Prologue: Burning to Nothing
Sunset put a hand on Applejack's shoulder in a way she hoped would be comforting and made sure to make eye contact before saying, "You're gonna be alright, right?"
None of that changed the oinking noises all around them.
"Ah'll be fine, Sunset," Applejack said, but her eyes were sad.
Sunset removed her hand and said, "You know we're here for you."
It wasn't a question, but Applejack nodded anyway and the others gave sounds of affirmation. Then the first bell rang. None of them moved, even though all of the students around them started heading toward their homerooms. It was Rainbow, of all people, who finally suggested they actually heed the bell.
Sunset sighed as she walked then said, "I just wonder how this got out. Who else could know?"
"The Apple family is huge," Fluttershy whispered. "It just takes one person making a mistake for a secret to get out."
"Does it matter?" Ranbow asked. "It's happened, and now we're all stuck doing damage control."
"I, for one, am more concerned about the future," Rarity said. "If it's a one time occurrence than we can deal with it, however much it may inconvenience Applejack --sorry, dear-- between now and when we've finished. If the account does more, then we may not be up to the task of damage control."
"I hope it's just once," Pinkie Pie said in a way that was disturbingly glum, considering how she usually was. “Secret-stealers are the worst kind of people!”
She said it loudly enough that Apple Bloom, a ways ahead of them, looked back at the group.
"The worst kind?" Fluttershy asked, as if someone had announced that hungry timberwolves were on the prowl.
"Friends trust each other," Pinkie Pie said, "and losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend," Pinkie paused a beat, "forever!"
"Well," Applejack said, "if'n it's alright with ya'll, Ah'd just assoon we all move passed this. This ain't gonna bother me. I can handle a little teasin'."
That was when they arrived at homeroom, just barely on time.
Things did not improve. Rarity's fears were soon realized, and Anon-a-Miss posted more secrets that day and kept going throughout the week. The secrets were all small things which could easily have been overheard by just about anyone, so there were no clues as to who the culprit might be.
Soon several students were facing minor teasing or ridicule. Sunset's mind, however, remained fixed on Applejack. Her nickname had apparently been successfully kept within the family for years, which made its release more significant than the other secrets. It made it the only clue.
It wouldn't have been overheard in a school hallway. It would take work to learn. It brought up the disturbing possibility that someone had learned it while stalking one of the Apples, which Sunset didn't even want to consider. Then again, the another possibility would be that someone were stalking Sunset or one of her other friends and had been listening in on the sleepover at Pinkie's which made the stalking angle even more disturbing.
They managed to honor Applejack's request to move on, at least outside of their heads, until lunch on Friday.
It wasn't clear which post had set her off, but when Rarity arrived at the table she opened with, "I can't believe the gall of this . . . Anon-a-Miss!," and put her tray on the table with just enough force to make it sound like she slammed it down, without actually having to do any slamming. "I may be one for gossip," she said, "but this is going too far!"
"I agree," Fluttershy said, poking at her salad. "How are they even getting all these secrets?"
Sunset decided not to tell Fluttershy how easy it was to learn things people didn't want known just by casually hanging around in high traffic areas and concentrating on listening. Instead she tried to steer the conversation toward something more proactive, "We need to stop whomever is doing this before something major happens," she stage whispered firmly, making eye contact with each of her friends in turn. "We don't need another friendship problem," when did she start sounding so much like Princess Twilight? No matter, she was in the middle of a sentence: "so soon after the Battle of the Bands."
"Or right before Christmas break," Applejack said. "Ah don't need ta be worrin' about stolen secrets bein' spread when I should be enjoyin' the holidays with ma friends and' family."
Sunset's attempt to get her friends energized didn't extend to Pinkie Pie, who said, "I'm not even sure if I could host parties fast enough to lift everyone's spirits."
Rainbow, too, seemed to be beyond her efforts. She didn't say a word, and Sunset wondered what she was having to deal with given the number of athletes on her teams who had been targeted.
Sunset sighed. So much for keeping her friends from getting too down by giving them a mission. She might as well share her own thoughts.
"I'm surprised everyone is buying into all this so easily," she said. Snickering, teasing, outright mocking, and even some minor squabbles could be found throughout the cafeteria. She just hoped she wouldn't need Twilight's help to fix this, a Princess of Equestria had her own duties and the portal didn't take the ambient temperature into account when putting clothing on someone coming through it.
"Well, I don’t know about the rest of you," Rarity said, "but I think it would be nice to just get away from all this silly drama."
No one at the table took her seriously.
"What?" she asked.
Giggling started.
"Would one of you be so kind as to tell me why you're acting like a bunch of kindergartners?"
For the first time all lunch, Rainbow Dash spoke:
"Rares, when aren’t you being over dramatic?”"
"Why I never!" Rarity said with maximum melodrama, while clearly trying not to smile herself.
The giggles turned to full laughter.
Rarity gave a huff, turned away, and said, "I was going to say that in order to escape all this drama and keep our minds off these dreadful happenings I would host a sleepover at my house tonight."
Everyone quickly approved the offer Rarity had technically never made. They'd planned a sleepover for this weekend anyway, but because of the Anon-a-Miss fiasco they'd never gotten around to deciding whose house it would be at.
Sunset was absurdly happy as she made her way to school on Monday.
When the Sirens had threatened the school she'd experienced sleepovers in the most literal sense of the word. She slept while over at someone else's house. But the "We don't want Twilight to have to sleep in the school library again, and we have a magical threat looming on our minds" get togethers, while meeting the literal definition of "sleepover" failed to capture any of the connotations. These most recent things, though, had been different.
The one at Rarity's the Friday before in particular. After Pinkie Pie had accidentally discovered Rarity's "Closet of Shame" they'd all had an impromptu, and completely absurd, marathon cosplay session. No magical threats. No other motives. Just silly fun of a sort that Sunset had never really allowed herself to experience before.
The feeling had stayed with her over the weekend, and she was eager to see her friends again.
And she had pictures. She could remember forever.
Well, until her phone went kaput, which it was probably overdue for. She pushed the thought away, she wanted to ride this up feeling for as long as she could.
She was almost at the school and then--
She was abruptly shoved forward, which was followed by, "Outta the way!" after such a command could possibly matter. When she looked to see who had done it, she found a small group of students glaring at her.
"Um..." Sunset said. She really had no idea what was going on. "What's wrong?"
They all turned their backs on her in what was clearly as close to unison as they could manage. That was disturbing. It meant that the group had gotten together in advance and planned not just to be rude to her, but planned out how they would go about doing it. And she had no idea why.
Her friends would be able to help her work through this. With friends you could do anything. Twilight taught her that.
When she saw her friends Sunset called out, "Hey guys!" and asked, "What's going--" and that was when she got a good look at their faces.
". . . on?" she finished, even more confused than she had been with the glare mob.
All of them looked at her strangely. Well, all of them except for Fluttershy who seemed to be hiding. Sunset couldn't see her face at all. Rarity was easiest to gauge. She had her arms crossed and seemed to be angry, Pinkie Pie was looking positively timid and holding her left arm with her right as if she were Lost Child Number 3 straight from central casting, Applejack's expression was unplaceable, but definitely not in the realm of good, and Rainbow Dash seemed sad, but it could possibly have been mad instead.
Sunset repeated her question in her head: What's going on?
She didn't get an answer. Instead she got a question:
"Sunset, do you . . ." Applejack started. Then she revised it to: "Have you lost your phone recently?"
"Um . . ." Sunset reached for her phone. It was definitely there. She said, "No," though it had practically been a question. The same question, really. What's going on? She took out her phone and showed it to the others, "It's right here." No response. "Why?"
Her friends all looked away from her and at each other, and Sunset felt like some silent conversation was taking place.
Applejack was the first one to look back at Sunset, now clearly very angry. She shoved her own phone toward Sunset and said, "Then you need ta explain this."
Sunset slowly reached for the phone, as if hoping a lack of sudden movement would protect her from whatever was happening.
It was opened to Anon-a-Miss' page, and it had their pictures from the sleep over at Rarity's. The pictures weren't the problem. The fact that "Anon-a-Miss" had somehow managed to get them was. And then Sunset noticed the timestamp. It didn't give an exact time, but for it to be posted "Two days ago" meant that it went up the morning after the sleepover.
"What‽" Sunset shouted. This didn't make any sense. "How did she get our pictures?"
And, to make matters worse, Anon-a-Miss' full sized profile image, which Sunset hadn't seen before, was clearly a stylized image of Sunset. Oh, and the fake account that used her actual picture and had been mocking her since the Fall Formal was already listed as one of Anon-a-Miss' friends.
"They're not our pictures, Sunset," Applejack said angrily.
Sunset looked up as Rainbow Dash said, "They're yours."
Fluttershy was no longer hiding, instead she radiated disappointment and, if the closed eyes were anything to go by, wouldn't even look at Sunset. Applejack and Pinkie Pie had both adopted Rarity's earlier arm crossed and angry stance, Rarity herself had dropped her arms but adopted a glare that made it very clear whom she was angry with, and Rainbow Dash had her hand on her hips.
"All those pictures were taken by you," Applejack said.
"Wait, but--" Sunset started. This didn't make sense, "I've had my phone the whole time, how did she--"
"Yeah, how did she?" Applejack asked, snatching her phone back before lunging forward. Applejack's face filled Sunset's vision and Applejack shouted, "How did she know about my nickname? How did she get the picture from your phone?"
Applejack backed up a tad and then jabbed a finger into Sunset's sternum and shouted, "It was you all along! You're Anon-a-Miss!"
Applejack backed up even more and Sunset could see her four other friends clearly. It was obvious they all agreed with Applejack.
How could they? After everything she'd done, after everything they'd experienced together, how could they all just be ready to assume the worst when, going by the picture, someone was obviously trying to frame her? How could they turn on her so fast? One question about whether she'd lost her phone and she was automatically guilty?
That's not how friends acted, right? Did anything she'd done matter to them? Did she matter?
"We trusted you, Sunset!" Rainbow Dash shouted, "We thought you were our friend!"
Sunset's ears were ringing from all the shouting and she was having trouble thinking with everything happening so fast.
"How could you do this, Sunset?" Rarity asked. "After everything we've been through together?"
Sunset needed time to think, "No, wait, you guys--" and what could she say? "I didn't do this! I could never hurt any of you." The 'again' went unspoken.
"But you did!" Pinkie Pie shouted, pointing a finger in much the same way Applejack had. "You must've just been pretending to be our friend when all along you were after our secrets! You-- You secret-stealer!"
What secrets? Someone stole pictures from her phone. Applejack's nickname was a secret, but she hadn't even learned it from any of them. Apple Bloom had let it slip.
None of that mattered though. They thought she'd just been pretending all this time. Through being a pariah, through all the "no offence"s, through the sirens?
"No! No! I don't know how she got this stuff but it wasn't me," Sunset said. "I'm not this person."
Flutteryshy shouted back, eyes now open and full of tears, "No you're not! You're not the person we thought you were! You're not our friend!"
That was when Sunset started crying. Her energy drained away. She couldn't keep up the shouting even if she wanted to, "No I," and her voice cracked. "I am. I promise."
"This is it, Sunset," Applejack said. "You're not gonna take advantage of us any more."
Sunset collapsed onto her knees. She didn't have it in her to stay standing.
"I'm sorry," Applejack said, "but you did this to us. Tell whatever secrets you want. . ."
Sunset couldn't look. She held her face in her hands as more tears came.
". . . but we don't have to listen," Applejack finished.
Sunset heard her friends walk away. She didn't know what to do. She'd just stay there on her knees in the hall forever. Maybe she'd fall asleep. That would be comforting. Just let the darkness take her. Let it swallow her whole. At least oblivion didn't hurt.
She felt a hand on he shoulder, she didn't look.
Whoever it was took her elbow as well.
She didn't respond.
The hands on her shoulder and elbow gently guided, suggesting more than pulling, her back up onto her feet.
She finally looked to see who had helped her. She saw her own reflection in Vinyl Scratch's sunglasses.
Then the first bell rang.
Things got worse as the day went on. Word of the Rainbooms "outing" Sunset as Anon-a-Miss spread through the school so fast that before second period started the whole school "knew" Sunset Shimmer was Anon-a-Miss. Sunset overheard one of the "Let's all glare in unison" mob being congratulated for figuring it out before everyone else only to learn that, despite the account all but saying, "I'm Sunset Shimmer," they hadn't reached the conclusion Sunset was guilty on their own.
They'd overheard Sunset's friends discussing how best to confront her about Anon-a-Miss.
Apparently everyone else got time to think things over, look at all the angles, and deliberate on the matter, but Sunset was declared guilty before she even knew she'd been accused.
Once the word had spread Sunset was constantly being bumped in the halls, glares were the vast majority of the looks she got, and at every turn there was something to let her know she wasn't welcome.
Some of it made sense. The popularity of Anon-a-Miss had shot through the roof in a hurry, meaning that as soon as something was shared half the school knew, and the things being shared were starting to get a lot less innocuous. Of course people would want to lash out. But even with that in mind, Sunset couldn't account for all of how she was being treated.
At lunch she tried to get her friends to listen to her again. She was shut down. She'd had to navigate a minefield of feet and bags that just happened to find themselves ideally positioned to trip her in spite of not being that way mere moments before, just to reach her friends, and she'd barely gotten a word in edgewise for her trouble.
Twilight would know what to do.
She took her lunch, just a salad and an apple, to the library. Not because the library was a good place to do book related things, and not because Twilight's "bed" of books in the library was where she felt most connected to the other pony, but instead simply because the library was safe.
Once she could write she scribbled a message as quickly as she could:
Dear Princess Twilight,
I need help on a matter regarding friendship. What does one do when their friends think they did something, something bad, that they didn't actually do? You can't very well apologize for something you didn't do, especially when whoever is guilty might keep doing it, but saying you're innocent just makes them angrier because they think you're lying to them.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Your friend,
Sunset Shimmer
She closed the journal and started eating her salad.
She didn't get much eaten when she heard, "Sunset? Are you in here?"
It was followed by Ms. Cheerilee saying something rather softer. Probably an order not to be loud in the library.
Sunset considered both running and hiding. She opted for neither.
"There you are love," Octavia Melody said, taking the seat across from Sunset and placing one of her hands on Sunset's. "How are you doing?"
Sunset didn't say anything. She honestly wasn't sure what was happening.
"Vinyl texted me this morning to tell me what happened," Octavia said, "but Mr. Doodle took away my phone, so I couldn't contact you."
A motion behind Octavia had caused Sunset to notice they weren't alone. Vinyl had raised her hand in a sort of, "Hi," wave. Lyra Heartstrings and Bon-Bon were with her. Though there were only four of them, they were known as the "Orchestra Group."
Lyra, who had a habit of being . . . passionate, said something that made Bon Bon admonish:
"Lyra! Would it Kill you to watch your language? We're in a school. In the library in a school."
Vinyl tapped out something on her phone and showed it to Bon Bon.
"Vinyl!" Bon Bon said in a voice that was as loud and harsh as a something could get while still remaining a whisper.
“It is frankly quite idiotic that they think that Anon-A-Miss is you in the first place. The imbecile behind it is hardly even trying and everyone is buying that it’s you.”
“Octavia!” Bon Bon said, making her just one "Sunset!" away from exclaiming all of their names.
"What?" Octavia asked in a way that made it sound like they were having a pleasant conversation of a sort that wouldn't possibly scandalize Bon Bon. "It's true. If Sunset had indeed gone back to her old ways and were indeed Anon-a-Miss, why would she put her own picture on the account?"
"Can we talk about something else?" Sunset said. "Anything else?"
"We can and we shall," Octavia said.
Lunch was the only bright point of the day.
Bumps in the halls, sometimes interrupted by outright shoves, spitballs in classrooms, things that made Sunset wonder if she'd been transported into a stereotype of everything wrong with high school, and so forth.
The week went downhill from there. Some highlights included finding rotten food in her locker and getting hit with a snowball that was disturbingly yellow.
It was refreshing when she found out Celestia and Luna didn't suspect her, but that didn't change what everyone else thought.
By that Wednesday she'd demanded that the Orchestra Group stay away from her for fear of what might happen to them. Sunset didn't think she could take it if other people suffered the same treatment she was getting just because they'd been nice to her. She was sure it was the right decision, but it also left her so very alone. They all still texted, but it wasn't the same.
Increasingly desperate messages to Twilight went unanswered.
Then came Friday.
Friday.
Fucking Friday.
When Sunset finally ran out of energy she didn't fight it. She just collapsed to the ground.
At some point she felt like moving and ended up pushing herself across the snow until she hit a wall. A bit of fiddling and struggling and she was sitting against it. When she put her hands in her pockets she felt something. What was that? Not her phone, that as for sure.
~ ~ ~
"Where the Hell is her phone‽" Gilda shouted as she searched Sunset's pockets while two other students held onto Sunset, leaving her helpless.
It wasn't actually that hard for Gilda to find it. Destroying it took a bit more effort. Sunset had been surprised at how well it stood up to being stomped on. Being held in the way of a locker door as that door was slammed shut, though, did the trick.
~ ~ ~
No, whatever was in her pocket wasn't her phone. Her phone was most likely on the way to some landfill or incinerator or some such by now.
Besides, as her nearly numb fingers probed it, she came to realize that whatever was in her pocket was the the wrong shape for a phone. Thicker, not as wide, longer.
And with . . . some kind of button on the side?
Oh. That.
~ ~ ~
Sunset wasn't sure which part of her head hurt more: the part that Gilda had punched or the part that hit the locker behind her afterward.
It became difficult to pay attention after that.
Gilda said something involving mixing "Anon-a-" with some swear or other, to her enthusiastic audience, then . . . what could be more physical?
By the time the box cutter came out she wasn't just having trouble paying attention, she was feeling so disconnected that it was like she wasn't even there. There was no fear. Just a thought that maybe it would be better that way. At least it would be over.
But Gilda didn't do what Sunset expected. She kept talking. Some words broke through the fog around Sunset's perceptions, ". . . lucky . . . school grounds," as the box cutter hovered in front of her face.
". . . someone like you . . . solution, see." The box cutter moved downward, never touching her.
". . . exposed I felt . . . of me and Ember . . ." Ember was Gilda's . . . girlfriend, maybe?
". . . make sure . . . you will."
And that was the end of the words for a bit. Gilda started cutting, but not Sunset. Gilda cut Sunset's shirt, right down the middle.
Then more words. Something about . . . it was so hard to pay attention. Something about ". . . for all to see . . ."
Then a flash of motion. Sunset suddenly looking up at everything, Rainbow Dash and Gilda talking angrily. The box cutter fell to the ground, and without even thinking Sunset quickly scooped it up, retracted the blade, and slipped it in her pocket. She wasn't sure why.
Some misguided survival instinct telling her to take the weapon away from those who might mean her harm?
~ ~ ~
So that's what was in her pocket. She took it out and looked at it.
Maybe it would have been better if Gilda had just ended her. What happened after hurt more than any physical pain.
~ ~ ~
Trying to thank Rainbow Dash got her an angry rebuke. She didn't catch all of the words, but she was able to piece together the message: Rainbow Dash stopped Gilda for Gilda's sake. Rainbow didn't want Gilda getting in trouble. Gilda was Rainbow Dash's friend. Sunset was a traitor Rainbow Dash didn't care about in the least.
Still, Sunset somehow managed to stammer coherently enough to get one last chance. One last opportunity to prove she was innocent.
Not that she had any idea how she would do that.
And first she had to go through various adults wanting her to point fingers. Because she was totally going to blow her shot by turning on someone that Rainbow Dash actually considered a friend. At least she got a fresh shirt out of the interrogations.
Somehow she made it through to the end of the school day, and even managed to be optimistic as she walked toward Sugar Cube Corner through a growing snowstorm.
Just before she made it to the door it burst open and Applejack shouted, "For land's sake, Sunset!"
And just like that hope died and Sunset was afraid. She backpedaled until she was up against a telephone pole.
"Ya just couldn't stop, could ya!? Ah don't know how you convinced Dash to to talk us inta this, but ya did, and then ya had to go and post somethin' new!"
It just got worse from there. Each of her now-definitely-former friends weighed in, each in her own personal way. Sunset found herself wishing that she was still too out of it to follow complete sentences. Or that they'd just hit her instead of using words to hurt her so much more.
To Rarity she was a disgraceful, to Rainbow she was a traitor, to Applejack she was a liar, to Fluttershy she was the same bully she'd been before the Fall Formal, and to Pinkie Pie she was the worst kind of meanie: a secret-stealer.
Anon-a-Miss had found out about her chance at reconciliation, and beat her to the punch. She didn't even know what she was being blamed for, and she couldn't check without her phone.
Ponyfeathers.
Without her phone she was cut off from the only people who thought she was innocent.
Maybe it was for the best. The reason that she'd made them stop meeting her in person was because sooner or later they'd get drawn into all this and hurt. That was still a possibility with them keeping touch via text.
She'd just drag them all down with her. They were better off without her.
Besides, she probably deserved this anyway. To be alone. To be unloved. To be cast aside. Princess Twilight was the only reason this didn't happen to her after the Fall Formal.
Did she honestly ever expect that singing part of one song, and thus being one seventh of defeating magical monsters whose crime was doing the exact same thing she had done, was enough to earn a redemption?
Once a monster, always a monster. This was what she had coming to her. It had just operated on a delay.
She had never deserved to be happy in the first place.
That had been when she started walking.
~ ~ ~
Sunset kept looking at the box cutter.
The storm would probably take all her pain away, they said it was the worst in years, but why leave things to chance?
Everyone would be better off without her. She didn't belong in this world anyway.
She was never supposed to be here in the first place.
Being hurt.
And the end to the pain was in her hands.