Sunset Shimmer was startled awake from her "graceful" cat-nap by the sound of very loud knocking at her dorm's door. A handful of massive textbooks on Law, Political Sciences, and Socio-economics and a pile of notes for each was scattered by her full-body flail as she fell away from her study desk. As she restored the papers to their places, she told herself it was a reasonable reaction to a knock that could probably wake the dead.
"TWILIGHT! COULD YOU GET THAT, PLEASE?"
A beat passes and nothing happens.
"TWILIGHT?" Sunset yelled into the dorm, but heard no movement from her roomie. Not that she was surprised, since she was certain that Twilight Sparkle probably ordered delivery again in order to not have to break away from her studies for such a petty cause as the need to feed herself occasionally. The fiery-haired young woman muttered to herself as she worked her way towards the door. "At least she bathes..."
Sunset wrapped her hand around the doorknob, internally trying to place a bet on which place Twilight had ordered from today. She hoped it was that one pizza place with the driver that was just hot enough to distract her from pining over Twilight's smoldering older brother, even if only momentarily. It's not the pizza guy's fault, she just loved a man in uniform. Her hopes up, she opened the door.
"Good evening, ma'am." the man on the other side of the door said, informing the co-ed of the time of day. The only thing Sunset could think while he rattled off an apology over disturbing her and something about a 'highly unusual case' was (Just not that uniform...), but then he said the word 'explosion' and he had her full attention. "...at your old high school, and I regret to inform you that you are one of the suspects."
He reached into a satchel he'd been wearing that had caused her to initially mistake him for a mailman, and drew out a newspaper, which he unrolled and presented to her, front page out. All the color had drained from Sunset's vision, save for the picture of a person who looked completely identical to her, save for some burns on her face and debris in her hair. She didn't notice the concern on the cop's face when the rest of the color fled her sight and she felt extremely dizzy. A moment later, she felt a firm, almost crushing pressure surrounding one of her forearms, and it was only in its absence that she realized that the falling sensation that had swept over her was in fact the result of her falling.
Spared the culmination of an embarrassing and out-of-character fainting spell for which she wouldn't excuse herself even with the news she just received, Sunset snapped back to her feet and narrowed her eyes at the policeman, breaking his grip as she did.
"I don't suppose you have a warrant for my arrest over this?" she demanded, wondering why Twilight still hadn't bothered to come see who was at the door. Even her dog did, and like the surprisingly well-behaved dog he was, he patiently sat by her feet and observed the conversation.
"Well uh, no. Not yet. That will take a couple weeks to process. I just came here to inform you and-"
"Well then, thanks for the information!" Twilight said with that creepy faux cheer indicating that she was dipping deep into her vast well of sarcasm, seeming to materialize out of thin air and snatching the newspaper from the officer's hand. "However, without an official warrant, your intrusion is illegal and since this isn't a police state, you have to leave until you get one! Besides, acts of terrorism would be detrimental to Miss Shimmer's political agenda -you know, taking over the world and reshaping it to her ideals-, so regardless of appearances, it's unreasonable to believe that she was even indirectly involved in this event. Have a nice day~"
Before either Sunset or the policeman could react, Twilight slammed the door in his face.
"Twilight! You can't treat a cop like that! He'll tell all his friends, and you'll get a ticket for every minor offense in the book! Even the really obscure ones!" Sunset was flabbergasted, but she could hear the policeman leaving through the door, so she believed his part in the situation was at least kind of over for now.
"Oh quit screeching, ya harpy!" Twilight flipped through the paper and read the story. "Besides, any officer who would believe a story like this is a complete moron." She showed Sunset the rest of the article, praising Twilight as a local hero and showing a handful of Sunset's old friends and her ex in a group shot.
"I am NOT a- wait... you're behind this story?" Sunset demanded, trying to hold Twilight's attention as her roommate put one of her earbuds back in her ear. She could faintly hear Octavia Melody's "Private Performance No. 7" and knew she only had a limited time before Twilight stopped caring about Sunset's crisis altogether.
"What!? Of course not! If I was, do you really think I'd be stupid enough to link myself to the story so blatantly? I'm insulted! By the way, since today's your day to get bad news, the real reason for my absence just before Midterms was that my brother got married a couple weeks ago, so your chances shacking up with him are now zero. Not that they were much higher prior to that, but I felt you should know." Twilight said as she put the other earbud in and turned to walk back to her room within the dorm, dropping the paper on the common room floor and picking up her copy of "The Nth Dimension" on the way.
Completely overwhelmed by this last straw, Sunset sank to the floor and broke down, the one constant among her hurricane of thoughts was that life was extremely unfair today. To his credit, Spike was visibly torn between comforting her and going to accompany his mistress, but ultimately he chose the latter. Typical dog, loyal to a fault. Sunset tried to blame Twilight for her recent behavior, but she knew her roommate's life situation was not significantly better. She may not have a criminal duplicate, but she was having to take remedial midterms because her older brother's surprise wedding made her miss the real ones. Unable to justify hating her tormentor of the moment, Sunset settled for crying.
Finals are hard on everybody. For a study-obsessed, perfectionist, friendless bookworm, they are positively mind-bending. Sunset remembered seeing Twilight's scores and feeling a reflex somewhere between a dry heave and asphyxiation. High 90s all the way down the board, and her roommate was dissatisfied with those results. Sunset Shimmer was three years Twilight's senior, taking the exact same level of classes, and happy with her low 90s. Most other students in their classes were catatonic after pushing as hard as they could to get into the 70s and low 80s.
Numerically speaking, Twilight was annihilating Sunset on the books. However, while she might not have been quite as intelligent as her rival, Sunset was somewhat wiser. She had paced herself so that she could enjoy life while still driving relentlessly forward at the rate she wanted. On the other hand, Twilight was burning through the education system, but hadn't once given significant thought to what she was going to do with her life once there were no more written instructions on what was required of her. Sunset had dismissed that as being Twilight's problem up until today, when she noticed that Twilight was on the same page of her book as she was an hour ago. This was a huge red flag from the purple-haired girl, and being the closest thing Twilight had to a friend (which was really, really sad now that Sunset thought about it), Sunset felt it was her obligation to help her out a little. Hunting down her doppelganger might have been the primary reason for this road trip, but a close second was getting Twilight out of the studio and into a more relaxing environment.
"Um, Twilight? Heyyy... Twiliiiight...Hello! Are you in there?" Sunset waved her hand between Twilight's face and her book, but got no response. So Sunset decided to switch from talking to Twilight to talking at her.
What Sunset couldn't have known was that Twilight's duplicate was as much a problem for Twilight as her own was for her. From the perspective of a girl who was all about PR, being mistaken for a small-town hero would have been a huge boon. Twilight was introspective though, and had cutting self-esteem issues. Given her upbringing in a loving family, her impressive athletic skill, and her stunning academic record, the neurosis of her perceived faults were a mystery. However, that excellence in life had led her to believe that it was a standard she was compelled to maintain, or lose everything. This in turn meant that the introduction of a new Twilight: one who was happy, outgoing, loved by total strangers, and skilled at making friends- only highlighted her most glaring flaw and skyrocketed her awareness of it. Already bent by the pressures she put on herself, Twilight felt the extra strain of crushing loneliness and cracked.
"...so I invited him back here for pizza, but it turns out that chickens aren't any better at doing laundry than they are at making oatmeal. Can you believe that?" Sunset finished in a light-hearted tone. Like magic, Twilight was freed from her despair-induced trance. She saw Sunset's cheerful grin and returned it, blithely overlooking the fact that seeing hers wiped Sunset's face clear of anything resembling a smile.
"Not at all." Twilight replied, rather than pointing out that what Sunset had just said only made sense grammatically. She set her book down, saving the page she'd been staring blankly at for over an hour by spreading the book page-down on the coffee table, nearly giving Sunset a heart attack in the process, then stood up and stretched. "Sunset, what do you know about percussive brain surgery?"
"I know that it looks haphazard, sounds counter-productive, and to the best of scientific knowledge, only works in cartoons. Why?"
"No reason. Anyway, I need to pack a few extra things for this trip. I think I might find some time to practice for the upcoming softball season." Twilight said in the same light tone Sunset snapped her out of her reverie with as she all but skipped into her bedroom.
"No amount of practice on your part is going to help the rest of your team..." Sunset muttered, wondering if she should be worried for her life, her clone's, or that of whoever happens to be in Twilight's path when she snaps.
"I heard that~!" Twilight practically sang from her bedroom.
