• Published 4th Aug 2016
  • 8,161 Views, 666 Comments

Sunset Vs. - MythrilMoth



Sunset Shimmer rages over everyday annoyances...and the occasional inexplicably weird thing that should not be.

  • ...
35
 666
 8,161

Sunset Vs. Pokemon GO!

Author's Note:

I started writing this back during the summer, when the whole Pokemon Go thing started, then got massively blocked on it. Also, I don't have a smartphone and don't really keep up with Pokemon Go, so those of you who actually play it will probably catch a lot of inaccuracies here. :twilightsheepish:

It was six thirty in the morning. Earlier than most people like to be up and about, but Sunset Shimmer was always an early riser.

Yawning sleepily, naked and her hair a mess, Sunset grabbed a towel and washcloth from her linen closet and opened her bathroom door, looking forward to a nice, long, hot shower to wake her up and warm her body.

Before she could take a step into the bathroom, her still-waking brain alerted her to the presence of something...very amiss.

Namely, the paunchy, sweaty twentysomething man with a broad face, an oversized nose, a thick layer of stubble on his neck, and numerous festering pimples dotting his face who stood in the middle of her bathroom, eyes glued to his phone.

"Yes, got it!" he grunted. He then started walking right toward her without so much as a word.

"H-hey, what—"

He bumped into her, pushing her out of the way, and kept right on walking. Sunset heard her living room window slide open and shut.

She stood there, eyes wide, heart racing.

After ten seconds, she found the presence of mind to scream.

* * * * *

Sunset didn't make it to school until third period, caught up as she was in making a police report, notifying her landlord of the home invasion, and otherwise dealing with everything that had just happened.

"Good heavens!" Rarity gasped, clutching a hand to her heart, as Sunset relayed the morning's bizarre encounter to her friends at lunch.

"Dude, that's messed up," Rainbow said.

"What did the police say?" Fluttershy asked in a whisper, her eyes wide and frightened.

Sunset let out an aggravated sigh. "They said they can't really do anything about it unless anything was stolen or I got a picture of the guy, but they've been getting a lot of reports of incidents like that over the last few days."

"Oh my goodness," Fluttershy whimpered. "If there are perverts sneaking...sneaking into girls' bathrooms and...and..." She squeaked.

Sunset shook her head. "I don't think that's what it was," she said. With a grimace, she added, "No...I'm sure that isn't what it was. He honestly didn't even seem to notice I was there. Of course, that's what I thought at first, when I was still screaming, but once I calmed down, I realized he was acting like..." She paused, looking around the cafeteria.

The other girls followed her gaze.

At least a dozen students were milling around the room in silent circles, eyes glued to their phones.

"Like that," Sunset said. She took a sip of her water.

"Ugh," Rainbow said with a disgusted grimace. "That stupid Pokemon Go crap?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was looking for Pokemon in my bathroom," Sunset muttered.

"Good grief," Applejack said.

"I don't even wanna think about what kind of Pokemon you'd find in the bathroom," Pinkie said as she swirled her milkshake. "Maybe it was a Grimer? Oh! I bet it was an Ekans!"

Sunset glared at her.

Pinkie ducked her head. "I know, not helping." She noisily slurped her shake.

Sunset sighed. "Don't you girls think it's strange, though? People walking around like zombies, not paying attention to where they're going, just...just obsessed with that stupid game?"

"Tell me about it," Rainbow grunted. "Half the soccer team is doing it. Practice has been a complete disaster all week! I tried to get coach to do something about it, but he's playin' it too!"

Derpy walked right into their table, falling smack in the middle and sending Sunset's tray sliding off the end, where it crashed on the floor, splattering her barely-touched crispy chicken strip salad all over the cafeteria floor.

Derpy's phone spun as it slid across the table. Pinkie caught it. She looked at the screen. "Oh look, there's a Nidoran right over there," she said.

Sunset stared at the mess that had been her lunch. She whimpered.

"Oopsie," Derpy said sheepishly, picking herself up. She rummaged around in her backpack. "Muffin?" she prompted, offering Sunset a wrapped banana nut muffin.

Sunset growled at her.

"Careful, Derpy," Pinkie quipped. "She knows Takedown, and it's super effective."

* * * * *

Sunset drummed her fingers on her desk as she listened to Miss Cheerilee drone on. She wasn't really in the mood for English class; her stomach was still grumbling over the loss of her lunch, and when one was geared up for a delicious chicken strip salad with ranch dressing, a muffin just didn't fit the bill.

"So when Rose-Colored Glasses wrote—" Cheerilee was cut off mid-word as a tumultuous buzzing filled the classroom. A dozen students pulled out their phones—as did Cheerilee herself. As one, they all stood up and rushed to the windows.

Everyone else watched them. Whispers filled the room.

"What's going on?"

"Eh, it's that stupid Pokemon Go shit."

"Oh god, even Miss Cheerilee? Seriously?!"

At the windows, the Pokemon Go players were swiping away at their phones, their attention completely focused on whatever was happening in their game.

"YES!" Lyra and three others cried.

"NO!" Bon Bon moaned, shoulders slumping. A few others sagged in defeat and trudged back to their desks, while still others continued furiously swiping.

"AAAAAHH!" Cheerilee screeched. "It got away AGAIN?!" She blinked and looked around the room, taking in the bewildered stares of the students who were still seated. She coughed, then returned to her desk, setting her phone down. "Ahem. Continuing..." She paused, then added, "By the way, everyone who caught that Pikachu just now? See me after class about detention for playing games while I'm trying to teach."

"But...! Miss Cheerilee!" Lyra protested. "YOU were play—"

"Bupbupbupbup!" Cheerilee interrupted, flapping her hand like a sock puppet mouth. "Detention."

Sunset's left eye twitched.

* * * * *

By the end of the day, Sunset was hungry, cranky, and had a headache. Her friends gathered around her at the entrance of the school. "Sunset, darling," Rarity said, "how about we head over to Sugar Cube Corner? You could use a pick-me-up."

Sunset sighed. "No thanks," she said. "I just wanna head home, check up on things, relax..."

A loud shout went up from a group of students gathered around the still-wrecked statue that housed the portal. "YEAH!" Flash Sentry cried, pumping a fist in victory. "In your face, Trixie!"

"Hmph!" Trixie snorted, tossing her hair. "You haven't won yet, Trash Sentry! You'll never take this gym if the Great and Powerful Trixie has anything to say about it!"

"Wanna bet?" Flash asked, raising an eyebrow. He threw his hand up in the air and snapped his fingers.

Out of nowhere, five other guys showed up, all wearing red sunglasses. Flash slipped on a pair of red sunglasses of his own and smirked.

"Oh shit, he's Valor," someone whispered.

"Ugh, they're seriously gonna roll the CHS gym like this?"

"Buncha jerks..."

Sunset tuned out the chatter going on and turned to her friends. "You know," she said, "I think Sugar Cube Corner sounds like a good idea right now after all..."

The six girls left the campus, casting occasional sidelong glances at Flash and his Team Valor crew as they surrounded Trixie...

* * * * *

"So whut th' hell was that all about?" Applejack asked as they reached the intersection.

"Turf war," Rainbow grunted. "Trixie's the Team Mystic bigshot at CHS. She's been talkin' trash about Instinct and Valor all over the place. The guys on the soccer team are kinda sick of it, but most of 'em are Instinct, so they don't wanna get involved." She frowned. "Th' Valor guys, though..." She shook her head. "I can't believe Flash is Captain V."

"Captain V?" Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The leader of the Valor crew at CHS," Pinkie said. "Up until now, nobody knew who was running Valor's gang at our school, because he just goes by Captain V and doesn't wear the colors, but he just outed himself big time. They say Captain V takes gyms all over town by bringing a whole crew to attack all at once."

Sunset blinked. "Wear the colors? Bringing a crew to...they do know this is all just a video game, right?"

Rainbow snorted. "I think most of these Pokemon Go players checked out of reality like, the day the game came out."

"I'm afraid I don't understand what all this has to do with Trixie or the statue with the portal," Rarity said.

"The statue's a Pokemon Gym," Pinkie supplied. "I heard Trixie's been the leader of that gym for a few days now. She took it from somebody on Team Instinct who got ambitious. I think they took it from Valor at like, three in the morning on Sunday. That's what Twitface said, anyway."

"You follow all this crap?" Sunset wondered.

"Oh, come on," Pinkie said, rolling her eyes. "I follow every single person at CHS on Twitface. Nothing happens at this school I don't know about! Except Flash being Captain V, I didn't see that coming."

"It's a shame that such incredible technology has turned into something this inane and pointless that's just making people mad at each other," Twilight said with a sigh. "I was interested in the augmented reality applications of Pokemon Go, but once I heard how crazy people were going using it, I decided not to get involved."

"Smart thinking," Rainbow said. "It's getting completely out of hand."

They turned the corner that led to Sugar Cube Corner and headed up the sidewalk. As they approached, Sunset said, "I'm still pretty hungry from lunch. I could really go for—"

Without warning, a stampede of people of all ages poured down the street, converging on Sugar Cube Corner, fighting and clawing their way toward the doors.

The girls stopped short, staring in confusion.

"Uhh..." Applejack drawled.

A few minutes later, the swarm scattered like cockroaches. A burst of wind blew a few pieces of litter past the suddenly dead storefront.

The girls looked at one another, then cautiously approached the store. Pinkie swung the door open and stepped in, looking around. "Mrs. Cake?"

The others followed behind her. Mrs. Cake stood behind the counter, her hair frazzled, a forced smile on her face and a twitch to her eye. "Pinkie Pie! Please tell me you and your friends are here to actually order something."

"Of course we are," Pinkie said. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Whut th' hay was all that just now?" Applejack asked.

Mrs. Cake twitched. "W-well...we thought maybe we'd attract more customers if we dropped a Lure to attract that Pigglystuff—"

"Jigglypuff," Fluttershy corrected.

"Right, that," Mrs. Cake said. "That thing that keeps showing up here. But they just...they just come running for that, then leave." She slumped forward on the counter.

Sunset groaned. "Ugh, Pokemon Go again? What is WITH this stupid craze?"

"I don't know, but it's driving me and Mr. Cake cuckoo," Mrs. Cake said miserably. "So, umm...what can I getcha?"

And then fifty people crowded into the shop all at once.

"Umm...I think we'll take our orders to go," Pinkie said, her hair wilting.

* * * * *

When Sunset returned home, she was annoyed to find her usual parking place was taken. In fact, all the parking places were taken.

Which almost never happened, because her building had fifteen parking spaces and only ten apartments.

But it wasn't just the parking lot. The street was full of parked cars too. And bikes—motorcycles like hers, scooters, and regular old bicycles.

A small crowd was gathered all around the building. They were in the grass. They were in the bushes. They were on the stairs. They were hanging around on the second floor landing, leaning on the balustrade. Three were right outside her apartment.

Circling the block, Sunset eased her bike into the cubby behind her building where the air conditioning units lived, then took out her phone and quietly called the landlord while circling back around to the front. "Sal? It's Sunset. Yeah, there's...like, a lot of cars and bikes parked here that don't belong here, and a whole crowd of people swarming the building. I mean, they're taking up all the parking, they're all up and down the street, they're on the stairs, on the grass, it's a mess here—"

"Hey! Hey, lady!"

Sunset paused, turning to look to her right. A little boy, no more than six or seven, was staring up at her with a gap-toothed smile.

"You can't catch th' Pokemon if you're not usin' your phone right!"

Sunset paused. "Uhh...I'm on the phone, kid. You know, because it's a phone?"

He blinked at her.

"You know, that you call people on to talk to them?"

The kid stared blankly. "Huh?"

Sunset groaned. "Sal, hold up a second, will you?" Muting the phone, she knelt down and smiled at the little boy. "Are you lost?"

He shook his head. "Nuh-uh. Mommy's right over there in the car. I'm gonna get a Ponyta!"

"A Ponyta."

"Yeah! There's lotsa Ponytas here!"

Sunset frowned. "So...you came here, to this building, to play Pokemon Go?"

"Uh-huh!" The boy tilted his head. "Didn't you?"

"No, kid, I live here."

His eyes widened. "Wow! You're so lucky! You musta gots LOTSA Ponytas!"

"Something like that," Sunset said. "Listen, kid, can you go get your mom and tell her to come over here?"

"Sure!" The kid walked away. Sunset unmuted her phone. "Sal? Yeah, I think I know what's going on here. And I know what was up with that guy in my bathroom this morning. No, don't bother calling the police. I'll take care of it." She hung up, squared her shoulders, and marched around front. Shoving her way through several people loitering on the walkway, she struggled to get to the door of the apartment right below hers, and knocked hard.

From inside, a frightened voice said, "G-go away! S-stay away! I don't—"

"Granny, it's me, Sunset," Sunset called loudly. "Your neighbor?"

"O-oh!" Sunset heard the chain on the door rattling, then the door opened a crack. Grandma Gumdrop, a shrunken elderly lady with yellow skin like parchment and white hair tied up in a tight bun, looked out at her with watery eyes magnified by thick, round spectacles. "Y-yes, dear? Sorry, it's a bit hard to...with all this noise..."

"That's why I'm here, Granny," Sunset said. She leaned into the crack in the door, then quietly spoke into the old woman's ear. "I need to borrow Rosco for a minute."

Grandma Gumdrop stared at her with wide eyes. "O-oh dear," she whimpered. She peeked out past Sunset. "Y-you're not going to...a-are you?"

"I just want to scare these people away," Sunset said with a gentle smile. "You want them to go away too, right?"

Grandma Gumdrop's eyes narrowed and her jaw hardened. "Yes, I do," she said. "It's been like this all day long!" She patted Sunset on the arm. "You just wait right here, dearie."

"Thanks, Granny."

Grandma Gumdrop shuffled off into her apartment, leaning on her cane. A minute later, she returned, handing Sunset a twelve gauge shotgun and a handful of shells. Sunset smiled, loaded the gun, and stepped outside.

Nobody seemed to notice her or the gun, absorbed as they were in their Pokemon catching quest. Sunset navigated her way between the people, finding a relatively clear spot, and aimed the shotgun up into the branches of the tallest tree on the property.

The blast rolled across the crowd of Pokemon hunters like thunder. A thick branch broke off the tree, falling and landing on someone's illegally parked car with a loud thump. Several birds took flight, cawing raucously.

The entire crowd lapsed into stunned silence, jerking wildly around and looking up from their phones.

Sunset pumped the shotgun and held it over her head. In a loud, clear voice, she said, "May I have your attention please! If you are here to play Pokemon Go, you are trespassing! If you don't leave NOW, I'm calling the police! Believe me, I don't mind spending a night in jail for chasing you all off this property with a shotgun!"

"WELL!" a middle-aged woman huffed. "Of all the audacity! Young lady, do you have any idea who I—"

Sunset fired the shotgun into the tree again. Another branch broke off, knocking over someone's bicycle.

"Yeah, I know who you are," Sunset said. "You're a trespasser. That's against the law. I live here. Other people live here. You're annoying everyone who lives here. I had one of you stupid assholes break into my apartment this morning when I was about to take a shower. So I really don't wanna hear about your justification for being here when you've got no business being here." She raised her voice and looked at everyone. "I'm only gonna say this one more time. GO. THE FUCK. AWAY!"

"Such language!" the mother of that seven-year-old boy huffed. "Young lady, there are CHILDREN here!"

"And what kind of example are you setting for your children?" Sunset countered. "That it's okay to trespass? That you can break the law whenever it suits you? Huh? Real nice parenting there, lady. GET LOST!" She glared around at the crowd. "Come on! All of you! Take a hike! Beat it! I'm talking to you, flop sweat! You too, nosering! Cops are on the way, come on, get gone! Don't ever come back!"

Slowly, with much muttering and grumbling, the crowd of players broke up, returning to their vehicles. Ten minutes later, just as the last unwanted guest pulled away, a police car pulled into the parking lot. An officer got out and walked up to Sunset, frowning at the shotgun. "Uhh...we received a report of trespassers on the premises...?" He gestured to the gun in Sunset's hand. "Umm...please explain...?"

Sunset smiled winningly. "Just pruning the old oak!" She pointed at the downed branches. "Nobody here has a ladder."

The officer frowned. "Young lady..."

"I can vouch for her, officer!" Grandma Gumdrop said, shuffling out onto the walkway. "Sunny scared away all those hooligans that were running wild all over the place!"

"Hooligans?" The officer asked.

Sunset grimaced. "A whole swarm of Pokemon Go addicts," she said. "They were trespassing here."

The officer consulted his tablet. "This is the second time today we've gotten a call about trespassing here," he said.

"Yeah, I'm the one who called this morning," Sunset said. "One of these Pokemon idiots got into my bathroom somehow."

The officer blinked. Shaking his head, he looked around. "Well...next time, no shotguns, alright? That's a good way for people to get hurt."

"Of course, officer!" Sunset handed the gun back to Grandma Gumdrops and beamed at the cop with a winning smile.

The cop snorted and shook his head. "Between you and me, I'm not a fan of this whole Pokemon Go thing either. Some kid's gonna get themselves killed, watch." Tipping his hat to the two of them, he returned to his car and drove away.

Sunset's shoulders sagged. "I have a headache," she groaned.

"There there, dearie," Grandma Gumdrops said. "I'm sure it's just a phase. It'll pass."

* * * * *

It didn't pass.

Weeks turned into months, and the Pokemon Go craze slowly transformed from frenzied flash mobs to a daily life annoyance.

The last great flash mob before things leveled off took over Canterlot Park for seventeen hours. Roads for half the town were completely blocked off.

Not long after that, the Sirens returned to Canterlot High School with a new plan to rule: by taking over the Pokemon Go teams. Within the space of two weeks, Aria Blaze had wrested control of Team Valor from Flash, Adagio Dazzle had seduced her way into the lead of Team Mystic, and Sonata Dusk somehow took over Team Instinct. Fortunately for the Rainbooms and the general population of CHS, the Sirens were fighting amongst themselves and using their newfound followers to escalate their own bizarre sibling rivalry. Crystal Prep itself had been designated a Pokemon Gym, and it became a weekly event for teams of students from either school to travel to the other school and crash their gym. No fewer than seven students had been suspended from school for invading Principal Celestia's shower, which, for some reason, was also a Pokemon Gym.

Worse than that, Pokemon Go had succeeded in completely dividing the student body of Canterlot High into cliques once again, fomenting bitterness and hatred among the students. All the good that had come from Princess Twilight's first visit to their school and everything the Rainbooms had done at the Battle of the Bands had come completely unraveled.

As the Pokemon Go craze entered its third month, Sunset and her friends sat alone at their corner table in the cafeteria, watching with dismay as the other students sat at groups of tables which had been pushed together and repainted in their team colors. "There's gotta be a way to fix all this," Sunset said, burying her face in her hands. "I never wanted to see CHS like this ever again."

"Unfortunately, I don't think the company that created this destructive game really cares about its social impacts," Rarity said, examining her nails.

"Yeah, you still see on the news about traffic acccidents and people getting arrested for playing it in restricted places," Fluttershy said.

"You'd think a fad like this would've died down by now," Twilight muttered unhappily.

Sunset sighed. "I just wish there was some way to put a stop to all this."

"Well, the app itself has gotten pretty glitchy lately," Pinkie said. "A bunch of people quit playing out of frustration." She paused. "They still kinda stick to their teams, though."

"It's a shame it doesn't have that one killer glitch the original games had," Twilight mused idly. "The one that screws up your data."

"I heard about that glitch," Pinkie said. "It was kinda hard to get it to show up. Most people pretty much saw it as a victory if they got it."

"What glitch?" Sunset asked, tilting her head curiously.

"Well, it was back before any of us were even born, of course," Twilight said, adjusting her glasses, "but the original Pokemon games had this glitch Pokemon that was basically a register error where the game accessed an empty data register it wasn't supposed to. Catching it would totally mess up your save data."

"Hmm," Sunset said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. An evil grin spread across her face. "Say, Twilight..."

Twilight's eyes widened, her face paled, and sweat beaded on her brow...

* * * * *

DEVELOPER FACES FINANCIAL DISASTER AS MISSINGNO VIRUS WREAKS HAVOC

Player traffic for popular mobile app Pokemon Go has dwindled to virtually nothing as the virus known as MissingNo continues to spread throughout the installed userbase.

MissingNo first appeared in the Crystal City region roughly a week ago and rapidly spread across the region. Before the developer could investigate and contain the phenomenon, the virus spread to an expanded userbase; within three days, reports of MissingNo infection were too widespread to contain.

The virus corrupts player data in the cloud and on the game servers, spreading through interactions such as PokeStops and Pokemon Gyms. Infected players will experience discrepancies with item quantities, corrupted CP for captured Pokemon, and data errors when encountering wild Pokemon. It is recommended that infected players remove the app and all application data from their phones and discontinue using the app.

Even as the programmers struggle to devise a countermeasure for this prolific and adaptive virus, the company faces strong criticism and financial fallout. An executive who asked not to be named stated in an interview that if MissingNo continues unchecked, the company may be left with no choice but to pull the plug on all its servers, bringing an end to the wildest social media craze the world has seen since MyStable.

The students of Canterlot High chatted merrily in the cafeteria at lunch. The tables, back to their uniform cafeteria white, were spread out in their proper orientation, and kids from different social groups intermingled, talking and laughing and working on homework together as they ate.

"It's nice to have things back to normal again," Sunset said as she poured ranch dressing over her crispy chicken strip salad.

"Yeah, an' them Sirens done cut an' run," Applejack remarked.

Twilight toyed with her spork. "You know if we're ever caught..."

"Relax," Sunset said dismissively. "By now, there's no way to track the source of it, even if we'd used anything traceable." She unwrapped her spork...

"WAAAH!" Derpy tripped on her way past the table and fell right into Sunset's lunch, sending it flying across the room to crash and splatter all over the floor.

Sunset stared at it. She whimpered.

"Umm...muffin?" Derpy offered sheepishly.

Sunset glared at her.

Applejack rolled her eyes and slid a fresh crispy chicken strip salad down the table to Sunset. "Ah gotcha, sugarcube," she said.

Sunset beamed gratefully at her and dug in as Derpy peeled herself off the table and walked away, nibbling on her emergency muffin.