Mirror Redemption

Chapters

Twilight's Half - Saturday
Twilight's Half - Sunday
Twilight's Half - Confrontation
Shimmer's Half - Saturday
Shimmer's Half - Sunday
Shimmer's Half - Confrontation
Fourth Fragment Complete

Twilight's Half - Saturday

Sunset was throwing off my counting.

I lay flat on my back in bed, my posture perfect, hair brushed, teeth cleaned, covers pulled up to just below my neck, keeping my breathing steady. This was my preferred sleeping position, which I'd been perfecting ever since I was a little girl, and it had never failed to make me drop off exactly in time for my recommended eight hours. But Sunset was throwing me off. She was curled up in a sleeping bag next to my bed, just her hair visible through the top of it, and every few minutes she would rustle around inside it and sigh. Behind my eyes, a sheep jumping over a fence stumbled on the landing and fell over with a panicked bleat, jolting me from nearly-asleep to awake again. I blinked into the darkness, listening to my best friend roll over uncomfortably yet again, and worried.

This was my first ever slumber party, and I'd wanted so badly for it to be perfect. I'd bought a book just for the occasion, full of tips and games and rules and promises, and I'd tried my best to follow it to the letter. Sunset had laughed when I'd brought it out - she laughed at me a lot - but she'd played along, offering her own suggestions whenever I got nervous, and within an hour we were having so much fun I'd forgotten about the script entirely. We played board games and ate snacks and told each other secrets and took lots of pictures, and time flew by so fast that I even missed my recommended study break. Now it was close to midnight and we were both in bed, exhausted, the products of a slumber party well spent.

But now Sunset couldn't sleep. And so neither could I.

I shifted without meaning to, which only threw me off further. I'd changed in the bathroom, another alteration to my slowly-forming schedule, and had kept my underwear on under my silk peejays. This hadn't been planned at all, but when it came to it, being without my underwear in the same room as Sunset had just felt... wrong, somehow. She was already dressed when I got back, and the thought that she might have been naked in my room threw me for a second. She was wearing an old sweater and what looked like sweat pants, both the wrong size for her and well-faded. Her sleeping bag, too, was stretched and scratchy and looked like it had seen a lot of use. Given how nice her clothes were at school, it always surprised me when this other side of her showed itself. Not for the first time, I wondered what her home life was actually like.

Downstairs, the clock chimed twelve, the soft, mechanical jingle filling the whole house. I wasn't sure I'd ever actually heard it before. Sunset swore to herself and moved around in her bag some more, then abruptly stood up. I thought that she was just going to the bathroom until I heard the sheets lift. Then suddenly she was in bed beside me, her arms snaking around me, squeezing me against her. "Sunset?" I mumbled.

"Shuttup, you're warm."

I tried to hold my breath. The book hadn't said anything about sharing beds. I had no idea what the protocol was in this situation, but I was pretty sure it wasn't this. Still, Sunset was older, so I had to assume she knew what she was doing. Up close, her thin sweater was musty and scratchy, like horse hair; I had no idea how she could stand to sleep in it. Her warm breath was on my cheek. Her leg crossed over mine, and I reddened as I started to realize just how close together we were. Moving ever so slightly, I became acutely aware of her breasts pressing against me. She'd developed early, and there were definite bulbs of softness that I could feel rubbing against my own flat chest as I struggled to get comfortable. I was definitely sure that wasn't in the book. "Sunset?" I whispered before my mind could wander anywhere further south.

"What?"

"This isn't... lesbian, right?"

Her breathing stopped. "What?"

She sounded confused. I wondered if I'd said something wrong. "I mean..." I squirmed. She was so warm. "You're not going to kiss me in the night or anything, right?"

She paused for a while, as though thinking. "I dunno," she mumbled sleepily. "You are pretty cute..."

My turn to freeze. An indistinct knot in my stomach tightened and I stiffened, letting out a faint, involuntary squeal until Sunset's laughter shook me out of it. "Stop being such a baby," she said. "No, I'm not a lesbian. You've got something against girls liking girls?"

I relaxed. "It's... gross," I answered, scrambling to sound informed about a topic that I'd only recently become aware of. "And... and it doesn't make any biological sense. Being attracted to someone who you're incapable of reproducing with is just a bizarre mutation that should have been-"

"Twilight, shut up." She put her hand behind my head and pushed my face against her neck, smothering me. "There's nothing wrong with girls liking girls, okay? Let it go."

I was too tired to argue, and didn't really want to, anyway. We lay there about a minute more before she spoke again. "My brother and I used to sleep like this, back when we were kids," she said. "We took turns sneaking into each other's rooms. It was the only way we could get to sleep most nights. He always slept facing away from me, though, or we'd poke each other's eyes out. I always woke up in the morning with his mane in my face."

I struggled to pull some of those images together. "Mane?"

"...Yeah. That's what I called it. He had long hair." She clung to me a little tighter. "The first week at the foster home, I couldn't sleep at all. When the RA caught me trying to sneak into another girl's bed, she threatened to throw me out. I've never had a good night's sleep since that night, Twilight. Never."

There was something unfamiliar in her tone, something that I'd never heard before, and for a moment I was struck by the idea that I'd caught a glimpse of something that I wasn't supposed to see. If there was meant to be a riddle in her words, however, my past-its-bedtime brain couldn't puzzle it out. "I'd never share a bed with my brother," I announced instead. "That would be weird."

She snorted, and her hands flexed across my back, and just like that she was back to herself again. "Shame," she said. "I know I wouldn't mind sharing a bed with him."

"Hey!"

"All right, all right. Hands off." She nuzzled me. "But only because you're my best friend."

I held in a gasp. "I'm your best friend?"

"Best and only, Twilight. And don't you ever forget it."

Sunset spent all of Saturday in the hospital. I spent it staring at the wall.

My memories of the night before were... hazy. I definitely remembered the party, and a few still images of Shimmer's leering face, and then after that everything went red. I still felt twisted up inside, thinking about what she said to me. I'd never hated so much before. Then came the embankment. And the briars. Oh, the briars. That was where we finally lost her, a witch cackling away into the night.

Applejack drove me home in silence. We pulled up around eleven, and she hugged me and gave me a long, searching look before leaving me on the front porch. I was inside by the time I realized I hadn't thanked her. My mom had stayed up waiting for me; her words were a blur, but I heard her tone oscillate through surprise and anger and pleading. I brushed her off with an emphatically blank expression and stumbled my way up to collapse in the shower.

I didn't feel anything. I was good at not feeling anything. It was one of the only good things about me. I examined myself and my situation with calm, professional, objective detachment. Physically, I was fine. Exhaustion had dulled my senses, making it easier to pluck the last thorns from my legs. I was scratched, bruised and muddied, but I would recover. The same could not be said of my dress. A rock that had scraped the skin off my knee had shredded holes through the lower half, and the rest was stained and pockmarked beyond what cleaning could fix. I wasn't looking forward to returning it to Rarity. That made four of my new friends now who'd tried to do something nice for me, only for me to ruin it and throw it back in their faces. If I kept up like this, maybe I could get all six of them to hate me before the week was up.

So Sunset was dating my brother. No... Shimmer. Same deal. The idea that there were two of those monsters loose in this world gave me shivers. An identical copy with all the same secrets, all the same envy, and all the same will to hurt and destroy. I couldn't bear to imagine what she'd done to Shining Armour in her clutches. I could only pray that whatever she'd done to him, whatever she'd transformed him into, it was no worse than the way she'd mutilated me.

My lungs hurt from screaming. I found blood under my nails. I sank down to my knees, wishing that the steaming water would wash away something it couldn't possibly reach. I'd been like a rabid animal. Just a dumb beast, bent on hurting others. This wasn't how Princess would have solved this. She would have stood by her friends, gotten to the bottom of things, taught everyone a lesson about love, and earned a reunion with her long-lost brother. She would have taught Shimmer a lesson, one that would actually stick, and maybe even become her friend. She would have been the embodiment of her crest and destiny and made the world a better place for everyone. She would have gotten it right. I just made everything worse. As usual.

I shuddered and retched. I could feel my crest, etched deep down in what a person of lesser intellect would call my soul, and I wanted to cut it out. Those brilliant spikes and stars cut into me, shining without flaw, oblivious to the fact that what it had chosen to attach itself to was a festering heart of bile and disease. I choked and spat, vainly hoping that I could turn myself inside out and rip that sparkling, hopeful destiny out of me. I wasn't a creature of friendship. I was a creature of hate, and I didn't ever want to hurt anyone again by pretending otherwise.

This state lasted longer than I'm comfortable admitting. The water was turning cold when I finally picked myself up, splashing the evidence of my outburst from my face. I blew past my mother a second time in a towel and collapsed on my bed, letting my old schedule embrace me. I never should have left it. I would become invisible again. No more losing friends, no more stealing boyfriends, no more letting my brother's abuser laugh in my face. All I wanted was to disappear. Everything would be better if I just...

...disappeared.

In half-conscious twitches my hand found its way down between my legs, because at this point, why not. It was the only part of my body that anyone had any use for. I squirmed as I felt how easily I got wet, how greedily I stuffed my fingers inside myself, letting little shells of pleasure coat me as I used my memories of my two nights with Flash to block out everything else. I was exactly the kind of slut that Princess' friends had accused me of being. I considered continuing to let Flash use me like a toy, at least until Princess was comfortable in her body, but I knew that wouldn't work out. I'd already known that I couldn't risk him associating his negative feelings toward me with her. Still, that image was the one that my stupid, horny little mind ended up fixating on: of Flash furiously pounding into me, his hands on my neck, using me like I was nothing, like I was worthless, like I deserved to be treated-

I was near climax when I heard a knock. I clapped a hand over my mouth and threw my towel across myself, managing to close my legs just as the door cracked open. "Twilight?" my mom whispered, sticking her head in and then freezing. We stared at each other awkwardly, me flushed and half-covered, wearing a look of part guilt and part fury that I was sure, in retrospect, that all parents recognized. "There's someone on the phone for you," she finished, holding the device out and covering her eyes.

I fumbled around on the bed, clumsily wrapping the towel around myself, and stood. I lurched forward and grabbed the phone with my right hand, an admission of what I'd been doing even if that hadn't already been clear, and slammed the door with my shoulder. I grouchily put the phone to my head. "Hello?"

"Twilight?"

It wasn't surprising that my mom hadn't recognized my double's voice; even I barely understood her at first. She was breathing heavily and sniffling, like I did when I was holding in something much bigger. There was what sounded like traffic behind her. "Princess?" Angrily, I wondered why she couldn't have saved me some embarrassment by calling my cell, until I remembered it was probably still turned off under a pile of clothes in the bathroom. Stupid. I rushed to the far side of the room, away from listening ears, and knelt in the corner. "What's wrong?"

"Sunset," she forced out. "She..."

I spent Saturday staring at the wall.

Poison.

I'd never considered poison before.

I moved in a daze. Dress. Feed Spike. Eat the toast and eggs that's put in front of me. Walk Spike. Stare at the wall.

Poison.

I idly stroked Spike, who'd curled up in my lap after his walk, sensing he was needed. I felt sorry for him, having to put up with an owner like me. I wondered how he'd cope if I was gone. The "if" was slowly ripening to a nebulous "when", even if I couldn't put exact thoughts to it, not yet.

When Princess had called, Sunset's condition was still unstable. She hadn't gone into detail, which was probably for the best. If I'd known exactly what she'd taken, or how much, then I would have had something to research. I would have tried to calculate how high a fatal dose would be, how much of the drug was still in her system, the success rate of various procedures, the probabilities of death, of organ damage, of waking up and being completely fine, and how long I would have to wait until we would know anything for sure. Knowing no details opened up so many more possibilities to explore, letting me plummet willingly into a functionally infinite ocean of speculation. But even if I'd known the prognosis down to the slimmest detail, all I would have been left with was a printout of probability fields and countdowns, like I was certain that Princess was staring at right now, praying to whatever pony version of McCarthy she believed in that her friend would fall on the right side of the line. A clinical study of us both may have been the world's only chance of knowing for certain which approach was truly worse.

A doorbell skimmed over my thoughts, and a minute later my mother's voice cut through them. "Twilight?" She knocked on my open door, for once without a phone in hand. "There's one of your... friends? At the door for you?"

I ignored the several unstated questions and marched downstairs. Waiting outside was Rainbow Dash, standing several feet away with her back to me. I tried to judge her posture before saying anything. Her hands were clenched. "Rainbow...?"

In a blur of motion she spun around and practically tackled me, locking her arms tight around me. She kept her head next to mine; I still couldn't see her face. "I hate you," she growled. "I hate you so much."

For a number of reasons, I felt like I would faint. "Is Sunset..."

"She pulled through. This time. No thanks to you. If the real Twilight hadn't ordered me to be nice to you..." Her hands flexed across my back, and I understood. She wanted them around my neck.

I don't know what I felt. Relief? Disappointment? Envy? It was all too close and too soon, touching nerves that I thought I'd soldered shut. "I'm sorry," I said. It seemed the thing to say.

"I don't care," Rainbow spat. "Sunset didn't deserve this. None of us liked her at first, but we got over it. She's earned her friendship. She's saved the world more times than any of us. Her and Twilight have been through worse things than you can ever imagine, and you had no right to throw the old her in her face like that. No. Right."

I didn't object. I wondered if she knew.

She pushed me away. "S-stay away from her," she said. I finally caught a glimpse of her face, just a glimpse, pointed away from me. She'd been crying, and recently. I imagined she would hate for me to know that. "Just leave us alone," she said with another shove. "Don't hurt her more than you already have."

"I won't." I turned away so she wouldn't have to hide from me. "I'll leave."

"This isn't over." She backed away, skipping on one foot, preparing to break into a run. "If she dies, you killed her."

I went back inside, letting her flee. What did she mean, if she dies? my inner self chirped. She said she was already out of danger...

This time.

I closed the door, the clunk landing in unison with a new weight in my stomach. I stumbled forward, not really seeing. "Twilight?" Suddenly, my mother was around me again, darting in and out like a gnat. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

I stopped dead and leveled my gaze at her. She didn't take the hint. "I'm fine," I stated flatly. "Everything's fine."

"It's not fine." She barred my way as I tried to push past her and folded her arms. "Your father and I are worried about you. For the past week you've been coming home at all hours, avoiding us, looking scared out of your mind, and now turning up looking like you've been dragged through a ravine. On your birthday, no less. Whatever has been happening, it isn't healthy." She raised her hands in desperation. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think. We tried calling that Pinkie Pie girl, but she just gave us some nonsense answer about ponies. I just want you to know that if you're being bullied again, or if you've gotten into any kind of trouble, you don't have to hide it. We're here for you."

It was almost impressive how wrong she was. I almost wanted to scream at her; couldn't she understand that on top of everything else that had happened to me lately, the last thing I wanted to do was deal with her as well? Instead I steadied myself, and wasn't fully conscious of the words I spoke until they'd already coldly passed my lips. "Why didn't you tell me Shining Armour was in Manehattan?"

She gaped, fish-out-of-water style. I felt my eyes narrowing into a glare. "We... Your father and I were worried about you," she started. "Shining Armour asked us not to tell you he was leaving, so we didn't. We didn't tell you anything after that because we couldn't. He hasn't called or written in years. We're worried sick about him, the same as you."

"But you knew." I felt something wretched rising up inside me. This wasn't the bubble that I had expected would burst today, but it would do. "You knew he was alive. You knew where I could find him. Why didn't you tell me?"

She fidgeted. "Sweetheart, we were just worried about your mental health," she said. "Ever since-"

"Worried! Worried!" I flailed at her. "All you ever do is worry at me! When has this worrying ever helped me?"

She put on her own forceful look. "Your greatest fear was changing schools," she said. "Why would I put you in a situation that might make you uproot your life for some silly quest to hunt him down?"

"That-!" ...Was actually something I would have considered. Shoot. Well played.

"But it doesn't have to be that way any more," she relented. "If having secrets kept from you was causing so much distress, then surely you can understand how your father and I feel about you. You've grown so distant, Twilight, and it frightens us." She edged closer. "We don't want our own daughter to be a stranger. Whatever's troubling you, I promise, no matter how strange it may seem, we'll understand."

Curse the source of my superior intellect. She smiled warmly, and I almost cracked, just long enough for a flood of images to swarm across my mind: the lying, the boyfriend-stealing, the selfishness, the threesome, the pain, the hate, the fight, the poisoning that was my fault. Her daughter the monster. "No!" I shouted, shoving my way past her up the stairs and flying into my room. "Get out!" I shouted at Spike, who'd curled up on the bed. He startled awake and whined at me. "Out!" I picked him up and practically threw him out, slamming the door as he turned around and stared up at me with literal puppy-dog eyes. I breathed heavily and let the room's silence suffocate me again, burying me in lost time.

Safe. Safe by hurting people who'd only ever loved me and wanted to help. Stupid.

I fell against the door and slid down it, covering my face. Felt myself grow numb. Felt coldness replace my limbs, replace my breath. Felt my organs shutting down. Felt my brain unwrite itself, line by line, deleting me from the world. Felt it all as hard as I could until I could feel nothing else. And then nothing at all.

I'm the poisoner.

I'm the poison.

Twilight's Half - Sunday

I was woken up by a knocking at my window.

I wasn't doing too well. My mom had relented and left a lunch and dinner outside my door for me, so I'd spent the entire day inside my room. Sometimes I'd picked things up and tried to read or get some work done, but my focus would always drift away from it. I went to sleep fully dressed and with zero self-maintenance. I guess as long as I was feeling like a wreck, I wanted to look the part as well.

I woke up slowly, my state confusing me. Everything was just a little bit wrong. The knocking turned to a pitter-patter, then into a steady rhythm of taps, which had morphed into the chorus of a pop song by the time I'd staggered upright and opened the curtains. I stared for a second and then cracked the window open. "Twinkleshine?"

Even though I could clearly see her, Twinkleshine kept up her knocking until she'd finished the chorus of her song. "Twilight!" she then exclaimed, beaming at me. She was hanging from a rope just inches from my window, seemingly suspended by her knees, and was wearing a thick leather jacket overtop of her usual frilly clothes. Behind her, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. She waved cheerily, beckoning me to open the window further.

I complied, more out of confusion than anything. "Is that a grappling hook?"

"Good, you're dressed. Come on!" She beckoned to me. "We're going for a ride."

Despite everything, I still wasn't prepared to deal with this. Life just kept finding new and surprising ways to stun me. "Wha- Why?" I blurted out.

Twinkleshine gave me the sternest look I'd ever seen from her. "Because you need this."

There was no resisting that tone. I took a last look around my room, wondering if I could rationally protest any of this, and then put a foot on the windowsill. When I stretched my arm out and hesitated, she grabbed onto me and yanked me the rest of the way out, then held me tightly as she slid down the rope with a squeal. On the ground, she left our escape route where it was and pulled me along behind her to her motorcycle at the end of the driveway. "Where are we going?" I asked, wincing as my bare feet staggered over the asphalt.

"Shh. Just go with it." She dunked a large helmet over my head and threw a leather jacket across my shoulders. "Safety first," she said with a wink, then eased on her own helmet, which was decorated front and back with some kind of pink bird motif.

Before I knew what was happening, I'd been vaulted over the back of the bike and found myself with my arms around Twinkleshine's waist. "Is this safe?" I asked nervously. "I've never been on one of these be-"

"Mmm mm mmm-mmm," Twinkleshine replied, her voice muffled. I don't know why; her visor wasn't even down. She looked back, flicked down mine, and with a sound like an explosion, we were off.

The ride was something that I tried to edit out of my memory. We screeched around with a roar that was sure to get us noise complaints, weaving rather than turning around corners. I closed my eyes and held on for dear life. In reality we were probably doing the speed limit, but the way Twinkleshine drove made it feel like we were actually airborne, being flung back and forth in a hurricane. The machine underneath me screeched madly, a wild animal barely under her control. By the time we finally coasted to a halt I was almost paralyzed, arms and legs locked in a rock-hard, terrified embrace.

Twinkleshine pulled our helmets off and hung them from her handlebars. When I didn't immediately let go of her she simply stood up and vaulted off, me still clinging to her back. She held my legs and piggybacked me up another driveway; I caught sight of Lyra's letterbox as we passed it. "Why are we here?" I tried again, even though asking questions lately seemed futile.

"Getting backup," she whispered back. "You're one tough cookie."

Instead of going to the door, Twinkleshine skipped to the corner of the house and simply scaled it, digging her fingers into the brickwork. I grabbed at her shoulders and held on as she ascended like a squirrel, practically leaping the ten feet up to the roof outside Lyra's window. She looked back at me when she reached the top, as though waiting for a reaction, and then shrugged me off onto the tiles. "Wow, you didn't call me crazy or anything," she said. "I guess I was right."

"Right? What do you mean, right?" I tried to assume a sitting position on the sloped surface. "Seriously Twinkleshine, what's going on?"

She looked away from me uncertainly. "I just had a... feeling," she explained hesitantly. "It's a thing I do. I call it my Twinkle Sense. When someone needs my help, I just... know, somehow. I can feel it in my skeleton, right down to the little twitchy bones in my ears. And if I don't do everything I can to help, I get shivery and twitchy and can't sleep until it goes away."

That was ridiculous. It sounded to me like perfectly ordinary paranoia. But I had a magical pony clone from another dimension, so I wasn't really in a position to judge. "Sounds more like a curse," I said, swallowing the arguments that I would have put forth a week ago. "And... I'm fine. Really. You don't have to do this for me."

She ignored me and crawled forward. "I told Lyra to always leave her window open a crack," she whispered, "just in case..."

As she fell silent, I started to hear other noises, faint but distinguishable. It sounded like Lyra was awake as well. As Twinkleshine edged her fingers triumphantly under the window, my ears strained to catch what was inside. It sounded like a voice, and... rustling? "Are... are we sure this is a good time?" I whispered.

"It's always a good time for friends," Twinkleshine whispered back. As she pulled the window up, I heard Lyra's voice, more distinctly now.

"One shall stand, one shall fall!"

And then another voice:

"Why throw away your life so recklessly?"

"That's a question you should ask yourself, Megatr-aah! Do that again, do that again!"

There was a drawn-out moan, followed by a giggle. I froze on the roof. A faint nausea growled in my stomach. Twinkleshine froze too, her face turning as pink as her hair; unlike me, she could see inside through a crack in the curtains. "Maybe this isn't a good time," she said quietly, starting to pull the window closed again.

There was a loud, repetitive scraping, like cardboard rubbing against cardboard. "No more, Optimus Prime! Grant me mercy, I beg of you!"

"You, who are without mercy, now plead for it? I thought you were made of sterner stuff!"

My jaw dropped. "Wait... Bon Bon?" I covered my mouth as 'Megatron''s laugh was abruptly muffled and Lyra let out another moan. "It can't be!"

Twinkleshine blinked at me. "Huh?"

"I just... I thought... Lyra and Lemon Hearts have been making eyes at each other since..." I saw Twinkleshine's increasingly blank stare and gave up. "Never mind. Let's go."

We tried to arrange ourselves as quietly as possible, unable to escape the continuing voices from within. "I would have waited an eternity for this. It's over, Prime."

"Ah! Do not g-grieve... Soon, I-I shall be one with the m-matrix..."

"Is someone at the window?"

"AUTOBOTS! TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUUUUUUUUUT!"

Lyra's cry and the subsequent twitching rustlings and squeaking of bedsprings lasted fully ten seconds before Bon Bon spoke again. "Lyra sweetie, I think there's someone at the window."

"Oh shit."

The window opened again and a head emerged, obscured by what looked like most of a cardboard box, cut up and coloured silver. We were lucky. She didn't see Twinkleshine's fingers clinging to the edge of the gutter, or the top of my head as I clung to her, both of us precariously hanging from the edge of the roof. "Must have been a bird," our pursuer said, though she sounded unconvinced.

"Whatever." I heard Lyra stand. "Recharged and ready for another round, Megatron?"

"Now now, sweetie. It's my turn." Bon Bon tittered, then took on a deep, sultry tone that I never would have expected to hear from her. "Call me Ms. Shortcake."

The window shut.

I shivered; all sorts of mental images were squirming across my brain, and I hadn't even seen anything. I was suddenly glad that I hadn't eaten anything yet today. "You can let us down now," I whispered to Twinkleshine, trying to keep my voice level.

"Um..." She barely moved. "My arms are kinda tired."

"Well I'm- slipping!" I was. My skinny arms weren't made for these kinds of gymnastics; I was slowly sliding down Twinkleshine's back. I looked down and regretted it; one story seemed like an awfully long way. "Can't you do something?"

"Hang on. I'll try to reach the pipe."

She started shimmying along the edge, her swinging causing me to slip further. The gutter started to creak. I was surprised it was holding us at all. Her shoulders were locked nearly vertically; my fingers were pinched against her neck. I slid inch by inch down her back, my facefull of leather coming dangerously close to becoming a facefull of the back of her jeans, which was the absolute last thing I wanted right then. My fingers gave way and I squeezed tight with my elbows, scrabbling for a pocket on the front of her jacket... and instead caught a big, flowing handful of something else.

She didn't stop. I felt a jiggle. There was an audible silence. "Twinkleshine?"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't you wearing a bra?"

"My puppies get claustrophobic."

A long pause.

"Do you like it?"

One story wasn't that far to fall after all.

The second ride took longer, but was somehow less harrowing. Maybe it was because we moved onto longer, wider streets, or maybe I'd gotten used to adapting to absurd things quickly. Or maybe I was just preoccupied with the position of my hands on Twinkleshine's sides. I still didn't open my eyes.

It took me a moment to figure out where we were when we stopped. We were on the weird hill at the edge of town with a road that ended abruptly at a sheer cliff; the place had become infamous after a string of near-accidents a few years back. A lot of questions had been raised about building codes and the place had been pretty much abandoned. Twinkleshine parked directly behind the "No Vehicles Beyond This Point" sign and helped me off. At her direction, we started to climb to the summit. I couldn't pretend to know where this was going. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I wasn't sure how deep her question was meant to penetrate, so I took a stab at one of the top layers. "I'm just... shocked," I answered, keeping my gaze low. "I didn't know Lyra and Bon Bon were... like that. I mean, I guessed, but... and Bon Bon too... I just don't know how I'm going to be able to look them in the eyes any more."

Without looking, I could already feel Twinkleshine's lips forming a question, preparing to tear me down. "And I don't hate them," I burst out, forestalling the expected argument. "I'm not like that, okay? I know there's nothing wrong with girls liking girls. Love comes in all kinds of forms and it's not my place to judge it. It's just... it's not me, okay? I don't want to have to see it, or walk in on it, or, or deal with it. I want them to just be my friends. You know?"

"Wait, wait." Twinkleshine grabbed me, gasping happily. "They're in love?"

"Well... yeah? I mean, they were..." I faltered.

"Oh. Is that all? I thought they were just having fun." She let go of me and ambled off, leaving me speechless.

We reached the crest of the hill. Here the road dropped sharply downhill, ending at a comically flimsy fence. Beyond that, the whole town stretched out before us. "We're in time!" Twinkleshine yelled as she ran the last few steps, clapping her hands. "We can watch the sunrise!"

I looked to the east. The sun had been clearly visible for a while now. "I think it's a little late for that," I said.

"No, silly. Stand over here!" She took a few steps to the side and motioned me over. "This is the best spot."

I followed. A shadow fell and I saw what she meant; from this angle, the town's only high-rise building stuck up like a nail, directly between us and the low-hanging sun. I squinted into the halo that surrounded it. "That's... nice?" I tried.

"No, look. Listen." She held on to me and pointed my head towards it. "From any other place you would be able to see the sun, right? The big, beautiful sun. Down there, up here, everywhere in between, everyone else is looking at the sun and smiling and thinking about how pretty it is. Everyone but us. We're the only ones in a dark place right now."

I squirmed. "That's not technically-"

"Shh." She covered my mouth. "And why are we in a dark place? Because of that building. And if we use our brains, we know that that's a really big building. It's so big, it's the only thing around that can block out the sun. But look at how big it really is." She closed one eye and held out two fingers, pinching the apartment block between them. "And look at how big everything else is." She straightened up and spread her arm wide. From here we could see all the way to the far-off mountains, the distant city, even the dry plains to the south. "No matter how big something is, it's never as big as everything else. And everything else is covered in the sun. And someday, that building will be empty and it will crumble away and turn into nothing at all, and the sun will still be shining. The sun will never stop shining.

"A lot of people would say to just ignore the dark things. They'll tell you to move them, or to move somewhere else. But you and me know that's silly. No matter what we do, we know we can't just make that building not be there any more, and we know that this is the perfect spot to stand in. So I say that sometimes, you need a big, scary thing to cast a shadow over you. Because if that building had never been built, and there was nothing blocking our view..." The sun finally crested the building, sweeping away the shadow and throwing the first true wave of morning warmth that I'd felt all day over us. Twinkleshine beamed. "...Then we'd never have been able to watch the sunrise together."

We stood there for about a minute more. Twinkleshine took her hand from my mouth and rested her head on my shoulder, smiling. "Twinkleshine?" I eventually said.

"Yeah?"

"That metaphor was really tortured."

I moved away from her. "Look, I... I know I'm in a bad place right now, okay?" I said. "And I know that things can get better. I know that. But..." I struggled to put my position into her words. "What if I'm the one who's casting a shadow on other people? What if I'm the thing they need to disappear?"

She didn't even blink. "Then maybe you'll be the reason they get to see a sunrise."

I ground my teeth in frustration. Briefly I wondered if I could somehow fit my poison metaphor from earlier into this, but I quickly gave up. "Look, thanks but no thanks," I said, taking another step back. "I can see what you're doing, and I appreciate it, but it's not going to work. I've done things I can't take back. I've hurt people. And I can't just solve those things by waiting for everything to get better. I have to make things right." I waited for her to respond, but she just stared. "Was that it? Was that all you brought me here to say?"

"No, Twilight." She reached solemnly into her jacket pocket. "I came here to give you... this." With a flourish, she whipped out a clear plastic bag. My expectations of a revelation immediately died in confusion; it contained a pair of chocolate muffins. "I thought you might want some breakfast," she said.

She had me there. Considering how little I'd eaten yesterday, I was hungry. "Um... thank you," I said, taking one.

"Anything for a friend, Twilight." Despite all that I'd said, she smiled.

We sat down by the side of the road and watched the sun rise higher. The muffin was crumbly and tasted like spice; knowing Twinkleshine, there probably wasn't a word for what flavor it was. "Don't you have church?" I asked, wondering what time it was. "I thought your family was religious."

"Well... kind of. My mom and daddy are. I went a different way." She reached inside her shirt and produced a goat-headed pendant, misshapen and painted garishly in all kinds of colours. "Discord for life."

"...Oh." My gut instinct was to recoil from the sight of the pendant, and despite my best efforts I found myself leaning away. I glanced back and forth between it and Twinkleshine, who thankfully wasn't looking at me. The idea that her long, pretty face and something so twisted could go together was bordering on disturbing. "I always thought Discordians were... you know, evil." I gave her a cautious glance. "No offense."

"No, you're thinking of Tirek's Children. They get mixed up a lot. It's the horns." She finished the last bite of her muffin and wiped her mouth. "Discordians aren't anything. It's what makes us us. It means no rules, not no values. It's just no two of us believe in the same things. We do whatever we want and don't try to act like anyone, not even each other. And if I want to drive around in the night and help people, no one can ever say that's wrong."

A tug of nervousness took over. "But what if you wanted to drive around in the night and hurt people?" I protested. "You wouldn't have any rules saying that's wrong."

"If someone really wants to hurt someone else, they never let rules get in the way anyway. It's why everything's so wrong in the world." She looked into the distance. "I think love should be the same."

The ensuing moment of quiet reflection might have been profound if it hadn't been broken by a gurgle. "Oog." Twinkleshine bent over, clutching at her stomach. "That's bad."

"What?" I hesitated before touching her, then berated myself for it and put my hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Gurgles."

Then I felt it too. Something rumbled and popped inside my stomach, and a biting haze started to spread through the rest of my body. Lines of acid spread in all directions, focused on a central rumbling and broiling, slowly tightening like an angry fist. The world swam in front of my eyes. I looked down at the last bite of muffin in my hand; it seemed to crawl across my skin. "Did you..."

"I take it all back." Twinkleshine belched, then whimpered. "This was a bad idea." She clutched her stomach and rolled onto the ground. I tried to stand and fell onto my back, wrapping my knees against my chest in agony. A line of furious, biting froth seemed to well up my throat. We looked at each other-

I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say the sun was much higher in the sky when I finally crawled back out of the bushes, feeling disgusting in every way. My clothes were covered in dirt and stained down the front. I tried to forget as many details as possible and weaved over to Twinkleshine. She was in an even worse state than I was, curled up on her side with pale liquid clinging to her cheek. "I think I'm okay now," I choked out, even though my head was still pounding. "What was that?"

"Dunno," Twinkleshine mumbled. "I put a bunch of stuff in it. Didn't think it would be that bad..."

I hadn't wanted to believe it before. "You did that on purpose?" I gasped. "You poisoned me!"

"Yeah." She twitched into a grin. "And it really hurt, didn't it?"

I just gaped at her. She rolled towards me, still clinging to herself. "It's like turning inside-out, huh?" she continued. "Not an easy way to go. Takes a long time. Imagine what it would be like with something that would actually kill you."

A different kind of nausea replaced the old. I staggered backwards and fell on my butt. "H-how do... how could you possibly know about that?"

"Twinkle Sense. I'm the best." She coughed. "And maybe Colgate has a friend who works at the hospital and gave her a really weird phone call last night."

So she knew. I would deal with that as it came. "So you took me up here to... what? Teach me a lesson?"

"To keep you safe."

I waited for more, but Twinkleshine just moaned. I stared at her as she rolled over again, belching up unnameable fluids. "If you were just trying to help me, why did you poison yourself too?" I asked. "Why not poison just one muffin?"

"C'mon, Twilight." She grinned up at me. "That would be mean."

"That was mean."

"I'm sorry."

"And also stupid and dangerous."

"Double sorry."

"And you're an idiot."

"I'm an idiot."

Colgate sighed deeply. Twinkleshine was bundled up in her bed, while I was on the chair next to her dresser, finishing my ninth glass of water. When half an hour had gone by and Twinkleshine was still in no state to drive, I'd used her phone to call Colgate, who'd picked us up. She'd made us a proper breakfast and tried to clean us up as much as possible, with only repeated reassurances from Twinkleshine keeping her from driving us straight to the hospital. She stood in the middle of the room, fuming, while we tried to recover around her.

"Is it still... affecting me?" I asked, holding out my steadying fingers. "Am I going to be like this all day?"

"I'm going to say... probably not." Colgate pinched the bridge of her nose. "But stay away from sniffer dogs for a while. And you'll probably fail certain drug tests for the next two weeks. I could tell you exactly what, if little miss sunshine here would just open up about what she put in that vomit cocktail she gave you."

"'was only tying to help," Twinkleshine mumbled.

"Your 'help' could have gotten you both killed!" Colgate screeched at her. "If you weren't our friend, I could be calling the police on you right this second. And on top of that, all you've done is let Twilight know exactly how much suffering she put her friend through."

I blanched. I hadn't even thought of that. "Sunset's..." Not my friend, I almost finished, but stopped when Colgate gave me a dark look. It was then that I sensed her anger wasn't purely directed at Twinkleshine. "Are you mad at me?" I asked in a small voice.

"I'm not mad at..." She stopped herself and tried again. "You know what? I am kind of mad at you. First you steal someone's boyfriend, then you use your words to put her friend in the hospital. Clearly you and Sunset Shimmer have some kind of history, and I don't know the whole story, so I'm not going to take sides. But what you did is unacceptable, and I hope you understand that." She whirled on Twinkleshine as well. "Both of you."

"Leave her alone," Twinkleshine grumbled.

"It's okay." I stared at the floor. "It's okay if you hate me."

"I don't hate you," Colgate groaned. "I just... expected better from you."

She marched out to the middle of the room and made a show of letting go of things, putting a hand to her chest and then swinging it out as she exhaled. "Now let's try to find you two some clean clothes, okay?" she said.

"We're playing dressup!" Twinkleshine jumped to her feet, instantly cured. "Me first! Me first!"

Colgate ignored her, already digging through her closet. "I have some plain skirts that should fit you," she said, addressing me. "I could probably stencil something onto one of those real quick. And I'm pretty sure this shirt's your size. Try these on." She handed me a grey skirt and top and then turned back to Twinkleshine, her eyes sharply narrowing. "No."

"Pleeeeeeease?" Twinkleshine whined, already dressed in a blue, fluffy sweater.

"No. That has my crest on it. You can't wear that."

"But it's so fluffy!" Twinkleshine tried to cover up the hourglass crest on the front and then simply swaddled herself in it.

"Take it off!" Colgate lunged at her, resulting in a bounding chase in circles around the room. "Take it off! Take it off!" Colgate snarled.

"Wooooooooo!" Twinkleshine cheered, dancing and shaking as she ran.

I left the room before things could get any weirder and crept into the bathroom. There I changed out of my vomit-stained clothes and into the ones Colgate had provided. They hung a little loose on me, but it was a near fit. I stalled my return by brushing my hair again, and it was only when I looked in the mirror that I realized how tired I looked. I was like a ghost, frail and practically floating. The clothes didn't help. I looked down at myself and realized that for the first time in years, I wasn't wearing my crest. This felt... strangely okay.

As I left there was a fierce knocking from downstairs, and I heard the door open. "Hello?" I heard the twang of Colgate's dad.

"Am I here?" my own voice floated up at me.

I gasped and flattened myself against the wall. "Well," Colgate's dad rumbled musically, "I suppose you are now..."

"No! I mean, is there another me here?"

Hearing the noise, Colgate stalked out of her room, blue sweater in hand, and peered over the stairs. She turned back to me with a pale expression. "Twilight?" she said. "Who is that?"

"Twilight!" Princess ran upstairs, panting for breath. "I've been looking for you all morning! Where have you been?"

"It's... a long story." I slowly unglued myself from the wall. Princess didn't look angry. In fact, there was even a hint of a smile on her face.

Colgate looked back and forth between us. "Twilight, what's going on?" she said. "Who is this?"

"Is that another Twilight?" Twinkleshine called from her room. "I want to see! Colgate, untie me so I can see!"

"It's... a long story," Princess said, with the exact same intonation I'd just used. She turned to me. "Twilight, we're going to see Sunset."

A roar of protest was silenced by her look. "Now?" I squeaked.

"Right now."

Twilight's Half - Confrontation

Applejack's brother drove. He kept silent the whole way. I was glad for that. Applejack, however, didn't.

"She was perfectly fine a week ago," she muttered under her breath.

I shrank down in the back seat, simmering. When I was in kindergarten, a little boy hit me and I hit him back, hard. Hard enough that he started crying and said he couldn't breathe. No matter how I protested, we both got sent home for the day. I flashed back to the ride home in my mother's car, when my stomach had broiled in much the same way. It wasn't my fault that he'd chosen to pick on me. It wasn't my fault that I was smart enough to aim for the throat. Yet I was punished in exactly the same way, talked about like I was the bully, like I'd orchestrated this from the beginning. Like it was my fault.

Making that comparison was much easier than staying in the present. Anger still roared in me, threatening to burst out like lances of steam from an overtaxed boiler. Sunset had stolen everything from me. My school, my family, my love, my life. She'd made me poison. She'd made me into her. The fact that she'd tried to escape from me just incensed me further. Nothing she'd done to herself could be enough. She had to pay.

"Kindest, happiest girl you ever did know," Applejack continued. "Prancin' about without a care in the world. Everythin' in the past forgiven, forgotten."

"Applejack, that's enough," Princess said. I glanced at her. She had given up the front seat to sit beside me in the back. She'd taken to watching me, though for what I couldn't say.

The farm girl crossed her arms. "Enough of what?" she said testily. "Statin' facts?"

"Of being antagonistic. No one's at fault here."

We both disagreed, but Applejack was far more expressive about it. She twisted around in her seat and glared, sinking her fingers into the leather. "Sunset could'a died because of what she said!" she snarled.

"And Twilight had her own reasons for saying it," Princess countered. "We were all mad at her too, once. It doesn't mean we wanted her to die."

Applejack shot a filthy look towards me, as though challenging this sentiment. I couldn't look her in the eye. She still retreated, muttering to herself even more quietly. Princess turned to me again, seeing me shrunken even more into myself. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"I don't know." It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the only honest one.

"You're not wearing your crest," Princess observed.

"So?" I grunted.

Although a non-native to this world, she'd been here long enough to sound scandalized. "In public?"

"I had an accident," I said. "Colgate's letting me borrow her clothes." I didn't feel like explaining further. I smoothed down the grey shirt. Even though it wasn't my colour, the look was starting to grow on me.

"I see." Of course, she was too smart to think that was the whole story. She fidgeted a while before speaking again. "Oh, I should probably warn you, I may have sort of kind of accidentally patched things up with your mom."

I whirled on her. "You what?"

"I didn't mean for it to happen!" she said. "I went to your house to look for you, and she saw me from your window. I didn't know you'd snuck out. She ran out to me, and I hadn't seen her in years, and a few things slipped out..."

"She started bawlin' like her ma'd come back from the dead," Applejack added. I detected a note of bitterness there.

"That... may have happened," Princess confirmed, blushing. "I didn't know how to answer her questions, so I told her I still needed some space. She won't bother you or anything. But if you ever need to talk, she's there for you."

I looked away angrily. She reached out and put her hand on mine, and to my annoyance, the soothing feeling of her touch penetrated through me even then. "She loves you," she whispered. "We all love you. It just gets hard to show it sometimes."

I quivered. A big part of me wanted to grab on to her, to pull her close, to never let her go. But I kept myself distant and stared down at nothing. "We're here," Princess said.

I looked up, confused. We were just outside of Princess' apartment building. "Weren't we going to the hospital?" I said.

"Sunset was released this morning. We promised to check in on her regularly."

She dragged me out of the back seat. I continued to stare blankly. "And she lives here?" I said.

"Of course. She was the one who helped me find my own place."

Applejack's brother drove away as we left; there went my line of escape. The doorman stared at us bug-eyed as we walked in. I marched sullenly, just following my double's lead. We went up to the second floor. Rainbow Dash was sitting in a chair outside Sunset's apartment, bouncing a ball against the door opposite, some unfinished math homework collected beside her. "Hey, Twilights," she said without much enthusiasm as we approached.

Princess stopped. "How is she?"

"She's... okay, I guess. She doesn't get out of bed much. I don't really know what to think." She turned to me, again not looking quite at me. "Hey, I'm sorry about what I said to you yesterday," she said. "I didn't know what Sunset did to you. That must have been really rough." She caught a pained look from Princess. "I mean, you still shouldn't have said those things to her. But I get why you did. I'd still be mad too."

I looked up at her guiltily, then quickly looked away. There went another chip in my armour of self-hatred. "Thanks," I mumbled.

We went in. Sunset's apartment was identical in layout to Princess', but a lot more sparse. A mix of books, instruments and sports equipment decorated her main room, all in different colours with no consistent theme. A television was turned on its side in the corner. It looked spotlessly arranged; I guessed Rarity had swept through here recently. "Go on," Princess whispered, nudging me towards the bedroom. "Talk to her."

I took a leaden step forward. She was brave, letting the animal off its leash like that. I didn't understand why she hadn't clued in yet that I was rotten to the core. The door to the bedroom loomed up in front of me; while the copy of it one floor up had seemed so inviting, this one might as well have been the portal into Tartarus. "Princess?" I said.

"Yes?"

"What do you think is going to happen when I go in there?"

We looked at each other. We'd never looked more unlike. "I meant everything I said about her," I told her. "I'm not taking a word of it back. I'm not going to forgive her. I'm not going to be her friend. She destroyed me, and I'm not going to let her guilt me into letting that go just because she feels bad about it. I can't."

I could feel the betrayal as I said it. There was disappointment in her face; faint, and probably bordering on a dim hope, but there. "Twilight, she-" she started.

"No. No. Not you too. Do not make this about her." I stormed up to her and thrust my finger at her. "I've had people jumping down my throat all day about what I need to do. I need to open up, I need to apologize, I need to make things right, and I get that, I do, but with her is where I draw the line. I feel bad enough about this already, and I don't need you of all people trying to make me feel worse for being angry, not when she started this."

She stared at me, something unreadable flickering below the surface. "Just..." She trailed off.

"Just what? Just give her a chance? Just let it go? Just use the 'magic of friendship'?" I couldn't help sarcasm from dripping into my voice. "This won't resolve anything. This is going to end in screaming."

Instead of an answer, Princess hugged me, pressing her forehead against mine. "Just," she whispered, letting me fill in the blank a dozen different ways. Then she turned me around and gave me a gentle push towards the door.

The room was dim. The curtains were drawn but a bedside lamp had been left on, illuminating a thin lump curled up under thinner covers. Sunset's love of photography hadn't faded; her shelves and desk here were covered in framed pictures of herself and her six friends, all nauseatingly cheerful. Like the rest of the apartment, despite the clutter it felt strangely bare, like a half-finished wallpaper of a life instead of a place that felt truly lived in. I saw a wave of fiery red hair shift across the bed, and the door swung closed. And then there was nothing in the world standing in between me... and her.

I heard her voice, acidly familiar, like needles being driven into my ears, yet unlike how I'd ever heard it before. "Hi, Twilight."

I leaped across the room at her, throwing the covers off, hands closing around her throat-

"Hi, Sunset," I said flatly.

We both waited. I felt like it was only the thinnest of strings that was holding me back, keeping my humanity in check. "I had a speech," Sunset said, still refusing to emerge. "I've been writing it for a long time. I kept planning this moment out in my head, just in case I ever saw you again. I even had nightmares about it. I didn't think... it would be like this."

I snorted. "So what? You wanted me to forgive you?"

"...I hoped you would."

I clenched my fists and screamed. "You should have thought of that while you were cyberfucking my brother, you fucking b-"

"I won't," I answered, keeping my voice level. "I hate you."

Seeing her curl up tighter under the covers was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever witnessed. "I'm sorry," she squeaked out.

I turned away to avoid spitting in her direction. Instead I walked along the wall, looking at her collection of photographs. While I'd been cowering in my room, afraid of any kind of social contact, she'd been going to parties and concerts and having fun with her friends for all these years. With my friends. My nose wrinkled as I saw a shot of them on the beach, with her and Princess wearing bikinis. Sunset would have had a field day if she'd ever gotten me in one of those. "You stole my life from me," I said, letting fury drip into my voice in small, measured amounts. "You stole everything from me. Ever since that night I've lived in complete terror of you. I don't even know what's happened to my brother. Why would I forgive you?"

"Because you're Twilight Sparkle."

That made me pause. I slowly turned towards her, for the first time in my life actually exuding menace, demanding an explanation. A bright eye peeking at me disappeared under the covers. "Twilight forgives everyone," Sunset said, audibly quivering. "She's the living incarnation of friendship. Nothing holds her back from doing the right thing. All she has to do is open her mouth, and everyone forgets why they were fighting. She's... you're everything I want to be. No one else in all the world would forgive me. I thought you would."

I stormed across the room and leaned over her, putting my fists down on the mattress. "Well I'm not her," I growled, slowly rising into a yell. "You made me not her. And now you call me in here, expecting me to just let everything go? How heartless are you?"

I kicked the covers off of her, planted my foot in her smug, triumphant face, ground down hard-

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"You're sorry." I snorted. "You've spent the past two years letting other people wait on you hand and foot because you were 'sorry' for possibly destroying a world. You never gave up your old ways. Why should I believe you?"

"It's the truth!" She started to throw back the covers, then thought better of it when she made eye contact and retreated again. I caught only a second of her face, pale and bloodless. "After my world's Twilight went mirror-crazy, I did everything I could to help her. I worked on repairing it longer than she did. I apologized every day. I took shifts keeping her alive. After she started dating Flash, she had to order me to stop worrying about her. It was more than a year before anyone trusted me at all. I know you weren't there to see it, but they made me pay."

"You think that matters to me?" It actually did help, but that wasn't the point. "You know where I live. At any time you could have found me and apologized. But you didn't. You let me stew in it. And as far as I can tell, you didn't tell anyone about what you did to me. You apologized when it was convenient for you and tried to sweep me under the rug. And that didn't just hurt me. You kept Princess from seeing her family again." I drew closer. "Why?"

"Because I was scared."

I smashed the lamp over her head-

"Of what? Of your new friends finding out that you're a parasite? Of actually having to answer for the things you've done?"

"No. Of you."

This... was new. I was actually rendered momentarily speechless, unable to process this seemingly impossible thought. "You... were afraid... of me?" I echoed.

"Yes." She sniffled. Real original. "I know I hurt you. I know you're not the same as Princess Twilight. After what I did to you... after all the people I turned against you... I was afraid that you were planning to do something even worse to me. You could have taken away everything, and I wouldn't be able to stop you. I wouldn't want to."

Revenge. Now there was a novel suggestion. "Maybe I should," I spat, pretending the idea hadn't occurred to me just now. "Your friends should hate you. It's not like you don't deserve it. You've never gotten what you deserve."

"I know." She folded up into herself. The flames flickered within me; something seemed wrong. As scared as she was acting, my actual words didn't seem to have affected her. She sounded almost... relieved. "If it helps," she added, "after I broke the mirror portal, Twilight's friends beat the crap out of me."

"I thought they used the magic of friendship."

"They did that too. But only after I had two black eyes."

This earned a flicker of a smile from me. I wished I could have seen that. Her posture shifted in response. "Twilight, if I could turn back time, I would," she said. "I would have taken responsibility. I would have seen what was in front of me the whole time. I never would have tried to hurt you." She started to creep her hand out again, sliding it towards mine. "I'm sorry, Twilight. It's all my fault. I understand if you don't forgive me. I'm used to it. I just hope... someday... we can be friends again."

Her hand touched mine. It was cold and thin, too different from her old warmth for me to react to it. The covers peeled back and I saw her face, gaunt and tear-streaked, looking up at me. She had an expression of hopeful desperation, something so alien to her that I almost couldn't place it at all. Curled up as she was, it was easier to imagine that she had once been a pony. Now she was trapped in this sickly, alien body, lost and afraid in a dimension that hated her. For a moment, I almost pitied her. But in those same, identical eyes, all I could see was Shimmer's leer.

I swatted her hand away and straightened up. "You're wrong," I said. "We were never friends."

An almost inaudible gasp sucked all sound from the room. Her features shivered. "Twilight..."

"You disgust me." I backed away from her. "That line might work on Princess, but not me. You should be in prison. You should be in Tartarus. You're like a changeling, you worm your way into innocent people's lives and steal and destroy everything you touch. Everything you've ever said to me was a lie."

She repeatedly recoiled. A sound burst from her lips like something inside her had shattered, and she collapsed. Inwardly, I smirked. Everything before then had just been retreads of old conversations, things dozens of people had drilled into her already; now I was hitting a fresh nerve. "I wish I could turn back time, too," I said. "I wish I'd never met you. You should never have come to this world. Whatever happens to you now, you deserve it. And I want you to remember that." I leaned in for one last snarl. "You deserve this."

I spun away. I took my time trudging out, relishing the sound of Sunset's heart breaking. I couldn't help but inwardly self-criticize, of course; it's just who I am. This would probably land me in hot water with Princess. Well what did she expect? I sighed silently, rolling my eyes. She had this coming. It's not like I'm trying to win favors with her anyway. Still, I hesitated when I put my hand on the doorknob. The sound of sobbing was resonating something in me, something totally unrelated to revenge. It was almost... familiar.

"I'm sorry about your brother," Sunset whispered.

I turned around and launched myself at her, dragged her out from under the sheets and threw her against the wall, caught her arm as she raised it in self-defense. "Don't talk about my brother, you murdering bitch!" I screamed-

Something was wrong.

I blinked awake. I had one hand on Sunset's throat, pressing her against the wall behind her bed. She could breathe - I wasn't that strong - but her eyes were closing. My other hand held her right wrist. She felt... wrong. Painfully wrong.

My eyes dragged across her. Now that I held her in the light, I could see that she'd gone to bed fully-dressed, in a threadbare sweater and jeans. They were both plain, no patterns, no stencils, not even a placeholder heart pattern. She wasn't wearing her crest. She was thin, even thinner than me, and so lightweight that I was holding her up with ease. There were dark bags under her eyes, and splotches of caked-in makeup that had probably been there since the party, glinting underneath fresh teardrops. But my eyes fell to her arm. Underneath my thumb was a long, mottled scar, running all the way down the length of her wrist and criss-crossed with two others just like it. These weren't pity cuts, not disgusting bids for sympathy. These had cut deep. They were not all the same age.

I looked back to her face; I didn't even want to speculate about what was happening to mine. She stayed limp in my grasp, tilting her head back, like an animal bracing for the kill. That was when I finally understood that I could kill her.

I dropped her and shuffled backwards across the bed. She fell unresistingly forward, landing in a crumpled heap in front of me. I felt myself pale. Last night, I'd been the same. Alone in a small room, pushing everyone out, thoughts of knives and poisons running through my head. If Twinkleshine hadn't come to get me...

It's not fair.

For the first time, I saw Sunset as everyone else saw her. There was no trace of Shimmer in her, none of the gleeful fury that she'd unleashed upon me. But there was no mask there either, no false smiles, no sarcastic closeness that had only seemed so obviously fake in retrospect. There wasn't much of anything at all. Anything I could have taken from her, any chance at revenge, had already been lashed out of her by years of knowing that her homeworld may be dead because of her. There was just a glimmer of something that I'd once half-glimpsed in a dark place, a single, unwanted candle in an abyss. And with just a word from me, with a breath, I could snuff it out.

It's not fair!

Whether I accepted it or not, my words would have an effect on Sunset. After all, her words had altered the course of my life. And I understood then that if I left her now, even though it would be her hand that did what came next, I would be the one who pushed her to it. After all that I'd accused her of, I knew what that would make me.

I shivered. "It's not fair," I whispered, adding it to the screams of fury inside my head. My hands twitched into claws. I'd come here looking for something to destroy, anything to unload the agony of the past few years on. But there was nothing.

Just.

Just what? I echoed back at Princess. You know what she did to me! What am I supposed to do?

Just.

I eyed Sunset. She was stirring, breaking out of her bracing for a blow that wasn't going to come. "You haven't slept," I observed.

She opened her eyes, but kept them low. "Just a few hours," she said. "They gave me stuff in the hospital. It helped."

I watched her a moment longer, resenting myself. "Come here," I said.

I moved her like a doll, straightening her bent limbs and laying her out on her side, tucking the covers up to her chin. I gave a last glance to the door; still closed. Then I slipped under the covers with her, facing away from her. I wiggled up next to her, pressing myself against her with my hair in her face. "Twilight?" she mumbled.

"Shut up. I haven't slept either."

Her breathing grew warm against the back of my neck. With a tentativeness that seemed strangely familiar, she snaked her arms around me, then held me tightly in a hug that seemed like it would crush me. I heard the sticky blink of dehydrated eyes trying to produce tears. I let her draw her own conclusions. "Thank you," she breathed.

Her shivering was going away quickly. Her heartbeat, having risen to a flutter, was already regulating. I closed my eyes and imagined it was years ago, when nothing was unspeakable, when the most I had to worry about was my best friend being too affectionate in the night. I sighed, reached out, and turned out the bedside light.

When I finally emerged from Sunset's room three hours later, Princess was waiting to embrace me. "Twilight, I'm so proud of you!" she squealed as she wrapped her arms around me.

"Don't be. I feel gross." This was true on multiple levels. If there was one thing that hadn't changed since I was fourteen, it was that Sunset still felt like a furnace when she was asleep. I was going to need a change of clothes for the second time in one day. Sunset was still gently snoring behind me; I checked on her one last time before closing the door. "How much did you hear?" I asked.

"None of it. I kept my distance," Princess answered. She beamed at me. "But what I didn't hear was hours of screaming. Are things okay between you two now?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe." I stalked away. "I'm still mad at her. I don't know if I'm ever going to not be mad at her. And I want her to know that. But... I also want her to be around to know that."

"I understand." She seemed like she did. I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to.

I invited myself into the kitchen and checked the fridge. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Sunset stocked grape juice, but, having once caught her drinking orange juice straight from the carton at my house, I gave it a pass and moved over to the sink instead. It was tempting to douse myself then and there to get Sunset's feel and smell off of me. I wondered if Princess would let me use her shower. Princess followed me, keeping a cautious eye on me. "Do you think you're going to be okay?" she asked.

"Well, let me see." I rolled my eyes up sarcastically. "So far today I've been starved, poisoned, dropped off a building, preached at, yelled at, forced to listen to my friend pretend to have sex with a robot, and just took a nap with the girl who ruined both our lives. Unless there's some universal law in effect that I haven't been informed of, probability dictates that this day can't get any worse."

I was only half joking, but Princess smiled regardless. I drank and put the glass in the sink. The water did nothing to settle my stomach. It was like the physical opposite of the first time I'd slept with Flash; begrudgingly accepting of what I'd done, but entirely clear about my body's repulsion from it. Fortunately, I'd had more than enough of expelling things from my body for one day. In that moment I resented Princess again; it boggled the mind that she could seem so comfortable in Sunset's presence. "Why did you do it?" I asked, staring down into the sink.

She knew me well enough to know what I meant. "Why did I forgive her?"

"Yes. No... forget why. How?" I looked up at her pleadingly. "She took everything from you. Even more than she took from me. You could have had her imprisoned or even banished and no one would have blinked. If I'd been in your place, I would have hurt her. I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. I would have killed her." I clutched desperately at the counter, leaning forward. She stood uncomfortably in front of me, pristine and beautiful in her crest, everything I wasn't. "I hate her so much," I said. "I hate her, and it poisoned me. But you don't. You did what no one else in the whole world would. You became her friend. How?" I was almost crying. "How did you let go of your hate, when I can't? How did you forgive her?"

Princess gulped. She opened her mouth and got half a syllable through a response before she caught herself. Her eyes darted back and forth, as though making sure we were alone in the room. She took a step forward, put her hand into mine, and then spoke.

"I didn't."

I couldn't respond to that. I waited until she was composed enough to continue. "When it happened, I was angrier than I've ever been," she said. "I could feel unfamiliar power flowing in me. My home was gone. Nothing mattered any more. I could have banished her, I could have done it so easily. I knew that she deserved it. But I also knew, even deeper, that what she needed was a friend." She gulped. "So I lied. When everyone else was ready to kill her, I was the one who stood in their way. I told her that I forgave her. I promised I would be her friend. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I did it because I knew that I was the only one who would. But I didn't mean any of it. I just went through the motions."

She stared at the floor, and I finally got to see close up what intense guilt looked like on my face. It didn't take a genius to guess that she'd never told this to anyone before. "Why?" I breathed.

"Because I'm a princess. Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. And it's the duty of a princess to always do the right thing, even if she doesn't want to." She sighed. "For the first year, I faked it. We all faked it a little. Whenever Sunset was afraid, I reminded her that she was my friend, and each time I meant it just a little bit more. After a long, long time, it became the truth. These days we're practically sisters. But it didn't happen overnight." She looked worriedly to Sunset's room. "I never told her," she said, confirming what I already knew. "She was my friend a long time before I was hers. Sometimes I still resent myself for it. I love Sunset, but I wish that when I forgave her, it had been my choice."

"But you did it." I grasped her arms. "If someone really wants to hurt someone else, they never let rules stop them. You did. It doesn't matter why you did it; what matters is that you did. That's incredible. You're incredible."

"I'm not." She trembled in my grasp. "I'm a fake. I put on a happy face for everyone, but I don't mean it. I'm a wreck. I miss my home, I miss my body, I miss... I miss my real friends. Sometimes I hate everyone I see, because they remind me of the ponies I'll never see again. But I can't ever show it, because all the magic I have depends on knowing that my friends believe in me." She choked, even now holding something in. It started to dawn on me why Applejack had been so harsh with me; she was accustomed to this Twilight who never let her feelings get in the way. "It should have been you, that night two years ago. You don't have to be afraid of who you are. You've just proved that you would have forgiven her too, princess or not. At least when you did it, it actually meant something."

"You think I would have done better than you?" I put my hand to her cheek to steady her. "You've been doing what I've wished I could do for years. You have friends, and adventures, and a life. You mean the world to Sunset, and to everyone. Even if you're messed up inside, you've never let it stop you, and you never will. You shouldn't be afraid. You're perfect."

"You think I'm perfect?" She looked into my eyes, tearing up. "Twilight... don't you understand how much I want to be you?"

We stared at each other, and everything else seemed to melt away. Our bodies moved without thinking. We pulled each other close, neither one of us taking the lead, embracing each other in perfect synchrony. Our cheeks pressed together as we intertwined. The feel of her skin against my skin produced a longing in me, a kind of desperate hunger; it was as though all her thoughts and memories, my thoughts and memories, were right there, torn from me, only a thin dimensional mirror keeping us apart. I wanted to bare myself to her, to consume her, or be consumed, to become inside what was, in a way, already mine. We shifted, and now it was our foreheads that touched, the source of power for us both in different ways. I imagined that I could feel her brain thrumming inside her head, as mine did inside of mine, all the time, and wondered if her horn had once felt the same way. Our eyes half-opened, then closed. It felt as though there were no barriers between us. We were one mind, one body, one soul.

Our lips pressed together-

We sprung apart, looking away and covering our mouths. "That was weird," Princess immediately said.

"Yeah," I hurriedly agreed. "That was weird."

We stood awkwardly, both turning bright red. I sneaked a glance at her face and saw her sneaking one at mine, and we both immediately looked away, staring at our shoes, at the sink, anywhere but at each other. Our hearts were beating rapidly, and probably in unison. My lips quivered, unconsciously tasting the air. The tips of my fingers bent around nothing. "Do you..." I started, but caught the rest of it in my throat, realizing I had no idea how to finish.

Princess made small, breathy noises. She ground her foot back and forth against the floor, turning her leg inward. "My phone's upstairs," she said.

"And?"

"And Flash Sentry can be here in fifteen minutes."

I nodded desperately, already plotting my route. "Can he meet us in the shower?" I blurted.

"Us?"

"I mea... Me. I mean me. I need to shower." I kept my eyes intensely focused downward. "But... but you're his girlfriend. You should probably be there too. To wait for him."

She nodded vacantly, picking at the hem of her skirt. "That... that would be most efficient. Right." Her gaze flicked up to my middle, then rapidly away. "I'll tell him to be here in ten," she said as she fidgeted.

We stood there just a second longer, independently visualizing the fastest route upstairs, our paths around one another, the point at which we would split when we arrived at her apartment, pre-planning our immediate future thoughts about the placements of our hands and mouths, and running optimization algorithms to determine which order of actions would get us the fastest out of our respective clothes. And then, without prompting, we ran.

Shimmer's Half - Saturday

My first clue that something was wrong was that Dawn's hair wasn't in my face.

I awoke slowly, reluctantly; my body knew it wasn't morning yet. Everything was comfortably warm. The duvet was pulled tightly around me; my little brother's body was hot and close against me, my arms snuggled around him like they always were. Something on my face tingled. I thought I could hear music, like a lullaby, coming from very far away. I felt completely at peace. But something was wrong.

I only realized that Dawn had kissed me when he leaned in and did it a second time. His lips layered over mine, soft and warm, like a mask fitting over my face. Even then, my body responded in the wrong order, still too asleep to understand what was happening. It felt good. My lips parted slightly, letting him slip further between them as his hands moved over me. I decided immediately that I liked being kissed. A subtle scent filled the air, sweet like honey, soothing me back into sleep. The lullaby continued, telling me that everything is all right, everything is all right, as I felt myself being rolled onto my back. Nothing registered. All I felt was warm, and safe, and being kissed, and beautiful. I felt beautiful.

But something was wrong. I'm not an idiot. And when Dawn's fingers slid down and pressed against my flat chest, it pierced through my haze of sleep like he'd cut through my clothes and stabbed me in the heart. "Stop," I whispered, pushing him away. In a second he was back on top of me, rubbing me more insistently, trying to kiss me deeper. "Dawn, stop!" I repeated, shoving at his chest. He wouldn't let go. Something was wrong. Dawn wasn't this strong. He smelled too nice. His hair wasn't falling in my face.

The gentleness went out of him. He put his weight on me and tried to kiss me as I squirmed away, twisting my head left and right. His breath was like flowers and oranges, my favorite. His fingers were reaching, clawing under my sweater, sending tingles across my bare skin. His touch excited me, and that felt deeply wrong. "I said stop!" I yelled, managing to get my knees up and kick him in the stomach with both feet. This was enough to knock him away to the far end of the bed. I also felt something burst beneath my heel.

Panic, a new experience for me, started to ratchet around in my chest. My eyes fully opened; someone had turned out the night light. I scrambled up to my knees and switched on the bedside light. Dawn was kneeling as well, looking down at himself. He was wearing his blue sweater, but it had caved in across his stomach, like it was part of his skin. Putrid liquid leaked out of him, dripping down his suddenly disfigured exterior into sticky patches on his boxer shorts. He slowly looked up at me, and when his head moved, his hair didn't flow around it. It stayed in place, like it was made of plastic. Before I could even understand what I was seeing, he opened his mouth wide, too wide, like it was on a hinge, and leaped at me.

I didn't know what a changeling was. Why would I? Our parents had never read us those kinds of stories, not for want of us asking, and teachers would try to keep us "safe" by not covering the topic until we were too old to be preyed on. But I knew enough. All I needed to understand was that this thing, whatever it was, was not my brother. That was all the information I needed to not have to hold back.

We threw each other back and forth, just close enough to our play-fighting that I wasn't consciously aware that my life was on the line. His fingers dug deep into my neck and shoulders, feeling more like claws than real hands. I kicked and hit at him, shrieking with every strike, not letting him get a solid grip. In just a few blows, his disguise started to wear away. His skin and clothes slid around and punctured, like silk stretched over a frame, and my knuckles clanged against something much harder than bone. He opened his mouth wide, snapping for my neck. I drew back and punched him across his face, crying out when the attempt cut my hand open. His upper lip split and peeled away from his face, hanging down to expose a copper frame and curved metal teeth, dripping with something green. My split-second of shock was the opening he needed to push me back against the wall, gaping in towards my mouth again.

I struggled. With my uninjured hand I swung around and punched him point-blank in the chest. Instead of pushing him back, my fist punctured right through him and stuck fast. He froze, stuck just inches away. In silent horror I tried to move my fingers. I could feel ooze dripping between them, and the crinkle of paper, along with the shearing of hard metal. The fake Dawn started to lean in, pushing my fist even deeper into him, and his hanging mouth even closer to mine. His breath had grown wetter, now smelling less like oranges and more like week-old garbage. I leaned away and flailed out, grabbing the first object that came to hand, and with another swing smashed my princess lamp against the side of his face. This jolted him enough that I was able to push him off of me and wrench my hand free, tearing his front open in the process, and sprung from my bed. I backed against the window, too inexperienced to sprint from the door, and that line of escape was cut off as I heard him roll from the bed and crouch between me and it.

Keeping my eyes forward, I pulled open the curtains; I didn't yet know that I was good enough to fight in the dark. What I saw illuminated in the moonlight didn't even look human. It was an incomplete, twisted skeleton cobbled together from junk and scrap metal, the holes inside stuffed with trash, dripping brown and green fluids onto the carpet. The organic, silklike skin was peeling away in flaps, already starting to shrivel up around the edges. Most of my brother's face hung in ribbons, exposing a pointed jaw that operated with a mix of springs and sinews. One of his eyes had burst, leaking clear liquid, and behind the drooping socket I could see a black shape squirming and scuttling. But his right eye was intact, and it stared at me with the quivering hurt that Dawn had been perfecting on me since the day he was born. "Sunset?" he said, and even though the jaw moved up and down in an almost comically mechanical way, it was his voice that came out, in the high-pitched, trembling tone he used to tell me that my picking on him had crossed a line. "Don't you love me?"

I hesitated. Stupidly, stupidly, I hesitated. Despite the evidence in front of my eyes, I couldn't escape the idea that maybe, just maybe, this really was my brother, transformed by some kind of curse, and I had just broken him. That moment of hesitation was all it took for my brain to finally catch up with what my body had been doing, and terror fell onto me like an anvil. I started weeping, uncontrollably, and fell back across the window. That was when he leaped for me. And that was when something within me awakened.

Suddenly, there was no darkness. I could see everything as clearly as if the sun was shining from behind my eyes. I stepped to the side with what felt like practiced ease and swung out with both fists, knocking the creature off balance. I kept up the attack, kicking and striking with my elbows, ignoring the cuts I was accruing just to keep it from recovering. A spark of fury flared up in me, overpowering everything else. My screams became almost as inhuman as my enemy as I overpowered it. How dare this creature impersonate my brother. How dare it sneak into my bed. How dare it steal my first kiss!

(Behind the oak tree at school with North Star didn't count because I'd decided that he was a twat, even though I wasn't supposed to know that word yet.)

With one final charge I slammed the monster against the wall, denting the plaster. In an insane rage I grappled at its head, forcing my hands into its mouth and eye socket. I instantly regretted the former as it bit down, mangling my fingers, but I felt something give way in its throat and pushed harder. Gurgles in my brother's voice gave way to chittering, insectlike screeches. Its hands raked down my sides and across my arms, tearing holes in my sweater. I pushed harder. The makeshift skull distended as I forced my hand inside of it, reaching even as the teeth scraped against my skin, feeling sticky tendons snap and limbs go limp one after the other. Suddenly, tiny, sharp teeth dug into my palm, tearing a new hole into me that burned like hot acid. Even as I teared up and cried out from the pain, I kept pushing. Two more inches was all it took. I heard a black shell crack. I felt a round body burst like rotten fruit. With a burst of green liquid that oozed out of every side of the skull, the changeling finally went still.

The jaw loosened. I breathed heavily, my heart pounding. I wrenched my hand free, only then acknowledging that three of my fingers were broken, but not really caring. Most of my body hurt, and a lot of my arms and legs were bruised or skinned, but I wasn't dangerously bleeding. Somehow, I'd done it. I'd survived. And I understood then that what I'd seen in the moonlight hadn't vanished now that the moment was gone, but had stayed in me, and would stay with me for the rest of my life. A curled, blazing sun had seared itself across my heart, visible whenever I closed my eyes, and I knew. I just knew. I stood there, eight years old, covered in blood and slime and sweat, and knew that this was who I was meant to be. I was the light in the darkness. I was she who slays monsters. I was powerful. I was unstoppable.

I was Sunset.

Fucking.

Shimmer.

I didn't have long to bask. I didn't have any time, really. Reality descended, asshole that it is, and I realized that I could still hear the singing. The changeling's lullaby still echoed in my head, as though I was hearing it without using my ears. Where before it had soothed me, now it tightened my stomach, calling me to action. With a dreamlike bravery, I tried to open the door with my broken hand but winced, trying again with my good side. The night light to the bathroom had been pulled out here, too, but the dim light confirmed my fears. Dawn's bedroom door was cracked open.

I could have run to our parents' room. I even looked in that direction, at the distant door still closed and my dad's stash of guns on top of his dresser, but my feet carried me towards my brother. I ran with no plan but fury and kicked open the door, already halfway through a scream. "Da-"

A hand smacked itself over my mouth. An impossibly long arm curled around me and scooped me up. "What's this?" a distorted, feminine voice asked.

I struggled and screamed, silenced. Whatever was holding me was much stronger than what I'd just faced. A sickly green light filled the room, and two grotesque, intelligent eyes stared down at me.

This changeling was tall, taller even than my parents, though most of it was in her legs. Unlike the other, this one didn't even try to hide that she was biomechanical; her skin was grown flush to her skeleton, exposing delicately carved steel ribs and glass protrusions that spread around her back like wings. Her seemingly frail hands sprouted at the fingertips into metal claws that tapped against my cheek. Her face was distorted and insectlike, with her hair hanging down all around her in gossamer strands; the only part of it that looked remotely human was her lips, which were full and flushed. Under any other circumstances, I would have called her strangely beautiful. Her song echoed in my head, louder and louder, driving out all other thoughts. I wrenched at her hand with both arms, but found it utterly immovable. "Did you come for your brother, little one?" she asked, exposing glistening, metallic fangs. "You'll have to wait your turn. He has enough of you already."

My eyes turned. Dawn lay on his back in bed, the covers pulled down to his waist, his chest bare. And halfway on top of him was me, another me, kissing him. One of her hands was moving up and down under the sheets, while his were clasped against her back, holding her close. One of these fell limply away as she looked up and locked eyes with me, grinning. Bright red drool dripped from her lips.

My scream would have been deafening if it hadn't been smothered. The taller changeling chuckled as my hands bounced off of her without leaving a mark, only adjusting her grip to secure my legs. I bit down on her palm and instantly regretted it. Not only did I cut my lips, thick, noxious fluid filled my mouth, sending a visceral panic right down to my stomach. I threw up straight into her hand, rocketing streams of sick across myself and her and smearing it across my face. She didn't seem to notice. As my head started to swim she cradled me, looking down at me with a gaze that was almost loving. "Poor little thing," she crooned. "Don't be afraid. I'll make it all go away." Her mouth distended, and for a moment, within that abyss, I could see another set of eyes looking back at me.

I tried to fight. I tried to wake up. I got weaker and weaker as she got closer, feeling my body go numb. The last sensation was her lips touching mine.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

I was powerful.

I was strong.

I was Sunset.

Fucking.

Sh.

"She's alive."

Shimmer.

"She's alive! Oh, thank McCarthy. Oh, thank McCarthy she's alive."

Someone shook me awake. My head lolled as my mother manhandled me, smacking the life back into me. The lights hurt my eyes. She clung to me tightly, wailing and jabbering nonsense. My dad stood facing the other way, shotgun in hand, grimmer.

My eyes made a slow circuit of the room. My brother was still on the bed, his face covered in red. My double lay beside him with no face at all, an explosion of red, black and green shotgun-carved into the wall behind her. But the only bodies were theirs. His window had been broken, apparently from the inside, and the frame had been split as something large had sprung through it, away and into the night.

I said nothing. I did nothing. My dad snatched me away from my mom and slapped me across my face, knocking me to the ground. I fell like a rag doll. "What were you thinking?" he yelled, almost screaming. "Were you trying to fight a queen yourself? Why didn't you call for us? What were you thinking?"

I should have fought back. I should have said something. I didn't. I stared up at Dawn's bed and listened to my mother sob. I should have felt something. I should have felt anything. But I didn't.

I didn't feel anything at all.

I woke up for the second time around noon. The first time, as always, was at seven on the dot, when Shining Armour got out of bed to do his morning stretches. He couldn't break the habit of getting up early, even though he'd waited up all night for me, the dumbass. I watched him sleepily shift his way through different naked poses and then covered my head with his pillow when he left for breakfast, easily tuning out the polite knocking on the door.

Even when I woke again, I didn't get up right away, not even to feed my growling stomach. I lay in bed and lifted my hand in the air, turning it over and analyzing it in the light. It had accumulated a number of scars and pockmarks over the years, but I could still pick out three in particular, three hard lines that cut across my middle fingers where panicked iron had crushed through them. My hands didn't fit inside of changeling skulls any more, of course. I wondered if magical pony hooves did.

I'd managed to get a look at my double in the hospital - it was funny how showing up in just a towel could get people to look the other way - but not closely examine her, let alone talk to her. She needed time to sleep off the poison. What I'd learned seemed to confirm what Princess Twilight had told me, even if it did raise a whole load of other questions. There didn't seem to be any government-level conspiracy surrounding Sunset, but there was also no media interest, no nuts from the internet tracking her every move. It was just one school that had agreed to keep the two of them a secret from the rest of the world. That was pretty fucking altruistic, especially since one of them had tried to enslave the entire world at one point. Princess Twilight must have been all kinds of influential.

I turned my hand over again, frustrated at the missed opportunity. Did Sunset have all the same scars that I did? All the same memories? All the same secrets, all the same drives? And even if she did, what the fuck would any of that even mean? I gave up speculating and rolled out of bed, put on one of the hotel's fluffy dressing gowns, and finally, for the hell of it, decided to humor whoever had been knocking at my door every ten minutes for the past five hours.

Coco Pommel was waiting outside, looking shrunken and miserable. Considering where she'd had to spend the night, I almost sympathized. I'd had a sneaking suspicion for a few weeks that Suri was fucking her, but as usual with Suri, it was difficult to actually prove anything. "G-good morning, Shimmer," she said, either unaware or optimistically oblivious to the fact that she was ten minutes off the mark. "Did you sleep well?"

"Like an angel." I leaned against the doorframe and stared, letting her squirm. "What?"

"Well, it's just, um..." She fidgeted. Cute, but no Twilight. "It's just that we were supposed to be on the road three hours ago. Suri's, um..." Pissed. She's fucking pissed. Just say she's pissed. "She's worried that you might be sick."

"Yeah... no. Trip's cancelled. I've got business here now."

"Oh." She kept her eyes firmly down. I could see curiosity bubbling up around her lips and hands, but she didn't dare voice it. "Wh-what should I tell her?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter. She can leave if she wants. I can hitch a ride back to Manehattan." I looked her up and down, another idea forming. Plans come naturally to me. "You're staying with me, though."

She gasped. "I am?"

"Yeah. I might need you. Besides, you're the only one who brought bus tokens." No flicker of emotion on her face, either fear or relief. This girl was a professional. I started to turn away from her. "Go and get Shining Armour for me. Tell him to book the room for another night, then send him up here. And after that, you can either be a good girl and order us some lunch, or you can ride off with Suri Polomare and spend the rest of the week stuck in a car with her." I swung my head back and stared at her harshly. "Alone."

Now I got a gulp from her. "I'll do that," she said in a small voice.

"Yeah, sure." I started to walk away. "I'm getting dressed now, so unless you want to see me naked, you should close the door." To speed her along, I untied the front of my gown and shrugged it off my shoulders, baring my back to her. And wouldn't you know it, she actually did stare for a few seconds before slamming the door and bolting away.

I grinned and let the gown fall, retreating to the bed. Honestly, I had no intention of putting clothes on for another hour. I grabbed a leftover chicken bone from the bedside table and gnawed on it, plotting what part of Shining Armour I was going to eat lunch off of. I hoped that whatever meal Coco arrived with was made with a lot of sauce. If it did, I might need her help serving it.

The animal shelter was a work of art. I had to stand back and admire it, just for its sheer audacity. Even from the outside, this was nothing like the back-alley rescue centers and overtaxed kennels that you got in the city; this was its own building, beautifully maintained and decorated with murals of fuzzy-wuzzy animals. They even had a dazzling billboard and a small statue of a border collie out front. How this place had gotten so much funding was beyond me. Most likely it had involved some kind of adventure, starring sweet little Fluttershy and desperately helpful Sunset as they tried to save their run-down rescue, with some comically misguided charity event, wacky hijinks, maybe a musical number, culminating in the whole community coming together in the spirit of friendship for a two-hour work montage that would have normally taken two months and cost thousands of dollars. Exactly the kind of creepy hive-mind stuff that I'd moved to Manehattan to get away from. Not that I'd succeeded; last year some kid named Babs had pulled something similar to save a park two blocks south of where I lived. To this day it was impossible to walk through there without birds landing on you, still cheerily singing that same song. Creeps me the fuck out.

The inside was just as pretty as the outside. It was as clean and spacious as any human clinic, and didn't even smell like it was downwind of a barnyard. A couple of dogs were tussling unsupervised in the middle of the floor, but they stopped and stared when I came in, and an adorably chubby cat on the counter backed suspiciously away. Fluttershy's head peeked out from one of the doors in the back. "Oh! Good afternoon..." Her smile froze. "Sunset?"

I swung Mark Antony over my shoulder. "Close, but no."

"...Oh." She fully emerged and quickly shut the door behind her, as though barring my way. "Hello, Shimmer."

I took a few lazy steps in, looking around as though admiring the place. The animals all eyed me warily, wrinkling their noses; even the hamsters in the enclosure in the corner had stopped moving. "So this is where I work," I said, grinning widely at the little beasts. "Fluttershy, right? Nice place you've got. Seems well-loved. Must have had a lot of work put into it."

"Oh, it did." She smiled. "We almost had to close down last year, but Twilight and Sunset helped to organize a fundraiser, and-"

"Yeah, I don't really care." I whirled around and vaulted over the counter, landing cleanly without disturbing anything. "So you put me behind the desk, right? You don't seriously trust me with animals, do you?"

"Please don't..." She raised a hand plaintively. "You're not allowed back there. Employees only."

"Really?" I smirked. "Then why's my picture on the posterboard?" I approached it and plucked one of the pictures off. Judging by the selection, this version of me had kept up her photography hobby into adulthood. The one I held had Sunset and Fluttershy hugging and laughing, standing underneath a fluttering "GRAND RE-OPENING" sign. There was also some kind of dark shadow quietly looming in the background, but I was sure that that wasn't significant at all.

"That's... um..." Fluttershy winced as I dropped my hammer on the counter and kept rummaging around. "Please stop..."

Two of the desk drawers were padlocked. I picked one at random and twisted in the first three numbers that came to mind; it snapped open. "And this must be my stuff." I slid it open. Some unreadable documents and cheap trinkets spilled around inside. I was disappointed until a stack in the back corner caught my eye. "Hello, who's this?" I picked up a photograph of a tall, tan guy with blue hair. He looked familiar. "Does my little pony me have a crush?" I squealed.

Fluttershy rocketed next to me and slapped the bundle of pictures out of my hands. "I'm sorry," she gasped when I glanced at her out of the side of my eye. "That's... private."

Her evasiveness made it click. A grin wormed its way back onto my face. "That's Twilight's boyfriend."

"No..." She crimsoned. "Well, um, it is. But she isn't, um, I mean, Sunset doesn't..."

I straightened up. "So you two are pretty close, huh?" I faced her and edged forward, backing her against the wall. "That's perfect. You can show me around. Let me meet all her favorite animals. I really want to get to know her."

She shivered as I leaned in. "You're frightening me," she stammered. "Please leave."

"Make me."

"I'll call Twilight."

"Go ahead. I'm sure she'd love to hear about this." That silenced her. "Sunset must have a locker too, right? Take me there."

"No."

"Then I'll find it myself."

"You can't. Employees only. Please leave."

"I'm not hurting anyone."

"You're upsetting the animals. Please leave."

"Make me."

I turned away and picked up my hammer again. Her hand shot out and grabbed my arm, iron in intensity if not strength. "I said..." Suddenly her face exploded into a barely-controlled fury. "LEAVE!"

I snarled back and locked eyes with her. Our gazes clashed like trains colliding, and it only took seconds for me to realize that, holy crap, I was losing. Her irises opened like portals into a dimension of pain and fury, promising torment beyond anything that I could deliver to her. I felt a cold sweat trickle down my back and almost cracked; this girl could probably outstare a Queen. "All right," I whispered, hoping that I was hiding the tremor in my voice. "We can do this the easy way."

I took a step back and kicked the drawer closed. Her stare relented, and I heard what sounded like a sigh of relief. That was my cue to rush forward and pin her against the wall, using Mark Antony's handle to bar her arms in place. She shrieked and I covered her mouth, putting a knee up on her stomach to keep her still. Barks and yowls erupted behind me, but I ignored them. "You're going to tell me everything I want to know," I instructed. "And in return, I'll leave quietly and won't bother you or any of your little friends again. Deal?"

I uncovered her mouth. She shook, the fight gone out of her. "Including Sunset?" she croaked.

"Oh, sweetie." I grinned. "Sunset's me. Do you really think I'd hurt myself?"

She considered this haltingly. "Okay," she whispered.

"Good." I lowered my knee. "Question one... What are the Elements of Harmony?"

Shimmer's Half - Sunday

Even on review, the state of Sunset's building never ceased to surprise me. It was small. Undecorated. Grungy. I was split down the middle about whether I could really believe it; I'd stayed in worse places over the course of my travels. But that was when I was on the hunt, traveling light, keeping a low profile. Sunset lived here. How was a girl who'd come to this world with a fortune in her pocket not used to living with nothing but the best? Was this part of her reformation? Or had she actually given up everything she owned to take my place, only to fuck up her grand plan years later? Was this other me really that stupid?

Me and her, we had some talking to do.

The doorman gaped at me as I strolled up to the building, Coco trailing behind me like a baby duck. I stopped in front of him, my sledgehammer slung over one shoulder, a small bag over the other. "What's the matter?" I crooned at him. "Need to check me for weapons?"

He shook. "B-but you're already... and miss Sparkle..." He looked around desperately, like he was hoping a camera crew was going to jump out and surprise him, then collapsed against the wall and opened the door for us. "I'm putting in my two weeks notice," he grumbled.

The inside was as shabby as the outside. I stormed through the entrance and up the stairs quickly, before any of this place could rub off on me. As soon as I entered the grey hallway I could see my destination. Parked in a chair outside room 214 was Rarity, busy with some knitting that she put down when she heard me approach. And I don't mean granny knitting, I mean some fucking professional needlework, stitching designs across a half-finished ascot in this year's summer colours in a pattern clearly inspired by Trenderhoof's "All About the Hair" collection. Hey, hang out with Suri Polomare long enough and you start to pick up a few things.

I saw Rarity's eyes go through a now familiar flicker of confusion before things clicked. "Ah. Hello, Shimmer," she said. She made a show of going back to her knitting, but kept a wary eye on me.

"Rarity." I sashayed forward, keeping my limbs loose and my smile fixed, joining in the pretense that this wasn't a confrontation. "How's my fake?"

"Resting." She scooted sideways, putting her knees in front of the door. "Twilight and... Twilight were finally able to put her to bed. She really isn't to be disturbed."

"Isn't she?"

I crossed in front of her, slowly. We sized each other up a second time. Her needles clicked. My fingers drummed on Mark Antony's handle. "So you're... what?" I said, still slowly pacing. "Her bodyguard?"

She turned up her nose. "Goodness, no! Nothing so vulgar. I'm simply here for her emotional well-being."

"In case she tries to chug another bottle of painkillers?"

She glared. "If she ever gets the urge, one of her friends will always be right here, night or day. That is all."

"Really." I stopped in front of her and faced her. "Then why are you out here instead of in there with her?"

This made her freeze. Redness appeared on her cheeks. Her eyes flicked to Coco Pommel, who I could only assume looked back helplessly. "A lady needs her space," she said. "She insisted."

"No, I don't think she did." I leaned forward. In a split second I let go of Mark Antony's handle, caught it by the neck as it tumbled down my back, and flicked it up so that the end of the handle rested right under Rarity's chin. I leaned closer and gently pushed her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze. "Spill it," I said, grinning. "Is Princess Twilight really that afraid of me?"

Rarity let her needlework fall to the floor and swatted the handle away. "You have nothing to do with it," she huffed. "No one's come after Sunset in more than a year, nor shall they. I am only out here to preserve her own peace of mind."

I straightened up. I'd gotten what I wanted. "She used to be scared for her life?"

"Well... yes." She folded her hands in her lap and looked down. "There... was a time, shortly after that ghastly mirror incident, when our Sunset had a very rough time of it. Most of Canterlot High was afraid of her, and, well, not everyone agreed with Twilight's decision to forgive her actions. Myself included, I'm ashamed to say. For months after she was beset by bullies and ruffians, trying their hands at their own misguided vigilante justice. We quickly discovered that all it took was a friendly, familiar face at the door to turn away all but the most determined of them."

So the bully let herself become the bullied. Pathetic. Obviously Fluttershy hadn't told her friends about our encounter, or Rarity would know that I knew this already. This, though, was something that I had to check for myself. "That's funny," I said. "You think she deserved it?"

She stood sharply. "It doesn't matter whether she did or did not deserve it," she hissed at me. "It was still absolutely wrong for anyone to try to harm her for decisions which she has long since redeemed herself for." She narrowed her eyes. "And I sincerely hope we are all in absolute agreement about that fact."

I kept my face blank. "Yeah, sure. Hey, listen." I stretched back and grabbed Coco Pommel by the wrist. She yelped as I yanked her forward. "This is Coco Pommel." I held her out like I was presenting a dead rabbit. "She just got out of a really toxic relationship and desperately needs a new friend to confide in, maybe someone who'll, oh, I don't know, take her under her wing and show her that it's possible to succeed in the fashion industry without being a cheating, manipulative bitch. I'd do it, but, you know. Me."

Rarity just blinked at me. "I, well, I, um..."

"She needs to go to the bathroom."

Coco blinked at me as well. "Um..." She winced and teared up as I dug my nail into her wrist. "Th-that's right," she said. "I had a, um, a lot of coffee this morning. C-could you sh-show me where to go?"

Rarity snatched her away from me. "There's a restroom on the main floor," she said. "I'll take you there. Assuming your friend can behave herself?"

I grinned wordlessly at her. She smoothed down her skirt and stalked off, leading Coco by the hand away from me. Once she thought she was out of earshot, I heard her try to make conversation. "So, um, that dress you're wearing... that's from last year's Manehattan Faire collection?"

"No, um... I made it myself."

"Really? You must be quite the talented seamstress."

"Well, it was Suri's design..."

The door was locked, of course, but this wasn't a problem. It was a cheap building. I took one of Rarity's needles and rammed it into the keyhole, pounding on the end of it until it turned. The lock and needle were both twisted out of shape when I separated them. I took the chair and slipped inside, shut and locked the door again, then leaned the seat under the door handle for security. I wasn't expecting that it would be needed. I'd made sure that Coco had a lot to talk about.

I didn't give the apartment a second glance. I'd already scoped it out when I snuck in through the fire escape last night. It was a cluttered mess, half-finished, full of games and hobbies but lacking in necessities, like intricately painted details floating on a blank canvas with no background. She'd needed other people to provide for her her whole life; this was the home of someone who had no fucking idea what she was doing.

It was weirdly nostalgic.

One of the first tricks I'd ever mastered was slipping in and out of rooms silently. I left Mark Antony by the door and closed all the blinds, then turned off all the lights. Smoothly turning the handle, I inched the bedroom door open and crept inside, leaving no shaft of light to give away my presence. Her room was dark and musty. She lay flat on her back, her eyes closed. Unguarded, defenseless.

Sunset, the fake.

All the stealth had just been a precaution, but I saw right away that it had been necessary. Her breathing was wrong. She wasn't asleep. Her face contorted slightly, and the sheets shifted as her arm moved, back and forth, back and forth. At the same time, my straining ears caught a rhythmic creak from the direction of the ceiling. I counted one, two, three before I recognized the bounce of bedsprings. Someone in the room above us was getting fucked. My heart fluttered a little in envy and excitement. This day just got better and better.

I leaned against the wall, adopting a casual pose. I took my silver knife from my boot and repeatedly tossed it into the air, catching it in the same hand. Once I had a rhythm going, I spoke. "I hear you've been a naughty girl."

The response was immediate. Sunset jolted like a startled animal, scrambling up against the corner where her bed met both walls and pulling her covers around her. Her hand caught for a second as she pulled it out of whatever she was wearing down there. I smirked, but only moved to toss and catch my knife. To her, I still would have been an indistinct shadow near the doorway. "Thanks for the jewels," I continued. "I put them to good use. Shame you didn't think to keep more of them for yourself."

There was a faint little gasp as she pulled the pieces together. I didn't even know I could gasp like that. "You're me," she whispered.

"Oh, no." I stopped juggling and stalked toward her, silhouetted in the dim light. "I am so much more than that."

I stopped in the middle of the room, keeping my stance wide. My bag dropped to the carpet. Our eyes, uniquely adapted to dark spaces, picked out details on each other. Sunset was thin and messy and tear-stained, a complete wreck. I was tall, strong, beautiful in every way. I watched her eyes try to roam over me, but they were constantly drawn back to my knife. I was sure to keep it visible as I crossed my arms. "Seriously, what the fuck?" I said. "You lie. You steal. You break hearts. You try to take over a world, then fuck it up so badly you get banished forever. You work at a fucking animal shelter. And now here you are, killing yourself because the only person who ever saw the real you thinks you're a disgusting piece of shit. Next to that, it hardly even matters that she's right."

The squeak of bedsprings upstairs stopped for a few seconds, then resumed faster and louder than before, a high-pitched voice crying out every few thrusts. We both looked up, then back at each other. I grinned; she tried to sink beneath the covers in shame. "And a little perv, too," I said. "You really are a piece of work. But none of that's why I'm here." I swayed a few steps forward. "I'm here, my little fake, because you've been making me look bad. And that's something I badly need to correct."

Sunset shook. You'd think that seeing my own face twisted up in fear would inspire some pity in me, and as usual, you'd be fucking wrong. I'd seen my face on changelings before, and that's the kind of trick that only works once. These days, seeing replicas of myself screaming in agony just turned me on. "Rarity's right outside," she said, almost hiding the trembling in her voice. "If I yell, she'll call everyone and come running-"

"You think I didn't think of that?" I sneered at her. "Rarity's busy. She won't be bothering us for a long time." I hopped up onto the bed and sat cross-legged across from her. "What's the matter?" I crooned as she sank against the wall. "Afraid of a little self-reflection?"

I could physically see her gathering her courage. "I'm not afraid of you," she said.

"Oh?" I cocked my ear toward her. "Squeak louder, I almost didn't hear you."

"I'm not afraid of you!" she repeated, even though she must have known I was playing her. "Because I know who you are." She straightened up and glared. "You're the old me."

I raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Her fists tightened on the sheets. I sensed a lecture incoming. "Twilight was right," she said. "You're who I used to be. The old, arrogant, self-serving me. You're an alternate version of me who never learned about the magic of friendship and never moved on from wanting revenge. Because of me." She looked away for a second and her angry gaze faded into something deeper, but she immediately snapped back to glaring. "I'm sorry for that. I pity you. But I'm not afraid of you. With the help of my friends I've driven you out of my nightmares and out of my life. It doesn't even matter what you do to me now, because I know, as sure as I know that my friends love me, that I will never become you again." This she deemed worthy of a pause. "But I don't hate you, either. I've been you. I know what's in your head." She leaned forward and slowly started to reach out to me. "And I just want you to know that no matter how angry you are, or how empty you feel, it does get better. It doesn't have to be the way things are. So I want to offer you a chance, just one." She turned her palm up toward me. "Talk to my friends. Let them help you. You might not get it at first, but you'll understand that there's another way. But if you refuse, I won't stop you. You can keep all your anger, leave here forever, and keep on living in the past... where you belong."

A sarcastic clap seemed too harsh. My fake was smooth. So instead I just yawned and uncrossed my legs, disguising the motion with a huge stretch. "That's a pretty good deal," I said. "Twilight would be proud of you." I stretched again and, in front of her widening eyes, put my free hand into hers. "There's just one thing, though," I told her, smiling. "You've just got a couple things backwards."

She saw it coming a fraction of a second too late to react. As her eyes widened again I yanked hard on her wrist and pulled her forward, throwing her out of her nest of sheets, and as she fell I whirled to the side and caught her across my knee, knocking the wind out of her. My left arm caught her legs before she could kick and I pressed the flat of my knife against her lips, instantly stilling the rest of her. Even after her breath came back, she didn't dare make a sound.

I took a moment to get comfortable, snuggling against her. With just a little pressure from the knife under her nose she leaned back toward me. "You seriously think you're the original?" I cackled into her ear. "News flash, little girl. You're in my world. I'm not the one who abandoned my whole dimension to get tainted by another. If anyone's the aberration, it's you." She struggled a second in protest. "And two, I'd say 'even if you're right' but you're not, why the fuck would I want to be anything like you?"

She struggled a second time. As I grappled her to keep her bent over my knee my hand landed on her ass cheek. I gave it a squeeze. She was skinnier than me, a pasty, malnourished skinniness instead of the physical perfection that I'd worked for, but her butt was still round and soft and her stomach still felt firm over my leg. This was good; she wasn't completely inactive or dangerously starved. I uploaded this to my mental map of her body, growing happier and happier with the end product. Then I felt up her ass some more. "Why do you think I even came here?" I asked mockingly as she squirmed. "To make friends? To take life advice from a girl who two nights ago tried to kill herself?" She kicked out a third and final time, much more weakly than before. "That's what I thought," I spat. "You've got some nerve, saying that you're a step up from me. That's one heck of an insult if you can't even stand to live in your own worthless skin."

My knife left her lips and flashed in front of her face. She flinched back and shut her eyes, then slowly opened them again when cold silver didn't bite into her. I held the handle up in front of her, waiting. "Do you know what that is?" I asked.

She blinked, not understanding at first, but then traced over the pattern carved into it. "That's my crest," she said, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.

"Wrong, cunt." I let go of her ass and dragged her back by her hair, bending her into an awkward squat. Her eyes teared up, but her cry was cut short when my knife found a new home with its tip under her chin. I pinched and twisted her hair between my fingers; definitely real, and a little greasy. "That's our crest," I said, glaring daggers into her eyes. "Yours and mine. Remember how we got it?"

Of course she did. Even sweet little Fluttershy knew the story. "By killing an infant changeling with my bare hooves," she said shakily. "On the night my-"

"And how did it feel?" I tightened my grip. "When you knew, how did it fucking feel?"

She shut her eyes. "It felt good."

"Yeah. It did. And how many changelings have you killed since you got to this world?"

She didn't answer. "Look at me!" I shook her until she opened her eyes. "How much of anything have you killed since you got to this world?"

Sunset gulped, weakly. "I've saved the world," she said. "With my friends. We didn't have to-"

"Yeah, with sunshine and rainbows and letting your bad guys fucking go instead of actually fucking helping. Some of them two or three times. You're like every crappy comic book hero ever, the kind you decided when you were eight years old you weren't going to be. And it just eats you up, doesn't it?" I yanked back harder on her hair and flicked my crest in front of her eyes again. "You're Sunset Shimmer, greatest daughter of the Fire Tribe. This is what you're supposed to be. Motherfucking power. It means protecting people, not letting monsters go and just hoping they wind up eating out of your leader's ass like you do. It means doing things no one else has the spine to do. It means finding the house of evil, busting in, kicking ass, taking names, and then blowing it the fuck up. It means being a fucking superhero, Sunset." Without meaning to, I'd raised my voice. I composed myself and kept going. "And you gave that up. You betrayed your crest and everything you're supposed to stand for. And because of that, you almost died."

Somewhere in the midst of this, she'd started weeping. "You're wrong," she whispered. "That's not me any more. There's another w-"

"I don't have to listen to another word you say, crest-traitor." In one swift action I flicked my knife into the air, caught it in my other hand, then grabbed her neck and slammed her back against the wall. "You don't even deserve to wear-!"

I stopped as I finally got a good look at her clothes. Old sweater, loose jeans, no pattern or jewelry to be seen. Sunset wasn't wearing her crest. The utter shock of seeing a grown woman uncrested stunned me for a moment, but only for a moment. "I guess you already know," I purred.

Pressed against the wall, I could feel the vibrations of the bed bouncing against the floor above us, traveling down through the building, through Sunset, and into me. This guy was good. It made me want to jerk my hips in time with the rhythm. "You really have no idea how pathetic you are, do you?" I said, using the excuse to roam my eyes down her body again. Her exposed skin was sticky with sweat, and as I adjusted my grip on her neck my thumb confirmed that she was naked under her sweater. I noted with satisfaction that my boobs were bigger than hers. The top button of her jeans was undone and she was ever so slightly moving with each bounce, her pussy still twitching from what I'd interrupted. Mentally, I licked my lips. "Hiding away in here, afraid of a few bullies, getting off to people you can't even see," I continued. "How long's it even been since you last got fucked?"

She went pink. Pink-er. "That's not-"

She was interrupted by a sudden flurry of thrusting from above. The steady squeak of bedsprings turned into a cacaphony of frantic pounding, split right down the middle by an eardrum-bursting scream of orgasm: "Oh YES! FLA-A-AAAAAASH!"

The sound died down. My gaze crawled down from the ceiling and onto Sunset, my mouth curling up into a wicked grin. The flash of pink reversed itself and all the colour drained from her face, receding even faster the moment she saw that I knew. "Oh. My. God." I didn't have to say it, but I wanted to. "That's Twilight Sparkle."

She didn't try to deny it. "Yes," she whispered.

"That's Flash Sentry fucking Twilight Sparkle."

"Yes."

If my grin got any bigger I could have swallowed her in one bite. "And you were getting off to them."

No answer this time. This had been one of my favorite games with Dawn, whenever I caught him snooping in my stuff; watching him slowly realize just how badly he'd fucked up was just as satisfying as anything that I could get away with doing to him. I released her throat and let her slide down the wall into a ball in front of me. "It's not like that," she whimpered.

An uncontrollable cackle burst out of me. "You did this on purpose, didn't you?" I laughed. I leaned forward and rested on her knees, hanging right over her. "You were the one who got her that apartment. You made fucking sure she got the one right over your head, didn't you? So you can hear every little detail of what she does in the dark." I tutted mockingly, waving my knife under her nose. "All this talk about trust and friendship, and you lie back every night and-"

"She doesn't!"

I just tilted my head at this outburst. She shook her own, trembling. "Please, leave Twilight out of this," she said. "She and Flash have done nothing wrong, and... and things have been so hard for her, too. You're right, this was a mistake. I'm sorry. I'm just..." She hung her head, struggling to breathe.

I crawled in even closer. "Say it."

She swallowed hard. "Jealous."

"Yeah." I let something catch in my voice. "And that's what this is all about, isn't it?"

Her heavy breathing abruptly stopped. She looked up and our eyes met, and our expressions shifted until they almost matched. Something flickered in my chest, like I felt when Shining Armour was near, and my gut tightened in furious response. She wasn't getting inside my head that easy. The plan almost went to the wayside; my every instinct screamed at me to hurt this bitch. My mouth twitched. My fingers tightened around the silver handle.

Tirek knows what I would have done if her phone hadn't started ringing.

The chorus of some pop song blared up from her nightstand, in the middle of a pile of empty glasses. It would take a few seconds of processing before I would recognize Twilight Sparkle as the singer. We both looked at her vibrating cell phone, then at each other, paused for exactly one second, then moved at the same time. She lunged to the side and I grabbed at her, mashing her head and hair against the wall. Her fingers scrabbled against the nightstand, inches from her phone, then curled up and socked me in the side. She was weak, but she was also me, and she knew exactly where to strike me. I winced just long enough for her to brace herself and push. Her long legs uncoiled from their crouched position, shooting her out hard enough to break my grip and headbutt me in the neck. I fell back and my own legs shot out, not fast enough; she rolled away, off the bed, and made a wild grab for her phone.

Instinct took over. In her panic Sunset's first grab only knocked two empty glasses over, and by the time she had the device in hand I was already in the air. I pounced on her as she turned to flee, knocking her down to the carpet and throwing the phone from her hand. She shrieked and writhed under me, sending a blood-red thrill through my body, growing stronger as I wrapped my legs around her to keep her still. She alternated between reaching for her singing phone and uselessly bouncing her fists off of me, kicking and screaming all the while. I struggled to keep her down, handicapped with one hand still clutching my knife. My face got closer and closer to hers; I could taste the intoxicating fear spilling off of her, her delicious warmth filling me up. I'd dominated people before, but never like this. Touching her felt amazing. It was like I could feel her right down to her soul, and capture every pulse of her quickly beating heart. Her terrified eyes met my hungry ones, and my salivating lips drew near to hers...

I'd let myself get distracted. She pushed me away and kneed me in the cunt, slithering out from under me as I recoiled. She scooped up her phone and pressed Answer. Before she could bring it to her head, I furiously sprung forward one last time, and the tip of my knife flicked it out of her hand. I twirled and my elbow met her throat, then her chest as she fell, knocking the breath out of her. I caught the phone and dropped my knee onto Sunset's stomach, stunning her a third time, and pressed my knife against her throat. While she struggled to breathe, I put her phone against my ear.

I took one long breath to steady myself, turning it into a yawn. When I spoke, I made my voice groggy. "Hello?"

"Sunset?" It was Fluttershy. "Are you okay? Is anyone there?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine." I turned my eyes down to Sunset. The fear on her face was turning to fury, and she made small, angry gasping noises. I grinned and shook my head, keeping my knee steady and pressing my knife harder against her throat. "Sorry, I just got out of bed," I added. "What's going on?"

"It's Shimmer," she said. "Your double. Rainbow Dash was jogging past your building and saw her go inside. We're trying to call everyone, but sh-she might be coming for you r-right this second..." She sobbed. "Sunset, I'm sorry. Shimmer came to the shelter yesterday. I didn't want to tell her where you lived, but she promised she'd leave you alone, and she... she looked so much like you that I trusted her..."

That little snitch. I should have guessed that Sunset would have extra security. It seemed like I'd gotten lucky; given what I knew about Rainbow Dash, I must have made an impression if her priority was to call all her friends together instead of trying to tackle me herself. "Fluttershy, it's okay," I said. "It's not your fault."

"It is my fault." I heard the sound of an engine starting. "I'm on my way. Ask Rarity to take you up to Twilight's room and wait for us there. Rainbow Dash called Applejack and she's running to get Pinkie Pie. We'll be there in ten minutes. Please, please stay safe until then..."

"Whoa. Whoa, Fluttershy, it's okay." I thought fast. "Shimmer was here. But she already left."

There was a long pause, and the engine died. "What?"

"I know. I'm surprised too." Sunset's glare intensified. She dug her fingernail into my ankle, and seemed surprised when my tone didn't even flicker. "She got past Rarity somehow, and she came into my room. But she only stayed for a few minutes. Then she escaped out the window."

"She didn't try to hurt you?"

"No. Well, I mean..." Sunset's fingernail was starting to draw blood. I shifted my blade a fraction of an inch across her throat, pinching her skin. She lessened the pressure, but just slightly. "When she first came in, she was like something out of my nightmares. She pulled me out of bed and pushed me around, she held me up at knifepoint, she insulted Twilight and called me all kinds of awful names... I honestly thought she was going to kill me." I looked away. "But then..."

I let the words hang there. "Then what?" Fluttershy asked.

"But then she changed." I didn't move, but I kept my gaze pointed away from Sunset. "We started talking. I told her about my reformation, and she told me some crazy stories about her life in Manehattan. And... she's seen things, Fluttershy. Awful things. Things that would drive any one of us crazy. And I didn't understand at first why she was telling me these things, but then I started to realize... I might be the only person she's ever told these stories to."

The pressure on my ankle slowly faded.

"The truth is, I think she's lonely," I went on. "She's the old me, or the me I would have been if Twilight Sparkle hadn't helped me. She's spent all this time trapped by her anger and regret over things she can't change, just like I used to be. I think that's why she comes off the way she does. I can remember a time when I used to go out of my way to hurt people and push them away because... at the time, that's all I thought I was capable of doing. She attacked me first because that's the only way she knows to reach out to people. Her whole ego, her idea of who she is, depends on her being a monster." Ever so subtly, my voice changed pitch, cracking into something that I hadn't heard from myself in a long, long time. "And now she's seen me, and she knows that it never had to be that way, and... and it's hurting her. I think deep down, under that big, bad exterior, she's scared of me."

I finally looked back at Sunset. My features were soft. She stared up at me, no longer resisting. Slowly, I took my knife away from her throat. She didn't make a sound.

Fluttershy finally answered. "Do you think we can help her?"

"I don't know." I wiped something out of my eye. "She completely turned me down when I offered to teach her about friendship. She said I'm not really the best role model for her. And... I guess she's right. I haven't exactly been in a good place lately." Sunset didn't deny this. "And she definitely isn't a fan of Twilight. She blames the Element of Magic for making me this way. She's wrong, though. I guess... no matter how many friends I have, there are still some things in my past that I have to deal with myself."

"Sunset..."

"No, it's fine. Really. I'm... I'm better now that what I did to Twilight is out in the open. I can start to heal." I forced a smile, and hoped it made it into my voice. "And Shimmer will be back. I know it. I might have messed up my chance with her this time, but she'll return someday, when she needs to talk. And when that happens, I'll show her that having friends doesn't have to be the end of me. I'll be ready. And even if she's not ready to accept the magic of friendship yet... maybe just being a friend to her can be enough. Sometimes one friend is all you need."

It sounded like Fluttershy was crying. "Sunset..." I definitely heard the smile in her voice. "I'm so proud of you."

"What can I say? I learned from the best." I glanced at Sunset's clock. I'd wasted too much time. "So you can tell everyone not to worry. Do you think you can call them before they start barging into my room? I really need to get back to sleep."

"I'll do that. You get some rest. Will you be okay?"

"I will. I promise. Thanks for being there for me."

"Of course."

I hung up. With a loud crack I snapped Sunset's phone in half and threw it under her desk. Sunset just kept staring at me, a look of utter shock and understanding written onto her face. "Shimmer..." she whispered.

"Hey." I removed my knee from her stomach and stretched my hand toward her. "Do you want to hear some crazy stories about my life in Manehattan?"

Everything was different when I helped her up. She was gentle and deliberate, totally unlike anything else I'd seen wearing her face, creating a disconcerting feeling that only grew stronger as she hugged me. Her skin still felt incredible, like she was covered in changeling pheromones. Even after examining her so closely, I couldn't escape the doubts that were telling me to smash her head in. "Off," I ordered, pushing her away. "I didn't come here for your sympathy. Sit the fuck down."

Sunset perched herself on the corner of her bed. She kept quiet, like I was a wild animal and the slightest noise would scare me off. This suited me for the moment. I slid my knife back into my boot and stood in front of her, looking into the empty corner. "My first few months back in Manehattan were a nightmare," I started. "I was used to hunting in small towns and forests, places where queens would sneak in in the dark and swap in their children one by one. The big city wasn't like that. The hives are hidden in plain sight and there's no single head to cut off. In the streets violence is just expected, and most of the police don't even believe changelings exist. Every night, people just walk into dark alleys and don't come back out."

My fake nodded slightly, pretending that she understood. Even looking off to the side, I could see confusion wrinkling across her forehead. As far as she could tell, I'd said all I had to say on the phone; surely actually telling the story was unnecessary. But I kept talking, and she didn't dare interrupt.

"I made a lot of mistakes early on. Before I learned to talk to the right people, and when not to talk at all. The first time I busted up a hive I got arrested for attempted murder. Even after they figured out the things I'd killed weren't human, they still put me in the overnight cell for breaking and entering. It was always the same way. People don't listen, and the first thing a grown changeling does in the city is make friends with the police. The only thing worse than a changeling queen is a changeling queen with a lawyer." My frequent visits to the local police station were the start of another story, but Sunset didn't have to know that.

"One day, I thought I'd hit a lucky break. A changeling I'd been tracking who'd impersonated a school bus driver finally made his move - he trapped two dozen little girls on a bus and drove them outside the city limits. They went for about two hours and turned up at this little run-down barn in the middle of nowhere. They weren't even trying to hide that it was a hive. The whole building had green scabs growing on it and it smelled like death. The driver got up, and the kids were too scared to even move, so he grabbed the first two by the wrists and dragged them up to the door. And as soon as it opened, as soon as he stuck his rotten little head out, I swung down from off the roof and smashed his skull through the windscreen."

I took a longer glance at Sunset to see if she understood. The thrill of the hunt isn't something that you can describe; it's something that can only be comprehended if you experience it yourself. I didn't see any reminiscence in her. Her face reminded me of the girls on that bus.

"After so long of being held up at every turn, being free to finally save someone felt incredible. I didn't just kill that changeling, I destroyed it. And I made sure that they watched. I ripped its tendons and tore its skin open so they could see that all that scary muscle was nothing but garbage. I tore the bug out of its nest, held it up in front of everyone, then let it drop and crushed it under my heel. The looks on their faces..." I shook my head, hiding a momentary catch in my voice. "They stared at me like I was a goddess, out of the old legends. It brought me right back to when I found my crest. And I wondered if... if one of them was finding her crest right that second. Because of me. That's the only time in my life I can ever say that I felt like a big sister."

No good. This was no fucking good. I had to move on. Sunset, at least, was quiet. "I told the girls to stay put and stormed into the barn. The lazy fucks never saw me coming. They were the fat, sluggy kind, only a few with bodies, feeding off a home-grown blood factory made from butchered kids." I saw Sunset shiver. "Killing them was pure catharsis. I let everything go red and just went wild. Skulls cracked open. My boots got stained from stomping. They even had those bubble-shaped breeding pods, the ones that explode if you hit them just right. I couldn't have designed a better playground. I spent more than an hour in that barn, tearing it apart. And when I was finished, I set fire to the place, grabbed the queen's cracked-open head, and stepped out into the sunset with a smile on my face."

I stopped. I just stood, and she waited, for close to a minute. I let my voice go quiet. "There was another changeling," I said. "On the bus. One that I missed. It had taken the face of one of the girls and waited at the back, just in case something like me happened. When I rode on that bus out of the city, two dozen little girls minus one were riding with me. When I came back, ten of them were lying on its floor. The rest had managed to escape into the surrounding fields, and two more were never seen again."

Sunset put her hand over her mouth and kept it there. I kept my eyes fixed firmly on the corner. "The police arrived pretty soon after that," I continued. "I played dumb, even with changeling slime all over me. This time, they let it slide. I helped round up the girls and eavesdropped on the officers in charge. That way, I found out who hadn't made it back.

"There were ten families total. Twelve children, and two sets of sisters. Over the next month I tracked them down, one by one, and told them what really happened. I didn't hold anything back. I made sure they understood that I was the reason their daughters were dead." I sighed. "It was a mixed bag. Some of them told me not to blame myself. Others said they'd never forgive me. I'm pretty sure I ended at least one marriage on top of everything else thanks to that argument. There was a lot of crying. And for the ones who said I should be punished... I let them."

I stopped again. Sunset still stared at me, puppy-eyed. "Let them how?" she asked.

"There's a reason it took me a month to get to all of them."

She got up from her bed on shaky legs and wobbled forward. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"Whatever." I turned away. "I told you, I'm not here for your pity. I'm just saying, I get it. Sometimes my anger gets the best of me. I fucked up, and people died. No matter how many people I save, I can't ever change that. I understand that now." I stood squarely away from her, tracking her footsteps. "You know what makes me different from you, though?" I said. "Why I kept going, and you fell?" I clenched my fist. "Because when I made a mistake that I couldn't undo, I fucking paid for it!" My quiet voice erupted into a scream, and before Sunset could even flinch, I whirled around and sucker punched her right in the eye.

She fell back against the bed, too shocked to cry out. Her puppy-dog eyes widened in fear and confusion, even more so when I started to laugh. "What?" she whimpered.

"You are so fucking gullible." I pounced on her, shaking her by the shoulders. "I'm scared of her! I envy her! Did you really think I gave one shit about your magic of friendship, you fucking joke?"

There were the tears again. Aw, she'd been so close to finally connecting to someone, the poor thing. "But we're the same," she begged, trying to steady herself against the bed. "We both did something wrong and we both feel bad-"

"I don't feel bad. Don't you get it?" I let her drop and knelt close over her, our faces almost touching. "When someone died because of me, I went to the people I hurt and I let them hurt me back. You didn't. You couldn't. And instead, you got to watch your old enemy slowly get her peace of mind back, while you stayed stuck in the same place. Rotting."

"That's not true." She rapidly shook her head. "That's not me any more. I've saved the world. I've paid. Violence isn't the ans-"

"Bullshit. Your so-called friends have been keeping you this way." I inched forward predatorially, worming her back across the bed. "Twilight Sparkle doesn't know how your mind works. I do. So you've saved some more lives since then? Big deal. That was its own adventure. You know that you and her still have a score to settle."

She was shivering. I grinned wickedly and wished, not for the first time, that I had fangs. "You want to be punished," I told her, not even remotely asking a question. "When someone does wrong, you hurt them until they stop. The universe needs to balance itself. No amount of friendship will ever change that for you." I tutted. "But no one's ever punished you for what you did. Your friends made sure of it. Protecting you from mobs, standing at your door, taking you to concerts and parties when you know you should be sleeping inside Tirek's brazen stomach. Your homeworld might be dead, and the people who call themselves your friends are refusing to let you pay for it. Don't you think that's unfair?"

Sunset whimpered in place of an answer. I narrowed the gap between us. "Twilight Sparkle will never hate you," I said. "Neither of them will. They're messed up in a way that we can't touch. So you tried to hurt yourself, just to make ends meet, but I know you know that doesn't count. The guilty aren't allowed to punish themselves. The world needs to balance itself. So I'm here to tell you that after tonight, you won't have to worry any more." I reached down and brushed a hair away from her swelling eye. "You don't have to hurt yourself. Everything can be forgiven. Because I am going to make you suffer."

Her head bumped against the wall. I let myself drop and expertly pinned her down beneath me. "No," she whispered, still desperately trying to twist away from me. "Please, Shimmer, no. You don't have to do this-!"

My hand grabbed her boob and twisted. "Welcome to the nightmare, Sunset." My eyes glinted. "I'll try to wake you when it's over."

She twisted one last time, futilely trying to angle her free arm to grab at my hair. She shut her eyes, leaned her head as far back as it would go, and shrieked. "TWILI-"

If this was one of her stories, her friends would have burst in right then. Twilight at the lead, maybe both Twilights, with Fluttershy right behind them, phone still in hand. Light and magic would flood into the room and lift me away from her at the last second. I'd become a bat-winged monstrosity and she would get to stand up to me one last time, backed up by all her friends. There would probably be pop music. I don't know why. She seemed like she was into pop. Everything would be wrapped up in a neat little bow, evil vanquished but only for now, and her chapter would end with her having learned a valuable lesson about friendship.

But she was in my world. I covered her mouth with mine and felt her scream echo inside my head.

Kissing her was fucking amazing. I felt as though sensation was coming from every part of her body as well as my own, doubling and intensifying every touch. She wrenched her face away from mine, so I grabbed her head and held her down while I forced my tongue past her lips. I've kissed enough people to be able to say that people usually taste like their crests, and Sunset proved me further right; her mouth was like fire, like magic, overwhelming as the Sun in a dark room. She also tasted a little like grape juice. She kept screaming, but her noises were rapidly turning into uncontrolled moans.

My eyes half-opened. I saw Sunset staring back at me, at first with fear and panic, but becoming glazed. My eyelids did the grinning while my mouth was occupied. I let go of her head and brought one hand back to her boob, rubbing and squeezing, while the other slowly snaked lower, lower. This time, she didn't move away. Her body was warm. I slithered over her, rubbing her with every part of me, and feeling her get hotter and hotter under my touch while we made out.

Sunset was so focused on the sensation in her mouth that she didn't see my other hand coming. My fingers pierced between her legs and pressed hard against her crotch, spidering over the seams of her jeans. She finally broke away from me and cried out, sensation fogging her brain with thunderclouds. I rubbed insistently, liking what I was feeling; heat and dampness radiated through my fingers. "Just as I thought," I whispered to her, letting my lips graze her earlobe. "No one's touched you here in a long, long time, have they?"

She couldn't even get words out. Either that, or she wasn't really trying. There was something like a babbled protest, and she tried to stop herself from spreading her legs, but I knew she didn't mean either. She just got hotter and hotter as I patiently rubbed, colour returning to her in waves. I shut her up by diving back into her mouth. Before long she was the one doing the rubbing, grinding herself into my fingers. I pulled my hand away for just a second and her hips jerked, trying to catch my touch again. I smirked. I'd spent a long, long time looking for a reaction like this.

To be honest, I never really had much experience with girls. It wasn't so much a matter of desire as convenience. You always know where you stand with a hard dick, but the kind of chicks I went for were so easy to traumatize, obediently eating me out one minute and bawling their eyes out in a corner the next. Having to follow someone else's rules during sex didn't appeal to me, so I gave up and went back to sculpting a guy who could break my limits. But Sunset was me. For the first time, when I put my hand on another girl I knew exactly what she was feeling. I knew down to the smallest detail how intoxicating my touch was, how magnified every sensation was after spending months - no, years - in a dry spell. I could almost hear her thoughts, confusion and desire fighting each other and tying up her tongue.

And best of all? I knew just how far to push her to make her scream.

Sunset's moans started up again. I rolled off of her and lay against her side, still pressing between her legs. She didn't even try to get away. All she could do was lie there and moan, twitching from my touch. It was only then that it occurred to me that my touch was intoxicating her, in just the same way that she was setting a fire in me. Still, she kept just barely enough presence of mind to try to look at me, her lips flapping through a few uncoordinated syllables. "Don't be so surprised," I crooned over her halfhearted stammering. "You're me. I know what I'm like when I haven't gotten any in a while. It's no wonder you're so fucked up if you've been keeping all this to yourself." I pressed down hard and made her squeal. "You can't be trusted with your body, so it's mine now. And if this belongs to me, I may as well take it for a ride..." I leaned in close to her again. "Before I start breaking it in."

I was agony for her. My fake struggled to keep her head, but I had learned to tease even Shining Armour into a frenzy; this was like feeding a kitten to a shark. Pausing to stroke her every half-inch, I pulled the zipper down on her jeans, all the while running my lips over her face and neck, making a show of tasting her. She whimpered, but I didn't hear any complaining.

Without warning, I lifted myself up and pulled at her, making her shriek again. When we settled my back was against the wall and she was slouched between my legs, facing away from me. To my delight, I could feel vibrations coming down through the wall, softer ones this time. Princess was going for another round. I pulled Sunset close and kissed her neck, making sure her arms were pinned, then moved up to her ear again. "So," I purred. "Which one were you thinking about?"

Then, while her mind was distracted, I slid my hand down into her pants and sliced across her cunt.

I slapped my other palm across her mouth to cut off her scream. "Ah, ah, ah," I chided. "We don't want the neighbors to hear." I held her tight and stroked her down below. My brain made a few disorienting judgments; all my senses were telling me that it was my vagina that I was feeling up, yet it was about a foot removed from where it was supposed to be. I felt stretched, my essence blown up in size to occupy two spaces at once, and my own pussy tingled with every stroke I made along hers. The difference, of course, was that Sunset was already audibly wet. My few experimental rubs were all it took to get her to squeal into my palm.

I got to work. I hadn't actually had to do this myself in a while, but I'd had lots of time to get good at this in my teens, so I had a few routines worked out. I started slow, rubbing in small circles to get myself wet, even though Sunset was already there. "So which was it?" I continued, holding her tight as she squirmed. "Was it Flash Sentry you were thinking about? Missing his fat cock in you?"

"Mmmmmm!" Sunset answered, shaking her head, as well as the rest of her. I assumed that was some variation of 'no.'

"You're me, you can tell me. I'm not like your friends. I won't judge." Yes I would. "I never had a normal high school life. You two were dating for two whole years, right? You must have had so many adventures. Blow jobs in the staff bathroom, jacking him off at the back of the science lab, sneaking up to the roof and riding him where the whole town might see..."

"Mmm, mmm, mmmmmm!" Sunset shook more viciously. I felt a tear drop spatter across my wrist.

"Oh? Then could it be... you never fucked him?" The vibrations above me were getting stronger. If I could feel them, I knew Sunset could feel them too. I started making longer and longer strokes across her cunt, keeping it slow and steady, letting my fingers get slick from her slit. "You never fucked him?" I repeated incredulously when she didn't answer. "You kept a boy who looks like that on your arm for two years and you never got him to jump you? Wow." I shook my head and smiled. "You really like torturing yourself, huh?"

"Mm mmm-mm mmm mm mmm-mm mmm," Sunset informed me. Whatever.

"No wonder you have to fantasize." Now the real fun began. I jabbed my finger onto her clit and we both twitched at the same time. I started to get a rhythm going, matching the speed of the pounding in the wall. "You must be constantly rewriting history in your head, telling yourself how things could have been," I mocked. "A few little words could have changed everything. All you had to do was keep him wrapped around your little finger for one more week. Just one more week, and you could have spent the last two years fucking him non-stop. Is that what you were thinking about?"

I grasped her tight and hooked a finger inside her. My play sessions didn't involve much of this, not with long nails like mine, but I'd learned to confidently navigate myself. It sure worked on Sunset, as her muffled attempts at words were covered up again by squeals and moans while I rubbed her inside and out. "You could have made him your fuck beast," I carried on, raising my voice over hers. "Corrupted nice boys are the best. A hard cock in you any time you want, any way you want, anywhere you want. You could have made him yours, you could have mounted his body on the wall and mounted him in front of everyone, you so badly want him to do to you what he's doing to her. Don't you?" I thrust deeper into her to demonstrate, snickering when she gushed onto me. That was just as good as a nod of her head to me.

Sunset's cries grew weaker. Her rapid breaths became snorts as tears clogged her nose; she couldn't breathe. I slowed down, going back to making teasing circles over her clit, and uncovered her mouth to roughly yank up her sweater. While she caught her breath I put two fingers in her mouth and then dragged them over her pert boobs, pinching each of her nipples in turn. "Or maybe..." I whispered, gently pulling her close, "you were thinking about Twilight!"

I punctuated that by grinding the flat of my hand, hard, down the entire length of her pussy. Her shriek lasted half a second before I covered it up and still filled the room through my fingers. My entire arm vibrated as my rubbing turned violent. Sunset kicked and bucked in my grasp, her whole body centering in on the assault between her legs. Her resistance was futile; I controlled her screams as I rapidly stroked her clit, getting soaked with every downward thrust across her entrance. I knew this pussy so well, I could probably play her like an instrument if I wanted to.

"You thought she was cute the moment you saw her," I went on loudly. "I know. You've wanted to fuck her brains out ever since you got here, haven't you? With her sparkly outfits and her stupid scared faces? You can tell me. I know all your secrets." I twisted her face so I could see her eyes. "Your best friend, who saved you from the mob, the only one who could ever forgive you... and you go behind her back and use her like your own personal porno theatre? Can you even imagine what she would do if she found out?"

A high-pitched whimper tickled my palm. Tears spilled down Sunset's face, raw emotion fighting pleasure for attention. "Aw, don't feel bad," I said with a smile, then whispered. "I wanna fuck her too."

Sunset screamed, this one seemingly directed at me instead of my hands. I just kept furiously masturbating her, tightening my grip on her arms. Her pulse echoed through my whole body, overpowering my own calm beats. Her twitching ass writhed in my lap. I reflexively started humping back, yearning to feel her closer. "You'd love this if I was Twilight," I told her. "You'd love doing this to her. You think about wiping that smug look off her face and making her moan, don't you?" Her fists tightened against my sides. The vibrations upstairs reached another crescendo, and I made sure Sunset could feel it. "He's making her cum," I hissed. "Your precious little Twilight Sparkle is getting fucked like a whore. And you love it."

I might have felt it before she did. At the moment of impact I shoved two fingers inside of her and held them there, still vibrating. Sunset's body went rigid and then spasmed, lifting up her ass and smacking it down into my crotch. Her tongue lapped desperately at my palm and her pussy tightened around me as she creamed into my hand. Her orgasm exploded out of her heart like a shockwave and filled me. For a few seconds even I was speechless, completely lost in our shared bliss. From above us there was another scream, unnoticed in the background like an explosion that we were slowly walking away from. Perfection.

Sunset went limp and ragdolled on top of me, breathing heavily. I pulled my hands free of her and let her fall forward. "There," I said once I'd recovered my voice. "Wasn't that fun?"

She whirled around with a roar and took a swing at me. I effortlessly caught her fist and held it, my arm steady as a rock while hers trembled. "Oh, sweetie, you came hard," I said, grinning. "You feel like you're made of jelly. You must have needed that even more than I thought."

Her body faltered, but she didn't let up her glare. "Don't talk about Twilight," she growled.

I sighed theatrically. "Oh, all right, if you're going to be a little bitch about it. Today's about you, anyway." As easily as bending a twig, I twisted her wrist and forced her down, while I rose up onto my knees. I held my cunt-stained fingers up in front of her face. "Clean me," I said.

That sequence of expressions never gets old: denial, anger, pleading, horror, acceptance, all in a few seconds. She opened her mouth, and when her tongue didn't extend fast enough I shoved my hand inside. She whimpered as she tasted her own juices, obediently starting to suck. I didn't have to look at her face to know she loved the taste. I often went out of my way to lick the taste of myself off of Shining Armour's cock; the difference was that she was still too stubborn to admit it. Her teeth grazed my fingers, right across my scars. The thought occurred to her and she went pale. I didn't even have to shift an eyebrow; the don't you dare was written right into our hearts.

Once I was satisfied, I licked the last few drops myself and wiped my hand on the back of her head, pulling her close. "You taste so good," I murmured, then kissed her again. Her cunt-flavored mouth moaned into mine as I cupped her breasts. We parted to lift her sweater over her head, and she trembled helplessly in my grasp as my lips and tongue started to trail down her soft neck. She might not have had my phisique, but Sunset had my curves, my skin, my scent, becoming more and more beautiful to me as I roamed over her bare surface. I'd always wished I could explore myself like this. "You are so fucking hot," I said, kissing the top of her breast.

"No I'm not," she mumbled back.

"Shut the fuck up." I punched her side. "You insult yourself, you insult me. You're a sexy goddess. Deal with it."

"Oh... okay..." Words failed her as I lightly bit down on her nipple. Her mouth fell open and she leaned back, further and further as I crawled over her. I expertly teased her, licking and sucking while rubbing her bare back, keeping her close to me. Her body grasped at mine, pulling me closer, begging to be touched. I wasn't sure she even remembered why I was here.

This ended when I leaned away and shoved her over, knocking her from the bed. She just barely caught herself on all fours. "Strip," I ordered.

She summoned her reserves. "And if I don't?"

"Then no one will ever touch you like that again."

That was the end of the matter. I could see her futilely debating with herself, the decision already made. Sure, the door was right there, and I was reclined; I was practically giving her an out. But she knew I was right. Maybe one of her friends could have resisted, one of the after-school-special ones who'd probably never seen a dick or another girl's cunt, but not her. I knew her too well; I knew her for as long as I'd been alive. She was hungry, hungry in a way she'd had to hide from everyone she cared about, and I was the only one who was going to feed her. We're horny girls, me and her. I just learned to celebrate it.

I leaned back, crossed my arms, and waited. Still shaking, she turned away and slid her jeans to the floor, giving me a perfect view of her heart-shaped ass as she bent over. In the six seconds her eyes were averted my own top came off, and my bra hit the floor at the same time as her pants. I kicked my boots off way over to the door, which finally made her turn around. We stared at each other, her with some kind of shock, me admiring the goods. While she watched, I wriggled sensuously out of my jeans, taking my panties with them. I kept my socks on. They had puppies on them.

We basked in the release, or at least I did. She and I were completely bare to one another. Her eyes flicked around my cunt, my boobs, my legs, trying to look everywhere and nowhere at once. "You see?" I said, running a hand along myself. "This is what people see when they look at you. You're beautiful."

She bit her lip, looked away, and sniffled. Was I always this weepy? "Come here," I said impatiently, beckoning. "Love yourself."

Like she was being dragged, she stumbled forward, almost tripping over her fallen jeans, then mine. She put her hands on the bed and crawled across me, her breathing growing more rapid as our bare skin started to touch. Her nipples grazed my stomach and dragged tingling ripples across me. I slid my arms under hers and pulled her the rest of the way, crushing her against me. Her touch was electrifying. She was hot, so hot, like I was holding a star in my arms, burning and flaring and dancing all over me. She was the one who kissed me, needing me. Our legs interlocked and we pulled each other close at the same time. There was nothing in the whole universe but us.

My hands roamed down her back, landing on the softness of her ass. I grabbed and tugged, rubbing my pussy against the curve of her leg, and vice versa. Sunset moaned and mindlessly started to grind on me. Her hands couldn't stay still, pulling at my hair, clutching at my shoulders, running down my sides. The dancing of her tongue against mine became erratic. She couldn't think as we rubbed ourselves against each other, our pussies nearly touching, getting wet on each other's thighs. Our nipples brushed as we moved faster and faster, making some bedspring squeaks of our own. My body felt like it was burning.

The wetness between my legs became too much. I grabbed Sunset's head and pushed her down. Her mouth kept attaching itself to me as she moved, automatically licking and kissing my neck, then my chest, latching onto an erect nipple without thinking. I kept her there for a while and then shoved her, scooting around to spread my legs in front of her face. "Eat me," I ordered.

Even lust-glazed as she was, Sunset still hesitated when she met her own pussy close up. "I don't..." she stalled.

"The fuck you don't. Get down there." I pulled her hair and dragged her mouth to its rightful place. My lips and tongue tingled as she made contact. A second later, a fountain of pleasure exploded through me. There was no hesitation, none of those stupid dainty presses and kisses that I'd had to wean Shining Armour off of; she ate me out like an animal, running her tongue all the way across me in just the way I liked. My back arched and I pulled harder, holding her in place. "Good girl..." I grunted.

Sunset had been human for less than half of her life; I doubted she was as much an expert on my vag as I was on hers. But her tongue-! The ponygirl licked every part of me relentlessly, sending wave after wave of ecstasy through me. I let go of her hair and buzzed two fingers over my clit, thrilling me further. Sunset's ass trembled. She twitched it in the air, in time with her strokes across me. Her cunt was probably tingling as much as my lips were. In that moment the little slut in front of me was just an extension of my body, me eating myself out. She utterly belonged to me.

"Fuck!" I gasped, almost slipping. My breaths were getting shorter. I bucked my hips just like she had earlier, squirming under her grasp. Sunset slipped a trimmed finger inside me. Another followed it, stirring and stretching me while she licked, pushing me closer and closer to the edge. Unlike her tongue, her fingers had no idea where to rub, but my pussy wasn't complaining. My gasps of pleasure weren't totally voluntary any more. Sunset half-opened her eyes and looked up at me-

-bright red drool dripped from her lips-

With an inhuman growl, I latched onto Sunset's shoulders and wrenched her toward me. She shrieked and flailed and suddenly I was on top, holding her arms down and grinding my soaking cunt hard into her leg. She twitched and moaned as I fucked my stolen body, getting off on the panic in her eyes as much as the feel of her skin. Her writhing body complimented my furious grinding, and red, red flashed before my eyes, and...

I am Sunset Shimmer, goddess of light. All will bow before me.

As I came I didn't scream, but bit down hard on Sunset's neck, hard enough to draw blood, and let the true taste of her fill my mouth as ultimate satisfaction burst through me. She screamed, but I didn't know if it was from pain or fear or if she'd come as well, and I really didn't care. For the better part of a minute I just lay there and held her down, drinking in her taste and basking in the glow of completely dominating my fake. Everything was absolutely perfect.

I finally pulled away and grinned down at her, spitting her blood onto the bed. "Not bad," I told her. "But you've got a lot to learn."

She shivered. "You bit me," she said.

"It's called a hickey. Get used to it." I rode her some more as I straightened up. Rubbing was one thing, but my pussy was still hungry - and, if the dampness smeared across my thigh told me anything, so was hers. I pulled her up with me and kissed her, giving her a few rubs between the legs to let her know I wasn't finished. The second round is where the real fun happens.

I leaped off of her and looked around the room. "Stay right there," I ordered when she moved to follow me. I flicked open the curtains, making her gasp as bright sunlight spilled onto her face, then closed them again. I watched her carefully and slowly cast my gaze around the room. Not a huge space, but definitely hers and hers alone, not that different from how I would have arranged it. This was low security, her safe space. If I were living here, and I wanted to hide something, it would be...

I strode over to her closet and flung it open. Beneath her hanging clothes was a shoe rack and several shoe boxes; I picked up the one second from the right and gave it a shake. Something in there, not shoes. Ignoring Sunset's gasps of protest, I tore off the lid.

A few seconds passed. I pulled the offending object out with two fingers, spun around in place, and gave Sunset my most thoroughly unimpressed look.

She wouldn't look me in the eye. "It's a massage pillow," she said.

The look continued.

"I bought it online. It's for my neck."

The look continued.

"Alright, fine." She crossed her arms grumpily, still bright red. "I put it on the high setting and masturbate with it."

The look continued.

"Okay, I get it! I'm desperate! I'm pathetic! My life sucks! What more do you want from me?"

I tossed the little pillow at her and threw the box aside. "You've never been in a sex shop, have you?" I said.

"You think this town has one?" She lay back. "I thought the ponies in my homeworld were prudes, but this place is something else. Your culture is insane. You shove your sexuality in each other's faces all day and night, but we've all got to blink it away and pretend we never have any urges ever. It's like you've all agreed to use your own bodies to mess with yourselves. All the boys in this town hate me, there's no shops as far out as the city, the... the freaking shower heads in this building don't even detach! I had to do something!" She rolled toward the wall and muttered more quietly. "Pinkie Pie still doesn't know the real reason I like sleeping at her place the best."

She hadn't even noticed how quickly her demeanor had changed. Personally, I wasn't surprised. A peaceful nap and a brutal screwing was my preferred brand of pick-me-up. "You could have bought something online," I said, raising an eyebrow. "It worked for the pillow."

"Yeah, but..." She crimsoned a little further. "Twilight and I get our mail together."

I understood, though she probably wished I didn't. "Always letting your feelings get in the way." I sighed. Taking a step to the side, I flicked Sunset's shirt off of my bag with my toe. "Sit up and close your eyes," I told her.

She obeyed. She even sat differently than I did, legs together in a good little schoolgirl pose. "Hey, look at us," she laughed weakly while I rummaged around in my bag. "Bonding."

"I'm not here to be your friend, Sunset," I spat back at her. "Do I have to remind you of that again?"

This softened her. "No."

"Good." A band of black silk covered her eyes. I tied it tight around her head and waved my hand in front of her face. When she didn't respond, I wound up and punched her in the stomach, pushing her back when she doubled over. "Just making sure you're not peeking," I said over her whimpers.

Sunset curled up in a fetal position in the middle of her bed. I yanked on her arms, one after the other, and used Shining's handcuffs to bind her wrists behind her back. From there she was much easier to manhandle, letting me roll her onto her front with her legs hanging off the bed. I ran my hands over her thighs and ass, lifting and squeezing her, keeping track of the spots that made her breath turn sharp. I leaned in close and just barely traced the tip of my tongue over her quivering pussy lips, laughing when this alone made her moan. "You little freak." I smacked her butt and watched it move, mesmerized. She'd spent more than half her life on all fours with her rump arched into the air; my mouth watered as I wondered if all transformed ponygirls had asses like this. "Brace yourself," I whispered, leaning across her. "I'm about to give you a real taste of what you've been missing."

What came out of the bag next was my pride and joy. I'd had it specially made last year as a birthday gift to myself: a stiff rubber cock molded from a plaster cast of Shining Armour's erect shaft, perfect down to the smallest detail. In fact, I'd ordered three. They made the nights we had to spend apart more bearable, but also sometimes found their way into bed with us both. When I'd been an especially naughty girl, Shining Armour would sometimes strap one to himself, right above his own dick, and double-fuck me. Holding the fake phallus got me wet just thinking about it. I lubed the hard shaft up with my mouth, making exaggerated gagging noises for Sunset as I slid it down my throat, and then attached it to its harness. So far, my fake dicks had been for my pleasure only, but while dearest Shining Armour hadn't let me use them to return the favor - yet - I'd ordered the "for her" version of the strap-on belt as well... just in case.

I slid the harness on, exaggerating every sound and motion to get Sunset's imagination flaring. When the inner nubs were resting comfortably over my clit, I approached Sunset again and knelt down behind her. I ran my hands over her again and let the tip of my fake cock brush against her leg. She gasped and shivered in anticipation, even as her skin grew hotter. I positioned myself and slid forward - but then stopped, only grazing her clit. "Mmmm." I licked my lips and held her close, almost but never quite penetrating her. I pulled away, then touched her again; pull away, touch; pull away, touch. My fingers danced up and down her spine. For more than a minute I held her down and teased her, letting my cock lube up as she dripped and slid across it.

From her perspective, it must have been agony. Blinded and pressed against the sheets, she was completely at my mercy. All she could move were her fingers and her hips, but she didn't dare to. My touch was her entire world. I followed her breathing with each minute motion, loving how she loved and loathed what I was doing to her. "So," I eventually whispered, bending close to her ear. "We know you like girls. But how do you feel about boys?"

She answered shakily, struggling to keep her head together. "You... already... know that."

"I know I do. But I want to know if you know." A small poke in just the right place gave her whole body a jolt. "And you'd better speak up. I'd hate to think that I wasted my favorite toy on a liar who only pretends to like dicks."

She was too out of it to catch what I was doing. "I... like..." Her face flushed.

"Aw, poor baby can't even say it."

"I like dicks!" She tensed up, expecting me to strike her again.

"Prove it. Talk dirty to me. Like you did to Shining Armour."

The tips of her fingers curled up. "That was different."

"Was it? I'm curious. Did you actually want to fuck him, or were you just that dedicated to being a complete bitch to Twilight?"

Now she flinched like she'd been struck. All the strength that she'd recovered vanished from her voice. "Yes. No. I don't know. He was how I taught myself to like human bodies. At first I told myself it was just a game, but after he said so many romantic things, and he sent me pictures of himself, I..." She bit her lip.

"Little Sunset got herself a little crush. How cute." I leaned in close. "Spill it," I hissed. "Tell me what you wanted him to do to you. Tell me what you said to make him hate his sister. Show me how perverted your fucked-up little brain can get."

Tiny tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. There was a long pause, which I imagined was filled with the inner wrench of her trying to dredge up something she'd taken great pains to bury. People are so pathetic when they try to hide things. The now-constant rubbing on her clit made her squirm, struggling to get the words out even when they came. "I said I wanted to lick him all over," she finally gasped out.

"And?"

"And I said I wanted to choke on his... his cock."

"And?"

"And... I said I wanted him to ride me like an animal." She hesitated. "Like a unicorn."

Hilarious. "And?"

"And..." She took a breath. "And I wanted him to run away with me!" she burst out, and now I knew her words were true. "I wanted us to get a house somewhere far away, somewhere safe, where no one would judge us or hate us, and we could do nothing but fuck all day long, and... and I said that to hurt Twilight, but I..." She clenched her fists. "Everyone hated me! Everyone abandoned me! I just wanted to pretend someone cared! Okay?"

She collapsed forward. The rubbing behind her slowed and stopped. "I was an evil bitch and it hurt everyone," she whispered. "I don't deserve any of those things I wanted. I should never have come to this world. I should never have stayed. I'm just..." The last of the energy left her voice. "A freak."

I considered my double carefully. Weak, skinny, broken in every way. Me. "You know what I think?" I said to her. "I think that's fucking hot." And the next thing she knew, my lips were pressed against hers.

If I could bottle those next few moments, I could. Because while I was lifting her up and kissing her, her startled brain was working overtime, and I could taste the panic in her gasp as she put two and two together: that I was somehow now in front of her, while my cock, which had been pressing against her this whole time, was still moving behind her. She yelped and twisted, and I held her still and ripped her silk blindfold off of her. For a second more we just kissed, and then I moved back, letting her take in the maliciousness of my grin, and allowed her head to turn.

I saw her neck shift and her shoulders strain. I admit it, I call a lot of things perfect, but this... this was perfect. I wished that I could slow down time, store these moments forever, pleasure myself to every twitching instant - the slow widening of her eyes, that orgasmic moment of dawning realization, the absolute, primal terror that I felt erupting beneath my hands -

as Sunset beheld Shining Armour, naked and erect, his cock almost penetrating her, furiously glaring down at her with an intensity that could melt steel.

He didn't give her a chance to react. My Shining's meaty hand smacked down onto her ass, holding her still, while he grabbed her chin and yanked her up towards him, painfully arching her back. "So," he growled, and I had no idea my sweetie could put so much hate into a single syllable. "You're the one who made me think my sister was a freak."

And as realization finally set in, as my fake finally understood just how utterly and completely fucked she was, he held her down and plunged his cock inside her.

Sunset screamed again, in pain or fear or pleasure, who the fuck cares. My Shining roared as he pounded her, brutally hatefucking her like I'd always wanted him to do to me. He released her chin and held on to the cuffs between her wrists, keeping her bent back while he slammed her into the bed. I held onto her shoulders and shrieked with laughter, howling into her face. We each fought for volume over each other, fear, anger, joy echoing together into a web of energy that filled all three of us. I didn't care about keeping her quiet any more. Fuck it, let Twilight Sparkle hear us. I wanted her to see this.

At some other time, it would be possible to appreciate the artistry of what we'd done. How Shining had entered the apartment after me, though the fire escape, the way I'd done last night. How flicking the curtain open was his signal to get in and undress. The way I'd covered his movements with my own voice and body, masking the sliding door and every footstep. The complex gymnastics required for us to seamlessly switch places and move me up to Sunset's front without her noticing, movements we'd spent all evening rehearsing again and again, using Coco's body as a prop. The effort it had taken to not giggle all the while I was stripping her. But there and then, even simple reminiscence was too complex for us. We were all high on Sunset, completely absorbed in her and making her feel as much as possible. She was our gift to each other, and we enjoyed her for all she was worth.

Shining rode her like an animal, making the whole bed crash against the wall. He was indescribably beautiful, every muscle gleaming and straining, his teeth bared in utter fury. I kissed Sunset and ate her screams, feeling her up all the while. Every thrust from Shining pulsed through her and into me. He didn't let up, not for a single second, not with three years of vengeance on the line. He smacked her ass with the force of a wrecking ball and her whole body jolted, making her cry out again into my mouth. Every noise from her was delicious.

Watching my Shining fuck another girl was weird. It was something that I'd prepared for, and had prepared him for, but in the heat of the moment it no longer seemed to matter. No matter how hard my changeling instincts screamed at me, I couldn't separate this fake from myself; it was like watching a video of us. I felt as though I'd grown a second cunt, one which only incidentally happened to be removed from my body, and found no harm in my sweetheart enjoying that part of me as well. I wondered if Shining felt this as well. Given how hard he was riding her, it hardly seemed to matter.

"Down," I ordered in a gasp, pushing Sunset's head away from mine. Inch by inch, I pulled her torso down, down to the dick replica I still had attached to my crotch. "Suck it," I hissed, then forced her mouth down onto it. The next push from Shining buried it in her throat. I wouldn't have tried this if I didn't know she had no gag reflex, but knowing how much I could swallow, I felt free to grind myself deep into her face. The rubbing on my pussy was only half the joy; what I loved most about this position was seeing her eyes staring up at me, pleading, begging me to make this stop.

Fat chance. I told her up front what this was about.

Time became a blur. Watching Shining Armour fucking Sunset got me jealous; this slut had no idea how lucky she was to feel what I'd always wished he would unleash on me. Her ass jiggled with every slap. I was starting to think it might actually be better than mine. "Off," I demanded when I'd had enough. I let Sunset go and she bent backwards off of me, gasping for breath.

Shining slowed down and, at my gesture, backed off. I grabbed Sunset and leaped from the bed, dragging her after me onto her knees. My Shining took his position in front of her. Sunset swayed, not quite able to focus on the cock in front of her face. "Choke on it!" I told her, pushing her onto it. Shining Armour immediately took over, grabbing her hair and fucking her mouth, turning her into a ragdoll as he used her. I kept her steady, rubbing her tits and pussy.

When Shining pushed her back for a few seconds to let her breathe, I licked the spit and trickling tears from her face. "Aw, what's wrong?" I crooned to her after he shoved himself down her throat again. "You wanted this, didn't you? You begged him for this! Isn't this everything you ever dreamed of?" Muffled gagging noises were her only answer.

I got impatient. I pulled Sunset off of Shining's cock myself and held her at arm's length, making her watch as I took her place. I deep-throated my lover's length, licking and sucking, and made overly loud moaning noises just to drive home how much I loved the taste. Shining obliged, thrusting in and out of me. I looked up at him lovingly, watching his look of fury melt into a twisted grin. Behind his back, out of Sunset's sight, I slid my hand up his leg, pressing onto his gorgeous muscular buttock. He subtly reached back and caressed my fingers. I rubbed his ring finger three times; he tapped my middle finger twice. Then we grasped each other and held on tight. Safe. Together. Mine. Ours.

I let Sunset have another turn on his cock while I leaned down and licked Shining's balls. He grunted in approval, still holding my hand. Then we switched places, and I sternly watched as Sunset obediently kissed and sucked his tender orbs. With a few tugs on her hair we were both attacking his cock, licking up both sides and intermittently sucking the tip and each other, sometimes breaking away completely to kiss each other open-mouthed. If Shining objected to being neglected, he gave no sign.

My pussy twitched impatiently. I drew Sunset back and let her lose her balance, dropping her onto the pile of clothes around us. She lay limp, breathing shallowly. Shining and I smirked at each other, then moved together. I ripped my strap-on belt off, letting it fall onto Sunset, and leaped up onto Shining. I wrapped my arms and legs around him; he caught my thighs and guided my ass into place. In seconds, his diamond-hard dick was inside me. I rode him hard, pumping my hips and letting out the loudest sex moans of my life. He just struggled to hold on and stay standing.

After several rough seconds, Shining turned and slammed me against the wall, knocking several picture frames askew. Now it was his turn to ride me, thrusting and crushing me against the plaster. I kissed him hard and held him tight, and he kissed back, roaming his hands over me. "I fucking love you," he whispered as he pounded into me.

It broke my heart, but even though this was so fucking good, I put my palm on his chest to slow him down. "Just to tide me over," I whispered back by way of explanation. "Save yourself for her."

Regretfully, we separated. Sunset had barely moved, only shifting to look up at us. There was fear on her face, but also envy, and something else that only an identical copy of her could have understood; an inner need, and a hatred of that need, a hatred that she hadn't yet learned how to refine. If it had been anyone else we were doing this to, it would have been rape. Not her. Never her. I knew her too well for that.

We both pounced on her, feral in our hunger. Shining Armour hitched up her legs and thrust into her with her on her back. This time she barely kicked, and didn't scream at all. I at first held her down, but then swung my leg over her and sat on her face, pressing my pussy into her slutty mouth again. She started licking again, weakly, but steadily. She was such a good girl.

The room was hot, so hot, and it echoed with the sound of our fuck. Sunset squirmed beneath us, just a fleshy toy connecting us two. Shining's eyes were fixed on mine. We leaned forward and kissed, completing the loop of three of us. Every thrust of his cock into her echoed up through her lips into me and into our kiss, round and round and filling each of us. I could feel every pulse through Sunset's body, every tingle across her skin. I owned her. I was her. She was fucking mine.

I felt the tingles, the shortened breaths, heard the little grunts. My Shining was close. I backed off of Sunset and held her head in my lap, giving whispered encouragements to every moan. Shining collapsed on top of her, holding her close. He moved gorgeously on top of her, filling her up and crushing her into me. His grunts and speed grew more intense. Now above him, I saw Sunset's toes begin to curl. A faint, whispered word passed her lips.

"What was that?" I said in mock cheerfulness, lifting her up.

She pressed herself into me. "Fuck," she breathed.

This was the breath that knocked down the wall. "Uhn..." Shining grunted, tensing up. "Uhn... Aaaaaaaaaaah!" At the last second he pulled out and hot spunk burst from his cock over Sunset's front, each shot traveling further than the one before. I quickly pushed her up to meet it and the last load hit her in the chin, spattering across her lips and dripping down onto her boobs.

I let Sunset drop and grabbed Shining again. We made out with her sandwiched between us, both holding on to her. "Is she okay?" Shining asked when he finally stopped to look at her.

"Hm?" I glanced down at my fake. She was lying there in a state of numb shellshock, cum still dripping off her features. "Wait for it..." I said.

We both waited, staring. Without warning I smacked my hand down onto her cunt and violently rubbed her. She instantly snapped back to life, squirming and crying under my touch. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" she screamed, fucking my hand and having her own watery, knee-shaking orgasm that dropped her right back to the carpet.

"Yeah, she's fine." I lifted my hand away and shook it off. "I mean holy shit, though. Shining, promise me you'll never let me go that long without getting fucked."

"I'll see what I can do."

He tried to put his arm around me. I shrugged him off and got down close to Sunset. I licked some of the cum from her lips and grinned at her. "So?" I said. "Learned your lesson yet?"

No fast answers there. She caught my tone and looked up. "Shiny?" she said, her voice trembling. "I'm sorry."

Shining tensed up. "You're sorry," he repeated.

"Yes." She nodded faintly. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I promise, if I could turn back time, I-"

He put his finger on her lips. His eyes narrowed. "You lied to me, broke up my first relationship, crippled me for life, set my career back two years, and got me to hate my own sister when she needed me the most," he said.

He held his finger there for a long time, focusing his glare. As fury rose again, so did his erection. "So," I said, leaning seductively against him. "Two more rounds?"

He just kept staring down at her. "Did you bring the clips?" he asked.

"I brought the whole damn set. Check the bag."

As Shining rose, Sunset's eyes flicked desperately to me. "Clips?" she squeaked.

"Oh, sweetie. Don't you know?" I stretched myself out beside her and held her close. "All the really fun stuff happens in the second round."

Shimmer's Half - Confrontation

We dumped Sunset's body on the bed while Shining and I cuddled. He lay sprawled against the wall and I coiled myself around him, softly kissing his neck and cheek. He held me close, making my heart flutter, while his had long since returned to a slow, steady rhythm. "Thank you," he whispered to me when silence had fully descended.

I craned my neck and kissed his lips, just lightly. "How do you feel?" I whispered back.

"I feel..." He leaned back further and contemplated. "Good," he decided. "I feel good. I needed this. We needed this." His hand stroked along my side. "It's just..."

I reveled in his touch. "Just what?"

"I just can't believe it was you."

We both looked at Sunset. She was facing away from us, completely motionless, like a used-up toy that we'd discarded once we were done with her. "You're sure she's not a changeling?" Shining hissed at me.

"Dead sure. All natural, not one part synthetic. I wouldn't have brought you here if I had any doubts." I tugged on his chin, pulling his face back toward mine. "But she's not me, okay?" I said forcefully. "She's a different me. She went one way, and I went another. We are nothing alike."

If I'd had my way, it would have ended there. The story was over, the score settled; all he had to do was take me at my word. But his eyes kept staring into mine, a little differently than they'd ever looked at me before, and it knocked a tiny something loose inside me. I pressed my palm against his cheek and felt myself soften. "You know that I would never hurt you, right?"

Still he kept staring - just a little bit too long, probing just a little bit too deeply, seeing something in me that he'd never allowed himself to see before. But then he broke, and buried his face in my neck. "I know," he whispered to me. "I love you, Shimmer. I'll always love you."

I smiled. "I know."

We stayed there just a little while longer. "Come on," I eventually said, starting to stand up. "Rarity's shift will be over soon. We don't want to be here when Pinkie Pie shows up."

"She's that bad?"

"Remember Queen Saline? Like that, but more high-pitched."

"Whoa. Yeah, we should go."

We regretfully parted. Shining Armour started picking up my clothes for me, but my gaze turned back to Sunset. "You go on ahead," I told him, waving him off. "Leave out the window. Make sure no one sees you and head back to the hotel. I'll meet you there in a few hours."

He hesitated, casting a worried look from me to the bed. "Shimmer..."

I smiled at him. "I promise I'll be there," I said. "With no more trouble. Sunny and I just need to have a few words."

That was enough. He kissed my cheek and left. As I sat down on the edge of the bed, I could hear him getting dressed in the other room.

Sunset was in rough shape. She looked and smelled like rough sex, hair tangled, covered in bruises and bite marks, still sticky with sweat and fluids. The cuffs had left hard purple lines across her wrists, and her knees had been rubbed red by the carpet. The remnants of a large, red handprint still lingered across her sweet ass. She didn't acknowledge me in any way when I sat down, not even when I started stroking her hair. "How do you feel?" I asked.

There was a long pause before she weakly answered. "Am I supposed to be feeling better?"

"Fuck no. You should feel like shit right now." I stretched around so I could see her front. Her face wasn't so bad, except for a cut lip and a black eye. Nothing some tactical makeup couldn't fix. "I mean, we destroyed you," I said, watching for any flicker from her eyes. "I thought I'd seen Shining get angry before, but wow. You must have deserved every second of what he did to you. I'm surprised you could even walk at the end. You're one tough bitch, you know that?"

Sunset kept still, staring into nothing. "It's good that he hates me."

"See? You do get it." I leaned closer. "But you can forget about that now. Believe me, if he was still mad at you, he would still be fucking you. Shining and I, we're used to getting revenge in one big, satisfying crunch. What you did to Twilight is over and done. You've paid. You've made things right. And now you can let it go."

She breathed in sharply, just once. She was way worse than me at hiding when she was on the verge of tears. "Does it ever get better?" she asked.

"No. It'll always hurt. This'll always hurt, too. Just because it's in the past doesn't mean it's gone. But after a couple of weeks, today and that day will start to blur together for you. The pain cancels itself out and you start thinking about it less. By this time next year, you'll wonder why you ever thought it was so important. It was just some fucked-up stuff that happened. Oh, but one more thing." I snapped my hand out and twisted her ear, forcing her to look up at me. "That's my body you're wearing," I hissed at her. "You stole it when you came to this world. And if I ever hear that you've been messing with it again without my permission, I will hunt you down and make sure that you live to regret it." I twisted harder, grinning at her wince. "Got it?"

I let her drop. Pain had finally brought those last few tears to her eyes, and for a split second I saw her glaring at me, lips curled to argue. But she covered it up and looked back at the sheets. "Yes, Shimmer," she whispered.

This was good.

From the next room, I heard Shining Armour climb out the window. I moved past Sunset and flicked open the edge of her curtain, letting a beam of falling sunlight flash across us both. Through the glass I could see glimpses of Shining stealthily descending, dropping into the alleyway behind the building. He picked up his cane from where he'd hidden it behind a trash can and limped away, glancing back up at us. I didn't hide the fact that I was watching him, and our eyes met for a few seconds before he turned and walked out of sight.

Even after he was gone, I kept watching that corner for a little longer, waiting until I was certain that he wasn't coming back. When it came to certain matters, our absolute trust in each other wasn't always absolute. Behind me, I could hear Sunset's breathing regulating, softly in and out. I recognized the pattern. Even now, she was still trying to numb things down. Still trying to forget.

I took a deep breath. "Dawn's death wasn't your fault."

Finally, I heard a rustle from Sunset. "What?"

"I mean, you know that." I closed the curtain and looked away. "You've always known. You were just a little kid when it happened. I guess you'd be a foal or a filly or something, right?" No answer. "There was nothing you could have done. Even if you'd run to Mom and Dad, it was already too late. It's a miracle that even one of you survived. What happened to him was never your fault. And I know you know that."

Still nothing. Slowly, I looked down at my lap. "But..." I took a breath. "But I always wanted someone to tell me that it wasn't my fault," I said. "So I'd know that they knew. So I'd know that no one would care if I didn't punish myself for letting it happen. And I thought that you'd probably want that too."

Silence. I felt her eyes burning into my back, but she said nothing. "That's all," I told her. "We're done here now."

The faintest of movements. "Why did you..." I could hear the clever little wheels turning inside her head. "Shining doesn't know."

"No. And he's not going to know." I turned back and glared at her. "That story is mine. I was never weak, I never failed, and I never had a brother. Understand?"

She gulped and looked down at the bedsheets. "If no one knows, no one can forgive you."

"I don't need forgiving."

I stood up and started moving around the room. Sunset rolled over to watch me. I stuffed my clothes into my bag and got some fresh ones from her closet. We were a close fit, except for her bras, which I went without. "He's gorgeous," she said to me as I dressed. "I'm glad the car didn't hurt him too badly. If he'd died, I..."

"His leg's fucked. It's more obvious over long distances."

"Oh." She looked down at herself again. Hopefully some of the marks he'd put on her were starting to take on new meaning. "How did you and him...?"

"He works at a police station. I keep getting put in police stations. You do the math." I slid on a fiery skirt and admired myself in a mirror at the closet's back. "It helps that he's the only one who believed my story about changelings. Plus, he said that something about the way I talk calls to him. Any guesses why that might be?" I smirked at her reflection. "He'll be the only one I take with me when I go after Chrysalis again."

Sunset shot bolt upright on the bed. "Chrysalis is in this world?" she gasped.

"In it? She'd probably be ruling it if it wasn't for me." I spun around dramatically and slowly approached her. "Chrysalis isn't the strongest queen, but she's the most ambitious by far. She doesn't just replace people, she raises armies and enslaves entire towns at a time. Three times she's dropped her cover and tried to take over a major city, and all three times I've stopped her. But she's always learning to build better and stronger bodies, and I've never gotten close enough to kill her permanently. Someday, if she isn't stopped, it might even be your little town that drops off the map next." I grabbed her chin and smirked into her startled face. "But do you seriously not know that?"

Sunset shook. "Tw... Twilight told me that she fought her in her world," she said. "Her Chrysalis tried to replace Princess Cadance at Shining Armour's wedding. She managed to take over the capital for about two minutes before she got banished. The whole kingdom knew about it. Since no one here had ever heard of her, I just assumed... I thought..." Her face twisted in fury. "She's still out there?"

"I'm working on it. And you know the really interesting part?" I let go of her and walked away. "Chrysalis has been trying to get a foothold in Manehattan for years. And by now, her spies have probably told her that her greatest nemesis has left the city undefended to go on a vacation with her boyfriend. Sounds like the perfect time to set a trap, right?" I looked back and winked. "After all I've done to her, she might even want to finish me off with her own two hands."

Sunset gaped at me. "It won't be easy, though," I added. I grabbed my bag and slipped my boots on. "Even I don't know what kind of traps she'll set. Plus I'll have to keep up with school, and socializing, and my regular patrols. When things get bad, there've been times when I've had to go close to a week without sleep just to keep up appearances. You don't know how many times I've thought about how much easier and safer things would be if I could just be in two places at once."

I stepped out and returned Mark Antony to its place on my shoulder. "Anyway, I have to go. Go take a bath before someone sees you like that. I'll be back at around eleven. And for fuck's sake, put your crest back on. You look ridiculous."

"You're..." She scrambled up and nearly fell off the bed. "You're coming back?"

"Of course." I turned away one last time. "Today was just to make up for what you did to the human Twilight. Paying for what you did to Princess will take longer."

Rarity and Coco hadn't made it back to Sunset's door. I wasn't sure they'd even made it as far as the bathroom. When I passed them by they were sitting on the landing halfway between floors, Coco loudly sobbing into Rarity's shoulder. Rarity clung to her protectively as I got close, shielding her from me. "You beast," she snarled at me through clenched teeth. "You fiend!"

I stopped in front of them. "She's in good hands now, right?"

Rarity's glare flickered. "What?"

"She likes puppies." I crouched down so we were at eye level. "She listens to pop music on her own and classical when she's working. She became vegetarian after she started working for Suri but she stares at me like a vulture whenever I'm eating wings, so you'll probably want to get some protein in her. She'll tell you that her favorite movie is The Handbook but it's actually Atlantic Rim, in case you want to have a movie night. She doesn't model and she doesn't like being on stages. For stress relief she likes to make simple shirts and skirts with floral patterns, so make sure you have lots of basic fabrics on hand for her. She's never had a boyfriend, but if the pictures on her phone are any indication, she likes athletes. She likes micromanaging and she'll plan your schedule for you even if you don't ask. Don't tell her to stop. She thinks it's fun and it lets her pretend she's in charge. Get it through her head that ice cream isn't gonna make her fat, because fuck knows she never listens to a word I say, and whatever you do, don't ask her to make any lingerie for you until you've had a chance to book her for some therapy. I didn't even see the results and even I'm turned off crotchless panties now."

Coco didn't stop sobbing the entire time. Rarity just stared at me, rage and confusion beautifully clashing on her face. "I'm counting on you," I told her, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Look after her. She's been through a lot of awful things to get here."

Rarity kept up her distrustful scowl, but she did wrap her arms around Coco a little more tightly. I stood up and walked off, whistling. To no one's surprise, neither of them called me back.

The lobby was still empty. I walked across it slowly, letting my whistling die. Now that I had a moment to myself, between intimate rooms and the public eye, I stopped and released a deep breath. I cleared my mind like a dog cleans itself fresh out of the rain, mentally flinging emotions in every direction. All this sticky, depressing friendship drama couldn't be good for me. Feelings were for normal people; they could let themselves get distracted and lonely and suicidal all they wanted. All I really needed to live in this world was myself. And sometimes Shining Armour. And sometimes Shining Armour's cock. But mostly myself. And with nothing in the world but myself, alone, I could concentrate on what was truly important.

So, Chrysalis is into weddings, huh? Interesting. I wonder if I have any allies I could rope into getting married soon...

My face cleared, and my smile returned. I took the last few steps toward the door, and my hand was almost touching it when a furious voice behind me rang out. "Shimmer!"

I stopped. Slowly, gracefully, I turned around. Twilight Sparkle stood at the far end of the lobby. My eyes flicked over her quickly: good posture, faded clothes, pony bracelet, hair striped on her left side. Princess. "Hello, Twilight," I sang back, putting on a syrupy sweet smile for her. "How wonderful to see you."

We approached each other slowly, like feral cats. I kept up my smile and carefree movements; she stomped forward with her fists clenched and distrust in her eyes. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"What do you mean? I live here." I struck a pose, hand on my hip. "Don't you recognize your friend?"

"I know my friend better than you ever could," she answered. "And I don't see any of her in you."

We started to circle each other, watching one another's eyes warily. "That's it?" I said. "You're not even going to try to be my friend? Some princess."

She twitched, but kept her voice steady. "What have you done with Sunset?"

"Nothing she didn't ask me to." I stretched, looking disinterestedly at my fingernails. "She's still alive, if that's what you mean. Oh, and by the way, I'm taking her back to Manehattan with me."

"No you're not."

"Aren't I?" I smirked. "And who's gonna stop me?"

Our gazes met. Princess glared at me with an otherworldly intensity, which I met with narrowed eyes and a wicked smile. If bolts of lightning had flashed between us at that moment I wouldn't have even blinked. "Not so tough without your friends, are you?" I said when she didn't immediately answer me. "You've failed, ponygirl, plain and simple. Now it's time to let someone else have a turn. Hand Sunset over without a fight and I'll bring her back to you better than she's ever been."

She all but growled at me. "Sunset will never choose you," she said. "She needs her friends."

"Oh, please." I dismissed her words with a wave. "You think it matters what Sunset chooses? You don't even trust her enough to leave her on her own for a few hours without her killing herself."

"We're watching out for her because we love her!" Princess burst out. "You don't know what that's like. You've never loved anyone except yourself."

"And who's Sunset if not me?" I stopped and faced her with my shoulders square. "I know her, inside and out. I know exactly how to look after myself. And that means I know exactly why your magic of friendship is never going to help. Do you want to know why?" I sashayed forward and leaned into her face. "Because you're a freak. Your whole friendship act's a sham, and you know it. Take away your sparkly magic and Sunset would still be alive and unharmed, and far, far away from you."

She took it pretty well, even if I could detect hairline cracks running through her temper. "I've heard speeches like that before," she said. "And every single time, they've been proven wrong. The love I have for my friends is real. Sunset and I are the only Equestrians in the entire world. That's a bond that no one else in this whole universe can share. That means that if you can know exactly what's going on in her head, then I know exactly what's going on in yours." She grinned triumphantly. "And that means that I know exactly how to defeat you."

"Oh, really?" I let my smirk twitch. "With what? Another brainwashing?"

"No. Ever since I met you, I've been doing what I do best. Research." She started to circle around me, speaking in a low voice. "Hollow Shades News, January Edition. 'Four children abducted, only witness evades police.' Fillydelphia Spotlight, Election Special. 'Mayor a changeling! Riots amidst political upheaval after vigilante decapitates impostor!' Manehattan Tribute, second week of March. 'Terror in the glass factory: Mechanical behemoths spill into the streets! Police seek vigilante for questioning!' Hollow Shades, again! 'Infant abductions on the rise! Could wandering bounty hunters be the cause?'" She circled faster, her voice rising into a shout. "'Underground grafting ring exposed, shootout leaves three dead! Red-headed woman seen fleeing the nursery!' 'Death of Queen Thorax sparks changeling arms race! Could your city be next?' 'Entire town of Horsmouth disappears into the ocean! Sole survivor refuses to comment!' 'Changelings slaughter six students, attempt to frame local vigilante!' Noticing any patterns?"

She'd done her homework. I stood strong as my failures battered me from all sides. "All I'm noticing is that you haven't learned not to believe everything you hear on the news," I said in a bored voice.

"Every time you try to help someone, the only person to come out of it unscathed is you." She stopped in front of me, glaring fiercely. "You don't care about saving anyone's life. You just care about finding monsters to destroy. If I let Sunset go with you, you'll just use her as bait in some half-baked trap and she'll end up dead, or worse."

"That's funny." I wrinkled my nose at her. "Because it seems to me that if I leave her in your care, she'll just go back to the same old patterns and wind up dead as soon as your back's turned."

"At least we can keep her safe," Princess snarled. "You just bring disaster everywhere you go. It's you who's the failure, Sunset Shimmer."

I twitched. I swung my hammer down from my shoulder and smacked it into my palm behind her head, locking her close to me. "Listen, little girl," I hissed into her face, "I don't bring disaster, I sniff it out. I rip it open under the noses of people who like to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. People like you."

"I have never claimed that what's happening with Sunset is okay," she countered. "But violence is never the answer. It just inspires more violence in those around you."

"Oh, yeah?" I sneered. "And I bet this town was just teeming with monsters and escaped demons long before you showed up, right?"

This stunned her into silence. "Don't give me any of your holier-than-thou crap," I said. "We both want the same thing. We want to make Sunset better. But unlike you, I'm willing to compromise my principles to make it happen. I was even thinking about bringing her back, once I'd deprogrammed your friendship-fixes-everything bullshit from her. But now? I might just brand my crest on both her ass cheeks and tell her Twilight Sparkle gave me permission to use her however I want."

Her armour was starting to crack. I could taste the anger radiating off of her in waves. "You. Wouldn't. Dare."

"And why not?" Our faces were almost touching. "As long as I'm keeping her alive, why shouldn't I have my fun with her as well? It's no different from what you've been doing." It took a concentrated effort for her not to snap at me. "Aw, what's wrong? Is this not going like you planned it? How did you think this would end?" I cracked Mark Antony's handle hard against her shoulders and dropped her to her knees. "Me on the floor, begging for forgiveness?"

She struggled to rise. I lifted my arms and kicked her in the chest, sending her tumbling over the linoleum. "Give it up, Princess," I laughed as she weakly cried out. She glared up at me as I approached, tears of pain and anger clouding her vision. "You can't stop this," I said, crouching down beside her. "Even if you were in the right, you can't. Sunset's mine. She was mine ever since she arrived in this world. I'm going to take her. I'm going to return her to the way she's supposed to be. And there isn't a force in this whole world that can stop me."

Her fingers curled against the tiles. I let her have her moment to get her breath back. "Fine then," she said, determination calming her words. "And what if I used a force from outside this world?"

My smile grew. "Is that a threat?"

"I don't want it to be." Princess raised herself up to a kneeling position, meeting my eyes again. "When Sunset fully realized the consequences of her actions, she stopped immediately. The moment she truly knew what it meant to hurt another person, she gave up on that path and never looked back. I'd hoped that you would be the same."

"Sounds like you could stand to learn some things from her."

"But you haven't learned that lesson yet," she went on forcefully. "And when you do, it will be hard. I've seen it before. It was Sunset's anger that led her to destroy the mirror portal, and that was what changed her life. What happened inside her was nothing to do with me. It took her losing everything for her to see that her dark path was destroying her. And wicked as you are, I don't want you to make the same mistake." She glared again, and something sparked in that glare. "If you carry on this path of vengeance and destruction, someday you will break something that matters to you. I won't let that thing be my friend. I know that there's good in you, and I wish I could have gotten to see it, but I won't let that come at the cost of letting someone we both love die."

I paused. Just a tiny, simple, completely inconsequential pause. Then I scoffed. "So, what?" I said. "You think I should just give up my quest to avenge my parents? I should just let Chrysalis have Manehattan?"

She kept her gaze steady. "All I'm saying," she said, "is that if I see you around Sunset ever again, I'll use the Element of Magic on you."

We let that sit between us. "Interesting." I shifted. "And what would that do, exactly?"

She tried to keep my gaze, but couldn't. "You don't know?" I laughed as she looked away.

"I know what it would do in my world," she said. "But here, I've... I've only used it on another human once."

"And you just said yourself that it did nothing. The damage to her was already done."

"It doesn't damage anything. It fixes them." She looked back at me again, fiercely. "Even if fixing them means sealing them away for a thousand years."

"And you'd do that to me, would you?"

The pain on her face alone made this whole conversation worth it. "Well then." I stood up gracefully. "Your Sunset must mean a lot to you if you're willing to become a monster to defend her." With a new type of smile, I held out my hand to the girl on the ground.

Princess looked at me suspiciously. I watched her wrestle with herself for a second and then let me help her up. Once she was standing she tried to pull her hand away, but I didn't let it go. "Has she ever told you how much you mean to her, though?"

Princess tugged desperately with both arms, trying to break out of my iron grip. "What are you talking about?" she said, trembling as I drew close.

"The way she looks at you. The way she thinks of you. What she does whenever you're not around." My voice slipped into its well-practiced sultry tone. Mark Antony pressed hard into her back, pulling her near to me. "Don't tell me you don't know," I whispered.

Our chests brushed, sending a faint thrill through me. By the look on her face, it sent something quite different through her. "You're lying," she said. "Sunset's not like that."

"But Twilight, we're friends. Why would I lie to you?" My arm locked around her. I let go of her hand and held her by the back of her neck, feeling her perfect purple skin crawl. Her hands pushed against me, her delicious, perky little breasts pressed against mine, I could feel her heartbeat under the pad of my thumb. "Feel me," I said, letting my breath graze her lips. "Feel what your body does to me. Don't you think your Sunset feels the same?"

She squirmed in my grip, trying to get away. "Stop this," she ordered.

"Don't you want to know?" I licked my lips, pulling her face closer and closer to mine. "Don't you want to give your friend what she's always... always wanted?"

"Let... go of me!" With a furious shriek, Princess managed to force both her hands between us and shoved with all her might.

Instead of standing strong, I crumpled like paper under her touch and tumbled to the floor. Mark Antony fell from my grip and clattered away across the tiles. I made no effort to move or catch myself; I just lay there while she stood over me, taking this in. "Shimmer?" she said.

"Twilight?" This time, my voice was shaky. I lifted myself up on trembling arms and gave her a look that made her take a step back. Fear, pain, loss, betrayal; all of it was written onto my face. "Why?"

"...Sunset?" Eyes widening, she slowly put her hands over her mouth. "Oh my gosh. Sunset?"

"Twilight, I..." I fell away from her again. "I just wanted..." Then I burst out laughing. "Oh, for fuck's sake. You really are pathetic."

I sprung to my feet and brushed myself off, throwing a smirk to Princess' stunned face. I kicked Mark Antony into the air and caught it. "Just as I thought," I said. "You need her a fuckload more than she needs you. You think I can say the same?"

Anger came back to her in slow bursts. "Shimmer, that is not okay."

"Like I care. At least I don't need coercion to show my true colours. What you see is what you get." I turned to leave. "That's another thing I'll have to get Sunset to remember. It's retarded, how you girls have to make a big song and dance of stuff just to show each other your real feelings. My way's much better."

"You're wrong." Princess balled her hands into fists. "Sunset knows how to control her feelings. She would never use them to hurt me like you just did."

"You're sure? No matter what I do to her?" I looked back, grinning. "Then what are you so afraid of?"

This silenced her again. "Let's make a deal. Meet me at midnight in front of Canterlot High. There's something I want you to see. Take your stupid crown thingy if you really want to. I can guarantee you won't be using it." I started back to the door. "Oh, and bring your fuck buddy, too."

Princess reddened. "His name is Flash Sentry, and he's my boyf-"

"Not him, stupid. The other one."

All that toughness dissolved right away into stammers. "H...how do you..."

"I'm pretty sure the whole building knows. I don't think Sunset's figured it out, but it's only a matter of time." I gave her one last smirk and a wink. "Might want to keep your voices down before all your friends find out that their leader gets off on fucking her own clone."

I wished again that I could make a photo album of all the glorious faces I'd seen that day. "See you soon, Princess Twilight," I called, seeing myself out.

The doorman had disappeared. The outside air tasted delicious. I stretched and breathed, basking in the Sun's radiance while a cool breeze soothed me. This little town, bland as it might have been, was starting to grow on me. I'd have to start planning vacations here more often.

If you carry on this path of vengeance and destruction, someday you will break something that-

Ridiculous.

I felt a pressing need to find Shining Armour again. I adjusted my bag and hammer and started to hurry down the street, remembering too late that only Coco and Shining had tokens for the bus, and already knowing that I wouldn't make it back to the hotel until after the light had faded.

Fourth Fragment Complete

The statue of the Equestrian was my earliest memory of Canterlot High. When I was four and new to the town my mother used to walk Dawn and I past the school every day on the way to kindergarten. As we passed I would always stare up at the back of the statue's head, in utter awe but too proud to ask to get closer. I wondered if he was a great warrior of the Earth Tribe, some mighty hero who stood over the town to protect it. I used to keep myself up at night imagining stories of his exploits, riding across the land and fighting evil wherever he went. The fact of his statue planted seeds in my childish mind. If your deeds in this world are great enough, he seemed to say, then someday, you will become a god.

It wasn't until my first day of high school that Principal Celestia told me the truth. The man I'd idolized and then forgotten wasn't some hero; he was a messenger, a nobody who the rulers of the three tribes tossed back and forth to each other as they divided up their territories in the newly conquered mainland. There was some story after that about how he was loved by all three tribes and that somehow helped bring them together, but I'd already stopped listening. None of it changed the fact that this town had inexplicably made their symbol a glorified postman. No one even knew his name or what tribe he was from, and Celestia thought this was important. I disagreed. The fucking horse was a bigger hero than he was. That was the moment when I went from wanting to be him to wanting to be absolutely nothing like him.

I looked up at his face for the first time in years, framed by moonlight. Then I kicked Sunset hard in the back. She winced and dropped to her knees and I ground my boot between her shoulder blades. "Say it," I hissed.

She cried and choked. I struck her again, harder. A short distance to my left, Twilight and Princess simultaneously took a half-step forward and caught each other's arms, too mesmerized to move. Six other girls backed them up, five best friends plus Coco Pommel, and Flash Sentry stood within arm's reach. A purple dog perched on the statue's edge and growled at me. Princess had a bag at her side, not dissimilar to mine, but she'd yet to open it.

"It's true," Sunset finally blurted. She pitched forward and didn't look to either side, appearing more like she was speaking to the statue's shattered base. "I wrote those messages."

"Louder," I said.

"I wrote those messages!" she yelled into the grass. "I was ShineLover. I pretended to be Twilight to hurt her. It was all me. Everything that happened was my fault."

Her head shuddered to the right, and everyone followed her gaze. "Your sister loves you," she said. "And she loves you like a sister. She would never have said any of the things I said to you." Her voice cracked. "All she wants is to have a brother again."

No one was looking at her any more. All eyes were fixed on the far side of the grass. On my right, an equal distance away, Shining Armour stood alone. He planted himself square and tall, a better statue than the one made from stone. Emotion flickered across him in the form of tiny twitches, trembling hands, a faint kink in his neck, little tells that only I would recognize. He was trying, out of habit, to pretend he had no weaknesses. And for once, he was really struggling.

He already knew, of course. Sunset had gotten quite deliciously specific in her naked confession. But the Twilights didn't need to know that. And even if they had, these words would still have needed to be said. It wasn't enough to pretend the rift had never happened; even after all this time, someone had to pay. The air between them needed to be cleared before they could finally close the gap.

My eyes flicked back and forth between the sides. Twilight and Princess reacted like they'd rehearsed it. Every movement was simultaneous, even the unconscious ones. Together, they paled and grasped at each other; together, they tried to speak but couldn't. Their shaking legs refused to move them forward, expecting a trap. It was funny. It was almost like they didn't trust me.

Shining was the one who took the first step. Even this was hesitant. I could see all three of them replaying on loops the last time they'd seen each other, wondering if the other side was doing the same. One had been abandoned and made to look like a monster. One had abandoned his family for another city. One had abandoned her family for another world, not knowing that she would never return. Each was silently comparing the present to the past, waiting for the other shoe to drop, bracing to be hurt a second time. One resentful word could have shattered everything.

But Shining Armour smiled. It cracked onto his face slowly, struggling to find a place there, and settled into a grin I'd only seen on the rarest occasions when we were alone. He took another step forward, more shambling than striding, and ever so slightly spread his arms.

That was all it took. At the same time, Twilight and Princess burst into tears and ran forward. Shining matched them and they threw themselves onto him in front of me. He held them tight, letting them cry onto him with the biggest smile on his face. In the background, Pinkie Pie cheered, and the others joined in, filling the night air with joy. I imagined some cheesy music swelling up in the back of everyone's minds. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone could hear it but me. Bunch of freaks.

I took my foot from Sunset's back and stood proud while they had their moment. Shining Armour and his sisters spun slowly, not even needing to exchange words. He gave no preference to either one. He knew the score; they were both Twilight. I took a mental snapshot of them framed in front of the statue. The place where I, Sunset Shimmer, had brought these girls and torn their lives apart. The place where I, Sunset Shimmer, was going to put them back together again.

I fucking love duality.

"Get up," I ordered, kicking Sunset. She rose shakily, not quite able to look at the reunion in front of her. "Come on, smile," I said. I put my arm around her. "You did good. All this is because of you."

She didn't look up, but she did lean into me. "Does that really make it okay?" she mumbled.

"Honestly?" I watched Shining kiss both Twilights on the cheek and then nestle his head between theirs. "I have never seen Shining Armour this happy. Even if you can't take it back, you still managed to pull some good out of all this. That's what you should be holding on to."

I saw the corner of her mouth flick up just a little. "But let's get one thing straight." I twisted her around and glared into her face. "Now that Shining's happy, it means he's not going to fuck me as hard any more," I hissed. I grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pulled her close. "And that means that from now on, you are going to be picking up the slack. Got it?"

There it was again; just for a second, rebellion flickered across her face, anger and pride almost, almost creasing her lips into an indignant response. But then it faded and she slumped in my grip once again. "Yes, Shimmer," she muttered.

I'd beat the fight back into her. Someday.

More hands grabbed me, separating us. "Get your paws off of her," Applejack said roughly. She forced herself in front of me and stood immovable while Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy supported Sunset. "Don't think this makes up for anythin'," the farm girl said, shoving her finger in my face. "You've done nothin' but stir up trouble since you got here. If I ever catch you layin' a hand on our friend again, I'll-"

"Applejack, it's-" Sunset said, tentatively reaching out.

"Yeah, whatever." I interrupted them both, waving them off. "Just go. We'll talk later."

Sunset nodded meekly and let herself be led back to her circle of friends. Applejack was more persistent. "Don't think you can just dump Shining Armour off and walk away," she said, stomping around me when I tried to move. "You've got a lot to answer for. Sunset won't ever stop apologizin', but I haven't heard the word sorry leave your lips from the night you tried to smash her head in. Maybe you ought'a start balancing that out."

"I have nothing to apologize for." I turned away, flipping my hair into her face, and started examining my nails. Judging by her appearance, I figured this was what would piss her off the most. "I do me. If you can't handle that, leave me alone."

She turned me back by my shoulder, and seemed surprised that she had to struggle to do so. "Now look here, missy," she started.

"Applejack?" Princess looked up from Shining Armour's shoulder. She whispered something to him and dropped away, letting him embrace his real sister alone. She scurried over to us and put her hand over Applejack's. "Don't start fights," she said, speaking to us both. "Please. Don't ruin this for her."

Applejack stood firm. "It needs sayin'," she growled.

"But not tonight." She gently moved her friend's hand away. "Twilight's missed her brother for even longer than I have. Don't try to force his hand. We can settle our differences in the morning."

"...Fine." Applejack crossed her arms. "But don't be goin' easier on her just 'cause she's dating your brother. That's all the more reason to keep an eye on her." She stomped off, still casting pointed glares in my direction.

Princess took a deep breath and released it slowly, steadying herself. I aggressively kept my gaze disinterestedly elsewhere. "I'm sorry about her," she said. "She means well, honestly. She just likes to get to the bottom of things." She looked up at me and gulped. "Can we talk?"

I smirked and looked sideways at her. "You're not gonna be a hypocrite, are you?"

"No. I want to apologize." She looked down. We started walking across the grass, a short distance from the others. I noticed she was keeping one hand tightly on her bag, just in case. "I misjudged you," she told me. "You're not as evil as I thought you were. To be honest, when I first saw you and Shining Armour together, I thought..."

"What?" I laughed at her. "You thought I'd expose you? You thought I'd filled his head with more stories about how you're a perverted freak?"

She flushed red. "Something like that," she said quietly. We both looked back at the pair embracing by the statue. Shining was cradling her with both arms, totally unlike any way he'd ever dared touch me. "It would have hurt," Princess continued. "If Shining Armour had rejected us, it would have broken my heart. But if you'd built all this up only to put Twilight through that a second time..."

I tried not to fantasize about that very thing. Maybe later, when I was alone and had all my toys. "Yeah, well, what was I supposed to do?" I said with a shrug. "Keep you a secret forever? My Shining always loved you, even when he hated you. I couldn't keep someone he loves away from him. I take good care of him. And he takes very good care of me." I grinned, a little mockingly, a little wistfully. "I'm lucky to have him."

Princess smiled uncertainly. "Yeah... you are," she said slowly. Then she took another breath and faced me. "But Applejack was right," she said. "This doesn't change anything. Even if Shining Armour trusts you, I'm still not going to let you take Sunset against her will. It's just not right. And he and I will be having a long talk about your behavior before I let him see you again."

"I can wait," I said with another shrug. "We can afford to spend a couple more days here. You take as long with him as you want."

"I'm serious." She stopped me as I tried to keep walking. "If I even get the slightest hint that you've been abusing him-"

"Relax, would you?" I swatted her hand away. "Your brother's fine. I'm just trying to make things right. Don't be a bitch about it."

"...Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Whatever." I faced her and spread my arms. "Friends?"

Her face lit up, but only a little. She hesitated. "You're not going to be weird, are you?"

"Come on. Don't you trust me?" I smiled wide.

With just a small pause, Princess moved in. We hugged. Having her in my arms made my mouth water. My hand slipped tight around her side, but I kept it chaste and didn't grab her sweet ponygirl ass - even if I did take the opportunity to check it out over her shoulder. I ruled out shoving her to the ground and tearing off her skirt then and there and instead let go. "Look after my Shining while you've got him, okay?" I said. "I'd probably be dead by now if he wasn't looking after me."

That was a lie, but it made Princess pause before answering. "We will," she said. "Thank you for bringing him home."

"Blame Suri Polomare, not me," I said, backing up. "Anyway, I'm leaving. I promised Shining I'd give him some alone time with Twilight. I wouldn't want to make her uncomfortable." Well, what I'd said was 'so you don't have to worry about me catching you sneaking the condom off while you're fucking her,' but he knew what I meant. "I'll be at the hotel, whenever you're ready."

Her voice caught. "Alone?"

"Yeah. Unless you want to come with me?" I let myself smirk at her stunned, conflicted face, but kept talking before she could settle on an answer. "Actually," I said, raising a finger as if I'd just remembered, "one more thing before I go." I closed the distance between us again and put my hand on her shoulder, resting lightly on the strap of her bag. "What would you say," I said quietly, staring into her wide, adorable eyes, "if I told you that I knew how to send you back to Equestria?"

Author's Note

Mirror Fidelity is a year old.

Cliche line incoming: When I first started this story, I had no idea that it would take off like this. It all began with the idle thought: Wouldn't it be funny if the human Twilight Sparkle ran into Flash Sentry? Well, not really, because Flash and Twilight aren't actually dating. Okay, but suppose they were dating. Why would they be? Rainbow Rocks isn't out yet and as far as I know she can only visit him once every thirty moons. Okay, so... suppose Twilight is trapped in Humanland because Sunset Shimmer actually did smash the mirror portal. Interesting. But if Human Twilight lives close enough to Flash that she can casually run into (and then proceed to have sex with) him, why doesn't Pony Twilight know about her? Well, that's because... um... I guess it would make the most sense if Sunset Shimmer scared her away somehow. What did she do? Um...

Basically, this entire, sprawling AU was created to cover up the fact that the premise for this story doesn't actually make any sense. And I don't regret that in the least. I churned the first story out in the space of one week and thought that would be the end of it, but no. The story had evolved beyond a silly little sexfic that I needed to get out of my head. I put too much of myself into Twilight to let her story go. And now here we are, a year later, approaching the climax (hehe, climax) of what is, let's face it, a novel about sex, identity, suicide, friendship, and abandonment. Several issues that Twilight and Shimmer face are ones that I've dredged up from my own life, and writing through their conflicting ways of confronting these problems has been therapeutic in relearning how to look after myself. (Albeit with considerably less sex with extremely hot guys.) These stories are a window into my mind as much as into the minds of the characters, for all the good and bad that that implies. And all this hidden beneath the pretext of a silly little FlashLight ship.

For the, like, two dozen of you who've made it with me this far: Thank you for giving me an excuse to create this wild ride. My writing would be in a very different place right now if I hadn't dedicated myself to creating this, to say nothing of my emotional state. Now it's time to drive this home. Put your theories for the final chapters in the comments. There's a big ol' storm of chaos brewing.

With thanks,
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