The Other Sunset Shimmer

by Jerec the Ascendant

The Human and His Sisters

Author's Note:

Alright, starting to slowly get back into the swing of things. Getting a lot more time off from work so I figured I'd attempt to really get back into this after what, looks at the post time two chapters ago,holy crap five years. Well anyway, I'm also going to let you know my plans for the future of this fic. This is going to be the final arc, more or less. It's going to catch up to my other fic and then I think I'm going to start the sequel to it. Maybe.

Also, big oopsie on my part, this chapter is semi-retconning the related chapter in my previous fic, and it's kinda too late to go back, especially since the last chapter also kinda did that. Crap... Hope I fixed my late catch of this bit to still make it fit in the canon I'm building.

A few weeks passed since Sunset was conscripted into researching this particular problem, or so she referred to her current state. She still didn't like how Celestia's apology essentially had strings attached, however, she had to admit she at least appreciated the honesty. She also had to admit, being back in the Canterlot Castle, she had missed palace life. Everything is cleaned and organized, it's much quieter than the city, the gardens are a great place to relax, and her suite makes her apartment look like a broom closet. All in all, it had been a great place to research methods to attempt to send the human home.

Celestia and Luna had filled her in on the details. He'd appeared in an orchard down in Ponyville, the town Celestia had sent her to scout for her student. He'd been taken to the local hospital by the orchard's owner, one of the six Elements of Harmony and a friend to the student, and he was treated for severe bruising. The six, which includes Celestia's student, met and befriended said human who went to live with her student. The human discovered among the old ruins of the original castle Celestia and Luna lived in, a remnant of the latter Alicorn's terrifying alternate form which had developed a mind of its own. Said mind was that of a filly, curious and playful, but fearful of Unicorns who could supposedly easily dispel her form, essentially killing the filly. Luckily Celestia and Luna had found a way to give the filly true life, so now she doesn't need to worry about that.

The two formed a sort of sibling bond over the course of the night and the time they spent together afterwards, made even more so by the Night Princess adopting him into the family that she'd essentially started by accident by creating the filly a thousand years ago. Things, however continued to get strange for the human, as he and the six discovered that somehow, he was capable of shapeshifting or rather that he was the host for a parasitic shapeshifter. This shapeshifter revealed that they'd been fused in some way. Of course, the most startling news of all comes in the form that they didn't appear in Equestria by accident. Somepony or more accurately somecreature had planned this. In any case Celestia plans to invite them to the castle today, in part to separate the two into individuals, and in part to reveal their findings.

The human himself, Celestia described as a depressed young man only about four or five years older than Sunset and the six elements, who would all be in high school back in Sunset's world, where the human would be either working or in college. He hides his depression by behaving in a laid back, sarcastic manner and regulates it via interactive video technology that is leaps and bounds ahead of Equestria's Arcade machines. Or to Sunset Shimmer, just plain video games. Celestia had seen for herself just how detailed some of the games were. Sunset had giggled to herself at the thought of Celestia being sickened by the scenes depicted yet being over a thousand years old and knowing it wasn't real. She also made a mental note to herself to avoid playing the more mature games should the opportunity arise.

Sunset heads to the castle library, hoping to find something, anything that could help. She hadn't been lucky so far, and that was with Celestia and Luna helping during their spare time. The three had poured over all sorts of books, not finding even a slight hint at how to be able to find his world and send him to it, without him ending up stranded or worse. In fact, it seems that dimension hopping is a fairly unresearched field of study, even by Starswirl himself. In fact, it's amazing he even was able to reach Sunset's home, and that was due to the relationship their two dimensions have being parallels. Yet somehow, he'd been able to make a magic mirror that one could use to travel between the two dimensions and even transformed the traveler into the local species parallel to their own. Hence how Sunset Shimmer had become a pony.

Sunset lets out a sigh as she makes her way around the castle hallways to the library. Though she'd like to befriend the human and have someone she could relate too, she still would much rather be able to help him get home. It just doesn't seem likely. She reaches the library and starts pouring through books, hoping for a shred of a lead that could send him home. The more she pours through the books, the more frustrated she gets. "Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!!" She yells as she angrily jams another spell book onto the growing pile. "How can there be nothing and yet a direct portal to my world?!" She asks herself in frustration. "It's a good thing Starswirl died a thousand years ago, or he'd get an earful from me!" She curses the old wizard.

For a moment Sunset angrily paces the library section. "Two weeks and four hours, still nothing!" She continues to mutter to herself as she stops pacing and shelves the pile of read books. "Only a few left, hopefully they can be of some sort of use." She sighs as she looks at the small pile with doubt. "Well, I better be there to greet them, Celestia wants me to give them a tour." A thought nags at her mind, one that had been since the beginning of this debacle. Was he truly human, at least to her? As far as she knew there weren't any in Equestria, and she had no real idea whether or not Celestia had been to her world. In fact, considering how this human arrived in Equestria, he could be anything at all, he could even be entirely different from the humans back home, just a species that goes by the name human.

Grabbing a map of the castle, updated to show the suites that the Princesses set up for the human and his two sisters, she heads to the castle foyer to greet the three, though technically it'd be two of them until the Princesses separate the shapeshifter from him. Plotting her path, she rolls up the map and heads off. Making her way through the hall, her thoughts drift. Though she's happy to meet him and finally talk to another human, she's actually more interested in the shapeshifter. A being so alien to them, she technically doesn't have a body of her own. Though it's more accurate to say the human doesn't have a body of his own and that he's sharing the shapeshifter's body.

"This is as far as we take you. From this point forward, Celestia has appointed a special guide for you. She'll be here shortly." Sunset hears a guard say. Well, this is her cue, and the moment of truth.

"Hello! Welcome to Castle Canterlot. I'm your guide-" Sunset starts as she canters through the doorway, her intro interrupted in her shock. The scrolled map falls to the floor as the human and her eyes lock gazes. She looks up at him, her mind frozen, Celestia was telling the truth. There, standing in front of her, is...

"You're human!" She bursts, leaping and wrapping him in a hug. Happy tears start to flow as she tightly embraces and practically bowls over the human. Clothes, hair, fingers, a short nose, shoes, it's all there! "Another human! I'm not alone anymore!" She cries out in joy.

"Say what...?"

Her mind comes screeching to a halt when she realizes what she just did. "Oh!" She leaps off of him, blushing in and kneading the floor in embarrassment. "Right, you don't know.” A nervous giggle escapes her lips and she looks away. “See, I may look like a pony, but I'm really a human." She explains as calmly as she can. "Of course Celestia wouldn't tell him!" She thinks bitterly to herself.

"Well, that is certainly something I wasn't expecting," The human replies as he stands up. "Wow, he really is tall, or are ponies just short?" She thinks to herself as she reinspects the man in front of her. "I'm Jacob, pleased to meet you."

"Sunset Shimmer." She introduces herself. "Sorry about that, really. I just never expected to see another human again." She adds as she also looks to the filly. "Awe! She's so cute!" The human's expression changes with thought, and she swears she sees a look of recognition. "That's strange. Oh wait, I guess there's something Celestia conveniently left out, again..." She thinks somewhat angrily to herself, before mentally shaking out of it. "Well, we might as well get on with the tour." She says with a somewhat nervous laugh.

"Sorry, but I thought I was here to see the Princesses about something."

"Oh great, more Celestia convenience." Sunset mentally rolls her eyes. "Not even her adoptive nephew. I swear, it's like she gets a kick out of being mysterious." She thinks to herself. "You are, but they are currently busy. They planned this tour so they can finish their meetings, and so you can see the castle." She replies. It is true, and she can't fault them for being busy. "Seriously though. Things would be a lot easier if she just took the time to let people know... She huffs mentally while outwardly continuing her semi-nervous but cheerful demeanor.

"I see.” Jacob replies in a slightly annoyed tone. "Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one." Sunset thinks to herself. "Well, shall we get going?" He asks before looking down to his filly sister.

The young filly had been glaring at her the whole time she realizes. "She's adorable, even when she's angry!"Sunset coos mentally. "Of course, follow me." She turns and motions with a hoof for them to come with her.

___

The tour goes smoothly enough, and the filly calms down. Sunset leads the two down a hallway and stops at a set of doors in the Royal residence of the castle, their adoptive mother's suite just down the hall along with the Mistress of Manipulation herself. "And finally, here is where you'll be staying for the next few days." She says as she ushers the two inside. She lets the human and filly explore while she decides to rest on one of the couches in the suite. Nothing pleases her more than to hear the filly's excitement as she explores her room.

The filly comes running out excitedly. “This place looks like it’s meant for a lifetime stay instead of just a few days!”

Sunset giggles. “We just want to make sure you’re comfortable here.” She watches as the human sits on the couch across from her, along with the filly. Sunset decides that to help introduce herself, she tells them about how she got to Equestria and a short summary of her time there.

"So, now you're just as stuck here as the pony you is stuck in your world?" Jake asks.

"Yes, I’m afraid it’s too late to switch back. She's already revealed where she came from, and apparently Princess Twilight has banished her to my world. At least, that’s what I heard. So we're stuck in each others lives. That's nothing compared to you, though. I mean, abducted and stuck here as an alien experiment?" Sunset replies, still quite stung about the development. During their time together for research, Sunset had brought up the possibility of her going home too. Well, Celestia had to tell her what happened between the other her and Princess Twilight. In the end the other her is banished to her world, just as she is now stuck in Equestria. Though, Sunset had to be honest, she was already betting that for whatever reason she was stuck here anyway.

Jacob just sighs. "Don't even know who, what, or why. Just stuck here, from a somewhat different Earth than yours. I'm just glad that my shape shifting host didn't kill me. Technically, I'm the parasite."

"A situation we believe we’ve found the remedy to." The group hears the familiar voice of Princess Celestia as she enters the room, along with her sibling.

“A remedy?” Jake asks. “What do you mean?”

Princess Luna smiles. “We’ve been researching a spell that physically duplicates a pony, a very useful spell if somepony suffers from having a split personality. We should be able to use this spell to remove Jake from Silhouette, giving them both a physical form of their own.”

Sunset drifts off in thought, no longer interested in hearing what was going on. Instead, she focuses on the target of the upcoming spell. "I wonder what she's going to look like? Oh, and what about him? Isn't he still going to be a shapeshifter? I have to say, I'm glad to not quite be in his shoes." She thinks to herself as the spell is cast and after a bright flash, two beings appear. There's Jake on one side and the other. Sunset's jaw drops. "What the?!"

The other being, clearly the Shapeshifter or by name Silhouette, is the tallest person in the room. Her form is strange, like one took a large wolf and stood it up on its hind legs, only her whole body is human-like. Her hands have pads and end in claws, and her tail is fluffy like a fox's but overall, she has a human build, and clothes."If I were human, I think I'd be jealous." Sunset thinks to herself. If it wasn't for the fact that she was a wolf-like creature, she'd definitely win beauty contests back through the portal.

However, that wolf-like quality triggers something in her. Almost like a buried instinct, maybe it's from being transformed into a pony, or perhaps it's just the Uncanny Valley effect of seeing this being that belongs more on drawings or cartoons than anything else... Not that Sunsets couldn't say the same about herself. Whatever it is, it makes her wary of Silhouette. The Shapeshifter's form is clearly more predatorial in nature. She shivers a bit as she watches the creature, even though it's fairly clear she is friendly.

"So, um Silhouette. Mind if I ask you a few questions?" Sunset asks, repressing the hint of fear in the back of her mind. She also has to admit, she's very curious about the creature in front of her.

Silhouette turns to her, and now with the creature's gaze upon her, she can't help but feel even more nervous. "Oh, hello. You're Sunset Shimmer. Right?" Their eyes lock and Sunset can't help but shiver a bit. "Her gaze is absolutely predatory!" Silhouette sniffs at her as she leans down, getting closer. "You're afraid?" She asks tilting her head, almost like a curious puppy. "Oh, does this make you more comfortable?" Before Sunset's eyes, the shapeshifter begins to ripple, her skin and clothes shifting and squirming as she starts to compact in on herself. Her hands and feet flatten and round, eyes getting larger, while her muzzle shortens.

"N-no! N-No it doesn't!" Sunset thinks to herself as the creature slowly shifts and changes in front of her. The disturbing sight ends with Silhouette looking like a very non-descript pony. No mane, her tail is basically still her fox tail which is obviously the only intriguing feature, different grays all splotched on her fur. Even her irises are gray. "Um, I guess that's okay." Sunset is still a little shaken, but overall, is more comfortable around the essentially bland pony. "Anyway, like I said. I'd like to ask a few questions."

"Oh, okay." Silhouette replies as the duo head into her portion of the suite, as everyone heads off on their own. "So, what do you want to ask me about?"

"I mean, what's it like, being a shapeshifter? What do you eat? Do you even need to eat?" Sunset begins, rattling off basically every question in her head. Sunset finds a hoof pressed against her mouth, silencing any more questions.

"Could you slow down please, I'm really new at all... This." Silhouette says, motioning around her.

"Oh, sorry." Sunset apologizes, her cheeks glowing red from embarrassment. "Alright, well the first one then. What's it like?"

"Well...."

Comments

[Luna MacArthur]

Yeah uhhh, I'm done with this story sadly. It went from a really great beginning, to a straight-up sh*tpost that I cannot continue reading. I'm sorry.

[Jerec the Ascendant]

11420560
If you could give me examples of what I did wrong for future reference, that would be great. Well, unless the example is that I had it crossover with my other story...