Cardboard Castles

by Peridork

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: A New Generation, Romance, Sunny Starscout, Slice of Life, Izzy Moonbow
Length: 6217

Sunny and Izzy find out that bringing back magic woke some things up. Though Izzy is more focused on trying to get Sunny to notice her.

It's been a rough two weeks for Sunny Starscout. She expected her Bridlewood vacation to be simple- relax with Izzy, see the town, and have fun.

Izzy has other ideas. Namely going on an adventure. Cause adventures are fun and Sunny likes those a lot, even if she says otherwise. And if Izzy has a few ideas on what to say to her best friend after the adventure? Even better.

Cause Bridlewood has ruins that Sunny would just love to visit.

Published 2021-10-06 07:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-10-06 07:00:01 UTC

Iris

"-and that's how I figured out how duct tape works." Izzy took a sip of tea and grinned. "I mean, sure, Alphabittle was so mad that I ruined the upholstery in the Crystal Tea Room, but he got over it I think." The purple unicorn carefully floated over a spoon to stir her tea. She absolutely loved magic, the feel of it, the luminescence that she could see so much more of, the implications of actual horn lasers and mind reading. Earth ponies were just so creative on uses for magic.

Sunny laughed at the thought of Alphabittle actually being flustered- as long as it didn't involve the few "banned" words of Bridlewood. Though with the return of magic, the unicorns weren't thinking that they would be jinxed every two seconds. Though Sunny still couldn't figure out how mayonnaise became a banned term. She personally didn't like the ideas that it conjured up in her head. "Well that sounds like a rather interesting day. I mean when I was eight, I just got banned from the Canterlogic factory cause I handed out what Sprout's mom called "brainwashing material"

"Sounds spooky. What was it? Like glitter bombs or particularly realistic macaroni art?"

Sunny shook her head. "Nothing of the sort, I just wrote a particularly short series of points, helpfully brainstormed with my dad, about how friendship with pegasi and unicorns was not just possible, but historically based in reality."

The bubbly unicorn laughed. "And that was how you became criminal number one in Maretime Bay? I can picture it now: well meaning earth ponies stepping out of line for the first time in oh so many moons and destabilizing the natural order."

Sunny groaned. "Don't rub it in."

Izzy pointed a hoof at Sunny's translucent wings and horn. "I think those look good on you. Don't knock the glow up or what it took to get it. And hey, at least you aren't in your hometown. It took four days for ponies to not look like I had a second head. Its not my fault that Canterlogic made things that looked fun to play with. It's not every day you get covered in goo and see ponies play a seriously fun game of hide and seek. Bridlewood's idea of fun gave most of the unicorns my age a serious gambling problem."

"At least you got to gamble. All Maretime Bay had was anti-pegasi and unicorn rallies sponsored by Canterlogic. Which being the least favorite pony in the town kind of made that awkward."

Izzy swirled her tea and grinned. "Yeah, would have loved to see a tiny Sunny. I mean didn't you mention you had a winged unicorn outfit? I think somepony wanted to be a big strong alicorn, if that's the word for it. Resident nerd loved her ancient heroes so much she brings back magic. Which was a good thing cause levitating stuff is so much easier than doing it by hoof. There's only so many ways you can make a detailed sculpture out of macaroni and glue- with magic I don't have to worry about all the glue getting over my hair. Which cuts down on my hair budget. And before you ask, it was not cheap." Izzy punctuated her speech with a quick jab of her hoof. "You can't just keep the best mane in Bridlewood looking fresh without effort. It's ludicrous."

Sunny smiled slightly, seeing the animated unicorn flit from topic to topic like a hummingbird who just discovered a new flower bed still sometimes bothered her. Not in a bad way, but going from talking mostly to herself or Hitch on days that he wasn't stuck in the role of Sheriff, there hadn't been a lot of fun topics since her dad died. And the unicorn was rather creative with her speech. There wasn't a topic that Izzy couldn't deviate to- just yesterday she had gone from talking about how unicorn cupcakes were the coolest thing ever to a question of how the map Sunny had of Equestria might track to an older map during the Guardians of Friendship Era, which took Sunny aback. She hadn't thought about it. And it wasn't like Maretime Bay carried ancient maps to compare. Those were all super forbidden.

In short, this mandatory vacation from Maretime Bay was the most fun she had with a singular pony in a while.

"Equestria to Sunny. I know that earth ponies are the best at staring contests, but you kind of spaced out there." The light purple unicorn blinked. "Oh, is your horn and wings linking up to your brain, so you can like shoot magical lasers of friendship at ponies. I mean I kind of read your journal and besides your infatuation of pizza, this Elements of Harmony thing seems like a super laser."

Sunny looked up and blinked. "No, the Elements of Harmony are not a "super laser" they are, or were, the most magical artifacts of ancient Equestria used only by the most noble of ponies in the most dire of cases."

"And there's Sunny." Izzy tapped a hoof on her unicycled flower table and shrugged. "Guess friendship isn't melting your brain. I mean you did miss like five minutes of me talking, but I get it. Even I kind of zone out when talking. Though having actual friends kind of makes that far more difficult to do. But back on the magical crystals. So like crazy idea, but Bridlewood likes crystals, right?"

Sunny, slightly miffed that nopony truly got the magical mystery of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, sighed as she was very worried about what idea Izzy had. It was probably a wonderful idea, but she still had nightmares about causing way too much trouble for "being the most celebrated pony in literal centuries" as Pipp would say. "The two things that still can be said about this town is that everybody is way too into crystals and that every time I walk down a forest path, I might be challenged to a dance battle. So yes, your quirky hometown loves crystals."

Izzy hugged her best friend, her first real non-unicorn friend, and looked deep into those cute green eyes. "It's been like a bajillion years since the Elements of Harmony have been seen, right? So like maybe Bridlewood is a garbage dump for crystals."

Sunny breathed out. "Don't you say it."

Izzy grinned. "And therefore maybe Twilight Sparkle tossed the Elements into the trashbin of history and made cooler, more important crystals."

Sunny groaned. "I hate this. I mean its possible, but the loss of the Elements would have ruined Equestrian society and anyway-"

Izzy waved a hoof. "Says the pony who lived in a completely xenophobic, magicless town. I mean think about it. This Twilight pony might have just been really bored ruling Equestria super good for like forever and just wanted a vacation and made some knockoff crystals with her super magic and just wiped her hooves of the whole thing."

"That's reckless." Sunny blurted out. "that's just not how Twilight Sparkle would have done it. I mean she saved Equestria at least six times on record and like ten times in apocryphal stories my dad found in his research, she-"

"-was a rather Sunny Starscout like pony probably and also really liked magic and books and book flavored accessories, I got it. But think about it. It's been a long time and there's so much we don't know. about like the in between stuff. So you know what this calls for? An adventure."

Sunny blinked. "To where? The Everfree Forest is maybe like four or five days away and I am not going in there."

Izzy looked at her orange friend. "The what now? No, that's stupid and way too dangerous. I meant like go to Alphabittle and pester him until he gives us knowledge on stuff."

"Oh, you could have said that and cut out all this nonsense."

Izzy giggled. "And make the adventure shorter, I think not."

***

"Please, Alphabittle, I'm begging you. Let us see the unicorn records."

Alphabittle stared down at the prostrate and nearly sobbing unicorn. "No. You'd probably accidentally destroy the records. You do still remember the last time I let you actually do something, right? I said it would be a simple request of giving Gloomy Sonnet a letter. Do you remember what happened next?"

Izzy sobbed louder. "I didn't mean to bring a manticore into Bridlewood, but he looked so friendly."

Alphabittle grumbled and facehoofed. "Yeah, if you like a feral five hundred pound killing machine. And that's partially why we didn't have a certain marble bridge to get easily in or out of Bridlewood."

Sunny blinked and stared down at her rather pitiful companion. "Wait, so that was Izzy who did that?"

Alphabittle shrugged and carefully set down the complex puzzle he was working on with a touch of his magic. "Not exactly. Izzy was the reason the manticore was there in the first place, but getting it out took a lot of effort. Doubly so if you realize that not having magic was kind of a major deal. So some rather creative unicorns made a bomb and blew up the bridge once Izzy was on the other side of the bridge. Which solved the problem. Until Izzy here found a way back, thankfully without the manticore."

Izzy nodded, sagely. The tears still wetting her face, and the emotions all out, she shifted somewhat back to the normal pony that Sunny was used to. "I mean it did, but you terrified a rather scared magical creature, which was not cool. And you know how difficult it is to climb walls without a rope? It's sheer madness."

Sunny turned and looked at her unicorn friend. She was still getting used to how Izzy could switch emotions so readily and at a drop of a hat. "Okay, okay, there's a lot of stuff I'm going to need to process here, but back on track- you said that Izzy wouldn't be able to see the old pony texts. But I'm not Izzy, so what if I could. See them, I mean."

Alphabittle rolled his eyes and got carefully out from behind the bar. "I hate this. But if I don't do this, Izzy here will probably escalate her terrible behavior and I don't need that." He got down on Sunny's average height level and looked into her eyes. "On one condition, and one only. I have to be there. And our mutual acquaintance can't touch a single thing."

Sunny narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Deal, and that's easy. It's not like we are terrible at not touching things. I mean we were in Zephyr Heights' castle basement and we didn't touch anything."

Izzy nervously laughed. "Actually I might, just might, have touched a few things there. I mean the cool posters, and the weird doodads, and the odd floor. But yeah, I guess I agree. But if there's really cool stuff there, I make few promises."

Sunny and Alphabittle shared a knowing look.

***

"Wow, look at all this weird junk." Izzy carefully walked through the maze of previous unicorn generation very carefully, almost touching the unknown magical artifacts, but stopping right before she did. "I mean I get why you don't let a lot of random ponies down here cause its a whole lot and you still probably have to worry about weird jinxes but its so cool."

Alphabittle carefully brushed aside the mounds of crystals, old amulets, and random artifacts almost lost to time. "Now stay on the pathways carefully written out on this handy map. I don't want you two to get lost, especially since there's some things that might be more active since our-" Alphabittle stopped and looked at Sunny. "What are you anyway?"

Sunny almost answered, but Izzy carefully put a hoof over her orange friend's mouth. "I got this. Alicorn. Sunny found it in one of her old books and it fits okay."

Alphabittle shook his head. "Right, well, I don't think there's a whole lot here under that stupid term. Though its not like previous holders of the keys to this library really wrote any notes in the last two hundred years." He swiped at a few cobwebs and swept away a large layer of dust as he did so.

Sunny nodded and looked at the small and highly stylized map, faded with time and rewritten over many years. "Okay, so it mentions something about a lower section with dangerous magical artifacts. Let's skip those, I've had too many run ins with magical artifacts for my liking."

Izzy waved a hoof. "One time? That's a fluke. And anyway the crystals gave you those shiny new wings and horn, so like what if there's more cool crystals that can do that."

Sunny shivered. "Nope, not happening. And anyway, I've skimmed my dad's notes enough times to know that if the word dangerous is near "magical artifacts" its safer to run away. Case in point, the Alicorn Amulet."

Izzy smiled. "Does that make you an alicorn cause it sure sounds like it."

Sunny rolled her eyes and looked carefully at a few random crystals as she tried to come up with the words to describe the sheer horror of the worst and most evil of items that her dad figured out. "No, it made everypony evil that touched it and Twilight Sparkle had to fight a magic duel that nearly destroyed her house. Though maybe that was mixed with a later battle. Right around the time she became an alicorn the records get rather muddled."

Izzy blinked and leaned carefully on a nearby table. "Wait. You never mentioned that your favorite ancient god was not always a god. Or are alicorns like immortal cause that sucks. Then there's only so many days in a lifetime where we can have sleepovers and watch movies and eat dinner together."

Sunny blushed. "No, I don't think so. But its not like the records I have are complete anyway."

Alphabittle coughed. "I'd love to debate life and all that, but I have things to do and places to be before I die. The records are this way."

***

"Ah now these look a bit more like what I was looking for." Sunny carefully tapped on the ruby that was inlaid in the front of the ornate gold desk.

The large grey unicorn shrugged. "The old world papers all all there. I really don't think there's a whole lot but this really isn't my forte."

Sunny nodded. "Well anything is better than nothing." Sunny bent down and looked under the desk, looking for any weird nooks or crannies that might show any hidden compartments. She knocked on a few common areas where olden ponies hid important documents- the underside of the desk, the back, and later she would have to look at each drawer for false bottoms. The ancients were rather predictable when it came to these sorts of things. "Okay, well this seems just like a sturdy desk. Nothing special. Izzy can you do the honors of carefully taking out the documents? Carefully, if you please."

Izzy saluted and levitated over a few dilapidated chairs for the pair to sit on. "Okay so let's see what we got." The purple unicorn levitated the first few drawers and set them to the side. "Okay, looks like this first drawer is-" Izzy skimmed the papers quickly and with purpose. "receipts. Hey, Sunny, have you ever heard of the Vanhoover Mall in any of your stories cause they sure come up a lot."

Sunny rolled her eyes. "That's mundane and normal. Would you expect the great writers of the past to focus on a mall? That'd be like if the Guardians of Friendship's stories all had them brush their teeth or take showers. They had to have done basic cleaning rituals, but its not important enough for the chroniclers to write down."

Izzy nodded. "Cool, I guess. So you'll probably hate this but so far all I'm seeing in this desk are ads and random papers. Good ads though. I mean these old ponies had some taste, I mean look at that hemline on that mare, its kind of revealing. But tasteful. I think Pipp would love these. This Carousel Boutique knew how to accentuate the good stuff if you know what I'm saying."

Sunny looked up and quickly looked at the drawer that Izzy mentioned, flipping through adverts for mayonnaise and its "scary good deals" and other odd and ends of marketing material. Finally she pulled out the particular document that Izzy found- a faded advert for the "Grand Opening of Carousel Boutique's Vanhoover Branch" and she read carefully skimming each and every word of the document. "Izzy, you did it. This is amazing."

Izzy brightly smiled. "I hope so, your luminescence is particularly shiny right now. But I'm more excited for these dress designs I mean look at these designs of these dresses, like this designer really liked these two models. Or four? Cause there's like two twin model pairs with the same cutie mark. Odd. Though I do like that they are both alicorns. Male alicorns and female alicorns. Wonder if there were baby alicorns, though that would be ridiculous."

"Izzy, there were no male ali-"

A blaring alarm sound went off in the distance. A loud, low sound that echoed throughout the large repository of ancient knowledge.

Alphabittle stood there confused for a moment. "That's not supposed to happen. In all my time being here and making sure this place ran smoothly, I didn't know that it had an alarm system."

A raucous scream echoed through the halls.

Alphabittle stared daggers at Izzy. "I told you not to touch a single thing."

Izzy looked back at him. "I didn't touch anything important. Else that alarm would have started sooner."

A skittering sound came from above and as the trio of ponies looked up, a long black arm came out from the piles of junk and gripped onto Sunny's leg, yanking the surprised alicorn off her feet and into the darkness.

***

Sunny's eyes adjusted to the dim light shining on her face. She rolled over and blinked, the blaring sound of the alarm and the pain she felt in her limbs telling her that the odd feeling of being dragged across stacks and piles of random detritus and crystals wasn't a lie. She tilted her head and looked down, seeing the floor beneath her a long distance away. She tried to wiggle her hooves but a long and flexible black material made it difficult to move.

She heard a few skittering sounds behind her and she felt a light touch on her back trace down her spine, too close for comfort ant oddly distant in its touch. Alien almost. "Izzy? Is that you?" She tried to look behind her, but the sheer fabric made it rather difficult to twist her head.

A large black magical creature lumbered out of the shadows, the light glistening off its metallic body, its eyes two red rubies set firmly in its attempt at a face. Said face was marred by rust and the jaw stood open as the bottom half dangled listlessly on, what looked to Sunny, a bunch of wires.

Sunny squirmed in fear since there wasn't many descriptions of what this particularly was. Sure it looked like a Canterlogic weapon, but its age spoke of it being almost broken refuse forgotten since the age of the Guardians. She had read briefly about the myths of golems- though she had never seen one firsthoof, especially since it wasn't like she held Twilight's Journal or held a basic understanding of magic outside of foal stories. It had been a few weeks since magic came back.And she wasn't proficient in magic, heck, even her horn didn't always work right.

"Welcome to the Vanhoover Mall, unknown pony. Please enjoy your stay until the commotion on the lower levels gets sorted out. The customer service desk is. . .missing" The golem's neck snapped to the side as whirring noises came from inside the creature. "Remember to shop at the food court and try Vanhoover's famous poutine dish. Or have the autograph of Equestria's best and brightest, Luster Dawn, come up from Canterlot on a signing tour for her new book. Have a nice day." The golem security guard stared at Sunny, unblinking, unmoving, just spewing out advertisements and running through programming of a long dead mall.

Sunny grimaced as she tried to get out of her situation. She hoped Izzy was doing better than her.

***

Izzy was having a horrible time. One moment Sunny was celebrating something rather interesting for the earth pony turned alicorn. Sure it wasn't super interesting for Izzy per se, but the sparkle that Sunny gave off when she was talking about old artifacts and other things she liked was so brilliant that it was almost hard to look at.

And then Sunny got foalnapped by random evil robots. Which made Izzy feel highly conflicted. Sure, it made Sprout's evil killing machine look like foal's play. But it was more about the whole Sunny being foalnapped thing. Only Izzy could do that- take Sunny out to a secret location, have fun, and go back home together. An adventure just for the two of them.

Izzy stared out at the hordes of evil robots and smiled. These robots were easy to smash and, if Sunny wasn't in danger, she would almost be having fun. She had never tried unicycling with magic before.

She could heard Alphabittle screaming in the distance as he dealt with his own pack of broken murderbots. Eh, he was probably fine.

"Come and get me, you buckets of bolts, but I have to warn you. I'm Maretime Bay's hide and seek champion." Izzy ducked behind stacks of books and weaved through the mess that eons of lazy unicorns had made. This would have been her happy place, what with all the cool, unknown stuff that this place held. But what was more important was getting Sunny back- cause this was almost too much of an adventure for a first timer like Sunny.

She felt the stacks shift and looked up as the small robots that had been rather simple to destroy a few moments earlier combined into a huge robot that looked down at her with almost a sense of hate.

"Oh come on, that's not fair."

***

"Coming Attractions for the Vanhoover mall. Bring your foals to the new and improved Wild Blue Yonder rollercoaster on loan from Las Pegasus. Do not be afraid for it has been tested with all care to make sure than no further incidents should result from negligence."

Sunny would find this random assortment of old world errata fascinating, but she was feeling a bit faint with all her blood rushing to her head. She had been trying to start up her magic for the last few minutes with any form of brain exercises that she could think of. "Come on, come on you stupid horn." A faint glimmer spread throughout her see through horn, the light making it a little easier to see the decrepit golem that spouted off random nonsense of a dead world.

"Have a taste of Apple-O's the most liked cereal in all of Equestria-"

Sunny stared at the robot and focused on it, the slightly gaunt design of the creature, the nearly featureless face, the rust that had spread over its limbs as time passed it by. She would find it fascinating to study. In silence. She felt her emotions bubble up as she felt the wash of words that she recognized mix with the sheer nonsense of marketing. And she disliked predatory marketing. That had been Canterlogic's forte, playing off the insane fears of an isolationist world. And she was done playing that game. "Shut up, shut up, shut up. If I had to be lectured by some stupid robot, I'd have stayed home and listened to Mrs. Cloverleaf!" Sunny felt the world turn bright as she felt her horn start up and with a grunt of effort, she aimed her gaze at the golem.

She could feel pain as new magical synapses were built and she briefly wondered if this stupid headache was what Izzy felt every moment of the day when she used magic. She gritted her teeth and focused, watching the golem's chest start melting away as she aimed what Sprout would call "her deadly horn laser" at it. It would almost be beautiful in a way, if she wasn't focused on getting out of this death trap.

The golem didn't miss a beat as it rattled off ad after ad, its voice going higher and higher in pitch as Sunny's magic pierced its chest and caused ancient gears and gyros to melt. "Welcome to the Van-Vanhoover Mall. Please enjoy your-" The golem's eyes popped off, its superheated oil, pouring out its empty sockets as its head lolled to the side for one final time.

Sunny cheered for a few moments, patting herself figuratively on the back for doing magic. Then she realized her predicament. She may have fried the golem, but she was still stuck upside down. "Damn it."

From downstairs, a large crash echoed.

***

Izzy glanced at the large robot that was now stomping all over the floor in anger. She had run as fast as her legs could hoof it in the first few minutes after that nasty surprise had appeared out of these dumb robots bag of tricks. Izzy was glad that the robot wasn't that smart and that she was at least medium sneaky. She had hid in the ruins of a nearby rollercoaster for a time to catch her breath. "Think, think, think. What would Sunny do in this situation?" She quickly imagined the orange former earth pony and calmed down a bit. "Okay, so big robot made of lots and lots of tiny ones." Izzy's idea factory, while normally focused on multiple ways items could be unicycled, could come up with something devious if need be. The purple unicorn smiled as an idea hit her.

Izzy scooted her way towards the large collection of robots and looked for anything big enough to smash the thing over the head with. If there had been a rollercoaster here in the past, there had to be other stupidly huge things as well. The massive death machine had been rather useful in uncovering any number of things. Izzy scanned the area and her eyes fell on a large structure that looked rather useful. She had learned how to be rather resourceful on her own due to months outside Bridlewood- exiled for a time for messing with the town in increasingly convoluted ways. And with magic back now, Izzy had all she needed in her arsenal to make this robot rue the day it looked at her funny.

"Hey you bucket of bolts, I'm over here."

The robot glared at Izzy with its multiple ruby eyes for a brief moment before charging headlong at the unicorn.

Izzy fired up her horn and waited. Timing was everything with this rather reckless plan of hers. She gripped the nearest park ride in her magical glow and smiled as she counted the steps of the robot. Deciding that it was close enough after a few more seconds, she yanked the ride towards her, letting gravity do its trick.

The robot didn't have a chance as a rusted ship that had dangled in the air for a thousand or more years finally succumbed to gravity, crushing the robot in one fell swoop. Izzy would have celebrated, but the shockwave of the crash blinded her for a moment as layers of dust and debris were sent all over the ground. She sat there wheezing in pain as a headache arced through her head. Wincing, she rubbed her horn. Magic hurt sometimes and this was one of those times, though the alternative was far less fun or exciting.

"Score one for Izzy."

Alphabittle stumbled through a nearby hallway, scratched up and highly disoriented.

Izzy waved a hoof at the large unicorn stallion. "Hey, look at what I did!"

***

Alphabittle stared at the mayhem and destruction that was all over. Wires and ceiling tiles were all over the floor, dead robots lay scattered in piles, and one excitable unicorn that was a thorn in his side stared at him like it wasn't her existence that caused all this damage. He had thought that this would have been a simple task, but nothing was ever simple when Izzy Moonbow, the village's oddball, was involved. He wished he had taken up Queen Haven's offer to see Zephyr Heights- now that was a pony that knew how the world worked and wasn't seven kinds of headaches.

"And then, the tiny robots turned into a massive one and-"

Alphabittle shushed the talking menace with a hoof. "You've destroyed uncountable records, artifacts, and knowledge of the old world and I'm supposed to be glad that you of all ponies took out a robot?" He took his hoof off of the mare so she could speak for a moment.

"Well duh, if we weren't here just think of how bad it could have been. I mean no offense, but have you seen Bridlewood's unicorns? If they thought a manticore was bad and hard to deal with, just think if these stupid bots had gotten out of here. Now that would have been super chaotic."

Alphabittle grimaced. He didn't answer for a moment, slowly trying to choose his words. Deciding that agreeing fully with Izzy was a terrible idea for multiple reasons, not least of all that if he did she would think that doing more dangerous stunts would be a good idea, he decided to take the more middling approach. "True, but still this has been a terrible idea. I mean where even is Sunny?"

Izzy blinked. "Darn, I knew I forgot something. Thanks Alphabittle."

"I wasn't done-"

Izzy shrugged. "Tell me later. You always do. You know before kicking me out of town. Finding Sunny comes first. Now what was that spell I was trying out cause I was bored?" Izzy tapped a hoof in thought, running through the spellbook that she had found in the back of the Bridlewood Library. "Now if I just do this. . ." Izzy's horn flared up and let a quick spell off. "Oh that's weird."

Alphabittle sighed. "Now what are you mumbling about?"

Izzy walked around, sniffing the air. "Spell for making my nose better. Which has some useful qualities. Now Sunny smells like strawberries and candy, which is only coming from this way and like two stories up, so follow me, my trusty companion, to save our mutual friend." Izzy ran off into the maze of trash.

Alphabittle looked highly confused for a moment. "Why do you know exactly how she smells? You know what? Forget I asked that. And I'm not your friend. I don't even like you two idiots that much."

***

"Now wasn't that a fun adventure?" Izzy leaned back in her chair, quickly tapping her dinner plate with her fork.

Sunny sighed. "It was memorable, that's for sure, but it wasn't worth it. Plus, I think Alphabittle is really mad at us."

Izzy rolled her eyes. "He'll get over it eventually. He always does. Plus just think of when we see our friends in a bit and we get to say we fought robots in a dead mall from the past."

Sunny shook her head. "I keep telling you. They weren't robots. They were golems. Golems are artificial magical creatures that run off magical programs. Robots are similar, I guess, but they aren't alive."

Izzy shrugged. "Robots. Golems. Same difference. Now where should I put this trophy?" Izzy shook the head of the golem that had foalnapped Sunny. "I was thinking of unicycling it as a flower pot."

Sunny stared at her friend. "Seriously? That would ruin the circuits and I don't think that would hold water all that well anyway."

Izzy looked at the decapitated metal head and hummed to herself for a moment. "Well I was just thinking of ways to show how much I didn't like this thing. You sure you're okay, Sunny? Cause I can check you out. Though I might have already done that."

Sunny blinked. "What?"

The excitable unicorn giggled. "And here I thought all your guys thought I was the oblivious one." Izzy winked. "Let's just say that a certain pony inviting me to her town might have been a good first date. And that was before I thought you would smell nice."

Sunny thought for a moment. "Oh. So you've been totally hitting on me then. I just thought it was me misreading social cues again."

Izzy grinned. "Well duh, I mean come on, Sunny, I was trying to make it somewhat obvious. Still I'm kind of annoyed that our little adventure was a little more exciting than I expected. Those robots-" Izzy glanced at Sunny who was currently crossing her hooves. "Fine, fine. Those golems weren't on my list of things. Neither was Alphabittle being there, but what can you do when he thinks I cause all the mayhem in Bridlewood. Which is not exactly right. I mean Gloomy Sonnet tried summoning demons that one time cause she was peeved that Alphabittle beat her in a poetry slam. So I only did nine of the top ten worst things in Bridlewood."

Sunny rolled her eyes. "Well at least in Maretime Bay, they still talk about you. The menace of the town. Which is odd cause Sprout tried to start a war."

Izzy nodded. "See now that's a real mess. Though I mean I did kind of run into you. Which was fun. Now if only Hitch had took some time in rounding up the long hoof of the law, we might have had some actual fun together. Though I do think the shock of seeing a, what did Pipp call it, a 'bona fide' unicorn in the flesh made you focus on the pages of questions. Which was silly cause you had to ask if unicorns liked pizza? Everypony loves pizza. It's pizza."

Sunny blushed. "Well, I just was more shocked that you didn't fry my brain."

Izzy raised an eyebrow and laughed. "You earth ponies and frying brains. I mean if you want to be technical, sure, with magic I can totally fry your brain. But I don't want to. Cause I have way more fun with you with a fully functional brain than not. Though I bet there's ways we can figuratively fry our brains together. Upstairs, if you like?"

Sunny waved a hoof. "Oh, no. Oh I definitely don't want to impose. I mean I'm perfectly fine sleeping on your couch until we get back to Maretime Bay. . ."

Izzy rolled her eyes. "I know how it is to sleep on that couch. I was offering something far comfier."

Sunny swung her hooves. "I mean it could be fun."

Izzy nodded. "Cool, we can have the gayest sleepover ever." Izzy picked up Sunny in her magic, and pulled her over towards her and hugging her tightly, lightly kissing the alicorn on the cheek as she did so. "Oh, maybe that's too forward. It's really my first time with somepony alone in my house. Kind of got a tad bit excited."

Sunny blushed. "Oh no, that's fine. We could, uh, do it more."

Izzy beamed and whirled her best friend around in excitment. "Neato. But you know what's funny?"

"What?"

Izzy tapped a hoof on the table in thought. "This means we will have more adventures. Cause think about it, if all those golems woke up cause you turned magic back on, that just means we have even more dangerous things to do. Like just think if a, I dunno, tentacle monster invaded Maretime Bay? Or if there was some long dormant evil in Zephyr Heights? Cause I'm sorry, but have you seen the quality of the average pony in the current era? Totally incapable to deal with any sort of crazy or dangerous problem."

Sunny frowned. "Great. Now I have more headaches to deal with."

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Come on Sunny, you are supposed to say we have more headaches to deal with. . .together. Now what do you want to do first in our sleepover? Magic lessons? Truth or Dare? Something more? Cause we have a ton of time to waste and only so many hours in the day to do it."

Sunny laughed. "We can take as much time as we need to. But maybe magic lessons might be nice. Really hated being tied up without a clue on how to escape."

Izzy nodded. "Say no more, Izzy is here for every one of your magical needs. I don't mean to brag, but I'm probably the best unicorn who ever did magic in decades."

Sunny sighed. "You've had magic for two weeks,"

Izzy shrugged. "Doesn't mean it's wrong. Now first thing first about horns is that they are sharp and pointy. . ."