Mirror the Shimmer

Princess said her story usually took an hour to tell. I cut it down to twenty minutes.

The two Twilights and I were sitting at a wooden table outside, them arm in arm on one side, me lounging against Mark Antony on the other. Next to each other they were mirror images, but I'd learned to recognize them not by that but by their posture; one sat straight and always smiled, even if she didn't mean it, and the other hunched down to avoid my gaze and never smiled at all. The tall one asked me to call her Princess for short, which I thought was pretentious until I found out she actually was one. Her sparkliness may not have been my style, but she was an adventurer too and I could respect that.

"You're... taking this surprisingly well," Princess said as she finished up. "Are you sure you don't have any questions?"

"Nah." I finished the mug of punch that I'd spiked and threw it over my shoulder, a little disappointed when it bounced off the grass instead of shattering. The party was starting to liven up again, though with no sign of the fake or her friends. "I don't know if I believe you yet, but it's simple stuff. Multiverse theory, mirror portals, destiny shifts, all that junk. I've read Star Swirl's theorems too."

"You have?" Princess gasped in delight. I caught her double looking up at me in surprise too. Oh, the things I'd do to that face.

"Yeah." I leaned back and, lacking anything else suitably menacing to do, started to pick at my teeth with my knife. "I'm a theoretical physics major at Manehattan U," I told them, inwardly smirking at the envy on their faces. "Star Swirl's our bread and butter over there. He spent a year on mirror portals before writing that inter-dimensional travel isn't possible in this universe, but theorized another dimension where it is." I leaned across the table. "So I do have one question, yeah. If you really are from a mirrored universe like you said, and that fake Shimmer is a perfect reflection of me, then what the fuck is she still doing in high school?"

Princess laughed. "Oh, she doesn't go here any more. She adapted to this world better than I did; she graduated last year, and now she's-"

"Last year?" I raised an eyebrow. "What, is she slow or something?"

"What do you mean?" She was indignant, but I heard doubt in her voice. "You must have graduated recently too. You're turning twenty in December, right?"

"Is that what she told you? Because I turned twenty-fucking-two in March."

Those cute little stunned faces. Adorable. "I know, I'm a tiny little pixie," I said, stretching out. I'd always known that I could pass for younger than I was, and evidently this fake knew it as well. "Don't try to cover for her," I added as Princess opened her mouth. "It doesn't mean you're wrong, it just means she's been lying to you. I know I would have. Even a foreign high school would have been a joke if I could get three years of growth on it." I leaned my head back thoughtfully. "And if I did believe you - and I'm not saying I do - then I have to admit, it would explain a lot."

They waited patiently while I prepared to unleash both barrels of backstory on them. "See, back when you two were running around in kindergarten and, I don't know, magic kindergarten or something, I used to go here," I explained, waving my knife at the school. "I was even Principal Celestia's favorite, for a few weeks. Until she started lecturing me about friendship and humility, like that was supposed to help my studies. She kept saying I had to be nice to others and they'd be nice back, which was hypocritical as fuck, since everyone knew she had to keep her sister practically locked up most days or else she'd get drunk and start breaking things. When I called her out on this she disowned me. It didn't matter. I was done with this place by then."

Obviously, unlike my double, I'd gotten over that memory. Obviously, it didn't affect me any more. Obviously, I never wanted to see that bitch Celestia again. Obviously I wasn't wondering where she was right that second. Obviously.

"And then, just after that, a package arrived at our house out of the blue. In it were a pouch of gold coins and a pouch of jewels. They were tiny, but the gold was pure and the jewels were the size of walnuts, and both of them were worth a fortune. The letter with it said that all of it was from a 'mysterious benefactor' and we could keep all of it, as long as at least half went to furthering my education. It was sketchy as hell, but it checked out legally, and as long as it got me out of this town I didn't ask too many questions. I chose the best schools in Manehattan and we never looked back.

"I traveled the world after that, finishing my classes online. I went to every continent and learned to fight. Found the changelings who ate my brother. Killed them. They killed my parents back. I killed them harder. I've been hunting a queen called Chrysalis ever since. When the trail went cold I went back to Manehattan and took up physics. And I never would have come back here at all if Suri Polomare hadn't begged me to go on vacation after my exams."

I stretched out and leaned closer to them. "So think carefully about what story you're telling me," I growled. "Because I would hate to think that all of that only happened because some pussy version of me gave up that life to slip into mine and play pretend at being a princess."

Princess Twilight had seemed enthused at first, but the last part made her pause. "Sunset, listen," she started, reaching her hand across the table towards me.

My knife slammed into the wood between her fingers. "Shimmer," I forcefully corrected her. "You will call me Shimmer. Nothing else." Only Celestia called me Sunset.

She laughed nervously, pretending not to have jumped. "That makes things easier," she said. "Our Shimmer prefers... um... Sunset." She tried again. "I know she's turned out different from you, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. When she arrived she wanted to take over two worlds, but she's changed since then, and only for the better." She took on a satisfied, slightly preachy tone. I guessed that she made speeches like this a lot. "The magic of friendship transformed her. Smashing the mirror portal was what finally made her realize the lifestyle she'd chosen was unsustainable; the more she hurt others, the more she was really just hurting herself. Now, it's like she's a whole different person. She's kind and generous and always puts others first, even if it inconveniences her. She's made it her life goal to help anyone and everyone in need and make amends for who she used to be."

A lifetime spent serving others? Me? Just how powerful was this magic doodad of hers? "Sounds like your crown really did a number on her," I said, staying carefully neutral.

"Not really." She beamed. "The Element of Magic can't change who a person is. It just cleared away the fog of bad emotions and unlocked the potential that was hidden inside of her, and in all of us. Maybe you should try talking to her. You might have a lot to learn from each other. After all, even if you've gone in different directions, you're still the same person."

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't insult me by comparing me to her," I said. "There's no part of me that would ever work at a fucking animal shelter."

"Yes there is," Princess argued. "It's just hidden away. Whether you accept it or not, you do have that same spark of kindness in you. It's just up to you to choose to let it shine."

Then, for the first time since the gymnasium, her double spoke. "Yeah, right."

Her voice was quiet, but it demanded attention. Twilight kept her head low as we stared at her, avoiding our gazes. "There's no goodness in Sunset," she grumbled. "She's just scared of you. If you weren't always looming over her, she'd go right back to doing evil. And she's just as bad," she added with a quick glance at me. "We shouldn't even be talking to her."

Some colour left the pony Twilight's cheeks. I leaned over the table towards the human, dangling my knife between us. "You got a problem with me, little girl?" I hissed.

Slowly, she looked up at me. Her gaze was nothing like the other's. In those eyes I saw pure, unvarnished hatred. Maybe I'd been spending too much time around changelings, but I could feel the anger coming off of her in waves, infecting her surroundings. Her breathing was shallow and her hands trembled, but she still found it in herself to stare me down; it really was taking all of her courage to stand up to me. It was flattering, really. I wondered if Princess really understood her own argument. For all her talk, was she able to admit to herself that all this bile and suffering existed within herself as well? I doubted it. "Seriously, what's your deal with me?" I said, breaking the silence. "Come on. I've heard her story, and you've heard mine. If you've been gone for so long, what's with all the looks? What did I do, kill your dog or something?"

She bared her teeth, and I wondered if I'd actually been on the mark. Teardrops glistened in her eyes. "You really want me to tell you?" she snarled. "You want to know how... how much of a f-fucking bitch you are?"

The language shocked Princess and delighted me. "Oh, now you have to tell me," I said.

"You don't have to tell her," Princess whispered.

"She should know!" Twilight shouted. She leveled her gaze at me. "She should know what she did."

"I'm all ears." I grinned and settled back.

It took a while for Twilight to collect herself. When she finally started, her voice had finally reached an even, almost normal tone. "I first met Sunset when I was fourteen," she began. "It was my first week of high school. I was new, and I didn't know anyone. For the first few days I basically hid behind my books and ate lunch in the library, but Principal Celestia gave me an 'assignment' to start talking to people, so eventually I went to the cafeteria." I brushed off a twinge; I should have guessed Celestia would find a replacement so quickly. Figures it would be someone too shy to talk back to her. That bitch. "As soon as I walked in, it felt like everyone was trying to get my attention. Everyone was laughing and talking and trying to ask me questions. I saw Pinkie Pie waving me over to her table, but before I could get to her, Sunset grabbed my arm and dragged me over to her table instead.

"At first, I thought I'd found my first ever best friend. She was a year older than me, or so she said, and studying psychology, just like me. All her other friends were even older and in a whole bunch of other fields. She said everyone else in this school was crazy, and she was glad she'd finally found someone normal. We hit it off right away. We started eating lunch together every day, usually in the library, away from everyone else. We studied together and helped each other with our advanced projects. I taught her math, which was the only thing she ever struggled with, and in return she taught me how to fit in. At least... her version of fitting in. I started dying my hair to hide my stripes. I stopped singing. I never wore anything that sparkled or did anything that would make people look at me. Little by little, she taught me to hide myself from everyone in the world but her."

The more she talked, the flatter her voice became, until it started to sound like she was just reading lines. I guessed that this was a story that she rarely spoke aloud but told to herself time and time again, forcing herself to relive every moment every time she closed her eyes, searching for the exact moment when her life fell apart. This, I could tell, was going to be good.

"Sunset ended up spending a lot of time at my house. Never the other way around; she said she lived in a foster home after she lost her whole family in a changeling attack. I never found out if that was true. Study sessions turned into study sleepovers. She told me secrets about the boys she liked. I said I didn't have any, but she knew. She liked to take pictures of us. I had my favorites of the two of us all over my room. Sometimes she asked to borrow my computer or my phone, but I never thought it meant anything. She was always there for me, and I didn't know how I would have survived high school without her. I honestly thought we'd be together forever.

"The whole school year passed like this. For her sixteenth birthday, or what she said was her birthday, all she wanted was to spend the day with me. When we got to my fifteenth birthday, I said that all I wanted was the same thing. But she said she'd prepared something even better for me. A blind date." My ears pricked up. "She said she was tired of me being alone all the time, and she'd found a guy who she knew would love me, and she knew I'd like him too. It was my first date ever, and I'd never been that excited, or that scared. I thanked her about a million times. She spent all day helping me pick an outfit and coaching me about what to say and do. Then she dropped me off at a big, fancy restaurant, gave me a rose so he'd recognize me, wished me luck, and drove away. That was the last nice thing she ever said to me.

"I waited inside for exactly twenty minutes. I know because I counted every second. I kept telling myself that it was going to be the best night ever. Then..." Finally, some emotion cracked into her voice. Princess tightened her arm around hers, and she kept going. "Then I heard the door open. I held my breath. I looked up. And in walked my big brother."

I snorted. My hand fluttered in front of my face as I held in giggles, waving her on. "Yeah," she said, looking down. "I thought it was funny too." She shuddered. "Until he started shouting."

She had to take a moment to collect herself again. This time she wasn't as successful. "See, all the while she'd been getting close to me, she'd been using her time to get close to my brother as well. Every time she came to my house, and every time she borrowed my stuff, she'd been digging up things to use against us both. After a few weeks she'd started talking to him online, under the name ShineLover. She said she was a secret admirer of his, and wanted to get to know him better. Thanks to me, she knew all about him, what he liked, what he wanted, exactly who to pretend to be to get him to respond. And then... and then it got worse.

"I only found out about a lot of it later, when I found some old backups from his computer. But pretty soon, their talks started to get... pretty heated. And then more than heated. There were pictures." She was starting to look a little sick. "Sunset was smart. She never showed my face, and she always washed the colours out, so you could only tell it was me if you knew. And sometimes it wasn't me at all, just some model from the internet with pieces of me pasted on top. Sometimes even I couldn't tell which was which. She had shots of me in my underwear, up my skirt, even..." She couldn't say it. "And Shining... my brother... he'd taken pictures too. Even worse pictures. I never managed to read the whole conversation that went with them before I destroyed it, but the one phrase that always stuck in my mind was... 'Ride me like a unicorn.'"

Princess put her arm around Twilight while giving me a warning stare, in case I thought about laughing again. Neither of us paid her any heed. "This went on for months," Twilight continued. "Every day she was pretending to be my friend, she was going home and having cyber sex with my brother, pretending to be secretly me the whole time. Then one day, she said she finally wanted to meet him in person. She gave him a time and a place, and said he'd recognize her by the red rose she was holding. He turned up, hoping to see the face of the girl he'd fallen in love with... and instead he found little old me, his underage sister, holding a red rose and wearing a big, dumb, hopeful smile on my face."

There were definitely tears in her eyes now. "He'd broken up with Cadance for me!" she yelled, like this would mean anything to me. "Cadance! My old babysitter! The most amazing, caring, wonderful person ever, and I... I didn't even know they were dating, and she... she just..." She clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. Princess held her tightly, whispering to her. I waited until they were done. "He screamed at me in front of everyone," Twilight continued in sharp bursts. "He said he hated me. I tried to tell him I didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't believe me. He ran outside. I followed him. I called his name. He stopped. He looked back. And the car... the car didn't see him in time."

She took a moment to just weep. "Sunset didn't plan that part," she said in a small voice. "It was no one's fault. The driver didn't do anything wrong. When they wouldn't let me ride in the ambulance, he drove me to the hospital. I spent all night in the waiting room until I fell asleep. When I woke up, my parents were there, and Shining was gone. They said he'd been moved to a bigger hospital in the city. I asked how bad it was. They said they didn't know.

"A few days went by. I didn't go to school; I could barely even eat. I tried to call Sunset a dozen times, but she never answered. When I finally turned on my computer again, there was a parental block on it. That's how I learned that my parents knew. I tried to tell them I was innocent, and they said they believed me, but they didn't. My mom started watching me like a hawk, talking really carefully around me, always treating me like she thought I was going to murder someone. And every time I asked about Shining, they always said that they just hadn't heard anything.

"When I went back to school, Sunset was waiting. She cornered me in front of the school with all her older friends and just started shouting. I don't know if she didn't know Shining was in a hospital, or if she just didn't care. She yelled about how she'd done everything for me, and she couldn't believe I'd been a sicko this whole time, and so on. Her friends started throwing things. I tried to run, but they were everywhere. I didn't go to any classes that day. I couldn't even face Principal Celestia. I just spent the whole day hiding.

"After that, the messages started coming. People called my phone a dozen times a day to mock me, and my email blew up with everything from transcripts of their conversations to death threats. I never found out where she'd put my information, but because she never sent me anything herself, I couldn't pin anything on her. I gave up my phone and the internet, but every day someone would throw something at me in the hall, or I'd find a picture taped to my locker, or something even worse. Everyone knew. Everyone thought I was a freak."

"Except they didn't," Princess added, to her double as much as to me. "It was just a small group of Sunset's old friends. No one else believed the rumours, and when that group graduated, they died out completely. By the time I arrived, no one even remembered who I was."

"But I didn't know that," Twilight continued. "It felt like everyone I knew had turned their backs on me. But Sunset was the worst. Almost overnight, she'd turned into a complete monster, not just to me, but to everyone. She could push people around just by being in the same room as them. She started tearing more friendships apart. She started dating Flash, the guy I thought I was going to see on that date, just to spite me. I tried to avoid her over the summer, but as soon as I got back things were worse than ever. I changed schools a month later. I've been running from her ever since.

"My parents never told me what happened to Shining. Every month, they would have worse and worse excuses for why they didn't know anything, and eventually I learned to stop asking. I didn't speak to anyone at my new school for six months. I've still never entered the cafeteria. My whole family thinks I'm some kind of sex freak, I got kicked out of the only school that felt like home, and the guy I was destined to fall in love with never got a chance to talk to me. She turned me into a complete wreck for years. And why? Why?" She leveled her glare at me again. "All because you couldn't stand that I was Celestia's favorite and not you."

I bristled, coming back to the present. "Hey, don't lay your fucked-up life down on me," I snapped. "I didn't do anything to you."

"No, but you would have," she snapped back. "Your destiny's the same as hers. If she hadn't taken your place, you'd have been the one to try to hurt me for no reason. The only difference between you and her is no one ever taught you a lesson."

Princess was starting to look decidedly uncomfortable. "Twilight, don't do this now," she said quietly. "I know you're still mad at Sunset, and that's okay, but this version of her hasn't done anything wrong."

"If I'm like you, then she's like her!" Twilight yelled, throwing her off. She fumed at me. "You think you're something special, but you're not," she spat. "You want to know who you really are? You're just like her. She's shallow, she's slutty, she's a bully, she hurts everyone she touches for no reason, she dooms worlds just to make herself feel better, she left my brother crippled or dead and she doesn't even care, and she just keeps hanging around, never apologizing, never making anything better, ruining everyone's lives because she's too stuck-up to understand that everyone hates her!"

My lip curled. So did my fingers. But it was a short, tiny gasp that held me back.

We all looked up. Around twenty feet away was me, Sunset me, standing there with one hand over her mouth. Maybe there was more of me in her than I'd given her credit for, because even I couldn't tell how long she'd been standing there. She was shaking as violently as Twilight had been in the gymnasium, her face as pale as if she'd been stabbed. She waited just a second longer, staring at us and Twilight in particular. And then she ran.

"Sunset!" Princess cried, bolting up. She took one long stride away, hesitated, then turned back and slapped her human self across the face before running after the fake. At her cry her other friends - I'd already forgotten most of their names - emerged from the school and took after her as well. However, the rainbow one - the only one, in my opinion, who stood any chance of catching her - stormed up to my table instead, another one trailing after.

"You could at least apologize," she snapped.

"For what?" I asked casually, lounging to the side.

She stomped. "For trying to murder her!"

I rolled my eyes. "So? I thought she was a changeling. Fuck off, dyke."

That jab was hypocritical - I mean, I'd do her - but she didn't have to know that, and it had the desired effect. Rainbow turned red and snarled a completely incomprehensible response until her apple friend grabbed her arm and dragged her off, leaving me and the human Twilight Sparkle alone.

We sat quietly as the sound of footsteps faded away, her in a sullen teenage pout, me holding a number of things in. I couldn't say I was hurt at all; my hobby was saving lives, so it's not like I gave a fuck about what any of these weirdos thought of me. So while I got around to trying to crowbar the concept of the mirror portal into my worldview, I just sat calmly, contently, and suppressing the occasional bursts of laughter.

This was fucking hilarious.

Even if she'd fucked up in the end, I had to take my hat off to my fake for what she'd accomplished with these girls. There was large-scale pranking, and then there was this. Months-long buildup to an incest date? With someone who wasn't even her species? Now that was dedication. The hospitalization was a nice touch, even if I guessed she hadn't seen that coming. Between the money, the entertainment value, and the ultimate outcome of her work here, it seemed like I had a lot to be thankful to her for. There was just one thing that I didn't understand... and that was the why.

Twilight Sparkle was Celestia's pet and a whiny, overly sensitive little cunt. I got that. I'm sure the Twilight Sparkle from her home dimension was one too. If the human version had turned out like that one, who acted like she'd walked out of some cartoon for little girls, then I'd probably want to smash her face into a locker too. But to spend a whole year plotting that kind of revenge? These two were annoying, but they weren't a threat. More to the point, it wouldn't accomplish anything. Hurting them would be like kicking a puppy. Sure, it makes a load of funny noises, but all it gets you in the long run is a bunch of glares and the next thing you know you're not allowed within twenty yards of that pet store any more. The point is that as happy as I was with the results, Twilight was right about it being petty. And yet, if Princess had been telling the truth, if my fake hadn't intervened then I would have gone down exactly the same road.

This frightened me on a level that I didn't want to admit I had. Was I really that insecure? Is this who I would have turned into if I'd stayed at Canterlot High? First a power-hungry megalomaniac obsessed with popularity and petty revenge, then a tired, trembling coward who needed to feed on the love of others to survive? Both sounded like a nightmare. But was the potential for both of those hidden somewhere inside of me, just waiting for fate or magic to draw them both out?

Nah. I'm Sunset fucking Shimmer. No one tells me who I am but me.

I eyed Twilight carefully. I'd been playing my cards close to my chest this evening; there was one last thing that I'd finally figured out, and right here was my opportunity to lay it out to full effect. "Hey, Twilight?" I said, making her look away. "About your brother."

"What?" she grunted.

"His full name's Shining Armour, isn't it?"

"What?" She looked back up at me, jaw dropping. "How do you know that?"

"Because it's a small world. Tall guy, blue hair, shield crest, looks kind of like you?"

Shock and excitement pinged off of her like sparks. "He's alive?" she yelled, all grievances forgotten. Then she tried again in a more cautious tone. "He's... okay?"

"Sure. I mean, he walks with a cane, but he's fine." I rolled myself forward and leaned across the table welcomingly. "He goes to Manehattan U now, like me. I met him after I moved back to the city. He's majoring in criminal psychology and he's got an internship at the local police academy, which makes him a handy contact for my line of work. It's a desk job, but they're calling him the best young recruit they've had in years. He's not just okay, he's doing fantastic."

It was like a weight the size of me had been lifted off of her. I could see exactly three years of stress fold up and leave her face, her sweet, kissable lips wide open in an involuntary smile. I grinned to match, leaned in close, and made sure that she was staring right into my eyes when I delivered her life's punchline. "And he's now my boyfriend."

Destroyed. What it had taken a year for my fake to accomplish, I had done in just a few sentences. Her face fractured. Her eyes shrank. Her breath became nothing. I leaned closer and whispered in her ear. "And you know what else?" I purred. "Every time he fucks me... he pretends I'm you."

I drew back, smiling. She was perfectly still, but I could feel it in her, that orgasmic eruption of pain and fury, twisting her up, sickening her, a sensual poison in her blood. Oh, sweet Sunset, that is how it is done. "Happy birthday, Twilight," I said.

With her friends gone, there was no one to stop her when she lunged at me.