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Conspiracy Theories1,041 words
Cafe talks2,082 words
Rock Bottom1,268 words
Doggy!1,191 words
Family1,231 words
Off to School1,305 words
Cafeteria Conversations491 words
Sunset's Idea1,171 words
A New Friend?1,239 words

Cafe talks

Sunset Shimmer hummed to herself as she walked into the cafe. Ever since the defeat of the Sirens, things seemed to be going well for her. Hardly anyone gave her angry looks anymore, and some of the students were even starting to smile at her occasionally. In addition, her friendships with the other Rainbooms were stronger than ever.

She smiled as she picked up her coffee, looking around for a place to sit down. She hoped that she might be able to make friends with someone new, someone who wouldn’t judge her for having turned into a raging she-demon.

To her surprise, however, she noticed someone she’d never expected to see again.

She began to walk towards the figure sitting in the back of the cafe. It was a blue teenage girl wearing a purple hoodie and blue jeans. While it wasn’t the same attire Sunset was used to seeing her in, the long blue ponytail was unmistakable.

“Hey.”

Sonata turned in surprise. However, as soon as she realized who it was, she quickly looked away began to cower. Sunset frowned at this.

“Hey, don’t worry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Slowly the blue girl lifted her head up to look at Sunset. For a moment she stared at her hesitantly, fear evident in her eyes.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

Sonata hesitated for a moment, obviously still fearful of retribution. However, she slowly lifted her hand and gestured towards the empty seat across the table. Sunset smiled and sat down.

“Sonata, wasn't it?”

The girl merely nodded her head.

“Look, I’m sorry about this,” said Sunset. “I mean, I’m not sorry about dispelling your magic- I mean, I didn’t want you to end up all broken up after being blasted by a giant musical-magical alicorn, but I had to stop you, and… I’m really bad at this.”

Sunset turned her gaze downwards. She had been hoping to gain the trust of the sirens, and help them redeem themselves in the same way she redeemed herself. Even helping just one of them would have made her happy. But now she felt that she’d lost her one chance.

“I’m sorry.”

Sunset looked back up in surprise.

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry,” said Sonata. “I did a lot of bad things when I was at Canterlot High. And I hurt a lot of people, including your friends. I’m really sorry… for everything.”

Sunset stared at her blankly. Of all the things she’d expected her to say, she had not expected her to apologize.

“Oh… apology accepted?”

Sunset smiled awkwardly at Sonata. She in turn smiled for the first time; it was a small smile, but a smile nevertheless.

“So, where are your friends?”

The smile faded away.

“They’re not my friends,” said Sonata, her voice quiet but angry. “They just kept me around because I was useful to them. And now… well, there’s no use to keeping something around if you don’t need it, is there?”

"They abandoned you?!" said Sunset, her eyes widening in shock.

"And they made sure I knew just how worthless they thought I was."

For a moment, neither of the two spoke. Sunset had never imagined that the sirens would abandon one of their own, and now she couldn't help but feel terrible for indirectly causing Sonata so much pain. She also felt intense anger towards Adagio and Aria for having hurt their own teammate.

But that could wait. She needed to help Sonata.

"Hey," she said. "I don't really know much about forgiveness, but I do know that the Rainbooms forgave me even after the whole 'raging she-demon' thing. It took a while, but I managed to become friends with them, and now most of the school is starting to forgive me. So... maybe if you let us help you, you'll find a way to gain forgiveness as well."

Sunset held her breath in anticipation. This was the moment of truth. If she couldn't gain Sonata's trust, she would almost certainly fail with the other sirens.

"For realizes?"

Sunset smiled as Sonata looked at her hopefully.

"Of course."

To her surprise, Sunset found herself being tightly hugged by the siren.

"Omigosh thanks so much! I thought it was just Dusk Shine who was going to help me, but now I know you're here too!"

"Yeah, I'm glad too, but I can't really help if you strangle me!"

Realizing what she was doing, Sonata quickly release the other girl, looking away in embarrassment.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," replied Sunset. "Just give me some warning before you give me a hug next time."

The two girls smiled at each other for a moment, before a thought occurred to Sunset.

"By the way, who's Dusk Shine?"

"Oh, he's a guy I met yesterday," explained Sonata. "He doesn't know anything about what happened at Canterlot High, but I did tell him some stuff. Not the whole 'siren brainwashing music' thing, but some stuff."

"Some stuff?"

"Yeah," said Sonata. "Also, he looks a lot like the purple one."

"Twilight?" said Sunset, her eyebrow furrowed in surprise.

"Totally!"

"That's weird," said Sunset. "His name is kind of similar too, with 'sparkle' replaced by 'shine,' and 'twilight' replaced by 'dusk-'"

"That's just like my name!"

Sunset rolled her eyes at Sonata's comment.

"Well, yeah, that's true. But I don't think that is particularly relevant right now. Anyway, he might look a bit like Twilight, and have a similar name, but I really don't think this Dusk Shine guy has any real relation to-"

"What about me?"

Sunset jumped in surprise at the new voice. She then turned to face the boy who had just arrived and was now looking at her and Sonata.

She now had to admit that his resemblance to Twilight was uncanny.

"Dusk!" Sonata said excitedly. "I was just talking about you!"

"I kind of figured you were," answered Dusk. "So, would you mind introducing me to your friend?"

Sunset suddenly found herself feeling uneasy for the first time since the Battle of The Bands. On one hand, she didn't know how to react to the fact that the purple boy in front of her bore a striking resemblance to a magical pony princess from another dimension. On the other hand, she was trying to get better at making friends, and turning her back on someone just because of a weird similarity to someone else she knew would probably be unfriendly.

Finally, she decided to try to be friendly, if for no other reason than the fact that he seemed friendly with Sonata.

"Sunset Shimmer."

"Cool," said Dusk. "You probably know this already, but I'm Dusk Shine."

"Yeah," said Sunset. "Sonata was just talking about you."

"Oh, okay," said Dusk. "So, have you two known each other for long?"

The two girls suddenly became very quiet. They looked at each other briefly, unsure of what to say. Dusk watched them expectantly, wondering what was making their conversation so awkward. However, as he did so, he slowly came to a realization.

"Sunset, were you, by any chance, a... well, there isn't really any nice way to put this..."

Realizing what Dusk was about to say, Sonata sighed and began to speak.

"Yes, Sunset was the victim of one of my... group's schemes. But she wants to help me get my life back on track now, even though I never did anything to deserve her help..."

Seeing the glum look on Sonata's face, Sunset took Sonata' hand in sympathy.

"Hey, just because you did some bad stuff in the past doesn't mean you don't deserve help," she said. "In fact, you probably need help more than anyone else right now."

"Yeah," added Dusk. "And look at it this way: if one of your former victims wants to help you make up for your mistakes, then why shouldn't you take that chance?"

Slowly, a smile crept onto Sonata's face. Adagio and Aria had never shown her any real kindness, only keeping her pleased so that she could perform her roles in Adagio's plans effectively. But now, for the first time in as long as she could remember, there were others who truly wanted her to be happy.

"Dusk, Sunset... thank you."

The three teens smiled together happily.

"So, what school do you go to?" asked Dusk.

"We both go to Canterlot High," replied Sunset promptly.

"Well, at least you do," added Sonata. "I really haven't been going long enough to say I'm a Canterlot High student."

"Canterlot High?!" said Dusk. "That's the place with all the crazy stuff, isn't it?"

Sonata and Sunset's eyes widened.

"W-what are you talking about?" said Sunset. "Canterlot High is the most normal high school in the whole world!"

"Their security sucks, though," said Sonata. "They let in any student regardless of whether or not they have any documentation or legal guardians."

Sunset shot an irritated glance at Sonata.

"What? It's true!"

"Well," said Dusk, "crappy policies aside, there is something very strange going on at Canterlot High. Just a few days ago, during a musical competition, some of the competitors underwent an inexplicable transformation which was accompanied by strange lights."

The two girls tried their best to look innocent as Dusk continued.

"And that's not even the first time that weird stuff has happened there! A few months ago, at a school dance, some weird demon girl appeared!"

Sunset could barely prevent herself from groaning.

"Who knows what it wanted, but it was stopped by some sort of rainbow energy. After the incident, none of the students wanted to talk about it, even though they had to hire someone to fix up the front doors!"

Dusk noticed the looks on Sonata and Sunset's faces and stopped talking. They were fidgeting uncomfortably, and looking at each other awkwardly. He looked downward, now embarrassed by his mad rambling.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know all this is really weird. I've always had a thing for these weird stories. It's one of the reasons why I've never really had friends."

"I never had friends either," said Sonata. "My... associates never really liked me, but they kept me around because I was useful to them. Once I stopped being useful, they didn't think twice about dropping me."

"I wasn't ever really good with the whole friendship thing either," said Sunset. "Hell, I'm only just starting to really understand it. But from what I've learned so far, being able to accept people's quirks and weirdness is part of being friends. So I think we'll be fine as long as we can accept that we're all weirdos."

As she finished, all three of them burst into laughter.

"Okay," said Dusk as they began to calm down. "So we're all just weirdos?"

"Well, maybe you two are just weirdos," said Sonata. "Right now, though, I'm also hungry. So I'm a hungry weirdo."

Sunset and Dusk couldn't help but chuckle.

"Well, I guess we could all go out and get something," said Dusk. "Who's up for Taco Spell?"

"Oh! Me!" Sonata said excitedly. "Tacos are the best!"

Sunset raised her eyebrow at Sonata’s enthusiasm, but she smiled anyway.

"Well, I guess tacos are good," said Sunset. "Why not?

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