Celestia felt a whirlwind of emotions going on deep within her, making her feel conflicted. She was angry because her school had been partially blown up and the fact that Sunset Shimmer had attempted to brainwash the student body and take over an alternate dimension [Which she was skeptical about and was convinced that she was instead dreaming the entire night's events up.] but sad because she finally saw the real Sunset Shimmer that she had been trying to find for three years. Three years. And in less than a few minutes, Twilight Sparkle, her friends, and magic light had managed to do more than she had ever thought possible. Celestia was also happy for; she had a chance; to connect finally to the real Sunset Shimmer and help her on her journey to turning over a new leaf, from the demon she had seen every day for the last three years to a smart, sweet girl that she knew hiding beneath her shell. And she was determined to take it. She had already invested three years into Sunset Shimmer and she wasn't about to give up yet.
All but one Canterlot High Student had left for home or the various after parties following the dance. That one who stood in front of the school with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, shoveling bits of concrete and plaster into the wheelbarrow and every so often taking it to the large dumpster behind the side of the school to toss it. The student, who went by the name of Sunset Shimmer was dirty and her clothes a bit torn from the earlier incident. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her face was red from crying. Nearby, Vice-Principal Luna stood guard, watching over the student, angry and yet slightly torn.
The night air, which was nippy and a bit windy, was silent save for the occasional howl of the wind and the soft sobs of a student in pain emotionally and a bit physically. Luna pulled her jacket around her tighter and silently cursed the gods for putting her on Sunset Watch. Rather, it had been Celestia who had done it, promising she would be back soon. Most likely in her office trying to call up the school board and local construction companies.
While both Luna and Celestia did expect Sunset Shimmer to assist in cleaning up the mess, they both knew she was most likely not skilled in actual construction. 'Celestia better have a good excuse to tell the chairmen of the board' thought the woman, rubbing her arms to warm herself up. No doubt the destruction of part of the school was going to attract attention; while she highly doubted that anyone outside of the school except for some nut jobs would believe the schools slightly destroyed state was from a magical blast; the school board would be curious. Perhaps Celestia could pass it off as structural problems, but then again, the surrounding walls of the blighted area were scorched. Bomb? No. That would just cause panic in the community and more problems.
During Luna's musings, she realized Sunset Shimmers sobs, which she was slightly concerned with, had begun to increase in frequency and volume. She turned her attention towards the young woman and noticed that she had stopped shoveling debris into the wheelbarrow and was now kneeling with her head hung low and her body shaking.
Before the blue skinned woman could approach her, the doors to the school swung open and in the dim light of the hallway light, Luna could make out the form of her sister who was drawn to Sunset Shimmer. She briefly debated before approaching as well, intending to take her sisters lead as she had done many times in the past out of habit. However, she decided to stay silent and watch the scene unfold.
Sunset Shimmer was barely aware of Luna's gaze on her back or the cold wind biting at her face. Nor was she aware of what she was doing. Her body was on autopilot; shovel debris into wheelbarrow, wheel, toss, repeat. She had followed this pattern for two hours without stop, even when Luna had suggested a break. She couldn't. Stopping meant to think and thinking brought it back. She was wrong. She had been so very wrong. When the light of friendship hit her, she realized everything she had ever done since coming here had been wrong, that she had messed up her chances of ever having... No, Sunset refused to think about that, at least for the moment.
Sunset finished filling the wheelbarrow and began the process of taking it to the garbage to dump. Briefly, she stopped to survey the damage and gauge how much work was left before her. She was only about a quarter of away done she decided before turning back to the wheelbarrow. She arrived at the garbage, which smelled of rotting meat, took a glance at the overflowing dumpster and sighed, shoveling debris into the trash bin. It had taken a tiring ten minutes before she was ready to wheel it back to be filled up once more.
As she pushed the worn, rusty wheelbarrow down the school's gravel paths, she became aware of soft shouts. She stopped briefly and noticed a quartet of people, around her age yet apparently not CHS students as she could recognize the face of almost all the students, walking back from what appeared to be Canterlot Park. She couldn't see much due to the darkness of night but from what little light nearby streetlights and the school provided, she could tell from the way their laughter echoed in the air and the way that they walked closely together that they had to be friends.
Sunset cursed herself. She had thought about it. She fought the urge for her mind to go down that patch and quickly as she could, she raced back to the pile of destroyed school, intent on distracting herself once more from thinking. But unlike before which had worked, her mind was already spinning and refusing to drop the topic.
“We could have had friends, but now no one will ever like us. You hurt everyone at this school and destroyed our chances of ever having a friend.”
Sunset pushed the voice away and hastily began shoveling debris once more, knowing deep down that this was pointless and that the voice was emerging.
“We had someone who cared about now they hate us."
The orange skin girl began shoveling even faster and tossing the debris sloppily, causing most of it to miss the thing she was putting the debris and into the grass behind her instead. Sunset was unaware that the tears she had been softly shedding earlier were not beginning to come in full force.
“We could have had a chance to apologize and redeem ourselves to Celestia but now it's too far gone."
At this point, she had dropped her shovel and had begun flinging the smaller piece of rubble with her hands in the general vicinity of the wheelbarrow. Her sobs were increasing in sounds, and her body was starting to shake.
“Someone took us in, sheltered us, offered to be our family. BUT NOW WE HAVE NO FAMILY AGAIN BECAUSE I WAS TOO STUBBORN TO SEE THAT SOMEONE COULD CARE”
Sunset let out a strangled sob and flung the rubble in her hand against the ground. Her whole body was now shaking from her sobs which were piercing the night air. She had failed. She had failed, and it hurt so much because she hated herself for what she had become and what she was going to do. She sunk to her knees, unaware of the gravel that pressed uncomfortably against her knees and the ground. She wasn't sure how long she sat that way. While in reality, it was most likely a few minutes, she felt like an eternity had passed when she was ripped out of her thoughts by a light pressure on her shoulder. She gasped and realized that it was a hand. The former pony followed the hand up to its owner and realized that in fact belonged to none other than Principal Celestia who was kneeling on one knee and seemed concerned and a bit sad.
Celestia silently wrapped her arms around the younger woman and pulled her closer. For some reason, this made Sunset cry even more. The woman with the multi-colored hair could barely understand her young student as she began trying to talk and cry at the same time. She couldn't understand a word she said except one phrase which she repeated in intervals. I'm Sorry.
“I know, I know” whispered Celestia. Not another word was spoken, for none was needed. It was evident Sunset Shimmer was in pain but perhaps, just maybe, with a little help, she would finally be okay.
Aside from her sister, nobody knew that Celestia had adopted Sunset Shimmer when she had initially arrived in this world. It was her who had found the dazed and confused girl in front of the statue located on the front lawn of the school. It had been after hours, and the sun had been starting to set when she saw the girl poking the front of the statue and occasionally herself. She had stared for a good few minutes before she had approached the girl. She knew right away that she was not a student at her school. The young woman had reacted badly, especially after she had introduced herself as “Celestia Solarias, Principal of Canterlot High” in fact, she looked both scared and angry.
Upon realizing that the young woman was refusing to discuss why she was on school grounds after hour or who she was, the cops were called in. They had taken her to the precinct and only then did they learn her name. However, they could not get her to tell them where she was from and searches in the national database turned up nothing. No birth certificate, no hospital records, nothing. She seemingly had no past, as if she had just crawled out of an underground cave or rather, came through a magic portal that led to a land of Ponies.
Celestia felt connected to the child. Concerned. She felt as if she should know her. The young woman was sent into foster care and from the reports the social worker was kind enough to give her, Sunset Shimmer was not doing well. Lashing out at her foster parents, stealing and breaking things, bullying the younger children. They even sent her to a group home briefly, in hopes to curb her anger and scare her by placing her with other wild children however it did nothing to stop her. Perhaps it was because of her own experience in the foster care system or the fact that she could clearly see that the teenager was lost and hurt, but Celestia felt compelled to try and fix her. To give her the love that she needed and the older woman was unsure she had ever received.
Sunset Shimmer did only slightly better in her home. Perhaps because she knew she couldn't get away with things without punishment and the fact that there was two stern woman always watching her. Celestia and her younger sister Luna. Neither were married...well, any more in Celestia's case, so moving in together had been easier. Sunset Shimmer seemed a little bit scared when she heard first hand from her while visiting the girl in her foster home that she would be living with Celestia from then on. And she also saw a few tears. That was only one of few times that Celestia saw a brief, fleeting glimpse of the real girl hidden underneath.
It was only a month before Sunset began running away and refusing to share a living space with Celestia and her family [ Her sister as previously mentioned and her little girl Scootaloo] and staying out till all hours of the night. It was a constant struggle. Eventually, though, Celestia made a deal with the girl. While Celestia wasn't incredibly wealthy, she did have a nice sum of money that she was sitting on. As long as Sunset Shimmer attended school, saw her shrink once a week and kept up at least a B+ grade average and stayed out of the darker sides of teenage life such as drugs, Celestia would provide her with a separate little apartment nearby the school as well as pay for food and utilities. Otherwise, she would end up back in the foster system and this time, she would most likely end up being sent to a stricter, harsher facility. Sunset agreed and that made her a little bit sad. She always wanted more children, and she had hoped that Sunset could be hers, not just in writing and that she would be a big sister to Scootaloo, something she desperately needed.
Three years passed and while Sunset kept up her end of the bargain when she entered her Freshmen year at Canterlot High School, she quickly became a menace and a bully, controlling the students through fear and intimidation. During that time, her anger clearly deepened and occasionally, she looked downright insane. Celestia watched as her attempts to set Sunset up with friends which would hopefully slow down her destructive path a bit, failed over and over. Even her brief fling with Flash Sentry, which she hoped would finally mellow her out a bit, did nothing to stop her desire and greed. And then when Celestia knew that Sunset was just reaching her peak of her descent into madness, it had happened. That beautiful, beautiful moment when hit by a giant surge of power, the real Sunset Shimmer who had been hiding beneath the layers of anger, disgust, greed and self-hate, finally emerged.
It wasn't going to be easy; fixing the damage that was clearly years in the making. Celestia highly doubted a single blast of “magic” could do that. At least that's what she assumed, she knew next to nothing about magic. Sunsets attitude towards the other students all these years was going to come back to bite her in the ass now that no one was afraid of her anymore. She would also have to deal with whatever skeletons in the closet she had. But Celestia was ready to help and perhaps she could finally be that missing piece of the family that Celestia needed.