EQG 2.0: Sunset Shimmer Edition
Sunset takes a deep breath as she activates her hacked together copy of the mirror portal, hidden safely away in her lair, deep underneath seapony territory. Reality rumbles, the cludged mix of crystal, magic, and clumsy hydraulics not fully containing the tear in space. Magic floods through the gap, leaving her shockingly cold under her coat, shivering as her horn becomes dead bone to her senses, the omnipresent thrum of her talent gone from her pulse.
She lurches forward on hooves like lead and stumbles through with a sensation like flying, or dying, or both, landing naked on her stomach in an old storage shed, coughing until blood comes up. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, the unfamiliar limb making her grimace as the full-body sensation of dysphoria rushes through her, making her dizzy. She never gets used to this. It’s been so long since she discovered this strange, truncated version of her world that she half suspected her alternate self to be dead.
A ping goes off from a shelf next to her, her cell phone receiving an alert. She swipes at it, and—yes. There. The tracker is functioning, giving her a signal near that school, the one Starswirl’s fancy mirror portal likes. No wonder, with it having a copy of the Princess. Princesses, actually, she still has to get used to that. Hiding an entire sister was classic Sunbutt, but still, Sunset found herself blown away by the absolute magnitude of that skeleton finding its way out of her old mentor’s closet.
Alright. Dizziness is mostly gone, phone/amplifier acquired, now she just has to dress herself and she’s off. It’s colder than the moon without her coat. She pulls open more drawers, finding what she needs in seconds. Then comes the hard part.
“I always do forget where the holes go,” she mutters.
So. Tracker’s pinging. That’s good, it means something’s happening over here in this dead, barren world, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s found the other Sunset. If the location’s any indication, Sunbutt’s secret sister (band name?) got curious and wandered over to take a look. Or maybe the new set of Element bearers found themselves with mysteriously cryptic orders from a big duck with a crown and went off to investigate, like the good little pawns they were.
Point is, sure, she could be about to find who she’d been looking for all this time, but she could also stumble onto something that was not her problem. Like some weirdo popping out of Tartarus during their bi-annual prison break and blundering into the employees-and-Princesses only zone, or Sunbutt herself deciding she’d had enough of politics for the day and swan-diving into another dimension to shake it off, or some demon from another reality co-opting the connection for its own use.
That means minimal magic use. If she finds a familiar face, she can play at being herself from another realm. She’s read into the culture, knows how to internet like it’s her cutie mark, and is better than anyone but the great dumb sun horse herself at pretending to be clueless. Magic would play her hand in an instant, and cause any potential worldeater to zoom right on in her like the magically tasty snack she is. The locals had their own solutions for when firepower was warranted, and Sunset wasn’t the type to consider the arquebus beneath her just because the firing mechanism wasn’t made of crystal.
In other words, she’s as ready as she’ll ever be. Sunset revvs up her bike, loving the way it feels, like the metal’s alive, lowers her visor, slots her phone into the holder, and follows in as straight as line as she’s able to, given all the buildings and people and cars in the way. She takes a deep pleasure in cutting off a guy in a car that screams money, flips him the bird over her shoulder, and zeroes in on her destination at a speed the locals would term ‘insane.’
Okay. She’s got a lead, and it’s disappointing, but whatever, she’s used to it. Sunset rolls to a stop beside a gawky purple twig of a teenager followed by a hyperactive purple dog with green highlights. Fashionable.
“Lost?” she drawls, closing the tracker app on her phone and sliding it into one of the many, many pockets lining her jacket.
Purple Twig looks over, squints, looks at the dog, and starts talking to it. “What do you think, Spike, did we find our guide?”
The dog, of course, talks back. “I dunno, Twi. She kinda reminds me of those meaner dragons. Pass, maybe?”
Sunset silently downgrades them from ‘potential threats’ to ‘tourists.’
“Spike, she’s the only one here who hasn’t called us names or run away. I trust your judgment—don’t look at me that way, I do!”
Time to step in. “Right. First, dogs don’t talk. That’s weird. So that may be wigging some people out, to start. Second, it’s bad form to talk about someone, in front of that someone. Especially if you’re talking trash like you are. Third, dragons don’t exist on this planet last I checked, so I’m both intrigued by your craziness and personally insane enough to be attracted by it. Tell me more.”
Walking Stick takes the lead. “Okay! Thank you, because no one here has explained any of that to us, and it’s been extremely frustrating. Nice to meet you, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and my home has magic, but you can’t visit. If you want me to explain why I can and will, but right now we’re on a very important mission. I’ve had a magical artifact stolen from me by an unknown assailant in the middle of the night, and I really really really need someone who knows the area to help me get it back.”
Huh. Sunset had an idea of who these two were, given how newspapers existed, but to have the Princess of Friendship just throwing her name out there like that, with seemingly no concept of information security, to a random stranger at first meet on some alien demiplane or whatever this whole mirror dimension turned out to be… Wild. How did she survive this long? Sunset would’ve expected anyone who managed to achieve alicornhood to have some savvy, but no.
Unless she was playing dumb, and had devised a workaround to the magic vacuum on her own merit. The whole tourist angle could be a ploy meant to draw out her enemy and tempt them into rash action, which now that Sunset thought about it, was much more likely. No one with Twilight’s track record got there by being an idiot, and Sunset had read the papers she put out.
Well, at least Sunset cottoned on before she fell for it and did something that gave the whole game away, like making a vague, snarky allusion to Equestria.
“That’s cool. I’ve got a couple thousand in cash, my bike, and my gun. You’ve got a problem, and you’ve got magic, so that means payment shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll need all the information you can give me, payment up front, and some time and space to work. If you’re down, I’m down, but I’ve got places to be. So think fast.”
Twilight blinked, and Spike looked, if possible, even more wary. The disguised alicorn spoke slowly, “We’ll have to go over details, but I’m tentatively on board with your offer. Only, payment will have to wait, because the portal doesn’t open except at very specific times. And with the kind of artifact we’re dealing with, waiting could mean anything from permanent loss to irreversible corruption, which would be very bad.”
Bullshit, Sunset very carefully didn’t say. If she could engineer a workaround to the timer, someone as smart as Twilight should have no problems whatsoever. But whatever, Sunset had the upper hoof here, and also no in-character way to call her on it, so she gave the Twiggy Princess a curt nod. “Then get on. We’re heading to my place, hashing out what we need to, and getting started right the hell now.”
Twilight stared at her bike with an expression of naked fear. Sunset rolled her eyes, and sighed. She knew a lost cause when she saw it. “Fine, we’ll take the bus.”
