Sunset looked at the tall buildings surrounding her and walked down the pavement. Trixie shook her head and followed her, wiping sweat from her forehead and thinking that she should spend more time in the gym.

“So, we asked about her in the hospital, fire station, twenty stores, about ten restaurants, two newspapers, sewage farm, a brothel, a few hotels, all the schools, nuclear power plant, tennis ball factory, cemetery, slaughterhouse, and the local porn studio,” Trixie said. “Nobody has seen Twilight. What’s next? Putting her face on a milk carton?”

“You do that?” Sunset asked. “What for?”

“Not anymore, but there was a time when they put pics of missing children on milk cartons,” Trixie replied. “What do ponies do when their puppy is lost?”

“It’s called a foal,” Sunset muttered, looking at Twilight’s photo. She was pretty sure it was pony Twilight rather than Sci-Twi in it, but after photoshopping glasses on her, she looked just fine. “And when a foal goes missing, we just assume a dragon ate them and move on. Little ponies are rather free-ranging, you know.”

Trixie stopped and looked at Sunset unsurely. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

“No,” Sunset replied. “Though they sometimes come back after twenty years of being a local dark lord’s apprentice and try to destroy their village or something. Your approach may be better, to think about it.”

“Dragons, dark lords… What kind of place is on the other side of this portal?” Trixie asked, her eyes widening.

“Well, I was born in Tall Tale. It’s a pretty shitty place by Equestria’s standards, even though I didn’t live there for long,” Sunset replied. “I quickly went off to be–”

“– the local dark lord’s apprentice?”

“Apprentice, yes,” Sunset said. “Local, not really. More like global. And most definitely not dark, despite what some ponies may think. Nothing to talk about, really. I fucked up badly, as you can guess from my past deeds.”

“‘Fucked up’ doesn’t even begin to cover that,” Trixie muttered. “Also, how old are you exactly? In pony and human years, Trixie means.”

“Err…” Sunset stared into the distance. “Seven years in Tall Tale, then being Celestia’s student… Minus ten after I went through the portal…” She looked at Trixie. “Ah, you mean combined age, not the biological one. I guess it’ll be somewhere around forty.”

“Damn, you’re old…” Trixie muttered. “More or less as old as The Birthday Party.”

“I thought they were around for ages?” Sunset raised her eyebrows, nearly walking under a passing car.

“I mean a bunch of Australian nutjobs you’ve probably never heard of,” Trixie replied. “Nevermind, actually. Do we have some other places to visit?”

“I don’t know!” Sunset exclaimed. “I ran out of ideas a while ago, in fact.”

“Yeah, tennis ball factory gave Trixie a clue.” Trixie shrugged, got something out of her pocket and hid it in her hand. “How about trying magic?”

“In this world, it never ends well,” Sunset muttered.

“I don’t mean your magic.” Trixie showed her hand to reveal that it was empty. “Wait, Trixie keeps doing that… Where did Trixie…”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Would you kindly stop showing off before I magic a kick to your ass?”

“Ah! It’s on the top of your head!” Trixie shouted. Sunset looked up to find a doll depicting Sci-Twi sitting in her hair.

“Oh, please…” Sunset grabbed the doll and tossed it into the air. Trixie watched as the wind blew it off-course, carrying it over the street until it landed by the shoes of a girl standing in front of a convenience store. The girl picked the doll up, looked at them, and raised her hand in the Vulcan salute.

“See?” Trixie asked. “It’s a sign.” She walked to the girl. “Hello, Vinyl. Did you happen to see Twilight recently?”

Vinyl got a cigarette from behind her ear and put it in her mouth. Then she looked at Trixie and Sunset.

“I don’t have a lighter,” Sunset said.

“Trixie should have matches…” Trixie searched her pockets and found a box. When Vinyl lit up her cigarette, she smiled and raised her sunglasses, giving Trixie and Sunset a look suggesting profound wisdom.

Sunset rolled her eyes again. “Stop acting like some indie Jesus and tell us where’s Twilight.”

Vinyl looked at the doll and her smile grew even wider. She blew the smoke out and raised her head.

“I swear, if she points at the door, I’m gonna punch her through the wall,” Sunset muttered.

Luckily, Vinyl pointed at some small, closed store down the street. Trixie looked there and turned back to her, raising her eyebrows.

“It’s closed,” she said. “What’s there? The hideout of some pervert she met online and who locked her there, tied her up, and ate her tongue?”

Vinyl shook her head.

“What else can it be, then?” Sunset asked. “A brothel?”

Vinyl nodded slowly, raising her hand and making a “so-so” gesture.

Sunset sighed. “Okay, so something like a brothel. What’d Twi look for there? Last time I checked she wasn’t really interested in anything.”

“Dunno,” Trixie said. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

Vinyl raised her hand to her mouth, as if she was drinking. Then she stabbed her elbow with her fist a few times and bucked her hips forward.

“Trixie is guessing she was having a good time,” Trixie muttered. “Also, Vinyl, it’d be much easier if you learned sign language or something.”

Vinyl sighed. She then raised her right hand with the index finger pointing to the left and middle finger pointing down to her nose, touched it with the middle finger, and then showed her hand to Trixie, forming something that looked a bit like an “okay” gesture.

“Err… what?” Trixie asked.

Vinyl sighed again and showed Trixie what she thought about her with her middle finger.

“Hey, I know this one!” Sunset chuckled. “Okay, Vinyl, thanks for help. We gotta find Twilight.” She pulled Trixie away from Vinyl and they walked down the pavement.

After a moment of silence, Sunset spoke up. “Hmm, to think about it… Does she ever speak?”

“No.”

“Why?”

”It’s a long and complicated story,” Trixie replied. “One has no idea that such things can happen to people.”

“So, what’s the story?” Sunset asked.

“I don’t know.” Trixie shrugged. “She never told.”

Sunset groaned and shook her head. “You humans are annoying, you know? And I still can’t get you all.”

“You got quite a lot,” Trixie said. “Though Trixie wonders why you didn’t know about God while knowing about Jesus.”

“Jesus?” Sunset asked. “You mean that cool Mexican dude from the memes is somehow connected to bad Santa everyone mentions when they swear?”

“Trixie stands corrected,” Trixie replied. “You don’t know jack shit about humanity.”

“Who’s Jack?” Sunset asked.

“Nevermind.”

“Okay, I know it’s an expression!” Sunset exclaimed. “And stop acting like Cinch on her period just because a mute DJ flipped you off.”

“What?” Trixie asked. “No, that’s because we had to leave the car on the only free parking lot and we keep walking since then. I hate walking.”

“It keeps you healthy,” Sunset said. “Remember when you were showing magic tricks on youtube and one commenter wrote that you lost some weight?”

“That was you?” Trixie looked at Sunset and smiled.

“No, but I found that cute,” Sunset replied. “Also, we need to find Twilight to help us get rid of fish people. Think of it as some kind of a mission.”

“From God?”

“What does Santa have to do with that?” Sunset asked.

“It’s a movie reference.” Trixie rolled her eyes.

“I haven’t seen this movie.” Sunset walked to the metal door of the closed store and knocked.

“What?” Trixie’s eyes widened. “Once it’s over, I’ll have to show it to you. ‘Tis Trixie’s duty.”

Sunset didn’t listen, looking at the door. After waiting for a while, she knocked again.

“We’re closed!” a rude voice exclaimed. “Come back in the evening. We’ll have acid lollipops and Bitches with Power Tools, if you’re interested.”

“We’re looking for a friend,” Sunset said. “Have you seen her? Purple, glasses, doesn’t talk much, blushes a lot. When you see her, you want to hug her and give her your jacket.”

“Ah, slutty schoolgirl,” the voice replied. “She banged half of the club a few days ago, but we had to kick her out after she started humping people twice her size.”

Sunset gulped. “Where is she now?”

“One of the patrons said she went to that nutjob who lives in a cardboard box. I don’t know that person, or where they live.”

“Okay, thanks,” Sunset turned back and walked away. Trixie followed her, running to keep up with her.

“What now?” Trixie asked. “Trixie doesn’t know anyone who’d live in a cardboard box.”

“Don’t worry,” Sunset replied. “I know.”

“You call that a cardboard box?” Trixie asked, parking her car in the nook. “Trixie is pretty sure the town would like to get its property tax back…”

“Well, technically it stands in the street,” Sunset replied. “So I guess it breaks some other laws, but no one gives a fuck.”

“Yeah.” Trixie opened the door of her car and got out of it. “Let’s see if someone’s home.”

Sunset walked to the pile of cardboard boxes towering over her and started to look for the door. After a while, she realised there either were none, or they weren’t any different from the wall, so she just knocked on the random piece of cardboard.

“Who’s there?” Scootaloo’s sleepy voice could be heard from the inside. “Wait a minute, I’m naked.”

Exactly fifty-four seconds later, a piece of cardboard far away from Sunset opened and Scootaloo walked out. Sunset wasn’t very picky about clothes, hardly wearing them for most of her life, but she still felt that a pair of panties and a black t-shirt labelled “Budding Sexuality” were not something one’d wear when meeting guests.

“Hi, Sunset,” Scootaloo said. “What’s up?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Sunset replied. “Have you seen her?”

Scootaloo scratched her unkempt hair. “Wait a minute… The last week is a bit blurry, like an old VHS tape. I spent most of it listening to Pink Floyd on repeat and doing cough syrup after I ran out of blue pills. Then I got the flashback from the pills and actually saw several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict. It scared the shit out of me, and I swear, I’m not gonna do drugs again. I’m gonna go back to the ballet school. They need tall girls.”

“Cool.” Sunset couldn’t help but notice that Scootaloo was a runt; if one placed a beer on her head, she’d make a fine table. “I’d like you to rewind the tape and check if there’s Twilight in it, okay?”

“Sure.” Scootaloo nodded. Then she scratched her butt. When it didn’t help, she also scratched her hair.

“Do you have fleas?” Trixie asked.

“No, but I have hepatitis B. Want some?” Scootaloo asked.

“Eww!” Trixie jumped back. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is germophobic.”

Scootaloo groaned. “I don’t think it’s something you can state like that in a modern society.”

“Trixie thinks you should read something else than this website name of which Trixie can’t pronounce.”

“Trixie, please.” Sunset smacked Trixie’s arm. “Stop offending everyone who can help us.” She turned to Scootaloo. “So, what about Twilight?”

“I remember now,” Scootaloo replied. “She came here, and we had lots of sex.”

“And what happened then?” Sunset asked.

“I put my foot into her pussy.”

“That detail was irrelevant,” Sunset deadpanned. “What happened to her after you had sex?”

“Ah, this,” Scootaloo muttered. “The police came and took her because they thought I was underage. And then there was that girl with a gun and then it got blurry. When I woke up, I was trying out buttplugs.”

“Wait, what? The police?” Trixie asked. “Why’d they think you were underage?”

“No idea,” Scootaloo replied. “I was half-asleep, and couldn’t get my ID. I probably should’ve gone to them and do that.”

“Idea!” Sunset exclaimed. “You’re going with us. Just get your ID and we’ll take you to the station.”

“And put some pants on!” Trixie grabbed a bottle of hand sanitiser. “Also, no bleeding in a car if you have hepatitis B. Do you have tuberculosis?”

“Your car has an old cum stain the size of my head on the backseat,” Sunset muttered. “Which probably is a bigger source of germs than her. You don’t expect her to provide a chest x-ray before earning the right to sit in it?”

“It does?” Trixie asked. “Must’ve been when we were coming up with a new song and Lavender Lace came all over it. She gets pretty excited by my voice.”

“Dude, we really didn’t need to know that,” Scootaloo said.

“Said the girl with moist feet,” Sunset muttered. “Now, get the trousers and we hit the road!”

The police station smelled of old papers, grain coffee, and overwhelming feeling of guilt. When Sunset walked inside, she saw two policemen escorting a tall blonde man in remains of a pink shirt.

“Isn’t it that guy from Fledgeling Changeling?” Trixie asked. “I wonder if he’s really a changeling.”

“Changelings aren’t real,” the blonde man said.

“Then why are you arrested?” Sunset asked.

“Tax evasion.” The singer sighed as the policemen dragged him away.

Sunset shrugged and turned to Scootaloo as they walked down the grey corridors. “What was the name of that cop?”

Scootaloo furrowed her eyebrows. “Topper Cop, or some shit like that.”

“Copper Top,” Trixie said. “If you got whacked over the head with a baton for playing three-card Monte in the street, you’d remember the name too.”

“Sounds like a cool person,” Sunset muttered. “Back in Equestria, I once sneaked out of the castle, got drunk, and fought twenty cops in the nooks of Canterlot. Princess Celestia was very mad.”

“Because you won?” Scootaloo asked.

“Not really. They brought a guy who knew an old, military-grade spell.” Sunset shuddered. “At least Celestia gave me my hearing and sight back, though only after a week. That didn’t teach me anything, though.”

“Story of my life,” Scootaloo muttered. “My parents got mad when Applejack dragged me out of the pigpen naked.”

“I’d rather not hear the end of this,” Sunset said, stopped in front of some door. “Seems that it’s this Copper Top’s office.” She knocked.

“Come in!”

Copper Top was sitting at her desk, littered with batons, truncheons, nightsticks, coshes, billy clubs, and other tools suitable for inflicting grievous bodily harm on anyone stupid enough to break law in her presence. Her eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses; she was holding a particularly big breaker of lawbreakers and polishing it in a way Sunset could describe only as overly eager.

“I know you,” Copper Top said, pointing her baton at Trixie. “I didn’t get a promotion because of you.”

“Well, Trixie is sorry for getting a concussion,” Trixie muttered. “Leave that glorified dildo, officer, we mean business.” She put her hand on Scootaloo’s arm and pushed her to the front. “We heard that you’ve arrested our friend for having a sexual congress with this young lady here.”

“Among other things,” Copper Top replied. “Although the car apparently wasn’t the one that ran that girl over, so only this stays.”

“Yeah, about that,” Scootaloo said. “I’m totally eighteen. And I have an ID to prove it.” She produced the card from the pocket of her trousers and put it on the desk.

“Looks weird,” Copper Top muttered, looking at it.

“I’m Canadian,” Scootaloo replied. “Is that a crime?”

“One day it may be.” Copper Top stood up. “Okay, wait here, I’ll bring this fucker here.” She walked out of the office.

“Fucker?” Sunset asked. “That’s a weird thing to say about a girl. ‘Cunt’ would be more appropriate.”

“I’m more worried about the car thing,” Trixie said. “Does Twi have a car?”

“Her?” Sunset chuckled. “I tried to teach her to drive once. We didn’t even get out of the parking lot outside the store, but she did manage to roll the car over.”

The door opened and Copper Top walked in, followed by Flash Sentry. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt exposing amateurishly-looking tattoos on his arms. His eyes were sunken and it seemed that he hadn’t shaved for at least a week.

“Hello, fellow human beings,” Flash said in a gravy voice. “It’s been ages since I saw the sunlight.”

“No shit, dude, it’s been, like, a day or two since we fucked,” Scootaloo replied.

“There he is,” Copper Top said, sighing. “Take him and get out.”

“Wait!” Sunset stood up and walked to the policewoman. “There must’ve been a mistake. Frankly, we expected a woman. Don’t you have any purple girls there?”

“Nope, only this dude. Though I’m gonna tell you one thing.” Copper Top slowly removed her glasses. “It seems that this little girl is really fucked.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo muttered. “I told you last week was kinda blurry. First I fucked Twilight, then him.”

“When in prison, I saw things you’d never imagine,” Flash muttered.

“No one gives a fuck!” Trixie exclaimed, pointing at Scootaloo. “How come her sex life is more interesting than mine?”

“You’d better finish this conversation outside,” Copper Top said. “Or I’ll be forced to employ police brutality.”

Trixie kept whining on the whole way back to the car. “This is bullshit! We’re all gonna get eaten by fish people only because Flash Sentry couldn’t keep it in his pants! Well, thank you, Flash Sentry!”

“Shut up,” Sunset muttered. “We need to think where Twilight could be…”

The doctor sat in front of Twilight and smiled at her before looking into the documents in front of him. “So, Ms. Sparkle, I must say that you’re the healthiest drug addict I’ve seen in my life.”

“Umm… thanks?” Twilight blushed.

“After all the drugs were removed from your system, we expected you to go into withdrawal, but you’re taking it surprisingly well. Urine samples show that you’re clean,” the doctor said. “However, you’re slightly underweight, you seem to have irritable bowel syndrome, carpal tunnel, asthma, and hypertension, but no STDs, hepatitis, TB, or anything our patients usually have.”

“Too much coffee,” Twilight muttered. “And when I work on something, I forget to eat.”

“Ah, I see,” the doctor replied. “Does it happen often?”

“All the time,” Twilight said. “I don’t get much sleep.”

“Yeah.” The doctor nodded and looked into the papers. “You’ve mentioned coffee… How about alcohol?”

“Not much,” Twilight replied. “Rainbow Dash says I’m a lightweight. When I drink, I dance on the table and throw up. I also throw up when I don’t drink, but that goes with the irritable bowel.”

“You don’t throw up here, however,” the doctor muttered.

“Meals at the same hours every day,” Twilight said. “And it’s something that’s not instant noodles.”

“Sure.” The doctor looked into Twilight’s eyes. “I have some theory… Actually, how often do you do drugs?”

“Umm…” Twilight smiled sheepishly. “Actually, I took those blue pills once.”

“Just once?”

“Well, you can get addicted if you take them once,” Twilight replied. “And I went here right after they wore out.”

“How thoughtful of you,” the doctor muttered. “As for now, we’re pretty sure you’re not addicted. However–”

“I’m not?” Twilight exclaimed. “Please, don’t kick me out! I like this place and my roommate is so cool!” She shuddered. “I don’t want to go…”

“However, your social anxiety may lead to substance abuse,” the doctor said. “You can stay in here if you want, but you can’t stay here forever. The therapy will involve going outside some day.”

“Well, I’m not that bad with going outside,” Twilight said, smiling. “And I don’t tear holes in reality anymore.”

“What?”

“It happened once, when I unleashed the magic.”

The doctor shook his head and put the papers on the desk. “It seems to me that the therapy will take a little longer…”

Author's Notes:

Headcanon: pony Twilight has none of the ilnesses Sci-Twi has, mostly because Spike can take care of her better when he's a dragon and not a dog.