Sunset Shimmer clicked her pen repeatedly while staring down at the piece of paper sitting before her.
“I have a few decorations but I could use more,” she began. “I have candy, but I could use a bit more. This is my first year in the area and I don't know how many kids stop by. Worst case scenario I end up with a bunch of extras.”
She smiled to herself as she added ‘Candy’ to her list.
“That wouldn't be so bad,” Sunset remarked. “Oh shoot I almost forgot my own costume. Hopefully, that Halloween place down by Third and Main is open late tomorrow. I don't want Rainbow Dash to end up teasing me all night for not having one, again.”
“Right,” Sunset proclaimed, rising from her chair. “Better brush my teeth now, something tells me I won't be doing them any favors over the coming days.”
With that out of the way, she placed the little slip of paper on her nightstand and departed for the bathroom. Not long after, and now with clean teeth, she laid down in bed, the room already dark and her fan blowing gently in the corner of the room. Comfortable in the knowledge that everything was laid out and she was ready for the busy weekend ahead, she fell asleep in only a few short minutes.
Sunset Shimmer stepped through the portal, already stumbling in confusion as she grappled with her new form.
“That was close,” she muttered. “To think I was nearly caught because some nosey maid read my journal.”
Glancing down at herself she seemed confused for a moment only to quickly relax.
“Ahh a human and with some rudimentary clothes too,” she murmured. “Not the most unpleasant of forms but at least I am not an animal of some kind. Now then where are… huh.”
She looked around to find that she was standing in front of a school, or at least it had been at one point. Now it was a ruin, mostly collapsed, with half-rotten beams sticking up into the air like the shattered ribcage of some great beast. Stranger still was the complete absence of vegetation and the fact that it was as dark as twilight despite it being mid-day.
“What happened to the sun?” She whispered to herself, shading her eyes and glancing up.
What she saw was not the benevolent orb of fire she had known from her previous world but a cloud-filled sky scorched black through unknown means. It looked like a storm, and yes although there was the rumble of distant thunder, there was no rain, nor did it seem to be moving. The great mass of clouds simply hung there, blotting out all but the most stubborn rays of light and casting everything in an uneasy pale light.
“What happened here?” She thought aloud.
Glancing around a little closer, she saw that the devastation that had come to the school covered nearly everything. Roads were pockmarked with craters, houses had burnt down, and everywhere she looked there were signs of violence. Burnt-out vehicles not unlike the carriages she knew from back home sat nearby, reduced to their metal bones due to the flames that had once burnt inside of them.
“Hello!” She called.
The only answer came in the distant rumble of the omnipresent thunder.
“Those clouds don't even look natural,” she remarked to herself. “What manner of horrid spellwork could have done such a thing?”
Walking down the shattered street, she searched for any sign of habitation, or even a single living thing. Despite trodding over three city blocks, she couldn't find so much as a single blade of grass, a lone rat, or even the remains of a human. Then she found one, a corpse that lay face down on the sidewalk, its flesh mostly rotten away to nothing.
“Horrid,” Sunset murmured. “What fate befell you, creature?”
She attempted to weave a spell, intent on forcing some cruel version of life into the body in order for it to answer her questions. There was no magic to weave unfortunately, the mage having only now realized that a deep emptiness lay in the pit of her stomach.
“There isn't any mana here,” she remarked. “How is that possible? A living planet always produces mana. Unless this world truly is dead…”
Glancing back the way she came, Sunset considered returning to her home world. She would be arrested and tried, possibly even sentenced to death but she doubted they’d go so far. So long as she dodged the hangman’s noose there was a chance she could still claim her immortal destiny.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange, otherworldly whir sound coming from somewhere behind her. Spinning around in place, she looked up to find what appeared to be a wraith of some kind only for the mage to realize almost immediately that they weren't undead. Rather they were alive, or at least something adjacent to being alive anyway.
“What in all the hells below are you?” Sunset murmured in horror.
The creature was a woman at one point, though she had been fused with enough metal to make her appear more artificial than natural. The flesh of her face had been stretched over a metal plate, a large unnatural eye cluster poking out from the right side of her head. An odd hood made from more metal rose around her, while her upper torso was covered with several crimson plates fused into her skin.
The thing’s lower midsection was exposed, various tubes and pipes burrowing into her flesh from below. Lacking any legs, she had what appeared to be a dress with metal chains dangling down. Whatever had replaced her lower limbs evidently granted her some manner of flight as she hovered over the landscape with a strange, unnatural ease.
If that had been the end of the strangeness Sunset would be frightened, but not terrified. Unfortunately, the thing also had a bladed gauntlet on one hand, and a large metal box from which protruded three long metal tubes where her other hand should be. Sunset had no idea what these tubes did, but she knew on some instinctual level that it wouldn't be good.
“H-hail!” Sunset called, stumbling backward while she spoke. “W-well met s-stranger!”
The odd mix of metal and flesh blurted a harsh blast of noise at her while floating closely, its tube arm raised.
“Now miss there is uh... No need for violence,” Sunset exclaimed. “Surely we can discuss this.”
Another burst of static filled electronic noise hit Sunset, nearly knocking her back.
“Maybe we can work out some kind of system here,” Sunset offered. “Nod once if you understand me.”
The creature lurched forward suddenly, attempting to drive its bladed gauntlet into Sunset’s midsection. The woman had been ready for this and leaped out of the way at the last second. She didn't make any attempt to strike back, however, and began sprinting back towards the distant portal.
“Gotta get back,” she murmured.
Sprinting as hard and as fast as her new legs could go, Sunset hoped that she had managed to get away. Such hopes were dashed when she heard the dull, rhythmic thrumming of her pursuer rapidly catching up. The floating thing was very fast, and in only a few short seconds Sunset could feel it drawing near.
Once more she hoped out of the swipe, buoying her confidence slightly. For a moment she thought there was a chance of escaping, of avoiding this thing and getting back to the portal. That was all dashed when she heard a crack whoosh sound followed immediately by a wet crunching noise.
“Ahhh,” she cried, falling to the ground and clutching at her right leg, or at least the bloody remnants thereof. “Why did you do that you monster!”
The creature didn't respond with words, instead impaling the mage through the midsection with her long-bladed gauntlet. Hoisted into the air, Sunset struck the creature weakly, but its head was as hard as steel and its gaze like unfeeling iron. She punched the thing again, but already her strength was waning, as blood poured out of her from several wounds.
“I should have stayed… home,” she muttered before blacking out.
After what could have been a minute, or an entire day, she awoke to find herself lying in a strange bed moving along a set path like a bizarre carnival ride. She wore nothing, her new form laid bare for the first time. She could see clearly that her wounds had been treated, albeit crudely, stitched shut with what looked like black wire.
“What, what's going on?” She croaked.
Wincing in pain, she tried to move but found that she was too weak, some unknown chemical compound flowing through her body. She gave up quickly, and surrendered herself to looking around, watching as her bed moved along its predetermined path. A sharp, sudden turn revealed that there was another human on the track in front of her, though they were barely visible.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” Sunset called, only to be met with the sound of grinding gears.
She watched as the walls of the metal tunnel began sporting the occasional blood stain, signaling grim tidings ahead. It wasn't long before they reached their first stop, with the beds lurching to a halt right before a box descended on the person before her. It retreated a moment later, with Sunset quickly taking its position and being covered by the metal container. Within it, were three red lasers that swept over her, leaving behind only a slight warm sensation.
“That wasn't too bad,” Sunset thought aloud, the box ascending into the ceiling once more.
The track started to move again, and they passed through another turn, before entering into a wider facility. Her neighbor’s bed went under a catwalk before stopping in front of another floating creature of metal and flesh. Just when Sunset was about to demand to be released, a large needle descended on a metal arm and jammed itself into the human in front of her. A gurgled cry spilled from his lips and he thrashed weakly in the upright bed. Then he was gone, shipped off deeper into the facility, with Sunset taking his position a mere moment later.
“Wait, stop. Let me off damn you,” she muttered.
The floating surgical overseer floated closely, inspecting her for a moment before the needle slammed into her chest. The pain was immeasurable, overriding whatever cocktail of drugs they had pumped her with before she had woken. This close, she could see a bright red fluid pumped into her chest cavity, the cool liquid flowing throughout her ruined torso.
Barely a moment later they were rounding another corner, the woman barely clinging to consciousness. All thoughts of a plan or escape were gone, washed away by the immense pain assaulting her mind. She tried to resist, to roll off the bed or do anything but her limbs were heavy and unresponsive.
Before she knew it she had reached the next step, having missed seeing what had happened to the person before her. A glance up at the large, rusty saw blade gave her a grim inkling, however.
“No, stop, please,” she pleaded.
But the blade ascended regardless, cutting deep into her flesh and removing her legs entirely, leaving behind not even stumps. A metal plate descended not unlike the one she had seen her attacker sporting, the cool slab resting against her chest. Blacking out briefly, she awoke to find that her hands had been amputated as well, having been replaced with more metal.
“No,” she gurgled.
Glancing to the side, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a passing observation window and noted that she looked almost exactly like her attacker. Had she been here, on this table at one point in time? Unwilling forced into a body not her own by cruel, unseen overlords?
Sunset didn't know, nor did she give it any thought, focusing entirely on the path before her, determined to at least observe what was coming before it arrived. What she saw made her wish she would black out, however, they arrived at another station, and above them hung another needle on another metal arm. Only this one was longer than even the last, and the abomination overlooking the procedure appeared even more malevolent than the last.
Like before, there was no warning, only blurts of electronic noise that made no sense to the woman. Then the needle slammed down, piercing the man’s skull and stopping his screaming abruptly. Sunset watched in horror as he twitched and contorted, clearly still alive despite what should have been a lethal strike.
She looked up just in time to see that she had taken his place, and the needle hung over her own head. She wanted to plead, to make demands, to resist but her body was not her own and at this point, she didn't even want to fight back. The only thing she dared to hope for was an ending, a mistimed strike that would leave her dead rather than a lobotomized slave.
The needle struck her, piercing straight through her skull, and between the lobes of her brain. Dimly she could feel as if something was attached to some primal part of her grey matter, a bit of foreign metal latching onto the pulsing sack of meat. Sunset jerked forward as the metal thing was pulled away, her body twitching absently as her mind was suddenly filled with information.
Suddenly the burst of static noise made sense, the grating noise arranging itself into a series of words.
“Final subject nearing completion. Returning to ship,” it declared before walking away.
Sunset slipped into unconsciousness once more and awoke in an odd tank, floating in a greenish liquid that felt like gelatin. She nearly panicked, thinking she needed air, but found that she didn't require such a thing. Not because she could breathe the goo, but because she no longer had functional lungs in the first place.
A sudden clanging drew her gaze down to where a pair of cybernetic organisms strode down a metal catwalk. The duo stopped before her, with the smaller of the two affixing her with a probing look, his quartet of ocular implants whirring slightly.
“This one was the last one through the facility,” the creature blurted, the electronic noise forming words in Sunset’s mind. “Where should we send it?”
“Send it into deep storage with the others,” commanded the larger monster, waving the trio of gun barrels that made up its left arm. “Put into the simulation along with the others.”
“An excellent idea, overseer. They degrade far slower when placed in such a calming environment,” murmured the smaller one.
“And with it asleep the majority of its brain will be slaved to the main system's computer,” declared the overseer.
“Strange,” muttered the underling, tapping at a nearby terminal. “It does not seem to be native to this world.”
“A subdimensional hub must be nearby. No matter, extract the necessary coordinates and send them off to the central hub. This one’s world shall fall as will the others,” it ordered.
“Yes, of course,” declared the smaller of the two.
Sunset merely watched, all thought of resistance having long since left her mind. Her tube lurched to the side, and soon she was swallowed by darkness once more.
“What the hell? What was that!” Sunset shouted, lurching forward and clutching at her body with both hands.
Her legs were both there, her arms ended in hands, and there wasn't an ounce of metal present. But then again, why did she think there should be? She had never lost a limb before. Heck, she had never even been seriously injured. Nothing worse than a particularly unpleasant bruise or cut anyway.
“What was I afraid of again?” She muttered. “Probably… probably nothing.”
She paused.
“The wind, likely,” she added, even though the words felt hollow even while she was speaking them. “Yeah, that's it. I should just go to bed.”
Taking a long breath, she laid back down, placing her head on the pillow.
“I need to get to sleep,” she told herself. “I’m finally returning home after all.”
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