With a moon's full height Twilight is gone, Spike along with her. At once eyes turn to Sunset Shimmer with livid anger and hate.
The former unicorn feel sick to her stomach, a feeling of agony clutching her heart. Scratches decorate her, along with filth from the crater she'd been in. She tried to look away from the glares. In all honesty brainwashing teenagers is not what she wanted, all she wanted was to prove to Celestia that she can be powerful. The demon took control of her, forcing her to do that. She humiliated herself, now she have nothing. Although Twilight's friends said they'd help, but this happy thought is shattered by a sudden raspy voice.
"Oh now you feel bad." Rainbow Dash snaps. "You didn't feel bad when you tore apart our friendship!" Her loyal reputation for her friends proceeds her. She flinched at her harsh comment. "Or when you insulted us and our families ways and ruin our business for a while." Applejack adds. "You sabotaged me when I ran for Spring Fling, destroy my outfits, steal my data, and spread horrid lies about me." Rarity continues. "Plus sabotaged the party and ruin the bake sale." Pinkie finishes. Only Fluttershy remains quiet but even her usually kind face is cold. The tears fall more from Sunset at all the reminders.
"Forget about us trying to be friends with you." Applejack states, the five walking off. Sunset's shoulders slump as everyone disperses, leaving her with the damage. Luna and Celestia are also giving her cold looks. she sniff slightly, wiping her eyes with my sleeve.
"What will my punishment be?" Sunset asked, her voice hollow, her lack of confidence making her vulnerable and breakable. "Firstly you'll repair the damages tonight." Celestia sternly says. "Then you will have a week of suspension while we wait for the court hearings.". Sunset nodded in understanding.
Sunset cannot go back to Equestria. She needs to stayed here, where everyone hates her. She felt she deserve it, deserve worse, a truly negative thought. She don't care though. It is negative, a complete mirror of her choices which lead to this.
Six weeks of community service along with suspension, then Sunset will go back to school on the first weekday after her she finished it. She is helping out with the repairs every weekdays from early 8pm to 6am under the supervision of her supervisor and the head of the construction crew. The service will be tiring, but she brought it on her own self.
Third day of working, it is 5:30am, Sunset was hammering something while clad in a yellow vest and a helmet. Without any warning, seven hooded figures arrived behind her with smug grins covering each of their faces. "Hey Sunset," one of them said and the former bully dropped her hammer and turned to face the boys, her face utterly blank. "Yes," Sunset said quietly. Without warning, one of them opened a trash bag, revealing dozens of water balloons and proceed to throw at her, leaving her utterly soaked in brown paint.
"You made everyone feel like shit," the tall one yelled. "So now we're gonna make you look like shit," the second tallest one said. All the other boys let out some cruel laughter as they continued covering Sunset with mud-colored paint. The girl isn't trying to hide, nor defending herself, and wasn't even hollering threats at them. She just stood there and took it. "What's a matter, gonna cry," another boy said in a taunting matter. Indeed, she was on a verge of tears.
Suddenly, a flash light came into the distance. The group of boys began running away, shouting "police.". A short figure continued to pelt at her, and had to be dragged off by one of the others. One of the construction guys, came running up to the paint covered Sunset.
"What's going on here?!", her supervisor hollored. He looked at Sunset with more than a bit of pity. The man put his hand on Sunset's shoulder and muttered, "Are you hurt?", she shook her head. The man whispered something else, "You can take a short break.". Sunset reluctantly walked away. It was when she got far enough away from the entrance, and felt alone, that Sunset put her face into her hands and began crying.
A figure suddenly appeared beside her, casting a shadow over her. Sunset turned her head to see who it is, and is able to figure out who it is from the silhouette. Applejack, facing her, hands beside both of her hips. Despite the facial expression being hidden in the shadows, Sunset still felt that the expression is possible unsympathetic. After half a minute of silence, Applejack simply walk away.
Even if Applejack did not do anything, she know what this simple action mean. Nobody will ever truly forgive her. She's no longer welcome in the school. She's all alone, and no doubt everybody will want here gone.
Then it is decided. She's done with the school, she's done thinking about making amends, she's done with Equestria, she's done with everything. When she finished her suspension, she's gonna move on, where nobody will hate and reject her, where she can finally be a new person, to prove the world that she had changed.
So what if the Princess is worried about her when she returned. She's the one that told her to seek out the magic of friendship, and she cannot do that all alone while people hate her.
Sunset pulled her motorcycle into the student parking lot. The last day she will park her motorcycle here.
As soon as Sunset entered, all the gossip and chatter ceased as everyone noticed the former bully. The students all gave her looks of fury all the way to the principal's office. She tried to ignore the looks while pacing to the office.
As she walked by Flash, her ex-boyfriend slammed the locker he was emptying in and gave her once last brutal look before walking away. Sunset flinched at the gesture. She knew she deserved it, but it still stung. However, she could not care less about it anymore.
She walk past Raven Inkwell, Principal Celestia's secretary who was looking at her pacing to the office without going through her first. She yelled in fury at Sunset to stop, but she did not listen.
Sunset swung the door open, startling Vice-principal Luna. She looked up from her paperwork, preparing to scream at the former bully for storming in without permission, but was immediately surprised when an envelope is placed on her desk. The former unicorn look at Vice-principal Luna with a blank expression, before running out. "Miss Shimmer!?", the vice-principal screamed as she exited her office to chase after the girl.
Sunset run and run, ignoring the glares and insults from the hallway of students. Vice-principal Luna is also jogging down the hallway, but cannot catch up to the girl's stamina. After Sunset ran through the exit, tears are running down on her face as she hopped on her motorcycle before quickly wear her helmet and drive away. Meanwhile, Luna just arrived outside just in time to see her soon-to-be former student driving away.
Luna dragged herself back into her office. Sighing, she reached for the school's phone and call someone. "Tia.", "Lulu?", the exchange between two sisters started. "I know you're busy but...Sunset just left an envelope in front of my desk and ran away from the school.", "Oh", "It's an oh alright, I could not even catch up with her before she left in her bike. I believe that this envelope will indicate why.", "Okay i'll go to your office now.".
After the conversation, Luna opened the envelope for herself first and she look into the contents: A stack of cash and a folded piece of paper. The vice-principal is surprised by the amount of money, but her main focus now is the other form of paper. She removed it from her envelope, and saw the sentence 'Share with the school' before opening it and scroll through the handwritten contents. Her eyes widened in shock, mouth agape and whispered, "Oh Sunset.".
Not long before that, Celestia walked in and saw her sister's shocked expression. She proceed to ask in concern, "What's wrong?" as Luna turn to her and said, "We need to get to Sunset's house, now!".
The door of an run down apartment slammed open. "Sunset!?" both sisters shouted in unison, no reply for them. They realised the living room is simple in design, not having much decoration, only a couch, a coffee table and a television. The place is slightly moldy on the walls and not far from the living room, a kitchen with some grime on the stove and unwashed dishes. The sisters wondered how can the girl live in such a filthy place, but beggars can't be choosers when you are a horse from an alternate dimension, which makes it even worse considering the horse has left.
Luna opened the door to the bathroom. It is small, with the sink, toilet bowl and showers placing next to each other. Like other parts of the house, the porcelain is filthy, covered in grime and considering most of the bathroom is made out of the material, grime is everywhere. Luna felt nauseous after viewing the bathroom, but she soon closed it as there is no sight of Sunset.
Celestia opened the door to the bedroom. The bedroom is also small, with a bed next to a small table with a drawer. The mattress on the bed is moldy too on it's bedsheets and pillow caused by unwashed drool. There's a small table and chair in front of the bed which had textbooks and worksheets placed on it and it can be quickly deduced that it's a study desk. The principal's heart further ached at not asking about the girl's living conditions sooner, maybe she can help her and she will not be felt alone.
"Tia is she inside!", "No!". Both sisters meet together again at the living room before the elder one said, "We had to call the police." and the younger one nodded before reaching for her cell and dial 911.
The next day, everyone are gathered at the hall before the first period starts. There were chattering, some are casual conversations and some are wondering why are they being called.
The crowd immediately silenced as Principal Celestia walk to the stage. She is unusually tired, bags under her eyes and rubbing her temples while walking down the stage, but still manage to compose herself enough to not slump. She faced the class, takes a deep breath, then begins the speech.
"I'm afraid one of our students went missing yesterday.". The crowd look around to see anybody missing, and allt of them quickly deduced who went missing and just rolled their eyes.
"That student is Sunset Shimmer.". Again, the crowd could not care less of where the former bully went, but Sprint, the track team's captain shouted, "Good! The witch finally got the message!" as students begin to laugh. Both principals are enraged by this, but Luna is the one who grabbed her own microphone and shouted through it, "That is a month detention for you Sprint!". Quickly, the volume died down and the class kept quiet, fearing of further provoking either principal.
Celestia took another deep breath again and continued, "She had left a note an insist that you all know the contents inside.". She opened it and start to read.
To Canterlot High,
If you all are listening to the words inside, means I had disappeared by now. I did so many terrible things to you guys for years, that nobody here want accept me, not even the girls that Princess Twilight instructed to take care of me, to teach me the magic of friendship. I don't blame any of you for that, I am not angry. I know you won't listen to me directly, so I will say what I want to say via this letter. I don't care if you care or believe or not, but at least you listened.
Brainwashed teenagers are not part of my plan, my plan was to only steal the crown and get back to Equestria, but the demon had other plans installed. The thing I never knew I had in me controlled me, leaving me in agony during my transformation, and I am just a passenger in my own body after that. Do you remember I started having tears fall when I turned? It is a painful and burning sensation. When I was blasted, I saw the horrible things that I had done over my life, and I realised how much I had fallen for the sake of power. After I was defeated, I am freed, I felt relieved and happy. I genuinely want to make amends, but no one in CHS will accept me. During my community service, seven of you decide to throw paint balloons at me, and one of you just approach and look at me before walking away. I will not tell who it is, you know yourself.
That moment made me realised something. I will never earn back people's trust back in CHS when everybody wants nothing to do with me, when everybody in the school is a lynch mob. So after I served community service, I will disappear. You will not see me back anymore.
Is this selfish? Yes. Is this foolish? Yes. But Canterlot now only brought me nothing but bad memories, there's nothing to look up to. I no longer care for CHS, Canterlot, Equestria or Princess Twilight. Please, do not come and find me.
Enjoy Life
Goodbye
Sunset Shimmer
P.S. Here's 10 grand for the compensation. Part of it to the funds of the track team, part of it goes to the total amount of money lost by Sweet Apple Acres, and part of it goes to the compensation of the repairs of the school. This is the most I can do.
By now, everybody is surprised and not knowing what to say, especially the five girls. Everybody really want to deduce the letter as her faking it, but it just felt so genuine.
"The police will be involved in the search for her. Let's just hope she is fine along the way. You all are dismissed, go to your classes.". With that, all students quietly stood up and walk out of the hall. Almost all of them not sure what to feel now.