Explaining Magic to Twilight was easier than Sunset Shimmer thought it would be. Explaining multiple dimensions with a counterpart to each person was harder. Trying to explain that these counterparts were magical ponies and that Sunset was really a Unicorn, along with the fact that Twilight’s counterpart was a Princess? Nearly impossible, until the Princess herself came running through the portal. While they were both here the group had taken to calling the two ‘Princess Twilight’ and ‘Scientist Twilight’, to save the confusion.
Since then, the entire group had moved themselves to Sunset’s home, catching Princess Twilight up on the last few days’ adventures during the trip. Sunset’s home was far bigger than it needed to be. Now she’d be fine with a single bedroom with a fairly large living room, but when she first came out of the portal, nothing but an entire two floors with three bedrooms.
“How’d you even pay for a place like this?" Princess Twilight asked.
“Apparently gold, silver and jewels are really uncommon here,” she answered, unlocking the door. “Most of the Bits in my wallet was enough to get the house. A few more were used to get the officials on duty at CHS to let me enroll without meeting my parents.”
“Your parents must really miss you,” Applejack said.
Sunset froze as the lock clicked. She brushed off the shiver as the door swung open.
“They probably do,” she said.
She waved them in, holding her dog, Rhea, back to keep her from licking them and gesturing to the kitchen and telling them to help themselves. She deposited her bag in the bedroom upstairs and everyone minus one was in the living room when she came back down. Applejack had gone into the kitchen to make something more than a bag of chips for their gathering. Princess Twilight and Science Twilight seemed to be discussing how a study of one another’s worlds would work, most likely an exchange program of sorts.
Sunset didn’t fully pay attention. A good handful of ideas were running through her mind. With Twilight’s counterpart showing up, she had time to process things that she never bothered to think of. For some reason, she never thought of all the counterparts.
It’s not like she didn’t know. How could she not? However, this world, it felt more like it was just another city, full of ponies she didn’t know yet. Just a long vacation of sorts. Now the implications of traveling to this world were crashing down on her. Then Applejack brought up her family. Really, the only person she had met to remind her of this alternate dimension was Celestia.
No, that wasn’t true. She had met one other counterpart. It was years ago, and she nearly forgot about it, but there was one other.
She ran her fingers through her hair, thinking over what she wanted to do with all this. There were a few options, and they all should be first priority. Yet how does one decide. When Rhea licked her hand, it brought her back to the group. Their conversation was beginning to move towards the previous magical events at CHS, and Sunset decided that now was as good a time as ever.
“Girls,” she interrupted. She hesitated as their chatter came to a halt, but pushed through. “There’s something I need to do. I know I’ve messed up. A lot. There’s a lot of things I’ve done that I’ve been slowly making up for, but I’ve been focusing only on Canterlot High’s problems, and there’s a lot of other things that need to make up for there. But there’s other people, other ponies that I’ve hurt in some way, and a few I want to make this right.”
“Where do you want to start?”Twilight asked.
“I think,” she hesitated, looking at her options. “I want to find the other me. This world’s Sunset Shimmer.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Scientist Twilight said.
“She’s not in any of my social media contacts!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I don’t think I’ve seen hr around town either! It’s just been you since forever!”
“How long is ‘forever’?” Sunset asked.
“Well, like forever? Duh?” she giggled. “But, like, I’ve seen you around like all the time. I mean, I didn’t know-you know-you, like hang out all the time, until now, but I’ve seen you around since, like, mid-to-late Elementary School?”
“Pinkie,” she started. “I’ve only been here for about six years. I was thirteen when I came through the portal. You would have been in middle school.”
“Now that Pinke mentions it,” Rainbow said. “I do remember seeing someone who looks an awful lot like you back then.”
“That must have been this world’s Sunset!” she said.
“Then just a quick records check!” Rarity said. “She must have moved right about when you arrived. The school should have a database of that kind of thing, since they would have to transfer all of her data over.”
“Principal Celestia might not give it to us,” Fluttershy nearly whispered.
“If not, Vinyl’s pretty good with all kinds of tech,” Rainbow smirked. “Give her a few minutes alone in the office and we’ll be good.”
“How about instead of jumping to the illegal we ask my brother?” Scientist Twilight suggested. “He’s a police officer now, and should be able to run her name, as long as this world’s Sunset is the same age as Equestria’s Sunset. And I just realized how insane that sounds.”
“I assume a Police Officer would be sort of like a Royal Guard?” Princess Twilight asked. The other Twilight nodded. “Then I bet he does a great job. Shining Armor made it all the way to Guard Captain.”
“Wait,” Sunset interrupted. “Shining Armor is your brother?”
“Have you met him?” Both Twilight’s asked.
“I saw him a few times,” she said. “He and Lance joined the Guard on the same day. Lance had the biggest crush on him! He swears up and down that they kissed at their first Guard Nightmare Night party. What a small world. Well, a small multiple dimensions.”
“Who’s Lance?” Fluttershy asked.
Sunset stopped her chuckling. She sunk lower into the couch.
“He,” she hesitated. “He’s my brother, Gleaming Lance. I haven’t seen him since before I left. And unfortunately, I think this world’s Lance is our best bet to finding the other Sunset.”
“Right,” Princess Twilight agreed. “Finding an entire family would be much easier than one pony. Er, person.”
“She won’t be there,” she said. “Major events in our world seem to parallel one another unless the other world effects it. This world didn’t have magical abilities, so the events were different, yet similar.
“When both me and her were thirteen, we ran away from the home we knew. I ran through an interdimensional portal. While exploring this strange new world, I found a bus station and a girl just like me buying a ticket. I only saw her for about ten seconds, but I know it was her. And I know she won’t come back without someone coming to show her the way, just like you did for me. Lance can help us. He knows me, her, best and could tell us where she’d be most likely to go.”
“Well if he’s a Guard as well, he’s probably a Police Officer in this world,” Princess Twilight said. “Shining can tell us where he is.”
“We’ll have to explain all this to him,” Scientist Twilight sighed. She looked over at her counterpart. “You know how stubborn he is. And seeing the two of us is probably going to freak him out more than usual.”
“More than usual?” Applejack said, leaning her head out of the kitchen. The rest of her came as well, bringing a tray with a bowl of chips and a bowl of some kind of dip she whipped up with Sunsets lacking pantry.
“The other year, one of Cadence’s friends played a ‘prank’ on him,” she elaborated. “She used to a be cosmetology student at Cadence’s college, and used the makeup to look exactly like Cadence while the real one was on a trip. I was all ‘hey, she’s acting super different. Maybe something’s going on!’ but no, obviously there’s legitimate reasons she’s doing the literal opposite of what she usually would. The whole thing fell apart when Cadence actually came home, and Shining's been a bit jumpy since.”
“Going with the parallel dimensional event theory,” Princess Twilight said, “that should be the equivalent of when Queen Chrysalis kidnapped Cadence and replaced her, then Shining didn't believe me when I figured out she wasn’t right. He was all ‘she’s just stressed over her wedding’ and I was just ‘being possessive of my brother’ and ‘didn’t want to see him growing up and getting married’. Of course, I was right and we were nearly killed, but other than that it was a lovely ceremony.”
“Hold on,” Scientist Twilight stopped her. “Your Shining and Cadence are married? But they, I mean, sure they’re friends but it’s not like they, well, you know? I think I would have noticed if they were together!”
“A single day before the wedding,” Princess Twilight declared, clearly exasperated, “I got the wedding invitation. That’s the first time they told me they were together. Tried to say it was because ‘Canterlot needed him and he didn’t have time to come visit or even send a letter’! The city was only in a state of emergency for two days! ”
“We’re definitely talking to Shining today,” Scientist Twilight grumbled. “We can ask him about Sunset’s family. And I need to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Then we can just ask him where Lance is and this’ll all be done!” Sunset said. “I, I’m going to go get a drink.”
She nearly jumped off the couch and into the kitchen, Rhea following close behind. She used the handle on her fridge to keep herself up right. Her hands were shaking. Sunset couldn’t believe this was happening this quick.
“Hey, are you okay?” a voice asked.
Sunset jumped what felt like six feet. She turned to see Princess Twilight standing near the cabinets. She took a breath trying to calm herself, but it wasn’t working.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just need to calm down for a moment. Maybe tea? No, not strong enough. Would it be morally unethical to go through the portal and buy a drink of something stronger there? Because I’m an adult there so it would be easy.”
“Okay, I’m stopping you right there,” she said. “Sunset, it’ll be okay. We have a good plan here.”
“It’s not just the plan!” she exclaimed. “It’s just, oh stars I was such an idiot! I didn’t even think about Lance or mom or dad or anypony until the last few weeks! And when we try to find the other Sunset, when we talk to my, her, family… Well, how do you think you’re family would react if you’ve been missing for six years? And there’s no way that we can talk to them without telling them everything about the multiple dimensions! At the very least he’s going to freak out and reopen old emotional wounds.
“And then after that, I have to go home and talk to my actual family! I have no idea what’s happened to them! Are they okay? Did they stay in Canterlot or move somewhere else? I know Lance’s thing for your brother didn’t work out, but did he meet someone else? What if he got married and I wasn’t there for it? What if something terrible happened? What if-“
“It’s okay,” Twilight said. She pulled her closer into a loose hug. “Breath in through your nose for four seconds, hold it for two, then breathe out your mouth for another four.”
She followed Twilight’s instructions, the other’s fingers tapping out the seconds for her to follow. Even Rhea helped, poking her thigh until Sunset gave into the comfort of petting a dog. She was still panicking, but she no longer felt like the world was being torn apart. Again.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“I have an idea,” Twilight said, backing up from the hug. “I left Spike back home and told him I’d use the diary if I needed him. I can send him a message and ask him to send a letter to Equestria’s Shining while we visit this world’s Shining. He knows all of the guards, and can tell us where Lance is. I can make sure he doesn’t tell them about anything.”
“No,” she said. “It should take at most few days to find the other me and convince her to come home. After that, I need to see them.”
“It’ll be okay,” she assured her. “We’ll help you fix this.”
“Thank you.”