Of the many places one could find themselves awakening after being stunned into unconsciousness by the Royal Guard, Canterlot Royal Memorial Hospital was not particularly high on Twilight’s list of expectations. The sterile white panelling came as a pleasant surprise to the unicorn as she came to, considering that she anticipating a stone-walled dungeon.
Her stone-faced brother, however, standing astride her bed, was far less of a surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, flopping her head back in resignation.
“For what?” Shining asked.
“Everything. I’ve been such a foal.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you ‘everything’s going to be okay,’ because that’d be a lie, but…”
“Oh, it’s worse than you think.”
“I’m sure we can work it out.”
Twilight sighed, looking at him. Despite his stony expression, she could spot the brotherly concern, lines of worry etched around his eyes. It was an expression she’d seen many times before growing up, her brother doing his best to look out for her as she shunned the world around her, whiling away her time in the company of books and dust. Even considering that he didn’t know the full extent of her misdeeds, the fact that he was still concerned for her well-being came as a surprise.
“Why?”
“Why… what?”
“Why. Why are you still worried about me? Aren’t I an enemy of the state by now? After all I’ve done?”
“Should I not be worried about my little sister?”
“That’s… ugh! How can you even be sure that I really am your sister?”
“Are you not?”
“Well, I am, but…”
“Is there any good reason I should believe you aren't?”
“The fact that the ponies I was with at the Academy are duplicates of other ponies all over Equestria?”
“Yeah, but they felt weird. You don’t, ergo...”
“You’re basing your judgement on the fact that I don’t feel weird?”
“And your smell.”
“Ew! Shining! That’s creepy!”
“What? You grow up with a filly you learn to recognise their scent! I’m stallion enough to admit that! It’s a biological thing!”
“Still creepy,” She muttered, sitting up slightly and looking around the ward. There was a pair of nurses on duty, diligently working around the ward’s patients, while a third sat next to the bed opposite her, constantly monitoring the patient there, a pink mare whose head was nearly cocooned in bandages, tubes and cables running from her to nearby machines.
“Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine, but it was a close call,” Shining answered, looking over. “Another hour or so, and it would have been much worse.”
“She was hit in the head pretty bad.”
“The doctor thought as much. She was bleeding into her skull from whatever hit her, but he managed to heal the wound and drain out the blood. She’ll have a mighty headache and maybe some behavioral tics when she gets back up, but no lasting damage, thankfully.”
“Thank Celestia for that…”
She flopped back, relief flooding through her.
“So, who is she?” Shining asked.
“That’s… a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I… ran into a doppelganger copy of myself from another world and followed her to her home, discovering an entire civilisation of world-hopping duplicates of everypony.”
“I see…”
“And since they couldn’t send me home for some horseapple political reason, they offered to let me work for them until something could be worked out, so I got put in this team to help them find somepony who got lost or captured, I don’t remember which. Pinkie over there is from that team.”
“Wait, if they couldn’t send you home, why are you here now?”
“I got dragged along to blow up a city when the pony we were originally looking for found her way back on her own, and Walleye wanted revenge on the ponies that cut off her wing.”
“Walleye?”
“The gray pegasus I arrived with.”
“Right, so they just let you and them go?”
“No. Walleye commandeered one of their teleport machines to send us there, and then I brought us here when everything went pear-shaped.”
“Alright, that doesn’t explain what you were doing here yesterday at Ponyville and giving my lieutenants the slip. Wait, was that you, or some duplicate?”
“No, that was me. I was trying to help them find where their friend had gone.”
“Rather duplicitous story you told the Guard, but anyway… I thought you said they wouldn’t send you home, and then… they send you home?”
“I’m as confused as you. None of us had any idea why Celestia did it.”
“The Princess?”
“No, different Celestia. Duplicates of everypony, remember?”
“Ah. And the fight that we broke up at the Academy? That didn’t look all that friendly.”
“I was… angry,” Twilight mumbled, unable to bring herself to look at her brother. “Walleye manipulated me into doing something horrible, and I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Should we be concerned about her? Should I have her put in solitary confinement?”
“No, no. She’s just very protective of her team, and gets a bit… equicidal when they get hurt.”
“Sounds like a pretty poor choice for a team leader, if you ask me…”
“Mmhmm,” Twilight agreed. “She’s got a bit of a thing for Insiders.”
“‘Insiders?’”
“Ah, terminology thing. We’re Insiders, they’re Outsiders. I’m not quite sure what makes the difference, but I think there’s some magic field component. Still need to test that hypothesis…”
“Are these ‘Outsiders’ a group that we need to be concerned about? A bakery in Ponyville was levelled and Celestia is rightly concerned that these ponies are changelings, or some sort of enemy agent.”
“...You do realise that everything I’ve said to you thus far could be a lie?”
Shining’s horn lit up, a rosy aura washing over Twilight’s head. She felt a slight pressure at the side of her awareness, daring her to resist the intrusion. It passed quickly.
“Nothing you’ve said to me thus far has been deceitful.”
“It’s rather rude to cast that without asking a pony first.”
“If you didn’t want to accommodate me, you could quite easily have blocked the spell’s effect. Celestia knows you’re better at magic than I am.”
“Still…” Twilight pouted, crossing her forehooves.
“Oh, cut it out. Would you rather I have been mindlessly suspicious and had you thrown in the dungeons on suspicion of espionage?”
“To be honest, I feel like I deserve that more than… this…”
“Quit being so down on yourself.”
“I’ve killed ponies, Shining.”
“Uh...”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Shining attempted to process what Twilight had just said.
“Sorry… killed? As in…”
“Dead. Yes.”
“...You didn’t mention that before.”
“Well, I’m not exactly proud of it, am I?” Twilight shouted, startling Shining and the orderlies. “Hello, yes! My name is Twilight Sparkle! I just killed a duplicate of myself in an alternate world, and am indirectly responsible for the demise of a few hundred thousand ponies in the destruction of an alternate Canterlot! How do you do? You can see why I’d be a bit hesitant to spill those details at the drop of a hat!”
“...Yes.”
“‘Yes?’” Twilight asked, anger starting to seep forward. “Is that all you’re going to say about the discovery that your little sister is a murderer?”
“Twilight, calm down.”
“Calm? Why in Celestia’s name should I be calm? Do you have any idea what I’m going through right now? Have you ever killed anypony?”
“No.”
“Well then. You don’t know how this feels. You can’t know. Nopony knows apart from that monster of a pegasus in the dungeons, and that just makes it worse!”
“Twilight.”
“I don’t want anything to do with that nag!” Twilight gasped, pulling in breath as fast as she could manage, panic starting to flow freely into her mind as her hooves began to twinge and go numb. “I don’t want to be like her! And now I… oh Celestia help me!”
“Twilight!” Shining shouted, holding Twilight’s shoulders and forcefully pushing her into the bed. “Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself! Calm down!”
“No! Nononono… I’m broken! It’s gone now!” Twilight yelled, pushing vainly against her brother’s grip as the feeling in her limbs gradually faded. “I’m broken! I can’t do this! I can’t do it!”
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” Shining yelled, gesturing desperately for an orderly while trying to restrain his manic sister.
“LET ME GO!” Twilight screamed, pushing her brother off her with a magically-augmented shove. “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
She scrambled off the bed, only to collapse to the floor as she attempted to stand, her numb oxygen-deprived limbs failing to give her appropriate feedback enough to balance. In desperation, she scrambled closer to the wall, her horn ignited in desperation.
“Get away from me!”
“Twilight?” Shining said, poking his head around the edge of the bed. “Please, try to breathe. You’re having a panic attack. You’re making it worse.”
“No I’m not!” she screamed. “There’s something wrong with me! I must have corrupted myself, or something. I can feel it! This is what happens when you kill somepony. It’s wrong! And now that wrongness is changing me!”
“Celestia above! Twilight! You’re having a panic attack!”
“Stop saying that!” She gasped, voice raspy as her airway contracted. Her head felt limp and uncooperative. “It’s a corruption! I… can’t feel anything. I can’t breathe.”
Shining edged closer, hoof outstretched. “Twilight, please.”
“GET AWAY FROM ME!”
She dove sideways, away from him and into a curtain. With a groan, the fabric sheared away from the runners, sending the panicked unicorn flying into the next bed. A brief flash of red and green flying through her vision before the bed toppled from the impact, sending her, the unfortunate patient in the bed, and the contents of a nearby tray, snagged by the curtain, crashing into the floor.
It took a few moments for Twilight so see through the haze of panic that occluded her vision, allowing her a good look at the red-coated earth pony she had collided with in her desperation. A twinge of familiar oddness poked into her awareness the moment she recognised him.
“...Mac?”
She vainly tried to pull away, only worsening her predicament. The overturned tray shifted, dropping a ornate yellow crystal onto Twilight’s outstretched forehoof. It flashed white as it made contact with her, a wave of vertigo suddenly intruding into her mind.
Moments later, the world around her dissolved.