I was doing everything in my control not to break down in front of Sunset. She was already giving me this weird look as she led me into her apartment—flicking the lights on as she went—and I wasn't entirely sure what happened. I vaguely remembered seeing the five of them chasing after the former unicorn and following in their wake. Hell, I even recalled slipping in and ditching my bag by the door. Then it was just a haze that ended with me on the floor and the partial recollection of cold steel pressed against my forehead.

Internally, I was freaking out, because I was almost certain that I had lost time. Even just for a few minutes was too much. What was worse was that there was a part of me that almost felt smug about something. What that something could have been, I had no idea, and it seemed like asking Sunset would be a bad idea. No need to share with her the fact that I was concerned that someone else woke up and wrested control from me.

It was surprising just how large a space she had hidden away in this warehouse. The room was large, with a high ceiling and even a second floor above a quarter of the room. There was a living space with a sofa and television, a nook with a computer under the raised section, and a kitchenette. Off to one side, I could see a door that, funny enough, had one of those weird bathroom signs humans had everywhere.

She led me over to a stool at the counter in the kitchenette and sat me down before quickly ducking into the bathroom. When she returned, it was with a first aid kit clutched in her hands. "So, if you don't mind me asking," Sunset started as she opened the kit, "how long have you been in this world?"

I shrugged, put the whiteboard atop the counter, and began writing with my left hand. A little under a month and a half.

There was a sound of disbelief from my fellow former equine. "You're joking," Sunset said, peeling my hand away to peek at the wound. Very soon after, some tissues were against the wound. When I didn't start writing anything, she looked in my eyes and then groaned. "Oh Celestia, you're not joking." She held the tissues firmly against the gash, while with one hand she took something out of the kit. "Can you hold this tight for a few seconds?" Without complaint, I put pressure on it with the same hand as before. "Thanks."

She started peeling some adhesive off of something that looked like a really narrow adhesive bandage and then opened an alcohol swab. "You'd never know that just by looking at you," she commented. She tapped my hand away, and then wiped the area down, eliciting a wince from me. Sunset ignored it and then pinched the wound before applying the strip and then a second. "So how's a navy pony like you end up on Earth, and how did you adapt so quickly?"

I raised an eyebrow at her and wrote my opinion on that assertion. I was a pegasus. We're adaptable by nature. Pausing to let her read it, I collected my thoughts. As for how I died... I was the logistics pony on the airship I was serving aboard, and the only one with Aerial Resupply and Communication certs. Cap'n sent me out to resupply some Office of Naval Intelligence ponies that had been tracking a Tartarus escapee. Does Lord Tirek ring a bell?

Sunset let out a very pony sound of alarm and accidentally knocked something off of the counter as she took an instinctive step back. Her reaction and the wide-eyed terror was about what I expected. The dread centaur was a literal boogeyman for ponies of all stripe, but nopony was more disturbed by the legend than a unicorn; for them, their magic was practically a part of everything they did. Many pegasi could get by without flying, but if you took away a unicorn's magic, most of them wouldn't know how to adapt.

Wiping the board clean, I continued writing while she tried to hide her alarm. Yeah, that was about my reaction when I learned he was loose. I got up and walked over to the sink and began to rinse my hand. It took a moment for me to realise she had no ~~hoof~~ hand towels, at which point I just shook my hands free of water over the sink and then wiped them dry on the back of my shirt. When I returned, I quickly changed the topic. How about you? How'd you end up in this world? From my perspective, you just up and disappeared one day 'bout twelve years ago. It was all over the gossip rags when I was in basic.

A look of shame crossed her face—shame and guilt. Heaving a sigh, Sunset broke eye contact. "It's a long story," she murmured. "One that only highlights the fact that I'm a bad pony."

I glanced at the clock and shrugged. It'd still be a while before I had to get moving. I've got time.

"It's hardly an excuse for anything, but looking back, I kinda understand how I got the way I was," she commented. I didn't even need her to explain 'the way she was'. Although the gossip rags were all about the scandal of the princess' prized pupil simply disappearing—rumour had it there'd even been a break-in at the most restricted part of the castle reliquary—most of the nobility owned newspapers favoured this outcome. "I was abandoned on the doorstep of the royal orphanage when I was an infant. When my first magical surge set fire to the room, and they didn't have anypony powerful enough to suppress my magic with the usual forbearance spell, Princess Celestia came and quite literally took me under her wing."

So she never knew her dam either. She's an orphan like me.

There were tears in her eyes as she got up and retrieved a bottle of water from her fridge. "She became my Mom in every way except the one that mattered the most." Her voice took on a bitter tone as she sat back down and cracked open the bottle. "I became a spoiled brat desperate for the one thing I could never have: a mother's love. Then, when she went and adopted that no-account Cadenza as her niece, something inside me broke.

"'What did she have that I didn't?' and 'If she could do it and become an alicorn, why not me?' were just some of the questions I asked myself." She'd built up a decent fervour, and now it seemed like she was starting to ramble. "I didn't know that she was grooming me to face the return of Nightmare Moon, or that Princess Twilight's destiny could have been my own, so when she showed me Starswirl's Magic Mirror, and it gave me a vision of myself with wings, I became obsessed with becoming an alicorn."

So that's when you broke into the reliquary? I asked.

Sunset nodded and took in a shaky breath. "That night, I'd been caught in the library's restricted section, and while I'd found nothing to help me achieve my goal, I did find documentation on the mirror." Turning on her stool and reclining against the counter, she stared up at the ceiling. "It turned out that showing a pony's potential destiny was only a secondary function, and that it was a portal to another world—this world—and that it would be open that very night. The princess caught me, and we had an argument. I said things I immediately regretted, and threw a book at her. She ended my pupillage on the spot and basically told me to pack my shit and get out in the morning. I deluded myself into believing that if my destiny didn't lie in Equestria, it might lie here."

I nodded and then tapped the table to get her attention. And that's when you grabbed everything you could and ran through the portal, right? When she quietly confirmed it, I quickly wrote out my next thoughts. I'm going to hazard a guess that you spent the last few years just trying to survive whilst trying to create a base of power—such as it was—at your school, leading you to become the bully bitch queen of CHS?

With a sigh, she muttered, "Well, at least you didn't call me a demon." Crossing her arms, she regarded me with an even look. "After coming out through the portal in front of CHS, my first years in this world weren't easy. Creating fake documentation, converting bits to cash, buying out this warehouse, and just learning how to be human was a challenge. Being a homeless kid with no ID, I pretty much decided that I could only rely on myself. I wish I'd been shown another way sooner. It took me turning into a demon, and Princess Twilight Sparkle using the Element of Magic—which I stole and brought here—to smack me down with the Rainbow of Light, to show me how awful I'd been."

So... that opinion article was telling the truth. That would explain the October eighth magic event in the area of CHS that Twilight detected... Especially if her pony counterpart was involved. I'd guess by the way that Agent Shimmer never mentioned my foster sister that she has no idea there was a third Equestrian in the area. What would she even think if she found out that Sunset here stole a magical super weapon, luring a royal from a foreign world to American soil and presumably tried to kill said royal.

The bigger takeaway was that not only was Twilight investigating magic—not that she believed in it—but I had pointed her right to where the portal to Equestria was. Well, I suppose it's worth telling you that my foster sister, this world's Twilight Sparkle, detected both my first appearance in this world, as well as all the chaos at your school. If there's any other magical shenanigans going on there, try to keep a lid on it. I have no idea how sensitive her equipment is right now, but I know she's building something portable to start investigating. At this rate, your counterpart's agency is probably going to scout her.

Sunset stared at me in exasperation as she read my remark. "Lovely," she muttered. "It's bad enough the girls are exhibiting signs of lingering magic, but now you're telling me that I have to watch out for the princess's counterpart coming snooping?" I was somewhat curious what she meant by the girls and exhibiting signs of lingering magic, but I refrained from interrupting her. Placing her elbows upon the counter-top, she let her face fall into her palms. "At least now that I know that someone other than PONI is capable of detecting magic, I can make some preparations to limit further exposure. Sweet sunfire, am I glad that I chose a place with aluminium siding and roofing."

Hold on a minute, you weren't even sure whether you'd ever be able to use magic in this world, but you still chose to buy a place lined with the best magic insulator? The worst part of it was that from an Equestrian standpoint, she was effectively living inside the world's most expensive magical Faraday cage. Aluminium was so rare back home that I personally only knew of one scrying-proofed room in all of Equestria, and it was inside Canterlot Castle; meanwhile, humans developed a means to mass produce it.

"Is there anything else you want to drop on me while you're here?" she asked, seemingly dreading the answer.

I just smiled and began writing. According to Agent Shimmer, who only even came to personally check in on the magical goings-on in the city because my finger prints were flagged in the system, you and I may very well be half-sisters. Apparently, this world's Eventide went missing a decade ago, so of course she was interested in me.

It's just too bad that she wasn't drinking from her water right then. Right about now, the idea of her doing a spit-take was kinda funny. Regardless, the look on her face was really funny. Even as her jaw dropped, I found myself falling into a silent giggle-fit. At least I remembered to make it clear I was laughing.

"Well, I suppose I kinda see the resem—" All of a sudden, a look of realisation crossed Sunset's face, and she stopped speaking. Giving me a grumpy look, she slammed her palms onto the counter top and stood to loom over me. "Wait a minute! You're the one that made AJ and Rainbow think I was homeless!" She brought a hand up to her forehead and groaned. "I suppose since we only saw each other the one time before, and you were hanging out with Boss and Violette, I can't exactly blame you."

Given that the two she mentioned seemed to know Sunset and implied she was a common face at the soup kitchen, I was actually sorta surprised that she wasn't homeless. This place has water, electricity, and presumably heating, I thought as I looked around the apartment, so why's she using the soup kitchen if she can afford to buy out a factory and occasionally shop at a bodega?

The answer, at that moment, was that it wasn't any of my business. Even if it turned out to be true that we were sisters, for the time being we were little more than countrymen considering a mutually beneficial arrangement. It wasn't my place to ask her about her financial situation, especially when I basically stumbled into such a good situation whilst she had to make her own home here.

Instead, I needed to say something. Sorry. They asked me if I had a sister matching your description. They didn't seem hostile, so I took a gamble given the way they were asking, and told them I saw you hanging around the industrial neighbourhood near Central Park. Didn't tell them any more than that. I figured if they at all cared about you, then they might want to help. Okay, that wasn't entirely true; I did mention it was near a soup kitchen but... it's not like I told them she was using it.

I half expected that reasoning to make her angry, but to my surprise, she got up off her stool and came around the counter. Instead of accosting me, however, she hugged me. "Thank you," she whispered. "Most of my nest egg is tied up in this place, my part-time job can only go so far with groceries, and sometimes it's the choice between being able to buy lunch at school, or having dinner. Since they figured my situation out, Applejack and the others have been more empathetic, and have been helping ease the burden with baked goods and other kinds of help."

I blinked at the mention of buying lunch at the school. At CPA we don't have to pay anything at the food counter, so why... Oh. A public school probably has to charge. That thought drove my attention back to the event that led me here, as she let me go and stepped away. About those five that stalked you here... They were students at your school, right? What are you going to do about them? Unconsciously, I brought my hand up to rub at my head wound. What happened back there is kind of hazy, but when I get home, my foster Mom's probably going to get my foster Brother involved, since he's a detective with the CCPD. If there really was a gun, I don't think you should stay silent, either.

Since Sunset didn't want to just send me out on my own with a potential concussion, we ended up having to have an awkward phone conversation with Mrs. Velvet. Well, I say awkward, but most of it was just because it was done entirely on speakerphone, with Sunset relaying what I wrote. The general gist of the conversation was sunset telling her how I played the good Samaritan—whatever that means—and got hurt doing so, followed by Velvet saying how she couldn't come get me right away, since she was currently at CPA. We never directly mentioned the gun, I did recall that much now, although I decided I would probably need to bring it up to Shining Armour later. This resulted in Velvet saying she'd have Shining come get me.

When Shining showed up, and Sunset explained to him what happened, he made her promise to file a police report about the incident, and suggested she speak to her principal, since it was clear that the involved parties after her were her peers. While Shining put my bag and the whiteboard in the storage of his motorcycle, the former unicorn popped back into her home and came out holding what looked to be a small flip phone and charging cable. As she put it, it was an old pay-as-you-go phone she had, and wanted me to take it, so that we could keep in contact in case anything else magical happened. I was a bit disbelieving that she'd give the mute girl a phone, right up until she showed me how to send a text message, which she sent to her own phone.

He of course noticed the exchange, and Sunset passed it off as simply giving her thanks for coming to her aid, and wanting to keep in touch. I didn't doubt that Shining saw the resemblance between the two of us, but he made no comment in relation to it. Neither of us knew for sure it was even the case; just because Agent Shimmer and the Eventide Cantata of this world were related, it didn't mean we were guaranteed to have the same parents. He just helped me onto the bike after I put the helmet on, and then took off down the road.

Unlike the last time I rode on Shining's bike, I didn't fall asleep. Probably a good thing if I had a concussion, but that's beside the point. It was a good opportunity for me to enjoy the speed that I normally associated with flying by my own power, as well as consider what I was going to tell Shining. Even if he hadn't said anything, I knew that Shining Armour was planning on grilling me when we got back, and unlike Velvet, he probably wasn't about to leave it without getting more details. Knowing him, he'd probably recognise the sort of wound being struck with the butt of a firearm would leave.

There was also the matter of my little black-out. Bits and pieces were coming back to me, like the fact that I'd had a gun pressed against my head. At the same time, though, I don't recall any fear; there was the lingering sense of amusement and challenge, but no fear whatsoever. Unlike those times where I wasn't feeling like myself, there wasn't any sort of sense of sadistic glee. Did that mean I had two possible alters manifesting? Or was this one simply aggression personified?

It was too early to tell. Although I could feel someone beginning to take form in the darkness beyond my consciousness, they weren't realised enough to open internal dialogue with. I think that the only reason I lost control was because I knew it was a bad idea, but wanting to protect Sunset and the related aggression won out. I just hoped that whoever they ended up being, they wouldn't cause problems for our foster family.

When we finally pulled into the driveway, he held onto most of my stuff, save for the whiteboard. Instead, he led me into the house, and then the living room before sitting me down. He had out a little scratch pad that I imagined he used while at work as he asked, "So, Mom was kind of sparse on the details, and I've been in this business to know that Sunset girl was leaving something very important out when she recounted what happened. Can you tell me more about how you got that?" He tapped the spot on his forehead roughly where my own wound was located.

Popping the cap off the marker, I got to work writing. Firstly, I wanna preface by saying I kinda blacked out before whatever fight occurred, so I'm not entirely certain what all happened, but the cut on my head is from being smacked with the butt of a revolver. Couldn't tell you the calibre or model, but that it apparently belonged to that Lightning girl's father.

Shining sighed and shook his head. "I was afraid that's what you were going to say," he muttered, scratching his temple with his pen. When he found out about the DID, he was particularly cautious, but didn't immediately become hostile. If anything it only seemed to encourage him to watch out for me more. "Kid, I'm not saying this to be mean, but you really shouldn't have been there. This wasn't like going to the shops in a heavily travelled area; if you had gotten seriously hurt, nobody would have known where you were. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you were there for your new friend, but it could just as easily have resulted in the two of you getting killed."

I nodded solemnly and wiped the board down before writing out my response. On principle, I agree. It was four on one—five on two if you wanna get technical—and I'm not entirely sure what whoever was in the driver's seat did to scare off the three boys. I considered not mentioning it for a moment, but decided it'd be better to be fully honest. Apparently, they were crazy enough to intimidate the more rational of the two into talking down the one with the gun, though. Sunset said that I practically pressed my forehead against the gun and was daring her to shoot me. Still dunno what to think about that.

He frowned for a moment. "I heard about the gun-toting gang-banger you beat up the day you met Cady," he remarked. "It's twice in only the span of a month that you've had encounters with firearms, and from what I've heard from Twily before she started... whatever this whole thing in the garage is, you've taken an interest in them. I have half a mind to take you down to the range some time to teach you about firearm safety and give you some advice in the event you encounter another out in the wild."

When I perked up at the offer, he laughed. That sounds like fun. I started writing out something else, but had to whistle to catch his attention, since he was about to get up. Thanks for not freaking out about this whole thing. Mrs. Velvet would probably have taken me straight to the hospital, and that's... kind of intimidating to be honest. I've never had a big brother before, but... I'm glad you're here.

Shining smirked, walking over and ruffling my hair. He looked like he was about to say something, but then Twilight strode into the living room with a can of soda. She once again had a smudge of some sort of grease on her face, in addition to some soot, and some of her hair looked frazzled. Her lab coat had a scorch mark, but what really stood out was the device hanging around her neck. It almost looked like some sort of oversized locket.

Taking the seat Shining just vacated, she held the unopened can to her temple and groaned. It took her a moment to even realise the two of us were there. "Oh hey, guys," she murmured, looking from Shining, to me, the whiteboard, and then the wound on my forehead. "What happened to you?"

I just smirked and started writing a new message. Nearly got shot, smacked with a gun instead. HBU? Bomb go off in your workshop?

Author's Note

After this chapter, there'll be a bit of a hiatus; I've gotten one of those runaway plot bunnies I've just gotta chase, and have ended up starting a non-pony fanfic. If you like Kamen Rider stuff, keep an eye out for Kamen Rider Uniba (derived from Universe / Unibāsu / ユニバース) on AO3. Edit: Goddamn it, never mind; a completely different plotbunny stole my attention from that.

This chapter kind of lost steam shortly before the chapter break. Sorry if the quality isn't up to the level of previous chapters.

Will Evie's new head-friend end up female-presenting like she is, or is she gonna end up with a little brother?