As Sunny wakes up she realizes that her eyelids feel incredibly heavy and she feels more tired than she’s ever been, like she ran from Maretime Bay to Zephyr Heights to Bridlewood and back to Maretime Bay at least three times. As she tries to sit up, she feels a sharp pain in her back and realizes that.. she can’t feel her legs. As soon as the realization hit her, so does the natural response that anyone would have: panic. Fear. She looks around and realizes that she’s in a hospital but.. it was different from Maretime Bay’s hospital. She sees Izzy in a chair right next to her, sleeping while sitting up. She must’ve been pretty tired.
“I.. Izzy?” Sunny calls weakly, her voice hoarse and quiet. It got the unicorn to wake up though, much to Sunny’s surprise. As soon as Izzy sees Sunny's eyes open she gasps and hugs Sunny and Sunny prepares for the pain of the unicorns signature bear hug but the hug was very gentle as if Izzy knew how much pain Sunny was in and how much more she’d be causing to her if she hugged her so tightly.
Sunny wraps one of her arms around the unicorn and felt her shaking.. then she heard crying coming from the unicorn and weakly nuzzled her. Izzy gently nuzzles back, still crying tears of joy. “You’re finally awake.. I was so afraid you would.. We were all so worried about you..” she says with a shaky voice. Sunny frowns and wraps both her arms around her with as much strength as she can muster.
“You.. don’t have to.. worry anymore.. I’m right here..” Sunny struggles to say and her head starts hurting and Izzy notices her cringe and gently lays her back down. “Wait Izzy.. what.. why can’t I.. feel my legs..?” Sunny asks and Izzy freezes up and hesitantly looks at Sunny.
“I.. I can’t explain that yet.. they took an X-ray to make sure everything was in order like an hour ago but.. they still haven’t confirmed whether or not you’re gonna fully recover. But they did have a theory and.. I don’t think you’ll like it..” she says, trailing off at the end but the look on Sunny’s face was like she was begging Izzy to tell her the truth. Izzy sighs and grabs one of Sunny’s hands, preparing Sunny and herself for what she was about to say. “They think.. they think the magic from the crystals combined with the dark magic that was already in your system.. they think it damaged your muscles.. and your spine. I’m.. I’m so so sorry Sunny.” Izzy says, beginning to cry again and Sunny was frozen in shock and fear. The weight of everything she had done and the consequences of her actions all came crashing down on her at once and she just.. shut down. Her mind struggled to cope with the weight of everything Midnight had forced her to do and say.. now it had to deal with this.
By the time Sunny had somewhat snapped out of it, all her other friends were already in the room but she was so shocked and distraught that she couldn’t do anything but look at them and silently apologize without saying anything. She at least visibly smiled at them a bit and was utterly shocked when she saw the six ponies that she’d admired and strived to be like since foalhood. Just the presence of her friends and her heroes in the same room with her brought Sunny back a bit from the brink of a mental shutdown. “Hello Sunny Starscout, it’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is Twilight Sparkle, these are my friends.” Twilight says before introducing all her friends and turning back to Sunny. “I just want you to know that no matter what Midnight has put you through.. I am so proud of all the good that you’ve done.. you and your friends.” she says and Sunny was even more shocked. Twilight Sparkle herself was.. proud of her? That helped quite a lot to help Sunny feel better but not even close to being even halfway back to her normal self.
“You have a long, tough road ahead of you my little pony.. but in the end I know you’ll do your best to make things right.. I see a lot of myself in you Sunny Starscout..” Twilight says as she places a hand underneath Sunny’s chin and raises her face until she’s looking up at her. “And I know you’ll make an amazing princess.. but just make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I made.. the same ones Midnight made.” she says and Sunny and everypony else looks confused, almost shocked to hear that Midnight might not have always been like.. well how she is now. Twilight notices their reactions and sighs, sitting down.
“Let me tell you all a story.. there was once a young filly.. purple coat, violet mane with sparkles in it.. a planet with a star in the middle of it for a cutie mark.. she was born into a family of royalty and was the most intelligent.. the most beautiful of her friends and family. She was also the most kind.. but arrogant.. greedy at times.. and easily prone to anger.. this young filly’s name.. was Solaris. Princess Solaris.. soon to be Queen. And this was probably 1,000 years before Celestia and Luna’s time so keep in mind that she was the actual first natural born alicorn, besides my niece, Flurry Heart.” she says and everyone nods before Twilight continues.
“One day Solaris's parents allow her to try and go to a school for highly skilled magic-users because they figured that even though she’s a princess, everypony should have an education, besides going to a school might give her ideas about what she could change as Queen. So she goes to the school and for a while it goes well but then she starts getting teased and judged unfairly by the other kids just because they were jealous of her being royalty and confused as to why she has to attend school since she’s a princess. Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore and lost control of her magic from all the anger and hated that she felt for one of the kids after they teased her, hit her, stole a bunch of things from her, including her crush which was the last straw and.. the magic targeted the source.. or sources of her anger and pain.. and killed at least 4 of her bullies, 4 innocent students, and 5 teachers.. and destroyed part of the school.. after that she was expelled and her family received a lot heat because of that.. the guilt she felt was immense.. she shut herself in her room for almost two weeks.” Twilight says, visibly struggling to keep it together as she explains the tragic backstory of her most dangerous and experienced enemy.
“Her mother got sick and one of her siblings was attacked.. they both died. She was so distraught that she just.. shut down for a while.” she says and Sunny goes wide eyed as she realizes that that happened to her and had her friends not showed up, she probably would’ve been so lost in her own guilty thoughts that she wouldn’t have noticed them at all. “After the funerals, Solaris's family was attacked, their house burning, ponies breaking in, and Solaris was the only alicorn. One of her siblings was crushed by debris, another one taken and killed, it was just her, her older brother, and her younger sister left along with their father. They saw an opportunity to escape and they took it but Solaris was trapped under debris at the last second and before her family could go back for her debris fell in front of them and blocked them off.. and Solaris had blacked out. When she woke up, all the ponies who attacked them were dead, their house was destroyed, and Solaris’s family seemed terrified of her and she had no idea why.. until her father explained that something had taken over her.. and she had been the one who killed those ponies.” Twilight said and everypony looked shocked as they continued to listen, actually starting to feel bad for Midnight now.
“Every now and then.. ever since that day Solaris would blackout for no reason and something terrible would happen soon after and she’d have no memory of it, yet everyone would look at her like they’d seen a ghost.. or something worse. Eventually the cause of the blackouts had spoken to her.. it gave itself a name: Midnight Starkiller. This.. dark entity was the very opposite of Solaris, it was cruel, merciless.. evil. One night Solaris got into an argument with her family about the blackouts and the risks they take just to protect her, which made her feel even worse for not being able to tell them the truth. That same night, Solaris woke up to find her family dead.. herself standing right in the middle of them.. holding a sword. That broke her so badly that the entity was able to take over completely.. and ever since then Midnight has been the one in control.. don’t you all see? Midnight has been the one causing so much pain and suffering.. not Solaris.. that’s not who she really is.” Twilight says, her voice just a bit shaky but after a few deep breaths, she manages to pull herself together.
Sunny frowns and looks down. She couldn’t believe that all of this.. was because of a bad decision and a few judgmental bullies. Sunny sighs as she realizes that she can’t change the past.. she can’t do anything in her current condition. As a matter of fact.. she didn’t even want to fight anymore. She just wanted to give up and let someone else stop Midnight.. she knew that even if she did stop her, nopony would forgive her for everything she’s done.. so why bother trying to earn redemption. “I understand.. and I wanna make this right.. I can’t stop her though.. I mean if you barely managed to stop her, how am I.. how are we supposed to do it? No.. this isn’t our fight anymore.. I don’t wanna fight anymore.. I don’t want anyone else to die because of me..” Sunny said, causing everypony to look at her with shock and disappointment.
“Can I talk to Sunny alone for a minute?” Twilight asks and everyone nods and steps out, Izzy hesitating until Hitch assured her that it won’t take long. After everypony was out of the room, Twilight stepped up to the bed and sat in the chair next to it. The look she had on her face was a stern but gentle one, but it still managed to make Sunny feel somewhat nervous. “Look I get it, Midnight has put you through a lot, and you’re scared.. not just for everyone else.. but also for yourself. It’s not getting hurt or killed that you’re afraid of.. it’s losing yourself.. losing your friends.. becoming someone you’re not and I can tell you right now that I’ve been in that exact same situation Sunny.. and let me tell you, it doesn’t get any easier.. but the important thing is making sure you can move on.. if not for yourself then do it for the ponies who love you. Ok? You can try at your own pace if you so choose.. but just think about it.. ok? Your friends need you.. all of Equestria needs you. So.. are you gonna step up or not.. the choice is yours.” Twilight says before standing up and starting to walk out. Just as she grabs the knob, she stops as she hears Sunny speak.
“I’ll do my best and make you proud.. I promise.” she says as she looks up for the first time in quite a bit. Twilight smiles at the determined look she has on her face that reminds her of herself from a younger age.
“I already am..” Twilight says while still smiling.