In the desert, a lone figure walked.
Around her was a seemingly endless expanse of sand, white as snow. Nothing there lived or breathed except for her. Across the entire planet, she was the only thing that moved.
At the foot of a three-story dune, she paused. Tan and brown cloth vestments were moved aside, and she detached a flat mechanical device from her belt.
Unactivated, in her gloved hands, it appeared inert, a sheet of glass the height of her palm. The closest comparable technology was a mobile phone, but those had not been relevant for decades.
She frowned, though the mask she wore hid her expression. A single, outstretched finger hovered above the screen, eerily still.
She tapped it, memories of phones and high school brushed aside.
The sheet, previously transparent, turned an opaque black, then white. She made gestures that would have looked familiar to herself as a teenager, but from the outside, the screen remained impermeable.
After some seconds peering at the screen, then looking up to scan her surroundings, she was satisfied. The sheet slid back into place, and on the opposing side of her belt, she unclipped a smooth metal tube. She gripped it in her right hand and pressed a button at the top with her thumb.
Silently, the object stretched and unfolded from the length and circumference of her middle finger to the dimensions of a walking cane. The upper end formed into a silicone grip, and at the bottom shone a bright blue light. She tapped it once against the ground, each of her boots, and resumed walking.
As she surmounted the dune, it was as though she walked on stone. Her boots no longer disturbed the sand, did not even leave behind prints to suggest she was there.
Upon reaching the summit, she observed miles ahead from her perch. Dunes stretched in all directions before her, otherwise as blank and featureless as the sands to her back. She pinched her lips tightly behind her mask and continued walking.
Only when evening approached did she stop to rest. Such was unnecessary with her rig equipped, but she had tired of treading for days straight. A book, perhaps, might keep her mind at ease, something to occupy her thoughts beyond the scorching heat and porcelain sand.
She pressed the button on her cane, and like it had unfolded, it shrank into its original form. Clipping it to her belt, she sat down and pulled free her tablet.
With the sun dipping low on the horizon, its pallid light performed a dance on her surroundings. Colors of yellow, orange, pink, and red bounced from dune to dune, making them appear to shimmer, further reflected and refracted by her glass-like sheet.
In a haunting way, it was beautiful. And on a base, instinctual level, she grasped its otherworldly allure, but she refused to acknowledge it. These deserts, so far as she was concerned, deserved no more recognition from her than scorn.
She tapped once, twice on her screen. With a simple gesture, it determined what she was looking for, drawing upon her vast library the book she, whether consciously or not, desired most.
If she wanted, she could upload the information straight to her brain, devour each word, every line of text in the time it took her heart to beat once. But she didn't. There were times when she might need to, but now was not that time. She wanted to lose herself, truly, in the literary brushstrokes of an author, to push away why she was really here - what she was here for.
Hours later, the temperatures' gradual descent matched conversely with the rising of the moon, bottoming out to a deadly three-digit negative. Unbothered, thanks to her equipment, she noticed only when the touch of frost began to creep along her screen. She switched the device off, slid it back into its sheath, and stood.
Moving always forward, she couldn't help but regard the stark difference between her environment at night versus day. One could be forgiven when the stars arrived and the moon rose that this was not a desert but a barren snowy landscape. But there were the towering dunes, the texture of fine sand rather than powdery snow, although it shone just as white.
In the morning, the desert's heat returned with a blistering fury, waves distorting the visible landscape around her. She was forced to bump her AC up by several notches to prevent her from sweating, and although it would more quickly gobble up her power reserves, she weighed this minor sacrifice worth her comfort. Several backup batteries were in place if needs be, as she had been planning this excursion for some time and was not a woman to be found ill-prepared.
Hours later, following upon a series of rough coordinates that might well have led nowhere, she arrived at her destination.
She could tell by the dip in the sand. Where the area surrounding was either flat or populated by dunes, there was a definitive, unmistakable rim that sloped steadily downwards.
Part of her could hardly believe it was true. She'd been searching for a discovery like this for years, and now she was at the cusp of grasping it.
Maybe now, after so many deaths, she could fix it. She could make sure nowhere and no one else had to go through what she had. She could keep the promise she'd made.
Cane in hand, she leapt forward. The heels on her boots caught the edge, and with a dance-like grace, she slid down the slope until it leveled out. There she paused and spun around to take in her surroundings, realizing at its center just how small the dip actually was - a skyscraper's width perhaps, at most.
Pressing the button on her cane, it retracted into its ordinary state. She flicked open its panel, and after a moment of fiddling with the menu inside, the bottom light turned from blue to red.
When she held down the button again, rather than unfold into a cane, a pinpoint laser shot out, melting the sand into glass where it struck. Carefully she angled it, adjusting her stance when needed, and carved a wide circle into the crater's floor. Once that was done, she changed more settings, and the laser aimed on its own.
The beam fanned out into a large arc that methodically swept from one end of the circle to the other. She stepped back, released the tube, and it flew up to move around without her input.
It was both fascinating and inspiring to watch work. Meter upon meter of sand was, in an instant, turned into a flat, reflective sheet wherever the beam met. So much energy was expended that smoke rose from the contact. After several moments the tube stopped, laser switching off, and it returned to her outstretched hand, whereupon she reset the device.
She reached out above the glass circle. Her gloved hand clenched into a tight fist, and as she did, cracks spiderwebbed across the surface. Then, suddenly spreading her fingers apart open-palmed, all shattered with an ear-piercing screech.
If one were to observe without prior knowledge, they might have thought they were watching magic at work. But no, she was no magician, and what she performed was no arcane sorcery. On a long enough timescale, though, was there truly any difference between magic and technology? She thought about that often and the world beyond a certain portal from long ago.
Before the glass could fall, it hovered. She made a beckoning gesture, then, as though her finger was a conductor's baton, she pointed it up to the clear horizon. The shards followed where she pointed, a whole mass of glittering fragments that turned and twirled under the sun's rays.
And with a dismissive flick, they were flung aside to places uncared.
At the hole's edge, she peered down into shadows mysterious. The light of her cane, no matter how bright she shone it, was turned away by the all-consuming pit.
She breathed in. It was now or never.
Twilight Sparkle jumped.
The fall was long, and the landing not so horrible as she had feared.
That wasn't to say it was comfortable. Twilight's boots shielded her from the worst of the impact, transferring the excess kinetic force into energy her depleted batteries could feed off, but there was a jolt regardless. It ran up through her body, shaking her bones where they stood, but when the pain faded, she was okay. All signs, trackers of her biology, read normal.
Looking up, she saw the light of the sky above. She was surprised at how small it was, like a pinprick's pinprick in the darkness. That told her she must have been miles down, which made her curious. Either the sand had piled up that high, or this place had been buried deep below on purpose.
Whichever the case, she figured the truth would come to light soon enough. Her goggles would serve as the first step in that treacherous journey and shine a not-so-metaphorical light on her situation. On their side, she pressed her thumb to a depression, and above the lenses flashed to life twin blinding rays. Levels of lumen such as these would have been dangerous to another human, but Twilight did not intend on encountering anything living while she was here.
Before her was the entrance to some great vault. It was made of metal, once painted but worn dull and gray with age and wear. Any text that might once have provided indication of the area, what lay within, had since been rendered illegible.
She switched from her cane to her laser tube. Pressing down the button, she traced the fine red line from one side to the opposite, carefully following the door's edges. When it was done, she clicked it off, thrust out her boot, and threw the gate down with a satisfying clang, which rang out into the space ahead.
Stepping inside, the lights greeted her to a rocky tunnel about five persons across. She tapped her goggles to activate its scanner, both for detection and mapping. There appeared to be no life in the place. No mold, no lichen, no insects, not even water, just old stone where once feet tread.
Even down here, life could not fully escape the desert's stranglehold.
After walking for what her system told her was two kilometers, she reached the true entrance. It was rather unassuming, a simple bolted iron door, no different in proportion than one might find in their basement. For some reason, she found this amusing.
It didn't stand a chance against her laser.
Inside, the mapping function on her goggles showed their real use. Wherever she would turn, it would keep a memory of the area, compiling each bit of information into a three-dimensional map she could use for navigation. More importantly, it prevented her from getting lost. Unlike in the desert, where she had a set of coordinates - however uncertain they were - to follow, down here, she had no clue where what she was looking for was.
Along the way, she passed all the things she'd come to expect from a research facility - offices, computers, observation rooms. More than once, she attempted to investigate the various papers she saw, the phones or laptops left on desks, but the former weren't of any significance, and the latter had died long ago.
A part of her felt she should have been unsettled. Here were the signs of humanity - albeit a humanity with which she did not know - left behind to gather dust in a dead world. But instead, she felt nothing, not even fear. There was nothing here to be afraid of, because anything that could hurt her had taken its final breath generations past.
She didn't dwell long. Continuing to explore the complex, she found nothing on one, two, or three levels. The elevators might not have been in working order, but that was no problem for her. Another dissection by laser and leap of faith, and she'd be down another floor.
She found it on the sixth and tried not to think of the miles piled over her.
It was at the very center of the complex, a room built for observation see-through on all four sides, built with the strongest materials they could manage. And in the very center of that was a cube, pure white like the sands overhead but reflective as polished silver.
Where any emergency systems or alarm setups in the rest of the building were defunct, Twilight got the distinct feeling that would not be the case here. Before entering, she paced around the rest of the floor, perusing perfectly preserved documents, folders, and cabinets for a security clearance card. She found one hanging from a handle attached to a lanyard, and curiously she read the identification on its plastic surface.
"Moondancer," she read. "Age: 39. Clearance Level: 5. Role..."
Twilight rolled the following words on her tongue more carefully. Inwardly, she felt a pang of sympathetic pride, even if this Moondancer was not the one she had known.
"Head Researcher."
But whatever accomplishments this Moondancer had claimed, she had faced the same fate as her counterpart.
Swallowing deeply, Twilight strode to the central room. At the center was a door, security scanner aside, which she brought the card to. She half expected the ancient thing to burst in a fountain of sparks, or simply do nothing at all, but instead, a green light flickered to existence on the panel, and the door before her made a resounding click.
She stepped in and stood still for several moments expecting something to happen. When nothing did, she drew closer to the cube.
It floated - or was suspended - mid-air, turning end over end on its own axis. Periodically a surface would face her, and she'd catch a glimpse of her reflection. Nearly all her features were obscured, save the barest hint of lavender nose and cheek that peeked between her mask and goggles.
Now came the dangerous part. Twilight might have gotten into the room fine, but removing the cube from its protected display was another story.
Bracing herself for a quick departure, she pre-emptively input home coordinates into her rig. She waited for it to process the input and link her up, and then and only then, did she dare to continue.
The second her laser contacted the glass, blaring alarms screeched to life throughout every level of the facility. Red lights flashed, and a garbled, crackling voice announced over the speakers alerting personnel that would never come.
Then, she heard a sound that made her stomach lurch. Above her, panels slid open, the door locked shut, and the hiss of gas entering the room graced her ears.
However measured her motions were before, she stopped caring then. Her smoothly carved circle jerked partway into a crude facsimile, and as soon as she met end to end, she rushed forward.
Gloved hand quickly shoving inside, she pushed past the electric jolt that passed into it. The sensation traveled from her fingertips through her bones, up to her arm, and raced straight towards her heart.
They really did put out all the stops to protect this thing.
But it didn't matter, not to a woman decades ahead of them. Her suit absorbed the energy before it could kill her, and her fingers wrapped tightly around the cube, no bigger than a building block a child might play with.
"Return home," she yelled. The device would have picked up her voice even were it a whisper, but her panicked instincts won over pure logic.
In those nanoseconds it took for the transfer to happen, time seemed to stretch on forever before everything went white.
Through the windows of Twilight's satellite home, light from a star that was not the Sun filtered.
It was to that which she was greeted among the gas giant she orbited. Its striations, so much alike to those of Jupiter, danced and swirled, obscuring through beauty the deadly truth within.
Beyond it lay a pure, inky darkness. No brilliant flashes of starlight, glistening nebulae, or grand space vistas peered back, just an abyss which, for every day passed, grew wider and emptier.
Sighing, Twilight pulled the hood from her face. With the mask to follow, it was the first breath of fresh - relatively fresh, at least - air she had taken in days. The rest of her desert outfit swiftly followed until she was clad in a one-piece, skintight suit.
She unzipped that as well, and exposed her purple skin to...
What did she expose it to, she wondered? The world would have been her initial response, but that wasn't quite so accurate when out in space.
Regardless, left clad in her bare, essential undergarments, she spoke out to her home. From the ceiling, a panel opened and out came a pair of metal arms. They folded her clothes with perfect precision in a blinding flurry, far too quick for an unaugmented human eye to detect, then retracted, pulling them up and away to be cleaned and sorted.
She picked up the cube from where she'd placed it, the sole object populating her coffee table. Turning it over and over in her hold, her fingers plucked and rubbed experimentally at its surface. She was hoping to find some crease, a hidden button or switch, but it was entirely smooth.
After staring at it for a long moment, still not fully believing it was real, she turned and placed it on her work desk. There it nestled squarely amongst a dearth of tools and gadgets. Some were trusty and familiar, like a wrench or blacklight, others alien in appearance, though not so in origin.
She would figure it out later. She didn't need one, but after her journey, she wanted a nap.
"Home," she said. "Set an alarm for two days from now. I'm going to sleep."
And for forty-eight hours, she slept. In the morning - or what equated to it - her home system woke her.
Stretching, she yawned and cracked all the stiff joints in her neck, spine, arms, fingers, and wrists. Her augmented body could easily manage each part of her biology down to the atom, but there was a primal sense of satisfaction one received from doing it themselves. No matter how far technology had come, she thought, certain human desires would never truly be overcome.
She wasted no time in getting to work. That cube was a key, perhaps not to solving the whole puzzle, but a significant piece nevertheless. And its secrets would not be cracked being a layabout.
To ensure her own safety, she strapped on her hazard suit and moved the cube from her normal work desk to her lab. Said lab was a closed system, cut off from her home and accessible via airlock only. If needs be or any unexpected reaction - chemical, nuclear, thermal, or otherwise was detected, there were automated controls in place to detach it from the main station.
She worked for days, putting that single, tiny little cube under more scrutiny than she'd done to anything else. Instruments poked, prodded, and recorded. Heat was applied, as was radiation, acid, just about every chemical compound or basic element that was known.
Nothing changed, no reactions garnered. It was perfectly, totally static, unresponsive to the kinds of forces that would destroy near anything else.
Assisting her was her computer, its AI-driven algorithms suggesting ideas for further experiments or coming up with its own hypotheses. The most likely possibility both she and it settled on was the cube being data storage of one kind or another, but not anything current science understood.
She did have one theory, though.
Whatever the cube was, it was capable of stopping the desert. From everything Twilight had seen, those sands swallowed everything until nothing remained. But in that expanse of endless dunes, a fate she had seen and experienced too many times, there was a facility. No life existed within it, but it, somehow, had withstood.
She continued her task for weeks, which turned to months, and increasingly she became frustrated by her lack of progress. Over ninety days in, and she was no closer to opening the mystery box than she had been on the first. She knew the cube was vital, that it was the first real step she had discovered in her decades of searching, but it wouldn't matter if she couldn't figure out where it led.
It was after another long, grueling series of hours in the lab she flopped into bed, exhausted. Her frameless glasses were askew across her face, and her usually neat, tidy bun was loose and tangled. If her body were capable of it anymore, she was sure she'd have bags under a set of bloodshot eyes.
Staring up at the gray, featureless ceiling, she lifted the cube into her line of sight. Its reflective surface forced her to stare at herself, and a not-so-insignificant part of her wanted to throw it against the wall.
Instead, she simply let it fall from her grasp. It slipped off the bed, tottering harmlessly to the floor.
What she was going to do now, she truly wasn't sure. She had come all this way only to stumble on a roadblock right when it appeared she might have made genuine progress. If only she could bring it to someone else, someone who might know something. But who?
Exhaustion snapped to alertness, and Twilight, bolting upright, snatched the cube from the floor.
She had a bar to visit.
"So this is the place."
Twilight muttered under her breath as she pulled into the parking lot.
Truthfully, it wasn't a typical parking lot. It was designed with spacecraft in mind, but calling it a hangar or landing strip was similarly inaccurate. So, a parking lot it would have to be.
The whole thing was, in total, a chunk of moon rock two-thirds the size of a football field, suspended in stable orbit around Saturn. Nestled amidst the rings, it was only visible - let alone accessible - with the right knowledge.
Asphalt was paved over the surface to provide ease of foot traffic, and white divider lines separated the parking spots. At this time in space, long before the bar's Happy Hour, said spots were plentiful and sparsely populated, allowing Twilight to easily slide in.
Setting the ship to lock and defense mode, she swung the door open and stepped out. Localized gravity stabilizers made it so anyone could walk around as if on Earth, although Twilight had built into her boots the same functionality as her own. Behind those were propulsion jets, because backups were important to have in the event of a systems failure. That went doubly so when relying on a system she didn't control, such as those of this establishment.
Attached to the lot by a metal catwalk was said establishment itself, a bar the name and details of which few were aware. Twilight herself only knew two things for certain - that it was called the Saturnalia, and its supposed shadowy proprietor had more knowledge than any one person should reasonably have. Though, the same could be said of Twilight as well.
It floated by its lonesome, a station of similar design to her home but substantially smaller. There was no food, no entertainment. If one entered, they were there to drink or do business.
Twilight intended to do neither.
Coming up to the front, there were no signifiers of what the building was. There were no neon signs, flashing lights, or bold proclamations. Even the windows were blacked out, allowing nothing to pierce in nor permit anything to escape.
A panel at eye level slid open upon her arrival. Eyes, obscured by opaque purple shades, greeted her, and a mechanically distorted voice rang out.
"Who are you?"
"Twilight Sparkle. Earth. ID, D-344."
To confirm, she flashed her ID card.
A moment later, the panel shut, and the door opened. A woman with alabaster skin and wild, frazzled hair of electric blu and cyan greeted her, who jerked her head in permission to enter.
The interior was a hallway and, towards the end, a metal door with a handle. The closer Twilight drew, the more starkly she heard the thump of bass and pounding of electrical tones beyond and conversation just beneath.
She gripped the handle, turned, and was bathed in an atmosphere wholly different from the dark, silent isolation outside. Fluorescent and neon blues, greens, purples, reds, and pinks all intermingled together in a dazzling array of spectra, sure to distract any unsure patron long enough to buy a shot or three.
In contrast, the bar life itself was tempered. There were a not unrespectable amount of goers sitting, standing, or leaning about, but not so many it was too loud or too crowded. Some drank, some chatted, some smoked. Others stared out vacantly into space or giggled mindlessly, grinning with powder or crystals stuck to their nose, lips, on the tables in front of them.
None turned to watch her.
For that, she was thankful. Despite her age and experience, she had only grown more of a loner with time. Once, she had started to change that, break out of her shell, but that was before the sands came.
"Can I get you something?"
Before she hit the seat, the bartender was there to inquire. Stereotypically he held a glass in one hand, a handkerchief in the other, which he used to clean. He had a rusty, ruddy complexion and a sweep of red hair, with low sideburns and sharp green eyes.
"No, thank you."
"Waiting for someone, then?" he asked. His face was purposefully inquisitive but elsewise obfuscated as though through a copper mask.
She smirked. "Of a sort." After he raised his brow questionably, she continued. "I'd like to speak with the owner."
The reaction was instant, unfavorable, but not unexpected. He placed the glass and cloth down, folding his arms, and narrowed his gaze. "Are you looking to do business?"
"Not exactly. I have a question that needs asking, and I've heard people come here for answers."
There was a long moment before he replied. Nodding, he turned around with disregard for the unattended glass and disappeared behind the wall of liquor.
She waited there, patient but uncomfortable. Shifting in her seat, tapping her foot, she withdrew the cube from her pocket and turned it over in her hand. The dimness and lights around her reflected off the object, bouncing and shifting so that it almost seemed to glow in response.
Upon the bartender's return, she pocketed the cube once more, and he beckoned for her to follow.
Behind the counter, she trailed, turned, and entered through a padded, password-locked door to another, much longer hallway than the entrance. They stopped at a right turn where a curtain hung, of transparent fuchsia curtains and glass beads. Past it, she could see the silhouette of a desk and someone sitting behind it.
"Right through here. Keep it quick - she has a lot of things to do."
So they were a she, then. Twilight was half-tempted to quip back, 'I'm sure she does,' with it being a mere bar and all, but she'd gotten this far. She'd rather not antagonize the one person allowing her access to an audience with the enigmatic owner of the Saturnalia.
Nodding, she brushed past the curtains, deathly curious to discover the stranger's identity.
And stopped dead in her tracks.
Memories crawled up from cracks in the floor, rooting her to the spot - memories of hair like fire, skin like the sun, eyes like the ocean. A voice well-known, lips with which spoke it and that she knew well, pressing against hers.
Fingers interlaced. Hearts intertwined.
A fierce, defiant grip on her hand. Tears that rose to fall in streams. Years that should have been lived, stolen away. That grip slipping. A will fading, but defiance carrying through to her eyes, spoken to Twilight's heart as the white sands poured, bled, consumed.
They crept higher, higher. Cities, towns, countries had been swallowed and erased, no signs of their ever having existed wiped clean off the planet's surface. Now it was taking her, the one thing she had left and the one rock she clung to in a fading reality.
She fell.
She fell and left Twilight behind. Because she believed Twilight could fix it.
"Doin' alright there?"
Reality returned with a vengeance and struck her like a hangover. She worked her jaw mutely, gawking at the woman before her.
"Sunset. You're... Sunset Shimmer."
"Theee one and only!" She laughed, kicking her heels onto the desk. "Nah, just kidding. That's not actually the name I go by anymore, and that's one answer you're not gettin' outta me. I take it you recognize me from somewhere? I shouldn't be surprised. Most Twilights do."
Twilight swallowed hard.
"You could say that."
"Well, come on, sit, sit! I didn't let you in for nothing."
Sunset removed her legs from the table and smiled wide. It was a familiar smile, but also not quite right. There were lines, creases, and markers of age that weren't there, not on the girl she knew. There was veiled behind it a warmth, a sincerity, but not the kind that Twilight had experienced. There was a ghost of a close companion, but also someone completely different.
It wasn't fair to look at her and merge the two together. She might have worn a similar jacket, made from black leather and with studs and spikes, but they were gold instead of silver, and she wore it over a crimson dress Twilight had never seen before. Her hair was different too, cut short, failing to brush her shoulders when Twilight remembered it never being anything but long and wild.
So she did her best to separate the two and sat down upon the offered seat. Its cushions were soft and plentiful, unlike the hard workbenches and office chairs Twilight was used to.
"So you're here for answers, huh?
Twilight nodded.
"Mars back there, the guy who brought you in, told me you had some kinda metal square with you. That's nothing I gotta worry about, is it? Because if it is, I'm more than willing to start shooting."
"No, it's not. I don't even really know what it is, or what it does." She took out the cube, slipped it between her and Sunset. "And it's why I came here."
"Huh. Color me surprised." Sunset casually leaned forward, plucking the metallic object between her thumb and forefinger. She held it, squinting against the dim lights, mouth pinched into a curious line. "Anything that'd stump a Twilight is definitely going to pique my curiosity. At the same time, though..."
Sighing, she leaned back and threw the cube into the air. It arced, fell as Twilight watched, and Sunset snapped it up into her opposite hand before repeating the motion. As she did, she bore down upon Twilight with an interrogating gaze.
"What makes you think I know anything about it?"
Shrugging, Twilight admitted, "Nothing. All I know is word spreads."
Sunset broke in before Twilight could finish. "And what do those words say?" she asked. The cube fell, and she closed her fist around it.
"That you know things ordinary people don't, or shouldn't."
Sunset tossed the object back. Twilight caught it.
"I'm afraid I don't know anything. Never seen an object like it before in my life, and trust me when I say I've lived a long time. But I'm sure you knew that already."
Sunset smiled, but Twilight sensed no kindness within it. She realized, likewise, that all the warmth had bled from the room.
"If that's all you wanted to ask me about, feel free to leave-"
Wait," Twilight said. "Please, listen. You don't understand what I've been through to get here. I-"
"No, actually, I think I do."
Sunset crossed her arms. Her smile had shattered, and in its place, a tight frown took residence. "I'm very well acquainted with the path you're going down, and would you like to know what I have to show for it?"
Silence, as if Sunset were expecting an answer.
"Nothing. I got not a damn thing. Oblivion. Annihilation. Ghosts of people I knew but not really. I tried looking for answers, and I wasted years of my life trying to solve a problem I was never going to fix, and I will never understand. Tell me this, Twilight. Did you lose someone? Did they look like me?
Twilight remained silent.
"I know you did. I can see it in your eyes - I saw it when you came in here. For her sake, stop looking. Just exist, and stop worrying about it, because you're only going to empty yourself trying. That's the one and only piece of information I'll give to you, take it or leave it."
Sunset uncrossed her arms and pulled out a thin, glass-like sheet from a drawer unseen. Avoiding Twilight's gaze, she tapped away without speaking.
"You're wrong," Twilight said.
Sunset's eyes shot up to meet Twilight's. "What did you say?"
For a brief, solitary moment, Twilight was frozen in place. Then, a heat rose from somewhere unknown. It swelled her chest, climbing up her throat until she glared daggers right back Sunset's way. The words leapt out her throat unchained, however unwise that may have been.
"I said you're wrong. My Sunset would never have given up. She sacrificed herself so I could survive, because she believed I could find a way to fix everything. But you?"
Sunset got up from her seat, clenching her fists. "Don't you dare."
"You're a coward. You are nothing like her, and I'm ashamed of myself for believing, however briefly, that you were. You want me to stop because you failed, and you think I will too, but unlike you, I gave a promise, and that promise means more to me than every universe those sands have taken combined."
"Get out."
"Did you promise her, too?"
"I said get out!" Sunset shrieked, and for a moment, Twilight feared she might draw her gun. Instead, she inhaled deeply, took her seat once more, and folded her hands over her lap.
Seconds later, Mars appeared behind Twilight, resting a large orange hand on her shoulder.
"See her out of the building, please. And what was her universe?"
"D-334, ma'am."
"Blacklist her. I don't want to see her here again."
"Yes ma'am."
Mars led Twilight out the room, leaving Sunset to her business. Right as she passed through the curtains, she looked back for only a second and saw Sunset removing a polaroid photo from her pocket.
She turned away and followed Mars out the building. As she stepped onto the bridge, the door slamming shut behind her, she squeezed the cube still in her hand. Gazing out upon the vastness of the cosmos, those infinite worlds and infinite realities which lie across the veil, they all felt to gather inside the tiny, insignificant chunk of metal she held to her breast.
In it held the weight of countless lives and possibilities, those just like her when she was young, and she knew she couldn't stop here. She had come too far.
Whatever it took, and however long - she would find a way.
Twilight would keep her promise.
