Sunset Shattered

by fmriver

The Shattering of Sunset Shimmer

Tonight was the big night.

Sunset had committed to the plan for months, though the details may have been in flux till a couple days ago. Not even a princess would stop her from her final goal for the evening. No matter what, it would all end tonight. Sunset would get what she deserved.

"Boys, it's time. Get her dog and bring it here." She didn't look at her two lackeys, wearing those stupid top hats, as she ordered them around. Snails and Snips both hurried along with their task.

As she waited for their return, Sunset's mind drifted. She could hear the music escaping from the auditorium, and she imagined all those people enjoying their night. The students of Canterlot High had elected their favorite princess after all. Twilight and her friends would have felt as if they won, and were likely celebrating their triumph over the evil witch of CHS, if a pathetic broken thing like her could be called evil.

True, back home Sunset would be called an immoral villain, particularly with the actions she was contemplating taking once she had the crown later tonight. To think of going against the sun princess? To raise a hoof against the immortal leader of the preeminent nation in the realm?! Unthinkable heresy for an Equestrian pony.

Funnily enough, her brand of evil was barely a blip on the radar in the human realm. The ponies back home didn't know about the monsters she's been forced to live amongst. Sunset hadn't known in the beginning either, but these last couple months had opened her eyes.

The level of violence humans could come up with, even the children, made her want to retch. Sunset no longer asked for advice on pranks or sabotage from her minions after some of the things they came up with. She may have done much to the student body here. She had belittled them, divided them against each other, made sure no one could threaten her. Sunset knew she was a tyrant, but at least she had made sure none of the worse things happened.

Soon it wouldn't matter though. This would be Sunset's last night on earth, and if her short trip back to Equestria taught her anything, it was that anything she did would be ephemeral. She'd honestly be surprised if anyone at Canterlot High remembered her name a year from now. They forgot her quickly enough back home, and she had been the personal student of the closest thing ponydom had to a deity.

Sunset took a deep breath, and and refocused using her mantra. It didn't matter, nothing mattered anymore except what would happen in the next hour. She needed to focus, she had committed to this, and now it was simply time for the final act of her performance.

Soon enough Sunset saw Snips and Snails running towards her hiding place behind the statue with the equestrian turned puppy. She hadn't thought to ask what race he really was, though it didn't really matter. At the moment, he was a little dog, which was great for making the kidnapping easier. She grabbed the sledgehammer, took another deep breath and came out from behind the statue, as the boys passed by.

"That's close enough!" Twilight and her friends skidded to a stop in front of her as Sunset raised the sledgehammer in the air. Her threat clear by her posture.

"Twilight!" the purple puppy shouted out, before Snails clamped his mouth shut.

"Don't hurt him!" Twilight stepped forward, her hands balled into fists.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. I'm not a monster Twilight." Sunset had never considered herself a monster, no matter how ruthless she was as princess of the school, she never went beyond her self imposed limits. She just had to bluff, pretend to be one in order not to be eaten by the real monsters all around. She used all the lessons that Celestia taught her and survived, fueled by determination and spite.

"Let him go." Sunset ordered her accomplices, without letting her eyes leave Twilight. She never thought to keep him hostage for longer than it took to set up all the players right here by the statue. She looked on as Twilight kneeled to hug the dog, for a moment distracted by the return of her companion. Time to focus everyone back on her.

"You don't belong here." Sunset said as she stretched out an open hand towards the other Equestrian. No decent pony belonged here. No pony deserved what would happen to them if they were stranded here. "Give me the crown and you can go back to Equestria tonight!" she clenched her fist, "or keep it and never go home." Seeing her words getting to the princess, she kept up the pressure, "Tick-tock Twilight, we haven't got all night." she needled as she raised the sledgehammer.

"The portal will close in less than an hour, so what's your answer?" Sunset was sure that Twilight would capitulate. She'd been here for a couple days in a very controlled environment like the school so she probably hadn't realized what they were like, but she must be aware of all she would lose if she was stranded here. For a moment it looked like it was working as Twilight took off the crown from her head, but then the kneeling princess looked up after seemingly coming to a decision.

"No" Twilight declared, looking at Sunset's eyes.

"What? Bu-but Equestria?! your friends lost forever?! Don't you see what I'm about to do to the portal?" Sunset exclaimed, breaking character, in her confusion. This wasn't going to plan. There wasn't any good alternative that didn't involve violence or actually going through with her threat, which she couldn't for her plan to work. She needed a way to confront Princess Celestia as much as she needed that crown.

"Yes, but I've also seen what you've been able to do here without magic. Equestria will find a way to survive without my element of harmony! This place might not if I allow it to fall into your hands." Twilight replied as she stood back up. "So go ahead, destroy the portal. You are not getting this crown." Twilight finished placing the crown back on her head.

"Fine, you win." Sunset dropped the sledge hammer. It was clear to Sunset that the princess wouldn't willingly part with it.

As the girls celebrated, Sunset fumed as her plan began to fall apart at the final hour. The princess thought she would be too evil for the human realm?! After three years here, the most that anyone could factually say about her was that she was an unusually popular high schooler, and not to stand in her way.

Yes, she was a bit of a bully, had provoked minor fights between friends, yet for a school the size of Canterlot, there was negligible violence, drugs, or serious crime. People found their little cliques, and made their friends within them. It was organized, it worked, and no one would know all the things that the villainous Sunset Shimmer had protected them from.

The wannabe rapist senior was found with roofies in his backpack while driving home, the violent boyfriend suddenly going to juvie for shoplifting at the mall. Things still fell through the cracks as she wasn't omniscient, but the school was her fiefdom and she ruled it truly even if harshly.

It was funny, if the students knew all that Sunset did for them she may have just beat Twilight Sparkle in an honest race. However that reputation of power and danger was what allowed her to survive this long. She almost stopped once, before Flash opened her eyes. Thankfully she learned her lesson before ruining her reputation.

It didn't matter anyway. It would have defeated the purpose of making herself the villain for this night. No, Twilight's reaction was simply because Sunset did her job too well, and a simple threat wouldn't get her the crown. Well, if Sunset couldn't convince her to relinquish the crown with words, Sunset realized she wasn't above just ripping that thing off her opponent's head.

"Yeah, like she is SO SPECIAL!!!" Sunset screamed as she jumped and tried grabbing it from Twilight's head. This kicked off a scuffle among both groups, running and throwing the crown back and forth around the lawn, until Sunset caught it.

"At last! More power than I could ever imagine." Sunset gave herself a moment to gloat for what was going to happen. Finally, she would be able to kick off what she'd been waiting for.

Just one element of harmony would let her be a legitimate challenge even to the divine Princess Celestia. All she needed to do was make sure she kept her desire at the forefront of her mind as she put it on. She would show Celestia what she helped create when she put her on the path towards this hellhole. Let her choke on it.

The moment after Sunset put the artifact on her head, she felt indescribable pain. This was the element of magic, an item of power bereft of influence from the other elements to control it, being wielded by a self destructive mind. It was like jagged ice, and searing heat without end.

Sunset could feel it transforming her body. Worse, it was mutilating her mind. It interpreted her desire to be a challenge strong enough to threaten Celestia, and it was cutting out the parts of her psyche that were weak. Anything still equine enough to shrink away from what was happening was cut away with a scalpel made of acid.

This was a mistake, a horrible mistake. Sunset should have slit her wrists, or jumped in a river, anything rather than taking this last torturous step. She couldn't even keep hold of her anguish and grief, as the part of her that felt that was excised away. All that was left was pride and greed, revenge and insanity. Her last coherent thought beyond regret was to take solace in the fact that even though she wouldn't care to remember why she wanted this to begin with, at least Celestia would still be forced to put her down like a rabid dog.

That was all that mattered.

Just as planned.

---

As the she demon's head was covered by the top of the rainbow tornado, it felt a hundred needles with strings made of salt pierce her mind. They knit the quivering remains of her mind back together, each raw nerve forcefully clamped to it's mate. At some point some semblance of sanity returned to Sunset, yet still it continued. She could feel pieces fitting differently, some smoothed others scraped raw.

Missing sections were copied from her unwitting donors. Nothing but impressions of it staying within the forefront of her mind, slipping through like sand between her fingers. Fingers, not hooves? The holes in her mind were being filled with humanity. Her mind felt like Swiss cheese, as it was being turned into some chimera of pony and human. A part of her grieved as she realized she would not feel at home for long in Equestria again. That same part pleaded, desperate for the possibility that this light may undo it, give her some hope of returning to Equestria, of being happy living among ponies. But this was an emergency triage, and the gentle breeze across her psyche told her this magic had done its best, but would not be able to undo that scar. She would feel equally as human in her pony body as she felt pony in her human guise.

Finally, having repaired what it could, the magic reached for the part of her that always knew how to manipulate others for what she wanted, how to find the weakness in others, and made a little rip on the edge. It ached badly, like an opened scab. Sunset shrieked as her mind retreated inwards again. She knew that she'd be more sensitive to reading others than ever, but it would literally hurt her soul every time she exercised that skill in order to manipulate others in the future.

As all this was wrapping up in Sunset's mind, the physical changes also began to burn off, painfully at first, then waves of numbness, again and again, until she knew she was back to... well her new normal. Sunset felt like raw meat as the magic placed her standing on the ground, quivering in fear of herself, with everything stripped away, unable to hide behind her self delusions.

Suddenly she felt a great force slam her down, down, down until she was prostrated on the dirt.

The blinding light vanished, and Sunset looked up to see the princess above her, exuding resolute defiance, supported by the bonds of friendship from her companions surrounding her. She understood now. The light had prepared her for this moment, to fall upon the mercy of the benevolent being in front of her. While she would have to carry the sins of the old Sunset, in more ways than one, this was the first day of Sunset Shimmers life.

She was a convert to the magic of friendship.

Author's Note:

Sunset in this scene is basically in a self destructive spiral, and not very coherent anymore. She hates being human, sees she can't return as someone replaced her life, and is just broken from living in a world so alien from her own (along with a specific trauma that will come up later in the story). Basically this is her very visible suicide attempt by Sun Princess, similar to how school shooters are basically doing 'suicide by cop'.

In a way it worked. The old Sunset is dead, and now there is a new Sunset, made up of parts from the original plus parts from each of the girls that rainbow lasered her.

Comments

[Ri2]

Well, that was...unsettling. Is the new Sunset really in a better place than old one?

[fmriver]

8929021
Not really. In canon, Sunset goes through massive changes between the Fall Formal and the Rainbow Rocks movie. When someone talks to her about her past, it's to tell her how much she has CHANGED, or how DIFFERENT she is, or that she's NOT THAT PERSON anymore...

people don't use that kind of language unless someone's personality changes radically. This is showing that the magic did exactly that to Sunset...

Pardon, typed on my phone

[Csquared08]

This was pretty rough around the edges. There were quite a few grammatical mistakes. The most common of these were errors in your dialogue tags. Here's a handy guide from a handy guy on how to do it correctly:

This is a recurring issue with your writing. If a speech tag follows after the dialogue, there should be no capitalization. If an action tag follows, capitalization is required. Here’s a very useful list of examples:

Attribution of Dialogue (Dialogue Tagging)

Wrong:
✖ "Hi there," the pink pony grinned. (It should be a period: ‘grinned’ isn’t a ‘speaking’ verb.)
✖ "Hi there." The pink pony said. (This should be a comma; no capitalization should be used)
✖ "Hi there"! the pink pony shouted! (Punctuation of dialogue belongs inside the quotes.)
✖ "Hi there!" The pink pony shouted! (Don’t capitalize "the"; treat the "!" as a comma.)

Correct:
✔ "Hi there," the pink pony giggled. (She giggled while saying the words.)
✔ "Hi there." The pink pony giggled. (She said those words, then giggled.)
✔ "Hi there." The pink pony grinned. (The word 'grinned' isn't a 'speaking' verb.)
✔ "Hi there!" the pink pony shouted. (Exclamations and queries replace the comma.)

Beyond the grammatical mistakes, however, was an interesting prologue. I'm hoping the rest builds well on the little additions you've made to the ending of the first movie.

[Csquared08]

10187466
How so?

[hmaf43]

magic brainwashing rainbow laser strike again!