"Oh no, no no no. This isn't good." Sunset thought. Her trip to Equestria was a success, but on the return trip the portal failed.

"I can't let anypony, um, anyone see me like this. Okay, okay, calm down. I'll just re-enter the portal, go back to Equestria, then do it again from the other side. Let's hope that fixes everything." she muttered to herself.

"SUNSET!" suddenly someone shouted nearby. "It is you! Sunset Shimmer!"

Uh oh… Sunset recognized that voice. She turned around. It really was her. What in the name of Celestia's beard was she doing here?

"Umm… hello Sonata." Sunset muttered.

"Goodness! I've forgotten how cute you ponies look! The looks on your little faces when we terrorized you back in the day!" Sonata squeed. "I'm going to hug you and pet you! Eeee you're so cute!"

While Sonata was fangirling around her, Sunset was thinking. How is she going to get out of this? She can't let others see her in her pony form. She can't use the portal, because otherwise Sonata would realize that's how they can return to Equestria.

Suddenly Sonata got more serious. "How did this happen? How did you turn into a pony?" she asked.

"I uh… umm…" was all Sunset could say.

"Yyyyyou know, you could give me a little bit of that sweet Equestrian magic. I won't do anything evil with it, pinky promise! I won't even tell my sisters!"

"Well that's good because this was just a teleportation accident." which it sorta was.

"Huh. That's odd. I've never heard of a teleportation spell turning into a shapeshifting spell and I know a lot about magic and spells."

Sunset was starting to sweat.

"Wait. You changed shapes. Are you… are you a changeling? Is Queen Chrysalis still around in Equestria? What happened to the real Sunset Shimmer?"

"Ummm… you know, toodles!" Sunset said and her horn lit up. She disappeared in a flash of light. At least in her pony form she could cast actual unicorn magic and teleportation still worked.

Sonata spent several seconds starting at the spot where Sunset had been.

"Awww, man. I didn't even get to pet her." she said dejectedly.

Sunset Shimmer was observing the yard behind a tree across the street. Sonata sulked a few minutes and fortunately walked away from the statue. Which was a good thing because the portal was still open. If she had touched the statue base…

"This is going to complicate things." Sunset thought. How was she going to fix this? Even if she turned back into a human, Sonata would still think she was a changeling. Things could escalate quickly… and she still didn't know what Sonata was even doing there. None of the Dazzlings had visited Canterlot High after their defeat.

"Sunset! Is that you?!" another voice behind her interrupted her again.

"Oh no, not again!" Sunset thought.

"It is you! And you're a pony now! You look so cute! I need pet you and hug you!".

Sunset turned around and saw Fluttershy. She was reaching down, towards Sunset, with a big smile on her face.

"Eeep!"

—-

I spent five weeks doing this. FIVE. WEEKS. I started working on this on the August 23rd, the day after this event was announced. I did something to this image on almost every day during those weeks.

I've never drawn a G4 human before and this is probably the only time I ever will. Sonata was traced from multiple screencaps. This image was assembled from multiple Rainbow Rocks screencaps and assembled just yesterday. I ended up vectoring more of the Wondercolt statue than was necessary because I didn't know the final size until I started putting the different pieces together.

I need to stop getting complex ideas for these events. I need to focus on simpler images. At this close to the deadline, there's no time to fix mistakes, so if you spot anything wrong, that's too bad. Mistakes will be permanent with this one. The deadline also means I didn't have any time to add details like shadows.

_{^{Those with keen eyes might notice Sonata is looking at us, not at Sunset. Oh well.}}