Sunset sat up with a sudden start. Her heart was pounding and she found it difficult to keep her breathing under control. She didn’t have time for that though; the dream was already fading, and she needed to get it down in what she deemed her dream diary. Sitting up she pulled over the journal she’d gotten from Twilight and started scribbling down what she remembered.
Sunset walked through the darkness, being led forward by a light. The light was centered on the portal mirror. Approaching it she could see her reflection walk into view of the mirror. Only, her reflection had a scowl on her face.
“You’ve been getting real chummy with that fake Celestia. You should know by now how much of a mistake that is.” Sunset’s voice came from the mirror.
“W-What?” Sunset shook her head and forcibly replied. “No, I remembered how great it feels to be wanted somewhere.”
“You’re just her little pet, she’s pitying you and showering you with undeserved gifts. It makes me sick that you are putting up with being treated as a child, as some charity case. She’s doing it to look better, because she’s helping damaged goods stop from killing themselves, but face it, it’s just you and me. We should stick together, I can help you.” Mirror her looked at her nails in boredom as if explaining something obvious.
“There isn’t any we! There’s just me. You are a horrible reflection of who I was before, and I’m tired of this.” Sunset turned her back to walk away but froze in her tracks when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, but I am so much more than that.” Her other whispered sweetly into her ear. Then everything went white.
Sunset sighed: looking down at the journal and muttering. “That’s it, that’s all I can remember. This dream diary stuff is going to be hard.”
She got up and left Celestia’s room to start her day. Celestia had apparently been awake before her, because she’d left a note under a small homemade muffin. Grabbing the baked breakfast Sunset read the note.
Sunset,
I had to go in early today. I will meet you at the gates of the school this afternoon. Make sure you eat, and don’t forget to brush your teeth.
Celestia
Sunset rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a soft smile. She hoped against hope that today would be quiet and she could get out of school without anything major going wrong.
☼ ☀ ☼
Sunset hesitated at the corner, the school was just around the other side. She knew that no matter how much she hoped to the contrary, today was going to be unpleasant. She took a deep calming breath, then rounded the corner before she could chicken out and run back to Celestia’s apartment.
The hole was filled in and there was obviously new turf put in over it, but she could still feel its presence. She gave it a wide berth, as she not so calmly walked to the entrance hall. The place was filled with students and as she shut the door there was a wave of silence that washed over them. It wasn’t immediate like in the movies, but it was certainly fast as everyone realized who’d just entered the building.
“At least they aren’t forming an angry mob…” Sunset said under her breath. Sunset put on her usual scowl and walked through the crowd with a confidence she didn’t actually feel. As Sunset walked a student suddenly appeared in front of her. She accidentally knocked the girl over; none of the other students around her saw it like that though. They all stared at her with angry expressions. Some of them moved in closer.
Sunset panicked and ran. None of the student pursued her though. She quickly passed all of the halls she would have confidently strode through unchallenged weeks ago. Now they felt like a gauntlet of glares and restrained anger.
When she got to her locker she felt her heart tighten. It had been defaced, and if the drying paint was any indication it had been done so this morning. Written across the lockers in large angry letters was:
Ding Dong the Bitch is Dead!
Feeling numb but still needing her books, Sunset reached out and fumbled her combination into the lock. Looking inside, she saw that someone had squeezed several bottles of glue into her locker through the vent. All of her books were ruined. Sunset Shimmer quietly closed the door, not even seeing if any of the books could be saved.
Instead, Sunset turned around and walked to homeroom. Perhaps she could hide the remaining time until classes started.
Quietly sneaking into Mr. Biceps’ art classroom, she immediately took stock of the classroom just to be sure. Mr. Biceps was there, of course, but the rest of the classroom was empty.
“Uh, Mr. Biceps? Would you mind if I stay in here until class starts.” Sunset Shimmer asked with a slight tremor to her voice. He looked like he was going to tell her to leave, but a look of realization fell onto him.
“No, stay as long as you need.” He said without his usual force. He turned back to his delicate Macramé. He was gluing precisely cut strips of paper to a canvas to create a flower. It looked almost comical to have such a large man carefully apply his art with precision.
She thought about her own misconceptions of him when she’d originally seen him. He had a bodybuilder’s physique and a voice that had no need of a megaphone, but when she found out he was an art teacher and not a P.E. teacher she had laughed. Now, though, she saw that he was often misjudged and she felt sympathy for him.
“Uh, Mr. Biceps, would you mind if I asked you something?” Sunset shifted nervously in her seat.
“I don’t know why they are so big.” Mr. Biceps replied without looking at her.
“Ah, how did you know I was going to ask about your muscles?” Sunset was genuinely shocked.
“What? No, I meant the flower petals. See, they are just way too large, I am going to have to redo them.” Sunset’s mouth hung open and she was about to ask again, but then thought better of it. He’d redirected the question. It was likely that he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Ah yes.” Was the awkward response she committed to.
Moving away from making a fool of herself, Sunset pulled out the journal Twilight gotten her. Every time she looked at it, she got a feeling of comfort which made her like it more and more. She looked over what she’d written that morning. Trying to piece together what exactly had happened.
Before she knew it, she had started doodling a small alicorn in the bottom of the page. Snickering to herself she wrote under it, ‘Princess Sparklebutt’. Then she gave it a goofy face and called it finished.
That’s when the bell rang and immediately students started flooding the room. Mr. Biceps waited his normal three minutes before he shut the door to the class and declared a start to homeroom. All of the students sat away from Sunset Shimmer, leaving a large gap between them and the back corner that Sunset occupied. Not that she minded, she was trying to stay out of their view.
Mr. Biceps was always very good at remembering the faces of his student and did not call out roll call. Instead he marked down the absent and went onto the announcements. “The new entrance hall is done, and Vice Principal Luna wants to ask that students do not damage it again.”
Everyone in class cast a heated look at Sunset Shimmer. Mr. Biceps cleared his throat and continued. “Also noted is another reminder that bullying and pranks are forbidden and will be punished.” The students turned back to face forward. Sunset opened the journal again and continued to doodle. This time she was putting little devil horns on Princess Sparklebutt and drawing a brave unicorn hero in the corner to battle her.
A knock on the door had Mr. Biceps stand up and open it. There was a muffled conversation, drawing everyone’s but Sunset’s attention.
She was too engaged in doodling the great battle between her hero Sunny the Brave and the evil villain Nightmare Sparklebutt, to even notice what was going on. This was until Mr. Biceps spoke up.
“Class, we have a new student starting with us today. Her name is Twilight Sparkle. Give her your welcome with a YEAH!” The class laughed and gave out a mistimed but hearty ‘yeah!’ While in the back on the class, Sunset Shimmer froze up completely. Twilight Sparkle stepped out from behind Mr. Biceps. A clearly nerdy girl with glasses and straight purple hair with pink highlights in it, she smiled and awkwardly waved to the class.
Twilight Sparkle was staring at her and then looked down at the book on her desk. She smiled as she recognized what it was. Blushing furiously from embarrassment Sunset quickly pulled the book off her desk and hid it in her bag. Sunset immediately hid her face by putting it down over her arms.
“You can sit wherever you want Twilight,” said Mr. Biceps gesturing to the desks in general. Twilight of course picked the one next to Sunset Shimmer. Sunset’s perfectly reasonable response was to scream in her own head.
She could hear all the whispers asking, “Why did she go sit next to her?” “Doesn’t she remember what she did?” among other more colorful grumblings.
“Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle. I'm the one who brought your bags to security yesterday.” Twilight Sparkle toned in an insufferably cheery voice. When Sunset didn’t reply however she got self conscious and turned back to listen to Mr. Biceps’ lecture.
Sunset spent the entire period avoiding talking to Twilight who kept trying to get her to respond. When the class was over Sunset was the first student out the door.
Sunset was distracted the entirety of the classes leading up to lunch break. She was not allowing herself to face it. She was not going to think about it. She entertained harmless thoughts like, how dogs were great companions and how Twilight Sparkle probably has… Okay maybe something else then.
Sighing to herself for her inability to be the master of her own mind Sunset without effort filled out her class work. She still had a perfect grade point average to maintain. Art was easy as she barely had to pay the lectures any mind, but now she had to deal with her more academic classes. Celestia had already said she would help her get the necessary catch up work for the week she took off.
Just as she lost herself in the busy work of her Algebra 2 class, the bell decided to ring. It called the end of the class and the beginning of lunch. Sunset Shimmer had never skipped lunch, but she was in a vastly different situation now. She was no longer scrounging for food and living mostly off of the free lunches that Canterlot High provided.
From the start of her stay in this world, she had grown to enjoy the lunch menu. There was always a vegetarian option too, which was most likely due to Celestia’s influence now that she thought about it.
These thoughts were what was on Sunset’s mind as she mindlessly grabbed a tray and sat down by herself. Not thinking of the consequences until it was too late, for the pink one had already sat down.
“Hi Sunset Shimmer! Where have you been? I can’t become your super best friend forever without you.” Pinkie shouted at an unreasonable level, alerting the few students that weren’t aware that she was in fact still around, as she tried not to flinch, since all eyes were once again on her. Faced with no real way out, Sunset Shimmer attempted to fuse her face with the table.
“Pinkie, you’ve gone and embarrassed the poor dear.” Rarity was the next to sit down, choosing a seat next to Pinkie Pie. When Sunset Shimmer tried to get up and run away, a hand fell on her shoulder.
“We need ta talk.” Applejack said while insistently pushing her down. Rainbow dash was the next to sit down, right next to her. She did not look particularly pleased but kept it admirably to herself. Fluttershy snuck in and sat next to Rarity on the other side.
“Sunset, you don’t need to be so afraid of us.” said Rarity. Sunset gathered that they’d decided Rarity should be the one to speak for the group, likely stemming from being the only one of them with decent diplomatic skills.
“You had us all worried darling. Not showing up all last week made us think something bad had happened, but there was little we could do. None of us, not even Pinkie knew where you lived.” Rarity started, it was not as bad as Sunset thought this conversation would go.
Then of course since the universe would not allow anything to go so smoothly, Pinkie gasped and ran from the table. They all followed her with their eyes until it became clear where she was going. Across the cafeteria Twilight was snatched up by Pinkie Pie. Twilight’s objections to being dragged across the room were drowned out by Pinkie’s gushing.
“Oh I thought you had gone back to Equestria to be an awesome magical princess again! I had no idea you would come back to Canterlot High so quickly, you should have told me I would have thrown you a party! It’s so great that you’re back-” Pinkie kept going until she reached the table and pushed Twilight Sparkle down across from Sunset Shimmer.
“So, uh hi. Welcome to the weirdest day of your life Twilight Sparkle.” Sunset offered. Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash gave her a glare for her trouble.
“What?” asked Twilight in reply.
“Girls, this isn’t Princess Twilight. This is your world’s Twilight Sparkle.” Sunset said to the table at large. Everyone at the table gave an “oh” of understanding, except Twilight of course who was now even more confused.
“That explains the glasses ah guess.” Applejack said.
“What exactly did that mean? Look, can you just explain to me why everyone in this school seems to know me already?” Twilight asked.
“It’s complicated darling, but you should know about it.” Rarity responded.
Rainbow Dash was no longer able to hold it in and shouted, “It’s all because of her.” She pointed an accusatory finger to Sunset Shimmer.
“Yeah Sunset Shimmer passed through the portal at the base of the statue in the school courtyard and stole Princess Twilight’s crown. Princess Twilight came after her and united us as a group, dethroned her reign of evil, and blasted Sunset Shimmer with a rainbow of magic stripping her of all her badness. It was like whoosh pow wham sizzle.” Pinkie helpfully continued.
“Yea! And she's totally evil! You definitely shouldn’t trust her.” Rainbow Dash shouted, not understanding that Pinkie didn’t agree with her.
Mortified Sunset Shimmer got up from the table and ran. She was out the door before the others could react.
“Just Great Rainbow, now look‘t what ya did.” Applejack said with her hand waving at the door Sunset had run out of. Rainbow huffed and turned away muttering to herself.
“Shouldn’t we go after her?” asked Fluttershy.
Rarity sighed and said, “No darling, we’ll just have to have our talk with her later.”
Twilight frowned and said, “Okay, no really, tell me what happened.”
“Darling, it might be a bit of a bold claim, but that is what happened.” Rarity replied back.
“That can’t be what happened. Magic doesn’t exist.”
“Sure it does lemme show you!” Pinkie Pie pulled a laptop out of her hair and put it on the table. Moments later she pulled up a video on it on YouTube. Someone had a camera at the battle against Sunset Shimmer. It showed Twilight Sparkle and the other girls fighting over the crown and when the cameraman got brainwashed he dropped the camera and it pointed up at Sunset Shimmer in her demonic form for the entire time until she got blasted by the rainbow. Then the camera was picked up and captured a sweeping view of the crater outside the school, then zoomed in for a close up on Sunset Shimmer as she climbed out of the hole. The audio quality was terrible, rendering the voices incomprehensible.
Before Twilight could recover, Pinkie was already loading up another video taken of the events from a different angle. This one was a cell phone and it cut off when the owner dropped it after being mind controlled. But he captured Sunset’s demon transformation as well. Then a last one was brought up as a security feed someone managed to get ahold of that showed the whole event from above in a washed out night mode.
Applejack piped up again after the last video ended. “Twilight, this is no hoax or elaborate prank. Sunset Shimmer was turned into a demon through dark magic and we blasted her in the face with magic and it’s all thanks to an alternate you.”
“If you have so much evidence of it then why isn’t it in the news?” Twilight asked disbelievingly.
“It’s not because the magic just made everyone accept it and move on. It encouraged them to come up with excuses not to think of it as magic, and it’s better that way.”
“But, this is big! If magic is real then the world should know!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Darling, consider what would happen to Sunset Shimmer then. You couldn’t see it in the videos but that event changed her. You saw part of it just bit ago. She’s beating herself up over this, and everyone in school hates and distrusts her despite the magic. It would be worse if the authorities got involved.”
“What should we do then?” Twilight asked.
“Give her some time. Things are just too big and overwhelming for her right now.” Fluttershy said empathically.
“Here, why don’t we fill you in with the rest of what happened?” Applejack offered. The rest of the lunch period, the girls fully explained to Twilight the situation surrounding the fall formal. She still had doubts, but the mounting evidence was hard to ignore.
☼ ☀ ☼
Meanwhile, Sunset was running away. She couldn’t stand it anymore. They hated her and rightfully blamed her for what happened. Not really thinking, she ran to Principal Celestia’s office.
Except when she got there, Vice Principal Luna was sitting behind the desk. “Oh Sunset Shimmer, what can I do to help you?”
“W-where’s Principal Celestia?” She managed to ask in an almost calm voice.
“She’s out today, she had something important to take care of.” Luna looked down at her desk to straighten the papers out as she talked, but when she looked up Sunset was gone.
Sunset Shimmer ran again, and this time she left the school. She didn’t really have a plan but she couldn’t stay there anymore. The angry glares and judging stares were getting to her. She ran back to Celestia’s apartment. She knocked at the door and pleaded for Celestia to open up, but Celestia wasn’t home.
Sunset sat down right there exhausted. After she'd caught her breath and with no options left, Sunset wandered away.
After some time Sunset realized she had walked to the mall. It wasn’t too far away from Celestia’s place after all. She had walked much farther everyday to go to the warehouse she had lived in, but it had taken her a couple hours to end up there. That was likely due to her slow pace and wandering, though. Looking up at the mall she realized a spot she could go to, to be alone.
Entering the mall she passed all the stores and went up the service stairs to the roof once again. This time however she made sure to prop the door open with her bag. Sunset sat down with her back against the wall. It was weird that this place could feel somehow safer than the school. Staring out at the highway that was nearby she lost herself in watching the traffic.
Then she heard footsteps and the door opening. “Ah, I didn’t think I would ever see ya up here again.” said the husky voice of Stand Sentinel.
He walked over and sat down beside her. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Sunset just nodded.
“Ah, a rough day then? Are you having troubles there?” Stand asked.
“it’s just, I made a mistake. My whole life is coming down on my head and I feel like everyone is better off without me around.” Sunset confessed, being strangely open to this strange man.
“Not going to pretend I know what that feels like. I was a jock when I was in high school.” Then he sighed and continued. “Actually no, I think I know how you feel, mine just came later.”
Sunset watched him as he spoke.
“I know it might be hard for you to believe, but I always wanted to be a real cop. Not just some fat security guard.” Stand reached down and pulled his pant leg up. “Then I got hurt in training.” Sunset didn’t notice before, but the leg was just a prosthetic.
“Depression hit me harder than losing it did. I became what I always hated, a drunk. I was spiteful and washed up. I hated everyone and everything.” Then he smiled a bit. “It always takes someone else to pull ya out of it you know? For me her name was Elegant Step. Quite the woman, knocked me flat on my tush when I met her. Now, I have happiness, her and our little Flash, with them I don’t need my old dream, ‘cause I found a new one.”
Stand paused to catch his breath. “Girl, I know life is tough, but running away and shutting people out is only going to make it worse.”
Sunset felt the tears in her eyes. “I’m afraid.”
“I know, and it is hard to let people into your life.” With a grunt he stood up. “Come on girlie, you go to CHS right? I’ll give you a ride there. I have to pick up Flash soon anyways.”
The color drained out of Sunset’s face. “Flash Sentry?”
“Yes, that’s him. I guess you know him then?” Then he gave her an appraising look and then a hearty laugh. “Oh you must be that ball of fire he was so smitten with. Come on, you don’t need to be afraid of me. I know what high school romance is like, I don’t blame ya for breaking his heart.” Stand Sentinel held the door opened for her.
☼ ☀ ☼
They were just in time to hear the end of the day bell. Stand Sentinel walked Sunset up to where Celestia was waiting for her.
“Now ma’am don’t get mad, she just got scared and ran off.” Stand said defending Sunset’s actions.
Celestia already had Sunset in a tight hug, “I’m sorry, I should have been there today. I had a feeling you would have trouble with your first day back.”
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ran off even though I was afraid.”
Stand Sentinel politely excused himself and walked off to meet Flash Sentry.
“I have a surprise for you Sunset. Come on, let’s go home.” Celestia released Sunset from the hug. She then looked sternly into her eyes. “And on the way home you can explain to me exactly where you’ve been all day.”
“Yes, M- … Celestia.” Sunset followed her to the car.