There was no doubt in my mind that this girl-no, woman-was the exact human duplicate of Applejack. Her voice was practically the same, her use of the word sugarcube was identical, and if that hadn't been enough, the Stetson she was wearing was practically identical to the one worn by my favorite farmmare friend. She even wore her hair much like the Applejack of the human world I'd seen. And she was absolutely stunning. Like the song said, she radiated agrarian allure. And she wasn't even a Pony.

Flash stood, grinning at the new arrival. "Jackie! That was fast!"

Jackie turned and grinned back at her fellow student. "Yer text sounded important, so ah ran here. Almost slipped a few times."

"Damn, I hope you didn't fall," I said as I too stood, looking at her apologetically.

"Ain't nothin' tah worry yerself over," she said. "Ah take it yer the one Flash was talkin' 'bout?"

"Yeah, but I didn't mean for you to rush over here," I said with a sheepish smile.

"Well, he said you were lookin' fer a friend," she said, "so ah rushed over fast as ah could."

"I appreciate it," I said. "Forgive me for being blunt, but we're a bit on the clock. We can only be in town for a week before we have to go home."

She chuckled and waved her hand. "Ah like it when a guy's direct. What's on yer mind?"

"We're looking for an old friend of ours," I said. I repeated the story to her, and she listened patiently, nodding in understanding. "And that's the story," I said. "Flash here said you've been going here a while, so I figured if there was anyone to ask, it'd be you first before I go to the dean."

She nodded, then stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Well, ah can't rightfully say anythin' comes tah my mind about somethin' like that," she admitted, "but maybe mah older brother might know somethin'. Want me tah call him?"

"If it's not too much of a bother to you," Zecora replied.

"Ain't no bother," she said as she pulled out a smartphone. "He's already up and doin' all his farm chores anyway." She tapped at her phone, then put it to her ear.

"Love, doesn't this human sound a lot like a certain farmmare we both know?" Zecora asked in Farasi as Jackie waited for her brother to pick up.

"I think she is," I said. "Although, I'm not really sure how that's possible, to be honest with you."

"Whoa, what language is that?" Frankie asked, having picked up on our conversation. Jackie had since stepped away and was having a quick conversation with someone. "I've never heard it before, but it sounds familiar. Is it from Africa?"

"Zecora's native language," I replied. "Yeah, it's a rare dialect from Africa."

"Really? Where's she from?" Flash asked.

"Well, her parents moved here from a small village in Gabon before she was born," I explained, "and they taught it to her while growing up. I've been studying it ever since we started dating."

"That's actually really sweet," Flash said with a knowing smile. "My ex actually spoke another language, too. I wanted to learn, but she kept telling me it was impossible for me to learn it."

An ex? Sunset Shimmer dated Flash Sentry in the movie, so maybe…? "I'm sorry to hear that."

"She sounds like a jerk," Scarlet blurted out.

Outwardly, I smacked her upside the head for her callous words, but inwardly, I was thanking her for the in she might have just given us. "Scarlet! That was rude!"

Flash shook his head. "No, it's alright. Sienna was…a complicated woman."

"Flash, you're too nice," Frankie said angrily, "she was a complete bitch!"

"Yer use of language aside," Jackie said disapprovingly as she returned, "she wasn't any good fer ya."

"I know that now," Flash sighed.

"By the way, sugarcube," Jackie said, turning to me, "mah brother did tell me about somethin' he saw when he was goin' here. Apparently, there was some strange girl that appeared here 'bout ten years ago. She couldn't have been a year older than ah was back then, accordin' to him. And ah'm twenty-five."

"That kinda lines up with the timeline," I said, seeing as Celestia told us that Sunset was sixteen when she ran away from Equestria. "Did he actually see her?"

"You can talk tah him," she said, holding up her Android.

"Are you sure?" I asked, looking at the phone then back at her.

"Go ahead," she said as she held the phone out to me. "His name's Malcom. Just fair warnin', he doesn't speak much to somebody he doesn't know."

"Duly noted, thanks." I hesitantly took the phone, put it to my ear, and said, "Hello, am I speaking to Malcom?"

"Eeyup," the very familiar voice of the Earth version of Big Mac replied, "Jackie tells me yuh wanna know about that strange girl?"

"If you don't mind," I said. "It's possible she's the girl I've been looking for."

"Whatcha wanna know?"

"For one, what did she look like?" I asked. "And what was she wearing?"

"Hmm…average height, long ginger hair, leather jacket, but that's all I remember," Malcom said.

That could be her! "Did you hear what she might have said?" I asked. "Anything at all? Strange names or places?"

"Eenope," he said. "Sorry."

"Don't be, not your fault. What happened to her after you saw her?"

"Left campus, headed to the city."

"Hmm…guess that makes sense."

"Sorry I can't be much more help," Malcom sounded a bit apologetic now.

"Don't be. You've been a great help. Thanks a bunch."

"Eeyup."

Yeah, that's definitely Big Mac's Earth counterpart, I thought. "Want me to hand the phone back to your sister?"

"Eeyup."

I did so, smiling. As Jackie took the phone and resumed talking to her brother, I turned back to Flash and his friends. "Well, from what Malcom just told me, seems like our girl was here, but ten years ago. Kinda hard not to spot a ginger-haired girl around here, I guess." I included that small part, in the hopes that Flash would say something.

And he did not disappoint. "I wouldn't go around saying that," he said. "Sienna was a ginger, herself."

"Heh, if she had green eyes and wore a leather jacket a lot, I'd say she was our Sunset," I smirked. Flash froze. I looked at him, head tilting slowly. "She didn't, did she?"

"Um…actually she did," Arnold said.

"Do you have a picture of her?" I asked, making my voice sounding a bit more frantic.

Zecora, catching onto my leading statements, put her hand on my shoulder. "Love, please calm down. This could very well be a coincidence."

"Ah…right, sorry," I said, looking apologetically at Flash.

"No, it's alright," he said, sounding a bit upset as he took out his phone. "I have a picture I took of her and me on our first date a few years ago. It's the only picture of her I keep. Here."

He held out the phone and I took it. On the screen, I saw a picture, presumably taken by a bystander. Two young people, one an obviously younger Flash, and the other a ginger-haired woman around the same age, were sitting at what looked like an outdoor café, which on closer inspection was a Starbucks. Flash looked nervous, while the woman, who was wearing an orange skirt with a white t-shirt covering a leather jacket, was smiling, but there was something in her eyes that made me shudder. Those green eyes held…not malevolence, per se, but ambition, perhaps. A greedy type of ambition.

No doubt about it in my mind. That was Sunset Shimmer. I showed the other two, both of whom agreed. I handed the phone back. "She looks a bit older, but I think that's actually the girl we've been looking for."

"Ya call someone like that yer friend?" Jackie asked incredulously.

"She wasn't always as mean as you described," Zecora said, playing the saddened friend card. If nothing else, Zecora was an amazing actress.

"She had a private tutor she loved being around, but felt like she was being held back," I added. "She became ambitious and ran away the moment things went south for her. She had a, shall we say, princess complex."

"Sounds like Sienna," Flash sighed. "She started out sweet, but as time went on, she began manipulating me into buying her more and more expensive gifts and treating her to more expensive meals, theater shows, even amusement parks. I broke up with her about a year and a half ago and…she didn't really take it well. My friends had an intervention and told me how Sienna was using me for a bunch of stuff, even meaningless sex."

"Fuuuck…" I said. This was getting darker than I could have imagined. "I didn't realize she'd go that far…I'm really sorry about her. I didn't mean to bring up old wounds, and I still don't. But I hope you don't mind if I ask a few more questions."

"No, not at all," Flash said.

I could tell this was painful for him, so I asked, "Are you absolutely sure? I don't like pressuring anyone."

He nodded. "Anything to help her."

That shocked me a bit. I knew the Flash Sentry in the Equestria Girls universe was sort of a knight in shining armor type, but this Flash was definitely a good guy. "If you're sure…then can you tell us where she might be living now?"

He frowned and looked thoughtful. "Far as I know, she lives in a duplex and is renting one side from the owner of the other," he said. "Not sure how she could afford it, though. I never once heard her talk about a job or anything like that. I guess she was somehow…rolling in money."

"Ah bet she got involved in some nasty business," Jackie said with a hint of suspicion in her voice. "Heck, she even tried to break mah friendships apart."

"We don't know that for sure," Flash said. "All we know is that someone hacked your guys' cells and sent phony texts."

"Ah'm just glad Shye convinced us tah sit down and talk about it," Jackie said with relief. "That girl can be quite loud when she wants tah be."

"Oooh! Who are you talking about? Huh? Huh?" A pale skinned girl popped up behind Jackie, actually sitting on her shoulders suddenly. This girl looked a bit younger than Jackie, had long curly cinnamon colored hair, bright blue eyes, and was wearing pink jeans, a bright blue sweater and a beanie with, of all things, a stylized Generation 3 Pinkie Pie on the front holding a bunch of balloons. She was eating what looked like a Hostess cupcake.

My heart stopped when I saw her beanie, and I quickly pulled out my phone to google My Little Pony. In all the excitement of finding Sunset Shimmer, I'd forgotten to check to see if the show and toys even existed. One quick search was enough to confirm that the show did exist, but only up to the third generation. But, if the history of this world was any similar to mine, Generation Four would come out sometime next year.

"Jesus, Diane," Flash exclaimed, jumping a bit at the sudden appearance, "you've gotta stop popping out of nowhere like that!"

Diane, who I presumed was Pinkie Pie's counterpart, simply giggled as she got off of Jackie and finished the cupcake. "Hehe, sorry! I just saw Jackie here and I had to say hi!" She turned to me. "Ooooh! Are these some new friends?"

I chuckled and shook my head. "Sorry, but we're just passing through, looking for an old friend of ours."

Her smile faltered and became one of worry. "Oh no! What happened? Did they get lost? Are they hurt somewhere? Are they-?"

"Diane, darling! Why'd you run off like that?" another familiar voice called out from behind her. I turned and saw a young woman with light skin, a permed ash brown hair style rushing up. She was wearing high heeled black boots, a purple skirt with what looked like gems sewn into the hem, a light blue blouse and a fur coat, unbuttoned. She was lugging around a large satchel and held a measuring tape in her hand. "I was almost done measuring you!"

"Hehe, sorry Tri-Tri! But I saw Jackie and had to say hi!" Diane replied.

"Hey, wait for us!" yet another familiar voice said. We all turned again and I saw two other girls running forward. One had long but tomboyish hair, which had been colored in a rainbow style, as well as lightly tanned skin. She was wearing sneakers, black sweatpants, a white t-shirt and a dark blue jean sweater. She had a baseball cap on and her hair fell loosely all around it. The second girl was a light auburn-haired girl with light white skin as well. She wore light green jeans, a pair of boots, a white sweater, and was herself carrying a backpack. When the first girl arrived, she glared at the girl who Diane had called Mon-Mon. "Jeez, Trisha, why'd you run off like that?"

Trisha sighed. "Dashelle, darling, you never interrupt a lady and her art. Now stand still, Diane!"

"I said call me Dash, Trish," the now named Dash huffed. "At least Shye here does," she added, indicating the other girl who was panting heavily beside her.

"Hah…hah…what…what's going…hah…on…?" the soft spoken Shye asked before she stood up and saw me, Zecora and Scarlet. "Oh…um…hi…" she said, placing her hands in front of herself in a clear posture of nervousness.

So…these are the human versions of the Elements of Harmony, I thought. "Hey there. Sorry, I was just talking to your friends here about an old friend of ours who might have been here, and we think we found her."

"Y'all remember Sienna?" Jackie asked with a frown.

The mood among the five shifted, and a cloud of anger seemed to fall over them. Diane was the first to speak "That meanie-pants?"

"You're friends with that skank?" Dash asked suspiciously.

"Dashelle! Have some self-respect!" Trisha shouted.

"It's alright. But yes, we were her friends. A long time ago," I said. "She's probably forgotten about is. We just want to find her and bring her home. She's got a lot to answer for, and we want to help her get better."

"Get better?" Shye asked.

"She…hasn't exactly had an easy life before she came to Pendragon," Zecora said. Damn, she's a good actress. "We just want to help her."

"Hmmph! What she needs is a good few days in a locked cell," Trisha said, "and that's generous at best."

"Jesus…what the hell did she do?" Scarlet asked in shock. Good, she's learning to swear by human standards, and not Equestrian standards, I thought.

"What didn't she do, you mean?" Dash growled. "She invaded our privacy and tried to break up our friendship! She hacked our phones and send phony messages, and when that didn't work, she tried using blackmail on us!"

"Calm down there, sugarcube," Jackie said, putting her hand on Dash's shoulder.

"Damn, I never knew she was that far gone," I said, making myself sound apologetic.

"Clearly not your fault, darling," Monica said. "There are always some bad gems."

"Yeah, but like we said, she wasn't always like this," Scarlet said.

"Do you know where she lives?" I asked Flash.

"Yeah," Flash said, turning back to me. "I can give you her address, or the address I remember. It's possible she might have moved already."

"It's a start," I said. "Thank you, Flash. I owe you big time."

He shook his head as he took out a pen and paper, writing the address down. As he handed it to me, he said, "Just…if you do find Sienna, help her. I really think she's had a hard life."

I nodded. "It's not my place to say, but she has."

Celestia had once told me a bit about Sunset's own past back in Equestria. She was an orphan from Manehatten for the first ten years of her life until she was taken in by the princess herself. Celestia was thorough in her investigation into Sunset's own background, and discovered that her parents had been murdered in some sort of gang deal gone horribly wrong. Sunset was still a foal at the time and was put into the adoption system.

Unfortunately for her, the adoption agency she was from was one of the worst ones Celestia had ever seen. The orphans lived in unsanitary conditions, the staff ran the place like some sort of boot camp, and funds given by the local government were mysteriously "misplaced". Celestia had gotten personally involved and brought all of the orphans to one of the Canterlot ones, arresting all involved with the foal abuse. It certainly put a lot in perspective on why she acted the way she did in the movies, but this was a whole new ballpark.

"I see," Flash said sadly. "Well, I might not love her anymore, but I am really concerned. Promise me you'll help her if you find her. Please."

"We'll do our best, I promise," I said.

"Her safety and care is our number one priority," Zecora added.

"We'll straighten her out, for her own good," Scarlet said.

"I hope so," Flash said, and this time a hopeful smile formed on his face. "Good luck."

The three of us sat on the bus again, having plugged the address into a local app called PenBus which gave us the times of the nearest local bus as well as a built-in map function similar to Google Maps. It would take us about an hour and a half to reach the house, and that was after changing busses to take the Pendragon Metro downtown.

As we sat on the train car, we began to discuss our plan of action. Things were going too easily for us. I had no doubts that this Sienna was Sunset Shimmer, at least I did in the beginning. But as I thought about it, I began to wonder if this Sienna was just Earth's version of Sunset. Since it seemed like the Earth versions of the Mane Six were similar to their Equestrian counterparts, it was possible that Sienna and Sunset were similar in personality. I brought this up to the other girls.

"Are you absolutely sure, love?" Zecora asked, putting an arm around me comfortingly.

"Zeek, nothing's absolutely sure," Scarlet said, arms crossed.

"Zeek? Really?" I asked Scarlet with a frown. "You're not calling her something that was Uncle Phil's nickname."

Scarlet smirked. "You can't stop me, big boy."

"Don't worry about her, Jethro," Zecora chuckled. "You were saying?"

"You saw the five girls back at Camelot," I said. "They were the spitting embodiments of the Bearers. That means that this Earth could have other counterparts. Including Sunset. From what I saw, the girls here and the Bearers back home are pretty much the same personality-wise. That could mean that this Sienna is the same as Sunset in terms of personality."

"Did the human version show up in the show?" Scarlet asked.

"Not that I know of," I said, "and I looked at the Wiki just to be sure before we came here. But I shouldn't have assumed things would be the same here just because the mirror in the show wasn't a Stargate."

"That was a bit weird to see," Scarlet agreed.

"Love, this is the best lead we have found, and it's barely been a day," Zecora said.

"If this were a story, I'd say this was almost too easy," I said, "but this isn't a story. It's real life. Sometimes we just get very lucky."

"Dude, don't jinx it!" Scarlet said anxiously.

"Yeah, sorry," I chuckled.

"Are you worried about things going so smoothly?" Zecora asked.

"Yeah," I admitted. "So, let's be on our guards, everyone. Heaven knows what we'll run into."

The address Flash gave us led us to one of the wealthier sections of the city. The address led us to one of the nicest duplexes I'd ever seen. Both sides were relatively well maintained. Both were two storied with a full-sized garage for each part. By the time we'd gotten there, the snow had all but melted. The left side of the house had a small snowman in the front yard which was already starting to melt, and a few toys spread around. I thought I saw two toy ponies somewhere as well, and considering My Little Pony did exist in this universe, at least up to Generation Three, I wasn't really surprised to see the toy.

"Whoa, are those pony dolls?" Scarlet asked, obviously seeing what I saw as well and pointing at the fallen toy.

I chuckled. "The one on the left looks a bit like Rainbow Dash, doesn't it?"

Zecora chuckled. "Indeed it does, love."

"Probably the one from the Generation 3," I said. "And the one next to her is Pinkie Pie. But that's not why we're here, ladies."

I looked at the right side of the duplex. There wasn't anything in the yard at all. No plants, no garden, no anything. Just grass and a walkway up to the brown door. The shades were drawn and it looked as unwelcoming as the other side of the house looked welcoming and lived in. Zecora looked at me, then asked, "So, how do you wish to approach this?"

"I say we use the direct approach," Scarlet said, cracking her knuckles like she'd been doing it for years. "Go up and knock, then ask if she's this Sunset Shimmer."

"I mean, I would tend to agree, but what if we're wrong about who this girl is?" I asked, suddenly having my doubts. Even if this world wasn't the Equestria Girls human world, the chances of things going fairly identical to how they'd gone in that world were fairly slim. But even so, this was the best lead we'd gotten so far, and I was willing to suffer the embarrassment if this Sienna wasn't who I thought. "Actually, forget what I just said. Let's just go and knock and see if we can figure out who this girl is."

"What if she's not home?" Scarlet asked.

I pointed to the other side of the duplex. "Then we ask them." I walked up to the front door where our Sienna was possibly living, and rang the doorbell.

We waited for about a minute, and just as I was about ring the doorbell again, I heard a lock being unbolted, then a second one being undone. The door opened, and we were staring into the light blue eyes of the woman in the photograph. "Yeah?" Her voice was very similar to the Sunset Shimmer I knew from the show, but not identical, much like the other voices. It was deeper than most female voices. Her hair was the same shade of ginger I remembered from the image as well. "What do you want?"

Taking a deep breath, I gave her a level look. "Are you Sienna?"

"Look, I've already told you guys before, I know about our lord and Savior-"

"We aren't Jehovah's Witnesses," I quickly added, "Or Mormon missionaries."

Her frustrated expression turned to slight confusion. "Okay…then what do you want?"

I looked at her, then lowered my voice. "Forgive me for asking, but does the name Sunset Shimmer mean anything to you?"

In that moment, I was glad that Ponies didn't have as much control over their facial expressions as humans did. The look of shock on her face was enough to tell me we'd found her. However, the shock quickly changed to suspicion and rage. "So…Princess Celestia finally sent somepony to bring me home. Well, forget-huh?"

I put my hand on the door and pushed it open, startling the now human Pony. She was wearing light blue pajama bottoms, a light pink t-shirt, and had on a pair of bunny slippers, of all things. "I'm afraid we can't forget it. Sunset Shimmer, former student of Princess Celestia, we are coming in, and we are going to talk. And you are going to listen."