Twilight placed a hesitant finger on the stone. After a second, she gave it a light knock. Then pressed the palms of both hands and pushed. The stone didn’t give in.

“It’s kind of hard to believe this is a portal,” she said, turning to look at Sunset. “I mean, if it opens on its own every now and again, wouldn’t someone have accidentally wandered through before?”

Sunset paused, hovering the pen above her notebook.

The day after Twilight and Sunset had Resonated together was the first full moon day after the portal had closed, so of course Sunset wanted to do some research on it, see if she could feel any magic from it as it was bathed in full moonlight magic. It hadn’t taken much to get Celestia to drive them to Canterlot High School and let them camp in front of the statue in order to study it. Twilight, however, had needed to beg for hours and promise to do more chores around the house and even try to talk to the other kids at school until her parents had finally relented, and her brother had offered to accompany and chaperone them along with Celestia.

So of course Sunset had been forced to disclose the real nature of her research to him. Or, really, it had been Twilight who had told him everything on their ride to the school. Apparently she told him everything.

“I hadn’t considered that,” Sunset said as she mulled over Twilight’s words. “The portal in my world is locked under heavy security, but in here it’s a statue that literally anyone could walk up to. We would’ve known about random intruders in the palace every thirty moons or so.”

“Maybe this portal has a security system in place,” Shining Armor offered as he joined his sister and knocked twice on the stone. “Like some sort of identification feature.”

He had taken the knowledge of the existence of magic and another world in stride. When questioned about it, he simply replied that he trusted Twilight, since she wouldn’t lie about something like this. For some reason, Sunset didn’t quite like that level of blind trust in him. Hence, she had asked Twilight not to divulge that Equestria was a land of ponies. It had taken her over an hour to convince Twilight that talking ponies did in fact exist and did in fact inhabit Sunset’s world and she in fact was one of them. She did not want to go through that again.

Twilight had reacted with strange glee, saying it would be a secret just between the two of them. So much for her telling her brother everything.

“Of course you’d think like a cop,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes but a small smile nonetheless. “What kind of security system would keep everyone out, but then let Principal Celestia stick her hand inside?”

Which was, of course, one of the reasons Shining Armor believed their claims about magic. Celestia and Luna’s words seemed to mean a lot to other humans.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Any guesses, Sunset? You’re the expert here.”

Sunset didn’t fail to notice the pep in his tone. He seemed to be enjoying all of this a bit too much.

“Considering what little I myself know about the portal,” Sunset replied, “my best guess is that there’s some kind of awareness spell preventing anyone who doesn’t know the truth about the portal from using it. Random people leaning on it while it’s open wouldn’t go through, but since Celestia saw me crossing it, she was made aware of it, and thus she could cross it.”

“And Luna saw your hand going through as well,” Celestia said as she finished unfolding the chairs. “So she’ll be able to cross the portal too when it opens up again.”

“And since I also know about it, now that you’ve explained it to me, I guess I would be able to cross it too,” Shining said. He crossed his arms and nodded. “Pretty smart security system if you want to hide something. But maybe we should keep this to ourselves. Wouldn’t want people actually going to your world, huh, Sunset? Considering the portal is at your ruler’s palace, it could be considered an invasion.”

It wouldn’t be much of an invasion, anyway. Even if humans transformed into unicorns, they’d be nothing against the all too powerful alicorn of the sun, no matter how many of them tried to invade. She nodded, however, since she didn’t want any more humans interfering with her research than there already were.

They fell relatively silent as Shining helped Celestia set up the portable stove, an invention that got Sunset’s curiosity in its simplicity.

“Man,” Shining said after settling the kettle on the stove, looking up at the school. “Never thought I’d be back here. It feels kind of nostalgic.”

“I’d appreciate you not littering at my school again,” Celestia said.

Shining flinched. “Uh, right… I should probably apologize for that.”

Twilight, who so far had kept probbing at the portal, snapped her head to the side so fast Sunset swore she heard a pop. “Shining Armor, did you litter at a school?!”

The question seemed to hit Shining like a bag of bricks to the stomach. His already white skin seemed to pale further. “I uh…”

“Not only did he litter,” Celestia said as a small smile formed in her face. “He dressed up the statue that’s on the portal in a ridiculous costume and used spray paint to draw mocking words.”

Twilight gasped so loudly it was almost comical. “You vandalized school property?!”

What happened next was a full twenty minutes of a red-faced Twilight scolding her big brother so intensely that the man couldn’t even get a word in between “how could you”s and “I trusted you”s. For a girl half Shining’s height, she could be really intimidating as she kept yelling at him.

“Alright, Twilight, I believe that’s enough,” Celestia said just as Twilight paused to take air. “I think he got the message, and I’m sure he’s feeling quite sorry now.”

Twilight scrunched up her face and pointedly narrowed her eyes at her brother. “Are you?”

“Yes, I am!” Shining said, holding both hands in front of him. He turned to look at Celestia. “I’m really sorry for that, Principal Celestia. I was a stupid kid.”

Celestia nodded. “All is forgiven.”

Twilight looked like she still wanted to say some more words to Shining, but she seemed to accept Celestia’s words as final, and instead crossed her arms, her cheeks a bit puffed, and turned back to look at the portal. Sunset found herself smiling at that.

One hour later, with the tents set up, the sleeping bags unrolled, and the stove heating up cocoa, it was time to get the research properly started. At quarter to midnight, the moon had finally reached its full luminosity, and its magic was at its most pure and influential. If it had any effect on the portal at all, Sunset would be able to perceive it.

Or at least she hoped so.

Leaving her notebook on a chair she’d pulled close to the statue, Sunset placed a hand on the surface that held the portal and closed her eyes. One of the first things unicorns learned to do upon enrolling in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was to detect the magic in enchanted items. An experienced unicorn would be able to feel the complete array of pulsations that made up the enchantment, and translate them into the spell within. However, what a first-timer could feel would simply be a phantom vibration.

Without her horn to potentiate her connection to the Harmonic Veil, Sunset at least hoped she could feel this vibration. She didn’t like going back to the basics, but solving the mystery of this world wouldn’t be a challenge otherwise.

And so she stood there in silence, feeling the cold, rough stone with her hand, listening to the ruffling of nearby trees and the whistling of the wind and her own breathing. And she willed herself to ignore all of those stimulations, as they only distracted her. She forced her focus on searching for the magic vibration of the portal. No matter how weak it was, it was impossible for it not to be there. Even if the portal opened only once every thirty moons, it was still infused in magic, and thus whatever many spells it contained would be pulsing.

She didn’t know how long she stood there; long enough for the coldness of the night wind to finally filtrate through the many layers of clothing she was wearing. Still she ignored her shivering body and continued focusing. Minutes passed in the silent darkness, yet she remained focused.

Until finally, within that darkness, she started feeling a very faint vibration coming from within the stone. She suppressed the gasp that threatened to break her concentration and pressed on. Now that she had finally felt it, she needed to accustom herself to it. Her untrained human body needed to remember the sensation of magical energy coursing through. And as time passed, her fingers started getting numb, and heat spread from them, down her arm, and into her chest. And the heat remained in her chest, swirling placidly, content with simply being there.

Sunset did gasp, opening her eyes and stepping away from the statue.

“Sunset?” someone said, but Sunset paid it no mind. Her heart beat so fast she could hear it in her ears.

She placed a hand on her chest, and above her thundering heart and her labored breathing, she could easily feel the heat swirling within her, and she realized, after a few shameful seconds, what it really was.

“I can feel my mana pool,” she whispered. The revelation shouldn’t have felt like such a grandiose achievement. Of course her mana pool was there! All magical creatures had one. She supposed that her human body concealing it had made her believe otherwise.

“Sunset, are you ok?”

Sunset snapped out of her musings, only to realize that Twilight’s face was mere centimeters from her face. “Y-Yes, I’m fine,” she said, shaking off Twilight’s hands from her shoulders. She snatched her notebook from the chair she’d pulled earlier and sat down. “Give me a moment.” She needed to write her discoveries and what she had felt as accurately as possible. When she was done, she found both Twilight and Shining pressing their hands on the portal.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Shining said in a loud whisper.

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied in the same fashion. “But Sunset seems to have felt something.”

“A vibration,” Sunset said, and she noticed that her voice was a bit shaky. The heat within her had cooled down somewhat, but she could still feel that her fingers were a bit numb. “Ignore everything else that you’re feeling right now, like the cold, and ignore every sound, including my voice. Just focus on the stone, and you should be able to feel the vibration within.” Though, whether they’d be able to feel it was a question in itself. Sunset could because she was originally a unicorn, so she wondered if humans were capable of it as well.

She stood up, leaving Twilight and her brother to their concentration. First-timers could need anywhere between minutes to hours, or even multiple tries on different days, to even start feeling the vibrations of enchanted items. She walked up to Celestia and accepted the mug of hot cocoa the older woman offered. Only then did she notice how cold her hands were.

She sipped a bit of the chocolatey goodness and let out a content sigh, looking up towards the moon. Ever since deciding to stay in this world, she had felt the absence of her horn like a void that weighed down on her stomach, like she had suddenly become blind to a light she had always been able to see. But now, that sensation, while not completely gone, had diminished enough that Sunset could almost feel complete again. After all, her mana pool swirled within her, and while currently inaccessible, the sole knowledge that it was there was enough to bring a smile upon Sunset’s face.

“I take it you got the results you wanted?” Celestia said.

Sunset sat down on the chair further from the woman. “Yes.”

Celestia stared at Sunset, as if waiting for her to explain. She didn’t. Instead, she slowly savored the cocoa, feeling it warm her body quite pleasantly. Looking back at the portal, where the siblings were still concentrating, Sunset pondered what her next steps should be. She had already proven to herself that the Harmonic Veil was working properly even in this world, so she now needed to find a reliable way to detect and represent it in a visual way. Easier said than done, she supposed, but she still had twenty-nine moons left.

Plenty of time, considering she only had to rediscover what she already knew.

Shining Armor stepped away from the portal, careful not to distract Twilight, and sat down on the chair next to Celestia, accepting a mug of hot cocoa on his own.

“Giving up already?” Sunset said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup,” Shining said with a smile and a tone that let Sunset know he was not the least bit sorry. “Doing research is not my thing. I’ll help you girls as much as I can, but I’m more muscle than brains.”

“Says the top student of his generation,” Celestia said.

Shining cleared his throat and proceeded to sip his hot cocoa, which Sunset found odd. If he had been the top student, why try to conceal it? Sunset didn’t miss a chance to gloat about graduating early and with honors. After all, why work so hard if no one recognized it?

“You know,” Shining said as he brought his mug down to his lap and turned his head to look at the portal. “I haven’t seen Twilight this excited since dad took her to the university he works at and gave her a tour to the science labs back when she was in fourth grade. And I have you to thank for it, Sunset.”

Sunset cocked her head. “Me?”

Shining gave her a smile. “It’s because she finally found someone that shares her passion for studying and learning. I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you for being her friend.”

Friend? Sunset fought the urge to roll her eyes at that. They weren’t friends, they were research partners, and even that was already stretching the truth of their relationship. Twilight simply helped fill Sunset’s gaps in human’s scientific knowledge, and in turn, Sunset let Twilight know the nature and progress of her magical research. A simple give and take and nothing more.

But before Sunset could begin to correct Shining, she was interrupted by Twilight gasping. She turned to see the girl standing in front of the portal while looking at her hand.

“I think I felt it!” She announced, practically hopping towards Sunset. “But if I’m honest, it felt a lot like electricity rather than a vibration. My fingers got a bit numb and all!”

For some reason, that made both Celestia and Shining stand up and start probing at the portal. Sunset, however, leaned back on her chair and frowned at her mug of still steaming cocoa.

At Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, which had a very high level entrance exam, they measured every second it took students to perform certain tasks, and they averaged these times to keep a tight record of unicorn’s innate magical prowess in Canterlot. Sunset, of course, had taken a look at these numbers to make sure she was the best of them all. As such, she knew that students that first tried to feel the vibrations of enchanted items took an average of twenty-three minutes of concentration before they started feeling them. Sunset herself had only taken three minutes, breaking the record of five.

In the human world, despite knowing what to look for and what to expect, she had needed about nine minutes to get her body acquainted to the magical vibrations. Three times as long, which she could understand, given the circumstances.

However, if her sense of time was correct, Twilight Sparkle had been concentrating for no more than eleven minutes before she felt the vibrations. If those numbers translated to unicorn prowess in Equestria, that meant that Twilight would have also broken the previous five-minute record by a landslide, and was very close to Sunset in innate skill. Considering, even, that up to this point Twilight had never even believed in magic, it meant that Twilight was not only incredibly smart, but also a natural genius in magic.

She could even rival Sunset.

Sunset’s instinct flared with red alerts, telling her that Twilight was a threat to her status as the most powerful unicorn in Equestria and to her destined ascension to alicornhood. And threats had to be removed.

She looked up from her mug, plans already starting to form to get rid of the competition… and was met with Twilight’s expectant eyes. The girl’s cheeks were a bit reddened, though it was difficult to see behind the massive toothy grin on her face. At that moment, Sunset felt stupid. This girl was no threat to her! Sure, she could be a magical prodigy like Sunset, but she was still a human. She had no business going to Equestria.

Besides, if Sunset thought about it carefully, she could have Twilight become her personal student. That way, when Sunset returned to Equestria and became a princess, she would have Twilight do her bidding on this side of the portal. Sunset would practically be ruling two worlds!

Crossing the portal was proving, once again, to have been the smart choice, after all.

“We couldn’t find any nearby electrical sources,” Shining said as he walked back with Celestia in tow.

“And there are no underground connections near the statue either,” Celestia confirmed as she returned to her chair.

Twilight turned to look at them. “Which means that what Sunset and I felt is magic!” She said excitedly. She once again looked at Sunset. “So what should we do now?”

Sunset thought about it. “For now, we’ll rest for ten minutes, then attempt to feel the magic again, then rest ten more minutes. We’ll keep at it until we can feel it by simply touching the stone. Then we’ll return next month for the second step of the process, which is putting apart the vibrations into pulsations. And when you manage to do that, I’ll teach you how to interpret them… Though this will be too advanced for you. Well, we’ll see when we get there.”

Twilight nodded and accepted a mug of hot cocoa from her brother. Yes, this girl was eager to learn but lacked the ambition to become something greater than a simple researcher. Sunset could use her to her advantage. The only thing she needed to do was keep an eye on her, just in case Twilight did end up developing an ambition that interfered with Sunset’s plans.

Author's Note

And the magic technobabble commences! This chapter is just the tip, so get ready for the next one.

I hope you like it!