1. A New Arrival
Today was the Saturday that officially marked Canterlot Highschool’s Spring Break. Sunset Shimmer wasn’t doing anything important, only playing TickleFruit: II by herself in her lonely apartment. She thought that since it was her break, she didn’t have to work, so playing games was her escape from thinking about anything that deemed unimportant to her.
In the same way, Twilight Sparkle was at their school, going out of her way to get spare textbooks out of her locker for one of their friends: Rainbow Dash, because she had agreed to being tutored by Twilight for a few days, just to see how “being smart would feel”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The indigo-haired girl stepped inside the school building. Hallways that were usually full of people were now empty and lifeless; only the steps of Twilight’s shoes could be heard echoing through the halls. She had called Principal Celestia beforehand, allowing her access into the establishment. Walking to her locker, she unlocked it and grabbed hold of her books.
It feels weird to be here at Spring Break. Twilight thought to herself, while leaving the premises. At least I get to tutor Rainbow.
Opening the large doors to leave, Twilight saw familiar shades of red and yellow near the ruins of the Wondercolt statue.
“Sunset…?” she whispered softly, looking ahead to a sort of doppelgänger.
There the person was, rubbing their head in pain, seemingly grimacing and looking down at their hand. They were sat on the floor, wearing almost identical clothing to Sunset—except from a few differences— and blood appearing to drip from their head.
Twilight was too far to see the person clearly, only the bright red dripping and the expression playing on their face. Something in her lured her to want to come closer. She knew she shouldn’t walk to the unknown, but she did anyway as a good scientist would.
Coming into a clearer view, the person, now identified as a man (Twilight’s guess from the masculinity), looked up and saw her, with a similar shocked face.
“WHAT.” Twilight shouted, jumping up slightly. It was a copy of one of her bestfriends, as she thought it was. Her feelings of shock weren’t less at all though, only more intensified at the sight.
Then another figure tumbled out the mirror-portal-gateway, falling head first onto the hard ground. Twilight felt sympathetic but soon realised who just fell out.
It was herself.
Not exactly her, but at a quick glance you could see all the similarities.
The-Sunset-Shimmer-dupe’s eyes flickered back at Twilight and her own “copy”, now with barely any surprise found on his profile.
A faint “…ow..” could be heard from the figure laying on the ground. The indigo-haired girl stepped back cautiously, her curious heart pounding and yearning to know more. But she couldn’t.
“Looks like you saw a gho-,” the fiery-haired boy started, most likely trying to lighten the mood, lifting his unoccupied hand to point at her. But, her brain won, and told her to run.
“-st..Oh..” He finished, realising she was gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunset was on her hourly video game streak, mainly on her pc, playing TickleFruit: II. She did have some homework, but she would do it later. Totally.
She focused on her game, shutting out everything that wasn’t important.
It was only when she heard shouting she snapped out of her daze.
“SUNSET.” —knock knock— “HELLO ??”
“Oh shoot..” Sunset groaned, feeling guilty for not answering. Getting up from her seat, she unlocked the door to see a panting Twilight.
“Uhh..hey? What’s up, Twi?”
“Sunset…finally. I know I could’ve texted but this is important..”
The fiery-haired girl interjected awkwardly, “I still wouldn’t have answered…”
“Just…come with me..now….please..”
“Why? What happened??”
Twilight didn’t answer and grabbed her hand.
“Hopefully they can answer your questions.”
Sunset, as she was being pulled out of her apartment, locked her door (she had her keys with her for some reason) and followed Twilight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the statue, the two boys sat together, talking absentmindedly. The taller one had his blood messily wiped off his head, and the shorter having a band-aid plastered on his nose.
“I’m feeling nervous, like what if we can never go home..?” One of the boys mumbled, laying his head on the other’s shoulder.
“I…At least we’ll be together, Dusk..” he replied, sighing to himself.
He couldn’t figure out why there were here, instead of Equestria.
Was…was Prince Dusk pranking us? No..no way he would.
Falling into silence, the indigo-haired boy now known as Dusk, looked up to him.
“Sundown…” Dusk whispered to the other boy, Sundown.
He leaned down, kissing him on the forehead.
“Don’t worry, you know me. I’ll—no, we’ll find a way out of here.”
Muffled whispers came from behind them, and they looked back. Two girls, almost identical copies of theirselves, were basically spying on them.
“Oh, hey, it’s the doppelgänger of you and me.” Sundown deadpanned, raising his head to get a better look of them. “Erm..”
“…holy horseapples Twilight.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What in the fanfiction….” Sunset uttered in disbelief, sharing the same expression Twilight had wore previously. “..woah..”
“So uhm… Hi? We..we were probably teleported to the wrong-“
“Dimension?”
Sundown nodded, “You guys wanna know what happened to us?” The girls answered yes. Dusk clung to him harder, awaiting his explanation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Me and Dusk here were asked by our version of the Prince to come to Equestria to help with an experiment of his. It was about “parallel universes.”
He messaged us through the book:
Dear Sundown and Dusk,
I would appreciate if you both could come to Equestria, I need help investigating the portal and what we can do with it; tell Dusk it’s about parallel universes, I know he’ll be interested.
You guys were the best options for this, please help me with my experiment?
Sincerely, Prince Dusk.
Dear Prince Dusk,
Sure c:
We both can come soon, since our Spring Break is starting. We have 2 weeks to help. Is that fine?
From, Sundown Shimmer.
Dear Sundown,
That’s okay! Just come through when you can and we can start experimenting!
From, Prince Dusk.
Sundown read the message quickly, addressing to Dusk that on Saturday, they could go through the mirror-portal-gateway to see the Prince.
“I’m excited to see him again, and Equestria. I just hope I won’t have to see..Prince Solaris..” the fiery-haired boy added, “nervouscited”.
“It’ll be okay, Sunny, you have me!” Dusk smiled softly, patting his shoulder in a comforting way.
“I hope you’re right…”
After Friday passed, on Saturday, we went through the portal and we ended up here..We don’t know what happened. It could’ve been on the Prince’s side…but still.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So that’s basically it! Any uh questions?”
“I think I got it…also…you need to get fixed up, I know dried blood when I see it.” Sunset grimaced, holding out two hands for the boys.
“Sunset, hold on. You know the theories right? Don’t touch him..” Twilight cautiously said, putting her arm out to stop the girl. Sundown looked to the floor. “Not like that! I meant, if you do touch, something catastrophic could happen.”
“Yes, I would advise to not touch your parallel self,” Dusk popped up. “It might be okay if Sundown touched her, and I touched her.”
He pointed to Twilight, then Sunset.
“Oh, and, by the way,” the bacon-haired boy said, with a worried tone. “The portal or the book doesn’t work. We’ve tried.”
“Are..are you sure? That’s only yours..We still haven’t tried mine.” Sunset vocalised, clearly worried.
“I don’t know, but….never mind.”
The boys got up with some help, and Sundown had a pounding headache when he stood.
“My h-head..ponyfeathers that hurts..”
“Uhh..are you good..?” Sunset commented, holding up the indigo-haired boy.
“Y-yeah…just give me a sec’..”
“C’mon, let’s go to mine,” the taller girl suggested, walking to the path to hers.