Right There in Front of Me

"Mom, I’m home!”

When Indigo Zap was greeted, upon entering her home, to a tranquil household and a hollow silence, she couldn’t help but feel a small tinge of disappointment. Sure, it wasn’t the first time that she’s found herself home alone without even so much as a text message warning her ahead of time, but she had been hopeful that today would’ve been different. The Friendship Games only came along every four years, and even though things didn’t go quite as she had anticipated, she was nonetheless proud of what she and her school had accomplished.

It still left the question of how she was going to explain one of her classmates turning into a magic-crazed demon who tore open rifts in the very fabric of space because she and the rest of the team pressured said classmate into unleashing a dangerous and unknown power. Maybe she could get away with glossing over those particular details.

Indigo saw no reason to let something like an empty house stop her from enjoying her big day.

“Oh, I’m fine! Thanks for asking.” Indigo kicked off her shoes, sending them sailing across the front hallway and landing square on a rubber mat next to the closet. “Boo-yah! Two points!” She then took a step back and lined up her other shoe. “And now she goes for the three-pointer!”

With another flick of her knee, the other shoe was sent into a high, tumbling arc, and then landed perfectly sole-down next to its kin.

“And boom goes the dynamite!” Indigo cheered, throwing her arms into the air in celebration. With a trifling laugh, she then tossed her bag to the side, and continued on her way. “So the Friendship Games went great,” she resumed her conversation with the empty house. “We won. Again, as to be expected. Man, you should’ve seen me during the motocross event! There were these giant plants that just came outta nowhere and—”

“Who exactly are you talking to?” a familiar voice suddenly interjected just as Indigo stepped into the living room.

Startled by the unexpected response, Indigo’s heart almost jumped out of her chest, but she managed to restrain herself to a mere shriek. “Oh sweet horse-Christ!”

Her reaction only prompted laughter from the young woman, though just a few years senior to Indigo, who sat in the nearby recliner on the opposite side of the living room. “You that lonely these days you gotta talk to yourself now?” she teased.

“Oh, eat a dick, Lightning Dust,” Indigo shot back, albeit with no malice in her tone.

For her part, Lightning Dust just grinned playfully to the other girl before hopping to her feet. “Just get over here and give your sis a hug already.”

Indigo promptly raced over, vaulting over a flower-patterned couch in the process, and threw her arms around her turquoise-tinted sibling. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to be back from college today?” Indigo asked as they shared in a laughter-filled embrace.

“Didn’t want to steal from your big day,” Lightning replied. She pulled away from the hug and gave her little sister a playful punch on the shoulder. “I’d never hear the end of it from you, especially considering how much you went on about the Friendship Games. Maybe now you’ll finally shut up for a minute.”

Indigo answered the mock-punch by shoving her sister, though to little avail other than spurring another chorus of snickering. “Like hell you wouldn’t steal my thunder. You’re the one who stuck a key in an electrical socket just so mom and dad would miss recording my first steps,” she responded.

“And I see you’re still copying my hair style,” Lightning said as she flicked a loose lock on her sister’s head.

“Only because I wear it better,” Indigo scoffed. When her sister turned and headed towards the kitchen, she used the opportunity to tidy up her tresses without drawing further attention. Once she was done, she hurried along to catch up to her sister, who was already in the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge. “So how’d your finals go?” she inquired.

“Easy-peasy,” her sister replied. “But then again, this is me we’re talking about.” From the chilled depths, Lightning Dust pulled out a couple of cans of soda and passed one over to her sister. “Pizza’s in the oven—why don’t you tell me how your Friendship Games went.”

“Ooo, what kind?”

“Ham and pineapple,” Dust answered while hip-checking the fridge door closed.

Indigo just frowned and grimaced. “You know I hate pineapples.”

“Never said I was making the pizza for you.”

If one could glare actual daggers, Indigo unleashed a volley of them, yet her sister remained unfazed by the scorn. It was only after a few seconds of this that the elder sibling finally cracked a joker-like grin.

“I’m just kidding. Yeesh! You take your pizza way too seriously.”

Choosing to let the insult slide, Indigo popped open her beverage and helped herself to a chair while she waited. It had been a long time since she’d been able to have a private moment with her sister. Between her schooling at Crystal Prep, her sister’s college courses, and their overworked mother trying to find time for her children whenever possible, there was just less and less time for the two of them. Even with Lightning Dust back for the summer, it was only a matter of time before she was whisked away to a summer intern program or a flight camp. If there was one thing the family did well, it was keeping themselves busy.

“So Indy, did you stomp all over those Canterlot High noobies?” Lightning asked while she peeked into the oven to check on the pizza. “I still remember the looks on their faces when I crushed them during my Friendship Games.”

With the wafting fragrance of melted cheese and hot pepperoni, carrying with it promises of a greasy but succulent delight, Indigo Zap eased into a relaxed state of mind. Everything was perfect: she had her victory, her sister, and soon she would have pizza. Could life get any better than this, she wondered.

“It actually wasn’t quite the stomp-fest this time,” Indigo answered. “Canterlot High actually managed to put together a good team for a change. They had this one girl who made one hell of a cake during the academic decathlon.”

“At least you still won in the end; doesn’t matter if it’s by an inch or a mile.”

“Actually,” Indigo reluctantly said whilst tapping the sides of her soda can, “we both kinda won.”

It was fortuitous timing that Indigo Zap timed her answer for when her sister turned away from the pizza, as the resultant spit take only sprayed across the countertop.

“You both won?” she exclaimed in disbelief. “What the hell kind of hippy bullshit is that?”

“Well we won the first event, and then they won the second event, and then the third event was… um, undecided.”

“So it was more of a draw then?” Lightning questioned. She muttered some choice profanities under her breath as she focused on carving up the pizza. “Back in my day, we kept playing until only one side was the winner.”

“There were some, uh… extenuating circumstances during the third event,” Indigo explained. It was about as best as she could do without having to go into too much detail, as even her sister seemed unlikely to believe tales about magic demons and portals to other dimensions. “And a draw is when nobody wins, and Crystal Prep clearly won.”

“Did Canterlot High lose?” Lightning rebuked, waving a cheese-covered knife in her sister’s direction.

“Um, no.”

“Then you didn’t win. It’s a competition, sis: for there to be a winner, there has to be a loser.”

“Sounds like something Principal Cinch would say,” an indignant Indigo grumbled under her breath, speaking mostly into the opening of her soda.

Lightning Dust voiced her disgust with just a puff of air and then went back to slicing up the pizza. “Tell me that you at least won in the events that you were involved with.”

“I’ll have you know, I made a bitchin’ birdhouse with Sugarcoat during the academic decathlon.”

“Was that the deciding point for that event?”

“Oh, uh, n-no,” Indigo replied with some apprehension. “I kinda got eliminated during the spelling bee portion. Twilight Sparkle was the only one who got through the whole event and got us the go-ahead point to win it.”

She had to pretend to be more interested in her drink just to avoid seeing her sister’s look of barely restrained disappointment. A part of her began to wonder if her mother would’ve had the same expression if she were present to hear about this. The outcome of the games sounded a lot better in her head, but now that lustre was beginning to erode. Maybe it was never there to begin with.

“Did you at least get to keep the birdhouse?”

“I, uh, let Sugarcoat take it home. She said she wanted to hang it in her backyard.”

“What about the second event? That’s usually more focused on athletics, right? That’s where you’ve always excelled,” Lightning Dust asked, continuing with what felt more like an interrogation at this point. If she hadn’t liked hearing about the academic decathlon, then Indigo knew the second event was going to be received as charitably as a dog dropping a steaming pile on the carpet.

“We… uh, we lost the second event.”

Lightning Dust didn’t say anything at first, which stung even worse than if she had. The only thing breaking the uncomfortable silence was the subtle crunching of a crispy pizza crust being cut into a dozen slices. Indigo just let her gaze sink to the bottom of her beverage as her mind raced through all the possible reactions that might come. It wasn’t until a plate ladened with slices of fresh pizza was set down in front of her did the high schooler lift her gaze back up.

“You’re the best athlete in the whole damn district, Indy; what the hell happened?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Indigo said in a desperate attempt to shore up a last minute defense. “If Twilight Sparkle hadn’t screwed up—”

“Hey!” Lightning shouted, slamming her fist into the table. “Don’t you dare try to pawn this off on somebody else!”

“But I—”

“Were you ever put at an unfair disadvantage to your competitor?”

“No… no, I wasn’t,” Indigo sighed in resignation.

As she thought back to the event, she realized that she could scream and whine about Twilight Sparkle all she wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that she and Sugarcoat started the motocross race at the exact same time as their opponents. There may have been a giant, rampaging plant monster, but it attacked everybody on the course. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Rainbow Dash’s intervention, it was unlikely anybody would’ve been able to finish the race, let alone for there to be a winner or a loser.

“Listen, Indy, I’m just trying to look out for you,” Lightning insisted through a mouthful of cheese. “If you start blaming other people when you lose, all you wind up doing is blinding yourself to your own fuck-ups. Remember what Dad always said?”

“You can’t own your success if you don’t own your failures,” Indigo droned in response. All of a sudden, she lost her interest in pizza. In fact, she didn’t feel much like celebrating anymore either.

And the downward spiral wasn’t missed by the older sister either, who leaned across the table and placed a hand upon Indigo’s shoulder. “Come on, kiddo, I ain’t trying to ruin your day,” a sympathetic Lightning said. “I just don’t want you to lose sight of the big picture or get complacent. You can’t improve if you refuse to learn from your mistakes. After all, they only put the best people on space shuttles, and you want to be the first person to Mars, right?”

Indigo suppressed a brief chortle, recalling the old childhood fantasy that she used to go on about all the time. “Yeah, yeah I still do,” she replied. “God, I hadn’t thought about that in years.”

“Good thing I’m here to give you a kick in the pants every so often.” Lightning gave her another firm smack on the shoulder before helping herself to one of Indigo’s slices of pizza. “But that’s what big sisters are for, so no need to thank me.”

************

“Hey! Indigo!”

A pair of blue fingers snapping in front of her face stirred Indigo from her trance. A wide-eyed look of confusion flickered across her features as her eyes darted around in an attempt to regain her bearings.

“Oh, sorry ‘bout that Sugarcoat. I was… thinking about things,” Indigo apologized once she realized she had been sitting at her desk like a drugged-out hippy. It was the start of a new school day, and judging by the clock there was only a few minutes before the final bell sounded and officially began class.

All around her, students were already shuffling in and finding their respective desks. There was a faint chatter in the air with numerous mentionings of Canterlot High and strange happenings to go along with the fragrance of cheap body sprays and kids trying desperately to hide the scent of cigarette smoke on their blazers. At least there was some comfort to be found in the familiar routine of life at Crystal Prep Academy, even if recent events had left Indigo Zap second guessing herself.

“This still isn’t about the Friendship Games, is it?” Sugarcoat asked, leaning against Indigo’s desk with her usual stoic but faintly disapproving gaze.

“So what if it is? It’s not everyday you realize that you let your urge to win turn you into an asshole,” Indigo shot back. “Twilight could’ve torn the whole fuckin’ world apart just because I didn’t want to lose a game.”

“Then stop being an asshole.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Zap rolled her eyes.

“It is simple; you’re just overthinking it.”

“You were an asshole too, ya know, and you don’t seem to have changed.”

“I’m just precocious. It’s part of my charm.” Sugarcoat then shot her friend a sly little smirk, and the two shared in a quiet chuckle. As more students filled the classroom, the spectacled scholar took a seat at her own desk, which just so happened to sit next to Indigo’s, thus maintaining the ease of conversation. “So does this epiphany mean that you’re going to say good-bye to your old hypercompetitive ways and swear into a new life of compassion and humility?”

“I dunno, maybe.” With an uncertain shrug, Indigo rested her chin upon her hands, slumping forward over her desk as she pondered what the future held for her. “I mean, those kids at Canterlot High looked like they knew how to have a good time and they didn’t fret over winning and shit. Maybe my life would be better if I didn’t obsess over every competition; maybe Crystal Prep has made me a worse person.”

“Or you’ve always been a horrible person and the school has nothing to do with it.”

“Thanks, Sugarcoat, as always you are a breath of fresh air in this fetid pool called life,” Indigo remarked with enough sarcasm to drown a small child.

Before Sugarcoat could respond, no doubt with more blunt force honesty, the morning bell rang and the PA speaker crackled to life with Dean Cadance’s eternally benevolent voice. At least somebody in the school was in a good mood despite it being Monday morning. Since it was the first day back since the Friendship Games, there was a long speech from the Dean congratulating everybody who participated. The students gave it about as much attention as they do to the dentist when told to floss regularly. The end of the morning announcements, however, brought about news that caught everyone’s attention.

“Just a reminder that tickets for the Grand Crystal Gala go on sale today. And as is tradition, the rankings for the prestigious Crystal Heart Award will be posted in the main foyer until the night of the gala, which is just a few weeks away.”

Thus did Indigo Zap’s eyes and mouth widen with renewed vigor and excitement, while her friend looked on with dismay and sighed quietly to herself.

“Well that epiphany lasted all of five minutes.”

“The Crystal Heart Award!” Indigo whispered, albeit with barely restrained excitement. “I almost completely forgot all about that. With Twilight Sparkle gone, I have a good chance at winning that!”

“I guess that’s statistically true now,” Sugarcoat quipped. “Aren’t you worried about getting a bit over-competitive again?”

“My problem at the Games was that I let the goal of winning become an end unto itself,” Indigo scoffed at her friend’s concern. “If I can’t be the champion of the Friendship Games, then at least I can win the award for the best student at school.” She turned to her friend, a fiery passion now burning in her eyes. The Crystal Heart award represented her last, best shot at cementing her name and legacy at school. She wasn’t going to let her year end with the failures of the Friendship Games hanging over her head. “And I’ll do things proper: with brain and muscle. This time no pretty little redhead is going to beat me at the last second!”

It wasn’t until the end of Indigo’s declaration that she noticed her friend wasn’t paying attention to her, and not just because Sugarcoat liked to do that just to see how long it would take people to realize she stopped listening. No, her friend’s attention was fixated on something else, something that left even the normally unflappable precocious pixie stunned.

“Do you mean that pretty little redhead?” Sugarcoat asked, pointing to the front of the classroom.

At first, Indigo didn’t understand what her friend meant, but then she looked to the teenager that now stood alongside their teacher.

It was her: the redhead from Canterlot High. The one that managed to stop Twilight Sparkle from tearing the world apart.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Indigo mumbled under her breath.

Despite her disbelief, she couldn’t forget the face of the one who managed to beat her in the motocross race. Though the girl up front didn’t look quite like how Indigo remembered. Instead of a warm, welcoming smile, the girl held a neutral, almost surly expression, as if just being in the room was somehow wasting her time. Her hair was a lot shorter too, and drawn back into a hastily-made ponytail.

Indigo looked to her classmates to see if any of them shared in her confusion, but unsurprisingly not even half of them could be bothered to look up, let alone muster the effort for a visible reaction. The only person whose expression aped her own was Sugarcoat, though ‘surprised’ for her meant just a slightly elevated eyebrow.

“If I could have your attention class,” spoke their portly and balding teacher, “I’d like to introduce to you the new student, Sunset Shimmer, who will be joining us. I know it’s unusual for a someone to transfer in so late in the year, but nonetheless I hope you’ll all help to make her feel welcomed.”

Normally such optimism might brighten a new student’s mood, and there was no doubting by the fresh, finely-pressed uniform she wore that she was as green as the front lawn, but the girl remained as unamused as before.

“If you’d like, Miss Shimmer, you can say a few words to your new classmates.”

Sunset looked to the rows of students before her, most of whom still appeared to be more interested in the latest trends on social media than her presence, and then back to her teacher. “Do I have to?” she protested, sounding almost disgusted by the notion.

“If you prefer, you can have a seat,” the teacher gestured towards a few of the empty desks.

Looking more relieved than anything, Sunset Shimmer made her way down the aisle and, as fate would have it, chose the empty desk just in front of Indigo Zap. Before she sat down, however, she noticed that the wide-eyed student still staring at her.

“Can I help you?” an increasingly annoyed-looking Sunset asked.

“Do you not remember me?” Indigo asked.

Sunset didn’t even bat an eyelash before answering with a flat, “No.” She then gave Indigo a scrutinizing scan from top to bottom, followed by a malicious smirk. “Pretty sure I’d remember goggles that dorky.”

The sudden barb caught Indigo off-guard, cutting like a knife slipping in between the ribs and leaving her just as breathless. That did not sound like the teenager who espoused the virtues of friendship to a deranged Twilight Sparkle. The verbal strike was swift, precise, and completely unwarranted, as if Sunset Shimmer wanted nothing more than to establish some sense of dominance over her.

So that’s what it felt like to be on the receiving end…

Before Indigo Zap could muster any form of defense, the verbal assassin had already taken her seat, and the teacher beckoned for everyone’s attention. Retribution would have to wait.

“Now, if you’ll put your notebooks away and take out a pencil and calculator, I’d like to begin with a quick pop quiz,” the teacher announced, accompanied by a zombie-like groan from the class. “As always, the top scorer gets a voucher for a free dessert from the cafeteria.”

Zap was probably the only person looking forward to this quiz, especially now that Twilight Sparkle had transferred to a new school. This was her chance, not only to make headway into the rankings for the Crystal Heart Award, but a free dessert too!

As the teacher made his way up the aisles, dropping off the quiz to each student, he paused momentarily upon reaching Sunset Shimmer. “Since this is your first day, you don’t have to take the quiz if you don’t want to,” he said in a small token of mercy.

“Just give it,” Sunset replied with an apathetic shrug. “May as well do something while I’m stuck here.”

Not wanting to stand between a student and their goal, especially at a school as notorious for competition as Crystal Prep, the teacher handed his newest pupil a copy of the quiz and continued on his way. After a few more minutes, the room was blanketed in silence, save for the tapping of calculator keys and scribbling pencils. For her part, Indigo Zap was a whirlwind of activity, her pencil flying across the page as she worked her way through one question after the other. She was on a roll; she was on fire! Nothing could stop her now!

And that was when Sunset Shimmer raised her hand. “Yo, teach, what do I do when I’m done?”

“Just leave it on my desk, and you can wait quietly for the rest of the class to finish.”

“What? She’s already done?” Indigo silently screamed. “You gotta be fucking kidding me! I’ve still got, like, a third of the quiz to go.”

But Indigo knew she couldn’t let this distract her; when faced with competition, she had to work harder. That was the real purpose of competition: to push yourself beyond what you thought were your limits. It was survival of the fittest in action, and if she wanted any chance of getting her name engraved on the Crystal Heart trophy, which would sit in the front halls of the school for long after she had graduated, then she needed to step up and answer this challenge, and not waste time fretting over the competition.

Unlike Sunset Shimmer, she opted to use every minute available to triple-check all of her answers. She didn’t need to fuel her ego by being the first, even if it didn’t look like the redhead in front of her had even the slightest interest in anything other than her smartphone. In fact, even after Indigo had passed in her completed quiz and the class returned to its lesson plan, Sunset spent the entire class staring ahead and looking as bored as someone being forced to sit through their grandparent’s vacation slides.

It was like she didn’t even care about being here, which just irked Indigo Zap even further. Sure, school was about as popular as a venereal disease, but this was Crystal Prep Academy. Everybody knew of the school’s reputation, and one didn’t get accepted into its ranks without considerable effort. Indigo remembered how she had to work all through the night in preparation for her application tests. She still had nightmares about that day, except it typically involved her arriving at school in her underwear and Principal Cinch being replaced by an oversized piñata. To scorn Crystal Prep with such utter indifference felt like an insult to every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears she’d poured into her work here.

However, as the first period came to a close, Indigo Zap pushed those annoyances aside. As was customary, their teacher had already graded the quizzes and began handing back the results. When her quiz was returned, it was hard for Indigo not to grin ear-to-ear.

“Yes! Ninety-six percent! Got one of them wrong, but I’d like to see anybody top that.”

She felt confident in her victory; confident enough that she could practically taste that hot fudge sundae already. She could see her teacher walking up the aisle towards her, dessert voucher in hand. Sugarcoat was the only other member of the Shadowbolt team in the class, which made her the most likely threat, but she sat to Indigo’s right while the teacher came up the aisle on the left.

But then he stopped in front of Sunset Shimmer.

“I believe congratulations are in order,” he said as he set the voucher down before a still uninterested Shimmer. “A perfect score on your first day—I’m quite impressed.”

Sunset looked down at the slip of paper in front of her and then back up to the teacher as though he were a waiter who had just brought the wrong order. “What is this?”

“It’s your voucher prize.”

“A voucher for…?”

“A free dessert from the cafeteria.”

“Oh. Neat,” Sunset replied in a monotone that rivaled public talk radio.

************

“Why is Indigo glaring at that other girl?” Lemon Zest asked as she hovered behind her aforementioned friend.

It was lunchtime at Crystal Prep and the five friends had gathered in the cafeteria; however, while Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet were content to dine and chat like every other student, Indigo had spent more time glaring poison-tipped daggers at the school’s newest student. The redheaded young student sat alone at a table off in the corner of the cafeteria, eating her prize dessert while reading a book, seemingly uninterested in anything happening around her. In such a crowded hall where virtually every table was filled to the brim with bustling, chatting students, it was hard to believe that not a single cabal in all of Crystal Prep had taken her into their ranks. Even Twilight Sparkle would have made headway.

“Just look at her: sitting there on her own, eating that hot fudge sundae. My hot fudge sundae!” Indigo growled, her hands clenching tightly around her soda can. “Thinks she’s so special just because she got a perfect score on a quiz she didn’t study for.”

“Is this really all just over a sundae?” Zest asked, no closer to understanding the situation than she had been a minute ago.

Sugarcoat, who sat next to Indigo, tried to offer a bit more context. “She also made fun of Indigo’s goggles.”

Indigo sneered, her drink can beginning to buckle within her grasp. “Nobody calls my goggles dorky.”

“What’s so special about those? They’re just—” Before Lemon Zest could finish her question, she was given a firm but polite elbow from Sugarcoat to silence her before she joined the ranks of Indigo’s ‘people I hate today’ club.

“Her father gave them to her,” Sugarcoat explained.

One could see the light bulb of understanding flicker on behind Zest’s eyes. She offered an apologetic smile as compensation, not that Indigo was paying any attention to anyone other than her current subject of scorn. “So is that really the same girl from Canterlot High?” Lemon asked, shifting the conversation to the other question on her mind. “I remember her being a lot friendlier-looking. This one seems all scowly and brooding.”

“Probably because she’s trying to put on an air of mystique by coming off as all distant and aloof, like she’s some kind of rare treasure just above your station,” Sunny Flare offered up as her analysis. “It’s a classic ploy to come off as deep and meaningful, when really you’re about as shallow as a puddle.”

“You’re just jealous she pulls it off better than you,” Sour Sweet replied.

Sunny just huffed and rolled her eyes. “As if. She’s got the look of a schemer about her; I don’t like it one bit.”

“Maybe she’s just in a bad mood,” Lemon Zest suggested. “If that is the same girl, then she’s probably not in a great mood for having been forced into a new school and leaving all of her friends behind.”

It was an insight that none of the other girls had considered, least of all Indigo Zap. Maybe she had been looking at this the wrong way; maybe Sunset Shimmer’s behavior could all be explained as just the typical moodiness of a teenager being shoved into a new locale with little build-up or preparation. The redhead she had met at Canterlot High made no indication she was about to change schools, so she was probably just as surprised to be here as Indigo had been upon first seeing her.

Soon all of Indigo’s anger had been replaced with a pervasive guilt. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn’t be acting like an ass again.”

“Yes, thank you, Sugarcoat,” Zap sighed to herself. Not wanting to go down the path she had before, she rose from the table. “I’ll try talking to her—show her a little Crystal Prep hospitality.”

“You mean condescending detachment and ceaseless criticism?” Sugarcoat asked.

“I mean the new Crystal Prep hospitality.”

With that, Indigo set off to make another attempt at a first impression with their newest classmate. Seeing as Sunset didn’t appear to recognize her in any form, she figured it would be best to just start off fresh as though they had never met. It did run into a minor hitch at first, however, as Sunset Shimmer’s ‘shallow aloofness’ meant that she didn’t even pay any attention to Indigo even when she stood right beside her at the cafeteria table.

“She’s not ignoring you, she’s just preoccupied. Probably lonely from missing all her friends,” Indigo reassured herself. She then audibly cleared her throat, which finally did the job of getting Sunset Shimmer to peel her gaze away from her book. “Hey there,” she greeted with the warmest smile she could muster.

“Oh, it’s you again—the one with dorky goggles,” Sunset replied with an odd inflection at the very end, as though amused by something just outside of Zap’s awareness.

Though the slight against her goggles made her twitchy, Indigo had to fight down the impulse to retaliate. “Y-yeah, that’s me. My name is Indigo Zap, by the way. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to the school.”

“Okay then. You may consider me sufficiently welcomed. You can leave now.” Sunset made a trifling wave gesture with her spoon before taking another mouthful from her sundae.

“There’s no reason to be so rude,” Indigo replied. She tried to remain polite and friendly, but it was hard not to start scowling a bit after her attempt at diplomacy was so coldly rebuked. “Listen, I know you’re trying to look cool with the whole ‘I don’t need anybody’ vibe you got going here, but you’re not fooling anybody. Maybe you haven’t heard, but this school can get pretty cut-throat and if you don’t start making some allies, at the very least, you’re going to find yourself at the center of a feeding frenzy.”

Now it was Sunset’s turn to frown, though not for the reasons that Indigo had hoped for. Once again, the newcomer had the look of weary annoyance, like a tutor having to answer the same question for the hundredth time. After carefully setting her book aside, she rose from her seat such that she was face-to-face with Indigo. There was a bitter hardness behind those blue-green eyes of hers, something that Indigo didn’t recall noticing during the Friendship Games.

“Listen, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you or any of your vapid, empty-headed, shitstain friends think of me,” Sunset shot back. “I don’t need your distraction and I most certainly don’t need your pity offering.”

“This isn’t pity,” Indigo growled back.

“Sure; the school’s loudest and most notorious blowhard is just being nice because it’s the right thing to do,” Sunset ridiculed her in an overblown, mocking tone. She then reached out and hooked a finger underneath the nose bridge of Indigo’s goggles. “I’m sure that would explain why you’ve been glaring at me since I sat down.”

With a malicious smile, she pulled the goggles back and promptly released, snapping them into Indigo’s face with a loud ‘crack,’ and leaving the teen staggering and cursing inward.

“Would you just leave my fucking goggles alone already?” a belligerent Indigo sneered.

“But where would the fun be in that?” Sunset mused with a quiet, spiteful chuckle.

“The fuck is your problem?”

“You’re the one getting all bent out of shape, so if anybody here has a problem, it’s probably you.”

By that point, Indigo was about two steps away from resorting to violent diplomacy to solve this issue, and her simmering rage did not go unnoticed by her keen-eyed adversary. Sunset Shimmer smiled again, but not in the kind and reassuring manner, but rather the sort of grin that made other people worry about what thoughts and machinations were lingering behind it.

“Tell you what,” Sunset began, “since you seem to have gotten so worked up since I beat you in that silly little quiz, I’ll share my dessert with you as a token of friendship.”

But before the offer of a half-eaten sundae could be turned down, Sunset Shimmer grabbed the bowl and planted it upside-down atop of Indigo’s head, splattering her hair and goggles in a layer of chocolate sauce and melted vanilla. While she stood there, stunned and aghast at such a brazen display, her assailant continued with her deadly and deceptive cheerfulness.

“Doesn’t sharing with friends just fill you with wondrous joy?” Sunset teased. “We should do this more often.” She gave her new ‘friend’ a pat on the cheek, and then wiped away a trail of fudge and vanilla that had been making its way down the side of Indigo’s face. “See ya around, Goggles.”

She bid farewell with a playful wink before licking her finger clean. Once Sunset had departed, Indigo’s friends carefully treaded over to check on her, who still had dribbles of chocolate sauce trickling down her twitching, wide-eyed expression.

“I take back what I said earlier,” Sunny Flare remarked. “I like her style.”

“She definitely fits in with the old Crystal Prep hospitality. At least you got some of your ice cream now,” Sugarcoat said as she offered her sympathies.

“You could bring this up with Dean Cadance,” Sour Sweet suggested.

“I can handle this on my own,” Indigo answered, finally snapping out of her awestruck state. She frowned, hardening her expression into one of defiance and determination. “Ain’t no way I’m running to the Dean like some simpering little pup with its tail between its legs.”

“So then what do you intend to do about this?” Sugarcoat asked.

Since swift, brutal revenge wasn’t befitting of someone who’s trying to avoid falling back into old habits, Indigo knew she needed to take the moral high ground as well as get some answers. Fortunately, she had a plan for the latter.

“I’ll tell you what I intend to do,” Indigo said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. “I’m texting Twilight Sparkle and I’m going to see about getting some goddamn answers.”

************

Since Indigo Zap didn’t want to take any chances with people dodging her calls, ignoring her texts, or otherwise withholding the answers that she now so desperately wanted, she chose to arrange for a meeting with Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, and refrained from giving the exact reason as to why. That way she could confront them with the information and evidence, and gauge their reaction. Sometimes what a person didn’t say could be just as important as what they did.

She would’ve brought along some of her friends, but apparently they had their own business to take care of after school. It was a shame, really, as the early summer weather was best enjoyed in the company of others. The warm breeze coming from the south would’ve felt invigorating through her hair were it not still caked with syrup and dried chocolate.

When the bus dropped her off just in front of Canterlot High, her mind couldn’t help but drift back to the closing moments of the Friendship Games. The old Wondercolt statue in front of the school was still ruined, but at least there were no holes in the fabric of reality.

And as luck would have it, just as Indigo started towards the school, she spotted both Twilight Sparkle and a much more pleasant-looking Sunset Shimmer waiting at the base of the aforementioned statue.
It was almost like night and day between what Indigo saw in front of her and what she experienced back in the cafeteria; the Shimmer before her was far more relaxed, more vibrant, and the smile upon her features as she chatted with Twilight looked genuine.

This couldn’t possibly be the same girl that had mocked her goggles and dumped a sundae on her head, could it?

“Hey, redhead!” Indigo shouted as she raced over to them. “What’s your name?”

Twilight and Sunset turned their heads to the oncoming Crystal Prep student, both looking perplexed by the question. “It’s Sunset Shimmer,” the girl in question answered. “Did you really come all this way just to ask that?”

“No, I came here for answers because you’ve got some serious explaining to do!” Indigo accused, pointing a finger at her.

“Explaining what?” Sunset replied.

“About why you came to my school and started acting like a colossal bitch today!”

“Hey! Sunset would never do anything like that,” Twilight interjected to her friend’s defense.

“Tell that to the chocolate sauce in my hair!” Indigo snapped.

“Listen, I’m not sure what you’re going on about,” Sunset replied, maintaining a calm disposition, “but you must be mistaken. I’ve been at Canterlot High all day; I haven’t set foot anywhere near Crystal Prep Academy. I don’t even really know where it is.”

“Well, if you’ve been here all day then how do you explain this picture?”

Indigo Zap then held up her phone towards the two girls, though her confidence soon turned to confusion when Sunset and Twilight began a quick tour through various shades of red until their faces settled on a vivid scarlet.

“I… um, I don’t think that’s the right picture,” Sunset said while clearly trying to avert her gaze.

“What do you mea—OH SHIT!”

When Indigo checked her phone, she had not pulled up the picture of Sunset Shimmer in the cafeteria like she had intended; rather, it was a selfie of her standing before a full length mirror, wearing nothing but a smile in order to showcase her trim and athletic figure. Only a well-placed finger from an outstretched arm preserved the smallest sliver of modesty, not that one’s imagination couldn’t fill what had been obscured. Now it was her turn to explore the diverse range of red hues as she frantically scoured her phone for the correct picture.

“Y-you didn’t see anything,” Indigo stammered. “Oh where did it go? Ah! Here it is!”

This time, she made sure she had the right picture before showing the two girls what she had come all the way down to Canterlot High for. The spitting image of Sunset Shimmer sitting in full Crystal Prep finery surprised Twilight immensely, but the other Shimmer just regarded it with a kind of amused curiosity.

“Oh, I was wondering if there was another me around here,” she remarked in an unsettlingly calm fashion.

“Other… you?”

“The me from this world.”

As Indigo continued staring at her like a dog confronted with a high-pitched whistle, Sunset Shimmer remembered that the students of Crystal Prep Academy were unaware of otherworldly individuals. “You remember at the end of the Friendship Games when Twilight went a little… um, berzerk and tore open those dimensional portals?”

“The ones that almost swallowed up half of my classmates? Yeah, hard to forget.”

“On the other side of those portals is a place called Equestria, which is where I’m from originally,” Sunset continued to explain. “It’s sort of a parallel world where all the same people exist, but things are a little different too.”

“Oh, like in those TV shows where the hero goes into the mirror dimension and everyone is evil and has those bitchin’ goatees,” Indigo exclaimed, albeit stopping abruptly as the excitement drained from her face. “Wait, don’t tell me we’re the evil universe!”

Taking the other’s concern for a light-hearted joke, Sunset Shimmer just laughed as she waved the concerns off. “Not that kind of different,” she reassured Indigo. “But suffice to say that since there’s a version of everyone from this world in Equestria, there would naturally be another version of me out there. So what’s she like? Is she cool?”

“She’s… um, kind of a bitch, actually.” Indigo was still too focused on wrapping her mind around the notion of there being two Sunset Shimmers in the world, plus an alternate dimension where there was apparently even another her wandering about. “So you’re saying that the girl is this picture is you but also not you? That’s just… this sounds so ridiculous. If this was a week ago I wouldn’t believe a single word of it.”

“To be fair, neither would I if I were in your position,” Sunset offered as compensation. That was when she had an idea to help ensure that the inquisitive Crystal Prep student would leave secure in her new knowledge. “Tell you what, I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Indigo asked.

“Just going to go fetch someone. It’ll just take a minute.” With that, Sunset gave a quick wave good-bye and then disappeared through the portal at the base of the statue.

“She… did she just…” Indigo’s stammering trailed off as she continued staring in disbelief at the empty air where Sunset once stood. With the conversation cut short, she finally noticed that somebody had been awfully silent for a while.

An uneasy Twilight Sparkle fidgeted on the spot, trying her best not to draw attention to herself despite being the only other person in the vicinity. In all fairness, Indigo didn’t feel any less awkward being left in the presence of somebody whom she had been less than charitable with. While compared to Sour Sweet or Sunny Flare, she had far less to feel ashamed of, it still didn’t keep those feelings from surfacing.

Indigo coughed a few times to try and break the silence, though both girls continued to stand in silence and just barely acknowledge the other’s presence. Eventually, she realized she had to make the first step.

“So… um, Twilight, how’s the new school treating you?”

“Good. It’s good,” Twilight quickly answered. “I mean, it’s only been one day but everybody’s been real nice… despite what I did.”

Both cast their gaze back to the statue, hoping to see Sunset’s reassuring presence returning. Alas, there was still no sign of her.

“Listen, Indigo… I, uh, I’m really sorry about what happened at the games: the giant plants, the portals, the whole magic portals thing…”

“Woah, woah, woah! You’ve got nothing to apologize about!” Indigo replied with a sudden surge of energy that took the other girl by surprise. “You were the victim in that whole mess. If Cinch—if we hadn’t pushed you into unleashing that magic, none of it would’ve happened.”

“But… but I turned into a monster.”

“We were the monsters, Twilight, not you!” Indigo insisted, seizing the timid student by the shoulders. “If anybody should be begging for forgiveness, it should be me.”

“Y-you weren’t that bad, not really,” Twilight stammered back. She was just barely managing to keep eye contact despite every instinct to drop her gaze back to the ground. “At least, not compared to some of the other girls.”

“Except I turned a blind eye to what I should’ve known was wrong.” And as far as Indigo was concerned, being complacent made her just as bad as every biting criticism that Sour Sweet or Sugarcoat laid out. Her grip on Twilight began to soften, just as her expression did. “I should’ve known better; my dad would’ve so chewed me out if he saw me acting the way I did.”

Seeing and hearing the genuine remorse coming from her former classmate, Twilight Sparkle offered a heartfelt smile. “It’s okay, Indigo; I forgive you.”

Now it was Indigo’s turn to fumble her words. “R-really? Just like that?” she replied in disbelief. “Are… are you sure you don’t want your pound of flesh? Pretty sure by this point you’re more than deserving of it.”

“I don’t think that’s really necessary,” Twilight said with a polite laugh. “If you’re really intent on making amends, just keep doing what you already are: treat your classmates with kindness and compassion, even if they don’t return it in kind right away.”

Forgiveness was a strangely liberating sensation for Indigo, though it might’ve just been the novelty since she was often too self-absorbed to realize that she needed to apologize to anybody. But before Indigo could fully express her gratitude, both girls’ attention was drawn back to the Wondercolt statue by a bizarre rippling noise, as if somebody had just thrown a stone into a pond filled with pure static.

Emerging from the portal was Sunset Shimmer alongside, much to Indigo’s surprise, another Twilight Sparkle. And there was no mistaking the other purple-haired girl for somebody else, despite the tidier appearance and absence of any glasses. It was hard to believe it was the same person, as this one carried herself with an air of grace and confidence.

“This will only take a few minutes, I promise,” Sunset reassured the Twilight accompanying her. “I just need to introduce you to somebody real quick. Indigo Zap, I’d like you to meet Princess Twilight Sparkle, from Equestria.”

“She’s royalty?”

Despite having been warned ahead of time that doubles of people existed between the two worlds, Indigo was nonetheless left gaping dumbstruck upon being confronted with two Twilight Sparkles. Words failed her as she just stared and pointed at the two, as if expecting reality itself to unravel at the seams at any moment. It was all real, though; very, very real. After a few more moments of brain-stalling disbelief, Indigo was finally able to utter a reaction.

“Oh god, we are so the evil universe.”