Loyalty and Empathy

by chris the cynic

First published 13th of June, 2020

When others turn on Sunset, Rainbow Dash remains by her side, even though it means losing the rest of her friends.

After pictures from her phone get posted online, that human five confront Sunset with the information. After discovering that she and the others had very different ideas about how to confront her, Rainbow Dash finds herself defending Sunset from the rest of her friends.

Rainbow siding with Sunset didn't change all that much. Sunset was still successfully framed, Sunset still lost most of her friends, Sunset will still go back to being the most hated student at CHS, but she won't have to face any of it alone, and that will make all the difference in the world.

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Meta stuff follows.

Let's talk about combinatorics.

There is one way for none of the five to remain on Sunset's side, there are five ways for one of them them to side with Sunset, there are ten ways for two of them to do so, there are ten ways for three of them to do so, there are five ways for four of them to do so, and there is one way for all of them to do so. Out of these thirty two possible configurations, almost every Anon-a-Miss story sticks to the first one.

I did a tally once upon a time and what I found was that 96.9% of possibilities were almost never explored, and 87.5% were never explored at all (no "almost" necessary.) These figures get rather more abysmal if you're looking at who did or didn't side with Sunset from the start. The rare stories that have one or more of the five side with Sunset tend to have the initial confrontation go down pretty much canonically, and then have someone have a change of heart later on.

So, in the interest of stuff, here's a thing where Sunset has someone on her side from the very start. Most of the first chapter was released two months early on my Patreon page, for subscribers only, as you might imagine.

We Said We'd TALK to Her

Rainbow waited in the hall with Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack. Everyone was pissed, and they had reason to be, but she still had hope. This didn't have to be a disaster.

When Rainbow noticed her, Sunset was acting completely normally; she came over while giving a small wave and asked, "Hey girls, what's going . . ." the only emotion Rainbow could read from Sunset was confusion, when Sunset finished her question by saying, ". . . on?" it was the same: confusion was the only thing Rainbow could identify.

That could mean any number of things.

Applejack did the talking, "Sunset, do you . . ." After she trailed off, Rainbow considered the possibility that Applejack wasn't necessarily the one best suited to doing the talking. Applejack did recover, of course, and asked, "Have you lost your phone recently."

More confusion from Sunset as she said, "Um, no?" in a way that was more question than answer. She reached into a pocket pulled out her phone, and showed it to the group. "It's right here," she said, "Why?"

Applejack said, "Than you need to explain this," and sort of thrust her phone toward Sunset. It was more aggressive than Rainbow would have liked, all things considered, but Rainbow would be a hypocrite if she held it against Applejack; Rainbow got like that when she was angry too. In fact, Rainbow's anger issues were part of why Applejack was doing the talking.

Applejack had had her phone showing the relevant post when she offered it to Sunset, so it didn't take long for Sunset to react.

"What‽" Sunset shouted.

Rainbow gave a small nod even though no one was looking. That had been her reaction too. Granted she'd used different, more profane, wording, but the principle was the same.

"How did she get our pictures?" That was the question.

Applejack said, "They're not our pictures, Sunset."

Wait, what? Rainbow's attention snapped to Applejack; Sunset was almost forgotten.

"All those pictures were taken by you," Applejack said. The implication was clear and this was not what they'd talked about.

"Wait, but--" Sunset said, perfectly summing up what Rainbow was thinking.

Sunset continued with, "I've had my phone this whole time; how did she--"

"Yeah, how did she?" Applejack asked, if you could call it asking, as she snatched her phone back. "How did she know about my nickname?" Applejack shouted in Sunset's face.

That was like flipping a switch. Rainbow had been confused and immobile, suddenly she was standing between Applejack and Sunset and the world was in sharp focus. Right and wrong had never been easier to understand. Her friend was being attacked; Rainbow would defend her.

There was nothing to be confused about. There hadn't actually been enough space between Sunset and Applejack to fit a person, so Rainbow's arrival had forced Applejack to take a step back. Physically backing off was a start, but things still weren't where they should be. Not even close.

"That's enough!" Rainbow shouted in Applejack's face.

"What in the hay, Dash?" Applejack asked as she was forced to take another step back.

"That's what I want to know," Rainbow said; "what the Hell are you doing?"

"I'm doin' what Ah said I'd do!"

"We said we'd talk to her."

"Ah was talkin' to her."

"You were shouting at her," Rainbow said. "We said we'd give her a chance; that we'd--"

"We did!" Applejack shouted. "She said she didn't lose her phone!"

"She didn't even know she'd been accused of anything!" By now Rainbow's fists were clenched. She could feel her fingernails against her palms. If she didn't calm down soon, they'd break the skin. "We've had hours to think about it, she's had a minute or--"

"Giving her time to think up new lies is hardly a wise proposition, Rainbow Dash," Rarity said.

"I didn't do this," Sunset said, from behind Rainbow; she sounded like she was about to cry. "I could never hurt any of you."

Again, Rainbow added in her head. "But you did!" Pinkie shouted. That hurt. Pinkie Pie, of all people, should have been on Rainbow's side by default. This wasn't how one treated--

It hit Rainbow that saying it out loud might make a difference, so she said, "She's our friend," to Pinkie.

It didn't make a difference. Pinkie shouted, "No!" and then elaborated with, "She must've just been pretending to be our friend--"

Rainbow tried to cut off that line of reasoning by shouting, "Pinkie!" It utterly failed.

"--while all along she was just after our secrets." Pinkie's gaze shifted to behind Rainbow, and she said, "You secret-stealer."

Rainbow realized that her fists weren't clenched anymore. She wasn't tense and ready for violence; she was tired. Drained. None of this was supposed to be happening. She could go shout for shout against Applejack, maybe Rarity too, but this . . .

Rainbow looked to her oldest friend, the one she didn't think she could bear losing again, and asked, "Fluttershy?" It was a pathetic noise. Barely more than a whisper. Pleading more than anything. Rainbow hated herself for how weak hearing it made her feel.

Fluttershy was crying, but her voice was hard.

"She's not the person we thought she was, Rainbow," she said. "She's not our friend."

Sunset practically whimpered, "No I . . . I am. I promise."

While Sunset had said that from behind her, Rainbow had been trying to speak, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Instead of opening her mouth like she'd wanted to, she'd started to open it, closed it again, and repeated. Fast small motions all. It almost felt like shivering. She blinked and realized she was on the verge of tears. Then she found her voice.

"Just go," she said to the others.

Applejack said, "Dash, you need to pull your head outta--"

"Go away!" Rainbow shouted. There had been so much shouting already, yet that was the loudest shout by far. Every student in the entire hallway was looking at her now. "All of you just," and her voice broke. Stupid. Weak. How was she supposed to defend Sunset if she fell apart like this? Her voice was shaking as she said, "Just go away."

No one said anything else. They did what she asked: they just walked away. Fluttershy was the only one who looked back.

Rainbow turned around. Sunset was on her knees. Rainbow let herself drop. One of her knees took it hard; she'd have a huge bruise. She didn't care.

Rainbow put her arms around Sunset and said, "It'll be ok." She knew Sunset wouldn't believe it. Rainbow didn't believe it. Anyone who heard how Rainbow said it would know that; Sunset most of all.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rainbow made a note that she needed to learn how to lie properly, but for the most part she was right there, broken on the floor, with Sunset. Stupid weak Rainbow Dash, on display for the whole world to see.

She had a thought that almost made her laugh. She'd just driven away her four closest friends, and she didn't even know whether Sunset was innocent or guilty. All of this could have been for nothing. Applejack could be completely right. She didn't let herself laugh; how would she explain it to Sunset?

Author's Notes:

And there's my version where one of Sunset's friends gives Sunset the benefit of the doubt and wants to talk things out instead of simply shouting at Sunset. Obviously that doesn't work out, in part because I think having four people planning on shouting on one side and two people caught off guard by the shouting on the other isn't going to be any more civil than having five people planning on shouting on one side, and one person caught off guard by the shouting on the other.

The big difference here, other than Sunset not being completely alone, is that while Sunset crumpled in the face of her friends denouncing and rejecting her, Rainbow bristles at it.

On the outside, at least. Rainbow Dash is sometimes presented as someone who's extremely insecure and needs to constantly demonstrate (and brag about) her awesomeness lest the lack of validation cause her to emotionally collapse,* and I ran with the less-than-mentally-healthy implications of that.

Thus we have Rainbow crumpling as well, but not in the same way.

~ ✶ ⁂ ✶ ~

As noted, I've kinda been sitting on this for a while, a draft of the chapter, picking up where Sunset interobangs out that "What‽" and running through to the end was shared on Patreon, subscribers only, exactly two months ago.

The truth is, I wasn't really planning on making a story out of this at all, given how many other things I already have in progress, but someone recently released a thing where Rainbow is being set up as the one person on Sunset's side (but only after Sunset reached the point of attempted suicide), and in the comments it was discussed how rare that is.

Authors seem to have no problem making Rainbow Dash into an irredeemable asshole who does terrible things to Sunset, but when it comes to portraying her in a positive light . . . I think this makes the fourth Anon-a-Miss fic to really do so.**

So, as a sort of counterbalance to all of the Anon-a-Miss stories where Rainbow is the root of all evil, here's a random thing I wrote where she's actually the one person to stand by Sunset start to finish.

~ ✶ ⁂ ✶ ~

* This, like Pinkie Pie's "I need everyone to be happy otherwise I'm dead inside" approach to life, is never explored in the depth it deserves

** That's not to say that all the others have her being terrible, though. There are some out there that are pretty neutral. So if you're up for one where Rainbow Dash isn't good, but neither is she bad, you're not quite as screwed as you are if you want Rainbow portrayed as being, you know, loyal.