Seven Days in Sunny June: Broken Down in Sunny Town

by Deverer

Self Doubt

Rundown tried the best he could to just focus on his work, but his raging hormones that Quibble’s sister had warned them about weren’t keen on letting him do that. Each of the girls was just another fantasy for him to project onto Debonair, especially that goddess of a girl which only furthered his fantasies like maybe him walking along her—

He bit his tongue again, almost hard enough to make him cry out in pain. If anyone suddenly had some kind of magic that let them read minds, right about now he would have been sent to execution for thought crimes. Thankfully, that sort of thing was firmly in the realm of fiction. He wondered if the world would be cruel enough to perhaps give that power to some kinda alpha male or bitch to make his life hell. Perhaps, also just to rub in how much of a loser he was, said world would give superpowers to some other random teens that didn’t do anything to deserve them except for being at the right place at the right time.

Normally that’s something perhaps Quibble would come up with after one of his rants on how “generic” the Uncharted series was and how “Golden Compass was a desperate attempt to make a male Daring Do.” However at the moment Rundown felt like between already being singled out and the fact that he had extremely illegal stuff back on his computer at home, he felt like things could easily go wrong at any second.

That setup seemed to be when he and Quibble were separated, leaving Rundown essentially alone with just that Sky Stinger guy and Clearscan. The former seemed to be utterly bored while the latter was at her own computer probably going through the archives. Despite them being the only three around, he tried to not show any sign of him being worried. Right now he was just scanning a semi-legible magazine from some line that he swore every doctor’s office had, and right now he was hoping he didn’t grab something that could set off his hormones again.

---

Quibble was going to lose his mind: This was almost as bad as those walking simulators that claimed to have choices but actually didn’t. Almost, because while at least he didn’t lose any money over this, but he was losing his sanity all the same. That Gabby girl would not shut up, and he wondered if she felt like she was a gift of herself of some kind. To make matters worse, that Greta girl seemed to be keeping an extra keen eye on him as every time he dared to glance over toward them she was ready to glance at him right back. Question was whether it was to prevent him from complaining about the noise or to not have him say anything about… them.

Oh… just imagine though being able to walk around with one of them, he thought with a slight smile. Maybe instead of talking about something completely boring, Gabby could tell him how awesome he was and perhaps what she would let him do to—

“Ahem!”

Quibble’s thoughts derailed immediately, and his body seized up — no, froze up. It was cold enough to fizzle out the sun but still not cold enough to hold back the burning rage that came with that voice. His legs managed to thaw out enough for him to spin his chair around and face that voice.

Upon looking on her face, Quibble felt hot sweat start to drip down his forehead. Standing there arms crossed and with an equally crossed glare was his cousin Freestyle.

“Uh…” he managed to blather out.

“What. The. Fuck. Are you up to?” she growled out. “This is the wrong place to find cheap porno magazines, y’know!”

“What—”

“Are you here just to try and sneak a peek at some girl’s behind while they’re at the computers?!” she continued.

“But—”

“You cannot be here for any good reason! And in the wake of all this shit that’s happened those girls and—”

“Oy! ¡¿Te callarás por un momentito?!” he managed to break through. The outburst caused her to pause, looking on in confusion. He resisted an audible scoff; despite being cousins she wasn’t as entrenched in their heritage, and any use of Spanish always threw her off. “Now that I can actually speak: Hey cuz, how are you? You don’t look happy. But I don’t appreciate the wild accusations!”

Freestyle was still stunned for a moment before she managed to compose herself and resume her angered look. “No, I’m not happy. I’m going through a lot of shit right now with what’s happened, and not helping matters is the fact that you of all people are in a public library!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” he shot back, standing up to meet her. “You seriously think that low of me?”

“Considering our history, yes!” she answered, almost yelling outward.

Quibble felt another sweat come on, knowing what she was talking about. “W-well… you’re the one who actually decided it would be a good idea to do it!”

“And your perverted ass actually thought it was a good idea to watch!” she seethed, jabbing a finger at him. “You know how embarrassed I was?!”

“Yeah, just do something like that at my house!” he shot back as he pushed her hand away. “I’ve said my apologies for these last couple years now, but what you did what still stupid!”

Both went silent for a moment. Each glaring each other down, not willing to give in. Free looked like she wanted to keep screaming at him, while Quibble looked like he wanted it to end.

“M-maybe… but it was still wrong! And the fact you did that makes me question hard what the fuck your lazy ass is doing here!”

“What the hell’s gotten into you? Again, I ask: You seriously think that low of me?”

“Depends, do you stop jacking it to Daring Do yet?”

Quibble seized up, fists balling. “What the fuck?! Are you even hearing yourself? If any question needs to be asked, it’s what the hell’s wrong with you and what makes you think I do that?!”

A moment passed, and Free’s glare shattered. Hand going up toward her mouth as if to make sure more bile didn’t escape, she was silent with trembling lips as she slowly eased backwards.

Quibble though wasn’t finished. “What is fucking possessing you to call your own cousin a… well, label him… this?!” He threw up his arms for a moment for emphasis. “Are you seriously gonna paint me as an actual sexual predator? We haven’t seen each other properly in months, let alone talk together in years when it’s not me trying to keep apologizing, and this is what you do?”

Free’s demeanor suddenly hardened again. “Because I’m trying to protect my friend!” she shot back. “She was a victim from those predators! And I’m not letting anything have the chance to get to her again!”

“And you think that I would actually do something like that?”

“No, but you being you can mess her up in the head even more.” Free huffed and turned away, fast walking away from him.

As he watched her leave his view, he only stood in disbelief and his brain in the process of shutting down decided to mercifully seat his body back into his chair. A moment later though, he caught movement in the corner of his eye. Glancing over at it, he saw it was Gabby and Greta, and the ramifications of them being there hit him hard. He turned himself away from them as he buried his head in his hands.

“Oh, fuck me… and once again it’s not in the way I want.”

---

As Rundown carefully set another scanned book back onto the cart next to him, he looked up at the clock. Not even an hour had passed yet he felt exhausted. His brain was running in multiple directions at the same time and when he tried to stop it from going one way it decided to barrel down the other and he had to mentally catch back up.

He didn’t dare try to go check on Quibble to see if he was okay, and he was also fighting the urge to see the other girls cause he realized there was a reason he looked for pictures online and also the Sunny Town girls were hardcore enough to keep him in line.

That and he knew had no chance with them.

Right now the fear he felt should have been enough to keep him still, but that probably wasn’t enough. This was to give him a clean slate of sorts, new people to maybe connect with. Of course that meant new girls too who had no idea about him or his reputation.

He shook his head, standing up from his seat and starting to walk out of the area. As he passed by Clearscan, he mumbled to her, “I need to use the bathroom.” He heard her say something in response, but he blocked it out of his mind as he just needed something to distract him enough.

Something and not someone or even multiple.

As he saw the bathrooms in sight though, he nearly jumped as suddenly a girl appeared in front of him from another aisle and upon spotting him shot him a look that could kill. He tried to remain calm as she stomped up to him, but he couldn’t hide his fear as she got within arm’s length.

“Never seen you before, you Quibble’s buddy?” she asked. The directness of it tightened up his throat as if it was a dagger precariously pointed up against it.

“Q-Quibble? Uh, yeah, I’m with him and—”

“Apparently you managed to drag him over here too, huh?” She stared directly into his eyes. Despite her shorter stature, he didn’t feel like he would be winning any intimidation showings given the anger she was showing and spewing.

And of course he couldn’t get his mind off of her actual stature. She looked so sleek, flexible, and—

“What do you mean?” he blurted out.

He regretted that immediately as she somehow managed to get even angrier. “Are you fucking brain damaged? You must be and maybe want to be even more damaged!”

“Yes! Okay, yeah! Quibble’s my friend, and I convinced him to come here!” He almost threw his arms up as if a gun was pointed at him, the only reason he didn’t was he was convinced she would see that as a threat and start laying into him right there.

“Are you here just to try and ogle girls?! I know my cousin, and that’s probably the only way you got him to come here!” He huffed a bit as he realized she had jabbed him with one of her fingers. “What’s your fucking name?” she growled.

“R-Rundown!” he answered, starting to sweat a little.

“‘Rundown’?” she scoffed, a fake smile appearing. “How appropriate, because I all I see right now is rundown garbage.” Before he could even respond with a look, she added, “You Sunny Town losers have no business here other than to cause trouble. After what happened with us, you probably think it’s the best time to try something because maybe no one will expect it! Well guess what? It won’t work. You creeps aren’t going to hurt anyone! You better hope you’ll answer to the police or even school staff if you try something and not me if I find out you tried for Debonair.”

Hearing that name managed to shatter all of Rundown’s current fear, his longing and wonder resurfacing. “Debonair? She’s here?” he asked.

“Oh! So you are a fucking freak then! How else would you know her unless you looked at… at…” her face scrunched in anger, and Rundown thought maybe she would scream. He almost screamed himself as suddenly her fist went flying to his face, but it stopped mere millimeters away. “You’re fucking lucky I can’t put you in your place right here and fucking now. But if I catch you even looking at these girls, especially Deb, Sunny Town will look like a paradise compared to where I’ll send you.”

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Both of them turned, Free’s anger warping to fear as she saw Trixie stomping up to them, “I thought I was hearing things wrong, but no! Have you lost your mind, Free?!” Free struggled to respond, but the thought died out as suddenly Trixie grabbed her wrist and started to pull her along. “You’re right, you have no right to touch him, but considering I’m part of organizing this: I have the authority to drag your ass with me so let’s go!”

Rundown watched in bewilderment as suddenly his biggest fear was being dragged away like a child who was about to be put into time-out. As his brain managed to restart from the insanity, he clutched his head at the thoughts firing off everywhere. Turning around, he slowly made his way back to the safety of supervising eyes. He was glad he didn’t actually have to go to the bathroom because he was sure he would have done so right there.

---

Bon-Bon sighed, adjusting her glasses as she looked through the catalog of items so far. Everything seemed to be going well, no incidents so far, and Deb was getting into the swing of things herself after being escorted here by Trixie. Even Spirit was getting into it, though since she went to a place like San Palomino that was sort of expected. Plaid Stripes as a regular was hitting her stride too, so much so she was already carting off books to restock. Good signs all around!

What wasn’t a good sign though was she heard stomping coming her way and she looked over to see Trixie coming right back to her, along with Free in literal tow.

“Uh… what the hell is going on?” she asked.

“Oh nothing much,” Trixie started. Bon-Bon choked a bit: she was already starting out with the sarcasm. “Just found Free here threatening one of the boys here and making clear she has some malicious intent abound.” She let go of Free, stepping away from her but not taking her glaring eyes off her.

“Wait, you what?!” Bon-Bon exclaimed, standing up from her seat. She gave a look over to Deb across the way, who didn’t seem to notice them, as she seemed too engrossed in the work at the moment.

Massaging her wrist, Free looked to the two of them as she spoke back, “I was just putting my cousin and his loser friend in place. And I’ll do the same with that other boy once I find where he is.”

Trixie shook her head, before proceeding to facepalm. “Oh, that’s just perfect now. I’ll ask again: what the fuck are you doing?”

“Making sure they know they aren’t gonna try anything that’s what!” Free shot back. “Now I only wished I could have punched them, but warning them they will get punched if they look at us funny will work.” She crossed her arms, looking away in a pout.

Bon-Bon was the next to speak, “Are you crazy?! You can’t just go up to them and… and…” she pinched her nose, why her?

“Hey, we’re here to keep Deb safe, and I’m doing my thing!”

“Yeah, but you can’t just threaten people! Especially if we don’t even know what they’re even thinking!”

“I know what these creeps are thinking! And I’m doing what I have to do!”

“Sounds like you’re a creep yourself there.” Free snapped back to anger, and turned around to see who said that. She lost her anger as she looked up and up at who was standing there.

“Oh my... “ she whispered, not expecting this. She hadn’t gotten to meet Bon-Bon’s cousin yet, and the last thing she was expecting was some kind of Trixie look-alike with the commanding figure of Principal Celestia. Did that make her more of a Vice-Principal Luna look-alike then?

“Hmmm, I think I know what you’re thinking, so guess that means I’m gonna kick you where you wipe and yank out your eyeballs,” Spirit said in a low monotone. As Free saw those eyes bore into her, she looked back to Bon-Bon. All she got in return was a disappointed frown complete with the crossed arms that made her feel like she was in trouble with a pair of parents.

The image in her head was further exemplified when Bon-Bon spoke, “Not so fun when you’re on the receiving end of a threat now, huh?”

Free felt her throat rapidly drying up. “But—”

“Zip it.” Bon-Bon leaned forward, bracing her hands on the desk to get almost nose-to-nose with Free. “If I catch wind that you’re doing more of this vigilante shit, I’ll have to get Rarity involved. And God help us if she gets Queen Bitch Sunset with her bitch-rage involved. For some reason she actually cares about doing something right here, and I’d be careful how much you can make things worse by doing this, got it? Hiểu rồi?”

Free blinked, looking between the trio. It was obvious who was bringing the most fear in the moment, but what Bon-Bon said might have topped that even if it was a future possibility. Suddenly the vice grip of Trixie’s own wrath sounded appealing. “G-got it.”

“Good, now we go fix your mess, cmon.” Bon-Bon stood back up straight and started walking away, Free forcing herself to move a moment later.

“Oh by the way,” Spirit spoke up. “あなたはクソブロックヘッドです、あなたはそれを知っていますか?” Free only blankly stared as Spirit swiftly made her way back to her desk, but she snapped back forward to follow Bon-Bon, Trixie following behind.

“Um… may I ask what she said?” Free asked.

“No clue. That was Japanese,” Bon-Bon replied, her tone devoid of any positivity.

“But I thought you two were cousins?”

“Yeah, but she knows Japanese on top of Vietnamese.” She stopped, turning back around to face Free. “Look, I never knew I had a cousin until a few years ago, so for all I know she could be Fluttershy’s cousin through some kind of twisted way. She doesn’t go to San Palomino just because her parents are rich, but because how closed off she’s become. So you can imagine how much I have a personal stake in her trying to open up more and you threatening to fuck it up.”

Free bristled, shrinking a bit under Bon-Bon’s words. “Right…” she meekly replied.

“You’re damn lucky Deb there didn’t hear,” Trixie spoke up. “I don’t think she’d… ‘approve’ of you just being a thug yourself.”

The chill suddenly turned to freezing. The thought of upsetting Deb after vowing to protect her? It kept her quiet as the three made their way through the library, eventually arriving at Clearscan’s section. Free looked to see the third boy she hadn’t gotten to yet working away, but she also saw Rundown at his station clearly shaken up.

“I’ll take it from here, Trix,” Bon-Bon said.

“Good, cause I need to sit down after this,” Trixie mumbled back.

Free meanwhile stood still, watching as Trixie walked over to an unoccupied computer and Bon-Bon proceeding to talk to Clearscan for a moment before she went over to Rundown. From what she could observe it looked like Bon-Bon was getting his side. After a moment Bon-Bon turned back to her with a look that could cut her in half and gestured for her to follow. Reluctantly she did so, Rundown also getting up but sticking close to Bon-Bon. A short walk later she could only assume they were out of earshot of Clearscan and any others as Bon-Bon stopped in placed and looked directly to her.

Free resisted a huff, but managed to drop her arms to try and show non-aggression. “I… apologize… for what I did.” She looked away for a moment. “I had… no right to do so to you.” Going silent, she saw the two of them staring at her. While Rundown was quiet and not showing much reaction, Bon-Bon wasn’t hiding her annoyance.

“Well, I suppose a half-assed apology is better than nothing for now then,” she stated. Looking to Rundown, she added, “And I assure you we’ll make sure Freestyle here actually comes around to a sincere apology, and I apologize on behalf of the library itself. If you don’t want to participate any more, I’ll understand if you want to leave.”

He looked over to Free for a moment, before he looked back to Bon-Bon. “I’ll… stick around,” he answered.

Bon-Bon nodded. “If you’re sure.” Both girls watched as Rundown stepped around them and back to his post. “Now for your cousin. I know it’s Quibble, but that still doesn’t give you any right.”

Free nodded back and started following, but on the inside she was fuming. They were going to actually defend them? When it was blatantly obvious they were here to cause trouble?

She kept herself down as she saw they were quickly approaching Quibble, who seemed to be still as a statue just staring at the computer which had its screensaver running. Looking over the area, she saw two more of the girls who took immediate notice of them. When they got to him, Bon-Bon stepped off to the side, arms crossed and eyes expectant. Quibble also seemed to be waiting as he had turned his head enough to look over his shoulder.

Groaning, she spoke, “Quibble, listen I’m—”

“Can it,” he snarled at her. Free went wide eyed as he stood up and turned around completely to look at them. She felt her jaw unhinge a bit, she had never seen her cousin angry before to this degree. “If you’re gonna apologize, then go fuck yourself. You actually meant what you said before.” He looked over to Bon-Bon, face relaxing as he said, “Look, I’m no angel, but I’m not a predator.” The air was silent as he sat back down, turning away from them.

“If you feel uncomfortable,” Bon-Bon started, keeping a neutral tone. “We won’t think ill if you want to leave early for today and—”

“Y’know what?” he interrupted, standing back up. “Yeah, I do wanna get outta here! ¡Adiós!” He darted away from the two, quickly getting out of view of them both.

Bon-Bon sighed, pinching her nose again. “Well… on the library side of things I hope he comes back.” She then looked back to Free. “Then again for his sake maybe he shouldn’t come back because of you.”

“Good!” Free nearly shouted. “He shouldn’t be here to begin with! He’s just a pervert who—”

“Enough!” Bon-Bon raised her voice. “Look, I’m partially aware of what Quibble has done which is why I warned you ahead of time. But that wasn’t a go-ahead to be some kind of comic book vigilante, okay?!”

“So you know then that Quibble—”

“Hasn’t done anything wrong here!” Bon-Bon kept going. “And you know maybe we should learn the whole story. But for right now,” she pointed to the chair Quibble had vacated. “Your ass goes there. And if Trixie catches you near the other two boys I’ll have Spirit literally throw you out.”

As Bon-Bon walked away, Free felt her blood boil. Sitting down, she almost wanted to scream. What kind of world did she suddenly end up in? Glancing over to the other girls, she watched as they actually looked at her in some of fear. Fear?! She wasn’t the bad guy here! She was doing what she had to in order to protect Deb!

She growled, looking away from them. So it was okay for Sunset to do this, but suddenly when she does it now she’s the Alpha Bitch? The thought enraged her even more. Sunset was a bitch for the longest time but she gets a pass because now she’s doing good? But when she’s done nothing but just be a protective friend, that’s bad because what-the-fuck?

Free slammed her fist into her leg. They had no idea, she just needed to convince them.

---

Rundown walked up to his house, still shivering a bit from that experience. The rest of his time there was spent wallowing in dread, and Quibble up and leaving didn’t help matters either. The only bright side was that at least he was stood up for, and of course the looming fact that Debonair was right there just out of his sight the whole time… he was so close to seeing her again!

Yet what Freestyle had warned him about, on top of what she was already thinking with him, had turned any possible joy into fear given the context. She had no proof, but she was completely right at the moment: he was a creep.

So that meant he had to take steps against that. Unlocking the door and stepping in, he didn’t take off his sweater as he locked the door behind him and went to the kitchen. When he got there though, he picked up the smell of food but a distinct absence of his mother.

Looking to the table, he saw a plastic-wrapped plate of simple chopped chicken and veggies along with a note - hastily written from the look of it. Picking it up, he read: ‘Emergency meeting, will explain later. Enjoy! -M’

He tried to process that for a minute. It couldn’t have been for her job as they could have done something like that over the phone. What could be so important and sudden that she couldn’t even write down what it was? Unless she didn’t know exactly. His mom wasn’t an idiot so it wouldn’t be something dangerous, but still.

Putting it down, he was staring blankly for a moment before the threats from before came rushing back in. He tried to shake them out, but now the Rundown in his head was now admitting flat out he was a just another creep and scenarios were playing in which Freestyle, that Stout Spirit girl, or even Debonair were taking out their rage on him. Violently.

Quickly walking out of the kitchen, plate in hand, he made his way to his computer. Going through the boot up process, trying to keep his head straight with food in the meantime. Before he did what he knew he had to do, he needed to do some extra cleanup. Making sure all the incognito safety nets were in place, he navigated himself once again to the website where the images were held just to mess with it again.

Or at least tried to. When he tried to go to the domain, he found no results. At first maybe he misspelled it in his haste, but double and triple checking made him realize that he wasn’t. Going back further though to the more general domain name instead of the extension, he got the same results.

He felt his heart beating a bit. He just messed with that one section because some idiot couldn’t keep admin privileges locked down, he didn’t do some hacking to remove a whole website! He did a quick jump to 4chan and after a few tries, managed to find info on the pictures from before.

After some scrolling, he felt his heart stop for a moment. He read the new messages one by one. The domain was indeed down, but it was why that startled him: apparently police were involved. Had they managed to track the guy down? Was he that big of an idiot? Or maybe the whole FBI was involved or something? Pictures wouldn’t disappear from the internet, but did that mean they were routing out people who were behind how those pictures came to be?

He didn’t want to find out. Closing out everything, he made a quick detour to his main browser and did a quick deletion of all recent history. Browsing, cookies, every-fucking-thing. He just had to be cleaned of it as if possessing them would paint him as one of them. He could wipe his hands of this, and he had just one more piece he had to dispose of.

He moved his cursor over the whole folder that had his isolated and jailed filed, dragged it over to the recycle bin… and stopped. He just had to let go, do a right click, and then a delete command. But something stopped him.

Putting it back where it was, he put in the password and began searching. Finally, he came upon the image he had looked at before. He stared for a small period of time, his breathing quickening and part of his mind racing in satisfaction. Another part of his mind barely registered he had confirmed a printing command.

His blood ran cold. He closed down the file, and acted like it was literally on fire as he dumped it into the recycle bin. With a few clicks, suddenly the fire was out and they were gone. His computer was clean now… just the computer though.

Picking himself up, he ran out of his room and to the printer in the living room. It wasn’t a modern one, but what came out was still damning. Even if the quality had dropped, it was still clear enough what it was.

He didn’t know how long he was staring at her. Seeing her face, and just a reminder that he was so close to really seeing her again. He had to see her tomorrow. He needed to finally be back together with her. He needed… needed…

A heavy sigh came out of him. One part of him was still yelling at him to get rid of it. Just tear it up until you couldn’t figure it out and flush it down the toilet. Yet that other, longing part of him couldn’t let it go. A few minutes later and after some careful cuts with some scissors, he slipped the picture into his wallet.

He truly was a creep, just like his father.

Author's Note:

Sorry about the slight delay on this one, but I wanted to try and get a chapter of my own story done before I updated this (hey, I want to actually stand on my own instead of being attached to Shinzakura's works).

Unfortunately that hit a bit of a snag so I sort of started that over. So I didn't want to leave this hanging.

Hope you enjoy!