Act II-IV
If I had to choose my favourite moment from that afternoon spent at Crystal Heart Academy, it would be when all the soccer players who had teased Twilight in the past realized that she was the little sister of their beloved coach. Apparently, neither Twilight nor Shining Armour had ever bothered to mention this fact to the general public, resulting in a lot of awkward grins and nervous hellos when Shining tried to make introductions. I think Lightning Dust was the only member of the team who wasn’t surprised, and that was probably because she had met Shining Armour before becoming a part of the soccer team.
For me, standing on the sidelines and watching the scene unfold gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, probably one similar to how most of the students of Canterlot High felt when they realized that I was no longer a menace to them. Something about karma made for a good spectator sport.
Just before I parted ways with Twilight, returning to the stands and leaving her in the care of her older brother, she told me something that stuck with me for hours afterwards.
“For what it’s worth, Sunset, you seem like a good person.”
I suspected that the reason it felt so rewarding was because, unlike Celestia or Applejack, Twilight wasn’t saddled by expectations or past experiences that would colour her opinion. All she saw was a good person, and it gave me hope that my future might not be as bleak as I feared. It also made me consider the idea of switching schools. I knew that Celestia wanted me some place where she could keep a close eye on me, but what if a fresh start was something I needed too? Of course, that would mean leaving my friends behind, and I wasn’t certain if I was ready to do that yet. Changing schools wouldn’t destroy the friendship, of course, but the recent events with the school paper and Diamond Tiara taught me that I needed people like Fluttershy close by in order to prevent myself from slipping back into my old ways.
“Are you sure you don’t need a ride home?” Applejack’s inquiry snapped me out of my train of thought. Apparently I had been sitting on the curb staring at my notepad for the past ten minutes. Despite having told my friend that Celestia was on her way to pick me up, Applejack had decided to make her offer once more.
And just like every time I had offered to help her with the crate of empty bottles she was carrying, the answer was still ‘no.’
“I’ll be fine, AJ,” I insisted. “We’ve both got work to do, and this’ll give me time to review my notes.”
The post-game interviews had proven to be quite informative. Though the game ended in a two-two draw, some of the players on each team offered very different perspectives. For example, when I interviewed Rainbow Dash, she was quite frustrated with herself having scored only one goal and missing several key opportunities to put her team ahead. In stark contrast, Lightning Dust was elated: she had scored both goals for her team, and, in her opinion, tested her skills against the vaunted Wondercolts. It was an interesting dynamic to see how differing expectations could produce such vastly different responses to the same outcome.
It was going to be interesting to see how I could work such a dynamic into my article, especially since Rainbow Dash did come off a bit whiny at points. I didn’t want to paint my friend in a bad light, but she craved victory and was always frustrated when she fell short.
“If you say so,” Applejack finally relented. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
She was just about to leave when I saw something at the far end of the parking lot that I thought she might be interested in.
“Hey AJ,” I called out and then gestured off to the distance.
It was Twilight Sparkle and her brother, seemingly walking on their way to Shining’s car. I was relieved to see that the two of them were still talking, even sharing a few laughs. I had a feeling that Twilight would not have to worry about growing apart from her brother for the time being.
“Well I’ll be,” Applejack said as she observed the pair. “So that’s Twilight Sparkle, huh?”
“Eeyup,” I replied.
I watched Twilight for only a few moments, as I was interested in seeing Applejack’s reaction. She was smiling, which was to be expected, but I could also see a bit of sadness in her eyes. To her, it was another reminder of the friend she couldn’t see anymore. The likeness was reassuring, but looks alone could never replace the memories that the other Twilight left behind during her brief stay.
“You could go over and say ‘hi’ to her if you want,” I suggested. Though it was a gamble, I suspected what my friend’s answer was going to be.
She shook her head, just as I predicted. “Nah. It’s tempting, but it just wouldn’t be the same, ya know?” she said. “Besides, it’s like you said–too risky for you. As much as I miss Twi, it ain’t worth putting you or your home in danger.”
While that reassurance was a huge mental relief, I hid my feelings behind a pensive yet understanding nod. I didn’t want to sound too happy over a decision that I imagined was a difficult one to make for Applejack.
“I really appreciate that,” I said.
After another round of ‘good-bye’ and ‘see you tomorrow,’ my friend hurried back to her truck and loaded up the last of their supplies. Soon afterwards, I found myself sitting alone again in the parking lot, wondering what in blazes was keeping Principal Celestia. She did say that she would be picking me up after the game, but all it took was one insolent student to delay her for hours.
Despite my best efforts to review all my game and interview notes, my thoughts kept drifting back to Twilight Sparkle. It aroused a bizarre combination of curiosity and concern in me, from both her similarities and differences to her Princess counterpart. On the one hand, the familiar drive and never-give-up attitude meant that Twilight was going to be pursuing the ‘mystery’ left behind by my battle with the Elements of Harmony. I tried to remind myself that I had nothing to worry about; that magic was so alien to this world that nothing in her bag of scientific gizmos would ever help her make sense of it.
But then again, if this world’s Twilight was half as tenacious as the other one, inconclusive answers were never going to satisfy her. Her tools had enough to sniff out that something was amiss about me, though I hadn’t the slightest clue why I was giving her equipment strange readings. I had to admit that the intellectual in me was very much intrigued by these implications, and were it not for the potential consequences, both to myself and Equestria, I would have gladly pursued that mystery alongside her. Of course, whatever she found would never be accepted by the scientific community at large, and she would’ve laughed off any implication of ‘magic’ being at play. She would be left with questions she could not answer, and I with answers that I could not provide.
I began to contemplate if there was a way I could dissuade Twilight from her scientific pursuit, or at the very least falsify a conclusive result that would sate her curiosity. But how do you get ahead of a girl with enough intellect and initiative to bring her own Geiger counter to a soccer game?
And I still couldn’t believe that she managed to snip off a lock of my hair without me seeing it!
In the end, I found Twilight Sparkle to be an intriguing young woman; she piqued my curiosity in a way that I hadn’t felt since first being taken under Princess Celestia’s tutelage. Despite those feelings, though, I knew that the safest course of action for me was to cut ties with her.
“Excuse me, miss?” Once again, my plunge through an ocean of thought was intruded by yet another arrival. I might’ve been more annoyed, except the voice carried that high authority baritone with it, like that mall security guard who took his job way too seriously. Unfortunately for me, I was not dealing with some rent-a-cop as the gentleman looming over me like the Sword of Damocles was wearing a tailored coat with the academy’s logo emblazoned on the lapel.
“O-oh, um...h-hello,” I replied with my best attempt to keep a straight face despite having my neck craned back into a near-vertical position. My feeling of trepidation soon turned into a nervousness of a different variety. With his towering figure and locks of pure, shimmering obsidian, the man had ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ nailed down to a tee.
“Is everything okay?” he asked. Then his face, which looked as though an artist had chiseled from black marble, flashed a smile so disarming that I almost felt weak in the knees just standing before him.
Given that Crystal Heart was a private school, I suspected that they did not look kindly upon outsiders such as myself loitering on their property. “I’m good—just waiting for my ride home,” I said. “She just seems to be running a little bit late.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he said as he tucked his hands behind his back. “Though I am reluctant to do so, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave the school premises as we will be closing the main gates soon.”
While it wasn’t an unreasonable request, it still wasn’t one I was looking forward to fulfilling. Though it just meant moving from sitting near the school’s parking lot to just outside the main gate, that meant a cold sidewalk and nosy rush-hour traffic instead of the relative tranquility the school grounds provided. I answered with little more than a reluctant sigh as I got back to my feet. However, I was not given the opportunity to leave just yet.
“Pardon me,” the gentleman spoke up once more. He waited until I turned about and gave an expected, confused stare before he continued. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Sunset Shimmer, would it?”
Now I had the opportunity to understand how Twilight Sparkle felt, though I prayed that it wasn’t because he was acquainted with someone who happened to be identical to me. I could’ve lied and feigned ignorance, but I worried that he, like most experienced school officials, would be able to smell fear and lies like a fresh pot of coffee in the teacher’s lounge. The way his emerald eyes remained fixed on me gave the impression of a keen perception.
I knew I had to be very cautious with my choice of words.
“It is. Have we...met before?” There were many possibilities, but paranoia ensured that I was only thinking about the one that involved black vans and secret laboratories.
“Not personally,” he answered, much to my relief. “However, your principal, Ms. Celestia, has spoken about you at great lengths during our past dealings.” He paused to chortle before shaking his head slowly. “Oh, the look of glee on her face when she was parading around with that photo of you and your trophy after winning last year’s Newton physics contest.”
The Newton physics contest. Just the mentioning of it made me shudder and groan. It was a state-wide competition in which I happened to attain the highest ranking in the school district. Most students would carry that kind of accomplishment with pride and dignity. All I could remember was the overwhelming sense of indignity it resulted in.
“I can’t believe she tricked me into writing that stupid thing,” I grumbled under my breath.
Unfortunately, despite it not being my intention to broadcast my thoughts to the world, my concerns about perceptive school officials proved true as he raised an eyebrow and repeated, “Tricked?”
The cat was out of the bag so there was little point in denying it now, regardless of how I viewed the incident. “Principal Celestia tried to talk me into participating in that stupid contest, and I told her no,” I explained, huffing as I folded my arms. “So she conspired with my physics teacher to get the class’ next test moved to before the physics contest. When the day of the contest came up, I was ‘brought in’,” I threw in some air quotation marks to emphasize how ridiculous the whole ordeal was, “and told that I had been accused of cheating. Rather than be punished, they gave me a new test to write, which just so happened to be the contest. I should’ve recognized the questions were too advanced for my grade, but I was so pissed off about the whole cheating accusation that I didn’t pay attention.”
Then the unexpected occurred; he laughed. Not a ‘tummy tickled’ little chuckle or even a politely-constrained snicker, but a full-blown, slap-upon-the-thigh and head thrown back as if broadcasting your delight to the heavens themselves. Now either there was more to this than I had anticipated, or I had managed to stumble upon the funniest joke in the universe.
“She had to trick her prized student into entering a contest, and she still manages to score in the ninety-ninth percentile,” the gentleman said once his laughter died down. “I am not sure whether to weep or laugh even more.”
Ninety-ninth percentile? For some reason I was surprised when I heard the number despite the contest being from almost a year ago. To be fair, nobody told me about my non-consensual participation in the physics contest until after I was dragged on-stage at the award ceremony. I remembered there being a cheap little plaque and a lot of feigned grins for the cameras, but aside from that I forgot about the incident almost as soon as it concluded. The idea that such a meagre accomplishment could get any attention outside the ceremony itself had never occurred to me.
“I’m sorry, but who exactly are you?” I inquired since the question had been nagging on my mind since the start of the conversation.
The laughter came to an abrupt halt, followed by an embarrassed grin. “My most sincere apologies. I seem to have forgotten all of my manners today,” he said before offering out a hand. “I am Sombra, Headmaster for Crystal Heart Academy.”
I should have realized sooner that I had been dealing with the man in charge of the academy. He had that air of authority about him, and it would explain his dealings with Celestia. I accepted the handshake, noting the surprisingly delicate grip despite having hands large enough to grind mine into a fine powder.
“I wasn’t aware that Principal Celestia spoke so highly of me,” I admitted.
“It is in her nature: she loves to see those under her tutelage excel, and now that she is responsible for a whole school, that desire has only grown more intense,” Sombra explained. Once he released my hand, he tucked his behind his back once more. “Understandably, she affords herself the occasional bragging right, usually just to shut me up when I’m going on about one of my pupils.”
Though the past weeks had taught me that there was much about this world’s Celestia that I didn’t know, the idea of Celestia the braggart was something I had trouble envisioning.
“So how long have you known Principal Celestia?” I inquired. I had a hunch that the two had known each other for a while given that the memory involving a picture of me being paraded about had stuck with him.
It was a good sign when Sombra had to pause and think on the answer. He scratched at his chin for a few seconds before answering, “It’s got to be at least fifteen years by now. I was just starting teacher’s college when I met Tia, so that would’ve been…”
His voice trailed off as he tried to do the math once more, but something else had caught my attention. “Wait, did you just call her—?”
Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to finish my question when the sound of an approaching vehicle drew my attention away. It was the pearly white chariot of Celestia herself, screeching to a halt just behind me.
Celestia didn’t even wait for the window to finishing rolling down before telling me to, “Get in.”
Stunned didn’t even begin to describe what I felt. I had never seen Celestia speak so terse before, even with telemarketers. Either something horrific occurred involving school business, or she really didn’t like being here. Whatever the reason, I didn’t want to stick around to find out so I said a quick good-bye and got into the passenger’s seat.
“You seem to be doing well, Celestia,” Sombra commented, a more forced and subdued undertone to his voice in stark contrast to the warmth he had displayed with me.
“I am, thank you,” she replied, equally frigid. “I see you’ve finally gotten rid of the mullet.”
“Better late than never.” He leaned over, just enough to afford a proper view into the car. For a moment, I swear he looked almost...saddened by what he saw. “Be sure to take care of her, okay?”
“I will,” Celestia snipped back.
“I was talking to Miss Shimmer,” he replied and then left before anything further could be said.
The temperature in the car dropped a few degrees as Celestia drove off. Rarely did she meet with anybody without a friendly ‘hello’ and ‘how are things?’ so the silence was troubling. I didn’t know whether to say something or jump out the window for safety. Self-preservation instincts kicked in and I held my tongue despite all the curiosity swelling inside me. He called her ‘Tia’ of all things. I had only heard two other people use that before: Yearling, whom I am told has known Celestia since college; and Luna, who rarely used it outside of garnishing a cocktail.
Sombra and Celestia didn’t hate each other, or at least not mutually. The headmaster appeared to have no issue speaking about her at length, and only distanced himself when she arrived. The politeness of their interactions felt forced, almost rehearsed. It bore a strong resemblance to some of the pleasantries I witnessed from Gryphon diplomats during my years in Equestria. Could my presence have been what prompted the chilled relations to surface? The fact that Celestia was constantly casting a sideways glance to me suggested some concern towards me. Though perhaps it was just a response to my constant glancing in her direction.
My instincts from my power-hungry years told me that she was anxious about the elephant in the room. It was like being trapped in cage with a wild animal: she kept calm and collected in the hopes that it wouldn’t provoke a response, but at the same time she was bracing herself for it. Were she a student, I would’ve begun circling her as though there was blood in the water. However, since this was Celestia I was dealing with, I decided to respect her wish for privacy.
“Oh, just say it already,” Celestia suddenly spoke up.
Since she had opened the door…
“What in the flaming pits of Tartarus was that?” I exclaimed.
“Sunset, mind your language.”
“Seriously, I’ve seen warmer conversations with abominable snowmen!”
Lucky for me, a stop light came up so the forced halt meant that Celestia had no choice but to focus on the conversation. She took in a slow breath; her hands on the steering wheel began to relax. Gradually, I started to see the Celestia I was familiar with taking form again: graceful...calm...almost regal despite the lack of any crown.
“Sunset, you know that I would never lie to you, correct?” she began, to which I nodded. “When I brought you into my home, I told you that I would do my best to share with you the lessons I’ve learned from my experiences. And I knew that meant being completely open about those experiences—both good and bad.” Again I nodded, but was still unsure of where she was going with her line of reasoning. “Now some of those experiences might be embarrassing for me, some even a bit...shameful, but I made a promise to myself. I can’t expect you to be honest with me if I’m not returning that in kind.”
I sensed that the part with the sun-sized ‘but’ was just about to drop in. I decided to get to the punch first.
“But Sombra is off-limits?”
She sighed, just as the red light turned green. A slow left turn gave her more time to mull over a response. “Sombra and I have a lot of old history together,” she explained in an all-too-cryptic fashion. “It’s a subject that I am...uncomfortable discussing with anybody. He’s from a chapter in my life I would prefer to keep closed.”
It felt like the conversations about the magic mirror all over again: something I was insatiably curious about, but I was being stonewalled by someone who felt they knew what was best. Though it irritated me, I reminded myself what happened the last time I allowed my curiosity to override my better judgment. I couldn’t afford to fall out of the good graces of another Celestia.
“He seemed nice enough to me,” I grumbled under my breath.
“He is nice,” Celestia answered, proving that she had ears sensitive enough to catch my murmurings. “He’s a complete gentleman, in fact. That’s probably the only reason I can still tolerate being near him.”
When Celestia cast a glare at me, I realized she had caught on to my attempt to squeeze information from her. It wasn’t much, but it gave me more to consider. Whatever that chapter contained, it was enough to chill their relation despite Celestia being the kind of person who always saw the best in people. I blew up part of her school, and she invited me into her home; made me think what could’ve happened between her and Sombra. A soured romance, perhaps? It seemed possible, but I suspected there was more to it. Celestia didn’t strike me as the type to hold a grudge against someone for a failed relationship.
Then again, I was basing my observations using my knowledge of a thousand-year-old Celestia, who had many more years of experience to weather such emotional hardships. It was still difficult for me to picture Principal Celestia as a regular run-of-the-mill mortal like me: a person with hopes and dreams, and sometimes just struggling to make due with the hand dealt to her by fate.
Somebody...imperfect.
But perhaps it was better if she wasn’t perfect, if I didn’t feel like I had this apex manifestation of equine power and grace that I always had to compare myself to.
“And, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if I just asked him?” I popped in an idle fashion.
“We’d both be in for a lot of disappointment. Mine because you went behind my back, and yours because he won’t tell you any more than I would,” Celestia said, but at least didn’t sound bothered by my contemplations. “Like I said, he’s a gentleman.”
There was nothing left to do at this point but fold my arms and put on my best pouting face in the hopes that she might change her mind. There was no such luck, and the car remained in absolute silence for the next quarter-hour until Celestia turned the car off from its usual path home and into the parking lot of a MacDougal’s restaurant, bane of coronary arteries and cholesterol levels nationwide.
“Um, what are we doing here?” I asked despite the fact that the answer was obvious. Still, my short time living with Celestia gave me the impression that she avoided greasy fast food like I avoided a pork chop. She even thought that Frogurt Fridays were too unhealthy for high school students.
“Dinner. I’m not in the mood to cook right now,” she answered in a rather blunt fashion.
As she drove the car towards the drive-thru, I noticed that she didn’t have her usual air of serenity about her. She seemed tense, and I had a feeling that I had played a part in that. “This isn’t because of...the whole Sombra thing, is it?”
“Sombra was just the cherry on top. I already had a full ‘bad news’ sundae before I even picked you up,” she explained. She let out a sigh and then gave me an apologetic look. “It’s not your fault. Well...sort of not your fault.”
“Meaning?”
“Repairing the main entrance and the school grounds has taken up a larger part of the school’s budget than I had anticipated,” she said as the car pulled up to the first spot of the drive-thru. While I had heard on a few occasions of Celestia and Luna having issues with the school’s budget, I was ignorant to the full extent of the problem. “What would you like?”
“Excuse me?”
“To order,” Celestia said as she gestured to the giant menu outside of the car.
“Oh, right!” The mentioning of budgetary woes had left me distracted for a moment. I had hoped that the worst of the consequences were behind me, but it was beginning to sound as though there were going to be new reasons at Canterlot High to loathe my presence. The mere thought was so dreadful that I jumped at the opportunity to think about something else, even something as trivial as dinner, as though it were the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. “I’ll take the number five with a side salad, and a diet cola! Um, I mean, please.”
Her response was but a simple, reassuring smile. If guilt had a stench, I would’ve attracted every bloodhound in the county.
Thankfully, before any awkward silence could ensnare us, the static-laced cacophony of the drive-thru intercom cut in. “Welcome to MacDougal’s, home of the MacMeaty, may I take your order?”
“Yes, I’ll have two bacon double-MacMeatys, large fries, large iced tea, a family box of chicken nibs, and a number five combo with a side salad and diet cola.” Celestia paused for a second, mulling something over before adding in, “Oh, and two apple pies.”
“That’s quite a lot of food for you and Luna,” I commented.
“Right, almost forgot about her,” Celestia quipped. “And one MacDougal’s Kid’s Meal.”
It seemed like every time I thought I had a handle on the kind of person Celestia was, she managed to knock me for a loop so hard that I’m left staring, slack-jawed, wondering what just hit me. Picturing Princess Celestia chomping down on something as uncouth as a grease-soaked burger was hard for me to swallow. To be fair, Kibitz would never have allowed something like that within a hundred meters of the princess, including a ‘spear on sight’ order to the Royal Guards.
My imagination didn’t have to wait very long because Celestia parked the car within minutes of getting our food, and helped herself to one of the burgers. Even as she peeled away the wrapper and took the first mouthful, the whole situation felt surreal. While Princess Celestia had never been a stickler for protocol—after all we had Kibitz for that—she still always carried herself with a base level of decorum. Even the quickest of meals meant silverware and doilies. Watching Celestia devour a burger felt as unsettling as seeing a timberwolf walk into a five-star restaurant and ask for the wine menu.
“So why do you want your friend, Pinkie Pie, to think your birthday is in the spring?” Celestia asked between mouthfuls.
Once again, I was knocked for a mental loop. There was no idiotic-gawking on my part, this time, as I was too busy trying to cough up the piece of lettuce that had just taken up residence in my larynx.
“Wh-whatever do you mean?” I replied between desperate hacks. It was hard to act innocent when it looked like the truth was trying to kick its way out of you.
“For starters, you sent me a text telling me that it was okay to show Miss Pie your records, and then Luna found her attempting to break into the record’s room,” Celestia explained, pausing to wipe some MacDougal secret sauce from the corner of her lips. “Now if you had wanted your friend to know the truth, you would’ve just told her, which means your aim was to make a falsehood more believable.”
It was proving to be a lot harder to fool people now that everybody knew that I was a serial manipulator. I was beginning to wonder how I ever fooled Celestia at all given how easily she saw through every facade I erected. It was beginning to feel as though I had never been a very good liar to begin with, and my success was simply because nobody ever thought to be skeptical. More lies would be as productive as throwing rocks at a runaway train, but the truth was as terrifying as standing in front of it.
“I just...don’t want to deal with it right now, and I know Pinkie won’t stop bugging me about it until she gets an answer,” I admitted with great reluctance. Unfortunately, all I was going to accomplish now was trading Pinkie’s incessant questioning with Celestia’s. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure which would have been easier to deal with.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Celestia replied before taking a sip from her drink. I was caught off-guard by the lack of pressure being applied. I was expecting a full-body inquisition, or at least a bit more arm-twisting. Was she just trying to guilt me with this feigned indifference? Or what if she actually didn’t care at all? What if my refusal to open up had finally worn out her patience, and this was her way of casting me adrift.
“I hate my birthday because it just reminds me what a horrible person I was, and I don’t deserve a party until I can make amends for what I’ve done, and I can’t because the person I wronged isn’t in this world! There, I said it! Happy?”
The car went dead silent after my outburst, save for the occasional slurp of a straw trying to suck up the last traces of iced tea. I decided to stuff my face with more food in the desperate hope that it would prevent any further idiotic ramblings.
“Do you believe that punishing yourself like this will help you become a better person?”
When she phrased it like that, it did make my choice of action sound rather foolish. Despite a mouthful of kale, I let out a resigned sigh. “It’ll help stop me from being a worse person,” I said while crumpling up an empty wrapper. “Pinkie will want to throw a party because she wants to make me happy, but it won’t work. I’ll just be miserable, and that’ll just leave her disappointed.”
Celestia didn’t say anything at first. Maybe she was just trying to think of the best way to phrase what she had in mind, or maybe she didn’t have any answer yet. There were plenty of things that could be said, but I doubt Celestia would settle for generic platitudes. I could get a ‘just be honest with your friends’ from a fortune cookie, after all, so why waste time with something so trivial? I didn’t want to be responsible for more disappointment, even if it meant a little bit of disappointment later on down the road. At least with Pinkie Pie, I could do something to make up for it later.
“I think you need to ask yourself who you’re actually trying to protect.” Celestia then reached for her keys and started up the car. “Now let’s go home. My sister gets cranky if her fries get cold.”
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I'm still shocked that Sombra's still in charge of the school. I figured it be Cadance. I mean it sounded like the school failed before and was then reopened. It was a perfect mirror to have Sombra in charge then have it fail and Cadance take over.
If only she could figure out how to re-open the portal like in Rainbow Rocks, that would make things so much easier. Or even just remembering the journal at all!
5793208 Every universe has to have those little details that don't quite line up. It's just one of the things that makes them so interesting.
5793786 Right I mean in that universe Tirek would be a convicted criminal and Chrysalis would be a madame at a whorehouse.
Cold fries.... The Worst Possible Thing!!!!!
Dun dun dun.
They were "involved" weren't they?
Yep they totally slept together.
Oh God, that image, cannot unsee!
What a great chapter. We move away from Twilight and back to the Celestia-Sunset relationship at the core of the story, with a new twist: Headmaster Sombra! I really like Sunset's curiosity and Celestia effortlessly shutting her down. My guess is that he used to date Luna, or maybe both at once, and he's to blame for whatever bought of crazy Luna went through.
Also, I like that the high school principal Celestia can't afford an addiction to fancy cakes, so she gets by on MacDougal's apple pies!
Celestia is going to get Sunset to open up by God!
5796389
The way she reacted, I wondered if he used to date Celestia. They give a bit of that vibe.
5804845 You're right, I mostly guessed Luna because I figured that was the twist.
5804851
Ah, the old 'this seems too clear' prediction strategy. It has worked for me in the past, but it's been known to backfire, too.
Does it? There are probably plenty of people who believe in punishing themselves as a learning experience.
Still, this chapter had excellent Celestia and Sunset Shimmer interactions. It's interesting to see Shimmer adapt to the fact that Celestia isn't the person she thinks she knows, you pretty much only see that kind of thing with Twilight Sparkle in fanfics and rarely handled so well as it is here.
Sombra's so . . . not Sombra. It feels weird just imagining that prospect. And the fact that even if he's super nice, he still has the ire of Celestia makes me . . . iffy. I don't know, this is an interesting alternative universe indeed.
Also, this universe's McDonald's is awesome.
It's interesting that human LD seems so much more level-headed and less blinded by ambition than her Equestrian counterpart.
Well, it's easy enough to convince her by letting her visit Equestria when the portal opens again - or, for that matter, introducing her to Twilight when she comes back to defeat the sirens. Though whether that's a good idea is anyone's guess.
Ummm ... this very chapter you were discussing how she deliberately lied to you in order to get some paltry academic one-upsmanship over her ex. Sunset, I realize that you're emotional broken right now, and your self-confidence and self-worth are both still in the dunny, but come on, you're smarter than this.
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She didn't lie. She tricked her. There's a difference, aldeit a small one, but it's there.
I am curently reading several fics at once, so correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't it say in an earlier chapter that Celestia was a vegetarian?
6224335 I recall the chapter you were reading. It was Celestia asking Sunset if she was still a vegetarian. Hope that helps!
6224335
Sunset is a vegetarian
Celestia is a health food nut, who apparently eats unhealthily when upset
Luna survives off energy drinks and jerky apparently
Well well! Another reflection (although one through a different mirror this time) in the form of a Sombra/Celestia relationship that didn't work out at all and left Tia a bit... bitter.
Theory: Sombra gets replaced by Cinch between here and Friendship Games. That would give Cinch even more of a reason to want to boost her reputation. Also, do you have any plans to retcon the Griffons into the Shadowbolts?
I know I keep commenting on something you wrote over a year ago, but the dialogue, the metaphors, the whole damn thing is just so sharp.
This has been pretty well written for the most part, but I can't help but think you got Rainbow and Lightning backwards.
Is MacMeaty an Invader Zim reference, or am I just sensitive?
I can't remember how much of a role Sombra plays over the course of this story, but he seems like a pretty alright dude.
I keep seeing the way to find out Sunset Shimmer's birth date as a math problem, being as she is 16 in this and her birthday falls between two weeks after the fall formal and April so with a little process of elimination and subtract the year it is in that from her age you would get her birth date
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I know, right? Cold fries just ruin dinner for me...
Man, reading thid again after all this time..
This Sombra seems really similar to a guy I know who plays Sombra. How interesting.
Reading this makes me wish to see a spin off series with bit realism of sunset shimmer rather than the equestria girls movies we got. Seeing the day to week struggle of sunset shimmer. Also nice touch on sombra by the way, glad you didint make him a villian. Though i just started this fic and im wondering what others be here. Maybe chrysalis?