FIVE WEEKS AGO
“Yeah, we’ll do so as soon as we can. Don’t worry, Evening, we’ll take care of it. You know we’ll take care of her…even if it means that we’re going to have to replace all the stuff in her room…yes, she even broke those. Yeah, we’re worried too. I’ll keep you guys updated.” Night hung up the phone and looked at his wife, who was lying down in bed. “Evening and Ballad want us to take her to see a psychiatrist as soon as we can – actually, they beat me to the punch in suggesting it.”
“I’ll call both Zecora and Posey in the morning and see if there’s anyone they can recommend,” Velvet mourned. “I hate this. I hate seeing our girls like this, Night, at each other’s throats. It’s that damn drug – it hurt Twily, and now it’s hurting Tavi!”
“We don’t know that, Vel,” he said, moving next to his wife. “Maybe it’s something else. We won’t know until we take her in.”
“You didn’t see, Night. The look in her eyes – it was like she wasn’t our Tavi anymore.” The look on Velvet’s face was heartbroken. “It wasn’t our niece, Night…I think she would have murdered Sunny if she had the chance!” She turned away from him. “I can’t bear to see another one of our girls go through this again.”
He reached over and embraced her. “We’ll get her the help she needs. Evening and Ballad are counting on us, and I would do it even if they weren’t.”
There was a knock on the door. “Mr. Night? Mrs. Velvet?” The door opened slowly, revealing Trixie. “I just thought you’d want to know: Sunset’s up.”
Velvet, despite her pain, leapt off the bed and raced for the door in a flash. She nearly made it to Sunset’s room when she stumbled, only to be caught by Minuette.
“She’s fine, Mrs. V,” Minuette explained. “We’re giving her some space to eat and talk to the others. But I think our bigger problem’s in the other room. How are you feeling?”
“Truthfully? I don’t know what hurts more right now: my stomach or my heart.” Velvet looked down the hall that had led towards the addition of the house had been built. Sitting outside a door and looking very uncomfortable, was Rainbow. “Where are the others?”
“Inside with Octavia,” Rainbow yawned. “It’s literally taking every one of the martial artists we have in this house right now to keep Tavi pinned down. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but it’s like Tavi’s got the strength of like, four people or something. I’ve never seen anything like it. She actually landed a hit on Dagi!”
“And why are you there?” Velvet looked to see Night standing next to her, looking at the teen. He already knew the answer, and though he said nothing, the very idea worried him.
“Not gonna let her go anywhere near you or Sunny. Tavi’s one of us, but between you and me, that…whatever…that’s in there? That’s not Tavi. Not the one we know.”
“Well, I need to go in there to talk to her,” Night said. “I trust that my niece won’t hurt me.”
“Frankly, right now I don’t, but you’re the one in charge here,” Rainbow said, standing up and moving from the door.
“Dad!” Fluttershy shouted from her room.
“It’s too early in the morning for this, hon,” Posey said, trying not to fall asleep in her coffee. “What did you do?”
In the kitchen making omelets, Discord had the very look of innocence on his face. Which, of course, meant that everyone knew he was guilty as hell. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Hon?” Posey said simply, and in that simple syllable contained the multitudes of every raised eyebrow, every huffed statement and every angry glare. This was clearly a married woman who knew her husband all too well.
And he knew it too. “Okay, okay, look, I just want to try to make up for not being there all those times, okay?”
“It’s not a contest, Dee,” his wife reminded him.
“You’re right, it’s not,” he said in a tone that sounded hurt. “I just want to make it up to her, okay?”
“I don’t know what you did, but you’ll want to explain it soon.”
At that point, Fluttershy came out of her room with her bags in tow, the look on her face somewhere between hurt, testy and worried. “Dad, I’m sure you had a very good reason for doing it, but could you please tell me why you cancelled our plans to go to Modesto?”
Discord gave his daughter a bemused smile. “Because it’s nothing but farmland?”
Fluttershy crossed her arms. “Except for the camping area and the cabin we took forever to find.”
He sidled over to her and put a loving arm around her shoulders. “Fluttershy, dear, don’t you think that I would’ve made sure my darling daughter and her stalwart friends had the time of their lives?” With a sleight of hand that would’ve made a magician – or at least a particular teenage one Fluttershy knew – jealous, he produced an ivory-colored folder with gold embossing on it. “You might just prefer this instead.”
Fluttershy took it and looked at it. “Club Tropicana?”
Posey woke up slightly at that. “The one in Harmony?”
“I would’ve set them up at the one in Jamaica, but I didn’t know if the others had passports,” he said with a shrug.
Posey walked over to the coffeemaker, a slight smile on her face. “You old charmer,” she said fondly to her husband.
He winked. “Aren’t I, though?”
As for Fluttershy, she opened the folder and looked at the documents within. “Dad, this is—”
“One of the best resorts in the world – exclusive luxury beachfront villas, complete with a private beach, golf course and reservations desk service. So premier, in fact, the waiting list is a year in advance – and that’s if you’re a celebrity; the merely wealthy have to wait even longer. You’ve got two weeks to enjoy everything there is there, as well as the town of Harmony itself and nearby Cambria and Morro Bay. You’ll love the place.”
“You will,” Posey said, moving to where her husband was. “Your father took me there before we were married. It’s a gorgeous place.”
A look of amazement crossed the teen’s face followed by realization that there was no way she could afford this, much less her friends. “Are you sure?”
He waved it off. “Just put it on the card. In fact, you can pretty much put everything you all need on that card. Heaven knows American Express charges me a fortune for it anyway.”
“Sis?”
Sunset was jolted out of her thoughts from that one word. She looked up at the flames to make sure she hadn’t slipped into a dream. The flames themselves were almost out and more of the glowing embers from charred wood, as small tendrils of smoke escaped into the sky. But the smoke was clear enough that Sunset could see across to the other side of the concrete ring, and on that other side, was a plum-haired girl with locks of magenta and violet, looking right at her.
Sunset said nothing. She wasn’t sure what she could say anymore.
Twilight looked at her. “I really don’t know what to think anymore, I really don’t. So I’m going to say what’s on my mind – and I don’t want you to say a single thing. I just want you to listen.” Sunset merely nodded, waiting for Twilight to continue. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and the others – and I don’t care. What I care about is our relationship. You’re supposed to be my sister. You’re supposed to be there for me when I need you…and I’m supposed to be there for you when you need me.
“Tavi and Dagi think you’re running from something, something so bad that it makes you refuse to talk about your past, because you’re so frightened that you refuse to even accept that it exists, much less tell us. And I have to wonder: are you in danger? Are we? Are you putting us in danger?” Sunset gazed up at Twilight, a horrified look on her face. She was about to say something when Twilight said, “Don’t. Talk.”
Twilight moved over next to Sunset and sat down. “This is the part I hate most about you, Sunset Shimmer. You’re supposed to be my sister. Sisters rely on each other. Our cousins and I have been there for each other through thick and thin, you know that. And we’ve fought before – usually my fault, because I’m probably not the most mature person on the planet when it comes to my emotions. And you and I should be the same way.
“You saved my life – literally, and nearly at the cost of yours. And now there’s something you’re afraid of, but you’re not turning to the family that loves you, that’s there for you.” Twilight got back up and dusted off her shorts. “I have to wonder: should we be afraid as well? And if the girl who was brave enough to throw herself in front of a speeding truck in order to save my life is afraid of something? We should probably be afraid, too.”
Twilight took a step away from Sunset, her back to the flame-haired girl. “Please, if I’m wrong, tell me. If you love this family enough to protect it from whatever you’re afraid of, then you’ll say something. Because I have a family that I love, and that I have to protect as well.”
Sunset looked at her sister. “Twily, I—”
A gasp sounded, and both Sunset and Twilight turned around to see…Sunset Shimmer. She was with, surprisingly, Coco Pommel, of all people.
“Twily?” Coco gasped, looking at her soon-to-be school mentor and the taller Sunset Shimmer.
“Coco, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked.
“My aunt and cousin were in town for my grandmama’s funeral,” Coco explained, “and then she decided that we needed a few days of relaxation, so she brought us here. What are you doing here?”
“Spending time with my sister, my cousins and my friends.”
But to their surprise, it was the two Sunsets that looked at each other with fascination. The taller one spoke first. “Wow,” Sunset said, scratching the back of her head in surprise, knowing full well who she was face to face with. “I guess it’s true what they say: that there’s someone on the planet that looks exactly like you.”
“Yeah, color me surprised.” The shorter flame-haired girl smiled and offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Sunset Shimmer.”
Twilight’s jaw practically dropped. “What did you say your name was?”
“It’s Sunset Shimmer, though I usually go by Shimmy, why?”
Twilight pointed at the girl next to her. “Because she’s Sunset Shimmer!” Twilight looked at her sister with sudden fear.
“Twily, I-I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this….” Sunset stammered, only to see her sister start backing away in terror.
Thankfully, she was stopped as she almost collided with Pinkie. “Hey, Twily, be careful where you’re walking! Almost ran into me.” It was then that Pinkie saw both Sunsets and gasped. “Oh my God – I think I’m going to have some awesome dreams tonight!”
Sunset sighed. “Pinkie….”
“No, you can’t stop me from dreaming, Sunny! And this is definitely hitting all my buttons!” she grinned sultrily.
Sunset looked at her doppelganger. “Look, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why we look alike and are both named Sunset Shimmer.”
“There is,” Shimmer said with surprise, “but if it’s true…you’re a ghost.”
“And that’s all you can tell us?” the FBI agent asked. It was two days later, and they were back in Canterlot, awaiting the testing.
“That’s all I really remember,” Sunset said. “Ms. Faustus just departed one day and I ran away. It started snowing heavily that night and I don’t recall much else, other than I ultimately ended up at the old Flim-Flam Bros. factory. She’d taught me to be independent and resilient, and as I told Shining, I found some old seed money there, as well as the drugs I’d thrown away.”
“I can’t believe it,” Solaire said, her eyes moist with tears. “All these years, we thought you’d been stillborn – we didn’t even check the coffin when they brought it to us, because we believed what we were told. But it was a lie.”
“Soli….” Velvet began.
“No. It is not your fault.” Solaire’s eyes blazed with anger. “It is the fault of the nurse that stole my child from me and made my family live a lie.”
It was then that another FBI agent showed up. “Hey, I just went through their records,” he said to Shining. “It checks out: there was a nurse named Faustus that briefly worked here around the time that Ms. D’ Celestia gave birth and quit the week afterwards. She worked in natal care, so there’s a motive.”
“That’s assuming this isn’t all just one big coincidence,” Shimmer said.
“No. I know it is not. I know my child when I see her, mon tournesol,” Solaire told her daughter. “She is taller than you, but…a mother knows her child.”
At this point, Posey came in, an ashen look on her face. “Vel? Sunset – well, the one we know – has a 99% match to both this other one and Ms. D’ Celestia. She is the missing child.”
“I have a twin sister.” Shimmer looked at Sunset, the surprise still setting in. “I have a twin sister, one that was supposed to be dead – but here you are!”
“Well, this has been a summer,” Shining said. “First we have that freak hurricane, then we have those Dead Hand Murders that loosely tied to the Canadian government, and now I find out my newest sister has supposedly been dead all these years.”
Sunset looked around at Shimmer and Solaire, then to her family; Twilight instantly wrapped possessive arms around her while Octavia and the triplets subconsciously moved closer to Sunset, as if Solaire would abscond with her at any moment. “What happens to me now?” she asked in a choked voice.
“I believe we need to talk,” Solaire told Velvet and Night. “I know you love her and she is a part of your family. And I don’t want to break that up for you – it would be just as horrific as what was done to me all those years ago.”
“I agree,” Velvet said wholeheartedly.
“I’m not letting her go,” Twilight insisted, taking one of Sunset’s hands and holding tight. “She’s my sister.”
“Our sister,” Octavia said, grabbing her other arm, while the triplets placed their hands on Sunset’s shoulders.
“I guess that was decided already, wasn’t it?” Shimmer said, laughing.
“Yeah,” Sunset said, feeling a little overcome by emotion. “It was.”