Sunset was frozen from shock. Here she was, standing beside Celestia, expecting her enemy to be dead or dying. Instead, Twilight had just burst through the doors into the throne room, so consumed by rage that she didn’t seem to give a damn about her countless open wounds and the fact that she was bleeding all over. Twilight set her glare squarely on Sunset, who did her best to look away from fear. The scene was silent for several moments, until Celestia let out a scream.
So full of horror that her royal composure shattered, she sprinted to Twilight to gaze at her wounds. “Twilight, what happened?” Her elegant, motherly voice was gone, replaced by the whimper of a weaker pony.
Shit, shit, shit, it’s all over for me. Sunset began to tremble, even more than Celestia did. Once Twilight tells Celestia the truth, I’m finished. I’ll be lucky if they send me to the dungeons. I knew I should’ve just killed Twi myself… Why am I so weak? If I had just mustered up the guts to go for the most efficient path… No, it’s too late for that now. The only thing I can do now is plan my escape. The throne room windows, yeah, I can use them. I can probably hide in some faraway place, or maybe go through that mirror portal Celestia was talking about a few months ago.
Accepting that she’d lost, and that there was nopony to blame other than herself, she quickly turned to the nearest window, prepared to sprint to it and jump out. But before she could do so, Twilight said, “I got lost in the dungeons. It was my fault.”
Sunset slowly turned to Twilight, after which she froze again.
“There were creatures there… but like I said, I take full responsibility for being there in the first place. I g-guess…” Twilight coughed up a horrifying amount of blood. “I guess my curiosity got the best of me. I’m sorry, Princess.”
Celestia needed a moment to take in the news. “There is no need to apologize, my student. It is my fault for simply sealing that section off, instead of removing the creatures in question. Please, hurry with me to the hospital at once.”
“I will,” Twilight said, turning her attention to Sunset. “But first, allow me to calm Sunset. I know how much she must be worrying about me.”
Keeping her eyes focused on Sunset, Twilight walked to the trembling filly. “Hello, Sunset. Are you okay?”
Sunset did her best to repress her trembling and force a smile. There was no way she could show fear to her enemy. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You really should hurry to the hospital, though.”
Twilight returned Sunset’s smile with her own. “Of course.” Her smile wider than ever, she whispered, “I win, huh?”
As Twilight turned to the door and walked to the princess, Celestia’s horrified expression melted away into a smile. “I’m so proud of you two for bonding the way that you have,” the princess said. “It brings me back to my days when my sister was still with me.”
Twi paused for a moment. “You have a sister?”
The question caused Celestia to hang her head. “That is a story for another time. Quickly, now. To the hospital.”
As Celestia and Twilight left the throne room, Sunset was left alone with her thoughts. The only reason Twi wouldn’t immediately tell the truth was if she’s planning revenge. A revenge even sweeter than seeing me locked in the dungeons or banished to the wilderness for the rest of my life. The thought of having to suffer Twilight’s vengeance caused Sunset to shudder, and she was quickly reduced to a trembling excuse for a pony. As her confident facade faded away, she began to ponder Celestia’s words about her sister. She couldn’t deny that she’d always wanted a sister, since it’d mean having somepony she didn’t constantly need to prove herself to. It’d mean having a real friend, somepony she could be completely open and genuine with.
Twilight would’ve been the perfect sister, she thought. But it was too late to think about such fantasies. Sunset had dug her grave, and now she had to live in it. She had two choices. One, accept Twilight’s revenge and wait. Or two, kill Twilight as quickly as possible. Both paths led to Sunset’s death. In the first, it’d be by Twi’s hooves. In the second, it’s by Celestia’s.
No, I can’t give up, no matter how hard winning is. I’ve come this far, and it’s only a little bit farther until the throne is all mine. All I have to do is get rid of Twi and cover up my tracks so nopony realizes that it was me. But can I really kill her with my own hooves?
No, I have no choice. Even if it means that I can never forgive myself… The throne is too important to worry about something as puny as my conscience. I’ll kill her, cover my tracks, and continue being Celestia’s star pupil. And then one day, I’ll replace the princess. And when that happens, the first thing I’ll do is arrive home in a chariot, just to brag to my mom’s face how wrong she was about me.
After casting aside her useless morality, Sunset waited a half-hour or so and then walked to the palace hospital. Celestia was nowhere to be seen in it, and aside from the few doctors and nurses, the only ponies inside were a couple of Royal Guards who were being treated for training injuries. Perfect. After drinking what little of the invisibility potion she had left--which she’d kept hidden in a compartment cut into her bedroom wall--she became fully transparent. She used her invisibility to creep through the hospital and checked each of the rooms until she found Twilight’s. Her enemy was lying asleep on a hospital bed, sedated from the medicine being infused into her hoof. Her many wounds had been bandaged, and her bleeding was all but gone. She was on the road to recovery, one Sunset would make sure she’d never reach.
Grinning with bloodlust, Sunset scanned the room for any security devices. She couldn’t spot any, but just in case, she powered up her horn and shot out a burst of magic to short-circuit any devices that could be inside. Now all that was left was grabbing Twilight’s throat with her magic and choking the life out of her. She wasn’t going to take any chances this time. She was going to grab hold of Twi’s windpipe and crush it. She had an insurance policy too. If Sunset failed, or had to quickly escape before Twi was dead, an assassin would finish the job for her. Whether by Sunset’s hooves or this assassin’s, Twilight was going to die, and there nothing sweeter than that.
After a deep breath to prepare herself, Sunset crept toward Twi’s sedated body, ready to bloody her hooves forever. When she made it to the hospital bed, she took a moment to take in the sight of her rival. I’m sorry, Twi. Maybe in the next life… we can be sisters. I’d like that.
She powered up her horn, casting a magical hold around Twi’s neck. Using her magic, she could feel Twi’s soft skin and her pulsating carotid arteries. The only step left for Sunset was to put Twi out of her misery, and to forever enter her own.
With all of her magical might, Sunset squeezed. Except when she did, the hospital vanished, replaced by the throne room. She was now standing in the throne room, in the same spot she had been when formulating her plan only a half-hour ago.
Did I teleport myself here somehow? No, it can’t be that. I’m nowhere near that spell yet. But if I’m here, then does that mean…? No, there’s no way that everything in the hospital had been a hallucination. But for some reason, my mind is telling me that it was.
Her heart pounding, Sunset sprinted out of the throne room. There, she saw Celestia and Twilight walking away, in the direction of the hospital. They’re still walking to it. But that means it all was a hallucination. But there’s no way. Am I really that panicked that I imagined all that?
As Twilight continued walking away, she took a moment to glance back at Sunset. She gave her fellow student a grin, one that made Sunset shudder.
As soon as she’s sedated, I’m ending her with my hooves this time. None of that magic shit.
Needing to wait a half-hour again--for real this time--she decided to go to her room so she could relax on her bed. Except when she got to her bed, her room was… different. For one, the many framed pictures of herself on the wall didn’t have crowns and royal ornaments glued to them anymore. Also, her face on some of them was scribbled out with what looked like a red crayon. In other pictures, her eyes were replaced by large red Xs. And in other pictures, there was a thick red line drawn over her throat.
The sight of all this caused Sunset to shiver and she used her magic to throw all the pictures to the floor and shatter them. I don’t know whose idea of a joke this is, but they’re dead too. I bet it was Twilight. Probably went to my room before going into the throne room.
The other change Sunset noticed was that the map of Equestria on the ceiling had a giant red X on it, on the exact location where her hometown was. The thought of ever returning to her hometown before she was a princess--the thought of even being reminded of it--caused her to let out a loud growl. She fired a magical attack at the X, turning it into a burning, black mark.
Two can play at this game, sister.
Sunset left her room and began walking to Twilight’s room. But when she opened the door to her rival’s home, it wasn’t Twilight’s room that stood on the other end. Instead, it was her own room.
Sunset froze, beginning to tremble. I’m not going crazy. I’m not!
But no matter how many times she repeated that to herself, the fact that it was her room she was walking into was inescapable. She glanced behind her to see if she’d accidently gone in a circle. There’s no way this is the hallway to my room. A moment ago, that was the hall to Twilight’s room. It was. I know it was. Either my stress is finally getting to me, or….
That bitch. She did something to me. How dare she mess with my head.
Glaring, Sunset stormed to the hospital, fully visible.
“Hello there, Sunset,” one of the nurses said, only for Sunset to angrily push her aside.
Sunset stomped her way to the hospital room she’d gone to in her hallucination. Except when she arrived there, Twilight was nowhere to be seen, and the patient identifier on the door said Sunset Shimmer.
“Hi there, Sunset,” a nearby doctor said. “Sorry, but I am afraid we can’t let you leave your room yet.”
“My room?”
“Please, it’s not safe.” The doctor put his hoof over Sunset’s shoulder and guided her toward the bed. “The nurses will check on you soon.”
Sunset stood frozen beside the bed. I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy.
A nurse walked by the door, but stopped when she saw Sunset. “Heya there, dear. Please return to your bed. It’s not safe for you to leave yet.”
“I’m not crazy!” Sunset yelled.
“I’m sorry?” The nurse was taken aback in confusion.
Growling with frustration, Sunset powered up her horn and magically grabbed the nurse. She then threw her to the wall, knocking her out from the impact. This caused a dozen nurses to rush into the room, where they physically restrained Sunset. “I’m not crazy! Why are you doing this to me?!”
Sunset struggled as hard as she could, but she was powerless to stop them from putting her on the bed. That was when she saw her. Twilight was standing at the door, looking on with a smile as the medical workers forced Sunset’s body onto the bed. “I’ll kill you! You hear me? You think you can take everything away from me just because you’re so special? I’ll kill you, and everypony like you!”
“Quickly, the sedatives,” one of the nurses said.
Sunset winced as the nurses punctured her skin with an intravenous needle. As the medication entered her bloodstream and began to take effect, she fought the sedation, but it was only a matter of seconds before the world began to spin around her. She lost consciousness, and her world was replaced by blackness.
As the darkness consumed Sunset, she began to hear a voice, one that made her want to shake with both rage and fear.
“So, I win, huh?” Twilight said.
As Sunset’s mind struggled to make sense of the situation, she reawoke. When her eyes reopened, the world was still blurry and spinning, but she could tell that she was no longer in the hospital room. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she was, only that it looked like a house, and that it was familiar for some reason.
Yes, she was surely inside of a wooden house. But whose? There weren’t any houses in Canterlot this small, nor any that looked like the inside of a cabin, like this one did. Based on the blizzard clearly visible from the building’s windows, she was somewhere far from the city, and yet, someplace familiar.
Someplace, like home.
Her heart pounding against her chest, Sunset regained full consciousness from a burst of adrenaline. She sat up with a gasp, trembling more than she ever had. She was in her childhood home, sitting in her living room. On the other end of the room, sitting on a couch, was her mother.
“Where are you?” Sunset shouted into the air, her fear transformed into blinding rage. “If you want to fight, then let’s do it.”
But as quickly as Sunset’s anger had come, it vanished from what she heard next.
“I was right about you,” her mother said, in that same disappointed tone she always spoke in.
The sound of her mother’s voice melted away Sunset’s anger, her facade of strength, and any meager amount of genuine confidence she had built during the past years. Just hearing her mom’s voice made Sunset tremble like the scared, weak filly she used to be. She had promised herself long ago that the next time she’d see her mother would be when she became a princess, when she was in a position where she could shove her success down her mom’s throat until she choked on it. The fact that she was in her mother’s presence right now--before she was worthy enough to show her face again--reminded her of just how much of a failure she still was.
“Why do you keep trying?” her mother said, her voice dripping with disgust. She glared at her daughter, as if her very existence was a mistake.
Sunset hung her head as she asked herself that very same question.
“Why not accept yourself as you are? A failure. My failure.”
Hearing that word--failure--and from her mother’s mouth made Sunset erupt with rage. “Never!” She turned her attention to the ceiling, as if to yell at the sky. “If revenge is what you want, then just kill me, Twilight. Stop being a coward and just end it. I’ll be gone forever, and you’ll have Celestia and the throne all to yourself. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Then just do it. An eye for an eye.”
“No,” Twilight’s voice erupted from above. “This will never end, not for you, at least. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Alicorn Amulet?”
Sunset froze, trying her best to remember hearing of such a thing.
“Thought not. You never did seem like the type to take your studies seriously. Even before being accepted as Celestia’s student, I did my fair share of reading, and one of my favorite topics was Equestrian history. And let me just say that our history has quite the number of powerful artifacts.”
“Get to the point, you insufferable know-it-all!”
“You will be trapped in a nightmare of your own creation. And if you ever manage to break out of it, you will simply end up in a deeper nightmare. This cycle will continue until days turn to years, and years turn to lifetimes. I would say that I want you to break, but I know you’re already broken. What I want is for you to hate yourself, so much that the fire inside you is extinguished forever.”
“And then what? You get to become princess and have all the glory to yourself?”
“Nope. I’ll explicitly tell Princess Celestia that I do not wish to become royalty in the future. She and I will develop a plan for myself that goes beyond such limiting constraints.”
Sunset let out the most vicious growl she could. “You think this makes you better than me, you gifted brat?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Sunset was taken aback.
“What makes me better is that I’m not a coward.”
“How dare you! Do you have any idea what it’s like to run away from home before you even have a cutie mark, sleep in caves for months, beg for bits, and go on not knowing if you’ll get to eat tomorrow? You upper-class brat. You came from privilege, were born to be so great and special, and got love from Celestia that it took me years to earn. And you call me a coward?”
Sunset waited for Twilight to respond, but her voice never returned.
“She’s right, you know,” Sunset’s mom said, causing her daughter to turn her way. “You’re a coward. If you weren’t, you would’ve killed yourself. Instead, you keep the pain going, just so you can delay your suicide another day longer.”
With a glare, Sunset powered up her horn. “I’ll show you who’s a coward.” She magically grabbed her mother’s throat and began to crush it with every fiber of her being. Her mother tried her best to let out a scream, but she couldn’t due to the magical hold shattering her windpipe and constricting her carotid arteries. Sunset grew a grin, one that stretched from cheek to cheek, as her mother’s face became blue. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited, mother.”
Her mother reached out, as if to caress her daughter one last time. But before she could do so, Sunset tightened her stranglehold. The life faded from her mother’s eyes, and her body went limp. Sunset threw her mother’s body to the floor, smiling with ecstacy.
But as the sight of her mother’s corpse sank in, a feeling of regret began to consume her. As much as she despised her mother, and as ruthless as she fancied herself to be, she began to break down from what she’d done. Not because she’d done this to her mother, but because she’d killed anypony at all. As she collapsed to the floor, tears welling in her eyes, she was forced to face the type of pony she’d allowed herself to become. A murderer with nopony to love and nopony who loved her. She truly was a disgusting pony, and no amount of power or validation from her mother could change that.
“You win, Twilight. You hear me?”
But there was no response.
“I said you win! Please, just let me out.”
Still no response.
“Twilight? Twi!”
Nothing.
That was when Sunset cracked, letting out a scream filled with all her years of bitterness and self-hatred. She shut her eyes, more ready to embrace eternal darkness than the sight of what she’d done and who she’d become. She began to hear rumbling in the distance, but was too lost in her own regret to pay it any attention. The noise grew louder with each passing second, until it sounded as if she was in the middle of a deafening thunderstorm.
“Get up!”
It was the sound of a stallion, somepony she didn’t recognize.
“No special treatment. Get up, now!”
Sunset awoke to the sensation of somepony shaking her body violently. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in her room, lying on her bed. She smiled in a burst of glee, more thankful than ever before to be free from the nightmare. That was when she saw them, the royal guards restraining her.
“By the order of Princess Celestia, you’re under arrest.”