Today was not a good day. That wasn’t to say the rest of the month had been any better. It was just that, compared to the other days, today was particularly bad. Because of that, Sunset was already done with the day, and it had barely even begun.
It all started after the Fall Formal, when she’d been purified by the Rainbow of Light following several years of poor life choices. Everybody had already been distrustful of her, but after being defeated by the Equestrian princess whose crown she’d stolen, nobody was afraid of her now, either. In one night, several years of power games and social manipulation had been torn down, and she’d not just been rendered powerless; she was persona non grata with the entire school.
Sure, she had Princess Twilight’s friends doing their best to try and ‘rehabilitate’ her, and teach her how to make friends or be a better person. Those moments in life were actually some of the highlights of her day. The problem became that she was under in-school suspension and after-school detention for two weeks, so she could hardly rely on her friends to protect her from much retaliation during school days.
It started out small—just whispers in the hallway. It quickly progressed to shoving and tripping in the hallway and graffiti on her locker. She quickly learned that the students of the school weren’t very inventive with their insults; most of them either possessed some form of demon-related epithet, or any combination of profanity and falsehoods regarding her sexual history. Still, she was the one that ended up having to clean it all off, day after day, and even if she felt she deserved it, that didn’t change the fact that it was hurtful.
Next came the notes being slipped through the vent in her locker around the time she was released from ISS. Most of them were just repeats of the same sorts of things being written on her locker, but some of them were worse—much worse. There were threats of bodily harm, remarks urging her to go back where she’d come from—a physical impossibility for another 30 moons—and then there were the ones telling her she should end herself.
“They’ll all work it out of their systems eventually, darling,” was what Rarity told her one day after school. “Eventually they’ll see that you’re trying to change and let up.”
Sunset Shimmer just grinned and bore it all. After all, she was reaping what she had sown over the last few years. Between what I did here, and how bad I was back in Equestria, maybe I deserve this. Such thoughts were particularly common as her self-esteem further eroded.
Her friends tried their best to cheer her up, but even then, they were working through their own problems. Some of them were people she’d hurt the most the most. Fluttershy had been tormented by her for years. She’d caused Rarity to experience a wardrobe malfunction in front of the entire school at the Spring Fling. Because of a rumour she spread, Rainbow Dash had to undergo rigorous testing to show that she wasn’t using performance enhancing drugs. Pinkie Pie’s school event planning side-hustle almost went under because Sunset had created an email similar to the one she used for it and through clever trickery got every volunteer to contact that one instead. Maybe worse of all, she’d made an absolute liar of Applejack, who’d prided herself on her honesty.
All of them had reasons to hate her, and yet they were giving her a chance. Even if it took Princess Twilight Sparkle requesting that they look after her, they were trying to make a difference. Mall visits, hang-outs at Sugar Cube Corner—the café Pinkie worked part-time at—and even a sleepover, all of those were just a few of the things they’d done. Sure, there was the regular reference to her past, which hurt immensely since she was trying to do better, but they were trying too... right?
Looping back to today, however, things had been particularly bad. First thing this morning at her locker, she’d been shoved to the floor and kicked hard in the abdomen. Since it’d been a liver blow, she’d been stunned for several minutes, and ended up late to class. Since it was a first period gym class, she’d ended up being forced to run laps of the gymnasium for the entire period.
Then, when she’d been showering at the end of the class, someone had gotten into her locker and taken everything. Sunset’s walk of shame to the principal’s office in nothing but a towel; even if she’d been a pony before coming to this world, and didn’t have the same nudity taboos, she’d been there long enough that it was humiliating. What was worse, her bag had been taken to the office, someone claiming to have found it in one of the bathrooms of all places. While Principal Celestia had assured her she’d look into it, because it was a blatant case of bullying and an attempt at humiliation, it did little to raise her mood.
At lunch, after somebody tripped her and spilled her tray everywhere—a regular occurrence that deprived her of her lunch and wasted the lunch money—she’d been warned by Pinkie Pie that she might want to take anything remotely important to her out of her locker. Some students in Pinkie’s art class were apparently talking about pouring paint through the vents in Sunset’s locker to ruin everything.
It was a threat she took seriously. Even if she’d left her old communication journal from Equestria tucked away in the bottom of the locker because of stubborn pride and guilt, she didn’t want to see it ruined. It, and several other personal belongings and textbooks, went into her backpack before lunch period ended. Even if it was heavy, it wasn’t worth the risk.
Listening to Pinkie’s warning turned out to be a good choice; at the end of the day, as she was walking to her locker, Sunset noticed dark red paint—the same colour as blood—seeping out from beneath the locker door. By that point in the day, she was too mentally exhausted to even care, so she just walked past it with a tired sigh. Anyone could see where it had clumsily been poured in through the vents, so it wasn’t like Vice Principal Luna would blame her for it.
Exiting through the front door of the school, Sunset immediately knew that something was up. There was a whole crowd of students around the statue plinth that held the mirror portal linking Earth to Equestria, and students stood to either side of the walkway leading up to it, glaring at her. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and when she looked, she found a tall girl with tanned skin and white hair: Gilda, leader of one of the school’s minor gangs.
As she was forced down the path by the tall gang leader, she attempted to escape. That pitiful attempt just earned her a punch in the jaw. No further attempts were made after. Instead she just walked down the path as she was treated to a cacophony of students yelling out various hurtful things. As they went, the students they passed formed a mob behind Gilda.
“Go home!”
“We don’t want you here!”
“Kill yourself, Shimmer!”
“Nobody likes you!”
“Nobody cares about you!”
The crowd around the statue plinth parted to reveal a girl from the soccer team—Lightning Dust, she thought the name was—standing beside the mirror. Clutched in her hands was a sledge hammer, and plastered on her face was a look of grim determination. “Hey there, Shimmer!” she greeted her in a terrifyingly calm voice. “We all got to talking, and most of us agree that you don’t belong here.”
Sunset’s eyes widened when she realised what the sledge was for. She doesn’t seriously think she can force the portal to open up by breaking the mirror, does she? It was a terrifying prospect, as she’d read some of the portal’s extensive documentation before getting caught all those years ago, and how it was made created a very big problem. Breaking it without disenchanting it could cause any number of devastating problems, like tearing open an all-consuming hole in reality, making an opening to the void, causing massive magical backlash, or worse violently exploding with all the energy of the bridge spanning the In Between—a realm outside time and space filled with nothing and everything all at once.
Lightning tilted her head toward the mirror seated in the plinth, short blonde locks falling in front of her eyes as she did so. “So here’s what we’re gonna do,” she continued, gently tapping the sledge against the base of the plinth. “We’re gonna give this a good whack and see if we can’t force the door to your home-world open and send you through. If not, well... We’ll just make sure you’ll never want to come back here ever again.”
Oh sweet Celestia, she does think she can force it open!
Multiple pairs of strong arms ensnared Sunset as she tried to storm Lightning Dust, preventing her from moving. Struggling didn’t help. If anything, it only made whoever was helping Gilda force her down on her knees in front of the mirror. “Please, Lightning, you can’t do this!” she pleaded. “You can’t just smash a magical artefact like that! It could kill us all!”
The crowd around the plinth seemed to consider that, as a murmur of doubt began to rise. It didn’t seem to bother Lightning at all, however. If anything, it only made her grin. “I think you’re bluffing,” she crowed, speaking loud enough for all to hear. “I bet you just don’t wanna go back to where you came from ‘cause you’ll go straight to jail for stealing a magic crown!”
A ruckus could be heard at the back of the crowd, the voices of her princess-assigned friends and the Principal arguing with the crowd. They were demanding to be let through, and Principal Celestia was most assuredly threatening expulsion. That only seemed to make up Lightning’s mind.
With a fierce cry, she raised up the sledge like it was a baseball bat, and swung straight for the centre of the mirror. The heavy metal head hit the mirror panel dead on, causing a ripple across the surface, and a loud crack reverberated across the schoolyard. Then, it went silent.
From the point of impact, a spiderweb of cracks rapidly spread across the mirror. As the damage reached the very edges of the reflective surface, something strange began to happen. Rather than simply shattering and falling to the ground, the shards of glass were pulled into the plinth, revealing what appeared to be a vast space full of iridescent abstract shapes and floating black cubes with little universes inside.
That... That’s the In Between Realm! It’s exactly as was described in Star Swirl’s portal experiment notes from before he figured out how to create a terminus point!
“No... You can’t send me through there!” Sunset cried, noting how the opening into the in between was slowly beginning to close. “That’s not Equestria! That’s not where I’m from! Please, don’t do this!”
From behind her, she heard Gilda snort. “Even if it’s not, it gets you out of our hair,” she remarked, patting Sunset on the shoulder. “Don’t worry though. It looks like a great prison for a demon bitch like you. Well, get a move on, boys! Throw her in!”
Sunset began to struggle and scream as she was dragged closer and closer to the portal. This couldn’t be happening! It just couldn’t! The In Between Realm wasn’t a place meant for mortals! It was the sort of place that would drive anyone insane after only a short time!
As she reached the edge of the portal, she could hear her friends calling out her name, and Principal Celestia as well. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see Applejack and Rainbow Dash breaking through the crowd. It was too late, however. Whatever goons Gilda had restraining her lifted Sunset up and tossed her through the portal headfirst.
Tumbling through the void, she got one last glimpse of the tear in reality she’d been tossed through. Even as the hole began to rapidly close up, she saw her friends and principal looking on in horror. Each and every one of them—Applejack, Principal Celestia, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity—had looks of horror and sorrow on their faces. It looked like they might still have been calling out her name. No sound could reach her, though.
All hope vanished as the broken portal closed completely. A numbness spread through her being as she went into psychological shock. Any sense of passing time left her, and the only illumination she had was the paradoxical glow the black cubes gave off. For the first time in her life, Sunset Shimmer had no plans or schemes of how to save herself from this situation. Barring any horrors beyond mortal comprehension, which Star Swirls notes speculated might exist in this realm, she was well and truly alone.
“How long am I going to fall through the in between?” Sunset grumbled to herself, crossing her arms as she weightlessly hurtled through the void. At some point, her fall through the In Between picked up speed. “Is this what it’s like to be trapped in a bottomless pit? This is just ridiculous!”
Had it been minutes, hours, days, or even weeks since she’d been banished to this place? She couldn’t be sure, and it was driving her up the wall. The state of emotional shock had worn off some time ago, and now she was just angry at her inability to save herself and her current situation. That was fine though; anger was an emotion that could be put to good use.
If only I had some sort of means to tell the time. That’d clear things up really quickly. The memory of her cell phone struck her, and soon after her palm met her face. Reaching into the inside pocket of her leather jacket, she retrieved the smartphone she had purchased just weeks before the formal. Upon waking the device from its inactive state, she saw the lock screen and its wallpaper—picture of her friends gathered around their usual table at Sugar Cube Corner. Against her wishes, the corners of her eyes became damp with tears.
She’d only really known the five girls for a short time, but it hurt knowing that she was never going to see them again. Even if she ever somehow got out of here, there was no returning to Earth. There was no portal terminus there any longer, and she doubted the mirror portal back in Equestria would ever open again, regardless of how much time passed.
There wasn’t any guarantee that any world she emerged in, if that was even possible, would be hers. The very existence of Star Swirl’s mirror proved the multiverse theory, as his notes commented on several other worlds he’d visited in his past—even parallel Equestrias. She might emerge in an Equestria where Nightmare Moon was never defeated, or an Earth where the Germans conquered the world. Hell, she might even end up in a universe occupied by talking amphibians.
This is why I never bothered making friends before, she thought as she gazed at the lock screen. With a sigh, she unlocked the device and navigated through the settings, returning the wallpapers to default. You never know when something absolutely bucking stupid will take them away from you. That’s why it hurts so much, though; I was actually starting to like the idea of having other people I could rely on...
As it turned out, she’d been falling for about three hours. She couldn’t even correct the perpetual somersault she was trapped in. The laws of physics didn’t seem to operate in the expected way; was there even any air friction here? Or air for that matter? It wasn’t like she was getting hungry or thirsty either. Does the human body even need any of that in this realm?
Eventually, she saw a cube floating right in the middle of her path, off in the distance. It was particularly large, and as she drew closer, it became apparent that it dwarfed her. She quickly put the phone back in her inside pocket and zipped it up. Finally, she braced herself for the pain that was sure to follow. As she struck the side of it however, she didn’t wind up turning into fine paste, or even taking any sort of damage.
Instead, she found herself erupting out through a pane of glass in a somewhat medieval looking street. Before she could even react, she slammed hard into a vendor cart of some sort, and several leafy greens tumbled down on top of her. It was a somewhat humiliating experience as piece after piece of produce seemed to bounce off her head. At least my backpack full of books broke my fall... and not my back.
“My cabbages!” came a deep and guttural voice moments before she felt herself hauled up by the front of her shirt. Before she could come to her senses, she found herself floating limply in front of what looked to be some sort of short, piggy-faced humanoid with large tusk-like teeth poking out from his bottom lip. “You’ve ruined my cabbages, witchling!”
Two things became readily apparent to Sunset as the late afternoon sun beat down on her. The first was that the orc man or whatever he was had a circle of green light floating above the end of his finger—light that seemed to match a field of energy gripping her shirt. The second was that she could feel her magic. It may have felt somewhat different than normal, but unlike in the human world it was responsive and eager to get out. She even had a good idea of how to do it, like it was instinct.
“Look, Mister, I’m sorry about your produce,” she said, trying to keep her temper down. All around them, there were creatures of all sorts staring. Some were standard human-like beings with pointed ears, whilst others were more varied and fantastical—some kind of bird person here, a lizard man there. “I’ve had a really shitty day. I’ve been getting harassed nonstop for weeks. Today, my only way home was destroyed and I was thrown into the void, and now I’m here, wherever that is.”
She drew a circle in her air in front of her with her index finger. As a circle of bright red light formed in front of her, she bared her teeth and stared into his beady eyes. “I’ve been trying to be a better person, so I’ll ask you nicely to please put me down.”
“Or what, kid?” he demanded. “It takes a lot of work to grow this human realm crop, and it isn’t cheap! If you don’t have the snails to pay for it, I’m gonna have to hand you over to the Emperor’s Coven!”
A lot of the gathered crowd started muttering. One person remarked that the glass that Sunset had burst out of belonged to a boarded up storefront. Another commented that it was just a kid. Then there was a bunch pointing out that it was just an accident in the first place.
That was when Sunset slammed her palm through the ring of light she drew. A pillar of rock shot up underneath the pig man, launching him into the air. When he came back down, he landed flat on his butt behind his stand. “That is ‘or what’,” she stated in a flat voice.
Looking around at the damaged produce, and remembering how much Applejack cared about her family’s own apples, she sighed and drew a pair of circles in the air. Even if he was being a jerk, she didn’t want him to lose money on his investment. As she triggered each spell, the spilled cabbages all lifted themselves into the air, knitting themselves back together before passing through a sterilisation field and landing atop the cart. Even if she hadn’t used such spells in a long time, they came easily to her. “There, one mass mending and a sterile field to clean it all up. Are we square?”
A whisper broke out among the crowd as the man shakily nodded, seemingly afraid now. Maybe he’s some kind of orc, she mused as she pushed her way through the gathered onlookers. The best thing she could do at this point was to try and figure out where the hell she was, and what to do next.
Between her odd clothes and the way she handled the angry vendor, she was getting plenty of strange looks as she went. Although there were a lot of the pointy-eared humans—Didn’t that man call me a ‘witchling’?—milling about, there were just as many of the strange and fantastical people all around her. There were people with too many eyes, or not enough eyes, and short folk with hair that looked startlingly like clawed hands gripping the tops of their heads. She might even have spotted a sasquatch out of the corner of her eye.
“Honestly, this place reminds me of Flash’s O&O sourcebooks,” she murmured aloud as she passed in front of a place that called itself the Kitty Café. Reflected in the glass window, she caught sight of herself, which gave her pause. Unlike in the human world, where she had round ears, hers were now long and pointed like the other people around here. Not only that, but it was only now that she noticed a somewhat familiar horn protruding from her forehead, although it looked to be shorter and made of an amber crystalline structure, rather than keratin and alicorn. Additionally, a luxurious tail of red and gold jutted out of the back of her skirt. It wasn’t much, but she definitely felt a bit more like the young mare that fled through Star Swirl’s mirror.
Choosing to walk in a random direction, Sunset wrestled with what was happening. This was all completely insane. One minute, she’s leaving school after the worst day of her life, and the next she’d been banished from an entire universe in the most convoluted way possible. Now she was walking around a weird fantasy world that had teenagers using little scroll-like devices like cell phones.
But what she really couldn’t wrap her head around was why she’d been transformed like this. The portal’s transformation enchantment shouldn’t have been active, or able to affect her, since she technically never entered an active Star Swirl-Clover bridge. Yet here she was, mostly blending in with all these other demihumans. Was it actually the plinth and the mirror frames that cast the spell on whatever was passing through, triggering whenever it exited the In Between?
She’d been so caught up in her own internal musing that she didn’t even notice that she was being followed. As her aimless wandering led her into a dead-end street, a voice called out behind her. “Stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody breaks the law on my watch!” If Sunset had been drinking, she would have done a spit-take. That was something straight out of a video game! “You’ve been accused of being a wild witch by several witnesses. Come quietly with us to the Bonesborough Precinct, or you will be taken there by force.”
Only at that threat did she finally turn around to face the speaker. It was a man in a white cloak, dark leathers, and a vaguely avian mask. His cloak was held closed with a golden triangular pin bearing a winged sword. There was a spear in his hand, and he was not alone. There were six similarly equipped figures standing behind him.
“Unbelievable,” Sunset muttered, shrugging off her backpack and pushing it behind her with a foot. “I’m not even in this world a day, and I’m already being accused of crimes I didn’t even commit! That is on top of the really shitty day I’ve been having.”
The masked man stepped closer, though his spear was not yet pointed at her. “You can plead your case to a Scout Captain,” the man said in a conciliatory tone. “Please, don’t resist. None of us like the idea of roughing up a kid. It makes us look like the bad guys.” That was followed by various mutters of assent from his companions. “Maybe there was a mistake, and you didn’t use plant magic, construction magic, and healing magic. That’s not for us to decide, though.”
Maybe it was just the day she was having, or all the stress of being the school’s punching bag for the last month. Maybe it was that she was being accosted twice now after having been in this world for such a short period of time. Maybe she was just tired of being nice, and ready to take out her frustrations on a readily available target. Regardless, something inside of her snapped.
Sunset shrugged off her jacket next, and tossed it onto her backpack behind her. Rolling her neck and cracking her knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere with a bunch of strangers who dress like ren faire plague doctors,” she said with a smirk, subtly tracing a circle into the ground with her boot. “I bet you’re not even real cops.”
When the guy sighed, she almost felt bad for him. Almost. Then she stomped on the circle on the ground, transmuting the cobblestone road into a pit of quicksand beneath the man. She quickly followed up by tracing another spell circle and punching through it, hitting him with a concussive force that pushed him neck deep into the pit.
Her heart pounded with the thrill of adrenaline as the other six white-cloaks either brandished their spears or started casting spells of their own. This form of spellcasting was so much more intuitive than it was when she was a unicorn, and yet all of her Equestrian magic theory worked amazingly well in concert with it. The magic practically thundered in her veins as she drew another circle, and then spread her arms wide.
As vines surged at her, a golem of purple slime rose out of the ground to bum-rush her with two of the spear-wielding attackers. Similarly, a spirit flew out of a gem embedded on another’s glove as the last caster sent a fireball Sunset’s way. Aww, an adorable little fireball! Let me show you some real fire.
The circle expanded and then broke into several smaller circles as she focused on several different spells. Back in Equestria, she never would have attempted such a thing; her horn would never have had the throughput, and even with her prodigal spellcasting ability, the backlash for even attempting it would have just blown her horn off. Here, though, the system bypassed her horn entirely.
A gout of sunfire—a specially formulated light-imbued fire spell that she made during her tutelage under Princess Celeastia—surged forward from the central spell circle. It flew over the head of the ground-entombed white-cloak. Both the vines and the purple slime golem were caught up in the solar flames and were atomised.
Dodging the flame, the two masked individuals thrust their spears toward her, only for the second spell circle to activate, creating a barrier of hard light in front of her. The spears both snapped at the neck as their ally’s own fireball splashed harmlessly against the barrier. Interestingly enough, the conjured spirit didn’t appear to be a form of attack; rather, it flew off in some random direction.
Probably a call for reinforcements, she thought as she triggered the third spell circle, converting the hard-light barrier into a wall of force that caused both would-be spearmen to rocket out of the alley and into a wall behind the other four casters. Her next spell sent a shard of ice at the one that conjured the plants. Rather than piercing the armour, however, it transferred its momentum into the target, and then spread ice across their body, pinning them to the wall.
Her fifth spell yanked the commander of the slime abomination toward her. Meanwhile her sixth empowered the muscles in her right arm, which she swung forward in a haymaker punch. It caught the airborne individual straight in the chest and catapulted him backwards. It was satisfying seeing them all crash into a pile against the far wall, although she felt a twinge of guilt at hurting them. Just a bit, though.
Not a moment later, six more white-cloaks entered the alley. Sunset was unable to stop herself from beginning to laugh as her eyes glowed the same red of her magic circles. “Who’s next? I’ve got an entire month of repressed anger to work through, and I’ll take on as many of you assholes as it takes until you leave me alone!”
Lilith Clawthorne, Head Witch of the Emperor’s Coven, followed the oracle spirit through the Bonesborough streets to the scene of the disturbance. The pitiful bound entity wouldn’t give her a clear answer of what was going on; all she could get out of it was a smattering of words. Wild witch. Dangerous. Reinforcements and healers needed. Only one wild witch stood out to her as requiring that sort of response.
It was for that reason that she marched with a contingent of not just members of the Healing Coven, but the Beast Keeping Coven as well. If this was a case involving her sister, as she suspected it was, her curse might be acting up, in which case the beast keepers would be better equipped to subdue the Owl Beast, or at least drive her off. If it wasn’t Edalyn, she was sure she could handle whatever witch or demon it was on her own.
Her confidence waned as she turned a corner to find a street littered with the bodies of the Coven Scouts assigned to Bonesborough. It was hard to just how many there were, especially with the way so many were stacked against the wall, plastered to it with ice, or straight up hanging limply as their lower halves stuck out from it. By her estimate, it had to be at least thirty unconscious or dead men and women of the Emperor’s Coven cast aside like broken toys.
Red light flashed out of the alley, and a moment later a Coven Scout rushed into view, her cloak burning around the bottom. The unfortunate scout tripped over one of her fallen comrades. Lilith could only look on in shock as a lash of flame wrapped around the fallen woman’s ankle. As the scout was dragged back into the alley, she let out a terrified scream. A moment later, after going silent, she was ejected from the alley, joining the great pile.
“Healers, prepare a barrier,” Lilith commanded as she brandished her white raven palisman. As soon as a barrier formed in front of her and her accompanying healers, she marched to the alley junction to take in the chaos. She paled at the sight of it. “This is a bit much, even for Edalyn.”
The alley was, lacking a better descriptor, a mess. Portions of the walls and ground were little more than molten slag, save for the spots where her scouts had fallen, which were miraculously untouched. Straight in the middle of the alley there was a scout submerged in the ground up to his neck, and though he looked mostly unharmed, she could hear the man sobbing from here. Here or there, she could see golden flames burning away on patches of stone.
At the far end of the alley stood a witch dressed in strange garb. Honestly, it reminded Lilith a lot of the sort of human garbage her sister was regularly seen hawking in the Day Market. Still, the witch was striking in her sleeveless purple top with a bicoloured sun mark, knee-high boots, and her orange skirt decorated with a yellow and magenta stripe. The fiery red and gold locks—which were probably gorgeous on a good day—framing her face were matted with sweat, but did nothing to hide the crystalline horn jutting from the girl’s forehead. Notably, she did not have a coven sigil on her wrist.
Most importantly, there was a red glow to the girl’s eyes, indicating that she was in the midst of a bile overload. It was somewhat unusual that a witch or demon her age could get that caught up in heavy emotion that their body began producing too much spell phlegm, but not unheard of. Even though the glow made it impossible to see the girl’s pupils, it was clear that she was staring at Lilith now. That said, despite the grin, it was clear that the girl was also crying, like her emotions were completely out of control.
“What, you want to fight now too?” the girl yelled down the alley between pants. She drew a massive spell circle in front of her, and then took aim at the Head Witch. A massive beam of energy slammed into the healers’ barrier, cracking as the onslaught ceased. “You creeps just keep coming, and I didn’t even do anything wrong to begin with!” The light behind the girl’s eyes began to gently flicker, even as she’d begun to draw another circle. “Just leave me alone! I’ve already had everything else taken from me, so there’s no way in Tartarus I’ll let you take my freedom!”
Lilith might have been moderately impressed with the girl if not for the fact that she was fighting against the Emperor’s Coven. That being said running off a bile overload long enough to subdue at least—by her revised count—forty Coven Scouts was both surprising and concerning. For a covenless witchling in her mid to late teens to pull that off spoke of either her skill or power—if not both—but prolonged overloads like that were detrimental to the body, and the girl was at risk of harming herself.
Turning to some of the healers, she whispered, “When I trap her in a barrier, I need you all to hit her with the Binding Bandages spell.” She glanced at the girl, and between the flickers of magical energy in her eyes, she could just make out the dilated pupils of a terrified and confused individual. “If we can restrain and drain her enough to knock her out of the overload, she should just about crash.”
The plan turned out to be unnecessary. Even before they had the opportunity, the young witch’s spell circle destabilised and broke apart. At the same time, the telltale glow of a stress induced overload dissipated. Not even a moment after that, the girl began to sway before finally falling onto her back.
Rather than approach right away, she glanced at the raven carved into the end of her staff. “Go check on her, and make sure she’s really out.” Even as the wooden carving became animated and flew over to the fallen wild witch, Lilith turned back to the healers with her. “Begin triaging the wounded. Prioritise stabilising anyone critically wounded,” she instructed before turning to the beast keepers. “Although your skills turned out to be unnecessary, I ask that you aid the healers, and take the more severely wounded to the Bonesborough hospital.”
A caw from her feathered companion caught her attention, and she saw him perched atop the horn jutting from the young woman’s forehead. He was bobbing his head, indicating that the girl was incapacitated—probably unconscious, as that looked rather uncomfortable. As Lilith picked her way through the ruined alley, passing the sobbing scout trapped in the ground, Lilith removed her own mask and hung it from a pocket on the inside of her cloak.
With how the youth’s backpack and clothing didn’t match any of the Boiling Isles’ styles, Lilith worried she might be dealing with someone sympathetic to Edalyn. The variety of magic that had destroyed this alleyway gave some credence to the idea that the girl was a wild witch, and a powerful one at that. She just hoped that, whoever she was, Edalyn didn’t have her hooks in too deep if they did know one another. Problems with authority aside, she definitely had the potential to be a great addition to the Emperor’s Coven.
Pain was something that Sunset Shimmer was intimately acquainted with. There were so many different flavours she’d been exposed to over the years, and although she may have been in another world, pain was just one of the things that remained a constant. In the present case, the pain she was experiencing was a cross between a full-body ache, a migraine headache from magic overexpenditure that normally would have radiated from the base of her horn, and a hangover.
Going over an internal checklist, she didn’t yet deign to open her eyes. It seems like I’m sleeping at some sort of desk, but there’s something binding my forearms together, too. My entire body feels like I’ve been running for hours, and my head aches with what feels like a combination of mana burn and that time a waiter gave me alcoholic wine at the first Grand Galloping Gala I ever attended, when I was just a foal. Suffice to say, she did not fancy opening her eyes.
With a groan, she peeked out through a slightly cracked eyelid. She was indeed at a table in some brightly lit, brick-walled room, though the light made her wince in pain. On the wall opposite of her, just behind the table, was a mirror panel that most assuredly had someone watching from the other side of. “Ugh, what happened?” she groaned. She sat up and attempted to clutch her head, but the manacles binding her wrists and actively sapping her magic were threaded through a loop on the table. “... and where in Tartarus am I?”
Not a minute later, a tall, pale woman with long black hair, a white hooded cloak like those goons who were attacking her, and black dress strode in. Her stern green eyes locked with Sunset’s own cyan, and the former unicorn immediately could tell that she was definitely not liked by the witch. “You are in Police Precinct 128, in the city of Bonesborough,” she said in an unamused tone, taking a seat across from Sunset. “I am Lilith Clawthorne, Head Witch of the Emperor’s Coven. What happened was that you resisted arrest for wild magic and in the process injured thirty-eight Coven Scouts and traumatised three more into a state of catatonia.”
As the memories of what happened rushed back to her, Sunset had the decency to feel a bit guilty. Regardless of how upset she’d been, hurting people like that was something even her old self would only have done in extreme cases. Maybe she’d just been a bit drunk on the discovery that she could once more yield her magic, but deep down she knew that her friends and Princess Twilight would be disappointed in her. Well, Rainbow Dash might call beating up forty wizard cops badass, but that’s beside the point.
Seeing the regret on her face, the witch’s expression softened. “Thankfully, there were no major injuries or fatalities, and the healers say that you shouldn’t have any lasting damage from your bile overload,” she added, drawing a slightly relieved sigh from the pony-turned-human-turned-witch. “As such, things aren’t as bad as they could have been. Had you killed any of my men, I would have pushed for immediate petrification.”
Yikes, Sunset thought with a wince. “I’m sorry,” she conceded, making an effort to comport herself in a contrite manner. “I haven’t even been in this world a day, but a bunch of faceless goons followed me and cornered me in an alley claiming I was under arrest.” A sigh slipped through her lips as she held her hands out, palms up. “Look at it from my perspective, though; a group of strangers claiming to be cops stalk and corner a teenage girl... I only had their word that they were law enforcement, and the thing about traffickers is that they don’t exactly advertise themselves as such.”
As she spoke, she studied Lilith. It appeared as though she was attempting to affect the same sort of calm stoicism that Princess Celestia and her human counterpart, Principal Celestia, had down to a science. This woman wasn’t anywhere near as experienced as the millenia old alicorn, but she nonetheless did a good job of masking her reactions. Still, there was a reaction when she stated she hadn’t been in this world very long—one that she couldn’t quite hide from Sunset.
After a moment, however, the self-titled Head Witch opposite to her drew a blue spell circle in the air, conjuring up Sunset’s backpack. It hung there in the air, and several of her school textbooks levitated out to form a stack on the table. Shortly after, her wallet, motorcycle learner’s permit, and her old communication journal flew out and joined the stack.
“Normally, when I encounter witches in possession of numerous artefacts of the Human Realm, I would believe them to be a customer or associate of a certain criminal known for disseminating such things here in the Demon Realm,” Lilith noted, picking up Sunset’s license and holding it up to compare. “That being said, Ms. Shimmer, given eyewitness reports at the scene of the incident involving magic mixing and this identification, I am inclined to believe that you have not been here very long.”
The Demon Realm? Sunset’s mind raced as she heard those words. When she’d been just a filly, studying under the Alicorn Princess of the Sun, the mare told her tales of such a place. It was a land of decay and monsters, where the oceans boiled and creatures built their homes atop the corpses of deceased gods. For the longest time, she’d been convinced they were stories of Tartarus, told in such a way to scare her away from being bad, despite never making the stories overly scary.
Now that she knew about Star Swirl’s portal experiments and the friendship the princess had with the old wizard, Sunset believed that Celestia was speaking of real experiences. That might have meant that her mentor had been using adventures in another world as a parable about not judging based on names or appearances. There might even still be a portal somewhere on this side.
The witch returned the card to Sunset’s wallet and then put it aside, next holding up the communication journal. “That being said, I am rather curious how you came across this book in your travels,” she continued. “The writing system is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered, and I can tell there’s a powerful enchantment on the book itself. It’s well known here in the isles that humans have no magic, after all.”
Unable to hide a smirk, Sunset leaned forward. “I’d be surprised if you had encountered writing like that,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice. “My journal is enchanted with an encryption spell so that only I can read it—” It wasn’t a lie; she’d been encouraged by the princess to do so with her copy as a test, and she’d never removed the enchantment after, enjoying the additional layer of privacy it added. “—and there’s also a spatial compression on it, allowing it to have far more pages than is reasonable for a book that size.”
That being said, Sunset wasn’t about to reveal to this stranger that the book was magically entangled with a separate copy in another dimension. Even if the entanglement did reach across the In Between to Equestria from here, it didn’t seem wise to reveal that fact. In fact, she was disinclined to mention Equestria at all. Until she was sure who she could trust, it would be better to let this woman believe that she was a witch like her, albeit not one raised in this world. Nor would she reveal the mark and recall enchantments.
For the first time, there was a glint of begrudging respect in Lilith’s eyes. That look quickly became almost covetous in nature, as the barest hint of a smile graced her pale face. It immediately put Sunset on edge, and she began to watch for the telltale signs of manipulation. “Well then, Ms. Shimmer, let me be the first to properly welcome you to the Boiling Isles Titan,” she offered. “I am willing to pardon today’s incidents as a massive misunderstanding, but that still leaves us with a problem.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow, curious to see where she was going with this. “Let me explain. Covenless witches, especially those who use magic from more than one field, are known as wild witches. When witches are schooled, they are put into one of nine tracks: abomination magic, bardic magic, beast keeping magic, construction magic, healing magic, illusion magic, oracle magic, and plant magic. Normally, they end up joining one of the nine main covens reflecting those tracks, or one of various offshoots, and having all other unaffiliated magics blocked off.” She then rolled up the sleeve of her dress to reveal her right wrist, upon which there was some sort of tattoo that radiated magic, depicting the same emblem as the clasps on the cloaks worn by those scouts. “Then there is the Emperor’s Coven—the elite few sanctioned by Emperor Belos, Voice of the Titan, to use all forms of magic as they keep the peace and enact the will of the Titan.”
That doesn’t sound right. Magic as I understand it is practically a living force within us all. It’s not meant to be broken up into neat little categories and restricting who can use what kind, unless it’s an especially dangerous form of magic like necromancy, biomancy, or chronomancy. Her eyes narrowed as she thought she saw where this was going. Making sure someone’s elites were the only ones legally or physically capable of using all types of magic was a form of control the likes of which not even the worst dictators in Equestrian History would have attempted.
“I think I see where you are going with this, Ms. Lilith,” Sunset carefully spoke. “You saw what I was capable of, and rather than locking away my talents, you want to encourage me to join the Emperor’s Coven?”
A sly smile grew on Lilith’s face. “You would likely rise through the ranks rather quickly with your prodigious skill. When you come of age, of course,” she countered. “Of course, you would need some form of formal education in order to qualify... either as a student of one of the Isles’ magic schools, or as an apprentice. What do you say, Ms. Shimmer?”
Pretending to consider the offer, Sunset looked up to the ceiling. Once upon a time, she would have leapt at the chance for power and advancement. She was likely trapped here for some time, and being able to afford room and board would be a must. Plus, if she was understanding everything correctly, this Emperor’s Coven was effectively the law enforcement and judicial arm of the government here, of which Lilith was the head, answerable only to this Emperor. The way she mentioned apprenticeship implied she would be interested in taking me under her wing.
The desire for power and status was, however, the exact sort of thing that ended up with her fleeing Equestria to the human world. Sunset had attempted to step far beyond the bounds of her station, believing that she deserved to ascend to what could be equated to godhood in human terms, to serve by her mentor’s side forever more. The fact that such a thought appealed to the lingering remnants of her old conniving self counted as a vote against the idea.
Then there was the coven system itself. She had nowhere near enough data to pull from, but it gave her a bad feeling. Sealing away portions of someone’s magic was akin to telling them their place in life and stealing their self-determination. It was straight up evil when you thought about it that way.
With a sigh, she lowered her gaze to meet Lilith’s. “I thank you for the offer, but I must respectfully decline,” she said, trying to keep a bit of edge out of her voice. “I was raised to believe magic is an integral part of our very lives, and intrinsically linked to our very essence as a person. To tell people how they can or can’t use it, and then sealing it away, or punishing those who dissent isn’t just monstrous; it’s evil. I want no part in such a thing, and I have no intention of remaining in this world for very long anyway.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Lilith shut her eyes. “I see,” she responded, followed by a drawn-out sigh. “That’s a shame. Until you come to see reason, or the Emperor decides what to do with you, I am remanding you to custody at the Conformatorium.”
The Unicorn, the Human, and the Prison Break Sitch
It’d been about a day since Sunset’s arrival in the Demon Realm. In that time, she’d had a minor breakdown and magical surge that resulted in her fighting the law, being arrested, being invited to join a cult, and then being sent to prison for refusing to join said cult. The trip from the Bonesborough Precinct had granted her a view of an actual sunset in this world, and confirmed that she was indeed on the arm of a giant carcass, complete with a giant horned skull, but the magically inclusive society described by the princess was nothing like what she was seeing here.
What was worse, this prison was only reaffirming the belief that there was something not right about whatever was going on in the Boiling Isles. The other inmates in her particular cell block didn’t seem like bad people; they were just weird—not quite Pinkie Pie level weird, but weird nonetheless. They were being imprisoned for not fitting in with the society as dictated by the Emperor. Being weird or nonconforming shouldn’t be a crime!
Sunset might not have had a preternatural ability to detect when people were lying like Applejack had demonstrated, but she’d become good at reading people. It was practically a must when she worked her way to the top of Canterlot High School’s social hierarchy. As a result, she didn’t get any sense of deceit from the others.
First, there was a lady by the name of Katya three cells down from Sunset’s. Dark of skin and black of hair, she was being detained for writing fanfiction of all things. Now, writing fanfiction wasn’t necessarily weird or a crime on its own, but what made her stand out as abnormal to the powers that be was the subject matter. She wrote about food falling in love. That was it; that’s why she was in jail.
The next unfortunate weirdo, in the cell to the right of Katya’s, to be imprisoned in their section was a green bipedal demon that reminded her a bit of the orc vendor she encountered. The only difference between him and the orc, however, was the fact that this guy had five eye sockets on his head and no tusks. It was readily apparent why he was here when she was brought in, as he removed one of his own eyes, popped it into his mouth, and ate it as she passed. It didn’t matter if it immediately grew back; it was super messed up and gross, and she’d have lost her lunch if she’d eaten anything that day.
The last one in the area was in the cell on the other side of the empty one next door. She was a small, round creature with a giant pointy nose, ginger hair, buck-teeth, and jaundiced blue eyes. Sunset wasn’t sure if she was mentally ill or what, but the creature was just spouting off all sorts of insane conspiracy theories. Something about the world being a simulation, among other things.
Surprisingly, the Coven Guards—creatures clad in different masks and uniforms than the Coven Scouts, and likely recruited for their bulk—that brought her to her cell let her keep her jacket. That meant they’d also left her with her phone, not that it was of much use here. They didn’t even make her keep wearing the magic suppressing manacles she’d been forced to wear for her entire ride to the prison. There was even some food given to her, horrifying as it was. Eggs that looked like eyes that stared at her—Eyeggs?—and seemingly normal toast.
It became readily apparent as to why they didn’t keep the manacles on her, though. The cell itself was enclosed in a nullification field. Although it was possible to cast minor spells within the cell, anything past a certain throughput threshold would be cancelled out. Similarly, despite the door being a large portcullis one could put an arm or leg through, putting said limb outside and attempting to cast led to a painful feedback in the arm. Teleportation of any kind was out, and muscle empowerment probably wouldn’t make a difference against a heavy gate mechanism, not that she was in any state to attempt much after the fight. Even attempting to conjure a flame hot enough to cut through the bars was a bit beyond her at that point.
Although she needed to recoup her energy, sleep didn’t come easy to her that night. Every time she started to drift off, she’d see the faces of all her friends watching as she fell further and further into the In Between. Although she never made a peep, she was sure the others could tell that she’d been crying. What else was someone to do when they’d had their entire life torn away from them, and trapped in a world that vilified her just for being a magical prodigy?
No meal came the next morning, and she’d shut her phone off to conserve battery power. It was a good opportunity to do a self-diagnostic spell, but the results left her with a bit of confusion. Aside from the pointy ears, her unicorn horn, and her tail, she was indistinguishable from a human from an outside perspective. Internally, however, there was an oddity. Attached to her heart was an extra organ... Some kind of sac full of magically volatile secretions.
Equestrian Magic is mostly focused on spiritual processes involving a biological focus, and our wellsprings are metaphysical in nature. Is witch magic more biological? She couldn’t help but frown as she considered it. If that was the case, why would her Equestrian spell formulae work so well in this form?
Once she put that aside though, it left her with very little to do except stare at the wall and dissociate. “So is this how they make you fall in line?” she ended up asking by late afternoon. “Just stick you in a cell, starve you, and bore you to death? Where I come from, unless you’re in solitary confinement, prisoners at least get some time out in the yard to exercise.”
That got a chuckle out of the fanfiction writer a few cells down. “Ha, there’s a thought,” she responded. “But honestly, they’d probably just use yard privilege as another means to make us act ‘normal’.” Throwing her voice to make it sound deep and sinister, Katya added, “There’s no place in society for you if you can’t fit in!”
Sunset just shook her head. “Sounds familiar,” she admitted, allowing her memories of her foalhood to momentarily rise to the surface. The sharp features of a very unpleasant pony supremacist minister of education came to mind. “Some people just get this narrow-minded view of what the world should be like, and are hellbent on inflicting it upon the rest of us.”
She was tempted to add a remark about this Emperor Belos guy and his backwards view of magic, but held her tongue. It was made quite apparent to her that her views on magic were an outlier here, and practically criminal. Even if the people in this building were merely weirdos and outsiders, not everyone would appreciate such talk.
Quiet murmuring and an uncomfortable silence followed. Not that I blame them; even if they agreed, the last thing any of them would want is for the guards to overhear them saying what probably amounts to blasphemy here.
When the sun once again began to set, she began to worry. Nobody had come by to feed any of the prisoners once through the entire day, nor did she see any guards patrolling. If not for some tormented screams on one of the lower levels, Sunset might even have believed that it was everyone’s day off or something.
She was just about ready to give into madness and sing one of her favourite songs from back on Earth, just so she could fill the silence, when her ears caught something. There was scabbling against stone, which in and of itself wasn’t odd, given that this entire place was built of stone bricks, but what was odd was that it seemed to be coming from the direction of a window she’d spotted when they brought her in.
From her cell, Sunset couldn’t see much. That said, the muffled thump of a body hitting the floor and a feminine grunt sorta gave away that someone was breaking into this place... for some reason. That was confirmed when she heard a young, boyish voice, call out, “Ha-ha! Cat’s don’t do that.”
Just as everyone else in the cell block did, she rushed over to the portcullis trapping her in the cell. Standing there was a small biped demon with black fur and some kind of large exterior skull, with a red collar around his neck. Next to him, conversing with Katya, was a dark-skinned girl in black leggings, grey jorts, and a white and blue cat-eared hoodie with short sleeves. She can’t be much older than Apple Bloom, but that’s definitely clothing from the Human Realm.
“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not a cat,” the girl remarked, lowering her hood to reveal the round ears of a human. “Also, I’m not a criminal.”
That drew an amused correction from the little bone-dog demon. “Not yet you’re not.”
Katya didn’t seem all that enthused by the implication, grabbing the bars of her own cell’s portcullis. “Neither are we!” she complained. “The stupid warden likes to lock people up who don't fit in. Like, I write fanfics of food falling in love.” Sunset couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard the telltale sound of pages turning, as if Katya actually had a book in there with her.
Slowly, each of the other prisoners in the group began introducing themselves and their ‘crimes’. It was still hearing conspiracy theories being spoken with such a speech impediment. It reminded Sunset of a decades old cartoon her ex introduced her to at one point—one involving a bipedal rabbit and a hunter that spoke with a similar impediment.
When it came to be Sunset’s turn, the girl actually did a double take, especially when she spoke. “I mixed magic to clean up a mess I made, and the Emperor’s Coven took exception to that,” she admitted. “I didn’t even know that was a problem when I got here, so of course I was gonna defend myself when they came after me.”
The human looked a bit freaked out as she began to pace and mutter. “Putting aside, for the moment, that a cartoon character from my childhood is standing right in front of me, none of those are crimes! None of you actually did anything wrong!” she exclaimed, pulling a wanted poster of her hoodie to display to everyone. It showed a grey-haired witch in a red dress holding a fireball and a staff, and the bone demon that accompanied the girl. The poster even declared a reward for the capture of ‘Eda the Owl Lady’ at one trillion of whatever currency they used here. “You’re all just a bunch of weirdos. Like me.”
Part of Sunset wanted to object to that on principle. Putting aside the megalomania she’d been purged of, an underdeveloped ability to make friends, and the fact that she was a unicorn from another dimension, she didn’t really see herself as weird. An oddity, sure, but weird was a bit of a stretch... right?
Wait... she said that I was a cartoon character from something in her childhood. That means that my reality—no realities, since it would likely include Equestria as well—is fiction in her world. Her head began to ache as her mind began to spiral. No. No. No, no, no. Now is not the time or place for an existential crisis! Even if I am a cartoon character, I know I’m real.
As she tried to wrangle her thoughts, she barely noticed when a hulking grey-skinned demon, wearing what appeared to be a lab coat and a mosquito mask, strode into the cell block and started taunting the other prisoners. The so-called warden, if what Katya said was true. There was a loud bang, followed by the ranting of the tiny conspiracy theorist. The next time he passed, he had the tiny white demon clutched firmly in his hand. His parting words were as Katya predicted. “There’s no place in society for you if you can’t fit in!”
After the warden was gone, the human girl slipped out of the cell next to Sunset’s, having ducked into the empty one to hide from the warden. “Don’t worry!” she whispered as she made her way over to the lever to open Katya’s cell. “I can get you out!” Unfortunately, she was skinny and had arms like twigs, and failed miserably to lift the lever. “No! My weak nerd arms!”
“Just get out of here while you still can, kid,” Katya remarked in a dejected voice. “Enjoy freedom for us.”
The human girl stood there for a moment staring as the fanfic witch seemingly gave up, before finally turning to leave. Sunset found it kind of depressing, because the kid seemed so determined to help. A blossom of guilt began to form in Sunset’s chest as the girl’s eagerness reminded the former unicorn of two boys she’d made into her stooges when she was a bully; they were probably a lot dimmer than this kid in front of her, but they had that same good-natured desire to help that had been easy for her to exploit.
Right then and there, Sunset decided that she didn’t want to let this kid feel bad about being unable to help. It wasn’t fair to her, and she wanted to help someone rise up instead of fall from grace for a change. Besides, if this null field operated the way she thought it did, there might actually be something she could do.
“Hey, kid, wait!” she called out, drawing a spell circle focusing on strength enhancement. She scaled it as powerful as she could until the cell’s nullification field kicked in. Noting the exact point the spell broke down, she nodded to herself. “I might be able to help you get us out.”
Again, the human girl looked at Sunset with eyes that reflected a similar existential crisis that Sunset had just pushed down. “How, though?” she asked, a bit unsure of herself. “I can’t imagine they’d allow you to cast spells that could let you escape.”
Inwardly, she smiled. Even if the kid was just human, she thought like a spellcaster. “You’re right. The cell’s enclosed in a null field that kicks in if we try to cast anything of sufficient power, or if we stick our arms through the bars and try to cast,” she agreed. “That said, it can’t just block magic or keep it from passing through the field, because that could be catastrophic for any magical life form.”
She grinned and ushered the girl closer. Warily, the girl stuck her arm through the bars. Drawing a spell circle, she cast the strength enhancement spell on the arm. Red light sank into the muscles, and then raced up the girl’s veins. “I can’t cast magic on anything outside the cell, but things that are inside are another matter,” she concluded, before pointing at the lever beside her cell. “Quick, it’s only a short duration spell.”
The kid pulled her arm back out through the bars and flexed her hand. Sunset knew from experience that the spell let you feel exactly how much energy was built up, ready for use, so she was probably marveling at the power she felt. That said, she wasted no time forcing the lever up. It still took her ‘weak nerd arms’ straining a bit, but she pulled it off, and the gate in front of Sunset rose.
“Thanks,” she remarked to the shorter girl. Stretching, the former unicorn stepped out of her cell, and glanced at the lever’s for Katya and the eyeball eater’s cells. She drew a large spell circle, and then threw both hands in front of her, before lifting up. A red glow wrapped around the ends of the levers, and then they both shot up so fast that they broke off after the gates rose for those two as well. The other two booked it out of their cells, and immediately started releasing other prisoners. Turning back to the girl, she smiled and offered her hand. “You said you recognised me from a cartoon, so you probably already know this, but I’m Sunset Shimmer. Thanks for the save.”
“Luz Noceda,” the girl replied, shaking it with a smile of her own. Luz then gestured to the little demon with her, who scrambled up onto her shoulder. “This is King. Anyway, we gotta get going. Got to liberate this cutie’s crown from the contraband room.”
The pair ran off, leaving Sunset standing in front of her cell as prisoners began releasing each other in droves. Part of her wanted to just let the kid do her own thing; after all, she had enough on her plate: getting out of here, finding food, water, and shelter, and then trying to figure out how to get home. The cynical part of her told her that what that kid got up to with the associate of a witch with a massive bounty was none of her business.
At the same time, though, she’d already seen firsthand how dangerous this place could be. If Luz had no magic of her own, she’d be ill prepared to defend herself—especially if the stories the princess told her were correct and the rain was literally boiling. Besides, she didn’t have to try and get Sunset and the others out; that spoke well of her character.
First thing’s first, I don’t want my journal to be left in the hands of these cretins, she thought as she drew another circle and cast the recall spell to summon her journal to her. The spell failed, making her wince in pain. Of course they’d have it somewhere that it couldn’t be recalled. Probably in that contraband room.
After firing off a tracking spell that at least confirmed the book was still in the building, she decided to follow after Luz and King. If something happened to the two of them when she could have helped, she’d never forgive herself. Besides, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t kind of curious how the human girl got here in the first place.
It was as she caught up to the pair that she heard the little bone demon, King, ask the human a question. “So, Eda said when you met, you acted like you never saw a witch before,” he began, hopping down to walk beside Luz, “but you acted like you knew who that witch was... that she was from a cartoon or something?”
The girl nodded down at the little demon, not noticing the former unicorn following in her wake. “Sunset’s a unicorn that ran away from her dimension and ended up in the human world and ended up attending a high school,” Luz explained, chilling her with how accurate such a succinct summary of her situation was. “In the first movie, she was the villain, having returned to her homeland to steal a magic crown. She was defeated with the magic of friendship, and then became one of the main protagonists for the rest of the series. Big redemption arc, kind of like another character from my favourite book series. Super popular online to this day.”
“Magic crown, huh?” King asked, looking up at Luz with interest. “Well, at least she has good taste.”
It was weird. This girl was basically saying that she knew what she’d done, and what she’d become, but was still willing to help her out, just because a fictional depiction of her became a good guy. Whether the kid meant it as such or not, Luz was putting her faith in Sunset—that she could change and be better, just like Twilight and her friends had.
I might just be a washed-up former bully, but without my friends around, I need something to work toward. Maybe being someone that Princess Celestia could be proud of until I can find a way home is what I need right now, she mused, listening as the pair continued ahead of her. Somehow, I don’t think she’d agree with the way this Belos is running things, but I think she’d approve of helping this girl out.
As Luz animatedly began telling the little demon about the book series she mentioned, the Good Witch Azura, Sunset’s expression fell. The human reminded her of the girls she’d been getting to know and befriend at Canterlot High, and it made her chest ache. She was a font of innocent glee, and despite having just met, she’d shown kindness to a bunch of prisoners she had no obligation to. Not only that, she was generous to give them all the benefit of the doubt. Plus, she definitely had a fairly well-defined moral code... The girls would probably like you, Luz.
The problem was that Luz seemed a little naïve. The same attributes that reminded Sunset of the girls were the same parts that made her too trusting—she didn’t once seem to doubt what any of the other two told her. It seemed like she still had her innocence and wanted to see the good in everything. Her eyes flicked down to King. You don’t just accrue that kind of bounty for nothing. What if she’s just being strung along? Even if our paths are bound to part upon leaving this prison, I can at least try to make sure she’s not gonna get stabbed in the back.
They must have heard her following, because the pair both stopped. Turning to face her, King narrowed his eyes. “So why are you following us, weird, fictional, unicorn lady?” he accused. “Kinda creepy if you ask me.”
Sunset just rolled her eyes. “They have something of mine locked up here and something’s keeping me from recalling it,” she explained, slipping her hands into her jacket pockets. “They probably have it in the same place your crown is being held.”
Her eyes flicked over to Luz. “I know you weren’t talking to me, but hearing a bit about the cartoon Sunset... I think I needed to hear that, had things not gone the way they had, I might have eventually become a good guy.” She fixed the Latina with a weak smile. “Things have been kind of rough for me lately, and aside from the girls, not a lot of people have been giving me the chance to show I’m changing,” she said. “It’s why I’m here at all and not at Canterlot High. Morons could have killed everyone by smashing the portal to throw me through like that. So... thanks.”
Before Luz could say anything in response, the same witch from the wanted poster swooped in alongside them, floating on her staff. Eda was a fairly attractive witch by Sunset’s reckoning, though her features reminded her of someone else she’d recently met, and put her a bit more on guard. That said, something about the woman reminded her of her former mentor; although she appeared to have aged before their time, there was an air of power about her, and a sparkle of mischief behind amber eyes.
“Hey, I just checked,” Eda began, hopping off her staff to walk alongside Luz and the little King. “The warden is distracted; at first, he was just tormenting a small creature, but now it looks like someone started a mass break-out and riot. He won’t be coming around here any time soon.” She gave King and Luz a smirk. “Nice work, you two.”
Ignoring the slightly uneasy look that crossed Luz’s face upon hearing about a riot, Eda glanced back at Sunset. The tall witch’s smirk became a grin that showed off a golden fang. “Hey, you’re that firecracker that was giving Lily’s stooges a thrashing yesterday!” She slowed her pace to let the former unicorn catch up, and then patted her on the back. “I was watching the whole time.”
That made Sunset frown. So you were watching the whole time, and didn’t think to lend a helping hand, she thought bitterly at her. What, not keen on getting your bounty raised any higher?
“You’ve got some moves,” she added in a quieter tone, once again smacking Sunset on the back. “Reminds me of when I was a kid. A shame you tuckered yourself out on the smallfry before you could give my pain-in-the-butt sister a run for her money. I’d have paid to see that.”
Sunset blinked in surprise. She called Lilith her sister... That meant that she was directly related to the head of the Emperor’s coven and—most likely—the most wanted witch on the Boiling Isles. There was a certain degree of irony to that realisation that brought a begrudging smile to Sunset’s face. “I might be out of practice, but that bunch would never qualify as guard recruits back where I come from.”
Eventually, the group reached a massive door labelled Contraband. King and Luz both immediately started trying to get the door open, even struggling with a disproportionately small door knob. Sunset and Eda both just stood there, watching as King proclaimed, “My crown! It's close! I can sense its power!”
Eda just laughed, “Aww, he gets so cute when he’s thirsty for power.” The smile faded as she glanced at Sunset, who’d remained quiet the rest of the journey to the lock-up. “Why’re you following the kids, anyway?”
Sunset only glanced at her out of the corner of her eye before returning her gaze to King and Luz. “There’s something of mine locked up here,” she remarked before sighing. “Besides, I was able to get out of my cell thanks to her, so I kind of owe her.” This time, she looked Eda in the eyes. “If this world is half as dangerous and beautiful as my mentor made it seem, and the human world she came from is anything like the one I spent the last several years living in, she’s ill prepared to survive here. The least I can do is make sure she gets out of this heist of yours unscathed.”
The elder witch fixed Sunset with a look she couldn’t quite decipher. Before she could say anything, however, a door knob tumbled across the floor and there was a thud and grunts of pain in stereo. The door was now cracked open enough for them all to slip through, Luz was on the floor, and King was already out of sight.
“Come on,” Eda said, moving over to Luz and offering her a hand up. “Let’s go before he hurts himself.”
When there came the sound of some kind of electric discharge and something bouncing off the floor, Sunset shook her head. A bit late for that, she thought wryly as she followed the pair inside.
The room was a large, mostly empty space, save for a massive pillar of light at the centre. Even from the door, she could feel the magic radiating off of it; unlike the cells and their nullification fields, this was a straight-up anti-magic barrier. It was the sort of thing that would straight up eat any spell thrown at it, and repel any creature with the slightest bit of magic inside them... and she was just in time to watch the bone demon bounce off of it again. Too late.
If she was at all bothered, Eda didn’t show it. She instead walked over to his fallen form and smirked at him. “We have a human, remember?” she asked the little demon as she gestured at Luz, who was approaching the barrier.
“Oh, yeah.”
Sunset just watched with interest as the human girl psyched herself up. All things told, it wasn’t a bad plan to get through the barrier. It’d likely take too much time to find the controls and whatever safeguards might be needed to lower it, so having a non-magical creature like a human just walk through made sense. Finally, Luz pressed her hand against the barrier and then walked through.
Just barely, Sunset could make out the sound of something getting knocked over, and then a box of junk bounced out through the barrier. A moment after that, a black backpack with her cutie mark, the red and gold sun, embroidered on it followed after, although to her amusement she noticed that the barrier tried to resist its passage, likely because of both the bag’s storage enchantment and the enchantments of her journal. Then she heard Luz comment, “Wait a second, is that a...”
While they waited for her to come back out of the barrier, Sunset inspected her bag. To her relief, everything was in there... Her textbooks were all there, as was her set of gym clothes and sneakers, the spare outfit she’d kept in her locker, a pencil case, and her magic journal. Honestly, she wondered how nobody ever noticed that her bag seemed to be able to hold more than was reasonable, but given that it had been converted from a pair of enchanted saddlebags, the extra storage was a blessing in the human world “Good, everything’s there,” she murmured, “although I suppose I don’t really need most of those anymore...”
After taking a moment to mentally review how the dimensional storage spell worked, she drew a spell circle and poofed her bag away. Eventually, Luz stepped out of the barrier holding what appeared to be a paper crown from Burger Queen—a restaurant chain their two human worlds seemed to share. The look of sheer frustration and disbelief on her face would almost have been funny, but for the fact that this was all just a bit anticlimactic.
Still, King wasted no time scampering over to snatch the paper crown from Luz. His excitement was palpable as he put it on and immediately started bossing around a stuffed rabbit that had been among the items in a box that had tumbled out of the barrier. It was only when he named the toy Francois and picked it up to take with him that Sunset began to realise that he wasn’t just a small demon, he was young—that Eda had meant kids in the literal sense and not just because they were younger than her.
“That crown doesn’t give him any powers, does it?” Luz asked as she joined Eda.
“Uh, no,” Eda amusedly answered. When the human just glared at her, Eda sighed and looked wistfully at the little bone boy as he poked through the confiscated junk with Francois clutched in his claws. “Look at us, Luz. King and I don’t have much in the world. We only have each other.” The look she gave Luz reminded Sunset of a time before her relationship with her mentor soured, when she would do almost anything for one of those rare genuine smiles. “So if that dumb crown is important to him, it's important to me. And besides, us weirdos have to stick together, you know?”
Years of instinct as a prey species flared up as she felt like she was being watched. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye as Eda said, “Well, we owe you one. Now, let's get out of here before the warden finds us and loses his head.” She didn’t even think as a massive dark figure loomed behind Eda; she just drew a spell circle with her foot and then stomped.
“Too late!” came the voice of Warden Wrath as his muscled arm transformed into a wicked crescent blade and he brought it down to decapitate the unprepared witch. Before he could complete his sneak attack, however, a wall of ice shot up from the floor, ensnaring the warden’s arm and halting him in his tracks.
“What the?” was all Eda managed to get out before Sunset rushed to place herself between Luz and King—who were practically defenceless—and the warden. Upon turning to see the blade inches from her neck, Eda moved to join the former unicorn. “Thanks for the save, Firecracker. I hate when my head gets cut off.”
“Is that a thing that regularly happens to you?” Sunset was unable to resist asking.
Wrath wrenched his arm free from the conjured ice wall, shattering it and sending ice crystals skittering across the floor. Behind him, several Coven Guards stepped out of the shadows. “Finally,” he growled, stepping forward until both witches before him drew spell circles—one with her hand, the other with her staff. “I have you trapped, Eda the Owl Lady.” He looked from Eda to the small demon behind her, and reverted his arm back to its normal state. “My guards could never get you, but I knew if I took your pet's toy, you'd come running.”
The Owl Lady just glared at him, stepping to obstruct his view of King. “What do you want with me? I've never actually broken any of your stupid laws...” When Sunset and Luz gave her disbelieving looks, seeing as she had a massive bounty on her head and just broken into a prison, she quickly amended, “In front of you.”
“I want you,” he said, pulling a bouquet of flowers out from behind his back, “to go out with me!” As the Coven Guards cheered him on and every sane individual stared at the guy in disgust, he explained. “You've always eluded our capture. You've always been the one who got away. I found that alluring.”
Luz gave a dry heave, and then remarked, “I hate everything you’re saying right now.”
Cocking his arm back and transmuting it into a writhing mass of tentacles, Wrath turned his attention to Luz. Without warning, Sunset expanded her spell circle and then thrust her arms through it. A blast of fire and force slammed into the warden, sending him careening back first into a wall, cratering it in the process. “Nope!” she yelled as he pulled himself out of the wall. “We are not doing this. Not happening. It’s bad enough that you sound like a stalker, but to try and wrap her kid up in your manipulative little scheme is just reprehensible!”
With her own spell, Eda conjured a massive tubular stone construct, which for some reason had the face of an owl, from the ground. In a seemingly practiced move, it lashed out at the guards, knocking them all away. Satisfied with the result, the wanted witch dusted her hands. “Right, I think it’s time we see ourselves out,” she remarked, holding her staff parallel to the floor. The owl at the end of the staff spread its wings, and the two began to float. “Come on, kids!”
King and Luz wasted no time getting onto the staff. The smaller demon clambered up onto Eda’s back. Meanwhile Luz got on like a passenger on a motorbike, wrapping her arms around Eda’s waist. Unfortunately, There wasn’t really enough space on the staff for Sunset to join, something Luz noticed. “What about Sunset?”
Sunset just smirked and grabbed a length of cord from the box of confiscated objects. After cinching it around herself and passing off the other end to Luz, she cast an antigravity spell. Immediately, she lifted off from the floor, and Eda returned the smirk. “Gun it, magic stick!”
In retrospect, this might not have been one of Sunset’s best plans. Sure, she provided almost no air resistance, being caught up in the staff’s slipstream, but the first time they banked hard to make a turn proved to be dangerous. They ended up fishtailing and nearly losing control before Eda could compensate for the altered centre of balance.
At the next corner, after noticing Wrath had begun chasing them through the halls of the Conformatorium, Sunset used a fire spell to start casting a jet of flames from her hands. In addition to using them like manoeuvring thrusters, she was able to provide a bit of extra thrust on the straightaways or even momentarily blind the Warden.
Unfortunately, between the empty stomach and the lingering fatigue from whatever the hell a bile overload even was, it meant that she was burning through her stamina at an alarming rate. She hadn’t really cast a lot of magic like this since before going to the human world, and getting juiced up on a stolen magic crown and turning into a demon didn’t really count. If she kept this up, she’d likely black out, same as yesterday.
A glance over her shoulder showed they were coming up to a large door. “Hold on to your hats, kids!” Eda called out as she drew a spell circle in front of her. A fireball surged ahead of them, and blew the door off its hinges. “We’re almost home free!”
It was apparently some kind of airship dock that they arrived at, as there was a small platform with various barrels and pallets, followed by a sudden drop off. Once outside, they found themselves floating high above the walled-in grounds of the prison, and down below there was a full-scale riot. It was almost too easy... and that’s because it was.
“I won’t let you get away again, Owl Lady!” roared Warden wrath as he leapt off of the edge of the skydock. He reached out with one of his arm tendrils, and just barely caught Sunset by the ankle. Though she herself was weightless, the same could not be said for him, and as a result he immediately began dragging her down, and through her, the rest of them.
Eda began to lose control of her staff, and time slowed down to a crawl.
Sunset blinked, and instead of hanging there, tethered to a younger human girl in the Demon Realm, she found herself floating in front of Canterlot High. She’d just released a fireball that would atomise that meddlesome princess... Except, those five girls all rushed out to protect her, even knowing they might die. They didn’t know that the Element of Magic would create pseudo-Elements of Harmony in them, saving them all and allowing them to purge the darkness in her heart; instead, they were willing to sacrifice themselves for someone they just met.
At that time, and in the days to follow, Sunset had never been able to figure out why they’d done it. Their would-be self sacrifice would have gained them nothing, and there was everything to gain by doing nothing. Even after spending time with them as they tried to befriend her, the best answer any of them had been able to come up with was, “It felt like the right thing to do.” She’d never understood...
Another blink, and she found herself looking up at a terrified Luz and King, and the worried Eda. Now, however, she began to understand. Eda and King only had one another to rely on by Eda’s own admission, and Luz was just a kid; she wasn’t even a young adult in the body of a teenager—just a scared girl just barely in high school. Meanwhile, Sunset was a washed up, runaway former protégé of a demigoddess, who had her life pulled out from under her—twice. A mom... Her kid... and a girl with so much to live for. It became simple math.
Drawing a spell circle, Sunset met Eda’s eyes. “Get Luz out of here,” she said with a soft smile. When she thrust her hand through the circle, the cord binding her to the human began to burn away. “Seeya, kid.”
With that last sentence spoken, she began to fall. She probably had time to cast a slow fall spell upon herself, but with the warden holding onto her, it probably wouldn’t have been enough. Back in the Human Realm, a fall from a few stories like this would probably kill someone. In Equestria, assuming the pony wasn’t an earth pony, it would probably be enough to hospitalise them for a few weeks.
That said, without any metric for how durable witches or demons were, she didn’t have any idea how bad off this would leave her or the warden. Even though he was holding her prisoner, and he’d been the one to grab her, she wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of his death, either. That left only one option in her mind.
Numbers raced through her mind as she drew a spell circle. She had to get this just right, or else it would be a wasted effort. Once she was sure of exactly where they’d touch down, she cast the spell and prayed she was on time.
Moments before either she or Wrath hit the floor of the prison yard, the ground ballooned up into a giant airbag. Rather than suffering any serious injuries, the sudden shock caused wrath to Release her, and the two went tumbling across the yard. As she bounced away from the warden, she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder, before finally coming to a stop near one of the walls.
Ow, that’s definitely dislocated!
The prisoners and guards in the area formed a semicircle when they saw the warden stand up to face Sunset. A moment later, the former unicorn struggled to push herself into an upright position, and then get to her feet. Almost immediately, the prison yard went silent, as many of the prisoners and the guards began to watch.
“Child, you have made the biggest mistake in your life,” Wrath snarled, turning his right arm once more into a crescent blade. “You foiled my plan, so now I’m going to tear you apart in front of everybody to make sure they understand how futile it is to resist.”
Despite the pain she was in, and the way her arm hung limply at her side, Sunset grinned and cast a transmutation spell to pull all the iron and carbon out of the ground to create a steel rod. “I have made a great number of mistakes in my life, Warden Wrath,” she said, giving the rod a twirl before tucking the haft against her back. Unfortunately, with her other arm out of commission, she couldn’t wield it with any level of proficiency, but there were ways around that. “Becoming a self-important brat and running away from my mentor? Sure. Stealing an artefact, having my worst attributes amplified and being turned into a monster? Absolutely. Stopping you from creeping on a single mom? Nope. Not one of them.”
That was, evidently, the wrong thing to say. With his untransformed hand, he ripped the mask from his face to reveal an absolutely gigantic fanged maw and two beady little eyes. Before she even had a moment to gag in revulsion, he breathed out a stream of fire at her, forcing her to dodge with an aerial cartwheel.
It was times like this that she was glad her jacket was genuine leather and not that fake plastic garbage, otherwise the flames that grazed her would have absolutely ruined it. The heat was still nothing to sneeze at, even for an accomplished elementalist like Sunset. The thought of him trying to do her in with fire, however, only sparked the competitiveness in her.
Warden Wrath didn’t give her an opportunity to recover or launch a counter-attack. With speed that belied his size, he rushed toward Sunset. His blade arm came down in a vertical chop that would likely have bisected her had she not sidestepped and backed away.
Although she could not use her steel rod as a spellcasting focus as the Owl Lady had with her staff, she could still use it for magic in a roundabout way. Drawing a spell circle with the pointer finger of her good hand, she thrust the rod through the ring, forcing it to take on a red glow. When his left arm turned into a mass of writhing tentacles that surged toward her, she deflected the attack with her weapon, knocking him back several feet.
He seemed momentarily stunned by the amount of force behind her counter. When she rushed him down and brought her weapon down in a vertical slash of her own, it was all he could do to bring his blade up to block the attack. Wrath grunted as the insane kinetic force caused the ground around them to crack. Finally, though, he was able to redirect the blow into the ground and then backhand her.
Before she could fly too far away, she jammed the rod down into the ground, carving a trench in the stone, sinking to one knee as she came to a stop. Between the pain from her shoulder and her prior fatigue, exhaustion was kicking in. “Impressive,” he begrudgingly said. “I can see why the Coven Scouts had so much trouble with taking you down.” It was hard to tell, but she was certain he was smirking at her. “Too bad you lack endurance.”
Slowly, she got back up to her feet, but she lacked the strength to free her rod from the ground. “Yeah, it’s one thing to get into a training spar, or just cast spells, but when you’ve not combined the two in some time, that kinda happens,” she admitted, taking a deep breath. “Still. I’ve got something you don’t.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
Sunset grinned menacingly, drawing a pair of spell circles with her index finger and heel. “I have a higher understanding of science, Warden Wrath.” As the first spell triggered, every creature in the prison yard felt a chill as all the temperature started to rapidly drop. Frost began to spread across the ground until the only place not covered was close around Sunset. “Question: what happens when air is cooled and then rapidly heated?” she asked lifting her index finger to point at the summit of the Conformatorium tower. “I think you’ll find the result will knock you off your feet!”
A tiny ball of fire formed at her fingertip, slowly going from a warm red to a blue-hot flame. When she breathed out, she willed the fireball to shoot forth like a bullet, and it was like a bomb had gone off. The sudden thermal expansion created a pressure wave that knocked the guards and prisoners flat, even as the tiny fire bullet of doom roared through the air before towards the tower. Even Sunset was not spared the recoil, having blown herself directly into the outer wall.
As she lay collapsed against the wall, waiting for the tinnitus to go away, she was surprised to find that she had managed to not rupture her eardrums. She’d still managed to knock herself silly, and her legs felt like jelly, but she was alive. Staring up at the tower, she’d expected to maybe have some debris raining down on them, but instead there was just... nothing. There was a perfectly circular chunk taken out of the building, but if there was any debris, it had likely been launched out the other end.
As people began to slowly come back to their senses, Sunset was surprised to watch a familiar witch step into her field of view. “Wow, Firecracker, are you trying to steal my spot at the very top of the bounty board?” Eda joked, reaching down to offer her a hand. Sunset reached up with her good arm, and let the witch tug her back up onto her feet. She looked around at the carnage as the younger witch tried to steady herself. “Look, I’m hardly one to talk, but have you ever heard of restraint?”
Sunset just giggled before slurring out a response as Eda tried to guide her toward one of the prison gates. “Tha's why I shot up.” She frowned as she looked at Eda. “Why’d ya come back?”
The owl lady rubbed the back of her head and gave an embarrassed smile. “Luz reminded me that I kinda owed you one for what you did back in the tower, and maybe another one for letting us get out of here when Wrath was dragging us down,” she responded as she gestured to Luz, who was helping the three prisoners from Sunset’s cell block get up. “Besides, it’s like I told the kid. Us weirdos have to stick together.”
A shadow loomed over both of them. Neither wanted to turn to see what it was, but nonetheless turned to see Warden Wrath standing there, one arm still transformed into a blade. “That’s it!” he bellowed, raising the arm as his tattered uniform rustled in the wind. “Killing you both!”
Before he could smite them both, Katya and the other two creatures slammed into him from behind, and even Luz swooped in behind them, riding ato Eda’s owl staff. All of them began hitting and kicking him, before finally his arms basically turned into limp spaghetti, with which they were able to tie him up. When he was thoroughly embarrassed and defeated, he stared up at Luz. “Who do you think you are!?” Flames began to flicker in his mouth as he prepared another fire attack.
Striking a dramatic pose, the young human pointed down at wrath. “Do not underestimate me, Warden Wrath, for I am Luz, the human, warrior of peace.” If Sunset had been in her right mind, she might very well have facepalmed. Instead, she could only watch as the girl produced a large bundle of fireworks from a bag hanging at her side and batted it directly into his mouth. “Now eat this, sucka!”
It was at that point that Sunset well and truly lost it. Even as the various fireworks started shooting off in Wrath’s mouth, and the warden scrambled away, Sunset began to laugh. It just wouldn’t stop coming; it was the laughter of someone too emotionally drained to process what she was seeing, and she alternated between laughing and crying. Darkness crept in on the corners of her vision as her hysterics continued until finally she fell to the ground and knew no more.
Sunset screamed herself awake as she felt her shoulder get popped back into place. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself propped up on a sofa in a rather cosy, if rustic looking, living room. The leather jacket she so cherished was folded neatly atop a well-loved coffee table, managing to have come out of that mess with only a few scuffs.
The Owl Lady, seated beside her, jerked back, falling over the arm of the sofa as she was startled by the scream. Her hands, however, remained firmly attached to Sunset’s arm and shoulder. Luz and King were standing a decent ways away from the couch, quietly laughing at their antics.
Too shocked at seeing two hands ending in stumps at the wrist hanging off her, she didn’t even think twice as she shakily passed them back to Eda. Grateful for the help, the witch just screwed them back on like she was some sort of cartoon, before the points of separation seamlessly healed. She then reached over and tapped something on the side of Sunset’s head, producing a papery sound, and smirked. “There, leave that healing talisman on overnight, and you’ll be right as rain by morning.”
Turning her attention to Luz, she smiled. “Well, a deal’s a deal, kid,” she remarked, reaching into her hair and pulling out a strange key with an eye on it. “You got King’s crown back, so you’re free to go back to the human world.”
Upon depressing the eye, a briefcase with a similar motif as the key appeared in the air in front of the fireplace. Sunset could only watch in interest as it unfolded itself and took on the shape of a door. The scholar in her was definitely curious, especially if it could be adapted into a portal to Equestria or her own human world, but her head began to ache before too long.
Leaving Sunset on the sofa, she grabbed a book and pamphlet off the table and brought it over to Luz. “Oh, and don’t forget this,” Eda said as she passed them to the youth.
From her spot on the couch, she watched as Luz walked towards the portal door. She paused, looking down at the book, and then up at the mirror hanging above the fireplace. It took a few moments, during which she seemed to be having some sort of internal conflict, while she struggled to reach a decision.
Eventually, however, Luz clutched the book against her chest and turned back to face Eda with a smile. “Okay, I know you almost got your head cut off multiple times, we kinda sorta started a prison riot, and then watched a fictional unicorn girl cast a cataclysmic spell like something out of an anime, which almost killed countless people,” the girl rambled. Internally, Sunset winced, realising that what she did was indeed incredibly dangerous and by no means an acceptable response to getting into a pissing contest with a prison warden—even if he was trying to kill her. “But you know what? This was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life!”
In the mirror, Sunset caught the owlish blink from Eda, and she could even see her own shocked expression and dropped jaw. “I don't fit in at home. You don't fit in here.” Luz pointed at Sunset. “She’s been banished from her reality and doesn’t really fit in anywhere... If I stay, we could not fit in together.” She then crumpled up the pamphlet Eda had returned to her and tossed it into the fireplace. “I'm not going back to summer camp.”
Eda just looked confused. “What’s summer camp?” Turning to Sunset she asked, “No, really, what are we talking about here?” Then it clicked that Luz was not just asking that she be invited to stay, but the former unicorn as well. “Wait, you can’t just invite Apocalypse Pony to stay here, even if she would make a good guard snorse.”
All Sunset could do was give them both a confused look. How did I go from being called Firecracker to Apocalypse Pony? She looked to King and mouthed ‘Apocalypse Pony?’ but only got a shrug in response.
Luz approached Eda with an excited expression. “I want to stay and become a witch. Like you,” she said, showing the book’s cover to Eda, “and Azura.”
That got a laugh out of Eda and King. “What? All right, that's crazy,” the Owl Lady responded, pushing the book down to meet Luz’s gaze. “Humans can’t become witches.”
Pouting, Luz said, “Maybe that's because they haven't tried.” Out of some misguided attempt to sweeten the pot, clearly not realising how easily such a statement could be abused, she then offered, “If you teach me to become a witch, I'll do anything you want.”
The witch and the demon stepped aside for a little sidebar. Evidently, they were debating whether or not to take up the offer. That said, Sunset also noticed they were occasionally glancing at her, too. There was the occasional nod or shake of a head, before finally they turned back to Luz.
Smiling, Eda picked up King and held him like a puppy. “Well, I could use a hand keeping this goofball out of the cupboards. All right. I'll teach you how to be a witch. But you have to work for me before you learn any spells. Deal?” She offered up a hand, only for Luz to wrap them both in as close to a bone-crushing hug as her weak nerd arms could offer.
When all was said and done, and Eda sent the kids off to bed, she took a seat beside Sunset once more. “I suppose given you’re probably about to get your own massive bounty, you need somewhere to hide, huh?” she remarked. “I’ve got some extra space in the basement, but what do you bring to the table?”
With a tired smile, Sunset looked up at the ceiling. “Usually, when somepo—someone asks me that, they’re asking for my magic certifications,” she murmured. In a louder voice, she said, “I was classically trained—in both magic theory and spellcraft—by the most powerful mage of my world since I was five. I am also a master in elementalism, an expert in enchanting and Equestrian potion-making, and I have a bit of experience with healing magic and other assorted spells.”
Turning her attention to the stairs Luz had just ascended, she added, “I’ve also spent the last three of my twenty-five years of life as a human teenager. Coupled with a spell I learned when my mentor had me learn to navigate diplomatic dinners, I should be able to determine what foods here are compatible with your new apprentice’s biology.”
Eda looked intrigued. “Strong, capable of mayhem, and you’ve got quite the resume, assuming it checks out,” she muttered. “Anything else?”
Sunset gestured her thumb towards the stairs. “She’s a teenage girl, Eda,” she remarked drily. “We both know she’s going to drive you up the wall eventually, so with me around, I should be able to help keep her out of trouble.”
“‘I can keep her out of trouble,’ she says after having blown up a prison.” Eda let out a bark of laughter and slapped Sunset on the back. “I like you kid. With four mouths to feed instead of two, I might need you to get a part-time job, but you’re in.” Rubbing her chin in thought, Eda frowned. “Only thing left to do is introduce you to the house demon. Hey, Hooty, come in here for a moment!”
The door swung open, but nobody was standing there, as if it had opened on its own accord. That was probably a more accurate statement than Sunset was comfortable with, as the owl-faced relief on the outside of the door slowly extended itself into the room like some sort of chaos noodle. “Oh, hey Eda! What’s up?”
Eda clapped a hand on Sunset’s shoulder—thankfully the uninjured one. “Hooty, this is one of the new employees, Sunset Shimmer.” She looked to Sunset and then gestured at Hooty. “Sunset, this is Hooty. He’s a part of the house, and also serves as a sort of security system.”
Like some kind of personal space invader from hell, the bird tube’s face was suddenly right in front of Sunset’s. “Hoot-hoot! You’re a new friend?” he exclaimed, wriggling his body—or was that his neck?—in a way that made Sunset uncomfortable. “This is so cool! I always wanted to have a tea party with a unicorn, but they’re so rare these days and...”
As he continued to babble Sunset looked at Eda in abject horror. “I have many conflicting feelings about this—” She gestured at Hooty. “—but terror is chief among them,” she whimpered. “Is this revenge for making you come back to save me?”
Maybe I was better off in prison.
Author's Note
This is just a fun little project I've taken on for my own amusement, just to see how quickly the addition of one screwed up former tyrant in the process of 'redemption' can completely derail things. Most of the chapters will be focused on Sunset's own adventures in the isles, though there will be points where it will focus on Luz, especially when it comes to the ramifications of Sunset's existence. We'll largely be following the episode order of the Owl House, though we'll definitely get the odd divergence.
