Everything hurt, and her brain felt like she’d had about four glasses too many of undiluted minotaur wine the night before. What…what had she been doing? Vague flashes played back, none of them enough to help sort out what was going on. Groaning, she pried open her eyes, staring blankly at her muzzle against the plush comforter and thick pillows. Sunset blinked rapidly to dispel the blurriness, and lifted her head to look around. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for anything out of place.

Her room seemed in order, but she couldn't shake a feeling that something was out of place. The desk was its usual controlled chaos, with books on spell construction for her thesis alongside her more mainstream studies, like mathematics and English, and the book she used for working on her bike was propped open against the stack. Her computer was off, the keyboard and monitor both dark. The bookcase next to the desk was full of books, many of them stacked two deep, everything from textbooks to novels to guides to various fields of hands-on study. They, too, seemed right, as the unicorn’s eyes skimmed the titles, with her neat organization intact.

Exhaling, she rolled her body towards the edge of the bed, hooves clumping dully into the thick carpet she had picked out years ago to chase off the chill of Canterlot’s mountain winters. “Ugh…it tastes like I was licking dirty statues in the gardens last night.”

“Yeah, well, a near-death experience does that to a mare, horn-head.”

Sunset jolted as her own voice came from the doors to her balcony, and she whipped around, brandishing her horn at the speaker before her eyes even registered the nightmare in front of her. “You have three seconds,” she threatened, “to explain who you are and how you got in my room!”

“Your room? Is that what you think this is?” The figure crossed arms over her chest, hindered by ample breasts, her claws of red crystal tapping against her elbow restlessly.

She sneered at the winged biped—it looked vaguely like one of the gargoyles that shared clans and blood with the centaurs. “I think I’d know the bedroom I’ve had since I was a filly.”

“Uh huh.” Sarcasm dripped from the sounds. “Look again. You know something is off, don't you? You can feel it.”

“I—” Sunset paused. She had felt that way. “…what do you know?”

Her visitor sighed. “That none of this is real. This is a place where you’ve gone to inside yourself to protect yourself from the spell trying to tear you apart and to protect everyone around you from the backlash that would be released if that spell were to succeed.”

Not real? Spell? What? Sunset shook herself out, trying to sort the feelings rising mutedly inside her, coupled with more memory fragments. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance. “Not real?” she repeatedly stupidly.

“Look around you, horn-head. Really look. Did your room in Celestia’s palace have a computer? Or books on mechanical devices designed for human hands?” Reaching over, she plucked a book from a table near a pile of cushions. “Would you read a copy of The Hobbit on your own?” Then her hands found a photo frame. “Would the you that lived in this room have a framed picture of you with Princess Twilight in it?” She turned the picture towards Sunset, showing off the photo of herself with a smiling lavender face and bright purple eyes hidden behind thick glasses.

“That’s Sparky, not the princess,” she answered immediately. She’d know her own best friend, after all.

One eyebrow arched. “And Sparky is…?”

Blue-green eyes narrowed. “My best friend.”

“Just your best friend?”

Cold washed over her, and pain. “…no…” she whispered, as she remembered. “She was…my girlfriend…but we had a fight.”

Eyes that were as crystalline as the claws on her finger tips and just as crimson stared hard at her. “What was the fight about?”

Hazy memories swam before her mind’s eye. “…she confronted me…about…”

“C’mon, horn-head. About what? Why was she angry at you?”

The answer came slowly, confusingly. “…about the truth…about Equestria…about magic…about me.”

Dropping onto a lounge chair near the window that Sunset had used for reading on nice days, the winged biped made a motion with one hand. “And…that doesn't strike you as odd?”

It was odd. “Why would…” Sunset struggled to push through the disjointed fog, wanting to remember what it was that she was forgetting.

Something snapped, and knowledge came back to her in a nauseating rush. The Fight. The Games. Cinch. Sparky. Something being clamped around her wrist. Agony that made her scream.

And now she was glaring at the demon she had once been…sort of. The red crystal for eyes and covering claws and horn was…new. “You!” she snarled.

“Aaaand there it is,” the she-demon snarked. “Welcome back. It was a little concerning to be the one that knew the most out of us.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Forgive me if I’m not glad to see you. Now what's this about being in my head? What did that bitch do to me? That was like no spell I've ever seen before.”

Crossing one knee over the other, her demon tapped talons on the arms of the chair. “Because you wouldn't—Equestria locked up all their demons ages ago, and the last few that have happened in some fashion ate a Rainbow of Light. Banishing and binding spells are in the same part of the restricted section that summoning spells are—remember? You passed over them because you didn't—”

“Want to trade being under the control of Celestia for being under the control of some bloodthirsty demon.” She remembered now. “Besides, it wouldn't have made me stronger.” The unicorn dragged herself over to the pile of cushions and sat down facing the creature. “So that was some kind of binding?”

“Binding and banishing. Someone on the other side picked up on your history, and figured it would work. That's why they were so intent on your name. Doesn't work as well without it.”

Snorting, Sunset looked pointedly at the she-demon. “Seems to me it didn't work at all. You're still here.”

“Can we maybe avoid sniping at each other?” the demon asked, sounding exhausted under the sarcastic sneer. “This is more important than how much we hate ourself.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Sunset demanded. “Come to gloat now that I can't shut you up? Or is this where you try to take over? Because I won't let that happen—I’ll fight you. I’d rather die than go back to being you.”

Rubbing a hand over her face, the demon sighed. “Haven’t you been listening at all? That's not what this is about.”

Curling her lip up warningly, she retorted, “I’ve been trying not to. I’ve been doing everything I can to be everything you aren't.”

Claws scratched at the membrane of one wing, and that tail flicked in annoyance. “Yeah, that’s obvious…but you missed one really important detail, horn-head.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

Red eyes glowed. “That’s not how this,” a talon drew a lazy arc in the air between them to indicate them both, “works. You already admitted it once to yourself. All you’ve done is shove the parts of yourself you don't want to acknowledge away, cutting them off from you like they’re a limb you can amputate.”

Frustration bubbled up. “Because you're a monster! You're everything toxic about how I used to act! Why shouldn’t I want to get rid of you?!” Sunset stamped her front hoof on the carpet, annoyed that the dull thump was less effective than a sharp sound of hoof on stone would be.

The she-demon leaned forward, putting both taloned feet on the floor and resting forearms on her thighs. “Sunset Shimmer…do you know what makes a demon?”

“I—what?” The question threw her for a loop. “…yeah. When a twisted and evil being encounters a high amount of magic.”

Ragged, red ears flicked. “Not exactly. You're close, as it's an extension of a principle you already know. By the time you put Magic upon your head, you had spent years full of rage and bitterness, consumed by a Desire for things you could not have. Those emotions had already changed you, eaten you alive from the inside out, until your soul was bleeding.” The demon actually looked…apologetic? “We were already a part of Sunset Shimmer ages before you stole Magic, and for a long time, it was our twisted feelings that ruled over your life. Putting on Magic only gave enough energy to complete the transformation. It was inevitable—because that’s Magic’s true gift. It takes that brightest spark and fans it into being as a fully realized thing, whether that thing is a raging demon…or a Rainbow of Light.”

“The demon you became was born of your emotions married to the power of potent magic. Magic and emotion have never been separate things…they never have been and never will be. They are connected, each a part of the other, two halves of a whole…as long as you still have your magic…and you still feel…as long as both are true…” Hands spread wide, palms up.

“…then you will always be there? I’ll never escape being a monster?” Her stomach churned unpleasantly, and she shivered as more thunder and lightning crashed outside the window, casting the demon in harsh lighting.

Her dark side shook her head. “That's what your friends have been trying to tell you, horn-head. Emotions are just emotions. They aren't good or evil—they just are. It's not about what you feel, it's about what you do with those feelings, and whether or not you let yourself be ruled by them. Not that different from your magic, honestly.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes. “But you're still a demon.”

That tail wrapped around the front of her legs, tip curling like a cat’s. “Because there’s no escaping some things entirely…that kind of transformation leaves its scars, Sunset Shimmer, especially on the soul. You weren't entirely wrong when you posited to Dash that you died the night of the Fall Formal--what you became tore your soul to pieces when it birthed a monster. Without us, there would not have been enough left for you to live through what the Rainbow did that night to stop you.” She blew out a slow breath through her nostrils. “Or that fall at the end. We hit the ground pretty hard, as you well know.”

The unicorn’s lips twisted into a wry expression. “Yeeeeah…that's something I try not to think about too much.” She paused, mulling the words over. “So I was right? That was you?”

A fiery head nodded. “All of the remaining power went to reinforcing our body against the impact. We didn't relish dying or breaking every bone we have into shards.”

“…thanks, I guess. It sucked, and I was bruised on my everything for a week, but…better than being a smear on the front walk. The girls and Twi probably would have felt terrible about that.”

“Undoubtedly,” the she-demon chuckled. “The point though, is that you cannot stop feeling emotions, or excise them from your mind and heart and still be whole.”

Sunset rose to pace restlessly. “You say that, but how can I trust that? Demons only ever cause pain and destruction. What makes you different?”

Those crystalline eyes flickered with inner fire, dimming and brightening, in time with her own racing heart. “The Rainbow,” she explained simply. “Before, the demon that was Sunset Shimmer was being driven by those dark emotions. By Desire and bitterness, by Rage and Pain, by a longing and a Hunger that consumed, and a Want to be Wanted. A Desire to be Desired and be worth Love. Everything that twisted version of Sunset Shimmer did was part of that, furthered those driving feelings, those goals.”

The amber unicorn nodded. “I get that. But what makes it different now? What exactly did the Rainbow do?”

One brow arched. “Think back. What happened that night? What were you told? What did you realize?”

That dry voice…the one in the white space…what had it said…?

“I…something…Magic…I guess? Told me that I…was responsible for myself and what I’d become. That…I wasn't without hope, but I wasn't…innocent either.”

For some reason the demon rolled her eyes. “Close enough, though that wasn't Magic on Its own. Too eloquent and sensitive. And then what?”

Okay…weird thing for the demon to say…but maybe, if her growing theory about the Elements being at least partially aware was true… “The Elements then?”

Lips quirked into an enigmatic smirk. “Much more accurate, yes.”

“The Elements…showed me a mirror. The Mirror…and I saw myself. ‘See yourself with eyes unclouded,’ they told me. And then I saw everything. All the evil and cruelty I had done, all the ways I made others feel…I saw myself become a monster…” Her eyes burned, and she felt hollow. “And I…”

“Yes?”

“I realized I did that. It was my fault. Yeah…maybe other ponies sucked. Maybe they bullied me…but I chose to start being hateful and ugly. I ruined projects, manipulated others. And then I ran away to the human world and did all those terrible things to people who had never been cruel to me. People who…I now realize could have been my friends from the start.” Sunset swallowed, hard.

Her demonic self ran talons through the silky waterfall of curling flame that was her tail, a repetitive motion that reminded Sunset of how she took solace in Twilight or Mrs. Velvet doing the same to her hair. “The Rainbow gave you a chance, by bringing your emotional state back into balance. Into Harmony with itself. That's what let you see your actions for what they were.” Eyes met hers. “The Rainbow didn't make you change—you did that. It just gave you a chance by getting rid of the dark magic and corruption that came with it.” Another of those chuckles. “Just like it did for Princess Luna.”

Frowning, she turned that over in her head. “So…what? Because the Rainbow took steel wool to my soul, you're not evil anymore?” It was hard to keep her voice level.

Some of the disbelief must have shown regardless. “Think about what we’ve been discussing, horn-head. We are what you make us. No more, no less.”

The pieces were starting to fit together in a pattern that was making a frightening amount of sense. “Okay, let me see if I've got this straight. You happened because my emotions were nasty and that twisted my magic, which made my emotions even worse over time, until the Crown and then POP! Rampaging megalomaniacal she-demon with massive issues and something to prove is born…but the Elements reset me to zero, and because of that…” She paused in her pacing to look at the demon. “…you're…what? Still the worst parts of me, but just…less murdery and psycho because I’m no longer a raging bitch? And that means you don't want to take over the world or burn people to ash?”

Humming in her throat, the demon relaxed back. “It was always about what you wanted. Once, you wanted to burn your enemies. You wanted power to control your life and how others saw you, to get what you craved by force when other methods failed you.” Those flickering eyes burned into her. “Is that still what you Desire, Sunset Shimmer?”

Sunset shook her head. “No. It's not.”

“Then no part of you wants that, not even the parts you want to pretend don't exist.”

Ceasing her restless pacing, Sunset sat to consider what she had learned. If all this was true…then… Her head came up. “Is that why you were so fixated on Twilight? Because I…love…her?”

The demon was quiet for a minute, clearly choosing her answer carefully. “Every part of yourself that you are afraid of, that you hate, that you have repressed or cast out is here,” she explained at last, tapping her chest with one index finger. “Including…how we feel about Sparky. You fear loving her. Wanting her. Even if you’ve admitted it to yourself, you're still too terrified to own up to it to anyone else, even her…because you're afraid to lose her. That's all here.”

“In you.”

Head inclining in acknowledgment of her words, the demon sighed. “No part of you would ever harm her—we want to protect our Sparky. She is…”

“…special,” Sunset whispered, her heart aching at the thought of the human girl who had wormed her way so deep into the unicorn’s very soul.

Another of those slow nods. “More than you know…and she is in terrible danger, horn-head. If you don't get out of this state, she will suffer unimaginably…and so will our friends.”

That got Sunset’s attention. “Then what are we wasting time for? We need to get out of here. What do we have to do?”

“Not we. You.”

She paused. “I..right. It's my head. And this spell is trying to…what? Banish us? I'm not possessed.”

The horrific visage of her flaws snorted. “Correct. The fact is the spell should never have worked at all. Not only was the caster your magical inferior, but despite our…current state, you are not the kind of being it was intended to affect.”

The unicorn cocked her head, feeling the thunder outside make the castle rattle. “Then…why did it actually work at all?”

Bright red gems flickered in the motion of an eye roll. “Because…you’ve mangled your psyche so badly that the spell believes you are possessing yourself, horn-head.”

Whatever answer to her question she had thought she might hear, none of the ones she considered came anywhere close to that. “I…what? How is that even possible? This is my body, and if you’re telling the truth you’re an extension of my subconscious? Just all the unpleasant parts?”

“No idea,” the demon replied. “But magical prodigy and former student of the Princess of the Sun, Magus Sunset Shimmer figured it out!! Congratulations, horn-head! After all this time, you're still setting records for impossible feats and world firsts!” She tossed her hands up in the air, her voice—Sunset’s own, but off—full of frustration and irritation.

Sunset gave her demon a reproachful look. “I thought we were going to avoid sniping at each other.”

Her opposite wilted , hunching forward with arms on her knees again. “…sorry…” came the apology from the demon. “It’s…we’re running out of time. For all it is elastic and pliant in this state, it's not static. We don't have an eternity.” Crimson eyes stared at her hands. “Twilight doesn't have an eternity…and we can't lose Them again.” Those digits came up to cover her face, every word, every line of her posture dripping with stress and a sort of…melancholy…that Sunset couldn’t understand.

“Again?” she asked gently.

Only silence met her question. It was unnerving, seeing the twisted mirror of herself so full of despair—she had spent months being afraid of what it would do, what would happen if it came back, and weeks trying to crush it into a box, imprisoning it deep inside…but this? This was a sad and broken thing, as desperate to save the girl she loved as Sunset was.

It was hard to be afraid of something like this.

“It's…okay,” she offered gently, shifting closer to touch one knee with her hoof. “I…forgive you, if it matters. I’m scared too, and if I'm afraid, you must be terrified.”

Then she steeled herself. “So what do I have to do to get out of this mess? Any ideas?”

Wings of shadow and flame shuddered, and retreated from where they’d started to curl protectively around the demonic shape. “You aren't going to like it,” her companion rasped.

Fire flickered inside Sunset, determination and drive reignited. “I’ll get over it. I always do. I promised Twilight that I’d come for her no matter what. That when she needed me, I’d be there. It sounds like she needs me now more than she ever has. What do I have to do?”

“Are you at least familiar with the human quote: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand?’”

Wracking her brain brought up vague memories of history class and one of the innumerable wars in the last two hundred years fought by the country she was currently living in. “Yeah? It was about the government?”

“About a government sharply divided and fighting about some big issues. But the point here is what it means—an entity at war with itself cannot function. You, Sunset Shimmer, are the house divided against itself.” The demon pushed herself out of the chair, and turned to the balcony doors. “You are fractured and constantly at war with yourself, to the point where you are now unable to recognize that some parts of your personality, some of your very emotions, are your own. Your self identity is a disaster and a warzone, and that spell is trying to use it to tear your still healing soul apart.” One taloned hand beckoned her over as it opened the balcony doors and showed her the outside.

Outside, lightning and thunder cracked and boomed, huge bolts tearing at Canterlot’s terraced mountain face and sending rock cascading down over a mishmashed city, human skyscrapers and roadways intermixed with pony neighborhoods two thousand years old. “If this was a little less dire, I’d make a joke about how my mind apparently is recycling every TV trope Sparky and the girls have exposed me to.” Blue-green eyes scanned the unnatural city-scape, which gave way to Equestria’s rolling plains and wild forests below, and yet had airplanes flying towards the distant pegasi cities.

“It just means we’re as dorky as she is, you know. Plus, the mind uses what it knows to visualize things. It's easier.” Hands rested on the railing. “In this case, the visuals show the disaster.”

Sunset nodded, and glanced up. “The lightning and thunder is the spell, isn't it? It's still attacking…and if I don't fix this...it’ll win, won't it?”

Nodding slowly, the demon stared a bit longer at the city below. “And if it does, you won't have to worry about what happens to everyone, because there won't be anything left to save. Our magic will cause untold destruction in the human realm.”

There was no need to ask what the demon meant by that. Sunset knew what her SET was, and how unstable her magic was already. She had the power inside her body to level Canterlot City as effectively as a human nuke. There had been a reason Princess Celestia had been the only pony capable of dealing with her surges as a foal…and a reason she could almost match Princess Twilight’s SET without ascension.

“So it's time to deal with...all of the stuff I’ve been avoiding?” The demon had been right. She didn't like it…but she’d do it, because if not, she’d be responsible for the death of the humans who opened their homes and hearts to her…and she’d fail Twilight.

That was not an option.

Sighing, the demon flicked her tail restlessly. “You can probably leave the integration of pony culture with learned human behaviors to happen on its own. That's actually going pretty okay without interference, ever since your talk with Principal Celestia. Same with your issues involving your attraction and desire for a certain biped—you’ve got that one figured out, if the mind-blowing sex was anything to judge by.”

Now it was Sunset’s turn to roll her eyes. “Ha. Ha. You're a riot.”

“One of us had to get your sense of humor.” A pause. “Which brings us to the manticore in the ballroom.”

Sunset wasn't an idiot. “You. It comes down to you. Everything I don't want to be anymore. Everything I hate about myself, everything I’m afraid of and despise.” Her body shook and her voice wavered.

The other part of herself nodded. “You have to stop fighting us, stop trying to tear ourself apart. We don't have to hug it out and sing a duet together, but…you have to accept that we’re on the same side. That together, we…” One claw made a generous circling motion to indicate them both. “…are the whole of Sunset Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer, who is more than her anger or her mistakes. She is more than her scars, but also more than her magic or friendships. We are more than the consequences of our choices, more than a demon or an orphan runaway or our rage. We are good and bad, light and dark. Anger and fear are just as natural as love and laughter.”

It was hard…looking at the being there with her in this strange amalgamation of the two very different worlds in her life, and seeing anything but the worst parts of herself…

Maybe that was the answer.

“…you're…part of me, right?” At the slow nod, she kept going. “Then…what do we have in common? What do we share?”

One brow arched. “Besides our charming wit and penchant for sarcasm?”

“Besides that, yes.”

“How we feel about Sparky,” the demon answered promptly.

She hummed, thinking. “Let’s start there. Common ground. Just how do you feel about her? I've admitted that I…I love her. That she’s…so important to me and I don't want to lose her…but what about you?”

Eyes flared brighter. “Sparky is our everything. She’s ours. Our…Light. Our very soul. Our Other…” the demon trailed off, shuddering, and Sunset recognized her own intensity, her passions.

“Our equal,” Sunset whispered. “She matches us where it matters, but complements our traits. Her analytical mind, our ability to read people and what they're feeling. Her theory, our hands-on nature.”

“Our cynicism, her optimism,” the demon offered. “Where we are weak, she is strong, and also the reverse. Sparky is our partner, our match. She is all that we have been missing…”

“…and all that we never knew we needed in our life. Best friend. Intellectual equal. Girlfriend…”

“Lover now,” the demon teased, despite the seriousness of it all. “Our biggest supporter, and our fierce protector in a very cute little package.”

“She makes us want to be better. To improve and succeed…but also challenges our mind and the status quo. She always wants to know more…” Sunset's own voice was raw with love and passion now. “She makes us want to know more, keeps us from complacency.”

“She is the one we swore to protect…” Claws dug into the nearby wall, and fire licked up the arm. “She is ours to claim and no one else’s. She gave us that, and they cannot take that from us. From her. Only she can take it back…”

Sunset could feel the burn in her chest again, a curious pulsing warmth that was spreading down her body until it concentrated in her haunches. “She needs us…but…right now…she needs all of us, doesn't she? You just as much as me. She needs Sunset Shimmer, not just the darkness or the light.” She closed her eyes, and something deep tugged on her, guiding and nudging her in a way that almost brought tears to her eyes. “I need you. I can't save her without you.” Her flank was an inferno of magic that came from her soul’s deepest reaches to where it was painted on her very hide. “I can't really heal…or be me…without you.”

The demon was watching her now, silent, letting her get everything out that needed to be said.

“Darkness and light. Good and evil. Past, present, and future…I am all of my experiences. My…past doesn't have to be today, but it will always be where I came from and how I got here…whether that was Equestria…or as an angry she-demon desperate to get her mother-figure to pay attention to her.” She felt something start to give inside, but not in a bad way. This was something out of place being slotted back where it belonged. “And…without all the awful things…without my mistakes…I wouldn't be who I am. Without you…I wouldn't be Sunset Shimmer.”

“I can't truly be the real Sunset…the Sunset I need to be…without you.”

She was now eye to eye with her dark side, the streams of magic from her cutie mark lifting her up. She held out a hoof to the demon in front of her, an offering of acceptance and forgiveness all in one.

Red eyes met hers, and a crooked smile crossed the demon’s face. “Are you sure, Sunset Shimmer? This will change everything…and there is no going back. We…” There was a pause. “…I…cannot promise that you will remain unchanged or free of consequences.”

Sunset hesitated just long enough to turn the warning words over in her head, before her resolve hardened. "Yeah, maybe, but we’re Sunset Shimmer. The universe likes pulling the rug out from under us—we’re used to it by now. But I also know that the consequences for not doing this are something I refuse to let happen..." She tossed her head, her own grin a bit challenging. “So whatever comes…it's worth it to save her. To save all of them.” A heartbeat went by, and she added, “And to wipe that smug superior expression off that principal’s pinchy face. I reeeally don't like that bitch.”

That got a laugh out of the demon as taloned fingers rose to clasp the proffered hoof. “Agreed. It’ll be good to be home again, and not just an unwanted guest, horn-head.”

Light blinded her, red and gold, white and black, and when it was gone, she was alone in the strange mindscape…but she felt…different. More…settled. More herself than she’d felt in months.

Her head turned, and she realized her cutie mark had gone from pulsing with streams of magic on a pony flank to a soft but brightening glow, one with tendrils that connected to…

Blue-green eyes followed the power heavenward, and realized there was a barrier blocking the lightning, on that rippled with her mark. “What…is that?”

That dry voice echoed around her. —The gift of pony-kind, horn-head. Every foal knows this story. Heart’s Gift.—

“Cu te si…” she mouthed. “Mother Mare’s Gift?” Sunset blinked. “It’s…real?”

—The legend probably has a lot of poetic license, but…our mark is part of our soul, meant to protect our soul from manipulation and attack.—

Satisfied excitement bubbled up. “Which means…”

—Yes. You can tell that spell to go rut a centaur. See you on the outside.—

“Will you still be there? I…kind of enjoy having you around. The snark…keeps me on my toes.”

—Guess we’ll have to find out. Now get us out of here!—

“Gladly.” The unicorn turned her horn towards the sky, charging it with the magic singing inside her core, and pushed…

Reality shattered like glass around her.

Author's Note

*cackles*

So...this was a chapter I was excited to get to, ngl. Its a chapter that has been...long in coming, since it represents a massive and important point in Sunset's character journey.

I will also admit, that I've been sitting on this chapter whilst people were speculating about the voice, about Sunset's demon, about what it meant, about what's been going on with her powers, all of it. And I've been giggling maniacally to myself the whole time.

Lots of world building and background lore present in this one, from the nature of how demons are created, to exactly what the Elements do, to the nature of Harmony, to even a bit about how cutie marks work and why they are really special.

It hasn't solved all the mysteries, of course, but...

Where would the fun be in that?

Lessee...

Some references here, including a nod that I expect at least one reader to get right off the bat. Also a shoutout (even though he'll never read it) to a friend of mine, guy named Abridged. Thanks to him, I have a pretty clear picture in my head of what happens when you have two Sunsets in a conversation over their issues with each other, and that helped this chapter more than I can say.

Anywho.

Looking forward to the comments on this one, since I know so many of you were itching to find out what was going on with Sunset.

See you in the comments!