WARNING: This chapter contains discussion of and MAJOR SPOILERS, INCLUDING THE ENDING for Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you haven't seen the movie, skip to the final page break (a.k.a. the third section) to just read about Sunset and Sci-Twi on the W.E.B. Slingers ride. And don't bring up No Way Home plot points in the comments without spoiler tags!

Also, note that this isn't representing my personal reaction to No Way Home, I enjoyed the movie a lot.

"How is the line this long!" Sunset shouted after she finished getting her boarding group confirmation scanned and walked down the entranceway to join Twilight. "What's even the point of waking up at the crack of dawn to get in the Virtual Queue-thingy just to have to stand in a very not-virtual line! In a not-especially-well-shaded area!"

"It was hardly the crack of dawn, Sunset," Twilight replied. "Besides, we're lucky. Poor Rainbow Dash didn't get accepted for a boarding group this morning, and now I just got a text saying she lost again at the noon queue opening! What a mess..."

"I guess you're right... that is awful for Rainbow. I know she's really been looking forward to this. She is our second-biggest Spider-Fan, after all," she said as she nudged Twilight on the shoulder.

"What? She's more of a Spider-Fan than me! I just love the movies, she gets all the actual comics and stuff."

"Really? Because you crushed her at all the Marvel stuff last time we did a trivia night. And don't go acting like you don't read comics, I've seen your stash!"

"Whaaaaaat, those?" Twilight blushed as they reached the back of the line. "Those aren't mine, they're... Spike's! He loves comics!"

"Can Spike read?"

"After how long I spent trying to teach him? He better!"

"And was it before or after he started talking that you tried to teach your dog to read?" Sunset said cheekily, miming scribbling notes on a clipboard.

"Stop mocking me, you're a magic talking horse!" Twilight fumed, and her visible pouting made Sunset snort.

"Magic talking unicorn, thank you very much. Quick, the line's moving!"

"Huh?" Twilight snapped back to reality and noticed the empty space in front of her. "What, all of five people? Real big move there."

"Welcome to Disney."

"Touché." They moved forward, and the family in front of them noticed and turned to them.

"Fun line already, right?" The father, a tall portly middle-aged man with a cheery attitude who looked like he'd dedicated hours to memorizing the encyclopedia of Dad Jokes, asked.

"Uh, you said it," Sunset replied uncertainly.

"Name's Chip Easygoer. Always nice to talk to new people in long lines, I always say. You two big fans of Spider-Man?"

"Casually. I'm Sunset Shimmer, and this is my partner Twilight Sparkle. She's the real Spidey super-fan," Sunset responded as Twilight's blushing intensified.

"You seem familiar. Have I seen you on TV anywhere?"

"Uhhhh... maybe? I mean we are in a band?"

"Naw, that's not it. You both kinda remind me of those real-life superhero girls from Canterlot, I think. But that's probably just a coincidence, ha!"

"Ha ha!" Sunset laughed unconvincingly as Twilight hastily stuffed her gem necklace into her pocket. "How strange, no one's ever said that to me before!"

"Oh well. Speaking of strange, as in Doctor Strange, you girls must have seen that new Spider-Man movie that just came out! What'd you think?"

Sunset started to form an answer before finding herself freezing up. Twilight noticed and snapped to attention. "What, us? Of course we saw it! It was... good!"

"We all loved it, didn't we?" Chip asked as he motioned toward his family. "Such a good time, all those bad guys, and the three Spider-Men fighting them all together, and wow that ending..."

Even with the noise of the line, Twilight could hear Sunset's heart rate start to pick up. "Uh, yeah, totally!" she said as she stepped over to Sunset's side and put a hand on her back.

"Uh... is something wrong?" Chip cocked his head. "Was it something I said? I didn't mean to pry, it's okay if you didn't like it or-"

"No, no," Twilight stammered, "it's fine, really, it's-"

Sunset finally spoke up. "It... it's not you. Or the movie, really, it's just... I used to have a lot of, uh, really bad dreams that were a lot like how the movie ended. It wasn't pleasant. It's not the movie's fault or anything, I just... yeah."

"Oh." Chip's face fell a bit, and as the line started to move again he decided not to follow through on further questioning. "I'll just... leave you girls be. Hope you enjoy the ride!"

"You too," Sunset replied weakly as Twilight hugged her.

"You okay, Sunset?" Twilight asked as she looked her partner in the eyes.

"I'll be fine, I just... I should've been more prepared for that, it's a Spider-Man ride. I just really don't like thinking about what I put you through that night..."

"It's okay, Sunset. You know that. As many times as I've been vulnerable with you... you're allowed to be vulnerable too."

"Still..."

The buildup to No Way Home could not have been better. Twilight, naturally, had fought through website server crashes and slow speeds to snag two IMAX tickets for opening night. (Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had gotten tickets for an adjacent regular-auditorium screening around the same time.) While Sunset had been caught up on the MCU courtesy of Dash and Twilight, she hadn't seen either of the two Spider-Man film series that preceded her arrival into the human world, so Twilight had marathoned them with her the weekend before release. They were all set for the perfect night.

And for a good two hours of the movie, they'd gotten it. They'd thrilled to Peter Parker's exploits fighting villains from franchises past, marveled at Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the mirror dimension, felt the heartbreak when Peter lost someone close to him and cheered when the Spider-Men united. The energy of the crowd lifted them, and they were hanging on every narrative turn. And then...

And then Peter Parker decided he was going to allow Strange to erase him, his entire being, from the collective memory of the entire universe. To allow his friends to forget him, to forget they were ever friends, and lose everything they had together. Because he'd meddled with interdimensional magic in a world that couldn't handle its effects, and had to pay the price.

And Twilight's blood turned to ice.

She didn't have to move her head even slightly to feel Sunset's pulse start to quicken, to hear her breathing become audible, to sense the hairs on her body starting to stand on end. But she looked over anyway, and she could start to see the panic emerge, the weight of what was happening onscreen slamming into Sunset like a freight train.

Twilight leaned over and whispered. "Sunset... we don't have to stay. We don't have to watch this. We can leave, it's okay. I promise it's okay."

"No..." Sunset replied in a soft, ragged breath. "No, I have to see this. If I go now I'll never be able to stop thinking about it, I'll have to watch it again anyway, everyone will be talking about it..."

Twilight wasn't satisfied with that response, but she didn't know what she could say to convince Sunset to leave. So she looked back up at the giant screen, where Peter was assuring MJ and Ned he'd make them remember him, somehow. And she heard Sunset start to sniffle as another whisper escaped her lips.

"I’m glad he gets to say goodbye…"

Twilight pulled her empty soda cup out of the armrest and placed it in the popcorn tub beneath them, then pulled the armrest up. She scooted closer to Sunset and wrapped an arm around her, hoping the physical knowledge that she was still here, still with her, would give her the comfort she needed to pull through. It wasn't enough. By the time Peter was walking down the streets of New York, unknown by all, Sunset was sobbing in Twilight's arms as her deepest, darkest fear played out on an IMAX screen for an enraptured crowd.

And when MJ and Peter's reunion came without a hint of recognition on her part, echoes of the beach and the parking lot tore through Twilight's skull, and she felt her own heart shatter.

After the two stabilized their emotions a bit, the rest of the wait in line was fairly uneventful. Chip had found games to play with his family in front of them, so the two mostly just looked at the various bits of plot exposition for the ride scattered around the queue, texted their friends to figure out where to meet them after they finished, and had a quick phone call with Spike back in Canterlot. (Sadly, Disney's rules on pets did not make exceptions for those of the talking variety.)

They finally made it inside the show building, where a holographic Peter Parker and the AI S.H.A.R.I.N. explained their mission. (Sunset rolled her eyes a bit at yet another cheesy "just a normal tour, but now everything's gone wrong!" theme park ride plot.) Basically, one of Peter's science projects, a self-replicating "Spider-Bot", was now self-replicating at an alarming rate, threatening to destroy the entire "Worldwide Engineering Brigade" campus and beyond; but, with the help of personal web-shooters the riders would now be given, they would team up with Spider-Man to take the bots down before things got out of control.

As they moved toward the ride vehicles, Sunset elbowed Twilight. "You know, self-replicating robots kinda feels like something you would do."

"What? No it doesn't! In case you forgot, I'm a responsible scientist, thank you very much," Twilight replied as she made a mental note to reconsider the duplication feature she'd conceived for Selfie-Bot 4.0.

"Whatever you say," Sunset laughed as Twilight scowled.

They were given their 3D glasses and ushered onto their ride vehicle, essentially a large windowed box with a camera to watch their movements and some displays featuring their individual scores. They were transported through the interior of W.E.B. headquarters, catching glimpses of Spider-Bots in the piping, before parking in front of their first 3D display screen, where Spidey saved them from an attacking bot and implicitly invited them to join him in fighting the rogue droids in a warehouse area.

"Remind me how we're supposed to do this again?" Sunset asked, befuddled.

"Just start flexing your arms like you're shooting webs!" Twilight exclaimed as she started doing exactly that. Digital webs started flying wildly across the screen, only somewhat matching her movements. Sunset quickly followed suit, and together they caused all kinds of onscreen havoc as they started yanking boxes and crates everywhere and blowing up the bots.

As they wrapped up the first screen, Twilight looked down at the scores. "How are you doing better than me? You were just randomly punching the air!"

"Hey, if it works, it works," Sunset smirked.

"Hmph," Twilight pouted as Sunset patted her on the back. The vehicle pulled up to the next screen, for which Sunset tried to better imitate her partner's "refined" flexing technique. More chaos ensued as a much larger Spider-Bot emerged, which the two had to web up and knock over before they progressed further into the attraction.

"You know, you don't have to let me win," Sunset teased as she looked at the scores again.

"You're lucky this ride doesn't allow friendly fire."

"Geez, you're getting too competitive. I'm not letting you watch me do online multiplayer stuff anymore, I'm a terrible influence."

"Grrrrrr...."

They reached the third screen, and Twilight's flexing was suddenly supercharged. She was getting so aggressive Sunset genuinely started to worry she'd pull a muscle. Still, she wasn't about to cede her dominance, throwing her own arms back into the fray. However, they were starting to ache, and, by the time they were through, Twilight had made up quite a bit of ground.

"Ha-HA!"

"Hey, don't count me out yet," Sunset rebutted. "Even if my arms feel a bit like wet spaghetti now..."

Unfortunately, Sunset realized too late that she'd been suckered, and that her girlfriend had stealthily pulled her punches those first two screens while Sunset burned herself out. And so Twilight near-singlehandedly took down the mammoth Spider-Bot on the final screen and pulled into the lead as Sunset watched with her jaw dropped.

"Good game, Twi." Sunset caught her breath as the vehicle pulled away from the screen and back toward the boarding area.

Twilight turned and beamed. "You know, just because you can read anyone's mind with that necklace doesn't mean I don't know how to play with yours."

Sunset gave a wry smile. "Nobody likes a sore winner... But that was really cool."

Shortly after, they disembarked and were back in the heart of Avengers C.A.M.P.U.S., trying to figure out where to head next. "Was it worth getting up early for?" Twilight asked.

"Definitely. And... thank you."

"For what? For getting the boarding passes, for the competition, for-"

She was cut off when Sunset grabbed her by the sides and gave her a kiss on the lips, then pulled back and radiated joy at her. "For the amazing new memories you give me every day."

A huge grin spread across Twilight's face. "You too, Sunset," she replied before returning the favor with a kiss of her own.