Pinkie unlocked the door of Sunset's apartment, admitting herself and Fluttershy. “Hey, Ray! We're heeere!” she cried.
“Um, Pinkie, it's still 7:30 in the morning. Maybe we should keep it down in case some of the neighbors are still sleeping.”
“Oh, right! Gotcha,” Pinkie stage-whispered. She followed Fluttershy into the apartment and slammed the door shut behind them. Fluttershy winced, then sighed and climbed the stairs leading to the loft which acted as Sunset's bedroom.
“Can you see if you can find Sunset's Equestria journal? I'll check on Ray,” she said.
“Yes, sir, ma'am, sir!” Pinkie saluted and walked under the loft to Sunset's desk. She began looking around at the assorted books and papers scattered across the desk. Meanwhile, Fluttershy reached the top of the stairs and crouched down in front of the tank. Ray, Sunset's pet leopard gecko, loped towards the glass. Fluttershy smiled down at him.
“Hi, Ray. Sunset's not going to be able to come home for a little while, so I'm going to be taking care of you until she's back, okay?”
Ray let out a hiss. Fluttershy looked pained.
“Well, she... she's been hurt. She's in the hospital and she won't wake up. We don't know what happened, but we're working on it.”
Ray lowered his head and looked dejected. Fluttershy removed the lid of the tank and reached in, rubbing the top of the gecko's head. Ray craned his head up to meet Fluttershy's fingers.
“I know. I miss her already too,” Fluttershy said. “We're going to find out who did it. I promise.”
Ray looked up at her and his mouth curled up into a lizard equivalent of a smile. Fluttershy smiled back.
“Now, how about a nice cricket for breakfast?”
While Fluttershy fed Ray, Pinkie continued pawing through Sunset's desk, humming to herself.
She opened the bottom desk drawer and let out a squee as she found the large book with the hybrid sun-star symbol on the cover. She pulled the journal out and held it up.
“Found it!”
“Oh good,” Fluttershy's voice drifted down from above. “We'll be able to let Princess Twilight know what's going on.”
“On it!” Pinkie chirped. She reached into her hair and extracted a pen.
“Um, Pinkie?” Fluttershy said, coming back down the stairs. “Maybe we should wait until we get to Sugarcube Corner before we write Princess Twilight? We don't want to panic her, right?”
“Good point!” Pinkie opened her backpack and put the journal inside. As she slung her backpack over her shoulder, she looked down into the drawer. “There's another book in here!”
“Is it her old journal?” Fluttershy asked, walking up behind Pinkie.
“Nope! Looks like a scrapbook.” Pinkie reached in and pulled out the book. It was a basic composition notebook, but every page seemed to have an envelope or letter sticking out of it. Pinkie put it on the desk and flipped it open.
“I don't think we should do that,” Fluttershy said. “That's probably Sunset's personal scrapbook. I'm sure she would have told us about it if she wanted us to look at it.”
Pinkie didn't respond. Fluttershy put a hand on her shoulder.
“Pinkie?”
“I think she had another reason for not showing us this,” Pinkie said, quietly. The subdued tone of her friend's voice made Fluttershy swallow hard. She moved next to Pinkie and looked down at the scrapbook.
The book was open to a printout of an email.
To: S_Shimmer@CanterlotHS.edu
From: DieDemonWitch@HayMail.com
Subject: ROT IN HELL!
HEY, DEMON BITCH, YOU CAN PRETEND ALL YOU WANT THAT YOU'VE CHANGED, BUT I KNOW YOU HAVEN'T! IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH MAGIC YOU'VE GOT, OR WHAT YOU DO TO TRY TO GET EVERYONE ON YOUR SIDE, YOU'LL ALWAYS BE A SELFISH HEARTLESS FRIENDLESS SLUT!!! I HOPE YOU GET HIT BY A BUS AND DIE!
“Oh my,” Fluttershy squeaked. “That's... wow.” She turned the page
I hate you, Sunset Shimmer. Ever since you came to town, everything has gone straight to hell and you're the bitch holding the pitchfork. If I wasn't committed to nonviolence, you would have been on the receiving end of a baseball bat by now. And don't go bringing up what's happened with the Dazzlings. Odds are you just couldn't stand having any kind of competition. In fact, if you hadn't ever come here, the weird things that follow you wouldn't be bothering the rest of us! Do us all a favor and drop dead!
Pinkie flipped through the book. “The next one's worse! And this one... and this one... and this one... and this – ” She stopped and stared wide eyed at the page she had stopped on. “I don't even think that's physically possible!”
Fluttershy looked down at the page and turned bright red. “That's... oh... geez... I... Wait.” She put her finger on the page. “This is dated just last week! How far back does this go?”
Pinkie flipped the book closed and re-opened the cover. “Looks like she started saving these after the Battle of the Bands.”
“Who knows how many of these she's gotten before then? And she never told us.” Fluttershy paged through the scrapbook again. “These are all from different email addresses.”
“There's some regular letters too. She kept the envelopes.”
Pinkie looked at Fluttershy, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. “Why would anybody do this? Sunset's been nothing but kind, and helpful, and friendly ever since the Fall Formal. I thought everyone knew that! Why would they send mean things like this to her?”
“I don't know,” Fluttershy answered. “But she was saving these for a reason, and we should probably find out what it is.”
Fluttershy closed the scrapbook and put it in her own backpack. She looked at Pinkie with a grim expression. “Because we just found an entire book full of suspects who want to hurt Sunset.”