The full moon cast its light over Canterlot High, seeming to bend around and catch the edges of the winged unicorn statue giving it an almost ephemeral feel. Luna sat on the stairs leading out of the school, waiting. She had decided to come on her own, although whether she would confess her feelings for Sunset now or later remained to be seen.

'Is it that I'm being sensible about it and I don't want to pressure her just as she comes out of the statue, or is it that I'm just afraid?'

She chuckled. 'A bit of both, probably.'

She checked her watch, noting the time. Almost midnight. For a second, she felt a pang of fear. 'What if she doesn't come back?' The thought made her feel guilty. 'But if she's happier there... isn't it unfair for me to want her back?'

Luna sighed. Getting depressed about that possibility without any proof was not a good sign. She was younger than her sister, but Celestia was right: she was no teenager and she had no business being so distressed over this. And yet, old insecurities were unusually hard to get rid of, even if plenty of time should have passed.

When the base of the statue flared to life, Luna's eyes widened.

Coming out of it was Sunset, but for a moment, she had beautiful wings with feathers the color of flames and a bright spiraled horn of fire on her forehead. Luna could feel the sheer magic coming out the portal—no, from Sunset Shimmer herself—engulfing the area around them. It was warm and uplifting; it gave her the same feeling of wrapping herself in her favorite blanket on a snowy night.

And then Sunset took another step, and the familiar not-teen-despite-appearances was standing in front of her, doing her best to balance two very large and apparently full bags, and staring at Luna in surprise.

Luna's heart fluttered when Sunset smiled. "Luna... you've been waiting for me?"

Luna grinned and nodded. "I wasn't going to let you arrive without anyone here to welcome you back." She stepped forward and embraced Sunset, who leaned into it briefly. "Here, let me help you with some of that stuff." Luna offered, taking a bag from Sunset. "I'm glad I thought about bringing Celestia's car instead of my motorcycle. It'll make carrying all of these things quicker."

"Oh, I couldn't—"

"Please," Luna interrupted. "It's my pleasure."

Sunset chuckled and nodded, following Luna to the parking lot. "Thank you, Luna, it means a lot to me to have someone waiting for me on this side."

'Don't say something sappy. Don't say something sappy. Don't say something sappy.' Luna thought, keeping straight face. "What kind of friend would I be if I weren't here for you when you need it?"

Sunset smiled and leaned into Luna, giving her a surprise-hug, which the other woman returned, before leaning back and giving her a questioning look. Sunset chuckled and let her go, motioning towards the car with her head.

"I should warn you that I might be a bit more hug-crazy for the next couple of hours, Luna," Sunset said when they finally reached the car. "Nuzzles are common signs of support, gratitude and affection in Equestria, and it takes a bit of time for me to shake that off."

Luna smirked. "You won't hear me complain." 'Smooth, Luna.'

"Good," Sunset replied, apparently missing the meaning behind Luna's words, for which the latter was both grateful, and slightly disappointed. "But I'll still try not to make you uncomfortable." She blinked when she opened the door. "Wait... it smells like food."

Luna grinned. "Of course. I couldn't welcome you back properly without dinner, could I? So I got Korean. I hope you like bibimbap."

Sunset laughed. "As if you need to ask!" She blinked. "Wait, I just remembered something," she turned and fished through one of her bags and pulled out a scroll with a silver clasp. "Here," she said, passing it over to Luna. "It's from Princess Luna, to you."

Luna stared at the scroll in her hand for a moment. "What."

"The princess insisted I give it to you as soon as I saw you," Sunset said. "She wouldn't tell me what was written inside, however."

"Will I be able to read it? I saw Twilight's application for the Prom... it wasn't in English."

Sunset shrugged. "I did explain to her how our writing is different, but she said she'd take care of that."

Curious, Luna slid the silver clasp off of the scroll and opened it, peering inside.

Dear Vice Principal Luna,

We find Sunset Shimmer adorable. If we do not hear from Twilight Sparkle's Diary that you have claimed Sunset Shimmer as your own, soon we will.

Respectfully,

Your other self, Princess Luna.

"What does it say?"

Luna rolled the scroll shot and slid the clasp on it to seal it. She started the car and drove off to Sunset's apartment.

"Luna! Come on! Tell me!"

"It's nothing important," Luna said evenly.

"Your knuckles are going white around the wheel."

"My other me knows me too well. That is all."

Sunset pouted a little, but shook her head. "So, anything interesting happen in GGO while I was gone?" she asked.

Ever grateful for the shift in topic, Luna shook her head. "Surgeon and the others were disappointed that you couldn't log in today, but understanding. He did arrange for us to meet to discuss Team Daybreak."

"Oh?" Sunset seemed surprised. "What for?"

Luna grimaced. "They lost to X-COM and he feels that given our similar styles, there's much to learn from them."

Sunset sighed, but said no more.

Luna patted her shoulder just as they parked. "I'm sure it will be fun."

Sunset let out a long, calming breath, putting down her backpack and stretching. Surprisingly the day at school had gone through without a hitch. The girls had left her mostly alone, only pausing to say hi or wave at her, which gave her hope that they were not angry at her, or deciding to ignore her completely.

They were leaving the ball in her park, so to speak. Whether she took them up in their offer or not was up to her.

'Maybe I should...

"It's not like it would matter, if you don't care about our group."

Sunset shook her head as Rainbow Dash's voice ringed in her mind. "No, maybe I should wait." She took of her jacket and hung it before waking her computer from Sleep Mode. Seconds later, she was ready to go.

"Link Start!"

The world exploded into light and colors, and when she opened her eyes, she was Desert Mirage once again.

The meeting place was a pseudo-Chinese restaurant in the lower section of the eastern side of Glocken. For all its being hidden from view, the area was actually nice, with a couple of parks, a lot of restaurants and shops.

Mirage entered the restaurant, making the bell at the door ring. She immediately saw Surgeon, seated at the largest table in the place; it was round with a red symbol in the center, and could easily sit fourteen people in it, so they all had plenty of space. Already the rest of the team was there, sitting and having ordered their drinks.

"And our last member arrives," Surgeon said, waving for her to sit between him and Nightmare Moon. "I didn't expect you to be the last one here."

Mirage snorted. "There's always a first time for everything."

Surgeon nodded and motioned with his hand. The table shifted and a holographic display materialized over it, showing several individuals in a line, along with some statistics. "This is Team Daybreak. From left to right: Eve Corona, Roxy Cane, Aegis Cross, Battery Crack, Blitz Charge, Midnight and Ruin 8." He clicked something on his pad and another series of players appeared. "And their opponents: Team X-COM. Left to right... Wallflower, Butcher, Striker, Surial, Sukiru, Ripp3r and Rock."

Each member in the hologram lit up as they were mentioned by Surgeon. "Daybreak fought against X-COM and lost," Surgeon continued. "And given how similar their strengths are to our team, I think we should study the battle and see for ourselves how our counterparts suffered. But, before we start we should ask our local X-COM member if there's anything she'd like to share?"

The others all looked down from the hologram in surprise and followed Surgeon's look straight to Desert Mirage.

"You were part of X-COM?!" Heavy Collar asked, surprised. "How come you never told us?!"

"Don't be ridiculous." Nightmare Moon snorted. "Desert Mirage wasn't playing this game until X-COM disbanded."

"Maybe she lied about that too!" Thunderbird spoke up.

Mirage rolled her eyes. "I know three members of the original team, alright? I was never part of their squad. All I can tell you is that Butcher and Wallflower are the only two original members there... I don't know any of the others. And no, I don't have much to add because whenever we teamed up it was for PvM raids, okay? Their tactics would be very different for PvP."

"That's right," The Lion said, nodding at her before glaring at the others. "Unless you all have forgotten your leveling experience, monsters take completely different tactics than other gamers. Granted, we all here are experienced PKers and hunters, but you can't have forgotten something so basic."

"Of course not!" Thunderbird moaned. "It's just... ugh. Whatever."

"If you're all done," Surgeon spoke up. "Take a look at the video. The way this was done we can easily break down into smaller segments. Let's see... the first to be taken down were Aegis Cross, Battery Crack and Blitz Charge."

The hologram played the video, displaying a large highway that had collapsed halfway into a canyon, with cars, huge pieces of concrete and rocks all around. The camera shifted, focusing on the three mentioned players.

"Well, I don't see them doing anything wrong," Heavy Collar said. "With the others moving forward, the one in pink sleeveless crop top and blue camouflage khakis... uh—" He checked his pad. "—Blitz Charge, she's planting explosives around the area fast, and she's doing a good job of it. Look at that, Battery Crack is doing the same in the other side of the area while Aegis covers them. X-COM hasn't even taken a shot at them, but they've fortified a good portion of their field, and Aegis is already set up to demolish anyone coming at them. He's also got good cover and his teammates have already booby-trapped the area behind him too. I don't see how—"

He cut off when the whole scene went up in flames. "What the hell?! Does X-COM have a missile user? How come they didn't see them get close enough? There's no way Aegis wouldn't have shot them down, or even the missile, before that happened. That guy's a monster!"

"Hay, any of them should have seen that coming. There's no way you can shoot a missile without everyone knowing where you are." Thunderbird added

"Wait, I saw something," Coyote said, touching the table controls and scrolling back, then rotating the scene to close up on Blitz Charge. He slowly moved the video forward until Blitz suddenly exploded. "He was setting an explosive there. Did she betray them?"

"There's a far simpler solution to how this happened," Nightmare Moon said, reaching down to rotate the video to the moment of the explosion. "Blitz wasn't the objective: it was the explosives she was setting up. Make that explode at the right moment, when they're too close to the other explosives and the whole rig of traps they had set up will do the rest for you."

"But why didn't they notice it?" The Lion asked Nightmare Moon, then his eyes widened. "Wait, you mean—"

Nightmare Moon nodded. "Sukiru, their sniper, did it. She sacrificed her silent shot for that and gave away her position."

"Still, taking three in one shot? That's..." Sunset trailed off.

"Very good," Nightmare Moon acknowledged, eyes narrowed.

"Y mucha suerte," Coyote said.

"Less luck than you might think, I believe," Surgeon spoke up. "X-COM didn't attack right off the bat, and I'm thinking they grew overconfident in that they might not have been discovered yet."

The camera moved back up to show the whole battlefield.

"And it seems their sniper sacrificed more than anticipated, Roxy Cane and Eve Corona are almost upon him and there's no way Sukiru can fight them both." Nightmare Moon said, but she gasped when they were hit from the side just as they charged past a collapsed 18-wheeler.

Eve Corona actually managed to jump out of the way, rolling forward and taking a shot at Sukiru with his sub-machine guns, scoring several hits before he jumped for cover.

Roxy Cane wasn't so lucky as Ripp3r's mounted machine gun tore through his armor too fast for him to move. Eve Corona didn't look back, however, quickly dodging onto the covered section where he had seen Sukiru hide, only to smack onto a riot shield held by a heavily armored man.

Acting on instinct, Cane shot again, backpedaling. The bullets, however, ricocheted from the shield and he was quickly cut down from the combined fire of both Rock and Sukiru.

"I don't understand," said Nightmare Moon, looking at her pad. "It says here that Midnight is their sniper, correct? Why hasn't he shot anyone?"

Surgeon paused the video. "While that was happening, at that exact time, Butcher was in a shootout with Ruin8, both of them holding down this small pass... clearly the route to Midnight's position."

Mirage snorted. "Wallflower already went past, didn't she?"

Surgeon zoomed away to where they could see Midnight in an advantageous position, aiming carefully in Butcher's direction, when suddenly, out of thin air, Wallflower appeared behind him, shooting her automatic rifle liberally.

This made Ruin8 look back in horror, and missed the grenade that Butcher had already tossed his way. With a blast, the match was decided.

The group stared in silence as the announcement for X-COM as winners appeared in the video, and Surgeon dismissed it. "So, what have we learned?"

"That those X-COM guys are assholes." Thunderbird took a long drink. "I mean seriously, that could have been us!"

"They're damn lucky those two explosives experts were not used to working with each other," Collar finally said, having remained quiet since the first part of the battle. "I've been going over the video, and they were individually doing a perfect job. But they didn't account for the materials and type of traps the other was using."

"It also tells me that Sukiru has a lot of freedom for taking shots, but more importantly, he knows when to take advantage of opportunity." Nightmare Moon added.

Surgeon tilted his head. "How do you figure?"

"I doubt that their leader would have told Sukiru to wait until the explosives experts make a mistake," Nightmare Moon remarked, smirking. "He was probably trying to figure out how to take Aegis Cross, and noticed that those two were close enough for some luck and skill to take them all down."

"Their scout should have been out there, unless they were paranoid about Wallflower," Coyote spoke up. "With her appearing de la nada como mi suegra; they probably wanted a player with high SEN to locate her."

"That doesn't work with Wallflower," Mirage muttered.

"Clearly," Nightmare Moon nodded.

"I think the point where everything crashed down was when Eve Corona and Roxy Cane rushed the sniper," Coyote added. "Without their scout, they never saw Ripp3r's ambush, and they didn't know that Rock was hiding next to Sukiru for a close combat surprise."

"But why didn't Midnight shoot the other sniper?" Nightmare Moon wondered.

Surgeon crossed his fingers and rested his elbows on the table, leaning into his hands. "I imagine it was their leader's instruction," he explained, pointing at Eve Corona. "He and Roxy charged, and he was already out of the game by how quickly three of his members were decimated. He told Midnight to wait and take whoever approached Midnight's location, rather than the other sniper because he thought they would be enough to bring Sukiru down. In other words, their leader let the whole world collapse around him when things didn't go according to plan."

The table was silent for a moment.

"Well, what now?" Thunderbird asked. "Other than scaring us half to death, what expect us to do?"

Surgeon smirked, turning off the hologram. "We improve our teamwork and reaction times." He looked at the other players, his eyes narrowed. "We'll do the raid. The whole thing. From the beginning of the dungeon to the level boss. We don't lose a single person. We use all our skills and we beat it on the first try."

The Lion grimaced. "You know the chances of that are very slim."

Surgeon's smile widened. "With this team?" He glanced around. "We can do it. If we don't hold back."

Mirage nodded. "Tomorrow, then."

Luna sighed, stretching and walking off to get ready for sleep. Changing into her favorite star-decorated two piece pjs, she half walked, half stumbled to bed and lay down on it, yawning. She turned off the light, and looked out the window at the moon in all its glory.

Something reflected the moonlight, and she glanced at her bedside table, where the scroll Princess Luna had sent her rested. The clasp with the moon on it glittered under the silvery light and Luna turned away from it, huffing.

"What does she know, anyway?" she muttered, yawning away. Slowly she drifted into sleep.

Luna floated in darkness... no, not darkness. Outer space. There were stars above and around her and below her. She turned, gazing at them in awe and feeling a kinship with them, a faint whisper of dreams long forgotten.

"What is an astronaut?" a voice asked, strangely familiar.

Luna turned in space, eyes wide at the night-blue winged unicorn in front of her, who was looking at her in amusement.

"An astronaut is a person that can travel to space," Luna explained, then shook her head. "But who—"

"Is it not obvious?" the winged unicorn asked, smiling. "We are you."

In that instant it dawned on Luna. "Y-you're Princess Luna!" she cried in shock. "What-why are you here?!"

"Because we felt needed in this distant land, of course," the princess replied. "And the correct term for those such as I, Twilight Sparkle, Celestia, Cadance and Sunset Shimmer is 'Alicorn'," she added, grinning. She walked around Luna, looking her up and down. "We approve of our appearance in your world, 'tis pleasant to the eye and your mane, although static, seems very healthy and well taken care of."

Luna cleared her throat. "Um, thank you, princess. You are lovely yourself, I always wondered how I would look in the other side of the portal. But I can't believe you're here simply to flatter yourself."

"Nay, we are not only here for that, we admit," Princess Luna said with a curt nod. "As much as we enjoy appreciating our form, we come with a much more important matter in mind. Truly, an event of such importance that my appearance here was much needed."

A white table, two chair and a tea set materialized between them, and the princess motioned for Luna to take a sit, doing the same shortly after.

"We are here..." Princess Luna grinned. "To discuss how to win Sunset Shimmer's heart for yourself."