The problem with becoming a better person, Sunset Shimmer mused, is how much it hurts to know yourself like that. Having been recently clocked upside the head with a two-by-four of empathy courtesy of the Magic of Friendship, she felt especially qualified to make that judgement. Still, all the self-awareness or remorse in the world couldn't endear her to the school she had so thoroughly wronged without a way to prove her change of heart, so Sunset Shimmer helped with the effort to clean up the remains of her demonic rampage and slipped out when she had done all she could in order to take a walk and get her thoughts in order.
And that was how Sunset Shimmer found herself in a secluded park just before dawn, morosely skipping stones on a pond and trying not to think too much about anything. After a long time spent not accomplishing anything other than feeling sorry for herself and chasing her thoughts in circles, she stood up with a huff and started on her way home to head off any angry fellow students looking to take out their anger on her things instead of her. Not that they would find anything to wreck; she had no house or apartment or anything like that, just a back alley she had staked out a while back and filled with whatever spare money or supplies she could buy, beg, or steal, though she had stopped begging once she started feeling too proud for such an embarrassing way to get things. But still, it was entirely possible someone could find out about her alley from one of the hobos-er, homeless people she had forced to move out of the dingy little place and steal her stockpile. Clean water for bathing was hard to get with her nonexistent income. However, before she could take even five steps, the sound of a fight reached her ears. I wanted to start helping people, didn't I? With that thought, Sunset Shimmer raced to the source of the noise.
What she found was a pair of people ganging up on a third, who seemed to be giving as good as she got. Still, two against one was hardly fair. So Sunset Shimmer circled around behind one of the attackers and tackled them. Acting on her admittedly limited experience as a bully with physically fighting someone (her words were usually enough to leave a target too demoralized to fight, but there had been instances, and she still had a certain instinct for physical confrontation from her time as a pony), she then slammed her quarry's head into the ground until the whimpering stopped and blood started pooling on the now helpless troublemaker's forehead. That was when her potential new friend, who had defeated the other assailant in the meantime, turned to address her.
The stranger, judging by what little light was available, was a woman of about Sunset Shimmer's height and perhaps half again as old. She reminded Sunset Shimmer of Rainbow Dash, what with having the same build and hardly even sweating after what was enough excitement to leave Sunset Shimmer more than a little damp with perspiration herself. The stranger also seemed to share Rainbow Dash's approach to personal grooming, which was to say not caring about it at all beyond picking the foliage out of her hair, to go by the various signs of wear and tear on her body, particularly the large number of scars of various sizes on her face, neck, hands, and arms; perhaps there were more elsewhere on her body, but the shirt and pants concealed the hypothetical marks. There was no more time to examine the stranger, though, as she had begun speaking.
"Hey," she called out, rasping a little. "Thanks for the help, but I gotta ask, what's your angle? You're a kid, not really Good Samaritan material, know what I mean?"
Sunset Shimmer stood up and tried to stare a hole in the ground as she spoke. "I...just realized that about myself recently, actually. Some, eh, bad things just happened at my school because of me, and now I need to make up for it. If I don't try to make things better than when I found them, what's the point of me feeling bad about it, you know? So when I saw these two-" She gestured to the bodies lying on the ground. "ganging up on you, I decided to help. I need to start somewhere to make something better of myself, right?"
The stranger smiled slightly with a faraway sort of gaze. "I wish there were more people like you, kid. You got a name?"
"Sunset Shimmer," came the mumbled reply.
"Right. Well, Sunny, when you decide to start living for real-don't give me that look, I can see the hopeless in you-come here." She handed Sunset Shimmer an index card with an address written on it. "Ask for Crane, and I'll start showing you how I help the world out, and let me tell you, it's more satisfying than wandering around a park in the middle of the night looking for someone getting beat up to help. Come by when you're ready and I eep this between us, okay? I got enemies, and they won't care if you're a kid. Catch you later!"
As the presumed Crane ran off to wherever she was headed, Sunset Shimmer stared at the note card in her hand. The offer had been much too vague to tell what she would be getting into. From what she said, Crane seemed to be a good person, but that hardly meant anything. She said something about "enemies that wouldn't care if I was a kid". What could that mean? I don't want to die...but, then again, I can't live with myself if I don't look at this offer. I need an opportunity like this. I'll just have to hope it's not some weird scam or something. Who knows, maybe they'll let me stay there. It would be nice to have a roof over my head that's sturdier than a newspaper. She looked at the address again. I know where this street is. I'll get some sleep and go see Crane in the morning.
With her mind made up, Sunset Shimmer headed home, her whole being positively buzzing with anticipation. She was all too glad to (potentially) be on the way to turning her life into something better.