Twilight, you know how you told me to find my family the last time we talked?
I think I finally know who they are...
Twilight smiled. This was good. This could only mean that they had sorted everything out and-
The portal rippled, Twilight glanced over at it. The next moment, her ruby gold friend emerged from from the mirror.
"Sunset?" Twilight put the journal down. "What are you doing here?...I mean, not that you aren't welcome here anytime or anything, but I wasn't expecting you. You ok?..."
"Twilight, you know that message I just sent you? I finally realized what I should have known at the beginning of all of this...I was looking for a family in a foreign world that I am not a part of. No matter how much I tried to be, I just kept coming back to the factthat despite looking like them, acting like them, and being around them, I am still not one of them. I'm not like them...and I honestly don't want to be anymore. That world is not my home, and the people are not my family.
Here...Equestria...This is my home. I left it in search of something better. But I learned the hard way that you'll never find anything better than home."
"Sunset...What do you mean in speaking this way about the other world? Did something happen?...I mean, you told me what was going on with the Anon-A-miss account and all...but I figured things were getting better..."
"No." Sunset said simply. "They did not get better at all..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "They got so much worse."
Sunset could no longer keep a neutral expression as she broke down in sobs.
Shocked at this, Twilight ran over and embraced her friend.
"Sunset...Oh Sunset...What in Equestria happened over there?"
"Oh Twilight, what didn't happen?..." She said after a long time.
"Sunset...I want you to tell me everything that happened after we talked that first time."
"Did you hear what happened? Sunset Shimmer got expelled for Anon-A-Miss!"
"About time! She had it coming to her."
"Ding dong, the witch is gone!"
"Good riddance..."
Sweetie Belle gulped at looked at Apple Bloom. She looked sick. Sweetie wasn't far behind, and the guilt was crushing scootaloo inside.
"She...she got expelled?..." Sweetie Belle said quietly.
"Ahh feel sick..."
"This is so wrong. Things were supposed to get better after we deleted the account..." Scootaloo spoke quietly.
"Guys...it's time to come clean." Apple Bloom said.
"What?!" Scootaloo made sure to keep her voice down. "Sunset just got expelled! I can't get expelled Bloom."
"I'm not saying you should...The account was mah idea in the first place. I'll just go to principal Celestia and say it was all me..."
"But Apple Bloom-"
"That way, only one of us will get expelled."
"You don't have to do that Bloom."
"Yes, ahh do. Ahh'm the one that deserves it. But Sunset...She didn't do anything wrong."
Apple Bloom left after that and went to principal Celestia's office. Scootaloo and Sweetie looked on after her with regret and guilt gnawing at them both."
Principal Celestia had her head in her hands on her desk. Everything felt so wrong. How could Sunset be behind all of this?
Even though she had confessed right to her, the principal was having a hard time believing it. Sunset had changed so much since the Fall Formal. It didn't make sense that she would just throw it all away for...for what even? What did she even have to gain this time when everyone knew it was her?...
There was a knock at the door. Celestia got herself together and pretended to be working.
"...Come in." Apple Bloom opened the door.
"Apple Bloom. May I help you?"
"Principal Celestia, ahh....Ahh have a confession tah make." That caught Celestia's attention.
"About the whole Anon-A-Miss thing...It...it wasn't Sunset." Celestia sighed.
"I'd love to believe you Apple Bloom, but she confessed right to me-"
"It was me." Apple Bloom cut her off. Great...just great. She thought to herself. First nobody's Anon-A-Miss, and now everybody is...
"Apple Bloom I find it very noble of you to want to give Sunset another chance by confessing in her stead, but even if I were to believe you, I don't think you truly understand just how serious this whole Anon-A-Miss fiasco really is... I had to expell Sunset."
"Ahh know...which is exactly why ahh had to come forward. Sunset does not deserve to be expelled."
"Why would she have admitted right to me that she was Anon-A-Miss then, if she wasn't?"
"Ahh...Ah think ah know...The other day at Sugarcube Corner, Apple jack, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, her previous friends said some pretty nasty stuff when she tried to talk to them Sunset broke down then, and there.
They told her that if she confessed, and deleted the account, they would look past it and move on.
She had to have been really desperate, because, having no way to delete the account, she said she would anyways. But Dash wanted her to delete it then, and there.
Being witness to the whole thing, ah couldn't let this go on any further. So when Dash handed Sunset her phone to delete the account, ah signed in on mah own phone, and deleted it, so that when she handed the phone back, the account was gone, and they accepted her back...
Ahh, ahh thought things would get better for her after that...but they didn't."
Celestia listened to Apple Bloom's detailed explanation.
"Apple Bloom, even if I were to believe this, why would you have done something like this in the first place?"
"Because...Ahh was jealous of her. Ahh wanted tah make her look bad, like she had gone back to her old ways."
"It still does not answer why she would make a false confession to me."
"Because, even if she did deny it, the others would have foundout, and either abandon her again, or come to you themselves and tell you she had confessed to them."
Apple Bloom's explanation did make a lot of sense...Could she have made that all up on the spot?...
"Apple Bloom, I do not know what is driving you to want to put the blame for this on yourself, but without any solid evidence-"
"Ahh got the evidence!" She pulled out her phone. "The account may be gone, but Mystable's got a short term option that lets you recover your account if you change your mind!" She went to the Mystable app and activated the option, and before the principal's eyes, signed into the Anon-A-miss account.
"...." Celestia wordlessly took the phone, looking the page over. It was all there....She pressed the button to the intercom system.
"Would Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy please report to the principal's office?"
If Apple Bloom was telling the whole truth, the Sunset had essentially been blackmailed into making a false confession.
Knock, knock, knock
"Come in" The five girls walked into the room, Applejack spotting her little sister.
"uhh, why's mah sister here?"
"That is why I called you five here. As I'm sure you are all now aware, earlier today, I had no choice but to expell Sunset after I called her in here, and she admitted to being Anon-A-Miss. But just not too long ago, Apple Bloom came to me and told me a rather peculiar stoy involving you five. A story that took place the other day at Sugarcube Corner when Sunset tried talking to you, and some things were said by you five that caused her to break down in the middle of the cafe...Sound familiar?"
"well..." Rarity ventured, throwing a glare in Dash's direction. "I wouldn't say by ALL five of us...But yes, it did happen...Wait...Apple Bloom was there when that happened?"
"I would like you to tell me in your own words, what happened next."
"Well, yes, Sunset did break down there. Despite what she had done, it greatly unnverved me to see her in such a way as she was then...So, I went to comfort her, and I told her that if she simply admitted to what she had done, and closed the account, we would look past it all and carry on. She agreed to it, and confessed to being Anon-A-Miss."
There it was...A direct match to Apple Bloom's story. Celestia sighed.
"Do you even realize what you have just described to me? Has it dawned on you exactly why Sunset confessed to you five that she was Anon-A-Miss?"
"Because she was?..." Rainbow answered in a Duh way.
"Because she was?..." Celestia repeated, prompting a further answer.
"Anon-A-Miss?..." Celestia sighed at Dash's answer.
"Because she was blackmailed...by you five." Fluttershy gasped.
"We...We didn't blackmail her!"
"Maybe not knowingly, but she had nobody else than you five. Sounds like she was so desperate, that with the promise of gaining you five back, she decided that confessing to something she did not do was a small price to pay."
"But she deleted the account right in front of us!? Dash argued. "It had to have been her!"
"So it would seem...Unless someone in the cafe who was witnessing all this, signed into the account on her phone out of guilt, and deleted it as you thought Sunset had."
"Yuh...Ya tryin' tah pin this on mah little sis?!" Apple jack gaped at her principal.
"I am not pinning anything on anyone Applejack. But I do believe Apple Bloom would like to show you something on her phone..."
Applejack looked at her sister, who had been quiet during all this.
"Bloom?...What's on yer phone?..." Without looking at her sister, Apple Bloom handed her sister her phone. There, on the screen, was the Anon-A-Miss Mystable page.
"Wha...Bu-...I-It got deleted..." Applejack tried making sense of this.
"It's the account recovery option..." Apple Bloom explained quietly. Applejack looked at her sister in shock.
"This...This is some joke right?" Apple Bloom didn't say anything. A thought suddenly occured to Applejack.
"If Sunset is not Anon-A-Miss, why would she admit it even tah you?" She asked the principal.
"Because she thought that if she had denied to me, you five would leave her again...Would you have?..."
None of the girls answered that.
Celestia sighed. "Does anybody know where Sunset may have gone?"
"I...She went back to Equestria..." Dash sighed. There was a series of gasps.
"What?! Without even saying goodbye or anything??" Pinkie gasped.
Rarity sighed. "I honestly don't blame her..."
"Bloom," Applejack looked at her sister angrily. "When this has all been sorted out, Imma tan yer hide so hard-"
"And I'm afraid that will be the very least of your guy's' problems... As I had no choice but to expell Sunset, I now have no choice but to also expell the lot of you."
"Bloom! You are not leaving the house for the next- wait...the lot of us?"
"If Sunset went back to Equestria, that is the best possible outcome of all this...People who go through the amount of stress Sunset must have gone through during all of this, most often give up on life altogether.
So yes, given the severity of what did, and could have happened in all this, I now have no choice but to expell all five of you, plus Apple Bloom."
There was silence.
"WHAT?!!" Pinkie broke it. "What did WE do?!?"
"It's more a matter of what you didn't do Pinkie, and the fact that you even need to ask that."
"Principal Celestia, please reconsider! I- I can't get expelled!" Rarity pleaded. "This is senior year! No fashion school will ever take me if I get expelled!"
"And no sports team will ever have me again! Or university!" Dash agreed.
"I'm sorry, but my decision is final. You can all clean out your lockers."
After a long period of silence had passed, Dash angrily threw up her hands and left the office, followed a moment after by the other girls.