Chapter 1
"This is definitely a joke."
All the Rainbooms, including Princess Twilight, and Octavia's friends were in the music room. They were all texted by none other than their respective members Rainbow and Octavia (and in Princess Twilight's case, journaled from Sunset's book by the athlete), regarding a magical emergency. Thinking there was another Equestrian maniac on the loose, they dashed for said room the two were in.
Nonetheless, they weren't prepared for what they would encounter instead.
"Woah! How did she even-?!" Bon-Bon, baffled, questioned the athlete.
The 'she' that Bon-Bon was referring to was actually a 3 year-old Sunset Shimmer cradled in Rainbow Dash's arms, sleeping.
"Well," she began. "Me, Sunset and Octavia were on our way to the library from Algebra....."
Flashback:
"Why are we here again?" Dash questioned with a groan.
"Because Octi lost her bow," Sunset retorted. "And it's also so that she doesn't get jumped by some idiot who thinks she is 'helping' me."
Ever since Anon-a-Miss, Sunset has come back to square one; and it's all because of a misunderstanding, something she didn't do. While the rest of her friends left her to the wolves, only Rainbow Dash and Octavia Melody seemed to believe her. This caused them to be targeted by the school, too. They think that since the former bully has got friends supporting her now, maybe they are aiding their 'secret-stealer'. Currently, they're sneaking around the school library to retrieve their cellist friend's favorite bow.
When they did find it:
"Honestly, how could I be so stupid?" Octavia ranted to herself in a way Hermione Granger would be proud of. "I can't believe I'm that idiotic enough to leave my bow on the horse statue just like that!". The two catching up with her were tired. They had run around the library for half an hour, even the usually athletic jock of the trio was panting. They were surprised at how their cellist friend had managed to not tire herself.
"Whoo," the bacon-head of the group let out a sigh. "Gee, Octi, thanks for the workout." She said sarcastically. "Can we get some water? The running around was exhausting and now I'm thirsty."
"And where exactly can you find water here?" Octavia playfully retorted. "Last I checked, we were spending our library period in detention because we were caught drinking water-"
"Correction: You were drinking water. We were caught for trying to 'talk' with you when we actually tried to warn you." Sunset and Dash corrected her.
"Ugh, whatever it is, now- hey! There's a water bottle, Sunset." Octavia pointed out.
Surely, there was a big blue bottle, or to be more frank, an opaque blue metal Thermos next to one of the school computers. The trio ran towards it to confirm their suspicions, and they were right.
"So, uhh... anybody wants?-"
"No thanks," the athlete and the cellist replied in unison to their bacon-haired friend. "We're good."
"Okayyy, though I'll leave some for you incase anybody wants," Sunset said, unsure, and raised the Thermos a little higher as to not contaminate it with her spit. Frankly, nobody had even noticed the sparkling, shimmering hints of teal that was in the water.
"Aah," she said, refreshed. "That'll be enough, I guess- huh?!" She was cut off by glowing coming from her body, mainly her veins, all the color of teal.
Even the other two were surprised- scratch that, horrified, for their third friend. Instincts told them to run, to scream, to call for help, but they could do nothing but stand there, rooted by their legs.
Silence.
It was broken by the black-haired cellist.
"What are you standing there for? We have to do someting!" Octavia shouted, scared.
"What can we do?! This is clearly a magical problem, we need Princess Twilight!" Rainbow Dash answered back, clearly scared for their friend as much as the other did.
"Anything! Call any teacher, or drag anybody! Heck, go to Equestria!"
"How?!"
Both started arguing, not noticing what was going on with Sunset as she started glowing brighter, the veins were more visible due to the darker color of teal glowing, and her eyes were glowing white.
Flash.
The girls had to shield their eyes for the bright light was blinding. But as soon as it dimmed, they were back in the room with surprisingly no change to it, with the exception of their Bacon-haired friend missing. Surprised and scared at the same time, they looked around until they heard a little wail, followed by giggling.
They looked down.
And surely, couldn't take in the adorableness and shock at the same time at what they saw.
A young Sunset Shimmer sat at the place where her older self was, laughing and rolling on the ground playing with her leg.
She noticed the older teens standing in front of her, and stopped whatever she was doing, instead sitting up and tilting her head in the innocent manner.
Again, silence.
And she broke it again.
"Omygodomygodomygodsheissocute!" Octavia squealed, the excitement overtaking her surprise, and swooped the startled toddler into her arms. A few minutes later, she was joined by the prima-donna of the group, who couldn't just stand and watch the two just have the fun.
Because right now, they couldn't care less about what had happened to their friend until later on.
Speaking of which, after around more than 20 minutes.......
"Sooo, how are we supposed to break this news to our friends?" Dash blurted aloud.
That was enough to bring Octavia out of her stupor. "Well, what do you wish to do?" She answered with a glare, as to show how much of an idiot her friend could be. "We can just call our friends and tell them."
"Fair point." She replied with a groan. "But what about the rest of the school? They have no idea about this, and they still think she is Anon-a-miss. Sunset can be an easy target to them now, since she's turned into a toddler." Now Dash was worried.
"Wait a minute," Octavia realized after thinking it through. "You mentioned she is a toddler, right?" She was given a nod as an answer.
"Dang it Rainbow Dash, you are an absolute genius!" The cellist finally jumped, which elicited a yelp from her arms. Not realizing she still had the young self of their friend, Octavia gently put her down with a "Sorry Sunset," and a silly look of realization. "This can be her advantage, since she's a kid now." But the athlete didn't understand and shook her head.
Octavia let out an annoyed moan with a facepalm to her forehead. "I knew you were an idiot, but I never knew you were this idiotic." She scolded her friend. "What I'm trying to say is that now that Sunset is a kid, people will finally stop believing she is Anon-a-miss. I mean, how can a baby post on the internet? Otherwise Anon-a-miss would've sent random photos with gibberish language." She explained.
"Ohhh, you are quite right." Dash understood her friend's point now. "Okay, so let's kick their ass of a common sense." She said with determination and a spark of excitement in her eyes, to which her friend rolled her eyes and laughed. "Let's call our friends, and Dashie, I trust you have Sunset's key to her locker?" Again, a nod of excitement.
"Good, because the Princess needs to know about this. You can alert her about this through Sunset's journal."
"Cool, I'll write to Princess Twilight, and you text all our friends to meet by the music room, hm?"
"But what about class?" Octavia asked with hesitation.
"Forget about class! This is too important." Dash said and carried up young Sunset on her back.
"Okay, you want a piggyback ride, squirt?"
"Yay, back-ride!" Sunset exclaimed happily with eagerness.
"Okay, let's go!"
And she ran with a giggling Sunset, Octavia catching up with them from behind.
End of flashback.
"And that's pretty much what happened."
Everyone was shocked by the situation their friends had gotten into. They'd almost not believe them, but they and the entire school has seen better magical-induced scenarios, so this was kind-of no complete surprise to them.
"And she was sleeping by the time we reached the doors." Octavia chuckled. "And still is."
Fluttershy took a step forward. "Awww, isn't she such an adorable little bean?" She complimented. "Can I hold her?"
"Sure, just be careful, please." Dash warned her childhood best friend (not in the threatening way, oh my god!) and let her take the young redhead from her arms, careful enough to not wake her up.
Fluttershy settled on the seat (idk what y'all call them, but they are the stair-like seats as seen in the episodes) and started rocking their kid-friend back and forth, as to let her sleep peacefully like she's seen her parents do for her little brother, all the while her friends watching them with such adoration (for the baby was adorable of course).
Unfortunately, for them, this didn't work on Sunset, and the action caused her to wake up.
The many new faces around staring at her startled the young girl, and not able to find the familiar two she knew thinking they abandoned her, she started crying. This, of course, worried everyone in the room, and Fluttershy immediately started comforting her.
"No no, please don't cry, we won't hurt you," she tried to assure the crying toddler. "We're your friends." She said it in a friendly manner, which perked up the young redhead's interest and she opened her eyes.
Fluttershy had her palm outstretched infront of her, as in a way that she won't do anything bad to her. The way she kept herself said words that she will protect her, no matter what.
"I promise you Sunset." Fluttershy said softly.
This friendly gesture helped, as Sunset stopped crying at that moment, and instead put her small but slightly chubby hand in hers.
"Pwomishe?" She asked with her innocent eyes wide.
"Promise."
The butterscotch-skinned girl was immediately gifted with a bear hug unusually strong for a kid her age. With a smile, she returned it back and in another 2 minutes or so, Sunset was napping peacefully in the animal caretaker's arms.
Shy looked at the sleeping toddler with pity and guilt as soon as she dozed off. Caressing her head, and massaging the young girl's scalp, she said, "Looking back at it now, it's actually stupid of us to even think you are behind it all." She patted the small of her back. "Oh Sunset, why didn't we trust you? We promised to Princess Twilight that we would teach you all about friendship, trust you, take you as our friend. Then just why? Why didn't we keep our promise?" Her eyes started to tear as she spoke.
All, with the exception of the mentioned Alicorn princess, the athlete, the cellist, and the young redhead herself, suddenly felt guilty of their actions towards their friend during the debacle. They felt bad, for not being for their friend when she needed them most. Although, they were thankful that it didn't go to an extreme......in the unfortunate way.
Twilight approached Fluttershy and put her ho-err, hand, on her shoulders. "It's okay, Fluttershy. Yes, I'm disappointed at you all, but I'm thankful that you atleast came to your senses for once." She finished, with which everyone became slightly offended. But they didn't protest, for they knew the Pony-princess had a point.
"Ok! Now enough sad angst, let's get the script to work!" A certain pinkette burst out, and everyone jumped, startled. They gave her a look of confusion.
"Whaaat? I'm getting tired of waiting, and there was no angst in our scripts!"
"Pinkie!" Silver let out a groan of frustration from behind the camera. "For Heaven's sake, stop breaking the fourth wall for once, you live cell collection of talking cotton candy who looks like she's been dipped in pink till her skin has become so prone to pink-toxins she is beyond inedible anymore!" She told her.
Pinkie let out a comically harsh gasp as if to show offense to it. "Ouch, Nitrate, you really wound me!" She let out a funny fake cry, one you only find in memes.
"Well, hay-"
"So now how do we even hide her from the school?" Rarity spoke after a few minutes of silence from the weird.... whatever that was.
"Uhhh....." Everyone else were silent now.
"I have an idea." Lyra piped up from her spot. "Why don't we just hide her in Pinkie's hair, since it's a big-ass suitcase in itself." She suggested.
"That's even worse!" Octavia answered at her. The others nodded in agreement.
"Well, what do you have in mind?!" Octavia was now silent.
.....
"Ah have an idea."
Everyone turned their heads to the country girl of the group. "It's better ta be honest, so, Ah suggest that we take 'er to Principal Celestia or Vice-Principal Luna, maybe they might be able to help us'all." Applejack suggested.
"Hmm. That isn't a bad idea, dear." Octavia and Rarity shared in unison. "Plus, Silver wants this chapter to be completed as fast as possible so that she can move on to other ones." The cellist added. "Girl doesn't even care about the consequences it's gonna bring, considering she has written it with all cringe and all, and boy is she too impatient to complete this story."
In the other side of the computer, the mentioned girl was in a corner, wallowing because she is kind-of happy(?) that somebody cares about her, and also kind-of sad(?) because somebody has broken the wall, again.
The girls exchanged confused looks.
"You know what? Just ignore what I said, and let's bring her to Principal Celestia." And they all filed themselves out the music room.