What A Long Strange Trip

by milesprower06

Tearing Down

The shrill buzzer of the digital alarm clock pierced Sunset's ears for what had to be the fifth time. Without removing her face from her pillow, an arm erupted from underneath the purple comforter, slammed down on the clock, and when her hand didn't find the snooze button immediately, she opted to grab it, and without looking, tossed it as far away from her nightstand as possible. The buzzing warbled as the clock tumbled end over end in midair, before colliding with the front door of her third floor studio. The battery compartment cover popped off and the buzzing stopped after the pair of batteries were knocked out as the clock hit the wooden floor, followed by metallic clanks and rolling as they moved down the floor. With a muffled groan, the arm returned to under the covers.

Sunset Shimmer wasn't ready to deal with Friday.

The covers blocked out the rising sunlight, but the morning silence didn't last long as her phone on the nightstand began to vibrate on the hardwood with an incoming text alert. This finally brought her head off of her pillow and out from under the blanket as she reached for her phone and unlocked the screen, looking at the alert.

Fluttershy:
Sunset? Everything okay?

She resisted the urge to make her phone join her alarm clock down on the floor, as it would take her almost a year's worth of what spare basic income she could get together to buy another one. The last week at school had not been pleasant, but the last thing she wanted to do was lash out at the very rare things that made it the slightest bit tolerable; her five new friends. She looked up at the top corner of the screen and saw that she was already a half hour late for school. No doubt Vice Principal Luna would be waiting at the front steps of the school with a tardy slip.

She slid her finger across the alert and the digital keypad popped up to await an input for reply.

'Sorry, on my way.'

Not the most detailed answer, but succinct enough where they would likely leave her alone while she got ready. She set her phone back down on the nightstand and flipped the covers off of her, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. She took a glance around her room before she got to her feet. It was mostly clean, but only because she hadn't been spending a lot of time in here recently. Next to the single two-pane window, leaning against the wall was a sunburst orange v-body six string electric guitar. She remembered she had bought it and took a few weeks of lessons when she had been trying to impress Flash during her freshmen year. It had worked like a charm, and she only had to take half the lessons she was intending to before he took over and continued showing her more advanced techniques.

She hadn't touched it in months, even before their breakup. She could see the layers of dust that had accumulated on it through the rays of the rising sun.

She winced as a brief sting came from the upper left area of her back. The burning and tingling of her shoulder blades had been reduced to a dull throbbing and occasional soreness every now and then, but it was absolutely still noticeable. She stood up on the floor, stretched, and rolled her shoulders in an attempt to ebb away the soreness from her shoulder blades.

She remembered what she had screamed at Celestia the night she had been caught in the restricted Dark Magic section of the Canterlot Archives.

'How dare you keep this kind of magic from me! You know I'm ready for this!'

The way Twilight's crown had forced the darkness and hatred that had spent years growing underneath to the surface had undoubtedly taken their physical toll on her body. She shuddered to think of how much worse it would have been if she had been allowed to hold that transformation for more than the three or four minutes she had.

Maybe those three or four minutes would have been worse anyway, if it hadn't been for what had defeated her; the magic of friendship. She suspected that the prismatic beam had done a bit more than strip away her demonic transformation; it had tempered her ambition, sparked her conscience, and made her realize how cold and manipulative she had been to everyone at Canterlot High.

In short, it had humbled her, and made her realize that she was the farthest from ready for volatile dark magic. It was behind locked doors for very good reasons.

Since that night, it had been the longest week of her life. She had spent most of the following weekend eating or sleeping, regaining the energy that the transformation and subsequent battle had sapped from her. When Monday came, put it off as she might have liked to, she returned to Canterlot High and instantly felt that it had turned from her domain into a personal prison. The student body shunned her wherever she went; every hall and every classroom. Every single word she spoke was unwelcome or unreturned, save for when it was towards a teacher, and even then, some of them occasionally couldn't hide their disdain for the young woman. The worst part of all, was that there was nowhere to go to get away from it.

For the past week, Twilight's five friends were pretty much the only reason she showed up at all, and on mornings like today, even that wasn't enough, it seemed. She wasn't sure what had to change, but something did have to change, because now it was taking concerned texts from her fledgling friends to get her out of bed.

With how late she was, there was absolutely no time for a shower. She pulled off her pajamas, and turned her back to the full length mirror, checking to see if the redness on her shoulder blades had faded any further. She tugged on a clean shirt and jeans, followed by socks and boots before pocketing her wallet, keys, and phone. With an exasperated sigh, she grabbed her torn leather jacket, and slipped it on before grabbing her backpack. She walked to the front door and used the tip of her shoe to lightly kick her disabled alarm clock out of the way before opening the door and stepping out into the hall. She hurried down the stairs, out the front door, and was surprised to see Applejack in her farm's truck.

"Mornin' Sunset. Hop in," the country girl greeted.

Sunset felt another pang of guilt build in her chest as she came up to the truck, simply astounded that Principal Celestia or Vice Principal Luna would allow Applejack out of school to come and get her. Even if it was less than a five minute drive away. She assumed that Applejack had convinced them that she could have her in school that much sooner if she didn't have to spend more than twenty minutes walking down the street.

Applejack saw how disheveled her new friend looked, so decided to ask her if everything was alright; obviously not. The rest of the student body hadn't really made any kind of effort to hide how they had shunned Sunset for the past week, and it was clearly affecting her.

They caught both lights green, so she had pulled into the student lot in a record time of three and a half minutes. As much as she didn't want to, Sunset kept her pace brisk to keep up with Applejack as they made their way around the side of the school to the front entrance where the Wondercolt statue was.

Sunset's heart climbed up to her throat when she saw that the two school administrators were standing with her other four friends. They had allowed all five of them out of class. They saw Applejack and her come up around the statue and immediately came up to them, concerned voices overlapping. Sunset felt a shudder come up her whole body as she tried desperately to keep it together. But it was only a matter of time.

"I... I'm... I'm so sorry. For everything..." She said, tears falling from her eyes. Applejack was the first to hug her, quickly followed by the rest as they formed a group hug around her.

"Sunset?" She heard her name called down the walk. She opened her eyes and saw Principal Celestia standing at the steps waiting. Vice Principal Luna had already turned to go inside, perhaps convinced to skip the tardy slip this time around. The main entrance had already been repaired, as Luna had brought in a construction team over last weekend, who had completed the work on the wall, replaced the glass doors, and even filled in the crater where she had been defeated. Snips and Snails were of course elated, but part of her was aggravated that she hadn't been allowed to finish what she had started. But there was no way she would have been able to. She was easily able to tell what bricks she had laid and what had been placed by professionals, and it wasn't realistic to expect the main foyer of the school to be exposed to the elements for any considerable length of time.

Sunset took a deep breath, slowly broke the group embrace, and wiped her eyes, getting herself under control as she walked up to the head administrator, the heels of her boots clicking on the newly laid concrete walk. Principal Celestia had motioned for the other five to stay back. She saw how the young woman was completely unkempt, save for her clean clothes.

"Sunset, I'm trying to sympathize with what you're going through, but what do you want me to do?" Principal Celestia asked.

Sunset knew she had a point. The looks of anger, indifference, and shunning the student body gave her every day couldn't technically be considered bullying, as nothing in the past week had ever gotten anywhere close to a physical altercation, and it was certainly understandable considering everything she had done last year. Furthermore, she knew if Celestia or Luna made any kind of school-wide announcement, it would only make things worse.

Her five friends were her ports in this storm, and that would have to suffice for now.

Sunset looked up, meeting Principal Celestia's gaze, and something to the left caught her eye. She turned slightly, and saw one of the display areas just inside the entrance.

For the first time all week, two pieces of her broken social life came together, and she felt her determination solidify. She raised her left arm, pointed inside to a trio of framed pictures, and returned her gaze to Principal Celestia.

"Let me take those down, right now, and throw them out. I've had to walk past them every single day. My friends can only do so much if I and everyone else is constantly reminded of what I was like. Please."

Celestia looked back at what Sunset was pointing at, looked back at her, and took a moment to consider her request.

"I suppose that's fair enough, Sunset. Fine. Have at them," Principal Celestia told her, motioning with her right arm to go up the stairs.

Taking another breath, Sunset ascended the stairs two at a time, and pulled the two center doors open with both hands, walking into the main foyer, Principal Celestia and her five friends following a few moments later. She stepped up to the trio of picture frames; all three were portraits of her up on stage. Each with a crown on top of her head, with a gold plaque at the bottom of each.

2010 FALL FORMAL PRINCESS
SUNSET SHIMMER

2011 WINTER WALTZ PRINCESS
SUNSET SHIMMER

2011 SPRING FLING PRINCESS
SUNSET SHIMMER

Each photo as it moved to the right looked less humble, less endearing, and showed more of the pure, blind ambition that she had kept in her heart since coming through the portal. She briefly ran her hand across the leftmost one, before taking hold of it, and lifted it off of the wall. She tucked it under her arm and grabbed the center one, and then the one on the right. Together, all three weight about fifteen pounds, but she had no trouble holding all three in both hands, and turned to find one of the large trash bins the janitors used during class and after school. She walked over to it, raised them above her head, and slammed them down into the bin with gritted teeth.

Sunset exhaled slowly, not realizing she had been holding her breath. Applejack and Fluttershy came up and put their hands on her shoulders as a show of support.

"I suppose we can forget the tardy slip this time, Sunset," Principal Celestia began. "But I want you to be on time from now on. Now, all of you get back to class."

The six of them walked through the hall as a group, peeling off one by one as they entered into their assigned first period classes. Eventually, it was just Sunset alone again, heading towards her Grammar class, taking another deep breath, and feeling just a little bit better.

Comments

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

"I suppose we can forget the tardy slip this time, Sunset," Princess Celestia began. "But I want you to be on time from now on. Now, all of you get back to class."

It should say principal not princess

[Snowdrifter]

Was the use of italics intentional?

[milesprower06]

11147705
In this story, use of italics indicates a flashback, events before Sunset's senior year.

[EaglesFan1127]

It short, it had humbled her,

That should be, "In."