which she moved and manipulated for a bit before she closed it, Princess Twilight feeling perfectly fine soon afterwards.
"I... I feel fine now... almost as if we hadn't fought at all!" Twilight remarked, looking at her hands to see all her bruises were gone. "What did you do?"
"I manipulated the boundary between exhaustion and physical fitness in order to heal you," Yukari casually explained, almost as if she did this often. "I moved it for a bit and removed your exhaustion."
"With this kind of power, you could potentially start a fight, heal your enemy or ally, and continue fighting forever," Twilight said, clenching her fists before she turned to Yukari with a wide smile. "Could we hang out later together so I can test the limits of your abilities?"
Yukari flew to Twilight, put her hand on her chin, and leaned closer to her face as she said with a sultry tone, "Miss Your Highness, are you flirting with me?"
Twilight blushed and backed away. "N-N-N-Not at all! I'm just very interested in seeing what your boundary-manipulation technique is capable of! I-I mean, it just seems like such a ridiculously useful ability!"
"Oh, it pretty much is. And dont get me wrong, I'd love to help you find out more about it," Yukari replied. "But the more power one gains, the more mad they grow. And I don't feel comfortable leaving the fate of the new system on the hands of a madwoman."
"Right, I guesx I was a bit too excited at the prospect, hehe," Twilight twiddled her fingers. "So, what do we do now?"
"We need to spread the word about the incoming system; the more people know, the less the scandal that'll happen when it's eventually implemented," Yukari explained, taking a few steps and looking around the scenery as she aded, "Do you know anybody from this dimension, outside of Sunset, that has had an experience with magic before?"
"Yeah, Sunset has a group of friends, who-" Twilight's eyes widened at one horrible realization. "Don't know you're here! Yukari, you must-!"
Before Twilight could finish, Applejack sped past her and clenched her fists, aiming them right at the seemingly unaware Yukari. She swiftly dodged the strikes, and snapped her fingers, opening a portal and summoning a train that was heading full speed.
Applejack, however, quickly stood her group and aimed her hand in front of the train, a pink figure appearing next to her and doing the same as the duo used their strength to stop the train right on its tracks.
It took a little bit of effort to get it to stop, but once it did, Yukari opened another portal to take out the train, allowing Applejack and Pinkie to catch their breath and grab their arms.
"Girls!" Twilight exclaimed. "Are you okay?!"
"We've been through worse, Your Highness," Applejack replied, tipping her hat as she threw a glare at Yukari. "As long as dat woman didn't get t' do anythin' to ya, dat's good."
"The rest of the girls will be here in-"
Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy appeared soon afterwards.
"Right now, apparently."
"Wait, don't attack her!" Twilight exclaimed, getting between the girls and Yukari's path. "I know she's very suspicious, but hear me out: she's something completely out of this world, if you face her, I don't know if you'll come out alive!"
"Well we can't just let her roam around like she owns the dimension!" Rainbow Dash replied, pounding her fists. "We need to teach her how-"
"I couldn't defeat her, even after going all out!" Twilight snapped.
This quickly caught through the skulls of the girls, even the particularly thick one of Rainbow Dash. "Well, dang, if that's true, then there's little we can do about her."
"Not that you'd have to do anything in the first place: I came here in peace," Yukari replied as she walked to and put a hand in Twilight's shoulder. "All I want is to help Princess Twilight here, implement a magic system to allow this dimension an easier time defending itself from magic's corrupting abilities."
Rarity scratched her chin and hummed. "Having a system could help, especially after seeing what corruption by magic can do to a person, but we should hear Sunset's opinion first."
"Oh, she's up for it," Yukari replied with a wave of her hand. "She's currently visiting my world in order to get a spellcard. She'll use it an example of what to expect from this new system, so, she might take a while to-"
Suddenly, a portal opened, and Sunset Shimmer jumped, wearing the white and red priestess dress Reimu handed her, immediately getting everybody's attention. Seeing Yukari, Twilight, and her friends around, she smiled and chirped:
"Hi everyone."
The girls and Yukari were at the Sugarcube Corner, where the youkai leisurely sat in the air and sipped some tea provided by Mr. and Mrs. Cake while the girls spoke with Sunset.
"That's a very intriguing dress you're wearing, darling," Rarity said as she took a closer look at Sunset's priestess outfit. "Did you get it from your visit to Yukari's world?"
"Yeah, and I have so much to tell you about it," Sunset rested her chin on her palm. "The world is called Gensokyo, there are a bunch of different species besides humans, there's magic different from ours, and also..."
Sunset reached for her pocket and took out the blank card, now showing a picture of the rainbow pillar of friendship that defeated Sunset a long time ago on the front of it.
"I got my spell card!"
The girls immediately cheered up, but especially Princess Twilight, who looked closer at the card with a bewildered look. "This is fantastic, Sunset! But what does it do?"
"I don't know, I simply created a small ball of magic, shoved it at the card, which absorbed," Sunset pointed at the card. "And boom, got a spellcard. Although I don't know why the spell is based on the one you used to defeat me."
"You used magic without ponifying up?" Pinkie Pie asked.
It was then that Sunset realized that, yes, she indeed used magic while in Gensokyo, but without ponifying up, like she would normally need to do in the human world.
"No... I-I didn't ponify to cast the magic," Sunset blinked twice. "I just did it without thinking."
"In Gensokyo, everybody can use magic as long as they have some connection to it, no transformation is necessary," Yukari explained, taking another sip of her tea before she continued. "Of course, it could just be that since you're naturally an unicorn, your magical abilities were transferred when you traveled to Gensokyo."
"So wait, now that I think about it, are the spellcards spelled separately, spell card, or together, spellcard?" Pinkie Pie inquired, scratching her head. "I'm getting kinda confused here."
"Does it really matter how you spell them?" Yukari shrugged and shook her head. "They're still spellcards, they're still charged with your magic, and they're still the key in order to setup the brand new system that will surely help our worlds connect."
"So Reimu was right about the possibility of you wanting to merge the worlds together?" Sunset asked, only to turn back to her bewildered friends. "Oh, by the way, I met this priestess called Reimu Hakurei, and she got me the blank card in exchange for prompting her Hakurei Shrine."
Yukari glanced at the group and raised an eyebrow, which they failed to notice.
"Oh really, you met a native of Yukari's homeworld?" Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Did she try to attack you as soon as she saw you?"
"She almost did, but once I mentioned Yukari's name, she lowered her card and led me into her shrine," Sunset reached for her hair and took out a little pamphlet about Hakurei Shrine. "Then, once she gave me the card, she gave me these pamphlets to hand out to people so her shrine would get a bit more exposure."
"Pamphlets? Ha! Classic Reimu, not thinking things through," Yukari remarked with a little smile. "Even if you hand out the pamphlets, there's no way for people to reach Gensokyo in order to see the shrine. But don't worry, once the new system is implemented, everybody will be able to visit the shrine, easy as pie."
"Oh really?" Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Well, how and when are we going to implement the new system?"
Yukari's smile widened. "You'll see... soon enough. First, you have to follow me."
Sunset and Twilight followed Yukari down the forest behind Canterlot High School, where the trio encountered a... peculiar building, located right in the center of it.
The building was a shrine that looked suspiciously similar to the Hakurei Shrine, but visibly in ruins and with flowers and moss covering it.
"It's a shrine," Sunset said, taking a look at the moss covering the place. "But what's a shrine doing in Canterlot High School?"
"And most importantly," Twilight added as she walked towards the building. "What deity is the shrine based on?"
"Whatever the reason, it's clear that this place has to have some sort of supernatural origin to it," Sunset added as she walked to the door. "I mean, considering the other stuff magic's done, I wouldn't be surprised if it could also create a shrine out of nowhere."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense..." Twilight scratched her chin and slowly turned around. "Yukari, what do you-"
But once Twilight turned around, Yukari was nowhere to be seen. "-Think?"
Sunset knocked the door three times to see if anybody budged, but then turned around to see why Twilight had hesitated. "Wasn't Yukari here with us a moment ago?"
"I'm pretty sure she was," Twilight replied, putting a hand on her head. "And unless my mind's playing with me, Yukari-"
"What about me?"
The girls turned around again and saw Yukari standing at the doorframe, the door now visibly open. "And what brings you two adorable young girls into my home?"
Sunset and Twilight exchanged flabbergasted looks. Didn't Yukari go along with them? In fact, didn't she guide them to the shrine? Why was she suddenly inside? Why didn't she recognize them? Why didn't the rest of Sunset's friends come with her?! Why was everything starting to make no sense!?
"Um, hello, Yukari?" Sunset greeted. "You know who we are, right?"
"I've never seen you before in my life, darling," Yukari leaned closer and caressed Sunset's chin. "I would most likely remember meeting such adorable young women."
"Okay, Yukari, that's not funny," Twilight sternly stated. "You know who we are: you came with us to this shrine because it would help us implement a system that'll help this world deal better with magic!"
"You must have quite the imagination sweetie, because I've never seen you in my life," Yukari scratched her chin. "However, this idea of a new system sounds very promising. I was actually doing some research on how this could possible. Perhaps, we share a common goal?"
"Yeah, no kidding we share a common goal," Sunset folded her arms. "You were the one who gave us the goal in the first place!"
"And again, you're confusing for somebody else: I can't blame you, I bet Yukari must be a very popular name around here," ukari moved aside and gestured the girls to come in. "But why are we talking outside? Have the leisure to enter my humble home, and we can discuss some more about this new system you're talking about."
Sunset and Twilight exchangeds looks once more before they walked inside, and kept walking as Yukari closed the door and followed them.
"We're not going crazy, right?" Sunset whispered.
"I think Yukari's the one who's gone crazy," Twilight whispered back. "We should better keep our guard up, just in case something happens."
And as the girls kept whispering to themselves, Yukari watched them with partially open eyes, and a rather... peculiar smile...
