In the endless void, I wrote. Not like I had anything else to do while I waited for Starlight to decide it was showtime, and I found a pen and notebook in my bag after a minutes searching. The first letter were some simple instructions to Twilight in case she got here after everything happened and I wasn’t around. Simple stuff like if you see someone that doesn’t look like me, run. If you see someone holding a camera, run. If you see any polaroids, with one exception, please break the border but don’t rip any further. Just the basics of what to do to not get caught and start cleaning up the mess we made, plus a little apology for stealing a magical artifact. Then I turned to the other people I’d be leaving behind, assuming this didn’t end with Starlight’s complete and total victory. Or me flipping back to her side. Which – I clenched my jaw – wasn’t impossible.
Daisy, I wish we could have gotten to know each other more. I hate myself for betraying you and sending you to this fucking void, but if it’s any consolation, I’m probably going to be spending a lot of time here, and if you’re reading this then obviously, you escaped. I think if things had been different, we could have been pretty great friends. The fact I’ll never know for sure is one of my biggest regrets.
Apologies, Sunset
Dad, you kind of sucked and made my life miserable after Mom died, and I’m not going to give you a pass on that just because it puts a pretty, little bow on our relationship. But, the last time we talked, it sounded like you might be trying to make amends, and maybe that wasn’t just drunken rambling. If it was real, then I want you to know I would have at least tried to fix things on my end. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked and things were just too far gone, and I’m definitely blaming you for fucking up my views on relationships. Still, I wish we had time to at least try and fix things, and I’m sorry for robbing us both of that chance.
Your Daughter, Sunset
Jesus, when did I turn into Colt Lake’s biggest sap? I guess having a sensitive side was kind of badass in a new age-y way. Better than being an emotionally closed off bitch who wouldn’t recognize she was sinking into a toxic relationship just because she got to have amazing sex with someone who adored her, right? Still… I started on my next letter.
Rose, I wanted to say something I never got to tell you when you were around: You’re a bitch, I hate you, go fuck yourself. But I am also sorry about imprisoning you. I guess I was kind of a bitch, too, and I my plan didn’t work out well for either of us.
Sincerely, Sunset
Anyone else? I tapped the pen against the next sheet of paper in my notebook. Maybe one more.
Hoops and Score, you both suck, but I just want you to know that I’m the one who’s saving your asses, I got the better of you in the majority of our fights, and if you’re reading this note, you will never, ever be able to even the score, so suck it.
The Best, Sunset
And just in time, I saw the little rift of color that meant in time in purgatory was briefly at an end. I got back on my feet, stretched, and walked towards freedom.
***
Freedom looked a lot like an empty hallway leading to the gymnasium. Of course, Starlight still wanted to make an entrance, it was our big night after all. On cue, speakers in the hallway crackled to life and the first notes of a song drifted through as I strode towards the double gymnasium doors.
“We can start and finish wars,” Starlight crooned, voice distorted by the machine. “We’re what killed the dinosaurs, we’re the asteroid that’s overdue.” I ripped out Twilight’s note and folded it before setting the book down resting against one of the doors.
Starlight’s voice rose as I opened the door, surrounding me. “The dinosaurs will turn to dust, they’ll die because we say they must.” The door shut behind me, pinching the note to Twilight and ending Starlight’s sentence with a bang, as I got my first glimpse of the horror show.
If you didn’t know what they represented, the polaroids taped to the bleachers might look weird, but not that alarming, and otherwise, the winter decor didn’t look too bad. But I did know what they represented, and the imprisoned spirits of our classmates serving as captive audience were... exactly what I expected from Starlight.
Starlight sat over an electric piano, rising up and looking over her shoulder at me. She smiled, hitting the next line of her song without instrumentation. “The new world needs room for me and you.” She smacked a button on the keyboard and two great spotlights lit us up. Like I said, something dramatic. “I worship you,” Starlight said, taking a step towards me, light following her.
Even now, a part of me just wanted to run up to her and never let go, I fought the urge. “I know.” I made my own movement to the center, and the light went with me. “Good job programming this. The lights must’ve been a pain to pull off.”
She giggled, cheeks tinging red like I’d just said she looked pretty on our first date. “I wish I could take credit, but the AV club are actually the ones to thank. I told them I wanted to do something special for you at the dance, and if they helped me, I’d let them watch.” She pointed at a photo pinned to the piano. If I squinted, I could make out a few faces bound inside its borders. “I hope you don’t mind if I keep that photo close by, I don’t want them to feel short changed.”
“Why would I mind?” I asked, stepping closer to our rendezvous at half-court. “Got to admit, this is kind of impressive.” Terrifying, but impressive. “You worried you’ll run out of ideas?”
“Not at all,” she said, still smiling. She wore a tuxedo under the duster, all black and white with a single red carnation pinned to her. “I’ve spent the last week brainstorming, and I promise, I’ll make every milestone of our relationship one to remember. For our engagement, for instance, we’re going to really start making the world better.”
“Oh?” We stood at half court, feet away from each other, the camera hanging down from her neck, as the spotlights merged. “And tell me, how are we going to get there?”
“You’re going to love it.” She reached out and took my hands. “We were too strict with our standards before. We assumed people were basically decent until proven otherwise, but that’s not right, because no matter how good they try to act, they still live in a society that’s rotten to the core. No matter how good they pretend they are, they still have that poison flowing through their veins, passing it on from generation to generation. Even you! By all rights, you should be hanging on that wall for what you did to me, but I understand. You felt sympathy for the wrong people, and you doubted yourself. So, instead of punishing you, I made things easier and just took away the wrong people. Now, no one can come between us.”
“And so, that’s the plan? Just get rid of everyone else until it’s only me and you left?” Destroying the human race? I guess that would get rid of human suffering in a roundabout way.
“No.” She rolled her eyes as a song came on over the speakers. “Can we dance?”
I nodded, acting submissive, disarmed, doing my best to ignore the camera pressing against me. I didn’t enjoy the smell of her hair or the way her hands felt against mine. This was strictly to do what was necessary.
We swayed to the music, hundreds of unseeing eyes on us, watching from the crater walls as we danced. “That’s just genocide. No, we’re going to save the children.” She beamed with her brilliance. “Think about it, before kindergarten, we’re so sweet and innocent, but then? Society starts getting shoved in our brains, so if we can get to the kids before then?”
“Then we can raise them to be however we want,” I finished.
“We can raise them to be good,” she said, resting her head on my shoulders. “We can teach them all the right ways to do things, to be sweet and innocent and kind, and they can teach their children, and we can give them a better world. Yes, it won’t be nice for the people we’re imprisoning, but you can’t put a price on utopia.”
Maybe. Ok, so I felt bad and had cold feet, but did I really want a lifetime of interactions with people like that one idiot from outside? Did I just want to grin and bear that stupidity because he deserved to pollute the world with his stupidity. I sighed as we circled around each other, spotting the photo of Daisy crying in a bathroom corner posted right next to the photos of Rose and Lily. “It could almost work,” I said.
She picked her head off me at that. “Almost? What’s wrong? I spent a week working on this plan, thinking through every aspect of it. It’s extreme, I admit, but it’s the only thing we can trust will work.”
Beyond the fact that we’d be lucky if we could vanish everyone in Colt Lake, let alone the world, it had another teensy little issue. “Starlight, the people you have teaching the new generation about morality? Are us. We might as well have Genghis Khan teach about pacifism.”
Starlight threw her head back and groaned. “Sunset, are you still on this? If you really thought I was doing something wrong, you would have shot me, but you didn’t.”
“You’re right, a part of me just wants to say ‘fuck it,’ let the world burn, and be with you, and I know if I give it time, and you keep acting nice, I will give in, because people are terrible, and we have a camera that can get rid of people without a trace. That temptation’s pretty hard to resist.”
“So you are with me,” she said, smiling as we continued our dance around center court, staying in the spotlight.. “I understand you still have issues, but I promise–”
“No,” I said, tightening my grip on her. “I love you, but we have to stop this, we have to at least try and be better than our worst selves. Why don’t you leave the camera, hop on my bike, and we can just get out of here?”
“Because if I’m wrong, then neither of us deserve to live. We can’t just hop on a bike and go to Seaddle, no matter how nice it sounds.” She tried to dip me, I let her, helping the camera wiggle out of the space between us.
“Ahh, but I’ve been thinking, too,” I said, holding up a finger on my right hand, disentangling it from her. “What if we say I tricked you? That I came in with my sexy bike, amazing hair, and your womanly emotions overrode your judgment. And as for me? I saw this cute girl, I wanted to impress her, I found a magic camera, so of course I used it. We were both just victims of teenage hormones, and when we came to, we realized how much we screwed up and fled to start a new, crime-free life together.”
“And the students of Westercolt?” she asked. “Our parents? Sunburst? We’re just leaving them in their photographs?”
“Already way ahead of you.” I angled her so she could see the door I came in from. “I left a note for the next person who comes in through that door explaining how to free everyone. Assuming these are all the photos, they can save the day while we just get the hell out of here, what do you say?”
“That sounds so nice,” she said. I twirled her around, setting the camera swinging, and when we came back together, I caught it with the free hand, keeping it from getting stuck between us. “Could we take the camera?”
“No,” I said. She frowned. “Nothing truly good can come from that camera, and if we brought it with us, it would just be a matter of time until we used it again. We need to be better than that, Starlight, but I believe we can.” I kissed her, drawing her into me, shrinking the world outside us into non-existence. I gripped the camera, doing my best to position it.
“But what if there’s another Hoops? Or Score? Or Rose? Someone else who just wants to hurt us? How can we take that chance?”
She was so close, so fucking close, to getting it, but could I blame her for standing at that final ledge and not being willing to jump? “Starlight, you were right about one thing. The world’s filled with assholes, and even the decent ones, the ones who love you more than anyone else, can be real, unbearable jerks sometimes. We’re always going to have another Hoops or Score or Rose, and there are people out there that make them look like saints, and we’ll probably run into them, too.” For instance, if we looked into a mirror. “But some of them can change and get better. And some of them aren’t as bad as you think. And most aren’t monsters at all, just hurting and desperate to make the pain stop anyway they can. We don’t know them well enough to make that judgment. We can’t say who’s who. We don’t know everything, and if we start acting on those snap judgments? That’s how you turn into one of the assholes you’re trying to get rid of. So, we can be better, right?” In the moment, I believed it, but if I held on to the camera? Bit by bit, that attempt at morality would break down with every new irritation.
Starlight sniffled, tears welling up in her eyes. Maybe these were real. “I want to believe that, Sunset, I do, but can’t we just take the camera with us? Put it in a safe, just in case something comes up?”
We could, and we’d be back here in a few years. “We both suck at being good, Starlight,. Even if we mean well today, even if we wake up every morning from now on trying to be our best selves, us holding onto the camera is like a toddler holding onto a loaded gun.”
She shook her head, and I saw I lost her in that moment. Well, we’d have time to convince each other later. “No, I can’t accept that,” she said. “This has to have happened for a reason; you don’t find actual magic and chalk it up as random chance. We have a destiny, Sunset.”
Destiny. That sounded nice. Like every awful thing we did was pre-ordained for the greater good. Like maybe my mom was meant to walk into the building so I’d grow up damaged enough to decide getting rid of Rose was a good thing and start this chain reaction. And maybe Daisy, if we didn’t get rid of her, she’d grow into an unbearable bitch, and we did the world a solid. If I listened to Starlight long enough, I’d probably believe anything. I made my decision.
“I know we do,” I said, kissing her forehead and stroking her ego. “People are going to remember us for a long time, I promise.” She closed her eyes and rested against me. When she opened them again, she’d be somewhere… safe, at least. Where no one could hurt her.
In a way, it seemed fitting. I started this with a photograph, and I’d end it the same way, and maybe that revealed how little I learned through it all. Sunset Shimmer, still breaking things, still pretending she’s the hero even though everything she touches turns to ashes. I really didn’t know the first thing about being a decent person. But I knew how to stop the damage. Raising my free arm, I lifted the camera up above us and pressed the shutter release, making sure to smile for posterity as the world turned brilliant and blinding.