> The Empath and the Sociopath
>  by Justice3442
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The first time they met
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Alright, alright!” Sunset said with a tired smile she directed at her friends. “Thanks girls, but I don’t know if my new place needs three musical numbers!”

Pinkie quickly crammed the rest of a piece of pizza in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “AAAaaaAAAwww~!” she warbled in a disappointed tone. “But that was gonna be a good one! I could feel it! And technically we’ve only had one for your new place.”

Rarity leaned forward, placing a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “‘Every Place has Its Charms’ was about the local color, dear…”

Applejack raised an eyebrow in Rarity’s direction. “Still, it sounded to me like you wanted to sing something different.”

Rarity sighed. “Well, had I not known Sunset already paid her deposit and first month’s rent, I’d probably have sung, ‘We should leave quickly before we’re mugged or worse!’”

Pinkie pursed her lips in a thoughtful manner. “We should leave quickly now before we’re mugged or worse!~

“Hold on to that purse and get moving so you don’t end up on the news or in a Hearse!

“That alleyway doesn’t look safe, so let’s walk a little faster!

“You never know when you’ll be the target of a stab disaster!~”

Pinkie smiled and nodded to herself. “I know what we’re singing on our way back!~” She trilled. 

Sunset chuckled with a levity clearly not shared by most her guests. “Okay, but there was still the one song as you helped me move and fix up this place!”

“But that could have gone so much better!” Pinkie insisted. Her face wrinkled as she tossed an accusatory glance towards someone. “Fluttershy!” 

Fluttershy cringed. “Sorry…” She nodded and cast a very weary set of eyes to one spot in particular. “Er… I was not expecting to have to clean blood off the wall during ‘All This House Needs is some TLC’.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure that was fake, Fluttershy. Maybe someone’s bad idea of a practical joke? You’d have to be an idiot to try and sell a place with blood still on the walls.”

Applejack took a deep breath then let it out. “Don’t change the fact that the last occupant died here…”

Pinkie Pie wiggled her fingers. “Under mysterious circumstances! OOOOOOooooOOOOOoooo!”

“Doesn’t that freak you out?” Rainbow Dash asked, a slice of pizza in her hand. “You’re renting a place that was owned by a dead guy!”

“Twinkle Shine,” Sunset said. “His name was ‘Twinkle Shine’.” 

Rainbow Dash frowned. “Twinkleshine sounds like a girl’s name…”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Twinkle space Shine, Dash… Totally different… And he didn’t own the place, he was also a renter!” 

“You know what I meant!” Rainbow Dash said. “Aren’t you at least a little creeped out?” 

“Er…” Fluttershy tossed an errant glance at the same spot on the wall. “I know I am… A lot creeped out, actually.”

Sunset shrugged. “I deal with a bunch of weird stuff as it is. I mean… if this place is haunted, at least I know who to call if I need a ghost removed!”

“Oh!” Pinkie smiled widely. “You mean you’d need someone to help you giggle at the ghosty? ‘Cause I have a song about that, too!”

“What? Oh, not you guys.”

The girls looked at each other in confusion.

“Then who you gunna call?” Applejack called. 

Pinkie raised a hand. “Ooo! Ooo! I know this one!”

“Aria,” Sunset answered.

“It turns out I didn’t know that one!” Pinkie said as she lowered her hand.

Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity all cringed.

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Rarity said.

Sunset smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be fine… Come on. I’ll walk you out…”

Rainbow Dash quickly scarfed down the slice in her hand as the girls made their way to the door. 

“Are you sure you don’t want a house-warming sleepover?” Pinkie asked.

Sunset nodded as the girls filed out into a rather narrow hallway. “I’m beat, Pinkie… Moving all my stuff, two musical numbers… Maybe you have some crazy, never-ending well of energy, but I need some rest,” she said, passing another door on the way to the stairwell, a door that slowly opened without so much as a sound.

The girls made their way down a metal spiral staircase, casting their eyes one more on an extremely well-furnished living area.

Applejack shook her head. “Ah still can’t get over how big that TV is. They musta had to knock out a wall jus’ to get it in here.”

“I know, right!” Rainbow Dash agreed. “And it looks like every system that came out in the last decade or more is down here!”

Rarity clicked her tongue. “How typical of you two, no mention of that gorgeous marble table or the beautiful rug it’s sitting on!”

“Not to mention that couch!”  Pinkie took a running start from the stairs and flung herself onto a massive, black leather couch. “Ohhhh… Rich Corinthian leather!” she said rubbed a cheek against one of the cushions. 

“Uh, Pinkie, dearest?” Rarity called out. “People’s derrieres touch that part, so uh…”

“Whoop!” Pinkie’s sky-blue eyes shot open wide as she bolted upright. “Hehehehe!”

“Er… Could use a little more light…”  Everyone turned to look at Fluttershy who seemed to blush almost on instinct from being the sudden recipient of all the silent attention in the room. “Uh… There’s not much natural light here… erm…. Compared to Sunset’s room.”

“Hah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “With sweet digs like this, you wouldn’t want a lot of natural light looking in!” 

Applejack rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, yeah… Ah, mean… This stuff is really nice… too nice for a duplex in the crummy part of town. Er, no offense Sunset.”

“None taken,” Sunset replied with a shrug. “It’s nice for you guys to have issue with where I live instead of what I’ve done for a change.”

“Yes, but what kind of person lives like this?” Rarity asked as she cautiously stepped towards the living room and examined everything.

“Someone with lots of money, that’s for sure!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“And maybe not a lot of sense?” Fluttershy suggested.

Pinkie frowned at Fluttershy. “What?! How can they have lots of cents and no money?!”

“Sense, Pinkie,” Rarity stressed. “S-e-n-s-e!”

“Oh, oops… Hehehe…”

Rainbow Dash chuckled as she walked up to admire the video game console collection.  “Maybe Sunset’s roommate is just so scary that anyone who knows about this place knows not to mess with it!”

Applejack looked over the massive TV in concern. “You don’t think they’re into anything illegal, do you?”

“Meep…” Fluttershy uttered.

“Like racketeering?” Rarity suggested as much as asked.

“Oh! Or selling drugs!” Rainbow Dash practical shouted.

“Or… erm… prostitution?” Fluttershy uttered.

“Uh… I was thinking more arms dealing…” Applejack said.

“Ooo! Ooo! Or maybe they’re the reason Sunset’s ghost roommate is dead in the first place!”

The room went uncomfortably quiet all of a sudden as there was a quick and sudden retreat from the furnished portion of the room.

Sunset just smiled and shook her head from side to side. “Guys, it’s fine! I already looked up my new roommate.”

“You have?!” five female voices suddenly called out.

Sunset nodded. “Yeah! I checked out her MyStable page,” Sunset whipped out a smartphone in an orange case as four of her five friends gathered around.

Pinkie’s eyebrows tighten. “Anyone ever worry that this world is seemingly obsessed with horses for no discernable reason?”

Sunset continued, “She’s like… the daughter of some rich foreigners from Eastern Europony or the Middle-East… maybe both?” 

“Oh, Like Saddle-Arabia?” Applejack suggested. “Iraquine?” 

“Yeah!” Sunset chimed in. “Lemme just get her on my app…”

Fluttershy turned towards Rainbow Dash. “Oh, erm… Isn’t that one Daring Do Villain from there? The Stalwart Stallion?”

“What? Dude, he’s from South Amarequinecoltia.” 

“Okay, just me then,” Pinkie said as she joined the group.

“Uh… Sunset…” Applejack began as she noticed pictures begin to spin up oher friend’s phone, “isn’t this kinda an invasion of privacy?” 

“Oh relax, AJ,” Sunset said. “I just did a basic internet search and found whatever was public. It’s not like I hacked the poor girl!”

Applejack frowned slightly. “Still doesn’t feel right…”

“I’m moving in with a stranger in what’s affectionately known as the 'glue factory’ of Canterlot city!” Sunset said in a slightly vexed tone. “I didn’t feel like taking my chances.”


“Uh… Ah, guess that’s fair?” Applejack said. “Ah mean… still kinda taking a chance moving here in the first place!”

“There’s a coffee shop on my way to school, alright!” Sunset said. “It’s convenient.”

“So’s not being robbed…” Applejack muttered. “But whatta Ah know…”

Rarity let out a squee of delight as Sunset flicked through her new roommate's page. “Oh, my gosh, she’s absolutely adorable! Those red heart-shaped glasses! That long green hair! That ashen skin!”

“Huh… Chrysi…” Applejack uttered. “Now that’s a foreign name if I ever heard one.”

“It sounds pretty cute to me,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah… she is pretty cute in general…” Rainbow Dash said as Sunset swiped through pictures of selfies, pictures at the malls, and pictures of meals ranging from fast food to possibly far pricier than any of the girls could afford without saving up. 

“Eyes are kinda weird though…” Applejack quipped.

“Applejack!” Rarity cried. “There’s rude and then there’s borderline racist!”

Applejack shrugged. “Ah’m just saying what everyone is thinkin’!”

“I thought they looked cool,” Rainbow Dash said. “How old is she?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity hissed. “It’s not polite to ask such things of a lady!”

“Okay, well… she looks like she’s about our age is all,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh my, yes,” Fluttershy agreed.

“She’s a few years older, actually,” Sunset said. “Looks like she graduated Crystal Prep a while back and has mostly decided to hang out here afterward.”

“Huh… Wonder why she decided to stay,” Rainbow Dash said.

Applejack chuckled as she leaned back from the phone. “Maybe they don’t have freedom back where she’s from,” she joked.

“Huh, or cows to kill more likely,” Rainbow Dash said. “I think this girl has a dead herd in her closet.”

“What’s wrong with that?!” Sunset asked in a slightly defensive tone.

Everyone looked up and quietly turned towards Fluttershy. 

Fluttershy chuckled nervously. “It’s fine! I’m sure those cows feel a lot better in the great pasture in the sky knowing their skin is hanging off such a cute girl…”

Pinkie grinned. “Do you mean Sunset or Chrysi?”

“… Yes...” Fluttershy simply answered.

Sunset shook her head and put away her phone. “Look. The point is, she probably just has some rich parents who sent her to the States to learn and she’s decided to take it easy for a while and enjoy her independence a bit.”

“Or maybe that’s what she wants you to think!” Pinkie said. “You know! Lure you into a false sense of security then bam!” Pinkie pounded a fist into an open palm. “Your apartment is free again!”

The group went uncomfortably silent once more.

“Erm… Well… We didn’t see her while we were moving…” Fluttershy mentioned. 

Rainbow Dash’s face lit up. “She could be scoring or selling a huge shipment of turbo drugs!”

Applejack nodded. “Or selling crates full of illegal weapons!”

Pinkie gasped. “Ooo! Ooo! Or buying or selling drugs with illegal weapons!”

Rarity chimed in. “And using those illegal weapons to charge a ‘protection’ fee to the local businesses…”

Fluttershy blushed slightly. “All while selling her body on the side…”

“Girls, it’s fine!” Sunset insisted. “I’m sure she’s a perfectly normal girl… erm… as normal as one can be when they have rich foreign parents.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay?” Rainbow Dash said.

Sunset smirked. “What, you want to hang around and play video games?”

“Uh… Kind of,” Rainbow Dash said. “Though there’s still a worry that someone might get shot for that… including you.”

Sunset’s turquoise eyes made a rotation around their sockets. “Girls, relax! She’s probably just out at the mall buying more belts or other articles of clothing with buckles, or maybe she’s shy or something. Maybe she’ll open up to me a bit and I can tell you about how you have nothing to worry about!” 

The girls said nothing, shifting around uncomfortably and exchanging worried looks. 

Sunset smiled and opened her arms wide. “Alright, bring it in...” 

Despite themselves, they all joined in a group hug full of pained groans and giggles before Sunset’s five friends made their way out, exchanging waves and “goodbyes” all the while and the door closed where Sunset could hear the faint sounds of the girls singing “We should leave quickly now before we’re mugged or worse!”

Sunset smiled to herself and turned towards the spiral, stainless steel stairwell. She placed her hand on the railing then took one more look towards the collection of very expensive items.

“Hello, new friend…” a female’s voice half whispered half hissed out.

Sunset turned and looked up with a start, her heart jumping in her chest. Her roommate was looking down at here from the stairwell, a coy, dangerous looking smile on her face. From her toes up to her shoulders, she was clad in mostly black, leather, and belt-buckles. Heck, Sunset counted twelve buckles on her platform shoes alone. Above those where a pair of holey tights that hugged long, slender legs up to a black miniskirt that wrapped around her thighs. Around that was a large gray and black belt with a big metal buckle that clearly only served as a fashion accessory as there’s no way that skirt was in danger of falling off, regardless of how thin the girl was. Around her chest, she wore a blouse that started as light-green at the bottom and made the gradual gradient change to a darker green above the girl’s nape. Wrapped around this was an admittedly killer looking leather jacket with three belt clasps and several metal studs on the shoulder pads.

Gone were the cute heart glasses. Instead, she looked down with those somewhat inhuman-looking jade eyes framed on either side by a long, glistening web of dark cerulean hair, with a strand dangling like an open noose from between her eyes. The girl had a lean and hungry look to her. Something well beyond the fact that she was crazy thin. She had the look of a predator to her… A look Sunset was all too familiar seeing from some of her other associates.

A part of Sunset told her it was time to run. Time to escape. However, she was never one to do anything but meet life head on. Besides, she knew from experience that anyone with that look would consider her easy prey if she ran. Sunset promised to herself then and there to never show the woman standing above her an ounce of fear.

“Hi!” Sunset greeted with a wide, friendly smile as she stepped up the stairs and got up back up to the hallway with Chrysi. Sunset extended a hand. “You must be Chrysi! I’m your new roommate, Sunset Shimmer!”

Chrysi inched back a moment, clearly caught off guard by Sunset’s willingness to rush right up to her. Still, the devious smile quickly returned to her face and she took Sunset’s hand.

Sunset noted a firm grip which she returned. Though no attempt to squeeze too hard… Curious…

“Welcome to the neighborhood.” Chrysi greeted as she retracted her hand. “Sorry for not coming out sooner.” She chuckled. “Your friends and you seemed like you had things well in hand and song moving you in.”

Sunset chuckled. “Oh, they love their numbers! We’re all musicians, you know?”

Chrysi cocked her head slightly. “Oh?”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah… Just some High School band… The Rainbooms.”

Something flashed behind Chrysi’s eyes. “Never heard of you…”

Huh… A lie, perhaps? Still… “Oh, I’m not surprised! It’s not likely anyone outside of CHS knows about us.”

Chrysi nodded and gave Sunset another smile as she put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder with a nearly ethereal pressure, yet somehow Sunset could sense the girl could strike with an unexpected and somewhat lethal strength with that hand if she so chose. “Well, Sunset Shimmer—”

“Oh, you can call me ‘Sunset’! All my friends do!”

“Sunset, then…” Chrysi hissed out in a whisper. “If you need anything… and I mean anything…” Chrysi nodded to the other door in the duplex. “You know where to find me.”

With that, Chrysi turned and began to walk away.

“Shouldn’t we exchange numbers?”

Chrysi paused. “What?” she asked, a perplexed expression on her face. 

Sunset chuckled. “I mean… it’s not like either of us is just going to stay in our rooms all day!” she said as she pulled out her phone. “Here! What’s your number? I’ll text you…”

Seemingly momentarily taken aback, Chrysi started patting pockets on her jacket. For a split second, Sunset was sure she saw Chrysi, pull out the edges of a smartphone, examine it, then put it back before producing another one entirely. Chrysi swiped at the phone in her hand and almost embarrassingly admitted. “I don’t know the number to this one…”

“That’s okay!” Sunset assured. “I barely have my own number memorized! Not like I even bother with any of my friend’s number… Anyhow, my number is 555-555-3442.”

Chrysi nodded and swiped and tapped at her phone a few times. Soon Sunset was rewarded with a text message containing nothing but a heart emoji. “Got it!” Sunset answered.

Chrysi nodded and took a few more steps. Seemingly being struck by a thought, she turned and flashed Sunset a venomous smile. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Sunset. I really hope you last longer than the previous occupant of that room…” Chrysi let out a laugh that would make most cartoon queens green with envy and disappeared into her room, Sunset catching the briefest flashes of black-light and neon before the door closed.

Sunset quickly got to her room and closed the door behind her. She took a little bit to tidy of the leftover pizza and store it in her mini-fridge then practically collapsed into her office chair and thought, Twinkle Shine… I need to figure out what happened to Twinkle Shine. 
> The second time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed as she looked at her laptop screen and twirled a pen in her hand. It’d be tight, and public transit was out of the question, but maybe, just maybe she could do it all tonight… She pushed back from her desk and collected some makeup and a badge that had her picture along next to the name Dr. Daylight Gleam. She placed ‘her’ badge and the makeup a black leather handbag scooped up a clipboard. 

Her lab-coat was in the very closed and locked at the moment school. Just her luck, the uniform shop was on the opposite side of town from the medical supply shop and, of course, neither was nearby here or the closest hospital! Money wasn’t so much a problem, but she’d need to keep her driver on hand or it was more waiting for someone to pick her up and time was tight if she wanted to hit places before they were closed. Worse yet, she needed to make herself look a tad older… She could act ‘older than she looked’ well enough, but her face still screamed young adult, and that was hard to swing with someone passing as having a doctorate. 

She stepped out into the hallway, half expecting Chrysi to be standing right there with that creepy, scary smile of hers. Seeing it was empty, she quickly made her way to the stairs. 

She got halfway down when the unexpected murmur of “In a hurry are we, Sunset?” came up from the top of the stairs. 

It took every fiber of Sunset’s being not to drop her things and let out a yelp. Instead, she put back on her friendly smile and looked up. “Just a few last-minute errands!”

Chrysi just nodded. “Well, remember… If you need anything… just ask…”

Sunset chuckled. “Not unless you have a spare lab-coat or doctor’s coat on hand.” Stupid! There was no reason to just hand Chrysi that information.

Chrysi paused for a moment. Her smile fading. “Wait there,” she said calmly.

“Uh… I’m in a hurry…” Sunset said as Chrysi disappeared from view, supposedly returning to her room.

“Oh, just be patient!” Chrysi hissed out as Sunset heard clothes rustling and the odd tinkling. “That is, if you’re hoping for patients of your own~!” Chrysi added in an oddly sultry voice.  

Sunset eyes widened. She… She couldn’t… Could she…?

Chrysi appeared back at the top of the stairwell, a crisp, clean, professional-looking white doctor's coat on a hanger in her left hand and a pink, slutty, not-professional-looking-at-all nurse’s outfit in the other, complete with matching lingerie. “Will one of these do?” Chrysi asked with a smile, but a chuffed one rather than a dangerous one.

Sunset couldn’t help but look a little surprised, though at least it wasn’t from fear. She chuckled. “Just the coat, please… The nurse’s outfit looks like it’d be a bit tight.”

“Oh, but it would be so fun to see you try it on!” Chrysi purred. 

Sunset let out a good-natured chuckle as she walked up the stairs to collect the coat. “Thanks, Chrysi! You may have saved my night here.” Sunset turned to leave.

“Don’t count on that…” 

Sunset took a quick, quiet breath. Chrysi had whispered out the last line so quietly, Sunset had to wonder if the girl even said it at all or if it was the product of an overactive imagination. She opted to continue walking.

“Don’t you want the rest?”

Sunset paused as she heard the sound of metal lightly ‘tinking’ against metal. She turned and there was Chrysi, looking like the cat that caught the canary, except she was holding a stethoscope and forehead mirror.

“Oh, wow!” Sunset uttered in genuine surprise and joy. “Thanks, again! You just save me a bunch of time!” Technically, the forehead mirror was a bit much for what she needed, but it was light enough she could carry it in her purse and not arouse suspicion from Chrysi. She could just tell her she was going to a costume party easily enough… Hopefully, Chrysi wouldn’t try to invite herself and she’d have to have an awkward ‘some-other time’ exchange with the girl. 

Chrysi just nodded and smiled. “You’re welcome. Have fun.” She turned.

Sunset frowned. “You’re not going to ask me what I need this for?” Oh, my god! Shut up! Shut up! SHUT THE FUCK UP!  

Without turning Chrysi just shook her head. “Not my business,” she said simply. “Oh, on that note.” Chrysi turned to face Sunset once more, an even expression on her face.

Ah… Here it comes… Some ‘stay out of my way’ or ‘keep away from my stuff’… Something for this girl to flaunt whatever power over me she thinks she has over me.

“I’ll stay out of your room unless invited.”

Crud… Sunset thought. I was in such a rush to get this done, I didn’t setup a webcam or anything in there…

Chrysi continued. “Just try not to leave music on too loud or alarms on when you’re going to be away for a few days…” she gave Sunset a serious look. “I’m sensitive to loud noises.”

“Uh… sure?” Sunset replied. Weird… This girl was just… weird. 

"Twinkle Shine  partied all the time, so much noise." Chrysalis hissed out quietly. She gave Sunset another smile. “So, warn me if you’re going to have your band over for practice, alright?”

Sunset laughed. “I think my place is a little small for all six of us…”

“A shame,” Chrysi said. “I think I’d like to hear you play, sometime…”

Sunset gave Chrysi a genuine smile. “Maybe I’ll invite you to a practice, sometime.”

Chrysi nodded. “I’d like that. Anyhow… Please stay out of my room unless invited. I’ll do the same for you. I mean… that’s just common courtesy.” 

“Uh… Of course!” Sunset said.

“Feel free to use the TV or anything downstairs,” Chrysi said. “Just… Make your own accounts or something… You’re certainly better with computers than I am.”

Sunset fought to keep her smile on her face. Was that a hint that Chrysi knew more than she was letting on…? Or just dumb luck.

“Oh, I shouldn’t keep you,” Chrysi said. She turned again. “See you later, friend…” of course, Chrysi somehow made that last word sound menacing. With that, she disappeared into her dark, quiet room once more.

Sunset turned and made it the rest of the way down the stairs. It was quite possible Chrysi was far less dangerous than she thought…

…and it was also very likely that she was much, much worse than she dared dream.
> The third time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!’

Sunset shot up in her bed from the knocking that was loud enough to wake the dead. “The… the hell?” she uttered to herself as she blearily looked around. The massive rectangular window the foot of her bed was pointed at let her know that it was still clearly night, on account of all the darkness outside punctuated by starlight and street light. The window above the head of her bed told her much the same thing. Blearily, she attempted to read her ‘not-so-gently’ used analog clock, but had trouble on account of the almost no light in the room.

Her thoughts went back to her not-so-legal detective work. She had gotten a hold of Twinkle Shine’s autopsy report, but hadn’t had time to piece everything together. A broken neck… high BAC… Maybe some light bruises other than that… She wanted to piece it together but her body had demanded sleep, and she wasn’t going to crack the case drooling out one side of her mouth as she worried if her new roommate would kill her in her sleep.

She looked around again, her eyes mostly only able to make out shapes… Christmas lights… she thought. Christmas lights would really bring this place together… Along the bars, maybe down the sides a bit… That'd look cool… ‘Cause, I mean… Fuck lamps in general…”  

‘KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!’

“Ugh… Alright, alright!” Sunset called out as she threw off her nice, warm covers and made her way to the stairs, silently cursing to herself as her bare feet touched cold hardwood floor. She walked forward with her arms outstretched until she found the bar at the edge of her loft. Shimmying to her left until she reached the end, she felt with her left foot for her stairwell, then reaches for the handrail… only to discover there was none.

Sunset’s eyes shot open as a number of facts suddenly came into focus. She leaned to her left and placed her shoulder against the wall as she made her way down to her ‘office’ area. Finally, she made her way to her door and opened it.

Her new roomy was on the other side, panic written all over her face. “Sunset, oh thank God!”

Sunset frowned heavily. “Yes. It’s me… The only person it could be on account of me living here!” Sunset rubbed her eyes. “The hell do you want?”

Seemingly momentarily set a back from Sunset’s sarcastic and rude response. Chrysi quickly regained her complete lack of composure. “I need your help!”

“Is the toilet overflowing?”

“Look, I’m not going to lie, something bad… What?” The panicked look broke once more as Chrysis seemingly couldn’t help but look at Sunset in complete confusion.

Sunset leaned against her doorway and flipped a hand upwards. “Because you see… That’s the only reason that you, as my roommate, would have to bug me at—”

Chrysi cringed suddenly. “Please don’t use that word.”

“… What, ‘roommate?’”

“What? No! Why would I have a problem with that?”

Sunset shrugged. “I don’t know! I thought maybe you wanted to establish some bullshit sense of distance between us to trick me into thinking you’re some sort of aloof bad-ass!”

Chrysi suddenly looked a bit hurt. “You… You don’t think I’m a bad-ass?”

Sunset sighed. “What was the word?”

“Hmm?” Chrysi hummed in genuine confusion.

“The word you didn’t want me to say!” Sunset said, her eyes, and patience, narrowing.

“Oh, ‘bug’… I don’t care much for the connotation.” 

“Okay, fine… So… is it the toilet?” 

“I wouldn’t bug you this late if it was the damn toilet!” Chrysi hissed out.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. 

Chrysi brought a hand up to her mouth as if she was a child who had just said a naughty word except for she followed this up by whispering the word ‘fuck’ under her breath.

“Well, then… What is it?”

Chrysi closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath, seemingly to center herself. Staring at Sunset with her jade eyes that started out a hazy chartreuse at the edges before turning into a piercing green amongst iris’s that looked not quite human, Chrysi reached behind her back into her leather jacket and produced a black, rectangular item, flipped it in her hand presented what could only be a pistol handle first to Sunset. “I need you to hold onto this for a bit.”

Sunset stifled a yawn. “No. Fuck that and fuck you for waking me up with this inanity. Go cold-clock a hobo and rub his mitts all over that if you need a fall-person.” Taking one moment to soak in the priceless look of shock on Chrysi’s face, Sunset slammed the door.

And then she waited.

1

2

3

‘KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!’

Sunset opened the door to see Chrysi absolutely fuming on the other side. “Is that really what you think I wanted?!” She exclaimed as she waved the firearm around, her index finger notably not on the trigger. “To fucking frame you?! Bitch, I barely just MET you!” 

“Okay, but, I mean… This is clearly a grift.”

Chrysi frowned heavily. “A what?”

“You know… A con? A scam? Fake? Complete bullshit? You’re trying to get something from me through lies and deception?”

Chrysi took a moment to think as she scratched the back of her head with the pistol handle. “ ‘Gerr-ifft…” she said, unnecessarily stretching out the unfamiliar word into two syllables as she seemingly tried it for the first time. She smiled. “I like it…” She turned towards Sunset. “But I’m not trying to frame you! That’s stupid!”  

Sunset nodded. “Right. So it’d be pretty risky to frame me for a crime you, yourself could have been involved in! I mean… If you had brain cell 1 in that pretty little head of yours—”

Chrysi’s face lit up. “You think I’m pretty?!”

“—you’d know that there’s a near certain chance I’d either be so scared of the situation, I’d rat you out in a hot second, or be smart enough to figure out I don’t know you and a turn you in if questioned. So, actually, ‘No!’  I don’t think you were trying to frame me. I think you were trying to give me a gun, unloaded because you’re not a moron, and then I slowly let the fear and paranoia of your ‘secret life of crime’ get to me, and then, if I haven’t gone to the cops with the gun that’s presumably… I dunno… just fresh from the local pawn shop or whatever—”

Chrysi’s eyelids dropped slightly. “You wound me. The local pawn shop is a dive.”

“— you come back in a few days and ask me ‘if I still have that gun!’ and, like, start some increasingly elaborate game where I’m pulled into your web of crime or maybe just a bunch of normal stuff where I’m freaking out because I’m carrying a gun and you think it’s hilarious to fuck with me!” Sunset frowned heavily. “Or am I not allowed to say ‘web’ either?”

“‘Web’ is fine… Preferable, even.”

“Anyhow, you then tell me you need me for something really important, and I don’t know there’s money involved and excitement away from my doldrum existence as a high schooler…  Maybe you think you’ll have me figured out by then to appeal to either a need for funds or a sense of boredom and some excitement in my life. Hell, maybe you’ll try both.”

“…”

“So? Did I guess right…?”

“…”

“Yeah, so…  Look. I don’t need money and I don’t need any more excitement in my life. I’m already eyeball deep in unwanted adventures, no need for that particular level of crazy to be over my head entirely.  You can keep your stupid gun and keep your stupid criminal activities to yourself and we’ll go on our merry way as roommates who barely talk to each other.” Sunset shook her head. “I mean… That’s just common courtesy.” 

Chrysi’s body language suddenly shifted. She was still silent but it was as if Sunset had suddenly struck a chord. Hopefully, it wasn’t the ‘murder’ chord Sunset had just plucked.

“So, yeah…” Sunset said nonchalantly. “See you tomorrow, or maybe not. I don’t give a fuck.” And that’s where Sunset Shimmer would have slammed the door in Chrysi’s face again had there not been a black platform boot in the way.

As the door slowly opened back up Sunset met Chrysi’s irate glare with one of her own. “Kindly get your Hot-Topic brand boot out of my door.”

Surprisingly, Chrysi’s expression suddenly changed to an icepick smile. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to what happened to your room’s former occupant?”

“No, because I know that already.”

Chrysi’s smile suddenly dropped into a disappointed frown. “You do?”

Sunset nodded and glanced behind her. “He fell off the stairs and broke his neck in the fall. His toxicology report showed he must have been quite drunk at the time.” Sunset turned back to Chrysi. “I mean, I’ll buy that having you for a roommate might have driven him to drink, but… considering this whole ‘mysterious and dangerous World of Darkness’ masquerade you have going, I’d figure if you wanted Twinkle Shine dead, they’d never find his body.”

Chrysi was silent once more, but there were the barest hints of a joyous smile on her face.

Sunset began to close her door. “Okay, if that’s it, good—” Sunset was cut off as an ashen hand grabbed the edge of her doorway. Snarling, she opened the door once more. “Look, I’m tired as balls here, so either let me get some sleep or shoot me! Just stop wasting my ti—”

“Would you like a Turkish coffee?”

It was Sunset’s turn to be surprised. “Okay… Just… What…?”

Her expression finally settling on something besides ‘up to no good’, panicked, surprised, or pissed, Chrysi nodded towards the hallway stairs. “Yeah look… I’m sorry about the whole… gun thing… Just… I’ve had a lot of coke—” Chrysi’s eyes shot open wide “—a-colta!”

“Huh…” Sunset uttered to herself. “Pinkie might have had a point earlier…” 

Chrysi continued, “And uh… I’m kinda wired… And… It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I just want to unwind… Watch a movie, maybe?” Chrysi ended this question with an oddly hopeful smile.

Sunset examined Chrysi’s face closely. She was tempted to blurt out ‘you’re joking’, but something about Chrysi’s face suggested that she was being more sincere with Sunset then anytime she had been since she first met Sunset. “I don’t… I don’t know what Turkish coffee is…”

“Er… It’s like western coffee but prepared differently, see… You boil water in a cezva… Uh… It’s like…” Chrysi glanced upwards, her eyes darting one way or the other as if searching for a word as if she mimed holding something in a handle in her right hand kinda motioned in a curved/oblong fashion with her other hand.

“No, like… Are their drugs in it?”

Chrysi flashed Sunset a befuddled look. “Why would I boil drugs?!”

“I don’t know! Why would you drink coffee to unwind?!” 

Chrysi’s face tightened. “Do you want to have some stupid roommate bonding time or do you want me to think you’re putting up an aloof front so I think you’re a fake bad-ass?”

“Touché,” Sunset replied. “Look… What time is it?”

“Uh…” Chrysi moved back her leather sleeve from her left wrist. “3:42”

Sunset nodded. “100 dollars.”

“Ex-excuse me?!”

“I will hang out with you for 100 dollars,” Sunset answered. “And no, that’s not a sex thing. That’s for waking me up in the middle of the night! Or rather 50 was going to be enough to cover it, but then I saw your watch and just… what is that? Is that a Rolex?”

Chrysi gave Sunset a look as if she was legitimately offended. “This so happens to be a Titanic DNA Tourbillon!” 

Sunset rolled her eyes. “So… What? It’s worth more than the duplex we’re in right now?”

“…”

“Holy shit, it is, isn’t it?!”

Chrysi responded by reaching into her coat, pulling out a massive wad of bills held neatly in a clip, peeled one off, and handed Sunset a nice, crisp $100 bill. Sunset frowned down as looked at the bill, unsure if she was more upset that Chrysi called her bluff or that she hadn’t asked for more. 

“Do you like baba ganoush?” Chrysi asked.

Sunset looked up from her quasi-ill-gotten gains with a deeper frown. “I don’t know what that is…” 

Chrysi turned and practically skipped down the hallway. “You’ll find out~!” she warbled happily. “See you downstairs, roomy!” 

Sunset sighed and shook her head. “Am… am I a magnet for this shit? Or do I somehow run headlong into it without even trying?!”
> And so, Sunset watches a movie with her new roommate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sounds of gunfire and uproarious laughter filled the room as Sunset Shimmer clutched the blanket around her all the tighter and tried to melt into the couch she was on. This was soon followed by a man’s voice saying, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." as the laughter died down to a light giggle.

Sunset had many questions at the moment. Like… Just what was Chrysi’s story? 

How did Sunset end up drinking delicious sweet coffee with her on the couch before the sun was even up?! 

What the heck was baba ganoush, and why was it so delicious?

First thing first… Sunset leaned towards a giant marble coffee table, took a bit of an already well-picked-at piece of pita bread, ripped off a bit and then leaned forward toward a plate of some milky-colored substance with a layer of yellow oil on it and red spices. She dipped the pita in, got a generous helping of the dip, and shoved the whole morsel of food into her mouth. Well… there’s definitely olive oil in this… and that’s ALL I can tell… it’s somehow so familiar though…

Smiling and giggling, Chrysi leaned forward and grabbed the edge of the table, spun the rotating top until the food was in her reach, and repeated the actions of Sunset. 

After swallowing her food, Chrysi abruptly sat upright as if she’d suddenly thought of something. “Pillows!” she called out as she turned toward Sunset. 

“Uh… You want me to go get pillows?”

“No," Chrysi scoffed. "We're fine for couch cushions. I'm saying you should layer the floor beneath the stairs under your loft with pillows or cushions." She paused and waved her hand for effect. "That'll cushion your fall in case you forget there isn't a railing and fall." The girl seemed to pause before she grinned manically. "Or remember there isn’t a railing and decide to fall anyways."

Sunset chuckled. “Couldn’t, you know… we just ask to get a railing installed?”

Chrysi frowned. “Then when would I fall into my pillow pile?!”

Sunset let out a small laugh as she tried to figure out if Chrysi was being serious or not. Finding her expression nearly impossible to read, both returned to the movie for a while.

Sunset’s thoughts went back to the food she was eating and the familiar yet not-so-familiar tastes of it. She sighed. She could look up what the dish was, but it likely wouldn’t hurt to ask. “Uh… So… What is in this?”

Chrysi turned with something like a scowl on her face. “You don’t like it?” she hissed out somewhat accusingly.

“Oh, no! It’s delicious,” Sunset insisted. “Would I keep eating it if I didn’t like it?!”

Chrysi pursed her lips slightly as her expression softened, seeming to consider if challenging that statement was worth her time.

“Except for the olive oil, I have no idea what it is!”

“Eggplant, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, olive oil - as you mentioned, parsley, salt, cumin, and paprika.”

Sunset’s eyes lit up slightly. She had no idea what ‘tahini’ was, but she turned the rotating table top back towards herself and repeated the process of ripping off a piece of pita bread, dipping it, and eating the result. This time, her mouth spread into a happy smile as she did the action. Eggplant had been the familiar flavor, she could just barely identify it amongst the ingredients she had never even considered to combine it with.

A small grin appeared on Chrysi’s face as she examined Sunset’s expression. “Do you cook?”

Sunset almost choked on her food.

“That’s a ‘no’, then,” Chrysi quipped with a chuckle.

Sunset thumped a fist to her chest as a pained look came over her face briefly. “Ugh… No…” Sunset said. “Or did you block out where you pulled me into the kitchen and I was practically held hostage so you could get me to finish up this delicious meal?! I would have made far less a mess had I just smashed the stuff in the food processor with my bare hands!”

Chrysi shook her head. “You exaggerate.”

“The point is, baba ganoush got everywhere!” Sunset exclaimed as she threw out her arms and wiggled her fingers as if simulating a good explosion. Sunset pulled over a lock of her hair and smelled it. “I’m going to smell like olive oil for the rest of the night.”

“No, I mean about the holding hostage part,” Chrysi said. “That usually involves a lot more rope, tape, and pistol-whipping.”

Sunset frowned. “Well, I’m glad there wasn’t much of that! But you were very insistent that I help at the end!”

Chrysi rotated the food towards herself and prepared a morsel of it. “I had to keep my eyes on the bread. Very important.” She took her bite and chewed. “You had the easy job!” she insisted, then chuckled darkly. “But apparently lids escape you…”

“I just told you, I don’t cook!” Sunset said. “Unless microwaving stuff counts.”

“No,” Chrysi replied. “Certainly not.”

“Yeah, I’m a terrible cook! Just… the worst.”

Chrysi smirked. “That sounds rather pest…” Chrysalis frowned. “Pessi…”

“Pessimistic?” Sunset suggested.

Chrysi smiled and nodded. “Yes, pessimistic. Maybe you just need practice.”


>-ooooo-<


‘BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!’

Sprinting down the stairs and coughing as she waved smoke away from her face, a Rarity clad in a purple nightgown touched purple slippers onto the floor. Eyes watering from the stinging smoke and her esophagus already starting to get sore, Rarity managed to shrill out an annoyed “Sweetie Belle!”

“Uh? Rarity?” 

Rarity turned and glanced back towards the stairs where her sister, clad in soft-pink pajama shirt and pants, stared back at her.

Perplexed, Rarity turned back towards the kitchen as the sound of coughing coming from a girl much older than Sweetie Belle could be heard. As the smoke cleared, Rarity could pick out magenta pajamas on a girl with fiery red-and-yellow hair. “Sunset?”

“Sorry!” Sunset said. “I was trying to make breakfast for everyone!”

Rarity glanced at Sweetie Belle then turned back to give Sunset a knowing smile. “It’s alright Sunset.” She walked forward and switched on the oven fan. “Let me just help you clean up and we can… Did you try to pan fry an orange?!” 

Sunset gave Rarity a saddened look. “I thought if I heated it up it would be easier to juice!”

“I… uh… see… but why did you salt the orange and add chopped onions to the pan?!” Rarity asked as Sweetie Belle wandered into the kitchen.

Sunset began to tear up. “I heard salt and onions make everything taste better, okay!”

“You know…” Sweetie Belle murmured as she examined the contents of the pan. “Maybe Sunset was onto something… Maybe if she tried boiling the orange peel to heat it up? I’m going to get some milk…”

“Oh! Good idea!” Sunset exclaimed.

“Sweetie Belle, Sunset, No!” 


<-ooooo->


“Er…” Sunset smiled sheepishly. “I think it’s best if I gave the poor kitchen a break.” Sunset glanced behind her towards the kitchen, noting it was now splattered with numerous viscous-looking substances, making it look like the site of a brutal food war… or massacre more likely. The latter best explaining the laughter that had rung out from the kitchen as Chrysi made the food. Shaking her head, she added. “Lord knows it can use it.”

Chrysi simply smiled and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Both girls settled back to watching the movie. Chrysi giggling and laughing during the more violent scenes and Sunset considering her options. Maybe she could just ask Chrysi about herself? Would that be rude? I mean, clearly, there was a story here… Even rich foreign girls enjoying the freedom of being away from their parents generally didn’t indulge in waving pistols around and hinting they might have killed off their former roommate to Sunset’s knowledge. 

Maybe she could just ask? Of course, that would mean Chrysi would likely ask about Sunset’s past, and what the heck was she was going to say?! Oh, teehee! I'm the adopted daughter of a princess from another dimension! On that note, did I mention I was a unicorn?! Yeah… that’d go over well…

Suddenly, the sound of breaking glass brought Sunset back toward the movie. As Chrysi broke into another bout of joyous laughter from watching a man smash drinking glass into another man’s face, Sunset decided that maybe Chrysi was onto something about not asking more questions outside of what was strictly her business.
> Sunset recounts last night’s events to her friends.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ooooooo!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as realization hit. “So that’s why you’re so tired!” she punctuated this statement by shoveling a massive jiggling spoonful of green jello into her mouth. 

“…That’s your take away from my story?!” Sunset Shimmer cried out across from Pinkie.

Pinkie nodded her head emphatically. “I’m always sleepy the day after I either wake up in the middle of the night and decide it’s time to make food and watch a movie, or my sister Limestone does that to me!”

Sunset’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “How often does either of those things happen?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Oh like, twice a month… depending on if one of us wants to watch an Air Bud movie or Friday the 13th movie in the middle of the night…” Pinkie leaned over to a rather perplexed looking Fluttershy and whispered, “There’s pretty much the same number of movies in each franchise… unless you count the Santa Paws specials, but I only watch those around Christmas as well as Gremlins and the Crypt Keeper holiday special…”  

“Could we maybe focus a little,” Applejack requested from the other side of Pinkie.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she turned to her right to look at Sunset. “Like how Sunset’s new roommate sounds like she’s all the bad things we thought she was?”

“I’m surprised you weren’t scared!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

Sunset shook her head. “I was too tired to be scared. Plus I kinda figured she’d try to scare me. She’s got that ‘fear me’ vibe…”

Pinkie nodded. “Just like the hockey mask-wearing killer Ace Spawn and Halloween Hound!” 

Applejack looked at Sunset in disbelief. “But did you think she’d pull a gun on you?!”

Sunset took a bite of her hamburger, chewed and swallowed. “Technically, she handed a gun to me.” She shook her head. “It’s not like she threatened me at any point in the evening…”

Sitting to Sunset’s right, Rarity spoke up, “Darling, she practically threatened to kill you!” she insisted as she stabbed a pair of chopsticks into her rice bowl. Pinkie gasped and stared at Rarity’s display, then shared a knowing wink and giggled with her.

Sunset’s turquoise eyes made a rotation around her eye sockets. “She maybe implied she had something to do with my room’s previous tenant being shuffled off from the mortal coil. Big difference.”

“How’d ya figure?” Applejack said.

“Plausible deniability,” Sunset answered. “I mean, telling an authority figure, law enforcement officer, or a court of law that I ‘felt threatened’ is a big difference from actually being threatened!” Sunset took another bite of her hamburger then swallowed. “That’s just common knowledge.”

The other girls present all exchanged somewhat befuddled looks.

“Er… I don’t think it is,” Fluttershy contested.

“Anywho,” Applejack said, “we’ve got to do something!”

“… No, we don’t,” Sunset countered. 

“Sunset, dear, no need to be proud,” Rarity replied as put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “If your roommate is giving you trouble, we’re here to support you!”

“Uh, thanks, but really… It’s fine,” Sunset insisted. “Maybe being woken up in the middle of the night to watch a movie after a gun was waved around in your face isn’t normal…”

“It’s not,” Applejack stressed.

“Eh,” Pinkie uttered with a shrug. 

Sunset continued, “… but Chrysi seems like maybe she’d just rather have my company now that I showed her she can’t just scare me with her ‘mysterious side’’,” Sunset said with air quotes.

“That seems to be involved in crime!” Rainbow Dash insisted.

“Look, the less I know, the less I have to explain to anyone who wants to prosecute Chrysi for whatever illicit stuff she’s into,” Sunset said. “If Chrysi isn’t going to pry into my life that much, I don’t see why I should bug her about hers…” Sunset frowned. “Er… bother her about hers.”

Practically shaking on the cafeteria seat, Fluttershy asked, “but aren’t you afraid you’re going to get shot by being around her?”

Sunset shrugged. “You know, with how weird my life is, being shot might be a welcome change of pace…” Sunset frowned heavily. “Unless it was like… a magic gun or something… that’d suck,” With that, Sunset went back to eating her hamburger.

A somewhat awkward silence fell over the table.

“So you really don’t want us to do anythin’?” Applejack said.

Sunset nodded. “Yep. Really.”

“Are you sure…?” Rainbow Dash said as she leaned in front of Sunset and blinked forcefully a couple of times.

“... What are you doing?”

“Uh… Winking?” Rainbow Dash asked yet declared at the same time.

“No you’re not,” Sunset said. “You’re just… Blinking with force.”

“Oh! I got it!” Rainbow Dash tilted her head to the right and made an exaggerated wink with her left eye.

“Why are you winking?!” Sunset exclaimed. “Apparently no one at the table but me disagrees with you!”

“We really don’t,” Fluttershy murmured. 

“I. TOTES. GOT. IT!” Rainbow Dash said as she continued her heavy winking.

“Really! Stop winking at me!” Sunset said. “If Chrysi lays off trying to give me the willies and just wants to be friends with me, then I’ll do the same.”

“Ohhh!” Rarity said as a sudden realization struck. “I see! You want to befriend her and show her there’s another way!”

“Like Twilight forced us to do with you!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Applejack glared across the table at Rainbow Dash.

“Er… Like Twilight asked us to do with you!” Rainbow Dash corrected.

“What?! No!” Sunset replied. “I’m not going to try to take Chrysi as like some sort of friendship student! That sounds kinda weird and maybe a little obnoxious…” she frowned heavily. “Plus like… that might actually give her cause to shoot me, and while I don’t plan to go out of my way to be nice to her, I’m not inclined to tick her off either…”

“Ooo!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Do you think that word would make her mad?”

“Uh… Oh!” Sunset said. “‘Tick?’ I don’t know…” Sunset chuckled to herself. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask if asking if the phrase ‘tick you off’ ticks you off!”


-~o~Later!~o~-


‘SMACK!’ 

“OW!” Sunset exclaimed as she raised a hand up to her nose. “I was wrong! That did hurt.”

Chrysi retracted her fast, an angry glare on her face. “I trust that answers the question.”

“Yes,” Sunset said as she rubbed her nose. It was a nice hit, but clearly designed to inflict pain and not a lot of injury, “I can see the phrase really puts a bee in your bonnet.” Sunset instantly flinched and smiled to herself as Chrysi’s heavy fist caught her on the shoulder with a ‘POW!’ Okay, that would probably leave a bruise, but maybe she earned it. Still, she wasn’t one to shy away from a little experiment even if there was a little danger involved. “Ouch! Okay!” Sunset said as she fought to keep a grin off her face. “No need to be such a slug-bug about it!”

The next blow came from Chrysi’s impressively sized platform boot and caught Sunset in the shin causing Sunset to suck in air through clenched teeth as pain flickered through her leg letting her know that she had maybe ventured too far past the line Chrysi had drawn for her. 

Stomping her feet on the floor, Chrysi let out a string of words in a language Sunset couldn’t identify, did an about-face and began to storm off.

“Ow… ow…” Sunset uttered as she hopped on one leg. “Chrysi! Wait!” Sunset called out. “Let me make it up to you!”

Chrysi made no move to stop until Sunset began rustling through a paper bag. Stopping at the foot of the metal stairwell, Chrysi turned to see Sunset holding up a cylinder-hexagonal bottle with a wide base and the word ‘IMPERIA’ printing vertically across it.

 Sunset studied Chrysi’s face carefully. First, the infuriated woman seemed to calm down as she examined the bottle. This was followed by a look of curiosity as if she wondered how Sunset, a high-schooler, precured a bottle of liquor. However, she followed this up with a pleased smile as she strolled forward and grabbed the bottle. 

“You’re forgiven,” Chrysi said. “This time,” she hissed out in a warning tone as her eyelids dropped slightly.

“Heh, I got it,” Sunset replied as she used the hand from her uninjured arm to rub her shin. 

Chrysi smirked. “You sure do like playing with fire, my dear roommate.”

Sunset glanced up. “Hah… Was that a hair pun?” she shook her head. “Sorry… Not my weakness,” she said with a smirk. 

Chrysi nodded. “I suppose it’s agreeable you’re not on too much of a high horse about it. But enough Foaling around.

Sunset did her best to keep surprise from her face, but Chrysi’s widening smirk let her know that Sunset wasn’t the only one doing a little testing of the waters.

Chrysi shook her head. “A horse for a mascot…” she said simply. “Hopefully you Wonder Colts are okay being saddled with that.” With that, she turned towards the kitchen and announced, “I’ll get a couple of glasses.”

Sunset felt the quickened beat of her heart galloping in her chest. She took a few slow breaths in an attempt to get it back to a regular canter. One thing was for certain, having Chrysi as a roommate would be anything but boring.
> Sunset wakes up with a hangover.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a sudden, hard blow and a painful, jarring ‘klunk’ to her jaw, Sunset woke up, greeting the day with an “OW!” and an “Ughhh…” as her head let her know it did not approve of the revels she had last afternoon… and night… and maybe some of the morning…

Bleary-eyed, she looked around and took quick note that she was not in her room, but surrounded on two sides by leather with a nearly empty bottle of vodka in front of her face on a ridiculously nice coffee table. Past that was Chrysi’s massive TV and awesome home-entertainment setup. Also, sitting was currently a problem. As it turned out, there was a mess of dark cerulean hair on her chest attached to the head of Sunset’s slumbering roommate, it’s proximity to her chin likely the result of the aforementioned chin attack. 

Sunset let out another groan and tried to recount what happened yesterday. She and Chrysi had started drinking as Chrysi put on “one of the greatest comedies of all time” and that, of course, turned out to be Dawn Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’. Chrysi laughed pretty much the entire time as both of them drank. Chrysi made more of her delicious food with names Sunset had never heard before, warning Sunset that some of it had meat in it, which didn’t stop Sunset at all… Though, guess that was nice of Chrysi? 

Uhhh… What happened next... More drinks, the good, but not as ‘funny’ prequel to ‘The Thing’… And just… more drinks and movies until Sunset passed out. Sunset frowned as she glanced outside, noting it was quite bright. Shit… What time is it? There she was, trapped under her roommate, wearing the exact same clothes she was wearing yesterday. Granted, if she showed up to school with what she was wearing, no one might notice… Well… Rarity had a keen eye and might take note that it was, in fact, the exact SAME outfit and not one that looked like it and…

‘Snniiff…’

Okay, the faint smell of alcohol might be a clue to anyone who hugged her, maybe Pinkie… Unless Pinkie somehow covered her with paint, or Jell-O, or like…marshmallow filled hot fudge before their hug… It was a long shot but it was known to happen. 

There was a soft, dark whisper of a murmur as Sunset felt something cozy up to her chest. 

Right, first thing is first. “Chrysi! Chrysi!” Sunset whispered in a harsh tone. “Get offa me!”

Chrysi smacked her lips and simply curled up closer to Sunset on the couch. 

Sunset groaned. Wait… Why am I whispering. “Chrysi!” Sunset exclaimed. “Get offa me!” 

Before Sunset could react, a slender, ashen hand suddenly smacked her on the face. 

“Ow! Chrysi! What the hell?!”

“Snooze!”

“What?!”

Chrysi smacked Sunset in the face again.

“Ow!”

“Need more snooze!”

With an annoyed groan, Sunset arched her back and pivoted sending Chrysi to the floor like a very surprised rag-doll. Sunset sat up. “Stop that! Do you know what—?” Sunset’s heart skipped a beat as she noticed Chrysi, laying on her back and pointing something rectangular at her face, however, Sunset quickly got ahold of her sense. “Oh… Hold that pose!” she requested

“… WHAT?!” Chrysi replied in confusion seemingly combined with a fair amount of adrenalin. 

Sunset looked forward towards the table, reached out, and grabbed something from it. She quickly got to her feet and pointed her own black, rectangular object at Chrysi with both hands. “There, perfect,” she said. 

Chrysi’s eyes went wide and for a moment, Sunset was sure she saw fear in them, but they quickly narrowed to a somewhat bemused expression. “Sunset… What the fuck do you think you’re pointing at me?”

“The stereo remote… What the fuck do you think you’re pointing at me?”

“Uh…” Chrysi frowned as she glanced at the item in her hand, perhaps noting for the first time what it actually was.  “The TV remote,” Chrysi answered with an expression that tried to say ‘I knew that all along’ but didn’t quite hit the bullseye. “Can I get up now?”

“That depends…”

Chrysi narrowed her eyes. “Depends on what?”

“Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?” Sunset said in a smug, vaguely menacing tone.

Chrysi’s eyes suddenly widened, then closed, and then she laughed. It was similar to the laugh she had while watching movies, but somehow even more uncontrolled and free. Despite the limited space Chrysi was in she ended up rolling over, still laughing.

Smiling to herself, Sunset tossed her remote on the couch. She suddenly frowned as if remembering something and looked down. “Oh… Still wearing pants… good…” she said, taking note that she was almost fully clothed except for her boots.

Chrysi’s laughter abated slightly and she looked up at Sunset with a mixture of confusion and amusement.

Sunset patted herself down, lifting her pant waist and shirt collar slightly to look down. 

Chrysi suddenly wasn’t so amused. “What the hell is wrong with you now?!” she demanded.

“I’m completely unmolested!” Sunset exclaimed.

Still lying on the ground, Chrysi pursed her lips in confusion and tightened her forehead making it look like she was giving Sunset a confused scowl. “Well… It’s pretty early, but give me some coffee and couple drinks and I can—”

“No!” Sunset snapped.

Chrysi gave Sunset a somewhat hurt look, her confusion returning. “I… are you sad you went through the night unmolested, or not?!”

“Not,” Sunset answered simply. “Uh, look… Nothing personal… I just have this one acquaintance that I’m more used to than I care to admit getting drunk with and we just sort of end up having sex as a result.”

Chrysi narrowed her eyes. “Who is this man? It sounds like he needs to be taught a valuable, potentially permanent, lesson.”

“It’s a woman.”

“Oh… Who is this woman?!” Chrysi hissed out in a demanding tone. “It sounds like she needs to be taught—”

“Ugh, I’m going to stop you right there,” Sunset said. “There’s no way you meeting her is going to go down how you’re picturing right now.”

Chrysi smiled wickedly and held out an arm that Sunset grasped as she hauled Chrysi to her feet. Even without her platform boots, Chrysi still stood a good several inches above Sunset. “Maybe I don’t show up myself. Maybe I said some ‘friends’ to—”

Sunset shook her head. “Yeah, I understand you mean well, in your own twisted way, but Adagio is no push-over and she has two psychotic roommates/sisters/girlfriends or whatever who are pretty dangerous in their own right… Besides…” Sunset thought for a moment. “I mean… I’m upset, but with Adagio it’s like… like… the more time you spend with her, ideas like ‘consent’ and ‘not having sex at this exact moment ‘ become unknowable regardless of what an obnoxious cunt she’s being. Or maybe they somehow happen quicker the more of a cunt she’s being and you somehow always end up in bed with her after a while, covered with hair and fluids and mostly unable to piece together how you got there except it’s awesome, terrible, great, and shameful all at the same time.”

Chrysi’s forehead wrinkled further, but slowly, a mischievous smile began to spread across her face.

“Oh, geez. Forget I said anything!” Sunset insisted. She sighed. “What time is it?”

Chrysi quickly checked her left wrist. “11:30 in the AM.” She frowned heavily, “So early…” she uttered.

Sunset groaned. “I’ve already missed half of school!” She took a few steps towards the stairwell. “I’ve got to get going.” Sunset suddenly felt something tightly grip her shoulder and turned to see Chrysi staring at her in confusion.

“Why?” Chrysi uttered simply.

“I just told you that I’m late for school!”

Chrysi nodded. “Yes, but what you said made no sense.”

Sunset’s forehead tightened. “Look, I know you went to school…” She pursed her lips as she felt her eyes narrow. “Unless that was a lie.”

Chrysi raised an eyebrow. “I never talked to you about going to school. Are you upset because your information you, yourself, uncovered might be in error?”

Sunset felt her composure break. “Er… Okay… but… You did go and graduate Crystal Prep, right? I er… I understand you did pretty well…”

Chrysi nodded. “I played their silly little game for more years than I care to admit, yes.”

“So, you, you know… Got up early, showed up to class, took tests, all that?”

Chrysi smirked. “If I answer that, will you tell me about your school?”

“Canterlot High?” Sunset replied in confusion. “I mean… it’s just a boring old high school,” that happens to have a magical portal to a realm of horses, also magical, right on its grounds and this idea is REALLY bad! Maybe, you can dissuade her! Sunset put on her best, smiling poker-face, which was nothing short of perfection if she did say so herself. “Nothing interesting happens there! What could you possibly want to know?”

Chrysi shook her head. “Oh, not that school.” Her smile widened. “The one you went to before Canterlot High. Perhaps it was still in Canterlot?”

Sunset fought the urge to instinctively tense. “Okay, forget it. Thanks for the movies and not trying to get into my pants.”

Chrysi gave Sunset another slightly confused expression. “You’re… welcome?”

Sunset nodded. “I’m late and—“

“For what?!” Chrysi stressed.

“For school!” 

“Why does that matter?!”

“Because it’s school!”

“That’s a bullshit response and you know it, Sunset Shimmer,” Chrysi replied. “Either that or you’re not as smart as you pretend to be.”

“I…” Sunset trailed off and thought for a moment. She had missed classes, sure, but the information was either stuff she already knew or basically worthless to her given her options. I mean, she was a coronation away from being a princess in a land with magic and her mental abilities far exceed that of pretty much all her ‘peers’… as well as some of her teachers… Why did she bother with school?

A sudden soft rumbling sound caught Sunset’s attention. She turned towards the table and noted a flat, rectangular item in an orange, rubber case doing a little dance on the table. “Hold that thought,” Sunset said. She bent down and reached for her phone, cringing as she looked at the screen. She began swiping at the surface. “Seriously, guys?!” she uttered to herself.

Yawning, Chrysi side stepped Sunset and headed for the stairs.

“Oh my GOD, my friends are crazy paranoid about you!” 

Chrysi stopped only a few steps up the stairs and turned to rest her chin on her folded arms on the guardrail. She smiled mischievously at Sunset. “Reeeeally?” she purred out. “What do they say?”

Sunset groaned and stormed to the stairs. “All kinds of crazy things involving illicit substances for one! Ugh… so stupid…”

Chrysi nodded. “It was just the one…”

Sunset reached the stairs and maneuvered pass Chrysi then continued upwards.  “There’s all this stuff about kidnapping! Me getting pulled into a life of crime…” Sunset paused and frowned heavily at what she was reading. 

Chrysi let out a small chuckle. “Dare I ask?”

“Nothing,” Sunset said shaking her head. “Just… Fluttershy is awfully concerned about my orifices… Never thought I read the sentence ‘Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the orifices!’” Sunset cried dramatically.  She let out a tired sigh.

“It sounds like your friends care an awful lot about you.”

Sunset paused and looked down at Chrysi. That last sentence sounded like it had a touch of melancholy to it… perhaps longing? It was impossible to tell from the woman’s expression, though. She had a hell of a poker face for sure.

“Uh… Yeah…” Sunset replied.

Her phone buzzed again.

Sunset groaned. “I gotta take care of this!” she declared.

Chrysi simply nodded as Sunset retreated upstairs and marched down the hall to her room, furiously swiping and poking at her phone the whole time. As soon as she got into her room she noted the soft thumping of a vibration, not unlike her phone, but instead, it was coming from above her in her loft. With a snarl, Sunset stormed across her room to her stairs and marched up them. She kneeled at the top of her stairs in front of a nightstand and opened it, revealing a hardbound book with her cutie mark vibrated and flashed red in the drawer. She quickly snatched it up and rummaged through the drawer to find a ballpoint pen. 

Sunset flipped the book to partially written on page that read, ‘Sunset! Sunset! The girls think you’re in trouble! Blink ‘once’ for ‘you’re fine’ twice for ‘you’re in danger! Pinkie! We can’t see here! How is that going to help us?! Oh, right… I mean… I thought it would be a good sign in case she was being held hostage but it doesn’t work with a book, hehe. Why are you writing this down! Why are you? ’ After a mess of what looked like frustrated scribbles, the book continued, ‘Write me back as soon as you can!’ 

Sunset let out another aggravated snarl as she sat on her bed and began to write, ‘Everything is under control. Situation normal.’

Words suddenly flashed onto the page in front of Sunset in a golden, glittery light that seemed applied with near machine-like precision. ‘You’re not at school! What happened?!’

Grunting in displeasure, Sunset continued writing, ‘Had a slight timing miscalculation. But everything’s perfectly all right now. I’m fine. I’m all fine here, now, thank you.’ Sunset paused for a moment then added, ‘How are you?’

‘Better now that I’ve confirmed you haven’t been murdered!’

‘No. Quite alive… thank you.’

‘Okay, but are you in a trunk?!’

Sunset paused for a moment as her face twisted in confusion before she began to write again. ‘What?!’

‘Pinkie came to find me when you didn’t show up for school. The girls thought you might be captured, tied up, and put in a trunk somewhere!’

‘I… No! Don’t you have anything better to do right now then bug pester me?’

‘HONESTLY, I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO!’ 

Sunset simply sat and stared at the words for a second, wondering what possessed Twilight to write them in the first place until she realized the penmanship had completely changed. 

‘Starlight! Stop interfering and stop looming over me!’

‘NOT UNTIL YOU TELL SUNSET I SAID ‘HI!’

‘Well, you just wrote that yourself in the book… and I keep writing what I’m saying for some stupid reason and’ The words suddenly ceased, replaced by angry, heavy squiggles that covered a great deal of the sentences above them.

‘Tell Starlight, I said “hi”,’ Sunset wrote.

‘Siiiighh…’

‘DID YOU ACTUALLY WRITE OUT AN EXAGGERATED SIGH?! HAHA! THAT’S TOO MUCH.’

“Sunset read your greeting and said ‘hi’ back! Now go away!’

‘Twilight, while I appreciate what is even more unexpected insanity visited on my week, this is really no big deal.”

‘Sunset, you’re my friend! If you’re tied up in a trunk somewhere in trouble, then that deserves my FULL attention!’

‘If I were in a trunk tied up, how would I be able to write you back?!’

“Well… You could be writing with your mouth! Your kidnappers wouldn’t think of that!”

‘What?! Twilight, I appreciate that you think I have some sort of lip and neck dexterity! But, no! There’s no way I could write this fast to you without the use of my hands!’

‘Okay… But are you writing to me under duress?!’ 

‘Twilight! I’m fine!’

‘One ellipsis for ‘you’re fine’, two for ‘I need help!’

‘…’

There was a long pause as Sunset waited for more words to appear.

‘DAMNIT, TWILIGHT! I’M NOT BIDING MY TIME TO STAB THREE MORE DOTS ONTO THE PAGE!’

‘Okay! Okay! But, are you SURE you haven’t been sold into sex slavery?!’

‘What! YES?! How would I be unsure of that?! Why would you even ask that? Was that also the girls asking?!’

‘Just Fluttershy, according to Pinkie.’

‘*sigh*← Pretend you just heard me sigh right now.’

‘Yeah, I got it.’

‘I’m fine! I just overslept.’

‘WHAT?! No! I don’t believe you.’

‘You don’t believe I overslept for school?’ Sunset could feel her left eye twitch.

‘No. I. Do. Not!’ Twilight answered. ‘You… You… Imposter!’

‘Twilight, if it was someone besides me, wouldn’t, they, you know, write back to you weirdly and not in my handwriting, and it would be super obvious it wasn’t me?’

The page remanded blank for a good few moments.

‘Well?!’

‘I’M THINKING!’

‘Oh, my gosh, Twilight! It’s me!’

‘Well prove it! Tell me something only you would know!’

‘What… Seriously?’

‘Yes, seriously!’

‘*eye roll* ← Pretend I just rolled my eyes’— the words ‘I got it!’ hit the page before Sunset finished. She continued on the next line.

‘Okay… So, when I was young and had only been Celestia’s adopted daughter for less than a year, she had her birthday which was… some huge number that I can’t remember…’

‘The MORE details the better, fake Shimmer!’

‘Gimme a break! I was like… 9! Anyhow, the cake was incredible. So good that Celestia wanted to thank the cake maker personally, and then she disappeared with him for almost an hour, and… well… thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure Mom had sex with the baker as a way of saying “thank you” for that huge, delicious cake.’

‘WHAT?!’

‘I know, right? I mean 9 years old me had no possible way to figure out that’s what was going on, but now that I’m older’ Sunset was cut off by hastily scribbled words asking, ‘HOW THE HELL WOULD I VERIFY THIS?!’

‘Ask Celestia? I mean… Just pen a letter to Spike and I’m sure she’ll—‘

‘I’M NOT TELLING SPIKE TO TAKE A LETTER AND ASK CELESTIA IF SHE FUCKED A BAKER DURING HER 1,127th BIRTHDAY PARTY!’

Sunset’s face tightened in annoyance. ‘So I need to come up with ANOTHER example of how it’s totally me?!’

‘That would be helpful. Yes.’

‘Okay… So. I was older, like… maybe 10, and we were having a big celebration to ‘recognize the guards’ deeds.’ Which was dumb because they’re actually not all that useful as far as I can tell, but I think Mom got a little tipsy trying -and mostly succeeding in- drinking the guards under the table. She started to insist it was getting late to me and that I should go to bed, but I didn’t want to, but she seemed to be practically begging Kibitz to put me to bed and she kept on looking at all the guards with these hungry eyes and licking her lips, and…’

‘DO YOU HAVE ANY PROOF THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE CELESTIA ALLEGEDLY HAVING SEX?!’ 

‘I don’t know! Most of what I say to you is in this journal and if I was soooo crafty that I copied Sunset’s handwriting perfectly and got her WRITING mannerisms down, I’m sure I’d have read this whole thing front-to-back and just tell you something from the book that anyone in this position would have read, but hope all the sex talk had disarmed you enough you’d buy it and leave me alone when I lifted something from the book of most of our secret conversations!’

Again, there was a pause before the response. This one much longer than the previous. Eventually, sparkling, golden words replied. ‘Can you just meet me at your school?’

‘Yes, Twilight. I need to get ready, but I can meet you face-to-face at school.’

‘Okay. But if you need to get to class, I can’ Sunset began to write or scribble, irritation flowing down from her body into her pen. ‘I’LL GO STRAIGHT TO THE MIRROR, TWILIGHT! CHILL!’ Sunset snapped the book shut and sighed heavily to herself. She quickly grabbed a ‘change’ of clothing and exited her room. Storming down the hall, she stopped at Chrysi’s door and smacked her fist against it.

There was a sound of grumbling, a sound of tumbling that made Sunset cringe, and a loud ‘pomf’! After a moment of Sunset’s heart pounding in her chest, she heard the sound of someone clambering across a wooden floor and the door opened to reveal a, perhaps slightly frazzled, Chrysi standing in her doorway. “What?!” Chrysi hissed out in an annoyed tone. 

“I’m going to go to school,” Sunset said.

“That’s still dumb. Why?!” Chrysi frowned. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she amended.

Sunset sighed. “My friends think you may have kidnapped me and forced me to become a sex slave… Well… at least one of them does.”

Chrysi looked Sunset up and down. “Tempting, but you clearly have a lot of friends who’d miss you and start asking annoying questions.”

“Okay. Just. What?”

“I mean, a girl like you would clearly fetch a great price, but there are risks and I’m a prime suspect, so—”

“UGH! Forget it!” Sunset said. “I’m going to wash up and head out.”

Chrysi simply nodded. “Right, have fun. As much fun as you can have without me surprise-molesting you in the bathroom.” Chrysi’s sleepy expression suddenly went full devil. “Unless you WANT me to —“

“GOING NOW!” Sunset announced as she made an about-face from Chrysi’s door and headed towards the shared bathroom. From behind her, she could hear Chrysi’s amused, if tired laugh, before the door shut. Grumbling to herself about paranoid friends, an easily-worked-up princess pen pal, and a roommate more than happy to feed into their fears, Sunset threw open the door to the bathroom, tossed her clean clothes on the sink, and began to strip down. Her friends were going to make it one of those days. One of those awkward, ‘we’re just worried about you Sunset Shimmer’ days that somehow came along with this whole friendship thing.

I mean… was it that big a deal she had used a fake ID to get alcohol and get drunk with her new roommate that may or may not be some sort of psychopathic gangster?
> Sunset stops for a coffee
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer let out a gust of air that left her lips flapping and sent the tuft of her hair that usually hung in front of her face flying as she practically flung herself into a gray padded chair. She leaned forward and rested her chin in her hands as she propped her elbows up on the simple wood grain table in front of her. Damage control… She thought. I need to do damage control… 

Sunset found herself surrounded by the smell of coffee amongst a bustling venue that really enjoyed green and dark wood grain. Other people sat at tables usually in pairs or in groups, sipped coffee, and conversed. Some even had pastries or sandwiches that they would take a moment to nosh on before continuing conversations or going back to staring at whatever digital screen was in front of them. Though Sunset’s distant expression suggested her thoughts were far away from the interior of the coffee shop.

Well… I can just stick with the ‘overslept’ line. It has the benefit of being technically true while leaving me plenty of room to just omit details on account of the sleep that I… technically DIDN’T get… Sunset relaxed slightly in her chair. Still, it’s whatever I say against my friend’s paranoia… Sunset let out a sigh heavy with exasperation. That’s still an uphill battle no matter what… Sunset winced and raised a hand to her head. Ghuuu… my head…

Sunset got up briefly and quickly came back to her seat with a clear plastic cup full of a translucent liquid and sat back down. She reached a hand into her leather jacket, unzipped a pocket, and pulled out a ziplock baggie with a handful of round white pills in it. Opening it, she picked out three into her palm, slammed them into her mouth, and took a sip of her water.

And then she heard a familiar gasp so loud, lengthy, and familiar, she would have paid substantial money to redo the last hour or so of her life.

“Sunset Shimmer!” a shrill, surprised voice called out. 

It was all Sunset could do to swallow her pills as Pinkie’s voice rang out, still she managed to get the small white objects down her throat… The water on the other hand… 

“Cough! Cough! Pinkie!” Sunset got out as she nearly drowned from a tiny sip of water. 

Pinkie was in front of her faster than one could say, ‘Oh, God! Why is this my day?!’ “Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Sunset! What were they?! Crack, smack, snacks, uppers, downers, frowners, sensurronders?!” Pinkie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Anddoyouhaveanyyoucanspare?!”

“What?!” Sunset exclaimed.

“What?” Pinkie replied innocently.

Sunset sighed and picked up the baggie in front of her. “Pinkie, they’re just aspirin! Why would I do hardcore drugs in a public coffee house?!” she asked as she closed the bag and placed it back in her pocket.

Pinkie shrugged. “I don’t know, but that sounds like something someone who was hopelessly addicted to drugs would do!”

Sunset grit her teeth. “You saw me two days ago! Do you really think I started a drug addiction in that short amount of time?”

“Maaaaaybe…” Pinkie said as she leaned down and gave Sunset a scrutinizing look. “Who knows what kind of peer pressure that possibly eeeevil roommate of yours is pushing!”

“I…” Sunset trailed off and thought for a moment. Chrysi could likely swing that on someone with less willpower than herself, though it probably wouldn’t do any good to tell Pinkie that. “Pinkie, it’s ME!” Sunset said, hopefully that would get across the fact that Sunset wasn’t exactly one to fall to peer pressure.

“Well, of course it’s you, silly!” Pinkie said. She giggled to herself. “It’s not like anyone thinks you were cocooned and replaced by a shapeshifter!” Pinkie gasped. “Unless that’s exactly what happened and you’re preemptively covering your tracks!” Pinkie swallowed. “Oh no! What if they got Twilight! Or Dashie! OR Fluttershy! Or Applejack! Or or… Twilight!”

 “You said ‘Twilight’ twice’, Pinkie,” Sunset said dryly.

Pinkie nodded. “Right! Because both Twilights are looking for you!”

Sunset’s entire face scrunched up and she closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger. “Oh, lord…” she uttered.

Pinkie let out a terrified gasp-shriek. 

“Oh, what is it now?!” Sunset said, unable to keep irritation out of her voice.

“What if they replaced ME!” Pinkie wailed. She pulled her hands under her chin, clasping them into fists. “I’m too young to be cocooned!”

Sunset leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Okay… One person is clearly on drugs in this conversation and it’s not me.”

Pinkie leaned forward and placed a hand near her mouth as if shielding the conversation from anyone else who might be listening in. “Is it one of the chairs?”

Sunset’s turquoise eyes simultaneously tried to look at her nose as her forehead wrinkled. “I think it’s getting more apparent who it is by the sentence, but why would you even ask that?”

“In case the mimics are in cahoots with the shapeshifters!” Pinkie said.

Sunset groaned. “Pinkie. I’m fine! There are no shapeshifters and there’s no mimics at the coffee shop!”

Pinkie cautiously kicked at a few of the chairs and the table Sunset was sitting at, causing Sunset’s water to splash slightly.

Grumbling as she picked up her water and took a sip, Sunset continued, “I was just heading to school, and—”

“Super late!” Pinkie pointed out.

“Yes, I know!” Sunset said. “Figured I’d get lunch on the way there. Nothing against Granny Smith, but cafeteria food is still a few steps below coffee chain food.” Sunset shook her head. “So, just go find everyone else and tell them I’ll be in for fourth period!”

“You can tell them yourself, silly Sunset!” Pinkie took a step to her left and motioned out. “They’re right here!”

Sunset felt her face change temperature as she looked over the collection of high-school aged girls all giving her concerned looks. She wasn’t sure who she was more angry with at this point: Pinkie, or herself. “Okay, in my defense, Pinkie is really good at holding people’s attention.”

Rarity nodded. “That she is,” she agreed.

Sunset tilted her head. “How long have you been in here?!”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Somewhere around the time Pinkie thought you might have replaced by a pod person!”

“Guessing you ruled that out?” Sunset suggested.

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Well, it seemed pretty far-fetched even for this group.”

Pinkie gave Rainbow Dash a scrutinizing look. “That’s exactly what a shapeshifter would say!”

Applejack groaned. “Pinkie, you’re clearly over-stimulated. Ah think ya need to have a juice box and sit down.”

“Oh, good idea!” Pinkie reached into her mop of pink curls that she kept balanced on her head, pulled out a juice box, and plopped in a seat next to Sunset where she gleefully stabbed a straw into the top. She began to gleefully drain the box of its juice.

Sunset looked over the expressions on her friends’ faces. Most seemed relieved to see her, but there was one in particular that was almost giving her the same scrutinizing look that Pinkie was throwing around. “Uh… Problem Twi-Princess Twilight?” Sunset asked.

“Well…” Princess Twilight rubbed her chin. “Given the noted uptick of magical activity in this area, it’s not outlandish a changeling invasion is happening.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Changelings… Really!” She shook her head. “Why would you even humor that? What possible context outside of Pinkie’s insanity would you have to even believe that was going on?”

Princess Twilight frowned. “Well… I’m not sure it would be the strangest thing that’s happened to you…”

“Well… you got me there,” Sunset admitted. “Oh, did I tell you about the time mom got so frustrated during a meeting with the nobles that she stormed out and then a guard was all like, ‘Can I help you?’ and mom was like ‘No… It’s going to take you and maybe the rest of the guards in this wing of the castle!’ and then she had him get them all for an emergency meeting in her bedchambers where I wasn’t allowed probably becau—”

“Ahhh!” Princess Twilight exclaimed. “Okay! Okay! I believe it’s you!”

The bespectacled Twilight frowned. “Well… I remain unconvinced. I mean… you didn’t even ask me to help you move!”

Sunset winced as most the girls present shifted nervously in place.

“Yeah, or me!” Princess Twilight chimed in. 

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Princess Twilight, you’re well… a Princess… I assumed you had better things to do then help me move some stuff across town!”

Princess Twilight pursed her lips and gave Sunset a protesting look. “Well, it would have been nice to be asked!”

“Yeah!” Twilight agreed. “I’m not even a princess! Why didn’t I get an invite?!”

“I’m sorry!” Sunset said throwing up her hands. “I mean… You’re new to the group and I wasn’t sure me making you carry heavy stuff and going to the ‘you might get stabbed’ part of town was a good early impression!”

Twilight frowned. “Were you afraid my magic might go haywire and I might hurt someone?”

“Uh… No? Er…Wait… Yes? Maybe?” Sunset frowned heavily. “Which answer makes this conversation the least awkward?”

Princess Twilight sighed. “Okay, let’s focus… How much can you really trust this new roommate of yours?”

Sunset fought the urge to say, ‘I trust her about as much as I trust being able to hug her and not get poked by all the spikes she wears’ and opted to change the subject. "How did you hear about my roommate? Why are you even here?!"

“Oh!” Pinkie said. “I ran to get Twilight! It was no biggy… The portal is always open anyways… andIliketochangeplaceswiththeotherPinkiesooftenevenwe’renotsurewhobelongswhereatthispoint!”

“What?!” the group collectively asked.

“What?” Pinkie replied.

"Look,” Princess Twilight began. “It was hard not to hear about your new roommate. Pinkie told me about your move and all the expensive stuff already furnishing your place in the ‘crack-whore’ part of town.” 

Sunset glared at Pinkie. 

“What?!” Pinkie replied in a shrill, protesting tone. “It’s not like I said you were a crack-whore… but I mean… It pretty much is where all the crack-whores hang out… Or so I’ve heard!” Pinkie declared before she sucked on her juice box so hard it began to make an obnoxious sound as the rest of the liquid was vacuumed up.

Princess Twilight continued, “Anyway, then I wrote you and said I’d meet you at school. So I jump portals and see that Rarity was in hysterics, find out that Fluttershy left after second period to go check the nearest morgues, and Rainbow was stalking around the hallways snarling something about how they were all going to find fingers in their mailboxes. We decided it was best to form a search party and go look for you.”

Applejack nodded. “There’s safety in numbers.”

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Yeah… Plus, we needed enough people to completely surround Fluttershy when we went to check the part of town you live in.”

Fluttershy let out a scared “Meep” and nodded.

Pinkie leaned in closer to Sunset. “She was scared because of all the crack-whores or guys who are super into crack-whores we thought we might run into!”

“Thanks, Pinkie,” Sunset said in a tone that would have a desert offering it water. “I got it.” 

“May I see your hands, dear?" Rarity asked.

Sunset sighed and held up her hands and spread her fingers. All ten were quickly literally accounted for as Pinkie quickly scanned the hands, pointing and quietly counting out each digit to herself.

Sunset felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Fluttershy looking down at her, concern having set up a war camp on the girl’s face. “We’re all worried about you Sunset! I mean… Your new roommate could be planning to sell you into sex slavery for all we know!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “So you keep saying…”

Rarity sighed and shook her head. “You have no idea…”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash chimed in, “Or she could be getting you hooked up on all kinda crazy drugs!”

“Ugh… So YOU keep saying!” Sunset said. She shook her head. “Guys, I’m not addicted to drugs of any kind.”

A male’s voice called out, “One Wake-up Jackhammer with extra espresso shots for Sunset Shimmer!”

“GIIIVE!” Sunset cried as she sprung out of her chair and came back with a very tall cardboard cup she took several large gulps from.

Applejack looked at the cup for a moment then, focused her attention on Sunset. “Look sugarcube, we all went to check up on ya because we’re just scared for your well being, that’s all. Ah mean… Can ya blame us after what you told us about your roommate?”

“She's just a little overzealous and maybe dabbles in crime." Sunset waved a dismissive hand about. "Nothing I haven't dealt with before. You’ve all got nothing to worry about! Believe me!”

Twilight jumped almost hard enough to knock her own glasses off her face as Princess Twilight gave Sunset a dry look. "Nothing in those first two sentences leads me to believe we have nothing to worry about," Princess Twilight said dryly.

"That's what I was going to say!" Twilight added. "Just... with a lot more concern."

"Well, I've been on the receiving end of Sunset's overzealousness and crime before," Princess Twilight stated. "I guess it mostly worked out in the long run."

Sunset puffed out her lower lip into an exaggerated pout then folded her arms across her chest. "You just HAD to bring that up!"

"Well, I assumed that's what we were talking about!" Princess Twilight insisted. "Unless you were once the leader of your own crime syndicate or something!"

Sunset replied by breaking eye contact with Princess Twilight as she began to conspicuously whistle a non-conspicuous tune.

Princess Twilight groaned. "I really wish I could tell when you were joking..."

Sunset smirked. "But where's the fun in that?"

"Oh, I know!" Pinkie exclaimed, raising her hand up. "The 'joke' part!"

"That's only half the fun," Sunset stated.

Applejack put her hands down on the table and leaned forward. “Look, We want to believe you,” she insisted. “Jus’ you know… You’ve er… kinda pulled the wool over our eyes before!”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said. “You’ve got enough ‘dirt’ on us all to bury us six feet deep, if you start being evil again you could hide your identity and post all our secrets on MyStable, or something!”

Pinkie let out a giggle-snort. “Let’s not go crazy here.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Far too late for that… Also, why the heck would I do that? What possible benefit would that get me if everyone at school already knows I was once capable of lying and slander? Everyone would suspect me in a heartbeat.”

Pinkie giggled again. “It does sound pretty dumb and far-fetched.”

Rainbow Dash glared at Pinkie. “Really?”

“What! It does!” Pinkie insisted. “I think drugs is a much more likely scenario… and also being replaced by a body double.”

Sunset groaned. “I hope my sandwich is ready soon so I can try to suffocate myself with it…”

“I feel we’re getting off topic,” Princess Twilight commented.

Sunset snorted. “Right, such a rarity with our little group,” she said dryly.

Rarity let out in inquisitive hum.

“No, not you!” Sunset said. “I meant the actual word ‘rarity’.”

Twilight adjusted her glasses and spoke up. “Well, Princess Twilight has a point. I mean… You just met this other girl! Who knows what kind of crazy, perhaps magical, schemes she could be into that might get completely out of hand and maybe, possibly accidentally, destroy two freaking planets!” She finished, huffing and puffing to catch her breath. She took note that suddenly everyone in the group was staring at her. “Er… Just thinking out loud, here…”

“Easy, Twilight,” a muffled voice came from Twilight’s backpack. “We’re here for Sunset’s problem…”

“Did that backpack just talk?!” A male’s voice inquired.

“Seriously?!” the voice in the backpack exclaimed. “All this talk about pod-people and stuff and that’s what gets someone’s attention! Heck! Even I know that’s weird and I’m a do—”

Princess Twilight gently nudged Twilight’s backpack. “Shhhh… Spike! Not now!” 

“Hey, you don’t OWN me!” Spike said. “Other Twilight owns me!”

Sunset grit her teeth. “Girls and uh… Spike, the experimental AI!”

“What?! I’m not… whatever that is!”

“Shhh!” Twilight said as she glanced back at her backpack. “She’s covering for you.”

“Oh, gotcha!” Spike said. “I am totally an ex-berry-mental Aie-Eye!”

Sunset looked at the other people in the room. Oddly enough, they immediately went back to their own lives, presumably with far less magic and talking dogs.

Sunset looked back to her friends, “You all have nothing to worry about from my roommate!” she insisted. “She’s a perfectly ordinary girl with a lot of time and money on her hands, nothing more.” And as long as none of you MEET her, that’s the story I’m sticking with.

“Sunny!” A deep female voice called out in a bubbly tone. “You didn’t tell me you were meeting your friends for lunch!”

Okay, but WHY though?! Sunset thought loud enough that hopefully some deity or the universe or something heard and understood they/it were making her life even more difficult than usual… and that was a pretty high bar at this point.

Faces were suddenly torn from Sunset and pointed at the source of the voice. Rarity and Pinkie let out gasps of excitement followed by girlish squeals. The two women clearly taking note of Chrysi’s black, but oddly lacy dress with a big black bow on the front, two smaller red bows below that, and a pattern of flowers and dark stained-glass windows above the frilly edge of her skirt that ended about knee level. Chrysi somehow had a pair of leggings that continued the stained-glass and floral look that went down to a pair of laced up black platform boots that sported two pairs of belt buckles on the side. If Chrysi was wearing a veil and sad expression instead of pink heart-framed glasses and a cute-as-a-button smile, she’d look like the trendiest person at a funeral.

Sunset took quick notes of the expressions of her friends. As expected, Rarity and Pinkie looked completely won over by Chrysi’s outfit alone. The sudden arrival clearly unnerved Fluttershy, but she, too, looked like either Chrysi’s outfit or demeanor had quickly softened her opinion as she was only somewhat hiding behind Sunset’s chair. Applejack and Rainbow Dash maintained an air of caution about them while Twilight mostly just seemed perplexed by this sudden new arrival.

Princess Twilight, though… Princess Twilight looked like someone was doing a jig over her grave… No. She looked like an endless conga line of people were somehow river dancing across her grave as she stared at Chrysi with eyes seemingly a mix of fear and anger.

Sunset pushed her own trepidations at least far enough away that they wouldn’t manifest on her face. “And there she is!” Sunset said in a cheerful voice as if she wasn’t dreading the fallout from this fateful meeting. Of course, she knew she’d probably need a good proverbial radiation scrub after today if it continued at this pace.
.
> Chrysi Meets the Gang
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings were rapidly exchanged in a flurry of teenaged energy that Sunset just was not in the mood for. Normally in this situation, she’d quickly put herself in between the newcomer and her more enthusiastic comrades, but quickly as she tried to chug the coffee, it just wasn’t clearing her haze fast enough. Drawing aggro for all the aggravation like a sponge might mean a melt-down in this case and losing her cool would make her look like the bad guy. Sunset knew this both from pushing many rivals over the edge and falling off it herself from time to time. Now was not the time to force taking charge of the situation. Especially when Chrysi had given no indication that she was anything other than a dressed up young-adult out for a bit of coffee.  Better to play it cool, observe… See if Chrysi could handle being bombarded by the friendship brigade. 

After all, it was moments of extreme stress like this that reveal the true measure of a person, or something…  Damnit! There’s got to be a stupid quote from someone famous, a movie, or a song or SOMETHING that covers this! Stupid caffeine. WORK FASTER!

“Ohmygosh! Hi! Hieeeeeee,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she rapidly grabbed Chrysi’s right hand with both hands and began vigorously shaking it as she stared up at the taller girl. “My name is Pinkie Pie and it’s so great to meet you in person! You look even better in 3D and not the kind of person who captures people and puts them in pods at all!” 

Princess Twilight made an audible squawk that sounded like a terrified protest, but it was rapidly overshadowed by all the fluffy, happy friendship going on.

Sunset wasn’t nearly caffeinated enough for this. 

“Uh, yes, hello! And thank you?!” Chrysi replied, somehow getting a blush onto that ash-colored face. “Erm, Chrysi,” she said while clearly being somewhat overwhelmed by the pink party person...

Or APPEARING to be overwhelmed, Sunset mused as she took another huge sip from her drink.

“Do you need a new friend?!” Pinkie continued. She motioned to everyone around as if showing off a new car in a game show. “Do you need seven new friends?!” 

“Err…” Chrysi did her best to shrink away slightly and look diminutive, which was exceedingly difficult given Chrysi’s natural height boosted by platform boots. Still, Sunset couldn’t help but admire just how well the girl pulled it off.

“Pinkie, dearest. You’re hounding the poor girl,” Rarity said as she gently placed a hand on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Remember, personal space. Now then…” The fashionista then not-so-gently moved Pinkie away from Chrysi and took her spot. “Chrysi, where do you get these delightful outfits from?!” She asked as she began feeling the material of Chrysi’s frilly dress, invading the heck out of the girl’s personal space. “I simply must know!”

Sunset tilted her head slightly as Chrysi began to discuss clothes and fashion with Rarity. Despite Rarity being every bit as close, and nearly as touchy-feely as Pinkie; somehow Chrysi seemed much more at ease as she happily chatted away on fashion.

“Ugh… boring!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “I mean, it looks pretty and all, but what are you going to do about your pretty frilly clothes if you someone grabs you for an impromptu soccer game?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, darling, not everyone gets asked to—”

“Strip naked,” Chrysi answered without a hint of hesitation or embarrassment. She frowned slightly. “I mean… I do hope I’m playing skins, otherwise I’m screwed.”

There was a beat of silence before most the girls broke into a fit of surprised laughter, even Sunset couldn’t help but join in.

 I gotta admit, the girl’s certainly not a wallflower. Sunset mused as Applejack slapped a chipper hand between Chrysi’s shoulder blades and guffawed “Yer alright!” 

And then Chrysi caught sight of Fluttershy, and for a few moments the diminutive Chrysi was back as the two girls exchanged quiet greetings.  

Oh, she is good! Sunset thought as she absentmindedly began to rotate her large coffee cup in her hands. Watching Chrysi work the group was pure poetry in motion. I could even learn a thing or two, here…  

Only the two Twilights hung back. This planet’s Twilight still showed the fact that she was a friendship novice by fidgeting pensively outside the circle that had formed around Chrysi. 

Sunset felt her forehead tighten instinctively as she once again focused on Princess Twilight. That Twilight somehow looked even more completely not-okay with what was going on than she did a few moments ago, almost as if she had taken all the apprehension that had initially existed from the surprise visit unto herself as Chrysi seemingly effortlessly slotted herself into the gaggle of friends as if she had been part of it for years.

Speaking of which, Chrysi took notice of the two purple skinned girls and offered a hand. “Hi! I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your names!”

“Yes, I’m intentionally being rude,” Sunset blurted out before anyone could call her out on her inaction. “Watching you squirm as all my friends try to absorb you into their amorphous blob of friendship is the most fun I’ve had all morning,” Sunset said, punctuating her statement with a sip of her drink. Sometimes bluntly stating the truth was the best way to catch someone off guard and, oddly enough, defer suspicion from the whole truth. Also, important here was phrasing. Had I mentioned Chrysi kept me up last night or we woke up on the couch together, it’d have been ‘game over, man!’ and all the girls would be hounding ME! 

Sunset received a loud raspberry from Chrysi for her troubles, something that greatly amused most of her friends present. Okay, now I KNOW she’s putting on something of an act. She would have flipped me off if she wasn’t playing it safe.

Quickly moving on from Sunset’s declaration, Chrysi refocused her attention to the twin purple people present and offered a hand to whomever would take it first. “I’m Chrysi, Sunset’s new roommate!” 

“Uh… Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight greeted as she took Chrysi’s hand and shook it. “I’m, erm… kinda new to the group, too.”

Chrysi chuckled. “How about your sister there?” she asked as she retracted her hand and offered it to the other Twilight as she nodded in her direction.

Princess Twilight glared down at the offered hand as if someone had offered her an open bear trap to press flesh against. Meanwhile, the bespectacled Twilight’s expression changed so quickly that Sunset thought she felt her own mouth go dry. 

“Uh… right! Erm… My sister…Er… TWIN sister named… ummm…”

Sunset forced an eye roll, which wasn’t hard at all as that was practically her normal state, “Dusk Shine, stop being such a grump just because you got dragged out of the school to help track me down.” 

Princess Twilight winced as she shifted her attention to Sunset. 

“Er, Dusk Shine! Right!” Twilight said. “It’s totally that and not something else!”

Potentially taking advantage of the situation, because that’s how Sunset would do it, Chrysi raised her outstretched hand up to her mouth and used it to not-really-stifle a laugh. “Let me guess, your parents wanted a boy and a girl but couldn’t think of another name when you both popped out?”

“Uh… No? Er… Wait… Yes? Maybe?” Twilight looked between her Princess counterpart and Sunset. “Which answer makes this conversation the least awkward?”

‘Dusk Shine’ suddenly stormed up to Sunset, “Sunset, a moment alone, please?”

Giving Princess Twilight a ‘cool-as-a-cucumber’ smile, Sunset just shrugged and stood up. “Sure, Dusky. You and I can just grab a booth and pretend no one can see us in the busy café!”

Twilight let out a frustrated groan as she marched past Sunset and spotted an empty booth at the not-all-that-far corner of the café. 

“Alright Friendship Brigade,” Sunset began, “Den Mother Dusky and I have to have a chat,” Sunset pointed at Applejack, “Applejack’s in charge while we’re away!”

Applejack grinned widely and saluted. “10-4, good buddy!”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Rainbow Dash protested. “Why does AJ get to be in charge?!”

Sunset smirked. “Because let’s ditch school, rent BMX bikes, and go to the skatepark instead!”

“Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!” Rainbow Dash replied. “That sounds like the best idea ever!” she cried as Fluttershy emphatically shook her head ‘no’.

“That’s why,” Sunset said as Rainbow Dash gave her friend a sour look and the conversation resumed.

Sunset and Twilight retreated the short distance to the booth. Sunset took the seat that had her facing toward the café's entrance and Twilight took the end that allowed her to best direct her judgmental stare. 

“I don’t trust this ‘Chrysi’,” Twilight said bluntly. “Not one bit.”

“Talking to me alone means we’re leaving all our friends alone with my new roomy, but okay!”

Princess Twilight cringed for a moment and looked back at her friends, all busy socializing with the new arrival. Sunset could practically see the gears behind Princess Twilight’s eyes begin to work overtime as she quickly found herself at a river with a boat, a wolf, a sheep, and a sack of grain scenario, mentally speaking.

“Oh, relax,” Sunset said. “We’re right here… What’s she going to do? Toss a giant net over everyone and abscond with them? Reveal all the other patrons here are secretly members of her drug trafficking ring and kidnap the whole lot of us?”

Rather than relax Princess Twilight, the comment seemed to only further aggravate the pony-temp-turned-human and she began to scan the café as if she had just expanded her potential threat pool.

Sunset just sighed and smiled slightly as she shook her head. “You’re welcome by the way.”

“I’m welcome?!” Twilight exclaimed as she whipped her head around. “I’m welcome for what?!”

“You’re welcome that I bailed you out of that awkward situation of being the only person not eager to make a new friend, Miss Princess of Friendship!”

Twilight narrowed her eyes and began to whisper. “You don’t see it, do you?!” Twilight hissed out in a whisper as she motioned behind her in Chrysi’s general direction. “She’s a villain.”

Sunset chuckled. “Good one, Samwise.”

Somewhat stern look on her face, Twilight nodded. “Thanks, but seriously. She’s evil.”

Sunset leaned her head past Princess Twilight to look at Chrysi as Sunset’s roommate thrust a wad of money into Pinkie Pie’s hand and the girls began shouting drink and food orders after the bubbly teen as she happily bounded to the front counter. “I mean… I’m sure she’s someone’s-no-many people’s villain, but to us as a whole? She’s an afterschool bad-influence at best.” Sunset frowned. “I mean… so long as the more confident, level-headed of us keep on our toes. I’ll grant you she’d probably eat some of the girls alive if given half a chance.”

“Ah-hah!” Twilight said triumphantly. “So you do see it!”

“Uh…” Sunset shrugged. “I see that Chrysi is putting on a bit of an act right now, but I don’t know for sure if there’s anything all that nefarious going on aside from the fact that she kinda likes to screw with people. Probably me in particular.”

“Please tell me you think there’s more to this than that!” 

Sunset shrugged. “Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep our eyes on her, because who knows what shenanigans she’d drag some of the girls into if given the chance! She could get them to inject the the devil’s lettuce or even smoke ‘E’!” Sunset let out a massive fake gasp. “What if she encourages the girls to try this ‘sexting’ I’ve heard so much about!”

Out of the unamused expressions Twilight had shared with Sunset Shimmer, this one was clearly amongst the top 10. “Could you at least try to take this seriously?”

Sunset looked down at her drink. “I would, but annoying you is somehow invigorating me while I wait for the caffeine to kick in.” Sunset looked back up to Twilight longingly. “You’re the Sunset Shimmer to my Chrysi, Twilight.”

“Ugggh… And you’re clearly in a very ‘Sunset Shimmer’ mood. Sounds like you’ve been spending too much time with the Dazzlings.”

“Hah!” Sunset said. “Also known as anytime whatsoever. Speaking of which, those three have already done plenty of damage to this group as far as getting us all to do almost all the things adults think we’re not ready for.” Sunset took a sip of her drink. “Except risk our lives fighting monsters from another world. That’s all you.”

Twilight folded her arms across her chest. “And you.”

Sunset pursed her lips at that. “Alright, you got me there. It’s actually probably more my fault than yours. Still, Chrysi and I already addressed the giant sexy elephant wearing a tiny two-piece in the room.”

Twilight groaned and raised a hand to her face. “Thanks for that image.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Sunset replied. “As strange as she might be, she’s likely not going to kidnap and sell any of us to the sexmarket!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “‘Likely’?”

Sunset shrugged. “As I said, I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep an eye on her. But she at least ruled me out given I clearly have a lot of friends who’d start looking for me if I disappeared.”

Twilight leaned across the table slightly. “Okay, but what if it’s worse than uh… sexmarkets?”

It was Sunset’s forehead’s turn to crinkle like foil being added to a large ball of more foil. “Twilight, I’m not sure what you’re imagining, but unless the girl is really into the Saw franchise and—” Sunset cringed “—she probably is… but unless she feels like the movies are recipes for a good time—and she might; but at least it’s not the Human Centipede movies which Chrysi might ALSO like and I’m going to stop talking now because I’m making myself scared and angry.”

Twilight frowned. “Are these more things we should watch together?”

“Absolutely not,” Sunset said. 

“Oh, well… Mainly I was concerned about something else you said, the part about Chrysi eating some of the girls alive.”

Sunset groaned as she looked down and brought fingertips up to her forehead. “I was being figurative!”

“So was I, well… Quasi-figurative, at least!”

Sunset looked up and glared at Twilight. “You’re being purposely obtuse right now as payback, aren’t you?”

“Uh, no?” Twilight replied.

“Oh…” Sunset said. Her glare tightened. “That’s somehow worse.”

Twilight glanced behind her and noted all her friends and Chrysi were now quite enjoying a bevy of beverages. She leaned in and motioned Sunset to come closer.

Sunset complied.

“What if Chrysi is from Equestria?”

Sunset felt her forehead tighten once more as she took a glance at Chrysi. “What like… another one of Star Swirl’s problems he dumped on this planet so, of course, we get to deal with it?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, something else… Something no less ancient but having been in Equestria until recently, maybe…”

Sunset could get the unnecessary mystery around the conversation start to increase her blood pressure. “Such as?”

“Queen Chrysalis.”

Sunset went quiet for a moment as Twilight’s words hung ominously in the air somehow made more worrying as the sounds of merriment continued from the front of the café. “The… the Changeling Queen…” she replied dryly. “You think Chrysi is the Changeling Queen.”

Twilight shook her head. “You have to have suspected it! I mean Chrysi looks just like her…” Twilight’s eyes widened in fear. “Unless…”

Sunset sighed. “Twilight, I’m not a changeling-and put that finger down, yes! I know that’s exactly what a changeling would say!” Sunset closed her eyes briefly as she took in a breath of air. “Ask yourself if a changeling would know how to annoy you so well, Dusky.”

Twilight’s entire body shivered, a mixture of relief and annoyance. “Right, I’ve been meaning to bring that up. ‘Dusk Shine?!’ Really?!”

Sunset smiled and took one more big sip of her coffee. “Hey! Next time you can come up with your own fake name for when you’re standing right next to your non-Equestrian double!” Sunset flipped out a hand matter-of-factually. “Speaking of which, have you simply considered that’s who Chrysi is? I mean… if she is that Chrysalis, she’s not going to great lengths to hide it with that name. Yes! Yes! ‘Unless that’s what she wants us to think!’” Sunset let out a long sullen sigh and turned to face a direction other than Twilights. “Now you’ve got me all paranoid.”

Twilight smiled slightly. “So, you see it then?”

Sunset groaned. “Only that you’ve told me enough about Queen Chrysalis that I believe she’s capable of this trickery… I mean, there’s still the possibility that Chrysi has nothing to do with her and is just a completely random girl who happens to be named ‘Chrysi’.”

“Are you kidding, I already said she looks just like her!”

Sunset shot Twilight a bemused look.

“Er… She looks just like a Queen Chrysalis turned human, that is!”

“Well, how would I know that?!” Sunset exclaimed as she threw her hands in the air. “I’ve never seen Queen Chrysalis.”

“Oh… uh…” Twilight looked around and grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser. “Do you have a pen?”

Doing her best to hide a knowing smile, Sunset reached into her leather jacket and produced a ballpoint pen and handed it to Twilight. 

Twilight took the pen in her right hand, clicked the top with her thumb, and then placed the pen in her mouth and began scrawling on the napkin.

Sunset couldn’t help but smile wider and wider as it was clear Twilight was becoming increasingly frustrated at her complete inability to draw in this state.

After around 30 seconds, Twilight spat out the pen in disgust, folded her arms across her chest, and glared angrily at somewhere outside the booth she occupied with Sunset.

Sunset reached across the table and took the napkin in her hand. “Sooo… Queen Chrysalis is a scary looking black block of cheese holding a jagged knife… that’s also black?” she asked her lips clearly fighting a losing battle against a smile.

“That’s a horn, Sunset!” Twilight snapped.

“Pffft-Ye-yes! How-Hahaha-How silly of me!”

“Do I have to remind you just how serious this might be?”

“HeHEEHEHEhe…” Sunset closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she let it out and opened her eyes, her expression was grimly serious. “No… I mean… As much as I want Chrysi to be just a regular potentially psychotic element in my life and not a magical one, there’s been some hints she’s more than what she seems…” Sunset frowned. “Of course, again, she just might want me to think that because screwing with me gives her some form of sustenance…”

“Hint?” Twilight said, clearly perking up. “Hints like what?” 

Sunset shrugged. “Aversion to the word ‘bug’ when used as a pejorative. Interest in where I went to school before Canterlot High…”

A dark look came over Twilight’s face. “That certainly suggests she’s the real Queen Chrysalis.”

“Again, or she’s clearly just weird in general. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she just started prying into my past as payback for me doing a little checking up on her of my own!” 

“Alright, well what did you find out with you checked into her past?”

Sunset sighed and pointed at the group as Rarity and Pinkie vied for Chrysi’s attention, Rainbow Dash clearly getting annoyed that not enough focus was being given to her as she’d try to change the subject and Applejack continued to play social referee all the while Fluttershy and Twilight quietly observed. “I found out that she’s exactly the person she’s acting like right now. Of course, when I got alone with her, I figured out THAT was something of an act…” Sunset frowned. “Or uh… maybe she just acts differently in public and some aspects of how she’s with me are a different act to keep me on my toes and-damnit now all the caffeine has hit at once and I’m paranoid!” 

Twilight reached over and placed a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, Sunset?”

Sunset smiled. “Huh… X-files… I love it.”

Twilight retracted her hand. “Uh, Sunset? I erm… haven’t seen any uh… non-Equestrian adult material, if that’s what you think.”

“Never mind! That’ll go on the pile of things to watch.”

A luminescent blush appeared on Twilight’s cheeks. “Uh… Non-Equestria adult material? I-er-I certainly guess that would have scientific merit at least…”

“What? No! The X-files!” Sunset clarified. A thoughtful look crossed her face. “I mean… okay… maybe after a few drinks we can…”

“Sunset, let’s focus.”

Sunset let out an annoyed grunt. “Sorry. Now I’m over caffeinated and all over the place!”

“It’s fine,” Twilight assured, “If I can deal with Pinkie… Look, you didn’t tell her about us, right?”

Sunset frowned. “Wait… Are you and I dating?! Why wasn’t I informed?!”

Twilight shot Sunset an annoyed glance. “No! I mean… Did you tell her about Equestria?”

Sunset quickly put on a cheerful smile and extended a hand. “Hello! My name is Sunset Shimmer! Nice to meet you! So, as you may have heard, I’m actually a magical unicorn from another dimension!” 

Twilight’s look simply became more irritated. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed!”

“Oh, but it’s so much less fun!” Sunset retracted her hand and chuckled. “No, I haven’t told her anything, but it’s not like magical meltdowns at or outside the school have a tendency to happen quietly. I mean… this isn’t Sunnydale, Twilight. The things that come out of our little Hellmouth don’t tend to keep a low-profile when they’re unleashed intentionally or otherwise. I mean, if Chrysi really is who you think she is, and I really hope she’s not, she’d be the first to be smart enough to gather some real intel before she moves forward with her master plan… and that’s worrisome.”

Twilight’s vexed look melted somewhat into one of bemusement. “I have no context for a lot of what you just said to me.”

“Right, right,” Sunset nodded, “another show on ‘pile’.” 

“Later,” Twilight said with a dismissive wave, “I know you don’t want to hear it, but we need a plan.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to hear that?” Sunset inquired. “What’s wrong with plans? I like plans!”

“Oh!” Twilight rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry, I just thought you were more of a ‘think on her hooves’ sort of mare.”

“Sure, more so than you!” Sunset stated. “But that’s a pretty low bar. I mean… I made a plan to take your crown and try to win in the Fall Formal! Of course, that all blew up in my face, but that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly adverse to all plans.” 

“Okay, gotcha… So… first off, we need to get Chrysi away from our friends for a little bit.”

Sunset nodded. “While we do a little recon.” 

Twilight smiled widely and clenched her fist, giving them a small victory shake in front of her chest. “I was just about to say that!”

Sunset matched Twilight’s smile. “Okay, so I’m thinking—”

Before Sunset could get another word out, the phrase “Hurray! Slumber party!” could be heard over the din of the café in an unmistakable bubbly, high-pitched tone of one Pinkie Pie. Normally the phrase would be cause for celebration, but this time the words lingered in the air hauntingly, somehow echoing in a deep, foreboding tone as both Sunset and Twilight imagined them escape from Pinkie’s lips in slow motion.  And before either of the Equestrian’s could react…

“Well, shoot!” Applejack exclaimed as she swung a fist in front of her chest. “Ah figure a slumber party at yours and Sunset’s new place would be a great way to getta know ya better and throw a housewarming party for Sunset!”

Amongst Pinkie Pie’s over-the-top celebration complete with confetti, Rainbow Dash’s “Yeah, whatever” that she tried to make sound cool and detached but was betrayed by her smile, Rarity’s giddy titter, Fluttershy’s soft “Yay.”, and even the bespectacled Twilight’s little grin that showed she was simply happy to be included, Sunset couldn’t help but notice Chrysi standing at the center of it all. 

And that’s when Sunset noticed it… Under those heart-shaped glasses and beaming smile was a look… Something beyond the simplicity of the joy in the moment. It was a look Sunset understood quite well… 

It was subtle… something in Chrysi’s lips perhaps, but ‘game recognizes game’ as they say, and Sunset new the slight tells in body language that came with successfully pulling off a scheme.

But Sunset also knew the look… the twinkle that came when someone began to feel those first few moments of real acceptance. 

And Chrysi, the obfuscating mess of mixed signals she was, was displaying signs of both.

Thinking quickly, Sunset finished up her thought to Twilight, “I’m thinking we throw the whole plan out the window because our friends are friendship-craving saps and really, we should have seen this coming and somewhat only have ourselves to blame!”

Twilight groaned and slumped until she was able to bury her head in her arms.

“It’s fine! If anyone can wing this, it’s us!”

“Ugggghhhh!” 

Sunset leaned forward and whispered. “That’s an alicorn pun!” 

“I said ‘Uuggghhhh!’ Alright?!”
> Chrysi attends a slumber party
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight looked over the well-furnished living room area with an expression oddly soaked in dread for a young adult surveying a group of high schoolers dressed in their PJs and involved in typical slumber party activities such as video games, texting, taking selfies, and hair braiding. Her eyes kept drifting to the newcomer of the group, this so-called ‘Chrysi.’ Who, in Twilight’s expert opinion, Sunset had shown mind-bogglingly poor judgment in befriending. Yes, this no doubt clearly Queen Chrysalis in disguise was planning something nefarious… 

Maybe she’s gathered us all here so she can take us all out at once.

Twilight took another look around the room.

She’s just… luring us MORE into a false sense of security before she makes her play.

“You know if you’re that interested in her, you could go up and tell her. She seems like the type to try anything once.”

“Ghuh!” Twilight jumped slightly and turned to see Sunset’s smirking face. 

Sunset offered a small, opened foil bag to Twilight. “Blueberry?”

Twilight took a moment to glare at the bag then focused her glare on Sunset. “I can’t believe you just said ‘yes’ to this!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Twilight, she already said ‘yes’ and all our friends were on board! Sure, it’s kinda my place too, but if I said no then ‘I’ look like a bad friend to pretty much all my friends here! I mean, saying ‘no’ to a slumber party in that regard has to be a bad thing in like a third tier bad friend move, maybe second. Help me out here, I’m sure you have a system for this.”

Twilight winced and avoided eye contact momentarily. “Third,” she answered. “But this goes a little beyond friendship! She’s evil! We’re all in danger, Sunset.”

“While I’ll be the first one to admit that Chrysi is clearly a tad evil, she’s just braiding Fluttershy’s hair at the moment!”

“Yes, but it’s an eeeevil braid!”

“It’s a French braid Twilight.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve looked up the French, Sunset. Did you know they put cheese on top of soup? How could anyone possibly trust anything that comes out of a place where they do THAT?”

“Twilight, everyone on this planet gets weird with cheese! Did you know you can get a spray version, here?”

Twilight responded with a noise that sounded like indignity was currently drowning in a sea of cheese. She closed her eyes hard and grimaced as she buried the bespoke nightmare Sunset had delivered 

Sunset shook her head. “Fine! You’re clearly paranoid enough for the both of us!” Sunset put her hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “How about this. You keep an eye on her while letting your paranoid delusions run wild, I punch Rainbow in the face before she forcefully turns off my game-station just because Applejack is whomping her.”

“What? No!” Rainbow Dash insisted, here ears having picked up at the sound of her name. “I was just… dusting! In, uh, the middle of my match. Like you all know I do all the—”

‘POW!’

“OW!”

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out. Maybe Sunset was right. This exact situation had basically come up before and she had been proven to be wrong… Oh, wait, no. I was one hundred percent right about that one and got thrown into a deep crystal cave where I found Cadance and we fought her mind controlled bridesmares… Twilight stood up. “I’m going to use the BATHROOM!” she announced loudly.

Twilight caught a few odd glances from her friends, a “Do ya want a medal or something? Get goin’,” from Applejack, and oddly good-natured golf claps from Chrysi’s who’s ultra-frilly red, pink, and black PJs made it look like she just got back from being the lead at a baby rock concert.

Satisfied she had successfully pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, Twilight made a beeline for the stairs.

And Sunset followed.





Twilight took a deep breath as she reached her hand out to the doorknob. Of course, if she was wrong this was something of a breach of common courtesy, which, as she had read, was not an easy thing to rectify. Also, the door might be trapped, and she might die, arguably a worse fate. She took a moment to look about the door and gathered her courage. This was for the sake of her friends, especially Sunset.

Twilight put her hand on the doorknob. She’ll thank me later, I’m sure of—

“Twilight, stop.”

Twilight cringed like a fool who had just been caught with her hoof in the cookie jar. She turned to the source of the voice. “Oh, Sunset! I was just—”

“I know what you were about to do, and I’m asking you to stop,” Sunset said sternly. 

“Sunset, hear me out. If we want to look for clues then her room—”

Sunset nodded. “Would be the best place to look, yeah… I agree… but no we’re not doing it.”

Twilight frowned heavily. “Listen Sunset, I’ve been in this exact situation before, more or less! There was a wedding and my brother was mind-controlled and while I don’t know if she can shapeshift here... Okay, this is less and less like that the more I think about it but if she replaced you I would just be horrified! I just finally got to the point where I can trust you not to be evil again!”

“Wait, you’ve still been worried about—”

“I have trust issues! You can only be burned by showmares so many times before you start looking at every pony that’s antagonized you in the past sideways just in case they decide to turn again! I’m not even entirely sure Starlight is properly turned, and she sleeps down the hall from me!”

“Twilight, I feel like this is about more than my roommate now—”

“Not the time! We just need to be sure!” Twilight poitned at Chrysi’s door. “Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t look in here!”

“It’s… it’s common courtesy, alright?” Sunset said. 

Twilight’s frown deepened. “Two. Two good reasons.”

“Chrysi doesn’t come into my room unless invited, I don’t go into hers. We already had this talk together and I’m not about to breach that trust because you find her unnerving. I, TOO, find her unnerving, but you don’t see me breaking and entering!”

“Technically, just entering.” Twilight’s face hardened. “Also, that’s certainly a good rule of hoof for roommates but remember that Chrysalis might be a shapeshifting queen that wants to cocoon us all!”

“Yes, ‘might’,” Sunset said. “She ‘might’ be a lot of things Twilight, and… I’m sure at the very least if we go in there we’ll see all kinds of potentially incriminating and most-probably illegal things, still…” she frowned heavily. “Look, what we’ve got on the girl is a buncha circumstantial hearsay at best.”

“Yes… From you!” 

Sunset nodded. “Right, and as the person who has the most reason to both suspect Chrysi of something and is in the most danger given my proximity, I am telling you to not go in that room.”

“Okay, but are you asking me, or are you telling me?!” 

Sunset scratched the back of her head. “Telling, I guess… Look, if you’re wrong about Chrysi, and despite what signs you might see, there’s a good chance you are, that means she’s… Okay, that still leaves room for her to be all kinds of nefarious things, but that still leaves her as a non-magical human who is also my roommate and my friend. I don’t want to jeopardize that, alright?” 

Twilight dropped her hand from the doorknob and considered this for a moment. “Alright Sunset, at the Princess of Friendship and your friend, I respect your decision here.”

Sunset breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“… But not enough to let you put yourself and our friends in danger,” Twilight added as she quickly grabbed ahold of the doorknob with both hands.

“What?! TWILIGHT!” Sunset leaped forward and grabbed Twilight’s hands, stopping her from twisting the knob. “Stop! This isn’t right!” 

“This is for everyone’s own good, Sunset!” Twilight insisted.

“I don’t think so!” Sunset exclaimed. “I don’t think any good will come of this at all!”

“Well, what if I’m right?!”

“Do you really think if Queen Chrysalis was smart enough to keep a low profile long enough to somehow arrange to become roommates with ME and befriend all our friends, she’d somehow be stupid enough to keep evidence of who she was in room inside a duplex where she invited us all to spend the night!”

“Well I-OKAY! That’s a really good point!”

“Well, if you think so get your hands off the doorknob!” 

“I would, but you have YOUR hands clamped around mine!”

“So I do!”

“So, move them already!”

“How do I know you won’t throw open the door as soon as I let go?!”

“Because I’m fairly certain it’s locked as I’ve been trying to open it this entire time and the knob will barely budge!”

“Okay, that’s another really good point!”

“So let go!”

“Right, we’ll do it on three!”

“WHY?!”

“I don’t know… Friendship trust exercise! Let’s just hurry up! We’re making a lot of noise and I want us to let go before Chrysi sees us like this.”

“Too late.”

Sunset and Twilight both jumped as they let out short but none-the-less alarmed gasps as they both let go of the doorknob and pressed themselves against the wall to either side of Chrysi’s door.

Chrysi, for her part, just silently glowered at both of them.

“Chr-Chrysi, hi!” Sunset greeted. “Twilight got a little lost on the way to the bathroom, and—”

“The room at the other end of the hall,” Chrysi replied coldly. “The room that’s not only open so that you can see the sink, but has its light on.”

“Uh…” Sunset risked a quick glance to confirm that everything Chrysi had just said was true. She could feel her sins crawling on her back.

Twilight spoke up. “No, you see, uh… I just came up the stairs and grabbed this door by mistake, but then my hands were sticky from erm…”

Sunset snapped her fingers. “Pinkie’s gooey cupcakes!”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah! And I got my hand stuck, so Sunset was busy trying to get my hand unstuck, but because her hands were also sticky, we both got stuck. Hahaha! Can you believe it?”

“No,” Chrysi said flatly. “If that was true you’d both still be stuck.”

The color drained from Sunset’s face. 

“Uh, erm…” Twilight swallowed. “Well, er had just sweat enough that—”

With a snarl, Chrysi pulled out a key and quickly unlooked her door. In practically one swift movement, she opened the door, stepped inside the pitch-black room, and ‘slammed’ the door behind her. 

Sunset felt her heart sink in her chest at the sound of the door locking. 

Aside from the noise wafting up from downstairs, everything was quiet. 

And then a string of words in a language neither Sunset or Twilight understood erupted from behind the close door. This was shortly followed up by some clearly irritated shuffling as it sounded like things were being haphazardly thrown around the room.

Trepidatious, Twilight turned and looked at Sunset. “Sunset? I’m-I’m sorry… You were right. It wasn’t my place to-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sunset said dryly as she stared at the floor

“Uh… OF course, it matters!” Twilight exclaimed. “I should have-”

“It doesn’t matter because we already screwed up!” Sunset declared. She lifted her head, her turquoise eyes were already beginning to fill with tears. “All I had to do was keep my hands off one simple door without asking for permission first and I couldn’t even do that!”

“Sunset, no!” Twilight said. “Just tell Chrysi it was all my fault! I mean… On the account of how all my fault it is! She’ll understand.”

“Yeah, sure!” Sunset exclaimed as her tone became increasingly hysterical. “We’ll just tell her we suspected her of being an evil shapeshifter from another dimension! That’ll go over swell!” A sad, pathetic sob escaped Sunset’s lips. “Oh, God… I’m the worst roommate ever…” she said as she buried her face in her hands.

“Sunset, please calm down!”

A few muffled wails escaped Sunset’s lips showing that Twilight’s request had been denied. 

Twilight clenched her fest to her chest and looked around, her mind racing for what to do. She walked over to Sunset and placed her hands on Sunset’s arms gently “Look, I’ll just knock on the door and explain uh… Well, explain how it’s not your fa—” 

The door to Chrysis’s room suddenly flung open and it was all Twilight could do to pull herself and Sunset out of the way as the door nearly slammed into them both. Sadly, as Twilight was rather uncoordinated, and Sunset wasn’t paying any attention, they still toppled to the floor.

Dazed and disoriented both girls quickly scrambled onto their butts, feet, and hands as they looked up.

There, Chrysi’s door was opened wide with an ashen hand beckoning them both to come inside.
> A Profound Sense of Emu-ee part 1: Winding down
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With closed eyes and a content smile that looked very much like a feline that had just devoured a smaller, more delicious, house pet, Chrysi rested her massive black platform boots on a heavy oak coffee table. She took a long drag from a nozzle at the end of a transparent hose which was, in turn, hooked attached to a clear cylinder filled halfway with water and halfway with white smoke. 

The water bubbled as the sweet apple and cinnamon-spiced smoke filled her mouth and lungs. Holding her breath for a brief while, her smile grew as a pleasant haze came over her. Radiating from her core and seeping out to her very fingertips. 

Yes, this was a very rare moment of—

‘SLAM!’

“ALL OF MY HATE!”

…peace.

Chrysi’s eyes fluttered open as she gave her roommate a nonplussed look. This was hardly a rare occurrence, as it were. Sunset Shimmer was sweaty, haggard-looking, and covered in scratches. Chrysi took another drag from her hookah and mentally ran through the last few days to figure out if she was perhaps indirectly responsible for this. Having concluded reasonably she was not; considered informing her roommate that a leather jacket, as opposed to a VEST would have protected her arms from… whatever it was that attacked her. Though stopping Sunset from walking around looking like she was waiting for the world to finally go full cyberpunk was an action Chrysi knew Rarity had attempted once and the response was with screaming, threats of violence, and ‘Haxoring your shit, Rararar!’ … whatever that meant.

She elected to say nothing and instead watched as her roommate ran for the first object that apparently satisfied her primal urge to pick up and smash something to make herself feel better. In this case, the houses Ultra-Hd Blu Ray Player sitting next to a massive TV that covered most of the room on the far wall.

Sunset grabbed the rectangular object, RIPPED it from its power, and held it over her head.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAA—”

“Top of the line,” Chrysi said coolly. “Not easy to replace.”

Sunset took one of the world’s angriest sighs to date and set the device back where it was, taking the time to plug it back in. Standing back up with a crazed look on her eye and scanned the room for potential targets.

Chrysi noticed the angry turquoise eyes settle on the glass hookah briefly. “Also top of the line,” Chrysi said in the same cool tone as before. “I’m using it. Smashing it might start a fire, and I’d cripple your leg or legs temporarily before you got close enough to reasonably try for our safety and also because ‘no’.”

Sunset wrinkled up her lips as angrily as possible and continued to scan the room. “Chrysi! Everything in this room is either too heavy to throw or too expensive to throw. Mostly both!” 

“You’re welcome,” Chrysi answered simply as she took another drag. 

Sunset performed the one-woman act of ‘The most dramatic ‘Uggggghhhhh!’ of my life and walk over to my roommates massive leather sectional’. A production that ran fairly often to an audience of one and always ended in Sunset laying sideways, facing the massive TV as her head rested on a pair of firm thighs and ashen fingers, surprisingly affectionately, ran through her red and yellow hair. 

“There, there,” Chrysi said plainly. Finally, she inserted some inflection into her tone. “Shall I contact your friends and tell them you require an emergency slumber party?”

Sunset shook her head.

“Are they part of the problem?”

Sunset nodded her head.

“Are they the cause of the problem?” Chrysi asked coldly.

Sunset didn’t respond and Chrysi could feel Sunset’s jaw move back and forth as if the woman was considering if she should answer or not.

Chrysi simply continued stroking Sunset’s hair. THIS exchange was also common.

“Emus…” Sunset muttered.

Chrysi’s lips contorted slightly. “What?”

“Emus!” Sunset repeated in a more exasperated tone.

Chrysi blinked. “As in the large… flightless birds that are native to the country of Australia.”

“YES!” Sunset replied.

“…”

“…”

“Pinkie Pie?” Chrysi offered.

Sunset grunted a ‘negative’.

Chrysi thought for a few seconds then let out her own tired sigh. “Sonata Dusk?”

“… Yeeeeeaaaaaah…” Sunset admitted.

Chrysi winced then looked over to a black cylindrical device across the room. “Computer!” she called out in a raised voice. “Play ‘Sunset’s relaxation mix’.”

Sunset immediately sat up, a smile on her face as the mixed sounds of guitar and brass filled the air.

“I’ll get us some drinks to relax with,” Chrysi informed which was met by a silent nod as Sunset’s tight features slowly melted into something far more tranquil.

Chrysi got to her feet and quickly shimmied past Sunset as the male band began to sing a repeating “Woahh Wa-ooo, Wa-ohhh-ohh-ohh.” Quickly, ice was added to glasses and an amber substance poured into each. With nearly inhuman speed, Chrysi was back on the section, sitting next to Sunset Shimmer who eagerly sipped her whiskey as the lyrics sang out:

♫ “I tried to forgive!” ♫

♫ “I tried to live my let live!” ♫

♫ “But everyone else is an asshole!” ♫

Chrysi reached forward and produced two square marble coasters, which she pulled closer to the girls, and a very large black remote and started pushing buttons. The massive TV screen flickered to life, bathing the pair in a white glow. “So, what would—”

“John Wick 3!” Sunset cried in elation. She took a deep breath and let it out, sinking back into the sectional. “I need something with a body count… a high one!”

Chrysi let out the slightest of chuckles as an icepick smile chiseled onto her face. “Death by anger and firearms… my favorite.”

There was the clink of a glass hitting stone as Sunset’s red-and-yellow locks once again fell onto Chrysi’s thighs. The hand holding the remote was suddenly ceased in a moderately forceful ‘pet me and tell me I’m pretty’ fashion. Before Chrysi could react or even resume her gentle hair stroking she saw an unworldly flash of light flood Sunset’s eyes followed by the woman’s smile going full demonic.

“I know…” Sunset replied in a tone hers, yet… somehow filled with reverb. 

Chrysi swallowed and glanced away. Somehow, she got the impression Sunset just saw something she wasn’t supposed to see and her roommate’s reaction was one of elation instead of revile. This worried Chrysi far more than the reverse. She risked a glance down and wished she hadn’t. 

Sunset’s expression had barely changed, in fact, Chrysi finally understood what must have been an experience not too dissimilar to the last thing MANY people Chrysi encountered must have seen. Sunset looked at her like she was looking at a perfectly cooked steak and said steak was going to enjoy being eaten. Chrysi’s heart all at once felt anxious, scared, and… excited… other parts were clearly feeling… aroused.  

“Scareroused,” Sunset said.

“Ex…excuse me?” Chrysi replied.

“Scareroused,” Sunset repeated. “That’s the ‘vibe’ I’m feeling from you.”

Chrysi held Sunset’s gaze for a bit, somewhat at a loss of how to react, but she knew better than to look away from someone who had such a deadly look on her face. However, Sunset’s interest soon waned back to the TV and Chrysi could feel her roommate's body relax once more as the sounds of bullets fired and screams shout out from the sound system around them.

After some time Chryi also relaxed and resumed enjoying her beverage and smokables. “… Emus…?” she asked.

Sunset simple nodded. “Emus.”

“… Huh.”

Sunset’s body tensed briefly as she took in another deep breath, then let it out. “…Emus…” she said in a hollow whisper like a dying millionaire letting out his last word as he dropped a snow globe to the ground. 

“…So many emus…”

To be continued in Totally Random!
> Chrysalis gets to show off her room to two quasi-intruders
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing the girls, or anyone for that matter, would notice about Chrysalis’s room was the deluge of neon that populated the walls, much from surreal posters featuring skulls, snakes, ghosts, and all manner of incandescent colored counterculture items commingling with band posters, spiritual symbols, and pop culture reference. The room looked to Sunset as something she would dismiss as haphazardly picked by someone who was in a haze maybe a bit too often, but a closer inspection revealed that they were…

…artistic as fuck…

That was to say many felt one of a kind and also expressed an emotion or feeling no doubt enhanced by whatever mind-altering substance Chrysi was on at the time. But aside from the cushioned landing pad, the rest was all ‘punk metalhead bad girl… if said metalhead had an unlimited budget’. Sunset took note of many water pipes… some the good old fashion ‘let's blast our brains with MJ’ and some more on the Caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland side. 

However, if there was some… damning evidence that Chrysi was, in fact, Queen Chrysalis, you know, such as a couple drones waiting patiently in the bed or family pictures of Chrysi with the brood, they were notable hidden. Likewise, there weren’t any podded up peeps just sitting in the corner or anyone moaning “kill me”.

Princess Twilight rubbed her eyes and tried to make sense of all the color saturation and the faces she pulled showed that maybe she was a little off-put by skulls, demons, and especially the snakes as wall decorations. She rallied her thoughts and scanned her eyes for any clear evidence that Chrysi wasn’t naturally born to Earth/Terra. However, aside from some peculiar glass art and the woman’s unnatural obsession with unnatural light, Twilight saw no immediate evidence Chrysi was anything other than what she presented herself as.

Though the gothilolita look certainly didn’t fit in with the room, Chrysi didn’t seem to be that big a fan of cute things and apparently favored surreal items of deadly things melting into pools of shifting, glowing colors. 

Twilight Sparkle suddenly worried her drink was spiked.


-~ooo~-


Applejack sneezed. She followed this up by trying to glare down at her petite nose and rubbing her nostrils with the back of her hand. 

“For goodness sake, dear, wipe your nose properly,” Rarity exclaimed as she produced a white handkerchief from her blindingly white pajama bottoms (which, naturally, went with a matching top that hugged her form perfectly and exposed quite a bit of her cleavage) and proceeded to gently wipe under Applejack’s nose.

Applejack’s cheeks turned a shade of red which matched the apples on her burnt-orange pjs. 

Rainbow Dash leaned over the sitting cowgirl, her loose fitting tank top hanging off her shoulders and granting a clear view of her chest, abdomen, and the tied died-looking Brush Gloss boxer briefs she was wearing. “AJ, how much booze did you sneak into Twilight’s tea? ‘Cause whatever it was, it should have been more.”

Applejack rubbed her eyes hard enough she began to see stars. “Thanks for the bus, Dashie. I definitely wanted that made public.”

The other girls present exchanged glances.

“Do you want a trophy?” Pinkie asked, clearly having tried on one of Chrysi’s more frilly and gothic dresses. “I mean, it’s going to be paper-mâché since I’m preeeety sure Sunny and Chrysi would be more than a tinsey-bit upset that I took a blow torch to one of their lamps for trophy making purposes. ALSO! Wrong color. Oooo! Oooo! Sunset has spraypaint.”

Rarity placed her right hand on Pinkie’s cheek. “No Pinkie, we are not going to start doing metalwork at the slumber party. Sunset’s and Chrysi’s place is heavily flammable with all the wood it is made out of and littered with every type of lighter I can imagine.” Rarity highlighted her point by reaching down and producing a bright pink lighter typically used to light a grill. 

“Awwww,” Pinkie uttered. “Now I have to find another reason to use my blow-torch.”

“I thought it was a good idea,” Fluttershy chimed in, her eyes transfixed on the baby-blue dress featuring frills and skulls she was wearing. This is the most kick-ass thing anyone has ever gifted to me.

Applejack let out another weighty sigh, “Flutters, I don’t want a trophy for sneaking half an ounce of Knack into Twilight’s black tea.”

Fluttershy looked up and twirled a strand of blonde hair in her fingers. “She seemed to really like it.”

“What was your first clue,” Rainbow asked with a smile as she flung herself on top of a pile of colorful lounging pillows, ‘the smile or the part where she said ‘This is the best tea I’ve ever drank!’?”


-~ooo~-



Oh, and skull, taiji, and dragons (both western and eastern) imagery. Actually, Sunset felt she’d need a reference guide to understand where a great deal of the pieces came from and what they represented. 

Or, you know, I could simply ask Chrysi like a sane person. Sunset thought, as she locked turquoise eyes with amethyst ones and gave Twilight an irate glare.

Twilight rested her eyes on Chrysi’s bed, one of the few areas of the room that had softer light. “Look, I have certain… er… responsibilities that… uh… er…” Twilight took a deep breath, suddenly feeling like she was stuck taking a test that no one told her about and she hadn’t studied for. 

Fuck, I’m about to give one of my best friends a panic attack. Sunset turned to talk things out with Chrysi only to find that she had silently leaned forward, placing her face mere inches away from her ‘‘guests’’.

Chrysi smirk seemed to rise like steam from a whistling kettle. “You two know that I know about the pony stuff, right?”

Twilight and Sunset both responded with nickers that were a bit atypical of responses of high school girls.

Chrysalis let out a guffaw, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.

“How?!” Twilight howled as she swiveled on her heels.

Sunset let out a sigh and smacked a palm against her forehead. “Twilight, everybody knows about the magic Equestria stuff.”

“Again, how?” Twilight stressed. “And also, everybody?”

Sunset placed her hands on the side of Twilight’s head to the sound of two light ‘smacks’. “Ev-ree-bod-ee!”

Twilight leaned her head down. “I’m supposed to be in charge of that thing.”

“Oh thank god-mom!” Sunset exclaimed.

“Excuse me?” Twilight asked with a slight head-tilt inside the frame that was Sunset Shimmer’s hands.

“I thought it was me!”

“No, it…” Twilight thought for a moment. “We should really share the responsibility.”

“Sounds great, P. Twi,” Sunset replied, her words dripping wet with sarcasm. “I’ll just add that to the massive pile of time sinks that Equestria hand delivers to my doorstep.”

Chrysalis turned, her brilliant jade eyes staring off into the stripes of a snarling, blue-tinted orange tiger, which was also the direction of the duplex’s front door. “I’m starting to wish I had a different housemate.”

Princess Twilight Sparkle turned to stare Chrysalis down with a look of murderous intent that the hardened young adult did not think the Pony Princess of Friendship was capable of. 

Sunset’s turquoise eyes shot open wide, double-barrel fire hoses ready to flood the room with tears. She covered her mouth with a hand as sobs were choaked back, her heart desperately trying to reassemble itself.

In that moment, Chrysalis understood what it meant to want to die on the spot. “Sunset, I’m sor—”

“Hahahahahaha!” Sunset whipped tears from her eyes as she glanced at Chrysi. “Burned down hard. I owe you a drink for that.”

Chrysalis recoiled as her emotions began to rebuild, “Eff you, I owe you a month worth of preparing the hookahs for that.”

Sunset snickered. “You’re not wrong,” she replied, immediately bringing a smile to Chrysalis’s face.

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry, Chrysalis. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt and trusted Sunset and basically all my friends.”

Chrysalis stared hard at Twilight. “No, you shouldn’t have. I’m not going to say you went about things the right way with all the caught without Sunset’s support you would have been, but you were right to suspect everything.”

Twilight’s mouth twitched. “Uh, Sunset? I agree completely with her…”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Bitch, I’ve been assessing Chrysi’s personality since the millisecond I met her.”

“Er… and you didn’t think she was Queen Chrysalis?” 

Sunset’s eyebrows began to stretch up towards the ceiling. “It was a bit difficult to reconcile Chrysi and Queen Chrysi as the same given that’d mean that Q.C. had time to stroll over to Terra enough times to have amazing taste in movies, music, and decor.” She said, walking her hand across the open air with her 

Chrysalis’s jade eyes shot open wide, a viscous smile oozing across her face. “Sunset, I’m in danger of becoming your hookah bitch.”

“Damnit!” Sunset exclaimed with an extra spoonful of drama. “I thought I landed full hookah bitch with that last one!”

Chrysi couldn’t help but break into a fit of hysterical laughter that sent her straight to her bed where she proceeded to grab her sides as if she was in danger of them leaving. Sunset watched, a smile rising to her face.

Smiling, Twilight let out a joyous snort. “As the Princess of Friendship and Equestria’s official Liaison to Terra, I do need to inquire how apparently we dropped the ‘mirror ball’ so hard that ev-ree-bod-ee knows about Equestria.”

Sunset let out a spirited laugh. “There are a lot of sparkling, cosmic rainbows that are fired off from Canterlot High, Princess. At least once a week it basically looks like a Pink Void album cover is attending classes.”

“What the heck is a Pink Void, Fellow Princess?” Twilight asked dry enough to make the San Palomino Desert jealous.

Chyrsi’s laughter abruptly stopped, and she gave Twilight an upside-down scowl laden with disappointment. She aggressively pointed in the direction of a poster. A poster featuring a ray of light striking the single eye of a pyramid which was floating above a larger pyramid, the eye breaking the pure white light into a rainbow beam that fired off to the left of the poster.

Twilight squinted at the prismatic display. “I’m guessing that’s a band poster.”

Chrysi’s scowl was replaced by a pleased smile. “Yes, one that is a tad legendary on this side of the mirror.” 

Twilight gave Sunset a rather panicked look. “How many ponies-er-people know about the mirror?!”

“The mirror. The massive mirror right below the giant horse statue in the center of the courtyard of Canterlot High that’s constantly seeing use and in full view of anyone who is in front of the school.”

“Yes!” Twilight said. “That mirror!”

“Twilight, it’d be faster to list who doesn’t know.”

Twilight sighed. “Why is that thing so exposed!” 

“You ask amazing questions,” Sunset quipped.

Chrysi shot both pony princesses a glare, “It’s amazingly awkward to just stroll into a school, walk into a mirror, and end up on the other side as a quadruped.” She smiled. “Also, I was really hoping Starlight would be in attendance tonight. She’s really fun to talk to.”

Sunset turned to Twilight and made a number of excited babbling noises. Twilight perceived this as a declaration that she needed to reach out to Starlight Glimmer roughly nowish. She gave Sunset a nervous smile. “I take it we’re going on a drive to walk through aforementioned magical portal to invite Starlight to the slumber party.”

Twilight was met with a subtle nod from Chrysalis and not so subtle, rapid-fire nod from Sunset Shimmer.

Twilight bit her lip and smiled despite the worry in her amethyst eyes. “Sure.” She said as she looked over Sunset then Chrysi, the worry in her eyes increasing somewhat. “I bet she’s going to love to be here.”

Chrysalis leaned in close to Sunset and whispered, “Can Starlight use any of her powers on this side of the mirror.” 

“Uh, no,” Sunset replied, “she’s just really coordinated for some reason.”

“Good and also good,” Chrysi said a hungry smile.

Twilight swallowed. “Do girls get drunk at slumber parties on this planet?”
> You Need Me to do What?!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight looked down at the words written above her response in a large, leather-bound journal that sported Sunset Shimmer’s cutie mark. The words that continued to appear as if written by an invisible quill that sparkled as it flew across the pages.

Dear Starlight,

I need you for an emergency Slumber Party on earth. Bring Spike, any other cute boys uh…

‘Cute boys’ was suddenly crossed out and replaced with, “You know what? Spike and maybe Sunburst… Checking with Twilight on a thing… Okay, bring Thunderlane if you… Nevermind, she got flust

Don’t write that!

Starlight picked up a quill, already dripping with ink as she scowled at the page, and wrote, Sunset, Twilight… Could you explain what’s going on and how many ‘cute boys’ do I need to bring before we end up in a prison yard together? Spike is like… I don’t know anywhere from eleven to twenty-five depending on if Rarity’s nearby or if Twilight has emasculated him to the point where she might as well paint his fins pink and introduce her as ‘Barb, my adopted daughter’.


Meanwhile, back at the Slumber party


“Chrysi!” Sunset exclaimed. “Restrain Twilight!”

Twilight’s face lit up. “I knew you were planning a coup!” she said before Chrysi suddenly had her in a chokehold and pulled her away from the book. Struggling for air, Twilight realized that she really should have brought back-up with her if she wanted to fully pursue this coup prevention idea.

“Okay! Just keep her there for a second… er bit!” Sunset said as she continued to write with a snicker. 

“Uh…” Rainbow Dash interjected. “Is everything okay over there?” she asked as the rest of the party looked up from a multi-hose hookah.

“How bi are you feeling tonight, Dashie?” Sunset asked with a devilish smirk. 

“A lot more since this party went from selfies and make-up to coming of age,” Rainbow said without a beat of hesitation.

“Alright, so just let me work my magic,” Sunset said.

Rainbow Dash smiled. “Hah… I get it… and also got it.”

“Oh, you’re going to get some…” Sunset said, her eyebrows dropping then waggeling suggestively. 

“Rainbow Dash likes the direction this is going!” Rainbow Dash announced.

“Sit yer keister back down!” Applejack huffed out in annoyance as she grabbed Rainbow Dash by the t-shirt and brought the woman back down to a pile of bean bags.

“No rough housing around the hookah!” Chrysi hissed. “Coal burns are not fun things to experience..

“Help!” Princess Twilight cried, managing to struggle free enough to speak. “I’m being uh…” she tilted her head and looked at Sunset. “Wait, are you using your journal to pick up guys?”

“No!” Sunset declared. “I’m using my journal to have Starlight do it for me!”

Princess Twilight sighed. “Proceed…” 

Right, just had to have Twilight restrained. Twilight warned that Flash on that side might want to kill Sunburst, so uh… I’m thinking Sunburst, and not just because I want to orgasm to the glorious sight of a slim-hot boy me with a goatee.

Starlight’s brain switched off for a moment as she tried to figure out what was the appropriate response too… Whoops, forgot Twilight was there. Well, at least Sunset has the good sense to… Okay, that has to be a real slumber party… or maybe she’s feeding off men and starting a Vampire Coven.

Starlight smiled and picked up the pen;

Okay, I’ll procure Spike and Sunburst. A Idea! A Secret third cute boy!

My heart is a-twitter. I’ll be reachable by Journal if you need me and cell phone and text when you get on the other side of the portal.

Roger. 

Okay, I teleported on Spike and asked if he wanted to come and he said “To the mostly girls slumber party? You better find a way to make me human.”

Oh, right… Yeah, do that. I might have misremembered how the portal worked for him, or maybe I’m getting back to my Equestrian roots.

You might have to elaborate on that when we arrive. Let’s see… 

Yes?

Checking on Sunburst. He won’t stop screaming. I invited him to a mostly human girl slumber party… he won’t stop screaming… okay. Spike’s talking him down and I think he’s in... Did you… Right, right! One more stop.


And that’s how my fricken’ cousin ended up at the slumber party!

Sunset groaned again, her hand grasping her forehead all the tightly as she leaned it against Chrysi’s side. Her red-and-yellow hair pressed into the silk crushed maroon with two thick black stripes that ran down the sides. The robe matched crushed maroon silk pajamas that hung comfortably on Chrysi’s resplendent frame, black lace lining the edges of her blouse.

“There, there,” Chrysi said deadpan as she patted Sunset’s head and gave her roommate a mug of something steaming hot.

Sunset removed her hands to sip on the drink. “Ok’ay, I approve of her husband being here, but now everyone can’t get enough about hearing about the Crystal Heart and how she’s a real Empress, which like… The fuck does that make me and Twilight? And the Crystal Empire isn’t like… the umbrella ruler of Equestria!” Sunset took a sip of her drink, and couldn’t help but “Hmmmm…” in contentment as the liquid woke her up and filled her body with a that smooth relaxing feeling of chocolate and just a touch of alcohol. “This is so good,” Sunset said as she opted to nuzzle Chrysi’s side, perhaps deciding lightly maybe brushing her head against one of Chrysi’s breasts. Perhaps, perhaps deciding her saloon door wasn’t going to swing back the other direction anytime soon.

“Roommate of mine, what are you doing?” Chrysi asked, her voice touched with annoyance.

Sunset gulped, yet held her ground. “Just uh… grieving my chances of getting erm…” she glanced up into peridot eyes which regarded her fondly yet questioningly. “... dick.” Sunset said truthfully.

“Alright, so you have options.”

Sunset’s voice dropped to a whisper as she leaned up and began whispering into Chrysi’s ear, her breath blowing against ashen skin and her lips lightly brushing the woman’s earlobes. “Cadence and Shining are happily fielding questions while looking up each others bodies like they want to carve a hidey hole in the wall to get some privacy.”

“They also keep looking at me with… oddly hungry eyes,” Chrysi noted her breathing increasing slightly. 

“I noted that, too,” Sunset said. She sat down her mug and suddenly placed her hands on Chrysi’s cheeks. “Don’t worry…” she said, her whisper getting huskier. “If they take you, I’m coming with.”

Chrysi couldn’t help but smirk at what was possibly an unintentional double-entendre. She reached down for Sunset’s mug, blew on it lightly and took a sip. “My knight in magenta pajamas.”

Sunset grabbed the mug, took a sip herself, and continued. “Spike’s gaga for Rarity. Rarity is gaga for gemstones. Spike knows his stuff, so the fact that it looks like we smuggled in a young teen might… frigg, she’s into anime. I might have gotten Starlight to hand deliver a fetish.”

“Dear, we’re literally a few feet from you,” Rarity said, her regal frame draped in a light-purple nightgown with a large, baby-blue bow on the front.

Sunset leaned past Chrysi’s chest to glare at Spike. “Traitor!” she hissed.

Spike shot her a glare from behind his mug, his emerald eyes shimmering as his purple eyelids lowered. “I could tell I was being invited to a mixer. Do you know how many pony parties I get dragged to?” Spike’s eyes grew wistful and distant, like a war veteran who was simultaneously remembering and drowning out the horrors of battle. “Almost anything that isn’t a kids birthday party.” He took a gulp of his drink. “Ghuh, hot!” he said, sticking out his tongue.  “And sometimes kid’s birthday parties! Thanks, Pinkie!” 

“You’re welcome, Spike! I mean.. Wait! I’m not that Pinkie! I mean… Look! I can blow smoke rings!” Pinkie suddenly took a huge toke from the red and green striped hose attached to a curvy mental column attached to a large, glass base. Rather than blow a smoke ring, her head bobbed side to side as she slumped into her black bean bag chair in a woozy haze. “I uh… erm… someone remind me what shape a ring is!”

In an act of supreme confidence, Spike held his mug in front of Rarity. 

Rarity went cross eyed and blew lightly on the steaming liquid. 

“Uh, I was erm…” Spike’s cheeks flushed. “Offering it to you.”

“Oh…” Rarity said, grabbing the mug by the handle, her middle finger lightly brushing against the back of Spike’s hand. 

Gritting her teeth slightly at the free bird Rarity had opted to share, yet favoring the dragon turned human with a smile, Sunset replied, “You know I invited you here personally. Granted, Starlight’s to thank for you showing up human.”

Spike’s smile turned the sort of supernova one’s smile only reaches if one has been spending perhaps too much time with Sunset Shimmer. “Okay, but did you have to insist on the spell to make both my wangs massive?”

Rarity did a spit take onto the large, wooden table loaded with teapots and the odd bottle of labeled alcohol. This elected a few glances from the other two groups, but not much else. 

Across the table on the long, V-shaped leather couch were Starlight, Twilight, Princess Twilight, and Sunburst. The word ‘antique’ continued to float from that side of the conversation as Starlight looked more and more murderous by the minute as she drowned her rage in her own steaming mug. She seemed to be sharing her cup with Twilight who was doing her best to keep up with the conversation. Twilight also kept on shooting Sunset glances suggesting she was debating either asking for help, or perhaps needing a rescue.

The rest of the group, consisting of Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack, had grouped up into a cozy nook of the room that was filled with different colors of bean bag chairs and throw pillows. The four were huddled around Cadence and Shining Armor who were practically in a press conference about the Crystal Empire, if one attended completely by pajama clad women. 

The men were all clad in matching dark grey silk pajamas that Chrysi happened to have on hand. Shining’s outfit was a bit tight, which meant he was soaking up more eyeball attention than an airport flight information display on a busy day. Starburst’s outfit hung loosely off of him, but he still was getting plenty of attention from Twilight. By most accounts, Twilight had near unfettered access to Starlight, but something about the slumber party (and perhaps her stress combined with the liquid courage in her drink) meant she was practically draped over him. Spike was swimming in his outfit initially, but Rarity began fussing over him and rolled up his sleeves on all four appendages and practically tucked his shirt in for him.

Sunset couldn’t help but give Rarity a smile in a wink regarding pretty much claiming the dude. “Uh… you might also have Starlight to thank for that one,” Sunset said, opting to address the double-trunked elephant in the room rather than ignore the topic at hands.

Chrysi cupped her hands around Sunset’s and brought the mug up to her lips. She took a sip as her eyes gazed down a touch past Spike’s waist line. She mentally cursed herself for having only one size and style of men’s pajamas on hand. 

Sunset and Spike shared a glance, turquoise and emerald eyes suddenly exchanging information silently as their heads bobbed too and fro.

Spike glanced up at Rarity who had to remind herself where Spike’s eyes were. ‘So, I think Rarity is digging me.’

Sunset’s smile fluctuated, ‘She’s trying to burn a hole through those pants with her eyes. Uh…’

‘Would I lie to you?’

Sunset swallowed and glanced upstairs. ‘Alright, I have my own room and a bed large enough to roll around in.’

“You, sly one!” Chrysi barked.

Sunset looked up at Chrysi with a ‘Who me?’ expression. Spike almost did the same but hid his look behind a sip from the mug Rarity was still holding. 

“What exactly is–”

“There’s no time!” Sunset said as she got to her feat and offered Chrysi a hand. 

A bemused expression on her face, Chrysi took it and stood up with a little help from Sunset.

“Spike, carry Rarity.”

“Uh, I’d love to,” Spike replied. “I don’t think I was blessed with giant muscles though.”

Applejack looked between the Fluttershy’s long, flowing pink locks, and Rainbow Dash’s wild mane of a hairdo to shoot an inquisitive glance at the suddenly active group. 

“Responsible one!” Chrysi exclaimed.

Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Shining Armor, and Princess Twilight all perked up. Cadence, dressed in an outfit similar to Chrysi’s, though deep jade green and black, answered the call with a smirk.

Chrysi elected her champion with a half-drunk bottle of Bailey’s. In this case, Fluttershy. “Get everyone in a circle around this, spin it, and let what comes naturally come next,” Chrysi said with a lips bubbling up and out into a malevolent smile.

“Oh, my…” Fluttershy said, her normally demur demeanor giving way to something a far more mischievous. “Alright, guys and girls, you heard the hostess! Let’s get ready to rastle! Er…” she set the bottle down in front of her as bean bags and people sitting in them suddenly arranged themselves in a circle around the bottle. “With our lips of course…” she added with a red-cheeked squee. 

Halfway up the spiral staircase, Sunset quickly glanced down. “Uh, Twi?”

“Compelled to stay here!” answered Princess Twilight.

“Right, sorry, I meant–”

“Already have a spot next to Fluttershy!” Twilight answered, as she and Twilight shared a quick high five.

“Okay! We’ll be busy uh…Sunset and Chrysi were suddenly pushed into the railing as a giggling Spike and Rarity bounded up the stairs past them. “Keeping… pretense…” Sunset offered as she led Chrysi up the stairs.

“You know your wash is currently occupying the drier,” Chrysi reminded.

“What the heck does that…” the gears in Sunset’s mind turned over and she grinned. “You know, if it comes to that ‘Worth it!’ will be what escapes from my lips.”