CH3: This one's going to work for sure, I can feel It.
Sunset could only stare at the purple haired girl in front of her. “You want me to what?” she asked flatly. Rarity’s sudden proposition caused her to tear her eyes away from the many sets of clothing that were strewn around Rarity’s boutique.
“Simple, darling,” she said, calmly taking a seat on her velvet couch, and taking a sip from the tea that she had made. ”I want you to help me design a line of costumes for the upcoming battle of the bands.”
Sunset gave her a look that screamed "seriously?". Complete with folded arms. “No, the second part.”
“Oh, of course," Rarity chuckled, playing innocent. "Before that, I would like for you to enter the upcoming fashion show while wearing one of my dresses.”
“Yes, that." Sunset rolled her eyes. "There’s no way I’m entering a beauty pageant--"
"Fashion show," she corrected, holding up a finger.
"Whatever! Where in this one horse town is there even a fashion show going on?”
Rarity gave Sunset a bright cheery smile. “My house of course!”
Sunset looked at her in disbelief. "You're holding a beauty pageant for the entire town?"
"Not I, my uncle and aunt are. Not my house either... that was a joke." Rarity feigned a slight chuckle, but a glare from Sunset caused her to awkwardly cough it off. "Nevertheless, you may have heard of them; Hoity Toity and Hot Topic?"
Sunset's disbelieving look turned into one of complete surprise. "The Hoity Toity and Hot Topic!? You’re related to them!?”
“I take it that you recognize the names?” Even though Rarity was smiling on the outside, truthfully, she hated throwing around the names of her family, but she needed Sunset to agree or else her plan wouldn't work.
“Recognize the- They’re the biggest fashion names in the state!” Sunset clearly had a hard time fathoming the apparent connects the girl in front of her had. While not into fashion herself, Sunset still kept up to date of the local celebrities. Gossip amused her like that.
“Yes, they are my dear aunt and uncle, though not by blood,” the fashionista clarified.
Sunset gave her a blank look. “What?”
“They’re more like godparents; due to their friendship with my parents. But enough about that, will you participate?” Rarity inched forward and gave the girl large pleading eyes.
“No,” the girl said simply.
Rarity was stunned to say the least, she was sure that Sunset would agree after hearing that, she herself would after all. “Wh-what?”
“I won’t enter,” she said plainly, clearly enjoying Rarity’s reaction.
Rarity pranced in place is if she was throwing a tantrum. “Why not?” she whined.
Sunset turned away, her gaze slightly downcast, “I- I just can’t, I would lose anyway.”
There was a beat of silence from Sunset's tone of voice. Finally, Rarity took a small step forward, a look of concern covering her features, “Sunset you-”
Suddenly, Sunset turned back to Rarity. “Why can’t you wear it?” she accused. “It’s your dress, isn't it?”
Rarity was slightly taken back by the sudden question, but it wasn't something that she was unprepared for. "Why that’s precisely the point. As the maker of one the ensembles, I cannot enter. It’s one of the rules,” she explained, cleverly hiding the fact that she had been the one to suggest that rule in the first place. "I am also an organizer that's helping to put it together. I'm lucky that I was even allowed to enter a design with everything else."
Sunset turned to leave out the front door. “Well… just get one of your friends or something.”
“You are one of my friends, that’s why I came to you first.”
Sunset stopped and turned her head back toward Rarity, her face one of stunned surprise. “What?” she whispered.
“I said that you’re my friend. In fact, I would love to have all of you join and enter because it would be a dream come true for me. However, the others... well," she hesitated, trying to figure out how to word it so that she did not insult her other friends, “Rainbow Dash and Applejack refuse to let me work on them, Pinkie won’t stay still, and poor Fluttershy is too timid for this kind of thing.”
Rarity considered herself to be fairly good at reading other people’s feelings. Looking at Sunset, she could see that she was clearly conflicted, her face showed a myriad of emotions ranging from slight relief and happiness, to what seemed like fear and hesitation. “Fine.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said… fine. I’ll... I’ll be in your stupid pageant,” Sunset muttered.
Rarity jumped up from her seat, took Sunset’s arms, and ran towards the dressing rooms. “Wonderful! First, I’ll need your measurements.” A skirt and jacket flew out from behind the screen.
“Hey, what are you-”
“Then, we need to pick a design!”
“Ohh, that’s cold!”
“It seems that your primary colors are red and yellow. So we’ll need to compliment those.”
“I like other colors too you know!”
“But first, it looks like you could use a little-”
“Oh, no, get those scissors away from me!”
“Don’t be shy darling, I’m just trimming some excess hair.”
“Not down there you’re not!”
“But, Sunset,” she whined, “there’s too much, the judges will hate it!”
“No, they won’t even see it. Plus, just because I have more than you doesn't mean you can cut any off.”
Rarity pouted for a few seconds. “Fine, but don’t get upset when you get a low score.”
“I don’t think I’ll be graded for the amount of hair I have.” Still behind the curtain, Rarity had forced a now semi nude Sunset to stand stone still in order to take the most accurate measurements possible. Every twitch was met with a stern look from Rarity, and every breath was even and spaced. The whole process was very boring and repetitive: Move that one body part, turn this way, turn that way. The only different part was when Rarity had asked her to take as deep of a breath as she could, and hold it so that she could take a measurement of that as well.
All in all it was a very mundane experience, but somehow, Sunset actually managed to find some enjoyment in it, even if she couldn't fully understand why. Maybe it was the odd conversations they had during the measuring, maybe it was finally being able to spend time with another person without feeling hated, or maybe it was that she called her a friend. Either way, Sunset actually found herself having fun.
Eventually, Rarity completed her measurements, allowing Sunset to put her clothes back on. As she turned to her work table she called out behind her. “Sunset?”
“Yeah?”
“I remember that Twilight was from a place called Equestria, so I assume that you come from there as well?” she asked as she made her way over to her design table. Papers, discarded designs, and random stretches of fabric littered the entire area.
Sunset emerged from behind the changing curtain fully clothed. “Y-yeah, I am.”
“What’s it like, in that other world I mean. Twilight was able to use magic, and when we all came together it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. So, I just can’t help but wonder what it’s like to have that feeling inside you all the time.”
Sunset fidgeted nervously, she knew that someone would ask that eventually. To be honest, she barely even remembered what it was like to have magic. When she went to take the crown she had already been there two full hours relearning her own spells. Sunset hesitantly looked into Rarity’s eyes, only to nearly trip backward when Sunset realized how close Rarity had come to her face, and even worse, how large her eyes looked because of it.
“I… uh… Well, it was… colorful?” she stammered, completely unsure of how to answer.
Rarity, seeing the panic in her friend’s face, quickly backed off. “Oh my, I’m terribly sorry, that was very rude of me. It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me, I won’t force you.”
“No! I mean… look, it’s fine, I just don’t really remember much of what it’s like to have magic since I’ve spent most of my time here.“
“Well, when you had the crown on, you had magic, albeit dark magic, but what did it feel like then? I must admit, I am quite curious of it all.”
“What… did--” Sunset visibly cringed as the memory rose up to the forefront of her mind. Her vision began to swim when the images and sounds of her crazed laughter began dancing in front of her eyes. Memories of everything that she wanted to do to Twilight and the others arose in her thoughts, the horrible, horrible memories that were left behind by her corrupt self. The elements may have been able to expel the urge to do those things, but the magic alone simply wasn't enough to purge the memories, nor the feelings.
Even now, in the dark recesses of her mind, Sunset could imagine herself doing extremely violent things to various innocent people, not just brainwashing them, and right now, Rarity was appearing in more and more of them. It would be so easy, all she had to do was wait till she was distracted with her designing, and simply-
“Sunset!”
Sunset instantly snapped back to reality, the image of the ground and her feet filled her sight. She realized that she was hunched over with her hands covering her ears. “Wh-what is it? What’s wrong?”
Rarity momentarily froze before turning back to a look of concern. “What’s wrong with me!? What’s wrong with you? You just started shaking and shivering, you looked like you were in pain just now! Come, sit over here,” she said, urging Sunset toward her fainting couch.
Sunset quickly pulled away. “N-no, I’m alright. I think that I should go now. My parents don’t want me out too late. You know how it is.”
Rarity really didn't want her to leave, she felt like Sunset was finally getting a chance to enjoy herself without anyone else treating her unfairly. “Umm sure, alright. I’ll get to work designing the dress, but are you sure that you’re alright?”
Sunset grabbed the door handle and prepared to leave. “I’m sure, I just need to hurry and get home, call me when the dresses are ready.”
“You know, you could just keep coming over, I do enjoy polite company while I work.”
Sunset paused for a second, one foot already beyond the doors threshold. Without answering, she fully exited the fashionista’s home, closing the door behind her as she left.
~~~
The next day Rarity woke up later than she would like to admit. Having worked most of the night to develop a suitable foundation for Sunset’s dress. It was actually surprising how hard it was to work black, red, and yellow into a dress.
After washing up and taking a light two hour shower, Rarity sleepily made her way over to Sweetie Belle’s room to wake her up, only to remember that she was at their parents place this week. Shrugging, she made her way downstairs to fix something to eat. Reaching the last stair, she was stunned to see a familiar girl quietly sitting in her living room with a book flat on the table, reading.
“Sunset?”
The girl in question turned to look at her, her expression showing slight impatience. “Well, you sure enjoy your beauty sleep,” she said plainly.
Rarity could only smile, Sunset had actually come back, this was perfect.
“By the way, you should really lock your door.”
“So I’ve been told. Have you had any breakfast yet?”
Sunset flipped a page in her book. “Yes, about six hours ago,” she answered absentmindedly.
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Okay, I'm catching a LOT of continuity errors in this story that violate the canon of the Equestria Girls movie.
Let's take them in order:
Photo Finish can't be Rarity's aunt, OR famous. She's a student at Canterlot High.
Every popularity contest Sunset Shimmer has won has been at Canterlot High. Rarity has been there exactly as long as she has, if not longer. Rarity would know these things. Additionally, remember the mention in the movie of the Spring Fling? Rarity is the girl who tried to run against Sunset Shimmer.
Err...no.
The portal between the two worlds only remains open for three days. Twilight Sparkle was in that other world three days. Sunset Shimmer came through and stole the crown the SECOND the portal opened, and thus would have had very little, if any, time to reacclimate herself to Equestria.
Have to argee with MythrilMoth, other then that it was good.
Might be worth a little rewrite.
4723470 Or maybe there was only 3 days left. >D U mad bro?
4723470 Technically, it is possible if you make her younger... my friend has a aunt younger than her.
...What parents? Any parents Sunset has (living or dead) would be in Equestria, not on EQG Earth.
4725697
The ones she's lying about to give herself an excuse to leave because she's uncomfortable. Or so I deduce.
This felt like a pretty decent improvement over the past couple chapters. Nice to see that.
4723470 In response to the first point: He's entitled to a bit of poetic licence isn't he?
But your other two points are respectable.
My answer would be: slap an alt-universe tag on this and you're all set =)
Is that Getting Crap Past the Radar I see with the hair? Or do I have my mind in the gutter... Yeah... I do... I think... depends on how I interpret 'semi-nude'... *blushes* ... Shutting Up NAO...
Did... Did Sunset leave half-naked? I mean, it didn't say she got dressed, or maybe it did and I'm being a big ol' dumb.
But, still.
5982700
Huh... 
You're the only one out of my editors, pre readers, critics, reviewers, and just about every single reader to notice that little slip up. Point's to you good sir POINTS TO YOU!! 
Lets just assume she got dressed.
4725697 That brings up an interesting question: where does Sunset live? One of my favorite parts of Shimmer fics is finding out each author's headcanons on that.
I was about to ask about the parent thing when I noticed that someone beat me to it. One would think Rarity would catch on to that little detail. It's either she has none here, or she did something less then savory to the "Original" Sunset Shimmer and assumed her place. At that point, there would be parents to deal with, but that would make the whole "raging she-demon" thing a bit more awkward.
Oh?
Rarity certainly seems to get into the spirit of making friends with Sunset Shimmer far more than AJ or Fluttershy ever did. The next chapter should be interesting.
Also, that mention of parents. More info, nao!
It may be a "one horse town," but you, dear Sunset, are the one horse.