Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"The Lesson I Forgot."

By applying my special talent on many ponies, I learned I could find a chord to strum in any pony who proved difficult.

For example, Grimoire, after I learned she had met and befriended Sunset Shimmer. Apparently, Grimoire had suffered a magical misfire in class. Word was that Sunset had pressured her to perform a spell and she'd ended up burning much of the fur off her face around her horn (in a doubled star-shaped pattern, no less). Weeks later, I got a report that Sunset had taught Stun on the occasion and had staged a tag-you're-it battle as a TA for her underclassponies. While the faculty might dislike Sunset's teaching style, they felt constrained by the young mare's connections to the princess. What she hadn't known was that Grimoire had fought in a notorious, let's say, urban skirmish that resulted in Carne Asada's sudden, uh, retirement despite Grimoire's best efforts.

I'd bank post-traumatic stress had caused her misfire. The Hooflyn conflagration was four months ago and likely a regular nightmare.

High level unicorns are prone to magical misfires, I understand; I wouldn't know from personal experience. A bad one could cripple a unicorn's ability to do magic, or destroy it completely. Somehow Sunset had saved Grimoire from losing her magic, but the former security mare's pride had been getting in the way of her thanking her. With Sunset feeling super-apologetic, and Grimoire feeling pressured to reciprocate, it seemed like a perfect time to introduce Sunset to nettle-ewe—an expensive herb that greatly increased a unicorn's ability to think quickly and accurately, though using it did make them really want to use it again and again. Grimoire objected; selling herbal products was a step further than helping me collect my debts, a step over her ethical line.

Deep down, she really had wanted to thank Sunset Shimmer, though. And— I convinced her that she could thank Sunset and do what I asked of her because Sunset wanted to out-perform Twilight Sparkle in Princess Celestia's eyes. Nettle-ewe could aid that.

Streak reported that Grimoire got all kissy-faced with Sunset, leaning into her side provocatively, publicly, in restaurants and on the streets downtown, pretty much completely inebriated—which would have made for a great fly-on-the-wall moment when Sunset took her home to her ivory tower. That the fillies started to pal around the next day and to tutor each other showed I'd gotten them to bond.

Grimoire was the ultimate experiment of the limits of my talent. While Sunset didn't get to try nettle-ewe that night—that happened months later—Grimoire had piqued her interest. Grimoire had done what she wanted subconsciously—yeah, teenage hormones and she was way too tightly wrapped—but wouldn't break her deep-seated ethics. I should have considered her a great mistake, but that would be the future-me's evaluation of my greatest mistake.

I was having fun.

That should have been a warning bell. Business is serious and sober, but I forgot that. I had forgotten that my special talent was to help ponies be happy.

Feeling cocky, when I discovered I had a pony scoping out the Lower to set up a competing business—a two-faced stallion from Fillydelphia named Good Fellows with double-headed cutie mark—I got overly creative. I had Streak herd Grimoire to the Cliffside warehouse district, assuring my "pretend" enforcer that I wasn't asking her to sell product, that instead I wanted to "eliminate" a pony.

Aren't euphemisms a great way of letting other ponies decide what you mean? And for the record, I don't kill ponies as such poor business practices are what get the constabulary or the EBI after you, but it was fun to see this runaway aristocrat from near Horseshoe bay—probably Market's Vineyard, Grin Having, or Baaah Harbor—squirm as she choked on saying she didn't kill ponies. I knew that.

But I told her convincingly how truly horrible Good Fellows was, that he was the scion of a crime family from the island of Sizzling, and that he was beating up my clients saying that only he could protect them, for a price, of course. It was only time before Good Fellows would trample my benign businesses that kept the peace in Lower Canterlot. Good Fellows had to be eliminated.

With righteous anger, Grimoire had stormed off.

I'd concocted my story from a Bridleway hit play I'd seen. In reality, I suspected Good Fellows might be an EBI agent, though he seemed rather incompetent. Sweet Celestia, what a show that turned out to be! Grimoire completely trashed Good Fellows' flat, breaking out windows with flying furniture and starting a two alarm fire. She rampaged after him all around his neighborhood, wrecking signs she pulled off buildings to heave at him, scorching brick walls and street posts as he dodged, and frightening restaurant patrons when she chased him through at least two late night noodle shops and a curry joint, all the while stalking him while yelling long-winded patrician curses in the streets about his base "dirt-grubbing" ancestors and how he could clean the sewers with his— Well! Anyway. She'd stunned the constables that had shown the temerity to investigate the ruckus, all before they could get a good look at her.

Streak lost the pair in the warehouse district.

I later learned they'd trashed the factory floor of the Sofa & Quill. There'd been blood tracks everywhere, but because of the lack of published news, and Streak's brief sighting afterwards of my bloodied over-enthusiastic enforcer, I'd known she'd snapped out of her mania.

And healed quickly.

Nopony died—obviously, as there was no further investigations. Nopony was hurt, either, despite the commotion. Fellows disappeared. Who knew that deep in her psyche that Starlight Glimmer was a vengeful crusader!

I had a good laugh. Ironic—really, considering what would happen later.

I had to coerce her again.

That happened when the smug filly showed no inclination of giving up or feeding Sunset's penchant for drink. She who had thought friends were "highly overrated" seemed to be trying incredibly hard to help her friend get over her problem. Futile, of course. Celestia's first protégé was hungry for power and wasn't actually an alcoholic; she was frustrated in her goals and acting out. I wanted Grimoire stuck closer to Sunset and poor again so that she'd have to listen to Sunset whine, which by then might become reality soon. You see, Sunset had found my unambitious amateur competition who worked the Downtown clientele. Realizing my opportunity, I found my competition's supplier, bought him out, and replaced her herbal supply chain with mine.

Right. Coercing her again...

I told Grimoire that a comedian who had refused to pay his loan, even after she had "performed" her "act" profitably for him some months before, had turned informer; I convinced her that he might have learned her real name and needed to be eliminated. (I had hopes she might drop her given name in the process and sent her with companions.)

Well, that time Streak and Tailor reported that Grimoire actually performed the foul deed.

Remember my dislike of trouble? I sent Fletching to investigate immediately and found evidence of...

Minestrone soup.

Grimoire had skillfully cleaned the crime scene, which smelled of bleach over the faint scent of oregano, but had left an oddly dented stock pot and chopped vegetables on the cutting board that ought to have been returned to the ice box. She'd even left a red herring of a chef knife with a drop of blood on it, implying a cut that might have forced a pony to visit the clinic. But, not only did the cheap black pot have a slight barrel-like flare as if it had contained an explosion, scorches and melt lines marred its mouth, showing it had been subjected to extreme heat from above—as from the plasma blast of a Force spell. A rock embedded in the bottom of the pot and a broken window verified that Grimoire had blown up the comedian's dinner, causing the emptied pot to shoot into the street (where she failed to clean up a burnt soup spill).

My witnesses had seen flying minestrone not pony innards, but hadn't looked long enough to see through the charade (which incidentally worked for me as now my low brainpower stooges thought they were accessories to a murder and wouldn't leave my employ if they wanted to). When Streak's wagon was stolen from the garage of my safe house by a unicorn who could break locks, I realized somepony too-confident in herself had spirited away the comedian in the night.

Certain that the murder would never be investigated because it wasn't one, Grimoire returned to Canterlot and to Celestia's School. I paid her to make her think I was clueless. Scared that I might eventually see through her ruse, she quit. Unemployed, she abandoned her flat in the Lower for a spot in Sunset's bed in her ivory tower on Castle Canterlot's grounds.

I don't think she had further plans after having sent notice with Streak that she quit being my pretend enforcer, other than to graduate Celestia's School and attend university. But Sunset had finally tried nettle-ewe about the same time; she briefly surpassed Twilight Sparkle's scholastic prowess and demonstrated the potential the magical community had only expected from Celestia's second protégé.

Temporarily.

I bought out Deep Thinker's dispensary business for silvers when copper bits were its true worth and gave her my Las Pegasus factor's address to send her packing. I dried up the supply of nettle-ewe in Canterlot. I waited a week for the veggie stew to simmer until Sunset became an obvious wreck.

Sunset knew Grimoire had access to the herb. I was certain that Grimoire had returned to her senses that first time I coerced after she'd explained what nettle-ewe was to Sunset, before destroying my starter sample.

I sent Grimoire a missive. It read "Sunset Shimmer." I was greedy. I wanted both fillies in my stable.

Contrary to popular opinion, greed is not good. When you take away everypony's pie, they get hungry and they work together to eat yours. That was one that Stinking Rich taught me. It's the lesson I forgot.

It didn't take more than a week before I got word that Grimoire—disguised in her full black "work" stalking cloak, fake make-up toothed-book cutie mark (because she was a blank flank), and piled-high Baltimare gangland bouffant—was leading Sunset Shimmer into the Lower after the dinner crowd had cleared. I swiftly set up at the Hooflyn Delicatessen with a celebratory bottle of vintage claret. I had a bottle of dill pickles, sauerkraut, and fresh-baked Hooflyn corn rye with a pot of soft butter. The autumn fireflies swarmed near the park this balmy night. The air smelled ripe for success.

Grimoire marched Sunset up to me so coldly she might have been a livestock merchant. The hard-case then turned flank and told me we had a deal, that she'd fulfilled it, and that she'd quit. I threw fifty gold coins in a pouch at her head and explained quitting wasn't an option. She held the pouch midair, looking ready to bean me when Sunset apparently broke, spooked by Grimoire's transformation from standoffish protégé-material student to a criminal enforcer.

Sunset cried, "I have bits. Lots of bits! A simple transaction and I'll leave you to your business with G-Gr— Grimoire."

I had to explain to her, "You don't understand, my little filly. This isn't a business deal. This is an employment interview."

When she became skittish, studying the envelope of nettle-ewe on the cafe table, looking ready to do a snatch-and-teleport, I had to use my talent on her. I spoke about a royal guardsmare officer who had yet to earn her "pay." She sounded practically gleeful she could twist the knife in the pain-in-the-flank ner'do-well officer.

It was then that the EBI Agent Good Fellows trotted out of the park, fireflies swirling ominously in his wake.

It all made sense, suddenly: Grimoire's desire to quickly leave, the week it took for her to bring Sunset, and why Good Fellows had "disappeared" without a trace while Grimoire had escaped covered with a convincing amount of blood and affecting a limp, only to heal surprisingly quickly. Sweet Celestia! It was Grimoire who had turned the comedian to an informer. She had needed to rescue him from my stupidity!

No wonder Grimoire hadn't been written about in the Hooflyn or Manehatten press associated with Carne Asada. No wonder she had shown up in Canterlot, enduring my manipulations that kept her from a paying job. She'd played along, choosing to be homeless, defenseless, needy, and available.

She'd become an EBI agent.

Bait. I'd taken tasty bait.

I had done what Carne Asada had done, but nowhere as spectacularly. At least she'd lit a city block on fire and started a gang war that would fill history books as it did the newspapers.

I'd walked into a sting operation.

When Fletching began casting Force to give me the chance to escape, the royal guard and city constables descended. My bottle of pickles hit me in the head before I could more than flinch.

While Grimoire froze before fumbling a teleport that drove her into into the ground, Sunset Shimmer had broken out of my talent-induced inebriation. Though she jittered and looked sick-to-her-stomach from nettle-ewe withdrawal, she'd nevertheless knocked over a wrought iron cafe table with a loud bang and cowered behind it as she threw things. The shock of being hit by the pickle jar she'd thrown slowed me enough that I practically stumbled into a constable.

I touched the mare and cried that I was innocent and that turncoat officers were trying to kill me. She shot down a pegasus royal guard while I dodged a flying cafe chair, then got pelted with rye bread slices. I had no choice but to coerce other officers while force bolts of purple, yellow, and pink crisscrossed the courtyard outside the restaurant. I even tried and failed to coerce Grimoire.

The ensuing mayhem gave me a chance to escape, but then Grimoire pulled an eye-catching trick, floating toward me in a shield spell resistant to the brilliant bolts of everypony's Force and Stun spells. It caught my eye long enough that I failed to run and missed yet another chance to escape.

Then somepony threw me bodily into the blackened glass wall of the Hooflyn Delicatessen.

I slid to the ground, stunned for precious seconds. Before my face, the pickle jar lay in a smelly pool of its own juices just perfectly positioned for me to see the reflection of Sunset Shimmer with an expression contorted into a furious mask, her horn alight. I felt my weight plummet, just before a force bolt splashed the ground before her. She yelped and hid her head.

I had missed Grimoire's landing, and my turncoat constable blocked my escape by shielding me, noticing the threat of my erstwhile enforcer.

What Starlight Glimmer did next I did not understand until later. She threw a spell at me so evil that it should have sent her to Tartarus to rot in isolation in the highest restraint zone for eternity. I felt the destruction of my sense of destiny and the loss of all the happiness in my life, as if the essential me that made life worth living had been ripped from my body. The shock devastated me—and spooked me on such an instinctive level that it it didn't matter I was down on the cobblestones where I'd collapsed after being smashed against a wall.

I bucked. Stupidly, the motion required me to flex my back. I threw my head against the stone pediment of the restaurant.

The next thing I knew I sat, feeling dizzy, my soul and destiny miraculously restored, but with this backfire ring attached to my horn that made it painful to think about spells or numbers. I vaguely heard Starlight's voice, getting louder and quieter and louder, warning my talent would work without my unicorn magic. I'd never thought of it that way, but since it did work through touch alone she was probably right.

I looked up in time to see Grimoire land on Streak and teleport her down the block, then with her multiple destinations spell, far away. No doubt, Grimoire's evil spell caused Good Fellows to order her arrest, too, despite her also being an EBI agent.

Good riddens, I thought, just before Sunset Shimmer's horn lit in my peripheral vision. When I made eye contact with her emeraline eyes, the grinning minx threw me into the wall again. Since I was now a couple yards from the wall and hobbled, her vicious attack knocked me out cold.

I understood her intent; it should have killed me. But I understood why it failed.

Fletching, who specialized in combat magic, once told me the prevailing theory. Unicorn magic was made from rainbows (and giggles, though that was patently absurd). A unicorn could not use magic to directly hurt or kill a pony. Thus Sunset's levitation spell had broken under her intent, sparing my life. And it probably hurt her, to boot, with a back-splash of magic. It was why, Fletching explained, that you aim your force bolt before of a target and let the superheated air inflict damage beyond the end of magical apparition itself. Doing otherwise caused the spell to fail.

It was strange that Sunset Shimmer didn't know this, but then everything I'd read in the newspapers and had been told by ponies that had met her, even in passing, had insisted she was full of herself and not willing to understand things she didn't already know.

It was probably why Celestia had taken on a second protégé and might have taken a third if super-competent Starlight Glimmer hadn't proved herself so corrupt.

Starlight Glimmer was corrupt. Very. Evil, in fact.

She had ripped my cutie mark out of me. Nopony had noticed, nor would they believe me when I tried to mention it.

That she used the spell at all was undoubtedly an application of situational ethics.