Mirror Finale

That night, everything was going to change.

It barely mattered if Shimmer's theory was correct. All the pieces were in motion; they had been in motion since the day Sunset had come to this world, scattered into orbits by the force of her arrival, inevitably drawing themselves back to her. We couldn't stop it now, even if we wanted to. That night, when everything finally came together, would be the night when the world that I knew would end. And when the sun rose, it would dawn on a new world for all of us - a world that, even a scant twelve hours before the event, I still couldn't imagine could ever be reality.

This is the story of the last day.

Shining Armour seemed constantly surprised to be in my room. We sat on opposite ends of my bed while we talked, and every so often his eyes would drift away from me and trace along my schedule, still surrounding us on all sides. Every time he did this, I wanted to disappear beneath my sheets and hide. I'd been okay with Shining Armour returning in the abstract - in fact I'd wanted nothing more since he'd left - but it was another thing to have him actually here, in my safe space, without the distance of time or space to keep him from seeing what an absolute mess I'd made of my life.

He had changed too, in subtle ways. He was still himself, still my loving big brother, and being close to him was like being with Princess; he filled a void in me that I hadn't even known was there until he'd left. But the changes were still there. I winced internally when I saw a hooked scar crossing the back of his arm, and when his right leg didn't bend all the way when he sat down. His horse-headed cane leaned against the side of my bed, mocking me from the corner of my vision. His face was harder, sharper, and as happy as he seemed to be with me, I could tell he didn't smile as much any more. I wondered what changes he saw in me.

Surprisingly, I was the one who did most of the talking. Shining wanted to know everything, not just about me, but about Princess and Sunset and the mirror portal. I filled him in as best I could. I told him that I'd only met Princess less than a week ago, after Flash Sentry mistook me for her while I was walking Spike. Obviously, I left out the part about how I'd had sex with Flash behind her back. In fact, I left a lot of things out. It was tempting at every turn to change the subject back to him; I wanted to know everything there was to know about Manehattan and his career. But talking about him meant talking about Shimmer. That wasn't something that I thought I would ever be prepared to do.

If I could, I would have said nothing at all. I'd learned in the intervening years that things were better if I didn't speak. It would have been better if I'd let myself fade completely, erased every mark I'd made on the world since he left, and simply let him mentally turn back the clock to the day before everything changed for us both. But he kept asking, this man who barely resembled the boy I'd grown up with, and I kept talking.

For about an hour, I stitched my story and my double's together. Every detail about Flash was jettisoned. Instead I spoke at length about my study friends, hoping to make it sound like I'd been tightly knit with them for years. I was much happier retelling the stories that Princess had told me, even if I only had a few. I explained the concept of the mirror portal three times. Shining was my brother, but interdimensional theory was much newer to him than it was to me, and I hadn't yet learned Princess' knack for quickly cutting off questions I couldn't answer.

"Okay, okay, hold on." He laughed and backpedaled with his hands. "So every part of her is mirrored except your crest?"

"That's right." I looked down at my skirt. I'd started wearing my familiar stars again, even if I still had mixed feelings about it.

"How does that work? I thought you said in her world it grew on her body."

"It appeared, the moment she discovered her reason for being. Her hair didn't naturally grow that way." I chewed my lip over this. "And I think that's the reason why. Crests and cutie marks aren't physical entities. They're the marks left behind when a chronokinetic string passes through a self-aware entity that's undergone epiphianic metamorphosis, which our eyes only interpret as a purely visual phenomenon, even though-"

"Twiley?" When I kept going, he gestured to stop. "You're using big words again."

I blushed and looked away. "Sorry."

Shining got his usual goofy grin on his face again. I'd missed that smile so much. "It's okay," he said. "I'm just a little out of practice. I'd forgotten how smart you are."

"I'm not smart."

The smile flickered. "Are you kidding me?"

"I'm not!" Instantly, my voice was back into lecture mode. "I absorb and successfully retain information at an accelerated rate compared to the average for my age group. I'm no better at using any of the information I pick up than anyone else. I'm nothing special."

"Hey, all I know is anyone who talks like that could run circles around half the people in my program. Some of my professors, too." He reached across the bed and ruffled my hair. "I could have used you during exams."

When I was nine, him touching my head used to annoy me. Now, I found myself leaning into his palm. I'd come to crave human touch so much over the past weeks, after spending so long avoiding it at every opportunity. It was a good thing I'd had the practice or I might have flinched away from him. "I'm sure you did fine," I said when he pulled away, speaking quickly to try to cover my pause. "You never really needed me."

"I didn't know how much I needed you until I moved away. I nearly tanked my entrance exams without you there to pester me to study."

We laughed, him with recollection, me with embarrassment. "Your grades are okay though, right?" I said with a flash of worry.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I get by with a little help from my friends." We both smiled. "It does get hard to keep up, sometimes. With school, plus my internship, plus looking out for changelings, plus looking after Shimmer. She tries to help me study sometimes, but I end up teaching her more than she teaches me, so..."

"Oh."

Shining's voice ground to a halt. It could have been from my tone or the way I stiffened against the sheets, or maybe he just instinctively knew, but he understood that he'd crossed a line. We sat in silence for close to a minute while he tried to pull words together and I tried to keep words from spilling out. "I'm sorry," he eventually said.

"You're sorry." I lowered my gaze and kept it there. I knew that if I looked up at his face again, all I would see was Shimmer wrapping herself around him. Disgust and fury crawled over me in nauseating pinpricks; my hands balled up into clumsy fists. "How can you be with her?" I said in a quiet, level voice.

"Twiley-"

"How can you be with her?" I exploded at him.

I lurched up to my knees, and the world fell away around me. My brain sparked, and the scene changed, and I knew that he could see it too.

Shining and I faced each other on an empty plain of bedsheets. He stood tall and unafraid, the same knight in shining armour that I'd always known. But sure enough, through the cracks in his visor all I could make out was Shimmer's leer. Clouds of rage flared up around me, obscuring my vision, and I knew that in their midst Shining saw something in me he didn't recognize. His hesitation at the sight gave me a cold thrill. Gone was the mask of the human girl that I'd been wearing; for the first time, I was showing him what I really was.

I lowered my head, preparing to charge, and readied my words like a battleaxe. "She's evil," I spat, letting the fight begin.

"She's..." What I assumed was a protest never made it past the first word. Shining raised his shield against me, but didn't draw his sword. He gulped as I thundered toward him and fumbled for a few seconds before trying again. "It depends on your point of view."

"Point of- You admit it! You know she's awful." I snorted and swung my axe toward his exposed side. "She hurts people."

"And she helps people, too," he parried. "She puts herself through Tartarus and back to save people. She's earned the right to be a little cranky."

"Cranky?" I pressed my offense. "Is that what you call it? She's a bully, she's a sadist, and she likes it. She's a manipulative bitch who doesn't care about anyone's feelings but her own. She's-"

"I know!" Unexpectedly, Shining used his shield to take the force of one of my blows head-on, then used my momentary pause to ram me several steps back. "I know Shimmer's rough around the edges. Anyone can see she has some issues. Do you really think the only reason I'm with her is because I don't know what she's like?" He slammed his shield into my chest a second time, then settled back into his defensive stance. "I've lived with her for a year now. I've seen what she's like when she thinks no one's watching. Believe me, I've caught the brunt of a lot of her moods too, and if that was all there was to her then I would have left. I know it's hard to see, but there's more to her than just a bitch."

I fought to regain my footing. "And what is it that I'm meant to be seeing?"

"She's like..." Shining inched closer. "She's like a little kid on a playground, chasing someone she likes with a snake," he explained. "She's not doing it because she's evil, just because she doesn't know any better. She doesn't like to talk about it, but she lost her parents when she was young, and she never had anyone to teach her how to be nice. If she's rude to you, sometimes it's because she means it, but just as often it's just the only way she knows to show she cares."

I snorted, unconvinced. My twisted hoof scraped angrily along the ground. "So, what?" I snarled, butting heads with him. "When she mocks me with all the kinky ways she's fucking you, I'm supposed to just smile and take it?"

This rattled him, but his footing remained solid. "I'm not saying it's not a problem," he clarified. "It's just-"

"Excuses!" I cracked my horns against the side of his head, finally knocking him off balance, and followed up with a bruising blow to his side. "The Shining Armour I remember would never be with someone like that." As he stumbled I pursued, hitting him again and again, building up momentum. "As long as you're with her, you're telling her hurting people is okay. You're telling her violence is okay. You're telling her she can do whatever she wants to anyone, with no consequences!" I howled and swung my axe over my head. "You're letting her hurt me!"

"I was trying to say I'm working on it!" He flung himself backwards, out of reach of my axe, and landed heavily on his back. He took a deep breath, swallowing the anger that had flared up on his face, and braced himself for another blow. "Look, I can see that you're angry," he understated. "And I understand where you're coming from. But you're just going to have to trust me that there's good in her. She likes to get under your skin, but she never means to hurt anyone. That's not how she is."

I stomped onto his chest. "Typical of a bully," I growled, grinding down, "if she thinks she's the one who gets to decide whether or not she's hurt anyone."

"...I know." Shining laid his head against the ground. "I'm sorry if she's done anything to you. If you want, I can have another talk with her about boundaries. All I can say is that I promise you, she's better than she used to be. She just needs time."

"That's not good enough." I stomped down again and heard something crack. "What she needs is taking down a peg. Like, for instance, if her too-good-for-her boyfriend told her that he wasn't going to put up with her any more."

There was a long silence. "Are you telling me to break up with her?"

"Are you telling me you need me to?" I stomped down one last time, but not as hard. I knew that I'd won. "She's awful. You know she's awful. She's awful to me, she's awful to you, and she's awful to herself, and someone doesn't stop her she's going to ruin your l-"

"She isn't awful to me."

I paused. He was smiling. "You can't be serious."

"Strange but true." He grinned wearily at me. "She's a little girl with a snake, Twiley. And I'm the only one who knows how to translate. We might look like we're fighting sometimes, but deep down, she just wants me to look after her. I promise, she will never do anything to hurt me."

"Shining." I saw my opportunity, roared, and swung for his throat. "You know what she did to us."

Shining's free hand shot up. With lightning speed his fingers spelled out runes into the air, and the outline of his body began to blur. "What Sunset did to us," he corrected on the last stroke. The moment that my axe connected he vanished into smoke, and I stumbled forward, suddenly on my own.

Silence fell again. I took an aggressive stance and looked around warily, searching for any sign of my brother. "They're the same freaking person," I said, trying to draw him out.

"No they're not," he answered. A spectral hand traced along my tangled mane, vanishing when I whirled to face it. Despite the lightness of the touch, I felt noticeably heavier, some of the energy drained from me. "What Sunset did to us was evil," Shining continued, sounding like he was coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. "She broke my heart and made me think I hated you - and what she did to you was even worse. But she is not the same as Shimmer. And it isn't fair of you to project your anger for her onto someone who would never pull a stunt like that."

Light touches assaulted me from all sides, but whichever way I turned, all I could ever catch was flickers of smoke at the corners of my vision. I swung blindly, hitting nothing. "They come from the same place! If Sunset hadn't come through the portal, Shimmer would have been the one-"

"But she did come through the portal. And that changed everything." A ghostly hand grabbed at my ankle, nearly yanking me off balance. "Your origins don't define who you are."

"But your destiny does," I countered, breaking free. "They both have the same crest. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

"Modern sociology believes that crests have more to do with personal philosophies over a lifetime and less to do with any specific actions," he shot back. "Shimmer's crest is about being powerful and an inspiration to others. She already has that without needing to resort to petty revenge."

"Then why did she feel the need to torment me about dating you?" I anticipated his movement and caught his wrist, only for him to vanish back into smoke. Even so, the attacks stopped. "Once a liar, always a liar," I said, backing up. "I used to be Sunset's only friend. Even if she was wearing a mask, there were some parts of her she hadn't learned to hide. I've known her in ways you never could." For some reason, a ghostly snickering echoed across the plain, which only incensed me further. "She doesn't care about helping others. She's just needy and empty. Even when she's acting vulnerable, it's only because she wants you to give something to her." The laughter rose to a loud, distant chuckle, which was as confusing as it was infuriating. "She just wants to suck you dry!" I shouted, to a throaty guffaw. "She's no better than a changeling."

The laughter stopped. With a roar of wind Shining Armour rematerialized in front of me, and before I could move his hand was around my throat. "Don't you dare call her that," he said.

I grinned triumphantly. "Give me a reason not to." I swiped out at him, and this time felt something give way beneath my blade before he was able to disappear. The wind started to carry him away, but I'd caught his scent and gave chase. "She's a parasite," I yelled, gaining on him. "She'll use you until she has you where she wants you, then she'll break you to pieces just so she can laugh at you. I won't let her hurt you like she hurt me!"

"You mean, the way a completely different person hurt you when you were fourteen?" He spun around and flung smoke into my eyes, blinding me. "After meeting both Sunset and Shimmer, do you really not believe that people can change? After all those stories, do you think that you're exactly the same person as Princess?"

I staggered to a halt. Smoke filled my mouth, my lungs, strangling me. Shapes swirled in the obscurifying cloud, presenting memories to me faster than I could log and arrange them - her identical voice, her identical crest, the way her identical skin felt against mine. Her taste in drinks and her taste in boys; her choice of lifestyle and her choice of friends; the face she showed to the world and the face she showed in the dark. Differences and similarities stacked themselves around me, caging me in with the question that had been buzzing in me ever since this messed-up adventure began. "She's..." I choked out, but could go no further.

"She's not, is she?" Shining blew more smoke into my prison, flooding me with indecision. "She comes from a different world, a different life. No matter how similar you look, there will always be differences. Can't you see that Shimmer's the same?"

I staggered under visions of faces and crests and risque shower scenes, but that one name cut through everything else. Shimmer's evil leer flared up in the clouds in front of my face, and her laughter echoed in my ears. I gritted my teeth and rose up, shouting over her. "That... it... It doesn't freaking matter!"

Violet energy pulsed through me, rising like fire up to the tip of my horns, then crashed back down as I slammed my hoof into the ground. A massive shockwave blew up around me, blasting the smoke high and far and clearing my head of all distractions. In the near distance, Shining Armour was flung out of his cloud and tumbled to the ground fully-formed. I snorted, sending a jet of purple fire from my nostrils, and then charged.

"I shouldn't have to use science to justify this to you!" I yelled, swinging mightily. My axe caught Shining's shield and knocked him fully into the air, spinning him as he tried to right himself. "You know that Shimmer is awful. All she ever does is hurt everyone she touches. You shouldn't be with a person like that!"

"And why not?" Shining rolled out of the way as my blade crashed into the place where he had been. "I never asked you to like her as a person. All you need to know is she makes me happy. Isn't that enough for you?"

"And what about what makes me happy?" I kept swinging, either clipping or barely missing him each time. He kept dodging, but he was tiring. "What if I want to see my brother more than once, ever? What if mom and dad want to see you? What about the feelings of every friend you've ever had, other than her?" Anger plumed in me, rushing up my throat. "Or are you saying you don't care how anyone else feels, so long as you get whatever you want?"

Fire burst from my throat, rushing toward him, but Shining remained calm. He got to one knee and quickly drew another rune, and a gust of sparkling snow leaped from his fingertips, canceling out my flame. "I have friends," he said, rising, "at work and school, and none of them have ever been hurt by Shimmer. Most of them have never even met her. She prefers to do her own thing. And she's not going to steal me from you," he added, moving forward. I intensified my breath, trying to break through to him, but he remained resolute. "I have lots of vacation time saved up, and no one ever said she has to come with me. I can come back to visit any time I want. I don't have a reason to stay away any more." He narrowed his eyes. "At least, I thought I didn't."

A chunk of ice flew past my defenses and hit me in the eyes. My fire faltered and I stumbled back, swiping out blindly with a fist. "She's bad for you," I blurted desperately. "I know she is."

"I don't think so. Compared to when I met her, I'm only better for being with her." He hit me with another blast of ice, staggering me back another step. "And after this week, you'll never have to see her again if you don't want to. Is that what you want?"

I clawed at my eyes, trying to regain my footing. "Yes," I stammered.

"Then what the hell is your problem with her?" Shining advanced, blasting me again and again, freezing my face into a distorted scowl. "I'm happy, you don't have to see her, and nobody's getting hurt. Why are you so convinced that I'd be better off without her? Why is your grudge more important than-"

I played my trump card. "Because you were supposed to marry Cadance!"

Light flashed across me. I spun around, fire trailing down my axe, and hit him where it counted. His shield was ripped away from his body, spinning through the air before crashing down several meters away. Shining was flung with it, just barely catching himself before he fell. I caught a flash of blood; his shield arm hung limp and unmoving. But if Shining Armour felt it, he gave no indication. He just gaped at me, numb to all but what he'd just heard. "Cadance?"

"That's right." I swung upward, easily cleaving the helmet from his head. Again, he made no move as it fell away. "Princess told me. In her world, where Sunset never interfered, you're married. She was at your wedding. And your wife is the most amazing person ever. Someone who loves everyone, who always puts others above herself, and who's spent her entire life doing nothing but making other people happy. Mi Amore Cadenza." His stare was blank, so I leaned in close and made sure that he was looking me right in the eyes while I repeated her name. "Cadance."

A hollow wind trailed along the battlefield. I stepped in front of Shining and raised my axe over my head, executioner-style. "Shimmer is nothing compared to her," I said. "She should be your real destin-"

"Okay, okay, hold on. Time out." My axe stopped inches from his face. "I'm married?"

We were back on the bed. I shifted uncertainly. "Yes," I said. "To Cada-"

"I heard you. Just..." Shining closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Wow. That's a lot to take in. Just... just give me a minute."

He leaned back against the wall. I waited patiently, starting to uncurl the painfully tight fists that my hands had balled up into. "Wow," Shining muttered quietly, still processing. "Cadance..." He repeated these two words several times over the next few minutes, in various orders and with various intonations. It was hard to pick out a pattern, but I hoped I heard a spark of realization in there.

When he seemed to be winding down, I tried speaking again. "Shining-"

"I know what you're going to say," he said, cutting me off. "And the answer's no."

"But-"

"No, Twilight." His eyes opened. "I'm with Shimmer now. That's just the way things are."

"But they don't have to be." I stared up at him, pleading. "You know what I'm saying is right. You and Cadance were meant for each other, and I know she feels it too. If you could just explain what happened, there's still time to set things r-"

"It's not happening, Twilight. Cadance and I are done."

I felt a tear welling up. "But if you could just call her-"

"I did call her. Not long after I arrived in Manehattan." He looked down at the sheets, only a faint flicker of his mouth giving away that he was swallowing his emotions. "You didn't see her, Twilight," he said darkly. "After we broke up. She was like a ghost. She spent weeks following me around, asking what she'd done wrong. She started changing her clothes, then her hair, then her face, just to impress me. And when that didn't work, she stopped looking after herself. Spreading love was her whole life, and once her confidence was gone, all the other relationships she'd helped put together started breaking apart too. All those years helping others, and suddenly she didn't have a single friend to fall back on. And one day, she just... disappeared. She left town without telling anyone, and we never saw her again."

He sighed, a sigh that shattered through me as I felt my own heart breaking. "The first thing I did when I was out of the hospital was try to find her. I wanted to tell her I hadn't been thinking with my head, and I was sorry, and I wanted her back. It took me a week and a lot of favours to track down a new number for her. But when I finally did get her on the phone, she didn't want anything to do with me. I tried to apologize, but I don't think she listened to a word I said. She just said something about the Clockwork Empire and then hung up. Twenty minutes later, that number was disconnected. That was the last I ever heard from her."

Cold shock fell over me. Just the same as it must have fallen over him, when it first happened. "But... But you can't give up that easily," I protested.

"Watch me."

"No, you can't," I insisted. "You love her."

"...Yeah. You're right." He put a hand heavily over his heart. "I loved her." He closed his eyes. "And... deep down, I think part of me always will. I'm happy for that other me, the one who got to be with her. I'm happy for her, too. I bet they're really... happy together." He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on me. "But I'm not that guy. And this isn't that world, Twilight, and you need to accept that. I'm with Shimmer now. And no matter what you say to me, that's not going to change."

The word no crossed soundlessly over my lips several times. My body trembled, and if I'd been standing I would have had to lean on something or risk crumbling. This couldn't be real. I was supposed to be the monster; I was the one who'd failed to set things right. Yet here was my brother, strong and incorruptible, spitting in destiny's face - and worse, he didn't even care. I swayed as the crest on his shirt blurred before my eyes. Don't cry. Don't cry. Wetness trickled down my cheek, even as I covered my face to dam it up. Cadance...

"Twilight?" The bed creaked as Shining moved toward me. I started to turn away, but his broad fingers lifted my hands away from my face. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

I didn't look at him. "No, I... It's okay. It's not your fault." I understood. The whole sequence played itself out inside of me, one great cosmic mechanism, exploding outward from the place where Sunset had entered it. Lines that had once run parallel had been flung apart; this was no one's fault, not even hers. He had been taken away from me, and Cadance from us both. The lines of destiny had been erased. He couldn't be held accountable for that.

But then... but then some of the lines had come back together.

"Why her?" I whispered.

"What?" Shining said, not hearing.

"If you couldn't be with Cadance..." Fire shot through my eyes, and I ripped my hands away from him. "Then why would you be with her?"

I shoved him away, and suddenly my axe was in my grip again. I bellowed, an inhuman roar that echoed across the landscape, while Shining Armour darted away from me. I couldn't make out my brother in what he'd become any more; all I could see was Shimmer wearing his clothes.

My enemy quickly started to draw another rune, but I thundered after him with fire in every step. "You could have been with anyone!" I screamed, swatting down his motions with the flat of my blade. "A doctor! A lawyer! A princess! And instead you chose scum?"

He fell and scrambled around me, trying not to get trampled. "Twilight, I'm not as much of a catch as you think I am!" he protested, diving low to pass beneath my legs. "Things have changed. She chose me, when no one else would have."

"So you think you can't do better than her?" I spun and kicked him into the air. "Did she tell you that?"

"No! I just mean..." He landed heavily and rolled onto his feet. "I was in a bad place in my life, and she helped me out of it. I'm only myself again because she inspired me to put the past behind me."

"Oh, I see how it is." I grunted triumphantly and leaped, aiming for the heart. "She picked you up when you were vulnerable, and now you're stuck with her!"

"Yes! I mean... no. No!" He dodged too late. My axe struck him in the chest, buckling his armour, and when he pulled away wet blood trickled down his front.

"I've heard that story before." As he staggered from pain I picked him up by his throat, breathing foul heat into his face. "That's exactly what Sunset did to Flash Sentry."

Shining choked, wincing away from me. "It's not... like that..." he protested.

"It is. It's exactly like that." I shook him hard. "And the best day of Flash's life was when he realized how wicked and manipulative she was. You're being used, Shining." I shook him again, delighting in how his limbs spasmed. "Do you really think Shimmer cares even a little about you?"

He glared with Shimmer's pointed eyes. "I know she does."

"How? Has she ever said it?"

This caught him. "I... She doesn't have to!" he cried. His voice was getting weaker. "That's not how she is. She shows it in other ways."

"Like what?"

He struggled again. "...Little things."

"Admit it. You're just a toy to her." My fingers tightened. "And you might not see it now, but you have no idea how much happier you'll be once you get rid of her. I know it'll hurt, but Shining, this is for your own good."

His grin flickered back onto him. "Then I guess... you haven't considered..." As his voice got softer, his arm started to move. "That I'm... manipulating... her!"

In a sudden motion, Shining swung his legs up and kicked out for my stomach. I jumped back and knocked him aside with the handle of my axe, but this had just been a ruse; my motion covered his movements as his good arm finished his third rune, blasting me in the chest with a bolt of white lightning. I dropped him as I was flung back, barely keeping my grip on my axe. I immediately lunged forward again but my movements were jerky, slowed by rapidly fading lines of paralysis. "What?" I said as my muscles cleared.

"I'm her good influence. I'm the reason she's better." Crippled as he was, Shining still found it in himself to stand strong. Lightning crackled in his fist, and the smile was back on his face. With every word, the light he held grew stronger. "She taught me anger. I taught her patience. She taught me to forget the past; I taught her to remember the future. She taught me how to assert myself, and I taught her that she can't always have what she wants. We're good for each other." He straightened up fully, bright energy winding across him like a snake. "It balances out. Every time she tries to corrupt me, I end up purifying her in return. You think she's bad now? Before me, her lifestyle was going to destroy her. I pulled her out of a dark place too. And the only way she's ever going to get better is if she has someone looking after her!"

Thunder boomed in his grasp, and I had to shield my eyes from him. Blinding light burst from the storm that Shining held as he kept talking. "You know that heartbreak only leads to more heartbreak. The only way to wash the hate out of someone is to make them your friend. So you're right! Shimmer has problems!" He raised his fist toward me, having to shout over his own power. "But I can help her!"

I braced myself, but still didn't see the beam before it struck. A maelstrom of light and sound crashed into me. I shielded myself with my axe, cutting off the worst of it, but the beam grew stronger with every passing second. My hooves started to scrape backwards over the ground, leaving deep gouges. Serpents of lightning flickered past the edges of my defense, sinking their fangs into my arms and numbing my warped flesh. I clenched my teeth and stood against it. No matter what, I didn't dare let this tactic of his penetrate me.

Because I knew where I'd heard this story before.

"Please, Twilight," Shining begged, his words cutting through the storm. "You have to understand. I'm just trying to do the right thing."

My arms weakened. More and more lightning spilled over into me, not painful but soothing, calming. My matted fur began to burn away, revealing smooth, lavender skin beneath. The fire within my nostrils began to die.

But my eyes narrowed. The stone that was my heart cracked, and instead of blood, hot, searing acid spilled out. Every bite on me began to bubble, disfiguring my skin as I expelled venom - Shimmer's venom - from every pore. With my head, I began to push back. The storm shrieked in a familiar voice as I slowly twisted my blade, took one heavy step forward, and then, with a long, disharmonious cry, cleaved my brother's attack in two.

The storm split and flashed away in all directions, thundering and wailing before finally fading away to nothing. In the long silence that followed, I took several deep, quiet breaths. The skin that had been exposed was cracked and slick with pus, my hands scoured raw from the force. But my head was intact, and fell into further shadow than ever when I raised it again. "I can't believe you," I said.

Shining stayed still, his arm still raised. Judging by his expression, he'd genuinely expected that this would be the blow that felled me. "Uh," he said.

I bared my teeth and screeched. "You mean your whole relationship is built on lies?"

Before he could react, I was on him.

"Why can't you get it through your thick! Stupid! Head!" I screamed, pounding on his skull. "Shimmer acts like she does because she likes it! She doesn't want to be better, she doesn't deserve to be better, and she does not! Deserve! You!"

To his credit, Shining didn't crumble even as I pummeled him. "You don't believe in forgiveness?" he tried, shooting a smaller bolt of lightning into my chest, which simply bounced off.

"I believe in protecting my family!" Blood and spittle flew from his mouth as I struck him again and again. "She is not the woman you deserve! You think this is healthy? You want to spend the rest of your life with her?"

He looked away, trying to cover up as he fought for balance. "I don't know, maybe?"

I crashed my head into his, knocking him down. "Idiot! Do you think she'd ever agree to marry you?"

"We... we haven't really talked about it!"

I wound up and kicked him somewhere I knew it would hurt. "Would you ever trust her to be the mother of your children?"

"Well..." He winced, but seemed strangely unfazed. "I mean, we both got our tubes tied more than a year ago, so that was never really an option to begin w-"

My wordless scream of outrage was all the warning he got as I swung for him. Shining twisted and my blade struck the ground between his legs, missing him by a hair. He scrambled backwards, firing ineffectually again as he picked himself up. "If it wasn't me, it would be some other guy," he said. "At least I can reign her in!"

"That's her problem, not yours!" I leaned over him, and made sure he could see the fury in my eyes when I struck him again. "What about what you need? What about trust? Kindness? A future? Not someone you can't even trust to leave alone with your sister!" Fire rolled away from my mouth, the heat blistering his face. "Why. Her?"

Shining didn't answer.

I snorted and flung him away from me, bashing him against the ground. "Is it because she gets you off?" I lashed out. "Is that it? All this time, and you still can't think with anything but your penis? Do you just not care as long as you get to fuck her?"

His stance turned defensive. "So what if she does?" he said. "We're adults! What would you know about it? Have you even had sex with anyone?"

He seemed to regret that as soon as he said it; the bolt he fired flew wide over my shoulder. In turn, I completely ignored it. "Is it because she makes you feel strong?" I struck again, hearing a satisfying crack as his rune was dispelled. "Like a brave knight, defending his fair princess? News flash! She's no princess, and you never needed her!"

This time, not so much as a peep.

"Then what?" I grabbed his head and squeezed. "She does nothing for you. She only takes and takes, and you'd be stronger and happier with anyone else. So answer me!" I crushed him, feeling blood rush and bones creak beneath my fingers. "WHY HER?"

The force of his answer made me drop him and stumble back. "BECAUSE I LOVE HER!"

And Shining Armour drew his sword.

A gust of rose-scented wind pushed me back. I only had a second to look at him with his pearly blade unsheathed, and for the second time in my life I saw real anger in his eyes. And then he struck. "How dare you."

I'd thought his lightning had been fast, but I never could have prepared for this. With a single strike he cleaved my axe in half, and I felt a biting coldness in my chest as I fell away. "Do you want to know why I'm with Shimmer?" he said. "Because she's there for me. She's always been there for me. She supports everything I do, and she's never told me what I can or can't do. And at the end of each day, even if we have problems, we always find a way to solve them and we always stay together! And that's somehow not enough for you?"

His attacks hit me faster than I could follow them. "I'm with Shimmer because I love her," Shining continued, cutting deeper, "and I don't need another reason." His wounds began to heal themselves, armour filling out from the inside. "She's the most amazing person I know, even with all her problems. It makes me happy when she's happy. When she's gone, I feel like something's missing. And I don't just want to spend the rest of my life with her, I know that I will be, even if it's hard. Because despite everything you've said, and despite all she's done, I know that there is nothing she could ever do that would make me stop loving her. If you'd ever been in love then you would understand that. I guess you don't."

My flame completely went out as I felt something inside me puncture. His sword flashed back and forth, slashing and piercing me, leaving a hundred biting chills all over my body. His helmet rematerialized and I caught a flash of emerald eyes before his visor fell back down. I dropped the broken handle of my axe and tried to raise the rest against him, but I felt like I was moving in slow motion. "Shining..."

"I don't know what you thought this meeting was about, but I didn't come here to get your permission." His blade shattered mine and ripped it from my grip completely. "I thought that we could be a family again. But if this is all you care about, then maybe we shouldn't meet like this any more. I don't want to have to defend myself every time I see you. After all this time, isn't it enough that we're together again?"

I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe. Retorts died inside me before they could reach my limbs. Momentum carried me; with one final thrust from him, I crashed down to the ground. Shining put his foot on my bleeding chest, weighing me down. His sword found a home under my chin. "I love Shimmer," he said, crushing that into me one last time, "and I will never let anyone hurt her. Not even you."

I had nothing. I was utterly broken. All I could do was twist myself defiantly toward him, leaning into his sword, and spit red onto the blade. "So you love her more than you love me?"

Silence took us again.

Shining stared at me for a long time. Ever so slowly, expecting an attack at any second, he lifted his blade away from my throat. Carefully, he wiped it off and sheathed it. "Twilight..."

His foot left my chest. I twitched, but couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to. He lifted up his helmet and threw it aside. I braced myself for a shock of crimson hair, but it was Shining Armour who looked down on me, my brother and no one else. "Twilight, you're my little sister," he said. "Nothing can ever take that away from you."

He knelt down and lifted me up. When I didn't have the strength to stand, he helped me to my knees. I let out a weak growl, but he shushed me. "I'm sorry that there are parts of my life that I can't share with you," he said. "If I'd known how you felt about Shimmer, I would have tried to keep her away from you. I just want you to remember that this doesn't change how I feel about you. Okay?" Having to stretch, he wrapped his arms around me. "I love you, Twilight. I should have been there to protect you too. I never should have let you go."

His exposed flesh was so close to me. One simple twist of my head, one thrust of my horns, and I could tear his throat open. Just one motion, just one moment, just one word:

"Choose."

And he would fall away from me. His blood would spill lifeless onto the ground. He would be gone, never to hurt, never to love, never to speak another word to me again. And everything would go back to the way it was before.

I lay limp against him. He didn't let go, even as he struggled under my weight and my wounds oozed onto his skin. "Shining?" I eventually said.

"Yeah?"

"I pretended to be Princess and had sex with Flash behind her back."

He thought on this for a while.

"That's fucking hilarious."

He didn't let go. He just kept holding me, monster that I was. And after a while, slowly, haltingly, and then desperately, I hugged him back.

We held that position as the world that we'd created faded. The battlefield vanished and my room took its place, depositing us back on my bed. My face untwisted into one that fit perfectly into the crook of his shoulder. He enveloped me, keeping me steady as I shook. "This isn't right," I mumbled.

"I know."

"We're completely off the rails. None of this was ever supposed to happen."

"Who says we need rails?"

"The universe does."

"Maybe it doesn't. We're all strong people. We've all found our destinies, even if we got thrown a little off course." Shining nuzzled me. "And I don't believe for a second that it was just random chance that brought us back together. Not when our crests have given us these roles to play. Look, I know that you think of things like McCarthy as just concepts that people use to explain destiny strings, but... I've never been able to lose the feeling that on some level, all of this was meant to happen."

I thought over the events of the past two weeks. "No," I said, shaking my head. "I can't imagine that McCarthy ever meant for this."

A light tapping broke us apart from each other. My heart raced until I recognized Princess outside my window, hanging from a rope and knocking. "Hey," she said, waving. "Do you know there's a grappling hook stuck in your gutter?"

I hopped down from my bed and managed to disguise my shaking limbs long enough to let her in. She brushed past me, beaming when she saw my brother. "Shining! How are you..." She slowed when she caught his expression, and stopped when she turned and glimpsed mine. "Is... everything okay?" she asked.

Shining looked at me uncertainly. "Well..."

"It's fine," I said quickly. "Just a little emotional." I looped my arm around hers and tried to make it seem natural, but desperately leeched off of the soothing feel of her skin against mine. "What are you doing here? I thought you were working with Shimmer on that machine."

"Oh, well... She doesn't need me at the moment." She avoided our gazes and picked at something on her skirt. "She and Sunset are trashing Canterlot's science lab to get supplies."

"You left them alone together?"

"Applejack and Pinkie Pie are supervising. Of course, I think Applejack was more concerned with getting Shimmer to stop breaking things. She did go through an awful lot of thermometers during our tests..." She got a funny little smile on her face. "You know, I still can't believe mercury is lethal in this world. My horn alone used to be ten percent mercury. I almost killed myself in my first month here because I could still hear my mom pestering me if I didn't eat my-"

Right on cue, I heard an all-too-familiar creak from the stairs, and froze up a full second before the others did. "Twilight! Shining! I'm coming up!" my mom called.

I caught a quick grin from Princess, but it disappeared as she remembered where she was. "Eep! Bad timing. Just a sec!" she yelled, looking around in a panic. She took half a step towards the window, accidentally yanking me along with her, but hesitated when she considered the risk and logistics. We glanced at each other. Simultaneously, we went for my closet.

As my mom's footsteps drew near, Princess reached my closet and threw it open. She ran her eyes over the contents, doing a quick analysis; I was sure that some part of her was admiring the efficient layout, or silently despairing at how few clothes I actually owned. It only took her a moment to choose a spot between my skirts and the laundry hamper. The moment she went for it, though, I pulled her back and shoved her toward the bed, then jumped into the closet myself, knocking clothes aside to make room. Before the others could say anything, I shut them up with a glare and pulled the door shut. A second later, my mom burst into the room.

"I brought ice cream!" she singsonged.

Of course.

Of course she did.

Spike sprung into the room at her heels, yapping like a little kid, which (hopefully) provided enough of a distraction to let Princess recover. "Thanks, mom!" she chirped. The sound of a hug followed, then a tiny gasp. "Is that-?"

"I know! I haven't made this in a long long time. It took me ages to find all the ingredients again."

"Mom." There was a blush in Shining's voice. "You didn't have to."

"I know, I know. But some things never change." She kissed his cheek. Maybe his forehead. "And no matter how old you get, there are some things you'll always need."

I knew. I knew from the moment I heard her footsteps; I knew from the first time Shining and I raised our voices. It had been inevitable from the moment he set foot through the door.

Peanut butter ice cream.

It was dumb. It was literally just peanut butter and ice cream in a bowl, and sometimes a caramel square or whatever happened to be lying around in the kitchen. My dad had invented the tradition by accident when we were kids; whenever Shining and I started to argue, he would whip up the first three things he could find in a bowl and distract us with it. By the time we'd lost interest in the food, we'd usually forgotten what we were arguing about. Over a couple of months the method was refined to what was, embarrassingly, our one and only family recipe. He stopped when we were older and started to catch on, but our mom brought it back when Shining was in high school because we fought less and it made us laugh. It was mostly because of this that I could honestly say that my brother and I had never had a real fight. But then he'd left, and it was all my fault, and no one had ever mentioned it again.

"Oh my gosh!" Princess nearly bowled my mom over with a hug. "Mom, I love you." She paused. I knew the gears in her head were turning, and I imagined her giving Shining Armour a knowing glance. Now she knew what she'd interrupted. But she took the bowl anyway.

I slid down the wall and covered my head with my arms. Outside, Princess was getting her first real taste of home in years; inside, all I could do was listen to her coo over what I'd been deprived of for twice as long. I clenched up into a tight ball to resist the urge to kick the door. It wasn't fair.

"Sweetie, have you been enjoying your visit?" my mom asked Shining over the sound of Princess stuffing her face.

"Yeah, mom," he said, punctuated by the scuffling of what could only be Spike jumping on his lap. "I missed this place. I'll try to come back more often from now on."

"Wonderful. I trust you two are... getting along?"

"...Yeah, mom. We're fine."

"Good." She had her own gears-turning pause, and I wondered just how much of our argument she'd been able to hear. I was glad I'd spared myself the warning look she was no doubt throwing at Princess. Even without seeing it, though, I still flinched. "I'll leave you alone, then. If you need anything, I'll be right downstairs."

"Thanks. Love you, mom."

"Love you mom!" Princess parroted with her mouth full.

"I know, sweethearts. I know." I heard her footsteps creak away, but they stopped in the doorway. She turned. "Oh, and one more thing..." I could hear the smirk in her voice. "Who's in the closet?"

They both froze. "Um..." Princess said.

"Mom, it's..." Shining scratched the back of his head, probably to hide his face. "It's... my girlfriend."

"Your...!" My mom stayed there for just a second more, then squealed and shut the door, giggling like a schoolgirl as she hurried away.

I stayed where I was. Even after all the noise was gone, I didn't uncurl from my ball on the floor, and it was even longer before any light fell across me. I didn't even look up. "Twilight?" Princess whispered, crouching down in front of me.

"Go away," I mumbled.

She inhaled quietly and bit her lip. Something cold brushed against my hand, and despite myself I looked up. A bowl of peanut butter ice cream was pushed into my grip. Princess had eaten exactly half. I stared at it hungrily for a moment and then pushed it back. "I don't want it."

Next her palms took the bowl's place, and I could feel her concern through her skin. "Twilight... What were you and Shining Armour fighting about?"

I twisted away from her. "Nothing. It was stupid."

"It was about Shimmer," Shining said from behind her. "We... both kind of overreacted."

She looked back and forth between us. "But... you're fine now, right?"

"Sure. Fine." I retreated back into my ball. "You can have a turn with him. Just leave me alone."

"Huh? I don't... Please, talk to me. Why did you push me out instead of you?"

"Why do you freaking think?"

"I..." She looked back at Shining Armour helplessly. If he responded, I didn't see it. "Twilight, I don't understand. She's your mother. Why can't you just talk to her?"

"It's not that simple." I did my best to twist away in the confined space. "You don't know what she's like."

"She's my mom too!" She shouted for two words and then reined it in. "And she was just like she's always been. The only thing I've seen every time I've met her is a woman who's done nothing but love you. All she wants is for you to be happy. Why can't you see that?"

I snorted. "Yeah, you would say that. My mom likes you better."

"What? That..." She took a deep breath. "That is absurd. That whole time she thought I was you."

"Yeah, the version of me that she can stand to be around. You smile when she's in the room, and she actually listens to you."

"What are you talking ab-"

"Don't you get it?" I finally looked up and snarled at her. "Don't you see she'd kill to have you as a daughter instead of me?"

Princess made a wide-eyed, choking noise at the back of her throat. "I..."

"I get it." Shining pulled open the other side of the closet, standing over us both. Spike was cradled obliviously in his arm. "Mom doesn't know about Sunset, does she?"

I looked away by way of confirmation. Princess puzzled this over, then gasped. "You mean all this time, she thought you... You didn't tell her?"

"Tell her what?" I growled. "You mean beg with her to stop thinking I'm a freak?" Princess flinched, so I toned it down. "I had no proof, and mom is... mom. Plus dad just goes with whatever she says. There was never a good time."

My double seethed with what was probably the closest she ever came to rage. "We're settling this. Right now." She grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me to my feet.

"No!" I slapped her hand away and curled up again. "Please. I don't want to face her right now. I don't want... anything." I looked at the ground. "I don't want to be with people."

Princess stood firm. "It's not fair to her if she doesn't know."

"Then you tell her!" I snapped, covering my head. "You go be the one who makes everything right. That's what makes us different, isn't it? That's why everyone loves you."

Princess seethed, preparing something blistering. Then Shining Armour put his hand on her shoulder. "Wait," he said. He crouched down and put Spike on the floor between us.

The little dog yawned as he came to. He'd been on the verge of a nap, and looked around blearily as he stood. Then he paused. Even now, Spike still wasn't used to the idea of there being two Twilights, and had to spin around to get his bearings. He took us both in: tall, beautiful, perfect Princess, holding herself like I used to before everything went wrong; and hunched, teary-eyed, ragged me, glowering out at him from the shadows. But without hesitation, he turned and he walked up to me, resting his head on my leg.

"See?" Shining said. "He knows who his family is." He put his arm around Princess. "This girl's a good imitation, but deep down, we know who the real Twilight is. And even if things have to go a little differently, that's still the Twilight we want to be with." He looked to Princess. "No offense."

"None taken."

Spike looked up at me with big eyes. He prodded at my leg, whimpering when I didn't pet him like I usually did. Princess clasped her hands like her heart was melting, but all I felt was an inner twisting and clenching. Of course Spike stuck with me; he was used to me. He wasn't capable of seeing what I was really like. "Don't mock me," I growled, and kicked him away.

"Twilight!" Princess yelled as Spike yelped and darted under the bed. She surged forward and grabbed my wrists, pushing me back against the wall. "Get a hold of yourself!" she shouted.

Our faces were unbearably close together. "Don't touch me!" I shouted back, uncoiling like a spring and shoving her away.

We all froze as Princess stumbled back, almost falling until Shining Armour caught her at the last second. She stared at me blankly, her mouth partway open, while I recoiled as though I was the one who'd been struck. A single breath filled the room, from her or me or both, it didn't matter. We both knew.

"I'm sorry!" I burst out of the closet and embraced her, pushing myself hard into her body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I mumbled into her shirt, each iteration meaning something slightly different, getting lost as I realized I was becoming weepy again. I was so pathetic.

"It's okay. We're okay." She considered me carefully. "Do you want to leave?"

I considered her in turn. "I don't know."

"Okay." She turned to Shining Armour. "To be honest, I came here because I wanted to ask if I could borrow Twilight for a while. Is that okay?"

"...Yeah, sure. If she wants to go."

"What?" I twisted and looked up at him. "Shining..."

"No, I get it." He lifted my chin up to him. "Believe me, I want to spend more time with you. But this was tough, and we both need to cool down. You go have fun with Princess. I'll talk to mom. She might be singing a different tune when you get back." He rubbed my head again. "And don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. We can spend the rest of the week working things out. But if everything goes well tonight, this might be your last chance to spend time with her."

"...Right." Princess shifted slightly at this last part. Still, she carefully straightened us both up. "If you really want to be left alone, that's okay too," she said to me.

"No!" I blurted almost before she was finished. "No, I'll... I'll go with you."

She put on a strange, strained smile. "Okay."

Without needing to discuss our escape route, we went back to the window. Princess swung it open another inch and climbed out first. As she did I looked back, just in time to catch Shining Armour hastily dragging his gaze away from her butt. When he caught my stare he crimsoned and looked down, only to immediately pipe up again. "Spike!" He rushed over to the closet and lifted Spike away from the bowl Princess had left there. Spike yipped and grinned at me cheerfully, licking peanut butter from his lips.

"Twilight?" Princess called from below.

I stilled my heart, pouring fresh concrete over its cracks. "Coming," I said quietly. Tearing my eyes away, I swung one leg out the window and started my descent, leaving my oldest friend and the man who was almost my brother behind.

If I had any inkling of how the night's events would play out, I might have remembered to say goodbye.