//------------------------------//
// A Little Talk 
// Story: The Secret Agent 
// by SecretAgentPlotTwist 
//------------------------------//

Sunset Shimmer sighed. She hadn’t been in Derpy’s garden for long but was already beginning to feel uncomfortable, just standing by herself and looking around at nothing in particular.

“You alright there?”

Sunset jumped, suddenly realising she wasn’t actually alone. Turning around, her eyes met with Sweetie Drops’, who had been waiting for the perfect time to speak up.

“Oh, sorry, I’m fine. I just came out here to get some air,” Sunset said, visibly trying too hard to seem casual.

Drops gave her a comforting smile to ease her nerves. “Not much of a party person either? That’s why I came out here too,” she said, moving closer as to join her.

Sunset let out an awkward chuckle. “Not exactly. I’m just finding this party in particular a bit too uncomfortable for me.”

“Why? Did someone bring some drama to the party while I wasn’t looking?”

“Not exactly, if anyone brought any Drama to the party it was probably me… by showing up.” She sighed again.

Drops gave her an inquisitive look. “How so?”

“Oh, it’s a bit of a long and complicated story. I’m sure you don’t want to be bored by it.”

“Try me.”

Sunset Shimmer, despite her awkwardness, let a little smile appear on her face. “Well... oh wow, I don’t even know where to start.

“The thing is that not too long ago I wasn’t exactly the nicest of people.” Sunset stopped to think for a second. “That’s actually a pretty big understatement. I was manipulative, aggressive, and just kind of angry towards everyone.”

Drops listened intently. Whatever had happened, she could see that Sunset felt incredibly guilty about it.

“I think I just got angrier and angrier,” she continued. “I kept looking for new ways to take out that anger on everyone, and I wanted to get powerful enough to do that. Things got out of hand without me stopping to think.”

“Powerful enough?” Drops asked.

Sunset panicked at the question. “Oh, sorry, that probably wasn’t the best way of putting it. Let’s just say I did a whole lot of bad to a whole lot of people, and they haven’t exactly forgiven me for it.”

“I see.” Drops was beginning to gain a much clearer picture of what had happened here. “But you seem pretty sorry about it. I’m sure people will come around eventually. As long as you don’t do whatever you did again, that is.”

Sunset chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry. I don’t plan on doing anything like that again.”

“That’s good. I mean, you’ve already got some friends, so things must have been all sorted out.”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah, once the girls stopped me, they accepted me with open arms.” Sunset looked away. “For the most part.”

Drops raised an eyebrow but stayed silent. The words ‘stopped me’ surprised her. From the sound of her story it seemed as though it was another case of a civilian finding a magical device and using it for their own means. But these cases were normally sorted out when the civilian lost control of the power or couldn’t figure out how to use it. The agency would normally clean up the mess and in most cases didn’t need to actually stop them.

Hearing that her friends had stopped whatever was going on bothered her. How could a group of teenagers possibly stop someone who got a hold of magical abilities? They could have used reason, but that didn’t sound right.

“How did they stop you?” Drops asked, viewing it as too important to leave.

Sunset hesitated. She was obviously regretting how this conversation had unfolded. “Aggressive diplomacy,” she eventually said. “But, listen, sorry, I need to head back, my friends will start to wonder where I’ve gone.”

Drops gave her a smile and a wave as her target left her. She knew that question would end in their conversation being cut short, but she needed that information.

Unfortunately, if her deductions were indeed correct, this was indeed more complicated than it had originally seemed.

Still, how could they have stopped her? Did they have magic too? If so, what happened to it, did they still have it? A bunch of teenagers running around with magical abilities was a messy situation.

On top of that, if she did use magic on the students here, it meant there was some kind of school level cover up. This couldn’t be allowed to continue without any agency oversight.

This was a lot of info to digest at once, but, despite everything, Sweetie Drops grinned. She was finally getting somewhere with all this, and it might be something pretty interesting.