> When Darkness Falls... > by XTech309 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue: Back In Control > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Wait, what? Th... then why are you doing this?” “Because I'm a villain! What choice do I have? All I've got on my résumé is laughing maniacally, monologuing about evil plans, and a major in Canadian History. I can't exactly go into catering!”  *** ”You have only yourself to blame. You being the hero of all this means that I have to be the villain! But I never wanted to be the villain! I wanted to be the cute sidekick who gets his own plush toy and a spinoff show.” *** ”I did all this for a reason! Don't you understand what's going on in Elmore? You have two choices: live in ignorance about what's gonna happen here, or listen to what I have to say! It might just save your lives.” *** “Ugh! Why did they stop me?! Transformation is the only chance they have of escaping to the other place when this world...” Suddenly, the ground begins to shake. Rob looks around nervously and loses his balance. The floor suddenly opens up beneath him, collapsing into the Void. Rob grasps the edge of the floor and struggles to hold on. He loses his grip on one hand and hangs on only by the other “​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Oh no... it's started.” The edge of the floor disappears, and Rob falls into the Void, screaming and falling. The screen freeze-frames on him (mirroring Banana Barbara's painting from "The Future"), and the credits' first notes play as the episode ends v • e Transcript Rob thought back to that time, grimacing as he considered what he could have done differently. If only those two had listened, then maybe, just maybe, he could have saved them, those from his world, that is. What he had thought to be the apocalypse for his world turned out to be something much, much worse. Beyond anything he could have ever imagined... Halloween, approximately 2 months ago... Rob awoke with a start, quickly taking in the scenery around him. As he had suspected, the apocalypse had come, Elmore in its entirety, a once amazing world, consumed by the Void. It had been completely disintegrated when it had fallen into the Void, split into what must have been hundreds of individual floating islands scattered across the infinite expanse, surrounded on all sides by an endless void of static. He rose to his feet and set out to explore, to see what had become of the inhabitants he had tried so hard to save.  *** Rob hyperventilated, confused and terrified at the same time at what he had found. This-this wasn't what was supposed to happen. They were supposed to just be consumed by it, cease to exist. But somehow, something far more sinister had happened to them.  The first red flag was that they were all still moving, not frozen in time as they were supposed to be. Everywhere he went, the inhabitants of Elmore were still moving, all of them dripping with a black, glitch-like substance and wandering around aimlessly like zombies. The darkness that had taken them covered the landscape, emitting a deafening, distorted, static sound every time Rob passed it. He stayed as far away from them as he could, using houses, plants, anything he could to disguise himself and stay out of sight. His mind raced as he struggled to find a way to fight back against whatever these things were. Then it hit him. The Remote. He scolded himself for not having thought of it sooner. The remote was his only option. But then he realized something else - he'd destroyed it. Well, not destroyed it, but he had shattered it into many tiny pieces that he could only assume had also ended up in the Void. If he was to survive, he would need to find it wherever it landed. New target in mind, he moved again, careful not to make noise to alert the corrupted roaming the landscape. Eventually, he found it, or rather, its pieces. They were scattered in a small pile on the concrete floor of a parking garage, in the same spot where he had destroyed it. He even found the ATM machine, the same one he'd used the eject function on for the first time, causing it to spit out an endless supply of cash for him. Now he had the pieces, but that meant nothing without the tools to reassemble them. From his vantage point in the parking garage, he looked around in all directions before he spotted the Elmore Mall, which sat on a rather large island a few dozen meters above and in front of him. He crouched down close to the ground before jumping up towards it. Gravity was more or less non-existent in the Void, more akin to what you'd expect on the moon, and the force of his jump propelled Rob towards his destination, albeit slowly.  About a minute of floating later, Rob landed softly on the pavement in front of the mall, the remote pieces in his hand. All he had to do was make it to the hardware and electronic departments. Surprisingly, his journey there was uneventful, with no corruption to speak of, leading him to conclude that they mostly resided on the lower islands. He made his way through the electronics and hardware stores, picking up the tools he needed before settling down at a workbench and getting to work. *** Rob looked down at the fruits of his labor, filled with the hope that he might have a fighting chance now, but also with the fear that the damn thing had returned. It was a simple remote, similar to most TV remotes from the early 2010s, and nothing special on the face of it. However, it was not until it was in use that its true capabilities came to light. To quote its previous owner, the mysterious shadow that ran the Awesome Store, It has power only a fool would not fear." Holding it tightly in his right hand, he made his way out of the mall. He walked steadily toward the exit. All he had to do now was get out and he’d be able to end the madness that had engulfed his world. But of course, it couldn’t be that easy. His eye went wide in shock as the corruption now came for him in full force, splashing through the mall entrance like a tidal wave, emitting the same deafening static noise. He quickly changed direction, feet squeaking on the tile as he scrambled to start running backward. Not only had the corruption itself come, but it had brought those it had taken. Citizens of Elmore, reduced to mindless zombies, all of their eyes completely blank, the corruption dripping off of them like water during a spring rain. They all made a beeline for the remote wielder, moving at almost inhuman speeds. Rob quickly whirled around, aiming the remote at the pursuing corruption. He pressed Eject first, propelling a group of 5 backward and out of sight at incredible speed. He aimed again- Power Off. Another swathe of them fell, completely lifeless on the tile of the mall. It was working! He aimed yet again, this time at the corruption itself.  Rewind. Obeying the remote’s command, a section of the darkness retreated exactly as it had come. Rob continued his assault, aiming and pressing whatever function he felt fit. Corrupted citizens fell lifeless or were propelled backward and out of the fight, and corruption ReWinded back the way it came until once again it was only him left in the mall. Or at least he thought. He gasped as he felt something grab him from behind. A small puddle had formed just behind him, waiting until then to strike. Tendrils of it emerged, each one grabbing and ensnaring his limbs. Rob desperately tried to aim the remote but found his arms bound by it. The puddle enlarged itself, dragging him down into it like quicksand. With his last breath, he closed his eye, sure that this would be the end. Nothing happened. Once again he found himself falling, landing hard on another island that resided just below the mall. He dragged himself back up to his feet, quickly grabbing the remote that lay a few feet from him. He opened his eyes, confused, looking down to see the darkness crawling up his arm. Somehow, it did not affect him, only everyone else.  Then he realized it. It had already affected him, sort of. All that time ago, when he first escaped the void, he emerged a disfigured, glitched version of his former self, sending him on his path to become the ill-fated savior of Elmore. This glitch, whatever it was, couldn’t affect him, because he had already been affected by it, at least to a degree. "I need to find out what happened." He thought aloud, clasping his hands together. But first - Revenge. After some searching, he found him, Gumball. The source of all this suffering, and the one who had prevented him from saving them all. He pointed the remote at the corrupted cat and pressed ReWind. Sure enough, time rewinded on him, the corruption receding from his body. After a few seconds, he returned to normal, and Rob pressed the button again to stop the rewind. Gumball fell to the ground and took heavy, deep breaths, unaware that Rob was there. He stood up and looked around frantically before finally spotting Rob. "YOU!" He shouted, pointing at him. "You did this to us!" He yelled, running towards Rob, who simply dodged out of the way of his still weakened enemy. Something snapped inside him, once again unfairly labeled the villain. "NO, I DIDN'T!" Rob shouted, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself as Gumball recovered, before continuing. "Don't you see? Gumball? This is what I was trying to save you all from! This is what it has always been about! You wouldn't understand." He said, turning his back on him. "You wouldn't understand. Yes, I may have been the villain in the past, but not now. Don't you see?" He said, using a darkness-covered arm to gesture out into the Void, filled with various-sized chunks of Elmore, all of which were covered in the black corruption, the Void stretching endlessly in all directions. "It doesn't matter anymore. Because of you and all your little friends, it's all gone. There was a pause for a moment. "But that's not what was supposed to happen, everything was supposed to just be consumed, just cease to exist, even I have no idea what- this is. He paused for a moment before pointing the remote at a corrupted Tobias and hitting eject, sending him flying. Rob's monologue stopped and they sat in silence for a few seconds. They took in their surroundings. The once amazing world of Gumball, reduced to a glitchy mess in an endless void. Condemned to wander endlessly in the void, corrupted forms of everyone they ever knew stalked a few feet away from them. "But I haven't given up." Rob began again. "With this." He held up the remote. "I can still save us. But I can't let you get in the way again." He grinned maliciously, spun around and pointed the remote at his nemesis. "I hope you're happy with yourself, Waterson. Because of you, everyone you love is gone, and you alone will have to live with that. After all, is there anyone left to share that with, to make it hurt?"  He chuckled before placing his thumb over the fast-forward button. "Goodbye, Gumball." Gumball had been sobbing up to this point, tears landing on the hard pavement below as he stared at the instrument of his fate. "WAIT! NOOO-" He cried out before Rob pressed the button. The effect was instantaneous, his body fast-forwarding back to its corrupted state. Rob watched, still smirking, as the corruption took control of his body once again, screaming silently as he was taken again. After a few seconds, it was done, his body fully corrupted again. His eyes were blank, darkness dripped from him wherever it could, and he began to limp aimlessly again. But that wasn't enough. Rob wanted him gone. He moved to the eject button and pressed it, Gumball's corrupted self shooting out into the void. Finally satisfied, Rob went back to his original goal of saving them all. He wouldn't find answers here, he had to think outside the box, in one of the most literal ways possible.  He looked down at the button he had to push. He felt anxious, of all the functions the remote could perform, he had always shied away from this one, afraid of what it might do, never daring to press it until now. The remote was capable of incredible feats, its power had been what finally opened Rob's eyes to the reality of his existence. He feared what would happen if he pressed it, having witnessed what the other functions were capable of, from time travel to outright wiping things out of existence. But he had to, if there was to be any hope of saving them. He had to take the risk and unleash the full power of the remote. He took a deep breath before pointing the remote directly at the camera and pressing - Change channel. > The Intrusion: Part One > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Uhhhmm, sister?” Luna called back into the halls of the castle for her sister. She found herself on one of the many balconies jutting out from the castle they shared, doing nothing but admiring the beauty of her sister's sun and the day that came along with it. At least, she was. In the blink of an eye, the sun suddenly dipped below the horizon, and not a second later replaced with her moon. Luna stared in awe at what had just transpired, dumbfounded, before calling for her sister. “Yes?” Came the reply of Celestia from somewhere within. “You wouldn’t happen to have set the sun early, would you?” In a flash of light, Celestia appeared by her sister's side. She didn’t immediately notice what was wrong until she looked around, but when she did she was just as confused. “Wha- what? But it’s only noon! How di-” The two were interrupted once again by another day change, in the same span of a single fleeting moment, the sun and moon once again changed places- And again. And again. *** “Twilight!” Starlight called, teleporting into said mare's room, at the same time causing her to jump at Starlight's sudden appearance. “Starlight?” Twilight replied after getting over the initial shock, “What is it?” “There’s um, a bit of a situation. . .” She stumbled over her words, “You should see it for yourself.” Starlight teleported Twilight quickly following suit. They now found themselves outside of their castle in Ponyville, met with one of the strangest sights either had ever seen. To their absolute confusion and horror, the sun and moon had gone completely rogue. As though someone was flipping a light switch on and off, the sun and moon changed places in the sky at breakneck speed. It created a strobe effect throughout the land, making Twilight and Starlight, as well as everypony else, feel like they were in the middle of a rave. “What?!” Twilight cried, putting a hoof up to her face to shield her eyes, “How is this possible? What’s happening?” “I don’t know!” Starlight replied, mirroring Twilight's actions to keep from going blind. *** Celestia and Luna stared with complete befuddlement, as each of their respective celestial bodies continued to shock, awe, and in some cases blind all of Equestria. “Sister!” Luna called, snapping out of her haze. “We have to do something!” “Right,” Celestia replied. The two lit their horns, focusing everything they had on getting the sun and moon back under control. It didn’t seem to do anything at first, but sure enough, the spectacle slowed, before stopping completely, the moon coming out on top, despite it being noon. *** Twilight and Starlight continued to look up at the now night sky, still trying to process what they had just witnessed. Ponyville was alive with the ponies trying to comprehend it, making it as loud as a bustling city street. “Twilight!” Spike called, running up beside them. “It’s from the princesses!” Twilight quickly snatched the letter from him in her magic, unceremoniously tearing it open. Twilight... As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the sun and moon were briefly taken from the control of me and my sister. By the time you receive this things will hopefully be under control. However, that leaves us with a new problem. Moving the sun and moon is no small feat, let alone moving them at that speed. Given that neither I nor my sister did it, and Discord calling it an “old joke,” that means somepony else is behind this. Find them, whoever it may have been. I fear what somepony with that much power could do left unchecked, and given the events still fresh on our minds, that is something neither of us wants. -Princesses Celestia and Luna. “Sounds pretty serious,” Starlight stated, peering over Twilight's shoulder at the note. “It is.” Twilight replied grimly, “We have to find whoever's done this, and fast.” “How are you gonna do that?” Spike interjected, “Equestria is so big! It’d be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!” “Well,” Twilight started. “As Celestia said, any pony that can manipulate the sun and moon like that must have been putting out a lot of power, all we have to do is trace where it came from and find the source. Luckily for us, there’s a spell for that, Starlight?” “Way ahead of you,” she replied, horn lit, with a small grin on her face. *** “So, remind me again why we’re standing outside the creepy everfree?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Because,” Starlight stated, moving in front of the group consisting of the mane six. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, there was a bit of an uh, lightshow with the sun and moon earlier today. Wait, it is earlier today if the moon is out?” She got off topic, trying to figure out the confusion caused by the moon being out at the wrong time. “Never mind, anyway, the princesses tasked us with finding out whoever did this, and fast. Twilight and I managed to trace the leftover magic back to this general area, unfortunately, we couldn’t get a precise location because the leftover magic faded quickly.” “So we just go in, kick some butt, and be back in time for dinner! Or, whatever mealtime it’s supposed to be.” Dash stated. “Easier said than done,” Twilight said, “Be careful, whoever did this had enough power to move the sun and moon, and then resist the princess's attempts to take it back. Who knows what else they could do?” “Got it,” Dash replied. The group of seven spread out, careful to stay within earshot of one another. Rainbow and Fluttershy flew just above the trees, keeping their heads on a swivel, Twilight, Starlight, and Rarity kept their horns lit, attempting to trace any leftover magic, as well as generating beams of light to illuminate large swathes. AJ and Pinkie used their naturally stronger bodies to search areas the others couldn’t access. *** “HEY! YOU!” Twilight heard Rainbow yell those two words, followed by a bright rainbow streak across the sky as she started pursuing an unseen someone. “That way!” Starlight called from a few feet away. She had one of her front hooves pointed in the same direction as where Rainbow had gone, and even from where they were they saw trees and other foliage being blown around from the wind generated. Twilight shot herself into the air, quickly moving towards the commotion, the others following suit from their respective positions. Twilight suddenly heard Rainbow yell out before she was flung back through the canopy of the forest, her body twisting and spiraling out of control. Twilight pivoted, before shooting herself into the canopy where Rainbow had emerged. Twilight landed softly on the forest floor below, quickly lighting her horn and generating a flashlight-like beam of light to scan the area. There. She saw a cluster of bushes shaking, the sound of footsteps emanating from the same direction. Twilight broke off into a sprint, quickly joined by Starlight and AJ. They closed the distance quickly, soon finding themselves staring at the back of their unknown assailant. It was a strange, bipedal figure, most certainly not a pony or any other creature they may have suspected. It was tall, at least compared to a pony. It had fairly long legs and arms, all of them seemingly made out of static, with a solid yellowish midsection and red shorts, its head a polygon-like shape. “Hey! Wait!” Starlight called out. In response, the figure turned toward them, revealing that it had one large, singular eye, along with a mouth on its face. To Twilight and Starlight, the figure very vaguely resembled a human. In one of its hands, it held a strange device, too far away for any of them to tell what it was. The figure took off again, one of its fingers moving over the strange device before running out of view. The surroundings of Twilight and her friends quickly started to darken, a little more each time he pressed the button. It wasn’t darkness like nighttime darkness, no, this was complete darkness. “Twilight?!” Rarity called. “What’s happening?” “Over here!” She yelled back. She and Starlight used their horns once again as floodlights, basking their surroundings in the artificial glow. Out of the corner of her eye, she once again spotted him, at the very edge of where their light would reach. Rainbow had seen it too, leaving another rainbow trail as she quickly pursued him outside of the light. The chase once again commenced, Twilight and her friends determined to not let him get away. Up ahead, they heard Rainbow locked in a struggle with him, however, before they could reach them, Rainbow flew past them once again, loudly impacting a nearby tree. “Rainbow! AJ cried, running to her, “You okay sugarcube?!” “Je vais bien, mais il s'enfuit! Attendez, qu'est-ce qui ne va pas avec ma voix!” AJ let out a loud gasp, not only at the sudden strange outburst from Rainbow but also at the realization that one of her wings was bent the wrong way. “Rainbow! Your wing!” She cried, pointing a hoof at her left wing. Rainbow looked towards it, a look of pure horror taking over her face. She screamed, before falling to the ground next to the tree she had been laying on, babbling in the same strange tongue she’d been afflicted with. Hearing the commotion, the others quickly appeared, calling off the chase. They all had their own looks of horror and bewilderment at Rainbow's condition. “We need to get her to a doctor!” Starlight said. "I've got this." Rarity said. She quickly looked around, gathering various leaves, vines, and other shrubbery in separate auras of magic, before quickly laying them out in the vague shape of a gurney. She worked quickly and with laser-like precision, tying leaves and branches together with vines, and within a minute, she was done. "Wow." Was all Twilight said. "Rarity!" Starlight said, "That was amazing!" "A good seamstress can work under pressure and make materials where there are none." She replied. "Alrighty then." AJ said, “Come on Rainbow, you’ll be alright, Pinkie?” Together, the two Earth ponies, aided by Rarity's magic, carefully lifted the still-babbling Rainbow onto the makeshift stretcher. Starlight moved toward them before lighting her horn and teleporting the rest of the mane six back to Ponyville, coming right back in another flash of light. "Guess it's just us then," Starlight said. "Twilight?" She asked after getting no answer. She looked over to find a fuming Twilight, whose anxiety and fear for Rainbow had quickly turned into anger and malice for who had done it to her. "This ends now." She announced quietly. "Come on." She said before dashing off into the forest, horn blazing. Starlight wasn't sure what Twilight was doing at first, but she soon realized she was using that spell again, since whatever had happened to Rainbow must have left a big signature. Starlight lit her horn and did the same, realizing Twilight was right, large traces coming from the northeast, in a fairly straight line. She watched as Twilight cast an Accelero spell, as well as a shield bubble, and Starlight quickly mirrored it so as not to be left behind. She quickly caught up and came to see the figure again. She stared in shock as Twilight fired at the creature, head down, beam after beam. The figure was able to dodge about half of them before it raised the strange device it was holding in its right hand once more. The beams Twilight fired suddenly stopped in midair, motionless as they all ran past, frozen. He used the device again. A large patch of bushes and vines right next to Twilight were uprooted and blown backwards, bouncing harmlessly off of the generated shield bubbles. The figure turned again, pointing the device right at them. Logs, bushes, vines, and even trees were hurled at them now, bouncing harmlessly off their shields but severely limiting visibility. Twilight spread her wings, shooting herself up above the canopy before diving back down, heading straight for the goal of her rage. Starlight watched as the figure pointed the device again at Twilight. She was forcibly stopped mid-air, before with a flick of the wrist, was slammed into a nearby tree and the canopy below. Their chase continued, Twilight still unfazed by everything Rainbow's assailant had thrown at her. Hooves and feet pounded against the forest floor, brush, and other plant life shoved to the side by shield bubbles as the two sped along. Their chase continued for what felt like forever, an exchange of spells and other attacks as the last chances at solving this peacefully faded away. *** Starlight attempted a Rope Charmer spell, one of a laundry list she had attempted before this point. She pulled her head back before whipping it forward, a lasso made of pure magical energy sent flying towards its target. The spell worked flawlessly, perfectly wrapping itself around its target. The figure fell forward, its arms now tightly bound to its side, the strange device falling away a few feet away. It was finally over. *** Rob’s eye shot open in horror at the sudden sensation of his arms being bound to his sides, before falling forward face first, the remote falling from his grip. He struggled mightily against his new restraints, using what limited hand movement he had left to desperately grab the remote. He couldn’t let it fall into the wrong hands, he couldn’t let his only chance at saving his world fall away as the remote had. He heard hoofsteps quickly closing in as his pursuers closed the distance. Just as they broke through the bushes and into he had fallen into, he finally got it, quickly pressing the ReWind button just as his pursuers reached him. *** Starlight attempted a Rope Charmer spell, one of a laundry list she had attempted before this point. She pulled her head back before whipping it forward, a lasso made of pure magical energy sent flying towards its target. However, this time, Rob knew exactly when it was coming. He whirled around mid-sprint, aiming the remote at the magical lasso heading for him, before pressing the remote's ultimate function- Delete. Starlight screamed out in pain, Twilight looking over just in time to hear a resounding THWOOM as her Rope Charmer spell exploded out of existence, her horn sparking and fizzling as she suddenly lost her footing and spiraled into the ground. “Starlight!” She cried, forgetting the chase again and rushing to her side, “Are you okay?” “Ghh, it hurts...” She replied, both her eyelids spazzing out and twitching, and horn giving out weak sparks. Twilight's attention was quickly taken away from her friend by the thought of her attacker. First Rainbow Dash, now Starlight. Somehow filled with even more fury, she took one last quick look to make sure Starlight wasn’t too badly injured, and muttered a quick “I’ll be right back” to Starlight before soaring once more in his direction. *** Rob grimaced in guilt as he heard the resounding THWOOM followed by screams and panicked mutterings a few meters behind him. Inside he hated himself for doing this. He was hardly presenting himself as the hero he wanted to be, that he knew he was. His search for answers had yielded no meaningful results so far. It had served as little more than a series of short vacations across the multiverse, accompanied by various shenanigans as he tested how well the remote worked wherever he was. Come to think of it, what was all that supposed to accomplish? Against all logic, he'd had faith that the simple act of leaving his world would somehow lead him to answers. He had been blinded to the reality of the situation by that little bit of hope that had resided within him. This whole journey had turned out to be a frivolous undertaking, but on the other hand, what else was there to do? Remain on his homeworld and rot? He was little more than a wayward traveler with no home to which he could return. Fortunately, he hadn't yet found a world where the Remote didn't work, although this was the first time its power had been directly challenged. First by the counterforce that tried to take away his sun and moon, and now by this wild goose chase that made him look like a monster. A small tear escaped from his eye, "I-I didn't mean to hurt them..." He mumbled, "I-" His thoughts were cut short as he heard something quickly approaching from behind him, a deep, continuous rumble as trees and other vegetation were pushed aside with immense force, as though a freight train were barreling through the forest straight towards him. He looked back just in time to see Twilight, eyes narrowed and burning with hate as magic pulsed around her horn and at the edges of her eyes, her body covered in cuts, bruises, mud, and leaves from their struggle so far. Rob's regret and sadness were instantly replaced with dread as he reflexively raised the remote in a desperate last bid to fend off who he didn’t doubt would be his executioner if he didn’t do something. Without thinking, his thumb once again slid over the remote's ultimate function, Delete. In his final bid to fight off Twilight, his heel caught on an exposed root due to his lack of attention, causing him to fall backward with a jerk, his thumb also jerking away from the Delete key, instead drifting over to another button as he fell… > The Intrusion: Part Two > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Twilight?!" Starlight called weakly. Her hoofsteps were slow and slurred, her body jerking back and forth as she struggled to keep her balance. Her condition had improved somewhat. She wasn't in nearly as much pain as she had been a few minutes before. She was able to walk, albeit with some difficulty, and spells were out of the question. A simple flashlight spell to illuminate her still pitch-black surroundings caused her severe pain, her horn still sparking in protest of such a simple spell. She limped on, heading in the direction where she had seen Twilight the last time. The last time she'd seen her, she'd gone after him again, the light she'd generated from her horn fading quickly in the pitch-black darkness, followed by a deafening silence. Despite her injuries, Starlight had to find her. She was her friend, and she had no doubt that Twilight would do the same for her. Weakly, she broke through a last row of bushes and shrubs and found her. It was as if someone had frozen her in time, her form suspended above Starlight's head. She wore the same look of malice and hatred that she had seen the last time she had gone after her attacker. Her wings were outstretched and curved behind her as she had been flying when it happened. Her horn and the corners of her eyes pulsed with her magical power, a lavender trail extending from behind her for several meters. Her forelegs were outstretched, her mane and tail having been blowing in the wind behind her. Continuing to limp around her frozen friend, Starlight discovered the extent of Twilight's injuries from fighting the alien intruder. None of them were serious. But Starlight couldn't help but notice the number of bruises, cuts, and other injuries that covered her from head to hoof. It was both uplifting and frightening to see the lengths to which Twilight was willing to go in the name of her friends' protection. Ever since Rainbow Dash had been injured, she'd been relentless in her pursuit of him. She probably hadn't even noticed her own wounds as she'd pursued him with a righteous fury to avenge and protect those she loved. But to see what it had cost her, Starlight had never seen anything like it, whatever those spells had been and whatever power their visitor had wielded. "Twilight?" Starlight called softly. "Can you hear me?" She moved in front of her frozen friend and repeated what she had just said, waving one of her hooves in front of her face. "Twilight!" She called out once more. She tried in vain to bring the power of her horn to bear, though she had no idea how to help, only to be sent crashing to the ground in pain. "Somepony! Anypony! HELP!" She called with what little strength she had left before she fell unconscious. "HELP!" AJ gasped, “Did ya’ll hear that?” Against all odds, they had all returned - AJ, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and even Rainbow Dash. It had been at least an hour since any of them had seen Starlight or Twilight. Despite the potential danger, they had unanimously decided to return to the forest. Rainbow Dash had even resisted mightily when one of the doctors tried to help her, settling for the most basic treatment for what was probably a broken wing and following on hoof, mute after it became clear that whatever had robbed her of her vocal cords wasn't going to go away any time soon. They all took off at the sound of the call, Rarity leading the way, illuminating the still pitch-black forest as they ran. They continued in the direction of Starlight's last call. They found her in a small clearing, Twilight still frozen in midair, and Starlight still unconscious. They split up between them to check on them, all gasping at the horrible sight. "Twilight?" Rarity asked as she walked up to her. She used her horn to create another focused beam of light. She shone it into each of Twilight's eyes, looking for some kind of reaction from her eyes. She got none, she really was completely frozen. "Starlight?" Fluttershy asked as she walked up to the unconscious mare and nudged her with a hoof. "Hello? Can you hear me?" There was no answer, but Starlight was still breathing, her chest still rising and falling. "Oh, no, no, no." Applejack began. "What happened to them? Where did he go? Fuck!" She began to pace, quickly running back and forth between her fallen friends. "Applejack!" Rarity said, quickly grabbing her and bringing her eye to eye, “It’s all going to be okay, darling.” She turned away, "Someone find me some materials!" She turned back to AJ, "I - WE can fix this, we always have, and we always will." Rarity galloped off, returning with a similar set of improvised materials to what she'd used on Rainbow for Starlight. But there wasn't much she could do. Most of their injuries were superficial, consisting only of various cuts and bruises. Her biggest injury was her exhaustion, brought on by the miles-long chase, the combination of running, casting spells, and minor injuries adding up until she couldn't take any more. Rarity probably knew this, too. She just couldn't face the fact that there wasn't much she could do for them. Rarity paced around the two, seeming to finally give in to panic herself. Her eyes became wild and manic, while at the same time worried, as she searched for any injury she could to “dress.” the result was a still unconscious Starlight, but now covered in various pieces of foliage. “Rarity?” Flutterhy called. “Rarity.” AJ followed, coming up behind her. “Rarity?” She tried once more, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “Rarity!” “WHAT!” She screamed, her voice breaking. Tears began flowing freely from her eyes as she started sobbing, pulling AJ into a hug with her forehooves. The others soon followed, the severity and stress of the situation slowly but surely breaking them. Over time, they all embraced one another, the tears quickly forming a small, combined puddle beneath them. “Wait!” AJ said, breaking away, “Look!” Without any of them having realized it, a small glow had begun emanating from each of their chests, in the same locations their respective elements used to lie. Their tears quickly ceased as the glow gained intensity, one even appearing on the still-frozen Twilight. Their faces quickly lit up with hope and anticipation as it grew ever brighter, before in a blinding flash of light, the elements were invoked once more. *** Twilight's eyes shot open in panic, before she quickly sunk like a rock in a lake to the ground, coughing and gasping for air, feeling as though she hadn’t breathed in an eternity. She took a moment to catch her breath, before righting herself and taking in her surroundings. All of her friends lay in the area surrounding her, the light emitting from each of them slowly fading. Starlight was there too, similarly getting her bearings. “H-Huh?” She started, “What-” “TWILIGHT!” Before she had time to register it, she found herself in the mother of all bear hugs, given by none other than Pinkie. The rest of her friends quickly followed, and she found herself having a hard time breathing again. She didn’t care though, the only thing that mattered was that they were together. Twilight again gasped for air when released from the hug, taking a few deep breaths before speaking. “Starlight, how do you feel?” “Much better” The mare replied. Most of her superficial wounds from the chase remained, as did Twilights. However, she was up and walking completely normal again. Her horn and magic, while weakened, were back up to considerable strength. The oppressing darkness that surrounded them up until then was gone, replaced by warm sunlight as the sun re-assumed its rightful place in the sky. They all heard a loud gasp, their heads quickly turning towards Rainbow, she was hovering a few feet off the ground, her wing back to normal. “Hey!” She said, bringing a hoof to her throat, “I- I can talk again! WOO HOO!” The group gave a small chuckle as she did stationary backflips, accompanied by random words and statements as she celebrated having her voice back. “Uh, Twilight?” Twilight heard Fluttershy’s meek voice, “W-Where did he go?” The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, and she would’ve started panicking, if not for the events that followed immediately after that statement. Twilight heard a small yell, followed by a sudden commotion in the direction of AJ and Rarity. AJ had tripped and found herself halfway down a pit of quicksand, the only thing keeping her out a desperate attempt by Rarity’s telekinesis. “Help!” Rarity cried. The group converged on where the struggle was taking place, AJ quickly pulled out thanks to a combined effort of telekinesis from Twilight and Starlight, as well as Pinkie biting her tail and pulling backward. Pinkie had put a little too much effort into it, AJ coming out with a pop! and sent into a tumble with the party mare. Twilight looked back towards the quicksand she’d fallen into, catching just for a split second a shimmer of magic on the surface of the quicksand. “Wait a second-,” Twilight thought out loud. She walked over to the quicksand, daring to touch its now still surface with a hoof. She recoiled when the same thing happened, a shimmer of magic on the surface in response to her hoof. “Oh no,” Twilight said, the realization starting to dawn on her. She quickly looked around the quicksand for any more evidence of what she prayed hadn’t happened. An exposed root lay a few feet away from it, the root pulled upwards at an angle, as if something had been caught on it... She looked back to the quicksand, spying an imprint in the shape of the device on its surface that she hadn’t seen earlier. “Oh no, oh no no no no NO!” She panicked. Starlight came over to see what was wrong. “Starlight!” Twilight shouted abruptly. “Do you know what that is?!” “Quicksand?” The mare replied. In response, Twilight once again put her hoof in it, letting the resulting magic shimmer speak for itself. Starlight's eyes widened, and despite knowing the implications of what she’d seen, still turned to Twilight for confirmation. “Is that...” “A portal!” Twilight replied hurriedly. “And it goes to-” “The human world!” Twilight finished her sentence for her, grabbing her shoulders and bringing her face to face. *** Rob shot up with a start, utterly befuddled at what had happened. The last thing he remembered was desperately pointing the remote towards the enraged Twilight, only for his foot to get caught on something, sending him flying backward into nothingness. He looked around, only seeing tropical trees and other vegetation surrounding him. He realized with horror that he couldn’t feel the remote in his right hand, his head shooting this way and that as he searched in a panic. He sighed with relief upon finding it right next to him, just out of sight. He picked it up, shaking any sand stuck to it off. He stood up, stretching for a second, his muscles aching from running for so long. He looked back towards the quicksand he’d emerged from, seeing the faintest hint of a magical shimmer before its surface settled, resuming its appearance of normal quicksand. “Where am I?” He thought aloud. Up until then, the only way he’d been able to jump worlds was using the remote, this didn’t make any sense! He found himself utterly befuddled that portals similar to the ones he could generate with the remote just existed here. “Huh?” He said, spying something moving out of the corner of his eye. It was a vine, but last he checked, vines didn’t move on their own, at least, they usually didn’t in whatever world he happened to be in. He heard a low growl above him, followed by clumps of something landing on his head and shoulders. He looked up just in time to see a giant, flytrap-type plant, jaws ready to clamp down on him. He ducked out of the way just in time, landing a few feet away. He climbed back to his feet, preparing the remote upon seeing more vine-like tendrils moving towards him. “Stay back!” He yelled, aiming the remote this way and that at the oncoming vines. “I warned you!” He shouted again, finally bringing the remote to bear. He quickly pressed Eject, sending a vine crashing into a nearby tree. He heard a pained yell from what he assumed was the plant's head, followed by the vines quickening their assault. Not seeing any other way out of this, he quickly aimed the remote at one vine after the other, each one fading from existence each time he pressed Delete. He cried out in pain when a smaller version of the plant's main head clamped onto his leg. He deleted it with another push of the button. He spied the main head lingering in the camouflage given by the other plant life, but it wasn’t enough. With a growl, Rob charged it, stopping a few feet away before pressing Delete once more. In a split second, the entire plant just disappeared, no cries of pain, nothing. With that taken care of, Rob made his way out into the open, realizing with an exasperated sigh that he was now trapped on an island. *** Sunset Shimmer laid in bed, pajamas on and ready to sleep in preparation for the coming Monday school day, just shooting some texts back and forth with her friends before turning in. Just as she was about to, though, she was interrupted by the vibrating of her enchanted notebook on the nightstand next to her bed. She kept it there for easy access, as there was no telling when there may be some new equestrian magic that needed containing or just wanted to catch up with her princess friend on the other side. She opened it, finding a new message from Twilight that simply read Sunset! She picked up her pen, quickly writing out a Yeah? in response. She watched as words quickly began to appear on the following lines. We have a problem, like, a REALLY big problem! Sunset started to become worried at the frantic message, but she was confident it was just more rogue magic, nothing she hadn’t handled before. Her response reflected that. ” What, more runaway equestrian magic?” “Magic yes, Equestrian. . .” “Wait, what?” “I think it's best I just give you the whole story. Yesterday at noon, somepony seized control of the sun and moon from Celestia and Luna, switching the two like one of those light switches you find in your world. It was quite the spectacle, but what frightened the sisters was that whoever had done it not only had the power to take the sun and moon from them but also resisted their efforts to take them back. I and our friends on this side of the portal were tasked with finding whoever had done this, and fast. None of us wanted a repeat of something like Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow. Starlight and I used a spell to get a rough estimate of where this magic was coming from and traced it back to the Everfree. Oh, if only we knew what we were walking into- “Hey, it’s okay, just try to ignore it, whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.” “Thanks, Sunset, anyway, as we searched the forest we came across, well, I don’t know how to describe him, just that he vaguely resembled a human, with only one eye, and his form very distorted and filled with static on his limbs and head. Rainbow Dash was the first one to find him, going in head first classic Rainbow-style, I guess wanting to end it quickly. She hasn’t gone into details about what exactly happened, and having seen it myself I can’t blame her. All I know is that one second she vanished into the treetops, fighting with him, and the next she was catapulted back, landing hard into a tree and breaking one of her wings.” Sunset had to double-take that last bit, placing a hand over her mouth and letting out a small gasp. Sure she and her friends had gotten themselves into some risky situations before, but they’d never actually gotten hurt to any serious degree. This was new, and that worried her. ” Oh Celestia, is she okay?!” “She is now, but she’s a bit traumatized by the whole thing. She was at least happy to receive an “awesome” metal wing addition to help keep it stable. That wasn’t it, though. I don’t know what he did to her, but for a long time afterward she spoke in a strange tongue I hadn’t heard before. Rainbow loves her voice and being able to talk, as I’m sure you know from your worlds Rainbow, so she just kind of- crumbled under the stress, and the others had to take her back to Ponyville to find a doctor. Rarity surprised us all that night by showing off her prowess as a seamstress, making a makeshift gurney for her in almost no time at all! After that was said and done, it was just myself and Starlight left to find him. It’s hard to describe, but something just sort of broke within me then. All I felt was anger and malice at this mysterious somepony for doing something so heartless to Rainbow, even now I have a hard time comprehending it. Starlight and I chased him throughout the forest, where the longer things went on the more power he seemed to unveil. For starters, he was able to keep perfect pace with Starlight and me, even when we cast Accelero. It was just so- unreal some of the things he did. For example, at one point he did, well, something, and within a few seconds our surroundings had turned completely black.” “Like, nighttime black?” “No, not like nighttime, it was pitch black, and we couldn’t see even a foot in front of our faces! Luckily, though, it was easy for Starlight, Rarity and I to use our horns as floodlights to still see. All of it seemed to come from this strange device he held in one hand, every time he attacked us or manipulated our surroundings he always first pointed it at us. In anger, I started firing beams at him using my horn, only for him to raise that device and freeze all of them in mid-air! At one point, Starlight cast a Rope Charmer in an attempt to bind him and stop whatever device he was using. Frankly, a smart move on her part, to try to restrain him to end things. That’s a fairly obscure spell too, somehow, Starlight always finds ways to surprise me.” “Strange, most of what you just listed can be done with spells, but I’ve never heard of light manipulation like that or just stopping projectiles mid-air. Block them or dodge them sure, but not freeze them mid-air.” “It’s more so that device that continues to befuddle me, I’ve looked through every book I can find on magical artifacts and haven’t found a single thing that matches it.” “Strange.” “That’s not it either- I’m sorry if I start to sound weird Sunset, this next part is just particularly upsetting to me.” Sunset's gaze quickly shifted away from the latest message, turning towards a small stain that had suddenly appeared on the page. “Is that-?” Her heart started to ache even more at the realization that it was in fact a teardrop that had landed on the page. She was both hurt seeing Twilight in a state like this and angry at whoever had done this to them, she now understood how she must’ve felt that night in the forest, fighting an unknown enemy that had just hurt one of her friends. “Starlight’s spell almost worked, but somehow it was like he knew when it was coming. He turned around, before all of a sudden this THWOOM sound enveloped us, and Starlight fell to the ground. Her spell had just exploded in mid-air, and when she got back up her horn was sparking and she could barely walk.” “Starlight...” Sunset muttered under her breath. Another stain like the previous one appeared on the page. “Do you want me to come over? Even if just for a few minutes, something tells me you need somepony, sleep is overrated anyway, heh.” “I’m fine, Sunset. Starlight just walked in, want to talk to her?” “Yeah.” *** “Hey, Sunset.” “Hey Starlight, uh, how’s your horn?” “Oh, she told you about that, yeah, I’m fine, back up to 99%!” “99? Why not 100?” “Well, see, we’re dealing with a bit of an anomaly here. After the elements were invoked-” “You used the elements?” “Yeah, we did as a last resort. I guess Twilight didn’t get that far. I’m running off of word of mouth for this next portion, as neither Twilight nor I were conscious for it.” “You and Twilight were knocked out?” “Yeah, after my spell exploded mid-air and I collapsed, Twilight took a second to check on me, before shooting off into the forest for the final time. I wish I could’ve stopped her, but the only thing I knew at that moment was the pain radiating from my horn. There was nothing after a few seconds, just pitch blackness as I struggled to maintain a simple light spell to tell left from right and up from down. Eventually, I limped my way to a clearing where I found her frozen mid-air, whoever we’d been chasing nowhere to be found. The next thing either Twilight or I remember is waking up to find the others surrounding us, the elements activating in the bleakness of the situation. What scares us is what if they didn’t use the elements? Would Twilight have been frozen forever? It was scary seeing her like that, yes there are plenty of spells that can do things like that, but she was just frozen. It’s hard to describe. Doesn’t matter, all that matters is that we’re all still here. Plus, now we know the elements can undo whatever magic that being used.” “That sounds like such a tough thing to go through, but, and I’m really trying not to sound rude, what does it have to do with me? Twilight said that WE have a problem on our hands.” “Well, there was one, teeny tiny detail we haven’t mentioned yet. Remember how I said he was nowhere to be found afterward? We have a good idea where he ended up, but I don’t think you’ll like it. In the clearing, AJ fell into what we thought was quicksand. Twilight was the first to notice it, a slight magical shimmer on the surface once we pulled AJ out. it didn’t take long to piece things together after that.” “So you’re saying-” “W-well, we don’t know for sure yet, there’s still so little we know about these portals and where they lead. So while it’s unlikely, there is a slight chance he ended up in your world. I say unlikely because we also think he came out of one, somewhere, he was just too strange to be from either of our worlds, so, we might be dealing with something entirely new here.” "Hang on, what about that 99 percent stuff?" "Oh, that. Well, ever since he used that device on me, I can't cast Rope Charmer anymore. I can cast everything else, Accelero, Teleportation, even Duplication! But ever since then, I just can't cast this spell. Every time I try, the same pain comes back and I have to stop. This means that while the Elements CAN reverse the vast majority of effects, they cannot reverse every little thing." Sunset took some time to think and absorb what she'd just heard. Not only had Twilight and her friends battled and technically lost to an unknown being with never-before-seen magic, but there was also the possibility that he'd fallen into their world. AND there was now the possibility that Equestria's natural portals led to more places than just their worlds. "So you wouldn't happen to have a plan for defeating him if he landed there, would you?" "No, I'm not really sure how to go about it. There is very little magic in this world. Yes, me and my friends here have the geodes and the elements at our disposal, but that's only a tiny fraction of what's possible in Equestria, and if his magic still works here, that makes things even more complicated." "Do you want me and Twilight to come over there and help you?" "No, at least not yet, neither of you would have any magic to use here. Plus, we’re not even 100% sure he’s even here. First of all, we are going to search for him on this side of the portal and look for any new magical anomalies. Then, if we need it, I’ll message you again for help.” “Okay, well, good luck, and be careful.” "I will. Until we meet again, Starlight." "Bye Sunset." "Bye Twilight." Sunset closed the book with a heavy sigh before she let herself fall back onto her bed. She stared at the ceiling, her mind racing at what had been said. Whoever their new enemy was, he was dangerous, and they had to find him, fast. > The Intrusion: Part Three > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rob found himself in quite a predicament, holding the remote close to his distorted face as he thought. The Remote, wondrous cursed a device as it was, still had its limits, but they weren’t exactly what you’d expect them to be. Now, for example, he was stranded on what he could only assume was an island in the middle of the ocean. He couldn't go back the way he'd come, for obvious reasons, but he could just press the change channel button again and be instantly transported somewhere else. However, he'd rejected that idea. It was too easy. There had to be something he hadn't tried yet that could get him out of here without jumping worlds, he just had to look. He had the remote close to his face, analyzing each individual button. 99% of the time he only needed a few, for example Pause, undoubtedly the most useful, the ability to freeze anything as long as he wanted was incredible and one of the most used, because a function like Delete crossed moral boundaries. Even though anything or anyone he erased could be restored just as easily, it still presented him with a moral dilemma, and he still regretted the fact that he'd had to use it on his equestrian pursuers. He pushed the thought away, using his predicament to further familiarize himself with what exactly the Remote was capable of, and went back to figuring out a way off the island. He quickly came to the Menu button, another one he had yet to use for the first time. When he first pressed it, what could only be described as a hologram appeared a few feet in front of him, one side a small display with many more features listed across it, presumably ones that couldn't fit on the device itself and were not really needed. The other was different- Menu. *** After spending the better part of the last 10 minutes scrolling through this new wealth of functions, Rob had finally found his ticket out of the island. He'd lost interest in the Tools side rather quickly, his attention grabbed much more by the Menu portion. Channel: Discovery Family Show: My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Locations: Canterlot City < Rob stared at the window in disbelief as he took it in. Ever since he'd discovered the remote and let it open his eyes, he'd had theories living in his head, threatening to destroy his sanity if any of them proved true. It was unbearable, the thought that everything he had seen and would ever see wasn't real, and how hard it would be to come to terms with that. The window that lay in front of him was just one more clue. What’s Discovery Family? What’s My Little Pony? If he had to guess, MLP was the name of the world he was in, but he had no idea what "Discovery Family" was. There was an arrow next to Canterlot City under Locations, blinking to let him know that this was the current selection. He selected it, not knowing what else to do. He was a bit taken aback, but not too surprised, when a vertical, rectangular portal appeared to the right of the current window. On the other side was a bustling cityscape, with what appeared to be a high school, not too dissimilar to Elmore Junior High, in the center. Rob got to his feet and quickly stepped through the portal and over to the other side. He quickly froze his surroundings, freezing everything but himself to erase the portal and orient himself. Just as the menu that was brought up by the Menu button and his selection had said, he found himself in the city of Canterlot. Well, it was labeled as a city. To Rob it looked more like a suburb, but never mind. Still frozen, he hid in the nearest place he could see, a bundle of overgrown bushes next to what looked like an upside-down horseshoe statue. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do, but he certainly wasn't going to be as careless with the remote as he had been before. He wasn't invincible, far from it. And with the hypothesis that wherever he ended up would probably be similar to where he was before, he was cautious. Maybe he could use this place as a playground if the circumstances allowed it, after all, he had just found a previously undiscovered menu of functions from A to Z. He looked up at the sky through the thorns and leaves and found that it was dawn, almost morning. Not too keen on waiting, he fought the urge to simply fast-forward the sun again. But he didn't, it couldn't be that long anyway. He had learned many things since using the remote, one of the most important being power consumption. Like all remotes, superpowered or not, they depended on batteries. In the case of this particular remote, you had to be careful how you used it sometimes. Functions like pause, play, slow-mo, etc. The smaller ones used a minimal amount of power, and there wasn't a hard limit on how often you could use them, well, except for pause and slow motion. The longer an object/being/surrounding was paused or slowed, the more power was used. Same with using multiple functions at the same time, the more you used at the same time, the more power you used. Strong functions like Delete were the biggest culprits, using them even once could be a big power drain, another reason for Rob to regret having used it. He wasn't sure how much power he had left, so he had to proceed with caution. When the power is exhausted, not only is the device inoperable until the batteries are replaced, but any functions that were previously in use stop until the same requirement is met. This isn't usually a problem in a controlled environment. But it's easy to see how this could be really, really bad, especially in a combat situation. *** Sunset Shimmer jogged along the sidewalk leading to Canterlot High, spotting her friends hanging out on the staircase leading to the main entrance. She picked up her pace, her jog turning into a run as she hurried to tell her friends what she'd been told the night before. Finally reaching the small stairs, she bent over, breathing heavily as her arms rested on her knees, "Woah, you okay Sunset?" Rainbow asked. Sunset took one last deep breath before she regained her composure. "We have a problem." She announced. "Problem? What kind, darling?" Rarity replied. Rather than take the few minutes it would have taken her to tell her friends by mouth because of her shortness of breath, she simply pulled out the notebook and held it out. Rarity reluctantly took the book. "The most recent entry," Sunset said, before turning her head to look around for anything out of the ordinary. The first thing she looked at was the sky, to make sure the sun was in its rightful place. Next her eyes went to her surroundings. Was anyone frozen? No. Whew. After a few more seconds of searching for environmental oddities, her attention returned to her friends, all huddled in a circle around her enchanted book. Wanting to be doubly sure that nothing was wrong, she jogged back to the end of the courtyard. She held a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she scanned up and down the street in front of her. Her attention then turned to the statue, where she discreetly made sure that it hadn't been tampered with, before she made her way back to her friends. For a time her friends were silent, their attention glued to the notebook she’d given them, their eyes moving from left to right, rinse and repeat. At one point, Rainbow subconsciously grabbed her right arm and winced slightly, the closest thing she had to a wing. "Wow," AJ said. Sunset took the book back once she was certain her friends were finished. They all looked at each other with a mixture of fear or worry, or in Rainbow's case, anger. *** Rob could hardly believe his eye. Somehow his equine pursuers had followed him to... Whatever this place was supposed to be. Or, if he was to believe the remote- “My Little Pony: Equestria girls.” He grimaced, he wasn't about to stand for this. For a second, he considered pausing or even deleting them, but was quickly reminded of the power situation he was in. He didn't know how much power he had left, and if he ran out, he would be stranded and thus doomed, at least until he could find new batteries. He couldn't risk exposing himself and causing panic. Now that he thought about it, a group of teenagers just disappearing into thin air would probably set off some alarms like he had before playing with the sun and the moon. No, he was going to have to be more careful and work out of the shadows. Fortunately for him, he knew just how to do just that. Using the fancy new menus, he'd been able to get more information about where he was. If the title of these worlds was any indication, friendship was the driving force here - "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". So he decided to do exactly what he'd acquired the remote for in the first place: Vengeance. Part of him said that he should just leave. Despite being low on power he was confident he had enough left for at least one more jump. It would be so easy, just switch channels again, head to some other world and let all of this be swept under the rug. However, that wasn't what dominated his thoughts. Whether he realized it or not, he had an almost personal grudge against "main characters." He still had much to learn about the truth of his existence, but he knew one thing for sure- he was a background character. All his life he'd lived in the background, in ignorant bliss while Gumball and Darwin always hogged the spotlight. He hadn't minded this, granted that was because he wasn't aware at the time, but still. That changed once he was swallowed up by the Void. It was a strange experience, that, one moment he was walking along, minding his own business, and the next, he woke up there. He wasn't sure how long he'd rotted there, there wasn't exactly a sun or moon, or anything really, to tell time. The only thing he remembered was crying out, begging the two main characters for help once they came to the Void themselves. Fate seemed to have it out for him, however, because they weren't there for him, no. They were there for Molly. They had left him there to rot, and he would have, had he not been able to grab onto their van at the last second as they left. He looked down at his broken, disfigured body, these thoughts a cruel reminder as to how he'd ended up like this. It ended up being a blessing in disguise, however. He didn't understand it still, but somehow what had happened that day granted him immunity from whatever that Darkness was. He didn't doubt that it would have gotten him had that not happened. He gave a small chuckle, it was funny how things worked out sometimes, what had initially seemed like a curse had ended up being a blessing in disguise. He wondered how his younger self would react to just what had become of his life, going from an unknown, forgotten background character, to breaking the mold, gaining his own free will, and eventually, becoming trapped in a world filled with human versions of magical horses. It seemed like a fever dream when he thought about it, but unfortunately it was not as such. If he really wanted to, he could do exactly that, go back in time and stand face to face with the younger him. He quickly dismissed the idea, while it was indeed possible given the remotes’ vast capabilities, he hadn’t a clue what the implications of time travel on that scale would be, space time continuum and all that. His mind snapped back to reality once more. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, and these thoughts had reminded him of his distaste for main characters everywhere. Hogging the spotlight, casting people like him to the side so they could go on grand adventures he could only dream of. What’s worse is that no one like him even knew it, continuing to live in blissful ignorance- ”I wish I could go back...” His anger rose ever more, not just at his thoughts, but at whoever it was that ran the show, both figuratively and literally. Why him? Why couldn’t he have just continued living his mundane life? Sure there wasn’t anything interesting or exciting about it, but it was his life, and he hadn’t realized until now how much he’d taken it for granted. He quite literally had nothing left of his previous life, not even his body. His anger peaking, he glared out from the bushes at the outlet for his anger. On top of everything else that had become of his life, he was constantly misjudged and ostracized by everyone, forgotten even by his fellow background characters, and labeled a villain by the main characters. He had only wanted help, someone to listen to him in his darkest moments, when he was little more than a wayward traveler, and the lone survivor of a world-consuming corruption, only to be met with the same distaste and seemingly instinctual hatred. If there was one thing he had learned throughout the past few years, it was that everyone wanted him to be a villain, no matter what he tried. Fine, if that was what he was going to be labeled as, he might as well play the part. But he wouldn’t be just any villain, the kind to only last a few episodes, if that, before being defeated, no. He looked down at the remote with evil glee. If he was going to be a villain, he was going to be the best gosh darned villain there ever was. He already had a target in mind, the girl with the rainbow colored hair. She was brave, he had to give her that, the only one before her to rush him while wielding the remote had been Gumball himself. Granted, she probably had no idea of the remote, but it was still commendable nonetheless. However, that bravery made her a threat, and he couldn’t have that. He aimed the remote, the function he intended to use already prepared- Parental Filter: Off.. At first glance, this function didn’t seem that useful, paling in comparison to many others, but there was a devil in the details. Whomever he used this function on lost any semblance of a filter, their language spontaneously losing any and all limits. It had been quite fun the first time he’d used it on Gumball’s parents. He had been too far away to hear exactly what had happened after he used it, but the aftermath had been undeniable. Especially in a world where friendship was in everything, a function that could destroy relationships like the snap of a finger was particularly devious. *** "That sounds serious." Fluttershy said, "Poor otherworld Rainbow Dash." "I know you didn't mean it when you wrote that-" Aj said, "But please tell me you have a plan now." Sunset sighed. "No, I don't, well, not exactly a PLAN, but I have a rough idea of what we should do. More or less, just keep an eye out for anything unusual. There's always the possibility that whoever did this is somewhere else entirely, I mean, there's so much we don't know about these portals and where they lead." Sunset's eyes drifted over to Rainbow, who seemed much angrier than before. "Uh, are you okay Rainbow?" "I WANT TO KICK THIS GUY'S ASS!" The sudden and very loud outburst shocked and frightened everyone, even students across the courtyard heard it and stared at the group in confusion. It was as if someone had stopped everything for a fleeting moment. "Rainbow Dash!" Rarity said accusingly, "I can't believe you'd say something like that!" She was the only one who had the nerve to say anything at that moment. Fluttershy had retreated into herself under the gaze of dozens of classmates, and Pinky's hair had briefly deflated. "Oh, shut up, Rarity, you prissy-" Before she could finish her sentence, AJ grabbed Rainbow by the collar of her shirt and pinned her against the nearby railing. "Rainbow! What the hell has gotten into you?" "AJ, stop!" Sunset yelled, quickly stepping between them. She looked over at Rarity, who was barely holding back tears. When her eyes met Sunset's, she broke down and let out a loud sob before turning and running into the building. Just as she entered the school, Sunset saw both the principal and the vice-principal come out, having heard the commotion. “Rainbow Dash! My office, NOW!” Principal Celestia bellowed. Rewind. “Wha- what?!” Rainbow said meekly. “What happened? Where’s Rarity?!” “Like heck, you don’t know,” Aj replied, grabbing Rainbow by the hair and dragging her into the building. “AJ what’s wrong with you?! Let me go!” Rainbow protested as she was being carried off. “W-wait. Principal Celestia, I can expla-” Sunset started, but was quickly cut off. “No Sunset, you can’t, I know what I heard.” Principal Celestia said. “Wait!” Sunset called again, only for the door entering the school to close in her face. “What just happened?” Pinkie said, her voice losing any joy it might’ve had before. “It’s him,” Sunset said. “Didn’t you read the book? Rainbow would never say that!” “What are you talking about Sunset?” Fluttershy said. “Come on Pinkie, I’m worried about Rarity.” Wordlessly, the two of them stood up, walking solemnly yet quickly into the building, presumably to check on Rarity. Sunset found herself at a loss for words. Within the span of what couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes, all of her friends had somewhat literally been taken away from her. Her mind swam with thoughts. Could this have been his doing? This didn’t match any of what Twilight had told her he could do. The sun was still in the same place, nothing was moved or seemed out of place. But then again, who knew what he might be able to do? No, there was no way he could outright manipulate someone's personality like that. The only thing that could do that she knew of was some form of magic, and even then she’d have been able to see some kind of indicator, this had just been completely out of the blue. And why did Fluttershy ask her what she was talking about when she tried to remind them? Nothing made any sense, and Sunset sat back on the staircase, bringing her knees to her chest and burying her face in them. “Sunset! Are you okay?!” Sunset's head shot up from its former position buried in her legs. None other than Twilight herself stood above her, looking down with a concerned expression on her face. This worlds Twilight, that is, in her frenzy, she’d completely forgotten about her. “Twilight?” “Yeah? Don’t tell anyone that I was nearly late being early and-” Sunset shot up from her sitting position on the stairs, wrapping her only remaining friend in a tight hug. It didn’t last long, though. “Twilight, we have a big problem,” Sunset said. “Let me guess,” Twilight said, straightening her glasses. “More rogue Equestrian magic has-” *** Vengence had gone far better and quicker than Rob had expected. All it took was turning the Rainbow Ones filter off, and things had taken care of themselves. Granted, he couldn’t hear any of it, what with all the other people hustling and bustling around him, but he could see it all. While he recognized the majority of the ones he’d used the remote on, there was one unknown, the amber-colored girl with the fiery hair. Sure he wanted revenge, but he still had some morals, as limited as they may be, and had exempted her from what he’d done to the others, and while that was mainly for humanity's sake, he was also trying to save as much power as possible. he pulled up the menu again to check the power- Battery Power low, please replace the batteries. He wore a deadpan expression reading that message, hoping that it would’ve been more specific, an exact percentage would’ve been nice. it was time to leave anyway, so without a second thought, he pressed Change Channel once again- Nothing. “What!?” he exclaimed aloud, nearly attracting the attention of a passing student. Nothing had happened. In a panic, he went back to the menu- The following functions cannot be used due to low power: Change Channel Delete ” No no no no no!” He thought frantically. He needed to get out of here, NOW. If there was one thing that the vast majority of worlds had in common, it’s that there were almost always batteries or some other power source available, and if this place were anything like Elmore, and it was, there had to be batteries somewhere. Fortunately, unlike you’d expect, the remote took any old batteries, no unnecessary restrictions or anything like that. Nope, just regular old triple-A batteries. He held the remote up again, just barely poking outside of the bushes he was in- Pause He let out a deep sigh of relief. Thankfully there was still enough power left to pause things, but not for long. He quickly got up, before starting a mad dash across the courtyard. There was a line of houses on the other side of the street, and there HAD to be batteries in one if not all of them. Just get in, change batteries, and get out. Simple, right? Power level: Critical. “What the-” Rob looked to his right in horror at the sound of the voice. It was a boy, yellow, wearing a jacket and jeans, blue hair, with a symbol of a shield with a lightning bolt atop it. But- he was supposed to be frozen! Rob quickly did a 360, coming to the haunting realization that the batteries had died, and now here he was, caught out in the open. ”Oh no.” Just to make things worse, when he looked right behind him, he saw her, the girl that he’d been stupid enough to exempt from his effects. Upon making eye contact, their eyes opened wide in horror, before he saw her eyes turn to determination and malice. Pushing aside the still oblivious Twilight, Sunset broke into a sprint- The chase was on. > The Coming Apocalypse: Fallen Hero > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Come along with me To a cliff under a tree Where we can gaze upon the water A͋͜n ḛ̿v̭͆e͍̍r̤̊l̹̆â̩stì͕ng̹̚ ͖̾d̓͟r̼̃e͎̔a͈̓ṃ͋ > The Intrusion: Part Four > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset Shimmer broke into a sprint upon realizing what she was seeing. It was so unexplainable, one second there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and the next, well, he just appeared. Of course, there was no way Sunset could know if who she was chasing was actually him, but for one, normal people don’t just spawn in random places, two, his appearance, and three, the fact he started running once Sunset started giving chase, she was pretty certain. “Sunset, what’s going on?!” Twilight called. No response. But, given the talented mind she possessed, she quickly put two and two together, seeing Sunset start chasing a being so otherworldly it almost broke her logical mind just looking at it. She quickly turned around, before dashing into the building, intent on finding their missing friends. Rob continued to look around in horror at the predicament he now found himself in. Not only had he completely exposed himself, but he now had a very angry and determined Sunset right behind him, closing the distance very fast. And all because he had wanted revenge... He flipped the remote over, quickly lifting the flap, digging the dead batteries out, and throwing them at his pursuer, to little effect as you’d imagine. He noticed something, however, a small flap buried under where the batteries usually lay, poked up slightly at an angle. It was hard to read, but he was just able to make the words out while sprinting. Emergency LP44 button cell battery, for emergency use only. Realizing that this could be his saving grace, he quickly fixed the flap covering the emergency battery, before quickly opening the tools menu on the fly, the hologram-like projection it created keeping pace with his sprint. Emergency power enabled. Rob's body filled with hope, all he needed to do was get away, find batteries, and leave this world filled with more of his own mistakes for good. He quickly pressed pause- Insufficient power, battery level critical. Of course, the power was still low, he was on the absolute last traces after all. ” Ugh! What CAN I do?!” he thought to himself. Without really thinking, his thumb moved over to the first one he could think of that used little power- Blur. In an instant, everything turned blurry, and I mean everything. Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time Rob had used this otherwise obscure function, and he was still able to somewhat run towards the vague outlines of houses in front of him, albeit with frequent trips. *** Sunset tripped, falling and landing hard on the pavement below her as everything turned blurry. She felt dizzy, very dizzy, what she imagined a hangover would feel like if she’d ever done drugs or drank. Despite her blurred vision, she was still able to discern Rob's figure in the distance, and with major difficulty, was able to get back on her own two feet and continue the chase, albeit much slower to avoid falling again. *** POWER LEVEL CRITICAL, PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES IMMEDIATELY. Rob's hope once again dimmed as the blur effect ceased, what he could assume were precautionary measures kicking in to preserve power. Everything clear again, he lost the one advantage he might’ve had over Sunset, who once again started closing the distance fast. Panicking, he hurriedly pointed the remote at Sunset, pressing the first thing his thumb landed on in the hope of doing something. Info. The holo menu appeared in front of him again, but this time it was different. Now there laid a wall of text in front of him, along with a picture of his pursuer- Sunset Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer is a female unicorn-turned-human and a main character in the Equestria Girls franchise, initially appearing as- He ignored the rest of the wall of text. Although utterly amazed at what had just happened, it wasn’t doing anything to stop “Sunset Shimmer” from chasing him. What does “Unicorn-turned-human” even mean? Didn’t matter. He finally made his way to the front yard of the house he was running for. Frustrated, he smacked the remote against his hand, before turning it at Sunset and pressing Eject. Seemingly having overridden the safety features temporarily, this function just barely worked, forcing Sunset backward and to the ground as though she’d been shoved. Unfortunately, however, the remote completely died after this, even the floating menu flickering out as the last power was used. It was all he needed though, running up to the house before grabbing a stray brick and throwing it through a window, quickly catapulting himself inside. Rob got up quickly, running through each room of the house he found himself in. There, a TV setup, a normal, run-of-the-mill remote sitting on a coffee table in front of a large sofa. He quickly ripped the batteries out of it, before shoving them haphazardly into his own. Thankfully it flickered to life, the power LED in the top corner briefly flashing red. He wasn’t sure how much power those batteries had, but all he needed was enough power to escape. He lifted it, before pressing Change Channel. Or at least, he should have. Before he could press it, Sunset threw herself into him, arriving just in time to stop his escape. She quickly got herself on top of him, holding the arm wielding the remote down- “Who are you?! What are you?! Why did you hurt my friends?!” She yelled. Her geode flashed a bright orange. *** ” Be careful with this universal remote, it has a power only a fool would not fear. Tell me, for what will you use it? “Oh you know, TV’s DVD players... VENGENCE!” “No! It cannot be used for evil!” *** ”You turned me into the villain, Gumball Watterson, you left me with this broken body, and you gave me this ridiculous voice! But now, I am in control. And the time has come for you to pay.” *** ”Why? This is where my story ends! I belong here with the rest of the universe's mistakes! Like socks and sandals, the helicopter ejector seat, and ...whatever that thing is.” Sunset fell backward, losing her hold on Rob. She held one of her hands to her head, her mind completely overwhelmed with what she’d seen. It hadn’t been much, only lasting a fleeting moment. It was like how she imagined someone's life flashing before their eyes in a near-death scenario. In her haze, she almost didn’t notice Rob get up, ducking out of the way just in time as he used a newly powered remote. The aforementioned sofa from before shot through the wall as the Eject function was used, bringing down a large piece of drywall that clouded the air with smoke, hampering visibility and causing the two to cough and gag. Sunset was the first to recover, quickly going for the remote itself. It became a tug of war, their hands fighting over the remote as they yanked it between one another. Various buttons were pressed accidentally, activating many functions and draining a lot of power. A window broke, a ceiling fan disappeared from existence, and things briefly became blurry again as they fought. Sunset eventually came out on top, she jumped back, before aiming the remote at Rob and pressing a button without thinking. As you can imagine, this was never going to end well. Zoom. Sunset fell backward as she felt something cold and hard smack her in the face. Sunset is not aware of the fourth wall, and Rob barely. By pressing zoom she caused the camera we’ve all been watching this with to, well, zoom, and smack her in the face as a result. You’d think that a function called Zoom would just zoom in on a target like a camera, but nope. Sunset still dazed from being hit with the camera faltered while Rob took the chance and grabbed the remote, before running outside to hopefully have enough time to press Change Channel. Now that he’d finally been caught, revenge all of a sudden didn’t seem too appealing, all of his prior hate and malice giving way to fear and regret. It was in his best interest to leave as soon as possible. But once again, before he could press it, Sunset was again on him, engaging in another tug-of-war for the remote with him. With one final yank, the remote flew from both their grasps, but not before activating another function. Slo-mo. Everything now moved in slow motion, and while this had numerous advantages, such as giving the two time to re-evaluate their strategies, there was now no way either of them could surprise the other, or wrestle for the remote effectively. Sunset’s eyes widened in surprise at what had just happened. No matter how much she willed it, her arms refused to move at a pace faster than a few inches per second, ditto for Rob. The same applied to their surroundings, pieces of grass, dirt, and dead leaves moving at the same pace through the air as they struggled. They both glared into each other's eyes, before moving back towards the Remote. Now able to get a good look at it, Sunset couldn’t help but become even more confused. To her, it looked like quite literally any other remote one could find. But what it was capable of was undeniable, and it was paramount that she get it away from him, for her friends’ sake. “Give me that remote, you little-” Rob managed to say despite the slow speed, his words coming out slurred and drawn out. Both of their hands reached the remote at the same time, and while Sunset had gone only for the remote itself, Rob had gone for the slow-mo button again to stop the agony of moving at that speed. Slo-mo: Off. Sunset's geode activated again. This time, she saw- Darkness, endless darkness, and static. She saw Rob again, this time a much more recent version of him. While before she’d seen a far less flattering part of him, the part that used the remote as an instrument of vengeance and domination, she now saw something completely different. She saw him wake up in the Void, to a world consumed by static and corruption, and a completely new side of his character. She didn't see an evil, vengeful monster this time, rather, a scared, desperate victim of something completely beyond his control. Sure, he was a bad guy, always was, but later on, he still had good intentions. He was the only one who knew what the Void was all about, and what was destined to befall his world if he didn’t do something. Unfortunately, his attempts bore no fruit, his past sins against the citizens of Elmore coming back to bite him. He was labeled as the villain once again, and as the paintings foretold, the apocalypse had come to pass. She watched him evade various characters consumed by a glitch-like corruption, before re-harnessing the power of the remote to not only fight back but escape. In his mind, he’s a hero, the sole survivor of what would become the Cartoon Apocalypse that befell his world. Sunset stepped back again, holding her hands out and in front of her in a non-aggressive manner. “Wait!” She said. Rob took advantage of the opportunity, yanking the remote away, before aiming it right at her. At her sudden exclamation and step back, however, he hesitated. Sunset, upon realizing she had his attention, continued. “I- I just want to talk.” “What is that supposed to mean?” He snapped back. “Look, I know this might sound hard to believe, but, I can read minds,” Sunset replied, holding her geode out. “Do you really think I’d find that hard to believe?” He said, holding the remote up and pointing to it with a deadpan face. “Just to be sure...” He paused things again, Sunset included. He aimed the remote at her, before using his newly discovered Info function for the second time ever. It took him a good minute of scrolling, but he eventually found what he was looking for- In the film Legend of Everfree, Sunset Shimmer appears as the secondary central character, serving as moral support for human Twilight. At Camp Everfree, Sunset is paired up with Twilight in the Sapphire Tent. While at the camp, Sunset's magic undergoes a dramatic change, and she develops the ability to sense others' thoughts, memories, and feelings through physical touch. He chose not to think about the implications of “In the film” too hard for the time being. There was still so much he didn’t know about the truth of their existence, but what he did know terrified him. This confirmed what “Sunset Shimmer” was telling him, she really did just see into his mind, his personal thoughts and feelings. Part of him felt offended that his very personal thoughts had been violated not once, but twice. Another part of him felt scared, scared that she’d unintentionally exposed herself to the same knowledge he’d been cursed with. He looked up at the top right corner of the menu. His battery was slightly below 50% from what he could tell, there wasn’t a whole lot he could discern from a battery icon with a rough estimate and glowing yellow. He saw the icon flash before the battery on screen went down a bit more. Knowing he didn’t have much left, and needed enough to be able to leave once all was said and done, he unpaused everything. “You’re not lying.” He said. “No, I’m not, and I know you’re not a bad guy, at least, not as bad as we thought you were.” “We? Who’s we?” “I know this one might be hard to believe as well, but, I know what happened, between you and those in the other world, and, not just because I touched you.” He thought about it for a second, it would explain why the titles were similar on the menu screen. “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and “My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.” He sighed, “Yeah, I believe that too.” His previously defensive and hostile demeanor had faded away, he was now the same as he had started, a wayward traveler with no home thanks to his own actions and failures. “I didn’t mean to hurt them.” He said, “I just panicked.” “Well, you really did hurt them,” Sunset replied. She was keeping up an act, trying to buy enough time for Twilight to hopefully get their friends in time. She was the only one besides her who hadn’t been exposed to the remote’s effects and remained their best hope of finally ending this. She had seen much more than just memories the second time and knew he was lying. If he didn’t mean to hurt them, why would he have gone out of his way to try and break them up out of spite? She’d seen him use it on her friends not too long ago, that was why Rainbow had snapped, and the others not remembering what they’d read seconds prior. Not to mention, she’d seen what he’d done to “Gumball,” an act so dark and heartless it made her ill just thinking about it. While she knew what was happening, her main question was, how? How could a seemingly normal TV remote be capable of such things? Interdimensional travel, freezing time, mind manipulation, the list goes on. “I- I know, and, I’m sorry.” He replied. “I just- I don’t know. If you saw into my memories, then you know what happened.” He paused, exhaling. “I’ve lost everything, yeah I was a bad guy, I’ll admit it, but in the end, all I wanted was to save them. I was the only one who knew what was coming. If it had worked, I wouldn’t be here. But, well, you saw it didn’t you?” He said, his voice becoming significantly more panicked towards the end. “Please tell me you saw it too.” Sunset was snapped back to attention, her mouth hanging open slightly as she tried to remember what he’d said. Her gaze had gone to the area behind him, where she spied Twilight, hiding in some of the bushes and small trees that separated the houses in the small suburb they were in. Trying not to give herself away, Sunset looked around slightly as he monologued, finding all of the others close by. Twilight held a finger up to her mouth in a shushing motion. Sunset quickly put two and two together, surprised and impressed at how quickly and how well Twilight had coordinated them all. All she needed to do now was make the first move. Without a word, Sunset yet again went straight for the remote, this time catching Rob completely off guard. Sunset quickly delivered a hard punch across the face to him, causing him to stumble. “Does that feel real enough to you?!” She yelled, before going for the remote, which had tumbled a few feet away in the short struggle. Rob landed hard on the ground, dazed, before hearing Sunset yell that. A lightbulb went off in his head, and he quickly realized what had just happened. “You’re just like the rest of them!” He cried out in rage as he retaliated. He lunged at Sunset, the remote once again falling to the ground as they fought. To Sunset's horror, she realized that it had been activated again. Their surroundings had been paused once more, meaning that her friends couldn’t help her. To confirm, she looked over to where they had been hiding. As she feared, they were trapped in limbo just like everything around them. If she was to have a fighting chance, she had to free them. She and Rob remained struggling on the ground for a time. Her geode activated again, but this time instead of memories, she saw what his next move would be. She quickly moved her torso to the right as he attempted to go for her throat. Her terror and desperation increased ever more at the sudden coldness that had overtaken him but confirmed that what she’d seen was true. This was a threat unlike anything she or her friends had faced before, but she refused to give up. She quickly rolled back around, delivering a left hook as Rob’s hands hit the grass below where her throat would’ve been, sending him down again in a daze. She looked around, before spotting and getting to the remote. She picked it up, desperately scanning over it for whatever function it was that would free her friends. She spotted it soon enough, the pause button. The remote wasn’t too unlike the remotes that existed in this world, so finding it had been easier than she’d thought. Sunset heard a cry of rage behind her, turning around to see Rob charging her again, this time with a brick held in his right hand. Her eyes opened wide in horror before she dodged out of the way as the brick went by her head. She took off in a sprint, Rob following right behind her. She aimed the remote at him, once again taking a gamble as she pressed the first thing her finger landed on. Eject. Rob went flying backward, landing hard against a nearby fence. Sunset quickly looked back to the remote, not wasting any more time, and pressed the pause button. Sunset's momentary joy ceased as she felt something hard hit her in the right shoulder, a flash of intense pain washing over her as she fell to the ground. This was quickly followed up as Rob quite literally kicked her while she was down, before grabbing the remote and pressing another previously unseen function- AV. Sunset sat up from where she’d been knocked down, just in time to hear something behind her. She turned her head, just in time to see a large, rectangular-shaped portal appear behind her. She looked into it, seeing nothing but static as far as she could see. Her gaze went downward, where she was greeted with a very different sight. Islands, floating in the abyss, each containing sections of what she assumed had been a small town, each covered partially with a mysterious black substance, similar to the static that surrounded it. She could almost swear she saw figures among them, wandering aimlessly. It was real. Her gaze went back in the opposite direction as she heard Rob walking up to her, remote in hand. His face was deadpan, almost completely devoid of emotion as he stood in front of her. “I thought you were different.” He said, a tinge of sadness audible in his voice. He slowly raised the remote, preparing to banish Sunset into the Void. “Too bad.” “GET AWAY FROM HER!” A voice called. Sunset looked to the side, just in time to see a Rainbow trail come towards Rob at lightning speed- Rainbow Dash. Rainbow body-slammed herself into him, sending him and the remote flying half a dozen meters away. The portal behind Sunset closed, the eldritch horrors it contained sealed away. Sunset winced, looking down towards her shoulder. Nothing seemed broken, a quick but painful flex of that area confirming it, still, she was in a lot of pain, barely able to move it beyond that. “You okay, sugarcube?” She heard. Looking back, she saw AJ looming over her with a hand outstretched. Sunset gratefully took it, allowing herself to be hoisted to her feet just in time to see Rainbow go back after Rob. Rob got back to his feet once again, remote in hand, just in time to see Rainbow coming at him. “You don’t learn your lesson do you?” He said, before moving to what he thought to be the perfect function- Slow-mo. Everything moved in slow-motion again, Rainbows sprint included. He smirked, it was poetic really, the group's speedster reduced to a mere crawl at the remote’s command. Then it happened. He noticed it first, what seemed like a small rock dangling from her neck. Now that he thought about it, they all had one, having enough time in slo-mo to look over them all more carefully. He watched as the rock started emitting a glow, before to his shock and horror, Rainbow started moving at normal speed. ”Impossible!” He thought, he would have said it too, but his mouth had only barely opened by that point. He rushed to press the button again as she closed the distance, just barely making it. Things moving normally again, Rainbow overshot it, sent careening past him. He looked back, just in time to see the rest of the group coming right for him. He aimed the remote at them again, pressing Pause. Nothing happened, well, at least, nothing happened to them. Their surroundings froze again, but they didn’t. He watched as they all started to glow in response to the command, and could do nothing as he was temporarily blinded by a flash of rainbow-colored light. He stared in utter befuddlement at what he was seeing. All of them now sported new clothes in addition to what looked like pony ears, accompanied by wings on some. Growling, he aimed the remote again, pressing pause, again. Nothing happened, again. Now able to see better what had happened, he noticed a transparent shield surrounding them, reacting with a shimmer each time he attempted to freeze them. His thumb moved over to the Delete key, but he hesitated, he was still on a relatively low battery and needed every charge he could get to finally escape. The group had stopped moving towards him, and realizing they now had the advantage, simply stared him down. “There’s nowhere else to run!” Sunset exclaimed. “It’s over!” Rainbow followed. They were right, it was over. But not in the way they were expecting. He started to laugh, only slightly at first, before it eventually became a maniacal cackle. It didn’t make sense, how could all of this be happening? It wasn’t real! Nothing was, their entire existence was a lie! Part of him missed that ignorant bliss, when he was unaware of it all, and the weight it had all placed on his back. He missed those days. Sure, he was a background character, but at least he still had a place, however insignificant it may have been. He wondered who it was that pulled all the strings, who had made him into this monster. If all of this wasn’t real, he doubted fate was either. He’d seen it with his own eye, the past, present, even the future of his world with the help of the paintings. How could that be possible if someone else wasn’t pulling the strings? He wondered why he’d been singled out, out of everyone they could have done this to, it was him. No no, that wasn’t right, this was all his fault. He’d broken the mold the moment he’d first picked up the remote. All of this was his fault. He wondered what the implications of what he’d been doing meant as well. He’d probably completely messed up reality as he knew it just by being there. More importantly, he knew that it was coming for them. You think he hadn’t tried to stop it? Rewind, Delete, all of them. No matter what he did, it always returned, more and more oppressing each time. And you know what? He didn’t care! None of this was real, nothing he’d known was. Elmore, Gumball, these horse girls, all of them! So why should he care!? Sunset and the rest of the group's faces flattened as Rob broke into that maniacal laughter. It lasted a lot longer than any of them would’ve expected, but eventually, he did calm down, staring directly at Sunset. “I know what you saw. How could you deny it? None of this is real, it never was! You can’t deny the truth!” Sunset grimaced, he was right, in the sense that he knew what she’d seen. She looked around, greeted by the kind and warm smiles of her friends. She quickly shook it off, before staring straight back and responding. “I don’t care if you’re right or not. Yeah, let’s assume that none of this is real, even if it isn’t, the bonds and memories I’ve made with my friends are.” He let out a cry of frustration, “You haven’t seen the last of me!” He roared. “Yes, we have,” Sunset responded. She and her friends began glowing again, before the familiar Rainbow laser shot down from above them, heading straight for Rob. A great cry of pain and rage was heard, and when Sunset and her friends touched ground again, it was over, he was gone. > Eyes Opened > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset sat in one of the many chairs surrounding the cutie map, Starlight beside her and Twilight across from her. Shortly after her and her friends' climactic battle with an intruder from what they could only assume was another dimension, she had decided to visit Twilight in person, both to tell her what had happened and to work together to explain it. While Sunset had made it sound simple enough, there was another, unseen factor involved. Ever since she'd fought him, Sunset just didn't feel like herself. If all that had happened to her was being forced to listen to the nonsensical ramblings of an interdimensional anomaly like her friends, she'd be fine. But that wasn't the case, not only had she seen things far beyond her comprehension from her geode, but she had seen them with her own eyes as well. She shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if things hadn't gone perfectly. If she'd been thrown into the same void she'd seen in her flashbacks, or even worse, killed. Would her friends have had any idea of her fate? Could she have found a way out? Was there a way out? Or would she remain trapped there? Imprisoned in a static-filled hell with incomprehensible horrors. Her mind raced with a seemingly infinite number of questions. Everything from what that place was to the glitch-like substance that seemed to reside there. She didn't have the slightest idea what it was, and yet it frightened her to no end, a primal, instinctual fear like nothing she'd ever felt before.  She squeezed her eyes shut and took slow, deep breaths, trying to keep the swirling thoughts from overwhelming her. She was on the verge of a panic attack, she had no doubt. She had experienced them before, most ponies had at one time or another. The most prominent example was the one she had when she first went through the portal, when she left everything she had in Equestria behind because she felt Celestia was denying her her destiny.  She came to see her Geodesic Power as almost cursed, so to speak. On paper, the ability to see into people's minds so that she could understand them in a way that no one else could had sounded great. But a scenario like this, where she was completely mentally unprepared for what she saw, had never occurred to her. She couldn't control what she saw and what she didn't see, and she hadn't given that a second thought until now. The experience had significantly affected all of them, Twilight had been frozen, Starlight had been rendered incapable of casting a certain spell, and Sunset's friends on the other side of the portal had been almost irreparably broken, but Sunset had to deal with more than just her first-hand experience. She'd been cursed with some of the same knowledge he had, and he knew that, but she also knew he hadn't wanted her to. She wanted to know more about him, more than just what she had been shown by her geode. Before all of this, what was he like? If there was sone thing Sunset knew for certain, it was that almost no one was ever born truly evil, and most certainly not to that degree. What in Celestia's name could have happened to turn him into what he was? Did he once have friends? Was he once a caring, empathetic individual like her? Made into what he was by circumstances beyond his control? She shook herself out of it, subconsciously realizing what she'd been thinking and refusing to let it drag her down any further. "So, what do you have for explanations? Totally radical, based on no logic or reasoning at all, conspiracy theories." She blurted. "I have no idea, Sunset, both Starlight and I have gone through every book and note we could get our hooves on. Here, in Canterlot, we even had Sunburst go through the libraries of the Crystal Empire, and nothing!"  Twilight said in a defeated voice. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.” Sunset replied. She felt impending doom start to well inside her again. She had vainly hoped that Twilight and Starlight would have at least something as far as an explanation. “Well.” Starlight started. “My leading theory is that he came from a portal somewhere. For so long we thought the only portals to other worlds was the crystal mirror, but then you found one in the Everfree during that whole ‘leftover Storm king magic almost sank your cruise ship’ thing. Equestria is such a big place.” She said, raising her forehooves and spreading them out dramatically. “Who knows what else could be out there? It raises a new issue for Twilight’s upcoming reign as Princess. If something like that could come through, who knows what else?”  "I'd rather not think about that." Sunset replied nevously. In the silence that followed, as the three processed what had been said, Starlight noticed something. During her time as guidance counselor at the School of Friendship, Starlight had subconsciously developed a keen sense for subtle interpersonal cues. Her ability to detect and decipher these obscure signals at times and places where they would usually fly under the radar for most was almost a sixth sense. Twilight wasn't hard to read. She was obviously both stressed and exhausted by the events of the past few days, especially with her coronation and reign over Equestria on the horizon. But that was not the thing that really caught her attention. Rather, it was Sunset. She noticed her eyes moving quickly around the room, seemingly analyzing everything around her. Her breathing was quickened and the pupils of her eyes were unusually small. Combined with the general feeling of unease she was putting off, Starlight couldn't help but feel that something else was bothering her, something more than what had already been said. Her discomfort was well disguised, for she seemed to make a conscious effort to tilt her head forward so that her mane covered most of her face, hiding her anxious eyes and flaring nostrils. Starlight started asking if everything was okay, but Twilight cut her off. "Ugh!" Twilight shouted, causing everyone in the room to jump. "This raises so many questions!" She said, beginning to pace the room. "If this came from another world, or worse, another dimension, wouldn't that prove that there are more universes out there? And that any old portal anywhere could let aliens into Equestria at any time?! What if some world-conquering monster decides to step through one day!" She cried, standing up on her hind hooves and placing her forehooves on either side of her head. "What if-" Starlight placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, slowly but surely bringing the panicked mare back to the ground. "Whoa there Twilight, relax." "Yeah!" Sunset chimed in, Twilight's outburst seeming to knock her out of whatever trance she'd been in. "The important thing is: We banished him. Plus, we now know that the Elements work on cross-dimensional beings!"  Starlight walked over to Sunset, placing her muzzle in her ear and whispering.  "Between you and me, I think she's just nervous about her upcoming coronation." She gave a chuckle. Sunset whispered in reply. “But isn’t she right? Sort of? Age-old theories about the multiverse and other dimensions, finally proven right beyond a shadow of a doubt. I mean, yes, the human world has technically proven it already. But that's just another version of Equestria. How do you explain this?! "What are you two talking about?" Twilight asked from a few yards away. "Nothing!" The two answered simultaneously. "Right." Twilight said with a deadpan expression. "I'd stay and pester you two about what you're hiding." She let out a yawn. "But the events of the last two days have left me with a grand total of 6 hours to sleep." Sunset thought about what she'd said. Now that she was fixated on it, she noticed the bags under Twilight's eyes and how her movements seemed - delayed. She trotted off, presumably to take a nap. "Whew." Sunset remarked. “You and me both, Twilight admittedly isn’t the easiest to be around when she’s sleep-deprived, and I doubt confirming her fears would help that.” "Do you mind if I share something with you?" Sunset asked, her eyes darting around the room. Starlight took notice of this. "Sure!" She replied. "Remember how I said my geode power activated twice during my fight with him?" "Yeah?" "Well, there were some parts I left out, and it's really been bothering me." "Well, what is it?" Sunset inhaled. "The second time my geode activated, I had a glimpse of more recent events. I saw him, but not as the violent, unpredictable intruder the rest of you saw him as. He was afraid, waking up in some, some void. It's like, some kind of pocket dimension that exists outside our reality, I think, and it's holding something in it." "Sunset, you're not making any sense. I'm getting worried." "Well, I'm trying!" She responded. "I don't know how to describe it. The world was full of static. It had these floating islands in it, scattered about like gravity didn't exist. He was hiding from something in there, I saw it! Some sort of glitchy stuff!" "You're still not making any sense. We've established that other dimensions exist, big deal! There can't be any expectation that they're anything like ours." "Ugh!" Sunset groaned, placing her forehooves on either side of her head like Twilight had. "Wait!" She said, a light bulb going off in her head. "I've got it! Starlight, what if I could show you exactly what I saw?" "I still don't follow." "My geode power, but in reverse, what if I could show you the memories I saw, a replay!" Sunset said with rising enthusiasm. "Uh huh, and you want to do that so I can see for myself what you saw." "Exactly! We're two talented unicorns, we can think of something!" Starlight sighed. A short time later, with books and notes scattered across the Cutie Map, the two of them had figured something out, sort of. They were kind of on the clock, and only had a prototype of what they wanted to do.  "Are you sure this will work?" Starlight questioned. "Like, seventy percent." Sunset replied. "What could go wrong?" She said in a sheepish tone, seeming to realize herself the flaws in that logic. Starlight glanced at the notes they had placed in the middle of the small pile of books they'd been leafing through. Sunset was right, there wasn't much that could go wrong. Even in the worst-case scenario, she estimated, there would only be a small magical explosion that could possibly shatter a few windows and have the risk of waking Twilight. Of course, that's still pretty bad, but Sunset seemed pretty set on the idea, and her attempts at a verbal description weren't getting them anywhere, so it was worth trying. Besides, in the relatively niche situations where it might be needed, a spell like this could be really useful. "Ready?" Sunset inquired. "I guess so." Starlight said with hesitancy. They both sat down facing one another. Sunset began first, followed by starlight. Tendrils of magic the same colors as their auras slowly snaked out of their horns, meeting in the middle and intertwining like two pieces of string wrapped around each other. It was Sunset who had to put in more effort, since she was the one who was trying to project her memories of what she'd seen onto Starlight. Sunset stayed there, trying to make it work, for what seemed to be a small eternity. Her eyes remained closed, focused, before they suddenly opened, glowing the same white they had during the use of her powers. Shortly thereafter, Starlight's did as well, and in each of their minds was a projection of what Sunset had seen. They stayed like that for a few seconds, mouths agape, while the binding held their minds in perfect sync, replaying for both of them what Sunset had experienced. For both of them, it felt like an eternity. Every second was shown in excruciating detail. In reality, it had only been a few seconds. The replay ended, and the tethers that held the two of them together exploded out of existence, sending them tumbling backwards to the ground below. Starlight shot up first, while Sunset breathed deeply, sprawled on her back. "Wha - hu -" Starlight babbled from a sitting position. She stared at Sunset with wide eyes as she pulled herself together.  "See what I mean?" Sunset said after seeing Starlight's reaction.  Starlight continued to babble in utter confusion for a few seconds before finally starting to pull herself together. "Count to four, inhale, count to four, exhale." She muttered to herself. She repeated this process a few more times, Sunset watching. "So, now you've seen what I have, so, anything as far as helping me understand it? It's been giving me a really hard time ever since it happened, it's almost the only thing I've been able to think about lately." Sunset said. Starlight took another deep breath before answering. "I noticed. What I said before still applies. It's another world, dimension, reality, whatever. We can't expect any of what we already know about Equestria, or the human world for that matter, to apply in any meaningful way. If I had to guess, I'd say it's what you said it was: A void, some kind of "in-between" that exists outside of any one reality. Something like that is really hard to wrap one's head around, heck, I confused myself just saying that, but wild theories are really all we have, so it's best if you don't dwell on it too much." "Okay, I suppose that makes sense." Sunset said. "But what about all the glitchy stuff? Forget everything about alternate worlds and dimensions for a second. What was that? Whatever it was, it must have been really bad to even make our intruder seem to fear for his life." "I have no idea, even with what we've established so far. And that scares me." "Which brings me to my next point." Sunset said. "What would have happened to me if he had thrown me into that - that void? What would have happened to the rest of us if it had gotten here somehow? You saw what it did to those poor creatures in my flashback!" "Again, let's try not to think about it too much. The important thing is that none of that happened. Maybe that's why this 'void' exists, to keep whatever it is trapped." She took another deep inhale. "Which brings me back to one of my earlier points, it does us no good to keep talking about this because for every 'answer' we get, two more questions arise. Maybe we were never meant to see whatever that was. Maybe higher concepts like that can't be grasped by our feeble minds, or something like that. Jeez, that's such a cliché." She chuckled. "You're right." Sunset said, admitting defeat. "We should just drop this and pretend it never happened. It's over. Me and my friends defeated him, and whatever it was, we'll never have to worry about it affecting us again." "Good, let's do just that. Come on, I'll walk with you to the portal if it'll make you feel better, I'm sure your friends miss you." Starlight said with relief. The two of them did just that, trotting over to the portal as a pair. All the way there, though, there was still one burning question on Sunset's mind, without a doubt the biggest of all. She didn't know if it would be right to bring it up with Starlight, she seemed to be tired of the conversation and Sunset didn't want to force the issue any more. It was over, and as she said, it was in her best interest to just forget that it had ever happened. They reached the room where the portal was. Sunset slowly trotted towards it, still debating whether or not to ask. She was right in front of it now, and just as she was about to step through, her mind made the decision for her. "Wait!" She exclaimed. "I have one last question." "I thought I told you that talking about it would only make it worse." Starlight replied wearily. "It's the last one, I promise." Sunset said. "It just happens to be the one that's been haunting me the most." Starlight's face softened. "What is it?" "Are we real?" Sunset said, meeting Starlight's eyes. She seemed to be taken aback by the question, her eyes widened a little, and she even took a small step back. "Wh-what do you mean by that?" She replied in a very audible state of confusion. "Well, you've seen it!" Sunset exclaimed. "Both his memories and mine. In both flashbacks, both into his past and his confrontation with me and my friends. He said to 'Gumball', 'Can't you see that none of this is real? And he said to me: "None of this is real, it never was! You can't deny the truth!'" "But why should you believe any of it? He's so obviously evil, of course he'd try to play mind games like that. It's not exactly a new concept, even in Equestria." "It's not just that. If it were, I wouldn't be here talking to you if it was. It's, it's that device. You saw what it could do! You still can't cast Rope Charmer, can you? She said. Starlight winced, before shaking her head solemnly. "I've never seen or heard of anything that powerful, with those specific powers, and neither have you and Twilight." Starlight opened her mouth to answer, but Sunset stopped her. "Yes, yes, I know. He's not from our world, so we can't expect him to play by the same rules we do, yada yada." She paused. "At one point during my fight with him, while we were wrestling in this house, he pressed a button and I saw with my own eyes the ceiling fan above us just fade out of existence. I didn't even blink! It was just there one moment and gone the next! There was no poof or flash of magic, it was just... gone. It made me realize something when I started thinking about it. In the other world, we have cell phone technology. I know you've seen it, so I don't have to do a lot of explaining, but here's the thing: With programming software, coding, all this fun stuff, I learned some of the basics during my time at CHS, we can create our own little worlds on these devices. It was something I became familiar with when I got into video games there. Over time, there was one similarity that I noticed that once I did it, I could never get over. When you're using this technology to make things like video games, it's possible to get rid of things by pressing a button, by swiping a pen. That's exactly what the device that he had was doing, deleting things, pausing things, whatever. It's like our world is nothing but a program like the ones I've seen, and this device is just the pen or the mouse. It can manipulate us however it wants, and there's nothing we can do about it." Sunset finished, taking a breath before collapsing to the floor under the weight of what she'd just said. What she'd just said didn't just apply to her, whatever that device was, it seemed to know no bounds, for it worked just as well in the other worlds she'd seen using her Geode. Starlight stood there with her mouth agape and her eyes wide open as she tried to take it all in. She took a few deep breaths, repeating her 'count to four, inhale, count to four, exhale' routine. Sunset still lay on the floor, now on the verge of tears. It was just too much, all of it. She cursed whoever her intruder had been. Not just for hurting her friends, but for cursing her with knowledge that a part of her knew she was never meant to know. She heard the sound of hooves in front of her and looked up to see Starlight once more, a hoof outstretched to help her up, a gentle smile on her face. Sunset accepted it gratefully, and Starlight waited for her to calm down before speaking. "Sunset, I want to ask you a question." She said. "What?" Sunset replied nervously. "Can you feel the ground beneath your hooves? Can you see the castle walls surrounding you?" Sunset was silent for a moment, puzzled by the question. "W-what-" She began, but was cut off. "Just do it. Focus on it." Starlight said. So she did. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and let herself focus on her hooves. She moved her right front hoof aimlessly, taking in the feel of the hard ground and the sensations it gave her. She moved on to the second request from Starlight. Opening her eyes, she focused on the castle that surrounded her now, the mirror in which she saw herself reflected. She blinked. She moved her head around the room, looking at the surrounding books themselves. Contrary to when she'd been doing it before, she wasn't psychoanalyzing everything, just being in the moment, her mind completely clear. She exhaled, before her eyes finally returned to Starlight.  "Why did you make me do that?" She asked. "To show you that you're overreacting." Starlight answered. "You needed something to focus on so you wouldn't keep spiraling out of control, and to realize that what's around you is real, despite what you've been told and what you've seen."  "But - that doesn't answer my question." Sunset said. "It doesn't have to." Starlight said "I think what you're struggling with is not whether we're real or not, but rather the knowledge that there's more out there, more than just Equestria and the human world. Knowing that, there is no hard and fast definition of what is 'real' or not. For example, until we Equestrians interfered, magic didn't exist in the human world. Do you think they believed in magic before that? I'm willing to bet they didn't. My point is this: What's "real" or not varies from world to world, I can say that with confidence. I was just trying to help you see that, and ground you back into our interpretation of what 'real' is." Sunset was silent for a moment, her mouth agape, again trying to comprehend what had been put in front of her. "That-that makes perfect sense, actually. Thank you, Starlight! How did you--" "How did I know how to do that?" Starlight cut her off. "I work as a guidance counselor at the School of Friendship, and helping ponies through crises like this is just what I do." She said with a smile. "Admittedly, even I was beginning to be overwhelmed by some of what you said, but I'm better equipped to deal with and reason with this sort of thing, it's just part of the job. Your main takeaway should be this, Sunset: Don't let one bad experience ruin everything for you. Use it to learn that you shouldn't try to make every little thing make sense. Ponies' minds are different. That's part of what makes us unique. We also have limits, and I think it's important that you understand yours, that sometimes, as rare as it may be, you just can't understand or empathize with someone, no matter how hard you try. Take your own advice. Learn to let go." Sunset pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, you have no idea how much that helped me, I felt like I was losing my mind." She said, slightly choked up. "Heh heh, you're welcome, it's understandable really, that's an awful lot to put on someponies shoulders, I'm just glad I could help you through it, after all, what are friends for?" Starlight said. "Well, thanks again." Sunset said, turning to the portal. "I should probably get going." "Yes, your friends probably miss you. Go spend some time with them. Keep your mind occupied." "Will do." Sunset replied with a smile. Sunset lay sprawled out on a towel in a clearing just outside the city limits of Canterlot, just staring up at the night sky full of stars. She had followed Starlight's advice to the letter, spending as much time with her friends as she could. While the memory of what had happened still ached in the back of her mind, she had chosen to look on the bright side. She found herself with a newfound interest in the unknown. A curiosity about what else might be out there. Knowing that there were other worlds and dimensions beyond the human world and Equestria. She couldn't help but wonder at the possibilities. How many other fantastical worlds and realities were out there? While the one she had seen had had a less than happy ending, she was certain that they weren't all like that. A part of her hoped that one day she would be able to do just that, to explore other worlds and hopefully make some new friends along the way... She closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift off to sleep.