For Sunset Shimmer, everything in her life was finally great. She had managed to turn her whole life around, had found a wonderful group of friends, and had made amends with the student body for her actions and failures in her past. After years of misery and loneliness, she finally found happiness. It was a dream come true.
Unfortunately, every dream has to end sooner or later.
A few days ago, an unknown user on the social media website Mystable going by Anon-a-Miss started spreading personal secrets of the students of Canterlot High School online for everybody to read. To make matters worse, Anon-a-Miss went to great lengths to make it look like Sunset was behind the account, and the whole school fell for it, believing that she had gone back to her old ways.
In the span of just a few days, everything Sunset had worked so hard for was destroyed, and it hurt her deeply. However, as long as her friends were by her side, she could endure all the suffering the student body brought upon her.
Tragically and unexpectedly, though, her best friends, the girls Sunset had been with ever since her reformation, also believed that she was Anon-A-Miss and abandoned her. After everything they went through together, they almost immediately threw her away like trash to be left alone against the angry mob the rest of the school had turned into.
That was five days ago. Five horrible days, all on her own. Now, Sunset lay curled up on her bed inside of her small apartment, silently crying to herself. It was ten o' clock on a Monday, and she was supposed to be at school, but she didn't care. Not anymore. She wasn't going back to that hellhole. She didn't even bother to inform anybody about her absence.
'Not that anybody would miss me, anyway,' she thought. 'They'd probably throw a party if I never showed up at school again.'
Sunset tried to stand up, but her legs gave way when she put weight on them, and she hit the floor painfully, the thin carpet doing little to cushion the impact. She was a wreck, another "present" from the rest of the student body. During school, she only had to worry about some insults and shoving, but outside of school was a different matter.
The previous day, she was jumped by several students in an alleyway. Now, she was a mosaic of bruises and cuts, and her entire body was in pain. But what hurt the most was her left eye, swollen shut by a run-in with a fist, the strength of which belying its small size. But it wasn't the physical pain that gave it that dubious honor.
The day of her beating, she had made another attempt to reach out to her friends and convince them that she was innocent. The conversation didn't exactly go as planned. There was a lot of shouting from her friends and a lot of pleading from her. In the end, Rainbow Dash snapped and swung at Sunset, connecting with Sunset's eye. After getting back on her feet, Sunset ran away in tears, only to run past an alley and into the other students' ambush.
Just thinking about what Rainbow did brought her to tears again. Now, she was truly convinced that she had lost them. Or maybe, they never really were her friends in the first place. In fact, judging by how quickly they threw her aside, Sunset was growing more and more convinced that they were just waiting for her to go back to her old ways before the Fall Formal so that they could stop pretending to be her friends. She was only a charity case, and the only reason they stuck with her was a promise made to Twilight to teach her friendship. They would have never even talked to her if not for that promise.
Sunset lifted her head slightly to look at her journal on her nightstand, the only connection to Equestria she still had. It's been two days since the last message she received from Twilight, when Sunset mentioned that she would go to the girls again for another shot. Twilight had assured her that everything would be fine.
Since then, Sunset had written many messages to Twilight, each more desperate for help than the last, but the journal remained quiet. After two days, Sunset began thinking that even Twilight had had enough of her and that she was truly alone now.
Sunset tried again to stand up, and with a little perseverance and a lot of pain, she managed to stay on her feet this time. Her entire body was sore and rebelled with every step, but she nevertheless slowly made her way to the window and looked outside.
It had started snowing some time ago, and everything was covered in white. On any other day, the virgin snow and quiet scene would've brought a smile to Sunset's face. Now, though, it only reminded her of the frigid glares she had been constantly receiving and the cold grip of despair that choked her heart.
The whole school was against her again, and her friends had abandoned her. She had fallen further than rock bottom, and she was reaching her limit. But as a teenage girl, she couldn't just move away to another town, and without Twilight, she could not even go back to Equestria. She was lost.
'Oh, Celestia,' she thought, another tear running down her cheek, 'what should I do?'
At the same time, on the other side of Canterlot, a young, teenage girl fell backward onto her bed, sighing in relief. Her family had just moved into town from Manehattan, and she has just finished unpacking the last of her belongings and decided to rest for a few minutes.
"Sweetie, are you there?" she heard from the hall.
The girl groaned slightly, but she sat up quickly. "Yes, Mum, I am."
Her mum walked inside and looked around the room, her red hair swinging around with every movement of her head. She was a middle-aged woman but still a beautiful sight, something her husband reminded her of every day.
"Wow, you're already finished with your room," her mum said, surprised. "It looks really good. I was sure it would look like a storage room for at least two months. I guess I owe your dad ten dollars, now."
"Well, next time, you should make sure he's not allowed to bargain with me," the girl said with a smirk. "I'm getting fifty percent from him."
"I should've known he wouldn't play fair," her mum said, rolling her eyes.
The girl watched her mother look around, avoiding eye contact with her daughter all the while. She could tell that her mother did not simply come to look at the room.
"Okay, Mum, what's on your mind?" she asked.
Her mother let out a sigh and sat down on the bed beside her daughter. "Sweety, are you sure you want to go to that public school? I know that your dad and I said it's up to you, but I still think it would be better to go to a private school like before."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mum, I'm sure. Private schools are too focused on studies; most of the other students there don't think about anything else. I want to have fun and, more importantly, make some friends. And from what I heard, Canterlot High is a good school, so my grade point average won't suffer." She stood up from her bed and walked over to the window. Outside, the falling snow was dancing in the wind, creating a beautiful sight. "You'll see, Mum. I'll make a lot of friends and have tons of fun, all while keeping my grades up. Everything will be fine."
The teenager looked over the part of the neighborhood visible from her room, preparing herself for this new town.
Sunset Shimmer has arrived in Canterlot.