It’s not easy to get a hold of plundervine seeds. I’ve wanted them for my garden for ages. One of the rarest plants in the entire world, and amazingly hard to grow. They get out of control and once they take root, they’re almost impossible to kill. Sure, they look dangerous, but something about their harsh black carapace makes them work well in some gardens. They contrast with flowers and other colourful stalks, provided you take care of them properly and make sure they don’t overgrow.
So I admit, I was willing to do dumber stuff than usual to get my hands on some seeds. Go out to my contact in the garden centre after closing time, get a packet, and try to get home after dark. Take a shortcut through a nastier part of town. Go down an alley. Yeah, I know how it sounds. I should have known better.
I guess I was used to having my memory stone with me at all times to get me out of trouble. It’s hard to get mugged when the mugger forgets what they were doing. Thing is, I don’t have the memory stone any more. It got destroyed. I mean, good. I can’t trust myself with it any more. On the other hand, it sure would have helped deal with these thugs.
There were four. Four too many. I’m not big, not strong, not fast, and fights scare me. I wouldn’t win in a fight against one person smaller than me, and there aren’t many people smaller than me, even at school. Even in the years below me. Mostly I get by by being unnoticed, but this time their eyes were locked onto me and my seeds. Two were blocking the exit. Two were blocking the way I came. It was pretty bad.
There was no way I was going to get home without something going wrong. I could feel it. Still, I had to try. I guessed playing it cool was my only option.
“Um… hey,” I said. It was my best attempt at being nonchalant. My voice kind of cracked halfway through. If I was being generous, I’d rate it a three out of ten. Not great. Certainly not good enough. “I’m, uh, going through here?”
Damn it. I even phrased it like a question. I blew it.
“No you’re not. What’s that you’ve got there?” A finger pointed at my small paper bag.
“Seeds,” I answered. It occurred that actually if I told them the truth they might think I was so boring and insignificant that they’d leave me alone. That’d be nice. Finally, my inconspicuousness could be turned to some productive purpose.
“Yeah, right.”
Oh. Of course they didn’t believe me. I was clutching them so close to my chest it must have seemed truly precious. Which, actually, it was. It’s just that those thugs would never get any good use out of it. They wouldn’t even know what it was, or that you needed cast-iron pots to prevent them from spreading to the rest of the plant bed and wreaking havoc for potentially hundreds of years...
“No, they… they really are,” I said, my voice becoming increasingly high-pitched. Please don’t let them take my seeds… I had wanted them for so long. It wasn’t fair to lose them now…
I felt a big hand squeeze my shoulder. It was rough and uncomfortable, pinning me in place. I froze. I must have looked pathetic and weak, like a deer about to get smeared by a truck. This sucked. My life was like a rollercoaster, but the only direction it went was down.
“Hey there,” came a voice.
It was confident. Cool. Familiar. I’d recognise Sunset Shimmer’s voice anywhere. After all, I had known her for years. Watched her from afar, listened to her, hated her, wished I was her, and plotted against her. So, you know, I was pretty familiar with it. I hadn’t expected to hear it in an alleyway after dark, but hey, I’d take what I could get.
The thug who had put his hand on my shoulder glanced in Sunset’s direction. She was outlined against a streetlight, her spiked leather jacket cutting an intimidating figure.
“And you are?” Asked the thug. “We’re kind of in the middle of a thing here.”
Oozing confidence, Sunset Shimmer strutted down the alley and past the two thugs blocking my exit. “Sunset. Mind if I pick up my friend?”
There was a flutter in my heart at the word ‘friend’. I didn’t have many of those. I was saved, rescued, secure.
“Yeah, kinda.” The brute rolled his eyes, and his body changed direction to square off against Sunset Shimmer. “Kid’s got something precious and we want to see what it is.”
“It’s seeds,” I said.
Sunset glanced at the paper bag pinched between in my now-white fingers. She raised an eyebrow. “Hate to break it to you but those probably are just seeds.”
The thugs sighed. “Man. Really?”
“Yeah.” Sunset gestured at me. “She’s a gardener. Really into plants.” Sunset extended an arm and grabbed a hold of my jumper, pulling me out of my captor’s grip. “C’mon let’s get you out of—”
“Yeah, no.”
Sunset rocked back onto her heels, a long, tortured sigh escaping her. “Well, it was worth a—” she began, and then a massive fist connected with her jaw.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected. Sunset to explode in a flurry of blows, effortlessly taking down four thugs twice her size perhaps? Maybe some sort of rainbow magic to detonate from her and turn them nice? Portals to some strange dimension I didn’t understand to open up and swallow them whole? Anyway, that wasn’t what happened. What did happen was Sunset got pretty brutally beat up.
All I could do was watch, clutching my bag of seeds tight and wishing I wasn’t so pathetic.
It thankfully didn’t take long for the thugs to lose interest. Luckily for everyone involved I emptied the plundervine seeds into my pockets when they weren’t looking. The bag got torn open, and if even one of the seeds had hit the ground it wouldn’t have gone over well for anyone.
Sunset Shimmer probably had bigger things to worry about, though. She was currently lying down on her back in a pile of trash bags. Her left eye was swollen and her nose and lip were bleeding. Her hands were also bruised.
She spat blood. “I hope those seeds are worth it.”
I crouched over her, unsure what broken part of her to try to patch up first. Not that I had a first aid kit or any kind of knowledge about healing in the first place. I just… felt like I needed to do something. “I thought you could fight!” I exclaimed.
“What made you think that?” Sunset groaned as she got to her feet.
“Well… the leather jacket and spikes and stuff. You have that sort of look…”
“Garden-girl, I play videogames and like science. I’m a nerd.” Sunset dusted herself off. “Just a nerd with a sense of style.”
“It’s false advertising is all I’m saying!” I babbled incoherently. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry you got hurt because of me…”
“Yeah, not as sorry as I am. Ow. Last time I try to do anything nice for anyone, I swear.”
“Do you need a hospital?”
“No, no, I’m good. I just need a place to sit down…” Sunset groaned. “You wouldn’t happen to live nearby, would you?”
“Seriously? You look like that and you don’t want to see a doctor?”
Sunset looked up at me with cold, hard eyes. Strangely unfamiliar eyes. They had a hint of viciousness to them I wasn’t used to seeing in Sunset after our memory-stone related confrontation. “I’m serious.”
I paused. Something felt wrong. I could sense it in my stomach. I knew I had to make a decision, make some kind of proactive action. I felt pathetic, just looking at a tougher, stronger girl than me who had hurt herself on my behalf, and I didn’t even know where to start. Help her? I guess that had to be it.
“Come with me,” I said. “I’ve got… bandages. And ice.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She wore a sly smile, creeping over her face with oddly sinister intent. She took a step forward, and winced. “Although… if you could prop me up, that’d be great.”
I knew that my home wasn’t great. It was mostly decorated with potted plants and books. Books on herbs, botany, landscaping, and a lot of teen romance novels. My face reddened as Sunset’s eyes scanned the mess that was my bedroom. A pile of trash lay on my bed, a mixture of papers, sketches, and the aforementioned books. I immediately shoved all of them onto the floor, hoping Sunset wouldn’t read the titles, or see what I had been drawing.
Somehow, Sunset had started to look worse. Her eye had swollen even more than before, as had her lip. She was acting more confident, though. Almost cocky. There was a swagger that I didn’t remember since before she had started reforming herself. Was she trying to impress me?
“Nice drawings,” Sunset quipped. There was a touch of meanness to her tone that made me go red with embarrassment. Sunset smiled, seeming to get off on my awkwardness. “Hey, I don’t judge. I like pretty girls too.”
I glanced askance at her. I then noted something. “Oh no!” I pointed at her neck. “Your magic necklace. It’s gone!”
Sunset’s hand went to her neck, her eyebrow raised. “My necklace?”
“Yes, the one you wear with your friends… it must have come off whilst you were, um…”
“Getting kicked into the dirt? Or was it when that guy elbowed me in the eye? You’re going to have to be specific.”
“...I wasn’t going to put it like that…”
Sunset shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a necklace, right? I'll get a new one.” She leaned back on the bed. “Uh. You said you had ice?”
“Yes! Right away.”
I darted to the kitchen and rummaged around the freezer for a packet of ice. It was then that I remembered that I had gotten rid of them to make more space. Awkwardly, I pulled out a packet of peas instead and took them to Sunset.
“...peas?”
“They’re frozen,” I began, holding them out in one hand whilst I wrapped my other arm around my stomach defensively. “That means there’s technically ice in there, because there’s a lot of water in peas…”
Sunset shrugged. “You’ve got a point there, garden-girl.” She held her hand out. “Give it here. My eye needs peas.”
That was the second time she had called me garden-girl. It sounded alien coming from her, something she had never said before, but there it was.
“Uh… my name is Wallflower Blush…” I began. It was only after I said it that I realised how lame it was. Of course she knew my name. Well, probably. People had been known to forget…
Sunset ignored me and sunk into the mattress. “This sucks. I can’t believe I look like this.” She eyed me. “And I know who you are. Jeez.” She adjusted the bag of peas over her eye. “Must feel pretty good to be the powerful one for once, right?”
I winced. Not just at the sharpness of tone, but because actually, I had been in power for a long time. I held sway over the memories of others. It was as close to a power-fantasy rush as reality could get. Now, without my stone, I was probably the most vulnerable I had ever been…
Sunset smirked as if she could read my mind. I grit my teeth. I knew when I was being played with. I guessed that Sunset was in a bad mood from being beat up, but I still felt uncomfortable, off-balance, and on edge. She was making me feel out of place in my own bedroom and I was starting to hate it. She was acting like how she had been acting years ago when she was the tyrant of Canterlot High.
“Just… do what you need to, I guess,” I muttered meekly.
“Seriously?” Sunset sat up, surprised at… something. She shrugged, and folded her arms in a hunched fashion. “I mean, uh, sure. You don’t have to look at me like I’m a damaged puppy, you know. I’m fine.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise either. I hate it.” She collapsed back into the mattress. “Just enjoy being not-beat-up. It’s not like I’ll remem—”
My phone rang, cutting off our conversation. Just as well. Listening to Sunset’s aggressive, accusatory voice was awkward. I supposed that’s what people were like when everything hurt. Still, I was glad for the distraction.
I looked at my phone’s screen and froze. I swallowed, glancing at Sunset Shimmer, lying in my bed and staring blankly out of one eye at the ceiling. I then looked back at my phone.
The person calling me was… Sunset Shimmer. I blinked, and looked back at my guest, and then back to the name on my phone. Sunset Shimmer, Sunset Shimmer.
The unease returned, worse than before, coiling around me like a snake. I stepped back away from Sunset. “I need to take this,” I told her, leaving the room and shutting the door.
“Yeah sure, whatever.”
I flattened my back against the door, making sure Sunset couldn’t watch or leave without alerting me. I then raised the phone to my ear, and answered.
I cleared my throat. “...Hello? Wallflower Blush here.”
“Hey there. You doing okay? Look, I know it’s late, but Twilight’s been bugging me about this online. It’s about some sort of magic disturbance… and you’ve had some experience with magic, so I figured I’d ask you about it.”
It was clearly Sunset Shimmer’s voice… but that wasn’t possible. Sunset was here, in my room, injured. She couldn’t make the call.
“Where are you?”
“Um… home. Are you alright? You sound a bit shaken.”
I was shaken. Suddenly the strange behaviour Sunset was exhibiting… the missing necklace, the aggressive attitude... it added up to a frightening picture. She was an imposter. I wasn’t sure how it was possible to look so perfectly like another person, but that… that had to be the explanation. Right?
Was this something to do with the magic that had been infesting the school? Turning girls into demons, opening portals, dropping the memory stone like trash from a roadside picnic?
There must be a less dramatic option I just wasn’t seeing. I had already had my run-in with magic through the stone. No way that sort of thing would happen to a girl like me twice. Still, I pressed on.
“You’re sure you’re at home?”
“Yes. Wallflower, what’s—”
“I have to go.” I ended the call. Nervous, I turned back to face the door to my room.
I opened the door a crack. Sunset was still in my room, staring blankly at the ceiling. The packet of frozen peas was still plastered to her eye, and she was holding it in place. Her other hand was lying at her side. I didn’t see any sign of a phone. This couldn’t be a prank. Not unless she had the same sort of sleight of hand as Trixie.
I felt so stupid. If this was a joke, it would make complete sense. Sunset really had just been pretending to be different before, in front of her friends. She had always, always, always been trouble to me. Cornering me in corridors, teasing me, ever since I first met her. I must have used the memory stone on her more times than anyone else, simply due to how often she caught me off guard and embarrassed me, lording her popularity over me like an arrogant goddess.
This would track. Of course it would. I had just fooled myself into thinking she was different because she was just so convincing and smooth, and had sacrificed her memories to save her friends. It had probably been an act. A big play. I had just fallen for it because I wanted her to be nice to me. I’d fallen for the con.
I opened the door back to my room. Sunset’s open eye lazily drifted towards me.
“Hey. Good call?”
“Wh-what’s going on?” I had meant to sound more confident, but my voice came out in stutters and starts. “Is this some big game? You rescue me and then make me feel bad and then… do something to make me regret it? Is that it? Were those thugs your people?”
Sunset sat up. “Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I like the whole accusatory attitude you’ve got going on. Well, other than the stammer at the beginning, but we can workshop that.” Sunset got to her feet, looming over me. She was taller than I was… not by much, but you didn’t need to be much shorter than someone to be intimidated. “What’s the big idea, garden-girl? Growing a spine? Or is it...”
In a flash, her empty hand shot towards my phone. I tried to leap back, but I was too slow. Even injured, Sunset Shimmer had reserves of strength that I simply didn’t. She looked at my recent calls, and her eyebrow raised. “Oh yeah. That’d do it. Whew, bad timing, huh?”
I backed away. “Or if you’re some sort of imposter, that’s… that’s cool too I guess…” False confidence had been replaced by fear. Sunset was in control of the room again. She had always been in control.
“Imposter?” Sunset threw her head back and cackled. Like everything else about her, it had a predatory edge. She threw me back my phone. “Garden-girl, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not the imposter. That thing on the other end of the line is the imposter. I’m the real deal. Sunset Shimmer, one and only.”
“Isn’t that what an imposter would say?”
“Well yes. But I’m not the imposter, whatever you think. I have a pretty good relationship with my double. She doesn’t know I exist, and I get to live my life without ever having to worry about people looking for me… because they think I’m at school like a good little girl.” Sunset’s grin became manic the more she spoke. “Pretty cool, huh? It’s not like people will believe there are two of us, so whatever I do, they think she did it. I can go where I want. I can do what I want, to whoever I want, no consequences, guaranteed. All that at the low, low cost of not existing. Could be worse, right?”
Discrepancies in my mind began to add up. Times Sunset had found me and teased me, even after her supposed reformation. Gaps between what others saw in Sunset and what I did. Could it be that I was just remembering this Sunset? This… this was the true Sunset? And the one at school was a nice, kind imposter wearing Sunset’s face?
It was all insane. She was insane.
“Oh, don’t look like that,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like you’ve got anything to worry about. You’ll just erase my memories and go on living your comfortable little life of being ignored, right?” She put a hand on her hip. “Come on. Where’s the weird alien stone? Hit me with your best shot.”
“You know I can’t do that any more,” I said, then clasped my hand over my mouth. It occurred too late that actually, she might not know that. She might think I could still take memories, and I had just let the cat out of the bag…
But wait. How would she know I could take memories if she wasn’t the real Sunset? If I had taken her memories in the past… surely she couldn’t remember them?
Sunset’s eyes widened, and she clutched her stomach, a laugh escaping her. Disbelief crept over her face. “Wait, you mean you can’t use your stone any more? What happened to it?”
There was no sense hiding the truth now. “It got destroyed. To… to save the other Sunset’s memories, and those of her friends. It’s gone.”
Sunset whistled. “Didn’t know you had the guts, garden-girl. I’m impressed.”
“Please don’t call me garden-girl.” I frowned. “How did you know I took memories, though? Have you been watching me?”
“Hmm? Oh. Uh, yeah.” Sunset shrugged. “What? I was bored. You know what it’s like when nobody even knows you exist? You do what you’ve got to do to not go crazy.”
I sucked air in through my teeth. Sunset caught my look and rolled her eyes.
“Well, sure, but you did that to yourself! That’s a big difference,” Sunset went on. “You even tried to use that memory stone on me. Several times. Just because, what, you were embarrassed?” Sunset seemed close to exploding. “That’s insane. You’re insane! I’m angry all the time but at least I’m not crazy!” Sunset exploded in a splutter of outrage, whatever angry feeling she had been keeping chained down bursting out at last. “Truth is, garden-girl, that I’ve been the only one to ever notice you, and the only one to ever remember you. And you kept trying to erase everything I did! That’s… rude, is what that is.”
Sunset leaned closer to me… much too close, intimidatingly so. My blood rushed to my head from the proximity. I knew I was turning red from the closeness. If I still had my memory stone, this would be the exact sort of thing I’d erase from Sunset’s memory. I was blushing against my will and Sunset could see me. Swirling in me was a mixture of discomfort, fright, and embarrassment. I knew I looked weak, and I knew Sunset knew I looked weak. Why would I want anyone to remember seeing me like this?
A thought like a needle penetrated through the shame to the surface of my mind. “How did you remember if I erased your memories?” I asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Sunset shrugged. “Well, since your rock is broken I guess there’s no harm in me telling you.” Seeming to calm down somewhat, Sunset sighed and twirled her hair around her finger. “Basically, you missed. Whenever you tried to hit me with your memory rock, you hit the other girl. Who knows what you messed up in the process!”
Oh.
Oh, when I heard that, I wished Sunset would just kill me there.
“Yeah. Look, it’s not a glamorous trick, but it works. I was just pretending to lose my memories because, well, I thought it would be funny. But we can pretend I’m immune to memory alteration because of something in my DNA if that sounds more interesting.” Sunset slid closer to me like a cat. I shrank away, and Sunset purred at how uncomfortable I was. “Wow, you really don’t do well when you’re close to other people, do you. You’re redder than a strawberry.”
“I don’t… like attention.”
“Oh please. Don’t even try. You’ve been asking for attention, trying to get noticed since as long as I can remember. You resented me so bad for just being popular that you turned the entire school against me. Well, not me. The other one.” Sunset gave me a small, mocking applause. “I like the attitude, but the execution didn’t quite cut it. Then again, you were also so good at sabotaging your own popularity by literally removing people’s memories of you. What was it you said you erased? Awkward hellos, bad conversations, literally all public speaking? And you’re surprised nobody remembered you? Come on, that’s basically all of everyone’s memories of you ever. Highschool is ninety-nine percent awkward and bad conversations, and the last one-percent is having to stand in-front of class and speak publicly.”
“Fine! I can’t handle attention!” I snapped, my words catching in my throat. “Are you happy?”
“No, but I’m getting closer.” Sunset sighed. “Look, it’s okay. We’re the same, right? We’re both invisible, forgettable losers. I literally got replaced by an alien and nobody even noticed, not even the alien. That’s not great for self-esteem, is it?”
“I guess not.”
“But I can help you. You don’t have that dumb rock any more. You can’t sabotage yourself nearly as much as I can help you.” Sunset’s sinister grin widened. “I want to help you. You know how hard it is, being forgotten by everyone and finding the one person in the same boat as you, and they spend their time being an absolute loser? It’s rough. I’ve had it way harder than you, and don’t you forget that.” She straightened, breathing in and smiling. “It’s a good thing that I love the freedom this gives me, or else I’d be as useless as you.”
I winced. I no longer knew whether this Sunset was a friend, a bully, or just plain insane. Maybe all of them, or maybe none. This Sunset was like a basket full of cats; maybe she’d purr or maybe she’d scratch. I didn’t have a way of knowing until she drew blood.
All I knew was that I needed to talk to… someone. Anyone. Any person who wasn’t this Sunset, this absolute mess of a human being, flip-flopping between cackling and sulking.
Sunset’s arm wrapped around me, and her leering face inched closer to mine.
“I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship. Don’t you?”
If the Sunset I had confronted with the memory stone was an angel, then this one was a demon.