Author's Note

if you know me personally in any capacity please don't read this

Strange Encounters

“Did you really think I was going to be evil?”

Sunset Shimmer stared at her reflection, cast in blood-red light. The mirror cracked along the centre, the spider web fracture separating her image into fragments. She frowned, white-hot tears streaking down her face, but her reflection simply smirked as it taunted her.

It was unlike any of her other nightmares. Her double was not the crimson-skinned, fire-haired she-demon she had gotten so used to, but nearly an exact replica of herself, save for the short, messy bob cut that ended just above the reflection’s shattered shoulders. Somehow, it was worse. She looked back at herself. An unfortunately familiar rage burned in the other Sunset’s eyes, steaming hot anger bubbling through.

Sunset—the real one—put her hands up over her face, knowing what came next. This facet of her dream may have been different, but it always followed the same pattern. She shut her eyes hard, brow furrowing in defence against the shards of glass that flew at her. They bounced off of amber skin, nicking sensitive flesh and allowing for dots of red to rise.

The broken glass fell to the ground with an echo, and Sunset dropped her arms, leaking crimson onto the ground, though it didn’t do more than sting. She frowned as she stared at herself. Never had she wished that her demon would torment her, but she found herself missing the familiarity, as morbid as it was. Sunset, clad in now blood-stained white, set her hard gaze on herself in front of her, clad in blacks and leather. The other Sunset’s shortened hair blew with the wind of Sunset’s dream. Their gazes fought; icy cold against burning hot.

All Sunset could do was blink and look away. A cold, deeply familiar laugh followed, emanating from her double’s throat. “You and I may look the same, Sunset Shimmer, but we couldn’t be more different,” she hissed. Sunset found the cold hardness foreign in her own voice, though she knew she had once spoken like that. “Despite what you did and how you redeemed yourself, you replaced me. You don’t belong.”

The world broke under Sunset’s feet, and her body lurched downwards. Her gut rose to her throat as she let out a scream, falling endlessly. Her lookalike gazed down at her from above as she fell, smirking. Brilliant turquoise eyes burned into Sunset’s mind, stronger than her demon’s fire ever felt.

“We don’t belong.”

Sunset gasped harshly as she sat up from her bed. Sweat streaked down her face, her blankets in a bunch around her from thrashing. Limbs shook as she looked down at her arms, the routine performed mindlessly. No real cuts on her arms, no burns, no real damage. Yet her heart raced as if she had been injected with pure adrenaline. The beating resonated in her head, much too loud for the empty loft.

Shaken, she wobbly swung her legs off the side of her bed and hoisted herself to her feet. A palm rested on her forehead as she shook away the dizziness that often followed a nightmare. Sunset frowned, steadying herself. “But that one was different,” she mumbled.

Often, she could remember the nightmares much too vividly. They were always the same, every single time. She assumed it was the dark magic that once lived inside her; the one that spawned the she-demon in the first place. The one that turned her into a horrifying winged beast. Its punishment had to be to torment Sunset for everything she did, which would explain the image on the she-demon she saw most nights.

But she had never seen herself as a human, at least not like that. She’d never had her hair that short on purpose and she would certainly never speak like that; at least not usually. Frowning, she made her way down the steps to the bathroom. Her footsteps echoed as the full moon basked her apartment in its eerie light.

“This is ridiculous,” Sunset muttered as she splashed cold water on her face. Her skin was red-hot to the touch, a likely aftereffect from the nightmare. “I was never able to find out about the me from this world,” she mumbled. “I just thought I didn’t exist.”

Her skin shouted in agony at the splash of freezing cold water. It was like putting her hands in burning hot water after a long winter day outside; painful and tingly.

Almost fearfully, Sunset hesitated before moving her gaze up to the mirror. Her eyes slid shut automatically, and she gritted her teeth as she pried her eyelids open after a moment. Turquoise eyes slid up and gazed upon her reflection.

It was normal.

🔅🔅🔅

After a gruelling four hours of sleep, Sunset was much too ready to get out of school. Her physics class had gone painfully slowly, even with Twilight trying her best to make the detrimentally miserable Sunset smile. Prods to her shoulders and dorky notes on the edges of her paper did serve to force the corners of Sunset’s lips up, but the slight irrational fear of reflections that lasted the day following a bad dream only helped to push them back down. What was worse was that she couldn’t quite remember the dream other than the feeling of pure wrongness that prevailed into her waking life.

And when that bell rang, Sunset practically shot up, waved to Twilight, and ran out of the room. It was set to snow later on in the day, but in the meantime, Sunset sat on the seat of her motorbike, cold, chilly air nipping through her riding jacket. Amber hands gripped tightly on her handlebars, revving the engine as she sped down the road, though only her knuckles showed through the gloves. They weren’t the most cold-resistant, but they were better than nothing, she thought.

Rumbling lowly, the bike pulled to a stop at a red light. Sunset pulled her scarf down from her chin and exhaled. Warm breath baked a cloud of condensation as she let out the air slowly, letting the freezing temperatures cut at her skin. The contrast of the coldness of the air and the warmth of her scarf-covered face made her cringe, if only because she remembered washing away the dream.

Next to her, another bike pulled up. Sunset shot a quick glance over, but the rider had on a full-face helmet as opposed to her half. She shrugged and looked forward again, pulling up her scarf once more to try to preserve heat. As her bike growled and purred beneath her, a speck of white falling on her nose caught her attention. It fell on the light blue wool—a present from Rarity—and stayed, blurring in its closeness to her eyes. Sunset went cross-eyed looking at it, but the snowflake never came into full focus much to her disappointment.

The sports bike next to her revved, roaring loudly in the way only a sports bike could. Sunset shook her head and looked over once more, though the handler of that motorcycle did not even glance her way. Steel hard eyes locked onto the still-red light, and through the tinted visor, Sunset swore she could see hungry eyes, the type that she used to see every day in herself. A knot grew in her stomach. Something wasn’t right, but it didn’t exactly feel magical so much as it felt… wrong.

Swallowing doubt, Sunset subconsciously pulled on her riding goggles, adjusting the accessory on her cold-flushed face. The other biker sat confidently on the bike, their body perfectly adjusted to the build of the bike. Dark leather matched perfectly with the sleek black of the machine, though a red line cut through the middle, accenting the black with a touch of colour. Underneath the line, following it was a yellow one. It was quite impressive, though Sunset herself preferred a cruiser bike, especially after her old hybrid one had been wrecked during her… rampage.

She frowned and looked at her handlebars, giving them a quick rev, anticipating the turn of the lights. Just as Sunset looked up, green flashed, and she kicked up her foot and took off once more. The other biker went ahead, and from behind, Sunset could just barely make out the ends of short-cut red and gold hair.

Her heart skipped a beat as her grip loosened. Deja vu crashed down on her, though she couldn’t quite tell what it was that caused it. Powdery snow fell around her as the other biker sped away, red and gold mystery disappearing with them. Gaze set dead ahead, Sunset swallowed dryly as she absent-mindedly drove down the familiar streets of Canterlot.

🔅🔅🔅

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Sunset’s heart dropped. “What? Really? You think it’s some kind of… completely unrelated thing?”

Twilight, especially through the phone, put on her best detached science-y voice. “It’s not improbable to think that there are other people who share your same hair colour, Sunset,” she pointed out. Sunset could practically hear the glasses sliding up her nose. “And the feeling you got was probably just residual anxiety from your nightmare.”

“I don’t get anxious,” Sunset deflected, throwing herself on her bed. Blankets thwumped around her as she groaned and rolled onto her back. “I get answers, and I can tell there’s something fishy going on, Twilight. I could feel it.”

“You can’t just feel things,” Twilight interjected. “What else did you see?”

“Well, she had a motorbike! With my colours on it!” Sunset recalled. She could have sworn there was some kind of decal, but the only thing she could remember other than the gold and red was the snowflake that landed on her nose.

“So? Red and yellow are a great colour combination. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It obviously does! Come on Twi. Bad-ass looking biker chick with red and gold hair and a faraway, yet hardened look in her eyes?” She crossed her arms and stared at her ceiling. “Come on, that’s totally hot and absolutely me! I do all those things all the time!”

“And she didn’t once look at you?”

“No, not once. Deadset on the road ahead of her,” Sunset explained.

“And you didn’t see anything other than her hair? No skin tone or eye colour?”

Even though Twilight wasn’t physically there, Sunset found herself shaking her head. “Nothing. Visor’s tinted and she was all covered up thanks to the cold. I guess she was wearing a turtleneck or something, but I couldn’t see her neck or anything.” It was almost frustrating for some reason.

“Right, so what we’re going off here is… hair colour and… her bike?” Twilight hesitated, then added with a smirk prevalent in her voice, “Not much to go off of, is there?”

Twilight was right, Sunset knew it. But she also knew what she saw and what she felt. Frustrated, she grabbed a pillow and threw it onto her face, letting out a muffled shriek.

“Sunset?”

After a breath, Sunset sat up and put her phone to her ear. “Look, Twi, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I know she was me. I can feel it. I can’t quite explain it but I just know.”

“Okay,” Twilight said slowly. “Okay, I believe you. It can’t be that crazy, I guess. Princess Twilight is… well, me, and she said that everyone else has a pony counterpart in Equestria, so it would only make sense for you to have one too, right?” Giggling a bit, her tone entirely different, she hummed. “Well, I guess what I mean is that you’d have one here…”

Sunset nodded. She glanced at the window. It was fully dark out, though the streetlights gave way for some light to reflect off the gathering snow. Flakes drifted down, both onwards and down and hitting her window to disintegrate. “I kind of want to find her, Twi,” she admitted. “I need to see how bad I messed up.”

“Messed up? What do you mean, messed up?”

Chuckling dryly, Sunset rolled her eyes and sat up. On her wall rested an old mirror, sporting a huge crack down its middle. Her reflection split in two; one side was mostly normal, and the other further divided her face, cutting her hair short and scattered. She pursed her lips and locked her eyes on the mirror. “I’m... “

The image of a different her burned in her memory, though she could barely grasp it before it went away.

She winced. “I’m not supposed to be here, Twilight. But she is. Maybe I ruined her life!”

“You didn’t,” Twilight reassured.

“How do you know?” she pleaded. Her eyes drifted over the broken part of her reflection.

“Because she was still there, right?” Twilight offered. She paused for a moment and cleared her throat. “Look, I’m not sure how likely it is, but you shouldn’t worry about it. You said she had a bike, so she can’t be doing all bad, right?”

“I guess…”

“Exactly. Besides, I don’t think you’ll run into her again. You haven’t before, so why would you now?”

The snow dampened all outside noise, leaving Sunset in comfortable silence. She turned away from the mirror and smiled, once more admiring the snowfall. “You’re right. I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”