Chapter 4
-Are you there?
-
-Rainbow Dash get up, I need you asap.
-
-Come on WAKE UP! I FOUND HER!
-
-Alright, sorry to do this to you.
-I need you to text Dash.
-Everything okay?
-It’ll be fine, I just can’t get through to Dash. Please?
-I thought somethin was up. Alright, but tell me later?
-You’d either get it from me or RD, so I might as well.
-Done. Take care of yourself, Sugarcube.
-Thanks.
-that was low
-I found her and Sunset’s apartment and I need backup before I either do something stupid or have a heart attack.
-woah ok where are you?
It took Rainbow Dash less than twenty minutes to make it through the streets, and from the way she was breathing by the time she arrived, Sunset figured she either got very lucky with crossing signals or just vaulted over several cars. She’d given the address of the building, so Dash slowed down in front of it, but Sunset—back around the corner after a frantic sprint to that newsstand—stuck her head into view and gave a sharp whistle and waved her over with only about half as much urgency as she felt.
When Dash turned the corner, Sunset whapped a novelty snapback hat over her head.
“Hey, what?” She tore the hat off and crinkled her nose at it. “Uh, thanks, Red, but it’s not really my style.”
“Chrysalis knows you, and out of everyone I know you’re the one I could spot from a hundred meters in a crowd.” Sunset held up her own, identical hat. “If we’re going to follow her, we’ll need to not be the two most obvious people in the city.”
There was serious consideration on Dash’s face as she read over ‘I Heart Manehattan’ again. “You’re buying dinner on the way home.”
“I’ll buy you dinner for a week.” If, she thought, she made it out of this intact.
“You got yourself a deal,” Dash said, haphazardly stuffing the rainbow under the hat. “What’s the plan?”
“I need you to follow them when they leave, see where they go. And you can’t let them see you.”
“You sure they’re going to leave together?”
Sunset nodded and peeked around the corner. “Chrys brought flowers. It’s a date night, and she always pushes to go out on dates. She doesn’t like feeling cooped up.”
“You guys were really close, huh?”
“Sh!” Sunset’s hand, more or less of its own accord, gripped onto Dash’s upper arm a bit too tight. She was too busy watching to notice. Chrysalis and Sunset stepped out of the building arm-in-arm and, thankfully, turned away from their would-be stalkers to take off down the street.
Sunset reached into her bag and pushed some money into Dash’s pocket. “In case you need a cab or bus fare. You ready?”
“I was born ready.”
Seriously doubting this, Sunset nodded, waited until the two disappeared around the corner, and patted Dash’s shoulder. “Turn your phone to vibrate and let’s do this.”
“Uh, I don’t know if I’m allowed to—”
“I’ll take the heat. Just go.”
They both rounded their own corner, walking a little too stiff to be casual. Sunset stopped at the door to the building and waved a reluctant Dash on ahead. Once she, too, was out of sight, Sunset took a deep breath and stepped into the building.
The desk guard in the building was surprisingly on point. When she told him she’d locked herself out of her room, he noted that he thought she’d been wearing something different. She’d stammered out something about her jacket, and how she needed to hurry or she and Chrysalis would miss the bus, and after a few moments the guy finally relented and led her up to the apartment.
It was a small studio: smaller than her own, certainly. One room and a bathroom. Fold-out futon, modest TV, little bookshelf, cramped closet. Twelfth floor. It felt cozy, though. Like home. Unsettlingly like home.
Having spent a little too long just staring at the place, she hustled into the room and found something to write on. When she finished her note, she turned the paper over and, though she nearly decided against it, scrawled another one with her phone number.
Her work done, she let herself have one more glance up at the room. There, indeed, was the window. Through it, the late afternoon sun was gleaming off of her two landmarks. The pointed tower and the red roof. She could almost see Chrysalis there. In front of that window, arm slung around Sunset’s twin, other arm holding out her phone to snap the fated picture. It was meant for this, she decided. It was meant to go to her. Chrysalis had poured emotions that Sunset could no longer understand into a single look, a single snapshot.
A shiver ran down her spine and she turned and left the apartment. She took the stairs back down, thanked the doorman, and just about ran out into the street with her phone in her hand.
Chrysalis and the other Sunset really had jumped into a bus, and Rainbow Dash said she’d managed to get into the back seats without them noticing. That put Sunset in an awkward position. She couldn’t very well start travelling if she didn’t know where they were going to end up. Chrysalis was a restaurant person, but that narrowed it down to just about every street in the city. It meant she couldn’t do anything but wait until they got off and Dash told her where.
Being stuck with her own thoughts was rather distasteful to her at the moment, so she chose instead to wander in the general direction the bus had gone in hopes that the constant and slight changes in scenery would let her get away with turning on cruise control until she needed to do something. When she got the text with the name of the restaurant, she found to her surprise that it was only a few blocks away from where she’d wound up strolling.
Rush hour traffic, she guessed.
She found Rainbow Dash lounging on a bench across and down the street. She sat next to her and looked at Chrysalis’s chosen house du jour. Italian. Probably nicer decor than food.
“Told ‘ya I could do it.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said. She didn’t catch the trembling in her arm before Dash saw it.
“Hey, Red? Stop me if I get annoying or whatever, but are you okay?”
She thought about lying, but the concept left a rotten taste in her mouth. “No,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why she’s doing this. I don’t know what I did to make her so mad at me.” She ran her fingers through her hair, then used it as an excuse to bunch it into a loose knot and hide it under her hat.
“Maybe she’s just trying to make you jealous? I mean none of this is cool, like at all, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. How like...together were you guys?”
Sunset leaned her head back and stared up the darkening sky. “Pretty together. Did you know we were living together?”
“You didn’t talk much about your personal life.”
“She took me in when I didn’t have anywhere to go. I thought she was just friendly but misunderstood. I...empathized, I guess. Learned really quick that she was a pathological liar, but I kept believing her. At least, when it wasn’t too big of a deal, you know? Or, when it was convenient.”
“So she kind of messed you up?”
Sunset rubbed her knee, mulling that over. “No. I would have been the same, more or less. I left Equestria because I wanted power and I wasn’t getting it. She drew that out of me and pointed me in whatever direction she wanted.” She sighed. “When I told you the wrong day for the bake sale? That was my idea, but she let on that she thought you and Applejack were shooting for some kind of double-princess-ship that year.”
Dash tilted her head and squinted. “And you bought that?”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
“So, I guess it doesn’t matter why she’s doing all this. She’s crazy, right? So whatever she’s doing, we gotta stop her.”
“Yeah.” Sunset hugged herself, if only to stop her hands from fidgeting. Her knee started bouncing instead. “This might get dangerous.”
“Danger is my middle name.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Look, if you don’t believe that I’m going to stick with you for this, then remember what happens if I don’t.”
Sunset glanced at her phone and chuckled. “Guess I can’t shake you.”
Dash perked up. “Too late anyway,” she said, nodding towards the restaurant. Two figures emerged from it. Sunset hunched her shoulders and caught her breath. A nudge from Dash kept her grounded.
The couple stopped at the sidewalk and embraced. They even traded a lingering kiss.
“...That’s just weird,” Dash whispered, trying not to be too obvious in staring.
“You’re telling me,” Sunset said, pointedly ignoring them.
They parted and waved, heading in opposite directions. Dash hissed something under her breath as Chrysalis headed their way, though she showed no sign of crossing the street. “We splitting up again?”
“No, we’re following Chrys.” It was the one thing Sunset was sure of at the moment. They could find the other Sunset again, and talking to her wouldn’t do anything more than freak her out. She hunched down in the bench, not looking and nudging Dash to do the same.
About a minute later, Dash elbowed her back. “She just turned the corner. Went right by the bus stop.”
Sunset pushed herself to her feet and took off at a brisk walk. She picked an opportune time to bolt across the street, trusting that Dash was behind her. “She must live nearby,” Sunset whispered at the corner, using her camera again to peek around it. Chrysalis was already at the end of the block and was crossing the street. Sunset waited until she disappeared around the next corner and made for the next convenient cover.
They repeated this process for the next half hour. The jig was nearly up more than once but for some quick dives into alleys and hasty backtracking around corners. Even Dash kept more or less quiet, and Sunset felt unexpectedly comforted for having the mostly disaffected presence around to share gritted teeth and relieved sighs with.
When Chrysalis finally walked into a building, Sunset insisted—several times—that Dash needed to stay near the door in case something happened. It would have taken more, but Sunset whispered two words before closing the door to cut off further argument.
Just inside the building was a wall of mailslots. It didn’t take very long to find Chrysalis’s name and match it to a room number. Only the third floor. She made for the stairs and focused more on how much her calves would be burning the next day than what she was about to do.
The door to the third floor didn’t have a window, but it only took opening it a crack to see that the hallway was empty. She crept as silently as she could across the thin carpet and counted the room numbers until she found the one she was looking for. She raised her hand to knock, but found her hand shaking. Her vision tunneled.
She remembered a trick Princess Twilight had mentioned at one point or another. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and as she let it out she swung her arm just a little. The finger flick she added was her own.
She was ready. She could do this. She prepared to knock, her heart thumping so hard she thought it might give her away. She needn’t have worried.
An arm wrapped gently around her waist. A chin rested itself on her shoulder, and a cheek pressed warm against her own. A hand slid a key into the lock.
“Hello, my love. It’s wonderful to see you again.”
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This was a nice touch, and a sweet moment!
But this was much sweeter!
So this is basically a story about Sunset stalking her ex. Who she never broke up with. For ostensibly noble reasons, but other reasons besides.
I like that.
Yeah, Chrysalis is the sort of person (in any universe) that will notice someone stalking her.