Sunset returned to work with renewed vigor and a fresh mind, and felt she progressed much faster. She managed to make the illumination spell work on the light bulb properly the day after the trip to the amusement park, which put her in such a cheerful mood that she joined Twilight in a celebration consisting of pizza and soda.

Now that she had finally managed to cast a spell in the human world, although in a roundabout way, Sunset felt she had finally taken a step closer to her goal. So, during the next few weeks, she threw herself into the program they had dubbed Interpreter, racking her brain to remember all the arrays she could in order to produce as many spells as she could. If she wanted to fully bring magic to the human world, she had to pour every bit of knowledge she had into the program.

Twilight convinced her to take breaks every now and then, and Sunset stopped trying to reject those. Not only had she felt the positive effects of taking breaks, but she also admitted that she had fun whenever she did something different with Twilight. Most of the time it was practicing with their musical instruments, though Twilight did introduce Sunset to Daring Do, and while not her favorite, she had to admit the books were quite entertaining.

When Halloween, the human version of Nightmare Night, came around, Twilight convinced Sunset to go trick or treating. Sunset had never gone around asking for candy, so it was a nice experience to dress up as a mummy —Twilight was a vampire— and go house by house with an ever growing bag of candy. The best part was that they didn’t have to offer half of it to Nightmare Moon, and so they enjoyed their whole treasure.

Twilight’s sugar rush kept both of them awake until the sun rose.

But as much fun as Sunset was having, she wouldn’t allow herself to grow complacent, and she kept working when she could. And only a week after Halloween, she managed to make her second spell work. It was then that she and Twilight talked at length about the future of magic in the human world and, after many hours, came up to a conclusion.

And so, on the second weekend of November, Sunset and Twilight cleared the garage from all the boxes containing broken quartz, spare parts, burnt cables, but mostly notebooks. They then carried chairs for their audience, which consisted of Twilight's parents, Shining, Cadence, Luna, and Celestia. Spike was already napping on Cadence’s lap. They donned lab coats Twilight had in her wardrobe and set up a curtain to hide the Enchanter for some theatrics.

As the last chair was occupied, Twilight closed the door of the garage and stepped next to Sunset.

“Alright, girls. What’s all this about?” Twilight Velvet asked.

Sunset struggled not to frown at the woman’s tone. Sure, she had agreed to let them use the garage as their workshop, but she always acted like it was just a childish club in which they played board games or something, instead of something serious. Well, that was going to change today.

“We have gathered you here to showcase the results of our project,” Sunset announced. “Some of you have marginal knowledge of what Twilight and I have been doing, but for everyone else’s sake, we’ll explain from the beginning.”

Twilight stepped up, holding a notebook. “Through trial and error, we have managed to discover and harness a new kind of energy that can perform a myriad of tasks, given the correct inputs.” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to name this energy something different to avoid ridiculing looks, but Sunset wouldn’t budge, so it will officially be known as Magic.”

Sunset studied the reactions of their audience. Celestia, Luna, and Shining already knew, so they simply nodded. Twilight’s parents seemed to be confused, though Cadence was definitely bewildered since she kept looking between Twilight, Sunset, and Shining.

“I know it’s difficult to believe,” Twilight said. “But there are many phenomena in this world that can only be explained through magic, as Sunset proved to me. Today, however, we won’t talk about the natural aspects of magic. Instead, we’ll talk about the technological aspects. Sunset?”

Sunset nodded. “Magic can be harnessed and used to craft spells. Unfortunately, humans lack the innate ability to interact with it. Thus, we spent the past two years building a machine that can do just that. This is why we brought you here today, to show you the result of our effort. Behold: the Enchanter.”

She stepped aside just as Twilight pulled the curtain open, revealing the machine that took over half the garage’s space. Large cables suspended in mid-air around a glass box, connected to a few other machines, which were in turn plugged into Sunset’s laptop. Shining Armor was the only one unsurprised, since he had helped build it.

“Twilight…” Night Light said slowly. “What is this?”

“The Enchanter,” Twilight replied simply without looking from her notebook.

Sunset cleared her throat. “This machine is currently capable of performing two spells consistently. I’m already working on adding more spells, but for the purposes of this presentation, the two will suffice.” She walked up to a side table and picked a light bulb from a small box. “Luna, can you verify that this light bulb has not been tampered with?”

Luna accepted the light bulb and turned it around in her hand a few times. “Well, I’m no expert, but this looks pretty normal to me.” She handed it to Celestia.

Sunset only felt herself frown a tiny bit as the older woman inspected the light bulb. Originally, Sunset had only intended Luna to inspect it, but the light bulb was shared by everyone until Cadence gave it back. It was only with mild annoyance at having to wait that Sunset grabbed the light bulb and walked up to the Enchanter. She opened the glass box and placed the light bulb inside, then closed it again.

“We will first demonstrate what an illumination spell can do,” Sunset said as she sat at her laptop. She had set it up beforehand, of course, so she only needed to click a button for the Enchanter to hum to life.

Thanks to all the practice she’d done, she was able to easily feel the pulsations in the Harmonic Veil as the circuitry was built around the light bulb. To the audience, nothing seemed to be happening, but Sunset —and maybe Twilight too— could perceive the spell, or in this case, the enchantment, being built at a speed that was excruciatingly slow for any unicorn worth her salt. It took three minutes for the spell to be completed.

The light bulb didn’t light up with the same near-instantaneous speed as a normal one. Instead, the light, which embraced the whole light bulb —including the cap, slowly grew in intensity until it was almost hard on the eyes. Sunset wanted it to be observed, after all. As soon as the Enchanter stopped humming, Sunset took the light bulb from the glass box. She could feel the enchantments pulsating against her skin.

“As you can see,” she said, showing the light bulb to the mostly confused adults. “It’s giving off a light dim enough not to hurt the eyes.” She once again allowed them to inspect it. “That was, of course, intended.”

Everyone, including the three that had already known about magic, stared at the light bulb in awe. Sunset was filled with so much pride she thought she would burst.

“This is remarkable,” Night Light said as he held the light bulb in front of his face. “How is it producing the light? Even the cap is shining. How long does it last?”

“It’s magic,” Sunset deadpanned. “And it’s set to last for fifteen minutes.”

She could have made the light bulb shine almost indefinitely. The spell had required little mana, only about five percent of what they had fed the Enchanter, and she knew the arrays to make the spell feed on the Harmonic Veil itself. But an illumination spell was too simple, and she didn’t want it to overshadow the second spell the Enchanter could produce.

“Magic,” Cadence said in a low murmur. “Is that truly it?”

“I completely understand your hesitance, Cadence,” Twilight said. “But take it from me. This is magic we’re talking about. I contributed half the mana required to make that light bulb shine.”

She had also helped build and register all the variations of the Enchanter and she had helped bring Sunset up to speed with human technology, which had been the only reason she had managed to perform magic in the human world so fast. Sunset shuddered at the thought of having been alone. Without Twilight’s lesson plan, it would’ve taken Sunset at least three times as long to reach this point.

Sunset wasn’t going to tell her any of that, of course. She didn’t want Twilight getting any ideas.

“I can’t see anything else that is making it shine,” Celestia said as she turned the light bulb in her hand. “This is incredible. And you said it’ll last fifteen minutes? Can you make it last longer?”

Sunset felt her eyebrows twitch. “Yes, it’s possible.”

Fortunately, that seemed enough for the woman, as she handed the light bulb to Luna without another word. Sunset nodded to herself and walked next to Twilight.

“Now, as for the second demonstration,” Twilight said. “Shining, could you get an apple from the kitchen?”

Shining perked up. “Are you going to make an apple shine?”

Twilight snorted. “You’ll see.”

With the giddiness of a filly in love, Shining stood up and dashed out of the garage, returning only a minute later with a bright red apple in a hand. Sunset accepted the apple and placed it inside the glass box. Once again, she sat at her laptop to cast the second spell.

Unfortunately, the software program she used to send the instructions to the Enchanter was a morse code learning software, and one of its limitations was that, in order to switch spells, Sunset had to delete all the loaded arrays and then import the correct ones. The loading process took five whole minutes as the software took its sweet time. When it was ready, she clicked start and the Enchanter began humming again.

Sunset turned towards her audience. “This will take about five minutes,” she announced.

Cadence raised her hand, careful not to disturb the sleeping dog on her lap. “Then, while we wait, may we ask some questions?” When Sunset nodded, Cadence continued. “How did you girls manage all this? I mean, this is magic we’re talking about, right? How did you know?”

Shining tensed up at that, which Cadence definitely noticed as she raised an eyebrow at him. Before he could break, Sunset decided to take the lead.

“I knew about it,” she said. “Where I come from, magic is as normal as breathing.”

At that, both of Twilight’s parents stared at her. “Where you come from?” Twilight Velvet asked. She looked at Celestia and Luna, then back at Sunset. She looked like she wanted to ask more, but nervously bit her lower lip. Now Sunset knew who Twilight had gotten it from.

“I come from another world,” Sunset explained slowly. After much thought, she had decided to come clean about that fact, though she’d still hide as many things as possible, including the portal’s existence. “I came to study this world and its magic. But you guys don’t believe in it, and don’t even think it’s real. So, in order to properly study it, I need to prove its existence. That’s why I’ve spent two years working on this Enchanter.”

Cadence narrowed her eyes, though her frown looked more concerned than angry, as she looked at Celestia and Luna. “I know you said you’re her guardians, but… Did you know?”

Celestia nodded. “I witnessed first hand when she came to this world. I must say, I…”

“Hold on,” Sunset interrupted her. “Say no more about the circumstances. More people knowing will only become a hazard to me and to my world. Surely you understand.” She looked at the two women, then at Shining, who gave her a solemn nod.

Cadence looked at him. “So you’re not even going to tell me?” Despite the question, her small smile and her tone told Sunset she wasn’t offended. Though whether she was joking…

“Suffice to say that magic does exist in this world, and that it’s my duty to study it,” Sunset said, interrupting whatever Shining had been about to say. “I may tell you more at a later date, but for now, I’ll appreciate it if you don’t try to dig up more information.”

Twilight Velvet gave her a warm smile. “We understand, honey. You’re practically family now. We’ll listen when, and only when, you are ready to tell us.”

Sunset nodded appreciatively. “The spell should be finishing by now.” She knew that because she had been focusing on the pulsations, and the current array was one of the last ones that needed to be set up. She stepped aside to let her audience look at the apple.

About thirty seconds later, the apple suddenly turned a bright navy blue, eliciting a few gasps. Sunset retrieved it from the glass box and held it aloft to show it. The color softened quickly, briefly becoming turquoise before settling on a vibrant green.

“This is called a rainbow shifting spell,” she said just as the green gave way to a radiant yellow. “The name alone is pretty self explanatory, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand the effect.” The apple’s color strengthened to a shimmering orange. “Still, does anyone want to take a guess?”

As the apple returned to its previous red, Sunset looked, amused, at six hands shooting to the air. She chuckled, then nodded towards Night Light. The apple had become a gleaming violet by the time he started speaking.

“It’s making the apple go through all the colors of the rainbow,” he stated.

“Correct,” Sunset said, satisfied. “It’s as simple as that. Nothing else is different.” To demonstrate her point, just as the apple once again became blue, Sunset gave it a big, crunchy bite. She enjoyed both the taste and the surprised looks of the adults at the fact that the inside of the apple was also changing colors.

Everyone looked at her with wide eyes, but it was Celestia who found her voice first. “Is that… safe?”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Sunset offered the apple to Celestia. “Try it.”

It was a funny sight, watching Celestia hesitate. After two years of living with the woman, Sunset had seen so many things that were different from the two that there was no doubt in her logical brain that they were, indeed, different individuals. Yet the small part of her that was still ruled by emotions still cringed when she saw Celestia doing anything unbecoming of a princess, like washing dishes or sweeping the floor.

And that part took hold of her, and she couldn’t stop the giddy grin on her face as she saw Celestia nervously reach out for the apple and bring it close to her face. After a few seconds of contemplation —and the apple starting its fourth rotation of the colors— she gave it a meek bite.

“Well,” she said while chewing, “it definitely tastes like a regular apple.”

“Let me see,” Luna said as she snatched the apple from Celestia and gave it a much larger bite. “Yup. Affirmative on the apple.”

And so the apple was shared and consumed. Cadence stared in wonder at the apple remnants and how they, along with the seeds, were still changing colors. “How is this even possible?”

“The mechanics are very easy,” Sunset explained. “The spell simply modifies the range of visible electromagnetic radiation absorption in a looped pattern.” It was part of the final evaluation in the beginner’s course for Enchanting at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but it was a beginner level spell nonetheless.

“And… when is it going to stop?”

“In about ten minutes,” Sunset replied. “I didn’t expect you’d eat all of it so soon.” She snickered at the blushed cheeks her comment caused. “In any case, now that we’ve showcased what we can do…”

Twilight hopped to her side. “We need you to help us raise money for this project,” she stated, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Technically speaking, we can keep working as we’ve been doing so far, but our progress is excruciatingly slow. If we could get better resources, we’d be able to significantly improve the efficiency of the Enchanter.”

“Adding more spells is my department, but I could use some help creating a software program specifically designed to handle the spells’ information,” Sunset said. “I looked it up, and getting a professional that knows what they’re doing is very expensive.”

“However, we’re just teens,” Twilight said with a sigh. “Sunset’s fifteen and I’m barely going to turn fourteen next month. There’s not much we can do besides selling lemonade on our lawn.”

“Which I won’t do,” Sunset muttered.

“We need your help,” Twilight repeated. “Sunset has told me about some of the spells she’ll be able to make the Enchanter perform. One of them can preserve food for longer than refrigeration can with none of the flavor loss. Can you imagine? But we need someone to sponsor us. Preferably someone we trust will have our best interests at heart.”

“We’re currently the only ones who can power this machine with mana,” Sunset said. “But it’s not really difficult to learn. Twilight learned how to manipulate hers in but a month, after all. If someone learned how to build the Enchanter and the spell circuitry, we’d lose everything. I, especially, would lose a lot more than you can’t even understand. Twilight suggested we get a patent, but as it turns out, that’s expensive too.”

Twilight nodded gravely. “And that’s why we’re telling you first. You can guide us and help us. This is going to change history forever, but we have to start somewhere.”

Their speech was met with silence, and they stared at each other for so long Sunset started thinking time had stopped. The one to break the silence was Shining Armor.

“Did you say you can preserve food better than fridges?” He asked with an overeager smile. Cadence nudged him on the arm, making him laugh. “What? It’s an honest question.”

Despite herself, Sunset decided to answer honestly. “I never memorized that particular spell. I can extrapolate the arrays I do know and craft the correct circuitry with time, but considering how much time it took me to recreate the much easier illumination and rainbow shifting spells, it might take me two or so years.”

“That’s… quite a long time,” Luna noted.

“It is…” Sunset admitted. She had been thinking about it for a while, and there was only one solution to that issue. The problem was that the issue required Sunset taking a huge risk. Still, if she was to bring magic to the human world, she needed to take risks. She let out a suffering sigh. “But I can return home next spring. I may be able to grab books on spellcrafting.” And some gemstones too if she was even luckier than she’d need to be not to be spotted by Princess Celestia and imprisoned.

Twilight spun on her heels. “You didn’t tell me about that!”

“I’d just be gone for a day.” Even if her room had been cleared of all her stuff —which she hoped it hadn’t— any self-respecting bookstore would sell spellcrafting books, and Sunset did have money in the bank that she knew Princess Celestia wouldn’t take from her, no matter the circumstances.

“But…” Twilight bit her lip.

Sunset understood her reluctance. She had written that letter to the princess, after all, and she was a smart girl. Sunset had no doubts that Twilight understood, at least to some extent, the risk Sunset would be taking by returning to Equestria. Still, it was something she had to do if she wanted to see any progress.

Of course, that would only happen if the adults currently present helped them.

Celestia cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t think Luna and I can help you much in the money department. But we can definitely help you with legal matters. That is, we know people who are experts and can lend a hand.”

Twilight Velvet leaned forward. “We may be able to talk to some of our colleagues that would definitely be interested in these ideas.” She turned to Celestia. “If we band together, we can make this work.”

As the adults kept discussing, Sunset found herself smiling, feeling a nice warmth in her chest. She was glad she had come across people willing to help her ambitions like this. She shuddered to think what would’ve happened if Celestia hadn’t taken her in or if Twilight hadn’t become her partner. Would she have progressed so much on her own? Would she have been taken advantage of?

She sat down at her laptop and sighed, dismissing those thoughts. Though more terrifying ones came to mind as she remembered what she’d offered to do.

Returning to Equestria was easy enough. Simply cross the portal come next spring. But what if Princess Celestia had decided to station guards outside the artifacts vault? Sure, she had claimed that Sunset was not in legal trouble, but she had still been banned from the castle. Technically speaking, her returning would violate that order, and disobeying a direct order from Princess Celestia was punishable by law.

And that was without considering all of Sunset’s belongings. Sure she hadn’t owned much to begin with, but she still had many magic-ready gemstones and books she’d bought with her own money. Were they still in Sunset’s old room? Would Princess Celestia have cleared her room and moved her belongings somewhere else?

As those and many more questions swirled around her head, Sunset realized she still had about four months before she could return. It was more than enough time to think about all possible scenarios.

For now, however, she decided to lean back on her chair and force herself to pay attention to the increasingly animated discussion about the future of human magic technology.

Author's Note

Sunset has come out... as an illegal alien! Also, going back to Equestria?! Dun dun duuuun!

If you liked it, please leave a comment? They give me life.