As Sunset Shimmer left her final class of the day she did her best to keep an optimistic smile. Sadly that proved as challenging as ever as she walked along and saw the side ways glares she was getting from the other students as she did her best to wave at them and look friendly thinking, "Remember Sunset, it's not their job to forgive you, it's your job to be a better person and hopefully one day they will see you've changed." For a moment she thought that day might be today as Vinyl Scratch began approaching her with a smile, said smile was interrupted though as Vinyl suddenly found herself being pulled back by Octavia who said, "What are you doing, you know she's still trouble!"
Sunset's own smile flinched slightly but she did her best to breath as she thought, "OK girl, focus on the positive, you're about to meet your friends to watch their band practice, that's always fun... granted it might be more fun to play but," she shook her head as she thought, "NO! Stay positive!.... You know what happens when you get really stressed out and you don't need that today. Watching is fun enough, and after practice we can just talk and hang out and it's going to be a good day."
Her smile turned a little more genuine at those thoughts as she finally reached the music room and walked in, it was then however that it finally went away entirely as she was greeted to her friends all sitting in a semi circle around the room as they all turned towards her with stern gazes.
Sunset nervously stepped in saying, "Um... is everything OK?"
Rarity was the first to speak up saying, "Yes of course darling... it's just we noticed a few things about you lately."
"And we felt it best to all get together to talk to you about it," added Rainbow Dash.
"As a supportive friend group," said Applejack.
"Oh," said Sunset as she moved towards the nearest empty chair and sat down in front of them. As soon as she did though her nerves got the best of her as she began panting and said, "Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry, you know I'm still new to this friendship thing and whatever it is I can change please don't leave me!" As she began to panic more and more an image began to take shape in the corner of her eye and a slight whisper entered her ears, causing her stress to rise even more.
Thankfully she was snapped backed to reality as Rainbow Dash stood up and raised her hands defensively saying, "WOAH WOAH CALM DOWN!" It's nothing like that."
"Oh..." said Sunset as she blushed, embarrassed about how easily she lost it and letting out a sigh of relief as she noticed her vision becoming clear and her mind becoming quiet again, before she continued saying, "Then what is this about?"
"Well it's just..." said Fluttershy as she paused for a moment.
Finally Pinkie it more bluntly saying, "When was the last time you've been to a doctor?"
"I... what?" asked Sunset totally thrown for a loop by the question.
"It's just... we've noticed a few things about you lately that got us all pretty concerned about your health," said Applejack.
Fluttershy nodded as she said, "Like this one time when you came over to my house."
As Fluttershy sat her backpack down she looked to her guest saying, "So, do you want to get right to the studying or should we just relax for a bit first?"
Sunset simply shrugged as she said, "We can just relax for a bit, I know you think fractions are confusing but trust me, once we actually get into it, it'll be a breeze."
Before Fluttershy could respond she suddenly was greeted to the near silence of a cat jumping on her table as she smiled and said, "That's good, because it looks like Mr. Fluffy wants to play for a bit." Fluttershy quickly ran over to grab his favorite laser toy as she said, "You can grab a snack from the kitchen if you want, I'll just make sure this little guy gets all the attention he needs." Fluttershy then aimed the laser pointer and pressed the button as she watched Mr. Fluffy make his way to the red dot, only to be shoved aside as Sunset leaped to the floor and began batting the red dot with her hands.
"Um... Sunset?" asked Fluttershy in a mix of confusion and concern as she unconsciously moved the red dot back a bit.
As Sunset turned to face it, Fluttershy saw that her pupils had grown to almost fully encompass her iris's as she continued to bat at the red dot with a smile of pure bliss.
Sunset nervously chuckled as she scratched her head and said, "That, that was a joke."
"But the eyes though?" asked Fluttershy.
Sunset blushed slightly as she tried to play it off saying, "Pffth, had to be a trick of the light or something."
"Yeah maybe.. if that was the only weird thing your eyes have done," said Rarity. "But there was that one time in class."
As Rarity got up from her desk she prepared to exit her class, only to see that someone else wasn't as ready as her.
She sighed as she approached the sleeping Sunset and gently shook her saying, "Sunset darling, it's time to get up."
Sunset simply groaned as she rolled her head to side and drooled on the desk, Rarity withdrew her hand in disgust as she said, "Alright then, time to do this the hard way." Rarity then reached into her purse as she pulled out a strong led light she keeps in case of emergency and yelled, "TIME TO GET UP!" before shining it directly in Sunset's face. Sunset's eyes shot open and to Rarity's surprise they appeared to be pitch black as Sunset quickly shied away from the light let out a guttural screeching noise.
Rarity backed away as she cut off the light and Sunset rubbed her eyes saying, "What the heck Rarity!"
"Well to fair, YOU SHINED AN INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH LIGHT IN MY EYES! OF COURSE THE'RE GONNA LOOK WEIRD!" said Sunset as she was still kind of annoyed at the memory.
"Yes, but the noise you made didn't really sound... human," said Rarity as she struggled to find the right words while also blushing at her fault in it.
Sunset simply pouted saying, "Maybe if you had a light shined in your eyes you'd make a weird noise too."
Rarity shrunk back a bit as she said, "Perhaps... but still."
Applejack then spoke up saying, "OK, maybe those two aren't the best examples but what about the other day at the orchard?"
As Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow she huffed saying, "Well what do you think Sunset, a nice day of good honest labor really does the body good doesn't it?"
Sunset groaned as she leaned against a tree exhausted saying, "Whatever," before reaching over and grabbing an apple as she continued saying, "At least there's plenty to eat."
Applejack chuckled as she said, "Help yourself, after all you've earned it for all you've...." Applejack suddenly fell silent as she watched Sunset toss a whole apple and her mouth and appear to swallow it whole. As Applejack blinked in disbelief she was greeted to the less surprising sight of Sunset starting to gag. She quickly ran up to her thinking she was beginning to choke but as soon as she got in front of her Sunset coughed up what appeared to be some kind of pellet on the ground that had the apples core sticking out of it, before throwing another apple in her mouth and repeating the process.
Applejack watched this display in disbelief as Sunset soon turned to her and simply asked, "What?"
Back in the present Applejack shrugged saying, "Granted it's a very efficient way to eat apples, but it can't be good for you."
"Not to mention it sounds positively horrid," said Rarity shaking and gagging at the mental image.
Sunset simply shrugged as she said, "I mean, it's not like it hurts to do or anything, besides I don't see any of you complaining when Pinkie unclenches her jaw and wolfs down a huge cake in one bite."
The whole group looked at her in thought before Pinkie shrugged saying, "Whelp, she has a point there."
"PINKIE!" said Rarity as she looked at the girl in annoyance.
"What!? She's not wrong, besides I haven't seen anything weird from her," said Pinkie.
Sunset cocked her head at that as she said, "Wait why are you here then?"
Pinkie smiled as she said, "Because an intervention is sort of like a party, and there is no way I'm not going to a party with all my friends!"
Sunset chuckled at this as the others rolled their eyes before Rainbow Dash sighed and said, "Looks like I'm next... remember that time on the soccer field?"
As Rainbow sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow she looked at the rest of the team, smiling with pride that she finished her drills before any of them before looking over to see Sunset approaching the field.
Rainbow smiled and waved at her as she turned to others and said, "Whelp looks like my rides here, catch you guys later."
Soarin moved the ball towards himself as he glared saying, "Do you seriously want to take a ride with that demon?!"
Rainbows sighed as she said, "Come on, you know she's not like that anymore."
Soarin rolled his eyes at that as he said, "Whatever," before a devious smirk crossed his face.
Before Rainbow could comment, he kicked the soccer ball with all his might right towards Sunset. As Rainbow watched the ball rocket towards her legs she realized she didn't have time to yell out a warning to Sunset, let alone run to help her, and yet somehow in that infinitesimally small amount of time, Sunset seemed to leap a full five feet in the air before landing back down with a slight wobble as she continued along.
Sunset looked hurt as she said, "Wait, Soarin tried to hit me on purpose?"
Rainbow blushed as she scratched her face nervously saying, "Yeah... maybe should have left that part out."
"The point is though, you went from barely being to handle a day at the farm to the level of a trained gymnast and back in seconds," said Applejack.
"Indeed darling, random bursts of strength like that have hormonal imbalance written all over it," said Rarity.
Sunset shrugged as she said, "Really, I just figured it was an adrenaline thing or something."
"OH! I've read about those, like the lady who lifted a car above her head to save her baby," said Pinkie as quickly pulled up the article on her phone and showed it to everyone.
"Hum, well I suppose compared to that a simple jump isn't much," said Rarity.
The group simply sat for a moment as they all had the wind taken out of their sales as Sunset spoke up saying, "Look girls, I'm glad you're all worried about me, but I feel fine. Whatever you girls saw was either a mistake or just not as a big a deal as it looked."
"Well... if you say so," said Fluttershy with a smile.
"We just want to make sure you're OK sugarcube, so if you feel fine that's good enough for me," said Applejack.
The others shared similar sentiments as Sunset got up and opened the door saying, "I'm glad that's all cleared up, now then how about you all get your instruments tuned while I grab some sodas."
They all nodded as Sunset exited the room and made her way to the nearest vending machine thinking, "It really is sweet that they worry about me like that.... maybe I should I tell them about the stuff I see and hear when I'm stressed out.... no, I don't want them to worry even more, besides I've dealt with that on my own my whole life. I can keep dealing with it."
As Sunset reached the vending machine she soon cleared her head before pulling a coin from her jacket pocket, a coin she sadly dropped. She watched it roll beneath the vending machine and without thinking she bent her hand down towards it as suddenly she saw what looked like a blue ethereal hand shoot out of her own, grab the coin, and then come back into her real hand. She lurched back in surprise as she stared at her hand, barely noticing the coin itself as her palm and forearm suddenly glowed red, with the fingers themselves glowing blue
As Sunset panicked at the sight, she looked around to thankfully no one else there as she made her way back to the music room, all the while her breathing became more and more ragged as her heart rate began to increase, and with it the voices started to come as her vision blurred.
"King... yeah, here's your crown."
"Why... do you refuse to gain more power?"
"My soul is saying it wants to stop you!"
"I should hit the jackpot sooner or later."
She barely heard any of it, or noticed any of the odd creatures that drifted in or out of her vision as she tried her best to focus on the door, suddenly feeling woozy. She shakily grabbed the handle with her right hand, only to stumble at seeing it again, as she reached out with her left hand and opened the door.
Her friends turned to her and all at once their looks turned from relaxed to a level of concern beyond any she had seen before as she shakily laughed and raised her right hand for them all to see as she said, "I guess you guys where right about something being wrong with me," she then saw the others begin to run towards her as she quickly found her vision turning towards the ground before it suddenly went black. As she began to slip into unconsciousness she briefly saw a vision of what appeared to a man and woman, both dressed in red standing over her. Before she could make out any other details her vision went totally black again as she went out.