Chapter 5
Sunset staggered through the door, partly because she’d been pushed and partly because she needed to put distance between herself and Chrysalis. She spun and widened her stance before she could fall over and found herself face to face with someone that two days ago she’d have sworn she would never see again.
The click of the door rang in her skull like a bell, but Chrysalis’s eyes held all of her attention. It was the same look. The exact emotion she’d sent through email. The hunger, the anger, the amusement, the implicit threat were all there. The lingering doubt that Sunset had held onto was whipped away like smoke in a tornado and she suddenly felt every drop of fear she’d hoped to hold back.
“Now, now,” Chrysalis purred, “what is that face? You came here to see me, didn’t you? I’m touched.” She walked forward, swaying her hips in a way she definitely hadn’t been able to when Sunset met her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, or a monster. The big city is a scary place, isn’t it my little pony?”
“Shut up!” Sunset said, shocking herself out of the reverie she’d fallen into. “I don’t—”
Chrysalis was closer than Sunset had expected. A hand lashed out and before Sunset could process what was happening, a strong grip closed on her chin and nails dug uncomfortably into her cheeks.
“That’s no way to treat your host. After I went through all this trouble, the least you could do is say thank you.”
Sunset slapped the arm aside and stumbled backwards, reestablishing the distance. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. She checked her nails and clucked, wiggling a loose one until it came off. “I’m doing what I always do. I’m getting better. How often do you get the chance to try the same thing twice?”
“What,” Sunset growled, feeling blood pulse in her ears. “You’re just using her for practice?”
“Please,” Chrysalis scoffed. “I don’t need practice.”
“Then I don’t get you.”
“You never did, poor thing.” Chrysalis crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side with a sigh. Sunset felt like a puppy who had torn up the couch. “I just wanted to relive some old times. But after you turned out to be such a disappointment, I needed another option.”
“Disappointment!?” Sunset took another step back and her leg bumped a coffee table. “You left, Chrys.”
“I did say I would be back.”
“We both know you were lying.”
Chrysalis smiled, relaxing as if it were a fond memory. “Yeah, I was. But you know, after some time on the road, I thought I would actually keep that promise. For once, you see? I would try making an honest woman out of myself.” Sunset almost snorted, but there was a tinge of honesty in Chrysalis’s voice even as her face fell. “And when I come back, what do I find but that my love has replaced me with those…” Her face scrunched as she tried to find the right term. “People.”
“There is nothing wrong with ‘those people’, Chrysalis. If we had just given them a chance earlier—”
“Ugh!” Chrysalis threw her hands up towards the ceiling. “And there it is. Where did this saccharine sentimentality come from? I left you as the Princess of that school. You ran that place so well I heard people calling you a demon!” —Sunset blushed at this— “But I swing by to check in on my old friend and find she’s become so...so common.” She said the last word like it was the foulest curse she could imagine.
Sunset edged her way around the coffee table, but there wasn’t anywhere to go from there. “Don’t act like you were royalty. You lied to me.”
Chrysalis pushed her lip out and Sunset registered the pity in her eyes. “Don’t you remember any of our late night conversations? Royalty lies. That’s why you’re here in the first place, isn’t it?” She shrugged. “Besides, I never worked too hard to lie to you. We both knew exactly how our relationship worked. That’s why it worked so well.”
Sunset took in another deep breath and let it out in a sigh. She relaxed her shoulders. “Yeah. I guess we did. Is that what you have here? Someone else who knows how your relationship works?”
Chrysalis frowned closed her eyes with all the gravitas of a mourning lover at a wake. “I’m afraid not. This Sunset doesn’t understand me the way you did. She’s far too credulous, you see. But, she certainly has her own charms over you. She’s not a coward, for one.”
Sunset tried to argue, but a tremor in her throat only proved her right.
“I sent you two pictures and you’re here trembling like I murdered your family. And you even sent your blue friend to spy on me instead of coming yourself.”
“And?” Sunset said, mastering her voice again. “What are you going to do next? Leave her with promises you think she’ll believe?”
Chrysalis laughed and leaned against the corner of a wall, holding a finger up. “I’m really not sure. I could do that, let her sit waiting for a return that will never come. She really would believe me, you know. Or perhaps I could find something else to do. Something that will make you squirm just as much, if not more. It would be hard to watch you, but I’ve got a vivid imagination.”
Another breath in, and out. “So do I. I can’t let you do this. You know that, right? And like you said, Chrysalis. I know you. Do you remember what your first gift to me was?”
“There’s that sentimentality again. And wasn’t it that cream soda? Your face when you got that was so adorable I could have eaten you up right there.”
Sunset pulled off her hat and shook out her hair. “No. It wasn’t the soda. It was the key to your apartment.”
For the first time, Chrysalis looked a little taken aback, right up until the moment the door swung open and revealed Sunset Shimmer, looking understandably shocked. There was a note clutched in her hand, and through the creases it was just possible to make out the words “Come to Chrysalis’s”.
“Chryssi? Who...who is that?”
“Sunset!” Chrysalis whirled on her heel, jaw struggling to form a good enough lie. “This is...I mean, she’s…” She shot a look over her shoulder. First, she looked utterly shocked. Then, she looked utterly pissed. She cleared the distance to the door in a few long strides and gripped the other Sunset by the upper arm. “Let’s go talk.”
Sunset lunged forward to try to stop her, but got caught up in the coffee table and hit the floor with a heavy thud. She scrambled to her feet and made it to the door just as it closed. She ripped it open and caught someone disappearing through the door to the stairway.
She might have started descending, but she heard a voice—her own voice, that was awkward—accompanied by the frantic stomping of feet on stairs coming from above.
“Hey! You’re holding too tight, where are we going?”
Dash picked up her phone on the first ring.
“Red! The other Sunset is—”
“I know, they’re going up. Gonna need that backup again.”
“You got it!”
Sunset heard the sound of the front door opening echoed from the bottom of the stairs and through the phone. She’d already climbed several more stories, but Chrysalis was still out of sight. From above, the sound of a key turning in a lock bounced down to meet her.
She redoubled her pace, and as she rounded the last flight she saw a door leading out to the fading evening light starting to close by itself. She told her legs to stop complaining and pulled herself up the last set just in time to burst onto the roof.
Chrysalis was there at the edge, still holding the double by her arm. Sunset made it three steps before Chrysalis stopped her with a jerk that threatened to throw her burden over the lip. Sunset slowly held up her hands. “Alright, okay, Chrysalis, let’s talk this out.”
“I think not,” Chrysalis said, her words coming out in a hiss. She jerked her head at the opposite side of the roof, and Sunset obeyed, taking slow steps to the spot that was indicated. They stood across from each other now, the door equidistant between them. Behind her a building rose into the night for another story or two, while Chrysalis was framed against the open street.
There was a thump at the door seconds after it closed, followed by the jostling of the knob and the pounding of fists. Sunset barely inched her foot towards the door when Chrysalis let out a sharp reproach. No moving. She nodded and held her hands up again, and some muffled words accompanied retreating steps.
“Good,” Chrysalis said, though her composure was constantly shaking by Sunset’s double’s struggle against the grip.
“Let me go! Why are you doing this? What’s going on?”
“Sorry,” Chrysalis said, sounding genuinely remorseful. But, it was Chrysalis. “It seems like our time is up. One last game. Now then…” She locked eyes with Sunset and smiled. “Why don’t you be a dear and jump for me?”
The height grew all the more dizzying at the prospect of toppling off of it. She hesitated and met Chrysalis’s eye. Chrysalis jerked the other Sunset closer to the edge, and there was no doubt that she was willing to throw her over. “Okay, alright, let me just—”
“I think we’ve both wasted enough time tonight, my love.” Chrysalis sneered. “I’m tired of playing games with you. So, jump, or watch her fall in your place. Either way suits me just fine.”
Sunset gave herself a few, slow breaths and made her decision. She nodded slowly and took a half step back to the edge.
Something caught the fading light of the sun as it spun up over the lip behind Chrysalis. It arced cleanly over the edge and clattered neatly into the gravel that lined the roof. A cell phone landed screen-down, and visible on the case was a lightning bolt made of rainbows.
Chrysalis stared at it for just a moment, and as soon as she turned her eyes away from it a too-loud, artifacted mess of noise exploded from the speakers.
“WHAT IN TARNATION DO YA THINK YER DOIN YA LAZY—”
Both Chrys and the double started in surprise and winced as the sound echoed between the buildings. Before either could recover, Sunset had made it halfway across the roof. Chrysalis came to first and just let go of the double’s arm just as she tried to pull away. She lost her balance and headed for freefall.
Sunset willed her legs into one last desperate sprint. She reached out a hand, and saw her double do the same. She closed the distance in no time at all and clasped her wrist, but even as she did she felt a shin connect with her own. Chrysalis, out of the corner of her eye, smirked as she lost balance and tumbled forward. Her momentum sent both Sunsets into open air.
Sunset Shimmer was falling. Below her, a foreign street in a foreign world was rushing to meet her. Above, Applejack continued to rage into the city twilight and Chrysalis’s face, wreathed in triumph, was swallowed by the retreating building. Everything she had done since arriving in this strange place flooded through her mind, all of the experiences, the friends, the mistakes.
She had never been so calm.
Some parts of Chrysalis had changed, certainly. Many had stayed the same. But if there was one thing that Sunset knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that she had changed as well, and in ways Chrysalis could never imagine.
The last rays of the sun struck her body and swirled away, drifting in lazy wisps into the air above her. She tucked her legs and rolled as the glow intensified. She looked to the side and saw herself, terrified and confused and screaming. She reached out and grabbed her hand, and they both slowed in their descent. She met her own eyes. “We’ve got you.”
Two nearly identical lights burst into the Manehattan street. One from Sunset herself, and one from the street below. The fall slowed to a stop, and Rainbow Dash rose beneath Sunset’s double’s other arm. They worked together to lift an awestruck and even more confused version of Sunset back into the sky.
Chrysalis’s face appeared just in time to catch a faceful of feathers and flaming magic as they shot past her and back to the relative safety of the rooftop. Once they settled the only one among them who couldn’t fly onto the ground, Sunset turned and, without effort, floated several feet off the ground facing Chrysalis.
“It’s over,” she said.
And she meant it.
Chrysalis was breathing heavily, staring with wide-eyed amazement at the great, glowing wings. She dragged herself away just long enough to look at Sunset’s face.
She never knew quite what Chrysalis saw there. Sunset was running on the fumes of so many emotions that she couldn’t have answered a simple ‘how are you’, much less explain her own facial expression at that moment. Whatever she was doing, it made Chrysalis very, very angry.
She ran for the door, but Rainbow Dash floated down with a “Nuh-uh, I don’t think so.”
Chrysalis kicked up some of the tiny rocks from the floor and Dash had to cover her face to keep them out of her eyes. Since the way was still blocked, however, she changed direction and sprinted for the edge of the roof. Sunset saw it happening and, for the second time that night, made a beeline for someone about to fall off the edge of a building. This time she had wings. Right up until they disappeared.
The roof shuddered as she landed hard. She tried to get to her feet, but her legs, beaten well past their limits, gave out a second time. She looked up in time to see the hateful flash of green eyes as Chrysalis plummeted out of sight.
A shout worked its way out of her throat and she dragged herself to the edge of the roof. She propped herself on the low stone rise and looked over. Directly below her, instead of finding Chrysalis injured or worse, there was a fire escape. In the time it had taken her to cross the short distance, Chrysalis had disappeared.
It took a while to get the new Sunset up to speed. They didn’t really manage it, in truth. Around the ‘world of magical ponies’ part, she had to hold up her hands and tell them that she was about done for that day, thank-you-very-much. They traded numbers, Sunset apologized profusely, and they invited her to stay at their hotel for the night. She seemed reticent, but she accepted the offer.
Chrysalis was just gone. Her apartment hadn’t had much in the way of personal effects, and those few that had been there were missing. They’d likely been kept together for this sort of quick escape. No one had seen her leave, and no one knew where she was.
Rainbow Dash was immensely proud of herself. She showed Sunset her phone. The screen was cracked, but it still worked pretty well. Well enough to show a text conversation.
-text me
-What?
-text me in like 30 seconds.
-
-
-Okay, now why am I textin you?
Sunset bought her dinner and takeout. And they stopped at a lunch buffet on the way home the next day. She even offered to talk with Applejack about the whole ordeal, and Dash took that as an added bonus instead of the self-preservation measure it was. Sunset wasn’t going to complain. In fact, she figured it would be a good idea to sit down and talk with everyone. Even, despite a tiny voice in the back of her mind screaming disaster, Pinkie Pie.
She’d recovered enough to drive, physically, by the time they pulled out of the hotel parking lot. She was just so tired. She wanted to get home, get in bed, and not move for at least twenty-four hours.
Everything Chrysalis had said ran itself over and over in her mind. There were so many contradictions there that she was having trouble keeping track of it. One line stuck out in her mind.
“I’m tired of playing games with you.”
She gripped harder on the steering wheel as it echoed between her ears. Not because it hurt to be dismissed. Not because she felt abandoned, or alone. Even if Rainbow Dash was snoozing in the reclined seat next to her. No, a much more dreadful feeling clenched her heart all the way down the highway because of who exactly had said it.
She was Chrysalis.
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This was an interesting story. I liked the plot, the setup of both relationships, the characterisation of Sunset and Rainbow. Chrysalis' characterisation was slightly harder to judge, as we mostly only saw her from afar, but she managed a good balance between understandable and threatening. I wish Other Sunset had waited just a moment longer before coming into Chrysalis' apartment, as it sounded like there was about to be a 'but' there of Chrysalis being disheartened with just using Other Sunset for revenge.
I must say I didn't like the wings thing. It felt very deus ex machina, and kind of broke the tension of an otherwise-grounded-in-reality story. I'm also not quite sure we saw enough of Chrysalis being Chrysalis and doing diabolical things for the final line to really have the impact it needed.
But I liked the story as a whole, I liked its balance of action and drama, and more than anything I liked Chrysalis as something more than a one-note villain or a comical failure. Especially one who lives to lie another day
Thanks for writing!
9835608
Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed!
I do wish I'd been able to come up with a good enough reason to push in another Chrysalis flashback. Probably could have fit one in between chapters 2 and 3, or even 3 and 4. I just couldn't get the creative juices flowing enough to come up with a cohesive scene that would have served its purpose. There is definitely a lot more to explore here.
I do understand where you're coming from, from an objective point of view, with the whole arson thing. But to Rainbow Dash this wasn't some supernatural magician from another world, or magic wood elves or whatever happened in the movies. This was just Chrysalis, a kinda weird girl whose style Dash might have liked. I wasn't trying to elevate her to superdemon levels. The fact that school buildings are occasionally burned down and the fact that the person you knew was planning on doing it are two different things, like the difference between knowing that murder happens and hearing that your neighbor murdered someone.
Also, it's funny you mention not liking the ponying up, I've gotten the opposite criticism in the past because I don't like using the canonical magic powers the characters develop in one of the movies. Can't please 'em all, I suppose!
Also if you haven't checked them out you should go read Dappled Shores and possibly some of the other recentish stories I have on my authorial list okay I'm done with the self-promotionThanks again!
9835646 Another flashback might have been good, yeah, though it's hard to know for sure without seeing it
That might have upset the balance of Chrysalis being stable enough for Sunset to be with for that long but unstable enough to be dangerous, so I could see arguments either way.
That's a good response about arson, changing how Rainbow saw her and stuff. And Rainbow initially being ok with Chrysalis is something that maybe another flashback would have helped with, yeah? That was certainly an interesting angle, that Chryssi wasn't so bad until Sunset came along.
I'm less sure about this, though. Murder seems an enormous shift in thinking, something that would totally and irrevocably change the lives of everyone involved. Whereas a few petrol bombs thrown at a school would cause, what, an insurance claim? A year in temporary classrooms while the building is rebuilt? So while I agree that that's a great contrast from the magical happenings at the school, it still doesn't seem anywhere near the same level of damaging for the students as Sunset's antics before the first EG movie.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using those in a story, but it ties to what you said in your previous paragraph. You'd made an effort to keep Chrysalis grounded as a human villain, separated from the magical and the supernatural and not elevated to demon levels. So the magical powers then used to thwart her plan don't really feel like they belong in the story?
Do those stories have Chrysalis in...?
9835676
Yeah, I can understand that. I looked at it differently when I wrote it, but it's definitely a valid question about the apropos...ness...Aproposity? Of using it as a sort of resolution.
On the other hand she's used it just to punctuate a song that she was singing for 10 hours straight as the sun rose up from the exact position it set in when the song started, so it's not like they're sacrosanct. Either way, I'll keep it in mind moving forward!
And as far as you know she is.Man, Rainbow and Sunset are surprisingly good partners-in-crime here. Fun thriller, and a really good job of hindsight-characterizing the twisted relationship those two had.
Spoiler comments:
Best a' luck in the contest!
Needed a few more qualifiers in that action scene to keep straight which Sunset was which. :B
Otherwise, this was good. I hope those dinner promises turn into something more. :D
9927765
Y'know, that was probably what I spent the most time fussing over and I'm convinced that I could never get the balance between properly explaining and overloading the qualifiers just right. Kinda wrote myself into that one eh?
Fantastic story
It was tense, it was good.
I can see that burning down an empty school building is much different than hypnotising someone off a rooftop .. but it is in Chrysalis' character to be able to cold heartedly control someone like that.
Good story :)