//------------------------------// // Heartache // Story: ARK: Friendship Evolved // by A Galaxy Tycoon //------------------------------// "Why... how could they all abandon me?" Sunset Shimmer mumbled in a ball, her eyes red and hair a mess from crying for hours. It pained her to remember what happened here in Canterlot. ***** Flashback ***** In the first week of November, an unknown perpetrator named Anon-a-Miss was using a social website called myStable as an outlet to spread secrets of students and few of the school staff alike. It began with an embarrassing childhood secret of Applejack's, her nickname being Piggly Wiggly. At first, it was shrugged off with the belief that it would just be a minor nuisance than anything else. However, it quickly escalated when more secrets of other students were posted. The question was, who was responsible for this disaster? The answer, according to everyone, was Sunset Shimmer. Who else could it have been, they had asked themselves. It was obvious to them that the former queen bee of Canterlot High was returning to her cruel and manipulative ways. What made matters worse was the fact that her five best friends also believed that she was Anon-a-Miss and ultimately shunned her in the worse way possible. Now she had hell to pay. However, it was never Sunset. Despite her pleas and begs of innocence, no one listened to her cries. She had worked so hard to get everyone to see her as a new person, but it was proven useless. Through the course of November and early December, Sunset was met with unimaginable ire, bullied both physically and mentally by the students, whose actions were ignored by a majority of the staff. There were several occasions where she would be tormented out in the open halls and a teacher would do nothing to stop it. Much later on a snowy late afternoon, she made her way to the Sweet Shoppe, a small pastry shop where she and her friends would often congregate. When she saw them inside, she mentally prepared herself to try to prove her innocence with her bag around her shoulder. 'Sometimes, all you can do is stay strong. Stay yourself. And find your family.' Sunset rephrased what Twilight wrote to her. Unlike everyone else, her onetime rival turned best friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle, truly believed she was innocent. However, since she was so busy with her duties back in Equestria, all she could do was offer some form of advice. She opened the door, now seeing her friends sitting together at a table. They took notice of the pony turned human and neither of them were happy. "Hey! Get out!" Rainbow Dash got up and hollered. "Yer not welcome here, Sunset!" Applejack growled. "No, wait! Please!" The girl in question dug into her bag. "I know you don't trust me and I can't prove that I'm innocent, but please. Please look at this." She brought our her magic journal in one hand. "I've been telling Twilight everything that's been happening and she-" "So you lied to her too?" Rainbow Dash asked rudely, visibly getting angrier. "We're sick and tired of this!" "Just look at this." Sunset opened the journal to her designated page. "Twilight reminded me that you are more than my friends. You're my family. You know me better than anyone. Ask yourselves. Would the Sunset Shimmer you know, the real Sunset Shimmer, the person I am now, would do this?" She knew she was taking a big gamble here, but if Twilight believed her, will they believe her as well? The Rainbooms silently glared at Sunset, not paying any attention to the book. "Yes..." Rainbow Dash broke the ice, to the shock of Sunset. "She would. You always manipulate people so you can gain their trust. And when they least expect it, you betray them! Stop trying to prove yourself innocent! We all know it's you!" Everyone else agreed with her. That made Sunset begin swelling tears in her eyes. She just couldn't believe how all of the people, the very ones she considered a family, were now looking at her as the bully she once was last year. "Why do you all still think I'm lying?!" She cried, tears trailing down her cheeks as she clutched the closed book in her grip. "I'm not lying! Why would I expose your secrets after all we've been thr-" "Stop it, Sunset!" Pinkie Pie screeched, interrupting her. "Just stop it! You've posted secrets and hurt everyone in the process! Why should we do anything about it?!" "B-but Pinkie! Remember those times where I had fun at your parties? They were the best times I had in my life! You even let me help you prepare them!" "Well, maybe you were pretending to be having fun like the party pooper you are, you big meanie!" Sunset looked towards the athlete of the group. "Dash, how about the times I came to your games and cheered you on!" "You mean pretended to cheer me on?" Rainbow Dash sarcastically remarked. "We know how you always take advantage of people. Well, you won't be doing so any longer!" "Rarity! Remember all of those dresses we made together and how I helped you organize your stuff?!" "That was all before I realized that was just a front. You never changed at all." Rarity stood up and sneered. "You're nothing but a two-faced psychopath who's willing to ruin everyone's lives solely for your petty amusement! You should have never been forgiven at all!" "Fluttershy! Please! You have to believe me! After the Fall Formal, you've been kindest to me out of everybody! I helped you at the animal shelter and-!" "Hey!" Pinkie butted in. "Leave her out of this you-" "Pinkie, wait." Fluttershy turned back to Sunset with a dark expression. "What you said may be true... but you've been so cruel to me when we first met. I... I thought you really changed, but now, you're back to your old ways again! How could you, Sunset?!" She now sobbed. "We... I trusted you and you lied to me! You're... you're nothing to us!" Sunset's sadness was beginning to overtake her. She turned to the southern girl in desperation. "AJ!" Sunset cried out. "What about those times I helped you at Sweet Apple Acres and-" "Don't call me that, ya lying snake!" Applejack snapped. "To think ah actually called ya mah family. Yer an insult to the word 'family'! Ah bet your own parents were ashamed of having yah as a daughter!" If Sunset's heart was represented by glass, it would've cracked at that insult. "You're a mean secret stealer!" Pinkie Pie snapped. "You shouldn't have come out of that hole when we blasted you that time!" "You're nothing but a traitor, Sunset." Rainbow Dash stated. "You're that terrible person and always will be! Nobody wants you here!" "WHY DON'T YOU GET OUT OF OUR LIVES?!" The Rainbooms all yelled together. Sunset was taken back by their hostility. Her tears clouded her vision, but she knew they were all glaring at her. The emotion that swelled within her was complete sadness. Sadness that the very friends that she thought of as sisters she never had now believe in the lies of Anon-a-Miss. Sadness that they abandoned her without a second thought. Sadness that she might very well have been nothing but a charity case to them. Sadness at all of the brief memories of how they would always bring up her mistakes. And all of that sadness slowly evolved into anger. "So this is how it ends?" Her fists clenched. "Repeat that 'gain?" Applejack crossed her arms. "I said THIS IS HOW IT ALL ENDS!? AFTER ALL WE'VE BEEN THROUGH?!" Sunset unleashed her fury, startling the five people in front of her. "I did my damnedest to prove that I changed after what happened at the Fall Formal! I HAD TO REPAIR THE SCHOOL ENTRANCE BY MYSELF TOOTH AND NAIL! AND I ACCEPTED GETTING DETENTION FOR THE REST OF THAT BUCKING YEAR! I SACRIFICED EVERYTHING I HAD LEFT AND HELPED EVERYBODY AFTER SCHOOL, INCLUDING MR. CRANKY! AND I GAVE IT MY ALL WHEN THE BATTLE OF THE BANDS CAME UP! AND I SAVED ALL OF YOUR LIVES FROM THE SIRENS, CELESTIA DAMN IT! AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?! FAMILY?! FAMILY, MY ASS-" CLUNK! She was interrupted when a napkin holder hit her square in the right cheek hard, enough to knock her down. It snapped her out of her fury. The culprit of the deed was none other than Rainbow Dash. The other girls were too shocked to say anything about her actions. "This is your last chance to get out while you still can, she-demon." Rainbow Dash threatened. "Get out of our lives for good and don't come back." Finally, Sunset broke down in a fountain of tears. The once hopeful girl was reduced to a sobbing mess. She got off the floor, grabbed her journal, and ran off, passing by Applebloom who was about to enter the small diner. ********** Sunset was so devastated, she ran as far as she could from the city, vowing to never return. Just a couple of miles away in a forested freeway, she took shelter under a bridge next to a frozen river. She was too busy sniffling, rubbing her bruised cheek, and wiping her tears away, she didn't notice the wind shifting around her. She looked back at her book, glaring at it as she took it and began to write... Dear Princess Twilight, ...I can't do this anymore. It's no use. I took your advice, but no one wants to believe me. I could save them countless times and they'll see me as nothing but a monster. This 'family' I thought I found were nothing but liars... I could try to return to Equestria, but I doubt anypony would want somepony like me... Why is it whenever everypony else is accepted by friendship, I'm only met wiTH PAIN AND HATRED? YOU SAID THAT THEY WOULD TEACH ME ABOUT FRIENDSHIP! WHY?!! WHY DID THIS 'FRIENDSHIP' HAVE TO ULTIMATELY BE A LIE!!! With those final words written hard on the journal, she threw her book to the other side of the stream in a brief fit of rage. She fell on her knees and looked up at the sky. "Why can't I be happy for once?! Am I just destined to be hated forever?!!" She screamed. With no answer, she sat there and laid in a fetal position, covering her face with her hands. "What do I have to do to show that I've changed?" In the midst of her haggard breathing, she thought she heard the river's ice sheet cracking, getting her attention. At first, she thought it was her mind playing tricks on her until a weird flash of light appeared beneath the frozen barrier. And then a trio of colored lights shined in the water while the ice starting breaking as if something was wanting out, forcing her to get a couple of feet back. The shattered ice sheets yielded to three glowing triangles (red, green, and blue), two large metallic pieces, and small stones that emerged, orbiting around each other and then fused together into a symbol that was shaped like the letter A, throwing away the rocks it took with it to the surface. Sunset had to duck to avoid a few of the stones that shattered onto the concrete column behind her. She looked back up to see the strange... thing no bigger than a mattress in all of its glory. It only floated three meters above the river, humming a lowly drone. "Wha-what in Celestia's name is that?" As if it heard her, the triangles on the A's three corners emitted thin beams of light in random directions, each being one of the three colors. She would normally sit there and gawk at the phenomenon if she didn't notice the lights were getting brighter as they drew closer to her, before they all shined on her and immediately vanished. The patterns on the A began glowing yellow before something happened. "After fire is ash." The simple message was delivered by a deep electronic voice from a nonexistent crowd, calm and cold. She understood it as it was laid out; a short sentence describing what fire creates. Was there supposed to be some sort of ulterior meaning behind those words? But then, a weird blueish-purple black hole erupted to life in its center, getting bigger by the second. She could feel its gravitational power slowly pulling her in. Realizing what it was trying to do, she attempted to run for it, only for the portal to get stronger tenfold, lifting her off her feet and towards itself. All she could do was scream before she disappeared in a flash of white along with the A, then the winds shifted very violently as snow flew everywhere in the area. The winter became so unforgiving when a ghostly equine figure arrived. It stepped down to where the former pony once stood and looked in all directions, as if it was searching for something or someone, before it let out a spectral growl of frustration and flew away. The magical journal was the only item left behind and now, it was embraced by the blanket of snow.