Three minutes into their spar, Sunset finally felt herself sliding into a zen state.
Sort of.
Despite Sunset’s challenge to Rainbow, there was no getting around it—she was definitely rusty. She supposed that was what happened to anyone when they laid down their gloves for the better part of two years. And she’d dared Rainbow to not hold back on her, to boot.
Which meant Rainbow wasn’t, and Sunset was forced to move as fast as she could around the ring, react as fast as she could to Rainbow’s arm movements, block as much as she could, and try to read Rainbow’s ranges and next moves as accurately as she could. Maintaining any one of these objectives would be a challenge. Doing all four at the same time was impossible, and she felt it every time she failed to do so, via gloved impacts each time Rainbow sped her way into grasping the upper hand. Thankfully Rainbow didn't seem to be trying to actually hurt Sunset, any more than Sunset was trying to Rainbow—otherwise things would have gotten very painful very fast.
However, where Rainbow definitely had the edge on speed, Sunset soon learned that she herself had the slightest edge on both power and endurance. Simply not giving a damn how much Rainbow’s punches stung—and they stung quite a bit, both in intensity and frequency—helped. Her frustration allowed her to fight through the pain, and channel that frustration into striking with firmer, more focused blows—and even Rainbow Dash couldn’t dodge them all. It was a good thing Rainbow was fighting fair and not using her geode—mainly because trying to punch something that could approach Mach 1 would be yet another challenge Sunset just wasn’t up for right now.
Still, even as things currently stood, Sunset was… actually enjoying this. Even if part of her still wanted to send a real right hook across Rainbow’s jaw for carting her here without permission in the first place, the resulting match was… refreshing. Invigorating. She felt far better than she had in months, much less the last 36 hours. The same kind of ‘much better’ she’d felt way back then, when she’d first gotten the hang of boxing under the world’s most no-nonsense coach.
As invigorating as the fight was, however, the landed hits eventually took their toll, and even Sunset’s stamina wasn’t infinite. She took a step back, resting her gloves on her knees and gasping for breath.
"All right," Sunset said between deep breaths, "I’ll admit it. you’re pretty good. You’re definitely at home in a ring."
"Why do you think I set this up in the first place?" Rainbow tapped her gloves together. "I’ll go ahead and admit that you surprised me, though."
Sunset chuckled. "Yeah, I’ve been told I’m full of those."
"Heh. No lies detected. So, I earn a story out of you, yet?"
"Hmmm…" Sunset made a show of musing over the question, but she already felt her second wind coming on. "Nah."
With two quick steps, Sunset rushed in, alternately feinting and jabbing, catching even Rainbow off guard. Sunset pressed her newfound advantage, let her punches slowly get more and more powerful, leaning into them, pulling away with every dodge, pushing into every one of her and Rainbow’s blocks. Soon, Rainbow found herself pushed back to her ropes, as Sunset followed her mentor’s teachings, turning herself into a wall, which Rainbow would have to put in extra effort to breach.
It looked like Rainbow didn’t have that in her, however—at least not yet. Rainbow darted backwards, and it was her turn to gasp for breath.
"Okay, yeah… not… not bad. I’m not giving up, though…" Rainbow, even in temporary defeat, kept her expression fierce as she stared at Sunset. "And I’m not giving up on you."
Those words.
They… reached Sunset. They rang a bell. More than a bell, more like a chorus of chimes, really. Especially since, coming from Rainbow, they sounded so… so determined. So passionate.
So earnest.
I’m not giving up on you, Sunset. No matter how much it hurts either of us.
The first one to say those words to Sunset… had been Celestia. Not the Princess, but the Principal. Even when Sunset had been an utter monster, terrorizing the woman’s school, turning it into a place nobody wanted to attend, Celestia had been nice enough—
naive beyond words
to act as if Sunset Shimmer still had a place in Canterlot High School. To act as if Sunset Shimmer could learn how to become friends with fellow students.
To act as if Sunset Shimmer wasn’t totally beyond saving.
Those sentiments, along with a boatload of that trademark determination, were written all across Rainbow Dash’s face right now.
Rainbow… are you really trying to ‘save me’ right now, too? And if that’s the case…
Sunset teetered, the tiniest bit.
…just how far have I fallen?
Sunset stepped back, keeping up her guard casually, but mainly just keeping her eyes on Rainbow, sizing her up, making sure she didn’t try any sudden moves. Rainbow continued staring back, likely with the same sort of aims, but her eyebrows furrowed in curiosity when she saw Sunset not moving.
Okay. Even with the kidnapping (that was a word Sunset was going to keep using, it completely fit, and she was sticking to it, damn it), maybe Rainbow had earned something for her troubles. A little bit. Slowly, she lowered one glove.
"Listen close, Rainbow. Because everything I say, I’m only going to say once."
Rainbow didn’t answer—which, being it was Rainbow, definitely qualified as ‘listening’ as far as Sunset was concerned. She put her gloves up again, walking back into Rainbow’s space.
"I want you to imagine that you’re born with talent. Really, really awesome talent, and the drive to nurture it. Trouble is, you know it. Everyone knows it. Everyone says you’re ‘special’. You get the best teacher in the business. She tells you you’re ‘special’ too. Eventually, you even start believing it yourself."
Sunset threw a punch, slow and light, which Rainbow ducked, and the dance began again, the two shuffling back and forth, away and toward each other circling the area of the ring.
"Yeah, I might know what that’s like," Rainbow replied, still in that earnest voice which suggested to Sunset that maybe opening up to her hadn’t been the worst choice ever. "Maybe."
Not that Rainbow wasn’t still going to make Sunset work for that satisfaction. Sunset felt two rapid jabs to her body before she was able to block them with her gloves and arms, and push Rainbow off of her. Even if they didn’t sting, they nagged, reminding Sunset that Rainbow refused to not take everything 120% seriously.
Once Sunset did get her block up, Rainbow stayed where she was, not advancing. Instead, she gave a simple nod. Sunset nodded back, and continued her speech.
"So, you figure: why not use that talent? So you do. You learn about everything you can about magic, and totally excel. You know what you’ve got, you know where you’re going, and you know you’re already the best there is at what you do. On top of that, you know you’re being groomed to be the pride of an entire world." Sunset continued to pace around the ring, Rainbow following suit, allowing the two to keep their bodily distance while each one kept the other in view. "But then, one day, those people who said you were so special and so great, who gave you all the high marks, and said you should live your best self?"
Sunset made sure to meet Rainbow’s eyes directly.
"They start telling you to slow down."
Instantly, Sunset could see Rainbow doing her best job of pretending that last sentence hadn’t phased her—and honestly, Sunset knew that anyone but herself would have been utterly fooled. But a telltale faltering on Rainbow’s end told all. Sunset knew she’d touched a nerve.
And Sunset used that moment to rush in, landing a punch square on Rainbow’s shoulder.
"They say they can’t keep up with you," Sunset huffed, throwing another punch, and another, both landing, staggering Rainbow and sending her scrambling to block. "That the natural order of things can’t keep up. Before, they encouraged you to reach for the stars, but now they want to hold you back!"
More punches. Faster. Usually Sunset would lay off in order to maintain stamina, but for some reason, maintaining stamina and conserving energy were becoming the last thing on her mind. Her eyes burned, welled up behind their sockets, as she kept punching straight ahead, kept speaking her mind, stream of consciousness, willing her voice not to crack.
"'No problem,' you say. You’re proud of yourself, you believe in yourself, but then the person who freaking runs your country, who took it upon herself to groom you as her successor, tells you to shove off, cause she’s not ready to face the inevitable yet!" Her punches still did not stop, pushing her opponent ever closer towards the ropes. "How would that make you feel, Rainbow?"
Then, suddenly, with a prolonged grunt, Rainbow finally broke her own defenses, withstanding Sunset’s hits and even deflecting a couple, biting back with her own punches, some of which made it through to Sunset’s body and chin before Sunset could finally mount her own defense. It was now a war to see who could get in what shots—and how many.
"Are you kidding?" Rainbow blurted, her cool demeanor finally slipping, and her voice taking on an edge. "I’d be freaking pissed!"
"Right?" The fight increased in speed, with both girls hopping around each other, feeling each other out with occasional punches. "You have no idea how pissed I was!" Sunset added, half-yelling.
"Would probably," Rainbow said with a calmer voice between hops and punches, "also see if there was a reason for all of it, though."
"Yeah, I thought the same thing." Sunset gritted her teeth. "I needed to know why everyone turned on me so suddenly. So I looked around. I asked around. And I listened, when they knew I was around, or even better, when they didn’t." Sunset wound up and released, the next movement of her arm being more of a push than a punch, which Rainbow back. "And what I found out was that everypony was scared of me! Including the ones I was sure believed in me the most!
"So, I left. If people were going to be scared of me, I decided it was going to at least be on my terms." Sunset stopped where she was, keeping her position, not even trying to mount a defense, slowly breathing deep, exhaling long, digging into her reserves of courage.
Because she knew that everything she'd said up until now... had been the easy part.
"Sunset…" Rainbow trailed off, her movements slowing as well.
"So," Sunset said, "Here’s the thing. I made some mistakes. Really, really bad ones. I wish I could take them back, but I never can, and I own them and their consequences. All of them. Except for one.
"Because imagine that, at the tail end of making those mistakes, someone from that world that you're still absolutely positive fears you, hits you with a beam that scrambles your mind and heart. Which rewires everything which makes you... you, without your permission. Which makes you think of how everyone else feels first, with no thought for yourself, even though everyone. Else. Is scared of you.
"Imagine what that does to someone’s self-esteem. Imagine suddenly learning exactly how many people you were making sad, all at the same time, simply by existing, and then feeling all of their sadness at once. Imagine being forced to consider everyone else before yourself, without getting a choice in the matter. Imagine coming to the conclusion, after so much overwhelming emotion being fed into you at once, and forever afterward, that you never mattered in the end. Imagine that feeling like you ever mattered was a bad thing, the worst thing, even before you did your stupid stuff, but especially after!
"Imagine that caring about yourself is bad for everyone. Bad for you. But that’s okay, because this is your punishment. And believe me, it hurts like hell."
Rainbow said nothing. Not that it was expected. It was a lot even for Sunset to grasp, and she'd lived it. She sighed.
"Finally, imagine that you find a few people who accept you anyway. But you still don’t know why. All you can conclude is pity. There’s certainly nothing you bring to the table. You’re still learning what friendship is. What being a decent person is, instead of a monster. It was the only thing you didn’t learn while the world was praising you, before stabbing you in the back.
"But those six girls? Unlike you, they’re worth something. Because they stuck by you. Because they didn’t betray you. But you betrayed them, just by becoming their friend, because all the dangers around them now are your fault. So it’s up to you to protect them—and it’s a full-time job and then some."
Her hands at her sides, Sunset walked up to Rainbow Dash, her expression stoic and unmoving, her gaze never wavering.
"That’s what it’s like to be me."
There. There it was. She’d said her piece. Now it was time for Rainbow’s response—if she even had one. Honestly, Sunset had blown her own mind with that mountain of revelations just now. Had she ever examined herself to that extent before?
She already knew the answer, barely after she’d asked the question.
Of course not. I was too afraid of what I’d find.
She didn’t have long to wait for Rainbow’s answer, either. After a short bout of silence, Rainbow put up her gloves. Sunset put up hers in kind, ready for another round.
It never came.
Sunset only registered Rainbow’s shining blue aura for half a second, before she felt a geode-powered punch slam into her arms. It didn’t hurt—Rainbow definitely held back, making it more of a tap, a mild shock—but it still launched Sunset backwards, across the ring, into the ropes with pinpoint precision, sending her onto her butt afterwards.
Sunset looked up, her heart shattering as, coming off of feeling the last thing she expected, she then saw the last thing she expected. Rainbow Dash was directly above her, looking down at her with… disdain. Annoyance. The empathy, the connection from earlier was… it was gone.
In its place appeared to be pure contempt. The same contempt with which so many ponies had looked down on her.
"Little weird, don’t you think?" Rainbow said. "All your talk about self-worthlessness, but it sounds like you still found a way to make it all about you."
Sunset’s eyes widened, the words hitting her harder than any punch ever could, even one from Gilda, or, for that matter, her old coach.
She’s not wrong.
Her temperature shot up. Her heart raced, boiled, bubbled over.
how DARE she
she’s not wrong
i OPENED UP to her
she’s not wrong
she ASKED for ALL of this
she’s not wrong—
FUCK HER NOT BEING WRONG
"You know what? To hell with this! Fine! I have! I’ve made it all about me!"
Sunset leapt up and rushed in, punching as hard as she could, no longer trying in the slightest to hold back, but only managing glancing blows as Rainbow was now definitely using her geode to evade at close quarters. Even if Rainbow hadn’t been, though, in the back of her mind Sunset knew that her punches were more than sloppy enough to read, but it wouldn’t matter, all it would take was one good hit in the right place and this smug bitch goes down like all the rest who get in Sunset Shimmer’s way—
"I knew you wouldn’t understand!" Sunset cried, her words echoing through the gym.
"I understand perfectly!" Rainbow said, her tone equal parts dismissive and… earnest again? "I understand you haven’t learned a single thing this whole time! Cause we already know what you’ve got going on, and we’re here for you anyway, no matter how much of a screwup you are!"
"I know you are!" Sunset continued, near the top of her lungs, now lunging into every attempted punch, her whole world now a blend of hair and red and impacting flesh. "And it doesn’t matter! You think I haven’t tried to break out of this? I hate that I’ve made it all about me! I’ve tried to stop it so many times! But the stupid thing that stops me, every time, is the thought of you! How much I love you, even you, you fucking dumbass, and how, if anything were to ever happen to you, especially because of me and the magic I brought here…"
Energy failed Sunset for a brief moment, and she slumped—and that moment was all Rainbow needed to land a punch to Sunset’s chest, winding her. Instinct kicked in, instinct that implored every bone in Sunset’s body to rip Rainbow apart— but Sunset just barely managed to hold that instinct at bay, and she stood there, kneeling, lopsided, breathing loud and long.
I wouldn’t have any reason to not let every terrible, evil thought and impulse inside me take over again. I wouldn’t care about this world anymore, if any of you left it. The demon would be back. For good this time.
She looked up.
And her voice finally cracked.
"I’m not giving up on you."
An orange glow surrounded Sunset Shimmer as she glared daggers at Rainbow Dash. The glow intensified in hue and brightness, pulsing with the cadence of her voice.
"I don’t care how mean you are to me, Rainbow. You’re my center. All of you are. But I’m… I’m scared. Scared that no one else is, nothing else is."
Her voice cracked again, mixing with small, whimpering sounds. Her eyes burned. She punched the canvas, shaking tears loose. They dropped below, barely heard and completely unseen due to watery vision.
"So if I don’t make sure everything goes perfect, if I don’t always win, if I don’t make up for my mistakes every single minute of my life, if I don’t keep you all alive, if I don’t, at all times, remind myself that it’s all on me, all my fault—"
Sunset let herself think, for a split second, of how things might have been if Twilight, or any of them, hadn’t survived the accident yesterday.
A split second was all that was needed for the dam to burst, and for Sunset to break.
Orange aura turned burning red as Sunset screamed as loud and as hard as she could—red, the aura of her anger, her demonic self, her worst fear, from the loneliest and bleakest of her nightmares.
Of course it was still in her. As if she could ever be better than who she was.
Silently, still covered in crimson, feeling nothing save for the heat of her past-but-still-smoldering fury, Sunset stood to her feet… and stayed there, silent, hiccupping, and tearful.
This is it. This is really me. The monster who never deserved a first chance, let alone all the ones people gave me.
She stood there, lingering in despair, not wanting, not able, to move, to speak, to protest, to do anything but cry. Cry for anyone who would hear her, whether they cared or not.
Until she felt fingers swipe away at her tears.
With her vision clear, she saw Rainbow Dash smiling at her. Earnest. Reassuring. Serene.
Caring.
Softly, she took Sunset’s hand. Sunset twitched, not knowing what to think, but in the end, let it happen, and she looked back up at Rainbow again, her body trembling, inside and out, as Rainbow stepped closer.
"Finally," was Rainbow’s only word, almost hidden under her breath yet which Sunset heard, clear as day, as Rainbow took off Sunset’s headgear, wrapped her arms around Sunset’s neck…
…and pressed their lips together.
Sunset didn’t stop it. She could have if she wanted to. Instead, she closed her eyes.
And the world played itself back in monochrome.