The New Hacker In Town

Chapters

Things May Come And Things May Go
Another Me I Haven't Met
Opening Every Door
Learn A Little More What It Can Do
How To Get To The Other Side

Things May Come And Things May Go

The boy knocked nervously on the door.

“Come in,” came the imperious voice from within. He tentatively pushed open the door and inched his way in. The room’s inhabitant locked eyes with him. “And give me some good news.”

“Um, yes, yes, of course,” he babbled. “Ah, yes! Good news! The new guardians are ready.”

“Excellent. And these won’t have the same issues as last time?”

“Definitely not,” he said hastily. “I had some, uh, teething problems with the prototype, but those are all sorted now.”

The figure behind the desk growled, “They had better be.” Not because she was particularly angry, but just because she enjoyed seeing how he cowered in front of her. Her fingers casually twirled a pen as she continued, “Because I’ll be taking one of them with me tonight. I’ve been investigating a lead, and I think we have a very interesting new target.”

“I was robbed last night,” Twilight Sparkle said dully, staring straight through the plate of what could generously be termed ‘school lunch’.

For a moment, her announcement hung silently in the air. Then her friends around the cafeteria table all started talking at once.

“What did they take?” “Do you know who it was?” “Oh no! Was anyone hurt?” “Have you told the police?” “Wait, don’t you have a top-of-the line burglar alarm?”

Twilight gave a deep sigh and rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. “Yes, we called the police; I was up until 1 a.m. talking to them. No, nobody was hurt, and no, we have no idea who did it. We do indeed have a very good security system, which was somehow disabled with no record… And they took a load of my hardware and inventions, including several prototypes I haven’t shown anyone yet.”

“Oh, darling,” Rarity said compassionately, putting an arm around Twilight’s shoulders. “We’re so sorry for you. If there’s anything any of us can do…”

“We should track them down!” declared Rainbow Dash, and smacked a fist into her palm.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “An’ just how do ya suggest we do that, Dash?”

“Someone has to have seen something, right? Like, neighbours, or… or local wildlife! Fluttershy could talk to the critters nearby and see if any of them saw anything!” Rainbow Dash pointed triumphantly at Fluttershy, who instinctively flinched and retreated on general principles.

Sunset Shimmer, who had been quietly frowning, looked at Twilight thoughtfully. “They took your inventions, you say?” Twilight nodded. “And not any valuables? Like paintings or jewellery?”

“Wait, yeah, good point!” Dash exclaimed. “Twilight’s family’s loaded! Didn’t they steal any of your parents’ expensive stuff?”

“A little jewellery and a couple of laptops. But it seems their main target was my lab. The police are calling it a ‘targeted theft’.”

“Targeted is one word for it,” Sunset mused. “And they also disabled your security system?”

“That’s the bit I really don’t understand,” said Twilight plaintively. “I applied some custom upgrades to the sensors! It’s remote controlled from my secure workstation in the lab! I have no idea how they got in without tripping fifteen alarms.”

Pinkie Pie interjected, “Don’t you have a bunch of other stuff with cameras in that lab? Didn’t any of them see anything?”

Twilight Sparkle stopped short. “...Hmm. They took everything that looked like a robot or a weapon, and the private camera in the corner, but… they did leave behind the mainframes. I’ve been training a neural network on the webcam feed, so I can probably get it to reconstruct its recent input! Pinkie, you’re a genius!”

“Aww, shucks.” Pinkie Pie smiled modestly.

Applejack nodded decisively. “Sounds like we got a couple of leads to try then. You okay havin’ us all come by your place after school, Twi? If you want to have a bit o’ peace an’ quiet to yourself, we’ll understand.”

Smiling helplessly, Twilight replied, “No... No, it’s wonderful of you all to offer. Thank you. I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere, but... it’s nice to have friends with me as we try.”

“I guess ‘try’ is the operative word.” Sunset Shimmer squinted at the screen and pinched her forehead. “Is that actually a camera image at all? ‘Cause if so, you really need to clean your lens.”

“No, it’s not. I keep my lenses perfectly clean, I’ll have you know,” Twilight Sparkle replied in mock affront, but couldn’t manage to keep a small smile off her face. “I don’t have a record of the webcam feed… I typically only record one camera feed in this room, and that” – she pointed up at a corner of the room where a bracket had been yanked off the wall – “was showing just an empty room until the camera itself was taken. Somehow. But as a side project, I’ve been training a network to recognise me and Spike whenever we’re in the room, and it’s always learning from whatever faces it sees. By comparing the network weights from yesterday’s backup with the day before’s, I ought to be able to reverse it, make it generate just the faces it saw in the twenty-four hours when the burglary happened.” She scowled at the screen and started typing. “But I clearly need to tweak some parameters…”

Sunset watched with an affectionate smile. When Twilight didn’t seem to be about to immediately find something, Sunset said, “I’ll step outside and see how the others are doing, okay?” Twilight gave a distracted grunt of vague affirmation.

Sunset found Fluttershy on the front lawn, surrounded by a flock of miscellaneous small birds, a couple of dogs, a cat and several squirrels. Rainbow Dash and Rarity were standing nearby. When Sunset approached the herd of creatures, the birds started chirping vigorously.

“Calm down, everyone, please!” Fluttershy said sternly. “One at a time! I’m very grateful for your help, but I need you to talk to me one at a time. Now, you first, Stormcaller Nightwing?” A small sparrow tweeted and flapped for a few seconds. Fluttershy glanced back and forth between Sunset and the bird, looking nervous. Well that’s not worrying at all, Sunset thought to herself.

Sunset waited until the bird seemed to be done, then interjected, “Everything okay, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy frowned. “They’ve been very helpful. But I can’t quite make sense of what they’re telling me. The birds are saying one thing, but the dogs are saying another.”

“That doesn’t sound that surprising to me. I have to imagine birds and dogs perceive the world very differently to each other.”

“Perceive…?” Fluttershy mused. “You… might be onto something there, Sunset. Stormcaller, when you saw her, how did you sense it was her? What about you, Deathbeak?” The birds tweeted a bit, and others joined in. Fluttershy nodded and turned to the dogs. “Thank you. Now, same question to you, Snufflekins and Lolloper?” After a few canine noises, Fluttershy’s eyes widened and she glanced at Sunset again.

Sunset sighed. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Um…” Fluttershy suddenly developed an intense interest in her feet.

Rainbow Dash wandered over. “Come on, Flutters. You can’t just keep us in suspense here. If they told ya something interesting, spill!”

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “Okay… I need you to understand that I’m just passing on what the critters told me…”

“We get it, Fluttershy,” Sunset said, trying to be gentle even as she was itching to know. “Out with it.”

“Well… the birds say that around the time we know the theft happened, they saw you come in, Sunset.”

“Me? I haven’t been here for weeks.” Sunset gestured to Rarity who was coming over to the animated discussion. “I was just telling Rarity a couple of days ago that I hadn’t been to Twilight’s for ages.”

Fluttershy continued, still hesitantly, “And the thing is, the dogs agree with you. They say the intruder definitely didn’t smell like you. But the birdies are quite insistent that she looked like you.”

“So, what, someone was disguised as me?”

Rarity clapped her hands, her eyes wide. “Or… maybe we’ve finally found the person we’ve been wondering about for years… your human counterpart, Sunset.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sunset grumbled. “I searched for that girl for years without finding so much as a trace, and now when we do find her she’s robbing my best friend?”

Rainbow Dash looked surprised. “Wait, you searched for the human Sunset Shimmer? When?”

Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose. “If we’re going to go into this I need to be sitting down. Let’s go round up… oh, hey, Twilight. Did you get any images out of that analysis you were doing?”

Twilight Sparkle laughed nervously. “Ha ha! Well, um, the results are, ah, a little confusing… I might need to recalibrate something, maybe…”

“Let me guess. It produced a face that looks a lot like mine,” said Sunset steadily.

“What? How did you–”

“A little bird told me,” Sunset interrupted sardonically, glancing over her shoulder at Fluttershy and her animal entourage. “Yeah, we definitely need to sit down. And preferably find something to drink.”

Sunset Shimmer drained the last of the cola bottle, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and slumped backwards into the sofa in Twilight’s living room. “So. Long story short, we have two reasons to believe that my human doppelganger was the mysterious thief who took Twilight’s kit. Fluttershy’s animal friends say someone who looked like me but didn’t smell like me, and Twilight’s… facial… reconstruction… thing… says someone with my face was in that room on the night in question.”

“But there’s still a lot we don’t understand,” Twilight added sombrely. “Why did she only raid my lab? How did she bypass all our security systems? How did she find out about my lab in the first place? And what did she do to my camera to interfere with the feed while she was doing it?”

“Never mind the techie details, where has she taken it all?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Yeah! I would have thought Twilight would have put some kind of location tracker thingie in her robots. Gee, it’s such a pity you don’t.”

Twilight replied indignantly, “Of course I do! At least three of the projects they took will be uploading their GPS coordinates to ThingSpeak every… minute…” She trailed off, wide-eyed.

Sunset eagerly carried on for her. “So we can just check those data streams to find out where the robots have been taken! Pinkie, you’re a genius!”

“Oh, you flatterer,” Pinkie Pie laughed. “I’m not the one who actually built the robots. I’m just the one who reminded her she put a GPS whatjamacallit in them.”

Fluttershy nervously spoke up. “Um, everyone? When we find out where they went, what are you thinking we’ll do?”

“Bust in there an’ get Twi’s inventions back, o’course!” Applejack declared.

Rainbow Dash nodded eagerly. “Definitely! It’ll be a great chance to use our powers!”

“Oh, dear, I was afraid you were going to say that,” murmured Fluttershy. “Shouldn’t we, um, tell the police and let them handle it?”

“That is a good point,” Rarity said thoughtfully. “Unless… how dangerous would the stolen items be in the wrong hands, Twilight?”

“I mean… I wasn’t building them as weapons…” Twilight hedged.

“Is that a ’I’d get in trouble with the police if they saw them’ kind of situation?”

“They’re industrial prototypes!” Twilight protested. “They’re not covered by the regulations on consumer electronics… but, ah, just in case, it might be worth seeing if we can easily retrieve them first ourselves…”

“Then it’s decided,” said Sunset. “Twilight, do you want to go check out where those GPS coordinates lead?”

“I’ll set up a portable directions unit to point us in the right direction. Who wants to hold it?”

“That sounds fun!” Pinkie Pie cheered. “And it was me that asked about the GPS thingie, so I should get to! When can we leave?”

Another Me I Haven't Met

“Pretty sure they’re in that building!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Sunset nodded. “Okay, let’s get out of the van quietly and case the joint before we do anything else.”

The warehouse didn’t look very intimidating. Certainly disreputable – it looked like exactly the kind of place where a gang of thieves would hide their stolen goods – but not threatening. Still, Sunset wasn’t inclined to take any chances.

“You hear me, Rainbow Dash? We talk through our plan first, and only charge in once we know what we’re doing.”

“Fine. What’s the plan?”

“First, we scout out how many exits this place has and check for windows –” Sunset groaned as a rainbow blur disappeared beside her.

“Two other doors, no windows,” reported Rainbow Dash cheerfully from the other side of the group, “and – hey!”

“Next,” continued Sunset Shimmer through gritted teeth, one hand holding a struggling Rainbow Dash by the collar, “we establish lookouts to watch the entrances before we carefully and cautiously find out which door is easiest to open.”

“I’ll be a lookout!” The group turned to Fluttershy in surprise. She quailed at the attention, but said, “...I think I’d rather stay out here where there probably won’t be anyone coming, rather than go in there where there almost certainly is?”

Sunset shrugged. “Sure. Sounds good. You can probably send a bird or something to warn us if you see anything.”

Spike piped up from around Twilight’s ankles. “I, ah, think I’ll stick around out here too. Leave the spooky warehouse exploration to those with opposable thumbs.”

Fluttershy smiled at him. “We can keep each other company. While patrolling and keeping a lookout as well, of course.”

“Okay. Are the rest of us good to go in?” The other assembled Rainbooms nodded. “Great. Once we’re inside…” Sunset hesitated. “We don’t know what we’re going to face, so just be careful, okay?”

“Fine,” growled Rainbow Dash. “Can we please get moving now?”

Sunset turned to Twilight, who gave a nervous nod. “Okay. So let’s take a look at these doors. Which one can we get past most simply?” She looked at the door in front of them, then peered around the side of the warehouse, squinting in the gloom. “I can’t quite tell –”

A crunching sound followed by a clang! made her turn her eyes back to the group in shock. Applejack brushed her hands against each other and cheerfully declared, “This one looks good to me.” She gestured to the buckled door hanging off its hinges.

Sunset took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Right,” she said eventually. “I guess that’ll do.”

The group cautiously stepped through the doorway into the warehouse. The room behind the door was small and brightly lit, but thankfully deserted. A desk and a few cupboards looked boringly unthreatening. But one feature of the room made them all stop in their tracks.

Next to the inner door, the wall was adorned with a large red and yellow symbol that chilled Sunset to her core. “My… cutie mark…” she murmured.

Twilight Sparkle shivered. “Well, I guess that confirms it,” she said softly. “There’s no way that’s a coincidence.” Then looking round, she said, “Sunset? Are you okay? You’re shaking…”

“No.”

The group all looked at Sunset in concern, but she continued, “No! I have worked… too hard at this! I have fought down the impulses to control, exploit, manipulate. I have made the choice every day to embrace friendship, and not take advantage of those around me, no matter how easy it might be. That is not who Sunset Shimmer is! Not any more! And now…” Sunset took a deep breath and continued grimly, “Now this other girl thinks she can come into my city and say that Sunset Shimmer is some… petty thief? Some selfish criminal? No.”

Her eyes narrowed as she concluded, “That Sunset Shimmer… is dead.”

The seven girls stared at the ominous symbol on the wall.

In the hush, Rainbow Dash whispered to Applejack, “Uh, is she saying she’s gonna kill this girl?”

“Ha!” Sunset’s laugh cut through the tension. “That… was not quite what I meant. But I’m gonna leave my options open until I meet her and find out what her deal is.” Striding forward, she turned to the others and said, “Come on, let’s find the spider in this lair.”

Beyond the inner door was a cavernous open space, lined with storage shelves. The evening light filtering through a couple of skylights did little to dispel the gloom, and even Rainbow Dash was glancing around nervously as they cautiously explored the aisles.

Pinkie Pie called out in a stage whisper, “Hey, Twilight! Looks like your gizmo is in here!” She was waving the detector towards a shelf that looked no different from the others around it.

Twilight pulled the indicated box off the shelves and opened it. “Wonderful!” she cried, pulling out a small, purse-sized piece of electronics.

Pinkie watched with interest. “What’s that?”

“Just a multimultimeter. It records all sorts of data about its environment and uploads it.” Twilight tucked it into her skirt pocket. “The others must be around here too. Let’s all–”

Rainbow Dash interrupted her. “Hey, Twi, quiet for a moment. Do you guys hear that?”

Everyone paused. Rarity cocked her head and said, “A kind of hissing sound? Whistling?”

“Yeah, I hear it too,” Applejack replied. “But where is it… comin’... Uh, guys!?”

Sunset looked where her shaking hand was pointing. Through the darkness two red glowing points could clearly be seen, moving towards the group. The girls backed away as the shape moved into the light, revealing…

“A coffee machine?” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

The trundling device did resemble a coffee maker, but seven feet tall, mounted to caterpillar tracks, and equipped with various glowing electronic attachments. On top of the vast jug of brown liquid were two camera lenses in a rotating dome, giving the eerie impression of a head that smoothly turned to look at each of them in turn. A few LEDs flickered from blue to angry red and a dispassionate synthetic voice announced, “INTRUDERS.”

Six girls caught each other’s eyes. Six geodes flashed. Six superheroes floated into the air.

The robot aimed several nozzles and released jets of coffee. Sunset Shimmer recoiled, but Rarity was ready, and the streams of scalding liquid splashed off shimmering crystal shields which flashed into existence in front of her and the others.

Applejack soared over the automaton’s head and dived down, fist extended, delivering a colossal smash to its “head”. The dome shattered but the enemy seemed unaffected, and a fresh burst of coffee caught Applejack in the chest, knocking her backwards. “Aagh!” she yelled. “That stuff is hot!”

“Applejack!” Rarity cried out, and flew to her side, throwing a wall of crystals around them.

A purple glow appeared around the robot: Twilight was trying to lift it telekinetically. “It’s resisting me!” she said in frustration, and dodged upwards as another jet of coffee blasted at her. “Rarity, we need you!”

“Don’t worry, I got this,” said Rainbow Dash nonchalantly. She cracked her knuckles and entered the state she called Speed.

She’d used Speed to dodge baddies’ attacks plenty of times. She’d never actually tried to use it to protect her friends, but she’d thought of the idea several weeks ago and been meaning to try it out.

Sustaining Speed was easier if she was moving, so Rainbow Dash strolled up to the robot as it rotated with glacial slowness. She tried a few kicks just to see if she could do any damage, not really expecting to get anywhere. Then she saw the thing start emitting a stream of boiling coffee, slowly advancing straight towards Twilight Sparkle, who had apparently landed to try to focus better on her telekinesis. Dash jogged over to her friend and tugged her out of the way.

She returned to the robot, feeling the strain growing: this burst of Speed would need to end soon. She took a little time to try yanking at bits of the machine, and managed to pull one coffee nozzle out of its mounting, leaving it dangling pointing at the ground. Satisfied, she took a few steps back, and relaxed her mental grip on time, letting the world catch up with her.

The jet of coffee shot harmlessly past Twilight, who gasped and staggered. She shot Rainbow a grateful smile and finally managed to lift the robot unsteadily into the air. Once aloft, its coffee jets started spurting haphazardly, unable to consistently target any of them, so Applejack and Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to fly up to it and smash the robot up a bit. But it still needed… “Pinkie Pie! You’re up!”

“Whee!” Pinkie gleefully bounded off the ceiling (just because she could) and landed on the coffee machine’s oversized top surface as it wobbled in midair. She pulled some cupcakes out from somewhere and proclaimed with a wicked smile, “This coffee needs a shot of caramel!”

Sunset watched Pinkie throw the glowing sugary treats into the giant jug of coffee. The giant… glass… jug…

“Rarity!” she shouted, eyes wide.

Rarity, thankfully quick on the uptake, threw up a sphere of crystal shields around the floating robot, just in time for Pinkie’s sugar bombs to explode, shattering the huge coffee pot and spraying scalding liquid and shards of glass in all directions. The crystal dome having contained the deadly debris, it vanished and let the glass tinkle onto the floor while coffee puddled around it.

Twilight Sparkle was still staring. “I’m… very glad you’re with us, Rarity,” she said fervently. “That could have gone very badly wrong.”

“It’s good to know one’s appreciated,” Rarity preened. “But we needed all of us to defeat that… strange machine. We make a good team.”

Suddenly a harsh voice cut across the triumphant conversation. “When you’re all done congratulating yourselves for destroying my property, you might like to see what I’ve got here.”

Sunset Shimmer found the most disconcerting thing was the way all her friends looked at her first, even though the voice had clearly come from across the warehouse. A bright light flashed on, illuminating something like a stage at the far end of the cavernous space.

The first thing Sunset Shimmer noticed was a figure standing on the stage. She wore a mask, and yet there was no doubt at all about her identity. The jumpsuit she wore was a deep purple, studded with spikes along the shoulders and arms, but the chest bore a large red-and-yellow logo in the shape of a sun. And her hair, visible behind the mask, was cut short and styled into a series of jagged spikes, but still the same red and yellow colour as Sunset’s own.

Rainbow Dash’s attention was drawn to the space next to the figure, where another large robot on caterpillar tracks was hulking. This one was much more boxy, effectively just a large cuboid about six feet a side. Its front had a few dials on, but most of the front face was clear like glass, so Dash could see inside it. And trapped within it, hammering her fists on the glass door, was… “Fluttershy!”

Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand, gasped in shock as she saw what the villain was holding. Who she was holding. In one hand she held Twilight’s beloved dog Spike, and in the other an all too familiar device of Twilight’s own invention.

“No! Don’t hurt Spike!” she yelled.

Her friends joined her. “Let Fluttershy go!” “What are you doing?” “You monster!”

The figure stood for a few seconds, smiling smugly as they shouted. “By the way, don’t think of using your rainbow super speed, or any of those other powers, against me,” she said conversationally. “Your sweet little talking dog wouldn’t appreciate it.”

“What even is that thing she’s holdin’?” Applejack wondered.

Twilight Sparkle winced. “It’s mine. It was designed as a razor. For shaving your legs and armpits. It’s not meant to hurt anyone!”

“And yet,” the villain purred, “it seems to be a remarkably effective slicing weapon. Cauterises too.” She gave Twilight Sparkle a derisive smile. “Seriously, you built a laser-powered razor? Was it just for the rhyme?”

Sunset Shimmer became aware of another robot trundling up behind them. Chancing a glance around, she saw something that looked like a giant, malicious kettle with gratuitously vicious metal claws. What is with all the kitchen robots? she thought to herself.

The other Sunset was still monologuing. “So, quite the little band of superheroes, aren’t you?” She gestured at each of them in turn with Twilight’s laser device. “Super speed. Conjured shields. Telekinesis. Some kind of explosive power. You’re the one who ripped my door off its hinges.” Her weapon came to rest pointing at Sunset. “And then we have the mystery girl with even more mysterious fashion sense.”

“Excuse me?” Sunset spluttered. “What’s wrong with my fashion sense?” She tried to ignore Rarity’s smirk.

“It’s just curious that you should choose to dye your hair red and yellow… With your skin tone it’s like you’re trying to copy someone.”

“Nope,” Rainbow Dash interjected. “This is just how Sunset Shimmer’s always looked.”

The villain froze. “Where did you hear that name?”

Sunset growled. “Oh, for crying out loud. Yes, I’m Sunset Shimmer. Yes, we know you are too.”

“I am the master criminal known only as Sundown,” the masked girl proclaimed. “Any connection to a civilian known as Sunset Shimmer is entirely circumstantial.”

“Uh-huh.” Sunset gave her a cynical glare. “You’re not convincing anyone, you know.”

The one calling herself ‘Sundown’ was looking thoughtful. She suddenly gestured at Sunset with the laser weapon. “No. This is too much of a coincidence. Out of all the robberies I’ve done, in three cities, only two others have ever tracked me to my lair. And the only ones to manage to get past a guardian are a group of girls my age with magical abilities, including some doppelganger of me, in the same city where I found my own –” She coughed. “Anyway. No, this isn’t a coincidence, is it. There’s something about this place. Or maybe about you yourself, ‘Sunset Shimmer’, if that is your real name. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was somehow you who gave these girls their magic powers. And maybe made this dog talk too.”

The girls exchanged glances. “She’s… not exactly wrong…” Applejack admitted.

“My name’s Spike,” said the dog in question drily. “And I don’t think you need to still hold my collar quite so tight.”

“Enough.” Sunset Shimmer stepped forward. “You have our friends hostage. You’ve won. What do you want?”

“Your magic. Hand over those powers.”

The girls exchanged shocked looks. “But… we can’t do that!” “I don’t think that would even work.” “No way!”

Sundown sighed. “Fine. In which case I want you to get out, stay out, and never bother me again,” she snarled., before smiling sweetly at Twilight and adding, “I got everything else I wanted from your delightful laboratory earlier.”

“We came here to get that stuff back!” Twilight cried. “I worked hard on those!”

“Twilight, she’s got Spike. And Fluttershy,” said Sunset with a sigh. “I don’t like it, but we have to give up here.”

“That’s a good girl,” Sundown said in a mocking tone. “Now, get out of here, and I’ll give your friends back.”

The kettle-bot started moving towards them, driving them towards the door they’d come in. Sunset stooped to tie her boot lace, and overbalanced as the robot didn’t stop but pushed right up against her. “No need to shove, I’m going, I’m going,” she grumbled.

As the Rainbooms shuffled out of the warehouse, Sundown put Spike down at last. Then she opened the door of the microwave robot and grabbed Fluttershy by the arm, yanking her out to follow the others.

“Now just in case you might be thinking about coming back, let me remind you I know where Miss Twilight Sparkle lives. The same goes if you were to even consider telling the police about any of this. You all just lay low and forget about this place, understand?” Without waiting for an answer, Sundown slammed the door on them. It clanged against the doorframe and bounced back, buckled out of shape as it was. Sundown growled in annoyance and shouted at the girls, “What are you laughing at? Go! Get away from here before I decide to just take you prisoner instead!”

“We’re going, Miss Sundown, ma’am,” said Fluttershy hastily, shooing the others away.

Seven girls and one dog stood silently in the evening air, not meeting each other’s eyes. Nobody said anything, because there wasn’t anything to say.

Opening Every Door

At school the next day, Sunset Shimmer stabbed at her exercise books with pens. She incinerated innocent chemical samples. She smashed volleyballs hard enough that the opposing team dived out of the way.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle tried to just stay out of her way in class, but at lunchtime Twilight sidled up to her and asked, “Do you… want to talk about it?”

“I don’t… like… to lose,” Sunset answered through gritted teeth.

Twilight sighed. “I know. But what can we do about it? She made it pretty clear we can’t go after her.”

“I know!” Sunset snarled, and then looked down. “Sorry, Twi. I’m not mad at you, just at her.”

Twilight leaned back against the cafeteria chair, replaying the previous evening’s events in her head. “Those robots were so strange,” she said after a minute. “Clearly engineered for combat, and yet also clearly derived from household appliances.”

Sunset frowned. “Yeah, I thought that,” she replied. “And I feel I’ve seen that kind of thing before. Something like a cooker, or a…”

“A toaster,” the two girls said at the same time.

“Micro Chips,” Twilight breathed, her eyes narrowing. “Yes. It’s just like that time his toaster robot went haywire during Flash’s gig.”

“And that robot used to be small and cute,” mused Sunset. “You gave him a good telling off about that. Did he ever explain why he’d made it so big and aggressive?”

Twilight stood up with determination. “No, he didn’t. But I think we might have found a pretty big clue.”

Sunset joined her, her lunch tray abandoned. “Sounds to me like we need to have a little chat with our friendly nerd. Don’t you agree?”

They found Micro Chips in the school’s chemistry lab. Sunset marched up to him and said with fake cheerfulness, “What’cha doing? Devising a new alloy for a blender robot’s lethal blades?”

He jumped, knocking over his work and scattering nuggets of unidentified stone. “Sun… set Shimmer. Hello.”

Closing the door behind her so they were alone, Sunset said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. We know you’ve been supplying robots to that villain with my face.”

His eyes widened and he looked to the side. “I, um, don’t know what you’re–”

“Cut the baloney, MC,” interrupted Twilight Sparkle viciously. “We already defeated your toaster automaton when it rampaged through the school a few weeks ago. Then yesterday we dismantled an overgrown coffee dispenser and saw a microwave on treads. I identified seven design commonalities between the three, four of which I’ve never seen in any production-ready droid apart from these three. We know it was you. The question is, why?”

Micro Chips seemed to be at war with himself for a few seconds. Then he looked at Twilight and shouted, “She sees the potential in my designs!” His eyes were blazing as he continued, “Not like you, Twilight Sparkle. You just always saw yourself as superior to me! So I went to someone who could take my creations and really use them!”

“Use them for criminal purposes!” Sunset growled. “You know she’s stealing stuff with them, don’t you?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Numerous aspects of our current legal system are outdated. Copyright and patent legislation are completely unfit for purpose, so I hardly consider it immoral to take from industrial targets.”

“What about from people like Twilight?” Sunset glared daggers at him. “Somehow that thief found out that Twilight’s happy suburban house concealed a number of advanced technologies…” She trailed off as a horrible thought struck her. “Wait… Was it you who told her about Twilight’s inventions? Are you the reason Twilight was robbed?”

Micro Chips went pale. “She robbed you? Oh… oh no, I… I never meant…”

“Did you tell her about Twilight’s lab?” Sunset Shimmer insisted, with steel in her voice.

“I… I mean, I might have mentioned her…”

Sunset smashed a fist onto the desk next to Micro Chips’s experiment. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t knock you to the ground right now,” she said through gritted teeth.

Micro Chips was backing away from her in a satisfying way. “Because… I thought you’d changed and weren’t doing that kind of thing any more?” he babbled.

Sunset took a deep breath, and felt Twilight’s hand rest gently on her back. “...Good answer,” she grudgingly admitted. “But MC? You screwed up badly this time. We do forgive you. I guess. But we are not happy.”

“U-Understood,” he replied, straightening his glasses.

“Come in,” said the figure behind the desk in her customary superior tone.

The boy stepped in more purposefully than usual. Sundown inspected his expression. He was still scared of her, but he was motivated by something.

“Micro Chips. I’m glad you came by – I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Is it those girls who attacked you?” he asked bluntly.

“It’s related to them, yes. Did Twilight tell you she’d come to try to take her machinery back?”

The boy adjusted his glasses. “Not exactly, but I inferred it from what she did say.”

Sundown stood up and walked over to Micro Chips. “You didn’t tell me she had magical powers.”

Now, at last, he had the good grace to look embarrassed. He quickly rallied and replied, “I didn’t know you were going to raid her lab! If I’d known she was the ‘target’ you were talking about, I’d have shared all the information I have.”

“Well, better late than never,” Sundown sneered. “Time for you to fill me in on all you know about their abilities. Oh, and I’m expecting another visit from them before too long, so I need you to beef up the remaining defenders to handle the threats they provide…”

“Okay, I think I’ve got something.”

Twilight Sparkle gestured to one of the three large screens in front of her main workstation. Sunset Shimmer put away her phone and came over to stand behind her, squinting at the displayed image. “What am I looking at, exactly?”

“I was curious where else Sundown has visited. After our friend Micro Chips’s comment earlier about ‘industrial targets’, I thought I’d see if she’s raided any of the tech companies on the Canterlot Business Park. Only one of them has made any public mention of disappearing stock, so that gives me a location and a night to start from. I started by just checking the on-site CCTV cameras from the night in question.”

“Good thinking. Did you find her?”

Twilight grinned. “Not at first. All the main cameras don’t show any visitors. But, well, remember the same was true for the camera in my lab. So I started looking closer. And look at this.” She brought up a video feed. The view was from a camera mounted somewhere high, overlooking a central access road shared by several corporations, late at night. “Watch the light levels, and this truck here,” said Twilight, playing back the video at high speed.

Sunset stared at the flickering images on Twilight’s screen. “...The truck just disappeared from the parking lot.”

“Yep. And the positions of birds, and the ambient light: they all show a jump at this moment. It’s been edited, but whoever did it was sloppy.”

Sunset nodded. “Same as they did to your camera feed. But why does this help?”

“There’s more,” Twilight said. “I checked all the CCTV cameras and they all have the same pattern. So I thought I’d look for other cameras. And there’s a traffic camera at the next intersection that’s been misaligned and happens to be pointing at the business park entrance. Check that at the time the other videos were edited, and…”

“Bingo,” breathed Sunset. The feed was grainy, but it clearly showed a figure riding on one of Micro Chips’s robots up the road.

“Now this is the camera whose feed we were looking at earlier.” Twilight indicated a high pole which the robot on screen was approaching. Then...

“Whoa! Did she just… zap that camera with something electrical?”

Twilight rewound the clip a few seconds and zoomed in. “She’s definitely firing some kind of energy at it. And now she just stops for a minute to play on her laptop.” Twilight fast-forwarded briefly. “I’m curious how she gets through the main site security gate though. It’s not especially secure, but it might tell us – oh!”

“Or… she might just zap it with the same thing she shot the camera with, and make it open for her.”

“...It makes gates open, and it also does something to cameras to allow editing the recording. From short range. Via an energy blast?” Twilight frowned. “I… can’t think of a physical mechanism that would allow–”

Awooga! Awooga! A piercing siren filled the air. Sunset jumped and looked around. Twilight also jumped, but immediately directed her full attention to the computer, bringing up several additional windows and typing rapidly into a console.

“What’s going on?” shouted Sunset over the alarm.

“Hacker alert!” said Twilight, her voice betraying her distress. “After the theft I added an audio indication of any remote login with my username. If it goes off when I’m not here it doesn’t matter, but if it goes off when I am…”

“... It indicates the hacker has your password!” Sunset gasped.

“Or did.” The noise stopped and Twilight nodded in satisfaction. “I changed my passphrase and terminated the remote connection. Now she can’t get in aga–”

Awooga! Awooga!

This time Twilight looked utterly shocked. She slowly turned her head to the ‘Connections’ window, where a new line had just appeared.

“No!” exclaimed Twilight. Sunset couldn’t remember a time she’d seen Twilight look as enraged as she did right now. “Get out! This is my domain!” She stabbed out a couple of quick commands, and the siren stopped… for a few seconds, when a new connection appeared. “How are you doing this?!” she exclaimed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Twilight turned her head to snap at Sunset, “That tone is not helpful, Sunset!”

“It wasn’t me!” Sunset exclaimed, holding up her hands.

“She’s right, it wasn’t – it was me,” said Sunset’s voice smugly from the computer speakers.

“Sundown. What do you want?” said Sunset shortly. “And Twilight, can you turn off that alarm? …Thanks.”

“I just popped in to see how my favourite superheroes are doing,” Sundown’s voice sang gaily. “Maybe see if you had any more inventions for me.”

“You already stole all my best stuff!” shouted Twilight. “Why are you back in my systems now?”

“I heard that you were threatening one of my minions earlier. And he eventually got around to telling me that you all had already beaten one of his earlier robots and filling me in on your magic powers.” Sundown’s voice sounded rather irked. But then she cheered up as she announced, “Ooh, what have we here? The blueprints to a robot dog? Eh, I’m sure Micro Chips can add some lasers to it or something.”

“Hey, leave Barbie alone!” Twilight objected. “And how are you in here, anyway?”

Sundown purred, “Oh, I shouldn’t give away my secrets, not when we’ve only just met.”

“It’s Equestrian magic,” Sunset said flatly. “We’ve seen a video of you zapping doors to open them and cameras to access them. Earth technology doesn’t have sparkly energy beams. Let me guess, sometime in the past month or two you found a normal mundane item with surprising powers and you gradually figured out how to use it for more and more evil things.”

“Hey! Less of the ‘evil’, please.” Sundown sounded affronted, but also unnerved. “But apart from that… Okay, I can recognise when someone has valuable information. How about we strike a deal?”

Sunset exchanged a glance with Twilight. “I’m listening?”

“You tell me everything you know about my Master Key, and I promise to leave you and your families alone.”

“Now, I’m sure you can offer us more than that,” Twilight said, to Sunset’s surprise. As Sunset watched, Twilight muttered under her breath, ‘Master... Key? Master Key...’ Then she suddenly started typing furiously.

“Oh?” Sunset really wished she could slap the amused smirk off Sundown’s face, even though she couldn’t even see it. “Sure, let’s negotiate.”

Twilight briefly paused her typing to wave a hand at Sunset, which she took as ‘You take care of this, I’m busy’. Sunset cleared her throat and said, “Well, let’s start with you giving back all of Twilight’s hardware that you stole. Along with the guarantee of immunity for us and our friends, we could trade that for a crash course in Equestrian magic and its powers and dangers.”

“Aww. You want me to give back the laser razor? Hmph. Fine.”

“And… you never log into this computer of Twilight’s again. Or access it in any way.”

“... This information had better be valuable. All right. You have a deal. Come by my place tomorrow. Bye-bye.”

A few seconds of silence followed. Eventually Sunset asked, “Is… she gone?”

Twilight checked. “Yes, as far as I can tell. I’m shutting down all external network connections now, just to be sure.”

“So we’re safe to talk?”

“Yes.”

Sunset released a long slow breath. “What was that all about?”

“When she said ‘Master Key’, I realised the common factor in everything we know she can do. It grants her access to anything, physical or electronic. So I set up a three-phase combined authentication challenge rotating every millisecond. I don’t believe her promise never to try logging back into this machine, but I’m pretty sure she won’t succeed now.”

Sunset pondered for a moment. “I wouldn’t really think Equestrian magic would be able to hack passwords…”

“Remember Vignette’s phone,” Twilight pointed out. “Her mote of Equestrian magic used the existing camera-filter app as a baseline.”

“Ugh, good point.” Sunset rubbed her eyes. “I’d forgotten about that particular piece of techno-magical weirdness.”

Twilight turned in her chair to face Sunset. “So… are we really going to go and teach her about magic? I’m fairly sure an invitation like that from a supervillain has to be a trap.”

Sunset smirked. “Obviously it’s a trap. But if you’ll recall… I never told her quite what form our crash course in the power of Equestrian magic would take. The kind of lesson that Rarity gave Vignette seems quite fitting.”

Learn A Little More What It Can Do

The next day dawned bright and cheerful. Thankfully Sunset was blissfully unaware of this fact, sleeping in till noon being one of her favourite uses of a Saturday. She had to work at the sushi truck during the day, so texted the others to arrange another trip out to the warehouse in the Rainbooms van.

Hi guys. We had a virtual run-in with my mean alternate self last night. You girls up for going back to hers this evening to give her the rainbow laser treatment?

im always up for rainbow lasers!

Would it kill you to use capital letters, Rainbow Dash?

lifestooshorttouseashiftkey!

Do we have a better plan this time? It wasn’t nice being trapped in that microwave.

Yes. For starters, we stick together. We know what we’re letting ourselves in for this time. For one thing, she knows we’re coming.

SAY WHAT NOW? WHY ARE WE GOING IF SHE KNOWS WE’RE COMING?

I know I told Rainbow Dash I wanted capital letters, but that’s too many capital letters, Applejack.

We arranged to go teach her about Equestrian magic. But we both know it’s a trap.

It was a trap last time too. I’d rather not go...

I promise we’ll all stay together this time, Shy. We’ll protect you.

Will there be more of those silly robots??

Probably. You up for smashing some?

You know it!!

It sounds like I’d better come with you just to keep you all in line.

AND IN ONE PIECE.

That too, darling.

Great. Thanks, everyone. AJ, you okay to come and get us in the tour bus? Something like 7pm?

NO PROBLEM.

The plan being made, Sunset put on her biker helmet and gloves and rode into town. Working at the sushi van wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating of jobs, and the entitlement of the typical consumer was infuriating. But it had some perks. The uniform was kinda cute, there was an art to arranging the different pieces of a meal into a bento box, and chopping raw fish was a great way to let out some frustration. Today Sunset was imagining the fish steaks that she was dicing and mincing were Sundown’s head. And occasionally Micro Chips’s. But mainly Sundown.

At the end of her shift, Sunset washed her hands and wiped her forehead, then took out her phone to unmute it. “Oh, no,” she sighed. “Nine missed texts? What’s going on?”

I’m terribly sorry, darlings, but something’s come up. Could we possibly reschedule our excursion to tomorrow evening?

I’ll be happy to not come out today.

Sure, works for me.

Aww! I wanted to go blast some robots!

Guys! We told her we’d be coming over tonight!

I’m sure your date with Sunset’s alter ego can wait one day.

Sorry, I really can’t make it tonight.

Argh! Sunset, what do we do??

Then, to Sunset’s distress, she noticed a new text come in, from an unknown source:

This is Sundown. Remember our deal. Come round tonight and tell me what you know.

Sunset muffled a scream. She took a deep breath in, and exhaled while counting to ten. Then she sent Twilight a message.

Sundown is hassling me. I think we have to go tonight even if it’s just you and me.

Oh dear. Okay. Come and get me?

On my way.

Sunset parked her motorbike a block down the round from Sundown’s hideout. She waited a few moments, then said with a smile, “Uh, Twilight? You can let go now.”

“R-right,” Twilight replied, loosening her grip around Sunset’s waist. “Sorry. Motorcycle riding is always… high adrenaline.”

“Heh.” Sunset patted Twilight’s hand fondly. “Well, we’re here now.”

“Yep.” Twilight dismounted, then stood awkwardly for several seconds. “And… what are we going to do now we are here?”

“Ugh. Yeah… good question.” Sunset leaned against a wall covered in peeling scraps of old advertisements, and gave a deep sigh. “Without the others, the plan of ‘pony up and blast her with friendship’ is a non-starter. I’d really like to get to touch Sundown so I can look into her head to find out the real deal with her magic, her history, everything.” She pondered. “We could try to just actually talk to her about magic and then leave?” She gave Twilight a hopeful smile.

Twilight crossed her arms. “And you’d give that a percentage chance of success of…?”

Sunset thought herself back into the mindset she’d had when she was taking over Canterlot High. She winced. She really didn’t like to retread those mental pathways. She imagined herself as alpha bully, having found a mysterious magical item, and someone offering her information on it, someone who was simultaneously one of her previous targets, and yet now too powerful to ignore.

She groaned. “Twenty percent? If we’re lucky? If we make ourselves seem too strong, she sees us as a threat. If we seem too weak, she sees us as victims to be exploited. There’s a really narrow line.” Grimacing, she added, “And we should probably not actually mention the magical world full of talking ponies. Given my ambition was to invade and take it over…”

“Riiight.” Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath, took Sunset’s hand, and smiled brightly. “Then we’d better be helpful, confident, and lucky.”

Returning her smile, Sunset said, “Let’s do this.”

They approached the warehouse. The door was still hanging uselessly from its hinges. Sunset walked up to it and knocked politely nevertheless. It made no discernible sound, and they could see past it that the room beyond was empty. They exchanged glances, then Sunset hammered on the door loud enough to make a resounding clang.

After an awkward minute waiting, the two pushed their way into the small office and through the inner door to the main warehouse. It was dark and quiet.

Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat and called out, “We’re here to see Sundown!”

“How good of you to come by,” smirked a voice from above them, and bright lights flicked on.

Sundown was sitting casually on top of the microwave robot to their left. A malicious-looking kettle robot with lasers was in front of them, and there was a huge vacuum cleaner with frowny eyes to their right.

Twilight gulped.

Sunset put on her best friendly smile. “Nice show of force,” she said. “There’s no need though. We’re unarmed.”

“And just the two of you?” sang Sundown.

“Er… that’s right,” Twilight said.

“Your friends aren’t lurking outside ready to crash in and smash another of my robots?”

“Nope,” Sunset proclaimed, more confidently than she felt. “We’re just here to talk.”

“Excellent. Then let’s talk.”

“Don’t we get to sit down?” Twilight asked.

“I’m not exactly set up for receiving guests,” Sundown muttered. “Fine. You can sit… here.” She kicked a button on the microwave she was sitting on, and its giant door swung open. The lip of its boxy interior, perched on top of caterpillar treads, was the height of a low sofa.

Boggling at the surreal surroundings, Sunset walked over and sat down, halfway inside the microwave. Twilight hesitantly joined her.

Sundown nimbly hopped down and stood in front of them with her arms crossed. “Okay. You know something about these magic items. Talk.”

It was a very tense conversation. Sunset had gone through the Rainbooms’ various encounters with Equestrian magic, starting with Gloriosa’s geodes at Camp Everfree and progressing through Juniper’s mirror, Vignette’s phone, Wallflower’s Memory Stone, and even the strange watering can. They focused on the commonalities between all the incidents, especially how the magic became addictive and mind-altering the more they used it, though Sundown predictably pooh-poohed the risks.

Sundown was an adept and incisive student, asking clarifying questions and demanding how they knew certain points; often Sunset’s and Twilight’s best answer was nothing but a helpless “...That’s our best guess”. Where did the magic come from? They suspected from another world, but didn’t have any proof. Why did it choose those items to enchant? Twilight wasn’t sure to what extent if any the magic could be said to have volition of its own, but if it did, it seemed to be attracted towards items and powers that exacerbated the wielder’s worst tendencies. Each ensorcelled object seemed intended and destined for one particular owner.

At length, Sundown scowled and threw up her hands. “You don’t actually know anything useful, do you?”

“We’ve told you all we can,” Twilight protested nervously.

“And you don’t know anything that’s actually of any use to me,” the villain repeated. “A pity. I was actually prepared to make a deal with you, even if I did take steps to make sure you came here without your friends.”

Sunset frowned. “Our friends cancelled of their own accord.”

Sundown clapped happily. “Oh good, I’m glad my impressions of them were convincing! I only had a few hours to read their message histories and put words into their mouths.”

“You wrote the text from Rarity,” breathed Sunset. “I thought something seemed off about it. But wait, what about my reply?”

“Your friends think you were the ones to put them off till tomorrow. Once I had their numbers from Twilight’s computer, it’s easy to intercept an outgoing text and replace its contents,” said Sundown smugly.

“No it isn’t!” Twilight objected.

“It is with the magic hacking stick!” Sundown sang. Sunset grimaced. Had she been this annoying when she was a villain?

“Anyway. I think we should be going now,” said Sunset, standing up.

“Ahem? You’re not going anywhere!” Sundown retorted. She pressed something in her hand and the robots started moving forwards.

Twilight ran for the office they’d come in through. But blocking its door was a giant desk fan that somehow had eyebrows even though its blades were spinning fast enough to push Twilight away from the door.

A hose from the vacuum robot snaked out towards them. Twilight levitated a metal pole and smashed the hose out of the way.

A blast of steam jetted towards them from the kettle droid, forcing Sunset to duck and roll down one of the aisles between storage units. She paused to catch her breath and take stock. The microwave bot was trundling slowly up the aisle towards her; the others were out of sight.

Okay. There had to be another exit; two of them, in fact, if Rainbow Dash’s scout report could be believed. The robots moved slower than they could run, so they just needed to dodge the laser blasts from the microwave bot and –

Sunset found herself lifted up into the air. She tried to turn around, and saw over her shoulder that a vacuum hose was attached to her back.

She struggled, but it was no use. No matter how much she flailed her arms or kicked her legs, the vacuum-bot had her back firmly attached.

“Oh no. Sunset!”

Sunset saw Twilight run towards her and reach out with her magic, trying to pull the hose off Sunset’s back. “No! Get out of here, Twilight!” she cried, but it was too late. A robot was approaching from each end of the aisle, and Twilight found herself trapped.

“Right,” said Sundown grimly from atop the microwave robot. “That is quite enough of that. Stand still, Twilight Sparkle, or I’ll blast you with a saturated laser grid.”

Twilight looked back and forth frantically, and then slumped. Sunset let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

“Much better,” said Sundown, back to her playful tone. She leapt down from her robot and stalked around Twilight, who was just obediently standing still. “Twilight Sparkle. What are we going to do with you? Such a great inventor, and a fascinating magical gift too. Micro Chips would love to collaborate with you to make equipment for me. But you seem less than keen to work with me. A bit too much spirit.”

She walked around to where Sunset still hung, suspended by a vacuum tentacle. “And here we have the girl calling herself Sunset Shimmer,” Sundown continued in that insufferable tone of hers. “The leader of the group, and the one who most often fires the magical laser.” Walking up close to Sunset and leaning her head right into Sunset’s personal space, she continued, “But apparently you don’t have any specific magical talent of your own. I wonder why that is?”

Sunset muttered, “You might want to check your sources.” She swung an arm up and touched the exposed skin at Sundown’s neck.

FLASH

A young red-headed girl brawling with a larger boy, but coming out on top.

FLASH

A young filly trotting confidently into Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She’s where she’s meant to be at last, and the future is bright before her.

FLASH

A teenage gang leader shaking in fury as her gang desert her. She picks up her switchblade and motorcycle helmet and heads for a new town.

FLASH

A proud student furiously raging as armoured guards escort her out of the princess’s presence.

FLASH

A runaway girl forging a letter to a bank. As she checks some details, a mote of magic drifts down and lands on her pen, turning it blood red. She picks up the pen curiously.

FLASH

A humbled bully climbing out of a crater. She looks uncertainly at the group of girls holding out hands to her.

FLASH

A thief experimentally pointing a red pen at a locked door. It swings open.

FLASH

Sundown recoiled from Sunset’s touch. She rubbed her neck, staring at Sunset. “You’re… a unicorn? You’re literally a magical alien from another world.”

Sunset fell limp. “What… That’s never happened before!”

“You came to Earth through a magic mirror,” continued Sundown in the same wondering tone. “You’re the invader and I’m the real Sunset Shimmer!” She gave a manic laugh. “And you used to be a villain like me! Bwahaha!”

Twilight exclaimed, “Sunset! What happened?!”

“Allow me,” Sundown interjected gleefully, though Sunset noticed a slight tremble in her voice. “It turns out your friend here is not as powerless as I was led to believe. She has the magic power of mind-reading, and she tried to read my mind. Except… for some reason that she hadn’t predicted, her touching me also allowed me to see her history. And it explains so much!”

“It must be because we’re the same person,” muttered Sunset. She looked up and gazed steadily at Sundown. “And yes… it does explain so much. Your life was much like mine, wasn’t it? You made the most of a bad hand life dealt you. Except you haven’t met your Elements of Harmony yet.”

“Much like yours?” said Sundown incredulously. “You were apprenticed to a literal princess! And when you threw that away to come here, you were content building power in a school… until you gained magic and, what, planned to use an army of teenage zombies to attack your homeland?!” She laughed derisively at Sunset Shimmer, who was acutely aware of the flush on her cheeks, and wishing the vacuum-bot would just swallow her up.

“Okay, I’ll be the first to admit I made some bad choices,” she said dejectedly.

Sundown had started staring into space again. “This changes everything,” she said speculatively. “There is a world where magic is commonplace. And it’s easily accessible from this city!”

Suddenly her demeanor shifted, as though she’d reached a decision. “I need time to think through the implications of this. I’m going to keep you two here for the night. Maybe I’ll get a ransom for you or something. First I need to work out what to do with these new opportunities.”

She pressed controls and the vacuum-bot’s other hose picked up Twilight. The robot lifted the two girls through the air and deposited them both inside the giant microwave. Sunset ran for the door but it closed with startling force.

“Don’t worry, I won’t turn on the radiation,” Sundown said mockingly. “I still have hopes of persuading you to work for me. If I’m staying in this world at all.” She patted the microwave droid on the side and said, “Back to your charging station for the night. See you in the morning, girls.”

The robot set off slowly driving into the darkness of the warehouse. Sunset and Twilight looked helplessly at each other as the light faded into the distance.

How To Get To The Other Side

“So…” Twilight looked around them. There wasn't much to see. The inside of the microwave bot looked like, well, the inside of a microwave, even down to the large glass disc that could presumably rotate. And also the absence of any convenient escape hatches. “What do we do?”

Sunset took a deep breath. “I guess getting out of this thing has to be our first priority. I imagine Sundown wouldn’t put us in here if it wasn’t fairly secure, but maybe we can force something with the two of us. Or with your magic.”

Twilight looked sceptical, but had a look out of the glass front. She reached out with her magic and grabbed a storage box on the outside. “All right… I think the open button was about… here?” She bashed the box into the front of the droid a few times. “I can’t really see what I’m doing… and we don’t even know if that button will work or if Sundown locked it somehow.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks for trying,” Sunset said sadly. She sat down on the hard metal floor of their culinary prison.

A minute later, the vibration and motion came to a sudden stop. The inside of the robot felt very dark and quiet. “I guess this is the charging station where the robot sits overnight,” Sunset commented, just for something to say to fill the sudden hush.

Twilight just nodded despondently. The silence stretched around them.

After an unknown number of minutes, a couple of thuds made Sunset look up. The corner of the warehouse still looked deserted. Then a small glowing point in the distance appeared and started moving towards them. It seemed to be a small screen, held about waist height, and in the faint illumination it provided they could see the face of…

“Pinkie Pie?!” Sunset exclaimed.

Pinkie’s eyes lit up at the sound of Sunset’s voice, even muffled through the glass door. She turned behind her and called something, and soon Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity turned up behind her.

They all clustered around the glass door of the dormant microwave robot. “Oh no, she caught you,” said Fluttershy in sympathy.

“I’m so glad you’re all here!” Sunset exclaimed. “But… how? Why? Sundown was saying she changed our text messages to tell you to keep away…”

Applejack nodded. “Yep, we got yer message tellin’ us to leave it till tomorrow. It seemed a mite odd, though, so Rares and I wondered if something weren’t quite right.”

“So they phoned me!” Pinkie interrupted. “And I thought to myself, Pinkie, how can you tell whether this message is really from your friends or not? And I tried smelling it but then I realised text messages don’t smell of anything. But then I remembered I still had this GPS tracker gizmo from last time! So I thought I’d see if you were at home or at the cinema or what, and then I saw you’d come out here after all, and I thought, would they really tell us to wait and then come here to have all the fun for themselves? And I decided no, of course they wouldn’t! You’d want us all to come and join you so we could all have fun together!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight cried. “You’re a genius!”

“I get that a lot,” Pinkie said with a smile. “But thanks.”

“So they got the van, came and collected us all, and we made our way in through a side door,” Rainbow Dash concluded. “We even managed to be a bit subtler than last time about opening the door.”

“And that was really exciting because I wouldn’t have thought that exploding candy inside a door lock would count as subtle, but everyone else seemed to be happy about it so that makes me happy, and now we’ve found you that makes me happier! Now we just need to break that glass to get you out and I’ll be happiest!”

Applejack and Rarity caught each other’s eye. “Shall we?” said Rarity, gesturing to the glass panel. She put up a large crystal shield on Sunset and Twilight’s side of the door. Applejack cracked her knuckles and delivered an almighty punch. The glass shattered inwards, the crystal protecting the imprisoned pair from harm.

When the shards had all fallen, Rarity made a couple more gemstone platforms for Sunset and Twilight to climb on. They staggered out of the robot and hugged their friends. “Thank you for coming for us,” Twilight said, and Sunset nodded fervently.

Twilight looked behind her at the smashed robot. “First up, let’s make sure this automaton doesn’t wake up and start emitting unsafe levels of unshielded microwaves.” She poked around and added, “Aha. Here’s the charger. Pinkie, would you do the honours?”

“With pleasure,” came the reply. One shake of exploding sprinkles later, Twilight nodded in satisfaction.

“Okay. Good job,” Sunset said. “Now I need to let you girls know about earlier. A... variety of things went wrong, but chief among them is that when I tried to read Sundown’s mind, something weird happened with my magic and she got to see my mind too. I don’t know how much she saw, but it was enough to tell my history... We have to assume that she now knows every ability or secret of ours.”

“Oof,” Applejack said. “That sure don’t help.”

“Unless it does,” Rarity mused.

Sunset frowned at Rarity, but she didn’t have time to figure out what she meant. Once again the lights flashed on and they saw Sundown’s familiar mask riding towards them on top of the kettle robot, with another robot following her which looked like a gigantic version of an old eighties radio.

Sundown pointed a finger at the group and snarled, “I am getting completely fed up with you girls! Breaking into my lair! Destroying my robots! Taunting me with your magic! So this – stops – now!”

The friends flashed into costume and soared into the air.

Sundown reacted immediately. She jumped down and ducked out of sight behind one of the shelves. Sunset couldn’t follow where she’d gone because jets of steam shot out from the kettle towards the Rainbooms, forcing them to scatter.

Sunset looked at the robot and called out, “It’s got a spout. Pinkie, wanna cut to the chase?”

“You got it!!” Pinkie flew up towards the giant kettle and pulled out an apple pie, which started glowing. With a cry of “Anyone for steamed apples?”, she threw the sweet pastry in a perfect arc towards the robot’s spout.

Suddenly a laser beam shot out of the air and smashed the pie before it could enter the kettle-bot. The crumbs scattered and exploded harmlessly.

Sunset’s eyes combed the air for the source of the laser. She spotted a drone hovering near the ceiling. “Looks like we need to take out the drone first!”

“On it!” yelled Rainbow Dash, disappearing upwards in a blur.

The small machine dodged out of the rainbow’s path a few times and then fired a laser straight into the head of the blur. Rainbow Dash dropped to the floor, rubbing her shoulder. “Man, that thing has good reactions!”

“Can’t I just punch it?” asked Applejack plaintively. She zoomed down towards the kettle, which was still venting steam into the atmosphere.

One of the steam pipes angled towards Applejack. Rarity sighed. “Do try to be careful, darling!” she called, throwing a barrier between Applejack and the targeted jet of steam.

This allowed Applejack to get close enough to lay hands on the caterpillar tracks, and she started ripping them apart with gusto. But suddenly the radio robot emitted a loud, high note, and Rarity’s crystal smashed.

“Applejack! Get out of there!” Rarity cried. She magicked up several more crystals but they all instantly shattered at the sound.

Applejack looked up in concern, straight at the steam pipe, just as it started venting… Then suddenly she was snatched out of the way by a rainbow and deposited in the shelter of a block of shelves. “Thanks, Dash,” she murmured.

Sundown’s cackling voice echoed from the radio’s giant speakers. “Hahaha! Looks like it was even easier to neutralise your powers than I’d thought! Do you give up yet?”

“No way!” Sunset yelled. “Rainbooms, regroup!” The seven girls flew out of the kettle’s range and ducked down behind a shelf.

“Okay, anyone any ideas?” Sunset asked urgently. “How do we stop that drone shooting Pinkie’s sugar bombs and the radio smashing Rarity’s crystals?”

“If only I had a laptop on hand, I could try to hack their control frequencies,” Twilight sighed.

After a few seconds, Fluttershy hesitantly said, “Um… I think I might be able to handle the drone. Especially if Twilight helps me.”

“Of course,” said Twilight in surprise. “What do you need?”

“Let me tell you while we’re up there,” said Fluttershy, heading for the ceiling. Twilight shrugged at Sunset and followed.

“It oughta be possible to get behind that noise-makin’ thing ta smash it,” mused Applejack. “Dash, reckon you could dodge the steam while carryin’ me?”

“Ugh,” grumbled Rainbow Dash. “Carrying anyone in Speed is such hard work. But yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

“Which leaves us to take out the ridiculous kettle thing,” said Sunset to Rarity and Pinkie.

“If the others can stop that beastly noise from destroying my beautiful jewels, we’ll be fine.” Rarity sounded aggrieved, as if the shattering tone were a criticism of her personal taste.

“We’d better be ready. Let’s get back out there.”

Sundown was calling out in a mocking tone, her taunts amplified by the radio robot. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! I didn’t think superheroes were meant to play hide and seek!”

Sunset took to the sky, and looked above her. Fluttershy was chatting to someone or something, then hissed to Sunset, “They just need another minute or two!”

She floated higher, so she could see the pair of large robots. Sundown was back to standing on top of the kettle droid, which had given up trying to move on its damaged treads and was just standing still, steam pipes ready to shoot. The radio was behind her, and as Sunset watched, a rainbow trail arrived behind it. They were noticed by the villain watching from atop the kettle, of course, since Rainbow Dash wasn’t really capable of being subtle. But she still landed Applejack in a position where the bulk of the radio was shielding her from the kettle, so despite Sundown’s best efforts aiming steam, Applejack was able to lay into the radio bot. It directed some unpleasantly loud boom tones at her, and then abruptly cut off: Applejack had obviously broken the connection.

She looked back at the rafters. Fluttershy was giving Twilight Sparkle a thumbs up. The hovering drone was still patrolling the air, but found itself enveloped in a purple magical field and tugged towards Fluttershy. It righted itself… but then wobbled unstably as it found its rotors getting tangled in extra thick strands of spider silk. “Yay! Good job, everyone!” said Fluttershy, presumably to the band of spiders she’d found on the ceiling. The drone was now hanging from a web at an awkward angle with its camera pointed hopelessly off to one side.

Sunset grinned. “Pinkie, Rarity? You’re good to go.”

As shields appeared blocking the steam vents, Pinkie produced a pair of choc chip cookies. With a gleeful bound she cried, “I think it’s time for a chocolate–”

“STOP!”

“Aww, what now?” Pinkie asked Sunset dejectedly.

“That wasn’t me,” Sunset said drily. She gestured to Sundown, who had raised her hands angrily. “It was her.”

“Ugh! Fine! You win!” Sundown yelled, her voice sounding lonely without the radio amplification. “Can you please stop destroying my robots now?!”

Sunset moved down to levitate in front of Sundown’s perch on the kettle. “Really? You surrender?”

Sundown growled in frustration. “...Yes. Look, I’ll power them down.” She jabbed at some buttons on her controller, and the various lights on the robots went off.

Sunset felt her friends gather each side of her, hovering as a group of seven. Sundown looked at them and said morosely, “Is that the reason for the ‘power of friendship’? You get a whole team of magical abilities and the ability to coordinate them?”

“That does come in handy at times, but it’s not the main benefit, actually, no,” Sunset said, her hands spread wide in openness. “Remember I’ve done my time as a villain too. I can honestly say life is more fulfilling with friends you can trust.”

“Ugh, spare me.” Sundown scowled. “Take your kooky inventions and go.”

Sunset exchanged glances with her friends, and then slowly moved forwards. “We could do that,” she agreed. “But I feel like maybe we could help you with something more.” She landed on top of the deactivated kettle-bot next to her other self.

“I don’t need your pity, or your friendship!” Sundown cried.

“That’s true, you don’t,” Sunset said casually. “But think about what you saw in my mind before. We’re similar, at least, aren’t we, you and I? We respond to things in similar ways, even if I make worse mistakes than you do? Then take a look in my mind one more time, at what it feels like to experience friendship. Even if I made a total mess of my villain days… look at what it was like for me to have friends I could trust for the first time.”

She extended a hand. Sundown stared at it for an endless minute. Then slowly she reached out her own identical hand, and touched it.

FLASH

The two Sunset Shimmers stood atop the robot. Then, gently, one pulled the other into a hug. The one with a mask pulled it off. Then she surprised everyone, even herself, by bursting into tears on her other self’s shoulder.

The other Rainbooms smiled understanding smiles and drifted down to the floor.

At length, the host disengaged from the other Sunset Shimmer and looked around at her guests. “I can’t remember the last time I let anyone see my face,” she said, wiping her eyes. She jumped down from the robot and then stood awkwardly among them for a few moments. “So… what now?”

“We are all big believers in second chances,” said Twilight Sparkle with a rueful smile. “So it’s up to you. You can make a fresh start. What do you want to do now?”

“Hah. A fresh start sounds great, but I still have the police of three cities looking for me. Unless...” She paused, and then reached into her jumpsuit and pulled out a blood-red pen. “I guess I could delete all their records on me, with this…”

Rainbow Dash slapped her forehead. “Oh yeah! We forgot to zap the magic thingie with the rainbow laser!”

“Doing one last crime to give yourself a clean slate is one idea, I suppose,” Sunset Shimmer said. “But I have another option in mind. I saw when you touched me the second time: you really like magic, don’t you?”

The short-haired Sunset Shimmer nodded vigorously. “So much! I want to take all your geode necklaces and try them all out and study them all. …I’m not going to actually try to,” she added, seeing the way some of the others were looking at her. “But when I got this pen, I immediately wanted to investigate all its capabilities. I kept detailed records, in my own private code, of course. There’s still plenty to learn even from just this one artifact.”

“How would you like to go somewhere where not only do you have a clean slate, but you get to study dozens of magic artifacts and hundreds of spells?”

The wide-eyed look spoke for itself.

“Don’t be a stranger! Come back and visit sometimes!”

The group assembled out the front of Canterlot High waved as the girl with the short red hair stepped into the statue.

“How are you doing?” Twilight Sparkle asked Sunset softly.

“Honestly? I’m feeling pretty good,” replied Sunset with a smile. “Obviously I’m glad you’re not going to have any more trouble with hackers or thieves taking your stuff.”

“But this place you’re sending her, Princess Celestia’s School for…”

“...Gifted Unicorns,” Sunset supplied. “Technically we don’t know for sure she’ll actually be gifted on that side of the portal, but it seems a pretty safe bet.”

“Isn’t that where you used to study? Where the dark magic got too tempting for you?” Twilight’s tone was concerned.

Sunset nodded. “Yeah. I thought about the risks. But I think from what I saw in her mind, and what she saw in mine, she’ll be well equipped to make the right choices there.”

“And what about if she ends up the prize student of Princess Celestia? You won't be... jealous?”

This time Sunset broke into a broad grin. “No way. I can’t think of anyone more suited to it.”

Author's Note

I got into writing fanfic in the first place because I wanted to see more of Sunset Shimmer and the Equestria Girls. And I love Equestria Girls in large part because it's a MLP take on superhero / magical girl stories. So while I had some other ideas for this contest that could have been a lot of fun, I couldn't resist going with the one that allowed the EqG Mane Seven to get some superhero action scenes.

Thanks for reading!