Mirror Redemption

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."