"This is so stupid..."
"Don't knock it until you try it."
Sunset sighed loudly at the princess's words. The both of them were at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. The princess had been excited all the past three days for this. She wanted to show her new "pupil" to the professors. They had been there all morning, looking at the lecture halls, the cafeteria, and other rooms of little importance. Sunset took the small tour in relative silence, simply nodding or humming acknowledgements to the princess. Her eyes were more drawn to the unnecessarily large amount of Royal Guards in the school. As she no longer had the magic-inhibiting device on her horn, she strongly believed all these stallions in armor were meant for her.
She had also met some of the students there. The little fillies and colts looked up at her like she was some hero. They would compliment her mane, her coat, or her cutie mark. It was like they had never seen a pony of her age before. She wouldn't blame the foals for that since she herself did not see anypony her age. It was a massive age gap between the little ponies and the old mares and stallions that ran the place.
"So what do I do?" Sunset asked Celestia.
"It's simple, just go in front of them and perform your magic. I'm counting on you to awe them like you awed me."
"And if I burn the whole place down?"
"That's fine. Just make sure no ponies get burned," Celestia chuckled.
The young unicorn sighed once more and walked down a flight a steps to the bottom of the lecture hall they were in. Two stoic stallions and a mare watched her take every step. She faltered slightly under their gaze, but pressed on until she reached the bottom and turned to face them in her abundant amounts of confidence.
Celestia walked down as well, but sat in one of the rows behind the silent adults. She playfully waved a hoof at Sunset from her spot like a mother would to her little sports player. Her little smile was intoxicating, and Sunset almost smiled just from it, but it was clear she took control of her jaw muscles before something so horrible happened.
"And you are?" one fierce stallion demanded from the unicorn.
"Sunset Shimmer, sir," she said.
The princess had went over with her the polite techniques she would use during this tedious process. The words "sir" and "ma'am" were to be spoken at the end of her words every time. It was a boring and excruciating process to break Sunset's habits of insulting ponies or using rude tones of voice. She was also forced to practice hours about how she would hold her face. She had usually kept it in a frown when ponies she despised were around her. Celestia thought she had won this battle of demeanor, but it was clear Sunset took nothing to heart as she frowned at the stallions and mare and her words were in a tone that would make most burly stallions back away in fear.
"And you wish to enroll yourself into this school?" the mare asked.
"That is correct, ma'am," Sunset lied.
Celestia face-hoofed at Sunset's rude answers. I should have known this would happen. This finally brought a smile, however devious, from the young unicorn. So she stuck her snout high and prepared to answer more useless questions.
"You are above the maximum age limit for enrolling into this school," a stallion said, "however, since you have been selected by Princess Celestia, you shall bypass this rule. Now, because you have already earned your cutie mark, what is you specialty, magic-wise?"
"Burning things," Sunset said more cheerfully, "roasting things, melting things, exploding things, and uhh...did I mention burning things?"
"Uh-huh," was the answer.
"I love playing with fire. That's kinda my specialty. Oh! I can't forget that I am also great with burglar magic. I can break into things, steal things-"
"She's joking!" Celestia interrupted with a nervous smile. "What a joker, am I right?"
The mare and stallions started to chat among themselves. While they were distracted, Celestia levitated the unicorn into the air and brought her to the top of the stairs where they conversed in whispers.
"What are you doing?" Celestia demanded.
"You mean they don't know what I am?" Sunset shot a question back.
"Well, of course not! If they did, they wouldn't accept you. To me, you're a guilty thief, to everypony else, you're an innocent unicorn trying to learn and grow in magic. Try to keep it that way!"
"Are you doing something illegal?"
"No! Well, technically, no. Your conviction is not public nor was it ever actually ratified. So, in a sense, you are innocent. However, you are a criminal and thus a threat to other students. It's illegal to bring ones with criminal records here. So yes, it's illegal, but it's not because you are innocent until proven guilty."
"So it is illegal that you hold me prisoner! I knew it!"
"Yes, but I am Princess of Equestria and you shall deal with it. Also, if word gets out that you are, indeed, a criminal, then I'll just change the laws. You can't get out of this, so at least go along with it. It'll save you a longer sentence and ponies will actually befriend you without judgment. Now, go back down there be a good little unicorn. It will help you. I don't like threatening you as I'm doing all of this to help you. If anything of this was just meant for me, I would have discarded you the first day because you are a pain in my flank! Now go out there and be somepony you're not so that later you can be the pony you want to be."
Sunset looked at the floor with reluctance. "Alright."
The unicorn walked quickly back down the steps to where she was before. The mares and stallions of the school raised their curious brows at her. It was a nervous exchange of glances between all of them. Once Celestia took her seat once more, one of the stallions spoke up.
"So you are a thief?"
"No, I'm just joking. Never stolen a thing in my life," Sunset lied surprisingly well. "I'm a pyromancer. Found out my skill with fire when I was...cooking with my mom a few years back."
"We would like a demonstration," the mare said and made a sound by hitting her floating clipboard with her pencil.
One of the Royal Guards walked in with a small tree in a pot. It was an ugly tree with few leafs and an oddly mangled appearance. After placing this monstrosity of a plant, the Royal Guard bowed and walked away back to his original post.
"Let me guess, you guys want me to cook this baby?" Sunset said while a grin formed on her face.
"No, we want you to burn it. It is a dying tree and we want you to take care of it," a stallion said. "Originally, you were supposed to change the properties of its bark. Since you are older than most students, we thought a tougher test would be suitable."
"I'll change the properties, alright!"
Sunset stomped a hoof and her horn glowed green. She stared at the tree with a wicked smile while she charged up. Suddenly, the tree burst into a raging inferno and intense flames soared from the pot all the way to the high ceiling. It was like an upside down waterfall, but with fire instead. After it was clear the tree was no longer in existence, the unicorn continued to sprout fire into the air. The noise of all the power was almost deafening and when she finally stopped, the quietness that followed was quite unnerving. Not only was the tree gone, but the pot was obliterated as well. All that was left was ash and black stains on both the floor and the ceiling.
Sunset happily clapped her hooves and looked to the school's staff. Every one of them had their jaws open and complete fear in their eyes. They probably would have been writing on their clipboards, but they had dropped them on the floor and were not making any moves to pick them up. After this long silence, Celestia started to clap her hooves.
"Well done, Sunset! Well done!" she said. I better keep a fire extinguisher near her at all times.
With shaking jaws, the mare and stallions slowly turned their heads to the happy princess. Their eyes were uneasy and their voices cracked at several intervals, but they nodded at the young unicorn.
"That was impressive..." one stallion whimpered.
"Excellent, I dare say," the mare swallowed.
"Encore?" the second stallion said with uncertainty.
"'Encore?'" Sunset repeated. "Gladly!"
The unicorn looked about for another small potted tree. There was one in the upper corner of the lecture hall and she summoned it to her side in a bright green flash. With a crazed look in her eye, she conjured another inferno over this healthy and perfectly fine sapling. Steam poured out from the bark and even the wet green leaves were burned up in mere seconds. However, she did not have the fire as intense as before as when she was finished, the pot remained there as black clay.
Celestia buried her face into her hooves. Scratch that, I'll need more than a pitiful fire extinguisher.
The unicorn clapped her hoofs excitedly and smiled at the still gaping staff members. Nopony else showed her enthusiasm. The princess was still in her hooves, muttering something completely incoherent. Sunset watched them all with excited eyes, but her excitement started to fade as they started to jot down something on their clipboards.
"I think we've seen enough," one stallion said before quickly leaving the lecture hall. The other staff members followed him quickly.
"What do you mean she's not allowed in?" Celestia growled.
Celestia stood before the staff members in a secluded part of a hallway. The three of them were still shaken by the fiery display of magic from the young unicorn. They quivered under Celestia's raised eyebrow, but were slightly brave enough to speak against her foul expression.
"I know it may be stupid to deny your request," one of the stallions gulped, "but she is simply too dangerous to allow her here."
"What makes you think she'll use magic on the students?"
"What makes you think she won't?" the mare shot back with concern.
Good point. Celestia looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "You know, this is my school, it's rather hard to deny my request."
The mare shook her head. "Yes, but Your Highness, we heavily advise that you back off. We don't know anything about her and she is older than most students, and her magic is mainly offensive and pyromancy is a dangerous area of unicorn magic. You know as well as we do that fire-based magic is often emotionally controlled instead of precise calculations. To create fire like she does, she has a lot of anger and for all we know, she could be unstable. We are thinking of this school's safety. Your Highness, you should think of it too."
"I see," Celestia nodded in defeat. "I shall not let her in. Perhaps one day, I'll ready her for this. I was going to use this school as an area for her to make friends. As far as I know, she has no friends and perhaps never had any. I'm glad you came to this conclusion. You think for the students, that's already more selflessness shown than me all day. Thank you all. Carry on."
What a waste. Celestia sighed and leaned on the wall. She watched the staff leave without any care. No help from my own school. I shall have to make her my full-time pupil. She'll have no other place to study or learn. Coming to this conclusion, she sighed once more and started to make her way down the hall, opposite the direction the staff left. She did not feel sad, but she felt disappointed and a bit aggravated.
"Oh, don't be so mad, Tia, baby!" she said to herself. "You got this! What trouble can one pyromaniac unicorn be to you? Huh? Yeah, that's right, she won't be. You have to give her books, lots of books. Make her learn, make her grow, make her...less violent too. She and you shall become the best of friends! You count your royal flank on it! Go on and make me proud!" she ended her talk with a hoof to the air.
The hoof soon came back down. "Oh, who am I kidding?" she sighed. "Well, better kid myself and believe I have some hope of turning her into somepony respectable than to be completely hopeless, right? Oh, I can do this! Sister, please help me. I can't do this alone."