"Dear Sunset Shimmer,
I'm glad that everything is working out for you. You showed all of them at CHS that you really are a nice person who just had a bad moment. And you can write to me anytime you want. I'll always answer. Oh, and keep an eye on Pinkie Pie. We don't need her running through the portal just for fun. You know how she can be.
Wishing you the best, your friend,
Twilight Sparkle. :) "
Sunset Shimmer smiled as she put the book back in her drawer. Twilight had only been gone a few days and yet the people back at the school were treating her like a completely different person. She was already accepted into many of the clubs she was interested in and even earned a spot as a vocalist for the Rainbooms.
"Hey Sunset?" she heard Pinkie Pie call.
"Yeah?" she replied as she stepped out of her room.
"What did Twilight have to say?"
"Just that she was happy things were better for me here and to make sure you didn't try to jump through the portal. Again." Sunset told her. After Twilight left and they had played a few songs on stage for their classmates, Pinkie was obsessed with going over and being a pony. She would have made it, if Applejack didn't have a stash of cupcakes to lure her away from it.
"Okay! Anything about when she might be back?"
"Hehe, Pinkie Pie, she's a princess. I'm sure she's got a lot of royal duties that she needs to take care of before she can come back for just a recreational visit." she explained.
"Well she needs to finish those royal duties so she can come back for your birthday!" Pinkie exclaimed as she ran back into the living room.
"Heh. Yeah." Sunset said as she smiled and followed her. Her birthday was in a couple of days, and she had invited her friends to have a slumber party at her house so Pinkie could plan everything.
She took a seat on her couch next to Fluttershy who was petting her dog. "I just love your dog. She's such a doll." Fluttershy said as she rubbed the dog's stomach.
"She's great. She was my first friend I really had when I first came here." Sunset Shimmer said.
"Speaking of when you first came here, how did you get enough money for your own place?" Rarity asked.
"Well, back in Equestria our currency are bits. The Gold and Silver we used for them are very common there. I wasn't sure what I would need here, so I went into a store, showed them that, and they told me if it was real gold I'd have to go to a pawn shop or something like that. I had a whole bag of them that I, uh, well, stole from Celestia's castle." she explained, feeling guilty about stealing them. "Turns out, while I couldn't use the actual bits themselves, I could turn them in for money here."
"Let me guess, you didn't have to get a job either did you?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Not exactly. I only had enough for the house and a little bit of food. If I didn't get a job, I wouldn't have been able to survive for very long here." Sunset said.
"Where did you work? I never saw you anywhere around town outside of school." Fluttershy said.
"That pawn shop I went to? Turns out they had a lot of interesting things that got brought in. I worked there, still do in fact. At first I was hoping that maybe something from Equestria would make it's way over here and someone would turn it in for money. No such luck there." she said rolling her eyes.
"Well, if you had found something there, you wouldn't have had friends like us!" Pinkie said, wrapping her arms around Sunset Shimmer into a hug.
She chuckled. "You're right. I am glad that everything's working out for me now." she said.
Pinkie's phone began ringing. "Oh! That has to be Flash Sentry! He must have got my message asking for him to play music at your party!" Pinkie exclaimed and ran out of the room.
Sunset's face fell a little. "Everything alright darling?" Rarity asked.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Sunset replied. While she didn't like Flash when they were dating, she really wished he would at least give her a second chance to be his friend.
"Oh, don't worry about Flash. I'm sure he'll get over your past actions." Rainbow Dash said, turning the console off quickly.
"That's the third time you've done that!" Applejack exclaimed. "Just admit that I'm better than you at this!!"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Rainbow lied.
"But it's more than what I did in the past." Sunset said. "Maybe it's just me, but I find it a little odd that he's head over heels for Twilight, someone he knew for, what three days when she first got here? Not to mention the fact she's a pony-"
"Sunset, you were a pony before you came here, remember?" Applejack said.
"Well, yeah, but I mean I've lived here so long that, well, I guess I kind of forgot about that life." she admitted.
"Honestly, I think someone is just a little jealous of our friend Twilight." Rarity said, teasingly.
"I'm not jealous! I just don't know why he's so hung up about someone he never gets to see and never has time to be around. Unless it involves saving the school from some crazy wackjob." Sunset explained.
"What do you mean? She's right here." Pinkie said walking back into the room. "How could she be with Twilight?"
"What?" Sunset and the others asked.
"What do you mean Sunset's with Twilight?" Fluttershy asked.
"Who cares what she means? Twilight's back!" Rainbow exclaimed.
"But wait!" Sunset shouted as they all started running towards the door. "Something's not right here."
"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked.
"Could it be the obvious Sunset is with Twilight thing?" Applejack said sarcastically.
"Um...actually...I think I can explain that." Sunset said.
"What are you talking about?" Rarity asked.
"When I first came to your world, I saw a lot of people who looked like those I knew back in Equestria. A few weeks went by and I noticed they even acted the same way. I came up with a theory that there are doubles in each world. In Equestria, there's one Twilight-"
"And there's one that lives in the city!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"So by going off that, I would assume that the me from this world was in the city along with this world's Twilight." she finished.
"But what does that mean for you?" Fluttershy asked.
"I'm not sure. I have a feeling that it would be bad for me to meet myself in this world. You all can go and talk to this world's Twilight if you want. I'll stay here and write to the Twilight we know about it and see what she has to say. Maybe she can help tell us something about it and what we should do."
"But what about Flash Sentry?" Applejack asked. "Does he know that's not the Twilight he knows?"
They looked to Pinkie Pie who still had the phone to her ear. "What?"
"Aren't you going to tell him that's not Twilight?" Rainbow said.
"Tell who?" Pinkie said confused.
"Flash! Aren't you on the phone with him?" Applejack exclaimed.
"Oh, no. He hung up awhile ago to go talk to Twilight and Sunset." she said.
"You do know I'm right here, right Pinkie?" Sunset Shimmer said.
"Yeah. He went to talk to the doubles. Duh! Everyone knows that." she said smiling.
"Does Flash know? You did tell him they were doubles before he hung up right?"
Pinkie shrugged. "I dunno."
The others groaned. "We'll find him, and try to get him and explain it." Rarity said. "Sunset, do you really think Twilight will know what to do?"
"Well, from what she's written to me, the reason her friends from Equestria couldn't come was because it would cause some sort of magical paradox. She doesn't know what that would do, but it's not good. You go find them. I'll figure something out." she said.
"Alright, girls! Let's go!" Rainbow Dash said, running out the door. They all followed her and Sunset went back to her room.
Why is she here? What purpose could she have here? she thought. She reached and picked up the book from the drawer. She grabbed her pen and began to write in it. "Alright Twilight. You know more about this stuff than I do, so what do we need to do?" she said as she closed the book.
***
"Spike, can you hand me the books over there?" Twilight asked as she placed a few onto the shelf.
"Sure thing." he said, grabbing a stack and standing under Twilight as she hovered near the top of the bookshelf. She used her magic to grab the top half and placed them where she had marked. "Anymore after this?" Twilight asked.
"Nope. These are the last ones." Spike said, letting her take the rest of the books. "And good riddance. I'm tired." he said yawning.
"I appreciate the help Spike. Go ahead and get some sleep." Twilight said as she placed the last book on the shelf. She flew down and gave Spike a thankful hug. As he walked out and back to his bed, she walked over to the portal between Equestria and the other world.
"Maybe one day I could bring my friends over to their world. I'd love to see how they acted when they discovered all the different limbs they had." she smiled. She imagined Pinkie Pie and what she would say. She would probably be perfectly fine and get the hang of everything really quick.
She heard a buzzing coming from the table behind her. "That's odd. I just wrote back to Sunset Shimmer. Normally I'd get a message back from her after a day." she said as she walked over. She flipped open the book and turned to the new page.
"Dear Twilight,
I know we just wrote back to each other, but something has come up. Flash told Pinkie that he saw you and me with each other somewhere in town. That's not possible if you're in Equestria and I'm at my house. Something strange is going on, and I'm not sure how to handle it. I believe it may be our doubles from this world. The others went to investigate while I got in touch with you to figure out what to do. I doubt it would be a good idea for me to just walk up to my double. You know more about this than I do, so any information you can give us is helpful. I'm sure it's nothing too big, but I have a really bad feeling about this. I didn't tell the others, but I find it strange that our doubles are just now showing up here.
Your friend,
Sunset Shimmer."
Twilight finished reading the message and felt her heart drop. She knew that her double in the other world lived in the city, but she didn't think she would go to the school. "I have to talk to the Princess about this before something happens." she said as she grabbed the book and ran towards the station.