Morning in Canterlot, the streets have been cleared and Canterlot High students are on their way to school. Students hoping for a snow day and possibly an early Winter break have been mightily disappointed and trudge in feeling disgruntled. As if things could get any worse at Canterlot High.
Dash had spent the majority of the evening playing video games. Dash had had enough of Anon-a-miss and that meant Sunset Shimmer. Not like she was ever fully on board when it came to giving Shimmer a second chance. When she saw Applejack and Rarity each giving Fluttershy a hug in front of the school, she turned away and made a point to avoid them on her way into the school.
In doing so Dash completely missed Pinkie Pie also going up to the trio and giving each a hug.
“I just can’t believe it,” Rarity was saying. “My own Sister.”
“I know,” Applejack offered dejectedly. “Finding out that this world’s Sunset was my cousin only made it worse.”
“What?” Pinkie Pie gasped.
“First cousin. She is by all practical reasoning my Uncle Dusty’s daughter,” Applejack explained.
“She’s is, or a least would be related to us?” Pinkie’s hair flattened out a little more.
“Do we know if she’s coming to school?” Rarity asked.
“Dusty called this morning and said they are going to bunk over at Miss Holiday’s place. I guess she’s one of Sunset’s legal guardians. They’ll come over later in the week. I gather Sunset is going to need some time.” Applejack explained. “I gather our turning our backs on her hurt her far more than we realized.”
“They let me drop off her book at the hospital, but it was well past visiting hours. Sorry,” Fluttershy offered.
“Hospital?” Pinkie gasped. “Why did no one tell me? I’d have made her a cupcake!”
“In my defense, I’ve been grounded. I can’t call anyone,” Applejack offered.
“I’m so sorry,” Rarity offered. “I was so worked up when I found out, I called Fluttershy but didn’t think to call anyone else.”
“I’m not seeing Dash, we should probably get inside… hang on?” Applejack was saying just as an unmarked cruiser pulled up and two men got out of the car. They started for the front doors and stopped to turn around as the sound of wheels skidding filled the air.
Suddenly there was a black helicopter overhead, black sedans and low-slung black SUVs racing up to the front of the building with men in black combat gear pouring out with people shouting “get down, get down!”
Even the two detectives in their business casual dropped to the ground as men swarmed around a girl with moderate aquamarine green hair and pale green skin. A moment later they are forcing her down and taking her green backpack.
“Sir, it’s the oh-eight-four!” Called one of the men as a man in a black suit and equally dark sunglasses walked over. Two more rushed over with a black freight container, a gray object about the size and shape of a large potato was removed with tongs, placed in the shipping container which was then lifted into the chopper by a cable. A moment later the chopper was speeding away. Next, the girl was cuffed, loaded into a vehicle, and she was taken away.
One by one the black cars all left until one remained with two men.
“I demand to know what the ever-loving… this is a school zone. What the actual, Florida!” Shouted one of the local detectives moments after getting up as he walked over to the two remaining men.
“Names Phil Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”
“Detective Steal, Canterlot PD, care to explain?”
“That could be a bit of a problem,” Agent Coulson began. “You see, that girl had, well, I can’t actually tell you because, a, I don’t rightly know what it is, b, it’s going to be classified, and c, it’s way above your pay-grade.”
“Eh?”
“What I can tell you is she had a hand in what’s been going on at this school. We believe she was manipulating certain key students. Can’t say I’m entirely sure what her motivation was other than jealousy and she had the means.”
“I see. Can you tell me what her name was? Her parents are bound to want to know what happened to her.”
“For what it’s worth, her parents don’t even know they have a daughter. You’ll find records for a Miss Wallflower Blush, but I doubt anyone will even know she existed. She seems to have erased her existence from everyone’s memories.”
“Wow.” Offered the second detected. “Detective Lissome.”
“So what’s to happen to her?” Detective Steel asked.
“Debrief, medical examination, and then we’ll see if we can fix what she’s done as far as her family goes,” Coulson offered. “As for the students here at school, I’ll leave that in your capable hands. Oh, and we’ve already asked the DA to go easy. The DA’s office understands the kids were being manipulated.”
“Right. And something tells me that whole circus was for the benefit of the students here at the school.”
“On the one hand, people are responsible for their own choices, but on the other hand knowing one’s bad decisions had been influenced does kind of help a person put it behind themselves. Kind of like when you wake up after a party and it’s three days later. It’ll also help to see someone other than Miss Shimmer being hauled off. That said, Miss Blush didn’t force anyone to do anything. As far as we can tell all she did was provide the push.” Agent Coulson offered. “One more thing, everything to do with the online profile Anon-amiss is going to be suppressed. We began scrubbing the internet this morning so the only records will be what you have on backup and hard file. Anyone with a profile who shared, posted, or in any way interacted with the Anon-a-miss account has had their accounts wiped. As in gone. The company operating the My Stable website is getting fined into oblivion. The website itself will likely get sold to another company but right now it’s going to be in limbo. Certain individuals are now on a watch list, and every single person on that little list you’ve got can forget about ever getting a security clearance. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment to keep.” He turned towards the street along with the man accompanying him, they returned to their vehicle, got in, and drove off.
“Aww come on!” shouted Rainbow Dash from the doorway of the school moments later. She’d missed everything.
Sunset and Dusty were arriving at Sunset’s apartment around the same time all the activity was going on at the school. Dusty took hold of the lock and literally wrenched the hasp free pulling the screws out of the softwood of the cheap door.
“Something tells me bringing dates home is going to be really interesting,” Sunset commented dryly.
“Let’s gather up your belongings…” Dusty offered as he opened the door.
Both froze on seeing the insides of the apartment. The place had been trashed. Things were scattered, broken, books tore up, furniture overturned, graffiti on the walls, and a pile of what looked to be human excrement in the center of her mattress which had been thrown down from the loft.
“Change of plans then. We'll see what’s worth saving.”
“I think I should change high schools at this point.”
“Can’t say I blame you. Listen, I could probably get you into Chrystal Prep. I hear it’s a bit of a shark tank but it’d be a fresh start without actually having to leave the area.”
Sunset slowly entered the apartment stepping gingerly to avoid broken glass.
“Not like I really had very much to begin with.”
Sunset’s pace speed up as she made her way upstairs.
“Sunset?” Dusty called and then followed after her.
“Ray!” Sunset called. “Ray. Why? Why??”
Dusty climbed the stairs to find Sunset kneeling in front of a smashed terrarium near an overturned bookshelf.
“Ray?” Dusty asked.
“I can’t find him. He’s a little Leopard Gecko." She let out a sigh. "As cold as it is in here… he needs his heating stone.” She gingerly picked up half a heating stone. Under the stone lay a small still object of yellow with black mottled spots. She set down the stone and gingerly picked up her little Ray. The temperature inside the apartment was far too low and it was a wonder the pipes hadn't burst. Perhaps they had and they just weren’t aware of it yet.
Sunset cradled Ray close to her and for the second time in less than twelve hours, she wept.
🏚
There was nothing left in the apartment worth salvaging.
Even so, being met by police with guns drawn was not what they’d expected.
“I live here!” Sunset shouted while still holding her pet. “I paid my rent! I paid my utilities.” Her voice grew small. “And then they trash my home and kill my pet.”
“It’s alright officers, they’re alright,” Offered a voice from outside. “I’m agent Coulson. I can verify that she lives here.”
Agent Coulson stepped into view of Sunset and Dusty as the two officers put their weapons away.
“Phil,” Dusty said, greeting him.
“Dusty. They really trashed the place, didn’t they?”
“Ya. Nothing much left worth salvaging.”
“You hadn’t left?” Asked an old woman who’d dared to venture far enough to look in through the door.
“No, Mrs Crump, I hadn’t. I came mighty close to dying being locked out. Not like I could have slept here though.”
“A couple of teens came by my office, said you’d trashed the apartment and weren’t coming back.”
“And lose the damage deposit?” Sunset asked in astonishment.
“Any idea who they were?” Dusty asked.
“One had an orange mohawk, sunburned skin, boy, and the other was a rather rough-looking girl with too much make-up on, white hair with the ends dyed violet,” Mrs Crump offered.
“Sounds like Gilda and Garble,” One of the officers mused.
“I guess destroying my phone and beating me up wasn’t good enough,” Sunset said softly.
“You want to press charges?” asked the other officer.
“Probably be a waste of time. It’d be my word against theirs,” Sunset said sounding defeated.
“I’ve security footage that’ll prove they were here,” Mrs Crump offered. “Be nice if I can at least get that.”
“I might be able to dig up some additional footage,” Coulson offered. “If you could file a statement about the when and where we might just be able to find something.”
“Mrs Crump, any chance we can get a statement along with a copy of the security footage?” Asked one of the uniformed officers.
“Yes, hang on, Sunset, what is that you have there?”
“My little Ray. They smashed his terrarium. Even if he had survived the fall there’s no way he could have survived the night. I almost didn’t survive the night.”
“I’m so sorry, I should have checked.”
“It’s alright, I don’t blame you,” Sunset offered. Her tone clearly indicating that she was still hurting.
“Hang on, I’ll be right back,” Mrs Crump offered, spun around, and headed for the apartment in the back. She returned a couple of minutes later and presented Sunset with a miniature coffin.
“Here, for your little Ray. What? I have weird tastes.”
“Thank you,” Sunset replied as they lay Ray into the velvet-lined casket-shaped box.
“Alright then, Sunset? Were you wanting to come back once we get this cleaned up?”
“I guess that’s going to depend on dad,” Sunset replied giving Dusty a look. “There’s nothing…” Sunset looks back at the room. “They’ve taken my guitar. It was an old bone-colored Fender. Vintage white is what they said at the pawnshop. Cost me a little over a hundred. Money I earned honestly too.” Sunset let out a sigh. “To be honest, I was buying all my things from second-hand shops save for a few items I got from Rarity. The only thing I have left is what I’ve got on.”
“You don’t want to try to run anything through the wash?”
“It kind of looks and smells like they peed on everything and there’s a pile of shit in the middle of the floor,” Sunset explained. “Beer bottles everywhere. I doubt anything is going to be salvageable.”
“Which means I’m going to have to pull off the carpets and bleach the floor. And you were always such a tidy tenant,” Mrs Crump replied with a fair amount of anger in her tone.
“Shit you say? I’m Officer Tacklberry, and this is my partner Mahoney. If we can get a statement we might just be able to talk the department into getting CSI down here. Be worth it to put those two out of commission for a while and that pile might just be the clincher.”
“Bound to be an attempted homicide charge in it,” Coulson offered. “Considering she nearly died of exposure. Why don’t you go get that surveillance footage, I need a chance to speak with Miss Shimmer.”
“Right then, we’ll be right back,” Officer Mahoney replied followed by the two police officers going with Mrs Crump.
🚓
“Glad to see you made it home on time,” Coulson offered to Dusty once the others were out of earshot.
“You two know each other?” Sunset asked.
“Let’s just say that he’s one of the people I do part-time work for.”
“We know all about what happened at the Fall formal,” Coulson began. “You know; how you threw a tantrum because the other students elected a Chrystal Prep student to be the Fall Formal Princess? And about that gas line blowing up.” He gave her a wink and a sly smile. Sunset had paled considerably. The words Chrystal Prep student wouldn’t register until later. “Imagine our concern when we saw accusations of ‘She Demon’ popping up online. Especially after we went to great lengths to try to make certain uncomfortable bits of information about that night go away.”
“Ah?” Sunset uttered confused about what he was getting at.
“The uncomfortable truth is that we are not alone in the universe, there is a lot of junk out there, and sometimes things find their way here. You aren’t the only one to get their hands on an artifact. We picked up a Miss Wallflower Blush this morning at the school. I won’t say she was the cause of everything but it’s a fair bet she contributed greatly. Do you know her?”
“Not really, no.”
“She is in several of your classes and is on the Yearbook Committee with you.”
“Never shows?”
“Security footage said otherwise, and your not the only one who can’t seem to remember her. Got her hands on something that messes with people’s heads, all she’s got to do is give people a little push and if anyone suspects something isn’t right, make them forget everything.”
Coulson pulled a brand new smartphone out of his pocket. “I want you to have this to make up for the one you lost. It’s got all your fair-weather friends in there along with your primary contacts, local contacts, and it’s set up so that it won’t open for anyone unless you allow it even if they somehow figure out your passcode.”
“How does it do it?” Sunset asked as she carefully tucked Ray away in a shoulder bag she’d brought with her.
“Every individual has a unique electromagnetic biosignature. Let’s just say yours is special.”
“What if I should happen to go through, say, a portal? Just hypothetically?”
“Portals? OK, not like we don’t know about things of that nature. Take the phone so you can call your old man, the signal should penetrate a short distance, and no, there’s no tracking software on it. In fact, we’ve set it so that you can’t be tracked unless you want to, and you can spoof any location in the world. If there is a portal that you are aware of, you're going through it won’t be noticeable unless you get out of range. It’d look like you were in the vicinity of the portal.”
Sunset took the phone, turned it on, a log-in screen popping up.
“There are all the contact numbers you need to include one that will get you to me, but don’t use that unless things are getting desperate,” Coulson continued. “Or if you feel you are ready for one of the most challenging jobs you’ll ever get.”
“Oh, so that’s it, you want to recruit her,” Dusty accused.
“Something tells me she’d be bored out of her mind with an ordinary job,” Coulson offered with a smirk. “She’s probably the second brightens mind in the region.
“Second? Never mind,” Sunset wasn’t too sure if maybe she should be a little insulted. “So what’s the log-in?”
“ ’From the ashes, I rise'. Replace the oh with a zero the eyes with exclamation marks, the ease with threes.”
“Alright, simple enough yet with just the right amount of complexity. I’ll want to change it though- I’ve got a message? ‘A true true friend helps a friend in need, a friend will be there to help them see, a true true friend helps a friend in need to see the light that shines from a true true friend.’ curious it says if I need a true friend just call, and then it says ‘Philomena’. No return number?” If there had been theme music playing it would be telling the audience wait for it, wait for it...
“That shouldn't be?” Coulson asked sounding concerned.
“The only Philomena I ever knew…” Sunset thought about it for a bit. “It can’t be that easy… can it?” Sunset stuck her fingers in her mouth and let loose a shrill whistle. “♫!”
“Ah, Sunset?” Dusty asked. Both men had cringed.
“♫.”
Sunset’s frown transformed to a broken smile at the sound of an answering whistle. Sunset dared not to believe while hoping still the same it was like hearing the trumpet call in an old western letting the settlers know that the night would end and the sun would rise.
This time it was tears of joy as a gold and red bird swooped down out of the sky and crashed right into Sunset’s chest to squirm in her arms.
“Ah, Phil?” Dusty asked.
“Right offhand I’d say someone is sending me a message,” Agent Coulson said softly. “Several actually. We were tipped off about the artifact, and I got another one saying that the ‘tako in the aegis is rotten’.”
“Taco? As in taco Tuesday?” Dusty quipped.
“No, tako with a ‘k’ as in Takoyaki. It’s made with octopus.”
“That’s not good.”
“What’s not good?” Sunset asked looking up from Philomena.
“Just a few things future Agent Coulson is likely going to have to deal with.” Agent Coulson offered. “Nothing you need worry about. Just, if you should happen across any more artifacts, if you can deal with them quietly that would be greatly appreciated.”
“We’re back… Sunset? Hang on, that bird?” Mrs Crump asked. Sunset had tears streaked down her face. “And what say I see if I can’t find a clean cloth to wipe your face.”
“She’s my friend. She’s my pet from when I was little,” Sunset offered with a big grin for the bird snuggled in her embrace. “She came to me.”
Mrs Crump interpreted Sunset’s announcement to mean the bird had been flying around loose. As for finding a clean washcloth, that was one thing the vandals hadn’t bothered with. Probably because they were only interested in what they saw as valuable.
“Listen, it’s probably going to be easiest if you can come down to the station,” Officer Mahoney stated as Mrs Crump cleaned up Sunset. “That assault you mentioned will take a separate report.”
“Alright, sure,” Sunset replied. “And Mrs Crump I’ll come by now and then to check for mail.
“Understood. Think I’ll talk to the insurance people and then after I get an assessment we’ll see if anything is salvageable.
“You have my renter’s insurance information. If nothing else it’ll help take the bite out of the damages. I don’t even want to deal with it right now.”
“Yes, I have all your information. You know, a lot of young people don’t even think far enough ahead to realize they might want renter’s insurance.”
“That’s because nothing truly bad ever happens to most young people… like me. It’s just that, the locals like me, I get along with the Niriks, and if it hadn't been for Anon-a-miss that insurance money really would have been wasted money.”
“It’s a bit like gambling that something bad will happen, that’s true, but when something bad does happen it’s better to have than not to have it,” Mrs Crump offered. “Now you go out and do whatever it is that needs doing, and let me handle things here.”
“Thank you Mrs Crump,” Sunset replied. The cheer was back in her face even if she did look a little care warn.
A short time later Sunset and Dusty are back in the Bronco, Dusty turns the key, the radio crackles to life, “good morning, today's forecast calls for blue skies…”
