Lack Of A Reflection

by Sun Aura

Fun House

They decided on a smaller group to talk to Starlight. Pinkie said Sunset should go since she’s ‘the main character’, and Princess Twilight was an obvious choice having dealt with her own Starlight. They need one of the actual apartment tenants, and they volunteered Shimmer. Since they had Sunset and Shimmer, they figured Sci-Twi might as well come too, to make it a matching pair. After that, all that was left was for Shimmer to change into gray shorts and a pink top, and Sunset was sure she had a replica pair in her closet.

Remembering the long walk down the stairs, they decided to talk. Shimmer and Sci-Twi seemed to be getting along well, though it was mostly just about how the landlord was. Apparently she liked to disappear for days at a time. It’s good when you’re a few days behind on rent, but bad when the power goes out and she’s not there to fix it.

“Hey, are you okay?” Princess Twilight asked, slowing her pace to let them drop back.

“Yeah,” Sunset answered. “I just didn’t expect to bring all that up again. Honestly, by the time I stole your crown, I’d nearly forgotten what it was all for. It doesn’t change much though. Sad backstory or not, I was still terrible. As Pinkie says, ‘Cool motive, still murder’. ”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t really think on why you would’ve done what you did, past what I was told.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” she said. “You were, what, ten when I ran away?”

“I know,” she said. “But I feel guilty, because I think they learned the lesson.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Keeping me away from the Nobles, for starters,” she said. “Celestia couldn’t watch me all the time, but now that I’m thinking about it, Cadence and Blueblood seemed to be working in tandem to keep them away from me. Either tricking me into leaving, or dragging them away for something else.”

“No wonder you had no friends,” she teased, earning a friendly arm punch. “Haven’t heard you talk about Blueblood much. Or any of the other Royals, for that matter.”

“I didn’t know him as well,” she said. “But he’s not that bad. Okay, he is, but only when rejecting Rarity. But he’s pretty nice to me and Cadence.”

“Of course she tried for him,” she rolled her eyes.

“We’re getting off track,” she said.

Sunset waited. She wasn’t sure what she would say next, but Twilight looked like she needed a hug.

“I think she knew,” Twilight said. “I think Celestia figured out that you wanted to see more than ‘Princess’, because she would be ‘Celestia’ around me. I got to see more than just cracks.”

“Oh,” Sunset sighed. “That’s not your fault either.”

“It’s not guilt that bothers me,” she said. “It’s that I’m not sure it was just your leaving that convinced her.”

“Why?” she wondered.

“Because I remember the first few months,” she said, looking at her feet as she walked. “I brushed it off, because I was still starstruck, but I remember seeing the cracks and wanting to see more. I remember her keeping herself cut off, always a bit detached. Then-Then Dancing Light and Philharmonica died.”

“They-“ she gasped. “I-I’m sorry. How-?”

“It’s alright,” she said, rubbing a tear away. “If Shining asks, I didn’t sneak a look at the accident report and only know what I was told, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, sadly smiling at how ‘Twilight’ that was to do.

“The three of them, Cadence too, were in a carriage that winter,” she said. “I think they were going to a Hearth’s Warming party? Point is, there was some ice, and it, well, you can imagine. Philharmonica was dead on arrival. Dancing and Cadence were both in pretty bad shape. I wouldn’t know how bad until I went through some medical books two years later and learned the terms I saw. But Dancing used his authority as Prince to order the doctors heal Cadence instead.”

“And even with healing spells, she was probably still pretty bad,” she sighed.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “By the time Celestia made it to the hospital to override his order, they’d used up all the magic they had on Cadence, and even with Celestia and Shining offering their own magic, they were too late to help Dancing Light.”

“I’m not sure what happened there,” she continued. “All I know is that I got to see ‘Celestia’ a lot more than I had before. And it bothers me that it wasn’t you leaving that changed how she was.”

“I don’t know either,” Sunset admitted. “Maybe it was the combination of the two? Or maybe someone said something. I could only guess.”

“I don’t really want to ask, either,” she said.

“Have you, uh, do you know if that’s the same here?” she asked. “Dancing and Philharmonica?”

“Unfortunately,” she said. “I’d suspected that deaths were the same across dimensions back when I first went through the portal. Both Applejacks asked about her parents. But my Counterpart asked last night about Dancing and Philharmonica. I guess they all hoped that even if they were ‘Counterparts’, they would at least be enough for them to get a proper goodbye, you know?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Listen, when you get home, tell Cadence I’m sorry.”

“You can tell her yourself, you know,” she smiled.

“Right,” she said. “Thanks for telling me about that, and about Princess Celestia. I don’t know if ‘thanks’ is the word for it, but thanks anyway.”

They had reached the bottom floor, and luckily the door they needed was right by the stairs. They wondered how they’d missed it before, considering it had not only Starlight’s name but her Cutie Mark on it. Shimmer knocked on the door.

“Come in,” the voice inside said, her annoyance obvious.

Opening the door, they saw a simple office space with a desk and filing cabinets. The woman behind the desk was in her early twenties, and almost just like Princess Twilight had described her counterpart; pinkish-purple skin, purple hair with a blue streak, but down and swooping instead of in a ponytail. She didn’t look much like a landlord either. Sunset had imagined maybe business-formal wear, but she was in a double layered pink and blue shirt, a black vest, ripped jeans, and a knit hat.

As soon as the four of them walked through the doorway, her eyes went wide. She reached for something under her desk, but didn’t bring it out yet. Sunset prepared a shield spell, just in case.

“Who the hell are you?” Starlight demanded, glaring at the Twilights.

“Hi, I’m Twilight,” Princess Twilight said, stepping forward. “We wanted to-“

“I don’t care!” she stated. “You need to leave. No, wait, you can’t leave. How’d you get in?”

“That’s a long story,” Sunset said. “But we wanted to know why the doors are locked in the first place, and maybe convince you to unlock them?”

“I can’t,” she said. “You two, or three? I don’t know if you had a twin before but I don’t care! None of you are leaving!”

“Starlight, listen,” Princess Twilight began, “We can help. Just-“

Starlight pulled the thing from under her desk, and in half an instant Sunset had a shield between them. Thankfully, it was just a wooden bat, but she didn’t yet drop the spell.

“What is that?” Starlight demanded, gesturing to the shield with her bat.

“It’s part of our explanation,” Sunset said. “If you want to know, you have to let everyone out!”

“I can’t!” she repeated. “Do you think I want to keep everyone in here? I have things I want to do with my life!”

“Like finding your friend?” Sci-Twi asked. “You’re looking for him, right? That’s why you disappear sometimes, right?”

“Wha-how?” she stammered, lowering the bat. “How do you know about that?”

“We can explain it,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “We can help you find him. But you have to tell us why you’re keeping everyone locked in.”

“I-I can’t,” she repeated again, though not as forceful this time.

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Just think of seeing Sunburst again, right?”

That had to be the name of the friend the other Starlight had lost too. She hadn’t told them about it yesterday. But Sunset and Shimmer jumped at the name.

“Wait, Sunburst?” both Sunsets asked. “Twenty-ish, almost my color but with white markings, red orange hair, complete dork?”

“Y-yeah,” Starlight said, somehow relaxing and perking up at the same time. “Do you know him?”

“He’s my cousin,” Sunset said.

“Wait!” Shimmer gasped. “I remember you now! Sunburst’s twelfth birthday party!”

“Oh yeah! “she exclaimed. “The bouncy castle filled with soap and water!”

“Whose bright idea was it to fill a bouncy castle with soap and water?” Princess Twilight demanded with a frown.

“Lance!” both Sunsets answered guiltily.

“So you, you could tell me where he is, right?” Starlight asked, an almost maniacal grin coming to her face.

“Well, I’m kind of estranged from my family at the moment,” Shimmer said. “But I’m trying to reconnect with them. Once I do that, I could help you find him.”

“You have to let everyone out though,” Sci-Twi reminded her.

Starlight froze. She dropped the bat to the floor, letting it bounce away, then sunk back into her chair. She just covered her head with her arms.

“Starlight, what’s really going on?” Sci-Twi asked. “You kept saying ‘I can’t’, not ‘I won’t’. What’s happening here?”

“It’s complicated,” she muttered from under her arms.

“Hey, complicated is our thing,” Sunset gave a half-chuckle.

“This is probably above your paygrade,” she said, looking up at them. “What do you know about a guy named Tirek?”

Both Twilights let out a long string of swears. Oddly enough, while the swears were the same, Princess Twilight sounded exasperated, while Sci-Twi was panicked.

“I might’ve remembered where I heard the name Tirek before,” Sci-Twi chuckled.

“Considering the interesting swearing, I’d guess so,” Sunset said. “Care to enlighten us?”

“Uh, well, I might keep an eye on crime stuff because of Shining,” she said nervously messing with her hair. “I forgot because of all the, well, interdimensional stuff. And long story short, Tirek was an underground Crime Lord until his brother sold out the whole operation to the cops. Everyone got arrested, but Tirek might’ve escaped from custody a few days ago? ”

“And then showed up here,” Starlight muttered. “He’s staying here until the police presence is low enough for him to slip away and get out of the country. As far as I know, I’m the only one who knows he’s here, but no one’s allowed to leave just in case. And you can imagine what was threatened if anyone left, or if I tried to call the cops.”

“So, how are we going to deal with this?” Princess Twilight said.

“You can’t,” she sighed. “If it were just a simple ‘call the cops and have them deal with it’, I would’ve done it by now. But there’s a whole apartment building of people who could get hurt. I don’t think he has a gun, at least he didn’t when he showed up and he hasn’t left to get one, but he’s enormous, and has access to blunt objects, maybe knives.”

“Okay, but here’s the thing,” Sunset said. “We literally have magic as an option.”

“I wouldn’t go for a direct confrontation at first,” Princess Twilight muttered. “Magic gives us an upper hand, but should something go sideways there’s a building full of human shields. I honestly wouldn’t suggest using magic on him anyway, considering his Dimensional Counterpart.”

“Yeah, even if the cops were involved that’d be a problem,” Shimmer agreed.

“If we could evacuate everyone, that’d make it easier,” Sci-Twi said. “Then we could just lock him in a room and call the cops. But a large group of people heading out of a building would be very noticeable.”

“What about however you guys got in here?” Starlight said. “Could that work?”

“Actually, yeah it might!” Sunset exclaimed. “If we teleport everyone out, no one would really notice from the inside. Of course, they’d be disoriented as hell and we’d have to explain everything later.”

“That’s what tenant meetings are for,” Shimmer shrugged. “Could you actually do that?”

“In theory,” Princess Twilight said. “Between Sunset and I, we could probably do it. The only problem is that we’d run out of energy eventually.”

“We can raid a few fridges after we teleport them,” Sunset shrugged. “As long as we keep eating we should be good. It’s technically stealing, but we’re doing it to help them out. Okay, maybe I could leave a couple bucks on their counters.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “We still have to cover the possibility that, even with magic, Tirek’d catch onto everyone being evacuated. Or catch onto the fact that we showed up here.”

“But no magic,” she repeated. “That cancels ward spells. A lookout would be nice, but I don’t want to put our friends into that.”

“I’ll do it,” Starlight offered. “I’m already in this.”

“No,” Princess Twilight said. “We need you to come with us so that we know we’re getting everyone out. Besides, even if you were a lookout, you’d have no way to contact us.”

“I hate to say that our friends are the best option,” Sunset frowned. “Rainbow could fly to us immediately, and Aj has the brute force to be able to restrain him. Maybe Pinkie’s party canons could be a weaponized distraction?”

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” she said.

“Eh, they faced a literal demon without magic,” she said with a smirk. “I think they’d be willing to face some jackass with a kitchen knife. That said, it’s still a bad idea, and if an emergency calls for it they should use magic. Really wish we’d taught Rainbow how to use some lightning.”

“Doesn’t this seem like a bad idea?” Sci-Twi asked. “It seems simple, but couldn’t everything go sideways at some point?”

“Try living in Ponyville for a week,” Princess Twilight huffed. “Okay, so plan is to teleport everyone out, lock Tirek in the building, then call the cops. Am I missing anything?”

“Don’t think so,” Shimmer said. “But I think I’ll be sitting this part out. Think I can get a ride with everyone else?”

The five of them went up the stairs once more. After explaining everything to the group waiting in the apartment, all of the remaining Rainbooms volunteered to help before hearing the plan. Deciding that they should keep it to as little as possible, Sunset took the initiative to teleport Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy out of the building with Shimmer and her roommates.

Once Starlight told them which room Tirek was hiding out in, and gave them a decent map, they had Sci-Twi lead Ranbow and Aj down to where it was. After that, teleporting everyone out was simple.

After the first two apartments, they’d decided explaining would be too complicated. It was much easier to teleport them out and agree to stay later and explain. Unfortunately, they did end up raiding someone’s fridge about half way through the floor.

“You know,” Twilight said through a bite of cold Chinese food. “I really should’ve figured out Starlight was here sooner.”

“Really?” Sunset asked.

“Speaking of,” Starlight said. “You really need to explain the magic and the-“

She gestured to the horn, ears, and wings that had appeared on Twilight.

“Right,” Twilight said. “Long story short, there’s another Dimension full of magical talking ponies, and everyone has a Counterpart. Sunset and I are from there, and we accidently brought Magic here so some humans can use it.”

“If I didn’t literally see you teleport people out, I wouldn’t believe it,” Starlight sighed. “So what does that have to do with me?”

“Your Counterpart was in charge of a village,” she said. “Well, sort of a cult, but I guess since you don’t have Cutie Marks here, or any kind of Magic really, there wasn’t anything for you to get obsessed over besides Sunburst.”

“Wow, other me sounds kinda terrible,” she half-chuckled.

“To be fair, they said you were a bitch of a landlord,” Sunset shrugged.

“And my world’s Starlight broke several Time laws in an attempt to spite me, which almost destroyed Equestria many times over,” Twilight said, ignoring Starlight’s shocked expression. “But the point was that Adagio mentioned Sugar Belle.”

“That’s the cousin of the kid we found, right?” she asked.

“Yep,” she said. “Sugar Belle is one of the ponies from the village. I should’ve connected the dots of an apartment being sort of like a small village.”

“I guess?” Starlight said.

“By the way,” Sunset said, pausing to swallow her own food. “Why are you using the fork? Figured you’d be into doing it ‘right’ and using chopsticks for this.”

“Not all of us have six years experience using hands!” Twilight said, sticking her tongue out at her. “You even said some Humans have trouble with those!”

Sunset bit her lip to stop from grinning like an idiot. She then reached over the table and tapped Twilight’s horn with her own chopstick.

“Oh,” Twilight said, her face growing red as the other two snickered.

Evacuating the building was slow going. Too many people wanted to ask questions. Too many people refused to answer the door. Thankfully Starlight had a Master Key, but that really only annoyed people.

And of course, stopping to eat every few minutes didn’t help. Starlight’s anxiety seemed to be going through the roof. Sunset understood, but then again, she’d faced worse. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing. Suddenly therapy sounded like a much better idea.

Eventually, they were back on the first floor. Unfortunately, despite being almost done, this was more difficult. If someone here started an argument about leaving, Tirek could hear. Despite the fact that he shouldn’t be suspicious, they all agreed he was probably paranoid as hell. Every time the ‘pop’ of teleportation sounded, they jumped and braced for the worse.

They were almost done. They’d reached the hallway with Tirek’s door. Well, technically it was Starlight’s door, as he had taken over her apartment. Still, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Sci-Twi stood guard and flinched every time they teleported someone out. Despite the fact that they should stop and eat, they pushed through.

They held their breath as they teleported the last four out of the building. After a moment, they breathed a sigh of relief. Then a loud alarm sounded through the hallway.

The six of them froze, eyes wide. It felt like an hour, but within a second the door burst open. An enormous man, who Sunset could only assume was Tirek, followed out. He rammed Applejack into the far wall before trying to run the other way.

Sunset was trying to shake herself enough to use her magic, even though something was screaming at her not to.

Tirek went to push Sci-Twi out of the way, or maybe take her as a hostage, but she grabbed his arm instead. Dropping to deadweight, she managed to flip them both into a somersault. There was an audible grunt form both as they landed; Tirek flat on his back and Sci-Twi on top but quickly rolling off into a standing position.

Everyone cringed as Rainbow gave a literal flying heel-kick to somewhere no one wants to be kicked. Applejack then planed her boot firmly on his chest. They all expected more of a fight, but Tirek barely moved.

“I think one of y’all knock him out,” Applejack said, cautiously taking her foot off him.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Rainbow asked, turning to Sci-Twi.

“Shining,” Sci-Twi answered, nervously twirling her hair. “I asked him to show me some self-defense stuff when I started biking through the park to get home. I don’t get to use it much outside of sparing practice.”

“From how you were in the games, I didn’t think you were the athletic type,” she said.

“Well, it was an obstacle course and archery,” she answered. “I haven’t practiced those much. Plus it was a competition in front of everyone. And I was being blackmailed to win. And Sour Sweet was yelling at me.”

“You know, maybe we can continue this later?” Sunset said. “Aj, drag him into the room while we get something to block the exits.”

Princess Twilight went into the previous apartment, while Sunset followed Aj into Starlight’s. She used the rest of her Magic to move shelves and other type things in front of the windows. Once the two of them got out, Princess Twilight levitated a bookshelf in front of the door. It wouldn’t hold him for long, but hopefully it’s long enough.

“So, what was the alarm that sounded?” Sunset asked.

“I think that might’ve been my phone?” Applejack said.

“Really?” Starlight sighed. “You didn’t at least put it on vibrate?”

“Hey, that Adagio girl said we’re in a deadzone,” she defended, checking her phone. “I didn’t think it was going to be a problem since it shouldn’t be ringing in the first place.”

“Who’s even texting you right now?” Rainbow asked. “The girls are all here, and I know you have dumb ringtones for your family members.”

“They’re not dumb,” she frowned. “And it’s from the school messaging site.”

“You have a school messaging site?” Starlight asked.

“It’s mostly used to get notes or assignments if you’re out sick,” Sunset said. “Some teachers send reminders to do the homework.”

“It wasn’t even my teacher,” Applejack frowned. “Applebloom’s in stagecraft, and I got the reminder to make sure she doesn’t forget about her mid-year exam.”

“Stagecraft is a theatre class, right?” Princess Twilight sighed. “Please tell me it’s not the teacher I think it is.”

Applejack just sighed and turned the phone toward her. There, grinning out of the goofiest profile picture a teacher could get away with, was Discord’s face. He was almost mocking them.

“Mind if I use this to call the cops?” Starlight asked, ignoring Princess Twilight’s longest string of swears yet. “Since it has a signal and all.”

“Sure,” Applejack replied, handing over her phone.

They stayed silent while Starlight talked to the police. After teleporting outside and reuniting with the rest of their group, it was only another minute before several police cars and the like swarmed the building.

“You know what this calls for?” Pinkie asked, ignoring the shouting behind her as Tirek was tossed into a waiting police car.

“A party?” everyone guessed.

“Correctamundo!” she cheered. “A big party in our hotel room! And maybe the pool! With my new girlfriend!”

“One one condition,” Sci-Twi said. “No one can ever tell my brother or my parents that we technically just took down an escaped crime lord.”

“Not much of a crime lord if we took him down like a little bitch!” Rainbow laughed.

“Still, a celebration doesn’t sound too bad,” Rarity said.

“You girls do realize you might have to give a police report, right?” Starlight asked.

“As an interdimensional Pony Princess, I literally cannot do that,” Princess Twilight said.

“I probably shouldn’t either,” Sunset said. “And Dash should power down before she does.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be a problem,” Rainbow said, shuffling her wings.

“Disguises!” Pinkie practically sang, handing her the two scraps of fabric from that morning. “Just keep your wings really still!”

“Think we could make it out of here?” Sunset asked.

“Knowing the police, they probably have the whole area roped off,” Sci-Twi said.

“I have an idea,” Princess Twilight said. “Sunset, think you can hold onto me?”

“You don’t have enough power for a teleport,” Sunset answered.

Princess Twilight just extended one of her wings in response. Catching on, Sunset wrapped her arms around her waist and let her fly them into the air. Thankfully, they were mostly out of range of sight, and no one wanted to admit to seeing two flying girls.

“Think you have enough energy for a cloudwalking spell?” Twilight asked as they reached the first few clouds.

Sunset nodded before casting the spell. Testing out the cloud first, she stepped onto it before flopping fully into it.

“I could use a nap,” Sunset sighed.

“I’m not stopping you,” Twilight agreed, laying beside her.

They woke up two hours later, thanks to Pinkie calling Sunset’s cellphone. Apparently they had a tenant meeting to go to.

Author's Note:

That was a bit anticlimactic.
Firstly, the beginning bit makes a reference to another fic about Cadence's parents, and the events in that.
Fun fact: the much darker original script had Shimmer and her roommates being a part of Tirek's still-ongoing crime operation, with Starlight as his second in command, and the Rainboms having to kick major ass in some sort of superhero fight scene. Despite it having more action, it had a sudden dark turn that I didn't like, so I went with this version. Lest of a climax, but fits better.