Gunsmoke

by Wanderer D

Chapter 19: Melting

"Twilight, you have got to send me back, right now!" Desert Mirage almost shrieked. "What the hay happened?!"

"I-I don't know!" Twilight stammered pushing up to her feet. "Everything was normal and then suddenly the diary input shot through the roof!"

"Didn't you try to stop it?!" Mirage asked grabbing Twilight's elbow.

"Sunset!" Lemon Zest shouted, trying to pull back the young woman, but Mirage was way stronger than Sunset Shimmer. "She did! We both did! Look at her forearms and be careful!"

Mirage almost snapped back, but when she looked at Twilight's arms she cringed. The other girl had burn marks on both forearms, and her sleeves had been burnt completely off. She was singed and her skin was clearly very sensitive to pressure.

Mirage didn't immediately let go, making sure Twilight was stable before doing so. "I'm sorry Twi, I just..." she motioned with her hand to her comatose body.

"I understand," Twilight said, stepping back and surveying the lab. She grimaced. "We need to salvage the data now. I don't know what went wrong, but it shouldn't have gone wrong in the first place. We were operating at the lowest output/input possible. We've done similar things for hours several times before."

Mirage had gone over to hover next to the bed. It was very weird to be there, standing as solid as her real self while her original body slept just in front of her. She looked down and saw Sunset and Twilight secure in their holsters. She patted under her mantle and could feel several clips with bullets under it.

"Oh, this is not good!" Twilight muttered from the computers, checking up things as she and Zest transferred data into external drives.

Mirage closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "What's not good?"

"You've been logged off. The Amusphere on your head...um, Sunset's head, I guess... is no longer transmitting nor receiving data."

"What."

"What does that mean?" Lemon Zest asked.

"It means that it's very possible that I can't get back to being me," Mirage groaned.

"I'll be honest, I'm very surprised that you are taking this as well as you are," Lemon Zest said, smiling a bit nervously.

"I have two guns, my full magic capacity, and the world collapsing around me," Desert Mirage pointed out. "I can't afford to not be calm."

"Wait, you have your magic?" Twilight asked, looking back. "And you don't feel the compulsion to rule the world?"

Mirage blinked. "Now that you mention it... no, I don't. Why does that happen in GGO then?"

Twilight shook her head. "At this point I can only speculate..." she unplugged the hard drives. "I have all the data backed up. I'll have a look in my computer at home. I don't trust these machines right now."

"Okay? But what are we doing with the body?" Lemon Zest asked.

"That 'body' is me!" Mirage growled. "And it's—I mean, I'm still alive!"

The door to the lab crashed open and Mirage found herself pointing two guns at Dean Cadance, who looked around in shock before all blood seemed to leave her face. She stared, eyes wide at the two barrels, eyes shimmering with fear and watering up with unshed tears.

"Oh, crud!" Mirage gasped, putting away her guns and rushing to catch Cadance before she collapsed. "I'm so sorry, Cadance! Please don't pass out!"

"W-what?" Cadance gasped, still pale and pushing Mirage away. "Who are you?! Why are you carrying guns into my school?!" she looked past Mirage at Twilight and Lemon Zest. "Girls are you okay? Did this woman do something to you?" When she saw Sunset, unconscious on the bed she rushed to check her pulse and do a quick checkup of her. "What's going on here?"

Mirage looked outside to make sure noone was there before closing the door. "We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Cadance asked, angrily pointing a finger at Mirage. "And you didn't answer my question! Who are you? And why did you point your guns at me?!"

"Sorry about the guns... it's just instinct for this body." Mirage bit her lip and leaned back, before pointing at her comatose body. "That's me."

Cadance blinked, looking from Mirage to Sunset. "I think I misheard you. Are you saying you're related to Sunset?" she tapped her chin. "You do look similar."

"N-no." Mirage sighed and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "That's me! We were doing an experiment and something went wrong and now I'm stuck like this and my body is unresponsive!"

Cadance stared at Mirage, then looked at Sunset's body. "Is that an Amusphere on her head? Tell me you girls didn't decide to play Sword Art Online."

"No!" Twilight said quickly. "Besides, that game is gone forever and the NerveGears have all been collected. This... was just an experiment with magic and technology an—"

Cadance raised a hand to interrupt. "Magic as in 'tear holes in reality' type of magic?"

"And my natural magic," Mirage spoke up.

"Natural magic?"

"I take it Principal Celestia never told you Sunset's story?" Lemon Zest asked.

Cadance shook her head.

"Well, turns out that Sunset is actually a unicorn."

"Um... alicorn."

Twilight's eyes widened. "Wait, you're an alicorn?! But doesn't that make you a princess?"

"I feel like I'm losing the little grasp of reality I had," Cadance said slowly. "But let's go step by step and then I'm going to go drag aunt Celestia to a bar and force her to tell me everything. So quiet, all of you."

She took several deep breaths.

"First order of business. Sunset's body seems healthy, if a little bit sooty, and is unharmed. This is good."

Twilight nodded.

"Do we have a way to send... Sunset, back into Sunset?" Cadance continued.

"Call me Desert Mirage for now... and not that we know of," Mirage replied. "I'm thinking maybe Twilight can open a portal to GGO and I can jump in."

"How quickly can you do that?" Cadance asked.

"Um... we need a new setup and to double-check everything to make sure it's all working properly... a couple of days, at least."

"Days?" Mirage whispered in horror.

Cadance massaged her temples. "We can't take Sunset's body to the hospital since this is partly magical and they wouldn't let us plug her into another Amusphere."

She turned to look at the others, a disappointed frown marring her face. "Not to mention the consequences of all of this would bring the wrong kind of attention to this school, and logically Canterlot High as well.

"If that happens, they would eventually discover Sunset's an alien and apparently royalty, which would create an international—if not inter-dimensional—incident. We need to hide this from everyone for now, but we can't just have her like that without food or some way to take care of her body's needs." She took a deep breath. "How sure are you that you can fix it?"

Twilight and Mirage exchanged glances.

"We should be able to replicate this," Lemon Zest spoke up firmly, looking at both, Mirage and Twilight. "You two are the brightest girls I've ever met. Twilight is a wizard of science, and Sunset is a wizard of... magic. Which is what wizards do. But you get my point."

Mirage grinned despite the feeling of walls closing in on her. "O-of course. And we can always ask Princess Twilight for assistance."

"Another alicorn," Twilight explained to Cadance who had turned to look at her with an almost-desperate raised eyebrow. "Not me. I'm 'Science' Twilight. Not to be confused with my furry, winged and horned counterpart who is the Princess of Friendship."

Cadance massaged her temples. "Twilight, I'm trying to not get a headache."

"If it makes you feel better, there's another Cadance in that world and she's also a princess," Mirage offered.

Cadance closed her eyes and placed a hand on her chest, inhaling deeply and slowly sweeping her arm out as she released the calming breath.

Once she looked slightly less green, she turned her gaze to the girls as levelly as she could. "Alright. Provided that we can solve this in a few days, it's not as bad as it could get. However, if we can't do anything in a week at most, we're taking Sunset to the hospital, preferably the one in unicorn-land so we don't get the FBI, TSA, CIA, NASA, NSA, Secret Service, Faux News, and other undesirables involved, am I clear?"

When they nodded, she continued, "We need to take Sunset's body to a secure place where you can set all of that up, she can have someone besides me to watch over her, and then I need to get some medical equipment so I can hook her up with an intravenous solution. And a catheter."

Mirage winced, but nodded. "I have enough money to buy whatever we need. Cash. But how do you know how to do all of that?"

Cadance sighed. "Well at least there's that. And to answer your question, I had some training as a paramedic while in college... I figured that if I was going into education, I might as well be prepared. And it seems it's finally going to pay off today. Now, let's go. There's almost no one in the building, so... Mirage, can you carry Sunset on your back?"

When Mirage nodded, Cadance looked at Lemon Zest and Twilight. "Okay girls, grab your backups and everything you need right now, I'll bring my car to the delivery bay by the kitchens. Can you lead Mirage there?"

"Yes, ma'am." Lemon Zest saluted.

"Okay, let's get going."

"Um... there's going to be a problem," Twilight's voice gave everyone in the room shivers.

Mirage didn't want there to be another problem. Not more problems. 'Anything but more problems.' Still, she couldn't just ignore the increasing twitching from Twilight. "Okay," she took a calming breath, and put both hands firmly on the back of a chair, looking down and then closing her eyes as she braced herself. "Lay it on me."

"W-well, the diary is gone."

It wasn't until her hands were suddenly covered in foam from the fire extinguisher that she realized she had melted the chair into a pool of molten metal and plastic.

Cadance drove her lexus behind Mirage, who was doing an admirable job at not crashing or breaking the law after what had happened.

If she was honest with herself, she had no doubt she would be more of a wreck. Either pony princesses were made of much sterner stuff than the name would imply, or Sunset was still in shock. Mirage, not Sunset. "Gah."

"Are you okay, Cadance?" Twilight asked from the back seat—where she was making sure Sunset's comatose body stayed upright—"You're not sick, are you?"

"No, I'm just confused about all of this," Cadance groaned. "How stable is Desert Mirage? Pointing guns at people just like that..."

"Well, she lives in a world where monsters constantly terrorize others and where the idea of passing time is shooting at each other for fame and glory..." Lemon Zest spoke up, drawing irate looks from the others. "Um... nice mom-car?"

Cadance's frown became more pronounced.

"She's freaking out, but she's managing," Twilight finally said at length. "Sunset has a lot of willpower, and in-game it's impossible to control her emotions, however she's been practicing really hard due to the influence her magic has on her while in there. I would have been more worried about her becoming power-hungry and enslaving the world again..."

"Again!?"

"Well, just Canterlot High, but it was the next logical step."

"This is not comforting," Cadance pointed out. "Really not comforting at all."

Twilight cringed. "Look, Sunset has gone through a lot, even more than I have, and I trust her."

"That's good enough for me," Lemon Zest replied, giving her girlfriend an encouraging smile.

Cadance's face softened. "It'll have to be enough for me as well."

"You're also handling things pretty well for having two high-caliber guns pointing at your face less than half an hour ago," Lemon Zest pointed out.

Cadance paled again. "D-don't remind me. I literally saw my life flash before my eyes." She noticed Sun—Mirage slowing down and followed suit. "It seems we're here. And we're not the only ones."

Twilight and Lemon Zest looked out the window in surprise. "Is that Vice Principal Luna?" Twilight asked.

Luna dialed Sunset's number once again, growling in frustration when she was sent to voicemail. "Come on! Turn on your phone, Sunset!" she groaned, pacing furiously in front of her friend's apartment.

When she heard the sound of the motorcycle pulling in, she almost sagged in relief, leaning over the rail to see... she blinked. "That's not Sunset..."

Concerned, she ran down the stairs up to the motorcycle and stared in shock at the person dismounting it. 'I know her...'

She ignored the other car that had pulled into the parking lot and the sound of doors opening as she approached the mysterious young woman. When she saw her take off the helmet she gasped. "D-Desert Mirage?!"

"Auntie Luna?"

Cadance's voice made Luna turn and gape at her. "You know Desert Mirage?"

Luna heard their voices, but she couldn't tear away her eyes from the apparition in front of her. "B-but that's imposs—" the world went dark.

Consciousness slowly returned, and Luna shifted under the bedsheets and turned on her side. That's when she felt someone pressed against her. She frowned. Had Celestia snuck into her room? What were they, five?

She opened her eyes and focused on the face of the young woman next to her. Up close, Sunset was more beautiful than ever. Luna smiled and snuggled up to her, then the situation clicked and she pushed back and away, rolling from the thankfully low bed to land painfully on the floor. "W-what?!"

"You're awake..."

Luna blinked and turned slightly to face the other young woman in the room. Desert Mirage was sitting on the only chair in the room and she looked miserable. Her eyes were puffy, her hair disheveled and she was massaging her right hand, which showed signs of bloody knuckles. The imprint on the wall was a clear indication of where the damage had come from, but despite how painful it looked, Mirage didn't do anything but continue sitting in the dark room, focused on Sunset's body.

"But how? What happened?" Luna asked, slowly crawling up to Mirage and taking the injured hand in hers. "This looks painful, do you have a first aid kit?"

"Bathroom, under the sink."

Luna was back in an instant, spreading disinfectant on the cuts. "Mirage, what's going on?"

Mirage sniffed and suddenly she was kneeling in front of Luna, wrapping her in a tight hug. She was sobbing and blabbering incoherently about portals, monsters, being trapped, a diary being stolen... slowly, Luna began to piece together what had happened as Mirage kept talking, never slowing down and repeating things over and over.

She was scared.

She felt lonely.

Her whole world had been turned upside down.

She didn't know what to do.

She was afraid that her real body would die.

She was afraid of her real body living on without her being herself again.

Mirage's sobs and shaking were not stopping, and Luna didn't know if she wanted to stop them. It was tearing Sunset apart and she had displayed an incredible amount of trust to break down in front of her. But Luna wanted to comfort Sunset. Her heart ached with the pain she could feel was consuming her... and so she started to rock a little, and whispering encouragement to Mirage, who didn't struggle and only pulled her closer.

Luna leaned in, taking in the scent of gun smoke and oil and gun powder before pulling away just a little and kissing Mirage's temple. Desert Mirage ceased struggling and Luna kissed her there again, then pulled back until she could press her forehead against Mirage's and could look at her in the eye.

"Mirage... Sunset, I'm here. I'll always be here, don't be afraid," she whispered, almost losing herself in those eyes. "We'll find a way to fix this. Sunset Shimmer doesn't give up, and neither does Desert Mirage and they will always have Luna and Nightmare Moon at their side." She brushed Mirage's shorter hair out of the way. "You're never alone here, Sunset. I promise you I'll always be with you."

Their breaths were coming out in short gasps now, Mirage slowly calming down and looking at Luna with an almost pleading look.

"I promise," Luna repeated firmly. "I'm here for you, whenever you need me."

Desert Mirage tilted her head up a bit, brushing her nose against Luna's. "Always?" she whispered, looking down at Luna's mouth, then up again to Luna's eyes. "Won't you have someone else or something else to do?"

Luna tilted her head to the side, her lips almost brushing Mirage's, but holding back. "Not as long as you need me," she returned, gulping.

Even though they were not touching, she could feel Sunset's lips brushing on hers when she spoke.

"And what if I need you long after all of this?"

Luna smiled. "As long as you need me," she repeated, almost breathless as Mirage leaned in and kissed her.