After pictures from her phone get posted online, that human five confront Sunset with the information. After discovering that she and the others had very different ideas about how to confront her, Rainbow Dash finds herself defending Sunset from the rest of her friends.

Rainbow siding with Sunset didn't change all that much. Sunset was still successfully framed, Sunset still lost most of her friends, Sunset will still go back to being the most hated student at CHS, but she won't have to face any of it alone, and that will make all the difference in the world.

Meta stuff follows.

Let's talk about combinatorics.

There is one way for none of the five to remain on Sunset's side, there are five ways for one of them them to side with Sunset, there are ten ways for two of them to do so, there are ten ways for three of them to do so, there are five ways for four of them to do so, and there is one way for all of them to do so. Out of these thirty two possible configurations, almost every Anon-a-Miss story sticks to the first one.

I did a tally once upon a time and what I found was that 96.9% of possibilities were almost never explored, and 87.5% were never explored at all (no "almost" necessary.) These figures get rather more abysmal if you're looking at who did or didn't side with Sunset from the start. The rare stories that have one or more of the five side with Sunset tend to have the initial confrontation go down pretty much canonically, and then have someone have a change of heart later on.

So, in the interest of stuff, here's a thing where Sunset has someone on her side from the very start. Most of the first chapter was released two months early on my Patreon page, for subscribers only, as you might imagine.

This story is a sequel to Sunset Shimmer Hunts the Undead

Principal Celestia and a bunch of other middle-aged high school teachers hunt the undead.

So does her adoptive daughter, Sunset Shimmer, alongside a farmer, an ex-siren, a forgettable nobody, and a dark mistress of unholy mad science.

These are their ongoing stories.

(Ask the hunters anything, here!)

(This story almost entirely consists of reader-submitted chapters. All ideas welcome, submit them here!)

It has been eight long years since Principal Celestia lost her only child. Eight years of self blame and sadness. When a young woman stumbled into her office, begging to be enrolled she thought that it was just a cruel joke. Especially when that girl turned out to be a tormented villain from another universe. But could Celestia’s mistake be another girls salvation?

Sunset and her friends had no idea that Anon-a-Miss was a plot to break them up. They had no idea that it was targeting Sunset. When Apple Bloom was outed as Anon-a-Miss the account had leaked all of one secret, and everyone believed it was simply a younger sister having fun at her older sister's expense.

They certainly had no idea Apple Bloom would respond to Anon-a-Miss' failure by resorting to a Plan B that had all the subtlety of a Plinian eruption and all the precision of a hurricane.

What they do know is that in one night the veil of secrecy around magic at CHS was obliterated when a video of Sunset Shimmer, with full demonic transformation, doing physically impossible things exploded across the internet.

Now they have to prepare for the fallout, even though they have no idea what form that will take.

When you become unexpectedly popular for writing a story in a certain genre, you end up being exposed to more and more of what's in that genre, and your imagination runs away with ideas you encounter as a result, and suddenly what was meant to be a topic you touched for one or two stories at most instead becomes a mainstay of your corpus.

I was most definitely not looking for a new Anon-a-Miss fic. I've got two that have already been released and two in the oven, which makes four that I need to finish. I had no particular desire to start number five.

Then I encountered this idea. The idea in short:

Anon-a-Miss falls apart almost immediately with almost no damage done, which you would think is like dodging a bullet given how the genre tends to go, but because the underlying cause isn't dealt with it doesn't avoid the problem at all. It amplifies it by having Apple Bloom resort to releasing the one bombshell secret that was originally so far off the table it wasn't even considered.

Here's why it interested me enough to start up a new story:

The idea of the magic at CHS being exposed to the world presents seemingly infinite possibilities in itself, but there's also the fact that Anon-a-Miss occurs at a key juncture in the timeline. The human Twilight Sparkle is already on the case. If nothing major changes then you get The Friendship Games but changes could result in things that range from full blown apocalypse to her equipment never malfunctioning in the first place.

Credit must be given:

Uria came up with the idea at five AM with the help of fatigue and Pringles. Even now, as we speak I type this, a shadowy group of individuals are operating in a loose coalition in an attempt to bring that idea, kicking and screaming as it may be, into some form of reality and then unleash it upon the world.

This story is emphatically not the fruit of that particular labor. This is just me writing my version. That is, in part, why this isn't called "Your Past Is Here To Stay"; I wanted that title to be reserved for the official version created by the collaborating cabal.

None the less, this is inspired by Uria's idea, the first chapter extremely so, and credit must be given. Also, given my ties to the currently undisclosed syndicate working on the official realization of Uria's idea, there will probably be a fair amount of cross pollination between this story and the eventual "Your Past Is Here To Stay".

WARNING: There are major spoilers in the comment section. You have been warned!

After some time of turning over a new leaf, Sunset was happy with her life. She gained new friends, slowly winning over the students at CHS and became the protector of the human world alongside her friends against any rouge magic and creatures. She wanted to give back to everyone by becoming the head director of the Christmas party and Toys for Kids Festival at the school on Christmas Eve.

But when the events of the party and festival went wrong due to her past, Sunset was down on her dumps after she was blamed for the disaster and felt like she had ruined her friends lives because of her. Just when she was about to give up on everything, a mysterious teenaged girl, who claimed to be her guardian angel, showed Sunset what the world and her friends would be like without her.

This is an Equestria Girls take of an ever so beloved classic Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life!

FEATURED: 3/20/20 - Wow! Thank you all so much!

This story now has a Spanish translation by Arthor2017

And on a Tv Tropes page!

You are Sunset Shimmer, former apprentice of the Unconquered Sun. Prodigy. Exile. Betrayer and betrayed.

You have been taken.

In midst of the Anon-A-Miss scandal, a heartbroken Sunset finds herself sitting by the edge of Lake Everfree, wondering if she should go on. In her despair, she calls out to the darkness of the night sky. And in the depths of that darkness, something has heard her cry. Something that can grant her wish… a wish to be free of her pain…

Destiny crossover with Equestria Girls using the concept of the Taken and the Sky/Deep war.

Cover art by me.

Featured: 2019-Jul-7!
(Shards, I wasn't expecting that. Thanks everyone.)

When confronted by Sunset, Wallflower Blush realizes that absolutely nothing she does matters. Rather than lash out at Sunset's friends, she turns the Memory Stone on herself and completely erases her own mind.

After her little magic trick at the Fall Formal, Sunset Shimmer is not having the best night, and it's about to get worse: Principal Celestia just found out that Sunset has been living in the school clock tower. Now she has nowhere to live, and who's going to take in a teenager with personal issues that include recent demonic possession? No one normal, obviously.

But... maybe someone with a mohawk, a house full of creepy masks, and blue eyes that seem to see more than words -- or rhymes-- can say.

Winner of the Writeoff Association's February WriteOff, "Look, I Can Explain."

We could tell that the Rainbow Laser emitted by the Rainbooms at the end of the Fall Formal was powerful, just look at the crater it left. But what else could that do to Sunset Shimmer?

After the Friendship Games, life at CHS has settled down. No more magical villains to face, or impending disasters. Sunset and the others can go back to living as normal teenage girls. Or as close to normal as a group of magically empowered girls and a former unicorn from another universe can anyway.

But when Sunset gets into trouble, someone she never expected comes to help her, and her life will never be the same ever again.

Disclaimer: I don't own My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or any of it's characters. I'm just a fan.

Cover art done by my very good friend PrettySoldierPetite. (EDIT 07/08/19: And now with new cover art!)

Proofread by Dragon of Shadows

Pre-read (post ch 12's publishing) by Setokaiva

FEATURE BOX 11/28/17!

EDIT: Added the MLP: FIM tag because of recent events, and I really should have put it in before this anyway.

EDIT 04/14/19: While the content of this story does not qualify for the "Dark" tag, I have been advised to give a warning that chapter 6 contains a scenario that may trigger some individuals. Tags: psychological abuse & gaslighting.

EDIT 10/16/19: Now with a TV Tropes page!

Side Story
Swimming Lessons